Lieutenant governor among officials calling for postponement as thousands on strike demanding better pay and benefitsCalifornia officials are urging Taylor Swift to postpone her Los Angeles concerts and stand in solidarity with striking hotel workers.Eleni Kounalakis, California's lieutenant governor, as well as dozens of other state and local politicians asked the singer in an open letter to support the hotel workers' plight. Continue reading...
What's a guy get his gal for the 50th?' Lee Wilson secretly planted 80 acres of sunflowers to surprise his wifeA Kansas man celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary by surprising his wife with more than a million sunflowers.In May, working with his son, Lee Wilson secretly planted 80 acres of sunflowers, around 1.2m plants, in preparation for the anniversary on 10 August. Continue reading...
Automated tills now take up much more space than those staffed by humans. We must resist!I've wailed before about the proliferation of self-checkout machines. But I will do so again, because my mood darkens every time I visit my local big supermarket. I first honoured the place with my business about 20 years ago. Back then there were about two dozen staffed checkouts, in those days of innocence before the death march of progress gathered pace. A handful of self-checkouts appeared; a handful of human ones vanished. At first we saw them as harmless novelties. They were never all in operation, and those that were rarely worked properly. The whole caper seemed to involve as many staff supervising machines as could have been operating a battery of proper tills. But we indulged the management, bless them. They've got to try these things, haven't they?Then came more of them, and ever fewer human tills. A zero-sum game. It remained the case that some machines were out of action and the remainder invariably had a glitch in store for you. Only the other day I had a torrid time with some pitiful, dried-out geraniums on a three-for-5 offer. They just wouldn't scan. I got them for nothing in the end, but they all died anyway.Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Dorset, Vermont on (#6DFYX)
Vermont police say Ryan Koss, 35, pulled out in front of Williams, who was riding motorbike and unable to avoid collisionA driver accused of causing a crash that killed the actor Treat Williams was cited for grossly negligent operation causing death, officials said.An investigation of the 12 June crash in Dorset, Vermont, concluded a vehicle pulled in front of Williams, who was riding a motorcycle and was unable to avoid a collision, Vermont state police said. Continue reading...
Biden's economic policies are the most successful in the US in decades. That puts the Democrats on a strong political footingUntil recently, I assumed that Joe Biden would get a second term despite worries about his age because most Americans find Trump so loathsome.But I've underestimated Bidenomics. It's turning out to be the most successful set of economic policies the United States has witnessed in a half-century.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is 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 new 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...
Stop was caused by officer misreading car's license plate and suspecting it was a stolen carA Texas police department apologized after officers pulled over what they wrongly suspected was a stolen car, then held an innocent Black family at gunpoint.The driver, her husband and one of two children being driven to a youth basketball tournament could all be heard sobbing on body-camera video posted online by police in Frisco, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Continue reading...
The defending champions have ground their way into the tournament's knockout stage. But they need to improve quickly against a strong Sweden teamAs a fire alarm echoed throughout Eden Park on Tuesday night and the public-address system asked everyone to evacuate, most of the crowd of 42,000 stayed in their seats in confusion. It turned out to be a false alarm, and almost too fitting a metaphor for a night to forget for the United States.A scoreless draw with Portugal secured the defending champions a place in the knockout rounds. That was widely expected by most of the world prior to the tournament. How the US got there, however, could be generously described as a grind. Continue reading...
Vice-president says she will not accept invitation to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery'Kamala Harris fired back at the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, after he invited her to discuss new school standards for the teaching of African American history which claim some enslaved people derived benefits that could be used in later life.There is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery," the vice-president said. Continue reading...
Latest criminal case before ex-president has come weeks after he was charged with retaining national defense information. Plus, experts warn of record US deaths from extreme heat
Super Pac affiliated with anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist received $5m from Trump backer Timothy MellonA Super Pac affiliated with Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist running for president as a Democrat, owes half its cash to a longtime Republican mega-donor and Trump backer, according to campaign finance reports filed on Monday.The group, American Values 2024, reported receiving $5m from Timothy Mellon, a wealthy businessman from Wyoming, according to NBC News and Politico. It registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in April, days before Kennedy officially launched his campaign, according to FEC records. Continue reading...
Social media is abuzz with a survey showing 12th-grade boys are twice as likely to identify as conservative. The reality is a little more complicatedThe kids are all (leaning to the) right. Well, teenage boys in the US are, anyway. Social media was recently abuzz with a survey that shows 12th-grade boys (who are aged 17 or 18) are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative v liberal. Their female counterparts, meanwhile, lean overwhelmingly liberal.There are, of course, lies, damned lies and statistics. Before digging into these statistics it is worth explaining how they went viral. The numbers showing young men becoming conservative come from the 2022 Monitoring the Future study, a respected annual survey looking at American adolescents that began in 1975. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor, used this data for a chart in Generations, her new book about generational differences. Continue reading...
OKC have a host of young stars who could help them challenge for the NBA title. The only problem may be finding a long-term homeThe Oklahoma City Thunder have one of the most promising cores of young players in the NBA. Led by 25-year-old All-Star guard Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, they also boast 2023 Rookie of the Year runner-up Jalen Williams, gifted 20-year-old Australian point guard Josh Giddey and highly touted 21-year-old seven-footer Chet Holmgren, who will debut this coming season.What's more, the wheeling and dealing of general manager Sam Presti in the trade market over recent seasons has seen them accumulate a bounty of 15 first-round picks to be redeemed over the next seven years. Continue reading...
The eye-watering sums on offer for players like Ronaldo are only the latest influx of cash for a game we love, but others ownNot long ago I had an instructive conversation with a football-mad 10-year-old from Belfast. We were walking by a beautiful lake in Donegal. I'd seen him proudly wearing a Liverpool kit on the dancefloor at our Liverpool-mad friend's wedding the previous day, so I asked him about the ongoing English league season. As everyone knows, football is a common language", particularly for people from different generations or cultural backgrounds who might otherwise struggle to know what to talk about together.I asked him to name his favourite player (Mohamed Salah) and whether he thought Arsenal would be champions (he was certain they wouldn't). He asked had I seen Cristiano Ronaldo's latest goals? I confessed I had not. Ronaldo is smashing all the league records, he said, quoting the latest figures. Yeah, but it's only the Saudi league, I interrupted. It's not a proper league, is it? Who cares? Continue reading...
In today's newsletter: On top of the other prosecutions against him, th eformer president has just been charged with conspiracy to defraud the US, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy against rights and more Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning.Donald Trump has been indicted for conspiring to defraud the United States" and other alleged crimes connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 US election result.UK news | The family of Captain Tom Moore have objected to an enforcement notice ordering them to pull down an unauthorised spa pool block at the home of the late charity fundraiser.Conservatives | Jeremy Hunt oversaw the signing of a low-tax treaty with San Marino that was championed by a leading Tory donor, who with his companies has given more than 700,000 to the party and 30,000 to the chancellor. Maurizio Bragagni, a prominent businessman and diplomat for San Marino, was present in No 11 Downing Street when a double taxation" treaty was signed in May.AI | UK intelligence agencies are lobbying the government to weaken surveillance laws, which they argue place a burdensome" limit on their ability to train artificial intelligence models with large amounts of personal data.Rights | Anti-protest laws and culture wars perpetrated by the government are among the issues highlighted as urgent and alarming" by two thinktanks that argue the threat to Britain's democratic spaces is growing, with charities and civil society groups come under political attack" by ministers.Science | Adults' penchant for the landscapes of Vincent van Gogh is mirrored in babies, researchers say. Infants and adults were shown a selection of 10 of Van Gogh's landscapes among 40 possible images. The infants tended to gaze longer at artworks that adult participants rated higher for pleasantness. Van Gogh's Green Corn Stalks had the highest shared preference. Continue reading...
Ron DeSantis decried the alleged swamp mentality' while Nancy Pelosi said charges outlined sinister plot'While Democrats and progressives welcomed Donald Trump's federal indictment on four charges relating to his attempted election subversion, the former president's chief rival for the 2024 Republican nomination rallied to his defense.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is a distant second to Trump in primary polling, swiftly issued a statement that notably did not mention Trump by name. Continue reading...
An MPs' report on Chinese intentions credits President Xi with a flattering level of strategic nous. The real problems lie closer to homeIn the figure of Xi Jinping, with his dominant political personality and assertive communicative style, many in the west have found the autocrat they always feared would one day confront them. For Xi and the people around him, combatting what his administration calls western universalism", and western attempts to infiltrate China's politics through economic and cultural engagement, has been a major task.Now the Xi threat has come right into our own back yard. A recent report by the British parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) defines the nature of Chinese intentions as ambition at a global level - to become a technological and economic superpower, on which other countries are reliant". This, it says, poses a national security threat to the UK". Its words align with those of the CIA and FBI in the US, who have in recent years regarded China as their greatest adversary. Continue reading...
Marjorie Perkins of Maine realized 17-year-old was awfully hungry' after defending herself and called 911 as he was eatingThe household matriarch who insists on feeding visitors, especially young ones, stands among the most enduring US stereotypes.But an 87-year-old woman from Brunswick, Maine, recently took that stereotype to an extreme by reportedly fighting off a teenager who broke into her home, then giving him snacks when he said he was hungry as she sent him on his way. Continue reading...
The former president is facing several charges in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 electionsDonald Trump has been charged with several crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in a historic indictment that is deepening the former president's legal peril.The charges, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in federal district court in Washington DC on Tuesday, accuse Trump of conspiracies that targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election". Continue reading...
Fitch changed the country's rating from AAA to AA+, citing fiscal deterioration and down-to-the wire debt ceiling negotiationsRating agency Fitch downgraded the US government's top credit rating on Tuesday, a move that drew an angry response from the White House and surprised investors.Fitch downgraded the United States to AA+ from AAA, citing fiscal deterioration over the next three years and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government's ability to pay its bills. It is the second major rating agency after Standard & Poor's to strip the US of its triple-A rating. Continue reading...
Special counsel Jack Smith has described the January 6 insurrection as 'an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy' that was 'fuelled by lies by the defendant'. The statements follow his lengthy investigation into Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
A brief downpour helped crews on the ground, but experts warn they could face unstable wind conditions that could blow fire back at themFirefighters have managed to partially contain a giant wildfire in the Mojave desert that scorched tens of thousands of acres of scrub and sent smoke across the Las Vegas Strip.The York fire was mapped at roughly 125 sq miles (323.7 sq km) on Tuesday, with 23% containment, making it the largest wildfire of the season in California. Continue reading...
A lifeguard brought the container ashore and opened it to discover a Black man's body as homicide detectives investigate the deathA lifeguard found a man's body in a barrel at a southern California beach on Monday, after seeing the container floating in the water, officials said.Homicide detectives with the Los Angeles county sheriff's department are investigating the circumstances around the death. Continue reading...
by Presented by Faye Carruthers, Suzanne Wrack, Sophi on (#6DF89)
Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Sophie Downey and Anita Asante to reflect on England's incredible 6-1 win over ChinaRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.On the podcast today; England finally look like a side capable of going very far at this World Cup, helped hugely by an amazing performance by Lauren James. If it wasn't for an offside she may well have had the greatest ever World Cup hat-trick. Continue reading...
Judge agreed with challenge led by Planned Parenthood that law goes against providers' rights to free speechA US judge on Monday blocked the state of Idaho at least temporarily from prosecuting doctors who refer patients out of state to get an abortion, finding that would violate a medical provider's right to free speech.Judge B Lynn Winmill of the federal district of Idaho agreed with a challenge led by Planned Parenthood that the interpretation of the Republican attorney general, Raul Labrador, of the state's criminal abortion law was chilling" to providers' rights to free speech under the first amendment of the constitution. Continue reading...
Former Liverpool captain's support for the LGBTQ+ community no longer feels genuine after move to Saudi ArabiaI chose my words carefully when addressing Jordan Henderson on Twitter last week. The thought of him moving to Saudi Arabia didn't feel right from the start but I wanted to comment when the move became official. He supported the fight against homophobia in the past and people feel betrayed by his move to a country where same-sex relationships are illegal and can result in the death penalty. It was not about criticising the people of Saudi Arabia or criticising players for going there. It is their decision and they are free to move wherever they want. But what Henderson has done is contrary to what he has said and makes me believe his allyship was not genuine.He wanted to support a minority, the LGBTQ+ community, and now he's getting paid by a state that wouldn't even show the captain's armband he wore, because the rainbow symbol might have upset people. That is very difficult for me to understand. He made a conscious decision several years ago to be supportive of the LGBTQ+ community and that was great at the time. It was fantastic to have such a highprofile player speak up for the community. It is one thing me speaking up - I'm out publicly and feel it's my responsibility to speak up for a community I am part of - but when you have a straight ally such as him it is more powerful because nobody would expect it of him in the first place. Continue reading...
Police in the Tennessee city shot the unidentified man after he failed to gain full entry to the school and fled in a vehicleA man who fired shots at a Jewish school in Memphis in what police said appeared to be an attempted mass shooting on Monday is himself Jewish and a former pupil at the institution, a local congressman has said.Police in the Tennessee city shot the still unidentified man after he failed to gain full entry to the school and fled in a vehicle. Police later stopped the vehicle and opened fire when he emerged carrying a handgun. He remained in the hospital on Tuesday. Continue reading...
O'Shae Sibley, who was gay, was attacked while with friends at gas station in Brooklyn on Saturday nightThe stabbing death of a professional dancer at a New York City gas station has drawn the attention of police investigators specializing in hate crimes.O'Shae Sibley, who was gay, was attacked outside a gas station in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on Saturday night. The 28-year-old and his friends were filling up their car while clad in swimsuits, playing music and dancing when they were confronted by a group of men, Gothamist reported. Continue reading...
by Dave Caldwell in Chester, Pennsylvania on (#6DF51)
Wrexham concluded an eye-opening' North American tour with a visit to their improbable home away from homeVery late on Friday night, Phil Parkinson, his gray hair matted by a steady second-half rain that followed a two-hour severe-weather delay, slid into a chair in a conference room and pinned a happy face on an exhausting four-game road trip.And this had not been just another road trip. Parkinson is the manager of Wrexham, who last year became the darlings of reality TV, winning promotion to the English Football League after a 15-year absence. And all while starring in Welcome To Wrexham, a documentary charting their fortunes. Continue reading...
David Gonzalez claimed it was an accident after the police chief said injuries may have been intentionally inflictedThe man suspected of hitting six people described as migrant farm workers with a sport-utility vehicle outside a store in North Carolina has reportedly surrendered to police and claims it was an accident.David Gonzalez, 68, turned himself over to authorities after initial reports indicated that investigators were examining the possibility that the workers were struck intentionally. Continue reading...
Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!A World Cup presents unique challenges for the dedicated couch potato. How to follow simultaneous games; which time zones can be used, guilt-free, to determine Tin O'Clock; and what to do when your team play a vital game in the small hours. That was the problem today for fans of reigning world champions USA! USA!! USA!!!, whose decisive Group E game against Portugal kicked off at 3am Eastern Time. Just before kick-off, the US Women's National Team account on social media disgrace X posted a call to arms: WAKE UPPPPPPPPP!!!!!! IT'S TIME FOR KICKOFF!!!!" Continue reading...
The defending champions spoke about hope' and belief' after scraping through their group. They will need a lot more than that in the next roundTwo days before their decisive match against Portugal, Megan Rapinoe was asked how the USA should be judged if they fail to win this World Cup. Rapinoe paused for four full seconds, a lifetime for a charismatic player who can warm the tensest of press rooms.I never thought about that," she said. It was one of the shortest answers she will ever provide. Continue reading...
by Martin Pengelly in Washington and agencies on (#6DF1G)
Ex-president's political action committee says it had less than $4m cash at end of June, having paid tens of millions in legal feesBurning through campaign funds thanks to mounting legal fees, Donald Trump has been forced to recall $60m from a Super Pac, money originally intended for TV advertising in the Republican presidential primary.In filings with the Federal Election Commission FEC) on Monday, Trump's political action committee, Save America, said that at the end of June it had less than $4m cash on hand, having paid tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for the former president and associates. Continue reading...
Despite grave new warnings about the depth of the climate crisis, plutocrats are fighting to keep their profits - and our PM is with themTo understand this moment, we have to recognise that there is an existential struggle on both sides. While environmental scientists and activists fight for the very survival of the habitable planet, the fossil fuel, meat and internal combustion industries are fighting for their economic survival. Either they are regulated out of existence or human society across much of the world will fail. We cannot all win: either these industries survive or we do. But we can all lose, because, eventually, they will go down with the rest of us.But eventually" counts for nothing in their spreadsheets and annual reports. Eventually" has no effect on share prices and dividends. Eventually" has little traction in a four- or five-year political cycle. So, as the evidence of climate breakdown becomes undeniable to all but the most deluded, the pollutocrats must fight as never before. There was once a widespread belief (which some of us cautioned against) that governments would step up when - and only when - disaster struck. But it is precisely because disaster has struck, visibly and undeniably, that they are stepping down. Continue reading...
Men suffer under patriarchy, too - and Ryan Gosling's man-child Ken is a brilliant demonstration of thatI didn't expect to cry during Barbie, let alone to weep for Ken, the lonely man-child who's barely more significant than the ampersand that sits between him and his lover's name.While Greta Gerwig's movie is full of feminist sentiment, much of it feels like deeply trodden ground, long explored by movies from 2001's lighthearted Legally Blonde to 2014's cutting Gone Girl. What sets Barbie apart is its introduction to the mainstream of an idea introduced by feminists like bell hooks - that men too can benefit from feminism and are actively harmed by the capitalist patriarchal systems that allow a small group of men to dominate society while individual men get to dominate their homes and workplaces, isolating themselves from their family and inner selves in the process. Continue reading...
Headquarters will remain in Colorado rather than relocating to Alabama, as the Trump administration had plannedJoe Biden has decided to keep US space command headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-ditch decision by the administration of his presidential predecessor Donald Trump to move it to Alabama while also ending months of politically fueled debate, according to senior federal officials.The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of space command, Gen James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson's view, however, was in contrast to air force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move. Continue reading...
When the former president looked finished, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner kept their distance. Now he is the Republican frontrunner, they're once again by his sideThere's a decent chance that, come January 2025, Donald Trump will either be in the White House or in a prison cell. Last November, my money was on the prison cell. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was the Republicans' golden boy and Trump was experiencing a major slump; for one thing, he had a mindboggling number of legal problems to deal with.He seemed to have lost his last crumbs of credibility: an embarrassing number of candidates he'd backed were defeated in the midterms, making the former president look like a loser and causing his allies to turn on him. TRUMPTY DUMPTY" crowed the once-loyal New York Post on its front page. Trump has no political skills left," a Trump campaign insider said in messages seen by the Guardian. His team is a joke. The ship is sinking." Continue reading...
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has been aggressively pushing gun manufacturers' interests, and is starting to eclipse its bigger rivalA business trade group representing 10,000 gunmakers, dealers and other firearm firms is emerging as a rising force in the US and starting to eclipse - in some respects - the might of the powerful but scandal-plagued National Rifle Association.Meet the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's conservative and aggressive lobbying group. Its range of activities are broad but always geared to zealously and single-mindedly preserving and extending the power of the gun industry. Continue reading...
Our holiday misadventure was time-consuming and revelatory. Turns out, Mr Z can change a tyre in his sleepGetting a puncture in a car always felt like a plot point in a film, a good way to summon chaos, but unlikely to happen in real life. Not if you drive like an undertaker, anyway; surely not if you drive like an undertaker slowing down regularly to admire the view. The whole possibility seemed so remote that even when the car told me it had happened, then swapped languages to tell me again in every tongue of Europe, I still thought: surely some misunderstanding?Not a misunderstanding, no. I had a flat tyre in a far-off land (well, Italy), an adolescent for company, who was ready with advice but no significant expertise, and no reception. A friendly man came by; he had no reception, either, but gave us a bottle of wine, as if that would help. I was incredibly grateful, naturally, but we already had a bunch of wine - we were driving back from the wine shop. So now I felt like both a puncture-getting fool and the kind of grifter who accepts someone's wine because they are on the take, rather than because they don't know enough Italian to say: No thanks, I've already got some." Continue reading...
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