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CNN analyst Joan Biskupic cites unnamed justices saying a White House celebration of Trump’s pick turned overtly politicalSitting justices of the US supreme court felt “tricked” and used by Donald Trump when the then president assured them a White House celebration of the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh would not be overtly political, then used the event to harangue those who questioned Kavanaugh’s fitness to sit on the court.“Most of the justices sat stone faced” as Trump spoke at the ceremonial swearing-in, the CNN correspondent Joan Biskupic writes in a new book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences. Continue reading...

My friend and former colleague at the University of Essex, Gordon Brotherston, who has died aged 83, was a scholar in the field of Native American literature.Born in Chester, Gordon was the son of Percy Brotherston, an insurance agent, and Isabel (nee Smith), and went to Birkenhead school in Merseyside. After studying Spanish at the universities of Leeds, where he met his first wife, Gisela Langsdorf, and Cambridge, he joined the newly established department of literature at the University of Essex in 1965, working there for more than two decades before moving in 1990 to Indiana University and then Stanford University. Continue reading...

The 2024 presidential field widens although Senator Joe Manchin remains evasive about his own possible White House runThe former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson announced on Sunday that he plans to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, saying the US needs “leaders that appeal to the best of America, and not simply appeal to our worst instincts” while also calling for Donald Trump to drop out the race.Meanwhile, on the other side of the political aisle, the centrist Democrat and West Virginia senator Joe Manchin evaded a question during an interview on CNN about a potential run challenging his party’s Oval Office incumbent, Joe Biden, fueling speculation about his own ambitions. Continue reading...

The industry has not delivered what it promised, and critics are right to be scepticalThe emerging carbon offsets market is chaotic and dysfunctional. Problems need to be addressed openly, and resolved as quickly as possible. A joint investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial revealed in January that the vast majority of rainforest offset credits from the leading certifier – which are sold to companies that then use them to make claims about their overall emissions – do not offer the environmental benefits that they claim. Since then, scrutiny has only increased, with more questions being asked of the western businesses behind projects such as Kariba, a huge offset-promoted forest in Zimbabwe.Recognising the urgent need to rebuild flagging confidence, if the carbon-trading system is not to collapse as it did once before, the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market last week announced that new rules for offset issuers will be announced in May. A separate process overseen by a different body is reviewing the claims that businesses make, based on their offset purchases. While all this might sound remote from the concerns of most people, the stakes could hardly be higher. Many environmentalists would prefer governments to oversee a transfer of resources from rich countries to the forested nations that need incentives to conserve precious carbon sinks. The reality is that due to the way our global economic system is organised, we all depend on market mechanisms. Continue reading...

Belfast optometrist goes to Augusta with hopes of making the cut in a year that will be pivotal to his prospects of turning proIt started in an Airbnb in rural Wisconsin. Matt McClean’s journey will continue with a Thursday tee time at Augusta National. At the age of 29 McClean is determined to relish rubbing shoulders with the world’s best at the 87th Masters.McClean’s victory at the US Mid-Amateur Championship last September earned him a Masters spot. The Belfast player – McClean is attached to Malone Golf Club – travelled to Erin Hills with his fellow Irishman Hugh Foley. The pair ended up meeting in the final for the highest of stakes; McClean is also now eligible for June’s US Open. Continue reading...

Cindy ‘CiCi’ Peak, 61, was among six victims who were shot to death at the Covenant SchoolA substitute teacher who was known for her devout Christian faith before she and five others were shot to death at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, was buried Saturday.The funeral of Cindy “CiCi” Peak, 61, was the second held for a victim of the massacre last Tuesday at the Covenant School. Evelyn Dieckhaus, one of three nine-year-olds killed during the shooting, was buried Friday. Continue reading...

Joe Tacopina says former president plans to plead not guilty to charges stemming from hush money payments to Stormy DanielsAn attorney for Donald Trump has said he hopes the proceedings can stay “painless and classy” at the court hearing scheduled for Tuesday where the former president plans to plead not guilty to charges filed against him after an investigation into hush money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.Joe Tacopina told CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday that many of the particulars of the arraignment set for Tuesday were still “very much up in the air” besides the fact that the ex-president would “very loud and proudly say not guilty”. Continue reading...

This supposedly intangible, romantic thing is in fact rooted in something concrete and quantifiable: our material conditions

The race for a place on Wisconsin’s supreme court could have major implications for abortion, democracy and the 2024 electionMore than $37m has already been spent in an election that will this month determine control of Wisconsin’s supreme court, easily making it the most expensive judicial contest in US history.Spending in the race easily shatters the $10m spent in the 2020 Wisconsin supreme court race, the previous record in the state. It also easily surpasses the previous national record, $15m spent on an Illinois supreme court race in 2004. The race has national implications – it will probably ultimately determine the legality of abortion in the state as well as play a key role in setting voting rules for the 2024 election in one of America’s most competitive states. Continue reading...

The US journalist arrested last week is the first to be accused of espionage in Russia since the cold warHours before Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, came for him, my best friend, Evan Gershkovich, sent me a text. How will Arsenal, the football team we both passionately supported from childhood, perform after the international break? he asked. Was Gabriel Jesus finally ready to start his first game after injury? I texted back. Evan’s reply never came. His phone had gone silent.Hours later, he would be arrested on a bogus espionage charge in Ekaterinburg during a reporting trip for his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading...

Wisconsin parmesan and an academic’s claims over culinary purity have caused an outcry in the countryFood in Italy is an emotive, even metaphysical, subject. It’s through food (and wine) that Italians understand who they are and where they are from. Food is the central sacrament of family and of companionship, its simplicity providing an unbroken link to ancestors and soil. Its excellence proves that Italians really do have the best taste in the world.That connection between Italians and their food has been cemented in popular culture. Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) in Goodfellas slices prison garlic with a razor blade; Joey Tribbiani in Friends loves nosh so much that he “doesn’t share food”. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli,” is one of the most famous lines in 20th-century cinema (from The Godfather) and TV schedules are full of presenters such as Stanley Tucci drooling over Italian food. Continue reading...

Poll shows Atlanta divided on racial lines over planned police and fire department training centerNearly two years into protests against a controversial $90m police and fire department training center in Georgia known as “Cop City”, recent weeks saw the first academic, Atlanta-area public opinion poll about the issue.Top-line results of the recent Emory University poll included: more white residents are for the project than against it, and more Black residents are against it than for it. The numbers add up to a portrait of a city divided in the face of a protest movement – still stunned by the shooting death of one its members at the hands of the police – that has created global headlines. Continue reading...

Finishing with a holed-out bunker shot at Augusta in 2022 fired up McIlroy but he can still keep life and golf in perspectiveA reasonable case could be made that the breathtaking major moment of 2022 was not produced by a champion. Rory McIlroy’s club toss and leap for joy as his ball rolled, rolled and rolled into the hole from a greenside bunker on the 18th during last year’s Masters reverberated far beyond the grounds of Augusta National. McIlroy’s reaction was of an exuberant, care-free child as opposed to a globally famous sportsman.Scottie Scheffler won the 86th Masters, but four-putted when doing so. Justin Thomas eased home in a playoff to claim the US PGA Championship. Matt Fitzpatrick’s fairway bunker shot at the 72nd hole of the US Open was sensational and Cameron Smith breezed through the Open field on a St Andrews Sunday. Continue reading...

Putin thought he could get away with his invasion. Xi Jinping must be deterred from making a similarly fatal miscalculationIt is generally acknowledged that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, drawing in the US and possibly Japan, Australia and Britain, could dwarf the Ukraine crisis both in scale and danger. Top US generals and officials have repeatedly warned an attack is becoming more probable and more feasible. And yet it remains spectacularly unclear what the Biden administration would actually do in response.The longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity”, designed to leave Beijing guessing about Washington’s intentions, has helped keep a lid on cross-strait tensions. But the dynamic has changed radically with the rise of China’s president, Xi Jinping, to a position of supreme power and the advent of his aggressive approach to Taiwan and international relations as a whole. Continue reading...

James Craig fed his wife cyanide-laced shakes, police say, as his suburban respectability hid multiple affairs and $2m in debtAs James Craig’s wife lay dying in a hospital, two days before the Colorado dentist was arrested for her alleged murder, he made an unusual request of his church. He asked if volunteers from the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, would be able to help clean and organize the basement and mudroom of his house.The summons may have seemed a bit frivolous, but members of the church – aware that Craig’s wife and the mother of his six children, Angela Craig, had recently been struck by a sudden, unexplained illness – were sympathetic. Later people wondered if they had almost been unwitting accomplices to murder. Continue reading...

The Law Commission has gone too far in its proposed guidelines for surrogate parentsInfertility can be deeply painful. There is a lot a compassionate society can – and should – do to make fertility treatment available to those who can be assisted to have a child with medical intervention. Few would disagree though that there are ethical boundaries to this, shaped by children’s interests, not just adult desires.Last week, the Law Commission drove a coach and horses through that moral frontier – which it framed as an overdue modernisation of the law – by publishing draft proposals to reform the UK’s surrogacy framework. Implicit in them is the, I suspect controversial, assumption that a single man seeking to have a child alone through surrogacy, because he doesn’t want or can’t maintain a committed relationship, presents no greater moral quandary than a couple seeking IVF. How controversial is anyone’s guess: the Law Commission hasn’t canvassed public attitudes. Continue reading...

The former president has responded to his indictment with invective and dire warnings amid an already polarised situationDonald Trump understands the camera. He is particular about angles, lighting and his inimitable orange hair. But come this Tuesday, in a New York courthouse, the camera will become his tormentor as Trump, once the most powerful man in the world, is told to provide a mug shot like a common criminal.The first reality TV star to be elected US president, and the first US president to be twice impeached and attempt the overthrow of an election, is now the first US president to be charged with a crime. The 76-year-old faces the humiliation of being photographed, fingerprinted and entering a plea to charges involving a 2016 hush money payment to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Continue reading...

Corgi Beach Day features corgi limbo, corgi musical chairs and an attempt for a world record photo of ‘most corgis in a carrier’A swarm of corgis descended upon California’s Huntington Beach on Saturday in a sandy celebration of their fluff, speed and cuteness.Corgi Beach Day is a biannual festival held in southern California which welcomes corgis and “honorary corgis” for a day of activities that includes selfie stations, corgi races, costume competitions. This year, it perhaps provided a palate cleanser to a US news cycle dominated by Donald Trump’s hush payment indictment and the shooting deaths of three children and three staffers at a Nashville, Tennessee, elementary school. Continue reading...

The United States was founded on the rule of law. It must not now flinch from upholding itIn the tumultuous, multifaceted case of Donald J Trump versus the people of the United States, the biggest question is why this former president, political con artist and serial offender is not already in jail. Trump will be charged this week in Manhattan over alleged “hush money” payments to a former porn star. This action, both welcome and overdue, makes him the first US president to be criminally indicted. Yet twice-impeached Trump stands accused of a string of infinitely more serious, well-documented crimes, including a violent attempt to overthrow the government. The continuing mystery is why justice is so long in coming.The full Trump charge sheet reads like a horror novel in which democracy is murdered. In the weeks following his clear-cut defeat by Joe Biden in November 2020, Trump did everything he could to subvert the result, legally and illegally, by making baseless accusations of fraud. This is not in dispute. Not disputed, either, is a taped telephone conversation on 2 January 2021 between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which the then president pressed the latter “to find 11,780 votes” – sufficient to cancel Biden’s victory in the key swing state. Continue reading...

Tornadoes leave devastation across Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa and Oklahoma, including theatre roof that collapsed during concertAt least 26 people died and as many as 900,000 places were without power after a monster storm system tore through the southern and midwest US, spawning deadly tornadoes that shredded homes and shopping centers, and collapsed a theatre roof during a heavy metal concert in Illinois.More than 50 preliminary reports of tornadoes were recorded across eight states in storms that hit Friday night, with twister-producing conditions continuing into Saturday as the storm system threatened a broad US swath which is home to 85 million people. Continue reading...

Trump said to be buoyed by favorable polling after chargesDonald Trump huddled with his closest advisers on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort over political strategy after being caught by surprise about the news that a Manhattan grand jury had indicted him on criminal charges connected to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.The former president was buoyed, according to a source familiar with the matter, over new post-indictment polls that placed him far ahead of his expected 2024 rival, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and other Republican primary challengers. Continue reading...

When Madelaine Lucas’s parents broke up, their home wasn’t broken. Instead, it became malleable and expansive – and taught her how love can endure

A two-year-old’s father has been arrested over his death and a grandmother charged with aggravated manslaughterFlorida is reeling after two separate cases in the state allegedly saw children die at the hands of their caregivers, according to authorities.In St Petersburg, the body of a two-year-old boy was found Friday in an alligator’s mouth a day after his mother was discovered murdered, prompting his father’s arrest. Continue reading...

Sergey Brin, Thomas Pritzker, Mortimer Zuckerman and Michael Ovitz face questions about late sex criminal’s links with JP MorganA US Virgin Islands investigations into the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to an American bank issued subpoenas to four wealthy business leaders on Friday, extending its reach into the highest echelons of tech, hospitality and finance.The subpoenas issued to the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Hyatt Hotels chairperson Thomas Pritzker, American-Canadian businessman Mortimer Zuckerman and former CAA talent agency chairperson Michael Ovitz are crafted to gather more information about Epstein’s relationship with JPMorgan Chase, according to the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading...

Jayqwan Hamilton, Robert Demaio and Jacob Barroso accused of killing two men after visits to gay nightclubsPolice have identified three suspects charged in the murders of two men who were robbed and fatally drugged last year in Manhattan after they visited gay nightclubs in New York City.The suspects are Jayqwan Hamilton, 35, and Robert Demaio, 34, of Brooklyn as well as Jacob Barroso, 30, from Harlem. Continue reading...

Hard-drinking weekenders, Airbnb and noisy suitcases are no longer welcome in cities such as Venice and MarseilleTo be British is a bit embarrassing at this point and not only because of Brexit. In Amsterdam, hard-drinking British tourists are the target of a “stay away” campaign. In “saturated” Lanzarote, plans are afoot to limit the number of UK visitors. But even for the non-British, the mini-break is increasingly fraught: a political nightmare up there with recycling or driving a car.The people of Barcelona, Lisbon and Venice are sick of Airbnb and its effect on their cities. In Marseille, where activists may be both more stubborn and more chic than elsewhere, public enemy number one is not M Macron but the ubiquitous valise à roulettes (wheelie suitcase), without which no self-respecting weekender would even consider travelling in the 21st century. Continue reading...

Retired optometrist Terry Sanderson, 76, faces seven-figure legal bill after unsuccessful lawsuit over ski slope collisionThe retired optometrist who unsuccessfully sued Gwyneth Paltrow over a 2016 ski crash says taking the Oscar-winning actor to court had “absolutely not” been worth it so far, but he also had not ruled out pursuing an appeal.Terry Sanderson, 76, made the remarks after civil court jurors in Park City, Utah, on Thursday found him at fault in his collision with Paltrow at the Deer Valley ski resort. Continue reading...

Brian Dutcher helped build one of college basketball’s strongest cultures at a program that once ranked among Division I’s worst. Now it’s paid off with the first Final Four in school historyWhen San Diego State take the floor under head coach Brian Dutcher on Saturday night for the first Final Four appearance in school history, they’ll be representing a city not traditionally known for its rich basketball history. San Diego briefly hosted the NBA’s Clippers for six unmemorable seasons before they relocated to Los Angeles. And while SDSU has fielded a team for more than 100 years, on-court success has largely proven hard to come by.All of that changed when Steve Fisher arrived in 1999, taking over a lowly program that ranked among the worst in Division I. Fisher, who had led Michigan to the 1989 national title and coached the famed Fab Five a few years after, spotted potential in an unfancied program that had just built a brand-new arena, despite coming off of a four-win season and having failed to reach the NCAA tournament in the previous 15 years. Fisher re-hired Dutcher, his longtime assistant from Michigan, and the two of them got to work. Continue reading...

A new film starring Ben Affleck tells the story of how Michael Jordan’s sponsorship deal with Nike in 1984 turned a clever marketing idea into a slam dunkIn 1984, Nike was in trouble. Growth had stalled, profits were down and a misjudged move into clothing left it with piles of unsold inventory. Rivals had beaten it to new crazes for aerobics and leisure shoes. Sales fell. “Orwell was right,” Phil Knight, who was chairman and chief executive, began his annual letter to shareholders. “1984 was a tough year.”But Air, a new film set in that same year, opens this week, and shows how Nike went on to become the world’s No 1 shoe and sports brand, a company whose revenue topped £37bn in 2022. Continue reading...

You’re going to hear these basic criticisms of the charges in the New York investigation – but they don’t stand up to scrutinyYou’re going to hear three basic criticisms of Trump’s indictment. Each has some merit, but ultimately fails.Let me rebut each in turn.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is 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 new 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...

Formerly well-connected Anton ‘Tony’ Lazzaro, 32, found guilty of seven counts involving five girls aged 15 and 16A formerly well-connected Republican donor was convicted on Friday of enticing teenage girls with gifts, cash and money in exchange for sex.A federal jury found Anton “Tony” Lazzaro, 32, guilty of seven counts involving “commercial sex acts” with five girls aged 15 and 16 in 2020, when he was 30 years old. Continue reading...

What we desperately need is for lawmakers and technology companies to hold its creators and facilitators to accountThe overall economy might not be in great shape, but the nonconsensual deepfake porn economy? That’s in rude health. AI-generated imagery has been around for a long time now but it’s recently become disturbingly sophisticated. See, for example, all the people who were taken in by the viral AI-generated photo of the pope in a puffy jacket, created by AI-based image generator Midjourney. The pope in an ostentatious coat may be amusing but the dark side of this technology is no laughing matter. A recent investigation by Kat Tenbarge at NBC News shows just how disturbingly pervasive and accessible nonconsensual deepfake porn has become. Continue reading...

The race could serve as a litmus test for police reform – and Brandon Johnson’s policies on crime could leave him vulnerable in the general electionBrandon Johnson was in his element at Kenwood Academy high school.The bespectacled former social studies teacher and candidate for Chicago mayor sat at a table next to his opponent, former Chicago public schools CEO Paul Vallas, during a recent afternoon debate. In an exhausting series of mayoral debates, Johnson had a home field advantage at Kenwood, where his son attends school. Continue reading...

White conservative Christians drawn to the ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan have long accepted that the former president is not an ethical paragonAs Donald Trump blustered his way through his one-term presidency, dogged by accusations of sexual assault, tainted by a fascination with authoritarian leaders, and widely reviled for his apparent fondness for racists, America’s white evangelical Christians largely stood firmly by his side.Evangelical leaders justified their support for Trump by comparing him to King Cyrus, who in the biblical telling liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity, despite himself being a Persian ruler who did not believe in the god of Israel. Continue reading...

State’s attorney general faces backlash after releasing report saying LGBTQ+ voices might be silenced in librariesLouisiana’s attorney general – a Republican gubernatorial candidate – is receiving backlash from LGBTQ+ activists after releasing a report recently that they say might silence LGBTQ+ voices in libraries.The brewing fight over censorship in Louisiana’s libraries has opened a new front in the culture war pitting political conservatives and the LGBTQ+ community. Far rightwingers across the US tried hundreds of times last year alone to ban more than 1,600 books with themes of gender or sexuality from public libraries, schools and universities, saying they wish to protect children from accessing them. But LGBTQ+ activists say there is no evidence that such material is readily available for children without the bans or that it primes minors to be harmed, and they are instead a tactic for conservatives to silence voices which offend their cultural values. Continue reading...

US district judge Thomas Parker grants temporary injunction, finding the law clashes with first amendment on free speechA federal judge has temporarily blocked a new Tennessee law that placed strict limits on drag shows just hours before it was set to go into effect, siding with a group that filed a lawsuit claiming the statute violates the first amendment.The decision on Friday comes after Memphis-based LGBTQ+ theatre company Friends of George’s filed the lawsuit on Monday against the Shelby county district attorney, Steve Mulroy, and the state. Continue reading...

Pennsylvania lawmaker will return to Senate by mid-April after spending six weeks in treatment, saying care ‘changed my life’John Fetterman has left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after six weeks of inpatient treatment for clinical depression, with plans to return to the Senate when the chamber resumes session in mid-April, his office said on Friday.In a statement, Fetterman’s office said he is back home in Braddock, in western Pennsylvania, with his depression “in remission”, and gave details on his treatment – including that his depression was treated with medication and that he is wearing hearing aids for hearing loss. Continue reading...

Details of charges not known as indictment remains under seal, while lawyer says former president will not be placed in handcuffsDonald Trump and his legal team were preparing for the unprecedented spectacle of an appearance in court on Tuesday of a former US president facing criminal charges.The indictment of Trump remained under court seal on Friday, with details of the charges awaited. He was braced at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, for the forthcoming trip to surrender to the authorities in New York after the surprise news on Thursday night that a grand jury had voted to charge him. Continue reading...

In the topsy-turvy world he has created, criminal charges against the former president may be just the boost he needs“I actually don’t even know why I did it,” porn star Stormy Daniels once reflected of the “textbook generic” sex she claimed to have had with Donald Trump after some cursed-sounding Nevada golf tournament. “But I do remember while we were having sex I was like: ‘Please don’t try to pay me.’”Well, quite. If ONLY Trump had stuck to the non-payment he presumably agreed in the heat of passion in that Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006, instead of allegedly getting his lawyer to hand hush money to Daniels when he was running for president a decade later. He is now facing an estimated 34 charges of falsification of business records, believed to relate to payments to both Stormy and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. As the former president once observed, vaginas are “potential landmines … There’s some real danger there.”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...

Loved ones described Evelyn as a ‘shining light’ and invited guests to wear joyful hues in tribute to her ‘love of color’The first funeral service was held on Friday afternoon for the victims of the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, as the shocked and grieving city continued to mourn the dead after the horrific attack.Friends and family gathered to memorialize nine-year-old Evelyn Dieckhaus who will be laid to rest on Saturday in a private burial. Her loved ones described the sporty girl who loved art, music, animals and snuggling with her older sister, and invited guests to the funeral service to wear pink or other joyful hues in tribute to her “love of color”. Continue reading...

Court officials confirm arraignment while Manhattan district attorney rejects House Republicans’ demands

Former heavyweight champion is back in action on Saturday knowing a third straight loss would signal the end of his careerAs Anthony Joshua walks to the ring at the 0 in London on Saturday night, to face the relatively limited American Jermaine Franklin, it will be more than two years and three months since he last had his hand raised in victory. In December 2020, on a bleak winter night in the midst of Covid and in front of a sparse crowd of a thousand socially distanced fans, Joshua bludgeoned Kubrat Pulev to earn a ninth-round stoppage win.Despite lockdown restrictions, Joshua left Wembley Arena on a high as he retained his IBF, WBA and WBO world heavyweight titles. It seemed certain, then, that he would soon fight Tyson Fury, the WBC belt-holder, for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world. Continue reading...

Patricia Borges, who was burned and broke several bones in the explosion, is angry RM Palmer didn’t evacuate the buildingA woman pulled alive from the rubble of a Pennsylvania chocolate factory after an explosion that killed seven co-workers says her arm caught fire as flames engulfed the building – and then she fell through the floor into a vat of liquid chocolate.The dark liquid extinguished her blazing arm, but Patricia Borges wound up breaking her collarbone and both of her heels. She would spend the next nine hours screaming for help and waiting for rescue as firefighters battled the inferno and choppers thumped overhead at the RM Palmer factory. Continue reading...