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Whichever party wants to rule the state has to understand that the Latino voting bloc is not homogenousTwo key congressional races along the Texas-Mexico border underscore what Latino political analysts have been screaming for years: as a voting bloc, Hispanics are not a politically homogeneous group. So Democrats must have a more nuanced strategy to win the bloc if they want to recapture political power in the state, and extend that power to the US Congress.Both congressional districts, which were up for grabs in last week’s Texas primary, begin at the Rio Grande and snake north-east to San Antonio, among the largest cities in state. One of them, the 28th congressional district, which emanates from Laredo, captured the hopes of the progressive wing of the Democratic party. The other, the 15th district, which begins in McAllen, further south, has Republicans excited about the prospects of turning that district Republican for the first time in its history, with the help of newly redrawn district lines. Continue reading...

Since 2011, all my book editors have been white. Why wouldn’t I want another perspective on the characters I invent?Until a few years ago, only publishing industry insiders would have understood the role of the sensitivity reader. Then came American Dirt. The Jeanine Cummins novel sold to a US publisher for a seven-figure advance, was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, and was touted as “the new Grapes of Wrath”. On release in 2020, early readers noted that the white author’s depiction of Mexican people was, at best, flawed, inaccurate, and riddled with stereotypes and, at worst, simply racist.A sensitivity reader is an additional editor who works alongside the publishing house staffer who acquired the rights to your book. This individual will conduct a very specific read of the manuscript, and offer notes on characters from marginalised groups, or elements which may cause offence. The argument goes that if American Dirt had been sufficiently scrutinised by a reader of Mexican heritage, some of the furore could have been avoided. Continue reading...

Participants in the privately run Isap program, billed as an alternative to detention, describe painful ankle monitors and contradictory rulesMacarena had just put on a pair of skinny jeans when her phone rang.On the other end of the line was an employee from BI Inc, the private contractor tracking Macarena’s whereabouts on behalf of US Immigration authorities. The employee had received an alert that the ankle monitor Macarena was wearing had been tampered with, Macarena recalled them saying. They asked if she was trying to take it off. Continue reading...

Sergey Korenev is one of about 66,000 Ukrainians returning home ‘to help my friends, they are my brothers in arms’Sergey Korenev was running out of time.He watched his daughter Anna, 11, practice skateboarding in a park on a rainy Thursday night outside Portland, Oregon. His midnight flight will board in a few hours that will begin a long journey to the war in Ukraine. Sergey still has to pack, but he doesn’t hurry her. Continue reading...

Locklan Samples of Georgia has a rare condition that means his hair stands out from the scalp and cannot be combed flatLast summer, Katelyn Samples posted a picture of her youngest son, Locklan Samples, to Instagram. Then a stranger sent her a message. It asked if her then 10-month-old son had been diagnosed with uncombable hair syndrome.The 33-year-old mother from Roswell, Georgia, was worried. Continue reading...

Two suspects held as police say gunfire on grounds of East high school in Des Moines appeared to come from passing vehicleOne person was killed and two others were critically wounded in a shooting outside an Iowa school, authorities said Monday.Des Moines police said in a news release that gunfire that struck the victims on the grounds of East High School, near Des Moines’ downtown, appeared to come from a passing vehicle. Potential suspects have been detained but no charges were immediately filed.

Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani was accused of attempting to enter the US to hijack planes in the September 11 attackA man accused of attempting to join hijackers in carrying out the September 11 attacks has been repatriated to his home country of Saudi Arabia for mental health treatment after two decades detained at Guantánamo Bay, the US Department of Defense said on Monday.Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani was flown back to Saudi Arabia, to a treatment facility, from the US base in Cuba after a review board including military and intelligence officials concluded he no longer represented a significant threat to US national security, and could be safely released after 20 years in custody. Continue reading...

BI claims it provides immigrant tracking and ‘high quality’ case management. A Guardian investigation paints a very different pictureThe computers at the BI Inc call center in Anderson, Indiana, are powered around the clock. Behind the monitors, dozens of customer support employees scan their screens for an alert to pop up – the signal they may be about to lose track of one of the thousands of people they’re tasked with watching. The warning could mean the ankle monitor they’re keeping tabs on is running low on battery. Maybe someone they’re tracking missed a scheduled check-in or moved outside the perimeter they’re required to stay in.The activities at the call center are part of the US government’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (Isap), a surveillance system launched in 2004 and pitched as a way to keep immigrants out of detention centers while they await a court hearing on their legal status.Monitoring as many as 300 people at once, BI case managers often don’t have enough time to offer immigrants tailored support and some are even discouraged by managers from doing so.BI’s ankle monitors can overheat, have shocked people, and at times are put on too tightly by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).BI’s app frequently malfunctions, causing immigrants to miss required check-ins.There are few protocols governing case managers’ decisions, even though they have enormous repercussions in immigrants’ daily lives. Continue reading...

Party urged justices to overturn maps imposed in North Carolina and Pennsylvania that made elections more competitiveThe US supreme court has rejected requests from Republicans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to overturn electoral maps imposed by the state supreme court in both places that make elections more competitive.The justices ruled 6-3 on Monday not to block the new North Carolina maps from going into effect, with justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas saying they would have paused the state supreme court’s ruling. Continue reading...

White House refuses to confirm that top advisers considering spring Saudi Arabia visit to propose increase in oil exportsJoe Biden attracted criticism from both progressives and Republicans after a report indicated the White House was planning a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss global oil supply.Axios reported on Sunday that Biden’s senior advisers were considering a spring trip to Saudi Arabia in an effort to improve relations and to propose a potential increase in oil exports. Continue reading...

Department of Justice lawyers make closing arguments against Guy Reffitt, first of 750 people charged with joining riot to face trialAn armed Texas militia member led a “vigilante mob” that overwhelmed police officers and became the first group of rioters to breach the US Capitol last year, a federal prosecutor said Monday at the close of the first criminal trial over the attack.A 12-member jury is scheduled to begin deliberating on Tuesday for Guy Reffitt’s trial on charges that he stormed the Capitol with a holstered handgun strapped to his waist and interfered with police officers guarding the Senate doors. Continue reading...

Barr’s book reveals he told Trump he was ‘like a bull in a bull ring’ – in return, Trump calls his former attorney general a ‘horse’Donald Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, told the former US president he was “like a bull in a bull ring” and “someone’s going to come and put a sword through your head”.In return, Trump called Barr a “horse” who had been “broken” by the radical left. Continue reading...

Larry Scirotto says he promoted ‘minority candidates because they were exceptional – not because they were minority’Fort Lauderdale’s now-former police chief has hit back at officials in the Florida city who fired him after just six months on the job, accusing him of focusing too heavily on a diversity policy in hiring and promotion.Larry Scirotto, 48, the son of a white mother and Black father and the department’s first openly gay chief, was fired last Thursday after a city report related examples such as how he had once pointed to a display of photos of the department’s command staff in a conference room and said: “That wall is too white” and “I’m gonna change that.” Continue reading...

Four of the seven killed in the storms – two children, their father and grandmother – died when tornado hit home near WintersetFour of the seven people killed in devastating storms that tore through central Iowa on Saturday were members of the same family who sought shelter inside a home that was razed by a powerful tornado, authorities said.Two children, their father and grandmother died when the tornado hit the grandmother’s home near Winterset on Saturday afternoon, the Madison county sheriff, Jason Barnes, told television station KCCI. Continue reading...

Three people were left critically injured after violence at Querétaro v Atlas. But many observers said the scenes could have been preventedThe scenes that shocked Mexico and horrified the world of soccer on Saturday were caught on shaky cell phone videos: men wearing the red and black jerseys of the Liga MX champions, Atlas, lay prone while others in the blue and black of Gallos del Querétaro beat and stripped them. Hundreds of raging fans descended on the pitch in Querétaro’s Corregidora Stadium, chasing their rivals, who sought refuge in the Atlas players’ locker room. Many Atlas fans ripped off their shirts to avoid being attacked.The riot that broke out during the match between the two teams from central Mexico left 26 injured, three in a critical condition, the governor of the state of Querétaro, Mauricio Kuri, told reporters at a press conference on Sunday. Kuri also denied reports that there had been fatalities. Continue reading...

You could hardly imagine a frostier welcome for these desperate people. The comparison with Europe tells you everythingOne and a half million desperate Ukrainian refugees. Fifty British visas. It beggars belief.In time of war we should keep emotional responses in proportion, but sometimes the hypocrisy is intolerable. Boris Johnson is frantically – and blatantly – traipsing his Churchill act through the capitals of Europe. He hurls abuse at Vladimir Putin and promises Ukraine guns and missiles, aid and sanctions, persecution of oligarchs, anything short of soldiers. But when asked to do the one concrete thing that might directly relieve that country’s agony, he reverts to type. For god’s sake keep these Ukrainians away from our shores. Remember the ark of the Brexit covenant. Continue reading...

A screening of the superhero blockbuster The Batman was interrupted when an audience member released a real batA live bat was released during a showing of The Batman in Austin, Texas, the prank forcing theater management to pause the film and attempt to remove the animal.Staff at the Moviehouse & Eatery acted swiftly at the Friday screening, once they realized an audience member for the superhero blockbuster, which stars the British actor Robert Pattinson, had released the bat, reported KXAN, a local NBC affiliate. Continue reading...

Letitia James launches attack after former governor, who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, decries cancel cultureAndrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor of New York last year over sexual harassment allegations, is a “sick, pathetic man”, the state attorney general said on Sunday in a stinging rebuke.Cuomo had spoken at a Brooklyn church, complaining about cancel culture and the accusations against him and also appearing to hint at a political comeback. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s last chief of staff reported to have registered using North Carolina mobile home at which he seems never to have livedMark Meadows played a key role in supporting and advancing Donald Trump’s lie about widespread electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden, but the former White House chief of staff may have committed such fraud himself.According to the New Yorker, Meadows registered to vote at a property in North Carolina at which he appears never to have lived. Continue reading...

Trump tells Republican donors Putin would not have invaded Ukraine had he been president and calls Nato a ‘paper tiger’In a speech to Republican donors in New Orleans, Donald Trump said the US should put the Chinese flag on F-22 jets and “bomb the shit out of Russia” in retribution for its invasion of Ukraine.The Washington Post reported the remarks, which were made on Saturday night. Continue reading...

The president of Ukraine made a video address after a young family was killed trying to flee near Kyiv. Plus, are Putin’s Hollywood pals cringing?

White gatekeepers repeatedly approach Black people with a disingenuous ‘can I help you?’ It never stopsWhen an anonymous Black person enters the white space, often the people there immediately try to make sense of him or her – to determine “who that is”, or to figure out the nature of the person’s business and whether they need to be concerned. When the Black person is unknown, stereotypes can rule perceptions, creating a situation that can estrange the Black person. In these circumstances, almost any Black person can experience distance, especially a young Black male – not as a measure of his merit as a person but because of his Black skin and its indication of “outsider” status in the white space. Thus, such a Black person is burdened with a deficit of credibility, especially in comparison with their white counterparts.Strikingly, a Black person’s deficit may be minimized or tentatively overcome by a performance, a negotiation, or what some Blacks refer to derisively as a “dance”, through which individual Blacks may be inclined to show white people and others that ghetto stereotypes do not apply to them personally; in effect, they perform for credibility or for acceptance. This performance can be as deliberate as dressing well and speaking in an educated way or as simple as producing an ID or a driver’s license in situations in which this would never be demanded of whites. Continue reading...

Scott David faces questioning under oath on Tuesday about his answers to a jury selection question about sexual abuseWhen Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted last December of procuring minor teenagers for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, their victims expressed joy and relief that long-delayed justice had finally been served.Less than one week later, however, a juror’s comments revealed that he apparently did not disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection – sparking a chain of events that could now potentially undermine the trial’s outcome. Continue reading...

As cases and hospitalizations decline, public health experts worry it might lull people into thinking the pandemic is overOmicron is receding in the US and states and cities are lifting remaining restrictions. Public health experts, however, are urging leaders to use the lull to prepare for future outbreaks.The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently announced new guidelines for judging community risk, shifting focus from cases to hospitalizations. Continue reading...

Veterans at a nursing home also evacuated, as well as residents of at least 1,100 houses, as firefighters battle two firesVeterans at a nursing home were evacuated, joining residents from more than 1,000 homes, as firefighters and emergency workers battled two massive wildfires Sunday in an area of the Florida Panhandle that was still recovering from destruction caused by a category-5 hurricane more than three years ago.The 8,000-acre Bertha Swamp Road fire and the 841-acre Adkins Avenue fire threatened homes and forced residents of at least 1,100 houses in Bay county to flee over the weekend. Continue reading...

US vice president takes to Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama as congressional efforts to restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act falterUS vice president Kamala Harris visited Selma, Alabama on Sunday to commemorate a defining moment in the fight for the right to vote, making her trip as congressional efforts to restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act have faltered.Under a blazing blue sky, Harris took the stage at the foot of the bridge where in 1965 white state troopers attacked Black voting rights marchers attempting to cross. Continue reading...

Four also injured after deadliest storm since 2008 touched down in area south-west of state capital Des MoinesSeven people were killed Saturday, including two children under the age of five, when a tornado swept through central Iowa, damaging buildings and knocking down trees and power lines, in the deadliest storm to hit the state since 2008, authorities said.Emergency management officials in Madison county said four were injured in addition to those killed when the tornado touched down in the area south-west of state capital Des Moines at about 4.30pm. Among those killed were children and adults. Continue reading...

The ‘people’s convoy’ of around 1,000 vehicles threaten a week of traffic disruptions around US capitalA long line of huge semi-articulated trucks, recreational vehicles and cars was circling Washington DC, on Sunday, in preparation for what their protesting drivers have pledged will be a week of traffic disruption around the US capital aligned around a loose collection of demands, including the end to all coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions.From its temporary base at a speedway vehicle racing site in Hagerstown, 80 miles north-west in Maryland, organizers of what they term the “People’s Convoy” of around 1,000 vehicles have said they plan to welcome the new work week by driving slowly around Washington on the already notoriously-congested Beltway, or ring road, at the minimum legal speed in an attempt to get their message across to national politicians. Continue reading...

Speaking from Moldova, US secretary of state warns Russia holds military advantage that western allies are finding hard to counter

Secretary of state says Biden has convened a meeting of his National Security Council on the subject

Polish people are hosting Ukrainians in their apartments, driving them to places, or simply giving them money to cover basic needs

Small businesses say they are struggling but the economy is poised to bounce back from the pandemic in 2022Small businesses today are struggling and their optimism is waning. Or are they?Yes: the closely watched Small Business Optimism Index from the National Federation of Independent Businesses dropped in January to a level of 97.1, well off its recent peak of 102.5 in June 2021. Yes: when you ask small businesses about their challenges they’ll name quite a few, from rising costs and supply chain problems to finding and retaining people in this tight labor market. Continue reading...

The 1MDB swindle is one of the most remarkable cases to hit New York’s justice system in years – but the trial poses a number of unanswered questionsIt started, at least in terms of the public’s recognition, with a giant spending spree that reads like a Christmas wishlist for a billionaire.Picasso’s Women of Algiers for $179m; $100m to fund the production budget of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and a $600,000 Oscar statuette given to Marlon Brando for best actor in On the Waterfront – a gift for the movie’s star Leonardo DiCaprio. But it did not stop there: there was also a custom-built megayacht; a Beverly Hills hotel; a $415m stake in EMI music publishing; and a transparent grand piano. Continue reading...

The Long Ryders song Ivory Tower once sparked a brief, urinal-based encounter between me and the Russian oligarchSuperyachts seek safe havens. Property portfolios dissolve. Lawyers are engaged, accountants contracted. Politicians confect plausible denials over ostentatious donations. Tory party co-chairman Ben Elliot deletes online boasts of his company’s “15 years’ experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia’s elite and corporate members”. It seems there were oligarchs everywhere, all along. We’ve been living in an oligarchy, and no one knew, except all the silenced journalists and stifled inquiries that tried to tell us.Six years ago, after meeting him at a urinal, I briefly befriended the now penitent oligarch Roman Abramovich. Ten songs into a brilliant set by Americana legends the Long Ryders at Under the Bridge, the venue attached to the football ground Abramovich owned, I dashed to the gents, just after Ivory Tower and during The Light Gets in the Way, my prostate gland and my enthusiasm for plangent country rock in mortal combat.Rescheduled national 2022 dates of Stewart’s 2020 tour, Snowflake Tornado, are on sale now; as are Edinburgh fringe shows. The Long Ryders return to Under the Bridge, London, on 17 and 18 June Continue reading...

Thirty-one Democrats, a modern record, are stepping down as the party risks bleak midterms. But leaders say hope remainsFor the Michigan congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, it was a question from her husband: “When is our time?” For the North Carolina congressman David Price, it was the judgment that “the time has come” to step down.Some retiring Democrats have blamed the gridlock and dysfunction on Capitol Hill while others point to the redrawing of congressional maps. Still, others cite the rise of political extremism and the deteriorating relations between members of Congress, particularly in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. Announcing his decision to retire last year, the Wisconsin congressman, Ron Kind, was frank: “The truth is, I’ve run out of gas.” Continue reading...

Many welcome the change as a ‘return to normalcy’ that will support restaurants and bars, but others worry it’s too soonTyler Hollinger, owner of Festivál Cafe, a “farm-to-bar cocktail cafe” in New York City, said he recently started learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu because of physical altercations with visitors who are unvaccinated against Covid-19.The reason for the fights isn’t that Hollinger is a crusader for the city’s requirement that people show proof of vaccination to sit inside at bars and restaurants. Continue reading...

The west fell asleep on Cold War sentry duty and thought Putin couldn’t be serious, but he was. The question remains, is Nato?‘War comes very early to the theatre,” said the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg. “Then he stands around waiting in the wings.” This time too. For a few years, there has been something, somebody, moving in the shadow of the stage curtain. Only a few people felt they recognised it.But language noticed. Even 10 years ago, big-power war in Europe was “unthinkable these days. Do try and keep up!” Then, somehow, it became “well, in theory, but just utterly unlikely”. So, thinkable again. Hard to say when that mental border was crossed; perhaps after the Yugoslav wars, perhaps in 2014 when Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and sponsored proxy war in the Donbas region. And now they ask: “What sort of European war is this going to be? And how nuclear? And where will the next one start?” Continue reading...

Everyday sexism exists even among the political eliteThere’s a short video I keep watching of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen waiting in a ceremonial receiving line with European Council President Charles Michel and Emmanuel Macron to have photographs taken with dignitaries at the EU-Africa summit. The Ugandan foreign minister, General Jeje Odongo, enters, walks straight past her with a microscopic nod and greets Michel and Macron with vigorous handshakes. Macron gestures to Odongo, indicating Von der Leyen. Odongo does nothing; Macron insists, at which Odongo turns towards her with a small, stiff bow – still no handshake.Another slight against Von der Leyen went viral last year. In “Sofagate”, President Erdogan and Charles Michel (yes, again) take the two chairs ceremonially arranged for discussion and photo ops at a summit in Ankara; left seatless, Von der Leyen coughs and gestures in impotent, angry incredulity, before awkwardly perching on a nearby sofa. Continue reading...

Western democracies will be sucked into this conflict. It’s time they threatened Vladimir Putin with a no-fly zone

A year ago no one foresaw a Russian invasion as the president’s top issue but US approval for his handling of the crisis is risingWhen Joe Biden made the struggle between democracy and autocracy the lodestar of his presidency, it was widely assumed that his principal antagonists would be China’s Xi Jinping abroad and America’s own Donald Trump at home.But it is Vladimir Putin of Russia who has made the contest more immediate and literal than anyone expected, launching a bloody invasion of Ukraine that threatens to bring down a new iron curtain in Europe. Continue reading...