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Updated 2024-11-23 20:45
Chinese American man convicted in US of spying on dissidents for China
Shujun Wang helped found a pro-democracy group and used it to gain information on dissidents, prosecutors sayA Chinese American scholar was convicted on Tuesday in the US on charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and feed it to his homeland's government.A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict in the case of Shujun Wang, who helped found a pro-democracy group in the city. Continue reading...
Alaska pilot describes ‘chaos’ as Boeing officials quizzed on mid-flight blowout
Co-pilot had headset torn off by force of panel blowout as investigators hold hearing on January accidentThe mid-flight blowout of a panel from a Boeing 737 Max jet was so powerful that it blew open the plane's cockpit door and tore off the co-pilot's headset, and federal investigators began questioning officials from Boeing and its key supplier on Tuesday to understand how the accident occurred.It was chaos," the co-pilot of that Alaska Airlines flight on the 5 January said in documents released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Continue reading...
Nine killed and one injured after SUV flips into Florida canal
Overloaded vehicle carrying 10 people went off road, hit a guardrail and partially submerged in water, authorities saidNine people died and one more was seriously injured when an overloaded SUV went out of control on a south Florida road, hit a guardrail and went upside down into a canal, authorities said.The 2023 Ford Explorer carrying 10 people was traveling south on Hatton Highway near the farming community of Belle Glade at about 7.30pm on Monday when it came to a part of the two-lane road that briefly jogs west before again heading south, the Palm Beach county sheriff's office said. Continue reading...
The Guardian view on Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick: Tim Walz is a smart choice for Democrats | Editorial
The impact of running mates shouldn't be overstated, but Kamala Harris's selection of the progressive governor of Minnesota is good newsKamala Harris's own ascension to the top of the ticket has shone a brighter spotlight than usual on the Democrats' choice of vice-presidential nominee, underlining why the second slot on the ticket matters. The impact of the running mate is usually limited unless they prove extraordinarily popular or unpopular. Growing concerns about the state of the US economy are likely to be far more consequential. But Ms Harris's selection of Minnesota's governor, TimWalz, on Tuesday, and the enthusiasm it is engendering, contribute to the sense of a rejuvenated campaign. Democrats are not taking poll improvements for granted, but now believe that it is possible to beat Donald Trump.Ms Harris stressed Mr Walz's record of fighting for middle-class families". Originally from rural Nebraska, he is a former teacher and high school football coach who served in the army national guard for 24years. As governor he has overseen - with Minnesota's Democratic legislature - progressive policies including free school meals, abortion protections, pro-worker policies and gun restrictions. He has a better record on facing the climate crisis than rivals. Continue reading...
Hurricane Debby washes cocaine worth over $1m on to Florida beach
Twenty-five packages weighing 70lb washed up on Florida Keys beach, border patrol saysSeveral packages of cocaine with a street value exceeding $1m have washed up on a Florida beach after Hurricane Debby crashed ashore in the state on Monday and progressed up the eastern seaboard.The acting chief patrol agent of the US border patrol's division in Miami, Samuel Briggs, shared a picture of the confiscated drugs on X, showing the 25 packages - or 70lb - of cocaine washed up on a Florida Keys beach. Continue reading...
The unsung hero of the world-beating US women’s gymnastics team is a very good boy
Beacon, a golden retriever therapy dog, was a crucial part of the Americans' preparations for the Olympics as he helped soothe athletes' nervesThe US women's gymnastics team is back on top of the world. Three years after the Americans settled for a team silver at the Tokyo Olympics, a five-woman squad of Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera regained the title and finished with eight medals overall. Not bad for the oldest US Olympic squad in 72 years, which played no small part in their nickname: the Golden Girls.Their rock-star showing over the past week in Paris might have had something to do with the sugar rush from the French pastries that Biles has been raving about on social media. Or one could look to another hack: their time spent with Beacon, the four-year-old golden retriever who has been trotting around with America's best and brightest gymnasts for the past year with the aim of helping keep their serotonin and stress levels in check. Continue reading...
Global markets partly recover but analysts fear ‘we’re not out of woods’
Shares on Wall Street and in Asia and Europe start to recover after Monday's rout
Polls show Kamala Harris moving ahead of Donald Trump in 2024 US election
Recent national head-to-head polls favor Harris, but polls battleground states present a more mixed picture
Of course I love my children – just don’t assume I’ll like yours | Sunil Badami
Annoying, boring, bullying - some of the worst people I've encountered in my life have been kidsI'm a parent, so people assume I must love children.But although I love my children, that doesn't mean that I love all children. Although I assumed I'd end up having kids one day, it wasn't a deep-seated desire, and I wasn't particularly interested in children before I had them. Continue reading...
Paris Olympics 2024 latest medal table
Find out who is leading the way at the Olympics, and drill down to see which events each country has won medals forFollow all the latest action live | Support the GuardianAs is traditional, the table prioritises the number of gold medals won. On this basis at the 2020 Olympics, held in Tokyo in 2021, the United States led the field with 39 golds, with China second on 38 and Japan third with 27. If countries have the same number of gold medals, the order is then dictated by which has the most silvers, and finally bronze if the numbers are still identical. Continue reading...
US governor tells parents kids can ‘not look’ at Ten Commandments in schools
Louisiana's Jeff Landry was defending a law requiring display of text in all public schools starting next yearThe far-right Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, has told parents who don't want the Ten Commandments hung in up classrooms across the state - as now required by law there - to tell their children to not look at them".The Republican's remarks came at a news conference on Monday defending the mandate, about two months after Louisiana became the first state in the country to order the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms. Continue reading...
Who is Tim Walz, the governor who is Harris’s vice-presidential pick?
The Minnesota governor has delivered progressive policies in his state and has a history of swaying Republican districts
Trump once seemed invincible. Then Kamala Harris broke the spell | Sidney Blumenthal
Despite his granitic unpopularity, Trump's stunts always held attention. Now, Harris makes his act seem oldIt'll begin to end when the act gets tired and the audience starts walking out," Warren Beatty, a perspicacious observer, told me eight years ago, in the early summer of 2016, when Donald Trump had just secured the Republican nomination.At the time, Trump was calling in for hours to enraptured TV talk show hosts jacking up their ratings. It was a cocaine trade. In return he snorted $5bn in free media - more than all the other candidates combined. When Trump launched The Apprentice in 2004, a tightly edited fantasy of the six-time bankrupt as king of the heap, he had long been dismissed as a loser and bore in New York. His charade was popcorn fare for out-of-towners. Who knew that the fake reality show's ultimate winner, announced years after its cancellation, would be JD Vance? Continue reading...
Kamala Harris is mixed race, I’m mixed race – and Donald Trump is a dusty old relic | Arwa Mahdawi
In his remarks about the vice-president's race, Trump showed how laughably out of touch he isPredictions are a fool's game. But I'll tell you one thing any fool could have predicted: that Donald Trump's appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists' convention last week would involve him saying something stupid and racist.Lo and behold, this is exactly what happened. When asked about Kamala Harris, Trump complained that the vice-president seemed to have undergone some sort of racial metamorphosis. I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black," Trump proclaimed. So, Idon't know, is she Indian or is she Black?" Continue reading...
Rightwingers are flirting with a new military draft. Could it help disillusioned young men?
Proponents say mandatory service could help foster connection. Others see the proposal as a cynical political gimmick
Virginia man charged with threatening to kill Kamala Harris
Frank Carillo made 19 threatening comments about vice-president on rightwing platform Gettr, according to affidavitA Virginia man was charged with threatening to kill Kamala Harris.According to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, 66-year-old Frank Carillo, of Winchester, made 19 threatening comments about the vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee, using the rightwing platform Gettr. Continue reading...
Where are the brave inciters of Britain’s race riots? From Tommy to Elon, they’re far, far away | Marina Hyde
Thugs may be rampaging in the streets, but their leaders-from-behind are more likely to be found sipping cocktails by the poolMy kids are crying. We come here so I could spend some quality time with them. Now they are scared people are coming here to get them." Thus bleated Tommy Robinson from the five-star Ayia Napa all-inclusive hotel from which he is currently influencing sustained violent disorder on Britain's streets.And yet, multiple paparazzi photos from the resort show Daddy either floating like a lonesome turd in the pool, or splayed out on a four-poster sunlounger glued to his phone, with not even a pixelated Sproginson to be seen. Perhaps they were fomenting looting in the kids' club? If not, Pops has certainly broken with the form book by not coopting them into his war games. Robinson's previous stunts have included filming his disturbingly tearful children on the day he emerged from one of his prison sentences (it was the attempting-to-collapse-a-rape-trial one, I think, as opposed to the massive-mortgage-fraud one). Continue reading...
How Phelps’ coach turned Marchand into an Olympic swimming legend
Bob Bowman guided Michael Phelps to glory and was in tears after Leon Marchand delivered on his promise in ParisAs the unstoppable Leon Marchand swam to his fourth individual gold medal in six days, the 59-year-old American coach behind the face of the Paris Olympics was moved to tears on the pool deck.The 22-year-old from Toulouse had just swept the gold medals in all four events he entered, winning the 400m individual medley, then the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke on the same night, and the 200m medley on Friday, clocking Olympic-record times in each. One night after another, Marchand transformed the converted rugby arena in the western Paris suburbs into a white-hot cauldron of sound, holding a country of 68m souls in his thrall.Dear sir, I am a French swimmer, my name is Leon Marchand (18 years old). I would like to join the university of Arizona State in summer 2021 for swim and compete in NCAA with your amazing team. Do you think I could benefit from a scholarship? What level of education is required? (TOEFL, SAT ...) You will find attached my presentation sheet. Thank you for the time granted to my request.Sportingly, Leon Continue reading...
Revealed: US neo-Nazi terror group aims to revive activities ahead of election
The Russia-based leader of the Base, which adheres to principles of accelerationism, seeks A-team leader' in USWhile far-right extremists from all corners of the internet are targeting vice-president Kamala Harris as she takes the reins of the Democratic ticket, one of the longer standing US-based neo-Nazi terror groups is also attempting to continue its covert activities as the presidential election season begins in earnest.Rinaldo Nazzaro, 51, a former Pentagon contractor and analyst at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) turned founder of the Base, wrote on his personal Telegram account that he's seeking a stateside leader for his organization and is willing to pay them a salary of up to $1,200 a month. Continue reading...
13,500 US hotel workers hold strike votes over pay and conditions
We're asking and fighting for what we deserve,' a worker says before votes this week from Boston to HonoluluAbout 13,500 hotel workers across Boston, Honolulu, Providence and San Francisco will vote on whether to strike this week as they push for significant wage increases and protections against job cuts.Employees at leading chains including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Omni will decide in the coming days whether to approve the walkouts. The hotel industry stands accused of having used the Covid-19 crisis to reduce staffing and increase workloads. Continue reading...
The United States is not facing an imminent recession. This is nonsense | Robert Reich
The American economy is still growing. There is no reason to panic, despite Trump's world war three' commentsTwo weeks before 19 October 1987, I warned publicly that in two weeks, the stock market will lose 20% of its value." Then, on 19 October 1987, the S&P 500 had the biggest one-day fall in its history - dropping 20%.I was immediately deluged with letters and phone calls (no emails then) from people who wanted to sign up for my investment letter". I told them, with some regret, that I didn't have an investment letter.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...
NBC’s High School French Olympics are a triumph of shock and awe streaming
The Paris Games have sparkled. And nowhere has the city - and the athletes it is hosintg - shone more brilliantly than on the world's TV screensMaybe it's the effect of the global post-Covid rebound. Maybe it's a collective reprieve from the doomerism of our ecological and political end times. Maybe it's simply a reflected orgasm of the Parisian streetscape, the sense of occasion created by young athletes at the peak of physical health sweeping across this metropolis-sized monument to early-modern bombast. But for whatever reason, these Olympics have sparkled like no other Games in recent memory. A city given over to revolutions, occupations, copulations, and decapitations, in a country without a government, has come thrillingly to life for the Olympics - and nowhere has Paris shone more brilliantly than on the world's TV screens.The Olympic Games are always a media event as much as a sporting one, of course, and this edition is no exception. But thanks to the advent of streaming and the organizers' inspired decision to convert Paris into a single, city-wide stadium - to make the city, as much as the athletes, the star of the show - the 33rd Olympiad has arrived at a perfect moment to create the ultimate sports media spectacle. Volleyball by the Eiffel Tower; fencing in the Grand Palais; swimmers leaping into the Seine under the gilded Fames of the Pont Alexandre III; treacle-coated horses zig-zagging in the shadow of Versailles like members of the Sun King's court dancing a Sarabande; that Canadian guy emptying his guts at the end of the triathlon: truly, these Olympics have felt more vivid, more memorable, more saturatingly epic than any other Games this century. Even those events held away from the Parisian sights have projected a basic monumentality: from the crepe-thin margins in the men's 100m and Femke Bol's thundering finish in the mixed relay to the agony of the medal-denying dong, all the podium contenders in Paris have seemed to respond to the drama, history and scale expressed by the city around them. Continue reading...
Why am I addicted to watching videos of people chopping salads? | Sophie Brickman
Microchopping' influencers have turned chopped salads into an Instagram art - and it's a salve for my anxious mindI went to culinary school, worked as a line cook, then became a mother. Sadly, the upshot of that trajectory is not that my children eat three-course homemade meals every night, but that my Instagram feed is filled almost entirely with videos of people - mostly mothers - chopping salads into tiny dice. Microchopping, in social media parlance.That big algorithm in the sky has rightly intuited that after most days of work and childcare, and a tripartite bedtime that takes two and a half hours at its most efficient, the only content the shards in my brain can handle consuming are these types of videos - not the novel taunting me from my bedside table, not that longform magazine article everyone is talking about, not even the new movie released on a streaming service.Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother's Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age. Her first novel, Plays Well With Others, comes out in August 2024 Continue reading...
Gracious, petty and brilliant – Biles is arguably bigger than the US Olympic movement
There is a credible argument that the gymnast has been America's best athlete for more than a decade. And she now wields incredible influence
‘It sucks. It’s painful. It hurts’: White Sox lose record-tying 21st straight game
I fear books are going the way of vinyl records – a rarified pursuit for hobbyists | Gaby Hinsliff
We're increasingly getting our narrative fix from short videos. But, like snacking on junk food, it won't nourish usSummertime, and the reading is easy. Or at least, it's supposed to be. Holidays were made for sinking blissfully into a pile of books: for long, hot afternoons swinging in hammocks or basting on the sand, gleefully inhaling trashy beach reads or the Booker prize longlist. Finally, we have time to read, plus the urgent need to justify what is essentially two weeks of lying down by looking at least vaguely busy.Yet, by the pool this year, I saw a striking number of people scrolling on their phones instead, some with an unopened paperback lying forlornly by the sun lounger. Not for nothing, an author friend pointed out to me recently, did Instagram Stories get its name. Reels contain just enough of a miniature plot to satisfy the human need for narrative twists, even if they are only a few seconds long, while the most successful influencers have essentially turned themselves into fictionalised characters in their own long-running minor drama. But grazing on these bite-size stories is the literary equivalent of snacking on junk: just filling enough to put you off a proper novel-length meal, but somehow never quite satisfying, and leaving the addicted reader irritably craving more.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Australia’s Jack Robinson secures surfing silver as local hero claims Olympic gold in Tahiti
Fast-moving California wildfire destroys homes and burns at least 100 acres
Edgehill fire started this afternoon in San Bernardino and forced evacuations as over 200 firefighters assigned to blazeA fast-moving wildfire burning in southern California's San Bernardino county has burned at least 100 acres since it started this afternoon and destroyed several homes.The Edgehill fire started about 3pm in the Shandin Hills area of San Bernardino and spread rapidly through the neighborhood, burning homes and forcing evacuations, according to San Bernardino county fire department. No injuries have been reported. Continue reading...
Owners of Colorado funeral home where 190 bodies found ordered to pay $950m
Jon and Carie Hallford found liable as court rules for victims' families - but amount unlikely to be paid outThe Colorado couple who owned a funeral home where 190 decaying bodies were discovered last year were ordered to pay $950m to the victims' families - a largely symbolic victory for families of the deceased.According to an email sent to victims by Leventhal Lewis, the firm that filed the lawsuit, it is the largest judgment in Colorado's history. Continue reading...
US supreme court won’t stop Trump sentencing from going ahead – as it happened
This blog is closed. You can read the latest US election coverage here.Climate activist, feminist and screen legend Jane Fonda has put out a video message endorsing Kamala Harris to win the White House in November.Today I'm proud to endorse Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States," Fonda begins, talking to camera in close-up. Continue reading...
Bloomberg fires reporter for ‘premature’ publication of Evan Gershkovich release – reports
At least one reporter appears to have been fired for a decision that would've been reviewed by senior editorsBloomberg News said it had taken disciplinary action" against a number of its editorial staff after the outlet prematurely" published news of the historic prisoner swap between Russia and the United States last week that it said could have endangered the safety of the Americans being released.In an email to staff on Monday, editor-in-chief John Micklethwait wrote that a number of staff members had been disciplined, although the company did not say who, how many or what their punishment had been. At least one reporter on the story appears to have been fired in a rare case where a journalist was punished for a decision to publish a major news story that would likely have been reviewed by senior editors at the outlet. Continue reading...
Keely Hodgkinson surges to 800m glory on golden day for Britain in Paris
Clarence Thomas failed to disclose more private jet travel, senator says
Senate finance committee learned of additional undisclosed travel on Harlan Crow's jet, says Ron WydenThe conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose more private travel on a jet owned by the rightwing mega-donor Harlan Crow, a Democratic senator said on Monday, amid a swirling ethics scandal and demands for judiciary reform.I am deeply concerned that Mr Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill," Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Senate finance committee chair, told a lawyer for Crow in a letter. Continue reading...
Chiefs sign kicker Harrison Butker to record contract after controversial offseason
Ex-Trump attorney agrees to cooperate in Arizona fake electors case
Jenna Ellis to sit for interviews and turn over documents to prosecutors, and will avoid potential jail time in returnJenna Ellis, Donald Trump's 2020 campaign attorney charged in Arizona as part of the fake electors scheme, has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for getting her charges dismissed.Arizona's attorney general, Kris Mayes, announced the deal on Monday, sharing a legal agreement that shows Ellis agreed to sit for interviews and turn over documents related to the scheme. The agreement also calls on Ellis to testify completely and truthfully at any time and any place requested by the Arizona attorney general's office". Continue reading...
Wall Street suffers worst day in nearly two years after global sell-off
Fears of recession in US caused leading share indices to tumble, just weeks after they last scaled record highsWall Street suffered its worst day in almost two years after a global stock market sell-off sparked by fears of recession in the US.America's leading share indices - the S&P 500, Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq Composite - tumbled in volatile trading as the day started in New York, before pulling back slightly. Continue reading...
US supreme court declines to halt Trump’s sentencing in hush-money case
Missouri state lawsuit claimed that case against Republican nominee infringes on voters' constitutional rightsThe US supreme court on Monday rejected a bid by the state of Missouri to halt Donald Trump's upcoming sentencing for his conviction in New York on felony charges involving hush money paid to a porn star and left a related gag order until after the 5 November presidential election.The decision by the justices came in response to a lawsuit by the state of Missouri claiming that the case against Trump infringed on the right of voters under the constitution to hear from the Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to regain the White House. Continue reading...
The best of Simone Biles’ sensational Paris Olympics – in pictures
Biles has won three golds (team all around, individual all around and vault), one silver (individual floor) and finished fifth on beam Continue reading...
‘It was really weird’: Simone Biles says crowd affected routine in Olympic final
Trump picks a pointless fight with Georgia Republicans – it could cost him
His tirade against the popular governor and secretary of state was highly unwise. Maga is not a majority in GeorgiaAll Donald Trump had to do on Saturday in Georgia is show up, bring the tent together and not pick a fight with other Republicans. It might have been money in the bag.Instead, Trump attacked Governor Brian Kemp, who is substantially more popular in Georgia than he is. Early in his comments, Trump pointed to a few recent high-profile murders in Atlanta, saying: Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it." Continue reading...
Simone Biles says routines affected by 'weird and awkward' atmosphere –video
Simone Biles put her fifth place finish in Paris 2024 Olympic beam final down to a 'weird and awkward' atmosphere at Bercy Arena. Biles fell off the beam during her routine and later explained that a lack of noise meant she could 'hear some of the Android ringtones going off, the photo clickers' before adding 'you're tying to stay in your zone, and then people start cheering and the shushing gets louder'. Biles stayed positive, however, adding that she was 'proud' of herself and saying 'I can't be mad at my performances. A couple of years ago I didn't think I'd be back here at an Olympic Games, so competing and then walking away with four medals, I'm not mad about it'
The Guardian view on the riots: culpability in high places | Editorial
Rishi Sunak's former adviser for social cohesion is right to say that inflammatory rhetoric has nourished extremism on the groundThe weekend scenes of encircled mosques guarded by police, and hotels accommodating asylum seekers attacked by mobs intent on violence, were among the most disturbing seen on British streets for many years. In their scope and intensity, these riots were of a different order to relatively isolated incidents in the past, such as the petrol bomb attack on a Dover immigration centre in 2022. In Rotherham, where a group of rioters broke into a Holiday Inn and attempted to set the building on fire, the bravery of outnumbered police averted a potential tragedy.Responsibility for this horror naturally lies with the perpetrators, who exploited the tragic murder of three girls in Southport last week as a convenient pretext for xenophobic violence. It is, as Sir Keir Starmer clearly intends, imperative that they are swiftly seen to suffer the consequences of such thuggery in court. Continue reading...
Harris to announce VP pick on Tuesday ahead of Philadelphia rally – report
Presidential nominee interviewed governors Josh Shapiro and Tim Walz over the weekend in crunch time decision
With a salute and a silver medal, Simone Biles shows the humanity that goes with her greatness | Tumaini Carayol
Despite an imperfect day on the beam and the floor, the American has re-established herself as the world's bestAs Simone Biles closed out her final transcendent floor routine and saluted to the judges, she held her arms above her head in a salute for as long as she could. It was partly a cheeky, sarcastic gesture, a reference to the deduction she seemingly received in the preceding final for not properly saluting to all judges, but it was also perfect. Bercy Arena, filled again for one last glimpse of her this year, responded by saluting her in turn with a long, heartfelt ovation.Although Biles did not close out her Paris Olympics with a golden picturesque finish in a chaotic last day of artistic gymnastics, her final day of competition in Paris was rather an exhibition of the sportsmanship and humanity that has accompanied her greatness. After a fall on the balance beam led to a fifth-place finish, Biles won a silver medal on the floor exercise. Continue reading...
Thief who stole American footballer’s Hall of Fame ring jailed for two years
Gary Towsey, who was captured on CCTV wearing Andre Reed's 35,000 ring, admitted to charges of handling stolen goodsA thief who left an American football legend feeling totally gutted" by dismantling his stolen Hall of Fame ring to try to sell its gems has been jailed for more than two years.Andre Reed, who played as a wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills in the 1980s and 1990s, reported that the ring and other valuables, including passports, had been stolen from a room at London's Leonardo hotel last October. Continue reading...
‘One and done’: Michael Phelps says dopers should be given lifetime ban
Get ready for a long and messy August in the stock markets | Nils Pratley
Complacency from the US and Japan have fed the turmoil, but a gentle-ish landing is still on the cardsChoose the culprit behind the sudden sell-off in stock markets but a common theme in all top contenders is complacency.In the first case, it is the US Federal Reserve that stands accused, in the eyes of the market, of being asleep to the risk of a recession in the US. Friday's weak jobs numbers intensified the worry that policymakers have waited too long to cut interest rates. Even if a US recession in the next year remains unlikely in the eyes of most economists (a 25% possibility says Goldman Sachs, upping its forecast from 15%), it's the difference from previous expectations that moves markets. At the start of 2024, virtually nobody was talking about a US recession; now it is a plausible outcome to be priced into models. Continue reading...
JD Vance’s wife says his ‘childless cat ladies’ comment was a ‘quip’
Usha Vance doubles down on controversy dogging Donald Trump's running mate over his remarks about US leadersWomen offended by JD Vance's contention that the US is run by childless cat ladies" should realise it was merely a quip", the Republican vice-presidential nominee's wife, Usha Vance, claimed in an interview broadcast on Monday.I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and tried to understand what the context was and all that, which is something that I really wish people would do a little bit more often," Vance told Fox News in remarks that doubled down on a controversy that has emerged as one of her husband's most persistent. Continue reading...
Project 2025: what does the rightwing blueprint say about abortion?
Policy playbook developed for potential Trump 2.0 term aims to ban abortion pills, increase surveillance and champion fetal personhoodProject 2025, the wishlist for a Trump 2.0 administration drawn up by the influential thinktank the Heritage Foundation, proposes mobilizing an array of government agencies to curb access to abortion - up to and including a national ban on abortion pills that would affect even states that protect abortion rights.Backed by more than 100 conservative organizations, the 922-page Project 2025 has become notorious in recent weeks as Kamala Harris has started bringing it up at rallies. Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from its many proposals, claiming he doesn't know anything about Project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it" - even though his administration's officials wrote chunks of it. While the director of the blueprint stepped down last week, a move that the Trump campaign celebrated and that leaves its future operations unclear, the policy ideas endure and closely align with Trump's platform. Continue reading...
I spent decades straightening my 'Jewish hair' – until I realised I was hiding my true self | Diana Spechler
For decades I wrangled my frizz in an attempt to fit in. But amid rising antisemitism, I decided to embrace my identitySometime after 7 October 2023, I decided to stop straightening my hair. For decades, I had employed round brushes and flat irons and smoothing oils in service of wrangling the Jew frizz, spending money I barely had on keratin treatments and Brazilian blowouts.But as swastikas splattered public walls, as bomb threats blasted synagogues, as ancient conspiracy theories rose from the dead, as a congresswoman tweeted Antisemitism is wrong, but ...", I examined what I'd been doing: trying to look less Jewish; trying, as perhaps my great-grandparents did, to assimilate. For the first time, I felt the violence in that choice.Diana Spechler is an author and essayist. She writes the newsletter Dispatches from the RoadDo 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...
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