Morning Update: At Least 12 People Died In A California Mass Shooting

Jeff Sessions out, the undecided midterm races, and Trump clashes with a CNN reporter. Your BuzzFeed News newsletter, Nov. 8.

Multiple people have been killed at a shooting at a California bar

At least 12 people were killed, including a sheriff’s deputy, in the attack at a country bar in Thousand Oaks, according to authorities. The suspect, who has not been identified, was also found dead.

The Ventura County Fire Department confirmed that ambulances were called to the scene of a "mass casualty incident" at the Borderline Bar & Grill.

An additional 10 to 15 people were injured in the shooting and transported to hospitals, according to the county sheriff.

This story is developing, so check buzzfeednews.com for the latest.

President Trump has forced Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign

Sessions submitted his resignation yesterday, marking the end of a tense relationship between Trump and the attorney general.

Is this a surprise? No. The midterm elections were long seen as the end point for Sessions’ tenure. The president made his displeasure with him known, but was unlikely to shake up his cabinet before the election.

Why was Trump displeased with Sessions? It was over Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. The AG would normally oversee the special counsel’s investigation, but Sessions recused himself, so his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, had stepped in.

Has Sessions been replaced? His chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, will take over as acting attorney general while the White House seeks a permanent replacement.

What do I need to know about Whitaker? Well, for one thing, he was critical of the appointment of a special counsel in the Russia investigation and, since Mueller’s work began, has been critical of moves taken by his office and has recommended ways of limiting his reach.

What’s Sessions’ legacy? He and Trump may have clashed, but Trump’s supporters will miss Sessions. Simply put, he’s been quite effective at shaping much of the anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT domestic policy agenda that the Republican base loves. His impact on immigration policy will live on.

Here are the big midterm election races that are still undecided

And you thought the midterms were over.

OK, for the most part they are — but there are still a few crucial races that are too close to call.

In Florida, Republican Rick Scott is ahead of Democrat incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson by less than 50,000 votes. Though Scott claimed victory, the closeness of the result may trigger an automatic recount.

In Georgia, gubernatorial Republican candidate Brian Kemp has a two-point lead over Stacey Abrams. The Abrams campaign has not conceded the race, with staff saying yesterday they expect at least 77,000 more votes to be counted from Democratic-leaning districts.

If Kemp ends up with less than 50% of the total vote (he currently has 50.6%) then Georgia law would require a runoff election between the two candidates.

SNAPSHOTS

Donald Trump singled out a CNN reporter as an enemy of the people. The president lobbed the accusation at the network’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta, apparently the first time Trump has publicly used the term to refer to a specific journalist. Trump and Acosta had a heated exchange, during which the reporter refused to give up a microphone while asking a question. Later, the White House suspended Acosta’s access.

Journalists Angela Quintal and Muthoki Mumo have been detained in Tanzania. The two were in Dar es Salaam on a fact-finding mission with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) when officers who identified themselves as working with Tanzanian immigration entered their hotel room and confiscated their passports, according to a statement from CPJ. A few hours later, a tweet went out from Quintal's account that read, “God is great we are released going back to our hotel.” But according to CPJ, there's no evidence that Quintal was actually released.

The woman who fatally ran over Broadway star Ruthie Ann Miles’ daughter is dead. Dorothy Bruns was found dead at her Staten Island home and authorities say the death was an apparent suicide. In May, Bruns was charged with manslaughter and assault after she hit the actor and her 4-year-old daughter, Abigail, with her car while they were walking. A 1-year-old boy, Joshua, who the son of Miles' friend Lauren Lew, was also killed in the crash.

Jack White dedicated a song to two women who were told to stop kissing at one of his recent concerts. Allyson MacIvor from Edmonton, Canada, wrote on Facebook that she was “immediately interrupted” by an employee at the concert venue after she kissed a friend during one of her favorite songs and was told “that's not allowed here.” White issued a statement saying he was disappointed, and that “It's 2018 now and two people expressing affection shouldn’t have to hide.”

The midterms fake news apocalypse we feared didn’t come to pass this week. It had already happened — in 2016.

Were you worried about a cataclysmic misinformation event during this election cycle? I was. But, surprisingly, Election Day came and it was mostly business as usual.

There were no hacked information dumps or believable deepfake videos or viral disenfranchising memes. Just your usual, run-of-the-mill hyperpartisan misinformation and easily debunkable hoaxes.

Good news? Not quite. As Charlie Warzel writes in this smart piece, the midterms proved how deeply we are embedded in a universe of online political manipulation — it’s all just normal now. This is where we live.

From the piece: “the misinformation, propaganda, and hyperpartisan news that has defined this election news cycle reveals an unsettling truth: that years of algorithmically powered information warfare have drastically rewired our political discourse, turning it ever more toxic and blurring the lines of reality.”

A woman’s dramatic reaction to her dad went viral, because the internet

In a TV live shot of a GOP election party, a woman is captured having a great time, then a man beside her says something, and then she looks shocked as she moves away from him.

The clip is fantastic and you have to watch it. People immediately said they just needed to know what he said. Because she walked away with such sass.

After the video went viral and people began speculating about what the man said, 17-year-old Ellie Delgado identified herself as the woman in the video, and identified the man as her father.

What prompted the dramatic reaction? Here’s what she told us: “He was talking about a woman that he liked and wanted to go on dates with.”

Skip to footer