Ramzi bin al-Shibh was one of five defendants facing trial in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the 9/11 attacks by al-QaidaA military judge at Guantanamo Bay has ruled a 9/11 defendant incompetent to stand trial after a military medical panel found that the man's sustained abuse in CIA custody years earlier had rendered him lastingly psychotic.A Guantanamo military commission spokesperson, Ronald Flesvig, confirmed on Friday the ruling by Judge Col Matthew McCall. The ruling means Ramzi bin al-Shibh will not be tried together with his four 9/11 co-defendants, whose case will now proceed without him. Continue reading...
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A wild to-and-fro opening day included a session whitewash, a hole-in-one, a dramatic shank, and a determined afternoon fightback by the hostsFor the benefit of folk who fancy getting up on the downswing this weekend but don't always follow the greatest sport in the world, we usually cut and paste the following explainer. Hey, if it's worth reading once, it's worth reading a dozen times. Here we go ...The Solheim Cup is a matchplay event. Each match is worth a point. There are 28 points available over the three days, so the first team to get to 14.5 points will win the Cup. Should the scores be tied at 14 points apiece, Europe will retain the trophy as current holders. Continue reading...
Thousands demonstrate against what they see as attack on Israel's institutions but New York protest lacks Palestinian presenceThousands of Israelis and American Jews have protested outside the United Nations in New York, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke before the UN general assembly in an address railing against Iran and making a case for Israeli-Saudi peace.About 3,000 people attended the protest against the Netanyahu government's efforts to overhaul Israel's judiciary, a plan that critics say will decimate Israel's democratic institutions. Organizers say it was the largest anti-government action held outside Israel since the start of the wave of protests that have rocked the country since Netanyahu's government took office at the start of this year. Continue reading...
Rodney Milstreed prepared himself for battle' with steroids and a wooden club disguised as flagpole, prosecutors sayA man who attacked an Associated Press photographer and threw a flagpole and smoke grenade at police officers guarding the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, was sentenced in a federal court on Friday to five years in prison.Rodney Milstreed, 56, of Finksburg, Maryland, prepared himself for battle" on January 6 by injecting steroids and arming himself with a four-foot wooden club disguised as a flagpole, prosecutors said. Continue reading...
Posing as a truth-telling outsider, the Fox mogul paved the way for the rhetoric of Trump, the alt right' and even Russell BrandIt's too soon to write the obituary. Rupert Murdoch's announcement that he is transitioning - an unlikely combination of words, I grant you - to the role of chairman emeritus" of Fox and News Corp, handing control to his eldest son, should not be the cue to speak of him in the past tense. As former employee and onetime Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie put it: He's going to be sitting in the back seat of the car while Lachlan drives the damn thing, and I should think it'll be a pain in the backside."Indeed, in his letter to staff, Murdoch Sr sought to dry the tears of any premature mourners with a reassuring promise: When I visit your countries and companies, you can expect to see me in the office late on a Friday afternoon" - a pledge that carried no hint of menace at all.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistJonathan Freedland will host a Guardian Live event with Gordon Brown on Tuesday 26 September at 7pm BST. The event will be live in London and livestreamed - book tickets here Continue reading...
Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to providing an abortion after 20 weeks and tampering with human remainsJessica Burgess, a Nebraska mother accused of helping her teenage daughter use pills to end her pregnancy, was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.Burgess and her daughter, Celeste Burgess, stand accused of working together to end Celeste Burgess's pregnancy in April 2022. Continue reading...
Shawn Fain announces additional strikes as contract talks remain far apart on economic issues, and invites Biden to join picket lineThe historic US autoworkers' strike escalated on Friday as the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, called on 38 additional plants across 20 states to join the strike.During a live stream update on Friday morning, Fain announced the additional strikes at automaker plants as contract negotiations with the big three automakers remain far apart on economic issues. Continue reading...
Miguel Cardona says legacy admissions must be revisited for sake of diversity following supreme court's affirmative action rulingJoe Biden's education chief has said he is open to using whatever levers" are available - including federal money - to discourage colleges from giving admissions preference to the children of alumni and donors.In an interview with the Associated Press, Miguel Cardona said legacy admissions must be revisited for the sake of diversity on campuses following the recent supreme court ruling against affirmative action. In a step beyond his previous comments, the education secretary said he would consider taking stronger action to deter the practice. Continue reading...
Reports that an officer allegedly impregnated an 18-year-old and another had sexual contact with an underage female migrant'The Chicago police department is under investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct with recently arrived asylum seekers who are living in several police precincts across the city.One case features an officer who allegedly impregnated an 18-year-old. Continue reading...
Such a warm and touchy-feely state visit should remind both nations of the closeness they once shared - and could do againThis is what you call taking a country by storm. King Charles and Queen Camilla's state visit to Paris and then Bordeaux was always going to be a feast of bons mots and cordiality. Such is the rule of this diplomatic game. However, on a Richter scale of affability, Britain and France's heads of state scored high. After all, France was one of the countries Queen Elizabeth II most visited during her long reign, and where she enjoyed five state visits. The affection runs deep.If there ever was a rule that said one should not touch the monarch, that rule died in the streets of Paris on Wednesday afternoon. Or perhaps, a new rule was born: only a French president can touch the British sovereign. They didn't go as far as their wives, who were on cheek-kissing terms at first sight, but Emmanuel Macron and the king were very often seen touching each other's backs and arms during the couple of days they spent together. This didn't feel like misplaced familiarity, but rather warm affinity between the two men. A most welcome change after the disastrous Boris Johnson and Liz Truss episodes, which saw the bilateral relationship between our governments sink deeper and deeper.Agnes Poirier is a political commentator, writer and critic for the British, American and European press Continue reading...
Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) argues watchlist is used for humiliation and harassment' and should be withdrawnA federal terrorist watchlist, mostly comprised of Muslim Americans, is Islamophobic and being used for harassment and humiliation" and should be withdrawn, civil rights advocates argue.Formally known as the Terrorist Screening Dataset, or TSDS," the watchlist is made up of more than 1.5 million people, most of whom are Muslim, according to attorneys from Muslim rights organization the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair). Although the FBI says no one can be added to the watchlist due to their race, ethnicity or religion, Cair found about 98% of people on the list are Muslim. Continue reading...
I was paid 10 cents an hour to do menial work that taught no skills or life lessons. Without a college-in-prison degree, I'd probably be back in prison todayAlmost immediately after I was sent to prison, I was assigned to a program", the term American prison officials use for a job. I was to sweep the prison hallways, alongside roughly 30 other men. Together we pushed brooms across gray corridors hour after hour, day after day.No matter how many hours I worked, I couldn't afford toilet paper, soap or toothpaste. We had to pay for basic hygiene products at exploitative markups, way more than they cost in free society, and I was paid 10 cents an hour. To survive in prison, even with a full-time job, I was forced to rely on family, who struggled to support me financially. Continue reading...
Hard-right Republicans have made clear that if Kevin McCarthy cuts a deal with the Democrats to fund the government, he may be oustedKevin McCarthy ended the week in the same predicament that he started it with: teetering on the edge of a government shutdown as his House speakership hangs by a thread.The House wrapped up its work on Thursday with no clear path forward on advancing a stopgap government spending bill - a grim sign with just nine days left to avert a federal shutdown. In an advisory to members, House Republican whip Tom Emmer said spending negotiations were ongoing", but he did not specify any plans for a vote on Friday. Continue reading...
A lifeline for many in states with abortion restrictions, abortion funds are being pushed to the brink due to rising costs and a drop in donationsLaurie Bertram Roberts never expected Americans to keep forking over money to pay for other people's abortions. But the abortion fund director didn't think it would get this dire.When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, people donated tens of thousands of dollars to Roberts' organization, the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, which is dedicated to helping people afford abortions and the many costs that come with it. But, in August, Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund had to stop funding abortions. It's now closed until January 2024. Continue reading...
Glenn Youngkin sees matching Democratic push to get ballots in early as key to gaining full control of senate and house of delegatesEarly voting begins on Friday in Virginia, where every seat in the state senate and house of delegates will be up for grabs in some of the most consequential US elections of 2023. The process has found a somewhat surprising champion in Virginia: the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.In previous years, the idea of a sitting governor rallying fellow members of his party to vote early would have been considered routine. But Donald Trump's baseless claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which the former president often blamed on early and absentee voting, have upended the Republican party's conventional campaign strategy. As Republicans seek to take full control of the Virginia legislature in November, Youngkin must strike a fine balance between maximizing his party's turnout without alienating the voters who remain deeply skeptical of early and absentee voting because of Trump's lies. Continue reading...
The US president, Joe Biden, in a bilateral meeting at the White House with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced further support for its fight against Russia's invasion in the shape of military equipment and advanced air defence systems. Biden said he was counting on Congress to make a 'good judgment' when it came to more funding for Ukraine. The administration announced a further $325m in what is known as presidential drawdown assistance
Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt have pleaded not guilty to charges of criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter and assaultColorado prosecutors will focus on police body camera footage - both raw and digitally enhanced - as they began building their case against two officers charged in the death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who was stopped, put in a neck hold and sedated with ketamine four years ago.McClain's death, alongside the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, was among those highlighted during the Black Lives Matters protests of 2020. . Continue reading...
Four-minute recording involves a South Carolina resident trying to explain to a puzzled dispatcher how we got a pilot in the house'A military pilot whose advanced fighter jet went temporarily missing over the weekend is heard repeatedly requesting an ambulance in a perplexing 911 call from the South Carolina home where he had parachuted to safety, according to an audio recording released Thursday to the Associated Press.The four-minute recording captures the bizarre circumstances for the three unidentified people involved: a North Charleston resident calmly explaining that a pilot just parachuted into his backyard, the pilot who doesn't know what became of his F-35 jet and a puzzled dispatcher trying to make sense of it all. Continue reading...
Effort continues administration's work to prevent mass shootings and homicides that primarily affect Black and Latino communitiesThe Biden administration has announced the nation's first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention. In a statement released Thursday, the White House said the office will be overseen by Kamala Harris's office, directed by Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden gun policy adviser, and deputy-directed by Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox, who have led national prevention efforts through the Community Justice Action Fund and Everytown for Gun Safety respectively.The creation of this office is a continuation of the administration's work on preventing high-profile mass shootings and local homicides that primarily affect lower-income Black and Latino communities. Continue reading...
Police make discovery in investigation after child dies and three others hospitalized after appearing to have been exposed to drugPolice investigating a New York City daycare where a one-year-old boy died of alleged fentanyl exposure have discovered additional fentanyl hidden in a space underneath the center's floor.Following a tip about a trapdoor in the floor, authorities on Wednesday night and Thursday searched the Divino Nino daycare center in the Bronx again after fentanyl residue was found underneath a mat earlier this month where children had napped, ABC reports. Continue reading...
One dog provided support and another kept watch as two-year-old girl was found three miles from Upper Peninsula home in slumberA two-year-old girl who walked away from her home in Michigan's Upper Peninsula alongside two family dogs was found in the woods hours later sleeping on the smaller dog like a furry pillow, state police said.She laid down and used one of the dogs as a pillow, and the other dog laid right next to her and kept her safe," Lt Mark Giannunzio said on Thursday. It's a really remarkable story." Continue reading...
Conference fails to approve procedural motion to take up defense spending bill as government shutdown loomsThe House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week on Thursday, when his conference again failed to approve a procedural motion as members continued to clash over government spending levels with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.With no clear path forward in Republicans' negotiations, the House concluded its work on Thursday without any stated plan to reconvene on Friday. Continue reading...
Dozens hurt, at least five of them badly, after vehicle carrying students from Long Island to a band camp in Pennsylvania collidedA charter bus carrying schoolchildren to a band camp crashed on a New York highway on Thursday, killing one person and hurting dozens of others, police said.The wreck happened on Interstate 84 in the town of Wawayanda, about 45 miles (72km) north-west of New York City, state police said. Continue reading...
Report says Euphoria actor's death was due to combined effects of methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and benzodiazepines'The actor Angus Cloud died in July of an accidental overdose of cocaine, fentanyl and other substances, a northern California coroner's office said on Thursday.Cloud's cause of death was acute intoxication" due to the combined effects of methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and benzodiazepines", the Alameda county coroner's bureau said. The office confirmed the overdose was an accident. Continue reading...
Journalist fears for safety amid misleading firestorm over ex-police chief's alleged murder, fueled by Elon Musk postA Las Vegas newspaper is being viciously attacked online for its coverage of an alleged murder of a retired police chief, either because of a misunderstanding or a deliberate attempt to mislead on social media.A firehose of hatred" has led the Las Vegas Review-Journal to sift email directed at one of its reporters to protect her, the paper's executive editor, Glenn Cook, said. Continue reading...
Captain bullish on hosts' chances of winning third successive transatlantic joust for the first time with US keen to spoil partySuzann Pettersen's Solheim Cup experiences suggest her captaincy is unlikely to prove dull. At Finca Cortesin, Pettersen leads a European side who are seeking to create history by winning the transatlantic joust three times in a row for the first time. The Norwegian exudes a level of confidence that will come back to bite her should those in stars and stripes turn tables. Interestingly, this bullish approach from the hosts is largely fuelled by the success of their players on the United States-based LPGA Tour. Legitimate questions remain over the strength of the Ladies European Tour, which has recently been quietly enhanced by Saudi Arabian riches.Onlookers should prepare for theatre. Pettersen spent the Sunday evening of the 2015 Solheim Cup crying in her hotel room after involvement in a rules debacle. At Gleneagles four years later, Pettersen slammed home the winning putt for Europe immediately before declaring she was retiring from professional golf. She has been true to her word; Pettersen assisted Catriona Matthew in 2021 but otherwise has kept her distance from the front line of this sport. Her status is such that nobody begrudged her that. Continue reading...
The media tycoon wreaked untold havoc on American democracy and beyondIn a chilling scene at the end of James Graham's play Ink, Rupert Murdoch - having made his indelible mark on British media and society - slows his frenetic pace to ponder the future.He's thinking, he says almost dreamily, of a venture across the pond - yes, perhaps something in television news.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...
A judicial council said Pauline Newman of the US court of appeals cannot effectively discharge her duties due to disabilityA 96-year-old federal appeals court judge has been barred from hearing cases for a year, after a panel said she refused to undergo medical testing amid concerns she is no longer mentally fit.It was the latest development in an unusually public and bitter fight over whether Judge Pauline Newman should continue to sit on the Washington-based US court of appeals for the federal circuit that has sparked a lawsuit and turned judges against one another. Continue reading...
This is a media and political age that he himself has shaped. It's hardly a legacy to be proud ofIt should come as no surprise that Rupert Murdoch has decided to step down from the top of his media empire. Yet the news that the 92-year-old, no longer in the best of health, will not die in the job, as he always suggested he would, came as a huge shock.After a lifetime spent transforming the relatively small Australian print newspaper business he inherited from his father into a global corporation, which spans one of the biggest newspaper businesses in the UK and one of the most controversial television channels in the US, he stands down ahead of two hugely important elections in both his adopted homelands, Britain and the US.Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Until now, women here have struggled to be heard on harassment and abuse. But two controversies in popular culture are changing thatHave you ever dated a German man who happened to be a writer? No? Good for you. Not that I would recommend dating writers in general, who have a tendency to justify their worst behaviour as art. And honestly, why wouldn't they? The canon is full of men who poured their raw misogyny into beautiful sentences and well-crafted compositions. In return some of these men had genius status conferred on them because, well, they wrote fiction and the misogyny was the fictional character's, not theirs.In German writing there is another unfortunate tradition: a hyperfixation on the inner world of the perpetrator. This focus goes beyond narrative perspective. It finds its way into essays and nonfiction writing. It finds its way into so many forms of writing that the perpetrator is sometimes transformed into the real victim of his own violence. That's exactly what the Nobel prize winner Peter Handke did (OK, Handke is Austrian), in his revisionist account of the Bosnian genocide committed by the Serbs. And it's what the recently deceased author Martin Walser did when he complained that not a day went by without Germans being hit with the ultimate moral cudgel", namely Auschwitz.Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
A number of factors contribute to heightened rates of syphilis, which can be transmitted to a fetus from the motherThe number of babies born with syphilis in Mississippi has increased more than tenfold since 2016, amid US-wide growth in cases of the potentially fatal but entirely preventable disease.Rates of congenital syphilis, which occurs when a mother transmits the infection to the fetus, have more than doubled over the past five years, with the largest spikes in southern and western states, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Continue reading...
The carmaker is now US labor's most important target. If Musk doesn't like that, he's welcome to settle it with an auto worker by cage matchThe massive United Auto Workers strike against the big three automakers is, first and foremost, an awesome demonstration of labor power - the act of a powerful, longstanding industrial union, with newly radical leadership, determined to wage one big fight to reset a playing field that has been slowly tilting in the wrong direction for years. It is also, like a disturbing number of things in America today, a case in which the grotesque specter of Elon Musk looms like a silent villain over the entire proceedings.Here is what I mean. The big three - Ford, GM and Stellantis - have long had workforces that are unionized with the UAW. The robust contracts that the union has been negotiating with the thriving industry since the middle of the 20th century played a large part in the creation of the unprecedented shared prosperity of the post-second world war middle class.Hamilton Nolan is a writer on labor and politics, based in New York City. Continue reading...
Minneapolis gallery puts A Walk in the Woods, the first of over 400 paintings Ross produced for The Joy of Painting, up for saleBob Ross was an artist who brought painting to the people, his works completed for PBS viewers in less than a half hour with little more than a large bristle brush, a putty knife and plenty of encouragement. It is unlikely he would have envisioned one of his works going up for sale for nearly $10m.But that is the price a Minneapolis gallery is now asking for A Walk in the Woods, the first of more than 400 paintings Ross produced on-air for his TV series The Joy of Painting. Continue reading...
Close to implosion on Radio 4, the PM insists to Nick Robinson that he is not watering anything down. Even though he isA night's sleep had done nothing for Rishi Sunak's mood. The prime minister dislikes being challenged at the best of times. He has the entitled demeanour of someone convinced of his own brilliance. A politician for whom the idea of getting something wrong is a category error. Who can't understand why anyone might question him. He's right because he's always right. A man not prone to self-reflection or self-doubt. And now he had to face the BBC's Nick Robinson in a 20-minute interview on the Today programme to defend his climate crisis speech. The last thing he wanted to do.Robinson began by observing they were sitting in the Thatcher Room at Downing Street and that Margaret Thatcher had taken climate change very seriously. Sunak meanwhile had chosen not to go to the United Nations general assembly and was busy watering down the UK's efforts to combat global heating. Continue reading...
Trump has healthy lead in second state to vote, ahead of Ramaswamy, Haley, Christie and flailing Florida governorThe Florida governor Ron DeSantis fell to fifth in a new New Hampshire poll, trailing not just Donald Trump, the runaway leader for the Republican presidential nomination, but Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie.The poll, from CNN and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), was just the latest worrying sign for DeSantis, whose hard-right campaign has struggled ever since a glitch-filled launch with Elon Musk on his social media platform in May. Continue reading...
Republicans propose stopgap bill that excludes funding for Ukraine as both parties signal they have questions for Kyiv's delegation. Plus, why are 500,000 people watching paint dry?
UAW to launch additional strikes if agreements with General Motors, Stellantis and Ford are not reached by 22 SeptemberThe United Auto Workers (UAW) looks set to escalate strike actions against US car plants on Friday as the union struggles to reach a deal with the automakers General Motors, Stellantis and Ford.The UAW president, Shawn Fain, announced last week that the union would launch a series of stand up" strikes at individual car plants after failing to reach agreement over a new union contract with the car companies. Continue reading...
Across the EU, far-right ideas are becoming mainstream while refugees and Muslims are demonised. But change is still possibleI arrived in Brussels four decades ago as a student, scarred by the legacy of two deadly wars between India and Pakistan, and their constant enmity. I was ready to be seduced by a story of peace and cooperation - of former enemies reconciled by trade and pooled sovereignty. The EU and me were a perfect fit.Improbable as it may sound, Belgium drew me in, loved me back. University life was multicultural and exciting. Fulfilling a long-held dream, I became a reporter and started covering, later writing and commenting on, EU foreign policy and Europe's global trade and aid policies. Continue reading...
Water remained contaminated in Benton Harbor, 175 miles from Flint, as state regulators attempted fixes that failed for three yearsIn the aftermath of the Flint water crisis, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2016 established a new lead contamination response system that regulators claimed would help prevent a repeat of the deadly catastrophe.But that newly implemented policy was ignored by EPA staff starting in 2018 as residents in Benton Harbor, Michigan, for three years drank water poisoned with astronomical levels of lead in some cases far above what was found in Flint, federal investigators charge. Continue reading...
In 2007, before Twitter rage and pile-ons, Brand offered up his female assistant to go to Savile's place naked. With little social media to provide a forum for outrage, no action was taken
Biden was pitching global cooperation to developing nations long suspicious of the US-dominated world orderEvery September, the annual UN general assembly session offers global leaders a prime opportunity to publicize their top priorities to an international audience - precisely what President Joe Biden did on the conclave's opening day this week.As Biden approached the podium, the representatives of China and Russia may have braced for an earful: Russia's invasion of Ukraine has produced Europe's deadliest war in more than 70 years; and tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and trade have made blame-laden volleys between China and the US routine. As it turned out, however, Biden's half-hour speech barely mentioned the US's two biggest rivals.Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York, and a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace StudiesDaniel R DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek Continue reading...
Many Daca recipients in limbo about their future in the US, the country they have called home for years, after judge's rulingThe Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen found the revised Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (Daca) policy, which shields thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children, illegal last week - after a five-year legal battle about the program's existence that has left many Daca recipients in limbo about their future in America.For one educator and activist, Alondra Garcia, the ruling is another blow in the long fight for a permanent solution for many like her to be seen in the country they have called home for years. Continue reading...
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