Tessica Brown has gained a captive audience on TikTok and Instagram after mistakenly using super-strength adhesive on her hair
“Stiff where?” Tessica Brown asked TikTok, one week ago, before the world was aware of her struggle. “My hair,” she finished.
And stiff it has been, for more than a month now, as Brown continues battling against what so far seems to be an irreversible decision: mistakenly using Gorilla Glue to hold her hairstyle in place.
Continue reading...Coalition is calling on president to commute sentences of all 49 federal death row inmates
A coalition of leading US civil and human rights groups is calling on Joe Biden immediately to commute the sentences of all 49 federal death row inmates and reinstate a moratorium on executions carried out by the US government.
Related: Virginia all but certain to become first southern state to abolish death penalty
Continue reading...Crash that killed basketball star, his daughter, and seven others launched lawsuits and prompted state and federal legislation
Safety investigators said on Tuesday a pilot flew through clouds last year in an apparent violation of federal standards and likely became disoriented just before the helicopter crashed, killing the basketball star Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others.
Related: Trump impeachment trial to open with debate on whether it is constitutional – live updates
Continue reading...Analysis: calls to scrap the requirement for 60 senators to back legislation are growing as Congress weighs sweeping protections
As states around the country advance a wave of measures that would make it harder to vote, Democrats in Washington are planning the most sweeping voting rights protections in decades. But to pass those protections, Democrats will have to overcome a huge barrier.
Related: Fight to vote: civil rights are making a comeback at the DoJ – here’s why
Continue reading...Democrats hope harrowing audio and video from Capitol attack will make plain what no legal argument might deny
The lethal Capitol invasion by Donald Trump supporters that is at the heart of the former president’s second impeachment trial happened more than a month ago. But Democrats leading the prosecution of Trump are counting on an element of surprise.
Surprise, the impeachment prosecutors are calculating, because while most Americans understand the broad outlines of what happened during the 6 January attack on the Capitol, relatively few have come to grips with the shocking audio and video footage from that day – portraying a cauldron of violence, vandalism, bloodlust and fear.
Continue reading...Former Trump campaign chairman had faced mortgage fraud charges similar to federal case that put him in jail
Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, will not face mortgage fraud charges in New York, after the state’s highest court declined to revisit lower court decisions that barred prosecuting Manafort on double jeopardy grounds.
Continue reading...On the eve of Donald Trump's impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority and minority leaders, have laid out the framework for the trial. ’All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,’ Schumer said. Each side will have 16 hours to present their arguments and the trial will break on Friday afternoon and resume on Sunday afternoon
Continue reading...Ice accused of sending ‘defenseless babies into the burning house’ as deportations of 72 carried out in apparent breach of Biden order
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deported at least 72 people to Haiti on Monday, including a two-month-old baby and 21 other children, in an apparent flagrant breach of the Biden administration’s orders only to remove suspected terrorists and potentially dangerous convicted felons.
The children were deported to Haiti on Monday on two flights chartered by Ice from Laredo, Texas to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. The removals sent vulnerable infants back to Haiti as it is being roiled by major political unrest.
Continue reading...Impeachment managers will present scene in harrowing detail using video and audio recordings
House impeachment managers will open their prosecution of Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” by recounting the deadly assault on the US Capitol in harrowing and cinematic detail, rekindling for senators the chaos and trauma they experienced on 6 January.
Related: Donald Trump impeachment trial: what you need to know
Continue reading...Supervisor promptly reversed the action after noticing lye measurements suddenly changing wildly
Local and federal authorities are investigating how a hacker was able to remotely gain access to a Florida city’s water treatment plant in an unsuccessful attempt at what could have amounted to a mass poisoning.
Continue reading...Confidential UN report reveals Pyongyang was acting in violation of international sanctions
North Korea maintained and developed its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes throughout 2020 in violation of international sanctions, said a UN diplomat with knowledge of a confidential report given to security council members on Monday.
The report by independent sanctions monitors said Pyongyang “produced fissile material, maintained nuclear facilities and upgraded its ballistic missile infrastructure”, and continued to seek technology for those programmes from abroad.
Continue reading...Foreign minister says Britain will continue to assess issue according to ‘strict licensing criteria’
British ministers have refused to join the US in suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia for offensive use in war-torn Yemen, saying the UK makes its own decisions about selling weapons.
The US president, Joe Biden, announced the suspension last week, meeting a longstanding campaign pledge.
Continue reading...Anti-Trumpists are growing but very slowly – convicting Trump in his impeachment trial would help speed things along, says Flake
By now, Jeff Flake thought this would all be over.
Flake, the former Arizona Republican senator and outspoken critic of Donald Trump, concedes that he expected the ripple effects in the Republican party Trump’s loss of the White House to have been bigger by now.
Continue reading...Migrants have shared their experiences at privately-run US Immigation and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alonzo and Javier were held at La Palma Correctional Center; they alleged the treatment many received was ‘inhumane’. At Eloy Detention Center, Carmen claimed medical staff would only tell them to ‘drink water’ regardless of symptoms. José, who was held at Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex and La Palma, said for months he was barely able to go outside. Alejandro, who was also held at Central Arizona Florence, said at times there were up to 64 people living in his tank.
These audio recordings were captured as part of a project covering the world’s largest for-profit immigration detention system. ‘We’ve commodified human displacement,’ said artist David Taylor, who in recent months used drones to take aerial photography and video of centers near the US southern border, in California, Arizona and Texas.
All detainees featured in this video were held at facilities operated by CoreCivic, which disputes allegations about conditions and said it was committed to health and safety.
Houses are being decorated as floats because the pandemic has resulted in the cancellation of the customary parades during the carnival season
Continue reading...The president has signed a number of executive orders during his first weeks in office, ranging from the pandemic to immigration – here’s what they are
Continue reading...Many politicians and diplomats from the 1980s lay claim to a pivotal role in ending the cold war, but the former US secretary of state George Shultz, who has died aged 100, had a better claim than most. And he was not shy in letting people know, as he did at length in his 1,184-page account of his years at the state department, Turmoil and Triumph (1993).
When he became secretary of state in 1982 – a job he was to hold for seven years – relations between the US and the Soviet Union were at a dangerous low. The administration of US president Ronald Reagan was packed with anti-Soviet hardliners. Reagan himself in 1983 dubbed the Soviet Union “the evil empire”.
Continue reading...Republican pointed to former president’s tweet attacking vice-president Mike Pence after Capitol insurrection began
Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, has raised the possibility of Donald Trump being criminally investigated for provoking violence during the 6 January US Capitol insurrection, pointing to a tweet attacking his own vice-president, Mike Pence, that was posted after the assault had begun.
Related: Liz Cheney censured by Wyoming Republican party for voting to impeach Trump
Continue reading...David Schoen’s request to postpone trial Friday sundown until Sunday presents managers with a scheduling dilemma
Donald Trump’s impeachment trial that opens on Tuesday could take longer than expected after a leading member of his defense team requested that the proceedings are suspended during the Sabbath so that he can meet his obligations as an observant Jew.
David Schoen, 62, has written to senior figures of both main parties in the US Senate asking for an agreement that the trial is postponed from 5.24pm on Friday until Sunday so that he can observe the Sabbath. In the letter, reported by the New York Times, the lawyer apologises for any inconvenience, adding that “the practices and prohibitions are mandatory for me … so I have no choice.”
Continue reading...In some ways the trial will be a replay of last year’s – but Trump is the first to be tried by the Senate after leaving office, and it will likely be ‘dramatic’
It might be tempting to call it the trial of the century but it is just as likely to invoke a sense of deja vu. This week Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial in the US Senate. Yes, another one.
Trump stands accused of inciting an insurrection when he urged supporters to “fight” his election defeat before they stormed the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January, clashed with police and left five people dead.
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