UFC fighters must wear Dwayne Johnson’s Project Rock shoes under a new sponsorship deal, but the Guardian has learned they won’t see any of the proceeds from the lucrative pactIn the lead-up to the final fight on his UFC contract earlier this month, Nate Diaz took aim at Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson over the film star’s recently announced footwear deal with the UFC.“These shoes fucking suck,” Diaz said while holding up one of Johnson’s Project Rock shoes in front of the camera during an ESPN interview ahead of UFC 279. “Look at these shoes. They made me put this shit on. Fuck these shoes.” Continue reading...
The few Republican supporters of gun restrictions have faced backlash from the party faithfulWhen Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law this summer, he and congressional Democrats celebrated the enactment of the first significant gun control policy in decades in the US.The US president also acknowledged that the law, a bipartisan compromise brokered after the Uvalde tragedy that left 19 children and two adults dead, did not go nearly far enough to address the devastation caused by gun violence. Continue reading...
After the storm knocked out power and destroyed property, people scramble for shelter, funds and news of the missingFor Connie Irvin, 82, and her partner, Cheryl Lange, the cost of Hurricane Ian’s devastating tear across Florida was clear. “Our entire community is wiped out,” said Irvin.The pair lost their mobile home on Sanibel Island off the state’s west coast and are now homeless, staying in a motel inland about 35 miles away near Naples, Florida, that currently has no electricity. Continue reading...
Author Jarett Kobek never intended to make the case the focus of his book but he may have solved the 50-year-old mysteryWhen author Jarett Kobek started researching the Zodiac killer for a book during the pandemic, he didn’t want to become just another amateur sleuth claiming to have finally solved the case that’s gripped America for decades.Yet, that’s more or less what happened. Kobek came across Paul Doerr, a San Francisco Bay area man who died in 2007, who he thinks is likely responsible for the killings and is the subject of his book: How to Find Zodiac. Continue reading...
Richard Harvey, 74, says he ‘accidentally’ shot Joan Jacobson, 84, as she campaigned on his doorstep but faces assault chargesMichigan authorities have filed criminal charges against a man accused of shooting an elderly woman campaigning against abortion rights in the shoulder while she argued with his wife last week.Richard Alan Harvey, 74, had publicly claimed it was an accident when he shot the 84-year-old woman. But prosecutors from Ionia county, Michigan, charged him on Friday with one count each of assault with felonious assault, careless discharge of a gun causing injury, and reckless use of a firearm in a case that appears to serve as an extreme example of how heated the debate surrounding abortion in the US can become. Continue reading...
Five bodies identified after crash, with 80% of the plane itself recovered, officials sayThe bodies of six of the 10 victims in a floatplane crash in Washington state’s Puget Sound have been recovered and five have been identified, officials said on Friday.Eric Brooks, deputy director of Island county emergency management, confirmed that four additional victims had been identified, the Seattle Times reported. Gabby Hanna of Seattle, whose body was found shortly after the Labor Day weekend crash near Whidbey Island, was previously identified. Continue reading...
by Richard Luscombe in Miami and Oliver Milman in New on (#64865)
Twenty-one people dead with toll expected to rise after mega-storm carves wide path of devastation and moves northThe coast of South Carolina was hit on Friday with a direct strike from Hurricane Ian, the deadly mega-storm that carved a wide path of destruction on its earlier rampage through Florida.The eye of the hurricane crossed over land at Georgetown, between Myrtle Beach and the historic city of Charleston, after strengthening overnight in the Atlantic. Continue reading...
Building defaced hours before Putin announced annexation of Ukrainian territories and Russian forces killed 30 civiliansThe Russian consulate in New York has been vandalized with red spray paint, in an apparent protest against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.Officers said they responded to an emergency call just after 1.30am on Friday reporting that paint had been sprayed across the facade of the consulate on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Continue reading...
Savannah Graziano’s death reviewed under measure requiring investigations of police shootings of unarmed peopleThe California department of justice is reviewing the death of a southern California teenager in a shootout with law enforcement this week under a state law requiring the agency to investigate police shootings involving the death of unarmed civilians.Savannah Graziano, 15, was killed on Tuesday amid a lengthy shootout between police and her father on a stretch of southern California highway. Continue reading...
Lawyer rejects ex-president’s argument that suit, centered on Trump’s denial that he raped her, should be dismissedThe writer suing Donald Trump for defamation after he denied having raped her in the mid-1990s accused him of stonewalling and trying to avoid a scheduled deposition as he tries to delay the case indefinitely.In a letter filed on Friday in federal court in Manhattan, a lawyer for E Jean Carroll also said Trump was “mistaken” in arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed altogether because the US government, and not he, was the proper defendant. Continue reading...
At least two people and three cats are seen being rescued from hurricane floodwater on Sanibel Island, Florida, in a US Coast Guard video released on Friday.Rescuers went door to door in search of people who wanted to be evacuated and posted several videos filmed on Thursday of airlifting missions in the affected area
Court martial clears Ryan Mays after prosecutors alleged he started blaze after failing to complete Navy Seal trainingA military court judge on Friday acquitted a US navy sailor charged with intentionally setting a fire that destroyed a billion-dollar warship and injured dozens onboard.During a nine-day trial at California’s Naval Base San Diego, military prosecutors argued that 21-year-old Ryan Mays ignited the USS Bonhomme Richard on purpose in the summer of 2020 because he was upset that he had dropped out of Navy Seal training. Continue reading...
Not all teams are as seemingly negligent as the Dolphins in the case of Tagovailoa, but that doesn’t change the league’s bottom line of its players only being of value when they’re on the fieldThere was a football game Thursday night between the Cincinnati Bengals and Miami Dolphins. The Bengals won. Tyreek Hill had a gazillion receiving yards. There were plenty of highlight-reel moments. But who cares? All the play calling and blocking and stats pale in comparison to the night’s main storyline.Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa left the game on a stretcher after his head was violently slammed into the ground on a sack by Bengals defensive tackle Josh Tupou in the second quarter. Tagovailoa was immediately taken to a nearby hospital. The whole scene was a nightmare. Continue reading...
Wife of US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas holds tight to stolen election conspiracy in interview with January 6 committeeGinni Thomas, the hard-right conservative whose activities have raised conflict of interest concerns involving her husband, the US supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, has told the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that she still believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the committee, told reporters following the almost five-hour private interview with Thomas that she held fast to her claim that massive fraud in the 2020 election had put Joe Biden in the White House. When asked by reporters if Thomas still believed that to be true, Thompson replied: “Yes.” Continue reading...
The Florida governor ‘put politics aside’ to ask Joe Biden for federal – unlike when he voted against help for Hurricane Sandy victimsAs Hurricane Ian has devastated parts of Florida, the national political spotlight in America has shone brighter than ever on Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, rising star of the hard right and probable presidential contender in 2024.Since his election in 2018, DeSantis has made his name as a ruthless culture-warrior, a Trump ally but also perhaps his most serious rival. Continue reading...
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US mainland, has battered south-west Florida with high winds, rain and storm surges Continue reading...
Adam Curtis’s BBC project, TraumaZone, show us extraordinary events though the eyes of ordinary people, and how ideologues betrayed themOne of the many glitteringly clever quotes circulated in the wake of Hilary Mantel’s death last week was something she said about history. The longer version is wonderful (what did she ever say that wasn’t?), but we’ll clip this bit: “Facts are not truth, though they are part of it … And history is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past. It’s the record of what’s left on the record.” Yet using these fragments – “a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth” – Mantel could transport you so completely that you felt you were breathing the air of another century, feeling the emotions of other people, moving through other times.This has an intense value. And yet, there is a certain type of historian who concerns themself – or himself, let’s face it – very little with emotion, even though that is all anyone ordinary who was forced to live through events was feeling at the time. Anger, shock, hope, bewilderment, laughter, exhaustion, betrayal – these are the trifling human offcuts of some loftier story, largely unmentionable byproducts of the grand machinations of greater men than them.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnistMarina Hyde will join Guardian Live for events in Manchester (4 October) and London (11 October) to discuss her new book, What Just Happened?! For details visit theguardian.com/guardianlive, and order the book from Guardian Bookshop Continue reading...
Photos and videos of sharks and other marine life swimming in suburban flood waters make for popular hoaxes during heavy storms. But a mobile phone video filmed during Hurricane Ian’s assault on south-west Florida isn’t just another fishy story.A large, dark fish with distinct dorsal fins was filmed thrashing around an inundated Fort Myers backyard. Experts were divided over whether the clip showed a shark or another large fish. Nevertheless, some Twitter users nicknamed the hapless fish the 'street shark'
Many western analysts are clearly hoping Putin’s disastrous Ukraine war brings his downfall. But the track record in these cases isn’t greatVladimir Putin’s 21 September mobilization order, which aims to deploy 300,000 reservists to Ukraine, and possibly as many as 1.2 million, is an act of desperation aimed at saving a faltering war that he now owns. But his military call-up is also a huge gamble. For 22 years Putin has solidified his rule through an implicit pact with the Russian people: don’t make political waves and you will live comfortably. His mobilization order has broken that pact, and many Russians are taking to the streets or running to the border to flee the country.It’s not hyperbole to suggest that Putin is facing his biggest challenge since becoming president in 2000. A leader who once seemed infallible and irreplaceable suddenly appears vulnerable, so much so that the media is now speculating about whether Putin might lose power.Rajan Menon is the director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus at the Powell School, City College, and a senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies, Columbia. He is the co-author of Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War OrderDaniel R DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek, among other publications Continue reading...
Man films fish ‘flopping around’ in neighbour’s garden but experts are split over identificationPhotos and videos of sharks and other marine life swimming in suburban floodwaters make for popular hoaxes during heavy storms. But a mobile phone video filmed during Hurricane Ian’s assault on south-west Florida isn’t just another fishy story.The video, which showed a large, dark fish with distinct dorsal fins thrashing around an inundated Fort Myers back yard, racked up more than 12m views on Twitter within a day, as users responded with disbelief and comparisons to the “Sharknado” film series. Continue reading...
While the British PM was choosing her words carefully, politicians in France were letting their clothes do the talkingWhile the British government responds to soaring energy prices with the canny distraction-technique of tanking the entire economy, the French – those smooth operators – slip into something warmer and more comfortable. Emmanuel Macron, having lately outgrown his Zelenskiy tribute wardrobe, is still in traditional workwear, but other members of the president’s government have been rocking something closer to country-casual this week, in an effort to encourage shivering French people to layer up rather than turn on the heating. Continue reading...
However, lack of information limits understanding whether the data suggests heightened enforcement or improved reportingMurder rose at an unprecedented rate in the United States in 2020 and likely rose again in 2021, but concrete answers about why this surge occurred have been hard to come by.New data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) provides enticing clues regarding the potential role of newly purchased firearms in the nationwide increase in murders. Continue reading...
Biden says storm could be deadliest in state’s history as it regains strength and heads for South Carolina. Plus, meet Uganda’s first female pro cyclist
Workers at the US insurance company vow to continue their efforts to organise as an independent labor movement takes holdWorkers at an office of US insurance giant Geico have embarked on a unionization campaign in the face of what they say are aggressive and unfair management tactics to prevent them from forming a labor union.Workers at the office of about 2,500 employees in Amherst, New York, near Buffalo, say they have faced deteriorating working conditions in the past two years under Geico CEO Todd Combs. Combs is an investment manager and protege of billionaire Warren Buffett, whose firm Berkshire Hathaway owns Geico – known across the US for its ads featuring its English-accented gecko mascot. Continue reading...
One of the fiercest storms to hit the US swept ashore, making landfall 125 miles south of Tampa Bay, and hit Fort MyersAs Carolinians braced for their dose of deadly Hurricane Ian on Friday, a massive swath of Florida lay underwater or covered in dangerous debris while one major population area allowed itself a small sigh of relief.The 3 million-plus residents of the Tampa Bay area in south-west Florida, dominated by the cities of Tampa, St Petersburg and Clearwater, had battened themselves down expecting the first direct hit from a hurricane there in a century. Continue reading...
Solidarity protests demand bodily autonomy for women in Iran and economic justice for students, teachers and workers“This is a really beautiful moment,” says Hoda Katebi, a writer and community organizer based in Chicago. “It has been terrifying and inspiring for Iranians, both in Iran and outside of it.”For the last 14 days, Iranians have been protesting on the streets across their country, defying judicial warnings after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini. Continue reading...
Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained neck and head injuries after being slammed to the ground against the Cincinnati Bengals and was stretchered from the field.'It’s an emotional moment. It’s not a part of the deal you sign up for,' said the Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel. The Dolphins said Tagovailoa was conscious, had movement in all his extremities and was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for further evaluation.
The 19-year-old, named as cheater by Magnus Carlsen, is due to play for the US title in a 14-grandmaster field including three of the world top 10Hans Niemann will be tested by three of the top 10 grandmasters next week when the 19-year-old, who the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, has publicly declared to be a cheat, takes on the American elite in the $250,000 US championship at St Louis, which has its first round (of 13) on Wednesday.Niemann will be returning to the the “capital of chess” where a few weeks ago he shocked Carlsen by defeating the Norwegian in the third round of the Sinquefield Cup. Continue reading...
by Michael Coulter, Kari Paul, Maanvi Singh, Maya Yan on (#646DE)
In a press conference, Ron DeSantis said food, water and other supplies are being distributed to those who did not evacuate26 states have provided support to Florida amid the damages that Hurricane Ian has left across the state.“It’s going to be put to use,” DeSantis said on Thursday morning. Continue reading...
Biden says hurricane could ‘be deadliest in state’s history’ as storm regains strength and heads towards South CarolinaThe “catastrophic” scale of the damage wreaked by Hurricane Ian’s 150mph deadly rampage across Florida has become clearer as emergency crews rescued trapped residents from flooded homes, and authorities expressed fears of a growing death toll.As South Carolina braced for Ian to make a second landfall on Friday, search and rescue crews in south-west Florida conducted hundreds of missions in areas that were submerged by a storm surge of up to 18ft after one of the most powerful storms to strike the US swept ashore on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Emergency crews using boats and helicopters raced to reach stranded residents of Florida’s Gulf Coast after Hurricane Ian, one of the strongest storms ever to hit the US mainland, left behind deadly floodwaters, downed power lines and widespread damage. Aerial video showed massive devastation and flooding in beach communities, with some homes and businesses reduced to matchwood, and boats and vehicles wrecked or submerged
In eagerly awaited book Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times depicts scene on campaign plane in 2016According to a new book, Donald Trump came up with his famous excuse for not releasing his tax returns on the fly – literally, while riding his campaign plane during the 2016 Republican primary.Every American president or nominee since Richard Nixon had released his or her tax returns. Trump refused to do so. Continue reading...
Judge rules ex-president does not have to confirm under oath insinuations until his lawyers have reviewed seized materialsA federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump would not have to provide a sworn declaration that the FBI supposedly “planted” some of the highly-sensitive documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort, as he has suggested, until his lawyers have reviewed the seized materials.The order from US district court judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the special master case and is a Trump appointee, also pushed back several key interim deadlines that consequently extends the review’s final date of completion from the end of November to mid-December. Continue reading...
Video has since been viewed 3.4m times on Twitter and has garnered praise and celebrationA video of a man rescuing a cat during Hurricane Ian in south-west Florida has gone viral, prompting praise from many viewers.“My boyfriend saving a cat from flood waters near Bonita Beach,” wrote Megan Cruz Scavo in a caption that accompanied a video of her boyfriend, 29-year old Mike Ross, trudging across knee-deep water on Wednesday afternoon to rescue a stranded cat. Continue reading...
Mayor Libby Schaaf calls for gun restrictions after shooting at Rudsdale Newcome high school for recently immigrated studentsCalifornia authorities are searching for at least two people in connection with a shooting on a school campus in Oakland that left six people injured.Wednesday’s shooting occurred at Rudsdale Newcomer high school, which serves students who are at risk of not graduating and have recently immigrated to the US after fleeing their home countries “because of violence and instability”. The school is one of four adjacent schools that serve middle and high school students on Fontaine Street just outside East Oakland.This story was amended on 28 September 2022 to clarify that the shooting happened at a grade school, not a high school Continue reading...
DoJ indictment alleges that former army major and his wife wanted to help the Russian government after it invaded UkraineA former US army major and his wife, an anesthesiologist, have been criminally charged for allegedly plotting to leak highly sensitive healthcare data about military patients to Russia, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday.Jamie Lee Henry, the former major who was also a doctor at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and his wife, Dr Anna Gabrielian, were charged in an unsealed indictment in a federal court in Maryland with conspiracy and the wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information. Continue reading...
Drone footage from Florida, where Hurricane Ian has left a trail of destruction, shows widespread flooding of urban areas. The hurricane, considered one of the most powerful to have hit the US, made landfall on Wednesday and has left more than 2 million people without power. Joe Biden has approved a disaster declaration, which makes federal money available to help state, tribal and local recovery efforts
Is the older me just a watered-down version of the younger me? There is something eternal in us all – a thing that doesn’t age or calcifySometimes it feels as though nothing really ends, that we carry things and people around with us over a lifetime. Tim Winton put it well when he wrote in The Turning, “The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.”Things are never over. This is what I was thinking about at my book launch two weeks ago, trying not to be overwhelmed as I looked around the room dense with association, love and history. Many there had been in my life since I was born – their faces hovering over the cot. My parents have the capacity for long friendship. Now in their mid-70s, some of their friends had been around since they were in primary school. Go back further and their parents – my grandparents – were also friends. Things are never over. Continue reading...
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