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Researchers find ‘zero evidence’ that living in a home with a handgun offers protection against homicide, with women at particular riskMost American gun owners say they own firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones, but a study published this week suggests people who live with handgun owners are shot to death at a higher rate than those who don’t have such weapons at home.“We found zero evidence of any kind of protective effects” from living in a home with a handgun, said David Studdert, a Stanford University researcher who was the lead author of the Annals of Internal Medicine study. Continue reading...

Ukraine says western sanctions are ‘not enough’ amid warnings of fresh offensive. Plus, House votes two Trump advisers in contempt of CongressHello and good morning,Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said yesterday that new sanctions by the west against Russia did not go far enough and would be seen by invading forces as a “permission to attack”, as fears of an assault on the east of the country intensify.What sanctions does Zelenskiy want? He called for the west to reject Russian oil and completely block the country’s banks from the international finance system.What’s the latest on a potential Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine? The Kremlin has said it intends to seize the entire self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, with Putin reportedly keen to declare victory by 9 May, the annual second world war commemoration.How is Ukraine responding to the fresh offensive threat? Ukraine urged civilians to leave the east of the country while they still could. Meanwhile, the Pentagon said a “small number” of Ukrainian soldiers were being trained in the US to operate Switchblade drones.What is the international community doing? The UN general assembly will vote today on whether to suspend Russia from the UN premier human rights body after discoveries of potential Russian war crimes. Nato foreign ministers also meet today in Brussels for talks on providing support to bring an end to the war.What punishment could the advisers face if convicted? Up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines – or both.Why won’t Navarro and Scavino testify? It means the select committee can’t extract information from them about Trump’s unlawful scheme to have then vice-president Mike Pence stop the election certification.What happens next? The contempt citations now head to the justice department and the US attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, who is required by law to weigh a prosecution. Continue reading...

Media complacency has allowed for a thriving disinformation industry that threatens Kenya’s democratic discourseThis August, tens of millions of Africans will turn their attention to Kenya’s general election. Kenya’s recent history features hotly contested, sometimes violent elections in which candidates and their allies have used tribal politics to turn people against one another. Yet as this election approaches, one of the biggest dangers comes much further from home: US and Chinese tech platforms.Before unpacking the dangerous role that tech platforms are playing in Kenya, it’s important to understand the high stakes. For many Kenyans, this is the mother of all elections. The country’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta of the Jubilee party, has overseen an economy battered by inflation and debt, bruised by corruption and struggling to get on its feet due to the harm inflicted by Covid. Fighting to be the next president are Kenyatta’s deputy, William Ruto, and the leader of the opposition, Raila Odinga, of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The last time Kenyatta and Ruto were on opposing sides of an election, in 2007 and 2008, the country was plagued by violence, and they ended up on trial in the international criminal court (ICC). (Kenyatta’s charges were dropped in December 2014, and the court terminated Ruto’s case due to weak evidence.)Odanga Madung is a Mozilla fellow, journalist and data scientist based in Nairobi, Kenya Continue reading...

The Dodgers are as dangerous ever but will the Blue Jays emerge from the stacked AL East. Our team of writers have their sayMLB will announce a new rule for next season which will allow managers a limited number of infield shifts a game. So it becomes a strategy of when to seek the defensive advantage. Should managers wait until the ninth inning? Keep their infield moves for certain players? Sounds like fun to me! DL Continue reading...

The Los Angeles Lakers’ season is effectively over and their shadow general manager has played his part in their downfallTwo years ago the world may have been upside down, but all was right in Laker Nation. After a decade of futility the Purple and Gold were on top of the NBA, champions once again. As the confetti fell inside a largely empty arena inside the NBA bubble, the best player on the planet had made good on his promise to put the franchise “back in the position where it belongs.” Given the Lakers’ habit of hanging around the NBA finals once they finally break back in, it did indeed seem as if LeBron James & Co were only just getting warmed up. But it turns out that the heat radiating from the afterglow of that victory may well have been the earliest sign of the meltdown to come.On Tuesday, five days before the NBA regular season’s closing curtain, the LeBron-era Lakers hit their nadir. They went to Phoenix with James sidelined through injury and fell to the Suns, 121-110, their seventh defeat in a row. To add insult to injury, the Suns loss ruled the Lakers out of the playoff’s play-in round, a lifeline James once bemoaned quite emphatically. The self-styled GOAT was even roasted at the Oscars, with co-host Regina Hall arguably landing the night’s third-most provocative joke. Continue reading...

The 11th and 15th have been changed to offer balance between risk and reward but the 13th remains toothlessYou don’t need to prove you have been vaccinated to get into the Masters this year, don’t need to show a negative test or wear a face covering. “Feels like a normal Masters again,” said Rory McIlroy. And he’s right, around about here it’s almost like the past two years never happened.Almost. There is one big little difference. They’re all out of Georgia peach ice cream sandwiches at the concession stands. Serious business this. The sandwiches were the outstanding achievement of the last Augusta National chairman, Billy Payne, and all the justification needed to explain his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Continue reading...

The government is trying to wish away problems such as flooding by doing nothing. It’s incompetence by designWe have a new term for doing nothing: “learning to live with”. Learning to live with Covid means abandoning testing, isolation and wearing masks in public places. Living with it, dying from it, what’s the difference? The same applies to climate breakdown. It’s not just that countries like the UK have failed to play their part in preventing this catastrophe. They have also failed to prepare for it.While our primary effort should still be to decarbonise our economies, to prevent even worse impacts, we also need to brace ourselves for the heating that’s now unavoidable. But, as the government’s climate change committee points out, adaptation in the UK is “under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored”. The head of the committee has spoken of a “wilful reluctance” to include adaptation in policymaking.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist. He will discuss Regenesis at a Guardian Live event on Monday 30 May. Book tickets in-person or online here Continue reading...

Approval of contempt resolution over months-long defiance of subpoenas sets pair on path towards criminal prosecution by DoJThe House voted on Wednesday to hold two of Donald Trump’s top advisers – Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino – in criminal contempt of Congress for their months-long refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.The approval of the contempt resolution, by a vote of 220 to 203, sets the two Trump aides on the path toward criminal prosecution by the justice department as the panel escalates its inquiry into whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. Continue reading...

Three people have been arrested since the early Sunday violence unfolded but the motive is still unknownPolice have said at least five people fired weapons in a weekend shooting in Sacramento, California, that killed six people and injured a dozen others and prompted calls for lawmakers to address the scourge of gun violence in the US.Officials said on Wednesday that while the motive was still unknown, investigators think “ gang violence is at the center of this tragedy” and that “gangs and gang violence are inseparable from the events that drove these shootings”. Continue reading...

Activists say companies like Lyft and Uber ‘try to protect their bottom line by offloading risk’ on to workersOn a Sunday afternoon in August 2021, the Lyft driver Isabella Lewis was shot in the head by a passenger she had just picked up and left for dead as the man sped off in what appeared to be a fatal carjacking.Lyft released a statement to the press at the time saying it was “heartbroken by this incident” – but Allyssa Lewis, Isabella’s sister, said her family had never received direct communication from the company, nor any financial compensation. Continue reading...

Suit alleges Mike Lindell and his media platform targeted Eric Coomer as part of his ‘efforts to undermine faith in US democracy’The CEO of bedding company MyPillow, Mike Lindell, has been sued for defamation by a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems.Eric Coomer, the former employee of the voting machines company that became embroiled in Donald Trump’s false claims that he was denied victory at the 2020 election because of widespread voter fraud, has filed a court complaint against Lindell, Insider reported. Continue reading...

Visitors to the Chicago zoo showing the 415lb Amare pictures and videos through the glass wall has made him dismissive to other male gorillasA teenage gorilla in a Chicago zoo has been getting too much screen time, according to zoo officials.Amare, a 415-pound gorilla at Chicago’s Lincoln Park zoo, has been staring a little too frequently at the screens of cellphones from visitors who show him pictures and videos through the glass wall – including selfies, family photos, pet videos and even footage of Amare himself. Continue reading...

Measure would let people sue weapons traffickers but faces skepticism from Democrats and gun policy groupsStung by a deadly mass shooting on Sunday mere blocks from the state capitol, California lawmakers on Tuesday advanced an innovative yet untested approach to gun control that would empower private citizens to sue those who traffic in illegal weapons.California already has some of the country’s strictest firearms rules, but it has struggled to curb the spread of stolen or homemade and increasingly prevalent “ghost” guns. Continue reading...

Nearly 37 million borrowers have been affected by the pause, with a delay of $195bn of payments since start of pandemicJoe Biden announced the pause on federal student loan collections in the US will be extended until 31 August.The pause on federal student loans first started at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 under the Trump administration. This is the seventh time the pause has seen an extension since then. Continue reading...

The lives of Augusta and Woods are perfectly choreographed – the rest of us guess where the mirage begins and endsAt Amen Corner, you hear the songs without ever seeing the birds. When an 89-year-old Sam Snead cracked a patron on the head with a sliced ceremonial tee shot in 2002, Augusta media outlets were discreet in their coverage.On testing by a bold journalist in 1996, it was discovered the immaculate blue ponds at Augusta National are produced with the assistance of food dye. Fred Ridley, the club chairman, was asked on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of women being afforded membership by confirming some numbers. “No thanks,” was the essence of his reply. Illusion everywhere. Continue reading...

Attorney general also announces charges against Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev for sanctions violationsThe US has disrupted a global “botnet” controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday.A botnet is a network of hijacked computers used to carry out cyberattacks. “The Russian government has recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets,” Garland told reporters at the justice department. Continue reading...

Locke, 22, who was Black, shot dead by police officer after Swat team entered apartment without knocking early in FebruaryMinnesota prosecutors declined to file charges on Wednesday against a Minneapolis police Swat team officer who fatally shot Amir Locke while executing an early morning no-knock search warrant in a downtown apartment in February.Locke, 22, who was Black, was staying on a couch in the apartment when authorities entered it on 2 February without knocking as part of an investigation into a homicide in neighboring St Paul. Continue reading...

The 11th and the 15th at Augusta have undergone significant changes for the Masters. Two of the best offer their verdictsThe 2022 Masters sees significant changes to two holes. The par-four 11th is now 15 yards longer (is 520, was 505); and the par-five 15th is now 20 yards longer (is 550, was 530). Here Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood give their pre-tournament verdict on the changes. Continue reading...

The past is ever present at the Masters but caddies from the Sand Hill district have not always been remembered. That, finally, appears to be beginning to changeCedar Grove cemetery is across the city from the Augusta National, the other side of two sets of railway tracks in a part of town where the traffic doesn’t stop and the tourists don’t pass. The plot was set aside in 1820 as a place to bury slaves in shallow, unmarked, graves.Over time it turned into the black cemetery, the city’s first black principal is buried there, the first black dentist, the first black member of the local legislature. “Because there is no definitive book on African-American history Cedar Grove is the bastion of our cultural heritage,” said local historian Joyce Law when the cemetery marked its bicentennial, “this is where the stories are.” Continue reading...

Six-term lawmaker from Ohio’s Amish country exits primary race that would have put him up against Trump-backed Max MillerRepublican congressman Bob Gibbs announced his sudden retirement on Wednesday, declaring himself a casualty of “the circus” over Ohio’s still-unresolved congressional map.The six-term congressman from Amish country exits a primary race in north-eastern Ohio that, under new temporary maps, would have put him up against the Trump-backed Republican Max Miller. Continue reading...

House panel receives 101 emails belonging John Eastman, concerning plans to obstruct certification of 2020 election resultThe House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol has received a cache of emails belonging to Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, federal court documents filed on Tuesday show.The 101 emails were released to the committee after Judge David Carter ruled in federal court in California last week that Eastman, a hard-right supporter of the former US president, had not made a sufficient claim to attorney-client privilege. Continue reading...

Hail, strong winds and tornadoes tore across the south on Tuesday, with authorities warning of more bad weatherViolent storms killed at least two people, one in Georgia and another in Texas, on Tuesday as hail, strong winds and tornadoes tore across the south, where authorities warned a second day of dangerous weather of violent weather could follow.A woman died Tuesday evening in Pembroke, Georgia, where a suspected tornado ripped part of the roof from the Bryan county courthouse, destroyed the entrance to a local government building across the street and damaged homes in nearby neighborhoods, said Matthew Kent, a county government spokesman. Continue reading...

The nation’s aging electrical grid is battered by an increasing number of destructive storms caused by a warming climatePower outages from severe weather have doubled over the past two decades across the US, as a warming climate stirs more destructive storms that cripple broad segments of the nation’s aging electrical grid, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data.Forty states are experiencing longer outages – and the problem is most acute in regions seeing more extreme weather, US Department of Energy data shows. The blackouts can be harmful and even deadly for the elderly, disabled and other vulnerable communities. Continue reading...

Donald Trump admitted that he did not win the 2020 presidential election in an interview with a panel of historians in 2021. The former president also said Iran, China and South Korea were happy Biden won, adding that ‘the election was rigged and lost’.Referring to his attempts to make South Korea pay more for US military assistance, Trump said Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, was among the 'happiest' world leaders after he lost the 2020 US election. Trump said they were on the brink of making a deal for South Korea to contribute $5bn annually to that bill

Ukraine urgently needs help – and if the organisation can’t act effectively now, the global consequences could be catastrophicPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s address to the UN security council came at a crucial moment for the United Nations as well as Ukraine. Russia’s illegal war of aggression, and the collective failure of the other 192 member states to stop it, represents the biggest crisis for the UN since Iraq in 2003. This visceral threat to the organisation’s authority – practical, legal and moral – is one from which it may not recover.The principles enshrined in the 1945 UN founding charter, primarily aimed at upholding peace between sovereign states, have been torn up by the Kremlin. Repeated pleas by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, for an immediate end to hostilities are ignored. And the humanitarian laws of war are being brutally disregarded, as the multiple crimes committed in Bucha, Mariupol and across Ukraine show.Simon Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator. He has been a foreign leader writer, foreign editor and US editor for the Guardian

US, G7 and EU to target Moscow with new measures as Ukraine says 4,400 incidents of alleged ‘war crimes’ being investigated. Plus, unseen photos of rock history

Team at Norwich University accused of branding and waterboarding other team membersVermont police have launched an investigation into hazing allegations surrounding the women’s rugby team at Norwich University in the state, including allegations of branding and waterboarding.Police have executed search warrants and went to a residence hall at the private military academy in Northfield to collect evidence, the Barre Montpelier Times Argus reported. Continue reading...

US Capitol police have apprehended an 'aggressive' suspect accused of attacking a congressman and perhaps others. The alleged assailant: an unusually bold fox

The Minnesota Timberwolves star has suffered loss in his personal life but has used it as inspiration to come back strongerOn 14 March 2022, Karl-Anthony Towns pirouetted, leapt and dunked his way to a 60-point performance with the grace of a ballet dancer and the strength of, well, a 7ft, 250lb NBA player. After the game, he started to text the most important person in his life: his mother, Jackie. Then he stopped himself and started to cry.“This was a moment for us,” Towns later told ESPN. “She would’ve loved it.” Continue reading...

The Russian military are now circling the Donbas. I’m terrified for people there who were loyal to Ukraine for the past eight years“It’s the second month since Russia used all possible ammunition to shell the Luhansk region. Now they are gathering equipment, mobilising conscripts … The battle here [will] be the fiercest,” the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, told me when we met recently in eastern Ukraine.Russia’s intentions are clear: the Kremlin calls its war against Ukraine the “special operation to free Donbas”. It wants some real gains to present at home before the anniversary of Russia’s victory in the second world war, on 9 May. After Russian troops failed to beat the Ukrainian military and occupy Kyiv and major towns such as Kharkiv, Moscow is concentrating on taking the parts of the Donbas that remain in Ukrainian hands. Continue reading...

The five-time Masters champion Tiger Woods insists he can win again in Augusta only 14 months since suffering serious injuries from a car crash in California. When asked if he believes he can win the Masters this year, the 46-year-old responded: 'I do. I can hit it just fine. I don’t have any qualms about what I can do from a golf standpoint. It’s now walking is the hard part.'

The supreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for special interests to pour money into elections. Could a constitutional amendment be the answer?It would, activists testify, restore the public’s waning trust in vital US institutions, curb the corrupting influence of big money in politics and give America’s ailing democracy a much-needed shot in the arm.It is also, they acknowledge, dead on arrival. Continue reading...

False narratives pushed by Tucker Carlson and key Republicans in Congress have been embraced and recycled by MoscowFalse and conspiratorial narratives pushed by some American conservative politicians and media figures about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have bolstered and created synergies with the Kremlin’s legendary disinformation machine, experts on information manipulation say.But even though Russia has embraced and promoted American disinformation, as well as the Kremlin’s own much larger stock of Ukraine war falsehoods, both brands have been widely debunked by experts and most media outlets, underscoring Moscow’s setbacks in the information war. Continue reading...

Barack Obama jokingly referred to Joe Biden as 'vice-president' on his return to the White House for the first time since 2017. The 44th president was there to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and offered Biden a potential boost ahead of the midterm elections

Victims joke about encounters as animal’s own ‘statement’ goes viral on TwitterUS Capitol police have apprehended an “aggressive” suspect accused of attacking a congressman and perhaps others. The alleged assailant: an unusually bold fox.Earlier in the day, police had warned of fox encounters in the area and said they were working to trap and relocate any animals. Continue reading...

The 46th president and the 44th got the old gang back together to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and seek a midterm boostIt was Back to the Future at the White House. Starring Barack Obama as Marty McFly and Joe Biden as Doc Brown. And ignoring Donald Trump as Biff Tannen, a four-year rupture in the space-time continuum.Obama returned to the White House on Tuesday for the first time since the bleak winter morning in January 2017 when he departed it alongside Trump, who seemed intent on erasing the first Black president. Continue reading...

Family says it is ‘optimistic’ about chances on appeal after controversy over juror in first trialThe siblings of Ghislaine Maxwell said on Tuesday they were “profoundly shocked and troubled” that a judge rejected a new trial for the British former socialite convicted on sex-trafficking charges, despite revelations that a juror who helped to convict her failed to disclose he was sexually abused as a child.In a statement, the “Maxwell Family” said it was focused on an appeal against US district judge Alison Nathan’s ruling last Friday. Continue reading...

State house approves bill that would make performing an abortion a felony and punishable by 10 years in prisonOklahoma lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill to make performing an abortion a felony punishable by 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. That is likely to land the bill on the desk of the Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, who has promised to sign all anti-abortion legislation.Oklahoma’s bill is just one in a raft of Republican bills to severely restrict or ban abortion, all timed before a widely anticipated supreme court case that disrupts nearly 50 years of established protections for abortion rights. If Oklahoma’s bill passes into law, it will take effect this summer. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, spoke via video to committee about events of January 6Ivanka Trump testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Donald Trump attempted in vain to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.The Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said on Tuesday afternoon that she had been answering investigators’ questions on a video teleconference since the morning and was not “chatty” but had been helpful. “She came in on her own” and did not have to be subpoenaed, Thompson said. Continue reading...

Smiley Martin is facing charges as detectives try to piece together the chaotic scene where more than 100 shots were firedPolice in Sacramento arrested a second person in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting in a bustling stretch of California’s capitol. Six people were killed in the shooting and at least 12 were injured.On Tuesday the department announced Smiley Martin, who was also injured in the shooting, would be booked in Sacramento’s county jail once his medical care is complete. Martin, 27, is facing charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. His brother Dandrae Martin, 26, was arrested on Monday and charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses. Continue reading...

His comeback after the life-threatening car crash seemed fanciful but Woods has defied limits throughout his careerTiger Woods’s first real memory of the Masters is of watching Jack Nicklaus play on the Sunday of 1986. Woods was 10 and had been out to play nine holes with his dad that morning but they were back in front of the TV in time to see Nicklaus, then 46, come round the turn in one of the most famous rounds in the history of the majors. From six shots back he made five birdies and an eagle and won by one. Woods remembers watching him hit that famous second shot on the 15th, from the hill over the water and to 12 feet from the hole, and the way he raised both fists in the air to celebrate, and wondering why he was so happy when he still had to make the putt.Over the years Woods has asked Nicklaus, more than once, what he was thinking about in that moment. Woods never really got a good answer out of Nicklaus but, according to his book Unprecedented, this is the way he has come to think about it: “He did what he needed to do to put himself in a position to win the Masters. He was not thinking about winning. He was thinking only about the shot and what he needed to do. He wasn’t getting ahead of himself.” Continue reading...

Daniela Jampel, who worked for the city law department, crashed press conference to demand that Eric Adams ‘unmask our toddlers’A lawyer for New York City was fired after she crashed a news conference to confront the mayor, Eric Adams, about the city’s mask mandate for children aged two to four.Daniela Jampel, who had worked for the city law department since 2016, was fired later on Monday, a department spokesperson said. Continue reading...

Ex-president issues mocking statement after Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan says he will not stand in midtermsThe Michigan congressman Fred Upton has become the fourth of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over the Capitol attack to announce his retirement in November.The others are Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the January 6 committee, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and John Katko of New York. The retirements are seen as further boosting Trump’s power and influence with Republicans. Continue reading...

Ukraine’s leader is a master communicator but his words made for uncomfortable listening in a forum with Russia at its heartTwo days ago his audience consisted of Justin Bieber, Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo and Saweetie. This was Volodymyr Zelenskiy, president of Ukraine and man for all seasons, delivering a virtual message to the Grammy music awards in Las Vegas.A little incongruous? A bit off key? The same might have been said on Tuesday when Zelenskiy addressed the UN security council, led by its five permanent members: the United States, Britain, China, France – and Russia. Continue reading...

Second building ordered evacuated in North Miami Beach since collapse of Champlain Towers South last June in nearby Surfside, which killed 98 peopleResidents of a five-story apartment building in North Miami Beach were ordered to evacuate after officials deemed the building “structurally unsound” during its 50-year recertification process, officials said.The residents of Bayview 60 Homes were ordered out on Monday by city officials. It was the second building ordered evacuated in the city since the collapse of Champlain Towers South last June in nearby Surfside, which killed 98 people. Continue reading...