The VP wouldn't be where he is today without the patronage of the Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. But with voters becoming more and more concerned about the firm's surveillance tech, could that relationship affect his chances?The US is the land of the free and the home of the world's most expensive, and most excruciatingly drawn-out, elections. In most democracies, the election cycle lasts just a few weeks or months. In most democracies there are strict laws regulating how long politicians can campaign, and how much money political parties can accept. But the US is not most democracies. Continue reading...
Pei Chung allegedly ate at multiple fancy restaurants around New York City and then skipped out on payingA would-be food influencer known online as the dine-and-dash diva" has been jailed in Brooklyn, New York, after multiple previous arrests for allegedly skipping out on the bill at high-end restaurants.Pei Chung, 34, is said to have developed a habit of going to fancy restaurants around New York City, ordering extensively off the menu - and then trying to get out of paying. Continue reading...
Lawsuit filed in West Virginia claimed Justice and his wife received notice of the funds due since 2009 but didn't payJim Justice, the Republican US senator, and his wife have agreed to pay more than $5m that the couple owes in back taxes shortly after they were sued over the 16-year-old debt by the federal government.The lawsuit, filed on Monday in federal court in their home state of West Virginia, maintained that the Justices had received notice from the US treasury department of the funds due since 2009 but had neglected or refused to make full payment of those assessments". Continue reading...
National spotlight, after video of violent fight went viral, has led residents to question just how safe their city is or isn't - and who is responsible for sparking the debateIt took only a few days for footage of a violent brawl in downtown Cincinnati in July to catch the attention of some of the country's most high-profile figures.The fight, which saw a white woman punched in the face from behind by an African American man, among other incidents, took place when around 150,000 people were attending events in the city's urban core. Continue reading...
CBP press release calls seized drugs and lettuce a salad unfit for this year's Thanksgiving table'Officials at Texas's border with Mexico seized roughly $10.3m worth of methamphetamine hidden in a lettuce shipment on Friday, according to US Customs and Border Protection.A press release from CBP officials called the seized drugs and lettuce a salad unfit for this year's Thanksgiving table", adding that the 500 packages of meth in question weighed about 1,153lbs. Continue reading...
Designation of groups from Italy, Germany and Greece labelled ridiculous' as experts say no active threat posedExperts have told the Guardian the same anti-fascist groups the US state department recently named as foreign terrorist organizations and accused of conspiring to undermine foundations of western civilization" barely qualify as groups, let alone terrorist organizations, and pose no active threat to Americans.The whole thing is a bit ridiculous," said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which tracks extremist movements worldwide, because the groups designated by the administration barely exist and certainly aren't terrorists." Continue reading...
A judge tossed indictments against two of the president's political enemies, standing against politicized prosecutionsYesterday brought good news for two of Donald Trump's most hated enemies: the former FBI director James Comey, and the New York state attorney general, Letitia James. A federal judge dismissed the sham indictments the administration had obtained against them.Judge Cameron McGowan Currie reminded the president and his attorney general of the great lessons of a society governed by the rule of law: how things are done matters as much as what is done. Without fair procedures, no one can be safe from the arbitrary exercise of government power. Continue reading...
The US health secretary's digital affair' with Olivia Nuzzi doesn't need sombre analysis. Take it from this Brit: sometimes laughter is the only optionLiterally nothing on this earth takes itself as seriously as American journalism. There are rogue-state dictators it's more permissible to laugh at than the endlessly hilarious pretensions of newsmen and newswomen in the United States. The crucial difference between the British press and US press is that at least we in the British press know we're in the gutter. The Americans have always imagined - and so loudly - that they are involved in some kind of higher calling. Guys, I love you and stuff, but get over it, because you're missing one of the great jokes of the century. Yourselves.I don't deny that everything's bigger in America. Our former health secretary had a knee-trembler up against his office door in the pandemic; their current one apparently wrote felching ... poetry, is it ... felching poetry? ... to a superstar journalist who was worrying about his brainworm, yet the story is being written up like it's Dante, instead of X-rated Italian brainrot.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
by Joseph Gedeon in Washington and Will Craft on (#71QCA)
State department proposes excluding 38 institutions from Diplomacy Lab partnership including Harvard and YaleMore than three dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke have their participation in a federal research partnership on the chopping block after the state department proposed to suspend them over their diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices.Last week, the Guardian obtained an internal memo and spreadsheet showing that the state department is moving to exclude 38 institutions from the Diplomacy Lab program, which pairs university researchers with state department policy offices on foreign policy projects. The suspensions would take effect on 1 January, and because the list is not finalized, the school's have not yet been informed. Continue reading...
Maybe. Let's hope it is not too late for Democrats to win back the working class and WashingtonSince the Democrats' sweeping victories on 4 November, a strange thing has happened among the party factions: a semblance of unity has emerged.At first, affordability" became the slogan of rapprochement. Moderates, populists and socialists agreed Democrats must campaign around the cost-of-living crisis and hang the broken economy around Donald Trump's neck. Continue reading...
Twenty years after the league introduced its controversial policy, many players see it as helping them develop self-expressionLonzo Ball's froze in confusion. The question - What do you think about the NBA dress code?" - hung in the air for a second before he cracked a sheepish grin.There's a dress code?" he said, smiling. Continue reading...
Players are being worn down by a cluttered calendar and lack of unity over their welfare from governing bodiesElina Svitolina simply could not go on. Her hopeful start to the 2025 season had given way to despair as the mental and emotional strain of constant competition, travelling and stress left its mark. The 31-year-old understood that competing would only make things worse and, in September, Svitolina decided to prematurely end her season, citing burnout.The world No 14 is not alone in feeling suffocated by her sport. This has been another year filled with incredible performances and gripping matches, but the past 11 months have also been defined by the physical and mental ailments endured by many of the sport's stars. Continue reading...
Research shows 70% disapprove of job US president - who won backing of nearly half of Latino voters in 2024 - is doingA majority of Latinos disapprove of Donald Trump and his economic and immigration policies, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.After receiving support from nearly half of Latino voters in the 2024 election, Trump had lost the backing of a majority surveyed in October. Pew found that 70% of Latinos disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president", while 65% disapprove of his administration's approach to immigration and 61% believe his economic policies have worsened economic conditions. Continue reading...
Federal judge calls justice department's actions unlawful exercises of executive power' because prosecutor was unlawfully appointed - key US politics stories from Monday 24 November at a glanceA federal judge threw out the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James on Monday, concluding that the prosecutor handling the case was unlawfully appointed.Lindsey Halligan, who Trump named the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September, had no lawful authority to present the indictment" against the former FBI director and New York attorney general, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, wrote in her opinion. Continue reading...
Fletcher spent years pushing for justice after deadly racial attack on thriving Black Oklahoma community in 1921Viola Ford Fletcher, who as one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Oklahoma spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child, has died. She was 111.Her grandson Ike Howard said on Monday that she died surrounded by family at a Tulsa hospital. Sustained by a strong faith, she raised three children, worked as a welder in a shipyard during the second world war and spent decades caring for families as a housekeeper. Continue reading...
President signs executive order for Rubio and Bessent to submit report on chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and JordanDonald Trump on Monday began the process of designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, a move that would bring sanctions against one of the Arab world's oldest and most influential Islamist movements.Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, according to a White House fact sheet. It orders the secretaries to move forward with any designations within 45 days of the report. Continue reading...
DoJ argues that congressional action last week to release the Epstein files permits unsealing of court recordsThe justice department has renewed its request to unseal grand jury materials from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that led to the disgraced financier's federal indictment on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.The submission, signed by US attorney Jay Clayton for the southern district in New York, says that Congress made clear in approving the release of investigative materials last week that the court records should be released. Continue reading...
Members of rightwing base disorientated by cordial Oval Office meeting - but not all Trump supporters downcastA flurry of social media posts from Maga influencers have laid bare the disorientation felt by members of Trump's base at the spectacle of Friday's cordial Oval Office meeting with Mamdani, who the president previously painted as a communist lunatic".Wild to allow a jihadist communist to stand behind the president's desk in the Oval Office. Sad to see," wrote far-right activist Laura Loomer, one of Trump's most fervent online backers. Continue reading...
The Guardian US reviewed figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection since Trump's inaugurationDonald Trump campaigned on a platform of mass deportation. Since he took office, his administration has reshaped immigration enforcement across the country. The Guardian US, using data published every two weeks by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is tracking the number of people the administration has arrested, detained and deported. Continue reading...
Stephanie Hockridge and her husband falsified details to obtain PPP loans guaranteed by US small business agencyA former Phoenix news anchor has been sentenced to 10 years after being found guilty of participating in a fraudulent $63m Covid-19 relief scheme alongside her husband.Stephanie Hockridge's sentence on Friday came after a jury convicted her in June. Meanwhile, her husband, Nathan Reis, pleaded guilty in August. Continue reading...
Anna Kepner, 18, from Titusville, was found dead of asphyxiation under a bed on a Carnival cruise shipThe grandparents of a high school senior found dead on a cruise ship earlier in November say they fear they have lost two grandchildren after her stepbrother has emerged as a suspect in the case.No matter what we find out, no matter what they tell us, it's not going to bring either one of these children back," Barbara Kepner, the grandmother of the late 18-year-old cheerleader Anna Kepner told ABC News on Monday. Continue reading...
by Associated Press and Guardian staff on (#71PV1)
Investigation of Mark Kelly after Trump accused Democrats in video of seditious behavior, punishable by death'The Pentagon says it is investigating the Arizona senator Mark Kelly for possible breaches of military law after the federal lawmaker joined a handful of other Democrats in a video calling for US troops to refuse unlawful orders.It is extraordinary for the Pentagon to directly threaten a sitting member of Congress with investigation. Until Donald Trump's second presidency, the institution in charge of the US military had usually strived to appear apolitical. Continue reading...
The 28-point plan outlined last week by the US would have delivered peace on Putin's terms. EU leaders must help Kyiv resist the bullyingThere was a grim familiarity to the unveiling of Donald Trump's latest peace proposals for Ukraine last week. As in August, when the US president invitedVladimirPutin to a summit in Alaska, Kyiv andits European allies were excluded from discussionsthat ended up echoing Kremlin talking points. Yet again, Mr Trump publicly scolded Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not being more grateful for his ongoing mediation efforts. And as in the summer, Mr Zelenskyy and blindsided European leaders strove to stay polite while scrambling to limit the damage.The salvage operation appears to have been relatively successful, following Sunday's meeting in Geneva between the US secretary of state, MarcoRubio, and a Ukrainian delegation. The 28-point plan reportedly drafted by Mr Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Kremlin adviser, Kirill Dmitriev, was in effect a repackaging of Mr Putin's maximalist demands. A deal premised on the handing over of new territory in the Donbas region to Russia, restrictions on Ukraine's sovereignty, and drastic limits on the size of its future army, could never be acceptable to Kyiv. Mr Rubio, suggesting a more refined" framework wasnow being developed, seemed to at least acknowledge thisfundamental difficulty.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
President's comment implies hostility to Venezuela may be based on unfounded election-rigging conspiracy theoryDonald Trump on Sunday appeared to endorse the discredited conspiracy theory that Venezuela's leadership controls electronic voting software worldwide and caused his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.White House officials have previously said that Trump's increasingly bellicose policy toward Venezuela is driven by concerns about migration and the drug trade. But the president's new comment, made on Truth Social, hints that his hostility to Venezuela may also be based on an outlandish, implausible theory ruled to be false by a judge in 2023. Continue reading...
Police had issued alert after Morgan Geyser cut off monitoring bracelet, and was reportedly located at a truck stopThe Wisconsin woman who admitted to repeatedly stabbing a sixth-grade classmate to delight the fictional online horror character Slender Man in 2014 has been caught after authorities said she cut off a monitoring bracelet and left her group home.Morgan Geyser, 23, was found in Posen, Illinois, on Sunday evening, authorities said. Police in Madison, Wisconsin, had issued an alert for Geyser earlier in the day, saying she had last been seen with an adult acquaintance on Saturday evening.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...
Following criticism, the president accused Ukraine of ingratitude but also added the plan was not my final offer'. Which parts of it will survive?The US president, Donald Trump, has said something good just may be happening" at the talks in Switzerland intended to end the war in Ukraine. European and Ukrainian negotiators have been attempting to rework" the 28-point peace plan that the president put forward last week into one more favourable to Ukraine. Trump keeps signalling that he is willing to compromise, but his original plan put Ukraine in a very tough starting position, handing Vladimir Putin concessions that Russia has so far failed to gain on the battlefield.It is true Russia has made recent advances - especially around Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad in Donetsk province, and in parts of Zaporizhzhia. And Ukraine lacks the troops and firepower to retake all the territory lost since 2022, let alone Crimea. But the Ukrainian army isn't about to unravel, and neither is Putin close to fulfilling his original objective: conquering the four Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia fully controls only Luhansk. This war could drag on until the summer. By then, Putin's forces will have fought Ukraine for as long as Stalin's fought Nazi Germany. Continue reading...
A sweet-toothed group of 50 embarked on seven-hour pastry crawl, where they fueled up at local bakeriesIrene Chang had spent the last week praying that it wouldn't rain.On Saturday, the 25 year-old, born-and-bred Angeleno hosted Los Angeles's first-ever bakery half-marathon walk - which took place after the city had been experiencing uncharacteristically stormy weather the past several days. Luckily, with some positive manifestation, Chang woke up on Saturday morning to crisp, clear skies and felt immediate relief. Continue reading...
Man arrested in Houston is alleged to have used fake ID to demand $400 from woman who had given him massageA church employee is under arrest in Houston, Texas, after being accused of posing as an ICE agent to extort money from a woman he had booked to give him a massage.Donald Doolittle, 58, a safety director at the Gateway Community church in Webster, south-east of Houston, has been charged with impersonating a public servant. Continue reading...
by Tiago Rogero, Ana Lucía González Paz and Lucy Sw on (#71PKF)
US has used claims of a war on drugs' to justify its attacks, which have resulted in 83 deaths that the UN has called extrajudicial executionsAmid growing tensions between Washington and Caracas, the US has gathered its largest military presence in the Caribbean since the 1989 invasion of Panama.Donald Trump's administration has steadily increased pressure on Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro, accusing him of running the Cartel of the Suns" drug-trafficking organization, and placing a $50m bounty on his head. Continue reading...
Democrats' relentless focus on affordability welcomed in a group that had been seduced by an ecosystem of huckstersJust a few months ago, it seemed that the political landscape was changing permanently, with young people shifting right - especially young men. Democrats spun up a vortex of efforts to win them back, but they often appeared to be flailing. This month's elections, however, told a different story.Young men in the US face a political identity crisis. It should not be controversial to say that the world that many were promised as children has not come to fruition. Two decades of war and a turbulent economy have combined with a massively changing workforce. Young men's disaffection should come as no real surprise.Cory Alpert is a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne looking at the impact of AI on democracy. He served in the Biden-Harris administration for three years Continue reading...
He called one a piggy' after being questioned about the files, and reacted furiously to another during a meeting with the Saudi crown princeSince the early days of his political career, Donald Trump has been critical of the media, but in recent days his hostility has reached a new peak - particularly when it comes to questions about his association with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.Trump invoked the phrase piggy" - a term he has used before - to describe a female reporter on Friday, and has aggressively responded to at least one other female reporter over the past week, including threatening to revoke ABC's license. Continue reading...
Senators cited Reuters reporting that Meta itself estimated its platforms were involved in a third of all scams in the USUS senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal have asked the heads of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate revenue from ads on Facebook and Instagram that promote scams and banned goods.The FTC and SEC should immediately open investigations and, if the reporting is accurate, pursue vigorous enforcement action where appropriate" to force Meta to disgorge profits, pay penalties and agree to cease running such advertisements, Hawley and Blumenthal wrote in a letter to the federal agencies. Continue reading...
Disqualifications of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri bring unnecessary stress for McLaren in the final two F1 races of the seasonAs misjudgments go, McLaren's error in calculations that led to the disqualification of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Sunday could barely have been more cataclysmic nor more poorly timed. Quite how they got it wrong just when they wanted to close out the drivers' championship with as little fuss as possible will take no little explanation.Norris and Piastri, second and fourth respectively to Max Verstappen's win in Nevada, had been solid enough results until the FIA discovered the skid blocks on their cars had been worn beyond the 9mm limit. In one fell swoop, Verstappen was right back in the fight, alongside Piastri, 24 points back from Norris. Continue reading...
Footage of lava flowing from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii was captured by the United States Geological Survey on Sunday night.Kilauea, which is is one of the world's most active volcanoes, has been erupting intermittently since last December. Continue reading...
Mark Kelly, a veteran targeted by Trump over military comments, says he is not going to be intimidated'. Plus, DNA reveals stone age teenager as chewer of 10,500-year-old gum'Good morning.Senator Mark Kelly yesterday urged congressional Republicans to publicly reject Trump's threats against him and five other Democratic lawmakers who have said that military personnel are not obligated to follow illegal commands.What did Kelly say? His words carry tremendous weight, more so than anybody else in the country, and he should be aware of that, and because of what he says, there is now increased threats against us," Kelly said of Trump's accusations.What does the original plan say? The original 28-point US document leaked last week demands Ukraine hand over territory to Russia, limits the size of its army and agrees not to pursue the Kremlin for alleged war crimes.This is a developing story. Follow the liveblog here. Continue reading...
Exodus of lawyers under Trump weakens department's capacity in civil rights, national security and other areasDonald Trump's weaponization of the US department of justice to focus on retribution against political foes, on fulfilling Maga goals and on ranting pardons for allies has seen thousands of lawyers depart or be fired and weakened investigations in civil rights, national security and other areas, say ex-prosecutors and legal experts.Data compiled by the nonpartisan Justice Connection showed that overall DoJ employment has dropped by about 5,500 lawyers and non-lawyers who have left since Trump took office. That included people who were fired, quit or took a deferred resignation program, underscoring a sharp drop in DoJ resources. By contrast, the department last year employed about 10,000 attorneys, according to DoJ data. Continue reading...
Physicians say FDA panel conflated two issues and made baseless claims about unproven health benefitsEstrogen-related medications for menopause will no longer carry broad black-box warnings, Marty Makary, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), announced last week, bypassing the regulatory agency's typical process and, according to experts, overstating the science behind the medications - with troubling implications for future drug decisions.The decision to remove an ominous warning from 2003 about the risks of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and dementia makes sense for local vaginal estrogen products, but systemic estrogen is more complicated, menopause experts said - and more than these nuances, they worried about the scientific process, or lack thereof, in making the decision. Continue reading...
Expecting to be financial advisers at the Fortune 500 firm, some hires say they were gaslit' into peddling terrible' life insurance to all their contactsNorthwestern Mutual likes to think of itself as a storied American institution offering specialized financial advice. The 168-year-old financial giant, ranked 109 on the Fortune 500, and regularly anointed one of the World's Most Admired Companies by the magazine, describes its financial advisers as expert listeners" or a trusted partner who helps you continue to reach goal after goal".It also tops Forbes's list of Best Employers for New Grads, a title that makes it attractive to hundreds of college students desperate for an internship that could launch them into a career in financial services. Each year they file into Northwestern's glassy offices across the country for a three-month internship that they hope could change their lives. There, they are slotted in beside thousands of full-time financial representatives", many of them recent graduates themselves. Continue reading...
After decades of terrorizing civilians in the name of fighting terror, the White House is trying to do it with even less oversightFor the last two months, US forces have amassed outside Venezuela and carried out a series of lethal strikes on civilian boats. The Trump White House has ordered these actions in the name of fighting narco-terrorists" - a label apparently applicable to anyone suspected of participating in drug trafficking near Latin American coastlines. More than 80 people have already been killed in these pre-emptive strikes, and war hawks are calling for expanded military action to depose the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro.Watching this play out, I am reminded of a passage from the geographer Stuart Elden's award-winning 2009 book, Terror and Territory. In discussing how to study the war on terror", Elden observed that it did not make sense to study terrorism as something unique to non-state actors.Daniel Mendiola is a professor of Latin American history and migration studies at Vassar College Continue reading...
The most successful quarterback of all-time approached his playing career with ruthless focus. He could do with the same intensity in his retirement projectsTom Brady played for 23 NFL seasons with a single, maniacal goal: to become the greatest quarterback who ever lived. He achieved it. Now, in retirement, Brady has dabbled in everything. He calls games for Fox. He's building chimneys in Birmingham. He's flogged crypto. He's spreading America's Game to Riyadh. He has a thriving YouTube account. He cloned his dog. Brady's post-playing portfolio has been diverse, or aimless, depending on your perspective.Side hustles are one thing. But running a pro franchise is not a part-time job. Along with his other roles, Brady is also the de facto football czar of the Raiders, the most hapless team in the league. Continue reading...
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