US news | The Guardian

Governor Kristi Noem’s executive order prohibits employees and contractors from using the app on government gadgetsKristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, on Tuesday issued an executive order banning state employees and contractors from accessing the video platform TikTok on state-owned devices, citing its ties to China.TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by Republicans who say the Chinese government could access user data such as browsing history and location. US armed forces also have prohibited the app on military devices. Continue reading...

House must now pass legislation as Democrats hurry to get it Biden to sign into law before Republicans take over the chamberThe US Senate has passed the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation to protect same-sex unions that Democrats are hurrying to get to Joe Biden to be signed into law before Republicans take over the House next year.The House must now pass the bill, a step the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said could come as soon as Tuesday 6 December. Nearly 50 House Republicans supported the measure earlier this year. In the Senate, support from 12 Republicans was enough to override the filibuster and advance the bill to Tuesday’s majority vote, which ended 61-36. Continue reading...

The Americans enter the business end of the tournament on a tailwind of confidence after the Chelsea player put his body on the lineIt was never going to be easy. Then again, neither has the grinding pressure of being American soccer’s chosen one. But when the right opportunity arrived, Christian Pulisic surrendered his body for his team and finally took hold of his signature moment on the international stage.With the temperature of this geopolitical proxy war between the United States and Iran at the Middle East’s first World Cup having risen to a boiling point, Pulisic turned the volume down with a goal the United States desperately had to have, making the difference in a tense and riveting win-or-go-home showdown for the Americans. When Sergiño Dest directed a header toward goal off Weston McKennie’s floated pass in the 38th minute, an onrushing Pulisic burst through a thicket of white shirts and struck home what proved to be the winner while barreling into the Iranian keeper. Pulisic then lay sprawled in the goalmouth for nearly four minutes. Continue reading...

Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy break silence over meeting and say no room in party for antisemitism or white supremacyThe top two Republicans in Congress have broken their silence about Donald Trump’s dinner last week with the rightwing extremist Nick Fuentes, saying the Republican party has no place for antisemitism or white supremacy.The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy, who may become House speaker in January, had not commented previously on the 22 November meeting. Continue reading...

This was a game too far for Iran. Their World Cup campaign was short but will not be wrenched from the memory easily, the harrowing domestic context colouring their every step. When the dust has settled they should take huge pride in having remained competitive despite such a varied and extraordinary set of external pressures; the team’s reaction at full time, many of them falling to the floor, told of the toll recent weeks have taken.It is the USA who will join England in qualifying from Group B, though, and they will face the Netherlands on Saturday. They needed the win and deserved it, Christian Pulisic scoring seven minutes before half-time but sustaining an injury in the process. It was a cool, controlled performance and a fixture whose pre-match storylines seemed endless passed without any flashpoints. Continue reading...

The beloved Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ club has a storied past, a painful present and a hopeful futureFor two decades, Club Q was the center of gravity for the region’s LGBTQ+ community and provided a place to organize, share resources and, most of all, take refuge.“It is the mecca of this area. Everyone felt safe there. Everyone could go there and be themselves and not have something like this happen,” said Jessica Laney, an organizer with Pikes Peak Pride, referring to the 20 November shooting that killed five people and injured dozens more. “Club Q had their finger on the pulse of everything going on in the queer community in Colorado Springs and Denver and beyond.” Continue reading...

Citing ‘catastrophic’ risk to US economy, Nancy Pelosi announces impending vote to bind unions to September negotiationsThe US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has announced that her fellow members of Congress plan to vote this week on imposing a new contract for railroad workers to avert a looming labor strike.Pelosi made the announcement late on Monday afternoon just after Joe Biden called on Congress to intervene to prevent a strike, a possibility if an agreement between the freight rail industry and unions is not made by 9 December. Continue reading...

Mike Pence, Chris Christie and several Republican senators were also critical, to varying degrees, of former presidentSeveral Republican lawmakers and prominent Jewish conservatives have condemned Donald Trump for meeting with white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, in a rare distancing from the ex-president.Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and several Republican senators were critical, to varying degrees, of Trump, who has come under fire after dining with Fuentes last week. Continue reading...

After its festive ad campaign tried to spread some holiday cheer, the fashion house Balenciaga has been judged the sinnerVery early days of course, but at this stage you’d probably judge that John Lewis’s Christmas ad campaign was going better than Balenciaga’s. This is a fast-developing festive cancellation shitstorm, so forgive me if I have missed any major staging posts across the past few days. But as of this morning, the luxury fashion house has: issued a mushrooming series of apologies for an ad series featuring children holding handbags crafted from teddy bears dressed in bondage outfits; deleted its entire Instagram history; had a confected industry award withheld from its resident creative genius; been exposed for an earlier ad campaign that featured casually placed … hang on, let me get my hazmat gloves … US supreme court documents relating to a case involving child abuse images; served a blame-shifting $25m lawsuit against the producer of that ad; held crisis talks with Kim Kardashian who has herself issued some archbishop of Canterbury-style statement about her shock and disgust about the BDSM cuddly toy ads; and become the lightning rod for a raging attack on liberal values, from anyone unfashionably accessorised with common sense to standard alt-right suspects, to the full QAnon wingnuts.Honestly, you try to spread a little holiday cheer by getting some sad-looking children to hold up your bondage teddy bear handbags, and this is the thanks you get. Short of shooting the ad campaign in the basement of the pizzeria in which Hillary Clinton was conspiracy-theorised as masterminding a paedophile ring, it’s hard to see where Balenciaga could have been more extra, creatively speaking. I bet they wish they’d just done a big picture of Santa, sticking some of their gopping sock trainers under the tree of a bolshie Surrey injectables trainee, but the insistence that the market is something more edgily high-art than the reality is the fashion industry’s central creed. Continue reading...

Why do big brands think they have to be edgy? And yes, I am also talking about you BalenciagaYou know what I would like a major manufacturer of tampons to do? Make tampons. You know what I wouldn’t like them to do? Make creepy sex jokes on Twitter. This is a not-so-subtle reference to Tampax, which caused large swathes of the internet to see red after an off-colour tweet last week. “You’re in their DMs,” Tampax tweeted. “We’re in them. We are not the same.”I spend a good 60% of my waking hours on Twitter. Maybe you don’t. If we are not the same then you might have no idea what on earth Tampax was on about. (Good for you!) Essentially, its joke was a mashup of two popular memes. The plain English translation reads: “You’re flirting with them via direct message, I’m in their vagina. Ha ha, I’m better than you.”Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The protesters’ cry of ‘woman, life, freedom’ is inspiring, but many people in the US quit listening after the first wordIt’s been more than two months since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested by Iran’s so-called guidance patrol for incorrectly wearing her hijab, died in police custody. The official report blamed her death on heart failure, but eyewitnesses and her family insist that she was so severely beaten that she suffered a fatal brain injury. Since then, protests have raged across Iran despite the brutality of the government’s response. Over 400 people have been killed; an unknown number of journalists and demonstrators have been imprisoned or disappeared. Hundreds have been blinded by rubber bullets and metal pellets fired into crowds of protesters. Popular athletes – soccer star Voria Ghafouri and champion climber Elnaz Rekabi – have been detained for criticizing, or appearing to criticize, the government.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have begun targeting children. At least 58 young Iranians have been murdered, five of them within one recent week. The government seems to believe that terror for one’s children is the most effective way to keep dissidents at home and off the streets. Continue reading...

When I drive him to his first day of high school, I’ll insist he talk to me to keep him off his new phone just a bit longer. I’ll relish that sliver of time

Federal government has continued to focus ‘disproportionately’ on international terrorist threats despite spate of racist shootingsThe FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are failing to properly address the threat of domestic terrorism, predominantly from white supremacist and anti-government extremists, according to a Senate committee report released on Monday.The Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee spent three years investigating domestic terrorism and the federal response. Continue reading...

The world’s largest active volcano has erupted for the first time in 38 years. While the eruption of Mauna Loa wasn’t immediately endangering towns, officials have told about 200,000 people living on Hawaii’s Big Island to prepare to evacuate in the event lava flows started heading towards populated areas.The US Geological Survey warned an eruption 'can be very dynamic, and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly'

Low vaccination rates seen as hurdle to easing strict zero-Covid policy. Plus, Biden’s labor credentials under scrutinyGood morning.Chinese health officials have announced a drive to accelerate vaccinations of older people against Covid, as police patrolled several cities to stamp out the protests against the country’s strict zero-Covid policy.Why is China still having severe lockdowns? In what could be read as a rare criticism of the country’s health system, a recent comment article published in China’s state-run People’s Daily quoted a pharmaceuticals analyst as saying that a full reopening might “threaten a health system that currently has far fewer ICU beds than those of other developed countries”. Continue reading...

USA manager Steve Sampson and player Alexi Lalas recall ‘the mother of all games’ – and how they would do it differently nowSteve Sampson feels hoodwinked. The USA boss played down any rivalry with Iran before the teams met at the World Cup but, looking back on his team’s 2-1 defeat more than two decades on, he believes he was too diplomatic.With the two teams going head-to-head at the finals again this week to decide which of them makes it out of their group, memories are naturally going back to a contest whose impact reached much further than sport. And Sampson knows where USA lost it. Continue reading...

Democrat set to succeed Nancy Pelosi maintains ties to Aipac and others but could be challenged by critics in his own caucusHakeem Jeffries might be about to make history but some critics fear that on one issue, at least, he will be on the wrong side of it.The progressive New York congressman widely expected to lead the Democrats in the US House of Representatives will be the first person of color to head either party in the chamber. Jeffries’ election as House minority leader in the new Congress in January would also see the baton pass to a new generation of Democratic leaders as the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, 82, steps aside. Continue reading...

Officers charged with cruelty and endangerment after Randy Cox fractured neck when vehicle brakedFive Connecticut police officers have been charged with cruelly neglecting a Black man after he was partially paralysed in the back of a police van, despite his repeated and desperate pleas for help.Randy Cox, 36, was being driven to a New Haven police station on 19 June for processing on a weapons charge when the driver braked hard at an intersection to avoid a collision, causing Cox to fly headfirst into a metal partition in the van. Continue reading...

World’s largest active volcano spews ash and debris for first time in 40 years as eruption migrates to a rift zone, US Geological Survey saysWaves of orange, glowing lava and smoky ash belched and sputtered Monday from the world’s largest active volcano in its first eruption in 38 years, and officials told people living on Hawaii’s Big Island to be ready in the event of a worst-case scenario.The eruption of Mauna Loa wasn’t immediately endangering towns, but the US Geological Survey warned the roughly 200,000 people on the Big Island that an eruption “can be very dynamic, and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly”. Continue reading...

Cochise county officials have endorsed claims of voter fraud despite no evidence of any problemsRepublican officials in a rural Arizona county refused on Monday to certify the results of the 2022 midterm election, despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count from earlier this month.Some officials who have embraced voter fraud theories held out, defying a state deadline and setting the stage for a legal battle. Continue reading...

Governor attends Monday ceremony as Chesapeake residents mourn diverse groupHundreds gathered on Monday in Virginia’s second-largest city to honor six people killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart, with the state’s governor pledging to confront a “mental health and a behavioral health crisis”.Chesapeake’s candlelight vigil paid tribute to a diverse group of third-shift workers, ages 16 to 70, who unloaded trucks, broke down cardboard boxes and stocked shelves in this sprawling but tight-knit community near the coast. Continue reading...

With 9 December deadline fast approaching, business groups also push US government to intervene in labor dispute before holidaysJoe Biden called on Congress to intervene and block a railroad strike before next month’s deadline in the stalled contract talks, saying a strike would “devastate our economy”.Biden’s move comes as business groups have warned that the looming strike would hit just before the holiday season and worsen the US’s inflation problems. Continue reading...

Suspect met teen online and ‘catfished’ her before killing three members of her family, according to officersThe suspect in a triple homicide in southern California who died in a shootout with police was a Virginia law enforcement officer who police believe drove across the country to meet a teenage girl before killing three members of her family.Austin Lee Edwards, 28, also probably set fire to the family’s home in Riverside, California, on the day of the shooting on Friday before leaving with the girl, the Riverside police department said in a news release. Continue reading...

Advisers wanted ex-president to distance himself from white supremacist with whom he dined but Trump feared alienating supporters – insidersDonald Trump repeatedly refused to disavow the outspoken antisemite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes after they spoke over dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort, rejecting the advice from advisers over fears he might alienate a section of his base, two people familiar with the situation said.The former US president was urged publicly and privately to denounce Fuentes in the aftermath of the dinner, which included the performer Ye, previously known as Kanye West, who has also recently been propagating antisemitic remarks. Continue reading...

White supremacist admits to murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism charges in May attack that left 10 Black people deadThe white gunman who fatally shot 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year pleaded guilty on Monday to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing he will spend the rest of his life in prison.Payton Gendron, 19, entered the plea on Monday in a courthouse roughly two miles from the grocery store where he used a semiautomatic rifle and body armor to carry out a racist assault he hoped would help preserve white power in the US. Continue reading...

The two sides meet with a place in the World Cup knockout stages at stake amid growing tension in the Islamic republic“I’m not well versed on international politics. I’m a football coach,” said Gregg Berhalter, but he was a man who had just been exposed to politics in the raw. Twenty-four hours before his side’s definitive Group B fixture against Iran, the USA head coach had been hit by a fusillade of hostile questioning from Iranian media. Everything from censorship to American racism and the presence of the US fleet in the Gulf was thrown at him. It was an experience he will never have had before and few coaches will encounter.It was not entirely unpredictable, however. The complicated and bloody history that exists between Iran and the USA has led to simple sporting encounters between the two nations becoming diplomatic flashpoints. It was the case when the countries first faced each other at the World Cup during France 98 and, in a different way, it has happened again now. Continue reading...

American supporters at the tournament praise the infrastructure and welcome of the hosts although the lack of beer remains a universal gripeThe myriad controversies that have come to dwarf the Qatar World Cup have not kept American fans from turning out in droves, filling bustling public spaces like the Doha corniche and the Souq Wahif clad in USA shirts and stars-and-stripes-patterned regalia.While Fifa has not specified how many tickets it sold directly to US supporters, it has confirmed the United States ranked third in tickets sold by country of residence behind Qatar and Saudi Arabia and ahead of Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading...

Shanquella Robinson reportedly died while on holiday after viral video shows her being beaten, apparently by an American womanThe US is weighing an extradition request from Mexico after authorities in the country charged an American woman with murdering another US woman shown being beaten while they vacationed in a viral video.Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur have not named the suspect in the death of North Carolina’s Shanquella Robinson, who reportedly died of a severe spinal cord or neck injury while on holiday in Mexico on 29 October. Continue reading...

From Xinjiang to Shanghai and Beijing, protests are creating a rare sense of unity that Xi Jinping cannot afford to allowChina’s heavy-handed zero-Covid policy was intended to save lives. Now, it’s having devastating consequences. Last week, a fire killed at least 10 people, including children, in a tower block in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. As ever in China, official numbers are unreliable, and the true number of casualties may be much higher. It’s clear that the citizens now protesting across China blame the tragedy on the lockdown, despite the claims of local officials that fire escapes in the building were not locked. Horrific videos of the fire show emergency services attempting in vain to douse the flames from beyond a roadblock, while victims scream from the windows pleading for somebody to open the doors of their apartments.For once, the suffering of Xinjiang’s people seems to have evoked widespread empathy among China’s wider populace. When Uyghur demonstrations in Urumqi were crushed by police and security services in 2009, it evoked little sympathy from China’s ethnic Han majority. Instead, the demonstrations precipitated a wave of ethnic violence, accompanied by calls across the Chinese internet for severe punishment for the demonstrators. Similarly, the intense crackdown on Uyghur society that has been going on since 2017 – involving mass incarcerations, forced sterilisations and the destruction of communities – was largely dismissed by the rest of the Chinese populace as a necessary measure to control a defiant and restive minority.Dr James McMurray is a research associate in anthropology and a member of the Asia Centre at the University of Sussex Continue reading...

Melissa Highsmith, who family say was abducted in Fort Worth in 1971, located in South Carolina, more than 1,000 miles awayMore than 50 years after her babysitter kidnapped her as a baby in Texas, a US woman has reunited with her family, who tracked their missing loved one down with a DNA test and without help from law enforcement or other outside involvement.The incredible saga centering on the disappearance of Melissa Highsmith concluded in South Carolina on Saturday, according to a report from the Charleston television news station WCIV as well as a news release from her family. Continue reading...

It’s insurance renewal time again – when I discuss cover in New York, hear tales of NHS woe in the UK, and wonder which is worseFor the second time since moving to the US 15 years ago, I had to call 911 this week. The first time, six years ago, was when smoke poured into the elevator from a fire in the laundry room and four fire trucks arrived within minutes. This week, it was to request an ambulance for a sick neighbour. Between dialling the number, and a gurney and two paramedics materialising in our hallway, was approximately seven minutes. I found myself thinking something I used to think about the NHS: what an amazing service.My understanding, at this distance, is that most ambulances in the UK do not show up in under 10 minutes, even when the emergency is dire. A friend who had a heart attack in the street in London this year was, he told me, lying on the pavement for 40 minutes before the ambulance showed up. This is terrifying, and yet still marginally less terrifying than the common American experience of emergency care, in which gratitude for efficiency is undercut by the dim but thrilling possibility of losing one’s house when the invoice arrives.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The zero-Covid policy is damaging the economy, but to reverse it risks loss of life, economic damage and the emergence of new variantsProtesters across China have made one thing very clear: after three years of harsh restrictions, many people are tired of their government’s pursuit of an increasingly ineffective zero-Covid strategy. China once celebrated its success in containing outbreaks and keeping its economy running, but it has been slow to adapt to a world of more infective variants and mass vaccination. As life begins to feel increasingly normal in Britain and elsewhere, 49 cities – representing a third of China’s population and two-fifths of its economic output – are in partial or total lockdown.The protests will put pressure on the regime to change its approach, but that may be easier said than done. China has been highly politically committed to its Covid policy, even as it has become less and less tenable. And the situation with its health system, population immunity and vaccine stocks is vastly different from ours, partly because of the choices it made earlier in the pandemic. China will have to face some form of living with Covid soon, and millions of lives – not to mention global economic stability – depend on how this happens.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Lookups of term for psychological manipulation of a person increased by 1,740% during 2022“Gaslighting” – mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful – is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.Lookups for the word on merriam-webster.com increased 1,740% in 2022 over the year before. But something else happened. There wasn’t a single event that drove significant spikes in the curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year.

Beijing, Chengdu and Wuhan are also rocked by demonstrations as anger over restrictions builds. Plus: could ‘cloud brightening’ slow Arctic thawing?Good morning.A wave of civil disobedience – to degrees unseen in mainland China through the past decade – is taking root as frustration mounts over Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy persisting almost three years into the pandemic.How significant is the unrest? Widespread public protest is rare in China, where room for dissent has been all but eliminated under Xi, writes Helen Davidson, forcing citizens mostly to vent their frustration on social media, where they play cat-and-mouse with censors.Chinese police assaulted and detained a BBC journalist covering a demonstration in Shanghai, releasing him after several hours, the broadcaster said. Authorities allegedly claimed they had “arrested him for his own good in case he caught Covid from the crowd”. Continue reading...

Relentless attacks are cutting off power, heat and water. Civilians will need the west’s help to survive the winterOn 17 November, Kyiv woke to its first snow of the winter, the now familiar sound of air-raid sirens and explosions, and the news that, yet again, scores of Russian missiles were cutting through Ukraine’s skies headed for power plants and electricity substations.The destruction of civilian infrastructure is meant to paralyse Ukrainian cities, but has led instead to a new buzz of activity as people try to adapt. Walking through the capital, you tune in to the hum of generators outside cafes that hint cooked food may be had. Other eateries have switched to cold menus and pre-brewed filter coffee, kept warm in a flask. Continue reading...

A small plane crashed into high-voltage electricity lines about 30 miles north of Washington DC, trapping two seriously injured people inside and causing mass outages.The pair were rescued and treated for hypothermia and orthopaedic and trauma-related injuries. The aircraft crashed in Montgomery Village, Maryland, and got caught in live power lines about 30 metres from the ground

Crash near Washington DC caused major outages and left two people with serious injuriesTwo seriously injured people trapped inside a small plane that crashed into high-voltage power lines near Washington DC, causing mass outages, have been rescued, authorities have said.“Both patients have been transported to local area trauma centers with serious injuries,” the Montgomery county fire chief, Scott Goldstein, said in a press briefing on Monday, adding that the two people had suffered hypothermia and orthopaedic and trauma-related injuries. Continue reading...

Les Rouges should take pride in their achievements over the last few years. It’s a shame mistakes on and off the pitch held them backThe softly spoken Fifa translator paused for a moment. But she held her nerve. “In the end,” she said as she relayed man-of-the-match Andrej Kramaric’s words, “Croatia demonstrated who eff’d whom.”Sunday night at the Khalifa Stadium was a cruel, chastening one for Canada. The ignominy didn’t end at the final whistle. Kramaric, whose two goals came in an emphatic 4-1 Canadian defeat, was joined by his manager Zlatko Dalic at the post-match top table where the final words, no matter which language you translate them into, were all Croatian. Continue reading...

The GOP made surprise gains in immigrant enclaves in Brooklyn, as Republicans slammed Democrats as ‘soft on crime’When political pundits predicted a national “red wave” in the midterm elections, they never imagined that one of the few areas it would actually surface would be southern Brooklyn, New York.They weren’t imagining Sunset Park, a working-class area where nearly three in four residents are people of color: a tight-knit Mexican community on its west side and a fast-growing Chinese community to the east, with plenty of mouth-watering taquerias and hand-pulled noodle joints. At the park, when it’s nice out, Latin dance music intermingles with old Mandarin pop songs until the sun goes down. Continue reading...

Party chair says ‘I’ll move this thing to Halloween if that’s what it takes’ amid suggestion Democrats may go to Michigan firstFew in the US would suggest that the presidential election process should last even longer than it already does, but that is exactly what may happen if Republicans in Iowa follow through with a recent threat.In an interview this week with NBC News, Iowa’s Republican party chair said he would be prepared to move the state’s caucuses – the process Iowa uses to identify its preferred presidential candidate – “to Halloween” should Democrats shake up their primary schedule. Continue reading...