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Two arrested in Kissimmee after calling for assistance moving items from burglarized house and a ride to the airportSheriffs in Florida arrested two purportedly bumbling burglars after one allegedly called 911, intending to ask police for help moving belongings from a house they broke into, authorities said.The chain of events started to unfold around 1am on Saturday in Kissimmee, about 20 miles from Orlando. A Dollar General discount store was burglarized and “multiple items stolen” the Polk county sheriff’s office said, documenting the alleged incident in an arrest affidavit and a Facebook post. Continue reading...

Eric Dodge wore Make America Great Again baseball cap twice but judge found no ‘tangible disruption’ to Washington schoolA federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a former teacher in Vancouver, Washington, concluding that his wearing a hat supporting Donald Trump to school was protected speech under the first amendment.Documents from the ninth circuit court of appeals show that Eric Dodge, a science teacher, brought the Make America Great Again baseball cap to an Evergreen Public Schools building twice before the 2019-2020 school year. Continue reading...

Dharmesh Patel of Pasadena plunged over 250ft off coastal road in Tesla with two young children and adult passenger – all survivedA Tesla driver who drove off a California cliff with two young children and an adult passenger in the car was arrested on Tuesday, as authorities alleged the crash was an “intentional act”.Dharmesh Patel, of Pasadena, was arrested for attempted murder and child abuse, the California highway patrol said. Authorities said they had not determined the driving mode the Tesla was in during the crash but did not believe it was a “contributing factor in this incident”. Continue reading...

Celebrity booze sponsorship has gotten ridiculous. Plus, studies show we can’t differentiate the taste of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ alcoholI blame Gwyneth Paltrow, myself. The actor turned entrepreneur may not have been the first celebrity to launch a business empire, but the rise of Goop seems to have coincided with a craze for side hustles among the glitterati. Entertainers aren’t content with just entertaining any more – they’re all business moguls, too. Lil Nas X has a skincare line; Selena Gomez has a makeup brand; Jessica Alba has a baby product company; Kim Kardashian sells performance underwear.While skincare has become a popular celeb business, the biggest grift is probably still booze. By one calculation, there were fewer than 40 celebrity-affiliated booze brands in 2018; now there are reportedly more than 350. I won’t list them all but, to give you a taste, Graham Norton is shilling wine, the Chainsmokers (remember them?) have a Tequila brand, Jamie Foxx has a bourbon, Cameron Diaz has launched a “clean” wine brand that is vegan-friendly. (And thank God for that, eh? I’d been getting really tired of all those meaty wines.) Continue reading...

Three rounds of voting failed to elect a speaker as Kevin McCarthy faces opposition from hardline RepublicansWhat was supposed to be a day of triumph for Republicans coming into the US House majority turned into chaos on Tuesday as fighting over who should lead them ended with no speaker elected.Kevin McCarthy has led House Republicans since 2019 but he could not overcome opposition from the right following an hours-long series of votes. The opposition from 20 lawmakers stopped the House starting work and delayed the swearing-in of returning members and freshmen. Continue reading...

Food and Drug Administration finalizes rule change which follows US supreme court decision to end federal right to abortionThe US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday finalized a rule change that broadens availability of abortion pills to many more pharmacies including large chains and mail-order companies.The Biden administration partially implemented the change last year, announcing it would no longer enforce a requirement that women pick up the medicine in person. Continue reading...

Tom Suozzi, Santos’s forerunner for New York’s third district, says the Republican winner should be ‘removed by Congress’The Democrat who vacated the US House seat won by the controversial Republican George Santos said Congress was letting in “a conman”.Tom Suozzi won New York’s third district, which covers parts of Long Island and Queens, in 2016, but stepped down in 2022 in order to run for governor. Santos lost to Suozzi in 2020 but beat Robert Zimmerman for the vacant seat. Continue reading...

New York Democrat was seen speaking with rightwingers, one of whom once tweeted an anime-style video depicting him killing herDuring a succession of votes for House speaker on Tuesday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was seen talking on the House floor with the far-right Republicans Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar, the latter who once tweeted video depicting him slashing her in the neck with a sword.The New York Democrat, a progressive star, told MSNBC: “In chaos, anything is possible, especially in this era.” Continue reading...

House adjourned until noon today as McCarthy becomes the first nominee for speaker in 100 years to fail to win the first vote. Plus, the truth behind 10 of the biggest health beliefs

Abrams did not win the vote, but she created the conditions for increased voter turnout among key parts of Georgia’s electorateAfter a critical runoff election that helped Democrats cement their majority in the US Senate, Georgia’s status as a political battleground with national influence has become more apparent. Georgia now boasts a highly engaged electorate that continues to turn out in record numbers election after election.While various factors contribute to this, many in Georgia point to the state’s grassroots coalition, built over the last decade, that sought to register, engage and educate voters like never before. At the helm of this coalition sits former state House minority leader and two-time gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Continue reading...

They have protested against a homophobic church and opposed prayer in classrooms. Now this minority religion is defending the right to abortionA statue of Baphomet – a pagan idol used in popular culture as a representation of the devil, with the head, horns and feet of a goat, the torso of a man and the wings of an angel – is the centrepiece of the Satanic Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.More than 8ft (2.4 metres) tall, jet black and altogether unnerving, Baphomet serves as a reminder of what brought the Satanic Temple to fame. In 2013, the group, which is acknowledged as a religion by the US government, responded to the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol building – seemingly a flagrant abuse of the US constitution’s separation of church and state – by demanding that its own Baphomet statue also be positioned in the grounds. According to the first amendment, which protects freedom of religion, public spaces should be open to all religions or none, it argued. Continue reading...

Young people deprived of prosperity may represent the first generation that doesn’t grow more conservative with ageSpite. When you dig down to the essence of modern rightwing politics, you’re left with little else. This wasn’t always the case. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan offered clear, coherent visions of society, even if their worship of free markets delivered economic insecurity and stagnating living standards. While today’s Tories and Trumpified Republicans remain committed to defending privileged interests, their driving ambition now seems to be deliberately provoking fury among the progressively minded, much to the delight of their supporters. It’s this tendency that led Donald Trump to denounce Mexicans as criminals and attempt to ban Muslims from entering the US; it’s the same tendency that drove the home secretary, Suella Braverman, to declare that her “dream” and “obsession” was to see a flight transporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. Cruelty is precisely the point.But this spite has found a particular target in younger British and American people, many of whom increasingly embrace progressive social values such as anti-racism and LGBTQ+ rights (granted, this relies on a generous definition of youth as millennials – while the oldest members of Generation Z are only in their mid-20s, the most senior millennials have now reached their early 40s). These generations have become a common enemy for the right. The feeling is mutual. According to new research and survey data, millennials are defying a supposed iron law of politics, that we shift to the right as we age. No other generation in recorded political history has retained such an entrenched rejection of rightwing politics as they’ve grown older.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnistDo 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...

It tastes like sawdust that’s been drowned in sugar and soaked with baby vomit – and I’ve finally discovered whyThere are a few things that routinely keep me up at night: the futility of life, the inevitability of death, and the mystery of why the US’s chocolate is so disgusting.Readers who have had the misfortune to encounter a Hershey bar will know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s wretched stuff isn’t it? If you are in possession of a sound mind and a few functioning taste buds then I don’t see how you can possibly enjoy US chocolate. It tastes like sawdust that’s been drowned in sugar and soaked with baby vomit.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Based on our experience with nuclear contamination, continuing with ocean discharge plans is simply inconceivableOver the past 20 months, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) members have been in dialogue with the government of Japan on its proposed plans to release over a million tonnes of contaminated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean as announced in April 2021.I was heartened by the very strong position taken by PIF Members from the outset, that Japan should hold off on any such release until we are certain about the implications of this proposal on the environment and on human health, especially recognising that the majority of our Pacific peoples are coastal peoples, and that the ocean continues to be an integral part of their subsistence living. Continue reading...

Republican Kevin McCarthy faces a humiliating series of setbacks after rightwing members of his party refuse to back his bid for speaker. McCarthy fails to gain the necessary support after three rounds of voting, becoming the first nominee for speaker in 100 years who has not won the first vote for the gavel. The House will reconvene tomorrow

Megan Hess and her mother Shirley Koch defrauded distraught families and dismembered bodies for illegal saleA former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body parts without permission.Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law. Continue reading...

Two members of Congress campaigned for Amber McLaughlin’s sentence to be commuted over alleged shortcomings in trialA Missouri inmate has been put to death for a 2003 killing, becoming what is believed to be the first transgender woman executed in the US.Amber McLaughlin was put to death on Tuesday night, hours after the Republican governor of Missouri, Mike Parson, declined a clemency request. McLaughlin was convicted in 2006 of killing a former girlfriend in suburban St Louis in 2003. Continue reading...

California had returned land seized from Willa and Charles Bruce in 1920 to their heirs last year as part of its reparations policyA southern California beachfront property that was taken from a Black couple through eminent domain a century ago and returned to their heirs last year will be sold back to Los Angeles county for nearly $20m, officials said on Tuesday.The sale comes as the state of California continues to consider sweeping financial reparations for the government’s treatment of Black Americans, including government confiscation of property, housing discrimination, over-policing and health disparities. Continue reading...

Leader of slim Republican majority has been negotiating to secure backing of hardliners but voting could go to multiple rounds

House adjourned until noon tomorrow as McCarthy becomes the first nominee for speaker in 100 years to fail to win the first voteIn a historic delay, the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, was on Tuesday facing a protracted battle to secure the speaker’s gavel after failing to win the first three votes on the opening day of the new Congress.A fourth vote – and perhaps more, into the night – was avoided when the House adjourned, by voice vote, until noon on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Annual report from state board found Latino and Black residents disproportionately affected by ongoing ‘pretextual stops’California police were more than twice as likely to use force against Black residents than white residents during traffic and pedestrian stops in 2021, according to a new report on racial profiling.The annual report from a state board also found that law enforcement searched Black people at 2.2 times the rate of white people, and that Black youths ages 15 to 17 were searched at nearly six times the rate of white teenagers. Latino residents were stopped and subjected to force at 1.4 times the rate of white people, and Latino youths were searched at nearly four times the rate of white youths. Continue reading...

James was arrested on 13 April 2022 after opening fire on the subway and shooting 10 peopleThe man who fired more than 30 shots on a New York City subway train last spring pleaded guilty to terrorism charges on Tuesday. Frank James was arrested on 13 April 2022 after opening fire on the subway, shooting 10 people.James, 63 and from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of committing a terrorist attack or other violence against a mass transportation vehicle – one count for each gunshot victim, the Department of Justice noted – and one count of discharging a firearm in furtherance of his attack. Continue reading...

US Coast Guard found wreckage of aircraft that was transporting oil rig workers when it crashed killing all onboard on ThursdayAuthorities have found the remains of the four people who died in a helicopter crash in the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana on Thursday, according to reports.The US Coast Guard found the helicopter – which was departing an offshore oil rig – in Gulf waters on Monday, the Louisiana news website Nola.com reported. Continue reading...

Crypto exchange founder accused of using deposits to support hedge fund, buy real estate and make political contributionsFallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried entered a plea of not guilty on Tuesday to criminal charges that he cheated investors and looted billions of dollars at his now bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange.Bankman-Fried is accused of illegally using FTX customer deposits to support his Alameda Research hedge fund, buy real estate and make millions of dollars in political contributions, in what prosecutors have called a fraud of epic proportions. Continue reading...

Fans donate to player’s charity after Buffalo Bills safety collapsed mid-game on Monday nightA toy drive that was launched by Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin received more than $4m (£3.3m) in donations after he experienced cardiac arrest following a hard hit to his chest during a game on Monday night, according to reports.Hamlin, who collapsed on the football field during the Bills’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals, was given CPR and his heartbeat was restored on the field. He was taken to hospital for additional testing and treatment and “is currently sedated and listed in critical condition”, the Bills said early on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Ex-president says ‘it wasn’t my fault’ Republicans fared poorly in 2022 but political wisdom of citing key rightwing issue questionedDonald Trump’s recent comments about abortion as a political issue show the former president has lost his ability to read Republican voters, a veteran Trump campaign insider said.In messages seen by the Guardian, the operative said: “Trump has no political skills left. His team is a joke. The ship is sinking.” Continue reading...

Number is highest in nearly 15 years after Covid pandemic caused a backlog in the systemNearly 1 million immigrants became US citizens in 2022, the highest number in almost 15 years after the Covid-19 pandemic caused a backlog in the system.According to new figures from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the countries where most of these new citizens came from were Cuba, the Philippines, India, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Continue reading...

The Republican party has collapsed under its own contradictions, competing impulses and fear of the baseOn Tuesday, as Republicans in the US House of Representatives convulse over electing one among them as speaker of the House, with Kevin McCarthy attempting to outmanoeuvre his hardcore Maga detractors, the civil war in the Republican party comes into the open.But it’s not particularly civil and it’s not exactly a war. It’s the mindless hostility of a political party that’s lost any legitimate reason for being. Continue reading...

Mick Lynch says strikes could carry on into spring unless a reasonable offer is made to the RMT union; transport secretary denies blocking a dealHuw Howells, head of manufacturing and industrials at Lloyds Bank corporate & institutional banking, said:Manufacturers start 2023 on somewhat uncertain ground as December shows a fifth month of contraction.There are silver linings in the supply chain, but unknowns remain for 2023, making forecasting difficult as manufacturers balance demand and supply. Continue reading...

Republican is accused of using stolen checkbook and fake name at shop outside Rio de Janeiro in 2008As the fabulist New York Republican representative-elect George Santos prepares to be sworn in on Tuesday, Brazilian prosecutors say they are reopening a criminal fraud case against him.Santos, who faces federal and state investigations involving possible criminal activity related to his two congressional campaigns, is accused of using a stolen checkbook and fake name at a clothing shop outside Rio de Janeiro in 2008, the New York Times reported on Monday citing court documents. Continue reading...

Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania on accusations that he murdered four studentsThe suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students that has shocked the US was identified by police using DNA on public genealogy databases, according to ABC News.Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested on Friday in Pennsylvania on accusations that he murdered roommates Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, while they slept in their off-campus home. Continue reading...

Two children and two adults survived crash after Tesla sedan plummeted more than 250ft near an area known as Devil’s SlideA four-year-old girl, a nine-year-old boy and two adults survived on Monday after their car plunged off a northern California cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway near an area known as Devil’s Slide that is known for fatal wrecks, officials said.The Tesla sedan plummeted more than 250ft (76.20 meters) from the highway and crashed into a rocky outcropping. It appears to have flipped a few times before landing on its wheels, wedged against the cliff just feet from the surf, according to Brian Pottenger, a battalion chief for Coastside Fire Protection District/Cal Fire. Continue reading...

The radicalism of my generation is often attributed to housing costs. But, as I found when I had my first child, there are much deeper issues at playChewing gum. Napkins. Thongs. Over the past decade, millennials have been accused of killing off a dizzying variety of things. And despite the fact that some of them are now approaching middle age and the world has turned its attention to the shenanigans of gen Z, it looks as though millennials still have a taste for murder. Their victim this time? Conservatism.Historically, people tend to become less liberal as they age: the Che Guevara posters come down and conversations about home improvements replace debates about social improvements. But millennials are bucking that trend.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Roger Goodell waited for an hour after Damar Hamlin’s on-field collapse on Monday before suspending the game. It was the shameful act of a commissioner who’s always led from behindNine minutes. For nine minutes Damar Hamlin laid on the field receiving CPR, motionless, clinging to life. An ambulance hauled Hamlin away, family by his side, to a Cincinnati hospital where he remains in critical condition.It was as chilling a scene as it gets when Hamlin collapsed after a routine tackle during the first quarter of a nationally televised Monday Night Football game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. Millions watched Hamlin’s fall. Cameras captured the aftermath of gut-wrenched Bills teammates attempting to process the scene in front of them. Continue reading...

One study grimly noted that human noise may even be scrambling the eggs of baby fishNoise pollution is one of the gravest yet least recognized health threats of our time. Even moderate levels of noise – the kind that surrounds us in any urban environment – increase risks of cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, developmental delays and dementia. Now, scientists are revealing that non-humans, too, suffer from noise pollution – and that they are far more sensitive than humans.Perhaps nowhere is this more urgent than in the global oceans. Marine animals see and sense the world through sound, which travels faster and farther underwater than light. Whales – which use sound to find prey and navigate, communicate and mate – are one well-known example. But scientists are now revealing that a vast range of marine creatures are exquisitely sensitive to sound. The range of negative effects caused by marine noise pollution is staggering: delayed development, hampered reproduction, stunted growth, distorted migration paths.Karen Bakker is the director of the University of British Columbia’s Program on Water Governance and the author of The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants Continue reading...

Hamlin was administered CPR on the field, surrounded by teammates, some of them in tears, after he was hurt during a tackle. Plus, Is America suffering a ‘social recession’?Good morning.The Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin is in a critical condition in hospital after he had a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field last night, with the NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals suspended after the incident.How is he doing now? The Bills posted on their official Twitter account that he is in critical condition: “His heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the UC Medical Center for further testing and treatment. He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.”Are former supporters deserting him? Some are, yes. Among those defecting from Trump’s large-donor battalion are his top 2016 contributors, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, CNBC reported. The billionaires have instead donated to his likely primary rival, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. The hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who threw about $67m in the midterms, has also backed DeSantis. Continue reading...

The city is forecast to double the number of days it reaches 95F by 2050, but innovative materials may help fight off the heatIt may look like a normal roof, but the top of Martin Luther King Jr hospital near the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts gleams in the light. The roof isn’t made from a typical material: instead of absorbing heat, its paint-like coating reflects the sun’s energy upward. That benefits anyone working inside the building, officials say, as it cools and makes the interior more comfortable – as well as lowering energy bills.This type of roofing design comes at an urgent time for America’s second-largest city. In Los Angeles, long romanticized for its year-round sunshine and Mediterranean climate, heat is a slow-moving disaster. In 2022, the city grappled with a record-breaking September heatwave that brought days of triple-digit temperatures. A UCLA study predicts that by 2050 the number of days with temperatures of 95F (35C) or hotter will reach 22 a year – more than double the number that the Los Angeles region sees now. Continue reading...

Strike date at seven hospitals set for 9 January after 98.8% vote in favor, with wages, staff ratios and health insurance key issuesAt least 12,000 nurses at seven hospitals in New York City are threatening to strike after their union contract expired at the end of last year. A strike date is set for 9 January.The nurses are pushing for the hospitals to implement and enforce safe staffing ratios, improve wages in line with inflation, and maintain health insurance coverage as opposed to proposed cuts by the hospitals. Continue reading...

With China’s government underplaying its domestic outbreak, it’s vital that other countries remain alert to new variantsAfter almost three years of trying to wholly eliminate the virus that causes Covid-19 from within its borders, the Chinese government has abruptly changed course. Now, the country is attempting to “live with Covid-19”. Testing is no longer required, and numbers of officially reported Covid-19 cases are at odds with scientific estimates of the situation.While official estimates suggest there are 4,000 cases of Covid a day, scientists estimate the number is more like 1 million. Official death tolls are similarly unreliable. The lack of transparency from the Chinese government, and the lack of trust in what it’s saying about its domestic outbreak, has prompted concern across the world. Continue reading...

Some high-profile mega-donors have fled, small-dollar donor stream that fueled his past runs is drying up, and he is accused of violating ‘soft money’ lawsWith his 2024 presidential candidacy officially kicked into gear, Donald Trump would seem poised to enter the Republican nomination race a step ahead: his Pacs and committees boast a war chest of about $95m, enough to give pause to the Republican candidates jockeying against him.But a scratch beneath the surface reveals a different reality. About $78m of the $95m cannot be directly used for Trump’s campaign, according to a Guardian analysis of the Trump fundraising web. Continue reading...

Cardinals are already thinking about a successor to Pope Francis - and the conservative faction may aspire to someone more traditionalAirlines usually upgrade cardinals to first class and offer them champagne. But when the leaders of the Roman Catholic church fly into Rome’s Fiumicino airport this week for the funeral of the former pope Benedict XVI, they may well forgo the fizz as a sign of their mourning. It’s hard to imagine, though, that they will refrain from engaging in the whispers and the politicking that is so typical of a gathering of top Catholic prelates. The funeral will be a time to remember and mourn Benedict XVI – but the plotting that will take place may resemble an episode of Succession.Benedict XVI was a renowned theologian and an enforcer of Catholic doctrine who earned the nickname “God’s rottweiler” for his pursuit of those he thought errant. He was a hero to conservative Catholics, but he will be most remembered for his dramatic resignation in 2013 – the first pope in 600 years to quit rather than die in office. He pleaded physical frailty. “Having before God examined my conscience over and over, I have come to the certain knowledge that my strength, due to the burdens of age, is no longer suitable for properly administering the Petrine office,” he wrote, but he lasted almost another 10 years before dying at the age of 95 on New Year’s Eve.Catherine Pepinster is a former editor of the Tablet and the author of The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy Continue reading...

Ticketing debacles involving Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny have led to calls for parent company Live Nation’s stranglehold on live entertainment to be brokenTicketmaster and its parent company Live Nation had a calamitous 2022 – managing to anger everyone from Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny to Joe Biden and Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. As calls grow for action to rein in the concert monopoly in the US and abroad, the company seems to have hit on a new strategy: spending big in Washington.Live Nation’s spending on lobbying jumped from about $250,000 in 2018 to nearly $1.3m in 2021, federal records show, and it may top that peak in 2022 and beyond. It has focused its lobbying campaign on the department of justice, as well as legislation aimed at greater transparency around ticket sales. Continue reading...

It remains to be seen if Republican Kevin McCarthy can win the speakership while Democrats’ leaders include no white menThe balance of power in Washington will shift when Republicans officially take control of the House on 3 January.Yet House Republicans begin the 118th Congress in a precarious position: their grip on power is fragile and their conference fractured. Continue reading...

There seems to be little accord about what saving the reef means and how that is to be achievedAs part of the coverage of Labor’s first budget, the ABC provided analysis of the nation’s winners and losers. In it, the Great Barrier Reef was listed as “neutral”. The reef received no additional funding beyond the commitments Labor had made during the election campaign.It is striking that an ecosystem – a more-than-human place – could be listed alongside major economic and social concerns such as families, the Pacific, NBN and the ABC itself. It is a testament to the importance of the reef to our national identity, but also how dire things have become for that environment in the last four decades. Continue reading...

Guess who has a clitoris? Continue reading...