It was a night of pure emotion for the Phoenix Suns coach, Monty Williams, as his side lost the NBA finals to Milwaukee Bucks. 'I think it's going to take me a minute. I just don't take it for granted. It's hard to get here and I wanted it so bad, you know. It's hard to process right now. It's hard. That's all.'
Giannis Antetokounmpo ended one of the greatest NBA Finals ever with 50 points and a championship Milwaukee waited 50 years to win again.Antetokounmpo added 14 rebounds and five blocked shots as the Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns 105-98 on Tuesday night to win the series 4-2. It was the third game this series with at least 40 points and 10 rebounds for Antetokounmpo, a dominant debut finals performance that takes its place among some of the game's greatest.“People told me I can’t make free throws and I made them tonight. And I’m a freaking champion,” Antetokounmpo said.
Bennie Thompson tells Guardian he will pursue wide-ranging inquiry to uncover root causes of January 6 attackCongressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the new House select committee to scrutinize the Capitol attack, says he will investigate Donald Trump as part of his inquiry into the events of 6 January – a day he sees as the greatest test to the United States since the civil war.Related: Trump supporter sentenced to eight months in prison for role in Capitol riot Continue reading...
Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci got into a heated discussion with Republican Senator Rand Paul during a Senate hearing on the coronavirus. Paul pressed Fauci on previous comments made to the committee about funding for a lab in Wuhan, China, 'You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you're saying that's not 'gain of function'?' To which Fauci replied, 'Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. And, I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about'
Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion and longtime friend of Donald Trump, gently ribbed the former president and his false claims of election fraud during a visit to the White House.
The senator bit off more than he could chew when he accused Biden’s top health adviser of lying about US-funded virus researchAnthony Fauci has a reputation for plain speaking, as a senator who accused him of lying discovered to his cost on Tuesday.A congressional hearing on the coronavirus pandemic was electrified when Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, clashed with Rand Paul, a Republican senator for Kentucky and longtime opponent of mask-wearing. Continue reading...
by Oliver Milman in New York and Gabrielle Canon in S on (#5MDCP)
More than 80 major wildfires currently burning in western states as Bootleg fire reaches 537 sq milesOregon’s explosive summer of wildfire is threatening to escalate further, with thunderstorms and lightning set to spur more of the blazes that have torn through much of a parched, dangerously hot US west this year.Related: Heat exhaustion, apocalyptic scenes: what it’s like fighting the US’s biggest wildfire Continue reading...
The scandal that has engulfed the presenter and influencer tells us something about changing attitudes to both cyberbullying and inequalityIf you live by the sword you tend to die by the sword. The same is true of social media – just ask Chrissy Teigen. Over the past decade, the model and cookbook author has risen to dizzying levels of fame by virtue of being good at posting things online. Such is her reach that Donald Trump, who disapproved of Teigen’s “filthy mouth”, blocked her on Twitter while he was president. Joe Biden, meanwhile, followed her the minute he became president. Which was a big deal considering Biden’s official @POTUS account only followed 11 people at the time, all of whom were aides or official White House accounts. The president doesn’t follow the Queen of the UK, but he did follow the unofficial Queen of Twitter. He also unfollowed Teigen a few weeks later at her behest; the pressure of having the most powerful man in the world read your tweets was too much to deal with, apparently.If Biden hadn’t unfollowed Teigen in February, he would probably be distancing himself from her now. A lot of big brands reportedly are. Thanks to a cyberbullying scandal, the influencer has gone from tastemaker to toxic. While Teigen may once have been online royalty, half the internet now seems to be aggressively screaming, “Off with her head!” Continue reading...
The US climate envoy, appointed by Joe Biden to spearhead the country’s international efforts to tackle the climate emergency, urged all large economies to come forward with new plans to cut emissions before the Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow this November.‘While it may be unfolding in slow motion to some,’ he said, ‘this test is as acute and as existential as any previous one. Time is running out.’
After finally moving past outdated notions of consequence and loss based on little to no actual evidence, we’re on the cusp of the most open and progressive era of male pro sports in historyLuke Prokop of the Nashville Predators became the first active player under an NHL contract to come out as gay on Tuesday, only a month after Carl Nassib became the first NFL player to do so. To me, someone who has loved and admired sports his whole life, this is historic and groundbreaking news. But to the next generation of young sports fans and players, including my nephews and nieces, this is the new normal. Though it’s just a start, it is difficult for me to express how much joy the idea of that future gives me.Related: Trans kids deserve the same opportunity that made my NFL career possible Continue reading...
Hosts are among the favourites in baseball while the US hope to belatedly atone for their 2008 final shock in softballBaseball, which was formally added as a medal sport in 1992, and softball, which joined it four years later, became the first sports in seven decades to be eliminated from the Olympic programme following the 2008 Beijing Games. The surprise vote by an International Olympic Committee that is typically broken toward expansion has been generally attributed to Major League Baseball’s refusal to pause its summer-long season and allow the sport’s best players to participate, while softball’s removal was widely interpreted – at least in American circles – as a punishment for Team USA’s dominance.Related: Nigeria spring historic upset of USA men’s basketball in Olympic tune-up Continue reading...
Joe Manchin owns millions of dollars in coal stock, founded an energy firm and Exxon lobbyists brag about their access to him. Republicans fundraise on his behalfAs “thousand-year” heat waves caused by the climate crisis rock the west coast and biblical floods engulf major cities, Senate Democrats are negotiating a $3.5tn budget package that could include an attempt to slow the use of fossil fuels over the next decade.One prominent senator is very concerned about proposals to scale back oil, gas and coal usage. He recently argued that those who want to “get rid of” fossil fuels are wrong. Eliminating fossil fuels won’t help fight global heating, he claimed, against all evidence. “If anything, it would be worse.” Continue reading...
As the Delta variant spreads across the US and beyond, cities ponder whether to revive some curbs. Plus, the people who were forcibly sterilized in California prisons hope for some justice at lastGood morning.A worrying rise in coronavirus cases in the US and many other places in the world is fueling concerns that the pandemic has come back for another round. On Monday, news about the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant sent shockwaves through the stock market, while Joe Biden urged Americans to “please, please get vaccinated”. Continue reading...
One of the largest fires in modern Oregon history has burned an area half the size of Rhode IslandFuelled by erratic winds and dry lightning, the enormous Bootleg fire in southern Oregon burned through another 47,000-plus acres on Monday to reach an estimated total of 364,000 acres (564 sq miles) – an area more than half the size of Rhode Island.The challenging weather conditions have added to the dangers for the crews in parched Oregon forests who are battling the fire, currently the largest in the US. Continue reading...
US private equity firm’s move cuts chance of takeover battle for UK supermarket groupThe US private equity firm Apollo Global Management has pulled out of the bidding war for Morrisons and is looking to join a consortium led by US rival Fortress to buy the British supermarket group.New York-based Apollo, which confirmed it was considering a bid for Morrisons earlier this month, said it would no longer be making an offer for the grocer. Continue reading...
Internal battles may ultimately weaken the party, critics suggestAcross the United States, Republican state party officials are taking unprecedented steps to discourage or even purge critics of Donald Trump and promote potential allies of the former president.These efforts are the latest sign of Trump’s ongoing stranglehold over areas of the Republican party that are usually neutral and reflect his intense popularity with a wide slice of the Republican base, despite his scandal-strewn four years in power and his loss to Joe Biden in 2020. Continue reading...
Los Angeles police department and FBI are reviewing protocols for detonating explosives after incident left 17 injuredLos Angeles bomb technicians grossly miscalculated the weight of homemade fireworks last month when they detonated them in a containment chamber, likely causing a catastrophic explosion that injured 17 people and rocked a neighborhood, the police chief said Monday.Police chief Michel Moore said five members of the department’s bomb squad have been removed from field duties as the investigation continues. They could face discipline. Continue reading...
Then US leader also turned down Chequers dinner because he wanted to ‘be a tourist’, archives showBill Clinton turned down tea with the Queen and dinner at Chequers because he wanted to “be a tourist” and try out an Indian restaurant during his first official visit to the UK with Tony Blair as prime minister, formerly classified documents reveal.Downing Street wanted to pull out all the stops for a visit seen as crucial to “establishing a good working relationship” between the new prime minister and the then US president. Buckingham Palace contacted No 10 to say “HM the Queen would be very pleased” to invite the Clintons to tea at 5pm on their brief one-day detour from summits in Paris and The Hague. Continue reading...
Joe Biden has tempered his assessment that social media platforms are 'killing people' by hosting misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines, saying that he hoped they would not take it 'personally'. He added that vaccine misinformation on Facebook can harm people and the point of his rhetoric was to ramp up pressure on the companies to take action and save lives
This week’s revelations around NSO’s Pegasus snooping software is an argument for an immediate moratorium on trade in the technologyThe Israeli surveillance company NSO Group has created, developed and sold hacking software, known as Pegasus, that covertly allows access to mobile devices. Once it gains access, via hitherto unknown flaws in everyday apps, the code can extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones. Such is their ubiquity that mobile phones offer a window into our souls. What spyware, like that hawked by NSO, provides is access to our most intimate secrets.One might have thought those peddling such intrusive powers would have imposed onerous responsibilities. NSO says that it only sells its software to vetted government clients to prevent “terrorism and serious crime”. Unfortunately, that does not appear to have been the case. And it’s not just NSO. Instead, an unregulated global industry has grown up in the shadows to provide cheap spying tools that were once the preserve of the most advanced state intelligence services. Continue reading...
The silence of shutdown can be consuming, frightening. Living in the now, while sounding like cliched psychobabble, is all that is left to us“How’re you going?”It’s our standard greeting, and we don’t really expect a considered reply. Continue reading...
Flotation follows rise in young people joining, often buying meme stocks such as GameStopRobinhood, the US trading app at the centre of the buzz surrounding meme stocks such as GameStop and the cinema company AMC, and cryptocurrencies such as dogecoin, is hoping to float on the New York stock market at a valuation of up to $35bn (£26bn).The online brokerage, which states its mission is to “democratise” investing, revealed the details of its initial public offering plans in a stock market filing on Monday, setting the stage for one of the most highly anticipated IPOs of the year. Continue reading...
State representative Gene Wu says they have ‘little to no symptoms, which is the point of the vaccine’Two more Texas lawmakers who left their state to hobble efforts to pass voting restrictions have tested positive for the coronavirus, raising to five the number of infected people in the delegation.Related: ‘I think it kicked ass’: how Texas Democrats fought for voting rights by fleeing the state Continue reading...
The prime minister has taken potentially one of the most costly peacetime gambles in history. Judge him on how that goesShould we sympathise with the prime minister? This week, as he puts an end to Covid restrictions in England, he faces the biggest challenge of his two years in office, with belligerent scientists on one side and belligerent economists on the other. Politics must decide the winner, and Boris Johnson’s style of government is unsuited to decision. His innate indecisiveness was exposed at the weekend by uncertainty over whether to exploit a “pilot testing scheme” to avoid Covid quarantine, before following the lead of his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and performing a U-turn.Since 2020, Johnson has been sorely tried by apparent misfortune. He has experienced serious illness, a painful divorce, financial worries, the resignation or stepping down of his chancellor, health secretary, the leader of his civil service, and the head of his political staff. His leadership was never suited to collective government. It is egomaniacal, based on charm, fumbling, humour and an addiction to publicity – all handicapped by his relationship with truth which is as dysfunctional as his relationships with women. Continue reading...
Wisconsin employee Marlo Spaeth wins discrimination lawsuit but Walmart says amount will be reduced to $300,000A jury in federal court in Wisconsin ordered Walmart to pay $125m in punitive damages to a former employee with Down’s syndrome in a disability discrimination lawsuit, US employment officials announced.Related: US justice department charges four Chinese nationals in Microsoft Exchange hack – live Continue reading...
Finding will alarm Democrats aiming to hold on to their narrow control of the US House and Senate in 2022Political polls regarding US elections in 2020 overstated Democratic support “across the board”, US political scientists found, while understating support for Republicans and Donald Trump.Related: Michael Wolff: Murdoch hates Trump but loves Fox News money more Continue reading...
New Jersey has banned use of the whip for encouragement but incident in Saturday’s race showed it does not guarantee safetyThe stretch run in the Grade One Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park, New Jersey on Saturday was packed with drama and excitement in equal measure.Hot Rod Charlie and Mandaloun, the favourite and second-favourite respectively, made their moves off the turn and were locked in a duel from over a furlong out, but Hot Rod Charlie edged left halfway down the stretch and crossed in front of Midnight Bourbon, who clipped heels and fell. Continue reading...
Whistling Straits may suit Pádraig Harrington’s team and Jon Rahm is world No 1 but there are eight Americans in the top 10Predicting the outcome of a Ryder Cup based on preceding major championships can be an ill-advised process. Francesco Molinari had just won the Open when Europe hosted the US in Paris three years ago but the visitors were firm favourites by virtue of six major wins from the previous eight. The Europeans duly prevailed comprehensively.Pádraig Harrington, Europe’s Ryder Cup captain, looked concerned enough with his playing of the Open’s closing 36 holes in four over par long before Collin Morikawa lifted the Claret Jug on Sunday. Harrington would never say this publicly – even if Europe tend to revel in the role of underdog for the biennial joust – but the nature of Morikawa’s latest triumph looked ominous in respect of Whistling Straits in September. The 24-year-old sits atop the US Ryder Cup qualification table. Jon Rahm, the US Open champion, has returned to No 1 in the world but eight Americans and a South African complete the top 10. Stars and stripes sit alongside 14 of the top 20. Continue reading...
In book, Wolff says that Murdoch personally approved network’s early call of Arizona, which signalled Trump’s defeatMichael Wolff, the author of Landslide and two other bestselling books about the Trump administration, has claimed Rupert Murdoch “hates” Donald Trump.Related: Landslide review: Michael Wolff’s third Trump book is his best – and most alarming Continue reading...
Transfer of Abdullatif Nasser suggests Biden is making efforts to reduce population, which now stands at 39The Biden administration has transferred a detainee out of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility for the first time, sending a Moroccan man home years after he was recommended for discharge.Related: Ex-Guantánamo detainee at risk of torture if forced to return to Russia, say experts Continue reading...
by Ane Alencar and Adriane Esquivel Muelbert on (#5MBRF)
Brazil’s rainforest stores a huge amount of CO2. As it’s released at record rates, we may have passed a tipping pointThe Amazon acts as a vital organ for our entire planet. The largest rainforest in the world, it provides an important function to both the Earth’s water and carbon cycles. The region, home to abundant and highly diverse species and ecosystems, houses more than 390bn trees. These have an exceptional capacity to recycle water by pumping it from the soil back up into the atmosphere, but also play a crucial role in storing carbon: the Amazon forest stores an amount of carbon equivalent to two to three times all the CO2 emitted by the UK since 1750. When trees die, either by natural causes or deforestation, this carbon can return to the atmosphere.Related: Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs Continue reading...
A new reparations program will compensate survivors of prison system sterilizations and the 20th century eugenics campaignIt wasn’t until years after Kelli Dillon went into surgery while incarcerated in the California state prison system that she realized her reproductive capacity had been stripped away without her knowledge.In 2001, at the age of 24, she became one of the most recent victims in a history of forced sterilizations in California that stretches back to 1909 and served as an inspiration for Nazi Germany’s eugenics program. Continue reading...
A Guardian investigation shows activists and many others around the globe ended up on governmental surveillance lists thanks to the dangerous software that threatens democracy
Simone Biles will be the face of the Games but there are plenty of other Team USA members who will thrill with their skills in JapanAge: 32 Continue reading...
Journalist, author and historian who knew both President John F Kennedy and his alleged assassin Lee Harvey OswaldPriscilla Johnson McMillan, who has died aged 92 after a fall, was the only person who could claim to have known both President John F Kennedy and his alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. As a young college graduate, Johnson was befriended by Senator Kennedy while she worked in his office; a few years later she interviewed the young Oswald soon after he showed up in Moscow wishing to defect to the Soviet Union.After the assassination, Johnson was given exclusive access to Oswald’s Russian widow, Marina, and her ensuing book, Marina and Lee (1977), became a key document in establishing Oswald as a lone disturbed assassin. It also prompted many researchers to point to Johnson’s close ties to the US intelligence community, not least when she received similarly exclusive access to Joseph Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, when she defected to the US, and worked with her through translating her bestselling 1967 memoir Twenty Letters to a Friend. Continue reading...
Biden may be president but Republican-controlled states are busy introducing reams of legislation that is anything but progressiveIn his inaugural address in January, Joe Biden promised to use his presidency to “restore the soul of America”. He would unite the nation, defuse “anger, resentment and hatred”, and lead Americans back to a world where they treated “each other with dignity and respect”.Six months later, Biden is still preaching the unity gospel, and regularly assures his fellow Americans that “there’s not a single thing we aren’t able to do when we do it together”. Continue reading...
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