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Justices put on hold a lower court ruling that state must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 electionsAlabama does not have to redraw its congressional map for the 2022 elections, the US supreme court ruled on Monday, a win for Republicans that will leave in place a plan that has been described as a textbook example of discrimination against Black voters in the US.Monday’s supreme court ruling boosts the party’s chances to hold six of the state’s seven seats in the House of Representatives. Continue reading...

Robert Taylor won bonanza at Treasure Island casino on 8 January but walked away unaware because of slot-machine errorA tourist from Arizona won $229,000 on a Las Vegas slot machine but walked away unaware of his windfall, due to an error in the machine. It took nearly three weeks for gaming board agents to track him down and enrich him.On 8 January, Robert Taylor hit a jackpot on a slot machine at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino on the Vegas strip. Continue reading...

Rights groups had warned systems using selfies to verify identity often misidentify Black and brown faces and increase theft risksThe United States’ Internal Revenue Service will no longer use third-party facial recognition technology on millions of Americans who use the agency’s website to pay taxes or access documents.The IRS said on Monday it would transition away from using the identity verification company ID.me in the coming weeks and develop a new authentication system that does not use facial recognition. The announcement comes hours after US lawmakers asked the IRS to “halt its plans” to use the technology. Continue reading...

Youngkin’s campaign named and posted photo of Ethan Lynne, 17, on Twitter after he criticized the RepublicanThe Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, was accused of creating “a culture of toxicity” in his first months in office, after campaign aides attacked a high-school student, naming and picturing the boy, for sharing a news story about the Republican official.On Saturday, Ethan Lynne, 17 and according to his Twitter biography a Democrat, posted an article which suggested Youngkin could be trying to stop work to highlight the history of enslaved people at the Virginia executive mansion. Continue reading...

Woman was walking on bridge when it started to move and a bystander tried to help her before she fell, police sayA bicyclist fell to her death when a drawbridge connecting Palm Beach to the Florida mainland began rising before she could reach the other side on Sunday. A bystander tried to pull her to safety but lost his grip, officials said.The woman was walking her bicycle toward West Palm Beach and was within 10ft of the barrier arms that halt traffic when the drawbridge started to move, police told news outlets. Continue reading...

Trump advisers said boxes of documents reclaimed by National Archives included mementos, gifts and letters from leaders

The US has ordered about 3,000 extra troops to bolster Nato’s eastern flank in Poland and Romania.

Taskforce sets recommendations ‘to promote my policy of support for worker power, worker organizing and collective bargaining’The Biden administration set out 70 recommendations to encourage union membership in the US on Monday, including making it easier for many federal employees to join unions and eliminating barriers for union organizers to talk with workers on federal property.The report, compiled by the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, reiterates Biden’s robust backing of unions. “At its core,” the report says, “it is our administration’s belief that unions benefit all of us.” Continue reading...

Reporter says 2008 Republican nominee mimed rolling dice and said ‘Fuck it’ before picking hard-right Trump precursorDeciding to pick the inexperienced and extreme Sarah Palin as his running mate – a choice many say facilitated the rise of Donald Trump, threatening US democracy itself – John McCain mimed rolling a pair of dice and said: “Fuck it. Let’s do it.”The pithy vignette is revealed in a new book, Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted, by Jeremy W Peters, a New York Times reporter. It was reported by Axios. Continue reading...

We should very cautious about barring people from seeking office. But in the case of pro-insurrectionists, there is a very strong caseTo this day, only footsoldiers have paid a price for the riot at the Capitol last January 6th. Politicians who spurred them on, praised them afterwards, and now incite further hatred with hallucinatory talk of “political prisoners” have remained smugly immune.This could change in one case: Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who was on the mall that fateful day, implored Trumpists to “fight,” and is now seeking re-election in North Carolina. His candidacy is being challenged on the basis of the 14th Amendment. Passed after the Civil War, it disqualifies from holding office anyone who has sworn allegiance to the Constitution and then engages in insurrection.Jan-Werner Mueller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is Democracy Rules Continue reading...

The battle over diversity among NFL coaches mirrors broader struggles for racial justice in the United StatesWhile former Miami Dolphin Coach Brian Flores’ lawsuits against the NFL dominate the news, his story is an old one that’s as American as football.The former coach’s allegations of league-wide racial discrimination and team interviews with minority candidates conducted in bad faith, sets the NFL’s nearly 20-year-old Rooney Rule – which was adopted in 2002 to address the virtual exclusion of minorities from leadership roles – in stark relief. The rule requires teams to interview minority candidates for coaching and other front-office jobs. However, in the nearly 20 years since the rule was conceived, the number of Black coaches increased from one in a single season to a high of eight in 2011, but today again stands at one.Pamela Newkirk is a professor of journalism at New York University and the author of Diversity Inc: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business Continue reading...

Macron is optimistic ahead of meeting with Putin, despite the US saying Russia could invade ‘tomorrow’. Plus, meet the teens of the Banned Book Club

Cincinnati are on the way to their first Super Bowl in 33 years. Few fans give Mike Brown any credit for getting them thereAn elderly gentleman wearing a raincoat and a crumpled tan golf cap ambled across a makeshift stage at dusk on Sunday in Kansas City to accept a trophy that many fans of him have it.Twitter and Facebook did not exist the last time his Cincinnati Bengals won the AFC title and earned a trip to the Super Bowl, but 86-year-old Mike Brown has been a target for years, for running his football team on the cheap. Continue reading...

Coalition in New York City is organizing to demand better work conditions, including living wages, basic benefits and safe work environmentFor nearly three years, Kevin Zhou has worked as a delivery driver in New York City for DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub and other food delivery apps, and often has to work 12 to 16 hour days just to make enough to make ends meet and support his family.“Sometimes in an order, you can make just $3 to $5 and it can take half an hour,” said Zhou. Continue reading...

Untreated disease, violence, exposure, overdoses and car strikes are all added hazards of living on the streetsThe number of Americans dying while homeless has surged dramatically in the past five years, an exclusive analysis by the Guardian in conjunction with an academic expert at the University of Washington has shown.An examination of 20 US urban areas found the number of deaths among people living without housing shot up by 77% in the five years ending in 2020. Continue reading...

Conservatives are pushing to ban books from school libraries. At a time of crisis, a group of Pennsylvania teenagers are fighting back“Napoleon’s use of the sheep was notable,” says Jordan Daughtry, 14. She’s clutching a copy of Animal Farm, and referring to the authoritarian Berkshire boar who seizes control of an English acreage, before bending his fellow animals to his will.The sheep, who represent the unwitting masses in George Orwell’s critique of Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian rule, are “ignorant buffoons”, Daughtry says.Kiara Daughtry, left, and Lena Cackley. Continue reading...

The former president faces 19 legal actions, from alleged financial improprieties to his role in the insurrection riotsFormer president Donald Trump is facing a total of 19 legal actions – about half of which allege improper conduct during his presidency.Most of the cases fall under three themes: financial wrongdoings that made him more money; his role in the January 6 2021 insurrection; and his alleged interference in the 2020 election. Trump has denied wrongdoing in most of these cases. He has filed motions to dismiss several of them and has filed countersuits in some cases. Continue reading...

Promising pardons for insurrectionists and calling for protests if indicted could help make a case for obstruction of justiceDonald Trump’s incendiary call at a Texas rally for his backers to ready massive protests against “radical, vicious, racist prosecutors” could constitute obstruction of justice or other crimes and backfire legally on Trump, say former federal prosecutors.Trump’s barbed attack was seen as carping against separate federal and state investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his real estate empire. Continue reading...

Kyle Mullen, 24 from New Jersey, died in a hospital on Friday in California, while second sailor is in a hospital in stable conditionNavy officials on Sunday identified a Seal candidate who died after an intense training session known as Hell Week, and promised to investigate the episode that left a second sailor in hospital.Kyle Mullen, 24, of New Jersey, died in hospital in Coronado, California, on Friday night, the officials said, giving no cause of death. The other sailor is unidentified and remains in a naval hospital in San Diego in a stable condition. Continue reading...

Former chief of staff Marc Short joins several senior Republicans to defend the former vice-president in escalating feud with TrumpMike Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short joined several senior Republicans in rallying to defend the former vice-president on Sunday in his escalating feud with Donald Trump over the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.Some of Trump’s advisers on the 2020 election were like “snake oil salesmen”, Short said on Sunday. Continue reading...

Rescue comes after a boat believed to be used for human smuggling capsized with only one of 40 passengers survivingTen Cuban migrants in a sinking vessel were rescued off the Florida coast, according to the US Coast Guard.A Coast Guard boat spotted the vessel on Thursday about 40 miles (about 64km) off Key Largo, the Coast Guard said in a tweet. Continue reading...

Demonstrators demand unconditional ban on ‘no-knock’ warrants after Locke, 22, was killed during a raid on an apartment this weekHundreds of protesters took to the streets of downtown Minneapolis on Saturday demanding justice in the fatal police shooting of a young Black man, Amir Locke, during a “no-knock” raid on an apartment earlier this week.The boisterous but peaceful crowd, chanting Locke’s name and the slogan “no justice, no peace”, rallied at Government Plaza in Minnesota’s largest city three days after Locke, 22, was shot on his couch by police. Continue reading...

The podcast host Joe Rogan has offered 'sincere and humble apologies' after footage emerged of him repeatedly using the N-word on his hit show. After Neil Young and Joni Mitchell announced they would be withdrawing their music from Spotify over Rogan sharing coronavirus misinformation on his hugely popular podcast, the musician India Arie also announced she would leave the streaming service in protest, saying she objected to Rogan’s 'language around race'. She shared an edited compilation of clips of Rogan using the N-word more than 20 times on her Instagram account.

Move to hold shareholder vote follows withdrawal of product in US and Canada and lawsuits alleging link to cancer casesThe healthcare company Johnson & Johnson is facing an attempt to force a shareholder vote to halt its sales of talc-based baby powder across the world, including the UK, amid concerns over alleged links to cancer.Johnson & Johnson (J&J) withdrew its talc-based baby powder from sale in the US and Canada in 2020. Sales of baby powder had dropped after US regulators detected carcinogenic chrysotile fibres, a type of asbestos, in a sample. Continue reading...

Retailers say shoplifting has become a growing problem – so how are merchants fighting back?There’s a war happening right now. No, it’s not in Ukraine (at least not yet). It’s on Main Street.In Manhattan, where the New York police department reports shoplifting levels not seen in nearly 30 years, a Rite-Aid store announces it’s closing because of theft losses. Small retailers in New York have given their district attorney an earful. Residents and shop owners in San Francisco say that crime there has “spun out of control”. Chicago has been the target of “rampant” shoplifting incidents. Reports of “flash” shoplifting gangs have prompted legislators to introduce bills to protect businesses as far apart as Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Washington state. Continue reading...

A Gallup survey showed only 24% of Americans were satisfied with efforts to ‘reduce or control crime’, the lowest it’s beenDuring a visit to 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD in downtown Manhattan, Joe Biden asked officer Sumit Sulan to stand as he praised his bravery. Last month, the rookie officer shot and killed a man who mortally wounded two of his colleagues while responding to a domestic dispute in Harlem.The deaths of the two young officers, Jason Rivera, 22, and Wilbert Mora, 27, was one of several violent episodes that have shaken New York and tested its new mayor, former police captain Eric Adams. Continue reading...

The nature preserve on the US-Mexico border became a target of rightwing ire after it opposed construction of Trump’s wallIn Mission, Texas, on the border between the US and Mexico, sits the National Butterfly Center. A 100-acre nature preserve once exclusively dedicated to the conservation of plants and wildlife, it has now been thrust into the national spotlight and become a focal point of divisions over the country’s immigration policy.This week, the butterfly center was forced to close its doors indefinitely amid ongoing threats from far-right conspiracists and QAnon followers who falsely claim it is a haven for human-trafficking and illegal migration. Continue reading...

Tub-thumping talk of all-out war in Ukraine seems overblown but the White House knows the fledgling Sino-Russian axis is a real threat, in Taiwan and elsewhereIf, as seems increasingly probable, Russia decides not to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine, tub-thumping US and British politicians who have spent weeks scaring the public with loose talk of looming Armageddon will have some explaining to do.The military build-up directed by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is real enough. But suspicion grows that the actual as opposed to the hypothetical threat of a large-scale conventional attack is being mis-read, misinterpreted, over-estimated or deliberately exaggerated. Continue reading...

An obsession with ‘white privilege’ can blind us to the realites of race“This is white people doing it to white people, so y’all gonna fight amongst yourselves.” Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on ABC’s The View about the Holocaust being not “about race” but “white on white” violence that exposed “man’s inhumanity to man” has drawn a slew of condemnation. She quickly put out an apology and, quoting Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who pointed out that “the Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race”, she wrote: “I stand corrected.”Goldberg was not denying the Holocaust or the gravity of the catastrophe that befell Jewish people. The discussion was about a Tennessee school board that had removed from the curriculum Maus, a graphic novel about the Shoah. Goldberg mocked the censors for being more concerned about nudity and bad language than about the reality of genocide. Continue reading...

As the US nears 900,000 Covid deaths, much of the blame has fallen on individuals despite vast income inequality and vaccine accessibility issuesThe US is nearing 900,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the highest figure of any nation. The death toll would be equivalent to the 15th most populous city in the country, more than San Francisco, Washington DC or Boston – a city of ghosts with its population swelling each day.It’s not just the total numbers. America also has the highest death rate of any wealthy country, with half of the deaths occurring after vaccines became available. Continue reading...

The death of the pageant queen who had a profound role in redefining global beauty standards is an ‘incredible tragedy’ for the women and girls of color she inspired

Majority of outages occur in Tennessee, after storm that spanned 2,000 miles dumped up to 17in of snowOver 150,000 homes across the US are without power after a winter storm tore through the country and was followed by freezing temperatures that created icy conditions.By Saturday, over 100,000 homes had their power restored after outages on Friday, though some states were still experiencing service interruptions. The bulk of the outages took place in Tennessee, where over 93,000 homes were experiencing outages, according to PowerOutage.us. Another 43,000 homes in New York and 30,000 in Ohio were without power. Continue reading...

Materials must be ‘publicly docketed’, judge told, after Maxwell’s lawyers filed detailed arguments for a new trial under sealGhislaine Maxwell’s legal arguments involving the juror who might not have disclosed childhood sexual abuse during jury selection should be public, prosecutors said in a letter Friday.“The government respectfully submits that the defendant has not justified her sealing request and, accordingly, the defense motion and its exhibits should be publicly docketed,” they told Manhattan federal court judge Alison Nathan. Continue reading...

Guests of club in Palm Beach, Florida to be treated to ‘great music … with President Trump playing the role of disc jockey’Guests at Mar-a-Lago could hear a selection of Elton John’s greatest hits this weekend – courtesy of DJ Donald Trump.Members of the club in Palm Beach, Florida received a memo on Wednesday that they will be treated to “great music” during dinner on Friday and Saturday, “with President Trump playing the role of disc jockey”. Continue reading...

Rewarding people like Rudy Giuliani with TV appearances sends a message that lying and cheating is fine – and gives them carte blancheActions have consequences. Unless, of course, you’re rich and powerful, in which case it seems you can just go ahead and do whatever you like. Lie, cheat, stick your hand down your trousers when you find yourself in a hotel room with a woman young enough to be your granddaughter. Knock yourself out! The chances you’ll face any meaningful repercussions are low. The chances you’ll be asked on a reality TV show and have your reputation laundered, on the other hand, are high.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

The ceiling has never been higher, but the basement has remained the same as journalism copes with changes stemming from the pandemicDespite another year of success in the rise of women’s sports, the feeling of anger and frustration for the women covering these events and athletes has remained.That’s because women account for less than one in five among Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) newsroom members, which represents sports departments in some of the nation’s largest newsrooms. Continue reading...

While some in Washington DC and US media decry Amnesty’s conclusions, it’s a different story among some Israeli leadersWho speaks for Israel? Rightwing lobby groups in Washington and US politicians would have Americans believe that it is them – and not Israel’s own former prime ministers and others who actually live in the Jewish state.Earlier this week Amnesty International released a report making a 280-page case that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. The response in the US was a wave of orchestrated outrage – outrage that not only denies what many prominent Israelis say is true but, in effect, denies their right to say it.Chris McGreal is the former Guardian correspondent in Jerusalem and Johannesburg Continue reading...

Authorities say the influencer died from an accidental overdose, but her family believes this could be another sad example of the dangers women face from men on dating appsLauren Smith-Fields was a beautiful young woman, a former high school track star who was studying to become a physical therapist. She was active on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, posting pictures and videos of herself looking healthy and glamorous. She did not use drugs, say her family members, whose grief over her untimely death is as apparent as the sense that something is missing from the story of her demise, on December 12, at age 23. Her family does not believe that Smith-Fields died of an accidental overdose – as the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has said – and one can’t blame them for doubting this ruling.Smith-Fields’s friends and family have publicly wondered if racism may explain why the Bridgeport police were allegedly so careless in their investigation of the scene, saying that detectives failed to collect vital evidence, notify Smith-Fields’s family of her death, or rigorously investigate the last person known to have been in her company – the white man she met earlier that evening on a Bumble date. This wouldn’t be the first time that someone had been drugged on a dating app date – in fact, it’s a serious problem that has gone largely underreported.Nancy Jo Sales is a New York-based writer. Her latest book is Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno Continue reading...

The exercise bike maker is worth less than a fifth of its $50bn valuation during global lockdownIf Peloton wants to know why the lockdown boom in home exercise was unsustainable, then Ian Rodriguez has a good answer: working out is more fun with other people.Rodriguez, a 52-year-old teacher from Preston, Lancashire, cancelled his gym membership when the pandemic hit but couldn’t wait to get back. As many others did, he spent money on gym equipment, including a rowing machine and some weights. But then he started missing the gym classes. Continue reading...

Police are accused of a cover-up in Ronald Greene’s death – and now the governor has had to deny political interference. Mona Hardin, Greene’s mother, says enough is enoughThursday marked 1,000 days since Ronald Greene died on a roadside in northern Louisiana. And the 1,000th day, too, that Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, has awaited answers from state and federal authorities.“It’s hard to sleep,” Hardin told the Guardian in an interview. “But it’s something I have to push myself through. It has destroyed my family, because of what we saw and what we know.” Continue reading...

A rigid anti-vaccine stance among Trump’s supporters means Republicans can’t reap the benefits of Operation Warp SpeedShe is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. But when the former US president came to her home city and praised coronavirus vaccines, Flora Moore did something she never thought possible. She booed him.“He said take the vaccine but we all booed and said no,” she recalled of Trump’s event with broadcaster Bill O’Reilly in Orlando, Florida. “He heard us loud and clear because the Amway Center was packed. We let him know ‘no’ and a couple of us even hollered out, ‘It’s killing people!’” Continue reading...