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The Chiefs beat the Eagles in a classic game after staging a second-half comeback in Glendale, Arizona

Federal workplace authorities fined the popular Pennsylvania candy factory $14,500 and categorized citation as ‘serious’US federal workplace authorities have fined a popular Pennsylvania candy factory more than $14,500 after two of its employees fell into a large tub of chocolate last year.In a scene that seemingly could have come straight out of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, two workers last June landed in the tub at the Mars Wrigley factory in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Neither of the two workers had any injuries when the sticky situation unfolded as they did maintenance work and tumbled into a tank that was partially filled with chocolate. Continue reading...

‘Chinese were caught lying',’ says Senate majority leader as US and Canadian military scramble to recover piecesUS and Canadian military are continuing to search by sea and land amid hostile weather conditions in a scramble to recover portions of three flying objects shot down over North American airspace in the past week.The Democratic majority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that he had been briefed by the White House and that officials were now convinced that all three of the flying objects brought down by air-to-air missiles this week were balloons. He put the finger of blame firmly on China. Continue reading...

Medical professionals attribute the increasing cases of disease to inadequate prenatal healthcare and understaffed workforceMississippi has registered an alarming rise in the number of infants being treated for congenital syphilis.According to hospital billing data shared with NBC, the amount of babies who have been treated for the sexually transmitted disease has increased by more than 900% over five years. Continue reading...

A US warplane shot down an unidentified object over North American airspace, the Canadian prime minister said on Saturday. It was the second day in a row in which the US military shot down an unidentified airborne object

President says at White House dinner that passage of infrastructure laws is evidence of ‘some bipartisan progress’Joe Biden appealed to Republican and Democratic governors on Saturday to continue working across political divides to improve Americans’ lives and rebuild the economy after the hardships brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.Speaking at a black-tie dinner at the White House, the president told 31 governors that the passage of laws on investing in infrastructure and domestic manufacture of semiconductors was evidence of “some bipartisan progress” among Republicans and Democrats. Vice-President Kamala Harris was also in attendance. Continue reading...

There must be a better euphemism. But ‘sensual’ just makes me think of a bare-chested StingI was fascinated by a recent interview with Amrapali Gan, the newish CEO of OnlyFans. Not by her blandly rehearsed claims that the platform isn’t mainly porn, and is, in fact, enabling diverse and empowered creativity – sports, cookery, fashion! – but by her use of the word “spicy”, which cropped up four times as a synonym for sexually explicit. “A bunch of spicy content … something on the spicier side … some of it might be spicy … spicier content.”That feels oddly coy, when you’re talking about a site hosting, for example, “super-specific niche fetish” and “vanilla hardcore”, as an OnlyFans content creator described it on a forum. (I can’t explore further, because I’m certain if I do, a wailing Internet Pervert klaxon will resonate throughout my neighbourhood. Yes, I’m extremely well adjusted, thanks.)Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

As a child, Ramzan’s fight for an education almost cost her her life. Worldwide, there are 222 million children out of school who urgently need our help

The office expenses I’ve saved on since 2005 have come at the expense of my company’s cultureThe pandemic is “over” – sort of. But one big question it generated is here to stay: should we ever go back to the office? It’s a question I have been asking myself for 18 years.My technology consulting company went fully virtual in 2005. Prior to that we – I ran the business with my father – had an office in a suburban neighborhood of Philadelphia. When my father passed away I started to spend more time in the office and I realized something: the office wasn’t so great. Continue reading...

The region’s popularity has seen a surge, sending real estate prices soaring and pushing locals outLate last year, Lake Tahoe earned a spot on an exclusive travel guide. But the mountain destination, famed for its cobalt blue waters and Olympic-quality ski resorts, wasn’t there for the reason you’d think.Fodor’s “No list” highlighted beloved getaways that needed a break, and Tahoe was up there with the neediest. Citing a pandemic influx of remote workers, second home buyers, traffic gridlock and packed beaches, the guide concluded “Lake Tahoe has a people problem”. Continue reading...

California shootings reveal barriers to care in Asian American community, including language access and cultural stigmasOne Saturday evening, as she was watching TV at home, Barbara heard what she assumed were fireworks going off for a Lunar New Year festival. It was not until the next morning that she learned that the popping had not been celebratory fireworks, but gunshots at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, the site of a mass shooting last month that left 11 people dead and nine injured. It was the studio her own parents attended weekly for the past 30 years.After fleeing the Vietnam War and resettling as refugees in the United States, Barbara’s parents, both in their 70s, found joy, comfort and community at Star Dance. Barbara had been to the studio countless times to watch their performances and, occasionally, pick them up late at night when they had “partied too hard”. The only reason they weren’t there that night was because they were away on a cruise. Continue reading...

The former prime minister’s lack of self-awareness would be comedy gold if her prose weren’t so desperately dullTwo massive comebacks were proclaimed last week: Liz Truss and Fawlty Towers. Truss returned to the political fray and John Cleese announced that he and his daughter will be making a new series of the renowned hotel sitcom. Exciting times! But both developments raise the same nagging question: can it be as funny the second time round?Can the intensity of hysterical chaos be matched? Could such fast-moving and unexpected, cringeworthy yet compulsively watchable farcical consequences be brought about again? Both Truss and Cleese have been criticised for the brevity of their masterpieces – though, in running for two series of six weeks, Fawlty Towers long outlasted Truss’s tenure of power – but is it a mistake to try to add to something perfect? They may be the finest artists of calamity in their respective genres but are they unwise to compete with their former selves? Continue reading...

Europe was made whole in 1989. Now concern about migrant ‘invaders’ is turning the continent, and other global regions, into fortressesTo drive into the heart of West Berlin on a dark, snowy night in December 1988 was to descend on to the cinematic frontline of the cold war. Watchtowers manned by armed East German border guards, searchlights, barbed wire, the blackened facade of the gutted Reichstag by the frozen River Spree – it was all there, just like the movies. Yet it was only too real. Holding centre stage: the sinister Berlin Wall.

Coming of age during Covid was no joke, so don’t mock young people for trying to establish a few rules of polite behaviourIn my innocence, I thought the very concept of etiquette had long been banished to social Siberia. It would appear not. New York magazine’s The Cut recently published 140 rules on new social etiquette. While some may have responded with giddy excitement, others mocked the guide as a “woke” Debrett’s of generation Z carping and nitpicking. A NY Post columnist lambasted the rules as “deeply infantilising”.Whatever happened to the freedom of youth? we wailed. Laying the law down on everything from dating, parenting, privilege and misgendering to tipping, mask wearing , posting and hosting, this seemed less generation Z and more generation Zzz, or Generation Take-a-Chill-Pill. With the debate still raging, I wonder: has this list sparked yet another bout of intergenerational misunderstanding? Continue reading...

Will Patrick Mahomes capture his second NFL title with Kansas City? Or will Philly’s all-round excellence prevail in the Arizona desert?Cut off Travis Kelce. Easy, right? The only Chiefs player with more than 1,000 yards receiving in the regular season, and the target for one-third of all passes his team has thrown in the postseason, he is the person that an injured Mahomes will want to look for when the pressure is on. NB Continue reading...

The democracies have confounded the Russian tyrant with their resolve to support Ukraine. That must be sustained in 2023It was an easy mistake for a tyrant to make. When Vladimir Putin launched his savage assault on Ukraine in February last year, he did not just misjudge its valiant people and their determination to fight for freedom. He also misread the western democracies.You can see why. As Russia’s military was beginning what was intended to be a lightning blitz to crush its neighbour, the UK’s clown car government was being consumed by Partygate. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, had previously despaired that Nato was in the throes of “brain death”. Germany, with its dangerous dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, had a newly elected chancellor in Olaf Scholz, presiding over an untested three-party coalition. America had rattled confidence in its leadership with the ignominious scuttle from Afghanistan. It wasn’t just Putin, it was a growing number of people in the free world who thought the democracies had become too debilitated, decadent and divided to defend their values. The Kremlin’s dictator is not the only one who underestimated the resistance of the Ukrainians and the staying power of their supporters in the west. Continue reading...

StadWithUs filed charge with US education department accusing Lara Sheehi of hate speech and discrimination against studentsAn Arab professor and lecturer in diversity has accused George Washington University of “colluding” with a rightwing pro-Israel group over a federal complaint accusing her of antisemitism.The group, StandWithUs (SWU), filed a complaint with the US education department’s civil rights office claiming that Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology, discriminated against Jewish students by refusing to accept their definitions of antisemitism. Continue reading...

The president sparred with Republicans at the State of the Union and has won legislative victories but polls show little enthusiasm for a re-election bidIt was the moment that America’s State of the Union address, once a staid affair punctured only by applause, turned into a verbal brawl more akin to Britain’s House of Commons.Joe Biden accused some Republicans of wanting to “take the economy hostage” and slash social welfare entitlements. “Booo!”, “No!” and “Liar!” came the response. US presidents typically ignore hecklers but Biden chose to take them on. Continue reading...

Billy Welsh stepped up when he heard his former marine comrade John Gladwell urgently needed a new kidneyWhen Billy Welsh went on social media more than two years ago and said he urgently needed a new kidney, his former US marines comrade John Gladwell stepped up and donated one of his.Little did the two men know that Gladwell’s act of friendship – which preceded a monumental health crisis of his own – would give both men the chance to share a once-in-a-lifetime trip: attending Sunday’s Super Bowl to see their favorite football teams face each other in the big game. Continue reading...

Demetrius Haley allegedly took part in a 2015 incident at a county prison that resulted in an entire cellblock writing a letter to the corrections directorYears before Memphis police officer Demetrius Haley pulled Tyre Nichols from his car on 7 January, setting in motion a deadly confrontation, Haley was accused of taking part in the savage beating of an inmate at a county prison.The 2015 assault of the inmate was so disturbing that 34 others – the entire cellblock – signed a letter to the corrections director. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Subpoena was issued last month after the folder was observed in Trump’s private quarters at the propertyDonald Trump’s lawyers turned over an empty manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” after the US justice department issued a subpoena for its surrender once prosecutors became aware that it was located inside the private quarters of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, two sources familiar with the matter said.The previously unreported subpoena was issued last month, the sources said, as the recently appointed special counsel escalates the inquiry into Trump’s possible unauthorized retention of national security materials and obstruction of justice. Continue reading...

High-altitude object the size of a small car was downed on Friday but its owner and purpose have yet to be identifiedQuestions remain after the US government shot down two high-altitude objects, one near Deadhorse, Alaska along the north-eastern Alaskan coast and a second near Yukon, Canada, that have yet to be identified.Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau tweeted on Saturday afternoon that he had ordered the takedown of an unidentified object in Canadian airspace. Continue reading...

CDC says positive tests for virus, which causes nausea, diarrhea and stomach pain, peaked at 16% in JanuaryThe US is seeing a rise in the norovirus informally called the stomach flu or stomach bug, according to the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with positive tests for the contagious illness peaking at 16% in January.The rise in infections spans the US, according to the healthcare agency, with infection rates not seen since last spring. Continue reading...

Burger chain’s bus stop advertisement in Cornwall, England, provokes restrained backlash and a few chucklesThe US fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s has pledged to remove an advertisement for its new McCrispy chicken sandwich that was placed across from a crematorium in England.The McCrispy advertisement was placed at a bus stop in Cornwall, England, that is next to a road sign pointing motorists toward the Penmount crematorium, according to the local news outlet Cornwall Live. Continue reading...

Cousin of murdered Black teenager tries to compel sheriff to enforce 1955 warrant against Carolyn Bryant Donham, now 89A relative of Emmett Till has filed a lawsuit seeking the arrest of the white woman whose allegations resulted in the 14-year-old Black boy’s kidnapping, torture and murder nearly 70 years ago.Earlier this week, Till’s cousin, Patricia Sterling, filed a federal lawsuit against Ricky Banks, the sheriff in Leflore county, Mississippi, seeking to compel the elected official to serve a 1955 arrest warrant against Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was then identified as “Mrs Roy Bryant” on the document. Continue reading...

The novelist is still recovering from a knife attack last summer, but the loss of an eye won’t stop him writing about it“The world,” Salman Rushdie wrote in The Satanic Verses, “is the place we prove real by dying in it.” Happily, defiantly, the author, 75 and among the greatest of all living make-believers, is not ready just yet to test that theory. Reading his interview with David Remnick in the New Yorker last week, the first he has given since he was attacked on stage last August – stabbed 15 times in the face and neck and chest and hands – was to be reminded of some of the darker ironies of his existence.In the years since he came out of hiding after the 1989 fatwa and moved to New York, Rushdie had begun, he noted, to evoke frustration, even ridicule for trying to live normally, as if he’d been exaggerating the threat all along. “People didn’t like it,” he told Remnick, “because I should have died… Not only did I live, but I tried to live well.” Continue reading...

Florida legislature gives governor right to name members of board supervising theme park, claiming: ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’Florida’s far-right governor, Ron DeSantis, has won the power to appoint the members of the board that supervises the development of the state’s famous Walt Disney World theme parks after a fight over a law that restricts sexual orientation and gender identity discussions in schools.Disney as a result is set to lose some of the autonomy it has enjoyed in Florida during the last nearly six decades, but the company has held on to some of its key privileges amid the culture war leveled at it by DeSantis. Continue reading...

State attorney general must also apologize to four former aides whose claims initiated ongoing FBI investigationThe attorney general for the state of Texas, Ken Paxton, has agreed to apologize and pay $3.3m in taxpayer money to four former staffers who accused him of corruption in 2020, igniting an ongoing FBI investigation of the three-term Republican.Under terms of a preliminary lawsuit settlement filed on Friday, Paxton made no admission of wrongdoing to accusations of bribery and abuse of office, which he has denied for years and called politically motivated. Continue reading...

The Church of England is considering gender-neutral ways to refer to God, revealing a lot about how gendered language reinforces stereotypesThe woke agenda spares no one, not even God. The revelation that the Church of England is considering gender-neutral ways to refer to God has caused quite a ruckus this week; very predictably all the usual suspects have been foaming at the mouth about wokeness gone mad. Nigel Farage (AKA Mr Brexit), for example, even suggested that you might as well shut down the Church of England if they’re going to go all trendy and politically correct. Continue reading...

Deaths and disappearances, including actor Julian Sands, have plagued the popular spot as hikers underestimate its perilsAt 10,064ft high, Mount San Antonio – commonly known as Baldy – towers in the San Gabriel mountains on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. Named for its steep, treeless summit, the mountain is a popular spot for hikers and skiers.It’s also a dangerous one. Continue reading...

Guillermina Fuentes was sentenced to one month for alleged unlawful ballot collection – and advocates say prosecuting cases like hers suppresses the right to voteThe small city of San Luis is tucked away in the far corner of Arizona, closer to Mexico than to any major US city. The community is nearly 95% Latino and tight-knit – the type of place where you know your neighbors and their parents and cousins.It’s not uncommon here for residents to frequently cross the border into Mexico to go shopping or see a dentist, as the vast majority of residents are US citizens who can go back and forth freely. And they do not take their right to vote in the US for granted. Election days in San Luis were typically joyous occasions, with music and celebrations in the streets. Continue reading...

My family owned plantations, made profits and was compensated, but the personal atonement of my generation can only ever be a startWhat do you do when you discover your family got rich through slavery? For Laura Trevelyan, the BBC correspondent whose ancestors owned more than 1,000 enslaved people in Grenada, the answer was simple. She and her family started discussions with people on the island, and now she has given £100,000 towards an economic development fund. The Trevelyans will apologise formally for the lives ruined and wasted by their ancestors’ greed.So why doesn’t everyone – and there are hundreds of thousands in Britain with the same history – do a little digging and say sorry? Continue reading...

Americans for Prosperity Action recently invited two politicians who tried vigorously to overturn the 2020 presidential electionAt an event in California last weekend, the Koch family political network announced it would move away from Donald Trump, and invest in congressional elections in a bid to break from the far-right, Trump-supporting politicians who have come to the fore in recent years.Americans for Prosperity Action, founded by Republican megadonors Charles Koch and David Koch, who died in 2019, would be seeking to “turn the page on the past”, it said, in remarks that were covered extensively, and favorably, in the US media. Continue reading...

Changes lawmakers are seeking, such as expanding types of approved work, will potentially ‘put kids in dangerous situations’As child labor law violations have been on the rise in the US, some state legislators are pushing for changes at state and federal levels to roll back protections in what some see as a threat to return child labor to the country.The laws aim to expand permissible work hours, broaden the types of jobs young workers are permitted to do, and shield employers from liability for injuries, illnesses or workplace fatalities involving very young workers. Continue reading...

History will be made on Sunday in the Arizona desert when Jason and Travis Kelce become the first ever brothers to compete against one another on the NFL’s biggest stageThe breakout star of Super Bowl week will not play on Sunday. Donna Kelce will instead watch from the commissioner’s box at State Farm Stadium as her sons, Jason and Travis, become the first brothers ever to compete against one another in the NFL’s title game.“It’s going to be the best day ever,” she told them on their podcast, New Heights. “Except for when you were born, when both you guys were born, it can’t get any better.” Continue reading...

As the 57th edition of the Super Bowl nears, here are 20 questions on the annals and arcana of American sport’s high holy day Continue reading...

Hundreds of lawsuits alleging abuse by priests and others in the diocese have come to light after California lifted statute of limitationThe Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego has said it may declare bankruptcy in the coming months as it faces “staggering” legal costs in dealing with some 400 lawsuits alleging priests and others in the diocese sexually abused children.In a letter that was expected to be shared with parishioners this weekend, Bishop Robert McElroy said the cases were filed after California lifted a statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse claims. Continue reading...

Senator from Pennsylvania was admitted after feeling light-headed but tests confirmed he did not suffer a second strokeJohn Fetterman was discharged from George Washington University Hospital on Friday, his staff said, two days after the US senator was admitted to the Washington DC facility because he was feeling light-headed.Fetterman, 53, suffered a stroke last year. Tests showed he did not suffer a second stroke during the latest incident, the hospital said. Continue reading...

John Kirby says defense department was tracking flying object, and Biden ordered military to ‘down’ it

Attorneys say in court filing that law used to seek five-year term for actor Alec Baldwin was not in force at time of incidentAttorneys defending the actor Alec Baldwin from an involuntary manslaughter charge in the film-set killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins are urging a judge to stop prosecutors from seeking a five-year prison sentence, saying the law authorizing that punishment did not exist when the shooting occurred.In court documents filed on Friday, lawyers for Baldwin contended that allowing New Mexico state prosecutors to charge the actor under a gun enhancement law would violate a clause in the US constitution that prohibits retroactively changing the legal consequences of actions. Continue reading...

Spokesman John Kirby says object, the size of a small car, was ordered by President Biden to be downed• Chinese ‘spy balloon’ wakes up world to new era of war on edge of spaceA US fighter jet has shot down an unidentified high-altitude object over Alaska that was the size of a small car but the nature, purpose or origin of the object remains unclear.US officials said the targeted aircraft brought down on Friday was considerably smaller than the Chinese balloon downed last Saturday over the Atlantic, and carefully avoided characterising it as a balloon, drone or plane, giving nothing away about the description of the object other than its rough size, its altitude and its direction of travel. Continue reading...

Lawyer for Trump’s former vice-president reportedly present for search, which followed discovery of documents there last monthFBI agents searched an Indiana property belonging to Mike Pence on Friday and found new official papers, including one with classified markings. The search was the latest step in a saga over the improper retention of classified documents by Pence, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.The Washington Post reported that Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, was in California while the search was carried out at his home in Carmel, north of Indianapolis. A Pence lawyer was present, the paper said. Continue reading...

A US fighter jet has shot down an unidentified high-altitude object that was the size of a small car, the White House said on Friday, although it remained unclear what the purpose or origin of the target was. 'The president ordered the military to down the object,' National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. He added it was unclear where the object came from, but that US authorities expected to recover it from territorial waters. The incident came just days after a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon crossed the continental US and was eventually shot down over the Atlantic Ocean