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CCTV footage shows Mike Nearman opening a door for agitators on 21 December, when state legislature was in special sessionA Republican politician who on Thursday became the first representative ever expelled from the Oregon state house said the people he covertly let into the state capitol in December were “mostly blue-haired old ladies”.In fact they were far-right agitators, among them members of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group often involved in street violence, and people toting guns and Confederate flags and wearing militia regalia. Some attacked law enforcement officers with bear spray. Outside, reporters were assaulted and doors broken. Police struggled to force the rioters back. Continue reading...

New data shows officials approved fewer applications during the pandemic than the year before, despite risks from virusThe last time Sean McQuiddy called home from federal prison, it was just before Christmas in 2020, and he had just tested positive for Covid-19.“If I don’t make it out of here,” his brother recalled him saying, “just know that I love you.” Continue reading...

If Boris Johnson were to raise the issue with Joe Biden, the US president might reply that at least he is trying. Britain is notJoe Biden is a fine one to lecture Boris Johnson on trade with his neighbours. Johnson could well retort: what about the US and Mexico? What about the $88bn Biden spends trying and failing to police his shambolic drugs trade with Latin America, and its related market in anarchy, refugees, gangsterism and death, not to mention the resulting US crime wave?Last week the FBI boasted that it had infiltrated the dark web and busted 300 trafficking and laundering rings, sparking 800 arrests. This was a total waste of money, a classic case of attacking symptoms not causes. All it will do is cram hundreds more desperate people into prison and briefly increase the retail price of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl and the rest. The impact on consumption will be zero. Continue reading...

Bank says it will allow it ‘to plan a safer return to the office’, scheduled for next week

Boris Johnson hailed the UK-US relationship as Joe Biden and G7 leaders met in Cornwall. Plus, the rightwing firm posing as a leftist group on FacebookGood morning.Boris Johnson hailed the UK’s “indestructible relationship” with the US as the G7 summit officially kicked off on Friday. Continue reading...

Ahmed Muhammad, in his valedictory speech, reflected on the unprecedented circumstances that shaped the class of 2021Ahmed Muhammad recently became the first Black male valedictorian in the 106-year history of Oakland Technical high school in Oakland, California, graduating at the top of his class with a 4.73 grade point average (GPA) and offers from 11 top universities. A video of his moving graduation speech subsequently went viral, drawing widespread attention on social media and even earning praise from the state’s governor.“I recently became the first Black male valedictorian in our school’s history. And I want to say something about that...“

The targeted attack on voting rights sparked national outrage, but as another showdown looms, businesses are holding their fireAfter Democrats derailed one of Texas’s most restrictive voting bills at the 11th hour – all but guaranteeing yet another partisan showdown in the near future – business leaders in the state have gone eerily silent as they plot their next steps.“Now would be a good time for them to say something like, ‘We’re glad it was defeated, we’re hoping that this does not move forward into a special session’,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of the Black Voters Matter Fund. Continue reading...

The 68% increase for UK drinks retailer comes on back of strong performance in US

Other, more traditional societies seem better at dealing with the ‘moral injury’ warriors suffer through having killed

As player empowerment grows in the NFL, many of the league’s stars are unwilling to stay with a team they believe is being badly runAaron Rodgers is the latest (and greatest) quarterback to hit the I’m-out-of-here button.Earlier this week, the future Hall of Famer escalated his stand-off with the Packers by failing to show up for the team’s mandatory minicamp, costing himself $93,000 in the process. Whether or not Rodgers continues to take the financial hit by ditching the team’s upcoming training camp remains an open question. But Rodgers has finally put his actions to the (leaked) words that circulated during the draft. He wants out of Green Bay, and he wants out now. Continue reading...

Florida senator introduced a bill to ‘provide a one-year pause for victims’ to ‘get back on their feet’Americans who survive a terrorist attack should get an automatic one-year deferment on their federal student loan payments, according to a bill introduced by Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida.“We should do everything in our power to help those who survive a terrorist attack to get their life back on track,” Rubio said in a statement. “Giving survivors some time to regroup by delaying their student loan payments is just commonsense.” Continue reading...

Christopher Wray faces grilling from Democratic lawmakers over lead-up to 6 January insurrectionThe FBI director, Christopher Wray, has said that the bureau considers the 6 January Capitol attack an act of “domestic terrorism” and suggested that “serious charges” were still to come in its continuing criminal investigation.Testifying before Congress on Thursday, the director rubbished Donald Trump’s claims about a stolen presidential election. “We did not find evidence of fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election,” he told lawmakers on the House judiciary committee. Continue reading...

Omar’s tweet stoked controversy for appearing to equate the actions of democracies and ‘groups that engage in terrorism’The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, issued a rebuke of Ilhan Omar on Thursday, after the outspoken Minnesota congresswoman said she was a victim of “harassment and silencing” by fellow Democrats over a remark about the US, Israel, Afghanistan and Hamas.“Drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the US and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all,” Pelosi said, in a statement issued with the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, and other members of the party hierarchy. Continue reading...

Event hosts are using stickers, lanyards or bracelets to differentiate who is comfortable with what kind of touchTo encourage better respect towards people’s boundaries, event hosts are using colored accessories to help people communicate their comfort around physical touch, reports the Wall Street Journal.As coronavirus restricts continue to be lifted, many physical acts of socializing – hugs, handshakes and everything in between, have become less comfortable for people. While some are excited to begin up-close-and-personal socializing, others are fiercely protective of their physical space. Hence, the creation of the colored-coded accessories, sometimes stickers, lanyards or bracelets, to differentiate who is comfortable with what kind of touch. Continue reading...

Advisory groups questioned whether the upfront payouts were in the best interests of shareholdersThe US drugmaker Regeneron, whose Covid treatment was hailed as a “cure” by Donald Trump last year, has come under fire from two influential shareholder advisory groups over “excessive” payouts made to its top executives ahead of its annual meeting on Friday.The investor advisory group Glass Lewis said it was “highly concerned” at the New York-based firm’s decision last year to ditch annual stock options. Instead it will replace them with an upfront five-year grant of performance-restricted stock units worth $130m (£92m) for each of its top two executives – Leonard Schleifer, the Regeneron chief executive, and George Yancopoulos, the chief scientific officer. Continue reading...

Stocks rally to fresh highs as data shows consumer price index rose at annual rate of 5% in MayInflation in the US has jumped to the highest rate since 2008 as the world’s largest economy rebounds strongly from the coronavirus crisis.The consumer prices index rose at an annual rate of 5% in May, up from 4.2% in April and the highest since August 2008, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation has steadily climbed since January, when it was 1.4%. Continue reading...

Analysis: Northern Ireland is a rare issue of bipartisan consensus and a pillar of US foreign policyJoe Biden’s commitment to defending the Good Friday agreement is baked into his political history and identity. But it is also a pillar of US foreign policy, a rare issue of bipartisan consensus in an otherwise hyper-polarised political scene, one of the few stances Biden can take on the world stage without drawing fire from Republicans.Biden’s emotional attachment to Ireland has been a constant throughout his adult life and has become part of his political identity too. He routinely refers to his mother’s family history and his ties to County Mayo. He quotes Irish poets, and uses the example of British rule in Ireland as a bridge to empathise with persecuted minorities. Continue reading...

Pharmaceutical researcher with a flair for business who brought a string of vital drugs to marketIn 1960 the chemist Ronald Cresswell, who has died aged 86, had a lucky break. As a result of travelling from Glasgow to take up a post in New York he attended a conference of the American Chemical Society, met the biochemist George Hitchings, and they bonded over their mutual interest in folic acid.Hitchings worked at the Burroughs Wellcome laboratory in Tuckahoe, north of New York city, where he and Gertrude Elion developed a wide range of medicines, eventually, in 1988, becoming Nobel laureates. When they offered Cresswell a job in 1962, it proved to be the opportunity of a lifetime for the young scientist. Continue reading...

City has fully vaccinated 78% of its population, says Jenny Durkan, but San Francisco is on track to be first to reach herd immunityAfter fully vaccinating at least 70% of all residents over the age of 12 against Covid-19, Seattle has become the most vaccinated city in America, the mayor said.Jenny Durkan announced that Seattle has fully vaccinated 78% of its population, beating out San Francisco, who previously held the title, to become America’s most inoculated big city. Continue reading...

The super-rich have bought armies of lobbyists to keep their taxes minuscule and to create tax loopholes large enough to drive their Lamborghinis throughProPublica’s bombshell report on America’s super-wealthy paying little or nothing in taxes reveals not only their humongous wealth but also how they’ve parlayed that wealth into political power to shrink their taxes to almost nothing.Jeff Bezos, the richest man in America, reportedly paid no federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011. Elon Musk, the second richest, paid no taxes in 2018. Warren Buffett, often ranking number 3, paid a tax rate of 0.1% between 2014 and 2018. Continue reading...

Our investigation found people tied to Trump who fanned election conspiracies were opening their walletsHappy Thursday,Ever since Arizona Republicans began their review of 2.1m ballots from the 2020 election, a huge question has loomed over the effort: who exactly is paying for it? Continue reading...

Travelling alone gave me a sense of myself and my place in the world. After centuries of constraint, black women’s journeys have the power to dispel myths and give backSolo travel can be freeing and restorative, a chance to hit the restart button or a break to bring you back in touch with yourself. You may return home with not just a deeper understanding of a place and its people but of who you are – and I know from experience how valuable that is.At 21, I left London to roam the world alone for more than a year. I had recently lost my father and a large part of my identity, and travel was the medium with which I chose to repair myself. I swayed to samba in Rio de Janeiro, ate mouth-watering street food in Vietnam and Mexico, wandered around ancient metropolises in Morocco and lost days and a few nights in fleeting romantic encounters, divided by language but united by desire. Continue reading...

It’s different for everyone. In my case, finding an explanation for my symptoms that made sense was the keyCovid-19 affects people in a range of different ways. For some its a mild illness; to others, it’s lethal. For me, it turned into a poorly understood condition that doctors call post-Covid syndrome but most people know as long Covid. I’m a professor of infectious diseases, and one of the first people in the country to have reported on long Covid. Now, an estimated one million people in the UK say they are experiencing symptoms from the wide range that make up this condition. In the same way that the virus itself causes illness of varying severity, everyone’s experience of long Covid will be different, and personal to them.I want to share my story of how I recovered. For those still battling with long Covid, I want them to hear that recovery is possible, and to have hope. Continue reading...

Proposals making their way through the legislative process are under the radar but have bipartisan backingThree bills are working their way through Congress that can provide significant help for small businesses. Do you know what they all have in common? Welcome signs of bipartisan support for small business.Related: The ice cream owner who tried, failed – and now owes $200,000 | Gene Marks Continue reading...

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Anderson Cooper’s recent CNN interview of Obama was underwhelming and light on substance

Leaked documents suggest renewed inquiry into Covid-19 origins, Biden declares ‘US is back’, and one Republican’s orbit-altering solution for climate change

It can take time to convince Roca’s clients to leave illegal money-making behind. So the organization approaches violence interruption as a long gameThis story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.The game of cat and mouse had played out for months on the corners of West Baltimore. Jamal West would pull up in his minivan. Miayan, 18 years old at the time, would run. The 46-year-old West stands at 6’4 and is built like an NFL lineman – no match for the wiry teenager in a footrace. So West would come back in his van the next day. And when Miayan saw the van, he would flee again. Continue reading...

Throughout history, our story has been narrated by others who treat our rights as less deserving of recognitionThe silencing of the Palestinian story is nothing new. In 1950s Britain, a few years after Israel was established, even the name Palestine went out of use. When asked as a child where I came from, people would think I’d said Pakistan.I remember how frustrating it was that no one wanted to hear our story, as if we had invented it. “It’s the land of the Jews,” I was repeatedly told. “The Arabs are only squatters on it.” Israel’s stunning victory in the 1967 war compounded these attitudes, and the Zionist narrative of Israel’s moral right to exist in the Jewish people’s “ancestral land” became supreme. Constantly made to understand we were second-class human beings with no valid right to “someone else’s country” was demoralising and intimidating. Continue reading...

Giant companies that pay little tax will compete on a more level playing field. Now we have to make the new rules workA decade ago, a series of scandals rumbled through the corporate tax world, as we all learned how big companies often paid little tax. Amazon, Google and Starbucks were hauled before parliament to explain why their tax bills were so low. What was truly shocking wasn’t the way they had broken the law, but the fact that they hadn’t. The global corporate tax system was incredibly leaky. International agreements to ensure no double taxation were, and are, actually leading to double non-taxation of company profits.Large companies routinely avoid paying their fair share of taxes by “shifting” their profits to low-tax countries. This has led to a dramatic decline in the amount of tax governments collect from corporations. What’s more, profit shifting gives multinational companies a huge advantage over smaller ones: instead of competing to offer a better service, they just can keep costs low by paying less in tax. How is your local coffee shop, paying the 19% corporate tax rate on its profit, supposed to compete with the likes of Starbucks, which paid minimal tax despite large sales? Continue reading...

As the double Olympic gold medalist switches from boxing to MMA, she reflects on the poisoning of her home town’s water and the upcoming film of her lifeRight at this moment, Claressa Shields’ life is being made into a major motion picture. In 2016, after she won her second Olympic gold medal in boxing, Shields sold her story to Universal Pictures, who hired the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, to pen and produce it. Flint Strong was cast last year and recently re-commenced shooting after a pandemic hiatus. When people remark that her life should be a film, the 26-year-old Michigan native will soon be able to say that it already is – but to expect a sequel.On Thursday, Shields makes her mixed martial arts debut against Brittney Elkin (3-6) in the Professional Fighters League in Atlantic City live on ESPN. The 11-0 boxer has trained in MMA since December under Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn, who steered 18-time boxing champion Holly Holm to a UFC title in 2015. Shields’ debut is one of the most anticipated for MMA in years. Continue reading...

The Premier League team, like so many before them, dream of exploiting a huge market. But there is not much room in a crowded landscapeThe European Super League may have been put in the trash for now but Premier League clubs – even those who were not invited to the proposed closed playground of the world’s richest clubs – are still searching for ways to extend their commercial reach around the world.Everton, crosstown rivals to Liverpool but of little threat to the elite of English football if we are taking into account recent Premier League standings, has unveiled an international strategy to expand its fan base across North America and, by extension, its commercial opportunities. They’re the latest team – from a number of different sports and leagues – to dream of striking it rich in the biggest sports market in the world. But, as always, the question remains: how feasible is that dream? Continue reading...

The brutal clampdown in Xinjiang represents an about-face from the communist party’s original approach to cultural differencesChina’s mass detention of Uyghur Muslims – the largest of a religio-ethnic group since the second world war – is not the inevitable or predictable outcome of Chinese communist policies towards ethnic minorities. I’ve spent the past 20 years studying ethnicity in China and, when viewing the present situation in Xinjiang through the prism of history, one thing becomes clear: this is not what was “supposed” to happen.In the early 1950s the Chinese Communist party (CCP) was holding on to revolutionary victory by its fingernails. The postwar economy was in shambles, and the outbreak of the Korean war brought a nuclear hegemon to its doorstep, in the form of the United States. Not the moment most regimes would choose to enlarge their to-do lists. The CCP did, however, committing to officially recognising more minority peoples than any other Chinese regime in history. While Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists had begrudgingly accepted the official existence of five groups in the 1930s and 40s, the Communists recognised 55 in all (plus the Han majority), many with populations under 10,000. Continue reading...

Ex-Fox News host who was forced out in 2017 following sexual harassment accusations will join former president in Florida and Texas in DecemberDonald Trump appears to have found his historical muse. The former US president will go on tour for a series of “live conversations” with Bill O’Reilly, an ex-Fox News host who has reason to understand him better than most.At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over four decades, ranging ranging from harassment to sexual assault and rape; he denies them all. O’Reilly was forced out of Fox in 2017 following multiple accusations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour. Continue reading...

Joe Biden marked his first overseas trip as US president, telling a crowd of US troops and their families at RAF Mildenhall the "the US is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future." The speech came ahead of Biden's talks with Boris Johnson, the G7 summit and a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Lloyd Austin says directive is about ensuring that dealing with the threat from Beijing remains a priorityThe US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has directed the Pentagon to sharpen its focus on China, which the United States has tagged as its top strategic rival.“Now, it is up to the department to get to work,” Austin said on Wednesday after issuing an internal directive to the Pentagon bureaucracy. Continue reading...

A bear in southern Arizona caused a brief power outage after it climbed up a power pole and became stuck. The utility company in the city of Willcox was notified a bear had become tangled in power lines, and workers quickly disabled the power. The linemen then climbed into a bucket lift to coax the animal down with a fibreglass stick, before the bear eventually went down on its own and retreated to the desert. It is the second time in a month a bear in the state has climbed a power pole Continue reading...

Texas Republican congressman Louie Gohmert asked a senior US government official if changing the moon’s orbit around the Earth, or the Earth’s orbit around the sun, might be a solution for climate change. The question was not posed to anyone from Nasa, but a senior forestry service official during a House natural resources committee hearing on Tuesday. Jennifer Eberlien, associate deputy chief of the National Forest Service, said she would have to 'follow up with you on that one, Mr Gohmert'

US president rings changes since Trump but has a serious message on Northern Ireland peace process

Biden’s initiative aims to help vaccinate the world against Covid and to restore America’s global influence and soft powerThe US has reached an agreement with Pfizer to buy 500m doses of their coronavirus vaccine to distribute to nearly 100 countries around the world, as the centrepiece of Joe Biden’s initiative to help vaccinate the world against Covid-19, according to US reports.Related: Vaccine inequality exposed by dire situation in world’s poorest nations Continue reading...

The wildfire, believed to be human-caused, has been fueled by dry, windy conditions and high temperaturesFirefighters in Arizona worked through the night battling the Telegraph fire, a wildfire that started east of Phoenix on Friday and has burned more than 80,800 acres (33,000 hectares).Officials said on Wednesday the fire was 21% contained, but straddled two counties, had forced thousands of evacuations in rural towns, and closed almost every major highway out of the area. Continue reading...

‘I’d have to follow up with you on that one,’ says forestry official Jennifer Eberlien to bizarre question from Louie GohmertThe Texas Republican congressman Louie Gohmert has asked a senior US government official if changing the moon’s orbit around the Earth, or the Earth’s orbit around the sun, might be a solution for climate change.Bizarrely, the question was not posed to anyone from Nasa or even the Pentagon. Instead it was asked of a senior forestry service official during a House natural resources committee hearing on Tuesday. Continue reading...