US news | The Guardian

Hammer assault on Paul Pelosi is latest in series of violent and threatening acts as midterm elections loomThe bloody hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has sparked increased fears over political violence in America just weeks before the country’s crucial midterm elections.The assault – by someone who reportedly entered the Democratic leader’s home specifically in search of her – comes amid an alarming rise in violent rhetoric and threats targeting US lawmakers. Continue reading...

Paul Pelosi underwent ‘successful surgery’ after he was attacked at his home early on Friday by an assailant with a hammerPaul Pelosi, husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was hospitalized with a skull fracture on Friday after he was attacked at the couple’s home in California with a hammer by an assailant who was reported to have shouted “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?”Paul Pelosi, 82, underwent “successful surgery” to repair a skull fracture and other “serious injuries” sustained during the assault and is expected to make a full recovery”, according to Nancy Pelosi’s longtime spokesperson, Drew Hammill. Continue reading...

Paul Pelosi was attacked at San Francisco home while House speaker was in Washington

David DePape, 42, was a hemp jewellery maker who posted conspiracy theories on FacebookThe man accused of breaking into US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco and beating her husband with a hammer grew up in Canada, became a nudist activist in the Bay Area, and spread far-right conspiracy theories before being linked to the attack Friday, according to relatives and various media reports.David DePape, the 42-year-old suspect booked with attempting to murder Paul Pelosi, grew up in Powell River, British Colombia, but left about two decades ago to maintain a romantic relationship that led him to California, his stepfather Gene DePape told CNN. Continue reading...

Reactions pour in after Paul Pelosi was violently attacked by a hammer-wielding intruderPoliticians from across the political aisle are reacting to the news that US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was injured during a break-in and attack at their California home.The White House released a statement on behalf of Joe Biden, confirming that the president had spoken to Pelosi, his fellow Democrat, and expressed his support for Paul Pelosi’s recovery. Continue reading...

Musk probably bought Twitter for the same reason billionaires throughout history have become press barons: to try to control the conversationTwitter is free. You can go on there and type your embarrassing little thoughts for the whole world to see any time you like. Millions of us have been doing this for years. Revealing to everyone how dumb your inner thoughts are may cost you your reputation, sure, but it won’t cost you any money. Not even if you’re the richest man in the country.So why spend $44bn to buy it? That’s a fair piece of change, even to someone whose net worth hovers above $200bn. It’s also much more than the company is actually worth, as evidenced by Elon Musk’s desperate attempt to get out of the deal almost as soon as he had gotten irretrievably into it. The price is too high to be a pure lifestyle purchase – if you want a media property just for the social cachet and party invitations, it can be had much cheaper. Fellow villainous mega-billionaire space tourist Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for a mere $250m, less than 1% of what Musk just paid for a cacophonous global collection of weird, hollering self-promotion.Hamilton Nolan is a writer at In These Times Continue reading...

Butts was senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist church in Harlem for decades and worked with many different political leadersThe Rev Calvin O Butts III, who fought poverty and racism and skillfully navigated New York’s power structure as pastor of Harlem’s historic Abyssinian Baptist church, died on Friday at age 73, the church announced.“The Butts family and entire Abyssinian Baptist church membership solicit your prayers for us in our bereavement,” the church said on its website. No cause of death was given. Continue reading...

Of recent artists only Drake, Kanye West and Beyoncé have the same cultural vitality as Taylor Swift, and I am nowhere hip enough to be part of the Beyhive

For any American who is thinking of voting Republican out of anger about inflation, here’s some advice: look before you leapVoters are angry. America’s 8.2% inflation rate sucks and has taken a big bite out of their paycheck. And $4-a-gallon gas hurts, too.Many Americans are angry and blame Joe Biden for today’s high inflation. Indeed, polls show that many people plan to vote for Republicans in November because they’re upset with Biden over the economy. (Unfortunately, many Americans forget that there’s been more job growth – 10 million jobs – during Biden’s first 20 months in office than during any previous president’s first 20 months.) Continue reading...

The globally agreed target of 1.5C is on track to be missed. For those working to prevent disaster, the only option is to keep tryingThe world is falling into an “abyss of risk”, said Prof Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Reports published this week by three UN agencies all point to the failure of governments to make – and keep – sufficient commitments to ensure that global temperatures will not rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which was the target in the 2015 Paris agreement. This is the worst possible news, and arrives just a week before this year’s round of climate talks, Cop27, is due to open in Egypt.So far human activities have raised the temperature by around 1C on average. If current pledges on emissions are fulfilled, that figure is expected to rise to 2.5C. That would – and probably will – mean destruction on a scale that is hard to imagine, even after what we have already witnessed, most recently with devastating floods in Pakistan but also record-breaking heatwaves and other extreme weather elsewhere. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak can begin to make Britain a serious country again by trying to make the NI protocol work. But will he?Last week, amid all the turmoil in the Tory party, there was a brief flurry of interest in the emergence as a candidate for prime minister of the man more than one British reporter referred to as “the Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis”. Lewis was not the Northern Ireland secretary. He wasn’t even the previous holder of the office – he was the one before that.Likewise, when Rishi Sunak was eventually selected, at least one distinguished British commentator proclaimed him the first person of Asian heritage to become prime minister of a European country. Actually, the first such leader was Leo Varadkar, who became taoiseach in Dublin five years ago. Continue reading...

Michael McGuire hurried after work to watch game, still wearing his uniform and covered in sootPictures of a Kentucky coalminer and his family went viral after an image shared widely showed the he had rushed straight from a shift in the mine to take his young son to the university’s basketball game – so as not to miss the boy’s first live basketball experience.Michael McGuire hurried after work to watch a University of Kentucky scrimmage game with his young son in Pikeville, in the eastern part of the state. Continue reading...

Criticism grows over the university’s role in violence and chaos around planned speeches from Alex Stein and Gavin McInnesNick Ribaudo, a student at Penn State, was attending a protest at his university earlier this week when he heard sudden screams. He and about 300 other students were protesting against their college hosting Gavin McInnes, founder of the violent Proud Boys group, and Alex Stein, another far-right figure, on campus that evening.Ribaudo was standing on a pillar, trying to get a vantage point of the action, when a group surged towards him, shrieking. One of their friends, a student at the university, had just been pepper-sprayed. Continue reading...

Norma Thornton, 78, files lawsuit against Bullhead City in north-west Arizona over law about food-sharing events in public parkA woman who was arrested for feeding homeless people in north-west Arizona is suing over a local ordinance that regulates food-sharing events in public parks, accusing the authorities of criminalizing kindness.Norma Thornton, 78, became the first person arrested under Bullhead City’s ordinance in March for distributing prepared food from a van at Bullhead community park. Her lawyer said the lawsuit filed this week is part of a nationwide effort to let people feed those in need. Continue reading...

New book by Arkansas senator, a Republican presidential hopeful, also suggests president did not understand military proceduresIn January 2020, the rightwing Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton said he would vote to acquit Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial because despite senators having “heard from 17 witnesses … and received more than 28,000 pages of documents”, Democrats had not presented their case correctly.According to Cotton, the senators who sat through so much evidence would “perform the role intended for us by the founders, of providing the ‘cool and deliberate sense of the community’, as it says in Federalist 63”. Continue reading...

The Sussexes draw more ire than genocidal dictators – from people who struggle to articulate exactly what their problem isThe interior designer and social commentator Nicky Haslam has just released the latest annual version of his fabled tea towel, on which he lists some more of the things that he “finds common”. (This year’s entries include Bond Street, coriander, divorce, porn, Stanley Johnson, hydrangeas, foundations and side plates.) Far be it from any of us to suggest culprits for the next one, but I do think “being angry with Meghan and Harry” should be a contender. Let’s be honest: there really isn’t much more desperately naff than allowing oneself to be conversationally infuriated by the commercial behaviour/comings-and-goings/mere existence of “the Sussexes”. It is hugely infra dig.And yet the couple continue to drive swathes of people quite mad. For a huge throng of the vicariously enraged, this week’s release of the cover of Harry’s forthcoming memoir has once again proved a ticket to near-apoplexy. The book is to be called Spare – a hilarious and brilliant title, despite kneejerk criticism of it from people whose own books are called perfectly gopping things like “Diana’s Babies: Kate, William and the repair of a broken family”. Given Spare isn’t out till January, we’ve no idea yet of the quality of its content, though I note Harry has benefited from Andre Agassi’s ghostwriter. So we could be in for more unforgettable and award-winning sections on hair loss in the public eye. Continue reading...

Oil company’s third-quarter result smashes Wall Street forecasts – as does Chevron’s £11.2bnThe US oil supermajor ExxonMobil has reported a quarterly profit of nearly $20bn (£17.3bn), $4bn more than analysts had forecast, almost matching the earnings of the tech giant Apple.Exxon’s $19.7bn profit for the third quarter outstripped the record $17.9bn it reported for the previous quarter, as it became the latest fossil fuel producer to enjoy soaring earnings, a day after Shell announced global profits of $9.5bn between July and September. Continue reading...

The US and its allies condemned Russia for wasting the time of the UN security council and spreading conspiracies by again accusing the US of having 'military biological programmes' in Ukraine.'How much more of this nonsense do we have to endure?' the UK's ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, asked the council.Russia has previously raised at least twice at the security council the issue of biological weapons programmes in Ukraine – while both Washington and Kyiv say they do not exist. Russia is pushing for a formal inquiry

Musk ‘fires top executives’; $44bn deal will give world’s richest person control of platform with 230m users. Plus, world close to ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown• Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.Elon Musk has completed his takeover of Twitter, taking control of the company and reportedly firing several top executives, including the chief executive, Parag Agrawal.Why did Musk buy Twitter? He said in a statement: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. That is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love.”What will he do with the social media platform? Expect concerns about freedom of speech to be addressed, costs to be cut, revenues to be raised and bot accounts to be tackled. Oh, and Donald Trump might be allowed back on.What else is happening in Ukraine? Here’s what we know on day 247 of the invasion. Continue reading...

Proliferation of new legislation comes in response to false claims about the 2020 electionSince the 2020 election, lawmakers in all but eight states have attempted to pass laws that would create new election investigation agencies, establish criminal penalties for election offenses or further empower law enforcement officials to investigate such crimes, according to an analysis by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.The proliferation of election crime legislation represents the most intense voter suppression threat in decades and comes in direct response to former president Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent.In 14 states, lawmakers have tried to empower law enforcement officials, such as prosecutors and police officers, to investigate suspected election crimes, arming them with new powers and requiring them to more aggressively pursue alleged offenses. In Tennessee, for example, Republican lawmakers in both legislative chambers filed bills that would have required at least 20% of investigators in the state bureau of investigation’s criminal investigation division to be designated as election crime specialists, along with the same share of prosecutors in every district attorney’s office. While that effort didn’t succeed, others did. Those include Georgia laws giving a statewide investigative agency new subpoena powers and creating a new hotline for the attorney general to receive voter fraud complaints; a New Hampshire law requiring the state attorney general to investigate alleged misconduct by election officials, with power to revoke those officials’ voting rights; and a Utah law requiring election officials to look for possible cases of a person voting more than once, and to report any suspected fraud to police or prosecutors. Continue reading...

Nearly 18 million Americans with disabilities voted in the 2020 election, but new laws this year may change turnoutIn late January, a judge in Wisconsin ruled that there were just two ways someone in the state could return a mail-in ballot: they could either place it in the mail or return it to their local clerk in person.That was a big problem for Martha Chambers. For the last 27 years, Chambers, who is 59 and lives in Milwaukee , has been paralyzed from the neck down after a horse-riding accident. She can write and paint using a stick she holds in her mouth. But when it comes to voting, she needs help with her ballot. “I can fill out my ballot. I can sign it. I can fill in the little dots,” she said. “But I can’t hand it, I can’t fold it, I can’t put it in the envelope,” she said. “ I could not put it in the mailbox. I can’t get out my door to put it in the mailbox.” Continue reading...

Polls indicate tide shifting toward Republicans with high inflation rates and gas prices working in their favorWith less than two weeks to go until election day, Democrats’ hopes of defying political history and keeping their narrow majorities in the House and Senate appear to be fading, as many of the party’s candidates go on the defensive in the final days of campaigning.Over the summer, many election forecasters wondered if Democrats could avoid the widespread losses typically seen by the president’s party in the midterms. With voters expressing outrage over the supreme court’s decision to end federal protections for abortion access and gas prices falling, Democrats had been hopeful that their endangered incumbents could win reelection. Continue reading...

In this, one of a series of essays on the war in Ukraine from countries in or neighbouring the former Soviet bloc, a Serbian poet decries the glorification of Russia’s aggression“Ukraine attacks Russia!” was the surreal headline on a report in the 22 February edition of Informer, Serbia’s biggest-selling tabloid. That headline was not a one off, it was an expression of the Putinophilia that has been strong in Serbia for years. As most of the world condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, much of the media in Serbia turned to glorification of Russia’s actions. Tabloids, web portals, dailies, weeklies and nationwide television channels celebrated the destruction of Ukrainian cities and gave wholehearted support to Russian armed forces. The killing of civilians, the levelling of cities and the destruction of cultural monuments appeared to fill some of Serbia’s editors with enthusiasm and exuberance.Pro-Russia rallies took place in Belgrade, at which the crowd cheered Putin and the letter Z was scrawled on the asphalt. The rest of the world shuddered as it watched real-time coverage of corpses on the streets of Bucha, civilians sheltering from Russian shells in underground stations and millions of refugees fleeing their country, but instead of compassionfor innocent victims, understanding for the criminals seemed the response of Putin’s Serbian fans. Continue reading...

It’s Philadelphia v Houston in the 118th Fall Classic. Our writers pick the MVP, trends to watch and the eventual championYes. We need to go back to the objectively correct playoff format: three division winners and one wild-card team from each league. Of course, I’m biased on this subject: how the playoffs operated when you first became a fan always feels right, even if there’s always an element of arbitrariness in play in every set-up. HF Continue reading...

GOP ramping up spending for grisly, racist ads that cast Democrats as ‘dangerously liberal’ with crime emerging as top concern among votersDemocrats knew the attacks were coming. And like clockwork, just as their political fortunes appeared to improve earlier this summer, Republicans pounced, battering Democrats with a barrage of “soft on crime” attacks just weeks before election day.With voters identifying crime as a top concern in recent surveys, Republicans have increasingly turned to an old playbook: centering their closing pitch of the midterm campaign on crime. Over the last several weeks, Republicans have ramped up their spending on crime-related messaging, blanketing the airwaves with grisly television ads that cast Democrats as “dangerously liberal”, “different” and enablers of lawlessness. Continue reading...

Life Surge, where speakers include Tim Tebow and a Duck Dynasty star, ties together faith and financial planning“As believers, we train ourselves to be valuable to the marketplace,” said the minor-league baseball player-turned-real-estate investor Jason Benham. “How do we use the talents, opportunities, abilities and resources that God has given us so that the Kingdom of Heaven may come to Earth through us?”Jason and his twin brother, David, were our emcees for the day at Life Surge, a Christian finance conference in Denver. A blending of faith and finance, Life Surge tours the nation offering both motivational and practical lectures on building wealth the Christian way, with emotionally charged, musical worship services peppered throughout the day. The former NFL superstar and evangelical hero Tim Tebow and Willie Robertson of the hit reality show Duck Dynasty were among a host of conservative celebrities speaking at the event, catered by the fast-food restaurant Chick-Fil-A – a pariah among liberals and martyr to the religious right for executives’ public opposition to gay marriage. Continue reading...

Neighbours first reported the blaze at a home in a Tulsa suburbEight people have died in a house fire near Tulsa, Oklahoma, that police say they are investigating as a homicide.Authorities said that neighbours reported the fire at about 4pm in Broken Arrow, Tulsa’s biggest suburb that is home to almost 115,000 people. Police provided scant details of what happened or who was killed. Continue reading...

Investigation into the 2015 incident revealed the 0.50-caliber weapon for the Jalisco cartel was purchased in Portland, OregonThe 0.50-caliber gun used by the Mexican Jalisco cartel to shoot down a Mexican military helicopter in 2015 came from a gun supplier in Portland, Oregon, a joint Mexico-US investigation has found.On Wednesday, the Louisville Courier Journal reported confirmation of the connection between the incident and Portland, Oregon by federal firearm officials. Continue reading...

Dogue, run by a trained chef, has garnered outrage for the high cost of pampering pups but pet parents have been supportiveSan Francisco is a foodie heaven with plenty of Michelin-starred restaurants. And San Franciscans love dogs. So it might come as no surprise that an entrepreneur has decided to combine the two passions, creating what’s believed to be the first restaurant exclusively for man’s best friend.Dogue, which rhymes with “vogue”, opened last month in the city’s trendy Mission District. Continue reading...

A second world war-era boat, half emerged B-29 plane and five other bodies have so far been found in the receding watersYet another set of human remains was pulled from the shallows of Lake Mead this week, marking the sixth time this year the receding water levels uncovered bodies from the past.The National Park Service confirmed on Wednesday that a human bone discovered by a diver directed a park dive team to an area where the skeletal remains were found. Continue reading...

Wyoming congresswoman, who lost her Republican primary, endorses Elissa Slotkin in seventh congressional districtRepublican congresswoman Liz Cheney on Thursday endorsed Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and plans to campaign for her.It is the first time that Cheney, a critic of Donald Trump who lost her Republican primary, has crossed party lines to formally support a Democrat. Continue reading...

Albuquerque Head, who pleaded guilty to assaulting officer Michael Fanone on January 6, sentenced to seven and a half yearsSentencing a January 6 rioter who assaulted a police officer to 90 months in prison, a judge warned the “dark shadow of tyranny” continues to loom nearly two years since the Capitol insurrection that attempted to overthrow the results of the US presidential election.Albuquerque Head of Tennessee was sentenced on Thursday to the second-longest punishment of anyone involved in the Capitol attack so far. Head had already pleaded guilty to dragging officer Michael Fanone away from the police line while shouting “I got one!” Continue reading...

Controversial series is concluding at the Blue Monster at Doral with players insisting they are happy to have left the PGA TourBy the time Team Trump reached the 10th tee, the acolytes were waiting in line. “That swing looks like another four years!” bellowed one as Donald carried the water with a decent drive. “You think Biden could do that?” asked the 45th president of the United States. “He wouldn’t even reach the [ladies’] tee.” Neither could Eric Trump, who topped his shot into an alligator-infested pond. The War on Drugs blared out in the background, secret service agents patrolled the fairways. We really are experiencing the wildest and weirdest of golfing times.It is poetic that this $50m finale to LIV Golf’s maiden season is taking place at the Trump-owned Blue Monster at Doral. Many believe Saudi Arabia has created one with this ostentatious scheme, which finds itself in direct and frequently vicious conflict with golf’s traditional ecosystem. Continue reading...

Republican men can be accused of any number of horrors, and not risk their party’s supportIt’s possible that Herschel Walker is the worst candidate the modern Republican party has ever run for national office, and in an era of conspiracy theorists, Christian nationalists and Donald Trump, that’s saying a lot. Walker embodies everything the Republican party has claimed to oppose: violent crime, abortion, homes broken by absentee fathers, race-based affirmative action and straight-up incompetence. And yet no matter what Walker is accused of, up to and including acts many Republicans define as murder, he retains the support of the Republican party, and his race for a Georgia Senate seat remains a tight one.It’s not just that the modern Republican party has accepted as a norm that there should be absolutely zero moral or ethical expectations from the people they run for office. It’s that they seem to relish breaking the rules they want to set for others. It’s not hypocrisy so much as the celebration of conservative male impunity.Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk. Continue reading...

Kevin McCarthy’s warning of no ‘blank check’ and progressive Democrats’ premature call for negotiations were unfortunateOn 24 October, 30 members of the House Democratic Progressive Caucus released a letter to President Biden calling for a “proactive diplomatic push” on Kyiv to work toward a ceasefire and “direct [US] engagement” with Moscow to end the Russia-Ukraine war. One week earlier, Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy’s no “blank check” for Ukraine comment raised questions about future congressional support for US assistance to that embattled country.The letter, even though it has now been withdrawn, and McCarthy’s comment are unfortunate. Vladimir Putin will take encouragement from both as Russia wages its war. The suggestion of cracks in US backing for Ukraine will increase his incentives to continue fighting. Continue reading...

The planet cannot afford a second term for the far-right president who has resurged in the pollsOn Sunday, Brazilian electors will cast their vote in a tight contest that will not only set the course for this extraordinarily polarised country but also have a powerful impact on the future of the world. Hopes that the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, would be decisively rejected in the first round were dashed when he fared far better than expected, with 43% of votes, and his challenger, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, fell just short of an outright majority with 48%. Eleventh-hour handouts to the poorest and lavish quantities of disinformation have aided Mr Bolsonaro’s recovery.The hope is that his momentum is already fading. But the polls vary, and a second presidential term would be bad news not just for Brazilians but also the rest of us. The primary danger is climate catastrophe. As the UN’s environment agency warns that there is no credible route to limit global warming to 1.5C, deforestation in the Amazon is at a high: a carbon sink could become a carbon emitter. Criminal syndicates of loggers and ranchers race to do their worst for fear that a new administration will rein them in. More than 2bn trees have been felled during Mr Bolsonaro’s term in office. He has also fostered an increasingly dangerous culture for environmental defenders – as exposed by the murder of the activist Bruno Pereira and the Guardian contributor Dom Phillips this June. In contrast, analysts suggest a victory for Lula could see an 89% cut in rainforest loss. Continue reading...

Daily Beast reports that Holland & Knight, where governor once worked, made nearly $3m in state contracts from 2018 to 2020The old law firm of Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has received millions in state funds during his tenure, according to a new investigation.The Daily Beast reported that two law firms, Holland & Knight and Holtzman Vogel, received millions of dollars in state business in recent years from DeSantis’s administration. Continue reading...

With days to go, the calm belies what is at stake: the hard right empowered so a beleaguered figure can win and possibly evade justiceAs Israel heads to the polls on Tuesday for its fifth election since the spring of 2019, its politics are fractious, but stop short of visceral acridity. The country’s rival tribes are content to jostle each other. It’s an eerie quiet before what could be a terrible storm. With just days to go, Benjamin Netanyahu and the right lead in hypothetical match-ups, but may fall short of the 61 seats needed in the 120-member Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to dislodge Yair Lapid, the current prime minister.As for Lapid, his chances of securing an outright victory are slim. Talk on the street is of a Seinfeld election – much ado about almost nothing. The country is tired. Yet there is greater internal consensus than one would glean from the rhetoric bandied on the campaign trail.Lloyd Green served in the served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 and is a regular freelance contributor to Guardian USDo 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...

The Democrat, who had a stroke in May, struggled in the debate format. But on the merits, he’s better than his Republican rivalJohn Fetterman can still become the next senator from Pennsylvania, the Democrat who safeguards their fragile majority. He is effectively tied or leads in many reputable polls, and he’s been a prodigious fundraiser throughout the race. Few left-leaning Democrats, in such foreboding terrain, have engineered a coalition this formidable.All of this must be stated outright because Fetterman’s lone televised debate performance was disastrous. In May, he suffered a stroke, and he could not speak consistently and coherently on Tuesday against his Republican opponent, Dr Mehmet Oz. While partisans online defended his speaking style and pleaded for empathy – all victims of health calamities certainly deserve it – it was inarguable that Fetterman struggled, and even sympathetic observers acknowledged a debate format was a steep challenge. Fetterman is simply not the candidate he was before his stroke.Ross Barkan is a writer based in New York Continue reading...

The new PM promised integrity and competence. Instead we got a dangerous dependency – which Labour can weaponise“Thank God Suella Braverman is back,” writes one Telegraph columnist. “Her determination to crack down on crime and illegal immigration undoubtedly chimes with the views of the country, and especially voters in the Red Wall. Thank God there is someone in the Cabinet to put forward those views.”Her return is not an oddity, not a pantomime joke, but proves how deeply Rishi Sunak is in hock to the hard right, like every Tory leader from John Major onwards. The party will rewrite the past week’s knife-edge drama as a smooth and inevitable coronation of its princeling, but his frantic scramble for the wrong votes tells another story. Restoring Braverman to the Home Office and boasting of party “unity” unites him with the obnoxious wing that drove the Tories to this post-Brexit dead end. The Express, closest to that faction, reveals that in the last hours battling with Boris Johnson, Sunak was so needy for rightwing support that he called Braverman no fewer than six times begging for her backing and that of the wing she represents; Keir Starmer called that out in PMQs as “a grubby deal”. The first heady days are a leader’s moment of maximum power with every job in their gift – and yet Sunak emerges as another Tory PM too weak to face down those old wrecking “bastards”.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Police say mother of 19-year-old accused of killing two at high school on Monday wanted AR-15-style rifle removed from houseThe 19-year-old suspect who killed a teacher and a 15-year-old student in a shooting spree at a St Louis high school on Monday had the assault rifle he used confiscated by police just days before his attack.The St Louis police commissioner has confirmed that shortly before the school shooting, officers were called to the man’s home by his parents who were worried about him and wanted the AR-15 style rifle removed. Continue reading...

Trump’s former chief of staff must answer questions about alleged attempt to overturn 2020 election resultA judge on Wednesday ordered the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before a special grand jury investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn Georgia’s results in the 2020 election.Meadows is a key figure in the investigation. He traveled to Georgia, sat in on calls with state officials and coordinated and communicated with influencers either encouraging or discouraging the pressure campaign. Continue reading...

More liberal policies on environment, gun safety, labor, economic taxes and tobacco taxes associated with lower mortalityAmericans die younger in conservative states than in those governed by liberals, a new study has found.The authors wrote: “Simulations indicate that changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives.” Continue reading...

Oliver Laughland travels to Walt Disney World, Florida, to see how a law restricting the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues is affecting voters in the run-up to the midterm elections. Republicans extended their majority in the state in 2020, and with far-right Governor Ron DeSantis up for re-election, will his divisive culture wars help him win a second term?