The Fast Recovery Act would create a council of parent companies, workers, franchises and regulators to monitor pay, work setupsFast food workers in California are fighting to pass a first of its kind bill that would provide employees with the power to negotiate wages and possibly improve working condition standards across the industry.The Fast Recovery Act, or AB 257, would create a statewide fast food sector council that would include workers, state regulators, franchises and their parent companies and set wage and other standards for the industry. The act would also hold franchises and their parent corporations more accountable to labor laws. Continue reading...
The Washington Capitals star is popular among Russians who may not usually question their leader. And he has debated the need for warIn 2017, Alexander Ovechkin, inarguably the best Russian hockey player alive or dead and the country’s most famous male athlete, started something called PutinTeam.“I have never hidden my attitude towards our president, always supporting him,” the Muscovite and captain of the NHL’s Washington Capitals wrote, three years after Russia annexed Crimea. “I am confident that there are many of us, supporting Vladimir Putin. So let’s unite and show everyone a united and strong Russia!” Continue reading...
Bob Bradley’s disastrous reign at Swansea City confirmed many prejudices against American coaches. But the new manager at Elland Road has pedigreeThe jokes about Bob Bradley lasted longer than he did as Swansea City manager. Sky Sports’ Soccer AM ran a sketch for years after the American had departed the Liberty Stadium mocking how he talked about football. Brad Bobley, as the character was dubbed, spoke in a Stateside twang about “scoop-de-loop volleys” and “megnuts” and “midfield stripes”. Bradley’s mistake was once calling a penalty kick a “PK” in a press conference.The jokes made at Bradley’s expense were all good fun, but his chastening experience in Wales highlighted the outdated prejudices still held against American coaches in British football. This is the environment Jesse Marsch has entered as the new manager of Leeds United. Continue reading...
White House officials say president will steer conversation toward economic progress rather than pessimismJoe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday before a bitterly divided Congress, seeking to inspire a pandemic-weary nation deeply unhappy with its leaders and government, while projecting strength to the world after Russia unleashed the largest land war in Europe since the second world war.The prime-time address comes at a precarious moment for Biden and the world. Speaking in the House chamber, Biden will interrupt harrowing coverage of combat in a European capital, as evidence builds that Russian attacks are striking civilian areas and Russian president, Vladimir Putin, threatens nuclear war. Continue reading...
Jamie Snedden was expected to recover after he was swept 300 yards into Cook Inlet and spent more than 30 minutes in frigid waterAn Alaska man walking on a shoreline wound up clinging to a chunk of ice for more than 30 minutes in frigid water when the shoreline ice broke loose and carried him out into Cook Inlet.Jamie Snedden, 45, of Homer, was rescued on Saturday near the community of Anchor Point on the Kenai Peninsula. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia. He was expected to fully recover, Alaska wildlife troopers said. Continue reading...
Cartier accused Tiffany & Co of hiring an underqualified manager to learn of their ‘High Jewelry’ collectionCartier sued Tiffany & Co on Monday, accusing its luxury rival of stealing trade secrets concerning its high-end jewelry from an employee it lured away in December.According to a complaint filed in a New York state court in Manhattan, Tiffany hired away an underqualified junior manager to learn more about Cartier’s “High Jewelry” collection, where pieces typically cost $50,000 to $10m. Continue reading...
A jury rejected the former Alaska governor’s claims that a 2017 New York Times editorial defamed herFormer US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin asked a federal court on Monday for a new trial after losing her defamation case against the New York Times earlier this month, and requested that the judge overseeing the case be disqualified.Palin’s attorneys said last week they would take those steps because several jurors received push notifications on their cellphones before deliberations were over, about US district judge Jed Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the case regardless of their verdict. Continue reading...
Lawyers argue ordering Trump and two children to testify is a violation because answers could be used in a parallel investigationDonald Trump has appealed a judge’s decision requiring he answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices – a widely expected move that’s likely to prolong the fight over his testimony by months.Lawyers for the former president and his two eldest children filed papers on Monday with the appellate division of the state’s trial court, seeking to overturn Manhattan judge Arthur Engoron’s 17 February ruling. Continue reading...
Most major US markets closed lower after regaining some losses but defense contractors continued to gainDefense and cybersecurity stocks are seeing a sharp rise in values as investors take note of pledges by the EU to boost defense spending and governments warn of an increased threat of cyber intrusions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.US stock markets seesawed again on Monday as the war in Ukraine escalated. Most of the major US markets closed lower after regaining some of their losses, but defense contractors continued to gain as investors bet their businesses would benefit from the conflict. Continue reading...
Strikingly higher rates of decline in effectiveness for younger children suggest the lower dose they receive may be the reasonThe Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is less effective in children aged five to 11 than in adolescents and adults, according to new data from New York state health officials.The new research was announced shortly after federal authorities relaxed masking guidance and a day after Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, said he would probably follow Governor Kathy Hochul in ending a mask mandate in city schools. Continue reading...
It has long been clear that Nato expansion would lead to tragedy. We are now paying the price for the US’s arroganceRussia’s military offensive against Ukraine is an act of aggression that will make already worrisome tensions between Nato and Moscow even more dangerous. The west’s new cold war with Russia has turned hot. Vladimir Putin bears primary responsibility for this latest development, but Nato’s arrogant, tone‐deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.Ted Galen Carpenter is senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. Carpenter served as Cato’s director of foreign policy studies from 1986 to 1995 and as vice-president for defense and foreign policy studies from 1995 to 2011This piece originally appeared in 19fortyfive Continue reading...
Urban dwellers tolerate screeching subways, traffic and noisy bars. But late-night sounds of coital revelry are the breaking pointA wave of “sex mayhem” has apparently been sweeping New York City, prompting residents to lodge an increasing number of noise complaints to a government helpline.New York is no stranger to noise complaints – New Yorkers file as many as 75,000 a month – but new 311 call data obtained by Patch has revealed that many recent complaints arise from those disturbed by their neighbors’ late-night ventures. Continue reading...
Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and Tulsi Gabbard were among the big names at the annual conservative summit in Florida – but the former president took center stage Continue reading...
Congresswoman says ‘our neighbors to the north need to be liberated’, prompting widespread condemnationThe Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert was condemned for comparing the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the clearing of a truckers’ protest in Ottawa, saying: “We also have neighbors to the north who need freedom and who need to be liberated.”A former US ambassador to Canada called the comments “reckless” and “dangerous”. Continue reading...
What with disrupted education, rising rents and low wages, it’s hard to be optimistic about the supposed end of the pandemicEvery two months since March 2020, I have declared the pandemic over. “Grow up, Covid’s over now,” I say to no one in particular. The pronouncement comes more in hope than expectation; the truth is, I’m miserable and desperate for all this to end. The only lingering concern is that the bright 22-year-old I was two years ago is gone for ever; and, like masks on the tube and vaccine scepticism, the perpetually tracksuited homebody I’ve become is the new normal.I’m not alone in feeling I’ve lost my groove. According to a study by the Prince’s Trust, happiness and confidence among 16- to 25-year-olds has slumped to a 13-year low. It goes without saying that Covid is a significant cause of the malaise. Most of the house parties, let alone nightclubs, festivals and holidays, have been cancelled, often before they were organised in the first place. Not only does this mean more time spent alone, staring blankly at the screen that seems to be permanently 20cm from my nose, it also means nothing to look forward to: no reward for all the effort I put into college, university and trying to get a job. Where once the end of exams meant parties and trips abroad with friends, it is now marked with depressing Zoom drinks – if indeed it is at all.Alex Mistlin is a commissioning editor on Guardian Saturday Continue reading...
The court is breaking with precedent, procedure and prudence to achieve the ultra-conservative majority’s policy preferencesGranting a petition by several states and coal companies, the supreme court on 28 February will address what appears to be a technical legal question: does the Environmental Protection Agency have authority to calculate Co2 emissions targets for power plants based on mitigation techniques involving steps “beyond the fence-line” of individual plants? In truth, the matter the court is considering implicates –and imperils – the federal government’s power to fashion flexible solutions not only to global warming but to all manner of complex problems.The stakes are higher still: by ruling on the case at all, the court usurps power constitutionally entrusted to government’s politically accountable branches. Article 3 of the constitution limits federal courts to deciding concrete “cases and controversies” about the rights of individual parties. Yet this “case” involves neither a concrete dispute nor the specific rights of any of the challengers. Instead, it’s akin to an exam question about the options theoretically available to a federal agency to address a grave problem. In answering that hypothetical question, the court will have arrogated to itself an unprecedented, open-ended power to reshape the nation’s social and economic landscape – far in excess of its legitimate authority, as the foundational case Marbury v. Madison put it, to “declare what the law is”.Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University professor and professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. His many books include American Constitutional Law, the most frequently cited treatise on the US constitution. You can follow him on Twitter @Tribelaw. Jeremy Lewin will receive his JD degree from Harvard Law School in Spring 2022 Continue reading...
Ten thousand fewer claims were submitted that year while 900 more were rejected by the board as compared with 2019, data saysThe California agency that serves as a last resort for crime survivors and families of crime victims in need of financial support gave out nearly $6m less in the first year of the pandemic than it did in the year before, an analysis of the agency’s annual reports reveals, with compensation declining for all major types of crime apart from homicides.The rise in homicide compensations reflects the stark uptick in gun violence during the pandemic, a rise whose impact has been most acutely felt by Black and Latino Americans. But the decline in overall payments renews questions about gaps in the program that advocates say make it difficult for those in need to collect compensation. Continue reading...
Ex-prosecutors say possible charges could include falsifying voting documents and even conspiracy to defraud the USLegal pressures are mounting for Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani as the US justice department and the House panel investigating the January 6 assault on Congress are both investigating a “false electors” scheme which Giuliani reportedly helped lead to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election.Former prosecutors say the justice department inquiry announced last month could pose a serious legal threat to Giuliani, given his role in helping orchestrate an electoral ploy in seven states that Biden won, involving replacing slates of legitimate Democratic electors with bogus Trump slates. Continue reading...
Doctors emphasize virus still a threat and that people who are not vaccinated at greater risk of become severely ill or dyingOn some days Marilyn Datillo, a vaccine nurse, used to see 900 people enter Mercy Covid Vaccine Clinic in Kirkwood, a St Louis suburb. Now, she said sometimes less than 20 people visit the clinic in one day – even though only 55% of Missouri residents are fully vaccinated and just 22% are boosted.When someone does show up to get vaccinated, “you celebrate”, Datillo said. Continue reading...
Analysis: His British friend tried to help but the former president did not want to forget his voter fraud obsession and focus on the future. CPAC loved it but Republicans hoping to take Congress know they are courting disasterThe sagest advice given to Donald Trump all week came from a man who is neither a Republican nor an American.Nigel Farage, the British politician, broadcaster and demagogue whose Brexit campaign coincided with Trump’s rise to power, warned his old pal against endlessly fixating on the 2020 election. Continue reading...
The Russians may yet conquer Ukraine. But Ukrainians have shown in the past few days that they will not let them hold itLess than a week into the war, it seems increasingly likely that Vladimir Putin is heading towards a historic defeat. He may win all the battles but lose the war. Putin’s dream of rebuilding the Russian empire has always rested on the lie that Ukraine isn’t a real nation, that Ukrainians aren’t a real people, and that the inhabitants of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv yearn for Moscow’s rule. That’s a complete lie – Ukraine is a nation with more than a thousand years of history, and Kyiv was already a major metropolis when Moscow was not even a village. But the Russian despot has told his lie so many times that he apparently believes it himself.When planning the invasion of Ukraine, Putin could count on many known facts. He knew that militarily Russia dwarfs Ukraine. He knew that Nato would not send troops to help Ukraine. He knew that European dependence on Russian oil and gas would make countries like Germany hesitate about imposing stiff sanctions. Based on these known facts, his plan was to hit Ukraine hard and fast, decapitate its government, establish a puppet regime in Kyiv, and ride out the impotent rage of western sanctions.Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Continue reading...
White House sees program as a more elastic testing infrastructure that will accommodate surges and remain on standbyNearly half of 500m free Covid-19 tests the Biden administration made available to the US public have not been claimed, as cases plummet.Wild demand swings have been a subplot in the pandemic, from vaccines to hand sanitizer and tests. On the first day of the White House test giveaway in January, the covidtests.gov website received more than 45m orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the US Postal Service. Continue reading...
Telecoms giant’s internal investigators uncover allegations it was involved in corruption in at least 10 countriesConfidential documents have revealed how the telecoms giant Ericsson is alleged to have helped pay bribes to the Islamic State terrorist group in order to continue selling its services after the militants seized control of large parts of Iraq.The leak of internal investigations at Ericsson, which also found that the firm had put its contractors at risk and allowed them to be kidnapped by the militants, is potentially damaging for the multinational. Continue reading...
The killing of June Knightly sent shockwaves through a city that has seen frequent protests, and raised fears of further violenceThe shooting of a respected volunteer at a racial justice protest in Portland, Oregon, last weekend has roiled the activist community in the city, and raised fresh fears about “vigilante violence” and escalating extremism in America.Authorities on Tuesday filed murder charges against 43-year-old Benjamin Smith, who police say showed up to a protest against police violence on Saturday night, yelled at demonstrators to leave, and then shot at the group. He killed 60-year-old June Knightly and wounded four others, police say. Continue reading...
For a long time, Tories have been happy to take Russian money and attack the democratic values they now claim to hold dearThe story Boris Johnson and his colleagues now tell us about Vladimir Putin and his regime is simple enough. The Russian president, Johnson says, is “a bloodstained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest”; he has violated “every principle of civilised behaviour between states”. What is happening in Ukraine, moreover, reminds us of the cruel, amoral way that Putin governs his own country, and its contrast with the ideas that unite the west. The world, it is said, is once again polarising between dictatorship and freedom – and in cooperation with its allies, the government has proudly entered what one Tory MP recently described as a global “battle for democracy”. Johnson, indeed, sees himself as leading the charge, repeating the mantra that “Putin must fail”, and claiming that Britain is “out in front”.
Kroger workers asking for $5 raise while CEO’s salary is 904 times the median employee wageAfter more than two years as essential workers on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic, grocery store workers around the US are pressuring supermarket corporations to raise wages and improve working conditions amid record profits for the industry.Ahead of the expiration of their union contract, 60,000 grocery workers at subsidiaries of Kroger and Albertsons in California are holding actions outside stores, demanding at least a $5 wage increase over three years, improved safety and security for workers, improved staffing and eliminating the two-tier system of workers. Continue reading...
In an odd twist, leftwing groups support a libertarian, free-market approach, while some sex trafficking survivors support a more cautious, regulated approachThe New York state legislature is debating between two bills that decriminalize sex work. The bills agree on the need to decriminalize sex workers but offer very different approaches for doing so. The Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act seeks to fully legalize the sex trade. The Sex Trade Survivors Justice and Equality Act, which is adapted from the Nordic model, would decriminalize sex workers while keeping in place laws penalizing pimps and clients.In an odd twist, the first bill, which takes a libertarian and free-market approach to sex work, is supported by leftwing groups including the Democratic Socialists of America. Sex trafficking survivor groups, political moderates and prosecutors have mostly supported the more cautious, regulated approach. I believe advocates for both bills want the best for sex workers. But the first approach – a blanket decriminalization of sex work, including of pimps and johns – may make sex workers less safe, not more.Geoffrey Mak is a New York-based writer Continue reading...
Influence-peddling is Washington’s ‘spectator sport’ – but now there’s an interest in taking a closer look at the president’s sonTo the political right in America, Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been the gift that keeps on giving, with his public struggles with addiction, scandalous private life and tangled business life. To the left, Hunter’s travails are dismissed as a Republican political obsession and a talking point for tabloid journalism and internet gossip.But last week, two witnesses called before a federal grand jury seated in Wilmington, Delaware, which is looking into the tax affairs of the president’s son, made the subject harder to avoid. Continue reading...
The journalist tracked the billionaire arts philanthropists’ role in the OxyContin scandal in his gripping bestseller, Empire of Pain. He talks about reputation laundering – and why the bad guys are still getting away with itIn December 2021, Patrick Radden Keefe travelled to London from New York to attend the Business Book of the Year award ceremony at the National Gallery. He had been shortlisted for Empire of Pain, his exhaustive portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, one of the world’s wealthiest and most secretive corporate dynasties.For decades the Sackler name was synonymous with often extravagant art world philanthropy – since 2009, the Sackler Trust had given around £170m to art institutions in Britain alone. Of late, though, it has been tarnished by its association with OxyContin, the addictive painkiller at the heart of the ongoing opioid epidemic in America that has claimed around 500,000 lives there. Keefe’s book, which is about to be published in paperback, reveals in forensic detail how the Sacklers’ vast fortune was built in part on the profits made by their company, Purdue Pharma, which manufactured and aggressively marketed OxyContin to physicians who prescribed it in often dangerously high doses. It is an epic, intricately structured tale of obsession, greed and dizzying corporate irresponsibility, which has been lauded by the critics, awarded the 2021 Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction and become a global bestseller. Continue reading...
The convoy, which set out to ‘clog the streets’ has had too few vehicles to make an impact on trafficRyan Wright stood around a campfire in Lupton, Arizona, a town on the Navajo reservation where members of an American trucker convoy protest were resting for the night. As the fire flickered he discussed a conspiracy myth about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he proffered, was a distraction. “I’m not the only one that feels this way,” Wright said. “But I feel like it’s a big fat smokescreen to keep everyone distracted on what is really going on in the world.” Continue reading...
Putin’s end goal isn’t Ukraine but western civilization – the hatred for which he lapped up in the black milk he drank from the KGB’s teatOn 24 February, the armor of the “enlightened autocrat” that had housed Vladimir Putin for the previous 20 years cracked and fell to pieces. The world saw a monster –crazed in its desires and ruthless in its decisions. The monster had grown gradually, gaining strength from year to year, marinating in its own absolute authority, imperial aggression, hatred for western democracy, and malice fueled by the resentment engendered by the fall of the USSR. Now, Europe will have to deal, not with the former Putin, but the new Putin who has cast aside his mask of “business partnership” and “peaceful collaboration”. There shall never again be peace with him. How and why has this come to pass?In the final film of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, when Frodo Baggins has to throw into the seething lava the cursed Ring of Power, the ring which has brought so much suffering and war to the inhabitants of Middle Earth, he suddenly decides to keep it for himself. And, by the will of the ring, his face suddenly begins to change, becoming evil and sinister. The Ring of Power had taken total possession of him. Even so, in Tolkien’s book, there’s a happy ending … Continue reading...
It was a week when Ukrainians saw their lives upturned. The celebrated artist reveals her fears but also the pride felt in the resilience of her peersWe didn’t want to believe that a real, massive invasion would happen because it’s so illogical. But then Putin is illogical and insane. I have been torn between a rationalisation – what will Russia benefit from this invasion? – and a memory from eight years ago when my city, Donetsk, was occupied and my home taken from me.It has been a tense month and we became ready for any kind of scenario. Every day, we were ready to go, to escape. You drink too much coffee in the morning to stay focused and at night you really want to drink some alcohol but are afraid to do so. What if you have to drive your car urgently at night? Continue reading...
The Sacklers want protection from future suits. Victims’ families want them to ‘know what their greed has caused’Stephanie and Troy Lubinski met when they were teenagers, and they were married for three decades. Troy was big-hearted, kind, the best fisherman around, a devoted father who cared for the kids during the day after long night shifts as a firefighter.But he had back pain that began when he worked in construction and then grew worse over the years. His doctor prescribed OxyContin, and that was the beginning of the end. Continue reading...
Ex-president tells CPAC he could have stopped ‘appalling’ Russian invasion of Ukraine before giving strongest indication he will run againDonald Trump, the former US president, has defended his description of Russia’s Vladimir Putin as “smart” while seeking to blunt accusations that he admires the invasion of Ukraine.Trump reiterated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen by voter fraud as he argued that the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he was still in the White House. Continue reading...
Two people reported critically injured in Nevada shooting, which happened early on Saturday morningFourteen people were shot before dawn on Saturday at a hookah lounge in Las Vegas. Police said one man died and two people suffered critical injuries.The shooting happened at about 3.15am and preliminary information indicated there was a party during which two people got into an altercation and exchanged gunfire, striking multiple people, said police captain Dori Koren. Continue reading...
Martin’s mother says fight for justice must continue as Al Sharpton makes comparison with teen lynched in Mississippi in 1955Trayvon Martin’s mother used the 10th anniversary of his death on Saturday to urge those who sought justice for her family to continue to fight.Sybrina Fulton spoke to the National Action Network, the civil rights organization founded by the Rev Al Sharpton in Harlem. She said she had come to New York City from Florida in order to support her supporters. Continue reading...
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