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Alistair Burt, previously a Foreign Office minister, queries delay to payment of cash that freed Nazanin Zaghari-RatcliffeThe UK government has known for many years that if it paid a £400m debt to Iran it was likely to lead to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt has said in a letter to the foreign affairs select committee.Burt, a Tory MP until 2019, is calling for the committee to launch an inquiry into why the debt was not paid and into who – either in the governments of the UK or the US – resisted making the payment. Continue reading...

Texas senator filmed becoming confrontational with airport staff after missing check-in window for flight from Bozeman, MontanaIn Washington on Monday, the Texas senator Ted Cruz complained that supreme court confirmation hearings have become increasingly angry and confrontational.In Bozeman, Montana the previous day, however, the Republican was filmed becoming angry and confrontational with airport staff and an armed police officer. Continue reading...

Steps allegedly taken to limit former Missouri governor’s access to firearms after he showed ‘unstable and coercive’ behaviorThe former Missouri governor Eric Greitens, now a leading Republican Senate candidate, was physically abusive and demonstrated such “unstable and coercive behavior” that steps were taken to limit his access to firearms, according to allegations from his ex-wife revealed in court records on Monday.The sworn affidavit from Sheena Greitens is part of a child custody dispute. A public affairs professor at the University of Texas, she sought divorce after a sex scandal led to Eric Greitens’ resignation as governor in June 2018. Continue reading...

Trial of Couy Griffin is the second among hundreds of people charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 riotAn elected official from New Mexico headed to trial on Monday with a judge, not a jury, set to decide if he is guilty of charges that he illegally entered the US Capitol grounds on the day a pro-Trump mob disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.The trial of Couy Griffin, an Otero county commissioner, is the second among hundreds of people charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 riot. Continue reading...

The dictator’s first loyalty is to Putin, despite biting sanctions and growing opposition to the invasion at homeThe Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has allowed Russian convoys and troops to close in on Kyiv from Belarusian territory and provided military infrastructure, notably airbases that Russian warplanes are using to attack Ukraine. The country is being bombarded by rockets arriving from Belarusian territory.Belarus’s dictator also provides political support for Russian aggression: Belarus voted against the resolution of the UN general assembly condemning the Russian invasion (alongside Russia, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea), and its state propaganda machine mirrors Russia’s in its justifications. Like its eastern neighbour, the Lukashenko regime is arresting and repressing those who dare protest against war.Ryhor Astapenia is director of the Belarus Initiative at Chatham House, and research director at the Centre for New Ideas Continue reading...

As enticing as comparisons with the past can be, it’s geography that holds the key to understanding the war in UkraineNo, the war in Ukraine is not like Brexit. No, the Russians are not Nazis, nor are the Ukrainians. No, Boris Johnson is not Churchill or Pericles, and the third world war has not begun, unless we choose to begin it. Such comparisons are odious. As a guide to the present, let alone the future, history is for smart alecks and podcasts. It is bunk.The only quarrel I have with Ukraine’s astonishing resistance to Russia is with its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s, recourse to historical parallels. It is understandable that Ukraine should want to browbeat Nato into joining its cause against Russia. Its struggle is existential. But to summon images of Europe’s blood-drenched 20th century is no way to do it. As for Johnson portraying the Kremlin as on a par with the EU – an organisation Ukraine wants to join – it is like having a playground idiot running the country.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Many conservatives don’t think the 2020 election was stolen. But they believe democracy itself has betrayed America, by allowing the ‘wrong’ people to take chargeEarlier this month, Team Trump claimed in court that their efforts to nullify Joe Biden’s victory could not possibly have been fraudulent or be described as a criminal conspiracy, because those in and around the White House had merely been acting on the basis of sincerely held suspicions.This sparked the latest round in the never-ending debate over whether or not Republicans actually believe that the election was stolen from them. Politically, it is important to push back against the opportunistic ways in which Republicans up and down the country have been using the “big lie”. But if we are trying to understand what is animating the right’s rapidly accelerating radicalization against democracy, binary assumptions of Republicans as either true believers or power-hungry cynics are not very helpful and actually obscure more than they illuminate. In some fundamental way, Republicans are both. What we really need to grapple with is why so many Republicans are convinced the outcome of the election was illegitimate regardless of whether or not there were specific procedural irregularities.Thomas Zimmer is a visiting professor at Georgetown University, focused on the history of democracy and its discontents in the United States, and a Guardian US contributing opinion writer Continue reading...

Court says 73-year-old does not have Covid and could be released in next few days after ‘flu-like’ infection symptoms began abatingThe supreme court justice Clarence Thomas was admitted to hospital after experiencing “flu-like symptoms” and was then found to have an infection, the court said late on Sunday.A court spokesperson told news outlets Thomas, who has been vaccinated and boosted, did not have Covid-19. Continue reading...

Talent trumps trouble in the NFL and Cleveland value the quarterback’s arm, not his character. Pretending otherwise merely insults fans’ intelligenceFrom a football-only perspective, the winner of the Cleveland Browns-Houston Texans blockbuster trade for Deshaun Watson is worthy of debate. The Texans shipped the 26-year-old quarterback to the Browns in exchange for three first-round picks, plus a third- and fourth-rounder. In addition, Watson will reportedly receive $230m in guaranteed money. That’s a boatload of capital to invest in any player, and Watson will need to give the Browns several years of production to make the deal worth it for Cleveland from a football perspective. Franchise quarterbacks drive organizations: great ones are worth breaking the bank for.But in trading for Watson, the Browns sold their soul. Of course, Watson is no ordinary player. He’s a multi-faceted – and arguably generational – talent who led the league in passing yards in 2020. He is a three-time Pro Bowler who holds the NFL record for highest career completion percentage. The Browns salivated at those stats, all the while minimizing a far more significant number: 22. Continue reading...

European trip will include meetings with Nato, EU and G7 allies but White House says president will not visit Ukraine

Officials in South Carolina ruled the shooting of Nathan Drew, 29, by an unnamed 79-year-old was an act of self-defenseSouth Carolina officials said they would not file charges against a boater who helped rescue a man from the water, then shot him dead.A statement from the Oconee county sheriff’s office said the 10th judicial circuit solicitor, David Wagner, ruled that the Tuesday shooting of 29-year-old Nathan Drew Morgan by an unnamed 74-year-old man was an act of self-defense. Continue reading...

Moscow offers safe passages to fighters who give in, as US says Joe Biden will visit Poland. Plus, Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings beginGood morning.Ukraine has defied an ultimatum by the Russian military for its forces to surrender the city of Mariupol, as shelling continued in Kyiv and the US president, Joe Biden, announced that he would visit Ukraine’s western neighbour Poland this week.What did Vereshchuk say? “There can be no talk of any surrenders, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she said.Are diplomatic efforts continuing? Yes, Biden will host a call today with president Emmanuel Macron of France, chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, and the British prime minister, Boris Johnson.What else is happening? Here’s everything we know on day 26 of the invasion.What happens today? Today’s hearing will be devoted to opening statements from Jackson and from the committee’s 22 senators, who are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.When will a decision be made? Two days of questioning of the candidate will follow today’s hearing, with outside witnesses called on Thursday. A full vote of the Senate is expected to determine Jackson’s fate before a recess on 8 April. Continue reading...

A new study shows that women wearing high heels are taken less seriously – but if you don’t wear them, you’re ‘unprofessional’. Enough of this sexist nonsenseAs more and more people return to the workplace in person, there’s a lot to be unenthusiastic about – micromanaging bosses, hellish commutes, that one colleague you just can’t stand. There’s also the bane of women in the workplace: heels.Women have long bemoaned the unfair and sexist norms that require many of us to wear heels at the office – from the physical discomfort of having to work in stilettos for hours, to the misogynistic tropes that get projected on to women who wear high heels, especially in male-dominated spaces.Tayo Bero is a freelance writer Continue reading...

Drug addiction is endemic in Seattle’s large homeless community, which has helped fuel a rise in violent crime. The situation has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic Continue reading...

A country battered and bruised by Russia’s invading forces needs space to breathe – not demands from hedge fundsA bloodied man empties his wallet to his creditor while being mercilessly attacked by an unprovoked assailant. This is the plight of Ukraine, which recently made a scheduled interest payment to private lenders as tanks rolled over its land and missiles struck its cities. Even before Vladimir Putin started bombing apartment blocks and maternity hospitals, Ukraine was Europe’s poorest country as measured by GDP per capita – significantly poorer than Albania. Yet this war-ravaged country is saddled with unsustainable debt – and as the piles of rubble grow, so do the repayments. That’s debt for Ukraine, but profits for western hedge funds. War, for some, is the ultimate money-spinner.Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 – triggering a conflict in the east that had claimed thousands of lives before the current invasion – Ukraine has been forced to borrow $61bn (£46bn) from external lenders, according to calculations by the Jubilee Debt Campaign; a small sliver has been paid off, but what remains represents about a third of the country’s total economy. Ukraine was due to cough up $7.3bn this year alone – more than its annual education budget. For a rich country blessed with peace, that would be manageable, but Ukrainians are poorer today than when the Soviet Union collapsed three decades ago. At least $100bn worth of damage has already been inflicted to infrastructure – from roads to bridges, hospitals to schools – and, as you read this, that figure only mounts. Yet almost all of the financial assistance being given to Ukraine is in the form of loans. Precious funds will be diverted from rebuilding a shattered country, instead filling the coffers of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and private bondholders.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Photo of gator with football and video of another chasing toy boat follow study which said crocodilians can mess about on the riverWith one sizable difference, they could be scenes of everyday recreation in the sunshine state of Florida: a tourist playing with a football, another eagerly chasing a remote control boat round a lake.But the remarkable images posted to social media over the past week feature alligators, not humans – seeming to confirm a Tennessee university study that said crocodilians like to have fun too. Continue reading...

Senate minority leader dodges invitation to say such Republicans should be ejected from party or face disciplinary measures

Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this weekThe Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.Hawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year. Continue reading...

January 6 committee member splits from fellow Republican Adam Kinzinger but says first impeachment informs panel’s work

‘I could see security dragging people away,’ says editor fined for walking into shot with sign saying ‘No War’

Biden’s chief medical adviser also says the US is ‘clearly going in the right direction’ on the pandemicThe US is likely to see an increase in Covid cases like that in Europe and the UK thanks to the BA.2 virus subvariant but not a dangerous surge, Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser also said the US was “clearly going in the right direction” on the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

Wisconsin senator says if GOP retakes control it will use committees to move against Democrats and BidenHunter Biden and Anthony Fauci will be prime targets of Senate Republicans should the party win control in November, a senior senator said.Asked by the Hill what he would want to investigate should he control a committee with subpoena power, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said: “Like everything? It’s like a mosquito in a nudist colony, it’s a target-rich environment.” Continue reading...

Yes, there’s lots of turnover and people changing jobs – but maybe the problem isn’t all with the employerEmployers across the US have been dealing with a historic shift in labor thanks to the pandemic. We know it as the Great Resignation, and the pundits have been falling over themselves to explain to us why employers are at fault. Now it looks like the Great Resignation may be followed by the Great Regret.There’s no doubt employers have a lot to learn from the unprecedented rate of job turnover. Researchers at the consulting firm McKinsey, for example, say that employees are tired, and many are grieving. “They want a renewed and revised sense of purpose in their work,” write its authors. “They want social and interpersonal connections with their colleagues and managers. They want to feel a sense of shared identity. They want meaningful – though not necessarily in-person – interactions, not just transactions.” Unfortunately, some of us are not sympathetic enough to these needs. So our employees leave. Continue reading...

What happens in contests like the gubernatorial race in Wisconsin, a critical battleground state, will have broad implications for US politicsWisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, is not exactly known as a hotheaded partisan warrior – the softspoken Democrat enjoys polka, the card game Euchre, and a daily McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. But it struck a nerve this week when he heard Robin Vos, the powerful speaker of the Wisconsin state assembly, claim there was widespread voter fraud in 2020.“He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met but that was about the dumbest thing he’s ever said,” Evers told the Guardian on Thursday. Continue reading...

In his 14 months in office, the US president has grappled with Covid, inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war and energy prices – and seemingly can’t catch a breakThe left are urging a green energy revolution. The right are sounding a battle cry of “Drill, baby, drill”. And American voters, tired of political excuses, are feeling angry.Rising gas prices pose a fresh election year headache for Joe Biden. Republicans accuse him of pushing “a radical anti-US energy agenda”. Democrats put the blame on greedy oil companies and the assault on Ukraine by the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. Continue reading...

With Nato and EU summits this week, there’s a need for clear leadership. But despite Biden’s talk of unity, the cracks are showing

In the US, in times of crisis, the poor pay the price and the rich cash in. Democrats know it doesn’t have to be this wayThis morning I filled my car with gas, costing almost six dollars a gallon. My car is a Mini Cooper I bought years ago, partly because it wasn’t a gas-guzzler. Now it’s guzzling dollars.When I consider what’s happening in Ukraine, I say what the hell. It’s a small sacrifice. Continue reading...

Governor declares disaster in 11 counties as experts warn of fires in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and NebraskaFire crews in Texas made progress on Saturday against a massive complex of wildfires that killed a deputy sheriff and burned at least 50 homes, officials said.“Progress has been made but fire activity has picked up with rising temperatures and lower humidity,” said Matt Ford, spokesperson for Texas A&M Forest Services. He said about 25% of the flames were contained, up from about 4% late on Friday as the fire burned thick brush and grass fields. Continue reading...

Officer resigns from school security guard job after officials release footage of fight and girl’s father calls for criminal chargesSchool officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin released surveillance footage that showed an off-duty police officer putting his knee on a 12-year-old girl’s neck to restrain her amid a lunchtime fight.The Kenosha Unified School District released redacted footage of the 4 March fight on Friday. Continue reading...

Tim Kaine believes basketball star’s detention is to make her ‘part of this chess game’A senior Democratic senator has said he believes Russia wants to use the WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has been held in Moscow for more than a month on accusations she smuggled drugs into the country, as a “negotiating chip” regarding the war in Ukraine.“I think there’s no doubt that her detention, and then this continuation of the imprisonment, is all to try to make her a hostage and a part of this chess game,” Tim Kaine, of Virginia, told Full Court Press in an interview scheduled to air in full on Sunday. Continue reading...

Jimmy Hill, 68, was killed in a Russian attack on Chernihiv as his partner, Irina Teslenko, received treatmentJimmy Hill, the American who was killed in Ukraine this week, refused to postpone a trip to the country to bring medical treatment to his longtime partner, Irina Teslenko, who has progressive multiple sclerosis, his family said on Saturday.Hill, 68, was killed in a Russian attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, as Teslenko received treatment. Hill’s family say Teslenko and her mother are trying to leave the city but would need an ambulance and it is unclear if that can happen. Continue reading...

Most collaborators in the west are at least coming up with excuses after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That’s not the case in BritainAcross the west, institutions that collaborated with Vladimir Putin’s Russia are having a moment of revelation. Lawyers who persecuted investigative journalists and a financial service industry that feasted on oligarchical loot are shocked beyond measure by the invasion of Ukraine.They happily overlooked the levelling of Grozny, the war crimes in Aleppo, the missile attacks on civilian flights, the invasion of Crimea, the destructions of Russian democracy, the endemic corruption, the endless lying, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Alexei Navalny. Only now they realise that the Kremlin may not be a reputable business partner after all. Continue reading...

Lamonte McIntyre spent two decades in prison for a double murder he did not commit and says a former detective framed himA Kansas man who spent 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit is seeking $93m in damages from the county where he was convicted and a former detective he says framed him.Lamonte McIntyre, 45, and his mother allege in a lawsuit filed in 2018 that the unified government of Wyandotte county and Kansas City, Kansas is responsible for the actions of former police detective Roger Golubski and other officers involved in his prosecution. Continue reading...

US district judge issues ruling in two longstanding lawsuits involving former Kentucky clerk and two same-sex couplesA federal judge has ruled that a former Kentucky clerk violated the constitutional rights of two same-sex couples after she wouldn’t issue them marriage licenses – a refusal that sparked international attention and briefly landed her in jail in 2015.The US district judge, David Bunning, issued the ruling on Friday in two longstanding lawsuits involving Kim Davis, the former clerk of Rowan county, and two same-sex couples. A jury trial will still need to decide on any damages. Continue reading...

Schlumberger also halts business in response to US sanctions over Russia’s invasion of UkraineTwo giant US oil field services companies, Halliburton and Schlumberger, have said they are suspending operations in Russia, in response to US sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.Halliburton said on Friday it had suspended future business in Russia in compliance with sanctions that prohibit transactions and work, including for certain state-owned Russian customers. Continue reading...

We are socially conditioned to think of brilliance and genius as male traits, but the bar is also a lot lower for menElon Musk may not be a diplomat but, as everyone knows, he is a genius. And, true to form, the man has come up with a genius way to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (The United Nations, I hope you’re listening!) Here we go … he wants to fight Vladimir Putin. Just him and Putin, man-to-man, battling it out.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

Unidentified gunman kills 20-year-old vocalist minutes after he was released on bond following arrest in Opa-locka, FloridaTributes have been paid to Baby Cino, an aspiring rapper from Miami, who was shot and killed in a daylight ambush minutes after leaving a city jail on Wednesday.The 20-year-old vocalist, whose real name was Timothy Starks, was arrested by Miami-Dade officers at 2am in Opa-locka, Florida on Tuesday after they pulled him over for driving with an obscured number plate. On searching his car, police found a fully loaded Glock 32 pistol. Continue reading...

National Review says candidate for governor in Georgia and self-confessed superfan does not deserve fictional titleThe Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams has been made president – of United Earth.The honour, which a leading conservative website said Abrams did not deserve, was bestowed by the Paramount+ TV series Star Trek: Discovery, in its season four finale. Continue reading...

Matthew Muller guilty of rape and false imprisonment in intricate attack which authorities first dismissed – to their cost – as stagedA man who sexually assaulted a northern California woman who was kidnapped from her home in what police initially thought was a hoax was sentenced on Friday to 31 years in state prison.Matthew Muller, already serving a 40-year sentence for federal crimes, was sentenced in Solano county superior court after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape of Denise Huskins, who was dragged from her Vallejo home in 2015, the county district attorney’s office said. Continue reading...

People knew the news was grave before the second world war. They feel that now. In both eras, we have developed strategies to get byArmed conflict, especially when fought against a more powerful enemy, produces the loftiest national rhetoric. It keeps our spirits up, and we tend to remember the best bits. In his speech to the Westminster parliament last week, Volodymyr Zelenskiy echoed Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” passage from his post-Dunkirk oration, but the Ukrainian president might just as appositely have referenced one of Britain’s most hostile critics.“These are the times that try men’s souls,” the English radical and American patriot Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, when the American revolutionary war was only a year old and its outcome far from certain. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country,” Paine continued, “but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered: yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”Ian Jack is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...