Don Williams, the 78-year-old Country Music Hall of Famer known for his imposing stature as a “gentle giant,” has died, according to The Tennessean. Williams is known for hits like “Tulsa Time,” “Good Ol’ Boys Like Me,” and “It Must Be Love.” Further details were not immediately available.
Fox News on Friday announced that it will part ways with host Eric Bolling after an investigation into sexual-harassment allegations. “Fox News Channel is canceling ‘The Specialists,’ and Eric Bolling and Fox have agreed to part ways amicably,” the cable-news outlet wrote in a statement. “We thank Eric for his ten years of service to our loyal viewers and wish him the best of luck.” Bolling was suspended early last month after a Huffington Post report found that the conservative commentator and host had sent lewd messages to his colleagues.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office is investigating whether Uber used software to illegally interfere with its ride-share competitor, Lyft, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The FBI and the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office are specifically looking into Uber's now--defunct internal program called “Hell,” which could track drivers working for the rival service. The program, which was discontinued last year, reportedly created fake Lyft customer accounts and tricked the app's system into thinking a ride was being requested, allowing Uber to track nearby Lyft drivers and the offered prices. It could also determine drivers who worked for both companies so Uber could potentially offer them cash incentives to leave Lyft. The investigation is looking to determine whether the program constituted unauthorized access of a computer. Uber is facing at least two other federal investigations way into the company's practices.
Hurricane Jose, which is trailing Hurricane Irma out in the Atlantic Ocean, has strengthened into a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 mph. The National Hurricane Center announced the change Friday, just one day after Hurricane Katia—which is forecast to hit Mexico—strengthened into a hurricane. Jose sits east of the Leeward Islands and is predicted to move northwest. A hurricane watch is in effect for Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, St. Martin, and St. Barthelemy—all of which were battered by Hurricane Irma days ago.
Having a bottle opener on your keychain can come in handy. But it can also weigh down your pockets and make it harder to fish for your keys. Fortunately, there’s a new bottle opener that’s so small, you may just forget it's there: the Pry.Me Bottle Opener. Coming in at the size of a penny, the Pry.Me is the world’s smallest bottle opener. It fits conveniently on your keychain without taking up any excess space. But don’t mistake its scrawniness for weakness; it’s made from sandstone-finished Grade 5 titanium and can hold up to 164,000 times its own weight. Bottom line: if you have a bottle that needs to be opened, the Pry.Me can open it. Plus the Pry.Me also comes with its own heavy duty stainless steel key ring so you can easily attach it to any keychain. Best of all, you can get the Pry.Me Bottle Opener for just $10.99.
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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday that Hurricane Irma is not the time to talk about climate change. “Here’s the issue,” Pruitt told CNN. “To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm—versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm—is misplaced. What we need to focus on is access to clean water, addressing these areas of Superfund activities that may cause an attack on water, these issues of access to fuel. ... Those are things so important to citizens of Florida right now, and to discuss the cause and effect of these storms, there’s the... place [and time] to do that. It’s not now.” Experts have said that climate change and gradually warming temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico have made severe hurricanes like Irma more likely. Since taking charge of the EPA, Pruitt has rolled back several greenhouse-gas emission regulations and declined to say if climate change is real, while climate science data has been removed from the agency’s website.
The U.S. House on Friday passed legislation providing relief for Hurricane Harvey while raising the debt limit through December—a deal President Trump struck with Democrats to avoid government shutdown. The package passed by a vote of 316 to 90, with all of the opposition coming from Republican lawmakers. It also includes more than $15 billion in disaster recovery aid for communities affected by Hurricane Harvey. President Trump angered Republicans earlier this week when he sided with Democratic leaders to raise the debt limit for three months, rejecting his party’s proposal that it be raised for 18 months.
In another interview segment from former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s conversation with Charlie Rose for 60 Minutes, Bannon discusses the weekend after the infamous Access Hollywood tape leaked in which President Trump bragged about groping women. “The Billy Bush Saturday to me is a litmus test. It’s a litmus test.” And it’s one Bannon claims that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn’t pass, which ended up costing him a job in the administration. “I gotta—I gotta—you know, I’m Irish,” Bannon said when asked if he took names that day of people who didn’t side with Trump. “I gotta get my black book and I got ’em.… Christie, because of Billy Bush weekend—and—was... was... not looked at for a Cabinet position.” He also claimed that former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said in response to the tape that Trump had “two choices. You either drop out right now, or you lose by the biggest landslide in American political history.” Brian Murray, spokesman for Gov. Christie told The Daily Beast: “As has been widely reported, the governor had been offered multiple Cabinet positions in addition to other senior posts in the White House and elsewhere. He chose to stay as governor and complete his term. Any assertion to the contrary is simply factually incorrect.”
Rush Limbaugh will evacuate his South Florida residence in advance of Hurricane Irma, despite his previous claims that the news media had intentionally overhyped the storm to boost ratings and gin up fear about climate change. “I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh admitted on his radio show. “We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.” On Tuesday’s broadcast, Limbaugh claimed “There is a desire to advance this climate-change agenda and hurricanes are one of the fastest [ways] to do it.” He added that, via its storm coverage, the “liberal media” is “hell-bent on persuading people of [anthropogenic climate change].” Limbaugh also boasted Tuesday that he had been “exactly right since last Friday” in his predictions about Irma’s trajectory. Turns out he might have been wrong.
Roughly a third of Myanmar’s Rohingya people have fled to Bangladesh in the past two weeks to escape violence in the country’s Rakhine state, the United Nations said Friday. At least 270,000 Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority, have crossed the border since clashes between the military and militants intensified, leaving at least 1,000 people dead. Dozens of Rohingya women and children have also drowned while attempting to escape to Bangladesh by boat.