President’s proposed hike would raise corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% to pay for his $2.3tn infrastructure planThe bosses of America’s largest companies overwhelmingly believe Joe Biden’s proposed increase in the country’s corporate tax rate would have a negative impact on their businesses, according to a survey released on Monday.The influential business lobbying group Business Roundtable, whose members include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Tim Cook, released a survey of 178 CEOs on their thoughts on an increase in corporate tax. The survey specifically questioned the CEOs on the president’s proposed corporate tax hike, which would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, to pay for his $2.3tn infrastructure plan. Continue reading...

Emancipation, based on the life of an enslaved man named Peter, will no longer film in the stateA major Apple Studios film telling the story of a man who escapes slavery that is set to be directed by Antoine Fuqua and star Will Smith will no longer film in Georgia as a result of a controversial voting bill that passed in the state last month.Emancipation is based on the life of an enslaved man named Peter who escapes from a plantation and joins the Union army. The film is the first production to leave the state as a result of its new law. The film and TV industries are huge revenue generators for Georgia, pulling in billions of dollars. Continue reading...

Rochelle Walensky says state should ‘really close things down, to go back to basics’ as governor pleads for more vaccine doses

Wright was shot and killed by police after he was pulled over for a traffic violation in Brooklyn Center, near MinneapolisDaunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on Sunday. Protests broke out in the suburb of Minneapolis, where one of the most-watched police trials in recent memory is playing out.Police on Monday said the shooting appeared to be an “accidental discharge” and the officer had intended to use a Taser, but mistakenly drew a handgun. Continue reading...

Teenager Anthony Neuer has got himself into the history books with an incredible 7-10 split, the first of it's kind caught on television for 30 years. The 18-year-old becomes the fourth player ever to achieve the feat during PBA Tour TV broadcast. Much to the astonishment of the commentators who spoke breathlessly saying 'Oh man, give me some oxygen and water ... I believe the Ginger Assassin can drop the 7-10'. However, it wasn't enough to send him to victory as he lost to Jakob Butturff, 257-203 Continue reading...

One of two police officers accused of pepper-spraying and pointing their guns at a Black US army officer during a traffic stop has been fired, a Virginia town announced late on Sunday, hours after the governor called for an independent investigation.In the December 2020 encounter, two officers are accused of drawing their guns, pointing them at army second lieutenant Caron Nazario and using a slang term to suggest he was facing execution.Nazario, who is Black and Latino, was also pepper-sprayed and knocked to the ground by the officers, Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, according to the lawsuit he filed earlier this month against them. The two sides in the case dispute what happened but Crocker wrote in a report that he believed Nazario was “eluding police” and he considered it a “high-risk traffic stop”. Attorney Jonathan Arthur said Nazario was trying to stop in a well-lit area

The prime minister’s bluster is meeting head-on with the complex reality of Northern Irish politicsApologies make cynical history, but Boris Johnson has a big one to make, and fast. He must apologise to Northern Ireland’s unionists that he did not mean it last year when he pledged “no border” down the Irish Sea. As the Good Friday agreement negotiator, Jonathan Powell, wrote on Sunday, this was a lie. Johnson had just told the Irish government that the Good Friday deal held and there would be no border on the island of Ireland. Given Britain’s intention to leave the EU’s customs union, the two statements were incompatible, and Johnson knew it. Every truck on the Belfast ferry knows it, too.The current Belfast riots have invoked the usual platitudes. The Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has called for calm. Joe Biden has offered concern. Everyone is outraged that children are being encouraged to attack the police. Even Prince Philip’s death has been cited as a call for restraint. Deprivation, local political grievances, poor relationships with the police – these are all factors behind the disturbances. But every act of violence also carries the same word: exasperation. Will someone answer the question? Johnson lied, and what is Britain going to do about it? Continue reading...

British far-right activist’s team also approached Republican senator Ted Cruz’s office about securing a visaThe anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson asked wealthy American backers to help him claim asylum in the US, the Guardian has learned, while his team approached the Republican senator Ted Cruz’s office about securing a visa.Court documents released in the US show the English Defence League founder discussed moving his family to Texas in 2019, where he would earn money by speaking at venues “including evangelical churches”. Continue reading...

The Masters champion appears to have little in common with Asian Americans. But his win comes at a time when any Asian success story is welcome in the USAnd with that, Hideki Matsuyama is the first male Japanese player ever to win a golf major.Quite interesting timing, particularly as anti-Asian hate crimes in the US have risen 150% over the past year, spurred on by conspiracy theories – spread by those in power – about the origins of Covid-19. The hashtag ‘Stop Asian Hate’ surged more than 5,000% just this past month, according to Google Trends. Continue reading...

​Residents in South Baltimore are fighting to 'starve' their nearby Bresco incinerator due to health concerns over the amount of pollution it creates. Of the 72 remaining facilities in the US, the vast majority are located in predominantly low-income or minority communities, raising concerns about compounding pollutants in already overburdened neighbourhoods Continue reading...

Innovation by companies such as Amazon, Alibaba and Tencent presents big challengesIn 2009, in the midst of the global financial crisis, Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chair, famously observed that the only socially productive financial innovation of the preceding 20 years was the automated teller machine. One wonders what Volcker would make of the tsunami of digitally enabled financial innovations today, from mobile payment platforms to internet banking and peer-to-peer lending.Volcker might be reassured: like the humble ATM, many of these innovations have tangible benefits in terms of lowering transactions costs. But as a critic of big financial firms, Volcker presumably also would worry about the entry of some very large technology companies into the sector. Their names are as familiar as their services are ubiquitous: Amazon in the US, the messaging company Kakao in Korea, the online auction and commerce platform Mercado Libre in Latin America, and the Chinese technology companies Alibaba and Tencent. Continue reading...

Police shot and killed a man in Brooklyn Center, close to Minneapolis where the trial over the death of George Floyd continues. Plus, Facebook failed to crack down on world leaders deceiving and harassing citizens

Dr James Crow is a specialist in statistics and other subtle ways of keeping black voters downGeorgia has a long history of racial inequity at the ballot box. Voters wait an average of just six minutes in line after 7pm in precincts where 90% of residents are white. But when 90% of voters are Black? The wait soars to 51 minutes.Between 2012 and 2018, Georgia shuttered 8% of all precincts statewide, and moved 40% of them. According to a study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the combination of fewer precincts and longer commutes could have kept as many as 85,000 people from casting a ballot in 2018. This disproportionately burdened Black voters, who were 20% less likely to make it to the polls as a result. Continue reading...

Cambridge-based company claims to be first to use AI to detect cybersecurity threats on a large scaleThe cybersecurity firm Darktrace has announced plans to float on the London Stock Exchange, in a move that will reportedly value the Cambridge-based company at £3bn.It is the first big company to have chosen the City for its initial public offering (IPO) since Deliveroo’s disappointing stock market debut last month. Continue reading...

A diverse community has come together and embraced activism in the face of a pandemic-linked upsurge in racismNatty Jumreornvong was outside Mount Sinai hospital on the Upper East Side of New York around 11am one morning in February when a man approached her.Related: 'Our community is bleeding': Asian American lawmakers say violence has reached 'crisis point' Continue reading...

Claudia Yoli Ferla, incoming executive director at Move Texas, is trying to turn first-time voters into lifetime organizersClaudia Yoli Ferla can’t vote herself.But, by registering and educating others, the 28-year-old immigrant and El Pasoan has helped thousands of fellow Texans gain access to the polls, despite the blot of voter suppression in her state. Continue reading...

Photographer Magdalena Wosinska spent about two weeks sleeping in the basement of a community center looking to show the beauty of the community in Pine RidgeWhen Monique “Muffie” Mousseau was in the fourth grade she got expelled from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic school on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota.Her classmates didn’t like the beaded moccasins her grandmother made for her and the two braids she sported, which were held together by hand-beaded hair ties. Continue reading...

We are not surrendering! Just the opposite in fact, we are getting on with it despite everything

Several dozen demonstrators holding Black Lives Matter banners and signs faced off with police in riot gear in a suburb of Minneapolis after Daunte Wright, 20, was reportedly shot and killed by police. Wright was believed to have been approached by police as part of traffic stop. The individual had an outstanding warrant. As police were attempting to take the individual into custody, he reportedly tried to get back into his vehicle, at which time he was shot by a police officer. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene and a passenger in the vehicle was injured

At Mar-a-Lago, former president also goes after Fauci and Chao … and claims party ‘can’t have these guys that like publicity’

State legislature overturned Asa Hutchinson’s block on law banning gender-confirming treatment for young people

Allowing the likes of Google and Facebook to reap the rewards of junk food ads leaves a sour taste in the mouthSometimes, in my most misanthropic moods, I’m seduced by a libertarian approach to advertising rules. You know, just let it all out there. Let them go for it. Maybe you still try to prevent outright lies, but actually maybe you don’t even bother with that. Let them tell us that a McFlurry, say, brings eternal life and see whether doing so would really elevate sales even over the medium term – when the bloated corpses of the McFlurry gorgers begin to stack up.And we’d be done with expressions such as “increases by up to” and “helps prevent” by which products’ efficacy can be almost infinitely exaggerated without a direct lie having been told. I think that might be refreshing, unless phrases by which false concepts are conveyed through an intricate lattice of literal truths turn out to be our current civilisation’s only lasting art form, with “not even a black hole can eat three Shredded Wheat” as the central masterpiece, brilliant because it is a lie made permissible only by the fact that no one is supposed to believe it. Continue reading...

The GOP says the $2tn infrastructure plan is too big. Democrats say Trump cut taxes and ‘spent like a drunken sailor’The response was as uniform as it was predictable.Related: Republican ‘attacks’ on corporations over voting rights bills are a hypocritical sham Continue reading...

The disputed term is often used in fatal cases of police violence, but isn’t recognized by some major medical bodiesThroughout the first phases of the Derek Chauvin murder trial, the defense attorney Eric Nelson has made passing reference to the term “excited delirium” as he attempts to build a case for his client.Nelson referenced the phrase during opening arguments, has asked a number of witnesses about the term and may well explore it when the defense gets to present its case. Continue reading...

With Putin and Xi moving into an ever closer alliance, Joe Biden’s untested US administration may be pushed to the brinkIt may just be coincidence that Russia was piling military pressure on Ukraine last week at the same time as China noisily rattled sabres around Taiwan. Spring, to mangle Tennyson, is when a young man’s fancy turns to war – and that twisted maxim may even apply to ageing thugs such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.Russia and China are moving into ever closer alliance. While there is no evidence of direct collusion over Ukraine and Taiwan, presidents Putin and Xi are doubtless fully aware of each other’s actions, which have an identical, mutually reinforcing effect: putting the wind up Joe Biden’s untested US administration. Continue reading...

The interior secretary has announced the formation of a new unit to investigate the ‘epidemic’ of violenceFor 30 long years, Ana White has been searching for her sister, Andrea “Chick” White. The then 22-year-old Native mother of four, along with an eight-month-old baby, had traveled to Eureka, California, in July 1991 for a court date, after an auto accident. She was spotted hitchhiking home along a freeway near Blue Lake, in northern California. She has been missing ever since.

In the early days of his post-presidential life, Trump has crashed a wedding and welcomed maskless Mar-a-Lago guestsWhat do US presidents do once they leave the White House? Barack Obama kite-surfed with Richard Branson. Jimmy Carter returned to his peanut farm and found that it was $1m in debt. George W Bush got into painting.It’s early days, but Donald Trump’s post-presidential life has been just like his presidency: non-traditional. Aside from setting up an eyebrow-raising new website, and releasing wannabe tweets as official statements, he’s spent most of his time inside his new home at Mar-a-Lago, the giant and exclusive resort he owns in south Florida. Continue reading...

With red states set to gain seats, the GOP is ready to disadvantage Democrats and deliver the US HouseRepublicans believe they have a great chance to win control of the US House of Representatives in 2022, needing a swing of about six seats to depose Nancy Pelosi as speaker and derail Joe Biden’s agenda.Related: On the House review: John Boehner’s lament for pre-Trump Republicans Continue reading...

LSE and Resolution Foundation findings reveal lasting ethnic disadvantage; why was this not reflected in the race report?The recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report generated controversy, but little light, which is what failure looks like when your purpose is to shed light on the disadvantages faced by ethnic minorities. So let’s get the facts straight, labour market and living standards wise.Related: Race report: 'the government has completely missed the mark' Continue reading...

The deal between big business and government – donations in return for low taxes or none – remains absolutely unchangedFor four decades, the basic deal between big American corporations and politicians has been simple. Corporations provide campaign funds. Politicians reciprocate by lowering corporate taxes and doing whatever else corporations need to boost profits.Related: Don't expect Biden to trumpet lofty aims for his rescue plans – he's simply Mr Fix-it | Robert Reich Continue reading...