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Justine Lindsay, a 29-year-old Black trans woman, will cheer for Carolina Panthers ‘TopCats’The first openly transgender cheerleader of the National Football League (NFL) will make her debut in the 2022 season starting in September.Justine Lindsay, a 29-year-old Black trans woman, will cheer for the Carolina Panthers “TopCats”, becoming the first openly trans cheerleader of the NFL, BuzzFeed News first reported. Continue reading...

DNA technology helped detectives link six women’s cases to man accused of being carrying out string of rapes in 1980sAdvanced DNA technology helped detectives link the cases of six women to a man accused of being the “pillowcase rapist” for a string of rapes in the 1980s.Robert Koehler is currently jailed in Miami-Dade county in Florida, where he faces charges for assaulting a woman in the early 80s, the sheriff of neighboring Broward county, Gregory Tony, said in a Tuesday morning news conference. Continue reading...

Jack Dunn was detained for 30 hours with no access to phone or family because onward flight from US went to neighbouring country

One official tells investigators he gave two vote tabulators to a ‘third party’ who kept them for several weeks in early 2021State police in Michigan have obtained warrants to seize voting equipment and election-related records in at least three towns and one county in the past six weeks, police records show, widening the largest known investigation into unauthorized attempts by allies of Donald Trump to access voting systems.The previously unreported records include search warrants and investigators’ memos obtained by Reuters through public records requests. The documents reveal a flurry of efforts by state authorities to secure voting machines, poll books, data storage devices and phone records as evidence in an inquiry launched in mid-February. Continue reading...

Startling direction from Trump campaign to Georgia operatives contained in email that is part of US DoJ investigation, reports sayDonald Trump’s campaign directed Republican party operatives named as “alternate” electors in Georgia to operate with “complete secrecy and discretion” as the then president attempted to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The startling direction was contained in an email which is part of a US justice department investigation, CNN and the Washington Post reported. Continue reading...

Public hearings by House committee investigating Capitol attack will be broadcast live on all main TV networks except Fox NewsThe public hearings by the House committee investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, which start on Thursday, will be broadcast live by all main TV networks and cable channels in America bar one – Fox News.The historic proceedings kick off at 8pm New York time, and in Watergate style will attract near-blanket live coverage on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and more. By contrast, the most-watched TV news channel, Fox News, will stick with its primetime show, Tucker Carlson Tonight. Continue reading...

The palace will be pleased with the public reaction. But they learned again how heavily they still rely on the Queen for that goodwillScanning the jubilee press coverage, the Buckingham Palace media teams must have allowed themselves a glow of satisfaction. The four days passed off more successfully than perhaps they might have feared. Her Majesty was nursed through the celebrations and potential pitfalls were skilfully evaded: Prince Andrew’s dose of Covid proved convenient; the Sussexes did not draw too much attention to themselves.Better still, from the monarch’s point of view, they were seen playing happy families. Prince Charles had Camilla firmly by his side and was even seen to be dandling Prince Louis on his knees during Monday’s pageant, while his parents, Prince William and Catherine, looked almost like normal parents, minus the hassles most have to endure. Prince George, meanwhile, betrayed the boredom of small boys everywhere, forced to listen to his parents’ sort of music: oldies he’d never heard of at the concert. Normal people, yet not normal at all.Stephen Bates reported on the royal family for the Guardian and is the author of Royalty Inc Continue reading...

Ugly trunks, high ponytails and an Italian ‘snack’ – it’s time for another hot summer of semi-scripted entertainmentWe try to be better people. Every year we make fresh vows to eat healthier, scroll less, spend more time nurturing our inner child by taking up watercolours and reading books about foraging. And it works, for a while. We post our Strava achievements online and tell our followers how “sorry” we are to reveal that eating vegetables and not binge drinking makes you feel “good, actually”. Then June arrives. The adverts begin to appear on our timelines and in train stations; 10-foot digital billboards of Britain’s most waxed humans winking suggestively in bikinis. The concept of free time begins to wither before our eyes as we resign six hours a week to watching future ambassadors for Gymshark pretend to be unlucky in love. By the time that jingle hits the airwaves, like Pavlov’s bell for Twitter addicts – brrr br br br br BREE br br – escape is futile. Another summer – another eight weeks of Love Island to lead us astray.As hundreds of elected representatives poured into the House of Commons on Monday evening to affirm or renounce their confidence in Boris Johnson, 11 random twentysomethings rode into Mallorca on jeeps to ascend to the position of national celebrity. At the exact hour the leadership of the United Kingdom teetered on the rocks, the top trending name on social media was Curtis Pritchard, a man famous for saying he likes to be “the person who gets up and makes everyone a coffee so that everyone is ready for the morning” three years ago. It was a strange contrast of events: the unfortunate cynicism of real-life politics meets the overblown fervour of semi-scripted entertainment. Does it make sense? Not one bit. Am I here for it anyway, despite proclaiming that Love Island was “over” not 12 months ago? Apparently yes.Emma Garland is a writer specialising in culture and music Continue reading...

If, as is expected, Roe v Wade is overturned by the US supreme court, 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion – and data tracking could mean there’s nowhere for women to hideIf you are looking for a cheerful column that will make you giggle and distract you from everything that is wrong with the world, click away now. This week I have nothing but doom, gloom and data trackers for you. If you are hoping to sink into a well of existential despair, maybe let out a few screams into the void, then you’ve come to the right place.Here goes: the US supreme court, as you are no doubt aware, is expected to overturn Roe v Wade and the federal right to an abortion very soon. At least 13 Republican-led states have “trigger laws” in place, which means that the moment Roe is overruled, abortion will be fully or partly banned. Other states will follow suit. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organisation, 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion when Roe falls.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Sean Bickings, 34, drowned in a a reservoir in Tempe, Arizona, last month as three police officers watched, refusing to step in and save him. One officer told Bickings 'I’m not jumping in after you', Fox 10 Phoenix first reported. Newly released bodycam video and a transcript of the incident provide insight into the events leading up to Bickings’ death and the role of the officers at the scene

The movement to protect innocent lives from gun violence is a multi-generational struggle akin to that which won African Americans civil rights or gay Americans the right to marrySome days it feels like guns are such a foundational part of American identity that the country would have to cease to be itself before it would give them up. When a gunman murdered dozens of elementary-age schoolchildren, leaving their bodies in such a state that parents had to give up DNA samples for them to be identified, it was one such day. What cultural value, what material interest, could be worth this? It must be something that its defenders consider supremely important.Guns – that’s what. Critics of the sickness which is America’s obsession with guns often focus their fire on the second amendment, or the perverse political influence of the National Rifle Association. But neither of these things really get to the root of the pathology. It’s true that gun-rights advocates rely on a surely mistaken reading of the constitution to justify arming themselves to the teeth. And it’s also true that the NRA is a malign force in American politics. But the constitution can be changed or reinterpreted, and special interest groups can be vanquished. What is at issue here is something more foundational, and more difficult to change: American culture itself. Continue reading...

Far-right group’s chair among those accused over alleged plot to block Biden’s certification on 6 January. Plus, UK PM survives leadership vote

With the Warriors v Celtics series in full flow, we look back at the individuals who stepped up when the championship was on the lineDirk Nowitzki earned his only championship playing against “the Heatles,” the Miami super team formed when perennial All-Stars LeBron James and Chris Bosh took their talents to South Beach to join Dwyane Wade, yet another perennial All-Star. Game 1 of the series immediately gave the oddsmakers reason for concern. In a tense, low-scoring affair in Miami, Nowitzki used a splint to shrug off an in-game torn tendon in his left hand before hitting the game-winner with the very hand he injured. He then won Game 4 despite having a sinus infection and a fever of 101F, confirming his now undisputed ability to play excellently through trying circumstances. Continue reading...

Following the strategy used in legal actions against cigarette and opioid firms, the lawsuits attempt to sidestep a law shielding gun makersWith each slaughter of innocents, the gun industry offers its sympathy, argues that even more weapons will make America safer, and gives thanks for a two-decade-old law shielding the firearms makers from legal action by the victims.Mike Fifer, the chief executive of one of the US’s leading handgun manufacturers, Sturm Ruger, once described the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) as having saved the firearms industry because it stopped in its tracks a wave of lawsuits over the reckless marketing and sale of guns. Continue reading...

Report on 300 top US companies found CEOs making an average of $10.6m, with the median worker getting $23,968The wage gap between chief executives and workers at some of the US companies with the lowest-paid staff grew even wider last year, with CEOs making an average of $10.6m, while the median worker received $23,968.A study of 300 top US companies released by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) on Tuesday found the average gap between CEO and median worker pay jumped to 670-to-1 (meaning the average CEO received $670 in compensation for every $1 the worker received). The ratio was up from 604-to-1 in 2020. Forty-nine firms had ratios above 1,000-to-1. Continue reading...

Monique Dawson says she was fired after she joked with a man who said he’d never back governor for re-electionA video of a woman apparently working as a door-to-door canvasser supporting Greg Abbott went viral after she burst out laughing when a resident said he would “absolutely not” back the Texas governor.“Everybody’s got to have a job,” Monique Dawson said, seemingly referring to her own position with the campaign. Continue reading...

Enrique Tarrio and four other members accused of plotting to attack the US CapitolTop leaders of the far-right Proud Boys group, including its national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, have been charged with seditious conspiracy for plotting to storm the US Capitol to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s election win over Donald Trump on 6 January 2021.The move by federal prosecutors to charge Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with seditious conspiracy – in addition to previous charges of obstructing a congressional proceeding – marks a major development in the criminal investigation into the Capitol attack. Continue reading...

CBS and YouGov poll returned familiar results, including 62% support for a nationwide ban on semi-automatic riflesNearly half of Republican voters think the US just has to live with mass shootings, according to a poll released in the aftermath of the Texas elementary school murders and as politicians in Washington negotiate for gun reform.The CBS and YouGov poll returned familiar results, including 62% support for a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles, the kind of gun used in Uvalde, Texas. Continue reading...

Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty after fatally shooting two and injuring one in Kenosha unrest, made claim on FridayKyle Rittenhouse – who was acquitted last year on charges related to a triple shooting resulting in two deaths during racial justice protests in Wisconsin – will not attend Texas A&M University as he has claimed, school officials said.In an appearance on Friday on a conservative radio show, Rittenhouse said he would attend Texas A&M University and it would be “awesome”. Continue reading...

Three Tempe police officers who stood by as Sean Bickings drowned placed on non-disciplinary administrative paid leaveAn Arizona man drowned in a reservoir as three police officers watched, refusing to step in and save him.The victim, identified as 34-year-old Sean Bickings, drowned in Tempe town lake while three unnamed Tempe police officers stood by and watched, one telling Bickings “I’m not jumping in after you,” Fox 10 Phoenix first reported. Continue reading...

US justice department prosecutors say both jets flew to Russia in March, violating export restrictionsA federal judge in New York on Monday authorized the US government to seize two private jets owned by Roman Abramovich, after they flew to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, officials said.The order from Judge Sarah Cave, based in Manhattan, is one of several sanctions from the US and other western countries aimed at billionaires from Russia since the invasion in February. Continue reading...

Denver poll indicates Trump is losing grip on Republican party as DeSantis wins 71% of the vote to Trump’s 67%Conservative activists in Colorado have again placed Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, a rising star in Republican circles, above former president Donald Trump in their preference for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination.DeSantis won 71% of the vote to the former president’s 67% in the straw poll, which was taken during the weekend’s Western Conservative Summit in Denver and means little in itself. Participants are allowed to offer multiple responses. Continue reading...

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein write in new book foreword that bid to overturn election made Trump ‘our first seditious president’Donald Trump was the first seditious president in US history, surpassing in his efforts to hang on to power beyond even the criminal imagination of Richard Nixon, according to the two political reporters who were instrumental in securing Nixon’s downfall.In a new foreword to their celebrated 1974 book on the Watergate scandal, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein accuse Trump of pursuing his “diabolical instincts” by zeroing in on the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory by Congress on January 6 last year. In the authors’ assessment, Trump’s unleashing of the mob that day, culminating in the violent attack on the US Capitol, amounted to “a deception that exceeded even Nixon’s imagination”. Continue reading...

The ugly logic of sanctions is to make conditions so intolerable that people rise up against Maduro or the military removes him. That hasn’t happened and there’s no reason to think it willWith the war in Ukraine and a ban on Russian oil sales, the Biden administration has been seeking alternative sources of crude to try to ease prices at the gas pump. But a recent overture to oil-rich Venezuela was met with an immediate backlash from both Republicans and Democrats, who condemned the White House for negotiating with the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro. And last month, when the White House said that it would let Chevron begin talks with the Maduro government that could possibly lead to an expansion of its very limited activities in the country, there was a similar outraged response.For all the noise generated by the outreach to Caracas, there has been virtually no discussion of why the US has an oil embargo against Venezuela in the first place or why, in the face of the failure of economic sanctions to alter political realities in the country, US politicians are so intent on keeping them in place.William Neuman is the author of Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela Continue reading...

Navy mourns ‘tragic loss’ after Lt Richard Bullock’s Super Hornet went down on training mission in Mojave desert last weekA US navy lieutenant died when his fighter jet crashed in the desert in California late last week, military officials said on Sunday evening.The killed pilot, Richard Bullock, was flying his F/A-18 Super Hornet on a training mission on Friday afternoon when the aircraft went down in a remote, unpopulated area near Trona, an unincorporated Mojave desert community in San Bernardino county, the navy said in a statement. Continue reading...

The problems and worries are perennial, but each generation experiences them differentlyI’ve been thinking a lot about Rachel Cusk, specifically her memoir, A Life’s Work, which turned 20 last year. The public reaction to this brilliant account of early motherhood was at the time swift and brutal – and the judgment it received came mostly from other women, writing in newspapers. Reading about it made me nervous to be straying into similar territory.Having co-written a book in my 20s criticising women’s magazines, I have been bitten by the fangs of public “feminist” discourse before, most notably perhaps by Germaine Greer, whose assertion in her review that “the female breast does not express unless compressed” has also been on my mind, as I leak through yet another three layers of fabric and laugh. Continue reading...

A Texas law dictates which firms state agencies can do business with and requires written affirmations to the attorney generalAfter a 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead, JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, publicly distanced itself from the firearms industry. Its chief financial officer reassured the media that the bank’s relationships with gunmakers “have come down significantly and are pretty limited”.That was then. This past September, a new Texas law went into effect that bans state agencies from working with any firm that “discriminates” against companies or individuals in the gun industry.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

To address this issue, some police departments have explored bringing social workers along to assist family members and explain officers’ responseFor Americans who have lost family members to gun violence, the scene outside Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was all too familiar. The yellow caution tape. The distraught parents shouting at law enforcement officials and begging them for action or answers. And the officers’ response: reports and footage of relatives being restrained and allegations that some parents were even handcuffed or tasered.“They had no empathy,” Yvonne Trice, an activist from California whose son was killed in 2015, said of the police treatment of relatives in Uvalde. Continue reading...

Do Cleveland believe more than 20 women are lying? It’s something that the team that handed him the richest contract in NFL history has yet to answerA 23rd civil lawsuit was filed against Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson alleging sexual misconduct last week. By the time you read this, that number could be 24.Earlier this month, a pair of the accusers appeared on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel to detail their experiences with Watson. Those stories led to the 23rd woman filing suit. Continue reading...

A confluence of high-stakes events – mass shootings, inflation, the Ukraine war – have left Americans deeply pessimistic about the direction of the country and frustrated with WashingtonIn his third run for president, Joe Biden’s pitch to Americans was simple: after half-a-century in elected office, including eight years as vice-president, he understood the demands of what is arguably the hardest job in the world. It was a point Biden stressed on the campaign trail, in his own folksy way: “Everything landed on the president’s desk but locusts.”Nearly a year-and-a-half into his presidency, Biden now appraises his own fortunes differently. “I used to say in Barack’s administration: ‘Everything landed on his desk but locusts’,” he told Democratic donors in Oregon. “Well, they landed on my desk.” Continue reading...

American alligators usually live in and around rivers, swamps, marshes and lakes – not the desertFinding alligators in swampy states like Florida and Louisiana is no big deal, but it’s much different when you’re talking about the west Texas desert.And that’s exactly where one of the large reptiles turned up last week, when Midland county sheriff’s office deputies spotted a gator at a trailer park. Continue reading...

Committee intends to reveal previously secret White House records, photos and videos to prove how Trump broke the lawThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack will unveil new evidence at Watergate-style public hearings next week showing Donald Trump and top aides acted with corrupt intent to stop Joe Biden’s certification, according to sources close to the inquiry.The panel intends to use the hearings as its principal method of revealing potential crimes by Trump as he sought to overturn the 2020 election results, the sources said, in what could be a treacherous legal and political moment for the former president. Continue reading...

Gunfire erupted Saturday night in Philadelphia’s downtown area and near a Chattanooga nightclub and north-west of Detroit on Sunday morningGunfire killed three people and wounded at least 11 in one of downtown Philadelphia’s most popular entertainment districts late on Saturday night, hours before separate shootings in Tennessee and Michigan left six dead and at least 16 wounded, authorities said.The violence erupted as many, including US president Joe Biden, call on Congress to enact meaningful gun control measures, especially in the wake of deadly mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. Continue reading...

Sunday’s parade descended into random silliness after a bizarre and forgetful look at the UK through the decadesForget Diana Ross, Rod Stewart and Elton John phoning in an appearance from abroad. It was always going to be a hard act to follow Paddington Bear and the corgi light show at Saturday night’s party at the palace. But the royal family had decided that there had to be four days of platinum jubilee celebrations, and so the show had to go on. This time to a pageant that at times looked as if it had been organised by Prince Edward for It’s a Royal Knockout.The BBC’s coverage began an hour and a half early at 1pm and presenter Kirsty Young initially looked as if she could not face another day of having to ask random guests about why the monarchy was so important both to them and the nation. She had already heard just about every possible answer, most of which were variations on duty, service and no one having come up with anything better. Continue reading...

Gina Raimondo’s comments seen as part of a White House push to deflect blame for nation’s economic troubles away from BidenJoe Biden’s commerce secretary Gina Raimondo attempted on Sunday to shift blame for the US inflation crisis back onto Russia’s war in Ukraine, days after another cabinet member admitted the presidential administration had made failures in predicting its impact on the economy.Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, conceded last week she made an error in 2021 when she said inflation, which has only recently dropped from a near 40-year high, posed merely a “small risk”. Continue reading...

Member of Capitol attack committee says decision not to charge the two with contempt of Congress could ‘impede our work’California congressman Adam Schiff – a member of the select House committee investigating the deadly Capitol riots – said Sunday it was “a grave disappointment” that federal prosecutors opted against charging two former Trump White House officials who ignored subpoenas seeking information on the January 6 attack.Schiff said on CBS’s Face the Nation that he couldn’t see why the federal justice department would treat Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and communications coordinator Dan Scavino differently than it did ex-aides Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon. Continue reading...

Senator Chris Murphy says measures passed in Florida after Parkland shooting could attract Republican supportThe Democratic senator leading his party’s push for stronger gun laws said on Sunday he believed measures passed in Florida following the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland could attract Republican support and provide a workable template for action in Congress.Chris Murphy of Connecticut, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, said he was optimistic that recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, could finally prompt enough bipartisan support for legislation that has previously proven elusive. Continue reading...

The program offers funds to minority-owned businesses, or those in low-income areas, as well as to companies that have trouble attracting financingA not-so-new federal program to help small businesses just began distributing funds this past week. How much? How does $10bn sound?That’s not a joke. The federal government is making available $10bn and all small businesses in the country are eligible for the money. This is not the paycheck protection program or the economic injury disaster loan program. Both of those Covid-relief efforts have expired. This is also not a loan program from the Small Business Administration. It’s from the treasury department. The program is called the state small business credit initiative, or SSBCI, and it works like this. Continue reading...