Previously undisclosed internal report reveals how officials sought to re-establish order during 6 January attack

Lt Caron Nazario, who is Black and Latino, files suit after encounter in which officers referenced executionA second lieutenant in the US army is suing two Virginia police officers over a traffic stop last December in which the officers drew their guns, pointed them at him and used a slang term to suggest he was facing execution before pepper-spraying him and knocking him to the ground.Body camera footage shows Caron Nazario, who is Black and Latino, dressed in uniform and with his hands held in the air outside the driver’s window as he tells the armed officers he is “honestly afraid to get out” of his SUV. Continue reading...

ICU beds fill in Michigan as case counts approach November highs, while Minnesota and Illinois also face growing numbers

As some players’ mentors have found out in Masters week, this grand old club will punish anyone who breaks its traditionsThe famously no-nonsense approach of Augusta National to matters of discipline has been evident once more during Masters week, with more than one player’s coach understood to have been ejected from the premises for violating the rules on mobile phone usage.In one instance, a competitor’s tutor was discovered to be filming his client from outside the ropes during the opening round and was duly asked to leave the course. It is unclear whether the coach was allowed back inside the gates, given his player has survived the 36-hole cut. Continue reading...

Trump and his allies foresaw a ticking timebomb centred on the president’s son – but it has not turned out that wayWhere’s Hunter?The rhetorical question about Joe Biden’s troubled son was posed time and again by Donald Trump during last year’s US presidential election but never caught fire in the way “Lock her up!” did against Hillary Clinton. Continue reading...

Player invited Lee Elder to play in South Africa and was praised by Nelson Mandela but admits his past is not blamelessIt has been almost 50 years since Lee Elder became the first black man to play in the Masters, and five months since Augusta National announced they were at last going to mark his achievement by inviting him to join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player as one of the tournament’s honorary starters.So long that when the moment finally came around early on Thursday morning, Elder, who is 86, wasn’t able to get up and swing a club. Instead he sat and watched as Player and Nicklaus did. It was a poignant moment, despite the way Player’s son (and caddie) Wayne, hovered over Elder’s shoulder cradling a branded box of golf balls, like a model on the shopping channel. Continue reading...

Senate parliamentarian’s decision widens path for Democrats to enact Joe Biden’s sprawling infrastructure planA novel interpretation of an arcane parliamentary procedure has presented congressional Democrats with an unexpected – and tantalizing – new opportunity to advance some of their most ambitious legislative goals despite their slim majorities and fierce Republican opposition.Related: Biden urges Republicans to back $2tn infrastructure plan: ‘Inaction is not an option’ Continue reading...

The irreverent Ruthless attracts big-name guests and is offering a rightwing alternative to wildly popular progressive podcastsAn increasingly prominent Republican podcast is emerging as a conservative alternative to the type of political media progressives have had a monopoly on for years: the partisan, edgy-oftentimes-irreverent entertainment show that nevertheless attracts powerful newsmakers.The podcast, called Ruthless, is hosted by Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Michael Duncan, one of Holmes’s colleagues at the consulting firm they work for, and the lawyer pseudonymously known by his Twitter handle Comfortably Smug. Continue reading...

He and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, endured the cruelty of the press long before Harry and MeghanBecause I’ve been watching a lot of 90s sitcoms recently, I’ve been thinking about John F Kennedy Jr. Seinfeld, Sex And The City, Murphy Brown: his name pops up in them all. It will be 22 years this summer since he died, so a lot of people have forgotten what a big deal he was back then, especially in New York. But John-John, as his parents and the media teasingly called him, remains the closest thing America will probably ever have to a prince. When his plane crashed, only two years after the death of Princess Diana, it really did feel like the cruellest fairytale: the fairest prince and princess in all the lands would not make old bones.I have always been fascinated by Kennedy, the boy who, aged three, saluted his murdered father’s coffin, and then grew up to become America’s most gilded of youths. That surplus of handsomeness, that burdensome name, his efforts to live up to his mother’s high standards while skating around the familial whirlpool pull of politics. The media were never sure whether to sneer or swoon, so they did both, epitomised in the headline after he failed the New York bar exam twice: “The Hunk Flunks.” He had every privilege God could bestow on a man, but had to contend with the sting of his mother’s disapproval of both his career choices (acting, founding the magazine George) and his girlfriends (Daryl Hannah). He was a Shakespearean character in the body of a Ken doll. Continue reading...

The pandemic is once again causing governments to pit incompatible ideas of freedom against each otherNow that the UK’s vaccination programme is beginning to offer an escape route out of lockdown restrictions, despite some hitches, attention is focusing on so-called domestic vaccine passports. Important details remain uncertain but the idea has already been criticised as potentially “divisive and discriminatory”, as well as going against “British instinct” – presumably because Covid passports are reminiscent of compulsory ID cards, the absence of which many regard as a hallmark of British liberty. The desire for freedom is, of course, pretty universal – but there are many, and incompatible, ideas of freedom.The British philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished two from more than 200 senses of the word he claimed had been recorded by historians of ideas: “negative liberty”, or freedom from interference; and “positive liberty”, or freedom understood as self-mastery and self-determination. The former ensures that others don’t hinder your choices, while the latter aims to create conditions that give you options and make your choices truly yours and genuinely free. Continue reading...

A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China Continue reading...

Chief says Chauvin ‘in no way, shape or form’ followed training as key witnesses form striking bookends to weekThe trial of Derek Chauvin, 45, the white former police officer charged with murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis last May, completed its 10th day of witness testimony on Friday.The second week was very different from the first but no less dramatic. The opening days of prosecution witness testimony last week focused on the viral, harrowing bystander video and newly released footage of Floyd’s agonizing death, then on the accounts of some of the traumatized bystanders themselves. Continue reading...

Historic queer institutions across southern California that have been safe spaces for LGBTQ+ crowds for decades are in danger of closing permanentlyFour iconic Los Angeles gay bars, touting a combined history of 130 years, have permanently closed during the pandemic and many more have warned that they are on the brink of shutdown.Related: An order of queer and trans 'nuns' in San Francisco take on an unholy year Continue reading...

A new study has extended women’s reproductive life spans to 37.1 but the earlier figure was always arbitrary and unscientific Continue reading...

Adam Kinzinger tweeted that congressman ‘needs to resign’ and linked to article claiming Gaetz paid $900 to accused sex traffickerThe House ethics committee on Friday announced it will open an investigation into the Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, amid a widening scandal involving allegations related to sex trafficking.In a statement the committee said it was aware of the public allegations that Gaetz may have engaged in “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.” Continue reading...

Dr Andrew Baker does not support evidence of other specialists who said Floyd was suffocated under Chauvin’s knee

DMX, the raspy-voiced hip-hop artist who produced the songs Ruff Ryders’ Anthem and Party Up (Up in Here) and who rapped with a trademark delivery that was often paired with growls, barks and 'What!' as an ad-lib, has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 50 years old. The Grammy-nominated performer died after suffering 'catastrophic cardiac arrest', according to the hospital in White Plains, New York, where he died. He was rushed there from his home on 2 April. The rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, had struggled with drug addiction since his teenage years. His lawyer, Murray Richman, had earlier said he could not confirm reports that DMX overdosed

George Floyd died of a lack of oxygen from the way he was held down by police, a retired forensic pathologist testified on Friday at former officer Derek Chauvin's murder trial. The testimony of Lindsey Thomas, who retired in 2017 from the Hennepin county medical examiner's office in Minneapolis, bolstered testimony by other experts on Thursday that rejected the defence theory that Floyd's drug use and underlying health problems killed him

Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain recounts how Sackler, seven of her relatives and Purdue Pharma were suedBy the time a class-action lawyer asked Kathe Sackler whether her family’s firm, Purdue Pharma, and its prescription painkiller OxyContin bore any responsibility for the US opioid crisis, a shocking 450,000 Americans had died of opioid-related overdoses in the 23 years since the pills hit the market.But Sackler, after some hedging and deflecting, asserted not only that the family had nothing to be ashamed of or apologize for but that she deserved credit for coming up with “the idea” of OxyContin, which was a “very good medicine”, according to a forthcoming book by the journalist and author Patrick Radden Keefe. Continue reading...

Instead of vaccinating Palestinians, Benjamin Netanyahu tried to send thousands of doses around the world as rewards to countries that moved their embassies to JerusalemThe US media has widely lauded Israel’s vaccine success - as a country in a “post-pandemic future” of concerts and indoor dining; as a country that could teach the United States a few lessons in pandemic management; as a country that, despite being in the midst of a contentious election, leaned on its robust universal public health system to vaccinate as many people as possible. However, many of these vaccine success stories mention the issue of Palestinian vaccines in passing, as an unresolved “controversy,” “debate,” or just another instance of Palestinians and Israelis being unable to agree on anything.The difference couldn’t be more stark – two populations living under one regime, heading in opposite directions in the struggle with Covid-19. On the Israeli side, we see a country returning to normalcy: a re-opened economy; a vaccination certificate program that allows for entry into gyms, restaurants, and cultural venues; plummeting infection and hospitalization rates; a surplus of vaccines nearly seven times the small country’s population. On the Palestinian side, minimal vaccines, overwhelmed hospitals, and an economy in crisis. Including the 100,000 Palestinian workers with Israeli work permits that Israel finally agreed to vaccinate in March, Palestinians have received enough vaccines for just over 4% of the 5 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Continue reading...

Gene Suellentrop, the Kansas state senate’s majority leader, had twice the legal alcohol limit when driving in the wrong direction on the highway, police sayWhen critics of the party accuse Republicans of heading in the wrong direction, they don’t usually mean it literally. But that’s what happened with the Kansas senate majority leader, Gene Suellentrop, who was arrested early in the morning on 16 March after leading police on a chase that hit speeds of 90mph and saw the lawmaker travelling against the flow of traffic and narrowly avoiding striking other vehicles on the road.“They about hit me, but I’m OK, I’m fine,” one driver who called 911 on the night in question said, as reported by the Kansas City Star. Continue reading...

This week’s violence is an ominous sign that leaving the EU took a wrecking ball to the Good Friday agreementThe most powerful arguments against Brexit were never about trade and tariffs. They were about peace and war, about life and death. One was a general argument centred on the true, founding purpose of the European Union: to ensure that a continent mired in blood for centuries would not descend into conflict again. The other was more specific, peculiar to these islands: that shared membership of the EU had proved to be the key that unlocked peace in Northern Ireland after three decades of murderous pain.The logic was simple enough. So long as both the UK and Ireland were in the same EU club, the border between them could be blurred, allowing people in the north to identify as British or Irish or both without too much friction. That was the foundation on which the Good Friday agreement, signed 23 years ago tomorrow, was built – a foundation that would be broken if either country were to break from Brussels. Taken together, these were the life-and-death arguments for continued UK membership of the EU, and some tried valiantly to make them. But they were barely heard. Continue reading...

Debra Hunter was arrested last June after she was recorded deliberately coughing on a customer in a Pier 1 storeA Florida woman whose image went viral when she coughed on a fellow customer at a store last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic has been sentenced to 30 days in jail.A judge in Jacksonville on Thursday also ordered Debra Hunter to pay a $500 fine, serve six months probation and participate in a mental health evaluation along with anger management, David Chapman, communications director for the state attorney’s office in Jacksonville, said in an email. She was also ordered to cover the costs of the victim’s Covid-19 test. Continue reading...

Biden officials allocate just 700,000 Johnson & Johnson doses for next week, down from 5m, after error in vaccine productionUS deliveries of the “one-shot” Johnson and Johnson vaccine are set to drop by 85% next week, in a setback to the government’s vaccination campaign.Related: Biden to lay out spending plans after assailing ‘epidemic’ of gun violence – US politics live Continue reading...

When Coca-Cola and Delta backed bigoted lawmakers, we organized, rose up, used our voices to make change – and it workedIn the last general election, Georgians delivered our country from the hands of fascism by securing Democrats in the White House and the Senate. As payback for doing so, Republicans are waging an unholy war against voting rights in the state, pushing Jim Crow-style measures like SB 202 into law, which will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of Georgians to cast their ballots. This dangerous bill impacts specific communities the most: Black, brown, young, and new voters in Georgia.Many voters don’t know that Republicans aren’t working alone to disenfranchise us. Their accomplices were some of the most powerful corporations in our state. In fact, Georgia-based companies like Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot previously bankrolled the backers of voter suppression bills to the tune of over $7.4m. Continue reading...

There must have been intense frustration at the limitations of his role, but he was a rock for his hardworking wife

President calls the violence an ‘international embarrassment’ after recent spate of mass shootings. Plus, Republican-controlled states spend huge amounts on potentially illegal executions

Much of the world’s cotton comes from the Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government is ethnically cleansing its Muslim minority. Fashion conglomerates know thisIn the era of conscious consumerism, it’s often the case that companies are quick to say the right thing, but slower to actually do the right thing. Yet for companies being asked to remove Uyghur forced labor from their supply chains, the opposite is true. Many of the world’s largest brands are willing to rearrange their operations in order to source products from areas that are not known – as the Xinjiang region in western China is – for atrocious human rights violations, but far fewer are willing to do so publicly. As it turns out, “easier said than done” does not apply when facing the rebuke of the Chinese government.Related: US in ‘close consultations’ with allies on possible action over Beijing Olympics Continue reading...

Increased attention on elections has come from unexpected corners offering significant grassroots power and money to efforts to make it harder to voteIn the months since Donald Trump lost his re-election bid, conservative groups traditionally focused on lobbying against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights have moved to support new restrictions on voting, offering significant grassroots power and money to efforts to make it harder to vote. Continue reading...

Redmond, Washington, saw visitor numbers plummet when the pandemic struck but its novel response is a hitMicrosoft’s hometown of Redmond, Washington, has turned to a very straightforward technique to jumpstart tourism more than a year after Covid-19 struck and the corporate travel it had come to rely on, dried up –pay people to visit.

The Ohio State quarterback is a perfect fit for the modern NFL offense but old stereotypes may be hurting his standingWith the draft less than a month away Justin Fields, once viewed as the consensus second-best quarterback in the class, is now on the slide. The nonsense swirling around the Ohio State star is disturbing, but it shouldn’t be surprising.Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence will go off the board to the Jacksonville Jaguars with the first overall pick in this month’s draft. BYU’s Zach Wilson is expected to go second to the Jets – a pick that was all but confirmed by the team’s general manager on Monday. With the third pick, the 49ers, who acquired the selection thanks to an expensive trade with the Dolphins, are expected to snap up Alabama quarterback Mac Jones. Fields, meanwhile, has slipped into a jumble of quarterbacks vying for the fourth spot. Continue reading...

The city’s public finances are decimated – and though the risk of the virus is ebbing, new forms of pain are clearly on the wayI rediscovered a video this week, made by my kids’ kindergarten teachers and sent to parents last June, at the end of the school year. The first half featured scenes of pre-pandemic life, outlandish shots of kids participating, unmasked, in cooking classes, field trips and fun runs. The second comprised videos and photos sent in by the kids of homeschooling. Apart from the sheer lurch at the reminder of how much had been lost, the most striking thing about the video was how definitive the line was between before and after. Things were one way; and the next day they were, emphatically, another.The end of the pandemic won’t be like this. How to measure any ending at all feels like an increasingly impossible task, even as vaccination rates soar and death rates plunge. In the US at least, infection rates remain stubbornly flat, the risk level in New York is stuck at “very high”, and health officials talk of a “fourth surge” in the midwest. Things are much better than they were this time last year, but at this point, anticipating a second summer of disruption and no full return in September, the long tail of this pandemic seems endless. Continue reading...

The parents and children of doctors and nurses who died from Covid tell of how grief has affected themDr Reza Chowdhury was a beloved internist with a private practice in the Bronx and a trusted voice in New York’s Bengali community. His daughter, Nikita Rahman, said despite underlying health issues that put him at higher risk of developing Covid complications, he saw patients through mid-March when he developed symptoms. He died on 9 April.Nikita Rahman My therapist says grief is the final act of love. Every time I miss him, I think about how that is my love for him, showing up again. I like that framing of it. I think I only recently realized just how much I loved him. Continue reading...

State trooper wounded before arrest of suspect who worked at company, officials sayA man opened fire Thursday at a Texas cabinet-making company where he worked, killing one person and wounding five others before shooting and wounding a state trooper prior to his arrest, authorities said.Eric Buske, police chief for the city of Bryan, told reporters he believed the suspect, whose name was not immediately released, was an employee at the Kent Moore Cabinets location where the shooting happened. He said investigators believed the man was solely responsible for the attack, which happened around 2.30pm, and that he was gone by the time officers arrived. Continue reading...