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Stocks across US and Europe that have been heavily shorted by hedge funds are being targeted

Restrictions come on the heels of an election in which federal and state officials called it ‘the most secure in US history’Happy Thursday,After an election filled with misinformation and lies about fraud, Republicans have doubled down with a surge of bills to further restrict voting access in recent months, according to a new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. Continue reading...

The Republican leadership has jettisoned its commitment to democracy and the rule of law and authoritarianism has found a political homeOn Tuesday, the US senate rejected an attempt to kill the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, 55-45, but only five Republicans voted with the majority. Acquittal of the ex-president is now a foregone conclusion. The only question is when.Trump 2024 can still happen. In the short run, his dream won’t die. With another campaign looming over the horizon, the former reality show host can still rake in the bucks to the delight of his family and his creditors. The beast will continue to be fed. Continue reading...

It may be timid and half-baked, but the magazine’s mea culpa is evidence of shifting dynamics in a post-#MeToo film industryUntil relatively recently, an apology in the arts review columns of any publication was vanishingly rare, if not non-existent. If crow had to be eaten, it would be the end result of some unprecedented legal action in which defendant and plaintiff had grimly established – through a poker-game exchange of solicitor’s letters – what the likely outcome would be in court.In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens: 'Apologies are a bore. What we want is an explanation' Continue reading...

New US secretary of state says Tehran would first need to fully comply with 2015 nuclear dealIran has responded with anger and disappointment to the new US secretary of state saying American sanctions against Tehran will not be lifted until it comes back into verifiable “full compliance” with its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.Antony Blinken said Iranian compliance would take some time, indicating there is unlikely to be any major movement in negotiations until after the Iranian presidential elections in June. Continue reading...

The Department of Homeland Security warned the Capitol siege may inspire similar attacks. Plus, what is the battle between Wall Street and a bunch of people on Reddit, and why is the White House monitoring it?Good morning.The Department of Homeland Security warned of a heightened domestic terror threat on Wednesday, issuing a national terrorism bulletin that described an ongoing threat of anti-government violence following the inauguration of Joe Biden. The bulletin suggested that insurrection at the Capitol earlier this month, which left five dead and senators cowering in the building, may inspire and encourage extremists to carry out further attacks. It warned the threat would persist for weeks. Continue reading...

County officials have no official policy, but they also don’t want injections to go to waste – to some people’s benefitDouglas wasn’t sure where to go as he crossed the parking lot at the Inglewood Forum last week. The 40-something-year old Los Angeles resident had gotten a hot tip from a friend that there were often dozens of doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine leftover at night. Concerned he wouldn’t get a chance to make an appointment to be vaccinated for months, he approached the injection tents as the sky turned dusky, to ask if they had any spares.Los Angeles is vaccinating health care workers, first responders and residents older than 65. But as the region battles one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the US, people are chasing vaccine doses ahead of their allotted tier, queuing in lines for hours, visiting sites after the official time ends. Information about where to show up for extra doses and when is typically passed word of mouth. Continue reading...

The UCLA senior’s viral floor exercise prompted shout-outs from Michelle Obama and Janet Jackson by leaning into the freedom of expression unique to college gymnasticsThe latest entry in the surprisingly robust YouTube subgenre of viral college gymnastics routines dropped over the weekend, flooding timelines everywhere and generating national media attention rare for the parochial sport. The footage of UCLA senior Nia Dennis tumbling and swaying in a shimmering blue leotard to a high-energy mashup of Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Megan Thee Stallion, Soulja Boy and Tupac Shakur from Saturday’s dual meet against Arizona State was instantly hailed as a tribute to Black Excellence, racking up more than 10 million views on in a matter of days while earning shout-outs from Michelle Obama, Janet Jackson, Kerry Washington and Ms Supa Dupa Fly herself.The two-minute clip is not the first collegiate floor routine to bubble up into the mainstream. It’s not even Dennis’s first: the Ohio native’s Homecoming-themed floor exercise from a meet last season has been watched more than 30 million times and landed her on Ellen in March. And it’s not a coincidence that so many of them have come under the cultivation of UCLA’s longtime coach Valorie Kondos Field, the former classical dancer who in the three decades until her recent retirement transformed the Bruins into one of America’s most decorated programs. Continue reading...

Majority ruling upholds earlier decision to commute sentence of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh

Less than 12 months ago the quarterback pitched up on a new team at the age of 42. Now he is within reach of a seventh Super Bowl ringMoments after triumphing in his 14th conference championship game last Sunday, Tom Brady jogged over to the Lambeau Field stands and waved down a security guard. “Can I say hi to my son?” he asked.And though the kid’s body was covered from head to toe against the cold and his face shrouded against Covid, there was no doubt that this was Brady’s oldest, Jack. The scene, captured by NFL Films, stood out as much for the boy’s size as its sentimentality. It is hard to believe that kid, not even a glint in his old man’s eye when Brady made his first Super Bowl start in 2002, is 13-years-old now. Continue reading...

This week’s roundup also features Hank Aaron, York’s fond Bootham Crescent farewell and football in snow and mud1) Baseball is in mourning for Hank Aaron, who died last week aged 86. The Atlanta Braves legend held the MLB home-run record for three decades, with 755. Here’s a documentary charting his rise featuring some old footage to cherish. And here’s his historic 715th home run, called by Vin Scully, when he overtook the great Babe Ruth. Listen to some tributes to Aaron from fellow players. and watch him chatting to David Letterman about how the game has changed. Continue reading...

Melvin Capital Management had bet on failure of store before small investors sent shares soaring

After the success of my inauthentic soda bread recipe, I decided to formulate a less unhealthy, vegan take on an American classic

US president smooths over Trump-era complaints to deepen Japan security alliance as new secretary of state rejects Beijing’s South China Sea claimsJoe Biden has vowed to strengthen the US’s alliance with Japan to counter growing Chinese military activity in the volatile Asia-Pacific region, including a commitment to defend the Senkakus, a group of islands in the East China sea administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.The US president and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga agreed during a phone call that their countries’ security alliance was “the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific”. Continue reading...

US climate envoy John Kerry says US workers have been fed a false narrative on climate change over the last few years. The former US secretary of state was speaking as president Joe Biden signalled a major shift on climate policy by signing a host of executive orders. Kerry highlighted job growth in renewable energy as evidence of a misled belief that had spread that resolving climate change would come at a cost to workers

The redditors’ logic is one I recognise from my teens: intentionally senseless, a joke rather than a philosophy. And nobody wants a joke explainedDuring my late teens, around 2005, a group of high school friends and I (boys, nerds; mean together, meek apart) discovered the website 4chan and it occupied us for a couple of years. Its appeals: anarchy, in-jokes, and abrogation of responsibility.4chan hosts a variety of image boards with subjects ranging from “pornography” to “alternative sports”, but we were enamoured with /b/. This was the “random” board, where users were permitted to post anything as long as it wasn’t illegal, and every post was anonymous. Whenever a trend emerged its origin was, by design, impossible to locate. Every idea, every joke format, every new target, seemed collectively agreed upon, with no single leader or accountable party; ants swarming a carcass. Everyone was a puerile cynic, adopting a posture of ironised defensiveness, an attempt on the part of the deeply uncool to create a virtual world over which they ruled. Here I first encountered memes, lurkers, shitposting, trolling, and much else that would eventually erupt from this niche like pus from a wound. Continue reading...

National terrorism bulletin suggests attack may embolden extremists and set the stage for additional attacksThe US Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday issued a national terrorism bulletin warning of the lingering potential for violence from people motivated by anti-government sentiment after Joe Biden’s election. Continue reading...

NFL says National Youth Poet Laureate will recite an original poem honoring three people who have served during the coronavirusAmanda Gorman will be the first poet to perform at the Super Bowl next month when she recites an original poem honoring three people who have served during the coronavirus, the NFL has announced.Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that educator Trimaine Davis, nurse manager Suzie Dorner and Marine veteran James Martin will take part in the coin toss on 7 February in Tampa, Florida. Continue reading...

She won an Oscar for The Last Picture Show and Emmys for her TV series workCloris Leachman, a character actor whose depth of talent brought her an Oscar for the The Last Picture Show and Emmys for her comedic work in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and other TV series, has died. She was 94.Leachman died of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, publicist Monique Moss said Wednesday. Her daughter was at her side, Moss said. Continue reading...

School board voted to give 44 schools new names with no connection to slavery, oppression or racismThe San Francisco school board has voted to remove the names of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dianne Feinstein and a number of other politicians, conquistadors and historical figures from public schools after officials deemed them unworthy of the honor. Continue reading...

In a sharp 180-degree turn from the Trump administration, Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders to address the 'existential threat' of the climate crisis. Biden insisted his climate plan would create millions of new 'clean' jobs to replace those lost in the coal and oil industries

House minority leader has said only he ‘planned to have a conversation’ with congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene

The retailer has gone from $19 to $330 thanks in part to amateurs taking on the hedge fundsIf you find trading bitcoin insufficiently hair-raising, try GameStop. It is the Texas-based video games retailer that will be hard to out-do as the stock market story of 2021. The share price was $19 at the start of this month but reached $330 in mid-afternoon on Wednesday in New York. There have been a few downwards lurches along the way, but the overall direction has been unsustainably upwards.It must be unsustainable because nothing of note has happened to improve GameStop’s commercial prospects so radically. Exciting PlayStation and Xbox releases may lie around the corner, but the company is still a bricks-and-mortar retailer struggling in an online age. Instead, punting on GameStop has become a video game in itself. Continue reading...

Wall Street bank hired 400 staff for Canary Wharf-headquartered digital bankThe Wall Street company JP Morgan is to launch a new digital bank in the UK, in a move that threatens to shake up a banking sector still dominated by a handful of high street lenders.JP Morgan has already hired 400 staff for its soon-to-be-launched digital bank, which will be headquartered in Canary Wharf and operate under its consumer brand, Chase. Continue reading...

Move comes as Covid surge has pushed local healthcare systems to brink of collapse and funeral industry faces horrifying backlogCalifornia’s decision to lift its stay-at-home order is drawing backlash from health experts and frontline workers who warn that a premature reopening could prolong the crisis and further devastate hard-hit communities. Continue reading...

The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority will certify the plane separatelyBoeing’s 737 Max aircraft has been given the green light to return to the skies in the UK and the EU, after a 22-month grounding following two fatal crashes.The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Wednesday it had lifted a ban on the 737 Max in UK airspace and that UK airlines would be allowed to fly it, shortly after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) also issued its final approval. However, the CAA stressed that pilot training requirements meant it would be some time before the plane takes to the air in the UK. Continue reading...

Slowness to sign up to and approve the vaccine may have caused delays, but Brussels feels the company is being less than cooperative

Letter by Islamist militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh tells of involvement in US journalist’s 2002 deathAfter 18 years of denial the British-born militant who was convicted and later acquitted of the beheading of the American journalist Daniel Pearl has told a court he played a “minor” role in the killing, according to the Pearl family lawyer.A letter handwritten by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, in 2019, in which he admitted limited involvement in the killing of the Wall Street Journal reporter, was submitted to Pakistan’s supreme court nearly two weeks ago. On Wednesday lawyers for Sheikh confirmed that their client had written the letter. Continue reading...

Extremist leader repeatedly worked undercover for investigators after his arrest in 2012, former prosecutor and court files revealEnrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling. Continue reading...

List of 116,000 people set to be removed from rolls after election included thousands of eligible votersMore than 10,000 people who Ohio believed had “abandoned” their voter registration cast ballots in the 2020 election, raising more concern that officials are using an unreliable and inaccurate method to identify ineligible voters on the state’s rolls.In August, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, released a list of 115,816 people who were set to be purged after the November election because the election officials in each of Ohio’s 88 counties flagged them as inactive. Voters could remove their name from the list by taking a number of election-related actions, including voting, requesting an absentee ballot, or simply confirming their voter registration information. Continue reading...

Suspect Paul Rivas, 64, accused of driving car into people along streets and sidewalk, killing a 77-year-old and injuring nine othersInvestigators have found no evidence that terrorism, politics or any bias motivated the rampage of a 64-year-old Oregon man who witnesses said repeatedly drove into people along streets and sidewalks in Portland, Oregon, killing a 77-year-old woman and injuring nine other people, police said.Police identified the driver as Paul Rivas of Oregon City. He was booked into the Multnomah county detention center on initial charges of second-degree murder, assault and failure to perform the duties of a driver, Portland police said. Continue reading...

Bank decided last year to cut executive pay after settling investigation into corruption scandalGoldman Sachs has cut the pay of its chief executive, David Solomon, by $10m (£7.3m) after the bank was forced to pay billions of dollars to settle an international investigation into its role in the 1MDB scandal.Solomon was still granted a $15.5m bonus on top of his $2m annual salary, in light of the investment bank’s bumper performance last year. It left Solomon with a pay packet totalling $17.5m, compared with $27.5m in 2019. Continue reading...

Remembering atrocious events is vital – but watching the bestsellers accrue and witnessing tourists taking selfies in Auschwitz-Birkenau has left me very uneasy

Forty-five Republicans attempted to dismiss Trump’s impeachment trial, suggesting it is unlikely enough will vote to convict him. Plus, Biden aims to vaccinate 300m Americans by fallGood morning.The chance of Donald Trump being convicted in his impeachment trial in the Senate looks less likely as of Tuesday, when 45 Republicans attempted to dismiss the proceedings before they began. With 55 senators still supporting the trial, the Republicans’ objections were not enough to derail it, but to get a conviction 67 senators need to vote in favour. In practice, this means a dozen Republicans who just voted to end the trial would need to cross the aisle and vote in favour of impeaching Trump, which seems unlikely. Continue reading...

This is no time for incrementalism. Only a bold effort to strengthen US democracy will prevent the return of rightwing minority ruleThe Democrats’ victory in the Georgia Senate races cements their control over America’s most important governing institutions. In deciding what to do with their newfound power, they should learn from those who won this victory – the tireless organizers, many of them Black women, who made sure that Georgians were registered, motivated and able to vote. They know how to turn this country’s true Silent Majority – the one which rejects Republicans in election after election, including in 2016 – into a governing majority. What they did for Georgia, national Democratic leaders must now do for America.The case for the Democratic Party to commit itself to a radical pro-democracy agenda is simple. The last four years have shown the horrors of minority rule. Political institutions like the Electoral College, the Senate and gerrymandered House districts reward Republicans for appealing to a narrow minority of the population. They take this easily-won power and use it not for the good of the country as a whole but to push through extremist policies and fight culture wars. When they abuse their power, as Donald Trump did, little can be done to stop them. Continue reading...

The Capitol attack was the tip of the iceberg. The Biden administration must confront the full threat of the US far right

In a city where 55% of children live in poverty, teachers are struggling to fill in for services students have lost while schools are closedSchool closures have been disruptive for students across the United States but, for many students of color in Milwaukee’s public school system, the immediate impacts have been downright alarming.In the long run, educators fear, Covid and a long history of segregation and discrimination have formed a toxic cocktail that could reverberate for decades to come. Continue reading...

Thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to Wyoming during the second world war. They overcame displacement and achieved athletic excellenceTamotsu “Babe” Nomura, the quarterback of the Heart Mountain High School Eagles football team, took the snap on a warm October day in Wyoming nearly 80 years ago. Once poised for athletic success in Los Angeles, Nomura was now at Heart Mountain because the US government had established it as one of multiple internment camps for the 120,000 Japanese Americans it suspected of disloyalty during the second world war.A barbed-wire fence surrounded Heart Mountain and its drafty wooden barracks, all placed under constant guard. Yet on 1 October 1943, the Eagles scored a victory for human dignity. In the team’s first-ever game, Nomura threw a last-minute touchdown pass and kicked the extra point for a 7-0 win. They would go on to an undefeated season. This remarkable team is the subject of The Eagles of Heart Mountain, a new book by Bradford Pearson. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s hopes of avoiding conviction by the US Senate were strengthened on Tuesday when 45 Republicans tried to dismiss his impeachment trial before it even began.After they were sworn in and signed the oath book – each using a different pen owing to coronavirus precautions – Rand Paul of Kentucky challenged the legitimacy of the trial.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, dismissed Paul’s theory as 'flat-out wrong'

Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham comments have raised eyebrows and struck many as hypocriticalThe hosts at Fox News have been furious in recent days. The mainstream media, they say, has been “gushing” over Joe Biden, offering “nauseating” coverage of the new president and “not hiding their excitement”.Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham are some of the rightwing commentators at the conservative channel getting good mileage from the alleged Biden-fawning – but their accusations have raised eyebrows among those who watched Fox News’s hosts spend four years largely functioning as an extension of Donald Trump’s White House. Continue reading...

Declassified memo details two Russian scientists’ 1980s research, claiming one ‘perfected his method’ of extra-sensory perceptionIn a recently declassified memo, CIA agents in 1991 described two Russian scientists who were conducting experiments on extrasensory perception, known as ESP, which is the ability to gain information, or influence physical objects, using only the mind.Related: Bent spoons, flying saucers and remote control donkeys: military myths explained | Mark Pilkington Continue reading...

When governments fail to ban outright falsehoods that endanger their citizens, they are neglecting their primary duty

The US president, Joe Biden, has signed four executive orders aimed at healing the racial divide in America, including one to curb the US government’s use of private prisons and another to bolster anti-discrimination enforcement in housing. They are among several steps Biden is taking to roll back policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and to promote racial justice reforms that he pledged to address during his campaign

The Biden administration is increasing vaccination efforts with a goal of protecting 300 million Americans by early fall, as the administration surges deliveries to states for the next three weeks following complaints of shortages and inconsistent supplies. ‘This is enough vaccine to vaccinate 300 million Americans by end of summer, early fall,’ Biden said. ‘This is a wartime effort,’ he added, saying more Americans had already died from the coronavirus than during all of the second world war