From a barbershop and a cigar bar in Atlanta, many Black voters say they remain undecided after an underwhelming debateInside a barbershop in Atlanta's affluent Buckhead neighborhood, eight Black men gathered to talk politics on the day before the presidential debate. Most were business owners around town, social media stars and notable conservatives.All but one. Continue reading...
After the president's disastrous debate performance, some want to drop him as the party nominee. But it's not so simpleIf anyone were to doubt the menace of Donald Trump, they had only to watch his performance in Thursday night's debate.His bullying lies were not just lies - they were frightening opposites of the truth, uttered with the vigor and certainty of someone who has now mastered the dark art of demagoguery.I know I'm not a young man, to state the obvious. I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...
Political allies are also surprised at move, which cancels nearly entirety of state's funding and will affect economyRon DeSantis stripped more than $32m in arts and culture funding from Florida's state budget over his hatred of a popular fringe festival that he accused of being a sexual event", critics of the rightwing governor say.DeSantis justified his unprecedented, wide-ranging veto of grants to almost 700 groups and organizations by saying it was inappropriate" for $7,369 of state money to be allocated to Tampa fringe, a 10-day festival that took place earlier this month with a strong message of inclusivity, and its sister event in Orlando. Continue reading...
We've been making short-term decisions about our planet for a long time. The consequences are horrific to beholdThe slashing rain turned the dirt roads into muddy creeks, the bus's wipers shoved the torrent back and forth across the windshield, and Don Schreiber handled the wheel like Sandra Bullock in Speed as he wisecracked from under a big gray moustache. The vehicle swerved and slid in the storm, lightning flashed on the horizon, thunder shook the air. Whether the old yellow bus would make it back to the ranch house, get stuck or slide and flip depended on his driving.Don, in his white Stetson and a blue and white checked western shirt, was our tour guide on this land in northwestern New Mexico that he knew intimately and had dedicated his retirement to protecting. When he and his wife Jane Schreiber bought the ranchland about 200 miles north-west of Santa Fe in 1999 to retire to, they - like many westerners - found that they owned the land, but not the subsurface rights. The fracking boom came, and gas companies began gouging holes for gas wells, laying pipelines and cutting roads across the fragile desert soil. Big trucks rolled across the land night and day to service the wells that studded the landscape. At the well we stopped at, the pressure gauge was broken.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...
Tournament soccer should be a party but exorbitant ticket prices, high temperatures and ill-considered venues have hurt the atmosphereThe official X account of Copa America put out a post during the opening Group C game between Uruguay and Panama. Look who's here," it read. Attached were photos of young, glamorous social media influencers posing as they enjoyed the game from the executive boxes.The post soon went viral and has been viewed more than 7m times. Not by fans expressing joy, but rather by the Americas joining together to ask: Who?" Continue reading...
The unrelenting pursuit by America exposed how far officialdom will go to hide the truthIt was a messy ending to an often chaotic story. Julian Assange was released last week from Belmarsh prison to board a flight to the US-governed Pacific island of Saipan. There, under a special deal with the US authorities, he pleaded guilty in court to illegally securing and publishing classified documents in exchange for a prison sentence of five years, which he had already served in British prisons. And so, for the first time in 12 years, Assange found himself a free man.Having to plead guilty to espionage was a necessity for Assange to gain personal freedom. But it raises wider questions about journalistic freedom. Assange has been charged with espionage not because he spied for a foreign government but because he did what many journalists do: he published classified material that the US government did not want the public to see. The charges Assange faced rely almost entirely on conduct that investigative journalists engage in every day", Columbia University's Jameel Jaffer, an expert on free speech, observed in 2019 when the indictments were first brought. That is why the indictment should be understood as a frontal attack on press freedom".Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
After Princess Anne's accident, concerns over a too small royal family may be over-inflatedEven before Princess Anne's head injury, with a king and princess both on long-term sick leave, royal family experts were arguing that its professional component, having previously been too big, is now dangerously small. If there ever was an intervening just right, nobody spotted it at the time.Mercifully, given the family's impressive birth rate, there is no suggestion it will have to resort, as in the past, to importing foreign workers who may not even speak the language. But if the labour shortfall is not yet acute or even noticeable, royal authorities allude to struggles that have perhaps been under-reported: vacant patronages, event planners who can't lay their hands on a duke. The royal biographer, Hugo Vickers, wrote months ago that the King's cancer diagnosis is a reminder of what a foolish idea a slimmed-down monarchy is".Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Residents evacuate after Boulder View fire rips alongside Scottsdale, and wildfires in California and Oregon rageA wildfire north-east of Phoenix has, as of Saturday, threatened scores of homes, forced dozens of residents to evacuate and required more than 200 firefighters to battle it.No structures have been damaged as the wildfire has traversed nearly 6 sq miles (15 sq km) on the cusp of the Boulder Heights subdivision of Scottsdale, said Matthew Wilcox, spokesperson for a multi-agency wildfire response team. Continue reading...
Pressure mounts as the New York Times and some of Biden's strongest backers join the callAmid a howling chorus of derision over Joe Biden's substandard debate performance against Donald Trump, one voice seemed to resonate more powerfully than others.At 6.15pm on Friday - roughly 19 hours after the two presidential candidates left the stage in Atlanta the previous evening - the verdict of the New York Times's editorial board dropped online to the newspaper's subscribers. Continue reading...
The first lady is a key player in the administration - and critics fear she has been shielding her husband beyond a reasonable pointThrough a week in which Joe Biden's re-election hopes seemed to crumble, Jill Biden has been at his side. At times, she's appeared more than a resolute first lady, standing in as his compere, guide and primary political aide.The president's wife of 45 years - they met on a blind date, set up by Biden's brother, in 1975 - may now hold the key to whether Biden accepts mounting pressure from Democrat party donors and abandons a faltering re-election bid or risks another debate with Donald Trump in September with even higher stakes. Continue reading...
Swimmer off Fernandina beach was rescued by Nassau county marine unit after distress call from boat on FridayA shark attack off Florida's Atlantic coast left a man with a severe bite to his right arm" on Friday, authorities say, leaving him in critical condition from blood loss.The Nassau county sheriff's office marine unit, which was patrolling off the coast of Fernandina beach near the Florida-Georgia border, said it had received a distress call from a boat on Friday and had applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Continue reading...
Michelle Peters, 47, of Lebanon has been charged with first-degree domestic assault and armed criminal actionA Missouri woman has been accused of secretly putting weed killer and insecticide in her husband's Mountain Dew drinks.In a statement released earlier this week, the Laclede county sheriff's office announced that 47-year-old Michelle Peters of Lebanon, Missouri, has been charged with first-degree domestic assault and armed criminal action. Continue reading...
The presidential debate was further proof of the fragility of the country's constitution. Radical reform is crucial, whoever wins in NovemberIt wasn't so much what Joe Biden said, it was how he said it. His voice was weak and shaky, he lost his way, forgot what he was saying. He sounded feeble. He sounded old. Very old. And the storm of white-hot criticism that rained down on his head from friends and foes alike after the 2024 election's embarrassing and disastrous first presidential TV debate with Donald Trump was blistering. It was sad and painful to watch.Republicans were jubilant. They think it's all over bar the voting. They claimed Biden had only one objective: to prove, at 81, that he was fit to lead as president for a second term - and he failed. Many Americans will agree. Except they already thought he was too old. It's unclear as yet how much this flop will sway undecided voters. Proud, stubborn Biden will fiercely resist pressure to stand down. And no leading Democrat is publicly willing as yet to wield the knife. That may change. Continue reading...
Storm Lake police question how to enforce a troubling' state law after 30 years of gaining trust with residentsSince becoming the police chief of Storm Lake, Iowa, four years ago, Chris Cole has done everything he can think of to convince people who come from around the world to work in his town that he is not their enemy.Cole and his officers have hosted barbecues in parks and get-togethers at taquerias. They've dubbed a Hummer H2 seized from a drug dealer the YumVee", and driven it to events around town, its trunk full of ice cream, soccer balls and other sports gear for kids. And in a town where Spanish is widely spoken, Cole has found time every day to study the language and uses it in conversation when he can. Continue reading...
Driver taken to hospital and charged with driving while intoxicated after rescuers free people trapped in buildingA minivan slammed into a Long Island, New York, nail salon on Friday, killing four people and injuring nine others inside the business at the time, a Suffolk county fire official said.The vehicle came to a stop at the back of the Hawaii Nail & Spa salon in Deer Park at about 4.40pm. Continue reading...
City is one of few in the US where tenants can be forced to pay fees, despite a landlord having hired the brokerA row is brewing in New York City between renters and real estate brokers, over who pays the thousands of dollars in fees when an apartment is rented.On 12 June, lawmakers in New York met to discuss the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses act (Fare act), which would require the person who hires the broker to pay the broker fee. Continue reading...
The vice-president would be a logical choice if Biden does opt out, but some are already looking to other contendersJoe Biden's stumbling debate performance left Democrats so panicked some are searching for an alternative to replace the 81-year-old president as the party's standard-bearer.Biden has given no indication that he intends to exit the race, and his campaign has flatly dismissed the suggestion. But that has done little to silence critics who are openly questioning whether Biden is the right person to take on Donald Trump, a figure the president - and his party - view as a grave threat to American democracy. Continue reading...
If the president is not politically viable, the stakes of this election not only remain but are even higher than everI saw western civilization pass before my eyes as Joe Biden drowned.Putin is waiting for Trump," John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security adviser has said. When the presidential debate turned to foreign policy, the former president made an apparently startlingly revelation. He implied that he had a previously unknown conversation with Vladimir Putin before his invasion of Ukraine, perhaps in late 2021 or early 2022. According to Trump, Russia's president discussed the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. When Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we're going to go in and maybe take my - this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream." That dream, of course, is the conquest of Ukraine as the restoration of the major piece of the collapsed Soviet Union after the cold war. Continue reading...
Editorial board says exiting is greatest public service' Biden can perform after disastrous debate performanceThe New York Times's editorial board has called on Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.Biden's poor performance sent leading Democrats into a panic on Thursday night, after the US president appeared shaky and at points struggled to finish sentences. It amplified fears about his age and fitness for office that it had been hoped the debate would allay. Continue reading...
As the national team chases Copa America glory on US soil, the AFA has established a permanent home in south FloridaInter Miami's Lionel Messi may well miss Argentina's final Copa America group game on Saturday night, but for the defending champions an outing in Miami will feel like a home game.The Miami Dolphins' 65,300-seat Hard Rock Stadium has long been sold out for the tie with Peru, awaiting the arrival of the world champions. Continue reading...
Each government has been a challenge, each leader sillier and more ruinous than the last. But even cartoonists crave a bit of boring earnestness sometimesFor the past five weeks people have repeatedly said to me, You must be really busy!" I've had to explain that elections aren't like that; in fact, from the point of view of cartoonists, they're boring. The only real fun comes when the wheels fall off the party machines and their careful choreography collapses into farce. But in this election even the Tories' serial weapons-grade balls-ups are becoming a bore, serving merely to remind me of the universal truth that reality will always, always be weirder than anything satire could think up in a million years.That said, in the empty hours of this interminable death watch while we've waited for the Tory tumbril finally to trundle to the guillotine, I've been reflecting on the past 14 years, and how the worst government of my lifetime has been succeeded five times by one that was even worse. Continue reading...
We thought our country had become tolerant and inclusive, but the state still regards a woman's safety as secondary to a man's jobIreland loves its strong women, as long as they're dead or they never lived at all. It's the walking, talking, breathing ones who are bothersome. There is hardly an Irish person who hasn't heard of the sexually insatiable Queen Medb, famed for stealing her neighbour's prized bull, or of Grace O'Malley, a real-life sea pirate, or of the darling of them all, Caitlin Ni hUallachain, the mythical personification of Ireland.Until a week ago, most people had never heard of Natasha O'Brien. The country had been going about its business contentedly thinking itself modern and progressive, unaware that a 22-year-old soldier had previously pleaded guilty in the circuit court to violently assaulting her. The 24-year-old had been walking home from her job in a Limerick pub when she happened upon Cathal Crotty yelling faggot" at passersby on the city's main street. When she asked him to stop, he punched her to the ground and punched her twice more until she blacked out. Then he ran away and gloated on Snapchat: Two to put her down, two to put her out."Justine McCarthy is an Irish journalist and the author of An Eye on Ireland: Writings from a Changing NationDo 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...
Former president claims no amount of rest or rigging could help' Biden during victory lap at Virginia rallyDonald Trump wasted no time bringing up Thursday's debate at a rally in Virginia on Friday.Hello, Virginia," he opened to a crowd in Chesapeake. Did anybody last night watch a thing called the debate?" Continue reading...
by Ryan Thornburg in Raleigh, North Carolina on (#6NVTP)
Attendees note night and day' difference between campaign stop in North Carolina and lackluster' debate showingIn what several supporters described as a night and day" difference from his performance in last night's debate, President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to keep fighting against what he framed as an existential threat to America.In his first campaign stop following the debate, Biden showed off a louder and more dynamic voice at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh. Continue reading...
Ride-share companies sign off on $175m settlement that will give workers paid sick leave and other protectionsUber and Lyft drivers will be guaranteed among the highest wages in the US for ride-share workers under a historic deal agreed with Massachusetts prosecutors.Andrea Campbell, the state's attorney general, and the two companies agreed to a $175m settlement Thursday evening that requires a minimum pay floor of $32.50 per hour, and introduces a slew of other benefits and protections that drivers didn't already have. Continue reading...
Joe Biden acknowledged his age and his difficulties with walking and speaking smoothly at an election rally the day after his meandering performance in Thursday's presidential debate, but said he could still beat Donald Trump in the November election
Trump ally, convicted of contempt of Congress, fails in bid for emergency delay and must report to prison by MondayThe supreme court has rejected Steve Bannon's attempt to avoid prison time following his contempt of Congress convictions.In a brief ruling issued on Friday, the supreme court ordered Donald Trump's former adviser, who has been challenging convictions over his defiance of subpoenas surrounding the House's January 6 insurrection investigation, to report to prison by Monday. Continue reading...
Officials say the number of people living outside has slightly decreased for the first time in yearsLos Angeles's unhoused population remained steady from 2023 to 2024, marking the first time in years the county did not record an increase in homelessness, officials said.The Los Angeles homeless services authority (Lahsa) announced on Friday that it counted 75,312 unhoused people across the county this year, a 0.27% decrease from the unhoused population recorded in 2023. Continue reading...
Gateway founder Robert Morris allegedly told survivor Cindy Clemishire in 2005 to put a price on it'Texas megachurch founder and pastor Robert Morris, who recently resigned after confessing to sexually assaulted a child in the 1980s, attempted to pay his abuse survivor for her silence, according to a leaked phone transcript.The transcript from 22 September 2005, provided to NBC by a former employee of Gateway church, shows Morris telling his victim, who recently revealed herself to be Cindy Clemishire, to put a price on it", when she asked to be compensated for the trauma inflicted on her. Continue reading...
Jill Biden has firmly resisted calls in the past to do so, but others in the president's inner circle also have his earIn March 1968, president Lyndon Johnson abandoned his reelection bid, citing the awesome duties of this office", partisan divisions in the country, and America's sons in the fields far away" in Vietnam. I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president," Johnson said.It was a remarkable moment, recalls veteran Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf: No one gives up being the most powerful person in the world," he says. It just doesn't happen."Biden v Trump: 90 miserable minutesWho won the meme wars?Biden's performance sends Democrats into panicSix who could replace BidenTrump and Biden's claims - factchecked Continue reading...
Historic treasure' found in Florida will now be displayed at Roosevelt's Old Orchard museum in Cove Neck, New YorkTheodore Roosevelt's pocket watch has been recovered after being stolen nearly four decades ago from a museum exhibit about the former president.The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it had managed to get back the historic watch in a news release published on Thursday. Continue reading...
Cory Ulmer, 41, died in custody at Cook county jail, which authorities tried to portray as a medical emergency'Civil rights advocates in Illinois are demanding answers over the death of a handcuffed Black man following a violent confrontation with county jail deputies who attempted to portray the case as a medical emergency.Cory Ulmer, 41, died following his 20 June arrest for violating bond conditions as he awaited trial on assault and robbery charges. According to the investigative organization Injustice Watch, a spokesperson for sheriff Tom Dart at first insisted Ulmer had suffered a medical emergency", while personnel from the Cook county sheriff's office told Ulmer's stepfather he died in the hospital. Continue reading...
We'd like to hear your views on the performance of Biden and Trump following the first debateFollowing Thursday's debate on CNN, commentators focussed on Democratic party's panic over Joe Biden's halting performance in which he struggled to land his lines.Donald Trump made claims with no evidence on issues such as immigration by stating that millions of people" are coming across the border and receiving social security benefits. He also falsely claimed that ending Roe v Wade protections was something everyone wanted", despite consistent polling that shows the public desires at least some access to abortion under the law. Continue reading...
Old comments have been recycled to fire up the American team before the two nations vie for supremacy in the Paris poolCowbells. Australia's Olympic swimmers could be hearing them in their sleep, and definitely will be hearing them in their waking hours at the Paris Olympic pool, after the US-Australian rivalry ignited this week.Comments that Australia's former sprint queen Cate Campbell made last year about the sweetness of beating the US team and their infernal cowbell" were the talk of the US swimming trials that finished in Indianapolis earlier this week. Continue reading...
But he didn't foresee that lies, conspiracy theories and misinformation would ride the internet as easily as truth and transparencyThe two most consequential Australians in history are surely Rupert Murdoch and Julian Assange. Germaine Greer would come a distant third.Unsurprisingly, Assange and Murdoch have gained their notoriety through journalism and the media. More surprising - but significant - is the fact both of them could be described as libertarians. Continue reading...
Even Trump's usual lies could not distract from the president's decrepitude. But these debates don't move the needleWho could have foreseen that the scariest thing about the presidential debate on Thursday night wouldn't be the lies, the bombast or the threats to democracy, but the spectacle of Trump's slightly wolfish restraint. Heading into the encounter, Democrats felt the kind of anxiety more usually endured before watching a child perform, with that same crushing sense of raw emotions. That Trump barely mocked Biden, or went after his age or his son, seemed less rehearsed than a shrewd response to what all of us were seeing: a president so compromised that all Trump had to do was grin, lean back and let the optics work for him.And still, despite the evidence, it feels wanton to say this. Biden, whose voice was hoarse from a cold, rushed his delivery, fought to find words and stumbled in a style not entirely new to him. The difference on Thursday night was one of degree. Oh my God" was the general consensus, texted around the country, when the debate opened in Atlanta. While Trump's remarks were predictably ludicrous, full of lies and inflated claims, nothing he said could distract from the image of Biden saying sensible things in a manner so crepuscular that the entire event jumped from politics to tragedy. It made me think of a line from Rilke: It had almost hurt to see." Continue reading...
Ruling reverses lower court decision that blocked 2023 law, exclusively backed by Republicans, from going into effectIowa's state supreme court on Friday told a lower court to let a strict abortion law take effect.The court's 4-3 ruling held that the law - which bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy - does not violate citizens' fundamental rights under the state constitution, rejecting a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood. Continue reading...
As Biden plans for second debate, more Democrats reiterate backing the president's re-election effortsA defiant Joe Biden resisted calls to abandon his re-election effort and step aside for a younger candidate after his calamitous showing in Thursday's presidential debate with Donald Trump.As Democrats panicked and openly talked about replacing the president with another nominee, the Biden campaign unequivocally ruled out that possibility.Biden v Trump: 90 miserable minutesWho won the meme wars?Biden's performance sends Democrats into panicSix who could replace BidenTrump and Biden's claims - factchecked Continue reading...
We start with evidence of humanity's unfathomable stupidity, before moving to exhibit B: GlastonburyA Highlands red deer known as Callum the Stag has had to be put down. His teeth had rotted, leaving him unable to forage for his natural diet, and his overall health had deteriorated largely, it is posited - though the National Trust for Scotland did not make the connection directly - because tourists kept feeding him their snacks whenever he approached them as they took his picture. Continue reading...
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