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Suspect died in the explosion that rocked city on Christmas Day as officials reportedly examine whether he had 5G paranoiaAuthorities in Tennessee on Sunday named a 63-year-old Nashville resident as the perpetrator of the Christmas morning bombing that injured three people and destroyed sections of the city’s historic downtown.Anthony Quinn Warner, an information technology contractor from the south-eastern suburb of Antioch, instigated and was killed in the explosion, according to law enforcement sources at an evening press briefing. Continue reading...

11 million people will lose aid from expiration of unemployment programs as Trump heads to the golf course instead of signing billMillions of Americans battling the financial hardships of the coronavirus pandemic lost their unemployment benefits on Sunday as Donald Trump continued to refuse to sign a relief package agreed in Congress and headed instead to the golf course.The president’s belligerence over the bipartisan Covid relief and spending bill, that would have extended the benefits and given direct cash payments to most American families, drew the ire of senior Republicans, who accused Trump of inflicting more misery on citizens. Continue reading...

There’s no sign that ministers will use the twin shocks of the pandemic and Brexit to fix a broken system that is failing too many peopleWhen the UK entered the coronavirus age in March, state resources and collective commitment were mobilised on a scale not seen since the second world war. Decades ago, Britain had revealed itself, thanks in part to being able to marshal the industrial might of the empire, to be a formidable world power. Its economy was energised with breakthroughs in radar, atomic power and medicine.Although the story of the pandemic has not yet ended, there appears to be no such transformation in sight under Boris Johnson. Rather depressingly, familiar trends of greed, incompetence and cronyism are reasserting themselves. This is bad news for an economy where there has been a collapse of socially useful innovation. Britain’s lack of hi-tech manufacturing capabilities, notably in medical diagnostic testing, was cruelly exposed by the pandemic. Continue reading...

Lawyers say the organization is now directly competing with the Boy Scouts for female recruits and that it’s not a fair fightThe Girl Scouts are in a “highly damaging” recruitment war with the Boy Scouts after the latter opened its core services to girls, leading to marketplace confusion and some girls unwittingly joining the Boy Scouts, lawyers for the century-old Girl Scouts organization claim in court papers.The competition, more conjecture than reality two years ago, has intensified as the Boy Scouts of America organization – which insists recruits pledge to be “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous and kind” – has unfairly recruited girls lately, according to claims in legal briefs filed on behalf of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. Continue reading...

Iron Mike’s sincerity and humility turned what might have been a cynical money grab into an unlikely moment of inspiration that underscored his endurance in our sporting consciousnessWhen Mike Tyson announced he was fighting an eight-round exhibition against Roy Jones Jr over Thanksgiving weekend after floating the idea of a comeback on Instagram for most of 2020, you’d have been forgiven if you dismissed the whole thing as a cynical money grab.Nostalgia is a powerful narcotic. And the unspoken allure of old-timers exhibitions like Tyson v Jones is that people are paying not for the product on offer but a memory – a feeling. Embedded in the sales pitch of a Tyson fight was the promise of transporting the customer even briefly to a fairer, better time that mostly exists in our memories. Continue reading...

Museum plans series of events to mark anniversary of al-Qaida attacks on US that claimed almost 3,000 livesMany can remember exactly where they were 20 years ago when al-Qaida perpetrated the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history by deliberately crashing passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.Fewer, however, really contemplate just how much the 9/11 atrocity profoundly changed and shaped everyday life today. Continue reading...

The president indicated he may veto the 5,000-page bill that he calls a ‘disgrace’ which would extend benefits to AmericansAs unemployment benefits expired for millions of Americans on Saturday, Donald Trump, who spent Christmas playing golf in Florida, continued to block a $900bn pandemic relief bill that would extend them.The package, which Congress passed with bipartisan support on Monday after months of negotiations, would keep unemployment benefits in place until March and expand state benefits by $300 a week – as well as extending an evictions moratorium, providing federal loans to small businesses and $600 direct payments to many Americans. Continue reading...

The US already has sky-high rates of chronic illness. Now comes a wave of Covid patients who never seem to fully recover

The US president rampaged across the world, leaving a trail of random destruction, division and conflict in his wakeHow much damage did Donald Trump do around the world, can it be repaired, and did he accomplish anything of lasting significance? Assessing the international legacy of the 45th US president is not so much a conventional survey of achievement and failure. It’s more like tracking the rampages of a cantankerous rogue elephant that leaves a trail of random destruction and shattered shibboleths in its wake. Last week’s wild pardoning spree is a case in point.First, the big picture. Trump’s confrontational manner, combined with his “America First” agenda, seriously undermined transatlantic relations and US global leadership. Joe Biden promises to set this right, but it will not be easy. France’s Emmanuel Macron exploited US introspection to advance ideas of European autonomy and integration. Leaders in the UK, Hungary and Poland cynically flattered Trump for their own political purposes. Continue reading...

Races will decide which party controls the Senate and, in turn, the legislative power of President-elect Joe BidenDemocrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both running for crucial US Senate seats in Georgia that will decide the fate of Joe Biden’s new administration, have raised over $100m each in just two months.The announcement of the recent record-breaking hauls – which considerably exceed that of their Republican opponents – comes with less than two weeks to go until the runoff races are decided in special elections on 5 January. Continue reading...

Actors are slowly returning to work after a long shutdown caused vast economic damage: ‘How many people gave up their dreams?’For decades, the sound stages of Hollywood have built alternate universes in the middle of Los Angeles – fictional courtrooms, hospitals, homes and offices. Today, they all resemble the set of Contagion.Make-up artists walk around in astronaut helmets. Actors take breaks inside plastic bubbles. And healthcare professionals swab everyone’s nose to test for a deadly infection before they’re allowed inside. Continue reading...

Authorities say the five people were all related and are treating the deaths as suspected homicidesTwo women and three girls have been found dead in a home in north-west Arkansas in a suspected multiple homicide.Deputies responded to a call at around 5pm on Friday and found the five people dead in a home in Atkins about 65 miles (105 kilometres) north-west of Little Rock, Pope County sheriff Shane Jones said in a statement. The dead were between 8 and 50 years old and are all believed to have been related, he said. Continue reading...

Christmas day sweet sighting in Corona Heights park attracted visitors who took pictures and even took a biteLike the other monoliths that have mysteriously appeared across America and the world in the waning weeks of 2020, the one that popped up on a California hilltop on Christmas Day seemed to come out of nowhere.Also like the others, it was tall, three-sided and it rapidly attracted crowds of curious visitors before an untimely destruction. Continue reading...

A monolith made of gingerbread appeared on a hill in San Francisco on 25 December.The large biscuit is the latest in a series of mysterious monoliths that have appeared – and disappeared – in the US and Romania

Execution of Lisa Montgomery may now be rescheduled for after Donald Trump leaves officeA judge has further delayed the planned execution of the only woman on federal death row in the US.In a ruling that will potentially leave the Trump administration with no choice but to postpone the execution beyond its term in office, a federal judge found that an attempt to reschedule it for January was unlawful. Continue reading...

Footage filmed after a vehicle exploded in Nashville early on Christmas morning shows damage to several buildings. The explosion is being considered an 'intentional act' by local police as vehicle broadcast an apparently recorded message telling people to evacuate the area before the blast

As a teenager in 1980s provincial Florida, I heard radio DJs dismiss punk as unlistenable garbage. Then I heard the ClashAs 2020 began, I was wandering the streets of London listening to the Clash. And as the flaming wreckage of this accursed year burns down to its last embers, I’m still thinking about the band and its lead singer, Joe Strummer (born John Graham Mellor), who died 18 years ago on 22 December aged 50.Related: The Clash's London Calling reviewed - archive, 9 January 1980 Continue reading...

With the festive season upon us, we reflect on reasons for football fans to be thankful as the year draws to an endAlex Smith was the deserved comeback player of the year before the season even began. His indescribable resolve pulled him through the spiral and compound fracture to his right tibia and fibula in 2018 that led to 17 surgeries after developing necrotizing fasciitis and onto Washington’s roster as their third-string quarterback for 2020. The 36-year-old came within 24 hours of losing his leg after his injury but was determined to eventually take a snap at FedExField. But would we see Smith as he sat behind Dwayne Haskins and Kyle Allen? Absolutely. Haskins’s underwhelming play meant he was scratched as the starter against the LA Rams and Allen stepped up. But injury struck and Smith was finally back, a mere 693 days since his last appearance under center. The veteran naturally completed his first pass with a quick strike to JD McKissick for six yards. As starter Smith delivered his first victory in 742 days for Washington against Cincinnati. “Just another thing I never thought I’d be doing,” said Smith. So far, so incredible. But the best was yet to come. A short trip to Pittsburgh to face the all-conquering, undefeated Steelers at 11-0 with his own team struggling at 4-7. So much for that. Smith erased Pittsburgh throwing for 296 yards and a crucial touchdown to tie the game in the fourth quarter that Dustin Hopkins converted to a stunning 23-17 win with two late field goals. NFL lore meet Alex Smith. Continue reading...

An exponential surge is crushing Los Angeles hospitals, with desperate nurses warning ‘there’s no place to take care of you’Los Angeles is becoming the center of America’s out-of-control coronavirus pandemic in these final days before the new year, with officials warning that a meteoric rise in infections is crushing the healthcare system in one of the country’s largest metropolitan regions.LA county has faced an onslaught of terrifying Covid developments in recent days, including a surge in deaths, dire shortages of hospital resources, and fears that doctors will have to make agonizing choices to ration care. Continue reading...

Former DoJ officials say they are worried Trump will lean on acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen for potentially risky favorsWilliam Barr’s abrupt move to leave his post as attorney general this week has spurred fears among Department of Justice veterans that Donald Trump will put new pressures on Barr’s successor to do him big and potentially risky political and legal favors.Former justice department officials say they are worried Trump will lean on Barr’s less experienced successor, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to push policies which Trump has suggested he backs, including naming special counsels to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless charges of widespread election fraud. Continue reading...

New Ross reinvented itself as a shrine to the Kennedy clan. Can towns linked to Biden, the most Irish American president since JFK, do the same?After its factories died and its port withered, New Ross, a town perched by the River Barrow in south-east Ireland, decided in the 1990s to tap a unique asset: John F Kennedy.The US president’s great-grandfather had sailed from the quays of New Ross to America during the 1840s famine, leaving behind a modest homestead that JFK twice visited, including a few months before his assassination in 1963. Like many Americans, not least the current US president-elect, Joe Biden, Kennedy was proud of his Irish connections and keen to re-emphasise the links. Continue reading...

Some of the greatest experiences of my life happened when interviewing famous people face-to-face, but now I’ve discovered the joys of duvet working daysOne of my favourite things about Britain is Boxing Day. In the US, we don’t have a name for the day after Christmas, which is insane because it has such a distinctive feel to it, it so obviously deserves its own nomenclature. Moving here and discovering Boxing Day was like finding out there’s a specific name for 7pm on a Sunday, or 5pm on a Friday, as there absolutely should be, and Germany probably has this covered.This week, as regular readers know, is my favourite of the year, and not entirely because it’s when, as Bridget Jones once put it, “normal service is suspended and it’s OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything into your mouth and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings”. It’s also a time to take stock of how the year has gone, and how the next one will look. For a while, the future seemed unfathomable. Now that the vaccines are a-coming, that’s not quite the case – but my job is still slightly lost in the fathoms. Continue reading...

George Charlet has witnessed a disaster up and close and personal – and has learned to prepare for the worstBeing a funeral home director in Zachary, Louisiana, means sometimes your neighbor calls when they see cars in the parking lot, to ask: “Who died?”Zachary, a suburb of Baton Rouge, has a population of about 18,000. Continue reading...

Serving in the White House is normally a passport to a lucrative job in business or lobbying but little about the Trump presidency is normalIn normal times it would go to the top of anyone’s curriculum vitae or résumé. Serving in the White House has typically been a passport to a lucrative job on a corporate board, in the lobbying industry or at a prestigious Washington thinktank. Continue reading...

Emergency signal sent from Montreal-bound plane carrying three crew before the plane was rerouted to ArizonaAn Air Canada Boeing Co 737-8 Max en route between Arizona and Montreal with three crew members onboard suffered an engine issue that forced the crew to divert the aircraft to Tucson, Arizona, the airline says.Shortly after the take-off, the pilots received an “engine indication” and “decided to shut down one engine”, an Air Canada spokesman said on Friday. Continue reading...

Parliament should be recalled to deal with the crisis of coronavirus, not just that of leaving the EUIn January 1979, a beleaguered Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, returned from a Caribbean summit to a country that appeared in crisis. A week earlier, truck drivers had gone on strike, cutting off petrol supplies in the “winter of discontent”. When the prime minister arrived at London’s Heathrow airport, he held a press conference in which nothing memorable was said. Instead, in a phrase that has become code for political complacency, Callaghan became for ever associated with the following day’s Sun newspaper headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”His fate was sealed. Callaghan lost the next general election to Margaret Thatcher. The lesson for politicians is the importance of perception in a crisis. If something feels like a crisis, it is effectively a crisis. Britain now confronts its most serious emergency since the second world war. It faces the unprecedented challenge of coronavirus while adjusting to a new diminished status outside the European Union. The country’s health service is at breaking point, and its future as a unified state is on the line. All this goes unmentioned by Boris Johnson, perhaps because he disingenuously promised that Brexit would save the NHS. Continue reading...

Let’s work together for a better world in 2021 – and a Christmas when we can truly sing of peace on Earth and good will to all peopleAs many Americans pause to celebrate the Christmas holiday this weekend, it is tempting to wish for a momentary pause in our public life of ceaseless conflict. Between a president who has refused to accept the reality of his defeat and an entire subculture that has made denying science a culture war in the midst of a global pandemic, an incredible amount of energy has been invested in division this year. While it may feel good to romanticize the spirit of the season and wish everyone a “Merry Christmas”, it would be more faithful to both the original Christmas story and our present circumstances to wish one another a “Mourning Christmas”.Two thousand years ago, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, inequality was rampant. Client state rulers like King Herod in Judea used their power to accumulate wealth from poor subjects. Jesus, the son of God, was born to a poor family who could not find a room to rent in Bethlehem. His birth was not celebrated by the wealthy or the politically powerful, but by migrant farm workers and foreign religious minorities. The movement of hope and new life that Jesus came to inaugurate was attacked by a paranoid and narcissistic ruler who was willing to kill innocent children in a desperate attempt to cling to power. The first Christmas was not merry and bright, but a mournful sight. Continue reading...

Romantic? Maybe. But my relationship with my husband has taught me that love is about solidarityTo understand how 2020 changed me, we first need to turn the clock back to June 2019.I had flown to Australia to take part in a fellowship programme. My friend (and Guardian columnist) Owen Jones was there for a conference that was happening at the same time, and on a chilly Friday night in Melbourne’s midwinter, we found ourselves in a bar overlooking the Yarra River. “There’s someone who works in Australian politics I want to talk to,” said Owen. We wandered around until we eventually found the guy, and a surprise: he had brought a friend. Continue reading...

As Donald Trump peddled baseless claims of vote fraud after 3 November, democracy found out who its friends wereIn November, Donald Trump became the first president in American history to try to hold on to power that voters had given to someone else in the course of a national election. Continue reading...

Legal threats range from investigations into his business dealings in New York to possible obstruction of justice charges – but all come with a political costAt noon on 20 January, presuming he doesn’t have to be dragged out of the White House as a trespasser, Donald Trump will make one last walk across the South Lawn, take his seat inside Marine One, and be gone. Continue reading...

A deal is better than no deal, but the prime minister will be personally held to account for every negative impact on the UKThey left it late but a deal has been done. It will take some time to digest the details but it is clear that the agreement reached is thin. We should not kid ourselves that this is the full and comprehensive trade deal that the country needed in order to minimise the damage caused by our departure from the European Union. January will still involve yet further disruption to our trade (it is very regrettable that there is no implementation period). More importantly, in the longer term, the UK’s diminished access to EU markets will make us a less attractive place to locate jobs and investment.The deal gives us tariff-free and quota-free access to the EU but this is far from the frictionless access that business wanted. Importing and exporting to the EU will become more bureaucratic, complex supply chains will struggle – putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Services, of course, see little direct benefit. Continue reading...

Britain leaves the EU with its sovereignty compromised, its economy weakened – and its leader walking a tightropeBrexit was never fundamentally an economic project. It was always more about what it said on the ballot paper in 2016. Brexit was about ceasing to be a member of the European Union. Leavers understood that. Remainers, in contrast, still struggle with it. To a lot of remainers, Brexit had to be a proxy for something else: anti-immigrant feeling, maybe, economic disempowerment, or post-imperial nostalgia. Those issues were not irrelevant to Brexit, but they were never the main point.Leaving the EU was an emotionally charged political proposition, not an economic one. It was a desire rooted in a vision of British sovereignty richly marinaded in a heady mix of nostalgia and bogus victimhood, fanned by Britain’s media, and which made the enormous error of confusing sovereignty with power. The reality of that error will come home to roost in the months and years ahead. But Brexit was never about the price of potatoes or cars. In the end, it wasn’t even about standing up for Britain’s one genuine shared diplomatic triumph of recent decades, the Northern Ireland peace agreement. Continue reading...

The Olympic gold medallist is rediscovering her love for the sport after verbal abuse from her former coach led to her stepping awayWhen times have been hard and Laurie Hernandez found herself questioning why she decided to return to the pounding and perfectionism of elite gymnastics, one of the memories that has kept her moving forward was the time she wanted to let it go.It was at the beginning of 2016 as the Olympics rounded into view that her frustration with injuries led her to consider stopping. She stepped away for around three days. As she began training for her comeback two years ago, it became a constant point of reference during her older brother’s motivational speeches: “He was like: ‘You’re two years out! It’s gonna make sense that you want to quit now when at Olympic level you wanted to stop. You’ve just gotta hang in there.’” Continue reading...

We already know its contours: a barely-there treaty that will make trade harder and destroy jobs. Labour should oppose itBoris Johnson always expected news of a deal to be greeted with jubilation. It was to be his moment of triumph after three decades of climbing to the summit of British politics by railing against Brussels. The rightwing press dutifully rallied. Even Nigel Farage declared: “The war is over.”But with Britain in a state of crisis because of the government’s botched response to the pandemic, most people will react with relief or perhaps indifference. For all the triumphalist claims of the Brexiters, the sunny uplands they told us to expect are no more than another cold, dark, wet winter’s day. The 11th-hour antics means there will be little scrutiny of a trade deal that could shape Britain’s economic destiny for a generation. Continue reading...

Richard and Mayumi Heene claimed son had floated away to try to get reality TV showThe husband and wife who pleaded guilty to criminal charges for staging the 2009 “balloon boy” hoax, in which they created a global media sensation with a false report that their son had floated away in a makeshift dirigible, have been pardoned by Colorado’s governor.In granting executive clemency to Richard and Mayumi Heene, Governor Jared Polis said the couple, now 59 and 56, had paid their debt to society for a “spectacle” that wasted law enforcement time and resources. Continue reading...

The president drags the White House through the mud. Cronies and war criminals are rewarded. Is his family next?

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a suspect in US journalist’s 2002 killing, had conviction overturned this yearA court in Pakistan has ordered that a British-born Islamist militant charged with the 2002 kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl should be freed, his defence lawyer has said.Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding Pearl’s murder but the conviction was overturned this year. He has been in jail ever since awaiting the outcome of a series of appeals and legal arguments. Continue reading...

This year hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of Covid and millions have sunk into poverty, thanks to Republican callousness

The basketball star did not play a professional game this year, and yet she achieved arguably the most important victory of her careerMaya Moore’s basketball credentials are unimpeachable. She is a four-time WNBA champion, two-time EuroLeague winner, six-time WNBA All-Star and has two Olympic gold medals. In 2017, Sports Illustrated described her as the greatest winner in the history of women’s basketball. And yet the 31-year-old Moore, still in her peak playing years, didn’t play a professional game in 2020. So why is she on this list? Because her year off the court has been incredible.In 2019 she announced she would take a sabbatical from her WNBA career – and the grind of the basketball circuit – to fight the case of Jonathan Irons, a man who argued that he had been falsely convicted of burglary and assault charges. Those charges ended with Irons being given a 50-year prison sentence for a crime he had allegedly committed when he was 16. Moore’s career break was, to put it mildly, a little more high stakes than Michael Jordan’s decision to step away from the NBA to play baseball. And while Moore earned decent money – particularly during her spells in Europe and China – she did not have the financial security Jordan enjoyed when he temporarily left the Chicago Bulls. Continue reading...

As the Senate runoffs near, organizations on the ground are working to educate and register voters in the stateThe state of Georgia made history this past November during the 2020 presidential election, when it turned from a red state to a blue state, the first time in over 20 years.Related: Democrats again look to Black voters to win Georgia runoffs and take the Senate Continue reading...