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In the 2010s it described an insurgent rhetorical style; in the 2020s it is inadequate to account for the wildly diverging fates of the left and rightPopulism" may well have been the defining word of the previous decade: a shorthand for the insurgent parties that came to prominence in the 2010s, challenging the dominance of the liberal centre. But no sooner had it become the main rubric for discussing both the far left and far right than commentators began to question its validity: worrying that it was too vague, or too pejorative, or fuelling the forces to which it referred.Now, with the fortunes of the two political poles heading in different directions - the right gaining ground across the west while much of the left struggles to rebound from serial defeats - the notion that this word could encompass such different players seems even less plausible. For a lucid account of these forces, we might have to shift our focus elsewhere: finding terms that can explain their unequal balance of power, so that we can in turn find the proper remedy.Oliver Eagleton is managing editor at Phenomenal World Continue reading...

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National Park Service also sued for removing rainbow Pride flag from Stonewall national monument in New YorkConservation and historical organizations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over National Park Service policies that the groups say erase history and science from America's national parks.A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders by Donald Trump and interior secretary Doug Burgum have forced park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant US history and scientific knowledge, including about slavery and climate change. Continue reading...

We have nothing to hide,' former secretary of state says ahead of her and Bill Clinton's depositions next week - key US politics stories from Tuesday 17 FebruaryHillary Clinton has accused the Trump administration of a cover-up" over the Epstein files, while claiming that she and her husband are being forced to testify before Congress to deflect scrutiny from Donald Trump.In an interview with the BBC, Clinton said the US Department of Justice was slow-walking" the release of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein's catalogue of crimes and urged the administration to get the files out". Despite periodic document dumps of the files since Congress mandated their release late last year, the justice department is still withholding about 3m files. Continue reading...

Group was skiing in snow-hit Sierra Nevadas, while winter storm brings heavy rain and floods to other parts of stateSix skiers have been found after a group of 16 went missing this morning as heavy snowfall blanketed California, prompting avalanche warnings in the Sierra Nevada mountains, closing coastal roads and causing flooding in Los Angeles.The 10 remaining skiers are still missing, according to the sheriff's office in Nevada county, California. The group was in the Castle Peak area, where an avalanche was reported around 11.30am. According to the sheriff's office, the group consisted of four ski guides and 12 clients. Continue reading...

Pawtucket officials name shooter and say two other family members in critical condition after Monday attackThe shooter who opened fire at a Rhode Island ice rink was specifically targeting family members, authorities said. A woman who used to be married to the shooter and her son were killed in the attack, and three others were injured as hockey fans fled and a small group rushed to stop the shooter.The Pawtucket police chief, Tina Goncalves, confirmed the shooter's ex-wife Rhonda Dorgan and adult son Aidan Dorgan were killed, and said three others were injured: Rhonda Dorgan's parents, Linda and Gerald Dorgan, and family friend Thomas Geruso, all of whom remained in critical condition. Continue reading...

Independent experts appointed by human rights council speak of grave' nature regarding scale of atrocities against women and girlsMillions of files related to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a global criminal enterprise" that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations human rights council has said.The experts said crimes outlined in documents released by the US justice department were committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption and extreme misogyny. The crimes, they said, showed a commodification and dehumanisation of women and girls. Continue reading...

Lawyer for defendants accused of terrorism at ICE protest decried by Trump appointee over shirt's potential for bias'A federal judge in Texas declared a mistrial on Tuesday after a defense lawyer wore a shirt in court with images from the civil rights movement, delaying a closely watched case in which the Trump administration is accusing a group of protesters of being terrorists and says they are part of a North-Texas antifa cell".US district judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of Donald Trump, declared a mistrial only hours after jury selection began at the federal courthouse in downtown Fort Worth. He abruptly halted the proceedings after MarQuetta Clayton, an attorney for one of the defendants, had been questioning potential jurors for about 20 minutes, taking issue with a shirt she was wearing underneath a black blazer. The shirt contained images of civil rights movement leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr and Shirley Chisholm, as well as images of protests from that time. Continue reading...

Japan's skaters stole the spotlight as the Americans largely struggled in their attempts to end a two-decade medal droughtJapanese teenager Ami Nakai was the surprise leader after the short program of the Olympic women's figure skating competition on a night when her country's skaters largely stole the spotlight from Team USA's Blade Angels in their bid to end America's two-decade medal drought.Nakai delivered a clean, commanding skate on Tuesday, highlighted by a soaring triple axel for a personal-best score of 78.71, edging three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto (77.23) into second. Only Alysa Liu of the United States was able to break the Japanese hold on the top spots, scoring 76.59 to come in ahead of fourth-placed Mone Choba (74.00). Continue reading...

Moves come after Gordon Brown's claim that files show that US sex offender used Stansted airport in Essex to fly in girls'British police have expanded their interest in the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's links to Britain, by admitting for the first time they are looking at claims he used dozens of private flights into UK airports to traffic women.It comes after former prime minister Gordon Brown said that documents about Epstein released in the US showed in graphic detail" how the disgraced financier, with links to high-profile people including the former Prince Andrew, was able to use Stansted airport in Essex to fly in girls from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia". Continue reading...

Mahdawi, arrested last year during US citizenship interview, says he is grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law'An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested by federal agents last year during a US citizenship interview in Vermont.Lawyers for Mahdawi gave details of the decision in a court filing on Tuesday with a federal appeals court in New York, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to his release from immigration custody in April. Continue reading...

Team GB were disappointed in a men's curling match against Canada while Tormod Frostad's big air win was one for the agesHeinis of France is in the air, it feels hein just looking at him, and he jumps 129, giving him 133.8 points; he moves above Karhumaa and into the lead.I've also got the curling on and, if you'll excuse my parochialism, I'm not watching pool leaders Switzerland monstering defending champions Sweden, rather USA v China, for reasons of relevance to GB. The Americans now lead 2-1 playing the fifth. Continue reading...

Three boats targeted in eastern Pacific and Caribbean as Trump continues pursuit of alleged narco-terrorists'US military officials have said American forces launched assaults on three alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing 11 in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration's months-long campaign against alleged traffickers.The military action on Monday brought the number of fatalities caused by US strikes to 145 since September, when Donald Trump called on American armed forces to attack people deemed narco-terrorists" on small vessels. There have been 42 known strikes in notorious drug-trafficking routes such as the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the Associated Press reported. Continue reading...

Interim president Jose Jeri voted out by country's congress amid scandal concerning secretive meetingsPeru's interim president has been forced out of office in an express impeachment" after a political scandal over his secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen.Lawmakers voted by 75 votes to 24 to proceed with the removal of Jose Jeri, who had been at the helm for just four months. Continue reading...

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Al Sharpton, Donald Trump and more react to death of the civil rights leader at the age of 84

Secretary of state spoke of golden age' of US-Hungary relations at time of tense transatlantic relations with traditional alliesEven before he in effect endorsed Hungary's Viktor Orban before a crucial parliamentary election, Marco Rubio's itinerary for Europe promised to be provocative. After meeting US allies at the Munich Security Conference during a particularly tense moment in transatlantic relations, the US secretary of state departed for Slovakia and Hungary - the two EU states most dependent on Russian energy and sceptical of the bloc's support for Ukraine.In what bordered on an explicit political endorsement, Rubio told Orban that relations between Hungary and the US had entered a golden age" - and would stay like that for as long as Orban remains in power. Continue reading...

Case became focal point for immigration after he was deported to El Salvador where he faces gang threatsImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia because a 90-day detention period has expired and the government has no viable plan for deporting him, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.The Salvadorian national's case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to his home country last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by Department of Homeland Security officials. Continue reading...

Jackson's two presidential runs brought the civil rights movement into the heart of the Democratic party and opened doors for others to walk through

Some universities and colleges have taken action involving faculty or affiliates named in the documents. We want to hear about what's happening where you study or workAs fallout from the large release of documents connected to Jeffrey Epstein continues, a handful of US universities have taken action against faculty or affiliates named in the files.At some campuses, professors have been placed under review, research centres closed, conferences cancelled or public explanations issued. Students and staff have responded in different ways, including petitions, open letters and campus forums. Continue reading...

We would like to hear your memories of the civil rights trailblazer - whether you met him or just valued his workThe Rev Jesse Jackson, a civil rights campaigner who was prominent for more than 50 years and who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, died on Tuesday at the age of 84. Jackson championed the rights of Black, poor and working-class people with his rainbow coalition".We would like to hear your tributes and memories of Jesse Jackson - whether you met him, or appreciated his work. Continue reading...

The US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84, his family said on Tuesday. Jackson, an eloquent Baptist minister raised in the segregated south, became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. He had advocated for the rights of Black Americans and other marginalised communities since the civil rights movement of the 1960s

Marco Rubio arrived at the Munich security conference with a disturbing message for European governments: empire is greatFresh from toppling the president of Venezuela and taking control of the world's largest oil reserves, the Trump administration's top diplomat arrived at the Munich security conference on Saturday with a rather new and very disturbing message for European governments.Empire is great. Empire is back. Empire is American.Mehdi Hasan is the editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo Continue reading...

Civil rights icon, who died Tuesday, shifted Black politics and leftist coalition-building from the sidecar of the Democratic party to the driver's seatBy the early 1980s, the Democratic party was facing a crossroads. The 1980 landslide election of Ronald Reagan, who clenched the presidency with a whopping 489 electoral college votes against Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter, swiftly pulled the Democratic party to the right in the political and cultural wave of the Reagan Revolution".For those Democratic constituents left behind, however, a challenge was mounting, mostly within US industrial cities whose economies were ransacked by Reagan's trickle-down" economics. Record tax cuts for the wealthy had come at the expense of a contracted social safety net, thus exacerbating inequality and collapsing much of the working class into the poor. Grassroots resistance campaigns spawned across the country in response to this dire urban crisis that had disproportionately devastated African Americans, and between 1982 and 1984 they had registered 2 million new Black voters - the largest gain in registered Black voters since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Continue reading...

The American won her first Winter Games title at 41. She did so while advocating for Black athletes, mothers and the deaf and Down's syndrome communitiesElana Meyers Taylor had already cemented her place in Olympic history long before Monday night. She had competed with and against men on the World Cup tour and at the world championships to help force women's monobob into the Winter Olympic program. She had surpassed the speed skater Shani Davis as the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Games history. She had stacked more Olympic medals than any female bobsledder ever, reaching the podium at Vancouver, Sochi, Pyeongchang and Beijing.But even at the age of 40, with a bad back and a concussion history, even with the added responsibility and time pressures of motherhood, even after five visits to an Olympic podium that would have been enough for a different athlete to call it a day, she had never let go of her dream of standing alone on the top step. Continue reading...

When daily life feels like a black hole of apps and feeds, it's no surprise we crave the intimacy of physical mediaUsually, my handbag is a medley of digital devices and life essentials - my phone, iPad, chargers, keys, tampons. But lately, you're likely to also find a half-done newspaper crossword, a ton of stationery, the book I've restarted three times, and whatever scraps and trinkets I've picked up throughout the day to put in my scrapbook.Analog is back, and it feels like we need it more than ever. In a world where getting just about anything done means being sucked into a digital black hole of apps, sign-up forms, harrowing social media feeds and carnivorous advertisers, it's no surprise that we keep reaching back for the comfort of the physical: Polaroids, vinyl records, real birthday cards. It all helps us slow down and appreciate a world where not everything is online. Continue reading...

The US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister raised in the segregated south who became a close associate of Martin Luther King and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, has died at 84 Continue reading...

Billionaire says he exercised terrible judgment' in maintaining contact with sex offender and Ghislaine MaxwellThe billionaire Thomas Pritzker has stepped down as executive chair of the hotel chain Hyatt, after revelations over his ties with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Pritzker said he had exercised terrible judgment" in maintaining contact with the sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in recruiting and grooming underage girls. Continue reading...

The Trump administration has bought warehouses across the US that could hold thousands. But resistance is growingThere is a vast building, reportedly the size of seven football fields, in Surprise, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix; ICE bought it for $70m. Another building, along the southern border in San Antonio, Texas, was valued at $37m; it's 640,000 sq ft. In January, ICE bought a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, Pennsylvania, not far outside of Philadelphia, for $87.4m. In Williamsport, Maryland, outside Hagerstown, the cost of a facility on a nearly 54-acre plot was $102m.These are massive, industrial spaces, built for holding goods to be shipped elsewhere. Warehouses are drafty and difficult to heat, hard-floored and high-ceilinged, not meant for human habitation. But the Trump administration is aiming to convert them into vast detention camps for immigrants. Some of the buildings could house as many as 9,000 people at a time. The rapid slew of new warehouse purchases by deportation agencies brings to mind the words of the ICE director, Todd Lyons, who told a conference last year that he wanted the effort to operate like Amazon Prime, for human beings". Continue reading...

The Californian once had ambitions of winning gold at the Winter Olympics. But now he is more interested in what skiing can do for the soulGrowing up in the Hayward Hills, just south of Oakland, California, Mallory Duncan lived a hybrid lifestyle throughout his childhood. Weekdays were spent at school, avoiding homework, disrupting class and getting in trouble. Weekends at Alpine Meadows, a ski resort on the north-west shores of Lake Tahoe, were for jumping off cliffs and skiing powder with friends. Every Sunday he would have dinner at his grandad's house, watch football and listen to jazz.I've come to accept that I don't always fit into the ski industry," says Duncan, a professional skier, award-winning film-maker, entrepreneur and saxophonist. I live in Portland and love the city life, music and the integration of art into my work. Being exposed to many different types of experiences helps me be more creative in everything I do." Continue reading...

Hopes of success remain low after Trump points finger at Zelenskyy and Moscow keeps up hardline demands

There's a lesson here for the UK and the anti-WHO Nigel Farage - Trump attacks it in public, but in private he knows he still needs itDonald Trump is persistent. In his first term as president, he withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) on 6 July 2020, giving the necessary one-year notice period. Soon after, Joe Biden was elected, and he reversed this executive order within days of being in office, reinstating the US support for the agency on 20 January 2021. While many hoped this would be the end of the story, Trump came back with a vengeance in his second term and immediately signed an executive order withdrawing on 20 January 2025.This means that - buried under news of other Trump-related chaos - the US formally left the WHO at the end of last month. It is just the second time in the agency's history a major power has left. In 1949, during the cold war, the USSR withdrew citing unhappiness with the US influence over the organisation. In 1956, with concerns over disease surveillance and spread, the USSR re-engaged with the UN system.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

By trusting the US, we handed Trump a kill switch. Yet Europe's digital sovereignty is an achievable goalThe French judge Nicolas Guillou knows exactly how deep Europe's dependence on US tech is. Guillou and his colleagues at the international criminal court are under US sanctions. They can no longer use e-commerce, book hotels online or hire a car. Their home smart devices ignore them. Credit cards from European banks no longer function, because Europe has still not developed its own EU-wide payments system, so most electronic purchases go through Visa and Mastercard. Converting euros to foreign currencies is extraordinarily difficult because everything passes through dollars. Living in Europe is no protection against Donald Trump bricking your digital life.This dependence is not limited to mod-cons. Last year, the chairman of the Danish parliament's defence committee said that he regretted his part in Denmark's decision to buy US-made F-35 fighter jets: I can easily imagine a situation where the USA will demand Greenland from Denmark and will threaten to deactivate our weapons and let Russia attack us when we refuse. Buying American weapons is a security risk that we can not run." He is not alone. Spain has abandoned plans to buy F-35s.Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties Continue reading...

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner will meet delegates from Russia and Ukraine in Geneva. Key US politics stories from 16 February at a glanceDonald Trump has piled pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal with Russia fast" before US-brokered talks in Geneva on Tuesday. Ukraine better come to the table, fast," the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One while en route to Washington.Trump is pushing to end the conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but two previous rounds of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi did not yield any signs of a breakthrough. Continue reading...

In ruling, judge cited quote from Orwell's novel 1984 describing process by which authoritarians rewrite historyA federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday ordered the National Park Service to reinstall a slavery exhibit at a Philadelphia historic site, pending the outcome of ongoing litigation after the city sued the federal government over its removal.The National Park Service last month dismantled and removed a long-established slavery-related exhibit at the Independence National Historical park, which holds the former residence of George Washington, in response to Donald Trump's claims, which have been rejected by civil rights groups, of anti-American ideology" at historical and cultural institutions. Continue reading...

Police confirm suspect is one of dead in incident at boys' hockey game that injured four in PawtucketAt least three people are dead and three more hospitalized in critical condition in a mass shooting at an indoor ice rink in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, during a high school hockey match on Monday afternoon, the police said.The Pawtucket police chief, Tina Goncalves, told reporters at a news conference that the suspect is one of the dead. Continue reading...

State's governor had demanded impartial inquiry into the shooting of the VA nurse by federal immigration agentsMinnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January.Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration's surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis. Continue reading...

Fulton county office was raided in January amid Donald Trump's claims that 2020 election was fraudulentRights groups have sued to protect voter information that was seized by the FBI in a controversial raid in Georgia at the behest of Donald Trump in his renewed push to invalidate the 2020 election.The NAACP and other civil rights organizations filed a motion on 15 February to prohibit the Trump administration from misusing the voter information" taken from an elections warehouse in Fulton county, Georgia, late last month. Continue reading...

Exclusive: First meeting to be held over domestic payments system aimed at reducing reliance on US networksUK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump's ability to turn off US-owned payment systems.The meeting, chaired by Barclays' UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur. Continue reading...

Property where abuse took place purchased for $13.4m in 2023 by Texas businessman Donald Huffines' familyThe family of a self-identified Trump Republican" running for office in Texas bought Jeffrey Epstein's New Mexico ranch where the sex trafficker abused teenage girls and young women, according to new documents.A spokesperson for Donald Huffines, a Texas businessman and former GOP state senator now running for comptroller, confirmed the purchase to the Santa Fe New Mexican, a local media outlet. Continue reading...

It's awkward, nobody seems to know what is going on, and the president's thumb is at half-mast. It's almost a metaphor for diplomatic relations between the US and the UKWhen Liz Truss tweeted a photo of herself standing next to Donald Trump, she captioned it right about everything". All that effort, all that security clearance and long-haul travel and whatnot, to reach the pinnacle of proximity to your spiritual leader, and that's the best she could come up with? It was bafflingly lame. And yet the least confusing thing about this scene were the words.What exactly is going on in this photo? Truss clearly knows where she is, because she's grinning with a kind of victorious serenity, as if she's finally achieved the plaudit she knew all along was hers. At the same time - not wishing to be unsisterly - she doesn't appear to have brushed her hair, so it doesn't feel like this photo opportunity was in anyone's diary. It looks like a selfie you'd catch when you run into your favourite contestant from The Traitors on your way through an airport. No time to worry about your grooming; it's the chance of a lifetime, every second counts. Continue reading...

Former US president clarifies they're real' answer that he gave during quick-fire interview roundHours after Barack Obama caused a frenzy by saying aliens were real on a podcast, the former US president has posted a statement clarifying that he has not seen any evidence of them and that he was merely trying to stick with the spirit" of an interviewer's rapid round of questioning.In a conversation with the American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, Obama appeared to confirm the apparent existence of aliens during a segment in which the host asks guests quick questions and the guests respond with quick answers. Continue reading...

In Instagram post, TV host whose mother disappeared 15 days ago in Arizona says you're not lost or alone'The TV news anchor Savannah Guthrie issued a fresh appeal to anyone who knows the whereabouts of her missing mother, saying that you're not lost or alone" and it is never too late to do the right thing".The Today anchor, who is stepping away from NBC's morning broadcast, urged whoever has her or knows where she is" to come forward, but did not make reference to any ransom demands or communication with any abductor. Continue reading...

In an age in which every gripe is highlighted and performative fury is good business, there is an argument that long-termism has become impossible