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From police officers to politicians, people who are keen to occupy powerful positions should be treated with cautionAt some point near the end of the last millennium, I was shown around Rome by two Roman Catholic friends of mine. The experience was a blur of churches, statues, paintings, fountains and mouldering palazzos interspersed with large quantities of pizza so crispy that it has slightly spoiled my every subsequent encounter with the dish. As with heroin, sometimes it’s better not to know what you’re missing.It was an ecclesiastically skewed tour – the eternal city’s ancient and illustrious pagan republic barely got a look-in – but a lot of fun for someone like me who loves old stuff. I envied my friends their ability, in any given church, to identify the various saints by their telltale kit, like heroes from the Marvel universe. I swore I would develop the skill myself – it would make going around churches so much more fun – but all I seem to know now is that Saint Peter has keys and Saint Mark a lion, so I’m no closer to spotting Saint Boniface from his nunchucks or Saint Ethel from her basket of cheeses, or working out whether a stained glass window depicts the ascension, the annunciation, the transfiguration or the exfoliation.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Sayfullo Saipov was convicted for the 2017 New York City truck attack and now awaits a decision on whether he lives or diesOn 31 October 2017, Sayfullo Saipov went to a Home Depot in New Jersey and rented a truck. Saipov, who at the time was 29, then drove into Manhattan, traveling south on the West Side highway, as countless motorists have done without incident.But as Saipov approached Houston Street, he hit the gas, speeding onto a bike path alongside the Hudson River. He smashed into cyclists and pedestrians, killing eight people – the worst terror attack in New York since 9/11. Continue reading...

In shifting our gaze from equality, we lose sight of the most marginalised“There is no primary poverty left in this country,” Margaret Thatcher told the Catholic Herald in 1978, five months before she became prime minister. “There may be poverty because people don’t know how to budget, don’t know how to spend their earnings” but such poverty is the product not of social policy but of “personality defect”. Almost two decades later, in her 1996 Nicholas Ridley Memorial Lecture, six years after she had been pushed out of No 10 by her own MPs, she insisted again that “poverty is not material but behavioural”.In between those two speeches, during her 11 years in power, the reality of Thatcherite policies, of reducing the top rate of taxation while cutting benefits, of devastating manufacturing industry and destroying trade unions, led to a huge increase in both poverty and inequality though the 1980s. Continue reading...

From Kaia Gerber to Lily-Rose Depp, celebrity offspring are making a mockery of meritocracyWhy are we so outraged by nepo babies? This is a question of particular interest to nepotism babies themselves who, since a recent New York magazine article on the children given a leg-up by their famous parents, have been attracting a level of opprobrium they are finding both unnecessary and unfair. After all, they say, they might get a foot in the door, but then they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good or at least prove themselves equal to the task. Kaia Gerber, the model daughter of Cindy Crawford, was last week the latest to make a variation on this point, which has been repeated so many times by nepo babies down the decades that it has become a sort of proverb.Let’s first take issue with this maxim. It’s just not true. The sons and daughters of the famous are helped all the way along. The forces that propel them into their first job – members of the industry wanting to please their parents – are still present at the second and the third. No one sacks or under-promotes the child of someone very important if it can possibly be helped: why risk torpedoing your own career? Instead, thresholds are lowered, sometimes literally (Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny, is just 5ft 3in but a stupendously successful model). And far from having to work extra hard to prove themselves, nepo babies have the scope to fail upwards, repeatedly. Björk’s daughter, Ísadóra, had her big break at 17 with the film The Northman, which flopped. Yet she signed a major modelling contract just two months later. Give a nepo baby a second or third chance and earn even more gratitude from those influential parents.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Officers were not in danger and brutality had no justification, advocates and experts say

Governor’s latest shot in his war on woke is the shock appointment of rightwing trustees to progressive New CollegeNew College of Florida started making history from the day it opened its doors to its first incoming class of 101 undergraduate students in 1964. It was the first institution of higher education in Florida – which was once part of the slave-owning Confederacy – to pioneer an open admissions policy committing the school not to discriminate based on “race, creed, national origin, or cultural status”.The founding principles of the college emphasized freedom of inquiry and the eminent historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee was lured out of retirement to join the fledgling institution’s charter faculty. New College – which became a public institution when it joined Florida’s state university system in 1975 – soon established itself as one of America’s premier liberal arts schools. Continue reading...

Naloxone, an overdose-reversing ‘miracle drug’, can let people with an opioid addiction walk away from a near-death experience within minutesThe police chief of the small Kentucky city of Vine Grove knew from heart-rending experience why he needed a vending machine outside his office.Kenneth Mattingly’s daughter was twice brought to the brink of death by heroin and twice pulled back by paramedics carrying an antidote, naloxone. Then Mattingly responded to an opioid overdose call early last year at which a woman saved a friend’s life because she was carrying a naloxone spray, often known by its brand name Narcan. Continue reading...

The death of Nichols, 29, after being beaten by police in Memphis, Tennessee, during a traffic stop has prompted outrage

Speech to Republicans in New Hampshire as ex-president becomes first to hit the 2024 campaign trailDonald Trump, the former US president, tried to get his spluttering White House bid off the launchpad on Saturday, declaring himself “more angry” than ever as he became the first candidate to hit the 2024 election campaign trail.Trump swung through New Hampshire, which holds the first-in-the-nation Republican primary, and South Carolina, looking to shake off concerns about a lacklustre campaign and “Trump fatigue” among voters. Continue reading...

The Scorpion unit has been deactivated after video was released of the brutal beating of the 29-year-old at the hands of officers

Benjamin Obadiah Foster is wanted for attempted murder, kidnapping and assault of a female found severely beaten and boundOregon police are currently on the hunt for a suspect who has been accused of torturing a woman, warning that he is currently using dating apps in attempts to find individuals who can assist him in avoiding authorities and securing more victims.On Friday, Grants Pass police in south-west Oregon announced in a news release that they are searching for 36-year-old Benjamin Obadiah Foster who is wanted for attempted murder, kidnapping and assault. The manhunt for Foster follows the discovery by Grants Pass police officers on Tuesday of a female victim found at a residence, bound, severely beaten and unconscious. The victim was hospitalized in critical condition. Continue reading...

The incident occurred at a short-term rental home in the upscale neighborhood of Beverly Crest, police saidThree people were killed and four others were wounded in a shooting at a short-term rental home in California early Saturday morning, police said.The shooting occurred about 2:30am in Beverly Crest, an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood. Continue reading...

A man was shot in the torso shortly after 1am Saturday morning after a dispute and taken to the hospitalNew York City police are searching for a gunman who shot a man on a subway in the Chinatown neighborhood.The victim, 34, was shot early Saturday morning shortly after 1am while riding the train on the N line, reported the New York Times. Continue reading...

The grisly footage, released in four parts, indicates an ambulance did not arrive for more than 20 minutes after the vicious beating

After video of the brutal beating was released, people gathered to decry the violence and abuse of power

The queen of clean says she’s ‘kind of given up’ on keeping her home tidy as she enjoys time with her familyMarie Kondo, the queen of clean, has always been rather more aspirational than relatable. Looks like that’s changed: the organizing guru has sparked widespread joy, and a touch of schadenfreude, after announcing that she’s happily succumbed to the chaos of having kids. “My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life,” Kondo said (via an interpreter) at a recent media webinar. “Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times … I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.” Continue reading...

The death of the 29-year-old Black man after a traffic stop is not the first such fatality attributed to city law enforcement officersAs Nyliayh Stewart marched along Interstate 55 alongside protesters on Friday night, the moment of sorrow and anger felt familiar. Nearly a decade ago, in 2015, Stewart had been a teenager in Mississippi when she received word in the middle of the night that her cousin Darrius had been killed by a white Memphis police officer during a traffic stop while he was running away, according to witnesses at the time.They had grown up like siblings. Stewart, now 24, heard the chants calling for justice for Tyre Nichols, the latest Black man killed by police in America, and felt the anger and anguish for his family. Unlike the five Black Memphis officers charged with Nichols’s killing, the cop who shot and killed Darrius, who retired from Memphis police, was never indicted. Continue reading...

Protesters took to the streets across the US late on Friday after police released video of Tyre Nichols' fatal beating in the state of Tennessee. Hundreds of people closed the Interstate 55 bridge in Memphis where the arrest took place and demonstrators called for justice for the 29-year-old who died on 10 January, three days after his arrest. At a rally in Times Square in New York City at least one person was arrested after protesters jumped on top of a police car and attempted to smash its windscreen

Middle-aged and elderly immigrants come to the studios for exercise, socializing and to meet new friendsFor Chris Cho, Star Ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park was more than a place where he learned the foxtrot, cha cha and waltz – it was also a second home.As a kid in the early 2000s, he went to the studio after school everyday, at first to watch his older siblings compete and carry their shoes around, later to learn from renowned dancers from Europe. At 18, he became an instructor, teaching mostly Chinese students who were the same age as his parents and grandparents. Continue reading...

Dark obsession dominates in films about music. By contrast Spielberg captures the playfulness of cinema and storytellingFor a film that has, if you want to be blunt about it, tanked at the box office, Tár has provoked a disproportionate amount of conversation. It’s possible that the discourse around the film – about a powerful, highly successful and extremely problematic conductor called Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett – is as interesting as the film itself.I’ve heard multiple, conflicting interpretations of Tár: that it’s a disgraceful misrepresentation of the field of classical music; that it’s all too real; that it’s all too surreal; that it carries an intellectual heft that is rare at the movies; that it’s not half as clever as it thinks it is; that it’s not about conducting, it’s about power; that it’s not about power, it’s about narcissism; that it’s about a clash of ethics between the generations; that it’s about third-wave feminism; that its central character, in all her “unlikeability”, is arrestingly complex; that its central character is irredeemably hateful; that it’s a fascinating, even-handed anatomisation of “cancel culture”; that it is actually a “regressive” movie that takes “bitter aim” at identity politics. Then there is an extensive online debate devoted to decoding its eerie final act. There’s something exciting about a film that is such an open text, that demands so much discussion. Continue reading...

System whereby government classifies 50m documents a year threatens national security and democracy, says Jameel JafferDonald Trump was caught with classified documents and Democrats were outraged. Joe Biden was caught with classified documents and Republicans were outraged. Mike Pence was caught with classified documents and it became clear that there might be a bigger problem here.America has a crisis of “overclassification”, critics say. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington has been overzealous in defining government secrets. Politicians and officials can too easily fall foul of this secrecy-industrial complex but the biggest losers are the American people denied democratic accountability. Continue reading...

Despite a Soviet-style clampdown, we can help the exiles who are preserving independent journalism for Russians back home

The extremist who has supported QAnon is firmly on her way to becoming a senior figure in the party as a key ally of the House speaker, Kevin McCarthyWhen Marjorie Taylor Greene was elected to America’s House of Representatives in 2020, she became one of the most visible of a wave of extremists to enter the Republican party whose often bizarre utterings stretched the bounds of what had previously been the norm of US politics.The Georgian congresswoman, who has suggested Jewish space lasers are responsible for wildfires, speculated whether 9/11 was a hoax and supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, was part of a new wave of Trumpian Republicans and was mocked, ridiculed and reviled in equal measure – including by some in her own party. Continue reading...

Investigators accuse Hyejeong Shin of providing fake birth certificate to enroll in New Brunswick high schoolA 29-year-old woman who allegedly enrolled in a New Jersey high school and posed as a student has been arrested, authorities said this week.The woman – identified by police as Hyejeong Shin – faces a charge of providing a false government document with the intent to lie about her age in a case which again demonstrates that officials in real life do not respond kindly to the plots of movies such as 1999’s Never Been Kissed and 1987’s Hiding Out being carried out under their watch. Continue reading...

Recording of the 29-year-old’s killing has sent shockwaves across the US, with the officers’ conduct being condemned

Authorities named the victim found in Arizona desert in 1971 as Colleen Audrey Rice after money raised within five days of appealA community-funded DNA project has helped detectives identify a murdered woman whose remains were stuffed in a canvas sack and dumped in the Arizona desert more than half a century ago.Authorities named the victim as Colleen Audrey Rice, who was born in 1931 in Ohio, and would have been about 39 years old at the time of her death, before her body’s discovery in November 1971. Continue reading...

The city of Memphis released graphic video footage on Friday of the violent encounter between Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, and the five police officers charged with his murder after a traffic stop turned deadly earlier this month. The disturbing video, which was released in four parts by the Memphis police department, included both body-camera and street lamp-mounted camera video. While Nichols’s injuries were clearly severe, and his physical condition in obvious decline, the video suggests that he was not transported to hospital for about 30min after the savage beatdown.

Demonstrations in Memphis and other US cities follow release of video and request from Nichols’s mother to ‘protest in peace’Demonstrations quickly began Friday evening as Memphis police released footage of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.The video released Friday showed Memphis officers kicking Nichols repeatedly in the head, punching him in the face, and hitting him with a baton. It also showed officers and medical personnel failing to intervene as Nichols could not sit upright after the assault. Continue reading...

Julian Khater pleaded guilty to using chemical spray to attack the Capitol police officer who died on 7 JanuaryA man who admitted using chemical spray to assault Brian Sicknick on January 6, a day before the Capitol police officer died, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in a Washington court on Friday.Julian Khater, 33, from Pennsylvania, was also fined $10,000. Continue reading...

Tyre Nichols's mother, RowVaughn Wells, has called for justice after her son's death prompted murder charges against police officers in the latest instance of alleged police brutality in the US. Nichols died three days after a confrontation with five police officers during a traffic stop on 7 January. His mother told reporters he called out for her in his time of need, adding: 'It's funny, you know, he always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn't know this is how, this is what he meant.'

Footage shows husband of former House speaker opening door with intruder in home and pair wrestling over hammerPolice body-camera footage released on Friday afternoon shed more light on the brutal hammer attack last October against Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic congresswomen and then House speaker Nancy Pelosi.The shocking video shows officers arriving at the front door of the Pelosi residence in San Francisco and knocking loudly on the door. Continue reading...

CCTV footage released by the San Fransisco District Attorney shows David DePape breaking into the Pelosis' home before attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer. The suspect used the hammer to smash a window and climb through into the house. Paul Pelosi called police officers once he found the intruder, minutes before DePape hit Pelosi over the head with a hammer in front of the officers. He suffered a skull fracture and injuries to his hand and arm in the attack. He remained hospitalised for a week after surgery. David DePape faces state and federal criminal charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, among others. DePape has pleaded not guilty to the charges

RowVaughn Wells gives interview after five Memphis police officers were charged with murder in the beating death of her sonTyre Nichols’s mother says she feels sorry for the five Memphis police officers who are charged with killing her son by beating him “to a pulp”, but says they brought “shame on their own families and the Black community”.RowVaughn Wells was speaking in an emotional live interview on CNN on Friday morning one day after the officers, who are all Black, were charged with murder in the beating death of her son following a traffic stop in the city earlier this month. Continue reading...

CJ Davis says department will release ‘alarming’ video of officers, now charged with murder of black man who died days laterThe chief of the Memphis police warned on Friday that the video of officers beating Tyre Nichols is “perhaps worse” than the infamous footage of Rodney King being attacked by police in Los Angeles more than 30 years ago.The police department intends to release the video to the public on Friday evening. Continue reading...

Police have released body-cam footage of the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi in October. The husband of Nancy Pelosi called emergency services after finding an intruder in his home. The footage shows officers arriving at the residence in San Francisco and asking the intruder to drop the hammer, moments before he struck Pelosi in the head

Inert projectiles came with a note that among other things said ‘let’s come together and get to work on behalf of our constituents’A newly elected Florida Republican sent grenades to fellow members of Congress, prompting one aghast Democrat to say “not even George Santos could make this stuff up”.Santos is the scandal-plagued New York congressman whose largely made-up résumé and questionable finances have threatened to blow a hole in House Republicans’ narrow majority. Continue reading...

A candlelight vigil was held at the skatepark where the 29-year-old would give lessons to his four-year-old son, his mother saidTyre Nichols, the latest in a long line of young American Black men whose death is tied to the police, was a “beautiful soul” and home-loving son with his mother’s name tattooed on his arm, his family and friends have said.Described as “a momma’s boy” by his mother, RowVaughn Wells, the 29-year-old Memphis, Tennessee, resident, the youngest of four children, was also a father himself. He leaves a four-year-old boy whom he loved to teach skateboarding. Continue reading...

David Solomon’s pay was $25m for 2022, down from $35m in 2021, as investment bank’s profits halve and 3,200 staff laid offGoldman Sachs has slashed its chief executive’s pay packet by almost 30% after a turbulent year that resulted in one of the largest round of job cuts in the Wall Street lender’s history.The bank revealed on Friday that David Solomon had been paid $25m (£20m) for 2022, down from $35m a year earlier, after the bank revealed a 50% drop in annual profits following a slump in dealmaking. Solomon’s pay included a $2m base salary and $23m in bonuses. Continue reading...

FDA’s draft guidelines cut three-month abstinence requirement for donations from men who have sex with menThe US is moving to ease restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men and other groups that traditionally face higher risks of HIV.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday announced draft guidelines that would do away with the current three-month abstinence requirement for donations from men who have sex with men. Continue reading...

From Truss to Johnson, former chaos-mongers are sure none of it is remotely their fault. In fact, the time is ripe for a comebackIt’s encouraging to see Liz Truss hoving back into view, after a period in the wilderness only slightly longer than that endured by the OG messiah. And, indeed, only slightly longer than her entire premiership. As one ally told the Financial Times of her abortive adventures in the public finances this week: “Liz believes that the policy was right but she didn’t get the political backing she needed.” Erm. Does that quite cover it? Having failed to get backing from her colleagues, the markets, business, the Bank of England, the public and experts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and beyond, Liz was arguably a full six infinity stones short of a gauntlet.Still, it feels inevitable that another betrayal narrative should be cranking up. You can never have too many, can you? Having accidentally divested itself of various of its other manufacturing industries, the UK is now world-beating in producing betrayal narratives, with supporters of any number of the politicians who played a part in the rolling chaos of the past seven years still claiming that their standard bearer was falsely victimised by people who simply lacked their vision. British politics throws the best pity parties. Consider us the Valhalla of misunderstood heroes.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Novak Djokovic overcame a first-set wobble to dismantle the unseeded Tommy Paul, setting up a final against Stefanos TsitsipasDjokovic 3-0 *Paul (*denotes next server)Worrying signs for Paul at 15-15, when Djokovic opens his shoulders and powers a clean forehand winner to the corner. Too good. Continue reading...