Rain and snow samples from Wisconsin to Maine and North Carolina after crash show highest pH levels over last decadeChemicals released during the East Palestine train wreck fires in February 2023 in Ohio were carried across 16 US states, new research of federal precipitation and pollution data shows.Analysis of rain and snow samples collected from northern Wisconsin to Maine to North Carolina in the weeks following the crash found the highest levels of pH and some compounds recorded over the last ten years. That includes chloride, which researchers say was largely released during a controversial controlled burn of highly toxic vinyl chloride carried by the train. Continue reading...
Records also show displays of impunity and instances of officers wearing possible white supremacist morale patchesThe New York City police department's disciplinary issues are coming to a head during the third year of tough-on-crime Mayor Eric Adams's administration, with complaints at their highest since 2012, stop-and-frisk encounters soaring and displays of impunity by rank-and-file officers, according to interviews and data from the city's independent police watchdog agency.Disciplinary records and interviews with sources also reveal a persistent problem with instances of NYPD officers wearing morale patches on their bulletproof vests containing possible white supremacist imagery. Continue reading...
Mothering a Swiftie can mean making decisions that make you feel like either the best or worst parent in the worldI am either the worst parent in the world or the best parent in the world" is what I texted friend after friend last Thursday as my Lyft chugged toward JFK airport.The passenger next to me was far less angst-ridden. Owing to her powers of persuasion, my nine-year-old daughter and I were about to fly across the ocean to see her hero. Continue reading...
The tacky ex-president loves the overrated Impressionist. Personally, I can only take so many portraits of dough-faced womenDonald Trump has criminally bad taste in just about everything. He orders his steaks well done and drowns them in ketchup. His Manhattan penthouse is gold and famously gaudy. He wears shiny suits that never seem to fit properly. And then there's his taste in art: the man loves himself a bit of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. For years, Trump had what he liked to boast was an original Renoir" on his private jet. That has been proven to be nonsense: the original of the painting in question - Two Sisters (On The Terrace) - is in a Chicago gallery and Trump has a fake. Still, he likes it very much and has now relocated it to Trump Tower. Melania Trump also has a fake Renoir in her office.The tasteless Trumps might enjoy Renoir, but so do a lot of people. Why am I slandering the French Impressionist? I'll tell you why: I recently visited the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (home to the world's single largest collection of Renoirs) and, after looking at 10 million pictures of dough-faced women, I had something of a revelation: Renoir is incredibly overrated. Continue reading...
The edited videos are often posted to question the US president's mental fitness at 81Joe Biden wandered off.Standing among the west's major leaders in Italy last week, the US president turned away, seemingly in confusion, and had to be alerted back to the group to take a photo - at least, that's what rightwing media showed. Continue reading...
Kim enjoys the recognition and backs Putin in Ukraine. Putin's war, meanwhile needs North Korean weapons. It's a dangerous allianceThey make an odd couple. One is smiley-faced and chubby. The other is thin-lipped and scowls a lot. Both are dictators, sinister, brutal and unaccountable in their different ways. Both have made it their mission in life to overturn the post-1945 global order, defying the US, its chief patrolman. And both are sanctioned, ostracised and a little bit feared by the countries of the west.Those fears are likely to intensify after today's Pyongyang summit, both symbolic and substantive, between this unofficial Laurel and Hardy tribute act. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un - the plump one - and Russia's Vladimir Putin - the skinny one - have a shared aim: consolidating their place in a bullish anti-western, anti-democratic alliance, ostensibly representing a new world order", reaching from China to Iran.Simon Tisdall is the Observer's Foreign Affairs CommentatorDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
We have much to fear if the French president, playing with fire, opens the door to a far-right governmentTwenty-two years after Jean-Marie Le Pen was unexpectedly voted through to the second round of a French presidential election- an electoral shock that drew nearly a million people on to the streets in protest - the threat of the far right coming to power has returned.On 9 June, French voters gave Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) an unprecedented victory in the European elections. Her party won a record 31.5% of the vote, twice as many votes as the centrist alliance backed by President Emmanuel Macron. A separate far-right list headed by Le Pen's niece, Marion Marechal, won a further 5% of the vote.Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, writer, film-maker and activistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Caleb Adams tells NBC emotional tale of swimming through his own blood to get help for bites to his torso, arm and handA man who survived being bitten several times by a shark while taking a dip off the coast of California says he fought so hard that he may have hit the animal inside its mouth before he then swam through his own blood to reach safety.I'm very thankful," 46-year-old Caleb Adams said in an emotional interview with NBC News that aired Tuesday on the network's Today show. Continue reading...
Ex-president blames Democrats and offers conciliatory remarks to city hosting Republican national conventionDonald Trump made a brazen bid for support in the vital swing state of Wisconsin on Tuesday by declaring his affection for its biggest population centre, Milwaukee, just days after denigrating it as a horrible city".Needing to explain his own words to a city that will host the Republican national convention next month, the former president predictably chose to tackle the problem head-on at a campaign rally in neighbouring Racine, about 30 miles from Milwaukee along the shore of Lake Michigan. Continue reading...
Anti-abortion activists sue over ballot measure, leading group behind measure to ask federal judge to step inAnti-abortion activists in South Dakota have sued over a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, leading the group behind the measure to ask a federal judge to step in and block the activists' effort.Last week, South Dakota's Life Defense Fund filed a lawsuit accusing Dakotans for Health of fraud, turning in invalid signatures and failing to abide by the state rules that govern signature-gathering for ballot measures. Life Defense Fund has asked a South Dakota circuit court to take the abortion-rights measure off the November ballot. Continue reading...
Robert Morris resigns from Texas church after admitting to sexually abusing girl in the 1980s, starting when she was 12A Texas megachurch said on Tuesday it had accepted the resignation of its senior pastor after he admitted to sexually abusing a child in the 1980s.The church has also launched a formal, legal investigation into the matter. Continue reading...
Other versions of the 10ft-tall metal installation were found in places like Utah, California, Wales and Romania in 2020The mysterious monoliths that surfaced during the Covid-19 pandemic have reappeared, this time in a Nevada desert.Other versions of the singular, reflective, 10ft-tall metal installation were found in places like Utah, California, Wales and Romania in 2020, but now can be seen at Gass Peak, roughly 40 miles north of Las Vegas. Continue reading...
President touts commonsense fix' that would provide relief for more than half a million mixed-status' familiesJoe Biden on Tuesday announced an expansive new plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented spouses of US citizens, calling it a commonsense fix" that would provide relief to more than half a million mixed-status" families in the country.The move comes as the Democratic president tries to strike a balance before the 5 November election: confronting rising public concern over the unprecedented levels of migration at the southern border, while appeasing progressive Democrats and Hispanic leaders furious over Biden's aggressive asylum crackdown, which they likened to Trump-era policies. Continue reading...
The team from Flushing were enduring a long slump until the McDonald's mascot popped up at a game. They have been on a hot streak sinceThe New York Mets were in disarray. The club with Major League Baseball's largest payroll, $308m, had started the season 29-37. They were primed for a second-straight year of rebuilding despite their massive outlay on talent. Less than a month earlier, on 15 May, hedge fund magnate and team owner Steve Cohen all but admitted in a since deleted tweet that the club would be selling off assets at the July trade deadline. Not much we can do" until that time, he told a fan who had mentioned dismantling the roster.Then an unlikely hero showed up. He was soft, purple, and blessed with the dad bod of a back-up catcher. And that hero was Grimace, a second-tier McDonald's mascot who lacks the star power of Ronald McDonald, the political heft of Mayor McCheese or the dashing charisma of Hamburglar. Nevertheless, on 12 June he threw out the first pitch at CitiField and transformed the Mets' season. Continue reading...
Number of people affected unclear after disruption made it impossible to reach emergency services through numberThe 911 system across Massachusetts was restored Tuesday after going down for several hours, which made it impossible for anyone to reach emergency services through the call number.The Massachusetts state police announced around 3.45pm that the system had been restored and that people could resume calling emergency services. They didn't provide any details about the cause of the outage. Continue reading...
Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty in January to federal hate and gun charges after five killed in Club Q shootingThe person who shot and killed five people and injured nearly 20 others at a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2022 pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges and was sentenced to 55 life terms in prison on Tuesday.Anderson Lee Aldrich, 24, is already serving a life sentence in prison after pleading guilty to state charges in the 2022 shooting last year. As part of the plea agreement, Aldrich repeatedly admitted on Tuesday to evidence of hatred. Continue reading...
Far-right congressman and Trump loyalist also investigated over alleged drug use and claims of other ethical breachesA bipartisan Capitol Hill committee is investigating Matt Gaetz, the far-right Republican congressman and vocal Donald Trump supporter, over longstanding allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches, it said on Tuesday.The announcement by the House ethics committee - which contains an equal number of Democrats and Republicans - reignited a swirl of scandal surrounding the outspoken Trump ally that had abated somewhat after an earlier criminal investigation into allegations against him was dropped. Continue reading...
Donald Trump's military ran a covert campaign to discredit China's Sinovac vaccine at the height of the pandemicIn July 2021, Joe Biden rightly inveighed against social media companies failing to tackle vaccine disinformation: They're killing people," the US president said. Despite their pledges to take action, lies and sensationalised accounts were still spreading on platforms. Most of those dying in the US were unvaccinated. An additional source of frustration for the US was the fact that Russia and China were encouraging mistrust of western vaccines, questioning their efficacy, exaggerating side-effects and sensationalising the deaths of people who had been inoculated.How, then, would the US describe the effects of its own disinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic? A shocking new report has revealed that its military ran a secret campaign to discredit China's Sinovac vaccine with Filipinos - when nothing else was available to the Philippines. The Reuters investigation found that this spread to audiences in central Asia and the Middle East, with fake social media accounts not only questioning Sinovac's efficacy and safety but also claiming it used pork gelatine, to discourage Muslims from receiving it. In the case of the Philippines, the poor take-up of vaccines contributed to one of the highest death rates in the region. Undermining confidence in a specific vaccine can also contribute to broader vaccine hesitancy. Continue reading...
State's supreme court declines to hear former president's one of two legal efforts to terminate the orderDonald Trump has lost one of two legal efforts to terminate a gag order imposed on the former president during his hush-money" trial in New York on accounting fraud charges.On Tuesday, New York's state supreme court said it declined to hear Trump's appeal against the gag order in the case involving Stormy Daniels that led to his conviction on 34 felonies, asserting that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved". Continue reading...
Mary Morrissey apologizes after being filmed dumping liquid into backpack of Democratic legislator Jim CarrollA Vermont lawmaker was compelled to apologize publicly after being caught on video pouring water into her colleague's work bag multiple times across several months.The bizarre behavior is allegedly a part of a campaign of harassment that one legislator aimed at another who represents the same district in the Green Mountain state, independent outlet Seven Days first reported. Continue reading...
Company blames supplier delays for missed production targets and has struggled to meet sales forecastsThe electric car company Fisker has filed for US bankruptcy protection, making it the latest EV startup to collapse trying to challenge the established car industry.The company was started in 2016 by the husband-and-wife team Henrik Fisker and Geeta Gupta-Fisker. It is the second attempt by Fisker, a former Aston Martin design chief, to establish an EV challenger that has ended in bankruptcy. Continue reading...
Of course we must provide a high standard of care. But a broken grievance process can do harmWe have heard all about accountable doctors. Here's why patients must be held accountable.I saved you a voicemail," my friend says over a hastily arranged lunch. After ordering, I hit play and listen not once but three times. The message is like a poorly microwaved meal: warm on the surface, stone cold inside. Continue reading...
This Celtics team, while not quite as luminously talented as peak Steph Curry Golden State, have much of their predecessors' machine-like air of inevitabilityA blizzard of confetti across the parquet floor at TD Garden; the words Jaylen Brown finals MVP" no longer a punchline used to taunt the Massachusetts basketball faithful but solid, unarguable reality; the Larry O'Brien trophy in the hands of Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck; and Boston confirmed, with their 18th championship, as the most successful franchise in NBA history.Were these the worst NBA finals - for neutrals, at least - in recent memory though? A 4-1 scoreline certainly suggests so, and the manner of the Mavericks' capitulation on Monday night - gamely keeping pace for the first 10 minutes of the first quarter before Boston made the title all but secure by half-time - applied a weak punctuation mark to what had been a rousing Dallas effort in Game 4. In the end, Kyrie Irving failed to show up on the court that once sang his name, the Mavericks supporting cast reverted to mediocre type, and the velvet hands and magic buttocks (and dodgy knee, and injured chest) of Luka Doni simply had nothing left to give against a Boston outfit that was too smooth, too strong, too powerful at both ends of the court. With this 18th title, after 16 Larry O'Brien-less years, the Celtics now move ahead of their historic rivals the Lakers in the NBA's all-time championship tally. Continue reading...
by Callum Jones in New York and agencies on (#6NKQ8)
Sam Mohawk alleges he was told to conceal evidence from regulators while Dave Calhoun will face senators' questionsAnother Boeing whistleblower has come forward, accusing the embattled planemaker of cutting corners on its production line hours before its CEO testifies before Congress.Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance inspector for the company in Renton, Washington, alleged that he was instructed by his supervisors to conceal evidence from regulators. Continue reading...
The companies led by the boob-obsessed billionaire have faced a number of sexual harassment lawsuits. Why do his cult-like followers still consider him a genius?Elon Musk is a boob. The brash billionaire is also, as he can't stop telling the world, embarrassingly obsessed with breasts - so much so that last year he painted over the W" on the Twitter sign at the San Francisco headquarters so that it read Titter". This belaboured joke was a long time in the making: days before offering to buy Twitter in April 2022, he tweeted a poll: Delete the w in Twitter?" It's highly possible that Musk spent $44bn on the social media platform just so that he could one day turn this very stupid gag into reality.This wasn't the first time he'd publicly sniggered Haha, female anatomy is hilarious!" like a dimwitted schoolboy. In 2021 he joked about starting a university called the Texas Institute of Technology & Science. Gettit? It's a naughty acronym. Hilarious! Indeed, this particular joke never seems to get old for the 52-year-old. Earlier this year, he tweeted Boobs just rock, it's a fact," alongside a meme of a man distracted by a woman's cleavage. Continue reading...
Annual event in July will be first US state fair to feature on-site marijuana dispensaries and competitionsCalifornia's state fair has moved to become the first event of its kind by allowing the sale and consumption of marijuana on its grounds when its 2024 edition unfolds in July.Fair planners on Tuesday announced the decision to allow visitors to buy and use cannabis at the 17-day event beginning 12 July, touting it as a watershed moment in the relationship between weed and the US, where about half of Americans now live in states where marijuana is legalized. Among those states is California, which legalized marijuana production in 2016 - and is on track to be the first to sell cannabis legally at a fair, officials said. Continue reading...
Judge orders BNSF to pay Swinomish Tribe for trespassing with dangerous cargo across tribal land of Washington stateOne of the largest freight railroad networks in North America must pay nearly $400m to the Swinomish Tribe, a federally recognized tribe located in Washington state, a federal judge ordered on Monday. Last year, US district judge Robert Lasnik ruled that BNSF Railway intentionally trespassed when it repeatedly ran 100-car trains carrying crude oil across the tribe's reservation.Lasnik held a trial earlier this month to determine how much in profits BNSF had made from trespassing from 2012 to 2021, and how much of the company should be required to repay to the Indigenous group. Lasnik put that figure at $362m and added $32m in post-tax profits such as investment income for a total of more than $394m. Continue reading...
Russian president to visit North Korea for first time in 24 years to seek continued military support. Plus, how Instagram is transforming wedding photography
Organizers hope those disillusioned by electoral politics will vote with an eye on abortion rights after fall of RoeThroughout her political career, Raquel Teran has been advised to avoid talking too much about abortion.I've been told: Be careful speaking about the issue when you're running in a Latino district,'" said Teran, a congressional candidate in Arizona and former chair of the state's Democratic party. Continue reading...
Agent fired weapon but unknown if assailants were hit as president was in town for $30m Hollywood eventThe US Secret Service said one of its agents was robbed at gunpoint on Saturday night as President Joe Biden was visiting Los Angeles for a star-studded campaign fundraising event, officials said.The agent was returning from work when he was accosted in a residential neighborhood in Tustin, about an hour's drive south-east of Los Angeles, according to the Secret Service. Continue reading...
Ex-president and McCarthy allies have joined to unseat Bob Good from the state's fifth congressional districtRepresentative Bob Good has accomplished the rare feat of unifying Donald Trump and allies of the former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who are collectively trying to unseat the chair of the hard-right Freedom caucus.Good heads into his Tuesday primary in Virginia's fifth congressional district facing a challenge from the Republican state senator John McGuire, who has received a crucial endorsement from Trump. Good had already drawn the ire of fellow House Republicans for voting to oust McCarthy as speaker last year, but the incumbent's job appears to be in much more serious jeopardy after Trump's endorsement. Continue reading...
The firm, expanding its philanthropic program, zeroed in on data showing the economic case for investing in themAt a time when conservative legal activists are targeting diversity measures in corporate America, Goldman Sachs has announced it is expanding a component of one of its philanthropic equity programs.The One Million Black Women initiative, a program the company started in 2021, aims to dedicate $10bn in investment and $100m in philanthropic spending to address racial and gender inequality over the course of 10 years. Continue reading...
The Republicans who prop up Trump's cult of personality recently engaged in their strangest ordeal of self-abasement yetAfter 40 months and two weeks Donald Trump succeeded in being driven by car to the Capitol. The last time he attempted to get there was 6 January 2021. The mob was rampaging, ransacking offices and chanting, Hang Mike Pence!" Trump was irate", according to the account of Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide, because he was not among the mob. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now.'" Hutchinson stands by her story of being told he had tried to grab the steering wheel and lunged at his driver.If the US supreme court had not intervened to postpone Trump's January 6 trial it would likely be proceeding today or perhaps even have already reached a verdict on his conspiracy, according to the indictment of the United States of America v Donald J Trump, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government".Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
With the tournament kicking off this week, we look at the players who will be decisive in the US this summerOne of the beautiful things about soccer in the Americas is the mix of players who suit up at the international level. Peru will once again trust 40-year-old Paolo Guerrero at a Copa America, Chile will turn to 41-year-old goalkeeper Claudio Bravo while future stars like 17-year-old Kendry Paez of Ecuador and 19-year-old Valentin Carboni of Argentina will play in their major international tournament.Between the extremes, there are plenty of players in their primes who will dazzle. We trust you're familiar with Lionel Messi, Vinicius Junior and Luis Diaz, so here are 10 players who should star - if not shine as brightly as the Ballon d'Or contenders - in the US this summer. Continue reading...
Controversial law, due to go into effect on 1 July, is unconstitutional and cannot override federal rules, judge saysA federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked an Iowa law that allowed law enforcement in the state to file criminal charges against people with outstanding deportation orders or who previously had been denied entry to the US.US district court judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction because he said the Department of Justice and civil rights groups who filed suit against the state were likely to succeed in their argument that federal immigration law pre-empted the law approved this spring by Iowa legislators. Continue reading...
Painful near miss at Pinehurst after letting a two-shot lead late in the final round slip away could take a while to recover fromAmid the grumbling at Rory McIlroy's sharp exit from the US Open, it is worth remembering that a picture can tell a thousand words. The scale of McIlroy's devastation was so stark that it looked possible he could throw up all over the scoring area in which he was standing as Bryson DeChambeau holed out for victory at Pinehurst. Anyone who questions the extent to which McIlroy cares about his professional pursuits need only have looked at his face.Even for those with a loose attachment to his career, the denouement to the 124th US Open was gut-wrenching to watch. This was a loss so sore that McIlroy felt unable to detail his thoughts to the wider world. He should be given a pass there; not only is the Northern Irishman generous with his time to the media, it seems impossible he could have adequately articulated what heartbreak had transpired over the previous hour. McIlroy didn't hang about, either, for the cheesy shaking of DeChambeau's hand in front of cameras. This is a sportsman who had the ending of a painful, apparently interminable run within his grasp and cracked. No wonder McIlroy wanted off the property as quickly as possible. Continue reading...
The Post fire, which grew to more than 14,600 acres, is one of nearly a dozen wildfires actively burning in CaliforniaFirefighters in California are battling blazes in challenging conditions after several wildfires broke out over the weekend, forcing evacuations and consuming thousands of acres of land.Los Angeles county is dealing with its first major wildfire of the year after a blaze dubbed the Post fire swiftly grew to more than 14,600 acres (5,900 hectares). The fire, which broke out on Saturday, is burning through the mountains along the major Interstate 5 highway, fueled by strong winds that are pushing the flames through dry brush. Continue reading...
Sean McKinnon, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to US federal agents and is planned to be releasedThe man accused of acting as lookout during the prison killing of the notorious Boston gangster James Whitey" Bulger won't serve additional prison time after pleading guilty Monday to a charge of lying to federal agents.Sean McKinnon, one of three men indicted in the 2018 prison beating death of 89-year-old Bulger, is now set to be released from custody after a judge on Monday sentenced him to time served. Bulger was infamously the head of the Boston-area Irish mafia Winter Hill Gang, who spent 16 years on the run before being captured in 2011. Continue reading...
by Chris Stein (now) and Gloria Oladipo (earlier) on (#6NJW4)
This live blog is now closed. For the latest US politics news, go hereJoe Biden spent the weekend fundraising with his former boss, Barack Obama, and the Hollywood stars who have increasingly lined up behind the Democratic president's re-election effort. Here's more, from the Associated Press:Some of Hollywood's brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden, helping raise what his re-election campaign said was a record $30m-plus and hoping to energize would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation's history. Continue reading...
Robert Morris, of Greenway church in Dallas, accused of sexual abuse of girl in 1980s, beginning when she was 12A Texas evangelical pastor and former spiritual adviser to Donald Trump has confessed to sexually assaulting a young girl in his past.Robert Morris, a founding pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway megachurch, was accused by an Oklahoma woman of sexual abuse in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 and continuing until the age of 16. Continue reading...
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