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One person also in critical condition in wreck caused by driver who was speeding, police sayA six-vehicle crash killed nine people and left one in critical condition in Nevada on Saturday. Police were trying to determine if a driver was impaired before running a red light, causing the collision.A local councilwoman lamented a “tremendous and unnecessary loss due to a careless and senseless act”. Continue reading...

As thousands turn out to hear the former president, midterm candidates vie for his backing by pushing ‘stolen’ election mythOn a chilly open field in Texas, Dan Patrick was delivering prepared remarks about the spectre of socialism when the crowd broke into a chant about the 2020 presidential election.“Well, we all know who won in 2020, don’t we?” the state’s lieutenant governor ad-libbed. “Who won?” There was apparently not a soul who believes the answer is Joe Biden. Continue reading...

Pressure campaign was fired by fear of repeat of disaster when Republicans replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Viasat says it ‘isn’t about ripping out cost to make the numbers’, and it has longstanding relationship in UKThe chief executive of the US satellite company that is buying Inmarsat for $7.3bn (£5.4bn) has said it is not “stealing” Britain’s crown jewel in the space communications race, and is confident the deal would be cleared by a potential investigation by the government to assess the threat of a foreign takeover to national security.Rick Baldridge, the chief executive of Viasat, was in London with his team last week to meet government agencies, Inmarsat management and media as part of a mission to pave the way for clearance of the California-based company’s biggest ever deal. Continue reading...

The old divides are closing, but the flags in Derry show that some unionists are in no mood to move onThe road I grew up on in Drumahoe, on the outskirts of Derry, has been on the news lately, and not in a way that makes me proud. Journalists stand at its junction with the main road from Belfast, pointing up at the purple flag of the Parachute Regiment fluttering high on a lamp-post. They explain its significance at this time of year: it was paratroopers who killed 13 unarmed civil rights marchers in the city on Bloody Sunday in January 1972. Family members of those killed have talked about the pain the flying of these flags causes them. Politicians, including some unionists, and even the Parachute Regiment itself have called it “unacceptable”.The flag flies because there are some in the unionist community who want to show that not everybody is mourning the dead of Bloody Sunday as its 50th anniversary is marked in Derry this weekend. It is a show of disrespect. Drumahoe has been flying this flag for years, as has the village of Newbuildings on the main road into Derry from Dublin. I saw one that had a sign pinned underneath it featuring the crosshairs of a gun – a warning to anyone tempted to remove it. In Drumahoe there are always union flags and Ulster flags flying, and sometimes there are also Scottish, Israeli and paramilitary flags. They stand like a weird forest. After the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985, “Drumahoe Says No” was daubed on a wall along the main road behind our house, the white ghosts of its letters lingering on the red brick for years after it was painted over.Susan McKay is an Irish writer and journalist whose books include Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground Continue reading...

Brookside, a former mining town with a median income of less than $40,000, generated more than $610,000 in fines in 2020Residents of a small Alabama city will on Tuesday hold a town hall meeting to discuss claims by community members and activist groups that local police have pursued excessive policing for profit.Officers in Brookside, a former mining town 20 min outside Birmingham, have been accused of generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in city revenue through ticketing, towing and other traffic-related fines, despite Brookside having no traffic lights and a few two-lane roads, news site AL.com first reported. Continue reading...

In a row over Covid misinformation, Spotify sided with the wildly successful podcast host over Neil YoungSome 20 years ago, Joe Rogan was a reality TV host, fronting Fear Factor on NBC, in which hapless contestants faced dangerous, scary or gross stunts.Now he’s one of the most powerful figures in American media, though often little acknowledged or actively shunned by the country’s coastal elites. He is sometimes left-leaning but says he detests identity politics and political correctness. He appears committed to some forms of social justice but is amenable to conservatives. Continue reading...

Neil Young versus Joe Rogan is a PR disaster and a sign the digital platform has lost its wayUntil last week, Spotify-using fans of Neil Young could access a vast 54-year catalogue of songs, which attracted more than 6 million listeners a month. Now all that remains are appearances on compilations and, for some reason, a 1989 live album. Enraged by what he saw as the promotion of “life-threatening Covid misinformation” on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the Canadian singer-songwriter issued an ultimatum: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”As Young surely knew, Spotify’s choice was a foregone conclusion. Rogan’s show, which the streaming service acquired for $100m in 2020, is its most popular podcast, with an average listenership of 11 million per episode. In its first month, it accounted for 4.5% of all podcast listening on Spotify worldwide. For Spotify, which is banking on podcasts to drive subscriptions, he is a star of the magnitude of Adele. Continue reading...

Voters aren’t sick and tired of hearing about lockdown-busting parties. They are sick and tired of the desperate excuses made in the prime minister’s nameConor Burns, one of the troupe of Johnson loyalists willing to humiliate themselves on behalf of the prime minister, now knows the first line of his obituary. It will be his attempt to excuse Boris Johnson’s lockdown-busting birthday party inside Number 10 with the immortal phrase “he was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake”. This deserved all the mockery it got, but it is by no means the most desperate of the arguments being offered by those trying to save the prime minister’s skin. Continue reading...

The takeover in Spalding county is part of Republican efforts to dominate elections mechanisms nationwideThe judges met, in private, over a two-day period in May, for what might seem like a minor task: to choose the fifth member of an elections board in rural Spalding county, Georgia.But the meetings were by no means routine. There is no record of their vote or their discussions. The interviews with Democratic and Republican applicants were conducted in private, via Zoom calls. And the position was only vacant because of a new law, specific only to Spalding county, recently introduced by the area’s two Republican state lawmakers. Continue reading...

The needless decision to limit Sue Gray’s report on partygate may make its findings irrelevant and paralyses the countryThe real villain in the story is Boris Johnson. He presided over a home and a workplace where the rules were ignored. The whole country has heard the stories.Of course everyone knew the the prime minister told lies and was unreliable. But this – a character who appeared sometimes engagingly anarchic turns out to be contemptuous and disdainful, lacking the most basic decency and honour. He shames our country, the office of PM and disables the leadership of the UK. He is on his belly to Conservative MPs: decisions about the nation’s future now depend on whether his backstairs deals with wavering MPs stem the haemorrhage brought on by the sight of his suppurating character. Continue reading...

Winner bought ticket at Chevron gas station in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles but is yet to come forwardA single ticket sold in southern California matched all six numbers and was the lucky winner of the $426m Mega Millions jackpot prize.The winning numbers drawn on Friday night were 3, 16, 25, 44 and 55. The Mega ball was 13, the California State Lottery said. Continue reading...

Republican senator says choice will be beneficiary of affirmative action but critics point to support for Trump vow to pick woman

Strategist contends West Virginia replacement could be worse but congressman Ruben Gallego could win Arizona primary

Allison Fluke-Ekren’s all-female militant group was trained in the use of grenades, AK-47 rifles and suicide belts, authorities sayA woman who once lived in Kansas before moving to Egypt and Syria has been charged with joining the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and leading an all-female battalion of AK-47 wielding militants.The US attorney in Alexandria, Virginia, announced on Saturday that Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, had been arrested and charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization. Continue reading...

As the president seeks to reset course, a booming economy and receding pandemic reveal encouraging signsSnow fell lightly as Joe Biden stared into the wooded hollow where, just hours before he arrived in Pittsburgh, a half-century old bridge had collapsed. It was a dramatic illustration of what had brought the president to the City of Bridges: his urgent drive to rebuild crumbling US infrastructure.Last year, Biden signed a $1tn infrastructure bill, an achievement that eluded his most recent predecessors and one he was eager to champion after legislative setbacks. Continue reading...

Kenneth Thompson, 95, must submit a social security or driver’s license number, which wasn’t required in the 1940sA 95-year-old second world war veteran twice denied an absentee ballot under a restrictive Texas voting law has attracted support from prominent figures including Beto O’Rourke, a voting rights campaigner and former presidential candidate now running for Texas governor.Kenneth Thompson, who served in the US army in Europe, told Click2Houston, a Harris county news outlet, he had voted in every election since he was 21 and even remembered paying a 50-cent poll tax in the 1950s. Continue reading...

She may be in the news for running around New York with Covid, but it’s worth remembering how she spread another sort of virus: rightwing populismHelp! I am writing from beleaguered New York City which, on top of dealing with giant rats, a nasty nor’easter, and the surreal “swagger’”of a Bitcoin-obsessed mayor, is also battling a Palinvasion. Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, has spent the past week running around the city eating at multiple fancy restaurants despite the fact that she has tested positive for Covid-19. Palin, who isn’t vaccinated and has said “it’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot,” has now become something of a public health hazard: New Yorkers are being told to go get themselves tested if they’ve been anywhere near her.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

Nine officers fired on Landon Eastep, who was holding a box cutter and is estimated to have been shot 30 timesThe Nashville police chief has stripped an officer of policing authority after he fired the final two shots to end a fatal interstate highway standoff in which nine officers opened fire on a man holding a box cutter.During the encounter on Thursday, officers exhorted Landon Eastep to surrender while they kept their guns drawn. They fatally shot him when he pulled a shiny object from his pocket and pointed it as if ready to shoot. It was not a gun. Continue reading...

The commission made a list of recommendations ‘to correct historical wrongs in the area’For more than a year, officials in a northern California coastal town have been debating whether they should rename.This week, the commission examining the issue said that, for now, the Fort Bragg name is here to stay. But the effort highlights the challenges that come as cities, schools and parks across the US reconsider controversial placenames with racist histories. Continue reading...

The proposal would end all voting by mail and allow legislature to reject election results, part of nationwide rightwing effort to overturn electionsArizona Republicans have introduced a bill that would impose significant new voting restrictions and allow the state legislature to reject election results.The measure would require the state legislature to convene after primary and general elections to review the ballot counting process and “shall accept or reject the election results”. Continue reading...

People on field during show, many of whom are trained dancers, participate in nearly two weeks of rehearsals but aren’t paidIt’s an annual tradition as ingrained as throwing Gatorade on the winning coach: the moment when the Super Bowl half-time performer takes to the stage and the football field is filled with “fans” cheering them on.The Los Angeles Times reported last week that those audience members are in fact hundreds of unpaid “volunteers” who participate in nearly two weeks of rehearsals ahead of the Super Bowl, many of whom are trained dancers recruited from the same agency that represents the paid dancers on the halftime show stage. Continue reading...

Calls mount for release of full Senate report on the US torture of Abu Zubaydah to counter a narrative too many Americans still believe – that torture worksOn the morning of 6 October the nine justices of the US supreme court filed into their wood-paneled courtroom in Washington to hear arguments in a dispute between the US government and Abu Zubaydah, a Guantánamo prisoner who has been held incommunicado and without charge for the past 20 years.A government lawyer addressed the panel, arguing on grounds of “state secrets” that Zubaydah should be blocked from calling two CIA contractors to testify about the brutal interrogations they put him through at a hidden black site in Poland. Within minutes of his opening remarks, the lawyer was interrupted by Amy Coney Barrett, one of the rightwing justices appointed to the court by Donald Trump. Continue reading...

Abu Zubaydah has been held by the US without charge for the past 20 years. His own words and images depict the relentless, round-the-clock, prolonged and illegal abuse he has sufferedAbu Zubaydah, the Guantánamo prisoner who has been held by the US without charge for the past 20 years, kept notes of the torture to which he was subjected by the CIA between his arrest in 2002 and his transfer to Guantánamo four years later. In personal discussions with his attorneys, and in his own writings and drawings from inside Guantánamo, the detainee recalled in harrowing detail the torture techniques applied to him at secret CIA black sites in Thailand, Poland and other countries. In one month alone, August 2002, he was put through the barbaric water torture known as waterboarding 83 times. In his account he referred to the method, a form of controlled drowning, as the “water bed”.The notes were first published in How America Tortures by the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall Law School where one of Zubaydah’s lawyers Mark Denbeaux is professor emeritus. Here is an edited version of that account of the torture Zubaydah endured, in his own words and drawings. Continue reading...

The Hall of Fame tailback and miscast heel who lit up the NFL in the 1980s sets the record straight on a career that saw him underheralded on the field and misunderstood off of itEarlier this month Antonio Brown made what might be the most dramatic exit in sports history, stripping down and stalking off the field in the middle of an NFL game, as his defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers were rallying against the lowly New York Jets on the road.Eric Dickerson could never. Continue reading...

The Neil Young and Joe Rogan row may be the final straw for some, but many music lovers like me are in a dilemmaIt was September 2009, and I was anxiously waiting to head off to university. My friends had already all left and my small home town in Wales felt even more claustrophobic than before. It was also the month I downloaded a relatively new music streaming service called Spotify. I was immediately in heaven. I’d sneaked in just before they ended a free sign-up offer and so, for precisely zero pounds, I suddenly had access to a musical library that had previously been unthinkable.

Joe Biden visited the site where one of Pittsburgh’s major car bridges collapsed hours before speaking about it in an infrastructure schedule speech in Pennsylvania, on Friday.At about 7am, the 477ft-long bridge on Forbes Avenue caved in, leaving a mass of concrete rubble and twisted metal as a visual metaphor for America’s crumbling infrastructure.At least 10 people were injured, three taken to hospital, and a bus and several cars left stranded in the wreckage

Actor and activist says ‘dog’s ass would make a better governor’ after State of the State speech stunt goes viralBette Midler had harsh words for the governor of West Virginia after he showed his dog’s backside at the end of his State of the State speech, in a bizarre rejoinder to the actor, singer and activist.Responding on Thursday to a tweet in which Midler called West Virginia “poor, illiterate and strung out”, the Republican Jim Justice said she could kiss his dog’s “hiney”. Continue reading...

Avenatti, acting as his own lawyer, asked Daniels about stories she has told about living in New Orleans in 2019At his fraud trial in New York on Friday, the attorney Michael Avenatti sought to portray his former client Stormy Daniels as someone who might be delusional, questioning the adult film-maker and actor about her belief she was once haunted by ghosts.For a second day, Avenatti, acting as his own lawyer, cross-examined Daniels about allegations he stole $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a tell-all book about a sexual tryst with Donald Trump which he denies. Continue reading...

At least 10 injured and a bus and several cars left stranded in wreckage after 477ft-long bridge on Forbes Avenue caved inIt would be hard to imagine a more dramatic way to illustrate the need for investment in US infrastructure that Joe Biden spoke about in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Friday.Hours before his visit and just four miles from where the president was scheduled to speak, one of Pittsburgh’s major car bridges collapsed. Continue reading...

Residents in north-east and mid-Atlantic regions braced for blizzard conditions as officials issue travel warningsResidents and officials across the US north-east and mid-Atlantic regions were bracing on Friday for a powerful winter storm expected to produce blizzard conditions into Saturday.Heavy snow and strong winds were forecast to begin in parts of the Carolinas and Appalachia on Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service. The system will then intensify and bring snowy conditions up the east coast to New England, where forecasters warned of localized snowfall totals of up to 20in and wind gusts of 50 to 60mph. Continue reading...

House committee seeks to determine whether Trump White House was behind plan to send false certificates to CongressThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Friday issued subpoenas to lead participants in an audacious scheme to send fake Trump slates of electors to Congress.The development comes as the panel seeks to learn whether the plan was coordinated by the Trump White House. Continue reading...

Remains of at least 20 members believed to have been killed in the Indian Island Massacre of 1860 will be returned by UCBThe most vulnerable members of the Wiyot Tribe were asleep the morning of 26 February 1860, when a band of white men slipped into their northern California villages under darkness and slaughtered them.Many of the children, women and elderly slain in what became known as the Indian Island Massacre, had their eternal rest disturbed when their graves were dug up and their skeletons and the artifacts buried with them placed in a museum. Continue reading...

Nine of world’s 10 richest billionaires see wealth dented as rising interest rates spur sell-off of ‘stay at home’ stocksThe world’s richest billionaires have lost more than $50bn (£37bn) this week as their fortunes – mostly held in technology companies – dropped in a “white knuckle” rout on tech shares.Elon Musk, the wealthiest person on the planet, saw his fortune fall by $25.8bn in a single day on Thursday, according to the latest data available, as shares in his electric car company, Tesla, fell 11% to their lowest since October. Continue reading...

Even 50 years later, the killings in Derry in 1972 cast a long shadow over Britain’s policies in Northern IrelandFor many on both sides of the Irish Sea, the killing of 14 unarmed civil rights demonstrators by members of the British army’s Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday in 1972 remains the defining outrage of Northern Ireland’s 30-year Troubles. It was certainly the most politically damaging to Britain. The shootings, which took place in Derry’s Bogside district 50 years ago on Sunday, shocked these islands and the world. They still do and they still should. Bloody Sunday was not the only senseless act of violence during the Troubles. Many more killings were carried out during those 30 years by paramilitary groups from both sides than by the security forces (and more than five times as many in the case of the IRA). But the shootings in Derry made the Northern Ireland crisis deepen dramatically, led to a steep escalation of violence, caused a boost in IRA recruitment and did huge reputational harm to Britain, its Northern Ireland policy and its institutions.Almost as bad as Bloody Sunday itself was the official attempt to cover up what happened, and the lies that were consistently told, including at the highest level of government and in the first judicial inquiry that was announced days after the killings. In the end it would take nearly 40 years before the UK government acknowledged the truth about 30 January 1972 and apologised, after Lord Saville’s inquiry found in 2010 that none of the casualties were posing a threat or doing anything that would justify shooting them. Even now, many aspects of Bloody Sunday remain sources of dispute, in particular the failure to pursue individual soldiers through prosecutions. Continue reading...

Family ‘in shock’ as police department says Landon Eastep was agitated and carrying a box cutter on highwayAt least nine law enforcement officers fatally shot a man walking on an interstate highway in Nashville on Thursday, in the latest use of deadly police force in the US that has left the man’s family “in shock”.The 37-year-old man, named as Landon Eastep, was agitated and carrying a box cutter in his left hand, a Metro Nashville police department spokesman, Don Aaron, said. The agency said Eastep was walking along the highway before he was shot. Continue reading...

The Met police delay of the partygate report will only deepen the public feeling that those in authority cannot be trusted

Verdict on same day as deadline to decide whether British businessman can be extradited to US to face proceedingsHewlett-Packard has won its six-year civil fraud case against Mike Lynch, the man once hailed as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates, after a high court judge ruled that he duped the US firm into paying £8.2bn for his software firm Autonomy.Lynch, who was on Friday waiting to find out if he could be extradited to the US to face a separate criminal trial, was found to have defrauded HP by manipulating Autonomy’s accounts to inflate the value of the company. He has always denied the accusation and said on Friday that he would appeal. Continue reading...

Two-year-old, gray and white farm cat made an impression on Jill Biden during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania in 2020The newest member of the Biden team has arrived at the White House: a long-promised pet cat for the first family.The two-year-old, green-eyed, gray and white farm cat caught Jill Biden’s eye when she jumped on stage and interrupted a speech the first lady was giving during the 2020 presidential campaign. Continue reading...

Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, author of I Love Capitalism!, said of the Democratic senator: ‘Thank God for Joe Manchin’A billionaire Republican donor and Trump supporter donated the maximum allowed amount to Joe Manchin after the West Virginia Democrat sank Joe Biden’s signature domestic spending plan.The Build Back Better plan sought to boost health and social care, and to help combat the climate crisis, at a price tag of $1.75tn. Continue reading...

The streaming service’s decision to back the controversial podcast shows it might have lost its wayNeil Young this week issued Spotify with a blunt ultimatum: it’s me or Joe Rogan. The Canadian-American musician criticised its exclusive hosting of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in a letter to his manager and record label published online, which asked his music be removed from the streaming service. Spotify chose Rogan, removing Young’s entire back catalogue.

In the past half century, North America has lost a fourth of its birds. Earth is now a coalmine, and every wild bird is a canaryWhen the poet Mary Oliver wrote “Instructions for living a life,” she reminded us: “Pay attention. Be astounded. Tell about it.”This past autumn, wildlife officials announced that a bird, a male bar-tailed godwit, flew nonstop across the Pacific Ocean 8,100 miles from Alaska to Australia in just under 10 days. Fitted with a small solar-powered satellite tag, the godwit achieved “a land bird flight record”. But of course godwits have been doing this for centuries. Come next April-May, all things well, determined godwits will make the trip in reverse, bound for Alaska to nest and raise their young.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

Matthew Reeves, 43, put to death after divided US supreme court rejects claim that intellectual disability cost him chance of alternative execution methodAlabama executed an inmate by lethal injection for a 1996 murder on Thursday evening after a divided US supreme court sided with the state and rejected defense claims the man had an intellectual disability that cost him a chance to choose a less “torturous”, yet untried, execution method.Matthew Reeves, 43, was put to death at Holman prison after the court lifted a lower court order that had prevented corrections workers from executing the prisoner. He was pronounced dead at 9.24pm CST, the state attorney general, Steve Marshall, said in a statement. Continue reading...