The Mauritanian tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose plight has left a stain on ideas of Anglo-American justiceI started work at Liberty, the civil rights advocacy group, the day before the September 11 attacks. I recall the feeling of doom: it is important to remember the devastating loss of life on that day – 3,000 people from all over the world – in an event that is now often subject to denialist conspiracy theories. Soon after, British ministers were contemplating far-reaching “security measures” against the background of fear that the same could happen in London. Surveying the entire population was a price worth paying, they said.Having worked at the Home Office before joining Liberty, I knew the that way Britain treated migrants – who are subject to fewer protections than citizens – might well become the framework for the UK’s draconian approach to anyone suspected of terrorism. But I never predicted how long the post-9/11 legacy would linger. And with my Hollywood ideals of Anglo-American constitutional norms, reflected in movies such as A Few Good Men, I never imagined that the use of torture would become a systematic technique of interrogation. Continue reading...

This weekend, the city moved a Victorian house six blocks – a practice that has continued for more than a centuryHundreds of San Franciscans lined the streets on Sunday – phones drawn and ready – to glimpse a unique procession slowly making its way through the city. “Ladies and gentlemen, please stand on the sidewalk,” a police speaker blared. “There’s a house coming down the street.”The two-story, 5,170-sq-ft green Victorian, known as the Englander House, had spent more than a century in the heart of San Francisco. But for years it stood vacant and fell into disrepair, sandwiched behind a gas station and loomed over by new apartment buildings. The city, which suffers from a housing shortage, was ready to build a 48-unit building in its place. Continue reading...

The co-founder of the City Lights Bookstore had global stature but remained a neighborhood fixtureBy early afternoon, a small memorial of flowers and a can of Pabst had begun to accumulate outside the door of City Lights Books, to commemorate the death of its co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti.And by the evening, a vigil for Ferlinghetti, one of the last living links to the Beat generation, was being held in the adjacent Jack Kerouac Alley, a tiny side street that separates the bookstore – a tourist attraction and official city landmark for decades – from the celebrated Beat hangout Vesuvio Cafe. Continue reading...

Golfing champion Tiger Woods was hospitalised in Los Angeles with severe leg injuries when his car veered off a road and rolled down a steep hillside, requiring rescue crews to pry him from the wreckage.The injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, Los Angeles county sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a news conference hours later, adding there was no evidence of impairment when Woods was assessed by emergency workers at the scene.Carlos Gonzales, a sheriff's deputy who was the first to reach the wreck, described Woods, who was wearing his seatbelt, as ‘calm and lucid',’ and said he recognised the golf great after Woods told the officer his name was ‘Tiger’

Canadian PM congratulates US president on rejoining Paris accord, saying ‘it’s nice when the Americans are not pulling out all the references to climate change’

The British socialite charged with aiding Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse has been denied bail twice since being arrested in JulyGhislaine Maxwell, the British socialite charged with aiding Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse, has offered to renounce her UK and French citizenship in an attempt to secure bail.The offer to surrender her foreign citizenship is the latest attempt by Maxwell’s lawyers to secure bail for their client. Maxwell, 59, has been denied bail twice, with a judge deeming her to be a flight risk. Continue reading...

Body camera showed officers holding 41-year-old Black man down until he stopped breathing last winterPolice officers shown on body camera video holding Daniel Prude down naked and handcuffed on a city street last winter until he stopped breathing will not face criminal charges, according to a grand jury decision announced Tuesday.The 41-year-old Black man’s death last March sparked nightly protests in Rochester, New York, after the video was released nearly six months later, with demonstrators demanding a reckoning for police and city officials. Continue reading...

Six men and two pregnant women had been at sea for 16 days in makeshift vesselSix men and two pregnant women from Cuba have been rescued off the Florida coast after their makeshift styrofoam boat capsized following 16 days at sea, in the latest in a string of incidents involving migrants from the island.The capsize and interdiction was captured on video on Sunday by authorities, whose rescues of the past few weeks appear to follow a rise in Cuban refugees seeking to reach the United States. Continue reading...

The former Capitol police chief, Steven Sund, said during a joint hearing on security failures that the insurrectionists during the 6 January attack 'came prepared for war'.Senators investigating the attack on the US Capitol last month heard testimony on training and equipping the Capitol police as the former police chief of that department and other security officials testified publicly for the first time Tuesday.

First congressional hearing on attack comes day after Merrick Garland said he would expand investigation into 6 January assault

Black jogger, 25, was shot and killed by three white vigilantes as he ran along a community street in Brunswick, GeorgiaTributes have poured in across the US to mark one year since Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black jogger, was shot and killed by three white vigilantes as he ran along a community street in Brunswick, Georgia.“A Black man should be able to go for a jog without fearing for his life,” Joe Biden tweeted in honor of Arbery on Tuesday, adding that “today, we remember [his] life and dedicate ourselves to making this country safer for people of color”. Continue reading...

Biden’s pick for interior secretary criticized for tweeting ‘Republicans don’t believe in science’ in October 2020Deb Haaland, seeking to make history as the first Native American to hold a cabinet secretary position in the US, has weathered a torrent of hostile questioning from Republicans during her confirmation hearing as secretary of the interior.In a striking opening statement, Haaland, a member of Congress for New Mexico, said: “The historic nature of my confirmation is not lost on me, but I will say that it is not about me,” adding that she hoped her elevation would “be an inspiration for Americans, moving forward together as one nation and creating opportunities for all of us”. Continue reading...

The extent of PFAS contamination is only now coming into focus. Here’s what I learned from investigating my home

Group of Democratic senators introducing legislation that would suspend certain US assistanceA group of influential Democratic senators are introducing legislation which would sanction the president of Honduras – an alleged drug trafficker and key US ally – and cut off financial aid and ammunition sales to the country’s security forces which are implicated in widespread human rights abuses and criminal activities.The Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act, co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Van Hollen, would suspend certain US assistance to the Central American country until corruption and human rights violations are no longer systemic, and the perpetrators of these crimes start facing justice. Continue reading...

Speaking on a podcast, Republican complains about how the press treated him and his family after flying to Mexico as Texas frozeThe main lesson from the scandal over his flight to Cancún while Texas froze, Senator Ted Cruz said on Tuesday, is that people should not be “assholes”, and should treat each other with respect.Related: Texas Republican hypocrisy over federal aid is nothing new – ask Flyin' Ted Cruz | Lloyd Green Continue reading...

Congresswoman wades into debate amid growing concerns nominees from minority backgrounds are being singled out for harsh scrutinyAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez has stepped into the intensifying dispute around the treatment of women and people of color nominated to top jobs in the Biden administration, as the confirmation process in the US Senate begins to sour.Related: Senate holds hearing into January Capitol attack by Trump supporters – live Continue reading...

Nikki Fried, most senior Democrat in public office in Florida, says ‘we will not celebrate hate speech, bigotry and division’The most senior Democrat in public office in Florida has said she will not comply with Governor Ron DeSantis’s wish that flags be flown at half-staff in honor of Rush Limbaugh, the hard-right talk radio “shock jock” who died last week from cancer.Related: Florida governor Ron DeSantis's plan to honour Rush Limbaugh raises hackles Continue reading...

Biden’s early reforms are promising – and what the US does can help set standards for the rest of the worldIf Donald Trump’s presidency was a lesson in how symbolic acts of cruelty can be used to consolidate power, then his successors are trying to demonstrate that the same is true for benevolence. In just over a month, the Biden-Harris administration has issued a flurry of new directives aimed at reversing some of the worst aspects of the former president’s immigration policy.Biden has declared an end to the travel restrictions imposed on numerous Muslim-majority countries, and committed to both reviving and expanding the US refugee resettlement scheme. The administration has presented sweeping new immigration reforms to Congress, which if passed would offer a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people, promised a moratorium on deportations in most instances, and announced a plan to reunite children and parents torn apart by the grotesque family separation policy. On Friday, the US began allowing asylum seekers to cross its southern border for the first time since Trump’s “remain in Mexico” initiative was launched in January 2019. Continue reading...

Southern Poverty Law Center to release latest figures in project tracking movement to take down the monumentsAt least 160 public Confederate symbols were taken down or moved from public spaces in 2020, according to a new count by the Southern Poverty Law Center.The law center, which keeps a raw count of nearly 2,100 statues, symbols, placards, buildings and public parks dedicated to the Confederacy, will release the latest figures from its Whose Heritage? database on Tuesday. It has been tracking a movement to take down the monuments since 2015, when a white supremacist entered a South Carolina church and killed several black parishioners. Continue reading...

Was the corporate immunity linked to $1.5m in political contributions from lobbyists? Only a full investigation can help us find outImagine fielding hundreds of calls from worried constituents at the peak of the first Covid-19 wave, trying to help scared families protect loved ones in nursing homes.Imagine being stonewalled by those nursing homes and the department of health as you sought answers to life-and-death questions, knowing that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s directive forced these unprepared facilities to take in thousands of Covid-positive patients. Continue reading...

Instead of transformative changes, we get Black History Month-themed Apple Watches and Black sitcom collections on NetflixBlack History Month, the annual commemoration of Black history in the United States that originated with Carter G Woodson’s Negro History Week, is winding down. I have to admit, this year’s celebration is among the worst yet. Instead of providing a platform to explore the rich history of Black people in America, this month has been a billboard for commodified representations of Blackness. Commercializing holidays and co-opting Black culture are both standard practices in America. Like the pat Black Lives Matter virtue signalling last June, branded co-optation of Black history has been rampant. For some, this visibility may indicate that Black people have advanced.But what I see is an admission: powerful elected officials and corporations in the US resort to symbolism and token opportunities, because they’d rather not offer anything else. In a system that relies on exploiting labor and directing resources to an elite minority, actually advancing the health and prosperity of the masses of Black people undermines the exploitation that capitalism relies on. Continue reading...

President Biden held a remembrance ceremony at the White House as the Covid death toll passed half a million yesterday. Plus, Trump’s tax returns will be handed to prosecutorsGood morning.More than 500,000 people in the US have now died from coronavirus, just over a year since the country detected its first case. That is more than the population of Miami, Colorado Springs or Minneapolis. It’s also more than the number of Americans who died in the second world war, Korea and Vietnam. In a primetime address to the nation last night, Joe Biden urged people “to resist becoming numb to the sorrow”, before a holding a moment of silence and candle lighting ceremony at the White House. Continue reading...

Millions who cannot afford to stay home still lack access to inoculation, even as their work puts them in harm’s wayPharmacy workers helping maskless customers. Uber drivers transporting coughing passengers. Janitors cleaning contaminated workspaces.Amid California’s slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout, millions of essential workers in high-exposure jobs are still waiting to get the life-saving doses, with many uncertain when or how they will get access. Continue reading...

During a global pandemic, 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Many are frontline workers who cannot practice social distancingAs the United States marks the terrible milestone of half a million souls lost to Covid-19, these deaths demand a grown-up conversation about the policies that shape our public life. When we look at the impact of this pandemic on other wealthy nations around the world, the disproportionate death toll we have sustained in the US exposes a basic failure of national security. Though we spend more than the next several nations combined on our military budget, our government was unable to protect its citizens against a deadly pathogen.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this week that, during the first six months of the pandemic, life expectancy for the average American dropped by a full year. For African Americans, the impact was nearly three times as severe, exposing persistent systemic racism that was not corrected when corporations agreed to say “Black Lives Matter”. We have not simply suffered a disaster. This disaster has unveiled dysfunction in our society. Continue reading...

The G7 needs to keep giving financial aid and other support if it wants to avoid ongoing disruption

Mohamedou Ould Salahiand one of his former guards, Steve Wood, reunite in Mauritania 13 years after last seeing each other, rekindling an unlikely relationship that profoundly changed their lives.Mohamedou was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for 14 years. During his incarceration he was subjected to torture and solitary confinement, but never charged with a crime. His memoir, Guantánamo Diary, became an international bestseller and was adapted into the film, The Mauritanian, starring Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster.My Brother's Keeper is BAFTA longlisted for British Short Film 2021.

Retired sports stars used to travel to conventions to make money from autographs. Now they can haul in cash from the comfort of their own homesThe first Sunday in February – the day of the Super Bowl – was always a key date for Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. Now the second Sunday in May looms large in his work calendar.“Leading up to Mother’s Day, I think I did 80. Basically 80 Mother’s Day Cameos,” says the former Green Bay Packers star. “Christmas, seems like holidays, special occasions, they ramp up. Maybe five to 10 a day. There may be a couple of days when I do none and then 18 show up. But generally, like Valentine’s, it kind of ramps up.” Continue reading...

Nick Meyer’s poetic images of his hometown in Massachusetts depict a crumbling waste land that remains full of charming idiosyncrasies Continue reading...

Analysis: The US supreme court has rejected an attempt to block a subpoena from New York where the ex-president’s business affairs are under investigationDonald Trump used to promise his supporters that they would be winning so much, they would get sick and tired of winning. But the former US president is now on a seemingly endless losing streak. Continue reading...

In a somber address, the president urged Americans to overcome their political divides and follow health guidelines

Chuck Hoskin of the Cherokee Nation says company ‘does not honor us by having our name plastered on a car’It is time for Jeep to stop using the Cherokee Nation’s name on its Cherokee and Grand Cherokee SUVs, the chief of the Oklahoma-based tribe has said.Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr said in a statement, which was first reported by Car & Driver magazine, that he believes corporations and sports teams should stop using Native American names, images and mascots as nicknames or on their products. Continue reading...

Even with average number of daily new cases decreasing, US is still experiencing 1,500 to 3,500 deaths a dayMore than 500,000 people have now died from Covid-19 in the US, just over a year after the country detected its first cases of a virus that has wrought almost unprecedented loss.Deaths breached half a million on Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, bringing the total to 500,071 . More than 28 million people have also tested positive for coronavirus in the US. Continue reading...

Erika Martinez lost her father and brother within eight hours, one of countless tales of bereavement as US deaths hit 500,000In early February, Erika Martinez of Fresno, California, lost her father, Thomas Martinez, 57, and her 33-year-old brother Andrew Martinez Garcia, to Covid-19 within 24 hours of one another.Erika Martinez first brought her father to the hospital on 2 February, after he started feeling ill and wanted to make sure he was OK as he suffered from an underlying heart condition. He was diagnosed with Covid-19. Continue reading...

Analysis: the president has ambitious plans to halt a public health crisis his predecessor wrongly claimed would simply disappearExactly one year after the first case of Covid-19 was confirmed in the United States, Joe Biden was sworn in as president, inheriting the worst public health disaster since the flu pandemic of 1918. In the days that followed, Biden pledged a “full-scale, wartime” effort to combat the virus, even as he braced a disease-weary nation for its darkest chapter yet.“Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better,” Biden said at the time, offering a dire forecast. The national death toll, he warned, could exceed half a million by the end of February. Continue reading...

Court’s order is a win for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, who has been seeking Trump’s tax records since 2019

A party postmortem says more outreach to non-voters is needed after a predicted blue wave failed to materialise in 2020Get-out-the-vote efforts hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and an 11th-hour voter registration surge for well-funded Republicans thwarted ambitions of a blue wave in Texas during the 2020 election, according to a new postmortem that state Democrats shared with the Guardian. Continue reading...

The 23-year-old black man died after being stopped, put in a chokehold and drugged in Aurora, Colorado, in 2019Police officers in Aurora, Colorado, did not have a legal basis to stop, frisk and use a chokehold on Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old black man who died after being restrained by officers and paramedics in the Denver suburb in August 2019, an independent investigation has found.According to a report published on Monday, “body worn camera audio, limited video and … interviews with the officers tell two contrasting stories. The officers’ statements on the scene and in subsequent recorded interviews suggest a violent and relentless struggle.” Continue reading...

Former president talks with rock legend about their backgrounds and vision of America in Renegades: Born in the USABarack Obama and Bruce Springsteen have teamed up to produce a podcast, they announced on Monday, with the first two episodes available immediately.Renegades: Born in the USA features the politician and the rockstar musing over their backgrounds, music and their “enduring love of America”, according to Spotify, which is hosting the podcast. Continue reading...

Decision to change names including Lincoln and Washington sparked controversy as schools remain closedThe head of the San Francisco school board has put on hold controversial plans to rename 44 schools until students are back on campus after months of virtual learning during the coronavirus pandemic.Gabriela Lopez, the president of the board of education, announced the decision in Monday’s editions of the San Francisco Chronicle and on SFChronicle.com on Sunday. Continue reading...

Nyjah Huston and four others charged with creating a nuisance following party shut down by California police last monthA skateboarding world champion is among five people in southern California charged with organizing parties that were possible super-spreader events amid the pandemic.Nyjah Huston, a four-time world skateboarding champion, and Edward Essa, the owner of a home in the Fairfax District in Los Angeles, held a party last month with at least 40 people that was shut down by police after a complaint. At least two other parties were held at the home last fall, authorities said. Continue reading...

Where Donald Trump suggested the death toll might reach 60,000 now experts fear it could rival those lost to the 1918 flu pandemicJoe Biden is set to mark the latest tragic milestone of Covid deaths in the US on Monday night, with a candlelit commemoration and moment of silence for the 500,000 who will have lost their lives.Related: Coronavirus live news: US nears 500,000 Covid-related deaths; Slovakia asks EU for help with 'tragic' situation Continue reading...

Legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to the governor, Ralph Northam, who said he will sign measure into lawState lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people than any other.Related: Civil and human rights groups urge Biden to end federal death penalty Continue reading...

Questionable Covid contracts, dodgy appointments, toothless watchdogs. Favours to friends is now the government’s modus operandiThe sums are so vast, the secrecy so shocking, that “chumocracy” doesn’t begin to capture what Britain has become – redolent as we are of banana republics, the Russian oligarchy and failed states. Lost is Britain’s self-image as the bowler-hatted beacon of civic rectitude, as our erstwhile Rolls-Royce civil service goes the way of, well, Rolls-Royce, no longer a British-owned car company.The Good Law Project, the admirable not-for-profit public-cleanser, last week proved in the high court that the government had breached what the judge called the “vital public function” of transparency over “vast quantities” of taxpayers’ money. A VIP fast-lane for protective equipment contracts made the contacts of ministers, MPs, peers and officials 10 times more likely to win contracts. PPE prices sky-rocketed: even bodybags were being charged at 14 times their previous cost. The Good Law Project’s demands for publication of those favoured suppliers, their VIP sponsors and prices paid have been denied so far. Continue reading...