US news | The Guardian

Sheldon Whitehouse says recent court may be undergoing a course correction' following backlash to its extremist ruling and ethics scandalsThe conservative-dominated US supreme court may be undergoing a course correction" after witnessing a public backlash to its extremist rulings and ethics scandals, Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts, has told the Guardian.America's highest court has made a series of radical decisions, including in the Dobbs case that overturned the constitutional right to abortion one year ago on Saturday, while two rightwing justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, have been exposed for failing disclose luxury gifts from billionaires. Continue reading...

Thousands of kids in my hometown hear, see or witness shootings near their schools each year. Why aren't we doing more to help them cope?It was just before 11am on a Friday and the hallways of Stege elementary school in Richmond, California, were quiet save for the muffled sound of children's voices coming through the classroom doors.Behind the heavy doors of Hannah Geitner's fifth-grade classroom, 26 students were seated at small tables and on a cozy green rug. It was sunny and warm out, but inside, it was impossible to tell; the room's windows had yellowed over the years. Continue reading...

Higher pay and appealing schedules are drawing women to the industry, as advocates confront the threat of exploitationAt 7am, Elizabeth Reyes lines up at a designated street corner, called la parada, next to a Brooklyn highway overpass. As the sun rises higher, drivers pull up with offers shouted from the window in Spanish: house cleaning, dishwashing. It's hours before an employer finally arrives with the opportunity she's waiting for: construction.Quien tiene tarjeta?" Who has a card? he yells out. He's not referring to immigration documents, but a certification by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha). When Reyes yells that she does, the driver replies, Vamos," and motions for her to hop in. Continue reading...

New approach focuses on how physical environment shapes people's lives, harnessing the therapeutic power of design

The young football player - or more likely his father - has announced his retirement. Hopefully he can go back to a more simple lifeIf early retirement is the ultimate flex in the age of late capitalism, then Baby Gronk had us all beat. The American football phenom, who has been lighting up more than a corner of the internet with his made-to-meme skills and antics, announced last week that he was hanging up his helmet at the age of 10. Baby Gronk shared that he would be focusing not on grade school or a paper route but ... his love for video games. To be fair, the purported rizz king" of the pre-pubescent sports world is probably not the one who actually said any of the above.Baby Gronk, an unarguably skilled athlete, whose real name is Madden San Miguel and who lives in the Dallas area, is the son of Jake San Miguel, a digital marketer who makes no secret of his thirst for internet fame. A modern-day Mama Rose of the football field, San Miguel Sr - who manages his son's social media accounts, schedule and persona - has exhibited no qualms inserting himself into the Baby Gronk narrative. A recent post on his son's Instagram account opened with a video of the diamond-necklace sporting, preternaturally large boy staring down the camera, superimposed with BABY GRONK'S DAD TO BLAME." San Miguel Sr shared, in the next post on Baby Gronk's Instagram account, that his son was coming out of retirement. NO LESS THAN 150,000." (Whether he meant additional followers or dollars was unspecified.) Continue reading...

It's hard to admit, but I was using others' tragedies as a way of protecting myself. Then a merchandising ad stopped me shortI vividly remember being a child, sitting on the edge of my parents' bed late in the evening, and watching Crimewatch. Reconstructions of violent crimes I didn't understand, usually against women, played out on screen. I remember sombre presenters such as Nick Ross and Kirsty Young pleading for information as grainy CCTV footage showed victims being followed through the streets at night, and dour police detectives talking through timelines of the hours before someone was killed.This fascination with the morbid flowed easily into horror movies. After finishing school, I had my first major depressive episode, involving a hospital stay. It took a while for me to get back to myself; I didn't really leave the house apart from to go to therapy, and I soon became a strange nocturnal hermit. During the day I would sleep, and at night I would lie in bed and watch scary movies where horrible things happened to female actors, fake-slaughtered in buckets of corn syrup.Mollie Goodfellow is a freelance journalist and comedy writerDo 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...

We pay a high price for the rows and divisions created by the right and its media allies to distract from their failingsI apologise in advance, because this column is about something that didn't happen. Too much is actually happening in the world that deserves our attention, but in this instance, it's worth pausing, and then tracing, how fiction becomes fact.By now, you may have heard that a girl in a school in Rye in East Sussex said she was a cat, that she identified" as such, and that others who disagreed with her were chastised by a teacher. If you have come across this story, you would be entirely forgiven for thinking it was real. Catgirl: today's culture of affirmation is failing children," wailed the Telegraph. Nick Ferrari on LBC hosted a whole phone-in segment about the story. The Mail unveiled an investigation" that revealed this was not an isolated incident, but part of a larger phenomenon where children are identifying as cats, dogs, dinosaurs and furries".Nesrine Malik 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...

Former vice-president hails Dobbs decision as historic victory' but says it didn't go far enough and urges a nationwide abortion banDespite their unpopularity with the American public, former Republican vice-president and 2024 White House hopeful Mike Pence doubled down Sunday on his hard-line support of staunch abortion restrictions, saying: We just can't rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life."Pence - in an interview on Fox News Sunday - made clear that he viewed bringing the elimination of abortion to the center of American law" as both essential and a winning issue" for the Republican party trying to wrest back control of the Oval Office. Continue reading...

The Russian leader, having faltered, is likely to renew his assault on Ukraine and impose repression at home with even greater intensityWhen something incomprehensible happens, it can be reassuring to fall back on old cliches. Churchill's famous description of Russia as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," summarises what many Russia analysts feel after the aborted armed rebellion led by Wagner commander Yevgeny Prigozhin this weekend. While answers remain elusive, some elements seem important to help navigate through the fog.There are powerful arguments that Vladimir Putin has been weakened by Prigozhin's armed rebellion. For the first time in 23 years, many Russians will have woken up on Saturday morning wondering whether their president was still in control. Then, hours after a visibly shaken Putin announced that traitors would be punished, charges against Prigozhin were dropped, and his armed men, who allegedly shot down a transport plane and at least two helicopters (the exact number is still unconfirmed), killing a number of highly skilled military pilots, were given security guarantees. Continue reading...

St Louis Cardinals played the Chicago Cubs, enhanced by the guest presence of Jimmy Anderson and Nathan LyonCricket and its longlost rogue cousin, baseball, enjoyed an emotional reunion over the weekend. Jimmy Anderson pitched in front of a crowd almost twice as big as any he has bowled in front of in England, and in all more than 100,000 people attended a twogame series between the Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals at the London Stadium, constituting a mere 0.08% of the Major League Baseball regular season. Indian Premier League franchise owners no doubt cast envious eyes at baseball, dreaming wistfully of a 2,430-game regular season. Cricketers may be tempted by $350m (275m) 12-year contracts.The weekend offered everything sports watchers in Britain have come to expect from visiting American majorleague events - a large crowd with considerable enthusiasm for the sport, but understandably limited emotional investment in the result, an armageddon'sworth of cholesterol and a stadium announcer with the kind of deeply sonorous and unquenchably American voice that could imbue a village-fete cake competition with a sense of fundamental sporting gravity. Continue reading...

The EPA, which is working with the state rail authority on the cleanup, has not detected any toxic gases downwind of the siteAuthorities on Sunday were testing the water quality along a stretch of the Yellowstone River where mangled cars carrying hazardous materials remained after crashing into the waterway following a bridge collapse.The seven mangled train cars that were carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur when they fell Saturday morning remained in the rushing river on Sunday near the town of Columbus, about 40 miles (roughly 64km) west of Billings. The area is in a sparsely populated section of the Yellowstone River valley, surrounded by ranches and farmland. Continue reading...

Ex-president lashes out at prosecutors and tells conservative audience that his two indictments are a great badge of courage'Republicans' enduring loyalty to Donald Trump was on vivid display at a conservative conference this weekend, convened just two weeks after the former president was indicted on 37 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.Addressing this year's Road to Majority conference Saturday, Trump lashed out against federal prosecutors, who have accused the former president of intentionally withholding classified documents from authorities and obstructing justice in his efforts to keep those materials concealed. Trump, who could soon face additional charges in Washington and Georgia, told the friendly crowd that he considered each of his two indictments so far to be a great badge of courage" as he ran to unseat Democratic incumbent Joe Biden. Continue reading...

Secretary of state says mutiny may help Ukraine counteroffensive after Yevgeny Prigozhin calls off advance on Moscow

The Wagner group chief's rebellion swiftly came to a halt, but the consequences will reverberate in Russia and beyondYevgeny Prigozhin called off his march on Moscow on Saturday every bit as abruptly as he had begun his rebellion the previous day. But the Wagner group's armed mutiny, however short-lived, has diminished Vladimir Putin in the eyes of both the elite and ordinary Russians. The mercenaries had taken over the Russian southern military command in Rostov-on-Don, a logistical hub for the Ukraine invasion, before racing towards the capital. Mr Putin was forced to warn of a deadly threat to our state" and Moscow's mayor urged residents to stay at home.While Mr Prigozhin's uprising looks like a desperate act to stop his private army being incorporated into regular forces, some wonder if broader intra-elite conflict lies in the background. The Wagner chief had become increasingly brazen in his attacks on the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and commander in chief, Valery Gerasimov. Initially there were suggestions that he might be acting with the approval of the Kremlin. But on Friday, Mr Prigozhin attacked not only the execution of the war but its very rationale, before claiming that Russian forces had killed scores of his men in a rocket attack and demanding revenge on the evil" military leadership. A day later - after Mr Putin accused him of treason - he challenged his master outright for the first time.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...

Identity of worker killed on Friday evening at San Antonio international airport has not been publicly releasedA worker at San Antonio's international airport died after being sucked into a jet's engine late on Friday, officials said.A source briefed directly on the case told the Guardian on Sunday that it appeared the worker had intentionally stepped in front of the live engine" on the jet and that police were investigating that aspect. But the cause of the worker's death hadn't officially been determined on Sunday, and the source spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation into the case was still pending. Continue reading...

I could spend hours watching strangers wrangle slabs of beef under a hot sun. Just don't ask me to tuck into the resultsAre barbecues problematic? There's the drearily entrenched manliness, the carcinogens released by charring, the campylobacter and salmonella from raw meat juices hitting your halloumi salad, sure. Then, worse, the scourge of disposables, that absolute tinfoil catastrophe. A million a year went to landfill before supermarkets stopped selling them last summer. Going to landfill" suggests people were patiently waiting for them to cool down then disposing of them carefully, when of course they were mostly left to injure meat-crazed seagulls, or catch fire and cause devastation. They've been responsible for destroying homes, damage to a Dorset nature reserve and Saddleworth Moor, among many other blazes. Some retailers have backslid this year, with the British Retail Consortium suggesting users grill responsibly", which, yes, is definitely going to happen when you're five tinned negronis down with moderate sunstroke.So in that sense, of course barbecues are problematic. But as grilling season sizzles acridly across the backyards of Britain, are they problematic for me, a woman who doesn't eat meat, whose fake hair retains smoke far more lastingly than real hair, married to a man who managed to snaffle one of those prized Aldi egg barbecues a few years back? Yes and no.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Much is uncertain amid chaos in Russia, but this much is clear: Ukraine will need help to rebuild physically and psychologicallyIn Kyiv, the silence of another summer evening is broken by the loud, piercing sound of an air raid warning. The alert app on our mobile phone sends out a warning to take cover, and Telegram channels inform us that the air defence system is operating, so we need to be careful.Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, the people of Ukraine have been living in a state of constant watchfulness, adjusting their lives to the lack of sleep and psychological consequences of terror from above. Continue reading...

In market towns and suburbs, people are expressing the fear and exhaustion once associated with post-industrial neglectIn 15 years of on-the-ground political reporting, I don't think I have ever experienced a more forlorn and frustrated public mood than the one that looks set to define this year. Some of people's grievances are only too familiar: low pay, insecurity, a sense of being hopelessly cut off from power and influence. Others - inflation, impossible mortgage payments, rents, and the overlooked effects of the pandemic - have arrived comparatively recently.What also seems new is the sheer reach of these problems, into parts of the population we might have previously considered to be relatively affluent. All this points to a question that now feels inescapable: what is the politics of complete exhaustion? Continue reading...

As Democratic states pass shield laws' to protect patients and providers, could legal clashes between states be on the horizon?The Planned Parenthood clinic in Spokane, Washington, is just a 30-minute drive from the Idaho border, and since May, when Idaho's abortion trafficking" law went into effect, it's been sitting on a timebomb.Like many blue-state abortion clinics, the Spokane health center has been inundated with patients from out of state since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade a year ago in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, allowing abortion to be banned outright or severely restricted in many states. In Spokane, they have received patients from as far away as Texas and Florida. But the new law in Idaho, which criminalizes anyone who helps a minor travel out of state for an abortion without the permission of their parents, threatens this already unsustainable reality. It is the first effort to criminalize travel for the purposes of abortion, and to make the state's ban on abortion within its borders into something more like a ban on its citizens accessing abortion anywhere. Continue reading...

Viola Ford Fletcher and her family fled a murderous white mob 102 years ago - today she's still demanding accountabilityViola Ford Fletcher smiles as her mind burrows back in time more than a hundred years. We were happy then," she says wistfully. Before this happened, we had children in the neighbourhood to play with. We had schools, churches, hospitals, theatres and anything that people enjoyed. It was a strong community."This" refers to the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, when a white mob descended on the neighbourhood of Greenwood, home to a business district known as Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 people and looting and burning businesses and homes. Thousands were left homeless and living in a hastily constructed internment camp. Continue reading...

We might be scared and not know what to do. But as a new film reveals, that can helpIt doesn't matter which week we choose. There is always a climate emergency; an emergency we can close our ears and eyes to. Two weeks ago, it was the blanketing of New York in a cloud of smoke from Canada. Last week, Beijing recorded the hottest June since records began. All over the world, sea levels rise. Drought or flooding ensues. And the loss of habitats and species. We can get frightened and find it hard to hold the knowledge of what is occurring.As filmmaker Josh Appignanesi shows in his new film My Extinction, which will be released on 30 June, allowing himself to feel the real-time effects of climate change is uncomfortable. Appignanesi, who recycles yet makes car commercials, turns the camera on himself as his climate concerns start to make him feel disgruntled. He feels put out and inconvenienced. And he ends up getting far more involved in climate work than he'd ever thought possible. Continue reading...

I've previously shunned self-improvement, because it is not fun, but while tending for a garden, I am able to work on myselfHow do you go about being good? I ask because I've been hung up recently on trying to be, well... better. It's a bit ridiculous and embarrassing; also, if asked to corroborate, my family would definitely say they haven't noticed. I'm not aiming for saintly. I haven't started believing some celestial bouncer will decide whether I get to live on a cloud with Captain Tom, or send me downstairs to change king-sized duvet covers and parallel park for all eternity watched by Hitler and Stalin while listening to HMRC hold music. It's more that I'm increasingly conscious of how far I still am from being a decent human, able to do what a person should: have healthy relationships, be compassionate, floss regularly, live within planetary boundaries, that sort of thing.It's a mini-midlife crisis, I guess. Wouldn't it have been more fun to try ayahuasca or get radicalised on Facebook and start attacking 5G masts (which seems to be a middle-aged thing round my way)? It's certainly new. Continue reading...

If the tech bros' fight challenge proves one thing, it's that social media is an atrocious place to have any kind of discussionLast week - in the ever-growing sector of the news cycle called Did I dream it?" - Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, suggested to the Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg that they settle their, essentially trifling, differences in a cage fight. Zuckerberg, rather than saying, Elon, that's insane, you're 51 years old and the richest person in human history, and I'm not far behind", ostensibly replied: Sure. Where and when?"For those of us old enough to remember, the circus rivalled the one that accompanied the 2002, celebrity-adjacent, boxing-adjacent contest between Ricky Gervais and Grant Bovey. Dana White, the bombastic president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, revealing a surprising ignorance of the historic beef between the animal-loving comedian and Anthea Turner's wrong 'un ex-husband, predicted the Musk-Zuckerberg clash would break all records. This would be the biggest fight ever in the history of the world," he cooed. Continue reading...

While the US and China vie for supremacy, smaller countries, championed by Barbados PM Mia Mottley, are speaking out on key challenges of climate, poverty and migrationCompetition for pole position in the race to boss the 21st century's fast-evolving new world order is hotting up. US president Joe Biden sought a winning strategic partnership with Narendra Modi's India. The EU unveiled an economic security strategy to fend off Chinese and Russian predators. In Beijing, Xi Jinping told America's top US diplomat who's in charge: China.In Paris, meanwhile, leaders of the global north and south planned a new beginning. The aim: to deliver billions in funding, promised at last year's Cop27, to help vulnerable countries fight the climate crisis and related poverty, inequality and debt. Poorer nations urge radical reform of the global institutional framework, which they say has failed. Continue reading...

Nicotine is a drug that shouldn't be dressed up in cartoon packaging and sweet shop flavoursBlueberry bubblegum. Lemon pie. Caramel cheesecake. Sickly-sweet concoctions that are just a fraction of the dessert-flavoured nicotine vapes available to buy in newsagents for not much more than a high-end chocolate bar, in bright packaging often adorned with cartoon illustrations designed to appeal to children. It is a huge red flag that something has gone seriously amiss in the rules that govern e-cigarette marketing and sales in the UK.What makes the question of how to regulate vaping more complex than cigarettes or alcohol is that, unlike with the latter two substances - where a collective fall in consumption would be an unambiguously good thing for the nation's health - public health experts want to encourage smokers to switch from cigarettes to vapes while keeping non-smokers, particularly children and young people, well away from vaping. Continue reading...

Former president says he considers the two indictments a great badge of courage' during a speech at the Road to Majority conferenceDonald Trump has derided the substantial federal charges against him, downplaying the numerous legal threats he faces while attacking Joe Biden for allegedly having weaponized" the department of justice for political gain.Speaking on Saturday at the Road to Majority conference in Washington, hosted by the right-wing evangelical Faith and Freedom Coalition, Trump said he considered each of the two indictments he has received so far to be a great badge of courage". Continue reading...

The annual contest celebrates pets' imperfections, such as Scooter's backwards-facing hind legs and sparse hairLinda Elmquist, of Tucson, Arizona, smiled broadly as she held her little dog aloft. Finally, Scooter was being recognized for his best qualities on Friday as he was given the title of the world's ugliest dog.The competition, held as part of the Sonoma-Marin fair in Petaluma, California, for the past 50 years, is a world-renowned event that promotes dog adoption and showcases extraordinary canines that have defied adversity - and celebrates their imperfections. Continue reading...

Chris Gloninger says he developed post-traumatic stress disorder and will resign from job after 18 years at Des Moines's KCCIAn Iowa meteorologist says he is resigning from the television station where he works because he developed post-traumatic stress disorder after threats over his climate change coverage.On Wednesday, Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist at Des Moines's CBS TV station affiliate KCCI, announced that he will be stepping down from his position and leaving his broadcast career in July. Continue reading...

Officials shut down drinking water intakes downstream after train cars carrying asphalt and sulfur submerged in Yellowstone RiverA bridge that crosses Yellowstone River in Montana collapsed early on Saturday morning, causing portions of a freight train carrying hazardous materials to plunge into the flooded river below, officials said.The train cars were carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur, said David Stamey, Stillwater county's chief of emergency services. Officials shut down drinking water intakes downstream while they evaluated the danger. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a yellow liquid pouring out of tank cars. Continue reading...

Child actor known as America's little brother' for his role on the hit family show died in Los Angeles home on 7 January at age 54The effects of fentanyl are considered the cause of death for Adam Rich, the child actor known as America's little brother" for his role on the hit family dramedy Eight is Enough.The former television star's death this January has been ruled an accident by the Los Angeles county medical-examiner coroner's office, according to an autopsy report. Continue reading...

Ethan Crumbley, 17, who pleaded guilty awaiting sentencing to determine if he gets life in prison for 2021 shooting that killed fourA teenager awaiting sentencing for killing four students at a Michigan high school has been exhibiting sporadic, disturbing behavior" in jail, prosecutors said, just a month before a key hearing to determine if he will serve a life prison term.The disclosure about Ethan Crumbley, 17, was made in a court document this week and at a routine monthly hearing Friday in Oakland county court. Continue reading...

States have imposed extreme and dangerous abortion bans,' says President Biden while Vice-President Harris gives fiery speechAs the US on Saturday marked one year since the country's supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, abortion rights supporters and politicians issued a call to action - and prepared for reproductive health to be a flashpoint of the 2024 presidential election.The supreme court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health reversed the landmark 1973 decision that had enshrined a federal right to abortion. In the wake of its overturning, more than one dozen states have green-lighted abortion bans, and many others have passed laws dramatically restricting access to the procedure. Continue reading...

Democrats pledge to protect reproductive rights as US marks one year since supreme court overturned federal right to abortionIn a recent interview, actor and comedian Natalie Morales spoke to the Guardian about her fight for reproductive rights, her own coming out journey and her film Plan B.The Guardian's Andrew Lawrence reports:One of the main things in it is the conscience clause, a law that already exists in many states and is growing in others where a pharmacist can deny a prescription to anybody based on their personal beliefs, even if that prescription is legal," Morales said of the film during a Zoom call earlier this month...Not only that, but many places are trying to outlaw the Plan B pill - which is not even an abortifacient! I've never understood why, if you're against abortion, you would also be against contraceptives. That has never made sense to me." Continue reading...

An old childhood favourite reopens its doors this week. A revamp was long overdue, says its directorHere is a curious tension. This month, the government announced an extra 77m to support new creative clusters" across film, fashion, TV and gaming. With the creative industries supporting more than 2m jobs and bringing in 108bn a year to the British economy, it makes sense.Yet at the same time, we are throttling the pipeline. The last 12 years have witnessed a 60% collapse in the number of young people taking art and design GCSE - alongside equally terrible falls in music, drama and other creative subjects. To no one's great surprise, this is accelerating the longer-term trend of shuttering arts, languages and humanities departments across British universities. Continue reading...

Group advocate for Georgia summer baseball team to be renamed Macon Facon Bacon' to promote vegetarian food choicesA Georgia summer baseball team named the Macon Bacon has found itself at the center of a porcine polemic as a group of doctors is urging this outfit to change its name and promote vegetarian alternatives".The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes plant-based eating, is advocating for the team to be renamed Macon Facon Bacon", according to a local CBS affiliate. This medical organization has posted a new billboard urging Macon Bacon fans to keep bacon off your plate" to prevent cancer, and committee leadership has written to team management requesting a name change. Continue reading...

Melissa Perez, 46, was having what appeared to be a mental health crisis when officers encountered her and shot her in San AntonioThree police officers in San Antonio, Texas, are facing murder charges after fatally shooting a woman in her apartment during a confrontation early Friday.The woman, 46-year-old Melissa Perez, was having what appeared to be a mental health crisis" when officers encountered her and shot her dead, San Antonio police department (SAPD) chief William McManus said on Friday at a news conference. Continue reading...

Social media platforms are laying off their trust and safety' teams. Brace yourself for a new wave of unfettered misinformation and abuseRobert F Kennedy Jr is a flake of Cadbury proportions with a famous name. He's the son of Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination (and therefore also JFK's nephew). Let's call him Junior. For years - even pre-Covid-19 - he's been running a vigorous anti-vaccine campaign and peddling conspiracy theories. In 2021, for example, he was claiming that Dr Anthony Fauci was in cahoots with Bill Gates and the big pharma companies to run a powerful vaccination cartel" that would prolong the pandemic and exaggerate its deadly effects with the aim of promoting expensive vaccinations. And it went without saying (of course) that the mainstream media and big tech companies were also in on the racket and busily suppressing any critical reporting of it.Like most conspiracists, Junior was big on social media, but then in 2021 his Instagram account was removed for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines", and in August last year his anti-vaccination Children's Health Defense group was removed by Facebook and Instagram on the grounds that it had repeatedly violated Meta's medical-misinformation policies. Continue reading...

Officials approve petition that allows organizers to move forward with a historic referendum on huge police training complexVolunteers are fanning out across Atlanta looking to get tens of thousands of voters to sign a petition that would put the fate of the controversial police and fire department training center known as Cop City" on a November ballot, even as organisers have accused the city of unfairly delaying the start of the effort.Cop City came to global attention after police shot dead Manuel Paez Teran, an environmental protester, in a January raid on the forest - the first incident of its kind in US history. The state says Paez Teran shot first. A special prosecutor is evaluating the case. Continue reading...

Toraze Davis collapsed outside the church in which he married Johnnie Mae Dennis and died of a blood clotA Nebraska community is rallying around a bride whose groom died unexpectedly less than an hour after the couple exchanged their wedding vows earlier this week.Toraze Davis and Johnnie Mae Dennis wed on Monday in Omaha. Shortly after saying I do" to Dennis and stepping outside the church to take pictures with her, the 48-year-old Davis suddenly fell to the ground, according to what a friend of his told the local television station KETV. Continue reading...

After the Musk-Zuckerberg challenge, the billionaire brawl-fest has inexplicably ramped up this weekThe tech bros are brawlingOh no, it's escalating. I thought the cage match news would be the end of it. I thought we'd all spend a few minutes laughing about Elon Musk challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight and then swiftly move on. After all, the odds of this cage match actually happening are almost nil: Musk has a history of making wild promises and not following through. He also has a history of asking people who would almost certainly slaughter him in a fight to get into fights. Remember when he challenged Vladimir Putin to single combat? The stakes, he announced grandly at the time, were Ukraine. Continue reading...

A look back on the year since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade with the Dobbs decision, and the advocates who aren't giving upWhile the supreme court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade sent shockwaves around the country, many activists, physicians and advocacy groups closely engaged in the fight over abortion in the US were not surprised.Since Roe's establishment of the federal right to abortion in 1973, anti-abortion advocates and conservative lawmakers have been chipping away at it. Restrictions on abortion increased over the last decade, and by the mid-2010s, seven states had just one abortion clinic left. In Mississippi, where the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization case that ultimately ended Roe originated, the state's one clinic did not provide abortions beyond 16 weeks of pregnancy, meaning many people already had to travel to find care. Continue reading...

The insurrection won't stop the war: Prigozhin shares Putin's aims in Ukraine. But a distracted Russia is good for the world

Supreme court's overturning of Roe v Wade sparked a slew of state-level restrictions but anti-abortion stance has proved a vote-loserIn the months since the supreme court voted to overturn Roe v Wade last year, the effects of the court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization have become clear. Over a dozen states across the country have passed legislation limiting or outright banning access to abortions, severely restricting reproductive rights for millions of people and threatening to imprison abortion providers.But as Republicans have pushed through these bills, voters have also taken every opportunity to rebuke them in elections - leading to defeats in midterms and emerging as one of the GOP's largest vulnerabilities. Continue reading...

The patchwork of federal, state and company protections remains hard to navigate a year after the Dobbs decisionThe supreme court's decision to overturn federal abortion protections last year sent shock waves throughout the US. Suddenly, an individual choice that was once legally sanctioned was at risk of becoming the subject of criminal investigations in many states across the country.As public attention turned to such prosecutions, major tech companies faced questions over the ways they collect and store users' data amid concerns it could be used in abortion-related investigations. In August 2022, Facebook came under scrutiny after it was revealed law enforcement in Nebraska was prosecuting a mother and daughter for seeking and aiding an unlawful abortion in a case that was partly based on Facebook messages. Continue reading...

Even if there are fewer home buyers and prices have been falling slightly, they're still much higher than pre-pandemic and for many, more unaffordable than everAfter an intense two-year buying frenzy during the pandemic, the once-hot US housing market has started to cool.The US Federal Reserve set interest rates to its highest level in over a decade, and mortgage rates are sitting well above 6% for a 30-year fixed rate. The effect on the housing market has already started to show: the National Association of Realtors reports existing home sales in May were down 20% compared with a year earlier. And the median home sales price in May was $419,103, according to real estate company Redfin, a 3.1% drop compared to last year. Continue reading...

Unionized workers at delivery service partner in California fight company's intent to terminate contractAmazon is embroiled in a fight with workers at one of its delivery service partners in what union activists say is part of a longstanding anti-union drive by the retail giant which is now facing scrutiny in the US Senate for its anti-labor rights practices.At Battle Tested Strategies, an Amazon delivery service partner in Palmdale, California, workers are currently fighting Amazon's intent to terminate the delivery service partner's contract on Saturday. Continue reading...