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Politicians argue that canceling student debt will mainly benefit doctors and lawyers. But it is first-generation graduates of color who are struggling to make paymentsMy sister’s partner was murdered in St Louis in the summer of 2017. She was heartbroken, pregnant and facing a sheriff who was enforcing an eviction due to nonpayment of rent. Ghosts don’t send checks from the grave to pay for the living. Not for poor people anyway. There are very little inheritances, wills, and dollars under mattresses to go around.I had just graduated from Harvard Law School and was studying to take the bar exam to accomplish my childhood dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer. I was also near rock bottom. My marriage was ending and I had two kids under four. I’d been awarded the most prestigious law fellowship in the country and, with a pending income of $60,000, I was prepared to become the highest earner in my entire family. I knew that was insufficient for me, my two toddlers, my sister, a newborn nephew, Washington DC’s rising rent, and more than $100,000 of student debt.Four years after earning a bachelor’s degree, Black graduates have nearly $25,000 more student loan debt than their white peers: $52,726 on average, compared with $28,006 for the typical white bachelor’s graduate. This total debt gap is more than triple the previously documented Black–white gap in undergraduate borrowing, which is “only” about $7,400 ($23,400 versus $16,000). Black college graduates are also three times more likely to default on their debt within four years of graduation.Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

At every opportunity, Manchin has sabotaged Democrats’ agenda. What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-yAfter putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin now rejects any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy – until inflation is no longer a problem.This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand – and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income Americans (such as those living in, say, West Virginia).Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

We would like to hear from you about your or your community’s experiences relating to lead exposure in the USLead is a toxic material that is not safe in any amount. Yet millions of Americans are exposed to it on a regular basis, whether from lead water pipes, lead paint, emissions from lead recycling facilities, or other types of contamination.We want to hear from people in the US: are you, your family or your community suffering from lead exposure? Continue reading...

Some of the cities enjoying population boom are among those gripped by a ferocious heatwave and seeing record temperaturesThe ferocious heatwave that is gripping much of the US south and west has highlighted an uncomfortable, ominous trend – people are continuing to flock to the cities that risk becoming unlivable due to the climate crisis.Some of the fastest-growing cities in the US are among those currently being roasted by record temperatures that are baking the more than 100 million Americans under some sort of extreme heat warning. More than a dozen wildfires are engulfing areas from Texas to California and Alaska, with electricity blackouts feared for places where the grid is coming under severe strain. Continue reading...

The LA Lakers’ Summer League team included a pair of NBA scions whose Hall of Fame fathers are inevitably casting shadows over their professional prospectsLiving in Los Angeles, California, nepotism is as ubiquitous as sun, sand and palm trees. It feels like every other day you find out someone is so-and-so’s son or so-and-so’s daughter, from the guitarist for an indie darling to the top-billed name on a movie marquee. There’s a lot of understandable resentment harbored amongst my fellow children-of-nobody-of-note when it comes to those who were born into opportunity. But I’ve always found it a sort of dark catch-22: sure, you’re sort of born on third base as the child of a famous parent (or parents), but to what end? Can you ever really figure out who you are when you’re growing up in the enormous cast of someone else’s shadow? And in true tree falls in a forest fashion, if you’re able to do so, but no one on earth sees you as anything more than someone’s kid, does your self-actualization ever make a sound?Scotty Pippen Jr and Shareef O’Neal are two such shadow-dodgers, and they just so happened to end up on the same NBA Summer League roster this month. The two hit the Las Vegas circuit to play for one of the other most ubiquitous Los Angeles institutions: the 17-time champion Lakers. Both Scotty Jr and Shareef’s dads are retired NBA supernovas: Scottie Pippen and Shaquille O’Neal, both household names, Hall of Famers and NBA champions many times over. The elder O’Neal, in an added twist, famously reached the pinnacle of his success wearing the same purple and gold of the team Shareef spent Summer League attempting to win over. Continue reading...

In an extract from his new book on the Hall of Famer, Howard Bryant explores how fans and athletes reacted as serious money entered baseballBaseball players weren’t regular guys, but in 1974 they earned only slightly more than three times what the average American family paying to watch them play brought home. That year, the same year Rickey Henderson turned 16, the median household income in the United States was $11,000. The average major league salary was $35,000. Hank Aaron was in the final year of a three-year, $600,000 contract that at signing had made him the highest-paid player in the history of the game at $200,000 per season. A year earlier, Willie Mays retired. Mays ended his spectacular 22-year career never making more than $180,000 a year. There were always the outliers – a few players who dwarfed what the average American worker brought home, like Babe Ruth, who earned $80,000 a year during the Great Depression years of 1930 and 1931.The outliers were the Mount Olympus guys, however, guys like Aaron and Mays, DiMaggio and Williams, who were the best to ever play baseball – and who made their biggest money near or at the very end of their career.Adapted from the book Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original by Howard Bryant. Copyright © 2022 by Howard Bryant. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. Continue reading...

As mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions peaks, researchers explore how willing Americans are to commit violenceOne in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances, a new mega-survey has found.A team of medical and public health scientists at the University of California, Davis enlisted the opinions of almost 9,000 people across the country to explore how far willingness to engage in political violence now goes. Continue reading...

Footage shows victim fleeing after police arrived in unmarked car and drew their gunsPolice in San Bernardino, California, fatally shot a 23-year-old man on Saturday as he was fleeing, according to surveillance footage that shows an officer firing just seconds after arriving in an unmarked vehicle.Security camera footage from a parking lot in San Bernardino, a city an hour east of Los Angeles, shows two officers driving up in an unmarked car about 8pm as Robert Adams stood in the lot. As soon as two officers exited the car, Adams turned away from them and ran. It appeared that roughly five seconds after they had stepped out of the car, one of the officers fired at Adams from a distance, seeming to hit him and causing him to collapse to the ground. Continue reading...

The measure, partly a political strategy, forced Democrats and Republicans to record their view, and garnered bipartisan supportThe US House has passed a bill protecting the right to same-sex and interracial marriages, a vote that comes amid concerns that the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade could jeopardize other rights.Forty-seven House Republicans supported the legislation, called the Respect for Marriage Act, including some who have publicly apologized for their past opposition to gay marriage. But more than three-quarters of House Republicans voted against the bill, with some claiming it was a “political charade”. Continue reading...

The legislators were engaged in peaceful civil disobedience against the loss of abortion rights in front of the supreme courtSeveral prominent Democratic members of Congress were arrested on Wednesday during a protest in support of abortion rights in front of the supreme court, in the aftermath of the historic overturning of Roe v Wade last month.The politicians gathered in front of the US Capitol before marching to the court building, chanting “our bodies, our choice” and “we won’t go back”. Continue reading...

Fire put out before firefighters arrived on the scene, and there was no disruption to the power gridA transformer on one of America’s tallest dams briefly caught fire on Tuesday morning before the Hoover Dam fire brigade extinguished the flames.No one was injured in the blaze and there is no disruption to the power grid, the Bureau of Reclamation said in a statement. The blaze was extinguished within about 30 minutes before firefighters from the Boulder City fire department arrived on scene, the Nevada city reported on Facebook. Continue reading...

Bennie Thompson to miss hearing as ex-Trump aides Matthew Pottinger and Sarah Matthews expected to give evidenceThe chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has contracted Covid – but Thursday’s primetime hearing will proceed, according to a tweeted statement from the chair, Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson.A committee spokesperson, Tim Mulvey, said: “While Chairman Thompson is disappointed with his Covid diagnosis, he has instructed the select committee to proceed with Thursday evening’s hearing. Committee members and staff wish the chairman a speedy recovery.” Continue reading...

Jackson Women’s Health Organization sold by clinic’s owner given ‘dim prospects for a speedy and meaningful ruling’The Mississippi abortion clinic at the heart of the US supreme court’s decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision has dropped its effort to have the state’s high court halt a near-total ban on the procedure after its building was sold.Jackson Women’s Health Organization had asked the Mississippi state supreme court to allow it to resume some abortion services after a lower-court judge rejected its appeal to prevent a near-total ban on abortions from taking effect on 7 July. Continue reading...

The National Archives asked the agency to report in a month on whether messages were ‘improperly deleted’The US National Archives has asked the Secret Service to conduct an internal investigation over “erased” text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to the agency’s records management officer on Tuesday.The request marks the latest escalation of the matter after the watchdog for the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, notified Congress he had sought the texts only to be told they no longer existed. Continue reading...

Maybe the intensity of nuclear families can be diluted by building a community of ‘extended, chosen’ family

Government data show mortality among Black and Native people increased dramatically during the first year of the pandemicOverdose death rates surged among Black, American Indian and Alaska Native individuals in 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.The data, from 25 states and the District of Columbia, show the overdose death rate increased 44% for Black people and 39% for American Indian and Alaska Native people from 2019. Continue reading...

Blazes have scorched over 3m acres as temperatures expected to reach 100F in much of the Plains and Mississippi ValleyMore than 100 million Americans are under either a heat warning about dangerous conditions or heat advisories amid record temperatures, as 85 major wildfires burn in 13 US states, scorching more than 3m acres.Officials said on Tuesday that 14 new large fires were reported: seven in Texas, two in Alaska and two in Washington, as well as one each in Arizona, California and Idaho. Continue reading...

At a tense meeting, many parents said they won’t send children to school without major changes and demanded firing of employeesWhen school starts in a few weeks, Jasmin Cazares will be a senior at Uvalde high school, but she’s not ready to return.After Cazares’s sister, nine-year-old Jacklyn Cazares, died in the mass shooting at Robb elementary school in the tiny south Texas town two months ago, she’s demanding stronger security from the school district. Continue reading...

Security doorbell camera captured the man staggering as temperatures soared over 100FAn Arizona resident has shared surveillance video of a UPS driver collapsing on the doorstep of his house, in an effort to warn others about dangerously high temperatures, according to recent reports.The video footage, shared by Scottsdale homeowner Brian Enriquez from his doorbell device, captures a delivery person ambling slowly toward the door, seeming uncertain on his feet. When the delivery man leans over to leave the package on the doormat, he falls and slumps on the ground. Continue reading...

As a climate scientist, I’m tired of hearing about that summer. The extreme heat we’re experiencing globally has no precedentI’m too young to remember the 1976 heatwave. But as a climate scientist, I’m tired of hearing about why it means we shouldn’t take the climate crisis seriously. 1976 was undeniably a hot summer. A really hot summer, in fact. Temperatures topped 32C (89.6F) somewhere in the UK for 15 days on the trot, climbing to a maximum of 35.9C on 3 July. But in many ways it was nothing like the heatwave we’re enduring right now.In 1976, the UK was an anomalous red blob of unusual heat on a map of distinctly normal summer temperatures. Contrast that to July 2022, and there are few places on Earth where temperatures are not considerably above average. What makes 2022 a lot worse than 1976 is not just the temperature itself – which will be 4-5C higher than in 1976 if the forecasts are accurate – but how large an area is currently feeling the heat. Parts of Spain, Portugal, France and Italy have been baking in 40C-plus heat for days on end. Combined with extremely dry conditions, the heat has triggered wildfires and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.Dr Ella Gilbert is a climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey

State on track to break 2004 record of 6.5m acres destroyed while Europe braces for more extreme heat. Plus, the truth behind American PieGood morning.Alaska has experienced more than 500 forest fires since the beginning of April, which have forced the evacuation of mining camps, villages and remote cabins.Is it really all down to the climate crisis? Thoman says the rising temperatures are playing a big part. “It’s not only Alaska,” he says. “Across the board in the Arctic and the sub-Arctic, you’re seeing this increase in fires. Taking into consideration the lightning, the drought, the early snowmelt – there’s just no doubt the warming planet is playing a huge role in this.”What’s happening in France? Meteorologists have warned of a “heat apocalypse” in western France as more than 8,500 further people fled their homes to escape a large wildfire sparked by a searing southern European heatwave that has already caused hundreds of deaths.What has he been charged with? Bannon is charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. He was referred to the justice department by the House of Representatives after his failure to testify and turn over documents as demanded by a subpoena from the select committee late last year.Why did the panel want Bannon to testify? The panel noted he spoke to Trump the day before the Capitol attack and helped the Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel strategize on how to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Continue reading...

You won’t hear this on Fox News, but Biden did a terrific job lifting America out of the pandemic-induced downturn. The nation added 8.9m jobs during Biden’s first 18 months in officeIf the Democrats hope to avoid disaster in this November’s elections, they need to do a far better job making their case to working-class voters. Many blue-collar Americans are understandably upset about inflation, but it’s less understandable that they give higher marks on the economy to Republicans than to Democrats, considering that President Biden and the Democrats have done far more to boost the economy and help workers.You will hardly ever hear this on Fox News, but Biden and the Democrats pushed through an emergency rescue plan that did a terrific job lifting America’s economy out of the pandemic-induced downturn. They did such a good job that millions of workers moved to higher-paying employment as the nation added 8.9m jobs during Biden’s first 18 months in office – more than in any other president’s first 18 months.Steven Greenhouse is an American labor and workplace journalist and writer. A former labor reporter for the New York Times, he has covered unions for over 25 years Continue reading...

USC and UCLA’s stunning move to the Big Ten has kicked off a wave of conference realignment that will rock college football to its foundationIt’s 2032. At long last, humans have landed on Mars.Back on Earth, US sports fans have a simple question: Is the Mars colony in the Big Ten or the SEC? Continue reading...

Critics say Aipac and its allies are seeking to influence Democratic politics with money from Republican billionairesPro-Israel lobby groups have poured millions of dollars into a Democratic primary for a Maryland congressional seat on Tuesday, in the latest attempt to block an establishment candidate who expressed support for the Palestinians.A surge in political spending by organisations funded by hardline supporters of Israel, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), has reshaped Democratic primaries over recent months even though debate about the country rarely figures as a major issue in the elections. Continue reading...

Towering waves have crashed over the top of oceanfront buildings in Keauhou-Kona, Hawaii. Video captured the moment a giant wave poured over the top of two-storey apartment buildings and flooded a car park. Powerful waves also crashed into an outdoor wedding party, sending tables flying and guests running. The US National Weather Service said a southern swell was creating ‘historic’ surf conditions. The large waves have damaged several buildings and forced road closures in Keauhou-Kona

Far-right Trump ally seeks to claim in federal court that he did not willfully fail to comply with subpoenaWith jury selection nearly complete, opening arguments are expected to take place on Tuesday in the federal trial against Steve Bannon, the top former Trump strategist charged with contempt of Congress after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.Bannon appeared in federal court on Monday as his trial formally opened in Washington. The far-right provocateur – one of the principal architects of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election – is attempting to argue that he did not willfully fail to comply with the subpoena, which sought documents and testimony. Continue reading...

A strong winter storm in the South Pacific produced the swell which headed for the islands, bringing waves more than 20ft highTowering waves on Hawaii’s south shores crashed into homes and businesses, spilled across highways and upended weddings over the weekend.The large waves, some more than 20ft (6m) high, came from a combination of a strong south swell that peaked Saturday evening, particularly high tides and rising sea levels associated with climate change, the National Weather Service said Monday. Continue reading...

The heist took place after armed guards walked away from a Brinks vehicle that had been traveling to Los Angeles for a jewelry showThieves in California stole millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry and gemstones after breaking into an unattended security vehicle on its way back from a jewelry show, police said.The robbery took place in a remote rest stop in southern California last week, authorities said on Monday, after the vehicle’s two armed guards walked away. Continue reading...

However nearly 400 officers waited 73 minutes before breaching the classroom as newly released footage shows chaotic sceneNewly released body camera footage from the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows that within moments of arriving at Robb elementary school, some police officers knew they needed to move swiftly to save lives.“Dude, we gotta get in there,” said staff sergeant Eduardo Canales, according to body camera footage released late on Sunday by the small south Texas city, adding: “He’s still shooting. We gotta get in there.” Continue reading...

Family members of Texas school shooting victims say state legislature’s 77-page report ‘doesn’t change anything’Wearing a shirt bearing his granddaughter’s name and a button with her face, Vincent Salazar arrived at the Uvalde civic center around noon Sunday to learn what a Texas legislative committee had determined about the day she died.He didn’t expect answers to his most pressing questions, like exactly how it happened and who was accountable for not preventing the tragedy, but still wanted to be there for Layla, the 10-year-old girl who loved to swim and run and dance before the day a gunman walked into her fourth grade classroom in May. Continue reading...

Request comes after Biden returns from Saudi trip in which he claims to have raised journalist’s murder with crown princeThe Biden administration asked a US judge for a 60-day extension before it formally weighed in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, ought to be granted sovereign immunity in a case involving the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.The Department of Justice said in a filing before a US district court that it had initiated a “decision-making process” about whether it would file a statement of interest in the case but that it would not be able to comply with the court’s requested deadline of 1 August. Continue reading...

Judge says the state’s sole abortion clinic and its patients ‘are suffering irreparable harm’A judge in West Virginia blocked enforcement of the state’s 150-year-old abortion ban on Monday, opening the door for abortions to resume in the state.The Kanawha county circuit court judge, Tera L Salango, granted the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia a preliminary injunction against the ban, saying that in the absence of action by the court, the state’s sole abortion clinic and its patients, “especially those who are impregnated as a result of a rape or incest, are suffering irreparable harm”. Continue reading...

Gunman was a 20-year-old man who shot five people at the Greenwood Park mall before a shopper shot and killed himAuthorities on Monday identified the gunman who shot five people at a suburban Indianapolis shopping mall on Sunday, killing three of them, before a shopper shot and killed him.He was a 20-year-old local man, Jonathan Sapirman, of Greenwood, who began firing after leaving a bathroom at the Greenwood Park Mall shortly before it closed Sunday evening, the Greenwood police chief, James Ison, said at a news conference. Continue reading...

Jury to decide on death penalty or life in prison for gunman who pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people in 2018A prosecutor on Monday urged jurors to sentence to death the gunman who killed 17 people in a mass shooting at a Florida high school in 2018.The penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz began on Monday, the deadliest US mass shooting to go before a jury. Continue reading...

Infectious disease expert and adviser to Trump and Biden says of Covid: ‘I think we’re going to be living with this’Anthony Fauci announced on Monday he will have retired by the time Joe Biden’s first term in the White House ends in January 2025, but said his hope of eliminating Covid will likely not have been achieved by then.“If somebody says, ‘You’ll leave when we don’t have Covid any more,’ then I will be 105,” the government’s chief medical adviser, 81, said in a wide-ranging interview with Politico. Continue reading...

Former Trump adviser refused to comply with Capitol attack subpoena for documents and testimony related to January 6A federal criminal trial got under way on Monday, with the start of jury selection, to determine whether Steve Bannon, the influential former adviser to Donald Trump, broke the law by refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents and testimony by the panel investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.Last fall, the congressional committee investigating the deadly Capitol riots subpoenaed Bannon to sit for a deposition and to provide a wide range of documents related to the events of January 6. Bannon refused to comply. The committee cited him for contempt and referred him to the US justice department for prosecution in October of last year. Continue reading...

Agency’s account about how text messages from day before and day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several timesDeleted Secret Service texts sent on 6 January, the day of the insurrection at the US Capitol, and the day before will be released by Tuesday to the House committee investigating the failed attempt by supporters of Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, a panel member said.“You can imagine how shocked we were to get the letter from the [Department of Homeland Security] inspector general saying that he had been trying to get this information and that they had, in fact, been deleted after he’d asked for them,” committee member and California Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told ABC’s This Week. Continue reading...

Dangerous heat will become the norm, even in the UK. Systems need to urgently change – and the silence needs to be brokenCan we talk about it now? I mean the subject most of the media and most of the political class has been avoiding for so long. You know, the only subject that ultimately counts – the survival of life on Earth. Everyone knows, however carefully they avoid the topic, that, beside it, all the topics filling the front pages and obsessing the pundits are dust. Even the Times editors still publishing columns denying climate science know it. Even the candidates for the Tory leadership, ignoring or downplaying the issue, know it. Never has a silence been so loud or so resonant.This is not a passive silence. It is an active silence, a fierce commitment to distraction and irrelevance in the face of an existential crisis. It is a void assiduously filled with trivia and amusement, gossip and spectacle. Talk about anything, but not about this. But while the people who dominate the means of communication frantically avoid the subject, the planet speaks, in a roar becoming impossible to ignore. These days of atmospheric rage, these heatshocks and wildfires ignore the angry shushing and burst rudely into our silent retreat. Continue reading...

The schism in world golf is the all-consuming storyline, with all eyes now turning to Augusta and the 2023 MastersThe condensed nature of the men’s major championship schedule leaves an unsatisfactory pause after the final putts are holed at the Open. To be precise, 263 days will have passed between Cameron Smith holding the Claret Jug aloft at the Old Course and the opening tee shots being struck at the 2023 Masters.There is reason, however, to wonder what on earth the professional game could – or should – look like by the time it returns to Augusta National next year. Mainstream tours can wish away the LIV Series all they like and the R&A can try to divert focus on to Smith’s outstanding final round of 64, but the fact remains this major was dominated by discourse about the rebel league. Continue reading...