US news | The Guardian

Sixty years ago, at the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King changed America. But there was more to the day than just his I have a dream' speech. There was music tooOne hundred years after the civil war, the treatment of African Americans persisted as a gaping wound in the purported land of the free. Then, suddenly in the 1960s, the bleeding from lynchings, bombings, beatings and shootings finally had a seismic effect. It galvanized the noble group who made the 60s so electric: the nimble, passionate and utterly fearless Black and white citizens who banded together to rescue America's soul.By 1963, the Rev Martin Luther King Jr had become the leader of the first generation since the abolitionists who truly believed they had the power to heal the nation. Since founding his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, King had worked tirelessly to fulfill its mission: To save the soul of America." Continue reading...

Graphic videos of the last hours of 10-year-old Fatima Furiro have highlighted once again the abuse faced by child workersThe death of 10-year-old Fatima Furiro would have passed sadly but quietly had it not been for the two graphic videos that turned up on social media. The little girl's body was this week exhumed for a postmortem examination, days after the videos mysteriously appeared online.One appeared to show signs of torture on Fatima's body, while the other showed her writhing in agony, and struggling to sit up, before collapsing. Continue reading...

As Antarctica warms and sea ice disappears, the breeding of emperor penguin chicks is in peril - a hostile environment even they cannot overcomeLast week I saw a headline announcing that last year thousands of emperor penguin chicks had died in the Bellingshausen Sea, when the fast ice broke out unusually early. I was deeply saddened and devastated, but not surprised.The region where this dreadful event occurred has been one of the fastest warming areas on Earth, and as temperature records are being broken year after year, a catastrophe of this kind was a matter of time. For nearly two decades, scientists have developed models to predict the potential impact of raising temperatures on emperor penguins to establish what the future would hold for these magnificent birds. Continue reading...

A white man shot and killed two men and one woman - all three victims were Black - before fatally shooting himself yesterdayJoe Biden declared on Sunday that white supremacy has no place in America" after three people were killed in a racist shooting in Florida and it emerged that the gunman had been turned away from a historically Black college or university (HBCU) campus moments before opening fire at a discount store.Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, on Sunday called the gunman in the attack a hateful lunatic" and said we will not allow HBCUs to be targeted". Continue reading...

Martin Luther King's family decried the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, the overturning of Roe and gun violence in the USOn the eve of the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King's legendary I Have a Dream speech, his son and granddaughter have decried continuing racial violence and hatred in the US, lamenting that the civil rights leader's call for equality and justice has yet to be fulfilled.Speaking a day after a vast crowd gathered in the nation's capital in an echo of the 28 August 1963 march on Washington at which King made his famous remarks, his eldest son, Martin Luther King III, warned of a resurgence of hate crimes. Violence against minorities was unconscionable" and unacceptable", he said. Continue reading...

Alina Habba said trials' schedules would cause them to overlap and clash with voting, preventing the ex-president from campaigningDonald Trump's legal spokesperson has predicted that forthcoming early trial dates in the former president's four criminal cases will not hold, and that his multiple cases could clash with the final stages of the 2024 presidential election campaign and voting.Alina Habba told the Fox News Sunday show that prosecutors' plans for fast turnarounds in Trump's two federal criminal cases and the state indictments in New York and Georgia amounted to unrealistic theatrics". She said that each of the trials would last from four to six weeks, raising the threat of overlapping schedules. Continue reading...

Maj Andrew Mettler - known as Simple Jack' - was a native of Georgia and a leader of the Fighting Bengals squadronThe US military has identified the Marine Corps pilot who was killed on Thursday when his combat jet crashed near a San Diego base during a training flight.Maj Andrew Mettler was piloting an F/A-18D Hornet when it went down at 11.54pm on Thursday near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, the Second Marine Aircraft Wing said in a statement from its headquarters in Cherry Point, North Carolina. He was the only person on board. Continue reading...

Pastor urges congregants to follow Christ's example as mayor says it feels some days like we're going backward' after mass shootingThe pastor of a church near the site of the racist fatal shooting of three Black people in Florida told congregants Sunday to follow Jesus Christ's example and keep their sadness from turning to rage.Jacksonville's mayor wept. Others at the service focused on Florida's political rhetoric and said it has fueled such racist attacks. Continue reading...

Familiar talking points arose from the win at Newcastle but its key figure embodied the manic unscripted drama we loveChaos. Chaos in the first half, chaos in the second half. Chaos in the Liverpool defence and chaos in the Newcastle defence. Chaos in Trent Alexander-Arnold's mind, in Virgil van Dijk's mind, perhaps in the referee's mind. Chaos so thoroughly chaotic that it rendered the most chaotic Premier League player of all into a clanking totem of clinically icy finishing.Football is a sport we try to rationalise. We try to explain it with data and diagrams. We try to reduce the random by having referees' decisions checked in slow motion and by endlessly rewriting the laws. But sometimes the random just bubbles over. Sometimes the chaos cannot be contained. And that is what, despite the dirty money and the dirtier money, despite the public investment funds and the private equity, despite the conspiracy theorists and tribal bores, makes football still worth it. Continue reading...

FBI opens civil rights investigation as Jacksonville sheriff names shooter and says suspect had no criminal historyThe FBI on Sunday was investigating the shooting that killed three people inside a store in Jacksonville, Florida, the previous day, which officials said was racially motivated, as community leaders expressed horror.A white man, armed with a high-powered rifle and a handgun and wearing a tactical vest and mask, entered the discount Dollar General store just before 2pm on Saturday and shot and killed two men and one woman, before fatally shooting himself. All three victims were Black. Continue reading...

Four people have died in three mass shootings across the US this weekend. Three people were killed in what officials have a called a racially motivated attack at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida.A teenager and at least two other people were injured when a shooting took place at a football game in Oklahoma that sent players and officials scrambling off the field and caused panicked spectators to hunker down in the stands on Friday.On Saturday, at least seven people were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries after a shooting during the Boston Caribbean Carnival, police have said

Two US residents, one of whom is on death row, are being unfairly excluded, says Richard RatcliffeTwo US residents, one in fear of execution, are being unfairly excluded from an imminent deal between US-Iran to release prisoners, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has claimed.Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife was freed after five years in a Tehran prison

Pregnancy comes with mental health risk for all women. And so many of us downplay our own needs and wants once a baby is on the sceneBefore my husband and I tried to get pregnant, before toying with names or choosing a room for the nursery, we sat down for confronting consultations with three psychiatrists. I had long been warned of the risks pregnancy posed to bipolar mothers, and had the devastating suggestion made that not having a baby on health grounds should be a serious option for me. My grief, when that was suggested, was immense.Pregnancy is the single greatest biological event of a woman's life. The combination of surging hormones, rapid physical changes, a labile emotional and psychological state and no or minimal medication creates a perfect storm for women with mood disorders to relapse and experience the worst episodes of their lives. Of all groups, bipolar mothers are most at risk for postpartum psychosis. My likelihood was put at 95%. Continue reading...

Players are unhappy with scheduling hurting their chances, as post-midnight marathons take a toll further down the lineEven in the aftermath of a spectacular quarterfinal victory against Daria Kasatkina in Montreal this month, Elena Rybakina had little reason to celebrate. As satisfying as her grit and determination had been, Rybakina finished just shy of 3am. She was, in her own words, destroyed". She predictably lost her semi-final against Liudmila Samsonova, having played it with her shoulder heavily taped. Afterwards the 24-year-old did not hold her tongue, describing the Women's Tennis Association as unprofessional" and blasting its weak leadership.Five days later Rybakina was still paying the price of that late night. After her defeat in Montreal, she did not train at all before her first match in Cincinnati. Despite winning a round there, she retired from her second match, against Jasmine Paolini, in the second set despite having won the first. It was horrible, to be honest," Rybakina told the Guardian of her experience in Montreal, namely collecting multiple injuries. It's not easy because they [the injuries] are not even because of the amount of tennis I played or how long the matches were. It's really tough to recover when you go to sleep at 5am." Continue reading...

Fewer and fewer children have the chance to play outside - and those that do have to contend with whingeing adults. Bring back the days of carefree loiteringWe are in the dregs of the English school summer holidays now. All the organised fun is done and so are the adults who organised it, if memory serves - money, time off and energy all spent. Round me, that seems to mean kids mainly doing their own thing. Tinies confined to gardens are getting creative with toys (or dirt, or the recycling), while the older ones are hanging around, sitting on walls, kicking a ball on the verge or riding bikes along pavements. Can I swerve around you?" one asked as I walked to the shop, scoring highly on the making your own fun" scale. Once I agreed, he swerved happily around me several times, then did it again when I was walking back 15 minutes later, which was very bracing. (Is my consent to being swerved around irrevocable? This could get interesting.) There's some chucking of apples, too, judging from the debris strewn around the street and my own experience (one year I naively put out a bucket of cookers to give away, only to face apple carnage the next morning).It's nice - not the apples so much, but the rest. I find it comforting: it's vaguely reminiscent of my own childhood, which wasn't exactly jumpers for goalposts" but was certainly plenty of aimless loitering. I like that about living where I do, how there are kids doing kids' stuff, but it seems they're lucky. According to research on street play from Play England published last month: Opportunities to play outside, which were the near universal right of previous generations, are now available to fewer and fewer children." The saddest part for me was the percentage of children - significantly more than the previous report in 2013 - who have been asked to stop doing such ordinary things as making a noise", sitting on a neighbour's wall" and hanging out in groups". And what hurt was done to the people who told 25% of kids surveyed to stop chalking on the pavement"? I suppose it depends what they're chalking, but wouldn't you feel like a baddie from the Beano?Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The Argentinian scored another brilliant goal to cap his MLS debut on Saturday night. But at 36 can he satisfy demand at stadiums across America?No one goes to Broadway to see the understudy. So when a record crowd of 26,276 - many of whom spent profligate sums for tickets on the resale market - packed Red Bull Arena on Saturday night for Lionel Messi's eagerly awaited Major League Soccer debut, there was a palpable sense of disappointment when the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner was absent from Inter Miami's starting lineup.The breather, of course, was well deserved. The Argentina captain had featured in all eight games for Inter Miami since joining from Paris Saint-Germain on 21 July, including 390 minutes in four matches over the past two weeks. After sparking the fourth-year expansion side to their first ever trophy in last week's Leagues Cup final with his 10th goal in seven contests, Messi looked positively gassed for lengthy stretches of Wednesday's US Open Cup semi-final win at FC Cincinnati. And who could blame him? Not even Lea Michele can play Fanny Brice every night. Continue reading...

Scierra Blair and her fiance, Jose Ervin Jr, were born a year apart on 18 August, and newborn twins were born on their joint birthdayA couple in Cleveland overcame odds that are much higher than those confronting people struck by lightning to have twin babies on their shared birthday this month.Scierra Blair, 32, and her fiance Jose Ervin Jr, 31, were born a year apart from each other on 18 August and were looking forward to her due date a couple of weeks after their joint birthday, according to multiple media reports. Continue reading...

The West Side heroin/opioid taskforce is confronting the growing overdose crisis among the city's Black populationThere was a time when Gail Richardson might have struggled to make it past the heroin dealer working a busy corner on Chicago's West Side without buying a hit.Richardson spent half a lifetime getting high, dealing in cocaine and heroin to pay for her habit, and then serving a lengthy stint in federal prison. Now the 67-year-old is back on those same streets, greeting the occasional familiar face from the old days still under the crush of addiction. Continue reading...

After pair was separated for two years, suit shines light on Biden administration's response to separation policyWhen Leticia and her 15-year-old son, Yovany, crossed the US-Mexico border six years ago to escape violence in Guatemala, whatever hopes they had for an American dream soon spiraled into a nightmare. Within one day, US immigration authorities had separated the now 37-year-old from her teen boy, leading to a years-long fight for unification.Leticia and Yovany, who waited more than two years to be reunited, have filed suit in Brooklyn federal court over their separation and detention conditions that could shine light on the shadowy process behind family separation. Leticia and Yovany are pseudonyms used in court filings. Continue reading...

Gangster's century-old house razed after Florida governor stripped municipalities of power to prevent leveling of historic buildingsAl Capone's historic waterfront mansion in Florida, where the notorious gangster took his last breath in 1947, has itself been whacked, and preservationists are pointing to the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, as the hitman.The elegant century-old property on one of Miami's most exclusive islands was quietly razed earlier this month. The take-down followed the enactment of a law from the DeSantis administration in July stripping municipalities of their power to prevent the demolition of certain properties, regardless of historic designation. Continue reading...

The president of the Spanish football federation should have issued an immediate apology for his behaviour. That he has not is a spectacular own goalAs we observe the scorching international bin fire that is the Spanish football federation president Luis Rubiales's self-inflicted catastrophe, there is the key issue of the missing apology flickering in the flames.An apology from Rubiales, that is (just to be clear). An instant calm, sincere mea culpa for becoming overexcited in the moment of the Spanish women's football team's World Cup victory and forcefully kissing star player Jenni Hermoso on the lips. Thus, at the very least, behaving entirely inappropriately towards a female athlete, and in front of a global audience. Continue reading...

The breakout star of Wimbledon talks about nearly quitting tennis, finding his second wind as a late bloomer and coming into his own as the role model he never had while growing upChristopher Eubanks motions to the white chair in the player's area and adjusts a bench for himself, positioning his long legs on either side, trying to comfortably seat his 6ft 7in frame. The professional tennis player had just arrived in Washington DC the previous night, dropped his bags off at the hotel, and three hours later was at a Drake concert. Two days before, he was playing under the lights in quarter-finals at the Atlanta Open. Now, he is fielding my questions at the Mubadala Citi Open. When asked if the quick turnaround time was normal for him, he laughs.No. Because I usually don't go that deep in tournaments." Continue reading...

World No 1s Alcaraz and Swiatek are following in Djokovic's slick footsteps and taking sliding to the US Open and beyondAs the delirious battle between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic moved closer towards its climax in Cincinnati last Sunday, Alcaraz desperately tried to hold on. Down a championship point at 3-5 in the third set, the 20-year-old pulled off a stroke of genius to stay alive. He dragged Djokovic to the net with a slick drop shot, then he rapidly chased down the Serb's own delicate drop shot before steering a forehand past him at the net. Djokovic described the point as unbelievable".The court coverage exhibited by the pair time and time again was just as significant as the breathless shotmaking that preceded it. The final four shots of that point, and so many others that night, were soundtracked by the burning of rubber beneath their feet as they slid to the ball, stopped and immediately changed direction with startling efficiency. Continue reading...

You don't have to be a big drinker to be worried by the declining number of bars in the republic. Luckily, we've still got six in our townA question for the times: is there anywhere in the world where you can't get a pint of Guinness in a joint draped with green, white and orange tricolours and belting out the hits of Christy Moore? Such desolate places must exist but they appear to be vanishingly rare.If the Irish pub is one of the country's most successful exports, there's worrying news about its fortunes at home. Since 2005, nearly 2,000 pubs have closed, and since 2019 - a period of lockdown and sharply rising costs - more than 450 have called time for good. Unsurprisingly, the perennially populous Dublin has been affected less than smaller towns and rural areas. Continue reading...

The sprint champion with three golds in Budapest believes more professional marketing could raise the sport's profileNoah Lyles is one of the most compelling figures in sport right now, and don't the suits at Netflix know it. Their cameras and boom mics have followed the US sprinter around like an eager puppy at these World Athletics Championships, watching his prophecies become realities and capturing every moment of Lyles' extraordinary three gold medals in Budapest.The closest thing to Usain Bolt's successor? Most people in track and field would say so. And next year, when Netflix's new show is broadcast before the Paris Olympics, the rest of the world will believe so too. They weren't talking about me at the beginning," Lyles jokes, when asked about the streaming service's intense interest in him. But as soon as I won in Paris in June they got buddy-buddy with me really quick." Continue reading...

The early morning is a part of the day few things can interrupt - and a period of quiet for making big decisions or having time to yourselfThe quibble between early birds and night owls is a long fought battle. Some say those who stay up late are at greater risk of death, while morning people are often teased for claiming they can wake up naturally at 6am.But being up when most people are asleep is like having a secret garden that you can visit each day. Continue reading...

Television personality had iconic career spanning 50 years in which he garnered 19 Daytime Emmy awardsBob Barker, the longtime television host of The Price Is Right, has died at the age of 99.It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World's Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker, has left us," Barker's publicist Roger Neal said in a statement. Continue reading...

Hawaiian Electric Co wires were seen uncovered as company's own documents call its wooden poles a serious public hazard'In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows - those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.Videos and images analyzed by the Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them. Continue reading...

TV viewers adore dating shows. But their appeal is more complicated than it seems at first sightI'm partial to a television dating show but is it all getting out of hand? The routine proliferation of different formats is turning into a veritable infestation of the schedules. Soon, we won't be able to move for pushy, pouting desperadoes trying to find love or the best camera-hogging storyline" - whichever comes first and makes the heart beat faster. Beyond that, could it be true that the dating TV tsunami has a real-world effect on how ordinary British people romantically relate to each other?The Love Island franchise has a well documented dark side: not least the suicides of people connected to the show (presenter Caroline Flack and contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis). Still, generally, dating TV appears to be experiencing a gold rush featuring myriad shows. Love Is Blind (people bond unseen in pods). The Ultimatum (put bluntly: marry me or do one). Married at First Sight (the clue is in the title). Temptation Island (couples are tested"), Naked Attraction (starkers and ready for love), Sexy Beasts (icky flirting in bizarre masks), The Love Trap (evictees sent crashing through trap doors). And many more. This excludes formats I've decided are too lowbrow/depraved even for me - shows, usually with hot" in the titles, that make you want to weep for the human race while simultaneously spooning out your own eyeballs. Continue reading...

Republican candidate and biotech entrepreneur names Twitter CEO when asked about potential advisers should he win electionThe Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has said that he wants Elon Musk as an adviser if he becomes president.The billionaire biotech entrepreneur was in Newton, Iowa, campaigning at a town hall on Friday when he was asked about whom he would want as advisers for his potential presidency. Continue reading...

Joshua Davidson given sentence of 12 and a half years for attack while on duty as a Dallas county deputy sheriffA former Alabama deputy sheriff has been sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in his custody.On 30 January 2020, while on duty as a Dallas county deputy sheriff, 33-year-old Joshua Davidson placed a woman in custody following a traffic stop. He drove her down a dark road to a desolate location where he forced her to perform oral sex on him against her will, the justice department said in a statement. Continue reading...

Gunfire occurred during J'ouvert parade on Saturday morning and several arrests were made, police sayAt least seven people have been injured in a shooting during a Caribbean parade in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, police said on Saturday.The victims were taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries and several arrests were made and firearms recovered, according to Boston police Sgt Det John Boyle. Continue reading...

George Washington, Franklin D Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, eat your heart out Continue reading...

Two women say they were concerned for safety during encounters with Rex Heuermann as investigators seek more informationAs investigators continue to build their case against the accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann, two Long Island sex workers have described the suspect as violent" and aggressive" during encounters they had with him.The two women, who have not been identified, told members of an anti-human trafficking unit with the sheriff's office in Long Island's Suffolk county that they became concerned for their safety during encounters with the 6ft4in, 240lbs Manhattan architect. Continue reading...

For years the mayor in Newburn was appointed, not elected. When Patrick Braxton won the election, the outgoing mayor and his cronies refused to accept itIn November 2020, Patrick Braxton, a volunteer firefighter and contractor from Newbern, Alabama, was elected mayor of the 133-person town. He wanted to have a peaceful and timely transfer of power, so he repeatedly attempted to contact the town's previous mayor, Haywood Woody" Stokes III, but Stokes would not return his calls.Braxton, who is Black, decided to go to the town hall and talk to Stokes, who is white, in person. He told Stokes that he would need a key to the town hall to begin his duties. Stokes acquiesced and gave him a key, but when Braxton entered the building, he found that town hall had been stripped of its records, beyond a couple boxes of discarded items that looked like trash. He also said he noticed that Stokes had given keys to friends of his, people who were not council members and had no official business with the city, who were walking in and out of the building. Continue reading...

Farewell to London's Le Gavroche, India Club, Banner's and countless others that have hosted family celebrations down the decadesThe great American journalist Joseph Mitchell turned writing about the death of favourite restaurants into an artform. If the soul of his city, New York, existed anywhere, he argued, it was in the life of its waterfront and backstreet eating houses. In this spirit, in the 1940s and 1950s Mitchell created a new form of obituary: the long, heartfelt memorial to the passing of those places in which we gather to make memories or forget sorrows - most of them demolished in the name of development.Mitchell would have had plenty to say about the imminent erasure of several much-loved London institutions. Michel Roux Jr's decision to close Le Gavroche brings to an end a family-inspired taste for authentic (and expensive) French cooking that began 56 years ago; the fabulous, eccentric India Club along the Strand, has had an even longer run - it has been seven decades since the first lamb bhuna was dished up on its determinedly democratic refectory tables (its freeholder wants to make it another luxury hotel). Great restaurants have personal memories built in. And in this sense, the loss I will feel most keenly will be that of Banner's, the ultimate neighbourhood cafe in Crouch End, north of the city - which famously once entertained Bob Dylan - and which for 30 years has been the place where my family has celebrated birthdays and anniversaries. Continue reading...

American copyright legislation currently invokes a human involvement' criterion. But judging by the way smartphones have trivialised the craft' of photography, something has to giveEvelyn Waugh famously held that taking a keen interest in ecclesiastical matters was often a prelude to insanity". Much the same might be said about newspaper columnists taking an interest in intellectual property law. But let us take the risk. After all, you only live once - at least until Elon Musk creates an electronic clone of himself.On Friday 18 August, a federal judge in the US rejected an attempt to copyright an artwork that had been created by an AI. The work in question is, to the untrained eye at least, no great shakes. It is called A Recent Entrance into Paradise" and depicts a three-track railway heading into what appears to be a leafy, partly pixellated tunnel and had been autonomously created" by a computer algorithm called the Creativity Machine. Continue reading...

Kings will join expected crowd of tens of thousands of people on Saturday to commemorate 60 years since I have a dream' speechMartin Luther King III, along with his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and their 15-year-old daughter, Yolanda, have developed a set of traditions for this time of the year.Each August, they rewatch Martin Luther King Jr's rapturous address to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Even if the civil rights icon's legacy is closer to the Kings than it is for most other families, they see march anniversaries as a teaching moment. Continue reading...

Royal Spanish Football Federation officials can stick their heads in the sand but that will not happen without consequenceWhen Hector Bellerin wrote: The narcissist never believes they have made a mistake, they are able to lie, manipulate the truth and make the victim guilty in order to retain their power," he wasn't writing a how to retain power" escape manual for Luis Rubiales. Except, you could be forgiven for thinking that's how it has been taken, on the basis of the tripling down by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in support of its deluded president in the form of an 808-word defence of Rubiales.The extraordinary RFEF statement - which dropped late on Friday night and is headlined Official Statement of the RFEF in response to Futpro", the Spanish players' union - genuinely reads like it is meant to be Rubiales's A-ha! Gotcha!" moment. Continue reading...

Participants and organisers look back on the critical role of women, Harry Belafonte and Martin Luther King's I have a dream' speechIf that had been us that attacked the Capitol a couple of years ago, they would have shot us," says Ted Dean, 85, from Flomaton, Alabama. Think about it. They would have shot us."Dean is contrasting the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place peacefully 60 years ago on Monday, with the deadly insurrection by a mob of Donald Trump supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Continue reading...

Inmate #P01135809 (also known as the ex-president) is using his mugshot as a marketing opportunity and seizing control of the narrativeShamelessness can be a superpower: Donald Trump (or inmate #P01135809, as he is described in his booking record) has proved that time and time and again. He's shattered norms, flouted rules, shrugged off scandals and generally got away with doing whatever the hell he feels like. Never has anyone tested the idea that there's no such thing as bad publicity quite as much as the former president. Continue reading...

Students at Bunnell elementary school pulled from class based on race and mandated to attend presentation on improving resultsA Florida elementary school has prompted outrage for singling out its Black students to attend a special assembly identifying them, as a group, as a problem" because of standardized test performances.Black fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell elementary school in Flagler county, central Florida, were pulled from class last Friday and mandated to attend the presentation on improving test scores, the Washington Post reported. Continue reading...

Inquiry into 1976 disappearance in Oklahoma and 1990 murder in Missouri have led authorities to believe killer may be involvedKerri Rawson's father - the BTK serial killer - is serving 10 life terms in prison, but Rawson does not think authorities should give up investigating whether he killed more people than they already know.The clearest indication that authorities strongly suspect more victims of Dennis Rader may await discovery, came this week when police dug the ground near a Kansas home he lived in with Rawson. Continue reading...

From securing resources to destabilising western influence, the mercenary group's activities hang in the balanceThis week, before Yevgeny Prigozhin was reportedly killed, the founder of the mercenary group Wagner had appeared bullish in a self-styled publicity video, holding a rifle and dressed in desert camouflage. He was understood to be somewhere in Africa, and stated that he was proud to be making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa more free".Just days later, Russian state media and Wagner itself would report Prigozhin's death in a plane crash which also apparently killed Dmitry Utkin, often described as a Wagner co-founder, and other senior figures from the organisation. The immediate questions in western capitals were whether Vladimir Putin was responsible, and what the death of Prigozhin means for Wagner and for politics in Russia now. Continue reading...