The Fox News owner was also dubbed ‘one of the most destructive forces in the US’ by the presidentJoe Biden called Rupert Murdoch “the most dangerous man in the world”, according to a forthcoming book.The comment, from mid-2021, is reported in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, two New York Times reporters. Continue reading...

After my mother’s death, I tried to fool myself that I could look after him at a time in my life when I couldn’t even take care of myselfI was 21 years old when my mother died in 2011. While this was sad, what was even more shattering was how my 75-year-old father aged overnight. Being alone made him fall into a deep depression. He needed to be around people constantly, loneliness was his nemesis, and there was no easy antidote. On his own, he would not always eat enough, or drink enough, and he was at risk of falling over.On the verge of adulthood, I had no idea what to do regarding my father’s care. I had gone from studying Noam Chomsky at university to studying care facilities. At first, we tried an assisted living facility, which offered round-the-clock care while retaining a degree of independence. However, the loneliness was all too consuming. He neglected himself, and it soon became apparent that this was not the right place for him.Jen McPherson is a student and freelance journalistIn the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393. In the US, Mental Health America is available on 800-273-8255. In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. Continue reading...

Workers in Staten Island formed the first Amazon union in the US. Their victory makes Bezos’ space flight seem like small fryThe first Amazon union was always going to be a big fucking deal. But it’s hard to imagine how it could have been any sweeter than this one was. When it became official on Saturday morning that more than 8,000 workers in an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island had voted to unionize with the independent Amazon Labor Union, it meant that America’s most powerful non-union company has just been cracked open not by some deep-pocketed institutional force, but instead by a former employee, with no real experience or budget, who started organizing just because he saw that it needed to be done.Before we plumb the analytical depths of the import of this for the future of the American working class, we must just say, to Amazon founder and mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos, recently returned to earth from a short trip to space in a personal luxury rocket: Ha. Hahahaha.Hamilton Nolan is a labor reporter at In These Times Continue reading...

By equating Putin and Xi, Western leaders risk casting aside possibilities for international cooperation and setting the world on a path to far wider geopolitical conflictIn the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s highly publicized meeting with Xi Jinping before the Beijing Winter Olympics seems to have crystallized opinion in the west. In the US and its allies, political leaders, commentators and journalists now portray a monolithic authoritarian bloc bent on extinguishing the rules-based order that has safeguarded peace and democracy for decades.According to the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, “a new arc of autocracy is instinctively aligning to challenge and reset the world order in their own image.” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, characterized the joint communique coming out of the Putin-Xi meeting as aiming to establish “the rule of the strongest [over] the rule of law, intimidation instead of self-determination, coercion instead of cooperation”.Tobita Chow is the director of Justice Is Global, a project of People’s Action and the People’s Action InstituteJake Werner is a Global China post-doctoral research fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center Continue reading...

House select committee seizes momentum as it embarks on final push to conclude evidence-gathering phase of inquiryThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalize on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete the roughly one hundred remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election. Continue reading...

Poor People’s Pandemic report concludes that while virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government didThe devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on poor and low-income communities across America is laid bare in a new report released on Monday that concludes that while the virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government did.As the US draws close to the terrible landmark of 1 million deaths from coronavirus, the glaringly disproportionate human toll that has been exacted is exposed by the Poor People’s Pandemic Report. Based on a data analysis of more than 3,000 counties across the US, it finds that people in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties. Continue reading...

Ukraine president says worse atrocities may yet be uncovered as satellite images show mass grave near church in Bucha. Plus, scientists urge end to fossil fuel useGood morning.Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Russia’s public image is now one of torture and execution after the retreat of Russian forces in the town of Bucha led to the discovery of the remains of hundreds of civilians.What has Russia said about the reports coming out of Bucha? Russia’s foreign ministry said footage of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha had been “ordered” by the US as part of a plot to blame Russia.Is rape being used as a weapon of war? There is a mounting body of evidence that summary executions, rape and torture have been used against civilians in areas under Russian control since the Kremlin launched the invasion of its neighbour on 24 February.What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 39 of the Russian invasion.What is the US government going to do go help Ukraine? Blinken would not be drawn on the details of US military aid being sent to Ukraine, but said the aim was “to make sure they have the systems they need”. Continue reading...

LGBTQ+ parents and pediatric psychologists say the law stigmatizes being gay or transgender and could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youthStella, 10, attends a private school in Atlanta, Georgia, and explains to friends that she has four moms. Two of them are the lesbian couple that adopted her. The other two are her birth parents, one of whom recently came out as a transgender woman.“I’m so grateful that [Stella] is somewhere that sees” the family “as what it is: her moms just love her”, said Kelsey Hanley, Stella’s birth mother, who lives in Kissimmee, Florida. Continue reading...

Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg has said 'thoughts and prayers are not nearly enough' after six people were killed and 10 injured in an early morning shooting on a Sacramento street busy with revellers. Police said they were still searching for suspects, with no one in custody. 'How many unending tragedies does it take before we begin to cure the sickness in this country?' Steinberg said, commenting on gun violence across the US

With cocktails booming in popularity, it appears they may be a link between hard times and hard liquorIt is far from an exact science, taking a nation’s pulse from what it’s drinking. Cocktail sociology tends, alas, to be looked down upon by the Academy. The field is sadly overreliant on the datasets of second-rate spiced rum brands. Still, cocktails are, apparently, selling in record numbers: they accounted for almost one-tenth of alcohol sales in bars and restaurants between April and October 2020, compared with 6% before the pandemic; and the at-home cocktail market has grown 44% year on year. Why the explosion in popularity? As someone who has spent a few negronis correlating vermouth trends with socio-economic factors, I think there are two conclusions to draw.The first is that the British will use anything as an excuse to drink: crash, plague, war, depression, we’re not fussy. At-home sales of alcohol increased by 24% in the year from March 2020. Not only did at-home drinking nearly cancel out the losses of bars and restaurants during lockdown (overall alcohol sales were only down by 1.2%), it changed what we were drinking: the five o’clock cocktail ritual became an anchor amid the amorphous days and a proxy for all the things we couldn’t do: travel, socialise, laugh. It’s also far less effort making a margarita than making sourdough. As a result, beer was down 14%; spirits were up 7.3%. Waitrose reported that pandemic tequila sales went up by 175% with liqueur sales rising by 78%.Richard Godwin is the author of The Spirits and writes a weekly newsletter about cocktails at thespirits.substack.com Continue reading...

Experts say decriminalisation is not the problem – the new measure lacks a proper pathway to recovery amid the growing overdose crisisCallers to the Measure 110 hotline, which was set up a year ago, after Oregon became the first state in the US to decriminalise personal possession of drugs including meth and heroin, may hear Martin Lewis Lockett’s deep, reassuring voice.Lockett, who is in recovery, first assesses the callers, who can use the hotline if they have received a police citation for drug use. He uses an evidence-based screening tool to determine if someone has substance use issues, and connects them with nearby help. In one case, a man called the hotline after relapsing, but told Lockett his drug use was just a hiccup. “I know minimisation when I hear it,” Lockett said. By the end of the call, the man realised he needed help, and Lockett linked him to services. Continue reading...

More open conversations and better support are needed for people grappling with this momentous choiceLong before I became pregnant, I would ask people how they knew that they wanted to have children. Was there a lightning moment, or had the longing grown and grown until it became too much to ignore? Of course, the answers I got were as varied as people themselves. Some were able to distill it into a clear instant: taking hold of a small child’s hand for the first time, or seeing a baby on a bus one day and knowing, suddenly. Others were influenced by life events: the death of a parent was a common one, leading them to reflect on how bloodlines unfurl, wanting to see a little of that beloved parent manifest in a new being. Others had always known, in their bones, since their own childhoods.Then, for women, there was the so-called biological clock. Not so much a desire for a child, but an awareness that time could be running out, and a sort of not-wanting, a double negative: not-wanting to have not had a child. Many of these women expressed guilt at not having felt “the longing”, as though an innate-seeming, visceral dose of baby fever was the norm, and, in their absence of strong maternal feelings, they were deviating from it. But it does not seem that way to me, and besides, my own feelings were far from simple. At times it felt as though my body was at war with my brain. There were so many rational reasons not to become a parent, and yet the longing I felt was so powerful that it was making me unspeakably sad not to be.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appeared in a video message at the Grammy awards to ask for support in telling the story of Ukraine's invasion by Russia. During the message that aired, he likened the Russian invasion to a deadly silence threatening to extinguish the dreams and lives of the Ukrainian people, including children. 'Our musicians wear body armour instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals, even to those who can’t hear them ... But the music will break through anyway,' he said. 'Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV, support us in any way you can any, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities the war is destroying,' Zelenskiy said

Police in California ask for help in identifying those responsible for gunfire that broke out after ‘large fight’Police in Sacramento, California, are hunting for at least two suspects after six people were killed and 10 others injured during a shooting in the city’s downtown early Sunday morning.Kathy Lester, chief of the Sacramento police department, said at a news conference that police were patrolling the area at about 2am after hearing gunfire. When they arrived at the scene, she said, they found a crowd gathered on the street and six people dead. Continue reading...

Chris Sununu of New Hampshire makes remarks at event noted for tradition of roasting politicians with cutting comedy speechesA Republican governor has blasted Donald Trump as “fucking crazy” and said if he was ever committed to a mental institution “he ain’t getting out”.Chris Sununu of New Hampshire delivered the remarks at Saturday’s Gridiron Club dinner in Washington DC, an event noted for its tradition of roasting politicians with satirical and often cutting comedy speeches. Continue reading...

Secretary of state promises US will join allies in documenting atrocities and hold perpetrators accountableGrowing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine are “a punch to the gut”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Sunday, promising that America would join its allies in documenting the atrocities to hold the perpetrators accountable.A retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has revealed evidence of atrocities against civilians as Ukrainian troops and journalists have moved back into a broad swathe of suburbs and towns around the capital. Continue reading...

Former New York senator and secretary of state believes Democrats are holding themselves back by constant introspectionHillary Clinton has called on Democrats “to do a better job” of selling themselves to America’s voters to avoid humiliation in this year’s midterm elections where Republicans are widely expected to perform strongly and likely grab control of Congress.The former Democratic presidential candidate was speaking frankly on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, saying she thought last summer’s chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan was harmful to Joe Biden. The US president’s approval ratings have slumped in recent weeks to the lowest level since he took office. Continue reading...

Trump praises little-known Republicans Matthew DePerno and Kristina Karamo, who both falsely claimed 2020 election fraud and are now seeking key Michigan officesEight hours before Donald Trump took the stage in the Detroit suburbs on Saturday, an army of canvassers darted along the line of people snaking outside the hulking sports complex where supporters of the former president were waiting to get in. “You guys think we’re gonna have a fair election?,” one canvasser asked Marco Braggion, 26 and Christian Howard, 25, who was standing in a cowboy hat and jean jacket. “We need to be able to work those polls to keep eyes on what’s going on.”It was an exchange that underscored how Republicans, stewing in doubts about the 2020 election, are organizing to take control of the machinery of elections – how ballots are cast and counted. And when Trump took the stage Saturday evening, his first visit to Michigan since 2020, that’s what he was focused on too. He was there to campaign for two-little known candidates who are seeking offices that wield significant power over voting rules in Michigan, one of the most important battleground states in the presidential election. Continue reading...

We’re epidemiologists, nurses and physicians, artists and biologists. We have come together with a common anger at the US government’s handling of CovidA new omicron variant, referred to as BA 2, is taking hold in the US. Anthony Fauci and others have said they don’t expect a new surge in the US, but BA.2 is causing devastating surges elsewhere, and the policies and behaviors we might use to prevent a surge in the US have been widely abandoned, in part thanks to the CDC’s new system for measuring and conveying Covid risk.In late February, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unveiled a new Covid-19 monitoring system based on what they call “Community Levels.” By downplaying the importance of Sars-CoV-2 transmission, the new system instantly turned what was a pandemic map still red from Omicron transmission to green – creating the false impression that the pandemic is over. Continue reading...

Biden administration belatedly reversed a hard-right assault but humanitarian concerns risk being swamped by politicsAs the Biden administration announced on Friday plans to end Covid-related restrictions for undocumented people arriving at the southern border, it guaranteed that irregular immigration will return as even more of a polarizing, point-scoring, policy debate.And as the US hurtles toward midterm elections, another prescient anniversary looms this week. Continue reading...

Cedar City proposes to pump water from valleys outside the county, a plan opponents fear would irreversibly harm delicate ecosystemsThe ground in Cedar Valley is sinking and splintering. Fissures that snake through the region are a visible sign of Utah’s water woes, and the result of years spent overdrawing from an underground aquifer that supplies the area.And yet Cedar City, at the heart of the valley, continues to grow. Visitors flock to nearby national parks such as Zion and Bryce Canyon, adding to the flow of new residents expected to move here in the coming years. Cedar City is already the most populous in Utah’s Iron county, and finding more water has become an existential quest. Continue reading...

From flouting Covid rules to fraud to racism to underpaying employees, US figures reveal a rogues’ galleryWe all know that our small business owners are the lifeblood of the US economy. There are approximately 30 million of us and we provide more than half of the jobs in this country. Everyone seems to love us. Politicians court us. Big brands tip their hats to us. Each year we celebrate our small business community with Small Business Week, Small Business Saturday, National Entrepreneurship Month and many other days honoring independent workers and minority business owners.Yay for us! But you know what? As much as I’m an advocate and a voice for my fellow small business brethren, even I have to admit that not all small business owners are worthy of such praise. Some, in fact, are not worthy at all. Continue reading...

President’s $813bn proposal is a 4% increase for the Pentagon which already spends more than the next 11 countries combinedWhen Joe Biden released his annual budget proposal last week, one number in particular jumped out to progressives: $813bn. That is how much Biden is calling to spend on national defense in the US in the coming fiscal year. If approved, that number would represent the largest defense budget that America has ever seen.US presidents’ budget proposals are generally considered to be reflections of their policy priorities rather than realistic estimates of final spending allocations. If Biden’s call for a 4% increase in defense spending was meant to signal his policy priorities, progressives wasted no time in telling the president that his priorities are backwards. Continue reading...

It is appalling enough that the police have found a pattern of criminality at the very heart of government. It is worse that the prime minister treats this scandal as a joke

The longer the war goes on, the more the early anti-Putin momentum could be stalled by political stresses, an energy crisis and the huge bill for military and humanitarian aid

Arguing for sex-based categories in sports such as swimming and cycling is not bigotry. It’s fairnessIf you want a case study of how not to handle the question of transgender athletes in sport, look to the treatment of British cyclist Emily Bridges. As a talented male junior, Bridges won three silver medals at national championships and seemed destined for the Olympics.Bridges came out as trans in 2020 but had continued to participate in men’s events while transitioning. Having sufficiently reduced her testosterone levels, she became eligible to compete in women’s races. Her first such race would have been yesterday at the National Omnium Championships alongside the likes of five-time Olympic champion Laura Kenny. Continue reading...

Larry Ray accused of psychological abuse at the prestigious Sarah Lawrence college, in trial that echoes Nxivm caseNew York is accustomed to high-profile trials, the details picked over like canapés at a cocktail party.But the trial of Lawrence “Larry” Ray, on federal charges of sex trafficking, extortion and conspiracy has caused revulsion and horror, and raised troubling questions that go far beyond criminal justice. Continue reading...

Analysis: As oil prices – and diplomatic tensions – rise, two of the biggest US allies are questioning the basis of their relationshipAs Joe Biden moved to open US strategic oil reserves, his two biggest oil-producing allies have kept their tanks firmly shut. The UAE and Saudi Arabia continue to rebuff the US president as he attempts to counter soaring oil prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And both countries have been unusually frank about their refusal to step in.The five-week-old war is bringing tensions to a head in several parts of the world, but perhaps nowhere is a regional order more under strain than the Middle East, where two of America’s biggest allies are now seriously questioning the foundations of their relationship. Continue reading...

Herschel Walker, frontrunner for party nomination in Georgia, claimed to have graduated in top 1% – but never actually graduatedA Republican Senate candidate in Georgia said for years that he graduated in the top 1% of his university’s class – but actually never graduated college at all.Herschel Walker, a former pro football player who is running as a Republican in Georgia’s US Senateprimary, has publicly stated multiple times that he graduated in the top 1% of his class at University of Georgia despite never completing his degree. Continue reading...

Giving the prince centre stage at Philip’s memorial service was a foolish misstepIt’s six weeks since Prince Andrew settled out of court with his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, for a sum estimated at £12m. Cheap at the price, it was suggested, if the money (source unexplained) prevented sexual assault charges and a public trial ruining his mother’s platinum jubilee. Whatever’s left to be ruined, that is, after mixed results from the Cambridges’ vintage-inspired Caribbean visit in which only Kate’s elaborate wardrobe signalled that anything had changed since 1953.Since Andrew testified in the settlement to a hitherto unsuspected concern for victims of sex trafficking, along with a newfound regret for knowing Jeffrey Epstein, the deal was also welcomed as a victory for Giuffre’s fellow survivors. A lawyer for Sarah Ransome, one of those abused by Epstein, called the settlement a “banner day”; survivors had “been heard and were no longer silenced”. Continue reading...

Northern Irishman admits 2015 injury set him back in the majors and after a quiet 2022, he says: ‘Lower expectations are good’Life was sweeter than ice cream for Rory McIlroy in the first half of 2015. He was the reigning Open and US PGA champion, had finished a career-best fourth at the Masters and posted a Top 10 at a quirky US Open at Chambers Bay. He won the Dubai Desert Classic, WGC Match Play and Wells Fargo Championship – which included a course-record 61 – by late May. Form was not so temporary.It seemed inevitable McIlroy would make a serious tilt at defending the Claret Jug at the Old Course at St Andrews, a venue he adores. Cue an extraordinary social media bulletin on 6 July confirming McIlroy had ruptured left ankle ligaments playing football. He has not played the game since. “And deliberately,” he says. “I don’t want to do that again. I pride myself on not making the same mistake twice. I have played other things but never football because that could happen.” He provides only half a smile. Continue reading...

‘We must teach that America is good’ says top Republican of bill banning teaching that US is ‘fundamentally racist’The Georgia senate passed a bill on Friday that would limit discussions of race in kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms.House Bill 1084, the “Protect Students First Act”, was approved by the Georgia senate. The measure requires local school boards and administrators to ban discrimination on the “basis of race” by limiting how race can be discussed in classrooms. Continue reading...

Local district attorney’s office calls for investigation following incident involving police officer Evan Driskill and Delane Gordon

BlackRock’s Robert Kapito is right about the entitlement problem in the US: we have a very entitled generation of executives who seem to think sacrifice is just for poor peopleRobert Kapito, the president of asset management behemoth BlackRock, earns about $20m a year and is worth in the region of $400m. You can buy a lot of fancy trinkets with that kind of money but, alas, it doesn’t seem to purchase much self-awareness. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, with low-income households disproportionately affected by the highest inflation in 40 years. People are struggling to heat their homes thanks to surging energy prices and worrying about feeding their families thanks to rocketing food prices. Kapito’s reaction to all this? To complain to a bunch of energy executives about how entitled young people are and how it’s about time they learned a thing or two about how tough life is.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

A mysterious gap of 7 hours 37 minutes in phone records for 6 January 2021 coincides with the insurrection in Washington DCAt 2.26pm on 6 January last year, Donald Trump picked up a White House phone and placed a call to Mike Lee, the Republican senator from Utah. The communication came at a very significant moment.Thirty-seven minutes earlier, a riot had been declared by Washington DC police. Minutes after that the then vice-president, Mike Pence, was rushed out of the Senate chamber, where he had been presiding over Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and put into hiding. Continue reading...

In Republicans’ fevered imaginations, schoolchildren are browbeaten into admitting they are racistOn the southern steps of the Mississippi state capitol last week, a group of protesters gathered in front of a bronzed casket.It was empty, but for piles of paper, strewn across the inside. They were printouts of dozens of bills that have died in the state legislature in recent months; a bill to expand healthcare coverage for new mothers; a bill to help provide healthy food options in rural and underserved communities, a bill to restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people. Continue reading...

In a state marked by inequality and staggering housing prices, nearly 20% of community college students report experiencing homelessnessAt Long Beach City College, a nearly 100-year-old community college south of Los Angeles, at least eight students have been given permission to sleep in their cars in a campus parking facility, as part of an official campus program to help college students who cannot afford a place to live.The college parking garage, which has a security guard, wifi, and bathrooms nearby, is seen as a safer alternative to students sleeping in their cars on the street, where fears of being robbed or written up by the police make it even more difficult for them to succeed at school. At least 98 students enrolled at the school are known to be experiencing homelessness this semester, according to the college’s basic needs program manager, with at least 25 of them living in their cars. Continue reading...

Native Hawaiian musician to be depicted in 2023 as part of program honoring eminent American womenThe late Native Hawaiian hula teacher Edith Kanaka’ole is among five women who will be individually featured on US quarters in 2023 as part of a program that depicts notable women on the coins.The US Mint described Kanaka’ole, who died in 1978, as a composer, chanter, dancer, teacher and entertainer. Continue reading...

Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon’s attorney general who ordered the break-in at the scandal’s heart, was drugged and kidnappedThe phone call came five days after the Watergate break-in. Martha Mitchell began telling a reporter that she would leave her husband, former US attorney general John Mitchell, if he did not quit the “dirty business” of politics.But the conversation ended abruptly and Mitchell was heard shouting: “You just get away – get away!” Then the line went dead. She had been accosted by a former FBI agent and would be forcibly tranquilized and held captive for days. Continue reading...

The North Carolina representative is becoming one of the fastest rising stars in his party – but has also found himself condemned by some on his own sideThe way he told it, Madison Cawthorn was set to go to the prestigious US Naval Academy before a car crash left him partially paralysed.According to Cawthorn, he had also been accepted into Harvard and Princeton, and worked full-time for a congressman, before being elected to the House of Representatives. Continue reading...

The former governor says she will ‘combat the left’s socialist, big-government, America-last agenda’Sarah Palin has announced her run for Alaska’s only seat in the US House of Representatives, marking her first run for public office in over a decade.“America is at a tipping point,” Palin said in a statement released on her Twitter account announcing her candidacy. “As I’ve watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight. Continue reading...