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      Phones and iPad of New York mayor Eric Adams were seized by FBI, report says

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      Electronic devices including at least two mobile phones belonging to New York City mayor Eric Adams were seized by the FBI as the agency escalated a corruption investigation into his victorious 2021 campaign, the New York Times reported Friday.It follows an FBI raid earlier this month on the home of Brianna Suggs, Adams’s leading campaign fundraiser, in which agents reportedly confiscated two laptop computers and three cellphones.Previous reports said Adams and his campaign team repeatedly refused regulators’ request to divulge the source of about $300,000 in donations, although it was not clear whether a violation of campaign finance rules was part of the inquiry.According to the Times, FBI agents earlier this week took “at least two cellphones and an iPad” belonging to Adams, days after the 2 November raid on Suggs’s Brooklyn residence.Sources told the newspaper that agents approached Adams in the street and asked his security detail to step away while they entered his vehicle and seized the devices under the authorization of a court-issued warrant.The paper added all the equipment was returned to him “within a matter of days”, noting that the warrant allowed the FBI to copy data contained on the devices.In a statement issued through a spokesperson on Friday afternoon, Adams, a former New York police department captain, said he had been fully cooperative.“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation, and I will continue to do that,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”His campaign attorney, Boyd Johnson, said in his own statement: “The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation.“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators.”Johnson did not elaborate on who the person was or what they were found to have done.The FBI investigation, the two sources told the Times, is looking into whether Adams’s 2021 campaign “conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers”.The warrant, it said, sought records about donations from Bay Atlantic University, a Washington DC college whose founder is Turkish and is affiliated with a school Adams is said to have visited when he went to Turkey as Brooklyn borough president in 2015.The donations previously reported to be in question came from about 500 different donors, the local New York City news publication the City said.Adams’s campaign counsel, Vito Pitta, said at the time: “The campaign has responded to every notice from [the campaign finance board] as appropriate.”The New York Times said the FBI and the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York declined comment Friday.Immediately after the raid on the home of Suggs, Adams returned to New York from Washington DC, where he had scheduled meetings with White House and congressional leaders to talk about immigration.He said he did so out of compassion for Suggs, a 25-year-old former intern promoted to be his chief fundraiser.“Although I am mayor, I have not stopped being a man and a human,” he said. More

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      Islamophobia and antisemitism on rise in US amid Israel-Hamas war

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      Islamophobia and antisemitism are seeing sharp increases across the US after war between Israel and Hamas erupted last month.According to a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization received a total of 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias between 7 October and 4 November.Cair, which has called the spike “unprecedented”, revealed that the recent increase in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment across the US mark a 216% increase over the previous year. In an average 29-day period in 2022, Cair received only 406 complaints.The top reported type of case was first-amendment – or free speech – issues, marking 23.39% of the anti-Arab and Islamophobia reports received by Cair. The organization also said 20.56% of the reports involved targeting employment, and 15.32% consisted of hate crimes. Cair said 9.2% of the anti-Arab and Islamophobia reports revolved around education and bullying.“The Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric that has been used to both justify violence against Palestinians in Gaza and silence supporters of Palestinian human rights here in America has contributed to this unprecedented surge in bigotry,” said Cair’s research and advocacy director, Corey Saylor.He added that “American Muslims are facing the largest wave of Islamophobic bias that we have documented” since Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, called for a Muslim travel ban in December 2015.“Political leaders, corporations, media outlets, civic organizations and others all have a role to play in ending this surge in bigotry,” Saylor added.Meanwhile, Jewish communities say they are also facing record-high levels of antisemitism after Israel launched war on Hamas after Hamas’s 7 October attack.On 25 October, the Anti-Defamation League reported a nearly 400% increase in antisemitic incidents reported year over year. From 7 to 23 October, the ADL recorded a total of 312 antisemitic incidents, 190 of which were directly linked to the violence in Israel and Gaza.During the same time last year, the ADL received preliminary reports of 64 incidents, including four that were Israel-related, the advocacy group reported.According to monthly crime statistics released this week by the New York police department (NYPD) and reviewed by the Hill, the city saw a 214% rise in reported hate crimes against Jews in October.In the last month, the NYPD reported a total of 101 reported hate crimes, including 69 that targeted Jews. By comparison, during the same time last year, NYPD reported 45 hate crimes, including 22 that targeted Jews.“It is incumbent on all leaders, from political leaders to CEOs to university presidents, to forcefully and unequivocally condemn antisemitism and terrorism,” said the ADL’s leader, Jonathan Greenblatt. “This isn’t hard. Words matter, and while the war in Gaza escalates, we encourage all those in positions of power to use their platforms to condemn hate and terrorism, wherever it occurs.” More

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      Trump legal team expresses hope classified documents trial will not start in May – as it happened

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      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Donald Trump’s legal team is expressing confidence his trial on charges related to keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort will not start in May, when it is currently scheduled.Earlier today, federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by the former president, turned down a request to delay the trial’s start date, but also moved back some deadlines related to the classified evidence that will be used in the trial, increasing the likelihood the trial will eventually be postponed.Here’s what Turmp’s lawyers had to say about that:A spending battle brews once again on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are nervously eyeing 17 November, the day when the federal government’s funding expires. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will reportedly propose over the weekend a bill to keep the government open, with the money running out at differing dates. There are reasons to think both Democrats and at least some Republicans will oppose this idea, and by this time next week, the government may likely be on the brink of another shutdown. Expect this to be a big developing story over the coming days.Here’s what else happened today:
      The FBI seized electronic devices belonging to New York City’s Democratic mayor Eric Adams as part of their investigation into his campaign finances, the New York Times reports.
      Donald Trump mulled in an interview using the FBI and justice department to retaliate against his enemies, if he is elected next year.
      Federal judge Aileen Cannon declined a request from Trump to delay his trial over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, but his lawyers signaled that they are hopeful she will eventually push its start date back.
      Moderate Republicans reportedly don’t think impeaching Joe Biden is worth it, because the president is already unpopular.
      Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke issued strong criticisms of Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy.
      The New York Times reports that FBI agents seized two phones and an iPad belonging to New York mayor Eric Adams as part of their investigation into the Democrat’s campaign’s finances.Here’s more from the Times:
      F.B.I. agents seized Mayor Eric Adams’s electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a federal corruption investigation into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
      The agents approached the mayor on the street and asked his security detail to step away, one of the people said. They climbed into his S.U.V. with him and, pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, took his devices, the person said. The devices — at least two cellphones and an iPad — were returned to the mayor within a matter of days, the people said. Law enforcement investigators with a search warrant can make copies of the data on devices after they seize them.
      It was not immediately clear whether the agents referred to the fund-raising investigation when they took the mayor’s devices.
      The surprise seizure of Mr. Adams’s devices was an extraordinary development and appeared to be the first direct instance of the campaign contribution investigation touching the mayor. Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, said on Wednesday that he is so strident in urging his staff to “follow the law” that he can be almost “annoying.” He laughed at the notion that he had any potential criminal exposure.
      In an interview with Spanish-language network Univision yesterday, Donald Trump signaled he would be willing to use the FBI and justice department to go after his political rivals in a second presidential term, without getting into specifics.But behind the scenes, the former president has named the names of those he would like to go after, the Washington Post reported earlier this week:
      In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.
      In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.
      To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.
      “It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power. “It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”
      Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
      The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.
      Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about what federal judge Aileen Cannon’s decision today in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case tells us about when it may ultimately go to trial:The federal judge overseeing the criminal case charging Donald Trump with retaining classified documents pushed back on Friday several major deadlines for the former president to file pre-trial motions, a move that could have the consequential effect of delaying the start of the trial in Florida.The judge put off until March making the fraught decision about whether to actually delay the trial – currently scheduled for next May – but the new timetable she laid out in a nine-page written order gave little scope for the pre-trial process to finish in time.The order from US district judge Aileen Cannon was positive for Trump, who has made no secret that his overarching legal strategy is to delay beyond the 2024 election in the hopes that winning re-election would allow him to pardon himself or direct the justice department to drop the charges.Trump was indicted this summer with violating the espionage act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Donald Trump’s legal team is expressing confidence his trial on charges related to keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort will not start in May, when it is currently scheduled.Earlier today, federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by the former president, turned down a request to delay the trial’s start date, but also moved back some deadlines related to the classified evidence that will be used in the trial, increasing the likelihood the trial will eventually be postponed.Here’s what Turmp’s lawyers had to say about that:Florida’s Republican state representative Michelle Salzman is facing increasing censure calls and outrage after she said “All of them” in response to her Democratic colleague saying, “How many [dead Palestinians] will be enough?”The Guardian’s Erum Salam reports:The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Florida), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement that Salzman’s remarks were a “chilling call for genocide” and a “direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media”.The news comes on the heels of the censure of the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, after Tlaib echoed a popular rallying cry for Palestine that some have called antisemitic but others say is a call for Palestinian civil rights.The censure resolution, which was supported by 22 Democrats, punishes Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.In Florida, calls for Salzman to be censured are being made by those opposed to her comments.“Salzman’s words are incredibly dangerous and dehumanizing to Palestinians here at home and under the Israeli occupation,” the Cair-Florida executive director, Imam Abdullah Jaber, said. “She must face her party’s censure and a public repudiation from all Florida legislators.”For further details, click here:Former president George W Bush said to “stay positive” in response to a question on what advice he would give to the world on Veterans Day.
      “Stay positive because if you study world history or US history, we go through cycles of being down and yet Americans ought to realize how blessed we are to live in this country… The images are grim and, yes, there’s violence, but ultimately love overcomes hate,” he told Fox News.
      Following reports of letters containing fentanyl being mailed to multiple state election offices, Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensberger said that he has been informed that there is another suspicious letter in transit.Speaking to CNN, Raffensberger said:
      “We have been informed by the postal officials that there is a letter in transit so that’s a three to five day transit through their system. Obviously they will try to intercept that when it comes through the Atlanta processing facility but it hasn’t arrived to Georgia yet so we don’t know if it will be intercepted. And that’s why we’ve prepared staff at the Fulton county election office if it does actually make it through the system and it arrives.”
      He added that officials are going to make sure that there is Narcan, the overdose reversal drug, available in all election offices that do receive incoming mail and that staff will be trained on how to administer Narcan.Authorities across the country are currently investigation letters sent to several states’ election offices that contained fentanyl.The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:Law enforcement officials in the US are searching for the people responsible for sending letters with suspicious substances sent to election offices in at least five states, acts some election officials described as “terrorism”.Election offices in Georgia, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington state all were sent the letters, four of which contained the deadly drug fentanyl, the Associated Press reported. Some of the letters were intercepted before they arrived. The FBI and United States Postal Service are investigating.In Washington, election offices in four counties – Skagit, Spokane, Pierce and King, which includes Seattle – were evacuated as workers counted ballots from Tuesday’s election. Two of the letters tested positive for fentanyl. Steve Hobbs, Washington’s Democratic secretary of state, said the letters were “acts of terrorism to threaten our elections.”For further details, click here:Anti-abortion members of the Ohio General Assembly have responded to the state’s passage of Issue 1 during Tuesday’s election.Condemning the language of the proposal which enshrines abortion rights into the state’s constitution, several dozen anti-abortion state representatives said:
      “Unlike the language of this proposal, we want to be very clear. The vague, intentionally deceptive language of Issue 1 does not clarify the issues of life, parental consent, informed consent, or viability including Partial Birth Abortion, but rather introduces more confusion.
      This initiative failed to mention a single, specific law. We will do everything in our power to prevent our laws from being removed based upon perception of intent. We were elected to protect the most vulnerable in our state, and we will continue that work.
      A spending battle brews once again on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are nervously eyeing 17 November, the day when the federal government’s funding expires. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will reportedly propose over the weekend a bill to keep the government open, with the money running out at differing dates. There are reasons to think both Democrats and at least some Republicans will oppose this idea, and by this time next week, the government may likely be on the brink of another shutdown. Expect this to be a big developing story in the coming days.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Donald Trump mulled in an interview using the FBI and justice department to retaliate against his enemies, if elected next year.
      Moderate Republicans reportedly don’t think impeaching Joe Biden is worth it, because the president is already unpopular.
      Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke issued strong criticisms of Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is expected to release his short-term government funding proposal over the weekend, setting the chamber up for a vote next week, NBC News reports:The bill’s prospects remain highly uncertain. House Democrats have rejected the “laddered” approach Johnson is reportedly mulling, which would see government funding expire at different times, and the proposal is unlikely to get far in the Senate, where they hold a majority. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans in the House want to use any funding measure as an opportunity to force the government to cut spending, but that may alienate more moderate Republicans and cost the bill support it needs to pass.Nonetheless, expect this to be a big developing story over the weekend and next week, as the 17 November deadline to fund the government draws nearer. More

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      Outrage grows after ‘chilling call for genocide’ by Florida Republican

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      Outrage continues to grow over a public comment made by a Florida state Republican lawmaker calling for all Palestinians to die.The remarks came during a debate in the state legislature about calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which has so far killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, many of whom are children. The assault came after Hamas fighters attacked Israel from Gaza, killing at least 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage.In the speech in support of the ceasefire resolution, the Democratic Florida state representative Angie Nixon said: “We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?”“All of them,” Michelle Salzman called in reply.Nixon acknowledged the interruption and said: “One of my colleagues just said, ‘All of them.’ Wow.”The Florida state house later voted 104-2 to reject Nixon’s resolution.Salzman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Florida), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement that Salzman’s remarks were a “chilling call for genocide” and a “direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media”.The news comes on the heels of the censure of the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, after Tlaib echoed a popular rallying cry for Palestine that some have called antisemitic but others say is a call for Palestinian civil rights.The censure resolution, which was supported by 22 Democrats, punishes Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.In Florida, calls for Salzman to be censured are being made by those opposed to her comments.“Salzman’s words are incredibly dangerous and dehumanizing to Palestinians here at home and under the Israeli occupation,” the Cair-Florida executive director, Imam Abdullah Jaber, said. “She must face her party’s censure and a public repudiation from all Florida legislators.”Hours before Nixon’s speech, Israel agreed to daily four-hour humanitarian pauses. But Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, reportedly rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.On Thursday, Joe Biden said there was “no possibility” of a ceasefire. More

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      Man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi absorbed conspiracy theories, trial hears

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      The trial of a man accused of breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoning her husband with a hammer has begun, with a defense attorney arguing that her client, David DePape, was caught up in conspiracy theories.Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was attacked by DePape in the early hours of 28 October last year and hospitalized with a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands. The encounter, which was captured by police body-cam footage, sent shockwaves through the political world just days before last year’s midterm elections.“There’s too much violence … political violence. Too much hatred, too much vitriol,” Joe Biden said shortly after the attack. “Enough is enough is enough.”The defense attorney Jodi Linker said on Thursday in opening statements in court in San Francisco that she would not dispute that DePape attacked the former House speaker’s husband. Instead, she will argue that DePape believed “with every ounce of his body” he was taking action to stop corruption and the abuse of children by politicians and actors.“This is not a whodunit. But what the government fails to acknowledge is the ‘whydunit’ – and the ‘why’ matters in this case,” Linker said.DePape pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties. Paul Pelosi is expected to testify next week.The federal prosecutor Laura Vartain Horn told the jurors that DePape started planning the attack in August, and that the evidence and FBI testimony will show he researched his targets online, collecting phone numbers and addresses, even paying for a public records service to find information about Nancy Pelosi and others.During her opening statement, Vartain Horn showed a photo of Paul Pelosi lying in a pool of blood. She also played a call DePape made to a television station repeating conspiracy theories.“The evidence in this case is going show that when the defendant used this hammer to break into the Pelosi’s home he intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi,” Vartain Horn said, holding a hammer inside a plastic evidence bag.DePape is known to have a history of spreading far-right conspiracy theories, posting rants on a blog and an online forum about aliens, communists, religious minorities and global elites. He questioned the results of the 2020 election and echoed the baseless rightwing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims the US government is run by a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles. The websites were taken down shortly after his arrest.If convicted, DePape faces life in prison. He was also charged in state court with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. He pleaded not guilty to those charges. A state trial has not been scheduled.In the courtroom on Thursday were Christine Pelosi, one of the Pelosis’ daughters, as well as Gypsy Taub, DePape’s ex-girlfriend, and Taub and DePape’s two teenage sons. Taub called DePape’s name softly and blew a kiss, and he smiled and waved in return.A Canadian citizen, DePape moved to the United States more than 20 years ago after falling in love with Taub, a Berkeley pro-nudity activist well-known in the Bay Area, his stepfather, Gene DePape said. In recent years, David DePape had been homeless and struggling with drug abuse and mental illness, Taub told local media.Federal prosecutors say DePape smashed his shoulder through a glass panel on a door in the back of the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights mansion and confronted a sleeping Paul Pelosi, who was wearing boxer shorts and a pajama top.“Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” DePape asked, standing over Paul Pelosi at about 2am holding a hammer and zip ties, according to court records. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members.Paul Pelosi called 911 and two police officers showed up and witnessed DePape strike Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, knocking him unconscious, court records showed.After his arrest, DePape, 43, allegedly told a San Francisco detective he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. He said that if she told him the truth, he would let her go, and if she lied, he was going to “break her kneecaps” to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions”, according to prosecutors.DePape, who lived in a garage in the Bay Area city of Richmond and had been doing odd carpentry jobs to support himself, allegedly told authorities he had other targets, including a women’s and queer studies professor, the California governor Gavin Newsom, the actor Tom Hanks and Joe Biden’s son Hunter. More

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      US Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024

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      West Virginia’s controversial Democratic US senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will instead “fight to unite the middle”.The 76-year-old senator, who for years has held an outsized degree of power within the Democratic party and often defied its leadership, appeared in July at an event held by a political group exploring a third-party presidential bid.Manchin’s appearance with the centrist No Labels group fueled speculation that he was considering a run for the presidency, a scenario that alarmed Democrats as it could weaken Joe Biden’s candidacy for another term in the White House.On Thursday afternoon, Manchin put out a statement saying: “After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia. I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate.”He added: “But what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”No Labels sees Manchin as a potential candidate for its centrist platform. Although No Labels, which has been around since 2010, mostly behind the scenes, has stated it will not field a candidate if their platform does not gain traction or if it appears it would swing the vote in favor of one party, the group has been actively fundraising and is seeking to get on ballots across the country.Maryanne Martini, a spokesperson for No Labels, released a statement praising Manchin as “a longtime ally” but declining to comment on his potential to run for president.“Regarding our No Labels unity presidential ticket, we are gathering input from our members across the country to understand the kind of leaders they would like to see in the White House,” she said. “As we have said from the beginning, we will make a decision by early 2024 about whether we will nominate a unity presidential ticket and who will be on it.”Opinion polls show dissatisfaction with the current leading White House candidates, both the incumbent Biden and the Republican frontrunner Trump.Manchin’s decision to step down will also jeopardise Democrats’ narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate. Republicans hold the governor’s office and the rest of the congressional delegation in a state that Trump won by a wide margin over Biden in 2020. Manchin won his last election with just 49.6% of the vote, 0.3 percentage points ahead of his Republican rival, in 2018.The US senator Steve Daines, the head of Republican senators’ campaign arm, said in a brief statement: “We like our odds in West Virginia.”The state’s Republican governor, Jim Justice, has already launched a campaign for his party’s nomination for Senate. Justice was a Democrat when he was first elected governor in 2016, but a year into office he switched parties and went on to cruise to re-election, winning 65% of the vote in 2020. Trump has endorsed Justice.Justice said on Thursday: “Senator Joe Manchin and I have not always agreed on policy and politics, but we’re both lifelong West Virginians who love this state beyond belief, and I respect and thank him for his many years of public service.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionManchin’s departure will raise the stakes for Democrats in several other Senate races including in Republican-leaning Montana and Ohio and highly competitive Pennsylvania and Arizona.Manchin, who took office in 2010, has been a key vote on every major piece of legislation of Biden’s tenure as a moderate representing an increasingly conservative state. His support was critical to the passage of Biden’s sweeping $1tn infrastructure law, one of the president’s key domestic accomplishments.Together with the Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema, who switched her registration to independent from Democrat in December, Manchin has secured major concessions and the scaling back of his party’s legislative goals, winning him applause from conservatives and condemnations from many fellow Democrats.The pair stood together in protecting the Senate’s filibuster rule, which requires that 60 of the chamber’s 100 members agree on most legislation, in the face of intense opposition from their own party.Manchin’s defence of the filibuster helped block Democrats’ hopes of passing bills to protect abortion rights after the supreme court last year overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that had established the right nationwide.Republican senators praised Manchin’s commitment to bipartisanship.The Utah senator Mitt Romney, who is also not seeking re-election, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “I will miss this American patriot in the Senate. But our friendship and our commitment to American values will not end.” More

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      Jezebel to shut down after 16 years as parent company lays off staff

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      Jezebel, a feminist US news site, was shut down by its owners on Thursday, with 23 people laid off and no plans for the outlet to resume publication.G/O Media, which owns Jezebel and other sites including Gizmodo and the Onion, announced the closure in a memo to staff, which was obtained by the Guardian.“Unfortunately, our business model and the audiences we serve across our network did not align with Jezebel’s,” Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive of G/O Media, wrote in the memo, which was sent to staff on Thursday morning.“And when that became clear, we undertook an expansive search for a new, perhaps better home that might ensure Jezebel a path forward. It became a personal mission of Lea Goldman, who worked tirelessly on the project, talking with over two dozen potential buyers.“It is a testament to Jezebel’s heritage and bona fides that so many players engaged us. Still, despite every effort, we could not find Jez a new home.”In response to the shuttering, the Writers Guild of America-East, which represents G/O Media staffers, issued a statement condemning Spanfeller.“Jezebel has been a pillar of fearless journalism and important cultural commentary since 2007 and made an indelible mark on the media landscape,” the statement read, before adding: “A well-run company would have moved away from an advertising model, but instead they are shuttering the brand entirely because of their strategic and commercial ineptitude. Jezebel was a good website.”Susan Rinkunas, a senior reporter at Jezebel, told the Guardian that it was “unconscionable that the company is shutting down its only politics site, which did hard-hitting reporting on abortion, ahead of the 2024 elections.“Readers everywhere will be worse off without Jezebel,” she added.Audra Heinrichs, a staff writer at Jezebel, told the Guardian she was “certainly not surprised” at the site’s closure, but was “heartbroken” that both G/O Media and Spanfeller “unceremoniously gutted Jezebel, a pillar of fearless feminist journalism in digital media and the website I’ve been fortunate to call home for nearly two years”.“Its demise in the wake of Dobbs and in the run-up to the 2024 election in which abortion will no doubt be a significant part of the conversation is not only undue, but despicable,” she said. “As Jim Spanfeller wrote, the Jezebel staff – both past and present – ‘changed the game’. I feel at once honored to be one small part of its singular legacy and devastated for all those who were comforted by its presence.”The closure and layoffs come at a difficult time for US journalism.On Thursday, Vice Media Group said it would lay off a number of employees, six months after more than 100 people were laid off in April. Deadline reported that a number of Vice News shows would not be renewed, meaning some employees would lose their jobs.Vice, once a titan of the media industry, filed for bankruptcy in May, and was acquired by a consortium of organizations following an auction.In October, the Washington Post announced plans to cut 240 jobs through a voluntary redundancy scheme, while earlier this year the Los Angeles Times said it would lay off 10% of its newsroom staff.The Jezebel closure brings an end to 16 years of publishing for the organization. It was launched in 2007 by Anna Holmes and Gawker Media – the online media company and blog whose flagship Gawker.com website shut down in 2016 after being financially crippled by a lawsuit filed by Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn the memo to Jezebel staff, the Daily Beast reported, Spanfeller praised journalists’ coverage of reproductive rights in the wake of the supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade.Spanfeller added that he had not “given up” on Jezebel, the Daily Beast said, despite G/O Media’s decision to shut it down.“Media is nothing if not resilient. So are its practitioners,” Spanfeller wrote to staff. “I will keep you apprised if circumstances change.”News of the site’s closure sent shockwaves through social media, with many former staffers and readers offering eulogies and notes about the site’s legacy.“I am not exaggerating when I say [Jezebel] is the reason why I became a journalist. Reading it completely changed my perspective on so many things: on abortion, on sex, on how I navigated the world as a woman in general. I owe it a huge debt. Lots of us do,” wrote the Rolling Stone reporter EJ Dickson on X.Gita Jackson, a former staffer at the G/O Media site Kotaku, wrote: “All my love to the staff laid off today at G/O Media, especially the staff of Jezebel. That site helped me understand how to be not just a feminist, but craft a coherent ideology, and being able to work alongside all the many wonderful people who worked there was a dream.”Laura Bassett, Jezebel’s most recent editor-in-chief, who departed the site earlier this fall, implored people on X to hire the Jezebel staffers who were let go on Thursday: “My heart is with the entire Jez staff who just got laid off, including incredible abortion reporters at a time when the beat couldn’t be more relevant to national politics. Please hire them.”Bassett told the Guardian that it was “ironic that the forces that necessitated the founding of Jezebel in the first place are the same ones that put the nail in its coffin – especially at a time when the site’s urgent coverage of abortion rights is more relevant than ever.“I mourn the loss of the outlet that inspired me to become a journalist in the first place and that I proudly led for two years,” she continued. “The work Jezebel writers have always done and continue to do, and the unflinching voice they bring to feminist media, are vital and irreplaceable.”
      Jenna Amatulli contributed reporting; she is a former deputy editor at Jezebel More

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      in US Politics

      The public doesn’t understand the risks of a Trump victory. That’s the media’s fault | Margaret Sullivan

      by

      Whatever doubts you may have about public-opinion polls, one recent example should not be dismissed.Yes, that poll – the one from Siena College and the New York Times that sent chills down many a spine. It showed Donald Trump winning the presidential election by significant margins over Joe Biden in several swing states, the places most likely to decide the presidential election next year.The poll, of course, is only one snapshot and it has been criticized, but it still tells a cautionary tale – especially when paired with the certainty that Trump, if elected, will quickly move toward making the United States an authoritarian regime.Add in Biden’s low approval ratings, despite his accomplishments, and you come to an unavoidable conclusion: the news media needs to do its job better.The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don’t need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be “in the tank” for Biden or anyone else.It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.The US then “would resemble a banana republic”, a University of Virginia law professor told the Washington Post when it revealed these schemes. Almost as troubling, two New York Times stories outlined Trump’s autocratic plans to put loyal lawyers in key posts and limit the independence of federal agencies.The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities.Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s “freewheeling” style. They blame the public’s attitudes on “polarization”, as if they themselves have no role. And, of course, they make the election about the horse race – rather than what would happen a few lengths after the finish line.Here’s what must be hammered home: Trump cannot be re-elected if you want the United States to be a place where elections decide outcomes, where voting rights matter, and where politicians don’t baselessly prosecute their adversaries.When Americans do understand how politics affects their lives, they vote accordingly. We have seen that play out with respect to abortion rights in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and beyond. On that issue, voters clearly get that well-established rights have been ripped away, and they have reacted with force.“Women don’t want to die for Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs,” as Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast said on MSNBC, referring to the theocratic House speaker.Abortion rights is a visceral issue. It’s personal and immediate.Trump’s threats to democracy? That’s a harder story to tell. Harder than “Joe Biden is old”. Harder than: “Gosh, America is so polarized.”Journalists need to figure out a way to communicate it – clearly and memorably.It was great to see the digging that went into that Washington Post story about Trump and his allies plotting a post-election power grab. But it was all too telling to see this wording in its subhead: “Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.”So others think it’s fine, right? That suggests that both sides have a valid point of view on whether democracy matters.Deploying the military to crush protests is radical. So is putting your cronies and yes men in charge of justice. These moves would sound a death knell for American democracy. They are not just another illustration of Trump’s “brash” personality.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWe need a lot more stories like the ones the Post and the Times did – not just in these elite, paywalled outlets but on the nightly news, on cable TV, in local newspapers and on radio broadcasts. We need a lot less pussyfooting in the wording.Every news organization should be reporting on this with far more vigor – and repetition – than they do about Biden being 80 years old.It’s the media’s responsibility to grab American voters by the lapels, not just to nod to the topic politely from time to time.Polls can be wrong, and it’s foolish to overstate their importance, especially a year away from the election, but if more citizens truly understood the stakes, there would be no real contest between these candidates.The Guardian’s David Smith laid out the contrast: “Since Biden took office the US economy has added a record 14m jobs while his list of legislative accomplishments has earned comparisons with those of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson … Trump, meanwhile, is facing 91 criminal indictments in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington DC, some of which relate to an attempt to overthrow the US government.”So what can the press do differently? Here are a few suggestions.Report more – much more – about what Trump would do, post-election. Ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with those plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon.Use direct language, not couched in scaredy-cat false equivalence, about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.Pin down Republicans about whether they support Trump’s lies and autocratic plans, as ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos did in grilling the House majority leader Steve Scalise about whether the 2020 election was stolen. He pushed relentlessly, finally saying: “I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?” When Scalise kept sidestepping, Stephanopoulos soon cut off the interview.Those ideas are just a start. Newsroom leaders should be getting their staffs together to brainstorm how to do it. Right now.With the election less than a year away, there’s no time to waste in getting the truth across. More