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Fire crew frees man after tree falls on car and portable convenience during high winds across Pennsylvania regionA man was rescued by emergency responders after a tree brought down by high winds trapped him inside a portable toilet at the Gettysburg civil war battlefield in southern Pennsylvania.The Barlow volunteer fire department said on its Facebook page it was called to Little Round Top, a key scene in the Union’s victory over the Confederacy in 1863, at Gettysburg national military park shortly before 4pm on Friday. Continue reading...

The Cambridges are proving to be experts at self-marketing. Sorry about that, HarryWhen will William and Kate admit that the Harry and Meghan hoo-ha has been great for them? As the dust storms continue to billow from the Oprah Winfrey interview, presumably the Sussexes are exactly where they want to be, generating big-bucks deals (Netflix/Spotify/“wellness”) from their £11m property in Montecito, Santa Barbara. However, hasn’t it also been rather good for the Cambridges? They appear to have morphed from a rather drab, stiff, prematurely middle-aged couple into a veritable beacon of royal decorum cum quasi-middle-class decency. There’s a palpable feeling that the media/public – leastways, the royalist media/public – is behind them like never before, applauding their every move. Sure, it was always so, but, post-Oprah, there’s been a tangible turbo-boosting of the Cambridges’ profile. Call it what it is: a pushback.Cue last week’s video celebrating their 10th anniversary. Any other couple forcing others to celebrate their decade-long tru luv would have you demanding a bucket to retch into. The snarky Brit temperament being what it is, some might even ask: “What’s with all the PDA – are you guys getting a divorce?” But this was no public display of affection, it was marketing and the Cambridges are suddenly getting very good at it. Maybe even better than You Know Who. Continue reading...

Joel Greenberg says Gaetz ‘involved in sexual activities’ with 17-year-old as Anna Eskamani decries ‘extreme’ bro cultureA Florida Democrat who released audio of a strange voicemail from Matt Gaetz has called the scandal-hit Republican congressman “one of the most extreme examples of bro culture”, adding: “We can’t hold back in calling out a hostile and dangerous culture for women and girls.”Gaetz is reportedly under investigation for matters including allegedly paying for sex with an underage girl. This week, the Daily Beast obtained a letter in which a former ally said he and Gaetz were “involved in sexual activities” with the 17-year-old. Continue reading...

State representative Mike Nearman was charged with official misconduct and criminal trespass over December 2020 incidentProsecutors have levelled two criminal charges against a Republican member of the Oregon house of representatives who let far-right rioters into the state capitol in December.Related: Oregon Republican party falsely suggests US Capitol attack was a 'false flag' Continue reading...

The tech firm’s new mobile operating system can stop apps tracking you, but is it as big a deal as everyone, especially Facebook, thinks?I’ve just downloaded v14.5, the newest version of iOS, the operating system that runs my iPhone. Among the new features it boasts are: the option to unlock the phone with an Apple Watch while wearing a mask; support for something called the AirTag; separate skintone variations for emojis of couples; and more diverse voice options for Apple’s voice assistant, Siri. None of these “features” is of much use to me. But version 14.5 does add something that deeply interests me – the ability to control which apps are allowed to track my activity across other companies’ apps and websites.Apple calls this “app-tracking transparency” (ATT) and it concerns a code known as “the identity for advertisers” or IDFA. It turns out that every iPhone comes with one of these identifiers, the object of which is to provide hucksters with aggregate data about the user’s interests. Ponder that for a moment and then reflect on the irony of a company that since 2013 has been selling such tagged devices, while at the same time bragging about its commitment to users’ privacy. Apple’s defence, of course, is that savvy users could have disabled the IDFA via the phone’s settings and privacy menus, a response that connoisseurs of evasiveness will recognise as the Jesuitical ploy used by tech companies that know most customers would rather eat raw seaweed than tamper with the factory defaults on their devices. Continue reading...

Universal pre-school, paid family leave, subsidized childcare … who could possibly object to Biden’s plans to help children?Joe Biden wants to spend big money on small children. On Wednesday the president announced an ambitious $1.8tn plan to boost family assistance programs, childhood education and student aid. If passed, the American Families Plan would overhaul the current (dire) childcare system and inject billions into universal preschool, paid family leave and subsidized childcare. It would be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy. Continue reading...

Former president speaks as lone anti-Trump Republican seeks House seat in Texas special electionAhead of a special election on Saturday to replace a Texas congressman who died after contracting Covid-19, former president George W Bush said the ascendancy of supporters of Donald Trump suggest Republicans “want to be extinct”.Related: George W Bush on Trump’s Republicans: ‘Isolationist, protectionist, nativist’ Continue reading...

Republicans tried to paint centrist Biden as an outlandish radical. It’s a laughable charge, and Americans aren’t buying it

As the second wave devastates India, there is a Nero-vian feel to it all: a smug, inert state indifferent to the smell of burningIn India’s capital city, citizens are dying in their hospital beds because they can’t breathe. Their lungs, clotted with Covid-induced pneumonia, need oxygen to function. Overwhelmed by India’s tsunami-like second wave and undermined by the smug inertia of the state, hospitals run out of oxygen and patients choke to death in front of their horrified families.Sometimes hospitals will discharge patients on oxygen support, casually giving their relatives a day or two to find rare air. They set off on frantic odysseys around Delhi, looking for one of two sources of oxygen: a heavy cylinder that weighs 50kg or more and looks like a dented relic from the Industrial Revolution, or a concentrator which extracts oxygen from the air in the room and pipes it into the patient. Delhi is something of a seller’s market. Prices vary. The going rate for a concentrator this week is 160,000 rupees, or slightly more than £1,500. That is a month’s salary for a tenured professor in a public university. Continue reading...

Conspiracy theories and ‘indoctrination’ claims run amok as childhood education bill prompts fury among fringe voicesThere is $6m from Donald Trump’s administration sitting on the table in Idaho, and trying to pick it up has caused an extraordinary uproar.Related: Woman in Disaster Girl meme sells original photo as NFT for $500,000 Continue reading...

It wasn’t the beach, but lying in front of a fire with the whole family under canvas: I’ve definitely had worse eveningsEven if you were lucky enough to avoid getting sick with Covid, there is a general consensus that we’ve all been changed by the pandemic, and the most popular consensus around what’s changed is that, after a year of sitting inside and scrolling through Netflix, we have forgotten how to deal with each other. “I’ve lost the ability to engage with anyone who isn’t my cat,” a friend texted. “Does the vaccine also make you want to see people?” the American TV writer Gary Janetti recently asked on Instagram, and the verdict from his 900,000 followers was a resounding no.Well, I don’t feel like that. I’m desperate to see everyone again, and my conversation skills are the same as they ever were, which is to say, they aren’t going to give Noël Coward any posthumous insecurity, but my friends tolerate them. Sure, I have even less to talk about than usual (“What have I been up to? Oh, keeping busy, updating my Deliveroo app”), but I still want to throw a massive party. Last summer I thought maybe living through a pandemic would give me new depths. But, no, I just want to get completely wrecked with all my favourite people. And if the music’s loud enough, they won’t hear how boring I am these days. Win-win. Continue reading...

The president has sought bipartisan support but not at the cost of delay and dilution of his bold policiesJoe Biden started his presidential campaign with promises to be a unifying force in Washington who would help lawmakers come together to achieve bipartisan reform. But over his first 100 days in office, Biden’s message to Republicans in Congress has been closer to this: get on board or get out of my way.This willingness to go it alone if necessary appears to be a hard-won lesson from the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when Democrats negotiated with Republicans on major bills only to have them vote against the final proposals. Continue reading...

During the racing season, about 1,000 workers at Kentucky’s Churchill Downs groom, exercise and take care of competitors – hard and potentially dangerous workWalking among the green-roofed stables of America’s most fabled horse racing track – Louisville’s Churchill Downs in Kentucky - chaplain Joseph Del Rosario greets the men and women washing prized thoroughbreds after their morning workouts with a warm “¿Cómo estás?”Making his way past piles of hay and curious horses poking their heads out of stalls, he walks to a security gate at the edge of the track where he reads a daily devotional over the PA system twice – once in English and once in Spanish. Continue reading...

Apple, Google owner Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft raked in money in first quarterBig tech is on a roll. In every minute of the first three months of 2021, Apple, Google owner Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft sold products and services worth about $2.5m (£1.8m) combined. Profits before tax for the period came in at $88bn – more than $1bn of profit for every working day.After a year of shifting to online work and leisure across the global economy, financial results published this week by most of US tech’s biggest names were bound to be strong. But even more bullish analysts on Wall Street were surprised by how fast they raked in money in the quarter, auguring even greater profits in the years ahead. Continue reading...

The entrepreneur-turned-collector financed the Broad museum in LA, and made huge donations to Yale, Harvard and MITEli Broad, the billionaire entrepreneur turned philanthropist and art collector who played an outsized role in shaping the art and cultural scene of Los Angeles, has died at the age of 87.Broad passed away at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles following a long illness, said Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Continue reading...

Former US secretary of state says strained relationship is world’s ‘biggest problem’, as he warns of Beijing’s economic and military mightFormer US diplomat Henry Kissinger has said that US-China tensions threaten to engulf the entire world and could lead to an Armageddon-like clash between the two military and technology giants.The 97-year-old former US secretary of state, who as an adviser to president Richard Nixon crafted the 1971 unfreezing of relations between Washington and Beijing, said the mix of economic, military and technological strengths of the two superpowers carried more risks than the cold war with the Soviet Union. Continue reading...

India’s healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the latest surge, with 386,452 new cases – which may be an undercountThe US will restrict travel from India starting next week, the White House said Friday, citing a devastating rise in Covid-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus.The limits, which take effect from 4 May, with bar most non-US citizens arriving from India from entering the United States. Continue reading...

Palestinian Abu Zubaydah, detained for 19 years without trial, takes US, UK and five other countries before panelA Palestinian man held in Guantánamo Bay is taking the US, the UK and five other states before a UN human rights panel for their role in the CIA rendition and detention of terrorism suspects at “black sites” around the world.The unusual case is being brought to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (UNWGAD) by Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, known as Abu Zubaydah, who has been detained for 19 years without trial. Continue reading...

Defense department will cancel all construction paid for with military funds originally intended for other purposesThe US Department of Defense said on Friday it was cancelling the construction of parts of former president Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico that were being built using military funds.All unobligated money was being returned to military, the Pentagon said. Continue reading...

Body-camera footage showing Karen Garner being pushed to the ground and handcuffed led to outpouring of angerThree Colorado police officers involved in the arrest of a 73-year-old woman with dementia who was shown being pushed to the ground and handcuffed on body-camera footage have resigned, police said on Friday.The Loveland police chief, Robert Ticer, announced the departures of officers Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali and the community services officer Tyler Blackett in connection to the arrest of Karen Garner, without providing details about how they left. A department spokesperson, Tom Hacker, later confirmed they had resigned. Continue reading...

The actor Elliot Page has revealed having top surgery as part of his transition was a 'freeing experience' and he described transitioning as 'life-saving'.Page urged officials to support healthcare for transgender people and allow them access to sports.The actor spoke to Oprah Winfrey on her new show for Apple TV+. The full interview from The Oprah Conversation is expected to be released Friday.

A petition, signed by more than 54,000 people, calls on Biden to return the garden to its ‘former glory’ as Jacqueline Kennedy designedEfforts to erase the Trump family legacy have reached the White House potting sheds and nurseries with Jill Biden being urged to restore the mansion’s garden to a state that predates ex-First Lady Melania Trump’s 2019 makeover.An online petition calling on the first lady to return the Rose Garden to its “former glory” has been signed by more than 54,000 people. The petition says Biden’s predecessor “had the cherry trees, a gift from Japan, removed as well as the rest of the foliage and replaced with a boring tribute to herself”. Continue reading...

A proposition on Saturday’s ballot would impose fines for behavior such as camping, panhandling and sleeping outdoorsSummer Wright experienced homelessness on and off for years as a teenager and young adult. At no point would she have benefited from a $500 fine, or having police sweep away her belongings.“It wouldn’t have urged me into a shelter. It would have urged me further away,” said Wright, a member of the Austin Youth Collective. Continue reading...

The US president is right to spend, but shrinking the federal deficit is not the priorityJoe Biden’s first 100 days in office signalled that the future does not have to be a rerun of the past. The US president’s speech to Congress this week made it clear that Trumpism was a warning from history, a reminder that no republic is guaranteed to last. The US remains in danger – its decline accelerated by an iniquitous economic model, and by leaders unable or unwilling to remedy it. It is a relief to find in the White House a president who wants to bridge divisions rather than widen them. Mr Biden should be praised for saying he will stop the rot and recognising the challenge to democracy posed by autocracy. But his response risks being undone by an obsession with containing non-existent fiscal risks.The Biden White House proposes spending $4trn, with about half the money used to rewrite the social contract. The rest will create jobs, with infrastructure investments to repurpose the post-Covid economy for a zero-carbon world. The problem is not that money is being spent to fix a broken society. Neither is it wrong to ask the rich to pay their fair share of tax. The problem is that Mr Biden says spending must be balanced by tax rises or savings from other government programmes. Continue reading...

Exhibition between YouTuber and 44-year-old is a destructive, easy source of revenue – and a troubling prospect for the sportThe phrase “(Person X) has a punchable face” is a horrible thing. There is so much wrong with it. The idea people have any say in what their face looks like. The suggestion punching is an acceptable human response. It’s degrading. It’s cowardly. It stinks of all the worst parts of the internet, humankind’s angriest medium.And yet, with all due advisories, and having considered soberly all available evidence, it has to be said Logan Paul really does have a punchable face. Continue reading...

The Goop cruise is essentially a floating church freighted with expensive non-solutions. Yet there’s no shortage of believers“If you want to get rich, you start a religion.” This was the reported opinion of Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, who in 1967 bought the first in what was to become a fleet of cruise ships. According to various whistleblower accounts, longtime devotees were finally initiated into the innermost secrets of Scientology on board one of these vessels, having spent years passing through various confected levels and parting with incremental payments totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was where you found out about Xenu, among more weapons-grade lunacy, the galactic tyrant who 75bn years ago exiled multiple individuals to Earth in special craft that weirdly looked exactly like DC10s, then imprisoned them in mountains before blowing them up with hydrogen bombs and brainwashing them with a huge 3D film. My theory has always been that they told you this stuff at sea to reinforce the notion that you were now in too deep to get off the boat, both literally and metaphorically.So, yes: it’s no real surprise to learn this week that turbocapitalist fanny egg pedlar Gwyneth Paltrow has got into the cruise business. Face it, there’s never been a better time, with the possible exception of 13 minutes after the end of the Black Death. Continue reading...

No 3 ranking Republican previously came under sustained attack from her own party for criticizing Donald TrumpLiz Cheney, the embattled No 3 ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, has been forced to defend herself for having fist-bumped Joe Biden during his address to Congress this week.Related: Florida lawmakers pass new voting restrictions mirroring Georgia and Michigan Continue reading...

Whether they admit it or not, Patrick Mahomes was baked into the decision-making process of every front-office executive during Thursday night’s first roundIt’s hard to think of a single player in the modern era of the NFL that has had such an instant, sweeping and lasting impact as Patrick Mahomes. In the space of four short years, he has changed the entire tenor and tone of the league: conservatism is out; risk is in.Make no mistake about it, though Thursday night’s first round of the NFL draft was all about crowning the league’s new batch of stars, it also served as confirmation of the Mahomesification of the league. Continue reading...

The largest airplane ever to take flight has made its second voyage, soaring above California's Mojave desert. Stratolaunch's massive carrier aircraft, nicknamed 'Roc', is designed to transport hypersonic vehicles and facilitate easy access to space.The company was founded by the late billionaire and Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen in 2011, and sold to private ownership in late 2019 after Allen's death. Continue reading...

Bill introduces new hurdles to voting by mail and restrictions on providing water to people waiting in line to cast their ballotThe Florida legislature has passed tight new voting restrictions, placing the crucial swing state at the forefront of a nationwide wave of Republican efforts to suppress turnout on the back of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.The bill, which closely mirrors similar Republican ploys in Georgia and Michigan, is likely to make it more difficult for millions of voters to have their democratic say. The new barriers to voting are expected to particularly impact minority communities. Continue reading...

Derek Chisora’s trainer on handling a troubled upbringing, tragedy in the ring, and his fighter’s best strategy for beating Joseph ParkerWhen the lights dim at the Manchester Arena on Saturday, and Derek Chisora and Joseph Parker wait in their corners for the first bell, it will be tempting to pay more attention to their trainers as they offer up the final slivers of advice before a fight that both heavyweights desperately need to win.Parker, the former WBO world champion, is hoping to fight again for the title, after he lost against Anthony Joshua in a unification contest in March 2018, and he has hired Andy Lee as his new trainer. The old warhorse Chisora, meanwhile, is 37 and, as his last days in boxing reel towards him, he has called in Buddy McGirt, one of the world’s great trainers, to salvage his career. Continue reading...

Pascal Soriot says firm is doing its best to produce more and ‘should be proud of what we did in the world’

Robert Runcie stands down amid corruption inquiry as some claim he is a victim of political foes who blame him for 2018 massacreThe head of the Florida school district that saw the nation’s deadliest high school shooting is standing down amid a secretive corruption inquiry and competing claims that his downfall was orchestrated by political foes who blame him for the loss of 17 lives.Robert Runcie, superintendent of the Broward school district for nine years, confirmed his resignation on Thursday, just over three years after a former student killed 14 teenagers and three staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school (MSD) in Parkland. Continue reading...

Biden marked a significant presidential milestone, the US reflects on the first 100 days and looks to the next. Plus, dozens have been killed in a crowd crush in Israel

This week marks Biden’s first 100 days, when presidents historically try to push ambitious agendas. Our panelists evaluate the record

The president has personally moved to repair partnerships, presenting himself as the anti-Trump, but some fear compromises have felt like business as usual

Families living near Brooklyn Center protests suffer as chemicals enter their homes and kids face a ‘battlefield experience’As police used teargas and flashbangs on protesters outside the Brooklyn Center police department, young children listened, terrified, from their homes directly across the street.Among them were two eleven-year-old girls with autism, which makes them intensely sensitive to loud noises, their older sister, Jamiya Crayton, said. Continue reading...

The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.” Continue reading...

If America’s pastime is going to survive this century, it’s going to have to let its brash young personalities shine throughOn Saturday the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the San Diego Padres in what has become baseball’s hottest rivalry. To say the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr started it off with a bang would be putting it mildly.After taking a chest-high cutter from the Dodgers’ Trevor Bauer on the game’s first pitch for a strike, Tatis struck back on the very next throw, slapping essentially the exact same pitch over Dodger Stadium’s left-field fence to furnish the visitors with a 1-0 lead. It was your classic, cut-to-the-chase moment, one of baseball’s biggest bats getting over on its reigning Cy Young winner. But what came next was even more explosive. As Tatis was rounding first base, he slowed down, looked back and cupped a hand over his right eye. No doubt, for baseball purists, this – not the homer, his first of two on the day – was the real shot. Continue reading...