Several blazes ravage state after record-breaking heatwave last week with temperatures topping 100FAs least 13 people have been injured in three major southern California wildfires that broke out this week during a scorching heatwave. Firefighters battling the blazes, already stretched to the limits by a challenging summer, were among the injured.The Bridge fire in the Angeles national forest, located north of Glendora, exploded from about 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) on Tuesday to 34,000 acres that evening, according to the Los Angeles Times. Continue reading...
Officials warn of life-threatening storm surge and flooding as evacuation orders in place in some parishesFrancine made landfall in south Louisiana on Wednesday as a category 2 hurricane as officials warned of life-threatening storm surge, flooding and 100mph winds.There were evacuation orders in some parishes, as communities braced. Continue reading...
Local election offices reportedly received mailed ballots days after the deadline to be counted in nearly every state'State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation's mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the US Postal Service (USPS) that it hasn't fixed persistent deficiencies.The officials said in a letter that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. Continue reading...
Nathan Clark calls Republicans hate-spewing' for falsely claiming Aiden Clark was murdered by Haitian immigrantThe father of an 11-year-old boy who was killed last year when a minivan driven by an immigrant from Haiti collided with his school bus has asked Donald Trump and JD Vance to stop using his son's name for political gain".During a city commission meeting on Tuesday in Springfield, Ohio, Nathan Clark, the father of Aiden Clark, addressed the forum alongside his wife, Danielle. Speaking at the meeting, Clark said: I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt, but if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone," the Springfield News-Sun reports. Continue reading...
US Soccer are jumping into the unknown by appointing a great club-level coach who has no international experienceA stodgy homegrown coach dismissed after a long tenure turned stale, replaced with an alluring foreign star who made his name among the elite of Europe? We've been here before.The appointment of Mauricio Pochettino as the new US men's head coach is exciting, bold and appears close to a best-case scenario given the middling status of the USMNT in world football and the shiny resume of a tactician who's successfully managed in the English Premier League, La Liga and Ligue 1. Continue reading...
by Ewan Murray in Gainesville, Virginia on (#6QNDH)
The biennial battle between Europe and the US always delivers drama and deserves a bigger audienceThe Solheim Cup's propensity to deliver drama remains its most endearing attribute. There was European rage in 2000 as Annika Sorenstam was accused of playing out of turn at Loch Lomond. Alison Lee was reduced to tears after an infamous clash with Suzann Pettersen in 2015. Madelene Sagstrom was in the same condition after picking up Nelly Korda's ball, too quickly, six years later. In 2013, an epic row broke out over a European penalty drop. Golf's routinely anodyne world changes tack at Solheim Cups.Wednesday saw the latest example of friction. Stacy Lewis, the US captain, referred to issues" with the European base, a house that backs on to the practice range. Their team room kind of exploded on to the driving range a little bit," said Lewis. But we reeled it in. It's all good. We adjusted the way the range was set up a little bit and moved the US team further down so Europe could do what they wanted basically. Continue reading...
US Swifties who were waiting for their idol's statement are hopeful' about its impact as Republicans criticize the moveAddy Al-Saigh had already gone to bed on Tuesday night when her phone woke her up with a notification: Taylor Swift had added a post on Instagram.The pop star had endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Al-Saigh was thrilled. Continue reading...
Donald Trump was unable to resist the vice-president's goading. Her commanding performance is another welcome campaign milestoneIf presidential debates don't really matter, as some have contended, Kamala Harris would not have been on the stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. Yes, the spectacle can lead to excessive focus on their impact. But Joe Biden's disastrous performance, which triggered his withdrawal from the race, showed how these choreographed political events can catalyse, if not create, voters' sentiment about candidates.Only weeks before the nation makes its choice, Ms Harris's success was critical. Debates are often remembered, as in Mr Biden's case, when things go wrong. The vice-president didn't merely clear the very low bar set by her boss - basic competence - but soared over it. Her desire to stick it to Donald Trump may not have elucidated matters for undecided voters who say they want to know more about her and her policies. She did mention a few, including measures to codify abortion rights and promote an opportunity economy", but was keener to focus on the broad messages.Do 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...
House speaker's bill to avert October shutdown combined stopgap funding with controversial election security' planThe House Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, hastily scrapped a planned vote on his government funding package on Wednesday after at least eight members of his own conference signaled opposition to the plan, raising more questions about how Congress will avert a partial shutdown before the end of the month.Johnson had combined a six-month stopgap funding bill with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Continue reading...
From the likes of Fox News has come a masterclass in post-debate pretzel logic. Surely the excuses must run out soonShort of sticking two pencils up his nose and muttering the word wibble", Trump's appearance on the debate stage on Tuesday night was never going to prove, decisively, to those on the fence, that he is unfit for high office. Unlike Biden's disastrous turn two and a half months ago, chaos is part of Trump's appeal - and if his thoughts are garbled, it signifies nothing beyond business as usual. And yet, even for Trump, aspects of his debate performance in Pennsylvania came so close to the edge on Tuesday that the next day what seemed most astonishing wasn't that Harris had performed so well but that so many apparently sentient human beings were still shilling for her unhinged opponent.Heading into the encounter, one had the strangest sense both of the height of the stakes and also of the sheer entertainment value of the encounter. I found myself wondering about Harris's nerves - how a person handles them in such a unique situation. In the debate's opening moments, the vice-president did indeed seem nervous. But she settled, and about 15 minutes in, it started to happen: while Harris's keenly controlled anger rose to a point, Trump, mouth bunching, eyes disappearing into his head, unravelled. Continue reading...
From JD Vance's childless cat ladies' comment to the sign-off in Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris, kitties are front and centre in this campaign. Will cat-lovers help win it for the Democrats?Take a shot at a cat, and you'd better not miss. It all started in 2021, with a remark by JD Vance, long before he became the Republicans' vice-presidential candidate. To be fair to the guy, Vance lives in a low-consequence universe, where you can hate Trump one minute and love him the next, with no ding to your credibility, so he must have been gobsmacked in July when he was called on this historic remark.It's just a basic fact," he had told Tucker Carlson back in 2021. You look at Kamala Harris, [transportation secretary] Pete Buttigieg, AOC [congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] - the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?" This elision of parenthood and long-termism is the acceptable face of the childlessness taboo in politics: you can call it dumb, but you can't call it misogynistic, since it isn't gendered. Continue reading...
What links Lady Gaga, Tom Cruise and the woman who's running for the US presidency? A presence that outstrips their actual size ...Name: Tall Energy.Age: Evergreen. Continue reading...
Parent of ex-president's Truth Social media company off 75% from peak, a week before Trump can finally sell sharesDonald Trump's tiny social media empire slumped to fresh lows on the stock market, hours after his primetime presidential debate with Kamala Harris.Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of the former president's Truth Social platform, dropped 17% as of Wednesday morning. Continue reading...
The deliberate policies of the EU and its member states have turned the Mediterranean into a mass grave - as we watchIn 2019 the city of Paris offered me the Grand Vermeil medal, an honor for bravery, to recognize work I've done as a captain in civilian search-and-rescue (SAR) operations to rescue people at risk of drowning while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.I declined the award. I don't see sea rescue as a humanitarian action, but as part of an anti-fascist fight, and I didn't want to uphold hypocrisy. Paris is a city whose police steal blankets from people they force to live on the streets while suppressing protests and criminalizing people who defend the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.Pia Klemp is a German biologist and human rights activist Continue reading...
We would like to hear from US voters living in swing states and their thoughts on how the debate wentPresidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump went head to head in a debate on Tuesday that involved false claims and heated rhetoric. With no other debates officially scheduled, it may be the only time the two will face-off in an attempt to persuade undecided voters and those living in swing states ahead of polls opening on 5 November.If you live in a swing state such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, we would like to hear what you thought of the debate. How do you think it went and do you feel the candidates addressed the issues important to you? What was your favourite moment? Did anything from the debate change your mind in any way? Continue reading...
Consumer price index rose at annual rate of 2.5% as inflation continues to fade but people still grapple with higher pricesPrice growth continued to soften in the US last month, falling to its lowest level since February 2021 as the Federal Reserve prepares to cut interest rates for the first time since the start of the pandemic.As inflation continues to fade, the consumer price index rose at an annual rate of 2.5% in August - down from 2.9% in July, and below the 2.6% expected by economists. Continue reading...
Harris spoke in lucid paragraphs, but Trump spouted lurid, loopy stuffThe Trump-Harris debate was the most unsurprising thing that ever happened, except maybe for the part when, unlike previous debates, the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, pressed Trump to actually answer the question or noted that what he said was extremely not true at all.The former prosecutor and current vice-president Kamala Harris got on stage and spoke in lucid paragraphs that were clearly the result of careful preparation. She shared the stage with the adjudicated rapist who spoke in loose phrases that flapped and looped and circled around and usually reverted to some version of millions of immigrants who are criminals and terrorists are why this country is in terrible shape worse than anyone thought possible and we are going to have world war three", a litany of fear and rage and vagueness we've heard for eight years.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell's Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility Continue reading...
Trump tried to paint Harris as the candidate of the status quo, but he failed because he came across as a messTo say that Kamala Harris nailed it in Tuesday night's debate is an understatement. She knocked it out of the park. She combined civility with firmness. She made Trump look and sound like the blubbering idiot he is.This was Harris's first presidential debate. It was Trump's eighth - including his debates with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. But Trump was worse than he has ever been. All he did was attack. His only weapon was fear. His only means were lies. Continue reading...
Kamala Harris kept Donald Trump on the defensive as he devolved into bizarre and false tangents about crowd sizes, abortion and immigration. Plus: how to get a better night's sleepGood morning.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump faced off in a presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, with Harris landing a number of blows as Trump spouted bizarre falsehoods about abortion and immigration.What were the most memorable moments? After Harris wrapped up one remark with a jab about Trump's crowd sizes, Trump began to ramble - about immigrants eating people's pets. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats," Trump said. They're eating the pets of the people that live there." ABC moderators interjected to say that the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, had told the network there were no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed by individuals within the immigrant community.How did the moderators do? ABC's moderators David Muir and Linsey Daviswere largely praised for factchecking Trump's falsehoods and rerouting discussions back to the questions. When Trump falsely accused Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, of calling for abortion in the ninth month and execution after birth", Davis responded: There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born."Another boost for Harris: After the debate concluded, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris on Instagram, signing the post as childless cat lady" in a jab at misogynistic comments made by the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance. Continue reading...
by Richard Luscombe in Fort Lauderdale on (#6QN0D)
Fort Lauderdale mayor says legislation will provoke tsunami of lawsuits' but do nothing to help homeless crisisA Florida law that criminalizes sleeping in public spaces and will take effect next month is expected to provoke a tsunami of lawsuits" but do nothing to alleviate the state's homelessness crisis, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale has warned.Dean Trantalis says his city is scrambling to find a way of complying with the bill signed by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in March, and which becomes law on 1 October, requiring municipalities with insufficient shelter capacity to establish encampments for unhoused persons. Continue reading...
American stars such as Simone Biles have made Olympic golds seem routine. But there is a drive to make their male counterparts dominant in the sport tooIn late July the five members of the United States men's gymnastics team ended a 16-year medal drought when they clinched bronze in Paris. Asher Hong, Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Fred Richard, and Stephen Nedoroscik were instantly turned into fodder for everything from extensive dives into the sport to Superman memes. When the dust settled, it became clear that the team's impact had also extended to a whole new slate of boys who had just discovered gymnastics, and were inspired to join their local gyms.With any sudden interest in a sport comes the need for the infrastructure to accommodate it, and boys' and men's gymnastics in the US is no different. Luckily, there are coaches across the United States who are invested in doing exactly that, even if they have to build that infrastructure from the ground up. Continue reading...
Gavin coal plant, now part-owned by Blackstone whose CEO backs Trump, bought Cheshire in 2002 to move people en masse. Two decades later, locals recall its noxious fumesNestled beneath two precipitous spires billowing smoke from what has been called the deadliest coal plant in the United States lies the husk of the small but once-thriving town of Cheshire, Ohio.When residents here were routinely shrouded in a toxic, blue-tinged fog of pollution from the plant two decades ago, a unique yet telling solution was settled upon: the company causing the pollution would purchase the entire town to move people en masse from their homes. Continue reading...
Indy Nelson set a record for most airlines flown and said he was detained by Iran, Russia, Libya and Papua New GuineaAn American man who set a world record while traveling to every country on the globe says he has been temporarily detained as a possible spy by four different nations.I feared for my life several times," Indy Nelson told Guinness World Records in an interview the organization published on its website recently. There were definitely several times that I did not think that I was going to get out of that country. [But] by the fourth time, it was like, No big deal anymore.'" Continue reading...
Plan to rename group the Campbell's Company part of shift in focus to other food it sellsBosses at Campbell Soup Company, whose cans feature in one of Andy Warhol's best-known 1960s pop artworks, have announced plans to drop soup" from its name after more than 100 years.Its chief executive, Mark Clouse, said the decision to rename the group the Campbell's Company was part of a shift in focus to the other snack foods and jarred sauces it sold. Continue reading...
I hope people took comfort from the royal video. But a film made after my treatment would have been greyer and grottier, perhaps more typicalI am trying to imagine what a film announcing my recovery from cancer would have looked like. Probably a bit like a trailer for a new zombie film rather than a Flake advert. Probably nothing like the video released by the Princess of Wales to mark her emergence from treatment.For wandering through wheat fields I would substitute tackling an overgrown garden that I had not had the energy to do anything with for more than a year - before having to have a sit down because I was so knackered. For a contemplative lean against a tree I would substitute a rest against a lamp-post on the way to work for a quiet sob. For shiny hair and complexion I would substitute what one of my doctors described as a sort of greyness" that seems to linger on patients for a while after chemo.Hilary Osborne is the Guardian's money and consumer editorDo 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...
The days when Viktor Orban could block negotiations on a whim should be over - and the western Balkans should finally benefitRussia's invasion of Ukraine has revived EU expansion as an imperative. For years, enlargement" has been a low priority - Croatia was the last country to join the club, more than 10 years ago. But things have changed. Ursula von der Leyen told a forum in Bled, Slovenia I attended this month that Europe's security depends on the 27-nation union expanding again. Thanks to Vladimir Putin, as the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, put it, enlargement is back on track.The fact that expansion is a strategic priority makes it possible that new members will be admitted. But it doesn't make it certain.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...
After weeks of arguments over the format and rules, the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key swing state. Both candidates went into the event virtually tied in the polls, in search of a campaign-altering moment
Hearing about poo is too evocative and gross in most settings - but if there's something affecting our health, we have to talk about itIn her book Stoic at Work, Annie Lawson tells the story of a colleague of hers hearing someone eating pretzels while sitting on the toilet:The person holed up in a toilet cubicle - a senior leader - was gnawing on them like a squirrel, taking several bites per pretzel while doing his business. Then his phone rang and he answered. He was the ultimate multi-tasker. My colleague was at the sink washing his hands when he heard a flush and the senior leader emerged from the cubicle with an empty pretzel packet. He nodded, dropped the pretzel packet in the bin and walked out without washing his hands."Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...
Presidential candidates face off in fiery debate displaying diverging visions of the countryThe presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Kamala Harris went head to head on Tuesday night in their first - and potentially only - debate before voters head to the polls on 5 November. The candidates went into the event virtually tied in the polls with just weeks to convince a small but mighty minority of unsure voters on how to cast their ballot.After weeks of arguments over the format and rules, the debate aired live on ABC from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key swing state, with no audience in attendance and each candidate's microphone muted while their opponent spoke. Continue reading...
Users react to viral moments as Democratic and Republican candidates face off in presidential debateIn the days leading up to the presidential debate, a 2020 tweet from the former Trump team lawyer Rudy Giuliani recirculated on X: once again, Americans find themselves gearing up for, as he put it, The debat."Though the debate aired on ABC News, with pre- and post-game commentary from anchors, the real buzz took place on social media, where users reacted to the night's most viral moments. Continue reading...
Secretary of state and defence secretary decry fatal shooting of Ayenur Ezgi Eygi in West BankThe family of the American activist Ayenur Ezgi Eygi said on Tuesday that neither the White House nor Joe Biden had called to offer condolences.Ayenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead last Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers. Continue reading...
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