If Trump shot someone on Fifth Avenue, as he once joked he could, would all those prosecutors still struggle to indict him?Donald Trump famously joked that he was so popular with his fans that he could literally get away with murder.“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, he bragged while campaigning in Iowa back in 2016. Continue reading...
Wayne Rooney has been introduced as the new head coach of Major League Soccer's DC United. The former English international played for the American club in 2018 and 2019 and replaces interim coach Chad Ashton, who replaced Hernan Losada earlier this season. DC United are currently tied with Chicago for the fewest points across the Eastern and Western Conference leagues but Rooney relishes turning them into a 'really horrible team to play against'. The players and staff at the club said they welcome 'the energy and passion' Rooney will bring.
Surveillance footage captured the gunman in the Uvalde school shooting entering the building with a AR-15-style rifle and later shows officers in body armour waiting in the hallway outside the classrooms where 19 children and two teachers were killed.
For now, Biden is emboldened. No prominent Democrat will cross him and he will feel especially motivated if Trump is back on the campaign trailThe Democrats find themselves with a 2024 conundrum. Joe Biden, the party’s standard bearer, is widely disliked. A new poll found that a 64% of Democrats would want a candidate other than Biden to seek the nomination in two years. Rapid inflation has eaten away at the 79-year-old president’s popularity and he is viewed as increasingly out of touch, a vestige of another era that many voters want to leave behind.At the same time, Biden will easily win a Democratic primary if he runs again. Sitting presidents are rarely forced aside. The top candidates in a hypothetical primary don’t want to take him on – almost all of them ruled out the idea of waging a direct challenge. This is understandable, since no single governor or senator has the ability to defeat Biden, one-on-one. Democrats look warily to examples like Ted Kennedy, who ran a primary against President Jimmy Carter and was soundly beaten. Carter went on to lose the general election, in 1980, to Ronald Reagan.Ross Barkan is a New York City based journalist Continue reading...
Ex-militia spokesperson testifies to House committee, saying: ‘This could have been the spark that started a new civil war.’ Plus, the dark side of Victoria’s Secret
Reform is the result of a lawsuit and is intended to challenge two-tier system where low-income people are jailed for lack of fundsA Michigan district court will implement reforms that will force judges in Detroit to state on record how implementing cash bail will protect the community.The reforms are meant to end practices that commonly jail people from low-income and Black communities and could serve as a model for court systems across the US, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said. Continue reading...
While new variants and vaccinations have reduced death rates, and we are living with Covid, misconceptions still lingerOn 17 March 2020, the UK chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said that keeping the number of UK deaths below 20,000 would be a good outcome from the pandemic. That number was on par with the number of lives that seasonal flu takes each year, the most deadly infectious disease in Britain until then. Two years in, we’ve now crossed 200,000 deaths: 10 times higher than initially expected. What have we learned about Covid-19 in that timespan, and what old beliefs and myths from the early pandemic still persist?First, Covid-19 is a disease that can also kill young people, especially those who are unvaccinated. The idea that Covid is only a threat to older people is still prevalent. But consider that the US has passed a million deaths, and roughly a quarter of those deaths are in people of working age, that is those under 64. Another quarter are in people between the ages of 65 and 74. This is not a disease that just kills over-80s as the prime minister, Boris Johnson, reportedly messaged: “Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital … and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate … There are max 3m in this country aged over 80.”Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...
Two out of three prisoners are forced to work, in what is often referred to as modern day slaverySusan Dokken, who is currently in a halfway house re-entry program in California, worked throughout her sentence in prison, even after she suffered a stroke and required extra help – a request for which was ignored.“I couldn’t work and wasn’t supposed to, and I couldn’t even talk for a year,” said Dokken, 60. Continue reading...
With water levels falling ‘lower than thought possible’ at Glen Canyon Dam, energy production could halt as soon as July 2023Bob Martin, the deputy power manager at the Glen Canyon Dam, gestures at the band of whitish, chalky residue running along the steep canyon walls towering above the Colorado River.“That’s where the water level used to be,” says Martin. “It’s fallen lower than even the lowest end of the scale thought possible when the dam was constructed.” Continue reading...
Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, testified before the US House committee investigating the Capitol riots, saying there was potential for more injuries and deaths on 6 January 2021.'I think we've gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen, because the potential has been there from the start,' Van Tatenhove said. The hearing looked at links between rightwing militant groups, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and the QAnon internet conspiracy movement, with Trump and his allies. Van Tatenhove called the Oath Keepers a 'very dangerous organisation'
by David Smith Washington bureau chief on (#61BGM)
Analysis: Viewers learned of an ‘unhinged’ White House meeting and rioters ready for war – but will it close the case against Trump?“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday. Continue reading...
Witness Jason van Tatenhove testifies at seventh public hearing, ‘This could have been the spark that started a new civil war’In powerful testimony to the House January 6 committee, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers militia told Americans to “quit mincing words and just talk about truths”, and to recognise that Donald Trump attempted to mount “an armed revolution” in order to stay in power.“People died that day,” Jason van Tatenhove said. “Law enforcement officers died, there was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.” Continue reading...
Liz Cheney, Republican vice-chair of committee, says ‘we will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously’Donald Trump attempted to contact one of the witnesses who has been speaking to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the panel said Tuesday.Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the panel, delivered the revelation at the conclusion of the committee’s seventh public hearing on the Capitol attack. Continue reading...
‘A sitting president asking for civil war,’ Brad Parscale told Katrina Pierson, a former campaign spokespersonDonald Trump’s former campaign manager told another close ally that the then president’s rhetoric “killed someone” on 6 January 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.Brad Parscale ran Trump’s winning campaign in 2016 and was in place for some of his losing effort in 2020. Katrina Pierson, a former campaign spokesperson, helped organise a rally Trump addressed near the White House on January 6. Continue reading...
Treatments conducted well ahead of time may help limit damage from Washburn fireA wildfire has burned more than 2,720 acres in Yosemite national park, sparking global concern for the cherished groves of ancient and iconic tall trees clustered among the picturesque mountainsides. The fire, which was 22% contained Tuesday morning, also forced evacuations in the town of Wawona and caused the park to partially close to visitors. It’s possible that the blaze will smolder for weeks, even as containment increases.As the Washburn fire crept closer to the Mariposa Grove, home to hundreds of giant sequoias, including the 3,000-year-old Grizzly Giant, which stretches over 200ft into the sky, firefighters installed protections for trees, setting up sprinkler systems to tame flames that might meet their bases with a bump of humidity and moisture. Continue reading...
‘Unhinged’ December 2020 meeting saw outside advisers to Trump shouting insults at officials, according to testimonyIn a bizarre, angry and “unhinged” White House meeting on 18 December 2020, outside advisers to Donald Trump screamed insults at presidential aides who were resisting their plan to seize voting machines and name a special counsel in pursuit of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.The meeting – which the House January 6 committee in its public hearing on Tuesday described as a “heated and profane clash” – was held between those who believed the president should admit he lost the election to Joe Biden, and a group of outsiders referred to by some Trump advisers as “Team Crazy”. Continue reading...
The congresswoman, speaking to the January 6 public committee, says Trump was repeatedly told there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Cheney said Trump ‘cannot escape responsibility by being wilfully blind’. The House select committee began its seventh public hearing on Tuesday, investigating Trump's involvement in the storming of the US Capitol Continue reading...
The 15-time major winner has defied injuries, a car crash and surgery to have what could be his last shot at St AndrewsIt’s been seven years since Tiger Woods was last in St Andrews for The Open, and he’s done a lot of living in them. He’s had countless rounds of surgery, a handful of different relationships, an arrest, spent months out of the sport, made his comeback win at Augusta National, then been through that car crash and subsequent rehab. Back in 2015 Woods was in his wilderness years, and he ended up missing the cut here. “Retirement?” he said back then. “I’m a long way from that.” He looked and sounded little different this time. He’s far enough along now to know this might be the last time he plays in a major here.It could be another six or seven years again before the Old Course comes back around on the Open rota. “If it is that long, I don’t know whether I will be able to physically compete at this level by then. It’s also one of the reasons why I wanted to play in this championship. I don’t know what my career is going to be like. I know I’m not going to play a full schedule ever again. My body just won’t allow me to do that. So I don’t know how many Open championships I have left at St Andrews.” It wasn’t so long ago that he wasn’t even sure whether he’d played his last already. Continue reading...
White House says BA.5 is responsible for majority of new infections in the US amid reports of plan for second booster shots for adultsJoe Biden’s administration has announced a new strategy to tackle the highly contagious BA.5 coronavirus subvariant amid reports that the government was developing a plan to make second booster shots available to all US adults.In a fact sheet published on Tuesday the White House said BA.5, a subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant, is already responsible for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in the US. Continue reading...
Robert John Lanoue was charged last week in killing of Anne Pham who disappeared while walking to kindergarten in CaliforniaA 70-year-old Nevada man has been charged in the 1982 killing of a five-year-old girl who disappeared while walking to her kindergarten class in California after detectives solved the case using DNA evidence, authorities said.Robert John Lanoue, of Reno, Nevada, was charged last week in the killing of Anne Pham. Continue reading...
Biden administration insists federal law would overrule state bans, protecting providers who perform emergency abortionsPhysicians must continue to offer abortions in cases of medical emergencies without exception, Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday, as it insisted federal law would overrule any total state bans on abortion.In a letter to healthcare providers, the president’s health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) protects providers from any purported state restrictions should they be required to perform emergency abortions. Continue reading...
The company moved fast and broke things. Its aggressive stance shows why governments need to put their foot downWhenever I hear about the wild antics of a Silicon Valley startup, I think of Reid Hoffman’s 2018 book Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies. Hoffman is no armchair general. A billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, he is an elder statesman of the tech industry. Which is why I’ve always found it troubling that Hoffman’s favoured analogy for how to run a startup is the Nazi Wehrmacht.The armies of the Third Reich, he explains, “abandoned the traditional approach of moving at the slow pace at which they could establish secure lines of supply and retreat”. Instead, they adopted an offensive strategy that “accepted the possibility of running out of fuel, provisions and ammunition”. They did this to “maximise speed and surprise”, knowing that the price might be “potentially disastrous defeat”.Jamie Susskind is a barrister and the author of The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century
The world’s richest man won’t struggle to feed and clothe his offspring. The rest of us have to worry about childcare, medical bills, billionaires who don’t want to pay more tax …Here’s a fun maths problem for you. If each of Elon Musk’s children reproduced at the same rate as their father, and each of Boris Johnson’s children had as many kids as they have siblings, how long would it take for the world to completely run out of resources?It’s an impossible question to answer, of course: Musk and Johnson are constantly surprising us with new offspring. Last week for example, news broke that Musk fathered two children in 2021 with a top executive at Neuralink, his brain-machine interface company. Those babies were reportedly born just weeks before Musk welcomed his second child (via surrogate) with the singer Grimes. He now has 10 known children; his first child tragically died at the age of 10 weeks. Continue reading...
Even the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Major League Soccer will feel like a breeze for the former England star compared to his experience at DerbyDC United are set to announce Wayne Rooney as their new manager on Tuesday afternoon, as their former player takes his second managerial job following a challenging stint with Derby County in the English Championship.As a player, Rooney was one of the finest England has ever produced, as evidenced by the fact he is the all-time top scorer at both Manchester United and the national team. His spell in Major League Soccer was a successful, respectable one, too, something not all the high-profile former England internationals who spent time in the league can say. Continue reading...
The outcome seems certain. How we get there is the questionIn the Abrahamic religions, there is a profound mystery in how to reconcile belief in free will with faith in divine providence. Similar mysteries lie at the heart of political science.For instance, over the past 45 years, every time there has been a change of party in the White House, the opposing party won the governorship of Virginia a year later. Continue reading...
Millions of Americans rely on their employers for health insurance and while some firms have stepped up, others have not, with those on low incomes most likely to sufferAs America faces the prospect of losing abortion rights in several dozen states some major companies have publicly announced plans to cover expenses for employees to get abortions in other states.But many other US employers have not made such offers and workers and unions are also pointing to serious gaps in those that have made abortion services commitments, saying they will not cover all workers. This means that the impact of the US supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade and end federal abortion rights will probably be even more pronounced. Continue reading...
Billionaire says he failed to find a suitable company to take public using his investment vehicleThe US billionaire Bill Ackman has told investors he will return the $4bn (£3.4bn) he raised for the biggest-ever special purpose acquisition company (Spac), after failing to find a suitable target firm to take public through a merger.Ackman wrote to shareholders in Pershing Square Tontine Holdings (PSTH) to say he would return the sum, blaming the faster-than-expected economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic for the failure. Continue reading...
Sunday’s elections delivered a landslide victory for Abe’s party. Years after he left office, the late former prime minister’s dream of amending Japan’s constitution is getting closerThe assassination of Shinzo Abe still hasn’t really sunk in, but the tremors are rippling across Japan and the world. He was shot from behind in a nation where firearm-related homicides are rare: in 2021, there was just one, compared with more than 20,000 in the US. It was an assault on democracy and an act of barbarism.The Japanese media coverage has been wall-to-wall and generally fawning, reframing the legacy of a man who left office in 2020 under the shadow of scandals, with low public support. The reverential tone and self-censorship is reminiscent of declining press freedoms during Abe’s tenure in office, when critical news outlets such as the Asahi were subdued and the press corps was in thrall to power. It’s worth noting that much of the international media has also been overly respectful and restrained, veering towards hagiography.Jeff Kingston is director of Asian studies at Temple University, Japan Continue reading...
In the seventh public hearing, the committee will focus on extremists such as Proud Boys and Oath KeepersThe House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol on Tuesday will examine the role far-right extremist groups played in fomenting the deadly insurrection and their ties to associates of Donald Trump.The session, the seventh in a series of public hearings to present the findings of the committee’s yearlong investigation, will focus on the connections between Trump, his allies and violent US groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who stormed the US capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory in the 2020 election, House select committee aides told reporters on Monday. Continue reading...
Letter to president expresses ‘sense of betrayal’ for shielding Israel from accountability for her death ahead of his visit to JerusalemThe family of Shireen Abu Aqleh, the renowned Palestinian-American journalist killed during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank, is demanding a meeting with President Biden during his visit to Jerusalem this week after accusing his administration of shielding Israel from accountability for her death.Abu Aqleh’s brother, Anton, wrote to Biden on Friday expressing his family’s “grief, outrage and sense of betrayal” after the US sState department concluded that Israeli forces were “likely responsible” for shooting the Al Jazeera reporter in the head in the West Bank city of Jenin in May but “found no reason to believe that this was intentional”. Continue reading...
US president Joe Biden has revealed the first image from Nasa’s new space telescope, the deepest view of the cosmos ever captured. The first image from the $10bn James Webb space telescope shows the farthest humanity has ever seen in both time and distance, closer to the dawn of the universe, one million miles into the cosmos. 'First of all, that blows my mind,' Biden said. The world’s biggest and most powerful space telescope was launched into space last December from French Guiana in South America
A TikTok clip showing the panicked frolickers running helter-skelter has nearly 10m views, but experts say it’s common behaviorA TikTok video showing dozens of San Diego beachgoers running and jumping out of the way of two fast-moving sea lions has generated nearly 10m views and sparked conversations about whether the mammals were going after people and reclaiming picturesque La Jolla Cove’s narrow strip of sand.But sea lion expert Eric Otjen of SeaWorld San Diego said what he saw was normal sea lion behavior for this time of year, when males are sparring as breeding season gets underway. Continue reading...
Federal judge also rejects claim by former Trump strategist that he thought his non-compliance was excused by executive privilegeDonald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, suffered heavy setbacks in his contempt of Congress case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed his motion to delay his trial, scheduled for next week, and ruled he could not make two of his principal defences to a jury.The flurry of adverse rulings from District of Columbia district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – marked a significant knock back for Bannon, who was charged with criminal contempt after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House January 6 select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters in 2021.
Attacks appear to have occurred after robberies or robbery attempts on day store is marking 95th birthdayTwo people were killed and three were wounded in shootings at four 7-Eleven locations in southern California early on Monday morning, authorities said, in a series of attacks that police believe may be connected.The shootings appear to have occurred after predawn robberies or attempted robberies at the four convenience stores on July 11, or 7/11 – a day when the national 7-Eleven brand is celebrating its 95th birthday by giving out free Slurpee drinks. Continue reading...
Former attorney general has rejected conspiracy theory that Dominion manipulated 2020 election to favor BidenWilliam Barr, Donald Trump’s second attorney general, has been served with a subpoena in a $1.6bn defamation suit filed by a voting machine company against Fox News.The subpoena appeared on the court docket for the lawsuit, which was filed by Dominion Voting Systems in Delaware in March 2021. Continue reading...
The agency is considering the application by HRA Pharma to make Opill available without a prescriptionThe Food and Drug Administration will consider an application for the first birth control pill to be sold without a prescription.The application from HRA Pharma would seek to make Opill – an every day, prescription-only hormonal contraception first approved in 1973 – available over-the-counter. Such an approval from the FDA would allow people to purchase “the pill” without a prescription for the first time since oral contraceptives became widely available in the 1960s. Continue reading...
Jen Shah was set to go to trial on allegations that she partook in a telemarketing scheme that scammed hundreds of peopleReal Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah pleaded guilty to fraud charges Monday, dramatically ending her case as she was set to go to trial on allegations that she partook in a telemarketing scheme that scammed hundreds of people.“In 2012 to March 2021 … I agreed with others to commit wire fraud,” Shah told New York federal judge Sidney Stein in a prepared statement. “I knew this was wrong. I knew many people were harmed and I’m so sorry.” Continue reading...
Hopefuls deliver a word salad of fantasy economics and flannel as they launch leadership campaignsYou might say it’s a longstanding Conservative tradition to suspend reality throughout its leadership elections. Only the Tories have been struggling with reality for years. Just think. The Ukrainians voted for a comedian and got a serious leader. Three years ago, the UK voted for a comedian and got a sociopathic end-of-the-pier clown. Someone who visibly recoiled at the truth. The whole country is now in urgent need of treatment for PTSD as a result.Even so, we are now officially in gameshow territory. AKA the Tory party having a collective orgasm, as it exposes its deep dysfunction with countless deluded halfwits deciding they want to be prime minister while making promises they haven’t a hope in hell of keeping. I mean, Rehman Chishti. Not even his family knows who he is. Why waste everyone’s time? It’s not as if anyone is going to bung him a cabinet post. Continue reading...
The 18-time major winner admits he does not ‘see eye to eye’ with Greg Norman but focuses on positives before 150th OpenJack Nicklaus has not lost his skills of navigation at St Andrews. Whereas in 1970 and 1978 he plotted his way around the Old Course adeptly enough to claim the Claret Jug, in 2022 the 82-year-old sidestepped questions about golf’s ongoing civil war.He may have cause to be circumspect about the rebel LIV series, given he was reportedly offered tens of millions to advocate the Saudi Arabia-backed scheme. It is instead Greg Norman who is front and centre of all things LIV, which has led to the Australian not being invited by the R&A to past champion events here this week. Continue reading...
