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I think of the fear and empty fridges in Ceausecu's Romania - and I'll be thinking of Ukraine and Georgia on 9 JuneIt's December 1989 and a young woman is sitting in a Bucharest theatre, watching a sold-out performance of Hamlet. The air is laden with danger. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Marcellus is about to say. Nearly 35 years later that woman, my mum, still remembers how electric the atmosphere inside the theatre was.Everyone knew exactly what the line meant, but no one uttered a peep. It was common knowledge that secret police agents were watching. Any hint of support for Marcellus's words guaranteed arrest. On that day in early December, my mum couldn't have imagined that within weeks, the Ceauescu dictatorship would be over. That we'd always have enough food in the fridge, freedom of speech, freedom of choice over our bodies, agency. That support for a line of Shakespeare wouldn't mean arrest. That we'd be free. That I'd be sitting here, writing this, to you. Continue reading...

Ex-president in Arizona warns appeal courts to step up and straighten things out' and insists he committed no crimesIn his first campaign rally after being convicted of 34 felonies, former president Donald Trump recalled how he just went through a rigged" trial with a highly conflicted" judge despite there being no crime".The court cases Trump faces have become a mainstay of his campaigning throughout the last year, where he frequently tells his followers that the charges are a form of election interference and designed to tamp down the Maga movement. Continue reading...

Lynch, who faced 15 counts of fraud over $11.1bn purchase of Autonomy by HP, says he's elated' and grateful to the jury'British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was found not guilty on Thursday on all 15 counts of fraud he faced over the $11.1bn purchase of his company Autonomy by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.Lynch's trial began in March in San Francisco after a lengthy battle over his extradition from England to the US. He was first charged in 2018, accused of inflating sales, misleading regulators and duping his eventual buyer. Continue reading...

California supreme court greenlights project that protesters say will add noise pollution to already dense historic parkA California supreme court ruling will allow student housing at University of California, Berkeley, to be built at the historic People's Park.The court on Thursday ruled that a new law enacted in 2023 invalidates the claims by two local organizations that sued the school, saying students living in downtown Berkeley would add noise pollution to an already dense area. The project set off years of protests over the park - a landmark that is a touchstone of counterculture. Continue reading...

Rightwing podcaster ordered by judge to surrender to authorities following conviction for contempt of CongressSteve Bannon, the rightwing podcaster and vociferous Donald Trump cheerleader, has been ordered to surrender to authorities by 1 July to begin a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress.The order was issued by US district judge Carl Nichols - who was appointed to the bench by Trump - after he accepted prosecutors' argument that Bannon should serve his sentence following the rejection of his appeal last month by a three-judge panel. Continue reading...

State is considered a high-intensity trafficking spot where cocaine sharks' may be consuming the drugs underwaterDivers in Key West, Florida, have discovered more than a dozen packages of suspected cocaine in the Atlantic Ocean.On Wednesday, the sheriff's office in Monroe county announced the discovery, saying that divers found 25kg of individually wrapped packages of suspected cocaine that were located approximately 100ft underwater. Continue reading...

President warns at 80th anniversary that democracy is under greater threat than at any time since second world warJoe Biden has marked the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy with an impassioned call to western allies to continue supporting Ukraine in the face of the unending struggle between dictatorship and freedom".Speaking on Thursday at a ceremony at the Normandy American cemetery attended by his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and dozens of surviving veterans from the second world war, Biden drew parallels between the Allied troops who fought to free Europe and the alliance of nations that came together to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression. Continue reading...

Hallie Biden, who had relationship with Hunter Biden after brother's death, says she panicked' and threw gun in trashThe widow of Hunter Biden's brother told jurors in his federal gun trial about the moment she found the gun in his truck, describing how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it into a trash can outside a market near her home.I panicked, and I wanted to get rid of them," she testified about finding the gun and ammunition in the vehicle's console in October 2018. I didn't want him to hurt himself, and I didn't want my kids to find it and hurt themselves." Continue reading...

Iga Swiatek moved closer to a third straight Roland Garros title with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Coco Gauff, while Jasmine Paolini defeated 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 6-1All 10 of Gauff's defeats by Swiatek have been in straight sets, including the 2022 final at Roland Garros and in last year's quarter-finals. What's hard for the 20-year-old in this match-up is that for all of her strengths - her backhand, her athleticism, her mentality - she's got an iffy forehand that Swiatek can target with her own forehand, which is so powerful and top-spin heavy.And here come the players, headphones on, as they always are. Which is a shame because they probably don't fully hear the loud reception they get from the crowd. But it's good to see that the stands are nearly full. The Parisian patrons have been a bit tardy so far this fortnight, but they don't want to be late for this one. Continue reading...

The Israeli leader is weak at home, unpopular among Jewish Americans and undermining peace. We shouldn't prop him upWhen Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, feels squeezed at home - and trapped by a Democratic White House - he turns to his most trusted consigliere, Ron Dermer, to fix things. Dermer, an American-born Israeli who functions like a Republican Party operative, is the Bibi whisperer on Capitol Hill. His official title in the Netanyahu government is Minister of Strategic Affairs. In practice, he is a Republican fixer.During a previous US administration, Dermer was the one who worked with then-Republican House speaker John Boehner to have his boss address a joint session of Congress, infuriating Barack Obama and his then vice-president Joe Biden by going behind their backs. That time it was to try to derail the Obama-initiated Iran nuclear agreement.Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK and Israeli publications Continue reading...

Some Republicans who think Trump poses a danger to the US are considering voting blue for the first time in their livesChris Rauen is a self-described Reagan Republican" who has never voted for a Democrat in his life. He had never even considered it - until now.After Donald Trump's refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election and his conduct during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Rauen determined he would not - could not - vote for him again. Continue reading...

American says she is sad but determined' after Italian court upholds her convictionAmanda Knox has said an Italian court's decision to uphold her slander conviction for wrongly accusing a bar owner of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher was unfair and incorrect" and vowed to continue her fight against this injustice".Knox, 36, left through a back exit of a Florence appeals court on Wednesday and cancelled a planned press conference after judges rejected her appeal to have the conviction dropped. Continue reading...

Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson installed by Mike Johnson at direction of Trump, apparently without consulting chairTwo far-right Republicans have been appointed to the highly sensitive House of Representatives' intelligence committee at the direction of Donald Trump, a move likely to antagonise the security establishment.Representatives Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Ronny Jackson of Texas, known for their fierce loyalty to Trump and vocal support of his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, were installed by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, ahead of other qualified GOP members and apparently without consulting the body's chair, Mike Turner. Continue reading...

My day consists of staring at different sized glowing rectangles - sometimes multiple at a time. This is called living life to its fullestThe primary task of all parents is to worry. You are given a thousand things to worry about across the course of the day, ranging all the way from What's that in their mouth?" to How am I going to get this cleaning done?" across to How will we get through the rest of the year?" and all the way back to OK, they've got something else in their mouth now. What is it?"Once we are done with the immediate worries, we have the joy of worrying in the abstract, about things entirely out of our control. This again moves on a spectrum all the way from whether they will be a good person to whether they will have a breathable atmosphere. Of all of these, one of the most talked about, stressed about, and judged by other parents about topics is screen time. It's something that constantly plays on my mind. Every moment my child so much as glances at an electronic billboard I can feel a countdown timer click over in my head. I try to calm myself by remembering how I was raised on television and turned out fine. Then I realise that I currently work in television, believe television to be very important, and have absolutely not turned out fine". Continue reading...

After eight months of support, a US attempt to call Israel's bluff has failed - and the PM now has his own choices to makeIf you think reports of Netanyahu rejecting an Israeli proposal are bizarre, think again. After all, this isn't so much George Orwell's 1984 but Benjamin Netanyahu's 2024. The moment the Israeli leader stipulated that Israel would reserve the right to return to war", it was clear that the Israeli proposal" presented by the US president, Joe Biden, last Friday, to end hostilities with a three-part hostage release and ceasefire deal, was dead in the water. Netanyahu wasn't just placating his extreme rightwing coalition but reneging on an agreement that he had never wanted in the first place.The proposal, which Biden said had emerged from negotiations with leaders of Israel, Qatar, and Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries", offered a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages". The plan included a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as part of its first phase and would also have seen the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, along with, in the latter stages, the brokering of a permanent ceasefire. That's where Netanyahu's stipulations, conditions and interpretation of the conflict makes any deal that obfuscates his goal to destroy Hamas" unattainable, even if technically it is Hamas that seems to have rejected it. Continue reading...

His 34 guilty verdicts should come as a relief. Instead, they are an ominous sign of how far our politics has been degradedNot to diminish the capacity of the British for public disorder, but there is something darkly comic about watching, split-screen style, the contrast between the UK and US in the run-up to their general elections. While in the US, the former president and frontrunner becomes a convicted felon who shares videos referring to the possibility of establishing a unified reich", the UK's prime minister enjoys a drink in a cafe by the river as a boatload of Lib Dems, holding placards and waving vaguely sardonically, gently bobs down the river behind him.In the US, the threat of political violence becomes ever more present, with a movie imagining civil war in the republic topping the box office and Trump facing further charges of election interference. In Britain, a news alert at the top of the week announces: Drink thrown at Nigel Farage during campaign visit to Clacton." (It was a banana milkshake, and of course it was Clacton. Where else could it have been?) Britain has experienced sustained political violence more recently than the US, as British people love to point out to Irish Americans fondly valorising ye olde IRA. But held up against what's happening in in the US, and for all the Tory party's awfulness of the past 14 years, Rishi Sunak's appeal to the British electorate on Tuesday night made him look about as threatening as a Beatrix Potter villain.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Police cleared traffic and pedestrians from bridge as cargo ship went nearly full throttle through South Carolina harborA large cargo ship lost control of its engines and went nearly full throttle through a South Carolina harbor, prompting the closure of one of the busiest bridges in the state.The incident comes after an out-of-control cargo ship smashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on 26 March after losing power, bringing the span down and killing six construction workers. Continue reading...

Families of people who died in one of Riverside county's jails say they lack confidence in the system investigating their loved ones deathsIn Riverside, California, the families of several people who have died in the county's jails are mounting an uphill battle: to force the creation of an independent coroner's office.Their fight comes amid a headline-making spike in jail deaths in this sprawling county east of Los Angeles. In 2022, at least 19 people died while held in Riverside county detention facilities, according to California department of justice data. That's a higher rate of jail deaths than in LA county that year, which had three times as many inmates. Last year, at least 14 people died in the Riverside county detention centers. Continue reading...

Israel claimed the targeted school contained a militant compound, an allegation rejected by Hamas. Plus, UN urges global ban on fossil fuel adsGood morning.At least 30 people, including five children, were killed by an Israeli strike on a UN school on Thursday in the central Gaza Strip, according to health officials in the territory.Here's the latest with the impending famine in Gaza: Two UN organizations said more than 1 million people were expected to face death and starvation" by mid-July.And the latest from Jerusalem: Violent clashes broke out during the annual Jerusalem Flag Day march, which commemorates the anniversary of Israel taking control and occupying East Jerusalem in 1967.Which case is this one again? Trump was charged alongside more than a dozen associates last year with racketeering over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state, after Georgia voted for Joe Biden to become US president. The charges stem in part from the phone call Trump made to Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to find 11,780 votes". Continue reading...

Hesen Jabr's story is a chilling reminder that employers in the US have far too much power over workers' speechHesen Jabr, a labor and delivery nurse, was recently honored by her employer, NYU Langone Health in New York, for her work with grieving mothers who had lost babies during pregnancy and childbirth. A supervisor read from a note that said Jabr not only provides stellar patient care, but also provides support for the rest of the nursing staff so that we can all live up to her example". Jabr, who is Palestinian American, graciously accepted the award and took the opportunity to devote a small portion of her remarks to draw a connection with grieving mothers in Gaza.When she reported to her first shift back at work, however, she was sent to meet with senior leadership at the hospital. Her bosses, she has said, told her she had put others at risk", ruined the ceremony" and offended people" with her remarks. She was sent back to work but several hours later was read a termination letter and escorted out by a police officer. NYU Langone told the New York Times that Jabr was fired for bringing her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace".Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin, and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities Continue reading...

I learned to cook by watching my mother, who flew around the kitchen in a flurry of post-work efficiency. She never measured a thing, but she taught me what it takes to feed peopleI don't follow recipes. In fact, I think anyone who does is a giant baby.Which isn't to say I hate cookery books. I have several in my kitchen. I look at the pictures and sometimes even read the list of ingredients. But a step-by-step set of instructions on how to cook dinner? What's wrong with you? Continue reading...

The second world war is not fodder for the culture wars. We owe it to those who fought to keep it that wayNigel Farage launched his campaign to become Clacton's MP by citing a recent survey that revealed more than half of 18- to 34-year-olds couldn't correctly identify what happened on D-day. Praising a local veteran travelling to Normandy for the 80th anniversary commemorations, the Reform party boss described the poll as representing a complete failure of the education system ... as if we're telling our youngsters to be ashamed of our past". It formed a key part of a speech full of supposedly patriotic, anti-immigrant, anti-trans rhetoric.A narrow, nostalgic view of the second world war that connects the conflict with culture war issues and a sense of contemporary British decline is frequently exploited by reactionaries such as Farage, both as a political tool and a stick with which to beat supposedly ignorant young people. Jibes that millennials and Gen Z are too woke" to fight might in fact be familiar to anyone who has read letters between British commanders of the second world war. General Montgomery, one of the architects of the D-day invasion, wrote in 1942 that the trouble with our British lads is that they are not killers by nature". A 1943 army report, meanwhile, blamed books, cinema, plays and education for making soldiers weak under fire.Luke Turner is a writer, editor and the author of two books, Men at War and the Wainwright prize-shortlisted Out of the Woods Continue reading...

Dallas or Boston? Our contributors pick the winner, key players and dark horses before the season's grand finale tips offTheir trade deadline moves. The Luke Doni-Kyrie Irving axis is what makes the Mavs go. But acquiring PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford transformed this team. The pair beefed up the team's frontcourt and helped ratchet up the defensive intensity, covering up for any flaws in Doni and Irving. OC Continue reading...

The former United assistant coach discusses his transition to the top job in Minnesota, the league's unique challenges and learning from the NBAEric Ramsay was looking ahead to Minnesota United's most difficult run of games since he was appointed head coach in March. A road trip featuring games in Colorado and Los Angeles in the space of five days, before returning to Minnesota, posed a logistical task as well as a sporting one. Tight schedules and travel have caught out many newcomers to MLS, but the former Manchester United assistant coach was keen to embrace that side of the league.Part of the appeal of this league to me, and part of the reason I wanted to take my first steps here as a head coach, was because some of the things we're having to deal with are things you wouldn't necessarily have to deal with at home," Ramsay says. Continue reading...

Storms in US midwest and on east coast cause chaos as workers respond to reports of people trapped in collapsed structuresTornadoes in the US midwest and on the east coast were causing chaos on Wednesday, killing a two-year-old boy and injuring his mother outside Detroit when a tree fell on their suburban home.Meanwhile, in Maryland, emergency workers were responding to reports of collapsed structures with people trapped inside after another tornado there. Continue reading...

New York City police department to revoke Trump's license after suspending permit to carry a concealed weapon in April 2023Donald Trump's license to carry a gun is expected to be revoked by the New York City police department now that he has been convicted of a felony, according to reports on Wednesday evening.The former president once boasted that he was so popular with the electorate, I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters." He made the claim in January 2016 during the Iowa caucuses campaign. Continue reading...

Police arrest 13 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who staged occupation of office while roughly 50 others linked arms outsidePolice at Stanford University arrested a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had barricaded themselves inside the campus president's office on Wednesday morning to demand that the school divest from Israel.A group of about a dozen students staged an occupation of the office of Richard Saller, Stanford's president, while roughly 50 others linked arms outside, the Stanford Daily reported. The group entered the building around 6am on Wednesday, the final day of classes for the spring quarter, and said they intended to stay until the university met its demands.The Associated Press contributed Continue reading...

Russia expert warned Putin would see verdict as chance to undermine US's global influence and boost his own standingVladimir Putin has described the recent criminal conviction of Donald Trump as politically motivated and claimed that it had burned" the idea that the US was a leading democracy.Trump last week became the first former US head of state ever convicted of a felony crime after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 charges over efforts to conceal a sexual liaison with an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Continue reading...

As expected, Right to Contraception act falls short of garnering the 60 votes Senate Democrats needed to advance the billSenate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill that would have recognized a legal right to contraception, weeks after Donald Trump made - and quickly walked back - comments indicating he was willing to restrict access to birth control.As expected, the Right to Contraception act fell short of garnering the 60 votes Senate Democrats needed to advance the bill. Before the vote, Democrats in effect acknowledged that they were daring Republicans to go on the record opposing the right to something that almost all American women use at some point in their lifetime. Continue reading...

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Republican extremist accuses Democrats of worshiping' Floyd in interview posted on XThe Congressional Black Caucus has condemned Marjorie Taylor Greene after she accused Democrats of worshiping George Floyd, the 46-year old Black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020.On Monday, Greene, a Republican representative of Georgia, went on an expletive-filled rant in which she accused Democrats including Jamie Raskin of Maryland of worshiping Floyd, whose death sparked global outrage and protests over police brutality. Continue reading...

Comments come after US senator confirmed that Ukraine has recently used US weapons to strike inside RussiaRussia's President Vladimir Putin has slammed the west's delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine, warning Moscow could supply similar arms to other countries to attack western targets.If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don't we have the right to supply our weapons," Putin told a press conference in St Petersburg. Continue reading...

Veterans and world leaders attend ceremonies to mark 80 years since allied troops landed in France during the second world war Continue reading...

Roy Irvin alleges he was reprimanded as insubordinate' for flagging issues on 787 Dreamliner planesAnother Boeing whistleblower has come forward with claims that safety and quality issues were ignored and concerns were dismissed by management.Roy Irvin, who worked at Boeing's plant in South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 as a quality investigator, alleged that he was reprimanded as insubordinate" for flagging safety and quality issues on 787 Dreamliner planes that he inspected. Continue reading...

Authorities agree on payout to Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, who suffered serious injuries while handcuffed inside vehicleColorado authorities have agreed to pay $8.5m to a woman who was left handcuffed in a parked police vehicle that was hit by a freight train.The incident took place on 16 September 2022, near Platteville, Colorado, after Pablo Vazquez, then a Platteville police sergeant, had stopped Yareni Rios-Gonzalez following a reported road-rage incident involving a gun. Continue reading...

The prime minister assumed he would sweep back to power in a landslide. Voters have wisely chosen otherwiseNemesis has followed swift on the heels of NarendraModi's hubris. He is set to be the first Indianprime minister to serve a third term since its first, Jawaharlal Nehru. Yet rarely has an election victory looked more like defeat.He boasted that he would win a third full majority in the world's largest democracy - suggesting his party would win as many as 400 seats - and said he had been sent by God. Instead of a coronation, he got a rebuke. Far from winning a landslide, his Bharatiya Janata party's seats fell from 303 to 240, leaving him reliant on political allies. The BJP had made a major push in the south and managed to take a seat in Kerala. But Mr Modi's vote slumped in his own constituency of Varanasi, in the north. Indian electors have humbled the strongman. Continue reading...

One minute before the verdict was read, wifi wasn't working - such was a typical day covering the most atypical court proceeding most Americans will probably seeIt was 5.06pm Thursday.Donald Trump, the first president in US history to face a criminal trial, was one minute from hearing the verdict in his momentous case. History, or at least the first draft, was about to be written. Continue reading...

Attorneys say restrictions on referring to participants in trial inhibits ex-president's first amendment rightsAs Donald Trump fights for Judge Juan Merchan to lift a gag order barring him from speaking publicly about key figures in his New York trial, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office are urging the judge to keep the order in place.The court has an obligation to protect the integrity of these proceedings and the fair administration of justice at least through the sentencing hearing and the resolution of any post-trial motions," wrote the prosecutors in a letter on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Some might call them danger zones. But dumps are ideal for helping youngsters expand their own limits - and have the time of their lifeHow do you entertain a group of small boys for the day? Take them to a skip, of course.This week, my son's school was closed for an inset day". As is tradition on inset days, several of us had forgotten all about it, which meant a last-minute panic to place the kids. Because I work from home (and by work" we mean this, so, you know, it's a relative term) and have just the one child, I am always very happy to scoop up a few extra playmates for the day. After all, there are only so many times I can watch someone hit a ball of snot at a wall. Which meant I found myself in charge of a group of four boys, all under the age of six, with no plan. As the comedian, author and heart-throb Rob Delaney puts it: A house with three boys can seem like a ramshackle zoo on the edge of town: loud, dangerous and terrifying to the observer." This is very much a mode I lean into. In fact, at one point during the morning I looked down and noticed that I was standing, in a set of blue overalls, chopping up fruit, which I then laid out on a tray and threw on to the floor of my son's bedroom, before walking steadily and swiftly towards the door. All I needed was a tetanus shot and a name badge and I was effectively running an animal sanctuary.Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood Continue reading...

Trumpists call on former president to prosecute opponents if he regains power, saying Biden has weaponised' justice departmentDonald Trump's key supporters are urging him to prosecute and jail Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who led the criminal case resulting in his felony conviction, if the former president recaptures the White House in November.The push to target Bragg, a Democrat, is being led by Steve Bannon, who served as Trump's White House strategist early in his first term and is himself being prosecuted by the same district attorney over allegations that he defrauded donors to a scheme to fund a wall along the US-Mexico border. Continue reading...

The electorate has resurrected a viable opposition in parliament against a chastened BJP. But neither side is ready to face the immensity of the climate crisisThe Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has won more seats than the opposition alliance, and yet its victory tastes of defeat. Why?In the days leading to the election, the BJP's main slogan had been Abki baar, 400 Paar, a call to voters to send more than 400 of its candidates to the 543-member parliament. This slogan, voiced by Modi at his campaign rallies, set a high bar for the party. Most exit polls had predicted a massive victory for the BJP - and now the results, with that party having won only 240 seats, suggest that the electorate has sent a chastening message to the ruling party and trimmed its hubris. Continue reading...

Donald Payne suffered a heart attack on 6 April and died in hospital over two weeks later, after filing deadline for primaryA popular New Jersey progressive Democrat who served six terms as a congressman has won his party's primary for the state's 10th congressional district - despite dying in office more than a month ago.Representative Donald Payne, 65, suffered a heart attack on 6 April and died in hospital more than two weeks later - after the filing deadline for the primary, and too late for a vacancy committee to meet to replace him on the primary ballot. Continue reading...

Kahlila Williams became a major voice in the city's movement for social justice. Today, her commitment to holding those in power accountable remains steadfastA protest can be so many things at once. It can be a forum to fight injustice, an artistic release, an outlet for anger, a birthday party. Watch Kahlila Williams protest, and you'll see all of the above.The day before Kahlila's 17th birthday, in October 2020, she stood on the back of a truck holding a bullhorn, leading more than 100 people in chants of Black lives, they matter here." The truck rolled through downtown Los Angeles, past courthouses, city hall and police headquarters.This story was adapted from Don't Wait: Three Girls Who Fought for Change and Won by Sonali Kohli (Beacon Press, 2024). Excerpted with permission from Beacon Press. Continue reading...

Until the UK and other nuclear states are brave enough to disarm, the Doomsday Clock will keep ticking towards midnightSeventy-seven years ago, a group of scientists created a symbolic Doomsday Clock to measure humanity's proximity to self-destruction, or midnight". The hands move closer to - or further away from - midnight, depending on what existential threats exist at that particular time. Addressing the UN general assembly last year, the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, announced that the clock had moved to 90 seconds to midnight, declaring that humanity was perilously close to catastrophe. This is the closest the clock has ever stood to humanity's darkest hour," he said. We need to wake up - and get to work." Guterres named three perilous challenges. One, extreme poverty. Two, an accelerating climate crisis. And three, global nuclear war.Lie flat in a ditch and cover the exposed skin of the head and hands." In 1980, Margaret Thatcher's government published a pamphlet, Protect and Survive, advising people what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. In what was in essence a DIY handbook, people were instructed to hide under a table, place bodies of dead relatives in another room or, if outside, lie on the floor and hope for the best. Adopting an optimistic attitude toward our extinction, the 32-page booklet was ridiculed by a population that knew there was no survival kit for nuclear annihilation.