The White House announced Monday that 46 mostly nonviolent drug offenders had their prison time reduced. Thomas’ mother has been serving time since the wideout was 12 years old, and she’ll be released on Nov. 10. MORE: NFL’s most presidential names | William Gay lends strong voice to domestic violence prevention “I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around,” Obama said in a letter to each of the 46 men and women....

The singer-songwriter, who has been open about her struggles with mental health, as well as addiction issues, made the revelation during a recent episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast. Lovato, a former Disney star who recently announced she was using “sher/her” pronouns again, said during the podcast that her management’s control over her and her health led to her suffering her publicized drug overdose in 2018. Before starting her story, Lovato suggested that her problems worsened because of one person who became a member of her team....

Southwest Airlines accounted for a large share of the more than 15,000 total flights canceled between Thursday, December 22, and Christmas Day. The company left tons of passengers stranded amid peak holiday travel and ushered in a wave of chaos in airports countrywide. Earlier this week, President Joe Biden condemned the nation’s airlines for the widespread cancellations, as did the Department of Transportation (DOT), which singled out Southwest in a tweet....

On Thursday, the 10 Americans vying for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States will take to the debate stage to defend their stances and critique their opponents’. Held at Texas Southern University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Houston, the debate will likely include discussion of higher education costs. The issue came up at the two previous debates and every candidate has either spoken on the subject or outlined their plan for it on their campaign website....

A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday and conducted between October 9 and October 11 found that 27 percent of Democrats favor Barrett being confirmed. A Morning Consult poll conducted on September 26, the same day Barrett was nominated, found that only 14 percent of Democrats supported her confirmation. Most Democrats, 55 percent, still oppose Barrett’s confirmation, while another 21 percent are undecided or have no opinion. Republican support for the conservative judge, already high at 71 percent in the first poll, increased to 77 percent in the recent poll....

Republican candidates are priced as most likely to win in both the special and regular election contests scheduled for the new year, Betfair said. The balance of power in the Senate is now at a near tie for Democrats and Republicans, with the two runoffs set to define who controls the Senate from January. As it currently stands, Republicans have 50 seats to the Democrats’ 46. Independent senators, who caucus with Democrats, occupy the two remaining seats....

In less than two weeks, voters head to the polls in elections that could see the Republicans take both the Senate and House of Representatives and severely restrict President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. Currently, control of the senate is split evenly between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking vote when needed. In the House, the situation is clearer with 220 Democrats enjoying a slim majority over the 212 GOP representatives....

When state and local leaders first began issuing stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic, we were told that the lockdowns were necessary to “flatten the curve” and to prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed. We appear to have largely achieved that goal—albeit at a staggering cost, as more than 40 million Americans were forced to file for unemployment benefits and businesses have required hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to avoid bankruptcy....

Democrats spent nearly $53 million in nine states through September in an effort to boost far-right candidates to victory, according to a Washington Post analysis last week. Entering the fall, Democrats’ risky strategy could very well pay off, particularly in one race many observers see as critical to the party maintaining its slim Senate majority next Congress. With primary season officially coming to a close last week, far-right candidates favored by Democrats had won six out of 13 total races they’d competed in nationwide, potentially helping tilt the tables toward Democratic candidates in states like Illinois and Nevada....

Universal Coverage vs. Market-Based Reforms Democrats generally continue to support the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but would like to fix its flaws and generally improve the law. Democrats want to empower states to use innovation waivers (1332 waivers) to create their own approaches to healthcare reform that are as good as—or better than—the current system. Many Democrats also support fixing the ACA’s “family glitch” by basing affordability calculations for employer-sponsored coverage on family premiums rather than employee-only premiums, and most also support expanding premium subsidies to higher income ranges in order to soften the subsidy cliff....

Analysis from poll tracker FiveThirtyEight shows that support for the Democratic Party has been on the upswing since late January, but it still needs to overcome a gap if it wants to win in November. Republicans are hoping to retake control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the midterm elections. Controlling either chamber would likely allow them to stymie President Joe Biden’s agenda. FiveThirtyEight is tracking the generic congressional ballot through an analysis of polls and its own system of pollsters ratings....

“Despite their calls to end racism, it is clear Democrats are only paying lip service to fighting discrimination against Asian Americans and will allow targeted discrimination against them to continue at America’s universities and colleges,” Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and Ted Cruz of Texas said. They issued their joint statement after the Senate killed their proposed amendment to strip federal funding for colleges that factor race into admissions....

Clyburn serves as Chair of the coronavirus subcommittee and must formally recognize House members before they’re allowed to speak. In a June 29 letter to Scalise, Clyburn expressed his “profound disappointment” that Republican members of the subcommittee refused to wear masks at its Friday, June 26 meeting. “Masks save lives,” the letter stated. “Wearing masks at indoor gatherings is strongly encouraged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Attending Physician of the Congress has issued, clear, unequivocal guidelines that require Members to wear masks at all committee hearings....

But nearly a year into their reign, few of those promises have been fully realized, poll numbers are in free fall, and the party is facing midterm races that by most projections will cast it out of power in the House and possibly the Senate. Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, has gotten a lot of the blame, as one of the more visible naysayers blocking his party’s agenda....

Having claimed the first set in a tiebreaker against local hope Lorenzo Sonego, Shapovalov was battling to remain in the second set when the Italian challenged a second serve that was initially called in. After inspecting a ball mark, the umpire determined the serve was out and called a double fault, which handed Sonego a breakpoint. Shapovalov then climbed over the net to challenge the ruling and point at what he thought was the ball mark....

The decision makes Denmark the first European nation to buck the consensus among experts who say that the Syrian capital, Damascus, is not safe, according to the Associated Press. More than 33,000 Syrian refugees and their families live in Denmark, according to Statistics of Denmark. Denmark’s latest action affects only those who sought asylum in the country as a result of the civil war. Those who can prove a specific threat on their lives are able to stay....

New York finished 2018-19 with a 17-65 record and missed the playoffs for a sixth straight year. The team, however, has made major changes to its roster and Smith believes it will be fighting for a playoff spot next season. “I think we can hit the playoffs,” Smith said, via the New York Daily News. “Everybody does a lot of talking and things like that. I’ve never really been one to feed into it on social media and things like that....

Sam Hornish Jr. will drive Hamlin's No. 11 car in the Auto Club 400. MORE: Hamlin was focused on California race | Larson wins Nationwide race | Best and worst NASCAR TV announcers This marks the fifth race in the past two years that Hamlin has missed due to injury or illness. He suffered a broken vertebra in a wreck in last year's race at Califofornia and misse the next four races....

Research shows the pandemic has left many dentists struggling with their mental health. Their struggles may not be as bluntly obvious; for one thing, most hospital ERs do not have dentists on staff. However, dentists are showing the same symptoms of burnout as other healthcare professionals, and for many of the same reasons. One of the chief contributors to dentist burnout is the excessive burden of clerical and administrative tasks....

Lauren Harrhy, a dentist in the town of Pontypool in South Wales, U.K. told BBC News parents are risking children’s oral health by putting fizzy drinks and sugary milkshakes in baby bottles, sprinkling sugar on fruit, and giving them sweets. Harrhy has treated children whose teeth are “mushy” because of their diets, she said. “I’ve seen a two-year-old have to have nearly all of his teeth taken out—it’s quite distressing,” the dentist said....