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Speculation rife that president could endorse Cuomo or Adams - which could be good news for Zohran MamdaniMillions of people will go to the polls in New York City in November, but in a closely watched election for mayor it's a high-profile, highly unpopular former New Yorker who is attracting most of the attention.Donald Trump, who spent nearly seven decades in New York before leaving town after his first term as president, is the ghost at the feast in America's biggest city, a looming presence as he weighs whether to insert his considerable heft into the race. Continue reading...

Horror stories about detainments at the border have also soured some from visiting during Trump's second termKeith Serry was set to bring a show to New York City's Fringe festival this year, but pulled the plug a few weeks out. After 35 years of traveling to the United States, he says he no longer feels safe making the trip.The fact that we're being evaluated for our opinions entering a country that, at least until very recently, purported to be an example of democracy. Yeah, these are things that make me highly uncomfortable," said Serry, a Canadian performer and attorney. Continue reading...

A win for Democrat Catelin Drey over far-right Christopher Prosch would hamstring the state's Republican governorHe has compared abortion access to the Holocaust and pushed conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 2020 presidential election and climate crisis. Christopher Prosch is betting that Maga still rules in the US heartland.On Tuesday, the far-right Republican will take on Democrat Catelin Drey in a special general election for Iowa state senate district 1 after the previous incumbent, Republican Rocky De Witt, died in June. Continue reading...

The deployment of the national guard in Washington ignores the data. But Democrats must not ignore how people feelIn most of America's largest cities, crime, especially violent crime, is down. But the fear of crime is increasing.Donald Trump has made a career out of ignoring the reality of crime rates and of stoking that fear. Well before he entered politics and throughout his political career, he has talked about city life as life in a proverbial jungle.Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty Continue reading...

Rafael Nadal aside, there has been a paucity of male southpaw champions in recent decades. But that could change at Flushing Meadows this yearDuring the peak years of the Big Three, from 2008-2020, the only relevant issue to be discussed when discussing a grand slam draw was which of the trio was scheduled to meet before the final. And what this ultimately meant was that semi-finals often turned out be better than the finals (see: the 2010 and 2011 US Open semi-finals between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, or the 2013 and 2021 French Open semis between Rafael Nadal and Djokovic).Tennis hadn't had that kind of impenetrable triangle of stars since the Jimmy Connors-Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe troika's very brief hold on the sport in the late 1970s and very early 1980s. What makes that long-ago epoch stand out even further is the preponderance of left-handed players. Consider - from 1974 through 1984, a southpaw triumphed in every one of those 11 years at the US Open; Connors in 1974, 1976, 1978, 1982 and 1983; Manuel Orantes in 1975, Guillermo Vilas in 1977 and John McEnroe in 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1984. Further, in 1979 four of the top-six ranked men were lefties - Connors, McEnroe, Vilas and Roscoe Tanner. And just prior to Connors and McEnroe's dominance, the left-handed Rod Laver had been - by far - the best men's player in the world when the open era began. Continue reading...

As relocation firms report a surge in inquiries, US citizens who have made the move talk about why they left - and what they think could happen back homeThe scramble began in November as news broke that Donald Trump had been re-elected. Benjamin and Chrys Gorman had long said they would leave the US before seeing Trump inaugurated again, giving them exactly 76 days to sell their home, cars and most of their belongings and move four people, three dogs and two cats to Barcelona.I was saying: we've got more time than that, it won't go that fast," said Gorman. My wife said no, we need to be out of here - not just on inauguration day, but a few days before. And she was so right." Continue reading...

House minority leader decries plan confirmed by Pentagon while Chicago mayor calls it most flagrant violation of our constitution in the 21st century' - key US politics stories from Sunday 24 AugustHakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump had manufactured a crisis" to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders.Jeffries, appearing on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, accused the US president of playing games with the lives of Americans" with his unprecedented domestic deployment of the military, which has escalated to include the arming of troops currently patrolling Washington DC - after sending troops into Los Angeles in June. Continue reading...

Nobody's Girl, which Giuffre had been working on before her death, is set to be released this autumnThe posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers, will be published in the autumn, a publisher has announced.Giuffre had been working on Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, with the award-winning author and journalist Amy Wallace before her death earlier this year.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

Pentagon official confirms plan as House minority leader Jeffries says president is playing' with Americans' livesPlanning is underway to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday.We won't speculate on further operations. The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel," a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC. Continue reading...

Former champion Emma Raducanu secured her first victory at Flushing Meadows since lifting the trophy in 2021Shibahara's double fault allows Raducanu to make it 15-all, and a forehand into the net gives Raducanu the next point. But Shibahara is finally on the board, a forehand down the line providing her some relief. Raducanu leads 5-1.Shibahara finds the net while trying to return a backhand slice and goes long moments later, allowing Raducanu to go 5-0 up. Continue reading...

The US president has an aptitude for elbowing himself into the spotlight, and next year he'll make sure he has the world's attentionWhen Donald Trump remained on stage, grinning in the sun as Chelsea lifted the Club World Cup trophy last month, it was all too easy to treat the incident as a one-off mistake. A moment that said plenty about Trump's ego, sure. But ultimately, only a moment.Nope. It's reality. Inescapable. Donald Trump will be everywhere Fifa is in the US, including at the 2026 World Cup - due to start in about 10 months, when Canada and Mexico will co-host. Continue reading...

Weaponized AI surveillance platforms threaten human rights around the world. Here's how they workIce is just around the corner," my friend said, looking up from his phone. We were writing at a coffee shop in one of the oldest neighborhoods of New York City, where schools and churches support thriving migrant communities as they have since long before the United States existed. Now the agents of this rogue federal agency - recognized for civil rights abuses like racial profiling, wrongful detention, medical neglect and inhumane detentions - were just footsteps away, shaking down our neighbors in their homes and at the park across the street.A day earlier, I had met with foreign correspondents at the United Nations to explain the AI surveillance architecture that Ice is using across the United States. The law enforcement agency uses targeting technologies which one of my past employers, Palantir Technologies, has both pioneered and proliferated - tools I was once charged with illustrating as a graphic designer and writer, yet the consequences of which I am just coming to understand. Although largely invisible, technology like Palantir's plays a major role in world events, from wars in Iran, Gaza and Ukraine to the detainment of immigrants and dissident students in the United States. But despite its ubiquity, lawmakers, technologists and the media are failing to protect people from the threat of this particular kind of weaponized AI and its consequences, partly because they haven't recognized it by name. Continue reading...

The R&B star's unlikely set during SeaWorld's viral' summer shows became a stylish lesson in how to age as a performer with dignityJust before sunset on a luminous August evening, a few boats pulled up outside a waterfront stage at SeaWorld San Diego, the controversial theme park known for its dolphin and orca shows. Two people on a jetski idled next to the boats. They were waiting for the music to begin.Everyone was here to see Ginuwine, the R&B singer famous for Pony (1996) and In Those Jeans (2003). But why was the 54-year-old master of the late-90s sex ballad headlining a show at an aquatic theme park for children? Continue reading...

Serena Williams made a a surprise appearance at the International Tennis Hall of Fame ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island, emerging from behind the stage to introduce 'former rival, former fan and forever friend' Maria Sharapova for her induction on Saturday night. 'My favourite moments were always the quiet victories,' Sharapova told the audience. 'In giving my life to tennis, tennis gave me a remarkable life.'

Graham Platner's viral X post and unusual campaign launch video are bringing attention to his effort to unseat Susan CollinsOne of Graham Platner's high school yearbooks shows him babyfaced with a buzzcut, holding a sign proclaiming, in part: Free Palestine." The image is accompanied by a superlative his classmates bestowed upon him: Most Likely To Start A Revolution."Well see!" Platner wrote on X Thursday, posting a photo of the yearbook page, in a post that's been viewed 4.5m times. Now bearded, burly and tattooed, with a sweep of dirty blond hair above a sunburnt face, Platner still believes in a free Palestine. He also thinks it'll take something revolutionary to save the US, so earlier this week, when the oysterman announced his candidacy to be the next US senator from Maine, he pulled no punches. Continue reading...

As Trump threatens funding and public trust plummets, US schools are in the fight of a lifetime. This is how they can survive - with their souls intactIt is no secret that American universities are in the fight of a lifetime. With billions of dollars in federal support on the line, their ability to fund their research activities is clearly at stake. But for the biggest targets, such as Harvard, their pockets are unfathomably deep. While cuts may be painful, no financial threat is likely to be existential. What is harder to know is whether universities can come out of their current predicament with their souls intact.The groundwork for this situation has been in the making for more than a decade. While the destruction is a bipartisan phenomenon, early warning signs appeared in cancel culture", the left's version of campus censoriousness. More recently, the right's version has been even more brazen, as seen in boorish attempts by the Trump administration and some state governors to control what is taught in university classrooms. Continue reading...

Gavin Newsom has trolled the president mercilessly online, but he's counting on his redistricting scheme to reclaim the House for Democrats - and boost his presidential ambitionsIn the opening weeks of Donald Trump's second term, Gavin Newsom wagered that peacemaking was best: a tarmac greeting for Air Force One, an Oval Office visit and a podcast slot for Maga's biggest names. But then Trump came for California, and its governor dropped the niceties.With a flood of all-caps social media posts, a counterpunching redistricting proposal and a string of lawsuits challenging the new administration, Newsom is not just taking on Trump, he's stealing his tactics: fight, fight, fight. Continue reading...

Romeo and Juliet among at least 20 coyotes in New York City as animals gradually expand eastward into citiesIn the spring this year in New York, Chris St Lawrence would finish work as a naturalist on a whale watching boat and then quickly make the 90-minute trek to Central Park to arrive in time for sunset, when a pair of coyotes often start to creep out.St Lawrence, who is also a photographer, said it's taxing to stand for four hours on a boat, keeping his eyes peeled for marine mammals, and then to remain just as alert at the park in the middle of Manhattan, looking for Romeo and Juliet, as the coyotes have become known. Continue reading...

First Letitia James, then Adam Schiff and now president has trained his ire on Lisa Cook, threatening to fire Fed governorDonald Trump and his allies have been accused of executing a pattern of lawfare" akin to those exerted by authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Russia after adopting a new strategy to target political opponents: allegations of mortgage fraud.First it was Letitia James, the New York attorney general, then it was Adam Schiff, a California senator. Now, the president is targeting Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, demanding she resign and threatening to fire her. Continue reading...

When Putin blamed the 2020 US election result on mail-in voting he bolstered a Trump obsession - just one example of the blurring of international goals and domestic grievancesIt was a language he could understand. Donald Trump had lost the 2020 US presidential election, Russia's Vladimir Putin told him last Friday, because it was rigged through mail-in voting.Three days later, the president announced that lawyers were drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in balloting, a method used by nearly a third of Americans that has not been credibly linked to election fraud. Continue reading...

The seven-times major champion is making her 25th appearance, facing Karolina Muchova in the stadium she helped christen in 1997Venus Williams will take the court on Monday night for her record-extending 25th US Open singles appearance, the Here We Go Again meme brought to life, quite literally as enduring a part of the Flushing Meadows iconography as Arthur Ashe Stadium itself. At 45, two years removed from her last grand slam match and ranked No 610 in the world, she will face Karolina Muchova, the Czech 11th seed and 2023 French Open runner-up who has twice reached the semi-finals in New York.If the scale of the task before her is formidable, so too is the symbolism of her presence. Williams is the oldest singles competitor at America's national championships since Renee Richards 44 years ago. She made her debut here as a 17-year-old in 1997 - the same year Ashe was completed and replaced Armstrong as the tournament's main stadium - becoming the first unseeded player in the Open era to reach the final before losing to Martina Hingis. Twenty-eight years later, she returns with her place in history long since assured but her taste for the fight undiminished. Continue reading...

The Trump administration plans to deport Abrego to Uganda after a months-long saga that saw him wrongfully deported to El Salvador

Immigrant population falls by more than a million people since Donald Trump took office in January. Key US politics stories from Saturday 23 AugustThe immigrant population of the United States, which has been growing for more than 50 years, has declined by more than a million people since Donald Trump took office in January.According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, there were a record 53.3 million immigrants in the US in January, when Trump took office for the second time. By June, that number had dropped to 51.9 million. Continue reading...

Wall Street Journal says move is part of Trump administration's effort to get Putin into peace talksUS defense officials have blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia since late spring as part of a Trump administration effort to get Vladimir Putin to engage in peace talks , according to a report on Saturday.The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from using US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms. Continue reading...

Pew Research Center study shows 51.9 million immigrants in US in June, down from record 53.3 million in JanuaryThe immigrant population of the United States, which has been growing for more than 50 years, has declined by more than a million people since Donald Trump took office in January and defined immigration as a threat to the nation, not one of its strengths.According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, there were a record 53.3 million immigrants in the US in January, when Trump took office for the second time. By June, that number had dropped to 51.9 million. Continue reading...

The Democratic nominee far outpaces former governor Andrew Cuomo and embattled incumbent Eric AdamsZohran Mamdani pulled in almost double the funds of his nearest rivals for New York City mayor between early July and mid-August, as the candidates prepare for the crucial post Labor Day push to the November poll.New York's City's campaign finance board said on Saturday that the democratic socialist, who won the Democratic party nomination in June against former state governor Andrew Cuomo, raised $1,051,200, with an average donation of $121 recorded equally from donors in and outside the state. Continue reading...

Bus overturned about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh while carrying players from Aliquippa junior high schoolA bus carrying a junior high football team to a game crashed on Saturday north of Pittsburgh, sending 21 of the 28 people onboard to the hospital, officials said.Twenty-five Aliquippa junior high students and three adults were headed to a game in nearby Gibsonia. The crash occurred in Economy Borough, about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh. Continue reading...

Salvadorian refused offer of deportation to Costa Rica before he was released to await trial on human smuggling chargesUS immigration officials said they intend to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, after he declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.The Costa Rica offer came late on Thursday, after it was clear that the Salvadorian national would probably be released from a Tennessee jail the following day. Continue reading...

Cities that limit cooperation with immigration authorities had sued Trump administration over funding freezeA federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to 34 sanctuary cities" and counties that limit cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement, significantly expanding a previous order.The order, issued on Friday by the San Francisco-based US district judge William Orrick, adds Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as Boston, Baltimore, Denver and Albuquerque, to cities that the administration is barred from denying funding. Continue reading...

The effects of a rightwing campaign to remake American higher education are fueling fear and anxiety, but advocates say they have plans to fight backStudents and faculty heading back to US colleges and universities from summer break are returning to bruised institutions reeling from the Trump administration's unprecedented campaign to bend higher education to its ideological will, and are bracing for more uncertainty ahead.At the University of Utah, the Black student union has lost its funding and campus space - one of many student groups to face the brunt of Donald Trump's anti-diversity measures. Indiana's public universities have cut or merged more than 400 degree programs, about one-fifth of their academic offerings, while scores of other universities have made similar cuts as their budgets are on the line. At Harvard and Columbia, certain forms of criticism of Israel will now be punishable as antisemitism. And across the country, schools will see their international student population plummet after the administration erected a host of new barriers to students seeking to travel to the US. Continue reading...

Gavin Newsom has an incredible knack for doing the right thing in the most annoying way possibleIf this Clickhole article is to be believed (it shouldn't be), California's governor is looking to get a job in comedy.The reality is a bit less appealing: Gavin Newsom wants to be president of the U S. His office has ramped up social media attacks on Donald Trump, his policies, and, predictably, his bugnuts tweeting. I have witnessed the rise of Gavin Newsom firsthand: from his tenure as mayor of San Francisco to the governorship of my state to this deeply embarrassing photo with a future resident of Mar-a-Lago. At last, the world can finally see the Gavin Newsom I have come to vehemently tolerate - a man with a tendency to stumble into doing the right thing in the most annoying way possible.Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...

The United Daughters of the Confederacy set out to make slavery respectable again by promoting the lost cause'It should surprise no one that former cast members from reality shows that ran for more than 15 seasons are running out of new material. Days ago, Donald Trump, former star of NBC's The Apprentice and current US president, posted a lengthy Truth Social rant in which he (again) threatened the country's leading cultural institutions to adhere to his political ideology. The target was one he has had in his crosshairs before - the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) - which Trump called OUT OF CONTROL" in his post. Everything discussed [in NMAAHC exhibits] is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was," Trump unloaded. WOKE IS BROKE," he continued through his customary use of all caps and misplaced capitalization of common nouns. We have the HOTTEST Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums."The tirade left many wondering what exactly Trump saw as the upsides of slavery, but also where they had previously heard this recycled talking point. The comment seemed to echo comments made just days prior by his fellow reality show bully Jillian Michaels, a former trainer on NBC's The Biggest Loser, the weight-loss competition show that launched alongside The Apprentice in 2004. Michaels had been making her rounds in media and public appearances, rebranding from verbally abusive fat shamer to Maga influencer.Saida Grundy is an associate professor of sociology and African American studies at Boston University, and the author of Respectable: Politics and Paradox in Making the Morehouse Man Continue reading...

Camp at Fort Bliss base on US-Mexico border described as dangerous misuse of military land and resources'Prominent Democratic lawmakers and legal advocates have called for the new immigration detention camp at Fort Bliss military base to be shut down amid accusations of lack of external oversight and concerns over access to legal services.Camp East Montana began full operation last weekend as a sprawling tent facility across acres of military land in the eastern part of El Paso, on the US-Mexico border in west Texas, amid rapid expansion plans and much controversy. Continue reading...

A new generation of Democrats is deeply unhappy with the entrenched political establishment. So they're going to try to take it overEarlier this year, Liam Elkind seized an opportunity to ask his longtime congressman, Jerry Nadler, what everyday New Yorkers like himself could do to help Democrats stand up to Donald Trump. Nadler's response, according to Elkind, was to donate to the DCCC" - the group that helps House Democrats keep their seats. Deeply unsatisfied, the 26-year-old decided to run for office against the 17-term incumbent.In Georgia, Everton Blair also sought answers from his long-serving congressman, David Scott, at a panel event earlier this year. When Blair asked him about Democrats' legislative strategy, the 80-year-old lawmaker was dismissive. I don't know who sent y'all," he said. Blair, 34, is now making a bid for Scott's seat. Continue reading...

Eddie Horne attended Dozier School for Boys in 1960s, a state-run institution known for molestation and beatingsA 75-year-old Florida man has just received his high school diploma decades after his education was derailed by severe abuse that he endured as a teenager while attending a notoriously brutal reform school.As he recounted to the local news outlets WTVT and WTSP, Eddie Horne's stroll across the graduation stage at a ceremony Thursday at St Petersburg high school in Pinellas county, Florida, fulfilled a goal that he set for himself after fighting to overcome the trauma inflicted on him beginning at age 14 at the state-run Dozier School for Boys. Continue reading...

This season of the long-running animated sitcom has aimed its ire at the cruelty and stupidity of an administration others have found hard to successfully ridiculeI'll admit it: I'm more of a Simpsons guy than a South Park guy. Nothing really against those South Park guys - I've caught plenty of episodes over its astonishing near-30-year run, and loved the 1999 big-screen movie. But while I haven't always maintained clockwork viewership of The Simpsons, either, those characters have proved durable enough to revive my interest in episodes old and new. South Park has a thinner bench by comparison, and as the show itself astutely pointed out years ago, it's difficult for a satirically minded animated sitcom to explore ground that The Simpsons hasn't covered already. South Park's political bent, too, has often seemed less varied than the warmer (but still sometimes cutting) social ribbing of Matt Groening's signature show. It's a fine line between omnidirectional satire and libertarian crankiness.And yet the 27th season of South Park has accomplished something vanishingly few of its peers, whether in animation or topical comedy, have been able to do: getting laughs taking shots at the second Trump administration. It's not that the White House is beyond reproach. Quite the opposite problem, much-documented: the Donald Trump cabal is so outsized in its stupidity and cruelty that it's hard to distend it into a funny" caricature, even a bleak one. In Trump's second term, it has only gotten bleaker; jokes that were worn out by the end of 2020 are getting retold with a nasty vengeance, and the bar for cathartic laughter has been raised considerably. Continue reading...

Wimbledon champion faces strong list of women's US Open title rivals, but the men's draw is still dominated by Sinner and AlcarazIga Swiatek has finally had a brief moment to catch her breath. Her life has been on fast-forward for the last few hectic yet rewarding weeks, emerging from the heat and humidity of the Cincinnati Open with another significant title. Fourteen hours later she was on court in New York, throwing herself into two long days of competition alongside her new partner, Casper Ruud. The stakes were low for singles players in the mixed doubles this week but every point she played meant more mental energy expended.There is still little time for Swiatek to reflect on how the summer has developed, but with the final grand slam tournament of the year starting on Sunday it is clear the past few months have become a defining moment in her career. Swiatek started the season swimming upstream, still reeling from her doping case last year. She emerged from that difficult period with the most surprising, special victory of her career, a triumph on grass, her least favourite surface, at Wimbledon, which she sealed with a merciless 6-0, 6-0 demolition of Amanda Anisimova in the final. In stark contrast to the relief she felt after previous triumphs, this victory brought her only joy. Continue reading...