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An online quiz revealed my Euro-education came from sticker albums and obscure Uefa ties - and we all have our own versionHow come I, as a Briton, can name vast numbers of Dutch towns and cities, but struggle to think of more than a couple of Greek placenames? Why are the German cities I'm most aware of not always the most populous? And, most baffling of all, why is my 15-year-old son more familiar with a Swedish village with 6,000 inhabitants than he is with Gothenburg, Sweden's second city?As he and I completed an addictive online quiz that challenged us to list as many European placenames as we could, these were the questions that occupied me. Although to be honest, the first two were actually quite easy to answer: it was football's fault.Phil Mongredien is a deputy production editor for Guardian Opinion Continue reading...

Ex-president tries to walk fine line on issue, saying Republicans with extreme positions have been decimated' in electionsDonald Trump, the former US president, boasted about the miracle" of ending the constitutional right to abortion but warned that Republicans who tout extreme bans are being decimated" in elections.Trump was put on the spot on Wednesday during a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, his latest attempt at counter-programming a Republican debate that was being shown on CNN at the same time. Continue reading...

Ex-UN ambassador calls Florida governor a habitual liar as each tries to make up ground on absent Trump days before Iowa caucusThe fifth Republican presidential debate started and ended with barbed exchanges between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, with neither likely to have moved closer to eclipsing frontrunner Donald Trump in the Iowa caucus next week.The Florida governor slamming Haley for running to do her donors' bidding" and the former UN ambassador calling DeSantis a habitual liar. The tone early in the Iowa debate matched prior GOP debates, which were frequently hostile, with candidates hurling personal attacks at one another. Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley clashed over the course of a two-hour debate which once again the former president skippedThe Republican debates have been anticlimactic since they started late last summer, with the broad pool of candidates winnowing over time and frontrunner Donald Trump refusing to attend.Tonight's event saw Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor, and Ron DeSantis, Florida governor, vying for second place in a head-to-head debate just days before the Iowa caucus, the first official election year contest. Here's what you need to know about the two-hour broadcast in Des Moines. Continue reading...

With less than a week to go before the first-in-the-country Iowa caucuses two challengers to Donald Trump make their caseFact checks: ImmigrationHaley said that millions of people who cross the border should be deported because they are jumping the line". This is a mischaracterization of how immigration policy works. Migrants at the border are allowed to just show up and ask for asylum, per US law. Continue reading...

On a holiday in Japan, instead of mourning the child version of him, I saw the adult he was becomingWhen my daughter went overseas on her gap-year adventure, my son and I found ourselves alone at home with the cat. Except for the odd Sunday morning at a local junk market and dinners with friends, we spent much of our time in separate rooms, coming together late in the day to eat dinner and maybe watch an episode of something, if we can agree. I know it's natural for teenagers to spend more time sequestered away in their bedrooms, but sometimes I find myself trying to think up ways to lure him out.As a single parent, much of our household communication involves me reminding him to clean his room or eat his vegetables or do his homework. Little time is spent on the fun stuff, like the random holidays we used to take. The rough and ready camping trips with a tent that slept all of us, road trips in the Subaru, hoping we wouldn't break down, or a weekend stay in a dingy motel in a country town. Continue reading...

Authorities say another person was injured as major snow and wind storm moved into the California regionAn avalanche roared through a section of expert trails at a California ski resort near Lake Tahoe on Wednesday, sweeping up four people and killing one, as a major storm with snow and gusty winds moved into the region, authorities said.The avalanche prompted Palisades Tahoe to close 30 minutes after it opened, and search crews combed the area to see if anyone was injured or trapped. Continue reading...

Ex-New Jersey governor, only candidate to attack Trump, heard on hot mic predicting Nikki Haley would get smoked' in primary raceThe former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he announced on Wednesday evening.It is clear to me tonight that there is not a path to win the nomination," he said at a town hall in Windham, New Hampshire. Continue reading...

Then president told European commissioners in 2020 that Nato is dead' and the US would never defend Europe if it were attackedDonald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would never come help" if Europe was attacked and also said Nato is dead", a senior European commissioner said.Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 was described in Brussels on Tuesday by Thierry Breton, a French European commissioner responsible for the internal market, with responsibilities including defence. Continue reading...

US president's son sat in front row as House oversight committee debated his refusal to comply with subpoena for testimonyHunter Biden made a surprise appearance at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, as Republicans on the US House oversight committee convened to consider a resolution to hold the president's son in contempt of Congress over his refusal to comply with a subpoena for testimony.Appearing with his attorney Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden sat silently in the front row as the committee chair and vice-chair delivered opening statements to a hearing that would be dominated by partisan bickering. Continue reading...

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Ruling clears way for Kenneth Smith, convicted of 1988 murder, to be put to death via method his lawyers say is cruel and unusualAlabama will be allowed to put a prisoner to death with nitrogen gas later this month, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday, clearing the way for what would be the nation's first execution under a new method the inmate's lawyers criticize as cruel and experimental.The US district judge Austin Huffaker rejected Kenneth Smith's request for an injunction to stop his scheduled 25 January execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith's attorneys have said the state is trying to make him the test subject" for an untried execution method, and are expected to appeal the decision. Continue reading...

Arthur Engoron said over email Trump could address court if he agreed to certain terms but ex-president's lawyers fail to agreeDonald Trump's plans to deliver closing arguments on Thursday in his New York civil business fraud trial were dashed on Wednesday by the judge overseeing the case.Trump had planned to give his own speech in addition to his legal team's summations, according to two people familiar with the highly unusual plan. But judge Arthur Engoron rescinded permission for the speech. Continue reading...

Lawmakers hold hearing on Alejandro Mayorkas, who they say has encouraged illegal immigration across US-Mexico borderHouse Republicans barreled ahead with their effort to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, for his handling of the US's southern border, as their party attempts to make immigration a defining issue of this year's presidential election.The House homeland security committee launched the impeachment proceedings on Wednesday, with Republicans charging that Mayorkas has been derelict in his duty to secure the US-Mexico border amid a sharp rise in migration while Democrats and administration officials assailed the inquiry as a sham" and a political stunt". Continue reading...

The Latin American nation, once relatively safe, is now in the grip of organised crime. There are no swift or easy solutionsAll I know is that it's time to leave this country, and go very far away." Those words, from a staff member at the TV station attacked by masked gunmen live on air on Tuesday, encapsulate the shock and despair that many in Ecuador now feel. The assault on TC Television in Guayaquil, Ecuador's most dangerous city, was one of multiple spectacular and coordinated attacks by gangs, in which at least 10 people were killed.Murderous crime has soared over recent years. But this was not just about gangs running rampant and battling each other with a sense of impunity, while brutalising anyone who got in their way. The invasion of a university and hospitals, the kidnapping and killing of police and prison guards, the torching of cars in residential areas, attacks in the Amazon region and looting in the capital, Quito - all these showed gangs operating well outside their usual fiefdoms, banding together, and turning on national institutions and civilians to try to force political leaders to back off. This strategic brutality, which has been described as violent lobbying", has been used elsewhere in Latin America, but is new to Ecuador. For many, it feels as if the fate of the country itself is at stake. Continue reading...

Roxanne Doucette charged with attempted murder after someone pretending to be soap star told her to get rid' of husbandA Massachusetts woman has found herself in hot water after she allegedly poisoned her husband's soup because someone pretending to be soap opera star told her to.Roxanne Doucette of Townsend, Massachusetts, has been charged with attempted murder, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer. Continue reading...

Joan Littlejohn, 84, and Glennwood Fowler, 82, were discovered in house with interior temperature exceeding 120FAn elderly couple in South Carolina was found dead in their house over the weekend after their heater measured over 1,000F, according to authorities.On Saturday evening, police in South Carolina's northern city of Spartanburg performed a welfare check on a house on Woodview Avenue following concerns from family members who had not heard from their parents since last Wednesday, according to a police report reviewed by the Guardian. Continue reading...

New research found that poorest fifth pay a tax rate 60% higher, on average, than the top 1% of householdsA total of 44 of the 50 US states worsen inequality by making the wealthy pay a lesser share of their income in taxes than lower income people, a new analysis has found.State and local tax regimes are upside-down", the new research finds, with weak or non-existent personal income taxes in many states allowing richer Americans to avoid tax. A reliance on sales and excise taxes, considered regressive because they disproportionately impact the poor, has helped fuel this inequality, according to the report. Continue reading...

Even to hardened New Yorkers, a tale of renegade religious diggers pursued by shovel-wielding police officers is irresistibleWith storms battering the US and Donald Trump back in court claiming immunity this week, light relief comes in the form of a news story we didn't know we needed: the discovery in Brooklyn of a secret tunnel, apparently dug by a faction within the ultra-religious Chabad-Lubavitch community. The tunnel, which runs for 15m (50ft), starts under the synagogue and peters out beneath a ritual bath house several buildings along. When cops arrived on Monday to fill it with concrete, they met with strong resistance from the tunnellers. What can only be described as a melee ensued.There's a lot to unpack here, but let's start with illegal tunnelling", which, with all due deference to a group of worshippers in distress, triggers in the abstract a bolt of joy at the sheer range and eccentricity of human behaviour. The tunnel in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighbourhood was reportedly dug by a group of young male students, characterised by Hassidic leaders as extremist", for purposes that remain obscure. What is known is that residents in homes neighbouring the synagogue reported suspicious sounds coming from beneath the floor. When city officials turned up to investigate, they unearthed some kind of religious take on The Shawshank Redemption that contravened - big New York obsession, up there with homicide - various building regulations and codes. It's not a prohibition many of us have had cause to test, but I guess you need a permit to dig a tunnel in the city?Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The US autoworkers' union plans to bring more employees under its protection after record deals with automakers last yearOver 30% of workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have signed union authorization cards, the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced on Tuesday.The news is another significant boost to the UAW's plans to unionize non-union auto workers throughout the US after securing historic contracts for workers at the big three US automakers last year. Continue reading...

Golden age of the lucrative partnership overlapped with the final days of the American monocultureThe announcement that Tiger Woods and Nike have called time on their 27-year commercial partnership came as no surprise to anyone who has been paying close attention. It has been nearly a decade since Nike, which said in a recent earnings call it will seek $2bn in cost savings over the next three years, stopped making golf equipment, including balls, clubs and bags. Woods's limited schedule after his exhaustive litany of surgeries, before and after his career-threatening car accident in February 2021, have made the 15-time major champion less visible than ever.But there is a specific finality to Monday's conscious uncoupling, which came one week after Woods's 48th birthday, that signals the end of an era in the business of sport: the death of the sort of all-encompassing athlete-brand marriage that truly flooded the cultural mainstream. The obvious template is Nike's union with Michael Jordan, a leviathan deal whose modest origins were playfully dramatised for the screen last year. Indeed, Phil Knight spent three years aggressively recruiting Woods based on the Jordan proof of concept: that a single charismatic sportsperson touched with divine gifts could shoulder an entire sports-entertainment empire. Everybody has been looking for the next Michael Jordan and they were looking on the basketball court," the Nike chairman said at the time. And he was walking down the fairway all the time." Continue reading...

She can fit months' worth of essentials into the tiniest of bags. I go big - and still always forget somethingI'm rubbish at packing. Be it for a night away or for several months, I'm hopeless. I never, but never, fail to forget something essential. A toothbrush, medication, pants, the suitcase itself - you name it. And always, but always, more than half of what I take isn't needed. I've given up worrying about this. When I was a younger man I was foolish enough to harbour hopes of one day wanting for nothing while I was away. Never happened; never will.But I'd rather be me than one of those clever dicks who fits enough for a month in the tiniest, piddliest little cases which, notwithstanding their laughable smallness, are nevertheless equipped with no fewer than four wheels. Four! You see them in airports, these things, their smug owners wheeling them around like they're walking prim little poodles off to the shops.Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Former president promotes racist conspiracy theory that Haley, born in South Carolina and a US citizen, is not qualified for officeA leading professor of US constitutional law condemned Donald Trump for playing the race card" by propagating the totally baseless" claim that Nikki Haley, his surging rival for the Republican presidential nomination, is not qualified because her parents were not US citizens when she was born.The birther claims against Nikki Haley are totally baseless as a legal and constitutional matter," Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, told NBC. Continue reading...

South Africa's lawsuit alleging genocide is a fitting call for the right of an oppressed people to self-determinationA spectre has long haunted Israel: the spectre of South Africa. Specifically, Israeli leaders have feared that a world recognising their oppression of Palestinians as an apartheid system might be moved to impose on Israel the same international isolation that helped end South Africa's system of white minority rule. However, few Israeli leaders would have expected that impetus to come in the form of a South African lawsuit in The Hague alleging genocide.Recent UN general assembly votes show that most of the international community is appalled by Israel's brutalisation of Gaza, yet appears unable to act. It's as if Israel is shielded by an unspoken but commonly accepted US prerogative to set the terms of any international interventions in the Middle East. Indeed, what makes the South African action all the more remarkable is the reality that when you indict Israel for genocide, you're effectively accusing its armourer and diplomatic enabler - the US - of being an accomplice to the crime of all crimes. Continue reading...

The broadcaster has given the quarterback free rein to spread misinformation on the Pat McAfee Show. And now he is taking aim at the network itselfJust as when he drops back to pass, Aaron Rodgers scans the world around him and sees enemies everywhere. Over the past four years, The Pat McAfee Show, a streaming sensation that's recently found a home on ESPN, has provided a forum for the New York Jets quarterback to settle scores and single out other targets for offense - not least his grudge against Jimmy Kimmel.Rodgers's three-year-old feud with Kimmel - which began with the talkshow host slamming Rodgers, a stubborn vaccine skeptic, after he tested positive for Covid - reached a troubling inflection point last week when Rodgers appeared on McAfee's show and implied the comedian was nervous" about being linked to Jeffrey Epstein. The quarterback pledged to pop a bottle of something" if Kimmel's name surfaced in the recent release of documents related to the disgraced financier. Continue reading...

Several years of sustained harassment of election workers and judges have led to security concerns and high a high turnoverThe judge overseeing the election interference case against Donald Trump in Washington DC had her home visited by police after a fake emergency call, and attempts were made to do the same to prosecutor Jack Smith.The Maine secretary of state was swatted", too, after she ruled that the former president could not appear on the ballot there because of the 14th amendment. The Colorado judges who ruled similarly have faced threats, leading to increased security. Continue reading...

Special session comes after surprise veto from governor, whose proposed new rules go well beyond' scope of original billOhio lawmakers will return to the statehouse on Wednesday as house Republicans attempt to revive HB 68, a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.The special session comes after Governor Mike DeWine surprised fellow Republicans by vetoing HB 68 late last month, a move celebrated by LGBTQ+ advocates and parents of transgender children in the state. Continue reading...

Even sham elections need to be conducted effectively - get them wrong and they can jeopardise a whole regimeIn December, Vladimir Putin finally ended any suspense by announcing his candidacy for a fifth term as Russia's president. With a blend of resignation and cynicism, the world will watch as the country gears up for another presidential election" - a term I employ with the heaviest of quotation marks.In the lead-up to the election, Russia will undergo a cosmetic transformation. Streets will be cleaned, buildings given a fresh coat of paint and pensioners handed their electoral encouragement: a free meal. On the day of the election, students and state employees will be herded to polling stations to perform their most important job: voting in an orchestrated display of fealty to Putin.Olga Chyzh researches political violence and repressive regimes. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto Continue reading...

For many Americans, warmth is just another unattainable luxury. In upstate New York, a woodsman is quietly easing the sufferingOn a chilly morning in Woodstock, New York, frozen dew turns lawns a glistening white as puffs of smoke from chimneys float across the road.Winter is here," declares the woodsman, a broad-shouldered man in a black-and-gray checked wool shirt and navy denim Carhartt overalls as he sharpens his orange chainsaw. Hanging from his neck is a medallion that reads St Christopher protect us"- a gift from a red-carpet-level comedian who once collaborated with him on a theater project. Continue reading...

Republican candidate's poll numbers are not high enough to take part in Iowa debate as campaign says not to write him offPredictions of the end of Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for the presidential nomination are premature, a senior aide insisted, as the biotech entrepreneur who enjoyed early success with a brash and aggressive campaign contemplated a final Iowa debate taking place on Wednesday night without him.Tricia McLaughlin, Ramaswamy's senior adviser and communications director, said: The energy we're seeing on the ground in Iowa is electric, and that level of turnout and excitement is far surpassing the cratering DeSantis and astroturfed Haley campaigns." Continue reading...

Mainstream parties of the left are in decline. But progressive politics is thriving far beyond its traditional blue-collar base

Authorities describe Houthi attack with drones and missiles as largest yet in the Red Sea. Plus, why speed dating is back in fashion

I take more offence at the idea that it's upsetting to discuss a public person's sexuality in 2024 - especially when no one seems perturbed at gossip about celebrities' straight sex livesFor about 18 months there was incredibly disruptive construction going on next door to me. It drove me mad. Like verging-on-a-nervous-breakdown mad. I became obsessed with the history of construction-related legislation in Philadelphia and pitched one of my editors a 10,000-word piece on planning permission and party walls. They looked at me kindly and said no".All of which to say: sometimes you need an editor to rein you in. Sometimes you need an editor to tell you that while it's OK for you to be weirdly obsessed about something, it might be best if you didn't go down a rabbit hole on the opinion pages of a national newspaper. Continue reading...

Federal judges sided with a Texas law that allows the state to push pregnant patients to the brink of death before allowing medically necessary abortionDo doctors have an obligation under federal law to keep their patients alive, even if their patients happen to be pregnant women? Do doctors have an obligation to prevent maiming - or irreversible organ damage, or other kinds of serious bodily harm - and if so, does that obligation extend even to women? Do women have a right to access medically necessary care even if they are pregnant? No, according to the US fifth circuit court.That's the conclusion reached by a three-judge panel recently in Texas v Becerra, a case in which Texas sued the Biden administration over guidance that directed all hospitals receiving federal funds to perform necessary stabilizing treatment" on patients - including abortions on pregnant patients undergoing medical emergencies.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

With the regular season in the books, we look at six of the best scores from the last few months in the NFLMaybe one of the most head-scratching touchdowns ever scored in the NFL owing to the improbability - 3.2% according to the prediction models - that the pass could be completed in the first place. We begin with Russell Wilson faking the handoff, pedaling back and then spinning to evade a defender. Watching for the first time one assumes, much like the Bills defenders and the entire refereeing crew, that the laws of physics simply do not allow Sutton to make the catch while still in play. Joe Buck agreed until a dramatic change of heart mid-sentence: He did not get both feet ... down!?" Colorado Ballet should recast their lead in February's performance of Jekyll and Hyde. Continue reading...

I know I don't need any of this stuff. But my head is spinning at all the goodies coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las VegasI am a sucker for a gadget, especially of the domestic kind. So it was a pleasure to read about the gizmos on display recently at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Particular favourites were the voice-activated bidet (I have always believed in water over wiping - better yet, both - and have a theory that we are being brainwashed by big tissue"); a pillow that adjusts the sleeper if they snore; and a robot mop-vacuum hybrid that claims to seek out stains.I will admit that there is something of the last days of Rome about CES. Here it is, the culmination of efforts from some of the greatest tech minds of our generation, solving problems that were ... not really problems to begin with. Like this year's much-lauded reveal of the see-through TV. That's right, it looks like glass when it's off, finally addressing the issue of a television looking like a television. Continue reading...

Decision by archbishop on Alex Crow in sharp contrast to decision on different priest who sexually molested multiple boysThe Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who married a recent high school graduate after meeting her through his ministry, fleeing to Europe with her and facing law enforcement scrutiny, has been permanently ousted from the priesthood, a consequence few clergymen ever endure.Alex Crow's removal as a priest - known as laicization - by the Vatican had taken effect by 5 January and was confirmed in a letter from the Catholic church's worldwide leader, Pope Francis, according to an announcement from the archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama. Continue reading...

The addition of Luis Suarez has brought more star power to Miami. But with an older roster and a packed schedule, can they compete at the top of MLS?The names just keep rolling in for Inter Miami.When Lionel Messi joined the club midway through the 2023 MLS season, Miami quickly added Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba - two of Messi's teammates from his time at Barcelona. Then, just before the new year, Inter Miami added another former Barcelona player to their squad in the form of striker Luis Suarez. Continue reading...

A new book argues that basketball was at its peak when the Lakers, Pistons, Bulls and Celtics fought it out during the 1987-88 seasonFourteen seconds. That's how close the Detroit Pistons were to a championship in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA finals. Leading by one point over the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit had possession. Then momentum shifted: A referee made a much-discussed foul call on the Pistons' controversial center, Bill Laimbeer. The decision put Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the line; he made both free throws. LA went on to win, then prevailed in a similarly dramatic Game 7 for the title.This is a pivotal moment from a new book by Rich Cohen called When the Game Was War: The NBA's Greatest Season. The book argues that the excitement, excellence and revolutionary star play of the 1987-88 season set an unparalleled standard. Continue reading...

The pattern of killing cannot be denied. Is there a lack of sympathy because the victims aren't American or European?I am in awe of Wael Dahdouh's strength to haul himself back in front of the camera and focus on the suffering of others even as he has repeatedly endured his own personal hell. The face of Al Jazeera's reporting throughout Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza was on air in October when he learned that his wife, seven-year-old daughter, 15-year-old son and one-year-old grandson were killed in an attack. Still he went on reporting.Last month, Dahdouh himself was wounded and his cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, killed in the Israeli bombing of a UN-run school used as a shelter. Then on Sunday, an Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Gaza killed Dahdouh's eldest son, 27-year-old Hamza, who also worked for Al Jazeera, along with another journalist.Chris McGreal writes for Guardian US and is a former Guardian correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem Continue reading...

If the Tesla CEO studied the Nordic labour movement like he studies car batteries, he'd see that collective bargaining can suit employers tooElon Musk, the notoriously anti-union CEO of the electric car giant Tesla, finds himself on the ropes in his dispute with Swedish workers. After more than two months of strikes - the first against Tesla anywhere in the world - 10 Swedish unions have so far launched industrial action against the company and the pressure is growing.The issue at the core of the original dispute concerns Tesla and the Swedish industrial union IF Metall, which sought a collective agreement to provide better wages and benefits for mechanics in Tesla's repair shops. The union's members in Sweden have been on strike since 27 October.German Bender is chief analyst at the progressive Swedish thinktank Arena and a former visiting research fellow at Harvard Law School Continue reading...

A group of men belonging to a Hasidic Jewish community in New York were arrested on Monday in a dispute over an illegal tunnel secretly dug at a historic synagogue, which has since been closed. Action by law enforcement after the tunnel came to light led to a brawl between police and those who created the passageways. The Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters, located in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City, was in chaos on Tuesday as Jewish leaders and police faced off against what Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for the Chabad, called a 'group of extremist students'

Brawl erupted between police and those who created passageway and wanted it to remain at Chabad-Lubavitch headquartersA group of men belonging to a Hasidic Jewish community in New York were arrested on Monday amid a dispute over an illegal tunnel secretly dug into the side of a historic synagogue, which has since been closed.Action by law enforcement after the tunnel came to light led to a brawl between police and those who had created the passageway and wanted it to remain. Continue reading...

Hospital stay that Joe Biden did not know about was for prostate cancer surgery and to treat urinary tract infection, doctors sayJoe Biden did not learn that his defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, had prostate cancer until Tuesday, the White House has said, minutes after it was disclosed to the public along with news of an infection that had also been kept under wraps.Austin prompted confusion followed by uproar when it emerged that he had recently, secretly been hospitalized for surgery and again later to treat a urinary tract infection related to that operation. Continue reading...