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The US home retailer, once worth $17bn, looks destined to enter chapter 11 despite a market rally this week. What went wrong?Bed Bath & Beyond, the pioneering home goods retailer, appears to be heading for bankruptcy. But you wouldn’t necessarily know it from visiting its flagship store in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood – or by looking at its share price this week.Last year Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the so-called “meme stocks”, including Gamestop, an ailing video games retailer, and cinema chain AMC, whose share prices were driven to dizzying heights by a new generation of online traders. Continue reading...

Scandal and despair hit the romance community when Susan Meachen was purportedly bullied into suicide. Was it a hoax?In 2020 the tightly knit and passionate world of self-published romance literature was shocked by the news that the novelist Susan Meachen, following bullying by other writers, had taken her own life.Meachen’s grieving fans funded her funeral costs, according to members of the romance community, and helped edit and promote her final book. Fellow authors released an anthology dedicated to Meachen, with the dedication page calling plaintively, or pointedly, to “keep bullying where it belongs – in fiction”. Continue reading...

As Republicans threaten to ensnare the president in investigations and legislative brinkmanship, Biden is touting bipartisanshipAfter a bruising fight over the House speakership, newly empowered Republicans officially set to work this week on what they say is a mandate to hold Joe Biden and his administration to account.Several of the president’s chief antagonists took control of powerful committees, eager to use their subpoena power to frustrate and undermine the president, his administration and his family. Continue reading...

Panel that considered whether ex-president committed crimes in trying to overturn 2020 election defeat could recommend prosecutionEven as Donald Trump prepares to dial up his campaign to take back the White House, the former US president’s political and personal fate may already have been decided by the secret workings of a grand jury in Georgia.The 23-member panel, convened to consider whether Trump and others committed crimes in trying to overturn his defeat in Georgia when it appeared the state might decide the outcome of the entire 2020 presidential election, was dissolved on Monday after submitting its conclusions and asking that they be made public. Continue reading...

American Cancer Society calculates that 3.8m lives have been saved, highlighting HPV’s role in tackling cervical cancerAmerican cancer deaths have declined by 33% since 1991, according to a new report – saving an estimated 3.8m lives.The report by the American Cancer Society attributed the three-decade trend largely to better early detection, lower rates of smoking, and improvements in treatment. Researchers also credited the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV). Continue reading...

Hundreds of mermaids work in aquariums across the world – from Texas to Denmark – and I need you to listen to what they have to say

The big cat, Nova, weighs about 25lbs and zoo officials speculate is probably still on the grounds and hiding in the treesThe Dallas zoo was closed on Friday as staff searched for a clouded leopard that escaped its enclosure.The zoo issued a “code blue”, signaling a non-dangerous animal was not in its habitat. Continue reading...

House judiciary committee makes announcement after special counsel appointed to look into the caseRepublicans on the House judiciary committee on Friday announced an investigation into the discovery of classified documents at Joe Biden’s Delaware home and former office in Washington DC.The GOP representatives, newly in control of committees after their party took the House last November, made their move a day after the attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the matter. Continue reading...

House judiciary committee Republicans announce their own investigation into president’s classified documents

Police say a school employee was notified of a possible gun and searched the student’s backpack but did not find itAdministrators at the Virginia school where a six-year-old boy shot his teacher learned the child may have had a weapon before the shooting but did not find the 9mm handgun despite searching his bag, the school system’s superintendent said.The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, 25, was shot in the chest, suffering injuries that were initially considered to be life-threatening. Her condition has improved and she has been reported in stable condition. Continue reading...

Former president’s business empire fined $1.6m after being convicted last month on 17 charges including falsifying recordsDonald Trump’s business empire, the Trump Organization, was sentenced in a New York court on Friday to the maximum allowable fine of $1.6m for a tax fraud scheme going back at least 10 years.Despite the fine itself being relatively small for a huge business, the symbolism of a criminal conviction for an entity so close to the former president is significant. Continue reading...

Georgia and Alabama ravaged by tornadoes that ripped up trees, destroyed houses and caused injury and deathThe death toll from tornadoes that tore through parts of Georgia and Alabama rose to at least nine on Friday afternoon as rescue crews continued to search for trapped survivors and additional victims.Authorities were beginning to get a better picture of the damage caused by a twister that wrecked buildings and tossed cars in the streets of historic downtown Selma, Alabama, late on Thursday. Houses were torn off their foundations and property was smashed up and flattened by flying debris and ripped up trees. Continue reading...

As Republicans push for anti-abortion measures, a Florida congresswoman shared her experience with the House of Representatives of being forced to carry a dead baby decades earlier. Frederica Wilson, 80, said she was finally ready to tell her story publicly, having previously not wanted to 'relive the most painful time in my entire life'. Wilson said her baby was pronounced dead seven months into her pregnancy in the late 1960s. Doctors were prohibited from inducing labor as her pregnancy predated Roe v Wade and the legalisation of abortion nationwide – a decision dismantled by the conservative-controlled court last June

New Mexico officers followed a trail of blood and found the uninjured cub in a crate, and took him to the local zooPolice in New Mexico investigating reports of a shooting followed a trail of blood to a mobile home, and discovered a young tiger cub inside a crate.The uninjured cub was not, officials said, the same illegally kept tiger that investigators were searching for last summer when they raided a nearby house in Albuquerque and found instead a stash of guns, cash, drugs and a 3ft alligator. Continue reading...

Florida’s Frederica Wilson relives experience of being forced to carry a dead baby as Republicans push for anti-abortion measuresIt was a moment of raw humanity in Washington amid federal policy discussions that were largely devoid of it.During a week when Republicans, newly in control of the House of Representatives, discussed whether pharmacy workers should be allowed to refuse to fill abortion medication prescriptions due to religious objections, the Florida congresswoman Frederica Wilson rose to break a silence she had held. Continue reading...

Name of malware and criminal group behind it, LockBit has been blamed for attack on Royal MailLockBit has emerged as the most prolific name in ransomware attacks and has now been blamed for an incident that has hit Royal Mail’s international operations. Here is what we know about LockBit and how it operates. Continue reading...

At least six people were killed in Alabama on Thursday as thunderstorms and at least one tornado swept through the region, local officials have said.Trees were uprooted and homes destroyed by the tornado in Selma, with high winds and heavy rain leaving thousands without power. Parts of Georgia and Mississippi were also affected by the extreme weather Continue reading...

In Alabama, pregnant women are subjected to a work around law in the name of protecting the fetus: chemical endangerment of a childThis week, Steve Marshall, Alabama’s Republican attorney general said he sees a path to prosecuting women for having abortions in his state. This was a bit of a faux pas: a moment of letting slip the mask that the anti-abortion movement always tries to keep on.Alabama’s total abortion ban, which has only limited exemptions for women’s lives, makes providing an abortion a felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison. But like nearly all of the abortion bans that have sprung into effect since the US supreme court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health overturned Roe v Wade last June, the law has no mechanism to prosecute women who receive abortions. But that doesn’t mean that patients are safe from criminal charges, according to the state’s top prosecutor.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

I don’t think anyone should be going around calling themselves Duke or Duchess in 2023. Unless they are a stripper or a dogI’m afraid it’s the law now, OK? I’ve valiantly resisted for as long as I could, but the time has come: I simply have to write about Harry and Meghan. It is basically illegal not to have at least one opinion about the royals who apparently hate being royals but are still milking their royal connections for all they’re worth. And don’t roll your eyes, you’re a glutton for this stuff too. Everyone loves to see obscenely privileged people airing their dirty laundry. There is a reason that Harry’s memoir has become the UK’s fastest-selling nonfiction book and that reason is not the quality of the writing.Don’t worry I’m not going to pull a Piers Morgan or Jeremy Clarkson here and start seething with unhinged rage about Harry and Meghan. I’m not the Sussexes biggest fan but the only royal I can muster up enough energy to get really outraged about is Prince Andrew. You remember him? He hasn’t been in the news very much lately since Harry’s been hogging all the headlines but he’s the guy that got stripped of royal duties over his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He’s the guy that Ghislaine Maxwell recently called her “dear friend.” He’s a nasty piece of work and yet Britain is now so caught up in Harry hatred that a recent YouGov poll has found that Brits over the age of 65 dislike the Sussexes more than disgraced Prince Andrew.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist and the author of Strong Female Lead Continue reading...

Missouri Democrat mounting a second bid for US Senate hammers the Republican incumbent over his actions on January 6Announcing his second bid for US Senate in Missouri, Lucas Kunce needed to hit the ground running. He did so by running an ad targeting the Republican he hopes to defeat, Josh Hawley, for running away from the January 6 rioters he encouraged.The ad appeared on the second anniversary of the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters. On 6 January 2021, before the mob broke in, Hawley was photographed raising his fist in its direction. The House January 6 committee showed what happened after rioters breached the walls: the senator ran for cover. Continue reading...

Tax filings reveal advocacy arm of Heritage Foundation spent $5m on lobbying in 2021 to block voting rights in battleground statesThe advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative thinktank based in Washington, spent more than $5m on lobbying in 2021 as it worked to block federal voting rights legislation and advance an ambitious plan to spread its far-right agenda calling for aggressive voter suppression measures in battleground states.Previously unreported 2021 tax filings from Heritage Action for America, which operates as the foundation’s activist wing, shows that it spent $5.1m on contracting outside lobbying services. The outlay comes on top of $560,000 the group invested in its own in-house federal lobbying efforts that year, as well as registered lobbying by Heritage Action staffers in at least 24 states. Continue reading...

Events aim at giving ex-president a narrative reset after being criticized for his ‘low energy’ and inactivity, sources say. Plus, how menopause can destroy mental healthGood morning.Donald Trump is scheduled to venture out of his Mar-a-Lago resort and conduct a swing of presidential campaign events later this month, ramping up efforts to secure the Republican nomination after facing criticism around the slow start to his 2024 White House bid, according to sources familiar with the matter.What else is happening? The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel on Thursday to investigate Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice-president. The move to name Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed federal prosecutor and former top justice department official, was a rapid decision from Garland to insulate the department from possible accusations of political conflicts or interference.How do the Trump and Biden cases regarding classified documents differ? While Trump appears to have wilfully obstructed efforts to recover them, leading to the FBI raid, Biden’s team said they cooperated fully and immediately returned the documents to the National Archives as soon as they were discovered. Read more here.What tributes have been paid to Presley? John Travolta said on Instagram: “Lisa baby girl, I’m so sorry. I’ll miss you but I know I’ll see you again.” Meanwhile, Bette Midler said: “I’m in shock. So beautiful and only 54 years old; I can’t actually comprehend it.” Continue reading...

There are plenty of intriguing match-ups as the playoffs kick-off. Who will survive and book a spot in the NFL’s last eight?It will not be business as usual in the NFL playoffs this weekend. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s on-field cardiac arrest earlier this month will haunt proceedings, despite his near-miraculous recovery. How could it not? If there’s one thing we should take away from the last few weeks, it’s that the league is populated by human beings, not abstract figures on stats sheets. The playoffs will continue as scheduled but expect the atmosphere to be more subdued than in years past. And let’s hope that the drama remains entirely football-related. Continue reading...

Events aim at giving ex-president a narrative reset after being criticized for his ‘low energy’ and inactivity, sources sayDonald Trump is scheduled to venture out of his Mar-a-Lago resort and conduct a swing of presidential campaign events later this month, ramping up efforts to secure the Republican nomination after facing hefty criticism around the slow start to his 2024 White House bid, according to sources familiar with the matter.The former US president is expected to travel to a number of early voting states for the Republican nomination – the specific states have not been finalized – around the final weekend of January, the sources said, where he is slated to announce his state level teams. Continue reading...

Like other sober-curious people, I wanted slightly more of a handle on what I drank. So I started logging every drink in an app. And, reader: it helpedI am not doing Dry January this year. I didn’t do it last year, or the year before that. But I do know, down to the glass, what I drank on every single one of those January days. Two post-new year amarettos on 2 January 2021; two glasses of prosecco on 9 January 2020 (if I’d known what was coming in March, I might have stretched to three); a lone bottle of beer on a Sunday in 2019.This isn’t some incredible feat of memory. The data is at my fingertips thanks to something I started doing just over five years ago, in late 2017. Every day – or, let’s be realistic, often a few days later – I plug the amount I’ve had to drink into an app.Barbara Speed is a Guardian Opinion deputy editor Continue reading...

Kyle Doan, 5, was pulled into the raging waters as he and his mom, Lindsy Doan, were trying to escape the sudden floodingThe danger lurking along a country road in central California’s wine country was not clear to Lindsy Doan as she drove her five-year-old son to school on Monday morning.The region, like much of the state, had been hit by a deadly series of storms that were , but the family had traveled through the area the previous day, her husband told the Guardian, and countless times before on their commutes. Nothing initially appeared wrong and unlike past occasions, there were no signs indicating the road was closed. Continue reading...

The duke and his brother have spent years as mental health advocates – and therapy has fueled Harry’s public outpouringWhile the revelations in Prince Harry’s book have shock value, the format they come in does not. The tell-all memoir, ghostwritten with the most salacious stories parcelled into pre-publication interviews, is a media set piece. Subject, publisher and publicists all know their roles and – bar a few early leaks – things have been staged-managed effectively.But what’s so unusual about Harry’s revelations is how they have been compared to, and intertwined with, a far less premeditated form of disclosure: therapy. Continue reading...

Roiland, who voices two of the animated TV show’s characters and created video game High on Life, has pleaded not guilty to the chargesJustin Roiland, who co-created the animated series Rick and Morty and provides the voices of the two title characters, is awaiting trial on charges of felony domestic violence against a former girlfriend.A criminal complaint obtained from prosecutors in Orange County, California charged Roiland, 42, with corporal injury and false imprisonment by menace, fraud, violence or deceit against the woman, who he was living with at the time. Continue reading...

The singer and only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley has died after being taken to hospital, aged 54. The musician appeared with her mother at the Golden Globes in Los Angeles two days before she was hospitalised, to support Baz Luhrmann’s acclaimed biopic Elvis. We look back over her life, from Graceland to her last days Continue reading...

Robert Spindell, who sits on state election commission, told party members to be ‘proud’ of low voting figures in Democratic areasA top Republican election official in Wisconsin is facing calls to resign from his role after boasting about lower turnout last year in Black and Hispanic areas of Milwaukee.Robert Spindell is one of three GOP appointees on the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), the six-member bipartisan body that oversees elections in the state. He is also the chair of the Republican party in the fourth congressional district, which includes Milwaukee. After last year’s election, he sent an email to fellow Republicans touting the party’s “well thought out multi-faceted plan” that resulted in a drop in voter turnout in the city, which is home to a majority of Wisconsin’s Black population. Continue reading...

Robert Hur chosen by US attorney general after classified materials discovered in Delaware and WashingtonThe US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel on Thursday to investigate Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice-president.The move to name Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed federal prosecutor and former top justice department official, was a rapid decision from Garland to insulate the department from possible accusations of political conflicts or interference. Continue reading...

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the retention of classified documents by President Joe Biden from his time as vice-president. Speaking in Washington DC, Garland outlined the events that led to the announcement, confirming that further classified documents had been found at Biden’s home in Delaware. Prior to the statement, the White House said the search for secret materials from Biden’s time under President Barack Obama had concluded

‘Well-informed, industrious’ lawyer, 50, was US attorney for Maryland before moving to private practice in 2021Robert Hur, appointed on Thursday as special counsel in the case of Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents while out of office, is according to his LinkedIn profile a “seasoned trial lawyer, former supreme court law clerk and former US attorney … with decades of experience in government and in private practice”.An appointee of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, the 50-year-old was US attorney for Maryland from 2018 to 2021 before becoming a partner at Gibson Dunn, a Washington law firm specializing in white-collar “enforcement, investigations and litigation”. Continue reading...

In a world that still expects a catfight between women, a viral image of the actor celebrating at the Golden Globes shows a thrilling act of sisterly solidarityEveryone likes a photo of Jamie Lee Curtis because everyone likes Jamie Lee Curtis, but the moment caught at the Golden Globes on Tuesday was something else.Combining the razzle-dazzle of the red carpet with the raw emotionality of war photography, the shot captures the moment when Michelle Yeoh wins best actress (comedy/ musical) for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeoh is covering her face with her hands, which is the smart move in these situations: triumph has no acceptable expression. It’s not a lovable emotion to begin with, and it can tip so easily into something even less endearing: smugness, fakery, know-me-by-the-lamentations-of-my-inferiors. Way better to keep all the key features submerged under fingers. Continue reading...

Further classified documents have been found at President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. The White House has announced the search for the president’s properties for secret materials from his time as vice-president under Barack Obama has concluded. Initially, a small number of classified documents were found at Biden’s former office space in Washington, but further materials have now been located in his garage. At the end of a briefing, a reporter asked Biden: ‘What were you thinking?’ when details emerged the documents were found next to his Corvette

Newly elected New York congressman insists he will not step down despite lies about background and education being exposedRepublican members of Congress have joined state party officials in calling for the New York representative George Santos to resign, heaping more pressure on the disgraced politician who won election in November with a largely fictional biography.Anthony D’Esposito, who represents New York’s fourth congressional district, neighbouring Santos in the third, said on Wednesday Santos had lost the faith of voters and did “not have the ability” to represent them, the New York Times reported. Continue reading...

Lori Lightfoot’s office asked teachers to encourage their students to submit résumés in exchange for ‘class credit’Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, is facing criticism after her office attempted to recruit students with school credit to help with her re-election campaign.Emails encouraging students to volunteer were sent to several Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers’ work emails from Megan Crane, who identifies herself as Lightfoot’s deputy campaign manager on LinkedIn. Continue reading...

The president and his predecessor have each retained secret papers but what do we know and what happens next?The discovery of documents from the Biden-Obama administration in at least two locations linked to Joe Biden has been greeted with dismay by Democrats and glee by Republicans, given the extensive legal troubles that Donald Trump faces for taking classified papers to his Florida resort.Republicans believe the incident shows that Biden has committed the same transgression as the former president, and argue that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago and subsequent investigation were politically motivated points-scoring. Continue reading...

Republicans furious at suggestion from US regulators that gas stoves could be phased out over links to childhood asthmaJoe Biden has ruled out any ban of gas stoves in the US, following a furious backlash from Republicans to suggestions they could be phased out due to their contribution to dangerous indoor air pollution that has been linked to childhood asthma and other conditions.Biden “does not support banning gas stoves”, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday. Jean-Pierre added that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency responsible for consumer safety, “is not banning gas stoves. I just want to be very clear on that.” Continue reading...

Disgraced cryptocurrency boss says FTX customers could get their money back in statement published on Substack“I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away,” the disgraced cryptocurrency boss Sam Bankman-Fried claimed on Thursday in his first detailed response to the criminal charges filed against him last month.In a statement titled FTX Pre-Mortem Overview and published on Substack, Bankman-Fried said that millions of customers of FTX, his bankrupt exchange, could get their money back and that “very substantial recovery remains potentially available”. Continue reading...

Tentative contract agreement secures better working conditions and pay raises, unions officials sayThousands of nurses at two New York City hospitals ended a three-day strike on Thursday after reaching a tentative contract agreement union officials said offered better working conditions in addition to pay raises.The tentative deals at Mount Sinai hospital, in Manhattan, and Montefiore medical center, in the Bronx, include raises totaling 19% over three years. Nurses began returning to work at both hospitals on Thursday morning, with the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, greeting returning nurses at Mount Sinai just before dawn. Continue reading...

Heirs’ early deaths are a lot less common these days, so Britain should copy European royalty and let No 2s work unimpeded“My family had declared me a nullity. The Spare,” declares Prince Harry in his new memoir, frustrated in a history lesson at Eton that the teacher expected him to know the story of Charles Edward Stuart. He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to know about history – “Why memorise the names of past spares?”. And yet he has: they thread through his book, unspoken. Not just Princess Margaret (who he notes once gave him a Biro for Christmas), all the others who were No 2, and those who are to come. Harry was, as he sees it, “brought into the world in case something happened to Willy”.“The heir and the spare” was, he tells us, a “shorthand” about the two brothers used by the entire family, and says it was what Charles told Diana after his birth. The word “spare” is repeated so much that it is almost dizzying – and recurs in the most heated incidents. When, he said, William pushed him, his brother was “in full heir mode and couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t dutifully playing the role of the spare”. Continue reading...

The Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. Readers of this newspaper may even have violated itWith President Joe Biden now embroiled in his own classified documents controversy, partisan commentators will surely have a field day playing the tired old game of “no, you endangered national security.” Instead, I’d like to focus on the real issues: the overly broad and often-abused Espionage Act and the massive, draconian secrecy system that does far more harm than good in the United States.This should be yet another wake up call that both the classification system and the Espionage Act need a dramatic overhaul. The question is — as more secret documents are found at a second Biden location and Trump’s special prosecutor continues to work — will anyone listen?Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation Continue reading...

According to latest consumer price index, cost of living dropped 0.1% in December while inflation rate fell from 7.1% in NovemberPrices dropped in the US in December for the first time since May 2020, in an encouraging sign that the inflation crisis may be easing.According to the latest consumer price index (CPI) – which measures a broad range of goods and services – the cost of living dropped 0.1% in December compared with a rise of 0.1% in November. The annual rate of inflation fell to 6.5% from 7.1% in the previous month, the sixth straight month of yearly declines, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Continue reading...