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Aviation giant already staged the world’s first commercial flight using 100% biofuel in 2018Boeing says it will begin delivering commercial airplanes capable of flying on 100% biofuel by the end of the decade, calling reducing environmental damage from fossil fuels the “challenge of our lifetime.”Boeing’s goal – which requires advances to jet systems, raising fuel-blending requirements, and safety certification by global regulators – is central to a broader industry target of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2050, the US planemaker said. Continue reading...

Monty Wilkinson worked with Iris Lan in reviewing complaints about prosecutor who said he was ‘disturbed’ by Trump policyThe Biden administration’s acting attorney general, a longtime career official named Monty Wilkinson, took part in a controversial 2017 decision to remove a justice department (DoJ) lawyer in Texas who had raised concerns about migrant children who were being separated from their parents.Emails seen by the Guardian show that Wilkinson, who is expected to serve as acting attorney general until Judge Merrick Garland is formally confirmed by the Senate, worked with another longtime career official, Iris Lan, in reviewing complaints about Joshua Stern, a prosecutor who had told colleagues he was “disturbed” by the Trump administration’s separation policy. Continue reading...

The House will transmit the article against the former president on Monday, giving his legal team time to prepare their case

Actions aim to help American families and workers struggling with economic toll of Covid-19Declaring the US government had a “moral obligation” to act, Joe Biden signed a pair of executive orders meant to provide emergency relief to millions of American families grappling with the economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

LASD, the largest sheriff’s department in the US, has faced national scrutiny over killings and misconduct scandalsThe California department of justice has launched a civil rights investigation into the embattled Los Angeles county sheriff’s department (LASD), which has faced national scrutiny over killings and misconduct scandals, to determine whether it has engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional policing. Continue reading...

Rich Fitzgerald told local TV that senator’s climate tweet was ‘outrageous’, prompting Twitter users to make comparison to actorRich Fitzgerald, the elected executive of Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, has achieved viral internet fame – for rebuking the Republican senator Ted Cruz but also for looking remarkably like the Emmy-winning actor Jeff Daniels.Related: Melania Trump's photo snub prompts speculation over post-White House path Continue reading...

Two upcoming books on Amazon’s bestseller list within hours after the resounding delivery of her poem at the swearing-inAmanda Gorman’s star continued its remarkable climb Thursday following the presidential laureate’s resounding delivery of her poem during the US presidential inauguration.Within hours of Wednesday’s delivery, her soul-stirring reading of The Hill We Climb, at the swearing-in of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had landed the 22-year-old’s two upcoming books at the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. Continue reading...

Former president’s account to remain suspended until board returns a ruling, which could take up to 90 daysFacebook’s oversight board, the “supreme court” set up to have a final say on the social network’s moderation decisions, will rule on the decision to suspend Donald Trump’s account, Nick Clegg has said.The referral will see the board, which is made up of more than 30 luminaries from around the world including former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, decide whether Facebook’s policies were correctly applied, and whether those policies respect international human rights standards more broadly. Continue reading...

Former first lady walks off after touching down at Palm Beach airport this week, leaving husband to relish the spotlight aloneOne last time, the internet has run wild over viral video of first lady Melania Trump apparently spurning the conventions of her role, triggering speculation about the state of her marriage to the now former president.Related: House will send article of impeachment against Trump to Senate on Monday – live Continue reading...

Joe Biden has moved a sculpture off his desk. Cue howls of outrage – but a perplexing silence from Boris JohnsonGird your loins, foot soldiers – or maybe don’t, for these are confusing times in the Conservative culture wars. On the one hand the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, has chosen this moment to confect some new row about statues. On the other, Boris Johnson is suddenly incredibly relaxed over whether there is or isn’t a bust of Winston Churchill within a 10-yard radius of Joe Biden’s desk.Incidentally, has a single American reporter based in London ever wondered whether there is or isn’t a bust of FDR or Eisenhower or Mickey Mouse in Downing Street? Don’t be ridiculous. Only complete irrelevances could concern themselves with such irrelevances, which is why the precise coordinates of the Churchill bust are such a perennially hot topic in UK Westminster discourse, where ways to announce your own smallness are apparently cheaper by the dozen. Continue reading...

The new president adores the British classic, even referencing it in his victory speech. Creators including Hugh Hudson, David Puttnam, Nigel Havers, Nicholas Farrell and Stephen Fry applaud his choice – and his appointmentLast November, David Puttnam received a mysterious phone call. It was a tip-off from someone in the White House transition team. “They said: ‘We just thought you’d like to know that he’s referenced it again.’”Joe Biden first cited Chariots of Fire – the stirring story of Scottish sprinting champion Eric Liddell and Jewish gold medallist Harold Abrahams that producer Puttnam ushered to Oscar glory in 1982 – as his favourite film during the vice presidential race in 2008. “Someone put personal fame and glory behind principles,” he said. “That, to me, is the mark of real heroism.” Continue reading...

In her first solo address as first lady, Jill Biden hosted her first solo event by praising the work of teachers and promising them support during the coronavirus pandemic.Biden hailed their 'heroic commitment' and explained that she was teaching a class on the morning of the inauguration of her husband, Joe Biden

Order delivers incremental win for athletes seeking to participate as their identified gender in high school and college sportsJoe Biden’s first day in office delivered an incremental victory for transgender athletes seeking to participate as their identified gender in high school and college sports.Related: Joe Biden to focus on economic recovery after Covid as 17.5m vaccine shots given in US – live Continue reading...

It was overwhelming, joyous, pastry-filled, but then there was the comedownIt’s a subdued Martin Luther King Day in the US, and we take a bus across town to visit MoMA. I haven’t been to the modern art museum in New York since before my children were born and this feels like the week for it. Everyone is jittery about the inauguration on Wednesday, about news of the Covid death count hitting 400,000 in the US and about American democracy under strain. Perhaps art will lift us. Continue reading...

I don’t cry easily, but this week I just burst into tears thinking about all we have lived through

The Democratic Minnesota congresswoman speaks about the ‘traumatizing experience’ of insurrectionists invading the Capitol on 6 JanuaryRepresentative Ilhan Omar began to fear for her life as soon as the evacuation began.Related: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thought she 'was going to die' during Capitol attack Continue reading...

Majority of troops being sent home after Biden inauguration passes with only a handful of arrests made

Following the US Capitol riot, Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone travel to Washington DC for the week of Joe Biden’s inauguration to find a downtown area under what is essentially military occupation and a city coming to terms with the trauma of Donald Trump’s final days in office.They speak to lifelong residents in the outer suburbs as well the US congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who tells of her harrowing experience of the 6 January riot. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton rails against criticisms of the Republican administration’s handling of the domestic terrorism threat Continue reading...

The lesson of the Obama years is that you can have appeasement or transformative progress, but not bothA full 12 years after Joe Biden was sworn in as the vice-president of hope and change, hope is in short supply and the need for change is even more acute. Progressives have a rare opportunity to enact their agenda – but they will need to play the kind of hardball they have backed away from in the past, because Biden continues to send conflicting messages. For every promise of transformational change, he signals a desire to appease a Republican party intent on destroying his presidency.The stakes could hardly be higher: one out of every thousand Americans has died from a lethal pandemic, with no end yet in sight. The economy is officially still humming along, but millions face eviction, bankruptcy and hunger. Even US democracy is under unprecedented siege by an insurrectionist movement encouraged by the outgoing president and his loyalists in Congress. Continue reading...

I don’t think Trump will ‘come back’. But Republicans are terrified of angering his base - and that will have consequences

Americans owe $1.7tn in student debt. Even before the pandemic, a million people defaulted on their loans every yearI’m on strike.This is not a typical strike. I’m not on a picket line, holding a sign while withholding my labor, showing a sense of united strength with my colleagues to win changes at work and in our lives. No, a different kind of strike. A debt strike. I’m still uniting with others to withhold something that gives someone else power. But this time, it’s my money. Continue reading...

Californians are poised for key jobs in an administration likely to use the state’s efforts as a guiding forceFollowing Joe Biden’s presidential win in November, the governor of California quickly learned he had some big job vacancies to fill. With so many top officials in the state being recruited to help Biden build his new administration, Gavin Newsom joked that he might have to start trying to convince staff members to stick around.It was already a given that Californian interests would be well represented in Congress, with Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco serving as speaker of the House and Vice-President Kamala Harris, born and raised in the Bay Area, holding the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. But Biden has also tapped several Californians for key cabinet positions. Continue reading...

President warns death toll could reach 500,000 by end of February as he unveils ‘wartime’ strategy for the pandemic. Plus, McConnell wants to delay Trump’s impeachment trialGood morning.Joe Biden has used the first full day of his presidency to strengthen the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, unveiling a “wartime” strategy to combat the virus. Speaking from the White House with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and the US’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, Biden warned that the pandemic would “get worse before it gets better” and forecast that the death toll could rise to 500,000 by the end of next month. So far, more than 410,000 American lives have been lost to coronavirus. Continue reading...

A coordinated move by the US, UK and EU to strengthen the nuclear agreement could pave the way to reducing tensionsFor nearly three years, the fate of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has hung precariously in the balance. The Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – to use its official name – in 2018, arguing that a policy of economic coercion, dubbed “maximum pressure”, would deliver an improved agreement. But all it achieved was the hollowing out of the existing one. Europe, which has played a key role in preventing the JCPOA’s total collapse, now must seize the opportunity to help revive and even strengthen it.The JCPOA’s original bargain was straightforward: limiting and monitoring what the international community viewed as the most concerning aspect of Iranian policy – the proliferation risks of its nuclear programme – and in return delivering relief from international sanctions built up over years. Continue reading...

Experts call report released by former administration a ‘puerile, politically reactionary document’Historians have railed against the 1776 Commission following the Monday release of its report of what it called “a definitive chronicle of the American founding”.Related: Biden prepares ambitious agenda even as he cleans up Trump's mess | Analysis Continue reading...

Former attorney general declined to be interviewed by DoJ’s inspector general, according to report on findings of its inquiryFormer attorney general Jeff Sessions and other senior justice department officials impeded an internal departmental investigation into their role in implementing the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy that separated thousands of children from their parents on the border, according to interviews and government records.Sessions declined to be interviewed by investigators for the department’s inspector general, who conducted an inquiry of the family separation policy, according to a report made public last Thursday by the IG detailing the findings of its inquiry. Continue reading...

Experts denounce Simone Gold, charged for participating in riot, who leads conservative group America’s Frontline DoctorsA key conservative doctors’ group pushing misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines faces growing fire from medical experts about its woeful scientific grounding, while its leader, Dr Simone Gold, was charged early this week for taking part in the 6 January attack on the Capitol.The development comes as the US faces warnings its pandemic death toll could hit 500,000 next month, in part because conspiracy theories and baseless skepticism – especially from rightwing groups – have hampered efforts to tackle it. Continue reading...

From a Cesar Chavez bust and the removal of portraits, to a desk piled high with orders tearing up Trump’s legacyThe Oval Office has long symbolised the power and grandeur of the US presidency, and incoming White House incumbents traditionally change the decor to reflect the tone of their administration.Joe Biden has unveiled the new ceremonial backdrop to his administration, marking a number of significant changes from that of his predecessor. Continue reading...

Two decorated veterans face off at Lambeau Field, while the best of the next generation play in Kansas City. Who makes the Super Bowl?What the Buccaneers need to do to win: Surprisingly for two quarterbacks who have ruled the NFL for much of the century, there isn’t a lot of history to go on between Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers – this will be only their fourth meeting as starters. Brady won their previous game, a 38-10 beatdown in Week 6 of this season, when the defense harried Rodgers all day, sacking him five times. Rodgers, who has been mostly flawless since, is unlikely to be bullied again though. So Tampa Bay may have to beat the Packers in a shootout, hoping their formidable offensive weapons all click at once. That will put pressure on backup Bucs guard Aaron Stinnie, who made his first ever NFL start against the Saints last week (and did pretty well). Continue reading...

With a two-thirds majority of senators required to convict the former president, 17 GOP lawmakers would have to join the DemocratsDemocratic control of the US Senate could create problems for Donald Trump in the weeks ahead when the former president likely faces his second impeachment trial – but not because Democrats by themselves would be able to convict Trump on the charge at hand: incitement of insurrection.A two-thirds majority of voting senators – 67 if all 100 members vote – is still required to convict the president, and the Democratic caucus will number only 50 senators. Thus they would need 17 Republicans to join them to convict Trump. Continue reading...

Three men charged include Hambali, alleged leader of extremist group that carried out 2002 terror attacksThe Pentagon has announced plans to move ahead with a military trial for three men held at Guantánamo Bay who are suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings.After an unexplained delay, a senior military legal official on Thursday approved non-capital charges that include conspiracy, murder and terrorism for the three men, who have been in US custody for 17 years for their alleged roles in the deadly bombing of Bali nightclubs in 2002 and a year later of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. Continue reading...

Giuliani criticised for making false claims about election fraud and calling for ‘trial by combat’ before Capitol attackA group of prominent lawyers has asked New York’s judiciary to suspend Rudy Giuliani’s law licence for making false claims in post-election lawsuits and urging Donald Trump’s supporters to engage in “trial by combat” shortly before they stormed the US Capitol.Lawyers Defending American Democracy is also calling for investigation of Giuliani, who served as a federal prosecutor and a New York City mayor before Trump hired him as personal attorney. Continue reading...

Senate Republican leader says former president needs time to prepareThe Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is proposing to push back the start of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by a week or more to give the former president time to review the case.House Democrats who voted to impeach Trump last week for inciting the 6 January Capitol attack have signaled they want a quick trial as President Joe Biden begins his term, saying a full reckoning is necessary before the country – and the Congress – can move on. Continue reading...

America’s top infectious diseases expert had a tortuous relationship with Trump and was increasingly sidelinedAnthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert in the US, spoke on Thursday of a “liberating feeling” of being able to speak scientific truth about the coronavirus without fear of “repercussions” from Donald Trump. Continue reading...

Dr Anthony Fauci made not-so-veiled critiques of the Trump administration during a White House press briefing on Thursday. He said the new administration meant he did not need to 'guess' when he didn't know the answer to questions.The health expert said the new administration felt 'liberating' and he did not take pleasure correcting the president and facing consequences for doing so.But Fauci pushed back against the characterization from some Biden officials that the new administration has to start 'from scratch' on coronavirus vaccine distribution

Joe Biden has urged Americans to wear face masks for 99 days as part of a challenge for his first 100 days in office during a speech on Thursday in which he unveiled his administrations’s national Covid strategy.Biden signed an executive order to mandate face coverings during interstate travel and within federal buildings as he noted the US coronavirus death toll is higher than that from the second world war. Continue reading...

Administration’s strategy is based on seven major goals, including restoring public trust in government effortsJoe Biden signed another set of executive actions on Thursday, his first full day in the White House, aimed at making good on his plans to use the might of the federal government to end the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

America and Britain are each emerging from disruptive internal periods. The alliance between them must be rooted in realism about the present, not fantasy about the pastIn British politics, everyone now loves President Joe Biden. That the UK opposition parties are foundation members of the Biden appreciation club is not surprising. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all identify most naturally with the Democrats and thus with the new administration in Washington. But the changing of the guard at the White House this week has won strikingly broad support across the entire political spectrum too.Many Conservatives now take an enthusiastic view of Mr Biden as well. In some cases this is hard to believe – or forgive. Not long ago, many of the same Tory politicians who now enthuse about Mr Biden tried to bet the house on Donald Trump. Theresa May rushed to Washington to court him. Michael Gove conducted a gushing interview. Boris Johnson said he should get the Nobel peace prize. A US trade deal was obsessively talked up. Today, these same politicians are all friends of Joe and behave as if they barely knew Mr Trump. Continue reading...

After four years under Donald Trump, we’d like to hear from those in the US about their hopes and concerns during Joe Biden’s presidencyJoe Biden has entered the White House as America’s 46th president. Taking his oath of office he told his country it has been “a day of victory and hope” and appealed for unity.

Frank Paice reflects on Amanda Gorman’s powerful poem at the ceremony and Geoff Skinner wonders if the UK will also be brave enough to tackle racism. Plus Joan Furtado on why Trump should be happyIn years to come, we may recall Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony by reading again Amanda Gorman’s words, delivered to a spellbound inauguration assembly (Biden offers a message of resilience in America’s ‘winter of peril’, 20 January). The authority of her poem comes from the clarity of its imagery and the uncompromising challenge of its rhetoric.What it says ensures that, to relief at the end of America’s political nightmare and goodwill towards the two principals in the drama that unfolded, must now be added the assertion that we can “raise this wounded world into a wondrous one”.

Gopalan Balachandran said he wants to celebrate with her in person once it’s safe to travelKamala Harris’s Indian uncle plans to visit the United States to congratulate her once he receives a Covid-19 vaccine, he said on Thursday, after his niece became the first woman, first Black American and first Asian American to hold national office after being sworn in as vice-president.Related: Kamala’s Way review: Harris as symbol of hope – and hard politics Continue reading...

As great as it was to walk through the Louvre or see the northern lights, it was everyday things like shops and cafes that made travel magicalPeople tell you that they travel for the culture – that they saw this great Picasso exhibition and the cathedral at Chartres was am-az-ing – and that being inside the Vatican was exciting, even after queuing for four hours and craning your neck above the crowds to see the mosaics. They’ll show you bad photos of a flakey fresco and tell you that they can now cross it off their bucket list.But what if it’s not the flaky fresco but the flakey pastry they had before lining up for the museum which provided the true hits of pleasure? Continue reading...

Downing Street says it is up to the US president to decorate White House room as he wishesDowning Street has said it is up to Joe Biden how he decorates the Oval Office, after it was reported that a bust of Winston Churchill, lent by the UK government, has been removed.“The Oval Office is the president’s private office, and it’s up to the president to decorate it as he wishes,” Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said, adding: “We’re in no doubt about the importance President Biden places on the UK-US relationship, and the prime minister looks forward to having that close relationship with him.” Continue reading...