Centrists are concerned about the price tag, while progressives say they will oppose attempt to cut funding in the proposalCongress will return from its summer recess later this month, and some Democrats are already gearing up for a political fight – with each other.Democratic lawmakers are looking to pass their $3.5tn spending package, after the House and the Senate approved the blueprint for the budget bill last month. The ambitious legislation encompasses much of Joe Biden’s economic agenda, including proposals to expand access to affordable childcare, invest in climate-related initiatives and broaden Medicare coverage. Continue reading...

Athletes are now able to make money from sponsorship. But many players believe that the NCAA maintains racial dynamics that are endemic in the US“I think NIL is just to keep kids from going overseas, especially in basketball, to keep them in college. They’re still not getting the cut they deserve. I think it’s still a slave mentality.”That’s how CJ Watson, a former University of Tennessee and NBA player, characterized the 1 July move by the NCAA, the main governing body of US college sport, to liberalize its policy on name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. The decision permits college athletes to make money from things such as sponsorship and public appearances, activities that were once prohibited under the dubious rationale they would compromise the integrity of amateur sport (amateur sport, incidentally, in which the coaches and administrators often make millions of dollars a year). Continue reading...

The building blocks of our culture stop us seeing the famous as people. That is not the function we have assigned themNaomi Osaka gave a press conference on Friday night. She’s started doing them again, by the way; I mention this only because after opting out of media duties during the French Open this year, lots of people immediately decided that she was weaponising her own mental health as a sly ruse to evade media scrutiny. Still, a lot of red-faced talk-show hosts and newspaper columnists got to lecture a 23-year-old woman on her personal choices, so maybe that was the most important thing.It was a tough watch. Osaka had just lost in tempestuous circumstances against Leylah Fernandez at the US Open and, as she announced her intention to take a short break from tennis, she reflected with teary equanimity on a sport that, for whatever reason, was no longer working for her. “Recently, when I win I don’t feel happy, I feel more like a relief,” she said. “And then when I lose, I feel very sad. I don’t think that’s normal.” Continue reading...

Digital ID systems are a powerful development tool, providing a legal identity to millions, but their misuse can be deadlyThe Taliban have openly talked about using US-made digital identity technology to hunt down Afghans who have worked with the international coalition – posing a huge threat to everyone recorded in the system. In addition, the extremists now also have access to – and control over – the digital identification systems and technologies built through international aid support.These include the e-Tazkira, a biometric identity card used by Afghanistan’s National Statistics and Information Authority, which includes fingerprints, iris scans and a photograph, as well as voter registration databases. It also includes the Afghan personnel and pay system, used by the interior and defence ministries to pay the army and police. Continue reading...

Behind the glitz many of those working in movies and TV face low wages and conditions that strike at the industry’s diversityWorking in Hollywood may sound glamorous but the vast majority of workers in entry-level, assistant and support staff positions are vulnerable to pervasive poor working conditions that ensure poor levels of pay and pose safety risks. Problems include low wages, gender pay disparities, long hours, increased workloads in regards to Covid-19 safety protocols without additional compensation, and bullying from managers who gatekeep the opportunities for advancement and success in the entertainment industry.Marisa Shipley, vice-president of IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) Local 871 and an art department coordinator in the industry, explained workers in the industry in these positions, from script coordinators to writers and production assistants, are typically paid little more than the minimum wage of $15 an hour in Los Angeles, California. Continue reading...

Shirin Neshat has been crowned a Photo London Master of Photography thanks to her black and white portraits of people from the American south-west Continue reading...

Exclusive: human rights lawyer criticizes the supreme court and says new law will ‘make abortion unsafe and deadly’United Nations human rights monitors have strongly condemned the state of Texas for its new anti-abortion law, which they say violates international law by denying women control over their own bodies and endangering their lives.In damning remarks to the Guardian, Melissa Upreti, the chair of the UN’s working group on discrimination against women and girls, slammed the new Texas law, SB 8, as “structural sex and gender-based discrimination at its worst”. Continue reading...

Children who lost a parent that day share a burden of grief, prying questions and ubiquitous footage of the disaster that killed their parentsRobyn Higley has always hated September. It’s the month when everything bad happens, when her spirits, generally so bright and bubbly the rest of the year, grow bleak and deflated.She feels sad in September. Though she doesn’t fully understand why. Continue reading...

Europe retained the Solheim Cup after a dramatic to-and-fro singles session in Ohio11.42pm BSTTake a bow, Catriona Matthew, who has captained her team in back-to-back triumphs.Related: Europe retain Solheim Cup after thrilling victory over USA11.26pm BSTTeam Europe bounce around, draped in the flags of their respective home nations, and doused in rather a lot of delicious fizzy French booze. Everyone traipses off to the closing ceremony, and Catriona Matthew raises the Solheim crystal into the air. Toledo will almost certainly get painted red tonight by these astonishing 12 women in blue. That was another sensational edition of the Solheim Cup. Commiserations to Team USA, congratulations to Europe ... and roll on the 2023 edition at Finca Cortesín, Andalucía, Spain. Thanks for staying with us to read these blogs. Nighty night, and sweet dreams wherever you are.Lexi Thompson A/S Anna Nordqvist

Move by US attorney general Merrick Garland comes after strictest anti-abortion law in US took effect last weekUS attorney general Merrick Garland announced on Monday that the federal government will take action to protect those in Texas trying to obtain an abortion in the wake of the strictest anti-abortion law in the US taking effect last week.The US justice department said that it will not tolerate violence against anyone seeking abortion services in the state and that federal officials are exploring all options to challenge the ban on almost all terminations, with new state law also empowering the public to enforce the law in a way critics decry as promoting vigilantism. Continue reading...

Bipartisan voices vow to upgrade aging US infrastructure network that is deteriorating even as storms are strengtheningJoe Biden will visit New York and New Jersey on Tuesday as the states reel from last week’s deadly storms and lawmakers urged for fresh spending on stronger infrastructure to combat the climate crisis.Shaken by haunting images of surging rivers, flooded roads and underground rail stations and tornado damage caused by the storm system spawned by Hurricane Ida, bipartisan voices are vowing to upgrade the aging US infrastructure network. Continue reading...

As well as Britain’s Emma Raducanu, Leylah Annie Fernandez and Carlos Alcaraz have flourished at Flushing MeadowsAs Leylah Annie Fernandez basked in the joy of her improbable third round comeback win over Naomi Osaka earlier last week, she was asked on the court in her post-match interview at what point she truly believed that she could topple such a champion. Her response was immediate. “From the very beginning,” Fernandez said. The crowd reacted with a surprised murmur. “Right before the match, I knew I was able to win.”Against Osaka, Fernandez had trailed 7-5, 6-5 as the third seed served for a straight-sets win. Two days later, Angelique Kerber led their contest 6-4, *4-3 and appeared to have taken the upper hand in a tight tussle. Both times that Fernandez found herself at the cliff edge, she elevated her level and recovered her footing to win. Continue reading...

Remember when Mitch McConnell twice invoked entirely made-up rules to politically shape the court’s membership? Expanding the court will make it more legitimate, not lessWilliam Brennan, the great US supreme court justice, liked to greet his incoming law clerks with a bracingly simple definition of constitutional doctrine: five votes. “You can’t do anything around here,” Brennan would say, wiggling the fingers of his hand, “without five votes.”Underscoring the truth of Brennan’s hardboiled definition was the court’s 5-4 ruling this week (with Chief Justice John Roberts in dissent alongside his three liberal colleagues) to let stand a Texas law that turns ordinary citizens into de facto bounty hunters empowered to sue anyone who performs or “aids and abets” an abortion on a woman past her sixth week of pregnancy. True, the single-paragraph unsigned majority opinion emphasized that in letting the Texas law take effect the court was not ruling on the statute’s ultimate constitutionality. Continue reading...

A week after the storm hit, thousands of residents face a continuing catastrophe amid faltering federal government assistanceAs they sifted through the wreckage of their childhood home in Mount Airy, members of the Robinson family were hunting for memories.They came in the form of a dozen family photo albums, somehow preserved amid the rubble. There was nothing much else to salvage as most of the house was destroyed. It had been in the family for generations, built and preserved with toil and hard work. Continue reading...

As professional sports grew ever more lucrative, the risk of losing out on a fortune became a threat to the credibility of the NCAA amateur ethosIt was founded in 1906 to improve player safety but resisting accountability for injuries has long been at the heart of the NCAA’s insistence that college athletes are amateurs.US college sports’ major governing body began using the term “student athlete” as a legal strategy when the widow of a man named Ray Dennison unsuccessfully sought benefits after he died in 1955 as a result of a head injury suffered while playing football for a college team in Colorado. The institution, a court declared, was “not in the football business”. Continue reading...

The far right and white supremacists are responsible for the vast majority of extremist-related fatalities but only a fraction of counter-terrorism resources are devoted to themThe US government acted quickly after 9/11 to prevent further attacks by Islamic extremists in the US. Billions of dollars were spent on new law enforcement departments and vast powers were granted to agencies to surveil people in the US and abroad as George W Bush announced the war on terror.But while the FBI, CIA, police and the newly created Department of Homeland Security scoured the country and the world for radicalized Muslims, an existing threat was overlooked – white supremacist extremists already in the US, whose numbers and influence have continued to grow in the last two decades. Continue reading...

House leader Kevin McCarthy threatened retaliation against tech companies that share records with the committee Continue reading...

Rosh Hashanah, Jewish new year, is full of rituals. But don’t even think about making resolutionsMonday night is Rosh Hashanah, AKA Jewish new year, and I’ve decided everybody should get in on it. With Covid-19, climate breakdown, climate breakdown denial, terrorism, racism, sexism, homophobia, endless lockdowns and a government steeped in sociopathy making life a collective nightmare, I invite all non-Jews to put on their party hats and choose hope, joy and honey cake this evening.Why are we counting down to midnight in early September? It’s not because we’re bad at time. I mean, we did spend 40 years wandering an objectively small desert, but that just makes us bad at wandering. No, celebrating a new year four months shy of January is a calendar thing. Continue reading...

Team USA came back at Europe on day two, only for Mel Reid to restore a little distance between the teams at the end of play10.51pm BSTThere we go, then. Mel Reid, huh? Another day, another wonderfully dramatic couple of sessions, studded from start to finish with some quite brilliant golf. Europe take a two-point lead going into the final day’s singles, but as anyone who followed the final day at Gleneagles two years ago will know, a plethora of outcomes are possible. Anything could happen, and it certainly will. Hope you’ll join us for that tomorrow afternoon. See you then, and thanks for reading this blog. Nighty night!Noh/Harigae beat Boutier/Popov 3&1

MH-60S crashed about 70 miles off San Diego during what the Navy described as routine flight operations on 31 AugustThe US Navy on Sunday identified five sailors who died when a helicopter crashed in the Pacific Ocean off of Southern California.They were Lt Bradley A Foster, 29, a pilot from Oakhurst, California; Lt Paul R Fridley, 28, a pilot from Annandale, Virginia; Naval air crewman (Helicopter) 2nd Class James P Buriak, 31, from Salem, Virginia; hospital corpsman 2nd Class Sarah F Burns, 31, from Severna Park, Maryland and hospital corpsman 3rd Class Bailey J Tucker, 21, from St Louis, Missouri. Continue reading...

But they insist shots won’t be rolled out without health agencies’ authorization, leaving open possibility of delaysUS officials have expressed optimism that Covid-19 booster shot delivery can start for all adults on 20 September, the goal set by President Joe Biden, as cases continue to rage across the country fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.The officials insist, however, that boosters will not be rolled out without US health agencies’ authorization, leaving open the possibility of delays. Continue reading...

The self-described ‘Big Mouth’ brought a rock’n’roll ethos to the manufactured Girls AloudFor the release of Girls Aloud’s signature 2004 single Love Machine, the girlband juggernaut’s long-term graphic designers Form created a fictional magazine cover for each member. While Cheryl Tweedy is coquettish in cat ears for the stylish Love … mag and Nadine Coyle graces the cover of the Hello!-esque Aloud!, Sarah Harding appears in army fatigues on the cover of Girls, her warpaint augmented by a huge sparkly grin. It quotes a lyric (“We’re heading for war”) accompanied by text that hammers the message home: “Fighting talk from Sarah.” It’s the perfect encapsulation of the pop persona that Harding, who has died from cancer at the age of 39, attracted and often relished: the unruly, fun-loving, tomboyish rebel – or, as she described it in her 2021 memoir, Hear Me Out, the “rock chick, blonde bombshell, party girl, the caner of the band”.It was Harding’s energy and passion that often gave Girls Aloud an extra frisson of excitement on stage, whether she was endearingly stumbling through dance routines or hitting the odd bum note. Post-Spice Girls, UK pop had become polished and pre-teen again, but with Girls Aloud there was a sense that you should expect the unexpected. Much of that revolved around Harding. As a teenager in Manchester, she was a huge fan of Liam Gallagher, and brought a rock’n’roll ethos to a manufactured band that could easily have defaulted to rote media-trained sheen. (Tellingly, her favourite Girls Aloud single was the pummelling, guitar-led Wake Me Up.) Continue reading...

As an aid worker, I can see first-hand how a perfect storm of conflict, drought and Covid has gripped the country

Drone footage has captured the extent of destruction caused by Hurricane Ida in the barrier island town of Grand Isle in Louisiana. The US death toll from Ida has risen towards 60. In Louisiana, the confirmed storm-related death toll is nine.It is nearly a week since one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US mainland made landfall in Louisiana. The White House has said the president, Joe Biden, will survey storm damage in New York City and Manville, New Jersey

Texas just banned abortion at six weeks. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until five, and that’s earlier than mostFour years ago, when I was a 22-year-old college student in Virginia, I found out I was pregnant. I knew I was late, maybe a bit longer than a week, but that wasn’t unusual – I’d always had irregular periods. Like I had many times before, I picked up a test just in case. It came back positive.I didn’t tell anyone at school I was pregnant, but I called my mom. She assured me it would be OK, and told me to schedule an appointment nearby, rather than drive home to New York. She was right; I probably didn’t need a seven-hour car ride of contemplative dread. Continue reading...

On the 20th anniversary of the attack on New York’s Twin Towers, we consider how artists, writers, film-makers and comedians have attempted to grasp that momentous day and its legacyAs the world clustered, transfixed, around television screens, watching and rewatching footage of a plane gliding into the top of New York’s twin towers and a tiny, anonymous man plummeting to earth, another scene was unfolding on the ground, as panic-stricken families stumbled through the smoke and rubble to gather up their children from schools and kindergartens.Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly stood four blocks away with their daughter, watching the second tower fall “in excruciatingly slow motion”. As art director of the New Yorker magazine, Mouly knew that she would have to come up with a rapid response. “I felt that images were suddenly powerless to help us understand what had happened. The only appropriate solution seemed to be to publish no cover image at all – an all-black cover. Then Art suggested adding the outlines of the two towers, black on black. So from no cover came a perfect image, which conveyed something about the unbearable loss of life, the sudden absence in our skyline, the abrupt tear in the fabric of reality,” she later recalled. Continue reading...

A bankruptcy court gave members of the pharma family immunity from further civil suits. They don’t have to admit wrongdoing – and they may end up richer than they startedCorporate money has a powerful and malign influence on so many aspects of American life. But even by that low standard, events this week in a New York bankruptcy court are shocking. The legal system has effectively allowed one of the country’s richest families to buy its way out of accountability for what a White House commission called “America’s national nightmare” of mass opioid addiction.On Wednesday, the court approved a deal for the dissolution of the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma, which kicked off the opioid epidemic two decades ago with its illegal drive to sell a high-strength painkiller, OxyContin. Purdue’s owners, members of two branches of the now-notorious Sackler family, are estimated to have made more than $10bn from the drug – even as the opioid crisis claimed more than 600,000 lives, with the toll climbing higher by the year. Continue reading...

Glenn Youngkin has been endorsed by Trump but stays silent on the right wing’s cherished issues to win over moderate votersRepublican Glenn Youngkin has had to entertain some far-fetched ideas from supporters as he seeks to become the next governor of Virginia.During one campaign event in late July, a voter suggested that Donald Trump could be reinstated as the president due to fraud in the 2020 election and potentially help elevate Virginia Republicans who lost their seats as well. Continue reading...

Dozens died across the north-east as the storm system passed through and the climate crisis makes extreme weather more likelyAs the north-eastern US reeled from catastrophic damage caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, politicians and city officials warned that the climate crisis will bring more such events. According to the mayor of New York City, people should prepare for the “very, very worst”.Related: New York floods: calls for action after 11 die in basement apartments Continue reading...

The age of Big Brother and famous football victories seems like another time. But did the terrorists’ planes, as it seemed, really come out of nowhere?There is always an eeriness in the archives of days that immediately precede tragedy. The newspapers of the day before the Titanic’s maiden voyage, or the reports from the eve of President Kennedy’s visit to Dallas, forever after take on the shadow of innocent, sunlit photos of a suddenly lost loved one. We have come to accept that, 20 years ago this week, on the morning of 11 September, the world as we knew it changed for ever. But from what? What were the immediate befores of that indelible after?I’ve spent the last few days reading through the papers of the week beginning 3 September 2001, looking for any clues that suggested those were times of relative security and a certain naivety or blitheness, at least in the affluent corners of the west; wondering, with hindsight, if the terrorists’ planes really came out of nowhere, with their era-defining message of hate, as it appeared to so many. Continue reading...

Republicans are steamrolling a series of extremist laws, undeterred by demographic shifts in the state favoring DemocratsTexas lawmakers have taken the state’s long history of chest-thumping conservatism to new levels over the last few months.Republicans, who have complete control of state government in Texas, have pushed through some of the most extreme rightwing measures in the country. They enacted the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, essentially outlawing the practice after six weeks and incentivizing private citizens to sue anyone who assists another person in obtaining one. They passed a measure allowing anyone to carry a handgun without a permit or training. They severely restricted how teachers can talk about systemic racism in their classrooms, passing a law that says teachers cannot be required to discuss current events and cannot give “deference to any one perspective” if they do so. And they passed sweeping new election restrictions, banning voting practices, including 24-hour and drive-thru voting, that the state’s largest, and Democratic-leaning, county used in 2020. Continue reading...

First the World Trade Center, then the pandemic – a neighborhood beset by high unemployment, shuttered businesses, xenophobia and delayed reliefBy the time the second plane appeared on 11 September 2001, Amy Chin was already running away from the World Trade Center plaza, where smoke and papers were billowing down from the north tower.“Then the sky turned orange, and it was the second plane hitting the south tower,” said Chin, then the head of a Chinese arts organization. Continue reading...

Fearful of the growing influence of entrepreneurs and entertainers, the Chinese leader now demands conformity across all of societySince the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) on 1 July, political edicts have been flowing out of Beijing. President Xi Jinping declared that China’s economy would now work to provide “common prosperity”. Social media has read this as a rhetorical assault on the country’s billionaires, who have become used to flaunting their wealth. There has been a well-publicised crackdown on entrepreneurs in the technology sector, in part because of the CCP’s increasing concern that figures such as Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, were becoming more prominent than the party itself. New anti-trust legislation may well break up some of the big companies that have dominated the sphere, creating more, smaller companies that the CCP hopes will power innovation through increased competition and also be easier to control politically.Related: China bans reality talent shows to curb behaviours of ‘idol’ fandoms Continue reading...

The Missouri Democrat has been described as a possible president – but for now he’s focused on healing wounds of a 20-year warJason Kander is tired. For weeks the former Missouri secretary of state, an Afghanistan veteran as well as a rising star of Democratic politics, has been working to get Afghans out of the country after its fall to the Taliban. That means working on Afghan time, which means working at night.Related: ‘I pray they are alive’: Afghans headed to US think of families left behind Continue reading...

He still refuses to concede and riles up supporters with his bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe himThe former president’s attempted coup is not stopping. He still refuses to concede and continues to rile up supporters with his bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe him.Related: Trump reportedly nears DC hotel rights sale as ally says ‘I think he’s gonna run’ Continue reading...

The Maryland senator is working to pass three bills that would support minority entrepreneursBen Cardin comes from a family of small business owners. His grandfather, who emigrated to the US from Russia more than 120 years ago, turned an independent grocery store into a chain of food distribution businesses. His success was one of the factors helping Cardin enter the world of politics at the age of 24, where he ultimately rose to become an influential member of the US Senate. He is now in his third term representing Maryland, and the ranking member of the small business and entrepreneurship committee.Cardin knows that the environment for business owners and startups today is much different than in his grandfather’s time. Back then there were fewer rules, less competition and lower barriers to enter a marketplace. Today’s entrepreneurs face intense opposition from big brands, high costs like healthcare for their families, more hurdles for securing capital to finance their dreams and a far greater level of rules, bureaucratic requirements and paperwork that creates headaches and challenges. And that’s if you’re white. The challenges are far greater for minorities looking to get into the game. Continue reading...