A TV sports anchor from Iowa braved blizzard conditions on Thursday morning to report on the winter storm that has left more than 1.4m homes without power. Mark Woodley jokingly told audiences: 'I can still feel my face right now but I kind of wish I couldn't'. He said he usually reported on sports, but 'everything has been cancelled' Continue reading...
The Trump years demonstrated that the norm of presidential candidates voluntarily releasing their returns is too weakDonald Trump’s biggest worries right now might not be about Congress having released six years of his tax returns. But it is an issue where Republicans can comfortably have it both ways: please Trump’s base, as they loudly perform indignation about Democrats’ conduct, even as they cease defending a politically weakened Trump against the charges of the January 6 committee.The Republican party has all but said that they will play tit-for-tat in the new Congress – investigations, impeachments, whatever it takes to troll Democrats and distract the public with political theater, as Republicans are unlikely to make good on campaign promises. Hence it is crucial to understand what made the release of Trump’s tax returns legitimate – and why Trump cannot appeal to privacy as a trump card – and why we must also put rules in place to prevent political witch-hunts.Jan-Werner Mueller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is Democracy Rules Continue reading...
I wanted to learn a skill that would come in handy after society collapsed – perhaps I should have taken up unarmed combatThe cardigan was conceived in anxiety, so no wonder it came out looking like that. I started knitting in lockdown, because keeping my hands occupied made it harder to refresh news apps.At some point over the last year, as Covid worries began to retreat, knitting hitched itself to climate-based worries instead. I’m not saying it’s rational, but hear me out: my brain has been dabbling with “doomsday prepper” for its 2022 theme, and I reasoned with it that knitting was an essential skill for a rapidly changing world. Continue reading...
Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people work in US prisons as part of their sentences, often without basic protections and for little to no payFor more than two decades imprisoned in California, Samual Brown worked more than a dozen different jobs and was transferred between penitentiaries throughout the state – earning less than a dollar per hour. At the beginning of the pandemic, he worked as a healthcare facility worker tasked with disinfecting areas where inmates with Covid had been held. He wanted to quit his job – he had asthma and risked his life – but was told he “had no choice”. By the time Brown was released in December 2021, he had paid just $3,000 of the more than $37,000 in restitution he owed the state.“That is tied directly into the same type of practices from slavery,” Brown, who is co-founder of the Anti-Violence Safety and Accountability Project, says. “That’s the same practice, the same energy, the same spirit that you see in this prison setting. A person can be on one plantation, and then they’ll be moved to another plantation, and you’ll never see the people who you were with ever again. They can separate you from your wife, separate you from your children, from your family. It’s the same way in the modern-day carceral setting.” Continue reading...
Despite key victories, books covering race and LGBTQ+ topics continue to attract bans in conservative statesBook bans have plagued many US schools throughout 2022, with stories focusing on LGBTQ+ and race issues being targeted by conservatives across the country, and the right aims only to step up its attempts at censorship in the new year, experts warn.States including Missouri and Utah have seen intensifying crackdowns in recent months, with some Utah school libraries now requiring permission slips for students to borrow books covering LGBTQ+ themes. Elsewhere the convincing re-elections of Republican governors in Florida and Texas, which have some of the most restrictive laws around education, mean that change is unlikely there in the short term. Continue reading...
According to transcripts, Cassidy was conflicted ahead of the hearing: ‘I felt like Trump was looking over my shoulder’“I’m about to be fucking nuked,” former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly told a January 6 committee staff member after meeting with investigators before her bombshell testimony to the committee in June. Her prediction turned out to be accurate.Within hours of Hutchinson’s surprise appearance, where she testified about a furious president who encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol, tried to grab the steering wheel of a presidential SUV and hurled his lunch against an Oval Office wall, the backlash began. Continue reading...
People shown hiding in stores after apparent altercation between two groups amid Christmas influx at the Mall of America in MinnesotaA teenager was killed during a shooting at America’s largest mall, in the state of Minnesota, that sent frightened customers racing into a lockdown just before the holiday weekend, police said.Bloomington’s police chief, Booker Hodges, said the victim was a 19-year-old man. A bystander’s jacket was also grazed by a bullet during the shooting at the Nordstrom outlet in the Mall of America on Friday. Continue reading...
For them, and for everyone who still regards them as heroes, there is no morality in business or economics. The winnings go to the most ruthlessIf this past week presents any single lesson, it’s the social costs of greed. Capitalism is premised on greed but also on guardrails – laws and norms – that prevent greed from becoming so excessive that it threatens the system as a whole.Yet the guardrails can’t hold when avarice becomes the defining trait of an era, as it is now. Laws and norms are no match for the possibility of raking in billions if you’re sufficiently ruthless and unprincipled. Continue reading...
The House committee has done its work. The result is a riveting read, utterly damning of the former president and his followersWhether fomenting insurrection, standing accused of rape or stiffing the IRS, Donald Trump remains in the news. On Monday, the House select committee voted to issue its final report. Three days later, after releasing witness transcripts, the committee delivered the full monty. Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney and the rest of committee name names and flash receipts. At 845 pages, the report is damning – and monumental.Trumpworld is a crime scene, a tableau lifted from Goodfellas. Joshua Green of Bloomberg nailed that in The Devil’s Bargain, his 2017 take on Trump’s winning campaign. The gang was always transgressive, fear and violence part of its repertoire. Continue reading...
by Jon Henley, Edward Helmore and Maya Yang on (#674QQ)
Power outages leave more than 1.4 million homes and businesses in the dark, while thousands of US flights were canceledThe winter storm that forecasters dubbed Elliott intensified into a bomb cyclone near the Great Lakes on Friday, bringing high winds and blizzard conditions from the Northern Plains to western and upstate New York, along with life-threatening flooding, flash-freezing and travel chaos as it went.Airline cancellations topped 5,700 flights, with tens of thousands of holiday travellers grounded in airports with limited expectations of making further progress. Travel on the roads was disrupted due snowy weather or crashes and authorities in parts of Indiana, Michigan, New York and Ohio urged motorists to avoid nonessential travel. Continue reading...
Bill will be signed by president after receiving Senate approval and passing the House mostly along party linesA $1.7tn spending bill financing federal agencies through September and providing more aid to a devastated Ukraine cleared the House of Representatives on Friday as lawmakers raced to finish their work for the year and avoid a partial government shutdown.The bill passed mostly along party lines, 225-201. Having already received Senate approval, it is headed to Joe Biden’s desk for the president to sign it into law.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...
Syed, whose case was subject of the podcast Serial, has begun as a program associate with the school’s Prisons and Justice InitiativeAdnan Syed, who spent 23 years in prison before he was freed from his conviction for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, has gotten a job advocating for prison reform at Georgetown University, according to the prestigious US school.Syed, whose case was the subject of the hit podcast Serial, began his role as a program associate with Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative on 12 December, school officials announced in a news release Friday. The gig is Syed’s first nine-to-five office job after the 41-year-old has spent more than half his life behind bars for a conviction by which authorities no longer stand. Continue reading...
Animal rights group sends letter asking town to rename its oddly monikered Roast Meat Hill RoadAnimal rights group Peta has asked a town in Connecticut to rename its oddly monikered Roast Meat Hill Road to Roast Vegan Hill Road.In a letter sent to Killingworth town official Nancy Gorski, a representative of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offered to pay for the sign change and “hold a giveaway of tasty vegan ham sandwiches in town if you agree!” Continue reading...
Fears over US Inflation Reduction Act should be ‘wake-up’ for UK government to increase incentives, says car boss Andy PalmerFears that a major US subsidy scheme will damage the UK automotive sector should serve as a “wake-up” for Britain to increase its own state support, according to a leading UK car boss.British car industry leaders believe the UK could lose out on investment as businesses chase subsidies offered by the US Inflation Reduction Act. Andy Palmer, the chair of battery company InoBat and the former chief executive of sportscar maker Aston Martin Lagonda, said the Inflation Reduction Act should be a “wake-up for the UK government that their incentives for investment have not been enough”. Continue reading...
Meta will pay out $725m after millions of Facebook users had their personal data used without consentMeta, the Facebook owner, will pay out $725m (£600m) to plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit alleging privacy violations related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company has said in a court filing.The settlement will end a long-running dispute over the revelations that the political consultancy had accessed the data of tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent, and used it to target political adverts. Continue reading...
Committee says Trump’s conduct on January 6 warrants implementation of constitutional ban on him holding office againThe House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has recommended in its final report that Donald Trump should be barred from holding office again.The former US president is again running for the White House and is seen as the leading contender for the Republican party’s 2024 nomination. However, his campaign has been a damp squib so far and his political fortunes battered by the poor performance of Trump-backed candidates in the November midterms and the emergence of rival figures within the party, notably Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Continue reading...
Think of Trump and Johnson, gone. Think of Putin flailing, and action to save the planet. Think of us, our ingenuity, our kindness. That’s a lotThere is light in the midwinter gloom. It can take great effort to see it, when so many gathering this weekend will struggle to maintain more than a forced, say-cheese smile. We all know the reasons: rocketing energy bills, rising rents and mortgage payments, real pay going down, food bank use going up, an NHS buckling under the strain, strikes debilitating some of our most essential services, a brutal war in Europe, and a climate crisis already wreaking havoc in the here-and-now.And yet while 2022 brought plenty to weigh down the heart, it also offered some unexpected lifts to the spirit. These past 12 months showed that, despite everything, there are reasons to be hopeful.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
A deep freeze has enveloped most of the United States early on Friday, as cold air plunges south from northern Canada all the way to the Gulf coast. Combined with a massive winter storm brewing in the midwest, two-thirds of the nation is under extreme weather alerts. Wind-chill temperatures lower than -40C are expected, the point at which the celsius and fahrenheit scales intersect
by Justo Robles in El Paso, Texas, and Valerie Gonzal on (#674R5)
Trump’s pandemic-era immigration restrictions lock migrants on both sides of the border in perilous situationsChristmas was not uppermost in their minds. Bitter cold, uncertainty and urgency were.Just after 1am at an intersection in downtown El Paso on Thursday, Arturo folded a backpack to make a pillow on the street. The 22-year-old Venezuelan wore a sweater underneath an oversized hoodie wrapped around his face as the temperature slid to the low-20s Fahrenheit, well below freezing. Continue reading...
California to be hotter and drier as icy winds blast eastern US with freezing temperatures and snow squallsAs people across the US brace for a blistering cold Christmas, southern Californians will be welcoming balmy weather.The arctic air mass is expected to push east across much of the US, erupting in what’s known as a bomb cyclone – a low-pressure system delivering freezing temperatures, white-out snow squalls and blizzards. Continue reading...
Test restaurant near Fort Worth, Texas, has drawn ire of activists calling for living wageThe first mostly non-human-run McDonald’s is open for business just outside Fort Worth, Texas.At just one location so far, customers can drive to the golden arches and expect to be served a Big Mac or a Happy Meal by a food and beverage conveyor instead of an actual, real-life human being. Continue reading...
The concept of less shouting and more validation sounds delightful until a minute before we have to leave for schoolA consequence of socialising with family and friend groups at Christmas is the front-row seat we all get to other people’s parenting, or the “ew, is that how you’re going to do it?” subcategory of entertainment. This year, judgment is likely to fall on where you stand in relation to the most popular new school of parenting.It’s called “gentle parenting” or “child-centred parenting” or, sometimes, “child-led parenting”, and in outline it doesn’t sound bad. Where I live in New York, it’s the dominant approach among parents of young children, where the air is busy with identifiable phrases. “You seem to be frustrated, why is that?” says a mother to her toddler, as he screams and refuses to leave the playground. Or “I hear that you’re hurting right now”, delivered to a bellowing child who just kicked another child’s shin. The harshest line you’ll hear in this vein is a softly intoned: “That’s not OK.”Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York Continue reading...
States including Oregon, Ohio and Utah have reported low driver numbers that could inflict economic pain through road closuresLet it snow? Not so much, where transportation is concerned this December. A shortage of snowplow operators could threaten the safety of US roads and highways in some states, as storms gather pace in the deepening winter.A number of states, including Oregon, Ohio and Utah, are dealing with a shortfall in the supply of snowplow drivers normally needed to get the public through the season. Continue reading...
Jamal Harris died after being denied medical attention, as fellow prisoners describe freezing and unsanitary cellsOn the night of 12 November 2022 Jamal Harris, 23, who was being held in solitary segregation at Elayn Hunt correctional facility in St Gabriel, Louisiana, died by suicide after fellow prisoners and Harris’s mother claim he was consistently denied his psychiatric medication and requests for medical emergency help.“The prison guards weren’t even making rounds like they were supposed to,” said a prisoner who requested to remain anonymous. “He wasn’t stable and they knew that because they weren’t giving him any of his medication. They were supposed to put him on suicide watch.” Continue reading...
In looking to connect with my father, I asked him about the NBA team he loved. The hope that one day the Knicks – and in a way us – would see better days is what kept me aliveWhen the New York Knicks made history in 1999, becoming the first No 8 seed to reach the NBA finals, I was poolside, playing with Barbies with my female cousins. Even at 14, I was a rebellious punk, always going against the grain of expectations. Back then, I had a vague understanding of gender norms. I knew I should have been inside the pool’s meager employee’s building, where my dad and uncles huddled around a small TV, fidgeting with the antenna to watch the Knicks buck the odds. The moment was special to my dad, a native New Yorker. Following a lockout that lasted until mid-January of that season, the Knicks had needed to win six of their last eight regular-season games just to sneak into the playoffs as the eighth and final seed. It was equally not special to me, who just wanted to be the opposite of everything going on in front of that game.The Knicks would win that game by eight points and when they did, I remember hearing my Mexican-American father and tios scream at the top of their lungs. It was the loudest I had ever heard my dad’s voice. He was usually a quiet, subtle man. But on that hot evening in June, he stood in damp swim trunks – double–fisting Modelos, his arms around my uncles, screaming, crying, salivating – at his Knicks returning to the finals for the first time since 1994. Continue reading...
As a cultural Christian, I share the goodwill. As a humanist I am glad to see archaic beliefs and damaging traditions losing their gripThis is the first Christmas since time immemorial that most people in this country are not Christians. The latest census found those identifying as Christian fell from 59% to 46% in a decade, with 8 million people shifting to “no religion”, which is now the second-largest English group, and the largest in Wales. The number of atheists is probably higher, as some tick the Christian box as their cultural identity, without having any religious belief. In that sense, I feel culturally Christian, so deeply imbued with its myths, paintings, hymns and parables.But as a vice-president of Humanists UK, I celebrate any decline in superstition, any rise in those who look life and death in the eye with no expectation of anything beyond this earth.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
by Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies on (#673NS)
Thousands of flights cancelled as officials warn of ‘major and anomalous storm system’ bringing snow and life-threatening wind chillThousands of flights have been cancelled after US forecasters warned on Thursday of “potentially crippling impacts across central and eastern” parts of the country, producing widespread disruption to travel and utilities over the holiday season, as an arctic blast surged from west to east.At the White House, after a briefing on the potential “bomb cyclone”, Joe Biden said: “This is not like a snow day when you were a kid. This is serious stuff.” Continue reading...
So much of the media we consume comes from people who have no idea what it’s like to be working class. We’re missing outIf you’ve been on Twitter lately (and huge congrats if you haven’t), you would have seen a lot of discussion about “nepo babies”. No, a nepo baby is not the strange cousin of a Cabbage Patch Doll nor a cool slang name for “nephews”. Rather it’s a term used to describe the children of celebrities who follow in their famous parents’ footsteps. Classic nepotism, you’ve heard of it.The nepo baby spectrum also covers those who get a leg-up from family industry connections, or the children of the very rich, all of whom have doors opened for them from the time they arrive through their very first door (the vagina). There have always been nepo babies and there will always be nepo babies but that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating. For example, while watching the new season of Amy Schumer’s sketch show last week, I noticed that one of the writers is Jerry Seinfeld’s 21-year-old daughter. As a sketch writer myself, I found this a bit annoying! But all the focus on nepo babies and famous people is obfuscating a more important and insidious problem. Continue reading...
State to dismantle wall following lawsuit filed by US government alleging it was illegally built on federal landsArizona will remove a wall of shipping containers along the state’s 370-mile border with Mexico following a lawsuit filed by the US government against the state that claimed that the makeshift wall is being illegally built on federal lands.According to an agreement reached late Wednesday between federal and state authorities, Arizona will dismantle the wall, along with all related equipment by the beginning of next year. Continue reading...
Bill includes $45bn in military aid to Ukraine after lawmakers reached agreement on a final series of votesThe US Senate on Thursday passed a $1.7tn government spending bill, sending it to the House to approve and send to Joe Biden for his signature, averting a partial government shutdown.The legislation provides funding through 30 September 2023, for the US military and an array of non-military programs. Continue reading...
Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump, gave some of the most dramatic testimony during live hearings last summerAhead of the release of its full report, the House January 6 committee published transcripts of witness testimony including that of Cassidy Hutchinson, a central figure in the investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion and the Capitol attack.On Wednesday night, the committee released 34 transcripts from 1,000 interviews conducted over 18 months. Most interviewees invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. But Adam Schiff of California, a Democratic member of the committee, told CBS: “I guarantee there’ll be some very interesting new information in the report and even more so in the transcripts.” Continue reading...
The Ukrainian leader went to the US this week for hard bargaining with the Americans, as well as to be fetedPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s highly choreographed visit to Washington was a significant international moment. Not long ago, Mr Zelenskiy had been adamant that his place was always on the frontline with his people. This week, however, he made a lightning trip in person, via Poland, to Washington itself, meeting President Joe Biden at the White House and delivering a primetime address to the US Congress before heading back into his suffering country less than 24 hours later.The visit was much more than a Christmas celebration of Ukraine’s defiance and of Mr Zelenskiy’s immense role in it. Instead, it was a political event with important future implications for Ukraine, the United States and Russia, and for the conflict more generally. It was clearly focused on what should happen in 2023 rather than what has happened already. Continue reading...
Jared Smith, who issued controversial ruling in January, named to new court of appeal by Florida governorFlorida’s rightwing Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has appointed a judge who was previously ousted over a controversial ruling where he denied a teenager an abortion, citing her school grades.DeSantis appointed Jared Smith to the newly established sixth district court of appeal, an appointment which will begin on 1 January 2023. Smith previously served as a judge on the Hillsborough county court until he was ousted in August after his decision on the abortion-related case. Continue reading...
Bradley Wendt bought more than 90 machine guns and hosted public shootouts, charging participants to fire the gunsAn Iowa police chief faces fraud charges for allegedly buying and selling machine guns for personal profit, despite stating the purchases were related to department business.Bradley Wendt, 46 and the police chief of Adair, Iowa, bought more than 90 machine guns between 2018 to 2022, claiming the weapons would be used for “the official duties and responsibilities of the Adair police department”, the justice department said. Continue reading...
For some LGBTQ+ shunned by relatives, friends and community are rewriting what ‘family’ meansWhat is Christmas really about? In an increasingly diverse and secular Britain, the festive period has become a celebration of family for most of us. But that focus on traditional family – the people who are supposed to offer unconditional love, no matter who you are or what you do – is precisely what makes this time of year a source of anxiety and dread for others.Parents rejecting their LGBTQ+ offspring might sound like a plotline from gritty films of the 1980s and 1990s, not something that happens in 2022, when even Hallmark is releasing its first same-sex Christmas romcom, and we’re more than 50 years on from the decriminalisation of homosexuality. But research from the anti-abuse LGBQT+ charity Galop found that family rejection is still all too common: almost three in 10 LGBTQ+ people had experienced abuse from a family member, rising to more than four in 10 trans and non-binary people. In 60% of cases, they felt their identity was the main or contributing factor.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Some in the Russian president’s entourage are searching for a way out of the Ukraine conflict. They should look to the history booksSo many great crises of the past are reduced to anniversaries: they emerge for one day into the spotlight of media attention and then vanish for another year or another decade. This year’s anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, however, feels different. Suddenly the past is catching up with us. In September, Vladimir Putin said that in the case of “a threat to territorial integrity of our country, in order to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly use all means at our disposal. This is not a bluff.” This sinister talk was interpreted by many as an indication that the Russian leader might use nuclear weapons to prevent his defeat and humiliation in Ukraine. Thus, the drama that played out 60 years ago acquired a startlingly fresh resonance.In May 1962, Nikita Khrushchev came up with an idea that he thought was brilliant: to send nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles to the island of Cuba – without the US knowing. This impetuous project, hastily implemented, resulted in the greatest incident of nuclear brinkmanship in history. In his oral recollections, edited by his son Sergei, Khrushchev elaborated his motives. He feared arrogant Americans would attempt to overthrow the Castro regime, thereby humiliating the Soviet Union, Cuba’s sponsor. The missiles were sent as a deterrent.Vladislav Zubok is professor of international history at the London School of Economics and author of Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union, which was a finalist for the 2022 Cundill history prize Continue reading...
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