US news | The Guardian

Fans can book a stay in Ken's bedroom, enjoy a grilled meal and even go home with a pair of roller skates and a surfboardIf you've always dreamt of a life that's plastic, fantastic and pink all over, your prayers have been answered by Airbnb. Beginning in mid-July, ahead of the premiere of the Barbie movie, Barbie fans can book a stay in Ken's bedroom in Barbie's oceanside mansion in Malibu, California.Though it's technically Barbie's property, her longtime partner, Ken, is the host, according to the Airbnb listing. And he's left personal touches like a grill, pool floaties that spell his name and a barrel of workout supplements called Beefy body brine" for guests to enjoy. Continue reading...

Smoke is expected to enter New York airspace on Wednesday and Thursday, with unhealthy' levels in the state's western regionAs the wildfires in Canada continue to shroud much of the midwest in a thick haze of smoke, New Yorkers are preparing yet again for the smoke to make its way further east.On Tuesday, the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, issued a warning on social media that the smoke from Canadian wildfires is forecast to enter New York airspace on Wednesday and Thursday. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Walt Nauta remains without a Florida lawyer after the person abruptly hiked their fees just before the arraignmentDonald Trump's valet charged in the classified documents case had his arraignment on Tuesday delayed for a second time to July by a magistrate judge, after he was forced to abandon his top choice Florida lawyer over a dispute about legal fees, according to two people familiar with the matter.The valet, Walt Nauta, appeared alongside Trump when the former president pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges in federal district court in Miami this month but could not himself enter a plea - a necessary step to start trial preparation - because he lacked local counsel. Continue reading...

Parties are facing a six-month deadline to agree the final details of a deal, according to senator Ron Johnson investigating the dealThe proposed merger between the PGA and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Tours in professional golf is still in enormous flux" because the parties are facing a six-month deadline to agree the final details of a deal, according to Ron Johnson, the senior Republican senator who is investigating it.The deal has rocked the world of golf and prompted concerns among some lawmakers and human rights activists that - if the deal succeeds - it could mark the first of many takeovers of sports leagues and other cultural institutions by Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act provides a range of arrangements for pregnancy-related conditions including morning sicknessA new federal law that requires employers to provide accommodations to pregnant and postpartum employees took effect on Tuesday, providing protections to millions of eligible people.The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires that employers with more than 15 workers provide reasonable accommodations" to people who are pregnant, postpartum or have a related medical condition, NBC News reported. Continue reading...

First UN human rights investigator allowed to visit since camp was set up says men subjected to inhuman and degrading' treatmentThe US government continues to subject the 30 men held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", the first UN human rights investigator allowed to visit the camp since it was set up 20 years ago has concluded.Fionnuala Ni Aolain was granted unprecedented access as an independent UN monitor, spending four days at Guantanamo in February and meeting a range of the 34 prisoners who were then detained. The number held has now fallen to 30, including the five prisoners accused of plotting the attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11. Continue reading...

The WikiLeaks founder faces extradition and an uncertain fate in the US. Our judges and politicians must interveneA lifesize bronze statue of him appeared in Parliament Square over the weekend but the real Julian Assange could very shortly be taken, handcuffed and protesting, from Belmarsh prison in London and flown off to a high security jail in the US.The statue, created by the Italian sculptor Davide Dormino, stood alongside two others, of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, at a rally to remind us that Assange's extradition could now be very imminent. Manning, of course, was the former US soldier who leaked the damning information that Assange published through WikiLeaks; Edward Snowden waits in Russia to see whether all the talk of the sanctity of free speech in his country amounts to more than words.Duncan Campbell is a freelance writer who worked for the Guardian as crime correspondent and Los Angeles correspondent Continue reading...

Agencies failed to sound the alarm' and downplayed threats even as building was being stormed on 6 January, Senate report saysA new report detailing intelligence failures leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol said government agencies responsible for anticipating trouble downplayed the threat even as the building was being stormed, in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden's election victory.The 105-page report, issued by Democrats on the Senate homeland security committee, said intelligence personnel at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies ignored warnings of violence in December 2020. Continue reading...

US justice department watchdog cites failure to assign a cellmate and problems with surveillance cameras as factors in his deathThe disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was able to kill himself due to a combination of negligence and misconduct" by authorities at a federal jail in New York City, a US justice department watchdog concluded.Epstein hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan correctional center in Manhattan in August 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Continue reading...

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York sues cleaner's employer after freezer turned off to mute annoying alarm'A cleaner at a college in New York state accidentally destroyed decades of research by turning off a freezer in order to mute annoying alarm" sounds.The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, is suing the cleaner's employer, alleging improper training. According to a lawsuit filed in the New York supreme court in Rensselaer county earlier this month, the university is seeking more than $1m in damages, the Times Union newspaper reported. Continue reading...

Pedestrian deaths are at a 40-year high and the number of cyclists hit by cars has increased since the pandemic. The most astounding part? These are preventable tragediesLentils are a versatile legume that can be used to make a tasty stew or to incapacitate your enemy's SUV. I know this because I recently Googled How do you deflate someone's tyres?" and found a Guardian article about eco-activists deflating SUV tyres by jamming lentils into the tyre valves: Which some might see as possibly one of the most Guardian" articles ever published.For the sake of any local law enforcement readers, I would like to make clear that I didn't act on the information: I have never weaponised a lentil. I was just rage-Googling; something I am increasingly wont to do. Continue reading...

Kansas City teen, who is Black, tells ABC's Good Morning America he thought there was no way the man would shoot himRalph Yarl, the Kansas City teenager who was shot after going to the wrong house to pick up his siblings, has described his ordeal.Speaking to ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday, Yarl, who is Black, said he thought there was no way that the white man pointing the gun at him through the glass door would shoot him. Continue reading...

Stop banging on about lapdog politicians and garden parties for the powerful. Why can't we just see Evgeny as a success, as he does?Let me transport you to a 2016 house party at the Umbrian estate of Evgeny Lebedev, now Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia. Glamour model Katie Price has just twice enlivened dinner by showing the table her latest breasts. According to one report, she is subsequently escorted to the kitchen by Evgeny's former SAS bodyguards and not seen again for the weekend.According to fellow guest Joan Collins, Pricey only repeated the tit trick because Joanie requested she show it to fellow-fellow guest Boris Johnson, who was at the time foreign secretary in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's government. This was not Johnson's only trip to the estate. On a stay two years later, he met Lebedev's father, the former KGB agent Alexander, without officials present. And according to a 2021 report by uninvited guests the Italian security services, who, it was this week revealed, were monitoring the property at the time, and had been for several years - it could not be ruled out that Lebedev Sr still worked for Russian intelligence and still enjoyed the favour of Putin. And according to what a member of Italy's foreign affairs committee told a new Channel 4 documentary entitled Boris, the Lord and the Russian Spy: You should really be careful on what kind of relationship you keep with such a person."Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Book by Miles Taylor says Stephen Miller made argument people onboard ship heading to US were not protected by constitutionThe top Trump adviser Stephen Miller advocated blowing up boats of migrants with drones, according to a new book by a former homeland security official previously revealed to be the anonymous" author behind a famous warning about Trump White House extremes.In his new book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump, Miles Taylor says in April 2018 Miller advocated an attack on a ship heading for the US, saying people onboard were not protected under the constitution as they were in international waters. Continue reading...

Lordstown Motors puts itself up for sale after unresolved dispute over promised investment from Taiwan companyLordstown Motors, the US electric truck manufacturer once lauded by former president Donald Trump as the savior of a depressed Ohio town, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.The automaker, named after the town where it is based, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware and put itself up for sale after failing to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Taiwan's Foxconn. It simultaneously took legal action against Foxconn. Continue reading...

Ex-president described materials as from defense department' despite recent assertions he was referring to news clippingsDonald Trump repeatedly talked about a document on Iran that he described as having come from the defense department" in an audio recording from July 2021 that cast doubt on his recent assertions that the material he was referring to were a stack of printed news clippings.The actual audio of the recording, played publicly for the first time by CNN and obtained by the Guardian, reveals the full extent of Trump's discussion that was only partially included in the indictment and could make for a compelling presentation if deemed admissible at trial. Continue reading...

Ukraine's western allies make pointed effort of being seen to stay out of the short-lived rebellion. Plus, why one country is considering digitally cloning itself

A second Trump presidency would kiss nonpartisan criminal justice goodbye. We must protect the attorney general's independenceLast week Donald Trump said that, if re-elected, he'd appoint a real special prosecutor" to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family".In other words, if Trump is re-elected, you can kiss nonpartisan criminal justice goodbye.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Mark Trammell wrote posts in 2013 and 2014 for Liberty Counsel, a far-right group on a crusade to strip LGBTQ people of their rights'The executive director of a Republican-linked nonprofit wrote blog posts for an extremist organization in which he advocated so-called conversion therapy", the supremacy of biblical rules on marriage over man-made law", and expressed a general theocratic view that divine law as interpreted by US evangelical Christians trumps secular law.The since-deleted posts by Mark Trammell - now executive director of the self-styled civil rights group Center for American Liberty (CAL) - were written for Liberty Counsel, dubbed an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its work to ensure that Christians can continue to engage in anti-LGBT discrimination in places of business under the guise of religious liberty'". Continue reading...

Damien Boyce did get a date with a judge following the ill-considered amorous advance after the $100 muggingAn Indiana woman who was robbed at gunpoint was later asked out by the perpetrator on Facebook.Last month, Amber Beraun, who lives in Indianapolis, was checking her mailbox late at night when a man approached her with a gun, WRTV reported. Continue reading...

I don't want to be churlish about Prince William's new Homewards foundation. However ...Prince William is going to solve homelessness with a new royal foundation, launching a project called Homewards that starts with 3m for six towns and cities across the UK. It's such a short sentence to make so little sense. You can look at the housing crisis from a range of perspectives. Some people are obsessed with planning permission; some have a supply-side fetish. You don't have to chalk it all up to the ever more feudal rentier economy. Nevertheless, we could agree, I think, that dropping half a mil into a city, even if it might put a roof over a handful of heads, would barely scratch the surface.Furthermore, whatever your view on equality - and again, there's a spectrum, with some people thinking great concentrations of unearned wealth are good for motivation or whatnot - it would still, I think, strike you as piquant that a man with housing plenty beyond anything he could ever use would style himself as ambassador for the business of getting people off the streets.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

France does not expect much in the way of philanthropy from its low-profile billionaire class. Perhaps it shouldIf you scroll through the first 10 or so pages of Google results for the charitable giving of the world's on- and off-again wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, you'll find ... practically nothing.The most high-profile things that do come up when searching for evidence of the generosity of the founder and CEO of the French luxury goods behemoth LVMH look more like acts of billionaire one-upmanship. LVMH paid for the architecturally stunning Fondation Louis Vuitton museum, which showcases Arnault's collection of modern art. The rival billionaire owner of the luxury brands group Kering, Francois Pinault, has his private collection of contemporary art on display in the Bourse de Commerce in Paris's 1st arrondissement. Arnault's 200m pledge towards the reconstruction of Notre Dame came just after Pinault pledged 100m. Continue reading...

Why does the Kansas City pitcher keep getting chances to lose? Sometimes it's easy to underestimate those athletes for whom availability is a virtueThe poet Elizabeth Bishop once wrote that the art of losing isn't hard to master." The exception to that rule may be Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jordan Lyles, who has proven it takes a special kind of talent to consistently lose at the major league level. He's shown, in fact, it's possible to make a nice career out of it.While his career has mostly flown under the radar, Lyles was making headlines for the worst possible reasons in 2023. Before Saturday's 9-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, the Royals had lost all 15 games he had started this season, with Lyles himself going 0-11 in those appearances. Continue reading...

Amid clear signs of the Russian leader's vulnerability, we must think beyond helping Kyiv survive and aim for Zelenskiy to actually winThe myth of Vladimir Putin's unchallengeable power has been fatally undermined by the challenge from Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner army. By surviving - for now - Prigozhin has set a dangerous precedent for others in Russia who may wish to test their strength against the Kremlin.But the weekend's events also showed a complete failure by Russia's military, security and intelligence agencies - in fact, by the state as a whole - to deal with the obvious challenge of an armed group apparently heading for Moscow. The evident confusion in Moscow and inability to respond to Prigozhin's challenge also proves Russia is not invincible in its conflict with Ukraine. That critical weakness can only be encouraging for Ukraine in its efforts to beat back the Russian invaders. Russia, it seems, may be strong on the frontline, but it is systemically fragile and the Kremlin can be frightened into paralysis.Keir Giles works with the Russia and Eurasia programme of Chatham House and is the author of Russia's War on Everybody Continue reading...

Ferris LeBlanc died in an arson attack on the LGBTQ+ bar UpStairs Lounge and was buried by the city in a field behind a cemeteryThe family of a second world war veteran who was killed in one of the deadliest attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in the US is still trying to recover his remains 50 years later and provide him what they consider to be a proper burial.Ferris LeBlanc, who grew up in California and helped the American military defeat Nazi forces at the Battle of the Bulge, died alongside 31 other people after an arsonist set fire to a second-floor gay bar in New Orleans's French Quarter neighborhood on 24 June 1973. LeBlanc had gone to the bar, which was named the UpStairs Lounge, two days after his 50th birthday. Continue reading...

Ex-president is heard discussing a Pentagon paper detailing plans to attack Iran with people who did not have security clearancesAn audio clip has emerged of Donald Trump discussing secret documents that he had not declassified at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club in July 2021, providing new evidence that the former president knew of proper declassification procedures.The recording, obtained by CNN, includes new details from a conversation that is a critical piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of Trump over the mishandling of classified information. It includes a moment when Trump seems to indicate he was holding a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran. Continue reading...

District judge Jed Rakoff approved the very large' amount in addition to a $75m payout agreement with Deutsche BankA US judge on Monday granted preliminary approval to JPMorgan Chase's $290m settlement with women who said Jeffrey Epstein abused them and that the largest US bank ignored the late financier's sex trafficking.The approval was issued by US district judge Jed Rakoff at a hearing in Manhattan federal court. Continue reading...

We won't be deterred,' says vice-president, urging Americans to fight for LGBTQ+ equality amid rightwing attacksKamala Harris urged Americans to continue to battle for equality in the face of fresh waves of anti-LGBTQ+ action and rhetoric by conservatives, as she made a surprise visit to the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City on Monday.The US vice-president celebrated the bar's place in gay rights history while warning that many queer Americans are living in fear" as rightwing legislatures pass draconian anti-LGBTQ+ laws and Republican leaders step up hostile rhetoric and conspiracy theories, particularly aimed at transgender and non-binary people. Continue reading...

US district court judge Aileen Cannon also scheduled a hearing to start the discovery process for classified documentsThe federal judge presiding over the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump in the classified documents case ruled against the government in her first pre-trial order on Monday, denying a request from federal prosecutors to file a list of potential witnesses against the former US president under seal.The government's motion does not explain why filing the list with the court is necessary; it does not offer a particularized basis to justify sealing the list from public view," the US district court judge Aileen Cannon wrote. Continue reading...

2024 presidential hopeful schedules event in competition with Donald Trump speech to Republican womenRon DeSantis's presidential campaign is struggling in the crucial state of New Hampshire and may have made the situation worse by scheduling an event on Tuesday in competition with a speech by Donald Trump to Republican women, prompting one prominent strategist to call the move stupid", Politico reported.It's the worst strategic move he has exhibited thus far," the New Hampshire Republican strategist, Mike Dennehy, told the website. It's just stupid, actually. You don't take on the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women." Continue reading...

Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder in hearing packed with victimsThe person who killed five people at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub last year was sentenced to life in prison on Monday, after victims called the shooter a monster" and coward" who hunted down revelers in a calculated attack on a sanctuary for the LGBTQ+ community.Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty on Monday to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder in an emotional courtroom hearing packed with victims and family members just seven months after the shooting. Continue reading...

David Renner, 27, died after he stepped in front of Delta Air Lines jet taxiing to arrival gate at San Antonio airportThe Texas airport worker who was killed after being sucked into a jet engine last week took his own life, authorities have determined.Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said they did not plan to conduct an investigation into the death of 27-year-old David Renner, all but closing a case that made national news headlines over the weekend.In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

Former top public health official, 87, stepped down as director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases last yearAnthony Fauci, who was previously the top public health official leading the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be joining the faculty at Georgetown University, in Washington DC.University officials announced in a statement on Monday that Fauci will join as a distinguished university professor" in the university's School of Medicine and McCourt School of Public Policy. Continue reading...

The United States and its allies were not involved in the weekend mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden has said.Biden said he would be in constant contact with Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy and that his team would continue assessing the fallout from the incident

Outages concentrated in south-eastern US, with severe thunderstorms in Ohio valley and a suspected tornado in IndianaMore than 700,000 Americans were without power on Sunday evening, and about 6 million across the US were at risk for extreme weather, according to CNN.The outages were concentrated in the south-eastern US, where there were severe thunderstorms in the Ohio valley as well as Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. There was a suspected tornado in Bargersville, Indiana, just south of Indianapolis. Continue reading...

Texas governor duped by satirical article about country star being booed by patriots' at made-up city in Abbott's own stateGovernor Greg Abbott of Texas drew online ridicule after sharing a fake article about country singer Garth Brooks being booed off the stage in a purported display of patriotism.On Sunday, the Republican politico responded to an article about Brooks being driven off the stage by booing patriots" condemning his prior messages of tolerance and inclusiveness at the 123rd annual Texas Country Jamboree in the city of Hambriston. Continue reading...

Far-right US congresswoman tweets TV turned on with an image of a laptop trying to connect and a link to an article on spyingThe far-right US congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene appeared to say she thinks she is being spied on through her television, possibly by the US government, and that someone may soon try to kill her.In a tweet on Sunday, the Republican from Georgia said: Last night in my DC residence, the television turned on by itself and the screen showed someone's laptop trying to connect to the TV." Continue reading...

Kentucky woman allegedly saw sign for Mexican city of Juarez and shot Daniel Piedra multiple times in the back of the headA Texas man in El Paso died days after being shot by his Uber passenger, who claimed to have incorrectly assumed she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico.Daniel Piedra, 52, had been on life support after being shot multiple times in the back of the head on 16 June. Doctors said he would never be able to come off life support, and his family made the decision to pull him off it on Wednesday, when he died. Continue reading...

The boy died after falling ill during the hike, and his stepfather was killed in a car accident as he tried to find help, authorities saidA Florida man and his teenage stepson died after hiking in extreme heat at Big Bend national park in south-west Texas, according to officials.The boy died after falling ill during the hike, and his stepfather was killed in a car accident as he tried to find help, authorities said. Their identities weren't immediately released. Continue reading...

An anonymous letter detailed abuses including hidden cameras, theft, kidnapping, druggings and rape - and their cover-upA slew of investigations have opened up against the West Virginia state police department after startling claims surfaced in recent months including alleged hidden cameras in women's locker rooms, casino thefts, cover-ups, kidnappings, druggings and rape.The investigations were initiated after an anonymous five-page letter was sent to multiple state lawmakers. The contents of the letter, which were then covered by local media outlets, consisted of multiple damning claims. Those claims triggered leadership changes across the department as well as sweeping investigations into the West Virginia state police. Continue reading...

Donald Fields Jr faced a life sentence after he was charged with his father's murder. Instead, his case became a pioneering instance of restorative justiceAlex Fields had not spoken to his nephew in four years. Not since the killing.He had been preparing himself for months. Speaking with his counselors and siblings, seeking guidance from his church as he ran through what their first conversation would be like. But when his nephew Donald Fields Jr finally appeared over Zoom from the county jail, Alex Fields was consumed by the moment. Continue reading...

Footage shows defence minister Sergei Shoigu visiting troops in Ukraine as counter-terror measures ended. Plus, how El Nino is affecting global heating in 2023

Bras are evolving, they say. But after three decades of disappointment I'm running out of patienceHaving read in last week's New Yorker that the US army has a new, exhaustively tested bra for female combatants, I'm interested, of course. The Army Tactical Bra, which is fire-resistant and designed to reduce the cognitive burden on the wearer" is the fruit of quizzing 18,000 female soldiers on their bra experiences, and crafted in collaboration with a range of cantilevering experts. It's far too confidential for much brass tacks information to be divulged but I did learn the model the journalist tried (there are four in total) had a zip fastening, and she felt cozily swaddled". A little disappointing: I'd hope for a concealed dagger, cyanide capsules and Kevlar at the least - something Q might whip out if Bond had a bust.But I'm used to bra disappointment. Like most women, I have measured out my life in brutally unsatisfactory cups. The cognitive burden" is real: I've gone almost the full Kubler-Ross curve attempting to find satisfactory underpinnings. There were the expensive, self-deluding fashion" bra years of sadly trying to shove myself into inadequate triangles of fancy fabric that create a horrifying quadraboob. Then when I moved to London in my 20s, I took myself hopefully to Rigby & Peller (corsetieres to her late Maj until owner June Kenton's memoir reportedly caused palace displeasure, though come on, who could resist titling something Storm in a D-Cup?). I hoped to find something non-hideous in my non-standard size and remember tentatively holding up pretty fragments of lace and silk for the fitting expert, who wordlessly exchanged them for something sturdily beige. Decades of further crushed hopes followed, from orthopaedic-looking and instantly grey nursing bras to slippery straps and expensive Italian engineering, which much like the car equivalent, turned out to be all style and no substance.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Republican presidential candidates attacked trans people and the LGBTQ+ community at a gathering of the religious right last weekAmericans are frustrated and anxious", lamented former vice-president Mike Pence. The country is in a precarious position" assessed North Carolina's lieutenant governor Mark Robinson. And Glenn Jacobs, a former professional wrestling star and current mayor of Knox county, Tennessee, declared that these are hard times".What could be the cause of such hardship? To the Republican presidential candidates who spoke in Washington DC on Friday at a major gathering of the religious right, the culprit was American society's acceptance of transgender people and the broader LGBTQ+ community. Continue reading...

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

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

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

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

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