US news | The Guardian

Soccer in the US is often seen as a preserve of the suburbs. But a new team in New York City is looking to upend stereotypesIn most of the world, from the favelas of Brazil to the working-class streets of London and Lagos, soccer is seen as the people’s game. A sport where all you need to play is a ball and a flat piece of ground.In the US however, it is often seen as the pastime for the kids of well-heeled suburbanites, who can afford expensive coaching and the hefty fees required to join junior teams. Thus, we see soccer in the United States as it is today: serving mostly the white, wealthy and well-connected. As Zlatan Ibrahimovic said during his brief time with LA Galaxy, “…not everyone has the money needed and the sport should be something for everyone, because it unites races and people.” Continue reading...

British MPs have turned on Boris Johnson – but what tidy end did they expect from this imperialist experiment?Britain’s MPs this week uttered one long howl of anguish over Afghanistan. Their immediate targets were Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, politicians who just happened to be on the watch when Kabul’s pack of cards collapsed. But their real concern was that a collective 20-year experiment in “exporting western values” to Afghanistan had fallen into chaos. MPs wanted someone other than themselves to blame. A politician is never so angry as when proved wrong.Related: Even the crisis in Afghanistan can't break the spell of Britain's delusional foreign policy | Owen Jones Continue reading...

Many people are tired and miserable – and that’s just the cartoonists!

Members of Congress warn that those who aided US military are in grave danger as they wait for evacuations and paperworkFor the two decades the US waged war in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of Afghans worked with American forces at great risk to themselves and their families. A small fraction of those translators, drivers and other workers were promised pathways to special visas to leave the country and relocate to the US in return for their service.But now, after a hasty US military departure and an even faster takeover by the Taliban, thousands of applicants to these programs and other refugees find themselves in limbo with an unclear timeline on when their applications will be processed and serious questions about their safety while they wait. Continue reading...

A week after Andrew Cuomo resigned as the governor of the state of New York, Jonathan Freedland revisits a conversation he had with Alexis Grenell back in March. The pair discuss how Cuomo rose to the top, and then fell spectacularly from grace. Continue reading...

State Republicans have scheduled a voting bill hearing for Saturday as the house was able to restore the quorumAfter a 38-day walkout, Texas Democrats who fled the state capitol to block Republican efforts to pass harsh new voting restrictions returned to the floor of the state house of representatives.The house now has the required two-thirds of members necessary for a quorum to conduct legislative business, and Republicans have already scheduled a hearing on the voting bill for Saturday. The standoff reached a tipping point last week after Republicans authorized law enforcement to find and arrest their missing Democratic colleagues and lead them back to the capitol. Continue reading...

Our leaders made the mistake of ignoring it was the Afghans’ country and they knew it better than we didI was one of the thousands of Australians who were deployed to Afghanistan – me, as an Australian federal police officer – over the last 20 years. Despite all the good we achieved while there, I now feel as though we failed; failed the good people of Afghanistan, especially those who risked everything by helping us.Last week one of the translators I worked alongside reached out to me in desperation. He wanted my support to help him and his family flee Afghanistan for the safety of Australia. I didn’t hesitate because it was my moral obligation to help this man who’d unselfishly aided me, and many others, at great risk to his own personal safety. While I’m pleased the Australian government has started some evacuation flights, I trust their understanding of moral obligation means they’ll continue to get out of that country as many of our proven friends as possible. Continue reading...

Deaths of couple, their daughter and their dog remain unexplained, says sheriff’s officeInvestigators were searching for clues in the unexplained deaths of a California couple, their baby and the family dog in a remote area of the Sierra national forest.John Gerrish, his wife, Ellen Chung, their one-year-old daughter, Muji, and their dog were found dead on a hiking trail in Mariposa county. A family friend had reported them missing Monday evening. Continue reading...

President defends shots as millions worldwide are unvaccinated: US has ‘provided more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined’Joe Biden has said that he and first lady Jill Biden plan on getting a booster shot and is comfortable doing so while millions around the world remain unvaccinated – because America has “provided more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined”.Related: California fire destroys mobile homes as 11,000 firefighters battle blazes Continue reading...

Elizabeth Johnson Jr, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1693, could be cleared thanks to an eighth-grade civics classMore than three centuries after a Massachusetts woman was convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death, she’s finally on the verge of being exonerated – thanks to a curious eighth-grade civics class.State senator Diana DiZoglio, a Democrat from Methuen, has introduced legislation to clear the name of Elizabeth Johnson Jr, who was condemned in 1693 at the height of the Salem witch trials but never executed. Continue reading...

Cheap money, the Delta variant and China’s sluggish performance add up to tough times aheadFinancial markets these days react to any whiff of tighter monetary policy in the US, so a little drama on Thursday was par for the course after the US Federal Reserve’s minutes suggested the winding-down of the huge pandemic stimulus programme could start soon. The Fed will still be buying assets in the autumn, but maybe not at the rate of $120bn (£89bn) a month. Commodities fell and shares globally took a hit. The FTSE 100 index dropped 1.5%.Context is needed, of course. The Footsie had risen by 25% in a straight line, more or less, since the arrival of vaccines last November. If one goes back further to the start of the pandemic, the S&P 500, the main US index, has roughly doubled from its low point. So the odd percentage decline hardly shows up on a medium-term view. Continue reading...

Largest increases among those in their 30s and under 18 as US urges world leaders not to attend UN meeting in personHospitalizations of people under the age of 50 with Covid-19 are now at the highest levels seen in the US since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the latest government data shows.The largest increases in hospitalizations was among those in their 30s and the under-18s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The previous peak in coronavirus patients under 50 needing to be hospitalized was in January this year. Continue reading...

Despite pandemic, election ‘report card’ shows record high turnout, embrace of mail and early voting and relatively few ballot rejectionsHappy Thursday, Continue reading...

Establishing humanitarian corridors and monitoring human rights is crucial – and achievable – as the Taliban take control

Coalition of civil rights groups documents federal prosecutions of activists after the murder of George Floyd last yearThe federal government deliberately targeted Black Lives Matter protesters via heavy-handed criminal prosecutions in an attempt to disrupt and discourage the global movement that swept the nation and beyond last summer after the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, according to a new report.Movement leaders and experts said the prosecution of protesters over the past year continued a century-long practice by the federal government, rooted in structural racism, to suppress Black social movements via the use of surveillance tactics and other mechanisms. Continue reading...

Our panel weighs in on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its aftermathIn the spring of 1996, Owais Tohid, a well-known Pakistani journalist, travelled around Afghanistan speaking to Taliban fighters and commanders. The west didn’t understand them, they told him again and again. “Americans have the clocks,” a young Talib quoted Mullah Omar, “but we have the time.” Continue reading...

President pledges to ‘get all Americans out’. Plus: saving ozone layer gave humanity a chance• Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning,Joe Biden has said US troops may remain in Afghanistan beyond the 31 August deadline, as he pledged to “stay until we get all [American citizens] out”. Continue reading...

Shares slump amid signs that central banks could start withdrawing pandemic assistance

The Neshaminy School District’s racist nickname and former mascot does not violate a Pennsylvania law that prohibits discrimination, a state appeals court has ruledOne full year after the Washington Football Team announced that it was ditching the racist nickname the NFL franchise had carried since 1933, club president Jason Wright said in July that the team would not consider related alternatives – specifically, Warriors.

Joe Biden has said American troops may remain in Afghanistan past 31 August, as the evacuation of US citizens continues. The president told ABC News: 'If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.' The comments came after Biden denied the withdrawal of troops could have been handled better. Large crowds continue to arrive at Kabul's airport, creating a logistical hurdle as countries try to evacuate citizens. The US says it is unable to escort citizens to the airport but can continue to secure airstrip, enabling flights to take off

The Chicago racecourse is set for demolition due to the amount of gambling revenue sucked out of punters’ pockets as a fixed percentage of turnover as opposed to the placing of bets“Really?” asked the Daily Racing Form’s Marcus Hersh on Twitter on Saturday above a picture of Arlington racecourse in the suburbs of Chicago. “Just rip it down?”Sadly, after 94 years as the major racetrack in America’s third-largest city, it seems they really will. The 326-acre venue that staged the Arlington Million, the first race to offer a million-dollar purse, and where Rock Of Gibraltar so bravely failed to go out on a high in the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Mile, has been sold to developers. The 2021 running of its biggest card five days ago is expected to be the last. Continue reading...

Joe Biden says his administration plans to make Covid-19 vaccine booster shots available from 20 September as infections rise from the Delta variant. Americans who had their initial course at least eight months ago will be initially eligible. The president defended the decision to recommend boosters while other countries are yet to deliver their first shots. "We can take care of America and help the world at the same time," he said. "In June and July, America administered 50 million shots here in the United States and we donated a hundred million shots to other countries."

According to environmentalists, the $9.4bn facility could release up to 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a yearThe US government has placed further delays on a proposed multibillion dollar plastics plant in south Louisiana, marking a major victory for environmental activists and members of the majority Black community who have campaigned for years against construction.The planned $9.4bn petrochemical facility, owned by Formosa Plastics, would roughly double toxic emissions in its local area and, according to environmentalists, release up to 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the equivalent of three coal-fired power plants, to become one of the largest plastics pollution-causing facilities in the world. Continue reading...

Houses were reduced to piles of ash and cars to twisted metal as the blaze rushed through the El Dorado county town Continue reading...

Richard Sackler, 76, says in bankruptcy court he, his family and company are not responsible for epidemic

The sky over parts of Nevada and California turned red and orange as the Caldor fire, which erupted over the weekend, exploded in size on Tuesday and ran through the town of Grizzly Flats, destroying many buildings and forcing residents to leave. Two were injured. Officials estimated that the blaze had blown through 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres)

The US and Britain’s dogged pursuit of reform and regime change made the return of the Taliban almost inevitableWhen rising British casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq started to raise public doubts 15 years ago, a new mantra began to be heard: Iraq was a war of choice, Afghanistan a war of necessity. The argument was that the US and its faithful ally, Britain, had launched an invasion in Iraq that was unjustified as it was based on a false premise: the hollow claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.Related: Fear of refugees must not shape the response to Afghanistan’s crisis | Daniel Trilling Continue reading...

District website announcement says governor’s recent executive order doesn’t allow his office to usurp the school board’s powerA school district in Texas has announced an amendment to their dress code, reportedly requiring face masks for all members, ahead of the school’s reopening on Thursday.An announcement issued on the website of the Paris Independent School District (PISD) on Tuesday pointed out Greg Abbott’s recent executive order doesn’t allow his office to “usurp the Board of Trustees’ executive power”. Continue reading...

Following One Vote Away’s publication, the Republican senator’s campaign spent large sums of money at US chain Books-A-MillionTed Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported.Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History in September. A financial disclosure he filed on Monday, reported on by Forbes, shows he received almost $320,000 as an advance in 2020 from the book’s publisher Regnery Publishing. Continue reading...

Assigning someone the legal power to make decisions for a vulnerable adult should always be a last resortAround the world, fans of pop star Britney Spears celebrated her father’s announcement last week that he would resign as her conservator. This development is welcome news for Spears and her supporters, dubbed the #FreeBritney movement. But it will not end Spears’ conservatorship, which has prevented her from making decisions about her own life since it was established shortly after she had a mental breakdown in 2008. Nor will it prevent others from finding themselves in similar situations. That will require changing the underlying legal systems that created Spears’ predicament.While many have only recently learned of conservatorship thanks to the #FreeBritney movement, this legal process is neither new nor unique to the US. It is a common court proceeding in which the court appoints someone to make decisions for individuals the court has found cannot make decisions for themselves. California – where Spears lives – calls this proceeding conservatorship and calls the appointee a conservator. More commonly, it is called guardianship and the appointee is called a guardian. While Spears has drawn attention to guardianship, the process typically entangles those far less privileged. Changes in the pop star’s situation , as welcome as they may be, won’t themselves trigger the reform of a legal mechanism mainly experienced by people society has historically treated as expendable. Continue reading...

Female doctors, journalists, police officers and politicians face acute danger from the TalibanIt was one of the worst phone calls I’ve ever received: a friend in Kabul calling on Sunday afternoon to say that armed men had just visited her house. Her voice was shaking to the extent that she sounded as if she was gasping for air. The men had intimidated her and left, and she had fled to a friend’s house to hide with her children. She didn’t know when they’d return, if they would find her, or when it would be possible to relocate again to somewhere farther away. I have never heard someone sound so scared.She begged for help to escape the country; I promised I would keep trying. But options were closing all the time. Earlier that day, through a small charity, I’d managed to get my friend and her children booked on to a flight to a third country. The plan was that they’d get to safety and continue to look for a more permanent relocation. It was a brief ray of hope during a dark few days. But within hours of the booking, all commercial flights out of Kabul were cancelled. Continue reading...

In the aftermath of Biden’s Afghanistan debacle, we should consider the alternatives to a Washington-led order“America is back,” said President Joe Biden earlier this year, and the entire democratic world breathed a sigh of relief. But as we watch the debacle of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan – Kabul as Saigon 2 – a ghostly voice whispers to us: what if America is not back? What if it is never coming back? What happens then? The Chinese century? Europe as new leader of the free world? Or just plain old international anarchy?If only this were like Saigon in 1975. The US humiliation in Vietnam, following Watergate, marked a low point for America’s reputation in the world. But within a decade, the US was back. By 1995, it seemed to be bestriding the globe as an unchallenged hyperpower. Everyone knows that this time is different. The United States’ self-inflicted domestic problems are 10 times more profound and structural than they were in the mid-1970s – partly because, following the pattern of over-extended empires throughout history, it has spent trillions of dollars in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than doing more nation-building at home. Abroad, it faces not a declining Leninist-ruled superpower, the Soviet Union, but a rising Leninist-ruled superpower, China. Climate change is the only hyperpower now. Continue reading...

The quarterback gave us many magic moments during his sporting career but his final stop in Jacksonville deprived more deserving players of a chanceOver the past 15 years, for the majority of this millennium, Tim Tebow has gotten a whole bunch of opportunities. He’s earned them, made the most of them, for a few seasons or games or improbable seconds. But the same can’t be said for his latest misadventure, the summer-long charade in which he played the part of an aspiring NFL tight end.It wasn’t particularly convincing. Continue reading...

Evanston was the first city to implement a plan to repair the harm caused by slavery – and what occurred there could set the tone for what may happen at a national levelIn March, Evanston, Illinois, beat the federal government to become the first to pass a reparations plan in America. It gained national attention, heralded by celebrities such as Danny Glover, who called the debate over reparations “the most intense conversation that we’re going to have in the 21st century”. But just months ahead of putting it in action, local residents are warning national advocates to view Evanston as a cautionary tale as much as a historic first.“There’s still so much misinformation or lack of information that Black residents here in Evanston still don’t understand what this program is. And there are plenty of Black residents that still believe that they’re going to be getting direct cash payments, because that’s how the reparations program was framed when it was first introduced in 2019,” said Sebastian Nalls, a Black Evanston resident and one of the founders of Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations, a group formed in February 2021 to draw attention to community concerns with the reparations plan. Continue reading...

In the past I thought that, if worst came to worst, the NGO would protect me. Now I think they have forgotten meI am an Afghan woman in my 20s, living in Kabul. I have five sisters. My oldest sister completed elementary school. The second one is a midwife, and my third sister is doing her PhD. My younger sister is a film-maker. And my youngest sister, she is a high school student and a member of a volleyball team. And I myself am doing my bachelor in one of Kabul’s universities. Although my parents are uneducated they have tried their best for their children to earn an education.I have been working for a western NGO for two years advocating for women and working towards a stable, sustainable and equal society. When I heard the Taliban was taking over, I was worried about my future and about every single Afghan’s future, especially women and youth. It was a sad moment to think we women will return to the 1990s, and will live behind the closed doors and Burqa. Continue reading...

US raises concerns over Taliban’s promise of ‘safe passage’. Plus: northern California fires could worsenGood morning.Reports are emerging of the Taliban beating women and children as they attempt to cross checkpoints set up by the insurgents, undermining their promise of “safe passage” for those who want to reach Kabul airport to flee Afghanistan. Continue reading...

Quincy has become accustomed to hosting evacuees as wildfires worsen. Now some residents wonder if it’s time to leaveBy the time the Safeway parking lot in Quincy, California, began to fill with emergency vehicles and RVs carrying people planning to spend the night, Megan Bray had already stocked the shelves with extra Gatorade.It wasn’t the first time a wildfire had descended on this northern California region and threatened the towns scattered through the forested mountainsides. Bray, the store director, knew first responders and anxious evacuees would need the extra electrolytes. Continue reading...

The Olympic heavyweight freestyle wrestling champion is as surprised as anyone he’s reached the pinnacle of his sport at 21. Will mixed martial arts, the UFC or Hollywood be next?It’s been more than a week since he conjured one of the indelible moments of the Tokyo Olympics out of nothing and the reality is still no closer to hitting home for Gable Steveson.It’s not just that Steveson upset the odds to become America’s first heavyweight gold medalist in freestyle wrestling since 1992, defeating three-time world champion Geno Petriashvili of Georgia in the 125kg final. It’s how the 21-year-old Minnesotan did it: trailing by three points with only 10 seconds remaining, then scoring a pair of late takedowns, the second as time expired, to dramatically turn an 8-5 deficit into an 10-8 victory that will go down in Olympic wrestling lore. Continue reading...

Election watchdogs say rightwing groups seek to enact voting restrictions in critical states, from Arizona to Pennsylvania – states that Republicans need to win backThe conservative campaign to curb voting rights has helped spur passage of bills in at least 18 states and, backed by big money, is now widening its scope across the US in a concerted effort to suppress the vote and favor Republicans, say election law experts and watchdogs.The lobbying and media drive is aiming to spend tens of millions of dollars and is led by well funded conservative and dark money groups, some of whom are also pressing Congress to block Democratic-backed bills to protect voting rights nationally, say watchdogs and election law experts. Continue reading...

The current format does not do athletes or animals justice. Replacing showjumping with climbing would be a solutionImagine training for countless hours for many years to reach the Olympics in rowing. You’re slotted into the pairs event. One hitch – your partner will be determined by random draw. You look over and see one of your rivals paired up with a world champion. Your partner, on the other hand, isn’t sure which end of the oar goes in the water.