David Werking can seek damages after parents got rid of films and magazines worth $29,000
A man who sued his parents for getting rid of his pornography collection has won a lawsuit in western Michigan and can seek compensation.
The US district judge Paul Maloney ruled in favour of David Werking, who said his parents had no right to throw out his collection. He lived at their Grand Haven home for 10 months after a divorce before moving to Muncie, Indiana.
Continue reading...Attorneys general from both parties reject baseless allegations in case filed with US supreme court
Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on Thursday urged the US supreme court to reject a lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by Donald Trump seeking to undo Joe Biden’s victory, saying the case has no factual or legal grounds and makes “bogus” claims.
“What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this court and other courts,” Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general, wrote in a filing to the nine justices.
Continue reading...President no closer to overturning result, with just one small victory in a month’s worth of cases
For a man obsessed with winning, Donald Trump is losing a lot.
In the month since the election, the president and his legal team have come no closer in their frantic efforts to overturn the result, notching up dozens of losses in courts across the country, with more rolling in by the day.
Continue reading...Board of state canvassers confirms 154,000-vote victory in 3-0 vote with one abstention
Michigan election officials on Monday certified Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state amid president Donald Trump’s brazen attempts to subvert the results of the election.
The board of state canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one abstention. Allies of Trump and the losing Republican Senate candidate John James had urged the panel to delay voting for two weeks to audit votes in heavily Democratic Wayne county, home to Detroit.
Continue reading...President met with Michigan’s Republican leaders at White House in desperate bid to subvert democracy
Donald Trump was on Friday making a futile but dangerous last stand, without precedent in modern American history, to overturn the result of the presidential election so he can remain in power.
Even as Joe Biden’s victory in the state of Georgia was confirmed, the president met with Republican leaders from Michigan at the White House in an increasingly desperate bid to subvert democracy after a series of courtroom defeats over allegations of voter fraud.
Continue reading...People gathered in capitals of Pennsylvania and Michigan claim ballot fraud and condemn media
As word came on Saturday that the election had been called for Joe Biden, hundreds of supporters of the defeated president began amassing at Pennsylvania’s state capitol building in Harrisburg to protest.
It was a split-screen simulcast of America’s intensified political division, as Donald Trump’s defeat was jubilantly celebrated 130 miles east in Philadelphia, and in cities around the country.
Continue reading...Almost three decades after their first son’s birth, Kateri and Jay Schwandt welcome Maggie Jayne
A Michigan couple famous for having 14 sons have welcomed their first daughter, nearly three decades after the birth of their first child.
Kateri Schwandt gave birth on Thursday to Maggie Jayne, who weighed in at 7lb 8oz and entered a world filled with 14 older brothers.
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With more votes in populous, Democratic counties left to be counted, Donald Trump’s lead in Georgia has shrunk to 47,000 votes.
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – reporting from the West Coast.
The Trump campaign has filed a lawsuit seeking to pause vote count in Georgia, the AP reports, as officials continue counting tens of thousands of ballots in the state.
In several of his rallies this week, Donald Trump has accused the media of focusing on the coronavirus crisis only for political purposes, in order to damage him.
Barack Obama has trolled him for it in rallies in Florida, where the former president warned that America could not afford four more years of Trump and needed to put Joe Biden into the White House next week.
A federal judge this afternoon ordered the US Postal Service (USPS) to adopt “extraordinary measures” at some processing locations to ensure the timely delivery of millions of ballots before Tuesday’s presidential election.
US district judge Emmet Sullivan said he was ordering the measures in places where election mail processing scores for completed ballots returned by voters were below 90% for at least two days from October 26-28.
Continue reading...Both candidates to campaign in Minnesota and Wisconsin while president rails against supreme court over North Carolina ruling
The two US presidential candidates swung through northern battleground states on Friday amid signs that the coronavirus pandemic was once more threatening to overcome hospital capacity in several US regions.
Donald Trump was due to hold a succession of airport rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, while Joe Biden was scheduled to have drive-in rallies in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Continue reading...A 20-year-old suburban Detroit woman who was declared dead only to be found alive at a funeral home in August has died, the attorney representing her family said on Monday.
Timesha Beauchamp died on Sunday at Children’s hospital in Detroit, Geoffrey Fieger said in a news release.
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Here’s a summary of the latest events:
Mitch McConnell announced Saturday that the Senate will vote Tuesday on a Paycheck Protection Plan funding bill and Wednesday on the same $500bn Covid-19 aid package that Democrats blocked last month on the grounds that it didn’t go far enough.
“It is long past time for the two parties to agree where we can and get more money out the door,” the Senate majority leader said in a statement.
I just announced the Senate will vote next week on hundreds of billions more dollars for relief programs that Democrats do not even oppose. Working families have already waited too long for Speaker Pelosi’s Marie Antoinette act to stop. Let's make law. pic.twitter.com/iR7OYKuCKw
Continue reading...The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.
Related: How the domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan's governor unravelled
Continue reading...Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump for not condemning right-wing militias following the foiled kidnapping plot against Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Speaking from his campaign in Arizona, Biden criticised the president for not watching his words after Trump previously tweeted 'Liberate Michigan' in response to the state's Covid restrictions. 'You saw what the head of the FBI said a couple of days ago. He said the greatest terrorist threat in America is from white supremacists,' Biden said. 'Why can't the president just say, stop, stop, stop, stop, and we will pursue you if you don't"
Continue reading...FBI said plot involved contacting members of a militia who ‘talked about murdering tyrants or taking a sitting governor’
Six people have been charged with a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced.
Another seven people were charged with plotting to target law enforcement and attack the state capitol building. The state attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced additional charges under Michigan’s anti-terrorism law. Seven men, all in custody, are linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen.
Continue reading...Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer called for unity and condemned Donald Trump for stoking division during the coronavirus outbreak during a press conference in which she addressed a plot to kidnap her.
Members of two domestic terrorist groups have been charged with Whitmer's attempted kidnap, which she said she 'never could have imagined' when she took office.
Referencing the first presidential debate, when Trump told far-right group the Proud Boys to 'stand back and standby', the governor said he is 'rallying' groups such as the ones that plotted her kidnap
Conservative Robert Regan blames daughter’s ‘socialist university’ but says he’s ‘happy she feels confident’ to oppose him publicly
It’s not the usual rallying cry one might expect from a political candidate’s child as their father runs for office, but the daughter of a Republican candidate has urged people in Michigan to “please for the love of god” not vote for her father.
“Tell everyone,” Stephanie Regan wrote in a viral tweet – which has now been liked more than 180,000 times on Twitter.
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A striking detail from tonight’s coverage has been reports that as protesters surged towards the White House on Friday night, US president Donald Trump, his wife Melania and son Barron briefly retreated to the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre – a fortified bunker-like structure beneath the residence.
The last time a US head of state was publicly known to have used the bunker was on 11 September, 2001, where senior members of the George W Bush administration spent that day after their west wing offices were evacuated. There are no other public reports of presidents needing to use the area since - the New York Times, which first reported this detail, says “it has not been used much, if at all” since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it notes the area has since been strengthened to withstand the impact of a passenger jet.
Related: Trump fled to bunker as protests over George Floyd raged outside White House
My colleague Julian Borger in Washington DC has just filed this update on a tense evening the capital.
Multiple fires broke out near the White House late on Sunday evening, as angry protesters gathered in Washington DC for the third night in a row following the death of George Floyd.
Sunday evening’s protests in front of the White House started relatively cheerfully, with a crowd of a few thousand in Lafayette park. Earlier in the day, demonstrators had marched through the city’s downtown, chanting “George Floyd! Say his name!” and “No Justice! No Peace!”
Related: Fires light up Washington DC on third night of George Floyd protests
Continue reading...State attorney general called president a ‘petulant child’ for refusing to wear a mask at the plant
Donald Trump defied requests from company executives and was called a “petulant child” by a state attorney general when he refused to wear a face mask during a visit to Michigan, a battleground state where he has repeatedly clashed with the Democratic governor, and on Thursday used a speech to urge American churches to reopen amid the pandemic.
Trump toured a plant belonging to the Ford car company, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which has been recast to produce ventilators and personal protective equipment to use in the coronavirus crisis.
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Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump in a pair of virtual events in Wisconsin, calling him “a destroyer of everything he touches.”
“All he’s ever done is hollow out what really matters and then slap a gold sign on a flimsy foundation,” Biden said during the virtual rally in the battleground state.
“Donald Trump claimed he would fight for the forgotten man, the working class,” the former vice president continued. “But as soon as he got into office, he forgot them.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Biden held a virtual roundtable with Wisconsin congressman Ron Kind and community advocates who spoke about the challenges facing rural Americans during the epidemic.
During the back and forth, Biden, referring to federal funding to combat the economic fallout from the virus, said: “Not one more penny should go to a Fortune 500 company. Period. Period. They don’t need it.”
“Among the speakers at the “rally” was Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee after she won re-election in 2018. Biden called her a “true champion for Wisconsin, a true leader.”
Biden has been ramping up his virtual campaign schedule in recent weeks. Earlier events have been riddled with technical glitches - and the occasional honking duck. By contrast, Wednesday’s events went smoothly.
Related: Biden's lead over Trump widens – but strain on his virtual campaign grows
Prisoners and advocates told the Guardian that some infected inmates are in isolation without medical care or adequate food, cut off from family and attorneys
More than 3,200 prisoners in California have contracted Covid-19 and at least 16 inmates have died, in a public health catastrophe that advocates say was both predictable and preventable.
Related: 'People are sick all around me': inside the coronavirus catastrophe in California prisons
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