Some say his bets on extreme candidates are risky, as losses could threaten his role as king and kingmaker in the Republican partyHe has long held that the true measure of a man is his TV ratings. So perhaps it came as no surprise when Donald Trump endorsed a celebrity doctor for a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania.“They liked him for a long time,” Trump said of Mehmet Oz at a rally in Pennsylvania last week. “That’s like a poll. You know, when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll. That means people like you.” Continue reading...
Santa Ana residents were awakened from their sleep as police played loud music to prevent themselves from being recordedA California police department has launched an investigation into its own officers who were filmed blaring copyrighted Disney music in attempts to prevent residents from recording them.The incident in question occurred during a vehicle search on the night of 4 April, when residents in Santa Ana, a city near Los Angeles, woke up to a series of Disney songs being blasted outside their windows. The songs included Toy Story’s You Got a Friend in Me, Encanto’s We Don’t Talk About Bruno, Mulan’s Reflection and Coco’s Un Poco Loco. Continue reading...
State party members had reportedly called on the ex-president to not back any candidate, pointing to Vance’s past statementsDonald Trump has picked a side in the contentious Republican primary for US Senate in Ohio, backing JD Vance, the bestselling author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy.In doing so on Friday, the former president chose to forgive Vance’s previous opposition to him and caustic comments about Trump. Continue reading...
The vice-president and her husband reported a gross income of $1.7m while the Bidens made $611,000Kamala Harris and her husband earned more than twice as much as Joe Biden and his wife did last year, according to copies of their income tax returns released on Friday.Harris and the so-called second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, reported a federal adjusted gross income of about $1.7m in 2021, which was about the same they claimed to have earned the prior year. Continue reading...
Former EPA administrator is seeking seat being vacated by Republican senator Jim Inhofe in OklahomaScott Pruitt, who had a scandal-ridden spell in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency under Donald Trump, filed on Friday to run for an open US Senate seat in Oklahoma.Pruitt, 53, a former state senator and Oklahoma attorney general, is seeking the seat being vacated by the longtime Republican senator Jim Inhofe. Continue reading...
Subpoenaed former White House adviser gives virtual deposition on whether Trump encouraged supporters to march on CapitolFormer White House aide Stephen Miller testified on Thursday to the House select committee investigating January 6 about whether Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol, according to a source familiar with the matter.The virtual deposition, which lasted for roughly eight hours and was earlier reported by the New York Times, also touched on Miller’s role in the former president’s schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election and return him to office, the source said. Continue reading...
A Black man face-down on the ground was fatally shot in the back of the head by a Michigan police officer, the violent climax of a traffic stop, foot chase and fight over a stun gun, according to videos of the 4 April incident released by police. Patrick Lyoya, 26, came to the US fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014.
Richard Moore, 57, convicted of 1999 killing of convenience store clerk, to be first prisoner put to death in South Carolina since 2011A South Carolina prisoner scheduled to be the first man executed in the state in more than a decade has decided to die by firing squad rather than in the electric chair later this month, according to court documents filed on Friday.Richard Moore, 57, is the also first state prisoner to face the choice of execution methods after a law went into effect last year making electrocution the default and giving inmates the option to face three prison workers with rifles instead. Continue reading...
Mount Vernon’s crumbling sewage infrastructure has for years caused unsanitary backups in homes and pollution of local riversAfter decades struggling with failing sewage infrastructure, the majority-Black city of Mount Vernon, New York, is getting a significant funding package aimed at preventing unsanitary backups in homes and stopping pollution from leaking into local rivers.New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced on Friday that the state will dedicate $150m toward projects that include repairing and replacing the city’s collapsing sewage pipes. Some of the funding is set aside for families affected by the sewage failures. It would also help bring the city into compliance with federal court orders to stop raw sewage from pouring into the Bronx and Hutchinson rivers, which flow south into New York City’s Bronx borough, as the Guardian reported last year. Continue reading...
The family’s lawyer says Grand Rapid police officer broke protocol by using the Taser too close to LyoyaThe grief-stricken parents of the Black man shot in the back of the head by a white Michigan police officer have described their son’s death as an “execution”.Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese refugee, was killed after a traffic stop in Grand Rapids on 4 April. Continue reading...
Sharing in a celebrity couple’s joy, an elevator hitch, and why it’s time to stop quoting David MametI hate myself for it, but as with new leads on cold cases or anything involving the House of Grimaldi, I simply can’t look away. Brooklyn Beckham, whose achievements in photography are rivalled only by those of Rocco Ritchie’s in portraiture, married Nicola Peltz in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, and on Monday the rest of us got to share in their joy. I took away three things from my glancing exposure to the 479 pages of coverage: Brooklyn’s extraordinary gaucheness, the ongoing question of what Romeo’s deal is, and the strange ubiquity of Eva Longoria. Continue reading...
It never really made sense when Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady retired and then abruptly unretired from the NFL earlier this year. Could it have all been part of an elaborate plan?Remember a few months back when Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady retired from the NFL and then unretired? How it was all just weird and awkward, and felt like there was something else going on behind the scenes? Since then, multiple unconfirmed reports have emerged suggesting that this was indeed the case. Continue reading...
New Yorkers deserve to feel safe – and not have their fears dismissed by progressives. But heavy-handed solutions won’t solve the problemOn Wednesday, police finally arrested Frank James, the man accused of shooting up a crowded subway train in New York City, wounding 10. James, strangely, had called in the tip himself, telling police he was at a Manhattan McDonald’s. Other New Yorkers spotted the subway shooter too, assisting the police.Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, touted the arrest as another victory for the New York police department and called, once more, for increased surveillance on the subways. “We believe we have a technology that we can use in the subway system that many passengers are not even going to be aware that they are walking past a device that could detect weapons, and we are excited about the possibilities and I’m not going to leave any legal technology off the table when it comes down to keeping New Yorkers safe,” Adams said on MSNBC.Ross Barkan is a New York City-based writer Continue reading...
Male voters have been drifting right in record numbers – and Republicans are taking a viciously homophobic and sexist tack to appeal to themThe 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be among the most deeply gender-divided elections in American history. A new poll by NBC News, measuring voters’ preferences ahead of the November elections, shows that the gap in women and men’s voting patterns has deepened considerably over the past 12 years, with Republicans holding an 18-point advantage among men, and Democrats holding a 15-point advantage among women. That 33-point gender gap is up from a 16-point divide in the 2010 midterms.Despite the large degree of analytical attention that has focused on the voting habits of suburban white women, it seems that it’s men who are changing their voting habits most dramatically. The NBC News polling shows that men with college degrees have moved dramatically to the right, lurching towards Republicans by 26 points since just 2018. Men on the whole have moved towards Republicans by 20 points.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
by Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil with photographs by Carlos on (#5Y70T)
Venerable Sanathavihari is breaking down language and cultural barriers to welcome newcomers to an LA templeWhen Venerable Sanathavihari was ordained as a Buddhist monk eight years ago, it was a lonely experience. As a young Mexican American who grew up Catholic in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, he didn’t know many other monks he could relate to.But since then, he’s helped build a flourishing Latino Buddhist community at Sarathchandra Buddhist Center in North Hollywood, a temple founded by Sri Lankan Americans. The temple now has two Latino monks and another in training – thought to be the most at any temple in LA – as well as a growing number of Latino laypeople who help sustain temple life. Continue reading...
Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, claimed he was following orders when he stole a coat rack from a Senate officeAn Ohio man who claimed he was only “following presidential orders” from Donald Trump when he stormed the US Capitol has been convicted by a jury that took less than three hours to reject his novel defence for obstructing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.The federal jury on Thursday also found Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, guilty of all five of the other charges in his indictment, including stealing a coat rack from an office inside the Capitol during the riot on 6 January 2021. The maximum sentence for the obstruction count, the lone felony, would be 20 years’ imprisonment. Continue reading...
Sexual violence will continue in war zones until commanders actually end up in the dock for overseeing such atrocitiesThey read like messages from one of the creepier dating apps, or else the sort of unwanted lechery with which many young women on social media are grimly familiar.One man suggests sharing “a large bed, we could sleep together” and then letting “what we both want happen”. Another is keen to let the recipient know she is “so beautiful”, while a third immediately asks, “Are you single?” But these aren’t just any old clumsy sexual overtures. These are messages left for women fleeing war-torn Ukraine, on a Facebook group seeking to match refugees with Britons offering sanctuary. The grotesque parody of shelter some men see fit to offer is a chance to flee the threat of rape by Russian soldiers, but only for somewhere you might want to barricade yourself into the spare bedroom at night. An undercover reporter posing as a refugee found more than half the messages sent to her came from men living alone, some explicit about the strings attached to their offers.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Growing numbers of bosses are offering special sweeteners to anyone willing to trudge back to work – but will they work?Since the pandemic began, millions of workers around the world have gone remote and we now have a raft of recent studies that suggest what many workers have long argued: remote work makes people happier, healthier, and even more productive. And it’s especially preferred by people belonging to underrepresented groups, who have reported feeling more included and less anxious when remote.Despite pandemic restrictions lifting, workers aren’t in a hurry to return to the office, or “RTO”. A tight labor market is making it even harder for companies to force people to come back. Banks like JP Morgan initially took a hard line on ending remote work, but have backed down in the face of worker revolts. Continue reading...
This year feels particularly jolly because Ramadan, Passover and Easter all align – putting billions of us on the same pageEaster is the best holiday, hands down, no debate. In October, when the first Christmas decorations start to appear, it triggers deep dread in all right-thinking people. I’m in the US, where Thanksgiving doesn’t land for me, ditto the Fourth of July. There’s no day off for Halloween, but in any case that’s an occasion just for the kids. Like everything else, Easter has become more commercial – the shops are full of wicker baskets stuffed with shredded paper that once spilled, will never fully be expunged from your home. But relative to other holidays, it feels like the one grownup break in the year. Truly, who can be miserable about the advent of spring?For non-believers raised in a roughly Christian tradition, part of the joy of Easter has to do with it being uncoupled from religion without an attendant secular mythology springing up in its place. “The Easter bunny isn’t real,” said one of my children this week, and after giving it a moment’s thought, I realised she was right. No one sells the Easter bunny as real to their kids, even as we shill desperately for Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I’m not sure why this is; on paper, a giant bunny isn’t any more ludicrous than a fat man flying on a sleigh. But no one cares enough about Easter to put in the ground work and the resulting low pressure of the event is sublime.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York Continue reading...
Two sources reported that she was planning to leave her job in the coming months, being ‘frustrated by the slow pace of climate progress’White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy is planning to step down, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations, likely ending a tenure marked by ambitious emissions targets but failure in securing major US carbon-cutting legislation.McCarthy, 67, had initially planned to remain in the White House for about a year, hoping to help federal agencies implement President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate legislation, but those efforts stalled amid intraparty opposition from key Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin. Continue reading...
Some of the animals found by authorities in Mohave County, including dogs, rabbits, birds and others, were frozen aliveAn Arizona man faces animal cruelty charges after 183 dead dogs, rabbits, birds and other animals were found in a freezer, including some that were apparently frozen while alive, officials said.Mohave county deputies and animal control officers found the animals in a garage freezer on 3 April after a woman reported that Michael Patrick Turland, 43, hadn’t returned snakes she’d lent him for breeding, the sheriff’s office said Thursday in a statement. The freezer was at a home that Turland previously rented in Golden Valley, a rural community in far western Arizona. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and agencies on (#5Y6GX)
Border patrol officials and the Cochise county sheriff’s office investigating cause of death of the 32-year-old womanA Mexican woman attempting to climb the US border wall in eastern Arizona died after her leg became trapped in a climbing harness and she was left hanging upside down, authorities said.Border patrol officials and the Cochise county sheriff’s office said they were investigating the cause of death of the 32-year-old on a section of the wall near Douglas, Arizona. The sheriff’s office said her foot and leg became entangled as she tried to maneuver down the US side of the wall and that she hung upside down “a significant amount of time”. Continue reading...
Nearly a quarter of those awaiting trial are held beyond deadlines amid pandemic, at cost to their wellbeingMore than two years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly a quarter of those incarcerated in San Francisco county jail are being held past their original trial deadlines, with some individuals waiting for years for their cases to be heard.In June 2020, in the early months of the pandemic, 68 people were incarcerated in the county past their original trial deadlines, according to data from the public defender. By January 2022, the latest data available, that number had grown to nearly 250. Hundreds more are awaiting trial out of custody. Continue reading...
He was found guilty on charges that he injected the men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to overdosesThe wealthy political activist and Democratic donor Ed Buck was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges that he supplied and personally injected gay men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to two deaths and multiple other overdoses.Buck, 67, was found guilty in July by a federal jury on all nine counts, including having a drug house, distributing methamphetamine and enticing men to travel for prostitution. Continue reading...
After an arrest in the Brooklyn subway shooting, Tahhan has become a social media star. But there’s plenty of credit to go roundIn the aftermath of the Brooklyn subway shooting, social media has found its latest star.Zack Tahhan, 21, was quickly anointed as a hero on Wednesday following the arrest of Frank R James, the suspect in the attack that injured 29. But the real story, it seems, was more complicated – and Tahhan wasn’t the day’s only hero. Continue reading...
Immigrant groups seek transparency: ‘Ice’s reluctance to share what data it’s acquiring and how it’s using it should give us pause’Immigrant advocates and legal groups are suing the US government over its controversial and rapidly growing alternative to detention program, an effort that subjects migrants awaiting legal status to intensive surveillance through various forms.Just Futures Law, Mijente Support Committee and Community Justice Exchange filed a lawsuit against US Immigrants and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Thursday to obtain information about the data the agency is collecting on migrants surveilled through ATD. The groups first requested the information from the agency nearly eight months ago. Continue reading...
Republican National Committee accuses organization that has run electoral debates since 1987 of biasThe Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, saying the group that has run the debates for decades was biased and refused to enact reforms.“We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” the committee’s chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, said in a statement. Continue reading...
Frank James did not enter a plea on charges of violating a law that prohibits terrorist and violent attacks against mass transportationThe man detained on a terror charge after shooting 10 people on a New York subway was denied bail and remanded in custody on Thursday after his first court appearance.Frank James, 62, did not enter a plea on charges of violating a law that prohibits terrorist and violent attacks against mass transportation. Continue reading...
Wildfire has prompted eviction orders for as many as 4,500 people, and destroyed more than 200 residencesA wind-driven fire burning across New Mexico is believed to have killed two people, after the remains of a couple were found near their charred home.Police investigators and firefighters found the older couple’s remains on Wednesday afternoon after family members notified police that the two had tried to evacuate but were unaccounted for. Continue reading...
His cooperation is a blow to Trump’s efforts to shield information about his movements on the day of the insurrectionStephen Miller, Donald Trump’s former top adviser, will give testimony to the January 6 committee today, according to a source familiar with the matter.The reported cooperation of Miller is further evidence that the House investigation into the Capitol riot is lapping at the doors of the Trump Oval Office, after the former president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, both former senior White House advisers, gave their own testimony in recent weeks. Continue reading...
Maureen O’Connor, the chief justice of the Ohio supreme court, is defying her party by rejecting skewed electoral mapsHello, and happy Thursday,Over the last few months, an extraordinary standoff has been taking place in Ohio. And at the center of this dispute is Maureen O’Connor, the Republican chief justice of the Ohio supreme court. Continue reading...
Patrick Lyoya, aged 26, was killed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during a struggle after a traffic stopA Black man face-down on the ground was fatally shot in the back of the head by a Michigan police officer, the violent climax of a traffic stop, foot chase and fight over a stun gun, according to videos of the 4 April incident released by police on Wednesday.Patrick Lyoya, 26, a Congolese refugee, was killed on a residential street in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Continue reading...
The Japanese phenom has become a global star after one of the greatest games ever pitched, and he has survived tragedy along the wayThere are no-hitters. There are perfect games. And there’s the sort of virtuosity that Rōki Sasaki managed to conjure for two and a half unforgettable hours on Sunday afternoon at the Zozo Marine Stadium outside Tokyo.Sasaki, a right-handed flamethrower for the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, achieved one of his sport’s rarest feats when he retired the minimum 27 batters without allowing an opposing player to reach base in a 6-0 win over the Orix Buffaloes, racking up a record-tying 19 strikeouts in only 105 pitches. Even more remarkable: he’s still only 20 and grew up amid the wreckage of the 2011 tsunami after his house, and several family members, were swept away by the floodwaters. Continue reading...
Volodymyr Zelenskiy calls for European Union to impose embargo on Russian oil. Plus: our food system isn’t ready for the climate crisis• Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been severely damaged, Moscow has said, following an explosion that Ukraine claimed was due to a missile strike. The entire crew was evacuated.The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called for an oil embargo on Wednesday, demanding EU states “stop sponsoring Russia’s military machine”.The US president, Joe Biden, announced a further $800m in military assistance to Ukraine as the country prepares for Russia to ramp up its efforts in the country’s eastern regions.What will happen to the officer? He is on paid leave during the investigation.Where did the footage come from? Lyoya’s passenger, the officer’s body-worn camera, the patrol car and a doorbell camera. Continue reading...
A sudden enforcement of a jewellery ban in F1 seems aimed squarely at Lewis Hamilton’s piercingsLewis Hamilton’s glinted piercings and gleaming earrings are as much a part of his look as his afro-natural hairstyles and sharp tailoring. The 37-year-old’s habit of wearing jewellery in competition has never been an issue in his 15 previous F1 seasons, seven of them ending in world championships.But at last week’s Australian Grand Prix, rookie race director Niels Wittich made clear that he would be enforcing a longstanding regulation banning drivers from wearing any material under their livery that isn’t fireproof. In his Melbourne pre-race notes Wittich expressly prohibited “the wearing of jewellery in the form of body piercings or metal neck chains” while allowing drivers a few races’ grace period to comply. After that, they risked a fine or reprimand. Continue reading...
On social media, a tendency to connect disparate news stories is causing many of us to lose our sense of realityAs a child, in the back of the car on drives along the motorway, I would look for connections between the number plates on surrounding cars. How many started with an odd number? How many with an even number? The search for patterns is a common human trait. People also see images in TV static, or nonexistent patterns in the goals scored in football games. There is a term for this: illusory pattern perception, the human tendency to try to make sense of the world by finding relationships between stimuli. It has been found to be a “central cognitive mechanism” accounting for conspiracy theories and supernatural beliefs.I see this in the inclination to stitch together disparate cultural events (see, here I am, looking for meaning) that has become widespread on social media. The tendency to think that everything can be linked to something else, or compared, or both, and hence explained. The recent Oscars slap by the actor Will Smith was compared, nonsensically, to both Harvey Weinstein’s sustained history of sexual abuse and harassment, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was just one recent example of something that happens all the time.Rachel Connolly is a London-based journalist from Belfast Continue reading...
Frank R James, 62, was arrested in Manhattan close to where he was spotted hours earlier by a member of the publicThe man suspected of firing more than 30 shots in a gun attack on a New York subway train has been charged with a federal terror offence.Frank R James, 62, was arrested on Wednesday afternoon on the Lower East Side in Manhattan by two patrol officers without incident and is being held at a local police precinct. Continue reading...
The man suspected of firing more than 30 shots in a gun attack on a New York subway train has been charged with a federal terror offence. Frank R James, 62, was arrested on Wednesday afternoon on the Lower East Side in Manhattan by two patrol officers without incident and is being held at a local police precinct.Officials said James was apprehended thanks to a tip a few hours earlier from a member of the public in a McDonald’s on Sixth Street and First Avenue
Judge unseals evidence of WhatsApp texts between UK-based men who reportedly made $700m on collapse of oil price in 2020“Please don’t tell anyone what happened today lads x,” one of a group of traders dubbed “the Essex Boys” texted his colleagues as they reportedly made $700m on the collapse of the oil price in 2020.The text and others were unsealed in a Chicago court on Tuesday as a US judge gave the green light to a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against the traders. Continue reading...
State is investigating whether Trump’s ex-chief of staff committed fraud by registering to vote at residence he never owned or lived inDonald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been removed from the electoral roll in North Carolina, amid a criminal inquiry into whether he committed election fraud by registering to vote at a residence he never owned or lived in.Melanie Thibault, director of the Macon county board of elections, confirmed her decision to the Asheville Citizen Times, which reported that the registration for Meadows’s wife, Debra, remained active. Continue reading...
Tax records from 2014 to 2018, analysed by ProPublica, show 25 Americans collectively earned $401bn but paid just $13.6bnBetween 2014 and 2018, the 25 wealthiest Americans collectively earned $401bn, but paid just $13.6bn – about 3.4% of that – in taxes, according to a bombshell ProPublica investigation into the finances of the wealthiest Americans released on Wednesday.The investigation is the latest in a series ProPublica started in June 2021 that looks at the tax records of the top 0.001% wealthiest Americans. This installment uses a trove of tax filings from 2013 to 2018 to dive into the wealth of the 400 richest Americans, all of whom earn more than $110m a year. It found that the wealthy benefit from lower tax rates on financial assets and deductions from charitable contributions to keep their taxes low. Continue reading...
CDC says it is extending order, which was set to expire on 18 April, to allow more time to study Omicron subvariantThe Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it is extending the US nationwide mask requirement for public transit for 15 days as it monitors an uptick in Covid-19 cases.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was extending the order, which was set to expire on 18 April, until 3 May to allow more time to study the BA.2 Omicron subvariant that is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the US. Continue reading...
