Fans have been treated to more regular-season games this season. Whether that has provided more entertainment is up for debateAlvin Kamara, the versatile running back for the New Orleans Saints, went a little ballistic in March after he found out that the NFL was about to add a 17th game to the regular season. Kamara tapped out a four-word tweet: Two were curses, and a third was “dumb”.Even though the NFL agreed to pony up a bigger share of its revenue to the players, Kamara and many others were not so keen on a 17-game regular season, because they’d be expected to actually play in them (the players’ union passed the new schedule by just 60 votes). A 16-game schedule was already punishing enough. Continue reading...
Insurrection Index identifies those who acted as accomplices by participating in 6 January attack or spreading Trump’s ‘big lie’More than 1,000 Americans in positions of public trust acted as accomplices in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election result, participating in the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January or spreading the “big lie” that the vote count had been rigged.The startling figure underlines the extent to which Trump’s attempt to undermine the foundations of presidential legitimacy has metastasized across the US. Individuals who engaged in arguably the most serious attempt to subvert democracy since the civil war are now inveigling themselves into all levels of government, from Congress and state legislatures down to school boards and other local public bodies. Continue reading...
A year ago, it seemed as though the Republican party might snap out of its love affair with the former president. Not soWhether it was praising white supremacists, siding with Vladimir Putin or suggesting bleach as a coronavirus cure, there was nothing that Donald Trump could do to make the Republican party fall out of love with him.Then came 6 January, and – for a brief moment – it seemed that was no longer true. Continue reading...
I felt positively smug after our journey from New York to London. I should have recognised it was just beginner’s luckOn New Year’s Eve, my wife and I locked ourselves in a tiny British Airways bathroom and frantically pulled off items of clothing. It would have been a pretty exciting way to see off 2021, were it not for the fact that the clothes belonged to our seven-month-old, who had decided to do an enormous poo at 30,000 feet.I had had a little chat with the child before the flight and told her Mummy and Mummy would appreciate it if she held off on any major bowel movements while we were in the air, but she didn’t cooperate. Babies, I have learned, are not very good at listening. Continue reading...
James Williams was said to be taking part in local tradition of firing celebratory shots when killed by officer in CantonThe wife of an Ohio man fatally shot by police minutes into the new year has said he had been firing an assault-style rifle to celebrate the arrival of 2022 when an officer opened fire without warning.Marquetta Williams told the Repository newspaper her 46-year-old husband, James, was using an AR-15 rifle that belonged to her to fire celebratory shots early on Saturday outside their home in Canton. Continue reading...
Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school made racist remarks about ‘Asian elites’ and immigrationThe dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school has condemned one of his school’s own professors for making racist remarks about Asians, saying that their recent comments were “xenophobic and white supremacist”.Professor Amy Wax, who specializes in social welfare law and labor and family economics law, appeared as a guest on economist Glenn Loury’s podcast when she called the influx of “Asian elites” into the United States problematic and made other racist statements, including a call for less immigration from Asian countries. Continue reading...
President will honor police in his remarks while Republicans voiced concerns about Trump overshadowing the somber dayJoe Biden will mark the first anniversary of the deadly assault at the US Capitol this Thursday by honoring the bravery of law enforcement on the scene, and outlining the unfinished work the nation needs to do to strengthen its democracy, the White House said in its first preview of the president’s remarks.“On Thursday, the president is going to speak to the truth of what happened, not the lies that some have spread since, and the peril it has posed to the rule of law and our system of democratic governance,” the White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and Johana Bhuiyan on (#5TNRF)
Officers in a San Francisco Bay area city stopped the driver because the rental company had reported his car as stolenNewly released video footage appears to show California police officers using a law enforcement dog to severely maul an Uber driver, who fell behind on payments for the car he rented to do his job.San Ramon police stopped Ali Badr, a 42-year-old Egyptian immigrant, in December 2020 after a rental company reported his vehicle as stolen. In footage obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, police in the Bay Area city can be seen releasing the dog on the unarmed and barefoot driver without warning within seconds of stopping him, even though Badr was not resisting. Continue reading...
The telecom companies have agreed to push back the roll-out of their 5G services over concerns it will affect airplane securityLate Monday, Verizon and AT&T agreed to a two-week delay rolling out their new 5G technology.The technology was slated to launch on Wednesday, but in response to fears that the 5G service will impact airline safety – and amid threats from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground or divert flights at a time when the travel industry is already playing catch-up from recent weather and Covid-related flight disruptions – the telecom companies agreed to a pause. Continue reading...
Crash caused closure of sections of I-95 as drivers posted desperate messages on social media about running out of fuel, food and waterHundreds of motorists were stranded all night in snow and freezing temperatures along a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 95 after a crash involving six tractor-trailers in Virginia, with some drivers stuck in place for nearly 24 hours.By Tuesday evening, transportation authorities in Virginia said that all stranded drivers had been recovered from the motorway south of Washington DC. Continue reading...
Committee requests answers from Hannity about communications with Donald Trump before, on and after day of 6 January attackThe US House of Representatives panel investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol last January is seeking cooperation from Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and one of Donald Trump’s closest allies in the media, as the committee continues to widen its scope.Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chair of the committee, and vice-chair Liz Cheney have requested that Hannity answer questions in relation to communications between Hannity and the former president, as well as the former president’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, and others in the days leading up to the attack, the day itself and in the aftermath. Continue reading...
Joe Biden has urged people to get vaccinated, saying that vaccines, booster shots and therapeutic drugs have mitigated the danger for the overwhelming majority of Americans who are fully vaccinatedThe US president was speaking ahead of a meeting with his Covid-19 response team at the White House about the impact of the Omicron variant
The report says that while some groups were gripped with paranoia by the arrests, others began targeting local politicsIn the year since the 6 January insurrection, many US extremist groups haven’t fully recovered from blows landed by increased scrutiny of law enforcement and purges from big tech social media platforms, a new report has found.The research, by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, found that 12 months after the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob some far-right groups had been gripped by paranoia as authorities traced and arrested participants. But others had reorganized, often with an emphasis on local-level politics and a developing eco-system of far-right social media. Continue reading...
We dislike Silicon Valley’s grifters, but the glee over the Theranos founder’s ruin seems disproportionateTen minutes prior to the announcement of the verdict in the Elizabeth Holmes trial on Monday, reporters in San Jose, California, tweeted a heads up that the jury had returned. The news hit Twitter like oil on a hot frying pan, triggering not only anticipation, but a frisson of spite. Holmes, whose outfits over the course of the 15-week trial – dowdy, pale, and unthreatening – were interpreted as a contrivance equal to the black turtlenecks before them, isn’t a sympathetic figure, and there is always satisfaction to seeing confidence tricksters called out. But the level of enjoyment in her ruin, it seems to me, falls outside the normal range. “Ha,” I thought childishly when the guilty verdict came in. “Serves her right.”This was a particular and not wholly flattering form of schadenfreude. Holmes was found guilty of defrauding her investors on four counts; she was found not guilty on four counts relating to defrauding patients; and the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on three further counts. In all likelihood she will go to jail, and the sheer size of the numbers involved – Holmes defrauded investors to the tune of almost $1bn – will affect the length of her sentence. None of which quite explains the scale of contempt for the woman. I can’t summon a particular face or any real antipathy towards the board members of Enron. I loathe the architects of the 2008 financial crisis in a vague way that has never attached to a single image. Here is Holmes, however, with her too-red lipstick and wispy hair; and up it comes, a violent surge of dislike.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
Democratic representative from Illinois faced Obama in a House primary in 2000 and beat him by more than 30 pointsThe only politician ever to beat Barack Obama will retire from the US Congress at the end of the year.Bobby Rush, a Democratic representative from Illinois, faced Obama in a House primary in 2000 – and beat him by more than 30 points. Obama went on to win a US Senate seat in 2004 and become America’s first Black president five years later. Continue reading...
Investigators interview dozens of people as Joe Pelle says getting it right is ‘more important than the urge for speed’Federal and state investigators have interviewed dozens of people in their search for the cause of a destructive Colorado wildfire but the investigation could take days if not weeks, the Boulder county sheriff warned.Declaring that “the stakes are huge”, Joe Pelle said he would not release details until he was ready “to announce some progress – perhaps that may be a week, perhaps that may be a month”. Continue reading...
‘Potential defendants’ are sweating (if they can) over whether Virginia Giuffre’s settlement with Epstein will protect themWhere does Prince Andrew drive to in his brand new, £80,000 Range Rover – seemingly his only appearances these days in anything that could be considered the outside world? The duke is often pictured motoring broodingly out of his Royal Lodge home in Windsor at the wheel of this high-performance vehicle, perhaps making his in-car security detail listen to a podcast about putting, or a funny song about a whoopee cushion. (The precise contours of Andrew’s cultural life have always remained a tantalising mystery.) Some local visits to his mother at Windsor Castle have been chalked up, as well they might be. But we’ll come to the duke’s ominous financial reliance on the Queen in a minute.Were The Artist Formerly Known as Airmiles to take an aimless intra-Berkshire spin this morning, he would be able to listen to news reports concerning the newly unsealed settlement his accuser reached with Jeffrey Epstein in 2009. Virginia Giuffre signed a $500,000 deal with Epstein, and Andrew’s lawyers believe her agreement not to sue anyone who could be described as a “potential defendant” could get HRH off the hook of having to face, in civil court, her claims that he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was a minor. (He denies everything, vehemently.)Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Congressman Dan Crenshaw threw the barb at congresswoman in spat over his support for using Fema to operate Covid testing sitesThe extremist Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene “might be a Democrat – or just an idiot” – according to a fellow hardline conservative.Dan Crenshaw, a Texas congressman and former Navy Seal, threw the barb back at the Georgia congresswoman in a spat over his support for using the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to operate Covid testing sites. Continue reading...
An illiberal democracy, similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, is increasingly the model for RepublicansThe first anniversary of the invasion of the Capitol approaches, our cold civil war grows hotter by the day, and the numbers tell the story. A majority of Republicans view the attack as a defense of freedom (56%) and just under half (47%) cast it as an act of patriotism. For good measure, one in six Americans approve of the events of 6 January 2021, including nearly a quarter of Republicans.America’s Reichstag fire continues to smolder. A staggering 64% of Americans believe democracy here is “in crisis and at risk of failing”. Beyond that, two-thirds of Republicans agree that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election”. Disturbingly but not surprisingly, the Republican party’s credo is now “heads I win, tails you lose”.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...
High-profile trial of the Theranos founder that captivated Silicon Valley has concluded. Plus, the next US civil war is already hereGood morning.The extraordinary rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, has been sealed as jurors found her guilty on four of 11 charges of fraud, concluding a high-profile trial that captivated Silicon Valley and chronicled the missteps of the now defunct blood testing startup.Was she found guilty of all charges? No. She was acquitted on three charges, including one conspiracy to defraud patients and two charges related to patients who received inaccurate test results.How did Holmes react? As the verdict was read, the Theranos founder bowed her head, remained seated and expressed no visible emotion.Will she go to prison? Holmes does face prison time, although a sentencing date has not been set. She pleaded not guilty and is expected to appeal.What will happen next? Trump has launched a last-ditch appeal to the supreme court to prevent the release of the most sensitive of White House records but experts say it’s unlikely to be successful.Will the 6 January attackers be held accountable? As Republicans spread a revisionist history of the insurrection, the Guardian takes a look inside the FBI’s Capitol riot investigation. Continue reading...
Corporate greed and class warfare are crushing working people. No one is going to save us – we need to rise up togetherAs we begin the year 2022, in these unprecedented times, I know it’s easy to give in to despair.We are facing a raging pandemic with seemingly no end in sight. We are rapidly moving toward oligarchy and while income and wealth inequality grows, millions struggle to obtain the basic necessities of life. We have a dysfunctional healthcare system with more than 84 million uninsured or underinsured and nearly one out of four unable to afford prescription drugs. Climate change is ravaging the planet and systemic racism and other forms of bigotry continue to eat away at the fabric of our society. We have a corrupt political system in which corporate money buys elections and a mainstream media that largely ignores the pain that ordinary people experience. Continue reading...
The Hawaiian governor issued an emergency order to de-fuel the Red Hill Facility. The US Navy has enlisted top lawyers to make sure its 600m liters of petroleum stay perched above our water supply“This [fuel facility] is not the eighth wonder of the world. It is Frankenstein’s monster. And we have to kill it before it kills us.” This is the plea from Marti Townsend, one of more than 1,000 Hawai’i residents urging the Honolulu City Council to take action to protect our island’s most important resource: fresh, clean water.Frankenstein’s monster is the US Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility: a massive underground “farm” of 18-million liter fuel tanks and pipes just 100 feet above metropolitan O’ahu. Its construction began before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Since then, it has leaked over 180,000 gallons of petroleum into the groundwater aquifer that provides drinking water for over 400,000 residents and visitors from Hālawa to Hawaiʻi Kai.Wayna Tanaka is Director for the Sierra Club of Hawai’i Continue reading...
Student says his former coaches, who knew he didn’t consume pork products, forced him to eat pizza with pepperoni residueAn Ohio high school student has filed a lawsuit against his former school and sports coaches after they forced him to eat a pepperoni pizza against his religion.The 17-year old student, known in court documents as KW or Junior, argues that his former coaches, who knew that he was a member of the Hebrew-Israelite faith and did not consume pork products, forced him to eat a whole pepperoni pizza as a consequence of missing a workout last May. Continue reading...
As Republicans spread a revisionist history of the insurrection, its perpetrators are celebrated and even elected to public officeIt’s been one year since a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol, as the “stop the steal” rally demanding to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election turned into a deadly insurrection.After the attack, the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation mobilized one of the largest criminal investigations in American history. Those efforts have so far resulted in more than 700 federal cases and counting, with more suspects expected to be charged. But for all that we have learned about the insurrection and the people who took part in it, crucial questions remain about the fallout of the attack for the far right and what it means to hold its perpetrators accountable. Continue reading...
In the second Netflix series, Emily shows a certain pluckiness, resilience even, that I sometimes wish I possessedWith its second season streaming on Netflix, viewers are hate-bingeing Emily in Paris all over again. Shots have been fired at Emily’s character (basic! backstabber! typical egocentric American!) and the inauthentic representation of the city she inhabits.As a proud watcher of the series, not to mention an American living in Paris, I admire Emily’s shamelessness, as she unself-consciously snaps selfies and slaughters the French language. Don’t get me wrong, my French is pas mal de tout but things get tricky when even a single word eludes me. Recently, I sat in the back of a Montmartre pharmacy waiting to get my Covid-19 booster shot. I resorted to a charades-style gesture, causing a chuckle. While the jab went in I took a deep breath and made a mental note: look up the word for “faint”.Caitlin Raux Gunther is a freelance American writer based in Paris
As the Beijing Winter Olympics draw nearer, here’s a look at 15 athletes from around the world to keep an eye onWith two gold and three silver world championship medals, this pairs team from China is also the current world record holder. Sui and Han, aged 26 and 29 respectively, have been skating together since 2007. They have developed a banter that charms fans, arguing and joking like an old married couple. Not many athletes would consider a silver medal at the Olympics a disappointment but losing by only 0.43 points in Pyeongchang was not what the team had hoped for. In Beijing, they will no doubt be vying for gold in front of the home crowd. Continue reading...
Type 1 diabetics say insurance cap includes loopholes and doesn’t impact individuals who don’t have health coverage in the USSamia Chowdhury of Ontario, California, saw her work hours in the restaurant industry dwindle from full-time to less than 10 hours a week when Covid shutdowns began in the US in March 2020.But the loss of work was not her only problem. As a type 1 diabetic since she was 12, Chowdhury could not afford health insurance after losing most of her work hours and couldn’t get on Medicaid through California. Instead, she relied on visiting medical clinics for insulin prescription refills when she could afford to do so and mutual aid from other diabetics around the US. Continue reading...
A barrage of delay tactics as Republicans are expected to do well in 2022 midterms that would give them control to shut down inquiryThe House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol is facing a race against time in 2022 as Trump and his allies seek to run out the clock with a barrage of delay tactics and lawsuits.Republicans are widely expected to do well in this year’s midterm elections in November and, if they win control of the House, that would give them control to shut down the investigation that has proved politically and legally damaging to Trump and Republicans. Continue reading...
Seven-day average for hospitalizations increased by more than 40% during week between Christmas and New Year’s EveCovid-19 cases in Florida have risen by 948% in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the US.Even as Dr Anthony Fauci – Joe Biden’s top medical adviser – cautioned the public to look at hospitalizations and not infections in order to gauge Omicron’s severity, the seven-day average for US patients hospitalized with Covid-19 increased by more than 40% during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Continue reading...
Baby Alfredo entered the world a few minutes before midnight in 2021; his sister Aylin was the hospital’s first baby of 2022Twins in Salinas, California were born 15 minutes apart but won’t share a birthday – or even the same birth year.Aylin Yolanda Trujillo was delivered at Natividad medical center at exactly midnight on 1 January. She was the first baby born in Monterey county in 2022, as the US west coast ushered in a new year. Continue reading...
Unsealing stems from Giuffre’s sexual abuse lawsuit against duke, filed in Manhattan federal court in AugustA near-dozen-year-old legal settlement between Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender whom she accused of sexual abuse, was released on Monday. Giuffre received $500,000 in her lawsuit against Epstein, court papers revealed.The unsealing stemmed from Giuffre’s sexual abuse lawsuit against Prince Andrew, which she filed on 9 August in Manhattan federal court. Continue reading...
Airlines say they are taking steps to reduce cancelations caused by workers affected by the pandemicWintry weather combined with the pandemic to frustrate US air travelers in the first days of the new year, contributing to a continuing “flightmare” of cancelations, confusion and airport chaos, all amid worries about the Omicron Covid surge.On Monday, as a major winter storm hit mid-Atlantic states, more than half of flights were delayed or canceled at Ronald Reagan national airport, Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall international airport and Washington Dulles international airport, according to FlightAware.com’s misery map. Continue reading...
Letitia James reportedly issues subpoenas to pair as part of fraud investigation into former president’s business empireThe attorney general of New York state has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump as part of its fraud inquiry into Trump’s businesses, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing a court document.The document was filed by lawyers for Trump in response to Letitia James’s decision to subpoena the former president himself. Continue reading...
Nadia Popovici spotted mole on Brian Hamilton’s neck last October and held up a message on her phone saying ‘Please go see a doctor!’When Nadia Popovici spotted a small mole on the back of Brian Hamilton’s neck last October, during an NHL game between the Vancouver Canucks and the Seattle Kraken, she was unsure if the Canucks’ assistant equipment manager was aware it was there.Gaining Hamilton’s attention, she wrote a message on her phone and pressed it against the plexiglass dividing the crowd from the ice. Continue reading...
Republicans are busy at work undermining the next election. And they don’t need Trump in the White House to do soOnly free and fair elections in which the loser abides by the result stand between each of us and life at the mercy of a despotic regime – one we had no voice in choosing and one that can freely violate all our rights. So everything is at stake in the peaceful transfer of power from a government that has lost its people’s confidence to its victorious successor. It was that peaceful transfer that Trump and his minions sought to obstruct and almost succeeded in overthrowing when Joe Biden was elected president.A year has passed since Trump’s attempted coup and his supporters’ violent storming of the United States Capitol on 6 January 2021, in a nearly successful effort to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s decisive loss of the election to Biden. Watching the images that day of the seat of US democracy overtaken and defiled, it was impossible not to viscerally feel the grave danger that confronted the republic. In the tumultuous year since, the immediacy of that sensation has waned – and the magnitude of the stakes has receded from memory. Continue reading...
National Weather Service predicts wind gusts of up to 35mph, as many flights cancelled and businesses and schools closedA winter storm packing heavy snow blew into Washington DC on Monday, closing government offices and schools and grounding the president’s helicopter. As much as 10in of snow was forecast for the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and central Maryland through the afternoon.The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for the area until 4pm ET. Wind gusts of up to 35mph were forecast and travel was expected to be very difficult because of the hazardous conditions, the weather service said. Continue reading...
Homelessness, safe housing, police brutality and racial injustice – does Bill de Blasio’s replacement have the policies to fix them?For many New Yorkers, the inauguration of Eric Adams as the 110th mayor of New York City – and only the second Black person to serve in the position – has evoked a range of feelings, from excitement at the possibility of change to confusion and concern.Adams’ rise through city and state politics was fairly typical. In addition to serving as a New York police captain, he was the Brooklyn borough president and a state senator. But he remains an unconventional, even enigmatic figure. There are questions surrounding his home address and curiosity about his plant-based diet, but information about his actual policies remain scarce. Continue reading...
So far, increasingly militant workers are lacking something vital: a leader who can unite them all. Will that change?Throughout 2021, American workers stood up and fought back to an unusual degree. Workers went on strike at Kellogg’s, Nabisco, John Deere, Columbia University and numerous hospitals, while non-union “essential” workers – furious about how they’ve been treated – walked out at supermarkets, warehouses and fast-food restaurants. Workers have sought to unionize at Starbucks, Amazon, even the Art Institute of Chicago. And a record number of Americans have been quitting their jobs each month, more than 4 million monthly, fed up and eager for something better.Millions of workers are angry – angry that they didn’t get hazard pay for risking their lives during the pandemic, angry that they’ve been forced to work 70 or 80 hours a week, angry that they received puny raises while executive pay soared, angry that they didn’t get paid sick days when they got sick. Continue reading...
