Southwest
Texas influencer sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder-for-hire plot
A Dallas, Texas, woman who runs an online business was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison following her conviction in a murder-for-hire plot.
Ashley Grayson, 35, ran an internet-based business and gained notoriety from her online presence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Tennessee.
Grayson described herself on her Instagram account as a bestseller, eight-figure business coach, course creator and philanthropist.
In 2021, Grayson had a falling out with a woman from Southaven, Mississippi, who had an online business similar to her own. This woman was the target of the murder-for-hire plot.
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Grayson believed the woman had been creating fake online profiles that criticized her and her business, although the two women never met in person.
Then, in August 2022, Grayson asked a Memphis woman, whom she had worked with in the past, to fly to Dallas to discuss a “business opportunity.”
The Memphis woman and her husband arrived in Dallas the following month and met with Grayson and her husband, Joshua.
Grayson offered to pay the Memphis couple to kill the Southaven woman, Grayson’s former boyfriend and a Texas woman who had recently made social media posts criticizing Grayson. She offered to pay at least $20,000 for each killing.
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On Sept. 10, 2022, the Memphis woman recorded a video call in which Grayson confirmed that she wanted the Southaven woman killed as soon as possible and even offered an additional $5,000 for the killing to be finished in the next week.
The Memphis couple later sent Grayson a picture of police lights from an unrelated incident in Memphis to make it appear as if they had unsuccessfully attempted to carry out the killings. The couple demanded $10,000, or half of the promised amount, from Grayson. The Memphis couple then went to Dallas and met with Grayson and her husband and collected $10,000 from them for the “attempt.”
In July 2023, a grand jury in Tennessee indicted Grayson and her husband for use of an interstate facility in commission of murder-for-hire. The case went to trial in March of this year, when a jury found Grayson guilty but acquitted her husband.
Last month, Grayson was sentenced to 120 months in prison, the maximum sentence permitted for her crime, and three years of supervised release. She will not be eligible for parole since this was a federal case.
“This was a twenty-first century crime where online feuds and senseless rivalries bled into the real world,” Acting U.S. Attorney Reagan Fondren said in a statement. “The defendant tried to hire someone to murder a woman over things that happened exclusively on the internet.”
“Fortunately, no one was physically hurt in this case, but the victim and her family still felt a severe and emotional impact as the result of the defendant’s actions,” the statement continued. “The proactive response from the investigating agencies and our prosecutors prevented an even more serious crime from occurring.”
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Los Angeles, Ca
Thanksgiving Day weather outlook for Southern California
As drizzle and light rain blankets much of Southern California into Tuesday evening, Angelenos can expect dryer weather and warmer temps on Thanksgiving and into the weekend, the National Weather Service reported.
With the storm winding down, weather officials said rain and drizzle rates were below a tenth of an inch per hour across the L.A. basin and into the mountains, where rainfall amounts were under 0.05 inches.
While a few showers may linger near the Grapevine tomorrow morning, Wednesday is expected to be dry across L.A. County with a slow warming trend beginning Thanksgiving Day, NWS said.
Highs in the low 70s are forecast as early as Wednesday with an added degree of warming each day through next week.
Residents in the valleys may see temps rise as high as 80 degrees by Monday.
Motorists out Tuesday evening are urged to use extra caution on slick roadways and allow additional time for travel.
Southwest
Kyrsten Sinema responds to Democrats admitting filibuster will help them stop Trump agenda: 'Schadenfreude'
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., on Monday appeared to poke fun at Senate Democrats for coming out in support of the filibuster after her former party had called for it to be abolished over the past four years to push through Democratic agenda items.
Sinema, who left the Democratic Party nearly two years ago, responded on the social media platform X to a report by the Washington Examiner citing Democratic senators who now say they support the Senate filibuster to block President-elect Trump’s agenda in his second administration.
“Please, please, please stop what you’re doing and read these quotes,” Sinema said.
“Filing under: schadenfreude,” she continued.
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Sinema and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has also left the party to become an independent, were the two then-Democrats who opposed eliminating the filibuster during the Biden administration when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attempted to abolish it in 2022, although he was unsuccessful without the support of Sinema and Manchin in a razor-thin majority for Democrats.
Both independent senators did not run for re-election and will be leaving the Senate in January.
In August, Schumer told the New York Post that Sinema and Manchin are “both gone” in 2025 when asked if he would make another attempt to eliminate the filibuster.
After the election, Schumer pleaded with Republicans to prioritize bipartisanship.
“I offer a word of caution in good faith: Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship,” Schumer said.
Earlier this month, Sinama responded to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who said she would not support eliminating the filibuster now that the GOP will control the House, Senate and White House, but would have supported it if Democrats had the trifecta.
“You don’t say?” Sinema wrote on X.
The report from the Washington Examiner quotes several Senate Democrats, including Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who all expressed support for maintaining the filibuster to halt Trump-backed legislation.
“I’d be lying if I said we’d be in a better position without the filibuster,” Blumenthal said. “We have a responsibility to stop autocratic and long-headed abuse of power or policy, and we’ll use whatever tools we have available. We’re not going to fight this battle with one hand tied behind our back.”
Durbin said he views the filibuster as “part of the calculation” on how Democrats will resist Republican bills in the next Congress in which the GOP will hold a 53-47 majority in the Upper Chamber.
“We had to live with it when we were in the majority,” he said.
Schatz said: “I’m going to try not to make a mess of my position on this one.”
The Hawaii democrat previously slammed the “unprecedented abuse of the filibuster by Republicans” during the Obama administration as he backed reforms.
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“You play with the rules that exist,” Murphy said, adding that he is open to changes but not to “obliterate” the filibuster, which he criticized in 2021 as “downright dangerous,” a “slap in the face to majoritarianism” and an “argument that essentially prioritizes consistency over democracy.”
Incoming Senate GOP Leader John Thune, R-S.D., recently said that the filibuster will be “safe under Republican control,” even if it blocks Trump’s agenda.
“I find it ironic that a party that has spent a fair amount of time this election cycle talking about the importance of preserving our democracy seems intent on embracing the thoroughly undemocratic notion that only one party should be making decisions in this country,” Thune said.
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Los Angeles, Ca
Drake's lawyers again claim bots, payola helped Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' top the charts
Despite widespread mockery, Drake appears to be serious in his claims that Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” received help from payola and bots on its way to being a No. 1 hit.
The Canadian rapper’s attorneys have filed a second petition alleging that Universal Music Group paid for the diss track to be successful, only this time, it was iHeartRadio, not Spotify, that allegedly joined in on the scheme, Forbes reports. While the first filing was made in New York, this second claim was filed in Texas.
The rappers born Aubrey Drake Graham and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth attacked each other in a series of songs earlier this year, with “Not Like Us” serving as the knockout blow in Lamar’s victory in the eyes of many.
Instead of accepting a loss and moving on, Drake has instead alleged UMG actively worked to slander one of their artists at the expense of another, as both rappers have their music distributed by the company. UMG has denied the claims.
“The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” the record label said in a statement. “No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
Lamar has not publicly responded to the claims, though he’s traditionally used his songs to make his case, including on Friday’s surprise album “GNX,” where he claimed he “just strangled me a GOAT,” the “greatest of all time” title that Drake frequently claimed.
Hip-hop fans on the internet, however, did not wait to get their jokes off.
Twitter personality Dragonfly Jonez said he’d “never seen a bigger L in rap history” and pointed out that this lawsuit attacks streaming numbers, but not Lamar’s claims that Drake is a “certified pedophile” whose friends are also sexual predators.
“You are being called a pedophile who hangs with and harbors other pedophiles in his own home and even has these pedophiles on your payroll on the biggest rap single of the year,” Jones wrote, with an imaginary Drake responding, “Excuse me?!?! Biggest rap single of the year?????? We’ll see about that!”
New York Times opinion writer Jane Coaston also weighed in, paraphrasing one of Lamar’s more prominent lines on “Not Like Us” when supporting the logic of UMG’s claims.
“The audience ain’t dumb, Drake,” she tweeted.
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