Poor living conditions not a sufficient reason for Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio to get house arrest or reduced sentence, judge rulesThe leader of the Proud Boys far-right group has been denied early release from jail in Washington DC.In a ruling released on Friday, superior court judge Jonathan H Pittman said poor living conditions were not sufficient reason for Henry “Enrique” Tarrio to be transferred to house arrest or to have his sentence reduced. Continue reading...
‘You can’t claim self-defense if you are the unjustified aggressor,’ prosecutor says in closing arguments of trial of three white men charged in killingA jury has begun deliberations in the trial of the three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, after 10 days of evidence and lengthy closing arguments in the closely watched case which became part of the movement for racial justice in the US.On Tuesday morning, prosecutors ended closing arguments before Judge Timothy Walmsley, who briefed the jury on the multiple counts of murder, false imprisonment and other charges faced by the three defendants. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Waukesha, Wisconsin on (#5S8SH)
Victims suffered fractured ribs, head injuries, damage to lungs and other injuries, as friends and family turn to GoFundMe for helpAhead of a first court appearance by the suspect, friends and family members of approximately 50 people hit by an SUV that sped through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Sunday said they suffered life-threatening injuries, some clinging to life.A young girl who is a member of a dance troupe struck by the SUV told doctors, “Just glue me back together,” according to a fundraising page organized by a family friend. Continue reading...
Doctors tested positive or developed symptoms ‘within days’ of conference at which alternative treatments were discussedSeven anti-vaccine doctors fell sick after gathering earlier this month for a Florida “summit” at which alternative treatments for Covid-19 were discussed.“I have been on ivermectin for 16 months, my wife and I,” Dr Bruce Boros told the audience at the event held at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, adding: “I have never felt healthier in my life.” Continue reading...
Families of those killed in 2018 Florida attack reach settlement over agency’s failure to investigate tip a month before massacreThe families of most of those killed and wounded in the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018 have reached a multi-million dollar settlement with the US government over the FBI’s failure to stop the gunman, even though it was told he intended to attack.Attorneys for families of 16 of the 17 people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and some of those wounded said they had reached a settlement over the failure to investigate a tip a month before the massacre. The 17th family chose not to sue. Continue reading...
Shabazz was found unconscious by her daughter inside their Brooklyn home on Monday afternoon, New York police saidMalikah Shabazz, a daughter of the civil rights leader Malcolm X, has died. She was 56.Shabazz was found unconscious by her daughter inside their home in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon, New York police said. Continue reading...
Biden administration says oil supply hasn’t kept up with demand as economy recovers from pandemic, with gas prices double what they were in 2020The White House on Tuesday said it had ordered 50m barrels of oil released from the strategic reserve to bring down energy costs, in coordination with countries including the UK, China and Japan.In a tweet, Joe Biden said: “I have been working with countries across the world to address the lack of supply. As a result of our diplomatic efforts, this step will be taken in parallel with other major energy consuming nations including China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom.” Continue reading...
Travelers fear airport chaos as airlines contend with staffing shortages, which could lead to flight cancelationsMaliha Aziz was understandably nervous about her 19 November trip from St Louis, Missouri, to her native city of Karachi, Pakistan, for her nephew’s wedding.Aziz, a former principal of an Islamic Sunday school in St Louis, and her husband traveled to three weddings over the summer and experienced numerous flights delays and cancelations. Continue reading...
City public design commission voted to send 884lb, 7ft statue to the New York Historical Society because Jefferson enslaved peopleA statue of Thomas Jefferson has been removed from city hall in New York, because the founder and third president enslaved people.A work crew spent several hours on Monday freeing the 884lb, 7ft statue from its pedestal in the council chambers and carefully maneuvering it into a padded wooden crate, for the short journey to the New York Historical Society. Continue reading...
Trump’s former attorney says the former president will not run again after losing five states by narrow margins in 2020Donald Trump’s pollster thinks he will run for the White House again in 2024, with a path to victory through five states he lost to Joe Biden in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.But Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer who is fresh out of house arrest, thinks he will not. Continue reading...
The scale of the crisis is intimidating. But most people are already members of organizations – like our employers, universities, unions or religious groups – that are great avenues to fight for concrete climate resultsFor anyone hoping for some optimism about our dying planet, the recent Cop26 climate summit left much to be desired. Developing countries were severely underrepresented at the conference, and only a third of the usual number of delegates from those countries was able to attend, due to Covid restrictions, a lack of affordable accommodation and accessibility issues.As the race to save the planet continues, much of climate action rhetoric these days remains split between personal calls to action – such as recycling or cutting down on individual consumption – and calls for governments, corporations and international organizations to wind down fossil fuel production, switch to renewable energy on a mass scale and protect key ecosystems that can help mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.Tayo Bero is a freelance writer Continue reading...
We need a way out. We need a way up. That’s why I – and so many others – have jumped into cryptocurrency with both feetI must begin this article by stating that the information I’m providing is not financial advice. I think I legally have to say that because I heard it on a podcast or whatever, I really don’t know. But, if you’re taking crypto advice from me, that might be your first problem.It all started with a missed shot. Continue reading...
City’s police chief names suspect as Darrell E Brooks while also naming the victims of the incident. Plus, Starbucks launches aggressive anti-union effort
Management urges baristas to reject the union at mandatory ‘listening’ sessions and shuts stores holding drivesWill Westlake, a Starbucks barista in Hamburg, New York, whose store recently filed for a union election, was told by a manager he could attend an earlier mandatory anti-union meeting on 8 November because he was scheduled to work early the next day.The meeting was in a nearby hotel and when Westlake arrived he found out he was the only worker in attendance, with six members of Starbucks management. The meeting lasted for about one hour. Continue reading...
While ministers panic about small boats crossing the Channel, the economy is struggling without people to pick fruit or staff hotelsNothing makes sense. Along the east coast of England, British employers scan the horizon. They are desperate for any migrant workers whom Boris Johnson will bless with visas to pick fruit, kill turkeys, staff hotels or care for elderly people. At the same time along the south coast British politicians howl with horror at boatloads of just such people as they come ashore, desperate to offer their services. Brexit is a shamble of hypocrisies.Immigration materially affects very few Britons. It is more a feature of the politics of xenophobia. The 24,000 asylum seekers who have crossed the Channel so far this year are presented by eager Tories as presaging a new Viking horde or a Norman conquest. There is something ominous in people arriving on beaches, rather than coming through Terminal 5.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
A new documentary looks at how entrenched the sport still is in a state where practically everything else has changedHockey is still such a big deal in the Iron Range town of Eveleth, Minnesota, that a 110ft, 10,000lbs stick can be found less than a mile from the US Hockey Hall of Fame over on Hat Trick Avenue. The big stick, a real wooden stick, sits in front of a big puck.Between the stick and the hall is Eveleth-Gilbert Senior High School, home of the Golden Bears, who won five of the first seven Minnesota state hockey championships as Eveleth High. Both the 1960 and 1980 USA gold-medal Olympic hockey teams included players from Eveleth. Continue reading...
This is a rare climbdown from the prime minister. But the space for dissent is still diminishing under his governmentIt is not often that Narendra Modi gives a televised address to the nation and it is met with relief, not disarray. The Indian prime minister’s previous frightening acts of decisiveness have included announcing a complete lockdown with just four hours’ notice last year, and withdrawing 85% of the country’s currency overnight in 2016.This most recent on-screen address went another way entirely. When Modi announced his government’s intention to withdraw three controversial farm laws after one of the most prolonged periods of protest ever recorded in India, in which hundreds died in the face of state violence, it was met with mass jubilation. The laws – originally passed during a chaotic voice vote in parliament last year, when the television broadcast was muted so viewers could not hear the opposition – were seen as tools to encourage the corporatisation of agriculture and weaken state protections for farmers. Backed by the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Gita Gopinath, the US state department, rightwing economists and a large section of India’s pro-Modi, pro-industry media, the laws faced mass opposition among Indians – almost half of whom, according to the most recent census, work in farming.Rukmini S is a data journalist based in Chennai, India Continue reading...
Across Ohio, tactics pioneered in Texas are being deployed in disruptive city council meetingsIn May of this year, six city council members in Lebanon, Ohio, a city located just north of Cincinnati, voted on an ordinance that would effectively outlaw abortion for the 21,000 people that call it home.As in countless council meetings in small cities across the country where mask mandates, teaching about race in schools and access to reproductive healthcare have become politically charged in America’s current climate, the night unfolded in a series of near-Shakespearean acts. Continue reading...
Darrell E Brooks, 39, in custody as police chief says suspect was involved in a domestic disturbance before the incidentAuthorities in Wisconsin on Monday identified a 39-year-old man as the person who ploughed his vehicle into a Christmas parade on Sunday night, killing five people and injuring another 48, including two children who remained in a critical condition.Darrell E Brooks was in custody, charged with five counts of intentional first-degree homicide, Daniel Thompson, police chief of Waukesha, a city 20 miles west of Milwaukee, said at an afternoon press conference. Continue reading...
Eighteen-year-old, who was photographed before the trial with apparent Proud Boys, says: ‘I support the BLM movement’Kyle Rittenhouse sat down for his first interview since being cleared of homicide on Monday night, speaking with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson in a segment that sparked a fresh round of controversy after the teen said he was “not a racist person” and supported the Black Lives Matter movement.Rittenhouse, 18, was acquitted on Friday on charges stemming from killing two men and wounding another during unrest after the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. Rittenhouse is white, as were the men he shot. Continue reading...
The US president’s approval rating has dipped to 40% but Vice-President Kamala Harris’s was just 28%The White House has said that Joe Biden intends to run for re-election in 2024, a statement that comes amid speculation over his future as the president sees a dip in his approval rating.Biden, 79, has suffered a drop in his polling numbers in recent months, leading some Democrats to speculate he might not seek another four-year term. Continue reading...
House select committee expands investigation into planning and financing of rally that preceded 6 January insurrectionThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday issued new subpoenas to five political operatives associated with Donald Trump, including Roger Stone and the far-right media star Alex Jones, as the panel deepens its inquiry into the “Save America” rally that preceded the 6 January insurrection.The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony expand the select committee’s inquiry focused on the planning and financing of the rally at the Ellipse, by targeting operatives who appear to have had contacts with the Trump White House. Continue reading...
Jury asked to consider whether claims of self-defense and attempted citizen’s arrest were ‘completely made up for trial’As the trial of the white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery reached closing arguments on Monday, prosecutors urged the jury to “use your common sense” and convict all three defendants. Defense attorneys then attempted to place the blame for the shooting on the unarmed 25-year-old himself.Travis McMichael, his father, Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan each face charges of felony murder, malice murder and other counts over the killing of Arbery, a Black man shot dead in south Georgia last year. Continue reading...
Plaintiffs claim affirmation of students’ gender undermines parents’ role in decision-makingParents in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against a school district over a policy that allows students to change their names and pronouns without parental consent, arguing that the policy is a violation of constitutional rights.The lawsuit against the Kettle Moraine school district was filed in Waukesha county circuit court last Wednesday by two sets of parents via the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty – two conservative non-profits. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Groveland, Florida on (#5S7D5)
Four young Black men were accused in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of the Jim Crow eraA judge on Monday officially exonerated the Groveland Four of the false accusation that the young Black men raped a white woman 70 years ago, partial and belated amends for one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of the Jim Crow era in Florida.At the request of a local prosecutor, administrative judge Heidi Davis dismissed the indictments of Ernest Thomas and Samuel Shepherd, who were fatally shot by law enforcement, and set aside the convictions and sentences of Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin. Continue reading...
At least five people are dead and more than 40 people injured after an SUV was driven into crowds on Sunday. Police say a person of interest is in custodyWaukesha Christmas parade: several killed after car speeds through crowd in WisconsinA vehicle ploughed into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, killing at least five people and injuring more than 40.Here’s what we know so far:A red sports utility vehicle (SUV) drove at speed into marchers at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, about 20 miles (32km) west of Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon.Eyewitnesses estimated the car was travelling at about 40mph (67km/h) when it struck the crowds.Waukesha authorities have confirmed at least five people have died and more than 40 people were injured.Police have not released the names or ages of the deceased.Eleven adults and 12 children have been taken to hospital.The Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin said it had received 15 patients from the parade and no reported fatalities as of 8pm Sunday.The Milwaukee Dancing Grannies posted on its Facebook page that some of its members were among the dead. The organization, which describes itself as a “group of grannies that meet once a week to practice routine for summer and winter parades”, wrote: “Our group was doing what they loved, performing in front of crowds in a parade putting smiles on faces of all ages, filling them with joy.”The police department said on Monday morning the toll of dead and injured could rise.Police confirmed an officer fired his gun in an attempt to stop the vehicle.One person of interest is in police custody, with the vehicle involved also recovered.Police would not say if the incident was terror-related.Investigators told news outlets they were questioning the person in custody about an earlier crime, which one described as an argument involving a knife. The official cautioned the investigation was still in the early stages. Continue reading...
Mutual insurer defends sale to US private equity firm but reward for most members would be only £100The insurer LV= has claimed that a takeover by the US private equity firm Bain Capital will result in £212m in extra distributions for members, as it tried to fight back against criticism of its decision to demutualise.The 178-year-old life insurance and pensions provider, formerly known as Liverpool Victoria, has accepted an approach by Bain for £530m in a deal that would end its member-owned status. However, members must back the takeover in a vote on 10 December, and the deal has triggered a political storm. Continue reading...
Many billionaires I work with have trust issues, lack a sense of purpose and struggle with shame, guilt and fearIf I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the term “first world problems”, my bank account would look similar to those of my clients. I work as a psychotherapist and my specialism is ultra-high net worth individuals.I got into working with billionaires by accident. I had one wealthy client, who passed my name around to their acquaintances. They are called the 1% for a reason: there are not that many of them and so the circle is tight.Clay Cockrell is a psychotherapist and the founder of Walk and Talk Therapy Continue reading...
Commentators Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg cite Fox Nation documentary Patriot Purge in stinging open letterTwo Fox News contributors have quit the network over Tucker Carlson’s Patriot Purge, a documentary about the deadly Capitol attack.In an open letter, Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg said: “Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible. Continue reading...
By getting Spotify to discourage the mixing up of an album’s song order, Adele is standing up for artistic vision even as the very nature of streaming erodes itWhen you are the most powerful, popular artist in the world, you can insist on anything. And so Adele has persuaded Spotify to hide its shuffle button, to encourage listeners to listen to her new album 30 – and, presumably, every other album – in the order intended by the artists. “We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason,” Adele said. “Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended.”I am of the generation that still cleaves to the notion of albums as the greatest and most convenient expression of a musician’s imagination: that 40 minutes is pretty much the ideal length to explore most of the things, musically and lyrically, an artist might have to say, without the risk of boredom. With an album, I am getting what I tell myself is the least mediated version of the artist’s vision. My natural inclination is to take Adele’s line. Continue reading...
House progressive warns such Democrats are influenced by donors who ‘don’t have the best interests of the American people in mind’“Corporate” Democrats in the Senate imperil Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, a leading House progressive warned – but not just Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the targets of most leftwing ire.Such Democrats, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan said, are influenced by donors who “don’t have the best interests of the American people in mind”. Continue reading...
by Martin Farrer, Richard Luscombe and agencies on (#5S6D9)
Person of interest held after ‘horrifying’ incident in which SUV ploughed through street full of dance troupes, marching bands and onlookersA driver ploughed a vehicle into crowds at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Sunday evening, killing five and injuring more than 40 adults and children, including some from dance troupes and marching bands.In what the Waukesha police chief, Dan Thompson, called a “tragic incident”, a red sport SUV drove at speed into crowds in the city about 20 miles west of Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon. Continue reading...
Society’s idea of prejudice is itself prejudiced. It’s time to confront thatA few years ago the Washington Post attached a note to the bottom of a news feature on San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin and his then incarcerated father, declaring that the journalist, Deanna Paul, “has a parent who was formerly incarcerated”. The implication was that she was or could be biased. It seems like a gratuitous exposure of a private history and perhaps humiliation for the journalist that proceeded from the widespread assumption that a person who has experienced something firsthand emerges with prejudice or bias. This often comes up in jury selection – for example, the idea that someone who has been sexually assaulted will not be impartial in a trial about sexual assault (which given that about 20% of women, by conservative statistics, are survivors of sexual assault, would disqualify a lot of us, and a lot more women than men). But the opposite may be true.I came across the example about Paul’s byline when I was reading Clio Chang’s reporting in New York magazine on the case of another Washington Post reporter, Felicia Sonmez, who was “told that, by speaking up about her alleged assault, she had acted like an ‘activist’ and had ‘taken a side on the issue’, which in their view meant her reporting on assault could open the paper up to accusations of bias”. What is the other side than the victim’s side in sexual assault? Is it siding with the perpetrator? Is it not believing the victim? And how far do we extend this idea that to have experienced a thing is to have become biased? Its premise seems to be that someone who has not experienced a thing is not biased.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses Continue reading...
No wonder a new survey shows that nearly two thirds of Americans see the party as ‘out of touch’The last time Democrats held the presidency and Congress, the party spent its first year in power enriching big banks that had cratered the economy and then letting public money subsidize the Wall Street bonuses of their campaign donors. The spectacle gave Republicans a political bailout in the 2010 midterms, allowing them to depict themselves as anti-establishment populists challenging an elitist government.Twelve years later, history is rhyming. Democrats were vaulted into office on popular promises to tax the wealthy, but they are now generating national headlines about their proposal to provide new tax breaks narrowly targeted to enrich their affluent blue-state donors – just as a new survey shows nearly two thirds of Americans see the party as “out of touch with the concerns of most people.” And now the Republican machine is gearing up to demagogue the issue in 2022.David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor-at-large at Jacobin, and the founder of the Daily Poster. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriterThis article was originally published in the Daily Poster, a grassroots-funded investigative news outlet Continue reading...
More than 40 others injured after an SUV drove into crowds at a Christmas celebration in Wisconsin. Plus, is there a turkey shortage?Good morning.A vehicle has ploughed into crowds at a Christmas parade in a town in Wisconsin, killing five people and injuring more than 40 adults and children, including some from dance troupes and marching bands.Was it a terror attack? The investigation was still “very fluid”, Thompson said, adding that he did not know if the incident was terror-related.Was the driver arrested? Police confirmed one person of interest was in custody and the vehicle involved had been recovered.Who were the victims? Police have not released the names or ages of the deceased. Here’s everything we know so far.What is fentanyl? It’s a substance 30 times more potent than heroin. It’s “an extraordinarily potent drug” and people who have never used opioids before are dying from a single fatal encounter with fentanyl.How is it being sold? Counterfeit pills are a big part of the problem. High-quality pill presses can make the substance look like a legitimate medication and people often take them thinking they are percocet or Xanax pills. Continue reading...
America is facing fundamental tests that will only intensify in 2022. We’re asking readers to help us raise $1.25m to support our reporting in the new yearThis past year brought a new presidential administration, but America’s deep-seated structural problems remain. From the climate crisis to racial and economic inequalities, and from a new cycle of gerrymandering to systemic unfairness in housing, health and education, the country continues to face fundamental tests that will only intensify in the coming year.It’s thanks to our readers that we were able to produce journalism this past year that shed light on injustice and made a real difference in people’s lives. Continue reading...
‘Visible deterioration’ in US civil liberties began in at least 2019, says international thinktankThe US has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019.Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, a proportion that rises to more than two in three with the addition of authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Continue reading...
It looked like New England were set for a long rebuild. But their coach has built a strong defense in a conference that no team appears capable of dominatingIt was a long season-and-a-half for the New England Patriots, and the post-Tom Brady era looked bleak. The emergent Bills appeared built to claim the AFC East for years to come while New England, with their rookie quarterback, were set up for a tedious rebuild. But before Pats fans had much time to process what it would be like to lose and lose often, the team started winning. And winning some more. Thursday night’s 25-0 slaughter of the Atlanta Falcons was New England’s fifth win in a row. And thanks to Buffalo’s recent fall from grace, guess who’s back atop the division? (Feel free to imagine a sly-looking Bill Belichick while you read the rest of this article.)It’s Belichick’s defense that has turned the 7-4 Pats into legitimate Super Bowl contenders. The unit has held its last three opponents (including the Browns and Panthers) to 13 total points. The defense is deep. It is fast. It is physical. Continue reading...
Blame not the rich and famous for their charity efforts – but governments for refusing to provide basic aidPick a humanitarian emergency in any part of the world, and the needs will seem remarkably consistent. Once people have escaped immediate danger, they need food, shelter, clothing and medical assistance – the things, in other words, that sustain us physically. The most pressing questions are about how to source the items and services required, and how to distribute them effectively.What determines whether an emergency is resolved quickly or allowed to persist, however, is politics. And if you want to see what happens when political solutions fail, then the scrubland of the northern French coast, just across the Channel from England, is an instructive place to look. Continue reading...
Trump’s fourth press secretary often relies on single sources and conservative talking points in new bookIn a new book, the former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany repeats her famous insistence that she never lied to reporters, in part because her education at “Oxford, Harvard and Georgetown” meant she always relied on “truthful, well-sourced, well-researched information”.But McEnany – who also studied law at the University of Miami – makes claims in her book which do not stand up to such assurances, for instance about Donald Trump’s support among the US military and about the severity of Covid cases among White House staff. Continue reading...
More than 100,000 people died from overdoses in a single year – driven primarily by one drugIt was August 2020, and Luca Manuel, 13, was starting eighth grade the following day in Redding, California. He was excited to see his friends; his mother had bought him a stash of masks and school supplies for his first in-person school day in six months.But the week earlier, he’d gotten a root canal, and his mouth still hurt. He sent a message on Snapchat to find marijuana for the pain. Instead, the dealer said he had something better: Percocet. Continue reading...
Social media footage shows a SUV speeding through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, narrowly missing a small child. The red vehicle continued down the road and hit more than 20 people, including children. Waukesha police chief Dan Thompson said a person of interest was in custody and the suspect vehicle had been recovered.
President shared his decision ‘with a small group of donors’ during a virtual fundraiser, reports the Washington PostJoe Biden has reportedly been letting allies know he’ll be running for president again in 2024.Amid sliding approval ratings, Biden is reported to be keen to dash any assumption in Democratic circles that he’ll be standing down after a single term and opening the field to hopefuls including Vice-President Kamala Harris. Continue reading...
US news | The Guardian