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Goon Squad' burst into a home on 24 January without a warrant and brutalized the two men, shooting one in the mouthSix white former law enforcement officers in Mississippi who called themselves the Goon Squad" have pleaded guilty to a racist assault on two Black men who were brutalized during a home raid that ended with an officer shooting one man in the mouth, federal prosecutors say.The civil rights charges were unsealed Thursday as the officers - five former Rankin county sheriff's deputies and an ex-Richland police officer - appeared in federal court and pleaded guilty. Continue reading...

As rightwing media and the mayor target a Queens neighborhood, sex workers say they're just trying to surviveIn 2000, Cecilia Gentili worked late nights as a sex worker on Roosevelt Avenue, a dusty corridor linking Queens' most diverse communities, under the shadow of the clattering 7 train. It was the only way she could survive as a new immigrant. After coming out as trans, she had been shut out by employers in her native Argentina, and in New York, I really thought that things would be different," she says. But in a way, it was a double level of discrimination: being trans and being undocumented. So again, I found myself engaged in street sex work."She rented a $150-a-month room in a shared apartment in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood full of other immigrants and queer and trans sex workers trying to help each other scrape by. When I needed a place to live, it was not the city of New York that facilitated it, it was another sex worker. When I needed to eat, it was another trans person," she says. If she felt unsafe on the street, she'd walk to a late-night street vendor and stand in their lamp's warm glow. Continue reading...

Jinchao Wei, 22, and Wenheng Zhao, 26, accused in separate cases of violating commitments they made to protect the United States'Two US navy sailors have been arrested on charges of handing over sensitive national security material to China, US officials said on Thursday.Jinchao Wei, a 22-year-old sailor assigned to the San Diego-based USS Essex, was arrested on Wednesday on a charge related to espionage involving conspiracy to sending national defense information to Chinese officials. In a separate case, the justice department charged Wenheng Zhao, 26, for allegedly collecting bribes in exchange for giving sensitive US military photos and videos to a Chinese intelligence officer. Continue reading...

Former president's arraignment comes two days after special counsel Jack Smith issued an indictment for four felony counts

The experiences of cities in California and Colorado suggest that growth caps don't work to make cost of living more affordable - but other mechanisms canIn 2017, Stephanie Deveaux noticed her city and neighborhood were changing. Lying on Denver's western outskirts, Lakewood was known for its spacious single-family homes, good public schools, pristine parks and Rocky Mountain views. But many of the things that made Lakewood so livable seemed under threat.All these multiunit dwellings [were] starting to be developed," she said, referring to the boxy, ultramodern and monotone buildings now scattered across Lakewood. And then lands that I thought had been earmarked for open space, those started to get filled up." Continue reading...

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Actor who plays Kang the Conqueror in Marvel films is charged with misdemeanors including assaultActor Jonathan Majors' domestic violence trial was postponed until at least 6 September after New York City prosecutors asked Thursday for more time to prepare.Majors, 33, appeared in court for what was to have been the start of his trial on charges stemming from a March confrontation with a woman who says he twisted her arm behind her back, struck her on the head and pushed her into a vehicle. The woman was treated at a hospital for minor neck and head injuries, including a cut to her ear. Continue reading...

A 2014 appointee of Barack Obama, the federal judge was randomly assigned to oversee the case - and has ruled on a Trump case beforeA federal judge who has emerged as one of the toughest authorities against rioters who participated in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol will soon meet her most high-profile defendant: Donald Trump.Tanya Chutkan, a 2014 appointee of former president Barack Obama, was randomly assigned to oversee the case on Tuesday after a federal grand jury indicted the former president on four counts related to his attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election, including conspiracy and obstruction of official proceedings. Continue reading...

It remains an open question whether the derailment that shattered life in East Palestine will become a catalyst for actionCongress responded to the fiery train derailment in eastern Ohio earlier this year with bipartisan alarm, holding a flurry of hearings about the potential for railroad crashes to trigger even larger disasters. Both parties agreed that a legislative response was needed.Yet six months after life was upended in East Palestine, little has changed. Continue reading...

Survey finds 53% of Americans think addressing climate crisis should be given priority but 72% of Republicans say otherwiseAlmost three-quarters of US Republican voters think the economy should be given priority in domestic policy, even at the risk of ignoring the climate crisis, a new poll found.The survey, from NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist, found that a majority of Americans (53%) think addressing the climate crisis should be given priority. Continue reading...

Oversight district, created after a row between DeSantis and Disney, calls diversity programs illegal and simply un-American'A Ron DeSantis-appointed Walt Disney World governing district has abolished all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, it said this week, in a move that continues the Florida governor's war on diversity-promoting programs in the state.In a statement the Central Florida tourism oversight district said any DEI job duties" would also be eliminated. Continue reading...

Abuse of power exists wherever toxic working environments indulge it. Pretending that all women are nice is not the answerBeing an icon, the rapper-singer-songwriter Lizzo once said, is not about how long you've had your platform. Instead it's about what you do with that platform", as she told a cheering crowd at last year's People's Choice awards in the US, before inviting a string of female activists who she suggested were more deserving of recognition to join her on stage.Few seemingly embodied inclusive feminism better than Lizzo, who built her brand on an uplifting, joyful, thrillingly body-positive form of female empowerment while glorying in her sexuality as a self-styled big grrrl". Of course it's her bouncy, summery track Pink that plays over the opening scenes of the new Barbie film. Who better than Lizzo to sell the idea of a dreamworld ruled by women for women, where men are just Kens and benign rule by Barbies frees all their sisters to be whatever they want to be?Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Anheuser-Busch InBev revenue fell 10.5% in last three months following controversy over partnership with trans influencerThe scale of the conservative backlash against Bud Light was revealed on Thursday when owner Anheuser-Busch InBev reported a sharp drop in US revenue over the last three months.The world's largest brewer saw its second-quarter revenue in the US - its largest market - drop 10.5% after a rightwing backlash over a partnership with a transgender influencer led to a sales drop. Operating profits dropped nearly 30%. Continue reading...

Former vice-president speaks about how he was pressured, after he was shown to be a crucial figure in Trump's latest indictment

Many elite women's football players are effectively amateurs. Increased payments should help many of them reach their potentialA month before this year's Women's World Cup, Jamaica's players posted statements to their social media accounts saying they had not been paid. They also said they had been subjected to subpar planning". So dire was the situation that online fundraisers were started to help the team - one by the mother of Jamaica midfielder Havana Solaun.Despite that uncertainty, the Caribbean nation with a population of less than 3 million didn't concede a goal in their first three games at this World Cup, including a pair of scoreless draws against world powers France and Brazil, to advance to the knockout stage for the first time. Continue reading...

Dialogue around coercive control' in relation to financial abuse is gaining steam in the US, with California passing laws to protect victims from collectorsThe bankruptcy lawyer spread all of Jean's debts across the table. She pored over each document, trying to swallow her shame. The papers documented more than $140,000 that Jean and her ex-partner owed creditors.It was June 2021. Jean, who the Guardian is identifying by her middle name to protect her identity during ongoing divorce litigation, had separated from her husband two years earlier. She had already been granted a domestic violence restraining order in Alameda county, California, after experiencing what she describes as physical, emotional, mental and sexual abuse. But in the meantime, shared loans and expenses between Jean and her ex-partner had been piling up. Since Jean was the account holder on most of their credit cards, she was beholden to the bank. Declaring bankruptcy seemed like her only hope for a fresh start. Continue reading...

The Argentinian faced Inter's Florida rivals on Wednesday and there were clear signs that MLS's power balance is shiftingThe seasonal south Florida lightning brings a perpetual threat of power surges, but a soccer power shift is also brewing in the Sunshine State.After a huge rain storm paused Inter Miami's unveiling of Lionel Messi last month, the heavens opened again on Wednesday to hold up the club's highly anticipated Florida derby against Orlando City in the Leagues Cup last 32. Continue reading...

Over 85,000 workers hold pickets at 50 facilities across US as union contracts set to expire on 30 SeptemberUnions representing more than 85,000 healthcare workers have held pickets at 50 facilities across California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado amid new contract negotiations as their current union contracts are set to expire on 30 September.The negotiations at Kaiser Permanente are the third largest set of contract negotiations in the US in 2023, behind the 340,000 workers at UPS who will be voting on a tentative agreement this month that was reached days before planned strike action, and 150,000 autoworkers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis whose contracts are set to expire on 14 September. Continue reading...

Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum have qualified for the GOP debate after each contributed over $10m to their own campaignsTwo wealthy Republicans running long-shot campaigns for president have qualified for the first GOP debate - even as they remain their own top donors.The candidates, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota and former software company executive, have each contributed more than $10m to their own campaigns. Continue reading...

The man who has indicted the former president over alleged election subversion is an experienced and independent lawyer

Team continuing a pattern of falling short under Vlatko Andonovski but go into last-16 Sweden tie with a point to prove

Former president scheduled to surrender to federal authorities in Washington and enter not guilty plea. Plus, inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline

ACLU and NAACP among organizations condemning homeland security department over domestic violent extremist' labelProminent civil rights and civil liberties organizations have called on the US homeland security department to investigate the agency's intelligence-gathering on protesters against Cop City', the police and fire department training center planned for a forest south-east of Atlanta.The organizations draw attention to the dozens of environmental protesters arrested and charged with domestic terrorism in a letter to the department director, Alejandro Mayorkas. The charges have caused outrage among many observers who accuse Georgia law enforcement of a heavy-handed crackdown on the protest movement. Continue reading...

Fifty-six of the 57 death row prisoners ask governor, who is coming to the end of his term, to act on his anti-death penalty convictionsAll but one of Louisiana's death row inmates are racing against the clock to persuade the state's Democratic governor and the clemency board to commute their sentences to life in prison, ahead of a possible transfer of political power that could see the state aggressively resume executions in 2024.Fifty-six of the 57 prisoners sentenced to death in Louisiana have joined forces to make a rare mass petition for mercy. They are asking John Bel Edwards, the governor who is coming to the end of his term, to act on his anti-death penalty convictions and order the pardons board to consider their pleas. Continue reading...

Pundits lined up to compare Trump charges to criminalizing thoughts' and the dropping of fifteen dozen' atomic bombsAfter he was indicted for the third time, Donald Trump reacted with his now-standard, twin-pronged approach: first, expressing outrage and denying the charges, and second, asking his many loyal supporters for money.But the former US president, who faces four charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, also found defenders among rightwing media in America which has often fervently defended him, sometimes flying in the face of reality to do so. Continue reading...

These thefts are crimes of poverty. Ministers' threats to send culprits to prison will never solve themIs an ever fiercer crackdown on the misdemeanours of the poor really justice? When a government minister suggests building new prisons to lock up shoplifters, Tory priorities are revealed in technicolour: that war should be waged on the symptoms, rather than the causes, of poverty. This is a tradition as British as drinking tea or Morris dancing. When the economy tanked after the 1720 South Sea bubble" collapse, the so-called Black Act was passed, imposing the death penalty on the overwhelmingly poor Britons driven by hunger who poached animals in private parks in order to survive. Today's justice system spares offenders the gallows, but it's driven by the same class vengeance that defined it back then: witness how you're 23 times more likely to be prosecuted for benefit fraud than tax fraud, even though the latter costs the economy nine times more.The Tories' plan to cling on to power is now abundantly clear: appeal to the worst instincts of the electorate. Proffering mandatory prison sentences as a solution to persistent shoplifting is part of that grim package. In practice, that means scooping up more largely poor, often traumatised citizens, and locking them up in institutions so overcrowded that their staff's trade union describes them as a powder keg waiting to blow". That shoplifting is indelibly linked to poverty is beyond debate. Last year, even the new chief inspector of constabulary declared that officers should use discretion" in prosecuting those who steal so they can eat, adding that whenever you see an increase in the cost of living or whenever you see more people dropping into poverty, I think you'll invariably see a rise in crime." He was correct: shoplifting has more than doubled in the last six years, reaching a staggering 8m incidents last year.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Leagues like the IFL are minuscule in comparison to the behemoth that is the NFL. But they are often popular in the smaller markets they serveDespite being one of the game's most well-known features, indoor football's condensed dimensions are still shocking to fans accustomed to gridiron's traditional, significantly more popular outdoor form. At 50 yards long and 28 yards wide, an indoor football field offers players roughly one-quarter the area of an NFL field.To accommodate for this, indoor football permits fewer on-field players than its outdoor equivalent (eight and 11, respectively). You'll notice, however, that the number of players isn't reduced by nearly the same extent as the playing area. As a result, indoor football fields are crowded and, with so many players crammed into so small an area, the games are action-packed - and that's even before accounting for the padded walls. Continue reading...

I once scoffed at the idea of empty nest syndrome'. Now I scour camp photos like a homicide detective, on the lookout for scowls or sunburnOn Sunday I dropped off my kids at camp and, all going well, I won't see or hear from them for two weeks. This wasn't part of my plan for the summer. Sleepaway camp, a staple of American childhood, isn't in my background and the whole idea of it filled me with dread. At their age - eight - I would have hated it, I'm sure, being sent away and forced to have fun. But my children aren't me and they pushed and pushed until finally last week I gave in. So there they are, at a lake in New Jersey, and here I am, in New York, alone.It should be good for all of us, this period of detachment. Unless you favour the Edwardian model and ship off your kids to boarding school as long-range training for ruining the country, parenting young children is intense. Single parenting, in the absence of immediate family, can feel - in my case, as a single parent of twins - like being one person divided into three.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York Continue reading...

Is there anything he can't sell? Continue reading...

Gift' to Florida governor's presidential campaign has been criticized online given team's claim of supporting DEI effortsThe Orlando Magic NBA team has donated $50,000 to a super PAC supporting Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis's presidential bid.According to Federal Election Commission records, the Never Back Down super PAC received the donation made by the basketball team on 26 June. Further results showed the team making donations to other political causes in past years, with $500 going to Conservative Results in 2016, $2,000 to Maverick PAC USA in 2014 and another $500 to Linda Chapin for Congress in 2000. Continue reading...

Texas government installed barrier to deter migrants - Mexican and US governments want it removed as dangerous and illegalA body has been found stuck in a floating barrier installed by Texas authorities in the Rio Grande river on the US border, Mexico's foreign ministry has saidAuthorities were working to identify the body found in the river and determine the cause of death, said Mexico's foreign ministry, as it reiterated safety concerns. Continue reading...

Authorities are looking for additional victims after linking Negasi Zuberi to sexual assaults in at least four more statesA man who posed as an undercover police officer kidnapped a woman in Seattle, drove her to his home in Oregon and locked her in a makeshift cell in his garage before she managed to escape, the FBI said Wednesday.The man, Negasi Zuberi, faces a federal interstate kidnapping charge, and authorities said they are looking for additional victims after linking him to violent sexual assaults in at least four more states. Continue reading...

John Lauro claims four criminal charges over efforts to overturn 2020 election absurd'; US officials say Trump will have fingerprints taken but no photo

Rise Above Movement co-founder to face charges in Los Angeles in relation to violent clashes with anti-fascist protesters in 2017Robert Rundo, the influential American neo-Nazi and co-founder of the now-defunct Rise Above Movement, was extradited to the USto face charges in relation to violent clashes with anti-fascist protesters in 2017.Rundo was extradited from Romania to the US on Tuesday, after being apprehended in a Bucharest gym in late March on an American warrant. Continue reading...

Appeals court upholds injunction ordering two school districts to allow trans students to use facilities in line with gender identitiesA federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that transgender students in Indiana must have access to the bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identities.The seventh circuit court of appeals ruling on Tuesday upheld a preliminary injunction from the US district court for the southern district of Indiana last year ordering the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville and the Vigo County Schools to give the transgender students such access. Continue reading...

Arianna Davis, 24, and Crystal Williams, 26, described incidents of body shaming and being forced to participate in religious activitiesFormer dancers for Lizzo are speaking out after they sued the artist for sexual harassment, racial discrimination and fostering a hostile work environment.Two plaintiffs in the case, Arianna Davis, 24, and Crystal Williams, 26, talked openly in interviews about the suffering they said they endured by Lizzo, whose legal name is Melissa Jefferson. Continue reading...

Stanley Woodward, lawyer for Walt Nauta, might be in the position of cross-examining past or current clients', court filing says

A healthy body politic cannot allow its core values and principles to be trashed with impunityThe indictment served on Donald Trump on Monday marks the beginning of a legal reckoning that is desperately required, if American democracy is to properly free itself from his malign, insidious influence. Mr Trump already faces multiple criminal charges relating to the retention of classified national security documents and the payment of hush money to a porn star. But the gravity of the four counts outlined by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is of a different order of magnitude.Mr Trump stands accused of conspiring, in office, to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. Following Joe Biden's victory, the indictment states, Mr Trump knowingly" used false claims of electoral fraud in an attempt to subvert the legitimate election results". A bipartisan congressional committee report last year came to similar conclusions and provides much of the basis for the charges. But this represents the first major legal attempt to hold Mr Trump accountable for events leading up to and including the storming of the Capitol by a violent mob on 6 January 2021. Continue reading...

Report says ex-president made comments at private White House lunch in June but pledged to do all he could' for re-election bidBarack Obama has reportedly warned Joe Biden about how strong a challenge Donald Trump will be in their second election battle in 2024, should Trump win the Republican nomination next year as expected.Polling now shows Trump and Biden closely matched for a second presidential contest. Continue reading...

Dick Durbin, chair of Senate judiciary committee, criticizes supreme court justice in wake of billowing ethics scandalsA powerful Democrat senator has called Samuel Alito's public expression of opposition to US supreme court ethics reform unwise and unwelcome", rejecting the conservative justice's contention that Congress cannot implement such measures.Justice Alito is providing speculative public commentary on a bill that is still going through the legislative process," said Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and the chair of the Senate judiciary committee. Continue reading...

Two and half years in the making, special counsel Jack Smith's indictment presents a devastating case laced with telling detailMore than 1,000 people charged over the US Capitol riot, millions of pages of evidence compiled by the House January 6 committee, hundreds of hours of depositions of key players - all this has finally been boiled down to a 45-page indictment that accuses Donald Trump of attempting to destroy American democracy.Why didn't they do this 2.5 years ago?" the former president asked peevishly on Tuesday, shortly before the indictment came down. The answer lies in the document itself: in its painstaking command of detail and in the cool, crisp legal language deployed by special counsel Jack Smith to make his case. Continue reading...

Report shows lack of accountability' for misuse of lethal force, intimidation, sexual harassment and falsifying documentsA new report identifies persistent human rights abuses without accountability at the US-Mexico border by agents with US Customs and Border Protection - the largest civilian law enforcement agency run by the federal government.The report, compiled by the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) and the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), migrant rights advocacy groups, details a pattern of misuse of lethal force, intimidation, sexual harassment and falsifying documents. Continue reading...

Four district attorneys file lawsuit against oversight commission seen as response to election of progressive, Black prosecutorsA group of district attorneys filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the state of Georgia and Governor Brian Kemp challenging Republican-led legislation that gives the state the ability to oust prosecutors it finds are not enforcing the law.The four district attorneys are challenging Senate Bill 92, which Kemp signed into law in May creating a statewide Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission with the power to investigate complaints against district attorneys, discipline them and remove them from office if it decides they are not adequately carrying out state law. They claim that the law, which institutes a top-down approach to law enforcement", prevents voters from selecting their own district attorneys. In recent years, Georgia voters have increasingly chosen progressive, Black prosecutors. Continue reading...

Democrats and some Republican opponents welcomed Donald Trump's federal indictment on four charges relating to his alleged attempted election subversion, while the former president's supporters rallied to his defence. Trump is now facing 78 criminal charges, including 40 federal counts in Florida over his retention of classified records, and 34 New York state counts over hush-money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels. Despite this, and the prospect of more charges over election subversion in Georgia, he is leading national Republican polling by more than 30 points and by wide margins in early voting states

Lieutenant governor among officials calling for postponement as thousands on strike demanding better pay and benefitsCalifornia officials are urging Taylor Swift to postpone her Los Angeles concerts and stand in solidarity with striking hotel workers.Eleni Kounalakis, California's lieutenant governor, as well as dozens of other state and local politicians asked the singer in an open letter to support the hotel workers' plight. Continue reading...