Executive summary of report released by House panel investigating January 6 details a failed self-coupIt was, all in all, a very American attempt at a coup. Or self-coup to be exact.The world watched its denouement dumbfounded on 6 January 2021 as thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the heart of US democracy, the Capitol in Washington, with cries to hang the vice-president, in an attempt to overturn an election and keep Trump in power. Continue reading...
The incoming congressman’s biography is now being re-examined as opponent claims Santos was ‘running a scam against the voters’A news report on Monday questioned whether the career résumé of the incoming Republican congressman George Santos – who was elected last month to serve a typically Democrat suburban district north-east of New York City – may be largely fictional.According to an analysis by the New York Times, the biographical sketch offered by the 34-year-old, first-generation Brazilian-American, who ran as a member of a “new generation of Republican leadership” as the “full embodiment of the American dream”, may not have worked at Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, graduated from a New York college, or run a pet rescue charity, as he has claimed. Continue reading...
Appointment of former congressman and grandson of Robert Kennedy comes amid transatlantic tension over post-Brexit tradeJoe Kennedy III, the 42-year-old scion of one of America’s most famous political families, has agreed to serve as the special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs, the US state department announced on Monday.The former Massachusetts congressman and grandson of US attorney general Robert F Kennedy is replacing Mick Mulvaney, a former White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, who stepped down from the role last year. Continue reading...
The MLS side is reportedly confident of landing Argentina’s World Cup hero this summer. But is signing the 35-year-old right for Inter Miami and the league?While Lionel Messi was busy completing his career odyssey in the most dramatic fashion, David Beckham watched from the stands, hopeful his Inter Miami team could land its very own unicorn.The Major League Soccer franchise is reportedly “confident” of signing Messi following the 2022-23 European season, and “close” to a deal making him the highest-paid player in MLS history. Continue reading...
The Boston mobster died in a federal prison in Missouri from an undetermined causeThe once formidable New England mob boss Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme has died in prison while serving a life sentence for the 1993 killing by strangulation of a Boston nightclub owner, according to authorities. He was 89.Salemme died on 13 December, online records from the US Bureau of Prisons show. The local news outlet WPRI first reported Salemme’s death late on Sunday, though a cause was not immediately available. Continue reading...
As the House January 6 committee is set to publish its report, here are some of the key standoutsThe House January 6 committee is set to publish its report on the attack on the Capitol that shocked both America and the world . After a year of dramatic hearings and bombshell testimony, here are some of the key winners and losers to emerge from its work. Continue reading...
Tom Baio, an incumbent member of the Mendham township committee, lost his bid by three votes to Democrat Laura SpirigA local Republican elected officeholder from New Jersey is looking to throw out the absentee ballot of his daughter who voted for his Democratic opponent, according to a recent report.On Friday, the Observer-Tribune reported that Tom Baio, an incumbent member of New Jersey’s Mendham township committee, lost his bid by three votes to Laura Spirig, his Democratic challenger during the 8 November midterm elections. Continue reading...
Business impresario Angel Gregorio is transforming shipping containers into an incubator for Black entrepreneurs and farmersWhen the Guardian first profiled Angel Gregorio, the 37-year-old was running her Washington DC gourmet seasonings business the Spice Suite while hosting pop-ups for other Black entrepreneurs inside her Takoma-area store. She saw herself as a community builder first, and an entrepreneur second. “My business is about supporting Black businesses,” she said of her shop, which sells spices sourced from around the world, along with a multitude of products made by local Black women.A year later, her business has followed an upward trajectory, with fans ranging from Kelis to Stevie Wonder. Gregorio’s business is growing in other ways too: in January, the Spice Suite will reinvent itself as part of a mini strip mall that Gregorio designed and is opening in the Langdon neighborhood of DC. Continue reading...
Agreement on biodiversity targets forced through despite objections from some African countries. Plus, the World Cup final produces one of the greatest matches in historyGood morning.After four years of negotiations, and 12 years since the last biodiversity targets were agreed in Japan, governments appeared to have signed a once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems at the UN biodiversity summit in Canada.What does the deal include? It includes targets to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade, reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and restore 30% of the planet’s degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems. Here are some more details.How did fans react in Argentina? There was delight in Buenos Aires that Argentina will be bringing home football’s most coveted trophy. After the game, fans flocked to the Obelisk in central Buenos Aires, the streets a carnivalesque cacophony of cheers, car horns, cumbia music and bullhorns. Continue reading...
I set a goal to read 50 books. I almost made it, and once I started it was easier than I thoughtThe digital age is changing us in ways we would never expect. If you had told me 20 years ago that I would one day stop reading books, I would have said you were crazy. I’ve always been a reader; from the time I was little, I would hide away somewhere with a book and devour it, often in one sitting. Cut to 2021, when I realized I had only read five books that year, and the previous year, only eight.I didn’t have to wonder why. I already knew it was my phone. We see our phone’s own calculation of how many hours we’ve spent on it each day, and we can’t quite believe it. What? Hours, I realized, that I used to spend reading books. So I made a New Year’s resolution for 2022: more books, less phone. I set a goal for myself of fifty books. And I almost made it.Nancy Jo Sales is a writer at Vanity Fair and the author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers and Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno Continue reading...
The parole board’s refusal to free Janet Carter, 69, is part of what advocates warn is a growing humanitarian crisis across the USPrison guards stood by as Janet Carter, 69, sat in her wheelchair and tried to explain the gaps in her memory. It was May 2022 and her third time appearing before the California parole board, which would decide whether to free her after 25 years.“I can’t remember a whole lot of stuff,” she said when a commissioner asked why she couldn’t articulate what she’d learned in prison programs. Her lawyer later pointed to a doctor’s report that documented some causes: Parkinson’s disease, early dementia, a neurocognitive disorder, chemotherapy and a head injury. Continue reading...
The ‘Rat Tsar’ that the city posted a job listing for will report to Meera Joshi, who shares Eric Adams’ hatred of the verminLate last month, New York City posted a job listing for a new “director of rodent mitigation”, a title that was soon slimmed down to “Rat Tsar”, to work under the direction of the Mayor Eric Adams and his deputy mayor for operations, Meera Joshi.Taking on New York’s rat population, the listing said, would take someone who is “highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty” and possessed of both “stamina and stagecraft”. The new Rat Tsar, it added would need a “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor and general aura of badassery”. Continue reading...
If there were ever a moment that made it undeniably clear the Patriots Dynasty was ancient history, New England’s jaw-dropping loss to the Raiders on Sunday may have been itSometimes when watching sports, one witnesses a play so ridiculous and inexplicable that one’s brain cannot even properly process what exactly has just happened. Case in point: the bizarre final sequence of the New England Patriots’ backbreaking 30-24 road loss to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. If there ever were a moment that laid bare how the Patriots Dynasty was officially in the rear-view mirror, we may have just witnessed it.Officially, the game ended with Raiders defensive end Chandler Jones picking off a lateral thrown by Patriots receiver Jakobi Meyers and rumbling into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. In the official game stats, it went down as a fumble recovery. But none of this quite captures the chaos that rapidly unfolded in the game’s final seconds. Continue reading...
Tiger is a protective father but the decision to catapult his son into public view at the PNC Championship is an interesting oneNobody who owns a yacht named Privacy is likely to pursue publicity. Tiger Woods has made the keeping of secrets an art form despite spending the majority of his life as one of the most recognisable people on earth. Hank Haney, the golf coach, once told the story of being chastised by his star client for giving a television executive a nod towards Woods’s likely schedule. Any member of the media who claims they properly know Woods is spoofing; there is deliberate, visible distance kept between the 15-times major winner and all but those within his inner sanctum. So many questions, so few answers.Against this backdrop, the profile given to 13-year-old Charlie Woods – and at his father’s own volition – is intriguing. The PNC Championship in Orlando ordinarily provides a bit of hit-and-giggle for high-profile golfing families but the now routine involvement of Team Woods raises interest levels significantly. Including to the point where it can make for uncomfortable reading or listening. This weekend, we have seen Charlie’s divot pattern assessed. Every pose and swing is likened to his iconic father. This is a child, subject to the kind of scrutiny that would be deemed unhealthy by plenty of onlookers. How does Charlie seamlessly return to the classroom having been plastered all over the Golf Channel for 72 hours? Continue reading...
The final meeting will determine if Trump will be criminally referred to the US justice departmentThe US House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is holding a final public meeting on Monday, when it’s expected to decide whether to issue criminal referrals for former president Donald Trump and his allies.The event, which comes just before the release of the committee’s final report, marks the end of a panel which has led the inquiry into the riots since the January day when more than 2,000 rioters breached the US Capitol building. Continue reading...
Agency said it anticipates preventing a total of 6,600 from entering secure area of airports by end of year, a nearly 10% jump from 2021The Transportation Security Administration has intercepted a record number of guns at airport safety checkpoints this year, and an overwhelming majority of them were loaded.In a statement released late last week, TSA revealed that as of 16 December, its officers had intercepted 6,301 firearms. Out of those, 88% were loaded. The number marks an increase of more than 300 from the 5,972 firearms that were detected in 2021. About 86% of the firearms confiscated last year were loaded. Continue reading...
Minorities need better policing and healthcare. What they get is a discussion about the hurt feelings of the rich and famousYou probably won’t remember this, considering everything that followed, but when Harry and Meghan got married, there was a popular view in the media that their union was a watershed moment for British race relations. The wedding, we were told, cast a spell on black, white and mixed-race people alike, enchanted by the nods to Meghan’s Afro-American cultural heritage during the ceremony. “A new era dawns,” a New York Times headline read. “Modern” was a word often used to describe the pair. A modern wedding, for a modern couple, in a modern Britain.
One passenger lost consciousness while others suffered cuts, bumps and bruises after severe turbulence on flight from Arizona to HawaiiEleven people were seriously injured when a flight to Hawaii was rocked by severe turbulence about 30 minutes outside Honolulu, emergency services have said.Nine others were transported in a stable condition, the Honolulu Emergency Medical Services said in a statement. Continue reading...
Pavone had been investigated for placing an aborted foetus on an altar and posting a video of it onlineThe Vatican has defrocked the anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.A letter to US bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken and that there was no chance for an appeal. Continue reading...
Remarks comes after fellow centrist Kyrsten Sinema announced she was leaving party and becoming an independentThe centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin does not intend to change his party affiliation – at least for now, he said Sunday.Manchin’s remarks on CBS’s Face the Nation came after fellow centrist senator Kyrsten Sinema sent shock waves through Congress by announcing that she was leaving the Democratic party and listing herself as an independent. Continue reading...
Dramatic statement comes one day before January 6 panel set to release outline of its investigative report on US Capitol attackCalifornia congressman Adam Schiff said Sunday that he believes there is “sufficient evidence” to criminally charge Donald Trump in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Schiff’s dramatic statement on CNN’s State of the Union came one day before the House January 6 select committee to which he belongs is poised to release an outline of its extensive investigative report on the US Capitol attack, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers. Continue reading...
Heavy snow, powerful winds, and bitterly cold temperatures will potentially snarl holiday travelA major winter storm system is expected to strike much of the US days before Christmas, potentially snarling holiday travel as motorists and air travelers contend with heavy snow, powerful winds, and bitterly cold temperatures across several regions.This sprawling storm system coincides with the arrival of an Arctic air mass that will consume much of the country “this upcoming week”, according to the National Weather Service. Between Tuesday and Saturday, temperature highs are expected to average from 10 to 35F below normal from the north-west to the eastern two-thirds of the US. Continue reading...
This week we publish stories on how to live better with menopause, the impact it has on Australia’s labour market, alongside some personal experiencesWhen I was in my early teens, my mother went through stages of being uncharacteristically angry and sometimes tearful for no apparent reason after a lifetime of being pretty mild-mannered and cheerful. She would walk around fanning her face, complaining about how hot and stuffy it was. It was the middle of winter and we lived in the Black Forest in Germany. I put it down to just one more weird thing parents did and never thought to ask her what was going on.I forgot all about this over the years as I had children myself. I stopped menstruating after getting an IUD in my early 40s and felt the liberation that comes with one less item of body maintenance.We have pain on a cycle for years and years and years, and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? The menopause comes. The fucking menopause comes and it is the most … wonderful fucking thing in the world. Yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but then you’re free. No longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts. You’re just a person. In business.” Continue reading...
End of the year can be painful for those who have lost loved ones to firearm crime, but forming new traditions can help ease traumaRamon Price makes sure he’s working on Thanksgiving and Christmas.He’s a counselor at a funeral home in Oakland, California, where for the past 18 years he’s helped hundreds of families navigate grief, death certificates, insurance and casket selections. About half of them lost loved ones in a homicide, usually with a firearm. Continue reading...
Former vice-president strikes a delicate balance between praise and condemnation of his old boss as he considers a 2024 runThere were servings of croissants, macarons and copies of a book entitled So Help Me God. There were reporters but it could not be described as a stampede; one front row seat was nabbed by the Guardian while others assigned to the media were eventually given to regular audience members.Mike Pence, the former US vice-president, walked into the auditorium at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) thinktank in Washington last week. It was the latest stop on a lengthy book tour that is ostensibly promoting his memoir while also testing the water for a presidential run in 2024. Continue reading...
A Danish study shows that children of migrants do better than ‘natives’ when socioeconomic background is appliedHow should we refer to the children of immigrants? The traditional answer is “second-generation immigrants”, yet “first-generation locals” is far more accurate, as a new research paper co-authored by Alan Manning, one of the UK’s top economists, points out.It has more to offer than linguistic improvements. In the US, first-generation locals generally do better than the children of locals. But that’s prompted a puzzle, because in European countries that is often not the case, with the children of migrants having below average educational and labour market outcomes. This has prompted worries from the left about discrimination and from the right about a lack of integration.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
The Qatargate scandal shows how insider corruption, influence-peddling and money-politics can erode public trustIt’s the betrayal that hurts most. Democracy is a vulnerable plant, easily neglected and weakened by parasites. It has faced overt, sometimes lethal attacks in 2022 from autocrats in places as far apart as the US, Brazil, China, Russia, Iran and Turkey. Yet when democracy is silently corrupted and subverted from within – that’s the real killer.In any international democracy league table, Europe’s parliament of 27 nations might be expected to score well. Likewise, a vice-president of that august body should surely be beyond reproach. And it may be that Eva Kaili, a Greek Socialist MEP who was sacked from her VP post and arrested last week is wrongly accused – as she maintains. Continue reading...
A month after four university students were stabbed to death, the case remains unsolved and the killer, or killers, at largeChristmas looms, but an eerie and decidedly nonfestive mood haunts the snowy college town of Moscow, Idaho. Locksmiths’ vans have replaced roving carolers. Some residents request pepper spray or guns as Christmas gifts. Businesses close early. Few people walk alone, especially at night.More than a month after four local university students were inexplicably stabbed to death in the same home, the case remains unsolved and the killer, or killers, at large. Police have named no suspect, found no murder weapon, and offered no motive. Continue reading...
Lawmakers expected to outline findings and vote to issue criminal and civil referrals on MondayThe House January 6 select committee plans to use its final meeting on Monday to refer Donald Trump, among others, to the justice department for conduct connected to the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.As it prepares to release its voluminous investigative report, the panel is expected to use its meeting, announced for 1pm, to take several conclusive steps. These include outlining an executive summary of its findings and legislative recommendations, voting to formally adopt the report, and then voting to issue criminal and civil referrals. Continue reading...
Ex-intelligence officer’s family say he was ‘kidnapped’ by militia before being secretly flown out of countryThe abduction of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused of preparing the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and his transfer into US custody raises concerns about a renewed willingness in Washington to flout international law to hunt alleged terrorist fugitives.The family of Mohammed Abouagela Masud, who appeared in a US courtroom last week, have described how the 71-year-old was “kidnapped” from his home in Tripoli’s Abu Salem neighbourhood around 1am on 17 November by armed gunmen sent by a notorious local militia commander. He was then held by another militia for two weeks before being handed over to US agents. Continue reading...
Republican lawmakers know Trump is unpopular – but some feverishly pro-Trump voters have the party in a bindAs Congress ends its first post-Trump term, the biggest political question hanging over America is: When will the Republican party finally reach its anti-Trump tipping point – when a majority of Republican lawmakers disavow him?Again and again, it looks like the tipping point is near but the party remains under Trump’s thumb. Continue reading...
Pair allegedly had list of 37 law enforcement agents they planned to assassinateIn the latest in an ever-growing list of criminal charges brought against January 6 rioters, a Tennessee man was arrested on Friday for allegedly plotting to kill the FBI agents who were investigating him.With the House of Representatives committee on the insurrection preparing to deliver its final recommendations on Monday, 34-year old Edward Kelley of Maryville was charged with conspiracy, retaliating against a federal official and solicitation to commit a crime of violence, reported CNN. Continue reading...
The Netflix drama reveals the depths to which some of the reporting has sunkIf Harry & Meghan, the series, didn’t please everyone, Prince Andrew must have adored it. Beyond group pictures, not even a glimpse of Andrew (the Epstein/Maxwell favourite still embedded in a Windsor mansion after the £12m settlement of a contested sex claim) was deployed to underline the non-compromised couple’s contrasting exile from their tribe, for reasons that seem largely to do with resentment, carelessness and pettiness.Since likewise overlooked are the King’s mishaps with donors and honours, his grotesque first marriage and ditto enthusiasms for Laurens van der Post and Jimmy Savile, there was much for him and the extended family to celebrate. What an example to The Crown! The Windsors’ many embarrassments scarcely featured, even in sections where scholars offered long views on the ducal couple’s struggle, including unexpected connections with Brexit, Stephen Lawrence and the Grenfell Tower fire. What little, after some baleful trailers, the programmes firmly alleged about Harry’s relations – shouting, plotting and neglect – left them looking not much worse than the dysfunctional, emotionally stunted zoo exhibits we already know them to be. Continue reading...
Biden administration says 1954 decision that ended atomic bomb scientist’s career was part of ‘flawed process’The Biden administration has overturned a 1954 decision that revoked the security clearance of J Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist credited as a key architect of the atomic bomb who was caught up in the Red Scare over communism in US politics.The US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, wrote in a statement published on Friday that the original decision by the Atomic Energy Commission on Oppenheimer’s security clearance had been part of a “flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations”. Continue reading...
Credulous or ignorant interviewers made it easier for the disgraced crypto wunderkind to pull the woolSo Sam Bankman-Fried (henceforth SBF) was eventually arrested at his multimillion-dollar residence in the Bahamas, a tax haven with nice beaches attached. The only mystery about this was the unconscionable length of time that it took the Bahamian authorities to measure him for handcuffs. The police said that he was arrested at the request of US legal authorities for “financial offences” under US and Bahamian laws connected with the FTX cryptocurrency exchange that he co-founded in 2019 and Alameda Research, a hedge fund that he set up in 2017. On Tuesday, a local court denied him bail, which suggests that an extradition request from the US will be granted and he will soon be appearing in a New York courtroom.The grisly details of what SBF is alleged to be guilty of will emerge in forthcoming criminal proceedings. But already expectations are high: Amazon has announced that it is working on a series about the scandal in partnership with the Russo brothers, the makers of Marvel movies. Continue reading...
Is anyone really stupid enough to waste their money on a digitally-generated image of Trump dressed like Superman? Apparently soOh how the mighty have fallen! Just a few years ago Donald Trump was the most powerful man in the world. He had an army of “yes men”, acolytes who hung on his every word. He was close to his family: his eldest daughter and his son-in-law were his special advisers. He had a Twitter account with millions of followers. He made policy and moved markets. He may have been something of a laughing stock, but he had power and influence.This article was amended on 17 December to correct the amount Donald Trump may have made from his NFTs. Continue reading...
Oregon’s Chemawa Indian School has been plagued by problems such as understaffing and allegations of misspending. Is there hope for its future?Growing up in Idaho, Melissa Abell wanted to be a veterinarian. Her mother, Treasa Keith, said the teenager once found a bird struggling to breathe. She pulled pebbles from its throat and watched until it flew away.Keith, who didn’t learn her Indigenous culture, wanted her daughter to connect with her Alaska Native, Athabascan, Haida and Aleut heritage. There were few options for Native American education nearby, but Keith’s parents had attended a school in Oregon: the Chemawa Indian School. It is one of four remaining boarding schools for Indigenous children run by the US government, and is the country’s oldest continuously operating Indigenous boarding school. Continue reading...
One video shows dozens of migrants wrapped in thin blankets as they slept on El Paso streets amid surge of arrivals in cityImages of migrants wrapped in blankets and sleeping on the streets of El Paso in freezing temperatures have raised welfare concerns as they circulated online this week amid a surge of people arriving in the west Texan city.Over the last few days, thousands of migrants, including many hailing from Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, huddled along the waters of the Rio Grande, while others waded across the river from El Paso’s sister city on the Mexican side of the border, Ciudad Juarez, to cross into the US. Continue reading...
After accusations resulted in numerous false arrests at gunpoint, the company recently announced it will pay $168m to settle 364 claimsOn 13 January 2021, a swarm of police officers with guns drawn suddenly surrounded Saleema Lovelace in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, and asked the 45-year old local community activist to exit the Nissan Sentra she was driving.Lovelace, a member of Philadelphia’s 39th police district advisory council, an organization that seeks to liaise between police officers and local residents, was asked by police to roll down her windows and exit her car before she was placed in handcuffs and put in a police patrol car. Continue reading...
Doctors say CDC’s softer guidelines ‘tossing aside’ safety limits put lives at risk as opioid epidemic continues to rage in the countryThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been accused of bowing to drug industry pressure after releasing new guidelines that doctors say put lives at risk by rowing back on warnings about the dangers of opioid prescribing.The latest CDC guidelines have caused controversy after dropping specific limits on dosages and lengths of prescribing from a key summary of recommendations used by physicians. Continue reading...
The Kremlin’s imperial war has made its own culture and language a common enemy for people across its former empireThe time has come to ask whether, objectively speaking, Vladimir Putin is an agent of American imperialism. For no American has ever done half as much damage to what Putin calls the “Russian world” as the Russian leader himself has.This thought came to me recently when I was in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, talking to Ukrainians made refugees in their own country by Putin’s war. “I was a Russian speaker until 24 February,” said Adeline, an art student from the now Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, referencing the date of Russia’s full-scale invasion earlier this year. Russia has failed to take over Ukrainian culture, she said, so now it has set out to kill it. Several other Ukrainian students told me they find “the spirit of freedom” in Ukrainian literature, but of subservience to power in Russian literature. Continue reading...
Avery Seuter, a 19-year-old unicyclist, says he is on a mission to make it down to Florida on a 3,000-mile bike pathA teenager has embarked on an incredible journey of unicycling from Maine to Key West, Florida, to raise money for the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile pedestrian and bicycle path that connects the two states.On 8 September, 19-year-old Avery Seuter left his hometown in Wells, Maine, where he worked as a tour guide on a lobster boat. His goal is to bike to the southeastern-most tip of the United States. Continue reading...
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