US news | The Guardian

Republican David Rivera, arrested over consulting contract, also charged with acting as unregistered agent of Maduro governmentA former Miami congressman who signed a $50m consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government was arrested on Monday on charges of money laundering and representing a foreign government without registering.David Rivera, a Republican who served in the US House from 2011 to 2013, was arrested at Atlanta’s airport, authorities said. An eight-count indictment against him alleges he was part of a conspiracy to lobby on behalf of Venezuela to improve US-Venezuela relations, resolve an oil company legal dispute and end American economic sanctions against the South American nation – without registering as a foreign agent. Continue reading...

A new app allows users to upgrade where they sit – for a price. It is just another case of inequality being rubbed in your faceIt looks like the airline experience you know and hate may be coming to a restaurant near you soon. A new app called Tablz, which is being used by a handful of well-known eateries in the US, lets you pay extra to choose your table at a restaurant. Want a window seat? Well, everyone else wants it too, buddy, so you’d better pay up! How much depends on how many other people are interested: as with ride-sharing apps, prices on Tablz surge with demand.“The restaurant financial model is broken,” the Tablz co-founder Frazer Nagy told Fast Company. “You can upgrade your hotel room, your car rental … seats on a plane. Every other industry has figured out pricing through upgrades, except restaurants.” Continue reading...

Loan from Daewoo, a company with ties to North Korea, should have been reported in disclosures. Plus, mass strikes in Iran

The court is hearing a case that could allow the kind of naked discrimination that the gay rights and civil rights movements fought so hard to endIt’s not clear what, exactly, Lorie Smith’s problem is. The Colorado woman aspires to be a web designer; apparently, she’s also upset that gay people can get married. Smith is an evangelical Christian who says that her faith makes her object to same-sex marriage.This wouldn’t be anyone’s problem, except that Smith lives in a state with a robust civil rights law, one that forbids business owners who make their services available to the public from discriminating. But Smith really wants to discriminate: she hopes to be able to turn away gay clients from her as-yet-hypothetical wedding website business; she wants to put a banner at the top of her business homepage proclaiming her unwillingness to design websites for gay weddings. The law would forbid this if she ever went into business, so she’s suing.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Evangelicals show their true colors in voting for a Republican mired in unchristian scandalWhy do we have such low expectations for white voters? The midterm elections brought into stark relief just how many white voters are willing to make a mockery of showing any pretense of concern for democracy, good governance or even the barest qualifications for our country’s highest offices. As unfortunate as that behavior is, what’s even more dangerous for the future of the country is how resigned the rest of the country has become to the anti-democratic and intellectually unjustifiable voting patterns of much of white America.On one level, we shouldn’t be surprised because white Americans have been voting against whatever political party is aligned with Black people for more than a century – the civil war itself began when seven slaveholding states, all dominated by the Democratic party, refused to accept the outcome of the 1860 election, seceded from the Union and launched a violent and bloody war. While many would like to believe that such whites-first electoral decision-making is a thing of the past, the most recent midterm elections reveal just how little progress has been made. Continue reading...

A ruling in favor of a fringe legal theory would free the states to make their own rules on gerrymandering and voting proceduresIt was the winter of 2018, and Pennsylvania’s Republicans were desperate.A few weeks into the new year, the Pennsylvania supreme court had struck down the state’s congressional map. The districts, the court said, were so distorted that they “clearly and palpably” violated the Pennsylvania constitution. With their considerable advantage in the state’s congressional delegation at risk, Republicans launched a last-ditch effort to get the US supreme court to intervene. Continue reading...

The Hall of Famer’s success at Jackson State, a historically Black college, brought joy to many. His move to Colorado left even more feeling betrayedSay this much for Deion Sanders: He didn’t slink away under cover of darkness, quiet quit on the season or reach for another dog-eared page from the opportunist’s playbook.Instead, the 55-year-old coach gathered up his Jackson State Tigers players one last time over the weekend and told them that, indeed, the breaking news was true – that the University of Colorado had hired him away. “It’s not about a bag,” he told the somber room. “I’ve been making money a long time and ain’t nowhere near broke. It is about an opportunity.” Continue reading...

With lockdowns over and inflation rising, tips are shrinking in industries that depend on them – from gig work to restaurantsTipping has been essential in the US for generations, but it’s becoming increasingly rare to leave a few $1 bills out on the table – now when we pay for an Uber, buy a coffee or order takeout, a screen demands to know how much we want to tip, putting the ethical decision into clear focus. Thirty per cent? Twenty per cent? A measly 15%? Would anyone dare go lower than that?Before the pandemic, Carlos Tavares says, he got as much as $75 in tips a week driving his gray Toyota Camry for Uber – nothing life-changing, but a nice bonus after working long shifts in New York City. Now that’s fallen sharply, he says, to $20 to $30 a week. “I don’t really know why,” he says. “Maybe people are just trying to save money.” Continue reading...

Some of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods aimed at undercutting US aid are promoted by major figures on the rightEver since Russia launched its brutal war in Ukraine the Kremlin has banked on American conservative political and media allies to weaken US support for Ukraine and deployed disinformation operations to falsify the horrors of the war for both US and Russian audiences, say disinformation experts.Some of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods about the war aimed at undercutting US aid for Ukraine have been promoted by major figures on the American right, from Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes to ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Fox News star Tucker Carlson, whose audience of millions is deemed especially helpful to Russian objectives. Continue reading...

Donors like Peter Thiel poured millions into candidates that no amount of money could sell to voters while Mehmet Oz self-funded a failed runWith the power balance in Congress at stake in this year’s midterm elections, the GOP money machine kicked into high gear. Spending on advertisements and drumming up votes was fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars from the party’s mega-donors and Super Pacs. Many donors’ spending figures marked new records.Their return on investment, however, is probably not what they had hoped: some donors who spent eight figures notched zero wins in the Senate, while others spent far more money on losing candidates than winners. In the midterms, some of the biggest losers were Republican donors. Continue reading...

Lawyer known for representing Stormy Daniels also ordered to pay $7m on top of time he is already servingThe incarcerated lawyer Michael Avenatti was sentenced in southern California on Monday to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $7m in restitution after admitting he cheated four of his clients out of millions of dollars.The sentence should run consecutively to the five-year prison term he is already serving for separate convictions in New York, the US district judge James V Selna said during a hearing in Santa Ana, California. Continue reading...

In a deal, James Howard Jackson pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder after he was accidentally released from custodyThe man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and stole her French bulldogs in Los Angeles last year has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for the high profile robbery that saw the star offer a $500,000 reward for the return of her pets.James Howard Jackson, one of three men and two accomplices who participated in the violent robbery of dog walker Ryan Fischer, pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder, the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office said on Monday. Continue reading...

Richard Cottingham sentenced to 25 years to life for killing Diane Cusick in February 1968A serial killer known as the “Torso Killer” already convicted of 11 homicides admitted on Monday that he also killed five women on Long Island in the late 60s and early 70s.Richard Cottingham was sentenced on Monday to 25 years to life for the killing of 23-year-old Diane Cusick, who was killed in February 1968 after buying shoes at the Green Acres Mall in Nassau county. Continue reading...

When I asked my husband whether we should stop using ‘foul’ language in front of the kids, he laughed

The Grammy winner’s family said they would support state legislation allowing authorities to withhold certain records

Whoever wins will be the first Black person elected from the state to a full Senate termThe winner of Tuesday’s midterm election runoff for one of Georgia’s two seats in the US Senate will make history.Raphael Warnock became the first Black senator from Georgia when he won the 2020 presidential election runoff that helped tip the upper chamber into Democratic control, boosting the party in its capture of the House, the Senate and the White House. Continue reading...

Secretary of state navigated rocky launch of new voting laws that resulted in thousands of discarded mail ballotsTexas’s top elections official resigned Monday after an intense year of trying to reassure election skeptics, navigating the rocky launch of new voting laws that resulted in thousands of discarded mail ballots and overseeing a limited audit of the 2020 election.Secretary of state John Scott, who was appointed by Republican governor Greg Abbott, came under immediate scrutiny from the moment he took the job in October 2021. He was briefly part of former president Donald Trump’s legal team that challenged the results of the 2020 election but said upon taking the job in Texas that he did not dispute that Joe Biden was the winner. Continue reading...

The loan from Daewoo, a company with ties to North Korea, should have been reported in public financial disclosuresDonald Trump failed to disclose a $19.8m loan from a company with historical ties to North Korea, while he was the US president, according to a new report.Documents obtained by the New York attorney general, and reported by Forbes, on Sunday indicate a previously unreported loan owed by Trump to Daewoo, the South Korean conglomerate. Continue reading...

The panel is considering charges that the former mayor’s actions after the 2020 election involved ethical violationsRudy Giuliani, who served as Donald Trump’s hard-charging attorney during failed legal efforts to overturn his presidential election defeat, was accused of “weaponizing” his law license during a turbulent first hearing of a disciplinary panel in Washington DC mulling ethics charges against him.The former New York mayor became argumentative on Monday as Hamilton Fox, of the DC disciplinary counsel’s office, suggested Giuliani had insulted the US constitution with a series of “frivolous” and ultimately futile lawsuits on the former president’s behalf. Continue reading...

Footage showed Mary O’Connor identifying herself as Tampa police chief and telling deputy she was ‘hoping that you’ll let us go’A Florida police chief has resigned after footage showed her flashing her badge and asking to be released during a traffic stop.Tampa police chief Mary O’Connor resigned on Monday after an internal affairs investigation, said Tampa mayor Jane Castor in a statement. Continue reading...

About 40,000 residents without power on Saturday night after two stations were struck with gunfireThe FBI is joining an investigation into what officials are calling a “targeted” attack on a North Carolina power grid that left about 40,000 residents without power on Saturday night.Rumors on social media suggest that the attack was carried out to stop a local drag show. But officials have said a motive for the attack is unknown. Continue reading...

Prosecutors say former president knew of and sanctioned alleged scheme that enriched executives with off-the-books benefitsJurors in New York were on Monday set to deliberate their verdict in the trial of the Trump Organization, accused of running a criminal tax fraud scheme enriching executives with off-the-books benefits including property and luxury vehicles.While Donald Trump himself is not on trial, prosecutors have said the former president knew of – and sanctioned almost every aspect of – the fraud, as head of the eponymous company handling his real estate and other dealings. Continue reading...

Cheryl Parsa, 61, tells NBC News that Walker threw punch that missed and put hand on her throat and chest in Dallas in 2005A former long-term girlfriend of Herschel Walker has spoken of the violence and abuse she says he subjected her to, a potentially devastating television interview airing just before the Republican candidate’s Senate runoff in Georgia on Tuesday.Cheryl Parsa, 61, told NBC News on Sunday night how the former football star, who has been accused by several girlfriends and his ex-wife of mistreating them, grabbed her throat and threw a punch at her when she found him with another woman at his apartment in Dallas. Continue reading...

Private autopsy says Kevin Desir’s death after struggle was homicide, undermining official investigation. Plus, Chinese ‘police stations’ uncovered

All states deny and suppress protests, but the government faces a rapid spread of public anger centred on a galvanising tragedy

The University of California is trying to divide and conquer the 48,000 workers on strike by acceding to the demands of some groups but not othersThe strike by unions representing 48,000 academic workers at the University of California stands at a perilous crossroads. It is by far the largest and most important strike in the history of American higher education, with the potential to transform both the status and income of those who work in an “industry” that now employs more workers than the federal government.Despite all the disruption, the strike has generated virtually no opposition from either the faculty or from most undergraduates. Indeed, student leaders at all nine University of California campuses have endorsed the demand by their graduate student teaching assistants and other academic workers for a substantial wage increase designed to offset the soaring cost of California housing as well as the larger inflationary riptide that has eroded even the paltry salaries, grants and fellowships upon which so many of them rely.Nelson Lichtenstein is research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara Continue reading...

Arizona voters rejected key election deniers, but false conspiracy theories have maintained their powerThe lead-up to Arizona’s midterms saw tactics designed to disrupt the American democratic process in a battleground state where election denialism ran rampant. Though voters broadly rejected election deniers, the grip of their ideas remains strong among large portions of the right in the state, which is now at the forefront of the fight over democracy in the US.“Voters in swing states sent a message that they were not receptive to election denialism. They didn’t send that message everywhere,” said Daniel I Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program. Continue reading...

Did the US reach their potential in Qatar? Should Gregg Berhalter stay on as coach? And who will lift the trophy? Our writers have their sayProbably. Inexperience told in the end, as it usually does, and proved their undoing. By exceeding the expectations of a general public that leaned pessimistic after the Americans’ failure to qualify in 2018, yet falling short of what the team expected from themselves, I’d say they hit it right on the nose. BAG Continue reading...

This is the year to push back on all the old assumptions. There’s joy to be had if you pull yourself off the meathook of consumerismNot every relationship requires a gift. Not all gifts need to be new. Celebratory meals don’t have to be expensive. Affection and love don’t have to be shown through shopping.As the climate emergency and cost of living crisis finally gain a toehold in the public consciousness, this year feels like the time we might finally be able to push back on some outdated Christmas assumptions. You see, there is so much joy to be had at Christmas if you can somehow pull yourself off the meathook of consumerism. The tsunami of television adverts, magazine articles, radio features and advertising hoardings may try to undercut your resolve, but I promise you – there is another way. Continue reading...

A pop-up speakeasy evokes a particular nostalgia – perhaps because the chain was one of the first victims of ‘disruption’On an otherwise unremarkable Los Angeles street corner hangs a familiar blue and yellow logo, forcing passers-by to do a double-take.The image of a ripped ticket stub belongs to ye olde Blockbuster Video, the once ubiquitous US rental chain destroyed by Netflix. But the Blockbuster on Melrose Avenue isn’t actually a store at all – it’s a pop-up speakeasy. Continue reading...

Some believe Black lawmakers adapt to leadership by becoming more moderate – others disagreeDemocratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries first emerged in the mid-2000s as a former corporate lawyer homegrown from central Brooklyn. With his focus on criminal justice reform and housing affordability, he was seen as a progressive of the moment who took on the existing Democratic machine in New York.Now, as the newly-elected successor to House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Jeffries has graduated from state politics to the national stage with the opportunity to make an impression on American politics for years to come. Continue reading...

DoJ says Axel Cox ‘admitted he burned cross because of the victims’ race and because they were occupying a home next to his’A Mississippi man pleaded guilty in federal court to burning a cross in his front yard with the intent to intimidate a Black family, the US justice department said.Axel Cox, 24, of Gulfport in south Mississippi, mounted a wooden cross in his front yard on 2 December 2020, officials said. He then doused it with motor oil and lit it within view of his neighbors, who are Black. Continue reading...

Sacha Baron Cohen skit receives mixed response at ceremony for lifetime achievements in the artsThe British actor Sacha Baron Cohen reprised his character Borat and stole the show at the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in the US on Sunday night, targeting the former president Donald Trump, the rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, and antisemitism.President Joe Biden smiled broadly and his wife, Jill, was in fits of laughter as Cohen told risque jokes in the comical accent of the Kazakh television journalist Borat Sagdiyev. Continue reading...

Broadcaster has offered up a feast of gaffes, stupidity, and unconquerable on-air awkwardness for US viewers to enjoyThe World Cup! A tournament of frenzied emotion, spectacular goals, heroic upsets, and grand displays of athletic daring and skill. Or, if you’re watching it in the US: four weeks of shouting, relentless commercial promotion, disorienting cuts and changes of channel to make way for the college football game, and segments in which Alexi Lalas does pump-up speeches for the US team that no one in the US team will ever listen to; a global exhibition of Clint Dempsey’s ongoing quest to assemble vowels and consonants into an order that resembles words; a month-long celebration of the festival that is Landon Donovan’s personality.At a time when things are clicking on the pitch for the US men’s national team and America finally has a generation of footballers with the technical quality to challenge the world’s best, there’s been something faintly reassuring about Fox Sports’ approach to this tournament. Whereas the USMNT is now a cosmopolitan ensemble of feather-fine talents, the Fox team is the equivalent of a farmers’ league XI that hoofs it long and hopes for the best. Continue reading...

The quarterback was the 262nd and final pick in the 2022 draft. When he suddenly found himself playing against a hot Dolphins team he deliveredYou didn’t have to be at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday to feel the shock as Jimmy Garoppolo was carted off the field in the first quarter against the Miami Dolphins. The season had mostly been on an upward trajectory for the San Francisco 49ers since Garoppolo took over for an injured Trey Lance in Week 2. With Garoppolo, who already knew the playbook, under center and most of the 49ers’ endless offensive weapons healthy and productive, San Francisco were suddenly a team to reckon with. When they traded for Christian McCaffrey in October, they became a legitimate Super Bowl contender.But with Lance out for the season and Garoppolo suffering what would later be revealed to be a broken foot, the chances of victory suddenly seemed grim. The Niners defense is great, the league’s best in fact, but who was going to make sure this team scored points? Enter Brock Purdy, the Iowa State alum who the 49ers took with the last pick of the 2022 draft. Yep, Purdy is the most recent Mr Irrelevant. Continue reading...

The contest between Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed Herschel Walker will decide if Democrats maintain their majorityLast month Democrats secured control of the US Senate, keeping their fragile hold on power with 50 seats and vice president Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Yet winning the Georgia runoff election on Tuesday would deliver Democrats more than just a single Senate seat: it would finally give them an outright majority.The contest between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his scandal-plagued and Trump-backed Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, will determine whether the Democrats retain their 50-50 majority in the Senate, the narrowest possible balance of power, or whether they will expand it. Continue reading...

Exclusive: private autopsy says Kevin Desir’s death after a struggle with six deputies was a homicide, while official one said it was undeterminedA newly-obtained autopsy report has concluded that a 43-year old Florida man’s death after being violently restrained by jailers was a homicide by strangulation.On 17 January, 2021, Kevin Desir became unresponsive after a struggle with six deputies at the North Broward Bureau facility, a jail operated by the Broward county sheriff’s office (BSO) in south Florida. The jail specifically detains arrestees who have mental and physical disabilities, as well as those with mental health problems. Continue reading...

Revealed: a private autopsy report shared with the Guardian concludes Desir’s death was a homicide

This week’s African Union summit in Ivory Coast is an opportunity to work towards a holistic food security strategyMalnutrition looms large in Africa. Over a fifth of the continent’s 1.3 billion people faced hunger last year, more than twice the level of any other continent.Even before the war in Ukraine jeopardised supplies to many African countries of grain and fertiliser needed to feed their people or for growing crops, Covid-19 had disturbed food processing and supply chains, affecting world economies and provoking agricultural and food inflation. Continue reading...

Dave Joyce of Ohio, chair of the Republican Governance Group, says he will vote for Trump if he is nominee in 2024A leader of moderate Republicans in the US House repeatedly refused to condemn Donald Trump on Sunday, even after the former president, running for re-election in 2024, said the US constitution should be “terminated” to allow him to return to power.“Whoever the Republicans end up picking, I’ll fall in behind” them, Dave Joyce of Ohio told ABC’s This Week, adding that he thought Americans did not want to look back to the 2020 election, the subject of Trump’s lies about electoral fraud and demand for extra-constitutional action. Continue reading...

The US were ultimately shown to be inferior to the world’s best at this World Cup. But they have the potential to make an impression as hostsWhether the United States depart the Middle East having accomplished Gregg Berhalter’s clearly articulated goal of changing the way the world perceives American soccer is an open question.The overall result following Saturday’s defeat to the Netherlands, which laid bare just how far the Americans have to go before contending with the world’s elite, doesn’t offer a clear answer. After surpassing the tempered expectations of supporters back home by getting out of a tough group but falling short of their own lofty goals, the wholly reconstructed US team made it exactly as far as their previous two appearances at the tournament: to the last 16 and out. Continue reading...

Police say no indication shooting politically motivated as teen working for Democrat is treated for non-life threatening injuriesA teenager was shot outside a home in Georgia while campaigning for Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democratic senator who faces a runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker on Tuesday, police said.The Savannah police department said a 42-year-old man shot at the teenager through a closed door on Thursday, striking the teen in the leg. Continue reading...

Mary O’Connor and her husband were stopped by an officer for driving a golf cart without a license plateThe police chief of Tampa, Florida, was placed on administrative leave after flashing her badge in an attempt to get out of a traffic stop, the city’s mayor said.On 12 November, Mary O’Connor and her husband were stopped by a Pinellas county sheriff’s deputy for driving a golf cart without a license plate. Body camera footage showed the officer explaining to the pair why he stopped them. Continue reading...