Thirteen-year wage dispute between NYC and Staten Island ferry workers set to end

Ferry captains, mates and engineers appear to be reaching deal after more than a decade without a union contract with the city

One of the lengthiest wage disputes in the US is reported to be drawing to an end, as Staten Island ferry captains, mates and engineers appeared to be reaching a deal after 13 years without a union contract with New York City.

A deal between the marine engineers’ beneficial association, which represents some 150 ferry workers, that has eluded negotiators since 2010, was set be announced Monday, according to the Daily News,

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Beatles memorabilia worth an estimated £6m goes for auction

Items include an archive from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 peace protest and a curious birthday card sent by George Harrison

An archive of material from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 peace protest is among the items to be sold this month at one of the most expensive Beatles auctions ever held.

Memorabilia will go under an online hammer with an upper estimated value of $8m (£6.3m). It includes a section of TV set wall that formed the backdrop to the Beatles’ breakthrough Ed Sullivan show appearance, clothes, speakers, signed contracts and a curious birthday card from George Harrison to his caretaker signed “Adolf Schinkengruber”.

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Minnesota prison resolves dispute with 100 inmates refusing to return to cells

Facility put on lockdown after inmates refused to return to cells amid extreme high temperatures

A Minnesota prison was put on lockdown after about 100 incarcerated people refused to return to their cells on Sunday morning amid extreme temperatures.

The dispute at the Stillwater prison, Minnesota’s largest close-security institution for adult men, was resolved “peacefully” on Sunday, according to an update from Paul Schnell, commissioner of the Minnesota department of corrections.

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Twitter accused of helping Saudi Arabia commit human rights abuses

Lawsuit says network discloses user data at request of Saudi authorities at much higher rate than for US, UK and Canada

The social media company formerly known as Twitter has been accused in a revised civil US lawsuit of helping Saudi Arabia commit grave human rights abuses against its users, including by disclosing confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities at a much higher rate than it has for the US, UK, or Canada.

The lawsuit was brought last May against X, as Twitter is now known, by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail.

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Woody Allen in Venice: #MeToo has been good for women, but cancel culture can be ‘silly’

Director attacks ‘extremes’ of movement while promoting Coup de Chance, his 50th film, at Venice film festival, as well as addressing persistent interest in historic allegations against him

Woody Allen has voiced his support for the #MeToo movement while promoting his new film, adding that he sometimes finds cancel culture “silly”.

The director’s career has lately been mired by a recent refocusing in social media on an allegation made against him in 1993, when his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, said he had sexually assaulted her in an attic at the time of the custody battle between Allen and Dylan’s adoptive mother, Mia Farrow.

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How will the US cope next summer when it could be even hotter?

This year’s heatwaves have been a huge challenge – and scientists predict 2024 will likely break records again

It’s been a record-breaking summer of heatwaves across large parts of the US and the world, and trying to stay cool and safe has been an unprecedented challenge.

There has been a rise in heat-related fatalities; companies and organizations have been under greater pressures to protect workers; and officials from small towns to the White House have been scrambling to respond.

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‘Rat tours’ boom in rodent-infested New York

Rat tourism become latest must-experience trend in city besieged by infestations that affect residents’ quality of life

The Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty. Central Park. Times Square. A horde of rats sprinting between an underground nest and a restaurant, squeaking and squealing as a group of tourists cheer them on.

New York has never lacked for attractions, but that last one on the list is one of its most unexpected.

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‘This is psychological warfare’: Starbucks workers allege anti-union firings

The National Labor Relations Board has reinstated 28 of the more than 200 pro-union workers fired since late 2021

Alicia Flores had worked at Starbucks in Portland, Oregon, for seven years until June, when she received a voicemail from a manager – filling in for her usual boss, who was taking a leave of absence – who informed her she was being fired.

Flores is far from alone.

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First Thing: US pro-birth conference’s links to far-right eugenicists revealed

Natal conference, to be held in Austin in December, promoted on far-right podcast circuit and set to host self-described eugenicists. Plus, the age problem neither US political party wants to talk about

Good morning and happy Labor Day!

Due to an error, Friday’s First Thing was not sent out. We apologize for the inconvenience.

What is eugenics? Broadly, eugenics is a group of beliefs and practices aimed at improving the genetic quality of a human population. It became the basis of a popular movement from the late 19th century, and led to governments around the world adopting policies such as forced sterilization of disabled and mentally ill people. The field was discredited after the second world war due to its association with racial policies in Nazi Germany, and many critics have attacked it as a pseudoscience.

What does the future look like for the center? The future of the procedure in the state is decidedly uncertain. Although Florida already bans abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, Ron DeSantis, the governor, signed a six-week abortion ban into law earlier this year. (It is on hold pending a review by the state’s supreme court of the 15-week ban.)

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Top Democrat says ‘powerful argument’ 14th amendment disqualifies Trump

Tim Kaine says clause on ‘insurrection against the constitution’ could preclude ex-president from running in next year’s election

Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said that he believes there is a “powerful argument” to be made that Donald Trump can be disqualified from running in the 2024 presidential elections under the 14th amendment.

“In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power of as is laid out in the constitution,” he said in an interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “So I think there is a powerful argument to be made.”

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Officials investigate death at Burning Man as thousands stranded by floods

Sheriff’s office offers few details but says death occurred during festival in Nevada desert, where storms turned ground to mud

Over 70,000 attendees of the annual Burning Man festival in the Black Rock desert of Nevada are stranded as the festival comes to a close on Monday due to heavy rains that have cut off access to the site.

Attendees have been ordered to shelter in place and to conserve food, water, and fuel, although no shortages have been reported. A death that occurred at the festival is currently under investigation, but no details have been released, including the identity of the deceased or the suspected cause of death.

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Native tribe to get back land 160 years after largest mass hanging in US history

Upper Sioux Agency state park in Minnesota, where bodies of those killed after US-Dakota war are buried, to be transferred

Golden prairies and winding rivers of a Minnesota state park also hold the secret burial sites of Dakota people who died as the United States failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans more than a century ago. Now their descendants are getting the land back.

The state is taking the rare step of transferring the park with a fraught history back to a Dakota tribe, trying to make amends for events that led to a war and the largest mass hanging in US history.

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Florida judge strikes down DeSantis-backed voting map as unconstitutional

Circuit court judge rules proposal ‘results in the diminishment of Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice’

A judge in Florida has ruled in favor of voting rights groups that filed a lawsuit against a congressional redistricting map approved by Ron DeSantis in 2022. Voting rights groups had criticized the map for diluting political power in Black communities.

In the ruling, Leon county circuit judge J Lee Marsh sent the map back to the Florida legislature to be redrawn in a way that complies with the state’s constitution.

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Can Mark Thompson revive CNN’s struggling fortunes?

The former BBC and New York Times chief has been tasked with revitalizing a news network that seems to have lost its way

In late summer, CNN found itself in crisis. Under the disastrous tenure of chief executive Chris Licht, the news channel had seen top anchors leave and ratings plunge.

Behind the scenes, CNN staff were grumbling about an apparent attempt to move the network’s political coverage to a rapidly disappearing center – an effort typified by the widely criticized decision to host a town hall with Donald Trump in May.

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Biden tours Florida hurricane damage: ‘nobody can deny impacts of climate crisis’

President arrives to survey damage left by Hurricane Idalia but governor Ron DeSantis has no plans to meet Biden

Joe Biden said that no one can deny the impacts of the climate crisis anymore after he visited Florida on Saturday and surveyed the damage left behind by Hurricane Idalia.

Speaking to reporters in front of fallen trees and debris, the US president pointed to this year’s extreme weather events and disasters, saying: “Nobody can deny the impact of climate crisis. There’s no real intelligence to deny the impacts of the climate crisis anymore.”

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Bill Richardson, former statesman and hostage negotiator, dies aged 75

Ex-New Mexico governor, energy secretary, congressman and UN ambassador spent his later years helping Americans held abroad

Bill Richardson, a 2008 presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor, congressman, secretary of energy and UN ambassador under the Clinton administration who later found a role as an international hostage negotiator, has died. He was 75 years old.

Richardson was reported to have died on Friday at his summer home in Chatham, Massachusetts. “Governor Richardson passed away peacefully in his sleep last night,” said Mickey Bergman, vice-president of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which Richardson founded to promote international peace and dialogue.

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‘It’s like a time capsule’: 19th-century shipwreck discovered in Lake Michigan

Schooner Trinidad hailed as ‘significant shipwreck’ after successful sonar search reveals well preserved vessel

A long-lost shipwreck dating back to the late 1800s has been discovered in Lake Michigan.

The Wisconsin Historical Society announced that the shipwreck hunters and historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck located the wreck of the schooner Trinidad in 270ft of water off Algoma, Wisconsin, earlier this year.

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Burning Man festival-goers trapped in desert as rain turns site to mud

Tens of thousands of ‘burners’ urged to conserve food and water as rain and flash floods sweep Nevada

Tens of thousands of “burners” at the Burning Man festival have been told to stay in the camps, conserve food and water and are being blocked from leaving Nevada’s Black Rock desert after a slow-moving rainstorm turned the event into a mud bath.

Organizers responding to the unusual weather indicated the closures could endure, as local reports described the conditions at the festival as “treacherous” with “thick, slimy mud that clung to shoes and anything else it touched”.

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US pipeline protester has ‘no regrets’ after conviction for felony obstruction

Mylene Vialard, 54, found guilty after Minnesota trial beset by legal irregularities after effort to block fossil fuel pumping station

A non-violent environmental activist has been found guilty of felony obstruction for her role in trying to halt construction of a fossil fuel pipeline through Indigenous territory in Minnesota, in a trial beset by legal irregularities which ended with the prosecutor demanding jail time.

Mylene Vialard, 54, was arrested in August 2021 after attaching herself to a 25ft bamboo tower erected to block a pumping station in Aitkin county, northern Minnesota.

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Makeup artist who created prosthetic nose for Bradley Cooper film apologises

Kazu Hiro says he was surprised by ‘Jewface’ criticism over actor’s portrayal of composer Leonard Bernstein in biopic Maestro

The makeup artist who worked on Bradley Cooper’s movie Maestro has apologised to anyone who felt hurt by the use of a prosthetic nose, which has been criticised by some as an example of “Jewface”.

Speaking at a press conference at the Venice film festival – where Maestro, a biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein, will premiere – Kazu Hiro said he was surprised by the backlash.

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