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Increase can be attributed in part to the almost 40% of the state population that has not been vaccinatedEvan Faber’s 78-year-old father, Michael, has for the last three years had difficulty walking around his home in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Fabers hope that a spinal surgery scheduled for late December at a local hospital will help restore his balance and motor function.But now they are worried that the hospital will have to postpone the operation. Continue reading...

What researchers found in the Reyes Ibarras’ home was shocking. What’s worse, the sisters say, is no one’s helpingWhen the letter arrived with the logo of a noted university in the corner, Veronica Reyes Ibarra expected good news. She called her boyfriend, her mom and her sisters over: “You guys, look what I got, I think it’s a scholarship.”But as she scanned the page, she suddenly wasn’t sure she had the courage to read it out to them. Continue reading...

This week’s roundup features jockey punch-ups, Canelo Álvarez’s power and great bowlers v 1970s speed gun tech1) One of the highlights of the racing season is upon us with the Breeders’ Cup. Still arguably one of the greatest races of all time, Tiznow’s win by a nose over Sakhee in 2001 is not a bad place to start. If that was close then there was literally no separating High Chaparral and Johar in the 2003 Cup Turf, not even a flared nostril. Winners rarely come at much longer odds than Arcangues’ 133-1 but Lester Piggott coming out of retirement in 1990 aged 54 to win on Royal Academy in the Mile is arguably the best story in Breeders’ Cup history.Not many will fondly remember the now-defunct Marathon but what about some jockey-on-jockey action? Continue reading...

Joe Biden said "people are upset and uncertain about a lot of things" after Democrats suffered the loss of a gubernatorial seat in Virginia. Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe one year after the party took control of the White House and Congress. Biden won Virginia by 10 points in 2020 before the victory of political newcomer Youngkin.

Judge acknowledges appearance of ‘intentional discrimination’ in case of three white men who killed Arbery, who was BlackA Georgia judge has acknowledged there appeared to be “intentional discrimination” after a nearly all-white jury was selected for the trial of three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, but has seated the jury nonetheless.A jury comprising 11 white members and one Black member was seated on Wednesday after defense attorneys struck almost all Black jurors from the pool. Opening arguments in the high-profile case are set to begin on Friday. Continue reading...

Governor’s races bring more bad news for president whose domestic agenda hangs in the balanceLess than a year after taking control of the White House and Congress, Democrats were reeling on Wednesday from a shocking defeat in Virginia and a tight governor’s race in New Jersey as Joe Biden’s popularity sinks and his domestic agenda hangs in the balance.In Virginia, a state that had shifted sharply left over the past decade and that Biden won by 10 points in 2020, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer, defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the state’s former governor. And in New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, managed only a narrow victory over the Republican Jack Ciattarelli, an unexpected turn of events in a state that is even more reliably Democratic. Continue reading...

The tight race was viewed as a referendum on Murphy’s – and more broadly, Democrats’ – leadership throughout the pandemicThe Democratic governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, has narrowly won reelection, eking out a victory that spared Democrats the loss of a second gubernatorial seat.Murphy, a former executive at Goldman Sachs and ambassador to Germany, became the first Democratic governor to win reelection in New Jersey in 44 years. He defeated Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican and former assembly member. Continue reading...

While Virginia’s gubernatorial election caught national attention, the results of these local votes across four states are worth notingTuesday was a busy day for voters across the country, as millions of Americans voted on local issues ranging from police reform to increasing voter accessibility.While some races garnered national attention – Glenn Youngkin’s win in the Virginia gubernatorial election, for example – other ballot questions remained more local. Continue reading...

Heather Mack convicted in 2015 for working with boyfriend to kill her motherA Chicago woman who spent seven years jailed in Bali for helping kill her mother at a luxury hotel has been has been indicted on murder conspiracy charges and arrested on her return to the US.Heather Mack, 26, was taken into custody on Wednesday when she arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare airport after being freed early on good behaviour from a Bali prison where she had been sentenced to 10 years for the 2014 murder. Continue reading...

Democrats look poised to lose their majority in the midterms. Here’s why, according to our writersBen Davis: ‘Democrats: pass your agenda now. You won’t have another chance’Democrats have just lost an enormous amount of ground since dominating Virginia during the Trump era. The first and most important takeaway of the governor’s race is that this is normal. Without a major crisis like 9/11, the party in power will always lose ground in elections like this. It’s as close to an ironclad law as there is.Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DCSteve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American MajorityGeoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington DC and the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican PartyMeaghan Winter is a freelance magazine writer and author of the book All Politics is Local: Why Progressives Must Fight for the StatesCliff Albright is a cofounder of Black Voters Matter Fund Continue reading...

Lawyer for Hannah Gutierrez says ‘disgruntled’ person could have placed live round in box of dummy roundsA lawyer for the armorer who oversaw weapons used on the Rust movie set suggested on Wednesday that someone deliberately put a live round into the gun used by Alec Baldwin when he accidentally shot dead a cinematographer.Jason Bowles said his client, Hannah Gutierrez, had pulled ammunition from a box that she believed contained only dummy rounds that were incapable of firing. He said he thought it was possible that someone purposely placed real bullets, which look similar to dummies, into the box. Continue reading...

Conservative majority expresses skepticism over New York law that largely prohibits concealed weapons being carried in publicThe supreme court appeared poised to ease gun control regulation, after several justices expressed scepticism on Wednesday over a New York law that places restrictions on who can carry concealed firearms.The case could lead to more guns on the streets of New York and California, and affect restrictions on carrying firearms in airports, bars, churches and schools. Continue reading...

Profits fall as group says keeping stores and warehouses stocked ‘has been a challenge’The prices of Ikea furniture and homeware are to rise as a result of lasting disruption to its supply chain, the brand’s owner has warned, after increased costs of raw materials and transport knocked its full-year profits.Inter Ikea Group, the parent company of the Ikea brand, which is operated by a string of franchise businesses, said it expected challenges in its supply chain to last well into 2022. Continue reading...

Wu defeated Democrat Annissa Essaibi George in a victory for progressives, on an otherwise tough night for DemocratsMichelle Wu has made history after being elected as mayor of Boston, becoming the first woman and person of color elected to the position in almost 200 years.“From every corner of our city, Boston has spoken. We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone,” said Wu to her supporters on Tuesday night. “I want to be clear, it wasn’t my vision on the ballot, it was ours, together.” Continue reading...

Trip to Glasgow was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep emissions cuts – and ended with him blaming China and RussiaJoe Biden returned to the US in the pre-dawn gloom on Wednesday to a climate agenda still held in frustrating limbo by Congress, following his high-profile cameo at crunch UN climate talks in Scotland that was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep cuts to planet-heating emissions.The US president had aimed to arrive in Glasgow for the Cop26 summit with historic climate legislation in hand, which he could use to brandish at world leaders who still harbor resentments over four turbulent years of Donald Trump, where the climate crisis was variously ignored and mocked. Continue reading...

The Braves left behind a reputation as perennial underachievers in seeing off the Houston Astros to win the fourth championship in the club’s 146-year historyAt last a shapeless series had a defining image, a clear contour – the awesome arc of a home run smashed out of the ballpark by Jorge Soler that gave the Atlanta Braves their first World Series title since 1995.This November triumph was primed in midsummer through inspiration born of desperation. Injuries, including to star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr, led Atlanta’s general manager Alex Anthopoulos into the trade market. Judicious signings remodeled the outfield and helped an ordinary team become good. In the playoffs the Braves discovered – perhaps to their own surprise and almost certainly to everyone else’s – that they were great. Continue reading...

The US constitutional system could pose a major obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats. A new set of cases shows whyPresident Joe Biden exhorted other world leaders to treat climate change as an “existential threat to human existence” at the Cop26 global climate summit on Monday. Yet his administration may soon have its hands tied as it seeks to address that threat at home. That’s because just three days earlier, the US supreme court agreed to hear a set of cases challenging the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose carbon emissions limits on existing power plants.Court watchers expect the court’s conservative majority, consistent with a string of rulings in favor of big business and against regulation, to side against the EPA. If so, the decision will highlight how the court could stand in the way of meaningful efforts to address the climate crisis for decades to come. More generally, that outcome would underscore how the supreme court and broader features of the US constitutional system pose a significant obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats.Daniel Epps is Treiman professor of law at Washington University in St Louis. He previously served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy and co-hosts the supreme court podcast Divided Argument Continue reading...

Imagine if the postman read your mail and then sold your information to extremists who want to target youImagine that right now the postman is reading your mail and making a note of your most private thoughts and preferences. He notices that you lean slightly to the right and read the Wall Street Journal. He begins hawking your intimate information all over town and sells it to a newspaper further to the right of the WSJ. He observes you reading that new, more rightwing publication and then starts hawking again, and this time he sells your private information to someone more rightwing: a publication like, say, Breitbart.Year after year, the postman continues selling to everyone, and one day you start receiving a far-right extremist magazine intent on destroying democratic institutions.Richard Ashby Wilson is Associate Dean for Faculty Development & Intellectual Life and Distinguished Professor of Law and Anthropology at the University of Connecticut School of Law

Glenn Youngkin wins election widely seen as referendum on Biden’s presidency. Plus, why Americans are quitting their jobs

Dan Campbell’s team have suffered a couple of cruel losses this season but most of the time they got everything they deservedDetroit Lions safety Tracy Walker III brought up the most unpleasant NFL numbers possible after a nasty 44-6 loss on Sunday: “We have to fix it now, because obviously, it ain’t going to fix itself, or we’ll be 0-17,” he said after the defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles.And there it was, for all the world to ponder: 0-17. No NFL team has gone 0-17, in large part because no NFL team has played 17 games in a regular season since 1930, when the late Frankford Yellow Jackets finished 4-13-1, and the New York Football Giants finished 13-4. Continue reading...

The labor market shake-up brought on by the pandemic has led many, especially younger workers, to reassess their work livesJosie, 19, landed her first “adult” job as an IT support worker last November, just a few months after graduating from high school. Though the job could be done fully remotely, managers insisted that she come into the office – despite the pandemic. At first, her co-workers and managers wore masks, but often incorrectly; when the local mask mandate was lifted, people stopped wearing them altogether.“It was honestly scary,” Josie recalls. She’d just moved into her first apartment with her partner; both have pre-existing health conditions that increase their vulnerability to severe illness from Covid-19. But as the sole earner in her two-person household, Josie felt resigned to the daily risk at work. Continue reading...

Six months after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd, the case of a Black man killed while jogging in Georgia is a sterner litmus testBeneath the Spanish moss that swayed from an oak tree, Diane Arbery Jackson took a seat in the morning shade as the three white men accused of murdering her nephew sat in the courtroom a few feet away.For the past two weeks, Arbery has attended the jury selection process at the Glynn county courthouse every day. And every day, bar one, she has elected to stay outside on the grassy courtroom grounds. Continue reading...

Analysis: Glenn Youngkin’s victory comes as the president’s agenda has stalled and danger looms for the party in CongressJoe Biden exuded confidence. “We’re going to win,” the US president told reporters before departing Cop26 in Glasgow. “I think we’re going to win in Virginia.”But as Biden returns to Washington, he faces questions about why his prediction was so wrong – and whether Democrats’ loss in the most important election of the year will send his presidency into a downward spiral. Continue reading...

Youngkin stoked culture wars on education while walking political tightrope over Donald TrumpJoe Biden suffered a bitter political blow early on Wednesday when Democrats went down in a shock defeat in the election for governor of Virginia.The Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, had campaigned with Biden and Barack Obama but it was not enough to prevent the Republican Glenn Youngkin pulling off an upset. Continue reading...

Child-size vaccine doses are already being distributed in US and shots may begin as early as WednesdayUS health officials have given the final signoff to Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine in children ages five to 11, with shots possibly going into young arms as soon as Wednesday.The announcement by Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), came only hours after an advisory panel unanimously decided Pfizer’s shots should be opened to the 28 million children in that age group, saying the benefits of the vaccination outweigh the risks. Continue reading...

Adams, who defeated Republican and founder of the Guardian Angels Curtis Sliwa, will become city’s second Black mayorFormer police officer Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York City, after the Democrat defeated Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election.Adams was on course to easily beat Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, with a lead of 66% to 29% after more than half of projected votes were counted. Continue reading...

Measure would have installed public safety department focused on a ‘comprehensive public health approach’Voters in Minneapolis have rejected the idea of replacing their police department with a new department of public safety, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer launched a national movement to defund or abolish police.Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020 sparked outrage and international protests on police brutality and racial injustice. In Minneapolis and elsewhere, calls for major changes to law enforcement, including defunding police departments, soon followed. Continue reading...

Kenneth Cha charged with voluntary manslaughter in death of Sean MooreA San Francisco police officer has been charged with voluntary manslaughter over a fatal shooting in 2017, marking a rare homicide charge for an on-duty law enforcement officer in the California city.Kenneth Cha was charged with voluntary manslaughter and assault with a semiautomatic firearm, along with enhancements accusing him of inflicting great bodily injury, in the death of Sean Moore, an unarmed man he shot on 6 January 2017. Moore died from his injuries last year. Continue reading...

Civil rights leader, 80, was at Howard University to help students protesting against poor living conditions on campusThe Rev Jesse Jackson was taken to hospital in Washington on Monday, after falling and hitting his head while helping Howard University students protesting living conditions on campus, a spokesman said.Jackson was released on Tuesday after an overnight stay and was back at the university working with students, Jackson’s spokesman, Frank Watkins, said. Continue reading...

Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe make final pitch for governor as polls show unexpectedly close raceVirginians on Tuesday headed to the polls to elect a new governor, in a closely contested race between the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin widely seen as a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency.They did so as a leading Virginia polling expert warned that Youngkin may be riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the governor’s mansion, having successfully focused on controversy over the place of race in education. Continue reading...

Trial of Rittenhouse, 18, charged with killing two people and wounding one, begins after jury selection on MondayThe trial of Kyle Rittenhouse trial began on Tuesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the 18-year-old is charged with killing two people and wounding one during unrest in the city last August.Prosecutors said that although “hundreds” of people were out on the street during protests over the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer, Rittenhouse was “the only person who killed anyone”. Continue reading...

US-led alliance includes 90 countries but China, India and Russia have not joined the methane pact

It was reasonable for the World Food Programme to ask Musk to chip in to avert global disaster. His response was less soElon Musk has six children and four companies. He is trying to put chips into our brains, build self-driving cars, save the world from an artificial intelligence apocalypse, and colonise Mars. In short, the guy has a lot going on. One would think he would barely have time to eat, let alone tweet – and, indeed, Musk has claimed that he is in meetings most of the day and the time he spends on Twitter is “like, almost nothing”. Still, the casual observer would be forgiven for thinking that the billionaire lives on Twitter. Musk seems to make headlines every other day because of his inane online activity, which largely consists of cracking juvenile jokes (including a recent sexist gag about T.I.T.S), opining on cryptocurrencies, and getting into online spats.Musk’s latest Twitter beef is with David Beasley, the director of the World Food Programme (WFP). Beasley’s crime was this: he suggested that Musk, who recently became the richest person in the history of the universe and the first person ever to be worth more than $300bn, might help the hungry. According to the WFP, 42 million people are on the brink of famine due to a combination of the climate crisis, structural poverty, conflict and the pandemic. In a recent interview with CNN, Beasley called on the 1% to “step up now, on a one-time basis” to give $6bn, which is just 0.36% the total increase in net worth of the world’s top 400 billionaires last year. Beasley then name-checked Jeff Bezos and Musk, pointing out that the latter saw a $6bn increase in his net worth in just one day last week.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The prince has secured the services of a hardball US lawyer to deal with Virginia Giuffre’s claims of sexual assaultBefore we get into it all, let me begin by saying nothing could ever make me question the immense dignity, sanctity and class of the US legal process. It’s really just the latest jewel in the royal family’s many, many crowns that the 95-year-old Queen’s son is now being represented by the guy also defending Armie Hammer over his whole cannibal-fetish-rape situation. Hammer denies all, but you probably know that.And you certainly know most of the Andrew facts. He is accused in a US civil court by former Jeffrey Epstein sex slave Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who alleges that the prince sexually assaulted her at Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan and at other locations in 2001 when she was 17.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Brad Raffensperger urged by Trump in early January to ‘find 11,780 votes’ to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the stateThe Georgia Republican responsible for running elections considered an infamous call in which Donald Trump told him to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state a “threat” to his safety and that of his family.Biden’s victory in Georgia was a narrow but vital part of his national win. No Democratic presidential candidate had taken the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Continue reading...

Future of policing is on the ballot in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justiceVoters in Minneapolis will decide on Tuesday whether to replace their police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer launched a national movement to defund or abolish police.The Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, is also in a tough fight for a second term, facing opponents who attacked him in the wake of Floyd’s death. Continue reading...

Covid-19 may well have been one attempt by the Earth to protect itself. Gaia will try harder next time with something even nastierI don’t know if it is too late for humanity to avert a climate catastrophe, but I am sure there is no chance if we continue to treat global heating and the destruction of nature as separate problems.That is the wrongheaded approach of the United Nations, which is about to stage one big global conference for the climate in Glasgow, having just finished a different big global conference for biodiversity in Kunming.James Lovelock is the originator of Gaia theory and the author, most recently, of Novascene. This op-ed was told to Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s global environment editor Continue reading...