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The youngest Black woman to earn a Fifa referee badge, the Mississippi native, Jackson State alumna and proud Delta is breaking down barriers one assignment at a timeEarlier this year, Alyssa Nichols became the youngest Black woman, and the first from Mississippi, to earn a Fifa referee badge. She's not fazed by being the youngest - she is one of only two Black American women to hold the distinction - but she understands her achievement as a chance to encourage others.After Nichols started playing soccer at Murrah High School, in Jackson, Mississippi, one of her teammates, who worked as a youth officiator with Southwest Jackson Soccer League, a primarily Black club in the city, suggested that Nichols start officiating as a way to make money while balancing academics and athletics. Continue reading...

Rightwing Florida governor's talking points for the first Republican debate include defending Trump and attacking BidenSeeking to resurrect his flagging US presidential campaign, Ron DeSantis suffered a major embarrassment when memos about his preparation for the first Republican debate were reported by the New York Times.Including advice not to attack the clear frontrunner, Donald Trump, the memos to the rightwing Florida governor ahead of the debate in Milwaukee next Wednesday were posted online by a consulting firm owned by Jeff Roe, chief strategist to Never Back Down, a Super Pac backing DeSantis.Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times.State [DeSantis's] positive vision 2-3 times.Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response.Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack. Continue reading...

With September fast approaching we look at the figures who will be central to the biggest storylines in the 2023 campaignLast season's version of this list did not feature Brock Purdy (oops), was headlined by Trey Lance (double oops), and hit on Aaron Rodgers' impending divorce from Green Bay (we'll take it). Hopefully we do better this year (not guaranteed). Continue reading...

It happened 50 years ago, changed the course of world history - and revealed just how authoritarian conservatives areFifty years on, the 1973 coup in Chile still haunts politics there and far beyond. As we approach its anniversary, on 11 September, the violent overthrow of the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and its replacement by the brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet are already being marked in Britain, through a period of remembrance scheduled to include dozens of separate exhibitions and events. Among these will be a march in Sheffield, archival displays in Edinburgh, a concert in Swansea, and a conference and picket of the Chilean embassy in London.Few past events in faraway countries receive this level of attention. Military takeovers were not unusual in South America during the cold war. And Chile has been a relatively stable democracy since the Pinochet dictatorship ended, 33 years ago. So why does the 1973 coup still resonate? Continue reading...

Denis Sharonov is part of a historic exodus as hundreds of thousands of Russians seek to escape Vladimir Putin's warThe former minister drove his big white truck north until he reached Michigan. The Great Lakes provided a welcome relief from the scorching Texas heat.After years navigating the byzantine corridors of provincial Russian power, Denis Sharonov now works as a truck driver, steering his way through the vast highways of the US. Continue reading...

Herman Andaya's resignation comes after the deadly blaze in Maui killed at least 111 people and razed thousands of buildingsThe head of the Maui emergency management agency, who has been under fire for not activating disaster sirens during last week's wildfire response, resigned Thursday, citing health reasons.Richard Bissen, the Maui mayor, accepted the resignation of Herman Andaya, the county of Maui announced on Facebook. Continue reading...

A grand jury had indicted officers from Antioch and Pittsburg for a wide range of offenses, including criminal conspiracyThe FBI arrested nine current and former California police officers on Thursday as part of a major criminal investigation into racist text messages of dozens of law enforcement officials, prosecutors said.Early-morning federal raids, first reported by the Bay Area News Group, rounded up officers from Antioch and Pittsburg, two cities east of San Francisco, after they were charged in four grand jury indictments. Continue reading...

Sheriff's office said investigators were working with local, state and federal agencies to track down origins of threats in Fulton countyLaw enforcement officials in Georgia say they are investigating threats targeting members of the grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies, after private information about jurors was published online.On Thursday, the Fulton county sheriff's office announced that it was aware that personal information of members of the Fulton county grand jury is being shared on various platforms". Continue reading...

This blog is now closed, but continuing coverage of Trump's Georgia indictment can be found here and here.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dismissed the suggestion that she is running in the 2024 GOP presidential race in order to become the vice president.In an interview with Politico, Haley said:I think everybody that says, She's doing this to be vice president,' needs to understand I don't run for second.That's something that I hear all the time, and I'll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don't trust anybody else to do it.Sources tell ABC News that Trump's legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it. Continue reading...

Big corporations, golf courses and hotels have been taking water from locals for years. Now the fire may result in even more devastating water theftAll over Maui, golf courses glisten emerald green, hotels manage to fill their pools and corporations stockpile water to sell to luxury estates. And yet, when it came time to fight the fires, some hoses ran dry. Why?The reason is the long-running battle over west Maui's most precious natural resource: water. That's why, on Tuesday 8 August, when Terearii Chandler-ao was fleeing the fires in Lahaina, she grabbed a bag of clothes, some food - and something a little unconventional: a box filled with water use permit applications. Continue reading...

The Atlanta journalist stumbled upon a meeting of Republican fake electors in 2020 and was then summoned to testify before a grand jury that brought charges against the former presidentThe Fulton county sheriff laid orange barricades in front of the courthouse last week, anticipating a horde of protesters. Courthouse staff were asked to work from home this month. Witnesses before the grand jury contemplating charges in Donald Trump's latest legal case arrived and departed with arrangements made for privacy and protection. People are nuts, we are reminded. Stay safe, my friends whispered.I took a train from Stone Mountain downtown and walked in through the front door. Continue reading...

The HBO show understandably concentrates on New York's new quarterback. But it is a younger player who produces the most excitementAs Hard Knocks openings go, Aaron Rodgers delivered an all-time classic for HBO's 20th season of scenes from an NFL training camp. The New York Jets quarterback struts on to the field and mutters: Gonna give you some good shit today." It is trademark Rodgers: breezy, off-hand and ultra-confident. It is at this precise moment that Jets fans collectively respond: We got ourselves a quarterback." If they were smiling after the montage when Rodgers says their single Lombardi is looking lonely in the team's trophy cabinet, one can only imagine their ecstatic expression after this brash assurance.Well, that is unless they have never seen this hyperbolic roadshow before. This set piece along with every (and there are a lot) montage of Rodgers throwing perfect spiral after perfect spiral provides the archetypal opening gambit of Hard Knocks. The attempt to dupe us into mass Jets fever: that they are the best team in the league, never mind the numerous roadblocks on the way to February football. Of course Rodgers looks great throwing the ball because he is Aaron Rodgers, a Super Bowl winner and four-time NFL MVP. Continue reading...

Grand jury indicted father and son in November 2022 for attempted murder but Mississippi judge says detective made mistakesA Mississippi judge has declared a mistrial in the trial of a white father and son who allegedly chased and shot at a Black FedEx driver in January 2022.The judge made the declaration on Thursday, citing mistakes made by a detective at Brookhaven police department. Continue reading...

Authorities issue warnings about eating raw shellfish and exposure of wounds to salt or brackish water after vibriosis deathsThree people in New York and Connecticut have died as a result of flesh-eating bacterial infections, prompting authorities to warn residents about the potential dangers of consuming raw shellfish or exposure to salt or brackish water.One person from Suffolk county in New York, as well as two people in Connecticut, have died from vibriosis, a rare bacterial infection caused by several species of bacteria, including Vibrio vulnificus, according to authorities. Continue reading...

State senator Colton Moore calls for review of Fulton county district attorney's actions after indictment of ex-presidentA Republican state senator in Georgia has moved to impeach the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis.The move comes in the wake of Willis's delivery of a 41-count indictment against the former president Donald Trump and his operatives on state racketeering and conspiracy charges over efforts to reverse Trump's 2020 presidential election loss in the state. Continue reading...

CNN reports the mayor turned Trump attorney visited in April but that ex-president didn't seem very interested'The New York mayor turned Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani made a largely fruitless visit to Mar-a-Lago to plead for help paying ballooning" legal fees arising from work for the former president, CNN reported.Citing unnamed sources, the network said Giuliani met Donald Trump at his Florida resort in April. Trump, who is notoriously strict about dipping into his own coffers, didn't seem very interested" and only verbally agreed" to help pay some bills and to support fundraisers for his ally, according to CNN. Continue reading...

A wave of young adults bought their first home with the help of student loan pauses and remote work - but will the boom last?Vicki Buehler never thought she would own a home. By her mid-30s, her student loan balance had ballooned to $200,000 after she deferred payments, and she eventually went into default, leading to a subprime credit score. She was a workers' comp attorney in Binghamton, New York, and earned about $60,000. Having my own home was a pie in the sky dream," she said.This changed suddenly in 2021, when Buehler, a millennial, became part of a wave of homebuyers among Americans her age. Continue reading...

While it's hard to imagine Trump winning the popular vote in 2024, our archaic and unfair electoral college is another matterRead the indictment handed down by a Fulton county, Georgia, grand jury: weighing in at 98 pages, it is a breathtaking document, granular in its description of a coordinated criminal enterprise that brazenly broke numerous Georgia state laws.The 19 persons named in the racketeering charges are not, however, members of some sleazy organized crime syndicate; rather, they include the former president of the United States, his chief of staff, a former mayor of New York, a former law school dean and a former official in the US Department of Justice. Together they stand accused of knowingly and willfully joining a conspiracy to subvert the outcome of a fair, democratic election.Lawrence Douglas is the author, most recently, of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US and teaches at Amherst College Continue reading...

Animal shelter has been staff tending to several dozen wounded animals since the fires ravaged Lahaina, but it is hoping for a surgeMore than a week after wildfire destroyed Lahaina, burning thousands of homes and killing at least 110 people, Maui Humane Society is still waiting for the wave of animals.The animal shelter has been bustling in the days since the disaster began, with volunteers sorting through thousands of donations, staff tending to several dozen wounded animals and limited vet crews on the ground searching for more. But with as many as 3,000 animals missing, Maui Humane Society is hoping for a surge. Continue reading...

Surely as fans we want to see performers express themselves in concert - however misguided they sometimes might beEarlier this week, the Killers were subject to boos and walkouts while onstage in Georgia after bringing a Russian man onstage to play drums with them. We don't know the etiquette of this land, but this guy's a Russian," frontman Brandon Flowers told the crowd. After the audience became visibly perturbed, Flowers doubled down: You can't recognise if someone's your brother? He's not your brother? We all separate on the borders of our countries? ... Am I not your brother, being from America?"The answer from the crowd seemed to be a unanimous no" - a fair enough response, given that it was only 15 years ago that Russia invaded Georgia and still occupies around 20% of the territory (as well as significant portions of Ukraine). It hasn't been the only time lately that a musician has put their foot in it with regards to cultural norms, either: the 1975 were banned from Malaysia last month after lead singer Matty Healy kissed his bandmate Ross MacDonald onstage in Kuala Lumpur. Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia - and now the Good Vibes festival, which hosted the band, is demanding Healy and co pay damages to cover the costs of the event, which they were forced to cancel after the incident. Continue reading...

The NWSL's Kansas City Current, co-owned by Patrick and Brittany Mahomes, are months away from moving into a revolutionary venueHanna Glas started playing soccer at five years old in the small town in Sweden she grew up in, four hours north of Stockholm. She played because her older brother did, and she always wanted to copy him.Excitedly, they'd rush out to the small patch of grass by their house, kicking the ball around until they got tired. But Glas could never have dreamed of playing professionally. Continue reading...

Former president sparks a flurry of online abuse directed at district attorney Fani Willis after he attacks opponents using the word riggers'

Since a misjudged anorexia storyline in Skins, television has continued to glorify and glamorise eating disorders. I am so relieved that Netflix's hit teen drama has finally got it rightWhen I look back at my teenage years, I remember being hungry. In the tangle of GCSE exam panic, awkward adolescence, angst and first love, I decided I had to take charge of my life in the only way I knew I properly could. At 16, I made the very active decision to stop eating. Lunchtimes stretched out into blank space. Before going to restaurants, I compulsively checked menus in search of the smallest thing I could stomach and still go unnoticed. Calories listed on the back of food packets demanded attention. Numbers, values and sums swarmed and swamped my head. Food was an all-consuming obsession, but I was empty.The desire to avoid eating informed almost every decision I made. I came late to dinner plans, parroting that I wasn't that hungry" or that I'd eaten at home". I'd shamefully tip full plates of food into the bin, pretending I hadn't let any go to waste. But however hard I pushed myself to skip snacks or adjust the levels of what I was allowed - and not allowed - to eat, my struggle was an internal, quiet and solitary one. Continue reading...

Republican extremist says I haven't made up my mind' on running for Georgia seat because Is it possible that I'll be VP?'The rightwing extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has not made up her mind about running for Senate in Georgia - in part because she hopes to be Donald Trump's vice-president.I haven't made up my mind whether I will do that or not," Greene told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about a rumoured challenge to the current governor, Brian Kemp, in a Georgia Senate primary in 2026. Continue reading...

Ex-president and co-defendants, including Giuliani, can turn themselves in at any time', sheriff's office saysDonald Trump and the 18 co-defendants charged with racketeering and crimes for conspiring to subvert the 2020 presidential election in a criminal enterprise" are set to be booked at a jail in Fulton county, Georgia, the local sheriff's office said on Tuesday.The grand jury has issued arrest warrants for all 19 defendants, said Fani Willis, the district attorney, during a news conference after she delivered a sweeping 41-count indictment late Monday night. Defendants have until 25 August to surrender voluntarily, after which they can expect to be arrested. Continue reading...

Ex-president faces years of prison if convicted in Fulton county, but if case is moved to federal court it might result in dismissal of chargesAfter news broke on Monday night of Donald Trump's indictment in Fulton county, Georgia, attention quickly turned to the possible spectacle of a trial unfolding on television as a former president attempts to rebut charges of racketeering and conspiracy over his efforts to overturn the results of an election.But before the district attorney Fani Willis can have the opportunity to make her case against Trump with the cameras rolling, she must first clear a key procedural hurdle to keep the case in Fulton county. Trump's legal team is expected to rely on a little known legal statute to argue the case should be moved to federal court, and that jurisdictional question could delay a trial for months. The stakes of that procedural fight will be high, as a conviction in Fulton county would leave Trump facing years of prison time with no clear pathway to a pardon. Continue reading...

Guideline on Diet Coke ingredient by consultants tied to industry is obvious conflict of interest' and not credible', report saysIn May, the World Health Organization issued an alarming report that declared widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss, and long term consumption may increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults.A few months later, WHO declared aspartame, a key ingredient in Diet Coke, to be a possible carcinogen", then quickly issued a third report that seemed to contradict its previous findings - people could continue consuming the product at levels determined to be safe decades ago, before new science cited by WHO raised health concerns. Continue reading...

Crystal Czerno says GE knowingly contaminated nine-year-old son's school playground with PCB waste while downplaying harmA Massachusetts mother has filed a lawsuit blaming widespread PCB pollution by General Electric (GE), Monsanto and its German owner Bayer, and several other companies for causing her nine-year-old son to develop leukemia and suffer repeated debilitating medical treatments.Crystal Czerno alleges, among other things, that GE knowingly contaminated her son Carter's elementary school playground with PCB waste while downplaying the harm it could cause. The school is located in the town of Pittsfield, just north of a GE facility that made electrical transformers containing PCBs for more than 40 years. PCB-laden soil from the GE site was spread over the school grounds. Continue reading...

Amid a spiraling homelessness crisis, a new law went into effect to ticket those sleeping outside. But there are few beds and cases go nowhereMorning, it's police! Collect all your stuff!"At 7.30am on a recent Friday, two policemen shouted commands into tents along a downtown sidewalk in downtown San Diego. One barefoot man startled awake and remarked that someone had stolen his shoes. Next to him, Moses Miramontes, 47, was frantically tying up his tent and belongings. Continue reading...

The industry generates 80% of Maui county's economic activity - but it risks devastating the island's natural resourcesThe fire that leveled the Hawaii town of Lahaina didn't discriminate. It seared through vacation rentals and historic landmarks alike, scorched a 150-year-old banyan tree and touristic Tiki bars, reducing nearly everything to gray rubble.And the destruction has laid bare seething tensions about the dominance of tourism on the island. Continue reading...

Ocasio-Cortez's video with a brand CEO angered some who saw it as consumerist, while others backed her on health groundsThe burning debate on the American left this week: is sunscreen socialist?It was sparked last Thursday when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke out about the poor quality of sun creams in the US compared to elsewhere. I was in South Korea earlier this year and it is so clear how far advanced the rest of the world is on sunscreen, and we deserve better in the US," the congresswoman said in a social media video filmed with Charlotte Palermino, a skincare brand CEO. Continue reading...

Jason Preston could barely get a game in high school, and now he is a member of the LA Clippers. Staying there requires incredible amounts of hard workIt's the peak of the summer. But Jason Preston, the young point guard for the Los Angeles Clippers, wakes up at 4.45am. At a time when other 24-year-olds are sleeping in - or still out on the town - Preston is stretching. Then he has some breakfast - nothing decadent - a meal to carry him through his upcoming morning workout. It doesn't end there, though. Preston has a full day ahead, then it's early to bed all over again. Such is the life of a young player trying to make an impact in the NBA.I don't even necessarily look at it like I have to get up so early," Preston tells the Guardian. It's a good feeling. As if I'm a step ahead of everybody. I like waking up and it still being dark outside." Continue reading...

The leak could undermine security in Northern Ireland - restoring power sharing is a political necessity at this momentHalf of the people who live in these islands have no adult memory at all of the Northern Ireland troubles. Too many of those who can remember them have allowed the bombings, shootings, riots and violence to slip from their minds in the 25 years that have passed since a peace treaty was signed in 1998. But last week's data leak by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) ought to be a wake-up call for the forgetful, and a lightbulb moment for the unaware.Nine days ago, in response to a freedom of information request whose provenance remains unclear, someone in the PSNI mistakenly put the names, initials, ranks, place of work and departments of all of its 10,000 officers and staff online for about three hours before they were removed. Especially in a profession where police and their families were, and sometimes still are, regular targets, it was a spectacular security breach, even in these more peaceful times.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

US president aiming to take advantage of recent thaw in ties under president Yoon Suk Yeol and prime minister Fumio KishidaThe US has promised to usher in a new era" in relations with its most important allies in Asia, as the region struggles to address the threat posed by an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea.Joe Biden is expected to take advantage of a recent thaw in ties between Japan and South Korea - home to tens of thousands of US troops - to announce new collaborations on missile defence and technology, when he meets the countries' leaders on Friday. Continue reading...

Attorney for Carlos De Oliveira also represents witnesses who could testify against him, according to special counsel's officeSpecial counsel prosecutors asked on Wednesday for a hearing to inform the Mar-a-Lago club's maintenance chief, charged with helping Donald Trump to obstruct the government's attempt to retrieve the classified documents at the property, that his lawyer might be hamstrung at trial due to potential conflicts of interest.The issue, according to prosecutors, is that De Oliveira's lawyer, John Irving, represents three other witnesses who provided incriminating evidence against Carlos De Oliveira and could be called to testify against him at trial. Continue reading...

Study shows that 60% of teens between ages 13-17 agreed with four or more conspiracy statements compared with 49% of adultsTeenagers are significantly more likely to believe online conspiracy theories than older generations, a new study has shown, underscoring the broad impacts of gen Z's relationship with social media.Findings from Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit that fights misinformation, showed that 60% of 13-17-year-old Americans surveyed agreed with four or more harmful conspiracy statements - compared with just 49% of adults. For teens who spend four or more hours a day on any single social media platform, the figure was as high as 69%. Continue reading...

President has faced criticism for not speaking about wildfire disaster earlier and using the wrong name when referring to MauiJoe and Jill Biden will travel to Hawaii next week to witness the impact of wildfires that devastated the town of Lahaina, the White House said on Wednesday, as the death toll from disaster rose to 110.Announcing the visit, which will take place on Monday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said: In Maui, the president and first lady will be welcomed by state and local leaders to see first-hand the impacts of the wildfires and the devastating loss of life and land that has occurred on the island, as well as discuss the next steps in the recovery effort. Continue reading...

Police raid on office of Marion County Record drew widespread condemnation by press freedom advocatesAuthorities have announced the controversial search warrant of a local Kansas newspaper office has been withdrawn.The Marion county attorney Joel Ensey announced that following a review of the search warrants made last Friday at multiple locations in Marion county, he has come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized". Continue reading...

Georgia prosecutor subjected to flurry of threats after Trump makes thinly veiled reference to N-word after latest chargesFani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word riggers", a thinly veiled play on the N-word.Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social calling for all charges to be dropped and predicting he would exonerated. He did not mention Willis by name, but accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets. Continue reading...

Ruling prevents mifepristone being prescribed by non-doctors or shipped by mail but does not order drug off marketA US appeals court ruled on Wednesday to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone, returning to regulations that were in place in several years ago, but will not be taking the medication off the market.The US court of appeals for the fifth circuit decided that the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) previous regulations for mifepristone were unlawful, Reuters reported. The FDA had ruled that the abortion pill could be taken at a later stage in pregnancy (70 days into pregnancy versus 49 days), shipped via mail, and could be prescribed from medical professionals who are not doctors. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. You can read our latest report on the climate crisis here and find out key things to know about the climate bill hereThe US is the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. Continue reading...

Daniel Goldman says fabulist congressman paid someone to impersonate Republican House speaker's chief of staffA senior Democrat called Kevin McCarthy pathetic and shameful" on Wednesday, for continuing to protect George Santos even as a staffer to the fabulist Republican congressman faced charges for impersonating the House speaker's own chief of staff.Daniel Goldman of New York said: According to a federal indictment, George Santos paid someone to impersonate Kevin McCarthy's chief of staff to raise money, yet McCarthy continues to protect Santos. Continue reading...

Trump's second big lie is almost as dangerous to the future of American democracy as was his firstNot content with trying to destroy America's trust in the US election system with his big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, Donald Trump is now trying to destroy America's trust in the US judicial system with another big lie.The second big lie is that judges, prosecutors, witnesses and juries are corruptly prosecuting Trump as a means of keeping him from being re-elected.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Richard Blumenthal to consider other legal methods' to compel Yasir al-Rumayyan to speak to Senate oversight committeeA senior US lawmaker has challenged a Saudi Arabian official's refusal to voluntarily testify before a Senate committee investigating the kingdom's controversial golf deal with the PGA Tour, saying officials should be prepared to be subject to American laws and oversight if they invest in the US.Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator from Connecticut who serves as chairman of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations, also said he would consider other legal methods" to force Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), to testify if he continued to refuse. Continue reading...

Former New York City mayor was known for wielding anti-racketeering law he is charged under in Georgia against mobstersRudy Giuliani has dined out for years on his aggressive use of Rico, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which he wielded with dramatic effect against New York mobsters in the 1980s.For his pains, he was granted an award by the Italian government. Later, as New York City mayor, he turned his use of the anti-racketeering law into a vote-getter, presenting himself as the hero of Rico. Continue reading...

Sales fell 5.4% over the last three months, a higher decline than expectations, according to second-quarter earnings reportThe rightwing backlash to the retail giant Target's Pride Month merchandise contributed to a sharp drop in sales over the last three months, the company announced on Wednesday. Target is reviewing how it will market its Pride Month merchandise next year.Over the last three months, sales at the retailer fell 5.4%, a higher decline than Wall Street expectations, according to the company's second-quarter earnings report. The company decreased its profit outlook for the year and said it expects further declines for the rest of the year. Continue reading...

Top-ranked university is one of 17 elite colleges that are accused of restricting financial aid packages for students, lawsuit claimsThe University of Chicago has agreed to pay $13.5m to students after settling a claim that it conspired with other universities to intentionally limit financial aid offers for students.The top-ranked university is one of 17 elite colleges that were accused of restricting financial aid packages for students, according to a federal lawsuit filed last year, Insider reported. Continue reading...