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I'm a friend to both Israelis and Palestinians, and all my experience tells me this: tough negotiation will achieve what bombs cannotAfter the Hamas terror of 7 October and Benjamin Netanyahu's horrific retaliation in Gaza, some long overdue truths need stating. First, Israel is not going to destroy Hamas", as its leaders promise - not even by destroying Gaza.Although Israel is damaging Hamas militarily, maybe significantly, with many of its tunnels eliminated and its fighters fleeing, Hamas is a movement and an ideology that, in many respects, Netanyahu's extremism helped to promote.Lord Hain is a former UK Middle East minister and Northern Ireland secretary of stateDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Colorado Republican ducks rematch for House seat after Barbra Streisand and Ryan Reynolds chip in 0.03% of rival's war chestThe far-right Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert has blamed Hollywood elites" including singer Barbra Streisand and actor Ryan Reynolds for her decision to switch districts ahead of her 2024 re-election campaign.In an interview on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast over the weekend, Boebert alluded to how her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch's campaign had received a $1,000 donation from Streisand in April and a $500 contribution from Reynolds in March. Continue reading...

Despite its vast mineral wealth, corruption keeps the Congolese poor - and western governments help the regime stay in powerProvisional results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) presidential election have indicated Felix Tshisekedi is the winner. As his regime secures another five years, the incumbent will once again be looking to the west to help keep him in power, as the US government did in 2018.The DRC has lurched from crisis to crisis for more than 20 years. This is in part because the west has blocked the creation of an international criminal tribunal for the country, which is needed to end the culture of impunity fuelling violence, famine and the climate crisis killing and displacing Congolese people. Continue reading...

Exchange student Kai Zhuang, 17, discovered in tent by police days after being reported missingA Chinese exchange student who fell victim to a cyber-kidnapping" scam, in which his parents were extorted for $80,000, was found alive but cold and scared" in a tent in the Utah wilderness, police said.Kai Zhuang, 17, was reported missing on Thursday after his parents in China told officials at his host high school in Riverdale, Utah, that he appeared to have been kidnapped and a ransom had been demanded. Continue reading...

Chico is one of several statewide districts that saw student privacy and parental rights' take center stage in 2023Kelly Staley first learned about the lawsuit from a reporter. A parent was suing her, the superintendent of the Chico unified school district, over an alleged parental secrecy" policy, the reporter said, claiming a school counselor had encouraged her fifth-grader to adopt a new gender and that the school had withheld that information.Staley, who has overseen this northern California school district for nearly two decades, was caught off-guard. The district has never had any such policy, she said, but adhered to the student privacy guidance set by the state department of education that prevents schools from outing students to their parents without permission. Continue reading...

Five people on coastguard aircraft missing after collision with Japan Airlines plane. Plus, Israel's supreme court rejects Netanyahu's judicial overhaul law

When my children gifted me a turntable last year, I was dubious. But I've since rediscovered the beauty of analog music

If you want to do something positive, devote your energy to fighting the very real possibility of a second Trump presidencyThis week not only marks the start of a new year, but also a terrifyingly high-stakes ride for America - with slightly over 10 months to the presidential election of 2024.By a slim margin, according to polls, more Americans support Donald Trump than Joe Biden. More disapprove than approve of Biden's efforts to improve the nation's infrastructure, and more believe that Trump has a vision for the future" than believe Biden does.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

The recent coups and subsequent pacts in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are a source of hope in a sea of landlocked hopelessness

The NBA's two most touted first year players met for the first time as professionals last week. It would seem Wembanyama is further along, at least for nowThroughout the history of the National Basketball Association, one thing has almost always been true. The league is exceptionally difficult - and especially so for rookies. Unless your name is Magic Johnson, the first year of one's career portends struggle, heartbreak and mistakes aplenty. But what the NBA has also taught its players is that the name of the pro game is resilience. It's about what one does with those hard times that matters most. Fall, but get up. And when it comes to the 2023-24 season's two most hyped rookies - Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson, who were picked first and third in the 2023 draft, respectively - the new season is proving to be a test of all they've prized and prided themselves on in the past.Last week, the teenagers met for the first time in the NBA. The game, which was the opening of two back-to-back ones for the Spurs and Blazers, also marked the first occasion the two rookies squared off in opposing jerseys since October 2022 in a then-highly touted showcase, which pitted Henderson's G-League team against Wembanyama's Metropolitans 92 squad from the French top division. This time, it was Wemby's San Antonio Spurs playing against Henderson's Portland Trail Blazers in the City of Roses. With the teams struggling at the bottom of the Western Conference, the matchup shed light on the reality that last year's headlines won't quite carry over to this year. But led by championship coaches - Gregg Popovich for San Antonio and Chauncey Billups for Portland - the question remains: How will the rookies rise to the level of their decorated play-callers? Continue reading...

New train services, the Olympics and a single charger - amid big crises, it's vital to appreciate the progress that's still taking placeJose Manuel Barroso, the former prime minister of Portugal and former head of the European Commission, used to say that Europeans were in love with the intellectual glamour of pessimism". When I first heard him say that in 2005, I had just started as a correspondent in Brussels after a few years living in the US, and his words rang especially true. There was a stark contrast between the deeply rooted American cultural belief that things could only get better, and the routinely bleak view that prevailed in many European countries, even the wealthiest and most privileged ones. France, Belgium, Spain and Italy consistently rank high in global surveys of pessimism.Americans have become more pessimistic since then too, especially over partisan divisions. But in Europe negative, defeatist thinking is often thought to be more intellectually credible, regardless of actual events. Continue reading...

Research on UPFs should be a wake-up call - but if people miss out on nutrients in a quest to avoid them, is it really helping?If you consumed a lot of news last year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that strawberry yoghurt wants to murder you. Since last spring, a new obsession has spread across Britain: have you heard? Don't you know? UPF is our new food enemy. What is UPF? It is ultra-processed food. What is ultra-processed food? It can include cereal and sausages and fruit-flavoured yoghurts and instant soup. How exactly can I determine if something is ultra-murderous? Anecdotally, my friends don't seem to know the definition of UPF - but they do know they should be afraid of it.Another person who, by his own admission, hasn't quite mastered the definition is Chris van Tulleken, the infectious diseases doctor who wrote the bestselling book Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food ... and Why Can't We Stop? At the beginning of his book, he forgoes a long formal scientific definition" of UPF, instead arguing it can be boiled down to this: If it's wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn't usually find in a standard home kitchen, it's UPF." Continue reading...

A crowd of 47,313 turned out for the 15th version of the NHL Winter Classic on New Year's Day at Seattle's T-Mobile Park, where the Kraken shut out the Golden Knights by a 3-0 score Continue reading...

New York Republican Brandon Williams is latest to reveal he was victim of hoax call on Christmas DayAt least three members of Congress reported swatting" incidents over the past week, with New York Republican Brandon Williams being the latest to reveal that he was subject to an act of criminal harassment that generally involves prank-calling 911 to get a heavily-armed Swat team to show up at the target's home.Williams, who has represented Central New York since 2023, said police from Auburn, New York, had come to his home on Christmas Day after receiving a call claiming there was a crisis at his home. Continue reading...

California, Illinois and Colorado among states implementing red flag' laws after US ends 2023 with more mass shootings than daysNew gun safety laws are taking effect in several states around the US on 1 January after the country ended 2023 with more mass shootings than days.States including California, Illinois and Colorado are starting the year by implementing extreme risk protection orders, more commonly referred to as red flag" laws, as a means to prevent further gun violence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 655 mass shootings in the US in 2023. Continue reading...

President touts US job gains and says his resolution is to come back' while ex-president repeats unproven election rigging claimsThe likely candidates in the 2024 presidential match-up issued two starkly different new year messages to voters, with Joe Biden striking a note of cheerful optimism as his almost certain challenger Donald Trump, and Trump lashing out in a social media post laden with lies and conspiracy theories.The president and first lady Jill Biden, vacationing in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, offered a New Year's message touting US job gains and the performance of the US economy during his administration - a message that voters have so far refused to accept. Continue reading...

On the heels of a sports year that was chock full of surprises, Guardian US contributors make their bold predictions for the months to comeIn the year of the backup quarterback, Flacco's encore performance has been a genuine surprise. Just when it seemed as if the 38-year-old father of five might've been cooked, he came off the couch to win five of six starts and rally Cleveland to their second playoff berth in 21 years. Continue reading...

Ex-president ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, wiping out Biden's lead among crucial voting blocA new poll indicates former US president Donald Trump is gaining ground among Latino voters, wiping out incumbent Joe Biden's lead among the crucial, but diverse, voting bloc.A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared to Biden's 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters. Continue reading...

Kate Starbird says attacks have made research difficult, and claims of bias arise because of prevalence of lies from the rightA key researcher in the fight against election misinformation - who herself became the subject of an intensive misinformation campaign - has said her field gets accused of bias" precisely because it's now mainly rightwingers who spread the worst lies.Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, added that she feared that the entirely false story of rigged elections has now sunk in" for many Americans on the right. The idea that they're already going to the polls with the belief that they're being cheated means they'll misinterpret everything they see through that lens," she said. Continue reading...

List could be released as soon as Tuesday after deadline for objections to unsealing of names passes midnight MondayNearly 200 names connected to the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy could be released by a New York judge as soon as Tuesday, exposing or confirming the identities of dozens of associates of the disgraced financier that until now have only been known as John and Jane Does in court papers.A deadline for objections to the unsealing of the names passes at midnight on Monday, nearly nine years after victim Virginia Giuffre filed a single defamation claim against Maxwell, daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, in 2015, that in turn produced the names in legal depositions. Continue reading...

Given the state of the world, it's no surprise so many of us are turning to spooky stories as a form of escapeEverybody seems to be talking about ghosts right now. I turn up to dinners with friends, we're talking about ghosts. I sit in the office, the conversation is dominated by ghosts again. I'm scrolling through Facebook groups and reading ghost stories that I then try to tell my boyfriend about (he ignores me). It feels as if ghosts are suddenly having a moment, a strange little resurgence into the mainstream. I think ghosts may be in vogue.As for how and why ghosts have started to creep into polite conversation, there is a clear culprit. A few months ago the Amazon-owned podcast network Wondery published Ghost Story, a seven-part series hosted by the journalist Tristan Redman. Ghost Story focuses on a murder that occurred two generations ago in Redman's wife's family and, by absolute coincidence, took place in the house next door to where Redman grew up. Continue reading...

Man, identified in local media as Jason Carter, died in Maui after rescue attempt, police sayA shark attack has killed a man at a spot popular with swimmers and surfers in Hawaii despite a rescue attempt, local police said.In a statement Maui police said a 39-year-old man had died after being brought back to shore by rescuers at a beach area off the Hana Highway in Paia on the island on Maui. Continue reading...

Brazilian-born Nemuel DePaula wants his Lenita flower truck business to blossom in its brick-and-mortar locationNemuel DePaula has never been afraid of big pivots. The Brazil native immigrated to Boston at age 10, started his own graphic design business, Grita, while still in high school, and moved himself and the business across the country to Los Angeles in 2013. Four years later, DePaula took a gamble again with Lenita, the part-time mobile flower shop he launched and named after his mother.DePaula, 35, has been captivated by flowers since childhood. The first thing I ever stole was a rose," he said with a laugh as he recalled the perfect bloom he snipped from his neighbor's garden and slipped to his mom as a small child. Over the years, his aesthetic sensibilities evolved from purloined roses to less conventional species. His latest love is the graffiti anthurium", a tropical flower with a natural paint-splattered effect that resembles a bloodied orchid - but in a cool way. Continue reading...

When asked about the cause of the civil war, she failed to mention slavery once. That is no surpriseNikki Haley's feigning of staggering ignorance about the cause of the US civil war unintentionally revealed her quandary in the Republican party. It was not a gaffe. Though it was a stumble, it was not a mistake, but a message she has delivered for years and that has served her well until now. Her carefully crafted and closely memorized garble was a deracinated version of an old lie, which she had used before to attempt to mollify hostile camps in order to skid by. Some in the past praised her evasive formula as governor of South Carolina as her finest moment. It lifted her star. Yet one simple question instantly produced panicky rapid eye movements that are the telltale sign of a person desperately cornered, followed by an unstoppable stream of blather that she hoped would make it all evaporate into a meaningless ether but instead this time slid her into an abyss. Her performance, the most memorable of her entire career, was so devastating that even Ron DeSantis, the paragon of political aphasia, in the most cogent remark of his campaign, indeed his life, commented: Yikes." Nikki Haley turned Ron DeSantis woke.What was the cause of the United States civil war?" a man asked Haley at a campaign town hall in North Conway, New Hampshire. She reacted as if she were being physically threatened. Haley immediately turned her back to the questioner, breathed fast and heavy into the microphone, and walked quickly away. When she swiveled to face the crowd, she did not speak at first. Gaining her composure, she replied with an accusatory edge: Well, don't come with an easy question." Continue reading...

Ex-president has made increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian broadsides against prosecutors pursuing himAs Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.The former US president's vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to election interference" since he's seeking the presidency again, and that presidential immunity" protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden's 2020 victory. Continue reading...

From the economy to the climate crisis to abortion and US support for Ukraine, the presidential race is likely to encompass some key themesWhether or not the 2024 US presidential election presents the expected Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch, much will be at stake.From the future of reproductive rights to the chances of meaningful action on climate change, from the strength of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia to the fate of democracy in America itself, existential issues are set to come to the fore. Continue reading...

After losing four of five games from a 10-1 start, the once-mighty Philadelphia Eagles look finished. But a fellow mid-Atlantic club is still very much in the Super Bowl huntWith 2m40s left in the fourth quarter and the 11-4 Philadelphia Eagles and 3-12 Arizona Cardinals knotted at 31-all, a disgusted AJ Brown walked off the field shaking his head at his team's lackluster offensive playcalling. The Eagles, already in field goal range a reckless onside-kick attempt gifted them winning field position, went soft. On 1st-and-20 they dialed up a designed run for quarterback Jalen Hurts despite having one of the league's most effective rushers in D'Andre Swift. Four-yard gain. Hurts ran it again on second down, this time for a three-yard loss. Even saddled with a 3rd-and-19, most teams closing in on an NFC East title and eying return Super Bowl appearance with last year's MVP runner-up under center, would take a shot. Not the Eagles. They called a tunnel screen to running back Kenneth Gainwell that gained, well, only four yards.It was a pitiful series from a playcalling standpoint. Their conservative tack against an overmatched Cardinals team that had nothing to lose after being trailing 21-6 is a quintessential example of playing not to lose. Continue reading...

The new film about the British humanitarian who rescued 669 Czech Jewish children sticks to a feelgood script, and misses the more compelling realityBy the time he died in 2015 at the age of 106, Nicholas Winton was the nearest British equivalent to a secular saint.His basic story has been told many times. In late 1938, everyone in Prague was braced for an imminent German invasion. When a friend asked Winton to come and witness the developing humanitarian crisis for himself, he set about organising a series of eight Kindertransports, which eventually brought 669 Czech Jewish children to safety in Britain. Continue reading...

The tree's owner handed down the secret of the world's best Slovenian walnut roll - and a culture of safeguarding all lifeMy grandmother loved baking and was, therefore, an excellent baker. I can still see her massaging flour, sugar, eggs, yeast, butter and milk into dough and injecting the pastry with apricot jam to make buhteljni. I remember devouring her apple pies, pear pies, blueberry strudels, half-moon-shaped vanilla biscuits called kifeljki, quark rolls generously topped with cream, and fried yoghurt pastries, known as mike (little mice), while always wanting more. I can still hear her saying that to her, a sustainable farmer, baking was the closest she could get to the world of art". I regret never telling her that even though she wasn't graced with the life of an artist, she was nonetheless weaving something larger than her: a culture.Maybe she understood what she was doing after all. Once, she instructed me to never follow her recipes, but instead to adapt them however I saw fit. A culture, she was essentially saying, should be modified in line with the tastes and needs of the times. Continue reading...

The first-term senator said on Meet the Press that comments about him and his family had a negative effect on his mental healthSocial media made John Fetterman's battle with mental depression last year even more difficult, the Democratic US senator from Pennsylvania said Sunday.Fetterman said the comments on social media about him and his family played a role in the depression which sent him to a hospital for six weeks in February. It's an accelerant, absolutely," he said. Continue reading...

With Denmark's Queen Magrethe abdicating, Mary may come to fulfil an imaginative role as a local queen for Australians when her husband Prince Frederik accedes to the throneThe new year 2024 has begun with Queen Margrethe II of Denmark handing in a shock abdication. After 52 years of monarching, the sovereign of the wealthy little kingdom in the north has called it quits.World citizens who have never known another Danish queen - or, indeed, maybe have never known that a prosperous parliamentary social democracy in Europe had a queen at all - are now confronted with a sudden upset in the formal dinner seating. A succession is taking place - fortunately, without the formal public oiling of the new monarch, as is the British way.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah Griffin insist Trump's behavior would be worse if he wins second termThe re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 could end American democracy as we know it", according to three women who worked for him in the White House during his chaotic term in office.All three gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January Capitol attack staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse. Continue reading...

Over 300,000 people were on track to cross as Biden makes urgent efforts to curb migrant flows that have become political liabilityMore than 300,000 people were on track to cross the US-Mexico border in December without authorization and are being processed by American immigration officials, a tally that sets the latest monthly record, according to government figures obtained by CBS.The number of crossings, averaging roughly 8,400 apprehensions a day by US border agents, comes amid urgent efforts by the Joe Biden White House to curb migrant flows that have become a domestic political liability for him as he seeks re-election in 2024. Continue reading...

Man fatally shot his wife and their sons before dying by suicide in a suburban New York home, according to policeA police sergeant, his wife and their two sons - ages 10 and 12 - were found dead in a suburban home in New York in what police said was a triple murder-suicide.Watson Morgan, 49, a sergeant with the Bronxville police department, fatally shot his wife, Ornela Morgan, 43, and their sons before dying by suicide, police said. They were discovered just past midnight Saturday at the family's home in Clarkstown - 18 miles north of Manhattan - after Morgan failed to show up for work at the police department in nearby Bronxville.The Associated Press contributed reportingIn the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

After a lifetime of activism, a son of Jesse Jackson marks his first year as a politician representing IllinoisJonathan Jackson's eyes brim with tears as he recalls the 1984 campaign of his father, Jesse, to become the United States' first Black president. To see my great-grandmother, who couldn't read or write, vote," the US congressman says, his voice faltering. It let me see how meaningful it was to be able to vote."Jackson is a lifelong political activist who has come to elected office late in the game. He was a spokesperson for the Rainbow Push Coalition, an international human and civil rights organisation founded by his father. In Chicago the younger Jackson fought against the closure of public schools and worked on false-confessions cases involving the police. More recently, he co-sponsored a House resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Continue reading...

Democrat speaks on supreme court stepping in to adjudicate Maine and Colorado rulings that removed Trump from ballotsSupreme court justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from ruling on Donald Trump's eligibility for the 2024 presidential election, a prominent Democrat said Sunday, warning that the leading Republican candidate is seeking to become a political martyr" as he pursues a second presidency.Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin was speaking ahead of the nation's highest court stepping in to adjudicate recent state rulings in Maine and Colorado that struck the former president from the general election primaries under the US constitution's 14th amendment insurrection clause. Continue reading...

A blizzard of confetti in the early 90s was supposed to help cleanse an area known for its porn theaters and peep showsOn 31 December 1992, armchair revelers tuned to CBS for the annual New Year's Eve festivities, broadcast live from New York. The Cheers actor and emcee for the night Jay Thomas volleyed hosting duties to Fame actor Nia Peeples, who stood atop a building in nearby Times Square.[It's] Times Square ... some of the men are women and some of the women are men so be careful who you pet out there," Thomas gruffly warned Peeples, with more than a dose of transphobia and disdain for sex workers. Continue reading...

Doctors told Kentucky woman she would need quadruple amputation to save her life after kidney stone infection spreadA Kentucky woman who unexpectedly learned she would lose her legs and arms during what she thought would be a relatively routine bout with a kidney stone is confronting her plight by focusing on what she still has.I'm just so happy to be alive," Lucinda Cindy" Mullins - who's raising two sons with her husband - recently told the Kentucky news station WLEX. I get to see my kids. I get to see my family. I get to have my time with my husband. Continue reading...

Authorities say cause of the explosion has not been determined and they didn't know whether victims were relatedAuthorities in Michigan say four people have died and two others were injured in a house explosion 45 miles west of Detroit that could be heard from miles away and destroyed the home entirely, leaving only the basement intact.Police said six people were in the home. Four of those at the home died at the scene, and two others were hospitalized in critical condition. They added that they had not determined the cause of the explosion - which occurred about 3.30pm Saturday - and did not know if the victims were related.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Shenna Bellows is latest politician to be victim of fake emergency call to police with the intent they will show up at a residenceA fake emergency call to police resulted in officers responding Friday night to the home of Maine's secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, just a day after she removed Donald Trump from the state's presidential primary ballot under the US constitution's insurrection clause.She becomes the latest elected politician to become a target of swatting, which involves making a phone call to emergency services with the intent that a large first responder presence, including Swat teams, will show up at a residence. Continue reading...

Potential trial delays mean the former president could spend less time in courtroom and more time on the campaign trailWhen Donald Trump was indicted in multiple criminal cases this summer, the conventional wisdom was that the former US president could spend vast amounts of time during the height of the 2024 presidential campaign stuck in courtrooms for back-to-back trials in New York, Florida and Washington.But the reality is that with the federal 2020 election interference case on hold pending appeals, and repeated delays pushing the classified documents case behind schedule by several months, for instance, Trump may find himself in courtrooms far less than expected. Continue reading...

Mainstream music's take-up of the format has led to soaring demand. But beware a trend that drives out indie labels and drives up pricesAt first, it looked like it might be a momentary revolt against the digital future that would inevitably fade away: a rebellion based on plastic, cardboard and century-old technology that was simply too quaint to last. But after at least 15 years of growth, the renaissance of old-fashioned vinyl still seems to be alive and well. This Christmas was surely a case in point: thousands of us will have unwrapped records, the hardware that plays them, or both.In 2022, 5.5m vinyl records were bought in the UK, the largest volume of sales since 1990. Over the first nine months of last year, British vinyl sales increased 13% year on year. The retail chain HMV has just returned to its famous premises on Oxford Street in central London: ceremonially opened in 1921 by Sir Edward Elgar, recently occupied by one of those irksome faux-American sweet shops, but now back in business as an updated version of its former self. It sells a lot more than records, but has set aside space for a mountain of vinyl, marketed to a younger customer base" rather than the stereotype of nostalgic dads with money to burn.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

A victory in 2023 in Alabama after a supreme court ruling may be short-lived as three cases pose a dire threat to voting rightsAs 2023 comes to a close, the Voting Rights Act is facing a series of dire threats that could significantly weaken the landmark civil rights law.A suite of three different pending cases could gut the ability of private plaintiffs to challenge the Voting Rights Act, make it harder to challenge discriminatory election systems, and limit the Voting Rights Act's protections in areas where a single racial minority doesn't constitute a majority. Continue reading...

Even amid the despair that haunts our world, good can come out of evil. We need to believe that, for the sake of our future