Guardian review shows officers in the state’s prisons have some of the lowest rates, with only 16% vaccinated at one facilitySeveral major California law enforcement agencies are reporting Covid-19 vaccination rates that are significantly lower than those of the general population, and seven state prisons have disclosed that less than a third of their officers are vaccinated.The Guardian requested vaccine data from police departments in California’s 20 largest cities and the top 10 largest sheriff’s departments in the state and reviewed reports from the California department of corrections and rehabilitation (CDCR). Continue reading...
The Atlanta Games saw a rush of medals for women on Team USA. A new podcast series is hoping to build on their legacyAlex Morgan was just seven years old when the 1996 Olympics took place in Atlanta. She watched Michelle Akers and Julie Foudy lead the US to the first-ever Olympic gold in women’s soccer, in front of 80,000 electrified fans. Foudy would not know of Morgan – now one of the most feared forwards in the world – for another decade, but she knew the world, including many young girls like Morgan, was watching.Related: A shift of mindset will let us take more from Olympics of the future | Cath Bishop Continue reading...
The Taliban has declared that Afghanistan is under their control after they took over the presidential palace just hours after president Ashraf Ghani fled the country. The Islamist militants encountered no resistance as they took back power two decades after they were overthrown by a US-led invasion. Chaotic scenes erupted at Hamid Karzai International Airport with thousands flooding the tarmac desperate the get a flight out of the country.
Leaders from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have reacted to the news that the Taliban has begun taking control of Kabul after a 20-year mission to Afghanistan led by western countries. UK prime minister Boris Johnsons said, ‘we don't want anybody bilaterally recognising the Taliban’, while New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern said conversations over how the new regime is treated will be for some time in the future. US secretary of state Antony Blinken blamed ‘the inability of Afghan security forces to defend their country’ for the quick takeover while Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said he was ‘heartbroken’ at the news. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said that fighting for freedom is ‘always worth it whatever the outcome.’
Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, reportedly issued warning to congressional leaders Sunday morningThe US’s top military general has warned that the collapse of the Afghan government and return of Taliban rule could accelerate the possible threat of terrorist groups reforming in the country.The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, issued his warning to congressional leaders during a Sunday morning phone briefing on the Afghan crisis between top officials from the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of members of Congress, Axios reported Continue reading...
Director of National Institutes of Health pleads with Americans to get their shots as Delta variant ravages the countryThe US could soon see Covid-19 cases return to 200,000 a day, a level not seen since among the pandemic’s worst days in January and February, the director of the National Institutes of Health warned on Sunday.While the US currently is seeing an average of about 129,000 new infections a day – a 700% increase from the beginning of July – that number could jump in the next couple weeks, Dr Francis Collins said on Fox News Sunday. Continue reading...
US secretary of state rejects parallels between chaotic scenes unfolding in Kabul and the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975America’s top diplomat appeared on political TV shows on Sunday to defend the US’s mission in Afghanistan and attempt to hold back a tide of comparisons between the chaotic scenes unfolding in Kabul, where the Taliban is now poised to retake power, and the humiliating fall of Saigon 46 years ago.“This is manifestly not Saigon,” the US secretary of state Antony Blinken told ABC’s This Week. “We went into Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission in mind, and that was to deal with the people who attacked us on 9/11, and that mission has been successful.” Continue reading...
Greg Abbott is turning to out-of-state medics to help – but has expressly prohibited Texans from requiring masks or vaccinesOn Tuesday afternoon, a steady stream of customers flowed into Austin’s famed music store, Waterloo Records. Aisle after aisle, everyone wore masks. No mask, no vinyl.Related: Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 40% of US Covid hospitalizations last week Continue reading...
Two-thirds of marriage applications in Buncombe county last year were filed by non-residents seeking to marry an underage person, an official saidKnown for its coastlines, mountains and the state that was “first in flight”, North Carolina has also developed a more dubious reputation as a regional destination for adults who want to marry children.State lawmakers are nearing passage of a bill that could finally dampen the state’s appeal as the go-to place to bring child brides – but would still leave it short of a national push to increase the age to 18. The proposed legislation would raise the minimum marriage age from 14 to 16 and limit the age difference between a 16-year-old and their spouse to four years. Continue reading...
Looking to the new term as a life-changing boundary feels reassuringThere is still a month on the clock until state schools go back in New York, but for plenty of kids in other states in the US – Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee among them – the autumn term started last week. Many school districts in those states have put mask mandates in place, as has New York: in September, when 1 million-plus children in the city go back to school, they will all be required to wear masks. Meanwhile, remote-schooling options in the city have been cancelled for all but immunocompromised children, and the head of the country’s second-biggest teaching union is pushing for mandatory vaccination for teachers. Changes in infection rates notwithstanding, the start of the new school year looks as if it might be as normal as we can hope it to be.The strange thing about this anticipation is that it falls at a time when many of us are, once again, curtailing our movements because of Covid. For the first time in months, there are two new Covid cases in my apartment building; infection rates in the city and across the US as a whole are up. After what seemed like a spell of premature optimism at the start of summer, everyone has returned to full-on mask-wearing in stores, and often in the street. And whereas prior to vaccination it was easy to tell oneself that children were less at risk than adults, now it’s one’s unvaccinated kids who seem most starkly unprotected. The risks are still very low – according to the American Academy of Paediatrics, only between 0.1% and 1.9% of all Covid cases in children in the US result in hospitalisation. Still, it changes things knowing that, as a vaccinated adult, if you decide to travel or go to an indoor party it’s your kids who may suffer the consequences. Continue reading...
The decision has led to volatile financial markets, geopolitical tension and inflated asset pricesFew dates in economic history classify as turning points but one of them was 15 August 1971 when Richard Nixon went on TV to announce that the US would no longer exchange dollars held by foreign governments for gold.Nixon’s announcement 50 years ago this week had lasting ramifications. It was a statement to the world that the US was too weak to continue anchoring the global monetary system as it had done for the past quarter of a century. It would remain the world’s biggest and most important economy, but the days when it was uniquely dominant were at an end. Continue reading...
Pelosi and Schumer pledging to follow two-track strategy to pass a $3.5tn reconciliation bill firstJoe Biden’s economic vision has taken a major step toward becoming reality after the US Senate passed two infrastructure measures, but widening political divisions within the Democratic party could yet derail the entire legislative package.The Senate last week advanced a sprawling $3.5tn budget blueprint for “soft” infrastructure projects to tackle climate change and health care, a day after approving a $1tr bipartisan infrastructure bill to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. Continue reading...
Plans for 2028 will exacerbate housing crisis – and low-income residents have no voice in the matter, tenant activists sayA few hours after the Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka lit the Olympic cauldron at the fairly downbeat Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony, a group of about 50 people crammed the backyard of a Los Angeles bookstore to celebrate their own “Nopening Ceremony”.Under a banner that read “Olympics kill the poor”, local activists and scholars at the Echo Park venue took turns telling stories of Olympic-related displacement and gentrification they had witnessed in host cities past and present. The tales were meant to prompt the local residents in the audience to heed the warning: in a city like Los Angeles, already marked by a large unhoused population and a critical housing crisis, the 2028 Olympics may only exacerbate these problems. Continue reading...
He’s the actor turned sports commentator whose remarks are never far from a controversy. Will he ever watch his words?Michael Rapaport does not want to lose his cool. And for most of our otherwise pleasant and meandering visit over Zoom in June, he doesn’t. Until Kevin Durant’s name comes up.Back in April, Rapaport tweeted screenshots of a private Instagram exchange with the Brooklyn Nets swingman that came after Rapaport criticised one of Durant’s post-game interviews. In it, the 11-time NBA All-Star unleashes a fusillade of profane insults – leaning on homophobic and misogynistic language as hard as he does undersized defenders on the low block – before invoking Rapaport’s wife and challenging him to a fight. Continue reading...
The duels between Peter Doocy of Fox News and Psaki offer insights into rightwing critiques of Biden and his strategy for neutralizing themIs Joe Biden to blame for vaccine hesitancy because he said he did not trust Donald Trump? “Not that we’ve seen in the data,” replied Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. That was the feint. Then came the thrust for the jugular.“I would note that at the time, just for context, the former president was also suggesting people inject versions of poison into their veins to cure Covid.” Continue reading...
The American public will not be in a forgiving mood if al-Qaida rises again following US withdrawal and the Taliban advanceWhat will it take for Joe Biden to admit he is disastrously wrong about Afghanistan? The US leader struck a defiant pose last week. Sounding like a slightly desperate Olympics coach, he told Afghans it was their country. If they want it, they have to fight for it. In American politics-speak, this is called tough love. Without the love.Biden has more hands-on foreign policy experience than any president since George HW Bush. That doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. Opinion polls suggest his abrupt Afghan withdrawal has majority public support. That doesn’t mean Americans will remain indifferent as the carnage and misery mount. Continue reading...
David Walls-Kaufman and Taylor F Taranto appeared to target Jeffrey Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable, suit saysA group of cybersleuths have tracked down two men who allegedly attacked police officer Jeffrey Smith at the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection, leaving him with injuries that have been linked to his death days later.In a new complaint, attorney David P Weber – who represents Smith’s widow, Erin – wrote that David Walls-Kaufman and and Taylor F Taranto appeared to specifically target Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable. Continue reading...
It’s more than a little nauseating to watch a billionaire whose wealth rocketed during a pandemic being venerated for living modestly Continue reading...
The US public has not been given the full truth about Afghanistan for the past 15 years. Now, the bankruptcy of US policies is plain to seeThe Taliban has been seizing territory in Afghanistan at an alarming rate, having captured all or parts of 10 provincial capitals from the Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF) in the past week. Far from representing a reason for Joe Biden to halt the withdrawal, however, this rapid deterioration in Afghan security has exposed the bankruptcy of US policies for at least the past 15 years – and the stark unwillingness to tell the truth by a generation of senior US leaders.Related: Seven days that shook Afghanistan: how city after city fell to the Taliban Continue reading...
The tech giant’s new system for scanning iPhones in the US could enable the massive expansion of state surveillanceLast week, Apple announced two backdoors in the US into the encryption that protects its devices. One will monitor iMessages: if any photos sent by or to under-13s seem to contain nudity, the user may be challenged and their parents may be informed. The second will see Apple scan all the images on a phone’s camera roll and if they’re similar to known sex-abuse images flag them as suspect. If enough suspect images are backed up to an iCloud account, they’ll be decrypted and inspected. If Apple thinks they’re illegal, the user will be reported to the relevant authorities.Action on the circulation of child sexual abuse imagery is long overdue. Effective mechanisms to prevent the sharing of images and the robust prosecution of perpetrators should both receive the political priority they deserve. But Apple’s proposed measures fail to tackle the problem – and provide the architecture for massive expansion of state surveillance. Continue reading...
This is about more than just Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez getting back together. It’s a way to kid yourself that the past 20 years haven’t happenedIt’s OK everyone, you can all stop crying into your toast, anxiously waiting to see if I’m back. Because I am! That’s right, after a month away, I’ve returned, and what a month it’s been. “Say, Hadley, how did you spend your incredible four weeks off work? Did you go sailing through the Balearics? Hire a villa in Tuscany? Go rock diving in Portofino?” asks no one. And the answer, no one, is no, I did not. I spent the entire month sitting right here, at my desk, writing a book about mental illness. Do I know how to carpe the hell outta my diem or what?Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, surprisingly, have different ideas about how best to spend the summer. By now you know, your mum knows, even Trappist monks know that Affleck and Lopez – better known as Bennifer, the original celebrity portmanteau – are back together. Over the past month, they have been offering the world glimpses into their passionate reunion on what is now routinely described as their “$130m super vessel.” (Factchecking has confirmed this is a yacht and not Lopez’s nickname for Affleck. Boom boom tish! Missed me much?) Not since Diana, Princess of Wales, lounged on the al-Fayed yacht has a mega-celebrity put on such a show for the world’s press while on deck. Highlights included Affleck stroking Lopez’s backside while sunbathing, which all scholars of early 2000s pop culture will instantly recognise as a reference to Affleck doing the same to Lopez in the Urtext of backside stroking, the music video for Lopez’s seminal single, Jenny From The Block. We’ve seen photos of them making out on the boat ; making out in a restaurant ; making out on Instagram . For a couple who allegedly broke off their engagement in 2004 due to “excessive media attention”, they have proven to be remarkably happy to court said attention again. Well, live and learn, or, in the case of Affleck and Lopez, live. Continue reading...
Streets go quiet and shops close early as temperatures pass 100F in latest Pacific north-west heatwave“No, no, no,” Linda Longoria cried as she heard the weather forecast for Portland, Oregon on Friday: 100F (38C). “I can’t do it. Even in the shade it’s so humid.”Longoria, 65, and her son are homeless and stay in hotels when they can but sometimes are forced to sleep outdoors. A lifelong resident of the city, she shook her head: “A heatwave in Portland. It’s not usually like this.” Continue reading...
Governors of states such as Florida and Texas, where the Delta variant is surging, have made masks and vaccines a partisan issue, in a lethal mix of ignorance, irrationality and nihilismThe crowd gathered under a tent at the water’s edge, their tables decorated with the Stars and Stripes and checked tablecloths. In their midst in Austin county, Texas, last Saturday was the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, laughing with delight and playing the fiddle.With the coronavirus roaring through the state and hospitals near breaking point, comparisons with Nero fiddling while Rome burned were irresistible, although journalist Alisha Grauso pointed out on Twitter: “Nero actually enacted sweeping relief efforts to try to quell the fire and also offer his people aid in the aftermath, particularly the lower class, so Abbott is somehow worse than a Roman emperor known today as being a psychotic tyrant.” Continue reading...
The president has been condemned by Republicans as the Taliban advance – but the roots of the crisis date back yearsThe words of political leaders can come back to haunt them. “None whatsoever, zero,” Joe Biden said last month when asked if he saw any parallels between the US withdrawals from Vietnam and Afghanistan.“The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.” Continue reading...
Governor says ‘I cannot emphasize enough the seriousness of this crisis’ as Texas and Florida make up 40% of US hospitalizationsAs the Delta variant continued to rip through regions of the US, Oregon’s governor said she would send up to 1,500 national guard troops to help hospital workers pushed to the brink by a surge of cases, while the White House announced that Texas and Florida alone accounted for almost 40% of new US Covid hospitalizations last week.Democrat Kate Brown said troops would be sent to 20 hospitals around the state. Seven hundred and thirty-three 733 people were hospitalized in Oregon as of Friday, including 185 people in intensive care units – 60 more than a day before and nearly double the figure of two weeks ago. Continue reading...
Experts address concerns over face coverings, sniffles and potential closures as the Delta variant spreadsAcross the US, schools are opening their doors. For some students, this fall marks the first time back in a classroom in more than a year.The Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics agree about prioritizing in-person learning. But the return to school isn’t without risk. Continue reading...
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Lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, says Sutton was ‘trafficked’ by ex-Elite Model boss to ‘wealthy men across Europe’Ex-model Carré Sutton has filed a lawsuit alleging that Gérald Marie, the French former modeling agency boss, repeatedly raped her at his Paris apartment when she was just 17 years old.The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, also maintains that Sutton was “trafficked by Marie to other wealthy men around Europe”. Continue reading...
Florida education commissioner threatens sanctions against county school board if it defies the state’s anti-masking law, even as cases surgeFour teachers in Florida’s Broward county have died from Covid-19 this week as the Delta variant of coronavirus rages in the state amid political rows over mask mandates and vaccination.“Within a 24-hour span, we had an assistant teacher pass away, a teacher at her school pass away, an elementary teacher pass away and another teacher at a high school,” Anna Fusco, president of Broward Teachers Union, which covers one of the country’s largest school districts, told local media outlets. Continue reading...
A vaccine arms race is brewing before the NFL season starts in September – but several star players are reluctant to play ballThe tenor and tone of the NFL’s approach to the pandemic has shifted as the league moves into its second season in a Covid world. Last year it was all kumbaya, rah-rah, football-will-guide-us-through-the-darkness type of rhetoric. There was a community aspect to the league’s attitude. Everybody worked to ensure that the season could go ahead and that the nation’s top entertainment vehicle did not default on any of its multibillion dollar contracts.The league gave concessions to teams and the players. Safeguards were built in to try to protect the integrity of the competition. Players were not held personally responsible for testing positive or coming into contact with Covid. It was treated as a team-wide issue, a societal issue, not the fault of any single individual. Continue reading...
Even before the western withdrawal and Taliban resurgence, the country was on its knees. A refugee crisis is now inevitableIn recent days, a ferocious wave of fighting has enveloped Afghanistan as the Taliban take more and more territory from the Afghan government. The developing situation makes it extremely difficult to predict how the coming weeks and months will unfold in the country. One thing we do know, however, is that while most media commentary focuses on who has the upper hand militarily, the country inevitably faces a humanitarian catastrophe. Ordinary Afghans are confronted with a triple calamity: dire security, health and economic prospects. These cruel conditions predate the Trump administration’s Doha agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, which began the process of US military withdrawal; they also predate President Biden’s confirmation that full withdrawal will occur by 11 September this year.Afghanistan entered 2021 already in dire straits, with more than 18 million Afghans – nearly half the population – in humanitarian need. Dwindling international aid, a violent conflict, weak governance and environmental challenges such as droughts have all contributed. The impact of the pandemic last year meant that in January 2021 Afghanistan had the world’s second-highest number of people facing emergency food insecurity. Continue reading...
Gerrymandering allows legislators to ignore what voters really want. And experts fear it’s about to get a lot worseThe United States is becoming a land filled with “democracy deserts”, where gerrymandering and voting restrictions are making voters powerless to make change. And this round of redistricting could make things even worse.Since 2012, the Electoral Integrity Project at Harvard University has studied the quality of elections worldwide. It has also issued bi-annual reports that grade US states, on a scale of 1 through 100. In its most recent study of the 2020 elections, the integrity of Wisconsin’s electoral boundaries earned a 23 – worst in the nation, on par with Jordan, Bahrain and the Congo. Continue reading...
The real worry is the gap between what the country produces and what average folks can afford to consume. Inequality is eating our economyHours after the Democrats passed their $3.5tn budget for Joe Biden’s American Families Plan – including childcare, community college, extended Medicare and measures to slow climate change – the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, whose vote is necessary to get it through the Senate, made an ominous announcement. He had “serious concerns” about its size, warning it would add trillions of dollars to the national debt and spur inflation.One expects Republican lawmakers to demagogue about inflation and spending. To hear this from a Democrat is jaw-dropping. Continue reading...
Newcastle council is re-examining Britain’s colonial past by adding context to its Boer war memorial. It is right to do soNewcastle city council’s decision to add two plaques to its memorial to the Boer war of 1899-1902 has triggered a feverish reaction. One plaque will contextualise the colonial history of the war; the other will reflect the views of local residents. No sooner was the change announced than the right’s “whack-a-woke” culture warriors descended upon the city. But the council’s engagement with the legacy of the Boer war – and Britain’s blood-soaked role in it – should be welcomed by anyone who values serious and honest engagement with history.The monument in question lists the names of 370 fallen soldiers from the north-east, participants in a war in which more than 20,000 imperial combatants died and many more suffered. It is only one of many similar monuments that shape Britain’s urban landscape. Some celebrate military heroes; others, such as the one in Newcastle, focus more on ordinary soldiers and volunteers. It features a figure symbolising Northumbria gesturing upwards towards a beneficent winged statue of Victory; to locals it is known as the “Mucky Angel” – as clear an indication as any that the meanings of public statues change over time, not least when they hide in plain sight. Continue reading...
ElliQ robot is among a plethora of technologies being created to try to comfort, entertain and inform seniors but critics say machines trying to mimic human intimacy raise ethical issuesJuanita Erickson got her robot companion about two years ago. A company representative gave a presentation about the device to residents at the independent living facility in the San Francisco Bay Area where Erickson resides. “I thought ‘something to liven up life a bit … well that sounds like fun’,” says the former high school literature and journalism teacher, who prides herself on being a lifelong learner.Erickson, 93, remembers the day her ElliQ device arrived. It was strange at first hearing a metallic voice ask how she was or if she wanted to know an interesting fact or the weather, but she got used to it. There are certain things she has come to depend on ElliQ for, and it knows a lot about her. In common with many users, Erickson refers to ElliQ as “she” and it does sound somewhat female. Continue reading...
The east coast city with a reputation for racial inequality is poised to choose a new leader from an all ethnic minority short-list, including four womenBoston is a city of firsts.The first official US police force, established 1631; birthplace of the American Revolution in 1775; the inaugural World Series won by their Red Sox baseball team in 1903. Continue reading...
State’s public health efforts hobbled by low vaccination rates and crowded housing following last year’s hurricane seasonLike so many people in Louisiana, Tyler Duplantis was hesitant to get a Covid-19 vaccine.The 26-year-old witnessed the virus tear through his Native American tribe, the United Houma Nation, last year. But when the vaccine became available to him, he was skeptical for several reasons. Continue reading...
The white population has fallen by 8.6%, and population growth among racial minorities isn’t just in citiesThe past decade has brought about a rapid increase in the number of people of color in the US, but unlike past decades, the population growth of racial minorities wasn’t just in major metropolitan areas, the latest census figures show.The percentage of racial minorities increased in coastal suburbs, manufacturing towns and even midwestern farming counties. Continue reading...
White population falls below 60%, underscoring what’s at stake as lawmakers begin drawing political mapsAmerica’s white population declined for the first time while US metro areas were responsible for almost all of the country’s population growth, according to groundbreaking new data released on Thursday by the US census bureau. Continue reading...
Bankruptcy judge to begin considering settlement as most of the groups with claims against Purdue are on board with the planPurdue Pharma’s quest to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of OxyContin and its other prescription opioid painkillers entered its final phase Thursday with the grudging support of many of those who have claims against the company.Nearly two years after seeking bankruptcy protection, the company appeared before a US bankruptcy court judge to ask for approval of its plan to reorganize into a new entity no longer controlled by members of the wealthy Sackler family, and with profits dedicated to abating the opioid crisis. Continue reading...
Only 35.6% of residents are fully vaccinated in the state, which is opening a field hospital as officials brace for climbing death tollHealth officials in Mississippi have warned the state’s hospital system is on the brink of failure due to a surge in Covid-19 hospitalizations in the US south as the Delta variant rips through the country.The deep south state, where only 35.6% of residents are fully vaccinated, is opening a 50-bed field hospital at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) car park with the assistance of the federal government as officials brace for a climbing death toll and ICU units reach capacity. Continue reading...
• Carol Alvarado wears running shoes during marathon speech• Civil arrest warrants delivered to 50 absent DemocratsThe Texas senate has passed a bill that would impose voting restrictions in the state, shortly after a Democratic legislator concluded a 15-hour filibuster of the proposal.Carol Alvarado, a state senator, had continued her filibuster into Thursday morning in the latest tactic to extend the nation’s most visible standoff over voting rights. Continue reading...
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Matthew Taylor Coleman, a surfing school owner, said he believed children had ‘serpent DNA’, according to FBIA California surfing school owner has been charged with killing his two young children after driving them from their home in Santa Barbara to Mexico.During an interview with the FBI, Matthew Taylor Coleman confessed that he had taken his two-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter to Rosarito, Mexico, where he shot a “spear fishing gun” into their chests, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent with the criminal complaint. Continue reading...
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