A swiftly spreading wildfire raged through drought-parched timber and brush in south-central Oregon for a ninth day on Wednesday, displacing hundreds of residents. The Bootleg fire - which has burned through more than 212,377 acres (85,945 hectares) of forest - has burned 21 homes and 54 other structures, according to state and federal authorities. Video obtained from the Oregon state fire marshal showed emergency crews up close to the fire as it burned around the Fremont-Winema National Forest, about 250 miles south of Portland
State will use $35m to provide monthly cash payments to qualifying pregnant people and young adults leaving foster careCalifornia lawmakers have approved the first state-funded guaranteed income plan in the US, which will see $35m used for monthly cash payments to qualifying pregnant people and young adults who recently left foster care, in a move that could spur other states to follow its lead.The effort passed with bipartisan support in the state legislature on Thursday, a sign of the growing momentum for the idea of guaranteed income across the country. Dozens of local programs have sprung up in recent years, including some that have been privately funded, making it easier for elected officials to sell the public on the idea. Continue reading...
Monthly payments will close gaps in previous tax credit system, allowing the poorest families finally to benefitJoe Biden heralded a “giant step towards ending child poverty in America” on Thursday as he marked the beginning of the “life-changing” expansion of the child tax credit system.In remarks from the White House, the president predicted that the provision would lead to the largest one-year decrease in child poverty in the history of the US. Social scientists have estimated that under its impact more than 5 million American children will be lifted out of poverty – more than half those currently living below the poverty line. Continue reading...
Defense attorneys for Jarrod Ramos argued he was experiencing mental illness when he attacked the Maryland newsroom in 2018The jury of eight men and four women found that Jarrod Ramos could understand the criminality of his actions and conform his conduct to the requirements of law when he attacked the Capital Gazette newsroom in 2018.The finding means Ramos, 41, will be sentenced to prison, not a maximum-security mental health facility. Prosecutors are seeking five life sentences without the possibility of parole. Continue reading...
Recall comes after independent laboratory Valisure raised alarm over presence of benzene in company’s productsJohnson & Johnson is recalling five of its sunscreen products in the US after low levels of benzene, a carcinogen, was found in its products.The recall comes after Valisure, an independent laboratory, raised the alarm over benzene’s presence in Johnson & Johnson’s products. In a report released in May, Valisure noted that “27% of samples … contained detectable benzene and some batches contained up to three times the conditionally restricted FDA concentration limit of 2 parts per million”. Continue reading...
Calls from liberal activists and Democratic lawmakers who want to see Biden nominate a younger liberal justice to the supreme courtUS supreme court justice Stephen Breyer has said he has not yet decided when he will retire, amid growing pressure from liberal activists and Democratic lawmakers who want to see the Biden administration nominate a younger liberal justice to the bench.When asked whether he had decided when to step down, Breyer answered no in a CNN interview on Thursday. His ultimate decision will be based “primarily, of course, [on] health”, and “second, the court”, he said. The comments from Breyer, who is now 82 and the court’s oldest justice, follow his previous refusals to retire last month when the supreme court’s most recent term ended. Continue reading...
Lawmakers’ bid to bar Republicans from passing voting restrictions energizes activistsHappy Thursday,I’m writing from Austin, where I arrived on Sunday night expecting to cover the high-stakes showdown over GOP-backed voting bills at the Texas capitol. Continue reading...
Discrimination against those from poorer countries seems inevitable unless everyone accepts the WHO’s guidelinesWe have arrived at another of those moments, in this pandemic, where it’s critically important that countries respect a central decision-making body rather than go their own way. The issue on the table now is the use of health certificates to regulate international travel.Sometimes, pandemic decisions need to be made locally to reflect the local context – mask-wearing in schools is an example – but sometimes they really need to be centralised. We saw what can go wrong if they’re not: for example when, in the absence of a federal policy, US states ended up bidding against each other for personal protective equipment from China. Continue reading...
The far right is trying to funnel people on Instagram to extreme content with a few simple tricks. Here’s how they do itI spend a lot of time on Instagram. Not posting stories, but researching Gen Z online political subcultures. That’s how I first stumbled across a content strategy that I’ve dubbed the “slow red-pill”.Related: Abolishing online anonymity won’t tackle the underlying problems of racist abuse | Hussein Kesvani Continue reading...
Conservative rhetoric warning of wage-price spirals is disingenuousThirty years ago, Albert O Hirschman published a short book that infuriated conservatives called The Rhetoric of Reaction. The book showed how conservative arguments across time and space fell into three rhetorical buckets: perversity – raising taxes means less revenue; futility – voting changes nothing; and jeopardy – if you give the vote to poor people, you get revolution (the opposite of futility, but who cares about consistency). As well as being a great summer read, Hirschman’s rhetoric continues to shed a useful light on the present conservative obsession (apart from critical race theory) with inflation.Whenever inflation threatens, two versions of the perversity thesis are deployed. The first, usually opined by members of the investor class, argues that inflation mainly hits those on fixed incomes, older and poorer people, thereby proving their concern is born from a sense of care for society’s weakest. Oddly, that same class of folks seem utterly indifferent to older and poorer people until inflation threatens to either reduce their expected investment returns, or impact their leveraged financial strategies, as interest rates rise. Continue reading...
by Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh on (#5M7FE)
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracyVladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present. Continue reading...
I’m proud to take on devastating blazes. But sometimes I wonder if anyone else sees the scale of the crisisI’m a firefighter currently battling the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon, the largest blaze right now in the US. As I write this, it’s already ripped through over 200,000 acres (312.5 sq miles).I’m part of a crew that arrived last Thursday. We were one of the first on the scene, and several of us have already gotten heat exhaustion, one guy got fuel in his eye from a water pump and two of our division’s masticators (giant machinery that functions like a lawn mower but for an entire forest) burned up. Continue reading...
Governor Greg Abbott appears to be filling out a ‘bingo card’ of rightwing policy desires, even though those proposals are not popular with TexansFrom restricting voter access and politicizing the US-Mexico border to targeting transgender student athletes and further rolling back abortion rights, Texas’s current legislative agenda set by its governor, Greg Abbott, reads almost like a conservative bingo card.Related: Death toll from Texas February cold spell rises by 59 to reach 210 Continue reading...
As a person of colour, I’ve suffered online abuse, but ending anonymity and mandatory ID verification each raise problemsAs a person of colour who has spent much of their life online, I’ve dealt with my fair share of racist abuse. From anonymous accounts on niche forums about anime hurling unprintable slurs, to more easily identifiable people – with their real names and locations published – on Facebook and Twitter sending me death threats. As a result, I imagine that my tolerance for racial abuse on the internet is higher than average. I’ve even gone as far as meeting people who have sent me torrents of online abuse to try to understand what motivated them.
I was up for nothing but lockdown walks and a spot of yoga until I sat on the Peloton saddle. Now, beat me if you dare …I have never been interested in exercising until I’m out of breath. What’s wrong with yin yoga, which is basically hugging a bag? Or walking to the park and sitting down and then walking to the ice-cream van and sitting down again? That all counts on my Fitbit.However, during the worst excesses of lockdown the police kept shouting at us gentle strollers to “Keep moving!”, which made a wander up Primrose Hill in north London more like an enjoyable trip through season two of The Handmaid’s Tale – so I caved and ordered a Peloton bike. My husband predicted the most exercise I’d get would be assembling it. He was so wrong. Two nice masked men came and put it together. Hah! Continue reading...
Teenager’s mother shot Troy George Skinner as he allegedly tried to break into their Virginia home; he has pleaded not guilty to chargesA New Zealand man who was shot while allegedly trying to kidnap a 14-year-old Virginia girl he met online has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in the US.Troy George Skinner, 28, of Auckland, New Zealand, was scheduled to face trial next month after pleading not guilty to two counts of attempted kidnapping and nine counts related to the production of child pornography. But electronic court records show that the jury selection process was terminated last week and a plea agreement hearing in the case has been scheduled for 29 July. Continue reading...
Champlain Towers South, valued at $100m, to be put up for sale immediately, while emergency calls released to the publicA Florida judge has approved the sale of the oceanfront property where a collapsed Florida condominium once stood, with proceeds intended to benefit victims – as emergency calls released to the public show the disbelief, panic and confusion that unfolded the night of the deadly disaster.Related: Norwegian cruise company sues Florida over ban on Covid vaccine passports Continue reading...
by Joan E Greve in Washington and agencies on (#5M718)
President joins Senate Democrats for lunch a day after Schumer announces agreement on spending proposalJoe Biden made the short but significant journey from the White House to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a key meeting to bolster Senate Democrats’ $3.5tn “human infrastructure” plan.The president put in an appearance at the Senate Democratic caucus’s weekly policy lunch, one day after the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced an agreement on the spending proposal. Continue reading...
Exotic was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years after being convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill Carole BaskinA federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Tiger King’s Joe Exotic should get a shorter prison sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws.Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, and was the star of a docuseries that became a big hit during the height of the coronavirus pandemic last year, was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill animal sanctuary owner Carole Baskin. Continue reading...
North Carolina is among 37 states that have introduced some form of ‘Save Women’s Sports’ legislation aimed at trans youthMaddie Jenifer stood glued to her mother’s side behind the podium, staring at a panel of preened and suited strangers staring right back at her. Maddie was the first transgender child some of them had ever seen, let alone spoken to. Still, the North Carolina’s House judiciary committee was introducing legislation that would have banned Maddie from playing sports for her high school that fall.North Carolina is among 37 states that have introduced some form of ‘Save Women’s Sports’ legislation that would ban transgender girls and women from playing on school sports teams that don’t reflect their sex at birth. North Carolina’s version targeted transgender girls from kindergarten through high school, though some states have expanded their bills to also include college sports, bucking NCAA transgender protections that have been in place since 2010. Continue reading...
Republicans’ big lie makes it all but impossible for our republic to heal itself without new laws to defend democracyAt the risk of giving away a speechwriting secret, one time-tested way to organize a presidential address – or any piece of persuasive writing – is with something called “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence”. It’s a five-part structure: explain the context; define the problem; lay out the solution; put forward a vision of the future; issue a call to action.By this measure, on Tuesday President Biden delivered two-fifths of a major address on democracy reform. He connected the wave of Republican anti-voting laws to the 6 January attack on the Capitol and the insidious legacy of segregation and Jim Crow. He rightly referred to Republicans’ authoritarian efforts as “the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of fair and free elections in our history”. Continue reading...
Culper Precision said on Instagram of the kits: ‘We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on’A Utah company has stopped selling a kit that encases Glock handguns in Lego blocks, amid uproar and after the Danish toymaker demanded it cease and desist.Marketing the “Block19” as a “a childhood dream come to life”, Culper Precision introduced it on Instagram, saying: “We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution.” Continue reading...
Black musicians don’t lack talent, but our careers are in the hands of people who package it through a white gazeI remember the first time my music was played on the radio. I’d made it into the top 10 of the BBC Music Sound poll – which predicts who might be successful – and it was common for a national radio station to play the music of each artist. So there I was, huddled on the sofa with my family.But the excitement was short-lived. Immediately after the radio presenter played my song, she took a phone-in call from a guy who said, on air, that I was ugly and stupid. Their discussion then led to a lazy comparison with another black artist, and the presenter concluded the call by going close to the mic and whispering quite smugly that she thought Janelle Monáe was much better than VV Brown. Continue reading...
Republican governor is hoping to ride Trump’s coattails to the White House and generate cash to fund 2022 re-election campaignFor $12, you can buy a red beverage cooler imprinted with the words: “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?”Related: Delta variant gains ground in US as outbreaks highlight vaccine divide Continue reading...
Major step in party’s push to pour resources into climate change, healthcare and family service programs sought by presidentSenate Democrats said late on Tuesday they had reached a budget agreement that envisions spending an enormous $3.5tn over the coming decade, paving the way for their drive to pour federal resources into climate change, healthcare and family service programs sought by Joe Biden.It is a major step in the party’s push to meet the president’s goal of bolstering an economy ravaged by the coronavirus and setting it on course for growth. It includes a Medicare expansion of vision, hearing and dental benefits for older Americans, a goal of progressives. Continue reading...
Quartet allegedly explored ways to take Masih Alinejad away in speedboat in scheme like ‘far-fetched movie plot’, FBI saysFour members of an alleged Iranian spy network have been charged with plotting the kidnap of an Iranian-American journalist and activist based in New York.According to the indictment, the spy network was exploring ways to spirit the journalist from her home in Brooklyn and take her by speedboat out to sea, and then to Venezuela, which maintains friendly ties with Tehran. Continue reading...
State officials add to deadly cost of failure of state power grid, which caused a political scandalTexas officials have added 59 deaths to the toll wrought by a February cold spell and the ensuing collapse of the state electric power grid.Related: Why the cold weather caused huge Texas blackouts – a visual explainer Continue reading...
Groups in the lawsuit, including doctors, health clinic staff and clergy members, say SB8 violates Texans’ constitutional rightsIn a highly anticipated move, Texas abortion providers filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against the state’s draconian six-week abortion ban, Senate Bill 8 that would empower private citizens to enforce the law.“The Texas legislature’s well-documented hostility to the rights of pregnant people has gone to a new extreme,” reads the lawsuit, filed by groups including Whole Woman’s Health and Planned Parenthood, along with abortion support fund groups, doctors, health clinic staff, and clergy members. “Senate Bill 8 flagrantly violates the constitutional rights of Texans seeking abortion and upends the rule of law in service of an anti-abortion agenda.” Continue reading...
In interview James Talarico challenges Fox News host Pete Hegseth to say Trump lost the 2020 presidential electionIn an interview on Tuesday night, a Texas Democrat who fled the state for Washington DC in an attempt to stop a restrictive voting rights law challenged a Fox News host to say Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.Related: ‘Have you no shame?’: Biden decries Republican attacks on voting rights Continue reading...
President decries racist voting laws but notably omits any mention of filibuster in Philadelphia speechGood morning,Joe Biden made an impassioned stand on voting rights in his speech from Philadelphia on Tuesday, asking Republicans who are pushing for restrictive laws: “Have you no shame?” Continue reading...
by Robert Reich, Geoffrey Kabaservice, Bhaskar Sunkar on (#5M62K)
The president has tried to reset from the chaotic cruelty of the Trump era but the challenges in his inbox are dauntingSix months in, it looks like Joe Biden has a good chance of getting America back to where it was before the pandemic. Covid-19 is in retreat. So far, almost half of the adult population has been fully vaccinated. The economy is roaring back – still 7m jobs short of where it was in January 2020 but on track to return to the starting gate by the end of the year. Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” is a major success. Continue reading...
Infection rates in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi are among the highest in the US – and their vaccination rates are among the lowestA cluster of midwestern and southern states have emerged as a new center of Covid-19 outbreaks, as the highly transmissible Delta variant sweeps across poorly vaccinated populations in the US.The news marks a potentially serious setback for the Biden administration’s attempts to curb and control the pandemic as the Delta variant – which has wreaked havoc in the UK and elsewhere – is starting to spread more widely in America. Continue reading...
Cuban special forces have begun a widespread crackdown on anti-government protests. The historic demonstrations were sparked over food shortages, high prices and other grievances against the government. Meanwhile, rallies have been held in several US cities, with hundreds of people waving Cuban flags and calling for change on the Communist-run island
Satellite imagery from NOAA shows various clusters of fire in the state of Oregon. The Bootleg fire, which has been burning since 6 July, is the largest active blaze in the nation, covering an area larger than the size of New York City. The growing Bootleg fire continued to devour forest in south-central Oregon, after forcing hundreds of residents in the Klamath Falls area to evacuate
Joe Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia in support of voting rights legislation that has been stalling in Congress due to Republican opposition. Many Republican-controlled states have passed laws that either restrict voting or change election rules following baseless accusations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election
Thousands have been forced to evacuate from Alaska to Wyoming amid soaring temperatures and a droughtMore than 60 wildfires were burning across at least 10 states in the parched American west on Tuesday, with the largest, in Oregon, consuming an area nearly twice the size of Portland.The fires have torched homes and forced thousands to evacuate from Alaska to Wyoming, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Arizona, Idaho and Montana accounted for more than half of the large active fires. Continue reading...
Workers were not hospitalized themselves but incident comes amid rising case numbers in NevadaAn outbreak of Covid-19 among vaccinated staffers at a Las Vegas hospital has highlighted the risks posed by the Delta variant in the US, as Nevada struggles with rising Covid cases and stagnating vaccination rates.Eleven workers at the Sunrise hospital and medical center, only one of whom was unvaccinated, tested positive for coronavirus after attending a party in early June, hospital officials confirmed to the Guardian.
President condemns Trump’s ‘big lie’ about a stolen election but fails to mention filibuster in 20-minute Philadelphia speechJoe Biden has made an impassioned attack on racist voting laws sweeping America, warning that “the 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real” and demanding of Republicans: “Have you no shame?”Related: Biden defends voting rights – but no word on ending the filibuster Continue reading...
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