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People living near the chemical disaster are wary of contamination, and even across the state line Pennsylvanians are worriedAs a dense cloud of toxic smoke descended across Darlington in western Pennsylvania, Patrick Dittman knew that the catastrophic train derailment across the state line in East Palestine could also pose a danger to his family.The 30-year-old bartender lives and works just a few miles from East Palestine, Ohio, where the Norfolk Southern’s 1.7-mile-long freight train carrying a hotchpotch of dangerous chemicals partly derailed and caught fire on 3 February. Continue reading...

Protest comes less than two months after police shot dead activist defending forest under threat by proposed projectA broad range of individuals and activist organizations, from a local rabbi to Black Voters Matter, Atlanta-area residents and people from across the US, are gearing up for a “week of action” this week to defend a forest south-east of the city in Georgia, as part of a movement protesting a project dubbed “Cop City”.The protest comes less than two months after police shot and killed activist, Manuel Paez Terán, or “Tortuguita”, one of dozens camped in the forest. The fatal shooting of an environmental protester, the first of its kind in US history, raised the movement’s profile nationally and internationally. Continue reading...

A lone female fights off her attacker. Is it inspiring or proof of inherent danger? Well, maybe it’s bothI was utterly transfixed last week by a moment captured on CCTV in a Florida gym. A woman – an Instagram fitness model called Nashali Alma – sees a man waiting outside the door and interrupts her workout to buzz him in. It is evening. The two are now alone, sealed inside the empty room.After a few minutes the man approaches her and then, shockingly, starts to chase her around the machines. Then he catches her. You think: that’s it, she’s done for. But like one of those dramatic sequences in the very best David Attenborough films – a hatchling iguana evading a nest of snapping snakes, perhaps, or an impala struggling clear of a crocodile death-roll – it is not over. She fights and, eventually – unbelievably – she wins. The exhausted predator has been outdone by his wily prey. Continue reading...

Having catastrophically failed to deter Russian aggression in Ukraine, the western alliance needs a plan to win the warIn Vladimir Putin’s book of strategic blunders, a hefty, as yet unpublished tome to which new chapters are constantly added, the revival of Nato is among his more amazing own goals. Written off as “experiencing... brain death” by Emmanuel Macron and derided by Donald Trump, the 30-member cold war-era military alliance is now enjoying a renaissance – thanks, almost entirely, to Russia’s president.Prior to Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, few Nato combat forces were stationed in the east European countries that signed up after the Soviet collapse. Last year’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine turned a trickle of eastward deployments into a torrent. Bungling Putin had provoked the world’s largest, best-armed military force into setting up camp slap bang on Russia’s doorstep. Continue reading...

Defectors eager to insist they were right all along as bickering between different factions shows no signs of abatingWe really are encountering the wackiest of times when an acerbic bulletin from Richard Bland can turn heads. Bland was the epitome of a journeyman before shooting to fame with victory on his 478th start on the DP World Tour. A Sky Sports documentary was even released in celebration of his British Masters triumph.Within the blink of an eye Bland, now 50, had joined the LIV circuit on the apparently palatable basis that this represented an unmissable opportunity for a man of his age to pick up life-changing cash. The emotion associated with “478” had been usurped by commerce. Continue reading...

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has quickly transformed into the country’s gravest threatIsrael’s right wing is no stranger to political victory. Rightwing parties have governed for the better part of more than four decades and each time Benjamin Netanyahu has won an election since 2009, euphoric supporters have cheered King Bibi, while losers have gloomily prophesied the end of democracy.But Netanyahu’s sixth government, formed in the final days of 2022, is alarmingly different. Earlier rightwing governments merely wanted to expand settlements or annex parts of the West Bank, deepen the hold of Jewish religious law over Israeli public and private life, harangue and intimidate Israel’s Palestinian-Arab citizens. To do these things, populist illiberal governments of the last decade threatened to constrain the judiciary, but their vitriol didn’t yield significant reforms, other than judicial appointments of their choice. The new government is no longer testing the illiberal waters; it is going for the jugular in its assault on the institutions of democratic governance. Israel’s direction looks cataclysmic and challenges key alliances – western democracies, and even diaspora Jewry. Continue reading...

Trump might have lost some ground in the Republican party, but his core support is holding fast, even as some attendees expressed doubtIt fell to Steve Bannon, far-right podcaster and political pugilist, to wake up the crowd with a jolt.“Don’t fall for the primary stuff,” he urged in a fiery speech. “It’s not relevant. We don’t have time for on-the-job training [instead of] a man that gave us four years of peace and prosperity.” Continue reading...

‘Everyone knew they were crooked,’ one local said of Alex Murdaugh’s powerful family, now known nationally for a series of deaths in their orbitThere was a hush in the courtroom when Judge Clifton Newman confronted Alex Murdaugh with the ghosts of his dead wife and son, whom the South Carolina lawyer had just been convicted of brutally murdering in a trial that has gripped America.Murdaugh, the quietly spoken judge suggested, would be visited by their presence as he tried to sleep. Murdaugh, who continues to protest his innocence, nonetheless accepted the judge’s words. Continue reading...

What began as a real-estate advertisement has since been the site of tragedy, triumph and plenty of pranksThe Hollywood sign begins life as a temporary advertisement for a new housing development in the Hollywood Hills. Its precise date of construction is unknown: by the end of 1923, a few news reports in Los Angeles mention, in passing, a giant sign reading “Hollywoodland”, illuminated with electric lights. Continue reading...

The familiar letters loom over a dreamy city – yet they remain surprisingly hard to reachThere is an old complaint about Los Angeles. The Weimar intellectuals who fled here in the 1930s loved the sunshine but decried the city’s lack of civic culture. Los Angeles did not have the cafe society of Paris or Berlin; instead it had consumers in their automobiles navigating through an endless sprawl of single-family homes.Nearly a hundred years later, the Weimar critics would hardly be surprised that a giant advertisement on a hill, monitored 24/7 by surveillance cameras, may still be the closest thing Los Angeles has to a town square. Continue reading...

Former president claims Biden is leading America into ‘oblivion’ and that he could end the war between Russia and UkraineDonald Trump turned back the clock to the darkest elements of his presidency on Saturday with a fiery address that showed the threat to American democracy is far from over.After a lacklustre start to his campaign, Trump appeared to launch his White House bid in earnest with a vintage display of demagoguery that framed the 2024 election as “the final battle” for America. Continue reading...

Split unlikely to surprise many as their public positions on the divisive rightwing president diverged quickly and radicallyKellyanne Conway, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump as president, and her husband George Conway, who became a vociferously anti-Trump Republican, are to divorce, the Washington power couple announced on Saturday.The confirmation of the split is unlikely to surprise many in the politics-watching classes as, during the Trump administration, their public positions on the divisive rightwing president diverged quickly and radically. Continue reading...

The former president speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held just outside the US capital. CPAC claims to be the biggest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world

Self-help author becomes first Democrat to formally challenge Biden for the nominationSelf-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured more quirky calls for spiritual healing than actual voter support, launched another long-shot bid for the presidency on Saturday, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.“We are upset about this country, we’re worried about this country,” Williamson told a crowd of more than 600 at a kickoff in the nation’s capital. “It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.” Continue reading...

World heritage monuments in Córdoba and Istanbul stand at the centre of a reductionist bid to rewrite the pastCórdoba’s mosque-cathedral is one of the most glorious buildings in Europe. I was last there 30 years ago, but the memory is still vividly etched in my mind. I remember walking through the Courtyard of the Orange Trees. Then, almost if they had magically changed form, the rows of orange trees give way to a forest of columns of red-and-white arches that mark the mosque.The transition is stunning, as is the mosque, the beauty of which, spacious and peaceful, is almost impossible to convey in words rather than in the experience. And then, as you walk through, there comes another transition – to a Renaissance cathedral that squats like a familiar stranger within. It would be difficult to call the cathedral beautiful, but there is something quite remarkable about it. Continue reading...

Leftwing senator has bucked trend of statewide Democratic losses but derailment in East Palestine set to test re-election hopesUS Senator Sherrod Brown has survived a decade of statewide Democratic losses in Ohio by building a reputation as the rare person in his party who can still connect with the white working-class voters who have increasingly shifted to Republicans.But as he heads into what could be a tough re-election campaign, Brown is facing a critical test in the aftermath of the train derailment in the eastern Ohio village of East Palestine. Continue reading...

Thomas Sibick pleads guilty to assault and theft charges for role in attack on the Washington DC police officer Michael FanoneA New York man has pleaded guilty to stealing a badge and radio from a police officer who was brutally beaten as rioters pulled him into the mob that attacked the US Capitol in Washington over two years ago, court record show.Thomas Sibick pleaded guilty on Friday to assault and theft charges for his role in the attack on the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan police department officer Michael Fanone during the January 6, 2021, insurrection when extremist supporters of then-president Donald Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to force Congress not to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory over him. Continue reading...

Privileged women will always be able to get safe terminations but for the rest prosecutions will have a chilling effectIn October 2021 a 33-year-old woman in Greenville, South Carolina, went to the hospital with labor pains. According to a police incident report, the woman told healthcare workers that she’d taken abortion pills to end her pregnancy; her fetus was estimated to be stillborn at 25 weeks. This week she was arrested and charged with performing or soliciting an abortion. Abortion is currently legal in South Carolina until 20 weeks of pregnancy but it is one of just a handful of states with a law explicitly criminalizing self-managed abortions.Do 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...

Legal claim provides glimpse into world of corporate espionage and reputation managementThe story Matthew Earl tells is of a black Mercedes-Benz, which parked outside his home and started following him. He claims it was intended to send a deliberate message: that he and his family – including two young children – were under surveillance. After a couple of days, he says, two men emerged from the car to deliver a legal letter from their client, the German payments company Wirecard. The men, from the private investigations company Kroll, allegedly used a “pointed and intimidating” tone.While the manner of the letter’s delivery may be disputed, it kicked off years of threats of legal action and accusations of wrongdoing against Earl. But, according to a legal claim brought by Earl, it also marked a new chapter in a “campaign of unlawful harassment” carried out by Wirecard’s law firm, Jones Day, Kroll, and other firms. Continue reading...

Shell casings painted and auctioned, Russian books pulped to raise money, institutions renamed: the resistance has many guisesThe festival of St Tryphon – the patron saint of winemakers – attracted no tourists this year. This saint is very much loved in Bessarabia, the largely ethnic-Bulgarian area of Ukraine’s Odesa region, where the February feast is always a much-awaited event. This year, villagers pruned their vines and celebrated quietly by themselves.Given the tragedy of the war in Ukraine, this tradition could have been abandoned altogether, for a number of local men have died at the front, and in the village cemeteries, their graves are still fresh. But to give up the tradition would be a form of capitulation and no one is prepared to do or even think about that.Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian novelist and the author of Death and the PenguinDo 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...

Decision means word cannot be restricted in US only for kind made originally in France or SwitzerlandA US appeals court has ruled that the word “gruyere” is a common label for cheese and cannot be reserved just for the kind made originally in France or Switzerland.The US does not have the same strict rules as Europe on the designation of origin for foods, said judges in the Richmond, Virginia-based US court of appeals for the fourth circuit. Continue reading...

Suella Bravermans new street harassment law still places the onus on women to report abuse – instead of catching the men who do itI don’t know if you’d heard this, but exercise is good for you, according to a new study. Unfortunately, lots of women are giving up on it because of fears for their safety. I’m one of them. And I really miss it.Research by This Girl Can, a campaign run by Sport England, has identified what it calls an exercise “enjoyment gap” between men and women. It found that three in 10 women have experienced harassment while exercising, mostly in parks or on the street, and that fear and rage is driving them back to their sofas. I used to go running in parks and streets, and for many years it made me so happy. I was slow and stupid-looking and never went far, but the day I clocked up 1,000 miles on my running app; the first time I ran six miles in a row, on my birthday; seeing herons and deer – they were moments of joy. Sometimes, when nobody was looking, I would run down a hill with my arms in the air and pretend that I was flying. Continue reading...

House Democrats issues’ conference sees lawmakers across party’s ideological spectrum embrace idea of president’s re-electionWith the 2024 election season already under way, Joe Biden has faced questions over whether he is best suited to represent the Democratic party at the top of the ticket next year. Surveys show that Americans fret over his age, as Biden would be 86 years old at the end of his second term.Progressives have previously shied away from offering a full-throated endorsement of Biden’s re-election bid. But those whispers quieted to near silence at House Democrats’ issues conference in Baltimore, Maryland, this week. Rather than wringing their hands over the president’s anticipated announcement, House Democrats from across the party’s ideological spectrum embraced the idea of Biden’s re-election. Continue reading...

War emerges as a wedge issue in the forthcoming Republican primary election as far right at CPAC call for US to end supportMarjorie Taylor Greene, an influential far-right Republican in Congress, has called for the US to stop aid to Ukraine, giving added voice to a grassroots revolt in the party that threatens bipartisan support for the war against Russia’s Vladimir Putin.The Georgia congresswoman is a notorious provocateur who has made racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic statements and promoted bizarre conspiracy theories. Continue reading...

The sentencing of Isabella Pollok, ex-ally of a cult leader, resurfaces thorny questions about the likes of Bonnie Parker and Patty HearstIt was in her second year of college that a not-quite-20-year-old Sarah Lawrence student, Isabella Pollok, fell under the influence of Lawrence Ray, a cult leader who, for a decade, turned her into his trusted lieutenant in his campaign of terror.Pollok was sentenced to 54 months in prison last week for her role in helping Ray abuse a group of vulnerable classmates. While in Ray’s thrall, Pollok, who was also his lover, even played prop master at his late-night torture sessions, allegedly fetching the plastic bag that Ray placed over one coercively prostituted cult member’s head. Continue reading...

Julio Ramirez, 25, and John Umberger, 33, were drugged and robbed while leaving gay bars last yearTwo men who were fatally drugged in New York City while leaving gay bars last year and whose bank accounts had been drained were both homicide victims, according to the local chief medical examiner’s office.The medical examiner said Friday that the deaths of social worker Julio Ramirez, 25, and political consultant John Umberger, 33, were caused by a “drug-facilitated theft”, NBC News reported. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Author and academic cautions pushback against racial justice education feeds revival of segregationist policiesThe professor who is a leading voice on critical race theory has warned that the rightwing battle against racial justice education not only threatens US democracy, but encourages a revival of segregationist values and policies.Kimberlé Crenshaw is among top American academics and authors recently stripped from the latest draft of the advanced placement (AP) African American studies course being piloted in US high schools, after Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, led an aggressive backlash against it. Continue reading...

The focus is often on rich countries when it comes to corruption initiatives but the situation is so embedded in these islands that it demands greater attentionWhen Transparency International published its 2022 corruption perception index (CPI) at the end of January much was written about some of the rich countries that saw significant falls in their scores. Austria, Canada and Luxembourg were among those who fell, while the UK slipped to its worst-ever position on the index, dropping from a high score of 82 in 2017 to 73 in 2022.Corruption initiatives worldwide seem to have run aground as the countries perceived as the least corrupt have shown little or no improvement, as seen with Germany, France and Switzerland. Continue reading...

Patricia Kopta was believed to be dead after disappearing in 1992, until authorities found her in a care home thousands of miles awayA Pennsylvania woman who went missing from her husband more than 30 years earlier and was even legally declared dead has been found alive in Puerto Rico, according to authorities.Cases where people mysteriously disappear don’t often result in the missing being found alive decades later. But 82-year-old Patricia Kopta has proven to be an exception, now being treated for a dementia diagnosis at an adult care home about 1,700 miles (2,700km) away from where she went missing. Continue reading...

Shasta county officials have ended their contract with Dominion Voting Systems, leaving them with no replacementProponents of the lie that the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump are eying an often overlooked region of California as they continue to promote falsehoods around the 2020 election: Shasta county, population 182,000.Shasta county, a conservative stronghold in the state’s far north, recently ended its contract with Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company that has been the subject of a conspiracy theory that it played a role in swinging the election for Biden. The move has left the semi-rural county without a voting system and no replacement ready to implement when its Dominion contract ends next week. Continue reading...

The leading chronicler of a dynasty’s collapse calls it ‘a huge wake-up call to people who have been abusing the system’Mandy Matney was at her home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, video-chatting with true-crime fans when a Colleton county jury found Alex Murdaugh guilty of killing his wife and son on Thursday.“I wasn’t mentally prepared for this to happen today!” exclaimed the foremost chronicler of the Murdaugh dynasty’s collapse. Continue reading...

Republican attorneys general threatened the company with legal consequences for sending pills by mailWalgreens will not distribute the abortion pill mifepristone in nearly two dozen conservative states after Republican attorneys general threatened the largest US pharmacy companies with legal consequences for sending abortion pills by mail.The decision, first reported by Politico, came weeks after the attorneys general sent a letter to Walgreens and CVS arguing that sending abortion pills by mail would violate federal law and abortion laws in those states. A spokesperson for Walgreens said the move was in response to that letter. Continue reading...

2024 contender points out in speech the party has lost popular vote in seven of last eight presidential elections

Former president drops charity song on streaming sites recorded with men imprisoned for their role in attack on US CapitolDonald Trump has released a charity single, recorded with a choir of men held in a Washington DC prison for their parts in the deadly January 6 insurrection he incited.On Friday, Justice for All by Donald J Trump and the J6 Prison Choir was available on streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. Continue reading...

Ex-UN ambassador and 2024 contender presents herself as face of ‘new generation’ in pitch to CPAC crowd still wedded to TrumpThe Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley ventured on to Donald Trump’s stomping grounds on Friday, seeking support from rank-and-file Republicans who are “tired of losing”.In remarks to a half-full ballroom at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Haley presented herself as the face of a “new generation” of Republican leaders, making her pitch to a crowd still overwhelmingly loyal to Trump, her 76-year-old former boss and rival for the party’s nomination.. Continue reading...

Storm system leaves thousands without power in Texas and Louisiana and is heading east toward New EnglandA relatively powerful storm system headed east on Friday threatened the midwest and north-east US with heavy snow after spawning likely tornadoes in Texas and Louisiana which damaged homes, businesses, a university campus and left thousands without power.The Tennessee and Ohio valleys are bracing for high winds and potential tornadoes as the storms roll on toward New England, according to officials. Continue reading...

President’s doctor Kevin O’Connor says basal cell carcinoma was removed from chest and ‘no further treatment is required’Joe Biden had a cancerous skin lesion that cannot metastasize or spread removed last month during his annual physical, the White House confirmed on Friday.“The president had a skin lesion removed from his chest,” Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said in a letter released to the press. Continue reading...

Incident took place in 2021, but warrant was issued in 2022 and she was arrested in February, police confirmA woman in South Carolina has been arrested and charged for allegedly trying to induce her own abortion using medication.The woman was reported by staff at a hospital in Greenville, South Carolina, after visiting a hospital in October 2021 with labor pains. Ultimately, she delivered a stillborn fetus at about 25 weeks and four days of pregnancy. In an incident report, staff claimed the woman had admitted to having taken abortion pills in an attempt to end her pregnancy. Continue reading...

German chancellor’s working visit to the White House focuses on continuing support for Kyiv

Belated recognition for Paris Davis came after the recommendation for the medal was lost, resubmitted – and then lost againNearly 60 years after he was first recommended for the nation’s highest military award for his bravery during the Vietnam war, retired colonel Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers to lead a special forces team in combat, received the Medal of Honor on Friday.The belated recognition for the 83-year-old Virginia resident came after the recommendation for the medal was lost, resubmitted – and then lost again. Continue reading...