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Losing gubernatorial candidate may have violated a state law that protects voter’s signatures, Democrat Adrian Fontes saysThe Arizona secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, asked the state attorney general Monday to investigate and potentially charge the losing Republican candidate for governor with a felony for sharing images of voters’ signatures online.Fontes, a Democrat, said GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake may have violated a state law that protects a voter’s signature from being accessed or shared by anyone other than the voter or an “authorized government official in the scope of the official’s duties”. Violations of this law carry a class six felony charge, the lowest-level felony in Arizona. Continue reading...

Severe weather affects parts of West Virginia to New Mexico with an ice storm concentrated in the Dallas-Fort worth area of TexasMore than 1,000 flights in the US have been cancelled amid dangerous winter weather in the southern region.Severe winter weather affecting parts of West Virginia to New Mexico was triggering the mass flight cancellations as 40 million people remained under a winter weather alert, CNN reported. Continue reading...

Family of four all survived 250ft plummet off Pacific Coast Highway, which police believe to be an ‘intentional act’The driver of a car that plunged off a treacherous cliff in northern California, seriously injuring himself, his wife and their two young children, was charged on Monday with attempted murder.Dharmesh A Patel, 41, also faces enhancements for great bodily injury and domestic violence in the 2 January crash, the San Mateo county district attorney, Steve Wagstaffe, said in a statement. Continue reading...

New York Republican congressman under investigation over his largely made-up résumé and current campaign finance filingsThe Republican congressman George Santos has temporarily withdrawn from two House committees to which he was appointed by party leaders despite a spiraling scandal over his largely made-up résumé, bizarre past behavior and campaign finance filings.Explaining his decision, Santos said he wanted to “focus on serving the constituents of New York’s third congressional district and providing federal level representation without distraction”. Continue reading...

‘What Trump has done is quite arguably the worst crime against the US that a president could commit,’ says J Michael LuttigThe conservative judge who convinced Mike Pence he could not overturn the 2020 election has predicted “the beginning of the end of Donald Trump” – the former president who incited the January 6 insurrection but is now trying to return to the White House.Speaking to the Washington Post, J Michael Luttig also made a common comparison to another notorious former president, Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal. Continue reading...

Memphis police named and fired all five Black officers involved on 20 January, but waited to reveal Preston Hemphill’s identityQuestions have been raised over why Memphis police waited weeks to name a white police officer involved in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, as it emerged an unnamed seventh officer and three emergency responders have also been disciplined over the case.Major Karen Rudolph of Memphis police announced on Monday that the white officer in question, Preston Hemphill, was placed on desk duty on 8 January, a day after Nichols – who is Black – was beaten by police and two days before he died. Continue reading...

EV maker and R&D arm of car group owned by Geely planning to join Nasdaq in deal with Spac backed by Bernard ArnaultThe Chinese owner of Lotus is to list a stake in a division of the luxury sports car group in the US as part of deal with a firm backed by the world’s richest man.China’s Geely said on Tuesday that it plans to merge electric carmaker Lotus Technology – an offshoot of the Norfolk-based sports car brand – with a special purpose acquisition vehicle (Spac) founded by L Catterton, which is backed by LVMH and its billionaire founder, Bernard Arnault. Continue reading...

When trust is everything the best way to respond is to opt for full exposure and elaborate explanationAdvice for cybersecurity firm Darktrace as it finds itself under attack from short-sellers: don’t rely on airy “nothing to see here” statements. If you want to shore up investors’ confidence when a New York hedge fund is questioning your accounting in a lengthy report, you usually have to get into the gritty business of point-by-point rebuttal.Darktrace’s response on Tuesday to an outfit called Quintessential Capital Management fell into the boilerplate category. The company said it had “full confidence” in its accounting practices and financial statements, and that its board and management take their fiduciary responsibilities “very seriously”. All standard stuff, in other words. Continue reading...

Former president repeatedly invokes constitutional right against self-incrimination in New York footage from late last summerVideo released on Tuesday showed Donald Trump answering questions from the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, in a deposition in a civil fraud case late last summer.Questioned about his financial affairs, the former president repeatedly invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination – part of a refusal to answer he repeated more than 400 times. Continue reading...

Former US marine takes on general manager role and is determined to change the culture and win a NWSL championshipHaley Carter, Orlando Pride’s new general manager and vice-president of soccer operations, is not afraid to address the culture shift needed in the NWSL, including at her club. “There are consistencies we should see across the board: it needs to be safe, it needs to be inclusive and at this level it needs to be a winning culture too,” she says. “I’m very serious about player advocacy, player safety and creating an inclusive safe culture.”Carter’s CV is extensive and with the sport in the US undergoing reforms after the NWSL abuse scandal she comes in with the ambition of making Orlando somewhere “players want to be” as well as an NWSL championship-winning side. Continue reading...

Trenchant Frenchness can grate if you aren’t used to it, but it’s a lot more straightforward than British passive aggressionThe relationship between France and Britain, the best of frenemies, seems to finally be thawing. The Brexit wars are behind us, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson no longer annoy each other on a near weekly basis, and the first Franco-British summit in years will take place in March.That’s no fun. Allow me, then, to do my French patriotic duty and open up a new front of combat. Here goes: the British, despite what they might think, aren’t any good at complaining. This is an odd state of affairs, as they – well, you – see it as a proud national trait. But they are wrong.Marie Le Conte is a French journalist living in LondonDo 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...

Washington Post reporter and publisher Simon & Schuster say lawsuit ‘without merit … we will aggressively defend against it’Donald Trump has sued Bob Woodward for a fraction less than $50m, claiming he did not agree to the veteran Washington Post reporter publishing tapes of their conversations as an audio book.Woodward’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, and its parent company, Paramount Global, were also named as defendants. Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis would supposedly be ‘disloyal’ if he challenged Trump for the White House. Haley, meanwhile, ‘should do it’. Guess who’s a bigger threat?Has Donald Trump taken up meditation as his new year resolution? Is he mainlining sedatives? Did a demon snatch his soul and replace it with that of a reasonable person? I ask because the unthinkable has happened: Trump has responded to the idea of one of his former acolytes challenging his 2024 ambitions in a calm and measured manner, instead of with his usual insults.The acolyte in question is Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and Trump’s US ambassador to the UN. There are mounting rumours that Haley is exploring a potential run against Trump in 2024 – a fact that doesn’t seem to bother her old boss very much. Speaking to reporters on his plane on Saturday, Trump said Haley had called him up to chat about running and he’d told her: “Go by your heart if you want to run.” To be fair, he couldn’t resist a little dig, noting Haley had “publicly said that ‘I would never run against my president – he was a great president.’” Still, he magnanimously told her she “should do it”.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Employers are using heavy-handed tactics to prevent workers from organizing, and US labor union density is falling as a resultWorkers at a Trader Joe’s store in Louisville, Kentucky, are now pushing to become the third store at the trendy US supermarket chain to unionize since 2022.Connor Hovey, a worker and organizer at the Louisville store, said unionizing efforts began as other high-profile union organizing efforts such as at Louisville’s Heine Brothers, a local coffee shop chain, were taking off. Like those workers, the Trader Joe’s organizers sought to address issues stemming from inadequate corporate policies and safety precautions, and how workers have been treated during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

People who think they can master chaos don’t have enough children, or dogs, or interestsIt is with some chagrin that I see Marie Kondo making international news with the bombshell that she’s pretty much stopped tidying at home since the birth of her third child: “Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times,” she told the Washington Post. “I have kind of given up on that, in a good way for me. Now I realise what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.”You could almost hear the world exhale in relief at this change of heart: Kondo is perhaps the leading evangelist for order and decluttering, author and Netflix poster-woman for the good life. If she can’t make tidying work with three kids around, when it’s her brand, her identity and her life’s work, the rest of us are just fine. It’s like if anti-cigarette guru Allen Carr had started smoking again. On the one hand, shame, but on the other: what a stunning vindication of human frailty. Continue reading...

In a country where many were either born overseas or have at least one parent born elsewhere, there should be no place for intellectual laziness and complacency“The best thing that happened today is one teacher asked how to say my name!” my child says exultantly on the first day of a new school year.“And the others?” Continue reading...

Draft plan to loosen state aid rules follows Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Chinese subsidiesThe EU executive will loosen state aid rules and propose a new “European sovereignty fund” later this year, in response to the controversial US Inflation Reduction Act and China’s “unfair” green subsidies.A leaked European Commission plan underscores the global green subsidy race is under way, although EU member states remain divided on how to respond. Continue reading...

Viral police brutality videos have become a morbid reminder of the fragility of Black life in AmericaI’m probably one of the few people who hasn’t seen the video footage of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols being beaten to death by five Memphis police officers.I haven’t watched the video because, honestly, I am tired of seeing Black men die. It shouldn’t be normal to participate in a person’s last moments like this. To hear Black men scream for their mothers as the state takes their lives. To be constantly haunted by images of young men and women who could easily have been you or someone you know.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The news media has greeted the supposed scandal of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents with breathless gleeOn Sunday morning, NBC’s Chuck Todd hosted Ohio Republican congressman Jim Jordan on Meet the Press, where the querulous conservative ranted about President Biden’s sloppy handing of classified documents.Todd showed more tenacity than usual in challenging this combative guest (he “incinerated” Jordan, applauded the Daily Kos) but Jordan nevertheless managed to drive home his ill-conceived accusations through sheer volume, repetition and speed.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Ukraine planned to push for western fourth-generation fighter jets. Plus, why circadian-rhythm shaming needs to stop

I’ve been obsessed with Eve my whole life – it was once my name, and has served as an eternal warning. But I’d like to present you with another storyI am nearly 70 years old, and I have been looking back on my life in activism and art for my new book, Reckoning. As I pored over my previously unpublished diaries, monologues, plays and poems, I realised that all my life I have been haunted by one woman – a woman I believe has the power to show us what we need to do now, in this time of unparalleled female bravery and vicious misogynistic backlash. So let’s go back to Eve, the first woman, Adam, serpent, apple, garden, God.I have been obsessed with Eve my whole life. First of course, it was once my name, and for a six-year-old it seemed ridiculously impossible to be named Eve. She was responsible for not only the downfall of paradise, expulsion, sin, shame but death itself. Names, like myths, determine a lot, and this story was like a tectonic plate at the bedrock of my consciousness, engendering how I saw myself and how I behaved in the world.V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and author, most recently, of Reckoning (Bloomsbury). Continue reading...

We may know our standfirsts from our datelines, but industry terms when out in the wild must come with explanationAs the new year started, a correction appeared below a story on the Guardian’s website that left some readers baffled and amused. It read: “This article was amended on 3 January 2023. The original furniture said the fireworks display was on Christmas Eve.”“Oh, please do put a correction beneath this correction,” wrote one reader, “Unless you actually have a talking armoire in the Guardian offices.”Elisabeth Ribbans is the Guardian and Observer’s global readers’ editor. She can be contacted at guardian.readers@theguardian.comDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

State and federal lawsuits and bills with far-reaching regulatory implications for TikTok, Meta and others come to a head this yearSocial media companies in the United States are bracing themselves to battle an onslaught of new state and federal legislation and legal challenges with far-reaching regulatory implications this year.The majority of US state legislatures have introduced or passed bills attempting to reform how social media giants moderate their content and increase security measures for American users. Continue reading...

Those migrating from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela dumped back in Mexico after being expelled at US borderHéctor González left Cuba just before Christmas, hoping to claim asylum in the US. After flying to Nicaragua, González and his wife travelled overland through Mexico and crossed the Rio Grande with at least 200 other Cubans in the early hours of 8 January.Exhausted but relieved to have made it safely to the US, González and the others filled out the forms and had their fingerprints and photographs taken by border officials in Eagle Pass, Texas. As they waited inside an immigration detention centre, spirits were high. Continue reading...

MLS franchise once helped itself to some of the Premier League side’s best young players. Those days are over, although that’s not necessarily a negativeBefore New York City FC, there was only Manchester City under the City Football Group (CFG) umbrella. The establishment of Major League Soccer’s 20th franchise in 2013 marked the creation of a new global soccer entity that would soon enough stretch across five continents and count several clubs among its network, but CFG’s first outpost outside the UK was in New York.This was to NYC FC’s benefit. While Manchester City has always been CFG’s primary focus, a strong connection was forged between the Premier League and MLS siblings. Four City players were signed to be part of NYC FC’s squad for their debut season in 2015. Over the next few years, City sent some of their prospects (including Angelino and Yangel Herrera) to the Bronx for first-team experience and NYC FC sent some of their best players in the other direction – see Frank Lampard and Jack Harrison. Continue reading...

Several top commentators promoted conspiracy theories after news of attack at San Francisco home broke in OctoberConservative commentators were forced to backtrack over conspiracy theories and jokes about the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, after the release of police video and audio last week.One Fox News commentator had to retreat from his claim there was no “evidence of a breaking and entering” when his host pointed out that footage of the attacker breaking into Pelosi’s home was playing on screen at the time. Continue reading...

Two EMTs and a firefighter also fired as lawmakers call for meeting with president and investigation continuesTwo more Memphis police officers have been disciplined and three emergency responders fired in connection with the death of Tyre Nichols, officials said on Monday. That brings the total number of officers who have been disciplined to seven, including the five Black officers who were fired and charged last week with second-degree murder and other offenses in Nichols’ beating and 10 January death.Officer Preston Hemphill, who is white, was relieved of duty and put on what is known as administrative leave, the Memphis police major Karen Rudolph said on Monday, according to multiple reports. Continue reading...

Hall of Fame left winger for the Chicago Blackhawks was first player to score more than 50 goals in a seasonThe hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Hull, the first NHL player to score more than 50 goals in a season, has died at the age of 84, the Chicago Blackhawks said on Monday.Hull, a Canadian player who had a feared slapshot and was known as the “Golden Jet” because of his blond hair and speed on the ice, helped lead the Blackhawks to a Stanley Cup championship in 1961 that ended a 23-year title drought for the franchise. Continue reading...

The sitcom star also had roles in films such as George Lucas’s American Graffiti and Francis Ford Coppola’s The ConversationCindy Williams, who played Shirley opposite Penny Marshall’s Laverne on the popular sitcom Laverne & Shirley, has died, her family said on Monday.Williams died in Los Angeles at age 75 on Wednesday after a brief illness, her children, Zak and Emily Hudson, said in a statement released through family spokeswoman Liza Cranis. Continue reading...

The move to end the declarations comes as House Republicans are set to pass a resolution to demand their immediate scrappingJoe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing Covid-19 on 11 May, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared.The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal coronavirus response to treat the virus as an endemic threat to public health that can be managed through agencies’ normal authorities. Continue reading...

People in underserved medical communities in states that ban abortions may be more likely to attempt self-managed abortionsTop doctors in the US warn that surgeons should be prepared to treat more patients with complications from self-managed abortions and forced pregnancy after the overturning of Roe v Wade.In a recent opinion piece published in the BMJ, 17 experts from medical centers and universities including the University of Chicago, Duke Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania urged surgeons to be prepared to treat medical consequences related to a person’s inability to access an abortion. Continue reading...

Cook county state attorney makes decision after two federal convictions that ensure singer will be locked up for decadesA Chicago prosecutor said Monday that she’s dropping sex-abuse charges against singer R Kelly, following federal convictions in two courts that ensure the disgraced R&B star will be locked up for decades.Cook county state’s attorney Kim Foxx announced the decision a day ahead of a court hearing related to state charges accusing him of sexually abusing four people, three of whom were minors. Foxx said she would ask a judge to dismiss the charges at Tuesday’s hearing. Continue reading...

Students led effort over concern for reproductive rights after supreme court struck down constitutional right to abortionA vending machine that provides emergency contraception has been installed at a Washington DC university, as colleges contend with how to protect reproductive rights on campus.Students at George Washington University successfully obtained the vending machine dispensing morning-after pills following concerns in the wake of the supreme court’s ruling last summer to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that had ushered in the constitutional right to an abortion. Continue reading...

Alvin Bragg recently empaneled grand jury to look into allegation that he paid off porn star before 2016 election

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg to present evidence of $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016Prosecutors are to present a grand jury with evidence about hush money payments made by Donald Trump, the former US president, to adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign, it was reported on Monday.The surprise move by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney in New York, revives a long-running investigation that appeared to be drifting and raises the threat of criminal charges, adding to Trump’s already daunting legal troubles. Continue reading...

Republican-controlled judiciary committee told that longstanding precedent prevents disclosures about active investigationsThe US justice department told top House judiciary committee Republicans on Monday that it would decline to produce confidential information about the special counsel investigation into the recent discovery of classified-marked documents at Joe Biden’s personal home and office.The department said in a letter to the committee reviewed by the Guardian that it would not provide details about the president’s documents case – or any other inquiry – because it could reveal the roadmap of the investigation and risk the appearance of political conflict. Continue reading...

Carmen Quiroga called her cafe ‘Woke’ to signal to customers ‘Wake up and have a coffee’. What could possibly go wrong?A Connecticut restaurant has been forced to defend itself in the face of conservative anger over its name: “Woke”.The owner of the newly opened restaurant, Carmen Quiroga, said she had intended to communicate “Wake up and have a coffee” when she named her business in Coventry, Connecticut. Continue reading...

British firm hopes to benefit from Joe Biden’s green energy subsidies and start production in north CarolinaThe British electric vans startup Arrival is cutting 800 jobs, about half its remaining workforce, to reduce costs as it seeks extra funding and plans US expansion to take advantage of green energy subsidies.The troubled electric vehicle maker said “approximately 50%” of the company’s 1,600-strong global workforce would leave the company. Continue reading...

Proposed use of tax credits follows pressure to respond to Biden’s $369bn green subsidy scheme in USThe EU is stepping up its green subsidy race with the US through plans to loosen state aid rules on tax credits for renewable energy projects.European policymakers have been under pressure to respond to the US president Joe Biden’s $369bn (£298bn) Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to encourage renewables investment in everything from electric cars to wind turbines. Continue reading...

Atlanta police rescued the driver of a stolen police car seconds before a train crashed into it as it lay overturned on train tracks. The patrol vehicle was stolen as police officers carried out traffic stops in the early hours of 28 January. The police air unit tracked the stolen vehicle from a helicopter before the suspect lost control and it overturned on train tracks.Officers arrived at the scene in time to rescue the suspect from the vehicle, moments before a train crashed into it. Atlanta police said the suspect was charged with several offences. He was detained in Fulton county jail

Republican governor Spencer Cox signs into law bill that denies gender-affirming care, as other states weigh similar measuresUtah’s Republican governor on Saturday signed a bill that bans young people who are transgender from receiving gender-affirming healthcare as other states consider similar legislation.The governor, Spencer Cox, who had not taken a public position on the transgender care measure, signed it a day after the state legislature sent it to his desk. Utah’s measure prohibits transgender surgery for young people and disallows hormone treatments for minors who have not yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Continue reading...

All of the reforms that liberals suggest will save Black lives were present in Tyre’s death. So what works?The heartbreak and anger in writing about police is that they never run out of people to kill.Right after I learned about the cop who killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a protester against the multimillion-dollar police facility that the City of Atlanta is tearing down a forest to construct, I learned about Tyre Nichols. Tyre was a young, Black man who loved to skateboard and take pictures. Memphis police department cops stopped him in a vehicle on January 7. He ran – which is reasonable because cops routinely kill Black people and he wanted to live. Cops often punish people who flee, just like the cops who took Freddie Gray on a “rough ride” for running in 2015. MPD beat him and took him to the hospital. He died three days later.Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist. She is also a social movement lawyer and writer based in Washington, DC. She is the author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom Continue reading...

The Associated Press got into hot water over saying the term was offensive. Is it?What’s wrong with the French? You’ll get a different answer depending on who you ask – but according to the Associated Press Stylebook, a lot’s wrong with the French. The stylebook, one of the most respected guides to the English language for journalists, recently tweeted that writers should avoid using “the” in phrases like “the disabled, the poor and the French” because “the” terms can be dehumanizing.Much mockery ensued. Even the French embassy in the US piled on, posting a screenshot of it “changing” its name from “French Embassy US to “Embassy of Frenchness in the US” This tweet got a lot of likes but, sorry to be pedantic, the gag didn’t actually make sense because there wasn’t ever a “the” in front of ‘French Embassy’ on its Twitter account. But what do you expect from the French, eh? They’ve always had a strange sense of humour.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...