Former UFC star has hinted at run for political office. He has the fame, wealth and social media number to attract a followingIn response to a comment from a right-wing influencer last week, Elon Musk appeared to endorse the idea of Conor McGregor - the former UFC champion - running for political office in Ireland.Not a bad idea," Musk posted to his 164 million followers. Continue reading...
by Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future Sweden on (#6GX42)
Young climate activists haven't been radicalised' - solidarity with marginalised people has always been at the heart of our messageMore than 15,000 people, of whom at least 6,000 were children. That's how many people Israel has reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip in a matter of weeks - and those numbers are still rising. Israel has bombed basic societal infrastructure and civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, shelters and refugee camps. Israel has imposed a siege, preventing food, medicine, water and fuel from reaching the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the occupied Gaza Strip, leading Oxfam to accuse Israel of employing starvation as a weapon of war".Dozens of United Nations experts have described the situation as a genocide in the making", hundreds of international scholars have warned of an unfolding genocide and prominent Israeli genocide expert Raz Segal has called it a textbook case of genocide". But most of the world, particularly the so-called global north, is looking the other way.This article was written by: Continue reading...
General Motors service faces $1.5m penalty over allegations it misled regulators after a driverless car ran into a pedestrianCalifornia regulators are alleging a San Francisco robotaxi service owned by General Motors covered up the severity of an accident involving one of its driverless cars, raising the specter they may add a fine to the recent suspension of its California license.The potential penalty facing GM's Cruise service could be around $1.5m, based on documents filed late last week by the California public utilities commission. Continue reading...
Suspect was charged in the fatal shootings of the three men and one suburban resident and also with residential robberyProsecutors have charged a Los Angeles man with four counts of murder in the fatal shootings of three men who were unhoused in the city and a suburban resident last month.Jerrid Joseph Powell was also charged with one count of residential robbery and one count of being a felon with a firearm, the Los Angeles county district attorney's office said in a statement. He also faces special circumstances of committing multiple murders, murder in the course of a robbery, as well as personal use of a firearm allegations, the statement said. Continue reading...
Jaclyn Jackie' Elmquist disappeared on night of 30 November, and was found on Friday in a Manhattan building's trash compactorA 24-year-old woman who had gone missing before her body was found in a luxury Manhattan apartment building's trash compactor died after falling down a garbage chute, police in New York City have concluded.The police's determination comes after mystery surrounded the disappearance of Jaclyn Jackie" Elmquist, who disappeared after meeting with co-workers at a nearby restaurant on the night of 30 November. She was found on Friday in the basement trash compactor at +Art, a residential building in the city's Chelsea district. Continue reading...
Republican governor of North Dakota had launched his campaign in June touting economy, energy and national security concernsDoug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday despite a stronger-than-expected showing fueled by a gift card-for-campaign donation gimmick that helped get him on the debate stage.Burgum, a second-term governor and wealthy software entrepreneur, was little known nationally when he launched his 2024 presidential campaign in June, touting his priorities of energy, the economy and national security, as well as his small-town roots and leadership of the sparsely populated state. Continue reading...
Executive committee rejects banning members who espouse or tolerate antisemitism' and deny Holocaust, arguing clause is vagueMembers of Texas's Republican party are free to associate with Nazi sympathizers without worries of violating internal policy after they held a vote on Saturday.In a 32-29 vote, the party's executive committee decided against excluding from their organization those known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial". A proposal to ban such individuals was included in a resolution supporting Israel as it wars with Hamas in Gaza. Continue reading...
As Israel pursues Hamas, the horrifying cost to civilians demands our attention. The ramifications don't end thereWe cannot and must not look away from what is happening in Gaza. Half its population was forced from the north by merciless bombardment; now the Israel Defense Forces' attacks upon the south have intensified and dozens of tanks have entered. Adults and children alike anticipate their deaths. More than 15,900 people in Gaza have been killed already, the vast majority of them women and children, according to Palestinian officials. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has directed the military to act with increasing force" in its pursuit of Hamas, this time facing an even larger, denser population in even more desperate circumstances.The IDF says its concern for civilians is evinced by its evacuation orders. Given the lack of power and connectivity, even the most assiduous would struggle to keep up with complex and fast-changing instructions - and this is a hungry, exhausted, grieving and traumatised population, many of whom have already moved multiple times. In any case, there is nowhere to go: Safe places have no water, no sanitation, are often not safe anyway ... They are not safe in hospitals, they are not safe in shelters," JamesElder, a Unicef spokesperson, said on Monday.Do 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...
About 29,000 workers of the California Faculty Association are on strike as disparity between admin and professor pay increasesCalifornia State University faculty at four campuses went on strike on Monday to demand higher pay and expanded parental leave for thousands of workers at the largest public university system in the US.The California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 workers, is staging one-day work stoppages at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; San Francisco State University; California State University, Los Angeles and California State University, Sacramento. Continue reading...
Since being expelled from Congress, Santos has joined website that offers access to celebrities available to give a personalized messageGeorge Santos wasted no time seeking a new income stream since being expelled from Congress on Friday, adding his name and availability as former congressional Icon'!" to the website Cameo, a website that offers access to thousands of celebrities for request of a personalized video message for any occasion".It was not clear early on Monday if the George Santos" on Cameo was genuine. The congressional office for New York's district three had no information, and requests for confirmation from Cameo were not returned. However, Santos himself added the link to his supposed Cameo page to his Twitter/X biography. Continue reading...
Kelsey Carpenter was jailed while mourning her loss: I don't want others to experience what was the worst experience of my life'California prosecutors have dismissed a murder charge against a woman who was facing life in prison after her newborn died in a home birth, resolving a case that sparked national outrage.Kelsey Carpenter, 34, was arrested in November 2020 for child endangerment after she gave birth at home and called 911 when her baby did not survive. Although the county coroner deemed the death an accident", and state law prohibits the prosecution of women for pregnancy losses, the San Diego district attorney, Summer Stephan, charged her with murder with malice". Continue reading...
Deputy press secretary says protest at Goldie, owned by American Israeli chef Michael Solomonov, completely unjustifiable'The White House has condemned events outside an Israeli-style falafel shop in Philadelphia that became the focus of marchers at a Flood Philly for Gaza" rally who chanted, You can't hide, we charge you with genocide" on Sunday.It was antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy", said the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates. Continue reading...
Attorney general alleges one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations' of US government by foreign agentThe US government charged a former diplomat who served on the national security council in the 1990s with secretly serving as an agent of Cuba's government for more than 40 years.Victor Manuel Rocha was arrested on Friday, following a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation. The US ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, Rocha also worked on the national security council from 1994 to 1995. He is charged with committing multiple federal crimes. Continue reading...
Keir Starmer is just the latest politician to invoke the former Tory prime minister, even though her essential message was that society was for losersAnother day, another British political wannabe making remarks about Margaret Thatcher that you can only file under: Did you ever meet Thatcher? Fine, most of us did not meet her, but did you ever meet anyone who was alive under Thatcher?"To Liz Truss and free market fundamentalists everywhere, channelling Thatcher means forging ahead against all expertise, making dumb and predictably immiserating decisions, then turning round when things go wrong and saying that it is everybody else's fault that you couldn't vandalise hard enough. Continue reading...
Former Republican congresswoman says she would prefer Democrats to win in 2024 as own party has abandoned constitutionLiz Cheney, whose opposition to Donald Trump's presidency alienated her from her fellow Republicans, has said she would prefer Democrats to win in the 2024 elections over members of her own party because she feared the US was sleepwalking into dictatorship".In an interview with CBS on Sunday, Cheney suggested a Republican congressional majority that would be subservient to another Trump White House presented a tangible threat" to American democracy. Continue reading...
Sultan Al Jaber's claim that green policies damage economic growth is wrong and highly damagingFor months Sultan Al Jaber, the president of the Cop28 climate negotiations in Dubai, has been insisting that there is no conflict with his day job, chief executive of the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) state oil company.Instead, he argued, the dual role enabled him to persuade fossil fuel companies to change. And some early successes in the talks provided some credibility to that claim.Geoffrey Lean is a specialist environment correspondent and authorCop28: Can fossil fuel companies transition to clean energy?
Aircraft crashed last week off south-western Japan carrying eight American personnel on training missionUS and Japanese divers have discovered wreckage and remains of five crew members from a US air force Osprey aircraft that crashed last week off south-western Japan, the air force announced on Monday.The CV-22 Osprey carrying eight American personnel crashed last Wednesday off Yakushima island during a training mission. The body of one victim was recovered and identified earlier. Continue reading...
High-ranking members of police department using encrypted phone app to communicate about project amid public concernHigh-ranking members of Atlanta's police department have been using Signal, an encrypted phone app, to communicate about the controversial police and fire department training center known as Cop City" - to each other, to other police departments and to companies involved in building the project, the Guardian has learned.The department's move to Signal occurred some time earlier this year, after several years of public outcry about a lack of transparency regarding the project on such basic issues as cost and environmental impact. It appears the department began using the app around the same time multiple police agencies entered a forested public park where protesters were camped - about a mile from the planned Cop City" site - on 18 January, resulting in state troopers shooting and killing Manuel Paez Teran, AKA Tortuguita". Continue reading...
Trump is broadcasting his plans in advance - and, if elected, he'll claim he has a mandate to accrue power and exact retributionThe best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Plenty of observers seem to think that's all one needs to know as one beholds Donald Trump's seemingly inevitable Republican nomination for president and possible second term. They assume that because it wasn't fascism the first time, it cannot be fascism the second time; Trump is expected once more to be the bumbling, blustering buffoon, supervised by adults in the room.This relaxed view ignores that, with today's pioneers of autocracy, things tend to only get really bad when they enter office the second time. The difference with Trump is not that he would leave democracy intact; the difference is that figures like far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban or Polish strongman Jarosaw Kaczyski carefully hid their authoritarian plans. Trump, by contrast, is broadcasting everything in advance - and, if elected, will claim that he has a mandate to exact retribution and occupy the White House permanently.Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of politics at Princeton University. He is also a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Senate adds Black voting-age residents to sixth district in redrawn map, but cuts Lucy McBath's district out from under herLast month, US district judge Steve Jones ordered Georgia to redraw its legislative maps in a 516-page order - requiring the Republican-controlled state senate to create a new Black-majority district.The senate responded Friday afternoon with a redrawn congressional map that added hundreds of thousands of Black voting-age residents to Georgia's sixth district, currently held by Republican Rich McCormick. Continue reading...
An inveterate grammarian, Kirby is pushing Biden's support of Israel even as Biden makes amends with Arab AmericansJohn Kirby, the story goes, once used the military discipline that helped propel him to admiral rank in the US navy to launch a rhetorical war on behalf of the English language.As the navy's chief information officer, Kirby bluntly advised underlings in his department to kick their supposed addiction to technical jargon and learn a second language: English", according to a 2014 profile in Politico. Continue reading...
After I became a mother, I just couldn't listen to the demeaning tracks of artists such as Eminem, Lil Jon and Busta RhymesDuring my final year of university, I remember hanging out with friends by a lake one summer. One friend set up his new hookah pipe as a dozen of us settled on a picnic mat, preparing for a laidback evening of good conversation and music. I offered up my iPod to the friend-of-a-friend who had a portable speaker and was controlling the music. But as she scrolled through my music library, the mood soured; she looked at me aghast, berating me for my choice of un-feminist" music.One by one, she read out the titles of songs by Eamon, Busta Rhymes and other artists whose names I can no longer remember, who rapped profanities that I no longer feel comfortable typing on my keyboard, disgusted. As a woman, I shouldn't be listening to such music, she told me.
Crystal lauded alongside Dionne Warwick, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah and Renee Fleming at annual ceremonyWhite-haired Robert De Niro, 80, looked up at white-haired Billy Crystal in the balcony. You're only 75," he said mischievously. That means you're just about six years away from being the perfect age to be elected president."Joe Biden, 81, sitting a few seats away from Crystal, grinned and jokingly wagged his finger at De Niro. The audience at the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night roared, rose to its feet, turned to look at the US president and applauded and whooped for a full 30 seconds. Continue reading...
San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit and Dallas are well ahead of their conference opponents. They all have strong cases for making the Super BowlIt now looks like a four-team battle to see who emerges as victor in the NFC championship game after the San Francisco 49ers' 42-19 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Which of the teams is most likely to make it to the Super Bowl though?1) San Francisco 49ers (9-3, 1st place NFC West) Continue reading...
Jon Rahm has been linked to a LIV Golf deal worth nine figures while Rory McIlroy just earned 12m for his popularityThe trouble with Pointless answers is that you never meet any of the 100 people surveyed for each one. Still, the quizshow probably presents as valid an insight into the attitude of the British public as anything else in these zany times.A few weeks ago, Alexander Armstrong flashed up famous faces with names relating to flowers. What happened next was rather galling for those who want golf to capture hearts and minds. Continue reading...
He's avoiding complacency, but there's little point chasing diehard Tories. Focus on offering everyone else real changeThe Labour party's relentless pursuit of Tory switchers is in danger of backfiring badly. Keir Starmer's praise of Margaret Thatcher in the Sunday Telegraph is a double danger - it wins over no wavering voters but risks losing the goodwill of a wide range of his supporters, old and new.The tactic of a foray into enemy territory" is understandable. Labour's turnaround from losing to a landslide in 2019 to being poised for its own landslide at the next election has been so fast it is in danger of causing political whiplash. But praising Thatcher, however mildly expressed and highly qualified, is a strategic misstep. Continue reading...
The focus on individual choices has left us frustrated. Now an EU-led climate club' is our best hope of systemic actionSomething flipped last summer in both the visibility of the climate crisis and in the space the media devotes to it. Apparently, all it took was for the air to turn orange and unbreathable above Wall Street and for smoke to smother holidaymakers in Greece.And yet, despite the fact that the conversation finally feels like it is approaching the level of ubiquitousness that the crisis merits, the solutions being proposed leave me deflated. And that's not merely because of the lunatic hypocrisy of holding the Cop28 in Dubai, where it will be presided over by the CEO of the world's 12th-largest fossil-fuel company.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian columnist. He is a France-based writer and an adjunct lecturer at Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies Continue reading...
When you're hoping to be pregnant, the arrival of your period calls for a condolence card, a sunrise walk - or a good screamI am currently having my 10th unwanted period in a row. There are all sorts of reasons a period might be unwanted: you are on a long train journey; you had a period two weeks ago; you are camping; it's your wedding day, you are wearing white and Don't Stop Me Now has just come on across the dancefloor. In this case, however, I had hoped to be pregnant.When it comes to unwanted periods - particularly the ones that remind you that your womb is made like an outbuilding or a shed - I would like to see some better rituals. Better cards. Better parties. A friend could arrive at your house with a box of eggs and take you to the nearest wood or car park, where you could spend a cathartic 10 minutes throwing the eggs at a wall, or a tree trunk, or the ground, while screaming. Continue reading...
The frenzied debate about record levels' of net migration ignores the true cause of it allThe headline, now increasing in pitch, capital letters and exclamation marks, is that net migration is off the charts. It is soaring. It is at an all-time high. So high that we ask, how did it come to this? The answer is, it came to this predictably and, in fact, inevitably. The way immigration numbers are reported is a sort of classification error, one forced by the overriding, unquestioned presumption that immigration is bad, that it must come down, and that politicians are in some duel with hordes" of immigrants who are making their way into the country, managing somehow to vanquish one of the harshest immigration systems in the world.More accurate headlines might be UK skilled worker shortage intensifies", Loss of European Union research funding renders British universities increasingly dependent on overseas students", Business leaders call for expansion of shortage occupations due to post-Brexit recruitment challenges", or Funding cuts to nurse training result in staffing crisis". Because these apparently vexingly high numbers are, to a large extent, the outcome of economic and political decisions that mean we invite immigrants to fill labour gaps that policymakers either did not anticipate, or ignored warnings about. Continue reading...
Manuel Rocha, 73, who once served as ambassador to Bolivia, is accused of working to promote the Cuban government's interestsA former American diplomat who served as US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba's government, the Associated Press has learned.Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint and more details about the case are expected to be made public at a court appearance Monday, said two people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing federal investigation. Continue reading...
Deal for $1.9bn, which includes $900m in Hawaiian Airlines debt, would keep both airlines' brandsAlaska Airlines said Sunday it agreed to buy Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9bn deal, including debt, putting it on track for a potential clash with a Biden administration that has shown wariness about higher fares in the industry.The combined company would keep both airlines' brands, rooted in the nation's 49th and 50th states. Alaska will pay $18 in cash for each share of Hawaiian, whose stock closed Friday at $4.86 after losing just over half its value in the year so far. Continue reading...
Analysis of in-custody deaths show mortality rates were more than three times the increase in general population in 2020A study of US prison deaths at the height of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 has found that mortality rates soared by 77% relative to 2019, or more than three times the increase in the general population.The study, published by Science Advances last week, is the most comprehensive analysis of in-custody deaths since 2020. The report found that Covid-19 was the primary driver for increases in mortality due to natural causes; some states also experienced substantial increases due to unnatural causes." Continue reading...
News that the book The Fabulist will be adapted into film comes after congressman was expelled last weekA book about the improbable rise and rapid fall of former congressman George Santos has been optioned by HBO Films, it was reported Saturday, and will be produced under the guidance of Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist known for executive production credits on Emmy awards-winning Succession and Veep.HBO reportedly optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano's The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, published last week. Continue reading...
Nearly four months after the deadly wildfires, Lahaina's youngest residents still face displacement, housing insecurity and lingering traumaWhen the destructive summer blaze swept across Lahaina, in west Maui, Maryann Kobatake's nephew helped ferry a friend's grandmother and cousins to safety. On the drive out of a burning Front Street, the town's main thoroughfare, she said the 18-year-old heard screams and witnessed carnage that haunts him still.He has not discussed what he's seen with her or other family members. I don't think he wants to relive it by talking," she said, adding that she's tried to get him to open up to her. Because he's had it tough in life, I think that's just how he copes with it." Continue reading...
Twenty-year-old Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, his family saysOne of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Vermont last month is paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, the student's family said.Hisham Awartani, a 20-year-old student at Brown University who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was walking with two friends near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on 25 November when, police say, 48-year-old Jason Eaton shot them with a handgun in a suspected hate crime. Eaton has pleaded not guilty. Continue reading...
Warnings that president stance on the war risks losing support of community in states critical to his chances for re-electionMuslim community leaders gathered on Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, to protest President Biden's refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, reiterating that the president's stance could affect his support in crucial swing states next year.Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Biden's unwillingness to call for a ceasefire had damaged his relationship with the American-Muslim community beyond repair. (Cair-Minnesota is not involved in his work on the Abandon Biden effort, which the organization said Hussein is doing in his personal capacity.) Continue reading...
The pain of those on the other side of the Rafah border is keenly felt: we know that their rights are inseparable from our ownOn the steps of the journalists' union in Downtown Cairo last Thursday evening, a woman held up a poster that showed eight babies: four parcelled up into small, green packages, four in just their nappies. Dead, all dead. The woman next to her held her own precious baby tight and jumped and stamped as we called out: Open up the Rafah border!" There were maybe 100 of us.A hundred people sounds like nothing compared with the multiples of thousands marching in cities across the world. But in Egypt, protests were outlawed in November 2013; 57 people who took part in protests after 7 October are currently in detention pending investigation. Everyone on the steps was demonstrating for Gaza and at the same time making a claim for the right to protest, their chants amplifying what you constantly hear in homes and on streets.Ahdaf Soueif is the author of Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common GroundDo 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 former president is proud of appointing the supreme court justices who overturned the right to abortion - now the issue is a vote loser for RepublicansA few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking very inarticulately" on abortion. And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a moderate" on abortion, Rolling Stone reported this week - even though he's currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself the most pro-life president ever". It's a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the supreme court not only handed the nation's highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer 2022. Continue reading...
From camping to yoga to dining, these leaders have a common goal: connecting historically marginalized communitiesAfter traversing the summit of Mount Whitney in the eastern sector of California's Sequoia national park, Michael Washington pitches his tent, looks across the forest terrain and preps for a frosty night before his trek through 10ft of snow the following day. As the sun pierces the veil of fog obstructing their view of the great Sierra Nevada, Washington and a group of travelers embark on a climb of a lifetime".In Los Angeles, where dreamers congregate and entrepreneurial spirits thrive, building community is as actionable as it is a necessity. The growing consciousness about the state of people's mental health arose post-pandemic, specifically for communities of color as the nation grappled with a racial reckoning that has yet to provide equality. Leaders such as Washington are uplifting and making the overall health and wellness of people of color a priority. The Guardian connected with four Black founders of three organizations who have affected the cultural DNA of Los Angeles by creating movement towards interconnectedness and finding community through healing. Continue reading...
The show needs to return to its original recipe: focus on the triumphs, not the mishaps, and keep the bakes accessibleUtter the words bin-gate" and you would be hard pressed to find any Great British Bake Off fan who wouldn't go misty-eyed. Ingrained in our collective consciousness is 2014 contestant Iain Watters' baked alaska-fuelled tantrum, resulting in the iconic presentation of a bin to judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood in place of his showstopper.Iconic moments have been in plentiful supply since The Great British Bake Off's inception in 2010: Sue Perkins' elbow inadvertently sabotaging a contestant; the Great Custard Robbery of 2013; Nadiya Hussain's empowering winner's speech. Continue reading...
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