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Abigail Zwerner, seriously wounded in attack by six-year-old, plans to sue school district as superintendent sackedConcerned teachers and employees warned administrators at a Virginia elementary school three times that a six-year-old boy had a gun and was threatening other students in the hours before he shot and wounded a teacher, “but the administration could not be bothered” and didn’t call police, remove the boy from class or lock down the school, a lawyer for the teacher said.Diane Toscano, an attorney for Abigail Zwerner, told reporters on Wednesday she had notified the Newport News school board that the 25-year-old Richneck elementary school teacher plans to sue the school district over the 6 January shooting, which left Zwerner with serious injuries. Continue reading...

Ex-president to be allowed back ‘in coming weeks … with new guardrails in place’ after ban that followed January 6 attackIn a highly anticipated decision, Meta has said it will allow Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram following a two-year ban from the platforms over his online behavior during the 6 January insurrection.Meta will allow Trump to return “in coming weeks” but “with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses”, Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a blogpost explaining the decision. Continue reading...

Suspect charged with murdering seven people in latest of a string of deadly shootings in the stateAuthorities in California have identified six of the seven victims killed in a “workplace violence” incident in the coastal town of Half Moon Bay on Monday, the second deadly mass shooting in the state in less than 48 hours.The San Mateo county coroner identified the victims as Zhishen Liu, 73, Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, Aixiang Zhang, 74, Qizhong Cheng, 66, Yetao Bing, 43, and Jingzhi Lu, 64. Charging documents named Jose Romero Perez as the other person killed. Continue reading...

Jin Chung, 75, was taken to hospital with a leg injury while search continues for the actor, 65, who was reported missing 13 JanuaryRescue personnel in California have found a 75-year-old hiker who was lost on the same snow-covered mountain where actor Julian Sands is missing.NBC LA captured images of Jin Chung, of North Hollywood, being loaded into an ambulance Tuesday afternoon. He had a leg injury and some weather-related injuries but was able to walk with assistance and was taken to a hospital, the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department said. His condition was not immediately known. Continue reading...

Biden, Trump and Pence cases prompt calls to tighten government procedures as Republican congressman says ‘process is broken’The discovery of classified documents at the home of former US vice-president Mike Pence, following similar incidents involving Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is bringing new scrutiny to government procedures for handling and securing its most delicate secrets.The justice department and FBI are looking into how about a dozen classified-marked papers came to be found last week in an unsecure location at Pence’s Indiana residence, two years after he and Trump left office. Continue reading...

Some lawmakers on both sides now asking if discoveries mean it’s time to look at how government manages its secrets

A series of four attacks have upended communities across the state, from a city to farming townsAll the names of the dead from one California mass shooting had not yet been released when the news alerts started again on Monday afternoon: there had been another shooting. There was another gunman at large. Seven more people were dead.Gun violence takes a daily toll in California, but the brutality, scale and pace of the past week has felt different. In the course of just eight days, at least 25 people were killed in four separate mass shootings, defined as any shooting in which at least four people are injured. Continue reading...

The US president has announced at the White House that 31 Abrams M1 tanks will be sent to Kyiv after Germany's decision to send Leopard 2 vehicles. Joe Biden said the tanks posed no offensive threat to Russia. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, thanked his US counterpart for his 'powerful decision'

News comes after unusual activity at the zoo that included one of its clouded leopards missingA lappet-faced vulture at the Dallas zoo has died from a suspicious wound in its Wilds of Africa habitat. Officials called the mysterious death of 35-year-old Pin “devastating” and are offering a $10,000 reward for any information.The announcement follows a bout of unusual activity at the zoo. Last week it shut down after it reported one of its two clouded leopards, Nova, was missing. A zoo spokesperson assured the public the 25lb cat didn’t pose a threat to humans and Nova was found later that day on zoo grounds near her habitat. Continue reading...

Journalists and environmental defenders are at greatest risk in Latin America. All those who put them in danger must be held accountableThe murders of the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were not only a shocking and incalculable loss for their families and all those who loved them and admired their work. They were also a chilling reminder of the perils faced both by journalists and environmental defenders – particularly Indigenous peoples and those working with them – in Latin America.Seven months have passed since the men were killed in the Javari valley region of the Amazon. On Monday, Brazilian police announced that they had arrested the alleged mastermind. Rubens Villar Coelho, nicknamed Colômbia, was first detained on separate charges last July, when he denied any involvement in the crime. He has been accused of running an illegal fishing operation. Three other men are in custody over the deaths. Continue reading...

Arguments focusing on the low application of the UAE’s anti-gay laws overlook the privilege it takes to evade them – and the reality of the labour that builds Dubai’s luxury playgroundIt’s not a Beyoncé comeback if it doesn’t “cause all this conversation”, and the musician’s first concert in more than four years has been no exception. Over the weekend, Beyoncé was paid a reported $24m to perform at the unofficial opening of luxury Dubai hotel Atlantis the Royal, in front of an invitation-only audience of celebrities, influencers and journalists. But this choice of location for Beyoncé’s return to live performance – her first since the release of last year’s widely acclaimed Renaissance, although none of the album’s tracks were on the set list – has proved divisive.Fans may well feel disappointed to see Beyoncé prioritise a private performance in Dubai for largely wealthy attenders, including Ronan Keating and Michelle Keegan of all people, given that she’s yet to release videos for the album, let alone announce the long-anticipated Renaissance tour – for which ticket prices are expected to be eye-watering. But the majority of online criticism has been driven by UAE’s laws criminalising homosexuality and gender reassignment. Continue reading...

Volodymyr Zelenskiy is finally getting the help he wants, but it places more of Ukraine’s future in US handsSending more western tanks to support Ukraine does not mean, as some politicians occasionally come dangerously close to implying, that the war is now almost over – save only for the fighting. The Ukraine war will still last months, if not years, and today’s decisions are more of a strategic body swerve than a complete and fully executed U-turn. Nevertheless, this is an unmistakably big moment, and for three main reasons.The first is that battle tanks give Ukraine a military advantage that, in the words of Ed Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute, could be transformative. The three types of western battle tank now being committed to Ukraine – the US’s M1 Abrams, Germany’s Leopard 2 and the UK’s Challenger 2 – are all significantly more powerful than the Soviet-era T-72s that form the bulk of the Russian and Ukrainian tank forces. The same goes for the French Leclerc tanks, whose dispatch to Ukraine has not been ruled out either. Continue reading...

Tommy Paul is first American male semi-finalist at Melbourne Park since Andy Roddick but must now face Novak DjokovicBen Shelton was 11 months old the last time an American man won a grand slam. His quarter-final conquerer, Tommy Paul, was at least of an age to understand what tennis was, though having just turned six at the time, he does not remember watching Andy Roddick win the 2003 US Open.What he does recall is the countless times it has been drilled into him since. “Since I was young that’s all we’ve been hearing,” Paul said on Wednesday after becoming the first American semi-finalist at the Australian Open since Roddick in 2009. “Since like 14 years old the coaches have been telling us ‘we need new Americans, we need new Americans’. It’s kind of engraved in my head. It’s important to me. I think we all want it pretty bad for ourselves, but we want it for US tennis too.” Continue reading...

I’m desperate to see fat characters who aren’t ‘comic’ – but The Whale’s appeal for pity is still far from the dignity they deserveI can only assume that acting – pretending, convincingly, to be someone you aren’t – is an incredibly boring, unrewarding profession if you are an able-bodied person playing other able-bodied people. That must be the case, considering how many professional actors who happen to fall into that group take on roles they perhaps shouldn’t, and are then celebrated for it by their peers – now including, of course, Brendan Fraser in The Whale.Fraser’s casting in the film – or whether the film should even exist in 2023 – may be under even more scrutiny now it has Academy Award nominations, including one for best actor, to add to its treasure trove of accolades.Phoebe-Jane Boyd is a content editorDo 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...

My name was floated as a potential head of the social media platform. Here’s what I’d do if I were suddenly in chargeElon Musk and I aren’t exactly old friends, but we do go back quite a few years – to early 2013 when I was the public editor (a kind of ombudswoman) at the New York Times. The Tesla head honcho was harshly accusing the paper of sabotage after its review of some new ultra-fast charging stations. The Times review featured a devastating photograph of the cherry-red Model S on a flatbed truck after it reportedly ran out of juice on the last leg of the road trip. My investigation determined that the Times did nothing unethical, though I found some of the reviewer’s methods less than ideal. I don’t think either Musk or the Times was particularly thrilled with my findings.Now, a decade later, Musk and I could be ready for a new adventure – an even more contentious one. The tech-news website CNET recently suggested me as a potential chief executive for Twitter, the global social media platform which Musk has been busy running into the ground after buying it for a stunning $44bn last fall. The company has lost about half of its top advertisers since Musk took over, and stands to lose 30 million users over the next two years, according to various estimates.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture. Continue reading...

CCTV footage at the Lai Lai Ballroom in California shows a gunman being confronted and disarmed. Brandon Tsay can be seen wrestling a modified 9mm submachine gun-style weapon from the man, identified by police as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran. Tran had already attacked the Star Ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, California, fatally shooting 11 people and wounding nine others who were celebrating lunar new year's eve on 21 January. Tran then traveled to Alhambra, where he was stopped in the lobby of the Lai Lai studio by Tsay, a computer coder who helps run the dancehall for his family. Tsay took control of the weapon and ordered Tran to 'go, get the hell out of here' before watching him drive away in a white van

New campaign finance filings reported by Daily Beast do not shed light on real source of $600,000 in fundingIn a new twist to one of the most bizarre American political scandals in decades, the New York Republican congressman George Santos appeared to admit on Tuesday that more than $600,000 in loans to his campaign did not come from personal funds, as was originally claimed.But new campaign finance filings first reported by the Daily Beast did not shed light on where the funds actually came from. Continue reading...

Cindy McCain warns food supplies will not be safe until Russian invasion of Ukraine has ended

The 11 victims of the shooting have now been identified, with all except one being in their 60s and 70s. Plus, the rise of pre-date questionnaires

Why the hyper-local ‘15-minute city’ is gaining ground in urban planning circlesAt first glance, O’Fallon, Illinois, has little in common with Paris, France. Paris has its world-class museums and cream-colored Haussmann-style apartment buildings. O’Fallon, an outer-ring suburb of St Louis with a population of 32,000, has a collection of squat brick buildings settled around a little-used freight rail track in its city center, and a proliferation of mid-century ranch homes on the blocks beyond.On the other hand, there are macarons for sale at O’Fallon’s Sweet Katie Bee’s organic bakery cafe. And last year, when O’Fallon adopted a 180-page master plan to guide its development for the next two decades, it chose the same “organizing concept” that Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, made the backbone of her 2020 re-election campaign: the 15-minute city. Continue reading...

In the first edition of our monthly NHL column, we look at concerns around gambling endorsements in ice hockeyThe advert begins in a small hockey arena. Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid sticks around after practice to take multiple shots on a nameless goaltender. Every shot finds the back of the net, naturally. Behind the glass nearby, hockey great Wayne Gretzky approaches a man who tells him, “Connor’s just finishing up, he’s going to be pumped you’re here.” No rush, Gretzky replies, glancing down at his phone, and seeing the New York Knicks have just taken the lead in a game against the Philadelphia 76ers. “Come on!” Gretzky shouts in frustration, throwing McDavid off. “Trying to practice here, Wayne,” McDavid tells him. “You need it,” Gretzky replies.Two of the biggest ever stars of ice hockey are together to promote what’s on that little screen: BETMGM, one of the latest in a plethora of sports betting sites that have, since the US and Canadian governments opened the door to single-game betting, flooded NHL broadcasts with advertising – relying on big names to do it. McDavid and Gretzky aren’t alone. Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews has his own spot, for Bet99.net, a Canadian sportsbook. They are inescapable, relentless, and for many, extremely annoying. “These gambling ads are out of hand,” one Reddit user posted in October. “We’re not even finished the first period of the Leafs game and there have already been around 10 DraftKings ads. This is ridiculous.” Continue reading...

None of us has an absolute right to privacy in public, but whatever happened to respecting people’s basic dignity?Once, when I was younger and would dress somewhat outrageously, I caught a stranger recording me on his phone as I danced on the tube, on my way to a gay club. The video never surfaced online to my knowledge – perhaps he simply sent it to a group chat – but for months I looked over my shoulder when dancing.Turning strangers into online content for the purposes of comedy and entertainment has become a global pastime. And we lap it up. A drunk person relieves themselves in the street, a loved-up couple gets a bit steamy in a supermarket, a man is in his own world loudly singing out of tune on crowded public transport – the content is endless. But the line between lighthearted teasing and digital harassment seems to be getting thinner by the day.Jason Okundaye is a London-based writer and researcherDo 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...

Billions of us are due to vote in the next two years as the scourge of online misinformation grows ever worse. It’s time to regulateAs we look back on the erosion of democracy in recent years, it is becoming increasingly clear that technology platforms are playing a significant role in its downfall. The ability to incite insurrections and coups through these platforms has made a once difficult task alarmingly easy.The dangers information pollution pose for democracy have long been acknowledged by civil society actors and regulators, but the storming of Brazil’s presidential palace earlier this month serves as a sobering reminder of just how real these dangers have become. More than 1,200 people were arrested in Brazil for attempting a military coup. Continue reading...

Alabama crew had ‘safety huddle’ about how to move around the plane and employee who was killed received warning to stay backA worker at an airport in Alabama who died after being sucked into a jet engine this past New Year’s Eve had been warned repeatedly about the dangers of going near it, federal investigators revealed this week.The Montgomery regional airport employee, along with other colleagues of the facility’s ground crew, had undergone a “safety huddle” about how to move around the plane at the center of the case 10 minutes before it arrived at the gate on 31 December, and there was another similar briefing just before the aircraft arrived at the gate, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a report Monday. Continue reading...

An acquaintance is convinced that almost every product in the shops is the detritus of some elite product we can’t afford. Could they be right?I’m not allowed to write about my mother any more, in case she has enough and decides to protest against the injustice of 25 years of me doing it. It’s a risk, I guess. There comes a point in most people’s lives when they wake up thinking their neighbour has stolen their paying-in book. This would be like that, except true: I have been stealing her best material for a quarter of a century.Anyway, someone else I know from the prewar generation – born before 1945 – has a new conspiracy theory. (Gen prewar is different from boomers – born between 1946 and 1964 – even though society tends not to distinguish between one pensioner and another, which happens either because society is ageist or because boomers are greedy and want the category to themselves. But we can discuss that another time.) Continue reading...

Given the rarity of the subjects, researchers know relatively little about the older perpetrators of mass public shootingsAs California, and the United States, reel from two devastating mass shootings in three days that have left 18 people dead and many more injured, detectives are combing through the crime scenes in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay in search of motives.One aspect they will have to grapple with that makes the California tragedies stand out from the grim pack of American gun massacres is the older age of the shooters. In both cases the alleged killers were in their 60s and 70s, placing them in a very rare group. Continue reading...

Move seen as retribution against House Democrats who booted Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their committeesSpeaker Kevin McCarthy reiterated Tuesday that he will block Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California from serving on the House committee that oversees national intelligence, saying the decision was not based on political payback but because “integrity matters, and they have failed in that place”.In the previous Congress, Democrats booted Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona from their committee assignments for incendiary commentary that they said incited potential violence against colleagues. Continue reading...

Police say 21-year-old Jarid Haddock ‘just walked in and started shooting’, killing three in a ‘random situation’A 21-year-old man wanted in connection with the random killing of three people at a convenience store in Yakima, Washington, early Tuesday shot and killed himself as officers approached him behind some warehouses several hours later, authorities said.Yakima police chief Matt Murray said in a video message posted online that a woman called 911 on Tuesday afternoon. The caller reported that the man had used her phone to make a call. Continue reading...

Authorities say 67-year-old killed four and wounded one at a mushroom farm then killed three more at a trucking firmAn agricultural worker in northern California allegedly killed seven people as part of a “workplace violence incident”, the state’s third deadly mass shooting in little more than a week.Police are questioning 67-year-old Chunli Zhao, who they say shot dead four and wounded one more on Monday afternoon at a mushroom farm where he worked in Half Moon Bay, a coastal community 30 miles south of San Francisco. Continue reading...

All 11 victims of the shooting have now been identified, with all of them, except one, being in their 60s and 70sInvestigators in California are searching for answers as to why a 72-year-old man gunned down patrons at a ballroom dance hall on Saturday night, a venue he is said to have frequented.The community of Monterey Park continues to reel from a weekend massacre that killed 11 people and wounded nine. The gunman, identified as Huu Can Tran, attacked the Star Ballroom Dance Studio then drove to another nearby dance hall where an employee wrestled a weapon away from him, preventing an even greater tragedy. Continue reading...

Tuesday’s hearing remains inconclusive, however, after judge decides not to immediately rule on making report publicAn Atlanta district attorney has said “decisions are imminent” on whether to charge Donald Trump with criminal offences over his attempt to to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.But a highly anticipated hearing on Tuesday remained largely inconclusive after a judge decided not to immediately rule on whether or not to make public an investigative report on the actions Trump and his allies took to baselessly challenge the legitimacy of the election. Continue reading...

‘This is not simple,’ says judge on releasing Georgia grand jury’s report into Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020 election results

President of Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, tells Senate judiciary committee the bots caused technical glitchesThe president of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, testified in front of the US Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, saying a flood of scalper bots were responsible for its mishandling of ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s latest tour.Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, making it the main conduit between artists and venues in the US. While the company has been under criticism over the last decade for its dominance of the live events industry, it has come under fresh and intensified scrutiny after fans trying to get Swift tickets in November experienced crashes and glitches of the ticketing service. Continue reading...

Fred Ryan says former secretary of state ‘outrageously misrepresents’ Post journalist murdered by Saudi Arabian regimeThe publisher of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, has blasted the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for “outrageously misrepresenting” and “spreading vile falsehoods” about Jamal Khashoggi, the Post columnist murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.“It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear as a ploy to sell books,” Ryan said. Continue reading...

Top adviser to former vice-president says in letter that papers were inadvertently stored and Pence was unaware they were thereClose aides to Mike Pence discovered about a dozen classified-marked documents stored in boxes at his home in Indiana last week and turned over the materials to the US justice department, according to a top adviser to the former vice-president.The documents were inadvertently taken to Pence’s home at the end of the Donald Trump administration and Pence was unaware of their presence, his representative to the National Archives and former counsel Greg Jacob said in a letter. Continue reading...

Intervention comes after a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, and a pair of shootings near Half Moon Bay, CaliforniaJoe Biden once again called on Congress to pass a bill banning assault weapons, following a string of recent mass shootings in California that in total killed at least 18 people.“For the second time in recent days, California communities are mourning the loss of loved ones in a senseless act of gun violence,” the president said in a statement released on Tuesday. Continue reading...

State’s new bill goes into effect prohibiting material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian or ‘certified media specialist’School teachers in Florida’s Manatee county are removing books from their classrooms or physically covering them up after a new bill went into effect that prohibited material unless deemed appropriate by a librarian, or “certified media specialist”.If a teacher is found in violation of these guidelines, they could face felony charges. Continue reading...

Republican governor suggests ‘super-majority’ should suffice in state that has required jury unanimity in capital cases since 2017The rightwing Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, wants to end the constitutional requirement that juries in his state are unanimous when handing down death sentences.“Fine, have a super-majority,” DeSantis told the Florida Sheriffs Association on Monday. “But you can’t just say one person votes no.” Continue reading...

Man who allegedly killed 23 people in El Paso in 2019 still faces state-level murder charges and could be sentenced to deathThe man who allegedly shot nearly two dozen people to death in a Walmart in Texas in 2019 plans to plead guilty to federal charges after the US government indicated it would not seek the death penalty against him.Patrick Crusius, nonetheless, still faces state-level murder charges and could be sentenced to death if convicted in the El Paso mass shooting that targeted Mexicans and killed 23 people. Continue reading...

With 1,214 gun deaths so far in January, the ready availability of weapons means the toll can only climbTwo horrific killings separated by just a few days have shaken California, but such nightmarish mass shootings cannot be considered abnormal in the US. With a week still left in January, this year there have already been 39 mass shootings across the country, five of them in California.Reports from the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit research group, show the predictability of American mass shootings. Nearly 70 people have been shot dead in mass shootings so far in 2023, according to their data – which classifies a mass shooting as any armed attack in which at least four people are injured or killed, not including the perpetrator. Continue reading...

Prosecutors built their racketeering case with wiretaps, undercover agents and confidential sourcesFederal prosecutors on the first day of a historic racketeering trial in Ohio alleged that top Republicans in the state accepted bribes from the power company FirstEnergy.The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, is the latest utility scandal following cases in the last 10 years in Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida which experts say has led to higher bills for consumers, less green energy, and more CO emissions. Continue reading...

Victoria Azarenka and Elena Rybakina reached the semi-finals, with Karen Khachanov and Stefanos Tsitsipas following suitPegula 4-6 Azarenka* (* denotes next server).Pegula starts her service game strongly but a needless hoick into the net from close range pegs her back to 15-15, and Azarenka’s smart backhand volley at the net gives her another chink at 15-30. She dominates the next point too with more smart volleying to gain two more set points. And this time Azarenka cashes in. Set point No 5 is converted when Pegula sends a forehand wide. Just as momentum looked as if it was with the No 3 seed, Azarenka has shown her tenacity to snatch the set. Continue reading...

Some of the world’s most famed restaurants face business problems or accusations of abuse and deception. What next?Noma is widely considered the best restaurant in the world – not only for the quality of its food, but the standard it created for fine dining. It brought a new era of excellent, locally focused cuisine, helping to break the stranglehold French food had on the cultural imagination when it came to gourmet greatness. Noma trained some of the finest chefs of a generation, spreading its ideas and values far and wide like fungal spores caught on the wind.For 20 years it dominated and defined the restaurant scene, but soon it will be no more. Although its brand may live on in other ways, Noma recently announced that it will close its titular restaurant at the end of 2024.Jessa Crispin is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

My amusement turned to horror: it took ChatGPT 30 seconds to create, for free, an article that would take me hours to write“Write an article on ‘What is payment gateway?’” I recently typed into a ChatGPT window. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered writing generator, quickly obliged.The result was impressive. Sure, the tone was inhuman and the structure as sophisticated as a college essay, but the key points, the grammar and the syntax were all spot on. After a bit of a punch-up, it was perfectly passable as a sponsored content article designed to drum up business leads for a software provider – an article like the one that I, a professional copywriter, had just spent hours writing.As a copywriter, I’ve spent years honing my craft and perfecting my ability to craft compelling and persuasive copy. But now, it seems that my job is at risk of being taken over by ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI.The key is to find the right balance between using technology and honing the human touch. Copywriting is an art and it requires creativity, empathy and understanding of the target audience. So, ChatGPT will not take my job, but it will be my partner to create more impactful and persuasive copy.Henry Williams is a freelance writer from London who writes about culture, society and small businesses Continue reading...