Government board says Mohammed al-Qahtani, who now has significant mental health issues, should be repatriated to Saudi ArabiaUS authorities have recommended releasing an inmate with significant mental health issues from Guantánamo Bay and repatriating him to Saudi Arabia, according to a government document published Friday.Suspected of being al-Qaida’s intended 20th hijacker for the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured by interrogators at the US military base in Cuba where he has been detained for nearly two decades. Continue reading...
New England police report hundreds of traffic crashes after 350,000 lose power from Texas to OhioNorth-east residents were urged to stay off the roads with temperatures beginning to drop on Friday evening as a major winter storm turned already slippery roads and sidewalks into ice-covered hazards.The storm spread misery from the deep south, where tree limbs snapped and a tornado claimed a life, to the nation’s north-eastern tip. Continue reading...
In a blow to the Republican legislature, the court rejected the maps saying they infringed upon the fundamental right to voteA divided North Carolina supreme court struck down the state’s new maps for congressional and general assembly seats on Friday, declaring that state courts had authority to throw out lines engineered to secure a long-term Republican advantage in an otherwise closely divided state.By a 4-3 decision – with the justices who are registered Democrats making up the majority – the state’s highest court directed the GOP-controlled legislature to redraw the plans by 18 February and provide an explanation of how they calculated the partisan fairness of the new boundaries. Continue reading...
Supervisor Leonard Moty has been ousted after two years of threats and increasing hostility over pandemic health restrictionsVoters in far northern California have solidified the ouster of a Republican county official, giving control of the Shasta county board of supervisors to a group supported by local militia members.Leonard Moty, a retired police chief and Republican with decades of public service, lost his seat in a recall election in one of California’s most conservative counties. The Tuesday recall came as tensions reached a high in the county after two years of threats and increasing hostility toward moderate Republican officials over pandemic health restrictions. Continue reading...
At a conference in Florida, the former vice-president said that the idea of one person choosing the president was ‘un-American’Mike Pence, the former US vice president, has issued his strongest rebuke yet of Donald Trump, insisting that his old boss is “wrong” to claim that Pence could have overturned the 2020 election.The unusually blunt criticism suggests that Pence, unswervingly loyal during his four years serving under Trump at the White House, is running out of patience with the ex-president’s assault on democracy. Continue reading...
Party censures Cheney and Kinzinger, the only Republicans on the Capitol attack House panel, as Pence says ‘Trump is wrong’In an extraordinary move, the Republican party officially said Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat and the deadly attack on the US Capitol were “legitimate political discourse”.A leading Democrat on the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection said historians would be “aghast”. Continue reading...
The high-profile lawyer had denied wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in relation to his former clientMichael Avenatti was convicted on Friday of charges he cheated the adult film actor Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with former president Donald Trump.Avenatti stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. It was another defeat for the California lawyer, who has faced a host of legal problems after briefly rising to fame as one of Trump’s leading antagonists on cable news early in the Republican’s administration. Continue reading...
Amir Locke, 22, was asleep on a couch before being shot dead by officer Mark HannemanNew details have emerged about a 22-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police during the execution of a no-knock warrant, with police officials confirming the man was not named in any search warrant.During a press conference on Thursday held by the Minneapolis police department (MPD), officials confirmed that Amir Locke, who was shot early on Wednesday morning during the search, was not named in any search warrant carried out by MPD police. Locke was shot by the Minneapolis officer Mark Hanneman, according to city officials and documents. Continue reading...
The livestreamed event drew large crowds, who cheered as books deemed ‘demonic’ by pastor Greg Locke went up in flamesA controversial Tennessee pastor led a book burning on Wednesday night to fight “demonic influences”, with a crowd incinerating copies of books including Harry Potter and Twilight.The burning, which was livestreamed on Facebook, followed last month’s decision by a Tennessee school district to ban the Holocaust-based graphic novel Maus. Continue reading...
Economists had predicted dramatic slump in job growth but labor department figures much better than expectedThe US economy appeared to shake off the Omicron variant in January as employers added 467,000 new jobs, the labor department reported on Friday.Data for the report was collected in mid-January when the Omicron variant was at its peak in the US. While some economists – and the White House – had predicted a dramatic slump in jobs growth, the number of jobs added was far better than expected. Continue reading...
Late-night hosts discuss Rudy Giuliani’s surprise TV appearance and Brian Flores’s racial discrimination suit against the NFLOn Thursday night, late-night hosts tore into Fox, the network which airs the reality show The Masked Singer, after the former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was unmasked during a recent taping. Continue reading...
Travis McMichael will stand trial again after judge rejected the terms of the plea dealThe man convicted of murder for shooting Ahmaud Arbery withdrew his guilty plea on a federal hate crime charge Friday, electing to stand trial for a second time in the 2020 killing of a Black man that became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice.Travis McMichael reversed his plan to plead guilty in the federal case days after a US district court judge rejected the terms of a plea deal between defense attorneys and prosecutors that was met with passionate objections by Arbery’s parents. Continue reading...
About 6,500 under evacuation orders while firefighters still can’t get within 300ft of blaze at North Carolina plantAbout 6,500 people were under evacuation orders for three days after a fire broke out at a North Carolina fertilizer plant, which officials said risked becoming one of the biggest explosions ever to occur in the US.The fire continues to burn. The plant contains roughly 600 tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly volatile chemical compound that is used to make both fertilizers and explosives. Continue reading...
Xi Jinping declared the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games officially open after a parade of 91 competing nations and a typically breathtaking showOf all the sport I watched in the 1970s nothing – not Gordon Banks’s save in Mexico, the Rumble in the Jungle or Emlyn Hughes hugging Princess Anne on a Question of Sport – made such an impression on me. Thinking about it now I realise something: I remember the whole of Franz Klammer’s run at Innsbruck in vivid colour. Odd, because I know for a fact that the television I watched it on was black and white.The opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics began at 8.08pm local time on 8 August 2008; the Chinese believe eight is an auspicious number. That evening, Chinese-American Kaiser Kuo was watching from the balcony of his apartment in eastern Beijing. “It was meant to be impressive, and watching as a Chinese person, it certainly was: all the pageantry of history, the flawless performances, the grand scale,” Kuo says. Continue reading...
by Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon in New York on (#5VSG3)
An Alabama case tests how much Republicans can legally dilute the power of Black votersIt has been called a textbook example of discrimination against Black voters in the US. And a ruling on it from the supreme court is expected any day.It isn’t the kind of explicit voting discrimination, like poll taxes and literacy tests, that kept voters from the polls in the south during the Jim Crow era. Instead, it is more subtle.
Civil liberties group urges Washington to cancel programme to prevent ‘slide into anti-immigrant dystopia’The US is testing robotic patrol dogs along its frontier with Mexico that it says could provide “mechanical reinforcements” for border guards, in a move criticised by a leading domestic rights group as a “civil liberties disaster”.Adding to the outcry, the company that developed the dogs, Ghost Robotics, has previously showcased a four-legged robot that has a sniper rifle attached to its back. Continue reading...
The Pillow Fight Championship, or PFC, is trying to turn pillow fighting into a professional sport – but unlike MMA, ‘anyone can compete, and anyone can win’“There’s just something so cathartic about getting hit in the head with a pillow,” posits Steve Williams as he grills a couple of steaks on the back deck of his catamaran. Catfish spin in the yacht’s neon stern lights, scanning the water’s surface for scraps of food on the Boca Raton harbor.He cues up a video on his phone. It’s the second ever exhibition match produced by Pillow Fight Championship (PFC), an organization Williams founded in south Florida with the goal of turning pillow fighting into a professional sport. The match took place back in October, but tonight it’s available for the first time, free of charge, on Fite.tv, the premier direct-to-consumer streaming service for combat sports.People cheer on fighters at the PFC Pillow Fight Championship. Photograph: Bryan Cereijo/The Guardian Continue reading...
Amazon has earned the dubious distinction of replacing Walmart as the nation’s fiercest anti-union employerIt doesn’t take much imagination to realize that Amazon warehouse workers would benefit from having a union. The average Amazon warehouse worker leaves within just eight months – that’s an unmistakable sign that Amazon’s jobs are unpleasant, to put it kindly, and that many Amazon workers quickly realize they hate working there because of the stress, breakneck pace, constant monitoring and minimal rest breaks. Indeed, experts on the future of work often voice concern that Amazon’s vaunted algorithms and technologies treat Amazon’s warehouse workers like mindless, unfeeling robots – having them do the same thing hour after hour after hour.And then there are the endless tales from Amazon warehouse workers that the company is so stingy about break time that they often don’t have enough time to go back and forth to the bathroom without getting demerits for exceeding their allotted daily break time. It’s hard to believe that here in the 21st century, one of the nation’s biggest, most respected companies makes it so hard for many of its workers to pee. Continue reading...
'There’s just something so cathartic about getting hit in the head with a pillow,' says entrepreneur Steve Williams, who has created the Pillow Fight Championships (PFC), and even organised a pay-per-view event.Described as 'hardcore swinging with specialised pillows', the PFC sees competitors – who include active MMA fighters, reality TV stars, bare-knuckle boxers, mechanics, single moms and veterinarians – win by hitting their opponent in the head the most across three 90-second rounds. Brazilian Istela Nunes and American Hauley Tillman were crowned the inaugural PFC champions last weekend.'You don’t really need to explain [pillow fighting] to people – that’s the beauty,' says Williams. As he sees it, pillow fighting is not just a gimmick: 'There’s hardcore aggression with pillow fighting, but nobody gets hurt. A lot of people don’t want to see the blood and violence any more.'
The Olympics is no longer event television and Tokyo 2020 drew the smallest US audience of any televised Games. Worse could be in store in the coming weeksOver the 17 days of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, more than 70% of the American population tuned in to watch on NBC, which has owned the exclusive US broadcast rights since 1988. The official audience figure of 215m domestic viewers far exceeded guarantees to advertisers and represented the apotheosis of the network’s star-driven storytelling ethos under longtime NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, one of the last high-profile sports TV impresarios.But as the Olympics return to the Chinese capital less than 14 years on, the awareness and general buzz around the Games stateside, while impossible to quantify with any precision, has never felt lower. Despite a star-studded US Olympic team filled with established champions and promising newcomers that will march into the National Stadium during Friday’s opening ceremony and pile up medals in the weeks to come, the outcome could be a commercial nadir that makes the underwhelming ratings from last year’s Tokyo Games seem like a fond memory. Continue reading...
American truckers attract thousands on social media for planned convoy protest to Washington DCA group of American truckers are seeking to import a Canadian movement to protest against vaccine mandates, with thousands of members on social media pledging to bring the demonstration to Washington DC next month.In Canada trucker protests have been linked to the far right and caused days of disruption in the capital, Ottawa, as well as in a border town in Alberta. Continue reading...
With a World Cup bid under way, American professional union is determined to show it is on the riseMajor League Rugby will kick-off its fifth season this weekend with the addition of a 13th team, the Dallas Jackals, who postponed entry last year due to the Covid pandemic.Covid cut short the 2020 US season too but MLR came back to go “99 & 0” in 2021, completing every fixture. In the championship game, the LA Giltinis – one of two teams, with the Austin Gilgronis, still named for a cocktail named for their owner – beat Rugby ATL, from Atlanta, for the shield. Continue reading...
With just one more game before this season’s champions are decided, we have a look at the players and coaches who have excelledOver the past two years, the NFL’s old guard has cycled out, making way for a new generation of stars. Future hall of famers Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Tom Brady have left the building. Aaron Rodgers continues to tease that he may follow the trio out of the door. Continue reading...
The bus, bound for Los Angeles, had stopped in Oroville when the 21-year-old passenger began shooting as people exited the vehicleA man opened fire in a Greyhound bus Wednesday evening, killing a 43-year-old woman and wounding four others as the vehicle stopped in northern California.As the Los Angeles-bound bus stopped at an AM/PM convenience store in Oroville, a 21-year-old passenger who had exhibited “paranoid behavior” began shooting while people exited, according to officials in Butte county, where the incident took place. Shortly after, police arrested the suspect, naked, inside a nearby Walmart. Continue reading...
The president pressed for community intervention programs and said it is ‘outrageous’ gun manufacturers are exempt from lawsuitsJoe Biden has said “the answer is not to defund the police” and emphasized community policing efforts as he met in New York with the new mayor, Eric Adams, to discuss the uptick in gun violence during the pandemic.The president added of his preferred approach to fighting crime: “It’s to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors and to know the community.” Continue reading...
Trump’s lawyer was revealed to be a contestant on The Masked Singer – and when Robin Thicke storms off in protest, you know you’ve got problemsIt’s like something from a Guillermo del Toro film: a grotesque fantasy creature disrobes, only to reveal an even more horrifying monster underneath. But that’s what viewers will see when the US version of The Masked Singer, Fox’s incognito singing competition, returns at the end of this month.The show, in which a panel of judges and the audience try to guess the identity of celebrity vocalists dressed in furry theme-park costumes, is taped in advance of airing. But Deadline reports that at the first episode’s climax, when the eliminated singer reveals their true identity, it was Rudy Giuliani whose head popped out of the costume. Judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke walked off the set in protest. Quite a good reflection of how bad a guy you have to be when rape-culture chanteur Thicke, the singer of Blurred Lines, decides you’re beyond the pale. Continue reading...
The streamer’s frenzied look at the year ahead breaks the fourth wall mid-scenes to turn major stars into reticent marketing toolsThe worst part of anything film-related is the context-free montage. The worst part of going to the cinema is being pummelled with a context-free montage of upcoming attractions before the movie starts. The worst part of watching awards shows is being pummelled with context-free montages of all the films that were released in the previous 12 months. A context-free montage is less than a trailer. It isn’t even an advert. It’s a sizzle reel that reveals nothing about anything. There is no information. It’s the movie equivalent of sitting in front of the washing machine as a kid.However, Netflix prides itself on being a bold new disruptor in the movie industry, so it only makes sense that it should also boldly disrupt the context-free montage genre. Behold, Netflix’s new 2022 movie preview video, where the montage talks to you. Continue reading...
Army secretary says move is essential for combat readiness after vaccination made mandatory for service members in August 2021US soldiers who refuse to get a Covid-19 vaccine will be immediately discharged, the US army said on Wednesday, saying the move was critical to maintain combat readiness.The army’s order applies to regular army soldiers, active-duty army reservists and cadets unless they have approved or pending exemptions, it said in a statement. Continue reading...
Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke walked off the stage when the former New York City mayor revealed his identityTwo judges on the reality show The Masked Singer walked off after the contestant singing and dancing beneath a disguise was revealed to be Rudy Giuliani.Last week, during a taping of the first episode of the seventh season, judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke walked off the stage when the former New York City mayor and former attorney to Donald Trump removed his elaborate headpiece and costume, for which the show is known, to reveal himself. Continue reading...
Jason Van Dyke, a white police officer who murdered the Black teenager, was freed early for good behaviorThe white former Chicago police officer who killed the Black teenager Laquan McDonald has left prison after serving less than half his sentence.Jason Van Dyke was released from state prison on Thursday morning after serving a little more than three years behind bars for the 2014 murder of McDonald. Continue reading...
by Angelika Albaladejo for Capital & Main on (#5VRE5)
Wrap device used by Ice says it can be used without restricting breathing but investigation shows claims based on anecdotesSafety claims made by the manufacturer of a full-body restraint used by more than 1,500 authorities across the US are largely based on anecdotal evidence and one disputed study, an investigation by Capital & Main has found.The WRAP device is used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) among many other law enforcement agencies, and its manufacturer claims it can be used to immobilize a person without restricting their breathing. The black and yellow harness with straps and buckles locks a person’s legs together and clips their torso into a seated position. Continue reading...
Pamela Moses was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register despite a felony conviction but officials admitted making a series of mistakesHello Fight to Vote readers,For the last few months, I’ve been following the case of Pamela Moses, a 44-year-old activist in Memphis who was convicted in November for trying to register to vote while she was ineligible. On Monday, Moses, who is Black, was sentenced to six years and one day in prison. Continue reading...
The non-profit project was launched to feverish buzz with support of celebrities from Snoop Dogg to Ellen DeGeneres to Bill ClintonFor Hurricane Katrina survivors in the Lower Ninth Ward, it had seemed like a prayer answered: in 2006, Brad Pitt announced an initiative to rebuild New Orleans’ storm-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward with sustainable, flood-proof, affordable homes, designed by a list of A-list architects. The 109 homes on offer would give many survivors a chance to become first-time homeowners, and bring back a community devastated by the hurricane. But not even a decade after the homes were completed to great fanfare – including a star-studded gala hosted by Ellen DeGeneres – that dream has become a curse, as many of the residents’ homes have decayed to unlivable conditions.The houses now list a frightening array of defects: water intrusion, black mold, porches rotted through, stair rails collapsing, fires caused by electrical problems, plumbing problems and poor ventilation, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against Pitt and his charity by some of the remaining residents. Other residents have reported termite infestations, and multiple residents have fallen sick. Continue reading...
The victims bill must ensure access to specialist therapeutic services for children who have suffered trauma at homeIn the end, after I had climbed out on to the narrow window ledge yet again, my mum tied the bedroom windows shut with shoelaces, knotted over and over and tugged tight. Even at that young age – just six or seven – I knew, standing in the window, that if I stepped a foot off, I wouldn’t fly. I would fall.And if that meant dying, there on the grass below, that was OK. Other times it wasn’t quite so passive; I actively craved it.Terri White is a journalist and the author of Coming Undone: A MemoirIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.orgIn the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International Continue reading...
The league manages to slither out of every controversy that comes its way. But allegations that hit the integrity of the game itself are a different matterThe Super Bowl, the NFL’s ultimate coronation and by far the most watched event in America, is a little over a week away. Yet you wouldn’t know it because Brian Flores’s explosive lawsuit against the league and its clubs alleging racial discrimination in its hiring practices continue to take the NFL zeitgeist by storm.The Flores complaint, which lays out the disturbing history of racism in the NFL, includes extensive data supporting the notion that qualified Black candidates have long been passed over in droves for head coach, coordinator, and general manager openings. The NFL currently has just one Black head coach in Mike Tomlin. One, despite 70% of NFL players being Black. One, even though many of these players strive to become coaches and executives in the league upon retirement. Thirty-two teams. One Black head coach. Continue reading...
The US decision to deploy more than 3,000 US troops in Germany, Poland and Romania will make it harder to reach a compromise over Ukraine, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said• Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.Yesterday Joe Biden announced that the US will deploy more than 3,000 US troops in Germany, Poland and Romania as Russia continues to build up its forces around Ukraine. Russia’s deputy foreign minister has since responded, calling the move a “destructive step”.Russia had been moving 30,000 combat troops and modern weapons to Belarus over the last few days, Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said today. It is Moscow’s biggest military deployment to the country since the end of the cold war.This comes as the west continues to deploy a flurry of diplomatic efforts – yesterday Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom prime minister, warned Vladimir Putin in a phone call that he will make a “tragic miscalculation” if he invades Ukraine.France’s Emmanuel Macron was set to speak to Putin on Wednesday night as well, their third conversation in less than a week, while the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he would meet Putin in Moscow soon.Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will fly to Moscow to offer himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Putin. A wild card of Nato diplomacy, Turkey was criticized by both Russia and Ukraine last year – Putin was unhappy when Turkey sold drones to the Ukrainian army, while Ukrainian politicians have been angered by a gas pipeline that takes gas from Russia to Turkey. Continue reading...
Canada are all but assured of a place at Qatar 2022 but US Soccer’s decision to play the weakest team in the group in freezing conditions was an odd oneThe wound from the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup is still raw, elite sport is a business of marginal gains and the USMNT is often forced to play road games in heat, humidity and at altitude. But the choice of freezing St Paul for this game exuded insecurity when the US should have projected strength. Continue reading...
The US embargo impacts every aspect of life on the island – and that is the precisely the point“There is no embargo on Cuba.” This bold claim – made by Florida senator Marco Rubio on the floor of the US Senate last July – has quickly hardened into conventional wisdom across aisles of US Congress and among Rubio’s base of support in the Cuban diaspora. The US blockade is a myth, a bogeyman for the Communist party of Cuba. “Cuba is not isolated,” Rubio said. Those who say otherwise either “don’t know what they’re talking about … or they’re liars. Those are the only two options.”Here in Havana, though, the isolating effects of the US embargo are impossible to ignore. The docks are half-empty: the US has banned all cruise ships, cultural exchange and educational delegations that once drove the largest industry on the island. The Western Union branches are shuttered: the US has banned all remittances through Cuban firms and their affiliates to the millions of Cuban families that rely on assistance from abroad. The hospitals are understocked: the US embargo has forbidden the export of medical technology with US components, leading to chronic shortages of over-the-counter medicine. Even the internet is a zone of isolation: the US embargo means that Cubans cannot use Zoom, Skype or Microsoft Teams to communicate with the outside world.David Adler is the general coordinator of the Progressive International Continue reading...
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