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Access to doorbells, heaters and watches means that vindictive partners can control and torment wives and girlfriendsReaders may be familiar with the famous Dolly Parton line “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”. I like to paraphrase it. If I have a guest at my home, I’ll sweep my hand across the room and say: “Friend, it took a lot of learning to live this dumb.” No, I’m not talking about learning to wear my Danny Dyer T-shirts with pride. I’m talking about my refusal to sign up to smart tech: the internet-connected versions of quotidian household machinery that are becoming commonplace in our modern lives – and increasingly being used by domestic abusers to target their victims.Smart technology is nothing new, but its proliferation is. In 2019, 57% of homes in Britain had at least one smart device, with people no doubt persuaded by the promise of fully customisable, and even drudgery-free, Jetsons-style residences. Those numbers are rising, with manufacturers seemingly desperate to “smart” anything that can be plugged in (and, of course, charge more for it). There are smart kettles that can be boiled from your phone; smart showers that let you set the temperature digitally; and smart fridges that send you a text to say there is no milk, as if modern life were in short supply of passive-aggressive housemates.Coco Khan is commissioning editor for Guardian B2B, and a columnist and feature writerIn the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.orgDo 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...

Populism and nationalism create their own version of the past, and Russia is harking back to the glory days of WWII

Move by firm founded by Sir Richard Branson comes days after 85% cut of workforce announcedVirgin Orbit, the satellite launch company founded by the billionaire Sir Richard Branson, has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after last-ditch efforts to find funding for the struggling space firm fell through.It comes less than a week after the company announced it was cutting 85% of its workforce, leaving roughly 100 employees to run what was left of the business. The US-based firm will seek a buyer for its assets. Continue reading...

As Trump’s arraignment nears, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch network and other rightwing power brokers know the monster they created is now truly out of controlThe indictment of Donald J Trump has not driven a wooden stake through his heart. He has risen, omnipresent and ominous again, overwhelming his rivals, their voices joined into his choir, like the singing January 6 prisoners, proclaiming the wickedness of his prosecution. As he enters the criminal courthouse to pose for his mugshot and to give his fingerprints, evangelicals venerate him as the adulterous King David or the martyred Christ.Trump does not have to raise his hand to signal to the House Republicans to echo his cry of “WITCH-HUNT”. He owns the House like he owns a hotel. Continue reading...

Romcoms can be fantastic – but the pitfalls are always the same. Will the release of Rye Lane solve the issues once and for all?When I was 12, I did Guys and Dolls for a school play. It didn’t leave some massive, psyche-reshaping mark – I don’t fly to it like a homing pigeon every time there’s a production – I just went to the one at the Bridge theatre in London because it sounded good. And it is good; it is tremendous. But apparently the work did reshape my psyche after all, if only because I have so much of it stashed in my memory that I came out reeling from the thought of all the things I might be able to do, if I’d managed to displace one stanza of Marry the Man Today. Maybe I’d be able to speak German.Look, for 12-year-olds, it was an interesting choice; I was in the chorus, for which a near-perfect song is crafted – Take Back Your Mink – to give an urgent narrative necessity for the chorus girls to strip to their underwear. First they give that rotter back his mink, then his gloves, then his pearls, then all his clothes – the ones they’re wearing. There’s quite a bit of developmental variation at 12 or 13 years old, so half of us looked like burlesque dancers and the other half were basically naked before we started because we had nothing to keep our corsets up. My tits weren’t even the same size; I can still remember which one I flashed at the audience.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Is this the one deal Donald Trump can’t land? Continue reading...

Liam Squires saw the photos of igneous and sedimentary rocks had the wrong labels, for which he was thanked by publishing houseThey called the television quizshow Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader for a reason, and a Virginia elementary school student has just reportedly reminded everyone of that after getting a publisher to acknowledge a mistake in his class’s science textbook.Liam Squires, a fifth-grader at HM Pearson elementary school in a county less than 50 miles west of Washington DC, recently earned a write-up on the local Fauquier Times news website after noticing that his school’s Exploring Science All Around Us textbook had switched up the labels on pictures of an igneous rock and a sedimentary rock. Continue reading...

Ex-president departed Florida around midday and is expected to appear at the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday afternoonDonald Trump arrived in New York City on Monday, a day before he is due for a hotly anticipated court appearance where he’ll respond to the first ever criminal indictment filed against a former American president.At about 2.15pm ET on Tuesday, he will appear at the courthouse where a grand jury convened by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg handed down its indictment last week, to learn the exact details of which laws he is alleged to have broken. At his arraignment, he is expected to be photographed and fingerprinted, but will not be handcuffed per an agreement his legal team reached with Bragg, Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina said last week. Continue reading...

Donald Trump arrived in New York on Monday, a day before he is due to make a highly anticipated court appearance in the first ever criminal indictment filed against a former American president

Coors Light and Blue Moon shipments spilled beside the Clark Fork River in Paradise, leaving a difficult messA train derailment beside a scenic western Montana river has spilled powdered clay and huge amounts of beer, leaving crews with a daunting cleanup.The train derailed on Sunday across the river from Quinn’s Hot Springs Resort in Paradise, spilling cases of Coors Light and Blue Moon beer in cans and bottles, the Missoulian reported. No injuries have been reported. Continue reading...

At the heart of the case is Jho Low, a fugitive accused of being the mastermind behind the Malaysian 1MDB scandalLeonardo DiCaprio testified in a federal court on Monday morning as part of a trial involving international money laundering, bribery and a prominent rap artist.Prakazrel “Pras” Michel – a founding member of the iconic 1990s hip-hop group, The Fugees – is accused of funneling money from a fugitive Malaysian financier through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Five years later, prosecutors say he tried to squelch an investigation into that same financier under Donald Trump’s administration. Continue reading...

Originally awarded $130m, which a judge reduced to $15m, plaintiff opted for new trial against the electric vehicle makerTesla will pay about $3.2m to a Black former employee after a federal jury in San Francisco ruled the electric-vehicle maker failed to prevent severe racial harassment at its flagship assembly plant in California.The amount is far less than the $15m that the plaintiff, Owen Diaz, rejected last year in opting for a new trial. Diaz asked for a new trial on damages after the judge reduced the amount he was awarded in a 2021 ruling from $137m to $15m. Diaz accused Tesla of failing to act when he repeatedly complained to managers that employees at the Fremont factory frequently used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas, racist caricatures and epithets on walls and work areas. Continue reading...

Abortion legislation needs to move through house before gaining DeSantis’s likely signature while gun-carry law enacted todayFlorida took another step to the right on Monday when the state senate approved a bill to ban abortions after six weeks, a measure supported by Republican governor and expected presidential candidate Ron DeSantis – who on the same day signed into law a bill allowing the public to carry concealed guns without a permit.The latest proposal to restrict reproductive rights must still be approved by the house in the state legislature before it reaches the governor’s desk. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks. Continue reading...

Donald Trump made his way to New York City on Monday, a day before he is due to make a hotly anticipated court appearance where he will respond to the first ever criminal indictment filed against a former American president.At about 2.15pm ET on Tuesday, he will appear at the courthouse where a grand jury convened by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg handed down its indictment last week, to learn the exact details of which laws he is alleged to have broken.The former president departed around midday on Monday from Palm Beach international airport, flying for about two hours to the city where he built his career as a real estate mogul and reality TV star, but ultimately abandoned for the increasingly conservative southern state in 2019Trump leaves Florida for New York City ahead of court appearance Continue reading...

Experts think snowpack will be either the first or second biggest documented in 70 years after winter of extreme stormsCalifornia’s winter of extreme storms has brought the drought-ravaged state one of the largest snowpacks on record, with officials saying on Monday that they expect it could be the greatest documented in 70 years.As of Monday the state’s snowpack stands at 237% of the annual average, the department of water resources (DWR) announced at a press conference. Continue reading...

Former president to be arraigned on Tuesday in hush money case brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg

Huge balloon was able to send information back to Beijing in real time as it was flown above US territory, NBC News reportsA Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence as it flew over sensitive military sites in the US, despite efforts by the Joe Biden White House to thwart its espionage mission, new reports suggest.China succeeded in flying the massive balloon over some military bases on multiple occasions and sent the information back to Beijing in real time, NBC News reported on Monday, citing two current senior US officials and one former high-level administrator. The balloon, which was the size of three school buses, was occasionally flown in a figure-eight formation over at least some of those sensitive sites before it was shot down in early February. Continue reading...

Over 100 residents gathered in Ohio church a week after the building was damaged from an apparent molotov cocktail attackThey had to pass barricades, metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs, a background check by event organizers and a sign still bearing the scorch marks of what authorities called an attempt by a neo-Nazi to “burn … the entire church to the ground”.But on Saturday 1 April, more than 100 residents of north-east Ohio gathered inside the Chesterland Community church and listened to a group of drag queens read stories to children. “It was amazing,” the church’s pastor, Jess Peacock, said. “I kept seeing the smiles on the kids faces and for me it was like, that’s why we did this.” Continue reading...

Abby Zwerner, 25, files negligence lawsuit against Newport News school board and former superintendent and school leadershipThe Virginia teacher who was shot by her six-year-old student has filed a $40m negligence lawsuit against school district officials.Abigail Zwerner, 25, alleges that administrators ignored requests to search the pupil for a handgun and warnings that he was in a “violent mood”.Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Far-right, pro-Trump congresswoman uses appearance on flagship current affairs show to defend calling Democrats paedophilesCBS came under fire after devoting an interview on its flagship current affairs show, 60 Minutes, to Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right pro-Trump congresswoman from Georgia who has espoused conspiracy theories and faced censure for threatening behaviour towards Democrats.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York progressive congresswoman among those threatened by Greene, told Semafor: “These kinds of extreme and really just unprecedented and dangerous notions are getting platforms, without much pushback or real kind of critical analysis.” Continue reading...

New Zealander was Woods’ caddie for 13 major victories but he was also the bag man for Adam Scott’s Masters win a decade agoWorking alongside Tiger Woods does not afford time to look up and smell the flowers. Woods won 13 of his 15 major titles with Steve Williams as caddie, a run the New Zealander quickly came to realise was about business rather than pleasure.“Tiger’s only acceptance of a good week came with a win,” Williams says. “Every week with Tiger, unless he won there was just more pressure on the next one. I have never met someone for whom winning was so important, the be all and end all. Continue reading...

Lexi Rizzo, shift supervisor for seven years at one of the first stores to unionize, says company claims she was fired for tardinessTwo days after the Starbucks chairman and former CEO Howard Schultz was grilled during a Senate committee hearing on the company’s response to union organizing at its stores, Starbucks fired three union organizers and disciplined another organizer in the Buffalo, New York, area where the union campaign began.Among those to lose their jobs was Lexi Rizzo, a shift supervisor for seven years in Buffalo at one of the first stores to unionize and a leading founder of the union campaign. The union has characterized the actions as retaliation. Continue reading...

Many voters back the ex-president despite – or perhaps because of – his alleged crimes. A trial might only entrench that supportThe best reason for arraigning Donald Trump in New York this week is that he is guilty. It is possible that the jury might agree and he might go quietly to jail, thus being unable to return to the White House were he to be elected. That is a good reason, but it does not make it a wise one.American justice is not political but it can be highly politicised. We won’t know until Tuesday afternoon what exactly Trump has been indicted on, but many assume he will face charges of falsely concealing “hush money” paid to the former adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The case was brought by an elected Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg. It comes more than six years after the alleged offence occurred, and at the start of Trump’s campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. At the very least, this does not look coincidental. Continue reading...

Washington Post report says first lady Jill Biden expected to lead US delegation for Westminster Abbey anointingJoe Biden is planning on skipping the coronation of King Charles III in early May, following the tradition of US presidents not attending such occasions.In his stead, first lady Jill Biden is expected to lead the US delegation to attend the event, the Washington Post reported. Continue reading...

Semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 have become the weapon of choice for mass shooters. They’ve been banned before – yet countless gun owners are determined it will never happen againHogs are a big problem on Brandon Brown’s ranchland in the Texas panhandle. They tear up the ground, travel in droves and are a general nuisance, as they are in many other parts of the southern US. For some, hunting them is a combination of pastime and pest control.So when Brown wanted to find a rifle that was accurate, lightweight and fired bullets big enough to take out a feral pig, he chose the most popular rifle in the US: the AR-15. “It’s a great hunting gun. It’s great,” Brown says. “The AR overall is pretty much indestructible.” Continue reading...

The city will see continued heatwaves, but a new study says heat-damping urban vegetation is unevenly distributedEven as California grapples with the effects of an extremely wet winter, the threat of drought and heat lingers, especially for areas where vegetation is too sparse to blunt the dangers. The impacts are profound across these cityscapes, according to a new study that focuses specifically on Los Angeles, which also found they have a disproportionate effect on disadvantaged communities of color.Areas now flush with green will again brown, rearing familiar hazards brought about by warming weather. And when urban vegetation – which plays a key part in keeping cities cool – grows parched and shrivels against cooking concrete, residents pay the price. Rising temperatures spike higher without greenery, spurring the cycle of drying and heating that makes landscapes even less hospitable for the remaining plants to thrive. Continue reading...

Fast-food giant to reportedly notify corporate employees about staffing decisions a part of wider restructuring of companyA report says McDonald’s has closed its US offices for a few days as the company prepares to inform employees about layoffs.The Wall Street Journal cited an internal email from the fast-food giant – which is headquartered in Chicago – saying that US corporate staff and some employees overseas should work from home while the company notifies people of their job status. Continue reading...

Volunteers have increased efforts to support people in Arkansas after tornadoes tore through parts of the southern and midwestern US in recent days, leaving a trail of destruction. In Little Rock, the Arkansas capital, volunteers cooked and packaged meals to be distributed by the Salvation Army, Goodwill and other aid groups. A monster storm system struck at least eight states over the weekend, prompting at least 50 preliminary reports of tornadoes.The states affected include Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Delaware and Alabama

Stunned by indictment at first, ex-president indicates he wants to politically ‘rough ’em up’. Plus, Judy Blume on why it is time to fight back against censorship

These two men find themselves in the clutches of the very systems of justice that they believed they could flaunt with impunityLet’s not ignore the poetic justice: on 17 March, the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin; a scant two weeks later, a grand jury in New York voted to indict Donald Trump. Admittedly, the two cases are quite different. Putin is wanted for his role in orchestrating devastating war crimes. Trump stands accused of relatively minor crimes involving the payment of hush money to a former porn star. But there is a sense that these two men, so recently bound in mutual admiration of their bullying contempt for democratic norms and legal process, now find themselves in the clutches of the very systems of justice that they believed they could flaunt with impunity.Of course, there is no guarantee that either man will ever be held fully held to account. Those looking forward to the day of Putin’s reckoning before the ICC in The Hague should bear in mind that the only reason the allies succeeded in trying members of the Nazi leadership in Nuremberg was because Hitler’s Germany lay in ruins. Putin remains very much in power and presides over an arsenal of 6,000 nuclear warheads that he continues to recklessly brandish. Unless Putin finds himself ousted from power, his arrest warrant will remain a symbolic reminder that in the eyes of international law, the Russian leader is a pariah and a fugitive. Continue reading...

AI-enhanced cameras can detect ‘objects of interest’ miles away, but critics say they will drive migrants deeper into dangerous desertA new map detailing the location of hundreds of surveillance towers is providing the most comprehensive public look yet at the growing virtual wall at the United States’ southern border.The map, published this month by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy, free speech and innovation, tallies more than 300 existing and 50 proposed surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border. Continue reading...

The medical examiner ruled the death of Kelsey Carpenter’s baby an accident – yet she faces life in prison: ‘I mourn every day’Kelsey Carpenter was alone in her San Diego apartment when she went into labor on 14 November 2020.The mother of two had planned a home birth for her third child. But the baby came two weeks earlier than expected, so she delivered on her own, then passed out, records show. When she awoke, her newborn - whom she named Kiera - was not breathing. Despite her attempts at CPR, the baby did not survive. Continue reading...

Control of state’s supreme court will ultimately decide fate of 1849 abortion ban that was revived in June, after Roe was overturnedOne weekend in late March, McKenzie Schroeder offered to drive her friend across the Wisconsin border into Illinois to get an abortion. Abortion has been illegal in Wisconsin since June, when the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, reviving the state’s 1849 near-total abortion ban.“If you’ve never been in that situation, you can never understand how a woman feels if they’re pregnant and don’t know what to do,” said Schroeder, 30, who lives in Sun Prairie and works for a property management company and as a waitress. “I don’t think that any human being on the face of the earth should control what I do with my body.” Continue reading...

A former manager said company managers referred to themselves as ‘wardens’ as they sought to frustrate unionization effortA former manager at one of DHL’s largest facilities claims fellow managers referred to workers as “inmates” and themselves as “wardens” of a prison in conversations about how to stop a union organizing drive at the site.The revelations come as DHL is at loggerheads with the Teamsters over a union election to represent workers at the site. Continue reading...

Some believe that a 2015 law restricting entry to those who have traveled to Iraq or Iran – where Shias make pilgrimages – is to blameIt took the US consulate seven minutes to reject Nabil Ahmed Shabbir’s visa application.Shabbir, a British Shia scholar, had applied for his US visa to assist with the birth of his first child. His wife, an American Shia Muslim, wanted to have the birth in the US. Continue reading...

One of baseball’s largest broadcasters has filed for bankruptcy. But even with some revenue streams threatened, teams are rising in valueTucker Carlson didn’t stand a chance. In the battle for eyeballs in St Louis, the Fox News provocateur could never own primetime like Albert Pujols.St Louis Cardinals games during the beloved slugger’s farewell season last summer were watched by more than four times as many viewers in the MLB team’s home city as the next-most popular cable show, Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News. Continue reading...

If any anger is justified, it should be directed at those who create our throwaway culture and make people’s lives a miseryRubbish seems to be everywhere you look. As one of the leaders of a community wetlands group in north-west London, I’ve witnessed a cormorant diving into a bobbing flotilla of plastic, shores made up of plastic and a heron starving to death due to red nylon tangled around its beak.Last month, a new disease caused solely by plastics was discovered in seabirds. And in February, our group, Friends of the Welsh Harp, removed four tonnes of rubbish from a river and the surrounding woodland. Our rivers are not only open sewers, they’re also open dustbins that lead to the sea. Continue reading...

The 1988 Masters champion, now 65, will be the sole representative from the home of golf at this year’s tournamentIn the coming days there will be a flurry of tributes paid to Sandy Lyle. The 65-year-old’s confirmation that he will no longer play on the Champions Tour suggests at the very least that the Masters this week will be the last sight of Lyle in a competitive domain. Lyle is tired of the road and no wonder. Augusta National, where he famously triumphed in 1988, seems a fitting place for goodbye.Lyle’s slide towards well-earned retirement gives cause to ponder another, less illuminating theme. What has become of the great Scottish golfer? Continue reading...

On TikTok, thousands of men suggest monasticism will make us more effective human beings. But there is something melancholy about all the self-optimisingThey’re hard at work in the TikTok productivity mines, which is more than can be said for me. Among the things I have done that were not my intended work recently, I listened to a podcast where I discovered a colleague writes more in a “bad week” than I manage in a month. It didn’t make me work harder, but my inner critic redoubled its attacks: “[Nameless colleague] would have written 4,000 words in the time it took you to Google ‘DIY skin tag removal’, you dolt.”Time to dip back into Hack-tok, where the fire-emoji bros have rediscovered “monk mode”. It’s not a new idea – apparently people have been Googling it since 2004 – but got a boost in 2020 from Jay Shetty’s How to Think Like a Monk, which applied the principles Shetty learned in his time as a novice monk in an ashram (meditation, visualisation, “transformational forgiveness”) to contemporary capitalism.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Recently discharged from hospital for depression, lawmaker says he wants to be ‘the kind of senator that Pennsylvania deserves’Having just been discharged from a hospital which treated him for mental depression for six weeks, the US senator from Pennsylvania John Fetterman has said he is committed “to start making up [for] any lost time”.“My aspiration is to take my son to the restaurant that we were supposed to go [to] during his birthday but couldn’t because I had checked myself in for depression,” the first-term Democratic senator said in an interview with CBS News that was aired Sunday. “And being the kind of dad, the kind of husband and the kind of senator that Pennsylvania deserves.” Continue reading...

Most UK patients can’t access their records online. As a result, the end of Henry’s life was made needlessly traumatic

The former president was stunned by the indictment at first, but after 24 hours he indicated he wanted to politically ‘rough ’em up’Donald Trump has told advisers and associates in recent days that he is prepared to escalate attacks against the Manhattan prosecutor who resurrected the criminal prosecution into his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 now that a grand jury has indicted him.The former president has vowed to people close to him that he wants to go on the offensive and – in a private moment over the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that demonstrates his gathering resolve – remarked using more colorful language that it was time to politically “rough ’em up”. Continue reading...