New film First We Bombed New Mexico sheds light on effects of Oppenheimer's nuclear project and locals' battle for justiceCongresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez watched Oppenheimer - a top contender at Sunday's Academy Awards and Christopher Nolan's treatment on the physicist who guided testing of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico - months ago.And soon after the scene where Cillian Murphy, as J Robert Oppenheimer, peered through safety goggles in a fortified shed at the huge mushroom cloud, the New Mexico Democrat realized the untold story" lay on the cutting room floor. Continue reading...
The latest flop to make the papers was based, loosely, on Roald Dahl's story about Willy Wonka and his chocolate factoryThere is no joy quite so pure, quite so grand, as the joy that comes from picking over pictures of a failed immersive experience". Even typing the words makes me slightly delighted. In the past I have enjoyed reports from various British winter wonderlands" where open-hearted families bought tickets for what promised to be a magical tour of Santa's grotto but, upon entry, was revealed in fact to be a nightmare made of forks and cotton wool. A cardboard cutout of a reindeer would appear to be bleeding from the eyes, a child would be lightly maimed by a fallen star made of rust, that kind of thing - festive, fun and full of spirit. 35.The success of these Christmas experiences was so great that the teams behind them needed to work out a way to spread the joy all year round. The latest immersive experience to make the papers was based, loosely, on Roald Dahl's story about Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory. Some might say, perhaps, that those buying tickets to a Willy Wonka experience might have cause to expect, or even be seeking out, a day of workplace accidents, child death and small beleaguered staff trafficked by a maniac but, nonetheless, visitors to Willy's Chocolate Experience" in Glasgow were so angry they called the police. They called the police! Continue reading...
In 2011, I launched a campaign called Action for Happiness. A week before the World Happiness summit, the question is: why can't we all be more content?What kind of society do we want? The most obvious answer is simple: we want people to be happy. We want our children to be as happy as possible, so why not everyone else? The goal should be a world where people enjoy their lives, and feel satisfied and fulfilled.This noble idea was born in the 18th-century Enlightenment. It was probably the most important idea of the modern age. Yet somehow it is seldom talked of today in debates about our future. Some people say it is too ambitious; others say it is not ambitious enough. It is neither. We simply want to make people as happy as possible. And, especially, we want to reduce misery. Continue reading...
Jonathan Katz accuses Britt of being dishonest' in State of the Union rebuttal with story about Karla Jacinto RomeroDoubts have been cast on the accuracy of a story about horrific child sex abuse told by the Republican senator Katie Britt in her widely ridiculed speech delivered in rebuttal to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address.The journalist and author Jonathan Katz has accused Britt of being fundamentally dishonest" for invoking the case of a woman who had been sex-trafficked at age 12 and raped multiple times to illustrate the supposed failure of the Biden administration's border control policies. Continue reading...
United flight 821 from San Francisco to Mexico City landed at Los Angeles international airport after crew reported hydraulics issueUnited Airlines' bad week for safety issues continued on Friday afternoon when a plane was forced to make an emergency diversion due to an issue with its hydraulic system.United flight 821 from San Francisco to Mexico City made an emergency landing at Los Angeles international airport after the crew reported a hydraulics issue, the Federal Aviation Authority said. Continue reading...
Karen Casbohm and Loreen Bea Feralo were arrested after they allegedly used the body of deceased housemate to access cashIn a case that bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of the 1989 film Weekend at Bernie's, two Ohio women have been accused of driving a dead man's body to a bank to withdraw money from his account.Karen Casbohm, 63, and Loreen Bea Feralo, 55, were charged Tuesday in Ashtabula with, among other things, gross abuse of a corpse. Police said they received a call Monday that two anonymous women had dropped off a body at a hospital. Later one of the women contacted the hospital - the Ashtabula county medical centre - with information on the deceased, identified as Douglas Layman, 80, of Ashtabula. Continue reading...
Having a good cry is nothing to be ashamed of, as Jason Kelce showed when he made his tear-stained retirement announcementIt's not often that you see two pirate-bearded, beer-chugging bruisers hugging it out and having a good old cry. Yet that was the spectacle last week when Philadelphia Eagles stalwart Jason Kelce announced his retirement from the NFL. In a tear-streaked press conference, the American football star spoke movingly about his relationship with his younger brother, Kansas City Chiefs' Travis, Taylor Swift's boyfriend, who had been busy sobbing in the front row.How heartwarming and healthy. It's high time that male emotion was normalised. Mine was perhaps the last generation to be taught that boys don't cry. Sure, you were allowed the odd meltdown while still in short trousers but, once your age hit double figures, it was time to stiffen that upper lip. Toughen up. Don't be a cry baby. Grown-up male tears were the preserve of disgraced public figures fishing for sympathy and other attention seekers. The only time a real man's eyes watered was while tucking into a vindaloo. Another pint of Kingfisher please, waiter, we've got a lively one here. Continue reading...
Party officials in Catoosa county required would-be commissioners to answer a series of ideological questionsTaxes. Vaccinations. Chickens.Republican party leaders in Catoosa county, in the north-west corner of Georgia, ran prospective GOP candidates through a battery of ideological questions, permitting some to run in the party primary while denying others. Continue reading...
Olaf Scholz's endless dithering over Ukraine is playing into Putin's handsNational stereotypes are unfair, insulting - and strangely reassuring. It's somehow good to know in an unpredictable, fast-changing world that Italians may be relied upon to be melodramatic, the French rude, the Americans loud and the English drunk. When nations act out of character, and refuse to conform to type, it feels a little disconcerting.This seems to be what's happening in Germany today as Europe looks on, perplexed. What has become of that hackneyed Teutonic efficiency, decisiveness, reliability and steely-eyed determination? The past victors of countless poolside deckchair skirmishes now flirt with chaos in ways that make Westeros look wellordered. Continue reading...
We won't fear the rise of the robots when we realise they're just another tool to take the tedium out of our livesThe dystopian novels of the last century were mostly filled with terrifying visions of the rise of technology - a genre of which we are still to tire. Charlie Brooker's hugely successful Black Mirror series in which technology kills, maims or subjects people to terrible fates will have a seventh incarnation this year.But just for balance, just for once, I'd like to see a dystopia in which humans of the 2020s are catapulted into a world equipped only with the technology of a few decades ago. The repetitive domestic chore. The mind-numbing assembly-line job. The tyranny of a thousand paper forms to fill out by hand, post and file. Continue reading...
Most Muslims outside of Gaza tell me their observances this year will be a time of mourning and griefAs Ramadan approaches, with its solemnity of spiritual abstention and fasting, and the anticipation of nightly feasting, I feel a stone in the pit of my belly.Or perhaps it's a boulder that is weighing me down with this dull, leaden dread, this unshakeable guilt and this feeling of deep inadequacy and shame. Continue reading...
Coinciding with multistate tour, 60-second ad shows president joking about age and stressing strongest economy in the world'Joe Biden's campaign kicked off a $30m TV and digital ad blitz in key swing states on Saturday with an ad in which the president directly addresses concerns about his age.Set to run for six weeks on stations including Black- and Hispanic-owned outlets, and released shortly after his fiery State of the Union address, the 60-second spot does not shy away from what many voters say is growing concern with the president's age. The ad, titled For You, opens with Biden in light-hearted form. Look, I'm not a young guy. That's no secret," the 81-year old president says. But I understand how to get things done for the American people." Continue reading...
WPATH is no model inthe search for evidence-based care of transgender childrenThe medical transitioning of children has become one of the most controversial and polarising issues of our time. For some, it is a medical scandal. For others, life-saving treatment.So, when hundreds of messages were leaked from an internal forum of doctors and mental health workers from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, it was bound to spark interest. WPATH describes itself as an interdisciplinary professional and educational organisation devoted to transgender health". Most significantly, it produces standards of care (SOC) which, it claims, articulate professional consensus" about how best to help people with gender dysphoria. Continue reading...
Yes, there's been a frightening rise in antisemitism in the UK, but that shouldn't be used as a pretext for the authoritarian banning of marchesOn my way to a recent march, I found myself feeling nervous. Sitting on the tube withmy placard, its painted slogan calling for the release of hostages as well as a ceasefire, I realised I wasavoiding people's eyes and that my heart was racing. When I got out of the underground and heard the drumsand the chanting, I wondered if I should havestayed home. As a Jew, was I safe?If I had taken advice from Robin Simcox, the government's commissioner for countering extremism, I would have stayed home. He stated last week that London turns into a no-go zone for Jews every weekend". He is following many others, such as the Telegraph's Allison Pearson, who said that Jews were too intimidated to venture into the heart of their own capital city", or Simon Schama, who said the marches were weekly public calls for their [Jewish] annihilation", or the Jewish Chronicle's Stephen Pollard, who also called London on Saturdays a no-go zone for Jews". Such comments really do stoke a sense of vulnerability.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
Investigation by forest service into Smokehouse Creek fire says decayed Xcel Energy pole had broken off at ground level'The biggest wildfire in Texas state history, which killed two people and scorched more than 1m acres, was caused by a power line pole that had decayed at the base, an investigation has concluded.The finding comes from a Texas A&M forest service investigation into the Smokehouse Creek fire, which blazed through the state's Panhandle region and into neighbouring Oklahoma after breaking out near the small town of Stinnett on 26 February. Continue reading...
Last week the six biggest operators - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and ByteDance - were forced to toe the line on competition, advertising, interoperability and more. It was a gamechangerLast Wednesday was a landmark moment for the tech industry, or at any rate for that part of it that aspires to do business in the EU. It was the day when six of the biggest companies in the world had to start complying with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) - the most sweeping law thus far aimed at regulating their activities in one of the world's biggest marketplaces.The act - which aims to promote fair competition and limit the market power of the largest tech companies (gatekeepers") - has been long in gestation, and was vigorously opposed by them from the outset. So the fact that it emerged from the Brussels lawmaking process with some of its teeth still intact is itself a small miracle. But what is even more delicious is to see these behemoths grudgingly announcing how they are going to comply with what they see as an infuriating infringement of their freedom to do whatever they please. Continue reading...
Celebrity plan to turn a much-loved retro cinema into a sports bar faces stiff opposition from thousands of angry movie goersIn central St Andrews, the New Picture House (NPH) independent cinema, with its 1930s facade and distinctive pointed roof towering above nearby restaurants and houses, has stood relatively unchanged for the past 94 years.Open every day of the week and boasting three screens, the category B listed building has showed blockbusters and independent films, as well as plays, community events and festivals, for the best part of a century. Continue reading...
University of Georgia filed complaint on behalf of news outlet and transparency research organization, saying queries unansweredA law clinic at the University of Georgia has sued the Atlanta Police Foundation, after the non-profit organization repeatedly ignored records requests from journalists and researchers about its role in backing the controversial police-training center opponents have dubbed Cop City.The complaint, filed on behalf of the digital news outlet Atlanta Community Press Collective and the Chicago-based digital transparency research organization Lucy Parsons Labs, details how numerous queries to the foundation under Georgia's Open Records Act have not been answered. Continue reading...
by Agence France-Presse in Philadelphia on (#6K78R)
US president told supporters Hungary's premier was looking for dictatorshipJoe Biden has criticised his election rival Donald Trump for meeting Viktor Orban, saying the Hungarian premier was looking for dictatorship".Orban travelled to Florida on Friday to meet his good friend" Trump. Orban has frequently expressed hope for the Republican's return to power. Continue reading...
Watching what is happening in Gaza feels almost too painful to bear sometimes, but it is important that none of us look awayI want to state the following as clearly and unequivocally as possible: Israel, with the help of the US, is deliberating starving the population of Gaza to death. Continue reading...
British fighter offered an impressive display of clinical efficiency in Riyadh but these events should not happenThe sudden end was as shocking as it was predictable. Francis Ngannou, a very good heavyweight champion in the contrasting world of mixed martial arts, walked slowly and unsteadily towards Anthony Joshua. He had already been knocked down twice before in only his second bout as a professional boxer. Joshua, an Olympic gold medallist and a two-time former heavyweight champion of the world, stepped forward to close the show. He knocked out the reeling novice with a cold and ruthless finish.In the early hours of Saturday morning in Riyadh it was totally expected and yet still strangely alarming. Joshua had so much time he could plant his feet, take aim and unleash a ferocious overhand right that stuck Ngannou so forcefully on his temple that he began slipping into unconsciousness as he slumped to the canvas. Within seconds, he was stretched flat on his back. The referee, waving his left arm frantically to signal the fight was over in the second round, ran to his rescue. Continue reading...
Party destination's transformation into military state' has caused much pain, with many suggesting a novel option to address safetyThere is a different look to spring break in Miami Beach this year, as hordes of students descend from around the country for the annual ritual of sunshine and youthful hedonism.The palm trees, soft sands and cool blue Atlantic waters that draw tens of thousands to the month-long party are still there. Except now they're obscured by scores of armed law enforcement officers, many sent at the behest of Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. Continue reading...
Both candidates are disliked by a majority of Americans, and 45% believe a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch is bad for the countryIn past years, the first phase of the general election has involved at least one of the presidential nominees introducing themselves to the broader public and presenting their case for taking the country in a new direction. But that has been rendered unnecessary this year: former president Donald Trump and president Joe Biden are very familiar to the American electorate - and they are broadly unpopular.I think this is the worst election in my lifetime," said George Argodale, a Nikki Haley supporter from Gainesville, Virginia. It's just terrible that we don't have better candidates." Continue reading...
As 2024 campaign begins, US vice-president's gender and race are strengths in fight to retain young voters and voters of colorStanding on the arch of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Kamala Harris said she felt compelled to begin her remarks by addressing the deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act," the vice-president said, then stated: Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire." Loud, sustained applause followed, before she added, after a pause: For at least six weeks." Continue reading...
Apparently he can rush thousands of bombs to Israel, but can't get Israel to unblock a US shipment of flour to GazansIn his State of the Union speech on Thursday, Joe Biden declared that the US military will build a floating pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to 2.3 million Palestinians facing widespread famine under Israel's brutal war and siege of the territory. The US president's announcement followed a week of intermittent airdrops of food by US forces - a token amount of aid, woefully inadequate to the needs of a starving population.It could take the Pentagon 30 to 60 days to set up a temporary port, which would involve deploying hundreds of US troops on ships near the Gaza coast. By then, thousands of Palestinians could starve to death; the UN recently warned that more than 575,000 people are confronting catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation", especially in northern Gaza. Continue reading...
The discourse about Sweeney's SNL episode shows that rightwingers are still obsessed with a toxic ideal of womanhoodAfter the actor Sydney Sweeney's appearance last weekend on Saturday Night Live, some conservatives online launched a senseless and downright misogynistic conversation about femininity.Following the SNL episode, social media users have declared that Wokeness is dead", while one of Canada's biggest daily national newspapers asked: Are Sydney Sweeney's breasts double-D harbingers of the death of woke?" Continue reading...
The US president, Joe Biden, was caught on a hot mic saying that he told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that they needed to have a 'come to Jesus meeting'.The comment, made shortly after Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday, was the latest sign of growing frustration between the two leaders.Biden later said Israel needed to do more to get aid into Gaza
The channel has posted a loss of 42m - and that highlights my naivety. With rich backers, who cares about ratings and profit?I almost never worry about things I got wrong, unless the error was so egregious that every day brings fresh evidence of how wrong I was; so, hello, GB News. The channel is almost three years old, and it's just over three years since people started worrying about its provocations: should we be calling for an ad boycott, they wondered? My line was, relax, everyone, and my reasons were threefold.First, GB News would be boring and nobody would watch it. The thing about reactionary views is that they're nothing if not predictable. They can be incoherent, sure - and argue simultaneously that women belong in the kitchen, and that women's rights are so fundamental that transgender rights are anathema - but you can always guess which way they're going to go. Who'd ever want to watch that? I was right, to a degree: the viewing figures were laughable, initially, climbing year-on-year to respectable fringe". But I was wrong on a more fundamental level, in conceiving this as regular, commercial broadcasting, whose aim is to win viewers and turn a profit. Even as its viewing numbers have climbed, financially its losses have soared - this week, it posted an annual 42m loss, nearly 40% more than it lost last year. The one thing GB News doesn't worry about is money.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
by Associated Press in La Grulla, Texas on (#6K76B)
Chopper in federal government's border security mission went down near Rio Grande City, leaving two national guard soldiers and a border patrol agent deadA helicopter flying over the US-Mexico border in Texas has crashed, killing two national guard soldiers and a border patrol agent, the US military has said.Another soldier on board was injured.
Vote gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for the 2024 budget yearThe US government has narrowly avoided a partial shutdown after senators approved a $460bn package of spending bills before a midnight deadline that would have shuttered many key federal agencies.The Senate approved the six funding bills, which passed the House on Wednesday in a bipartisan vote of 339-85, on Friday evening, a vote that gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for the 2024 budget year. Continue reading...
Ralph Hendry, 66, and Kathleen Brandel, 71, had been cruising the eastern Caribbean when their catamaran was hijackedThree men who had escaped from prison have been charged with capital murder in connection with the deaths of an American couple who disappeared in the Caribbean in February after their catamaran was hijacked.The Royal Grenada Police Force announced Friday that Trevon Robertson, 23; Atiba Stanislaus, 25; and Ron Mitchell, 30, were re-arrested on two counts of capital murder in the slayings of Ralph Hendry and Kathleen Brandel. Continue reading...
Thirty-three people attempting to cross the border into San Diego died in the Pacific Ocean from 2020 to 2023, study showsThirty-three people attempting to cross the US border drowned in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego after the Trump administration nearly doubled the height of the walls along the southern border, a staggering increase from previous years.The number of drownings rose by 3,200% from 2020 to 2023, compared to 2016 to 2019, when just one person drowned, according to a study published this week. By 2019 the Trump administration had elevated the barriers around San Diego from 17ft to 30ft. Continue reading...
District attorney will face Christian Wise Smith in May while McAfee, a conservative, faces two liberal attorneysThe embattled Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, and F Judge Scott McAfee have drawn re-election opponents for the 12 May primary ballot as qualification closes for Georgia's 2024 election cycle. Willis will also face a Republican in November.Christian Wise Smith is challenging Willis in the Democratic primary. Smith is an attorney from Sandy Springs, Georgia. and a former prosecutor who came in third in the 2020 race behind Willis and the previous Fulton county district attorney, Paul Howard. Continue reading...
Michael Whatley of North Carolina has been voted the Republican National Committee chair, with Lara Trump as co-chairThe Republican National Committee voted on Friday to install Donald Trump's handpicked leadership team, completing his takeover of the national party as the former president closes in on a third straight presidential nomination.Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump's false claims of voter fraud, was elected as the party's national chair in a vote Friday morning in Houston. Continue reading...
The sled-dog race across ice and snow has been roiled by a penalty award after a musher's encounter with an angry mooseThis year's Iditarod sled-dog race in Alaska has gotten off to a bumpy start.Mushers and their 16-dog teams, who train year-round to race across a 1,000-mile stretch of ice and snow, try to prepare for all eventualities during the treacherous journey across Alaska. But they weren't quite prepared for the twists and turns of this year's race. Continue reading...
Comments captured on hot mic after State of the Union address point to US president's growing frustration with Israeli leaderJoe Biden's growing frustration with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, continued to mount, with the Democratic US president captured on a hot mic saying that he and the Israeli leader will need to have a come to Jesus meeting".The comments by Biden came as he spoke with the Colorado Democratic senator Michael Bennet, on the floor of the House chamber in Washington following Thursday night's State of the Union address. Continue reading...
In the week of International Women's Day, raise a glass to the unpaid contributors who are putting so many unsung lives on the mapThe dictionary definition of heroism does not usually extend to people who work away anonymously, and for no money, for the reputational benefit of others. But this is what growing numbers of largely female researchers have been doing, in an attempt to rebalance the historical record on Wikipedia in favour of women. In a relatively rare instance of one breaking cover, the British archaeologist and curator LucyMoore, who has just finished a project to add a woman from every country in the world, has called for more volunteers to roll up their sleeves and contribute.The challenge is a large one. As of this month, according to the site itself, just under 20% of nearly 2m biographies on Wikipedia are of women, though this is a marked improvement on the 15.5% reported in an academic paper 10 years ago. That paper led to the creation of Women in Red, which now involves hundreds of volunteers around the world. Their project is to turn red links" - marking a mention of someone for whom a page does not exist - into blue ones that lead to entries documenting their lives. Continue reading...
Biden's use of the word to describe people who are undocumented is one his own administration ordered agencies to stop usingJoe Biden's seemingly off-the-cuff use of illegal" to describe people who are undocumented during his State of the Union address drew disappointed reaction from experts who have long argued the term is inaccurate and outdated.Responding to heckling from conservative congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who demanded Biden mention the name of Laken Riley - a Georgia nursing student who was allegedly killed by a person who is undocumented - Biden held up a button of Riley's face and said she was an innocent, young woman who was killed by an illegal". Continue reading...
Rightwing economist Stephen Moore says no question' US has strongest economy in world - and that's important to cheer'The US economy is the strongest in the world and Joe Biden was right to say so in his State of the Union address, a rightwing Republican economist allied to Donald Trump and a co-author of a plan to reshape the federal government said on Friday morning.Let me just say one thing positive about where we are right now," Stephen Moore told Fox Business. Continue reading...
With Trump surging, democracy is in peril: that's the message Biden needs to couple with the spirit he showed in CongressThe president of the United States delivered his annual address to Congress on Thursday night - except what Americans and an increasingly nervous world wanted to assess was less the state of the union than the state of Joe Biden. I don't mean politically, I mean physically.In the week that confirmed the November election will be a rematch of the 2020 contest - the current president against the former one - Biden needed to prove he was not the doddering, even senile figure of Donald Trump's rhetoric and a thousand social media memes. In 68 combative minutes, he cleared that bar. He ad-libbed, he took on Republican hecklers and, often at high volume, jabbed at his opponent. The result: a performance that pundits described as feisty" and scrappy", free of senior moments, and which prompted even Fox News to muse that Biden seemed jacked-up" - which, from the network that likes to depict the president as a walking corpse, was a compliment.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Have the new vegans had enough of being called soy boys'? I suspect the reason is far simplerIt would be easy to assume that the rise of vegan diets and products is now inevitable. More than 700,000 people signed up to the official Veganuary campaign in 2023, more than four times as many as in 2018. Vegans used to be seen as humourless, sanctimonious and moralistic, but a new generation has changed the diet's image, bringing a fun, vibrant, health-conscious slant to a vegan lifestyle that eschews some of the stricter elements, and appeals to young, climate-conscious consumers. Terms and trends such as flexitarian", pescatarian", meatless Monday" and Veganuary" have become popularised, as consumers abstain from meat in more relaxed and less all-consuming ways.Influencers such as the broadcaster Fearne Cotton and reality TV star Lucy Watson share easy vegan recipes and lifestyle content, and impress upon their audiences that moving to a vegan diet is relatively simple, focusing less on why the diet is the right ethical choice. As a result, what once seemed extreme and out of reach for many is now far easier to absorb into an existing lifestyle.Dr Jennifer Yule is a lecturer in marketing at the University of Edinburgh Business School, who researches consumer behaviour in the health and wellbeing domain Continue reading...
His remarks were designed to demonstrate Biden's vitality. They succeededLike a budget, a State of the Union speech is a moral document: it reflects a president's values and priorities, distilling his own view of his administration for the American people. On Thursday night, Joe Biden made his moral case for re-election: he views America as a besieged but worthy global leader, one whose tradition of democracy deserves to be defended and rebuilt. Referring to his opponent Donald Trump only as my predecessor", Biden repeatedly contrasted his own vision of a more equitable and prosperous nation with the Republican agenda. The point was to offer Americans an optimistic and inclusive vision - and to remind them of the cynicism, sadism and depravity of the Trump worldview, which threatens to undermine women's freedoms, make interracial democracy impossible, and use the machinery of government for little else but to further Republicans own self regard and greed.The 90-minute speech was raucous, strident and insistently optimistic; it appeared designed to demonstrate Biden's vitality, and to launch in earnest a presidential campaign that has previously been somewhat tepid and sluggish. I'm here to wake up the Congress," Biden said as he began, declaring the nation to be in an unprecedented moment". Maybe he was there to wake up his own campaign, too. Continue reading...
There's a certain sense of freedom in the knowledge that some things won't last for everWhat will be left of us online after we're gone? For me, I hope it's a collection of hot selfies, sassy tweets, and maybe even some writing that made people think (or at least, angry in the comments). But the reality is that so much of the trails we leave online aren't up to us.Perhaps that's why digital ephemerality - material existing online only briefly - is so alluring. In a digital ecosystem that relentlessly creates, extracts, stores and monetises our data, it's no wonder that the notion of temporary content is appealing. There's a certain sense of freedom in the knowledge that things won't last for ever. Continue reading...
This is the media mogul's second proposal in 12 months. Us mortals can only speculate about his mesmerising dating secretsAt last, some happy news. Rupert Murdoch is engaged - and for the second time in less than a year. I know! Despite being 93 next Monday, he's getting engaged even more frequently than serial sex killers serving life sentences. Those betrothals, of course, tend to happen entirely by letter, but as far as we know, Murdoch's latest love match is a real-world union. His fiancee is Elena Zhukova, 67, a retired biologist who also previously served as mother-in-law to Roman Abramovich. In the absence of an official engagement photo, just sub in that image from Alien 3 where the slavering alien corners Ripley in the infirmary. And please remember - the Fox News chairman emeritus's lifelong commitment to irreverent stories about people's private lives means the above is precisely how he wants his latest chapter to be covered.As mentioned, this is Murdoch's second proposal inside 12 months, his previous engagement enduring just a fortnight. Hand on heart, I was surprised he couldn't make it work with that last one, a former dental hygienist/evangelical prison chaplain he met in one of his gardens, who had successfully dismissed a case of financial elder abuse" brought by one of her previous stepchildren. She seemed so perfect. Back at the time they announced their intention to wed (not hugely long after Rupert reportedly told Jerry Hall via email that he was divorcing her), he gibbered out some hilarious interview to his own New York Post, in which he claimed: I dreaded falling in love - but I knew this would be my last."Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
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