The presidential campaign is in turmoil less than a month before Election Day, with women coming forward to accuse Donald Trump of accosting them and Trump stepping up efforts to portray Bill Clinton as a sexual predator. The week started out nasty, got worse as it went on and some of Trump’s fellow Republicans are determined that he never gets to the White House. 

"I will try to gut Donald Trump with a dull deerhandler," said John Stipanovich, a Republican lobbyist with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in Florida who has called Trump a racist, misogynistic and ultra-nationalistic boor and a bully. "I think this election is that important. I think the country faces a significant danger from a Trump presidency."

Republicans are fighting for the soul of the party and the soul of the United States, he said. A worse candidate for president could not be imagined, he said.

"We're going to learn that being off-the-wall crazy does not produce victory," he said.

Trump’s campaign has been in turmoil since Friday, when a tape recording surfaced of him talking about groping women without their consent. He was egged on by Billy Bush, then the co-host of "Access Hollywood," which is owned and distributed by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News, MSNBC and this station. Bush has since been suspended. 

The fallout continued after The New York Times late Wednesday quoted two women who accused Trump of grabbing or kissing them inappropriately, a People magazine reporter wrote about being pushed against a wall as he kissed her, and a fourth woman told the Palm Beach Post that he had grabbed her from behind.

"These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false, and the Clintons know it and they know it very well," Trump said at a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday. "These claims are all fabricated, they're pure fiction and they're outright lies. These events never, ever happened."

None of the claims, one of which is more than 30 years old, has been independently confirmed by NBC News.

Trump is trying to turn attention to Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct and Hillary Clinton's role in silencing his victims and at his rally on Thursday he accused the media of being a political special interest group conspiring with the Clintons.

"Their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy," he said. "For them, it's a war and for them, nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation."

And Trump has increasingly been warning that the election could be stolen from him.

Even before the women made their allegations, prominent Republicans were abandoning their candidate. Emails obtained by NBC News showed that two unidentified big-money donors to Trump were asking for their money back. Both of Alaska's U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, resigned from leadership positions in the state Republican party, becoming the latest Republicans to say Trump should step aside. 

The Ohio GOP chairman said Thursday morning that he did not know whether he would continue to support Trump.

"He clearly has lost it," said Katie Packer, who was a deputy campaign manager for the GOP's 2012 presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and founded an anti-Trump super PAC during the primaries.

The worst case scenario has Trump doing so much damage that Clinton wins in a landslide and she has a Democratic Congress to carry out a mandate, said Packer, a partner at Burning Glass Consulting, an all-female Republican consulting firm specializing in messaging to women. The best case, which Packer does not anticipate: Trump wins and faces a hostile Congress to work with.

"This is a guy who has some very serious neurotic tendencies," she said. "He very clearly can't handle any criticism and acts of disloyalty and so he lashes out at people in a very destructive way, not just destructive to them but in a very self-destructive way. And it also feeds into the argument for why we shouldn't give him the nuclear codes."

Trump's lewd, crude comments — which he is brushing off as "locker room talk" — were widely condemned. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he would no longer appear with the nominee, instead focusing on defending the party's majority in Congress. U.S. Sen. John McCain said he was parting company with Trump because, "I have daughters, I have friends, I have so many wonderful people on my staff. They cannot be degraded and demeaned in that fashion."

Trump singled out both men in his Twitter attacks on Tuesday.

"Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty," Trump tweeted about the Wisconsin congressman.

And, of McCain, he wrote, "The very foul mouthed Sen. John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won), then dropped me over locker room remarks!"

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday showed Hillary Clinton holding a 9-point lead over Trump after the second presidential debate on Sunday. In a four-way race, Clinton had the support of 46 percent of likely voters to 37 percent for Trump, 8 percent for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and 2 percent for the Green Party’s Jill Stein. In a head-to-head contest, Clinton beat Trump by 10 points, 50 percent to 40 percent.

To be sure, some Republicans remained in Trump's corner. At the Trump rally on Thursday, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, also accused the media, including The New York Times, of being part of a conspiracy. On Fox News, Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, continued to defend Trump saying, "He's a different man from the man you saw on that videotape a few years ago, 11 years ago."

The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, in a conference call with RNC committee members earlier in the week, said that its support for Trump was unchanged. Other Republicans were threatening retribution against party members who did withdraw their support. Diana Orrock, Nevada's Republican National committeewoman and a candidate for the Nevada state assembly said that if Trump did not win the White House, nothing else mattered.

"We have far more important things to be concerned about rather than some boy talk that these guys had 11 years ago," she told CNBC on Monday.

On Thursday, she said her support was as strong now as when she first endorsed him.

Matt Mackowiak a Republican political consultant from Texas and founder of the Potomac Strategy Group in Washington, D.C., said that the remainder of the campaign would resemble a circus. There is no playbook for a race in which the nominee and the party are at war, he said.

"Reince Priebus is trying to hold it together with duct tape at this point," he said. "I'm sympathetic to his challenge but it's every man for himself right now. We have an undisciplined, unhinged nominee surrounded by nut cases and sycophants — with a couple of exceptions."

Clinton is the most flawed Democratic candidate in at least 20 years and could have been beaten had Republicans put principles and ethics over money, power and celebrity, he said. Now, Republicans such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Rep. Newt Gingrich and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani should be held to account, he said.

"He's become a crazy ex-boyfriend essentially at this point,” Mackowiak said of Trump’s attacks on Clinton. "Doesn’t care about moving on his life. Doesn't genuinely want the other person to have a good life but is consumed by negative energy and by vendettas."

Stipanovich said that half of Trump's supporters were as deplorable as Hillary Clinton labeled them, "ugly folks from the underbelly of America," Stipanovich said. "There's nothing to be done with them other than to thrash them every time we go to the polls."

To win back the other half, who believe the government has let them down, the Republican party will need to take its share of the blame, he said.

"Is the government my enemy, is it part of some great conspiracy to ruin my life and enslave my grandchildren, no, that's ridiculous and we need to start saying that," he said.

The new Republican party must stop being restrictive and afraid, and instead shape the future as best it can.

So far, the most loyal Trump followers have not shown they are a political force beyond their candidate. The one House candidate whom Trump endorsed in the primary, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, lost, Packer noted. After the election, Republicans will need to come together to repair the damage done to their party and choose a presidential candidate who can win a general election.

"I do think the party is in the middle of a civil war right now," she said. "The good news is that we'll be trying to accomplish that with Hillary Clinton as president. Nothing brings Republicans together like Hillary Clinton."

A man who's been paralyzed for more than a decade got to show off how much progress he's made by fist-bumping President Barack Obama Thursday with a robotic hand, NBC News reported. 

Nathan Copeland can feel his fingers for the first time since a 2004 car crash left him paralyzed from the chest down, thanks to chips implanted in his brain that also control the hand.

When he met Obama at a science event organized by the White House in Pittsburgh, the president told Copeland, "Let's see what you got." Then the robotic hand moved with input from Copeland's brain.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is behind the brain interface, which is letting Copeland once again "feel just about every finger."

Donald Trump, who has peddled a variety of conspiracy theories throughout his campaign, is in the midst of building his most elaborate one yet around the recent flood of allegations that he groped, kissed, and grabbed women without their consent, NBC News reported.

At a Thursday rally in West Palm Beach, he lashed out at women accusing him of "fabricated" and "absolutely false" sexual misconduct, linking them to an ever-expanding plot to undermine his campaign that he's laid out in recent days.

He claimed that Hillary Clinton and the press engaged in a "concerted, coordinated" effort to find the women and publish their stories in order to distract from apparent hacked emails from Clinton aides posted on Wikileaks that Trump said are "exposing the massive international corruption of the Clinton machine."

James Doe's quest to collect the remainder of his $3.5 million hush-money from disgraced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert could soon face a major decision in court. 

A judge on Friday listened to arguments from both sides regarding a motion to dismiss the breach-of-contract lawsuit filed last month.

The judge said he would take those arguments under consideration and rule by Nov. 29.

In court Friday, attorneys for one of Hastert's victim's, known as James Doe, claimed Hastert was the first to reveal the existence of the alleged arrangement and said Hastert was trying to get out of paying the remainder of the deal "on a technicality."

“Mr. Hastert has publically admitted he entered into this contract. He's never denied it. In fact, he public admitted it in open court," attorney Kristi Browne said. “My client gave up…his right to sell his story, speak about it publicly, gave up his right to speak to anybody about what happened to him and that is substantial consideration for this motion.”

Meanwhile, Hastert's attorney argued James Doe, also referred to as "Individual A," "breached that obligation when he disclosed not only the agreement but the subject matter of the agreement."

In his lawsuit, James Doe said that it was not his fault that a hush-money deal fell apart when Hastert’s bank withdrawals caught the attention of the FBI.

“Hastert did not deny the abuse,” the man’s attorney, Kristi Browne wrote in the motion, filed in Kendall County Court. “Hastert admitted his wrongdoing and agreed to compensate Plaintiff.”

The former Speaker and his now-adult victim had entered into a verbal pact where Hastert was to pay the man $3.5 million dollars. But the payments stopped after $1.7 million, when banking officials became alarmed at the frequency of the former Speaker’s withdrawals. Hastert pled guilty to a crime known as “structuring”, making withdrawals of less than $10,000 to avoid being detected by federal regulators.

“The plaintiff requested that Hastert consult an attorney, to ensure their agreement could be legally executed, but Hastert declined, promising to pay every last dollar of their agreed monetary settlement,” Browne wrote. “The banking issue was brought to Hastert’s attention, but to preclude further scrutiny, Hastert chose to make more overt violations of the banking laws he was warned about.”

In a motion seeking dismissal of the case, Hastert’s lawyer has argued that the man has no further claim, because the statue of limitation had expired. But Doe, known previously in Hastert’s criminal case as “Individual A”, rejected that argument, at one point comparing the case to a parent who must make good on paternity to an illegitimate child.

“Hastert has an ongoing moral obligation to any child victim for any harm his conduct caused,” the motion states. “Was the confidentiality provision of the parties’ agreement worth $3.5 million? Hastert certainly thought so.”

Hastert's attorney also argues that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Doe violated the confidentiality agreement when he spoke to federal authorities, citing a breach-of-contract.

The parties return to court again Friday. Hastert is serving a 15-month sentence at a Federal prison in Rochester, Minnesota.

House Speaker Paul Ryan tried again Friday to recast the presidential election as an ideological choice between a Republican-led congress that will fight for limited government and Hillary Clinton's "liberal progressive" agenda.  

"Beneath all the ugliness lies a long-running debate between two governing philosophies: one that is in keeping with our nation's founding principles — like freedom and equality — and another that seeks to replace them," Ryan said in Madison, Wisconsin.

Ryan said Republicans would seek to bring every federal regulation to congress for review and to simplify the tax code.

He also called to repeal President Obama's signature health care law, which he said was part of Democrats' "liberal progressivism."   

“Liberal progressivism is not government for the people, it’s by them, the elites," he said. 

The speech was yet another attempt by Ryan to refocus an election that's gone wildly off the rails as Trump this week lashed out at both Democrats and Republicans — even Ryan himself — for what he says is a conspiracy against him.

Ryan did not mention the Republican nominee in his remarks. 

Ben Carson demanded a female journalist's microphone be turned off when she continued to press him for an answer on whether he thought women who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault were lying. 

Trump's former GOP rival and current adviser said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday that he uses "common sense" when looking at the accusations, echoing Trump's defense that the allegations have been fabricated. He said Trump couldn’t have assaulted one of the women on an airplane in the '70s because the armrest wouldn’t have been able to move and there were flight attendants present in first class.

"The real reason women who have been sexually abused don’t come forward is precisely this, all too much they’re accused of being liars," BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay told Carson. "Are you saying these women are lying?"

"That's your characterization because you need to characterize it that way to try to make it the bad guy," Carson said. 

When Kay began to press him for a clearer answer, Carson kept interrupting: "Stop, stop stop. Hey, can you turn her microphone off please."

"No, it's a simple question," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told him.

"It doesn't matter whether they are lying or not," Carson replied.  

After Carson left, Scarborough discussed the interview with Kay.

"I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody tell me to turn my microphone off before. That’s censorship," she said. "A form of censorship in response to a very simple question…which he never answered."

Carson said last week he didn't condone Trump's behavior in the extremely lewd 2005 video clip. Carson called Trump's vulgar comments about women "unacceptable, especially by someone who aspires to higher office."

He said Trump "did the right thing in immediately and unequivocally apologizing." Carson blamed Trump's adversaries for the video's release.

But then earlier this week, Carson went on to excuse Trump's vulgar comments as normal banter between men.

"That kind of banter goes around all the time," Carson said during an exchange with CNN host Brianna Keilar. "Is it the right kind of thing to do? Absolutely not. Is it something that I've ever done? Absolutely not."

Following the clip's release, at least four women have detailed accounts that Trump groped or kissed them without their consent. Trump has denied all accounts of sexual assault. 

Trump claimed Thursday that Hillary Clinton and the press are involved in a "concerted, coordinated" effort to find the women and publish their stories in order to distract from apparent hacked emails from Clinton aides posted on WikiLeaks. 

A city audit has found Donald Trump apparently did not donate to the two main 9/11 charities in the months after the terror attacks, despite accepting public thanks for doing so - though the comptroller's office says it could not conclude the presidential candidate definitely never gave to one of the funds.

On Oct. 10, 2001, Trump was thanked for a $10,000 donation by Howard Stern, who was directing people to donate to New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc. in the aftermath of the attacks, and Stern's radio co-host Robin Quivers. Trump did not deny that he made the pledge.

But City Comptroller Scott Stringer's office said it has no record of such a donation from Trump, at least not in the months immediately following the attacks. The comptroller's office reviewed previously sealed records of the Twin Towers Fund and New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc. and found no indication Trump or his charity made contributions, the Daily News first reported. 

Stringer's office confirmed the report in an email to NBC 4 New York. The office said the audit only covers the period from September 2001 through mid-2002. 

In confirming the report, Stringer's office wrote it "found no evidence that Donald Trump or any entity [associated with him] donated to the two 9/11 charities during the period covered by the audits in the NYDN story." 

However, Stringer's office told the Daily News it is "unable to conclude definitively that Trump never gave to either of these two funds." 

The Daily News said the Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests for more information bearing out his claims of charitable donations to 9/11-related causes. 

The campaign also did not respond to multiple requests from NBC 4 New York for comment on the story and Trump's donation record.

Stringer is a Democrat who has endorsed Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, for president.

The Daily News reports the only major recorded donation to 9/11 causes that Trump has made was $100,000 given by his foundation to the 9/11 Museum in April 2016, after he entered the presidential race.

The newspaper said it reviewed every Form 990, which provides financial information for nonprofit companies or charities, for the Donald J. Trump Foundation from 2001 through 2014, and found no donations to either of the two main 9/11 charities. 

Despite innovative technology for detection and treatment of breast cancer, black women continue to have the highest rate of mortality, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed.

The report released on Thursday found that black and white women now have roughly similar incidences of breast cancer. For black women, this is bad news; for the past 40 years, they have had the lowest prevalence of breast cancer. That health advantage has disappeared, with increased incidences of cancer.

In addition to increased frequency of breast cancer, the death rate is higher for black women than white women by about 40 percent. White women are seeing a faster decrease in mortality.

The CDC report noted that the prevalence of cancer for white women has steadily decreased, and increased for black women, especially for those 60-79 years old. These trends are unique to black women; overall, the trends for the last few decades have shown less incidence and mortality from breast cancer.

While the relationship between obesity and breast cancer is unknown, the incidence of both have increased in black populations, according to the report. Increased physical activity and healthy diet to maintain a healthy weight may help in subsiding the incidence of breast cancer, the report says.

But above all, the report suggested that if care for all women was equal, there might be less exaggerated differences between black and white women.

“Measures to ensure access to quality care and the best-available treatments for all women diagnosed with breast cancer can help address these racial disparities,” it said.

Donald Trump Jr. insinuated women who can’t handle sexual harassment in the workforce should "go maybe teach kindergarten," according to a 2013 radio interview unearthed by BuzzFeed News Thursday night.

The comments came as Trump Jr. discussed women joining male-only golf clubs on the "Opie and Anthony" radio show, according to the recording.

"If you have a guys’ place you have a guys’ place," Trump Jr. said about male-only courses. "I have a hard time letting go of that. Maybe I’m not going to have a choice."

A host then suggested women would "f--- it up" by complaining about sexual harassment.

After more banter, Trump Jr. hinted the same is true off the golf course.

"If you can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today, then you don’t belong in the workforce," he said. "Like, you should go maybe teach kindergarten. I think it’s a respectable position."

The BuzzFeed report came the same day Trump Jr. said his father’s vulgar remarks to former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in 2005, "makes him a human." "Access Hollywood" is owned and distributed by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News, MSNBC and this station.

Speaking on Charlotte Morning News on WBT radio Thursday, Trump Jr. said: "I've had conversations like that with plenty of people where people use language off color. They're talking, two guys, amongst themselves.

"I've seen it time and time again. I think it makes him a human. I think it makes him a normal person not a political robot," he said.

Donald Trump dismissed the lewd remarks as "locker room banter."

It's not the first time Trump Jr.'s comments have caused controversy.

In September, Trump Jr. tweeted a photo using the candy Skittles as an analogy for refugees.

"If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful," the image read.

Skittles parent company Wrigley Americas distanced itself from the image soon after Trump Jr. sent the tweet.

"Skittles are candy. Refugees are people. We don't feel it's an appropriate analogy," Vice President of Corporate Affairs Denise Young told NBC News in a statement. "We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing."

Earlier in September, Trump Jr. posted an image on Instagram that included "Pepe the Frog," an internet meme used by white supremacists that was later declared a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.

Trump Jr. said he had "never heard of the Pepe the Frog" after the Instagram post drew criticism.

The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

A black doctor has accused Delta Air Lines of discrimination after a flight attendant allegedly shooed her away from a passenger in need of medical attention and said "actual physicians" were needed, NBC News reported.

Dr. Tamika Cross, an OBGYN resident at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston, wrote in a Facebook post that she was on a flight from Detroit last week when someone two rows ahead her of starting screaming for help.

"I naturally jumped into Doctor mode as no one else was getting up," she wrote on Sunday in the account that has been shared more than 35,000 times.

But as she was about to stand, Cross said a flight attendant told everyone to stay calm — the man was just suffering from a night terror. Minutes later, the flight attendant yelled for a physician on board, Cross said.

Cross raised her hand to get the flight attendant's attention, but her help was rejected, she said.

Nearly seven months to the day since he was nearly killed in the line of duty, Fort Worth police officer Matt Pearce walked onto the tarmac at Alliance Airport Friday to watch his friend and hero take the ride of a lifetime.

Officer Brandi Kamper was nominated by Mayor Betsy Price to go on the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds’ Hometown Hero Ride — a flight around North Texas with some of the best fighter pilots in the country.

Kamper was one of several officers that responded on March 15 when Pearce was shot several times during a police pursuit in Fort Worth.

Pearce said he and Kamper had been working for some time to create a medical response unit in the department, and when the shooting took place she happened to be in on a day she wasn’t even supposed to be on duty.

“God has a bigger picture for me,” Pearce said. “He placed her at work when she wasn’t supposed to be at work.”

Kamper provided essential medical help at the active scene for Pearce and ultimately helped save his life.

“When I saw Brandi I just said, thank God,” Pearce said.

Kamper said she just did her part.

“There were 350 officers from all over the Metroplex that responded to Matt,” she said. “Everyone came to rescue our brother. That’s what we do.”

While his recovery continues and he still has surgeries ahead, Pearce has recovered enough where he can almost walk completely without a cane and said he plans to return to limited duty at the department in the coming weeks.

He’s certainly far enough along that he could come to the Alliance Air Show with Kamper on Friday and see her flight.

Kamper and Pearce spent the morning suiting up and briefing with the Thunderbirds team, learning how to handle the extreme G-force of their maneuvers and how they pull off some of their amazing in-air stunts.

Then at about 10:30 a.m., Kamper, who took on the call-sign Unicorn, went up into the air with Thunderbird 8 for a one-hour flight where she got to be a part of some of their maneuvers. Thunderbird officals said she reached nine Gs at one point in the flight.

Pearce told his friend he was a bit jealous, but glad to see the honor go to her.

Pearce and Kamper said since the shooting they have become closer friends than ever and are still working to expand the medical team on the FWPD.

Graphic dashcam and bodycam video has been released showing a suburban man — allegedly high on PCP — punching and body-slamming Chicago police officers as they tried to handcuff him earlier this month. 

More than three hours of footage of the brutal incident were released Friday by the Chicago Police Department after authorities said a female officer who was beaten unconscious didn't shoot her attacker because she feared she might face backlash.

The footage begins as two officers attempt to take Parta Huff, of Maywood, into custody after he allegedly crashed his vehicle into a liquor store. 

The officers in the 15th District were on patrol when they came across a traffic accident near the intersection of South Cicero Avenue and West Roosevelt Road, authorities said.

A female officer is seen in the footage cuffing Huff's left wrist, but is heard shouting at him to stop fighting before she can get his right wrist cuffed. 

The officer is shouting at her partner to "Taser" the man as both officers continue ordering him to "stop fighting" and "get down on the ground."

At one point, Huff managed to get out of their grip and the three then disappear from the camera's view. When they return, Huff is seen falling on top of the female officer, where he continues to fight as other officers surround him. 

Prosecutors reportedly claim during that Huff continued punching theofficer.

In separate bodycam video released by police, Huff is seen being shot with a stun gun numerous times before he is cuffed and on the ground, his mouth bleeding. 

Huff allegedly beat the female officer so hard she lost consciousness. Two other officers were injured while putting him in custody, officials said.

The female officer remained in the hospital as of Friday. 

Huff, 28, was charged after the incident with attempted murder of a police officer and aggravated battery to a police officer and was ordered held without bond later that week. 

Huff, a father of one, told a judge in court he had drugs in his system because he was in the hospital that morning, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Huff, who completed cosmetology school and currently works as a janitor and at a chocolate factory, also has another child on the way, the newspaper reported.

The top Chicago police officer has used the beating as an example of how fallout from police-involved shooting controversies can put officers in danger.

"She knew that she should shoot this guy," Supt. Eddie Johnson said last week. "But she chose not to because she didn't want her family — or the department — to have to go through the scrutiny the next day."

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg backed off her recent comments criticizing NFL players who protest the national anthem before games. In a statement released to NBC News Friday, Ginsburg said she should not have commented on the protests at all.

“Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh,” the statement read. “I should have declined to respond.”

When asked during a recent Yahoo News interview with Katie Couric, Ginsburg said of the ongoing protests, “I think it’s dumb and disrespectful.”

“I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do,” she told Couric, but added that she “wouldn’t lock up a person for doing it.”

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the wave of protests when he declined to stand during the pre-game performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a preseason contest against the Green Bay Packers in August. He explained that he was protesting the national anthem to draw attention to the oppression of black people and other minorities, and particularly to police brutality toward black people.

Since Kaepernick’s move, athletes from the NFL and beyond have continued the movement. The NFL has said that players are encouraged but not required to stand during the anthem.

Canadian politician Jim Prentice and three others were killed when their plane went down in British Columbia, authorities confirmed Friday.

Sixty-year-old Prentice was returning to his home in Calgary from a golfing trip with friends when their twin-engine Cessna Citation crashed late Thursday night, NBC News reports. None of the plane’s four passengers survived the crash.

The former premier of Alberta and government minister was a Conservative who crossed party lines in 2005 to support same-sex marriage. He was also a married father of three, with two granddaughters.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement Friday, calling Prentice a “great Canadian.”

“He was broadly respected in the House of Commons across all party lines, for his intelligence, commitment and honest straightforward approach on tough issues,” Trudeau said.

Former Connecticut U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman said as his days in Washington wound down, he could see a growing chasm between lawmakers and the people they're elected to govern.

"As the political system has failed to deliver for people and people have in our country have become more and more angry at Washington, it was just inevitable that somebody who was an outsider would come along," Lieberman said, following a news conference Friday.

Lieberman represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate for 24 years, retiring in 2013. Perhaps most notably, Lieberman's national profile rose substantially as the Democratic vice presidential nominee alongside Al Gore in 2000.

"It was only 16 years ago and to me it feels like yesterday, but in terms of American political history, it was a tough race, it was a close race," Lieberman said.

He said the politics are very different today than they were 16 years ago. He remembers debating with Dick Cheney, who had recently stepped down as CEO of Halliburton, very well, but adds they respected one another the entire time.

"We disagreed on almost everything but I thought that it was all very civil and not personal, no personal attacks and at its best that’s what it was meant to be, but this campaign seems very far from that, unfortunately, to the detriment of the country," he said.

Lieberman said he wants Hillary Clinton to win the White House but says even if she doesn't, the next president will have a tough time because Republicans and Democrats don't often work together they way they did years ago.

"Whoever is elected president will have an even harder time trying to find common ground with the opposite party, and it can be done," the former senator said.