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‘Trailblazer’ fought for civil rights protections at a time when people with disabilities were treated like second-class citizensThe savvy, wheelchair-using civil rights activist Judith Heumann, who led a movement to reimagine what it means to be disabled in the US, died on Saturday at a hospital in Washington DC.Heumann had been hospitalized for a week dealing with heart issues that may have stemmed from her lifelong challenge with polio, the Associated Press reported. She was 75. Continue reading...

I filmed as activists held Purdue Pharma’s owners to account via museums and galleries. Yet the US government has utterly failed to play its partAmong the outstanding films nominated for an Academy Award this year is Argentina, 1985, about brave young lawyers and victims of Argentina’s brutal dictatorship who prosecuted the military leaders responsible for the mass torture, rape and murder of thousands of civilians. They faced down death threats, risking their lives to testify against the perpetrators in power.The film bears witness to a simple truth: a society that does not confront its crimes is condemned instead to repeat them, and to reward those who commit them.Laura Poitras is a filmmaker and journalist. Her films include All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Citizen FourDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

Plane traveling from Maryland to North Carolina shook violently before making emergency landing in deserted airportPassengers on a bumpy Southwest flight from Maryland to North Carolina described a horrific trip that caused several travelers to vomit and left them stranded in a closed South Carolina airport overnight.On Friday, at least two people aboard a Southwest flight from Maryland became ill after the plane shook violently due to weather-related issues while landing in Raleigh, North Carolina. Continue reading...

Police allege Travis Grafe, 40, attacked Rachel Knaus Grafe, 66, co-proprietor of famed farmstand, with flashlight in FebruaryThe co-owner of a south Florida farmstand famous for its cinnamon rolls has died after her son allegedly beat her with a flashlight last month.Rachel Knaus Grafe, 66, the co-proprietor of Knaus Berry Farm, died at about 1.45pm on Sunday, according to an announcement on Instagram from her business. Her son Travis Grafe, 40, has been in jail since after the 17 February attack, according to authorities. Continue reading...

Florida governor, expected to announce presidential run, says Democrats have been infected with a ‘woke mind virus’Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, took his fight against liberalism deep into the Democratic territory of California on Sunday, part of a national roadshow as he lays the ground for an expected White House bid.DeSantis has been meeting with wealthy donors in recent days and burnishing his national credentials in a series of speeches boasting about his achievements in Florida while lambasting the “woke ideology” of leaders in Democratic strongholds including California and New York. Continue reading...

The president spoke in Selma at the site of ‘Bloody Sunday’, which led to passage of historic voting rights legislation nearly 60 years ago. Plus, why women are mad as hell

Events like the Oscars are rare examples of monoculture in a pop-culture world increasingly fractured into tiny splinters“Ooh, the Hollywood issue!” was my first thought on pulling the glossy new Vanity Fair magazine – timed to this Sunday’s Academy Awards – from my mailbox.Then came my second thought: “Who are these people?”Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Most speakers focused on issues other than election integrity, but prominent election deniers were still given top billingIn the exhibit hall, vendors displayed various styles of hats declaring “Trump won” and attendees referred to former president Donald Trump as the rightful winner of the 2020 election.But on the event stage, most prominent Republican lawmakers at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) didn’t bring up Trump’s big lie. Instead they largely chose not to repeat his common talking point that rampant voter fraud cost him his re-election. Continue reading...

In the final days of the legislative session, there’s also a push to create a mechanism to unseat county election board membersIn the final few days of this year’s Georgia assembly legislative session, Republican lawmakers raced to propose laws seeking to restrict voting access, and make it easier for citizens to challenge and subvert normal election processes.Senate bill 221, house bill 422 and house bill 426 are just a few of the newly proposed election laws, which come after state Republicans, including the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, praised election officials for smooth elections in the past two years. They include measures to eradicate absentee ballot drop boxes, allow citizens to more easily challenge voter registrations – which Republican conspiracy theorists had already done with little backing evidence during the midterms – and even unseal ballots for review. Continue reading...

As a gay couple, my husband and I have to build our own vision of what a family looks like. Now I see that as an opportunityIn the summer of 2020 I left London, where I’d lived for 14 years, and moved back to my hometown of Hull. My family is there, and my husband and I want to become parents – the only way we’ll have even the slimmest of chances is to live somewhere with cheaper rents and start saving money in a serious way. If we go down the surrogacy route, it can cost upwards of £50k – and the tumultuous, lengthy process of adoption is not necessarily any easier.Amid all that uncertainty, another draw was that the prospect of family life in Hull felt familiar. My parents had me young – when I came along in the 80s, they had just turned 21 and 23 respectively; Mum a beautiful New Romantic, Dad the spitting image of Morrissey. As a kid, I found that I could score cool points by telling new friends about my young, hip parents. Then as I got older, I appreciated us having shared interests, like getting sloshed and loving Placebo. That’s the sort of dad I wanted to be – someone who defied convention.Samuel Sims is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

Many of the game’s top players have skipped the tournament in the past. But this year teams across the world are fielding strong rostersThere’s something different about the lead-up to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) this year. Don’t take a writer’s word for it – the players themselves have noticed. “The hype is a little bit higher this time around,” according to Nolan Arenado, the St Louis Cardinals’ All-Star third baseman. “There’s more guys that want to [play on the US team this year].”Arenado would know – he’s one of the few holdovers from the US team that won the previous tournament in 2017 (the 2021 edition was cancelled owing to Covid). Arenado’s teammate on the Cardinals, reigning National League MVP Paul Goldschmidt, was also on the 2017 squad. Possibly even more importantly, Goldschmidt may be one of the reasons for the increased interest in the WBC among Major League Baseball players. Continue reading...

The changes go beyond removing one or two offensive words – they’re hamfisted and tin-eared exercises in bowdlerismRecently it was announced that the novels of Roald Dahl, the notoriously bigoted but gifted and enduringly popular children’s author, had been edited to eliminate words, phrases and sentiments that readers might find upsetting.Novels such as The Witches, Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach have been cleansed of negative references to a character’s appearance, race or gender. “Enormously fat” had been changed to “enormous”, “mothers” and “fathers” to the more gender-neutral “parents”. The adjective “black” was eliminated, even in reference to objects. Jokes were explained, passages modified to assure the reader that Dahl’s snarky humor was all in good fun. Continue reading...

Powerful voting bloc looking to back pro-Israel politicians in hopes of dictating policy that fits their theological viewsWhen Israel’s former ambassador to the US said his country should worry less about what American Jews think and concentrate on Christian evangelicals as the “backbone” of support for the Jewish state, he had in mind the Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee.Hagee founded Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a group that claims 11 million members, who have had a significant influence on Republican party politics and in hardening Washington’s already strong support for Israel. Continue reading...

The president spoke in Selma at the site of ‘Bloody Sunday’ that led to passage of historic voting rights legislation nearly 60 years agoJoe Biden paid tribute to the heroes of the “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march nearly 60 years ago and used its annual commemoration to warn of an ongoing threat to US democracy from election deniers and the erosion of voting rights.The US president joined thousands of people in Selma, Alabama to mark the movement that led to the passage of landmark voting rights legislation shortly after peaceful marchers were brutally attacked by law enforcement on a bridge though town. Continue reading...

California newlyweds claim they returned to boat after dive to find it sailing awayA California couple has filed a $5m lawsuit against a tour company in Hawaii which it claims abandoned them in the middle of the ocean during a snorkeling tour.In September 2021, Elizabeth Webster and her husband, Alexander Burckle, were on their honeymoon in Hawaii during which they booked a snorkeling excursion with the boat tour company Sail Maui. Continue reading...

Former Maryland governor says in op-ed he won’t be entering 2024 race and warns Republicans of putting Trump back in White HouseA top Republican figure has warned that the party under Donald Trump has become a “cult of personality” and it could not afford to try and put the former US president back in the White House in 2024.Larry Hogan, a former Maryland governor, had been widely tipped to enter the party’s nomination race but instead used an op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday to announce he would not be running and to warn against Trump’s own 2024 campaign. Continue reading...

‘I know how to disrupt’: the two-time aspirant to the Democratic presidential nomination fleshes out her vision for the countryAuthor Marianne Williamson has said she doesn’t view her very outsider bid for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination as a direct challenge to Joe Biden but as “challenging a system”.The self-help writer and speaker, who also ran a nomination challenge in 2020, said voters “have to rise up” to secure an equitable economic future for the US. Continue reading...

Proposals include restrictions on gender identification, diversity programs, press freedoms, and relax concealed weapons lawsFlorida Republicans are planning a broad rightwing legislative push, including new restrictions on gender identification, diversity and equity programs, abortion and press freedoms, and further relaxation of concealed weapons laws and the ability of courts to impose death sentences.The basket of proposed legislation comes five months after the state’s rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis won re-election by a decisive margin and the Republicans established a convincing majority in the state legislature. Continue reading...

While the medication I take has hugely helped my health, it has also robbed me of the joy I took in foodI sat across from my dad having dinner this week. Thirty minutes after the sea bass with roasted cherry tomatoes arrived on the table, the bright red juices from the tomatoes seeping pleasingly into the creamy mash, most of mine remained on my plate. “That was perfectly cooked fish,” he noted. “Absolutely perfect.” I agreed before sadly shrugging: “But you know how it is now. No appetite.”This has been the state of things since last summer, when I was put on new medication. I take one pill each morning and the drug has been immensely helpful to my health, but one of its side effects is I have no desire for food. I once took so much joy in eating, but it now feels like such a chore that I long for a future where I can just take a pill for all my nutritional needs.Leila Latif is a freelance writer and criticThis article was amended on 5 March 2023. An earlier subheading said that Leila Latif took semaglutide for diabetes, but she is not using that medication and does not have diabetes Continue reading...

Train derailed while traveling south, a month after 38 cars derailed in East Palestine and caused a major environmental problemAbout 20 cars of a Norfolk Southern cargo train derailed near Springfield on Saturday evening, the second derailment of the company’s trains in Ohio in a month, officials said.But unlike the 3 February derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a company spokesperson said there were no hazardous materials aboard the train, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Continue reading...

The former US president has promised to 'finish what we started' in an address to supporters at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. Trump delivered the keynote speech, saying he was engaged in his 'final battle' as he tries to return to the White House. He left the Oval Office after a failed attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, culminating in a deadly riot in the US Capitol

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...