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The president said he has never seen internal party conflict like the one Republicans are experiencing at the moment and was in a ‘mini-revolution’.

Effort by illustrates the disparity with which the US and its northern neighbors are distributing dosesThe Blackfeet tribe in northern Montana has provided about 1,000 surplus vaccines to its First Nations relatives and others in Canada, in an illustration of the disparity in speed at which the US and its northern neighbor are distributing doses. While more than 30% of adults in the US are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.Among those who received the vaccine at the Piegan-Carway border crossing were Sherry Cross Child and Shane Little Bear, of Stand Off, about 30 miles (50km ) north of the border. Continue reading...

Recall is a major reversal for company that insisted its treadmills were safe despite dozens of reported injuriesThe fitness company Peloton is recalling its two popular treadmills in the US over safety concerns after the death of a child and dozens of other injuries. Peloton has apologized for pushing back against federal safety officials who warned the public last month of the dangers of using them.The recall is a major reversal for a company that insisted its Tread and Tread+ treadmills were safe, despite reports by users. Continue reading...

One of the greatest sports photographers of all time, Walter Iooss Jr got his first commission for Sports Illustrated at 17 and went on to capture award-winning images of the sporting world’s biggest names, including Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant. His work is represented by The Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York Read: My best shot: Michael Jordan by Walter Iooss Jr Continue reading...

Analysis: Trump will try to have it both ways over the verdict – decrying censorship but also eyeing an eventual returnIt was not so much “Release the Kraken!” as “please tell the Kraken to pace around the room a few more times while we think about it”.Facebook’s oversight board ruled that Donald Trump should remain banned from the platform for incendiary posts on the day of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. But it also told the company that its “vague, standardless penalty” should be reviewed within six months. Continue reading...

Restrictions on attendance numbers will be lifted this month, but technology has enabled many to watch onlineAs I stood outside the cemetery chapel, waiting for the bearers to begin the journey inside, I felt more than a little invested. The woman whose funeral I was about to lead was almost the same age as me. I knew, from talking to her family on Zoom in the days beforehand, that her life had touched many people over the years. Friends, neighbours and colleagues should have been gathered there to show respect and support others grieving. Stories and memories should have been told, hugs and handshakes given. Instead, about 25 people gathered inside the church. The March snow showers began to fall outside. This was another funeral in the year of Covid-19.Related: Limit of 30 mourners at funerals in England to be lifted this month Continue reading...

DoJ attorneys ‘disingenuous’ in attempts to keep document at conclusion of Mueller investigation secret, judge saysA justice department memorandum explaining the decision not to charge Donald Trump with obstruction at the conclusion of the Mueller investigation must be made public, a federal judge has ruled.Attorneys for the department were “disingenuous” in their attempts to keep the document secret, district court judge Amy Berman Jackson said, according to CNN which reported the story on Wednesday. Continue reading...

‘We didn’t know which kit he’d show up wearing – so we painted one part of the parking lot blue and another red’It all stemmed from a German sports drink. I’d done some advertising work for a brand called Isostar and they’d had this idea where you take a tennis player, put them on a red clay court and shoot them serving from above to capture the shadow. I thought, that is one hell of an idea, but I need the right vehicle to really do it justice.Shortly afterwards Sports Illustrated called asking me to go and shoot Michael Jordan for them. I thought – well, there’s the vehicle! We’d never met but I knew he’d be perfect for it. Continue reading...

Westminster’s self-serving rule is bolstering the cause of independence across the union. Democracy will be the winner

Federal documents uncovered by the Guardian reveal the potential for violence circulating through American politics. Plus, the Guardian is 200Good morning.Explosives and flamethrowers are among the objects discovered by law enforcement outside political conventions, public buildings and at protests during the course of 2020 and 2021, federal documents obtained by the Guardian show. Law enforcement agencies claim the danger posed to officers and the public at these political events is increasing. Continue reading...

Amid the calamitous second Covid wave, the ruling BJP party tried and failed to win the coveted West Bengal electionsIn the months leading up to the assembly elections in West Bengal, I began to realise that there was every chance that the state where I live, once a left stronghold, would soon be under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The realisation came from talking to ordinary, working-class Bengalis. K, a man in his late 30s who had come to work for us, said tersely but firmly that he’d be voting BJP. The reason? “You need to throw out parties in power from time to time. It’s good for them.” He was invoking the Kerala model – in Kerala, voters periodically alternate between putting one of the two main parties in power. Electorates in all states – in fact, the whole country – would probably go Kerala’s way if they had a viable opposition to turn to.From K, I learned firsthand what I knew in theory: that the term “anti-incumbency” doesn’t capture the ground-level resentment people begin to feel towards parties that have been in power for too long. The resentment in a state like Bengal isn’t aimed so much at the party’s principal figureheads; it’s a reaction against the intolerable nature of a politics of local patronage and fiefdoms. Everywhere you go in West Bengal, you’re in a terrain where every inch – footpath, tea stall, shop, roadside “club” (that key political, social and sporting institution), festive celebration – is politicised. The ruling dispensation manifests itself through all-powerful, low-level functionaries who govern through bullying. K and others I spoke to thought it was time to teach these people a lesson. For them, a vote for the leading Hindu nationalist party wasn’t about temples and Islam. Continue reading...

Lotan Fisher was a star at tables across the world. A new documentary explores how one of his rivals started an online detective case into his methodsIsrael’s Lotan Fisher was once considered the greatest bridge player in the world, the card game’s very own Michael Jordan. Yet in 2015 he became the focus of a cheating scandal that resulted in bans imposed by numerous bridge bodies. The story is the subject of a new documentary, Dirty Tricks, that gives a rare look into the exclusive world of elite-level competitive bridge.“For me, it just sounded so quirky and strange to make a film about a bridge scandal,” the documentary’s director, Daniel Sivan, tells the Guardian over Zoom. “It’s not a cool sport, not a spectator sport.” Continue reading...

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...