The Kremlin’s imperial war has made its own culture and language a common enemy for people across its former empireThe time has come to ask whether, objectively speaking, Vladimir Putin is an agent of American imperialism. For no American has ever done half as much damage to what Putin calls the “Russian world” as the Russian leader himself has.This thought came to me recently when I was in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, talking to Ukrainians made refugees in their own country by Putin’s war. “I was a Russian speaker until 24 February,” said Adeline, an art student from the now Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, referencing the date of Russia’s full-scale invasion earlier this year. Russia has failed to take over Ukrainian culture, she said, so now it has set out to kill it. Several other Ukrainian students told me they find “the spirit of freedom” in Ukrainian literature, but of subservience to power in Russian literature. Continue reading...
Avery Seuter, a 19-year-old unicyclist, says he is on a mission to make it down to Florida on a 3,000-mile bike pathA teenager has embarked on an incredible journey of unicycling from Maine to Key West, Florida, to raise money for the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile pedestrian and bicycle path that connects the two states.On 8 September, 19-year-old Avery Seuter left his hometown in Wells, Maine, where he worked as a tour guide on a lobster boat. His goal is to bike to the southeastern-most tip of the United States. Continue reading...
The fallen crypto mogul is fighting off accusations he followed a similar playbook to Madoff – and deceived investors in the processAt first glance, Sam Bankman-Fried bears little resemblance to Bernie Madoff. One is a smartly-suited, grey-haired financial titan with a 40-year career on Wall Street, and the other a 30-year-old millennial king of crypto in shorts and T-shirt.But almost 14 years to the day since Madoff was arrested and charged with fraud in New York for orchestrating a long-running pyramid scheme, the FTX crypto scandal is being compared to Madoff’s criminal enterprise. Continue reading...
The kiosks promised to make life easier for shoppers and stores. Instead, they’ve done the oppositeWhen the first self-checkout kiosks were rolled out in American stores more than three decades ago, they were presented as technology that could help stores cut costs, save customers time, and even prevent theft.Businesses still fret over these issues, and against a tight labor market, more companies are making self-checkouts the norm. This week Walmart revealed that thefts from its stores are at a historical high, which many staff and customers link to self-checkouts. But not only have the machines failed to live up to their promises; they’ve made things harder for just about everyone, including the workers who they were supposed to replace. Continue reading...
The alarmingly high rates of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts are spread across liberal and conservative regionsMore than 50% of transgender and non-binary youth in states across the US seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to new survey data on a worsening LGTBQ+ youth mental health crisis.The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention, on Thursday released state-level data from nearly 34,000 queer and trans youth ages 13 to 24, showing alarmingly high rates of suicide attempts, depression and anxiety across liberal and conservative regions. Continue reading...
NFTs were priced at $99 each and depict the former US president in guises including superhero, astronaut and race car driverDespite being widely mocked online, former US president Donald Trump’s collection of digital trading cards have sold out in less than a day, netting US$4.5m in sales.On Wednesday, Trump alerted fans to a “major announcement” on his Truth social media platform. A day later, the 45th president of the United States revealed he was offering “limited edition cards featur[ing] amazing ART of my Life & Career”, which he promised would prove “very much like a baseball card but hopefully much more exciting”. Continue reading...
Robert Crimo Jr was charged with seven felony counts of reckless conduct for helping his son obtain a license in December 2019The father of the 19-year-old accused of killing seven people at a July 4 parade near Chicago has been charged with seven felony counts of reckless conduct, as a result of sponsoring his son’s application for a gun license in 2019.The charges against Robert Crimo Jr were announced on Friday, and the Lake county state’s attorney, Eric Rinehart, said he surrendered to police and will have a bond hearing Saturday. Continue reading...
Justice department was granted access to emails from former employees and loyalistsFederal investigators have been scrutinizing emails between lawyers for Donald Trump and a loyalist Republican congressman for months, it emerged on Friday, casting new light on the direction of the criminal inquiry into the former president’s alleged insurrection efforts.Beryl Howell, the US district court chief judge, granted a request from the justice department to unseal an order she made in June. Continue reading...
Devon O’Connell was found dead Tuesday morning at one of Solitude Mountain Resort’s ski trailsA storm cycle dropped over a foot of snow along Utah’s Wasatch Front earlier this week, which came as a welcome site to the region’s large population of dedicated skiers and snowboarders. Devon O’Connell was one of them.O’Connell was an experienced skier who had gone to Solitude Mountain Resort to enjoy a powder day Monday morning. The married father was scheduled to be home by 2pm on Monday. O’Connell’s wife called the resort after he failed to return home by 6.30pm. Authorities said O’Connell’s ski pass was last scanned at a lift shortly after noon. Continue reading...
Subcommittee recommended Trump could also be referred for conspiracy to defraud the United States, sources sayThe House January 6 select committee is considering a criminal referral to the justice department against Donald Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States on the recommendation of a special subcommittee, according to sources familiar with the matter.The recommendations on the former president – made by the subcommittee examining referrals – were based on renewed examinations of the evidence that indicated Trump’s attempts to impede the certification of the 2020 election results amounted to potential crimes. Continue reading...
Material not expected to rebut Warren commission conclusion that president was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting aloneHistorians and conspiracy theorists have been given an early Christmas present: the release from US National Archives of 13,173 documents relating to the official investigation into the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy.From barely legible memos filled with the crabby handwriting of CIA agents, through reports on secret meetings with Russian diplomats, to painstaking detective work on the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald, the trove of documents will keep JFK assassination obsessives busy for months. Few expect bombshells among the pile, however. Continue reading...
Prosecutors say Alex Murdaugh, 54, made nearly $14m over nine years but stole $7m from his law firm at same timeAlex Murdaugh, the disgraced attorney accused of killing his wife and son, was indicted Friday by a grand jury in South Carolina on nine counts of tax evasion, adding to the slew of charges he faces in the aftermath of their deaths more than a year ago.Prosecutors said Murdaugh, 54, made nearly $14m as a lawyer over nine years, but also stole nearly $7m from his law firm at the same time. Continue reading...
Questions raised after remarks by Robin Chittum, who dismissed separate kidnapping case against Anderson Aldrich last yearA judge who dismissed a 2021 kidnapping case against the shooter in November’s Colorado LGBTQ nightclub tragedy warned last year that the defendant had been stockpiling weapons and planning a shootout, and needed mental health treatment or “it’s going to be so bad”.The comments made by the judge, Robin Chittum, last year are contained in court documents obtained by the Associated Press. They add to the warning signs authorities had about Anderson Aldrich’s increasingly violent behavior prior to the November 19 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs. Five people were killed and 17 wounded. Continue reading...
You don’t have to be a fan of the couple to see that monarchy exacts too high a price – and abolition would do the Windsors a favourThey’re more royal than the royals. Detached they might be, but even in exile they are fulfilling their duties to the letter. For all their insistence that they had to break away from the system of monarchy, Harry and Meghan remain two of its most devoted servants. Because, for all the red-top fury aimed their way, they are doing the job from which they claimed to have “stepped back” exactly as it has been prescribed for generations. Indeed, they continue to provide the service Britons have been demanding from the Windsors for a century or more.And what is that service? At its simplest, it is entertainment – or, perhaps more accurately, diversion. At a time when the news is full of bleak tidings – nurses paid so poorly they are compelled to strike, migrants and refugees risking death to cross an icy Channel, Russian missiles raining down on Ukraine – H&M, as the couple call each other, have served up a welcome excuse to look the other way.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
There has not been a single conviction and yet nothing changes with metaphorical bedsheets dutifully shielding the suspectsTwo days out from the World Cup final, Qatar finishes hosting its tournament having very recently been declared “a frontrunner in labour rights”. “Today,” the declaration in question continued, “the World Cup in Qatar is proof of how sports diplomacy can achieve a historic transformation of a country.”It feels only mildly unfortunate that the member of the European parliament who uttered these words three weeks ago is currently detained by Belgian police, after the discovery of almost €1m in banknotes in her marital home and a hotel room used by her father. After all, this has been a successful World Cup. Qatar has catapulted itself on to the world stage and won many plaudits. This timing is merely a freak coincidence. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Farmerville, Louisiana on (#66XDA)
Authorities initially blamed deadly arrest on car crash before body-camera video showed white officers beating GreeneFive Louisiana law enforcement officers have been charged with crimes ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long suppressed body-camera video showed white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black motorist as he wailed: “I’m scared!”These were the first criminal charges of any kind to emerge from Greene’s bloody death on a roadside in rural north-east Louisiana, a case that got little attention until an Associated Press investigation exposed a cover-up and prompted scrutiny of top Louisiana state police figures, a sweeping US justice department review of the agency and a legislative inquiry looking at what Governor John Bel Edwards knew and when he knew it. Continue reading...
More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to walk out to show support for unionizing, an effort that Starbucks opposesStarbucks workers around the US are planning a three-day strike starting on Friday as part of their effort to unionize the coffee chain’s stores.More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to walk out, according to Starbucks Workers United, the labor group organizing the effort. The strike will be the longest in the year-old unionization campaign. Continue reading...
Despite his antisemitic rants, the rapper now known as Ye is finishing the year in Spotify UK’s top five most-streamed artistsThis year, there has been no spectacle in popular culture more grotesque than the unravelling of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. But why stop at this year? We have seen other stars make racist statements, experience career-ruining scandals or psychologically disintegrate in public, but to witness all three converge in extremis over two months is unprecedented.It should spell career suicide. But Ye has ended the year in the top fivemost-streamed artists of 2022 on Spotify in the UK and the US. His 2021 album Donda is No 43 on Billboard’s chart of the year’s most popular albums. When he isn’t suspended from Twitter, he has 30.6m followers there. As he well knows, media outlets track his every move. People aren’t only still listening; they’re watching, too. Despite being on an apparently terminal course, Ye isn’t about to disappear: this is just the latest chapter in his mission to test the public’s threshold for disgust. Continue reading...
Groups submitting amicus briefs to supreme court case in support of Republican lawmakers received $90m in anonymous donationsConservative donors poured tens of millions of dollars of anonymous “dark money” into groups supporting Republican lawmakers in a supreme court case that could upend American election law.The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in Moore v Harper, according to a recent analysis. They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority. Continue reading...
Instead of fighting for the centre ground, Keir Starmer should look to the radical changes pushed through under Harold WilsonThe pitch is being rolled for Keir Starmer’s entry to No 10. Titles on the prospect of a Labour Britain already line the bookshop shelves, from Oliver Eagleton’s The Starmer Project to Lisa Nandy’s All In. Who is he really? Is he a socialist in sheep’s clothing, or just another moderate, pragmatic, oh-so-hesitant Labour leader trapped in an ideological no-man’s-land between left and “left-of-centre”?The one label that no one could pin on Starmer is “radical”. After the trauma of Liz Truss, economic policy has sunk into a grim torpor. Starmer has eschewed alternative economic models, terrified of the reaction of markets and thus, possibly, of voters. He is so fearful of the issue of Brexit – which many Britons who voted for it now regret – that he has become its most effective supporter. On social policy, Labour is all platitude and nothing structural. Britain is drifting down Europe’s league table on health outcomes, drug abuse, prison population and reception of migrants. Yet Labour only promises to do broadly more of the same. A Starmer government would be a more generous sort of Tory one.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Democrats agree to Republican demands to scrap vaccination requirement for service members to win support for $858bn defense bill. Plus, Trump’s superhero card collection
Critics of Covid migration restriction, ending next week, say it illegally prevents asylum claims and places migrants in dangerMore than 1,500 undocumented people hurried across the US-Mexico border into west Texas all at once last weekend, surprising the city of El Paso, which is no stranger to dealing with migration.The group included many Nicaraguans, who said they were freed by Mexican authorities after being kidnapped last week. Continue reading...
While other federations put their prize money back into developing the next generation, US Soccer’s prize money is paying the current players and their lawyersPerhaps it’s not fair to call the US women’s soccer team’s $24m “equal pay” settlement a Pyrrhic victory.Let’s instead call it a pyromaniac’s victory. A lot of money was piled up and set on fire. Continue reading...
From Vermont to Montana, efforts are underway to protect residents in flood-vulnerable locationsThis article originally appeared in Nexus Media News.Charlotte Bishop was standing at her kitchen window in January 2019 when she saw water streaming into her yard. A block of ice had clogged the brook that snakes around the mobile home park where she and her husband Rollin live in Brattleboro, Vermont. Bishop grabbed her keys and rushed outside to move their cars to higher ground. Within minutes, she was wading through knee-high water. Continue reading...
Workers and labor activists criticize Congress after it blocked a strike by voting to impose a contract agreementRailroad workers and unions are ramping up pressure on the US Congress and Joe Biden to address poor working conditions in the wake of the recent move to block a strike when Congress voted to impose a contract agreement.Workers and labor activists in America have criticized that action for undermining the collective bargaining process in the US and workers’ right to strike. Continue reading...
Democrats agreed to Republican demands to scrap vaccination requirement for service members to win support for the billA bill to rescind the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for members of the US military and provide nearly $858bn for national defense passed the Senate on Thursday and now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.The bill provides for about $45bn more for defense programs than Biden requested and roughly 10% more than last year’s bill as lawmakers look to account for inflation and boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia. It includes a 4.6% pay raise for servicemembers and the defense department’s civilian workforce. Continue reading...
Documents disclosed after Joe Biden issued an executive order authorizing them to be made available to the publicThe US National Archives on Thursday released thousands of documents related to the 1963 assassination of then President John F Kennedy shortly after Joe Biden issued an executive order authorizing the release that also kept hundreds of other sensitive records secret.The release of 12,879 documents was not expected to include any new bombshells or change the conclusion reached by the commission led by chief justice Earl Warren that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and communist activist who had lived in the Soviet Union, acted alone. However, the latest cache will be useful for historians focusing on the events around the assassination. Continue reading...
In a rare verdict, jurors found Aaron Dean guilty of shooting the 28-year-old through the rear window of her homeA former Texas police officer was convicted of manslaughter Thursday for fatally shooting a Black woman through a rear window of her home in 2019, a rare conviction of an officer for killing someone also armed with a gun.Jurors were also considering a murder charge against Aaron Dean but instead convicted him of manslaughter in the death of Atatiana Jefferson. The conviction comes more than three years after the white Fort Worth officer shot the 28-year-old woman while responding to a call about an open front door. Continue reading...
Sister of victim and pediatrician testify during congressional hearing on the mass school shooting at Robb elementaryThe sister of one of the young victims killed in the Uvalde school shooting earlier this year, as well as the city’s only pediatrician, pleaded for stricter gun laws during a congressional hearing on gun violence on Thursday.The hearing, titled “Examining Uvalde: The Search for Bipartisan Solutions to Gun Violence”, was hosted by the House of Representatives committee on the judiciary in Washington. Continue reading...
'When is enough enough?' asked Faith Mata, whose sister Tess was murdered at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on 24 May along with 18 other students. Addressing a House judiciary subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security in Washington, Mata gave moving testimony on the impact her sister's death had on her family, calling on Congress to change gun laws to prevent an incident like the Uvalde shooting happening again Continue reading...
'This may be the last time I speak to you this way,' said Nancy Pelosi in what she suggested could be her final press conference. The former Democrat house speaker defended her record in office, noting the passing of the Affordable Care Act as one of her greatest achievements. 'Nothing in any of the years that I was there compares to the Affordable Care Act,' Pelosi told reporters, adding: 'It is a values issues for our country, so that for me was the highlight.'Pelosi announced in November that she would be stepping down as house speaker, ending a historic run as the first woman in the position. The California Democrat held the post for nearly two decades
by Associated Press in Jackson, Michigan on (#66WJ8)
Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were members of paramilitary group that trained with leader of conspiracyA judge on Thursday handed down the longest prison terms so far in the plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan, sentencing three men who forged an early alliance with a leader of the scheme before the FBI broke it up in 2020.Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were not charged with direct roles in the conspiracy but were members of a paramilitary group that trained with Adam Fox, who separately faces a possible life sentence on 27 December. Continue reading...
Cards cost ‘only $99 each’ and ‘would make a great Christmas gift’, says former president in ‘major announcement’ videoDonald Trump walked into a comic-book universe of internet mockery on Thursday, when in a carefully trailed announcement he introduced his “official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card” collection with a picture of himself in superhero costume, cape and “Trump Champion” belt.“Just when you thought this grifter couldn’t humiliate himself any more than he already has,” wrote John Kiriakou, a CIA whistleblower turned author, “there’s this. THIS is what the big announcement was.” Continue reading...
by Associated Press and Report for America on (#66WFE)
Taskforce to consider suggestions, including $350,000 proposal for descendants of enslaved Black people, and eligibility requirementAfter more than a year delving into history and studies to make its case for reparations to California descendants of enslaved Black people, a first-in-the-nation taskforce began deliberations on Wednesday to quantify how financial compensation might be calculated and what might be required to prove eligibility.Conversations for how to determine payments are in the early stages, with taskforce members acknowledging they have more questions than answers. Economists hired by the taskforce are seeking guidance in five harms experienced by Black people: government taking of property, devaluation of Black-owned businesses, housing discrimination and homelessness, mass incarceration and over-policing, and health. Continue reading...
Christian missionaries who ran a faith-based organization allegedly used federal funds to buy a multimillion-dollar homeA Florida pastor and his son have been arrested for allegedly fraudulently obtaining more than $8m in federal Covid relief funds.Evan and Joshua Edwards of Orlando were arrested on Wednesday, alleged to have used such funds for luxury expenses including a multimillion-dollar house near Walt Disney World. Continue reading...
Monarchists already know of their woes while republicans will merely have their views confirmed. And the soap opera will go onSo this is what snowbound, strike-hit Britain needed on a Thursday morning: a rich and entitled couple living in agreeable circumstances in California bemoaning their treatment by the media, the royal family, courtiers, a woman in the crowd in Liverpool, Meghan’s father and even the Queen by implication. Assailed by “them” and “they”.Yes, it’s the Harry’n’Meghan show on Netflix again, another two and a half hours in which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex back resentfully into the limelight to reveal once more their truth, complete with home movies of their son Archie and copious intimate photographs showing them intruding on their own privacy.Stephen Bates is the Guardian’s former royal correspondent. His latest book is The Shortest History of The Crown (the institution rather than the series)Do 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...
Col Lou Caputo says he portrays character to call attention to the need to obey speed limits in school zonesSeveral motorists caught speeding through an elementary school zone on the Florida Keys Overseas Highway received an onion as a reminder to slow down – from a sheriff’s deputy dressed as the Grinch.Col Lou Caputo, a 37-year veteran of the Monroe county sheriff’s office, came up with the concept more than 20 years ago. He was back on the streets this Tuesday. Continue reading...
Ryan Salame told the Bahamian securities commission that funds were being used improperlyOne of the closest lieutenants of FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, warned Bahamian regulators about improper trades at the cryptocurrency exchange in the days running up to its collapse, according to court filings.The revelation came in papers published as part of the bail hearing for Bankman-Fried, FTX’s former chief executive, who was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday and charged in the US on Tuesday over alleged fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. Continue reading...
Tornadoes batter Louisiana while huge storm system hurls blizzard-like conditions at Great PlainsA vast and volatile storm system ripping across the US killed at least three people in Louisiana, spinning up tornadoes that battered the state from north to south, including the New Orleans area. Elsewhere, the huge system hurled blizzard-like conditions at the Great Plains.Several injuries were reported around Louisiana and there were more than 40,000 power outages statewide as of Wednesday night. Continue reading...
Supreme court justice Roger Taney wrote 1857 decision justifying slavery, widely regarded as one of worst rulings in historyThe US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to remove from the Capitol a bust of Roger Taney, the supreme court justice who in 1857 wrote the Dred Scott decision, justifying slavery and denying that Black people had rights any “white man was bound to respect”.If the new measure is signed into law by Joe Biden, the bust will be removed from outside the old supreme court chamber and replaced by a bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice. Continue reading...
Why are these extreme confidentiality clauses still used in the UK to protect the perpetrators of abuse?More than two decades ago, I walked into the offices of a law firm in Soho, my 24-year-old self confident that it would help me to expose and address the appalling behaviour of my then boss, the film producer Harvey Weinstein. His attempted rape of a new assistant while we were at the Venice film festival – on her first occasion alone with him – put me on the path I knew was right. The frightening but clear and proper course to justice.But nothing could have prepared me for the ways in which the legal system would fail my colleague and me so thoroughly, or for the irreversible impact of entering – on our law firm’s advice – into a damages contract containing extreme confidentiality clauses, otherwise known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. Continue reading...
A young boy and his mother were found dead in Louisiana, where their home was destroyed after a tornado hit, according to police. Plus, how the Buy Black movement could benefit the countryGood morning.A destructive storm marched across the US yesterday, spawning tornadoes in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, where the deaths of a young boy and his mother were reported, delivering blizzard-like conditions to the Great Plains and threatening more severe weather in the south.When will the weather improve? The NWS issued a winter storm watch from last night through Friday afternoon, depending on the timing of the storm. Residents from West Virginia to Vermont were told to watch for a possible significant mix of snow, ice and sleet.Many federal agencies including the defense, homeland security and state departments already ban TikTok from government-owned devices. “TikTok is a major security risk to the United States, and it has no place on government devices,” The bill’s sponsor, the Republican senator Josh Hawley said previously. Continue reading...
Estimated number of US gun owners has grown by 20 million in recent years, which experts say may lead to more firearm deathsAmericans bought an estimated 150m guns in the past decade, as a drumbeat of mass shootings and other violence has convinced more people that owning a gun for self-defense will make them safer.In a country where the leading cause of gun death is gun suicide, public health experts say a growth in gun ownership is likely to lead to more deaths. Continue reading...
The feminists who demanded equal rights 50 years ago are revelling in another liberation, from the tired ‘old woman’ tropeMove over, femmes fatales, heartbreakers, wonder women and teenage rebels. There’s a new screen heroine jostling for a place: the bad grandmother. A growing resistance to the tired grandma trope in popular culture as frail, lonely and hobbling is popping up in surprising places. And it’s about time.This week, the second film in David Walliams’s Gangsta Granny franchise will come to the BBC, to the delight of thousands of children enthralled by the transformation of a Scrabble-playing, fussy old lady who smells of cabbage into an international jewel thief known as the Black Cat. Continue reading...
As much as NBA owners and general managers like to believe otherwise, successful teams aren’t math: they’re science. Just look at the state of the once-promising TimberwolvesIt’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. While this is admittedly a bit of an oversimplification, if we’re going on definitions alone, a healthy portion of NBA franchises are, then, insane. The theory that teams are just a sum of their parts – and thus the higher profile and more talented the parts, the better the team – has been disproved time and time again. Sure, having a superstar or two is incredibly helpful (and maybe even necessary) for summiting the highest heights of NBA success, but it’s not a the-more-All-Stars-the-merrier proposition. One needs look no further than the smoldering pile of rubble that was the hopes for a championship of the Big Three in Brooklyn, or last year’s disastrous Los Angeles Lakers, for evidence that more isn’t always more when it comes to superstar talent. And yet, despite its definitively unsatisfactory track record, teams seem to try this method time and time again.The most recent example of this insanity-borne-out can be found in the frozen tundra of Minneapolis. The Minnesota Timberwolves have been, to put it mildly, a historically underwhelming franchise. Entering the 2021-22 season, in fact, the Wolves held the discomfiting crown of being the all-time losingest franchise in North American sports, nudging out the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the dubious distinction. The expectations for the team, at the time, were about as low as possible, which made for an all the more feel-good story as the suddenly gelling Timberwolves stacked improbable wins – and, markedly, enjoyed the hell out of themselves – leading to one of only two playoff appearances for the team since the halcyon days of Kevin Garnett in 2004. The Wolves’ No 1 overall draft pick in 2021, Anthony Edwards, seemed to be especially thriving, with a new coach in Chris Finch and a roster that, while lacking in defense, facilitated his growth and gave him the space to do what he does best, most notably dunking on people within an inch of their lives. Continue reading...
US news | The Guardian