In new book, Republican and former undercover CIA officer rejects political extremesIt was a plot twist worthy of Homeland.Will Hurd got home one night and told his fiancee that he was in fact an undercover officer in the CIA. And there was more. They would have to move to Pakistan. Continue reading...
Inflation hit 8.5% in March as a mix of post-pandemic demand, price gouging and the Ukraine war dragged down Biden’s ratingsIn the days leading up to the release of the US labor department’s latest inflation report, the White House tried to deflate expectations. White House officials said they expected the March inflation rate to be “extraordinarily elevated” because of rising gas prices, driven largely by war in Ukraine.Unfortunately for Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, they were proven right. The inflation report, released on Tuesday, showed US prices increased by 8.5% between March 2021 and March 2022 – the highest level of US inflation since 1981. Continue reading...
by Ramon Antonio Vargas in New York, and agencies on (#5Y8DV)
Police said five other people were hurt while trying to escape the shooting, which arose from a personal disputeA 22-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a shooting at a South Carolina shopping mall in which 14 people were either shot or injured during a stampede to escape, police said on Saturday night.The man was one of three people to be detained immediately after the incident, which happened just outside South Carolina’s capital of Colombia, and he will be charged with unlawfully carrying a pistol. Continue reading...
Greg Abbott hit brakes on policy after a week of backlash and fears of deepening economic losses as food supplies held in protestTexas governor Greg Abbott has made an about-face on his policy of tighter inspections of trucks entering Texas from Mexico, a week after he implemented the policy which led to Mexican truckers blockading border bridges in protest and holding up food supplies to the US as a result.He reversed course on Friday night after a week of intensifying backlash and fears of deepening economic losses. Continue reading...
The Ockenden report revealed fatal myths in maternity care. But their potent allure remainsFor Grantly Dick-Read, the Victorian originator of the UK’s natural childbirth movement, birthing women in Britain should emulate those, as he phrased it, “of more primitive types”. In Natural Childbirth, 1933, he pictured one of these individuals disappearing into a “thicket” – it sounded plausible enough from Woking – to await her pain-free labour.“Natural birth is all that she looks for; there are no fears in her mind; no midwives spoiling the natural process; she has no knowledge of the tragedies of sepsis, infection and haemorrhage.” Continue reading...
The reaction to the Northern Ireland manager blaming a 5-0 defeat on women being ‘emotional’ shows progress of sortsIt was a bad day at the office for Northern Ireland manager, Kenny Shiels. Discussing his team’s 5-0 defeat to England on Tuesday, a loss that ended their hopes for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, he explained that “girls and women are more emotional than men, so they take a goal and then they don’t take that very well”. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue.He went on to explain his theory, using statistics about how often a second goal is conceded quickly after the first. “That’s an emotional goal,” he suggested. After a minute or so of chat about the subject, there was a telltale pause. “I shouldn’t have told you that,” he said. Continue reading...
People are confusing wealth and intelligence if they read too much into the tech entrepreneur’s cheerleading for the cryptocurrencySince powdered rhino horn has (rightly) been banned, only two aphrodisiacs remain: political power and great wealth. Of these, the second is the more interesting, partly because most humans, especially journalists, seem to be affected by it. It’s what leads them to assume that if someone is fabulously rich, then she or he must be very smart. That’s why the super-rich are invariably surrounded by fawning sycophants – and also why they eventually come to believe that they themselves are geniuses.Which brings us neatly to Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley’s leading contrarian. With a net worth of perhaps $5bn (£3.9bn), he is undoubtedly rich, though not in the Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or even Bill Gates league. But since he is the only public intellectual that the tech industry has produced, there is a widespread belief that he must also be a deep thinker, which is why organisations ask him to give “keynote” speeches. Continue reading...
Jacob Christian Muse, arrested Friday night, faces charges of malice murder for killing three people at a local gun rangePolice in Georgia have arrested a man accused of killing a local coroner’s parents and son during a robbery at the family’s gun range earlier this month, according to officials.Jacob Christian Muse, 21, faces three counts of malice murder in the 7 April shooting deaths of Luke Hawk, 19; Tommy Hawk, 75; and Evelyn Hawk, 75, which rattled their rural community about 50 miles south-west of Atlanta. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Julian Borger in Washi on (#5Y86N)
Anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder says ‘whole class of British lawyers’ making money out of lawsuits against journalists, dissidents and whistleblowersThe anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder is calling on the US to issue visa bans against British lawyers who he has accused of “enabling” Russian oligarchs.The US-born financier, an outspoken and longtime critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, has said that installing such a ban would strike at the heart of what he described as a persistent problem of oligarchs using the UK legal system against journalists and whistleblowers, tying them up in expensive lawsuits. Continue reading...
A latte is a powerful symbol of normality for a friend working to help Ukrainian refugees arriving in PolandI pick up the phone to an old friend who, until a few weeks ago, had a working life a bit like mine; one might grandly call it a portfolio career, but in truth it’s a matter of turning your hand to all sorts of things to make a buck. In his case, a Starbuck; he’s a coffee devotee and, as we chatted, a sad story came to light, which saw him being relieved of his takeaway latte by an officious concierge as he arrived at a swanky office building for a meeting. Honestly, he said, I could have cried, to which you might retort, well, go ahead and cry me a river.Except that the latte was a little manifestation of creature comfort and normality, a treat to power him through a whistlestop trip to London, where he normally lives, but from which he has been largely absent recently. Nowadays, you can most often find him in Jaroslaw in Poland, where he has gone to volunteer for a newly founded charity called Poland Welcomes, its mission to provide shelter and amenities to Ukrainian women and children who have been forced to leave their homes. At the last count, they had 500 guests across a series of hastily adapted sites; they’re trying to scale up to 2,000. Continue reading...
Frank James, 62, arrested in Manhattan a day after attack on subway in Brooklyn in which more than 20 were woundedFive people who provided “critical information” that helped lead to the arrest of the man charged with this week’s mass shooting in a New York subway will share a $50,000 reward, police announced.The suspect, wearing a gas mask, had filled a crowded subway car traveling through Brooklyn with thick black smoke from a canister and opened fire last Tuesday on morning rush-hour passengers, injuring more than 20, including 10 with gunshot wounds. Continue reading...
Last year the US government lifted millions of children out of poverty when it expanded the Child Tax Credit – and then the policy was simply chucked awayChild poverty is bad. I think we can all agree on that, right? Americans are divided on lots of issues but it’s reasonable to suppose that, no matter where someone sits on the political spectrum, they would want kids to have enough to eat. Right?Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...
The US presidential debate has been thrown into doubt – and the move is proof of the RNC’s eagerness to do Trump’s biddingOne of the marquee moments of any US presidential election – the televised debate – has been thrown into doubt by the Republican party’s decision on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates.The Republican National Committee (RNC) grumbled that the group that has run the debates since 1988 is biased and refuses to enact reforms. It promised to “find newer, better debate platforms” in future. Continue reading...
Some say his bets on extreme candidates are risky, as losses could threaten his role as king and kingmaker in the Republican partyHe has long held that the true measure of a man is his TV ratings. So perhaps it came as no surprise when Donald Trump endorsed a celebrity doctor for a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania.“They liked him for a long time,” Trump said of Mehmet Oz at a rally in Pennsylvania last week. “That’s like a poll. You know, when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll. That means people like you.” Continue reading...
Santa Ana residents were awakened from their sleep as police played loud music to prevent themselves from being recordedA California police department has launched an investigation into its own officers who were filmed blaring copyrighted Disney music in attempts to prevent residents from recording them.The incident in question occurred during a vehicle search on the night of 4 April, when residents in Santa Ana, a city near Los Angeles, woke up to a series of Disney songs being blasted outside their windows. The songs included Toy Story’s You Got a Friend in Me, Encanto’s We Don’t Talk About Bruno, Mulan’s Reflection and Coco’s Un Poco Loco. Continue reading...
State party members had reportedly called on the ex-president to not back any candidate, pointing to Vance’s past statementsDonald Trump has picked a side in the contentious Republican primary for US Senate in Ohio, backing JD Vance, the bestselling author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy.In doing so on Friday, the former president chose to forgive Vance’s previous opposition to him and caustic comments about Trump. Continue reading...
The vice-president and her husband reported a gross income of $1.7m while the Bidens made $611,000Kamala Harris and her husband earned more than twice as much as Joe Biden and his wife did last year, according to copies of their income tax returns released on Friday.Harris and the so-called second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, reported a federal adjusted gross income of about $1.7m in 2021, which was about the same they claimed to have earned the prior year. Continue reading...
Former EPA administrator is seeking seat being vacated by Republican senator Jim Inhofe in OklahomaScott Pruitt, who had a scandal-ridden spell in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency under Donald Trump, filed on Friday to run for an open US Senate seat in Oklahoma.Pruitt, 53, a former state senator and Oklahoma attorney general, is seeking the seat being vacated by the longtime Republican senator Jim Inhofe. Continue reading...
Subpoenaed former White House adviser gives virtual deposition on whether Trump encouraged supporters to march on CapitolFormer White House aide Stephen Miller testified on Thursday to the House select committee investigating January 6 about whether Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol, according to a source familiar with the matter.The virtual deposition, which lasted for roughly eight hours and was earlier reported by the New York Times, also touched on Miller’s role in the former president’s schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election and return him to office, the source said. Continue reading...
A Black man face-down on the ground was fatally shot in the back of the head by a Michigan police officer, the violent climax of a traffic stop, foot chase and fight over a stun gun, according to videos of the 4 April incident released by police. Patrick Lyoya, 26, came to the US fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014.
Richard Moore, 57, convicted of 1999 killing of convenience store clerk, to be first prisoner put to death in South Carolina since 2011A South Carolina prisoner scheduled to be the first man executed in the state in more than a decade has decided to die by firing squad rather than in the electric chair later this month, according to court documents filed on Friday.Richard Moore, 57, is the also first state prisoner to face the choice of execution methods after a law went into effect last year making electrocution the default and giving inmates the option to face three prison workers with rifles instead. Continue reading...
Mount Vernon’s crumbling sewage infrastructure has for years caused unsanitary backups in homes and pollution of local riversAfter decades struggling with failing sewage infrastructure, the majority-Black city of Mount Vernon, New York, is getting a significant funding package aimed at preventing unsanitary backups in homes and stopping pollution from leaking into local rivers.New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced on Friday that the state will dedicate $150m toward projects that include repairing and replacing the city’s collapsing sewage pipes. Some of the funding is set aside for families affected by the sewage failures. It would also help bring the city into compliance with federal court orders to stop raw sewage from pouring into the Bronx and Hutchinson rivers, which flow south into New York City’s Bronx borough, as the Guardian reported last year. Continue reading...
The family’s lawyer says Grand Rapid police officer broke protocol by using the Taser too close to LyoyaThe grief-stricken parents of the Black man shot in the back of the head by a white Michigan police officer have described their son’s death as an “execution”.Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese refugee, was killed after a traffic stop in Grand Rapids on 4 April. Continue reading...
Sharing in a celebrity couple’s joy, an elevator hitch, and why it’s time to stop quoting David MametI hate myself for it, but as with new leads on cold cases or anything involving the House of Grimaldi, I simply can’t look away. Brooklyn Beckham, whose achievements in photography are rivalled only by those of Rocco Ritchie’s in portraiture, married Nicola Peltz in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, and on Monday the rest of us got to share in their joy. I took away three things from my glancing exposure to the 479 pages of coverage: Brooklyn’s extraordinary gaucheness, the ongoing question of what Romeo’s deal is, and the strange ubiquity of Eva Longoria. Continue reading...
It never really made sense when Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady retired and then abruptly unretired from the NFL earlier this year. Could it have all been part of an elaborate plan?Remember a few months back when Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady retired from the NFL and then unretired? How it was all just weird and awkward, and felt like there was something else going on behind the scenes? Since then, multiple unconfirmed reports have emerged suggesting that this was indeed the case. Continue reading...
New Yorkers deserve to feel safe – and not have their fears dismissed by progressives. But heavy-handed solutions won’t solve the problemOn Wednesday, police finally arrested Frank James, the man accused of shooting up a crowded subway train in New York City, wounding 10. James, strangely, had called in the tip himself, telling police he was at a Manhattan McDonald’s. Other New Yorkers spotted the subway shooter too, assisting the police.Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, touted the arrest as another victory for the New York police department and called, once more, for increased surveillance on the subways. “We believe we have a technology that we can use in the subway system that many passengers are not even going to be aware that they are walking past a device that could detect weapons, and we are excited about the possibilities and I’m not going to leave any legal technology off the table when it comes down to keeping New Yorkers safe,” Adams said on MSNBC.Ross Barkan is a New York City-based writer Continue reading...
Male voters have been drifting right in record numbers – and Republicans are taking a viciously homophobic and sexist tack to appeal to themThe 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be among the most deeply gender-divided elections in American history. A new poll by NBC News, measuring voters’ preferences ahead of the November elections, shows that the gap in women and men’s voting patterns has deepened considerably over the past 12 years, with Republicans holding an 18-point advantage among men, and Democrats holding a 15-point advantage among women. That 33-point gender gap is up from a 16-point divide in the 2010 midterms.Despite the large degree of analytical attention that has focused on the voting habits of suburban white women, it seems that it’s men who are changing their voting habits most dramatically. The NBC News polling shows that men with college degrees have moved dramatically to the right, lurching towards Republicans by 26 points since just 2018. Men on the whole have moved towards Republicans by 20 points.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
by Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil with photographs by Carlos on (#5Y70T)
Venerable Sanathavihari is breaking down language and cultural barriers to welcome newcomers to an LA templeWhen Venerable Sanathavihari was ordained as a Buddhist monk eight years ago, it was a lonely experience. As a young Mexican American who grew up Catholic in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, he didn’t know many other monks he could relate to.But since then, he’s helped build a flourishing Latino Buddhist community at Sarathchandra Buddhist Center in North Hollywood, a temple founded by Sri Lankan Americans. The temple now has two Latino monks and another in training – thought to be the most at any temple in LA – as well as a growing number of Latino laypeople who help sustain temple life. Continue reading...
Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, claimed he was following orders when he stole a coat rack from a Senate officeAn Ohio man who claimed he was only “following presidential orders” from Donald Trump when he stormed the US Capitol has been convicted by a jury that took less than three hours to reject his novel defence for obstructing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.The federal jury on Thursday also found Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, guilty of all five of the other charges in his indictment, including stealing a coat rack from an office inside the Capitol during the riot on 6 January 2021. The maximum sentence for the obstruction count, the lone felony, would be 20 years’ imprisonment. Continue reading...
Sexual violence will continue in war zones until commanders actually end up in the dock for overseeing such atrocitiesThey read like messages from one of the creepier dating apps, or else the sort of unwanted lechery with which many young women on social media are grimly familiar.One man suggests sharing “a large bed, we could sleep together” and then letting “what we both want happen”. Another is keen to let the recipient know she is “so beautiful”, while a third immediately asks, “Are you single?” But these aren’t just any old clumsy sexual overtures. These are messages left for women fleeing war-torn Ukraine, on a Facebook group seeking to match refugees with Britons offering sanctuary. The grotesque parody of shelter some men see fit to offer is a chance to flee the threat of rape by Russian soldiers, but only for somewhere you might want to barricade yourself into the spare bedroom at night. An undercover reporter posing as a refugee found more than half the messages sent to her came from men living alone, some explicit about the strings attached to their offers.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Growing numbers of bosses are offering special sweeteners to anyone willing to trudge back to work – but will they work?Since the pandemic began, millions of workers around the world have gone remote and we now have a raft of recent studies that suggest what many workers have long argued: remote work makes people happier, healthier, and even more productive. And it’s especially preferred by people belonging to underrepresented groups, who have reported feeling more included and less anxious when remote.Despite pandemic restrictions lifting, workers aren’t in a hurry to return to the office, or “RTO”. A tight labor market is making it even harder for companies to force people to come back. Banks like JP Morgan initially took a hard line on ending remote work, but have backed down in the face of worker revolts. Continue reading...
This year feels particularly jolly because Ramadan, Passover and Easter all align – putting billions of us on the same pageEaster is the best holiday, hands down, no debate. In October, when the first Christmas decorations start to appear, it triggers deep dread in all right-thinking people. I’m in the US, where Thanksgiving doesn’t land for me, ditto the Fourth of July. There’s no day off for Halloween, but in any case that’s an occasion just for the kids. Like everything else, Easter has become more commercial – the shops are full of wicker baskets stuffed with shredded paper that once spilled, will never fully be expunged from your home. But relative to other holidays, it feels like the one grownup break in the year. Truly, who can be miserable about the advent of spring?For non-believers raised in a roughly Christian tradition, part of the joy of Easter has to do with it being uncoupled from religion without an attendant secular mythology springing up in its place. “The Easter bunny isn’t real,” said one of my children this week, and after giving it a moment’s thought, I realised she was right. No one sells the Easter bunny as real to their kids, even as we shill desperately for Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I’m not sure why this is; on paper, a giant bunny isn’t any more ludicrous than a fat man flying on a sleigh. But no one cares enough about Easter to put in the ground work and the resulting low pressure of the event is sublime.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York Continue reading...
Two sources reported that she was planning to leave her job in the coming months, being ‘frustrated by the slow pace of climate progress’White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy is planning to step down, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations, likely ending a tenure marked by ambitious emissions targets but failure in securing major US carbon-cutting legislation.McCarthy, 67, had initially planned to remain in the White House for about a year, hoping to help federal agencies implement President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate legislation, but those efforts stalled amid intraparty opposition from key Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin. Continue reading...
Some of the animals found by authorities in Mohave County, including dogs, rabbits, birds and others, were frozen aliveAn Arizona man faces animal cruelty charges after 183 dead dogs, rabbits, birds and other animals were found in a freezer, including some that were apparently frozen while alive, officials said.Mohave county deputies and animal control officers found the animals in a garage freezer on 3 April after a woman reported that Michael Patrick Turland, 43, hadn’t returned snakes she’d lent him for breeding, the sheriff’s office said Thursday in a statement. The freezer was at a home that Turland previously rented in Golden Valley, a rural community in far western Arizona. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and agencies on (#5Y6GX)
Border patrol officials and the Cochise county sheriff’s office investigating cause of death of the 32-year-old womanA Mexican woman attempting to climb the US border wall in eastern Arizona died after her leg became trapped in a climbing harness and she was left hanging upside down, authorities said.Border patrol officials and the Cochise county sheriff’s office said they were investigating the cause of death of the 32-year-old on a section of the wall near Douglas, Arizona. The sheriff’s office said her foot and leg became entangled as she tried to maneuver down the US side of the wall and that she hung upside down “a significant amount of time”. Continue reading...
Nearly a quarter of those awaiting trial are held beyond deadlines amid pandemic, at cost to their wellbeingMore than two years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly a quarter of those incarcerated in San Francisco county jail are being held past their original trial deadlines, with some individuals waiting for years for their cases to be heard.In June 2020, in the early months of the pandemic, 68 people were incarcerated in the county past their original trial deadlines, according to data from the public defender. By January 2022, the latest data available, that number had grown to nearly 250. Hundreds more are awaiting trial out of custody. Continue reading...
He was found guilty on charges that he injected the men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to overdosesThe wealthy political activist and Democratic donor Ed Buck was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges that he supplied and personally injected gay men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to two deaths and multiple other overdoses.Buck, 67, was found guilty in July by a federal jury on all nine counts, including having a drug house, distributing methamphetamine and enticing men to travel for prostitution. Continue reading...
After an arrest in the Brooklyn subway shooting, Tahhan has become a social media star. But there’s plenty of credit to go roundIn the aftermath of the Brooklyn subway shooting, social media has found its latest star.Zack Tahhan, 21, was quickly anointed as a hero on Wednesday following the arrest of Frank R James, the suspect in the attack that injured 29. But the real story, it seems, was more complicated – and Tahhan wasn’t the day’s only hero. Continue reading...
Immigrant groups seek transparency: ‘Ice’s reluctance to share what data it’s acquiring and how it’s using it should give us pause’Immigrant advocates and legal groups are suing the US government over its controversial and rapidly growing alternative to detention program, an effort that subjects migrants awaiting legal status to intensive surveillance through various forms.Just Futures Law, Mijente Support Committee and Community Justice Exchange filed a lawsuit against US Immigrants and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Thursday to obtain information about the data the agency is collecting on migrants surveilled through ATD. The groups first requested the information from the agency nearly eight months ago. Continue reading...
Republican National Committee accuses organization that has run electoral debates since 1987 of biasThe Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, saying the group that has run the debates for decades was biased and refused to enact reforms.“We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” the committee’s chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, said in a statement. Continue reading...
Frank James did not enter a plea on charges of violating a law that prohibits terrorist and violent attacks against mass transportationThe man detained on a terror charge after shooting 10 people on a New York subway was denied bail and remanded in custody on Thursday after his first court appearance.Frank James, 62, did not enter a plea on charges of violating a law that prohibits terrorist and violent attacks against mass transportation. Continue reading...
Wildfire has prompted eviction orders for as many as 4,500 people, and destroyed more than 200 residencesA wind-driven fire burning across New Mexico is believed to have killed two people, after the remains of a couple were found near their charred home.Police investigators and firefighters found the older couple’s remains on Wednesday afternoon after family members notified police that the two had tried to evacuate but were unaccounted for. Continue reading...
His cooperation is a blow to Trump’s efforts to shield information about his movements on the day of the insurrectionStephen Miller, Donald Trump’s former top adviser, will give testimony to the January 6 committee today, according to a source familiar with the matter.The reported cooperation of Miller is further evidence that the House investigation into the Capitol riot is lapping at the doors of the Trump Oval Office, after the former president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, both former senior White House advisers, gave their own testimony in recent weeks. Continue reading...
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