Man, 71, charged with murder over death of Wadea Al-Fayoume as Council on American Islamic Relations says bigotry must stop'A top official at the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) National has warned of a potential rise in violence against Muslims and Palestinians in the US following the hate-crime murder of a six-year-old boy in Illinois and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Cair's deputy director and a civil rights attorney, called the stabbing of Wadea Al-Fayoume and his mother in their home one of the worst-case scenarios". Continue reading...
Leonard Cure, 53, exonerated after being wrongly convicted of robbing a drug store in 2003, killed after traffic stop in GeorgiaA Black man who spent 16 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a violent crime was shot and killed by police in Georgia on Monday.Leonard Cure, 53, was killed after a sheriff's deputy pulled him over in south-eastern Georgia's Camden county early on Monday morning. The Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI) is examining the shooting. Continue reading...
Bank's board reportedly concerned at attention received by chief executive, who moonlights as DJ D-SolThe music has stopped for the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, amid reports that the US investment bank's board was concerned his DJing sideline would distract him from his main job.Solomon has formally hung up his headphones on high-profile gigs and has not performed publicly in more than a year, the bank said. Continue reading...
Joran van der Sloot, convicted in Peru over separate 2010 killing, expected to reverse not guilty plea over death of US teen in 2005The chief suspect in Natalee Holloway's 2005 disappearance is expected to plead guilty on Wedneday and reveal details about her death to resolve a federal case accusing him of trying to extort money from the missing teen's mother.A federal judge set a plea and sentencing hearing for Joran van der Sloot in Birmingham, Alabama. He had previously entered a plea of not guilty in the case. Continue reading...
Nearly fifty years after the federal government pushed for looser rules, cities across the country are considering a changeFor the past 50 years, red-blooded Americans have enjoyed a freedom the Founding Fathers hardly dreamed of: the ability to turn right on a red light. But with pedestrian fatalities at a four-decade high, a movement is afoot to change that.This month, San Francisco supervisors unanimously voiced support for a ban on right-on-red. Last year, the practice was banned in Cambridge, Massachusetts. New York has long barred it, Denver could soon, and Washington DC has taken steps toward a ban. Seattle, meanwhile, has made no-right-on-red the city's default" policy at new traffic signals. A growing media chorus agrees it's time for change. Continue reading...
Former president in speech in Iowa says he would immediately begin ideological screening' for all immigrantsDoubling down on the hardline immigration policies that have long animated his base, Donald Trump on Monday vowed to bar refugees from Gaza and immediately expand his first-term Muslim travel ban if he wins a second term following the deadly attack on Israel last week.Speaking to supporters in Iowa, the former president said that if he returns to the Oval Office, he will immediately begin ideological screening" for all immigrants and bar those who sympathize with Hamas and Muslim extremists. The war between Israel and Hamas has sparked what is now the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides, with more than 4,000 dead. Continue reading...
Contender for House speaker, described as political terrorist' by John Boehner, also linked to Ohio State sexual abuse scandalJim Jordan, the Ohio congressman who is seeking to become House speaker, is a prominent celebrity on the far right of US politics - and a magnet for controversy who a former speaker from his own party once called a political terrorist".Jordan, 59, was elected to Congress in 2006 from a conservative, rural district of Ohio. A high school and college wrestling champion, he made his mark on the House as a founder of the hard-right Freedom caucus, helping oust two speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who were not deemed sufficiently extreme. Continue reading...
To survive Russia's neo-imperialism, Europe's democracies must find a balance between their desire for peace and their own defenceIn 2003, the philosophers Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida published a joint article in Germany's and France's leading newspapers. In it, they criticised the American invasion of Iraq and called on Europeans to assume a reflexive distance from themselves", in particular their imperialism and colonialism.The pair's criticism of George W Bush's imperialism was justified; and their suggestion that Europe could lead the world towards a post-imperial future was a nice idea. Today, however, confronted with Russia's genocidal invasion of Ukraine, the question is whether such a post-imperial world can be achieved through the means that the two philosophers proposed.Volodymyr Yermolenko is a Ukrainian philosopher, journalist and writer. He is the president of PEN Ukraine. Continue reading...
One can be opposed to Hamas, as I am, and to the indiscriminate bombing and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, as I amWhat are you doing to stop the imminent ethnic cleansing of Gaza? This is a serious question. If ever there was a time to stand up for the rights of an oppressed people, this is it. And yet, in many places in the western world, you can't. It's literally been outlawed. How is this even possible?As I'm writing this, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied territories, is pleading with the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, to demand Israel stop its killing. The delay in calling on Israel to cease taking revenge on millions of Palestinian civilians," she wrote on X (formerly Twitter), is intensifying the descent into [the] abyss." Continue reading...
by Ramon Antonio Vargas and David Hammer, WWL-TV in N on (#6FMND)
New recordings raise questions about archbishop's response to accusations against VM Wheeler, attorney and church benefactorMore than 10 months after he pleaded guilty to child molestation and after his victim received a substantial financial settlement, the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans has at last acknowledged that deacon VM Wheeler was a credibly accused child molester.Wheeler, a prominent attorney and church benefactor who died this spring, was ordained in 2018 by the New Orleans archbishop, Gregory Aymond. Over the next four years, Wheeler would be accused of molesting a 12-year-old boy in the early 2000s, suspended from ministry, arrested on suspicion of raping the child, charged with aggravated sexual battery, accused in a lawsuit of trying to pay the victim $400,000 to stop working with police, and - in December 2022 - plead guilty to indecent behavior with a juvenile. Continue reading...
Thanks to psychics and Hollywood actors, she's never wanted for work - and she'll be a real vision in Netflix's prestige' dramaThere is spine-tingling supernatural news from The Crown, a TV show that takes itself considerably more seriously than the actual royal family. This has never been a programme that wears the prestige TV" label as lightly as have other jewels of the era, preferring instead to drag it like a 10-tonne weight into every scene while some of the finest actors of their generations pretend to be things like sad about the news", or Princess Anne". Giggling away with a drink and a packet of crisps, I often wonder if I am its only disloyal subject. Surely not? For a long time I couldn't really believe anyone took it seriously and assumed it must be in on the joke of itself - a Nicolas Cage of a show, if you will.I can't quite decide whether this position has been bolstered or undermined by the high-camp news that the forthcoming final series is to feature the ghost of Princess Diana. According to reports - and it's not out yet, so usual caveats - the ghost appears to both Prince Charles and the late Queen. The Queen sees her while planning the funeral arrangements and starts crying, having been told she taught us what it means to be British". To Charles, who has apparently been shown sobbing over her body in a Paris morgue, Diana's ghost reportedly says: Thank you for how you were in the hospital. So raw, broken - and handsome." Oooh. I'll take that with me. You know I loved you so much. So deeply, so painfully too. That's over now. It will be easier for everyone with me gone." Can this genuinely be the dialogue? I certainly hope so.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
US says it has reached agreement with Israeli government on provision of humanitarian relief for people in Gaza. Plus, how a little-known pollution rule keeps the air dirty for millions of AmericansGood morning.Joe Biden will travel to Israel tomorrow after the US said it had reached agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu's government on the provision of humanitarian relief and safe areas to the more than 2 million people in Gaza under fire, and in urgent need of water, food and medical help.How many people have evacuated from northern Gaza? 600,000 Gazans have been evacuated from the Gaza City area, following warnings from Israel's military on Friday, according to Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus. In a daily update, Conricus said more than 600,000 people had been evacuated from the Gaza City area, but that 100,000 people still had not left.Why are food, water and power running out in Gaza? Israel's strict blockade has cut off vital resources and left the territory facing a humanitarian disaster. Power is off, clean water is scarce, and the last fuel for hospital emergency generators could expire, leaving Gaza facing a humanitarian crisis.Who was the suspect? The suspect, a 45-year-old Tunisian calling himself Abdesalem Al Guilani, claimed in a video on social media that he was a fighter for Allah. The Belgian justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, said he had sought asylum in Belgium in November 2019 and was known to police in connection with people-smuggling and illegal residence in Belgium. His asylum application was rejected, it has been reported. Continue reading...
It is easy to blame Bollywood and the media for unrealistic expectations of beauty - but there are deeper social factors at workWhen Indian actor Aishwarya Rai, once Miss World, walked the runway at Paris fashion week for L'Oreal this month, the online space and many Indian newspapers exploded with comments about her weight.People took to social media to say she had let herself go", that she shouldn't have worn this or that, that she should have taken better care of herself. She faced similar comments about her baby weight" soon after giving birth to her daughter 12 years ago. Continue reading...
The UK has suddenly gone from summer heat to shivering cold and across the land the annual arguments have begunMy dad had one weird pocket of chauvinism in an otherwise solid worldview, which was that men and women did not, and could not, like the same films. My sister once told him that she couldn't imagine going out with someone with a completely different taste in cinema, and he said: In that case, you are destined to marry someone who lies to keep you happy, and there are worse people you could end up married to."Take out the nonsense gender essentialism - indeed, gender altogether - and films, substitute any couple" and central heating", and I'm pretty much with him. There is no such thing as a couple who wants their house the same temperature, and there are definitely couples who lie to keep each other happy.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Already UK extremists are seizing on images of pro-Palestinian rallies across Europe. In this time of crisis we should cherish our diversityIt is many years since I heard Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, sung. But the haunting sound of British Jews singing it inside a synagogue at the weekend stopped me in my tracks. Not everyone on the video clip that popped up on my phone seemed to know all the words. But perhaps that partly reflects who is seeking the comfort of collective worship in these frightened days.Secular Jewish friends who once barely thought about their Jewish identity talk of feeling jolted into doing so now, while profound differences of opinion over the current Israeli government are momentarily bridged. The terrorists who murdered and abducted teenagers at a peace rave, or idealists drawn to live in kibbutzim near Gaza because of their support for cross-border peace projects, didn't care after all how they voted or what they believed.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistDo 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...
As family and friends attended the six-year-old's funeral, elected officials, including Joe Biden, condemned the brutal attackCrowds of mourners in a Palestinian Chicago suburb paid respects on Monday to a six-year-old Muslim boy killed in an alleged anti-Islamic hate crime, hours after authorities revealed new details about the evidence used to charge the family's landlord with stabbing the child and his mother.Wadea Al-Fayoume, who had recently had a birthday, died on Saturday after being stabbed dozens of times in a brutal attack that drew condemnation from local elected officials to the White House. Authorities said the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, was upset over the Israel-Hamas war and attacked them after the boy's mother proposed they pray for peace". Continue reading...
Lawsuit claims Maurice Monk's death represents unconscionable failure' of staff at Santa Rita jail, one of the largest jails in countryNearly two years ago, Maurice Monk, unable to afford his $2,500 bond, sat in a California jail for 34 days. He had missed a court appearance following an argument with a bus driver.Before he entered Santa Rita jail in Alameda county, Monk had regularly taken prescription medication for high blood pressure, diabetes and schizophrenia. During a previous time at Santa Rita months before his death, he had received his prescriptions as usual. Continue reading...
At least 30 people reportedly arrested, with protestors accusing Israeli government of planning genocideLeftwing US Jewish groups gathered outside the White House on Monday to urge the Biden administration to pressure Israel into dropping its plans for a military invasion of Gaza and instead declare an immediate ceasefire.Accusing Benjamin Netanyahu's government of planning genocide", several hundred volunteers from campaign groups IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace chanted slogans, carried placards and sang ancient Jewish songs in protest of what they said was an immoral response to the deadly assault on 7 October by the Palestinian group Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis. Continue reading...
by Joan E Greve and Lauren Gambino in Washington DC on (#6FMCJ)
Thirteen lawmakers call on Biden administration to facilitate de-escalation and send humanitarian aid into GazaA group of prominent progressive US lawmakers introduced a resolution on Monday calling for a ceasefire in the fast-escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas that has resulted in a death toll in the thousands, as fears grow that the war could spiral into a wider regional conflict.The two-page resolution, brought by 13 Democratic members of Congress, urges the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation and a ceasefire to urgently end the current violence" as well as to promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza". Continue reading...
Nishad Singh testifies at Sam Bankman-Fried trial about millions spent by failed crypto exchange on celebrity partnershipsThe jury at Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud trial on Monday saw a photograph of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder with the singer Katy Perry and the actor Orlando Bloom at the 2022 NFL Super Bowl, as prosecutors sought to bolster their case that the failed crypto mogul squandered customer money on efforts to boost his stature.Prosecutors displayed the image as Nishad Singh, FTX's former director of engineering, testified about how the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on celebrity partnerships and marketing in early 2022, months before the exchange declared bankruptcy amid a wave of customer withdrawals. Continue reading...
by Gloria Oladipo in New York and agency on (#6FMA1)
New statistics for 2022 show decrease in violent offenses and rise in hate crime incidents, a majority of which targeted Black peopleData from the FBI's annual crime report shows an overall dip in US violent crime, but a stark increase in hate crimes.The new statistics from the federal agency, released on Monday, show that in 2022, violent offenses decreased to pre-pandemic levels. Continue reading...
Congressman Colin Allred raises $10.9m - $2m more than Cruz - towards effort to unseat Texas RepublicanThe Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz spent time last weekend hobnobbing with Liz Truss, the shortest-serving British prime minister - but news closer to home suggested he might have reason to fear for his own job security.As reported by the Dallas Morning News and the Texas Tribune, the Democratic congressman Colin Allred, Cruz's most likely opponent for re-election next year, reported $10.9m raised since declaring his candidacy in May. Continue reading...
The most profound ethical obligation in this time of carnage is to act to end complicityAt times of carnage, herd-like agitation and tribal polarization, many may dismiss ethical principles as a nuisance or an intellectual luxury. I cannot and shall not. I desire nothing more than seeing an end to all violence in Palestine and everywhere else, and this is precisely why I am committed to struggling against the root causes of violence: oppression and injustice.I have dear friends and colleagues in the Gaza prison camp", as former British Prime Minister David Cameron once called it, a modern-day ghetto whose 2.3 million residents are predominantly refugees descending from communities that faced massacres and planned ethnic cleansing during the 1948 Nakba. Israel's illegal 16-year blockade, aided by the US, Europe and the Egyptian regime, has turned Gaza into an unliveable" zone, according to the United Nations, where the healthcare system is near collapse; almost all the water is undrinkable; around 60% of children are anaemic; and many children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition. The heart-wrenching stories of death, destruction, and displacement that my friends are currently sharing with me make me simultaneously sad and indignant. But above all they motivate me to contribute even more to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, that I co-founded in 2005, as my modest contribution to our liberation struggle.Omar Barghouti is a founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement Continue reading...
President's re-election campaign joins rightwing social media platform mostly because we thought it would be very funny'Joe Biden's 2024 re-election campaign has joined Truth Social, a rightwing social media platform created by the Republican former president Donald Trump.Using the handle @BidenHQ, the account says it is a project of Biden-Harris 2024" and includes a banner image that says the malarkey ends here", referencing the president's signature colloquialism. Continue reading...
Arizona State University investigates potential hate crime against David Boyles after video shows harassment by Turning Point USAArizona State University is investigating a potential hate crime against one of its staff after members of Turning Point USA followed and harassed the professor, then shoved him to the ground.Video footage posted by Turning Point, a rightwing youth organization known for its aggressive tactics, shows a cameraman and another person questioning David Boyles, an English instructor and the co-founder of Drag Story Hour Arizona, last Wednesday after Boyles taught a class on LGBTQ+ youth in pop culture and politics. Continue reading...
by Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent on (#6FM3P)
Lawyers for former US president said reports of his alleged sexual activity in Russia were false, phoney or made-up'Donald Trump has said that a dossier alleging that he engaged in perverted sexual behaviour" and paid bribes to Russian officials to further his business interests is false" and phoney", and is seeking to sue for damages in London.The former US president indicated that he was willing to give evidence at the high court in his case alleging breach of data protection rights by Orbis Business Intelligence over the 2016 Steele dossier". The dossier, investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential campaign, was compiled by the Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, who previously ran MI6's Russia desk. Continue reading...
Robert Mann says Trump-backed Jeff Landry urged LSU to fire him and attacks university leadership for cowardice and appeasement'A prominent professor at Louisiana's largest public university has said he is resigning after an extremist Republican candidate won the state's gubernatorial election - a victory some fear could accelerate the already conservative-dominated state's march into unfettered rightwing governance.Robert Mann, a journalism professor at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication and a well-known political commentator, said he will step down at the end of the academic year in response to Jeff Landry's victory in the election to become governor. Continue reading...
Former president is prohibited from making public statements attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnessesDonald Trump has been issued a limited gag order by the federal judge overseeing the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, prohibiting him from making public statements attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.The former president was not prohibited from generally disparaging the Biden administration, the US justice department and the trial venue of Washington DC, and will continue to be allowed to allege that the case was politically motivated. Continue reading...
The country's populist nightmare is almost over, but it's still early days and there are tough tasks aheadTo be in Poland on Sunday night was to experience a rare moment of political joy. Young voters queued until the early hours to see off the xenophobic, nationalist populists who have been dragging their country backwards; to prove that even an unfair election can be won against the odds; and to turn Poland towards a modern European future. If you were already in the queue at 9pm, when polls closed, you were allowed to wait to vote. Some of the queues were very long, so neighbours brought hot drinks to sustain people in the cold. Interviewed at about 1am on Monday, one young man in Wrocaw said he had to hang in there because this was the most important election since 1989.I walked to a Warsaw polling station on election day with the same old friends whom I had accompanied to that historic vote on 4 June 1989. With delight, they each chose one name from the long list of parliamentary candidates. With equal delight, they refused even to take the ballot paper for the simultaneous referendum, which - with its ludicrously biased questions about things like an alleged forced relocation mechanism" for illegal immigrants, supposedly imposed by the European bureaucracy" - was effectively election propaganda for the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). But my friends and I were full of nervous anticipation.Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
She never came home from Supernova music festival, and our hearts are broken. We are begging for help to bring her home and get her the medication she needsOn Friday 6 October, my 27-year-old daughter, Tamar, for ever my little girl, was so excited. After a long period of illness, she was finally going out to enjoy herself at an all-night music festival, something she had not done in years. She was so looking forward to a night of music and carefree dancing.On that night, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, she ate dinner with my husband, Dudi, who was home alone because I was abroad, as were two of my other daughters. Tamar then brought dinner over to her older sister, Adva, a mother of two young children. Tamar giggled and chatted excitedly about the upcoming party and then packed up her gear. Continue reading...
A woman in the public eye will be judged by an ever-changing standard: too strident, too provocative, too predatory, too thin, too fat, too muscly and very soon too old. The only dignified answer? Smash the patriarchyMadonna arrived at the O2 for her Celebration tour last weekend, and Oh Madge," the columnist Sarah Vine wondered aloud in the Daily Mail, isn't it time you grew up?" Madonna had already answered that, of course, by dressing in a broken mirror catsuit, a cowgirl corset and another corset, and by cavorting with topless dancers. It all amounted to a pretty comprehensive statement of: Take your idea of what a grownup 65-year-old should wear and how she should comport herself, and shove it."If I were Madge, that would be the kernel of my celebration, an entire career lived as the lightning rod of the conundrum of female sexuality. Who gets to decide what it looks like, what is attractive, what is off-putting? Who gets to police what is too much, what is too old, what is too scary, what is too slutty? Is it men, and if so, which men? Just the loudest ones? Is it socially constructed by an unstable but vocal alliance of sexist men and disapproving women? Do feminists get a say, and if so, do we all have to agree first about where we stand on fishnet tights? Where do conical bras fit, in the long pantheon of shapes you're apparently pretending your breasts might be"?Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
IRS filings show wealthy Informing America Foundation helping to bankroll variety of conservative groups and causesThe organization that placed a billboard at Harvard University accusing some students of antisemitism amid the fight between Israel and Hamas is part of a network of rightwing media organizations being funded by a major conservative donor via a shadowy new foundation.The single largest identified donor last year to Accuracy in Media (AIM), which placed the billboard, is the Informing America Foundation (IAF), formed in 2021, which has already dished out at least $8m to rightwing nonprofit and for-profit organizations, according to IRS filings. Continue reading...
Best known for her roles in The Hustler, Carrie and Twin Peaks, Laurie has died at the age of 91. Here we look back at her life and times Piper Laurie, Oscar nominee for Carrie and The Hustler, dies at 91 Continue reading...
by Jakub Jaraczewski, Sylwia Chutnik and Wojciech Orl on (#6FKW6)
Our panel considers what the populist ruling party's apparent defeat could mean for democracy and Poland's place in EuropePro-democratic Poles can be cautiously happy. The ruling rightwing party Law and Justice (PiS) may have come first in an unfair election that stacked the odds in its favour, but it is unlikely to be able to form a government, either alone or in coalition with the far-right Konfederacja party.Jakub Jaraczewski is a research coordinator at Democracy Reporting International, Berlin Continue reading...
Netanyahu's government might welcome a chance to shift a million or more Palestinians off the demographic balance sheet by clearing GazaThe Israeli government's mass evacuation order from northern Gaza is an ostensibly humanitarian act done in an utterly inhumane way. The order requires 1.1 million people to flee their homes in northern Gaza in advance of an imminent Israeli ground invasion - the next step in the Israeli response to the horrendous Hamas massacre and abduction of Israeli civilians on 7 October. Warring parties, if possible, are supposed to give effective advance warning of attacks". Yet the Israeli order will compound the suffering of the Palestinian civilians of Gaza. It may also begin an illegal process of ethnic cleansing.The threat in northern Gaza is plenty real as Israeli bombers pulverize neighborhoods in attacks that appear designed less to pinpoint Hamas fighters than to collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza - the same population that has endured years of Hamas's military dictatorship and had no say in Hamas's decision to slaughter Israeli civilians. Yet evacuation has its risks, too. At least 70 people were reportedly killed while traveling along the prescribed road south.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. On Twitter he is @KenRoth Continue reading...
Nina Fathizadeh, 41, and Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, face charges after deaths of two infants who fell into pool in San JoseAuthorities in California have arrested two women who ran a children's daycare out of a home after two toddlers drowned in a pool there recently.Nina Fathizadeh, 41, and Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, face counts of felony child endangerment resulting in death as well as criminal negligence, said news releases from police and prosecutors. Continue reading...
The president has a frosty history with Israel's PM, and he has emphasised that US backing depends on the upholding of democratic valuesPresident Biden's response to the murderous attack by Hamas on Israeli towns, villages and kibbutzim that claimed more than 1,200 Israeli lives, the majority of them civilians, was one of the most heartfelt expressions of support for Israel by a US president for a very long time. His speech on 10 October emphasised that Washington would not confine its backing for the Jewish state to words, and would immediately translate those words into tangible assistance. But Biden's pledge of surging" support, including sending aircraft carriers to deter hostile actions against Israel" - is not without caveats, to which Israel should pay careful heed. Over the weekend, Biden wisely warned Israel against occupying Gaza, and expressed his support for opening a humanitarian corridor to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe that is already taking place.It is no secret that US-Israel relations have been strained since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the end of last year. The US administration has been openly critical of the crass attempt to weaken the country's judiciary, and with it Israel's democratic system, by the newly formed, most rightwing government coalition in its history. Indirectly supporting the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been regularly taking to the streets in defence of their democracy, Biden linked US friendship with Israel to the preservation of that democracy, and asserted that: The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary." Continue reading...
I covered the Rwandan genocide as a reporter. The language spilling out of Israel is eerily familiarIsrael's president, Isaac Herzog, set the tone as he spoke about how far to assign guilt for the worst single atrocity against Jews in his country's history.It's an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it's absolutely not true. They could've risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime," said Herzog.Chris McGreal writes for Guardian US and is a former Guardian correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem Continue reading...
The former Texas congressman's long-shot 2024 bid has come to an end, but he has no regrets - and he insists Trump's nomination is not inevitableWill Hurd wanted to be the most powerful man in the world. Like so many candidates before him, he knew the loneliness of the long distance runner criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire in a quest for votes that might make him president of the United States. But it was not be.This week Hurd called it a day after a campaign that failed to make much of a splash. Indeed, arguably his biggest headline came in July when he declared, Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison," and was roundly booed at the Iowa Republican Party's Lincoln Dinner. Unrepentant, Hurd told them: Listen, I know the truth is hard." Continue reading...
Calls for restraint are right but unlikely to be heeded. A conflict setting Israel and the US against Iran has rarely seemed closerThe foremost concern of western governments as the Israel-Hamas war enters a murderous second week is not the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. It is the alarming prospect of a swiftly spreading conflict pitting Israeli and US forces against Iran and its militia proxies. Recent, ominous signs suggest a rapid deterioration. Iran holds the key.The two issues are intimately connected. Arab leaders told Antony Blinken, the visiting US secretary of state, that unless Israel's mass casualty attacks on Gaza cease, the war may escalate uncontrollably. If the Zionist aggressions do not stop, the hands of all parties in the region are on the trigger," warned Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Continue reading...
Workers in US south call for higher minimum wage and end to automatic meal deduction charges from paychecks in petitionWorkers at several Waffle House locations in the southern US are among the latest group of employees in America to hold walkouts around a slate of demands for improvements to wages and working conditions.A petition circulating by the Union of Southern Service Workers, a worker organization supported by the Service Employees International Union, includes a push for a $25 hourly minimum wage at the huge restaurant chain that is often seen as an icon of working-class Americana. Continue reading...
US president says Hamas must be eliminated but there should be a path to a Palestinian state. Plus, examples of Jewish-Arab solidarity offer hope in Israel
Carolina have yet to record a winning season since the billionaire bought them in 2018. There are few signs that streak will be broken in the near futureThe Carolina Panthers, the last winless team in the NFL, remained that way on Sunday. A 42-21 loss at the high-flying Miami Dolphins was the team's most lopsided defeat in a year full of them. Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and receiver Tyreek Hill were their usual destructive selves in the passing game - they combined for 163 yards and a touchdown - and tailback Raheem Mostert added 115 yards and two scores on the ground. This year's No 1 overall pick, Bryce Young, hung in gamely at quarterback but could not come close to keeping pace. Losing to the Dolphins is no disgrace - Miami have the best offense in the NFL and are 5-1 this season - but it emphasized how far Carolina are from being relevant. Besides, it's the overall picture of the season that is depressing for Carolina fans: their team have a 0-6 record, the first time they've reached that low since 1998.The Panthers' 2023 season is already lost, but that doesn't begin to cover the predicament the franchise has created for itself. If they remain on their trajectory as the league's worst team, the Panthers will earn the first overall pick in April's draft, but it will go to the Chicago Bears, who netted it in the return for the pick that Carolina used last April on Young. Reinforcements are not readily available. A creative front office could dig out of that hole, but it's unclear how much latitude the Panthers staff have to fix the team. For Carolina fans' sake, the answer is hopefully more than it appears." Continue reading...
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