Man escaped out an airport exit after firearm went off when he reached in his bag while awaiting a search and grabbed itA passenger awaiting a search at the Atlanta airport’s main security checkpoint reached in his bag and grabbed a firearm, and it went off, causing chaos among travelers, officials said.The passenger ran with the gun from the checkpoint and escaped out an airport exit, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said. Authorities described the discharge as accidental. Continue reading...
New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu tells CNN House Republicans ‘have their priorities screwed up’The Republican party’s vilification of members of Congress who have criticized Donald Trump or supported bipartisan legislation is “ruining America”, New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, said on Sunday, adding another tacit voice to the small but growing internal opposition to the former president.Sununu, seen as a rising star of the post-Trump right, attacked his colleagues in an interview on CNN, insisting that House Republicans “have their priorities screwed up” for seeking retaliation against 13 members who voted for Joe Biden’s $1.2tn infrastructure bill. Continue reading...
Video shows masked people streaming out of the Walnut Creek store with bags and boxes, jumping into cars and speeding awayAbout 80 people, some wearing ski masks and wielding crow bars, ransacked a Nordstrom department store in the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday night, stealing merchandise before fleeing in cars waiting outside, police and witnesses said.Three people were arrested while the majority got away after the large-scale theft Saturday night shocked shoppers at the Nordstrom in Walnut Creek, police said. Continue reading...
As its economy implodes and the food crisis grows, its people feel betrayed. No wonderThe global attention has dissipated, but the crisis is intensifying. The bleak year that Afghans have endured is turning to a still bleaker winter. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) predicts that almost 23 million people – more than half the population – will face crisis or emergency levels of acute food insecurity before spring: the highest rate ever recorded. On Thursday, the UN envoy to the country, Deborah Lyons, warned that it is on the brink of catastrophe.This year, the WFP’s operations in Afghanistan are expected to cost $510m; it predicts that it will need almost five times that amount in 2022. The economy shrank by 40% after the Taliban seized power again in August, on top of the devastation wrought by long-running conflict, the pandemic and a severe drought. An economy heavily dependent on aid and other foreign cash has had the tap turned off. The population is larger than before, making subsistence farming tougher; migration is harder. People are running out of things to sell. Food and fuel prices have reportedly soared by up to 75%. Women have been especially hard-hit. Continue reading...
Coronavirus cases rising across the country for the first time in weeks as experts fear Thanksgiving will fuel a further increaseThe US government’s chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that time was running short to prevent a “dangerous” new surge of Covid-19 infections from overwhelming the upcoming holiday season.Coronavirus cases across the US are rising again for the first time in weeks, and approaching 100,000 per day. Experts fear that this week’s Thanksgiving holiday, for which tens of millions of Americans will travel for indoor celebrations with family and friends, will fuel a further surge. Continue reading...
Amid the economic upheaval of the pandemic it may seem counterintuitive that startups have reached unparalleled levelsThere have been more new businesses formed so far this year than ever. Literally ever.A year ago I wrote about the surge in startups, 12 months later the trend has continued in a big way. According to data from the US Census Bureau analyzed by the Economic Innovation Group, there were approximately 1.4m new startup applications filed with the government through 30 September 2021. That’s compared with 1.14m during the same period in 2020 and 987 thousand in 2019. Every year before had been significantly less. Continue reading...
Hard on the heels of the terrible news that the apostrophe is in decline, my wine fridge packed upUse of the apostrophe is declining. That’s according to research from Lancaster University backed up by what anyone would guess was happening. I reckon it was all over as soon as you couldn’t put them in web addresses. The future will only need one sort of dot, the techies decided. The comma is putting up decent resistance, but it’s just a matter of time before we see the last of its hovering colleague. Please enjoy the correct punctuation of the itses in that sentence.Reduction in apostrophe usage isn’t all bad news, even for sticklers, because it is often used wrongly. Abandoning it may actually reduce punctuation errors. At last, the grocers will have to stop sticking things in where they’re not wanted, even if it will become harder to know whether or not any splendid metaphorical bollocks you may be enjoying all belong to one dog. Continue reading...
Republicans blame Biden’s spending packages but supporters argue Build Back Better will help Americans pay their billsAs recently as this summer, Joe Biden seemed to be taking a “keep calm and carry on” approach when it came to concerns about rising inflation.“As our economy has come roaring back, we’ve seen some price increases,” the US president said in July. “Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen were expected and expected to be temporary.” Continue reading...
The great photographer, who has just died, collaborated with a golden age of musiciansThe music photographer Mick Rock, who died last week, aged 72, once said that he was “in the business of evoking the aura” of his subjects. It was his great good fortune to be working at a time when the aura emanating from the rock star likes of David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, all of whom he caught in now celebrated images, was both compelling and unsettling in its androgynous otherness. With Rock’s death, the truly transgressive nature of the cultural moment his photographs captured seems ever more distant.One image of his, in particular, captures the sexual audacity of Bowie’s performances and, almost 50 years on, still carries a trace of its initial illicit charge. Shot from the side of the stage, it shows the singer simulating fellatio on Mick Ronson’s guitar during a show at Oxford town hall in 1972. Back then, the act seemed brave to the point of foolhardy in its provocation – it was only five years after homosexuality had been decriminalised in England and Wales, but that was entirely the point. Continue reading...
Conservatives only turn on their leaders when they become less popular than the party – and that’s exactly what’s happening nowWinston Churchill offered this advice about how the Conservative party should treat its leader. “The loyalties which centre upon number one are enormous. If he trips, he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes, they must be covered. If he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good, he must be pole-axed.”Which brings us to Boris Johnson. Tory MPs are tremendously angry with him. They are not quite so furious that they will pole-axe their number one this week, but they are sufficiently incensed to decline to sustain him and refuse to cover for him. Large numbers of them “withdrew their love” in a dramatically public fashion by disdaining to turn up to support him at the most recent prime minister’s questions. They missed an especially unedifying session during which the Speaker had to issue four reprimands to the Tory leader for disorderly behaviour. Where normally the chamber is rammed for PMQs, the vacant green leather behind Mr Johnson bore silent witness to how severely he has aggravated his parliamentary party. Attendees at a later, private meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers described the atmosphere as sullen. It was not much improved by the prime minister’s belated confession that he had “crashed the car into a ditch”. Continue reading...
Threats from Russia and China, a weaker US security alliance and internal discord expose fundamental strategic weaknessesIs Europe entering a dangerous new age of instability? Not since the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union has it looked so vulnerable to hostile forces.Accumulating external threats and internal divisions, coupled with a weakening US security alliance, relentless Russian subversion, and power-hungry China’s war on western values are exposing fundamental strategic weaknesses. Continue reading...
Increase comes ahead of Thanksgiving as families gather in homes, and as winter approaches, forcing people indoorsAmerica’s Covid-19 infections are climbing again, and could soon hit a weekly average of 100,000 cases a day as daily case reports increase more than 20% across the upper midwest.The fresh worsening of the coronavirus pandemic in the US comes as temperatures cool during the approach of winter, forcing people indoors where the virus is believed to spread more readily and may presage another wave. Continue reading...
President issues statement on Transgender Day of Remembrance and notes 2021 has been deadliest year on record for trans peopleJoe Biden issued a statement in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance, memorializing the dozens of transgender people who were killed this year in America and saying “each of these lives was precious”.Biden noted that 2021 has been the deadliest year on record for transgender Americans, particularly Black and Latino individuals. A recent study found that transgender people are over four times more likely to experience violent crimes than cisgender people. Continue reading...
News comes at a time when Republicans across the country claim without evidence that America’s electoral system is fraudulentThe FBI is investigating an attempted breach of a local election network in the state of Ohio that occurred last spring.A private laptop was plugged into the election network in the office of John Hamercheck, the chairman of the Lake county board of commissioners, on 4 May – the day of Ohio’s spring primary election – according to the Washington Post. Continue reading...
Drivers in southern California have scrambled to pick up cash after bags of money fell out of an armoured vehicle on a motorway. Several bags broke open, spreading mainly $1 and $20 bills all over the lanes and bringing the motorway to a chaotic halt. Videos posted online showed people laughing and jumping into the air as they held wads of money
FBI confirms search for the Teamster boss, who disappeared in July 1975, had begun again after a 2020 deathbed tip from landfill workerA half-century American fixation on the whereabouts of the remains of International Brotherhood of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa has finally led investigators to a landfill in New Jersey.The area of suspicion is on a Little League diamond on the landfill beneath the General Pulaski Skyway, a three-mile bridge that arches over a cinematically criminal evocative expanse of industrial wasteland and marshes west of Manhattan – one that once featured in marketing for the Sopranos TV show. Continue reading...
Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s story is a chilling reminder when women speak up about sexual misconduct they tend to be punished for itEarlier this month the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai posted a statement on the social media site Weibo accusing Zhang Gaoli, a former vice-premier, of sexual assault. Peng’s post acknowledged that she didn’t have evidence to back up her accusations against the powerful former politician, but she was determined not to stay silent. “Like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you,” Peng wrote.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for pre-order Continue reading...
WARNING: This video contains strong languageDemonstrators take to the streets after a jury cleared Kyle Rittenhouse on charges related to his shooting dead two people at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. Shouting matches flared on the courthouse steps in the town, and protest marches were held in Portland, Chicago and New York
Motorists on Interstate 5 filmed laughing and jumping in the air as they held wads of $1 and $20 billsDrivers in southern California have scrambled to pick up cash after bags of money fell out of an armoured vehicle on a motorway.The incident occurred on Friday morning on Interstate 5 in Carlsbad as the vehicle was heading from San Diego to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp office, authorities said. Continue reading...
Artefacts can now be replicated with microscopic accuracy. Will the British Museum, and our prime minister, see sense?One day a British government will return the Parthenon marbles to Athens. The only question is: who will obtain Greece’s undying credit and thanks?The obvious candidate was surely Boris Johnson. In 1986, the classics scholar invited the Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri to speak at Oxford University, pledging to help her restore the Parthenon’s glory. Yet this week it became yet another of Johnson’s Don Giovanni promises – words meant only at the time. Visiting London earlier this week, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, challenged him to “think out of the box in terms of global Britannia” and stage a “fantastic coup for public diplomacy”. Johnson pretended the issue was for the British Museum to decide, and nothing to do with him.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Ex-head of Renault and Nissan insists colleague held in Japan is innocent as he works to refute his own chargesCarlos Ghosn knows how compelling his story is. Born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, he scaled the corporate ladder to the very top of global industry to be crowned head of Renault and Nissan, before suffering a spectacular downfall: arrested in Japan and, in a dramatic finale, escaping in a box to freedom in Beirut.“There are going to be a lot of movies,” he said via video interview just before the third anniversary of his arrest. “This story is very rich. There are so many facets.” Continue reading...
In Oklahoma, Idaho, Wyoming and California, the next generation of GOP extremists are passing laws, picking their own voters … and preparing for powerThe website of the Oklahoma Republican party has a running countdown to the 2024 presidential election measured in “Maga days”, “Maga hours”, “Maga minutes” and “Maga seconds” – Maga being shorthand for Donald Trump’s timeworn slogan, “Make America great again”.The state party chairman, John Bennett, a veteran of three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has described Islam as a “cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out” and posted a yellow Star of David on Facebook to liken coronavirus vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany. Continue reading...
Police declare a riot in Oregon’s largest city as observers condemn discrepancy in how law enforcement treats militia supporters and anti-racism protestersAbout 200 protesters in Portland, Oregon, broke windows and threw objects at police on Friday night as reaction poured in after a jury cleared Kyle Rittenhouse over the shooting deaths of two people at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.Sheriffs in the city declared a riot downtown after “violent, destructive behavior by a significant part of the crowd”, with reports some talked about burning down the Justice Center. Continue reading...
The Oscar-tipped new drama King Richard tells the story of Venus, Serena and their father, who is celebrated here by those who knew himThe first surprise came when he climbed into the battered Volkswagen van. “I get in the passenger side and I sit down in the front seat and I get harpooned in the buttock,” tennis coach Rick Macci recalls in a phone interview.“There’s a spring sticking up and there’s four months’ worth of garbage, McDonald’s wrappers, dirty clothes, tennis balls in the back. I mean, it was crazy, and there’s little Venus and Serena sitting in there and I’m going, ‘Jesus, this is like I’m in a movie.’” Continue reading...
When white people find Black protesters scary, and white vigilantes heroic, where does that leave the legal concept of ‘reasonable belief’?Before sending a Kenosha, Wisconsin, jury to deliberate if Kyle Rittenhouse is a murderer, Judge Bruce Schroeder informed Rittenhouse’s hand-picked jury that his fate rests on the “privilege” of self-defense.We now know what the jury decided. Continue reading...
CDC joins FDA in expanding eligibility amid concern over potential worsening of coronavirus cases over holidaysUS regulators have opened up Covid-19 booster shots to all US adults, expanding the government’s campaign to shore up protection and get ahead of rising coronavirus cases that may worsen with the holidays.The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, signed off on the expanded eligibility on Friday evening after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broadened its authorization of booster doses to all adults who had received their second shot of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine at least six months prior. Continue reading...
The turkeys, raised in Jasper, Indiana, were pardoned by the president on the day House passed his Build Back Better agendaIt has been described as the hardest job in the world. American presidents are expected to be tough but compassionate, dealing with a never-ending list of crises and, once a year, playing standup comic with a pair of turkeys.The collision was acute and awkward for Joe Biden on Friday after a jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges related to deadly shootings last year at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, sparking widespread outrage. Continue reading...
Blazes in western US have hit thousands of Earth’s largest trees, once considered almost fire-proofLightning-sparked wildfires killed thousands of giant sequoias this year, adding to a staggering two-year death toll that accounts for up to nearly a fifth of Earth’s largest trees, officials said on Friday.Fires in Sequoia national park and the surrounding national forest that also bears the trees’ name tore through more than a third of groves in California and torched an estimated 2,261 to 3,637 sequoias. Fires in the same area last year killed an unprecedented 7,500 to 10,400 of the 75,000 trees. Continue reading...
A jury acquitted teenager Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday of murder after the fatal shooting of two men in a trial that highlighted divisions over gun rights and stirred fierce debate about the boundaries of self-defence in the United States. Amid a heavy law enforcement presence, several dozen protesters lined the steps outside the courthouse after the verdict was read, some carrying placards in support of Rittenhouse and others expressing disappointment
I have given up on the idea that facts alone will change a zealot’s mind, but a conversation shouldn’t be a battle for status or pointsThe woman’s distress is real. Over several hours I watch her pace and curse and sweat, racked by the kind of angst you would expect from somebody due a fatal diagnosis or whose loved one had been lost at sea.The human instinct is to comfort – and I do try – but I already know it’s pointless. There’s nothing wrong. She is consumed with outrage at something that never happened. Continue reading...
Tears, conflicting testimony and a judge’s controversial ringtone all came into play in a contentious trial that gripped AmericaThe acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse – who killed two men and injured another during anti-racism protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin – came after a contentious and controversial trial that gripped America.For many people Rittenhouse’s treatment was seen as revealing the favorable treatment that a white and armed militia supporter received from law enforcement when compared to police attitudes to anti-racism protesters. Continue reading...
by Lauren Gambino and David Smith in Washington and V on (#5S41R)
Bill now goes back to the Senate, where it faces total opposition from Republicans and an uphill battle against centrist DemocratsJoe Biden has hailed the US House of Representatives for passing a $1.75tn social and climate spending bill, a central pillar of his agenda that must now go before the Senate.The Democratic majority in the House approved the Build Back Better Act on Friday despite fierce opposition from Republicans. Continue reading...
The vice-president became the first woman to wield the powers of the US presidency, during Biden’s routine medical procedureKamala Harris on Friday morning became the first woman to wield presidential power in the US – temporarily, when Joe Biden had a colonoscopy under anesthetic.In a statement, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said: “This morning, the president will travel to Walter Reed Medical Center for a routine physical. While he is there, the president will undergo a routine colonoscopy. Continue reading...
Jury expected to begin deliberations in trial of civil lawsuit alleging two dozen conspired to commit violenceWhite nationalists “planned, executed and then celebrated” racially motivated violence that killed one counter-protester and injured dozens, lawyers for nine people hurt during the 2017 “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville said this week, as they urged jurors to hold some of the country’s most infamous white supremacists accountable.The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday in the trial of a civil lawsuit alleging that two dozen white nationalists, neo-Nazis and white supremacist organizations conspired to commit violence during two days of deadly demonstrations that rattled America’s conscience. Continue reading...
Democrats will vote on the Build Back Better plan Friday after Kevin McCarthy furiously railed against itHouse Democrats have vowed to vote on Friday on an expansive domestic policy package that would overhaul large swaths of the American economy, after the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, derailed a vote planned for Thursday evening with a rambling, hours-long speech.After months of fits and starts, gridlock and intra-party warring, Democrats had been on the verge of passing the centerpiece of Joe Biden’s economic vision on Thursday. But final passage of the measure was ultimately delayed by McCarthy, who used his leadership privileges to rail furiously against the legislation, the administration and the Democratic party in an overnight speech that lasted an extraordinary 8.5 hours. Continue reading...
by Harriet Sherwood Arts and culture correspondent on (#5S3W4)
Buyer beats crowdfunded cryptocurrency group to secure one of 13 surviving prints from 1787A rare surviving copy of the US constitution has sold at auction for a record $43.2m, with an unknown buyer beating a crowdfunded bid by a cryptocurrency group.The document, one of 13 original copies dating from 1787, sold for almost three times its lower estimate of $15m, and more than 260 times the amount it achieved when it last sold for $165,000 in 1988. The bidding at Sotheby’s in New York took eight minutes. Continue reading...
During the pandemic, women have exited the labor force at twice the rate of men; their participation in the paid labor force is now the lowest it has been in more than 30 yearsThey call it “the Great Resignation”. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September. The analytics firm Visier puts it in even starker terms, reporting that one in four workers quit in the past year. Job separations initiated by employees – quits – have exceeded pre-pandemic highs for six straight months. After the insecurity of the pandemic and the mass layoffs in hard-hit industries, many had predicted that the Covid crisis would yield more job retention and sterner worker competition as people sought stability in an uncertain time. Instead, employees are showing themselves more willing than ever to quit or change their jobs. The result has been a labor shortage, as employers struggle to find people to work and wages have finally been forced up. In an unexpected twist, the dawn of the post-pandemic era has brought with it a surprising moment of labor power.Most popular explanations for the Great Resignation focus on the shifting sentiments of workers. “The pandemic was sort of a nationwide awakening during a very stressful time,” Anthony Klotz, a psychologist at Texas A&M who coined the term “Great Resignation”, told NPR. “Most people were reflecting on their lives at the same time that work was causing them burnout, or they were really enjoying working from home.” Continue reading...
Alarm grows about climate breakdown in British Columbia after ‘terrible, terrible disaster’. Plus, a 95-year-old message in a bottleGood morning.Emergency crews in western Canada have been trying to reach 18,000 people stranded by landslides and struggling to find food among bare grocery store shelves after devastating flooding.How many have died? One person is confirmed dead in a landslide that swept vehicles off a road, but with many others missing that number is almost certain to rise.What’s been done to help the stranded? Troops have been deployed in British Columbia to help stranded residents, support supply chains and search areas hit by landslides and floods.House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office derided McCarthy speech as a “temper tantrum”, accusing him of making “unhinged claims” about the bill.With a paper-thin majority, Democrats can spare only a handful of defections on the package. Only one House Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine, was expected to vote against the bill. Continue reading...
Anxiety, depression and exhaustion, as well as fears of catching Covid, and the witnessing of so many deaths, are among some of the reasons, according to several studiesMary Ann Evely already knew she wanted to be a nurse at age 15, so she started volunteering at a children’s hospital in St Louis.Fifty years later, Evely’s feelings about nursing haven’t changed in spite of her work during the past 20 months in a hospice unit in Naples, Florida. Continue reading...
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