Youth environmentalists take on Republican-led city commission over proposal to hasten development in fragile wetlandsDozens of teenage environmental activists in Florida are battling a city commission over its plan to loosen protections for ecologically fragile wetlands and hasten the pace of development.The group has banded together in person and on social media to oppose the proposal by politicians in Manatee county. They say the proposal places greed for construction dollars above the need to protect native flora and fauna for future generations. Continue reading...
As with Elizabeth Holmes and Billy McFarland, the story seemed too good to be true - because it wasOf all the surprising things to have come out of the build-up to the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange, the most surprising, perhaps, is just how thoroughly the world bought in to his rise. Bankman-Fried's guilt on multiple charges of, among other things, wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering has yet to be determined, but the presence of the 31-year-old former wunderkind in court at all, is, of course, part of a long history of feted boy geniuses falling to earth and seeming suddenly ludicrous.Bankman-Fried fit precisely into the mould beloved of tech and wealth magazines for young men in the unicorn business space. Before he cut his hair and located a suit for this week's appearance in a Manhattan federal court, he was flamboyantly scruffy, a man worth, on paper at least, billions of dollars who nonetheless wore scabby old trainers and shapeless cargo shorts. He was spectacularly rude, playing video games while conducting live television interviews and failing to turn up to appointments set months in advance. Looked at through the lens of, as Forbes magazine described Bankman-Fried in 2021, the world's richest 29-year-old," all of these tics were received as charming indicators of brilliance. Regarded through the slightly less dewy goggles of seven conspiracy and fraud counts, they appear somewhat differently.Emma Brockes 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...
The Ukrainian president insisted US backing for Ukraine was not faltering, as he arrived at the European Political Community summit in Granada.Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was a difficult election period for the US and some voices were 'very strange', but he was confident of bipartisan support in Congress
by Ruth Michaelson and Stephanie Kirchgaessner on (#6FAQS)
Former diplomat said senator's allegedly corrupt actions could have put embassy staff in the sights of Egyptian intelligenceThe lives of staff at the US embassy in Cairo may have been put in jeopardy by the indicted Democratic senator Bob Menendez's alleged sharing of sensitive personnel information with the Egyptian government, according to former senior US officials who said the charges represented a grave betrayal of trust.The New Jersey senator temporarily stepped down from his powerful position as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee in September after he was indicted by federal prosecutors in New York on corruption charges, including allegations that he accepted cash bribes and gold bars in exchange for breaching his duties in ways that benefited the government of Egypt". Continue reading...
Joaquin Castro urged fellow House members to reject Republican calls for US military action to stem flow of fentanyl from MexicoA progressive US congressman from Texas has asked his legislative colleagues to join him in condemning some American conservatives' calls to invade Mexico - ostensibly to do battle with drug cartels there.Joaquin Castro says he intends to file a resolution in the US House as soon as Friday reaffirming the federal government's commitment to respecting the sovereignty of Mexico and condemning calls for military action without Mexico's consent and congressional authorization". Continue reading...
There's a growing sense among Americans that the Roberts court with its 6-3 hard-right supermajority is irrevocably brokenDonald Trump's rightwing appointees to the US supreme court have insisted that they're neither politicians in robes" nor partisan hacks", but many Americans strongly disagree about that, and that's a major factor behind the court's extraordinary crisis of legitimacy. With the court lurching to the right in recent years, three in four Americans say it has become too politicized", according to a recent poll, while just 49% say they have trust and confidence" in the court, a sharp decline from 80% when Bill Clinton was president.As the supreme court's new term begins this week, it should be no surprise that many Americans are questioning the court's legitimacy considering all of the following. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have taken lavish favors from rightwing billionaires with business before the court and then failed to disclose those favors. The court's conservative majority has often served as a partisan battering ram to advance the Republican party's electoral fortunes. Mitch McConnell brazenly stole a supreme court seat from Merrick Garland to preserve the court's rightwing majority. Not stopping there, McConnell and the Republican-led Senate raced to ram through Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation even after voting had started for the 2020 election.Steven Greenhouse is an American labor and workplace journalist and writer Continue reading...
The 70-year-old progressive scholar says he's not seeking to steal Joe Biden votes, but instead trying to woo alienated non-votersIf Cornel West is worried about being a spoiler whose candidacy might let Donald Trump back into the White House by stealing votes from President Joe Biden, he isn't showing it.The 70-year-old former Harvard and Princeton professor is running as the US Green party's candidate in next year's presidential election with a message more likely, on the face of it, to appeal to disillusioned Democrats than anti-Trump Republicans. Continue reading...
In straitened times, debauchery can seem the antidote to hard reality. Celebrate a classic film that shows how it's doneI was 17. It was July and it was boiling. Sweat made a snail-like progress down my neck - but I didn't care. My swishy, three-quarter-length coat was half my personality. They would have had to surgically remove it from me. I was dressed for action. The particular action I wanted was what I had seen on a shady DVD version of Withnail & I a few months earlier. I wanted booze and drugs, and to cause outrage in provincial tearooms. In fact, I just looked like a dick, and wouldn't have known weed from oregano. Still, the film left an imprint like a branding iron.I was one of many, obviously. None more so than Toby Benjamin, whose book, Withnail & I: from Cult to Classic, charts the journey of a film that was initially a flop, gained a following among students - with their propensity to pass around VHS copies - and then assumed a granite-like position in the culture, comparable to the King James Bible or Cilla Black. It speaks to us as clearly today as it did when it was released in 1987. In straitened times, excess and debauche sometimes seem the only answer to harsh reality. What else is there to do, after all? Maybe that's why it still resonates. Continue reading...
The American has struggled to discover exactly where he fits with the Serie A giants. But competition with a US teammate may have solved the problemThe Juventus team that Weston McKennie rejoined this summer no longer contains any of his childhood heroes. When he arrived at the club for the first time, back in 2020, he was greeted by faces that used to look down from his bedroom wall.Not many people know when I was younger, when Italy won the 2006 World Cup, growing up I had a poster of them lifting the trophy in my room," said McKennie during an interview released on the club's YouTube channel last month. Seeing some of those guys personally and potentially playing with them was a surreal feeling." Continue reading...
Injuries and mistakes have already taken their toll on some teams. But there has also been plenty to delight in the first few weeks of the 2023 campaignIt's hard to believe we're almost a quarter of the way through the NFL regular season. It feels like just yesterday that there was optimism inside the New York franchises and Sean Payton was going to revive the Denver Broncos. But enough of the negativity, here are a few pleasant surprises from the first few weeks of the new season. Continue reading...
Three months after a general election, attempts to form a government have so far failed - and hostility between parties is mountingThe July general election in Spain saw a welcome collapse in support for the far-right Vox party - it was evidence, many said, that the rightward drift across Europe could be defeated. Three months on, Spain is still without a new government. The deadlock could be broken before the year's end, and for now, a new election seems unlikely. But recent scenes in parliament bode ill for whoever is running the country in the months ahead. Spanish politics today is in a state of blockage that reflects the reality of its proportional voting system and an increasingly polarised public sphere. Is it surprising that there is a growing public scepticism towards politics and a diminished interest in the news?Overall, the July election delivered a stalemate: neither of the two biggest parties won enough seats to form a majority government. The conservative People's party won the most votes and seats in the election, followed by the centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers party. But even if either joined forces with their natural allies on their right or left, they would still fall short of the 176 seats needed for a majority in the 350-seat parliament.Maria Ramirez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain Continue reading...
Gunfire from fight hit several people, including pregnant woman who was hospitalized and delivered baby who diedA shooting claimed the life of a baby that was delivered after its mother was one of several people hit by gunfire during a fight Wednesday on a downtown street in the western Massachusetts city of Holyoke, authorities said.The pregnant woman was shot in the afternoon while seated on a public bus and taken to a hospital in critical condition, the Hampden district attorney's office said. Continue reading...
Facing a likely roadblock from House Republicans, US president Joe Biden says he is worried their infighting in Congress could hurt Ukraine aid but said there was a 'majority of members of the House and Senate in both parties' that support the need for it. The president promised to deliver a speech soon to outline why the US needs to continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, and suggested there were 'other means' by which he could find funding but gave no further details Continue reading...
We take a look at the best images from Antwerp as USA take their seventh consecutive gold medal in the event, with help from the returning Simone Biles Continue reading...
President's latest approval brings total debt cancellation under his administration to $127bn for nearly 3.6 million peoplePresident Joe Biden has announced an additional 125,000 people have been approved for student debt relief in a total of $9bn.Biden's latest approval brings the total approved debt cancellation under his administration to $127bn for nearly 3.6 million Americans, the White House said in a statement. Continue reading...
by Victoria Bekiempis and Nick Robins-Early on (#6F9V5)
Second day of trial featured prosecutors' first witness as defense presented Bankman-Fried as math nerd' with good intentions who got in over his headOpening arguments began in Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud trial on Wednesday, with prosecutors accusing the former cryptocurrency star of building his empire on lies" and living a lavish lifestyle while defrauding his customers. Defense attorneys countered by presenting Bankman-Fried as a math nerd" with good intentions who got in over his head.The second day of the trial began with Judge Lewis Kaplan finalizing a group of 12 jurors who would hear the case, along with six alternates, and later in the afternoon featured prosecutors calling their first witness. Continue reading...
Rights groups to rally outside event, calling on corporations to cut ties with American Legislative Exchange CouncilA broad coalition of opponents to the rightwing corporate agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will hold a rally on Wednesday night outside a glitzy gala event to celebrate the secretive group's 50th anniversary.Environmentalists, gun reform campaigners, union leaders and voting rights activists will protest outside the $750-a-ticket event at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, calling on corporations to cut ties with Alec - a tax-exempt group behind a slew of regressive state laws including the stand your ground gun legislation, right-to-work labor policies and so-called critical infrastructure protections that criminalize protest against fossil fuel polluters. Continue reading...
40-year-old law is in jeopardy after weeks of debate about city's obligation to protect 100,000 migrants sent from the US borderIn a late Tuesday night email, the administration of New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, asked a New York supreme court justice to allow it to ignore the state's longstanding right to shelter" law in certain circumstances.Dating back to the Depression, a provision of the New York state constitution stated that aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns". A consent decree resolving the 1981 case Callahan v Carey and various lawsuits built on that foundation. Now anyone in New York City can access guaranteed shelter with required minimum standards like 3ft between beds, access to lockers and showers, and basic toiletries. But that 40-year-old law is in jeopardy, amid a push from the city's executive. Continue reading...
Top executives are terrible at reading the room and unions are stronger when workers stick together. Now let's sign that contractThis year was supposed to have been a showbiz love fest. Disney, Warner Brothers and the boosters of the world-famous Hollywood sign had planned to celebrate their centennials, with a special thanks to the storytellers who have sparked the joy" of movies.There were so many actors, writers and other workers buzzing around the soundstages in Burbank, Studio City and Culver City that you could practically hear the hum of a $134bn TV-and-film hive.Kathleen Sharp is the author of Mr & Mrs Hollywood: Edie and Lew Wasserman and Their Entertainment Empire which has been optioned Continue reading...
He's $300m shy of the cutoff, according to the magazine, though with an estimated $2.6bn he's got plenty of pocket changeDonald Trump has dropped off the Forbes 400 ranking of the wealthiest people in the US for the second time in three years, the magazine announced on Wednesday as the former president's business fraud trial continued in New York.Donald Trump is no longer rich enough for the country's most exclusive club," Forbes said. Continue reading...
Officials said the sanctions and indictments against Chinese and Canadian firms target a major China-based syndicate'The US has announced sanctions and indictments against 14 Chinese and Canadian firms for importing fentanyl, one of the most sweeping actions yet to target trafficking of the powerful synthetic opiate.Officials from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies announced the actions on Tuesday. Continue reading...
Kaiser Permanente workers start three-day strike, demanding wage increases and better staffing, after union contracts expireMore than 75,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente have started a three-day strike on Wednesday in the largest demonstration of its kind by healthcare workers in US history.The workers, represented by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, are currently bargaining for new union contracts after their current contracts expired on 1 October. Workers are demanding significant wage increases and substantive improvements to what they say have been severe understaffing in healthcare facilities that worsened throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...
The party is beholden to a base that it has fed misinformation and trained to view politics as high-stakes entertainmentThe worst job in America has just become available. On Tuesday, after a weeks-long struggle with his caucus to fund the government and avert a government shutdown had proved fruitless and Kevin McCarthy had at last conceded to compromise with the Democrats, Republicans, led by Florida's Matt Gaetz and other members of the far right, Trumpist Freedom Caucus, voted McCarthy out of the House speakership.He is the first speaker of the House to ever be removed from his post by a vote - a technique that was only possible because McCarthy had made so many procedural concessions to get the speakership in the first place. It took McCarthy 15 votes to achieve the speakership when the Republicans took control of the House back in January; it took him 269 days to lose it. Now, the job will be someone else's problem. Continue reading...
Former Americans file lawsuit against US government, alleging renunciation fee' of $2,350 is arbitrary, capricious and illegal'Former Americans who have renounced their citizenship have launched a class-action lawsuit suing the US government for what they argue are exorbitant and unconstitutional costs of relinquishing their passports.The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by four renounced US citizens in a federal court in Washington DC, accuses the US of wrongfully profiting from the astronomical" fee it charges those who voluntarily cease to be Americans. Since 2014, Americans abroad who no longer wish to remain citizens, or who can no longer afford to meet the notoriously onerous US tax demands, have been forced to pay a renunciation fee" of $2,350. Continue reading...
After the death of Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks has called time. There is an art to timing it right - just look at the BeatlesThough Stevie Nicks has only now called time on Fleetwood Mac - there's no point in continuing after the death of Christine McVie, she told Vulture - this is a band that has been on the brink of ending for more than 50 years. They might have called it a day when their leader, Peter Green, left in 1970. Or when their sublime guitarists Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan left in 1971 and 1972. Or when the group's three main writers - Nicks, McVie and Lindsey Buckingham - wanted to pursue solo work in the early 80s. Or when Buckingham left for the first time in 1987. Or when McVie departed in 1998. Or when Buckingham was sacked in 2018. But every time they found a reason to carry on.Hey," wrote Steve Albini in the sleeve notes to his group Big Black's final album in 1987, breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too few groups, sometimes to the wrong ones." That sentence - written as a fan as much as a musician - captures the tension between the observer, who wants their favourite musician to leave a perfect legacy, and the performer, for whom making records and touring is their job - the thing that puts food on the table and is often the only thing they actually know how to do. Continue reading...
Attorneys for Le'Keian Woods, seen on video being beaten by Jacksonville police officers, say client has ruptured kidneyAttorneys for Le'Keian Woods, a 24-year-old Black man from Florida whose violent arrest was captured in viral video footage, said he was in excruciating pain.Footage of the arrest, on Friday 29 September, showed Woods being beaten by officers with the Jacksonville sheriff's office. Continue reading...
In one of first acts after the removal of Kevin McCarthy, Democratic predecessor is ordered out of hideaway' spaceThe former House speaker Nancy Pelosi lamented a sharp departure from tradition", after the Republican Patrick McHenry ejected her from her office while she was away for the funeral of a friend.With all of the important decisions that the new Republican leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new speaker pro tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol," Pelosi said in a statement on Tuesday night. Continue reading...
Vote marks first time in US history a speaker of the House has been removed from office; plus, why is country music so resistant to diversity? Continue reading...
Advocates say corporate strategy known as Texas two-step' is being used as menu choice' to avoid paying compensationBefore his retirement in 2009, Peter Bergrud was, for decades, a construction worker, laying cement, water and sewage pipes in trenches around Seattle. Bergrud often did the handling, cutting and laying of the cement pipe himself because he was so skilled.In early 2018, he started having problems breathing, and became quickly out of breath. In February that year, he was diagnosed with two forms of mesothelioma, and told these types of cancer were only caused by asbestos exposure. Doctors told him and his family he would not survive surgery or chemotherapy. Continue reading...
In an open letter, the leaders of the group allege the Democratic National Committee is taking away people's choice in 2024 electionThe centrist group No Labels accused the Democratic National Committee of waging war" against it, fearing the impact of a potential third candidate in a putative 2024 election rematch between the president and Donald Trump.In an open letter entitled Defending the Soul of the Nation' and Ending the War on No Labels, the former Connecticut senator and vice-presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, the former Missouri governor Jay Nixon and the civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis accused the DNC of a heavy-handed effort to limit Americans' choices in the 2024 election". Continue reading...
His menacing words toward Mark Milley and Letitia James should not be shrugged offTwice in the past two weeks, Donald Trump has suggested violent consequences for those who dare to cross him.Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, deserves to be executed, Trump charged. Milley's backchannel communications, intended to reassure Chinese military leaders before and after the 2020 election, amounted to a treasonous act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!" Continue reading...
The humdrum era is here - but the prices remain as outrageous as everLeafing through Grazia magazine's autumn fashion special, amid the adverts for Cartier panther rings, power suits and slinky boots, I was stopped in my tracks by the following headline: Is your wardrobe boring enough?"Apparently, this season's catwalk shows were teeming with hoodies worn under drab coats combined with leggings, trainers and cross-body bags. It's me! At last, the capsule wardrobe I have painstakingly curated over many years is bang on trend. (Well, maybe not my cashmere hoodie which has served as a free buffet for all the moths in north London since I last wore it, but that's a mere detail.)Anita Chaudhuri is a freelance journalistDo 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...
Christians, Muslims and Jews have starred in the league. But even those without a faith can benefit from spiritual practiceBefore every game, Bob Hill brought his teams together for a moment of silence. Hill, who coached in places like New York, Indianapolis, San Antonio and Seattle, didn't insist on any particular message. It was simply a moment of togetherness before the start of another NBA battle. But it was in 1994 when he got to San Antonio, where David Robinson starred, that Hill was exposed to a more pointed pregame process. During a preseason game against the Knicks, Robinson, a born-again Christian, began to lead the team in prayer. Then, before the next game, the 7ft 1in center did so again. It got to be such a big part of the team's ritual that pregame prayer became the norm - fitting, Hill says, for a roster that included Terry Cummings, an ordained minister, and Avery Johnson, who was also a born-again Christian.I didn't have anything to do with it. This was all them," says Hill, remembering the season when the Spurs went 62-20. The culture of the team was spiritually motivated because of David, Terry and Avery. It was that way all year long." Continue reading...
Anyone watching the historic' or unprecedented' turns in recent US politics will not be surprisedIn the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside." These words, delivered at the US Capitol by president John F Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural address, seemed particularly apt on Tuesday.Kevin McCarthy's ousting as speaker of the House of Representatives was a personal tragedy foretold. The first seeds of destruction had been planted when, days after declaring Donald Trump responsible for the January 6 insurrection, McCarthy went grovelling at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and made his pact with the devil. Continue reading...
The election of the pro-Kremlin nationalist Robert Fico reveals a country in crisis - and one that young people like my sons will leaveWhen the Polish writer Witold Szabowski tried, at an event in London we both attended earlier this year, to describe the feeling shared by many people in countries bordering Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, he reached for the image of a hen house being circled by a fox. It was an apt metaphor: the fox quietly huffing and puffing, prowling menacingly, tightening the noose. Beyond the fence, the house of our neighbours lies ransacked; we watch from a distance, our own houses still quiet. But the tension and restlessness inside them has mounted like a pressure cooker.Ahead of Slovakia's election last Saturday, the unease among pro-democracy voters was intense. Now the results are in and we watch in sadness, as parties sympathetic to Russia set about trying to form a coalition government.Monika Kompanikova is a Slovakian writer and books editor at Dennik N. Her 2010 novel Boat Number Five was made into the movie Little HarbourDo 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...
Anger is still seen as admirable in men but unacceptable in women. It's time to end the tyranny of gendered emotionsWhen the captain of the Indian women's cricket team was banned for two matches and fined for smashing the stumps with her bat in an angry outburst in July, the social media reaction was swift and harsh: Harmanpreet Kaur was called pathetic" for her anger on the pitch, and labelled disgusting and stupid".This is in stark contrast to the way people respond to male aggression in the sport. A quick search of the web will find numerous discussion forums and articles lauding the angry men of Indian cricket that you wouldn't want to mess with", and cricketers such as Virat Kohli, who has been nicknamed the Hulk" because he is angry all the time". Continue reading...
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