Footage filmed after a vehicle exploded in Nashville early on Christmas morning shows damage to several buildings. The explosion is being considered an 'intentional act' by local police as vehicle broadcast an apparently recorded message telling people to evacuate the area before the blast
As a teenager in 1980s provincial Florida, I heard radio DJs dismiss punk as unlistenable garbage. Then I heard the ClashAs 2020 began, I was wandering the streets of London listening to the Clash. And as the flaming wreckage of this accursed year burns down to its last embers, I’m still thinking about the band and its lead singer, Joe Strummer (born John Graham Mellor), who died 18 years ago on 22 December aged 50.Related: The Clash's London Calling reviewed - archive, 9 January 1980 Continue reading...
With the festive season upon us, we reflect on reasons for football fans to be thankful as the year draws to an endAlex Smith was the deserved comeback player of the year before the season even began. His indescribable resolve pulled him through the spiral and compound fracture to his right tibia and fibula in 2018 that led to 17 surgeries after developing necrotizing fasciitis and onto Washington’s roster as their third-string quarterback for 2020. The 36-year-old came within 24 hours of losing his leg after his injury but was determined to eventually take a snap at FedExField. But would we see Smith as he sat behind Dwayne Haskins and Kyle Allen? Absolutely. Haskins’s underwhelming play meant he was scratched as the starter against the LA Rams and Allen stepped up. But injury struck and Smith was finally back, a mere 693 days since his last appearance under center. The veteran naturally completed his first pass with a quick strike to JD McKissick for six yards. As starter Smith delivered his first victory in 742 days for Washington against Cincinnati. “Just another thing I never thought I’d be doing,” said Smith. So far, so incredible. But the best was yet to come. A short trip to Pittsburgh to face the all-conquering, undefeated Steelers at 11-0 with his own team struggling at 4-7. So much for that. Smith erased Pittsburgh throwing for 296 yards and a crucial touchdown to tie the game in the fourth quarter that Dustin Hopkins converted to a stunning 23-17 win with two late field goals. NFL lore meet Alex Smith. Continue reading...
An exponential surge is crushing Los Angeles hospitals, with desperate nurses warning ‘there’s no place to take care of you’Los Angeles is becoming the center of America’s out-of-control coronavirus pandemic in these final days before the new year, with officials warning that a meteoric rise in infections is crushing the healthcare system in one of the country’s largest metropolitan regions.LA county has faced an onslaught of terrifying Covid developments in recent days, including a surge in deaths, dire shortages of hospital resources, and fears that doctors will have to make agonizing choices to ration care. Continue reading...
Former DoJ officials say they are worried Trump will lean on acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen for potentially risky favorsWilliam Barr’s abrupt move to leave his post as attorney general this week has spurred fears among Department of Justice veterans that Donald Trump will put new pressures on Barr’s successor to do him big and potentially risky political and legal favors.Former justice department officials say they are worried Trump will lean on Barr’s less experienced successor, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to push policies which Trump has suggested he backs, including naming special counsels to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless charges of widespread election fraud. Continue reading...
New Ross reinvented itself as a shrine to the Kennedy clan. Can towns linked to Biden, the most Irish American president since JFK, do the same?After its factories died and its port withered, New Ross, a town perched by the River Barrow in south-east Ireland, decided in the 1990s to tap a unique asset: John F Kennedy.The US president’s great-grandfather had sailed from the quays of New Ross to America during the 1840s famine, leaving behind a modest homestead that JFK twice visited, including a few months before his assassination in 1963. Like many Americans, not least the current US president-elect, Joe Biden, Kennedy was proud of his Irish connections and keen to re-emphasise the links. Continue reading...
Some of the greatest experiences of my life happened when interviewing famous people face-to-face, but now I’ve discovered the joys of duvet working daysOne of my favourite things about Britain is Boxing Day. In the US, we don’t have a name for the day after Christmas, which is insane because it has such a distinctive feel to it, it so obviously deserves its own nomenclature. Moving here and discovering Boxing Day was like finding out there’s a specific name for 7pm on a Sunday, or 5pm on a Friday, as there absolutely should be, and Germany probably has this covered.This week, as regular readers know, is my favourite of the year, and not entirely because it’s when, as Bridget Jones once put it, “normal service is suspended and it’s OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything into your mouth and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings”. It’s also a time to take stock of how the year has gone, and how the next one will look. For a while, the future seemed unfathomable. Now that the vaccines are a-coming, that’s not quite the case – but my job is still slightly lost in the fathoms. Continue reading...
George Charlet has witnessed a disaster up and close and personal – and has learned to prepare for the worstBeing a funeral home director in Zachary, Louisiana, means sometimes your neighbor calls when they see cars in the parking lot, to ask: “Who died?”Zachary, a suburb of Baton Rouge, has a population of about 18,000. Continue reading...
Serving in the White House is normally a passport to a lucrative job in business or lobbying but little about the Trump presidency is normalIn normal times it would go to the top of anyone’s curriculum vitae or résumé. Serving in the White House has typically been a passport to a lucrative job on a corporate board, in the lobbying industry or at a prestigious Washington thinktank. Continue reading...
Emergency signal sent from Montreal-bound plane carrying three crew before the plane was rerouted to ArizonaAn Air Canada Boeing Co 737-8 Max en route between Arizona and Montreal with three crew members onboard suffered an engine issue that forced the crew to divert the aircraft to Tucson, Arizona, the airline says.Shortly after the take-off, the pilots received an “engine indication” and “decided to shut down one engine”, an Air Canada spokesman said on Friday. Continue reading...
Parliament should be recalled to deal with the crisis of coronavirus, not just that of leaving the EUIn January 1979, a beleaguered Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, returned from a Caribbean summit to a country that appeared in crisis. A week earlier, truck drivers had gone on strike, cutting off petrol supplies in the “winter of discontent”. When the prime minister arrived at London’s Heathrow airport, he held a press conference in which nothing memorable was said. Instead, in a phrase that has become code for political complacency, Callaghan became for ever associated with the following day’s Sun newspaper headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”His fate was sealed. Callaghan lost the next general election to Margaret Thatcher. The lesson for politicians is the importance of perception in a crisis. If something feels like a crisis, it is effectively a crisis. Britain now confronts its most serious emergency since the second world war. It faces the unprecedented challenge of coronavirus while adjusting to a new diminished status outside the European Union. The country’s health service is at breaking point, and its future as a unified state is on the line. All this goes unmentioned by Boris Johnson, perhaps because he disingenuously promised that Brexit would save the NHS. Continue reading...
Let’s work together for a better world in 2021 – and a Christmas when we can truly sing of peace on Earth and good will to all peopleAs many Americans pause to celebrate the Christmas holiday this weekend, it is tempting to wish for a momentary pause in our public life of ceaseless conflict. Between a president who has refused to accept the reality of his defeat and an entire subculture that has made denying science a culture war in the midst of a global pandemic, an incredible amount of energy has been invested in division this year. While it may feel good to romanticize the spirit of the season and wish everyone a “Merry Christmas”, it would be more faithful to both the original Christmas story and our present circumstances to wish one another a “Mourning Christmas”.Two thousand years ago, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, inequality was rampant. Client state rulers like King Herod in Judea used their power to accumulate wealth from poor subjects. Jesus, the son of God, was born to a poor family who could not find a room to rent in Bethlehem. His birth was not celebrated by the wealthy or the politically powerful, but by migrant farm workers and foreign religious minorities. The movement of hope and new life that Jesus came to inaugurate was attacked by a paranoid and narcissistic ruler who was willing to kill innocent children in a desperate attempt to cling to power. The first Christmas was not merry and bright, but a mournful sight. Continue reading...
Romantic? Maybe. But my relationship with my husband has taught me that love is about solidarityTo understand how 2020 changed me, we first need to turn the clock back to June 2019.I had flown to Australia to take part in a fellowship programme. My friend (and Guardian columnist) Owen Jones was there for a conference that was happening at the same time, and on a chilly Friday night in Melbourne’s midwinter, we found ourselves in a bar overlooking the Yarra River. “There’s someone who works in Australian politics I want to talk to,” said Owen. We wandered around until we eventually found the guy, and a surprise: he had brought a friend. Continue reading...
As Donald Trump peddled baseless claims of vote fraud after 3 November, democracy found out who its friends wereIn November, Donald Trump became the first president in American history to try to hold on to power that voters had given to someone else in the course of a national election. Continue reading...
Legal threats range from investigations into his business dealings in New York to possible obstruction of justice charges – but all come with a political costAt noon on 20 January, presuming he doesn’t have to be dragged out of the White House as a trespasser, Donald Trump will make one last walk across the South Lawn, take his seat inside Marine One, and be gone. Continue reading...
A deal is better than no deal, but the prime minister will be personally held to account for every negative impact on the UKThey left it late but a deal has been done. It will take some time to digest the details but it is clear that the agreement reached is thin. We should not kid ourselves that this is the full and comprehensive trade deal that the country needed in order to minimise the damage caused by our departure from the European Union. January will still involve yet further disruption to our trade (it is very regrettable that there is no implementation period). More importantly, in the longer term, the UK’s diminished access to EU markets will make us a less attractive place to locate jobs and investment.The deal gives us tariff-free and quota-free access to the EU but this is far from the frictionless access that business wanted. Importing and exporting to the EU will become more bureaucratic, complex supply chains will struggle – putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Services, of course, see little direct benefit. Continue reading...
Britain leaves the EU with its sovereignty compromised, its economy weakened – and its leader walking a tightropeBrexit was never fundamentally an economic project. It was always more about what it said on the ballot paper in 2016. Brexit was about ceasing to be a member of the European Union. Leavers understood that. Remainers, in contrast, still struggle with it. To a lot of remainers, Brexit had to be a proxy for something else: anti-immigrant feeling, maybe, economic disempowerment, or post-imperial nostalgia. Those issues were not irrelevant to Brexit, but they were never the main point.Leaving the EU was an emotionally charged political proposition, not an economic one. It was a desire rooted in a vision of British sovereignty richly marinaded in a heady mix of nostalgia and bogus victimhood, fanned by Britain’s media, and which made the enormous error of confusing sovereignty with power. The reality of that error will come home to roost in the months and years ahead. But Brexit was never about the price of potatoes or cars. In the end, it wasn’t even about standing up for Britain’s one genuine shared diplomatic triumph of recent decades, the Northern Ireland peace agreement. Continue reading...
The Olympic gold medallist is rediscovering her love for the sport after verbal abuse from her former coach led to her stepping awayWhen times have been hard and Laurie Hernandez found herself questioning why she decided to return to the pounding and perfectionism of elite gymnastics, one of the memories that has kept her moving forward was the time she wanted to let it go.It was at the beginning of 2016 as the Olympics rounded into view that her frustration with injuries led her to consider stopping. She stepped away for around three days. As she began training for her comeback two years ago, it became a constant point of reference during her older brother’s motivational speeches: “He was like: ‘You’re two years out! It’s gonna make sense that you want to quit now when at Olympic level you wanted to stop. You’ve just gotta hang in there.’” Continue reading...
We already know its contours: a barely-there treaty that will make trade harder and destroy jobs. Labour should oppose itBoris Johnson always expected news of a deal to be greeted with jubilation. It was to be his moment of triumph after three decades of climbing to the summit of British politics by railing against Brussels. The rightwing press dutifully rallied. Even Nigel Farage declared: “The war is over.”But with Britain in a state of crisis because of the government’s botched response to the pandemic, most people will react with relief or perhaps indifference. For all the triumphalist claims of the Brexiters, the sunny uplands they told us to expect are no more than another cold, dark, wet winter’s day. The 11th-hour antics means there will be little scrutiny of a trade deal that could shape Britain’s economic destiny for a generation. Continue reading...
Richard and Mayumi Heene claimed son had floated away to try to get reality TV showThe husband and wife who pleaded guilty to criminal charges for staging the 2009 “balloon boy” hoax, in which they created a global media sensation with a false report that their son had floated away in a makeshift dirigible, have been pardoned by Colorado’s governor.In granting executive clemency to Richard and Mayumi Heene, Governor Jared Polis said the couple, now 59 and 56, had paid their debt to society for a “spectacle” that wasted law enforcement time and resources. Continue reading...
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a suspect in US journalist’s 2002 killing, had conviction overturned this yearA court in Pakistan has ordered that a British-born Islamist militant charged with the 2002 kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl should be freed, his defence lawyer has said.Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding Pearl’s murder but the conviction was overturned this year. He has been in jail ever since awaiting the outcome of a series of appeals and legal arguments. Continue reading...
The basketball star did not play a professional game this year, and yet she achieved arguably the most important victory of her careerMaya Moore’s basketball credentials are unimpeachable. She is a four-time WNBA champion, two-time EuroLeague winner, six-time WNBA All-Star and has two Olympic gold medals. In 2017, Sports Illustrated described her as the greatest winner in the history of women’s basketball. And yet the 31-year-old Moore, still in her peak playing years, didn’t play a professional game in 2020. So why is she on this list? Because her year off the court has been incredible.In 2019 she announced she would take a sabbatical from her WNBA career – and the grind of the basketball circuit – to fight the case of Jonathan Irons, a man who argued that he had been falsely convicted of burglary and assault charges. Those charges ended with Irons being given a 50-year prison sentence for a crime he had allegedly committed when he was 16. Moore’s career break was, to put it mildly, a little more high stakes than Michael Jordan’s decision to step away from the NBA to play baseball. And while Moore earned decent money – particularly during her spells in Europe and China – she did not have the financial security Jordan enjoyed when he temporarily left the Chicago Bulls. Continue reading...
As the Senate runoffs near, organizations on the ground are working to educate and register voters in the stateThe state of Georgia made history this past November during the 2020 presidential election, when it turned from a red state to a blue state, the first time in over 20 years.Related: Democrats again look to Black voters to win Georgia runoffs and take the Senate Continue reading...
Community groups say widespread unemployment has driven surge in hunger – and the holiday week presents another challengeAs winter holidays approach, many Americans won’t just miss out on celebratory meals because of isolation forced on them by the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead millions of people in the US will go literally hungry due to the deep economic crisis gripping the country.Related: New York City orders quarantine for all travelers from UK Continue reading...
Two political fantasies show how many Americans have become frustrated with democratic politicsI have a friend who’s the stepmother to a young boy and this boy’s birth mother has gotten deeply into QAnon. How deep? She recently told him that the world is flat, and anyone who tells him otherwise is a paedophile. She is determined to take him out of school in order to shield him from cannibals, satanists and Democrats. Every time my friend updates me on the project of raising a child in joint custody with this person, I experience a kind of vertigo. How would you even do it?Now imagine that, instead of raising a child, you and this person had to set emissions standards and develop a sustainable healthcare system. This is not far from the condition of US democracy in 2020: two centre-right corporate parties, one socially progressive and the other socially reactionary; a left divided between the internet and the academy; and an indeterminate number of maniacs. Continue reading...
With only a few more weeks before Biden takes over, significant segments of the party are finally breaking with the presidentAfter four years of norm-shattering rule, Donald Trump appears close to doing the one thing observers have long predicted but that has not yet come to pass: splitting the Republican party.Related: America braced for final month of madness as Trump show nears its end Continue reading...
President is said to be considering further interventions on behalf of aides, friends and family membersDonald Trump is expected to grant further waves of audacious pardons for allies and supporters – possibly even for himself – in a frenzied final month as US president. Continue reading...
As he turns 80, the medical expert’s decades of work on HIV will stand as his lasting contribution, whatever happens with CovidOn the morning of 9 November, as the world awoke to the game-changing news that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective, Anthony Fauci sat for a triumphant 9am press conference. But he was not there to discuss Covid-19. Continue reading...
Andre Hill seen on officer’s body camera emerging from garage in Columbus a few seconds before being fatally shotBody camera footage shows a Black man emerging from a garage and holding up a cellphone in his left hand seconds before he is fatally shot by a Columbus police officer.About six seconds pass between the time Andre Hill, 47, is visible in the video and when the officer fires his weapon. There is no audio because the officer had not activated the body camera but an automatic “look back” feature captured the shooting early on Tuesday. Continue reading...
President also gives clemency to Roger Stone in second round of pardons since TuesdayDonald Trump has pardoned another 26 people in his second big wave of clemency actions since Tuesday, marking yet another audacious application of presidential power to reward loyalists.The US president pardoned his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his longtime adviser Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. Continue reading...
From figures in the Russia investigation to former Republican lawmakers, a look at who’s who in the latest round of pardonsDonald Trump has granted pardons and commuted the sentences of more than 40 people since Tuesday, many of them former aides and longtime loyalists.They include several former campaign figures, multiple former Republican lawmakers, a Dutch lawyer charged as part of the Russia investigation, the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and four former government contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.
Maxwell’s lawyers have asked for her release on a $28.5m bail package, and pointed to her marriage as a reason she wouldn’t fleeThe British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s latest argument for bail in her sex trafficking case claimed that she and her husband had discussed a divorce of convenience “to protect him … from the terrible consequences of being associated with her”, according to Manhattan federal court papers filed Wednesday.Maxwell has been jailed since her 2 July arrest for alleged involvement in the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of minor girls. Maxwell had been a close confidante of Epstein as he cultivated a circle of powerful friends and associates across the world. Continue reading...
President pardons 15 people including perpetrators of a massacre in Iraq, and threatens not to sign $900bn aid package. Plus, why Walmart is being sued over the opioid crisis
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