Many foreign-born workers have lost their jobs to the pandemic – and strict new visa rules have raised the threat of removalWhen Swaraj lost his job amid the recession last year, it triggered a ticking time bomb. Suddenly, he had to either find a different employer to sponsor his visa or return to India, throwing away the life he had built during half a decade in the United States.“It’s not right,” said Swaraj, who asked the Guardian to only use his first name to protect his career. “If I lose my work status, I have to leave this country within 60 days. I felt like … that’s not correct.” Continue reading...

Many athletes struggle for purpose when they retire. But the former USWNT defender has helped battle Covid-19 on the US-Mexico borderRachel Van Hollebeke’s days start early and end late. Although sometimes it’s the other way around. She’s in the middle of her residency program – that grueling rite of passage for new doctors that involves 80-hour workweeks, sleep deprivation and steep learning curves, all under the 24-hour glare of fluorescent hospital lights. It’s a career’s worth of medical knowledge and practice condensed into the high-speed blur of a few years.This isn’t the typical retirement plan for most people, much less a world-class athlete who earned 113 international caps for the US women’s national team and played for five different clubs. The list of World Cup-level footballers who went on to become doctors is surely small: Socrates, Brazil’s midfield general and captain in 1982, is a rare example. But for Van Hollebeke, who played much of her career under her maiden name Buehler, the afterlife of her playing career was never going to involve simply putting her feet up. Continue reading...

Law enforcement discovers wide range of incendiary devices while NYPD document defines rightwing groups as extremistsFederal government documents obtained by the Guardian show a wide range of explosives, flamethrowers and incendiary devices found by law enforcement agencies outside political conventions, public buildings and protests during 2020 and 2021.The extent of the weaponry – including timed devices deposited as part of a suspected pro-Trump bomb plot –reveals the perils and potential violence circulating through American politics in the grip of unrest linked to pandemic shutdowns, anti-racism protests and rightwing activism and insurrection that culminated in the attack on the Capitol in Washington. Continue reading...

The president’s radical domestic plans have been shaped by a new generation of staffers moving through the West WingIn president Joe Biden’s first address to Congress last week, he celebrated the $1.9tn relief plan that passed within the first days of his presidency and proposed an ambitious $4tn plan for family care, green infrastructure, education and jobs that Democrats might have been surprised to hear from even Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. To understand how Biden, the 78-year-old self-proclaimed moderate, came to push such an ambitious and progressive domestic policy agenda, you can start by looking at the young lanyard-wearing staffers who populate the West Wing and Old Executive Office Building.Policy decisions in Washington are made by the principals – the president, the senators and the cabinet secretaries – but their decisions are significantly constrained by the information they receive. I served as associate staff secretary to President Obama from 2015 until the end of his term, building his briefing book and ensuring the appropriate staff edited and commented on the memos he received, and I saw how this information shaped the president’s choices. The president’s staff give the president a policy menu of memos, data and updates on government programmes. Extending the menu analogy, presidential decision-making looks a lot more like choosing from a few items on the prix fixe than dictating a specific meal to a private chef. Continue reading...

As a film-maker, I thought I could write the screenplay for my own love life. When I got lost in a hailstorm at 12,000ft, searching for my ex, I realized I desperately needed a new endingHe doesn’t love me. He never loved me. And he isn’t looking for me – so I damn well better survive the night on my own.No food, no tent, no map. No one to blame but myself. Too bad burning hot shame isn’t a heat source. Continue reading...

The Covid pandemic has accelerated a longer-term trend towards fewer births, with the rate dropping to 1.6 children per womanThe US birth rate has fallen 4% in the largest single-year drop in nearly 50 years, according to a government report.The rate dropped for mothers of every major race and ethnicity, and in nearly all age groups, falling to the lowest point since federal health officials started tracking it more than a century ago, the report due to be published on Wednesday said. Continue reading...

Attorney Eric Nelson alleges prosecutorial and jury misconduct and errors of law at trial and says the verdict was contrary to lawDerek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, has asked a judge for a new trial, according to a court document filed Tuesday.Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, said his client had been deprived of a fair trial, adding that there had been prosecutorial and jury misconduct and errors of law at trial and that the verdict was contrary to law. Continue reading...

Ex-president unveils retro webpage featuring series of statements resembling blogposts ahead of Facebook oversight board’s decision on his suspensionBanned by Facebook and Twitter, Donald Trump has gone back to the future with an online communication tool that might be described as a glorified blog.His retro webpage, billed “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”, appears at DonaldJTrump.com/desk and features a small photo of the 45th president writing in a book on his desk. Continue reading...

Los Angeles sheriff’s department has routinely retaliated against victims’ relatives who speak out, NLG and ACLU say in reportLos Angeles sheriff deputies frequently harass the families of people they have killed, including taunting them at vigils, parking outside their homes and following them and pulling them over for no reason, according to a new report from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).Related: ‘It’s a slap in the face’: LA activists protest mayor’s police budget increase Continue reading...

President urges Americans to get inoculated, saying US is ‘ready to move’ if Pfizer shot is approved for younger teensJoe Biden has announced a goal of ensuring 70% of American adults receive at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine by Independence Day on 4 July.The US president urged people in their 20s and 30s in particular to get inoculated and said his administration was “ready to move immediately” if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorised the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children aged 12 to 15. Continue reading...

The bear didn’t endorse John Cox, who lost the last governor’s race by 24 points, unless not eating him counts as support

Just months after ICU capacities were at zero in Los Angeles, the county has made a turnaround – but officials advise that vaccination pace is slowingJust months after ICU capacities were at zero in Los Angeles, the county has made a turnaround. But officials advise caution, and warn that vaccine hesitancy is catching up.In January, LA buckled under the weight of a monumental Covid-19 surge: ambulances circled from emergency room to emergency room in search of empty beds, and ICU capacity in the county plunged to zero. With morgues overloaded, the national guard was mobilized to aid with the handling of bodies. Now, less than four months later, the county has reached a proud milestone. For two days in a row, LA reported zero Covid-19 related deaths. Continue reading...

A social media campaign featuring a self-described cisgender millennial Latin intelligence officer drew ire from right and leftIn its long and colourful history, US intelligence has come in for a lot of criticism, for engineering coups, drug trafficking and torture, but just over 100 days into the Biden administration it faces a new charge no one saw coming: is the CIA just too woke?A social media campaign, Humans of CIA, aimed at boosting diversity at the agency has united critics on the right and left in a moment of shared derision, albeit for different reasons. Continue reading...

If the government had faced reality and acted earlier, Covid might have been held at bay. But the rot runs deeperThere was an air of inevitability about India’s unfolding Covid disaster. Watching from afar in London, I had long feared the worst for the country of my birth. Since India has decades of underfunded health infrastructure and no cohesive national strategy, I often discussed with family and friends back home that the virus would hit its 1.4 billion people harder when the inevitable second wave came round, even with its young population and available vaccines.By late last year, my loved ones were going about their daily lives believing the pandemic had been conquered, alongside many others who attended cricket matches, weddings and religious festivals. India’s road to Covid hell was paved with delusions of grandeur – a fanciful idea that the virus had been vanquished by sheer might of will, superhuman immunity, faith in an almighty God, and piecemeal restrictions. By January, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, had declared India had defeated the virus. In the months that followed, the government – and by extension citizens – acted as if it had. Between January and mid-April 2021, India’s national scientific taskforce on Covid-19 did not hold a single meeting. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from people in the US about the sanitation issues that are affecting them and their communityMany Americans do not have access to basic sanitation facilities and must grapple with problems such as sewage flowing into their yards or homes and waste in the streets of their communities.The Guardian is partnering with Catherine Coleman Flowers, the award-winning sanitation researcher and author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, to investigate just how widespread this problem is. Continue reading...

Woman only 29 weeks pregnant delivers son on flight between Salt Lake City and Honolulu after appeal for a doctor on boardA woman who went into labour prematurely on a plane was fortunate to have chosen a flight with some highly qualified fellow passengers.Lavinia “Lavi” Mounga was travelling from Salt Lake City to Hawaii on 28 April for a family holiday when she went into labour at 29 weeks with her son, Raymond. Continue reading...

Vaccine will generate 73% more than forecast based on contracts signed until mid-April

The advanced economies and China are rebounding from the Covid crisis, but there is a dangerous global divergenceWhat is remarkable about the increase in nationalist sentiment across the developed world in recent years is that it is occurring at a time when many of today’s most pressing challenges, including the climate emergency and the Covid-19 pandemic, are fundamentally global problems demanding global solutions. And the anger brewing among citizens of vaccine-poor countries – basically, the two-thirds of humanity living outside the advanced economies and China – could come back to haunt the rich world all too soon.Joe Biden’s ambitious plans to address inequality in America are to be welcomed, provided the administration succeeds in covering the long-run costs through higher taxes or stronger growth, admittedly two big ifs. So, too, is the smaller but still significant Next Generation EU scheme to help EU members such as Italy and Spain that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Continue reading...

As banks and post offices shut down in rural America, and flights to remote areas become more expensive, many Americans are cut off

Many people support an open letter raising the spectre of a military coup. Marine Le Pen is one of themA recent open letter to French president, Emmanuel Macron, signed by almost 50 retired army generals so far and more than 24,000 (predominantly former) servicemen, was occasion for many on the French left to raise the alarm, believing a coup d’état was either in the making or a future possibility. The top-brass signatories, led by generals Antoine Martinez and Christian Piquemal, say the country is on the verge of collapse because of immigration and crime, as well as Islamism and the support it gets from some on the left. They are angry at “cancel culture” and at any intellectual attempt to criticise the country’s colonial past. These generals warn that if the situation worsens, their fellow soldiers on active duty may choose to intervene and take control.Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National party, endorsed the generals’ call. A survey by Harris Interactive, which found that 58% of respondents agreed with the open letter’s statements, stoked further fear. This gives the impression that the far right is stronger than ever. Some political pundits go as far as to say that while Macron is predicted to win another term in 2022 against Le Pen, there’s a very real possibility that Le Pen will win by a small margin, sending a thunderstrike across the world. Continue reading...

Thanks to relentless marketing and advice our tiny apartment is already stuffed full of weird stuff, such as snot-suckers. But do I really need an AI-powered crib to be a good parent?A boob. A bed. Maybe a bottle? In the early days of my wife’s pregnancy, I naively thought that was all a newborn baby would really need. After all, all they do is eat, poop, sleep, repeat. You don’t need an arsenal of complicated equipment to deal with that, right?Wrong. Our first child is due imminently and, despite my best efforts to escape the evil clutches of the baby-industrial complex, our tiny New York apartment is stuffed with weird stuff. Reader, I have a snot-sucker. That’s not a euphemism – that’s a real thing you use to suck mucus out of a child’s nose. I asked a friend with kids: “Seriously? Do I actually need this?” She gave me a look a lot of parents have been giving me recently. It’s a look that says: “Damn, you really don’t know what you’re in for.” Continue reading...

Many readers thought too much space in print and online was devoted to the Duke of Edinburgh’s passingHow much is the right amount of coverage for the death of a royal consort?On Saturday 10 April, the day after Prince Philip died, the Guardian newspaper’s front page carried a black-and-white portrait of the duke, followed by 12 more pages of news – including a four-page obituary – one comment piece and a leader article. Continue reading...

Trend of artists selling rights continues, as Kid Creole and the Coconuts also sign dealRed Hot Chili Peppers and Kid Creole and the Coconuts have become the latest artists to cash in on their catalogue of hits, selling the rights to songs including Californication and Annie I’m Not Your Daddy to London-listed music royalties investment firms.The Chili Peppers are poised to sell their publishing rights to London-listed music investment firm Hipgnosis, reportedly for more than $140m (£101m). Continue reading...

The ‘mortality penalty’ that the US pays every year is equivalent to the number of Americans who died of Covid in 2020A 30-year-old American is three times more likely to die at that age than his or her European peers. In fact, Americans do worse at just about every age. To make matters more grim, the American disadvantage is growing over time.In 2017, for example, higher American mortality translated into roughly 401,000 excess deaths – deaths that would not have occurred if the US had Europe’s lower age-specific death rates. Pre-pandemic, that 401,000 is about 12% of all American deaths. The percentage is even higher below age 85, where one in four Americans die simply because they do not live in Europe. Continue reading...

The president increased the cap on the number of refugees the US will admit to 62,500, after a backlash against delays. Plus, at least 20 people died after an overpass collapsed in Mexico City

The rivalry between the teams was a one-sided affair for many years. After an offseason arms race, it’s become the most interesting one in baseballIf you ask the Los Angeles Dodgers, they may deny that they have a rivalry with the San Diego Padres. The Dodgers, after all, have won the NL West for the last eight seasons while the San Diego Padres’ 2020 postseason appearance was their first since 2006. That was three presidents ago. However, their first two series this season have made it obvious that if the teams weren’t rivals before, they sure are now.It was 16 April, the first regular-season game between the two teams in 2021, when Dodgers pitcher Dennis Santana hit Padres batter Jorge Mateo in extra innings, sparking a bench-clearing brawl. The Dodgers won the battle that day, battering the Padres not in a fight but where it really counts: on the scoreboard. They won 11-6 in the 12th inning thanks to a rally-starting Corey Seager home run. The Dodgers’ flair for the dramatic didn’t stop there. In their next game, Mookie Betts made a ridiculous game-saving catch to preserve a 2-0 LA lead. The prohibitive World Series favorites looked like they were in control. Continue reading...

Pandemic job cuts have meant many people have no insurance to pay for dental work – and the poorest are hardest hitMaureen Haley, 66, lost her home in Florida in the wake of the 2008 recession. She now lives in a camper near Greensboro, North Carolina, relying on social security and Medicare to make ends meet and pay for healthcare.But Haley has problems with her teeth, and cannot afford to see a dentist to have them fixed. Continue reading...

You don’t need special gear to create this optical trickery. If you have an iPhone 11 or 12 you too can loom large over a former US presidentHi Carly. As our resident photography expert, I have a question. Something about this photo featuring Joe and Jill Biden and former president Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter seems … off?It sure does. Where to begin … The scale of Biden v Rosalynn is very unusual – he looks three times the size of her and even though the natural physical changes during old age may be playing a role here, I don’t think ageing shrinks you that much. Also, the scale of Jimmy Carter’s feet compared to the rest of his body is weird – sort of like a reverse statue of David. Finally, notice the lounge chairs, they look like they are from a doll’s house. That seems unlikely. Continue reading...

Approval would bolster US vaccine drive and help ease parents’ worries over kids’ exposure to virusThe US Food and Drug Administration is preparing to authorize the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine for adolescents between ages 12 and 15 years by early next week, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing federal officials familiar with the agency’s plans.An approval is highly anticipated after the drugmakers said in March that the vaccine had been found to be safe, effective and produced robust antibody responses in 12- to 15-year-olds in a clinical trial. Continue reading...

Judge agrees to delay amid new charges and planning difficulties related to coronavirusA US judge has granted Ghislaine Maxwell’s request to delay her trial on charges she procured teenage girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, saying the trial will begin in the fall.The US district judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan said on Monday that a “short” postponement of the scheduled 12 July trial was appropriate because federal prosecutors had added new charges to the case, and Covid-19 protocols had made trial preparation harder. Continue reading...

President said last month he would leave Trump-era figure of 15,000 in place this yearJoe Biden has formally raised the US cap on refugee admissions to 62,500 this year, weeks after facing bipartisan blowback for his delay in replacing the record-low ceiling set by Donald Trump.Refugee resettlement agencies have waited for Biden to quadruple the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year since 12 February, when a presidential proposal was submitted to Congress saying he planned to do so. Continue reading...

Republican who voted to impeach Trump under increasing fire from members of her own party who are loyal to former presidentLiz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump, is coming under fire from members of her own party after her tweet that the former president did not lose the election unfairly. The spat illustrates the split between Republicans loyal to Trump and those willing to criticize the former president.“The 2020 presidential election was not stolen,” Cheney tweeted. “Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.” Continue reading...

Daniel Humm, owner of foodie haven with three Michelin stars, says modern food system ‘simply not sustainable’One of New York’s top fine dining restaurants is abandoning meat and going for a plant-based menu after its chef and owner posted a message on its website saying the modern food system was “simply not sustainable”.Daniel Humm is the driving force behind Eleven Madison Park, which has won three Michelin stars and is one of the top names in Manhattan’s elite foodie scene. Continue reading...

The Mexican fighter talks exclusively about his upcoming bout with Billy Joe Saunders, childhood bullies and the pitfalls of fame“I love this,” Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez says as he looks around the scattered debris of his gym in San Diego. His intense gaze scans the heavy bags and speed balls, the hand wraps and water bottles, the gloves and head guards, with an empty ring at its very heart. It’s just after 10 in the morning and the familiar clatter and din of his training camp has already begun for the day. Álvarez, the best boxer in the world, turns back to my Zoom screen and then, leaning forward, he speaks in Spanish with surprising ardour for a 30-year-old fighter who has been boxing professionally for more than half his life: “I love it. I’m always motivated because I love boxing.”It’s strangely moving as we reach the core of a rare one-to-one interview with Álvarez and he switches back to English to say two simple yet compelling sentences. “This is the reality of my life. No boxing, no life.” Continue reading...

The US president, Joe Biden, has said it is time for corporations and the richest Americans to ‘start paying their fair share’ as he pitched his $4tn infrastructure and welfare plans at an event in Virginia.Speaking at a community college in Norfolk, Biden made the case for increasing taxes on the wealthiest in the US to fund his $1.8tn American families plan and $2tn infrastructure plan. The packages would provide funds for childcare, invest in free universal pre-schooling and rebuild America’s transport and public housing.‘I think it’s about time we started giving tax breaks and tax benefits to working class families and middle class families, instead of just the very wealthy,’ Biden said.

President hit the road on Monday to promote infrastructure and welfare spending plans totaling about $4tnJoe Biden said it is time for corporations and the richest Americans to “start paying their fair share” of taxes as he hit the road on Monday in a concerted effort to promote his administration’s huge new infrastructure and welfare spending plans totaling about $4tn.Speaking at a community college in Norfolk, Virginia, on Monday afternoon, the US president made the case for increasing taxes on the wealthiest in the US in order to help fund his ambitious $1.8tn American Families Plan and $2tn infrastructure plan. Continue reading...

Billionaire, 90, lets slip plan for vice-chairman to take over at $644bn investment groupBillionaire investor Warren Buffett has confirmed that the vice-chairman of his Berkshire Hathaway investment conglomerate, Greg Abel, will succeed him as chief executive.The 90-year-old’s succession plan was teased out of him – apparently by accident – by his longtime business partner, 97-year-old Charlie Munger, at the company’s annual meeting over the weekend. Buffett, speaking to CNBC in an interview broadcast on Monday, confirmed the choice. Continue reading...

Public confidence in the monarchy legitimises the institution. Will the Prince of Wales gain it on ascending to the throne?In last year’s “democracy rankings” by the Economist Intelligence Unit, four of the top five spots went to countries where the head of state wears a crown. Nobody with a modern democratic outlook would dream of putting a monarchy atop a democracy. In practice they seem to work rather well. The reasoning, perhaps, being that somebody has to possess the final power of decision and thus stamp a democratic regime with their own views. Why not an apolitical sovereign, born to power irrespective of ability and whose opinions are hidden? Only a constitutional monarch, the logic runs, could permit unimpeded public administration.This is one of the arguments in a lively, republican-leaning essay by Tom Clark in this month’s Prospect magazine. He argues persuasively for shrinking the crown to a continental-sized monarchy. Mr Clark, formerly one of this column’s writers and editors, says that it would be unwise to assume the institution “can – or should – just carry on as it has been after Elizabeth II”. He says that the crown could be sunk by a more divisive monarch. Royalty depends on popularity. YouGov polling in 2020 put Elizabeth II’s approval rating at 69%, way above her son and heir Prince Charles, at just 40%. Only 7% approve of Prince Andrew, who unwisely went on TV and defended his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...

Rana Abdelhamid, the daughter of Egyptian immigrants, is seeking to oust a veteran congresswoman in a Democratic primarySteinway is a bustling and noisy street in the Queens neighborhood of Astoria. The area locally referred to as “Little Egypt” is brimming with people grocery shopping and bicyclists rushing in and out of shawarma shops to deliver their next order. It’s a north African, south-west Asian neighborhood made up of small businesses like halal butcher shops, hookah lounges and Middle Eastern restaurants.For Rana Abdelhamid, this neighborhood is home. On 14 April, Abdelhamid announced her run against the incumbent Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney to represent New York’s 12th congressional district, a region made up of a significant portion of Manhattan’s East Side, Astoria and north Brooklyn. It ranges from the fantastically wealthy penthouse apartments that line Manhattan’s Central Park to the struggling working-class areas where Abdelhamid grew up. Continue reading...

It’s not the ‘woke’ who want to erase the past, but those who are determined that it should never be examinedIt seems that the government’s war on woke is box office gold, infinite spite fired at an endlessly replenished stream of targets, none of them moving very fast, since they totally weren’t expecting culture secretary Oliver Dowden to even be aware of their work.But, ask anyone who uses it pejoratively to describe another person what “woke” actually means, and it turns out to have a specific usage. In an academic or museum trustee, it means anyone who talks about decolonising the curriculum, as in the case of the academic whose reappointment to the board of the Museum of Greenwich was reportedly vetoed by Dowden. In the context of youth, it’s the ones on Black Lives Matter protests, unless it’s the ones posing a threat to a slave owner’s statue. Continue reading...