Auto workers in the US have launched a historic series of strikes after their union failed to reach an agreement with the country's three largest vehicle manufacturers.The disagreement over a new contract saw workers at Ford, Stellantis and GM plants called out from the shop floor to the picket lines shortly after midnight on Friday, kicking off the most ambitious industrial labor action in decades for about 130,000 workers.Workers are pushing for at least a 40% wage increase over four years in a new contract; an end to two-tier wage systems in which new hires are paid significantly less for doing the same work; an increase to benefits for retirees and return of a defined pension
Critics say the assault, which killed 183 people during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, could have been stoppedThe Pentagon's Central Command has ordered interviews of roughly two dozen more service members who were at the Kabul airport when suicide bombers attacked during US forces' chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, as criticism persists that the deadly assault could have been stopped.The interviews - ordered by Erik Kurilla, a general and head of US Central Command - were triggered in part by assertions by at least one service member injured in the blast who said he was never interviewed about it and that he might have been able to stop the attackers. Continue reading...
Ellis, one of 18 Trump associates charged in Georgia election subversion case, says she simply can't support him' againJenna Ellis - the Donald Trump lawyer who like the former president faces criminal charges regarding attempted election subversion in his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 - says she will not vote for him in the future because he is a malignant narcissist" who cannot admit mistakes.I simply can't support him for elected office again," Ellis said. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he's never done anything wrong." Continue reading...
Storm Daniel hits central Greece, Russian shelling in Bakhmut, an Israeli army raid in the West Bank and a muddy Burning Man festival: the most striking images this week Continue reading...
This blog has closed. Read more on this story hereA New York state appeals court judge put the civil fraud trial involving the New York attorney general's office and Donald Trump and his company on temporary hold after a last-minute legal challenge by the former president's legal team.Justice David Friedman, a judge on the state's intermediate appellate court, ordered a potential postponement of the non-jury trial, which had been scheduled to start on 2 October. The judge granted an interim stay of the trial and ordered the full appeals court to consider the lawsuit on an expedited basis.We are confident in our case and will be ready for trial. Continue reading...
Key questions answered after UAW workers at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors walked off the jobIndustrial action billed as the biggest auto strike in generations" got under way late on Thursday night for 150,000 US autoworkers, with employees at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors walking off the job at 11.59pm after contract negotiations failed to reach a deal.It's the latest in a series of strikes called or threatened by workers in industries including shipping and logistics, TV and movie production and hotel and leisure. Given its scale, the strike could deal a significant blow to the US economy as well as the auto industry.General Motors CEO Mary Barra made $29m in 2022 - 362 times the median wage of $80,034 at the company.Ford CEO Jim Farley made $21m in 2022 - 281 times the median worker of $74,691.Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares made $24.8m in 2022 - 365 times the average worker's $67,789 wage. Continue reading...
Pilot Eugene Peltola Jr, 57, the husband of Mary Peltola, a US representative from Alaska, was the only person on boardEugene Peltola Jr, the husband of Alaska Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola, was returning from a remote hunting camp carrying moose meat when the plane he was flying crashed, killing him, authorities said.Peltola Jr, 57, was the only person aboard the small plane when it crashed late on Tuesday. Two hunters who were at the camp in western Alaska at the time provided medical care, authorities have said. Continue reading...
United Auto Workers union unable to agree deal with Ford, GM and Stellantis, who have seen profits and executive pay soarJoe Biden on Friday spoke out in support of auto workers as they launched a historic series of strikes after their union failed to reach an agreement with the US's three largest vehicle manufacturers.No one wants a strike, but I respect workers' rights to use their options under the collective bargaining system, and [I] understand their frustrations," the US president said in a brief, unscheduled appearance at the White House. Continue reading...
Far-right conspiracy theorist spending tens of thousands on high-end restaurants while failing to pay damages from legal verdictThe rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is continuing to live the high life while refusing to pay a cent of the $1.5bn damages he owes families of victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting he called a hoax.Court documents show that the disgraced host of the far-right conspiracy theory and hoax news website Infowars is spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on expenses" including high-end restaurants and groceries, while payments to the families are frozen following his declaration of bankruptcy last year. Continue reading...
The US president said on Friday that no one wanted the United Auto Workers' union to strike in its labour dispute with the big three US carmakers - but workers should get a share of the profits those companies are making.Biden told reporters at the White House that he understood the workers' frustration, adding: 'Record corporate profits ... should be shared by record contracts for the UAW'
Moving low-income, Black people into better' neighborhoods splits up communities and does not solve povertyFor 20 or so years, the architects of public housing have clung tightly to what became conventional wisdom in the field: move residents of low-income neighborhoods out of public housing and into economically resourced neighborhoods.As the theory goes, middle-class and wealthy communities with high-quality schools, healthcare and public facilities could work wonders" on the residents of low-income and mostly Black neighborhoods. This idea - which advocates call mixed-income housing" and includes Section 8, among other programs - depends on the idea that people with low incomes, especially those who are Black, are somehow culturally deficient. They need to be immersed in better" neighborhoods so they are no longer exposed to food deserts, street violence and a lack of employment opportunities. Continue reading...
Keir Starmer insists there's no case for rejoining. But his migration plan and other desperate Tory fixes merely seek to repair the damageIt was only an aside. Keir Starmer wasn't planning to talk about Brexit, but a subject almost as perilous for his party: migration. Still, Good Morning Britain wanted to know if his plan to strike a deal with the European Union in order to stop the small boats crossing the Channel meant he was weakening his stance on EU withdrawal. There's no case for going back to the EU," he said, no case for going into the single market or customs union, and no freedom of movement."Those words were hardly a shock. Starmer has said similar things before, though sometimes adding the gentle qualification that he could see no political case" for rejoining the EU, a formulation that hints that while restored membership might be desirable, it's not feasible. The balder declaration he deployed on Thursday insists that there's not even an argument to be made in principle for British re-entry.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. He will host a Guardian Live event with Gordon Brown on Tuesday 26 September at 7pm BST. The event will be live in London and livestreamed - book tickets here Continue reading...
Diego Stolz died after being beaten by two middle school classmates at campus in southern California in 2019The family of a 13-year-old boy who died after being beaten by two middle school classmates at their campus in southern California has secured a $27m settlement in what the plaintiffs' attorneys are calling the largest bullying-related settlement in the history of US litigation.Felipe and Juana Salcedo received the settlement from the Moreno Valley unified school district over the September 2019 death of Diego Stolz. Continue reading...
The sentence was created to make sense of the world, but some things are beyond logic. Forget what you learned at school, let the words outTreat yourself. Instead of reading the rest of this article, first go and write down something that's bothering you ...... I'm now assuming you've done just that, and have come back to this, the next sentence. My theory is that writing is great for dealing with bothers. We often hear of the talking cure - I'm up for that. I've often talked about the doing cure. It's saved me many times. I think with huge fondness of the gentle way in which colleagues at the BBC quietly nudged me into doable tasks after my son Eddie died. Many people in my situation at that time are not so lucky. Long stretches of nothingness can be tough, straight after a big loss.Michael Rosen is a writer and broadcaster. His book Getting Better: Life Lessons on Going Under, Getting Over It, And Getting Through It is published by Ebury Press Continue reading...
Progressive Tiffany Caban says Eric Adams' hostile comments on migrants have real possibility' of inciting violenceA prominent New York progressive is warning that mayor Eric Adams's hostile comments about the rising number of migrants in the city are dangerous" and risk inciting violence against the new arrivals and other immigrants.Tiffany Caban, aiming for re-election to the city council this November and long endorsed by leading leftwing figures, including US senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked as irresponsible" the mayor's remarks last week that the sharp increase in migration to New York would destroy" the city. Continue reading...
Seven years ago, I fought my school for the right to wear the hair I was born with. Now I work as an ambassador for changeThis autumn I'm about to start my final year of university. All being well, I'll graduate soon with a BSc in management, and I'll do so wearing my hair however I choose. That's not something I thought I would be able say a few years ago. But now, I'm proud to have got my education back on track after years of fighting for the right to go to school while wearing my natural hair.My battle began when I was 14, in 2016, when teachers first starting telling me my afro hair was too big". I was sent home, several times, and with my family behind me I decided to fight the school's decision, supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). We eventually received a settlement, and in 2022 the EHRC issued groundbreaking new guidance to schools in the hope that no child would be discriminated against for having hair that's associated with their race or ethnicity. Continue reading...
Plus, Drew Barrymore and Ashton Kutcher vie for title of this news cycle's most awful, and Angela Rippon soothes the spiritIt can be hard to remember sometimes that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are approximately the same age - Biden is 80 to Trump's 77 - so that if one is too old to lead the free world, categorically the other is, too. Even among sensible observers, however, this is not how the age conversation shakes out. On Sunday night, Biden arrived for a state visit to Vietnam, kicking off a tour of Asia, and on Monday the New York Times splashed with a headline that played on the idea of the president as a doddery old man: It is evening, isn't it?' An 80-year-old president's whirlwind trip". Continue reading...
US news organizations have turned Biden's age into a scandal and continue to cover Trump as an entertaining side showChristiane Amanpour has reported all over the world, so she recognizes a democracy on the brink when she sees one.Last week, as she celebrated her 40 years at CNN, she issued a challenge to her fellow journalists in the US by describing how she would cover US politics as a foreign correspondent.News organizations have turned Biden's age (granted, a legitimate concern) into the equivalent of a scandal. In story after story, headline after headline, they emphasize not his administration's accomplishments, but the fact that he's 80. A New York Times headline during his recent diplomatic mission to Asia epitomized this, turning the president's joke about jet lag into an impression of a doddering fool: It is evening, isn't it?' An 80-Year-Old President's Whirlwind Trip." Ian Millhiser of Vox nailed the problem: I worry the Biden is old' coverage is starting to take on the same character as the 2016 But Her Emails coverage - find something that is genuinely suboptimal about the Democratic candidate and dwell on it endlessly to balance' coverage of the criminal in charge of the GOP."The evidence-free Biden impeachment efforts in the House of Representatives are presented to news consumers without sufficient context. In the first round of headlines last week, most news outlets simply reported what speaker Kevin McCarthy was doing as if it were completely legitimate - the result of his likely high crimes and misdemeanors. The Washington Post presented it seriously: Kevin McCarthy directs House committees to open formal Biden impeachment inquiries," adding in a credulous line: The inquiry will center on whether President Biden benefited from his son's business dealings ... " No hint of what is really happening here. In this case, the New York Times was a welcome exception: McCarthy, Facing an Ouster and a Shutdown, Orders an Impeachment Inquiry." That's more like it.Trump continues to be covered mostly as an entertaining side show - his mug shot! His latest insults! - not a perilous threat to democracy, despite four indictments and 91 charges against him, and despite his own clear statements that his re-election would bring extreme anti-democratic results; he would replace public servants with the cronies who'll do his bidding. We will look back on this and wish more people had understood that Biden is our bulwark of democratic freedoms and the alternative is worse than most Americans can imagine," commented Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen, and an expert in authoritarian regimes. Continue reading...
Mount Dora decided to affiliate to popular national initiative but group of state representatives branded it deceptive and coercive'A central Florida city is moving forward with plans to join the popular national Safe Place initiative protecting LGBTQ+ people and others, despite opposition from Republicans who consider it a deceptive and coercive" political mandate.Councilors in Mount Dora, a historic and eclectic small city famous for its antiques stores, art galleries and festivals, voted last month to affiliate with Safe Place, which seeks to give victims of hate crimes or bias a temporary shelter if they feel threatened. Continue reading...
Frustrated residents of rural county seek answers over officials' involvement in alleged election conspiracyThe Coffee county, Georgia, board of elections held its first meeting Tuesday after being mentioned more than 50 times in Fulton county's indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others for allegedly participating in a criminal conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Local residents, still frustrated over a lack of accountability for officials who may have known about the conspiracy, pressured the reluctant board for an independent investigation.The small, rural county 200 miles south-east of Atlanta made its way into the indictment - and global headlines - because Trump allegedly sent associates there to copy software and other digital information from the state's elections system in early 2021. Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, called it the largest voting systems breach in US history". Continue reading...
Deadline expires with sides still far apart on union's contract priorities. Plus, Hunter Biden indicted on federal charges Don't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.Auto workers have launched a series of strikes after their union failed to reach agreement with the US's three largest manufacturers over a new contract, kicking off the most ambitious industrial labor action in decades.How many workers are employed at the first plants on strike? Strikes kicked off at midnight at three plants of a combined 12,700 workers (a General Motors plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Stellantis plant in Toledo, Ohio, and a Ford assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan).What do workers demand? Among the demands are a 40% pay increase, an end to tiers - where some workers are paid at lower wage scales than others - and the restoration of concessions from previous contracts such as medical benefits for retirees, more paid time off and rights for workers affected by plant closures.How much is the strike fund? The UAW has a $825m strike fund that is set to compensate workers $500 a week while out on strike, and could support all of its members for about three months.How long could he face in prison if convicted? Up to 25 years. Biden faces up to 10 years in prison on each of two counts of making false statements to a Delaware gun dealer who sold him the gun, and five for possessing it as someone with drug addiction. Continue reading...
Bad mother' behaviour seems to include anything that even hints at maternal ambivalence or a desire for more freedomIt's hard enough being a working mother of young children, especially one in the process of getting divorced, without being smeared in the press as a bad mum. That's what's been happening to the actor Sophie Turner since her split from her pop singer husband, Joe Jonas, with various reports appearing on celebrity gossip websites casting aspersions on her parenting. Apparently she likes to party, he likes to stay at home", he's been in dad mode" caring for his own children pretty much all of the time" (Turner has been filming in the UK), and, in deciding to divorce, is taking the best course of action for his girls".The misogynistic undercurrents of these reports are clear: Turner is an irresponsible, absent mother who has had the audacity to make childcare arrangements with her partner in order to work, and worse, attend a wrap party where cocktails - cocktails! - were freely available. Meanwhile, Jonas is a present, loving father who is going above and beyond for his children, and is choosing to divorce their mother, it is implied, for their own welfare. Continue reading...
Celia Nabor oversaw early voting in Maricopa county in 2022 - then an online horde of election deniers decided to hunt her downThis article was published in partnership with Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the US.They started searching for her in late January. Continue reading...
The American official has been chased by angry fans during her career but she has no regrets over a career that has taken her across the globeAs a teenage referee, Tori Penso knew her job would involve running. Yet taking charge of a heated game played between 16-year-old boys, she never thought running would actually mean sprinting to her car to escape three men enraged by her performance. Penso, though, can run fast. She made it to her car, locked the doors, fled from her pursuers, and then burst into tears.I said that I don't want to do this," Penso, now 37, says. I don't need people chasing me. I can do something else." Continue reading...
The Jets' championship window is narrow. They need to make an aggressive move after Aaron Rodgers's season ended with an achilles injuryHow do you put the pieces back together on a season that disintegrated in four plays?The New York Jets are still coming to terms with Aaron Rodgers's achilles tear and its short- and long-term impact. The solution for now: They'll turn to Zach Wilson. I want to make it very clear, Zach's our quarterback," Jets head coach Robert Saleh said after it was confirmed Rodgers will miss the rest of the season.Jacoby Brissett, Washington CommandersJameis Winston, New Orleans SaintsSam Darnold, San Francisco 49ersCase Keenum, Houston TexansAndy Dalton, Carolina Panthers Continue reading...
In a rare moment of insight, the broadcaster articulated an undeniable truth: in the UK, the vastly wealthy hold the powerIt was one of the abiding mysteries of public life. How did Piers Morgan rise so far? I see him as a buffoon, a bully, a windbag. Yet, despite scandals that would have killed most people's careers, he rose like a methane bubble in a slurry lagoon, occupying some of the most prestigious and lucrative positions in the media. This week, reflecting on the life and abuses of the plutocrat Mohamed Al Fayed, Private Eye magazine produced an explanation. It came from Morgan himself, writing about Fayed in 1999. I've always made it a strict rule in life to ingratiate myself with three categories of people: newspaper owners, potential newspaper owners and billionaires. And since Mohamed Al Fayed is a billionaire and would love to own a newspaper, sucking up to him seems an extremely sensible move."The strategy is not unusual. But voicing it is. Morgan expressed the unspoken rule of public life out loud. If you want to get ahead, grovel to billionaires, especially those who own the media. The obvious coda to the rule is: because they are the people with real power". Continue reading...
The Ukrainian president is expected to visit the White House and Capitol Hill during the UN general assembly meetingThe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected at the White House and on Capitol Hill next week as he visits the US during the United Nations general assembly.Zelenskiy's trip comes as Congress is debating President Joe Biden's request to provide as much as $24bn in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion. Continue reading...
Jason Brown, 48, linked to neo-Nazi group, charged with criminal mischief after police said hate banners were hung in OrlandoFlorida authorities have arrested a man after he allegedly hung extremist hate symbols including swastikas over a bridge.On Wednesday, the Florida department of law enforcement (FDLE) announced that 48-year-old Jason Brown of Cape Canaveral was arrested for allegedly hanging swastikas and other antisemitic banners along the Daryl Carter Parkway overpass in Orlando and charged him with criminal mischief. Continue reading...
State senate moves to oust nonpartisan elections administrator Meagan Wolfe, who became lightning rod for conspiracy theoriesWisconsin's top elections official suffered another blow on Thursday when the Republican-controlled state senate voted to fire her by a party line vote of 22 to 11. Meagan Wolfe's status as elections administrator will now likely be determined in court.Legal experts and the Wisconsin attorney general have disputed the move by Republican senators to remove Wolfe, a respected and accomplished non-partisan leader. Her removal would affect the administration of elections in 2024 and illustrates the increasingly wide reach of election deniers and rightwing conspiracy theorists in Wisconsin politics. Continue reading...
Former House speaker says people shouldn't underestimate vice-president and that she will work to get Biden and Harris re-electedNancy Pelosi seemed to offer a less-than-ringing endorsement when asked if Kamala Harris was the best running mate for Joe Biden next year, saying: He thinks so, and that's what matters."But the former US House speaker also had praise for the vice-president, telling CNN: And, by the way, she's very politically astute. I don't think people give her enough credit. She's ... consistent with the president's values and the rest." Continue reading...
US president says he is not focused on impeachment' but believes inquiry is linked to Republican desire to achieve federal shutdownJoe Biden said Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry against him because they want to shut down the government".Biden was speaking at a campaign event in McLean, Virginia, on Wednesday, a day after the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, conceded to pressure from the right of his party and announced the inquiry. Continue reading...
Police say woman, 40, arrested and charged with felony child neglect as sheriff's office says charges could be upgradedA 11-month-old baby and a dog died after being left in a car for over six hours in Virginia, authorities announced on Wednesday.Police responded to a call at a hospital in Newport News at about 4pm on Tuesday after a man in his 80s entered the emergency room and said he had a deceased child" in the back of his car, the York-Poquoson sheriff's office said in a press briefing. Continue reading...
Investor appetite for shares in SoftBank-owned tech firm pushes shares up close to 25% in much-hyped initial public offeringShares in the British chip designer Arm soared on Thursday, valuing the company at over $65bn as it debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the biggest US share listing of the year.Arm set a price of $51 a share, valuing the company at $54.5bn on Wednesday. But as trading began on Thursday morning, investor appetite for the company's initial public offering (IPO) pushed its share price up 10% to $56.10, valuing the company at just below $60bn.Reuters contributed to this story Continue reading...
Highway patrol shares social media post after officer detains rider impaired by alcohol'A California man was arrested this week after he was discovered to be driving under the influence - except the man was not behind the wheel of a car and instead, riding his horse with an open container of alcohol, according to police.In a post shared on social media earlier this week, the California highway patrol (CHP) in Merced, California, revealed that Officer Kody Brackett discovered a a horseback rider carrying an open container of alcohol". Continue reading...
The president isn't exactly popular right now. But this attempt to humiliate him will scar everyone - including RepublicansAlready in a footrace for re-election, Joe Biden now faces an unwelcome impeachment inquiry. Against the backdrop of a likely government shutdown, the US again stands to be buffeted by our deep and wide partisan divide. Practically speaking, however, he will survive. Conviction by the Senate is a mathematical impossibility.Democrats are in control and Senate Republicans are nowhere near being onboard. It's a waste of time," as one anonymous Republican senator told the Hill. It's a fool's errand." Said differently, impeachment will scar all concerned - Republicans included. Continue reading...
Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who requested speedy trial in election interference case, to be tried next monthA Georgia judge has ruled that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two defendants who are set to go to trial next month in the case accusing them of participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had filed demands for a speedy trial, and the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee had set their trial to begin on 23 October. Trump and other defendants had asked to be tried separately from Powell and Chesebro, with some saying they could not be ready by the late October trial date. Continue reading...
Announcement comes after July ruling that 1849 abortion law does not apply in significant victory for abortion rights in midwestPlanned Parenthoods in Wisconsin will resume abortions on Monday 18 September, the organization announced on Thursday, after a prolonged legal battle over a Wisconsin 19th-century abortion law that has blocked abortions across the state.The announcement that abortions will resume at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin clinics in Milwaukee and Madison comes months after a judge ruled that a 1849 law does not apply to what she called consensual abortions". Instead, the law bans people from committing feticide, or killing a fetus, usually by assaulting and battering the mother", the Dane county judge Diane Schlipper wrote in her July ruling. Continue reading...
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis's support lies on a spectrum of rape apologism and intimidation that shields predatorsIn the video they are wearing T-shirts, looking unkempt. Maybe a consultant from a crisis PR firm told them that it would be a bad look to appear on camera in the expensive getups they usually don for public appearances; maybe they just didn't think that the task warranted a shower. Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, married actors, sit before a wood-paneled background that might be a backyard fence, or the outer wall of a pool house. They are there to address the letters they recently wrote to a Los Angeles court, attesting to the good character of their friend Danny Masterson.Kutcher and Kunis were posting the video - well, not to apologize, exactly, since they didn't. But perhaps to clean up the mess of bad publicity that had resulted from the letters. Masterson, Kutcher and Kunis's costar from That '70s Show, is now a convicted serial rapist; the letters were meant to convince the judge that he was somehow also a good person, one who did not deserve severe punishment. The clip, which appeared on Instagram, featured the couple speaking from a script. Their faces were fixed in uncannily still emotionlessness. We support victims," Kunis said to the camera, her eyes steely and her voice containing no conviction. Continue reading...
Florida governor says Washington Post report about undisclosed trips on donors' planes a case of Trump-legacy media collusion'A spokesperson for Ron DeSantis has responded to a Washington Post report about undisclosed trips on donors' private jets and said the report is an example of Trump-legacy media collusion".The DeSantis spokesperson, Andrew Romeo, directed the paper to a former aide to the Florida governor now a top adviser to Donald Trump. Continue reading...
Jury awards damages to David Ermold and David Moore, who sued former Kentucky county clerk over 2015 incidentA former Kentucky county clerk is being ordered to pay $100,000 to a local couple who sued the clerk after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.Kim Davis, the former clerk of Rowan county in eastern Kentucky, rose to national prominence for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2015, arguing that such actions violated her religious beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman. Continue reading...
Number of book challenges nationwide doubled from 2021 as book ban movement gathers speed in Republican-led statesTexas made the most attempts to ban or restrict books in 2022, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA).Last year, there were 1,269 documented censorship attempts to restrict 2,571 unique titles - the highest number ever recorded by ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom and double the 729 book challenges made in 2021. Continue reading...
When the Phillies' $300m shortstop flopped at the start of the season, the club's notoriously hostile fans decided to shower him with loveThe Philly Shrug is a term that was invented by Daily News columnist Helen Ubinas to describe the average Philadelphian's whaddya-gonna-do" attitude toward so many of the city's endemic problems - the notion that this is just how it is. Although it was coined to describe and explain the public's desensitization to things like crime, litter and political corruption, this blase attitude has largely extended to the city's famously intense support of its sports teams, which has at times boiled over into the boorish, outrageous and ugly.Yes, some of the incidents have been overblown in the American sporting lore. Most locals bristle at a national broadcaster's umpteenth mention of Eagles fans throwing snowballs at Santa Claus during the half-time Christmas parade at a 1968 game. But, uh, we did throw batteries at JD Drew on his first trip to Philadelphia after his refusal to sign with the Phillies. We did cheer Michael Irvin's temporary paralysis as he was carted off with a career-ending spinal cord injury. Yes, there was a courtroom built into the bowels of Veterans Stadium to more efficiently process rowdy fans at Eagles games. One of us did, in fact, stick his finger down his own throat to intentionally vomit on an opposing fan and his 11-year-old daughter. Continue reading...
Germany is ready for a new, dynamic US star after Gio Reyna and Christian Pulisic. The only question is which of the Aaronson siblings will get there firstThat cliche about a year being a long time in football? You don't need to tell that to the Aaronson brothers. This time last year the younger of the two, Paxten, told NBC that it was a surreal experience" watching his big brother, Brenden, starring for Leeds United in the Premier League matches he'd been watching on TV for years. You could sense not just the pride in his voice and demeanour, but genuine awe.It had all been about Brenden, the elder by almost three years. Since building his reputation in MLS with Philadelphia Union, his ascent had been dizzying. His transfer to Red Bull Salzburg, signed off in October 2020 for a fee with the potential to rise to $9m, was a record for a homegrown Union player. Paxten made his professional debut, also for the Union, around six months later. By then, Aaronson senior was in another constellation. Continue reading...
Ford, General Motors and Stellantis push for resolution with UAW union to prevent industry's biggest strike in generationsUS autoworkers and the big three US vehicle makers were in a race against time on Thursday to stop the industry's biggest strike in generations.With the White House pushing for a resolution, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the car companies still appeared far apart as a midnight deadline to agree to a new union contract approached. Continue reading...
A spate of violence spurred the New Mexico leader, Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, to take drastic and controversial actionLast week, 11-year old Froylan Villegas was fatally shot outside a minor-league baseball stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A month earlier, five-year-old Galilea Samaniego died after she was struck by a bullet while lying in bed in an Albuquerque trailer park. Two weeks before Samaniego's death, 13-year-old Amber Archuleta was shot and killed in Questa, a small town about 150 miles north of Albuquerque.The spate of violence spurred the Democratic governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, to take drastic and controversial action. On Friday, the governor announced the immediate implementation of a 30-day ban on carrying firearms in public spaces or on state property in Albuquerque and the surrounding Bernalillo county, declaring gun violence to be a public health emergency. Continue reading...
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