The US death toll from Hurricane Ida rose towards 60 on Saturday, nearly a week after one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US mainland made landfall in Louisiana. Two more evacuated nursing home residents were confirmed to have died in the southern state.
Related: Louisiana Shell refinery left spewing chemicals after Hurricane Ida
Continue reading...The mysterious deaths of a family of hikers from northern California and their dog have led federal officials to close 28 miles along the Merced River, where high levels of toxic algae were detected.
Related: Hiking trail where California family was found dead closed due to ‘unknown hazards’
Continue reading...Donald Trump is reportedly close to selling rights to his hotel near the White House in Washington, a move the website Axios said “would carry a symbolism savoured by opponents”, given it would mean “the removal of Trump’s brash, golden branding from Pennsylvania Avenue”.
Related: Trump loyalists team up with anti-vax doctors for ‘health and freedom’ tour
Continue reading...Jason McElyea says people overdosing on anti-parasitic drug that some people believe without evidence can cure or treat Covid
An Oklahoma doctor has said overdoses of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which many believe without evidence can prevent or cure Covid-19, are helping cause delays and problems for rural hospitals and ambulance services struggling to cope with the resurgent pandemic.
Related: Arizona father held after threat to zip-tie school principal over Covid rules
Continue reading...Power outages from the storm have left air quality tracking systems out of commission, making public health concern hard to gauge
Behind a playground littered with downed tree branches, Shell’s refinery in Norco, Louisiana spewed black smoke from its stacks. The smell of rotten eggs, the signature scent of sulphur emissions, lingered in the air. In an effort to burn off toxic chemicals before and after Hurricane Ida, many industrial facilities sent the gases through smoke stacks topped with flares.
But the hurricane blew out some of those flares like candles, allowing harmful pollution into the air.
Continue reading...As Ada Ferrer writes, ‘Cuba – its sugar, its slavery, its slave trade – is part of the history of American capitalism’
In July, the eruption of unexpected protests in Cuba, sparked by food shortages and growing frustration with the government, unsurprisingly met with a corresponding flood of commentary from its opinionated neighbour.
Related: Forget the Alamo review: dark truths of the US south and its ‘secular Mecca’
Continue reading...Tens of thousands of New Yorkers, many immigrants or people of color, live in basements vulnerable to extreme weather
Most people killed in New York City in a record-breaking storm this week lived in basement apartments. Walls of water crashed into their homes, trapping them inside and blocking efforts to help.
Related: ‘People did extraordinary things’: Ida rescuers lauded for heroic efforts
Continue reading...Climate of fear descends on state for clinic workers, patients and others after the supreme court’s conservative majority decision on Wednesday
Anti-abortion bounty hunters began calling Amy Hagstrom Miller’s chain of four independent abortion clinics in Texas just hours after the supreme court issued a two-paragraph order that effectively ended access to 85% of abortion services in the state.
Related: After the Texas abortion ban, clinics in nearby states brace for demand
Continue reading...• Order responds to call by victims’ families suing Riyadh
• Full record to be released over six months after review
Joe Biden has announced the wholesale review and declassification of files from the investigation into the 9/11 attack, in response to intense pressure from Congress and victims’ families currently suing Saudi Arabia.
Related: ‘A horn blew when human remains were found’: Wim Wenders’ six hours in the hell of Ground Zero
Continue reading...Actor and activist says her experiences made her realise importance of children’s rights
Angelina Jolie has told the Guardian she feared for the safety of her children during her marriage to Brad Pitt and criticised the US government for not doing more to protect the rights of minors.
In an interview with Weekend magazine, the actor and activist said her experiences in her relationship with Pitt made her realise the importance of children’s rights, which she is supporting with a new book, Know Your Rights.
Continue reading...Jacob Chansley, of Phoenix, Arizona, pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding when he took part in insurrection
The man who was photographed inside the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection shirtless, wearing a horned headdress and furs, and heavily tattooed, pleaded guilty on Friday to obstructing an official proceeding when he took part in the assault by extremist supporters of then president Donald Trump.
Related: Capitol riot inquiry to investigate whether Trump’s White House was involved in attack
Continue reading...
A group of parents in Iowa are filing a lawsuit against the state for its ban on mask mandates, says the law discriminates against students with disabilities that make them more susceptible to Covid-19.
The plaintiffs in the case are asking the federal judge to block the ban on mask mandates and order to allow the states to allow mandates.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published yesterday, Democratic senator Joe Manchin said that he will not pass the $3.5tn spending bill that progressive members of the party want to pass through reconciliation.
Manchin said that Democrats looking to pass the bill have “no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises.”
The Northeast is flooded after torrential rain.
The West Coast is on fire.
The Gulf is still reeling from the hurricane.
This is no time to pause or pull back. We need to pass the President's Build Back Better agenda and invest in urgent climate action NOW. Lives are at stake.
White House’s @KJP46 on the Manchin op-Ed: “Senator Manchin is an important partner to our administration. The president firmly believes that critical investment in our future should be paid for and if we do, economists tells us that they should not increase the inflation risk.”
Continue reading...The president warned that ‘we need to act now’ as trail of destruction blighted west, south and north-east
The widespread destruction caused by extreme weather coast to coast, with Hurricane Ida spreading devastation from Louisiana to New York while record wildfires scorch California, prompted Joe Biden to level with America this week, saying it was “yet another reminder that … the climate crisis is here”.
“We need to be much better prepared. We need to act,” Biden said in a speech on Thursday at the White House.
Continue reading...North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Indiana, Arkansas and Florida eye similar measures to new Texas ban after six weeks
Republican leaders in as many as six US states are rushing to follow the lead of Texas in adopting an extreme abortion ban that critics, including Joe Biden, have slammed as unconstitutional and built to encourage vigilantism among the public.
Abortion rights advocates are bracing to resist a flurry of initiatives from Florida to North Dakota in the wake of the new Texas law, the most extreme in the US, which the conservative majority on the supreme court refused to block.
Continue reading...Contents will be trucked to Lebanon to ease energy crisis, a plan that could challenge US resolve towards two foes
An Iranian tanker carrying fuel bound for Lebanon was at anchor in the Red Sea on Friday ahead of the final leg of a voyage to Syria, which is set to pose the biggest test yet to US sanctions imposed on two arch regional foes.
The tanker is expected in the Syrian port of Baniyas early next week, in defiance of US sanctions that prevent oil exports from Iran and imports to Syria, which have both been subject to stringent US-imposed restrictions on trade. The imminent arrival is being hailed by the Lebanese militant group turned political bloc, Hezbollah, as a sanctions-busting solution for an energy crisis that has brought Lebanon to a standstill and led to widespread blackouts.
Continue reading...The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, made an earnest retort to a journalist questioning Joe Biden's support for abortion. The US president condemned the supreme court decision not to consider a Texas law that in effect bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
'It's a woman's body and it's her choice. I know you've never faced those choices, nor have you ever been pregnant,' said Psaki adding that the president believed a woman's choices should be respected
Continue reading...Biden administration’s options are limited and filibuster poses roadblock to federal legislation
Joe Biden and top Democrats are scrambling for a strategy to counter Republican restrictions on women’s reproductive rights amid the fallout from a Texas statute that has banned abortions in the state from as early as six weeks into pregnancy – but the options available to the administration are thin.
The conservative-dominated supreme court in a night-time ruling refused an emergency request to block the Texas law from taking effect, in a decision that amounted to a crushing defeat for reproductive rights and threatened major ramifications in other states nationwide.
Continue reading...A former Georgia prosecutor involved in the case of Ahmaud Arbery’s killing has been indicted on charges of misconduct for allegedly using her position to shield the men who chased and shot Arbery as he went for a run in February 2020.
Jackie Johnson, a former district attorney on the Brunswick judicial circuit, was indicted by a grand jury on Thursday on charges of violating her oath of office and hindering a law enforcement officer.
Continue reading...Deaths and damage spanned huge areas in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Maryland
The death toll from floods and tornadoes in the US north-east rose past 40 on Thursday, as authorities continued to digest the full impact of the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
Ida struck Louisiana last Sunday, knocking out power to the city of New Orleans and causing deaths in that state and Mississippi.
Continue reading...