A proposition on Saturday’s ballot would impose fines for behavior such as camping, panhandling and sleeping outdoorsSummer Wright experienced homelessness on and off for years as a teenager and young adult. At no point would she have benefited from a $500 fine, or having police sweep away her belongings.“It wouldn’t have urged me into a shelter. It would have urged me further away,” said Wright, a member of the Austin Youth Collective. Continue reading...
The US president is right to spend, but shrinking the federal deficit is not the priorityJoe Biden’s first 100 days in office signalled that the future does not have to be a rerun of the past. The US president’s speech to Congress this week made it clear that Trumpism was a warning from history, a reminder that no republic is guaranteed to last. The US remains in danger – its decline accelerated by an iniquitous economic model, and by leaders unable or unwilling to remedy it. It is a relief to find in the White House a president who wants to bridge divisions rather than widen them. Mr Biden should be praised for saying he will stop the rot and recognising the challenge to democracy posed by autocracy. But his response risks being undone by an obsession with containing non-existent fiscal risks.The Biden White House proposes spending $4trn, with about half the money used to rewrite the social contract. The rest will create jobs, with infrastructure investments to repurpose the post-Covid economy for a zero-carbon world. The problem is not that money is being spent to fix a broken society. Neither is it wrong to ask the rich to pay their fair share of tax. The problem is that Mr Biden says spending must be balanced by tax rises or savings from other government programmes. Continue reading...
Exhibition between YouTuber and 44-year-old is a destructive, easy source of revenue – and a troubling prospect for the sportThe phrase “(Person X) has a punchable face” is a horrible thing. There is so much wrong with it. The idea people have any say in what their face looks like. The suggestion punching is an acceptable human response. It’s degrading. It’s cowardly. It stinks of all the worst parts of the internet, humankind’s angriest medium.And yet, with all due advisories, and having considered soberly all available evidence, it has to be said Logan Paul really does have a punchable face. Continue reading...
The Goop cruise is essentially a floating church freighted with expensive non-solutions. Yet there’s no shortage of believers“If you want to get rich, you start a religion.” This was the reported opinion of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, who in 1967 bought the first in what was to become a fleet of cruise ships. According to various whistleblower accounts, longtime devotees were finally initiated into the innermost secrets of Scientology on board one of these vessels, having spent years passing through various confected levels and parting with incremental payments totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was where you found out about Xenu, among more weapons-grade lunacy, the galactic tyrant who 75bn years ago exiled multiple individuals to Earth in special craft that weirdly looked exactly like DC10s, then imprisoned them in mountains before blowing them up with hydrogen bombs and brainwashing them with a huge 3D film. My theory has always been that they told you this stuff at sea to reinforce the notion that you were now in too deep to get off the boat, both literally and metaphorically.So, yes: it’s no real surprise to learn this week that turbocapitalist fanny egg pedlar Gwyneth Paltrow has got into the cruise business. Face it, there’s never been a better time, with the possible exception of 13 minutes after the end of the Black Death. Continue reading...
No 3 ranking Republican previously came under sustained attack from her own party for criticizing Donald TrumpLiz Cheney, the embattled No 3 ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, has been forced to defend herself for having fist-bumped Joe Biden during his address to Congress this week.Related: Florida lawmakers pass new voting restrictions mirroring Georgia and Michigan Continue reading...
Whether they admit it or not, Patrick Mahomes was baked into the decision-making process of every front-office executive during Thursday night’s first roundIt’s hard to think of a single player in the modern era of the NFL that has had such an instant, sweeping and lasting impact as Patrick Mahomes. In the space of four short years, he has changed the entire tenor and tone of the league: conservatism is out; risk is in.Make no mistake about it, though Thursday night’s first round of the NFL draft was all about crowning the league’s new batch of stars, it also served as confirmation of the Mahomesification of the league. Continue reading...
The largest airplane ever to take flight has made its second voyage, soaring above California's Mojave desert. Stratolaunch's massive carrier aircraft, nicknamed 'Roc', is designed to transport hypersonic vehicles and facilitate easy access to space.The company was founded by the late billionaire and Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen in 2011, and sold to private ownership in late 2019 after Allen's death. Continue reading...
Bill introduces new hurdles to voting by mail and restrictions on providing water to people waiting in line to cast their ballotThe Florida legislature has passed tight new voting restrictions, placing the crucial swing state at the forefront of a nationwide wave of Republican efforts to suppress turnout on the back of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.The bill, which closely mirrors similar Republican ploys in Georgia and Michigan, is likely to make it more difficult for millions of voters to have their democratic say. The new barriers to voting are expected to particularly impact minority communities. Continue reading...
Derek Chisora’s trainer on handling a troubled upbringing, tragedy in the ring, and his fighter’s best strategy for beating Joseph ParkerWhen the lights dim at the Manchester Arena on Saturday, and Derek Chisora and Joseph Parker wait in their corners for the first bell, it will be tempting to pay more attention to their trainers as they offer up the final slivers of advice before a fight that both heavyweights desperately need to win.Parker, the former WBO world champion, is hoping to fight again for the title, after he lost against Anthony Joshua in a unification contest in March 2018, and he has hired Andy Lee as his new trainer. The old warhorse Chisora, meanwhile, is 37 and, as his last days in boxing reel towards him, he has called in Buddy McGirt, one of the world’s great trainers, to salvage his career. Continue reading...
Robert Runcie stands down amid corruption inquiry as some claim he is a victim of political foes who blame him for 2018 massacreThe head of the Florida school district that saw the nation’s deadliest high school shooting is standing down amid a secretive corruption inquiry and competing claims that his downfall was orchestrated by political foes who blame him for the loss of 17 lives.Robert Runcie, superintendent of the Broward school district for nine years, confirmed his resignation on Thursday, just over three years after a former student killed 14 teenagers and three staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school (MSD) in Parkland. Continue reading...
Biden marked a significant presidential milestone, the US reflects on the first 100 days and looks to the next. Plus, dozens have been killed in a crowd crush in Israel
The president has personally moved to repair partnerships, presenting himself as the anti-Trump, but some fear compromises have felt like business as usual
Families living near Brooklyn Center protests suffer as chemicals enter their homes and kids face a ‘battlefield experience’As police used teargas and flashbangs on protesters outside the Brooklyn Center police department, young children listened, terrified, from their homes directly across the street.Among them were two eleven-year-old girls with autism, which makes them intensely sensitive to loud noises, their older sister, Jamiya Crayton, said. Continue reading...
by Jon Henley in Paris, Andrew Roth in Moscow, Patric on (#5H8SE)
The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.” Continue reading...
If America’s pastime is going to survive this century, it’s going to have to let its brash young personalities shine throughOn Saturday the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the San Diego Padres in what has become baseball’s hottest rivalry. To say the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr started it off with a bang would be putting it mildly.After taking a chest-high cutter from the Dodgers’ Trevor Bauer on the game’s first pitch for a strike, Tatis struck back on the very next throw, slapping essentially the exact same pitch over Dodger Stadium’s left-field fence to furnish the visitors with a 1-0 lead. It was your classic, cut-to-the-chase moment, one of baseball’s biggest bats getting over on its reigning Cy Young winner. But what came next was even more explosive. As Tatis was rounding first base, he slowed down, looked back and cupped a hand over his right eye. No doubt, for baseball purists, this – not the homer, his first of two on the day – was the real shot. Continue reading...
by David Smith and Daniel Strauss in Washington on (#5H8SQ)
As he took office, the president noted four crises: the coronavirus pandemic, climate, economy and racial justice. Here’s his progress on eachIn his inaugural address on 20 January, Joe Biden declared: “We will be judged, you and I, for how we resolve the cascading crises of our era.”Related: Republicans still orbiting Trump dark star fail to derail Biden’s first 100 days Continue reading...
The Epoch Times, believed to be linked to the Chinese religious movement, is part of an anti-CCP influence operation tapping into the US right, according to a media watchdogUS news outlets aligned with Falun Gong, a religious movement locked in a decades-long conflict with the Chinese state, have been increasingly successful in promoting conspiracy narratives about Democrats, election fraud and communists to the pro-Trump right in America.Experts say that in a future post-pandemic landscape, the cable news channel NTD, and especially the multimedia enterprise the Epoch Times, may amplify the efforts of Republicans to link Joe Biden and Democrats to the Chinese Communist party (CCP), and to harden US public opinion against China. Continue reading...
During a speech at a drive-in rally in Duluth, Georgia, to mark 100 days in office, Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by protesters calling for an end to private prisons, a demand that Biden agreed to, saying that the US was 'working to close all of them'.The president praised the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd, and declared that 'America is on the move again, choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness'. Georgia is a particularly important state for Biden after he became the first Democrat to win there since Bill Clinton in 1992
From educating them about Emmett Till to telling them never to leave home without an ID card, parents of Black children in the US share how they prepare them for encounters with the police, and the daily impact on their young livesMy husband is one of just a handful of Black police officers in our city. Our daughter saw some of the George Floyd coverage and asked a lot of questions. We have had to explain that not all police are the good guys, that some people have racism and bias in their hearts. It has been a very tough spot to be in. We tell her some police are bad, as her daddy stands in a uniform and people say they hate the police. But her daddy is also that Black skin lying on the ground. We ourselves are struggling with it. How do we explain it to a child? We do so by teaching her the truth of the country and its violent past and present. And we believe in our hearts and with my husband’s words and actions in policing that he is that change. We have to. Shanda; Kansas; parent of a biracial eight-year-old daughter Continue reading...
Fox News chat leaves vague impression that FBI raid on ex-mayor’s apartment was somehow Hunter Biden’s faultRudy Giuliani guilty? That’s what they want you to think! And who are they? The sinister cabal of Hunter Biden, the Lincoln Project and Department of Injustice, of course.That would have been the impression of Fox News viewers on Thursday night when Giuliani gave his first TV interview since federal agents seized mobile phones and computers from his New York apartment, part of an investigation into his dodgy Ukrainian dealings. Continue reading...
President promoted his $4tn plans to rebuild crumbling US infrastructure and expand the social safety net at drive-in rallyOn his 100th day as US president, Joe Biden spontaneously lowered his black face mask, leaned towards the microphone and shouted: “Go Georgia, we need you!”It was a fitting moment in a state that has more claim than most to be the ground zero of a potentially transformative presidency. Continue reading...
Legal team allege she is being held in worse conditions to other inmates due to the “Epstein Effect”Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell have released a photograph of the British socialite, who is in a US prison facing sex trafficking charges, showing her with a bruised face.Maxwell, 59, who is accused of procuring underage girls for the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to abuse, has been in jail since last year while awaiting trial. She denies the allegations. Since her arrest last summer, she has only been seen in court sketches during hearings. Continue reading...
In Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the death of a Black man has sparked large protests – will body-camera footage be released?Raising signs, flags and fists, about 200 protesters walked through the streets of Elizabeth City in North Carolina on Wednesday night following a judge’s ruling, which denied the immediate release of police video footage of the killing of Andrew Brown last week.Related: Judge denies requests to release body-cam video of Andrew Brown shooting Continue reading...
In 6-3 decision that split conservative bloc, justices faulted government in case of man from Guatemala who entered US without papersThe US supreme court on Thursday offered new hope to thousands of long-term immigrants seeking to avoid deportation in a ruling that faulted the federal government for improperly notifying a man who came to the United States from Guatemala to appear for a removal hearing.Related: New York Post reporter quits citing pressure to write incorrect story about Kamala Harris Continue reading...
In effect, the iPhone maker has the equivalent of an entire BP lying around as spare changeApple’s trading figures for the first three months of 2021 were a collection of astonishing numbers. Revenues for iPhones, a product that was supposed to have peaked a couple of years ago because Apple was pushing prices too high, rose by two-thirds to almost $48bn. Sales from iPads were up 79% and Macs were 70% better. Even the relative backwater of “wearables”, meaning watches and headphones and suchlike, improved by a quarter.But the most remarkable figure, from a UK perspective, may be one that was almost slipped in casually – a $90bn share buy-back. Think what the sterling equivalent, £64bn, would buy. Only eight FTSE 100 companies are worth more. Even BP is valued at “only” £62bn, albeit a notional buyer would also assume borrowings or £25bn. In effect, Apple has an entire BP lying around as spare change, deemed surplus to operating or investment requirements. Continue reading...
Critics say the bill, which is awaiting the governor’s signature, targets ‘young people for political gain’Transgender women and girls will be banned from participating in school sports in Florida, if the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signs what critics call a “cruel and horrific” bill rushed through by state legislators in a controversial late-night session.The politicians revived, then passed, the bill that prohibits trans athletes competing in high school and college sports in short order on Wednesday, employing what opponents have called “shady, backroom tactics” to bind it to unrelated legislation on charter schools. Continue reading...
Princeton and University of Pennsylvania at center of storm over the use of the bones of a child killed by police bombing in 1985The two Ivy League universities at the center of a billowing storm over the use in anthropology teaching of the bones of an African American child killed by Philadelphia police in 1985 have apologized for the “serious error”, promising to return the human remains to relatives who never consented to the practice.The pelvis and femur bones of an unidentified Black girl thought to be in her teens were revealed last week to have been used as props in an online anthropology course staged by Princeton and given by a professor from the University of Pennsylvania. Neither institution had requested or received consent from the family of the child, yet held on to the bones for research and teaching for 36 years. Continue reading...
Analysis: why the president wants to build the US economy from the middle and bottom, not top downCut taxes on the rich. Unleash a wave of entrepreneurship. Growth will pick up and more jobs will be created. Everybody benefits. That, in essence, is trickle down – a theory of economics that Joe Biden wants to consign to the dustbin of history.The US president was a young politician when the idea that cutting taxes on the well-off would be good for the poor first came into vogue in the 1970s. Now he has used his first address to a joint session of Congress to call on the US’s top 1% to pay for his $1.8tn (£1.3tn) American families plan – higher spending in areas such as education, childcare and infrastructure. Continue reading...
Two US officials in Washington area experienced symptoms similar to ones suffered abroad that were probably result of directed energy deviceThe White House has said it is investigating “unexplained health incidents” after a report that two US officials in the Washington area experienced sudden symptoms similar to the “Havana syndrome” symptoms suffered by American diplomats and spies abroad.The wave of mysterious brain injuries, beginning in Cuba in 2016, are deemed by the National Academy of Scientists to be most likely the result of some form of directed energy device, and the CIA, state department and Pentagon have all launched investigations. Continue reading...
San Francisco has an initiative to take police out of the response to the crisis of homelessness altogetherIt’s been some time now since Shanna Couper Orona has slept on the sidewalk, but she can’t forget the first time a police officer kicked the side of her tent in an encampment sweep in San Francisco.The disorienting confusion of getting jarred awake at 3 in the chilly morning. The rush of fear that comes for any woman who hears unknown male voices at night. The ache in her back. “I poked my head out, and they said, ‘You have to get the fuck out’,” Orona said. “I said back to them, ‘I have to get the fuck out?’ And they said, ‘Oh, you got a smart mouth’?” Continue reading...
Republican reaction centered on what Biden was perceived to have omitted as much as policies he did lay outRepublican reaction to Joe Biden’s first congressional speech on Thursday centered as much on what the new president was perceived to have omitted as much as the policy proposals he did lay out.“He didn’t discuss the border and the fact that tens of thousands of people are pouring into our country,” former president Donald Trump said during a morning appearing on Fox News’ Mornings with Maria, seizing on a familiar grievance. Continue reading...
Even though Democrats control both chambers of Congress, they can’t pass a voting rights bill because they don’t have enough votes to get rid of the filibusterHappy Thursday, Continue reading...
Investigators execute search warrants at Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan residence and office as part of Ukraine investigationFederal agents raided Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office Wednesday, seizing computers and cellphones in a major escalation of the Justice department’s investigation into the business dealings of former president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.Giuliani, the 76-year-old former New York City mayor once celebrated for his leadership after 9/11, has been under federal scrutiny for several years over his ties to Ukraine. The dual searches sent the strongest signal yet that he could eventually face federal charges. Continue reading...
We may be seeing the rise of a new authoritarian capitalism shielded from democratic scrutinyThirteen years after the financial crisis put the global economy on life support, neoliberal capitalism is facing an existential crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the disastrous consequences of decades of privatisation, deregulation and outsourcing. In order to contain the economic fallout from the pandemic, western countries have ripped up the neoliberal playbook.Market forces have been shunned in favour of regulatory controls and state intervention. Central banks have broken the ultimate economic taboo and are printing money to finance ballooning budget deficits. For the first time in decades, the direction of travel for corporate tax rates is up rather than down. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has thrown its weight behind wealth taxes. As Guardian columnist Larry Elliott recently put it: “the era of small states, low taxes and balanced budgets suddenly looks to be over”. The question remaining is: what is replacing it? In the UK, a number of recent developments provide some clues. Continue reading...
The president made his first address to Congress on the eve of reaching 100 days in office. Plus, three people were charged with federal hate crimes over Ahmaud Arbery’s killingGood morning.Joe Biden has made his first address to Congress, unveiling a sweeping $1.8tn package for families and education and pitching his “blue-collar blueprint” to rebuild America. Continue reading...
After the latest census numbers, Republicans are well positioned to draw districts that will give them an advantage in their effort to reclaim the House in 2022The next major fight over voting rights in the US kicked off Monday: a hugely consequential battle over the boundaries of electoral districts for the next 10 years that will have profound implications for American politics. And Republicans seem to be pulling ahead. Continue reading...
