Demonstrators demand unconditional ban on ‘no-knock’ warrants after Locke, 22, was killed during a raid on an apartment this weekHundreds of protesters took to the streets of downtown Minneapolis on Saturday demanding justice in the fatal police shooting of a young Black man, Amir Locke, during a “no-knock” raid on an apartment earlier this week.The boisterous but peaceful crowd, chanting Locke’s name and the slogan “no justice, no peace”, rallied at Government Plaza in Minnesota’s largest city three days after Locke, 22, was shot on his couch by police. Continue reading...
The podcast host Joe Rogan has offered 'sincere and humble apologies' after footage emerged of him repeatedly using the N-word on his hit show. After Neil Young and Joni Mitchell announced they would be withdrawing their music from Spotify over Rogan sharing coronavirus misinformation on his hugely popular podcast, the musician India Arie also announced she would leave the streaming service in protest, saying she objected to Rogan’s 'language around race'. She shared an edited compilation of clips of Rogan using the N-word more than 20 times on her Instagram account.
Move to hold shareholder vote follows withdrawal of product in US and Canada and lawsuits alleging link to cancer casesThe healthcare company Johnson & Johnson is facing an attempt to force a shareholder vote to halt its sales of talc-based baby powder across the world, including the UK, amid concerns over alleged links to cancer.Johnson & Johnson (J&J) withdrew its talc-based baby powder from sale in the US and Canada in 2020. Sales of baby powder had dropped after US regulators detected carcinogenic chrysotile fibres, a type of asbestos, in a sample. Continue reading...
Retailers say shoplifting has become a growing problem – so how are merchants fighting back?There’s a war happening right now. No, it’s not in Ukraine (at least not yet). It’s on Main Street.In Manhattan, where the New York police department reports shoplifting levels not seen in nearly 30 years, a Rite-Aid store announces it’s closing because of theft losses. Small retailers in New York have given their district attorney an earful. Residents and shop owners in San Francisco say that crime there has “spun out of control”. Chicago has been the target of “rampant” shoplifting incidents. Reports of “flash” shoplifting gangs have prompted legislators to introduce bills to protect businesses as far apart as Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Washington state. Continue reading...
A Gallup survey showed only 24% of Americans were satisfied with efforts to ‘reduce or control crime’, the lowest it’s beenDuring a visit to 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD in downtown Manhattan, Joe Biden asked officer Sumit Sulan to stand as he praised his bravery. Last month, the rookie officer shot and killed a man who mortally wounded two of his colleagues while responding to a domestic dispute in Harlem.The deaths of the two young officers, Jason Rivera, 22, and Wilbert Mora, 27, was one of several violent episodes that have shaken New York and tested its new mayor, former police captain Eric Adams. Continue reading...
The nature preserve on the US-Mexico border became a target of rightwing ire after it opposed construction of Trump’s wallIn Mission, Texas, on the border between the US and Mexico, sits the National Butterfly Center. A 100-acre nature preserve once exclusively dedicated to the conservation of plants and wildlife, it has now been thrust into the national spotlight and become a focal point of divisions over the country’s immigration policy.This week, the butterfly center was forced to close its doors indefinitely amid ongoing threats from far-right conspiracists and QAnon followers who falsely claim it is a haven for human-trafficking and illegal migration. Continue reading...
Tub-thumping talk of all-out war in Ukraine seems overblown but the White House knows the fledgling Sino-Russian axis is a real threat, in Taiwan and elsewhereIf, as seems increasingly probable, Russia decides not to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine, tub-thumping US and British politicians who have spent weeks scaring the public with loose talk of looming Armageddon will have some explaining to do.The military build-up directed by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is real enough. But suspicion grows that the actual as opposed to the hypothetical threat of a large-scale conventional attack is being mis-read, misinterpreted, over-estimated or deliberately exaggerated. Continue reading...
An obsession with ‘white privilege’ can blind us to the realites of race“This is white people doing it to white people, so y’all gonna fight amongst yourselves.” Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on ABC’s The View about the Holocaust being not “about race” but “white on white” violence that exposed “man’s inhumanity to man” has drawn a slew of condemnation. She quickly put out an apology and, quoting Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who pointed out that “the Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race”, she wrote: “I stand corrected.”Goldberg was not denying the Holocaust or the gravity of the catastrophe that befell Jewish people. The discussion was about a Tennessee school board that had removed from the curriculum Maus, a graphic novel about the Shoah. Goldberg mocked the censors for being more concerned about nudity and bad language than about the reality of genocide. Continue reading...
As the US nears 900,000 Covid deaths, much of the blame has fallen on individuals despite vast income inequality and vaccine accessibility issuesThe US is nearing 900,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the highest figure of any nation. The death toll would be equivalent to the 15th most populous city in the country, more than San Francisco, Washington DC or Boston – a city of ghosts with its population swelling each day.It’s not just the total numbers. America also has the highest death rate of any wealthy country, with half of the deaths occurring after vaccines became available. Continue reading...
The death of the pageant queen who had a profound role in redefining global beauty standards is an ‘incredible tragedy’ for the women and girls of color she inspired
Majority of outages occur in Tennessee, after storm that spanned 2,000 miles dumped up to 17in of snowOver 150,000 homes across the US are without power after a winter storm tore through the country and was followed by freezing temperatures that created icy conditions.By Saturday, over 100,000 homes had their power restored after outages on Friday, though some states were still experiencing service interruptions. The bulk of the outages took place in Tennessee, where over 93,000 homes were experiencing outages, according to PowerOutage.us. Another 43,000 homes in New York and 30,000 in Ohio were without power. Continue reading...
Materials must be ‘publicly docketed’, judge told, after Maxwell’s lawyers filed detailed arguments for a new trial under sealGhislaine Maxwell’s legal arguments involving the juror who might not have disclosed childhood sexual abuse during jury selection should be public, prosecutors said in a letter Friday.“The government respectfully submits that the defendant has not justified her sealing request and, accordingly, the defense motion and its exhibits should be publicly docketed,” they told Manhattan federal court judge Alison Nathan. Continue reading...
Guests of club in Palm Beach, Florida to be treated to ‘great music … with President Trump playing the role of disc jockey’Guests at Mar-a-Lago could hear a selection of Elton John’s greatest hits this weekend – courtesy of DJ Donald Trump.Members of the club in Palm Beach, Florida received a memo on Wednesday that they will be treated to “great music” during dinner on Friday and Saturday, “with President Trump playing the role of disc jockey”. Continue reading...
Rewarding people like Rudy Giuliani with TV appearances sends a message that lying and cheating is fine – and gives them carte blancheActions have consequences. Unless, of course, you’re rich and powerful, in which case it seems you can just go ahead and do whatever you like. Lie, cheat, stick your hand down your trousers when you find yourself in a hotel room with a woman young enough to be your granddaughter. Knock yourself out! The chances you’ll face any meaningful repercussions are low. The chances you’ll be asked on a reality TV show and have your reputation laundered, on the other hand, are high.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...
The ceiling has never been higher, but the basement has remained the same as journalism copes with changes stemming from the pandemicDespite another year of success in the rise of women’s sports, the feeling of anger and frustration for the women covering these events and athletes has remained.That’s because women account for less than one in five among Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) newsroom members, which represents sports departments in some of the nation’s largest newsrooms. Continue reading...
While some in Washington DC and US media decry Amnesty’s conclusions, it’s a different story among some Israeli leadersWho speaks for Israel? Rightwing lobby groups in Washington and US politicians would have Americans believe that it is them – and not Israel’s own former prime ministers and others who actually live in the Jewish state.Earlier this week Amnesty International released a report making a 280-page case that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. The response in the US was a wave of orchestrated outrage – outrage that not only denies what many prominent Israelis say is true but, in effect, denies their right to say it.Chris McGreal is the former Guardian correspondent in Jerusalem and Johannesburg Continue reading...
Authorities say the influencer died from an accidental overdose, but her family believes this could be another sad example of the dangers women face from men on dating appsLauren Smith-Fields was a beautiful young woman, a former high school track star who was studying to become a physical therapist. She was active on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, posting pictures and videos of herself looking healthy and glamorous. She did not use drugs, say her family members, whose grief over her untimely death is as apparent as the sense that something is missing from the story of her demise, on December 12, at age 23. Her family does not believe that Smith-Fields died of an accidental overdose – as the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has said – and one can’t blame them for doubting this ruling.Smith-Fields’s friends and family have publicly wondered if racism may explain why the Bridgeport police were allegedly so careless in their investigation of the scene, saying that detectives failed to collect vital evidence, notify Smith-Fields’s family of her death, or rigorously investigate the last person known to have been in her company – the white man she met earlier that evening on a Bumble date. This wouldn’t be the first time that someone had been drugged on a dating app date – in fact, it’s a serious problem that has gone largely underreported.Nancy Jo Sales is a New York-based writer. Her latest book is Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno Continue reading...
The exercise bike maker is worth less than a fifth of its $50bn valuation during global lockdownIf Peloton wants to know why the lockdown boom in home exercise was unsustainable, then Ian Rodriguez has a good answer: working out is more fun with other people.Rodriguez, a 52-year-old teacher from Preston, Lancashire, cancelled his gym membership when the pandemic hit but couldn’t wait to get back. As many others did, he spent money on gym equipment, including a rowing machine and some weights. But then he started missing the gym classes. Continue reading...
Police are accused of a cover-up in Ronald Greene’s death – and now the governor has had to deny political interference. Mona Hardin, Greene’s mother, says enough is enoughThursday marked 1,000 days since Ronald Greene died on a roadside in northern Louisiana. And the 1,000th day, too, that Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, has awaited answers from state and federal authorities.“It’s hard to sleep,” Hardin told the Guardian in an interview. “But it’s something I have to push myself through. It has destroyed my family, because of what we saw and what we know.” Continue reading...
A rigid anti-vaccine stance among Trump’s supporters means Republicans can’t reap the benefits of Operation Warp SpeedShe is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. But when the former US president came to her home city and praised coronavirus vaccines, Flora Moore did something she never thought possible. She booed him.“He said take the vaccine but we all booed and said no,” she recalled of Trump’s event with broadcaster Bill O’Reilly in Orlando, Florida. “He heard us loud and clear because the Amway Center was packed. We let him know ‘no’ and a couple of us even hollered out, ‘It’s killing people!’” Continue reading...
Government board says Mohammed al-Qahtani, who now has significant mental health issues, should be repatriated to Saudi ArabiaUS authorities have recommended releasing an inmate with significant mental health issues from Guantánamo Bay and repatriating him to Saudi Arabia, according to a government document published Friday.Suspected of being al-Qaida’s intended 20th hijacker for the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured by interrogators at the US military base in Cuba where he has been detained for nearly two decades. Continue reading...
New England police report hundreds of traffic crashes after 350,000 lose power from Texas to OhioNorth-east residents were urged to stay off the roads with temperatures beginning to drop on Friday evening as a major winter storm turned already slippery roads and sidewalks into ice-covered hazards.The storm spread misery from the deep south, where tree limbs snapped and a tornado claimed a life, to the nation’s north-eastern tip. Continue reading...
In a blow to the Republican legislature, the court rejected the maps saying they infringed upon the fundamental right to voteA divided North Carolina supreme court struck down the state’s new maps for congressional and general assembly seats on Friday, declaring that state courts had authority to throw out lines engineered to secure a long-term Republican advantage in an otherwise closely divided state.By a 4-3 decision – with the justices who are registered Democrats making up the majority – the state’s highest court directed the GOP-controlled legislature to redraw the plans by 18 February and provide an explanation of how they calculated the partisan fairness of the new boundaries. Continue reading...
Supervisor Leonard Moty has been ousted after two years of threats and increasing hostility over pandemic health restrictionsVoters in far northern California have solidified the ouster of a Republican county official, giving control of the Shasta county board of supervisors to a group supported by local militia members.Leonard Moty, a retired police chief and Republican with decades of public service, lost his seat in a recall election in one of California’s most conservative counties. The Tuesday recall came as tensions reached a high in the county after two years of threats and increasing hostility toward moderate Republican officials over pandemic health restrictions. Continue reading...
At a conference in Florida, the former vice-president said that the idea of one person choosing the president was ‘un-American’Mike Pence, the former US vice president, has issued his strongest rebuke yet of Donald Trump, insisting that his old boss is “wrong” to claim that Pence could have overturned the 2020 election.The unusually blunt criticism suggests that Pence, unswervingly loyal during his four years serving under Trump at the White House, is running out of patience with the ex-president’s assault on democracy. Continue reading...
Party censures Cheney and Kinzinger, the only Republicans on the Capitol attack House panel, as Pence says ‘Trump is wrong’In an extraordinary move, the Republican party officially said Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat and the deadly attack on the US Capitol were “legitimate political discourse”.A leading Democrat on the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection said historians would be “aghast”. Continue reading...
The high-profile lawyer had denied wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in relation to his former clientMichael Avenatti was convicted on Friday of charges he cheated the adult film actor Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with former president Donald Trump.Avenatti stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. It was another defeat for the California lawyer, who has faced a host of legal problems after briefly rising to fame as one of Trump’s leading antagonists on cable news early in the Republican’s administration. Continue reading...
Amir Locke, 22, was asleep on a couch before being shot dead by officer Mark HannemanNew details have emerged about a 22-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police during the execution of a no-knock warrant, with police officials confirming the man was not named in any search warrant.During a press conference on Thursday held by the Minneapolis police department (MPD), officials confirmed that Amir Locke, who was shot early on Wednesday morning during the search, was not named in any search warrant carried out by MPD police. Locke was shot by the Minneapolis officer Mark Hanneman, according to city officials and documents. Continue reading...
The livestreamed event drew large crowds, who cheered as books deemed ‘demonic’ by pastor Greg Locke went up in flamesA controversial Tennessee pastor led a book burning on Wednesday night to fight “demonic influences”, with a crowd incinerating copies of books including Harry Potter and Twilight.The burning, which was livestreamed on Facebook, followed last month’s decision by a Tennessee school district to ban the Holocaust-based graphic novel Maus. Continue reading...
Economists had predicted dramatic slump in job growth but labor department figures much better than expectedThe US economy appeared to shake off the Omicron variant in January as employers added 467,000 new jobs, the labor department reported on Friday.Data for the report was collected in mid-January when the Omicron variant was at its peak in the US. While some economists – and the White House – had predicted a dramatic slump in jobs growth, the number of jobs added was far better than expected. Continue reading...
Late-night hosts discuss Rudy Giuliani’s surprise TV appearance and Brian Flores’s racial discrimination suit against the NFLOn Thursday night, late-night hosts tore into Fox, the network which airs the reality show The Masked Singer, after the former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was unmasked during a recent taping. Continue reading...
Travis McMichael will stand trial again after judge rejected the terms of the plea dealThe man convicted of murder for shooting Ahmaud Arbery withdrew his guilty plea on a federal hate crime charge Friday, electing to stand trial for a second time in the 2020 killing of a Black man that became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice.Travis McMichael reversed his plan to plead guilty in the federal case days after a US district court judge rejected the terms of a plea deal between defense attorneys and prosecutors that was met with passionate objections by Arbery’s parents. Continue reading...
About 6,500 under evacuation orders while firefighters still can’t get within 300ft of blaze at North Carolina plantAbout 6,500 people were under evacuation orders for three days after a fire broke out at a North Carolina fertilizer plant, which officials said risked becoming one of the biggest explosions ever to occur in the US.The fire continues to burn. The plant contains roughly 600 tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly volatile chemical compound that is used to make both fertilizers and explosives. Continue reading...
Xi Jinping declared the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games officially open after a parade of 91 competing nations and a typically breathtaking showOf all the sport I watched in the 1970s nothing – not Gordon Banks’s save in Mexico, the Rumble in the Jungle or Emlyn Hughes hugging Princess Anne on a Question of Sport – made such an impression on me. Thinking about it now I realise something: I remember the whole of Franz Klammer’s run at Innsbruck in vivid colour. Odd, because I know for a fact that the television I watched it on was black and white.The opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics began at 8.08pm local time on 8 August 2008; the Chinese believe eight is an auspicious number. That evening, Chinese-American Kaiser Kuo was watching from the balcony of his apartment in eastern Beijing. “It was meant to be impressive, and watching as a Chinese person, it certainly was: all the pageantry of history, the flawless performances, the grand scale,” Kuo says. Continue reading...
by Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon in New York on (#5VSG3)
An Alabama case tests how much Republicans can legally dilute the power of Black votersIt has been called a textbook example of discrimination against Black voters in the US. And a ruling on it from the supreme court is expected any day.It isn’t the kind of explicit voting discrimination, like poll taxes and literacy tests, that kept voters from the polls in the south during the Jim Crow era. Instead, it is more subtle.
Civil liberties group urges Washington to cancel programme to prevent ‘slide into anti-immigrant dystopia’The US is testing robotic patrol dogs along its frontier with Mexico that it says could provide “mechanical reinforcements” for border guards, in a move criticised by a leading domestic rights group as a “civil liberties disaster”.Adding to the outcry, the company that developed the dogs, Ghost Robotics, has previously showcased a four-legged robot that has a sniper rifle attached to its back. Continue reading...
The Pillow Fight Championship, or PFC, is trying to turn pillow fighting into a professional sport – but unlike MMA, ‘anyone can compete, and anyone can win’“There’s just something so cathartic about getting hit in the head with a pillow,” posits Steve Williams as he grills a couple of steaks on the back deck of his catamaran. Catfish spin in the yacht’s neon stern lights, scanning the water’s surface for scraps of food on the Boca Raton harbor.He cues up a video on his phone. It’s the second ever exhibition match produced by Pillow Fight Championship (PFC), an organization Williams founded in south Florida with the goal of turning pillow fighting into a professional sport. The match took place back in October, but tonight it’s available for the first time, free of charge, on Fite.tv, the premier direct-to-consumer streaming service for combat sports.People cheer on fighters at the PFC Pillow Fight Championship. Photograph: Bryan Cereijo/The Guardian Continue reading...
Amazon has earned the dubious distinction of replacing Walmart as the nation’s fiercest anti-union employerIt doesn’t take much imagination to realize that Amazon warehouse workers would benefit from having a union. The average Amazon warehouse worker leaves within just eight months – that’s an unmistakable sign that Amazon’s jobs are unpleasant, to put it kindly, and that many Amazon workers quickly realize they hate working there because of the stress, breakneck pace, constant monitoring and minimal rest breaks. Indeed, experts on the future of work often voice concern that Amazon’s vaunted algorithms and technologies treat Amazon’s warehouse workers like mindless, unfeeling robots – having them do the same thing hour after hour after hour.And then there are the endless tales from Amazon warehouse workers that the company is so stingy about break time that they often don’t have enough time to go back and forth to the bathroom without getting demerits for exceeding their allotted daily break time. It’s hard to believe that here in the 21st century, one of the nation’s biggest, most respected companies makes it so hard for many of its workers to pee. Continue reading...
'There’s just something so cathartic about getting hit in the head with a pillow,' says entrepreneur Steve Williams, who has created the Pillow Fight Championships (PFC), and even organised a pay-per-view event.Described as 'hardcore swinging with specialised pillows', the PFC sees competitors – who include active MMA fighters, reality TV stars, bare-knuckle boxers, mechanics, single moms and veterinarians – win by hitting their opponent in the head the most across three 90-second rounds. Brazilian Istela Nunes and American Hauley Tillman were crowned the inaugural PFC champions last weekend.'You don’t really need to explain [pillow fighting] to people – that’s the beauty,' says Williams. As he sees it, pillow fighting is not just a gimmick: 'There’s hardcore aggression with pillow fighting, but nobody gets hurt. A lot of people don’t want to see the blood and violence any more.'
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