Supporters of former US President Donald Trump have gathered outside the Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, after the FBI executed a search warrant at his residence. The move by the FBI is the latest indication of an intensifying criminal investigation by the justice department into his affairs
Travis and Greg McMichael were also sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for the murderThe white father and son convicted of murder in Ahmaud Arbery’s fatal shooting after they chased him through a Georgia neighborhood were sentenced on Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime.Travis McMichael, 36, and Greg McMichael, 66, received their sentences from US district court judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. The punishment is largely symbolic – the McMichaels were sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for 25-year-old Arbery’s murder. Continue reading...
The lawsuit alleges that when officers stopped the couple on 12 August last year, they did not recognize that Petito was in dangerThe family of Gabby Petito announced plans to file a $50m wrongful death lawsuit against Utah police on Monday, claiming that officers in the small desert town of Moab, who stopped Petito and boyfriend Brian Laundrie last year, failed to recognize their daughter was in a domestic violence situation.The notice of a forthcoming claim alleges that when officers stopped the couple on 12 August 2021, they did not recognize that Petito, 22, was in danger. Continue reading...
Axios, whose founders launched site in 2016, to be taken over by legacy publisher that owns US regional newspapersFor $525m, Axios – publisher of punchy, notated news briefs – is set to be acquired by Cox Enterprises, a legacy publisher that owns a series of US regional newspapers.The cash deal, announced Monday, is expected to close in the next few weeks and marks a significant moment in the growth of the news outlet, which was founded in 2016 by the same journalists who launched Politico in 2007. Continue reading...
Secretary of state tells reporters in South Africa that US ‘not trying to outdo anyone’ amid growing influence of Russia and ChinaAntony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has appealed to “governments, communities and peoples” across Africa to embrace Washington’s vision of democracy, openness and economic partnership in the first major speech of three-nation tour of sub-Saharan Africa.Blinken was speaking in South Africa on the first stop of his tour, which will include the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Continue reading...
Images published ahead of new book on 45th presidency offer possible evidence of violations of Presidential Records ActClaims that Donald Trump periodically blocked up White House and other drains with wads of paper appear to be borne out in photographs leaked ahead of the publication of a new account of the 45th presidency.On Monday, Axios published photos of folded-up paper, marked with Trump’s telltale handwriting, using his favored pen, a Sharpie, submerged at the bottom of various toilet bowls. Continue reading...
Ex-president complained to John Kelly ‘why can’t you be like the German generals?’ according to excerpt from the New YorkerDuring his time in the Oval Office, Donald Trump wanted the Pentagon’s generals to be like Nazi Germany’s generals in the second world war, according to a book excerpt in the New Yorker.In an exchange with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump reportedly complained: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?” Continue reading...
The rightwing channel has not covered its former sweetheart with its regular fervour – could a billion-dollar lawsuit be why?For years, Donald Trump and Fox News were smitten.The former president would call into the rightwing news channel seemingly whenever he liked. Fox News hosts pumped up every Trump utterance. Trump watched the channel religiously, and in 2019 alone he sent 657 tweets in response to Fox News or Fox Business programs. Continue reading...
Police say race and religion likely a factor in deaths of three men 10 days apart and further death late last year in AlbuquerqueJoe Biden has condemned the possibly related killings of four Muslim men in New Mexico’s largest city, saying “these hateful attacks have no place in America”.“I am angered and saddened,” the president also said in a tweet Sunday. “While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my administration stands strongly with the Muslim community.” Continue reading...
Attorney general calls for special prosecutor to investigate claims of effort to illegally obtain voting machines before 2020 electionMichigan’s attorney general has called for a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of a Republican-led effort to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment in the aftermath of the 2020 national election.Attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat, called for the investigation on Friday after Michigan state police examined whether Matt DePerno, a lawyer and presumptive Republican candidate for the office, may have orchestrated the alleged effort. Continue reading...
The US president has been struggling and his divisive rival still has the Republican party in his grip. But there are reasons for hopeWill Joe Biden be re-elected in 2024? With his current approval rating in the cellar, most pundits assume he will be toast by the next presidential election. At 81, he would also be the oldest person ever elected president, slightly exceeding the typical American’s lifespan.
A new project gives a voice to people serving life sentences in Louisiana – and brought together two men whose lives collided in tragedyCharles Amos spoke candidly about the crime he committed.Against a black backdrop in front of a single camera at Louisiana’s Angola prison, 25 years after it happened, he spoke of his remorse, his rehabilitation and how prison had changed him. Continue reading...
We supposedly have the most pro-union US president of our lifetimes. Let’s see him act like itIn June, workers at a Chipotle restaurant in Augusta, Maine, became the first in the company’s history to file for a union election. Less than a month later, the company closed the store. In shutting down a location that was set to unionize, Chipotle was keeping company with Starbucks, which has suddenly undertaken a campaign to shut down several unionizing locations from coast to coast due to “safety” issues, and the health food company Amy’s Kitchen, which last month closed an entire factory in California where workers were organizing. It is, of course, impossible to “prove” that these companies closed these locations to try to crush the union drives, in the same sense that it is impossible to prove that a schoolyard bully meant to punch you in the face: he claims that he was merely punching the air while you happened to walk in front of his fist. Who’s to say what’s true in such a murky situation?Plausible deniability aside, this is an extremely serious problem. Not just for the underpaid, overworked employees at all of these low-wage jobs, desperately hanging on to financial survival by their fingernails, but for all of us. America is mired in a half-century-long crisis of rising inequality that has been fueled, above all, by the combined erosion of labor power and the growth of the power of capital. The American dream enjoyed by the lucky baby-boom generation – buying a home and sending your kids to college on one income – is dead and gone, replaced by a thin crust of the rich sitting atop a huge swamp of once-middle-class jobs that no longer offer enough to sustain a middle-class lifestyle. Continue reading...
by Abené Clayton in Los Angeles with photographs by on (#62919)
State highways saw more than 400 incidents last year. Police are still trying to understand whyIt was a few minutes after 11pm on 27 October 2021 when Ramon Price Sr received a call from a number he recognized as the county coroner’s office.Price’s oldest son, Ramon Price Jr, had been shot while driving his white Chevrolet Malibu on a stretch of Oakland freeway, the office said. The 27-year-old had died at the scene. Continue reading...
Immigrants bought cheap plots in desert colonias a generation ago with a promise that tap water was comingGrowing up in south Texas, 25-year-old Joaquin Duran always wondered what it would be like to have running water. Before he was born, Duran’s parents moved from Juárez, Mexico, to a small community called Cochran that lies within El Paso county. They hoped the enclave of Mexican American families would be a safe place to raise their children and offer advantages not easily attained in Mexico.The plot of land Duran’s parents bought in Texas lacked running water when they settled in, but they were promised service was coming – only a year or two away. The family decided the wait would be worthwhile and they made the plot their home. During the day, Duran’s mother would scrub old concrete off the cinder blocks her husband retrieved from demolition work through his construction job. At night, they built their house from the salvaged materials. Continue reading...
Inflation Reduction Act will reduce planet-heating emissions and lower prescription drug costs – and give Biden a crucial victory. Plus, meet Casper the ghostly octopusGood morning.Senate Democrats passed their climate and healthcare spending package on Sunday, sending the legislation to the house and bringing Joe Biden one step closer to a significant legislative victory ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.Will Biden be able to meet his goal of halving emissions by 2030? Slashing America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels, would bring the US within striking distance of the goal.Why is China so angry? Pelosi’s visit last week infuriated China, which regards Taiwan as its own and responded with test launches of ballistic missiles over Taipei for the first time, as well as ditching some lines of dialogue with Washington.What has the US said about China’s actions? Pentagon, state department and White House officials condemned the move, describing it as an irresponsible overreaction. Continue reading...
From toucans and puffins to iridescent hummingbirds, the most unique creatures are the most vulnerable to human impactsFor decades ecologists have been warning about the homogenisation of diversity – species becoming more alike – in the living world. Now, researchers at the University of Sheffield have published research predicting that bird species with striking and extreme traits are likely to go extinct first. “The global extinction crisis doesn’t just mean that we’re losing species,” says the study’s leader, Dr Emma Hughes. “It means that we are losing unique traits and evolutionary history.”This shows that human activity is not just drastically reducing numbers of species, it is probably disproportionately destroying the most unique, unusual and distinctive creatures on Earth. Continue reading...
Drivers report grueling toll of making hundreds of stops a day in sweltering conditions, as UPS makes record profitsAs a UPS driver of two years standing, Matt Leichenger of Brooklyn, New York, makes 100 to 150 stops a day, delivering anywhere from 150 to more than 300 packages.It is a tough job at the best of times, but in summer, a typical driver is moving hundreds of pounds of cargo and organizing packages in the back of their brown UPS truck, where temperatures soar due to a lack of air conditioning and ventilation. Continue reading...
Senate Democrats passed their climate and healthcare spending package on Sunday, sending the legislation to the House and bringing Joe Biden one step closer to a significant legislative victory ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.'To the tens of millions of young Americans who spent years marching, rallying, demanding that Congress act on climate change, this bill is for you,' said Chuck Schumer, the US Senate majority leader.'The time has come to pass this historic bill'
Inflation Reduction Act will reduce planet-heating emissions and lower prescription drug costs – and give Biden a crucial victorySenate Democrats passed their climate and healthcare spending package on Sunday, sending the legislation to the House and bringing Joe Biden one step closer to a significant legislative victory ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.If signed into law, the bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, would allocate $369bn to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in renewable energy sources. Experts have estimated the climate provisions of the bill will reduce America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. Continue reading...
Police in New Mexico have warned that deaths of local Muslim men, including one last year, may be linkedThree Muslim men have been killed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a span of just 10 days, stoking fear in one of America’s smallest Muslim communities as police have warned the deaths may be linked.The killings also followed the November 2021 killing of Mohammad Ahmadi, another Muslim man, which local advocates and law enforcement officials believe could also be linked to the more recent attacks. Continue reading...
City council in small community of Vincent votes to terminate police chief, assistant and then whole departmentThe small city of Vincent in Alabama has voted to disband its police force after the revelation of racist text messages exchanged between two of its officers.In the exchange, which recently surfaced on social media, one user named “752” asked: “What do y’all call a pregnant slave?” To this, one person who is not identifiable through the text, responded with question marks. Continue reading...
Fans and friends express support for Hollywood star who drove her car into house, which was left ‘uninhabitable’Actor Anne Heche was “stable” in hospital amid a wave of support from fans and fellow stars following an accident in which she drove her car into a Los Angeles home, causing severe burn injuries to herself as well as damaging the house which has become “uninhabitable”.As of Saturday, the Los Angeles police department (LAPD) said it was investigating the incident but had not determined its cause. The Los Angeles fire department (LAFD) said in a statement it took 59 firefighters to extinguish the fire. Continue reading...
Helping election-denying, Trump-endorsed candidates may secure a more beatable general election opponent but some see it as a cynical and morally dubious moveWhen Peter Meijer voted to impeach Donald Trump, breaking with nearly all of his Republican colleagues in one of his first acts as a newly elected member of Congress, Democrats praised him as the kind of principled conservative his party – and the nation – desperately needed.But this election season, as Meijer fought for his political survival against a Trump-endorsed election denier in a primary contest for a Michigan House seat, Democrats twisted the knife. Continue reading...
Karuk Tribe suspects debris flow in Klamath River due to flash flooding over a burned areaA wildfire burning in a remote part of northern California appears to have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of fish, according to a Native American tribe.The Karuk Tribe said in a statement that the dead fish of all species were found on Friday near Happy Camp, California, along the main stem of the Klamath River. Continue reading...
by Joan E Grevein Washington and agencies on (#6288Z)
Legislation on climate change, pharmaceutical costs and taxes for corporations weathers ‘vote-a-rama’ of Republican objectionsDemocrats drove their election-year economic package toward Senate approval early on Sunday, debating a measure with less ambition than Joe Biden’s original domestic vision but that touches deep-rooted party dreams of slowing global warming, moderating pharmaceutical costs and taxing immense corporations.Debate began on Saturday and by sunrise on Sunday, Democrats had swatted down a dozen Republican efforts to torpedo the legislation, with no clear end in sight. Continue reading...
Growing up in the countryside in the 90s there wasn’t much else to do than get off with boys. And every crush and heartbreak was an educationIn the midst of a full Edinburgh fringe run of a new show, called Wench, I am awash with fond memories of a lifetime spent attempting sluttery. No shame in that. It’s 2022. No one was harmed in the making of that fun.Actually, saying “no shame” isn’t entirely true. I very much can wait for my parents and in-laws to read this article or see the new show, but them aside, no shame. Also, when I say “fond memories”, I also mean “embarrassing memories”.Jessica Fostekew is a comedian, actor and writer. Her show Wench is at Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh, until 28 August Continue reading...
US Coast Guard rescues eight people from vessel trying to bring people to the US illegallyTwo people died and five were missing after a boat believed to be carrying migrants attempting to enter the US illegally capsized off the coast of the Florida Keys in the latest incident to highlight the dangerous sea-crossing, the Coast Guard said.Eight people were rescued from the boat, the Coast Guard said in a news release. Continue reading...
We are entering an era of mass fuel poverty and ‘warm banks’ – and complacent leaders have left a dangerous political vacuumThe surreal, often absurd Conservative leadership election meanders on. Both candidates frantically float ideas for disrupting everything from university term dates to doctors’ pensions, while the Sunday Telegraph endorses Liz Truss as “the first truly philosophy-driven leader since Margaret Thatcher”, and Rishi Sunak stoically insists that he loves dancing. But we all know the gravity of the crisis that is now enveloping us, and it makes the vanities of their battle seem like some strange hallucination related to the summer’s stifling heat.By the autumn, the victor – Truss, in all likelihood – may well be still trying to convince us that they are leading a national sprint towards sunlit uplands that only they can see. But the game is already up: the immediate future will be defined by skyrocketing energy prices, economic woe and a profound social emergency – and power will be a grinding matter of crisis management.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Politicians educated at some of the US’s most elite universities are spreading conspiracy theories that they surely know are untrue. What happened to ‘service and stewardship’?The original justification for elite higher education in the United States was to train the future leaders of American democracy. As Charles W Eliot, who became president of Harvard in 1869, noted, Harvard existed to inculcate the ideals of “service and stewardship”.Since then, Harvard has produced eight US presidents; Yale, five. (Stanford can boast Herbert Hoover, if it feels compelled to do so.)Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at 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...
Amid increases in appointment availability, experts and patients are observing that the vaccination process privileges a select few“It was like trying to win the lottery. It was so difficult.”On a hot Saturday afternoon last weekend, at New York City’s Bronx high school of science, Alexx Dunn, 42, waited in line for a monkeypox vaccine at a public health immunization site. Continue reading...
As Beijing swings from contempt to anger, Washington must focus on de-escalationThe historic visit of the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan on Wednesday has certainly triggered a harsh response from China. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been conducting a series of drills around the island that amount to a partial blockade of the Taiwan Strait. In addition, Beijing has announced sanctions against Taiwan, affecting goods from pineapple cakes (a Taiwanese delicacy) to oranges; it has also declared eight countermeasures in response to Pelosi’s visit, which included cancelling dialogues between the leaders of Chinese and US military theatres and suspending the joint Sino-US talks on climate change.Tension in the Taiwan Strait has put the world on edge. The G7 foreign ministers last week called on China to “resolve cross-Strait differences by peaceful means”. However, there has also been much criticism of Pelosi. For instance, in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman characterised her visit as “utterly reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible”. For such critics, it could not have happened at a worse time: 1 August is PLA Day, a holiday celebrating the founding of the Chinese army. Continue reading...
The Sandy Hook conspiracy peddler’s courtroom rout shows truth can triumph, but there is no guarantee it always willThe trial of Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist, who for years propagated the lie that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, has produced some remarkable moments over the past week, not least when Jones was told that his own attorney had accidentally released two years’ worth of Jones’s text messages to his legal adversaries. For sheer schadenfreude, however, it’s hard to beat an exchange between Jones and judge Maya Guerra Gamble in which she reminded him that “you must tell the truth while you testify”.“I believe what I said was true,” Jones answered. The judge’s riposte has since been shared hundreds of thousands of times: “You believe everything you say is true, but it isn’t. Your beliefs do not make something true. That is what we’re doing here. Just because you claim to think something is true does not make it true.” Continue reading...
A new centrist grouping including Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman aims to tap into Americans’ wish for a third political option – but history is not encouragingAfter the 2020 election, Americans were clear: they wanted a viable third political party.In modern US history the country has been dominated by the Republican and Democratic parties almost to the exclusion of all others, effectively creating a near two-party monopoly on power in the White House, Congress and the state level. Continue reading...
As the world remembers Hiroshima, it must also recommit to the increasingly fragile non-proliferation treaty. The alternative is unthinkableA crucial event for the future of international peace and security – and global sanity – got under way at UN headquarters in New York last week, though, given the lack of political and media attention, you might be forgiven for not noticing.The review conference of the landmark 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) involves 191 state party signatories. Few international agreements enjoy such near universal support. Nuclear-armed Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are shameful hold-outs. Continue reading...
University of Pennsylvania houses remains at Penn Museum, where they form collection once used to justify white supremacyThe University of Pennsylvania is moving ahead with the reburial of the cranial remains of at least 13 Black Philadelphians whose skulls have been kept for almost two centuries in a notorious anthropological collection used to justify white supremacy in the run-up to the US civil war.The Ivy League university is petitioning the Philadelphia orphans’ court for permission to rebury the skulls in the city’s historic African American Eden cemetery. Should the ceremony go ahead, it would amount to one of the most significant restorative processes for Black remains in America in the wake of the racial reckoning following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Continue reading...
Anti-racists fear racism will never be conquered, while racists still nurse a sense of loss and prideIt is Viktor Orbán’s worst nightmare: “One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.” It is the opening line to Mohsin Hamid’s new novel The Last White Man, a line that deliberately echoes the opening to Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.Ever since he first bedazzled with his 2000 novel Moth Smoke, Hamid has shown himself willing and capable of tackling big, divisive subjects: the war on terror, immigration, identity, corruption, poverty. With his latest novel, he attempts to engage with another biggie: “whiteness”. Continue reading...
Rights groups express concern after Minnesota jury gives verdict that Andrea Anderson’s rights were not violated by pharmacy’s denialA Minnesota jury found that a pharmacy did not discriminate against a woman when it denied to give her the morning-after pill.The pharmacist gave “belief” as the reason for refusing to fill the prescription for emergency contraception. Although the jury decided that the woman’s rights had not been violated, it did say that the emotional damage caused by the decision amounted to $25,000. Continue reading...
President, 79, to abide by ‘strict isolation measures … in an abundance of caution’, White House doctor saysPresident Joe Biden tested negative for Covid on Saturday but will continue to isolate at the White House until a second negative test, his doctor said.Dr Kevin O’Connor wrote in his latest daily update that the president “in an abundance of caution”, will abide by the “strict isolation measures” in place since his “rebound” infection was detected on 30 July, pending a follow-up negative result. Continue reading...
Dan Newhouse, one of 10 members of Congress to vote for impeachment, set to beat Trump-backed Loren Culp in Washington stateDan Newhouse, one of the few Republican House members to vote in January in favor of the impeachment of Donald Trump, is poised to move forward to the general election in Washington state, according to a projection by the Associated Press.Newhouse was one of 10 Republicans who voted in January to have Trump impeached, even ahead of explosive revelations about the former president’s support and endorsement of the January 6 riots just a year prior. Continue reading...
Senate kicks off ‘vote-a-rama’ that could drag on as Republicans have promised to try to stall the processUS Senate Democrats on Saturday began a vote on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.Earlier, a Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. Continue reading...
For the first time in the technology industry’s history, combined real revenue growth is negative rather than positive and some corporations may yet be facing an existential declineA speculative bubble, wrote Nobel laureate Robert Shiller in Irrational Exuberance, his landmark book on human foolishness, is “a situation in which news of price increases spurs investor enthusiasm, which spreads by psychological contagion from person to person, in the process amplifying stories that might justify the price increases and bringing in a larger and larger class of investors, who, despite doubts about the real value of an investment, are drawn to it partly through envy of others’ successes and partly through a gambler’s excitement”.Observers of the tech industry are wearily familiar with this kind of irrationality. Throughout 2020 and 2021, as Covid-19 wreaked economic havoc on countries throughout the western world, the tech industry remained strangely untouched by what was happening on the ground. While the rest of us cowered in lockdown, the pandemic made tech bosses and owners insanely richer. Their companies grew faster and became even more profitable while other industries languished. Apple had so much extra cash that it spent $90bn (£74bn) – nearly the gross domestic product of Kenya – buying its own shares. Amazon laid out $50bn in 2021 on warehouses, hiring tens of thousands of employees, ordering fleets of electric vehicles and building cloud computing centres. And so on. Continue reading...
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