Ex-acting head of DoJ civil division was proponent of Trump’s false claim that Joe Biden’s election victory was result of fraudA former senior Department of Justice official will testify on Friday before the congressional committee investigating the Capitol insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump, a congressional aide familiar with the inquiry has said.Last week, the House of Representatives select committee delayed testimony by Jeffrey Clark because he had retained a new lawyer. Continue reading...

Suit takes aim at two specific provisions that deal with providing assistance to voters at the polls and mail-in votingThe Biden administration filed a federal lawsuit challenging Texas’s new voting law on Thursday, saying some of the state’s new restrictions violate key civil rights laws.The suit takes aim at two specific provisions in the Texas law that deal with providing assistance to voters at the polls and mail-in voting, respectively. Continue reading...

Five-page indictment released by justice department accuses analyst Igor Danchenko of lying to FBIA Russian analyst who was the main source for Christopher Steele’s dossier on Donald Trump and Moscow has been arrested by US authorities, the justice department said on Thursday.Igor Danchenko now faces charges as part of the investigation by John Durham, the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to examine the origins of the FBI’s investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Continue reading...

Cops have been on the wrong side of public health for the entire pandemic – and yet they act like they are victimsIn New York City, the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA) tried and failed to block the city’s vaccine mandate for all city workers. New York City police officers have been on the wrong side of public health for most of the pandemic. Like other American police unions, the PBA uses its political clout and large coffers to push regressive policies and fight any move towards an even slightly more humane justice system.In an effort to prevent another rise in Covid-19 cases, New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, introduced a mandate requiring all city employees to have received at least one dose of a vaccine by 29 October. Seventy-one per cent of all city officials are already vaccinated but, according to the PBA, roughly a third of uniformed police officers are not. Even optimistic assessments of the department’s vaccination rates as a whole lag behind the rates of city residents. Despite the fact that Covid-19 is the leading cause of death among US police officers, the PBA launched a lawsuit against the city to halt the mandate. A judge struck down the suit, but the PBA plans to appeal the decision.Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian Continue reading...

Attorneys make another bail request and say conditions of detention are ‘reprehensible and utterly inappropriate’The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is subjected to such invasive surveillance in jail that it “rivals scenes of Dr Hannibal Lecter’s incarceration” from The Silence of the Lambs, her lawyer has argued in making yet another request for bail pending her trial.Maxwell is charged in Manhattan federal court for allegedly procuring teenage girls for the disgraced wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. Opening arguments in Maxwell’s case are scheduled to begin on 29 November. Continue reading...

Chris Kempczinski said his comments about fatally shot children in text to Chicago mayor lacked ‘empathy and compassion’McDonald’s chief executive, Chris Kempczinski, has sparked outrage after the emergence of a text exchange with the Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, in which he appears to blame two Chicago parents whose children were fatally shot.In the newly publicized texts between Kempczinski and Lightfoot from April, Kempczinski blamed the parents of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and seven-year-old Jaslyn Adams for their deaths. Continue reading...

The Sabres have traded former captain and face of the franchise Jack Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights, putting an end to a nasty public eight-month feudThe Jack Eichel era in Buffalo is over, with a nasty public eight-month feud reaching a conclusion on Thursday when the Sabres traded their former captain and face of the franchise to the Vegas Golden Knights.The trade ends a stalemate between Eichel and Buffalo over how to repair his herniated disk, which has sidelined him since March. The dispute revolved around the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement giving teams the final say over the treatment of injuries. Continue reading...

The Blackhawks sexual abuse scandal and the NHL’s dismal reaction to it have laid bare a systemic rot at the heart of hockey’s old boys’ clubOn 23 May 2010, “within an hour after the Blackhawks won the playoff game that secured their place in the Stanley Cup Finals,” members of Chicago’s senior management, along with then-head coach Joel Quenneville and team counselor Jim Gary, had a meeting about an allegation of sexual assault involving a coach and player.The story they heard was that then-video coach Brad Aldrich had tried to “get under the sheets” with a Blackhawks player, then known only as John Doe, but who we now know is Kyle Beach. The details, as they’ve been since alleged, are that Aldrich had invited Beach to his apartment, gave him dinner and drinks, and turned on some porn. Aldrich then tried to be physically intimate. Beach, apparently, hit him. At that point, Aldrich allegedly stood up, grabbed a small baseball bat, and told Beach that “if you don’t lay down and enjoy it, I’ll make sure you never play in the NHL or walk again.” Continue reading...

After being coy about his vaccination status for months, the Green Bay star quarterback is set to miss time after contracting Covid and appears to have been breaking protocol for monthsAaron Rodgers may be a lot of things but stupid he is not. A noted bookworm and fill-in Jeopardy host, Rodgers of all people is keenly aware that words matter. In hindsight this explains why back in August when he was asked about his vaccination status by a reporter, he replied with a cryptic: “I’ve been immunized.”If you’re like me, you thought Rodgers’ response was him being him – eccentric with maybe a touch of arrogance – but you assumed immunized equaled vaccinated. Continue reading...

US private-equity group Carlyle has until 2 December to make formal offer or walk awayShares in Metro Bank surged by almost a third on Thursday after it received an approach about a possible takeover by the US private-equity group Carlyle.The market value of the challenger bank, which did not say how much Carlyle might pay if a firm offer was made, soared by as much as 40% in early trading on news of the deal, valuing the bank at more than £242m, before closing up 29%. Continue reading...

The zoo founder – real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage – is serving a 22-year sentence for a murder-for-hire schemeJoe Exotic, the zoo founder who gained notoriety for his role in the hit Netflix documentary Tiger King, has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, he said in a social media post.In an Instagram post Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, said he had received the news from his doctors. Continue reading...

A debate is raging about what type of policies Democrats should lead with. Simply following the polls is a flawed approachBy the time you finish reading this sentence, a 17-year-old in the United States will have turned 18 and become eligible to vote. And by the time you finish reading this sentence, someone will have died. In this nation of nearly 330 million people, a young person turns 18 roughly every 8 seconds, and someone dies every 11 seconds. This dynamic and fast-paced demographic change is transforming the country’s politics – and is also the glaring analytical hole in the growing school of thought coming to be known as “popularism.”After Democrats under-performed in the 2020 Congressional and down-ballot races, some have taken to arguing that the party paid a political price for supporting policies that were “unpopular,” resulting in disappointing electoral outcomes. The New York Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote a lengthy analysis of the phenomenon, most recently popularized by Democratic data analyst David Shor. Klein summarized the essence of popularism as the belief that Democrats “should do a lot of polling to figure out which of their views are popular and which are not popular, and then they should talk about the popular stuff and shut up about the unpopular stuff.”Steve Phillips is the host of Democracy in Color with Steve Phillips, a color-conscious podcast about politics, and is the author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority Continue reading...

‘No one could have anticipated that someone would introduce live rounds’ says Hannah Gutierrez, who was in charge of weaponsThe woman in charge of weapons on the movie set where actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has said she had inspected the gun Baldwin shot but doesn’t know how a live bullet ended up inside.“Who put those in there and why is the central question,” said Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer for the movie Rust in a statement released late on Wednesday by one of her lawyers, Jason Bowles of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Continue reading...

Taxi and Limousine Commission agrees to city-backed guarantee to lower monthly payments of taxi medallion ownersAfter weeks of camping outside City Hall in New York, taxi drivers can finally head home after striking a deal with officials to rescue thousands of workers from crushing loans that had caused misery for their families.The news arrived on the fifteenth day of a hunger strike led by the drivers and their advocates. Continue reading...

Prosecutors believe Giuliani and two others may have violated law over lucrative contracts. Plus, Californians flock to see ‘corpse plant’Good morning.A high-profile federal criminal investigation into Rudy Giuliani has zeroed in on evidence that in spring 2019 three Ukrainian government prosecutors agreed to award contracts valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the former New York mayor and two other US attorneys as a way to gain political and personal influence with the Trump administration.What evidence do the prosecutors have? They have compiled a list of more than two dozen specific acts by Giuliani, Toesning and DiGenova as to how to advance the personal and political interests of a group of Ukrainian prosecutors.How does this relate to the campaign against Joe Biden’s son Hunter? They have also uncovered extensive, detailed plans devised by one Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, and approved by Giuliani, to promote an investigation into Hunter in Ukraine in order to help boost Donald Trump’s chances of re-election.How unpopular is Biden at the moment? Biden’s poll numbers have slumped to near-historic lows. In mid-August, voters approved of the president by a margin of 50 to 43.8%. Today they disapprove of him by a margin of 51.1 to 43.2%.Why is this? Months of infighting among Democrats over his nearly $3tn legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, a devastating evacuation from Afghanistan and the ever-present threat of coronavirus are all thought to have contributed to his lack of popularity. Continue reading...

This is a crisis that cannot be solved by ‘positive messaging’. The only thing that will help is action from world leadersIf you are anything like me, you think of the climate emergency a lot. Possibly every waking hour. Perhaps you experience the psychological tension caused by feeling trapped between the truth of climate and ecological destruction on the one hand and inaction from world leaders on the other. I feel this tension myself, and as a parent and climate activist, I see it affecting young people especially hard.We are in a growing epidemic of serious climate depression among young people. This is a crisis that cannot be solved by “positive messaging” any more than climate breakdown itself. Ultimately, the only thing that will help the mental and physical safety of every age group, including the young, is meaningful action from world leaders.Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate RevolutionIn the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

Despite only making up about 6% of the global population, Indigenous people protect 80% of biodiversity left in the world. We speak to six young Indigenous climate activists from the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chad, Alaska, Sweden, Indonesia and Australia about their people and culture – and what we can learn from them about protecting our planet.

Sluggish social equity programs, booming illegal market have left Black entrepreneurs in the cannabis business disappointedHalf a million dollars and nearly four years into his Los Angeles-based cannabis venture, Donnie Anderson had no shop, no prospects and a mountain of debt.With financial help from family and friends, Anderson rented a $6,000-a-month space in January 2018 for his new cannabis retail shop. He kept paying the rent as the city’s permitting process dragged on. He bought cabinets and other equipment as he waited. And waited. Continue reading...

Increase can be attributed in part to the almost 40% of the state population that has not been vaccinatedEvan Faber’s 78-year-old father, Michael, has for the last three years had difficulty walking around his home in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Fabers hope that a spinal surgery scheduled for late December at a local hospital will help restore his balance and motor function.But now they are worried that the hospital will have to postpone the operation. Continue reading...

What researchers found in the Reyes Ibarras’ home was shocking. What’s worse, the sisters say, is no one’s helpingWhen the letter arrived with the logo of a noted university in the corner, Veronica Reyes Ibarra expected good news. She called her boyfriend, her mom and her sisters over: “You guys, look what I got, I think it’s a scholarship.”But as she scanned the page, she suddenly wasn’t sure she had the courage to read it out to them. Continue reading...

This week’s roundup features jockey punch-ups, Canelo Álvarez’s power and great bowlers v 1970s speed gun tech1) One of the highlights of the racing season is upon us with the Breeders’ Cup. Still arguably one of the greatest races of all time, Tiznow’s win by a nose over Sakhee in 2001 is not a bad place to start. If that was close then there was literally no separating High Chaparral and Johar in the 2003 Cup Turf, not even a flared nostril. Winners rarely come at much longer odds than Arcangues’ 133-1 but Lester Piggott coming out of retirement in 1990 aged 54 to win on Royal Academy in the Mile is arguably the best story in Breeders’ Cup history.Not many will fondly remember the now-defunct Marathon but what about some jockey-on-jockey action? Continue reading...

Joe Biden said "people are upset and uncertain about a lot of things" after Democrats suffered the loss of a gubernatorial seat in Virginia. Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe one year after the party took control of the White House and Congress. Biden won Virginia by 10 points in 2020 before the victory of political newcomer Youngkin.

Judge acknowledges appearance of ‘intentional discrimination’ in case of three white men who killed Arbery, who was BlackA Georgia judge has acknowledged there appeared to be “intentional discrimination” after a nearly all-white jury was selected for the trial of three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, but has seated the jury nonetheless.A jury comprising 11 white members and one Black member was seated on Wednesday after defense attorneys struck almost all Black jurors from the pool. Opening arguments in the high-profile case are set to begin on Friday. Continue reading...

Governor’s races bring more bad news for president whose domestic agenda hangs in the balanceLess than a year after taking control of the White House and Congress, Democrats were reeling on Wednesday from a shocking defeat in Virginia and a tight governor’s race in New Jersey as Joe Biden’s popularity sinks and his domestic agenda hangs in the balance.In Virginia, a state that had shifted sharply left over the past decade and that Biden won by 10 points in 2020, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer, defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the state’s former governor. And in New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, managed only a narrow victory over the Republican Jack Ciattarelli, an unexpected turn of events in a state that is even more reliably Democratic. Continue reading...

The tight race was viewed as a referendum on Murphy’s – and more broadly, Democrats’ – leadership throughout the pandemicThe Democratic governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, has narrowly won reelection, eking out a victory that spared Democrats the loss of a second gubernatorial seat.Murphy, a former executive at Goldman Sachs and ambassador to Germany, became the first Democratic governor to win reelection in New Jersey in 44 years. He defeated Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican and former assembly member. Continue reading...

While Virginia’s gubernatorial election caught national attention, the results of these local votes across four states are worth notingTuesday was a busy day for voters across the country, as millions of Americans voted on local issues ranging from police reform to increasing voter accessibility.While some races garnered national attention – Glenn Youngkin’s win in the Virginia gubernatorial election, for example – other ballot questions remained more local. Continue reading...

Heather Mack convicted in 2015 for working with boyfriend to kill her motherA Chicago woman who spent seven years jailed in Bali for helping kill her mother at a luxury hotel has been has been indicted on murder conspiracy charges and arrested on her return to the US.Heather Mack, 26, was taken into custody on Wednesday when she arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare airport after being freed early on good behaviour from a Bali prison where she had been sentenced to 10 years for the 2014 murder. Continue reading...

Democrats look poised to lose their majority in the midterms. Here’s why, according to our writersBen Davis: ‘Democrats: pass your agenda now. You won’t have another chance’Democrats have just lost an enormous amount of ground since dominating Virginia during the Trump era. The first and most important takeaway of the governor’s race is that this is normal. Without a major crisis like 9/11, the party in power will always lose ground in elections like this. It’s as close to an ironclad law as there is.Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DCSteve 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 MajorityGeoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington DC and the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican PartyMeaghan Winter is a freelance magazine writer and author of the book All Politics is Local: Why Progressives Must Fight for the StatesCliff Albright is a cofounder of Black Voters Matter Fund Continue reading...

Lawyer for Hannah Gutierrez says ‘disgruntled’ person could have placed live round in box of dummy roundsA lawyer for the armorer who oversaw weapons used on the Rust movie set suggested on Wednesday that someone deliberately put a live round into the gun used by Alec Baldwin when he accidentally shot dead a cinematographer.Jason Bowles said his client, Hannah Gutierrez, had pulled ammunition from a box that she believed contained only dummy rounds that were incapable of firing. He said he thought it was possible that someone purposely placed real bullets, which look similar to dummies, into the box. Continue reading...

Conservative majority expresses skepticism over New York law that largely prohibits concealed weapons being carried in publicThe supreme court appeared poised to ease gun control regulation, after several justices expressed scepticism on Wednesday over a New York law that places restrictions on who can carry concealed firearms.The case could lead to more guns on the streets of New York and California, and affect restrictions on carrying firearms in airports, bars, churches and schools. Continue reading...

Profits fall as group says keeping stores and warehouses stocked ‘has been a challenge’The prices of Ikea furniture and homeware are to rise as a result of lasting disruption to its supply chain, the brand’s owner has warned, after increased costs of raw materials and transport knocked its full-year profits.Inter Ikea Group, the parent company of the Ikea brand, which is operated by a string of franchise businesses, said it expected challenges in its supply chain to last well into 2022. Continue reading...

Wu defeated Democrat Annissa Essaibi George in a victory for progressives, on an otherwise tough night for DemocratsMichelle Wu has made history after being elected as mayor of Boston, becoming the first woman and person of color elected to the position in almost 200 years.“From every corner of our city, Boston has spoken. We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone,” said Wu to her supporters on Tuesday night. “I want to be clear, it wasn’t my vision on the ballot, it was ours, together.” Continue reading...

Trip to Glasgow was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep emissions cuts – and ended with him blaming China and RussiaJoe Biden returned to the US in the pre-dawn gloom on Wednesday to a climate agenda still held in frustrating limbo by Congress, following his high-profile cameo at crunch UN climate talks in Scotland that was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep cuts to planet-heating emissions.The US president had aimed to arrive in Glasgow for the Cop26 summit with historic climate legislation in hand, which he could use to brandish at world leaders who still harbor resentments over four turbulent years of Donald Trump, where the climate crisis was variously ignored and mocked. Continue reading...

The Braves left behind a reputation as perennial underachievers in seeing off the Houston Astros to win the fourth championship in the club’s 146-year historyAt last a shapeless series had a defining image, a clear contour – the awesome arc of a home run smashed out of the ballpark by Jorge Soler that gave the Atlanta Braves their first World Series title since 1995.This November triumph was primed in midsummer through inspiration born of desperation. Injuries, including to star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr, led Atlanta’s general manager Alex Anthopoulos into the trade market. Judicious signings remodeled the outfield and helped an ordinary team become good. In the playoffs the Braves discovered – perhaps to their own surprise and almost certainly to everyone else’s – that they were great. Continue reading...

The US constitutional system could pose a major obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats. A new set of cases shows whyPresident Joe Biden exhorted other world leaders to treat climate change as an “existential threat to human existence” at the Cop26 global climate summit on Monday. Yet his administration may soon have its hands tied as it seeks to address that threat at home. That’s because just three days earlier, the US supreme court agreed to hear a set of cases challenging the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose carbon emissions limits on existing power plants.Court watchers expect the court’s conservative majority, consistent with a string of rulings in favor of big business and against regulation, to side against the EPA. If so, the decision will highlight how the court could stand in the way of meaningful efforts to address the climate crisis for decades to come. More generally, that outcome would underscore how the supreme court and broader features of the US constitutional system pose a significant obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats.Daniel Epps is Treiman professor of law at Washington University in St Louis. He previously served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy and co-hosts the supreme court podcast Divided Argument Continue reading...

Imagine if the postman read your mail and then sold your information to extremists who want to target youImagine that right now the postman is reading your mail and making a note of your most private thoughts and preferences. He notices that you lean slightly to the right and read the Wall Street Journal. He begins hawking your intimate information all over town and sells it to a newspaper further to the right of the WSJ. He observes you reading that new, more rightwing publication and then starts hawking again, and this time he sells your private information to someone more rightwing: a publication like, say, Breitbart.Year after year, the postman continues selling to everyone, and one day you start receiving a far-right extremist magazine intent on destroying democratic institutions.Richard Ashby Wilson is Associate Dean for Faculty Development & Intellectual Life and Distinguished Professor of Law and Anthropology at the University of Connecticut School of Law

Glenn Youngkin wins election widely seen as referendum on Biden’s presidency. Plus, why Americans are quitting their jobs

Dan Campbell’s team have suffered a couple of cruel losses this season but most of the time they got everything they deservedDetroit Lions safety Tracy Walker III brought up the most unpleasant NFL numbers possible after a nasty 44-6 loss on Sunday: “We have to fix it now, because obviously, it ain’t going to fix itself, or we’ll be 0-17,” he said after the defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles.And there it was, for all the world to ponder: 0-17. No NFL team has gone 0-17, in large part because no NFL team has played 17 games in a regular season since 1930, when the late Frankford Yellow Jackets finished 4-13-1, and the New York Football Giants finished 13-4. Continue reading...

The labor market shake-up brought on by the pandemic has led many, especially younger workers, to reassess their work livesJosie, 19, landed her first “adult” job as an IT support worker last November, just a few months after graduating from high school. Though the job could be done fully remotely, managers insisted that she come into the office – despite the pandemic. At first, her co-workers and managers wore masks, but often incorrectly; when the local mask mandate was lifted, people stopped wearing them altogether.“It was honestly scary,” Josie recalls. She’d just moved into her first apartment with her partner; both have pre-existing health conditions that increase their vulnerability to severe illness from Covid-19. But as the sole earner in her two-person household, Josie felt resigned to the daily risk at work. Continue reading...

Six months after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd, the case of a Black man killed while jogging in Georgia is a sterner litmus testBeneath the Spanish moss that swayed from an oak tree, Diane Arbery Jackson took a seat in the morning shade as the three white men accused of murdering her nephew sat in the courtroom a few feet away.For the past two weeks, Arbery has attended the jury selection process at the Glynn county courthouse every day. And every day, bar one, she has elected to stay outside on the grassy courtroom grounds. Continue reading...