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When my wife went into labour, I craved a BLT after years of vegetarianism – and I’m far from the only one whose best intentions have fallen by the waysideI lost my veg-inity on a hard hospital sofa earlier this year. It was quick and messy and sordidly satisfying. The situation was this: my pregnant wife had gone for a 39-week ultrasound and the doctors made the unexpected decision to induce labour immediately. We had spent 24 hours in the hospital waiting for the baby to make an exit and the stress and excitement of it all had made me a little tense – and very hungry. Going in, I’d had the vague idea that the miracle of imminent birth would overwhelm me with beautiful feelings and wonder; instead, I just kept thinking about bacon. I hadn’t eaten meat for almost a decade at that point, but I was suddenly overcome with the urge to abandon my vegetarianism and inhale a BLT. People respond to stress in different ways and instead of fight or flight it seems my body kicks into meaty sandwich mode. (My wife, who had been subsisting only on clear hospital broth and apple juice, gave me her blessing to go and get one, by the way. I don’t want you to think I am a monster.)Here’s some free advice: do not eat an enormous BLT before your partner gives birth, particularly if your innards haven’t dealt with meat for a while. Shortly after shoving the food in my mouth, my wife started pushing and I started feeling very queasy indeed. I broke out in a meat sweat just as the baby’s head started showing; shamefully I had to sit down for a minute. “I’m fine, I’m fine! I’m not squeamish, I promise!” I told every nurse who asked if I was going to faint. “The thing is, I just ate a bacon sandwich and I’m actually a vegetarian.” I kept on trying to explain this to everyone in the room until my wife told me, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

There have been five suicides and eight additional deaths this year in New York City’s notorious jail complexNew York’s Rikers Island, one of the largest and most notorious jails in the world, is reaching a breaking point after more than a dozen incarcerated people died this year alone, in what elected officials and advocates are calling a humanitarian crisis.The jail, located on an island in between the Bronx and Queens, has descended into dangerous chaos. Those with access to visit reported seeing inmates walking around with infected self-harm wounds, an inmate hijacking a bus full of prisoners and crashing it into a wall, and a lack of access to basic hygiene products. Continue reading...

Research finds boosters, even when given to people who got a different brand originally, led to an increase in antibody countAmerican regulators plan to let Americans “mix and match” booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine.This means that people aren’t required to get the booster from the same brand that was used in their original inoculation, the New York Times first reported late on Monday. Continue reading...

Ralph Northam had a mild case in September 2020 that left him with long-lasting effects, including loss of smell and tasteMore than a year after testing positive for Covid-19, Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, is warning about the importance of vaccines and the long-lasting effects of Covid.After a mild case in September 2020 that felt like a sinus infection, Northam said in a video briefing that he was recovering quickly, and he waited for his sense of smell and taste to return. Instead, his symptoms gained force – when he drinks lemonade, it tastes like gasoline, and sometimes he smells smoke that isn’t there. Most of the time, though, he can’t smell or taste anything – including potential gas leaks when he restores vintage cars. Continue reading...

In California hundreds of public employees, including police and firefighters, are claiming ‘sincerely held’ objections to the vaccineThis month, California became the first state to require Covid-19 vaccines for all schoolchildren but the provision came with a loophole: students will be granted religious exemptions.California, which currently has the lowest coronavirus case rate in the US, has been issuing a series of sweeping mandates, requiring that healthcare workers, state employees, care workers and schoolteachers staff all get the vaccine. But in each case, Californians are able to ask for personal belief exemptions – and they are doing so in droves. Continue reading...

Labor uprisings are not a spectator sport. They demand not just your attention, but your participationYou may be forgiven for having the strange feeling this week that America has suddenly been seized by a very retro kind of labor revolution. If you don’t track these things closely, it may have snuck up on you. Better get your marching shoes. This party is just getting started.In March, 800 nurses at St Vincent hospital in Massachusetts went on strike. In April, 1,100 coalminers in Alabama went on strike. (Both of those groups are still on strike) In July, Frito-Lay factory workers went on strike; they were followed in August by their union siblings at Nabisco factories, and, this month, by those who work at Kellogg’s factories.Hamilton Nolan is a labor reporter at In These Times Continue reading...

Public development banks are directly undermining UN and Paris climate goals by channeling billions of taxpayer dollars into multinational meat corporationsAs the climate crisis boils over, new research shows that reducing methane emissions is our best hope to rapidly stem the crisis. It’s time to turn up the heat on the industrial meat industry and dramatically curtail its climate harm, which includes 32% of global methane emissions. Yet instead development banks are using public funds to expand this sector that generates 16.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).On 19 and 20 October, hundreds of public development banks (PDBs) will gather for the second Finance in Common Summit to make pledges to advance Paris climate and UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). The summit – which will also focus on agriculture and agribusiness transformation – presents a vital opportunity for these banks to put their money where their mouth is and align their agriculture investments to meet these goals. Continue reading...

As Trump takes action, Bannon and other former officials face legal peril for defying subpoenas. Plus, the women who live without love

The US is trying to stop female judges and attorneys being interrupted by male counterparts. Sounds all too familiarAlong with various inalienable rights and governing principles, the tendency for men to talk over women has now been officially recognised by the US supreme court. Newly introduced rules to the structure of oral arguments are in place to address the issue of male justices and attorneys (extremely regularly) interrupting their female colleagues.These measures were discussed last week by Sonia Sotomayor, who had the honour of being the most interrupted supreme court justice in the 2019 term. And they show that, far from being a mere everyday annoyance, “mansplaining” (or the ideologically adjacent “manterrupting”) can interfere with democracy. And the fact that, as a woman, you can be a literal supreme court justice and still get shouted down like someone’s little sister isn’t exactly encouraging.Eleanor Margolis is a columnist for the i newspaper and Diva Continue reading...

Pfizer manufacturing problems leave nonprofits paying exorbitant prices for dwindling supplies of life-saving naloxoneAs the United States faces an unprecedented surge in opioid overdoses, harm reduction groups are seeing shortages in naloxone, a usually affordable and easy-to-use medication that reverses overdoses and has been credited with saving many lives.But it’s not because of a lack of supply; there’s actually plenty of naloxone out there. Instead, the dangerous shortage of naloxone is all about soaring prices. Continue reading...

Employees alleges allege intimidation and union-busting at low-cost retailer that reported billions in sales last yearThe low-cost retailer Dollar General has the highest number of store locations in America, with over 17,600 stores in 46 states, and its golden and black logo has become ubiquitous across the country.The company’s rapid footprint is continuing to grow, as a staggering nearly one out of every three retail stores opening in America this year is now a Dollar General. All that business generates dizzying revenue too: the company reported $33.7bn in sales last fiscal year. Continue reading...

In an extract from his new book, Lars Anderson relates how the Bucs promised that Florida could give the veteran a more enjoyable football lifeOn the first day of the free agent negotiating period – it started at noon on Monday, 16 March –Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht sat in his office at One Buc Place and phoned Brady’s longtime agent Don Yee at precisely fifteen seconds after 12. “I’m calling about Tom,” Licht said.“You made the right call,” Yee told Licht. “You really made a good decision to call me.” Yee went on to explain that Brady had been paying close attention to the Bucs and Arians. He emphasized how much Brady respected Arians – who had written a book in 2017 called The Quarterback Whisperer – and Yee noted that Brady had been impressed with the work Arians had done with quarterbacks through the years. Brady had researched Arians, watching a documentary on him, and he admired how close Arians had been with all of his past quarterbacks. “You’ve got a good nucleus of talent at Tampa,” Yee told Licht, “and it’s important that the head coach, general manager, ownership, and the quarterback have the same commitment to winning.” Continue reading...

The ex-general seriously considered running in 1995 but later felt himself increasingly out of step with the Republican partyColin Powell wrote a speech in November 1995 announcing a run for US president. He wrote another speech announcing a decision not to run.When he faced reporters in a hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, Powell delivered the second speech. Continue reading...

Our writers give their verdicts on the new season, which starts on Tuesday night. Who is MVP? Will LeBron get another ring? And who are the dark horses?Giannis Antetokounmpo. It’s kind of nuts, but the reigning NBA finals MVP is only 26, and he may just be hitting his stride. I expect this to be his best season yet on a Bucks team that will be as competitive as last year and confident coming off their title. JN Continue reading...

Developments in select committee’s move to secure Bannon’s conviction come as Trump files lawsuit blocking the release of his White House recordsSteve Bannon and other former top officials in the Trump administration are facing legal peril for defying subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, as the panel prepares to pursue criminal referrals for non-compliance.The legal jeopardy for Bannon – who is expected to be held in contempt by the committee on Tuesday – is anticipated after it emerged in a letter to his attorney, obtained by the Guardian on Monday, that he had claimed executive privilege protections on materials unrelated to the executive branch. Continue reading...

The rules around vegetarianism and meat eating used to be simple. Now there are ever more grey areasLast century, we used to have a lot of conversations about what qualified as a “drink problem” – the range was huge. I interviewed one American public health official and he said: “Anyone who goes out for an evening and has no idea how many drinks he’ll have had by the end of it has a drink problem.” Given that the working definition of an alcoholic in my workplace at the time was “anyone who needs to use their tie as a pulley for their first drink because their hand is shaking too much for the famously unstable shape of a martini glass”, we thought that was hilarious. After more field work, someone came back with “anyone who needs rules around alcohol has a problem with it” – no spirits at home, no drinking on a Sunday night, a rigidly observed yardarm with weekend variations. All that had to go, and then you could be satisfied that you had no problem. These questions were outpaced by the passage of time – now it would be widely agreed that everyone, back then, had a problem.In place of that, we have a question over what counts as a vegetarian. Fish have always been a grey area, not least because they are grey, but now there’s a space-time component – you can be a vegetarian except on a Friday, or unless you’re at somebody else’s house. You can eschew all meat unless it’s hand-reared, which ultimately means you are veggie everywhere except your own house, the worst of all possible worlds from a manners point of view, but maybe the best from the perspective of animal welfare. You can go white-meat only, which amounts to a vendetta against the chicken, but works for sustainability – or you toggle between real and fake meat, and make quite a detailed account of why the fake meat doesn’t taste the same. All this without anyone calling you ridiculous. I wonder if the trajectory is the same, and the future will just agree that we all had a meat problem. Continue reading...

The justice department wrote in its plea that the law defies the supreme court’s major decisions on abortion rightsThe Biden administration has asked the supreme court to block Texas’ extreme abortion ban as a battle over its constitutionality plays out in the courts.The Texas law, which has halted most abortions in the state, defies the supreme court’s major decisions on abortion rights “by banning abortion long before viability – indeed, before many women even realize they are pregnant”, the US Justice Department wrote in its plea to the court. Continue reading...

Colin Powell, the first Black US secretary of state, has died at the age of 84 from Covid complications. Powell was a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, before joining the George W Bush administration as secretary of state. Before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Powell made the case to the United Nations security council that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons. He later said that this represented 'a blot' that will 'always be a part of my record'. Although he was a Republican, in 2008 he endorsed Barack Obama for president. In the years that followed, he felt increasingly detached from the party, ultimately leaving it in the wake of the 6 January insurrection on the Capitol

A country still struggling with the aftermath of a disastrous occupation has a mixed opinion of the former generalFor many Iraqis, Colin Powell was the face of the US invasion which caused an estimated 200,000 deaths, unleashing nearly two decades of domestic chaos and precipitating turmoil throughout the region.His death, at the age of 84, was unlamented by many in a country still grappling with the aftermath of a disastrous occupation and an Islamist insurgency that followed the 2003 war – a conflict that Powell himself was later to acknowledge as a stain on his legacy. Continue reading...

Unlike the Soviet Union, China is an economic, technological and military challenger to the US. That raises questions – especially for TaiwanWhether China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile that can circle the globe or not, there is a convincing argument that the country has emerged as a serious strategic rival to the United States. With scores of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, China already has the ability to strike the US mainland with devastating force. However, the hypersonic missile test – which the Chinese say was a peaceful spacecraft launch – can be read as a warning from Beijing that it could defeat, through its technological prowess, US missile defences.What remains largely unacknowledged is that both Washington and Beijing have been building their strategic nuclear capabilities at a rapid and potentially destabilising pace. The US plans to spend up to $1.5tn to overhaul its nuclear arsenal by rebuilding each leg of its nuclear triad – with new warheads, submarines and bombers being commissioned. China is doing the same. While Monday’s test made headlines around the world, China’s first hypersonic glide test was in 2014. The US has its own plans for such technologies. The unavoidable impression is that such efforts contribute to a dangerous arms race. Continue reading...

Political leaders from Tony Blair to Dick Cheney praise the former soldier and diplomat in the wake of his death from CovidTributes poured in for former Republican secretary of state Colin Powell after the announcement of his death on Monday morning at the age of 84.Leading praise from the US and around the world, Joe Biden hailed “a dear friend and patriot of unmatched honor and dignity” on behalf of himself and the first lady, Jill Biden. Continue reading...

Analysis: His security council presentation didn’t directly lead to the Iraq invasion – but it was a turning point in US-UN relationsColin Powell will be most remembered for the act he most regretted, his 2003 presentation to the UN security council laying out US evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist.It did not directly lead to the Iraq invasion because George W Bush was going to invade anyway, and the presentation did not succeed in its goal of persuading the council to pass a second resolution backing military action against Iraq. Continue reading...

Former US secretary of state and highly decorated army officer who made the case for the 2003 invasion of IraqColin Powell, who has died aged 84 from complications of Covid-19, rose higher in public office than any previous black American, the youngest chair of the joint chiefs of staff. Then, when the second Bush administration emerged from the controversial election of 2000, the new president chose Powell as the first black secretary of state.To outsiders it might have seemed a dream come true. For Powell it gradually turned into a nightmare. When he resigned after Bush’s re-election in 2004, he left as one of America’s least successful diplomats. His mistake lay in trying to bring a voice of reason to an administration that had no wish to hear it. The opening days of the Bush presidency demonstrated how ideology and nationalism would play a far greater role in US foreign policy. The White House quickly repudiated its predecessor’s commitments to policies ranging from global warming to international trade. Continue reading...

Former military leader and the first Black US secretary of state has died of complications from Covid-19Colin Powell, former military leader and the first Black US secretary of state, has died of complications from Covid-19 at the age of 84. Here is a look back at some key facts from Powell’s life, reported by CNN:Powell was born on 5 April 1937 in Harlem, New York. His parents were Jamaican immigrants, his dad, a shipping clerk, and his mom, a seamstress.In college, Powell participated in ROTC, a military training program, and was leader of the precision drill team, earning a top rank.While serving two tours during the Vietnam war, Powell was injured in a helicopter crash and rescued by two fellow soldiers.Powell earned several military and civilian awards in his lifetime including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, twice.Powell was the youngest person, as well as the first Black person, to serve as chairman of the joint chief of staff during the George HW Bush administration.In 1993, Powell was named an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath by Queen Elizabeth II.Powell helped negotiate the return of the former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, in 1994.In 2001, Powell was sworn in as the first Black US secretary of state.Powell published two memoirs, My American Journey and It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership.After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, Powell underwent surgery at the Walter Reed army medical center.Powell pushed for a swift military response to 9/11 in 2001, and Iraq intervention in 2003. He was criticized for presenting questionable intelligence to the United Nations in a 75-minute speech, which he later called a blot on his record.During the summer of 2007, Powell began criticizing the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, the increasing military presence in the country, and Guantánamo Bay.Powell served as one of the honorary co-chairs for Barack Obama’s inauguration, endorsing Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.Following the 6 January insurrection, Powell said he no longer considered himself a Republican.Powell suffered from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, which can lead to a severely compromised immune response. Continue reading...

Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday. He was fully vaccinated.After his time in government, Powell remained a hugely influential commentator on US politics and public life. During a 2011 speech, he spoke about what he considered the most important element of leadership

Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday. Powell, a retired four-star general, was a key figure in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s Continue reading...

The Chicago Sky defeated Diana Taurasi’s Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA finals, but that shouldn’t alter her reputation as one of basketball’s all-time greatsIt was all set up perfectly for Diana Taurasi. After the Phoenix Mercury’s postseason series win over the Las Vegas Aces, the WNBA legend flew back home to witness her wife give birth to the couple’s second child. Then, before the start of the WNBA finals, it was announced that fans had voted Taurasi as the greatest player in league history. With the Mercury facing the sixth-seeded Chicago Sky, the stars had aligned for her to cap off her historic career with a fourth championship.Even though her team was down 2-1 in the best-of-five series, that dream ending to the season still looked plausible in the third quarter of Sunday’s Game 4. The Mercury held a 14-point lead over the Sky and looked set to force a decisive Game 5 in Phoenix. Instead, the Sky pulled off a heroic comeback, clinching their first championship in franchise history. Continue reading...

The bill proposes extending the child tax credit, funding universal pre-K and childcare, and finally giving American parents mandated paid family leaveJoe Manchin is worried that American families will get spoiled if their government looks out for them too much. In negotiations over the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), the Biden administration’s sweeping social spending bill that is poised to be passed through budget reconciliation, the West Virginia senator has reportedly admonished the Biden administration and progressive Democrats that the bill is too big. The Build Back Better Act has already shrunk: the Biden administration initially proposed $3.5tn in social spending, which in negotiation has dwindled dramatically to $2.2tn. The cuts already mean that Biden will likely fail to meet some of his campaign promises, a prospect that spells bad news for the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.But for Manchin – and other conservative Democrats who agree with him – that’s still too much money. Instead, Manchin wants to spend a mere $1.5tn – at most. The danger, Manchin says, is that if the Biden agenda is passed in full, America will become an “entitlement society”. Continue reading...

Freedom Summer registered hundreds of Black people to vote in Mississippi in 1964 in defiance of Jim Crow lawsIn the early 1960s, Charles McLaurin served as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), laying the groundwork for a massive voter registration drive in Mississippi known as Freedom Summer. That historic summer of 1964, young people from across the country poured into the state to help register Black people to vote, a campaign that energized the US civil rights movement and exposed Mississippi’s racial terrors.“In 1962, there was not a single Black elected official in the whole state and Mississippi only had about 5% of the Black population registered to vote,” said McLaurin, flanked by his former SNCC colleagues Freddie Biddle and Hollis Watkins at a recent conference commemorating the organization’s founding in 1960. Continue reading...

Failure to pass legislation to cut emissions before the UN summit in Glasgow could be catastrophic. Plus, the danger of psychological diagnoses

Most Americans know the price tag but don’t know what’s actually in the bill. Here’s a crash courseIn much of the press coverage of the fight over Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill, politicians, pundits and media talking heads often focus on its $3.5tn price tag. But all the attention to the top-line figure ignores the huge implications of what is actually in the legislation – and how it could transform millions of Americans’ lives.That seems to be doing the public a great disservice. A CBS poll found that only 10% of Americans knew “a lot of the specifics” about the Build Back Better plan (also known as the budget reconciliation bill), and 29% did not know what was in it at all. Continue reading...

The Cleveland Browns quarterback is a good player, maybe even a very good one. But he does not have the ability to put a team on his backThe Cardinals clubbed the Browns 37-14 on the road on Sunday to move to 6-0 on the season. They now have the league’s last remaining undefeated record. For Cleveland, it was the same old nagging question: Is Baker Mayfield really good enough?This is not a league solely decided by quarterbacks. But it was hard watching the Cardinals romp up and down the field and not feel the urge to to draw comparisons between Kyler Murray and Mayfield. Two former No 1 overall draft picks. Two Heisman Trophy winners. Both stars at the University of Oklahoma. Continue reading...

The NFL now has 30 medical professionals at each game as it grapples with rule changes and greater head-injury awarenessWe are high above the plush seats in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the NFL’s chief medical officer and I, watching the Atlanta Falcons’ Cordarrelle Patterson getting dumped on his back. “As he throws the ball, keep an eye on his head,” Dr Allen Sills says. The tackle looks innocuous, at least at first. But then Sills asks a technician in the video review booth to slow down the footage before viewing it from another angle. Now it is clear that, as Patterson falls, his head spanks the turf and ricochets up. The incident, from the NFL game in London on Sunday 10 October, led to a call being made downstairs from an independent neurologist to the game officials – and to Patterson being checked immediately for concussion.In recent years we have learnt that, when it comes to brain injuries, what the NFL has faced first – from class-action lawsuits from former players to having to make rule changes to prevent concussions – other sports will eventually experience. It has been forced to confront and adapt. That is one reason the Premier League held a medical conference with the NFL last week: to share best practice when it comes to player health and safety, including concussion. Continue reading...

Judge estimates jury selection could take at least two weeks after duty notices were mailed to 1,000 people in Glynn county GeorgiaThe trial of three white men accused of pursuing and murdering Ahmaud Arbery in one of Georgia’s most notorious racial killings is scheduled to begin on Monday with jury selection, a process the judge estimates could take at least two weeks.Jury duty notices were mailed to 1,000 people in Glynn county, about one in every 85 adult residents, in an attempt to secure an unbiased panel of 12 plus four alternates for the trial of Travis McMichael, his father Greg and their friend William “Roddie” Bryan. Continue reading...

Lawsuit brought by Gaige Grosskreutz, who was wounded by Kyle Rittenhouse during anti-police brutality protests in August 2020The police department in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha is facing new legal action after being accused of “deputizing” a group of militia vigilantes during anti-police brutality protests last year in which 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people.The action, brought by Gaige Grosskreutz, who was wounded during the incident, alleges that local police effectively deputized a “band of white nationalist vigilantes” during protests sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake, who is now paralyzed from the waist down, by a white police officer. Continue reading...

Republican Adam Kinzinger says pursuit of a criminal contempt referral was ‘the first shot over the bow’ for Trump alliesAdam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the special committee investigating the deadly 6 January US Capitol attack, said on Sunday the pursuit of a criminal contempt referral against Steve Bannon was “the first shot over the bow” for allies of Donald Trump defying subpoenas to testify.“It’s very real, but it says to anybody else coming in front of the committee, ‘Don’t think that you’re going to be able to just kind of walk away and we’re going to forget about you’,” Kinzinger, a vocal critic of the former president, told CNN’s State of the Union. Continue reading...

Redrawn map, expected to strengthen Republican numbers, faces final negotiations before being sent to Governor Greg AbbottRepublicans have moved to tighten their grip on power in Texas after a late-night vote in the state’s legislature approved an early sign-off to new congressional boundaries at the expense of communities of color.The Republican-led effort will give the party powers over redrawn US House maps and shore up its eroding dominance in Texas, whose demographics are becoming less white in a shift that most experts see as favoring Democrats. Continue reading...

Former US president was admitted to California hospital on Tuesday with an infection unrelated to CovidBill Clinton was released Sunday from the Southern California hospital where he had been treated for an infection.The former US president was released around 8am from the University of California Irvine medical center. Continue reading...

Pet-friendly offices and insurance for animal companions could be the trending post-pandemic employment perksWe’re in the midst of a severe labor shortage and a reluctance among many people to return to the office. So how can small businesses attract workers? Maybe we should be considering dogs and cats?It’s no secret that pet ownership soared during the pandemic. According to the American Pet Products Association, 11.38m US households took on a new pet during the pandemic, with 75% of all pet owners saying that spending time with a dog or cat helped to reduce their stress and increased their sense of wellbeing during Covid-19. Continue reading...