Defense attorneys turn their focus to saving Nikolas Cruz from a death sentence for 2018 shooting massacre at Florida high schoolNikolas Cruz has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder for the 2018 shooting massacre at a Florida high school, leaving a jury to decide whether he will be executed for one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.Relatives of the victims who sat in the courtroom and watched the hearing via Zoom shook their heads or broke down in tears as Cruz entered his pleas and later apologized for his crimes. Continue reading...
by Lucy Sherriff for the Fuller Project on (#5QAB7)
Klamath River salmon populations are dwindling, so Yurok mothers are working to restore the river and reclaim Indigenous food sovereigntyKeeping salmon in her children’s diet is “an entire job”, says Georgiana Gensaw, a Yurok Tribe member and mother of four in Klamath Glen, California, a community whose only easily accessible food store is a fried chicken shop attached to a gas station a few miles away.The nearest grocery store, Safeway in Crescent City, lies 24 miles away along a stretch of road frequently plagued by landslides and toppled redwoods – last summer it was closed for 20 hours a day after a washout – making queues to get through the roadworks up to five hours long. Continue reading...
Country now has ample supplies of the Pfizer shot to vaccinate the roughly 28 million kids who will soon be eligibleChildren age five to 11 in the US could soon be able to get a Covid-19 shot at their pediatrician’s office, local pharmacy and potentially even their school, the White House said Wednesday as it detailed plans for the authorization of the Pfizer shot for 28 million younger children across the country.Federal regulators and independent advisers will meet over the next two weeks to weigh the benefits of giving shots to kids, after lengthy studies meant to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration are expected to begin reviewing the evidence on Pfizer vaccines for younger children early next week. Continue reading...
The figure skater is undefeated since suffering disappointment at the last Winter Olympics. And he says two global stars have helped his extraordinary formNathan Chen takes nothing for granted. At the dawn of an Olympic season where he’s widely expected to bring home the gold medal that eluded him four years ago, the world’s most dominant figure skater is savoring every step of the journey rather than focusing on the finish line.“Every single day is a new day,” Chen said at this week’s United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee media summit. “Every opportunity is a new opportunity. Every competition’s going to be different.” Continue reading...
by Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent on (#5QX8K)
Bank also pleads guilty to wire fraud and forgives hundred of millions of dollars of debt owed by countryCredit Suisse has been fined nearly £350m by global regulators, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and agreed to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt owed by Mozambique in an attempt to draw a line under the long-running “tuna bonds” loan scandal.The Swiss banking company had been accused of “serious” failings in its financial crime controls by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice that will put the bank under heavy monitoring for three years after having “defrauded US and international investors”. Continue reading...
Extremists are being pitted against moderate centre-right voters in the next chapter of the culture warsAt the 1992 US Republican convention, the paleoconservative pundit and presidential candidate Pat Buchanan introduced the world to the idea that politics had become a “culture war” between progressives and conservatives. Campaigns for environmentalism, abortion and LGBT rights weren’t just about policy, he claimed, but were in fact intended to destroy wider American traditions and identity. “This war is for the soul of America, ” Buchanan said, and called on fellow citizens to “take back our culture, and take back our country”.In the ensuing decades, the right closely adopted the strategy proposed by Buchanan. It claimed that, by dint of their alleged control of the media and academia, unpatriotic and elitist progressives were imposing radical changes – like openness to immigration and the demolition of the traditional family – against majority will. The plan worked: culture war tactics were instrumental in the right gaining support among disgruntled workers increasingly suspicious of a centre-left that had little to offer in terms of socio-economic policies. Continue reading...
Experts may invoke the specter of stagflation, but don’t look for a return of the economic conditions of the 1970s. We have too far to fallAre the 1970s returning to haunt us this Halloween? Increases in the consumer price index indicate rising inflation, and job growth has not matched expectations. As a result people on the Street have begun to talk about the return of stagflation – rising unemployment and prices – a phenomenon associated with the 1970s.There appear to be some similarities between now and then. Jimmy Carter, who lived in the White House from 1977 to 1981, presided over a weak economy that turned him into a one-term president who faced a challenge from Edward Kennedy and the liberal wing of his party for the 1980 nomination. Joseph Biden worries that a deteriorating economy might make it impossible for him to pass his legislative agenda and win a second term.Edward Berkowitz writes on American social welfare policy, recent American history, and American cultural history Continue reading...
Build Back Better plan wants to expand Medicare to include oral coverage for millions of older and disabled AmericansDory Adams, 67, who lives outside Atlanta, was diagnosed with osteoradionecrosis due to radiation treatment she received in 1999 for oral cancer. Effectively, the radiation weakened the bone in her jaw.“I have endured hours and hours of trauma and pain in the dental chair, and paid thousands of dollars, only to find out that I have lost my battle to osteoradionecrosis,” said Adams. “I live with pain every single day with every single bite. My jaw creaks and pops when I talk and chew. It constantly reminds me, relentlessly, that I am scarred.” Continue reading...
Obstructionist effort to stop Freedom to Vote Act likely to increase pressure on Democrats to do away with filibusterSenate Republicans are again poised to block a sweeping voting rights bill on Wednesday, a move that will significantly escalate pressure on Democrats to do away with the filibuster, a Senate rule that has stymied the most significant priorities in Congress.The bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would impose significant new guardrails on the American democratic process and amount to the most significant overhaul of American elections in a generation. It would require every state to automatically register voters at motor vehicle agencies, offer 15 consecutive days of early voting and allow anyone to request a mail-in ballot. It would also set new standards to ensure voters are not wrongfully removed from the voter rolls, protect election officials against partisan interference, and set out clear alternatives people who lack ID to vote can use at the polls. Continue reading...
The astonishing story of how the US entered the second world war should be on everyone’s minds as Cop26 approachesFatalism creeps across our movements like rust. In conversations with scientists and activists, I hear the same words, over and again: “We’re screwed.” Government plans are too little, too late. They are unlikely to prevent the Earth’s systems from flipping into new states hostile to humans and many other species.What we need, to stand a high chance of stabilising our life support systems, is not slow and incremental change but sudden and drastic action. And this is widely considered impossible. There’s no money; governments are powerless; people won’t tolerate anything more ambitious than the tepid measures they have proposed. Or so we are told. It’s a stark illustration of a general rule: political failure is, at heart, a failure of imagination. Continue reading...
The hit show has attracted global attention – not least from a North Korean propaganda website – for its takedown of capitalism. But the streaming service has wasted no time in commodifying the show’s successNetflix isn’t available in North Korea and you can go to prison if you’re caught watching South Korean dramas. However, that hasn’t stopped mouthpieces for the totalitarian regime from weighing in on Squid Game, the hit South Korean show in which debt-ridden people play children’s games for the chance to win cash and are killed if they fail. Last week, Arirang Meari, a North Korean propaganda website, opined that Squid Game reflects the “sad reality of the beastly South Korean society”, where “corruption and immoral scoundrels are commonplace”. It added that the global hit, which is Netflix’s most-popular series yet, illuminates “the reality of living in a world where people are judged only by money”.Congratulations to the critics at Arirang Meari for understanding the not-so-subtle message of Squid Game: runaway capitalism is bad. Alas, I am not sure executives at Netflix are particularly bothered. They are far too busy raking in all the cash that Squid Game has made them. As it turns out, a scathing critique of capitalism may help push Netflix into becoming a trillion-dollar company. Squid Game has boosted Netflix stock’s market value by $19 bn since it launched in mid-September, according to Bloomberg. It has also created $900m in “impact value”, which is a metric Netflix uses to assess the performance of individual shows. The streaming platform is shamelessly trying to squeeze every last penny it can out of the show: it’s even selling Squid Game hoodies on its online store.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Authorities have belatedly reported that one of the group of African mammals that bolted from a farm died last monthOne of a group of escaped zebras that have spent almost two months running wild through the east Maryland suburbs has died, authorities said, in a blow to thousands who have followed the animals’ bid for freedom.The fate of the zebras, who bolted from a farm near Upper Marlboro in late August, has captured the attention of people locally and beyond, with a number of Marylanders sharing videos and photos of the animals roaming and grazing on residents’ lawns. Continue reading...
Video game maker will also expand its ethics and compliance team after reports of sexual misconduct and discriminationThe embattled video game company Activision Blizzard has fired 20 employees over claims of harassment, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing a letter sent to staff.According to the report, the video game maker will also expand its ethics and compliance team, tasked with creating a “more accountable workplace”. Continue reading...
The McDonnell Douglas MD-87 was carrying 21 people when it rolled through a fence and caught fire while trying to take offNo one was seriously hurt when an airplane bound for Boston ran off a runway and burned on Tuesday morning near Houston, authorities said.The McDonnell Douglas MD-87 was carrying 21 people when it rolled through a fence and caught fire while trying to take off from the Houston executive airport in Brookshire, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said. Continue reading...
White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question from a reporter about the former president filing a lawsuit to try to shield White House documents from subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection. Psaki said Trump had attempted to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. Continue reading...
Texas will lower the number of districts where minorities comprise a majority – despite the non-white population growing rapidlyTexas Republicans are on the verge of enacting new voting maps that would entrench the state’s Republican and white majority even as its non-white population grows rapidly.Texas Republicans approved the congressional plan on Monday evening, sending it to Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to sign the measure. Continue reading...
The question of what specific books and topics can and can’t be taught is linked to a disturbing new law in TexasI’ve been trying to imagine what Gina Peddy could have been thinking when, on 8 October, she informed a group of Southlake, Texas, elementary school teachers that, if their classroom libraries included books about the Holocaust, students should also be steered toward books with “opposing views”.The executive director for curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent school district, Peddy later explained that she was simply helping her staff comply with Texas House Bill 3979. Signed into law on 1 September by Governor Greg Abbott, the ruling prohibits educators from discussing controversial historical, social or political issues. If these subjects do arise, HB 3979 mandates that teachers “explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective”. Continue reading...
He’s been accused of antisemitism, domestic violence and sexism – but somehow this guy always gets another chanceNews that Mel Gibson is to star in the John Wick prequel TV series sends out a cry amongst the faithful. Mel is risen! Yet again! Yes, the boulder has once more been rolled away from the tomb of cancellation, leaving disciples and those who think people should at least say sorry once for being obnoxiously appalling now contemplating a place of emptiness. Nothing gets resurrected more often than Mel – not even pussy-bow blouses or the Batman story. It’s like the old Hollywood saying goes: he’ll for ever eat lunch in this town again.Before we go on, a recap of the details: cinema’s Mel Gibson has landed a role in The Continental, a TV spin-off of the successful John Wick movie franchise, which will air on Starz. Scientifically speaking, there can only be a finite amount of niceness in the John Wick universe, and having all-round good egg Keanu Reeves as the eponymous character in the movies means at some point you have to balance him out with someone with a truly toxic “Controversies” section to their Wikipedia entry. Mel’s very much your guy!Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
When my wife went into labour, I craved a BLT after years of vegetarianism – and I’m far from the only one whose best intentions have fallen by the waysideI lost my veg-inity on a hard hospital sofa earlier this year. It was quick and messy and sordidly satisfying. The situation was this: my pregnant wife had gone for a 39-week ultrasound and the doctors made the unexpected decision to induce labour immediately. We had spent 24 hours in the hospital waiting for the baby to make an exit and the stress and excitement of it all had made me a little tense – and very hungry. Going in, I’d had the vague idea that the miracle of imminent birth would overwhelm me with beautiful feelings and wonder; instead, I just kept thinking about bacon. I hadn’t eaten meat for almost a decade at that point, but I was suddenly overcome with the urge to abandon my vegetarianism and inhale a BLT. People respond to stress in different ways and instead of fight or flight it seems my body kicks into meaty sandwich mode. (My wife, who had been subsisting only on clear hospital broth and apple juice, gave me her blessing to go and get one, by the way. I don’t want you to think I am a monster.)Here’s some free advice: do not eat an enormous BLT before your partner gives birth, particularly if your innards haven’t dealt with meat for a while. Shortly after shoving the food in my mouth, my wife started pushing and I started feeling very queasy indeed. I broke out in a meat sweat just as the baby’s head started showing; shamefully I had to sit down for a minute. “I’m fine, I’m fine! I’m not squeamish, I promise!” I told every nurse who asked if I was going to faint. “The thing is, I just ate a bacon sandwich and I’m actually a vegetarian.” I kept on trying to explain this to everyone in the room until my wife told me, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
There have been five suicides and eight additional deaths this year in New York City’s notorious jail complexNew York’s Rikers Island, one of the largest and most notorious jails in the world, is reaching a breaking point after more than a dozen incarcerated people died this year alone, in what elected officials and advocates are calling a humanitarian crisis.The jail, located on an island in between the Bronx and Queens, has descended into dangerous chaos. Those with access to visit reported seeing inmates walking around with infected self-harm wounds, an inmate hijacking a bus full of prisoners and crashing it into a wall, and a lack of access to basic hygiene products. Continue reading...
Research finds boosters, even when given to people who got a different brand originally, led to an increase in antibody countAmerican regulators plan to let Americans “mix and match” booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine.This means that people aren’t required to get the booster from the same brand that was used in their original inoculation, the New York Times first reported late on Monday. Continue reading...
Ralph Northam had a mild case in September 2020 that left him with long-lasting effects, including loss of smell and tasteMore than a year after testing positive for Covid-19, Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, is warning about the importance of vaccines and the long-lasting effects of Covid.After a mild case in September 2020 that felt like a sinus infection, Northam said in a video briefing that he was recovering quickly, and he waited for his sense of smell and taste to return. Instead, his symptoms gained force – when he drinks lemonade, it tastes like gasoline, and sometimes he smells smoke that isn’t there. Most of the time, though, he can’t smell or taste anything – including potential gas leaks when he restores vintage cars. Continue reading...
In California hundreds of public employees, including police and firefighters, are claiming ‘sincerely held’ objections to the vaccineThis month, California became the first state to require Covid-19 vaccines for all schoolchildren but the provision came with a loophole: students will be granted religious exemptions.California, which currently has the lowest coronavirus case rate in the US, has been issuing a series of sweeping mandates, requiring that healthcare workers, state employees, care workers and schoolteachers staff all get the vaccine. But in each case, Californians are able to ask for personal belief exemptions – and they are doing so in droves. Continue reading...
Labor uprisings are not a spectator sport. They demand not just your attention, but your participationYou may be forgiven for having the strange feeling this week that America has suddenly been seized by a very retro kind of labor revolution. If you don’t track these things closely, it may have snuck up on you. Better get your marching shoes. This party is just getting started.In March, 800 nurses at St Vincent hospital in Massachusetts went on strike. In April, 1,100 coalminers in Alabama went on strike. (Both of those groups are still on strike) In July, Frito-Lay factory workers went on strike; they were followed in August by their union siblings at Nabisco factories, and, this month, by those who work at Kellogg’s factories.Hamilton Nolan is a labor reporter at In These Times Continue reading...
by Kari Hamerschlag and Christopher D Cook on (#5QWB7)
Public development banks are directly undermining UN and Paris climate goals by channeling billions of taxpayer dollars into multinational meat corporationsAs the climate crisis boils over, new research shows that reducing methane emissions is our best hope to rapidly stem the crisis. It’s time to turn up the heat on the industrial meat industry and dramatically curtail its climate harm, which includes 32% of global methane emissions. Yet instead development banks are using public funds to expand this sector that generates 16.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).On 19 and 20 October, hundreds of public development banks (PDBs) will gather for the second Finance in Common Summit to make pledges to advance Paris climate and UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). The summit – which will also focus on agriculture and agribusiness transformation – presents a vital opportunity for these banks to put their money where their mouth is and align their agriculture investments to meet these goals. Continue reading...
The US is trying to stop female judges and attorneys being interrupted by male counterparts. Sounds all too familiarAlong with various inalienable rights and governing principles, the tendency for men to talk over women has now been officially recognised by the US supreme court. Newly introduced rules to the structure of oral arguments are in place to address the issue of male justices and attorneys (extremely regularly) interrupting their female colleagues.These measures were discussed last week by Sonia Sotomayor, who had the honour of being the most interrupted supreme court justice in the 2019 term. And they show that, far from being a mere everyday annoyance, “mansplaining” (or the ideologically adjacent “manterrupting”) can interfere with democracy. And the fact that, as a woman, you can be a literal supreme court justice and still get shouted down like someone’s little sister isn’t exactly encouraging.Eleanor Margolis is a columnist for the i newspaper and Diva Continue reading...
Pfizer manufacturing problems leave nonprofits paying exorbitant prices for dwindling supplies of life-saving naloxoneAs the United States faces an unprecedented surge in opioid overdoses, harm reduction groups are seeing shortages in naloxone, a usually affordable and easy-to-use medication that reverses overdoses and has been credited with saving many lives.But it’s not because of a lack of supply; there’s actually plenty of naloxone out there. Instead, the dangerous shortage of naloxone is all about soaring prices. Continue reading...
Employees alleges allege intimidation and union-busting at low-cost retailer that reported billions in sales last yearThe low-cost retailer Dollar General has the highest number of store locations in America, with over 17,600 stores in 46 states, and its golden and black logo has become ubiquitous across the country.The company’s rapid footprint is continuing to grow, as a staggering nearly one out of every three retail stores opening in America this year is now a Dollar General. All that business generates dizzying revenue too: the company reported $33.7bn in sales last fiscal year. Continue reading...
In an extract from his new book, Lars Anderson relates how the Bucs promised that Florida could give the veteran a more enjoyable football lifeOn the first day of the free agent negotiating period – it started at noon on Monday, 16 March –Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht sat in his office at One Buc Place and phoned Brady’s longtime agent Don Yee at precisely fifteen seconds after 12. “I’m calling about Tom,” Licht said.“You made the right call,” Yee told Licht. “You really made a good decision to call me.” Yee went on to explain that Brady had been paying close attention to the Bucs and Arians. He emphasized how much Brady respected Arians – who had written a book in 2017 called The Quarterback Whisperer – and Yee noted that Brady had been impressed with the work Arians had done with quarterbacks through the years. Brady had researched Arians, watching a documentary on him, and he admired how close Arians had been with all of his past quarterbacks. “You’ve got a good nucleus of talent at Tampa,” Yee told Licht, “and it’s important that the head coach, general manager, ownership, and the quarterback have the same commitment to winning.” Continue reading...
The ex-general seriously considered running in 1995 but later felt himself increasingly out of step with the Republican partyColin Powell wrote a speech in November 1995 announcing a run for US president. He wrote another speech announcing a decision not to run.When he faced reporters in a hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, Powell delivered the second speech. Continue reading...
by Joan Niesen, Tyrell Feaster, Hunter Felt and Bryan on (#5QW5J)
Our writers give their verdicts on the new season, which starts on Tuesday night. Who is MVP? Will LeBron get another ring? And who are the dark horses?Giannis Antetokounmpo. It’s kind of nuts, but the reigning NBA finals MVP is only 26, and he may just be hitting his stride. I expect this to be his best season yet on a Bucks team that will be as competitive as last year and confident coming off their title. JN Continue reading...
Developments in select committee’s move to secure Bannon’s conviction come as Trump files lawsuit blocking the release of his White House recordsSteve Bannon and other former top officials in the Trump administration are facing legal peril for defying subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, as the panel prepares to pursue criminal referrals for non-compliance.The legal jeopardy for Bannon – who is expected to be held in contempt by the committee on Tuesday – is anticipated after it emerged in a letter to his attorney, obtained by the Guardian on Monday, that he had claimed executive privilege protections on materials unrelated to the executive branch. Continue reading...
The rules around vegetarianism and meat eating used to be simple. Now there are ever more grey areasLast century, we used to have a lot of conversations about what qualified as a “drink problem” – the range was huge. I interviewed one American public health official and he said: “Anyone who goes out for an evening and has no idea how many drinks he’ll have had by the end of it has a drink problem.” Given that the working definition of an alcoholic in my workplace at the time was “anyone who needs to use their tie as a pulley for their first drink because their hand is shaking too much for the famously unstable shape of a martini glass”, we thought that was hilarious. After more field work, someone came back with “anyone who needs rules around alcohol has a problem with it” – no spirits at home, no drinking on a Sunday night, a rigidly observed yardarm with weekend variations. All that had to go, and then you could be satisfied that you had no problem. These questions were outpaced by the passage of time – now it would be widely agreed that everyone, back then, had a problem.In place of that, we have a question over what counts as a vegetarian. Fish have always been a grey area, not least because they are grey, but now there’s a space-time component – you can be a vegetarian except on a Friday, or unless you’re at somebody else’s house. You can eschew all meat unless it’s hand-reared, which ultimately means you are veggie everywhere except your own house, the worst of all possible worlds from a manners point of view, but maybe the best from the perspective of animal welfare. You can go white-meat only, which amounts to a vendetta against the chicken, but works for sustainability – or you toggle between real and fake meat, and make quite a detailed account of why the fake meat doesn’t taste the same. All this without anyone calling you ridiculous. I wonder if the trajectory is the same, and the future will just agree that we all had a meat problem. Continue reading...
The justice department wrote in its plea that the law defies the supreme court’s major decisions on abortion rightsThe Biden administration has asked the supreme court to block Texas’ extreme abortion ban as a battle over its constitutionality plays out in the courts.The Texas law, which has halted most abortions in the state, defies the supreme court’s major decisions on abortion rights “by banning abortion long before viability – indeed, before many women even realize they are pregnant”, the US Justice Department wrote in its plea to the court. Continue reading...
Colin Powell, the first Black US secretary of state, has died at the age of 84 from Covid complications. Powell was a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, before joining the George W Bush administration as secretary of state. Before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Powell made the case to the United Nations security council that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons. He later said that this represented 'a blot' that will 'always be a part of my record'. Although he was a Republican, in 2008 he endorsed Barack Obama for president. In the years that followed, he felt increasingly detached from the party, ultimately leaving it in the wake of the 6 January insurrection on the Capitol
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