As the longest US government shutdown continues, unpaid workers are feeling the strain. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have gone without pay for weeks
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Air traffic controllers’ union issues dire safety warning over shutdown
‘We cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break,’ representatives write
Union leaders representing air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants issued an urgent warning on Wednesday that the month-long government shutdown was threatening the safety and security of the nation’s air travel system.
“We cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break,” the union leaders wrote. “It is unprecedented.”
Continue reading...Student in standoff with Native American defends his actions – video report
The Kentucky high school student filmed in an apparent standoff with a Native American activist in Washington DC says he was 'not disrespectful' during the interaction, as a spokesman for Donald Trump said students from Covington high school may be invited to the White House
Continue reading...Controversy over students mocking Native American strikes national chord
Debate around the incident reverberated culturally and politically amplified by an aggressive entry into the argument by Trump
The spectacle of a crowd of white teens in pro-Trump caps mocking a Native American activist on the National Mall just days before Martin Luther King Jr day was perhaps not needed to demonstrate that America’s social fabric is stretched thin.
The explosion of a media controversy around the incident was probably not necessary to drive participants in the ensuing debate into their usual partisan crouches.
Continue reading...Mike Pence backs Venezuelan protesters seeking to oust President Nicolás Maduro – video
Mike Pence, the US vice-president, has issued a video message offering the country's ’unwavering support’ to Venezuelans protesting against President Nicolás Maduro.
‘We stand with you, and we will stay with you until democracy is restored,’ Pence said on the eve of demonstrations expected to take place across the country. Maduro has accused Washington of trying to force a coup
Continue reading...‘Onslaught of outrage’: resistance and activism reawaken in Trump era
Two years since his inauguration, millions of Americans have built on recent movements such as Black Lives Matter to rally, march and strike against the president
For 125 days last year, Ashley Weitz stood with her four-year-old son on a quiet corner near their home in Salt Lake City for one hour daily to protest Donald Trump.
This was unusual for a woman who had mostly ignored the wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s unprecedented behavior in the White House, occupied instead by the full-time task of being a disabled, single mother. But when his administration separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border last summer as part of its immigration crackdown, Weitz erupted – a line had been crossed and she felt acutely the privilege in her life.
Continue reading...Worst job in showbiz: why will no one touch the world’s glitziest gigs?
The Oscars have no host, Rihanna turned down the Super Bowl, and the White House dinner will be MC’d by a historian. What’s behind the sudden demise of entertainment’s biggest jobs?
The loss of the Oscars’ latest host is, on the one hand, just another mishap to add to the list. From 2016’s #OscarsSoWhite to 2017’s wrong delivery of the best picture award, the ceremony now seems like a particularly slow bloopers reel. Yet the loss of Kevin Hart – who quit after old homophobic tweets resurfaced – is also a sign of something else. The fact that no one has replaced him, and that it’s difficult to think of many people who could, or would, reveals a much deeper malaise: a scary loss of nerve across showbiz’s top-tier events.
Within weeks, the Super Bowl half-time show will air. In the past, the American football final has been an epic showcase for the likes of Madonna, Prince and Beyoncé, a 20-minute, legacy-defining megamix. This year, though, with Rihanna and Cardi B having turned it down in solidarity with the activist NFL player Colin Kaepernick, we will be left with the hardly epochal sounds of Maroon 5.
Continue reading...MLK’s son criticizes Pence for using father’s memory to push for border wall – live
King’s oldest son rejects vice-president’s comparison of civil rights leader to Trump: ‘MLK was a bridge builder, not a wall builder’
- Kamala Harris officially enters 2020 US presidential race
- Democratic hopefuls head south – where black voters hold the key
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The Guardian’s Hubert Adjei-Kontoh reports:
At a packed Harlem church this afternoon congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat down with the award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates at an event marking Martin Luther King’s legacy.
About those 8,000-plus false and misleading statements from Donald Trump during his presidency: It makes for grueling work for the fact checkers.
The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports:
Since taking office, the president has lied about everything from immigration figures to the number of burgers he served to the Clemson football team at the White House last week.
“It takes up a lot of our time just because he is constantly talking,” said Glenn Kessler, editor and chief writer of the Washington Post’s Fact Checker column.
Continue reading...Kamala Harris enters 2020 US presidential race – video profile
The Democratic senator has officially launched her 2020 campaign, entering a crowded field of candidates vying to take on Donald Trump. Harris portrays herself as a fighter for justice and equality. She was the first woman of colour to become attorney general for California
Continue reading...Five Donald Trump tactics to watch out for – video explainer
In the two years since he took office, the US president has repeatedly deployed a number of tactics to try to get what he wants. We highlight five of Trump's most commonly used methods to make them easier to spot during the rest of his term
Continue reading...US-Kurdish patrol attacked in Syria as Erdoğan offers to step in
Turkish president tells Donald Trump he is ready to send troops into US-overseen areas
The threat of a growing security vacuum in Syria as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops has been underlined by an attack on a joint US-Kurdish patrol, which reportedly killed five people and injured at least two American soldiers.
The attack on Monday, in which a suicide bomber drove a car into a checkpoint, emphasised the vulnerability of American troops since the US president declared he was withdrawing 2,000 soldiers from northern Syria on the grounds that Islamic State has been defeated.
Continue reading...The ‘exhausting’ work of factcheckers who track Trump’s barrage of lies
Since taking office, Trump has made 7,645 ‘false or misleading claims’. In the month of October he said 1,200 things that were false or misleading, according to Fact Checker database
Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency has presented problems for journalists the world over. But spare a thought for the people whose job it is to keep track of his lies: the Trump factcheckers.
Since taking office, the president has lied about everything from immigration figures to the number of burgers he served to the Clemson football team at the White House last week.
Continue reading...Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rejects Aaron Sorkin’s call for new Democrats to grow up
Congresswoman takes issue with the The West Wing creator’s suggestion that the fight for equality is a trend
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit back at Aaron Sorkin after the Oscar-winning screenwriter said on Sunday that the young Democrats needed to “stop acting like young people.”
Sorkin, 57, told Fareed Zakaria in an interview on CNN on Sunday morning: “I really like the new crop of young people who were just elected to Congress. They now need to stop acting like young people, OK? It’s time to do that.”
Continue reading...Shutdown: Trump ‘amnesty’ hint angers right and fails to draw Democrats
- President defends offer rejected by Pelosi before speech
- Outside the Washington circus, shutdown havoc spreads
Donald Trump raised the possibility of one day granting amnesty to migrants living in the US illegally, after Democrats rejected his latest plan to fund a wall along the southern border and reopen the US government.
Related: Trump whisperers: are Stephen Miller and Fox keeping the shutdown alive?
Continue reading...Forget the ‘border crisis’ – it is Trump’s shutdown that’s made us less safe
With thousands of FBI and TSA staff furloughed and critical functions hit, the shutdown is a disaster for national security
President Trump closed the US government over a fabricated border crisis, and in doing so has sparked a real national security emergency. By shutting down the government, Trump has disabled America’s defenses against threats to national security.
Trump decided to shut down the government over the claim that America needs a wall to deal with a crisis at the border with Mexico. But there is no crisis on the border other than the humanitarian crisis of his own making, best illustrated by the thousands of children separated from their parents and the two children who died in Customs and Border Protection custody. Trump’s claims of more terrorists and crime flowing across the border are lies and the vast majority of hard drugs coming across the border come through official ports of entry, not between ports of entry where a wall might stand.
Continue reading...Pelosi rejects Trump shutdown deal before president announces it
- President offers temporary concessions and demands wall
- Little chance of progress as House speaker says no
Donald Trump forged ahead on Saturday and proposed a deal to end the US government shutdown, despite Democrats having rejected it before he began to speak.
Related: Republicans’ lack of alarm over the shutdown reveals a disturbing truth | Ross Barkan
Continue reading...President Pence? That vision should terrify women | Arwa Mahdawi
The news that Karen Pence is returning to work at an anti-gay Christian school should remind us of the vice-president’s dangerous bigotry
Karen Pence is not just the wife of the US vice-president, she’s an empowered career woman in her own right. While her husband works tirelessly alongside Trump to make America white again, Karen Pence, it was announced this week, is returning to her old job teaching kids art.
Continue reading...Nancy Pelosi: Trump endangered lives by leaking details of war zone trip – video
The Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has accused the White House of leaking information about a planned congressional trip to Afghanistan, saying it was 'very, very irresponsible on the part of the president'
Continue reading...Friday US briefing: Trump escalates feud with Pelosi amid shutdown
How the president’s two years in power have changed key US policies ... North Korean envoy to meet Pompeo ... Democrat takes charge of Flint water crisis investigation
Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.
Continue reading...Trump stamp: how have his first two years marked five key policy areas?
Guardian reporters chart the president’s impact on foreign policy, the economy, the judiciary, the environment and immigration
If there has been one defining trait in the foreign policy of the Trump era, it is confusion – not only in the frequent gaps between the paths taken by the president and his own administration, but also in the morass of contradictions and U-turns in his own impulses.
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