The former Trump lawyer also waived his right to appear at an arraignment set for 6 SeptemberRudy Giuliani on Friday pleaded not guilty to Georgia charges that accuse him of trying, along with former president Donald Trump and others, to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.In filing his not guilty plea with the court, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney also waived his right to appear at an arraignment hearing set for 6 September. He joins the former president and at least 10 others in forgoing a trip to Atlanta to appear before a judge in a packed courtroom with a news camera rolling. Continue reading...
Swiatek cruises through, Tiafoe made to sweat and Wozniacki's comeback storie continues.Townsend takes it to deuce with a wonderful return. She has an interesting approach to returning serves, starting in an almost exaggerated batting stance seen in cricket. One foot in front of the other staring down the line. It's working, she has a break point.Townsend aces to take the first game. 1-0 up against Muchova. Continue reading...
Dominic Pezzola sentenced to 10 years, Ethan Nordean sentenced to 18 for roles in 2021 insurrectionTwo members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building. Continue reading...
Zunyu Zhao and Xionwei Xiao made the plea in a California federal court for smuggling the marine life from MexicoWildlife traffickers pleaded guilty this week in federal court in California to illegally importing endangered sea cucumbers - which are prized in China for food and medicine and as a reputed aphrodisiac - from Mexico.Zunyu Zhao and Xionwei Xiao were charged with conspiracy and illegal importing of brown sea cucumbers worth over $10,000 from 2017 to 2019 and are scheduled to be sentenced in September and November, respectively. Continue reading...
President to recognize Larry Taylor, who risked his life to rescue a reconnaissance team that was about to be overrunThe White House says Joe Biden will award the Medal of Honor to a US army pilot who risked his life to rescue a reconnaissance team in Vietnam that was about to be overrun.The president will recognize Larry Taylor of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, at a ceremony on 5 September. The Medal of Honor is the US military's highest decoration given to service members who go above and beyond the call of duty, often risking their lives through selfless acts of valor. Continue reading...
by Chris Stein US politics live blogger on (#6EC96)
Dominic Pezzola's sentence is less than 20-year term prosecutors proposed while Ethan Nordean will also be sentenced. This blog is now closedWe're expecting Joe Biden to soon speak about the government's August employment report that came out a few hours ago, which shows employment growth remaining steady in the world's largest economy, despite the sting of high interest rates, as the Guardian's Lauren Aratani reports:The US jobs market is holding steady as interest rates sit at a 22-year high, with US employers adding 187,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Continue reading...
Mayor Eric Adams pushes for ban but animal rights activists say Governor Kathy Hochul is in the pocket' of the industryDucks are back on New York's political minds, close to four years after the city under former mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill banning the sale and serving of foie gras in New York City, part of what he and his successor, Mayor Eric Adams, portrayed as an animal rights issue.The days of foie gras are gone and foie-gotten in New York City," Adams tweeted in 2019 after the law was passed. Continue reading...
Residents of Perry pick up the pieces after powerful hurricane destroyed buildings, felled trees and took out power linesHurricane Idalia left behind a trail of debris and floodwaters across Florida, but - as power cut out in its wake - it also left behind true darkness as night fell and electric lights remained out.It's been a long time since I've seen it this dark," said Lashawn Poitier of Perry, Florida, which was right in the path of the storm. This is what night really looks like." Continue reading...
Hardline Aipac - condemned for unquestioning support of PM - calls liberal rival J Street grave threat' to Israel's securityA public feud has broken out between the US's leading pro-Israel lobby groups over who represents the true interests of the Jewish state in Washington under the most rightwing government in its history.The hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has called its smaller and more liberal rival, J Street, a grave threat" to Israel's security and accused it of endorsing the country's most virulent critics" in Congress. Continue reading...
Category 4 storm took last-minute turn away from Florida state capital and weakened slightly just before landfallA clearer picture was beginning to emerge on Friday of devastation caused by Hurricane Idalia across five states, as analysts suggested the effects could have been far worse.The center of the cyclone that struck Florida's Gulf coast as a category 4 hurricane early on Wednesday with 160mph gusts took a last-minute turn away from the state capital, Tallahassee, and into sparsely populated coastal communities in the Big Bend region. Continue reading...
Georgia Republican demands Biden impeachment inquiry as government funding due to run out on 30 SeptemberThe White House condemned the extreme" and hardcore fringe" of the Republican party after one high-profile, hardcore extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, said she would not vote to fund the government this month without an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden.Without a new spending measure, government funding will run out on 30 September, with federal workers furloughed and agencies shuttered. Continue reading...
After coming out of the closet two decades ago, I never thought I'd go back in. But homophobia seems to be acceptable againWhen I came out of the closet in rural, upstate New York almost two decades ago, I never thought I'd go back in. I was wrong.In the last few months, I've started to change my appearance to accommodate a growing hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community in the US - even in New York, a state often touted as a beacon for queer communities.Dan Clark is a broadcast journalist in New York, where he produces and hosts a weekly, statewide public affairs program and podcast for the state's PBS member stations Continue reading...
Ruby Franke and another woman arrested for aggravated child abuse after malnourished son, 12, escapes to ask neighbor for helpA Utah woman who gave online parenting advice via a popular YouTube channel has been arrested on suspicion of aggravated child abuse after her malnourished son escaped out of a window and ran to a nearby house for help, authorities said.Ruby Franke, whose now defunct channel 8 Passengers" followed her family, was arrested on Wednesday night in the southern Utah city of Ivins. She was taken into custody at the home of Jodi Hildebrandt, who owns a counseling business she says teaches people to improve their lives by being honest, responsible and humble. Continue reading...
School buildings closed at the 11th hour, banned knives banned again and a new job for Shapps? Clearly it's time for an interventionThis week the government announced it would be banning zombie-style knives". Could they not ban zombie-style governments? You see, zombie knives have already been banned. As far back as 15 August 2016, news outlets including this one were reporting on the ban on zombie knives coming into force that week, with regular surplus banning announcements occurring with strange frequency ever since.Zombie knife ban announcements simply refuse to die. As I understand it from the movies, the only way to be really sure you have finished off a zombie knife ban announcement is to destroy its brain. In the meantime, maybe the Conservatives could announce plans to ban other unpopular bad things, such as international drug trafficking or murder. Continue reading...
Former South Carolina governor says of Mitch McConnell, who has twice frozen in public, you have to know when to leave'The US Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country", the Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said.The former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, 51, was speaking to Fox News a day after the Republican leader in the Senate, 81-year-old Mitch McConnell, suffered a second freeze in a month, this time while speaking to reporters in Kentucky. Continue reading...
by Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon in New York on (#6EC7G)
In June, the US supreme court upheld a decision ordering Alabama to redraw its congressional map - but state Republicans ignored the mandateJust a few months ago, the US supreme court issued one of its most surprising rulings in recent memory.In a 5-4 decision in Allen v Milligan, the court said Alabama's congressional map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it diluted the influence of Black voters, who make up about a quarter of the state's population, but comprise a majority in just one of Alabama's congressional districts. The justices upheld a lower court's decision ordering Alabama to redraw its map to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it". Continue reading...
New law says prosecutors who adopt policy of refusing to go after people for violating abortion bans constitutes official misconduct'After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, district attorneys from major counties in Texas vowed not to vigorously prosecute people under the state's anti-abortion laws.Now, Texas has a plan to punish them if they don't fall in line. Continue reading...
Hundreds of new state laws come into effect on 1 September, including attacking trans rights, further limiting abortion and pushing back climate effortsOn Friday, the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas will dump an avalanche of virulent new laws on the state's 30 million residents, cementing its reputation as a hotbed of the far-right turmoil that is sweeping America.Hundreds of laws will come into effect as the product of the legislative session that Texas holds every two years. Among them are a number of highly controversial targeted bills that will have a seismic impact on some of the most vulnerable Texan communities. Continue reading...
The former MP's quest to break the public link with her ancestors is misguided. Better to accept our legacy and work for changeThe sins of the fathers," according to a stinging verse in the Bible's Book of Exodus, shall be visited upon the children, even unto the third or fourth generation." Is that remotely fair? Can we - should we - be held responsible for crimes committed by our ancestors? The question underpins Antoinette Sandbach's protest at her outing as a descendant of Samuel Sandbach, a 19th-century mayor of Liverpool who amassed a fortune through enslavement of African people, and from compensation payments at the end of British slavery in the 1830s.Sandbach, a former Tory MP, has threatened to sue Cambridge University over the work of the historian Malik Al Nasir, who has named her in his research on British enslavement in what is now Guyana, where he has heritage. Sandbach has said she is appalled by the actions of her ancestors, and that she is supportive of Al Nasir's work - but there is no public interest in identifying her as a descendent of Samuel Sandbach, who died in 1851. This is about a right to privacy, she contends - the right not to be held publicly accountable for acts in which she played no part.Alex Renton is author of Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family's Story of Slavery (Canongate)Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
How did a volleyball team representing a public research university in a prairie state attract 92,003 fans to set the global attendance record for women's sports? It's a long storyMemorial Stadium went dark, the hum and strum of Sirius by the Alan Parsons Project started and the capacity crowd turned to the stadium's north end. Every University of Nebraska football home game starts this way. Fans clap as the stadium's huge videoboard shows the team's approach from the locker room and their entrance on to the field. The Tunnel Walk is one of college football's signature traditions. And Nebraska junior Lexi Rodriguez wanted to soak in the moment.Rodriguez, a libero on the Nebraska women's volleyball team, walked alongside head coach John Cook and teammate Merritt Beason. They were enveloped by the crowd's roar. Beason continued her steely gaze. A smirk emerged on Cook's face. Rodriguez grinned from ear to ear. She and the Cornhuskers knew they'd make history on Wednesday night. She just wanted to take a moment to enjoy it. The gates finally opened and she led the Huskers on to the court. Continue reading...
As the new season approaches we look at the first-year players who could make a significant impact for their teamsAre you ready? The Colts are. We haven't seen a quarterback this dynamic enter the league since Cam Newton. Richardson can run past players, through them, or hurl the ball 60 yards downfield. Continue reading...
Joseph Biggs, who played leading role on January 6, gets 17 years in prison and former chapter leader Zachary Rehl 15 yearsTwo former leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group have each been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for spearheading an attack on the US Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.The 17-year prison term for Joseph Biggs, a Proud Boys organizer, and 15-year sentence for Zachary Rehl, a leader of the group, were the second and third longest sentences handed down yet over the 6 January 2021 attack. Continue reading...
Inter Miami are unbeaten since the Argentinian joined them in July. Does that say more about the World Cup winner or the league he now plays in?Among the rank outsiders to win MLS Cup as the season dawned, Inter Miami justified the doubts with six wins and a league-worst 14 losses in their first 23 games.After Wednesday's goalless draw with Nashville, Miami are 10 points adrift of the Eastern Conference playoff places with 10 games to play. Yet some bookmakers now rate Gerardo Martino's side among the favorites to take the title in December. Continue reading...
Billionaire Leon Cooperman, who backed Giuliani's 2008 White House bid, says he won't help with legal fees - and he's not aloneAs he attempts to meet mounting legal fees incurred in large part through his work for Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani will reportedly not get a nickel" from one billionaire who backed his campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination - or, apparently, much from many others previously big donors.I wouldn't give him a nickel," the investor Leon Cooperman told CNBC. I'm very negative on Donald Trump. It's an American tragedy. [Rudy] was America's mayor'. He did a great job. And like everybody else who gets involved with Trump, it turns to shit." Continue reading...
Tami Manis wins Guinness world record for her 5ft 8in mullet after going 33 years without a haircutWhat does one get by going 33 years without a haircut? Tennessee's Tami Manis knows - the world record for longest mullet on a female.Manis, 58, spoke on Thursday about her path to clinching what is arguably one of the most unusual marks maintained by Guinness world records. In an interview published by the organization known for curating a database of more than 40,000 world records, she revealed how the music video for the 1985 song Voices Carry by the rock band Til Tuesday inspired her to begin growing her hair particularly long in the back. Continue reading...
The mayor wants to build a new international home for the sport. But local players and Bronx residents aren't happy with the planIn Bangalore, Ajith Shetty's life revolved around cricket. Playing since childhood, he'd captained his college squad, then company teams after starting a career in IT. But in suburban Long Island, where he moved for a job 17 years ago, mentioning the sport only drew blank stares. To cope with the isolation, he and a handful of other immigrants would play makeshift games in the dirt of baseball diamonds.Then he discovered New York City's sprawling Van Cortlandt Park. Amid the cacophony of the Bronx, it was a tree-ringed oasis, blessed with rare cricket fields. But the grounds were cramped and uneven, sending the ball bouncing awry. To create a proper surface, Shetty and other players had to roll out massive mats, which required six men to lug to and from a distant parking lot every game - a brutal hour-long round trip. Continue reading...
Lawyers for US Virgin Islands claimed the bank reported the transactions as suspicious to the treasury following his deathA lawyer for the US Virgin Islands said on Thursday that JPMorgan Chase told US authorities it processed more than $1bn for Jeffrey Epstein over 16 years.JPMorgan reported the transactions as suspicious to the US treasury department following Epstein's suicide in 2019, Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the territory, said at a hearing concerning its lawsuit against the largest US bank. Continue reading...
Meanwhile, a federal judge temporarily blocks law that drag show artists fear will be used to shut them down or put them in jailThe Texas supreme court allowed a new state law banning gender-affirming care for minors to take effect on Friday, setting up Texas to be the most populous state with such restrictions on transgender children.Legal advocates who sued on behalf of the families and doctors, including the American Civil Liberties Union, called the law and the high court's decision Thursday cruel". Continue reading...
Tropical storm moves into Atlantic but torrential rain and inland flooding still likely in North Carolina, officials warnResidents across the south-eastern US were beginning the clean-up from Hurricane Idalia on Thursday as Joe Biden signed a major disaster declaration for Florida and the weakened but still powerful tropical storm dumped torrents of rain in North Carolina and Virginia.The worst of the devastation was evident along Florida's Gulf coast, where Idalia tore ashore on Wednesday as a category 3 hurricane with gusts of 160mph and sent a surge of seawater of up to 16ft far inland through vulnerable low-lying communities. Continue reading...
by Daniel Harris and Bryan Armen Graham (briefly) on (#6EB8D)
Andy Murray was comfortably beaten by Grigor Dimitrov, while Jack Draper, Katie Boulter and Cameron Norrie kept British hopes aliveA fine backhand cross-court gives Draper a point for a double-break; Hurkacz responds with a service winner then closes out to get on the board at 1-2 down.Draper consolidates for 2-0 and Zverev breaks Altmaier off the bat. Wang, meanwhile, breaks Boulter for 2-1 and looks to have the greater ability to hit winners. Continue reading...
by Maya Yang (now), Erum Salam and Gloria Oladipo (ea on (#6EB4W)
Over 50,000 customers in Carolinas still without power while disaster declaration provides Florida with federal resourcesCleanup is happening in several counties across Georgia following destruction after Hurricane Idalia.Here's a video from Weather Nation showing debris after Hurricane Idalia in Coffee County, Georgia:For Evelyn and Thomas Rhodes, the sign they had to flee their home was when a bed started to float off the floor.Ashley Nicole Nguyen of Pasco county, Florida has now started a GoFundMe to try to support the Rhodeses - her grandmother and uncle - who escaped the rising waters from Hurricane Idalia unharmed but have lost many of their possessions. Continue reading...
Police in Norfolk, Nebraska were surprised when they began receiving calls saying that a bull had been seen riding shotgun in a car. Lee Meyer, the driver, was then stopped and police questioned him about the large animal alongside him. The bull is a watusi, an African breed, famous for having large horns. 'The officer wrote him some warnings,' Capt Chad Reiman told News Channel North-East Nebraska, a local TV station. 'There were some citable issues with that situation. The officer chose to write him a warning and asked him to take the animal back home and leave the city'
Disclosures detail flights and stays with Harlan Crow as Democrats vow to investigate scandal in which this court is enmired'The conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas faced further controversy on Thursday after the release of his financial disclosure form for 2022 provided evidence of more flights and stays with Harlan Crow, a Republican mega-donor.Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and judiciary committee member, called the form a late-come effort at clean-up on aisle three'" which would not deter us from fully investigating the massive, secret, rightwing billionaire influence in which this court is enmired". Continue reading...
As the city's increasing homeless community battles debilitating heat-related illnesses and inhospitable streets, outreach workers sound the alarmOn a scorching July day, Athena Sims lay down for a nap on the ground near the tent where she lives, by an overpass in downtown New Orleans. Sims, 46, fell asleep in the shade. When she woke up hours later, she was in the blazing sun, with a splitting headache and a social service worker standing over her, shaking her, telling her she needed to go to the emergency room.You're going to possibly die of heatstroke," she recalls the man telling her. Continue reading...
Some residents say they will have nothing to go back to' after hurricane caused extensive damageFor Evelyn and Thomas Rhodes, the sign they had to flee their home was when a bed started to float off the floor.Ashley Nicole Nguyen of Pasco county, Florida has now started a GoFundMe to try to support the Rhodeses - her grandmother and uncle - who escaped the rising waters from Hurricane Idalia unharmed but have lost many of their possessions. Continue reading...
Voters won a huge battle with the oil industry - proving that we can't save the planet without robust democracyDays ago, voters in Ecuador approved a total ban on oil drilling in protected land in the Amazon, a 2.5m-acre tract in the Yasuni national park that might be the world's most important biodiversity hotspot. The area is a Unesco-designated biosphere reserve and home to two non-contacted Indigenous groups. This could be a major step forward for the entire global climate justice movement in ways that are not yet apparent.This vote is important not only for Ecuador and for the Indigenous peoples in the Yasuni, who now have hope of living in peace in perpetuity. It is also a potential model for how we can use the democratic process around the world to help slow or even stop the expansion of fossil fuels to the benefit of billions of people. Continue reading...
James Cleverly's barely there pressure on China is hardly surprising, given the companies and even universities playing a role in human rights abusesThis week, yet another foreign secretary has justified engaging with the perpetrators of genocide, on the basis that going to Beijing would allow them to raise concerns in private. According to an official statement, James Cleverly made clear the UK's strength of feeling about the mass incarceration of the Uyghur people" in his bilateral meetings with senior Chinese government figures. Once again, this has shown China that when it comes to the mass contravention of human rights, the UK government has nothing but words in response and fails to stand up for its values.Shocking as this is, it is hardly surprising, given not just the failure to protect the Uyghur people from genocide but the concerted efforts to deny the facts and a wilful ignorance across politics, business and civil society in the UK.Rahima Mahmut is executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide and UK director of the World Uyghur Congress Continue reading...
Nebraska University's volleyball team laid claim to the world record for largest attendance at a women's sporting event, with 92,003 filling Memorial Stadium for their volleyball match against Omaha in Lincoln. The previous attendance record was 91,648, set for a Women's Champions League football match when Barcelona defeated rivals Real Madrid 5-2 at the Camp Nou in 2022. Memorial Stadium's official capacity is just over 85,000 for football, but that number was higher for this event because there were seats and standing room on the field.
South Carolina lawyer, 55, disciplined by prison after giving interviews for new TV documentary on his caseThe convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh has lost his phone privileges and his prison tablet computer after his lawyer recorded him reading his journal entries on a call for a documentary about his case, South Carolina corrections department officials said.Prison policy prohibits inmates from talking to the media, a state prisons spokeswoman, Chrysti Shain, said in a statement. The call was for a Fox Nation documentary series called The Fall of the House of Murdaugh that is set to air on Thursday. Continue reading...
Converted vehicle stopped in Nebraska with gigantic-horned Watusi bovine called Howdy Doody as passengerPolice in Norfolk, Nebraska, responding to calls of a man driving with a cow" in his car were stunned to discover a local man with a huge Watusi bull riding shotgun in his vehicle.The officers received a call referencing a car driving into town that had a cow in it," Capt Chad Reiman told News Channel North-East Nebraska. They thought that it was going to be a calf, something small or something that would actually fit inside the vehicle." Continue reading...
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