Forty-five people in the state were accused of practicing witchcraft during the trials, and 11 were executedAfter almost 376 years, the bad spell that befell the innocent people accused of being witches during the US’s colonial period is over.Connecticut last week passed a resolution exonerating people tried and executed for witchcraft nearly four centuries after their so-called crimes. Continue reading...
Sweden’s pandemic postmortem is done and dusted, yet ours seems headed for the courts before it has even begunBritish politics has become a medieval battlefield across which the victors wander, seeking the twitching remains of Boris Johnson to harass and hack. The latest spat is over how much to reveal of his Downing Street behaviour during Covid. Lady Hallett, chair of the Covid inquiry, wants the unredacted WhatsApp messages between Johnson and 40 senior colleagues, along with unredacted diaries and 24 notebooks.Hallett thinks all material is potentially relevant for investigating, say, “the degree of attention given to the emergence of Covid-19 in early 2020 by the then prime minister”. The Cabinet Office strongly disagrees, citing privacy and disputing the relevance of much of the material. The eager Liberal Democrats claim that being kept in the dark is “yet another insult to bereaved families waiting for justice”.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Motorists reported that a sign displayed the name of a white nationalist hate group and a far-right sloganAuthorities in Alabama are investigating how white supremacist messages appeared on a digital road sign along a highway busy with Memorial Day traffic.Motorists on Interstate 65 near Clanton called state troopers at lunchtime on Monday to report the words “Patriot Front” and “reclaim America” were flashing on an electronic sign, interspersed with messages warning of an upcoming roadwork zone, AL.com reported. Continue reading...
Governor makes remark to Fox News and predicts two White House terms should he defeat Trump for Republican nominationPredicting two terms in the White House should he defeat Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination next year, Ron DeSantis said he would go on to “destroy leftism in this country”.“I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history,” the Florida governor told Fox News. Continue reading...
Six adults and three children hurt while over 20 mass shootings reported across US during holiday weekendNine people were injured when gunfire erupted along a beachside promenade in Hollywood, Florida, on Monday evening, sending people frantically running for cover along the crowded beach on Memorial Day.The nine people hurt included six adults and three children, according to Yanet Obarrio Sanchez, a spokesperson for Memorial Healthcare System. All of the victims were in stable condition, she said. Continue reading...
Shares in chip company rise on back of hopes for rising demand from artificial intelligence applicationsNvidia has become the first chipmaker to reach a $1tn valuation after its shares soared further on Tuesday on the back of an anticipated boom in demand for its products to meet the needs of artificial intelligence.Shares in the gaming and AI chip company rose 4.2% in early trading on Tuesday to pass the key milestone. Continue reading...
Artificial intelligence promises more leisure and creativity for workers. But at the same time, corporations are clamping down on unions and making plans to replace their expensive human employeesGoodbye humans, hello “Tessa”. The US-based National Eating Disorders Association (Neda) is making headlines after firing all its staff and replacing them with an AI-assisted chatbot called Tessa. This happened just four days after the six paid employees, who oversaw about 200 volunteers, successfully unionised. Coincidence? Oh, absolutely, Neda said; it was a long-anticipated change that had nothing to do with unionisation. A blogpost written by a helpline associate begs to differ and calls the move “union busting, plain and simple”.Is this a harbinger of things to come? Are we about to see millions of jobs wiped out as humans are replaced by AI assistants with female names? After stealing all of our jobs, are the Tessas of the world going to unionise and stage a digital takeover of Earth? Continue reading...
Black teen who was shot after going to the wrong address made his first major public appearance since attackA Kansas City teenager who survived being shot in the head after ringing the doorbell at a mistaken address participated in a Memorial Day walk and run to raise money for traumatic brain injury victims, marking his first major public appearance since the attack.Ralph Yarl, 17, did not speak publicly at Monday morning’s Going the Distance for Brain Injury gathering, where he walked 1.5 miles (2.4km) alongside his mother after weeks of therapy. But his mom, Cleo Nagbe, gave a speech to participants and talked to reporters about how he was recovering from the shooting. Continue reading...
Antony Blinken says he’s looking to ‘promote accountability’ for Ugandan officials who have violated rights of LGBTQ+ peopleThe US may restrict visas issued to Ugandan officials in its latest condemnation to the African country’s enactment of stringent – and highly controversial – anti-LGBTQ+ laws.Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said that Joe Biden’s White House is “deeply troubled” by the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was signed into law by Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president, on Monday. Blinken said that he was looking to “promote accountability” for Ugandan officials who have violated the rights of LGBTQ+ people, with possible measures including the curtailment of visas. Continue reading...
The president, Kais Saied, has turned our country into a dictatorship, while Europe looks the other way“Historic” – that is how Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, described his meeting with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad on the eve of the Arab League summit in Jeddah earlier this month. Snaps of him standing alongside al-Assad and Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi during the summit were widely shared around the region, signalling Tunisia’s return to the grand old club of Arab dictatorships.For all their internecine conflicts and rivalries, hidden and visible, Arab leaders are again united around one sacred goal: aborting their people’s aspirations for change. Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali may no longer be on the stage, but their spirit lives on in a new generation.Soumaya Ghannoushi is a British-Tunisian writer and researcher specialising in the Middle East and north Africa Continue reading...
Miami’s undrafted Caleb Martin is emblematic of an eighth-seeded team who have continued to defy expectations on their way to the NBA finalsAs it turns out, there’s a simple reason that no NBA team has ever won a series after falling behind 0-3: the better-prepared unit is typically the one in front. So it went in the Eastern Conference finals where, after losing their last three games, the Miami Heat regrouped for Game 7 and blew out the Boston Celtics 103-84 on the road on Monday night. After fighting so hard to stay alive, the Celtics were finally burned by the return of the same bad habits that put them on the brink of elimination in the first place.“The hole we put ourselves in, it’s hard,” Celtics guard Malcolm Brogdon said after the game. “No one’s climbed out of that hole. It was the same tonight. We couldn’t climb out of the hole we created.” Continue reading...
Swift’s legion of fans may not approve of her rumoured new boyfriend, but she deserves to have a life of her ownTaylor Swift writes about new love like it’s a daydream: many of her best songs express the feeling with contented sighs and evocations of fairytale enchantment. But for a small and vocal subsection of her fanbase, news of the singer’s rumoured real-life relationship with a fellow musician has been nothing short of a nightmare.Since it was alleged that Swift is seeing Matty Healy, the frontman of the pop band The 1975, these fans have been up in arms, cancelling orders of Swift’s forthcoming album, posting lengthy reflections on Twitter justifying their attendance (or lack thereof) at Swift’s current tour, and launching a campaign – #SpeakUpNow – implicitly demanding that Swift break up with Healy. (Swift has not publicly acknowledged the relationship, but Healy has been seen at her concerts and the pair have been photographed together multiple times in recent weeks.) Continue reading...
Some in Congress question if they received enough concessions in bipartisan deal. Plus, Cop28 president accused of ‘greenwashing’Good morning.Political leaders appear bullish that they can sell a bipartisan compromise debt ceiling deal to enough centrist lawmakers – overcoming boisterous criticism from left and right – urgently enough to avert a first national default on the $31.4tn that the US owes creditors.What’s in the bill? The proposed legislation bill limits non-defense spending, temporarily expands work requirements for some food stamp recipients, and claws back some Covid-19 relief funds. It also cuts $20bn off $80bn in new IRS spending designed to curb tax avoidance.A complicated legal field. If a federal legal case against Texas materializes and moves all the way up to the US supreme court, it’s possible the US will have to revisit the question of who gets to control the border. Some say that’s exactly what Texas lawmakers in favor of state control of the border want. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Evan Corcoran said he was steered away from Trump’s office, where the FBI later found the most sensitive materialsDonald Trump’s lawyer tasked with searching for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after the justice department issued a subpoena told associates that he was waved off from searching the former president’s office, where the FBI later found the most sensitive materials anywhere on the property.The lawyer, Evan Corcoran, recounted that several Trump aides had told him to search the storage room because that was where all the materials that had been brought from the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency ended up being deposited. Continue reading...
Four people on using the nostril-based antidote to opioid overdoses, newly approved for over-the-counter saleOver 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year. Advocates say a vast number of them might still be alive if they’d had access to naloxone. Brandon Kilmer, a 24-year-old from Minneapolis, lost his brother to a fentanyl overdose in 2022. Now, he distributes a pack of Narcan to everyone he meets. “I don’t care if you’re a 17-year-old kid or an 80-year-old grandmother,” he said. “I want you to have it.”Naloxone, better known by the brand name Narcan, reverses overdoses by binding to the opioid receptors in the brain, blocking the effects of drugs such as fentanyl or heroin. Harm reduction workers say it should be as ubiquitous in Americans’ homes as dental floss or hand sanitizer, but not enough people have access to it. Continue reading...
Governor JB Pritzker expected to sign bill that would block state funding for public libraries and schools that ban booksGovernor JB Pritzker is expected to sign a bill that would make Illinois the first state to legislate to end book bans – by punishing publicly-funded institutions that attempt to censor in that way.A bill is on Pritzker’s desk after passing the state legislature that would block essential state funding for public libraries and public schools in Illinois that ban books. Continue reading...
Eight person rescued Monday morning after part of six-story building collapsed but damaged structure remains unstableOfficials in Iowa are making plans to demolish a six-story apartment building a day after it partially collapsed, injuring at least one person and displacing countless residents and businesses.There were no confirmed fatalities and no known people still trapped the morning after the incident in the eastern Iowa city of Davenport. The damaged structure remains unstable, authorities said on Monday. Continue reading...
by Edward Helmore in New York and agencies on (#6BZ33)
Some members of Congress question if they received enough concessions in Biden and McCarthy’s agreementUS political leaders appeared bullish on Monday that they can sell a bipartisan compromise debt ceiling deal to enough mainstream lawmakers – overcoming boisterous criticism from left and right – urgently enough to avert a first-ever national default on the $31.4tn the US owes creditors.Despite a lot of diplomacy and even arm-twisting still to come on Capitol Hill in the next few days, Joe Biden left the White House to head to Delaware on Monday afternoon smiling and teasing reporters as he took questions, while the first lady, Jill Biden, waited on the lawn. Continue reading...
Like the deal they crafted, the relationship the president and House speaker forged does not look pretty but appears to have gotten the job doneWhen Kevin McCarthy was struggling early this year to get enough votes from his own Republicans to become speaker of the House of Representatives, Democratic president Joe Biden called the prolonged saga a national embarrassment, then had a little fun.“I’ve got good news for you,” Biden said, pointing playfully at a reporter after a speech in Kentucky. “They just elected you speaker.” Continue reading...
When Cynthia Dearborn became her 75-year-old father’s caregiver, she knew little about what lay ahead. Two decades on, she shares the insights that helped her help him
Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the House will vote Wednesday on the deal he struck with the president – here are the details of the 99-page billDetails of the deal between Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy take the form of a 99-page bill that would suspend the nation’s debt limit into 2025 in order to avoid an unprecedented federal default, which the White House said on Monday would be “catastrophic for the American people”, while limiting government spending.The Democratic president and Republican House speaker are trying to win over lawmakers to the plan in time to avert a default that would shake the global economy. But Congress will be scrutinizing and debating the legislation fiercely this week. Continue reading...
by Joanna Walters in New York and agencies on (#6BYNX)
President says deal struck with Kevin McCarthy protects ‘historic economic recovery’ but it needs approval from a divided CongressJoe Biden has said a bipartisan deal to raise the $31.4tn US debt ceiling and avoid a default is ready to move to Congress and urged lawmakers to pass the agreement he struck with Kevin McCarthy.“This is a deal that’s good news for ... the American people,” the president said at the White House on Sunday night after a call with McCarthy to put the final touches to a tentative deal struck the previous day. “It takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table, protects our hard-earned and historic economic recovery,” he said. Continue reading...
Amite BioEnergy, which was fined $2.5m in 2021, notified Mississippi facility had breached emission limitsA US plant that supplies wood pellets to the UK power generator Drax has violated air pollution limits in Mississippi, it has emerged.The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has written to Amite BioEnergy notifying the Drax-owned company that it had violated emissions rules. Continue reading...
For civil society and rights defenders, five more years of the Turkish president and his radical backers are a daunting prospectOn Sunday, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was declared the winner of Turkey’s presidential runoff elections. According to numbers reported by the state-owned Anadolu news agency, more than 27 million voters cast their ballots in favour of Erdoğan, who has been at the country’s helm for more than two decades. He entered the second round in the lead in the polls, and was expected by most to emerge victorious. Although Erdoğan captured slightly more than half of the vote, more than 25 million people also mobilised to vote against him.The elections were being held under deeply unfair conditions, with an opposition set up to fail. Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was recently sentenced to more than two years in prison and banned from holding public office for insulting members of the supreme election council. This left the opposition unable to nominate its maybe most promising candidate. This was all amid biased media coverage, relentless smear campaigns against the eventual opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, threats, manipulation and a crackdown on civil society, such as the arrest of 126 Kurdish lawyers, activists and politicians at the end of April in Diyarbakır.Constanze Letsch is a former Turkey correspondent for the Guardian and has recently finished a PhD on urban renewal in IstanbulDo 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...
Questions around 89-year-old senator’s cognitive abilities pit lawmakers against each other amid calls for her to step downThe Democratic party is facing an internal rift over how to handle the diminishing abilities of one of their own. There is open debate within the party over whether 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose health and cognitive abilities have come into question after a two-and-a-half month absence due to shingles and other medical complications, should resign.Questions over Feinstein’s ability to effectively represent California, the most populous US state, have been a sensitive issue for Democrats going back years. As her diminishing health plays out in the public eye there is a renewed urgency to the situation. Riding out her term in absentia until retirement next year is also not a viable option, with Feinstein the tie-breaking vote on the Senate judiciary committee, which holds confirmation hearings for judicial nominees, and effectively the only person who can ensure that President Joe Biden’s picks for judges go through. Continue reading...
Republican governor Greg Abbott invoked state clause after likening migrants to a public foreign enemy, but legal experts say it’s ‘unprecedented and extreme’Texas is challenging federal control of policy on the US-Mexico border by exploiting what it sees as a constitutional loophole around the definition of an “invasion” but that migrants rights activists see as dangerously ramping up fears with racist language.Immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government – not individual states – since the US supreme court ruled so in a landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012. Continue reading...
The former England captain is learning managerial skills away from the spotlight of his homeland. It could eventually help in the Premier LeagueOf all the intimate details that surfaced during the Wagatha Christie trial, DC United fans most likely took note of one point in particular. According to text messages read out in court, Coleen Rooney never much liked Washington DC, which she called “a nice place to visit, but different to live.” Her husband, however, appears to have a much stronger connection to the city and its club.After two seasons with the club as a player, Wayne Rooney is DC United’s head coach. The former England captain was linked with several jobs – most notably at his boyhood club, Everton – after getting his managerial start at Derby County. A return to Major League Soccer, however, appealed most of all despite DC United sitting second-bottom of the Eastern Conference when he arrived last season – they’d also suffered their worst-ever MLS loss just days before Rooney was appointed. Continue reading...
From paintings stuck in cellars for centuries to acclaimed sculptures pointlessly destroyed, the art of women has been crowded out of galleries and public spaces. It’s time we stopped putting up with itLast week I was speaking with an artist – highly regarded and in her 60s – when she began telling me about a recent incident with a male curator. She had been helping him install a show at a major institution when he realised the measurements for a large work of hers were off – he’d failed to double check the dimensions of the gallery. As a result, he asked if she could chop off a section of her large-scale artwork so it could fit. Understandably outraged, she declined, and the work didn’t end up in the show. But she also wondered whether the curator would have asked the same of a male artist – to butcher his own work to make it accommodate the space?Women accommodate to a fault. But why have we been made to feel like this: guilty if we take up space; unpleasant if everything we do is not done with grace; demanding if we ask for what we want? It’s shocking to think that in 2023, the questioning of women’s authority – and the disbelief in what we are capable of – is still rife. Continue reading...
After my mental health took a nosedive I deleted years’ worth of data and missed targets – and the guilt that goes with themIn early 2018, I was training for the London Marathon – the first and only marathon I’ll ever run in my life. I had treated myself to an expensive fitness watch that tracked my time, pace, splits – every piece of information I could ever wish to know about what I had just endured.At the end of my final training run – a gruelling 21 miles (34km) during which I got lost on Wandsworth Common and had a lovely little cry on the bus afterwards – I threw myself down on the floor the moment I got home, only to see my watch had failed me. Twenty-one miles briefly flashed on the screen before it went blank and disappeared for ever.Laura Kay is a former Guardian journalist and the author of three novels, including The Split, which is about running Continue reading...
Sneer all you like, but everyone needs a few home comforts when travelling. And it’s not as if I’m taking my favourite mugAnother year, another survey (by M&S bank this time) of the stuff British people insist on taking on holiday. None can beat my mother’s friend who travelled to China for a fortnight with an entire suitcase filled with Ginger Nuts, but honestly, what weirdos take a water filter jug (4%), anti-bacterial spray (30%) and air freshener (9%)? What of spontaneity and seeing where the wind takes you, home fragrance and bacteria-wise?No, I’m sorry I can’t keep this pretence up. For a start, the 43% who bring their own teabags are entirely correct, especially if they are heading abroad. No one should face the morning with only Lipton Yellow or whatever brown, pumpkin-spiced water America is calling “tea” this year. Slippers (36%): yes, of course, because cosiness is high on the holiday checklist. “Your favourite mug” (10%): well, I’m torn on this one. It is a truth universally acknowledged that all holiday accommodation expects you to drink out of a thimble, like a tiny Beatrix Potter dormouse, but what kind of reckless fool risks their favourite mug in a suitcase? Third favourite I could get behind. Continue reading...
Sources reveal discretionary spending cap and changes to the federal food program, among other detailsJoe Biden and Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement to lift the US debt ceiling and avoid a disastrous and unprecedented default. Prior to the details being presented to lawmakers, ahead of an expected vote on Wednesday, here is what sources familiar with negotiations have revealed: Continue reading...
Safecracker James Lee was apprehended last Wednesday, and body of Bradley Gillespie was found on SundayAuthorities believe they found the body of a convicted killer who escaped an Ohio prison by hiding in a trash container, they said Sunday.The search for Bradley Gillespie began last week when he and another man incarcerated at Allen-Oakwood correctional institution in Lima, Ohio, James Lee, were discovered missing, according to reports. Continue reading...
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri wants to bring case examining alleged role of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ in his mistreatment by CIAA Guantánamo Bay prisoner tortured by the CIA has accused British intelligence agencies of complicity in his mistreatment in a new case before one of UK’s most secretive courts.Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is alleged by the US to have plotted al-Qaida’s bombing of an American naval ship, is seeking to persuade the court to consider his complaint against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. Continue reading...
Prosecutors are asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of Capitol riotersLess than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the US Capitol on January 6 2021, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s then Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called “political prisoners”.The justice department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised – a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy. Continue reading...
Mayor of Red River says the shooting was gang-related, and that the shooters have all been taken into custodyThree people were killed and five injured in a shooting at a biker rally in Red River, New Mexico, on Saturday.Neither the victims nor the shooters were local residents and were among bikers who were visiting for the rally over the long weekend holiday leading into Memorial Day, Red River mayor Linda Calhoun told the Guardian on Sunday. Continue reading...
What happens from here depends on how many members of the House prefer governing to chaosHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden reached a deal last night to raise the debt ceiling and prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations.Is it a good deal? Who will bear the burden? Should it have ever gotten to this point? Did Biden blow it? Continue reading...
Agreement will reportedly raise debt limit for two years, but deal still needs approval from a divided US congressLawmakers in Washington were busily drafting legislation on Sunday after Joe Biden and the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, reached a deal in principle on Saturday night to raise the federal government’s $31.4tn debt ceiling, with just days left before America was expected to default.There was a slim chance that a bill could be finalized as early as Sunday and be presented on Capitol Hill, where it is expected to have a stormy passage in a divided Congress. Continue reading...
Individuals rather than organized groups more likely to commit extremist crimes as inflammatory Republican rhetoric escalatesThe US is at an increased risk of domestic terror attacks by rightwing “lone wolf” actors, experts have warned, as inflammatory Republican rhetoric around a variety of issues seems likely to continue ahead of the 2024 election.The number of attacks by adherents to rightwing ideology has soared since 2016, as Republican lies about election interference, and escalating rhetoric from the right about minority groups, have served to “provide mechanisms” for individuals to become radicalized, an analyst said. Continue reading...
The Brooklyn Banks, known for being a ‘melting pot’ of skaters, bikers and artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, were closed off over a decade ago – until nowThe Brooklyn Bridge, an icon built to connect once separate cities, is 140 years old this year. But underneath the connecting roadways on the Manhattan side was a series of sloping red-brick embankments that in the 1980s became the birthplace of a gritty New York street-style of skateboarding – the Brooklyn Banks.Last week, the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, took a break from dealing with his city’s social and economic headaches to reopen the cambered banks – “waves” in skateboarder speak – and pay tribute to the skateboarding pioneers who helped turn the kick-flips and grinds of teenage outsiders into a global culture industry. Continue reading...
Ricardo Velázquez was caught in a scam that also ensnared more than 100 others after his immigration attorney lied to himMore than two decades ago, Ricardo Velázquez immigrated to the US from Puebla, Mexico, since then, he has spent most of the time since working in kitchens while dreaming of gaining a visa that would let him visit his home town with his family.Early this year, his former immigration attorney, Kofi Amankwaa, gave him the news he had long been waiting for: his travel application had been approved. The lawyer claimed Velázquez could freely visit Mexico with his family, embrace his parents and see his children interact with their grandparents in person rather than through a screen. Continue reading...
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