McHugh: When did this come on your radar again?

LaCasse: Just recently. Tara called me and said, "Oh my gosh, this Joe Biden thing is coming up again." I said, "Oh my God, that." I had forgotten about it.

...

LaCasse: Well, you know, I live a kind of a quiet life. So I didn't really even think about coming forward. And I didn't really want to. But if she needed me to, then I thought, well, I guess I will. I have a really drama-free life. And so I didn't want to bring a bunch of stuff on myself, and I loved Tara to death. But she has some drama.

...

McHugh: Who initiated that conversation, and what was the context?

LaCasse: I think she did. She mentioned that she had come forward with it, and so I said, "Oh my gosh. Yeah. I do remember that."

Since Alexandra Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden have come to light, careful examination of her account unveils more questions than answers.

Three weeks ago, we reported on the many contradictions in Reade’s account, as well as the extreme changes in her attitude toward the former vice president. She has evolved from a woman who repeatedly praised Joe Biden for work he’s done to help end sexual assault in America, in 2017, to someone who now says Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993.

Now we’ve obtained new information concerning Tara Reade’s character, from a non-profit organization based in Watsonville, California, called Pregnant Mare Rescue (PMR). Lynn Hummer, Founder/President of the highly-rated horse sanctuary that’s committed to rescuing pregnant mares and orphan foals from abuse, tells us that Tara Reade (McCabe) volunteered at her rescue for a couple of years (from 2014–2016). During this time, Hummer alleges that Reade “stole from her nonprofit, lied, and created stories to obtain sympathy and money.”

We’ve also obtained receipts and emails that back up many of Hummer’s claims.

Decades before he would embark on a cruise to the Mediterranean, confident that the coronavirus would have little to do with him, Joe Joyce was known to the world as a social creature, the kind who would do well on a boat full of strangers.

...

On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail for Spain on a cruise, flying first to Florida. His adult children — Kevin, Eddie and Kristen Mider — suggested that the impending doom of the coronavirus made this a bad idea. Joe Joyce was 74, a nonsmoker, healthy; four years after he opened his bar he stopped drinking completely. He didn’t see the problem.

“He watched Fox, and believed it was under control,’’ Kristen told me.

Early in March Sean Hannity went on air proclaiming that he didn’t like the way that the American people were getting scared “unnecessarily.’’ He saw it all, he said, “as like, let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.”

...

He and his wife then headed to their house in New Hampshire. Their children were checking in from New York and New Jersey, and on March 27, when Kristen got off the phone with her father, she called an ambulance. He was wheezing. His oxygen level turned out to be a dangerously low 70 percent. On April 9, he died of Covid-19. The following day, Artie Nelson, one of his longtime bartenders at JJ Bubbles, and also in his 70s, died of the virus as well.

A woman who briefly worked as an aide for former Vice President Joe Biden in the 1990s has expanded her claims that he harassed her to now include an instance of sexual assault, which Biden's campaign denies and says is untrue.

...

NBC News has spoken with Reade multiple times since she came forward with the assault allegation on March 25 and has also spoken with five people with whom Reade said she shared varying degrees of detail over time. Three of those people said on the record that they do not recall any such conversation with Reade.

A fourth person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Reade told her about the alleged assault at the time. That person, who asked that her name be withheld by NBC News for fear of negatively affecting her business, said she remembers Reade's telling her that she spoke with superiors in Biden's office about harassment but not the assault. She also recalled that Reade told her she filed a formal written complaint with a Senate personnel office at the time.

A fifth person, who also spoke with NBC News anonymously, recalled that Reade told her in the mid-2000s that Biden had been inappropriate and touched her when she worked in his office but that she didn't detail the alleged assault.

ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--3M issued the following statement in response to the announcements issued by the White House last evening:

Over the last several weeks and months, 3M and its employees have gone above and beyond to manufacture as many N95 respirators as possible for the U.S. market. Yesterday, the Administration formally invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) to require 3M to prioritize orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for our N95 respirators.

...

In the course of our collaboration with the Administration this past weekend, the Administration requested that 3M increase the amount of respirators we currently import from our overseas operations into the U.S. We appreciate the assistance of the Administration to do exactly that. For example, earlier this week, we secured approval from China to export to the U.S. 10 million N95 respirators manufactured by 3M in China.

The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets. There are, however, significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators. In addition, ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some have already done. If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease. That is the opposite of what we and the Administration, on behalf of the American people, both seek.

We also continue to act on reports of price gouging and unauthorized reselling related to 3M respirators. This activity is unethical and illegal. We are working with the U.S. Attorney General and attorneys general of every state, making it clear that 3M has not and will not raise prices for respirators and offering our assistance in the fight.