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Fake robocall beginning What a bunch of malarkey' encourages Democrats to not vote in New Hampshire primaryA prominent New Hampshire Democrat said the makers of a robocall mimicking the voice of Joe Biden and encouraging Democrats not to vote in the primary on Tuesday should be prosecuted to the fullest extent" for attempting an attack on democracy" itself.I want them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible because this is an attack on democracy," Kathy Sullivan, a former state party chair, told NBC News, adding that as an attorney, she believes the call could break several laws. Continue reading...

Vice-president is expected to announce support for more access to abortion as she begins tour in battleground state of WisconsinKamala Harris kicked off her much-vaunted abortion rights nationwide tour in Wisconsin on Monday as Joe Biden convened a meeting of his taskforce on reproductive healthcare access, in a tag-team effort to double down on what is likely to be a key campaign issue this year.The vice-president chose the 51st anniversary of the Roe v Wade ruling to begin the Reproductive Freedoms Tour, announced in December, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, which the president won in the 2020 presidential election by just over 20,000 votes. Continue reading...

California State University workers across 23 campuses start five-day work stoppage for higher pay and better working conditionsFaculty at California State University, America's largest public university system, began a historic weeklong strike on Monday as more than 30,000 workers walked off their jobs.Professors, librarians, plumbers, electricians and other workers demanding higher pay and improved working conditions are striking. The five-day faculty work stoppage is the first to take place systemwide across Cal State's 23 campuses.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Son of civil rights leader and Coretta Scott King died at his California home after battling prostate cancerDexter Scott King, the younger son of Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, has died after battling prostate cancer.The King Center in Atlanta, which Dexter King served as chairperson, says the 62-year-old son of the civil rights leader died Monday at his California home after battling prostate cancer. His wife, Leah Weber King, said in a statement that he died peacefully in his sleep". Continue reading...

The inauguration of the temple erased divisions between politics and religion in a theoretically secular stateMonday's inauguration of the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya by India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, was a moment decades in the making. Yet it also cametoo early. Despite the grand spectacle of the ceremony, with celebrities, tycoons and politicians inattendance, the temple is still incomplete. There is an obvious explanation for this rushed endeavour, andit is not religious. India will go to the polls in late spring and while Mr Modi is all but guaranteed to win athird term, he wants a large majority for his BharatiyaJanata party (BJP).Mr Modi rode to power, and has entrenched it, on the back of rightwing Hindu nationalism. On Monday he went beyond the exploitation of ethno-religious sentiment. He did not merely attend the ceremony; he carried out rituals. Religion and authoritarianism have proceeded hand-in-hand in recent years. But few strongmen have melded the political and religious to quite this degree. As his biographer, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, observed, the event cast him as the high priest of Hinduism", disquieting some religious leaders. Continue reading...

Records in divorce form basis of claims of improper relationship between Fulton county district attorney and Trump prosecutorA Georgia judge on Monday unsealed the divorce case involving a prosecutor at the center of allegations concerning an improper relationship with the Fulton county district attorney who brought the racketeering case against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.The ruling by the Cobb county superior court judge Henry Thompson on Monday means the records in the divorce - that formed some of the allegations leveled by Trump's co-defendant and 2020 campaign elections day operations chief, Michael Roman - could be made public imminently. Continue reading...

High turn-out expected to favor Haley, who is relying on support from nearly 40% of registered voters who don't belong to a party

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We want our partners to help clean, cook, parent, and remind us to go to the gym. It's a lot to ask of one person - what if there were more than one?Our identical twins had been home from the hospital for just over a month when I saw a Facebook post from my friend Niko. He was also having a baby - but instead of doing it with two parents, he was doing it with three: himself (papa), his partner (mama), and her other partner (dada). In addition to having a mom and two dads, a fourth adult would also be living with the family - as the baby's bonus adult".I wasn't surprised by this unusual arrangement; Niko has been openly non-monogamous since I met him years earlier. I was excited for him and his growing family, but I also felt a sharp mix of envy and despair. Continue reading...

Issuing a safety alert, FAA recommends that airlines inspect the door plugs of Boeing 737-900ER jetsAnother Boeing jet faces scrutiny after the US aviation watchdog issued a safety alert and advised airlines to check that door plugs are secure.Boeing was already working to reassure carriers, regulators and passengers after a cabin panel blew off a brand-new 737 Max 9 jet during an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month. Some 171 Max 9 jets have since been grounded. Continue reading...

Hafez Ajaq, father of Tawfiq Ajaq, says: They are using our tax dollars ... to kill our own children'The family of a New Orleans-area teenager who was reportedly shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Friday mourned the high schooler this weekend while also criticizing US military support for Israel.They are killer machines - they are using our tax dollars in the US to support the weapons to kill our own children," Hafez Ajaq, the father of late 17-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq, said of Israel's forces, according to the Associated Press. Continue reading...

Guitarist Christian Nolen plays the Deftones and System of a Down on doctors' instructions while undergoing awake craniotomyA Florida man recently helped surgeons remove a tumor from his brain by playing 1980s and 90s rock music.Christian Nolen, a professional guitarist in the south Florida community of Coral Gables, was instructed by doctors to play several songs on his guitar while undergoing an awake craniotomy meant to take a tumor out of the right side of his frontal lobe, WSVN Miami reported. Continue reading...

Two polls released on eve of state's primary put ex-president at 19 points and 18 points ahead of his former UN ambassadorThe ignominious end of Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign is unlikely to boost Donald Trump's last challenger, Nikki Haley, to the Republican nomination , according to two New Hampshire polls released on the eve of the primary in the north-eastern state.DeSantis also endured a round of scathing critiques of his campaign which started off being seen as a major source of opposition to Trump. But his White House bid never fully took off and fizzled into failure and a major blow to the rightwing Florida governor's political reputation. Continue reading...

Forest say they will write to PGMOL, the body that governs the officiating of Premier League games, after Ivan Toney's controversial goal. To what end?

Built on the site of a razed mosque, the Ram temple represents the culmination of the Hindu right's century-long project

Vaughn Hillyard excluded a day after pressing Republican Elise Stefanik on whether Trump had sexually assaulted E Jean CarrollDonald Trump's presidential campaign reportedly blocked an NBC News journalist from covering campaign events in New Hampshire on Sunday.Sunday's exclusion of NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard came when he was set to serve as a pool reporter. Instead of having a pack of reporters follow a candidate everywhere, campaigns will often allow television, print, and radio news organizations to send a single pool reporter to travel with them - and those reporters in turn then send a readout to other news outlets. Continue reading...

From Guns N' Roses to Pete Doherty, being on time is too lowly a concern for some artists - and there are limits to our patience

Ron DeSantis has ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Donald Trump. The Florida governor's withdrawal leaves Nikki Haley as the last remaining challenger to Trump for the party's nomination. 'He's been a good governor and I wish him well,' Haley said of DeSantis at a campaign event on Sunday. 'Having said that, it's now one fella and one lady left.' Trump set aside months of criticism of DeSantis and welcomed his onetime rival as his newest supporter

Life in Grenada, the island my grandparents once left for the UK, is safe and caring. Here, I feel that freedom is my birthrightAs falls from grace go, spending your 38th birthday packing boxes in an Amazon warehouse is pretty high up there. If that sounds terribly snobbish or ungrateful, forgive me. Let's put it down to being peddled the Thatcherite dream at the home counties girls' school I attended in the 90s: if I worked hard enough, the message was, I could do anything.My parents, who arrived in the UK from Grenada in the 1960s, did a pretty good job of making me into the right kind of immigrant. I did well at school, attended great universities (undergrad and postgrad) and was writing for national papers by my late teens. I truly believed the idea that, as a black person, if I just worked twice as hard as my white colleagues, as the old adage goes, success could be mine. Continue reading...

The president's absence opens a window for Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson to mount longshot presidential bidsWhile Donald Trump and Nikki Haley might draw focus, a shadow presidential primary is taking place in New Hampshire, where Joe Biden could stumble at the first hurdle of his bid to run for president again in 2024 following an internal Democratic party feud.As a consequence of the party scrap, Biden's name will not even appear on the ballot in the Granite state on Tuesday. While the president remains the favorite to win his party's overall nomination, his absence here has opened a window for Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who ran for president in 2020, to mount longshot presidential bids. Continue reading...

Georgia-Pacific, owned by Koch Industries, employ controversial legal tactic to circumvent paying millions to sickened workersAsbestos victims, their families and attorneys are claiming a Koch Industries-owned company and its lawyers are using a controversial bankruptcy maneuver to avoid paying millions in compensation to its former employees.Workers at Georgia-Pacific, a paper and building products company, have been locked in a years-long battle with a company over claims asbestos in its products caused fatal cancers. Continue reading...

Buffalo fans have come to fear two things in the postseason: kickers and Patrick Mahomes. Both of them made their presence felt on Sunday nightFor some Bills fans of a certain age, the ghost of Scott Norwood's wide right 47-yard field goal in Super Bowl XXV and the three further Super Bowl losses that followed in successive years had begun to dwindle. After all, it's a new era in Buffalo. They have a frequent shopper card to the NFL playoffs. They have a quarterback who can do exceptional things like effortlessly throw a football 65 yards. They came into form right time this season and got to host the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs instead of the usual other way around. With questions about the Chiefs' lack of offense and how they would fare in raucous Buffalo, the time for the Bills to get past their postseason nemesis was now. Except the thing about curses is they can reappear at any time.With 1:47 to go on Sunday, and Buffalo down 27-24, out trotted Bills kicker Tyler Bass to attempt a 44-yard goal. Before anyone could process how the Chiefs would respond and whether we were about to head to overtime as we did two years ago, the kick went, yep, wide right. It could have missed in any number of ways. A nice doink would have done the trick. Maybe a block. But it had to go wide right and not only stab Buffalo in the heart but twist the knife. Continue reading...

Children's play reveals a lot about life - making it all the more vital to rescue Britain's playgrounds from austerity and declineLike many parents of young children, I spend much of my life in playgrounds. We are lucky in that there are six of them within close walking distance and, because my son loves to be outdoors, some days we will go to two or three different ones. In fact, it's quite hard to walk past a playground without going in because, as with most of the toddlers we know, he will object in the strongest terms. By which I mean go completely and utterly berserk.From the moment your child is born, you become grateful for playgrounds. Even before your baby is old enough to play, these spaces can be a refuge: from traffic, drunks and scary dogs. They seem to be the only remaining places outside parks where benches are permitted; in areas without playgrounds, you end up breastfeeding sitting on kerbs or walls. Playgrounds are spaces for children but, to state the obvious, they are also spaces for parents - and sometimes those parents really, really need to sit down.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

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...