The league is awash with ultra-wealthy owners. Adam Silver is hoping a hefty punishment for the Clippers will send them a message about who is in charge
When Steve Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2bn in 2014, it was widely regarded as a coup for the NBA.
Not only is Ballmer one of the richest men in the world – worth an estimated $152.7bn – but his passion and enthusiasm for the sport stood in stark contrast to the team’s embattled former owner. Donald Sterling, who bought the Clippers for $12.5m in 1981, was forced to sell after being handed a lifetime ban by the NBA in response to a series of racist comments.
Cull of animals that eat native shrubs, causing spread of fast-igniting grasses, to go ahead despite fierce opposition
Locals and tourists have long fawned over Catalina Island’s mule deer population. For nearly a century, the ungulates have roamed the land’s waterfronts and woodlands, so comfortable around humans that it is not uncommon to spot deer roaming downtown Avalon.
But that sight will soon disappear, after a judge this week paved the way for the island’s conservancy to kill nearly all the island’s 2,000 deer.
The trillions in tax cuts going to the rich and corporations could have instead been used to address the affordability crisis
Dear reader, I recognize that your eyes might glaze over at any mention of the nation’s $40tn federal debt. But your reaction to this mind-boggling number shouldn’t be ennui; it should be outrage and dismay.
Outrage is in order because the nation’s debt has climbed to more than $40tn under Donald Trump, even though back in 2016, when the debt was less than half what it is today, candidate Trump insisted that he’d totally eliminate the debt within eight years. That was yet another example of the Demagogue-in-Chief’s willingness to say anything, no matter how insincere or untrue, to woo voters.
Mitchell Berman is among Democrats the party hopes can flip a Republican-leaning district in November’s midterms
Democrats are targeting vulnerable seats this midterm election with working-class candidates they hope will resonate with voters exhausted by the economy.
Some candidates are new to politics, and many have backgrounds as union members and leaders, which the party hopes will give them an edge over Republican incumbents as people have grown weary of Washington and the higher cost of living.
Marx’s All Things Possible Florida model uses private funds for cop pay and surveillance tools without public oversight
The All Things Possible ministry (ATP) is an unusual, and critics say potentially dangerous, operation. It has in the last year funded surveillance equipment and salaries for out-of-state law enforcement agencies, hired a range of private security and intelligence contractors, and is connected to a network of other self-appointed sex-trafficking rescue groups whose leading figures have attracted significant controversy.
And its founder is the man who wants to be Colorado’s next governor.
The White House has rejected New York governor Kathy Hochul’s claim that federal emergency authorities denied assistance due to “political games.”
“There is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster relief, unlike under the Biden Administration where [Federal Emergency Management Agency] officials refused aid to disaster survivors who displayed political signs and flags they disagreed with,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement to The Guardian.
Ben-Gvir did not come into power in a vacuum: he was helped into his position by an international community that has afforded Israel complete impunity
Let me introduce you to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of Israel’s far-right Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party, the minister of national security, and an almost cartoonishly evil man. You’ll have heard his name before: he made international news when he filmed himself taunting bound activists who had been detained trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. But you might not be familiar with many of his recent shocking comments, because they haven’t been widely covered by much of the US media.
Let’s start with an AI-generated video that Ben-Gvir posted on Twitter/X on Sunday and then deleted. It shows portly Palestinian prisoners being loaded on to a conveyor belt and going into a detention camp, then emerging emaciated. The caption is “we promised – we delivered!” which seems to be a reference to the national security minister’s promise to worsen conditions for Palestinian prisoners. An ambitious goal, considering conditions are already hellish: Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has likened the prisons where Palestinians are kept to “torture camps”.
The founder of The Ringer and Grantland was famous for discovering and developing writers. Now he is promoting a technology eroding the creative industries
Bill Simmons may have stopped writing with any regularity in the mid-2010s – he claims his fingers don’t work – but that won’t stop him from reminding you of his greatest hits. On a recent podcast about Russell Westbrook’s retirement, he couldn’t stop quoting his old columns. He first referenced an article from the 2012 NBA finals, and wasn’t finished until 11 minutes into the podcast. His guest, The Ringer contributor Kirk Goldsberry, deserved an award for patience. But the biggest blight on the episode came later, in the form of a bizarre ad read.
“This episode,” Simmons announced, “is brought to you by ChatGPT, the Bill Simmons PodcastAI sponsor.” (Emphasis mine; his overenthusiastic delivery mandates the italics.) Simmons said that he had asked ChatGPT what Westbrook’s defining game was. “That was a pretty good answer,” he said of ChatGPT’s offerings, as if it were a precocious, loveable nephew, before encouraging his listeners to try the platform.
Donald Trump posted his own presidential rankings to Truth Social last week, separating past US presidents into six categories from ‘greatest’ to ‘failures’
Donald Trump has declared himself to be the “greatest” US president ever, sharing a post on social media last week which graded him above the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D Roosevelt and George Washington. Experts take a different view.
Few presidential historians have previously suggested Trump holds such a place in the history books. After all, neither Lincoln, nor Roosevelt, nor Washington – the three leaders typically seen as America’s best – orchestrated an insurrection. None were impeached. And none of them were convicted of felonies over hush-money payments to a pornstar-turned-ghost hunter.
Trump administration has indefinitely stranded hundreds of kids and lawyers from over 50 organizations are fighting for their release
An army of attorneys is rallying to free hundreds of children from immigration custody, where they have been stranded indefinitely by the Trump administration without their parents or loved ones, the Guardian can reveal.
The effort is a counter strike to what critics see as unprecedented moves by federal officials to ride roughshod over children’s rights and increase deportations – while in the meantime corralling them in conditions that can allegedly lead to psychological harm.
As the Trump administration refuses to end its war in Iran, it is steering into the storm, not out of it
Russia hasn’t yet killed large numbers of Europeans outside Ukraine, but it’s getting closer. The night of 4-5 August, an airport bus driver discovered an armed drone lying near the tarmac of the Leipzig-Halle airport, which is a central hub of Europe’s logistical support to Ukraine’s war effort. A cargo jet, meanwhile, may have struck a second drone shortly after takeoff, forcing an abrupt landing, and investigators found a third drone laden with military explosives nearby.
In 2024, incendiary devices hidden in parcels ignited in DHL cargo at the same airport. Had these detonated in the air, a major air catastrophe and large-scale civilian casualties would have ensued, probably resulting in a broader war.
At this week’s world championship, the women’s record holder who once feared a 5K will try to top her own 144-hour distance – and beat the US men’s mark
While many teachers head back to school this week, middle-school math teacher Megan Eckert will be 5,000 miles from her classroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has a good reason to miss a few classes: she’ll be competing at the Global Organization of Multi-Day Ultramarathoners World Championship.
On Thursday, more than 100 runners will gather on a start line in Balatonfüred, Hungary, and attempt to run as many miles as they can in six days.
Michael Zheng spent years making the long trek from northern New Jersey, first by bus across the Hudson River to the Port Authority bus terminal and then nearly the full length of the No 7 subway line, all for the opportunity to train at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. On a rainswept Wednesday afternoon in Queens, the destination was the same but the purpose had changed entirely.
The 22-year-old American wildcard and two-time NCAA champion from nearby Columbia University brushed aside Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 to win his rain-interrupted US Open debut, providing one of the more unlikely highlights on a busy day for the home contingent in New York.
The city’s police department and mayor warn the public to stay away from the Loring Park neighborhood nearby
Two people were killed and the suspect was dead after a shooting at an apartment building in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
One shooting victim died at the scene. A second diedafter arriving at Hennepin county medical center, a hospital spokesperson said.
Black called on to comply with subpoenas and appear as required to clarify connections to convicted sex offender
More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have called on the billionaire Leon Black to appear before the House oversight committee in order to clarify his connections to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.
In a letter released on Wednesday, the survivors urged Black to comply with congressional subpoenas ahead of Thursday’s deposition before the House oversight committee.
The NBA has handed down one of the biggest punishments in the history of the league to the Los Angeles Clippers after finding that the franchise circumvented salary cap rules when it courted Kawhi Leonard as a free agent.
The league has stripped the team of five first-round draft picks, giving the team no natural pick in the draft from 2029 through 2033.
President’s order strips nearly 3m acres of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, sacred tribal sites, of safeguards
Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has joined a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s decision to significantly reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, removing protections from nearly 3m acres.
In July, the president approved the reduction of the sites by 90%, clearing the way to open the land to oil and gas companies. He argued in his proclamations that doing so would allow lands to be “put to a higher-priority use” and that they contained critical minerals important to “resource independence …[and] national security”.
Police officer who fatally shot unarmed 22-year-old Glenwood Pysher IV faces voluntary manslaughter charge
A Pennsylvania police officer was charged on Tuesday with voluntary manslaughter for last week’s fatal shooting of a college student who was looking for his friends late at night and went to the wrong house.
Police body-camera video reviewed by investigators showed the officer yelled: “Drop to the ground,” then: “Stop or I’ll ...”. Before he finished the sentence, he fired two shots at the man who was unarmed and had his hands in the air. He hit 22-year-old Glenwood Earl Pysher IV twice in the chest, killing him.
New DoJ opinion says entire state government has duty to report, not just agencies responsible for welfare programs
The US Department of Justice has ordered states to expand how they report undocumented immigrants to the federal government, according to a legal opinion from Tuesday that reverses a policy that has been in place for nearly 30 years.
Under the new opinion, issued by the department’s office of legal counsel, any state that takes federal money through support schemes for low-income Americans, includingTemporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), must now report undocumented immigrants across its entire state government, not just through the specific welfare office that runs the program.
President praises late queen and King Charles but says duke and duchess treated royal family ‘with great disrespect’
Donald Trump has weighed in on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s move back to Britain, declaring: “I’m happy about it.”
“I was not a fan,” the US president told reporters during a question-and-answer session after a press conference with travel executives on Wednesday. “I had a very good relationship with the queen, really good. I got to know her very well. A really good relationship with King Charles – I knew him as Prince Charles and King Charles. I’ve known him for a long time.”
Vice-president says on evangelical podcast he would feel ‘not shocked if the antichrist was walking among us’
JD Vance has said he is “doing as much of God’s work as possible” and that he is OK “if that leads to the end times”, which he says “are coming”.
The US vice-president made the comments during a Monday podcast interview with Bryce Crawford, a 22-year-old evangelical host with over a million YouTube followers and videos featuring sensationalist headlines including “Preaching the gospel in Chicago’s deadliest neighborhood” and “Debating a ‘gay’ pastor”.
Senatobia, where white officer shot and killed Kohen Wiley, terminates chief who reportedly used racist slurs in texts
Late Tuesday, the city of Senatobia, Mississippi fired its police chief, Harold Vanderford, after it was reported that Vanderford regularly used racist slurs against Black people in his text messages. The town, which is about 40% Black, made national news earlier this year after a white officer fatally shot and killed Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old Black baby, while responding to a shoplifting call at Walmart. Officers fired into a vehicle, shooting the driver and killing the toddler, who was being held in his mother’s arms.
Though Vanderford submitted a resignation letter earlier on 1 September, the city’s board of aldermen unanimously voted to reject it and to terminate the officer instead. Vanderford’s firing came just under a week after the city wrote in a statement that, despite the messages, he would “continue to serve the City with the confidence that was placed in him at the time that he was appointed as Chief”.
Tech company submits to controversial Trump order to rename body of water amid US trade spat with Canada
Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for US users of its Maps app, after an executive order from Donald Trump to change the name of the Great Lake amid his trade spat with Canada.
The Apple Maps app now displays the controversial new name for the lake, which sits between New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario, for users in the US. Apple users outside the country will still see the Lake Ontario name.
Experts have expressed deep concerns that the practice runs afoul of the fourth amendment’s right to privacy
Federal prosecutors have declined to say whether they secretly obtained phone records for the journalist Don Lemon using an unusual administrative summons, his lawyers said in a Monday court filing, highlighting concern about a controversial legal authority the government has claimed to gather information as it charged Lemon and dozens of others with civil rights crimes in connection to a January protest at a church in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
In January, officials served Verizon with an administrative summons for a log of Lemon’s phone records between 19 December and 20 January. The subpoena did not come from a grand jury, as is typical in criminal investigations, and also was not a court-approved search warrant. Instead, it was a unilateral request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which said it was requesting the information under 19 USC 1509 – an obscure law that gives the department power to investigate records related to customs issues. Experts say the government is abusing that authority to gather records on journalists, activists, unions, non-profits and online critics, and have expressed deep concerns that the practice runs afoul of the fourth amendment’s right to privacy.
Paul Miller, an openly racist fighter, derided Ben Azoulay, and a spectator was ejected for waving a swastika flag
Democrats in Florida have condemned a professional mixed martial arts event in Orlando at which an openly racist fighter derided his beaten opponent as “a short little fucking Jew prick”, and a spectator was ejected for waving a giant swastika flag.
Anna Eskamani, a Democratic state representative running to become the city’s mayor, said Saturday’s event, and the assertion by city officials that they were compelled to host it, were unacceptable.
The jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial was dismissed for the evening on Wednesday without reaching a verdict, after nearly 30 hours of deliberations over five days.
Addressing the 12-member jury – made up of nine women and three men – Judge William Sullivan said: “I know it’s been a long day.”
Various laws and 250 years of tradition prevent the likeness of living people from appearing on currency. Donald Trump and Scott Bessent don’t want you to worry about that
Two hallmarks of Donald Trump’s second-term: the president’s enthusiasm for putting his name and face on things, and his cavalier approach to established law.
Today the president is once again combining both those interests, as the government releases a $1 coin bearing his image, an item of currency that scholars say should be illegal, but which is happening anyway. How many times have you heard that in the last 18 months?
While leaders focused on Hasan Piker, two of the party’s more conservative members salvaged a GOP measure that was poised to fail
House Democratic leaders have spent the past few weeks waging a bitter campaign against their own left flank over a leftwing streamer. On Tuesday, it was the party’s center-right who blindsided them.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, announced late on Tuesday that he had asked the Democratic caucus’s committee on caucus rules to consider punishing the retiring Jared Golden of Maine and Blue Dog Coalition leader Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington after the pair sided with Republicans on a procedural vote that had appeared doomed.
Top medical groups band together to ease confusion from Trump administration’s changing immunization advice
Leading US medical groups are urging people to get updated flu and Covid-19 vaccinations this fall, banding together on Wednesday to issue shot guidelines – and highlight the science behind them – saying they hope to ease confusion caused by the Trump administration’s changing advice.
Flu vaccinations are beginning and the latest coronavirus shots are starting to arrive after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this year’s updated versions last week. Winter also brings another vaccine-preventable risk called RSV.
Climate experts warn that US Kalshi and Polymarket users are ‘gamifying disasters’ as they bet on events like heatwaves and daily temperatures
Online prediction markets, saturated by money staked on sport, crypto and politics, have now set their sights on a promising new area of growth: betting on the future livability of the planet itself.
The rise of gamified predictions on the unfolding climate crisis, and shorter-term weather forecasts, has been underscored by a new deal that allows Kalshi, a leading online financial exchange, to access data from the Weather Company, owner of the Weather Channel, to verify weather-related betting outcomes.
US defense secretary faces backlash for attempting to mock Canada’s armed forces amid trade war
A social media post by Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, body-shaming female members of a Canadian youth development program remained online on Wednesday despite a furious backlash on both sides of the border.
On Monday night, Hegseth posted on X a photograph of two people in uniform with a Canadian flag and the caption “this is real”, an apparent attempt at mocking the country’s armed forces amid the Trump administration’s trade spat with its northern neighbor.
Could Donald Trump be a Russian asset? The headline on a review in the Guardian of my new book Betrayal has provoked heated international debate. Written by the historian Lawrence Freedman, the piece generated thousands of comments from across Europe and beyond on social media. Many people responded with a single word: “Duh!”
Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin is the biggest mystery in international politics. In 2017 I wrote a book called Collusion, which set out Moscow’s operation to support and cultivate Trump, going back decades. The US president, of course, denies links with Russia. But in his second term, his behaviour towards Putin has been as weird and perplexing as during his first.
‘Where the wealthiest country in the world allocates money has always been a question of political will over political way’
The United States once led most other nations on resettling refugees from all over the world. But in the fiscal year 2025- 2026, except for three people from Afghanistan, all of the 10,258 people admitted through resettlement were white South Africans.
But admitting en masse the beneficiaries of South African apartheid, while simultaneously cancelling temporary protected status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians, and making a spectacle of detaining and shackling them, is just the tip of the racist iceberg: the Trump administration is reportedly using this moment to double the initial resettlement support that refugees receive to $4,500 per person.
Sabalenka made quick work of Iatcenko in the second round, while Tiafoe, Tsitsipas, Pegula and Muchova were among the other notable winners
And Nakashima breaks too – he’s hitting it hard off both wings and I wonder if he’s in the process of finding a new level. The first few times I watched him, I thought he had a bit of something and, real talk, I thought he’d be better by now than he is. But I really like what I’m seeing from him and, as we know, progress isn’t always linear.
It’s a good start for Medvedev, Gorzy – who saved five match points in round one – tamely ceding serve to 15.
Providers like Project:Camp offer emergency education and care to families in Washington state as climate change brings more destructive weather
One week after evacuating from the wildfires that devastated parts of this eastern Washington city, Mareesha Backman handed over her youngest son to a stranger and took her first deep breath of relief.
Spokane public schools was hosting what has become a growing part of disaster response: a day camp for children of survivors. Backman showed up that first day feeling “stunned,” she said: hot, poorly showered and underslept. Thanks to the camp’s volunteers, she was able to go to a doctor’s appointment, run errands and simply sit in the air-conditioned quiet of a friend’s home.
New law requires cosmetology classes to give instruction on all hair types from the kinkiest to the straightest
As of 1 September, a new law in New York state requires hairdressers studying cosmetology to be trained to work with all hair types.
“This is about equal access to service,” assembly member Michaelle Solages, who sponsored the law, said in a statement earlier this year. “No New Yorker should ever walk into a salon and be turned away or receive substandard care because of their hair texture. Now, with the adoption of this legislation, they won’t have to.”
US Central Command has released footage that purportedly shows missile and drone strikes being fired at Iranian military targets. Footage of some of the aftermath of the US attacks was shared on social media, showing shrapnel damage on a home in Sirik, southern Iran, where a wedding celebration was taking place. Since publication of this video, Iranian state media has revised the death toll to four people. Iran retaliated shortly afterwards, with video shared by Iranian media said to show missiles being fired towards Jordan.
A US Central Command spokesperson said the US was aware of reports of civilian casualties, but that the 'US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps]'
Woman from Reno was swimming near Hidden beach when river otter attacked her, Tahoe’s second incident in a month
A swimmer at Lake Tahoe in Nevada was bitten by a river otter and needed to get 38 stitches for her wounds as well as rabies shots, local media have reported.
Lynnette Bellin from Reno was swimming near Hidden beach on the Nevada side of the popular tourist attraction on Sunday when she was attacked by the creature.
US energy department warns of potential for outages in PJM Interconnection, serving 67 million from DC to Chicago
The risk of power outages is expected to escalate across a broad swath of the United States on Wednesday as intense heat will test the capacity of electricity supplies serving millions of homes and businesses from the midwest through the mid-Atlantic.
The US Department of Energy warned of the potential for heightened blackout risks in the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid, which serves 67 million people in a territory stretching from Washington DC to Chicago.
The US president’s need to assert dominance is igniting patriotism abroad and a backlash at home
What do bullies do when someone stands up to their bullying and punches them in the face? They look for someone weaker to bully who won’t punch back.
Presumably that’s why Donald Trump has now taken on Canada, after Iran punched back so hard in the cage match the US president began more than six months ago as to leave him humiliated and baffled.
Rapper’s supporters reflect on ‘astonishing’ events leading to Duane Davis being found guilty over 1996 fatal shooting
A criminal conviction this week in the murder of Tupac Shakur, the first since the rapper was gunned down in 1996, sent shockwaves through his sea of fans who have waited three decades for answers.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former California gang leader, was found guilty of murder on Monday for the role he played in orchestrating the fatal shooting of Shakur.
Shore leave in Pattaya, known for its red light district, comes after reports of deteriorating living conditions onboard the vessel during record stint
At Pattaya’s Hard Rock Cafe and hotel, the city’s mayor and police officials, along with women in traditional Thai dress, wait to greet the sailors who are arriving in civilian clothes, bags slung over their shoulders, off the buses.
The USS Abraham Lincoln’s crew of 5,000 have not been on shore for nearly nine months, a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea.
As tensions flare in the mideast with American military forces resuming strikes on Iran, Donald Trump has taken to social media to discuss his ballroom project.
“We have hundreds of happy construction workers in D.C. busily doing their job building the finest Ballroom/Military complex anywhere in the World,” Trump said in a truth social post Wednesday morning. “There is nothing like it, and never will be! It was a long, hard, fight in the Court System, but the winner is, as always under ‘TRUMP,’ the U.S.A.”
Leading Democrat accuses secretary of defense of causing ‘lasting harm’ to US forces. Plus, the curious case of the 5,500 missing sheep
Good morning. The US has launched more airstrikes on Iranian targets, prompting counterstrikes by Tehran targeting American interests in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq. The six-month conflict had shifted into an economic standoff before this weekend’s strikes, but recent promises by both sides to respond to further attacks have highlighted how quickly the conflict could spill back into military action.
The Iranian Red Crescent said four people, including a child, were killed and more than 50 were injured when shrapnel from a US missile attack hit a home where a wedding celebration was taking place in the city of Kuhestak. The US central command spokesperson Capt Tim Hawkins said: “The US military never targets civilians.”
Why are there concerns about US military leadership? A senior Democrat accused Pete Hegseth of having “hollowed out” the army’s senior ranks after its top civilian leader, Daniel Driscoll, resigned. Senator Jack Reed said: “It is far past time for Trump to recognize the lasting harm Pete Hegseth is inflicting on the Department of Defense … cultivating a culture where dissent is punished and competence is secondary to personal allegiance.”
How do officials appear to have profited from AI stocks? Emil Michael, a Pentagon official who is overseeing military artificial intelligence policy, reaped profits this year of up to $24m by selling his private investment in Elon Musk’s AI company. He has now sold his holdings in another AI company for between $5m and $25m, according to records seen by the Guardian.
What has a whistleblower identified as a risk to mail-in ballots? A new system to screen millions of mail-in ballots for the midterms was thrown together so hastily, and tested so little, that a single scanning glitch could mean entire batches of ballots are turned away, a whistleblower has told Congress.
Sean O’Brien, president of the 1.3-million strong union, was also the first to speak at the Republican national convention in 2o24
The powerful Teamsters union is backing Republican candidates in the 2026 election cycle even after members have voted to support their Democrat opponents.
The 1.3 million-strong union’s president, Sean O’Brien, angered many members and union leaders in 2024 when he became the first union president to speak at the Republican national convention (RNC).
The president’s call for the FCC to scrutinize Kristen Welker’s innocuous remarks is a sign of desperation
With his approval ratings tanking, the crucial midterm elections looming, and his war with Iran turning into a quagmire, Donald Trump has entered full freak-out mode.
It’s not hard to tell. Just look at what happened this week when he lashed out at Kristen Welker, the well-respected host of NBC’s Meet the Press, and one of the best-known journalists in the nation.
Enforcing civil rights without these reports will be difficult for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, pushing US agency closer to Trump’s agenda, experts warn
The US civil rights agency mandated to protect equal rights for workers is set to stop collecting data on the demographic makeup of companies – which for the past six decades has been used to enforce anti-discrimination laws.
The move marks a fundamental shift for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Without this data, it will be much harder for the agency to identify widespread cases of discrimination in hiring and promotions, experts and former employees of the commission say. And, they warn, it will bring the Trump administration one step closer to reshaping the commission from an independent watchdog into an arm of the executive branch narrowly focused on advancing the political grievances of Donald Trump’s base.
Relatives of Benjamin Halona remember his career as wildlife firefighter and his zeal for selling tamales
Relatives of a New Mexico man who was fatally mauled by a bear inside his home recently say they are choosing to remember his firefighting career and zeal for peddling tamales rather than his rare, brutal manner of death.
As Benjamin Halona’s sister, Gloria Halona, and her daughter, Samantha Vandever, put it, that is the least he deserved after the quiet dignity that he showed becoming a widower in February and subsequently grappling with health problems that required him to use a walker and a wheelchair to move around.