After canceling his trip for ‘family obligations’, Gavin Newsom said he chose to take his children trick-or-treatingCalifornia’s governor made his first public appearance in nearly two weeks on Tuesday, after days of mounting speculation about his decision to abruptly cancel a trip to Cop26 and largely recede from public view.Gavin Newsom said he chose to take his children trick-or-treating on Halloween rather than travel to Scotland to discuss the climate crisis with world leaders, explaining his decision was driven by the simple desire of a working parent to spend more time with his kids. Continue reading...
Chesa Boudin vowed to change the criminal justice system but his progressive reforms have run afoul of law-and-order traditionalistsElections officials in San Francisco announced a recall election against the city’s progressive district attorney made it on the ballot.The vote on the tenure of Chesa Boudin is scheduled for June 2022, giving residents a chance to keep or oust the former public defender who has been a prosecutor for less than two years. Continue reading...
Rightwingers in the party call for members who helped pass the bill to be stripped of their committee assignmentsA group of congressional Republicans who helped pass the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill last Friday are facing calls for political punishment by their own party, including the threat of having their committee assignments stripped for supporting the president’s agenda, according to reports this week.Several hardline Republicans, including the Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert and former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have publicly urged retaliation against party colleagues who voted for the $1tn bill. Continue reading...
Trump lawyers vow to appeal move, which would allow transmission of documents as soon as this weekA federal judge in Washington has ruled that hundreds of pages of White House records from the Trump administration can be turned over to the House committee investigating the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol, defying objections from Donald Trump.The decision, handed down late on Tuesday by the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, clears the way for the National Archives, the federal agency holding Trump’s White House materials, to start transmitting the records requested by Congress as early as Friday, though attorneys for Trump immediately vowed to appeal the ruling. Continue reading...
A 2017 study found hookworm parasite, transmitted via fecal matter, prevalent in of majority-Black Lowndes countyFour years after a shocking discovery revealed hookworm in the US’s rural south, the justice department has announced it will investigate sanitation failures in Lowndes county, a majority Black county in Alabama.“Sanitation is a basic human need,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the justice department’s civil rights division, on Tuesday. “Bold action is needed to ensure that no one in this country is unjustifiably subjected to illness or harm resulting from inadequate access to safe sewage services.” Continue reading...
Despite the fine words and supposed ambition, there is little time left to reach a meaningful finaleIf Cop26 were to be staged, it would be as a political drama in two long acts. Act one would see the leaders of wealthy countries such as Britain, the US and Australia smiling broadly as they strut the Glasgow stage with their friends, wring their hands and manage the world’s expectations. Act two would see them knifing each other offstage and kicking poor countries hard before running away.The climate crisis conference, now halfway through its second week, is well into act two and the final scenes are being rehearsed in late-night talks. In a dramatic early-morning move, Alok Sharma and the UK presidency acting as the protagonist, listened to countries and produced a seven page draft “non-paper” that sets the broad outline of the final agreement that it thinks it may be diplomatically possible to reach.John Vidal is a former Guardian environment editor Continue reading...
‘We do not have any proof,’ says Santa Fe county district attorney after defense attorney of crew members make suggestionThe prosecutor investigating the fatal shooting on the Rust film set in New Mexico last month has rejected conspiracy theories launched by defense attorneys of crew members suggesting that the death of the cinematographer could have been the result of a mysterious sabotage plot.“We do not have any proof,” the Santa Fe county district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Wednesday morning. Continue reading...
Politics is coarser than it was, the Tory leader is surrounded by loyalists, and no one is wielding the stilettoIn the midst of the Conservative car crash over the Owen Paterson lobbying affair, I asked a very senior Tory if he thought Boris Johnson’s ignominious U-turn would now reshape the party political landscape. He replied with the words of the instinctive pragmatist: “We will see. In politics, nothing matters – until it does.”Plenty would say this is a moment when it matters. Labour seems re-energised by the anti-sleaze campaign. Charges against Tory MPs Geoffrey Cox, Iain Duncan Smith and Daniel Kawczynski have given the Paterson outrage fresh legs. Reporters across Fleet Street are digging for more scandals. Columnists – not just on this newspaper – are plundering the thesaurus for condemnatory language with which to damn the scoundrel in Downing Street.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
by Steve Phillips, Bhaskar Sunkara, Anat Shenker-Osor on (#5RRAM)
After months of wrangling and negotiations, the bill finally passed last week. So how big of an achievement is this?The infrastructure bill is a massive achievement for Democrats in a country where naming a post office requires herculean efforts thanks to Republicans hell bent on impeding progress. This is a bill to protect the water we drink and bridges we cross, to deliver reliable internet to our farms and modern equipment to our ports. Whether the American people will see it as such is a different question.Anat Shenker-Osorio is the host of Words To Win By: a podcast about progressive winsBhaskar Sunkara is the editor of Jacobin, a Guardian US columnist and the author of The Socialist Manifesto – The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme InequalitySteve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority
Electric carmaker’s shares to start trading in New York in one of biggest stock market debutsThe Jeff Bezos-backed electric carmaker Rivian is aiming for a market value of $65bn (£48bn) when shares start trading in New York on Wednesday, in one of the biggest-ever stock market floats.Rivian announced late on Tuesday that its shares would start trading at $78 each, significantly above the $52 a share lower end of the range it had first targeted. It sold 153m shares, more than the 135m it aimed for initially. Continue reading...
The United States has a terrible habit of letting white supremacy get away with repeated attempts to murder American democracyAmerican democracy’s most dangerous adversary is white supremacy. Throughout this nation’s history, white supremacy has undermined, twisted and attacked the viability of the United States. What makes white supremacy so lethal, however, is not just its presence but also the refusal to hold its adherents fully accountable for the damage they have done and continue to do to the nation. The insurrection on 6 January and the weak response are only the latest example.During the war for independence, after the British captured Savannah, the king’s forces set out to capture a wholly unprepared South Carolina. John Laurens, an aide-de-camp of George Washington, pleaded with the South Carolina government to arm the enslaved because the state didn’t have enough available white men to fight the 8,000-strong British force barreling toward Charleston. This was a crisis born of South Carolina’s decision to divert most of the state’s white men from the Continental Army to fight the Redcoats and, instead, enlist them in the militia to control the enslaved population, whom they defined as the primary threat. Continue reading...
A new film looks at Arthur Ashe’s US Open and Wimbledon triumphs. And how he responded to pressure to speak out on civil rights issuesConfidence fueled Arthur Ashe’s success in tennis. If he was confident enough, he said, he could hit the ball backwards. In 1968, he had plenty of forward momentum, going two months without losing a match. At that year’s US Open, he defeated Tom Okker to become the first Black man to win a men’s grand slam singles title. Meanwhile, Ashe had been facing both external and internal pressure to speak out on civil rights. After growing up in the segregated South, he had been concerned about a violent backlash. But after winning the US Open, he was ready to become more vocal, according to a new documentary, Citizen Ashe, directed by Rex Miller and Sam Pollard.In the film, Ashe’s brother Johnnie recalls his sibling saying, “I’m a champion now. People will listen to what I have to say. I’m the first Black man to win the US Open. I’m going to be sought out.” Continue reading...
Christ Church leaders and aligned companies received millions of dollars in coronavirus bailouts amid campaign against mandatesThe controversial rightwing Christ Church – and its pastor, Douglas Wilson – have led an uncompromising campaign of opposition to coronavirus public health measures in Idaho, revealing the church’s powerful influence in its home city of Moscow and beyond.The campaign has included in-person protests, misinformation and encouragement of civil disobedience across media channels owned by the church, which, as the Guardian has reported, is seeking to increase its power and influence in the town as part of an aim of creating a theocracy in America. Continue reading...
The former US president directed his Cop26 speech at young people, but he made the task of keeping warming to 1.5C far harderHundreds of people thronged the corridors at Cop26 on Monday, trying to make it into an event in one of the Scottish Event Campus’s drab plenary rooms. Passing by, I asked a man in the crowd what all the commotion was for. He responded with one word: “Obama.” The former president still maintains his rock star-ish appeal. His speech proved the biggest draw of the conference so far. But what should we make of it in the cold light of day?Much of his message was directed at young people, whom he praised as both “sophisticated consumers” and the source of the “most important energy in this movement”. He was clear: it’s up to all of us – but especially young people – to come together and keep the planet from warming beyond 1.5C. “Collectively and individually we are still falling short” he said, in the kind of grand, sweeping tones that built his career. “We have not done nearly enough to address this crisis. We are going to have to do more. Whether that happens or not to a large degree is going to depend on you.” Continue reading...
Prince Harry says he warned Twitter's boss, Jack Dorsey, that the platform was 'allowing a coup to be staged', a day before the Capitol riot on 6 January. Speaking on a panel called the Internet Lie Machine, organised by Wired magazine, Harry says he had been in contact with Dorsey via email, but never received a reply after the storming of the Capitol.He also says the word 'Megxit', used to describe his decision to quit royal duties with his wife, Meghan, was a misogynistic term that had been created by a troll
British MPs are trying to make it illegal to photograph nursing mothers without their consent. But they’re facing some very strange argumentsLadies and gentlemen, we have a new contender in the 2021 edition of Britain’s Most Embarrassing Politician! Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, an unelected life peer, recently graced us with his unfiltered thoughts on a proposed amendment to the Voyeurism Act that would criminalise taking non-consensual pictures of a woman breastfeeding.A change in the law, Wolfson warned, could hurt innocent people. Take, for example, the case of a man photographing his bikini-clad wife on a beach, “intending to use that image for his own sexual gratification”. What would happen if the photographer accidentally caught a breastfeeding woman in the background? Would the law consider him a pervert?Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Riders trying to get fuel from a leaking tanker were among 100 killed when it exploded. It’s part of a bigger story of the struggle for survival in Sierra Leone, a country exploited by rich nationsMore than 100 people were killed by an explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone, last week, after a leaking fuel tanker collided with a lorry on a busy road in the capital city.Many of those who died were young motorbike taxi drivers, after dozens of riders rushed to the leaking tanker to collect free petrol and were caught in the blast. The tanker and lorry drivers tried to keep people away but could not stop the crowd. Half an hour later, it was too late. Continue reading...
Pandering to the rich has got us into this mess. The correlation between wealth and polluting behaviour could not be clearerMost of our dysfunctions are caused by pandering to the rich. The way governments have allowed democracy to be eroded by lobbyists (including politicians with lucrative private interests); the deregulation that lets corporations, oligarchs and landlords squeeze their workers and tenants, then dump their costs on society; the permissive environment for profiteering during the pandemic; the degradation of health, education and other public services by the constant drive towards privatisation: all these are symptoms of the same condition.The same applies to the worst of our predicaments: the destruction of our life-support systems. The very rich arrogate to themselves the lion’s share of the planetary space on which we all depend. It is hard to understand why we tolerate this attack on our common interests.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Transport secretary and father of newborn twins tells Guardian that America has ‘some catching up to do’ on paid leaveThe US needs a fundamental rethink of its attitudes towards parenting, according to Pete Buttigieg, who was the target of criticism from conservatives for taking leave to care for his newborn children.Buttigieg, the US transport secretary, came under attack after he took time to help care for his newborn twins, a boy and a girl, in August. Continue reading...
Stephen Miller and Kayleigh McEnany among those subpoenaed as committee expands investigationThe House select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol issued further subpoenas on Tuesday to 10 Trump administration officials, including the former senior adviser Stephen Miller and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, expanding their inquiry into Donald Trump’s involvement in circumstances surrounding the attack.The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony are focused squarely on activities involving the White House and come a day after the select committee subpoenaed other top Trump lieutenants who aimed to undercut the results of the 2020 election while working from the Willard hotel in Washington. Continue reading...
Biden administration move halts plan to allow logging in forests where imperiled bird livesIn a victory for the northern spotted owl, the Biden administration has struck down a Trump-era plan that would have removed more than 3.4m acres of critical habitat for the imperiled bird and opened the old-growth forests where it lives to logging.The population of the small chocolate-brown owl, which lives in forested areas in Washington, Oregon, and northern California, has been in decline for decades and has already lost roughly 70% of its habitat. Its numbers have plummeted 77% in Washington state, 68% in Oregon, and close to half in California, according to studies by the US Geological Survey, and biologists fear that further habitat reduction would put them on the path to extinction. Continue reading...
Paul Gosar condemned for Twitter video that showed him striking congresswoman with sword and appearing to threaten Joe BidenThe White House on Tuesday condemned the Republican congressman Paul Gosar for tweeting a video which depicted him striking the New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and appearing to threaten Joe Biden.“There is no place for any type of violence or that type of language in the political system,” the principal deputy White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters at a daily briefing. “It should not be happening, and we should be condemning it.” Continue reading...
Ruling represents seconds blow to government case that tried to hold drug companies responsible for US opioid epidemicThe Oklahoma supreme court on Tuesday overturned a $465m opioid ruling against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, finding that a lower court wrongly interpreted the state’s public nuisance law in the first case of its kind in the US to go to trial.The ruling was the second blow this month to a government case that tried to hold drugmakers responsible for the national epidemic of opioid abuse. Public nuisance claims are at the heart of some 3,000 lawsuits brought by state and local governments against drugmakers, distribution companies and pharmacies. Continue reading...
Teenager shot Joseph Rosenbaum four times at close range including once in the back during Kenosha protestThe jury at Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial on Tuesday watched drone footage that showed Rittenhouse shooting Joseph Rosenbaum at close range during a night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last August.The video, zoomed in and slowed down by a forensic imaging specialist, was played as the prosecution finished presenting its case, after a week of testimony in which some witnesses seemed to bolster Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense. Continue reading...
GE, 129 years old and once America’s most valuable corporation, says new companies will focus on energy, healthcare and aviationGeneral Electric said on Tuesday it would split into three public companies as it seeks to simplify its business, pare down debt and breathe life into a battered share price.The split marks the end of the 129-year-old conglomerate that was once the most valuable US corporation and a global symbol of American business power. GE shares jumped 7% in early trading, reaching a nearly three-and-a-half-year high. Continue reading...
Cleland, a former US army captain, also served as head of Veterans Administration, Georgia secretary of state and a state senatorMax Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam but went on to be a US senator from Georgia, died on Tuesday. He was 79.Cleland died at his home in Atlanta from congestive heart failure, his personal assistant Linda Dean said. Continue reading...
California man caught on police camera punching officers given sympathetic interview on Belarus televisionA US man who faces criminal charges for participating in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol is seeking asylum in Belarus, the country’s state TV has reported in a development likely to heighten tensions between the turbulent ex-Soviet nation and the United States.The man, Evan Neumann, 48, of California, acknowledged in an interview with the state TV channel Belarus 1 that he was at the Capitol on 6 January but rejected the charges, which include assaulting police, obstruction and other offenses. The channel aired excerpts of the interview on Sunday and promised to release the full version on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Body of decorated veteran David Saunders, intended for use in research, was main attraction at an event in Oregon hotel ballroomA decorated second world war and Korean war veteran who died of Covid-19 was dissected in front of a paying audience – without his widow’s knowledge.David Saunders died on 24 August, aged 98. His wife, Elsie Saunders, tried to carry out his wishes by donating his body to scientific research. Continue reading...
An investigation into the Phoenix Suns painted a troubling picture. And raised a familiar question asked by white people around racism“Taming, civilizing, and minimalizing the filthiest, dirtiest, and nastiest word in the human language”.I thought of this quote from Randall Kennedy, author of a book about the N-word, while reading last week’s ESPN investigation into the workplace culture at the Phoenix Suns. In the story, former Suns coach Earl Watson alleges Robert Sarver, who bought the franchise in 2004, asked why Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green was allowed to use the N-word but he wasn’t (Sarver is white and Green is Black). Watson, who is Black and Hispanic, told Sarver it was unacceptable for him to use the word but claims Sarver went on to use it several times anyway. The article alleges Sarver used the N-word on other occasions to employees and also used misogynistic, inappropriate and “racially insensitive” language, which is the new term people use instead of saying racist. Dozens of employees interviewed for the article describe a toxic atmosphere at the Suns that took a toll on their personal lives. Some said they had to seek professional help as a result, including one female staffer who said she contemplated suicide.Etan Thomas played in the NBA from 2000 through 2011. He is a published poet, activist and motivational speaker Continue reading...
The veteran American actor, star of Blue Velvet and Quantum Leap, has died aged 85. We look back at his 76-year career, from early roles alongside Errol Flynn and Katharine Hepburn to later award-winning TV work Continue reading...
Our study finds that working-class voters respond better to economic policies than identity-based, activist-driven campaignsAs he set about disembowelling Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill last month, Joe Manchin paused to offer some cheerful advice for outraged progressives. “[A]ll they need to do,” said the West Virginia senator, “is elect more liberals.”There was something slightly perverse about Manchin counseling the leftwingers whose policy agenda he was helping tear apart: he sounded like a burglar recommending a home security system as he made off with his loot. And yet his point is undeniable: if progressives hope to gain more leverage in American politics, they must win more elections. Continue reading...
An opposition united behind a conservative Catholic anti-corruption candidate could be a real challenge to Viktor Orbán’s regimeOne day last month I stood in a large crowd at the bottom of Andrássy Street in Budapest and heard Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, denounce the European Union, of which his no longer democratic state remains a full member. “They would force us to be European, sensitive and liberal – even if it kills us”, he said. “Today the words and actions that Brussels directs at us and the Poles are like those usually reserved for enemies. We have a feeling of deja vu, as throughout Europe we hear echoes of the Brezhnev doctrine.’ This from a man whose whole regime depends heavily on EU money. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. The crowd murmured support, although louder applause was reserved for the line, “Hungary will be the first country in Europe in which we stop aggressive LGBTQ propaganda at the school gates.” I saw not a single European flag.At the other end of Andrássy Street, however, once I had got past a vast double row of coaches used to bus in Orbán supporters, I reached an opposition rally. Here, the much smaller crowd waved European flags. And here I heard Peter Márki-Zay, the candidate of a united opposition for next spring’s parliamentary election, declare that they would bring Hungary back to democracy and the legal standards of the EU. Referring to the misuse of EU funds by the Orbán regime, Márki-Zay said, “We should join the European public prosecutor’s office, which does not infringe our sovereignty, only the sovereignty of criminals.” Then a large group of opposition candidates, from six parties that range all the way from right to left, crowded on to the stage for a group photo.Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
For the vaccinated people allowed to cross to El Paso after 20 months their travel seemed anything but ‘non-essential’Oralia Perez waited nervously and excitedly on the US side of the border from Mexico for the chance to hug her sister and mother for the first time in almost 20 months.One minute after midnight east coast time, ie the first moments of Monday – which was actually still Sunday night, 10.01pm local time, in El Paso, west Texas, where she was – the US government lifted pandemic restrictions on non-essential cross-border travel for those who are vaccinated. Continue reading...
Ex-president wages a court battle to thwart House committee from obtaining White House records for inquiry into the Capitol assaultDonald Trump has suffered a series of legal setbacks and more loom, as he wages a court battle to thwart a House committee from obtaining White House records for its inquiry into the 6 January Capitol assault and a new grand jury begins hearing evidence about possible crimes by his real estate firm.Former justice officials and legal scholars say Trump’s long-standing penchant for using lawsuits to fend off investigations and opponents is looking weaker now that he’s out of the White House and facing legal threats on multiple fronts. Continue reading...
Conservatives campaigned hard against proposed reforms while Democrats did little to promote the initiativesAmid an array of discouraging election results for Democrats last week, there was one under-the-radar outcome that was especially perplexing. In New York, one of the country’s most progressive states, voters overwhelmingly rejected initiatives that would have expanded voting access in future elections.The vote, which came in a year when Republican-led states have passed dozens of laws to restrict voting access, left voting rights advocates stunned. Continue reading...
Long before critical race theory, whiteness has been a legitimate political issue in US electionsCan you hear it?That frantic cacophony of click-clacks is the sound of pundits, professors and politicos typing think pieces and Twitter posts dissecting the results of last week’s gubernatorial election in Virginia. Less than a year ago, Democratic candidates won the only two statewide races by more than 10 points. So how did Republican Glenn Youngkin ride his critical race theory surfboard into Virginia’s governor’s mansion? Continue reading...
Wins this week mark significant step for community that’s been under-represented and borne the brunt of pandemic-driven racismAfter a series of historic wins across the US last week, Asian Americans will now serve as mayors and city council members in large cities including Boston, Seattle, Cincinnati and New York, signalling the rapid rise in Asian American political power.The victories mark a significant step forward for a diverse community that has seen historically low representation in political offices and in the last two years has borne the brunt of a rising tide of pandemic-driven anti-Asian sentiments. Continue reading...
Couples to sue clinic after raising girls for months that were not theirs, says lawsuit, before babies were swapped backTwo California couples gave birth to each other’s babies after a mix-up at a fertility clinic and spent months raising children that were not theirs before swapping the infants, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles.Daphna Cardinale said she and her husband, Alexander, had immediate suspicions that the girl she gave birth to in late 2019 was not theirs due to the child’s darker complexion. Continue reading...
Lawsuits brought by some of those injured as authorities release the names of those who diedThe rappers Travis Scott and Drake have been sued for having “incited mayhem” after eight people were killed and dozens injured in a crush during a Texas concert, a law firm has confirmed.Thomas J Henry Law tweeted a story published by the Daily Mail on the lawsuit, confirming on Sunday that it had filed “one of the first lawsuits in Travis Scott Astroworld festival tragedy”. Continue reading...
