The five-time MLS champions were once seen as a model for success in US soccer. But they have been overtaken in their own citySaturday could be a historic day for Major League Soccer: the 2023 season curtain-raiser between Los Angeles FC and the LA Galaxy at the Rose Bowl is expected to break the league’s all-time single-match attendance record. As of 10 days ago, a reported 70,000 tickets had been sold – the current record stands at 74,479.Yet some Galaxy fans are boycotting the game in protest at the club’s leadership. In particular, LA Galaxy president Chris Klein and technical director Jovan Kirovski are being targeted for their role in a prolonged period of underachievement. Continue reading...
For years I have been recognised off the telly, and it has been easy to meet new people. But a memorable party reminded me of why it pays to work at the art of conversationI enjoy having conversations like, you know, face-to-face, in person. Or just on the phone will do. Weird, I know. I’m assuming analogue chit-chat is dying out, as the rise of AI means we’ll have to get used to talking to computers. Already, many of the face-to-face conversations we are having were initiated via them. For example, I had a young male colleague, a good-looking and confident rascal. Even though, as far as I could see, he was enjoying conspicuous success with his Tinder dating, he bemoaned the march of technology. He said he’d often approach a woman in a bar, only to be told that she was waiting for a Tinder date. “The game’s over,” he said sadly. Tellingly, in relating this, it strikes me that approaching somebody unbidden to talk to them might now come across as dodgier than meeting a stranger you’ve found on the internet.Whether you’re dating or not, the knack of starting conversations is at least as important – and challenging – as the art of conversation itself. The talking is the easy bit. It helps no end, of course, if you’re interested in other people, in which case you’ll generally bring yourself and others pleasure by asking them about themselves. If you’re more interested in yourself than anyone else, then that can be straightforward, too – just rattle on about your own brilliance and either turn a blind eye to any yawning or glazing over, or move on to your next victim. This is all set out nicely in Dale Carnegie’s famous/infamous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. “Show interest in others” being his key point. I read it as a teenager and it made a huge impression on me – so much so that I gave it to a close friend of mine to read. His critique was exactly as follows: “This is all very well if you’re interested in other people, but I’m not really.” So that was that.Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Hundreds of thousands lose power and thousands of flights canceled as weather takes toll across northern and western statesA brutal winter storm closed interstate highways from Arizona to Wyoming on Wednesday, trapped drivers in cars, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people and prompted the first blizzard warning in southern California in decades – and the worst won’t be over for several days.Meanwhile, pockets of the south-east will be cooking, with record-breaking warmth expected to stretch into the mid-Atlantic spiking temperatures more than 40F warmer than normal and creating weather that feels more “like June than February”, according to the National Weather Service. Continue reading...
Police say man involved in earlier killing returned to scene and fired on news van before walking to nearby home and shooting girlA central Florida television journalist and a young girl were fatally shot on Wednesday afternoon near the scene of a fatal shooting from earlier in the day, authorities said.The Orange county sheriff, John Mina, said during a news conference on Wednesday evening that the police had detained Keith Melvin Moses, 19, who they believe is responsible for both shootings in the Orlando-area neighborhood. Continue reading...
Special counsel looking into Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020 election subpoenas former president’s daughter and son-in-lawFormer US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump have been subpoenaed by the special counsel Jack Smith to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources.Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appointed Smith in November last year to take over two investigations involving Trump, who is running for president in 2024. Continue reading...
Hearing under way to determine whether 22-year-old accused of Club Q shooting should be charged with hate crimeThe 22-year-old accused of carrying out the deadly mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs in November posted to a neo-Nazi website and used gay and racial slurs while gaming online, a police detective testified on Wednesday.Among the things Anderson Lee Aldrich posted was an image of a rifle scope trained on a gay pride parade and a shooting training video. Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they and them, also used a bigoted slur when referring to someone who was gay, Detective Rebecca Joines testified at the start of a three-day hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to warrant a hate crime charge against Aldrich in the 19 November attack. Continue reading...
‘You’re the frontlines of our collective defense,’ Biden tells Bucharest Nine group of eastern European countries on last day of tripJoe Biden on Wednesday night condemned as a “big mistake” Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend his country’s participation in the last remaining US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty.The comment came as the US president closed out his wartime visit to Europe, working to shore up partnerships with allies on Nato’s perilous eastern flank – even as Putin was drawing closer to China for help as his invasion of Ukraine neared the year mark. Continue reading...
Republican Mark Brnovich’s successor releases reports that debunked claims of fraud in Maricopa county in 2020 electionThe former attorney general of Arizona, Mark Brnovich, failed to release documents that showed his office’s investigation into the 2020 election did not find evidence of widespread fraud in the state’s most populous county.The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Brnovich would not turn over public records that detailed his investigators’ findings. His successor, the Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes, released the records, which showed several reports that debunked rampant claims of election problems in Maricopa county. Continue reading...
FDA says consumers are not confused if plant-based beverages use the term, after dairy producers call for crackdown on labelingSoy, oat, almond and other drinks that bill themselves as milk can keep using the term, according to draft federal rules released on Wednesday.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials issued guidance that says plant-based beverages do not pretend to be from dairy animals – and that US consumers aren’t confused by the difference. Continue reading...
Expectations are low for quick progress as Republican lawmakers push for steep spending cuts in exchange for a dealThe US could face an unprecedented default on its obligations as soon as early June if Congress does not act to lift the debt limit, a Washington thinktank said on Wednesday.The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), which forecasts the approximate “X-date” when the government will no longer be able to meet its financial obligations on time, said the US will reach its statutory debt limit as soon as the summer or early fall of 2023. Continue reading...
Vladimir Putin is suffocating dissent, but a brave minority keep the flame of truth alive, and they need western supportAlthough official Russian channels still insist on referring to a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is preparing his country for a protracted war. In a long speech earlier this week, the Russian president portrayed the conflict as an existential geopolitical struggle in which the main adversary and initial aggressor was Nato.This reheated cold war rhetoric predates the invasion of Ukraine. It is the central plank of Mr Putin’s self-image as national saviour, restoring glory to a people whose homeland – defined by the borders of the old Soviet Union – has been dismembered by the west. Continue reading...
Without being able to consider lived experience, the court came to the only judgment it couldShamima Begum was a 15-year-old girl when she last set foot in Britain, in 2015. If the judgment of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) stands, Ms Begum will probably never return. Siac, the tribunal that hears immigration cases involving national security issues, upheld the right of the home secretary – Sajid Javid in 2019 – to strip her of UK citizenship because her presence was not “conducive to the public good”.Many people will think this is a good thing. But Ms Begum makes a strong case that she was lured as a child to be a bride for Islamic State fighters in Syria. She went on to have three children, all of whom died. She lives now in limbo, stateless and detained in a Syrian camp. Her argument that she was not just groomed but trafficked ought to be taken seriously – not least after MPs found that systemic failures by UK public bodies enabled such a trade. Continue reading...
Liberal Janet Protasiewicz and conservative Daniel Kelly advance to final vote in state supreme court electionWisconsin voters on Tuesday chose one liberal and one conservative candidate to face off in a race to determine control of the state supreme court in what is likely the most important election of 2023.Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee circuit court judge, will be on the ballot against Daniel Kelly, a conservative former supreme court justice, in the state’s 4 April general election. Protasiewicz, who received 46% of the statewide vote, and Kelly, who received 24% of the statewide vote, advanced from a four-member field that included Everett Mitchell, a liberal judge in Dane county, and Jennifer Dorow, a conservative judge in Waukesha county. Continue reading...
A year on from Russia’s invasion, there is no shortage of pontification. What’s required now is statecraftCut to the chase and give them the planes, demanded Boris Johnson during Monday’s Commons exchanges on Ukraine. Send them the fighter jets, insisted Liz Truss a few moments later during the same debate, as the two ex-prime ministers vied to flaunt the leadership qualities they lacked when they were actually in power.If only the Ukraine war were as easily resolved as we armchair experts like to think. But it is not – and it won’t be when the fighting resumes soon either. The anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion this week has provided a platform for a lot of well intentioned pontification. It’s often spot on, as Joe Biden’s was in Kyiv and Warsaw this week. Good for morale, undoubtedly. Not so good for objectivity, however, or for statecraft. Continue reading...
Proposal prompted comparisons to Trump’s policies to limit asylum for migrants, which Biden had pledged to reverseDemocrats and immigration advocates harshly criticized Joe Biden over a new proposal that could stop migrants claiming asylum when they arrive at the US-Mexico border. One advocate said the move would cause “unnecessary human suffering”.The pushback came after the Biden administration unveiled a proposal that would deny asylum to migrants who arrive without first seeking it in one of the countries they passed through. Continue reading...
One of Malcolm X’s daughters says new details show federal and state agencies covered up crucial evidenceThe family of Malcolm X has filed notice that they plan to sue the FBI, New York police and other agencies over his death.The civil rights leader was 39 when he was assassinated on 21 February 1965, at an auditorium in the Washington Heights neighbourhood. Continue reading...
Democrats condemn House speaker’s move and warn Capitol security could be endangered if Fox News host airs footageThousands of hours of surveillance footage from the January 6 attack on the US Capitol are being made available to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a stunning level of access granted by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, that Democrats condemned as a “grave” breach of security.The hard-right host said his team was spending the week at the Capitol, preparing to reveal their findings. Continue reading...
Consoling email sent to students after a mass shooting at Michigan State University was written using an AI chatbotOfficials at Vanderbilt University apologized for using an AI chatbot to write a consoling email to students after a mass shooting at Michigan State University.The message went out last week from the office of equity, diversity and inclusion in the Peabody College of Education and Human Development, reported the Vanderbilt Hustler, the student newspaper. Continue reading...
Foreperson Emily Kohrs gives insight into process usually cloaked in secrecy, after portions of grand jury report released last weekAsked if the grand jury she led recommended indicting Donald Trump over his election subversion in Georgia, the foreperson of the jury said: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.”She also said sitting on the jury was “a big freaking deal”. Continue reading...
The Florida governor, considered to be a possible contender for the 2024 presidential race, is conciliatory toward the former presidentRon DeSantis has praised former US president Donald Trump for his “unique star power”, derision of the media as “the enemy of the American people” and decisive role in helping DeSantis win election as a state governor.The flattering comments appear in DeSantis’s book The Courage to Be Free, obtained by the Guardian prior to publication. They are likely to disappoint Republicans urging the Florida governor to jump into the 2024 Republican primary race soon so he can aggressively take on the former president. Continue reading...
The commissioner has shown a tendency to place the business of hockey above the longevity of the sport itself“We’re going to dispel the myth that this is a regional sport,” Gary Bettman said during a press conference to announce him as the NHL’s first, and so far only, commissioner. “The prospects for growth are phenomenal.” As of this month, Bettman has spent 30 years trying to convince everyone both statements are true, to varying degrees of success.By now, anyone familiar with hockey knows about Bettman’s track record since he took office in February 1993. His quest for growth has alienated fanbases. His pursuit of more TV eyeballs has often been uneven and embarrassing – remember the glowing puck? And he led the league into three major labour disruptions, including one that unforgivably led to the cancellation of a whole season. Continue reading...
by Ed Pilkington and J Oliver Conroy in New York on (#693KW)
Russian president accused of ‘playing to rifts in the United States’ by raising specter of nuclear war between Moscow and westVladimir Putin’s threat to suspend Russian participation in New Start, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the US, represents a blatant attempt to divide American opinion over the war on Ukraine by raising the specter of nuclear armageddon, experts and policymakers warned on Tuesday.Putin announced his intention to halt participation in the agreement towards the end of a belligerent 100-minute speech in which he charged the US and western powers with trying to inflict “strategic defeat” on Russia. His fiery rhetoric prompted instant reaction across the political spectrum in Washington. Continue reading...
You can’t carry a bottle of water on board the plane, but plenty of people – knowingly and unknowingly – try to carry gunA Connecticut woman was the first of the week, walking her child through security at New York’s JFK airport with a loaded gun in her purse and “one in the chamber”, as officials put it.Over the following days, an X-ray machine detected a 9mm pistol and ammunition in the hand luggage of a passenger in Philadelphia, a .45 caliber handgun and seven bullets in the carry-on bag of a man boarding a plane at New York’s Westchester airport, and a loaded weapon carried through screening in Wisconsin. Continue reading...
Administration’s most aggressive plan yet would bar most migrants who hadn’t sought protection in other countries firstThe United States could bar tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border from claiming asylum under a proposal unveiled on Tuesday that would be the most wide-ranging attempt yet by Joe Biden’s administration to deter unauthorized crossings.Under the new rules, the US would generally deny asylum to migrants who show up at the US southern border without first seeking protection in a country they passed through, mirroring an attempt by the Trump administration that never took effect because it was blocked in court. Continue reading...
Provision comes amid calls for change from South Asian diaspora communities but faces opposition from some Hindu AmericansSeattle has become the first city in the US to ban caste-based discrimination, after council members voted on Tuesday to add the provision to the city’s anti-bias laws.Calls to outlaw discrimination based on caste, a division of people based on birth or descent, have grown louder among South Asian diaspora communities. Proponents of the ordinance, which was approved by a 6-1 vote, say without such laws, those facing caste discrimination in the US will have no protections. Continue reading...
Reporters need protection from violence and intimidation – not a law that makes it easier to sack themDuring my first week as a journalist in a television station in Papua New Guinea, I got told by a bureaucrat in a large government department that I should be careful what I write about him as he knew the country’s prime minister. That was 10 years ago.Since then, I’ve received phone calls from government ministers asking me to omit certain details from stories. While covering an election, my cameraman was assaulted by supporters of a politician, I was threatened, and we were told to delete footage from our camera. Continue reading...
Comments from right wing are business as usual – but could signal future political battles to come if US to keep sending aid to UkraineFor Joe Biden to safely visit Ukraine, the White House spirited him out of the country in the middle of the night and made reporters traveling with him swear a temporary oath of secrecy – none of which could protect the president from attacks by Republicans.The journey was only complicated further by an unexpected announcement. In a speech marking a year since he sent his armies over Ukraine’s borders in an ill-fated attempt to take Kyiv, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced his country would no longer participate in the last nuclear arms control treaty with the United States still standing, and accused the west of posing an existential threat to his country. Continue reading...
The US senator checked into a hospital for clinical depression – and has provoked a conversation about mental healthMy senator, John Fetterman, has checked into a hospital for clinical depression.This is an action that an increasing number of Americans will likely take in their lifetimes, given the rising rates of depression. Still, Fox News has already pounced: Tucker Carlson argued that Fetterman is “unfit to serve in the United States Senate”, while Laura Ingraham went as far as to imply that Fetterman’s wife has worked to hide his condition and that the act was “craven or a cruel political calculation by a stage wife and political nihilist”. Continue reading...
The country has showed astonishing courage and resolve in the face of the brutal Russian invasion, but the costs mount by the dayWhen Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin spoke in Warsaw and Moscow on Tuesday, the gulf between Russia and the west and its allies stretched a little further. Yet at the heart of two starkly different speeches lay a shared assumption: that this war will not end soon.The Russian president assumed it would be over in days when he launched his brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago on Friday. He was hardly alone. The courage and resolve of Ukrainians, and the rush of support from the west and its allies, was remarkable. Each day that Ukraine fended off defeat counted as a victory. Yet the parameters have shifted. In a war of attrition, time is usually on the aggressor’s side. Millions have been forced to flee their country. More than 7,000 civilians have died, hundreds of them children, and the US estimates that there have been well over 100,000 Ukrainian military casualties. The economy and critical infrastructure are devastated and key resources lie under Russian control. Each Russian war crime has reinforced the Ukrainian understanding that this is an existential struggle, and the fear that a negotiated settlement at this stage would simply be an opportunity for Mr Putin to restock and prepare for a renewed assault. Continue reading...
Republican congressman tells broadcaster it ‘wasn’t about tricking anybody’ while defending his comments on being JewishGeorge Santos, the embattled Republican congressman from New York who fabricated large swaths of his resume, admitted in an interview on Monday with Britain’s Piers Morgan that he had been a “terrible liar”.Santos was elected to represent portions of the New York City borough of Queens and neighboring Long Island in November and a staggering number of falsehoods have come to light since. His lies include claiming to be Jewish, graduating from college, working at finance giants Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and that his mother was in the World Trade Center during the Al-Qaida terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. Continue reading...
Lee is the highest-ranking Black woman in House Democratic leadership and seeks to take seat in hotly-contested raceUnited States congresswoman Barbara Lee on Tuesday formally launched her campaign for the Senate seat held by the retiring Dianne Feinstein, joining two fellow House Democrats in the race in the nation’s most populous state.In a video posted on Twitter, Lee ran through a list of the personal and professional battles she has taken on in her life, including fighting to be her school’s first Black cheerleader, championing protections for survivors of domestic violence and being the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization for the use of military force after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Continue reading...
Confirmation that Russia will be backing out of the New Start treaty underlines his disdain for the international orderThere was perhaps only one truth spoken during Vladimir Putin’s two-hour state of the nation address: that Russia would suspend its participation in the New Start treaty with the US. The rest was yet another a trip down the rabbit hole into the Russian president’s parallel universe.Those who were anticipating a major revelation in a speech that had been postponed from December were disappointed. In the absence of any groundbreaking advances on the military front, many expected Putin to finally admit that Russia was at war in Ukraine. But no, the “special military operation” is ploughing on “step by step”. Not only did he fail to offer any reassurance to those who dared hope he was considering making some concessions to the truth that the operation is not going well, but he also left the radical pro-war faction hungry for a more aggressive approach.Samantha de Bendern is an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and a political commentator on LCI television in FranceDo 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...
Which language immigrant parents should speak at home has been endlessly debated. For now, we have not passed Urdu onto our childrenAs a second-generation British Pakistani growing up in Bradford, I was surrounded by Urdu and smatterings of Punjabi. English came later, and I can remember not being able to understand my teacher on the first day of nursery. This was all part of my parents’ plan: to speak in Urdu to my siblings and I because they knew we would learn English at school. They were right.There have been countless debates over the years about which language immigrant parents should speak to their children, and the impact of that on their studies. I’ve never been convinced of the benefit of dropping one language in favour of the other. Because of my parents’ decision, I’m able to speak both languages fluently. I write for a living and worked as a journalist for the BBC, and my multilingualism has only enhanced my life. It gives me access to other worlds, stories, film and poetry. Whether it’s ordering cuts of meat in the butcher, placing an order in a restaurant or discussing designs in a clothing shop, it adds joy to my life, allows me to weave in and out of communities, and frees me from the constraints of any one group.Saima Mir is a freelance journalist and author of the 2021 novel The KhanDo 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...
On TikTok, live-in landlords are described in a way that sounds less elitist and exploitative, more tech-driven and cool. And don’t get me started on ‘yimbys’Allow me to introduce you to one of the most annoying phrases in the modern English language: house hacking. What’s that when it’s at home? It’s when you rent out a room in your house – or a unit in your multi-unit building – so that your mortgage is covered by your tenants. Hang on, you might say, isn’t there already a perfectly good way to describe this? Isn’t that called being a live-in landlord?Yes, precisely, but don’t tell the house hackers that. They think they have discovered something new. And not only do they think they are property pioneers, they can’t stop boasting about their financial prowess online. TikTok is full of viral videos in which house hackers explain how you too can get other people to pay your living expenses. Not all these videos, you will be amazed to hear, have been well received. There’s something about people crowing about raking in rents during a cost-of-living crisis in which rents have rocketed that doesn’t go down particularly well. Continue reading...
Proposition 308 now makes higher education more affordable for undocumented immigrantsAndrea Vasquez, a social worker at a high school in Tucson, Arizona, was approached by a student in her senior year. She was asked how difficult it would be to attend college as an undocumented immigrant.Vasquez, 29, immediately flashed back to a younger version of herself, studying at the school where she now works, Palo Verde Magnet high school, and remembering her own struggle to get to college while being undocumented. Continue reading...
Enough was enough when it came to the noise of the social media platform and I am loving life without itA few years ago, Charlie Brooker – creator of the brilliant Black Mirror and a former Guardian columnist – hosted a show for Channel 4 that counted down the greatest video games of all time. A sucker for those sorts of things, not to mention a bit of a gamer in my youth, I tuned in with great interest. There they were: Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, GoldenEye, Call of Duty … on it went until it was time for Brooker to reveal the No 1. “What could it be?” I wondered. I was not ready for the answer, because the answer was Twitter.A baffling choice and I can’t remember Brooker’s logic for why Twitter was best of the lot. But I do remember his argument for why it was definitely a game, which was that, ultimately, the aim of people who use it is to collect as many followers as possible. Nobody wins Twitter, but everyone plays it, trying their hardest to be among the most popular, influential, important people on there. Continue reading...
The former Minnesota Viking terrorized opposing quarterbacks for more than a decade. Now he is pursuing a more peaceful pursuit, and excelling once againIn 2018, retired NFL defensive end Jared Allen took up curling in the hopes that he would one day be an Olympian in the sport.“Yeah, right” was a perfectly reasonable reaction. Allen had dedicated most of his adult life to football – only 11 men have more NFL career sacks and he is a three-time finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Most competitive curlers have been sliding around on ice since preschool, honing the skills and acumen necessary to win at their local clubs, let alone the Olympic trials. Allen, meanwhile, had never played the sport seriously and spent most of his time smashing into other very large men before retiring from football in 2016. Continue reading...
by Coral Murphy Marcos and Rory Carroll on (#69212)
Tributes have been paid to David O’Connell, who was shot on SaturdayThe husband of an Irish bishop’s housekeeper has been arrested in connection with the bishop’s murder in Los Angeles.David O’Connell, a prominent liberal bishop, was shot on Saturday in Los Angeles. Continue reading...
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