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The 17th-century painting The Tiger Hunt depicts a visceral battle for power that perfectly sets up the HBO series - and paintings on the walls in other TV shows hold hidden messagesFrom old masters to contemporary scenes, artworks are often embedded in our favourite TV shows. They can foreshadow a narrative, give an insight into a character's storyline, or influence the aesthetics of the whole series. Yet we might not decipher this at first glance.It was when I heard the name Artemisia Gentileschi, and her painting Self-Portrait as an Allegory of Painting, being discussed by Prince Philip and art historian (and spy) Anthony Blunt on season three of The Crown, that I realised that art on TV is often much more than just set dressing. The conversation about Gentileschi spoke to the history of the royal collection - the painting was a commission by King Charles I who personally invited the artist to England in 1638 - and pointed to the prominence Gentileschi had in her lifetime. Although clearly this was not to last, as Blunt had to correct Philip's assumption that the female painter was a he". Continue reading...

From fear of migration to the rising cost of living, new political dividing lines will decide June's European electionsWill the far right be the big winner in this year's European elections? If so, what would its victory mean for the future of the EU? And who is the far right? Five years ago, Europe's leaders rightly recognised that Europeans were suffering a vertigo moment. In Milan Kundera's words, vertigo is not the same as a fear of falling - rather, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves. Then, voters toyed with far-right populists and contemplated collapsing the union, but eventually the majority chose to vote for mainstream parties.This scenario seems unlikely to unfold this time around. Today, most far-right parties have abandoned demands that their countries leave the EU or the euro and have detoxified their brands. Rather than quitting the EU, they want to remake it and to govern it. After the recent elections in the Netherlands and Slovakia, and regional elections in Austria and in some regions of Germany, a consensus view is emerging that the coming European elections in June are a disaster in the making, and that migration is the only issue that will define the campaign and outcome. But could this picture be wrong? Continue reading...

Seals from USS Lewis Puller went overboard during mission off coast of Somalia to seize Iranian weapons, according to US military

Hundreds of people set fire to a giant wooden beetle in the annual festival to raise awareness of the harmful pine beetleIn what's become an annual winter tradition: hundreds of people carrying torches set fire to a giant wooden beetle effigy in Custer, South Dakota, to raise awareness of the destructive impact of the mountain pine beetle on forest land in the Black Hills.Custer firefighters prepared and lit the torches for residents to carry in a march to the pyre Saturday night in the 11th Burning Beetle fest, the Rapid City Journal reported. Continue reading...

The Florida governor, once billed as Trump without the baggage, ended up making a series of bad gamblesIt began in a glitch-filled disaster on Twitter. It ended with a misattributed quotation on X. Just like Elon Musk's social media platform, efforts to rebrand Ron DeSantis's US presidential election campaign could not mask its fundamental flaws.When in May the Florida governor announced his run during a chat with Musk on Twitter Spaces, the platform's audio streaming feature, there were technical breakdowns that drew comparisons with one of Musk's space rockets blowing up on the launchpad. Continue reading...

Hard-right Florida governor at one point thought to be future of party ends campaign to be GOP nomineeRon DeSantis, the hard-right governor of Florida, has ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Donald Trump.It's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance," he said in a statement posted on X. He has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents."Adam Gabbatt contributed reporting from New Hampshire Continue reading...

Campaign ad, titled Forced, is designed to tie Donald Trump directly to the abortion issueThe Biden re-election campaign rolled out a new campaign ad Sunday, signaling a shift in emphasis to reproductive rights that the White House hopes will carry and define Democrats through the 2024 election cycle.The campaign ad, titled Forced, is designed to tie Donald Trump directly to the abortion issue almost 18 months after his nominees to the supreme court helped to overturn a constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade, which would have turned 51 this week. Continue reading...

For many Asians, therapy is taboo - but a year after LA's worst mass shooting, some elders in the community are embracing itFor the past 50 years, Shally Ung hadn't spent much time thinking about the carnage she'd seen growing up in her native Cambodia. But those scenes of bombs raining down on Phnom Penh came roaring back on Lunar New Year last year, when a gunman opened fire at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park and killed 11 people. Ung's dance partner for nearly two decades, Andy Kao, was shot in the chest and died beside her under a table.The 21 January 2023 attack was the worst mass shooting in Los Angeles county history, hitting the heart of Monterey Park's large Asian immigrant community. Flashbacks of the horror, as well as her childhood memories, haunted her for months, said Ung, 59. Continue reading...

Our political and media elites are complicit in Gaza's nightmare. Any vestige of moral authority has been lost for everWhat is the value of a Palestinian life? For those retaining delusions not already buried in the rubble of Gaza alongside entire families - like the Zorobs, the Kashtans, the Attalahs - Joe Biden offered a definitive answer last week. In a statement marking 100 days since the current horror began, he rightly showed empathy for the plight of hostages - whose abduction by Hamas represents a grave war crime - and their traumatised families. Yet there was not a single mention of Palestinians.That politicians and media outlets alike have not bothered to disguise their contempt for Palestinian life will prove consequential. Indeed, this phenomenon is not new, and those repercussions are now violently felt. If the world's powerful nations had not so brazenly shrugged off three-quarters of a million Palestinians being driven from their homes 76 years ago, accompanied by an estimated 15,000 suffering violent deaths, the seeds of today's bitter harvest would not have been planted. Political and media elites started as they meant to go on. How many know that last year, before the indefensible atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, 234 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank alone, more than three dozen of them children? Life is cheap, they say. It is apparently meaningless if you are Palestinian.Owen Jones 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...

Kenneth Smith, to be executed in Alabama by untested gas method, tells Guardian of nightmares from failed lethal injectionOn Tuesday morning, Kenneth Smith will be moved within the Holman correctional facility in Alabama to the death cell", the bluntly named holding unit where condemned prisoners are placed two days before their appointed execution.Smith knows the cell well. He knows its dimensions and the feel of the place. He knows that it sits only about 20 feet from the death chamber where, barring a last-minute reprieve, he will be escorted in handcuffs and leg irons on Thursday before being strapped to a gurney to await his fate. Continue reading...

Theft occurred on day the Ouray County Plaindealer published story about alleged sexual assault at party at police chief's houseNearly all the copies of a small-town Colorado newspaper were stolen from newspaper racks on the same day the Ouray County Plaindealer published a story about charges being filed over rapes alleged to have occurred at an underage drinking party at the police chief's house while the chief was asleep, the owner and publisher said Friday.Mike Wiggins vowed to get to the bottom of it, posting Thursday on X, formerly Twitter: If you hoped to silence or intimidate us, you failed miserably. We'll find out who did this. And another press run is imminent." Continue reading...

State is key for Nikki Haley after a poor finish in Iowa and an expected loss in her home state of South CarolinaBrightly dressed in a red-and-white starry jacket, Melinda Tourangeau was waiting eagerly at Grill 603, a casual diner in small-town New Hampshire, for a US presidential candidate not named Donald Trump.Tourangeau, 57, who lives in Milford, was reluctantly forced to vote for Trump" in 2016 and 2020, she said. I had to leave my morals at the door." Continue reading...

The pastor from Texas is an extreme long shot in New Hampshire, but he's forging ahead with his lonely bidIn a movie, Ryan Binkley would be storming towards the presidency.At more than 6ft tall, with a strong jaw and an athletic physique, Binkley looks the quintessential Hollywood vision of a political leader. The long-shot Republican candidate for president wears well-cut suits and has a full head of dark brown hair. He has a lovely set of teeth, nice shiny shoes, and he smells nice. Continue reading...

Abortion rights groups split with mainstream movement over support for former legal framework of viability'Since the devastating loss of Roe v Wade, the abortion rights movement has seen historic levels of support for its cause, particularly through major victories on state ballot initiatives, with more expected this November. But as advocates move to re-enshrine the right to abortion at the state level, a struggle has emerged over whether to reproduce Roe's legal framework - or go further.Roe v Wade, which was decided 51 years ago on Monday, protected the right to abortion until fetal viability - the point at which a fetus can survive outside the uterus - which is widely accepted to be at roughly 24 weeks. A number of ballot campaigns slated for November seek to bring back that standard - but a group of advocates is banding together to declare that the broader movement is engaging in harmful compromises when it could instead use the momentum to push for clean" policies that don't draw a strict limit to abortion access. Continue reading...

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America's largest and most powerful bank, is defending Trump's record. This is absurd- Get Robert Reich's latest columns delivered straight to your inboxOn Wednesday, speaking from the World Economic Forum's confab in Davos, Switzerland, Jamie Dimon - chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest and most profitable bank in the United States, and one of the most influential CEOs in the world - heaped praise on Donald Trump's policies while president.Take a step back, be honest," Dimon said. Trump was kind of right about Nato, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. He wasn't wrong about some of these critical issues."Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Supporters absorb former US president's strategy of inverting accusations against him and turning them on his accuser. To his fans, Trump is the saviour of democracySnow was falling, lightly dusting the tables full of Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president" and Fight for Trump" and other Make America great again" regalia. Still, in subzero temperatures, people waited in a long and winding line on Saturday for a chance to see their greatest showman.Donald Trump, the former US president, was about to hold the biggest campaign rally yet in New Hampshire's primary elections, where victory would put him within touching distance of the 2024 Republican nomination - and trigger renewed warnings that democracy itself will be on the ballot in November. Continue reading...

The multiply indicted former president is alternating stops in early voting states with trial appearances. So far it seems to be working but for how long?Monday night: Des Moines, Iowa, celebrating victory with supporters over beer and popcorn. Tuesday morning: Manhattan, New York, on trial for defaming a woman he sexually abused. Tuesday night: Atkinson, New Hampshire, campaigning for the US presidency. Wednesday morning: court in New York again.Donald Trump, the former US president and frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024, has intertwined his political and legal calendars until they are all but indistinguishable. At rambunctious campaign rallies, he plays the victim and rails against a biased justice system. In sombre courtrooms, he creates a spectacle that guarantees airtime and fundraising to fuel his run for the White House. Continue reading...

Whether sparked by dating apps or our narcissistic culture, group love is, well, on the risePolyamorous relationships are having a moment. Or at least they are across the Atlantic, where New York magazine last week sought to distract its readers from the January blues with an extensive feature devoted to the trending lifestyle choice. With a cover featuring a cuddling quad (that's a foursome) of cats, it offered a practical guide for the curious couple" and even got Whoopi Goldberg hinting at her own non-monogamous experiences on US talkshow The View.It's just the latest in a steady trickle of articles, books, films and TV shows whose narratives have been drawing ethical non-monogamy in from the hippie fringes (Polyamory isn't just for liberals", preached a Time headline a couple of months ago), making a YouGov poll less surprising: roughly a third of Americans, it found, prefer some degree of non-exclusivity in their relationships. Continue reading...

When it comes to the dugout, football is stuck in a time warp, says the ex-Luton stalwart fighting via US courts for greater diversitySome people still believe that if you're good enough, you'll get an opportunity. But that is the biggest fallacy out there," says Ricky Hill as he ruminates on the shameful lack of black coaches and executives across professional football. There is a system in place and it refuses to change."We are in Hill's living room in Bedfordshire, a short drive from Kenilworth Road where he made his name as a sublime and cerebral midfielder for Luton in the 80s. There were international caps too, with Hill becoming the fourth black player to win an England cap and the first of south Asian heritage. But when he decided to go into management in the early 90s, he found baked-in prejudices, an old boys' network and too many closed doors. Continue reading...

Attempts to excise the group and its leaders are unlikely to succeed and risk not only perpetuating the cycle of violence but spreading it widerIn late 1935, a small band of irregulars led by a Syrian-born Islamist cleric launched a guerrilla campaign against the British mandatory government that had the establishment of a Jewish national home" in what was then predominantly Arab Palestine, as part of its purview. The campaign was swiftly suppressed by British forces, and its leader, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, was killed as were the majority of his men.But Qassam's readiness to take up arms and die in the service of the Palestinian cause made a deep and lasting impression on Palestinian society, and his martyrdom" became a symbol of sacrifice that has continued to resonate throughout the past 90 years, eventually providing both inspiration and a name to Hamas's armed wing in the late 1980s. The fact that Qassam failed was essentially irrelevant. More important was his embodiment of the spirit of dogged and selfless resistance to foreign domination despite the imbalance of power and the unlikely prospects of success. Qassam also set the Palestinian national movement down the path of armed struggle" that was eventually adopted by Yasser Arafat's mainstream" Fatah movement from the late 1950s onwards but whose role has diminished since the 1993 Oslo accord with Israel. Continue reading...

Last fall, all seven city council seats were up for grabs and all were won by female candidates below the age of 40When Rebecca Noecker first decided to enter politics in 2016, she was a young mom with two kids and many questions. She had a background in education but no knowledge of how to run for office.There were so many systems that I saw around me that just felt broken and people were in pain and I wanted to do something about that," Noecker, 39, said. And it felt like politics was a way to do it." Continue reading...

Abortion opponents are emboldened by the fall of Roe, but many states have enacted protections after rulingMike Pence had a message: always vote against abortion rights - even if, he suggested, that means voting for Donald Trump.That's why we have primaries. We sort 'em out at every level. But after the primary's over, you vote pro-life," the former Republican vice-president to Trump told a downtown Washington DC ballroom of young, diehard anti-abortion activists on Saturday. You go get behind men and women who are going to stand for the right to life." Continue reading...

James Cromitie was convicted in 2010 after FBI invented a conspiracy to attack synagogues and military planesA man convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting was ordered freed from prison by a judge who criticized the FBI for relying on an unsavory" confidential informant for an agency-invented conspiracy to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down national guard planes.The US district judge Colleen McMahon on Friday granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison six months after she ordered the release of his three co-defendants, known as the Newburgh Four, for similar reasons. Continue reading...

Cold snap continues from south to Pacific north-west, with thaw not expected until next weekThe deep freeze affecting millions of people across the US is continuing this weekend, as bitterly frigid air spilled into the midwest from Canada amid high winds that could make it feel like -30F (-34C) outside in some areas.The list of severe weather events was growing as the US struggled with the intense cold and news reports said at least 55 people across 10 states had been killed in weather-related incidents over the past week or so since the cold snap hit. Continue reading...

A year after a gunman opened fire at a nearby dance studio, the Lai Lai Ballroom is a refuge, with neon-lit dancefloors and Cantonese pop hitsOn a Tuesday afternoon in mid-January, a dozen older Asian couples twirled to classic Cantonese pop hits on the neon-lit dancefloor at Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio, a beloved venue in Alhambra. The studio emanated a lush serenity of retirement bliss: between songs, dancers dressed in casual sweaters and long skirts retreated to cafe tables to chat over water and hot tea.That the Lai Lai Ballroom remains a refuge for immigrant Asian seniors felt like a quiet miracle to some. One year ago, on 21 January 2023, a gunman opened fire at the nearby Star Ballroom and Studio, killing 11 people in the worst mass shooting in modern Los Angeles county history. All but one of the shooter's victims were in their 60s or 70s. The shooter, Huu Can Tran, went to Lai Lai next, where its third-generation co-owner Brandon Tsay tackled and disarmed him. Despite the horror, many survivors have resumed dancing, both as a way to heal and an expression of defiance. Continue reading...

In relentlessly pursuing his own agenda, the prime minister has lost the trust of Israelis and isolated his countryIt was plain long before the 7 October attacks that Israel badly needed a change of leadership. That need is now urgent. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, should have resigned over the security failures surrounding the Hamas massacre, when about 1,200 Israelis were murdered. Instead, he has blamed others. Netanyahu argued the crisis required him to stay and lead a war to destroy the terrorists. He has repeatedly promised total victory" and the freeing of Israeli hostages. But he has repeatedly failed to deliver.The ongoing violence is unprecedented, Hamas is undefeated, many innocents remain in captivity, and government and country are split over tactics and a long-term settlement. Netanyahu must go. Continue reading...

Haley needs a strong showing after Trump's Iowa victory, but ex-president is running strong after picking up new endorsementThe New Hampshire primary campaign has entered its final days with an increasingly nasty tone as Nikki Haley and Donald Trump attacked each other amid yet more signs that Republicans are consolidating their support around the former US president as he secured a vital endorsement.On Friday night in New Hampshire, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and a former presidential hopeful himself, said he was throwing his weight behind Trump amid rumors that he is in the running to become Trump's running mate. Continue reading...

Donald Trump says there would have been a 'nuclear holocaust' if he did not 'deal' with North Korea when he was president, in footage from his deposition last April and released this week by the New York State attorney general's office. The former president called the fraud case against him 'crazy', insisting that banks 'were fully paid'. Responding to a question about his 40 Wall Street office tower, across the street from the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, Trump insisted that somebody 'open the curtain' to look at the building

Officials say search will continue after as many as 121 unmarked graves were located at MacDill air force base in TampaAs many as 121 unmarked graves in a former Black cemetery have been discovered at a US air force base in Florida, military officials confirmed.A nonintrusive archaeological survey performed over the past two years at the MacDill air force base in Tampa identified 58 probable graves and 63 possible graves, base officials said on Thursday, WFTS-TV reported. Continue reading...

Non-profit says it is investigating 51-year-old's claim of actual innocence' over high-profile killing of pregnant wifeTwo decades after Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murder of his pregnant wife in a high-profile trial, the Los Angeles Innocence Project said this week that it had taken up the case.The development marks a significant breakthrough for the 51-year-old, who has long maintained his innocence and has claimed he received an unfair trial. Continue reading...

Haley, who finished third in Iowa, ramps up criticism of Republican rival but some say she can - and should - go furtherIn the final days before New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, Nikki Haley is sharpening her attacks on Donald Trump as the former South Carolina governor courts the state's famously discerning independent voters.After coming in third in the Iowa caucuses, Haley's is casting her candidacy as a better choice" for a nation barreling towards a possible rematch between Trump, 77 and Joe Biden, 81. Continue reading...

The DEI is making airplane travel unsafe' theory has gone from a fringe view to a staple of the US rightwing newsYou'd better be careful out there. I don't know if you've heard, but planes are currently disintegrating in mid-air because of diversity. That's right, thanks to wokeness gone mad, women and minorities are being ushered into the highest levels of the aviation industry without a single qualification to their name. Nobody cares if you can fly or not, the only qualification for being a pilot these days is a vagina and some melanin. Continue reading...

Lawyers tell court Lawrence Hecker, 92, has declined mentally and physically while incarceratedA 92-year-old retired Catholic priest jailed in New Orleans since September on charges of child rape and kidnapping has been hospitalized, his attorneys said on Friday.Lawrence Hecker - who admitted that he sexually molested or harassed underage boys in the 1960s and 1970s during a remarkable interview with WWL Louisiana and the Guardian in August - has experienced mental decline, disorientation and some physical ailments while being held in New Orleans's jail, attorneys argued during a state court hearing.Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report Continue reading...

The former president's nihilist, autocratic anti-politics transcend borders. In Iowa, as in so much of the world, voters are opting for the strongmanThe comforting conceit that Donald Trump is an unpleasant yet passing American aberration, often heard during his 2017-21 presidency, is harder to believe than ever after his Iowa caucus landslide victory last week. As matters stand, Trump is on course to win a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination and a possible second White House term.The bigger, worldwide picture is more alarming still. Far from being an exception to the rule, Trump reflects, amplifies and popularises a regressive global trend towards authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial, nationalistic and religiously, ethnically and culturally majoritarian forms of rightwing governance. Continue reading...

Smirking, pouting and defiant ex-president bragged about properties and claimed he prevented nuclear war with North KoreaMonths before Donald Trump's defiant turn as a witness at his New York civil fraud trial, the former president came face to face with the state attorney general who is suing him when he sat for a deposition last year at her Manhattan office.Video made public on Friday of the seven-hour, closed-door session last April shows the Republican presidential frontrunner's demeanor going from calm and cool to indignant - at one point ripping into the lawsuit of the attorney general, Letitia James, against him as a disgrace" and a terrible thing". Continue reading...

Venture fund and real estate startup linked to far-right groups promote residential development as community for rightwingersA venture fund and a real estate startup - both with links to far-right organizations - are promoting a residential development in rural Kentucky as a haven for fellow rightwingers.The promoters have presented the planned development as an aligned community" for rightwingers who want to disappear from the cultural insanity of the broader country" and spearhead the revival of the region". Continue reading...

Former UN ambassador needs to perform well in the Granite state to stem Trump steamroll and appease wealthy donorsThere is rest for neither the wicked nor the warm undergarments among Republican presidential candidates this week, as the Republican primary rolls from a bone-bustingly cold Iowa to an almost-as-frigid New Hampshire.In Manchester, the state's largest city, the temperature dropped to 10F (-12C) in the days before Tuesday's primary election, cold enough for icicles to cling to cars, rooftops and, in a park near the center of town, a roundabout. Continue reading...

Tale of generosity between Tony and Tracey Gonzalez from Illinois and Joely Sanders and Frank Pompa from Arizona goes viralWhen Tony Gonzalez of Illinois required an organ donor to be freed from the dialysis machine keeping him alive despite his failing kidney, an Arizona woman named Joely Sanders stepped up.Sanders's brother, Frank Pompa, also required a new kidney after one of his had failed - and, of all people, it was Gonzalez's wife, Tracey, who provided the crucial organ donation to free him from his dialysis machine in October. Continue reading...

With In Search of the Beloved Community, Raymond Arsenault delivers a fitting tribute to the late Democrat from GeorgiaJohn Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community chronicles one man's quest for a more perfect union. An adventure of recent times, it is made exceptional by the way the narrative intersects with current events. It is the perfect book, at the right time.Raymond Arsenault also offers the first full-length biography of the Georgia congressman and stalwart freedom-fighter. The book illuminates Lewis's time as a planner and participant of protests, his service in Congress and his time as an American elder statesman. Continue reading...

Guinness must rule on whether he should keep or be stripped of his world record. I'm touched by the formal, goofy dignity of it allIn October, a dog died in Portugal. A common occurence. Except that this dog, Bobi, had taken longer to die than any other dog in recorded history. At 31 years and five months old, Bobi was, according to the world's foremost keeper of this kind of knowledge, Guinness World Records, the oldest dog of all time.Or was he? In human years, Bobi would have been near-mythically old at about 200. His supposed age defies what science thinks it knows about dogs. When Bobi died, he had reached more than double the usual life expectancy of his breed, a Rafeiro do Alentejo. Suspicion has mounted. Pictures of Bobi in the late 90s seem to show a dog with different coloured paws to the one that died in October. An investigation by Wired found that the Portuguese government database for dog registration did not have any registration information or data to confirm his age. Bobi's owner's claim that the dog was born in 1992 is, as yet, not sufficiently substantiated. His record has now attracted enough scrutiny for GWR to launch a formal review" into Bobi this week.Imogen West-Knights is a writer and journalist Continue reading...

US president says Israeli PM not opposed to all two-state solutions after pair talk for first time in nearly a monthJoe Biden has said the creation of an independent state for Palestinians was still possible while Benjamin Netanyahu was still in office, following a call with the Israeli prime minister on Friday.The US president spoke to Netanyahu for the first time in nearly a month about differences over a future Palestinian state, as well as Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza, where the Palestinian death toll is approaching 25,000, according to local health authorities. Continue reading...