Hearings on Biden’s supreme court nominee resume with chair chiding Republicans for ‘showcasing election talking points’Ketanji Brown Jackson endured 10 more grueling hours of senators’ questioning on Wednesday, after a marathon 13-hour judiciary committee hearing with the supreme court nominee the day before.Multiple Republican senators grilled Jackson about her sentences of child abuse image offenders, accusing her of letting the defendants off too easily. Continue reading...
A package of bills signed by Jay Inslee tighten the state’s gun laws, including adding restrictions to a law prohibiting ghost gunsThe Washington governor Jay Inslee signed a package of bills Wednesday tightening the state’s gun laws, including a measure that bans the manufacture, distribution and sale of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.Washington joins nine other states, including California and New Jersey, that restrict magazine capacity size. Continue reading...
Madeleine Albright, who fled the Nazis as a child in her native Czechoslovakia and rose to become the first female US secretary of state and, in her later years, a pop culture feminist icon, died on Wednesday at the age of 84, her family said. Colleagues across the US state department and the UN have remembered Albright as a ‘trailblazer’ whose impact is felt ‘every single day’
Evan Neumann, accused of hitting police with metal barricade, tells Belarusian state TV he has ‘mixed feelings’ about the moveA former San Francisco Bay Area resident facing federal criminal charges from the January 6 attack at the US Capitol has been granted asylum in Belarus, the former Soviet nation’s state media reported on Tuesday.Evan Neumann, 49, was charged a year ago with assaulting police, including using a metal barricade as a battering ram during the riot last year. In an interview with the Belarus 1 channel that aired last year, he acknowledged being at the building that day but rejected the charges and said he had not hit any officers. Continue reading...
Mo Brooks of Alabama appeared at the rally before the Capitol assault and is under scrutiny by January 6 committeeThe Alabama Republican congressman Mo Brooks said on Tuesday Donald Trump asked him to “rescind” the 2020 election, remove Joe Biden from the White House and reinstate Trump.The extraordinary statement came in an angry response to a withdrawn endorsement in a US Senate race. Trump was angered that Brooks was insufficiently toeing his line on calling the 2020 election a fraud. Continue reading...
US president will take part in an emergency Nato summit, G7 summit and European Council meetingJoe Biden has arrived in Europe for a four-day trip with the aim of keeping up pressure on Russia in the face of sanctions fatigue and splits over energy sanctions among US allies.It will also, to some extent, be a lap of honour for the US president’s success so far in keeping allies and partners together in confronting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading...
Obama, Bush, Blair and others hail first female secretary of state: ‘She lived out the American dream’Tributes flooded in on Wednesday to Madeleine Albright, the first woman to hold the position of US secretary of state, who has died at the age of 84.“Madeleine Albright was a force,” said Joe Biden in a statement. “Hers were the hands that turned the tide of history.” Continue reading...
Diplomat and scholar of international relations who served as the first female US secretary of stateMadeleine Albright, who has died of cancer aged 84, was the first woman to hold the office of secretary of state of the United States. It fell to her to cope with the painful dilemmas presented for the US by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the rise of Islamic opposition in the Middle East.While she fulfilled the role in the administration of President Bill Clinton, she could not take the place that office usually confers as third in succession to the president because she was not a “natural born citizen” of the US. Like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, secretaries of state in the Nixon and Carter administrations, she had been a refugee from Europe. Like them also, Albright came to the job not via business or politics but through an academic background in the study of international relations. Continue reading...
Court took issue with decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee areaThe US supreme court threw out Wisconsin’s new state legislative maps on Wednesday, in a ruling that boosts Republicans and takes aim again at one of the last remaining provisions to protect voting discrimination.The ruling is the latest of many in recent years in which the US supreme court has been hostile to voting rights. In an unsigned ruling, the court took issue with the decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee area, raising the total in the map to seven. The Wisconsin supreme court picked the plan, drawn by Tony Evers, the state’s Democratic governor, earlier this month. Continue reading...
Residents of Arabi were still feeling the effects of Hurricane Ida, six months ago. And then the black, spinning tornadoes cameFor Bonnie Norris, the tornadoes that tore through New Orleans on Tuesday evening seemed to come out of nowhere. She and her boyfriend were watching television when something outside caught their attention.Norris described the tornado as a black, spinning vortex. She said the noise was deafening, like a freight train. “I just remember saying, ‘Here it comes, here it comes.’” Continue reading...
App, which refers to ‘minute by minute’, aims to compete with Apple and Google – but will it fact-check Trump’s big lie?If you can’t beat them, join them. After years joining his father in deriding the “lamestream media” as the “enemy of the people”, Donald Trump Jr has launched an app to aggregate news.Don Jr and co-founder Taylor Budowich, a spokesperson for the former president, hope that MxM News (the name refers to “minute by minute”) will compete with giants such as Apple News and Google News, the Axios website reported. Continue reading...
‘We’re a greater nuclear power,’ former president who previously praised Putin as ‘smart’ tells Fox BusinessIf Donald Trump were still president, he told Fox Business on Monday, he would threaten Russia with nuclear submarines.Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, who is therefore dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading...
Little St James, where late financier abused women and girls, and Great St James in the US Virgin Islands listed for $125mTwo Caribbean islands that once belonged to the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein have been put up for sale, according to a new report.Great St James and Little St James, two islands in the US Virgin Islands, were part of Epstein’s extensive global property portfolio and have been listed for $125m, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Continue reading...
Few anticipated what happened once the war began: the Ukrainians put up a tough resistance, even as the balance of power favored Russia“War, as the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman observed, “is hell.” The one that Russia launched against Ukraine on February 24 certainly fits his description.Cities have come under siege – consider the horrific plight of Mariupol – a hospital and a shopping mall have been struck, as have apartment buildings, in Kyiv as well as Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. The number of refugees and internally displaced Ukrainians already exceeds 10 million, more than a fifth of the country’s population.Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, and Anne and Bernard Spitzer emeritus at Powell School, City College of New York Continue reading...
In an advertisement for Arby’s, the rapper takes aim at the Filet-O-Fish with the explosive Spicy Fish DissFor years Arby’s has bragged: “We have the meats.” Now the menu includes a spicy beef with McDonald’s.On Monday, the hot deli chain released an advertisement for its crispy fish sandwich. Undergirding the EDM-tinged backing beat is the rap song Spicy Fish Diss – a single-verse Scud missile that takes direct aim at McDonald’s pescatarian mainstay, the Filet-O-Fish. And it doesn’t waste any of its 75-second runtime beating around the bush. “Filet-O-Fish is shit,” it crows, “and you should be disgusted.” Continue reading...
by Sam Levin in Los Angeles with photographs by Jane on (#5XDKV)
Revealed: county data and interviews with displaced residents of Echo Park Lake suggest that many ended up back on the streets in worse conditionsOn 24 March last year, hundreds of police officers descended on Los Angeles’ Echo Park Lake to evict the community of unhoused residents that had swelled there during the pandemic.After police arrested protesters opposing the evictions and cleared the encampment at the popular city park, the local councilman pushing for the sweep said his office had found “housing solutions” for roughly 200 of the displaced residents, calling it the “single largest housing event in the history of the city”. Continue reading...
As health authorities brace for another coronavirus wave, the US is still deeply divided over its pandemic future – even as most states relax restrictionsIn Mississippi and Massachusetts, two pharmacists working in very different parts of America have seen a sharp drop in demand for Covid-19 vaccines in recent months. Their best guesses for why they’ve seen such slowdowns diverge considerably.Saad Dinno, co-owner and pharmacist at four drugstores in the suburbs of Boston, wagers that most people in his community are up to date on their vaccinations. As he speaks from Acton Pharmacy, in the Massachusetts town of the same name, his bet is a fairly safe one – 95% of the people in this county have had at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Continue reading...
While the 30-year-old’s self-determined streak might have cost him a lucrative NBA career, he has a decent shot at being elected to CongressIt appears the US has entered the age of the jock politician. First ex-Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville wins a US Senate seat in Alabama. Then Heisman trophy winner Herschel Walker kicks off his own Senate run in Georgia. And now former NBA player Royce White jumps into the fray as the Republican challenger to Ilhan Omar in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.After going public with his candidacy from the steps of Minneapolis’ Federal Reserve, White, 30, published a 3,500-word open letter rallying Black voters away from the leftist “plantation” and their “globalist” agenda while heading off opposition research into his legacy of legal trouble, his personal debts and unpaid child support allegations, and his overall mental fitness. He made sure to address the letter to “Democrats”, dismissing Omar and her ilk as bought and paid for while promoting himself as a populist. In between he invoked God, raged against Big Tech and its overlords and, well, came off more than just a little unfocused. “You motherfuckers don’t own me,” he wrote, hitting back at the tech bros. “You don’t own my mind. I will die for the rights and freedoms that this nation’s constitution affords me before I see myself, my family or my countrymen returned to chains. Your arrogance and petulance insults me to my core.” Continue reading...
Grant Llera worked to find an old yearbook picture of the man who was working at the World Trade Center when it fellFor years, two tiles showing oak tree leaves stood above the names of two individuals in New York’s 9/11 museum’s “In Memoriam” exhibit whose photos could not be found. The rest of the exhibit features pictures of the 2,977 killed during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.Now, after more than a decade of searching, a photograph of one of those two victims – a cafeteria worker at the World Trade Center – has finally been located and installed. Continue reading...
Aipac defends move by saying that support for the Jewish state overrides other issues as it faces a storm of criticismThe US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group has been accused of putting support for Israel before American democracy after it declared its backing for the election campaigns of three dozen Republican members of Congress who tried to block President Biden’s presidential victory.But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has defended the move by saying that support for the Jewish state overrides other issues and that it is “no moment for the pro-Israel movement to become selective about its friends”. Continue reading...
Tornadoes have caused damage and destruction through New Orleans and Texas, leaving a trail of destruction and killing at least two people. Powerful weather systems also pummelled parts of Louisiana and Alabama. At least two tornados ripped through central Texas, leaving a path of destruction in its wake, and injuring dozens.
The 35-year-old petitioned last month to end legal arrangement that has given her mother control of her estate and personal affairsA judge terminated Amanda Bynes’ conservatorship on Tuesday, ending the legal arrangement that has given the former actor’s mother control of her estate and personal affairs for nearly a decade.The 35-year-old filed a petition last month, with support from her mother and psychiatrist, to end the conservatorship she was placed under in 2013 after she was forcibly hospitalized on a psychiatric hold. Continue reading...
Spencer Cox is second Republican governor to overrule lawmakers who have taken on youth sports as part of political debateThe Utah governor, Spencer Cox, vetoed a ban on transgender students playing girls’ sports on Tuesday, becoming the second Republican governor to overrule state lawmakers who have taken on youth sports as part of a political debate over how Americans view gender and sexuality.Cox joins the Indiana governor. Eric Holcomb, who vetoed a statewide ban on Monday. Holcomb said Indiana’s legislature had not demonstrated that transgender kids had undermined fairness in sports. Continue reading...
Judge issues apology to George and Melvin DeJesus, wrongfully convicted of 1995 murder of Margaret Midkiff in MichiganTwo Michigan brothers who were wrongfully convicted in the murder of a family friend walked free Tuesday and were reunited with their family after 25 years behind bars.George and Melvin DeJesus were convicted in the 1995 killing of Margaret Midkiff. Oakland county circuit Judge Martha Anderson set aside their convictions early Tuesday. Continue reading...
Facing senators' questions for the first time, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked by Senator Dianne Feinstein if she agreed with statements that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett made about abortion law precedent during their confirmation hearings. President Joe Biden's nominee said that she agreed and added that 'Roe and Casey', two landmark Supreme Court decisions legalising abortion, are 'settled law' that has been reaffirmed by the court and 'relied upon'. Jackson is making history as the first Black woman nominated for the court, which once upheld racial segregation in America and for 233 years has been filled mainly with white men.
Psaki, who will no longer travel to Europe with Biden, says she met with him this week but he has since tested negativeJen Psaki, the White House press secretary, has tested positive for Covid-19 and will not travel to Europe with Joe Biden for meetings in Brussels and Poland this week.In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, Psaki said she had met twice with Biden, 79, on Monday but he had tested negative the following day. Continue reading...
Judge declares Couy Griffin guilty of one of the two offenses, bolstering a key theory from lawyers in hundreds of related casesA New Mexico county commissioner who founded a group called Cowboys for Trump was found guilty by a judge on Tuesday of breaching the US Capitol during the January 6 riot, a second consecutive win at trial for the US Department of Justice.Following a two-day non-jury trial, the US district judge Trevor McFadden said the defendant, Couy Griffin, was guilty of one of the two misdemeanor offenses. Continue reading...
A dispute over whether Abrams can be declared the nominee has prevented her from legally raising fundsStacey Abrams has filed a lawsuit seeking to immediately begin fundraising for her campaign for governor under a state law that prevents her gubernatorial leadership committee from doing so.Abrams is requesting to take advantage of a new kind of fundraising committee created by Georgia lawmakers last year, which her opponent, the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has already been able to make use of. Called a leadership committee, it allows certain people and groups to accept unlimited contributions. Giving to direct candidate committees, on the other hand, is limited to $7,600 apiece for the primary and general elections and $4,500 for any runoff election. Continue reading...
Tornadoes ripped through parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Monday causing injuries and widespread damage near Austin and Dallas. In Texas, tornadoes were reported along the Interstate 35 corridor, particularly in the Austin suburbs of Round Rock and Elgin, and north-west of Dallas-Fort Worth
Scott, who was formerly married to Jeff Bezos, is part of group of billionaires promising to donate more than half their wealthMacKenzie Scott has donated $436m to Habitat for Humanity International and 84 of its US affiliates, the largest publicly disclosed donation from the billionaire philanthropist since she promised in 2019 to give away most of her wealth.“We could not be more excited to get the gift at a time when, in some ways, the state of housing affordability is the worst that it has been in modern times,” said Jonathan Reckford, chief executive of Habitat for Humanity International. Continue reading...
Her Facebook posts since the Ukraine invasion have stunned me. Unfriending her made me sad – but I had to do itOn the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while doomscrolling on social media, I noticed a Facebook post by a Russian friend of mine in Moscow, expressing the hope that “all the fascists will be exterminated in my homeland”. She was referring to Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia’s “special military operation” aimed to “denazify” Ukraine.I was stunned that this was her take on the Ukraine war. We had been friends for more than 30 years, and during my time as a foreign correspondent in Moscow in the Soviet era, she had been my sounding board and guide. I remember the evenings spent with her and her husband, quaffing Soviet champagne and mocking the nightly TV news, Vremya, with its state-controlled version of events. How could she now be so uncritical of Putin’s state-run media?Anne Penketh is a journalist and author Continue reading...
‘Why do we have to choose someone who attacked Joe?’ first lady reportedly said, according to This Will Not PassThe first lady, Jill Biden, complained about her husband’s choice of Kamala Harris as running mate and now vice-president, according to a new book, asking: “There are millions of people in the United States. Why … do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe?”The quote is contained in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, by the New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, which is due to be published on 3 May. Continue reading...
Ministers have squandered a chance to make real change for the millions facing policing, housing, health and education inequalitiesEvery so often it pays to look in the mirror. Who are we as a country? What do we look like? And then perhaps to look at the mirror itself. Is the reflection a true one?
I caught myself drifting off as my boy was wanging on about dinosaurs. I must have had the same effect on my parentsI read a book called You’re Not Listening, by Kate Murphy, which was designed to make the reader a better listener. It worked. I now listen my socks off. I listen to my girlfriend, I listen to my mum and, yeah, I even listen to my child – and he’s six.You know when you catch yourself doing something you remember your own parents doing? Mine was a “mmhmm” sort of noise. I made it when my son was wanging on about the height of a spinosaurus’s crest, or something. “Mmhmm.” Out it came. The noise. From me. And I thought: I did that to pretend I’m listening, but I’m not. In that moment, I realised my parents hadn’t really listened to anything I had said until I was about 32. Continue reading...
With his football career on hold, the World Cup winner is focused on showing athletes they can pursue a career in businessAlthough Blaise Matuidi’s time in MLS with Inter Miami did not provide the desired results on the pitch, his spell in Florida has helped inspire his next step. Matuidi has had an interest in business for a number of years, investing in various tech startups, including alongside the NBA star LeBron James.“When I see athletes here in the United States, I think they have something different to European athletes and the difference is that they know about business. They are experts in their own field but they are also very focused in making other things in life, especially business,” says the Frenchman. Continue reading...
Republican Eric Holcomb suggests legislation addresses a non-existent problem and ‘falls short’ of providing a consistent policyThe governor of Indiana governor on Monday vetoed a bill banning transgender females from girls school sports.Opponents of the bill argued it was a bigoted response to a problem that does not exist, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana saying it planned a lawsuit against what it called “hateful legislation”. Continue reading...
