CBS News affiliate WCCO uncovers archive material of school-age Prince being interviewed as teachers picket in the backgroundArchival footage has been found of the singer Prince at a teachers’ strike in 1970 when he was just 11.The video was first discovered by WCCO, a CBS News affiliate in Minnesota, and shows film of an April 1970 teachers’ strike. Continue reading...
Matt Mowers’ double voting may have violated federal election law, at a time when Black voters have faced harsh penalties for unwitting violationsA former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, possibly violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican party’s intense focus on “election integrity”.Matt Mowers, a leading Republican primary candidate hoping to unseat the Democratic representative Chris Pappas, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Hialeah, Florida on (#5XVKZ)
Dominic Taddeo, who killed three in the 1980s and was key figure in organized crime in Rochester, New York, captured in HialeahA New York mobster who escaped federal custody in Florida has been rearrested, officials said.Dominic Taddeo, 64, a figure in organized crime in Rochester, New York, who killed three men in the 1980s and tried to kill two others, was apprehended “without incident” in Hialeah on Monday, the US Marshals service said. Continue reading...
Ofsted found some children now struggle to recognise facial expressions. More time for play and communication would help themLast week, while watching an outdated DVD about “growing and changing” with my year 2 class, a child in the programme blew out their birthday candles and shared slices of the cake with their friends. Outrage in the classroom ensued. “Miss, was that before corona? That’s disgusting!”Birthday parties are a small part of what young children have missed over the past two years. Since the first lockdown began, children have missed months of classroom learning, play dates, drama groups and football practice. Recent findings from Ofsted show the pandemic has delayed the social skills of young children – with some unable to understand facial expressions as a result. These will surprise no teacher. There have been no national lockdowns or two-week “bubble” closures during this academic year, and this relative consistency has been wonderful. But being back at school has also given staff a clearer understanding of how the pandemic has affected children’s development.The author is a teacher at a primary school in London Continue reading...
Number of billionaires worldwide falls by 329 amid Russian sanctions, according to ForbesThe total wealth of the world’s billionaires has dipped from a record high last year amid a drop in global stock markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the planet’s richest people still holding a combined $12.7tn (£9.7tn) in assets.According to the annual Forbes magazine ranking of the world richest people, the number of billionaires worldwide fell by 329 to 2,668, with the total value of their combined assets falling slightly from $13.1tn on the 2021 list. Continue reading...
The couple’s Oscars afterparty saw celebrities bypass Chateau Marmont workers who have complained of abhorrent conditionsMuch of the energy that erupted after the murder of George Floyd seems to have been hijacked by a brand of “antiracism” overconcerned with microaggressions, with representation in film and media, and with interpersonal relationships. It’s a framework that largely ignores economic inequality, or the potential for strategic, organised struggle. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the insistence that if we just make white people nicer and encourage them to do better through a combination of demanding, begging or cajoling – all the while obsessively documenting a catalogue of personal privileges between individuals based purely on whether they are “white”, “black” or “brown” – that we are “doing the work”.Ahistoric and devoid of class analysis, this brand of activism doesn’t have the tools to address the shitshow that recently took place at Jay-Z’s annual Oscars Gold party at the Chateau Marmont hotel. Continue reading...
When it comes to economic questions, there’s more agreement between culture war opponents than you might thinkThe neoliberal order that triumphed in America in the 1990s prized free trade and the free movement of capital, information, and people. It celebrated deregulation as an economic good that resulted when governments could no longer interfere with the operation of markets. It hailed globalization as a win-win position that would enrich the west (the cockpit of neoliberalism) while also bringing an unprecedented level of prosperity to the rest of the world. A remarkable consensus on these creedal principles came to dominate American politics during the heyday of the neoliberal order, binding together Republicans and Democrats and marginalizing dissenting voices to the point where they barely mattered.Somewhat paradoxically, this broad agreement on matters of political economy nurtured two strikingly different moral perspectives, each of them consonant with the commitment to market principles that underlay the neoliberal order. The first perspective was ‘neo-Victorian’, celebrating self-reliance, strong families, and disciplined attitudes toward work, sexuality, and consumption.Gary Gerstle is a Guardian US columnist. Excerpted and adapted from The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (Oxford University Press, 2022) Continue reading...
Ukraine’s president prepares to address UN security council but casts doubt on meeting Putin. Plus, why it’s over for fossil fuelsGood morning.Worse atrocities than those discovered in Bucha are likely to be uncovered in other areas seized from Russian invaders, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned, ahead of his appearance at the UN security council today.Is Zelenskiy going to meet Vladimir Putin? Zelenskiy spoke on Ukrainian TV in an address to the people. He cast doubt on whether there would be a meeting between him and the Russian president.How could Putin be prosecuted for war crimes? Biden has called for the Russian leader to face trial, but the process would be difficult and could play out in several ways.What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 41 of the Russian invasion.What did Jim Skea, a professor at Imperial College London and co-chair of the working group behind the report, say? “It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” Continue reading...
Labor leaders view this year’s elections – and 2024’s – with special urgency, as a goal-line stand to preserve America’s democracyMany union leaders used to pooh-pooh talk about saving democracy, according t0 Shane Larson, the Communications Workers of America’s director of government affairs. All that changed after the January 6 assault on the Capitol and after many Republicans pushed to overturn Biden’s victory in several states.“Just a few years ago, some union leaders would complain, ‘Why are we focusing on these do-good democratic issues?’ They’d say we need to focus exclusively on labor rights and jobs, jobs, jobs,” Larson said. “Now no one is complaining about this at all. There’s a real recognition that the entire labor movement has to be involved in this effort, that we have to do something for our democracy or we can lose it. Continue reading...
Samuel Fisher was also a self-declared dating coach who sold a $150 package of misogynistic tips for men to pick up womenA rioter who believed the QAnon conspiracy theory and joined the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, as they attempted to overturn his election defeat, has been sentenced in New York to 3.5 years in prison.Samuel Fisher, 33, was sentenced on Monday after being charged with illegal possession of firearms, including a modified semi-automatic AR-15-style assault rifle, a “ghost gun” pistol, a shotgun, and 11 pre-loaded high capacity magazines at an apartment in the upscale Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan. Continue reading...
Dante, a Virginia town, is seeking to transform itself into a hub of ecotourism by nurturing the environment around it, and bring some of the natural beauty back to the communityEighty-five years ago, Bobbie Gullett was born in the heart of coal country. She grew up in Dante, Virginia, a bustling municipality of 6,000 with a hospital, a hotel, schools, a movie theater, a taxicab stand, a train line. She remembers living in a worker house owned by the Clinchfield Coal Company: Back then, Gullett recalls, while the supervisors lived up on the ridges, coalminers and their families lived in the hollows of the nearby mountain range.Their squat houses spread along the winding streets of town, which sat in a bowl created by the bumpy, tree-crested hills. In spring and summer, mountain laurel bloomed in the forest and kudzu spread in patches, and in the winter, snow blanketed the town. Continue reading...
Bundy, who is running for governor in Idaho, summoned his followers to a judge’s home, revealing a troubling development in a divided political landscapeOne recent Friday afternoon far-right militia figure Ammon Bundy started a live video feed on his YouTube channel in the wake of being arrested on trespassing charges at a hospital in Idaho, where he is running for governor.Bundy appeared disappointed to tell his followers what he believed the government was forcing him to do next. He looked down at the camera, wearing an open-collared shirt and his usual cowboy hat, and let out a sigh. Then he threatened a sitting Idaho judge, summoning his supporters to go to his home. Continue reading...
Eric Adams launches Florida ad campaign denouncing state’s ‘don’t say gay’ legislationThe mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has launched a digital campaign designed to persuade members of Florida’s LGBTQ+ community to move to the Big Apple, after their state passed a so-called “don’t say gay” education law.On Monday, Adams announced the launch in five Florida cities of digital billboards and creative ads denouncing the legislation, which bans the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. Continue reading...
The one-month review follows criticism for its pandemic response including initial delays in developing a coronavirus testThe US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday announced plans to revamp itself, with director Rochelle Walensky hiring an outside senior federal health official to conduct a one-month review.James Macrae, an associate administrator in the Department of Health and Human Services, will join CDC on a one-month assignment from 11 April to listen to and engage with the agency’s Covid-19 response activities, Walensky said in an email to her colleagues. Continue reading...
Officials opt for new approach to moving sister vessel of Ever Given, which blocked Suez canal for a weekA cargo ship has been stuck in the Chesapeake Bay for more than three weeks, and after two unsuccessful attempts to free it, officials are pivoting to a new approach.On Monday, the US coast guard announced that containers would be removed from the Ever Forward to lighten the load before another try. Continue reading...
Nomination advances in Senate after judiciary committee vote splits along party linesLisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney on Monday brought to three the number of Republican senators to say they would vote in favor of supporting Ketanji Brown Jackson as Joe Biden’s nominee to the US supreme court.Murkowski of Alaska put out a statement on Monday evening saying: “After multiple in-depth conversations with Judge Jackson and deliberative review of her record and recent hearings, I will support her historic nomination to be an Associate Justice on the US supreme court.” Continue reading...
Foley’s brother and mother testify at Virginia court trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, accused of kidnap and murder of US journalistThe Islamic State terrorists who kidnapped American journalist James Foley never made serious attempts to negotiate a ransom before brutally executing him, family members have told a court.Foley’s brother and mother took the witness stand at US district court in Alexandria at the terror trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, a Briton accused of playing a leading role in a hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the deaths of Foley and three other Americans – Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. Continue reading...
The Senate judiciary committee meets today, beginning a week expected to conclude with the confirmation of the first black female supreme court justice
Police say they have received more than 100 videos or photos from the scene and have executed three search warrantsPolice in the California state capital have made an arrest in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting that left six people dead and at least a dozen others injured. In the hours after the bloodshed, police say they have received more than 100 videos or photos from the scene and executed search warrants on three homes.They identified a 26-year-old man as one of the individuals arrested in connection to the shooting, in a press release. He has been charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses. Continue reading...
by Jon Henley and David Smith in Washington on (#5XTR7)
Western leaders prepare fresh round of sanctions against Moscow amid outrage over reports of killings in town of Bucha, near KyivJoe Biden has called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes as western leaders prepared a fresh round of economic sanctions against Moscow amid mounting global outrage over claims of civilian killings by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.The US president was responding to harrowing images broadcast around the world after the discovery over the weekend of a mass grave and bodies in civilian clothes, some with their hands bound, in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. Continue reading...
Viktor Orbán’s fourth consecutive election victory was crushing. But once again it was an unfair fightWhat now for the European Union’s most challenged and compromised democracy? The scale of Viktor Orbán’s fourth consecutive election victory in Hungary was crushing, comprehensive and unexpected. Faced for the first time with a united opposition alliance that put internal differences aside, predictions of a close race – or at least a competitive one – were confounded. On a high turnout, Mr Orbán’s Fidesz party actually won a greater number of seats than it held previously while Péter Márki-Zay, the opposition’s candidate for prime minister, failed even to win the local constituency he was contesting. Once again, resistance to Mr Orbán’s brand of authoritarian, conservative nationalism was largely confined to Budapest and other urban centres.This is a result that will be mourned in Brussels and celebrated in the Kremlin. After pledging to keep Hungary out of the confrontation between the liberal west and Vladimir Putin’s Russia over Ukraine, Mr Orbán has a mandate to obstruct and disrupt EU attempts to impose further sanctions on Moscow. At a time when European unity is paramount, that is a problem that western leaders can do without. But at a still more fundamental level, the EU faces the acute dilemma of how to deal with a member state in which democratic norms have been flouted to such an extent that Mr Orbán’s autocratic rule appears unassailable. Continue reading...
Secret Service chose Malibu property to be as close as possible to president’s son, report saysThe US Secret Service is paying more than $30,000 a month to rent a Malibu mansion, in order to protect Hunter Biden.To house agents protecting Joe Biden’s son, the agency has rented a Spanish-style estate that according to a property listing features “gorgeous ocean views” and “resort style living at its finest”. Continue reading...
Paul Stankowski was able to get a good close look at the emerging Woods as he stormed away to win the 1997 MastersTiger Woods’s domination of the 1997 Masters was such that only the tournament within the tournament behind him was competitive. He prevailed by a dozen shots. Six separated Tom Kite, who was second, from those who tied for 17th.Paul Stankowski will return to the galleries at Augusta National this week with memories of 25 years ago reverberating inside his head. Stankowski is an interesting case; he missed the cut on his Masters debut in 1996 and finished in a share of fifth a year later before finishing 39th in 1998. He was never to play in the Masters, which is held in Georgia, again. Continue reading...
Jury will decide whether Nikolas Cruz faces life in prison or the death penalty after pleading guilty to the murders of 17 peopleJury selection in the death penalty trial of Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 17 students and staff members in a 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, began on Monday after years of delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic.Cruz, 23, has already pled guilty to the murders at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, meaning a jury will decide whether he faces life in prison or the death penalty. It is the deadliest US mass shooting ever to go to trial. Continue reading...
Spanish police and US FBI agents have seized a £70m superyacht in Mallorca linked to Viktor Vekselberg, a sanctioned Russian billionaire who Washington says is a close ally of Vladimir Putin. The yacht can host 14 guests in luxury in seven cabins, with a crew of 22, according to the SuperYachtFan website
Terry Wayne Wallis had been in a serious car accident but surprised doctors and family when he regained consciousnessAn Arkansas man who woke up after spending 19 years in a coma has died.Terry Wayne Wallis, who woke up from an almost 20-year coma in 2003, died last Tuesday at the age of 57, according to an obituary posted by a funeral home. Continue reading...
Intercourse is not only pleasurable, but it also keeps body and mind healthy through maintaining intimacy with a partnerDid you know that orgasms can help your hair grow? It’s a fun fact, especially significant for women over the age of 40, because in midlife our hair thins as growth slows down. I know this because as a 53-year-old woman and co-presenter of the podcast Postcards from Midlife, I am now something of an expert on women in this age group. And sex, I have found out, is vital for us – emotionally, physically and culturally.The traditional narrative that the baby boomer generation encountered and passed on to today’s generation who are now in midlife – Generation X – was that women’s sex drives declined with age, while men’s remained the same or increased. There was an assumption that as other things came to dominate our lives – caring for elderly parents, looking after teenagers, dealing with illness, trying to stay relevant at work – our sex lives, much like our physical selves, would become invisible. And of course, juggling all this does affect us – but this notion of a declining sex drive is not only patronising, but also inaccurate. In fact, 40% of midlife women we quizzed in a survey on our Facebook group said they wanted more sex. A total of 56% said they owned at least one sex toy; 65% enjoyed sexual fantasies (though 82% didn’t discuss these with their partners); more than 35% were masturbating at least once a week; and almost 37% were having sex at least once a week. So it seems we didn’t put our love lives in the loft with our vinyl collections.Lorraine Candy is an author and co-presenter of the podcast Postcards from Midlife Continue reading...
Prizes for Silk Sonic, Doja Cat and Olivia Rodrigo showed the awards at their best – which can’t be said for Louis CK’s honourThere’s nothing the Grammys like more than classiness. Many of the albums and songs to have won the top prizes have been ones that are handsomely, rather than raggedly, made; emotionally forthright but keeping themselves in check. And so it proved at the 2022 ceremony, where strong work of great classiness by Silk Sonic, Jon Batiste and Olivia Rodrigo secured the big prizes.Silk Sonic’s Leave the Door Open is a very deserved winner of four awards, for record and song of the year, plus R&B performance and R&B song (the latter shared with Jazmine Sullivan, also the rightful winner of R&B album). With its immaculate session musicianship and vocal harmonising, it seems to be in conversation with R&B itself, lampooning the earnest lust of the late 70s and 80s iteration of the genre but not mocking it. There is a kind of sketch comedy detail to the way Anderson Paak makes sure all the bases are covered to seal the romantic deal, proffering fillet steaks and marijuana – but without such sumptuous songwriting it would have risked coming off as a Lonely Island-type parody. These wins mean Paak’s Silk Sonic partner Bruno Mars is now a 14-time winner, and Mars is perhaps the very vision of what the Recording Academy loves: technically brilliant, in tune with history and alive to love and sex without being threateningly erotic. Continue reading...
The death of Don Young left an Alaska House seat vacant and the former governor announced her run on FridayDonald Trump has endorsed the former governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin for the vacant congressional seat in Alaska.“Sarah shocked many when she endorsed me very early in 2016, and we won big,” the former president said in a statement on Sunday night. Continue reading...
The Fox News owner was also dubbed ‘one of the most destructive forces in the US’ by the presidentJoe Biden called Rupert Murdoch “the most dangerous man in the world”, according to a forthcoming book.The comment, from mid-2021, is reported in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, two New York Times reporters. Continue reading...
After my mother’s death, I tried to fool myself that I could look after him at a time in my life when I couldn’t even take care of myselfI was 21 years old when my mother died in 2011. While this was sad, what was even more shattering was how my 75-year-old father aged overnight. Being alone made him fall into a deep depression. He needed to be around people constantly, loneliness was his nemesis, and there was no easy antidote. On his own, he would not always eat enough, or drink enough, and he was at risk of falling over.On the verge of adulthood, I had no idea what to do regarding my father’s care. I had gone from studying Noam Chomsky at university to studying care facilities. At first, we tried an assisted living facility, which offered round-the-clock care while retaining a degree of independence. However, the loneliness was all too consuming. He neglected himself, and it soon became apparent that this was not the right place for him.Jen McPherson is a student and freelance journalistIn the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393. In the US, Mental Health America is available on 800-273-8255. In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. Continue reading...
Workers in Staten Island formed the first Amazon union in the US. Their victory makes Bezos’ space flight seem like small fryThe first Amazon union was always going to be a big fucking deal. But it’s hard to imagine how it could have been any sweeter than this one was. When it became official on Saturday morning that more than 8,000 workers in an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island had voted to unionize with the independent Amazon Labor Union, it meant that America’s most powerful non-union company has just been cracked open not by some deep-pocketed institutional force, but instead by a former employee, with no real experience or budget, who started organizing just because he saw that it needed to be done.Before we plumb the analytical depths of the import of this for the future of the American working class, we must just say, to Amazon founder and mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos, recently returned to earth from a short trip to space in a personal luxury rocket: Ha. Hahahaha.Hamilton Nolan is a labor reporter at In These Times Continue reading...
By equating Putin and Xi, Western leaders risk casting aside possibilities for international cooperation and setting the world on a path to far wider geopolitical conflictIn the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s highly publicized meeting with Xi Jinping before the Beijing Winter Olympics seems to have crystallized opinion in the west. In the US and its allies, political leaders, commentators and journalists now portray a monolithic authoritarian bloc bent on extinguishing the rules-based order that has safeguarded peace and democracy for decades.According to the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, “a new arc of autocracy is instinctively aligning to challenge and reset the world order in their own image.” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, characterized the joint communique coming out of the Putin-Xi meeting as aiming to establish “the rule of the strongest [over] the rule of law, intimidation instead of self-determination, coercion instead of cooperation”.Tobita Chow is the director of Justice Is Global, a project of People’s Action and the People’s Action InstituteJake Werner is a Global China post-doctoral research fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center Continue reading...
House select committee seizes momentum as it embarks on final push to conclude evidence-gathering phase of inquiryThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalize on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete the roughly one hundred remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election. Continue reading...
Poor People’s Pandemic report concludes that while virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government didThe devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on poor and low-income communities across America is laid bare in a new report released on Monday that concludes that while the virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government did.As the US draws close to the terrible landmark of 1 million deaths from coronavirus, the glaringly disproportionate human toll that has been exacted is exposed by the Poor People’s Pandemic Report. Based on a data analysis of more than 3,000 counties across the US, it finds that people in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties. Continue reading...
Ukraine president says worse atrocities may yet be uncovered as satellite images show mass grave near church in Bucha. Plus, scientists urge end to fossil fuel useGood morning.Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Russia’s public image is now one of torture and execution after the retreat of Russian forces in the town of Bucha led to the discovery of the remains of hundreds of civilians.What has Russia said about the reports coming out of Bucha? Russia’s foreign ministry said footage of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha had been “ordered” by the US as part of a plot to blame Russia.Is rape being used as a weapon of war? There is a mounting body of evidence that summary executions, rape and torture have been used against civilians in areas under Russian control since the Kremlin launched the invasion of its neighbour on 24 February.What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 39 of the Russian invasion.What is the US government going to do go help Ukraine? Blinken would not be drawn on the details of US military aid being sent to Ukraine, but said the aim was “to make sure they have the systems they need”. Continue reading...
LGBTQ+ parents and pediatric psychologists say the law stigmatizes being gay or transgender and could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youthStella, 10, attends a private school in Atlanta, Georgia, and explains to friends that she has four moms. Two of them are the lesbian couple that adopted her. The other two are her birth parents, one of whom recently came out as a transgender woman.“I’m so grateful that [Stella] is somewhere that sees” the family “as what it is: her moms just love her”, said Kelsey Hanley, Stella’s birth mother, who lives in Kissimmee, Florida. Continue reading...
Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg has said 'thoughts and prayers are not nearly enough' after six people were killed and 10 injured in an early morning shooting on a Sacramento street busy with revellers. Police said they were still searching for suspects, with no one in custody. 'How many unending tragedies does it take before we begin to cure the sickness in this country?' Steinberg said, commenting on gun violence across the US
With cocktails booming in popularity, it appears they may be a link between hard times and hard liquorIt is far from an exact science, taking a nation’s pulse from what it’s drinking. Cocktail sociology tends, alas, to be looked down upon by the Academy. The field is sadly overreliant on the datasets of second-rate spiced rum brands. Still, cocktails are, apparently, selling in record numbers: they accounted for almost one-tenth of alcohol sales in bars and restaurants between April and October 2020, compared with 6% before the pandemic; and the at-home cocktail market has grown 44% year on year. Why the explosion in popularity? As someone who has spent a few negronis correlating vermouth trends with socio-economic factors, I think there are two conclusions to draw.The first is that the British will use anything as an excuse to drink: crash, plague, war, depression, we’re not fussy. At-home sales of alcohol increased by 24% in the year from March 2020. Not only did at-home drinking nearly cancel out the losses of bars and restaurants during lockdown (overall alcohol sales were only down by 1.2%), it changed what we were drinking: the five o’clock cocktail ritual became an anchor amid the amorphous days and a proxy for all the things we couldn’t do: travel, socialise, laugh. It’s also far less effort making a margarita than making sourdough. As a result, beer was down 14%; spirits were up 7.3%. Waitrose reported that pandemic tequila sales went up by 175% with liqueur sales rising by 78%.Richard Godwin is the author of The Spirits and writes a weekly newsletter about cocktails at thespirits.substack.com Continue reading...
Experts say decriminalisation is not the problem – the new measure lacks a proper pathway to recovery amid the growing overdose crisisCallers to the Measure 110 hotline, which was set up a year ago, after Oregon became the first state in the US to decriminalise personal possession of drugs including meth and heroin, may hear Martin Lewis Lockett’s deep, reassuring voice.Lockett, who is in recovery, first assesses the callers, who can use the hotline if they have received a police citation for drug use. He uses an evidence-based screening tool to determine if someone has substance use issues, and connects them with nearby help. In one case, a man called the hotline after relapsing, but told Lockett his drug use was just a hiccup. “I know minimisation when I hear it,” Lockett said. By the end of the call, the man realised he needed help, and Lockett linked him to services. Continue reading...
More open conversations and better support are needed for people grappling with this momentous choiceLong before I became pregnant, I would ask people how they knew that they wanted to have children. Was there a lightning moment, or had the longing grown and grown until it became too much to ignore? Of course, the answers I got were as varied as people themselves. Some were able to distill it into a clear instant: taking hold of a small child’s hand for the first time, or seeing a baby on a bus one day and knowing, suddenly. Others were influenced by life events: the death of a parent was a common one, leading them to reflect on how bloodlines unfurl, wanting to see a little of that beloved parent manifest in a new being. Others had always known, in their bones, since their own childhoods.Then, for women, there was the so-called biological clock. Not so much a desire for a child, but an awareness that time could be running out, and a sort of not-wanting, a double negative: not-wanting to have not had a child. Many of these women expressed guilt at not having felt “the longing”, as though an innate-seeming, visceral dose of baby fever was the norm, and, in their absence of strong maternal feelings, they were deviating from it. But it does not seem that way to me, and besides, my own feelings were far from simple. At times it felt as though my body was at war with my brain. There were so many rational reasons not to become a parent, and yet the longing I felt was so powerful that it was making me unspeakably sad not to be.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appeared in a video message at the Grammy awards to ask for support in telling the story of Ukraine's invasion by Russia. During the message that aired, he likened the Russian invasion to a deadly silence threatening to extinguish the dreams and lives of the Ukrainian people, including children. 'Our musicians wear body armour instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals, even to those who can’t hear them ... But the music will break through anyway,' he said. 'Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV, support us in any way you can any, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities the war is destroying,' Zelenskiy said
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