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Imagine my shock when our three-year-old came home singing about ... an NFL team. I blame the teachersParents, beware! If you send your impressionable young child to school in the US they are at risk of contracting a nasty case of the woke-mind virus. There's a good chance a teacher will turn your kid trans and, in the middle of maths, whip out surgical equipment to perform gender-affirming surgery. We know this because - despite any evidence to back it up - our esteemed leader, Donald Trump, has said as much.Can you imagine you're a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school,' and your son comes back with a brutal operation," Trump said at a rally last year.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Anti-vaccine rhetoric has been a lucrative enterprise for RFK Jr - one he is now trying to distance himself fromAnti-vaccine rhetoric and lawsuits were a lucrative enterprise for Robert F Kennedy Jr, leading up to his nomination to be secretary of health - one he is seeking to distance himself from as he enters confirmation hearings this week.Last week, he promised to resign from his consultancies and chairmanship of Children's Health Defense, a leading anti-vaccine nonprofit, if he is confirmed. That is cold comfort to public health experts anxiously eyeing his confirmation. Continue reading...

Tribes accuse Related development company of freezing them out of discussion on future of trove of relicsNative American tribes in Florida have accused a development company of freezing them out of a discussion on the future of a trove of historical artifacts from a downtown Miami construction site, and hawking them around the US without their consent or knowledge.Representatives of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the American Indian Movement of Florida told the Guardian that they were angered by the Related Group's approach to a number of out-of-state universities to see if they were interested in curating and housing the relics believed to be from an ancient Tequesta Indian village. Continue reading...

Philadelphia and Kansas City face each other for the championship for the second time in three seasons. They remain formidable teamsThis year's Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will be the second time the teams have faced each other for the championship in three seasons: the Chiefs came out on top, 38-35, in Super Bowl LVII at the end of the 2022 season.This season's Chiefs and Eagles show how much one franchise can change over time, while another can roll with the if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. The Eagles have been all about the differences, while the Chiefs, quite understandably given their success, have been more about stability. Continue reading...

LeBron is not walking through that door. But the surging Cavaliers have the Eastern Conference's best record and appear to be bona fide contendersThe poet Hanif Abdurraqib opens There's Always This Year - his 2024 volume on the Cleveland Cavaliers, basketball and Ohio - with a meditation on the shared pain of Cavs fans before the arrival of LeBron James, and the unfettered joy he delivered with the 2016 NBA championship:You are putting your hand into my open palm, and I am resting my one free hand atop yours, and I would like to commiserate here and now, about our enemies. Continue reading...

The man who once declared TikTok a national emergency' has detected a very different mood among young AmericansWhen asked for his reasons for delaying the ban on TikTok, President Trump, a man not unfamiliar with changing his mind, said: Because I got to use it."This is quite some change of heart. It was he who, in 2020, signed an executive order citing the national emergency" posed by the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform. Five years later, Trump, now positioned as the saviour of TikTok, has said that he has a warm spot" for the platform. Coached by his son Barron, Trump amassed 15 million TikTok followers and says the platform is the reason he won the youth vote by 36 points (a claim that is not substantiated).Emily Taylor is an associate fellow in the International Security Programme, Chatham House, CEO of Oxford Information Labs and editor of the Journal of Cyber Policy Continue reading...

It is chilling to witness Robert Fico's purge of state-run arts institutions - and the country's steady creep to authoritarianism

Pete Hegseth, US defense secretary, also seeks review of retired general's rank in latest move by Donald Trump's administration against his criticsThe Pentagon has confirmed that the new US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is revoking the security clearance and personal security detail for Mark Milley - the retired decorated army general and former chair of the joint chiefs of staff who served under Donald Trump's first presidency and went on to criticise him.Hegseth also directed the defence department's inspectorate general to determine whether it is appropriate to reopen an assessment of Milley's military grade, the Pentagon said late on Tuesday. Continue reading...

President's push to unravel programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion will affect everything from healthcare and education to cancer research, if allowed to proceedA federal judge has temporarily blocked a move by US president Donald Trump to pause trillions of dollars in federal loans, grants and other financial assistance, moments before it was due to take effect.Trump's acting head of the office of management and budget (OMB), Matthew Vaeth, had earlier instructed all federal agencies to temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance" in a two-page internal memo. The directive was seen as part of Trump's desire to unravel programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Continue reading...

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The former ambassador to Australia says she feels an 'obligation to speak out' now that her cousin Robert F Kennedy Jr has beennominated by Donald Trump to besecretary of health. Kennedy says professionals across the American health care system deserve a leader who is 'committed to evidence and excellence'

Proposal from state board of education condemned by teachers and rights groups, as parents and students protestParents enrolling children in Oklahoma public schools will be required to provide proof of their child's US citizenship or legal immigration status under a proposed rule approved Tuesday by the state board of education.The board voted unanimously to approve the rule aimed at helping Donald Trump's immigration policies. It still needs to be approved by the legislature and the governor. Continue reading...

President makes major concession to Israeli PM, US ally who is wanted by international court for war crimesDonald Trump has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House, in a major concession to a US ally who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes.The invitation was made in a letter from the US president, which invited the Israeli prime minister to come to the White House on 4 February to discuss how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries". Continue reading...

Exclusive: UNHCR chief orders clampdown on spending, including 90-day delay in ordering new supplies and hiring freezeUN agencies have begun cutting back their global aid operations following the 90-day suspension of all foreign assistance ordered by the Trump administration.Filippo Grandi, the head of the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, responsible for providing life-saving assistance to the 122 million people forcibly displaced from their homes across 136 countries, sent out an overnight email to employees ordering an immediate clampdown on expenditure, including a 90-day delay in ordering new supplies except for emergencies, a hiring and contract freeze, and a halt to all international air travel, as the agency tries to adapt to the US funding freeze. Continue reading...

State water officials say military did not enter California' and federal government restarted federal water pumps'California water officials said this week there's no truth to Donald Trump's assertion that the US military has entered California and turned on the water".Trump's comments, made on Monday on his social media platform Truth Social, are the latest in a series of remarks he's made and actions he's taken related to the state's water policy following devastating wildfires that ripped through the Los Angeles area this month. He's often offering an incomplete or incorrect assessment of the state's water policies or tying together unrelated issues. Continue reading...

Levies threaten exporters to US market, while scrapping of subsidies will hit EV sales - and Tesla could gainThe internal combustion engine appears to hold a special place in Donald Trump's psyche. During his inauguration speech last week, he made a sacred pledge" to raise US car production to a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago".Car making and the oil industry - not AI, computer chips, or even cryptocurrencies - were the only two industries the new US president highlighted as he promised to make America a manufacturing nation once again". Continue reading...

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt says late-night dismissals came after White House's personnel office issued memoThe justice department fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors involved in the two criminal prosecutions against Donald Trump after receiving instructions to do so from the White House, indicating the late-night purge was a political directive that deputized the justice department.The termination of the career prosecutors were ostensibly at the direction of the acting attorney general, James McHenry, according to the notices sent to anyone remaining on the trial team of 18 who had worked for former special counsel Jack Smith. Continue reading...

Move is latest push by Trump to reverse policies set by the Biden administration to protect transgender peopleDonald Trump has signed another executive order aimed at the transgender community on Tuesday, this time prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19.It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures," reads the president's executive order. Continue reading...

Karoline Leavitt's debut press briefing was standing room only - and she was slick, pugnacious and fiercely loyal to her bossClear a path!" shouted the big shots of TV news as they tried to squeeze their way through reporters packed like sardines into the White House briefing room to get to their front-row seats. Tempers frayed, foreheads perspired and necks strained similar to those of passengers itching to get off a plane.The first press briefing of a new administration is always a standing-room-only event. This time, it was the second Donald Trump administration and the debut of Karoline Leavitt, who pointed out that she is the youngest person to serve as White House press secretary. The 27-year-old beats the record of Ronald Ziegler, who was 29 when he was Richard Nixon's spokesperson. Continue reading...

Administrative stay pauses the government's action, which would upend nearly every corner of US society, till Monday

World's largest coffee chain in drive to boost sales and win back customers as new CEO urges fundamental change'Starbucks reassured Wall Street with a smaller-than-expected drop in comparable sales, an early sign that its efforts to revive sluggish demand could be bearing fruit.The world's largest coffee chain, which earlier this month announced that people using its cafes cross North America need to buy something, is in the midst of a turnaround bid to win back customers. Continue reading...

Lawmakers and state officials say portals inaccessible for one of largest health insurance programs in US

Man found with knife and two molotov cocktails planned to kill Mike Johnson and Seth Hegseth, prosecutors sayA man arrested in Washington DC near the US Capitol building on Monday with a folding knife and two molotov cocktails intended to kill the prominent Republican politicians Mike Johnson, Pete Hegseth and Scott Bessent, federal prosecutors have alleged in court filings.The man, named as Ryan English in the court documents, turned himself in to police near an entrance to the Capitol. A search of English, prosecutors allege, showed he had two destructive devices" on him in the form of 50ml bottles containing Absolut brand vodka with torn clothing stuffed into them. He was also carrying a folding knife, they say in filings obtained by the Guardian and first reported on by Politico. Continue reading...

Spokesperson defended new federal measures and said briefing room would now be open to new media' outlets

This was not the enemy,' says press secretary on flurry of drones spotted in east coast skies in DecemberThe White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the mysterious drones that were spotted in skies around New Jersey and the east coast at the end of last year were authorized to be flown by the FAA".In the first press briefing of Donald Trump's second administration, Leavitt said that she had news directly from the president of the United States that was just shared with me in the Oval Office". Continue reading...

Local advocates dismayed after Trump halts funding while evaluating whether programs meet new agendaJimiyu Evans woke up at 5am, on three hours of sleep, full of dread, to see whether he could still get into his federal funding account from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).No dice. His account was down for maintenance" according to the website. Evans started calling around to other leaders of state agencies and local non-profits working on homelessness, mental health, substance abuse treatment and disability services, and the story was the same, he said. Continue reading...

Scathing letter warns senators about danger her relative poses if confirmed as health secretaryCaroline Kennedy, cousin to the current pick for health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, penned a scathing letter warning senators about the danger her relative poses if elected to power and calls him a predator".I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together. It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator," she wrote, before going on to say that his victims have included family members and the parents of sick children. Continue reading...

Palestinians are returning to the north - but the US president's desire to just clean out' the strip, however unrealistic, is deeply concerningPalestinians are returning home to northern Gaza, though few of their homes still stand. Their hospitals, schools and other basic infrastructure are destroyed. For some there are tearful reunions; others search for the bodies of their loved ones. They seek hope amid therubble of their former lives.Yet new threats loom. Israel and the United Nations are in a standoff over the future of Unwra, the relief agency for Palestinians. An Israeli law ending all cooperation with the agency is due to come into force on Thursday - just as desperately needed aid is finallysurging into Gaza. Aid experts say no other entity has the capacity to provide its residents with thelong-term support needed. Continue reading...

Senator denounces order to pause all funding and says it'll have devastating impact' on most vulnerable people' in US

Investors' surprise over Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek echoes the belief in first-mover advantage of the dotcom bubble

Anchor who earned reputation for being top Trump critic during first term is leaving the network after 20 yearsJim Acosta, a CNN anchor who earned a reputation for being a top Donald Trump critic during his first presidency, announced on Tuesday that he was leaving the network after nearly 20 years and left viewers with the parting message to hold on to truth and hope".Acosta shared his decision at the end of his 10am show, which will mark his final for CNN. Continue reading...

Humane Society says farm was used to raise and slaughter animals for fur and urine, and to sell them as exotic petsMore than 250 animals, including foxes, coyotes, wolf-dog hybrids and skunks, have been removed from a fur and urine farm in Ashtabula county, Ohio, after they were found in what officials described as horrific" conditions.According to a press release from the Humane Society of the United States, Ashtabula county commissioners asked the agency for assistance after the owner of Grand River Fur Exchange died late last month, which they describe as escalating an already-dire animal welfare crisis on the property". Continue reading...

Fountains up to 120ft high have been reported, feeding multiple lava streams in Hawaii Volcanoes national parkOne of the world's most active volcanoes is back in action.The Kilauea volcano at Hawaii Volcanoes national park is spewing lava once again, the seventh recorded episode in recent weeks. Continue reading...

Planemaker grapples with problems at commercial and defense units and fallout from west coast workers' strikeBoeing reported an annual loss of $11.83bn, its largest since 2020, as it grappled with problems at its commercial and defense units and the fallout from a crippling strike by US west coast factory workers.The loss demonstrates the challenges facing CEO Kelly Ortberg in turning around the US planemaker as it cedes ground to rival Airbus in the delivery race and comes under the crosshairs of regulators and customers following a series of missteps. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from Americans who have been or are experiencing issues with credit card or payday loan debt. How have your struggles with debt impacted you and your family?Credit card debt has been soaring in the US, reaching a record $1.17 trillion in the third quarter of 2024, with the share of active credit card holders making just minimum payments rising to 10.75 percent, the highest ever in data going back to 2012. Money owed on revolving credit grew to $645 billion, a 52.5 percent increase since hitting a decade low of $423 billion in the second quarter of 2021.Lower income Americans without access to credit typically rely on payday loans, with 12 million Americans spending $9 billion on the fees for these loans annually. Continue reading...

First lady's corporate black-and-white shoot is reminiscent of The Apprentice or House of CardsAt first glance, the official portrait of the returning Flotus - soft power stance, crisp, unbuttoned Dolce & Gabbana tux, the Washington monument soaring behind her - scans so neatly with the returning administration that you'd be hard pushed to find any clues as to who Melania 2.0 is.After all, she wore a Dolce & Gabbana jacket for the same shot in 2017. The only real change this time is that she swapped the necktie for a black Ralph Lauren cummerbund, as if to sprinkle a little alpha patriotism into an otherwise blankly corporate get-up. Continue reading...

Department of health reports rapid number of cases in a short amount of time' and says that there could be moreKansas is facing an unprecedented outbreak of tuberculosis, one that has been labeled the largest of its kind on record in the US.According to the Kansas state department of health and environment, as of 24 January, there had been 67 active tuberculosis cases since 2024 and an additional 79 latent or non-active infections. The infections - all since 2024 - were reported in Wyandotte and Johnson counties, which are part of the greater Kansas City area. Continue reading...

US president insists leaders of both countries would agree to move that could be temporary or long-term'

The Minnesota United coach was at Old Trafford under Solskjaer, Rangnick and Ten Hag - now he is branching out on his own in MLSI felt like my personality was well suited to it," Eric Ramsay says, explaining why he jumped into coaching as a teenager. There is drive and inquisitiveness to the Welshman, who was on the backroom staff at Manchester United before moving to the USA to become Minnesota United's manager last March. Before the real stuff begins, Ramsay wants to know about life at the Guardian. Is this the interviewee putting the interviewer at ease? Or evidence of someone who knows how to connect with strangers?Ramsay has the leadership gene. He grew up in a small market town in rural Wales and was a busy type, captaining the county team and putting on coaching sessions for local children. At 14 or 15 I could get a feel for what my coaching voice was," he says. What was he like? More self-conscious. You trip, you stumble. But I felt like I was making enough of a mark with kids for it to grab me. From 16 or 17 almost everything I did was geared towards that pathway." Continue reading...

Records obtained by Guardian give details about events leading to death of Manuel Paez Teran, shot dead in 2023Previously unavailable records obtained by the Guardian shed light on the killing of environmental and social activist Manuel Paez Teran during a police operation aimed at clearing out less than two dozen people from an Atlanta-area forest as they protested against a training center planned to be built nearby known as Cop City".The incident was the first of its kind in US history, and Georgia authorities have released scant information about what happened during the police operation two-plus years ago. None of the Georgia state patrol officers involved were wearing body cams, so no video evidence of the shooting exists. Continue reading...

The R1 chatbot has sent the tech world spinning - but this tells us less about China than it does about western neurosesThe arrival of DeepSeek R1, an AI language model built by the Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, has been nothing less than seismic. The system only launched last week, but already the app has shot to the top of download charts, sparked a $1tn (800bn) sell-off of tech stocks, and elicited apocalyptic commentary in Silicon Valley. The simplest take on R1 is correct: it's an AI system equal in capability to state-of-the-art US models that was built on a shoestring budget, thus demonstrating Chinese technological prowess. But the big lesson is perhaps not what DeepSeek R1 reveals about China, but about western neuroses surrounding AI.For AI obsessives, the arrival of R1 was not a total shock. DeepSeek was founded in 2023 as a subsidiary of the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer, which focuses on data-heavy financial analysis - a field that demands similar skills to top-end AI research. Its subsidiary lab quickly started producing innovative papers, and CEO Liang Wenfeng told interviewers last November that the work was motivated not by profit but passion and curiosity".James Vincent was previously a senior editor at the Verge where he specialised in AI. His first book, Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement, was published in 2022 Continue reading...

Marion Bowman Jr has been caged in a tiny execution watch' cell since September, waiting to be killed: I won't let the prison turn me into an animal'For 135 days, Marion Bowman Jr has been locked in a solitary cell narrower than his arm span, cut off from nearly all human interaction, counting down the days until the state of South Carolina executes him.The 44-year-old is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection on Friday, the third man on South Carolina death row to be executed in rapid succession as the state aggressively revives capital punishment. The cases have sparked outrage over concerns about wrongful convictions, the racist application of the death penalty and the painful, drawn-out method of killing. Continue reading...

Businesses like Suay Sew Shop are trying to salvage piles of damaged textiles - and warn of the dangers of climate impact and overconsumptionAt Suay Sew Shop in Los Angeles's arts district, mounds of clothes are piled high in a warehouse. The T-shirts, socks, jackets and denim are surplus donations from the LA wildfires that community groups across the city were unable to distribute because they had too much already, or because the items were dirty, damaged or poorly made.Instead of letting the clothes go to a landfill, where they can cause a host of environmental problems, Suay has rescued 50,000lbs of textiles so they can be cleaned, sorted and upcycled by professional designers and sewers. Since LA currently has no permanent textile recycling or collection, it's up to groups like Suay to save as many textiles as possible before they get dumped or exported. Continue reading...

Launch of competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT wiped $1tn off the US stock market. Plus, Trump reinstates unvaccinated troops to military

A pregnant mother from Venezuela responds to Trump's executive order that would render her baby statelessOn his first day in office, Donald Trump signed an order ending constitutionally recognized right of birthright citizenship. Thousands of expecting parents across the US suddenly had to consider that their babies would be born into a legal limbo.Among them is Monica, a woman expecting her first child after escaping political persecution in Venezuela. If Trump's order stands, Monica's baby will be born stateless. Continue reading...

The teenager will play college basketball at Arizona. But the jury is out on whether he has the skills to follow the family professionWhen news broke earlier this month that Bryce James had signed on to play basketball at the University of Arizona in the fall, many wondered: Who is Bryce James? For a family that seemed to promote their eldest son Bronny early and often, to find out that parents LeBron and Savannah James also have another son who is a talented athlete may have surprised some of even the most ardent NBA followers. Let's explore the young career of the budding star, whose high school regular season career winds down this week.Born on 14 June 2007, in Cleveland, Ohio, right around the time LeBron was playing in his first NBA finals, Bryce is the middle child in the James family. He is seven years older than his sister Zhuri (who already boasts more national television commercials than Bryce) and three years younger than brother Bronny. The two brothers, however, play much different positions. The 6ft 2in Bronny, who made his debut for the Los Angeles Lakers earlier this season, is a defensive-minded point guard. Bryce, who looks far more like a typical NBA player at 6ft 6in, is a slashing shooting guard with a slick jumper and strong finishing skills at the rim. Continue reading...

Andrew Taake, 36, assailed police with bear spray at the US Capitol and in 2016 was charged with a third-degree felonyA convicted US Capitol attacker who was freed from prison by Donald Trump's decision to pardon essentially every participant in the January 6 uprising must now grapple with an unresolved charge of having solicited a minor.At the center of the case in question is Andrew Taake, 36, of Houston, Texas, who assailed police with bear spray and a metal whip when a mob of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol in early 2021 in a desperate attempt to keep him in office at the end of his first presidency, according to prosecutors. Continue reading...

As a former Libyan foreign minister, I urge the world not to let Syria become another cautionary tale of a nation left to crumble under the weight of global apathy and splintered leadershipIn December, the world watched in awe as Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria imploded. But as Syria rejoices, I bear a warning: we cannot let Syria's power vacuum fester into another civil war, as the international community did in Libya.As Libya's first female foreign minister, I am painfully aware of what is at stake. When images of our own dictator's dead body were broadcast to the world in 2011, we believed Libya had been liberated. But the euphoria of revolutions often gives way to darker realities. Continue reading...

Inspectors general dismissed by president sound alarm and say moves pave way for appointment of political lackeys'Independent watchdogs summarily dismissed by Donald Trump have denounced the move as illegal and a threat to democracy that paves the way for the appointment of political lackeys" and widespread institutional corruption.The sacking of the 18 inspectors general from federal agencies last Friday, including the departments of defence, energy and state, has also been widely condemned as illegal, and as part of the Project 2025 plan for a rightwing authoritarian takeover of government. Continue reading...