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The Jackson State coach had a superb multi-faceted playing career. Now he may help upset the traditions that have ruled college football for yearsDeion Sanders is the ultimate jack of all trades. As a college athlete at Florida State he starred at football, baseball and track. Selected fifth in the 1989 NFL draft Sanders instantly proved a triple threat as a cornerback, special teams returner and situational wide receiver. When he wasn’t dazzling on the gridiron he wowed Major League Baseball as a bag-swiping outfielder, becoming the only player to appear in a World Series and Super Bowl. Throughout Neon Deion crackled with charisma and swagger – delighting the masses with his brash fashions, touchdown dances and gift of the gab. In retirement he continued to enthrall as a television analyst, preacher and reality TV star.Still: when the football hall of famer decided to try his hand at coaching football, it felt like a gig too far. Although he gathered some experience at the high school level in Texas, Sanders looked ill-prepared to make the jump to Jackson State – a south-central Mississippi outpost at quite a remove from the spotlight. A historically black college (or HBCU), Jackson State competes in the shadow of the Alabamas and Michigans of the land and operates under an anemic athletic budget. Sanders’s bold move looked like a bored celebrity trying his hand at coaching and threatened to go down like his attempt to run a charter school, an abject failure. Continue reading...

Purdue Pharma deal arranged for the family to be guarded from lawsuits over their role in the US epidemicA judge has rejected the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement of thousands of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic because of a provision that would protect members of the Sackler family from facing litigation of their own.The ruling on Thursday from Judge Colleen McMahon in New York is likely to be appealed by the company, family members and the thousands of government entities that support the plan. Continue reading...

Bee Nguyen, who has led her party’s fight against Republican-backed voting restrictions, may prove vital to building election integrity and restoring voter confidence in GeorgiaGeorgia state representative Bee Nguyen has seemed destined to wage epic battles in her fast-changing state ever since replacing Stacey Abrams in its legislature four years ago when the now-nationally-recognized Democrat announced her first bid for governor.Or maybe it’s since former president and Georgia native Jimmy Carter decided, more than 40 years ago, to double the number of refugees admitted to the US from Vietnam – including her parents. Nguyen was born in Iowa, but has lived in Georgia since her parents moved here when she was seven. Continue reading...

The city appears to be behind the UK’s Omicron curve, but parties are starting to be cancelled“How are things over there? It’s mad over here.” Until recently that line, delivered by people in the UK to people in the US, gave rise to some smugness among the Americans. During late summer and autumn, the pendulum of who was having a better pandemic had swung firmly towards those in the UK. Enviously, we in New York looked across the Atlantic to British kids sitting unmasked at school, at indoor playdates and parties, and at the conviction, voiced by many in Britain, that everything was more or less back to normal. Now you all seem to have Covid and Christmas is cancelled. No one here is talking about cancelling the holidays. Continue reading...

Incidents have been linked to ‘organized crime’ and given fodder to conservatives that progressive policies are encouraging crimeAmid fraught discussions over the future of policing in major American cities, a series of mass thefts at high-end stores across California have made headlines nationwide.The incidents have drawn widespread coverage linking them to “organized crime” and spotlighting concerns from retailers about a theft crisis. They also reinvigorated a political debate over crime rates in California, prompting pledges from local and state leaders to charge those involved and increase police presence in affected areas. Meanwhile, conservatives and some local leaders have pointed to the incidents as evidence that criminal justice reform and progressive policies are encouraging crime and making California more dangerous. Continue reading...

The ‘unbearable’ noise echoing in the city since June can be fixed by aluminum clips containing a rubber sleeve costing $450,000The eerie hum of the Golden Gate Bridge, which has elicited comparisons to “chanting monks” and a “wheezing kazoo”, may soon be muffled.Local officials have offered a fix to the “unbearable” noise that’s been echoing in San Francisco neighborhoods – much to the irritation of some residents – on particularly gusty days since last year. The Golden Gate bridge, highway and transportation district has proposed an estimated $450,000 project to install aluminum clips that will help reduce the sound created when wind hits the slats in the bridge’s hand railing. Continue reading...

The sedative is used more often on Black people – and justified after the fact with questionable claims of ‘excited delirium’In the summer of 2019, 23-year-old Elijah McClain was stopped by the Aurora, Colorado, police while walking home, after someone called 911 saying he looked suspicious.The incident quickly turned violent, with three police officers piling on the 140lb boy, twice putting him in a chokehold that has since been banned. After vomiting, coming in and out of consciousness and pleading for breath, paramedics arrived and injected McClain with an excessive dose of ketamine, a powerful sedative. Continue reading...

The Wachowskis’ 1999 film anticipated – and changed – the contemporary world that we’re trapped in todayIt was early 1999, and people were freaking out about the future. A new millennium was on the way, carrying with it the promise – or threat – of massive change. Would the next century guide us toward a tech-enabled utopia? Or, as some feared, would it plunge the world into a full-on apocalypse?These were strange days, marked by equal parts anxiety and anticipation. Which made it the perfect moment for a sleek, cerebral movie called The Matrix.Brian Raftery is the author of Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen, and the host of the podcast Gene & Roger

East African runners are known worldwide, but competition for the elusive sponsorships that will help them compete and support their families is fiercer than ever in the age of CovidIt is a Sunday afternoon in November in the village of Leldaet, Kenya, and Kip Tisia’s mother and sister-in-law are cooking a feast. The family has just watched a livestream of Tisia’s brother, Elkana Langat, winning the Maratona di Ravenna, Italy, with a time of 2:10:33.A few weeks before, another brother, Kiprono Langat Clement Ken, won the Rome Marathon in 2:08:23. Tisia, himself a winner of multiple marathons in Upstate New York and Cleveland, is giddy as he shares the good news in a telephone interview. Many in the village will be coming over to celebrate with steak and ugali, a traditional Kenyan staple made from corn. Distance running is practically the national sport in countries in East Africa. For families like Tisia’s that have struggled, distance running provides a better income as well as scholarships to higher education in the United States – much like basketball in impoverished communities in this country. Continue reading...

Portraying themselves as maligned American patriots and ‘political prisoners’, the far-right groups have raised over $2mTrump supporters and members of far-right extremist groups who took part in the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from online crowdfunding sites by portraying themselves as maligned American patriots, martyrs and “political prisoners”.Several of the highest-profile participants in the “stop the steal” insurrection which attempted to disrupt Joe Biden’s certification as US president are raising substantial sums on fundraising sites. They include members of the far-right Proud Boys and many of the 6 January individuals being detained in a Washington DC jail, awaiting trial for allegedly attacking police officers. Continue reading...

As of November, 15.6 million workers in the US are still affected by the pandemic’s economic downturnFor millions of Americans, the Covid-19 pandemic has left them and their families with little money or cause for celebrating the holidays this year.“My youngest turns six on Christmas day and I can’t even get her a single present,” said Amanda Starr of Lebanon, Ohio, a single mother of three who has struggled to find work after her car was repossessed when she missed payments due to losing her retail job in the beginning of the pandemic. Continue reading...

Michelle Odinet is ‘sorry for what she has done’, says attorney after video recorded after a burglary attempt shared on social mediaA Louisiana judge is taking an unpaid leave of absence and is facing growing calls for her resignation after a video surfaced of people in her home using racist language, including the N-word.Dan Ciolino, an attorney for Lafayette city court judge Michelle Odinet, said she feels “humiliated, embarrassed, and sorry for what she has done and the harm she has caused to the community”. Continue reading...

Trump operative who outlined ‘Options for 6 Jan’ met with the president’s chief of staff repeatedly before the Capitol riotThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Thursday subpoenaed Trump operative Phil Waldron, the retired colonel whose PowerPoint recommending Donald Trump declare a national emergency to return himself to office was sent to the White House chief of staff.The subpoena to Waldron, demanding documents and testimony, marks the select committee’s focus on the PowerPoint and the extent that the document’s recommendations – as reported by the Guardian – were considered by the White House or the former president himself. Continue reading...

While many have praised the plan, some worry it lacks a solid timeline and does not deliver enforceable requirementsThe Biden administration on Thursday announced a “whole of government strategy” to remove dangerous lead from Americans’ drinking water, including billions of dollars to begin replacing 100% of the lead pipes servicing the nation’s homes.Environmental groups praised the plan, which includes a promise to begin the process of strengthening the nation’s drinking water standards to reflect the science showing that lead is toxic for children at any level. Continue reading...

Cimberly Espinosa, Maxwell’s first defense witness who worked for her from 1996 until 2002, also says Jeffrey Epstein was ‘a giver’Ghislaine Maxwell’s former assistant in Jeffrey Epstein’s New York City office spoke fondly of her one-time boss on Thursday, saying she had “fun” working for the former British socialite.“I highly respected Ghislaine,” Cimberly Espinosa, told jurors in Maxwell’s Manhattan federal court sex-trafficking trial. “I looked up to her very much, and I actually learned a lot from her. Continue reading...

At least five people have died after unseasonably warm temperatures spawned hurricane-force winds and possible tornadoesAt least five people died as a powerful and extremely unusual storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably warm temperatures, spawning hurricane-force winds and possible tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.In south-eastern Minnesota, Olmsted county Sheriff’s Lt Lee Rossman said a 65-year-old man was killed Wednesday night when a 40ft tree blew onto him outside his home. Continue reading...

Son writes loving and unusual 1,000-word tribute to Renay Mandel Corren, who died in El Paso, Texas at age 84Some obituary notices open with the grand achievements of a life well-lived, or the tender details of a person’s passing with loved ones at their side. The death in El Paso, Texas, of Renay Mandel Corren, however, was marked in somewhat more unorthodox fashion. “The bawdy, fertile, redheaded matriarch of a sprawling Jewish-Mexican-Redneck American family has kicked it,” it read.According to the family’s obituary published in the Fayetteville Observer, Corren, who died on Saturday at the age of 84, will be mourned “in the many glamorous locales she went bankrupt”. Continue reading...

The many of us whose writing is informed by her work will continue to use our words to fearlessly contend with white supremacy while never letting patriarchy off the hookOn Wednesday, 15 December 2021 the world became a dimmer place. bell hooks, the brilliant, trailblazing author, cultural critic, feminist, poet and professor, died of an undisclosed illness. The news was first announced by her niece. I learned of it while scrolling social media. Before I could even digest what I had read, my phone exploded with texts from other Black women. I didn’t need to read them to know what they would state – I knew my sisters were hurting. We lost someone who transformed our thinking and gave us the language to challenge systems of oppression and the unique ways they harm Black women.In her book Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism, bell hooks brilliantly explores racism, feminism, class and patriarchy – or institutionalized sexism, as she called it. The book opens with a chapter tracing contemporary imagery of Black women in America back to the brutality of slavery. The book holds no punches; bell hooks explains how the suffrage movement excluded Black women and the ways that the civil rights movement didn’t always address the distinct needs of Black women. Like bell hooks herself, the work is complex and thought-provoking.Shanita Hubbard is an adjunct professor of sociology and the author of the forthcoming book Ride or Die: A Feminist Manifesto For The Well-Being of Black Women Continue reading...

Jordan forwarded text to Meadows on 5 January, congressman’s aide confirms, containing details of the plot to block BidenThe Ohio congressman Jim Jordan has been identified as the Republican who sent a message to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows the day before the deadly 6 January US Capitol riots outlining a plan to stop Joe Biden – the legitimate winner of the presidential election – from reaching the White House.The House select committee investigating the insurrection has been looking at numerous messages sent to Meadows on and around that day, many of which were from Trump supporters urging the then-president to call off a mob of his supporters as they ransacked the Capitol building.This article was amended on 16 December 2021 to correct an error in the headline. Continue reading...

From attacks on election officials to politicizing election boards, threats to the voting system are deeply worryingHello, and Happy Thursday,For some year-end reporting, I’ve been talking with folks about how 2021 exploded as the year American democracy came under siege. “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” David Becker, an election administration expert and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told me.The Atlantic profiled Crystal Mason, the Texas woman sentenced to five years in prison for using a provisional ballot in 2016. Mason’s case, the profile points out, shows the devastating consequences of unfounded claims about fraud.BuzzFeed News has a great look at how election deniers are going door to door in some places across the country.Texas restarted an effort to remove non-citizens from its voting rolls, sparking concerns officials may be targeting eligible voters. Continue reading...

Someone first stole the deck boards and then came back for the rest of the structure, leaving police baffledPolice in Akron, Ohio, are hunting brazen thieves who have stolen an entire 58ft-long bridge.The pedestrian bridge used to span the Cuyahoga River in a park in the city, but had been removed as part of a wetlands restoration project and stored in a nearby field. Continue reading...

Those who died in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois and a Kentucky candle factory were sacrificed to the altar of profitWhy did eight workers at a Kentucky candle factory and six workers at an Illinois Amazon warehouse die this week? They were killed when a powerful tornado destroyed their workplaces, but it wasn’t really the storm that killed them, any more than a sailor forced to walk the plank is killed only by the waves. They were not random victims. They were sacrificed. We here in the most advanced nation on earth offered them up to the gods that we actually worship.Why did they die? They died because they were inside their workplaces in the path of the storm. They died because they did not leave work before disaster struck. And they did not leave work because they were allegedly ordered not to, by their bosses. The factory workers in Kentucky say that managers threatened to fire them if they left. Amazon workers say that they were told not to leave in advance of the storm. They also say that lack of adequate safety procedures is par for the course at Amazon, where the employee handbook notifies workers that they can be fired for leaving without “permission”. Continue reading...

Derek Chauvin has already been convicted of state murder and manslaughter. Plus, Bruce Springsteen sells song rights for $500mGood morning.The former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights during the arrest that killed Floyd in May 2020 and that sparked mass racial justice protests across the US and beyond.Hasn’t he already been found guilty of Floyd’s murder? Yes, he has has already been convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges and is serving a sentence of 22 and a half years. A federal grand jury indicted Chauvin for this additional charge in May this year.What about the other officers? A federal trial for the other three men still appears to be scheduled for January. They also face state trial on aiding and abetting counts in March.What did Biden say about the disaster? He pledged that federal aid would continue to flow. Biden said this kind of tragedy “either brings people together or it knocks them apart”. Continue reading...

Photojournalist Alekz Londos warned residents of the impending deluge, then returned to document the flooding aftermathDevastating images and video captured by a photojournalist in California have documented the toll that an intense rainstorm – one of the most powerful to hit the state this year – took on a homeless community in the city of Santa Cruz this week. The damage caused by the downpour highlighted the risks that unhoused people face during increasingly extreme weather events.As dark clouds gathered over the weekend, photojournalist Alekz Londos said he raced out with a megaphone to warn hundreds of people living on the embankment of a river he feared was at risk of flooding. “I was worried they were going to get hypothermia,” he says. He spent the weekend doling out black trash bags meant to serve as makeshift raincoats. Continue reading...

Tony Romo may have re-upped with CBS for a reported $17m annually, but Fox remains the class of NFL broadcasts in the USIt has long been understood that no single viewer tunes in to watch the broadcasters of a game. Viewers tune in for, well, the game. The pieces around that – the announcer, the play-by-play analyst, the sideline reporter – are interchangeable parts.When Tony Romo was set to hit broadcasting free agency, the reports about his proposed salary became a point of public contention, even among active players. Sure, Romo might be the best in the business right now, but is he really that much more valuable than the average analyst or the second person on CBS’ bench? Continue reading...

Biden has taken steps toward Louis DeJoy’s removal, but he lacks the authority to dismiss himJoe Biden this month took another step toward the removal of the controversial postmaster general Louis DeJoy, even as the Trump-era appointee continues to make his mark on the embattled postal service, rolling out new plans to slow down delivery and close postal stations around the country.DeJoy, a Republican logistics executive, caused a national furor last year over his attempts to slow down mail delivery before the 2020 presidential election, in which millions of Americans voted by mail. Continue reading...

Mandy Matney kept a harsh spotlight trained on South Carolina’s Murdaugh family until they became impossible for anyone to ignoreReal-life villains don’t come more sharply drawn than Alex Murdaugh, a greedy and ghoulish personal injuries lawyer who casts a haunting shadow over the state of South Carolina. For nearly a century, his father and grandfather were the prosecutors for a five-county district while also running a powerful private law firm.But it wasn’t until the small hours of 24 February 2019 that the dark veil over the Murdaugh family’s dealings began to slip. That’s when Alex’s son Paul is alleged to have plowed the family’s 17-foot bay boat into a bridge abutting Parris Island, the nation’s largest Marine recruit depot. Among the three people cast overboard was an ebullient 19-year-old former high school soccer player named Mallory Beach. She was found dead in the murky tidewaters near the crash site after a seven-day search. Continue reading...

I’ve binged on Christmas romcoms to see exactly what modern-day fairytales are all aboutLast week I suffered from film-induced whiplash. One minute I was watching Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, in which Diana, Princess of Wales’s last Christmas with the British royal family is like being trapped in a haunted mansion full of malevolent waxworks. The next, I was revelling in the adorable idiocy of The Princess Switch, in which a Chicago patisserie owner called Stacy swaps places with a lookalike duchess at Christmas, and falls in love with the Crown Prince of Belgravia.We’re not talking about the posh London district of the same name, but a fictional, Ruritania-style kingdom somewhere in the region of Romania, whose treasury must now be coining it from the number of Christmas romcoms being shot in and around its fancy castles.Anne Billson is a writer and film critic Continue reading...

Boston workers at two stores were inspired by Buffalo workers who succeeded in unionizing in at least one branchStarbucks workers at two stores in Massachusetts have filed for union elections to join SEIU affiliate Workers United, citing inspiration from the union organizing campaign in Buffalo, New York.In Buffalo at least one Starbucks branch has successfully won their union election, becoming the first corporate Starbucks location to unionize in the US and being hailed as a significant win for the US labor movement. Continue reading...

This year the US saw the fewest executions since 1988, but those states sticking with judicial killings are displaying grotesque aberrationsMore than half of the states in the US have either abolished the death penalty or have formal suspensions in place, as the country’s use of the brutal punishment continues to wither on the vine.When Virginia became the first southern state to scrap capital punishment in March, it raised to 23 the number of states that have abolished the practice outright. In a further three states, governors have imposed a moratorium on executions. Continue reading...

The British Medical Journal study finds song led to a rise in calls to helplines while US suicides also fell during the same periodA song by US rapper Logic that references the name of a suicide prevention helpline led to a “notable increase” in the number of calls to the service and may have reduced the number of suicides, new research has found.Titled 1-800-273-8255 – the number for the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – the song generated strong public attention upon its release and following two notable performances. Continue reading...

Biden administration targets four chemical companies and man said to be world’s leading producer of anabolic steroidsThe US has imposed sanctions on Chinese painkiller makers – including one man described as the biggest producer of anabolic steroids in the world – as it vowed to step up action to curb the addiction epidemic that killed a record 100,000 Americans last year.With people who are dealing with addiction increasingly turning to cheaper pills bought online from abroad, Joe Biden signed an executive order that makes it easier for the US to target foreign drug traffickers. Continue reading...

Cables, memos and other documents shed light on Lee Harvey Oswald’s Soviet and Cuban embassy visitsThe National Archives on Wednesday made public nearly 1,500 documents related to the US government’s investigation into the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy.The disclosure of secret cables, internal memos and other documents satisfies a deadline set in October by Joe Biden and is in keeping with a federal statute that calls for the release of records in the government’s possession. Additional documents are expected to be made public next year. Continue reading...

Daughter of John F Kennedy was long seen as top candidate for a prominent diplomatic roleJoe Biden has nominated Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F Kennedy, to be the US ambassador to Australia.Kennedy, 63, a member of one of America’s most famous political families, has long been considered a leading candidate for a high-profile envoy position after she threw her support behind Biden’s presidential campaign. Continue reading...

US president surveyed damage after more than 30 tornadoes tore through Kentucky and seven other statesJoe Biden walked past debris piled shoulder-high, furniture torn to pieces and homes without roofs or walls during a visit Wednesday to a Kentucky town rendered unrecognizable by tornadoes, which brought death and destruction to the region over the weekend.Red brick dust swirled through Mayfield’s streets when Biden spoke to local officials and viewed the storm damage in one of the dozens of communities ravaged by the storms. More than 30 tornadoes tore through Kentucky and seven other states, killing at least 88 people. Thousands of residents have lost their houses or are without power. Continue reading...

Marisol García Alcántara was shot shortly after arriving in the US, while riding in an SUV in ArizonaAttorneys for a Mexican woman who was shot in the head by a Border Patrol agent and survived have filed a claim against the US government as a precursor to a federal lawsuit.The claim filed with the Border Patrol by Marisol García Alcántara, who had arrived in the U.S. shortly before the shooting over the summer in Nogales, Arizona, is necessary before a civil action is filed next year with the US District Court in Tucson. Continue reading...

Mayor-elect Eric Adams names Long Island police official as the city’s next police commissionerEric Adams, New York City’s mayor-elect, named Keechant Sewell, a Long Island police official, as the city’s next police commissioner, making her the first woman to lead the nation’s largest police force.Adams, himself a former New York police captain, introduced Sewell on Wednesday as his barrier-breaking choice for one of the most high-profile and powerful jobs in his upcoming administration. Continue reading...

About 30% of adults do not have a religious affiliation, six percentage points higher than it was five years agoAbout 30% of American adults say they do not have a religious affiliation, according to a new study exploring the growing secularization in American society.

Legal team make unusual request, saying witnesses might be leery of testifying unless allowed to give evidence under pseudonymsGhislaine Maxwell’s lawyers have taken the unusual step of asking the judge to allow several defense witnesses to testify anonymously in her sex-trafficking trial, which resumes on Thursday in Manhattan federal court.Maxwell’s legal team has said that some witnesses might be so leery of testifying that they might not take the stand unless allowed to give evidence under pseudonyms. Continue reading...

Ex-Minneapolis police officer has already been convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges and sentenced to 22 1/2 yearsFormer Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights during the arrest that killed Floyd in May 2020, sparking mass racial justice protests across the US and beyond.Chauvin appeared in federal court in person on Wednesday morning to change his plea to guilty. It means he will not face a federal trial in January, though he could end up spending more years behind bars when a judge sentences him at a later date. Continue reading...

Bannon and Meadows are trying to become heroes for Trump’s base – and secure seats at the table in the event of a second Trump presidencyLate Tuesday night, the House of Representatives voted to hold Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff, in criminal contempt of Congress. Whether Meadows is formally charged is now up to the justice department and a federal grand jury.If indicted, Meadows would be the second member of the Trump administration under a cloud of pending prosecution – alongside Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign guru, who also played an integral role in the run-up to the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...

Wildlife commissioners signed onto a multi-state plan as states in the northern Rockies push to ease federal protectionsMontana wildlife officials could soon allow grizzly bear hunting in areas around Glacier and Yellowstone national parks, if states in the US northern Rockies succeed in their attempts to lift federal protections for the animals.Grizzlies in the region have been protected as a threatened species since 1975 and were shielded from hunting for most of that time. But several states are pushing for restrictions to be eased. Continue reading...

Critics dismissed the virtual meeting of world leaders as all talk, with no clear benchmarks of what change is needed