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When the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested they might revisit same-sex marriage. Some LGBT couples are not waiting to find outOn a late June day in 2015, recent high school graduate Kaliyah Halsey and their mother were shopping for dormitory supplies when Kaliyah’s mother looked at her phone. “She was like, ‘Oh my God. Gay marriage is now legal in all 50 states. I’m so happy for you!’” recalls Kaliyah, now 25. “We were, like, crying in the middle of Kohl’s.”Four years later, while training for a new job at Wells Fargo, Kaliyah met Britney Halsey (née Justus). “She came in and I was just in awe,” Kaliyah recalls. The two began a friendship. A few months later, on 16 December 2019, Kaliyah asked Britney to be their girlfriend at the top of Rockefeller Center. On the same date in 2021, the two got engaged. They set their wedding date for 16 December 2023. “That way we could have our dream wedding,” says Kaliyah. The couple began saving up for a huge gathering of friends and family in Nashville, where they moved last year from their home of Roanoke, Virginia. Continue reading...

In memoir, Geoffrey Berman recounts clashes before a botched firing he insists was politically motivatedDonald Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, is stupid, a liar, a bully and a thug, according to a hard-hitting new book by Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York whose firing Barr engineered in hugely controversial fashion in summer 2020.“Several hours after Barr and I met,” Berman writes, “on a Friday night, [Barr] issued a press release saying that I was stepping down. That was a lie. Continue reading...

Housing, train fares, geography and childcare costs will determine if hybrid working weathers the winterAfter two years of global crisis, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle when it comes to work: employees in the UK no longer want the 9-to-5, bookended by an exhausting and expensive commute.Anecdotally, that might seem obvious. But having documented the changes to organisational life through the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the Work after Lockdown project (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council), what is significant about these findings is that this mindset shift appears to be permanent. Figures show nearly 40% of working adults in Great Britain are now working across multiple locations in a hybrid working model. However, as the energy crisis threatens to bite, there are warnings that this winter’s looming energy crisis could kill off our new working “culture”. So, which one is it?Jane Parry is an associate professor of work and employment and director of the Centre for Research on Work and Organisations at Southampton Business School, University of Southampton Continue reading...

The Euphoria actor wants to keep things apolitical – but treating politics as abstract has always been a privilegeJennifer Lawrence says she “can’t fuck with people who aren’t political”. In a cover interview with Vogue, the actor revealed that she no longer has any patience for people who are passive about politics because things are now “too dire … Politics are killing people.”Politics have been killing people for a very long time, of course. Military spending decisions kill people. Austerity, and a lack of social welfare spending, kills people. Climate crisis and gun control policies, or a lack thereof, kill people. Treating politics as something abstract, something that doesn’t significantly impact your day-to-day life, has always been a privilege. Continue reading...

UK-based cinema chain, second-biggest in the world, hit by lockdowns, audience slump and debt from Regal theatres takeoverBritain’s Cineworld, the world’s second-biggest cinema chain, has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US as it seeks to restructure after facing low audience numbers.The group operates 751 movie theatres including more than 500 in the United States, more than 100 in Britain and Ireland, and others across Europe and Israel. It owns the Picturehouse chain in Britain and Regal cinemas in the US. Continue reading...

Robert Telles, Clark county’s public administrator, had been the focus of several investigative stories by GermanFour days after the investigative journalist Jeff German was found dead outside his Las Vegas home, police have arrested a local official who had been the focus of German’s reporting, on suspicion of murder, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.Robert Telles, an elected official who serves as the Clark county public administrator, was was wheeled out of his home on a stretcher and put into an ambulance about 6pm, just hours after officials had searched Telles’s home, according to the Review Journal. Continue reading...

Records broken in Sacramento and Reno, while California close to ordering rolling blackouts to ease strain on power gridA brutal heatwave enveloping the US west smashed records on Tuesday, as high temperatures and historic energy use strained California’s grid to the brink of its capacity and spurred fire behavior across the state.Western states are struggling through one of the hottest and longest September heatwaves on record. Continue reading...

Report appears to confirm security officials’ worst fears about the nature of the material Trump refused to hand back

Former first lady and former president speak in poetry at unveiling ceremony of official paintings at White House in first visit together since leaving officeEven after all these years, she admitted, Michelle Obama still feels a bit odd and awkward inside the White House. “Growing up on Euclid Avenue [on Chicago’s south side],” the former first lady reflected, “I never could have imagined that any of this would be part of my story.”Yet from Wednesday her face will adorn the walls of America’s most famous address for as long as it still stands and presidents still call it home. In their first visit as a couple to the White House since leaving office in 2017, she and ex-president Barack Obama unveiled their official portraits at a ceremony in the East Room. Continue reading...

Frances Tiafoe got the better of Andrey Rublev to delight the New York crowd after Aryna Sabalenka powered past Karolina PliskovaFirst set: *Pliskova 1-5 Sabalenka (*denotes next server) Sabalenka has suffered issues with her serve in the past, but when it’s firing – as it certainly is so far today – it’s hard to stop. She powers through this service hold, and the first set is in sight.First set: Pliskova 1-4 Sabalenka* (*denotes next server) A ten-shot rally ends with Sabalenka blasting an 85mph winner into the corner. Pliskova finds some welcome serve accuracy – a pair of aces get her on the board in this set. Continue reading...

City officials ‘taking this matter very seriously’ as detection comes amid water access problems in Jackson, Mississippi and New YorkE coli has been detected in multiple locations across Baltimore in recent days, city officials have announced.Residents have been urged to boil tap water for at least a minute after E coli samples were detected in West Baltimore over the weekend. Since then, over 1,500 people in the city of around 600,000 have been affected by the advisory, including multiple schools. Continue reading...

Judge Elizabeth Gleicher had previously suspended the same law as state supreme court considers abortion ballot amendmentA judge on Wednesday struck down Michigan’s 1931 anti-abortion law, months after suspending it, the latest development over abortion rights in a state where the issue is being argued in courtrooms and, possibly, at the ballot box.The law, which was long dormant before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June, violates the Michigan constitution, said Judge Elizabeth Gleicher. Continue reading...

Former intelligence chiefs say national security officials are ‘shaking their heads at what damage might have been done’Mar-a-Lago – the Palm Beach resort and residence where Donald Trump reportedly stored nuclear secrets among a trove of highly classified documents for 18 months since leaving the White House – is a magnet for foreign spies, former intelligence officials have warned.The Washington Post reported that a document describing an unspecified foreign government’s defences, including its nuclear capabilities, was one of the many highly secret papers Trump took away from the White House when he left office in January 2021. Continue reading...

Federal judge says employers don’t need to cover PrEP drugs if it violates companies’ religious beliefsA federal judge in Texas has ruled that employers should not be forced to provide coverage for HIV infection prevention drugs if it violates their owners’ religious beliefs “by making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior”.US district judge Reed O’Connor on Wednesday ruled in favor of Braidwood Management, a Christian-owned company based in Texas, saying it was not required to cover the cost of Truvada and Descovy, two pre-exposure prophylactic drugs also known as PrEP. Continue reading...

The Obamas did not have their unveiling ceremony while Donald Trump was in officeBarack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, returned to the White House on Wednesday for the unveiling of their official portraits, hosted by Joe Biden more than five years after the 44th president left office.Large, formal portraits of presidents and first ladies adorn walls, hallways and rooms throughout the White House. Customarily, a former president returns for the unveiling during the tenure of his successor. But the Obamas, who have remained popular since leaving power, did not have their ceremony while Donald Trump was in office. Continue reading...

Hundreds of public officials, including police chiefs, appear on far-right group’s leaked lists of members, report findsThe names of hundreds of US law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that is accused of playing a key role in the January 6 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, according to a report released on Wednesday.The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies – including as police chiefs and sheriffs – and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military. Continue reading...

More than 5m families missing meals and cutting portions because of poverty, according to government researchOne in 10 American households struggled to feed their families last year, with more than 5 million families missing meals and cutting portions due to poverty, new government research reveals.Food insecurity in households with children is the lowest level on record, yet families still account for almost half of the country’s food-insecure households, with 2.3m unable to afford adequate nutritional food at times during 2021, according to the annual food insecurity report by the USDA. Continue reading...

A sense of solidarity in the Brooklyn neighborhood has driven donations – but local Pakistanis say more help is neededAs record-breaking flooding continues to devastate Pakistan, leaving more than 1,250 dead and affecting at least 35 million people, members of the Pakistani diaspora in New York City are rallying their neighbors to help.“There’s a unity here,” said Fareeha Haq, a community worker in Little Pakistan, the neighborhood in South Brooklyn that is home to one of the largest Pakistani populations in the US. The roughly mile-long district lined with mosques, halal grocers and restaurants remains intimately connected to Pakistan: “You can walk out in your traditional clothes and you don’t look awkward. You can get everything you want that would do in Pakistan – there’s a guy who sells sugarcane juice, just like home,” said Haq. Continue reading...

In Italy all you get is Italian and we win hands down on variety. That is, until you stop off at a motorway service stationLast month in Croatia an old Serbian guy told me a joke about the British, the French, the Germans and the Swiss. I’m shaky on the details but it concerned a vision of paradise in which the engineers were German, the chefs were French, the lovers were Italian, the Swiss were in charge of organising everything and the police – or the “bobbies” as my Serbian friend Slobo called them – were British. I felt a light swelling of pride at this Dixon of Dock Green characterisation of law enforcement in my home country. As for the punchline, I’m not sure how we got to it but there was some kind of muddle in which the Italians were put in charge of organising everything, which led to the policing being done by the Germans, the engineering by the French, the British did the cooking and all the lovers were Swiss.Now, there’s a lot of crass national stereotyping to unpick here. German coppers seem OK to me, and our Renault drives very nicely. As for the Swiss, while I’ve never had a Swiss lover, I can’t imagine what they might lack for in the bedroom. My friend told me he once offended a Swiss bloke with this joke, and now he had offended me. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard my home country’s food casually disparaged in my earshot. And I’m not having it. Having spent three weeks travelling around Europe this summer, I know for sure that, depending on the criteria, we’re the best. Continue reading...

Transition to single annual coronavirus shot is an ‘important milestone’ in the pandemic, says Ashish JhaThe coronavirus vaccine could soon become an annual shot like the flu vaccination, protecting most people from serious illness throughout the year, White House Covid advisers have announced.At a press briefing on Tuesday, Ashish Jha, the Covid response coordinator, said the transition to a single annual shot was an “important milestone” in the pandemic – which has killed more than a million Americans, leaving at least 250,000 children without a parent or primary caregiver. Continue reading...

Maura Healey cruises to Democratic primary victory and will face Republican Geoff Diehl, a supporter of Trump’s election lieMassachusetts is on course to elect its first woman and first gay governor after Maura Healey won the Democratic primary on Tuesday and a Trump-backed candidate, Geoff Diehl, won the Republican contest to face her.Healey, the state attorney general, said: “I am honored to receive the Democratic nomination … Together, we’re going to win in November and build a Massachusetts that works for everyone.” Continue reading...

Supporters dressed as angels stepped in between people gathered to support Brigham Young University’s queer community and anti-LGBTQ+ protestersSupporters of LGBTQ+ students rallying in Utah were given protection from protesters hurling insults and misinformation over the weekend by allies dressed as angels, who raised huge fabric “wings” to shield queer marchers.Members of Brigham Young University’s (BYU) queer community were confronted at a pride event last Saturday by anti-gay students and outside protesters, the Salt Lake Tribune reported, but they found they had an unusual and effective security barrier. Continue reading...

The 24-year-old could end America’s long wait for a men’s slam champion having beaten the odds in so many waysNo sooner had Frances Tiafoe walked off the court after completing the biggest win of his career to reach the US Open quarter-finals than he looked up at his player box where his parents, Frances Sr and Alphina Kamara, beamed down with pride amid deafening roars from the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd.“To see them experience me beat Rafa Nadal?” recalled Tiafoe, a 24-year-old from Hyattsville, Maryland, who is seeded 22nd at Flushing Meadows. “They’ve seen me have big wins, but to beat those Mount Rushmore guys, for them, I can’t imagine what was going through their heads. They’re going to remember today for the rest of their lives.” Continue reading...

Recovered records include material even senior Biden officials were not authorized to view, Washington Post reports. Plus, did Harry Styles really spit on Chris Pine?

Republicans efforts to delegitimize the electoral process should trouble us greatly. Democrats ought to hammer this homeWe’re nearing the end of a summer that’s been a real boon for the Biden administration and Democrats in Washington. The White House finally announced a partial student loan forgiveness plan that will deliver some long-awaited relief to millions of borrowers. The Dobbs decision in June and its aftermath have triggered a public backlash that’s reinforced support for abortion rights and opened the eyes of many Americans to the pro-life movement’s radicalism on the issue. The Department of Justice is evidently in the middle of a quite serious investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents ⁠— one that’s put him at the top of the headlines again in spectacular fashion and may well end in his prosecution. And, most consequentially, after a months-long stalemate, Congress managed to pass a flawed, but genuinely historic bill ⁠— the hilariously and shrewdly named Inflation Reduction Act, which happens to be, among other things, the largest single climate package ever passed by any country.

Title 42 bans all migrants from entering the country over spread of Covid – but the rule is largely enforced against Mexicans and people from Guatemala, Honduras and El SalvadorAs hundreds of migrants line up along an Arizona border barrier around 4am, agents try to separate them into groups by nationality.“Anyone from Russia or Bangladesh? I need somebody else from Russia here,” an agent shouts and then says quietly, almost to himself: “These are Romanian.” Continue reading...

Move comes as Biden administration outlines plans to boost domestic production of semiconductorsUS technology firms that receive government funding will be banned from building “advanced technology facilities” in China for a decade, the Biden administration has announced, as it outlined plans to increase domestic production of semiconductors.The requirements come under the US government’s near-$53bn (£46bn) plan to scale up manufacturing of semiconductor chips – the “brain” in every electronic device from cars to household appliances – which are predominantly produced in Asia. Continue reading...

Judge Aileen Cannon’s opinion screams out that she applies more lenient rules to Donald TrumpThe best thing one can say about Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision Monday appointing a special master to review the documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is that it’s not the end of the world: the Justice Department can continue its investigation of Donald Trump’s apparent theft and retention of highly sensitive defense-related documents, at least those that weren’t seized in the August 6 search. The Washington Post reported that those documents included nuclear secrets of other nations.It can also continue to investigate his efforts to overturn the presidential election, culminating in his role in the violent insurrection of January 6, keeping in mind the historic holding of a New Mexico state court this September 6 that the 14th Amendment bars all who played such a role from ever again holding public office in the United States.Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law SchoolDennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy Continue reading...

Sacramento Republic of the second-tier USL are 90 minutes away from a historic trophy and the biggest triumph in a long-overlooked city’s sports historySacramento, as a city, has always had a chip on its shoulder. Despite its 2.5 million residents and status as the capital of California, it has long been overshadowed by the likes of the Bay Area’s Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.That dynamic inevitably spills over to sports, where its soccer team, Sacramento Republic of the second-tier USL, was infamously spurned last year by Major League Soccer only 17 months after it was very publicly awarded an expansion slot. Continue reading...

The Americans’ actions at the 1972 Games had echoes of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. But today their story has been largely forgottenFifty years ago this week, two African American athletes, Vincent Matthews and Wayne Collett, won gold and silver respectively in the 400m at the Munich Olympics. At the medal ceremony they threw themselves into the maw of history.During the US national anthem, the athletes shared the top tier of the podium – which would usually have been reserved for Matthews alone as the winner – an act of unity that broke Olympic protocol. They angled their backs away from the American flag and chatted casually, looking uninterested. Matthews rubbed his chin pensively before folding his arms. Collett stood barefoot, jacket open with hands on hips. As they departed, Matthews twirled his medal on his finger while Collett thrust a clenched fist into the air. Continue reading...

Critics say the decision to stop reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago until a special master is appointed is ‘unprecedented’ and ‘insane’Monday’s decision by a US federal judge to stop the investigation of Donald Trump’s seizure of classified documents until a “special master” reviews them has thrown the political and legal worlds into uproar – pitting those who believe the ex-president has special legal privileges against those who think he should be treated like any other citizen.The procedural victory for Trump means the Department of Justice will have to press pause on its effort to determine whether the former president may have illegally run off with classified documents from the White House and kept them at his home in Mar-a-Lago. Continue reading...

Chris Van Hollen calls for independent US inquiry, saying IDF claim Shireen Abu Aqleh died amid gun battle unsupported by evidenceA US senator has dismissed an Israeli army report that claims a soldier accidentally killed the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh in the midst of a gun battle, saying it is unsupported by the evidence.Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic senator for Maryland, repeated his call for an independent US investigation into Abu Aqleh’s killing in the West Bank in May, saying that the United Nations and reconstructions by major news outlets found that the Al Jazeera television journalist was not in the immediate vicinity of fighting with Palestinian militants and could not have been caught in the crossfire. Continue reading...

Former Trump strategist to face state charges over fundraising for the wall that likely mirror a federal case in which he was pardonedTop former Trump strategist Steve Bannon is expected to be indicted on Thursday on state fraud charges connected to his role in a fundraising scheme to build a border wall, according to two sources familiar with the matter, years after he received a presidential pardon in the federal case.The expected move by the Manhattan district attorney’s office was quietly communicated to Bannon in recent days, the sources said of the sealed indictment, and indicated the state charges will likely mirror the federal case in which he was pardoned. Continue reading...

Recovered records include material even senior Biden officials were not authorized to view, Washington Post reportsThe FBI recovered a document describing a foreign government’s nuclear capabilities during its search of Mar-a-Lago, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.The Post, citing unnamed sources, did not identify the foreign government named in the document describing the country’s military defenses. Continue reading...

There were scenes of destruction across California as wildfires torched homes in the south and eviscerated a historic community near the Oregon border.

E-cigarette company, whose products are blamed for a surge in youth vaping, also faces new marketing restrictionsThe electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs will pay nearly $440m to settle a two-year investigation by 33 states into the marketing of its high-nicotine vaping products, which have long been blamed for sparking a national surge in teen vaping.William Tong, the Connecticut attorney general, announced the deal on Tuesday on behalf of the states plus Puerto Rico, which joined together in 2020 to investigate Juul’s early promotions and claims about the safety and benefits of its technology as a smoking alternative. Continue reading...

Four fire-related deaths were reported over the weekend as more than 4,000 firefighters battled 14 large blazes across the stateCalifornia’s power grid is facing a major stress test on Tuesday, as a historic heatwave enters its most brutal phase. With temperatures in parts of the state forecasted to hit 115F (46C), officials are asking residents to prepare for possible rolling blackouts as the heatwave reaches a boiling point.Officials said controlled power interruptions “can help maintain reliability and avoid cascading blackouts”, as people across the state crank up their air conditioners amid scorching temperatures, California’s grid operator warned. Continue reading...

Los Angeles Unified, with over 600,000 students, suffers ‘significant infrastructure disruption’ but classes set to take place as usualHackers targeted the second-largest school district in the US with a cyber-attack over Labor Day weekend, officials at Los Angeles unified school district have confirmed.The district characterized the cyber-attack as a “significant disruption to our system’s infrastructure” but officials said they did not expect major problems with teaching or such services as transportation and food. It said business operations might be delayed or modified.The Associated Press contributed to this report Continue reading...

This marks the first time since 1869 that a court removed an official for participating in an insurrectionA New Mexico official was removed from elected office on Tuesday for his role in the January 6 siege on the US capitol, marking the first time a politician has lost their job for their involvement in the attack.Couy Griffin, one of three commissioners in Otero county in southern New Mexico, was immediately removed from his position and cannot hold elected office again, Francis Mathew, a district judge in Santa Fe, wrote in his ruling. Continue reading...