The performance was first good thing' for Democrats in weeks after the ex-president dished out insults and liesAs Donald Trump got into his stride at the Republican national convention on Thursday night, largely ad-libbing one of the longest presidential acceptance speeches in US history, the adulation among his Make America Great Again (Maga) crowd inside the hall was matched outside by a cautious sigh of relief from Democrats.After several painful weeks of Democratic party implosion, as an ageing Joe Biden self-isolates with Covid while calls for him to step down mount relentlessly, Trump managed to give despairing Democrats something they least expected: hope. Van Jones, a former special adviser to Barack Obama, put it succinctly on CNN. Continue reading...
The event's vanishing act on abortion reflects Republican uncertainty over how to talk about a losing issueWhen he took the stage four years ago at the 2020 Republican national convention, Donald Trump made sure to rail against Democrats over their support for abortion rights.Democrat politicians refuse to protect innocent life, and then they lecture us about morality and saving America's soul?" Trump boomed. Tonight, we proudly declare that all children, born and unborn, have a god-given right to life." Continue reading...
Voters have concerns over Biden and Trump's mental acuity, and 63% agree they're both embarrassing'Despite reporting that Joe Biden might be becoming more receptive to calls for him to step aside, he has for weeks rejected calls from within his party to end his candidacy for the presidency. Nothing but an intervention from the Lord Almighty" would keep him from being the Democratic nominee, he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. He was 1,000%" remaining in the race, unless I get hit by a train", he told Complex's Chris Speedy" Morman. Only a medical condition" would push him out, he told BET's Ed Gordon.But he also indicated during a high-stakes news conference last week that he might be persuaded to step aside if his team came to him and said: There's no way you can win." However, the 81-year-old president quickly followed up: No one is saying that. No poll says that." Continue reading...
Trump and Peter Navarro - fresh out of Florida jail - both addressed convention with Paul Manafort in attendanceThe Republican party that promised in its 2024 policy platform to restore law and order" as a pillar" of American civilisation" packed up and left Milwaukee on Friday after a convention featuring numerous felons.The most prominent was the keynote speaker: Donald Trump, the former president turned nominee who in May was convicted in New York on 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star. Continue reading...
Find out who won each event at the Paris Olympics with our searchable list of results, events and disciplinesEvery medallist at the Paris Olympic Games is at your fingertips. We've crunched the data so that you can filter by sport to see which competitors finished on the podium for their nation. Continue reading...
Make sure you don't miss a thing with our full, updating guide to the dates and times of all the events at Paris 2024Search for every event and start time at the Paris Olympics with our comprehensive live schedule. From the football pitch to the pool, via track and field and much more, use our filter tool to pinpoint the sports and disciplines you want to follow most so that you don't miss a thing. Continue reading...
Find out who is leading the way at the Olympics, and drill down to see which events each country has won medals forAs is traditional, the table prioritises the number of gold medals won. On this basis at the 2020 Olympics, held in Tokyo in 2021, the United States led the field with 39 golds, with China second on 38 and Japan third with 27. If countries have the same number of gold medals, the order is then dictated by which has the most silvers, and finally bronze if the numbers are still identical. Continue reading...
The only thing we can say for sure that JD Vance believes is that he, personally, should have as much power as possibleHow many faces does JD Vance have? For one thing, he looks a lot different these days. Around the time the election denier first ran for Senate in Ohio, in 2022, he grew a beard, perhaps to cover up his decidedly childlike countenance. As rumors swirled this summer that Donald Trump would choose Vance as his running mate - replacing Mike Pence, who left the vice-presidency after a mob of angry Trump supporters tried to hang him - some wondered if maybe Vance would shave. Trump, it seems, doesn't like beards, and prefers his underlings clean-shaven. And JD Vance is - has always been - willing to do just about anything to secure the approval of the powerful.According to historian Gabriel Winant, Vance has spent much of his life clinging to a series of mentors, whom he has used for professional advancement before moving on from - and, ultimately, betraying. There was his grandmother, or Meemaw", the hardscrabble woman who raised him in rural Ohio - but whom he depicted as ignorant and ultimately culturally pathological in his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. There was his Yale Law School mentor Amy Chua, the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and wife of Jed Rubenfeld, who was suspended from Yale Law after an investigation found that he sexually harassed his students. (Chua also mentored Vance's wife, Usha Vance, whom she helped secure a clerkship with Brett Kavanaugh.) But Vance left this center-right Yale Law milieu for Silicon Valley, where he made his fortune as a venture capitalist under the tutelage (and with the funding) of the far-right techo-libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, who would later go on to bankroll Vance's Senate campaign. Thiel seems to have introduced Vance to his other mentor, the reactionary neo-monarchist" and favorite intellectual of the Silicon Valley right, Curtis Yarvin. Continue reading...
Amarillo will decide in November on being sanctuary city for the unborn' as activists ready campaign against measureA city nestled in the northern tip of Texas, which was at the heart of a major US supreme court case over abortion rights this year, has found itself at the forefront of the abortion wars once again.Come November, residents of Amarillo, Texas, will vote on an ordinance that would declare Amarillo a sanctuary city for the unborn" and ban people from helping patients travel through Amarillo to access abortions - what the ordinance calls abortion trafficking". It would also ban people from possessing or distributing abortion pills within Amarillo city limits. Continue reading...
Every luminary from Boris Johnson to the MP for Clacton has been lining up for a chance to enter the former president's backchannelBoris Johnson's supporters will always tell you he is hugely popular in the US, so the spectacle of the former British prime minister addressing a ballroomful of empty chairs at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee is hideously poignant. Politically speaking, it is obviously even worse than when Cheryl got binned off the US X Factor. The idea of one or other of The Anecdotes falling with no one to hear it ... well, Johnson was not so much casting his pearls before swine as spaffing them all over an empty pigsty.But the erstwhile PM was not alone. I mean, he was virtually alone in the ballroom - but he had a peer group out there in Milwaukee. Liz Truss, Nigel Farage, Russell Brand - it's almost as if the US election will be fought more edifyingly than the contest to be the most desperate Brit at the RNC. Nothing says our empire ended several decades ago" like the scramble to get in on the end of theirs. Continue reading...
We endured months of hell to get our son, who has cerebral palsy, out of danger. For most, there is no escaping the horrorWhen bombs fell around us in Gaza, my son Adham would become stone-like - unable to move, eat or sleep. Sometimes he was even unable to breathe.Adham is 27 years old and has cerebral palsy. No human being should have to endure what the people of Gaza are being put through, but the feeling of desperation and sheer helplessness is even worse for people with disabilities, or who are sick. As a parent, it has been heart-wrenching to see the toll that this conflict has taken on Adham.Jamal al Rozzi is executive director of the National Rehabilitation Society in the Gaza Strip Continue reading...
No sector remains untouched' after global outage linked to botched update to security software called CrowdStrike. Plus: the rise of the sporting dad bod Don't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.Businesses including banks, airlines, telecoms companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets have been taken offline by a Microsoft outage linked to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Experts are calling the outage an unprecedented global crisis".What happened? A botched update to CrowdStrike security software - a well-regarded malware and endpoint protection tool used by entities around the world - caused Windows machines to boot and crash on an infinite loop, explained Ilkka Turunen, of the software supply chain management firm Sonatype.What has the outage affected? Flights on US airlines including American, Delta and United have been grounded while airports in Germany and Spain have also been reporting issues. Grocery stores in Australia have gone offline. Emergency 911 lines in Alaska went down, as did TV and radio broadcasters in the UK.What have CrowdStrike and Microsoft said? CrowdStrike ran a recorded phone message on Friday saying it was aware of reports of crashes on Windows". The situation is developing: follow the Guardian's liveblog for the latest news.What did Trump say about the assassination attempt on him? Trump said his speech may be the last time he spoke of the attempt on his life because it was too difficult for him, and that he had been saved by the grace of God. I had God on my side, I felt that," he said. Trump went on to kiss the helmet and embrace the uniform of Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was killed as he shielded his family during the shooting.How did the speech go down? The adoring crowd, many wearing bandages over their ears in solidarity with the injury Trump sustained, chanted: Fight! Fight! Fight!" And punched their own fists in the air in unison - echoing Trump's immediate response to the attack.What were some of Trump's policy messages? He promised, once again, to carry out the largest deportation of immigrants in US history, and although other convention speakers largely avoided questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump accused Democrats of having used Covid to cheat". Continue reading...
Doubts about 2020 and fears of another stolen' election persist - while Trump has beseeched attendees to protect the vote'Don't fuck us," Lara Logan, the former CBS News anchor turned to me and said. If you use the word conspiracy theorist in your story, I'm going to haunt you when I die."It was the third day of the Republican national convention and Logan was standing in the atrium of a hotel that was once the old Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee. She was there to moderate a presentation by Jim Hoft, the founder of the far-right website Gateway Pundit, and his twin brother, Joe, who is also a contributor to the site. Continue reading...
Speakers at Republican national convention are GOP's most diverse ever as it cynically rebrands as party of racial unityThe first day of the Republican national convention featured an unexpected guest speaker on the schedule: Amber Rose, a model, reality star and former girlfriend of Kanye West.The truth is the media has lied to us about Donald Trump," she said during her five-minute address to the audience. I believed the leftwing propaganda that Donald Trump was a racist ... Trump and his supporters don't care if you're Black, white, gay or straight. It's all love." Continue reading...
Workplace tea-spilling' is seen as unethical, says a new study. Tell that to the buzzing network that keeps my town on the railsWord about town is that gossips are more trusted to help organise social events but less likely to be consulted for their ethics. By word", I mean a workplace study from the University of Leeds business school", and about town" means reported in the Times".Gossips unethical? For shame! The insights of this particular study I shall personally table for moral judgment at the next convergence of my neighbourhood girl gang. Gossip, friends, is both a moral mission and our pleasure on the fortnightly-or-so mornings we - 30s to 50s, a rainbow of sexualities and various household compositions - convene at the local cafe, eat toast and information-share.Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist Continue reading...
A Republican falls victim to Emily Maitlis, the mayor of Paris dips her toe in the Seine, and a yearning for summer rainTo the Republican national convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, where a longstanding tradition of British journalists interviewing Americans in a style euphemistically known as irreverent" continues to deliver results. Continue reading...
The X owner, who will fully endorse' Trump, could set a new precedent for social media leadersMinutes after Donald Trump announced that he had selected JD Vance as his running mate, Elon Musk rushed to endorse the two Republican candidates to his 190 million followers on the social network that he owns. The tech billionaire proclaimed on X, formerly Twitter, that the ticket resounds with victory".Since the assassination attempt on Trump this past weekend, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has thrown his support behind the Republican party and positioned himself as the herald of Silicon Valley's shift rightward. He wrote on X the day of Trump's near-fatal shooting: I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery" and called on others in the industry to join him. Musk, in contention for the title of the world's richest man, will reportedly pledge $45m per month to a pro-Trump political action committee backed by other wealthy tech elites. Continue reading...
At many elite programs training is seen as impossible if sessions are stopped to care for injured playersClint* says he was suffering from an undiagnosed concussion when he collapsed on the field during preseason training camp for a team in the Power Five, the elite level of college football. It was an incident that foreshadowed the tragic death of Jordan McNair at a University of Maryland practice. Clint was attended to by medical staff and ultimately hospitalized overnight. Meanwhile, the head coach called out, Move the drill!" and sent the team to continue on another side of the field.One of my friends told me they had to carry on with practice and they didn't know if I was dead or not," Clint told us, adding: [Head coach] never checked on my wellbeing before, during, or after." Continue reading...
The Yankees have swung between brilliant and bumbling so far this season. A 64-game sprint will determine who these Bronx Bombers really areIt's one of baseball's biggest questions heading out of the All-Star break: just who are these New York Yankees? Are they the team that shot out of the gate, streaking to 50 wins against just 22 losses? A team that despite missing its reigning AL Cy Young Award winning ace, Gerrit Cole, for most of the season, had one of the best rotations and bullpens in baseball? A club riding a rookie surprise package, Luis Gil, who posted a 2.03 ERA through his first 14 starts, more or less out of nowhere? Are they the team with an offense resembling something out of the Yankee past, with Juan Soto, acquired in a blockbuster deal with San Diego in December, immediately making himself at home, posting MVP numbers as the Bomber offense soared even while Aaron Judge took time to heat up. Judge did eventually hot up, by the way, to levels approaching the heat of the sun, putting up some of the gaudiest first-half numbers in recent memory: 34 home runs, 24 doubles and a Ruthian OPS, but I digress. Are the Yankees a team that finally took the pressure off manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman, who under tremendous scrutiny prior to acquiring Soto, had seemingly finally put together a roster capable of doing something the Yanks haven't done since 2009: reach a World Series.Or, is the club's recent form - the Yankees have won just eight of their last 26 games - who they really are. Are they worse than the worst teams in baseball? The Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins, Oakland A's and Colorado Rockies, who all won more games than the Yankees in that stretch. Are they a team whose offense begins and ends with Soto, Judge and Stanton, their oft-injured DH who has put up 18 homers in limited play. Right now at least, it looks like those dominant Yankees of April and May have succumbed to the suddenly razor thin roster that let them down in June and July. Beyond the big three, there isn't a single New York bat in the lineup with an OPS over .700 - the mark of an average hitter - with the exception of Ben Rice, a little-known rookie who has hit six home runs in 24 games. Let's just say that calling their lineup unbalanced" is kind. Continue reading...
Donald Trump addresses the party faithful at the Republican national convention in his first speech since an assassination attempt. Still sporting a bandage on his right ear from the attack, the former president struck an unusually conciliatory tone during the speech's opening moments, accepting the Republican presidential nomination for the 5 November election, before pivoting to attacks on the Biden administration and vowing to shut down America's borders
Forget Cristiano Ronaldo's six pack: fans are finding comfort in athletes who look (a little) more like the average personA short while after helping Kansas City to victory at this year's Super Bowl, Travis Kelce repaired to the Bahamas for a little R & R. While he lapped up the sun and surf with his girlfriend, Taylor Swift, the paps zoomed in on the Chiefs star and snapped away. But the thing that stood out most in those pictures wasn't one of the most famous women in the world. It was Kelce's dad bod, either a strike for the body positivity movement or an abomination to sport.Are we reaching the end of the era of idolizing shirtless photos of Cristiano Ronaldo and other sports pin-ups who might appear perfectly at home inside a Howard Schatz coffee table book? Nowadays, it seems, sports fans are hungry for heroes who look a little more like them. Male fans in particular seem to have a soft spot for average sports figures: athletes who are not all lean muscle. Someone with a softly round torso and sympathy for those who might consider lawn care a valid form of exercise. Someone who, when they achieve the impossible, makes you say, He and I aren't so different'. Think Roger Federer in 2009, after marriage and twin daughters, continuing to mesmerize while carrying a slight paunch. Or Kelce in the Bahamas, a bit over his 250lbs playing weight. Continue reading...
Giorgia Meloni is trampling what few rights the LGBTQ+ community has - so many just feel grateful to be tolerated'I was chatting online the other day with a female friend who is undergoing IVF in Italy to have a child with her girlfriend. IVF for lesbian couples is not approved by law in Italy; instead, doctors have the power to decide whether to approve the treatment on a case-by-case basis.My friend was enthusiastic about her gynaecologist, because, as she told me, despite being utterly against same-sex parenting, she is helping us do it without objecting". That conversation left me with a bitter taste and, above all, confirmed how desensitised queer Italians have become to the daily discrimination they face.Viola Di Grado is an Italian novelist and literary translator. Her latest novel is Blue HungerDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The pernicious, oppressive era of arresting people for holding signs or merely walking down the street must come to an endHow do you know when protest tactics are working? When governments ban them. The oppressive laws introduced by the previous government - the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 - are a tick list of effective political engagement. Everything from locking on and digging tunnels to actions on roads, at airports, oil refineries or newspapers, even marching down a street, has been criminalised. Why? Because these methods work. If they didn't, the government wouldn't have bothered.The Conservatives justified their draconian measures with the claim that they prevented disruption to the public". But had they cared about disruption, they would have done all they could to prevent climate breakdown. Nothing is more disruptive than the flickering and eventual collapse of Earth systems. If you believe a few people sitting in the street is a major impediment to traffic, take a look at what a sea surge, a flash flood, a windstorm or a rail-buckling, road-melting, bridge-jamming heat event can do to transport infrastructure.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
by Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans on (#6PAVZ)
New charges filed against Anthony Odiong after eight accusers came forward alleging unwelcome sexual conductDays after being jailed in Florida on counts of possessing child abuse imagery, a Roman Catholic priest with ties to south-east Louisiana and Texas has been charged with two counts of sexual assault.Police in Waco, Texas, announced the new charges against Anthony Odiong late on Thursday in a statement. It said a total of eight victims had come forward alleging Odiong, 55, tried to use his influence as a priest to pursue sexual contact they either did not welcome or to which they could not consent. Continue reading...
Former wrestler Hulk Hogan took the stage at the Republican national convention on Thursday, giving a speech riddled with wrestling metaphors. 'You know something, I've seen some great tag teams in my time. Hulk Hogan and oh yeah, the 'Macho Man' Randy Savage. But you know something, I see the greatest tag team of my life standing upon us, getting ready to straighten this country out for all the real Americans,' Hogan saidSubscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
Former House speaker has reportedly told colleagues president could be persuaded to leave race soonJoe Biden has reportedly become more open in recent days to hearing arguments that he should step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate, and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told Democratic colleagues that he could be convinced to leave the race soon.The Washington Post reported that Pelosi has taken a prominent role in passing messages from House Democrats to the White House, relaying concerns that Biden is incapable of beating Donald Trump in November, and has said she thinks Biden is close to making a decision to end his campaign. Continue reading...
The Michigan city's residents ask where is the humanity?' as war in Gaza rages on. Some won't vote this fall in protestAbu Bilal sits quietly on a stool in Oriental Fashion, a clothing store he owns on Dearborn's Warren Avenue, listening to the radio. It's hard to ascertain whether his tone when talking about the war in Gaza is one of near-complete defeatism or seething anger.Ninety people were killed today; hundreds were injured," he says, referencing an Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in Khan Younis on Saturday. Continue reading...
Biden says precedence established in Trump's classified documents case should prevail in his own tax and gun casesPresident Joe Biden's son Hunter asked a federal judge on Thursday to dismiss tax and gun cases against him, citing a ruling in Florida this week that threw out a separate prosecution of Donald Trump.The requests in federal court in Delaware and California underscore the potential ramifications of US district judge Aileen Cannon's dismissal on Monday of the classified documents case against the former president and the possibility that it could unsettle the legal landscape surrounding the justice department's special counsels. Continue reading...
Rory McIlroy's Open hopes were left in tatters after a 78 as Dan Brown birdied the last to take a surprise lead on 6-underAdam Scott came so close to lifting the Claret Jug in 2012. It wasn't to be, and those closing four bogeys at Lytham will have left a scar. He had the Scottish Open snatched from under his nose last week by Bob MacIntyre, too. But there's little that vexes the genial Aussie too much, and here he his holing out from one of the deep bunkers guarding 1. An opening birdie, and while there are 71 holes still to play, we're allowed to dream. It's free.-1: Song (2), Kinoshita (2), Scott (1) Continue reading...
For about $80 you can have a pail-full of food pouches with a 25-year shelf life to help cope with disasters of all sortsThe growing threat of climate change and the increase in unpredictable natural disasters that comes with it is leading survival-minded shoppers to a bucket of possible salvation from Costco.The big box warehouse club retailer is selling the Readywise Emergency Food Bucket" for around $80 to its US customers. Continue reading...
After Bernie Sanders and AOC threw Biden a lifeline, he turned his focus to supreme court reform and medical debtJoe Biden, who so far has defied calls to quit the presidential race from Democrats worried about his ability to beat Donald Trump, this week rolled out a catalogue of left-leaning campaign promises aimed at working-class and middle-class Americans. His renewed emphasis on core progressive priorities comes after leading Washington progressives, Senator Bernie Sanders and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threw their weight behind his beleaguered candidacy.The moves reframe Biden's campaign to focus on a suite of issues from US supreme court reform to ending medical debt. They come as Biden is reportedly more open to calls for him to step aside, but still has not left the race. Continue reading...
Analysts play down concerns and maintain confidence in AI boom after index's worst day since December 2022The tech-heavy Nasdaq stock index has deepened its losses after this week's interventions by US presidential candidates, but analysts played down market jitters over chipmakers, saying the artificial intelligence boom would continue to support demand.New York's Nasdaq composite index staged a brief recovery on opening on Thursday but was down more than 1% at midday eastern time, after posting its worst day since December 2022 on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Corey Comperatore, 50, was a volunteer firefighter and father who died shielding his family from shootingHundreds of people who gathered to remember the former fire chief fatally shot at a weekend rally for former president Donald Trump were urged to find unity" as the area in rural Pennsylvania sought to recover from the assassination attempt.Wednesday's public event was the first of two to memorialize and celebrate Corey Comperatore's life. The second, a visitation for friends, was planned for Thursday at Laube Hall in Freeport. Continue reading...
Sebastian Hotz, aka El Hotzo, was dropped from his radio show and provoked anger from Elon Musk after now-deleted posts on XA 28-year-old German comedian has got into trouble with Donald Trump supporters and then Elon Musk after sending a series of tweets appearing to welcome the assassination attempt on the former US president.Sebastian Hotz, who posts and performs as El Hotzo, lost his job with a public broadcaster this week for a series of tweets on X, Musk's social media platform, after Trump narrowly escaped death, saying that the attempt had been like the last bus - unfortunately, just missed". Continue reading...
Reagon used her stirring alto and lyrics to fight racism, and was a music scholar and professor emeritus of historyBernice Johnson Reagon, an American civil rights activist who used her stirring alto and lyrics to fight racism, died on Tuesday at age 81, her daughter said on Wednesday.As a scholar, singer, composer, organizer and activist, Dr Reagon spent over half a century speaking out against racism and systemic inequities in the US and globally," said daughter Toshi Reagon, who like her mother is a musician and activist, in announcing her death on Facebook. Continue reading...
South LA has the highest levels of gun violence in the county - local organizations want to address how that affects kidsOne night in April last year, Dolores Munoz was jolted awake by a barrage of bullets ricocheting off her home. The rounds crashed through her living room window and tore through the bedroom wall of her 15-year-old daughter, who was spending the night at her cousin's house.Instinctively, Munoz ran to check on her five other children who were in the home with her. Thankfully, none of them were harmed. Thank God my daughter wasn't here," Munoz, 35, said through a translator days later, as her children sat quietly in the living room. Bullet holes in the wall had recently been patched and the shattered front window had been covered up with plywood. If she was home, she could have been killed." Continue reading...
Secret Service official says it is an insult' to imply women unqualified to be agents based on genderThe US Secret Service decried as an insult" rightwing attacks on the performance of female agents during the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump, and claims the presence of such agents and a woman as agency director are the result of diversity policies.It is an insult to the women of our agency to imply that they are unqualified based on gender," Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service communications chief, told NBC News. Continue reading...
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