US news | The Guardian

As an aspiring writer I loved many exiled authors, from Márquez to Kundera, but with Rushdie the stakes were raisedIt was more than a decade ago when I was introduced to the work of Salman Rushdie, thanks to the recommendation of a writer in my homeland of Pakistan. As an aspiring writer myself, I was always told that to become really good, you have to “read, read and read”. Yet I often found I had already read the authors who were recommended to me, easily available as their works were in my country.But when a writer insisted I must read Rushdie, the stakes were raised. I loved many writers living in exile, from Márquez to Kundera. But Rushdie was the first writer for me who had caused so much anger in the Muslim world and enraged some fanatics. Continue reading...

Since 1947, India and Pakistan have shared profound affinities across ferociously policed borders

In our conversations and emails, his determination to not let the fatwa define him has been evidentThat Salman Rushdie was nearly murdered at an event in New York while talking about whether the United States was a safe haven for exiled writers is an irony he’d have rejected as too far-fetched in even his most fantastical novels. That he was talking at all at such an event – with no personal security, no special precautions – will have been a shock to many, given that he will always be best known, to his chagrin, not for something he did, but for something that was done to him, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him in 1989.But even then, when the threats against him seemed to be at the most heated, he refused to be cowed, always looking straight ahead when he walked slowly from his hiding places to his security detail’s car, never bowing his head, never scuttling. If you succumb to the fear, he writes in Joseph Anton, his memoir of that period, “you will be its creature for ever, its prisoner”.Hadley Freeman is a Guardian columnist and features writerDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

It is courageous and necessary to stand up against tyrants – even when those tyrants claim to have God on their sideSalman Rushie has spent decades living under threat from religious zealots after a religious leader in Iran called for him to be put to death for the alleged blasphemy of his book The Satanic Verses. On Friday, an assailant attacked Rushdie in Chautauqua, New York, stabbing the 75-year-old author multiple times. Rushdie is now reportedly on a ventilator with serious injuries and may lose an eye, according to his agent Andrew Wylie. A 24-year-old New Jersey man named Hadi Matar is in custody.Even with a decades-long fatwa hanging over Rushdie, the attack is still shocking. While he spent many years in hiding after the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini put a fatwa on his head, and there was a $3m bounty offered for his murder, the author has, in recent years, been much more public. Initially, he tried to be reasonable: he said he regretted hurting people’s feelings (“I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam,” he said in 1989), and he suspended the paperback release of the book to let the dust settle – a move he said later he regretted. Continue reading...

Incident followed reports of armed man being seen and comes in wake of criticism of handling of Uvalde shootingPolice fired a stun gun at two Arizona parents as they tried to force their way into a school that police had locked down after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus.The parents were arrested, along with one other, as they tried to get to their children to protect them, authorities said. Officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser stun gun to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody. Continue reading...

Python star Terry Gilliam says today’s students can’t handle the truth. That’s an ex-debateThe idea that young people are exceptionally coddled and go to great lengths to protect themselves against the realities of life – to the detriment of the rest of us – has long settled in the brains of the nation, where, in some cases, it seems to have hardened into an immovable plaque.I was struck by an interview with ex-Python Terry Gilliam. After years of irreverent truth-telling (recent views: #MeToo was a witch-hunt, Harvey Weinstein’s victims were “adults who made choices”, he himself was a black lesbian), Gilliam had suddenly encountered a censorious new generation, the first of its kind, which was simply too soft and closed-minded to take it. They could not handle his truth. Continue reading...

A vast criminal case alleging that one family plotted the massacre of a rival family has torn apart a rural countyWhen eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered in rural Ohio, in 2016, Edward “Jake” Wagner and other members of the nearby Wagner family denied any involvement.For the next five years, the Wagners continued to dismiss the idea that they had any knowledge of why a person – or persons – had invaded the Rhodens’ compound one spring night and killed them with silenced guns as they slept. Continue reading...

The terrible injuries suffered by the great British writer will not extinguish his belief in the critical importance of saying the unsayable‘A poet’s work,” one of the characters in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses observes, is “to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.” “And if rivers of blood flow from the cuts his verses inflict,” the narrator adds, “then they will nourish him.”As Rushdie lies, terribly injured, on a ventilator in a Pennsylvania hospital, there seems something appallingly prescient about the novel, the rage against which has spilled rivers of blood. Including, now, Rushdie’s own. Continue reading...

When a true crisis strikes, there’s often nothing really telling that you can do – other than be there and be kindA big, sad thing has happened in my family, the kind of shocking twist one never sees coming, where the only thing to do is retreat into metaphor for comfort. We stepped into a lift and we started falling. A rip opened in the fabric of the kitchen and suddenly we were in a hushed side-world of hospitals and rage, trying desperately to find our way home. We woke one day with a new language, one that hurt our throats to speak.If you’re lucky and loved, when something like this happens, and you eventually tell your friends, they ask if there’s anything they can do. Continue reading...

More than a decade ago, Palin ascended to international fame as a vice-presidential candidate – but now she faces an uncertain political futureThe billboards around town may say “Sarah for Alaska” – but as far as resident David Gober can tell, Sarah Palin “is all for Palin”.At a coffee shop not far from Palin’s campaign headquarters in Anchorage, Gober, his wife Zelda Marie and a few friends meet up regularly to affably dissect their politics and golf games. The group – like many Alaskans – is skeptical about their former governor’s congressional bid. Continue reading...

As the midterms approach, Biden’s climate success and Trump’s legal troubles could offer Democrats unexpected hopeDeparting his small, unshowy home state of Delaware, Joe Biden roared into the sky aboard Air Force One, borne aloft by jet fuel and a dramatic uplift in his political fortunes.A thousand miles away, some unexpected guests had just arrived at the opulent Florida estate of the US president’s predecessor, Donald Trump, but not for its champagne, sumptuous buffet or two pound lobsters. Continue reading...

Community members who kept to their own homes out of fear of a serial killer face possibility that killings may have been committed by one of their ownIt was a modern-day murder mystery: who had killed four Muslim men in Albquerque, New Mexico, since November? And was the same person responsible?There were no strong leads initially. Some guessed the murders were hate crimes, maybe by a far-right white supremacist, as fear struck the hearts of the local Islamic community. Continue reading...

From tennis courts to Ambridge, the debate rages about when to give up work… and whyJune Spencer, aged 103 – an extraordinary example of being as young as they think you are, as the columnist Katharine Whitehorn once put it – has decided that, after 70 years in the role of the indefatigable matriarch Peggy Woolley, it’s time to retire from BBC Radio Four’s The Archers. “In 1950, I helped to plant an acorn… called The Archers,” she explained. “Over the years it has thrived and become a splendid great tree with many branches. But now this old branch, known as Peggy, has become weak and unsafe so I decided it was high time she ‘boughed out’, so I have duly lopped her.”Also last week came the announcement of the departure of the queen of the tennis court for more than 20 years, Serena Williams. In a Vogue interview, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, now aged 40, announced: “I am evolving away from tennis… I’m ready for what’s next.” The reason for retirement from the sport in her case will be no surprise to many women: namely, you can’t have it all. At least, not on the terms currently on offer. Continue reading...

President says author stands for ‘essential, universal ideals’ and ‘the ability to share ideas without fear’A day after Salman Rushdie’s stabbing in western New York, Joe Biden on Saturday issued a statement hailing the author as standing “for essential, universal ideals”.“Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear,” the president’s statement added about Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after a former leader of Iran put out a call for the writer’s death over one of his novels. “These are the building blocks of any free and open society. And today, we reaffirm our commitment to those deeply American values in solidarity with Rushdie and all those who stand for freedom of expression.” Continue reading...

Recently emerged book sheds new light on lynching after grand jury declined to charge Carolyn Bryant DonhamBy her own telling, Carolyn Bryant Donham received preferential treatment rather than prosecution by Mississippi authorities after her encounter with Emmett Till led to the lynching of the Black teenager in the summer of 1955.Instead of arresting Donham on a warrant that accused her of kidnapping days after Till’s abduction, an officer passed along word that relatives would take her and her two young sons away from home amid a rising furor over the case, Donham said in a 2008 memoir made public last month. The sheriff would later claim Donham, 21 at the time, could not be located for arrest. Continue reading...

We’ll take your fashion and raise you female empowerment, gender fluidity and people on TV that actually look like us

The US Open champion’s meeting with Williams in Ohio is a golden ticket that all on the WTA Tour desperately want to holdOn 12 November 2002, almost 20 years ago, Serena Williams played the last match of her season, narrowly losing to Kim Clijsters in the WTA Championship final. It closed off one of the greatest professional tennis seasons, which included three grand slam titles in a row, Williams’ rise to No 1 and her emergence as an all-time great.A day later, Emma Raducanu was born. Continue reading...

Salman has been targeted for his words for decades, but he has never flinched nor faltered. The attack on him is a wake-up callJust hours before he was brutally attacked on Friday morning in Chautauqua, New York, Salman had emailed me to help with securing safe refuge for Ukrainian writers who face grave perils that are silencing their voices at a time when they badly need to be heard. The email was nothing new; Salman and I have been in dialogue for nearly a decade about an endless array of efforts to aid persecuted writers and defend the freedom to write.Salman has been targeted for his words for decades, but he has never flinched nor faltered. He has not lived life as a victim, nor given in to fear. He has been an unflagging, unflappable presence in the public arena, devoted to defending the written word, telling his stories and standing with others who are vulnerable and menaced. The attack on Salman Rushdie is not just the fulfilment of a fanatical Ayatollah’s sick fantasy. It is a reminder that writing and speaking are acts of bravery and courage that deserve and demand to be defended. Continue reading...

Wearing a gilet to feel a hot flush has opened his and others’ eyes, so they claim. HmmmShortly before his relaunch as a lead apologist for Liz Truss, Sir Iain Duncan Smith had enough time on his hands to try on a MenoVest, a kind of heated gilet now enjoying a moment. This successor to the pregnancy simulator, with its understated hint of the “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt, is advertised as converting its male wearers into “menopause allies”.Last week’s best known recruit was the BBC presenter Jeremy Vine. After moments in the gilet, he told a campaigner: “I’m now suffering what you suffered.” In fact, Vine suspected, he was already cognitively struggling, just like an actual menopausal woman having a hot flush: “I can’t even think of a question now.” Mercifully it had passed before management got to hear about it. Continue reading...

We may never know who turned on Trump, but Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump certainly make the most sense when it comes to possible informantsMilk. Bagged salad. Giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt. These are all things which don’t tend to age particularly well. See, for an example of that last item, a segment from Fox News on Thursday where Dana Perino, the former George W Bush White House press secretary, was up in arms over the FBI raiding Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. “Short of the nuclear codes being written on these documents, locked behind closed doors, I don’t understand how a document could warrant this kind of … warrant,” Perino scoffed. A commentator on CNN expressed the same opinion: “Anything short of finding the nuclear codes at Mar-a-Lago is going to hugely backfire on the Biden administration.”Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

The author Salman Rushdie remains on a ventilator after being attacked on stage at an event in western New York state on Friday morning. Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses led to a fatwa issued by supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was stabbed in the neck and torso as he was about to give a lecture. Authorities later identified the man suspected of stabbing Rushdie as 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, who had bought a pass to the event.• Authorities identify man suspected of stabbing Rushdie Continue reading...

This fall, Trump will be on the ballot even if his name does not appear. There are growing signs the Republican party is in troubleDonald Trump’s week from hell has turned red hot. On Friday, reports emerged that he was under suspicion of having violated the Espionage Act, removing or destroying records and obstructing an investigation. Separate inventory receipts reflect that FBI agents hauled-off a trove of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach domicile and club.Specifically, agents found four sets of “top secret documents”, three sets of “secret documents” and three sets of “confidential documents”. Whether any of this pertains to US nuclear capabilities remains a mystery.Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...

Kathy Shoopman, 73, was known in her community as a ‘legendary lookout’ and had started her career as a firefighterKathy Shoopman had seen more than her fair share of fires. It was her job to do exactly that – and she had an eye for them.The 73-year-old spent nearly half a century in the woods of far northern California, first as a seasonal firefighter with the US Forest Service and then as a fire lookout, watching for smoke in Klamath national forest, immediately south of Oregon. Continue reading...

Disgruntled with the state’s lack of support, the board of supervisors moved to put the measure on the ballotCome November, San Bernardino county residents will vote to elect school board members, water officials and state representatives – and whether they want the county to look at breaking away from California.The expansive county east of Los Angeles, home to 2 million people and some of the state’s beloved Joshua trees, isn’t getting the resources it needs to support its residents, county officials argue. This week the board of supervisors moved to add a measure on the November ballot asking residents if they want the county “to study all options to obtain its fair share of state and federal resources, up to and including secession”. Continue reading...

Leftwing senator says party squandered chance to be bold, and takes aim at ‘corporate Democrats’ Sinema and ManchinAs Democrats celebrate the long-sought passage of Joe Biden’s sweeping health, climate and economic package, Bernie Sanders is not ready to declare victory. Instead, the Vermont senator is sounding the alarm that Congress has failed to meet the moment, with potentially grave consequences for American democracy.“We are living in enormously difficult times,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “And I worry very much … that people are giving up on democracy because they do not believe that their government is working for them.” Continue reading...

The Florida governor has been dubbed a ‘mini-Trump’ and was once boosted by the ex-president but a potential rivalry in 2024 has turned relations sourAs Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, packs his suitcase for a five-day trip to campaign for Trump-endorsed candidates, he might afford himself a dastardly chuckle.The trek, taking in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania is nominally aimed at boosting Republicans’ chances ahead of November’s crucial primaries. For DeSantis, however, there is surely a grander design. Each of the rising Republican star’s destinations is a swing state, key to winning the 2024 presidential election. Continue reading...

Share prices soar for troubled retailers including Bed Bath & Beyond and AMC – but this time dueling hedge funds are playing a partJust like double denim, it seems some trends never really die. After flaming out in spectacular fashion last year, the meme stock frenzy of 2021 has made a return.In recent weeks the share price of troubled retailers Bed Bath & Beyond and GameStop and the cinema chain AMC Entertainment have once again soared. Continue reading...

Her leadership role on the January 6 panel makes her a martyr for democracy to some – and an apostate to othersDarin Smith says he remembers January 6 very differently from Liz Cheney and her congressional colleagues investigating the US Capitol riot.“People were singing patriotic songs, the national anthem, hymns,” insists Smith, who was outside the Capitol that day to protest about Donald Trump’s election defeat. “There was a group of grey-haired ladies – the average age had to have been mid-70s – that were praying.” Continue reading...

President says he declassified secret and sensitive documents – but that may not matter for him to be prosecuted.Over the course of Friday, the circumstances of Monday’s FBI search of Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago have come into much sharper focus, which makes them look much worse for the former president.The unsealed search and seizure warrant shows that it was carried out, in part, under the Espionage Act, a set of statutes dating to 1917 that have been used aggressively to go after leakers, whistleblowers and the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. The code quoted in the warrant carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. Continue reading...

Denomination’s executive committee says it has been subpoenaed after consultant’s report shined light on crisisLeaders of the Southern Baptist Convention said on Friday that several of the denomination’s major entities were under investigation by the USDepartment of Justice in the wake of multiple problems related to clergy sexual abuse.The SBC’s executive committee has received a subpoena, but no individuals have been subpoenaed at this point, according to the committee’s lawyers. Continue reading...

Hadi Matar, 24, in custody after author of Satanic Verses was stabbed at literary event in western New YorkThe man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie on a stage in western New York on Friday is a 24-year-old man from Fairview, New Jersey, according to authorities.Police identified the suspect as Hadi Matar, 24, in a news release distributed hours after the Indian-born author’s attack. Continue reading...

Details contained in explosive search warrant show US officials investigating whether three criminal statutes violatedDonald Trump is under criminal investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act and additional statutes relating to obstruction of justice and destroying federal government records, according to the search warrant executed by FBI agents at the former president’s home on Monday.The search warrant – the contents of which were confirmed by the Guardian – shows the FBI was seeking evidence about whether the mishandling of classified documents by Trump, including some marked top secret, amounted to a violation of three criminal statutes. Continue reading...

Biden is expected to quickly sign the legislation, which delivers a much-needed political victory for the party ahead of the midtermsThe House passed Democrats’ healthcare and climate spending package on Friday, sending the landmark piece of legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and delivering a much-needed political victory for the party ahead of the midterm elections this November.The bill passed the House in a party-line vote of 220 to 207, and Democratic members broke into raucous applause as the proposal crossed the finish line. Continue reading...

The US actor Anne Heche has died, a week after she was critically injured in a car crash. Heche, an actor of sharp intelligence, rose to prominence in the early 1990s, playing twins on the soap Another World, and moving on to films including Donnie Brasco, Psycho and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The news was confirmed by a representative of her family to the US online media outlet TMZ, who said in a statement: 'We have lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul, a loving mother, and a loyal friend;

FBI was seeking evidence about whether the mishandling of documents violated three criminal statutes, search warrant shows

Kelly Goodlett plea means prosecutors to secure first conviction in case that ignited widespread protests following March 2020 killingA former Louisville detective is planning to plead guilty to federal charges filed against her in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, leaving prosecutors on the verge of securing their first conviction in a case that ignited months of racial justice protests in Kentucky’s largest city.The ex-detective in question, Kelly Goodlett, is one of four white current and former Louisville police officers the US justice department last week charged with civil rights violations in the 2020 shooting death of Taylor, who was Black. Continue reading...

Two leaders raised possibility of in-person encounter when they last talked by phone in late July, US official confirmsUS and Chinese officials have been discussing a face-to-face meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, amid a significant escalation in friction over Taiwan.Kurt Campbell, the coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs in Biden’s national security council, confirmed on Friday that the two leaders had raised the possibility of an in-person meeting when they last talked by phone in late July “and agreed to have their team’s follow up to sort out the specifics”. Continue reading...

The US actor and director has died at the age of 53, a week after a car crash in LA

Bronx man, who had 13 alibi witnesses, awarded $5m after conviction for fatal shooting of George Collazo in 1996 overturnedA man who served 20 years in prison on a wrongful conviction, despite having 13 alibi witnesses, was awarded $5m by a jury in a federal court in New York on Thursday.Richard Rosario was convicted in 1998 for the fatal shooting of George Collazo in 1996 in the Bronx. However Rosario claimed he was in Florida at the time, and had 13 alibi witnesses for his defense. Continue reading...

Suspected presence of such files could explain why US attorney general took step of ordering FBI agents into Trump homeFBI agents were looking for secret documents about nuclear weapons among other classified material when they searched Donald Trump’s home on Monday, it has been reported.The Washington Post cited people familiar with the investigation as saying nuclear weapons documents were thought to be in the trove the FBI was hunting in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. They did not specify what kind of documents or whether they referred to the US arsenal or another country’s. Continue reading...

Author Salman Rushdie has been stabbed in the neck while onstage at an event in New York state. The writer was attacked on Friday morning as he was about to give a lecture in Chautauqua, near Erie

Ricky Shiffer appears to have posted about Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump platform Truth Social, and may have been at Capitol riotThe armed man killed after attacking an FBI office on Thursday appears to have been a Donald Trump supporter enraged about the federal raid on Mar-a-Lago who documented his attack as it happened on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.The man may also have been present at the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Continue reading...

News comes weeks after case of polio was identified in Rockland county, about 30 miles north of New York CityThe virus that causes polio has been detected in New York City’s wastewater weeks after a case of polio was identified in Rockland county, about 30 miles north of the city, health officials announced on Friday.The presence of the poliovirus in the city’s wastewater suggests likely local circulation of the virus, the city and New York state health departments said. Continue reading...

Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act filled me with joy and rage, relief and apprehension, exhaustion and vigilance. We must celebrate, but also mourn, rage and organizeI was at a Mets game when news broke that the climate bill had enough votes to pass in the Senate. It was the bottom of the eighth, and Edwin Díaz had just struck out the heart of the Braves’ lineup. The crowd at Citi Field was feeling good. Everyone could sense a win was at hand.I read the push notification then sat there stunned for several minutes, watching the Mets clinch the game, waiting for the world-shaping news to register. Then suddenly I was tearing up, rising from my seat in a daze, the man down the row giving me a look somewhere between embarrassment and admiration (Jesus, he probably thought. This guy really loves the Mets). Continue reading...

Senators also seek to correct misinterpretation by aid recipients of Helms amendment as a blanket ban on US funds for abortionsSupporters of reproductive rights in Congress are calling on the government to clarify to foreign aid recipients that the end of abortion rights in the US does not affect US-funded family planning programs abroad, and to limit the damage of a half-century-old law that has functioned as a blanket ban that prevents US aid from supporting abortion care overseas.Their efforts come as the Biden administration looks for ways to support abortion rights in the wake of the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade – which scrapped abortion rights – and amid signs that abortion rights could be a persuasive issue in midterm elections. Continue reading...