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Family statement says Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh were included in prisoner swap mediated by Saudi ArabiaTwo military veterans from Alabama who volunteered to defend Ukraine from Russian invaders but were captured are back home, according to a statement provided to the Guardian on Sunday.The statement from the family of Alex Drueke, 40, said he and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, were among 10 foreign nationals included in a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia that was mediated by the Saudi Arabian government. Continue reading...

More than 2,100 high school seniors were taken to event that left many of the students traumatized, some attendees sayMore than 2,000 public school students in Louisiana were told earlier this week that they were going to a college fair. They were then shuttled to what parents later deemed a sexist and transphobic church event which left many of the students traumatized.On Tuesday, more than 2,100 high school seniors from the East Baton Rouge Parish School System – which serves residents of Louisiana’s capital – were taken to the local Living Faith Christian Center under the promise that they would receive college and career advice, as well as free food. Continue reading...

Cayman Islands and Jamaica brace while Florida governor declares emergency, with storm headed to state by midweekFlorida residents on Saturday were bracing for a heavy tropical storm system that weather experts warn could become a major hurricane.Ian – upgraded to a hurricane from a tropical storm Sunday – was poised to intensify steadily after forming on Friday over the southern Caribbean. The storm could cross over into parts of Cuba before heading to Florida by the middle of next week, according to forecasts. Continue reading...

Ex-president denied knowing his supporters were rioting and called them ‘fucking crazy’, Maggie Haberman writes in new bookDonald Trump denied knowing at the time the January 6 attack on the US Capitol started that a mob of his supporters – whom he privately called “fucking crazy” – were rioting, the author of a forthcoming book on his chaotic presidency writes in what may stand as one of the most surprising, non-believable postscripts of his tenure in the Oval Office.“I didn’t usually have the television on. I’d have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening,” Trump told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming account Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Continue reading...

Director claims 2013 encounter with film publicist was consensual and that accusation came in retaliation for leaving the churchOscar-winning director Paul Haggis will be allowed to argue that the Church of Scientology is behind a rape allegation against him, a judge in New York has ruled.Haggis, who was separately accused over the summer of sexually assaulting a woman at an Italian film festival, will be permitted to argue that church members were involved in a previous rape allegation brought by film publicist Haleigh Breest dating back to 2013. That case, stemming from a civil lawsuit pursued by Breest, is set to go to trial next month. Continue reading...

US national security adviser says: ‘Any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia’America and its allies will act “decisively” if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, reaffirming the Joe Biden White House’s previous response to mounting concerns that Vladimir Putin’s threats are in increased danger of being realized.“We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail,” Sullivan told CBS’s Face The Nation. Continue reading...

The robust online community that fuels the NBA’s popularity can be its greatest asset and a dangerous liability. For the past seven days, the full spectrum has been on displayThe NBA, as a league, fandom and general cultural phenomenon, is what could be fairly described as “painfully online”. From stars like Kevin Durant gleefully and regularly dunking on detractors from their own Twitter accounts, to media personalities like Josiah Johnson who have made entire careers out of memeing the league in real time, to the average fan constantly refreshing their feeds during playoff games: it seems, in many ways, that the crux of the NBA exists in the internet ether as much as it does on the hardwood.The community that has formed around the NBA online has become maybe its greatest present-day asset, keeping fans engaged and keeping the league in the news even in the doldrums of the offseason. In 2021, “NBA” was the No 1 trending search on Google in the US, and its official Instagram account has more followers than all the other major professional sports leagues in the nation combined. Of course, there’s strength in numbers. But as the uncle of a famous spider-human mutant once astutely observed, with great power comes great responsibility. And, as evidenced over the last week, the power of the ever-churning internet hivemind can be a force for good, and a force for quite the opposite. Continue reading...

Wednesday’s session is committee’s last chance to show potential culpability of Donald Trump before midterm electionsThe House January 6 select committee is expected to hold its final public hearing next Wednesday, with the congressional investigation into the US Capitol attack nearing its conclusion as staff counsel prepare to produce an interim report of its findings before the 2022 midterm elections.The specific topic of the final hearing that the panel’s chairman, Congressman Bennie Thompson, will convene starting at 1pm is unclear. Continue reading...

With the kids off at university, it is just the two of us left at home and the kitchen is officially closedMy nest is officially empty. After some last-minute flapping (how many succulents can you squeeze into a wheelie case, don’t pack a pestle and mortar heavier than a neutron star, that kind of thing), the last fledgling left. So it’s just the two of us and that means one thing. Not nudity – it’s 14C indoors here. The end of cooking. “I’ll make your birthday dinner,” I told my husband, grudgingly. “Then we stock up on beans and baking potatoes.” This is no empty promise: I’ve been preparing and anticipating for months.Well before my sons left, I ran down our overstocked cupboards, treating food requests with miserly suspicion. No, you can’t have broccoli, this gluten-free muesli bought by accident in 2017 is sufficiently nutritious, and no, the black specks aren’t weevils. Probably. I used to be appalled at what my father would offer on my impromptu visits: three wizened apples, a thimble of sunflower seeds and a two-pack of shortbread fingers from Great Western Railway, the latter presented proudly as a decadent indulgence. Now that seems aspirational.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

A multigenerational fight for reparations is underway from Palm Springs to Gold Rush countryThere’s a willow tree in Hayward, California, that Marian Johnson takes her mother to every year on her birthday. Johnson’s great-grandfather planted the tree decades ago, on his sprawling farm property in Russell City, an unincorporated part of Alameda county in the San Francisco Bay area that used to be predominantly Black and Latino.Today, the tree is all that’s left of Johnson’s family’s land, which in the 1960s was seized, razed and turned into an industrial park. “It was a major loss for us,” said Johnson. “It was a lot of hurt and pain.” Continue reading...

The Martha’s Vineyard debacle illustrates how important it is to expand our definition – and treatment – of asylum seekersIn the United States, Asylum is a place on a map. Today, the roughly 1,000-person, predominantly white, scattered township sits quietly along the Susquehanna River, about 60 miles north-west of Scranton, Joe Biden’s birthplace.But more than two centuries ago, Asylum hosted the crème de la crème of French society – displaced aristocrats, military officers, business owners, secular clergy – hoping to manifest another Paris in the Pennsylvania woods. Continue reading...

A new version of the website, quietly launched a year ago under new owners, is attracting interest and readers againGawker was once one of the most infamous websites in US media.It began life as a scrappy outsider that turned blogging into a business as a purveyor of irreverent, anti-establishment snark against the rarefied world of elite US media in New York. As it grew it actually turned into a genuinely influential news organization before a spectacular 2016 collapse when it lost a privacy lawsuit for publishing a sex tape featuring the wrestler Hulk Hogan. Continue reading...

Putin’s propaganda glories in devastation but, like the Nazis, he is sowing the seeds of self-destruction‘Do you want Total War?” Goebbels demanded of the Nazi faithful as the Second World War went south for Germany in 1943. He depicted a Reich surrounded by evil Jewish cosmopolitan conspirators bent on its destruction and he advocated for total mobilisation and to embrace a glory-in-death ideology.Vladimir Putin delivered his own (partial) version last week. As the Ukraine war goes south for Russia, he claimed the defeats are the result of cosmopolitan conspiracies bent on destroying Russia and he had to announce (partial) total mobilisation. He called on Russians’ sense of historical mission and implied Russia was ready to use nuclear weapons. “This isn’t a bluff,” he insisted. Continue reading...

The backlash against the death of Mahsa Amini has generated viral images of civil unrest, but how complete a picture do they provide?In the second week of December 1978, between 1 and 2 million people marched peacefully through Tehran calling for the Shah to leave. Around a fifth to almost a half of the city’s population was on the streets. The CIA, warily watching opposition in a key regional ally and client for US arms, noted that one man was “the focal point”, providing “guidance and support for the movement acting in his name in Iran”. This was the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then thousands of miles away in exile in Paris, though his portrait was carried by many of the marchers.Decades later and the regime established by Khomeini is still in power in Iran. Crowds are on the streets again in Tehran and other Iranian cities following the death on 16 September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police, who accused her of breaking laws on wearing the hijab introduced by Khomeini’s regime in 1981. Women have thrown headscarves on to fires, vast posters celebrating the regime have been torn down, police stations torched. The unrest appears set to intensify. Continue reading...

Florida governor now claims he was helping migrants find ‘greener pastures’ in Martha’s VineyardTo hear Ron DeSantis tell it, his splurge of up to $12m of Florida taxpayers’ money to fly migrants between two states he’s not governor of is all Joe Biden’s fault.The US president’s border policies, the Republican Florida governor insists, left him no alternative but to step in to the immigration fight, which he did by dumping two planeloads of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week with no advance notice. Continue reading...

If Republicans cannot drag Vance across the finish line, it could spell doom for the party’s hopes of flipping the SenateJD Vance had some explaining to do. After winning a brutal, costly primary to secure the Republican nomination in Ohio’s Senate race, Vance had spent the summer making few appearances on the campaign trail and allowing his Democratic opponent, congressman Tim Ryan, to dominate the airwaves.Now polls showed Vance, a first-time candidate and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, running neck and neck with Ryan in a race that many Republicans had hoped would be an easy win. Continue reading...

Douglas Jensen could face more than 50 years in prison after federal jury found him guiltyA QAnon conspiracy theorist who led a pack of Donald Trump supporters that chased a solitary police officer around the US Capitol on the day of the January 6 attack has been found guilty of several felonies.Douglas Jensen – the bearded 43-year-old Iowa man who appeared in several media photos of the attack while wearing a black T-shirt with a large “Q” – could in theory face more than 50 years in prison after a federal jury in Washington DC convicted him on Friday, US justice department prosecutors said in a statement. Continue reading...

Yareni Rios-Gonzales hospitalized after officers fail to pull her from car they had parked on tracksA dramatic video released by Colorado authorities shows the moment a freight train hit a police patrol cruiser parked on the train tracks with a person handcuffed in the backseat.The video, which was released on Friday by the Platteville and Fort Lupton police departments, shows how Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20, was hurt after officers from both agencies detained her in a patrol car on 16 September as they searched her pickup truck for weapons. Continue reading...

The city’s bounce-back from the pandemic hasn’t been helped by a shortage of staff and fewer people looking to partyNew York is the city that never sleeps. Or is it? Post-pandemic, short-staffed restaurants are closing earlier and the city’s late-night bars, gyms and clubs are less plentiful than they once were.Amid the economic stress, back-to-work drive, crime and other quality of life issues facing the metropolis, mayor Eric Adams and the city’s Office of Nightlife are fighting to reclaim the small hours and get New Yorkers back to showing off their moves on the dancefloors. Continue reading...

Several clinics halt procedure as dual measures, including 19th-century ban with no exception for rape or incest, take effectAlmost all abortions became illegal in Arizona on Saturday, after a new law banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy took effect and a judge lifted an almost 50-year-old injunction that blocked a near-total ban on abortions from being enforced in the state.Judge Kellie Johnson of Pima county’s superior court released a ruling on Friday that allowed the enforcement of the decades-old ban, a day before a new law that would ban most procedures after 15 weeks was scheduled to take effect, reported the Washington Post. Continue reading...

County prosecutor will decide whether Republican Kristi Noem broke an untested law to rein in questionable use of state planeSouth Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem, was returning from an official appearance in Rapid City in 2019 when she faced a decision: overnight in the capital of Pierre, where another trip would start the next day, or head home and see her son attend his high school prom?The Republican governor chose the latter, a decision that eventually cost taxpayers about $3,700 when the state airplane dropped her off near her home and then returned the next day to pick her up. Continue reading...

Republicans have made it very clear that they aren’t going to stop at abortion: they’re coming for birth control and fertility treatmentsGoing through fertility treatment isn’t fun at the best of times: it’s expensive, invasive and emotionally exhausting. Ever since Roe v Wade was overturned earlier this year, however, getting fertility treatments in the US has become exponentially more stressful; the end of Roe triggered a spate of new personhood bills in Republican states which define a fertilized egg or embryo as a legal human entity. If you know anything about in vitro fertilization (IVF), which I’m not sure any of the men drafting these personhood bills do, you’ll immediately know that makes IVF hugely complex. Numerous embryos are usually created during the IVF process as not all will be genetically viable. Unviable embryos, along with embryos that aren’t donated or frozen for later use, will be disposed. If these collections of cells are considered people then, according to the personhood laws, you’ve committed a crime by disposing of them. Continue reading...

FBI agents have questioned Lawrence Hecker, 91, who worked as a Catholic priest in New Orleans until 2002 despite the archdiocese being aware of molestation accusation since 1988In arguably the clearest sign yet that he is under active criminal investigation, a retired Catholic priest from New Orleans who has been publicly accused of molesting “countless” children but never charged has acknowledged that the FBI recently questioned him.Lawrence Hecker, 91, declined to elaborate on exactly when FBI agents met with him or what they asked him as they reportedly lead an investigation into whether clerics serving a Louisiana region that is home to nearly half a million Catholics took children across state lines to abuse them. But, in a brief conversation with the Guardian, Hecker admitted that FBI agents had spoken with him. Continue reading...

With water a precious commodity in California, residents are turning to native plants – saving money without sacrificing beautyA lush green lawn has long been a symbol of the perfect American home. But as a prolonged drought reshapes life in California, many residents are rethinking what a beautiful yard should look like.In Los Angeles, which imposed sweeping restrictions on outdoor water use this year, thirsty lawns are out - and California native plants are in. From mansions in Brentwood to old family homes in Koreatown to neighborhoods in South LA, Angelenos are installing climate-friendly yards full of California buckwheat, toyon, sage, and succulents, and building in garden features to help conserve and retain the state’s limited rainwater. Continue reading...

Juan is one of a number of asylum seekers being sent from Texas to other states without choice after long, dangerous treks to the USFive Venezuelan men walked together in the dark, trying to find the address US immigration officials had given them. It was almost midnight in downtown Sacramento, a city they had never heard of and an unexpected destination.One of them, Juan, 29, who asked for his real name to be withheld out of fear of jeopardizing his asylum request, had expected to end up in New York. He’d spent more than a month on the journey from Venezuela to the US-Mexico border. Continue reading...

Justice department gains access to about 100 documents with classified markings that the FBI seized from the resortAttempts by Donald Trump to delay the criminal investigation into his unlawful retention of government secrets have been largely thwarted after the Department of Justice regained access to about 100 documents with classified markings that the FBI seized from the former US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.The US appeals court for the 11th circuit this week set aside key parts of an order by a federal judge that barred the department from using the documents in its investigation, and additionally ruled that Trump’s lawyers need not review the documents over potential privilege concerns. Continue reading...

The Brothers of Italy leader denies she is a fascist but clings to the Mussolini-era slogan ‘God, homeland, family’Giorgia Meloni presents a danger to the democratic balance in Europe. Her leadership looks to be the antithesis of what Italy needs – and not just at this difficult moment.The danger arises for Europe because Italy has always been a laboratory: it has foreshadowed the crises of other countries. Italy had Mussolini before Hitler and the leftwing extremist Red Brigades before Action Directe appeared in France and the Red Army Faction followed suit in Germany. Italy had Berlusconi before the US got Trump. And after years of Berlusconi misrule, Italy produced the Five Star Movement, the first populist party led by a comedian, before the rest of Europe caught up. Five Star’s agenda was political disruption, often without any thought to the consequences. Continue reading...

Sending people to Martha’s Vineyard and Rwanda is a bid to paint them as marauders. But wealthy economies depend on their presenceIn the United States, the Republican governors of Texas, Florida and Arizona are bussing and flying migrants from their states to states governed by Democrats. In the United Kingdom, the government plans to deport migrants to holding facilities in Rwanda, an authoritarian country 4,000 miles to the south, which only a generation ago experienced one of the worst genocides in recent human history.In one wealthy country after another, migrants are being made into a spectacle, both for domestic political advantage and to deter other migrants from attempting to come. Continue reading...

Dozens of Congress members seek inquiry into whether transport of asylum seekers from Florida and Texas broke federal lawDemocratic lawmakers have called on the US justice department to investigate whether Florida and Texas officials broke any federal law when they moved dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under allegedly false pretenses.The letter from the congressional representatives Gerry Connolly, Sylvia Garcia, Ted Lieu and dozens of other Democrats followed the emergence of a report in which a 27-year-old Venezuelan said he was paid $200 by a mystery figure known as “Perla” to find people outside the San Antonio migrant center to board a flight. Continue reading...

Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, 32, who wore a Hitler-style moustache, guilty of obstructing a congressional session and other crimesAn American army reservist who was openly antisemitic, was an avowed antisemite and wore a moustache styled after Adolf Hitler was given a four-year prison sentence on Thursday after being found guilty of helping attack the US Capitol on January 6 2021.Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, 32, received his punishment at Washington DC’s federal courthouse about four months after a jury found him guilty of obstructing the congressional session held on the day of the Capitol siege to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading...

Joe Biden says attacks Republicans’ midterms agenda, saying real goal is to ban abortion nationwide

City is also considering cruise ships and summer camps as it struggles to house an estimated 13,000 asylum seekersNew York’s mayor says he plans to erect hangar-sized tents as temporary shelter for thousands of international migrants who have been bussed into the city as part of a campaign by Republican governors to disrupt federal border policies.The tents are among an array of options – from using cruise ships to summer camps – the city is considering as it struggles to find housing for an estimated 13,000 asylum seekers who have wound up in New York after being bussed north from border towns in Texas and Arizona. Continue reading...

Cyril Derreumaux, 46, spent 91 days on a ‘magnificent adventure’, traveling 2,400 miles from Monterey to HiloAfter three months at sea, rationed meals and a brush with a tropical storm, a San Francisco Bay Area man became the second person to successfully kayak from California to Hawaii.Cyril Derreumaux reached Hilo early Tuesday morning on his second attempt to complete the 2,400-mile journey, which he documented on social media. Continue reading...

Vertol Systems Inc also has connections to a Florida official in charge of its current immigration policyThe transportation service company that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, used to arrange flights for migrants to Martha’s Vineyard has contributed money to the governor’s top allies and has connections to a Florida official in charge of its current immigration policy.Vertol Systems Inc, an Oregon-based aviation company that DeSantis used to fly asylum seekers to the affluent, liberal-leaning Massachusetts island, has connections to DeSantis’s political allies and has donated money to various campaigns, NBC News reported. Continue reading...

The House minority leader introduced the Republicans’ ‘Commitment to America’, focusing on Biden and not on TrumpRepublicans have unveiled a midterm election agenda heavy on critiques of Joe Biden but light on specific policies – and with a throwback theme to the mid-1990s.After a primary season dominated by extremist “Make America great again” (Maga) candidates and deniers of the 2020 election result, Friday’s launch also represented an effort to tone down rhetoric and win back independent voters. Continue reading...

Putin’s saber-rattling doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll deploy nukes. But he certainly couldNews of the Ukrainian army’s recent advances swept across western capitals like fresh air. A war that was for months mired in crushing artillery fire had suddenly opened up. Russian forces, outmaneuvered by the Ukrainian army, fled, again proving weaker than anyone expected. Hopes lifted that Ukraine could win the war and force their tormentor back to the prewar battlelines – and perhaps further.Russia shared the same assessment. Vladimir Putin knows his military is badly damaged and getting weaker. The Russian president responded with military mobilization and preparations to annex the Ukrainian regions Russia now controls, just as he did in Crimea in 2014. He also threatened to use nuclear weapons to “protect Russia” – implying he may use them to defend the regions he is annexing.Christopher S Chivvis is a senior fellow and director of the Carnegie Endowment’s American statecraft program Continue reading...

Democratic nominee says he hopes supporters don’t ‘have a doctor in your life making fun of it’ amid questions over strokeAmid questions over his recovery from a stroke and demands he release his medical records, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Pennsylvania, asked supporters if they had faced health challenges themselves.He added: “I truly hope for each and every one of you you didn’t have a doctor in your life making fun of it.” Continue reading...

Alan Miller’s judicial killing called off two months after execution of Joe Nathan James took three hoursPrison officials in Alabama abandoned an attempted lethal injection of a man on Thursday after trouble accessing his veins, two months after the state was accused of “cruel and unusual punishment” when it spent three hours executing Joe Nathan James.Alabama halted the execution of Alan Miller, who was convicted of killing three people in a shooting in 1999, after they determined they could not get the lethal injection under way before a midnight deadline. Continue reading...

Let’s make the US the most welcoming country on Earth – and bring order and humanity to a dysfunctional systemFlorida governor Ron DeSantis’s cruel scheme to lure and transport vulnerable asylum seekers from the south to Massachusetts marks a new low in the immigration culture wars. The refugee crisis in our hemisphere demands bold and humane solutions, but the policy debate is frozen by the politics of fear and racism. Republicans grandstand about the issue for political advantage, while many Democrats would prefer to change the subject.We propose a “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century that would set a goal for the US to become the most welcoming country on Earth for migrants and refugees and bring order and humanity to a dysfunctional system. The antidote to the venomous nativism that poisons our politics is to embrace immigration as a pillar of civic and economic renewal. Continue reading...

Yoon Suk-yeol was caught swearing after a chat with Joe Biden on the sidelines of the UN general assembly that reportedly lasted less than a minute. Speaking as he left an event in New York, Yoon was caught by a 'hot' microphone, saying to aides: 'How could Biden not lose face if these fuckers do not pass it in Congress?' This was apparently in reference to Biden’s push to increase the US contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which would require congressional approval

Troops melting away and Russians fleeing abroad to avoid mobilisation doesn’t augur well for Putin’s latest gambleThe Ukrainian counteroffensive is yet another major development in the Russia–Ukraine war that took Russia entirely by surprise. Images of fleeing Russian soldiers, leaving behind equipment as well as evidence of war crimes, have once again filled the media. Wiping out months of Russia’s territorial gains, quick Ukrainian advances caused a domino effect; massive and chaotic Russian retreat left a huge hole in their defences.Unable to stabilise the frontline after devastating defeats in Izyum and Kupiansk, Russia was forced to retreat along the Oskil and Seversky Donets rivers, leaving itself exposed to further Ukrainian advances and decimating any remnants of morale. Even the most pessimistic observers must admit that the way things are going, Russia needs nothing short of a miracle to avoid a devastating defeat.Olga Chyzh researches political violence and repressive regimes. She is an assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of TorontoDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

Migrant workers in labour camps face poor pay and conditions but their fear of losing those jobs underlines their exploitationIn a dusty car park, near to one of the largest labour camps in Qatar, Worker A gets into my car. I will call him Worker A, not because I do not want to reveal his name, but because I do not know his name.He only agrees to talk to me after I show him my name on the articles I have written and match it to my passport. I hand over my phone to prove I am not recording anything. Continue reading...