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With its combination of community, cooperation and selflessness, this could offer some small comfort in a terrifying eraA new hygge has dropped, but you'll need to take off your cosy slippers and put down your cinnamon bun to try it. There is a real danger of getting the wrong end of the stick when we get enthusiastic about other nations' lifestyles - such as when the New York Times writes about modern Britons enjoying boiled mutton for lunch, or cavorting" in swamps, and we all get cross - but this comes straight from the Viking's mouth.That's Meik Wiking, the perfectly named chief executive of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Writing in Stylist, Wiking suggests we consider adopting a Norwegian concept that requires no blankets or candles: dugnadsand, approximately translated as community spirit". He likens dugnadsand to barn-raising in 18th- and 19th-century North America, describing a collective willingness of people to come together in the context of community projects - emphasising cooperation and selflessness". Continue reading...

The governor dismissed an ex-judge studying the death penalty in the state and failed to heed a leading voice on the matter. It's no surpriseOn Wednesday, 19 March, Arizona executed Aaron Gunches by lethal injection. As ABC News reports, he was put to death for kidnapping and killing 40-year-old Ted Price by shooting him four times in the Arizona desert".Gunches's case was unusual in many ways, not least that he stopped his legal appeals and volunteered to be executed, then changed his mind before changing it again. His execution was scheduled to be carried out almost two years ago. It was put on hold when the Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, commissioned an independent review of the state's death penalty procedures after a series of botched executions. Continue reading...

Meeting comes as China hopes to reach a deal to avert further tariff pressure from WashingtonRepublican senator Steve Daines, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Sunday, as China hopes to reach a deal to avert further tariff pressure from Washington.The meeting marks the first time a US politician has visited China since Trump took office in January. Earlier this month, China's ministry of foreign affairs promised that China will fight to the end" with the US in a tariff war, trade war or any other war". Continue reading...

Administration's unprecedented degree of resistance' to judiciary undercuts its authority and weakens democracyDonald Trump's second administration has shown an unprecedented degree of resistance" to adverse court rulings, experts say, part of a forceful attack on the American judiciary that threatens to undermine the rule of law, undercut a co-equal branch of government and weaken American democracy.The attacks, experts say, threaten one of the fundamental pillars of American government: that the judicial branch has the power to interpret the law and the other branches will abide by its rulings. Continue reading...

Redefining antisemitism in the law was never about Jewish safety. It is about consolidating authoritarian power under the veneer of minority protectionIn 1919, Jacob Israel de Haan, an Orthodox Jewish queer poet and lawyer, arrived in British Mandate Palestine from the Netherlands. Despite his initial sympathies with Zionism, within a few years de Haan would become an outspoken critic of the movement. Driven by what he called a natural feeling for justice", he advocated for another Jewish community in Palestine" - one that sought cooperation with the Arab-Palestinian community. His steadfast opposition to mainstream Zionism made de Haan a controversial figure, drawing the ire of Zionist leadership. On 30 June 1924, de Haan was assassinated by a member of the Zionist organization Haganah.This political assassination represented not merely the elimination of one man, but a portentous statement about which perspectives would be tolerated in the emerging political landscape. A century later, we are witnessing a similar troubling pattern. As attacks against universities and intimidation of Palestinian activists become ever more rife, those who challenge Zionist orthodoxy - whether out of political conviction, religious belief or ethical principle - face exclusion, vilification and worse. This time, the main tool is a sweeping legal redefinition of antisemitism in American law and policy.The redefinition of antisemitism isn't simply a policy shift - it's part of a deeper transformation of American democracy Continue reading...

Despite what the White House might think, the US's founding document does not contain the phrase the president is the law'The answer key to this quiz was recently removed from usa.govLawrence Douglas is a professor of law at Amherst College in Massachusetts Continue reading...

The Vermont senator and the New York representative are rallying huge crowds with a message to reshape the Democratic partyBernie Sanders is not running for president. But he is drawing larger crowds now than he did when he was campaigning for the White House.The message has hardly changed. Nor has the messenger, with his shock of white hair and booming delivery. What's different now, the senator says, is that his fears - a government captured by billionaires who exploit working people - have become an undeniable reality and people are angry. Continue reading...

Churches and non-profits are offering legal help, meals and workshops to people targeted by the Trump administrationOn Sundays, Juan Carlos Ruiz gives his sermons while wearing a white robe. Although his English- and Spanish-speaking congregants at a Brooklyn-based church may not notice it, the neck of his robe is ripped, the cloth frayed. When asked about the tear in his robe, Ruiz gives a charming smile, remembering his 2018 arrest.That year, during the first Trump administration, Ruiz was participating in a protest to prevent the deportation of a prominent New York immigration activist. As tensions flared, cops began to rough up some demonstrators. Ruiz attempted to intervene. He and 17 others were arrested by police; his white alb ripped during the struggle. Continue reading...

Deleting stories of Iwo Jima and other diverse US military heroism backfired. For subtle discussion of diversity, equity and inclusion, talk to Lorraine KellyIn the second world war, Navajo code talkers transmitted sensitive US military information in their own undocumented language. Which was nice of them, as their immediate ancestors had been dispossessed and destroyed by white settlers, and then had all their water poisoned with uranium. Were it not for the Navajos," concluded major Howard Connor, at the time, the marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." And that famous photo of the American soldiers raising a flag would just have shown some Japanese boy scouts letting off a party popper.But last month Trump's defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said: I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is our diversity is our strength'." Predictably, some Navajo code talkers had to have bodyguards to protect them from white American servicemen who thought they were Japanese. Plus ca change, as they say over there in that Europe. Continue reading...

At the 1968 Olympics, Foreman's flag-waving was seen as deference if not betrayal. But the reaction to it reveals the limited ways we allow Black athletes to express themselvesWhen a teenager from Texas named George Foreman waved a tiny American flag in the boxing ring after winning Olympic gold in 1968, he had little awareness of the political minefield beneath his size 15 feet. The moment, captured by television cameras for an audience of millions during one of the most volatile periods in American history, was instantly contrasted with another image from two days earlier at the same Mexico City Games: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, heads bowed and black-gloved fists raised in salute during the US national anthem, a silent act of protest that would become one of the defining visuals of the 20th century. Their message was unmistakable: a rebuke of the country that had sent them to compete while continuing to deny civil rights to people who looked like them. Their action was seen as defiant resistance, Foreman's as deference to the very systems of oppression they were protesting.But that reading, while emotionally understandable amid the fevered upheaval of 1968, misses something deeper - about Foreman, about patriotism, and about the burden of symbolic politics laid on the shoulders of Black athletes. Continue reading...

US defense secretary joins in on attacks against judges and lawyers as the Trump administration faces more than 100 lawsuits over its agendaPete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, became the latest senior official to openly criticise a judge as the Trump administration ramped up its attacks on court challenges to its political agenda.On Saturday, Hegseth mocked US district judge Ana Reyes for blocking a ban on transgender troops in the US military. The ban was enforced by an executive order signed by Donald Trump on 27 January. Continue reading...

US defense secretary joins mounting criticism of federal judges by Donald Trump and others in administrationThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, joined the mounting criticism of federal judges by Donald Trump and others in his administration on Saturday, mocking the judge who blocked a ban on transgender troops in the US military and suggesting she had exceeded her authority.The US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington ruled that Trump's 27 January executive order, one of several issued by the Republican president targeting legal rights for transgender Americans, likely violated the US constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. Continue reading...

Yisroel Liebb of New Jersey claims pilot broke lock and pulled him out with his pants down, leaving him exposedAn Orthodox Jewish passenger says a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from an airplane bathroom while he was experiencing constipation, exposing his genitalia to other flyers during a flight from Tulum, Mexico, to Houston.Yisroel Liebb, of New Jersey, described his trip through allegedly unfriendly skies in a federal lawsuit this week against the airline and the US Department of Homeland Security, whose officers he said boarded the plane upon landing and took him away in handcuffs. Continue reading...

Institutions must resist thuggish bullying. There is no satisfying Trump. He will move the goalposts again and againSince early 2024, I've been running a journalism ethics center at Columbia University.So perhaps it's no surprise that I see the university's capitulation to Trump both in terms of journalism and ethics.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

It will be a test to see which countries are the nimblest when it comes to responding to changing economic paradigms

His attempts to bully and exploit the weak hark back to an era when the US emulated the worst aspects of the British empireDonald Trump's imperial presidency is a tawdry, threadbare affair. The emperor has no clothes to cloak his counterfeit rule. Lacking crown and robes, he resorts to vulgar ties and baseball caps. His throne is but a bully pulpit, his palace a pokey, whitewashed house, his courtiers mere common hacks. His royal edicts - executive orders - are judicially contested. And while he rages like Lear, his critics are publicly crucified or thrown to the lions at Fox News.Yet for all his crudely plebeian ordinariness, a parvenu imperialism is Trump's global offer, his trademark deal and most heinous crime. He peddles it against the tide of history and all human experience, as if invasion, genocide, racial inequality, economic exploitation and cultural conquest had never been tried before. If it wasn't clear already, it is now. He wants to rule the world. Continue reading...

The film star is among those undermining a role that was created out of the #MeToo movement to protect the powerlessHow instructive to hear Gwyneth Paltrow's views on intimacy coordinators, the people hired to supervise intimate scenes infilm and television. Talking to Vanity Fair magazine about her big screen comeback, in Josh Safdie's ping pong film, Marty Supreme, the actor, 52, joked of her sex scenes with 29-year-old Timothee Chalamet: I was like, I'm 109 years old. You're 14'."Paltrow also said: There's now something called an intimacy coordinator (IC), which I did not know existed." When the IC spoke to her: I'm like, Girl, I'm from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera's on'... We said, I think we're good. You can step a little bit back'." She added: I don't know how it is for the kids who are starting out, but... if someone is like OK, then he puts his hand here'... I would feel as an artist very stifled by that." Continue reading...

International trade boomed with the city's early adoption of technological and economic changes, but Black neighborhoods became sacrifice zones'Oakland, California, is often treated as a city on the margins, best known for its struggles with poverty and gun violence, as well as for its history of radical Black activism. But a new book, The Pacific Circuit, argues that Oakland should be viewed as one of the centers of global change in the past century, serving both as a key node in the new global economy built around trans-Pacific trade, and as one of the sacrifice zones" this economy requires.Far from being an outlier, US journalist Alexis Madrigal argues, Oakland is in fact an early adopter of the technological and economic changes now tearing through cities across the US, and around the world. Oakland has long been the canary in Silicon Valley's coalmine of disruption, the book suggests. But its residents don't suffer passively: they organize and learn how to fight back. Continue reading...

Paul, Weiss's chair hung former partner out to dry after a series of attacks on US legal community by presidentInside the White House, advisers to Donald Trump reveled in their ability to bully Paul, Weiss - one of the largest law firms in the US - and see its chair criticize a former partner as he tried to appease the US president to rescind an executive order that threatened the firm's ability to function.Trump last week issued an executive order that suspended the firm's lawyers from holding security clearances, terminated any of its federal government contracts and prevented its employees from entering federal government buildings on national security grounds. Continue reading...

In a memo on Friday, president also revoked clearances for Antony Blinken, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Letitia JamesDonald Trump moved to revoke security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and a string of other top Democrats and political enemies in a presidential memo issued late on Friday.The security clearance revocations include former secretary of state Antony Blinken, former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, former Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, as well as Biden's entire family. They will no longer have access to classified information - a courtesy typically offered to former presidents and some officials after they have left public service. Continue reading...

The state with the most radical abortion law is seeking to make an example of Maria Margarita RojasTexas is a fairly decent place to be an armadillo (they're the official state small mammal) and an increasingly dire place to be a woman. In 2021, it implemented a near-total abortion ban: the most radical abortion law in the US. Now it's going even further in its crusade to outlaw abortion. On Monday, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced the first criminal charges under Texas's abortion ban. Maria Margarita Rojas, a licensed midwife, was charged with the illegal performance of an abortion and with practicing medicine without a license, according to a press release from Paxton's office. Her employee Jose Ley was also charged. Continue reading...

President ordered attorney general to refer partisan lawsuits to White House and recommend sanctions against firmsDonald Trump expanded his retribution campaign against law firms on Friday night as he ordered his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to refer what she determined to be partisan lawsuits to the White House and recommend punitive actions that could cripple the firms involved.The directives were outlined in a sweeping memo in which Trump alleged that too many law firms were filing frivolous claims designed to cause delays. It came after a week of setbacks, in which a slew of judges issued temporary injunctions blocking the implementation of Trump's agenda. Continue reading...

Ten years ago she was finally cleared of the brutal murder of her housemate Meredith Kercher in Perugia. But is Knox really free? I call us the Sisterhood of Ill Repute': read an exclusive extract from her new memoirAmanda Knox says she is one of the lucky ones. She and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito had their convictions for the murder of Meredith Kercher overturned for the second and final time in 2015. She now presents a successful podcast called Labyrinths, is a TV producer and bestselling author, does standup comedy and campaigns against miscarriages of justice. She is married to Christopher Robinson, a writer, whom she adores, and they have two gorgeous toddlers. Life could not be much better or fuller. Her new book is called Free. But it could just as easily be called Still Not Free.Knox's search for freedom has led her down surprising paths. Most surprising was her decision to write to and then befriend Giuliano Mignini, the conspiracy-theorist prosecutor who created the shocking narrative that Kercher, a 21-year-old Londoner on a student exchange in Perugia, was killed in 2007 by Knox, Sollecito and Rudy Guede after a drug-fuelled sex game got out of hand. Shocking in itself. But even more shocking because Knox, then aged 20, and Sollecito, 23, had only been going out with each other for six days and neither had previous convictions. And most shocking of all because there was DNA evidence at the murder scene suggesting that Guede (who had been arrested the previous week in Milan for breaking into a nursery school armed with a knife) was the killer, and none implicating Knox and Sollecito. Continue reading...

Bronze tribute in actor's hometown to celebrate civil rights advocacy amid rise in violence against Asian AmericansFor many, Bruce Lee is the first name that comes to mind when thinking of San Francisco's most iconic figures. Now, the city's Chinatown is honoring that legacy with a statue.A bronze Bruce Lee statue will be erected in San Francisco's Chinatown, his 1940 birthplace, following a proposal by memorabilia collector Jeff Chinn to the Chinese Historical Society of America. Continue reading...

The trial of two Russian mobsters for a murder-for-hire scheme targeting the women's rights activist Masih Alinejad revealed incongruous, and chilling, detailsMasih Alinejad had just finished gathering tomatoes and cucumbers from the backyard garden of her Brooklyn home when she spotted a gigantic" man mulling about.At first, he seemed like a normal guy", the Iranian-American dissident writer recalled in court this week of a fateful day in late July 2022. He was walking and then he had a phone in his hand." Continue reading...

In this exclusive extract from her new memoir, she reveals how she joined a club of women who have also lived in the crosshairs of public shaming' It's a new kind of prison': read an interview with Amanda KnoxBefore Italy, I was only vaguely aware ofthat ancient stereotype that all women secretly hate one another, that we are incapable of true friendship. Some call it venimism"; others refer to mean girls". In 1893, the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso wrote: Due to women's latent antipathy for one another, trivial events give rise to fierce hatreds; and due to women's irascibility, these occasions lead quickly to insolence and assaults." The source of our latent antipathy? Sexual jealousy, of course. We hate one another because we are ever competing for male attention.I always thought this misogynistic myth was obviously false. I had lots of girlfriends, from school and soccer; so did my sisters, my mom, pretty much every girl I knew. But, then again, I also thought my innocence was obvious ... And, clearly, the stereotype found its way into my courtroom, where a cross hung on the wall and my devoutly Catholic prosecutor accused me not merely of being a murderer, but of being a dirty, drug-addled, woman-hating slut. Continue reading...

Egg prices are up 310% since 2005. But it's not the only staple with soaring pricesEgg prices have got a lot of attention in recent months as avian flu made this staple a luxury for US households. But the trend of food inflation in the US is a longstanding one.Since January 2005, egg prices have grown 310%, from $1.21 a dozen to nearly $5 a dozen, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it's not the only household item to see a dramatic rise. Beef prices increased 125% and electricity prices have doubled. Inflation doesn't happen consistently across all household items in part because the costs of production vary so much - producing a pound of oranges for supermarket shelves (about two medium-sized fruits) requires different amounts of water, labor and fertilizer than, say, a pound of milk (about 2 cups). Continue reading...

New poll also shows that a significant share of Americans will avoid companies that drop social-inclusion policiesOne in five Americans plan to turn their backs for good on companies that have shifted their policies to align with Donald Trump's agenda, according to a new poll for the Guardian.As high-profile brands including Amazon, Target and Tesla grapple with economic boycotts, research by the Harris Poll indicated the backlash could have a lasting impact. Continue reading...

More crucible than race, the Barkley Marathons in the hostile backwoods of Tennessee remains the world's toughest footrace, where change, adaptation and the struggle to survive play outA month before the 2025 Barkley Marathons, Lazarus Lake is out on his daily eight-mile stroll along the rural roads near his Bell Buckle, Tennessee home. Pausing mid-step, he fixes his gaze on a vine creeping onto the asphalt - kudzu, the invasive scourge of the American South. Laz pins it with the toe of his worn-out shoe, then crushes it with a sharp twist. Pop. Nature isn't about balance," he says, kicking the remains aside. That's a common misconception - it's war."Frozen Head State Park, where he's held the Barkley since 1986, has managed to fight off this botanical kraken - so far. Introduced from Japan in the 1930s to combat soil erosion, kudzu earned its reputation as the plant that ate the South" by swallowing entire forests, abandoned houses, and telephone poles at a pace of up to a foot per day. The government once paid farmers to plant it; now they pay them even more to destroy it. Continue reading...

The two-time heavyweight champion, Olympic gold medalist and Hall of Fame boxer died Friday at age 76. He leaves behind a towering legacy

530,000 to lose legal immigration status; teachers sue over Department of Education shutdown - key US politics stories from Friday at a glance Continue reading...

Changes include allowing security officers to arrest students and a new official for Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department. This blog is now closed.In Tempe on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez praised Arizona voters for electing two Democratic senators. She then swiped at the state's former one-term senator, Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic party to become an independent while in office and declined to seek re-election.

Offices investigated rights violations and oversaw citizenship, immigration and detention servicesThe US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday gutted three oversight offices by placing more than 100 workers on paid leave, a Trump administration official and two former officials said.The workers, including those in the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, were given layoff notices as part of a large-scale government reduction by the Trump administration, one of the affected staffers said, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter. Continue reading...

Congressman says unwavering' support remains for Aukus from US Congress, administration and navy

Momodou Taal, dual citizen of the UK and Gambia, received email from homeland security days after filing lawsuitA Cornell University PhD student earlier this month sued the Trump administration seeking to stop the president's order aimed at foreign students accused of antisemitism". Days later, lawyers at the justice department emailed to request that the student surrender" to immigration officials.Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of the UK and Gambia, is one of three Cornell students who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to block the enforcement of Trump executive orders aimed at deporting foreign university students and staff involved in pro-Palestinian protests. Continue reading...

James Boasberg considers whether to maintain block on deportation of accused Venezuelan gang membersA federal judge who temporarily blocked Donald Trump's administration from deporting accused Venezuelan gang members under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act law condemned the lawyers for being intemperate and disrespectful" in court.The Washington DC-based judge, James Boasberg, continues considering whether to maintain his ban - and whether officials violated it, which would expose them to sanctions. Continue reading...

Alison Lawrence allegedly killed her miniature schnauzer after being told the pet could not fly with her to ColombiaA woman who was told she could not bring her dog aboard her international flight drowned the animal in the bathroom of a Florida airport, according to authorities.Alison Lawrence, 57, of Kenner, Louisiana, faces a felony charge for what police described as the cruel and unnecessary death" of her white miniature schnauzer, Tywinn. Continue reading...

Measures include empowering security officers to arrest people, and reassigning control of Middle East departmentColumbia University has yielded to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.The university released a memo outlining its agreement with Donald Trump's administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire. Continue reading...

Move takes effect on 24 April as president weighs also stripping parole status from some 240,000 Ukrainians in USDonald Trump's administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, in the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.It will be effective on 24 April. Continue reading...

The US president Donald Trump told journalists that Elon Musk would not be shown plan for a potential war with China because of his business interests in the country. It marks an unusual acknowledgment of concerns about the billionaire balancing his corporate and government responsibilities as a senior adviser to the president. During the briefing, secretary of defence Pete Hegseth added that Musk had solely visited the Pentagon that day to 'talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations'

NTSB says there was no excuse' for missed safety check and calls for urgent assessment of 68 bridges across USThe top US transportation safety agency said this week that the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse last March, after a cargo ship hit a support pillar, had been 30 times above the acceptable risk of breaking up if a vessel struck it and there was no excuse" for a vital safety check having been missed years before.In its investigation of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge across a vital shipping channel in Baltimore, which killed six construction workers, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that the Maryland transportation authority failed to complete a recommended structural vulnerability assessment that would have shown the bridge was extremely prone to a collapse. Continue reading...