Two inmates dug their way out of cell using toothbrush but were apprehended within hours at Ihop branchTwo prisoners in Virginia managed to escape their cell by digging a hole through a wall with the aid of a toothbrush but were apprehended within a few hours after being tempted to visit a pancake restaurant.In a statement, the Newport News sheriff’s office said two inmates were found to be missing during a routine head count around 7pm on Monday at the Newport News Jail Annex. Continue reading...
President Ulysses S Grant’s penchant for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage landed him in trouble with police in 1872Donald Trump may be preparing to become the first US president to be criminally indicted but should his perp walk for paying hush money to a porn star come to pass – perhaps granting his reported wish to be seen handcuffed – he will not be the first president ever arrested.In 1872, President Ulysses S Grant was nicked for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage. Continue reading...
by Joseph Palmer at LoanDepot Park in Miami on (#6A2A4)
The two-way superstar’s once-in-a-century skillset led Japan over the US to a World Baseball Classic championship while helping vault the tournament to newfound levels of popularityTuesday’s World Baseball Classic final between the US and Japan may have been played in Miami but, judging by the atmosphere throughout the stadium, Japan’s status as the home team was more than just an official designation. Although the crowd at LoanDepot Park seemed evenly split between Japanese and American factions, with frequent music and (a sincerely exhausting amount of) jumping up and down, it was the Japanese fans’ energy which electrified the stands for much of the game.Most tellingly, during the player introductions before the game, it was Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, rather than any of the American players, who received (by far) the loudest cheer. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising – Ohtani’s ability to draw a crowd is unquestionable at this point. For example, when asked what prompted them to attended Tuesday’s game despite not often attending baseball games back home, Shoko Mitomi and Kyoji Kimura of Okinawa were to the point: “We wanted to see Ohtani.” Continue reading...
We look at the new season with its many title contenders and exciting new faces on the pitch, as well as big ambitions off itThe National Women’s Soccer League commences a new season this weekend in what promises to be an exciting year in the US, straddling a hotly-contested World Cup tournament. Here are some things to keep your eye on as the NWSL’s 12 teams prepare to kick off on Saturday evening. Continue reading...
The political and racial maneuvering here is obvious and ridiculous, but that doesn’t make it less dangerousThe last several months have seen former president Donald Trump dust off his tired strategy of stoking white nationalist sentiment, and this time he’s taking on the prosecutors.He started with the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who is currently bringing charges against Trump over alleged hush money paid to former actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 elections.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US contributing writer Continue reading...
The debate about cultural appropriation is fractious and gets muddled. But then I think about a man who makes it all clearA Black person growing up in the west will experience moments of shock. There is the first time you knowingly experience racism, and here, for me, was another: the first time I realised that the man who sang the soul classic What You Won’t Do for Love was white.Long before there was Ed Sheeran, Adele, Justin Timberlake or, before them, Simply Red, Lisa Stansfield, Jon B (the only white musician Tupac Shakur ever made a record with), or even the current underground king of blue-eyed soul Mayer Hawthorne, there was Bobby Caldwell, who died last week. Continue reading...
Sweating profusely has improved my life, with the heat wringing all the worry out of me. But an unexpected conversation sent me spirallingDon’t ask me why, but I keep a list in my head of inane and avoidable ways I might meet an untimely end. When I lived in New York and used a bike-share to get everywhere, crashing into a halal food truck while swerving to avoid a low-flying pigeon was at the top of that list. Either that or tripping over my small and erratic dog.When I moved to a house in Philadelphia, falling down the stairs while carrying my laptop in one hand and half-drunk coffee cups in the other usurped those scenarios to take the top spot. As of a few weeks ago, however, a new No 1 has emerged: passing out in the sauna or getting infected with a brain-eating amoeba after spending time in a steam room. Continue reading...
For democrats, a stubborn economic malaise is more existentially threatening than any example set in Moscow or BeijingOnce again the world is divided into competing spheres of eastern and western power, but is it a new cold war or reheated leftovers from the last one? The answer is a bit of both. For Vladimir Putin, the superpower rivalry of the 20th century never ended, although in economic and military terms there was a clear winner and it wasn’t the Soviet Union. Russia’s president is determined to reverse that humiliation, in the national imagination, at least. In other realms, the trajectory is further decline.Russia can still make a global nuisance of itself. A nuclear-armed rogue state with an appetite for territorial expansion can’t be ignored. But parity with the US is a distant memory for the Kremlin. For China it is a destination on the near horizon. Continue reading...
Ex-president attempts to capitalize on anticipated charges over hush money payments to Stormy DanielsDonald Trump is attempting to capitalize on his anticipated arrest over hush money payments to an adult film star by bombarding supporters with fundraising emails to support his presidential election campaign.In a series of messages in recent days Trump and his acolytes have urged people to donate to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, established to support Trump’s bid for president in 2024. Continue reading...
People close to former president said to be unsure whether he is serious about wanting to do a perp walkDonald Trump has told advisers that he wants to be handcuffed when he makes an appearance in court, if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels, multiple sources close to the former president have said.The former president has reasoned that since he would need to go to the courthouse and surrender himself to authorities for fingerprinting and a mug shot anyway, the sources said, he might as well turn everything into a “spectacle”. Continue reading...
Tsai Ing-wen will visit allies Guatemala and Belize next week, and stopover in the US, after Honduras said it would establish ‘official relations’ with ChinaTaiwan’s defence ministry has contingency plans for any moves by China during Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the US and Central America, deputy defence minister Po Horng-huei has said ahead of Tsai’s departure next week.China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out large-scale, live-fire war games around the island last August after a visit to Taipei by then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and agencies on (#6A1QQ)
Brutal winds downed power lines in many areas leaving thousands of people without power in regions south of San FranciscoThe second day of spring brought more harsh wintry weather to storm-weary California on Tuesday with torrential rain and heavy winds that left thousands without power.At least one person was killed on Tuesday when a tree fell on a vehicle in San Mateo county in the San Francisco Bay area, the California highway patrol told media. In Santa Cruz county, one person was injured by a falling tree, according to the National Weather Service. Continue reading...
Seven deputies and three hospital workers charged with second-degree murder in death of Black man at Virginia mental facilityA large group of sheriff’s deputies and employees of a Virginia mental hospital pinned patient Irvo Otieno to the floor until he was motionless and limp, then began unsuccessful resuscitation efforts, newly obtained surveillance video of the incident earlier this month shows.The footage obtained on Tuesday, which has no audio, shows various members of the group struggling with a handcuffed and shackled Otieno over the course of about 20 minutes after he was led into a room at Central State hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, where he was going to be admitted on 6 March. For most of the duration of the video, Otieno is on the floor being restrained by a fluctuating group that at one point appeared to number 10 people pressing down on various parts of his body. Continue reading...
Thanh Tran and James King, formerly incarcerated advocates, on life inside San Quentin and the governor’s transformation planThanh Tran walked out of California’s San Quentin state prison on 11 May 2022 after 10 years behind bars. One month later, he hopped on a plane and flew 5,000 miles away – to Oslo, Norway.While in prison, Tran co-founded and co-hosted a podcast called Uncuffed, and in one of his first segments recorded as a free person, he toured the facilities of Norway, known for having significantly better conditions and less restrictive policies than seen in the US prison system. He immediately noticed the bright colors, guards playing games with residents, lack of prison uniforms and the huge spaces for rehabilitative programs. Continue reading...
After back-to-back attacks and amid rising anti-Asian hate, gun violence has become a key – and controversial – issue in communitiesFor Kevin Leung, a head instructor at a kung fu school in Monterey Park in Los Angeles county, California, the past eight weeks have been a disorienting readjustment to normalcy.His academy, the Siu Lum Pai Kung Fu Association, had for years held weekly classes at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, where he knew many members of the community. To combat the rise in anti-Asian violence during the pandemic, Leung also led many free self-defense classes there for Asian seniors. Continue reading...
Strike joined by teachers over better wages and increased staffing closes nation’s second-largest school systemTens of thousands of workers in the Los Angeles unified school district, accompanied by teachers, walked off the job on Tuesday over stalled contract talks for higher pay and better working conditions, shutting down the nation’s second-largest school system.The strike, which is expected to last three days, upended the lives of more than 500,000 students and their families from schools in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, as bus drivers, cafeteria workers and teachers demanded more support at a time when educators in the city and elsewhere are struggling to afford to live where they work. Continue reading...
by Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies on (#6A0XE)
Grand jury investigating ex-president over hush money payment to adult film star appears poised to complete its work soonLaw enforcement officials in New York on Tuesday continued preparing for possible unrest on the streets of Manhattan as a grand jury investigating Donald Trump over a hush money payment to the adult film-maker and star Stormy Daniels appeared poised to complete its work by criminally indicting the former president.Barriers were brought to the area around the Manhattan criminal courthouse in the lower part of the island. Uniformed police were out in force. So were reporters and protesters. Continue reading...
Whale collided with sailboat 13 days into group’s three-week sailing trip from Galápagos Islands to French PolynesiaA giant whale sunk a sailing crew’s boat in the Pacific Ocean before the group was rescued at the end of an ordeal that could have come out of a novel.Rick Rodriguez of Tavernier, Florida, and three friends spent 10 hours on a lifeboat and dinghy after a whale sunk the crew’s 44ft sailboat Raindancer, the Washington Post reported on Monday. Continue reading...
President to designate Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in Nevada, Castner Range in Texas, and a marine sanctuary in the PacificJoe Biden is establishing national monuments in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary in US waters near the Pacific Remote Islands south-west of Hawaii.The Democratic president is set to announce the measures on Tuesday at a White House summit on conservation action at the interior department. Continue reading...
A water main break caused by heavy rain left a busy Los Angeles highway submerged in water, as commuters slowly made their way through the flooded lanes. The state was deep in a drought until the new year brought a series of atmospheric rivers that caused severe weather and flooding. The state's rainy season typically stretches only into the first three months of the year before falling off dramatically
Abigail Zwerner, who was seriously injured in incident with pupil in January, made remarks in first interview with NBC Today showThe Virginia school teacher who was shot in her classroom by a six-year-old student in January “can’t get out of bed” some days because her recovery has been so physically and mentally exhausting, she has said in her first interview since the attack.“But … for going through what I’ve gone through, I try to stay positive,” 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner told NBC’s Today show in an interview aired on Tuesday. “You know, [I] try to have a positive outlook on what’s happened and where my future’s heading.” Continue reading...
The actor and influencer has been called out for glorifying restricted eating. What is it with the rich and their weird ideas about wellness?This time there aren’t any vaginas involved. I say that because half the time Gwyneth Paltrow is in the news it’s vagina-related. On this occasion, however, it’s because a lot of people are seemingly annoyed that she – a woman who has amassed a fortune doling out strange and often suspect health advice via her lifestyle brand Goop – follows that advice herself.The trouble started when Paltrow appeared on an episode of Dr Will Cole’s The Art of Being Well podcast and shared what she eats in a typical day. Which, no points for guessing, isn’t much. She doesn’t eat until about noon which, in normal-person-speak, means she skips breakfast. In wellness land it means she’s doing “a nice intermittent fast”. Then she has something that won’t spike her blood pressure, such as coffee. She often follows that up with “bone broth”. An hour of “movement” ensues, wrapped up with some vigorous dry brushing and the sauna. Finally: an early dinner. “I try to eat according to paleo,” she says. “So lots of vegetables. It’s really important for me to support my detox.” I’m sorry, detox? You can’t detox if there was never any tox in the first place. Continue reading...
Kiley Swaine filed suit against Torrance after his car was seized by officers during arrest and came back defacedA California city has agreed to a $750,000 settlement with a Jewish man who accused police of spray-painting a swastika in his car.Kiley Swaine filed a lawsuit against Torrance, 15 miles south-west of Los Angeles, in 2022 after his car was seized by Torrance officers and defaced. Continue reading...
The former PM is wheeling out the old clown act to rebuff the Partygate allegations. Let’s hope it’s for the last timeOne last heave – in all senses of the word – for Boris Johnson, Britain’s worst ex, who tomorrow flops himself out in front of the standards committee and asks it to consider an auto-satirical question: did the foremost British liar of the age tell a lie? If you want a sense of our self-respect as a nation, an entire parliamentary investigation has spent 10 months gathering evidence on that question, while £220,000 and rising has been spent by the taxpayer on Johnson’s legal defence. It is, let’s face it, a long way to go to reach the conclusion, “Lol of course he told a lie – it’s BORIS JOHNSON?!?!?!?!?”Strip away the incidental details of this latest adventure in a career of turbo-fibbing and you are faced with a reality as old as bullshit itself. Johnson, who last told the truth during the Reagan administration – and then only accidentally – has somehow got the government to fund state-of-the-art lawyers to prove he wasn’t aware of parties happening in his own house, attended by his own self, against his own rules, and in at least one case against his own laws, having gone on telly every single night to tell people that compliance to the letter of said rules and laws was a matter of life and death. Please bear this in mind if you tune in to his appearance tomorrow afternoon, along with the question: does our country have a path to dignity? Because this ain’t it.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Missouri’s Republican attorney general sidesteps GOP-led state senate as it struggles to pass similar legislation. Plus, how mass shootings are reshaping Asian Americans’ views on guns
Success can be elusive for Black restaurateurs, but a cohort of buzzy chefs is working to change thatFew food personalities enjoy as high a profile as Joseph Johnson. “Chef JJ”, as the New York chef is known to his fans, has a colossal social media following, a long-running cooking show and a name that’s a staple of the who’s who lists that appear in major food publications.Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Johnson took a break from the US restaurant scene early in his career to spend time in kitchens in West Africa. The experience, he says, forever changed how he looked at the food of his ancestors, which was largely absent from the types of restaurants with crisp white tablecloths and punctilious waitstaff. Johnson decided he would devote himself to addressing that imbalance. Continue reading...
Angel Pittman says her dream to create a mobile hair salon was thwarted when a neighbor harassed her with racist comments and vandalized her busesAngel Pittman’s dream was to create a mobile hair salon. So the 21-year-old stylist bought less than an acre of unrestricted land in North Carolina for $10,000 in September and purchased three school buses for $14,000 with money she had saved since she was 17.“I’ve never seen anybody driving around doing people’s hair,” she said. “But not only did I want to get paid for doing hair, but I wanted to drive around, do a couple of homeless people’s hair and maybe go to some prisons and help incarcerated people.” Continue reading...
Players such as Mitch Marsh, Quinton de Kock and Liam Plunkett are bringing their experience to a notoriously tough marketIt was an obvious place to launch a sporting moonshot – a cricket league that can survive and thrive in America.Last week, Space Center Houston hosted a reveal of next-generation spacesuits for a lunar mission. A few days later its main hall was crowded with cricketers wearing gaudy baseball caps in the colours of their new teams as the latest attempt to bring professional cricket to the US held its domestic player draft. Continue reading...
Those at the top need to have skin in the game – and know that risky decisions they make will affect them tooExecutives at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Credit Suisse took substantial risks. SVB proactively expanded the bank’s deposits, some might say excessively. These depositors were uninsured and undiversified. And back when interest rates were low, the bank invested significantly in US government bonds, which was fine at the time. But when there were signs that interest rates were rising and creating substantial interest rate risk, managers left this portfolio unhedged and unchanged. How come SVB managers took those risks? It seemed that they lacked “skin in the game”.The risks taken by executives at Credit Suisse were of a different nature, but still substantial. By becoming involved in such companies as the now defunct Greensill and Archegos, the bank’s capital took a hit. The fines it has accrued after facing scandal after scandal have also bitten into its capital. It can be said that those involved also lacked skin in the game.Natacha Postel-Vinay is assistant professor of economic history at the London School of Economics Continue reading...
The Bronx Bombers’ cheapness will be seen by many as another sign that the franchise remains trapped in the glory days of its pastYou would think that playing for the most valuable franchise in baseball would come with all the perks, but that turns out not to be true. Apparently, signing with the New York Yankees means paying for your own wifi on team flights. Is this merely cheapness on the part of team ownership, or another example of the Yankees being trapped in the past?Let’s start with Stephanie Apstein’s bombshell (well, bombshell-ish) report for Sports Illustrated that revealed that when the Yankees take team flights on Delta, players have to pay out of their own pockets if they want to check their emails. Apstein’s research uncovered that only one other MLB team fails to provide free wifi for its players: the Cincinnati Reds. This means that in this one instance, the Yankees are actually cheaper than the Miami Marlins. Continue reading...
I’m now living full-time in my own personal sunk-cost fallacy. It’s a white-knuckle ride I really don’t need to be onLike all bad ideas, this enterprise started with me thinking: “I bet I could make this myself.” It was kimchi. Everyone really likes it: one kid likes it in a pancake, another likes it in a butter curry, a third likes it with falafel, which he calls “fusion” just to troll me. I like it when I have a hangover; Mr Z likes it on everything; my friend likes it but has rheumatoid arthritis and doesn’t live anywhere near a Korean supermarket. The logic seemed to me almost inexorable: if everyone likes this thing, I bet I could make it myself.So, newsflash everyone: your average kimchi is not vegetarian. It has a load of fish sauce in it, which yes, you can substitute with vegan fish sauce, except there is also fermented shrimp, and it really can’t be overstated how not-vegetarian that is. There is a point in the fermentation lifecycle of a shrimp that it goes beyond even crustacea – in stench and intensity, it’s basically reindeer. It’s impossible to know what to do with this information: do I assume that the shop-bought stuff is veggie, which is fair, as I cannot read the ingredients (too small, also in Korean)? Do I cut the vegetarians out of my homemade experiment, or just pretend to forget there is shrimp in it, which will take some doing, given that my hands, my face and all my clothes still smell very strongly of the controlled rotting of something that was once alive?Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Directive sidesteps Republican-controlled state legislature, which wasn’t able to pass similar legislation before recessMissouri’s Republican attorney general on Monday said he will limit access to gender-affirming care for minors, sidestepping the GOP-led state senate as it struggles to pass a law banning the practice for children completely.As hundreds of activists rallied at the state capitol to pressure lawmakers to act on the bill, Andrew Bailey announced plans to file an emergency rule. Continue reading...
President rejects legislation to overturn a labor department rule Republicans have denounced as ‘woke capitalism’Joe Biden issued the first veto of his presidency on Monday, rejecting legislation to overturn a labor department rule related to an investment strategy for Americans’ retirement plans that Republicans have derided as “woke capitalism”.“The legislation passed by the Congress would put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country. They couldn’t take into consideration investments that would be impacted by climate, impacted by overpaying executives,” Biden said in an Oval Office video released by the White House. “And that’s why I decided to veto it.” Continue reading...
The four were also convicted of conspiracy stemming from an insurrection at the Capitol in failed effort to keep Trump in officeFour people associated with the far-right Oath Keepers militia were convicted on Monday of conspiracy and obstruction charges stemming from the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 by extremist supporters of Donald Trump in a failed attempt to keep him in office, in the latest trial involving members of the antigovernment group.A Washington DC jury found Sandra Parker, of Morrow, Ohio, Laura Steele, of Thomasville, North Carolina, William Isaacs, of Kissimmee, Florida, and Connie Meggs, of Dunnellon, Florida, guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and other felony charges. Continue reading...
Manhattan judge allows central accusations that banks benefitted from ties to sex trafficker to proceedA US judge has ruled that a pair of lawsuits accusing two major banks of knowingly benefitting from ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein can proceed, though in a narrower form than had been initially filed.The four-page ruling by Manhattan district judge Jed Rakoff granted motions by JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank to dismiss some counts against them, but permitted the central claims brought by Epstein accusers and the US Virgin Islands to proceed. Continue reading...
Lowland communities of Alpaugh and Allensworth evacuated amid warnings that floods could isolate or trap residentsAs California communities continued to grapple with the aftermath of storms last week that displaced thousands and destroyed homes and infrastructure, thousands more were ordered to evacuate on Sunday in the agricultural Central Valley.The lowland communities of Alpaugh and Allensworth were evacuated after officials warned that floods could isolate or trap residents behind impassable roadways. The towns saw recent flooding due to a levee breach, which has been temporarily patched. Residents of Allensworth, the state’s first town to be founded by Black Americans, have been working to revive the local economy after decades of racist neglect had left the area without access to clean water. Continue reading...
by Courtney E Martin, The Fuller Project on (#69ZQS)
Pandemic relief initiatives helped lift many families out of poverty and now those programs have all but disappearedLike many working mothers, the first months of the pandemic were a nightmare for Andria Kemp-Sellers. The state of California declared her husband’s job at a sugar factory essential, so he continued to go in for 12-hour shifts. She stayed at home in Vallejo, juggling raising their three children and teaching 25 four- and five-year-olds online in Oakland.“The kids were eating me out of house and home because they were bored,” Kemp-Sellers said, laughing. “Eating became an event!” Continue reading...
The US bank may need to raise more funds despite a $30bn rescue last weekShares in troubled First Republic Bank crashed more than 46% on Monday, after reports the San Francisco-based bank may need to raise more funds despite a $30bn (£24bn) rescue last week.As the growing banking crisis spread into a new week, the credit rating of the regional bank was downgraded deeper into junk status by S&P Global. The agency said that the bank, which caters to wealthy clients, probably faced “high liquidity stress with substantial outflows”. Continue reading...
Investigators arrest James Toliver Craig following evidence he arranged for a canister of potassium cyanide to be sent to his officeIn what authorities have called a “heinous, complex and calculated murder”, a dentist from the Denver area is facing accusations that he poisoned his wife and killed her so that he could make more room in his life for his mistress.James Toliver Craig, 45, of Aurora, Colorado, came under scrutiny after he drove his 43-year-old wife Angela Craig to a hospital on Wednesday night as she complained of severe headaches and dizziness, according to police. Her condition quickly worsened, and medical staff placed her on a machine meant to help her breathe before declaring her dead. Continue reading...
St Patrick's Day revellers were surprised by mysterious streaks of light in the sky on Friday night, with footage posted to social media showing the eerie sight in the Sacramento area. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell told the Associated Press he was 99.9% confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris Continue reading...
Tackling the climate emergency needs public funding, but without socialising the risk and allowing banks to privatise the profitThe world is only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. On current trends, we will shoot past the target within a decade. That’s the warning from the world’s leading scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In their last report while it is still feasible to stay within 1.5C, they warn that what governments do in the next few years to limit greenhouse gas emissions will determine whether temperatures keep rising dangerously or fall back to safe levels.Billions of poor people who bear the least responsibility for the climate emergency are already being hit hard. Extreme weather events such as the flash floods in Turkey or Cyclone Freddy over southern Africa, which took hundreds of lives, are becoming more common occurrences. It is unequivocal, say the scientists, that human activity has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. It is also human activity that can bring temperatures down. Cutting carbon pollution and fossil fuel use by nearly two-thirds by 2035 would give humanity a decent shot at the target. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, spelled out what this means: an end to new fossil fuel exploration and rich countries exiting coal, oil and gas by 2040. The UK, which is opening coalmines and approving North Sea oil and gas licences, should take note. Continue reading...
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