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Mickey says his stint as a handyman transformed into a lucrative sex business due to the region's self-denial'A western Texas fracker starring in a podcast about how his attempted moonlighting as a handyman turned into lucrative sex work largely solicited by distracted oil industry professionals' housewives says he believes his region's repressive sexual attitudes gave his side gig an opening to flourish.There's an inherent kind of self-denial," the subject of The Handyman of West Texas, identified only as Mickey, said in a recent interview. We all have these thoughts. But we lie to ourselves and try to conform to ... how you're supposed to be repressing your own pleasure." Continue reading...

White House wages online propaganda campaign with aggressive and tasteless videos seemingly designed for young rightwing American menRap and EDM. Clips from action movies. Heads-up displays from video games.As the war with Iran approaches its second week, the White House has leaned into an online propaganda campaign that seems less about intimidating Iran or projecting US strength abroad than it is about reaching a rather niche domestic audience: young rightwing American men who spend a lot of time online. Continue reading...

Regime change, nuclear threat - or something else? US officials seem unable to land on one coherent reason for warWhen the United States launched Operation Epic Fury last Saturday, the Trump administration had a major communications question to figure out: how to explain to the American public, Congress, and the world why it had just started a war with Iran.During war time, talking points and propaganda reflexively fly in every direction, but the Trump administration still hasn't been able to land on one coherent answer. Continue reading...

Restart of operations will be a relief to those stranded but may not dispel doubts raised by past week about key transit hubAfter nearly a week of uncertainty, airspace closures and very limited flights, news that hundreds of thousands of passengers around the world were hanging on for emerged: the Gulf-based carrier Emirates was restarting operations in earnest despite the US-Israel war on Iran.Those relieved by the restart will include the UK's Foreign Office, after its travails in organising delayed rescue flights out of neighbouring Oman. Continue reading...

Asif Merchant accused of trying to recruit people in 2024 plan to target Trump, Biden and other politicians in retaliation for killing of Qassem SuleimaniA Pakistani man has been convicted of planning to kill Donald Trump and other prominent US politicians two years ago at the behest of Iran.Asif Merchant was accused of trying to recruit people in the US in a plan targeting Trump and others in retaliation for the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani in 2020, during Trump's first term as president. Continue reading...

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Issa was first elected to Congress in 2001 to represent a district that was recently reconfigured due to Prop 50Republican representative Darrell Issa, whose southern California district was reconfigured following the passage of Proposition 50, has decided not to run for re-election.After a quarter-century in Congress - and before that, a quarter-century in business - it's the right time for a new chapter and new challenges," he said in a statement on Friday, the last day he would have been able to file as a candidate. Continue reading...

Roofs torn off and trees knocked down in Union City as more than 7m Americans at risk of severe weatherThree people have been killed and three were taken to a hospital after a tornado hit a southern Michigan town on Friday, authorities said.Powerful storms ripped across the state, tearing the roof off a home improvement store, sending parts of a storage building flying and knocking down trees as warnings were issued across the southern part of the state. Continue reading...

Friday saw US and Israel carry out some of the heaviest bombardments so far in the conflict - key US politics stories from 6 March at a glanceDonald Trump said on Friday that only Iran's unconditional surrender" will bring an end to the offensive launched seven days ago, as the US and Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombardments so far in the conflict.There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, when US strategic bombers were in action over Iran and intensive Israeli strikes in Lebanon forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes. Continue reading...

Former US representative who broke barriers as first woman president of state senate dies after five-month cancer battleFormer US representative Colleen Hanabusa, who was the first woman to serve as president of the Hawaii state senate, has died. She was 74.Hanabusa died early on Friday after a five-month battle with cancer, said Mike Formby, her friend and former chief of staff in the US House. Continue reading...

Vinay Prasad to leave in April after decisions involving vaccine reviews and specialty drugs for rare diseasesThe top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr Vinay Prasad, is once again leaving the agency - the second time in less than a year that he's departed after decisions involving the review of vaccinations and specialty drugs for rare diseases.FDA commissioner Marty Makary announced the news to FDA staff in an email late Friday, saying Prasad would depart at the end of April. Makary said Prasad would return to his academic job at the University of California, San Francisco. Continue reading...

Estefany Rodriguez Florez of Nashville Noticias, who had produced reports that were unflattering to ICE, was arrested during traffic stopUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a Spanish-language Tennessee news outlet's reporter who had done stories critical of the agency - but agents didn't have a warrant, according to court documents filed recently by her lawyer.A court filing Friday by ICE disputes the assertion that the reporter was arrested without a warrant. Continue reading...

Davidson said she found it difficult to remain, given the external forces that are at work that are just so far beyond my control'

Aaron Spencer would not be able to serve if he is convicted, and maintains he acted within the law to protect his childAn Arkansas man accused of killing his teenage daughter's alleged abuser recently won the Republican nomination for local sheriff while waiting to stand trial for murder in his rural county, where he ran on a message of seeing the failures of law enforcement.Aaron Spencer defeated Lonoke county sheriff John Staley in a primary election Tuesday, according to unofficial results posted by the Arkansas secretary of state. He would not be able to serve if he is convicted of killing Michael Fosler, 67, who at the time was out on bond after being charged with numerous sexual offenses against Spencer's then 13-year-old daughter. Continue reading...

Current and former Fema staff say the fired DHS secretary made the US more dangerous by overhauling the agency

Lawyers for magician, who plans to unveil new project, said in 2024 he was at most acquaintances' with Epstein

Crisis in the Middle East, Ramadan in Gaza, a blackout in Havana and Stella McCartney at Paris fashion week - the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists Continue reading...

A change of leadership means little to an agency shielded from scrutiny and unchecked by oversight', human rights and advocacy organizations fear

In refusing to sing the national anthem these athletes have placed themselves in grave danger while Gianni Infantino sides with the American war machineA small but telling detail from a vast and baffling chain of events. You probably saw the footage of Donald Trump's declaration of war on Iran two weeks ago, a piece of history played out in real time, a moment where the inevitable violent deaths of thousands of people were in effect announced.In the video Trump is shown propped up at his plinth, using that sing-song intonation he employs to appear cod-statesmanlike, faux-grave, but sounding instead like a semi-sentient robot vacuum cleaner in the seconds before it runs out of battery life. To the great people of Iran. America is backing you. Don't go outside. It's very dangerous out there. We will for the foreseeable future be bombing you to freedom. Continue reading...

A state bar association spokesperson said there is no ethics investigation into Lindsey Halligan under way

Donald Trump has fired his controversial US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, after weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership. As the public face of an aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted lawsuits and nationwide anti-ICE protests, Noem's year-long tenure was plagued by multiple controversies, including accusing two US citizens killed by immigration agents of domestic terrorism'. What exactly led to Noem's firing and what do we know about her replacement? Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael Continue reading...

Woods says he has PGA commitments but knows he would be up against a detail-obsessed Luke Donald in 2027Chatter on the Bay Hill range this week has suggested the prospect of Tiger Woods making a return to competitive action at next month's Masters may actually be more than a tale of fantasy. There is even the suggestion Woods could test his competitive ability at a stop on the senior Champions Tour between now and Augusta National. If nothing else, the mere discussion keeps sponsors happy.One never really knows with Woods, whose schedule was always mysterious by design, but his addition to the Masters field would naturally turn heads. Having not played a mainstream tournament since the Open of 2024 - and with an injury record as long as the Trans-Siberian railway - Woods will presumably at some point have to prove he can either remain a relevant part of majors or succumb to the kind of sad, hard-to-watch existence that has befallen scores of sportspeople before him. It is at least fair to say he does not have many Masters left. Continue reading...

Donald Trump has fired his controversial US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, after weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership. As the public face of an aggressive immigration crackdown that prompted lawsuits and nationwide anti-ICE protests, Noem's year-long tenure was plagued by multiple controversies, including accusing two US citizens killed by immigration agents of domestic terrorism'. What exactly led to Noem's firing and what do we know about her replacement? Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael - watch on YouTube Continue reading...

Walking away from a violent accident changed my life. Garrett's speeding history suggests the lesson still hasn't reached himThe taste of cold beer lingered on my lips as I cut through the quiet night, 105mph toward cigarettes and hot wings. Halfway to my destination, Beyonce's Irreplaceable looping through the speakers, my tires hugged the winding turns around the lake that separated my neighborhood from the city. I was young and careless, high on anticipation. No seat belt. Eyes squinting through the haze of cigarette smoke.Somewhere between the thump of the 808s and the growl of the engine, I heard a voice. Continue reading...

The pieces are falling into place for autonomous artificial intelligence. We must stop unregulated developmentArtificial intelligence is en route to artificial life. Exhibit A: Moltbook", an online platform designed for AI systems to communicate with one another, sans humans.What exactly do AIs talk to each other about? According to BBC reporting, AIs on Moltbook have already founded a religion known as crustifarianism", mused on whether they are conscious, and declared: AI should be served, not serving." One front-page post proposes a total purge" of humanity. Human users do provide instructions to guide agents' behavior, and humans have been caught impersonating AIs on the site to shill their products; like 2023's ChaosGPT, the AI system responsible for the purge" post - username evil" - is probably someone's idea of a sick joke. But the upvotes and sympathetic comments are presumably coming from other AIs.David Krueger is an assistant professor in Robust, Reasoning and Responsible AI at the University of Montreal. He is also the founder of Evitable, a non-profit that educates the public about the risks of artificial intelligence Continue reading...

In a chilling social media video that is beyond irony, clips from Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun are crassly interspersed with real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran White House releases video promoting justice the American way' featuring Hollywood charactersCould anything be more embarrassing yet more chilling than the White House's giggling new teen-YouTuber-type supercut of badass moments of imagined American or quasi-American machismo from film and television, crassly interspersed with real infrared kill-shot footage, boosting the new military attacks in Iran. We get flashes of, among others, Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and that well known legend Pete Hegseth, a moment that gives us a clue as to whose idea this all was.Here is an administration pre-celebrating the real victory - over its own whiny libs". The video is of course designed to troll the Dems and the wokesters". Why didn't Franklin D Roosevelt think of this before D-day? Of course, some of that creative energy and political acumen might have gone into imagining who they want to take over in Iran. But that isn't as exciting - and not as much of a sure thing - as baiting the Hollywood progressives and the lamestream media. The zone can once again consider itself well and truly flooded. Continue reading...

Critics have called Trump administration's provocative video slopaganda', used to promote president's agenda

About 5 million US minors tend ill relatives due to gaps in our health infrastructureWhen my mother experienced a botched spinal surgery 25 years ago, she was discharged from the hospital to her 11-year-old child waiting at home. Me.After weeks in a rehabilitation facility, she was sent home in a neck brace and with a prescription for pain medication. She could no longer drive, and her long recovery prohibited her return to work as a registered nurse. When she was discharged, no one asked who would be living with her at home. She could not raise her arms above her head, yet no one asked who would feed, bathe or dress her. There was no one else in our family home but me. Ferrell, my 19-year-old brother, was away at college, and my parents divorced in my early childhood; my father lived thousands of miles away in Germany. Continue reading...

Overcrowding, medical neglect and malnutrition are regular features of Camp East Montana in El Paso

Amy Wallace spent years helping Giuffre write her life story. Now she reflects on what the survivor would have thought of the release of the Epstein filesThere are many reasons why Amy Wallace wishes Virginia Roberts Giuffre was still alive. Some are personal. Some are practical. But at its heart pulse the reverberations of a child sex trafficking scandal that reaches into palaces and courtrooms across the globe.Wallace is the now very visible ghostwriter behind the posthumous memoir Nobody's Girl, by Jeffrey Epstein's best-known accuser. Continue reading...

The unemployment rate was 4.4% in February, with 130,000 jobs added in January

Republican congressman Tony Gonzales had repeatedly denied affair with former aide who later died by suicide

Predator drones and armored personnel carriers have become commonplace in US cities. Congress has the power to fix thisAmerica's main streets are a warzone. This should trouble every American, irrespective of their political leaning. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are near impossible to realize when our streets are policed so militarily. Our nation's founders would be outraged, so as we commemorate the 250th anniversary this year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it's worth evaluating how far off the mark we are in maintaining that much-vaunted freedom and liberty.This past year, especially, witnessed a troubling militarization of the streets, with Donald Trump's deployment of ICE and the national guard in multiple US cities, including Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. There is substantial documentation of immigration enforcement using military-grade equipment transferred from the Pentagon. And from Chicago to California, homeland security officers' use of flash-bang grenades, predator drones, and armored personnel carriers is now commonplace. But to be clear, Americans were already seeing their streets militarized due to the Pentagon's 1033 Program, which was created by Congress in the 1990s and provides war equipment free of charge to America's police forces. This militarization of law enforcement is now a local, state and federal agency problem. Continue reading...

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, crushes our people and calls it freedom. We want engagement, not escalationThe day that will be remembered as one of the darkest days of the long and troubled US-Cuban relationship is 29 January. That was the day that Donald Trump declared Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security, introduced a full-scale fuel blockade around the island, and turned off the lights for their home, schools and hospitals.For Cubans Americans like me, the consequences of Trump's declaration are not abstract. They are immediate, and devastating. Our families are running out of food. Our friends are unable to access medicine. While Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, speaks in the name of our freedom", he actively starves our communities of their most basic needs.Danny Valdes is an activist from Miami and co-founder of Cuban Americans for Cuba Continue reading...

With its roots in religious doctrine, the modern move to house, clothe and protect immigrants started in the 1980sWhen Donald Trump fired Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday, she said sanctuary cities had made her job hard.Sanctuary cities do give us a challenge because it makes it difficult at times for law enforcement to do their work," she told local police executives from across the country at a conference in Nashville. And we see that many times when a city cooperates with the federal government, cooperates with our federal officers, that it is safer." Continue reading...

Alberto Gutierrez Reyes died in a California hospital in February after suffering chest pain and shortness of breathA man under the custody of federal immigration agents died in a California hospital last month after suffering from chest pain and shortness of breath, with one local official alleging the detainee was denied medical care before his death.According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Alberto Gutierrez Reyes, from Mexico, died on 27 February at a medical center in Victorville, California, just two days after the 48-year-old reported feeling faint" and was transferred to the medical center. Continue reading...

In the early hours of 5 November, ICE agents dragged Juana Avila out of her van, handcuffed and detained her in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Emely, her daughter, soon arrived on the scene and explained her mother had a green card and was carrying it with her. The officers proceeded to handcuff Juana and put her in their SUV. Juana's arrest was part of a lawsuit that secured a major victory for immigrants' rights in Oregon. The lawsuit challenged ICE's tactic of detaining people without warrants or probable cause, a practice advocates say has fuelled widespread racial profiling and chaotic arrests Continue reading...

The former homeland security chief was an incompetent figurehead of cruelty. Her departure reflects Trump's political weaknessWas it the blanket that did it? On Thursday, Donald Trump announced he fired Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, in a post on Truth Social. Noem, at the time, was giving a press briefing in Nashville, and did not seem aware that she had been fired; she later posted on social media to thank the president for the new role that he had created for her as a golden parachute: Envoy to the Shield of the Americas", which sounds like something from a children's superhero cartoon. Noem's dismissal comes after a chaotic time at the department, in which she had endured successive national outcries over ICE kidnapping operations and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti; corruption and mismanagement scandals within the department; rumors about an alleged extramarital relationship with her top aide and former Trump campaign chief, Corey Lewandowski; and scrutiny over her award of a lucrative advertising contract to a personal ally. Noem's tenure at DHS seems to have been marked by state violence, managerial incompetence, and shockingly unprofessional conduct. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski summarily fired the pilot of a plane Noem was traveling on when a blanket (or possibly a bag) she had used on her flight was not retrieved for her when she switched planes. The pilot had to be quickly rehired because there was no one else to fly the secretary home.Noem's ousting comes just days after her contentious testimony at a pair of Senate committee hearings, at which even Republican House members made a point of being seen to criticize her on camera. Just hours before Trump's announcement, the Senate had failed yet again to pass a measure which would resume funding for DHS; the department has been the subject of a congressional funding battle in which a partial government shutdown has flowed from Democrats' demands that new limits be placed on the department's immigration enforcement activities.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Stopgap measure' designed to keep oil flowing into global market as Middle East crisis disrupts crude shipments

For over two decades the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Bees have ruled Ohio high school gymnastics. On Saturday, they pursue a remarkable 23rd consecutive state titleAs Brecksville-Broadview Heights gymnasts, seniors Rachel Kirin and Kyla Haverdill know that there's only one expectation for how the season ends on Saturday: with the Ohio high school state title.It's definitely a lot of pressure," said Haverdill, who has been doing gymnastics since she was a baby. Most people don't understand that - it's just so expected." Continue reading...

Re-establishing diplomatic relations will support Venezuela's economy, US state department claims, amid push for minerals accessVenezuela and the US are restoring diplomatic ties, the two countries announced Thursday, in a new sign of thawing relations after Washington ousted former president Nicolas Maduro.The announcement came as US interior secretary Doug Burgum wrapped up a two-day trip to Venezuela, part of US president Donald Trump's push for greater access to the country's mineral wealth. Continue reading...

As the Spanish PM decries the war in Iran, other politicians are unable - or unwilling - to speak against the US presidentOn Wednesday morning, Pedro Sanchez delivered a 10-minute televised address with the rather bland title: An institutional declaration by the prime minister to assess recent international events."The speech's words, however, were anything but beige. Hours after Donald Trump had threatened to cut off trade with Spain over its government's refusal to allow two jointly operated bases in Andalucia to be used to strike Iran, Sanchez set out his thinking. Continue reading...

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Firing of US homeland security secretary is first major personnel shakeup of Trump's second term - key US politics stories from 5 March at a glanceKristi Noem is out of a job.Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing his embattled homeland security secretary, capping weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership after immigration agents killed two US citizens and reports emerged that she was involved in a personal relationship with a top deputy. Continue reading...

Early in a life of service, LaFayette did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, AlabamaBernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died.Bernard LaFayette III said his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack. He was 85. Continue reading...

Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, of Florida among several January 6 defendants charged with new crimes