Carlette Duffy has filed housing discrimination complaints, accusing appraisers of violating fair housing lawsA Black Indianapolis homeowner has alleged that appraisers’ valuations of her home more than doubled after she removed items that identified her race and asked a white male friend to attend an appraisal.Carlette Duffy and the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana have filed housing discrimination complaints with the federal government, alleging appraisers violated fair housing laws. The appraisers, the complaints said, purposely used comparable sale prices that were unfair and racially motivated. Continue reading...

President’s visit to highlight push for electric cars came as protests erupted over escalating Israeli and Palestinian clashesAs Joe Biden toured a Ford Motor Company facility to highlight his push for more electric vehicles on Tuesday, protests erupted in parts of Michigan over the escalating clashes between Israelis and Palestinians.Biden toured Ford Motor Co Rouge electric vehicle center to tout part of his American Jobs Plan, which incentivizes Americans to use electric vehicles and proposes building a national network of charging stations. Continue reading...

President stands accused of granting Benjamin Netanyahu impunity as he hews to traditional US support for IsraelJoe Biden’s expression of support for a ceasefire between Israeli forces and Hamas has not quietened calls from progressive Democrats for more decisive intervention, but may have bought some time with the centre and right of his party.Biden was left in little doubt about the strength of feeling on the issue on Tuesday when he visited Dearborn, Michigan, home to about 40,000 Arab Americans. The route taken by his motorcade was lined by protesting crowds waving Palestinian flags. Continue reading...

Incident comes after three people died in another suspected smuggling boat that overturned in the same areaTwenty-three people were rescued from a suspected smuggling boat off the San Diego coast not far from where another vessel broke up a few weeks ago, killing three people.The small boat, known as a panga, was spotted shortly before 3am on Monday by a US border patrol video system as it drifted near rocks off the coast of Point Loma. The coast guard responded but the craft refused commands to stop, authorities said. Continue reading...

Justice department sought to identify user of account posing as California representative’s motherThe Trump administration subpoenaed Twitter for information related to a parody account that criticized Devin Nunes, a close ally to the former president, according to federal court records released on Monday.Related: Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew announces run for New York governor Continue reading...

Confusion continues after CDC lifted mask restrictions last week for fully vaccinated people indoorsThe top infectious diseases expert in the US, Anthony Fauci, has said the new federal guidance on mask-wearing is “not a mandate to take your mask off”, amid continuing confusion about last week’s mask announcement.In an interview with the Pod Save America podcast, Fauci said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lifted mask restrictions for fully vaccinated people last week to assure vaccinated people about the effectiveness of vaccines. Continue reading...

North Carolina deputies were justified in deadly shooting, says DA, because Brown ‘posed an immediate threat’A North Carolina district attorney on Tuesday said officers were justified in the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr, a Black man, in April, and that the sheriff’s deputies who fired will not face charges for killing the 42-year-old father of seven.Andrew Womble said Brown’s death “while tragic, was justified” because three deputies “reasonably” believed deadly force was necessary to protect themselves and others while serving a warrant for Brown’s arrest on felony drug charges. Continue reading...

How many people will become lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth of the Home Office before the June deadline?Since the pandemic stopped British citizens moving freely across Europe, the sacrifice of that same freedom to Brexit has not been much. It isn’t even a cost in Eurosceptic lore, where the right to live and work in 27 other countries was never treated as a reciprocal benefit. It was resented as a licence for them to come over here. Revoking it was priority number one for the UK in talks with Brussels.The referendum result was interpreted as a duty to satisfy people who saw no value in freedom of movement at the expense of people who had built their lives around it. That included plenty of UK citizens at work or in retirement in mainland Europe. The price of a dark blue passport was someone else’s world turned upside down. Continue reading...

35-year-old, who served as special assistant in Trump’s White House, declares: ‘I’m a politician out of the womb’Andrew Giuliani, the son of the embattled Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has announced he will run for New York governor in 2022.The 35-year-old, who served as a special assistant in Trump’s White House and is a contributor to the hard rightwing Newsmax television channel, made the announcement on Tuesday, declaring: “I’m a politician out of the womb.” Continue reading...

After more than a year of doing very little, it’s hard to think of anything to say to friends in the pub – as I found outWhen you start to think about language, or look at it in any close sort of way, you quickly learn that it is a fascinatingly ineffective tool for the job at hand. So we have this handful of noises we can make with our teeth and tongue and throat, yeah? And we can stitch together a few of those noises into words. All the languages are ancient and inspired by one another, and possibly come from the same shapeless root. So all of the complexity of human thought and emotion is poured into the shapes of these grunts we came up with thousands of years ago, right? And that’s it now, we’re stuck with it as the primary form of communication. I am using the same set of tools as my ancestors did to try and describe mind-bendingly modern realities like millennial witches on TikTok who are obsessed with a green rock called moldavite. It seems like trying to make fire with a stone and two twigs. We should have moved on by now.One of the most fascinating aspects of language, of course, is small talk, a special dialect we created to make time spent in a room with somebody slightly less awkward (if we had never evolved language, or society, we would not have either of these problems). It’s the beige, ambient noise we make at someone’s brother-in-law when we are forcibly introduced to them at a barbecue. So what have you been up to?, for example. And did you have to come far? Yeah it has been a bit grey lately, hasn’t it? It’s interesting you mention that, actually: normally I don’t really get hay fever, but this year I did. From early social interactions I have had since the easing of lockdown – I am now expecting some firmly worded “excuse me?” texts from everyone I have spent time outside pubs with over the past few weeks – I can safely say that 2021 is set to be the worst year for small talk on human record. We’ve either forgotten how to do it, or we have actively erased the function from our brains through lack of use. Continue reading...

Demings, who was considered a potential vice-president to Joe Biden, is ‘98.6%’ certain to run against senator, reports PoliticoMarco Rubio avoided a Senate challenge from Ivanka Trump but he seems certain to face one from Val Demings, a Democratic Florida congresswoman who was the first Black female police chief of Orlando and who was considered as a potential vice-president to Joe Biden.An unnamed senior adviser told Politico Demings, 64, was “98.6%” certain to run against Rubio in the midterm elections next year. Continue reading...

Joe Biden expresses support for ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers Hamas. Plus, the ‘patriotic millionaires’ shaming Jeff Bezos

Despite fraud and money laundering costing the UK billions of pounds a year, they were not mentioned in the Queen’s speechIn March, the government published its review of all the threats facing this country, and how it would respond to them, from hostile autocracies and cybercrime to terrorism and trade. Running through the pages of this huge and complex document, like lead through a pencil, is one consistent vulnerability: dark money.No matter who you identify as our adversaries – mafia groups, al-Qaida, whoever – they all hide their wealth in the shadows of the financial system: by obscuring ownership with shell companies, or using dodgy banks, or by holding wealth in the form of physical assets, such as fine art. And shining light on those shadows will expose their secrets and help make us all safer. It will also make us more prosperous: more than 2,200 acts of fraud are reported every day in Britain. Those crimes cost us billions upon billions of pounds, and often most affect older and vulnerable people. Continue reading...

Flying on batteries presents major technological challenges but companies will be demonstrating their best efforts over the next year in CaliforniaOver the next year, at a research site on the fringes of the Mojave desert in California, Nasa will hunt for a breakthrough against one of the climate crisis’s most stubborn challenges – how to eliminate carbon pollution from aviation via a new generation of electric airplanes.Prodded by Joe Biden’s quest to slash the US’s planet-heating emissions to net zero, Nasa is corralling companies to demonstrate improved ways to power aircraft via batteries rather than jet fuel, with the aim of phasing in electric flights for Americans within the next 15 years. Continue reading...

Loopholes surrounding these weapons make them untraceable – and a hot commodity in many vulnerable communitiesWhen Brian Muhammad, a program manager at a gun violence prevention group in California, asked a 16-year-old boy in 2018 how young people were getting guns, he assumed the answer would be Nevada, the neighboring state with looser gun laws.“Who would waste time going to Nevada when you can just get them in the mail and put it together?” the Stockton teen nonchalantly replied. Continue reading...

Initiation rites among athletes have killed at least one person a year since the 1950s. And the end of the pandemic may result in a rise of problemsNolte McElroy, a 19-year-old player for the University of Texas football team, died from electric shock when he crawled through mattresses charged with electric current during a fraternity initiation ritual in 1928. Nearly 100 years later, hazing is still a pervasive and sometimes deadly element of college and high school culture.Though usually linked in popular imagination to drunken stunts in fraternity and sorority houses, new research indicates that hazing is most likely to occur in a sports context. And some experts fear that after a year of remote learning, limited contact from mentors and an urge to cut loose as restrictions end, 2021 will see a surge in cases as players make up for lost time amid a leadership vacuum. Continue reading...

Despite being from the same party and same state, Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly give differing answers as to how party might keep powerWhen Democrat Mark Kelly was sworn in to office late last year it marked the end of a nearly 70-year drought of Arizona being represented by two Democrats.But since then Kelly, a former astronaut, and his counterpart senator, Kyrsten Sinema, have plotted decidedly different paths in the Senate. Despite being from the same party and the same state and representing the same electorate, the pair of Arizona Democrats have become a sort of political odd couple. Continue reading...

A Union Pacific train hauling hazardous materials derailed and caught fire near the city of Sibley, Iowa, forcing the evacuation of 80 people.Drone footage shows 47 train carriages strewn across the track with some parts on fire. Emergency officials told local radio the train was carrying fertiliser and ammonium Continue reading...

Analysis: Biden’s attorney general has made a clean break with Bill Barr, making domestic terrorism his ‘top priority’ winning won praise for his moves on civil and voting rightsThe new attorney general, Merrick Garland, has signaled an ambitious agenda to fight domestic terrorism in America including white supremacists and hate crimes, while bolstering civil rights and voting rights, critical areas that got short shrift from the Trump administration, say ex-federal prosecutors and members of Congress.The shift at the Department of Justice represents one of the most stark turnarounds under Joe Biden from the Trump era. Under the previous attorney general, Bill Barr, the justice department was often seen as at Trump’s beck and call, the former president accused of treating it as virtually his own legal service. Continue reading...

White House reported the US president urged Israel ‘to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians’

First couple’s income dropped from nearly $1m while Harris and Emhoff paid even steeper priceJoe Biden forfeited more than a third of his annual income in running for the White House last year, with his newly disclosed 2020 tax returns showing a drop in earnings from almost $1m in 2019 to $607,336.Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, released their 2020 joint tax returns on Monday. They show that the couple saw their income fall by some 38% from 2019, largely because Biden had to give up high-paying bookings on the speaker circuit when he launched his presidential campaign. Continue reading...

Investigators suspect an arsonist may have sparked the Palisades fire and have taken a suspect into custody, mayor saysA brush fire in southern California has torn through more than 1,300 acres, shrouding parts of Los Angeles with plumes of smoke and ash and prompting evacuation orders for at least 1,000 residents.Investigators suspect an arsonist may have sparked the Palisades fire, and have taken a suspect into custody, Los Angeles’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, announced at a Monday morning news conference. Continue reading...

Demonstrations organized by Patriotic Millionaires, whose members earn incomes of over $1m or have assets worth over $5mA group of millionaires took to the streets on Monday, protesting in front of homes in New York and Washington owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the richest man in the world.The protest organized by Patriotic Millionaires, a coalition of wealthy individuals who push for progressive policy changes, was staged to mark Tax Day, on which Americans submit their income tax returns to the federal government. Continue reading...

Some businesses lift mask mandates while others keep them; New York will drop its mandate indoors for vaccinated peopleThe patchwork system for mask guidance in the US will continue despite federal authorities’ decision last week to say people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 mostly do not need to wear masks indoors.Companies including Walmart and Starbucks lifted mask mandates in response. Others, including Gap, plan to keep them in place. States including New Jersey and California also plan to keep mask rules in place. Continue reading...

Board members reportedly felt his presence was inappropriate during the investigation into a romantic relationship last yearBoard members at Microsoft decided in 2020 it was not appropriate for the tech giant’s co-founder, Bill Gates, to continue sitting on its board as they investigated a romantic relationship with a female employee that was deemed inappropriate, the Wall Street Journal reported.Microsoft subsequently confirmed the investigation had taken place, and said it had provided support to the female employee concerned. Continue reading...

Governor Henry McMaster signed law on Friday amid a shortage of lethal injection drugs for death row prisonersThe governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, has quietly signed into law a bill that requires inmates on death row to choose between a firing squad or the electric chair if lethal injection is not available.The law, signed without ceremony on Friday, comes amid a shortage of lethal injection drugs that has affected the state’s ability to implement capital punishment. South Carolina has not executed any prisoners since 2011. Continue reading...

I know from personal experience that coming off these medications can be horrible. I also researched ways to make it easier

Cracks are emerging in the wall that has historically separated any criticism of Israel from American politics – but Joe Biden is still not listeningOn Saturday, an Israeli air strike killed 10 people from the same extended family after missiles hit the family’s house in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza. A five-month-old baby, the sole survivor, was pulled out alive from the rubble, having been trapped next to his deceased mother. As I write this, at least 180 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 52 children. Ten Israelis have also been killed, including two children.All the innocents slain, whether Palestinian or Israeli, must be mourned, and it’s beyond distressing to know that the number of deaths will only rise as the days go on. What will remain steady, however, is this morbidly lopsided ratio of death. Many more innocent Palestinians will be killed than Israelis. That fact, along with over 70 years of continued Palestinian dispossession (of which the Sheikh Jarrah evictions are a part), has galvanized global opposition to Israel’s latest actions. Popular demonstrations have broken out around the world in support of Palestinian rights. Since the United States provides the key financial, military and diplomatic backing to Israel, one wonders where Joe Biden and his administration are during this crucial moment. Continue reading...

Kim Potter, charged with second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting Black man, has pre-trial hearing on MondayA former suburban Minneapolis police officer charged with second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting the 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright is scheduled to appear in court via videoconference on Monday.The former Brooklyn Center officer Kim Potter, who is white, has an omnibus hearing, also known as a pre-trial hearing, on Monday afternoon in Hennepin county district court. The purpose of such a hearing is to go over evidence and determine if there is probable cause for the case to proceed. Continue reading...

New company aims to ‘compete with world’s largest streamers’ such as Netflix and Disney+

The threat to our neighbours’ homes is the latest chapter in a long campaign to erase the Palestinian presence in JerusalemSheikh Jarrah today smells of dirty socks and rotting flesh. Israeli police vehicles, known as “skunk trucks”, have been spraying Palestinian homes, shops, restaurants, public spaces and cultural institutions with putrid water at high pressure. The water causes vomiting, stomach pain and skin irritation, and was originally developed by an Israeli company to repel protesters. The stench lasts for days on clothes, skin and homes, leading Palestinians to joke that Jerusalem all smells like shit. Protesters are also targeted in other ways. They are brutally beaten, arrested by the police, some on mounted horses, attacked by settlers and sprayed with rubber bullets.These forms of collective punishment aim to stop the growing movement to save Sheikh Jarrah and halt the dispossession of 27 Palestinian families of their homes there. My family has lived in Jerusalem for several generations since they fled the Armenian genocide in 1915. In 1948, during the Nakba, they were expelled from their home in West Jerusalem and found refuge in the city’s eastern part. Now we live in Sheikh Jarrah and my neighbours are about to be expelled from their homes. Continue reading...

Guardian investigation finds FBI failing to collect data from police departments on use of force – where’s the transparency?In the weeks after George Floyd was murdered, US police flooded the streets in more than 100 cities with some form of teargas, according to an analysis by the New York Times.A later analysis of 7,305 protest events in all 50 states, involving millions of attendees during May and June, found that police used teargas or related substances in about 183 of these events, or 2.5% of them. Experts called the use of teargas a dangerous choice during a pandemic involving a respiratory disease; hundreds of protesters in one city have reported lasting health effects, including abnormal menstrual cycles. Continue reading...

Gaza comes under what appears to be even heavier attack as Israel vows to continue at ‘full force’. Plus, could Matthew McConaughey be the next governor of Texas?

I believe online dating has made single women overall less happy, less likely to find a long-term partner, and more at risk of sexual violenceI’m not exactly sure when I decided that dating apps were not for me. Maybe it was the time I went on a date with a guy who tried to recite the entire script of the 1988 horror movie Child’s Play (“And then Chucky says, ‘Wanna play?’”). Or maybe it was when I was on a date with a guy who grabbed my crotch under the table not 10 minutes after I’d sat down. But by the time I was ready to permanently delete these apps, I was also hooked: hooked on platforms meticulously designed to be addictive – as well as, I would argue, to deliver up women’s bodies to men.Related: Blind date: ‘He said, “Do you want to get married”’ Continue reading...

Mike Collier lost out to the Trumpist Dan Patrick for lieutenant governor last time but thinks he better embodies the state’s progressive past – and futureNo football team ever lost a game, says Mike Collier. The players just ran out of time.In 2018, Collier tried to unseat the Republican incumbent, Dan Patrick, as Texas’s lieutenant governor, arguably the most powerful role in state government. He watched poll numbers trend closer and closer – until Patrick bested him by just under five points. Continue reading...

Dallas Buyer’s Club star has been ‘quietly making calls to influential people in Texas political circles’, according to PoliticoThe actor Matthew McConaughey appears to be seriously considering entering politics, according to a report on Sunday which said the Dallas Buyer’s Club star has been “quietly making calls to influential people in Texas political circles” as he mulls a run for governor.Related: Caitlyn Jenner’s bid to be California’s next Governator is falling flat Continue reading...

Analysis: US president may find himself increasingly isolated in his resolute defence of IsraelIn his staunch defence of Israel, Joe Biden is sticking to a course set decades ago as a young senator, and so far he has not given ground on the issue to the progressive wing of his party or many Jewish Democrats urging a tougher line towards Benjamin Netanyahu.Biden has even been prepared to face isolation at the UN security council, at the potential cost of his own credibility on multilateralism and human rights. But analysts say that as the death toll rises with no sign of a ceasefire, the domestic and international pressures on the president could become impossible to ignore. Continue reading...

New divisions of unarmed civilian employees to handle non-moving traffic violations and to respond to mental health crisisElected officials in the Minneapolis suburb where a police officer shot dead Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April have approved a plan to dramatically change policing practices.Related: Teargas, flash-bangs: the devastating toll of police tactics on Minnesota children Continue reading...

Just as the Black Lives Matter protests were not only about one killing, we are facing a whole regime of oppressionI started going to demonstrations when I was 17. At first, I went to protests against Israel’s military occupation. Then we also began to protest against the authoritarianism of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and the sickening rivalry between Palestinian political factions. For Palestinians, protest has become a way of life – a way to be steadfast, to persevere.Over the past decade, much of this burden of protest has been borne by individual Palestinian families facing expulsion or violence at the hands of soldiers and settlers. The threat of evictions or demolitions will spark a local protest, in the hope of preventing this or that particular outrage. But right now the attention of the world is on us not as individuals, but as a collective, as Palestinians. It is not only about one village or one family or “only those in the West Bank” or “only those in Jerusalem”. Continue reading...

Embattled Republican congressman compares allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to congressional earmarksThe embattled Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has compared allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to earmarks, a congressional process by which spending measures beneficial to representatives’ districts are attached to legislation.“I’m being falsely accused of exchanging money for naughty favors,” he said, speaking to Republicans in Ohio on Saturday. Continue reading...