Documents show Scott Yenor ran Action Idaho, which attacked LGBTQ+ people and Republicans deemed not rightwing enough
Boise State University (BSU) professor and Claremont Institute scholar Scott Yenor was the hidden hand behind Action Idaho, a far-right online media platform that featured inflammatory rightwing commentary on politics in that state, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The documents, obtained through public records requests, also show that Yenor sought and received funding for the initiative from wealthy and influential donors like Claremont Institute board chair, Thomas D Klingenstein.
Continue reading...Actor who also won Emmy for role in seminal TV miniseries roots died in Santa Monica, California
Louis Gossett Jr, the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar, and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries Roots, has died. He was 87.
aIt is with our heartfelt regret to confirm our beloved father passed away this morning,a Gossettas family said in a statement, adding, aWe would like to thank everyone for their condolences at this time. Please respect the familyas privacy during this difficult time.a
Continue reading...US president condemns continued detention of Wall Street Journal writer
During an Oval Office meeting with Olaf Scholz last month, Joe Biden proposed to the German chancellor that he authorize the release of a Russian hitman serving life in prison for murder, in hopes of coaxing Vladimir Putin to release three high-profile prisoners.
These included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, ex-Marine Paul Whelan and prominent Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
It was the most shocking of a series of setbacks in secret prisoner talks between Washington and Moscow that have now bedeviled two U.S. presidencies.
America once had only one prisoner it considered wrongfully jailed in Russia, the 54-year-old Whelan. But through nearly six years of intense and combative negotiations, Putin has run up the score, stockpiling his prisons with Americans to swap for the very few Russians abroad he cares to bring back.
Journalism is not a crime, and Evan went to Russia to do his job as a reporter a risking his safety to shine the light of truth on Russiaas brutal aggression against Ukraine. Shortly after his wholly unjust and illegal detention, he drafted a letter to his family from prison, writing: aI am not losing hope.a
As I have told Evanas parents, I will never give up hope either. We will continue working every day to secure his release. We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russiaas appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips. And we will continue to stand strong against all those who seek to attack the press or target journalists a the pillars of free society.
To Evan, to Paul Whelan, and to all Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad: We are with you. And we will never stop working to bring you home.
Investigators onboard container ship that rammed into Francis Scott Key Bridge while clearing of debris expected to take weeks
A gigantic, barge-mounted crane was moving into place on Friday in the waters off Baltimore as authorities prepared to begin salvaging the wreckage of the bridge that collapsed earlier this week a while investigators are still on board the giant container ship that rammed into the bridge piling, bringing it down.
Federal and state authorities have outlined the enormous task of cleaning up and rebuilding the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which has left a structure nearly as long as the Eiffel Tower is high strewn across the cargo ship that hit it and in the surrounding water.
Continue reading...Strike near Aleppo weapons depot reportedly killed Hezbollah and Syrian troops, while civilians also said to be among dead
Israeli airstrikes on Syriaas Aleppo province have killed more than 40 people, including members of Hezbollah and a large number of Syrian soldiers in an area near the militant Lebanese organisationas weapons depots, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
As many as 42 people were killed in what contradictory reports described as air and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday that hit missile depots for Lebanonas militant Hezbollah group in Aleppoas southern suburb of Jibreen, near Aleppoas international airport, and a nearby town that houses a military facility.
Continue reading...Biden raised $25m at New York event with Obama and Clinton while Trumpas campaign vowed to raise $33m at Florida event
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are in a new phase of a heavyweight fundraising smackdown as the US president raised a record $25m at a glitzy event with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton on Thursday night, while Trumpas Republican campaign claimed it would outdo Biden next week with a $33m event in Florida, according to reports.
Biden and his Democratic predecessor headlined a star-studded fundraiser with Clinton at the Radio City Music Hall event, hosted by Mindy Kaling and featuring Lizzo, Queen Latifah and Stephen Colbert.
Continue reading...Analysis finds majority of paraquat, banned in 60 countries, is used in counties where Latinos make up 75% of the population or higher
Low-income Latinos living in California are disproportionately threatened by paraquat, a highly toxic herbicide widely used on US cropland, a new analysis of state data finds.
The notorious weedkiller is banned in more than 60 countries and for some uses in the US, like golf courses, because it is so dangerous. But the US government still allows its use on crops, putting agricultural workers or those living in communities near where it is spread at risk.
Continue reading...Descendants of enslaved miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargo
Indigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombiaas plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project.
Colombia hopes to begin recovering artefacts from the wreck of the San JosA(c) in the coming months but the Caranga, Chicha and Killaka peoples in Bolivia argue that the excavation would rob them of their acommon and shareda heritage.
Continue reading...Sources say an email circulated saying aif you inadvertently wound up taking something off the plane, we can facilitate a quiet returna
A White House staffer recently met a reporter for a covert assignment by the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square.
But the House of Cards-esque rendezvous was not staged to hand over state secrets, or leak presidential gossip, or even to spread dirt on Joe Bidenas opponents. The item handed over a an embroidered pillowcase from Air Force One a was handed back, by the reporter involved.
Continue reading...Documentary on deportation of 48,000 Jewish Amsterdammers during Holocaust prompts city to act
On 8 August 1944, an Amsterdam tram took Anne Frank from Weteringschans prison, past the asecret annexea where she had hidden from the Nazis, on the start of a journey to her death.
It was one of a series of Dutch night trams that deported 48,000 Jewish Amsterdammers during the Holocaust, trams commissioned by the Nazis and paid for with the Jewish wealth they stole.
Continue reading...The singer, who is known for her attempts to run her career sustainably, likened the practice to The Hunger Games a playing a game to get fans to keep buying more
Billie Eilish has criticised the practice of musicians releasing several vinyl variants of the same record in order to drive sales and earn athem more moneya, likening it to The Hunger Games franchise: aWeare all going to do it because [itas] the only way to play the game.a
aI canat even express to you how wasteful it is,a Eilish, 22, told Billboard in an interview about her push to run her career in a sustainable and less environmentally impactful way.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territoryas trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israelas onslaught on Gazaas ecosystems has made the area unlivable
In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up.
Like the rest of Gazaas residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers.
Continue reading...aUber of the skiesa Joby Aviation will build its fleet of aircraft at a $500m facility in Dayton and plans to employ 2,000 people
For a decade, Dayton in south-west Ohio has fought to shed its rust belt past. New apartment blocks, hotels and breweries have cut into a landscape dominated by derelict warehouses and general industrial decline. But today, that transformation is shifting gears and taking to the skies.
A town that 120 years ago produced the pioneers of human flight the Wright brothers is set to build hundreds of futuristic flying taxis each year.
Continue reading...A small but aggressive group of election deniers have been pressuring state officials on a weekly a sometimes daily a basis to investigate unfounded claims
In December, a Texas man named Kevin Moncla emailed Georgia election board members in response to their decision not to investigate the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, over bogus election fraud claims. Moncla made a vague threat that he was willing to take things outside the bounds of his increasingly frustrated emails.
The communication alarmed members of the state election board (SEB) enough to contact federal law enforcement.
Continue reading...Penned by Paul McCartney as tribute to the civil rights movement, and featuring Black female country artists, it makes perfect sense for the superstar to feature it on Cowboy Carter
Written by Paul McCartney for the Beatlesa 1968 double album The Beatles (AKA athe White Albuma) Blackbird isnat the most obvious song to turn up 55 years later (retitled Blackbiird) on the new BeyoncA(c) album. However, it makes perfect sense for the superstar to cover it on her so-called acountry albuma, Cowboy Carter. Where casual listeners could be forgiven for thinking Blackbird is a song about a small winged visitor to the garden a the Fab Fouras delicately lovely original does, after all, begin ablackbird singing in the dead of night a|a and include birdsong a the song is actually steeped in the civil rights movement and female emancipation, themes that resonate deeply with BeyoncA(c).
McCartney penned it as a tribute to the Little Rock Nine, a group of students who had faced racial discrimination after starting at the all-white Little Rock high school in 1957. The incident attracted national attention because it was a test case of Brown v Board of Education, a supreme court ruling that said segregation in such schools was unconstitutional. Arkanas governor Orval Faubus didnat agree and sent in the national guard to stop the students entering the premises. However, after federal troops were then brought in to escort them in, the fledgling civil rights movement had nine early heroes and the attention of the world a including McCartney.
Continue reading...Hannah, 41, and Izzy, 42, met in a nightclub before starting the same college course in the 90s. They both live in Suffolk and remain friends and soulmates two decades later
When Hannah was 16, she loved going to her local under-18s nightclub to dance to alternative music. aIn the summer of 1999, I was getting ready to start my BTec in media studies. I was living with my parents in Ipswich, working part-time and having lots of fun going out,a she says.
One night, she spotted Izzy at the club and mistook her for someone she knew. aI approached her and asked if she knew my brother,a she remembers. She said no, but they got chatting and realised they were both enrolled on the same college course. aI was living with my mum and working for a bakery,a says Izzy. aWe didnat have mobile phones at the time, so we never swapped numbers.a
Continue reading...It started with a single Dominican bodega worker. Now his familyas chain, Compare Foods, has found a sweet spot in the sun beltas changing demographics
Ivan Almonte has been in the US for almost 25 years years, but he still takes photos of the perfect produce a bouquets of epazote, mountains of chiles and perfectly ripe tunas from the prickly pear cactus a in his favorite Durham, North Carolina, grocery store.
The 45-year-old remembers when those items were hard to find in this bustling New South city, when he first arrived in 1999 from California after emigrating from MichoacA!n, Mexico.
Continue reading...The Harry Potter and Bridget Jones star is a dazzlingly versatile performer, with a string of Michael Winterbottom films under her belt, as well as Star Wars, TVas Happy Valley and an Olivier award. She explains how she keeps on top of it all
It is easy to feel protective of Shirley Henderson on this gloomy winter afternoon. Is she warm enough? Does she want to put the heating on? aAye, Iam OK,a she says from her home in Fife, a few strands of chestnut hair falling over her glasses as she huddles close to the laptop. aItas a wee bit blowy out. But Iam at the age where you can get too warm, so Iam all right.a Her giggle is helium-high: the sort of sound you want to trap, like in one of those toy moo boxes, so that you can play it when youare down in the dumps. Hearing Henderson laugh, or say aSorry darlina?a when she hasnat quite heard your question makes you feel as if youave been cuddled.
Her allusion to the menopause, though, takes a moment to sink in. Though 58, she looks barely old enough to be online without parental controls. (No suspension of disbelief was required when she played a mother who dresses as her own adolescent daughter to sit an exam in May Contain Nuts.) Henderson came to prominence in the 1990s as one of the UKas most probing, unpredictable character actors. After being spattered with excrement in Trainspotting, she won pivotal roles in two masterpieces: she was a soprano pining for her son in Mike Leighas Gilbert-and-Sullivan extravaganza Topsy-Turvy, and a feisty hairdresser smacking her lips at London life in the rhapsodic Wonderland. That was the first and best of her six collaborations with the director Michael Winterbottom, as well as the one which got her hooked on improvising.
Continue reading...Some schoolkids are clearly nervous. One asked if Iad ever killed a child
Iave always been interested in the past. At school, I threw myself into history lessons. I turned one of my mumas bedsheets into a toga so I could pretend to be a Roman, and spent holidays learning hieroglyphics long after lessons on ancient Egypt had finished.
When I was eight, we did the Tudors at school, and my aunt took me to the Tower of London, not far from where I grew up in Thurrock, Essex. I was spellbound. Back home, Iad pore over my mumas Encyclopaedia Britannica, try to copy Hans Holbein portraits, and watch documentaries about Henry VIII over and over. There was just something magical about the Tudors.
Continue reading...After 25 years, AngA(c)lica Sorrosa Alvarado is the last staff member left at Museo de las Culturas Afromestizas. She fears that soon it will be forced to close its doors
AngA(c)lica Sorrosa Alvarado is the curator, manager, tour guide, administrator, caretaker and cleaner at the Museo de las Culturas Afromestizas (Museum of Afro-Mexican Culture) in Cuajinicuilapa. aI am alone,a she says, gesturing at the cavernous halls of the museum, which she describes as aone of my proudest achievementsa.
In the Costa Chica region, which is home to Mexicoas largest population of African-Mexicans, the museum is unique in the country. When it opened 25 years ago, it was heralded as recognition of the more than 2.5 million Afro-Mexicans in a country that had long overlooked them.
Continue reading...The MCUas wall-crawler is swinging into a fourth headline film, but trading multiverse madness for street-level antics could see your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man turn emo a again
Where do you go when you have taken everyoneas favourite friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler from the streets of Queens to space, the multiverse and beyond? Thatas the question facing Marvel as the studio ponders quite what to do next with Tom Hollandas Spider-Man, who looks as if he might finally be getting that fourth headline big screen outing, just as we all need him more than ever before.
Rumour suggests the ever-reliable Justin Lin is being lined up to take charge of the next episode in Peter Parkeras adventures. The subscription-only The Insneider suggests the new movie will shoot in September or October, with Holland returning as a newly isolated Spidey living in a world where nobody knows his identity, after the climactic events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Naturally, Zendayaas MJ will also be returning, and itas likely weall also see Jacob Batalonas Ned.
Continue reading...This charming period drama about a 1920s Russian aristocrat being kept in a hotel by the Bolsheviks sees McGregor on sparkling form. Heas an intoxicating, swaggering figure of delight
Some books are difficult to film, and TV is a fool to attempt them. Others, however, perch on the shelf poised and preened, all dressed up and ready for the small screen. Amor Towlesas 2016 novel A Gentleman in Moscow could have been designed as a handsome, charming period drama, of the kind that once slid smoothly on to BBC One or ITV1 on a Sunday evening. Itas actually on Paramount+, but is handsome and charming and Sunday-ish still.
It remains to be seen whether Paramount takes advantage of the fact that the novelas early chapters create a setup that could run on TV indefinitely, or whether it renders roughly the same amount of narrative as the book then bids us adieu. But that setup is this: in Moscow in 1921, four years after the revolution, the countryas disfranchised aristocracy face summary trials and executions. Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov (Ewan McGregor) a Sasha to his friends, aYour Excellencya to the dwindling minority of Russians who still recognise honorifics a seems to be next, but is saved from death by the surprising fact that he is the credited author of a seminal revolutionary poem.
A Gentleman in Moscow is on Paramount+ now
Continue reading...When it comes to studies, work or social abilities, some fared better than others. But the pandemic left its mark on all of us, whether we realise it or not
I recently came across a folder on my laptop labelled aCovida. Inside I found screenshots I had taken of the government website, showing daily cases, ICU admissions and deaths from Covid-19. These reports were released every weekday during the first lockdown, and each afternoon I would collect them in this folder and study them, trying to understand what was happening in the wider world a before I began a busy evening of Zoom birthday quizzes, Netflix Party and WhatsApp.
I was shocked a both that I had ever been so macabre in the first place, and also that, four years later, I had forgotten doing it. I donat remember being anxious or depressed during lockdown, but I have 60 image files suggesting otherwise.
Continue reading...While religion doesnat feature much in video games, I find the theory that we are all characters in a huge sim ever more believable a and appealing
Itas Easter weekend, when Catholics like me spend hours in church listening to the extended editoras cut of a story whose ending we already know. Sitting there for the millionth performance of the Passion recently, I got to thinking about how few religious video game characters Iave ever encountered. Itas interesting that in a world where so many peopleas lives are dictated by religious beliefs, there is such a scarcity of religion in games. I mean, you could argue that all games are Jesus homages, with their respawns and extra lives, but even I admit thatas a stretch.
The Peggies in Far Cry 5 are a mind-controlling violent cult; those Founders in BioShock Infinite use religion to elevate and justify hatred of foreigners; and you have those wackadoodles in Fallout worshipping atomic bombs. Religion is almost exclusively used as means for leaders to get minions to do bad things. (Admittedly, they may be on to something here.) I guess that when so many video games are structured so as to set you up as a lone protagonist, up against a huge force, religion is a fairly obvious go-to villain.
Continue reading...He was a tough bouncer from Kent who, like the country around him, grew to accept social progress
My late dad was the hardest nightclub bouncer in a tough working-class area in Medway, Kent. He was a bodybuilder and terrifyingly quiet; you never quite knew what was going through his head.
My underage sixth-form mates knew he would refuse them entry if they tried to get into the sprawling, sticky floored and aggressively heterosexual nightclub where he worked the door with a formidable scowl. Luckily, I would sooner pour petrol in my eyes than set foot inside. He told me he broke the arms of any drunken louts giving him trouble. I believed him.
Gary Nunn is on X. Visit his free Substack here
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Continue reading...The Stanford neuroscientist is highly credentialed and endearingly earnest on his popular wellness podcast, but is now facing claims against his credibility
Iam going to divulge something rather embarrassing: earlier this year I got sucked deep into the aHuberspherea, the cult-like following of Andrew Huberman, the controversial neuroscientist and podcaster who is the subject of a viral New York Magazine article that came out this week. Huberman has racked up a massive (and lucrative) following with his data-driven aprotocolsa for a better life. These protocols involve things like taking enormous amounts of expensive supplements, ensuring you view early morning sunlight for 10-30 minutes after waking, carefully timing when you drink coffee and plunging yourself in ice baths.
Sounds like your run-of-the-mill scammy wellness influencer, right? Not quite. What makes Huberman different from others in the aGoop for brosa wellness space is that he is highly credentialed and endearingly earnest. The 48-year-old describes himself as a neuroscience professor at Stanford and a lab director at Stanford School of Medicine. He leans heavily on his affiliation with an elite university to bolster his credibility and frequently has other Stanford professors on his podcast, which was the third most popular in the world last year, according to Spotify.
Continue reading...There have been no changes since the ex-mogulas conviction as lawmakers fail to pass regulations to protect the public
There is a palpable feeling of relief in the cryptocurrency industry. Evangelists are preaching the good news that the industry has been purged of the Sam Bankman-Frieds, the Alex Mashinskys, the Do Kwons and the Changpeng Zhaos of the world. They proclaim that crypto can finally ascend from its purgatorial, awild westa days to become a respectable sector of the financial world blessed by regulators and speculators alike.
That exultant attitude has contributed to surging cryptocurrency prices, which surpassed previous all-time highs in the weeks leading up to Bankman-Friedas sentencing of 25 years in prison on Thursday.
Continue reading...Too often cemeteries for enslaved people have been all but erased from history but how we remember matters
For archeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free a defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming peopleas humanity through acts of remembrance.
When I first visited the British overseas territory of St Helena in 2018 and saw the burial ground in Rupertas Valley, I was astounded by its size and significance. It unambiguously placed the island at the centre of the Middle Passage a tying the British empire to the institution of slavery in the US, the Caribbean, and globally.
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