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US actor, who starred in Apollo 13, died in 2017 from stroke 11 days after undergoing heart surgery at Cedars-SinaiBill Paxton’s family has struck an agreement to settle its wrongful death lawsuit against a hospital and surgeon who operated on the late actor’s heart shortly before his 2017 death, a court filing showed Friday.Notice of the settlement came as a 19 September trial date for Paxton’s family’s lawsuit loomed. Assuming the judge presiding over the case ultimately approves it, the agreement would all but wrap up the claims that Paxton’s wife, Louise, and their children, James and Lydia, leveled against Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai medical center and surgeon Ali Khoynezad. Continue reading...

Panel says members displayed ‘deceit and incompetence over handling of safety program but report condemned as ‘hatchet job’A Florida grand jury empaneled after a 2018 school massacre has recommended that the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, remove four members of the Broward county school board from office, saying they and district administrators displayed “deceit, malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty and incompetence” in their handling of a campus safety program.In the 122-page report released Friday, the panel recommended that DeSantis suspend board members Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson. A former member, Rosalind Osgood, also was targeted, but she has since been elected to the Florida Senate and taken office. Continue reading...

Joe Biden promised consequences for the government – then he fist-bumped the crown princeSalma al-Shehab is sitting in prison because of a retweet. The 34-year-old Leeds University student and mother of two young boys was travelling home to Saudi Arabia for a holiday when she found herself summoned to a special terrorism court and charged with using a website to “cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security”. What does that mean in plain English? She had a Twitter account and retweeted some dissidents. For that “crime”, she has been sentenced to 34 years in prison and, just to make sure she really learns her lesson, has also been given a 34-year travel ban. Continue reading...

Advocates in New York hope the case of Valerie Gaiter, who died in prison after 40 years behind bars, will help bring reform“Val was given Pepto-Bismol when she went to the nurse’s office. Pepto-Bismol for cancer.”At a rally this month, family members and friends of Valerie Gaiter, widely known as Val, as well as campaigners gathered to demand better medical care for those incarcerated and more parole opportunities, especially for elderly populations. Continue reading...

With our new progressive president and coalition government, we now have a chance at peace and unity – let’s not waste it• María José Pizarro is a Colombian senator and member of the progressive Historic Pact coalitionFor more than 50 years, Colombia has suffered a war that has killed nearly 450,000 civilians and displaced more than 8 million people from their territories. My father, Carlos Pizarro Leongómez — once a commander of the guerrilla movement M-19 — signed a peace agreement with the Colombian state after years of insurgency, and stood as a presidential candidate in 1990. Forty-seven days after the agreement had been signed, he was assassinated. This event changed my life, broke my family, and devastated our country.Now at last, we may be nearing the end of our national nightmare. On 7 August, Gustavo Petro was sworn in as president of Colombia, joining Afro-Colombian land defender Francia Márquez at the helm of the country’s first progressive government. In his inaugural speech, Petro promised his incoming government will bring “true and definitive peace” to Colombia. To do this, he has invited historic political opponents to the table to reach a common agreement through which both guerrilla and paramilitary forces will lay down their arms.María José Pizarro is a Colombian senator and member of the progressive Historic Pact coalition. Continue reading...

The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago unleashed the latest barrage of threats of violence, on top of a wave of threats against election workers and rising weapons salesDr Garen Wintemute used to laugh off warnings of a civil war coming to America as “crazy talk”. Then the emergency room doctor in California saw the figures for gun sales.Wintemute, who founded a centre to research firearms violence after years of treating gunshot wounds, had long observed that the rush to buy weapons came in waves, often around a presidential election. Always it fell back again. Continue reading...

The January 6 co-chair has been anointed the valiant leader of the Never Trump movement. But does that make her a general without an army?She knew the price of defying Donald Trump but did it anyway. Liz Cheney, crushed in a primary election in Wyoming, was anointed by supporters and commentators as leader of the Republican resistance to the former US president.But that invited a question: what resistance? Admirers of the three-term congresswoman who lost her House seat to a Trump-backed challenger warn that she could now find herself a general without an army. Continue reading...

For three hours, Bryant provided testimony against Los Angeles county for invasion of privacy over photos of her husband’s corpseVanessa Bryant testified on Friday that she was only beginning to grieve the loss of her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter Gianna when she was faced with the fresh horror of learning that sheriff’s deputies and firefighters had shot and shared photos of their bodies at the site of the helicopter crash that killed them.“I felt like I wanted to run, run down the block and scream,” she said, her tears turning to sobs and her voice quickening. “It was like the feeling of wanting to run down a pier and jump into the water. The problem is I can’t escape. I can’t escape my body.” Continue reading...

Self-described sexist removed for violating Meta’s policies on ‘dangerous organizations and individuals’Controversial online influencer and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate has been banned from Meta platforms Instagram and Facebook.The former kickboxer and reality TV star was removed for violating Meta policies “on dangerous organizations and individuals”, the company confirmed by email. Continue reading...

Ron Klain argues president has made a historic impact and that focus shouldn’t be on inflation or Afghanistan withdrawal

The prime minister imposed peace on a party once riven by public bickering, but a rogue MP has threatened all of thatJust hours after electing Jacinda Ardern leader in 2017, an extremely bruised Labour caucus stood onstage trying to assure media the party was united enough to govern.The party had cycled through four leaders since Helen Clark had last led them to government in 2008. It was riven with factionalism, leaks, and the detritus of huge egos stabbing each other in the back. It had now elected a fifth opposition leader, just six weeks out from the election. Continue reading...

Actor gives rare interview in which he insists he isn’t to blame for Halyna Hutchins’ death, despite holding gun that fired fatal shotThe actor and director Alec Baldwin has said the assistant director and the props manager for his movie Rust were responsible for the on-set death of the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming last year in New Mexico.Facing a lawsuit from Hutchins’ family, Baldwin gave a rare interview on Friday in which he insisted he was not to blame for the October 2021 death, despite a shot from a gun he was holding killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza. Continue reading...

Health officials believe the child became infected while swimming last Sunday in the Elkhorn RiverFederal health officials confirmed on Friday that a Nebraska child died from a rare infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba after swimming in a river near Omaha.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the presence of the Naegleria fowleri amoeba in the child, according to the Douglas county department of health in Omaha. Continue reading...

Award in wrongful death of Lucky Phounsy, beaten by sheriff’s deputies in 2015, is ‘out of proportion to the evidence’, judge saidA federal judge has thrown out an $85m lawsuit award over the death of a southern California man who was beaten, hogtied and shocked with a stun gun by sheriff’s deputies in 2015.US District Judge Marilyn Huff said on Wednesday that the March award by a federal jury in a civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of Lucky Phounsy against San Diego county could not be supported by the trial evidence, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Continue reading...

Civil rights activists and Christopher Shaw’s lawyers are demanding justice after he was severely injured while in police custody in 2021Lawyers of a Black Texas man and civil rights activists are calling for justice after he was allegedly grabbed and slammed on to concrete ground by police officers at a jail in Beaumont, Texas, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.On Wednesday, lawyers of 41-year-old Christopher Shaw hosted a press conference that called for justice for Shaw, who was severely injured while in custody in June 2021. Continue reading...

Ron Klain compares Biden’s achievements to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson in interviewIn a bullish interview, the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, compared Joe Biden’s achievements in his first two years in office to historic successes under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.Speaking to Politico, Klain said: “The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since [Dwight D] Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.” Continue reading...

In 2006 detectives discovered DNA evidence, but it was 12 more years before they could identify suspect using genealogy websitesProsecutors in California secured the conviction of a 1980s double murderer after the first use by Los Angeles county detectives of online genealogical databases to identify a suspect.Horace Van Vaultz, now 67, killed Selena Keough, 20, in Montclair in 1981, and Mary Duggan, 22, in Burbank in 1986, but escaped justice for 36 years until investigators were able to link him to DNA from the victims. Continue reading...

Seven decades of a complex history are on display in Los Angeles, revealing the counter narratives to racism created by Black actors and film-makersThe passionate embrace and kiss between vaudeville actors Gertie Brown and Saint Suttle lasts just under 30 seconds, but it’s believed to be the first instance of Black intimacy recorded on film dating back to 1898. That’s where the exhibit Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles begins, displaying some of the earliest work by Black actors and cinematographers throughout American history.Whether through neglect or discrimination, the historical contributions of Black cinema to the tradition of American cinematography has often been sidelined. But the exhibit is the first of its kind which seeks to highlight how Black artists have always played an integral role in the history of film-making. The exhibit got its name from Richard Norman’s 1923 film, Regeneration, a romantic thriller shot in Jacksonville, Florida. Continue reading...

A relentless focus on personal growth means young people can assume it’s their fault when life doesn’t go according to planA couple of years ago, I went to a morning rave: exactly as it sounds, like a rave, in a classic rave venue – the Ministry of Sound in Elephant and Castle – except at 6am. There were a couple of hardy old campaigners but most of the crowd were probably not born in the club’s 1990s heyday or, if they were, they’d not have been rave-ready. There was a water station but most people were drinking green juice; there’s a limit to how much hydration you need, absent intoxication, when all you’re doing is dancing. You can never, conversely, have too much kale.I’d been there before, many times, but this was the first time I’d really observed the place, having previously been – to drop a technical, 1990s term – mashed off my tits. The dancing was very determined, and efficient, like an exercise class. The people were very taut and well groomed, what we used to call hardbodies (we didn’t mean that as a compliment). There was a lot of face-glitter, which I always think is like an am-dram performance of fun, rather than actual fun. My core observation is this: dear generation Z – try not to self-maximise all the time.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

That Watson is allowed to take the field this season is frankly horrifying and an affront to Browns fans with a moral compassDuring a ping-pong of mostly diversions and contradictions in press conferences following the NFL’s 11-game settlement with Deshaun Watson, Browns co-owner Jimmy Haslam allowed the truth to slip.Haslam, squirmy and unable to make eye contact with reporters, was in the midst of answering a question about Watson’s deviant behavior when he added, “It’s important to remember that Deshaun is only 26 and is a high-level quarterback.” Continue reading...

Carl Paladino, a Republican candidate for Congress in New York, recently caused controversy when he praised Adolf HitlerA Republican candidate for Congress in New York said he was “being facetious” when, in the same interview, he said the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, should be executed for authorising the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Florida home.The candidate, Carl Paladino, recently caused controversy when he praised Adolf Hitler, as “the kind of leader we need today”. Continue reading...

Justice department opposed release of document but Florida federal judge says portions of it ‘could be presumptively unsealed’. Plus, meet the strippers who have filed to unionizeGood morning.In a surprise move, the justice department has been ordered to redact the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Donald Trump’s resort in Florida in such a way as not to jeopardize the investigation in case it is decided next week that the document can be unsealed.Why doesn’t the justice department want to release the affidavit? Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence section, opposed the release of a redacted affidavit since, given it contains significant grand jury information and investigative techniques, the redactions would be so extensive that it would show “nothing of substance”.What else is happening? Liz Cheney has released a recording of the call she made to her Trump-backed opponent who claimed she did not concede in the Wyoming US House primary.What does the report say? In her report, the federal police investigator Lorena Lima Nascimento said that untrue claim could generate public “alarm over a nonexistent danger” and constituted a misdemeanor. Continue reading...

Gathering in September at the White House intends to bring together Democrats and Republicans to seek solutionsJoe Biden will host a White House summit next month aimed at combating hate-fueled violence.The White House announced on Friday that Biden will host the United We Stand Summit on 15 September, seeking to highlight the “corrosive effects” of violence on public safety and democracy. Continue reading...

Immigration policies have forced desperate people to traverse inhospitable landscapes along the US-Mexico borderEddie Canales can’t forget the moment he saw the decomposed body of a young man in his 20s hanging from an oak tree on a south Texas ranch last September.The intense heat and humidity in this arid scrubland had quickly rotted his flesh to expose much of the skeleton, which had been at the scene for at least a week. Continue reading...

Some Republicans have spread false information about how new funds will be used by IRS, stoking outrage and alarming expertsThe picture that the top Republican painted was both vivid and terrifying. He warned that additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service would lead to armed auditors banging down front doors to squeeze hard-earned dollars from working Americans.“Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person in Iowa with these?” Senator Chuck Grassley said on Fox News last week. Continue reading...

As Americans go about their daily lives, severely affected Covid patients are wondering if others are moving too quickly from the worst days of the pandemicDespite signs that indicate the latest Covid-19 surge is slowing down, an average of 400 deaths in the US is still reported on a daily basis.Various mask and social distancing mandates across the country are becoming anything but strictly enforced. Continue reading...

Madison county’s Buddy Harwood said the move will reduce threat response time, but gun reform advocates have decried the decisionGun reform advocates have decried as “absolute insanity” a move by a North Carolina sheriff to arm his school resource officers with assault rifles on campus – in addition to their service issue handguns.Madison county sheriff Buddy Harwood says he felt obliged to act in hope of preventing another massacre such as at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in May that killed 19 students and two teachers. Continue reading...

Seven Memphis employees were allegedly fired for supporting organising campaignA US judge has ordered Starbucks to reinstate seven employees at a cafe in Memphis, Tennessee who were allegedly fired for supporting a union campaign, as the coffee chain struggles to halt pending nationwide union elections.Sheryl Lipman, the district judge in the city, said the US National Labor Relations Board had provided enough evidence that the dismissals earlier this year were motivated by anti-union feeling. Lipman granted the order pending the outcome of an administrative case before the board. Continue reading...

Bulger’s death raised questions about why known ‘snitch’ was placed in general jail population instead of secure quartersThree men, including a mafia hitman, have been charged in the 2018 prison killing of the notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger.Bulger’s death raised questions about why the known “snitch” was placed in the West Virginia prison’s general population instead of in more protective quarters. Continue reading...

My work as a journalist made us targets. Now we have a safe new home and I am determined to keep reporting on the bravery of Afghan women and girlsJust over a year ago, I watched in horror from my window as Taliban gunmen appeared on the corner of the street in my beloved Kabul. Now, a year on, I am writing this from my desk in my family’s new home in London. We have our own walls to paint, a kitchen to prepare meals in, my young niece has her own bed. From my window I can see our new neighbourhood and can finally dream of new horizons for me and my family.For the past year, after the terror, chaos and shock of our evacuation from our homeland by the UK government, we have been living in a state of limbo in a hotel in central London, along with 400 other Afghans who also found themselves refugees overnight.Zahra Joya is an Afghan journalist living in London and the editor-in-chief and founder of Rukhshana Media, a news agency reporting on life for women and girls in Afghanistan Continue reading...

The overturning of Roe v Wade is horrific, but vulnerable women are being imprisoned for ending pregnancies right now in Britain. It’s time to legalise abortionLike many people in Britain, you probably watched with horror the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade, thinking, “Thank goodness women could never be prosecuted for having an abortion here.”But let me tell you, it already happens here.Charlotte Proudman is a barrister specialising in violence against women and girls and a fellow at Queens’ College, CambridgeDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

The lawsuit against LA Unified says Rashunda Pitts’ daughter was humiliated by the lesson that was intended to teach about slaveryLos Angeles Unified, America’s second largest school district, is facing a civil rights lawsuit from a Black parent who says her daughter’s school taught students about slavery by having them pick cotton.Rashunda Pitts sued the school district and staff members at Laurel Span school in response to the incident that, according to the lawsuit, humiliated her daughter and left the now 14-year-old with extreme emotional distress and anxiety. Continue reading...

An athletics association scrutinized the winner’s records after parents of two girls who lost the competition complainedA Utah high school athletics association secretly investigated a female athlete – without telling her or her parents – after receiving complaints from the parents of two girls she had defeated in competition questioning whether the girl was transgender.The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Utah high school activities association and the girl’s high school determined she indeed was born female after poring through school records dating back to kindergarten. Continue reading...

Critics calls move ‘too late too little’ after group repeatedly violated policies on Covid-19 misinformationInstagram and Facebook have suspended a prominent anti-vaccine group led by Robert Kennedy Jr for repeatedly violating rules prohibiting misinformation about Covid-19.The non-profit, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), is one of the most influential anti-vaccine organizations active on social media, where it has spread misleading claims about vaccines and other pandemic-related public health measures. Continue reading...

Justice department opposed release of document but Florida federal judge said portions of it ‘could be presumptively unsealed’The justice department must redact the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Donald Trump’s resort in Florida in such a way not to jeopardize the investigation in case he decides to unseal the document next week, a federal magistrate judge ordered on Thursday.The surprise order from Judge Bruce Reinhart charted a middle ground between the justice department’s motion to oppose unsealing any part of the affidavit, and motions from a coalition of media outlets – and calls from the former president – to release the highly sensitive document. Continue reading...

Move designed to show muscle of a new office tasked with policing voting in the state and comes days before primary electionFlorida officials have arrested and charged 20 people with felony convictions and charged them with illegal voting, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Thursday, a move designed to show the muscle of a new office tasked with policing voting in the state.The announcement came just days before the state’s primary election and as early voting is under way. DeSantis, flanked by law enforcement, said the 20 people were charged with voting in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, some of the most Democratic in the state. Continue reading...

Justice department says release of document showing probable cause would jeopardize ongoing investigation

Star Garden workers would be the first strippers to join Actors’ Equity Association, a national theater actors unionDancers at a Los Angeles strip club have filed to unionize with Actors’ Equity Association, a move that would make them the first group of strippers to join the national union that represents theater actors.Performers at Star Garden in North Hollywood submitted a petition on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board seeking a union election. The initiative comes after months of staging protests outside the venue raising concerns about workplace safety and labor rights. Actors’ Equity – which represents Broadway actors, stage managers, Disney World performers and other regional theater actors – said it was supporting the effort and that if it is successful, the Star Garden workers would become the only strippers in the US currently represented by a union. Continue reading...

Jane, the pseudonym for the victim, now 37, said they had sex ‘hundreds’ of times before she turned 18A woman central to R Kelly’s legal troubles for more than two decades testified on Thursday that the R&B singer had sex with her “hundreds” of times before she turned 18, starting when she was 15.Jane – the pseudonym for the now 37-year-old at Kelly’s trial on child sexual abuse images and obstruction of justice charges – told jurors that in the late 1990s when she was 13, she asked the Grammy-winning singer to be her godfather because she saw him as an inspiration and mentor. Continue reading...

Price, who cut his salary to give pay rises to all Gravity Payments’ 120 employees, faces assault and reckless driving chargesDan Price, the chief executive of a Seattle-based credit card processing company who made headlines when he implemented a $70,000 minimum wage, has abruptly resigned after accusations of misconduct and misdemeanor criminal charges that he assaulted a woman after a dinner meeting.Price, who started Gravity Payments in 2004 at age 19, wrote in an email he was stepping away from the company because “my presence has become a distraction here. Continue reading...

Lawsuit was brought by owners after Pitt’s supposedly sustainable, flood-proof homes were plagued by mold, leaks and rotIt sounded like a dream come true, complete with a handsome prince riding to the rescue: the construction of 109 new, sustainable, flood-proof and affordable houses in New Orleans’s Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, all thanks to movie star Brad Pitt.But the houses that were built fell far short of Pitt’s 2006 promises: they were plagued by mold, electrical fires and unclean water.This article was updated on 18 August to add comment from Brad Pitt and Global Green. Continue reading...

Republican senator also claims in open letter that Democrats plan ‘to defund the actual police and create an IRS super-police force’The Republican senator Rick Scott has warned Americans not to apply for new positions with the Internal Revenue Service because he says his party will defund them if it takes Congress later this year.Scott, from Florida and head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also misrepresented the nature of the positions in several ways. He claimed in an open letter that Democrats planned “to defund the actual police and create an IRS super-police force”. Continue reading...

Giovanni De Luca, 19, was arrested on 10 August for two counts of grand theft after police recovered stolen items from his homeAn Apple AirTag led to the arrest of an airline employee who is accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of items in luggage from a Florida airport.Giovanni De Luca, 19, a subcontracted airline worker, was arrested on 10 August for two counts of grand theft in Florida after police recovered a number of stolen items from his home through the tracking device developed by Apple, reported NBC News. Continue reading...

The guilty plea adds to a whirlwind of legal problems now surrounding the former presidentAllen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of Donald Trump’s company and one of his most trusted executives, pleaded guilty to tax violations on Thursday, further complicating the former president’s legal woes.Weisselberg, 75, has worked for the Trump family for five decades. He was charged with accepting more than $1.7m in off-the-books compensation from the former president’s company, including untaxed perks like rent, car payments and school tuition. Continue reading...