Stanford University professors say the programme is fuelling racism and harming US competitiveness, rather than uncovering spies in universitiesCalls are growing to abolish a controversial Trump-era initiative that looks for Chinese spies at US universities, which critics say has resulted in racial profiling and harmed technological competitiveness.In a letter sent to the Department of Justice, 177 faculty members across 40 departments at Stanford University asked the US government to cease operating the “China Initiative”. They argue the programme harms academic freedom by racially profiling and unfairly targeting Chinese academics. Continue reading...

Indigenous leaders had hoped to purchase the land, which is home to 1,000-year-old drawings and was auctioned off for $2.2mA Missouri cave containing Native American artwork from more than 1,000 years ago was sold at auction Tuesday, disappointing leaders of the Osage Nation who hoped to buy the land to “protect and preserve our most sacred site”.A bidder agreed to pay US$2.2m to private owners for what’s known as “Picture Cave,” along with the 43 hilly acres that surround it near the town of Warrenton, about 60 miles (97km) west of St Louis. Continue reading...

Early returns indicate a strong showing from Democratic voters in the closely watched race with national ramifications

Charges relate to 20-year effort by family to ‘infiltrate and take control of a Queens-based labor union’, prosecutors sayFederal prosecutors in Brooklyn busted approximately a dozen members of the Colombo crime family, including the entire leadership of the mob clan, over racketeering and extortion charges on Tuesday.The arrests included Andrew “Mush” Russo, the octogenarian boss of the family, and Benjamin “Benji” Castellazzo, the underboss. Others arrested include the family’s consigliere, captains, a soldier and associates. Continue reading...

The rightwing radio host has already spread rumors of election fraud and has told reporters there might be elections ‘shenanigans’As Californians head to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to keep Gavin Newsom in office, the Democratic governor’s leading challenger is already trying to sow doubt about the outcome of the election.Larry Elder, the rightwing radio host who’s currently leading the pack of Republican challengers to Newsom in the polls, has been spreading conspiracy theories to falsely imply that, if he loses, the election was rigged against him. Continue reading...

The Paradise and Colony fires have combined to create the KNP Complex fire which is burning through Sequoia and Kings Canyon parksA growing wildfire, sparked by lightning and spread through the dense, dry, forested Sierra Nevada, is posing dangers to the ancient sequoia trees in their namesake national park.The Paradise fire and the Colony fire, which have burned together to become the KNP Complex fire, surged through more than 3,000 acres of steep and difficult-to-reach terrain since igniting on 9 September in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, with 0% containment by Tuesday morning. Continue reading...

‘The time is now for childcare, healthcare and climate action for all,’ the congresswoman wrote on InstagramWhen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a white gown with the message “tax the rich” emblazoned in red to the Met Gala, one of New York’s swankiest events, she was sure to ruffle some feathers.Related: The Met Gala 2021: eight key moments from fashion’s big night Continue reading...

The slow-moving system has knocked out power to half a million home, drenching Texas area hit by Hurricane Harvey in 2017Tropical Storm Nicholas slowed to a crawl over the Houston area on Tuesday after making landfall as a hurricane, knocking out power to a half-million homes and businesses and dumping more than a foot of rain along an area swamped by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.Nicholas could stall over storm-battered Louisiana and bring life-threatening floods across the deep south over the coming days, forecasters said. Continue reading...

Figures released by Census Bureau showing drop in poverty rate to 9.1% bolster arguments about effectiveness of state interventionUS poverty fell in 2020, evidence that government aid can lift millions of Americans out of poverty – even in a global health and economic crisis.The first months of 2020 were marked by unemployment levels unseen since the Great Depression, but the US supplemental poverty rate fell to 9.1% in 2020 from 11.7% the year before, according to Census Bureau estimates released on Tuesday. Continue reading...

General Milley worried about Trump’s ‘trigger point’ after the election and monitored him to prevent catastrophic military strikeBefore and after the assault on the US Capitol on 6 January, the most senior US general took steps to prevent Donald Trump from “going rogue” and launching a nuclear war or an attack on China, according to excerpts of an eagerly awaited new book by the Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.Related: Senate Democrats pitch new voting bill in effort to break filibuster logjam– live Continue reading...

Hillary Clinton said the US was still in a 'real battle for our democracy' against pro-Trump forces on the far right who are seeking to entrench minority rule and turn back the clock on women’s rights.Speaking at a Guardian Live event on Monday, Clinton said she believed there was majority support for Joe Biden’s agenda of huge investment in infrastructure and budget support for families. 'But the other side wants to rule by minority,' she told the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland

Claim that FBI lacked authority to conduct further investigation into Kavanaugh may be inaccurateThe FBI director, Chris Wray, is facing new scrutiny of the bureau’s handling of its 2018 background investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, including its claim that the FBI lacked the authority to conduct a further investigation into the then supreme court nominee.At the heart of the new questions that Wray will face later this week, when he testifies before the Senate judiciary committee, is a 2010 Memorandum of Understanding that the FBI has recently said constrained the agency’s ability to conduct any further investigations of allegations of misconduct. Continue reading...

Video shows Georgia art teacher sitting on a desk and asking students if it was OK for her to use the word if ‘I date a Black guy’A teacher in Georgia was suspended after being filmed using the N-word in the classroom.Alexandrea Boyington, an art teacher at Alcovy high school in Newton county, was shown in the video sitting on a desk and asking students if it was OK for her to use the word if “I date a Black guy”, because “I got a [N-word]”. Continue reading...

Petrifying young women still in the earliest stages of working out who they might become stymies their potential for growthAccording to the commentators, Emma Raducanu’s triumph at the US Open is just the start. She has been hailed as a sporting saviour, a model of resilience, an antidote to xenophobia and a potential money-making powerhouse. Her historic victory has unwittingly entered her into a game that she can never win: the cultural obsession with exceptional teenage girls and young women.Taking teenage girls seriously – beyond their commercial potential – is a shockingly recent phenomenon, a decade old if that. Earlier teen-girl prodigies, from Emily Dickinson to Beyoncé, were accused of being the puppets of powerful men and subject to exploitation. That was until social media gave a generation an unmediated voice to define their own culture, to fight against injustices they cared about and to speak out about the pressures and mistreatment they experienced. Continue reading...

Bob Enyart, recalled by his co-host as ‘the wisest person I’ve known’, also reportedly mocked people who died of AidsBob Enyart, a rightwing talk radio host in Colorado who urged people to boycott vaccines for Covid-19, has died of Covid-19.Related: ‘The virus is painfully real’: vaccine hesitant people are dying – and their loved ones want the world to listen Continue reading...

Being rude about Britain is my birthright. But when an American says something unflattering about the UK, my hackles go up and my union jack comes outI live in the US but was born in the UK. You know what that means? It means I can slag off the motherland as much as I like; being rude about Britain is my birthright. It’s obviously unacceptable, however, for Americans to do the same. The moment a Yank says anything unflattering about the UK – even if it’s something I agree with – I go into full-on performative patriot mode. My hackles go up, my union jack comes out; I become a gay, half-Palestinian version of Nigel Farage, all pink and outraged.It is with regret that I admit I got just the tiniest bit Faragey last week. There was, you see, a viral debate about British drinking habits. An American posted on Reddit to ask whether it was true that Britons really went to the pub a lot. “Here in the US if you go to bars multiple times a week and mentioned this to people they might think you are an alcoholic,” the person said. “It just seems like [British] TV shows are exaggerating how common it is to actually ‘go to the pub.’” Continue reading...

Covid cash spent on athleisure gear and trainers helps boost annual profit expectations by £150mThe owner of JD Sports, Blacks Leisure and Millets has upgraded annual profit expectations by £150m after sales were boosted by US shoppers spending their Covid fiscal stimulus cheques on trainers and athleisure gear.The retail group, which owns more than 3,000 stores in the UK, US, Europe and Asia, raised its target for the year to £750m after pretax profits soared to a record £364.6m in the six months to 31 July, almost nine times that of the same period a year before when retailers were hit by high street lockdowns around the world. Sales rose 56% to £3.9bn in the half year. Continue reading...

Because of hoarding by rich countries, those in the global south on the frontline of the crisis will be excluded from the talks

Twelve per cent of women have experienced stealthing – and 10% of men have perpetrated it. The law is finally catching upShe told him a condom was “non-negotiable,” and that if he would rather not use one, she would leave. The young woman, identified as “Sara” in a 2017 study, describes the encounter, saying, “I set a boundary. I was very explicit.” Yet she then discovered that her partner, a man she’d been seeing for a couple of weeks, had secretly removed the condom during sex.“I ended up talking to him about it later,” Sara told the study’s author, the feminist civil rights attorney Alexandra Brodsky. “He told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, trust me.’ That stuck with me, because he’d literally proven himself to be unworthy of my trust.” Continue reading...

The dull-sounding ‘budget reconciliation’ may provide universal childcare and preschool, repeal fossil fuel subsidies and create a Climate Conservation CorpsWhat if the fate of the world was complicated and also, to most people, a bit boring? What if we got a chance to change the world or even save it, and hardly anyone noticed? I hardly dare to start this essay with the phrase “budget reconciliation” lest you be inspired to click elsewhere right away, but stick with me. This is important and also includes a Britney Spears sighting. Because the budget reconciliation bill is maybe the most important thing happening right now, in the long run, but the least dramatic, at least in how it’s being reported. By important I mean significant, for all of us, for the long-term future, for the lives of ordinary people and for the climate.Related: Republicans once called government the problem – now they want to run your life | Robert Reich Continue reading...

The president surveys wildfire damage in California and rallies support for his $3.5tn spending plan. Plus, the much-delayed Met Gala goes aheadGood morning.Joe Biden travelled to California on Monday to survey wildfire damage as the state battles a devastating fire season that is on track to outpace that of 2020, the state’s worst fire season on record. Continue reading...

The quarterback’s exit from the team he helped to a Super Bowl was messy. But if he stays healthy with the Colts, Philly will get a bonus in the draftPhiladelphia Eagles fans had an especially wonderful day Sunday. Not only did Jalen Hurts, the Eagles’ new franchise quarterback, throw three touchdown passes in a lopsided victory over Atlanta, but Carson Wentz, the Eagles’ former franchise quarterback fewer than two years ago, played 100% of his new team’s offensive snaps – and lost.

In his new book, Dave Zirin explores the ripple effect of the NFL quarterback’s protests, and how he inspired activists at all levels of American sportsColin Kaepernick no longer waits for the call to rejoin the NFL. Five years have passed since Kaepernick first sat, then took a knee, during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice in America. Four years have passed since Kaepernick was ousted from the NFL for his peaceful demonstration. He has never been invited back, despite remaining in top playing shape and possessing the talent to be on a roster.Kaepernick’s work in the aftermath of his protest transcended football, and he is still as busy as ever. He has written books: one on on criminal justice, and another for children. And he has partnered with acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay to create a Netflix docuseries that debuts on 29 October with a focus on his teenage years and the upbringing that framed his social conscience. While Kaepernick is no longer part of the daily news cycle, his legacy has evolved, a legacy captured in the new book, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World by Dave Zirin, one of America’s preeminent voices on the intersection of sports and politics. Continue reading...

Emma Raducanu’s victory as a qualifer and Daniil Medvedev’s upset win over Novak Djokovic showed the game is changingAs Novak Djokovic sat silently in his chair after being thoroughly outplayed by Daniil Medvedev in the US Open final on Sunday, a match he had suggested may be the most important of his life as he chased the grand slam, his immediate emotion in defeat was not pain, anger or sorrow, but simple relief.“I was glad it was over because the buildup for this tournament and everything that mentally, emotionally I had to deal with throughout the tournament in the last couple of weeks was just a lot,” he said. Continue reading...

The Met Gala has returned to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a year off due to Covid-19. There were multiple show-stopping outfits from Lil Nas X, while Kim Kardashian turned heads by dressing entirely in black, even covering her face. Amid the glamour, some guests highlighted social issues. The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had 'tax the rich' written in red across the back of her white gown and the sports star Megan Rapinoe carried a clutch bag with the words ‘in gay we trust’

No one quite knows if the former president will run again, but stoking the fire flatters his ego and keeps the cash rolling inThe date Saturday 9 October 2021 might go down in political history. Or at least that is what Donald Trump would like you to believe.That night, Trump will hold a rally in Iowa, the celebrated launchpad for US presidential candidates, the state that goes first in the major parties’ selection process and that is already drawing potential contenders for the Republican nomination in 2024. Continue reading...

Heavy rains could lead to streets and homes being flooded with Hurricane Nicholas expected to make landfall early TuesdayTropical storm Nicholas has strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane as it headed toward making landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast, and was expected to bring heavy rain and floods to coastal areas from Mexico to storm-battered Louisiana.Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said top sustained winds reached 75mph (120 km/h). The hurricane was traveling north-northeast at 10mph (17 km/h) and was forecast to pass near Matagorda Bay in the upper Texas Gulf Coast later Monday, then move onshore along the south-east Texas coast into Tuesday evening. Continue reading...

Co-chair Billie Eilish (the youngest in the event’s history) is one of many stars to channel Grace Kelly at the pandemic-delayed Met Gala on Monday night. She is joined by a guest list of fashion designers, models, celebrities and – to some controversy – TikTok stars, on the steps at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year’s theme of the Costume Institute fundraiser is ‘American independence’, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. Just ask Lil Nas X, who did a Lady Gaga-esque three-look strip on the carpet in gold Versace, from opera cape to armour to a crystal-studded catsuit Continue reading...

President calls year-round fires an emergency country can no longer ignore as he advocates for rebuilding planJoe Biden travelled to California on Monday to survey wildfire damage as the state battles a devastating fire season that is on track to outpace that of 2020, the state’s worst fire season on record.The president is using the trip to highlight the connection between the climate crisis and the west’s increasingly extreme wildfires as he seeks to rally support for a $3.5tn spending plan Congress is debating. Continue reading...

Polls show governor with double-digit lead in race that once appeared tightGavin Newson made a final push through the state on the eve of California’s gubernatorial recall election, with Joe Biden joining the governor on the campaign trail as he made a last plea to voters.With just one day to go before the recall race concludes, Newsom appears to be in a strong position. The latest surveys indicate that the effort to unseat the governor is struggling, with recent surveys showing Newsom with a double-digit lead. Some antsy Republicans seeking to replace the governor – including his frontrunning challenger, the radio host Larry Elder – are already bracing for defeat by spreading false conspiracy theories that the election is rigged. Continue reading...

Police department employees claim ‘hostile work environment’ for the unvaccinated and say mandate violates civil rightsLos Angeles police department (LAPD) employees have sued over requirements they get vaccinated for Covid-19, alleging that the department has created a “hostile work environment” for the unvaccinated and that the mandate violates employees’ privacy and civil rights.The suit is one of several aggressive challenges to vaccine mandates by police unions and officers across California, some of whom have threatened mass resignations in response to new rules. It comes as staff at law enforcement agencies remain unvaccinated at disproportionately high rates. Continue reading...

US secretary of state pushed back against criticism of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Blinked said the Biden administration inherited Donald Trump's deal with the Taliban but no plan for carrying it out

US secretary of state says Biden administration inherited Taliban deal to end the war with no plan for carrying it outAntony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has pushed back against heavy Republican criticism of the handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the Biden administration inherited a deal with the Taliban to end the war, but no plan for carrying it out.Related: Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will reshape Middle East, official warns Continue reading...

Truck with white supremacist symbols contained bayonet and machete, a month after police standoff over bomb threatUS Capitol police arrested a man who had multiple knives, including a bayonet and a machete, in his truck near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC on Monday.Patrol officers noticed a Dodge Dakota pickup truck that bore a swastika and had other white supremacist symbols painted on it around midnight on Sunday. According to pictures released by the police, the truck did not have a license plate but instead a picture of an American flag. The truck also had antlers attached to its front grill. Continue reading...

Some experts say Biden’s move comes at critical moment in pandemic but lawsuits from Republican leaders are also expectedJoe Biden’s new hard line on vaccine mandates in America has dropped in an already politically fraught environment, where some governors have banned requirements by education authorities that masks be used in schools even as many experts lament low rates of vaccination and some hospitals are straining under the pressure of the Delta variant of Covid-19.Related: ‘Have at it’: Joe Biden dares vaccine mandate opponents to take him on Continue reading...

I always dealt with my son’s resistance to swimming class with cuddles, reassurance and rewards. Then one day I tried something radical: listening to him and empathising

Djokovic missed out on the calendar slam at the final hurdle but declared himself ‘the happiest man alive’ after his defeatSomething was wrong. The machine was malfunctioning. The power was blinking on and off. Routine backhands were dropping into the net. Forehands were flying long. On Amazon, which was hosting UK television coverage of the US Open men’s final, users were already beginning to voice their disapproval in the reviews. “Awful quality,” noted one. “Glitches throughout, not good enough service.” “Very disappointing quality coverage.” They weren’t talking about Novak Djokovic, but they might as well have been.Related: Novak Djokovic shows a rare glimpse of vulnerability in US Open final defeat Continue reading...

Eighteen-year-old US Open winner says upbringing has given her mental strength to succeedBritain’s newest sporting star, Emma Raducanu, has put her stunning success at the US Open down to her “very hard-to-please parents”, who she said had given her the mental strength to succeed.Such is the 18-year-old’s burgeoning popularity in the United States that she was invited on to two of America’s flagship programmes – ABC’s Good Morning America and the NBC Today Show, each with more than 3 million viewers – to talk about winning her first tennis grand slam tournament. Continue reading...

Justice spoke alongside Mitch McConnell at Kentucky event a week after supreme court declined to block Texas abortion law

• Democratic senator referred to congresswoman as ‘young lady’• Intra-party fight over $3.5tn social spending bill gets personalThe New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has fired back at the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin for referring to her as “that young lady”, in the latest escalation of a bitter intra-party spat over the size and scale of Democrats’ social spending bill.Related: Joe Manchin insists he ‘can’t vote for’ $3.5tn spending bill Continue reading...

• Boys, 13 and 14, charged with mass shooting conspiracy• Eighth-graders attend Harns Marsh middle schoolTwo students at a Florida middle school were arrested for allegedly plotting to carry out a shooting inspired by the Columbine massacre, in which two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher in Colorado in 1999.Related: ‘We really are just kids’: inside a film about the Parkland teen activists Continue reading...

• Lewis county hospital to suspend service next week• Covid-19 vaccines compulsory for all New York health workersA hospital in upstate New York will at least temporarily stop delivering babies later this month, after too many employees resigned over a Covid-19 vaccination mandate.“We are unable to safely staff the service after 24 September,” Gerald Cayer, chief executive of the Lewis County Health System, told reporters. Continue reading...

Stephanie Grisham says former first lady refused to condemn Capitol attackers and believed husband’s lie about election fraudMelania Trump declined her chief of staff’s suggestion she condemn rioters who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January, according to a new book by the spurned aide who also says the former first lady believed her husband’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.Related: Steve Bannon prepped Jeffrey Epstein for CBS interview, Michael Wolff claims Continue reading...

• Nicholas could make landfall as hurricane on Monday• Louisiana areas hit by Hurricane Ida also brace for new blowTropical Storm Nicholas was strengthening off the US Gulf coast on Monday and could make landfall in Texas as a hurricane, bringing heavy rain and floods to coastal areas from Mexico to storm-battered Louisiana.Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said top sustained winds reached 60mph. The storm was traveling north at 12mph (19 km/h), on track to move onshore in south or central Texas by late afternoon or evening. Continue reading...

Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have written to complain about search algorithms that appear to spread misinformationAmerican senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Amazon of “peddling misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and treatments” through its search and bestseller algorithms, after the online retail giant pushed a book by an author the New York Times called “the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online”.Searching for Covid-19 on the site gives the top result as Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins’s The Truth About Covid-19, a title that claims to reveal how the “effectiveness of the vaccines has been wildly exaggerated”, how the virus was lab-engineered in Wuhan, and how “safe, simple, and inexpensive treatment and prevention for Covid-19 have been censored and suppressed to create a clear path for vaccine acceptance”. Continue reading...