by Victoria Bekiempis and Associated Press on (#650M0)
Federal appeals court temporarily halts Biden’s cancellation of student debt after motion brought by six Republican-led statesThe Biden administration is urging student loan borrowers to continue applying for debt relief despite a federal appeals court order late on Friday that temporarily halted this program.“[This] temporary order does not prevent borrowers from applying for student debt relief,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement following the eighth circuit court of appeals’ temporary stay. Continue reading...
Women are consistently held to higher ethical standards than men, so the allegations about Corden’s nasty behavior likely won’t destroy himIt’s not been a terribly good week to be British, has it? It’s been pandemonium in the country itself and one of Britain’s more famous exports has been making a disgrace of himself. I speak of James Corden, of course. The comedian, an English immigrant in LA, has been making headlines for some egg-ceptionally mean-spirited behaviour. He turned up to eat at Balthazar, a fancy New York restaurant, and was nasty to the waitstaff, according to Balthazar’s owner, Keith McNally. In one incident he was extremely mean after he found a hair in his meal. In another he became apocalyptic because the staff got his wife’s order of an egg yolk omelet wrong. There was a little bit of egg white in it apparently and we can’t be having that can we? Continue reading...
by Carlisa N. Johnson in Atlanta, Georgia on (#650HM)
Unlimited challenges to eligibility and poorly trained poll workers cause frustration in key gubernatorial and US Senate contestsJennifer Jones, a Morehouse School of Medicine PhD student, showed up to her precinct in Fulton county, Georgia, on the second day of early voting for the midterm elections. She was excited to cast her ballot for her chosen candidates in the gubernatorial and Senate races, Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock. However, when she reached the check-in station at the polling site, she was informed that she would be unable to cast a regular ballot because her validity as a voter was challenged.“When I handed in my ID, the poll worker said I was being challenged,” said Jones. “They said I had to complete a provisional ballot, but I wasn’t really comfortable doing that, so I didn’t get to cast my ballot that day.” Continue reading...
Nevada has an acute shortage of affordable housing – but do Republicans or Democrats have practical answers to curb one of America’s most pressing issues?Claudia Lopez, 39, is worried for her children.As her curly haired seven-year-old daughter bounced around a play area inside El Mercado, a shopping center within the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas where the smell of arepas and tacos hovers over the shops, Lopez soaked in her day off from knocking on doors and talking to residents about the upcoming election. Continue reading...
Conservatives have long harnessed the extremist, far-right energies of their base to animate the partyIn the days and weeks after the attack on the Capitol, Republican leaders publicly acknowledged Donald Trump’s culpability. Last week’s January 6 hearings presented footage of House minority leader Kevin McCarthy declaring Trump should have “immediately denounced” the attack, and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell accusing Trump of ignoring his duty as president. It was a striking reminder that immediately after the insurrection, elected Republicans as well as some of Trump’s allies in the rightwing media were rattled by what had happened, uncertain of how to continue.But the moment quickly passed. January 6 obviously wasn’t enough for Republicans in Congress to actually impeach or for conservatives to break with Trump in any meaningful way. Instead, they closed ranks and rallied behind Trump: Republicans first acquitted him, then they started obstructing every attempt to hold him accountable, and now a majority of GOP candidates are running on the Big Lie, denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election. The few who broke with Trump have been fully marginalized or even ostracized from the party. Republicans did not come to see January 6 as the end of the line, the outrageous conclusion of the Trumpian experiment – they have come to see it as a blueprint: never concede an election, never accept defeat at the hands of what they see as a fundamentally “un-American” enemy. Continue reading...
The Just Stop Oil protest shocked the world, but we must take disruptive action on the climate crisis before it’s too lateTwo climate activists who threw soup on the protective glass covering of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting have captured the attention of the world. While some have ridiculed the activists, as a funder of climate activism, I am proud of the bigger conversation they have started.When I saw the video, my first reaction was shock. Throwing soup on a beloved painting was a desperate move. What could possibly motivate a young person to do such a thing? This is where we find ourselves after decades of mostly incremental activism which has brought us to the point of a collapsing planet, engulfed in flame and drought, and burning to the ground. Activists are trying everything they can to get our attention. How far is too far to get the attention of people in immediate danger? Continue reading...
Jess and Annie Nichol want to undo the harsh criminal laws passed after their sister was abducted: ‘We don’t want our pain to be used to punish anyone else’Annie Nichol was seven years old on 19 March 1994 when she was brought to the White House to talk to Bill Clinton.With a stuffed dolphin by her side, the girl spoke to the president about her 12-year-old sister, Polly Klaas, who had been abducted five months earlier from the family’s home in Petaluma, California, while Annie was sleeping nearby. Continue reading...
From abortion rights to climate action, the Minnesota congresswoman outlines the work ahead for DemocratsThe snow is already falling in Minnesota and with less than three weeks until election day, the priority for congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the state Democrats is getting people out to vote early before enthusiasm – and the temperature – dips.“The number one concern for a lot of people I am talking to is Roe – it’s reproductive rights,” Omar said. “There’s also concern about inflation and what that means for people. We’re seeing a lot of enthusiasm. I hope it holds … We can pay attention to the polls, but if we don’t get the people out to vote, nothing else matters.” Continue reading...
Nihilist, anarchist, idealist, troubled young transperson crying out for help: when a 22-year-old US military analyst leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents, everyone thought they knew why. They were wrong, she says. This is what really happenedChelsea Manning’s memoir opens like a Jason Bourne novel with a scene in which the then 22-year-old, on the last day of two weeks’ military leave, tries to leak an enormous amount of classified data via a sketchy wifi connection in a Barnes & Noble in Maryland. Outside, a snowstorm rages. Inside, Manning, a junior intelligence analyst for the US army, freaks out as the clock ticks down. In 12 hours, her flight leaves for Iraq. Meanwhile she has half a million incident reports on US military activity to upload from a memory stick to an obscure website called WikiLeaks. The military would later argue she didn’t have the clearance even to access these files – “exceeded authorised” as Manning puts it, in army parlance – but the fact is, she says, “It was encouraged. I was told, ‘Go look!’ The way you do analysis is you collect a shit-ton of data, a huge amount, in order to do the work on it.”Everything about Manning on that afternoon of 8 February 2010 – her name, her gender, her anonymity, her freedom – is provisional and shortly to change. Three months later, she’ll be in a cage in Kuwait. Three years after that, she’ll be starting a 35-year prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Meanwhile, the wider consequences of her actions that day will, depending on your view, topple governments; endanger lives; protect lives; uphold democracy; compromise global diplomacy; change the world in no measurable way whatsoever; or – Manning’s least favourite interpretation – boil down to a cry for help from a troubled young transperson seeking the care she required. Today, sitting across the table from me in an office in Brooklyn, Manning is tiny, fierce, dressed all in black with long blond hair, and vibrating with enough nervous energy to power the lights. “Are we recording?” she says as her eyes skim the room. For the space of our 90-minute encounter, she will seem only partially present, each question yanking her back to some unseen site of contest where she must defend herself against endless and wide-ranging charges. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and agencies on (#650CX)
That ’70s Show star faces three counts of sexual assault in case that also shines spotlight on Church of ScientologyThe trial of actor Danny Masterson began this week with emotional testimony from one of the women who has accused the TV star of rape – marking the latest of several high profile cases now under way in Hollywood, and one in which the Church of Scientology has come under scrutiny.Inside a Los Angeles courtroom, just down the hall from the trial of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, the first of Masterson’s accusers took the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday. She tearfully recounted a 2003 incident when she says that the actor, best known for his role in That ’70s Show, raped her. Continue reading...
Program has been paused as the court considers a motion filed by six Republican-led statesJoe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court as it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the program.The eighth circuit court of appeals issued the temporary stay on Friday, ordering the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal. Continue reading...
Capitol attack committee makes sweeping requests for documents and testimony and dramatically raises stakes of investigationThe House January 6 select committee has formally transmitted a subpoena to Donald Trump, compelling the former president to provide an accounting under oath about his potential foreknowledge of the Capitol attack and his broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The subpoena made sweeping requests for documents and testimony, dramatically raising the stakes in the highly charged congressional investigation and setting the stage for a constitutionally consequential legal battle that could ultimately go before the supreme court. Continue reading...
For fans of the food giant, Down and Out in Paradise is an ill-informed and reckless attempt to get to the bottom of a tragedy that can never be explained“We actually can learn a lot from celebrities,” blithely begins Charles Leerhsen’s unauthorised biography of the late Anthony Bourdain, Down and Out in Paradise. But what this unnecessary book teaches the reader is that the unauthorised celebrity biography is an inherently flawed project of which there are always new depths to plumb. In this one, for instance, someone who didn’t know him picks apart a dead man’s life and legacy, publishing intimate text messages sent between him and his lover in the last days of his life – and without her permission.Recently released in the US, the book has already stirred strong criticism. Bourdain, who died in 2018 by suicide, was a giant of the food world, who came late in life to an unlikely career as a roving traveller and storyteller chronicling the culinary culture and politics of the farthest reaches of the planet. For those of us who were fans of his sometimes ribald but always open-hearted take on life, Bourdain has left behind hundreds of hours of carefully produced television, and a number of books – not least his down and dirty memoir of working as a chef in New York City, Kitchen Confidential, which sent him stratospherically to a level of fame for which he later said he was not wholly prepared. Continue reading...
The former media entrepreneur, naval officer and investment banker was at Trump’s side during his ascent and some of his most divisive momentsMoments after being convicted of contempt of Congress in July, Steve Bannon, a former media entrepreneur, naval officer, investment banker and Trump administration aide, walked out of a Washington courthouse and made a declaration that summed up what the better part of the last decade of his life had been about.“I stand with Trump and the constitution, and I will never back off that, ever,” Bannon declared. Continue reading...
Car was discovered Thursday morning by landscapers in affluent town of Atherton with unused bags of concrete inside itPolice are investigating why someone buried a car in the yard of a multimillion-dollar northern California home in the 1990s – and left unused bags of concrete inside.The car was discovered on Thursday morning by landscapers in the affluent town of Atherton in Silicon Valley, police said in a news release. Continue reading...
Victim was able to alert contacts via smartwatch after attack by estranged husband, then escape from early grave to seek helpA woman in Washington state managed to escape after allegedly being bound, stabbed and buried alive by her estranged husband.Thurston county police officers were dispatched to a home around 1am local time on Monday, where they found a distressed woman hiding behind a shed screaming, “My husband is trying to kill me,” reported NBC News, citing a court document. Continue reading...
Former Trump strategist also fined $6,500 for refusing to comply with subpoena issued by Capitol attack committeeDonald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack. Continue reading...
Case is one of the 19 voter fraud prosecutions, and involves man who says he registered to vote in 2020 without knowing he was ineligibleA Miami judge on Friday dismissed one of the 19 voter fraud prosecutions loudly trumpeted by Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, a significant development that comes as the cases draw scrutiny.The case on Friday involved Robert Lee Wood, a 56-year-old Miami man who registered to vote in 2020 and voted in the presidential election last year. State prosecutors indicted Wood, who is Black, saying he registered and voted knowing he was ineligible. He was ineligible because he was convicted in 1991, but Wood said he did not know that. He registered in 2020 when he was approached by a canvasser and was sent a voter registration card by the state. Continue reading...
Who would think a lying, hypocritical degenerate was the answer to this crisis? A large number of Conservatives, apparentlyIf you feel physically breathless at the current state of British politics, that’s just Boris Johnson immediately sucking all of the oxygen out of the room again. Is the dignity vampire coming back? Unclear. But I know we’re all big fans of lettuces now, so be advised there could be a monstrous 16-stone slug waiting to crawl out of this one and burrow straight into your brain stem.With a poll this morning putting them just the 39 points behind Labour, a genuinely tragic number of Conservative betas seem to think that only Johnson can fix this/save their jobs. They desperately, desperately need you to think of the UK government as a state-of-the-art technology that only functions when unlocked with Boris Johnson’s unique biometric pass. And yet, does it? Does it operate only when Johnson’s eyes meet its retinal scan? Does it crave to recognise his handprint (like so many spirited but troubled young women before it)? On the vanishingly outside chance that this is the case, can we not simply do as the movies have taught us: forcibly borrow or cut off the relevant Johnson body part, and just get things working that way? Continue reading...
A new generation of fans enthused by younger drivers and the Netflix series Drive to Survive has reinvigorated the sportAttracting young fans was once dismissed as an irrelevance by Formula One, but now the sport seems to have finally accepted that the kids are alright. Formula One has enjoyed an explosion in popularity in recent years, unthinkable a decade ago. Attracting a swathe of fresh fans, the boom has been driven by the grid’s young guns who are connecting with a new generation and reinvigorating the sport.Nowhere is this more evident than in the resurgence of interest in F1 in the USA, an audience it craved for decades. This weekend’s US Grand Prix is expected to be a sellout with 440,000 in attendance across three days, 10% up on 2021. Continue reading...
In 1948, the US initiated the Marshall plan to invest $13bn ($115bn in today’s dollars) in western Europe. We need a similar plan for AfricaThe continent of Africa has over 1.3 billion people – more than double the size of Europe. By 2050, that population is expected to double, giving it more than a quarter of the world’s population – many of them of young working age.And its economies are poised for more growth. The Centre for International Development projects that seven African countries will be among the 15 fastest growing over the next five years. Improving education systems and increased trade are already improving the lives of hundreds of millions of Africans. The poverty rate continues to plummet and migration is increasing as well – spurring the spread of ideas, entrepreneurship and investment. Africa has more than 60% of the globe’s arable uncultivated land. And a new trade agreement is expected to create Africa’s first continent-wide free trade area, generating economic benefits for the country.Ilhan Abdullahi Omar is an American politician serving as the US representative for Minnesota’s fifth congressional district since 2019Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Congresswoman makes remark after former vice-president says there will be ‘pro-life majorities’ in House and SenateAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a simple message for Mike Pence on abortion, after the former vice-president predicted “pro-life majorities” in both houses of Congress after the midterm elections.“I’ve got news for you,” the Democratic New York congresswoman wrote. “Absolutely no one wants to hear what your plan is for their uterus.” Continue reading...
Magic Johnson joins in with citywide denunciations of De León and Cedillo, but council is powerless to expel themThe Los Angeles city council appears to be headed for a long and bruising power struggle, as two councilmen resist widespread calls for their resignation amid a racism scandal and state investigation.A week since the president of the city council, Nury Martinez, resigned over crude and racist remarks she made during an October 2021 meeting with other Latino leaders, two other councilmembers present at the meeting have refused to step down, despite Democratic leadership – up to President Joe Biden – calling on them to do so. Continue reading...
Organizers in the state are rushing to rally the electorate against far-right candidates as early voting gets under wayIn 2020, Alejandra Gomez saw years of activism in Arizona make national headlines.Once a Republican stronghold, the state elected a Democrat to the presidency for the first time in decades – in large part due to a grassroots movement started by young, progressive Latinx organizers like Gomez. Continue reading...
Republican contenders for secretary of state, attorney general and governor have loudly echoed Trump’s false claims of election fraudCall it Donald Trump’s election denier trifecta on this year’s ballot.In Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden beat then president Trump in 2020, several Republican candidates who have loudly echoed Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen are trying to win jobs as secretary of state, attorney general or governor in November. Continue reading...
Workers at Lowe’s and the chain’s top rival, Home Depot, push to unionize their companies’ first US stores despite challengesLowe’s, the American big box home improvement chain, is facing an effort to form the company’s first US union in New Orleans, Louisiana, where 172 workers, under the banner of Lowe’s Workers United, recently filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Lowe’s operates or services about 2,000 stores in the US and Canada with more than 300,000 full and part-time employees, and has aggressively opposed unionization efforts. The company has staffed union avoidance investigators, developed anti-union training videos for employees, and lost a case in 2021 at the NLRB over a company policy that prohibited employees from discussing wages. Continue reading...
The Atlantic writer and ESPN alumna who took on Trump opens up about finding her voice and why attempting to keep sports separate from politics and culture is a fool’s errandJemele Hill knew the moment she hit send to tweet about President Trump, she’d get some backlash.On 11 September 2017, in the middle of a 12-tweet debate with Twitter followers, Hill posted: “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” Continue reading...
The party has reached a stage where purity of faith is valued over sound judgment or evidenceThe bigger the crisis, the smaller it looks. If the Tories’ problems had external causes, some of them might now rise to the challenge. Or even just one, and that person could be the leader. But none can borrow stature from the magnitude of this mess when they all had a hand in making it.Liz Truss was insubstantial as a leadership candidate and got flimsier in office. The most remarkable feature of her tenure in Downing Street was how much destruction she packed into such a small time. She proved how much power a prime minister can wield, and why anyone aspiring to the job should meet some qualifying threshold of competence, responsibility, sound judgment.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Supreme court’s overturning of Roe will make reproductive healthcare in prisons a lot worse than it already is, experts warnWhen the US supreme court decided to strip away constitutional abortion protections in June, it effectively made the situation for many pregnant incarcerated women who are seeking abortions a lot worse.Conditions for reproductive healthcare in many US prison facilities are already often abysmal. With many pregnant inmates regularly facing dire circumstances including being denied abortions or being forced to give birth while shackled, experts warn that the overturn of Roe v Wade will now result in even more severe consequences for an already marginalized community. Continue reading...
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy hinted at the measures his party would take if it reclaims majority in the lower chamberA standoff over the debt ceiling. Aid to Ukraine on the chopping block. And impeachment proceedings against homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – or perhaps even president Joe Biden himself.With polls indicating they have a good shot of winning a majority in the House of Representatives in the 8 November midterms, top Republican lawmakers have in recent weeks offered a preview what they might do with their resurgent power, and made clear they have their sights set on key aspects of the Biden administration’s policies at home and abroad. Continue reading...
The author of a new book on the former president reflects on his tumultuous tenure, and getting inside his head“The word ‘Rosebud’ is maybe the most significant word in film, and what we all watch. The wealth, the sorrow, the unhappiness, the happiness just struck lots of different notes. Citizen Kane was really about accumulation and, at the end of the accumulation, you see what happens and it’s not necessarily all positive.”These words were spoken in 2008 by an unlikely film critic named Donald Trump. Perhaps he glimpsed himself as if in a mirror. Like Kane in Orson Welles’s masterpiece, Trump was a swaggering capitalist and media star who forayed into politics, was brought down by hubris, and now rattles around a gilded cage in Florida. Continue reading...
Photographer Phillip Buehler captured the last stages of life of a New Jersey mall in a sad and insightful set of images showing how shopping has shifted from the physical to the digital. His work is being showcased at an exhibition entitled Malls of America, now on display at Footnote in Gowanus, Brooklyn, until 18 November
The air was difficult to breathe and residents struggled with haze as numerous fires smolder in US north-westSeattle, Portland and other cities of the US north-west are experiencing some of the worst air quality in the world as numerous wildfires burn nearby, choking residents and casting an eerie haze across the skyline.In the Seattle area, home to some 4 million people, the sky was brown and the air was difficult to breathe on Thursday. When the sun peeked through it was orange, while the city’s famous Space Needle was shrouded in dense pollution. Continue reading...
The patient, who had been avoiding visits to her eye doctor due to Covid, complained about feeling something foreign in her eyeA California eye doctor has said an elderly patient who came in complaining of blurry vision ended up having 23 disposable contact lenses in her eye.“To this day, she herself does not understand how it took place,” Dr Katerina Kurteeva, a Newport Beach ophthalmologist, told a local TV news channel. “She’s still baffled by it all.” Continue reading...
Colorado representative told Tennessee members ‘there is a calling’ and that ‘it is an honor to serve in this time’Republican Colorado representative Lauren Boebert has told a group of party members that they “get to be part of ushering in the second coming of Jesus”, prompting shock and mockery online.At a dinner hosted by Knox county Republican party in Tennessee on Wednesday, Boebert addressed the guests by saying, “I want to start with two words: ‘Let’s go Brandon’” referring to a vulgar anti-Joe Biden slogan before adding, “In all seriousness, there is a calling on each and every one of you to be involved and to rise up. Continue reading...
Appeal to contend ex-Trump strategist should’ve been allowed to argue he defied Capitol attack subpoena on advice of lawyersDonald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon is expected to ask a federal appeals court to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction, contending that he should have been allowed at trial to argue he defied a subpoena from the House January 6 select committee on the advice of his lawyers.The appeal will seek the DC circuit court to quash the conviction for which he is set on Friday to face a potential six month prison sentence and $200,000 in fines as recommended by the justice department, according to sources familiar with the matter. Continue reading...
by Rachel Leingang in Phoenix, Arizona on (#64YWR)
Complaints detail ballot drop box monitors filming, following and calling voters ‘mules’ in reference to conspiracy filmA voter in Maricopa county, Arizona, claims a group of people watching a ballot drop box photographed and followed the voter and their wife after they deposited their ballots at the box, accusing them of being “mules”.The voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation, according to Sophia Solis, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office. Continue reading...
Google collected biometric data ‘from innumerable Texans’ and used faces and voices to serve commercial ends, complaint saysTexas is suing tech giant Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Thursday.In its complaint, Texas says that companies operating in the state have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent. Continue reading...
Report by Quincy Institute says ‘current US arms policy and practice too often fuel war rather than deterring it’Despite an election pledge by Joe Biden to not “check [America’s] values at the door” when it comes to arms sales, the US has increased, not decreased, its weapons sales around the world, including to countries with repressive regimes, a new report reveals.According to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based thinktank, most of the sales also involve just four companies: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and General Dynamics. The four were involved in 58% all the major offers made since the Biden administration took office. Continue reading...
Asked if he was concerned about possible negative economic spillover from Liz Truss's resignation, Joe Biden said: ‘I don’t think they’re that consequential.’ Speaking to reporters, the US president said the British prime minister had been a good partner ‘on Russia and Ukraine, and the British are going to solve their problems’.In a statement from the White House, Biden said the US and the UK remained ‘allies and enduring friends – and that fact will never change’. He thanked Truss for her partnership against Russia
The Just Stop Oil protesters shocked people when they threw tomato soup at Van Gogh paintings. But it’s not clear they succeeded in bringing attention to their causeLast week two activists from Just Stop Oil who threw tomato soup on a landscape painting by Vincent Van Gogh in the National Gallery and then glued themselves to the wall, symbolizing, um, well, ah… I’m really not quite sure.The head-scratching disconnect between the activists’ tactics and the message they were trying to convey – linking oil to the climate crisis, in case you hadn’t figured it out – has been widely discussed, and ridiculed, in the media.Stephen Duncombe, a lifelong activist, is professor of media and culture at New York University and co-founder of the Center for Artistic Activism, a non-profit organization that trains artists and activists around the world be become more affective and effective. His forthcoming book Æffect is on assessing the impact of arts and activism. Continue reading...
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