The Neshaminy School District’s racist nickname and former mascot does not violate a Pennsylvania law that prohibits discrimination, a state appeals court has ruledOne full year after the Washington Football Team announced that it was ditching the racist nickname the NFL franchise had carried since 1933, club president Jason Wright said in July that the team would not consider related alternatives – specifically, Warriors.
Joe Biden has said American troops may remain in Afghanistan past 31 August, as the evacuation of US citizens continues. The president told ABC News: 'If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.' The comments came after Biden denied the withdrawal of troops could have been handled better. Large crowds continue to arrive at Kabul's airport, creating a logistical hurdle as countries try to evacuate citizens. The US says it is unable to escort citizens to the airport but can continue to secure airstrip, enabling flights to take off
The Chicago racecourse is set for demolition due to the amount of gambling revenue sucked out of punters’ pockets as a fixed percentage of turnover as opposed to the placing of bets“Really?” asked the Daily Racing Form’s Marcus Hersh on Twitter on Saturday above a picture of Arlington racecourse in the suburbs of Chicago. “Just rip it down?”Sadly, after 94 years as the major racetrack in America’s third-largest city, it seems they really will. The 326-acre venue that staged the Arlington Million, the first race to offer a million-dollar purse, and where Rock Of Gibraltar so bravely failed to go out on a high in the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Mile, has been sold to developers. The 2021 running of its biggest card five days ago is expected to be the last. Continue reading...
Joe Biden says his administration plans to make Covid-19 vaccine booster shots available from 20 September as infections rise from the Delta variant. Americans who had their initial course at least eight months ago will be initially eligible. The president defended the decision to recommend boosters while other countries are yet to deliver their first shots. "We can take care of America and help the world at the same time," he said. "In June and July, America administered 50 million shots here in the United States and we donated a hundred million shots to other countries."
According to environmentalists, the $9.4bn facility could release up to 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a yearThe US government has placed further delays on a proposed multibillion dollar plastics plant in south Louisiana, marking a major victory for environmental activists and members of the majority Black community who have campaigned for years against construction.The planned $9.4bn petrochemical facility, owned by Formosa Plastics, would roughly double toxic emissions in its local area and, according to environmentalists, release up to 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the equivalent of three coal-fired power plants, to become one of the largest plastics pollution-causing facilities in the world. Continue reading...
The sky over parts of Nevada and California turned red and orange as the Caldor fire, which erupted over the weekend, exploded in size on Tuesday and ran through the town of Grizzly Flats, destroying many buildings and forcing residents to leave. Two were injured. Officials estimated that the blaze had blown through 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres)
The US and Britain’s dogged pursuit of reform and regime change made the return of the Taliban almost inevitableWhen rising British casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq started to raise public doubts 15 years ago, a new mantra began to be heard: Iraq was a war of choice, Afghanistan a war of necessity. The argument was that the US and its faithful ally, Britain, had launched an invasion in Iraq that was unjustified as it was based on a false premise: the hollow claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.Related: Fear of refugees must not shape the response to Afghanistan’s crisis | Daniel Trilling Continue reading...
District website announcement says governor’s recent executive order doesn’t allow his office to usurp the school board’s powerA school district in Texas has announced an amendment to their dress code, reportedly requiring face masks for all members, ahead of the school’s reopening on Thursday.An announcement issued on the website of the Paris Independent School District (PISD) on Tuesday pointed out Greg Abbott’s recent executive order doesn’t allow his office to “usurp the Board of Trustees’ executive power”. Continue reading...
Following One Vote Away’s publication, the Republican senator’s campaign spent large sums of money at US chain Books-A-MillionTed Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported.Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History in September. A financial disclosure he filed on Monday, reported on by Forbes, shows he received almost $320,000 as an advance in 2020 from the book’s publisher Regnery Publishing. Continue reading...
Assigning someone the legal power to make decisions for a vulnerable adult should always be a last resortAround the world, fans of pop star Britney Spears celebrated her father’s announcement last week that he would resign as her conservator. This development is welcome news for Spears and her supporters, dubbed the #FreeBritney movement. But it will not end Spears’ conservatorship, which has prevented her from making decisions about her own life since it was established shortly after she had a mental breakdown in 2008. Nor will it prevent others from finding themselves in similar situations. That will require changing the underlying legal systems that created Spears’ predicament.While many have only recently learned of conservatorship thanks to the #FreeBritney movement, this legal process is neither new nor unique to the US. It is a common court proceeding in which the court appoints someone to make decisions for individuals the court has found cannot make decisions for themselves. California – where Spears lives – calls this proceeding conservatorship and calls the appointee a conservator. More commonly, it is called guardianship and the appointee is called a guardian. While Spears has drawn attention to guardianship, the process typically entangles those far less privileged. Changes in the pop star’s situation , as welcome as they may be, won’t themselves trigger the reform of a legal mechanism mainly experienced by people society has historically treated as expendable. Continue reading...
Female doctors, journalists, police officers and politicians face acute danger from the TalibanIt was one of the worst phone calls I’ve ever received: a friend in Kabul calling on Sunday afternoon to say that armed men had just visited her house. Her voice was shaking to the extent that she sounded as if she was gasping for air. The men had intimidated her and left, and she had fled to a friend’s house to hide with her children. She didn’t know when they’d return, if they would find her, or when it would be possible to relocate again to somewhere farther away. I have never heard someone sound so scared.She begged for help to escape the country; I promised I would keep trying. But options were closing all the time. Earlier that day, through a small charity, I’d managed to get my friend and her children booked on to a flight to a third country. The plan was that they’d get to safety and continue to look for a more permanent relocation. It was a brief ray of hope during a dark few days. But within hours of the booking, all commercial flights out of Kabul were cancelled. Continue reading...
In the aftermath of Biden’s Afghanistan debacle, we should consider the alternatives to a Washington-led order“America is back,” said President Joe Biden earlier this year, and the entire democratic world breathed a sigh of relief. But as we watch the debacle of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan – Kabul as Saigon 2 – a ghostly voice whispers to us: what if America is not back? What if it is never coming back? What happens then? The Chinese century? Europe as new leader of the free world? Or just plain old international anarchy?If only this were like Saigon in 1975. The US humiliation in Vietnam, following Watergate, marked a low point for America’s reputation in the world. But within a decade, the US was back. By 1995, it seemed to be bestriding the globe as an unchallenged hyperpower. Everyone knows that this time is different. The United States’ self-inflicted domestic problems are 10 times more profound and structural than they were in the mid-1970s – partly because, following the pattern of over-extended empires throughout history, it has spent trillions of dollars in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than doing more nation-building at home. Abroad, it faces not a declining Leninist-ruled superpower, the Soviet Union, but a rising Leninist-ruled superpower, China. Climate change is the only hyperpower now. Continue reading...
The quarterback gave us many magic moments during his sporting career but his final stop in Jacksonville deprived more deserving players of a chanceOver the past 15 years, for the majority of this millennium, Tim Tebow has gotten a whole bunch of opportunities. He’s earned them, made the most of them, for a few seasons or games or improbable seconds. But the same can’t be said for his latest misadventure, the summer-long charade in which he played the part of an aspiring NFL tight end.It wasn’t particularly convincing. Continue reading...
Evanston was the first city to implement a plan to repair the harm caused by slavery – and what occurred there could set the tone for what may happen at a national levelIn March, Evanston, Illinois, beat the federal government to become the first to pass a reparations plan in America. It gained national attention, heralded by celebrities such as Danny Glover, who called the debate over reparations “the most intense conversation that we’re going to have in the 21st century”. But just months ahead of putting it in action, local residents are warning national advocates to view Evanston as a cautionary tale as much as a historic first.“There’s still so much misinformation or lack of information that Black residents here in Evanston still don’t understand what this program is. And there are plenty of Black residents that still believe that they’re going to be getting direct cash payments, because that’s how the reparations program was framed when it was first introduced in 2019,” said Sebastian Nalls, a Black Evanston resident and one of the founders of Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations, a group formed in February 2021 to draw attention to community concerns with the reparations plan. Continue reading...
In the past I thought that, if worst came to worst, the NGO would protect me. Now I think they have forgotten meI am an Afghan woman in my 20s, living in Kabul. I have five sisters. My oldest sister completed elementary school. The second one is a midwife, and my third sister is doing her PhD. My younger sister is a film-maker. And my youngest sister, she is a high school student and a member of a volleyball team. And I myself am doing my bachelor in one of Kabul’s universities. Although my parents are uneducated they have tried their best for their children to earn an education.I have been working for a western NGO for two years advocating for women and working towards a stable, sustainable and equal society. When I heard the Taliban was taking over, I was worried about my future and about every single Afghan’s future, especially women and youth. It was a sad moment to think we women will return to the 1990s, and will live behind the closed doors and Burqa. Continue reading...
US raises concerns over Taliban’s promise of ‘safe passage’. Plus: northern California fires could worsenGood morning.Reports are emerging of the Taliban beating women and children as they attempt to cross checkpoints set up by the insurgents, undermining their promise of “safe passage” for those who want to reach Kabul airport to flee Afghanistan. Continue reading...
Quincy has become accustomed to hosting evacuees as wildfires worsen. Now some residents wonder if it’s time to leaveBy the time the Safeway parking lot in Quincy, California, began to fill with emergency vehicles and RVs carrying people planning to spend the night, Megan Bray had already stocked the shelves with extra Gatorade.It wasn’t the first time a wildfire had descended on this northern California region and threatened the towns scattered through the forested mountainsides. Bray, the store director, knew first responders and anxious evacuees would need the extra electrolytes. Continue reading...
The Olympic heavyweight freestyle wrestling champion is as surprised as anyone he’s reached the pinnacle of his sport at 21. Will mixed martial arts, the UFC or Hollywood be next?It’s been more than a week since he conjured one of the indelible moments of the Tokyo Olympics out of nothing and the reality is still no closer to hitting home for Gable Steveson.It’s not just that Steveson upset the odds to become America’s first heavyweight gold medalist in freestyle wrestling since 1992, defeating three-time world champion Geno Petriashvili of Georgia in the 125kg final. It’s how the 21-year-old Minnesotan did it: trailing by three points with only 10 seconds remaining, then scoring a pair of late takedowns, the second as time expired, to dramatically turn an 8-5 deficit into an 10-8 victory that will go down in Olympic wrestling lore. Continue reading...
Election watchdogs say rightwing groups seek to enact voting restrictions in critical states, from Arizona to Pennsylvania – states that Republicans need to win backThe conservative campaign to curb voting rights has helped spur passage of bills in at least 18 states and, backed by big money, is now widening its scope across the US in a concerted effort to suppress the vote and favor Republicans, say election law experts and watchdogs.The lobbying and media drive is aiming to spend tens of millions of dollars and is led by well funded conservative and dark money groups, some of whom are also pressing Congress to block Democratic-backed bills to protect voting rights nationally, say watchdogs and election law experts. Continue reading...
The current format does not do athletes or animals justice. Replacing showjumping with climbing would be a solutionImagine training for countless hours for many years to reach the Olympics in rowing. You’re slotted into the pairs event. One hitch – your partner will be determined by random draw. You look over and see one of your rivals paired up with a world champion. Your partner, on the other hand, isn’t sure which end of the oar goes in the water.
Western leaders are panicking about a new surge in migration. But we can – and should – help those fleeing the TalibanTwo defining images of 2021 depict people fleeing. One is the sight of people desperately chasing after a US air force jet along the runway at Kabul airport, as the west’s 20-year occupation of Afghanistan came to an end. The other is of passengers, evacuated from a forest fire on the Greek island of Evia, watching from the deck of a ferry as the skyline is etched in apocalyptic red.In both cases they tell us about the speed at which people have to abandon everything when disaster strikes – there is rarely time for an orderly queue, for correct papers and possessions, when you are forced to flee – and about the power held by those who control the routes to safety. Continue reading...
Analysis: new regime may face enemy composed not of fighters loyal to former US-backed government but those who see new rulers as selloutsJoe Biden has said the US will maintain an “over the horizon” counter-terrorism capability to neutralise the threat posed by Islamist extremist groups in Afghanistan.With no troops on the ground, no intelligence-gathering operation in the country and no ally with shared borders, this kind of long-range effort to stop plots targeting the west will not be easy – and is made significantly harder by the range of the organisations based in territory now nominally under Taliban control. Continue reading...
Caldor fire explodes in size as Pacific Gas & Electric begins shutting off power to 51,000 customersCritically dangerous fire weather was forecast across northern California from Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday evening, threatening to intensify several large blazes and increasing the risk of new ones, as a small rural town in the Sierra Nevada was ravaged by a fire that grew with devastating speed.The Caldor fire, which erupted over the weekend, exploded in size on Tuesday and ran through the town of Grizzly Flats, destroying many buildings and forcing residents to leave. Two were injured. Officials estimated that the blaze had blown through 30,000 acres – up from 6,500 acres reported by the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire) earlier that day. Continue reading...
We have to sit with the Taliban now and accept this new reality. I wake up every morning, put on my bravest face and try to raise my voice for my peopleIt is mind-boggling how fast some world-defining moments happen to us. From entering a meeting to exiting it, my world had changed. There were people running in panic and the traffic was jammed. You could see armoured vehicles with their security protocols cutting through traffic. The city had fallen before the Taliban had entered it. There was no police, no armed forces and all government employees were asked to leave their offices.The first night was lawless. I had to hide everything of value in my house and abandon it. Continue reading...
White House press secretary Jen Psaki says the Biden administration does not have complete faith in the Taliban promise to offer a safe passage to Kabul's international airport after their takeover of the country. 'We're not trusting, we're not taking their word for it,' Psaki says. 'We are watching closely.' Asked what the consequences of breaking the promise could be, Psaki says: 'The consequences are the full weight and force of the United States military, and I think we've made that clear'
Greg Abbott, who was vaccinated in December, is at least the 11th governor to contract the virusTexas governor Greg Abbott tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, after weeks spent banning local mask requirements and meeting maskless crowds.Related: Texas officials ask US government for mortuary trucks as Covid cases rise Continue reading...
Their sons never even saw the officers who shot them. In grief, two mothers formed a bond of support as they sought justice for what happenedNarene Stokes couldn’t help but notice the only white woman in the crowd. Sheila Albers had come to grieve. Like Narene, like all the mothers gathered for the meeting, her teenage son had been shot and killed by police.“On July 28, 2013,” Narene began, “in Kansas City, Missouri, my life changed forever.” Her voice was soft, a piece of silk ribboned on the wind. “A police officer shot my only son, Ryan Lee Stokes, in the back.” Continue reading...
US bankruptcy trustee, nine states and DC objecting to settlement plan because it would grant legal protection to SacklersMembers of the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma will not contribute billions of dollars to a legal settlement unless they get off the hook for all current and future lawsuits over the company’s activities, David Sackler told a court on Tuesday in a rare public appearance.Related: ‘A cartel shouldn’t get away with this’: anger at opioid settlements that exclude admission of wrongdoing Continue reading...
Analysis: The scenes of mayhem in Kabul have erupted in the public consciousness, and may damage the president’s reputationIt had just started raining at the White House on Monday when a group of reporters, the Guardian included, were summoned and led past a Secret Service agent, along a red carpet in a windowless corridor, up a staircase and into the elegantly appointed East Room.Related: Afghanistan live news: Taliban say they seek no ‘revenge’ in press conference; vice-president says he is caretaker president Continue reading...
Officials requested trucks from Fema as a ‘precaution’ while coronavirus deaths in the state have tripled in the last two weeksHealth officials in Texas said they have asked the federal government for five mortuary trucks, as Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise in the state.Related: US experts expected to recommend Covid booster shots for all Continue reading...
He’s not an established artist – or critically acclaimed. Yet his works are apparently being sold for surprising amountsIt looks like the prodigal son is a painter now. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s child, has apparently been dabbling with paints for years. Now his hobby has turned serious: starting soon, you can pick up one of his colourful creations from a gallery in New York’s SoHo. It will cost you, though: the pieces are reportedly priced between $75,000 and $500,000.Who parts with that much cash for the work of a new, not exactly critically acclaimed, painter? We may never know. Hunter’s new career raises obvious ethical issues for his father and, in an attempt to avoid accusations of influence peddling, the Biden administration has asked the gallerist to keep all information about the buyers and prices of Hunter’s work confidential. The gallery has also agreed to reject offers that seem suspiciously generous. Continue reading...
Airlines have encountered an unusual number of disorderly customers in recent months, occasionally leading to unorthodox methods of restraintUnited Airlines has asked its employees to not use duct tape to restrain unruly passengers.In a memo sent to employees last Friday, United flight attendants were urged to “please remember that there are designated items onboard that may be used in difficult situations, and alternative measures such as tape should never be used”. Continue reading...
This week’s victory by the Taliban in Afghanistan now stands as an inspiration to militants around the worldAlthough the anti-war mood deepened in the UK in 2002, as President George W Bush moved to terminate the regime in Iraq, there had already been some unease the previous October, before the Afghan war started. One policy paper, which I co-authored, even argued against it, pointing to an inevitable escalation and the risk of never-ending war. But for the most part the defence establishment offered support.In the event, the Taliban fell in a matter of weeks and Bush could announce, in his 2002 state of the union address, an expanded war against an “axis of evil”, with Iraq first in the sights. Even by mid-2002 the US, UK and others had moved on from Afghanistan, leaving a dangerous security vacuum, which was filled by a returning Taliban, across many rural districts, ultimately setting in motion the events that culminated in the past few days. Continue reading...
Across a sprawling internet community, an ideology of violent misogyny is spreading – with tragic, ‘real-world’ resultsThe term “involuntary celibate”, or incel for short, used to describe somebody who isn’t having sex but would like to be, was first coined by a young woman named Alana in the mid-1990s. The small, supportive, mixed-sex community she created online is a world apart from the extremist, hate-fuelled ideology it has transformed into in the many years since she left those online spaces behind. “It feels like being the scientist who figured out nuclear fission and then discovers it’s being used as a weapon for war,” she later told the Guardian.Today’s incels are not a clearly defined, organised group, but rather a sprawling, disparate community of men across a network of blogs, forums, websites, private members groups, chatrooms and social media channels. Several of the forums have memberships in the tens of thousands, with around a 25% increase in membership in the two years I have been researching them. And these figures don’t take into account the number of people visiting and being influenced by these sites without necessarily signing up. Continue reading...
The Los Angeles Dodgers said that they had properly vetted pitcher Trevor Bauer before signing him, but they either missed a prior assault allegation or didn’t careThe Los Angeles Dodgers wanted you to know that they had done their due diligence. In a press conference introducing starting pitcher Trevor Bauer, who the Dodgers had just signed to a three-year, $102m contract, the team’s president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, wanted to make that clear.Addressing Bauer’s well-established history of online harassment and feuds with teammates, Friedman wanted to emphasize the Dodgers weren’t worried about the pitcher’s reputation. “Hopefully over the last six-plus years,” Friedman said, “some trust and credibility has been built up in terms of the research we do on players and the vetting process that we go through ... we get as much information as we can on players.” Continue reading...
Analysis: US president’s TV address blamed others for the Taliban takeover and tried to distance himself from past administrationsIn a televised speech on Monday, Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan and his handling of a crisis that has seen the Taliban capture the country in a lightning offensive. Blaming Afghan politicians and the country’s security forces for the calamitous collapse, he also sought to distance himself from previous administrations. But how much of it was fair or even accurate?Biden: We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and make sure al-Qaida could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded al-Qaida in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and we got him. Continue reading...
The USWNT star spent most of her playing days trying to prove herself against perceived adversaries. The results speak for themselvesAt 39 Carli Lloyd was, by some distance, the oldest player on the US women’s soccer team in the Tokyo Olympics. She wasn’t the same player who established an unrivaled propensity for decisive goals from the 2008 Olympics to the 2015 World Cup.So why does her imminent retirement seem so surprising? Continue reading...
Officials have declared a dire water shortage at Lake Mead, the US’s largest reservoir, triggering significant water cuts in Arizona and other western states.The US Bureau of Reclamation’s first ever declaration of a 'tier 1' shortage represents an acknowledgment that after a 20-year drought, the reservoir that impounds the Colorado River at Hoover Dam has receded to its lowest levels since it was created in the 1930s
Rather than address stagnant wages for hourly workers and yawning inequality, corporations are blaming a ‘labor shortage’Last week, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan thinktank, released a report on the increasing pay gap between chief executives and workers. This research tells a familiar story with updated figures. When taking into account stocks, which now make up more than 80% of the average CEO’s compensation package, the report found that chief-executive pay has risen by an astounding 1,322% since 1978. That’s more than six times more than the top 0.1% of wage earners and more than 73 times higher than the growth of the typical worker’s pay, which grew by only 18% in the same time period. Most remarkable, however, is the 18.9% increase in CEO compensation between 2019 and 2020 alone.Related: Bob Woodward’s third book in Trump trilogy to cover handling of pandemic Continue reading...
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Twenty years after 9/11, it’s time to set America’s priorities based on reason instead of fear – and talk about the true cost of ‘national security’The 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks is a natural time to assess our nation’s response over the last two decades and chart a course for the future. Our single-minded focus on defeating terrorist groups claiming to act in the name of Islam over all other priorities, international or domestic, has allowed vulnerabilities to fester.Related: FBI offer to release some Saudi files not enough, 9/11 families say Continue reading...
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