US news | The Guardian

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...

Some Dyker Heights families continue to put up extravagant displays as locals find comfort and joy in annual tradition

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...

Karina died in May. Since then I, like so many of us, have had to learn a new way of grieving

Nearly 3,000 Americans in the healthcare system have died fighting Covid-19. We count them and investigate why

Dire PPE shortages. Limited Covid tests. Political negligence. A Guardian/KHN investigation reveals what went wrong

New analysis shows a far higher number of healthcare worker deaths than those reported by the government

Average pay seems to be up but only because so many low-paid jobs are being lost and thus no longer counted

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

Our photographers captured many memorable and moving moments from 2020. Here’s our pick of the most striking.

Some of college football’s most storied programs have discovered that even seemingly innocuous fight songs and fan-friendly chants aren’t safe from their problematic historiesIn Alabama, “Roll Tide!” is a phrase for all seasons.Love for the University of Alabama’s football powerhouse runs so deep in the southeastern state that the iconic college chant routinely doubles as shorthand for “hello”, “goodbye” and everything in between. Continue reading...

Four guards fired on unarmed crowd in Baghdad in 2007, killing 14 and sparking outrage over use of private security in war zonesDonald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war.The four guards – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten – were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns, grenade launchers and a sniper on a crowd of unarmed people in a square in the Iraqi capital. Continue reading...

The president’s recent conduct has raised alarms of an increasingly desperate power bid in his last 30 days. So what can we expect?As the Trump show nears its final episode, America is bracing for potentially the most dramatic, disturbing and outlandish twists yet.Donald Trump’s recent conduct has led critics to suggest that he has lost touch with reality and raise alarms over an increasingly desperate, deranged power grab in the climactic month of his presidency. Continue reading...

Analysis: President sanctions first federal execution of a woman in 67 years – but war criminals, fraudsters and Russia-linked cronies go freeLisa Montgomery is set to become the first woman put to death by the US federal government in 67 years. On Tuesday senators including Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren wrote to the justice department demanding an investigation into an “unprecedented spree” of federal executions on Donald Trump’s watch.A few hours later the president announced a slew of 15 pardons. Strikingly they included four military contractors imprisoned for the killing of unarmed men, women and children in Iraq. In short, war criminals. Continue reading...

Outgoing president says $600 stimulus payout to most Americans should increase to $2,000, or $4,000 for a coupleDonald Trump has suggested he may not sign the bipartisan $900bn pandemic relief package that Congress passed on Monday night.Trump complained in a video that the bill delivered too much money to foreign countries and not enough to Americans. The bill has enough votes to override a veto should Trump decide to take that step. Continue reading...

President grants pardons to 15 people, including contractors convicted in massacre in Iraq, and commutes others’ sentencesDonald Trump approved a wave of pre-Christmas pardons, granting clemency to a former campaign aide caught up in the Russia investigation, disgraced Republican lawmakers and several contractors convicted in a massacre in Iraq. Continue reading...

Families caught in the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols faced hard choices. One man shares his story of defeatThe night after their immigration court hearing, Francisco Sical held his young daughter in his arms in a freezing Border Patrol cell. She begged him to open the door.“Have you ever experienced a moment when you see your child crying and you can’t do anything?” he said about the night he confronted one of the hardest decisions of his life. “It breaks your soul.” Continue reading...

Retailer accused of filling ‘thousands of invalid prescriptions’ and pressuring pharmacists to act irresponsiblyThe US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Walmart on Tuesday, alleging that the retail giant filled “thousands of invalid prescriptions” for powerful painkillers, helping fuel America’s opioid crisis.Walmart runs more than 5,000 pharmacies across the country. Until 2018, the chain was a wholesale distributor of controlled substances for its own pharmacies, giving it extensive reach into many communities. Continue reading...

Tucked into a 5,593-page bill are a range of obscure provisions that appear to have little to do with fortifying a fragile economyLate on Monday night, Congress approved a $900bn stimulus package which will deliver financial aid to millions of families and businesses facing economic distress from coronavirus pandemic. Though far smaller than a bill lawmakers passed at the outset of the pandemic, earlier this year, the measure is one the largest pieces of legislation in US history.Related: Covid could shorten US life expectancy by up to three years, experts say Continue reading...

Biden said the US would have dark days ahead in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and things would get worse before they improved.Monday saw the Covid-19 cases pass 18 million in the US according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and Biden said the vaccine rollout would not change trends quickly

Padilla will be state’s first Latino senator after appointment by governor and ally Gavin NewsomCalifornia’s secretary of state, Alex Padilla, has been appointed to fill Kamala Harris’s seat in the US senate.The child of Mexican immigrants, Padilla will be California’s first Latino senator, giving a new level of representation to the demographic group that makes up nearly 40% of the state’s population. Continue reading...

Dr Anthony Fauci was injected with his first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine and he said he hoped it would encourage millions of other Americans to do the same.The top US infectious diseases expert said he felt 'extreme confidence of the safety and efficacy of this vaccine'

More than 40 women submitted testimony claiming abuse, alleging they underwent invasive and unnecessary proceduresMore women have joined an official legal petition alleging that they were medically abused by a gynecologist while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody in a move that significantly expands a case that has shocked America.The legal petition outlining these alleged abuses were filed in the Middle District of Georgia federal court late Monday night. More than 40 women have submitted written testimony attesting to claims of abuse, one attorney on their case said. Continue reading...

City council candidate Vickie Paladino among those in conga line at 9 December event at restaurant in Queens, New YorkIn a celebration more danse macabre than tripping the light fantastic, members of a Republican club in Queens, New York, partied without masks or social distancing during a mid-pandemic indoor Christmas party, a viral video shows.Related: Covid could shorten US life expectancy by up to three years, experts say Continue reading...

The Lakers, Bucks and Clippers are among the hot favorites as the NBA tips off on Tuesday night following the shortest offseason in league historyWhat happens with James Harden. It looks like the Houston Rockets have finally faced the reality that they will have to trade the player they built the whole team around. Who would have thought that the trade of a once and potentially future MVP would play out like a family getting rid of an unwanted houseguest? HF Continue reading...

Trump continues to make baseless claims of mass electoral fraud, and has reportedly attacked both McConnell and PenceDonald Trump has reportedly acknowledged in private that his attempt to overturn the election result will fail, while a senior Republican in the Senate said on Monday a challenge coming in the House of Representatives will “go down like a shot dog”.Related: Abortion, gun control: conservatives steer pet cases towards supreme court with Barrett on bench Continue reading...

There is a pandemic of violence against women and girls – and we can all act as the vaccine• Nicole Kidman is an Oscar-winning actor, who played a lead role in 2020 drama The Undoing

Cohen filed court papers contending he ‘could be eligible for release’ under the First Step Act that Trump signed into law in 2018Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, says he deserves early release from home confinement under Trump’s signature sentencing reform – but federal authorities refuse to credit him for good behavior and hundreds of hours of work and prison courses completed behind bars.Related: Disloyal review: Michael Cohen's mob hit on Trump entertains – but will it shift votes? Continue reading...

Cities such as Malden, Massachusetts are working to comply with rights laws to accommodate a growing voting blocIn 2007, Fiona Yu was looking forward to voting in Boston’s local elections for the first time – a year after she became a US citizen. Yu, now 60, had immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong where she grew up poor, and earned a high school diploma through night school in the US.On election ay, Yu went to her polling station in Allston, a neighbourhood in Boston. But a poll worker was confused about her new home address. As a recent immigrant, Yu’s English was limited and there was no Chinese interpreter. The poll worker did not let her vote, even though Yu had proper documentation of her new address. Nor did she give her a provisional ballot. Continue reading...

To undo the damage Trump has wrought at home and abroad, the US must move beyond outdated foreign policy ideas

Stripped of its distractions, the holiday season is revealed for what it is: a slog. If you’re facing a lonely Christmas, here are some pointers

Joe Biden promises the coronavirus vaccine is ‘nothing to worry about’ as he receives his first dose live on TV, while Congress passes $900bn aid package. Plus, LA hospitals draw up plans to ration careGood morning.Congress has passed a $900bn coronavirus aid package, after months of gridlock in Washington and both parties working yesterday long into the night. The package includes a temporary jobless benefit, a $600 direct stimulus payment to most Americans and subsidies for businesses, as well as funds for schools, healthcare providers and renters. At a whopping 5,593 pages, it is probably the longest bill in US history. Continue reading...