Drink backed by YouTube star Logan Paul has the equivalent caffeine of six Coke cans and has prompted bans in the UKAn influencer-backed energy drink that has earned viral popularity among children is facing scrutiny from lawmakers and health experts over its potentially dangerous levels of caffeine.On Sunday, Senator Chuck Schumer called on the Food and Drug Administration to investigate Prime, a beverage brand founded by the YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI that has become something of an obsession among the influencers' legions of young followers. Continue reading...
The economy is getting better overall - but as the rich get richer and the poor grow poorer, overall has become a worse gauge of wellbeingIt's a Goldilocks economy - not too hot to spur inflation, not too cool to invite recession.On Friday, the labor department announced that the US economy added 209,000 jobs in June.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...
Caitlin Bernard deserves a statue for her service. Instead, she's been harassed and persecutedIf the United States was a country that valued women and girls, or that understood the moral gravity of misogyny, then there would be statues to people like Caitlin Bernard. The Indiana doctor has long been a champion of reproductive rights; she joined a 2019 lawsuit challenging her state's Roe-era ban on dilation and evacuation abortions, or D&E procedures; she's long been outspoken, in her very red state, about her faith that women and girls are worthy of control over their own bodies. So maybe Indiana Republicans, like the attorney general Todd Rokita, already thought of her as an enemy in July 2022, when, just days after the supreme court's Dobbs decision overturned Roe and threw an anti-abortion trigger ban into effect in neighboring Ohio, Bernard performed an abortion on a patient who had had to travel to Indiana to get her procedure: a 10-year-old girl, the victim of rape.This act alone - Bernard's gesture of compassion and respect to an abused child, one that spared the young girl the danger and torture of an underage, rape-produced pregnancy and helped to end the suffering and indignity that followed her assault, is itself a solemn kind of service. Bernard's work brought her into the darkest realities of what men do to women - raping and impregnating them as children, making laws that will keep them pregnant against their will, as children, unless they can flee - and to face that darkness with integrity and courage. Few of us would have the capacity to do what Bernard did in treating that child; few of us would be able to face that truth about our world.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Civil rights lawyer laments dismissal of suit which attempted to force city to make recompense for the destruction of Black areaAn Oklahoma judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, dashing an effort to obtain some measure of legal justice for elderly survivors.The judge, Caroline Wall, on Friday dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit which attempted to force the city and others to make recompense for the destruction of Greenwood, a once-thriving Black district. Continue reading...
The Republican governor of Florida said he'd take executive action as appropriate' to revoke Beijing's legal designationThe Republican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Sunday he would aim to revoke China's permanent normal trade relations status if he wins the White House next year.I favor doing that," DeSantis told Fox News. Continue reading...
Statement says that strike was carried out by the same drones that were earlier harassed by Russian aircraftThe US military said on Sunday it conducted a strike that killed Usamah al-Muhajir, an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria.The strike on Friday was conducted by the same MQ-9s that had, earlier in the day, been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours," a statement from US Central Command said. Continue reading...
The state-of-the art International African American Museum opened last month - can it effect radical change?Sharrilyn Aiken McKinney and her daughter Shaylyn slowly scanned the colorful walls of the new International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. As they perused a timeline that established the global roots of slavery in the 1400s until its US demise in the 19th century, Shaylyn paused and snapped an image of an antebellum slave tag, an object common in Charleston during that time. Worn by the enslaved who were leased to work for people other than their slaveholders, such metal badges proved they had permission to move about the city.Meanwhile, the elder McKinney moved toward the museum's Center for Family History, where the pair plans to seek help from in-house genealogists to find out more about their Charleston heritage. The mother and daughter know there's a chance their enslaved ancestors may have arrived on or near the museum's grounds, built on Gadsden's Wharf, which received thousands of captive Africans on slave ships. Shaylyn, who self-identifies as Gullah Geechee (McKinney does not), told me she couldn't wrap her head around the possibility that she may have been walking in the footsteps of her forebears. Her mother was in a different state of mind: I'm here just to see that the truth is being told," she said. They can't keep it away. I want to see the local stuff." Continue reading...
Former president who dominates Republican primary finds receptive audience at Las Vegas rallyDonald Trump attacked Ron DeSantis at a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, saying his closest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination had no personality" - but claiming responsibility for the Florida governor's career on the national stage.Trump also repeated his lie about electoral fraud in his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, to a receptive audience, before high-fiving fans at a mixed martial event. Continue reading...
Move to 15 January puts first votes of GOP primary a little more than six months awayIowa Republicans announced on Saturday that their presidential caucuses will be held on 15 January - the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.The move puts the first votes of the 2024 election a little more than six months away, as Republicans try to reclaim the White House. Continue reading...
by Gabrielle Canon in Lees Ferry, Arizona on (#6CTNR)
The serene beauty of the Colorado River belies an ecosystem that is forever changed. I met the scientists fighting for its futureOur small metal boat glides through the current as it snakes between steep sandstone cliffs. Tucked between America's two largest reservoirs, the stretch of the Colorado River that lies north-east of the Grand Canyon is cool and calm. As the water glimmers in the early morning light, it is easy to forget this serene waterway has been named the most endangered in the US.But as we round a bend, a shadow envelops the boat and Glen Canyon Dam comes into view - 4.9m cubic yards of concrete ominously arching 710ft into a cloudless sky. This is as close as we can get," says Ted Kennedy, a biologist and one of my guides for the day, as he cuts the engine. Continue reading...
A new TikTok trend sees young women eschewing hustle culture to focus on life outside of work. Perhaps they are beating capitalism at its own gameIn the mid-2010s, I worked in a cafe in a south London art gallery. Every day I'd make a few coffees, gossip idly with customers and then take home my little sack full of generous tips. It smelled nice in there, too: like baked bread, and salty anchovies fresh from the tin. And though I've had jobs more suited to my genuine interests since, that cafe job was one of my favourites, mainly because of the pure leisure of it. I got paid more or less the same as I did later, as an editor at a major media publication. But I was relaxed, all of the time, and never checked my emails.Young women have taken to calling these sorts of jobs - as in, jobs that are undemanding but well enough paid, with little personal passion involved - lazy girl jobs". Mostly the term refers to menial office jobs as opposed to the service industry: people on computers, sending a few emails and taking home a comfortable salary. On TikTok, the #lazygirljob hashtag currently has about 14m views, and the mood is overwhelmingly aspirational. I love my lazy girl job," reads one post. I don't have to talk to people, only come to the office twice a week." Me at my lazy girl job that lets me do whatever the heck I want as long as I answer emails and keep everything clean," reads another. The posters appear to be unanimously women - I've seen no evidence of a lazy boy jobs" hashtag. Perhaps the concept of men being paid more to do less isn't quite as novel or interesting. (Similarly, there's no male equivalent of the girlboss" phenomenon.)Daisy Jones is a writer, editor and author of All The Things She SaidDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Meeting partially overshadowed by US president's decision to send to Ukraine cluster munitions banned in BritainJoe Biden will meet King Charles for the first time since the coronation, in a fleeting UK visit that will be used by Rishi Sunak and the US president as a pre-meeting" ahead of joint efforts at this week's Nato summit.However, what will be the sixth meeting between Biden and Sunak since Sunak took office in October has been partly overshadowed by the US president's decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, weapons that are prohibited by 100 countries including the UK, which currently holds the presidency of a convention banning them. Continue reading...
The fossil fuel industry has a long history of hiring PR firms to sow confusion about climate change - but the Climate Leadership Council isn't just a front groupThe New York Times op-ed opened on a provocative note: There is a real danger that the climate debate is deteriorating into a game of name-calling," it began, with oil and gas companies all too often portrayed as opponents of climate progress."The January 2020 article was written by the founder of the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), a Washington DC-based non-profit that advocates for scrapping certain fossil fuel regulations and replacing them with a carbon tax, with the proceeds from the tax returned to Americans as a rebate. Among the group's corporate founding members" are some of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, including Shell, BP and, until 2021, Exxon - companies that have indeed spent decades, and billions of dollars, opposing climate progress. Continue reading...
US treasury secretary feels trip to Beijing has steadied ties and improved communication despite significant disagreements' between the powersThe US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has said a four-day trip to Beijing has put ties with China on a surer footing" and paved the way for better communication between top officials who run the world's two largest economies.This relatively modest outcome had been flagged by US officials and expected by analysts before Yellen arrived, and is a reflection of how fraught one of the world's most critical relationships had become. Continue reading...
A late try from Le Roux Malan gave the Free Jacks a 25-24 win over the Legion and their first US professional titleThe New England Free Jacks and the San Diego Legion scored three tries each in the Major League Rugby Championship Final in Chicago on Saturday, the boot of Jayson Potroz making the difference and giving New England their first US professional rugby union title.The New Zealander Free Jacks fly-half was one of a number of international players on show at the SeatGeek Stadium outside Chicago - with the 103-cap All Blacks center Ma'a Nonu turning out for the Legion, not long having turned 41. Continue reading...
Megan Rapinoe has announced that she will retire at the end of the 2023 football season and that the upcoming Women's World Cup will be her last. 'It's with a really deep sense of peace, gratitude and excitement that I want to share with you that this is going to be my last season, my last World Cup and my last NWSL season,' she said.'I could never have imagined where this beautiful game would have taken me,' said the 38-year-old. 'I feel so honoured to be able to have represented this country and this federation for so many years. It's truly been the greatest thing I've ever done.' Continue reading...
The Charles Manson follower could be free in about two weeks, after spending more than 50 years in prison for two murdersCharles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten could be freed in about two weeks after California governor Gavin Newsom announced he will not ask the state supreme court to reverse her parole. The move paves the way for Van Houten's release after spending more than 50 years in a southern California prison for two murders in 1969.The governor's office said an appeal against a parole ruling by a California appeals court was unlikely - the court only accepts reviews in about 3% of cases petitioned - to succeed and that Newsom was disappointed. The governor had previously rejected parole for Van Houten but on 30 May an appellate court overturned that decision. Continue reading...
Plane departed from Las Vegas before crashing in Murrieta in Riverside county on Saturday morningSix people died after a plane crashed over a southern California field on Saturday morning before bursting into flames.The plane was engulfed in fire along with about one acre of vegetation when deputies arrived. The plane crashed near an airport in the city of Murrieta, California, in south-west Riverside county, about 85 miles (136.79 km) south of Los Angeles. Continue reading...
With authors claiming OpenAI breached their copyright by ingesting' their books, an experiment seemed in order. It didn't go wellAuthors Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay are taking OpenAI to court for allegedly ingesting" their books to refine its generative capabilities. It seems writers' work is being used as anonymous mulch to feed the artificial intelligence sausage machine so it can poop out existentially threatening, nutritionless, virtual, fake chipolatas to replace us.I went on to one of these sites, typed in a story idea and clicked generate". The resulting yarn included the lines: We took a school trip to the moon, our first trip there. The other students were at home, or on other planets." And: The vampire stood in front of me and looked into my eyes. I felt a chill. A chill that went to my toes." Continue reading...
Elon Musk is wrecking his platform, but it has invented a medium for catchy soundbites that is too invaluable to loseWatching Elon Musk destroying Twitter has the same creepy fascination that one experienced during the 44 days in 2022 when Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng were busily employed tanking the British economy. There was, however, one important difference between the two spectacles: Musk actually owns Twitter, whereas Truss and Kwarteng were merely the temporary custodians of the national economy.With Twitter, the wrecking process started even before Musk owned the company. Having offered to buy it for $44bn (arguably at least twice what it was worth), he then tried to get out of the deal, but was compelled to go through with it. Once installed as the owner, he fired half the staff, including many of the people who understood how its technical infrastructure worked and others who had a good understanding of the complexities of running a social media company in today's polarised world. He embarked on arbitrary and contradictory decision-making on the hoof, one moment announcing new rules, the next minute abandoning them. Continue reading...
Michael Burham broke out of jail where he was being held on arson and burglary charges and was suspect in murder investigationAuthorities were searching on Saturday for an inmate described by police as very dangerous" who escaped from a jail in north-western Pennsylvania using bed sheets, officials said.Michael Burham was last seen wearing a blue denim coat from the jail, white and orange pants, and orange shoes, Warren police said late on Friday. Continue reading...
Washington DC committee recommends revoking former New York City mayor's law license over attempt to overturn electionRudy Giuliani's law license should be revoked over his work on a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results on behalf of then president Donald Trump, a Washington DC attorney ethics committee has recommended.He now faces being disbarred in the capital after the review panel late on Friday condemned the lawyer and ex-politician for aggressively pursuing the false assertions Trump made about his defeat by Democratic rival and now US president Joe Biden. Continue reading...
The British prime minister said the UK was a signatory to a convention prohibiting the production or use of cluster bombs, after Joe Biden agreed to send the munitions to Ukraine. The US government announced it would send cluster bombs as part of an $800m (625m) security assistance package, in a move that Kyiv said would have an 'extraordinary psycho-emotional impact' on the occupying Russian forces.When cluster bombs detonate, they spread dozens of tiny bomblets over a wide area, with a large number burying themselves in the ground rather than exploding. In effect, the weapons therefore leave a field of anti-personnel mines in their wake, posing a lethal danger to civilians, often children
Her biggest political accomplishment was losing Arizona's gubernatorial race in 2022 - and now Trump and his team think she might be too thirsty for attentionLet's say you want to be vice-president of the United States but you don't have any meaningful political experience and you've never held public office. What do you do? Continue reading...
by David Smith Washington bureau chief on (#6CT3X)
Critics say party that touted its law-and-order credentials now intent on wrecking institutions that get in Donald Trump's wayWhen Merrick Garland was nominated to the US supreme court by Barack Obama, Republicans refused to grant him a hearing. Now that Garland is the top law enforcement official in America, the party seems ready to give him one after all - an impeachment hearing.Republicans on Capitol Hill are moving up a gear in a wide-ranging assault on the justice department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would have been unthinkable before the rise of Donald Trump. The party that for half a century claimed the mantle of law and order has, critics say, become a cult of personality intent on discrediting and dismantling institutions that get in Trump's way. Continue reading...
Nasratullah Ahmadyar, 31, who left Afghanistan on last flight from Kabul in 2021, died in hospital after being shot in his carA Virginia man who previously served as an interpreter for the US military in Afghanistan was fatally shot this week working as a rideshare driver in Washington.Nasratullah Ahmadyar, 31, was shot and killed on Monday while driving for Lyft, WUSA 9 reported. He had worked as an interpreter with the army special forces, but left Afghanistan on the last flight out of the country during the US withdrawal in 2021. Continue reading...
Oklahoma superintendent Ryan Walters decried for comments on 1921 massacre in which hundreds were killed by white mobsThe state official in charge of Oklahoma's schools is facing calls for impeachment, after he said teachers should tell students that the Tulsa race massacre was not racially motivated.In a public forum on Thursday, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's state superintendent of public instruction, said teachers could cover the 1921 massacre, in which white Tulsans murdered an estimated 300 Black people, but teachers should not say that the skin color determined it". Continue reading...
President's pick for bipartisan public diplomacy commission, 75, convicted of unlawfully withholding information from CongressJoe Biden intends to nominate Elliott Abrams, a former Trump appointee on Venezuela and Iran who was famously convicted for lying to Congress over the Iran-Contra affair, to the bipartisan US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.The announcement came wrapped in a list of eight Republican picks for bipartisan boards and commissions released in a White House statement on Monday. Continue reading...
Swede's reappointment for 2025 would offer proof of compromise as LIV joins forces with the DP World and PGA ToursThe only current certainty in elite golf is uncertainty. A month has passed since confirmation that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has joined forces with the PGA and DP World Tours to promote peace on the fairways but nobody apparently has a clue about details for the future. The situation is so stark that golfers who prefer root canal treatment to media duties are suddenly stopping journalists to elicit information about how this all unfolds. This is a wonderful mess.LIV and its much-maligned rebels have understandably seized upon the vacuum. Full steam ahead is the unrelenting message from this tour. It would be an exaggeration to suggest LIV golfers are crowing about the legitimacy afforded to their circuit by the mainstream tour alliance but smiles are barely masked. When Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter went on the front foot against the leadership of the PGA and DP World Tours on Wednesday, it was from a position of strength rather than nervousness. Nobody can really take the proclamations of golf administrators seriously any more, such has been the U-turn on all things PIF. Continue reading...
Workers at Blue Grass army depot in Kentucky destroy rockets filled with sarin - last of US's declared chemical weaponsThe world's chemical weapons watchdog said on Friday that all declared stocks had been irreversibly destroyed" after the United States revealed it had finally got rid of its last toxic arms.President Joe Biden announced that the Blue Grass Army Depot, a US Army facility in Kentucky, had eliminated its decades-old stocks, completing a global effort started in 1997 to rid the world of chemical weapons. Continue reading...
The workers were employed by a private contractor and were swept into a manhole after heavy rain in downtown OmahaFirefighters rescued two men who fell into a manhole during heavy rain in downtown Omaha on Friday, including one who was washed about a mile (1.6km) through sewer pipes before getting trapped behind a metal grate.The men, who were workers for a private contractor, Ace Pipe Cleaning, were swept into a manhole near the Old Market just after 9am, the Omaha World-Herald quoted Lt Neal Bonacci of the Omaha police department as saying. Continue reading...
Florida first lady outlines Ron DeSantis's hardline rightwing agenda in video accusing progressives of coming after our kids'Vowing not to let progressives impose an agenda" on American children and their mothers, Casey DeSantis outlined the hardline rightwing agenda her husband has imposed on Florida and now wants to impose on America.The Florida first lady did so in a new video for Mamas for DeSantis, a group supporting Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Continue reading...
Police say the shooter drove more than 700 miles from his home to target Hispanic people with an AK-style assault rifle at the storeA white gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack on Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart in a Texas border city was sentenced on Friday to 90 consecutive life sentences but could still face more punishment, including the death penalty.Patrick Crusius, 24, pleaded guilty earlier this year to nearly 50 federal hate crime charges in the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, making it one of the US government's largest hate crime cases. Continue reading...
The legends of a genre made by and for the young are getting old. Some embrace it - and it elevates their artIt's a paper ticket, from before the age of the QR code, and it announces the Rolling Stones at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 26 June 1982. I was 15, but I still remember the buildup to that show - the papers full of jokes about the band needing Zimmer frames to reach the stage and, perhaps, more frequent bathroom breaks. They called them the Strolling Bones". On that day, Mick Jagger was 38 years old.The joke turned on the notion that rock'n'roll was the music of the young. It had arrived in the mid-1950s in an eruption of hormones and rebellion, its themes teenage lust, longing and a future that stretched ahead, vast and mysterious. For men knocking 40 still to be singing of such things seemed ridiculous. And yet, the Stones were back last summer, Jagger approaching his 80th birthday, playing all the same songs.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Shooting on 2 July resulted in two deaths and 28 people injured at a neighborhood block party in the Maryland cityBaltimore police said on Friday they had arrested a 17-year-old in connection with a 2 July mass shooting that killed two people and injured 28 at a neighborhood block party in the Maryland city.The suspect, whom the Baltimore police pepartment did not name, is being charged with possession of a firearm by a minor, assault weapon possession, reckless endangerment and handgun in vehicle", the department said in a statement. Continue reading...
Billed as a therapeutic novel', the publisher's first foray into fiction follows 29-year-old Anna's mental health journey - with a view to helping the reader. But how useful can such clunky writing be?At 29 years old, Anna is full of self-loathing. She hates her job, her boyfriend is having an affair and her parents' response to her troubles is indifferent at best. This is the starting point for A Voice of One's Own, the first novel to be published by The School of Life. In its pages, fiction and self-help make for uneasy bedfellows.Co-founded by philosopher Alain de Botton in 2008, The School of Life broadly aims to teach its students" how to lead calmer, more fulfilling lives. Its publishing arm, launched in 2016, disseminates self-help literature with pithy titles such as Reasons to be Hopeful and A Simpler Life, which purport to blend philosophical wisdom with practical advice. Like De Botton himself, the books are Marmite; while many critique the school for peddling watered-down pop philosophy, its teachings have clearly found a market. The organisation has branches in seven major cities, and its most popular title, Big Ideas for Curious Minds, has sold over 120,000 copies globally, while its workshops on playfulness, confidence and self-awareness regularly sell out. The new book represents a departure, however. Through A Voice of One's Own, The School of Life is showing, rather than telling, its readers how to live better. Continue reading...
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