US news | The Guardian

Actor and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, violated ‘all of the standards … if we have a gun in our hands,’ says Santa Fe DA district attorneyAlec Baldwin’s “recklessness”, and the failure of his production team to follow basic gun safety procedures on the set of the movie Rust, led to the decision to file a criminal charge against the US actor in the death of a cinematographer, prosecutors said.Mary Carmack-Altwies, the Santa Fe district attorney, said Baldwin, and the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, violated “all of the standards that we all have to follow if we have a gun in our hands” in the shooting death of Halyna Hutchins with a prop weapon during a rehearsal in New Mexico in 2021. Continue reading...

Increasing use of digital effects and other on-set precautions among measures after death of cinematographerFilm production and firearms experts say movie sets probably changed permanently when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on the remote New Mexico set of the western Rust 14 months ago – as prosecutors on Thursday said they will charge actor and producer Alec Baldwin and the film’s weapons supervisor with involuntary manslaughter.“The gun safety experience on set has become more vocal, it’s a lot louder,” said Joey Dillon, an armorer who has overseen the use of firearms on television shows including Westworld and movies including The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. “I make it a lot louder myself.” Continue reading...

In scathing ruling, US district court judge writes, ‘misuse of the courts by Mr Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law’A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump and one of his attorneys to jointly pay nearly $1m in penalties for pursuing a frivolous lawsuit that accused Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and other perceived enemies of the former president of engaging in racketeering and concocting a vast conspiracy against him.The penalty caps a bruising case for Trump, who had the suit dismissed in September and Trump was ordered to pay tens of thousands in November after one defendant sought sanctions. The latest order came after a group of the remaining defendants, including Clinton, filed a separate request for sanctions. Continue reading...

Violence against women is a threat more lethal than terrorism and our biggest force bears great responsibilityThe whole barrel is rotten. Perhaps it began with a few bad apples long ago, and of course some good ones will remain even now, but the rot in the Metropolitan force has spread.You read of David Carrick, the officer who kept his uniform, his badge and, for many years, his gun even as he pursued a parallel career as a prolific sex offender, and of course you are sickened by the evil he has done: dozens of rapes and sexual offences against 12 women, over two decades, including imprisoning one of his victims, naked and terrified, in a tiny cupboard under the stairs. But an equal horror comes when you learn that the police had been warned eight times about Carrick’s behaviour – eight – but did nothing. In fairness, that’s not quite right; they did do something. They promoted him in 2009 to an elite armed unit.Jonathan Freedland 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...

We worry about our families, ourselves, the threats and society’s expectations. When it leads to burnout, can anyone be surprised?Jacinda Ardern has no gas left in the tank to continue as the prime minister of New Zealand. Her resignation speech was the sort of rare and dignified moment that we have come to expect from her, as a woman who presented the world with the kind of leadership that uniquely lent on her emotional intelligence. I’ll miss her tone and grace. She leaves a legacy she can be proud of.I have been thinking about what burned the fuel that she relied on to govern. Continue reading...

Reason for attack is unknown but scientists found in 2019 that changes in sea ice habitat coincided with polar bears’ use of landSummer Myomick bundled her baby against the freezing winds whipping off the Bering Sea and stepped outside into a blur of blowing snow.It was a short walk from the school where she had visited relatives to the health clinic about 150 yards away, but the young mother could hardly have seen where she was going – or the terror that was approaching. Continue reading...

Claims of ‘Black antisemitism’ are a dangerous distraction. The truth is the fates of Black and Jewish Americans are linkedMy children are blessed to have been raised in a country different from the Germany of the 1930s and the Poland of the immediate postwar era. Both of my parents are refugees from European antisemitism, and my mother’s comments about her experiences in Poland can seem mysterious to my kids. They haven’t been raised with material exhibitions of antisemitism, and our discussions about it over the years have seemed more like lessons in history.But antisemitism is on the rise again in the United States. Harmful tropes have returned to explicit politics, with help from the last president. Meanwhile, remarks by Kanye West and Nick Cannon echo ancient conspiratorial themes. Continue reading...

In this series, Guardian writers share the best advice they’ve ever received and how it has changed their livesIn my second year of university in England, I had one of the smallest rooms on campus but a beautiful view of the university town from the window in front of my desk. There, as the November snow fell outside, I spent hours poring over the great Victorian novels – Middlemarch, Bleak House, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. My professors encouraged close reading of the texts rather than paying attention to the critics’ interpretations.For an essay, I focused on three chapters of George Eliot’s Middlemarch which recount the main character Dorothea’s honeymoon journey to Rome. Despite all the good will in the world, Dorothea and her new husband only succeed in hurting each other by failing to see things from any perspective beyond their own. Dorothea married Mr Casaubon admiring his vocation as a scholar and wanting to help him. But Casaubon has insecurities about his scholarship, and only sees her offer of help in terms of how it wounds his pride. Continue reading...

The new House speaker is just a small man, talking a big game, taking a long walk off a short pierKevin McCarthy might not look stupid.In the privacy of his home, far away from the TV cameras and the Maga bozos in his Republican caucus, he might not always sound stupid.Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist. He is the author of Renegade: The Making of a President Continue reading...

Chiewelthap Mariar, 26-year-old Sudanese refugee, shot dead after police called to escort him from Seaboard Foods factory in GuymonWorkers at a pork processing plant in Oklahoma have condemned the use of police by management that resulted in the killing of a worker who had just been fired.Chiewelthap Mariar, a 26-year-old refugee from Sudan, was killed by police officers while working at the Seaboard Foods meatpacking plant in Guymon on 9 January. Continue reading...

Former UN ambassador hits back at ex-secretary of state as jockeying for Republican presidential primary hots up. Plus, the radical power of hanging out

What does the Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful look to gain from attacking North America’s whitest sports league as ‘woke’?As part of its forthcoming All-Star game weekend in Sunrise, Florida, the National Hockey League planned to host a special event called the Pathway to Hockey Summit. Part of the league’s Hockey is For Everyone initiative, the summit was described in a now-deleted LinkedIn post as a “career event for diverse job seekers who are pursuing careers in hockey”.In addition to be over 18 and a US resident, participants had to “identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability”. Also welcome: veterans. Continue reading...

Hard-right Republicans say no to ‘clean’ debt ceiling increase, raising dire possibility of US defaulting on financial obligationsThe US economy could be headed for a crisis manufactured by a handful of House Republicans.The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, informed congressional leaders on Thursday that the US has hit its debt ceiling, which limits the amount of money that the government can borrow to pay all of its bills. Yellen urged Congress to work as quickly as possible to raise the debt ceiling and prevent the US from defaulting on any of its financial obligations, which would have catastrophic consequences. Continue reading...

Eight teams remain after a pulsating Super Wild Card Weekend. Which four teams advance to the conference finals?There was plenty of excitement during wild-card weekend, but not a lot of surprises. In fact, we correctly picked all six winners this time last week. Will that mojo continue in the divisional round? We’ll find out over the next few days. Continue reading...

At first glance, both presidents appear to have similarly bungled the handling of documents – but here’s how the two cases differThe discovery of classified documents in offices used by Joe Biden’s thinktank and in a locked storage unit in a garage near where the president keeps his Corvette may not be a criminal matter, but it does appear to have taken a political toll.With a new Reuters/Ipsos poll on Thursday finding that Biden’s approval rating, which had risen at the end of 2022, was back down to just 40% – near the lowest level of his presidency – many Democrats are smacking their foreheads, fearing Biden has done exactly what his expected 2024 opponent, Donald Trump, was under investigation for doing. Continue reading...

Owners of animal sanctuary bought swine at South Florida Fair used to teach teens animal husbandry but could not stop slaughterA Florida couple who won a pig at a state fair auction, intending to save it from the slaughterhouse, discovered the animal would be killed anyway and they had spent $4,700 on its meat.Meg and Eric Weinberger, who run the Rescue Life sanctuary in Palm Beach Gardens, insist officials from the South Florida Fair gave no notification that they were bidding in a “terminal” auction of livestock raised solely for processing. Continue reading...

Former UN ambassador hits back at former secretary of state as jockeying for Republican presidential primary hots upNikki Haley said the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s claim that she plotted to replace Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s vice-president was “lies and gossip to sell a book”.The former United Nations ambassador spoke to Fox News on Thursday evening, after the Guardian obtained a copy of Pompeo’s forthcoming memoir, Never Give An Inch, and reported his comments about Haley. Continue reading...

A surreal desert structure that ‘flaunts its abundance’ has attracted celebrities and more: ‘Demi Lovato saw aliens there’Joshua Tree’s real estate boom may have reached a symbolic peak, as the desert town’s iconic, mirror-walled mansion goes on the market for $18m in what is said to be a record-setting asking price.The Invisible House, constructed in 2019 by film producers Chris and Roberta Hanley, has hosted celebrities like Lizzo, Alicia Keys, Ariana Grande and The Weeknd, and been featured in the Netflix series The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals. Continue reading...

Hody Childress donated $100 a month for neighbors who couldn’t pay their prescriptions until his recent deathA small town in Alabama is honoring a man who paid off his neighbors’ pharmacy bills for years and kept his generosity a secret until shortly before his recent death by picking up exactly where he left off.Hody Childress, a farmer and US air force veteran, began his anonymous charitable campaign when he walked into a drug store in his home town of Geraldine in 2012 and learned from the owner that sometimes families can’t afford to pay for their medicines. Continue reading...

For a couple of days this month, wind power supplied over half the UK’s electricity. You wouldn’t know it from our bills – or our politiciansI remember the first time wind energy emerged as a serious contender in the UK’s energy provision. It was 6 November 2012, and the country’s electricity use from wind hit an all-time high in the middle of the afternoon, at 9.3%. The casual observer wouldn’t have noticed, and the expert wouldn’t have been surprised, but for people between those poles, it was astonishing. Windfarms were then perceived as a nascent technology, so infant and speculative they needed endless subsidy, intervention, special pleading.To this day, it remains a mystery how a reputation for well-meant inadequacy clings to renewable energy sources: it can’t all be the result of lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. Sometimes, it feels like we just don’t want good news. Continue reading...

Pilot scheme will allow American citizens to sponsor refugees and help them settle into their communitiesThe US state department has announced a new refugee program under which ordinary Americans can financially assist and sponsor refugees seeking resettlement.On Thursday, the state department revealed the Welcome Corps, a pilot program which will seek to mobilize 10,000 Americans as private sponsors for at least 5,000 refugees in its first year. Continue reading...

Move by the Republican governor is the latest in a series of actions to stop conversations about race and gender in public schoolsRon DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, has rejected a new advanced placement course in African American studies from being taught on high school campuses. He argues that the course violates state law and “lacks educational value”.This move is the latest in a series of actions to keep conversations and lessons about race, sexuality and gender identity off the state’s school campuses. Continue reading...

President highlighted damage from punishing storms which hit state for weeks and claimed at least 21 livesPresident Joe Biden walked along the splintered boardwalk of a picture-postcard California beach town on Thursday and heard from business owners struggling to repair damage to their shops after deadly storms caused devastation across the region and killed at least 21 people statewide, according to the governor, Gavin Newsom.Biden toured a gutted seafood restaurant and the badly-flooded Paradise Beach Grille, not far from the collapsed Capitola pier and the shops painted brightly in pink, orange and teal that were all boarded up following the storms. Walls were crumbling, debris scattered everywhere and floors swept away by raging waters. Continue reading...

Lawmakers demonstrating outside famous Manhattan apartment building promise to fight to ensure wealthy are fairly taxedLawmakers and activists gathered in the rain on Thursday outside a Manhattan apartment building once dubbed the “Towers of Power” and famous for being the home of millionaires and billionaires, calling for higher state taxes on the super-wealthy.“I’m asking you now, help the people of New York City by sharing some of the wealth that you have,” the New York state senator Robert Jackson shouted up to the apartments above, most of which had their blinds drawn. “If not, we’re going to pass legislation that makes you pay for it.” Continue reading...

Film’s armorer overseeing weapons, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, will also be charged with involuntary manslaughter in 2021 shootingThe actor Alec Baldwin is facing criminal charges of involuntary manslaughter over the fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer during a rehearsal of the western film Rust, according to prosecutors.The film’s armorer overseeing weapons, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, is also set to be charged with involuntary manslaughter over the shooting death of Halyna Hutchins in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2021. Continue reading...

Announcement by Moscow agency comes at a time of fraught ties between countries since start of Ukraine warRussia’s FSB security service said on Thursday it has opened a criminal case against a US citizen suspected of espionage, as ties between Moscow and Washington disintegrate further over the Kremlin’s nearly year-long Ukraine offensive.The FSB did not name the person or provide any other details, nor did it say whether the suspect had been arrested. Continue reading...

The New Zealand prime minister has revealed the emotional intelligence that many sorely lack. She showed us a different way to leadOne of the hardest things in life is knowing when to stop. So it is testament to Jacinda Ardern’s enduring skills that she has made it look almost easy. New Zealand’s prime minister announced her resignation this week in an emotional but characteristically graceful speech, declaring that after five and half gruelling years at the top she no longer had “enough in the tank to do it justice”.She was quitting, she said, not because the job was too hard but because she believed leadership was about giving it everything you’ve got for as long as possible, but recognising when your time is up. And so Ardern becomes that rarest of unicorns, a politician with the emotional intelligence to jump instead of waiting to be pushed. Continue reading...

When officers attempted to stop Ronnie Hicks, he drove the John Deere tractor down US Highway 421 south, hitting 20mphCall it a low-speed chase.“What a day,” wrote Andy LeBeau, the police chief of Boone, North Carolina, in a Facebook post. “So, many of you have heard, or have seen the videos, that we got in a pursuit with a tractor.” Continue reading...

Police in Boone, North Carolina, chased a stolen tractor on Tuesday as the driver rammed into oncoming traffic. Police said the stolen tractor was being operated by someone the department was 'very familiar with' and named him as Ronnie Hicks.The police chief, Andy Le Beau, said the department received a call about a tractor being 'driven erratically in a parking lot trying to hit pedestrians'. The tractor hit several vehicles, including a police car, a dumpster and a church, Le Beau said. When Hicks was approaching an elementary school, Le Beau said an officer shot the tires of the tractor. After a few miles of driving without a front tire Hicks turned onto a private drive, jumped off the tractor and began wielding a knife, Le Beau said. Hicks was then tasered by an officer and taken into custody.No injuries were reported, according to police Continue reading...

New York Republican under pressure over fabrications about his career, past and alleged criminal behaviourGeorge Santos on Thursday tweeted an angry denial that he competed as a drag queen in Brazilian beauty pageants 15 years ago, claims made by acquaintances that have highlighted the contrast between the Republican congressman’s past actions and now staunchly conservative views.The New Yorker, who says he is gay, dismissed the story as an “obsession” by the media, which he insisted, without irony, “continues to make outrageous claims about my life”. Continue reading...

The Embrace, a 19-ton bronze depicting Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King and a love that helped change the world, has inspired praise, jokes and bileThe 22ft-tall, 19-ton bronze sculpture unveiled last Friday in Boston, The Embrace, depicts two pairs of arms wrapped in a hug: those of Martin Luther King Jr and his wife, Coretta Scott King. It’s a detail pulled from a famous photo of the couple embracing – and to the artist, Hank Willis Thomas, a representation of how their love catalyzed a mass movement that changed the world.The sculpture was installed near where King led 22,000 people at a 1965 Freedom Rally – on land that was once part of a black neighborhood, now gone, that had been one of the oldest in the country. The significance wasn’t lost on guests at the unveiling, who included participants in the civil rights movement, some nearly 100 years old. Many onlookers were in tears, organizers say. And the piece drew praise from the Kings’ son Martin Luther King III, who told CNN that the “artist did a great job”. Continue reading...

Relationships involve negotiations, compromise, and communication – and in real life that includes what shows you watch togetherThe last few years have been difficult, but have also brought into sharp focus things that are important to be grateful for. Getting through lockdowns and isolating and having Covid and being ill at home would have been a lot harder without loved ones, community, and networks to rely on.But it also would have been almost impossible to get through without another vital support system: television. TV. The telly. The silver screen. The box. The boob tube. OK, it’s getting too rude to continue, but you get the idea. Continue reading...

Art gallery owner Collier Gwin, 71, faces potential jail term after video showed woman being hosed with waterA California man seen in a viral video spraying a homeless woman with a garden hose has been arrested on a charge of battery, authorities in San Francisco said.Collier Gwin, 71, an art gallery owner, was captured in the video, taken on 9 January, leaning on a railing with his legs crossed as he directed a jet of water at the woman in an effort to get her to move on. Continue reading...

Actor, 65, known for movies such as A Room with a View and The Killing Fields, went missing on Friday near Mount BaldyRescue crews continue to search for the British actor Julian Sands, who was reported missing after hiking in the San Gabriel mountains in California on Friday.The 65-year-old actor, known for his roles in A Room with a View, The Killing Fields, and Naked Lunch, was reported missing in the Baldy Bowl area, which is popular with hikers and skiers, according to the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department. Continue reading...

Excerpts show former president was corrected by lawyer when shown picture of himself with Carroll in the 1990sDonald Trump mistook E Jean Carroll, the writer who accuses him of rape, for his ex-wife Marla Maples during a deposition in the case last year, excerpts released in US district court on Wednesday showed.“That’s Marla, yeah,” Trump said, when shown a photograph. “That’s my wife.”Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

Scotland’s gender recognition reform bill showed our parliament at its best. The UK government’s veto was shameless

Will will the world’s most cutthroat plutocrats and cold-blooded status-seekers stop trying to convince us they have a heart of gold?Has there ever been a “meeting that should have been an email” so glaring as Davos? Each year, the world’s masters of politics and finance ride carbon-spewing jets to the World Economic Forum in a lavish Swiss resort town bristling with armed guards, where they opine somberly about solving poverty and climate change. The very act of attendance exposes all the subsequent dialogue as hypocrisy. The event serves primarily as a rare point of unity for political right and left wings, both of whom agree that everyone there should be in jail. If all of these professional decision-makers were really good at decision-making, they would replace the whole farce with an annual quick chat. “So then, we’ll carry on with global capitalism for another year. Agree? Right. Cheerio.”Davos and similar conclaves can only be understood as performances. They are the stage upon which the Masters of the Universe act out the dramatic narrative of their own lives. They are exercises in mutual self-affirmation: we’re here, and we are important. What good is a powerful position without a rapt audience to listen to one’s pronouncements? Anyone can be rich, but only a select few can be influencers.Hamilton Nolan is a writer at In These Times Continue reading...

Faced with a sudden influx of water, residents of drought-struck California ask how to keep it around for goodWhen Kitty Bolte looked at her yard at the start of California’s powerful winter storms, she saw more than half a foot of standing water behind her house. At first Bolte, a horticulturalist by trade, contemplated pumping it out onto the street. But with the historic rains coming in the midst of a historic drought, that seemed oddly wasteful.So instead, she and her boyfriend decided to save it. They found a neighbor selling IBC totes – large 330-gallon plastic containers surrounded by wire – on Craigslist, and filled them up using an inexpensive Home Depot pump. They also dragged some spare garbage cans outside to sit under the downpour, gathering 800 gallons in all. Continue reading...

I’ve seen how growing inequality is tearing societies apart. Now I’m calling for the world’s richest people to pay their fair shareAs a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, I’m a self-confessed wealthy individual who spends a lot of time repeatedly asking the government to increase taxes on my wealth and the wealth of people like me.This week, that message has brought me to snowy Davos, where the World Economic Forum (WEF) meets annually to discuss major economic concerns. The current theme of “cooperation in a fragmented world” sounds great, so why did I feel it necessary to join a protest hike against it? The answer to that question lies in what I and others see as the root of that “fragmentation” – the worrying wealth extremism that goes neglected by the Davos elite.Phil White is a former business consultant and engineer, and is a founding member of Patriotic Millionaires UK Continue reading...

Tesla investor seeks ‘billions’ in damages on behalf of those who traded stock after Musk posted plan to take company private. Plus, are cows at sea the future of farming?

Inmates across the state have been refusing food since 10 January to protest being held in isolation in some cases for decadesScores of Texas prisoners have entered the second week of a hunger strike in protest at being kept indefinitely in solitary confinement, a form of incarceration in the US that human rights groups have denounced as torture.Inmates across the Texas prison system have been refusing food since 10 January in an organized outcry against being held in isolation in some cases for decades. Estimates of the numbers of prisoners involved differ. The Texas department of criminal justice (TDCJ) puts it at 72, but outside advocates liaising with the strikers say it is at least 138. Continue reading...

The San Francisco 49ers quarterback is surrounded by superstar talent and a mastermind coach. But he looks like exactly the right player for his teamEverything about Brock Purdy’s rise is implausible.By now you know his biography: four good years at Iowa State, an excellent college player. The last player selected in the draft, Mr Irrelevant, he was expected to back up Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo at the San Francisco 49ers. He was pushed into the lineup after injuries to Lance and Garoppolo. The Niners’ title hopes were on the brink. But rather than founder, the Niners are better with Purdy at the helm as they prepare to face the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday for a place in the NFC championship game. Continue reading...

In book aimed at 2024 run, ex-secretary of state also says Trump asked him to be secretary of defense at same time, a ‘nutty idea’In a new memoir peppered with broadsides at potential rivals in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, accuses Nikki Haley of plotting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to be named vice-president, even while she served as Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.Describing his own anger when Haley secured a personal Oval Office meeting with Trump without checking with him, Pompeo writes that Haley in fact “played” Trump’s then chief of staff, John Kelly, and instead of meeting the president alone, was accompanied by Trump’s daughter and her husband, both senior advisers. Continue reading...

The genetic mutation, called leucism, causes a partial lack of pigment in the skin and hairA moose with rare coloring has been spotted by the Alaska department of fish and game during an aerial survey.The department shared a post on Facebook that featured a tan moose standing out among other dark brown moose in a winter landscape. Continue reading...

The New Zealand prime minister’s bold and resolute leadership neutralised hoary stereotypes that insisted female power is soft or weakJacinda Ardern has resigned as prime minister of New Zealand and will be leaving office on 7 February.World leadership has rarely seen anything like her. The dignity and integrity of her departure strikes a paradoxically powerful note, especially at a time when political transition in democracies from the United States to Brazil has been marred by violence and insurrection. Continue reading...

Ardern proved she was more than a happy face as she confronted Covid, terrorism, the climate crisis and more