Hannity worked on ‘swamp creature’ ad that ran during Hannity’s show, according to Mike Bender’s Frankly, We Did Win This ElectionThe Fox News host Sean Hannity was criticised for appearing at a Trump rally in 2018 but according to a new book he was involved again with Trump’s campaign in 2020, helping write an ad that aired on his primetime show.Related: Push to review 2020 votes across US an effort to ‘handcuff’ democracy Continue reading...

After Texas Democrats walked out of the state capitol before the bill’s midnight deadline, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, announced he would reconvene the legislature for a special session and include the issue on his agenda

The potential consequences of the origins of the virus are shattering – if they can be provedThere was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy.Like all plagues, Covid often felt like the hand of God on earth, scourging the people for their sins against higher learning and visibly sorting the righteous from the unmasked wicked. “Respect science,” admonished our yard signs. And lo!, Covid came and forced us to do so, elevating our scientists to the highest seats of social authority, from where they banned assembly, commerce, and all the rest. Continue reading...

The Biden administration and the immigration agency tracks more than 96,000 immigrants, using tactics that ‘inhibit progress’Human rights groups are calling on the Biden administration and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to put an end to a digital surveillance program that keeps tabs on nearly nearly 100,000 immigrants.A new report called Ice Digital Prisons, authored by the Latinx organizing group Mijente and immigration legal rights group Just Futures Law, highlights how Ice uses apps, GPS-tracking ankle monitors and facial recognition software to monitor people – saying these tactics “do more harm and inhibit any true progress in providing the social and economic tools for immigrants to thrive in their communities”. Continue reading...

EU forecast to reap extra €50bn per year with UK expected to gain €200m from BP aloneA proposal to be tabled by the US president, Joe Biden, at the upcoming G7 meeting for a 15% global corporate tax rate could reap the EU €50bn (£43bn) a year, and earn the UK nearly €200m extra alone from the British multinational BP, according to research.Should the tax rate be set higher at 25%, the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies, the EU would earn nearly €170bn extra a year – more than 50% of current corporate tax revenue and 12% of total health spending in the bloc. Continue reading...

The league, as ever, projects lofty goals. But joining itself with a president who has been accused of human rights abuses was not a good lookLast month, just two days after releasing his sixth studio album, J. Cole made his professional basketball debut in the NBA’s Basketball Africa League (BAL). The Grammy Award winner, regarded as one of the most influential rappers of his generation, played for the Rwanda Patriots Basketball Club, where he scored three points, secured several rebounds and a pair of assists en route to his team’s 83-60 win against Nigeria’s Rivers Hoopers.The match-up, which also happened to be the first-ever BAL game, was broadcast on national television in the United States and was met with widespread attention from international media outlets. The tournament’s inaugural season consisted of 12 teams from 12 African countries, including Rwanda, Algeria, Senegal, Mali, Cameroon, and Egypt. Continue reading...

United Mine Workers of America members are fighting for better wages and benefits and have filed unfair labor practice charges against Warrior Met CoalAbout 1,100 coalminers represented by the United Mine Workers of America in Brookwood, Alabama, have been on strike since the start of April against Warrior Met Coal amid new union contract negotiations.As the strike heads into its third month, workers are fighting for improvements to wages and benefits after they say several concessions were made by workers under the previous contract in 2016 when Warrior Met Coal took control of the mines in the wake of a bankruptcy filing by Walter Energy. Continue reading...

Move by conservative activists, experts say, is a dangerous attempt to sow doubt of results that strikes at heart of democratic processConservative activists across America are pushing efforts to review the 2020 vote more than six months after the election, a move experts say is a dangerous attempt to continue to sow doubt about the results of the 2020 election that strikes at the heart of America’s democratic process. Continue reading...

Over 24 hours on 31 May 1921, Tulsa witnessed what is thought to be the worst single event of white supremacist violence against African Americans in the nation’s history

Governor Greg Abbott plans to call special session after Democrats block 11th-hour attempt to ram through bill to make voting harderRepublicans in Texas are already plotting to resurrect their fight for sweeping voting restrictions after Democratic lawmakers walked out of the state capitol and blocked an 11th-hour attempt to ram through legislation that would have made it harder to cast a ballot.Texas governor Greg Abbott – who leads the state’s domineering Republican majority – has announced he will include the high-stakes issue on his agenda when he reconvenes the legislature for a rapid-fire special session. He called the failure of the bill “deeply disappointing”. Continue reading...

President’s speech marks 100 years since the mass killing as part of a day of remembrance for the hundreds of Black victims

Joe Biden warned in a speech commemorating the US's war dead on Memorial Day that American democracy was 'in peril' and called for empathy among his fellow citizens.Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, the president, joined by the first lady, Jill Biden, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and her husband, paid tribute to America’s war dead

President calls for empathy in Memorial Day speech and warns that democracy is in danger

First-time buyers make up more than one-fifth of Americans who purchased guns amid huge number of firearms already circulatingGun sales, which spiked sharply during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, have continued to increase in the United States, with first-time buyers making up more than one-fifth of Americans who purchased guns.The development will frustrate and disappoint gun control advocates who point out the huge number of firearms already circulating in American society as well as a seemingly never-ending cycle of mass shootings. Continue reading...

'[It’s] just underlying racism, and treating people like they’re in a human zoo,' Kyrie Irving said after a water bottle was thrown at him following Brooklyn’s 141-126 victory over the Celtics on Sunday night. As Irving walked off the court, he was nearly hit by a bottle thrown from the stands. Police quickly surrounded a man before leading him out in handcuffs. 'Your mother wouldn't be proud of you throwing water bottles at basketball players, or spitting on players or tossing popcorn,' Nets forward Kevin Durant said: 'So grow the fuck up and enjoy the game. It's bigger than you.'

America Strong Pac has launched website which features all of the Republican rebels states: ‘Remove the 10 pretenders’The 10 Republican House representatives who voted to impeach Donald Trump are all being targeted by a well-funded new political group largely funded by supporters of the former president.America Strong Pac has launched a website which features all 10 of the Republican rebels, whose vote angered Trump and his legion of loyal followers who still hold immense power in the party despite his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Continue reading...

New indictment is part of a larger criminal conspiracy case that now includes 19 members of the far-right groupFour additional members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group that took part in the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January, have been indicted for participating in the event.Court documents unsealed on Sunday named three individuals living in Florida – Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Jason Dolan, 44, of Wellington, and William Isaacs, 21, of Kissimmee. The three appeared last Thursday before US magistrates in Tampa, West Palm Beach and Orlando. A fourth person’s name was hidden. Continue reading...

Thinktank says Brexit and Covid-19 mean Britain could take bigger economic hit over next few years

California emerged as the bastion of Democratic opposition to Trump. Now Texas is showing it’s ready to do the same to BidenFirst it was tighter restrictions on voting. Then stringent limits on abortion. Then a relaxation of gun laws. And that was just May.Related: Biden move to investigate Covid origins opens new rift in US-China relations Continue reading...

While LeBron James and Kevin Durant still grab the spotlight, the players who will dominate the NBA in the next decade are starting to emergeWatch anything too closely and you may well fail to see the bigger picture.That is the case with this season’s NBA playoffs, in which the 36-year-old LeBron James is still firmly in the spotlight, while other stars over 30, like Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and James Harden are also playing a prominent role. But zoom out and you will see a new generation of superstars who look poised and ready to take over the league, using this postseason as their coming out party. Continue reading...

One of the darkest chapters in the long and turbulent history of racial violence in America is commemorated in Oklahoma on Monday, the 100th anniversary of a rampage by a white mob that left an estimated 300 Black people dead. Hundreds of Black-owned businesses, churches and homes were burned, leaving about 8,000 homeless and a further 800 injured Continue reading...

The fear of dying in New York was uppermost in my mind as my bruised foot swelled and turned black: I could never afford itI had dropped my kids off at school and was lifting one of their scooters, when I turned sharply and felt something ping in my foot. It wasn’t much; a bad cramp, I thought, more painful than usual, which would probably wear off by the time I got home. I limped back to my apartment, took painkillers and put it on ice. By the next morning, the foot had begun to turn black. By the evening, the flesh was rising like dough. “Ew,” said a friend, when I showed it to her that night. “You need a pedicure. Also: you need to see a doctor right now.”It’s either laziness, Britishness, or a strain of my general belief in denial, but in most circumstances I’d rather suffer than bother the doctor. In the US, this impulse is compounded by the knowledge that, however much you spend on health insurance, even the smallest engagement with the medical establishment will result in a cascade of bills. I’m still fighting with my insurers over a $1,000 charge from last summer. Continue reading...

For many descendants, the past is still present. They explain how the legacy of the massacre, which was suppressed for so long, lives on todayEarlier this month, the three known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre testified in Congress about the world they lost when a white mob burned their thriving community to the ground. “The neighborhood I fell asleep in that night was rich – not just in terms of wealth, but in culture, community and heritage,” said Viola Fletcher, who was visiting the US capital for the first time in her 107 years. “Within a few hours, all of that was gone.” Continue reading...

It was among the worst acts of violence in US history, and no one was held accountable – how much has changed in the last 100 years? Continue reading...

That two major-winning golf stars may not see eye to eye should be no surprise to anybodyDuring a stroll at Bethpage Black, in advance of the 2019 US PGA Championship, I struck up conversation with one of Europe’s leading Ryder Cup players. As said golfer prolonged his reconnaissance work on a green, he waved for the group behind to play through. He duly identified one of the party as yet another hero of the yellow and blue for the biennial event against the United States. “If I knew it was him, I would have left him waiting on the fairway.” And he wasn’t kidding.That snapshot came to mind last week, as a supposedly epic spat between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau sent golf’s chattering classes into a state of frenzy. Koepka, at Kiawah Island’s staging of the US PGA, backed off mid-Golf Channel interview as DeChambeau walked behind the platform. DeChambeau is heard to vent his feelings – as he does – and his metal spikes created the kind of background racket that may well have led to a retake anyway. Koepka, his disdain perfectly clear, claims he “lost his train of thought” amid DeChambeau’s “bullshit”. Whether DeChambeau is actually addressing Koepka is unclear but it mattered not; the snippet was mysteriously leaked and, millions of page views later, created a level of general excitement that typically greets mating season for the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo. Continue reading...

On the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, artist Bayeté Ross Smith uses archival photos to create immersive 360 scenes of these events. He finds that the underlying political and economic injustices were not only never addressed, but repeated time and again over the past century.This story was suppressed from history books and the white perpetrators were never held accountable. And it wasn't just Tulsa. Dozens of other racial terrorism events from 1917 to 1921 have also gone untold, even within the victims' families.

‘We don’t want to declare victory prematurely,’ expert tells the Guardian while 2021 has seen more global cases than all of 2020Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert in the US, has warned it is too early to declare victory against Covid-19 as cases fall in the country to the lowest rates since last June.“We don’t want to declare victory prematurely because we still have a ways to go,” Fauci told the Guardian in an interview. “But the more and more people that can get vaccinated, as a community, the community will be safer and safer.” Continue reading...

SB7 bill that would introduce restrictions making it harder to vote fails to pass before midnight deadline after Democrats leave HouseTexas Republican have failed in their efforts to push through one of the most restrictive voting measures in the US after Democrats walked out of the House at the last minute, leaving the bill languishing ahead of a midnight deadline.The exodus came at the instruction of Chris Turner, the House Democratic chairman, who told colleagues at 10.35pm to “take your key and leave the chamber discreetly”, referring to the key that locks the voting mechanism on their desks, the Washington Post reported. Continue reading...

Daughter of former president John F Kennedy was US ambassador to Japan during Obama administrationCaroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of President John F Kennedy, is reportedly in line to be announced as the next US ambassador to Australia.US-based news website Axios, citing “people familiar with the matter” reported: “Caroline Kennedy is in line to be US ambassador to Australia”, while the AP said the US president, Joe Biden, was “giving serious consideration” to nominating Kennedy to a high-profile ambassadorial role in Asia. Continue reading...

Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes has travelled the world looking for clues to how the US came to elect Donald Trump and he found parallels everywhere. But is there a way of stopping it from happening again?When Donald Trump won the US election in 2016 it upturned the assumptions of many in America about who was electable to the highest office in the land. It seemed obvious to many that Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton and yet he won a stunning victory.For the former Obama aide Ben Rhodes it was a moment to take stock and search for clues as to how it could have happened. He tells Anushka Asthana that his quest took him around the world to countries that had elected their own ‘strongman’ leaders. He asks what lessons can be learned to avoid another Trump-style presidency? Continue reading...

At least two people were killed and more than 20 injured in Miami early on Sunday as attackers opened fire on concertgoers outside a banquet hall. It was the city’s second deadly mass shooting in little more than 24 hours.Alfredo Ramirez of Miami-Dade police department confirmed that two people died at the scene and ‘20 to 25’ people were in hospital.

Owner of HatWRKS appeared to apologize Saturday as protesters outside the store held signs including ‘no Nazis in Nashville’Stetson has said it will stop selling its products through a hat store in Nashville, Tennessee which advertised anti-vaccination patches in the style of a Star of David, the badge which Jewish people were made to wear by the Nazis.Related: ‘Tyranny’: Idaho governor repeals lieutenant’s mask mandate ban Continue reading...

As state legislature falls short on Medicaid expansion, campaigners vow to keep addressing healthcare disparitiesWhen medical staff prepped Shawn Thierry for an emergency C-section, she knew something was very wrong. After an epidural, excruciating pain ran through her legs. Soon, she could barely breathe.Related: The Texas abortion ban is a performance of misogyny. But it might get worse | Moira Donegan Continue reading...

Red tape put father-of-two Jason Yu out of business in San Francisco before he could even startHe tried, and he failed. But the worst part is he never got a chance to even start. And now he’s got a $200,000 debt to pay off.That’s the story of Jason Yu, a 30-year-old father of two who had the audacity to attempt to open up an ice cream shop in San Francisco’s Mission District. Unfortunately, the city got in his way. Continue reading...

As even Uber recognises the GMB, and the pandemic threatens jobs, it is no surprise that more employees are joining unionsYou need to take good news where you can find it. Last week, that place was new trade union membership statistics. The story for decades has been that unions are in irreversible decline, but membership in 2020 rose by 118,000 to 6.6m, the biggest increase for two decades and the fourth year in a row that employee membership has increased – something not seen since the 1970s.This is good news for everyone who wants to see the quality of work rise and inequality fall. But it’s not time to welcome a new collectivist dawn just yet. All of last year’s growth came from the pandemic-induced growth of the public sector, where 52% of employees are members (as against 13% in the private sector). That isn’t a sustainable basis for revival. Low-paid workers are at most risk from labour market abuses, but least likely to be in a union: just 3% of hospitality workers are members. Meanwhile, the fact that baby boomers, with higher unionisation rates, are retiring poses a long-term drag to membership. Continue reading...

In cities where police gassed protesters, investigation finds history of racial oppression and struggle to implement reformsOne year ago, in the week after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police, an uprising ripped across the country at a dizzying pace. As millions flooded the streets police used teargas against demonstrators in more than 100 cities, producing a sense that the nation teetered on the edge of chaos and revolution.Some of the cities were not large metropolitan areas, but medium-sized towns that exemplified political and social forces that have repressed Black communities for nearly 100 years. The Guardian examined three cities – Asheville, North Carolina; Wichita, Kansas; and Spokane, Washington – and found similar trends were at play. Continue reading...

Last week’s detention of an activist in Belarus is only the latest of many signals that we must relearn how to defend our valuesThe west’s ineffectiveness in the face of the arrant use of torture, unlawful arrest, savage imprisonment without trial and flagrant abuse of international law, even close to home in Europe, is among the bleakest symptoms of our times. The people power we saw embodied in the strikes in the Gdańsk shipyards, the fall of the Berlin Wall and even the Arab spring has not presaged the new era of democracy we once hoped for. Instead, the 21st century is becoming defined as a new era of agile autocracy and vicious strong-man rule.As the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, prepared the UK’s response to last Sunday’s forced landing of a Ryanair jet by a Belarusian MiG-29 over its airspace to secure the trumped-up detention of a well-known democracy activist, Roman Protasevich, it must have crossed his mind that Britain’s response would have been so much stronger within the EU. The UK is now a little Sir Echo, weakening the west. It is part of the reason why Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, can act with impunity, as he refuses to acknowledge his loss of last’s August presidential election. Continue reading...

Countrywide campaigns for secretaries of state underscore new Republican focus to take control of election administrationRepublicans who have embraced baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen are now running to serve as the chief elections officials in several states, a move that could give them significant power over election processes. Continue reading...