Reader backlash against decision not to make presidential endorsement rolls on despite Bezos defense of decisionDeterioration of the Washington Post's subscriber base continued on Tuesday, hours after its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, defended the decision to forgo formally endorsing a presidential candidate as part of an effort to restore trust in the media.The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the decision was made public on Friday, according to the NPR reporter David Folkenflik. Continue reading...
Maybe my own childhood with a narcissistic, abusive, seductive father was what gave me eyes to see Trump for what he isI went to the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Or I tried to. I wanted to see it, to feel it, to know it. I spent two hours smushed in a crowd of thousands, waiting in the cold, unable to move, in the midst of belligerent conversations, alcohol consumption, rantings and racist posturings. There were older Jewish men, Black families, Asian couples and young Latina women. I heard south Asian men calling Kamala Harris hateful slurs, others saying women needed to just shut up and listen to men. I saw working men showing off their jackets with artistic renderings of Trump as bullfighter slaying the deep state dragon. What I mainly heard and felt was grievance.I've always thought America was a mean place. And what I mean by that is that it's structured for meanness. It's a place of winners and losers, people who matter and those who can be disposed of, a country built on violent theft of Indigenous lands and hundreds of years of enslavement of millions of Black people. It's a place where when a person rises in status, they show it off to those who have less, rather than bringing them along. Where the rich and famous flaunt their wealth and clothes and fabulous lives every single day, and watching is a national past time. A place where most people get lost or abandoned, forgotten or judged. Where an ambitious few can turn that suffering into gold, but most get swallowed in self-hatred and despair. Continue reading...
Presidential candidate defended rally and told reporters 'the love in that room, it was breathtaking'. The six-hour rally has been heavily condemned for racist remarks after the first speaker described Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage
Unknown artist who made bronze piece of feces to honor' January 6 rioters appears to be behind new statueThe unknown artist or artists who fashioned a swirled bronze piece of feces on a replica of the former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk - and placed it on the National Mall recently - appear to have struck again.This time, the artistic-political commentary is focused not on the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack carried out by Donald Trump supporters, when a participant did indeed defecate on Pelosi's desk. Instead, the display satirically evokes the notorious white nationalist Unite the Right tiki torch parade through Charlottesville's University of Virginia campus in August 2017, with some marchers chanting: Jews will not replace us". Continue reading...
Polls show US voters unhappy about the economy, their top election concern. How would the presidential candidates address economic issues such as cost of living and labor?The economy looms large over next month's presidential election as tens of millions of Americans begin casting their votes.Employers are hiring and inflation is fading but consumers are still counting the cost of years of soaring prices. Polls show voters of all persuasions remain unhappy about the state of the economy.Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...
Thanks to reader support, the Guardian is free from the political and commercial pressures that influence other US outlets. Please help us raise the $2m we need to keep up our momentum.The Guardian is unafraid. And it's independent. (No billionaire bosses.) In this media climate, those qualities are as rare as they are crucial to good journalism.Good journalism is also crucial to the informed citizens we need for a functioning democracy. From too many legacy media outlets based in the US we're getting something else entirely: horse race coverage, scraped-up and reheated scandals of little significance, credulous repeating of claims, polite evasions about the threats and crimes of the right, and what's been dubbed sanewashing": the translation of the luridly loopy utterances of Donald Trump and his minions into coherent-sounding policy statements. And now we're seeing billionaire owners of major papers suppress their own editorial department's endorsements.If you are able, please support the Guardian today. Thank you for helping protect the free press.
Amanda Gallagher was taking pictures of skydivers when she inadvertently stepped back into a spinning propellerA photographer was killed after inadvertently walking into a spinning airplane propeller while taking pictures in Kansas.Amanda Gallagher, 37, was on a work assignment on Saturday capturing pictures of skydivers getting on and off planes in the town of Derby - less than 15 miles from Wichita - when she stepped back into the propeller of a plane that was stationary yet still running. Continue reading...
The longtime Trump ally had just been released from prison after serving four months for contempt of CongressSteve Bannon, a longtime Donald Trump ally who orchestrated his successful 2016 presidential campaign, was just hours out of federal prison when he returned to peddling unfounded conspiracy theories, urging supporters to make sure Democrats cannot steal the election".Bannon, who early on Tuesday morning completed a four-month sentence in Danbury, Connecticut, for flouting a congressional subpoena in an investigation of the January 6 US Capitol attack, fanned the flames of electoral unease on his first War Room podcast post-release. Continue reading...
In blocking the newspaper from endorsing Kamala Harris, Jeff Bezos is not acting cowardly so much as slylyLast week the Washington Post refrained from endorsing a candidate in the presidential race for the first time in 36 years. The decision was reportedly ordered by Jeff Bezos, the Post's owner and one of the richest men in the world. The Seattle billionaire, who owns Amazon, purchased the flailing newspaper in 2013 in a rare fit of civic duty.The blowback was immediate and substantial. Within 48 hours of the announcement as many as 200,000 paying readers cancelled their subscriptions to the already money-losing news organization, according to reporting by NPR. Continue reading...
Almost a decade since his lawsuit brought down the Gawker website, the former wrestler seems to have a taste for hanging around with vengeful billionaires. He might even harbour political ambitionsIt was less WWE, more WTF. On Sunday night, Terry Gene Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, strutted on stage at Madison Square Garden to speak at a Donald Trump rally. Wearing tiny yellow sunglasses that looked as if they'd been nicked off a toddler, Hogan attempted to rip his shirt off. It took a bit of struggling, but eventually the 71-year-old wrestling legend managed it.The high jinks continued: Hogan treated the crowd to a dance. Notably, Hogan's dance moves are just like the ones Trump has shown off at numerous rallies. A lot of arm-pumping; kinda looks like they're milking a cow. (That said, my own dancing looks like a penguin being caught in an earthquake, so I'm not judging.) Continue reading...
US vice-president's campaign has stalled because Americans continue to struggle with their bills despite economic growthI don't know about you, but I'm feeling more anxious about the outcome of the upcoming election. I'm still nauseously optimistic, but the nausea is growing.I'm as skeptical of polls as any of you, but when all of them show the same thing - that Kamala Harris's campaign stalled several weeks ago, yet Donald Trump's continues to surge - it's important to take the polls seriously. Continue reading...
The World Series returned to the Bronx for the first time in 15 years on Monday night, with the Yankees reeling from two losses to the Dodgers in the opening games Continue reading...
The men on Graham Norton's sofa found self-defence a hoot. I'm sure most women have found ourselves in that conversationIn a development that absolutely must not catch on, something interesting has happened on a TV chatshow. What a precedent: I'm desperately hoping the entertainment industry rallies around to prevent it ever happening again. We can probably count on it. The dance of all chatshows these days is almost entirely mechanised. You go on. You do your rehearsed anecdotes. The news that the late Michael Parkinson is being relaunched as an AI barely raises an eyebrow because it's all so synthetic anyway.Therefore the moments when it isn't take on outsize significance. As you may have guessed, we are talking about last Friday's episode of The Graham Norton Show, on which the Blitz star Saoirse Ronan appeared as a guest alongside Gladiator II actors Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal and Day of the Jackal leading man Eddie Redmayne. We join the sofa as Redmayne is doing an anecdote about how his Jackal preparation involved being trained in self-defence, in order to do what Team America would call his acting". (Not how Eddie put it, obviously. And yet, the reality.) Redmayne's revelation that he was shown how to use a phone as a weapon if attacked proves quite the hoot, with Mescal riffing on the absurdity - Who's actually going to do that, though?" - Norton chiming in, and Denzel laughing along. Ronan is trying to say something but she gets honked over, before managing to cut through with a line for the ages: That's what girls have to think about all the time".Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnistDo 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...
At Saginaw city's biggest soup kitchen, most are hoping for a candidate who can usher in notable economic changePeople on the east side of Saginaw city are more used to seeing buildings come down than go up. Bulldozers have erased houses, schools, department stores and factories over recent years as jobs disappeared and the population plummeted.But builders will soon be at work in one corner of the Michigan city constructing a sprawling extension to Saginaw's largest soup kitchen after demand soared through the Covid-19 pandemic and then as rampant inflation hit a community where many people live on the edge financially. Continue reading...
Center was one of the first US schools for formerly enslaved people, and now preserves Gullah Geechee cultureEarlier this month, the historic Penn Center, a 50-acre site in St Helena Island, South Carolina, that served as one of the nation's first schools for formerly enslaved people of African descent in the 1860s, joined a Unesco network. It was named one of 22 places around the world that holds significance for its preservation of enslaved people's history by the Unesco Network of Places of History and Memory.The network is part of the organization's Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty and Heritage program that was launched in 1994 to recognize the history of slavery and its impact on the world. Over the course of the five-year initiative, the institutions' staffs will share sustainability practices and create shared activities through the international network. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Little Rock on (#6RTMT)
A Guardian investigation into the ballot's demise reveals a confluence of rightwing actors working in parallel to ensure the measure was quashed before it ever reached voters
Donald Trump dismissed claims that he or his supporters were comparable to Nazis after his rally at Madison Square Garden drew widespread criticism from opponents for crude and racist remarks from several speakers. The event drew comparisons to a 1939 pro-Nazi rally in the same venue. At a rally in Wisconsin, Trump's running mate JD Vance sidestepped criticism over comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's racist remarks about Puerto Rico
Turnout is key in the swing state Biden turned blue in 2020. Georgians from all over are voting early in record numbersMary Holewinski lives in Carrollton, Georgia, home turf for the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. But Holewinski is a Kamala Harris supporter and has a sign in her yard. It draws some nasty looks, she said. I've lost neighbor friends."It helps that Carrollton is a college town, and discussing politics is possible - to an extent. I feel like the people I live around, you can sit down and have a conversation with them, and they are willing to listen ... but not everybody. There are some people who don't want to hear your side of it." Continue reading...
Ryan James Girdusky removed from NewsNight show after telling fellow guest I hope your beeper doesn't go off'CNN has apologised to its viewers after a panellist on its NewsNight programme made derogatory remarks implying that a fellow guest on the show, the broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, was a terrorist.Ryan James Girdusky, a conservative commentator, told Hasan, a Guardian US columnist and former host on MSNBC, who is Muslim, that he hoped his beeper doesn't go off", in an apparent reference to Israel's targeting of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon with exploding pagers last month. The wave of coordinated explosions killed 12 and injured thousands. Continue reading...
Millions of lives could be saved if the world would only consider more innovative ways to help poorer nations tackle AMRDrug-resistant infection, already one of the world's biggest killers, is expected to rise sharply. By 2050, the number of people dying due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is likely to increase by about 70%, with drug-resistant infections expected to cause 39 million deaths, and as many as 169 million associated deaths during this time.We know that the most effective ways to prevent many of these deaths is by increasing equitable global access to essential antibiotics and better medical care, and by developing effective new tools. However, what is less clear is how this will be funded. At the recent United Nations general assembly, governments committed $100m (76m) towards this effort. While this is encouraging, the scale of the challenge is such that it will fall way short of the $63bn a year that is needed. Continue reading...
There is simply no moral argument for allowing the former president to win in the name of opposing genocideIf you're undecided about your vote, a reliable rule of thumb is to always side against the candidate who is a convicted criminal, admires good things" done by Adolf Hitler, and is labeled a fascist" by four-star generals who worked in their administration.However, just days before the chaotic 2024 US election, many American voters are still loathe to vote for Kamala Harris due to the Biden administration's complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza. It's hard to blame them. How can we vote for genocidaires?" ask many Democratic voters radicalized and infuriated by Israel's daily war crimes. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu's fanatical government, populated by a rogue galley of Jewish supremacists, openly declared their desire to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and illegally occupy more land. Their desire for ultra-violence and carnage does not spare journalists, UN workers, doctors or even US citizens. More than 42,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed.Wajahat Ali is editor of The Left Hook substack, co-host of The Democracy-ish Podcast, and author of the book Go Back to Where You Came From and Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#6RTH5)
Past threats former president - and present Russian ones - have spurred Europe to invest in self-defence, but as conflicts rise the alliance still looks vitalPoliteness and convention dictate that European leaders try to sound noncommittal when asked whether a Donald Trump presidency would hurt Nato. But despite the rhetoric about Trump-proofing", Nato cohesion will be at risk from a hostile or isolationist Republican president, who has previously threatened to leave the alliance if European defence spending did not increase.The truth is that the US is Nato and Nato is the US; the dependence on America is essentially as big as ever," said Jamie Shea, a former Nato official who teaches at the University of Exeter. Take the new Nato command centre to coordinate assistance for Ukraine in Wiesbaden, Germany. It is inside a US army barracks, relying on US logistics and software." Continue reading...
US bank accuses four users of stealing about $660,000 in total from ATMs using fake chequesJPMorgan Chase is suing customers in the US it accuses of stealing thousands of dollars from ATMs by exploiting a technical glitch that went viral on TikTok this summer.The US bank has filed lawsuits in at least three federal courts against people who withdrew funds before a cheque bounced, in the so-called infinite money glitch". Continue reading...
Bradley's pick was a panicked one after failing to entice Woods and the early noise around 2025 event resembles chaotic circusA potential scenario, one which may be necessary to preserve some of the lofty status already bestowed on the 2025 Ryder Cup. Early noises around the event are so chaotic that CocotheClown feels like an appropriate mascot for Bethpage as the US host Europe.Via this theoretic plan, Keegan Bradley continues his ascent back towards the summit of professional golf. He qualifies for the team of which he is, for the time being, the captain. Because it is supposedly impossible to combine playing for a modern-day Ryder Cup team with captaining one, Bradley has to pass on his duties. Continue reading...
At 340lbs, the New York Giants star would be the largest player to lead the NFL in sacks for a season. Few would bet against him on current formAs you may expect for a discipline that requires speed as well as strength, the list of NFL sackmasters and pressure artists weighing 340lbs or more is pretty short.Per Pro Football Reference, Dan Big Daddy" Wilkinson, who played for the Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins and Washington from 1994 though 2006, is the NFL's all-time leading defender in that size range with 54.5 career sacks. Wilkinson stood 6ft 4in and weighed (at least) 340lbs. Behind Wilkinson are Sam Adams (44.0 career sacks at 6ft 3in, 350lbs), Shaun Rogers (37.5 sacks at 6ft 4in, 350lbs), Grady Jackson (35.5 sacks at 6ft 2in, 345lbs), Ted Washington (34.5 sacks at 6ft 5in, 365lbs), and Haloti Ngata (32.5 sacks at 6ft 4in, 340lbs). Continue reading...
Michael Dressel was born in Berlin but spent four decades living and working in the US. As the election looms, he talks us through his new book capturing a nation in crisis Continue reading...
In today's newsletter: The polls are neck and neck. So why are some Kamala Harris supporters convinced the Republicans have the election in the bag? Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. With a week to go until America votes, the polls consistently show Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a statistical dead heat.The nerds who simulate the race hundreds of times to model the likelihood of each result are consistently finding extraordinarily even chances between the two. And nothing that happens - not assassination attempts, Kamalamentum, convention speeches, running mate selections, celebrity endorsements, multi-million-dollar political ads, the debate, erratic rally performances, or plausible accusations of fascist tendencies - seems to change anything for more than a minute. The election, in summary, looks too close to call.Budget | The government is expected to announce an increase of about 4% to NHS funding, an increase that could translate to about 7bn for the health budget in England. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that the money would deliver more surgical hubs and radiotherapy machines in a drive to add 40,000 appointments each week.Middle East | Israel's parliament has voted to ban the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from the country within 90 days. Alongside a decision to declare Unrwa a terror group, the move is expected to lead to the closure of Unrwa's East Jerusalem headquarters and would effectively block the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza via Rafah.Crime | The far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 18 months for contempt of court for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee, in breach of an injunction. Robinson had repeated his false claim that Jamal Hijazi, who had been filmed being attacked at a school in West Yorkshire, violently attacks young English girls" despite losing a libel case.Justice | Prisoners serving controversial indeterminate sentences were given minimum terms of less than six months but have remained in jail for at least 16 years, newly released data shows.Wildlife | Hedgehogs are now listed as near threatened" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list, after a decline in numbers of at least 30% over the past decade across much of their range. Continue reading...
The Republican candidate embodies all the worst aspects of capitalism, condensed into human formDear US voters, in the spirit in which I would beg a dear friend not to get a facial tattoo, I'm writing to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump. While the decision to do so would make a statement, signalling your justifiable anger about the pain you have suffered, it is likely to disfigure you, damage your life chances and prove irreversible. In the wake of his rally at Madison Square Garden, no one can now doubt what he intends to do to you.I can guess where you think I'm coming from, but I have no love for the Democrats. Unlike the UK Labour party staffers campaigning for Kamala Harris, I have no affiliations. While there have been some improvements under Joe Biden, for decades, regardless of which party was in power, the value generated by the middle and working classes has been mopped up by the very rich. This is the result of 45 years of neoliberalism, a life-sapping programme to which both parties subscribe. I share the horror and disgust many of you feel towards Biden's foreign policy, especially his support for the Israeli government while it pursues its genocidal onslaught in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon. Continue reading...
Democratic presidential candidate campaigns in university city of Ann Arbor as polls show state on knife-edgeAppearing together in the home town of Michigan's largest university, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sought on Tuesday to burnish their credentials with young voters and soothe Democrats who had grown nervous as the apparent deadlock in the race to keep Donald Trump out of the White House has dragged on.Much of the rhetoric at the evening rally in Ann Arbor, a city synonymous with the University of Michigan and its nearly 53,000-strong student body, was aimed squarely at the first-time voters who have traditionally been a treasure trove of votes for Democrats. Speaking at a city park just south of the university campus, Harris offered comfort to a generation where many view their challenges as existential.Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...
Congresswoman condemns horrific' remarks from Trump's New York rally: They knew exactly what they were doing'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened Donald Trump's anti-immigrant remarks to the words of Adolf Hitler and sought to rally progressive support for Kamala Harris with Bernie Sanders at a rally on Monday night in Madison, Wisconsin.The New York congresswoman called the election a precipice" and condemned the former president's Madison Square Garden rally, where a comic referred to Puerto Rico as garbage", spurring widespread outrage on the island.Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...
The ex-president, who spoke after Bruce Springsteen, ripped into Trump with a mix of criticism and humorBarack Obama made an impassioned pitch for Kamala Harris at a Philadelphia rally with Bruce Springsteen on Monday, telling voters: It's not just policies that are on the ballot, it's who we are.Whether this election is making you feel excited or scared, or hopeful, or frustrated, or anything in between: do not sit back," the former president said. Put down your phone and vote."Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...
On the heels of racist New York rally remarks, Trump hits at Harris, Fani Willis and Michelle Obama at Georgia TechDonald Trump yet again descended upon Atlanta with a week and a day to go, looking for votes in a state that is rapidly running out of voters to woo.I do hear the votes are coming in very nicely," the former president said. When he asked the crowd who had voted, about half raised their hands and cheered. We've got to finish it off."Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...
The US state department said it was 'deeply concerned' by proposed legislation in Israel to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa). 'Unwra plays a critical, important role in delivering humanitarian assistance to civilians that need it in Gaza,' US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. 'There's nobody that can replace them right now in the middle of the crisis'. The legislation passed the Knesset in a 92-10 vote late on Monday, and comes into effect within the next 90 days.
California's billionaires have altered San Francisco politics. The playbook is being repeated across the BayOakland is in the midst of one of its most contentious, and one of its most expensive, election cycles.Campaign finance records show that in the past 10 months, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on the effort to recall Sheng Thao, the embattled mayor of the northern California city. Tens of thousands of dollars have gone into city council races, and to the effort to recall the local district attorney, Pamela Price. Continue reading...
Republicans join Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in condemning comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's commentsOutrage is continuing to mount following the racist anti-Puerto Rican remarks at Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally in New York as Democrats, celebrities and even some Republicans condemned the incident.Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe came under fire for comments made about Latinos and Puerto Rico at the Sunday rally.Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...
Judge calls behavior of Johnston, known for roles in Bob's Burgers and Arrested Development, reprehensible'An actor known for his roles in the television comedies Bob's Burgers and Arrested Development was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison for his part in a mob's attack on the US Capitol nearly four years ago.Jay Johnston, 56, of Los Angeles, joined other rioters in a heave-ho push against police officers guarding a tunnel entrance to the Capitol during the 6 January 2021 riot. Johnston also cracked jokes and interacted with other rioters as he used a cellphone to record the violence around him, prosecutors said. Continue reading...
The Dodgers-Yankees World Series is giving the two cities a chance to do their favorite thing: obsess about themselvesThe 2024 World Series has been a thrilling contest between baseball's two best teams, the Dodgers and the Yankees. It's also a welcome excuse for the cities of New York and Los Angeles to talk about themselves, a special little treat that neither municipality takes for granted.There's nothing New Yorkers and Angelenos love more than a bit of civic onanism. You gotta try our bagels," you might hear walking the garbage-laden streets of Manhattan. Strip mall sushi" is something those of us blessed to live in Los Angeles are legally obligated to say to anyone asking for a recommendation of any kind. For those who haven't had this screamed at them at the Delta terminal at LAX, this means the best sushi restaurants are in strip malls. What we don't tell you is that's because in LA, everything is in a strip mall. Continue reading...
Professor who was impugned for allegations against Clarence Thomas says the sexist, racist remarks must sting'Anita Hill, former clerk to US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has said racist, misogynist and sexist insults" aimed at Kamala Harris must sting".In a New York Times opinion piece published Monday, the Brandeis University professor who was famously brought before Thomas's confirmation hearings only to have her sexual harassment allegations against him picked apart by sitting senators, wrote that she sympathizes with the US vice-president. Continue reading...
Former Trump White House aide set to be released after serving four months for contempt of CongressSteve Bannon, former White House chief strategist under the Trump administration, is set to be released from prison on Tuesday and details have emerged of his life behind bars, in which he gravitated to hanging out with other white prisoners.The news website Notus posted an investigation in which it corresponded with several of Bannon's fellow inmates at a prison in Connecticut. Continue reading...
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