Footage captures then US president’s pilgrimage – five months before his death – to Wexford hometown of his great-grandfatherThe grainy footage shows John F Kennedy riding in an open sedan car, waving to cheering crowds, escorted by police motorcycles.The scene was filmed in 1963, and in some ways eerily recalls the famous footage of his killing just months later. Continue reading...
New York governor denies having ‘inappropriately touched’ 11 women as calls for his resignation mount. Plus: How a successful journalist realised she had to get rid of Twitter, for goodGood morning.President Joe Biden has led calls from both major parties for the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, to step down after an investigation found he had sexually harassed 11 women, created a “climate of fear” in a “toxic” workplace and violated federal and state civil laws. Continue reading...
A 165-page report by the New York attorney general has found that the governor behaved in abusive, harassing, and illegal ways towards women“We find all 11 women to be credible,” said Ann L Clark, at a press conference on Tuesday. Clark, an employment attorney, is one of the independent lawyers brought on to conduct New York attorney general Letitia James’ investigation into sexual harassment claims against governor Andrew Cuomo. Her statement was made as part of the release of a 165-page report by the attorney general’s office, a fact-finding investigation that determined that the governor had behaved in abusive, harassing, and illegal ways towards women subordinates. The report corroborated accounts from almost a dozen women, including nine current and former employees of the governor’s office, one state trooper, and one employee of the energy utility National Grid. The report found that Cuomo not only personally sexually harassed women, but that he created a hostile work environment, and used his office in an attempt to silence and punish his accusers, all of which violate both federal and New York State civil rights laws. The report is the product of a months-long investigation, which included interviews with 179 people, review of 74,000 documents, and 11 hours of sworn testimony from Cuomo himself.Related: Andrew Cuomo sexual harassment: the key testimony from the report Continue reading...
As immediate danger recedes, blaze serves as a warning of what’s to come amid worsening climate crisisFirefighters on Hawaii’s Big Island in recent days battled the biggest brush fire that has ever burned on the island, wrangling a blaze that has torched more than 62 sq miles (160 sq km) and destroyed two homes.The dangers posed by the fire receded on Tuesday, allowing for evacuation orders that had forced thousands to empty their homes to be lifted. Continue reading...
Cashflow suggests while Trump retains an iron grip on party, there is still significant money behind efforts to wrest it freeTaking a stand against Donald Trump is guaranteed to bring Republicans online abuse, primary election challengers and barbs from the former US president himself. But it is also proving lucrative as donors scramble to breathe life into the anti-Trump resistance.Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming and leading Trump critic, enjoyed her second consecutive record fundraising quarter with $1.88m from April to June, according to financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. She had raised $1.54m in the first three months of the year. Continue reading...
Critics dismiss Cuba as a failed state, but don’t accept how badly it’s hamstrung by the US blockadeThe violent protests that erupted in Cuba in early July were the first serious social disturbances since the “Maleconazo” of 1994, 27 years ago. Both these periods were characterised by deep economic crises. I was living in Havana in the mid-90s and witnessed the conditions that triggered the uprising: empty food markets, shops and pharmacy shelves, regular electricity cuts, production and transport ground to a halt. Such were the consequences of the collapse of the socialist bloc, which accounted for about 90% of the island’s trade.Betting on the collapse of Cuban socialism, the US approved the Torricelli Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 to obstruct the island’s trade and financial relations with the rest of the world. Meanwhile, more sophisticated and multifaceted “regime change” programmes were developed, from Clinton’s people-to-people programmes to Bush’s Commission for a Free Cuba. From the mid-1990s to 2015, US congress appropriated some $284 million to promote (capitalist) democracy. Continue reading...
Donald Trump’s son-in-law has decided to step away from politics and launch an investment firm. No doubt it will be a roaring success, whatever he doesHaving selflessly served the public for four long years, Jared Kushner has decided it’s time to step away from politics and apply his unique talents elsewhere. According to mysterious sources said to be “familiar with the plan”, Kushner is preparing to launch a Miami-based investment firm called Affinity Partners. The exact nature of the firm is unclear; however, it will reportedly have an office in Israel, which will pursue investments connecting Israel’s economy with India, north Africa and the Gulf. Now that he has oh-so-successfully made peace in the Middle East, Kushner appears to have decided he deserves to make a little profit.It must have been hard for Kushner, who former ambassador Nikki Haley once described as a “hidden genius that no one understands”, to give up his political career. Still, the decision was probably made easier by the fact that said “career” was simply a cushy “senior adviser” job with his father-in-law, and that ended when Donald Trump lost the election. Since then, Kushner and his wife, Ivanka, have been spending their days scooping up Miami mansions. One presumes the pair haven’t exactly been inundated with invitations to join the Biden White House, so the fact that the likes of Reuters are running headlines announcing Kushner is “to leave politics” is quite the PR victory on his part. Continue reading...
Victory in the safe Democratic district will be interpreted by moderates as proof the party should hold centre ground and not shift to leftThe Democratic establishment scored a major victory over the party’s progressive wing on Tuesday when Shontel Brown defeated Nina Turner in a primary election in Ohio.Conceding defeat, Turner told supporters: “Tonight my friends, we have looked across the promised land, but for this campaign, on this night, we will not cross the river.” Continue reading...
Ana Marcela Cunha won gold for Brazil in the 10km swim but every swimmer had to give it their all just to get around the courseBefore she swam 10 kilometres in under two hours in hot-as-soup Tokyo Bay, USA’s Haley Anderson had another time in mind: 3.45am.That was when her clock buzzed, early, so early, on Wednesday morning. Two hours and forty-five minutes later she dived into the open water aiming for her second Olympic medal in marathon swimming. “That was not fun, to set that alarm,” she said. Continue reading...
CDC has found legal authority for a moratorium that would shield areas with substantial Covid transmissionThe US government has issued a new moratorium on evictions that will last until 3 October, following mounting pressure on Joe Biden to take action to help keep Americans in their homes as Covid-19 continues to spread.The moratorium, signed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday, comes as the Delta variant drives a surge in cases nationwide, and as states have been slow to release federal rental aid. Continue reading...
Ex-president hails Mike Carey’s victory in special election seen as test of Trump’s continuing hold on partyDonald Trump was spared fresh political embarrassment on Tuesday when his favoured candidate won a Republican primary election in Ohio.The coal lobbyist Mike Carey, endorsed by the former president, was on course for a comfortable victory over Ron Hood and Jeff LaRe in the state’s 15th congressional district with more than a third of the vote in a crowded field. Continue reading...
Mark and Patricia McCloskey gained notoriety after standing outside their home with weapons as protesters passedThe governor of Missouri has made good on his promise to pardon Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who gained notoriety for pointing guns at a group of demonstrators who marched past the couple’s home in a luxury St Louis neighborhood during racial justice protests last year.Mike Parson, a Republican, announced on Tuesday that he had pardoned Mark McCloskey, who pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was fined $750, and Patricia McCloskey, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was fined $2,000. Continue reading...
Joe Biden has called on Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday to resign after a report found he sexually harassed 11 women. New York’s attorney general Letitia James unveiled the results of an investigation that showed the governor engaged in unwanted groping, kissing and hugging and made inappropriate comments to multiple women
Eleven women have accused the New York governor of harassment – and investigators say their accounts have been corroboratedMonths after New York governor Andrew Cuomo denied multiple allegations of sexual harassment, the New York attorney general’s office released a 165-page report on Tuesday that corroborates the allegations that made public over the last year.Related: ‘This is not who I am’: Cuomo issues denial after investigation finds he sexually harassed women – live Continue reading...
The governor of New York state, Andrew Cuomo, faced demands to resign on Tuesday after an investigation found he sexually harassed 11 women. An explosive 165-page report released by the state attorney general, Letitia James, delivered a mountain of damning and often graphic evidence that Cuomo created a 'climate of fear' in a 'toxic' workplace and violated federal and state civil laws. But the governor released a defiant video address, insisting that 'I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances' and making clear he still has no intention of stepping down
The gymnast didn’t have to retake the beam to uplift her gender, empower survivors or to be that ridiculous phrase, ‘a credit to her race’She could have booked a flight back home to Texas and drawn the shades or slipped off to some island resort much farther afield – you know, the kind of place where Melinda Gates hunkers down before the divorce filing hits the news.But in the week since withdrawing from the Olympic gymnastics team final to protect her physical and mental health – a brave decision made against the backdrop of unhinged takes from people who couldn’t attempt a cartwheel – the transcendent Simone Biles didn’t just tarry at the Tokyo Games. She hung around the Ariake Gymnastics Centre to cheer on her USA teammates. She hopped on Instagram to break down the “twisties,” that out-of-body experience that suddenly made her feel so lost while spinning in the air and so fearful she wouldn’t land firmly on her feet. “For anyone saying I quit,” Biles wrote. “I didn’t quit.” Continue reading...
The Opals must end their rivals’ 52-match unbeaten streak if they are to progress to the semi-finals in TokyoFor so long, the United States have stood between the Australian women’s basketball team and Olympic glory. At the 1996 Games in Atlanta, when the Opals won their first-ever Olympic bronze medal, it had been team USA that ended their gold medal run in the semi-finals. In Sydney in 2000, on the Opals’ home court, the two nations faced off in the final. The Australians again came off second best. It was the same in the gold medal match at Athens (albeit by a smaller margin) and the same again in Beijing.At the 2012 Olympics in London, the Opals faced their familiar foes in the semi-final, losing to the USA. A bronze medal was their consolation after beating Russia in the next match. Had it not been for an unexpected loss to Serbia in the quarter-finals in Rio, a match-up with the Americans was inevitable. Continue reading...
Wolverine Worldwide deal means UK workout brand’s founders will further loosen tiesSweaty Betty, the upmarket British workout gear brand, has been sold to a US footwear firm in a $410m (£295m) deal that will all but sever ties between the company and the husband-and-wife team who founded it.After a year-long sale process that had been expected to fetch as much as £400m, the Michigan-based footwear manufacturer Wolverine Worldwide said it had struck a deal at a lower price with Sweaty Betty’s backers. Continue reading...
by Joan E Greve in Washington and Amanda Holpuch in N on (#5MXMW)
Mayor Bill de Blasio says ‘if you want to participate in our society fully, you’ve got to get vaccinated’New York on Tuesday became the first big city in the US to announce it will require proof of Covid-19 vaccinations not only for all those employed by the city but also for all members of the public who want to dine indoors at a restaurant, see an indoor performance or go to the gym.Related: New York sculpture Vessel faces calls for closure after fourth jump death Continue reading...
American civil rights activist who brought intellectual rigour and courage to his political campaigningOne afternoon in June 1964, the African-American civil rights campaigner Bob Moses was teaching a group of white students how to survive as voter registration activists in the rancorously hostile atmosphere of Mississippi, when he got a phone call. Three of his team had disappeared. Moses feared the worst, and he was right.James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman had been murdered by policemen in cahoots with the Ku Klux Klan, a circumstance that later became the subject of the 1988 film Mississippi Burning. Their disappearance threw Moses, already long committed to the struggle to give African Americans the vote in Mississippi, into the civil rights limelight. Continue reading...
Some people have been wearing disguises to vaccine appointments, because they don’t want to be seen by anti-vax friends. The culprit? Culture war capitalism
As of 5 July, roughly 3.6 million said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to US Census BureauGabe Imondi, a 74-year-old landlord from Rhode Island, had come to court hoping to get his apartment back. He was tired of waiting for federal rental assistance and wondered aloud: “What they’re doing with that money?”Hours later, Luis Vertentes, in a different case, was told by a judge he had three weeks to clear out of his one-bedroom apartment in nearby East Providence. Continue reading...
Kyle DeFreytag, who was deployed to protect Capitol after police cleared building of rioters, died earlier in JulyA fourth police officer who defended the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump is now confirmed to have taken his own life.Washington DC’s Metropolitan police department (MPD) confirmed late Monday that another of their officers, Kyle DeFreytag, died by suicide earlier in July, just hours after declaring that MPD officer Gunther Hashida killed himself on 29 July. Continue reading...
The new US president has emerged with a neo-populist agenda closer to his predecessor than to ObamaAbout half a year into Joe Biden’s presidency, it is time to consider how his administration’s economic doctrine compares with that of Donald Trump and previous Democratic and Republican administrations.The paradox is that the “Biden doctrine” has more in common with Trump’s policies than with those of Barack Obama’s administration, in which the current president previously served. The neo-populist doctrine that emerged under Trump is now taking full form under Biden, marking a sharp break from the neoliberal creed followed by every president from Bill Clinton to Obama. Continue reading...
A newly released memo shows that Trump told the acting attorney general: ‘Just say the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me and the [Republican] congressmen’We’ve become so inured to Donald Trump’s proto-fascism that we barely blink an eye when we learn that he tried to manipulate the 2020 election. Yet the most recent revelation should frighten every American to their core.Related: Republicans will defend their Caesar but new revelations show Trump’s true threat | Lloyd Green Continue reading...
A team of volunteers have been soliciting donations and distributing them to wildfire victims in the Pacific north-westValerie O’Dai takes a drag from her cigarette at a donation site in Bly, Oregon, black sunglasses on, ash smeared across her face. She hasn’t showered or seen her husband and children in almost 48 hours. Firefighters may be gaining ground against the Bootleg fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the US, but the urgency of her work has just begun.She leans out the side door of her lifted Chevy truck, emblazoned with “Relief Angels” in blue letters, and waits for a phone call, an update on a big donation. Her crisis response team delivers aid to victims of natural disaster in the rural Pacific north-west, to the people O’Dai says are often the most desperate and hardest to reach. Continue reading...
The US had its ups and downs in the pool, logged a first in fencing but disappointed in soccer and rugby sevens“New Michael Phelps” is an eye-grabbing headline but could use more nuance. What the US really needed was not someone to rival Phelps’ medal haul - because no one can - but a new male talisman, a figurehead to stand alongside Katie Ledecky and capture mainstream attention. And, of course, a few medals. Continue reading...
It takes Black women in the US 19 months to earn what a white man makes in a year.Aja intended to go for a light lunch with a co-worker, instead, things turned out real heavy.Over sandwiches and sodas her white male co-worker casually mentioned his salary. The figure happened to be about $40,000 more than what she was making. Continue reading...
A surge in San Francisco infections prompts indoor masking, but experts predict high vaccination rates will keep most out of hospitalsA surge in Covid-19 infections, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, has prompted San Francisco and six other counties in California’s Bay Area to reimpose mask mandates for indoor spaces, less than two months after experts in the highly vaccinated region celebrated what they hoped would be a return to normal.In recent days, San Francisco’s infection rates have surged to nearly 20 times what they were at their lowest point in June and two of the city’s hospitals have reported that more than 200 of their own workers have tested positive for the virus. Continue reading...
CDC director issues new warning as cases rise: ‘Covid-19 is clearly not done with us’At least 70% of adults in the US have now received at least one Covid-19 vaccination shot, the White House announced on Monday, reaching a target Joe Biden originally said he had hoped to achieve by 4 July.The administration reported the news in a tweet hailing “Milestone Monday” by Cyrus Shahpar, the government’s Covid-19 data director, who said the seven-day average of people receiving their first dose – 320,000 – was the highest since the Independence Day holiday. Continue reading...
Couple filed for divorce on 3 May after 27 years of marriage but pledged to continue philanthropic work togetherThe divorce between Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, co-founders of one of the world’s largest private charitable foundations, was finalized on Monday, a court document showed.Related: Divorces of the rich and famous: a 1% solution or the start of a trend? Continue reading...
