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Updated 2024-11-30 01:45
Deadly storms and flooding wreak havoc across California – in pictures
A relentless parade of atmospheric rivers is battering the whole state – and more storms are expected this week Continue reading...
Walmart cashier, 82, finally able to retire after wellwishers’ fundraising effort
Navy veteran Warren ‘Butch’ Marion plans to pay off house and visit family after businessman raises $100,000 on social mediaA Walmart cashier in his 80s, one of scores of Americans forced to continue working into old age, has been able to retire thanks to a collective act of kindness.Warren “Butch” Marion, 82, a US navy veteran from Maryland, got the surprise of a lifetime when he received a check for more than $100,000 after a local business owner, Roy McCarty, organized a collection online. Continue reading...
US justice department investigating papers stored at Biden’s former institute
Classified documents found by president’s personal lawyers while closing out office at UPenn’s Biden Center for DiplomacyThe US justice department is investigating a number of documents bearing highly sensitive classified markings stored at Joe Biden’s former institute in Washington from his time as vice-president in the Obama administration, the White House acknowledged in a statement on Monday.The documents were found by Biden’s personal lawyers at the start of November when they closed out office space at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy, a thinktank where he was an honorary professor until 2019. Continue reading...
Lynette Hardaway, half of conservative duo Diamond and Silk, dies aged 51
Donald Trump pays tribute to Hardaway who formed political commentary team with her sister Rochelle RichardsonLynette Hardaway, the conservative commentator known as Diamond who formed half of the pro-Donald Trump entertainment duo Diamond and Silk, has died at the age of 51.Hardaway’s death was announced via the duo’s social media pages on Monday. Continue reading...
Trump call to ‘play tough’ on debt ceiling stokes fears of chaotic Congress
New House rules package sets up showdown on federal debt limit with Republicans expected to push for deep spending cutsFollowing the passage of a new House rules package on Monday and with Donald Trump urging House Republicans to “play tough” on raising the federal debt limit, Democrats are warning of a chaotic 118th Congress that could see the government cease to function normally.The rules package passed the House under the Republican party’s slim majority by a 220-213 vote. A single Republican, Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, voted against the package, as did all Democrats. Continue reading...
‘Stop the Steal’ campaign founder’s Twitter account reinstated
Ali Alexander, who originated campaign based on lie that inspired the January 6 attack, was banned on 10 January 2021The founder of the campaign that promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump has had his Twitter account reinstated.Ali Alexander, who originated the “Stop the Steal” campaign that inspired the January 6 insurrection, was permanently banned from Twitter on 10 January following the Capitol riot. Continue reading...
Allen Weisselberg, Trump Organization CFO, to be sentenced for tax crimes
Senior Trump adviser expected to be sentenced to five months at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complexAllen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump ’s real estate empire whose testimony helped convict the former president’s company of tax fraud, is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for dodging taxes on $1.7m in job perks.New York judge Juan Manuel Merchan is expected to sentence Weisselberg, a senior Trump Organization adviser and former chief financial officer, to five months in jail, in keeping with a plea agreement reached in August. Continue reading...
Thousands ordered to evacuate as deadly rainstorm causes heavy floods in California – video
Heavy floods continued to affect California on Monday after a deluge of rain left areas almost totally submerged. An estimated 10,000 people around the Montecito, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz areas were given evacuation orders as more rain was forecast. In footage taken on Monday, people could be seen wading through waist-deep water. Tens of thousands of people have been left without power and 12 people have died as a result of violent weather over the past 10 days. Ellen Degeneres, one of several celebrities who live in Montecito, posted a video calling for nature to be treated better
The US must decide what ‘victory’ means in Ukraine – or waste even more lives there | Frank Ledwidge
Its support is critical to the conflict, but the US is failing to learn the lessons of its sprawling wars in Iraq and AfghanistanThe just and necessary fight for Ukraine places recent disastrous wars of choice such as Iraq and Afghanistan into the squalid context they deserve. However, there are disturbing signs that western policymakers have not learned the most vital lesson of those conflicts – the necessity for clear objectives and an unambiguous strategy for success.It may seem obvious, but it bears restating that this is a military campaign, and when it comes to military support the US is, if not the only player, by far the most significant. As matters stand the US has failed to articulate its war aims. We hear plenty about what the US “supports”, such as “Ukraine’s territorial integrity”. The US supports many things: human rights, democratic processes and so forth. These are not the same as its war aims. Nato’s aims in the Kosovo war of 1999, for example, were clear: Serbian forces out of Kosovo; a peacekeeping force and international civilian administration deployed; and a return of refugees. The objectives of the Gulf war of 1991 were even simpler: to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It is worth remembering, and not coincidental, that these were the west’s last successful military campaigns. Continue reading...
I bought my own home last year. But I now have big regrets | Arwa Mahdawi
There is immense pressure to buy a place – and to do so is obviously a massive privilege. So why does homeownership seem so overrated?Here are a few things that I have Googled in the nine months or so since I bought a Victorian terrace home in Philadelphia:Does a crack in the lintel mean my house is going to collapse?Ways to tell if your house is about to fall downHow to tell if your pipes are frozen and are going to burstCan you die of asbestos poisoning by accidentally breathing in lots of dust while sticking your head into a hole in the wall to check if your pipes are frozen?Is buying a house a terrible idea even though everyone tells you it’s the pinnacle of adulthood and what everyone should aspire to? Continue reading...
It’s Prince Harry in One Flew Over The Windsors’ Nest. Just pity those he left behind | Marina Hyde
The book is out and as the royal gone awol speaks his truth, you have to ask: if this is Britain’s first family, what are the others like?Day 127 of J.Crew Hamlet and Prince Harry’s memoir has finally dropped. It needed to. I feel like I’ve had babies I’ve been less organised for than this particular arrival. There have, it is fair to say, been one or two thousand pre-publication spoilers for Spare, each of which a lot of people have consumed without really meaning to. There’s something about it having all taken place over the turn of the year that reminds you of eating nothing but Christmas food for days and days and days. After about a week of it, you do find yourself screaming: “I never want to see this stuff again! Can we please, PLEASE have a Chinese or a curry?” That said, I do still have one box of mince pies and one royal tell-all left, and I think we both know I’m going to get through them. It’s called duty – look it up.Anyway, on to the reaction. As I type this, Harry’s entire home of Montecito is under evacuation amid floods some will no doubt choose to see as biblical. We can only guess how the book has gone down in Windsor Elsinore. Some judge that Harry has opened a hail of literary gunfire on a royal family whose courtiers constantly emphasise are limited in the ways they can fight back. Maybe this is a metaphor. As one of the more eye-catching passages of Prince Harry’s book reveals, during the conflict in Afghanistan he killed 25 Taliban fighters out of his $50m helicopter, a form of warfare which even the most committed Taliban-loathers among us always had to admit was a bit asymmetric. Then again, the Taliban won in the end, so we should certainly consider the possibility that the monarchy will be the last ones standing in the rubble when Harry’s barrage ends. Continue reading...
Donkeys, a neglected animal, are having a moment – and they deserve it | Maeve Higgins
They might seem like creatures who plod along thoughtlessly, but people who care for them know betterDonkeys are having a moment, not that they care. The sturdy creatures, famous for their stoicism, are screen sirens now. Donkeys have starring roles in two of the most celebrated films released this year: British-Irish director Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin and Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO, which premiered at Cannes and took home the jury prize.Skolimowski cast a donkey, not the most elegant of equines, as his lead after coming across one and being taken by the liquid beauty of his eyes. In an interview with NPR, he said: “What struck me was the size of his eyes and a specific melancholic expression of those eyes, which I thought could be read as a comment on every situation the donkey would find himself in. And then, by cutting to these enormous eyes, one at least could imagine what was going on in the donkey’s head.” Continue reading...
I once ran Human Rights Watch. Harvard blocked my fellowship over Israel | Kenneth Roth
I was told that my fellowship at the Kennedy School was vetoed over my and Human Rights Watch’s criticism of IsraelDuring the three decades that I headed Human Rights Watch, I recognized that we would never attract donors who wanted to exempt their favorite country from the objective application of international human rights principles. That is the price of respecting principles.Yet American universities have not articulated a similar rule, and it is unclear whether they follow one. That lack of clarity leaves the impression that major donors might use their contributions to block criticism of certain topics, in violation of academic freedom. Or even that university administrators might anticipate possible donor objections to a faculty member’s views before anyone has to say anything. Continue reading...
The many similarities between Brazilian politics and the United States | Moira Donegan
Politics watchers tend to look at Europe for analogies to our history, but our hemispheric neighbors share more of our foundational pathologiesAmerican politics-watchers tend to look across the Atlantic, to Europe, for analogies to our own history. But the better analogy has never been to the US’s east, but to our south, in the Latin American democracies. It is those countries – our hemispheric neighbors – that share more of the US’s foundational pathologies.Like us, they were founded on early violence that casts long shadows over our subsequent attempts at equality and pluralism: chattel slavery and the dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples. Like us, they are host to racially and religiously heterogenous populations, aspiring to national projects based not so much in shared ethnic identity as in shared ideals. And like us, these Latin American nations have an authoritarian streak, one that has historically been encouraged, both tacitly and explicitly, by the US itself. Continue reading...
Group aiming to sabotage Whitmer’s Covid policies funded by dark money
Non-profit affiliated with utility DTE Energy funded effort to repeal Michigan governor’s emergency order powersA dark money non-profit linked to power utility DTE Energy funded a group behind the effort to repeal the emergency order powers of Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and end the state’s Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.Internal Revenue Service records revealing a $100,000 donation made in 2020 were not publicly available until late 2021, and show the funds were contributed to another dark money non-profit that served as a primary funder of the Unlock Michigan repeal campaign. Continue reading...
Democrats decry new House rules as a ‘ransom note to America’ | First Thing
Partisan lines divided the vote on rules, with no Democrats voting for them and only one Republican voting against. Plus, how US state agencies got funnyGood morning.The Republican-led US House of Representatives yesterday adopted a package of internal rules that give rightwing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.What do the Democrats say is wrong with the package of rules? Democrats denounced the legislation as a rules package for “Maga extremists” that would favor wealthy corporations over workers, undermine congressional ethics standards and lead to further restrictions on abortion services.What else is going on? The rapper Dr Dre has spoken out against the use of his song Still DRE in a self-promotional video by the Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to celebrate her role in electing fellow GOP lawmaker Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. “I don’t license my music to politicians, especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one,” he said.Why is Biden in the news regarding classified documents? The US justice department is investigating a number of documents bearing highly sensitive classified markings stored at Joe Biden’s former institute in Washington DC from his time as vice-president in the Obama administration, the White House acknowledged in a statement yesterday. Continue reading...
Games Workshop and Hornby report sales rise but warn over economy
Warhammer achieves record sales of £200m in half-year but says figures for US are flatThe two companies behind Warhammer miniature figures and Scalextric racing sets have enjoyed a good Christmas, while warning about the impact of the cost of living crisis.Games Workshop – which last month struck a deal with Amazon to create a series based on Warhammer – achieved record sales of more than £200m in the six months to 31 December, its first half. Continue reading...
The $1.1bn US jackpot: everything you need to know about the mega drawing
Why have there been so many $1bn jackpots recently? And how much do you actually win?Millions of Americans are purchasing lottery tickets for the chance to nab the Mega Millions $1.1bn jackpot, the drawing for which takes place on Tuesday night.If you are getting deja vu looking at the US headlines about the billion-dollar jackpot, it is not just you: this is the third billion-dollar jackpot in the last six months. Continue reading...
DoJ seeks to question Trump team that found more classified documents
Government recently persuaded judge to force Trump lawyers to turn over names of people who searched for retained documentsThe US Department of Justice is intensifying its investigation of Donald Trump’s unauthorized retention of national security materials at Mar-a-Lago as it prepares to question the people who searched the former president’s Florida properties at the end of last year and found more documents with classified markings.The department was given a general explanation from Trump’s lawyers at the time about who conducted the search – a company known to Trump with experience handling classified records cases – when the new documents marked as classified were returned to the government around Thanksgiving last year. Continue reading...
No fight or warning before six-year-old boy shot teacher, say Virginia police
Police chief gives first detailed description of last week’s classroom shooting that has shocked USThe shooting of a Virginia teacher by a six-year-old boy in her classroom last week happened without warning, and with no fight or physical struggle, authorities have said.“What we know today is that she was providing instruction. He displayed a firearm, he pointed it and he fired one round,” said the Newport News police chief, Steve Drew. Continue reading...
‘I make it miserable for them’: TJ McConnell and the art of the NBA pest
The Indiana Pacers guard is the latest in a long line of players dedicated to making life as uncomfortable as possible for their opponentsTJ McConnell, a 6ft 1in backup point guard for the Indiana Pacers, welcomes the pressure.“Where I’m from,” McConnell tells the Guardian ahead of his team’s late December matchup (and eventual win) against the Boston Celtics, “the NBA isn’t a possibility for most guys. It’s been a crazy ride.” Continue reading...
Republican George Santos faces campaign finance complaint
Controversial newly elected congressman who appears to have made up most of his résumé is subject of FEC complaintThe newly sworn-in Republican congressman George Santos, whose campaign résumé has been shown to be largely made-up, is the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.The complaint concerning the New York representative was filed with the FEC on Monday by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog group. Continue reading...
Ex-secretary of state George Shultz was besotted by Theranos fraudster Holmes, book says
He was either ‘corrupt’, ‘in love’ or had ‘completely lost’ his mental edge, says grandson who blew whistle on Holmes’s schemeFormer US secretary of state George Shultz’s support for Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent blood testing company, Theranos, which devastated his family and caused a bitter feud with his grandson, receives fresh scrutiny in a biography published on Tuesday.Shultz was Ronald Reagan’s top diplomat at the end of the cold war. Before that, he was secretary of the treasury and secretary of labor under Richard Nixon. He is now the subject of In the Nation’s Service, written by Philip Taubman, a former New York Times reporter. Continue reading...
Georgia lay waste to TCU to repeat as college football national champions
Federal prosecutors subpoena Giuliani over Trump campaign payments
The order, issued in November, also asks the former mayor to provide testimonyRudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who helped to amplify Donald Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors seeking documents about payments he received from Trump or his presidential campaign, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.The subpoena, which was issued in November, also asks Giuliani to provide testimony, said the person, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Continue reading...
Prince Harry is upset his brother didn’t like his beard. They may be royals but the petty sibling grievances are all too familiar | Bridie Jabour
Harry and Meghan are just another ultra-rich, out-of-touch couple but even the most privileged face the ordinary suffering of growing upIn the inescapable story that is Harry v William, what is most striking is how petty some of the grievances sound.Prince Harry is upset his brother didn’t like his beard. Continue reading...
Several California counties ordered to evacuate as deadly storm weathers on
Communities including in celebrity enclave of Montecito, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz told to evacuate as more rain is expectedA series of deadly and destructive storms continued to hammer California on Monday, as the drought-stricken state grapples with the sudden onslaught of a very wet January.Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for California on Sunday, unlocking federal aid to support recovery as mud slides, engorged rivers and streams, and wind-strewn trees wreaked havoc on already-inundated infrastructure across the state. The California department of water resources warned that more than a dozen places were at high risk of flooding. Continue reading...
House passes rules package – as it happened
This blog is now closed. You can read our main story on the rules package here.The Guardian’s Kira Lerner reports that the GOP has been waging a legal assault on voting nationwide, with more lawsuits aimed at restricting ballot box access filed last year than ever before:The Republican party filed a record number of anti-voting lawsuits in 2022, a sign that they are shifting the battle over voting access and election administration to courtrooms in addition to state legislatures. Continue reading...
House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its members
Incoming majority also created new special subcommittee to investigate justice department and intelligence agenciesHouse Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year.The incoming Republican majority also paved the way for a new special subcommittee with a wide mandate to investigate the US justice department and intelligence agencies, which could include reviewing the criminal probes into Donald Trump and a Republican congressman caught up in the Capitol attack inquiry. Continue reading...
More than 7,000 nurses go on strike at two New York City hospitals
Nurses walked off the job at the Mount Sinai and Montefiore medical centers in Harlem and the Bronx over staffing issuesMore than 7,000 nurses at two New York City hospitals went on strike on Monday, saying their concerns around staffing issues had not been addressed by management.Talks failed on Sunday night. At 6am on Monday, nurses went on strike at Mount Sinai medical center on the Upper East Side and Montefiore medical center in the Bronx. Continue reading...
Four former NWSL coaches banned for life after abuse investigation
House adopts new rules Democrats decry as a ‘ransom note to America’
Partisan lines divided the vote on rules, with no Democrats voting for them and only one Republican voting againstThe Republican-led US House of Representatives on Monday adopted a package of internal rules that give rightwing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.Lawmakers voted 220-213 for the legislation, with only one Republican voting against. All 212 Democrats voted against the rules package, saying it was full of concessions to the right wing of the Republican party. Continue reading...
Joy of the playground defined Gareth Bale more than records or trophies
Wales forward retires with a glittering CV but it was his breathtaking style which truly set him apart from the restFor Gareth Bale, the pitch and the playground may as well have been the same thing. Watch back some of his greatest goals and you can almost glimpse the school tie flapping behind him as he runs, a battered sponge ball sticking to his feet, the cautious teacher carrying a tray of orange squash across the penalty area.Of course Bale always played to win. But in the 30-yard screamers and lightning bursts of speed, you can spot something else there too: a young man playing for the sake of playing, for the thrill of solving a new problem, playing to feel. What was the point in running unless you were going to do it as jaw-droppingly fast as possible? What was the point in taking a free-kick unless you were going to leather it into the top corner? And what was the point of being a footballer at all if you didn’t try these things? Continue reading...
Doctors ‘ecstatic’ at Damar Hamlin’s progress as player returns to Buffalo
Brazil capital attack complicates US relationship with Bolsonaro
The former Brazilian president has taken up residence in Florida, and some Democrats are calling for his visa to be revokedThe future of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida in his last days in office, is emerging as a potential diplomatic issue between Brazil and the US amid calls for his expulsion for inciting insurrection.Bolsonaro has distanced himself from the mob which stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasília, on Sunday, denying accusations from his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, that he had encouraged the rioters from the US. Continue reading...
Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes work
Fulton county district attorney to decide on any indictments after special grand jury heard from dozens of witnesses over six monthsThe special grand jury convened by prosecutors in Atlanta to investigate whether Donald Trump committed crimes in his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia has finished its work.Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney, who was overseeing the panel, issued an order on Monday that dissolved the special grand jury, after it completed a final report on its inquiries. Continue reading...
Arizona Cardinals make Kliff Kingsbury first victim of NFL’s Black Monday
Virginia teacher who was shot by six-year-old tried to confiscate gun – report
Abby Zwerner, 25, had life-threatening injuries but is now continuing to improve in hospitalThe Virginia school teacher shot by her six-year-old student was injured after she sought to confiscate the weapon from the child who had revealed the gun in class, a parent of another child in the class has said.Brittaney Gregory, whose son is in the same class as the shooter at Richneck elementary school in Newport News, Virginia, detailed her son’s reaction to the shocking scene to the Washington Post newspaper. Gregory said her son told her he that he felt like he couldn’t breathe when the gun was fired. Continue reading...
Former McDonald’s boss fined $400,000 over employee relationship
Shareholders were misled by Steve Easterbrook ‘concealing extent’ of his misconduct, says US regulatorThe former boss of McDonald’s, Steve Easterbrook, has been fined $400,000 (£328,000) by the US regulator for “concealing the extent of his misconduct” over a relationship with an employee.McDonald’s fired Easterbrook in 2019 after directors discovered he had been having a secret relationship with a senior female employee, which it said showed “poor judgment” and “violated company policy”. Continue reading...
Gareth Bale announces retirement from football: ‘I have realised my dream’
The pro-Bolsonaro ‘insurrection’ was pathetic – and, for now, has made President Lula stronger | Richard Lapper
The real threat from Brazil’s radical right is not from showy coup attempts, but from less deluded ultra-conservatives playing the long gameClad in canary yellow football shirts or draped in the colours of the Brazilian flag, pro-Bolsonaro activists applauded a line of heavily armed police as it marched into their midst in Brasília on Sunday.Hundreds of extreme rightwing followers had been gathering in Brazil’s modernist capital since late on Friday. On Sunday afternoon they breezed past security cordons and trashed the elegant buildings that host the country’s most important democratic institutions – the presidential palace, the supreme court and the two houses of congress. Now, surely, they seem to have thought, these police were moving in to help them secure control, overturn the alleged fraud that had deprived Jair Bolsonaro of a second term in office, and oust what they described as a leftwing dictatorship now in office.Richard Lapper is author of Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro Continue reading...
The Tories were never sorry about Windrush: Suella Braverman is the proof | Diane Abbott
The home secretary’s plan to ditch the recommendations of the Windrush review is shocking, but not surprisingThe home secretary, Suella Braverman, seems poised to dump almost all of the 30 recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned review. An announcement is due to be made this week that 28 of the 30 recommendations are being formally “closed”, even though several have not been completed.The Windrush scandal involved thousands of men and women, the earliest wave of postwar Caribbean migrants, suffering the trauma of being falsely accused of living in Britain illegally. As a result they were stripped of their entitlements as British citizens, detained, and even deported. In response to public outcry, the government commissioned a review led by the lawyer Wendy Williams. Last year she formally looked at progress since the original review. She found that only eight of her 30 recommendations had been fully implemented and that the Home Office had yet to implement the spirit of all her recommendations.Diane Abbott has been the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987Do 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.
Republicans filed record number of anti-voting lawsuits in 2022 – report
Efforts challenging election results and attacking voting rights peaked last year, but courts ruled against the majority of themThe Republican party filed a record number of anti-voting lawsuits in 2022, a sign it is shifting the battle over voting access and election administration to courtrooms as well as state legislatures.Last year, Republican party groups filed 23 democracy-related lawsuits, according to a new report by Democracy Docket, a progressive media platform that tracks voting litigation. The lawsuits included efforts to challenge election results, attacks on mail-in voting and attempts to undermine the administration of elections. The Democratic party, the report found, filed only six voting lawsuits in 2022 and all sought to protect or expand the right to vote. Continue reading...
Biden is throwing migrants under the bus to appease Republican fearmongering | Moustafa Bayoumi
The Biden administration criticizes conservatives as anti-immigrant – yet pursues policies not so different from Trump’sImagine for a moment you are a dissident citizen of Nicaragua. Forced out of bed in the middle of the night and hounded out of your homeland because of your political activities, you have been deprived of all chances to work, let alone live, in the country you’ve always called home. Your opposition to Daniel Ortega’s regime has put your life and your family’s lives in danger. You must find safety immediately.You know that, despite its long history of meddling in your country, the United States also has laws and traditions that enable people in your position to seek asylum. It may be far away, but the US is also the closest country where you believe you can truly feel safe. You must find a way there – any way at all – and it has to be quick.Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York Continue reading...
For better or worse, the pandemic seems slated to fade from our collective memory | Ross Barkan
9/11’s death toll was a fraction of Covid’s, but there will probably be no comparable memorial for the over 40,000 New Yorkers killed by the virusWhat will we remember of the plague years? It’s easy to project on to the future what we feel now, the memories of the suffering so visceral, the evidence of the reckoning clear enough. People still get sick and die from Covid. Signage lingers, warning of the defunct 6ft social distancing rule or the importance of hand-washing. Certain American cities and colleges maintain mandates for the Covid vaccine.More than a million Americans are dead, and their deaths, in the public imagination, were not created equal. In 2020, Covid deaths were a terror, and 100,000 of them were worthy of bellowing headlines on the front page of the New York Times. And then the body counts, for those not experiencing them directly, became more ordinary, the carnage a backdrop to another year.Ross Barkan is a writer based in New York Continue reading...
Congress must act to overhaul healthcare, minimum wage and education for US families | Bernie Sanders
Americans are united on some of the most important issues facing our country and they want government to address themI am proud to be assuming the chairmanship of the US Senate’s health, education, labor and pensions committee (Help), a committee with wide jurisdiction over some of the most important issues facing the American people. As I move into that position I’m thinking about how we can best address some of the serious challenges facing my fellow Vermonters and working families all across the country.Today, in terms of health, we have a dysfunctional healthcare system in which we spend the astronomical and unsustainable sum of nearly $13,000 for every man, woman and child, twice as much as most developed countries and almost 20% of our GDP. Yet, despite that huge expenditure, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and we have worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy than many other nations. While the insurance companies make huge profits, over 500,000 people declare bankruptcy each year from medically related debt, and over 68,000 die because they can’t afford the care they need. Our complicated and fragmented system is so broken that it cannot even produce the number of doctors, nurses, dentists and mental health personnel that we desperately need.Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress Continue reading...
Lula vows to punish Bolsonaro supporters who stormed congress | First Thing
President tours scene of riot and orders federal government to take control of policing in Brasília. Plus, the treasure hunt for £15m Nazi hoardGood morning.The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has toured the wreckage of his presidential palace after an extraordinary day of political violence in the capital, Brasília, during which thousands of far-right extremists ran riot through the country’s democratic institutions in a failed attempt to overthrow his week-old government.How did Bolsonaro respond to the attack? “Peaceful demonstrations, within the law, form part of democracy,” he tweeted. “However, depredations and invasions of public buildings like those that happened today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, are exceptions to the rule.”Where is he now? The former president flew out of Brazil on the eve of Lula’s inauguration and is currently in Florida. Some senior US lawmakers are calling for the far-right figure to be extradited from the US.What did Biden say when he met with members of border control and volunteers? The meetings took place with no press present aside from those watching at a distance. Biden answered a brief shouted question by promising more help for the border situation. “They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them,” he said. Continue reading...
‘It’s an instinct’: how Aussie punters took over US college football
A pair of Australian punters will take the field when TCU and Georgia meet in Monday’s national title game, exponents of what become one of college football’s most prolific pipelinesThe chant, a staple from American sports fans, started to rise from the stand during a college football game one Saturday afternoon in Iowa.“M-V-P! M-V-P!” Continue reading...
Goldman Sachs to start cutting up to 3,200 jobs this week
Redundancies expected to be concentrated in investment banking division and consumer armGoldman Sachs is expected to start one of the biggest rounds of redundancies in its history this week, with as many as 3,200 jobs to go as it looks to cut costs.The bank is expected to begin informing people that they will lose their jobs on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Late-era Aaron Rodgers couldn’t carry the Green Bay Packers into the playoffs
The stage was set for the Green Bay quarterback to pull off his usual heroics on Sunday night. But the old brilliance was notably absent when it mattered mostAs it should, the 18th and final weekend of the NFL regular season belonged to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, still in a Cincinnati hospital but in great spirits. But there were still 16 games to play, playoff berths to be earned, brackets to fill, six holes in the TV schedule to plug.The 271st and last game was played for high stakes on a rutted field and under the lights Sunday in frigid Green Bay, which all but guaranteed that Aaron Rodgers, the Packers’ 39-year-old quarterback and guiding light for ages, would help complete the big picture. Continue reading...
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