Georgia senator Raphael Warnock urges Congress to pass laws to deal with this' after deadly school shooting in his stateAmericans are all sitting ducks" unless Congress passes more substantial gun control, US senator Raphael Warnock said Sunday, four days after two students and two teachers at a high school in his home state of Georgia were shot to death, allegedly by a teenager wielding a military-style rifle.Warnock's comments Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press came in direct response to statements from Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, who had previously said the killings at Appalachee high in Winder, Georgia, demonstrated how it was a fact of life" that US schools present soft targets" to a psycho [wanting] to make headlines". Continue reading...
New England have lost an all-time great quarterback and coach over the last few seasons. But there are encouraging signs as they start to rebuildThe post-Bill Belichick era for the New England Patriots is off to a sunny start. The Patriots went on the road Sunday and beat the Cincinnati Bengals, a widely anticipated playoff team, 16-10. New coach Jerrod Mayo, a Belichick disciple turned replacement, got a soothing Gatorade bath in his debut game. The Patriots were eight-point underdogs, and their win was the most surprising result of Week 1 action.On some level, the Patriots' life after Belichick figured to be bleak. The coach who brought the franchise six Super Bowls is spending this year doing broadcasting gigs, and there's no recapturing the magic that Belichick and Tom Brady conjured together for nearly two decades. But through a different lens, the Patriots of old died when Brady walked out the door in free agency in 2020. There was nothing left to preserve by the time the Patriots parted ways with Belichick at the end of last season and hired Mayo, his former linebacker and assistant coach. A fresh start was, at that point, the only reasonable choice. Continue reading...
Research shows a public less nationalistic, less ideological, with its own sense of national pride - and a media and political class out of syncOnce again the gap between politics and media, on one hand, and the general public, on the other, continues to be revealed in its scale. Survey after survey bring us the news that things are changing. That the British public is becoming more progressive in attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers, immigration, unions and industrial action, net zero targets and, most recently, British history.The National Centre for Social Research's British social attitudes survey shows a country that has become less nationalistic and jingoistic and, most sharply, less proud" or very proud" of British history. Along with that, there were also declines in pride in Britain's democracy, its political influence and its economic achievements. The only two spheres where pride remained constant and high were sport, and art and literature.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The seven-time Super Bowl winner's debut on Fox was mediocre at best as he stumbled with his lines and offered little in the way of insightAs the third quarter of the Cowboys' dismissal of the Browns got under way on Sunday afternoon, Fox play-by-play anchor Kevin Burkhardt turned to his new on-air partner Tom Brady for guidance on what Cleveland needed to do to spark their limp offense into life. How do they move the ball and get something going here?" Burkhardt asked, an issue on which the man widely considered the greatest quarterback of all time would, one assumes, have an original thought or two to offer the viewers at home. With a confident nod, Brady replied: In order to move forward they need to stop from going backward." Burkhardt laughed, but from the expression in his eyes you could tell he was crying inside. Is this what $375m buys you these days?Brady's TV debut was perhaps the most hotly anticipated sports broadcasting event of the year, a story the media has covered with breathless intensity in the run-up to the NFL's kickoff weekend. The former New England Patriots legend signed a $375m deal with Fox in 2022 to become their lead Sunday football analyst for the next 10 years, and he spent much of 2023 preparing for his new role - studying the work of other analysts, consulting the wise old heads of the sport for tips on how best to manage the transition from field to commentary box, calling games live in private as practice. As if his godly playing reputation and the fortune Fox is giving him for his insights have not already raised expectations enough, Brady has also assumed the analytical position at a time when the pressure of comparison on Fox has perhaps never been greater. By stepping into the seat next to Burkhardt, Brady has displaced Greg Olsen, who drew rave reviews in the lead color role last season for his on-screen fluency, charm, and rare ability to blend narrative and data into a compelling explanatory whole. Continue reading...
National and swing-state polling indicates a narrow race, with support for Trump remaining solid despite his change of Democratic rivalDonald Trump and Kamala Harris are in effect tied heading into the final weeks of the election campaign, according to a national poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena College, raising the stakes of Tuesday's presidential debate.Trump is up one percentage point, 48%-47%, over Harris, according to the survey released on Sunday, a difference that is within the survey's three-percentage point margin of error, meaning a win for either candidate in the election on 5 November is well within reach. Continue reading...
Three firefighters injured and more than 35,000 structures endangered by Line fire amid days-long heatwaveTens of thousands of homes and buildings were threatened Sunday by an out-of-control wildfire burning in the foothills of a national forest east of Los Angeles, amid a days-long heatwave that pushed temperatures into the triple digits across the region.State firefighters said three firefighters had been injured and more than 35,000 structures were threatened, including single and multi-family homes and commercial buildings, while authorities issued evacuation orders for several areas. Thunderstorms expected later in the day could make conditions even more challenging. Continue reading...
Mayor of nearby city says seven hurt from gunfire and vehicle accident by interstate in area south of LexingtonAs the manhunt for the gunman in a mass shooting on a Kentucky interstate Saturday continues, officials have ruled out road rage as a motivation behind the attack - which left seven people injured.In a news conference on Sunday, Laurel county sheriff's office deputy Gilbert Acciardo said a person being sought by investigators for having possibly been involved in the shooting was not in a vehicle".This article was amended on 8 September 2024. An earlier version incorrectly said that London is about 100 miles north-west of Frankfort, instead of south-east. Continue reading...
We have to do everything possible to ensure that he's not re-elected,' ex-congresswoman saysThe former congresswoman Liz Cheney called Donald Trump an unrecoverable catastrophe" on Sunday and urged fellow Republicans to vote for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in November's election.We see it on a daily basis - somebody who was willing to use violence in order to attempt to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe, frankly, in my view, and we have to do everything possible to ensure that he's not re-elected," Cheney said in an interview on ABC News This Week, a show on the network that is hosting Tuesday's debate between Trump and Harris. Continue reading...
Trump recently gave garbled answer to question on childcare, while Vance said extended family should help outWith the Republican presidential ticket led by Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance recently drawing scrutiny over their answers to questions about how they would address the high cost of childcare in the US, the far-right Project 2025 manifesto offers some suggestions to them.The plan calls for shifting funding for childcare to in-home family care because it claims children who go to childcare are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and neglect. Continue reading...
Message represents latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins second termWith just days to go before his first - and likely only - debate against Kamala Harris, Donald Trump posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those involved in unscrupulous behavior" this election, which he said would be under intense scrutiny.WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again," the former president wrote, again trying to sow doubt about the integrity of November's election, even though cheating is incredibly rare.Guardian staff contributed reporting Continue reading...
Harris campaign seeks to press advantage on powerful motivator, especially in states with abortion on the ballotAs Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court's decision overturning Roe v Wade.At the party's convention last month, Democrats spotlighted the harrowing stories of women placed in medical peril as a result of post-Roe abortion bans in their states. Last week, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop reproductive freedom" bus tour across several battleground states, kicking off in Trump's back yard", miles from the former president's Mar-a-Lago residence in south Florida. Continue reading...
California congressman says focus of Harris campaign should be on unity and reaching out to skeptical votersCongressman and Kamala Harris campaign surrogate Ro Khanna said he doesn't support the trend among his fellow Democrats of calling Republicans weird" on the election trail.I'm not, in candor, a fan of calling each other weird' or names, I don't think that advanced American democracy," the California US House representative said during a live event with the Guardian at the Texas Tribune festival Saturday in Austin. I think we have to - in this country, and as a party - not just win, but deserve victory. And to deserve victory means to offer a vision that is going to bring this country together with a common purpose." Continue reading...
Aunt says her sister texted saying she spoke with school and urged them to immediately' find her son and check on himThe mother of the teenaged boy who has been charged with murder over the fatal shooting of four people at his Georgia high school called the school before the killings, warning staff of an extreme emergency" involving her son, a relative said.Annie Brown told the Washington Post that her sister, Colt Gray's mother, texted her saying she spoke with a school counselor and urged them to immediately" find her son to check on him.Guardian staff contributed reporting Continue reading...
At 49, I'm already well into my late career', according to an idiotic graphic from the job search giant Indeed. But that's not the way life works any moreAt 49, I've just learned I'm in my late career" era, according to a recent marketing graphic from the job search giant Indeed. That's what work is like for us 45- to 55-year-olds, following Exploration" (21-25), Establishment" (25-35) and Mid-career" (35-45).Late career! I have only been doing this for 14 years (the less said about the decade lost to the law the better) and this bald characterisation has given me full-on existential vertigo. It's worse than when my best friend told me last year I was probably peaking", which I obviously heard as freewheeling towards death". Why even bother staggering on?Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
As once-prolific nicknamer Trump fails to land a hit, Democrats set good manners aside in favour of ridiculeIn Trump in Exile, her recent book on the former president's life after losing power, the reporter Meridith McGraw describes how aides to Donald Trump set about destroying Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who threatened to lure Republican voters away.One Trump adviser referred to Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals," McGraw writes. Rule number five: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Continue reading...
Interviews with both prime minsters show there's a narrow path towards a better EU-UK relationshipA curious feature of Brexiter psychology is how the ruinous outcome they once actively sought for Britain is now blamed on tricksy European negotiators, led at the time by Michel Barnier.And so it was wearingly predictable that his re-emergence as the likely new French prime minister would produce a tide of their usual foam-flecked outrage. We thought we'd seen the last of Monsieur Barnier' after the Brexit negotiations - where he was determined to get Britain the worst possible deal," said the Tory MP John Hayes, even as the former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg declared that Barnier was no friend of the UK". Continue reading...
The Democratic nominee wants to boost startups - which are doing just fine - but what about the 6m existing firms?Kamala Harris has announced initiatives to help small businesses in the US. It's a smart - and welcome - move given that 46.4% of all private sector employees work for small businesses. I do worry, however, that she is targeting the wrong issues.Among the vice-president's proposals is to cut down" on government bureaucracy, creating a standard deduction" for small businesses and making it easier" for businesses to get occupational licenses to operate across state lines. She wants to suggest new steps" for more investments in rural businesses with an expansion fund" that would make it easier for businesses in those areas to get access to capital. She also wants to mandate that one-third" of federal contract dollars go to small businesses. Continue reading...
There must have been something in the air in 1964. Many of the people who shape our world are turning 60 this yearMagical," special," a total badass": step forward Kamala Harris, the 59-year-old dynamo who has rebranded her country at lightning speed, offering it up as a nation synonymous with optimism, hope and patriotism. For the rest of us, Kamala's gift is her joy and vibrancy - and the way she is smashing it just months away from her seventh decade, holding up 60 in all its power and glory. Welcome to the new golden age.Hers is the vibrancy of a woman who owns her power, a woman who is manifesting her experience and expertise, a woman who knows her time has come. No more waiting in the wings while Sleepy Joe calls the shots - and blows them. No more hiding that smile, or keeping down the laughter. She's here, she's got the platform. What's more, the VP now looks positively youthful when compared to 78-year-old Donald Trump and 81-year-old Joe Biden. Barack Obama may have been younger than Kamala by 12 years when he ran for president, but today Kamala's 60 looks like the first blush of youth thanks to the energy-sapping Trump/Biden effect. Continue reading...
Whenever mainstream politicians begin to mutter about infiltrators, fifth columnists and failed assimilation, that smell of sulphur is fascism in the airThe problem with fascism" as a description of any modern political tendency is that the term is a weapon of mass destruction that flattens the landscapes that it wants to describe. Fascism is so freighted with historically specific meaning that using it for other times and places can seem sloppy and excessive. And yet, juxtaposing the politics of contemporary south Asia with fascism, in its Nazi variant, serves a double purpose: it connects modern Indian majoritarianism with one of its ideological ancestors and it helps us name and identify the ideological kernel of fascism that survived to fight another day.India's ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is the political arm of a Hindu militia, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925, around the time Adolf Hitler began to find his political bearings in a routed, angry Germany. The RSS is a nationalist militia that defines India as a Hindu nation; only Hindus can be members. While there are many similarities between the RSS and the fascist paramilitary organisations of the prewar decades, from uniformed drills and distinctive salutes to a persistent anxiety about masculinity, at the core of both is a feral ethnic nationalism that aims to mobilise a racial or religious majority against an allegedly encroaching minority.Mukul Kesavan is an Indian historian, novelist and political and social essayist Continue reading...
Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, will go head to head with Donald Trump, a convicted criminal, in Philadelphia on Tuesday in their first - and maybe only - debateIt will be a study in contrasts around age, gender, race, temperament and policy. It will also be the first time in US presidential history that a former courtroom prosecutor will take the debate stage alongside a convicted criminal with the White House at stake.Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has served as a trial lawyer, district attorney and state attorney general in California. Former US president Donald Trump, her Republican rival, has been convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal. Continue reading...
Like other celebrity wellness entrepreneurs, the former model seems to peddle nonsenseElle Macpherson's gratitude journal must have written itself last week. Most days, any leader in the wellness industry is right to feel gratitude for the gigantic profits to be made seemingly out of human gullibility: the welcome for her latest venture suggests that the market for experimental self-care may have been wildly underestimated.Since the exclusive revelation of Macpherson's cancer journey" in the Australian Women's Weekly, there can hardly have been enough time in the day, without contracting the work out to a gratitude assistant, to record the amount of joy experienced by a model turned entrepreneur when her apparent rejection of evidence-based medicine is widely presented - with only limited space for objections - as a tale of fully vindicated heroism. Continue reading...
US secretary of state will be most senior US official to have travelled to London since Labour's election victoryThe US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will head to London next week to discuss the Middle East and Ukraine, the state department announced on Saturday, in advance of a US visit by prime minister Keir Starmer.Blinken's visit to London on Monday and Tuesday will be the most senior by a US official since the Labour party won the general election in July, ending 14 years of Conservative rule. Continue reading...
The system by Saturday had been dousing Texas and Louisiana with heavy rains for daysA tropical depression may form next week in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center.In a forecast on Saturday afternoon, the NHC said that an area of low pressure had formed over the Bay of Campeche in the southern area of the Gulf of Mexico. It had been producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Continue reading...
At 74, Spain's finest director has won the Golden Lion - incredibly, his first major victory at a film festival - for his debut English language feature. Better late than never, even if The Room Next Door isn't quite his finest workPedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door is a tender, heartfelt drama about a driven former war correspondent who's in search of the perfect final scene. She wants an ending that she can script and control, and a handpicked loving audience to applaud her when she goes.As played by Tilda Swinton, the heroine doesn't have it entirely her own way. But the film itself has fared rather better. It bowed out in a blaze of glory and scooped the crowning Golden Lion award in the dying seconds of this year's Venice film festival. Continue reading...
James Shirah, 22, allegedly ran over groomsman with SUV, mortally wounding him, following argument on 30 AugustA newly married couple from Michigan were arrested only hours after their wedding because the groom allegedly used a car to intentionally run over and kill one of his groomsmen, according to local police.The groom, 22-year-old James Shirah of Flint, allegedly ran over his groomsman with an SUV, mortally wounding him, following an argument on 30 August, the Flint police department said on Facebook. Continue reading...
Throughout shooting that killed four people, many attempted to stop attacker and were first to aid injuredStudents and teachers at Georgia's Apalachee high school - where a teenager carried out a deadly mass shooting on Wednesday - are being praised for the bravery they demonstrated when faced with unimaginable circumstances.Meanwhile, more information is emerging about the 14-year-old shooter who allegedly thrust them into those circumstances. Continue reading...
by Julian Borger and Sufian Taha in Beita and Bethan on (#6QJ51)
Palestinians say they have no faith in Israel Defense Forces inquiry into killing as US officials insist Gaza ceasefire is nearUS officials have insisted that a ceasefire in Gaza is close even as fighting rages unabated in the blockaded Palestinian territory and violence spirals in the occupied West Bank, where witnesses told the Observer an American-Turkish dual national was killed by Israeli forces on Friday.William Burns, who is also the US's chief negotiator in the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, echoed secretary of state Antony Blinken during a speech in London on Saturday in which he said that 90% of the text had been agreed but the last 10% is always the hardest". Continue reading...
by Tumaini Carayol at Flushing Meadows on (#6QJ3M)
Taylor Fritz can be first American man to win a slam singles title since 2003 but world's best player stands in his wayAs Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe tussled for five sets on Friday night in a historic all-American semi-final duel to decide who would clinch the greatest opportunity of their career, Andy Roddick, a towering figure in US tennis, watched on from one of the hospitality boxes dotted around Arthur Ashe Stadium.It has now been 21 years since Roddick won the US Open on the same court, defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final. His victory at the time seemed like a perfect torch-passing moment to a new era of US players as the careers of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, who had won the US Open and Australian Open respectively in the previous year, approached the end. Continue reading...
Ruling, which may be reviewed by appellate court, could strike reproductive rights measure off November ballotA Missouri judge has ruled that a ballot measure asking voters whether abortion rights should be enshrined in the state constitution is invalid, potentially jeopardizing an election scheduled for November.In a ruling issued on Friday, Cole county circuit judge Christopher Limbaugh said that the reproductive rights petition - also known as amendment 3 - led by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom did not comply with state law. Continue reading...
Smaller pro-Palestinian protests continue in new semester amid ramped-up security, but chaos of spring has fadedColumbia University students returned to campus this week under the specter of the mass protests that disrupted campus life last semester. But while actions against the Gaza war continue, the first days of class saw little of the last school year's chaos.On Wednesday, a group of about 30 students gathered for a sit-in protest outside a class Hillary Clinton teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs building, chanting intifada revolution" and Zionists not welcome here". Continue reading...
The virile bird was euthanized by Maryland zoo due to health problems, and is survived by Mrs GreedyA zoo in Baltimore is mourning the death of an African penguin that helped save his kind from extinction by leaving behind more than 200 descendants while living far longer than expected.The remarkable creature in question is Mr Greedy, who was euthanized because of health problems related to his age: 33, or well past African penguins' 18-year median life expectancy, said an announcement from his home, the Maryland zoo. Continue reading...
Thirty years ago, Black women came up with the term reproductive justice. Today we fight for it more than everAs the 2024 elections continue to heat up, there are increasing concerns about the rise of fascism around the world and in the United States. Regardless of the word or label used, Black people, living with the legacy of slavery and multiple forms of reproductive oppression including rape and forced pregnancies, sterilizations and the killing of our children and loved ones by vigilantes and police, have a lot of experience with authoritarian regimes that oppress and dehumanize.There is a strategic agenda from the far right - laid out in clear language in Project 2025 to keep power in the hands of a chosen few and prevent the United States from becoming a truly representative, multiracial democracy that embraces and supports all people including those with the capacity for pregnancy. Continue reading...
Court worker secretly recorded calls in which Kathleen Ryan made homophobic slur and called Black people lazyA suburban Detroit judge is no longer handling cases after a court official turned over recordings of her making anti-gay insults and referring to Black people as lazy.Oakland county probate judge Kathleen Ryan was removed from her docket on 27 August for unspecified misconduct. Now the court's administrator has stepped forward to say he blew the whistle on her, secretly recording their phone calls. Continue reading...
Every time it seems he can't possibly sink any lower, the billionaire CEO grabs a shovel and starts diggingEvery time I think Elon Musk can't possibly sink any lower, he grabs a shovel and starts digging. In recent months, Apartheid Clyde (as he is nicknamed) has been doing his best to get Donald Trump elected by any means possible. As well as throwing money and an endorsement Trump's way, Musk has posted multiple false election claims and reposted a fake version of Kamala Harris's first campaign video that has been doctored to make her say she is the ultimate diversity hire". Continue reading...
The shooting was reportedly sparked by a fight in a school bathroom, and suspect was arrested shortly afterwardA student at a Maryland high school died after being shot by another student during a fight on Friday in a school bathroom, authorities said.Warren Curtis Grant, 15, died after the shooting at Joppatowne high school, the Harford county sheriff, Jeff Gahler, said at a media briefing. Continue reading...
Lifelong Republican makes announcement day after daughter Liz also endorses Democratic candidateThe former vice-president Dick Cheney, a lifelong Republican, will vote for the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, in November's presidential election, he said in a statement on Friday.In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," Cheney said of the former president and Republican nominee. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again. Continue reading...
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