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The Russian leader’s fantastical speech shows he recognises that his country is losing its war on UkraineThe Russian president Vladimir Putin’s speech this morning, announcing partial mobilisation and warning of possible retaliation for western actions against Russia, will renew fears of reckless nuclear blackmail. But overall, it should be seen as more reassuring than troubling.The good news here is that Putin’s announcement of emergency measures shows he recognises Russia is losing in its war of imperial expansion. The less good news is that if he believes even a tiny fraction of the lies and fantasies he reeled off during the speech, his grip on reality is even shakier than we previously suspected.Keir Giles works with the Russia and Eurasia programme of Chatham House; he is the author of Russia’s War on Everybody Continue reading...

Judge Raymond Dearie tells ex-president’s lawyers ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’ over reluctance to declare documents’ statusThe independent arbiter tasked with inspecting documents seized in an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Florida home said on Tuesday he intends to push briskly through the review process and appeared skeptical of Trump lawyers’ reluctance to say whether they believed the records had been declassified.“We’re going to proceed with what I call responsible dispatch,” Raymond Dearie, a veteran Brooklyn judge, told lawyers for Trump and the Department of Justice in their first meeting since his appointment last week as a so-called special master. Continue reading...

Wishing to see Trump called to account need not make us champion a 100-year-old statute used to target whistleblowersLiberal pundits and Twitter accounts are cheering the investigation into Donald Trump for holding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. What they may not know is that they are also throwing their support behind one of the most pernicious and terrible laws that exists: the Espionage Act. Holding Trump accountable doesn’t mean we should all become cheerleaders for the often-abused law primarily used to prosecute whistleblowers and threaten journalists.Ever since the 100-year old Espionage Act was cited in the warrant for the search of Trump’s Florida residence, Twitter and cable news are rife with misinformation about the law and what it means. Those clamoring for Trump to be prosecuted under the act are spreading a ton of misleading statements in the process.Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation Continue reading...

Democrats hailed the Inflation Reduction Act as a climate crisis victory – so why the secrecy over an oil and gas pipelines bill?As climate change batters America with heatwaves, droughts and floods, lawmakers should be asking a simple question about any bill: does it increase or decrease the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the ecological emergency?Somehow, though, that query is still not being asked right now in Washington, even as Democratic leaders are promising to advance a bill to gut environmental laws and expedite oil and gas pipelines.David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin, and the founder of The Daily Poster. He served as Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign speechwriterJulia Rock is a reporter for The Lever Continue reading...

Russian president announces partial mobilisation and makes threats on west, saying ‘we will use all the means at our disposal’. Plus, the Hollywood sign gets a facelift

Mass bussing has been called a political stunt, but New York non-profit groups have mobilized to offer a sense of humanityAlexander Rapaport carries multilingual greeting signs and cheers and waves when certain buses pull into the terminal in New York City from Texas and Arizona these days, carrying people sent by the Republican authorities there who don’t wish to assist them.“These people are seeking asylum. We welcome them. That’s what America stands for,” said Rapaport, who works with Masbia Relief, a crisis response non-profit in the city. Continue reading...

Exclusive: The University of Toledo’s failure to adequately address allegations against Brad Evans has led to multiple Title IX complaints following a Guardian investigation

Deafness, like any other attribute, comes with innate sporting benefits and cost. The Bison have spent years crafting football to their advantageAt first glance, it’s not obvious that nearly everyone on Gallaudet University’s football team, the Bison, is deaf or hard of hearing. In most ways, the game proceeds exactly as it would on a fall Saturday at any other small university in the US. Players bump chests animatedly after important plays. Cheerleaders try to pump up the crowd during timeouts. A fan of the away team loudly swears over the more polite cheers of those around him.Certain differences, however, eventually emerge. Five strikes of a resonant bass drum alert Gallaudet’s special teams units (many of whom are busy having sideline discussions with coaches) to upcoming punts and kicks. In lieu of using a headset, offensive lineman John Scarboro communicates with a coach standing far away atop the crowded stands via American Sign Language (ASL). And, instead of having someone sing the national anthem before kick-off, the cheerleading team performs it in ASL while standing at midfield. Continue reading...

After decades of activism, the neighborhood becomes the first Arab American enclave to get an official designationAmin Nash’s earliest childhood memory of Anaheim, California, was gripping his grandmother’s hand as they walked into Altayebat Market on Brookhurst Street. His grandmother, who had been visiting from Iraq, could not speak English. But at Altayebat, she could speak freely in her mother tongue, Arabic.“This is for you, it’s just a reminder to you, you are not too far from home,” Nash recalled the owner of Altayebat telling his grandmother as he handed her a prayer rug. Continue reading...

Tests performed for thousands of Chicago residents found lead, a neurotoxin, in amounts far exceeding the federal standardsOne in twenty tap water tests performed for thousands of Chicago residents found lead, a neurotoxin, at or above US government limits, according to a Guardian analysis of a City of Chicago data trove.And one-third had more lead than is permitted in bottled water. Continue reading...

The Inflation Reduction Act aims to reduce the cost of drugs, but the law’s limitations may not help the Democrats in the midtermsAt a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Joe Biden declared nothing less than victory over the pharmaceutical industry.“We beat pharma!” Biden said, leaning into the microphone. “We beat pharma this year, and it mattered. We’re going to change people’s lives.” Continue reading...

Michael Carneal was 14 years old in 1997 when he fired on a prayer group, killing three; his request has been delayed until MondayA Kentucky man who killed three students and wounded five in a school shooting 25 years ago told a parole panel on Tuesday he was still hearing voices like the ones that told him to steal a pistol and shoot into a high school lobby in 1997.The two-person panel hearing Michael Carneal’s testimony deferred a decision until Monday, when the entire state parole board could grant his parole request, defer his next parole decision or determine that he must spend the rest of his life in prison. Continue reading...

Forty-seven people have been charged in the ‘astonishing display of deceit’ over providing food for low-income childrenForty-seven people have been charged in what US authorities say is the largest case yet of pandemic fraud, accusing the defendants of a “brazen” scheme to swindle millions from a program intended for low-income children and using it to “enrich themselves”.Those charged in the scheme are accused of creating companies that claimed to be offering food to tens of thousands of children across Minnesota, then sought reimbursement for those meals through the US Department of Agriculture’s food nutrition programs. Prosecutors say few meals were actually served, and the defendants used the money to buy luxury cars, property and jewelry. Authorities say $250m was ultimately stolen from the federal program. Continue reading...

Carroll to file claim of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under new New York lawE Jean Carroll, the writer who accused Donald Trump of raping her more than two decades ago, plans to file a new lawsuit against the former US president.In a letter made public on Tuesday, a lawyer for former Elle magazine columnist said she planned to sue Trump for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act. Continue reading...

Suit says Venezuelans were ‘used as political pawns’ in a ‘fraudulent and discriminatory’ schemeAttorneys representing the Venezuelan migrants and refugees allegedly duped into flying to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Florida governor and other state officials.Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday challenging what it called the “fraudulent and discriminatory” scheme to charter private planes to transport almost 50 vulnerable people, including children as young as two, from San Antonio, Texas, via Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard last week without liaising to arrange shelter and other resources. Continue reading...

National security adviser makes remark while Biden will ‘rebuke Russia’ at UN summit

Letters – which initially read ‘Hollywoodland’ – to be repainted in process viewable on 24/7 webcamIn preparation for its 100th birthday next year, the Hollywood sign is getting a makeover.The giant letters on the hill are being cleaned and repainted, a process that’s estimated to take the next eight weeks. Freshening up the 45ft-tall letters will require about 250 gallons of paints and primer, and anyone who wants to watch the paint dry can follow along on the sign’s 24/7 webcam. Continue reading...

More and more women are taking up leadership roles in the ‘hyper-masculine’ field of community violence preventionFor more than two decades, Elena Bolds has worked to keep young people far away from the gun violence that has afflicted her home town of Richmond, California, for decades.She has organized gunfire safety drills for kids, turned her home into a snack store and safe haven for neighborhood youth, and sung at dozens of funerals for young people. As an official neighborhood change agent for the Office of Neighborhood Safety, she chaperoned trips to local jails so young men could hear from incarcerated people and drove program participants to their court dates to ensure they would show up. Continue reading...

An American teenager’s victory against the world champion has sent chess into uproar. We answer the key questionsAllegations of cheating – including wild speculation involving vibrating anal beads – have rocked chess to its core. A fortnight ago, the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, pulled out of a tournament for the first time in his career and then, on Monday he stunned the sport again by resigning a game after just one move. Both times Carlsen was faced with the same opponent, the 19-year-old American Hans Niemann. Continue reading...

Texas county sheriff says it seems evident that asylum seekers had been ‘lured’ to travel to Martha’s Vineyard ‘under false pretenses’A criminal investigation has been launched in Texas into whether dozens of asylum seekers were illegally flown from the state to Martha’s Vineyard, as new evidence continues to emerge suggesting they were misled.The Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, said on Monday that his office was investigating the flights, chartered on behalf of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, which brought dozens of migrants to the island in Massachusetts. Continue reading...

A powerful typhoon that hit the western coastline of the US over the weekend has left residents in remote villages without access to aid. Locals were without power and sustained severe water damage to their homes, prompting concerns over how they would survive the coming winter without provisions.On Monday, authorities made contact with residents in areas only accessible by plane to determine the need for food and water. No deaths have so far been reported but the flooding has affected 21,000 people who live along the coast

Elana Bolds, Tina Padilla and Claudia Bracho are leaders in the gang violence intervention field – from active shooter drills with children in Richmond to bringing in gang members to help with food distribution in Los Angeles. The Guardian follows their work in the community Continue reading...

Douglas Ramsey allegedly punched a motorist and bit his nose so hard that it tore flesh, police report saysA top executive at one of America’s biggest makers of alternative meat products has been arrested for biting another man on the nose during a road rage confrontation, US media have reported.Douglas Ramsey, 53, who is chief operating officer of Beyond Meat, allegedly punched a motorist and bit that man’s on the nose so hard that it tore his flesh, according to a police report obtained by NBC affiliate TV station KNWA. Continue reading...

Lawyers tell special master reviewing Mar-a-Lago case he should not have to say which documents he may have declassifiedDonald Trump’s legal team has acknowledged the possibility that the former president could be indicted amid the investigation into his retention of government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Despite claiming days earlier that Trump couldn’t imagine being charged, his lawyers made the stark admission in a court filing on Monday proposing how to conduct an outside review of documents that were seized by the FBI in August. Continue reading...

It’s easy to believe anything when it comes to the ex-president, but #Casketgate shows how liberals are just as happy as their opponents to embrace far-fetched conspiracy theoriesPoor Ivana Trump: even in death she hasn’t been able to escape her ex-husband’s drama. After being found dead at the bottom of her stairs in July, Donald Trump’s first wife suffered the ignominy of being laid to rest near the first hole of Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. Burying someone on a golf course is weird – even for a Trump – and theories immediately began to swirl. New Jersey exempts cemetery land from taxes, so was this a creepy form of tax avoidance? (Short answer: possibly, but it doesn’t make much business sense and seems unlikely.)The Ivana conspiracy theories did not go gentle into that good night. Instead, they grew stranger and stranger, stoked by the feverish imaginations of #ResistanceTwitter: a collection of liberal activists who have built large social media followings by tweeting obsessively about Donald Trump. When the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home to recover classified documents, #ResistanceTwitter went into overdrive trying to find connections between Ivana’s death and Trump’s legal troubles. There is zero evidence that Ivana was cremated, but many high-profile #ResistanceTwitter accounts suddenly decided she definitely had been and, from there, concluded that Ivana’s casket must have been stuffed with classified documents. Jon Cooper, a Joe Biden superfan who has 1.1 million Twitter followers and whom Politico once described as “prone to outlandish statements that rack up retweets”, bears much responsibility for spreading this theory. “Seriously, is else anyone [sic) wondering – just a bit – what other stuff may be buried inside Ivana’s casket …?” Cooper tweeted on 9 August. Continue reading...

Quake registered at 7.5 magnitude on anniversary of earlier tremors. Plus, the rise and fall of PelotonGood morning.A magnitude 7.5 earthquake has struck western Mexico on the anniversary of two earlier devastating tremors, killing at least one person and causing flooding on the Pacific coast.Was anyone killed? President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Twitter that the secretary of the navy told him one person was killed in the port city of Manzanillo, Colima, when a wall at a mall collapsed.Did the quake cause a lot of damage? Michoacán authorities said there were no immediate reports of significant damage in that state beyond some cracks in buildings in the town of Coalcomán.What was wrong with the original trial? An assistant state attorney Becky Feldman described details that undermined the conviction including unreliable witness testimony and a potentially biased detective. Feldman said: “I understand how difficult this is, but we need to make sure we hold the correct person accountable.”What have Lee’s family said? They haven’t responded yet, but in 2016 they said: “It remains hard to see so many run to defend someone who committed a horrible crime, who destroyed our family, who refuses to accept responsibility, when so few are willing to speak up for Hae.” Continue reading...

The Florida governor’s use of vulnerable migrants as props is disgusting and criminalIn recent months, Republican governors in Texas, Arizona and Florida have been transporting immigrants northward to cities such as New York, Washington and Chicago. This included bussing about a hundred people to the vice-president’s residence and dumping them on the street.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, took this despicable practice of using vulnerable men, women and children as political props to a new low this week when he paid for two planeloads of Venezuelan migrants to be sent to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. As has been reported, the Venezuelans that DeSantis paid to transport were actually recruited by a co-conspirator in San Antonio, Texas, not in Florida. As reported, this co-conspirator, “Perla”, promised the migrants transportation to Boston and expedited work permits. All of it was a lie.Jeff Weaver is a political strategist who served as campaign manager for the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign and as an adviser for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaignThis article is reprinted from Jacobin magazine Continue reading...

We cannot simply stand back and hope that the elite will give away their wealth to tackle the climate emergencyMaking bold statements about addressing the climate crisis has become de rigueur in the corporate world over the past few years. But this was taken to a whole new level when the founder and owner of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, announced that his family was transferring 98% of the company’s stock to a newly created not-for-profit organisation dedicated to combatting climate breakdown.Chouinard was applauded for “giving away” his company for the planet. He himself claimed that it was “turning capitalism on its head”. The widespread admiration of Chouinard is a telling sign of popular dissatisfaction with the excesses of the global corporate economy and its billionaire bosses. But the question remains: does this giveaway mark any fundamental change to the system?Carl Rhodes is a professor of organisation studies at the University of Technology in Sydney Continue reading...

The life stories of enslaved people are crucial to a legal battle over a Louisiana petrochemical facility that could triple residents’ exposure to carcinogensAt the age of nine, Rachel was one of many forced to live in enslavement on a plantation in southern Louisiana. As well as dozens of adults, there were other children, such as Susanne, age three, and Reuben, age 11.The details of Rachel’s existence have been lost to time. But historians say that even at that young age, enslaved children likely would have been expected to work in some capacity, possibly weeding, looking after chickens or bringing food and water to adults in the fields. Continue reading...

The populist playbook blames the dislocation faced by many men on mythical ‘others’. Progressives should take these problems seriouslyWe need to talk about the troubles of men.No, really. Even if the thought of being asked to sympathise with the modern male struggle makes you roll your eyes or turn the page, it’s worth examining that irritable kneejerk reaction more closely. Progressives should be able to acknowledge some real and serious problems – boys underachieving at school, high suicide rates among middle-aged men in particular, the online radicalisation of an angry fringe drawn to violent ideologies – without making women and girls feel guilty about their achievements or pretending that feminism has somehow gone too far. But that balance can be surprisingly hard to achieve in practice, as a thoughtful new book by the former Downing Street staffer Richard Reeves makes clear.

When Brad Evans resigned from the University of Toledo allegations of sexual misconduct effectively disappeared, allowing him to continue coaching

Thousands of sensitive documents lay nearby as Trump was spinning the Village People in Mar-a-Lago’s not so private clubAt a certain point in an average evening at Mar-a-Lago, the lights go down and the volume goes up, as the proprietor and former president of the United States turns DJ for the night.A member of the Mar-a-Lago private club said that following a period of withdrawal after his election defeat, Donald Trump has in recent months assumed the role of social ringmaster, deciding to bring a disco vibe to the Palm Beach resort after dark. Continue reading...

Anti-Trump January 6 committee member warns of likely aggressive tactics if GOP retakes House in midtermsRepublicans will try to impeach Joe Biden every week if they retake the House in November, a rare anti-Trump Republican congressman predicted.Remembering repeated attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said: “That’s going to look like child’s play in terms of what Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to demand of Kevin McCarthy. Continue reading...

The ex-president’s Florida estate has a history of security breaches, from US military plans viewed in front of paying guests to a makeshift ‘situation room’Long before FBI agents found highly classified documents close to public areas of Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort that Donald Trump calls home, a number of other eyebrow-raising incidents have heightened concerns over the property’s security.They range from a Chinese national carrying multiple mobile phones and computer malware making it through a Secret Service checkpoint, to a fake heiress breezing in for photographs with the former president, to diners looking over Trump’s shoulder at a laptop displaying top secret information about North Korean missile launches. Continue reading...

A Baltimore judge ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning his conviction for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The case was chronicled in the hit podcast Serial.Ruling that the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed’s defense, the circuit court judge, Melissa Phinn, ordered Syed placed on home detention with GPS monitoring.Syed’s first trial, in December 1999, ended in mistrial. At his second trial, in February 2000, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Now 41, he has spent more than 20 years behind bars. He has always maintained his innocence.

Syed was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999A Baltimore judge on Monday ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning his conviction for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee – a case chronicled in the hit podcast Serial.Ruling that the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed’s defense, the circuit court judge, Melissa Phinn, ordered Syed placed on home detention with GPS monitoring. Phinn also gave the state 30 days to decide whether to seek a new trial or dismiss the case. Continue reading...

Sherri Papini’s case gained national attention when she went missing for weeks but was found staying with an ex-boyfriendSherri Papini, the California woman who admitted to faking her own kidnapping in 2016, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.Papini’s case grabbed national attention when she went missing for several weeks, prompting a frantic search and widespread media coverage. She eventually reappeared with an elaborate story of being abducted by two “Hispanic women”, chained to a pole for three weeks, beaten and branded before being released by the side of a highway. Continue reading...

Despite legitimate anger at US-inspired initiatives like the failed European Super League, the creeping influence of America in football need not be universally badNew Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly raised the hackles of some of English football’s most annoying people last week when he suggested that the Premier League could learn from America and consider introducing an All-Star-style game to boost TV revenue. “US investment into English football is a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game,” thundered Gary Neville on Twitter, in an emblematic reaction. “They just don’t get it and think differently.”In response many have pointed out that pundits like Neville owe their very livelihood to the Americanization of English football: without the influence of America’s example, the whole shebang of the modern Premier League – as a business structured around massive TV deals, as an endlessly mediatized spectacle, as a hegemonic cultural form – would not exist. Suggestions like Boehly’s are directed at furthering the commercialization of English football; this is not “thinking differently”, but the very essence of the sport as it has developed over the last three decades. Continue reading...

American lawyer whose 1998 Starr report led to the impeachment of Bill ClintonKenneth Starr, who has died aged 76 after complications from surgery, was the independent prosecutor whose investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s investment in a real-estate project called Whitewater began in somewhat pious partisanship and descended into prurience. It led to President Clinton’s impeachment for perjury based on his lying about his relationship with a White House aide, Monica Lewinsky.The Clinton impeachment was an American watershed. Following the OJ Simpson trial of the mid-1990s, it established scandal as the fuel that powered television news, but more importantly it pointed the way to use congressional investigation in order to disrupt a presidency, a tactic followed repeatedly against the Barack Obama administration, including six House investigations, lasting more than two years, of the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, over the assault on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Continue reading...

Melanie Tait grew up in the imposing shadow of the much-loved and much-mocked landmark in the NSW town of Robertson. Now the family is selling upThe call came at dinner-time on a Monday night. As it happened, crispy roast potatoes were part of my dinner – as they frequently are. The excessive consumption of potatoes in my life is part of my heritage.“Well, you’re no longer the Big Potato Heiress,” my mother said down the line. “The sale settled today.” Continue reading...