The Texas governor has imposed harsh border policies and bussed tens of thousands of migrants to Democrat-run citiesThe Biden administration has asked the US supreme court to allow border patrol agents to cut through razor-wire fencing that Texas placed along the US-Mexico border.In an emergency appeal by the justice department, the solicitor general said that fencing installed by Texas's Republican governor had actually prevented border agents from detaining migrants at the border, and said federal law allows the government to remove it. Continue reading...
Blanchard, a victim of Munchausen by proxy who spent eight years in prison, is seeing a redemption arc with followers thrilled to watch her next movesSocial media has already found an it girl for 2024: Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a Missouri woman who persuaded her then-boyfriend to kill her mother after being forced to pretend that she was suffering from leukemia and other serious illnesses.Blanchard, who is 32, was released from a Missouri correctional center just days before the new year. She served eight years in prison for her part in the 2015 murder, while Nicholas Godejohn, her ex-boyfriend, received a life sentence. The shocking case got the TV treatment in Hulu's 2019 miniseries The Act, and was also the subject of HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest. Continue reading...
The Championship club, part-owned by Tom Brady, chased a Hollywood name when they appointed Wayne Rooney. They fired the head coach after 15 gamesWayne Rooney's most memorable contribution as Birmingham City manager was the unforgettable meme that summed up his ill-fated 15-game spell. Captured despondently leaning against a wall in the St Andrew's tunnel, visibly exasperated after a disappointing match (of which there were many), the picture was never a positive one for the former England and Manchester United striker at the club. His sacking had been coming.Birmingham City were sixth in the Championship table when Rooney took over in October. Now, 15 matches and just two wins later, they are slumped in 20th place. A season that was shaping up to be a promotion push has become a fight against relegation. Rooney believes he should have been given more time to get it right, but the situation had become unsalvageable. Keeping Rooney for any longer could have caused even more damage, on and off the pitch. Continue reading...
Police say boy found gun in the car of his father, who was also charged with carrying stolen gun and child endangermentA 10-year-old northern California boy has been arrested on suspicion of shooting to death another child with his father's gun, authorities said.Sacramento county sheriff's deputies answered a shooting report at around 4.30pm on Saturday afternoon in Foothill Farms, an unincorporated Sacramento suburb. In a parking lot, they found a 10-year-old boy bleeding from the head and neck. Despite lifesaving measures, he was later pronounced dead at a hospital, the sheriff's office said in a social media posting. Continue reading...
Critics say encryption is an attack on transparency', and that radio monitoring is one of the few ways to keep track of the policeThe New York police department (NYPD) is facing serious backlash after announcing additional details about its plan to encrypt its radio communications system, which experts warn will limit transparency and accountability.NYPD radio signals have been publicly accessible since 1932, allowing journalists and civilians to listen to police communications, Gothamist reported. The NYPD will now be encrypting its radio channels for the first time ever. Police radio encryption is already underway in several US cities, including Chicago and Denver. Continue reading...
Biden-Harris camp announces campaign plan that aims to draw sharp contrast between US president and Donald Trump. Plus, how to get seriously fit from scratch - in 12 easy, enjoyable steps
We must keep watching. It is only in this pain that we will charge our resolve and our power - and force America and Israel to end this bloody warOver these last horrific months, Instagram has exploded with catastrophic images and videos of the genocide taking place in Gaza. We have seen formerly incubated babies found abandoned on hospital beds, huge craters where apartment buildings and neighborhoods once stood, bones emerging from rubble. One particular video haunts me. I watch it on my phone. I watch it again. A dust covered, anguished father crawls towards his limp, gray, dead 10 month old baby. He covers him with his body. He holds the baby rocking and rocking him as if to say, gone, gone, gone." He slaps the floor with his hand. He cries out over and over. Then the energy changes, suddenly terrifying, suddenly shocking. I have never seen a man's body go mad from the inside. I have never seen legs scream - their movements convulsive, spasmodic, as if taken, charged by electrocuting grief.And I realize there must be a person filming this and I wonder if the father is aware or if he is so far gone into the horror that he is no longer in that room or in this realm at all. And I ask myself what does it mean to be recording the mad vulnerability of grief in real time? And I worry that watching this is somehow invasive, entering an intimacy I have not earned. This father, a stranger and this probably the most catastrophic moment of his life. But the video is on Instagram. I assume that the father must have agreed to be filmed, agreed for the video to be posted here. And this reminds me of the mothers of the Say Her Name campaign, the extraordinary mothers of the daughters, sisters, granddaughters who were murdered by the police. I remember a particular event a few years ago where they were being honored after a play. I was on stage with several of them who were sharing their stories. One of the mothers began to cry as she spoke, which grew into a loud wail. I could tell she was losing control. So I gently took her arm and asked if she might want to walk off stage for a minute. She froze, looked at me with total clarity and said, No, no, let them see us. Let them know our pain."V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls Continue reading...
The former federal prosecutor and presidential contender has morphed into a punchline, full-time defendant and deadbeatChalk up 2023 as Rudy Giuliani's annus horribilis. On the other hand, 2024 may even be worse. The man once known as America's mayor" faces financial ruin and criminal prosecution with no end in sight to his woes. The hair-dye dripping down his face at a 2020 press conference ominously presaged what would eventually follow. It took less than two decades for the former federal prosecutor and contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination to morph into a punchline, full-time defendant and deadbeat.Back in the day, Giuliani garnered a reputation for crime-busting - perp-walking Wall Street bankers and sending mobsters to jail. In summer 2023, a Fulton county, Georgia, grand jury indicted him on state-law racketeering charges along with the 45th president and a host of supporting characters. Continue reading...
Biden-Harris campaign, in a conference call with reporters, said they aim to draw sharp contrast between US president and TrumpAiling in opinion polls, Joe Biden will aim to jump-start his re-election campaign in the coming week with events designed to symbolise the fight for democracy and racial justice against Donald Trump.The Biden-Harris campaign announced the plans in a conference call with reporters that mentioned Trump by name 28 times in just 24 minutes, a sign of its determination to draw a sharp contrast between the US president and his likely Republican challenger. Continue reading...
I started wearing them to test my sister's lighthearted theory about feminism. Now I can't do without their vibrant versatilityMy sister has three questions she asks men who say they're feminists. It only takes one yes" to pass her test, and yet few do. The questions are: if you get married to a woman, would you (and any kids) take her surname? If you had children with a woman, would you step back from your career to be their primary carer? And, simplest of all, would you wear a skirt in public?The questions are lighthearted, and not intended to truly cut to the heart of feminist issues, but it's interesting to see how many men sheepishly give three no" answers nonetheless. Despite much apparent progress towards gender equity, some conventions around how men feel they must act and dress differently to women are stubbornly persistent, from family to fashion. Continue reading...
With the country's population tumbling, what Italy really needs is greater immigration, yet how could Giorgia Meloni sanction that?Fifty years ago in Italy, there was one person over 65 for every child aged six or under. Just before Christmas, Italy's national statistics office, Istat, revealed that the ratio is now 5.6 to 1. The population pyramid has been inverted, with 24% of the Italian population now over 65.With the death rate rising every year, the Italian population decreases by around 180,000 people per annum. The population has just dipped below 59 million and if current trends continue it's likely that by 2070 it will fall to 48 million.Tobias Jones lives in Parma. His most recent book is The Po: An Elegy for Italy's Longest River Continue reading...
Ballots in the UK are free by global standards, but that system alone is no bulwark against tyranny, as the spectre of Donald Trump provesThis year, countries with a combined population of about 4 billion - half of all the people in the world - will hold elections. That would be cause for celebration if democracy consisted only of the act of voting.That it doesn't will be proved in March, when Russian citizens will be asked to choose a president, knowing in advance that the winner will be Vladimir Putin. Again.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The ruling by a unanimous panel of fifth US circuit court of appeals comes amid a wave of lawsuits focusing on abortion exceptionsThe US government cannot enforce federal guidance in Texas requiring emergency room doctors to perform abortions if necessary to stabilize emergency room patients, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, siding with the state in a lawsuit accusing Joe Biden's administration of overstepping its authority.The ruling by a unanimous panel of the fifth US circuit court of appeals comes amid a wave of lawsuits focusing on when abortions can be provided in states whose abortion bans have exceptions for medical emergencies. Continue reading...
Maine secretary of state had removed Trump from the ballot, saying the former president had violated the 14th amendmentDonald Trump formally appealed a decision by Maine's top election official to remove him from the ballot on Tuesday, asking a superior court to reverse the decision.Maine secretary of state Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, removed Trump from the ballot on 28 December, saying the former president had violated section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars officials from holding office if they engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States. Continue reading...
by Martin Pengelly in Washington and agencies on (#6HHXM)
Democratic senator offered gifts in return for making positive comments about Gulf state, superseding indictment saysBob Menendez, already the subject of sensational charges concerning the acceptance of illicit cash, gold bars and a Mercedes Benz car, faces new corruption allegations, outlined in a superseding indictment made public on Tuesday.The New Jersey Democratic senator has already pleaded not guilty on charges involving interests linked to Egypt. He is now accused of corruption involving Qatar, although he does not face new charges. Continue reading...
Israel's response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral and in violation of international law', senator saysBernie Sanders, the progressive senator of Vermont, issued a statement Tuesday calling on Congress to block additional funding to Israel amid the war in Gaza, where more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October.While we recognize that Hamas' barbaric terrorist attack began this war, we must also recognize that Israel's military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral and in violation of international law," Sanders said. Continue reading...
Utah police found the 30-year-old unconscious inside an engine of a commercial aircraft loaded with passengersA man was found dead inside an airplane engine on Monday night at Salt Lake City international airport after police say he breached an emergency exit door, walked onto the tarmac and climbed inside the jet's engine.Officers found 30-year-old Kyler Efinger, a Park City resident, unconscious inside an engine mounted to the wing of a commercial aircraft loaded with passengers, the Salt Lake City police department (SLCPD) announced on Tuesday. The plane had been sitting on a de-icing pad, the engine was rotating at the time, but the cause of Efinger's death remains unclear. Continue reading...
New poll finds just 62% believe Biden's election win over Donald Trump was fair - down from 69% in December 2021More than a third of US adults believe Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president in 2020, according to a new poll.According to the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, 62% of American adults say they believe Biden's win was legitimate - down from 69% in the same poll in December 2021. Continue reading...
Flawed elections confirm Europe is being strung along by a government intent on an authoritarian, ethno-nationalist agendaAccording to Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vui, the country's recent parliamentary elections were the cleanest and most honest" in its history. They were also a triumph for his misnamed Serbian Progressive party (SNS), which won by a landslide. But the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe had a different take.The 17 December poll, said a statement by its international observer team, took place in unjust conditions", marred by bias in the media, pressure on public sector employees and misuse of public resources". Instances of intimidation and serious irregularities" including vote-buying and ballot-stuffing were noted. Other allegations have been made that Bosnian Serbs were bussed-in enmassetofraudulently vote in Belgrade. Continue reading...
Former county clerk had disputed lawyers' fees for Kentucky couple who won $100,000 damagesKim Davis, the former county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses in Kentucky to same-sex couples, must pay a total of $260,104 in fees and expenses to attorneys who represented one couple, according to a federal judge's ruling.That is in addition to $100,000 in damages a jury said the former Rowan county clerk should pay the couple who sued. Continue reading...
From Erik ten Hag's questionable substitution to Michael Olise's excellent finish, we hand out honours (and dishonours) from the Premier League weekendThe holiday period was critical for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal. With Manchester City off at the Club World Cup, they had a chance to put some distance between themselves and Pep Guardiola's side before the turn of the year. It was their biggest title test of the season so far - and they failed. Continue reading...
Dwayne Waden arrested on 28 December after visiting McDonald's in High Point, North Carolina, where his wife was trainingA Christian pastor's recent trip to a McDonald's in North Carolina ended in his arrest on allegations that he attacked his wife's co-worker while threatening to put his head in a deep fryer.According to authorities, Dwayne Waden's arrest on 28 December occurred after he went into a McDonald's restaurant in High Point, North Carolina, where his wife was training to be a manager. The visit was prompted by a call to Waden from his wife, who complained that her fellow employees were disrespecting her". Continue reading...
Suicide note and journal reportedly discovered after crash outside music venue in Rochester kills two and injures five peopleThe FBI and local police are investigating the cause of a fiery car crash that killed two people and injured several others outside of an upstate New York concert venue.Two people were killed and five were injured early Monday after a vehicle filled with gasoline canisters crashed into a crowd of people leaving a concert in Rochester, upstate New York. Continue reading...
It is time for a major political change - and Labour must resist the Tory call to idiocy and project a vision to tackle the climate, housing and NHS crisesThe wise heads making careful analyses of when the general election might be, plotting hypothetical growth against likely drops in inflation and interest rates, splicing in the weather and the vibes, are missing something about the current government. It doesn't really make decisions; decisions are forced on it, by crises it didn't see coming because it was too busy trying to create chaos elsewhere. We will save ourselves a lot of time if we just assume the election is tomorrow. What would a great run-up look like, for those of us who, ideally, would like to see the Conservatives defeated? How could a challenger candidate, who for the sake of argument we will call Keir Starmer, put hope in our hearts and engender a sense that something different, something constructive, something meaningful might come out of Downing Street?It would be great to see Starmer start with a presumption of love. Certainly since the start of the coalition government, arguably since David Cameron became Conservative leader, the drumbeat has been to punish the out-group. Benefit claimants and disabled people - remember when they crashed the economy? Then public sector workers, then migrants, then the metropolitan elite, then migrants again, then the wokerati, then lawyers, then trans kids, then refugees, then the civil service, then (checking notes, as it hardly seems possible) homeless people, then migrants again. The rhetoric might jump around from lordly censure to outright hatred but it all has the same lacuna where the engine of society should sit. Continue reading...
I'm a friend to both Israelis and Palestinians, and all my experience tells me this: tough negotiation will achieve what bombs cannotAfter the Hamas terror of 7 October and Benjamin Netanyahu's horrific retaliation in Gaza, some long overdue truths need stating. First, Israel is not going to destroy Hamas", as its leaders promise - not even by destroying Gaza.Although Israel is damaging Hamas militarily, maybe significantly, with many of its tunnels eliminated and its fighters fleeing, Hamas is a movement and an ideology that, in many respects, Netanyahu's extremism helped to promote.Lord Hain is a former UK Middle East minister and Northern Ireland secretary of stateDo 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...
Colorado Republican ducks rematch for House seat after Barbra Streisand and Ryan Reynolds chip in 0.03% of rival's war chestThe far-right Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert has blamed Hollywood elites" including singer Barbra Streisand and actor Ryan Reynolds for her decision to switch districts ahead of her 2024 re-election campaign.In an interview on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast over the weekend, Boebert alluded to how her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch's campaign had received a $1,000 donation from Streisand in April and a $500 contribution from Reynolds in March. Continue reading...
Despite its vast mineral wealth, corruption keeps the Congolese poor - and western governments help the regime stay in powerProvisional results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) presidential election have indicated Felix Tshisekedi is the winner. As his regime secures another five years, the incumbent will once again be looking to the west to help keep him in power, as the US government did in 2018.The DRC has lurched from crisis to crisis for more than 20 years. This is in part because the west has blocked the creation of an international criminal tribunal for the country, which is needed to end the culture of impunity fuelling violence, famine and the climate crisis killing and displacing Congolese people. Continue reading...
by Agence France-Presse in Los Angeles on (#6HHEK)
Exchange student Kai Zhuang, 17, discovered in tent by police days after being reported missingA Chinese exchange student who fell victim to a cyber-kidnapping" scam, in which his parents were extorted for $80,000, was found alive but cold and scared" in a tent in the Utah wilderness, police said.Kai Zhuang, 17, was reported missing on Thursday after his parents in China told officials at his host high school in Riverdale, Utah, that he appeared to have been kidnapped and a ransom had been demanded. Continue reading...
Chico is one of several statewide districts that saw student privacy and parental rights' take center stage in 2023Kelly Staley first learned about the lawsuit from a reporter. A parent was suing her, the superintendent of the Chico unified school district, over an alleged parental secrecy" policy, the reporter said, claiming a school counselor had encouraged her fifth-grader to adopt a new gender and that the school had withheld that information.Staley, who has overseen this northern California school district for nearly two decades, was caught off-guard. The district has never had any such policy, she said, but adhered to the student privacy guidance set by the state department of education that prevents schools from outing students to their parents without permission. Continue reading...
Five people on coastguard aircraft missing after collision with Japan Airlines plane. Plus, Israel's supreme court rejects Netanyahu's judicial overhaul law
If you want to do something positive, devote your energy to fighting the very real possibility of a second Trump presidencyThis week not only marks the start of a new year, but also a terrifyingly high-stakes ride for America - with slightly over 10 months to the presidential election of 2024.By a slim margin, according to polls, more Americans support Donald Trump than Joe Biden. More disapprove than approve of Biden's efforts to improve the nation's infrastructure, and more believe that Trump has a vision for the future" than believe Biden does.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...
The NBA's two most touted first year players met for the first time as professionals last week. It would seem Wembanyama is further along, at least for nowThroughout the history of the National Basketball Association, one thing has almost always been true. The league is exceptionally difficult - and especially so for rookies. Unless your name is Magic Johnson, the first year of one's career portends struggle, heartbreak and mistakes aplenty. But what the NBA has also taught its players is that the name of the pro game is resilience. It's about what one does with those hard times that matters most. Fall, but get up. And when it comes to the 2023-24 season's two most hyped rookies - Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson, who were picked first and third in the 2023 draft, respectively - the new season is proving to be a test of all they've prized and prided themselves on in the past.Last week, the teenagers met for the first time in the NBA. The game, which was the opening of two back-to-back ones for the Spurs and Blazers, also marked the first occasion the two rookies squared off in opposing jerseys since October 2022 in a then-highly touted showcase, which pitted Henderson's G-League team against Wembanyama's Metropolitans 92 squad from the French top division. This time, it was Wemby's San Antonio Spurs playing against Henderson's Portland Trail Blazers in the City of Roses. With the teams struggling at the bottom of the Western Conference, the matchup shed light on the reality that last year's headlines won't quite carry over to this year. But led by championship coaches - Gregg Popovich for San Antonio and Chauncey Billups for Portland - the question remains: How will the rookies rise to the level of their decorated play-callers? Continue reading...
New train services, the Olympics and a single charger - amid big crises, it's vital to appreciate the progress that's still taking placeJose Manuel Barroso, the former prime minister of Portugal and former head of the European Commission, used to say that Europeans were in love with the intellectual glamour of pessimism". When I first heard him say that in 2005, I had just started as a correspondent in Brussels after a few years living in the US, and his words rang especially true. There was a stark contrast between the deeply rooted American cultural belief that things could only get better, and the routinely bleak view that prevailed in many European countries, even the wealthiest and most privileged ones. France, Belgium, Spain and Italy consistently rank high in global surveys of pessimism.Americans have become more pessimistic since then too, especially over partisan divisions. But in Europe negative, defeatist thinking is often thought to be more intellectually credible, regardless of actual events. Continue reading...
Research on UPFs should be a wake-up call - but if people miss out on nutrients in a quest to avoid them, is it really helping?If you consumed a lot of news last year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that strawberry yoghurt wants to murder you. Since last spring, a new obsession has spread across Britain: have you heard? Don't you know? UPF is our new food enemy. What is UPF? It is ultra-processed food. What is ultra-processed food? It can include cereal and sausages and fruit-flavoured yoghurts and instant soup. How exactly can I determine if something is ultra-murderous? Anecdotally, my friends don't seem to know the definition of UPF - but they do know they should be afraid of it.Another person who, by his own admission, hasn't quite mastered the definition is Chris van Tulleken, the infectious diseases doctor who wrote the bestselling book Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food ... and Why Can't We Stop? At the beginning of his book, he forgoes a long formal scientific definition" of UPF, instead arguing it can be boiled down to this: If it's wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn't usually find in a standard home kitchen, it's UPF." Continue reading...
A crowd of 47,313 turned out for the 15th version of the NHL Winter Classic on New Year's Day at Seattle's T-Mobile Park, where the Kraken shut out the Golden Knights by a 3-0 score Continue reading...
New York Republican Brandon Williams is latest to reveal he was victim of hoax call on Christmas DayAt least three members of Congress reported swatting" incidents over the past week, with New York Republican Brandon Williams being the latest to reveal that he was subject to an act of criminal harassment that generally involves prank-calling 911 to get a heavily-armed Swat team to show up at the target's home.Williams, who has represented Central New York since 2023, said police from Auburn, New York, had come to his home on Christmas Day after receiving a call claiming there was a crisis at his home. Continue reading...
California, Illinois and Colorado among states implementing red flag' laws after US ends 2023 with more mass shootings than daysNew gun safety laws are taking effect in several states around the US on 1 January after the country ended 2023 with more mass shootings than days.States including California, Illinois and Colorado are starting the year by implementing extreme risk protection orders, more commonly referred to as red flag" laws, as a means to prevent further gun violence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 655 mass shootings in the US in 2023. Continue reading...
President touts US job gains and says his resolution is to come back' while ex-president repeats unproven election rigging claimsThe likely candidates in the 2024 presidential match-up issued two starkly different new year messages to voters, with Joe Biden striking a note of cheerful optimism as his almost certain challenger Donald Trump, and Trump lashing out in a social media post laden with lies and conspiracy theories.The president and first lady Jill Biden, vacationing in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, offered a New Year's message touting US job gains and the performance of the US economy during his administration - a message that voters have so far refused to accept. Continue reading...
by Gabriel Baumgaertner, Tumaini Carayol, Oliver Conn on (#6HH2E)
On the heels of a sports year that was chock full of surprises, Guardian US contributors make their bold predictions for the months to comeIn the year of the backup quarterback, Flacco's encore performance has been a genuine surprise. Just when it seemed as if the 38-year-old father of five might've been cooked, he came off the couch to win five of six starts and rally Cleveland to their second playoff berth in 21 years. Continue reading...
Ex-president ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, wiping out Biden's lead among crucial voting blocA new poll indicates former US president Donald Trump is gaining ground among Latino voters, wiping out incumbent Joe Biden's lead among the crucial, but diverse, voting bloc.A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared to Biden's 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters. Continue reading...
Kate Starbird says attacks have made research difficult, and claims of bias arise because of prevalence of lies from the rightA key researcher in the fight against election misinformation - who herself became the subject of an intensive misinformation campaign - has said her field gets accused of bias" precisely because it's now mainly rightwingers who spread the worst lies.Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, added that she feared that the entirely false story of rigged elections has now sunk in" for many Americans on the right. The idea that they're already going to the polls with the belief that they're being cheated means they'll misinterpret everything they see through that lens," she said. Continue reading...
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