Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot berated reporters during a press conference addressing the shooting death of officer Ella French on Wednesday, saying the media is in a “race to the bottom” and that their reporting on her in recent days has been “sickening.”

Two brothers have been arrested and charged in the fatal shooting of 29-year-old French during a traffic stop Saturday night. More than two dozen Chicago police officers turned their backs when greeted by Lightfoot late Saturday at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where French’s partner remains in critical condition.

CHICAGO COPS TURN THEIR BACKS TO MAYOR LIGHTFOOT AT HOSPITAL AFTER TWO OFFICERS SHOT

Asked to address the officers’ protest, Lightfoot lamented that “we are living in a time where people don’t respect each other.”

“Larger than that is this moment where people feel like it is their right to spew hatred at everyone that they don’t agree with or make fun and mock, usually anonymously and cowardly from social media, not confronting somebody directly and talking to them, but using the power of the pen and the keyboard to just spew unbelievable hate,” she said.

“So this is a larger question than what may have happened with 10 or 15 officers on Saturday night,” she continued. “It’s why do we think it is OK for people to engage in such nasty, vicious talk, orally or worse, on social media, and then have it repeated by media as if it is fact and true.

“I think our media plays a very important role in our democracy, but you lose me, you lose me when it’s a race to the bottom and it’s all about the fight and it’s all about the conflict,” she said. “I’ve got to tell you, some of the reporting I’ve seen this week is just sickening. We all need to ask ourselves what we can do better to show our people everywhere that we have the capacity to be human beings again.”

Lightfoot got visibly irritated after another reporter asked her about reports that First Deputy Police Superintendent Eric Carter rushed French’s funeral procession by calling off a traditional honor guard and bagpipe salute.

“The reporting on that is just not true,” the mayor said. “It’s not true.” 

FALLEN CHICAGO OFFICER’S RUSHED TRIBUTE REFLECTS ANTI-POLICE TREND, EX-SUPERINTENDENT SAYS

Lightfoot cited “COVID protocols” by the Medical Examiner’s Office and claimed a protest group that “wanted to hijack the procession” complicated matters outside of the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

However, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner’s Office told WGN News that “protocols for processions at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office have not changed since the pandemic began.”

Lightfoot vehemently defended Carter’s decision to skip the tradition.

“Eric Carter made the right call,” she said. “I support what he did. And I’m horrified that in this moment, people are trying to savage him for whatever agenda or purpose.

“And I would just caution you all. Be careful. Be careful,” she said. “Check your sources. Make sure they’re accurate. Get the right context. Because I know firsthand, it’s really hard when the media becomes ferocious in propagating a story that’s just not true.”

Lightfoot then lashed out at another reporter who cited reports she “forced” her way upstairs at the hospital against the injured officer’s wishes.

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“I’m not going to respond to that,” she said. “I don’t force my way anywhere. And that’s offensive, frankly, that you would ask me that question. … I just sat here and talked about the fact that we’ve got to be really careful and you have to be really careful in your reporting and be responsible. And you just keep lobbing this nonsense that’s offensive and insulting and really does a disservice to the moment that we’re in.

“Give me a break,” she added. “What else are you going to mine from the bottom of the chum barrel? Come on. You’re better than that. You’re better than that. You’re better than that.”

Texas Democrat Gene Wu, one of 52 state lawmakers facing arrest for fleeing the state, temporarily avoided apprehension after challenging the legality of his arrest warrant in court. 

Texas district court Judge Chris Morton on Wednesday granted the Houston representative a “writ of habeas corpus,” which essentially allows Wu to remain free until the court determines whether the civil arrest warrants for the Texas lawmakers are legal, the Houston Chronicle reported. 

Wu was among dozens of Texas Democrats who fled their jobs at the state capitol for Washington, D.C., to avoid voting on new GOP-backed election legislation.

NAACP ASKS DOJ TO INVESTIGATE TEXAS OVER WARRANT FOR RUNAWAY DEM LAWMAKERS

Wu remained defiant after his court appearance Wednesday.

“This is a reminder to Gov. Abbott that we still live in a democracy,” Wu said, the Chronicle reported. “We will do everything we can to make sure the right to vote is protected for all Texans.”

When asked whether he has any plans to return to Austin, Wu responded, “Hell no.”

Wu endured mockery last month over a social media post where he referred to himself as a “fugitive” while posting a picture of a salad and misspelling the word “first.” 

“My fist [sic] meal as a fugitive,” Wu tweeted, with a picture of a Caesar salad and Coke Zero. “Delicious.”

TEXAS STATE DEMOCRAT MOCKED FOR CALLING HIMSELF ‘FUGITIVE’ AFTER FLEEING STATE TO BLOCK VOTING BILLS

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, issued civil arrest warrants this week for Wu and the fleeing Democratic lawmakers who broke quorum and thus blocked the GOP’s efforts to pass its elections bill. 

The civil arrest, which is different than a criminal arrest, would be solely for the purpose of bringing the lawmakers back to the state capitol to provide a quorum. The warrants were made possible by a ruling from the Texas Supreme Court removing a temporary restraining order from a lower court that barred the legislature from issuing the warrants. 

Republicans say the Texas Democrats are ducking responsibilities as they spend time in Washington, D.C., advocating for S.1, a bill that would massively expand the role of the federal government in state-run elections.

TEXAS SPEAKER SIGNS ARREST WARRANTS FOR ABSENT DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS

“Texans don’t run from their responsibilities. Elected officials shouldn’t either,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a Facebook post reacting to the Texas Supreme Court’s order earlier this week. “It’s time for Democrats to return to work.”

The Texas Democrats maintain that they will stay in Washington, D.C., until Republicans in their state drop efforts to pass their elections bill. They also argue that arrest warrants are illegal. 

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“It is no surprise that Republican Governor Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan want to arrest their political opponents,” the Democrats said in a statement earlier this week. “Thankfully, this is still the United States of America. We will defend the freedom to vote, and we look forward to our temporary injunction hearing on August 20th.”

Fox News’ Tyler Olson and David Rutz contributed to this report. 

The Taliban captured a provincial capital near Kabul on Thursday, the 10th the insurgents have taken over a weeklong blitz across Afghanistan as the U.S. and NATO prepare to withdraw entirely from the country after decades of war.

The militants raised their white flags imprinted with an Islamic proclamation of faith over the city of Ghazni, just 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. Sporadic fighting continued at an intelligence base and an army installation outside the city, two local officials told The Associated Press.

The Taliban published videos and images online showing them in Ghazni, the capital of a province with the same name.

PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: SECURITY SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN IS ‘DETERIORATING’

Afghan security forces and the government have not responded to repeated requests for comment over the days of fighting. However, President Ashraf Ghani is trying to rally a counteroffensive relying on his country’s special forces, the militias of warlords, and American airpower ahead of the U.S. and NATO pullout at the end of the month.

While the capital of Kabul itself has not been directly threatened in the advance, the stunning speed of the offensive raises questions of how long the Afghan government can maintain control of the slivers of the country it has left. The government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities, as the fighting displaces thousands of people.

Mohammad Arif Rahmani, a lawmaker from Ghazni, said the city had fallen to the insurgents. Ghazni provincial council member Amanullah Kamrani also told the AP that but added that the two bases outside of the city remain held by government forces.

Kamrani alleged that Ghazni’s provincial governor and police chief made a deal with the Taliban to flee after their surrender. Taliban video and photos purported to show the governor’s convoy passing by Taliban fighters unstopped as part of the deal. The two officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Militants crowded onto one seized Humvee and drove down one main road in Ghazni, with the golden dome of a mosque near the governor’s office visible behind them, yelling: “God is great!” The insurgents, cradling their rifles, later gathered at one roundabout for an impromptu speech by a commander. One militant carried a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. They smiled as children and the curious gathered around them.

The loss of Ghazni marks yet another strategic setback for Afghan government forces. The city sits along the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, a major road that connects the Afghan capital to the country’s southern provinces. That could complicate resupply and movement for government forces, as well as squeeze the capital from the south.

Already, the Taliban’s weeklong blitz has seen the militants seize nine other provincial capitals around the country. Many are in the country’s northeast corner, pressuring Kabul from that direction as well.

Angry at pan-Arab satellite news network Al-Jazeera for reporting on troops earlier surrendering in Kunduz, Gen. Ajmal Omar Shinwari said the channel would be investigated by authorities. Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar where the Taliban has a diplomatic office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

HOUSE LAWMAKERS MAY GET AFGHANISTAN BRIEFINGS AS SOON AS NEXT WEEK

Fighting meanwhile raged in Lashkar Gah, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities in the Taliban heartland of Helmand province, where surrounded government forces hoped to hold onto that provincial capital.

On Wednesday, a suicide car bombing marked the latest wave of violence to target the capital’s regional police headquarters. By Thursday, the Taliban had taken the building, with some police officers surrendering to the militants and others retreating to the nearby governor’s office that’s still held by government forces, said Nasima Niazi, a lawmaker from Helmand.

Niazi said she believed the Taliban attack killed and wounded security force members, but she had no casualty breakdown. Another suicide car bombing targeted the provincial prison, but the government still held it, she said. The Taliban’s other advances have seen the militants free hundreds of its members over the last week, bolstering their ranks while seizing American-supplied weapons and vehicles.

Niazi criticized ongoing airstrikes targeting the area, saying civilians likely had been wounded and killed.

“The Taliban used civilian houses to protect themselves, and the government, without paying any attention to civilians, carried out airstrikes,” she said.

With the Afghan air power limited and in disarray, the U.S. Air Force is believed to be carrying out strikes to support Afghan forces. Aviation tracking data suggested U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets, drones, and other aircraft were involved in the fighting overnight across the country, according to Australia-based security firm The Cavell Group.

The U.S. Air Force’s Central Command, based in Qatar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The success of the Taliban offensive also calls into question whether they would ever rejoin long-stalled peace talks in Qatar aimed at moving Afghanistan toward an inclusive interim administration as the West hoped. Instead, the Taliban could come to power by force — or the country could splinter into factional fighting like it did after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

In Doha, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has met with diplomats from China, Pakistan, and Russia in an effort to warn the Taliban they could again be considered international pariahs if they continue their offensive, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Khalilzad also plans to meet with the Afghan government and Taliban officials as the fighting goes on without a sign of it abating.

In Germany, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned the Taliban not to try to take power by force and impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law that severely limits rights. Maas told German public TV ZDF that if the Taliban did so the country would no longer receive “a cent” of development aid from Germany, which is currently estimated to be around 430 million euros ($504 million) annually.

The multiple battlefronts have stretched the government’s special operations forces — while regular troops have often fled the battlefield — and the violence has pushed thousands of civilians to seek safety in the capital.

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The latest U.S. military intelligence assessment is that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a couple of months.

Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

President Biden said again this week that when it comes to battling Covid, we are on a “wartime footing.”

Then why is he acting more like a meandering bureaucrat than a four-star general?

I don’t mean to sound harsh — the Biden administration had plenty of early success with its vaccine program — but there’s a level of foot-dragging going on right now that is totally unacceptable. Lives are at stake and in some respects, the government’s response is downright meandering.

The president has been talking for weeks about whether the Pentagon will mandate vaccinations for its vast workforce. There’s certainly a strong case that military troops should be ordered to get the shots because they serve in close quarters and are deployed in countries where Covid may be raging. And there’s plenty of precedent for soldiers being told to get inoculated, from smallpox to, more recently, anthrax.

But when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday he’s ready to make that move, the administration announced it will happen … eh, maybe in a month, maybe by the end of September.

CUOMO RESIGNS, BUT HIS APOLOGIES FOR ‘INSENSITIVE’ BEHAVIOR SEEM CLUELESS

Why is there no sense of urgency? Why can’t the order take effect immediately? What if some of our military men and women contract the Delta variant during that period and die? What about military readiness? I find it inexplicable.

Only about 64% of our active-duty service members are fully vaccinated, so this is not a theoretical question.

And by the way, Austin works for Biden. It’s called civilian control of the military. Biden should certainly value the retired general’s opinion, but he can overrule his Pentagon chief or, if need be, appoint a new one.

Except it turns out Austin isn’t the problem. He had urged Biden to approve an immediate military mandate, according to The New York Times, “and the president balked.”

Instead, Austin issued a memo saying he’ll “seek” Biden’s agreement in making vaccines mandatory “no later than mid-September” — or “immediately,” if the FDA permanently approves the vaccines.

And that is the other excruciating delay here. What on earth is taking the Food and Drug Administration so long? The agency has in effect given the green light for 160 million Americans to take these shots. Anthony Fauci says the lack of permanent approval is a “technicality” and everyone should act like it’s already happened — even as many of the unvaccinated cite that as a reason for their hesitancy. Even Fauci grumbled on MSNBC that the FDA has its own way of doing things.

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Biden said Tuesday that “God willing, the FDA is going to be coming out in a reasonable timeframe to say this vaccine is totally safe.”

Reasonable timeframe? Now I understand that Biden, who portrayed Donald Trump as anti-science, doesn’t want to be seen as meddling with the FDA’s approval process. But it’s not like the agency (which doesn’t have a permanent head) is saying the vaccines are unsafe and the president wants to overrule the experts. They are just moving at a molasses-like pace.

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Sometimes presidents have to push government officials to do their job more quickly. It’s a travesty that it’s taken this long. And now it’s delaying vaccine mandates for millions of soldiers and Pentagon staffers.

If FDA officials have doubts about the vaccines, they ought to say so now, because the country — and the world — are depending on their judgment. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

The massive Pentagon was built in 16 months because we were in a war. This is a war too, and the president needs to move quickly to demand some answers.

New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated Wednesday that she disagreed with outgoing Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to formally step down from office only after a two-week transition period.

Cuomo raised eyebrows earlier this week after he said he would leave office in 14 days, rather than the immediate resignation that many public figures sought after an independent investigation concluded the governor sexually harassed at least 11 women. During Hochul’s first press conference since Cuomo’s resignation, a reporter asked how the lieutenant governor felt about the lengthy transition.

“It’s not what I asked for,” Hochul said. “However, I’m looking forward to a smooth transition, which he has promised. He spoke to me about wanting to make sure the transition to continuity is important, that I have an opportunity to meet Cabinet officials, other people as well. They viewed it as necessary.”

CUOMO SUCCESSOR HOCHUL DISTANCES HERSELF FROM DISGRACED GOV

“I’m prepared to take office as any lieutenant governor is from the very first hour you’re sworn in as lieutenant governor,” she added. “However, I will take advantage of that time and to continue to engage with the people of the state of New York.”

Cuomo resigned Tuesday amid intense bipartisan pressure from officials at the state and national level, including both of New York’s U.S. senators and President Biden. Prior to his resignation, Cuomo faced an impeachment probe regarding both the allegations of sexual harassment and his handling of COVID-19 deaths at state nursing homes.

Cuomo’s last day in office is on Aug. 24. Hochul will be the first female governor in state history.

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As governor, Hochul will inherit a fraught political climate in New York as the state aims to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

“I have a vision, but I’m going to continue to develop that. And at the end of the 14 days, I look forward to coming back to a venue like this and to make sure that we are ready to deal with all the challenges we face,” Hochul added.