In the hours before Liz Truss met with Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland on Tuesday to be anointed as the new British prime minister, a video went viral showing a young Truss criticizing the British monarchy. “I’m not against any of them personally,” a cherubic Truss says in the ITV News clip, which was reportedly filmed in 1994 while Truss would have been in her late teens. “I’m against the idea that people can be born to rule. That people—because of the family they’re born into—should be able to be the head of state of our country: I think that’s disgraceful.” The new British leader, whose critics claim will abandon any political principle to advance her own ambitions, normally reserves such strong condemnation for her country’s fondness for imported cheese.
A Memphis news reporter was overcome with emotion while covering the live-streaming gunman who terrorized the city Wednesday night. Joyce Peterson from Action News 5 was doing a live report on 19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly, who police named as the suspect who led them on a frenzied hunt for several hours before he was finally captured by cops. As she spoke, she took a deep breath and appeared to try to calm herself, pausing. “Memphis is tired right now. I’m with you all. Memphis is tired right now,” she said, also citing the Eliza Fletcher abduction that ended with the discovery of the kidnapped teacher’s body on Tuesday. “The other crimes we’ve had this year leading up to this, it’s difficult right now. Bear with me, it’s a very nerve wracking night.” Kelly was reportedly caught after crashing a stolen car in Memphis.
A number of women in Alabama accused of using drugs while pregnant were held in a jailhouse for weeks or months, left in limbo after failing to qualify for special bond conditions, according to a Wednesday report from AL.com. After she was arrested for carrying a small amount of marijuana and a firearm without a permit, 23-year-old Ashley Banks was brought to the Etowah County Jail. Having admitted to smoking pot on the same day she found out she was pregnant, Banks languished in the jail for months, with overcrowding forcing her to sleep on the floor despite a high-risk pregnancy. In order to bond out, Banks was told she would have to enter drug rehab—but specialists who evaluated her found twice that she didn’t qualify for drug addiction services. State investigators pressured her to confess to a nonexistent addiction; when she wouldn’t, she was left “incarcerated indefinitely,” according to Banks’ petition for release. An Etowah County judge released her to community corrections on Aug. 25. There have been more than 150 similar “chemical endangerment” cases in Etowah County since 2010, according to National Advocates for Pregnant Women.