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Governor’s office confirms resignation of one of several officials to discuss killing reporters and lynching Black peopleA county commissioner in far south-east Oklahoma who was identified by a local newspaper as one of several officials caught on tape discussing killing reporters and lynching Black people has resigned from office, the state’s governor confirmed on Wednesday.A spokesperson for Governor Kevin Stitt, Carly Atchison, said their office received a handwritten resignation letter from the McCurtain county commissioner Mark Jennings. In it, Jennings says he is resigning immediately and that he plans to release a formal statement “in the near future regarding the recent events in our county”. Continue reading...

Brady ad features US navy veteran’s shocking account of Vietnam gunfire and comes on heels of several devastating mass shootingsA gun safety group has created a provocative new ad campaign calling for the renewal of a federal assault weapons ban, in the wake of several devastating mass shootings across the US that involved the use of military-style rifles.The ad, released on Thursday by the gun safety group Brady and shared exclusively with the Guardian, features a US navy veteran of the Vietnam war reading a chilling account of coming under gunfire and being struck by a bullet. Continue reading...

Messages showing Antioch officers using racist slurs, and bragging about making up evidence and beating suspects have sparked outrage. Plus, supreme court delays decision on abortion pill restrictions

In this pragmatic Rishi Sunak era, a fresh start with China – and an end to bullish Tory sabre-rattlers – is on the cardsCleverly by name. And perhaps even Cleverly by nature, too? Judging by his Guardian interview this week, and by his step-by-step rebuilding of Britain’s relations with Europe, James Cleverly seems to be quietly cajoling Conservative foreign policy down off the post-Brexit battlements and towards a more recognisably practical and stable place in world affairs. If so, two important questions follow. Where exactly is that new place for Britain? And will the Tory party let him do it?The foreign secretary’s interview in Tokyo exemplifies Rishi Sunak-era pragmatism. The interview’s tone is less brazen towards China than anything that any of Cleverly’s recent predecessors would have either wanted or felt able to say. But it is also stronger on mood music than on measurable stuff. It reads in part like an attempt to soothe the ill-feeling provoked by Emmanuel Macron’s comment that America’s allies should not become its “vassals” in any confrontation with China. Continue reading...

The Florida star is a gifted but flawed NFL prospect. But teams are more willing to overlook negatives as they search for the next big thingWe are a week away from the NFL draft and Anthony Richardson fever shows no sign of letting up.When the quarterback announced he was leaving Florida for the pros after a single season as the Gators starter, observers of the college game scoffed. Sure, he was fun and exciting; he could do things few, if any, college quarterbacks could dream of. But Richardson was horribly inaccurate. Another season in the SEC oven, and he may just round into the kind of polished passer the league would prize. This current version though? Maybe a team would take a flyer at the foot of the first round. Continue reading...

Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow was linked to a conservative group that had court business while Thomas was on the benchEarlier this month, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas put out a statement in which he addressed the storm of criticism that has engulfed him following the blockbuster ProPublica report that revealed his failure to disclose lavish gifts of luxury vacations and private-jet travel from a Texan real estate magnate.Thomas confirmed that the Dallas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy were “among our dearest friends”. Thomas admitted, too, that he and his wife Ginni had “joined them on a number of family trips during the more-than-a-quarter-century we have known them”. Continue reading...

A representative said filming likely to restart in Montana on Thursday while a number of legal issues remain unresolvedFilming on the western movie Rust could resume this week in Montana, the production company said, 18 months after the fatal shooting of a cinematographer during a rehearsal with actor Alec Baldwin on the original production in New Mexico.Baldwin is set to continue his involvement with the project as both actor and co-producer. Rust Move Productions attorney Melina Spadone said via a representative that filming will restart on Thursday at the Yellowstone Film Ranch. Continue reading...

Company accused of ‘gaslighting’ public on surveillance concerns during Senate inquiry into foreign influence through social mediaTikTok will either need to divest itself from Chinese ownership or face a ban in the United States, according to the commissioner of the US federal communications commission, Brendan Carr, who accused the company of “gaslighting” the public on surveillance concerns.Appearing before the Australian Senate inquiry into foreign influence through social media, the Trump appointee said concern about TikTok in the US was “broad and deep”, and crossed party lines. Continue reading...

Blake Walsh, who dated Kaylin Gillis for more than four years, says he wants ‘the world to know how good of a person she really was’A man whose girlfriend was shot dead after they pulled into the wrong driveway in upstate New York said their “high hopes and plans” were shattered in a single, brutal moment.“I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her,” Blake Walsh, 19, told NBC of his girlfriend, Kaylin Gillis. “My world was taken from me.” Continue reading...

Shocking messages about beating suspects and making up evidence were found when Antioch officers were investigatedAmid outrage over text messages showing police officers in northern California using racist slurs and bragging about making up evidence and beating suspects, city officials voted to audit the troubled department.The FBI and the Contra Costa district attorney’s office discovered the shocking messages while investigating officers within the Antioch police department suspected of crimes. Officials have named 17 officers who sent texts, including the president of the Antioch police union, but nearly half the department was included in the messages. Continue reading...

On Broadway, there wasn’t an empty seat in the house – and we finally saw how compelling stories of victimhood can beIt comes around intermittently every few years; a show on Broadway that reminds us why theatre beats every other medium hands down and almost justifies the cost of the tickets. So it was last night, walking down 45th Street in New York past foyers sparse with patrons, to something as close to a mob scene as a person with one eye on their phone for the babysitter can get.Beneath the marquee, which featured a blown-up image of the actor Jodie Comer, women posed with each other for photos. It was like a revival tent meeting for affluent middle-age lesbians, young women attending alone, a handful of gay men and, I would hazard, approximately 27 enlightened straight ones. “Our people have gone mad for this,” said the friend I was with, and we repaired to our seats feeling vaguely hysterical. Continue reading...

California authorities arrested Austin Eis, 24, for murder and other crimes, including an earlier stabbing of a Walmart employeeThe driver of a car that crashed into a group of southern California high school students, killing one and injuring three, was arrested for investigation of murder and other crimes, including an earlier stabbing, authorities said Wednesday.The students were struck while on a sidewalk Tuesday afternoon near Westlake high school in the city of Thousand Oaks, west of Los Angeles. The car overturned. Continue reading...

Investigators make announcement following deadly shooting at 16th birthday party in small town of Dadeville on SaturdayTwo teenagers and a 20-year-old man have been arrested and charged withmurder in connection with a shooting that killed four people at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Alabama, investigators announced Wednesday.Tallapoosa county district attorney Mike Segrest said two teens – Tyreese “Ty Reik” McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, both of Tuskegee – would be tried as adults. That’s automatically required in Alabama for anyone 16 or older charged with murder. Investigators said Wednesday that Wilson LaMar Hill Jr, 20, of Auburn was also arrested on the same charge. Continue reading...

Talks between Boris Epshteyn and DoJ prosecutors investigating Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases represent possible peril for TrumpDonald Trump’s senior adviser and legal counsel Boris Epshteyn is scheduled to be interviewed on Thursday by special counsel prosecutors investigating the former president’s retention of classified-marked documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.The investigation Epshteyn is being asked to talk about – potentially both – remains unclear, according to a person familiar with the matter who confirmed the meeting on the condition of anonymity. His lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment. Continue reading...

Approval of bill prohibiting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity comes at the request of Governor Ron DeSantisFlorida’s board of education has approved the expansion of the state’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill, which now prohibits discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity at school across all grade levels.Wednesday’s approval came at the request of the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who in the past two years has waged what critics call a “culture war” across the state through his bans on gender-affirming care, Covid-19 precautionary measures and abortion rights, among other facets. Continue reading...

Viktoria Nasyrova, 47, was convicted of attempted murder in New York after stealing identity documents and valuables from victimA Russian-born woman has was sentenced to 21 years in a US prison for trying to kill her American lookalike with poisoned cheesecake and then stealing her identity.Viktoria Nasyrova, 47, was found guilty of attempted murder by a New York jury in February. Continue reading...

Justices will decide by end of week on whether to allow ruling reversing drug’s authorization from taking effect

Nichols died after beating by police, who said he was suspected of reckless driving but no evidence of traffic violation has emergedThe family of Tyre Nichols, a Black Tennessee man who died after been beaten by five police officers, has sued the city of Memphis, individual officers and emergency medical personnel involved in his case.Lawyers for Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in federal court in Memphis. Continue reading...

Prosecutors recommend that Willard Miller, 17, receive 30 years to life and Jeremy Goodale, 18, 25 years to life for 2021 killingTwo teenagers in Iowa charged with beating their high school Spanish teacher to death over a poor grade have pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.On Tuesday, Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale admitted killing Nohema Graber, 66, at Fairfield high school. Continue reading...

Lawyers were going to call media mogul this week, forcing him to appear in person for cross-examinationLawyers for Dominion Voting Systems had planned to put media mogul Rupert Murdoch on the stand to testify this week before it reached a $787.5m settlement with Fox for its broadcasting of false claims about the company’s voting equipment after the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.Dominion was going to call the 92-year-old Murdoch as its second witness, forcing him to appear in person for cross-examination before the end of the week. He would have followed Tony Fratto, a crisis communications consultant who represented Dominion after the 2020 election and contacted Fox many times to inform them they were making false claims. Continue reading...

The network has agreed to pay $787.5m for promoting election lies, but mentions of the case were few and far betweenFox’s agreement to pay $787.5m in damages to Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation settlement in history, and included an acknowledgment that a news network that has always claimed to be “fair and balanced” had spread baseless conspiracy theories.Not that you’d know about it from actually watching Fox News. Continue reading...

A defamation settlement over electoral fraud ‘stories’ means nothing if the channel goes on spreading liesPut away the popcorn. The decision by Rupert Murdoch to spend $787.5m (£633m) to settle the defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News has allowed the media mogul to avoid having to take the stand and defend lies told on his television channel about the last US election. It’s an escape hatch. It’s also a massive humiliation.As drama, Fox v Dominion would have been box office: a tale of truth and lies and almost limitless money and power that would have trumped any trial involving footballers’ wives, if not the fictional series about a powerful media mogul currently airing on a UK television channel once owned by Murdoch. Just to underline the entertainment value, one of the top Google search terms for “Fox and Dominion” just before the settlement was announced was, “Can I watch the trial for free?”Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Homeowner, 84, already faces two felonies for shooting Black teen who knocked on wrong door to pick up siblingsA lawyer for the family of Ralph Yarl, the Black 16-year-old who was shot by a white man in Kansas City, Missouri, after ringing his doorbell by mistake, said the case should qualify as a hate crime.“Ralph Yarl was shot because he was armed with nothing but other than his Black skin,” Lee Merrit told the Associated Press. Continue reading...

Suspect in custody and charged with deadly conduct after shootings of Payton Washington and teammate Heather RothA man in Texas shot and wounded two cheerleaders when one almost got into his car by mistake, according to officials and local media reports.The shootings of Payton Washington and her Woodlands Elite Cheer Company teammate Heather Roth came three days after 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot dead in New York when the car she was riding in pulled into the driveway of a wrong address. Two days before that, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot and injured in Kansas City, Missouri, by a man whose doorbell he rang after going to the wrong address to pick up siblings. Continue reading...

Jared Smith, who was ousted for decision, will be interviewed before Ron DeSantis picks new supreme court memberA Florida judge rejected by voters after denying a teenage girl an abortion citing her poor school grades is in line for a seat on the state supreme court as the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, continues to turn the bench to the right.Jared Smith will be interviewed alongside 14 others next month by a nominating commission that will make recommendations to DeSantis, who last week signed a six-week abortion ban into law. Continue reading...

Those killed were all in a home in the town of Bowdoin, and the others were randomly fired upon 20 miles away on a highwayA Maine man killed four people in a home and then shot three others randomly on a busy highway, state police said, detailing the latest in a string of mass shootings across the US.The shootings in Maine began in the small town of Bowdoin, where four people were killed on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Recently unsealed indictments come almost six years after gathering that resulted in violent clashes with counter-protestersNearly six years after a gathering of white nationalists in Charlottesville erupted in violent clashes with counter-protesters, a grand jury in Virginia indicted multiple people on felony charges for carrying flaming torches with the intent to intimidate.The Albemarle county commonwealth’s attorney said in a news release that the indictments relate to events on 11 August 2017, when white nationalists carrying torches marched through the campus of the University of Virginia. Continue reading...

AI music is going mainstream with high profile fakes of Drake, the Weeknd and Kanye West – but the tech will be used in more profound, insidious and even poetic waysWe’re at an inflection point for AI, where it goes from nerdish fixation to general talking point, like the metaverse and NFTs before it. More and more workers in various industries are fretting about it impinging on their livelihoods, and ChatGPT, Bard, Midjourney and other AI applications are creeping into our awareness.In music, this tech has been percolating since the 1950s when programmer-composer Lejaren Hiller’s algorithm allowed a University of Illinois computer to compose its own music, but has really grabbed the popular imagination this month with a number of high-profile fakes. A “collaboration” between convincing AI-derived imitations of Drake and the Weeknd earned hundreds of thousands of streams before being scrubbed from streaming services; Drake was also made to imitate fellow rapper Ice Spice via AI, prompting him to respond: “this is the final straw”. An AI version of Kanye West has atoned for his antisemitism in witless verse, and AIsis released an album of all-too-human indie rock with software doing bad Liam Gallagher karaoke over the top of it. Continue reading...

Making men share responsibility for preventing unwanted pregnancy would have big implications – if it ever happensThe arrival of a male contraceptive pill is imminent. Scientists at Washington State University have identified the gene responsible for normal sperm production, and a way to block it. Meanwhile, at Weill Cornell Medicine earlier this year, a separate team closed in on a short-term, two-hour sperm blocker that met the same criteria: that it was reversible, and that it didn’t work by hormonal interference.It’s a bit like the unveiling of a hoverboard: yes, sure, amazing, what a frontier technology, how wonderful to see the future airborne. On the other hand, guys, you’ve been talking about this for so long that it feels dated before it’s even hit the market.Zoe Williams 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...

The Defender was built by millionaire Simon Lake and visited by Amelia Earhart before it was scuttled in the Long Island SoundDivers in Connecticut have discovered the wreckage of an experimental submarine built in 1907 and later scuttled in the Long Island Sound.The Defender, a 92ft boat, was found on Sunday by a team led by Richard Simon, a commercial diver from Coventry, Connecticut. Continue reading...

Voting equipment firm was seeking $1.6bn. Plus, mother of Black teenager shot after going to wrong address speaks

News comes amid reports that governor’s team has pressured representatives from his state not to endorse TrumpIn a blow to Ron DeSantis, a prominent ally of the rightwing governor was on Tuesday one of two Florida Republicans in Congress to back Donald Trump for president, the latest in a string of defections.The news came amid reports that DeSantis’s team has pressured US representatives from his state not to endorse Trump. Continue reading...

Journalists under threat send their research to our team of reporters to make sure it can never be buriedIn the days leading up to his killing, the Colombian journalist Rafael Moreno made contact with us at Forbidden Stories. The threats he was receiving were becoming more and more disquieting. This is why Moreno had decided to share the information he was working on with us: so that in case anything happened to him, we could pursue his work.At 7.10pm on 16 October 2022, Moreno was shot dead in the city of Montelíbano, in the north of Colombia – a dangerous region dominated by the Gulf Clan, one of the most powerful drug cartels in the world. Continue reading...

It’s hard to imagine someone being shot for knocking on a stranger’s door in Finland, Spain or CanadaIn the past week, two people have been shot, in separate incidents, for making an innocent mistake. In Kansas City, Missouri, Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot in the head and critically wounded by 84-year-old Andrew Lester, whose door Yarl knocked on, in error. Yarl had come to pick up his younger brothers, who turned out to have been with friends at another house with a similar address. In rural upstate New York, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed when she and her friends, having lost their way, drove up Kevin Monahan’s driveway. The car was turning around to leave when Monahan, 65, fired two bullets through the car window.I live in the country. It’s easy to lose your way. Mailbox numbers flake off. Satellite signals vanish. Our packages have been delivered to the raccoons in the empty house down the road. I can’t count the times we’ve gotten lost en route to a friend’s, taken the wrong turns, stayed on the wrong dirt road until we could turn around. What would have happened if one of those driveways had belonged to Kevin Monahan, who, according to neighbors, had a “short fuse” and was enraged about trespassers?Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Continue reading...

Anthony Comstock’s crusade against women gained him the moniker of ‘moral eunuch’. Today’s anti-choice zealots are following in his footstepsAnthony Comstock thought that his fellow soldiers in the civil war talked about sex too much. When he signed up to serve for the Union in 1863, he saw soldiers behaving the way soldiers tend to do: they drank, and cursed, and made dirty jokes. This spectacle so scandalized Comstock’s Christian morality that he devoted the rest of his life – both in public crusades and in his position as inspector of the US Postal Service – to performing what he called “weeding in God’s garden”.He rallied against women’s suffrage, secured the arrest and prosecution of his political enemies, and toured colleges and churches, giving speeches meant to whip his audience into a censorial frenzy. One of his targets, a New York abortion provider called Madame Restell, committed suicide after being entrapped and arrested by Comstock, who had posed as a husband seeking birth control pills. He sent others to jail for selling sex toys, or marketing abortion medications, or preaching free love. In short, Comstock became an anti-“obscenity” advocate: one of the most ideological and extreme enforcers of public morality in the nation’s history. Continue reading...

Experts say proposals are to ‘create political theater’ that will help lawmakers’ bids for re-electionIn 2018, Tomas Ramirez III, a lawyer in the small town of Devine, Texas, ran as a Republican for justice of the peace and was elected to serve Medina county.Two years later, the Texas attorney general’s office charged him with one count of engaging in organized election fraud, 17 counts of unlawful possession of a ballot, and 17 counts of unlawfully assisting voting by mail. The indictment accused 57-year-old Ramirez of illegally harvesting the ballots during the 2018 GOP primary. Continue reading...

The settlement, though disappointing, provides at least a measure of accountabilityAs opening arguments neared on Tuesday afternoon, even the most hardened skeptics might have found themselves thinking the impossible was actually going to happen: the corrosive lies of Fox News would go on trial, Rupert Murdoch would be forced to the witness stand, and positive societal change might result.American democracy, which has been teetering on the brink in recent years – would be pulled back from the precipice, at least by a few crucial feet.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

New research shows how species boost the amount of carbon stored in their ecosystems – and why protecting them is vitalWhat do elephants, otters and whales have in common? They all increase the amount of carbon that can be stored in their ecosystems. Elephants disperse seeds and trample low vegetation, enabling taller trees to grow. Sea otters eat sea urchins, allowing kelp to flourish. Whales feed at depth and release nutrients as they breathe and rest at the surface, stimulating phytoplankton production.It isn’t just these three. We are beginning to learn that many species have complex effects on their environments that change the amount of carbon stored by their surrounding ecosystems – ultimately affecting climate change. When the population of wildebeest in the Serengeti plummeted due to disease, they no longer grazed as much, and the uneaten grass caused more frequent and more intense fires. Bringing back the numbers of wildebeest through disease management has meant fewer and smaller fires. And the Serengeti has gone from releasing carbon back to storing it.Matthew Gould is the chief executive officer of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Continue reading...

The league has been making slow but steady progress in recruiting more women. And teams know a larger talent pool will produce resultsAn enthusiastic Brian Daboll walks into an invitation-only room at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis, during February’s NFL Combine. The New York Giants head coach looks around and beams, declaring how thrilled he is to be there and offer his advice to the young collegiate hopefuls in the room. But there are no draft prospects here. The room is full of another group hoping to get a crack at the NFL: women.This year marked the seventh iteration of the NFL’s Women’s Forum, a program designed to put women with aspirations for a career in the league in the same room with NFL rainmakers. Continue reading...

People being sent unsolicited sexual images via social media or Bluetooth drops should be entitled to justice, tooI was travelling home on the London Underground when more than 100 unsolicited images of an erect penis, sent over Apple’s AirDrop, appeared on my phone. The Bluetooth-enabled feature only works between iPhones that are within 10m (30 feet) of each other – around half the length of a tube carriage. I knew the sender was nearby, but I didn’t know who he was.Should I get off the train? Would I be safe to walk home if I did? Did he single me out from my fellow passengers to be his victim, or was I just a random female target picked from a list of nearby devices? What was his intent in sending the images: to threaten? To get sexual gratification? To feel powerful in his anonymity? Or just to amuse himself?Sophie Gallagher is deputy features editor at i and the author of How Men Can HelpDo 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...

Brazilian butt lifts have the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic procedure – and now surgeons are profiting, once again, from their removalNever let it be said that I don’t have range. Earlier this year I brought you the latest hard-hitting news on cleavage trends (sideboobs are out, circumboobs are in). This week I’m briefing you on butts. More specifically, the Brazilian butt lift (BBL), a procedure in which fat is taken from one part of the body and injected into the buttocks.The BBL surged in popularity in recent years despite the fact that it is problematic for a variety of reasons, not least because it boasts the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic surgery. A 2017 study found one in 3,000 BBLs ended in death. By comparison, another study found that cosmetic breast surgery was associated with a mortality rate of 1 in 72,000 procedures.Do 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...

The subject matter may differ but the US government has been relentless in pursuing those accused of national security leaksJack Teixeira, the 21-year-old Massachusetts air national guard member who was charged on Friday with leaking classified Pentagon documents, has joined a long list of individuals who have been prosecuted for allegedly disclosing sensitive US national security intelligence.Previous leaks have ranged from information about US wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to details of Russian interference in American elections. Despite the diversity of the subject matter, the treatment of the leakers has shared a common relentlessness on the part of the US government in pursuing those it accuses of breaching its trust. Continue reading...