Dan Osborn is challenging incumbent Deb Fischer in a long shot' bid to prove the state still has an independent spirit'Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada - these are the swing states most pundits expect will decide the 2024 election. No one has deep red Nebraska on that list. But a 48-year-old pipefitter and union organizer from Omaha is hoping to change that.Three years ago, Dan Osborn led the Nebraska leg of a US-wide strike against cereal giant Kellogg's as the company pushed for concessions in a new union contract despite posting record profits during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...
Crowds jeered as police arrested pro-Palestine students and forcibly removed tents set up on the campus at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Protests have been sweeping college campuses across the US after an attempt by police officers to clear a pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 students. At George Washington University, students gathered for a third day, calling for the institution to divest from Israel. Protesters broke police barricades as officers attempted to make arrests Continue reading...
There is some truth to the popular protest slogan: They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds'University students across the US have been protesting since 7 October 2023 with vigils, rallies and marches asking for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their universities to divest from Israel. While some of these protests led to heated fights about foreign policy, the most prominent events have involved university presidents' abysmal congressional testimony. This week's arrests of more than 100 Columbia students reinvigorated the student movement and now it's kicking off everywhere.As a sociologist of social movements, I study how movements select and shift tactics to elicit a response from their opponents. Over the next few weeks, we will see dozens of other university encampments spring up because activists have found a tactic that gets the administration's attention at a critical time: during finals and commencement. Continue reading...
We are entwined and must be liberated together. We must work to end the war and bring safety and security to both peoplesKarl Marx's father, Heinrich, converted from Judaism to Protestantism in 1817 - later converting his eight children - because had he not done so, he would not have been allowed to practice law in Prussia. He wasn't alone in having to change or disguise his Judaism so that he could earn a living. There was practically no other way for Jews living in Europe in the 19th century to be part of the business class without renouncing their religion.This practice actually harkened back for eons, at least two millennia to be precise, as Jews in Europe found other ways to live, always squeezed out of mainstream society, and especially so with emerging nation states (in contrast to when the Habsburg empire controlled much of Europe, where many Jews resided, and was more hospitable to Jews). Even farther back, during the Spanish Inquisition that began in the 1400s, at least 600,000 Jews either fled or hid their identities in response to new royal edicts. Russian-controlled Jewry was forced to settle in what became known as the pale of settlement", today's Ukraine, but still this didn't save them from state-sponsored pogroms and ostracism. These are just some historic examples about why Zionism evolved.The State of Israel will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion; will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice, and peace taught by the Hebrew Prophets; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed, or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education, and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK and Israeli publications Continue reading...
I love the idea that the countryside is full of happy young people in Gore-Tex, finding community in beautiful placesOf all the weird gen Z behaviours Ihave read about, this latest trend may be the most surprising: they are rambling. Yup, sturdy boots, waterproofs and Kendal mint cake (it's vegan!). What next? Alfred Wainwright memes? Plastic map pouches as summer's hottest gorpcore accessory?I have some experience of this: my younger son has gone on two serious hiking trips in the past year. Who are you?" I whispered, baffled, at his retreating, cagoule-clad back, from the comfort of my sofa. I enjoy a modest country walk as much as the next middle-aged person, but wild horses couldn't have dragged me up a hill in my teens or 20s. (OK, possibly a very strong wild horse could have.) Continue reading...
Legendary journalist makes remarks in advance of release of Netflix documentary about his life and workDan Rather said his dismissal from CBS News nearly two decades earlier of course ... was the lowest point" of his legendary journalism career as he returned to his former employer's airwaves for the first time Sunday.I gave CBS News everything I had," the 92-year-old newsman said. They had smarter, better, more talented people, but they didn't have anybody who worked harder than I did."The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...
Time will tell who got the best haul of players in Detroit, there were promising signs from the Bears, Vikings and SteelersChicago Bears. Anyone with an internet connection could have drafted Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams with the first pick. But Williams' arrival is a victory unto itself for the Bears, who have been in the QB wilderness for decades. Chicago fans will expect Williams to be the team's best quarterback ever, and it won't even be so unreasonable of them given his sublime talent and the team's barren history at the position. General manager Ryan Poles has also done well to surround Williams with one of the best groups of receivers in football. Poles traded for Los Angeles Chargers star Keenan Allen earlier this year, and he then used the ninth pick to add Washington's Rome Odunze to a fold that already included the talented and productive DJ Moore. Maybe the Bears won't win big in 2024, but they should be more fun to watch than they have been. And for the first time in ages, there's a foundation in place upon which the club could build a Super Bowl team. Continue reading...
Yes, I revelled in the thrill of film-making, yet a fear of failure nagged at me. Behind it lay a truth I'd been ignoringFor just over a decade I lived on the edge of danger, leaping from cliffs, jumping out of the back of trains and even being set on fire. I was a television and film stunt performer. Think Tom Cruise without the credits, in sky-high heels and hotpants. Every job was a calculated risk, and every performance felt like a dance with death. My job demanded the spirit of a daredevil and the agility of an acrobat with the presence of an actor, tasked with bringing the heart-pounding thrills of Hollywood to life. But as my star rose and opportunities knocked on my door, I made a decision to step back, leaving behind bewildered friends and colleagues who couldn't understand why I was abruptly extinguishing my own flame.While I revelled in the thrill of physical activity and globetrotting adventures, there was always a nagging sense of impostor syndrome gnawing at me. Despite my prowess in executing stunts, I felt like a fraud when it came to the craft of acting. I could execute flips, wield knives and brave fire-burns, but put a script in front of me and I faltered. No matter how much I trained or rehearsed, the moment the camera rolled my lines vanished, leaving me stranded in a sea of self-doubt. Whenever I found myself in a situation where I had to deliver lines, my anxiety would intensify. I would feel my breathing becoming rapid and shallow, making it difficult to focus. As I attempted to say the words, the buzzing of the room would overwhelm me and despite being in the spotlight, all I could see was darkness. It was a disorienting experience, and it further exacerbated my feelings of self-doubt and insecurity about my acting abilities.Janine Parkinson is a writer and former stunt performer Continue reading...
At least four people were killed after a series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma on Saturday, amid a weekend of extreme weather that left dozens injured and a trail of destruction across the US midwest. Local authorities confirmed that a four-month-old infant was among the two people dead in Holdenville - one of the hardest hit towns in Oklahoma - where about 20 tornadoes hit
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering chargesChangpeng Zhao, the founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, will be sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to money laundering charges, with US prosecutors seeking three years in prison for the tech tycoon.Zhao, 47, stepped down as chief executive of Binance in November after admitting to breaking US anti-money laundering laws. Last month, another fallen cryptocurrency mogul, Sam Bankman-Fried, whose FTX exchange collapsed in 2022, received a 25-year sentence for committing fraud and conspiracy to launder money. Continue reading...
Near-zero growth has crushed living standards, sending voters to populist demagogues. But they have no solutions to offerBy the time of the European parliament elections in June, this year's rightward ebb in European politics will have turned into a tidal wave. Ultra-nationalist demagogues and populist-nationalists are now leading the polls in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, and running second in Germany and Sweden. There are two hard-right groupings in the European parliament - Identity and Democracy and European Conservatives and Reformists. Between them, they could secure as much as 25% of the June vote. But even more ominously, in almost every part of Europe including Britain, these factions are forcing the hand of the traditional centre-right parties - which, one by one, are capitulating to ever more extreme anti-immigration, anti-trade and anti-environment positions.The rightward shift is, of course, a western and not just European phenomenon, with Trump 2.0 advocating a far more aggressive protectionist and nationalist agenda than Trump 1.0. But Europe stands out from the US in one important respect. While the US economy roars forward - even if the average American voter does not feel the full benefits - Europe, and especially its industrial engine-room, Germany, continues to suffer from near-zero growth and stagnation in terms of living standards. And having lived through a decade of consistently low growth, the continent is now divided between an optimistic but declining minority, who still hold to the expectation that a rising tide lifts all boats, and the growing and more pessimistic majority who now see life as a zero-sum game.Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010 Continue reading...
South Dakota governor says she understands why some people are upset' about story of shooting family puppy but points to state lawKristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful, on Sunday again defended killing a family dog and goat on her farm, two days after the Guardian revealed how she describes those actions in a forthcoming book.I can understand why some people are upset about a 20-year-old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book - No Going Back," Noem wrote on Twitter/X. Continue reading...
Governor issues state of emergency for 12 counties as authorities confirm a four-month-old baby was among the dead in HoldenvilleAt least four people, including a baby, were killed after a series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma on Saturday, amid a weekend of extreme weather that left dozens injured and a trail of destruction across the midwest.Local authorities confirmed that a four-month-old infant was among the two people dead in Holdenville - one of the hardest hit towns in Oklahoma, located 80 miles south-east of Oklahoma City - where about 20 tornadoes hit late Saturday, leveling buildings and ripping off roofs. The victims have not been named, but at least four others were injured as the tornado left a path of devastation through the town of around 6,000 people. Continue reading...
Senate minority leader says he is not advocating anything at this level' and that issue is too divisive among lawmakers for consensusAsked whether he supports a federal abortion ban, US Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that he is not advocating anything at this level".The Republican, during remarks in a new interview published by NBC's Meet the Press, stopped short of saying whether or not he supported a 15-week federal ban on abortion with exceptions, but he instead portrayed the issue as a practical matter" that was too divisive among federal lawmakers to result in a consensus among them. Continue reading...
The 6ft7in athlete, who played in the eighth tier of English rugby for hometown club Basingstoke, has been picked by Buffalo Bills from the NFL's international player pathway programme as an offensive lineman. Clayton was selected with the 221st overall pick in the seventh round despite having never played a game in the sport but recorded his 40-yard dash in 4.79sec during the draft combine, which the Bills said was faster than all offensive lineman have recorded over the past 10 years. 'It's time to represent and show the rest of the world exactly why UK athletes should play in the NFL," said the 23-year-old
Mumia Abu-Jamal tells New York City students they're on the right side of history by deciding not to be silent and to speak out'In a powerful and rousing live address to students at the City University of New York (CUNY) on Friday night, the incarcerated Black political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal praised the pro-Palestinian movement growing at US colleges as being on the right side of history.It is a wonderful thing that you have decided not to be silent and decided to speak out against the repression that you see with your own eyes," Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, said while calling from Pennsylvania's Mahanoy state prison. You are part of something massive, and you are part of something that is on the right side of history. Continue reading...
Trump's rant against me is a barely coherent,' says independent White House hopeful and challenges ex-president to a debateRobert F Kennedy Jr has dismissed Donald Trump as unhinged" after a social media tirade from the former Republican president accused the independent White House hopeful of being a Democrat plant" and wasted protest vote".When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged," Kennedy wrote Saturday on X in a post that doubled as a debate challenge. President Trump's rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate." Continue reading...
Demonstrators shouted Shame on you!" at White House officials, journalists and celebrities as they arrived at the dinner, condemning Biden's handling of the war in Gaza and the media's coverage of it.At the event, Joe Biden made jokes at the expense of Donald Trump, telling a gathering of Washington's political and media elites: 'I'm a grown man running against a six-year-old'
Speaker's crude interventions on campus have forced many to question if his motives on Ukraine were quite so heroicDemocrat Nancy Pelosi cited his integrity" and described him as courageous". Republican Michael McCaul called him a profile in courage". CNN hailed him as an unlikely Churchill".Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, began the week showered in plaudits for leading the House in approving $95bn in urgently needed wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies. Continue reading...
by George Chidi in Rocky Mount, North Carolina on (#6MDG8)
With abortion on the line, a Black conservative provocateur is pitted against the state's center-left Jewish attorney generalIn front of a conservative talkshow host two weeks ago, Mark Robinson, North Carolina's Republican candidate for governor, was grousing a bit about being snubbed by the state's Democratic governor on a matter of race.He talks a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion, but apparently the line for diversity, equity and inclusion stops at the Republican party," Robinson told Lockwood Phillips. Roy Cooper has had several chances to congratulate me on the accomplishment of being the first Black lieutenant governor, and he has never taken it." Continue reading...
Don't be deluded by media hullabaloo - but smart employers can get creative with schedules to attract and retain talentAccording to CNN 4-day workweeks may be around the corner. A third of America's companies are exploring them." CNBC says: This US company tested a 4-day workweek - and says it made workers happier and more productive." Newsweek tells us: Millennials Are Ready For a Four-Day Week." So why do all of my clients say nope?According to an advocacy organization, more than 300 companies have four-day workweeks and, per the reports above, many others are apparently testing" the concept. I admit that I've spoken to none of these companies but I'm not sure I have to. I spend my life working with small and mid-sized businesses and I know a PR stunt when I see one. Hey, good for them. In these times of tight labor - it's a great marketing campaign. People! Come work for us except you don't have to do as much work and we'll still pay you the same!" Now that's a company I want to work for. Continue reading...
Trump's former fixer to appear as prosecution witness, while Avenatti, serving prison sentence, willing to testify for defenseAs Donald Trump's hush-money trial enters its second week, jurors will be asked to focus on the testimony of his former Mr Fixit - the disbarred lawyer Michael Cohen.Cohen, who served as Trump's personal attorney for 12 years until 2018, is acting as a witness for the New York district attorney, Alvin Bragg. The case could turn on Cohen's testimony about payments sought by two women, the porn star Stormy Daniels and the Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, and how those payments were made and allegedly disguised, as prosecutors contend, in violation of accounting and political campaign laws. Continue reading...
Tents, debris and personal items from the Nova festival, where 364 people died on 7 October, form shocking exhibit on Wall StreetWhile New York was preoccupied with student protests over the US's support of Israel's war in Gaza last week, another aspect of how the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel is coming to terms with bloodshed in the Middle East was being prepared.On Wall Street, a gruelling exhibition has opened detailing the horrific attack on the Nova music festival by Hamas terrorists on 7 October, in which 364 people were murdered, many wounded and 44 taken hostage. Continue reading...
Doping case with Chinese swimmers has brought years of pent-up feeling into public domain - and shows no sign of stoppingAt its glitzy 25th anniversary gala in Lausanne last month, the World Anti-Doping Agency screened a slick montage highlighting how it had changed sport for the better. There were images of Muhammad Ali defying Parkinson's to light the Olympic flame and Pele lifting the World Cup, before a history lesson - and a promise. Today Wada is a more representative, accountable and transparent organisation," explained its director general, Olivier Niggli, that truly has athletes at the heart of everything we do."Not everyone in the room was buying it - one source felt it was too PR-focused, while another raised their eyebrows when Thomas Bach - the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - and the former Wada president Sir Craig Reedie picked up awards. However, frustrations with Wada were largely limited to corridor conversations. It turned out to be the relative calm before the thermonuclear storm. Continue reading...
Pots of slime, pig heads, sexy dolls... we were only looking for a present for my son's fourth birthdayThis week I found myself in a large toy shop in a retail park off London's North Circular. We were looking, in a pleasant panic, for a present for my son's fourth birthday. His birthdays always hit me in an odd way, a bit like those slaps round the face they have in films to stop the woman screaming. Because: he was born at the beginning of the pandemic and, just as his early developmental stages like sitting up or eating solids worked as a marker of time having passed, of us having survived, so do his birthdays. It is four years, this means, since those tight, hot days of the first Covid lockdown, of sanitiser-cracked hands and the brisk hell of home schooling, and every time the anniversary comes round I find myself having to sit down, take a breath.Anyway, this toy shop, good God. Do you have any ideas what toys are today? I was not prepared. There are the board games, which include your Guess Who's and so on, but they are overwhelmed by other games called things like, Who Can Poo On Who and Fart School and Diarrhoea of a CEO and I may be misremembering titles slightly yes, but this was very much the gist, boxes with rabid cartoon characters covered in phlegm and instructions that involve, for eg, burping one's name. Continue reading...
US president made fun of Republican frontrunner's legal woes while critics of his handling of Gaza war protested outsideJoe Biden has shown no mercy to Donald Trump with a series of barbed jokes about his election rival, telling a gathering of Washington's political and media elites: I'm a grown man running against a six-year-old."The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday night provided the ideal platform for Biden to continue a recent run of taking the fight to Trump with more aggressive rhetoric, cutting humour and personal insults. Continue reading...
Public disapproval mounts for South Dakota governor and vice-presidential hopeful whose book contains gruesome accountKristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful, saw polling numbers plummet after the Guardian revealed that she writes in a new book about the day she shot dead a hunting dog and an un-castrated goat, a revelation that ignited a political storm.Announcing what it called its Noem Puppy Murder Poll Findings", New River Strategies, a Democratic firm, said 81% of Americans disapproved of Noem's decision to shoot Cricket, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer who Noem says ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbour's chickens, thereby earning a trip to a gravel pit to die. Continue reading...
From Everest to Machu Picchu, we can't get enough of those must-see' places. It's time to show some restraintClimbing Everest used to be an even more dangerous pursuit than it is today, requiring huge bravery, endurance and skill. Even then the mountain could kill. A century ago, it claimed the lives of two of Britain's finest climbers, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.The world's highest mountain eventually succumbed to human challenge when, almost three decades later, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay carried the flags of Britain, the UN, and Nepal to its summit on 29 May 1953. Sporadic trips involving handfuls of explorers continued over succeeding years. Continue reading...
by Timothy Pratt at Emory University in Atlanta on (#6MD8S)
A peaceful action at the school near Atlanta, Georgia, was met with violent use of force and 28 arrests of students and facultyClifton Crais, a history professor, was walking to class at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, outside Atlanta, on Thursday shortly before 10am when several students rushed up to him.Please, please contact president Fenves," they begged, referring to the university president, Gregory Fenves. Ask him to not call the police." Several dozen protesters seeking the university's divestment from Israel and opposing a $109m police training center colloquially known as Cop City" had set up tents on the school's grassy quad - the size of a football field - several hours before. Continue reading...
Robbi Mecus, 52, and climbing partner, who was rescued and hospitalized, fell from Mount Johnson in Denali national parkA helicopter crew on Saturday recovered the body of a climber who died after falling about 1,000ft (305 metres) while on a steep, technical route on Mount Johnson in Alaska's Denali national park and preserve, park officials said in a statement.Robbi Mecus, 52, of Keene Valley, New York, died of injuries sustained in a fall Thursday while climbing a route on the south-east face of the 8,400ft (2,560-metre) mountain, the park said. His climbing partner, a 30-year-old woman from California, was seriously injured; she was rescued Friday and flown to an Anchorage hospital, park officials said. Continue reading...
Dazhon Darien arrested over fake recording of principal complaining about students and faculty membersA high school athletics director suspected of using artificial intelligence to create a fake, racist recording of a principal in Baltimore has been arrested by police.Police arrested 31-year-old Dazhon Darien of Pikesville high school on Thursday after an investigation into an AI-generated recording which featured the duplicated voice of the school's principal, Eric Eiswert. Officers allege that Eiswert was investigating Darien in connection with the potential mishandling of school funds when the latter man purportedly created the recording. Continue reading...
US senator says Israeli prime minister is using antisemitism to distract attention from extremist and racist government' policiesBernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister's claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont - who is Jewish - accused Netanyahu of insult[ing] the intelligence of the American people" by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his extremist and racist government" in the military offensive in Gaza. Continue reading...
Candace Chapman Scott of Little Rock, 37, worked at a mortuary and arranged to transport remains to buyers across state linesA former mortuary worker in Arkansas has admitted to stealing parts of corpses and trying to sell them.On Thursday, the US attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas announced that 37-year-old Candace Chapman Scott of Little Rock, Arkansas, had pleaded guilty to transporting stolen body parts across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud. Continue reading...
Peter Bernegger has brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices over alleged fraud - now he faces criminal chargesPeter Bernegger has spent the last three and a half years bombarding local election offices in Wisconsin with litigation and accusations of fraud. He's brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices in state court, and on social media, he has relentlessly promoted his litigation and circulated false claims about election fraud in the swing state.His campaign has recently landed him in legal trouble - Bernegger now faces criminal charges for allegedly falsifying a subpoena in connection with a lawsuit against the state's top election office. Continue reading...
Managing the barrage of upsetting material online is a challenge that service providers are struggling to meet, even if they tryWay back in the mid-1990s, when the web was young and the online world was buzzing with blogs, a worrying problem loomed. If you were an ISP that hosted blogs, and one of them contained material that was illegal or defamatory, you could be held legally responsible and sued into bankruptcy. Fearing that this would dramatically slow the expansion of a vital technology, two US lawmakers, Chris Cox and Ron Wyden, inserted 26 words into the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which eventually became section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of the same year. The words in question were: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." The implications were profound: from now on you bore no liability for content published on your platform.The result was the exponential increase in user-generated content on the internet. The problem was that some of that content was vile, defamatory or downright horrible. Even if it was, though, the hosting site bore no liability for it. At times, some of that content caused public outrage to the point where it became a PR problem for the platforms hosting it and they began engaging in moderation". Continue reading...
In New York, reservation scalpers' are making $80,000 a year, but I'm banking on a neighbour's generosityThe land of restaurants is increasingly paradoxical. Every day, good ones close. Running costs are punitive and broke customers are eating at home more often. Yet still there are places where it's next to impossible to bag a table; where to have even the remotest chance of doing so requires near superhuman levels of patience and determination, as well as no other demands whatsoever on your time - including paid employment.I laughed when I read in the New Yorker's annual food issue of the reservation scalpers" who make $80,000 a year by hoarding bookings to then sell them on to the desperate-to-be-there rich. Only in Manhattan, I thought. But this didn't stop me. Just moments later, I was urging my neighbour, Sue, who is to restaurants what Harry Houdini once was to padlocks and straitjackets - just you watch her bust her way in! - to try to get us a table atX (I won't say its name, for obvious reasons). Sue is also a hoarder of reservations, with the key difference that she then shares them with (Iflatter myself) beloved friends at no extra charge. So now we're on tenterhooks, waiting and hoping - and hoping and waiting - for the hottest Sunday lunch in town. Continue reading...
The hush-money criminal trial receives less prominence in conservative media, and when Trump-friendly networks do turn to the trial, they give viewers an alternative narrativeIn one America, he cuts a diminished, humbled figure during coverage that runs from morn till night. He seems considerably older and he seems annoyed, resigned, maybe angry," said broadcaster Rachel Maddow after seeing Donald Trump up close in court. He seems like a man who is miserable to be here."But in the other America - that of Fox News, far-right podcasts and the Make America Great Again (Maga) base - the trial of the former president over a case involving a hush-money payment to an adult film performer is playing out very differently. Continue reading...
The university has said it won't give in to students' demands - but it has budged beforeRows of tents line the steps at Sproul Hall, the grand neoclassical administration building that soars up nine stories near the main entrance to the University of California, Berkeley.Thursday marked the fourth day of the Free Palestine camp, one of dozens of sit-ins that have sprung up on campuses across the US as symbols of protests for a student-led pro-Palestinian movement. Continue reading...
Tornadoes collapsed buildings and flattened homes in Nebraska and Iowa on Friday as warnings continued to be issuedTornadoes wreaked havoc Friday in the midwestern US, causing a building to collapse with dozens of people inside and destroying and damaging hundreds of homes, many around Omaha, Nebraska.As of Friday night, there were several reports of injuries but no deaths were immediately reported. Tornado warnings continued to be issued into the night in Iowa. Continue reading...
If the former president regains the White House in November, America faces a far worse dystopian future than being shown in cinemasDirector, cast and critics all agree: Civil War, the movie depicting America tearing itself to bloody bits while a cowardly, authoritarian president skulks in the White House, is not about Donald Trump. But it is, really.Likewise, the first ever criminal trial of a US president, now playing to huge audiences in New York, is ostensibly about claims that Trump fraudulently bought the silence of a former porn star called Stormy after a tacky Lake Tahoe tryst. But it isn't, really.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...
The liberal justice has been called the supreme court's conscience but we can't afford a repeat of Ruth Bader GinsburgA month ago Josh Barro (a man) at the Atlantic wrote a piece headlined Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now. Around the same time the Guardian's Mehdi Hasan (a man) similarly opined that for the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court." The University of Colorado Boulder law professor Paul Campos (a man) also went on CNN to argue that 69-year-old Sotomayor should consider stepping down as a justice in order to give Joe Biden time to fill the seat with another liberal judge should the worst happen. And pundit Nate Silver (you guessed it ... another man) said much the same thing. Continue reading...
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