Fashion brand reported to be dressing the president-elect, a move that would subtly signal a distancing from the Trump eraJoe Biden is being dressed by the fashion brand Ralph Lauren for his presidential inauguration on 20 January, according to Women’s Wear Daily, in a move that has prompted a round of speculation about his meaning and motives at a time of crisis in the US.Related: Ashley Biden on athleisure and why her father would make a fantastic president Continue reading...
The president ‘shut down’ the internet as he won the election. You don’t stay in power for 40 years by taking risksDays before Uganda’s presidential election – voting took place last Thursday – the incumbent, 76-year-old Yoweri Museveni, ordered that social media be switched off. People found their way around that by using virtual private networks, bouncing back online with memes mocking the idea that anyone would think it possible to bar people from being on social media in this day and age. Then, the evening before elections, the internet in Uganda was totally shut down.The election that saw Museveni win with nearly 60% was shrouded in darkness. It is strange to move from social media’s infinite flow of information to nothingness. Instead, just silence apart from the news the government wants you to hear. Media houses that dare not to toe the government’s straight line risk being stopped from covering elections or even shut down. Continue reading...
by Chris McGreal in Kansas City, Missouri on (#5CYEA)
The US is riven with stark inequalities, rising white supremacist terror and large numbers who believe the election was stolen. The new administration faces a truly daunting challengeIn another age, Joe Biden’s promise to heal the nation might have been regarded as the kind of blandishment expected from any new leader taking power after the divisive cut and thrust of an American election.Related: Biden must find words for a wounded nation in inauguration like no other Continue reading...
In El Salvador, violence and murders fell after rivals agreed a non-compete deal, but extortion rates soaredEconomists generally like competition. It helps consumers get a better price if sellers know they could go elsewhere. But economists aren’t usually talking about armed violence or organised crime. So those of you not regularly involved with the mafia should have lots to learn from new research examining competition between El Salvador’s criminal gangs.El Salvador is a dangerous place. The murder rate was 103 per 100,000 people in 2015, in large part due to two competing gangs: Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18. But in 2016 they agreed a non-aggression pact, ending competition for territory. As a result, murders fell by almost half. Beyond the violence, the other big cost of gangs is economic, via the extortion payments they rely on, estimated at more than $700m (£515m) a year, or 3% of El Salvador’s GDP. Continue reading...
Peter Turchin, an entomologist-turned-historian, offers insight into the battle between elitesPeter Turchin is not the first entomologist to cross over to human behaviour: during a lecture in 1975, famed biologist E O Wilson had a pitcher of water tipped on him for extrapolating the study of ant social structures to our own.It’s a reaction that Turchin, an expert-on-pine-beetles-turned-data-scientist and modeller, has yet to experience. But his studies at the University of Connecticut into how human societies evolve have lately gained wider currency; in particular, an analysis that interprets worsening social unrest in the 2020s as an intra-elite battle for wealth and status. Continue reading...
Implications for public record and legal proceedings after administration seized or destroyed papers, notes and other informationThe public will not see Donald Trump’s White House records for years, but there is growing concern the collection will never be complete – leaving a hole in the history of one of America’s most tumultuous presidencies.Trump has been cavalier about the law requiring that records be preserved. He has a habit of ripping up documents before tossing them out, forcing White House workers to spend hours taping them back together. Continue reading...
Jenna Ryan, a Texas real estate broker who took a private jet to Washington to join the attack on the US Capitol, pleaded with Donald Trump to pardon her after she was arrested by federal authorities. Ryan said she thought she was following what her president ‘asked us to do’ and that she had been 'displaying my patriotism' in travelling to Washington DC, where she filmed herself entering the Capitol building. 'I'm facing a prison sentence,' she told CBS 11 News at her home in Dallas. 'I do not deserve that'
The F-word is one we are rightly wary of using, but how else to describe the disgraced president?Assurances that “fascism couldn’t happen here” are always appealing in Anglo-Saxon countries that think themselves immune because “it” never did. The US and UK did not experience rule by Nazism or communism in the 20th century and the ignorance our lucky histories fostered has weakened our defences in the 21st.Even after all that has happened in Washington, apparently serious voices insist we cannot compare Donald Trump to any variety of fascist. Conservatives habitually say that liberals call everything they don’t like fascist, forgetting that the moral of Aesop’s fable was that the boy who cried wolf was right in the end. They used to chortle about “Trump derangement syndrome” that spreads in stages like cancer until sufferers “cannot distinguish fantasy from reality”. They have bitten their tongues now that the reality of Trumpism is deranged mobs trying to overthrow democracy. Continue reading...
Millennials, meanwhile, will continue to struggle as they to wait for their liberating jabsThe “wrong kind” of older, or middle-aged, people are supposed to be receiving the Covid vaccine by the end of March. Not the truly elderly, the vulnerable shielders, but the other lot – taking us to the 32m total who are fiftysomething and above. All those boomers/generation Xers, unleashed back on to streets and into shops, waving their Covid-secure passes, perhaps to book themselves some well-earned YOLO hols.Meanwhile, younger generations may feel left behind in more ways than one. And there’s the looming problem: the vaccine is the great liberator, but it rather depends what you’re getting liberated into, especially if you’ve no money or prospects. Could it give youth yet another reason to resent their elders for their perceived easier ride? Continue reading...
In his final months in office, Donald Trump has ramped up construction on his promised physical border between the US and Mexico – devastating wildlife habitats and increasing the migrant death toll
A Washington DC police officer who tried to stop rioting Trump supporters from entering the Capitol building on 6 January has revealed that some shouted 'kill him with his own gun' as he lay injured on the ground. Michael Fanone told CNN he considered using his weapon as he was overwhelmed by the mob, but decided against it out of fear for his own life. 'I tried to appeal to their humanity,' Fanone said. 'I just remember yelling out that I have kids, and it seemed to work.'
Prudish opposition to steamy scenes overlooks how desire is part of the cinematic experienceNot one, but two shower sex scenes take place in Michael Mann’s 2006 adaptation of Miami Vice. For Jamie Foxx and Naomie Harris, a hard day’s work ends with tender lovemaking, their bodies glistening beneath the showerhead. Later, the film’s star-crossed lovers, Colin Farrell and Gong Li, cap off a rapturous night in Havana by canoodling as they rinse and repeat. Although these scenes aren’t essential to the film’s plot of undercover cops trying to bring down an international drug cartel, I can’t imagine Mann’s brooding, trigger-happy crime drama without the electrifying passion and evocative romance to balance out its steely, macho posturing.Anyone with a pulse knows that in most contexts sex can make a movie a lot less dull. Desire, after all, fuels the cinematic experience; it pulls us into the screen like voyeurs. Yet on social media a not-marginal opposition to sex in the movies has taken off among some film buffs, whose quibbles go hand-in-hand with a more general decline in sexuality on the big screen. Their rationale? That most steamy scenes are gratuitous and don’t meaningfully contribute to the story. Continue reading...
Experts were not surprised that officers were part of the mob, given the ties between some police and white supremacist groups in recent yearsFor years, domestic terrorism researchers have warned that there are police departments in every region of America counting white supremacist extremists and neo-Nazi sympathizers among their ranks.To these experts, and the activists who have been targeted by law enforcement officers in past years, it came as no surprise that police officers were part of the mob that stormed the US Capitol on 6 January. In fact, the acceptance of far-right beliefs among law enforcement, they say, helped lay the groundwork for the extraordinary attacks in the American capital. Continue reading...
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stepped up removals of Africans and could send a final flight on TuesdayThe Trump administration is continuing to deport African asylum seekers in its last few days before the inauguration of Joe Biden, who has promised a 100-day suspension of deportations, amid allegations of abuse of detainees, insufficient legal protections and inadequate precautions against Covid infection.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) confirmed a “removal flight” left Louisiana on Thursday bound for Nairobi. The charter plane believed to be carrying Somali, Ethiopian and Kenyan deportees made a refuelling stop in Sofia. Immigrant support activists believe the deportees were transferred to commercial planes in Nairobi for transfer to other countries. Continue reading...
I never questioned Hilaria’s Spanish-ness, but it turns out her parents are more American than mineFor a long time, I thought of Hilaria Baldwin as my private obsession, emphasis on that last word. I must have first heard about her because she’s married to Alec Baldwin, but that’s not why she fascinated me (I like Alec Baldwin, but, c’mon, I don’t love him). No, this began five years ago, after my twins were born, because Hilaria is – or was – best known as a “mommy influencer”, as they say in the US, where she lives (and we’ll return to Hilaria’s relationship with geography shortly), with five young children and 900k Instagram followers. I would stare at the photos and videos she posted of herself in her lingerie – doing yoga, being pregnant, often both – looking as tiny and hardbodied as a nutcracker figurine, and I’d feel that almost comfortingly familiar wave of self-loathing. And then I’d look at her photos of her children in which she promoted clothing companies, or toys, or baby cream brands, and I’d think, “Well, at least I don’t use my kids to shill crap.” Self-loathing followed by self-vindication: it’s an irresistible combination, like sugar and salt, and Hilaria delivered it to me in its purest essence.So yes, I became obsessed with her – I admit it. “Did you see that Hilaria posted a picture of herself in her lingerie to announce she was having a miscarriage?” I’d ask my friends. “Who?” they’d reply. Well, no one’s asking “who” any more, are they, Hilaria? Continue reading...
Planners have been forced to be inventive after the deadly pandemic and now last week’s Capitol insurrection dictated a pared-down event amid real fears of assassinationWith nearly half a century in Washington behind him, Joe Biden has waited a long time for this moment. But when he places his hand on a Bible, repeats a 35-word oath and is sworn in as the 46th US president at noon on Wednesday, the backdrop will be nothing like he ever imagined. Continue reading...
A slew of aides have deserted the president and the Pentagon has decided not to hold an armed forces farewell tributeIt was once easy to determine Donald Trump’s mood. All it took was a look at his Twitter account. But with that gone, it has never been so difficult to gain a glimpse into the president’s mindset. Continue reading...
Following the US Capitol attack, and also due to the pandemic, Biden and Harris will be sworn in at a scaled-down eventIn the aftermath of a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol that brought about the second impeachment of Donald Trump, the US is set to usher in Joe Biden’s presidency on inauguration day, 20 January.According to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, this year’s theme centers on “America United”. Continue reading...
Justice department puts itself in between president and writer who sued after Trump dismissed 1990s rape allegation as bookselling ployThe US justice department has said Donald Trump should not be forced to defend himself against a defamation lawsuit by the author E Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her, and that the government itself should be substituted as the defendant.In a filing with the 2nd US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan, the department said Trump qualified as a typical “employee of the government” entitled to immunity under federal law from Carroll’s claims, and was also shielded because he spoke about her in his capacity as president. Continue reading...
Azar calls attack ‘assault on our democracy’ and urges peaceful transfer of power in formal resignation letterThe US health secretary, Alex Azar, warned Donald Trump in a letter that last week’s attack on the Capitol threatened the administration’s legacy, and he urged the president to support a peaceful transfer of power.In the two-page, formal resignation letter, dated 12 January, Azar recited what he saw as the administration’s key accomplishments but voiced concern that last week’s siege in Washington and Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud “threaten to tarnish these and other historic legacies of this administration”. Continue reading...
President-elect calls for huge expansion of federal aid as administration faces array of obstacles to historic projectPresident-elect Joe Biden has called for a vast expansion of federal aid in order to vaccinate 100 million Americans in his first 100 days in office, an ambitious target set as a new and more transmissible strain of Covid-19 is expected to sweep the country.Seeking to mount the most complex and logistically challenging vaccination campaign in US history, Biden’s administration will have to confront vaccine hesitancy, a burned out healthcare workforce, a lack of clear information on vaccine distribution and demand that far outstrips supply. Continue reading...
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said it is possible that members of Congress could face prosecution if found to have ‘aided and abetted’ the violent attack on the Capitol earlier this month that left five people dead
Walkouts planned at restaurants owned by mega-corporations in more than a dozen cities ‘for racial and economic justice’Fast-food workers from more than a dozen US cities are striking on Friday to demand the federal minimum be increased to $15 an hour.Ahead of Monday’s holiday honoring American civil rights leader the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the group known as Fight for 15 said workers from mega-corporations including McDonald’s and Starbucks had been encouraged to walk off their jobs on what would have been King’s 92nd birthday on 15 January. Continue reading...
Outgoing president expected to use Air Force One to travel to Mar-a-Lago, where he intends to liveDonald Trump is expected to leave the White House as president on Wednesday morning, just hours before Joe Biden’s inauguration, flying off on Air Force One to his beachside home in Florida.Trump’s post-presidential plans have been clouded in uncertainty. But several US news organisations reported on Friday that Trump intends to live at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach resort. His daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to join him there, at least for some of the time. Continue reading...
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