Although the case was decided on a technicality, a dissenting judge on panel said the court should have rejected the claim on its meritsA Florida appeals court denied an attorney’s attempt to have a woman released from jail ahead of trial by arguing that her fetus was being illegally detained without charge – but the attorney says he plans to continue the legal battle.Florida’s third district court of appeal dismissed without prejudice a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by attorney William M Norris on behalf of the “unborn child” of Natalia Harrell. Continue reading...
We’ve all heard of the ‘lipstick effect’ and the ‘hemline index’ as indicators of the overall economy. But perhaps there is another gauge we should consider ...OK, I’m calling tit: we’ve reached peak cleavage. Over the years I’ve selflessly and diligently kept abreast of ridiculous cleavage trends. Which is harder than it sounds, let me tell you, because there has been no end of them. The year 2000, for example, saw the advent of “toe cleavage”. According to Manolo Blahnik, something of an expert on foot-related matters, “you must only show the first two cracks”. A decade later, everything was different: 2012 was the year of sideboob. Then the Daily Mail, which knows a thing or two about cleavage, predicted the “side boob’s days could be numbered” and it was the “bum slip’s” time to shine. Along this journey we’ve seen various fashionistas declare the advent of male cleavage, side cleavage, no cleavage and hip cleavage.I know all this is a lot to take in, but bear with me here because there has been an important new development in the cleavage wars. According to the New York Post, 2023 is the year of the “circumboob”. This is when you wear something that manages to show pretty much everything but the nipple. The year’s general aura of chaos has spilled over to fashion trends and now “sideboob, innerboob and underboob” have converged into one circum-trend. I know that the New York Post is not always to be trusted, but I have it on good authority that this new trend can be spotted out in the wild. I’ll put money on it: the circumboob is legit. In fact, I’m calling it now: it’s going to be Oxford’s 2023 word of the year. Continue reading...
Girls and young women report rising rates of suicide, depression and sexual violence in North America – and a lot of it has to do with social mediaTeenage girls are in crisis, and have been for some time. The CDC’s recently released Youth Risk Behavior Survey has received a great deal of media attention, but it’s only one of many alarming studies, even before the pandemic, charting rising rates of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide in girls.A stream of thinkpieces are asking what lies behind girls’ unhappiness. Some blame social media. Others cite sexual violence: the CDC report found that girls are experiencing an increase – with 14% of them the victims of forced sex, a figure at least three times higher than for boys. Others have speculated that it’s a more generalized misogyny that’s making girls feel hopeless.Nancy Jo Sales is a writer at Vanity Fair and the author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers Continue reading...
The leave ultras rely on their Eurosceptic grievances – no wonder Boris Johnson created the disastrous protocol in the first placeIs the grievance factory about to shut up shop at last? The Northern Ireland protocol is the last outpost of the once mighty manufacturing empire that produced, in industrial quantities, self-pitying narratives of Britons oppressed by Brussels. Now, perhaps, that assembly line has finally juddered to a halt.The paradox of the Brexit project for its own advocates is that its very success has cut off the pipeline of complaint that fed their teeming springs of outrage. The protocol was the last excuse for throwing the old shapes, the one remaining arena in which the grand game of Euro-bashing could be played. It is not surprising that there are those – Boris Johnson, much of the European Research Group (ERG), part of the Democratic Unionist party – who can’t bear to part with it.Fintan O’Toole is a columnist with the Irish Times Continue reading...
Prisoners who joined hunger strike to protest extreme conditions describe the damage isolation inflicts on mental healthTexas prisoners who joined a hunger strike in protest against the state’s widespread use of prolonged solitary confinement have described the damage to inmates’ mental and physical health inflicted by a system they equate with torture.Guadalupe III Constante said that despite having a clean disciplinary record, he has been held in isolation every day since he was convicted of robbery 17 years ago. “I went on hunger strike to bring attention to this torture – I haven’t had contact with my wife, kids, brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents in 17 years.” Continue reading...
Abdul-Kerim Edilov was an MMA veteran as well as one of the most influential men in his homeland. And then he disappeared from public lifeWhen Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ramzan Kadyrov – the strongman leader of Chechnya and a close ally of Vladimir Putin – gathered his troops in the main square of the region’s capital, Grozny, to signal his readiness to join the war.Positioned on a dais overlooking the crowd, Kadyrov stood against a backdrop of the most powerful men in Chechnya. Among them was Abuzayed Vismuradov, the dictator’s right-hand man who was the target of sanctions by the United States government in 2019 for his role in Chechnya’s purge of sexual minorities. Vismuradov also happens to be in charge of Kadyrov’s mixed martial arts fight club – an entity also the target of sanctions by the US Treasury. Continue reading...
Gymnastics asks its most promising athletes to give everything. Now the LSU star is repurposing herself into the lucrative main eventOlivia Dunne is not the most talented gymnast out there, nor is she the most iconic representative of her sport. But if you were to review the library of slow motion videos Dunne posts on TikTok, especially those featuring her performing backflips and handsprings on the beach (“beachnastics,” she calls it), you’d probably understand why the 20-year-old New Jersey native is, by certain metrics anyway, the biggest thing going in American gymnastics.Dunne has an Instagram following of 3.7m, more than Derek Jeter, Cher or the reigning all-round Olympic gymnastic champion, Sunisa Lee. On TikTok, 7.2m accounts follow Dunne – millions more than Beyoncé. Some of the pictures and videos involve gymnastics. But Dunne, who has long blond hair, a heart-shaped face and kewpie doll features, has mastered the art of posting sports-agnostic selfies that send her fans into a tizzy. Occasionally she wears a leotard, but mostly she dons croptops, minidresses, angel wings. Continue reading...
Move comes after Florida governor lashed out at theme park’s protest of law restricting sexual orientation discussion in schoolsRon DeSantis, the governor of Florida, signed a bill on Monday that gives him control of Walt Disney World’s self-governing district, punishing the company over its opposition to a state law that restricts sexual orientation and gender identity discussions in schools.“The corporate kingdom finally comes to an end,” DeSantis said during a press event at Lake Buena Vista near Orlando. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and accountability will be the order of the day.” Continue reading...
Gambling firms rely on addiction and misery for their business model. They shouldn’t be patronising the arts any more than fossil fuel companiesIn Laura Poitras’s Oscar-nominated documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, we watch as members of the Sackler family – then-owners of the pharmaceutical behemoth behind America’s opioid crisis – are confronted with the testimony of those affected. They sit impassively as a recording is played of a desperate mother’s 911 call after finding her son dead from overdose. Another piece of testimony is from Nan Goldin, the photographer and former OxyContin addict whose successful campaign for the art world to renounce Sackler patronage the film follows.Thanks to Goldin and the activist group she leads, the Sackler name has fallen away from many of the arts institutions that named spaces after the family in exchange for its largesse. First the National Portrait Gallery in the UK rejected a £1m donation. Then the Louvre in Paris removed the name. Then the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Serpentine, V&A, the Tate, and the Roundhouse all followed suit. Continue reading...
Richmond, Virginia, removed likenesses of Robert E Lee and other generals after protests in 2020. Where will they go next?In an open-air industrial area in Richmond, Virginia, lie the remains of Confederate statues.The storage wasteland, whose exact location has been withheld for security reasons, is a carefully organized graveyard of America’s racist past. The remains of Gen Robert E Lee – glorified by a statue that is 60ft tall and was once the largest on Richmond’s Monument Avenue – takes up about half the space. In the background is a slab dedicated to “Stonewall” Jackson, who earned his nickname at the first battle of Manassas, fought only 30 miles south of Washington, DC at the start of the civil war (1861-65). Continue reading...
Raul Rodriguez, 54, was fired after confirming with his father that his US birth certificate was a fakeA former US border patrol agent who routinely deported people before he learned that he was an undocumented immigrant and lost his job is now trying to help veterans facing deportation, according to a new media report.In what is perhaps one of the most unusual of the 11m cases backlogged in the complex American immigration court system, 54-year-old Raul Rodriguez had spent much of his professional career working at two federal agencies which frequently encounter people trying to enter the US without permission. Continue reading...
Network owner also admitted in $1.6bn defamation lawsuit deposition that Trump’s claims were ‘damaging to everybody’Newly released court documents reveal that Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire owner of Fox News, acknowledged under oath that several Fox News hosts endorsed Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.The mogul made the admission during a deposition in the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against the network by the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, of maligning its reputation. In his deposition, Murdoch said that the hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro “endorsed” the false narrative promoted by Trump. Continue reading...
Self-help author who brought quirky spiritualism to the 2020 presidential race becomes first Democrat to challenge BidenBestselling self-help author Marianne Williamson, who brought quirky spiritualism to the 2020 presidential race, has announced she’s running for the White House again, becoming the first major Democrat to challenge Joe Biden for his party’s nomination in 2024.Williamson, 70, pulled out of the 2020 presidential election in early January of that year, after failing to gain much traction with primary voters. She then endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and he ended up coming in second to Biden, who had been trailing him badly but surged ahead after a crucial win in South Carolina. Continue reading...
Take It Down allows anyone to anonymously generate a digital fingerprint of the image they want deleted, without uploading it“Once you send that photo, you can’t take it back,” goes the warning to teenagers, often ignoring the reality that many teens send explicit images of themselves under duress, or without understanding the consequences.A new online tool aims to give some control back to teens, or people who were once teens, and take down explicit images and videos of themselves from the internet. Continue reading...
Johnny Haught and his trainees volunteered when a restaurant canceled a brunch event after performers received threatsA group of West Virginia mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters are offering security to help a local drag show that canceled an event after receiving threats.MMA coach Johnny Haught and his trainees volunteered to provide security to the Primanti Bros restaurant in Wheeling, West Virginia, for the show it was set to host. Continue reading...
Democrats and Republicans in Senate and House have pledged to hold hearings on crash that has sparked major pollution fearsTreasury secretary Janet Yellen has made a surprise visit to Kyiv, where she’s underscoring Washington’s continued support for Ukraine one year after Russia invaded.We at the Guardian have a separate live blog with all the latest Ukraine news, which you can follow along here. Continue reading...
by Gabrielle Canon in San Francisco and Gloria Oladip on (#69973)
Large swaths of country face extreme conditions as more than 300,000 homes and businesses remain without powerMore than 304,000 US homes and businesses were still without power on Monday afternoon, following a weekend of wild winter weather that wreaked havoc from coast to coast – and the storms aren’t done yet. Millions of people across the US are bracing for more heavy snow and strong winds across the country as the threat of devastating tornadoes lingers through the midwest.“A busy weather pattern is expected to continue through midweek with impacts throughout many different regions of the country,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a Monday forecast, noting the continuation of frosty conditions and furious gusts. Some parts of California could see several feet of snow in the coming days, with winds of up to 60mph. Continue reading...
His opposition to the revised Northern Ireland protocol should be treated with the same contempt with which he ran the partyRishi Sunak has no alternative. The United Kingdom which Northern Ireland is part of is a democracy ruled by the Westminster parliament. In the matter of the Northern Ireland protocol, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) is claiming the right of veto over a classic function of any union – foreign trade. The party is supported by the Tories’ recent leader and prime minister, Boris Johnson. This is intolerable.Polls show support for the DUP hovering between 20-25%. It does not represent most of Northern Ireland’s people. Nor does it command a majority of unionist opinion, with official unionists, the extreme TUV and the Alliance party together garnering close to 30%. It is only the power-sharing Good Friday agreement that keeps the DUP with a veto, which it is using to halt the devolved government at Stormont until it gets its way against the protocol.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Fox News, Trump and JD Vance claim Biden overlooked East Palestine’s plight, citing residents’ whiteness as the reason. Plus, what should New York do with its billion-dollar weed mountain?
Welcome to the ‘hungry gap’ – the time of year when salad days are months away, and there simply isn’t enough food. To confront this in 2023 forces a reckoningI don’t even like tomatoes, especially, but I seemed to have nine in a paper bag, and had picked them up with my own hands – this detail will be important later. I had a couple of other things – a single onion and some herb that I could have just as easily stolen from a front garden – and my plan was to make salsa for assorted teenage fusspots, as well as tomato soup. Fifteen quid? I thought the decimal point was in the wrong place. Then I thought it must be a language barrier, and “15” was Portuguese for £4.50. I didn’t really want to interrogate the shopkeeper, who I know by name, though she doesn’t know my name, so there’s a world in which I could have just dropped the lot and run. Obviously, I couldn’t just get fewer tomatoes, because I had handled them all. But now I was embarked on work that I could have outsourced to Doritos and Heinz at one seventh of the cost and a 70th of the time, and it felt mad, obscurely vain, like Marie Antoinette milking a goat on her fake farm, a spoilt pantomime of the simple life.I realise I’m not the only person to have noticed this, though I may be the first person to notice it only after I was locked in to a massive nine-tomato deal. Thérèse Coffey had already suggested we replace tomatoes with turnips, cue government cheerleaders suddenly full of enthusiasm for what we now call “winter salad” and previously called “coleslaw”. Restaurants have been experimenting with so-called white replacements on tomato-thirsty food, such as pizza and pasta, but the white is not turnip, it tends to be cheese. There is no known culinary circumstance in which tomatoes and turnips are interchangeable, no situation at all.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
A deadly shipwreck is just the latest result of Italy’s hardline stance, coupled with EU prevention of legal migration and closure of safer routesThe photograph of the body of two-year-old Alan Kurdi lying on Turkish shores made headlines in 2015. “Never again,” cried an outraged international press, after Kurdi and his Syrian family drowned attempting to reach safety in Europe.The latest tragedy in the Mediterranean, claiming the lives of at least 62 individuals, including children, is a stark reminder that nothing has changed. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, expressed “deep sorrow”. The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, warned that the tragedy should leave “no one indifferent” and appealed to the European Union. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, promised to “redouble the efforts”. Continue reading...
Ex-president became so incensed with late-night host’s jabs that two calls were made in 2018 to top executives at network ownerDonald Trump is fond of telling interviewers that he has a “very thick skin”, but it now appears that it was insufficiently robust to prevent Jimmy Kimmel jokes from getting under it while he was in the White House.Rolling Stone has revealed that in early 2018, a year into Trump’s presidency, he became so incensed with the late-night host’s jabs that he ordered White House officials to complain. At least two calls were made, the magazine reports, to top executives at Disney, which owns ABC, the channel which broadcasts Jimmy Kimmel Live. Continue reading...
The senator’s relationship with Biden has proven constructive, with an ambitious agenda – but some Sanders aides and supporters offer a mixed verdictThe band played On The Road Again. The New York studio audience chanted: “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” Senator Bernie Sanders was making his 16th appearance on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – tying the record set by comedian John Oliver.Colbert confronted his guest with a card bearing a provocative headline, “Joe Biden Is Bernie Sanders”, from a Wall Street Journal column that argued the president will effectively be running for a re-election as a democratic socialist. The host asked Sanders: “Was this news to you?” Continue reading...
A new scientific review of the efficacy of masks is deeply flawed. That hasn’t stopped some from touting itMasks have played a key role in keeping us all safe throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. At the start, masks helped flatten the curve to protect our hospital systems, and since, masks have helped make public spaces and essential services more open and accessible to everyone. Many studies show that masks work, and they work best when everyone wears a high-quality one to protect each other. Masks are magnificent.Yet, three years into the pandemic, we still see conflicting stories in the news about masks on a daily basis. The latest culprit powering the confounding headlines is a new scientific review published in Cochrane. The paper analyzes many different studies that assess how physical measures – including masks – fare against respiratory viruses.Dr Lucky Tran is a scientist and public health communicator who works at Columbia University. During the pandemic, he has led several efforts to provide the latest information about Covid-19 to the public and policymakers, and advocate for more equitable and just public health policies. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge Continue reading...
Republican leaders draw on Reagan-era nostalgia to unite their party, but a 21st-century cold war would not end well for anyoneEvents surrounding the first year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have had a cold war-esque feel, with America and its allies lined up on one side and China and Russia on the other. Some politicians in Washington – and perhaps Beijing – seem comfortable with this. But they should be careful. There’s no reason to believe a cold war re-run in the 21st century would turn out well for anyone, above all the US.This past week, President Biden paid a dramatic visit to Kyiv and then addressed a crowd in Warsaw, pledging unwavering US support for Ukraine. President Putin gave a speech of his own in which he stubbornly insisted that Nato was to blame for the war and suspended Russia’s participation in a vital nuclear arms control treaty. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, meanwhile confronted his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Munich, warning China not to supply Russia with weapons. Yi then flew to Moscow and stood alongside President Putin for a photo opportunity. Continue reading...
Making changes to a classic novel is always questionable – but could there be a worse time to risk glorifying invaders?*This article contains spoilers for the book All Quiet on the Western Front, and the latest film versionHaving cleaned up at the Baftas last week, All Quiet on the Western Front is now one of the favourites to win best picture at the Oscars in a fortnight. That’s an exciting development for Edward Berger, who directed and co-wrote the film, but German critics may not be so thrilled.As Philip Oltermann noted in the Guardian, reviewers from Berger’s homeland have slated his first world war epic, with one key objection being that it strays so far from the source novel by Erich Maria Remarque. “One wonders whether Berger has even read Remarque’s novel,” said Hubert Wetzel in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “If the characters in the film didn’t have the same names as those in the book, it would be difficult to find significant parallels between the two works.”Nicholas Barber is a freelance writer on film and pop culture Continue reading...
My dad died of cancer, then my brother, and there’s a high chance I’ll get it too. It’s taught me to stop hesitating – and live my life in full colourIn recent years, I have realised how excellent life can be when I stop putting things off. So many perfect todays are usurped by the promise of “more time tomorrow”, “when you’re old enough”, “when we have more money”. There is never a guarantee of more time, but we always have now.Learning to use my time with purpose has been bittersweet. It wasn’t exactly a choice – it comes from knowing that my old age is not guaranteed. But the perspective it has offered me has been worth the pain.Michelle Brasier will perform Average Bear at the Soho theatre in London from Mon 6 to Sat 11 Mar 2023 Continue reading...
Norfolk Southern, the company behind the Ohio train crash, and other rail firms spent millions on marketing and lobbyingSix children, smiling and laughing, sit at a table with lunch boxes open in front of them. “Hey guys! My dad can stop a train with his finger,” one brags. “My mom can see into the future,” another says, holding up her hands as binoculars. “My mom? She speaks train,” a third claims.Just then, her mom walks into the room. Another child asks if it’s true that she can talk to trains. “You betcha,” she says with a wink, as she stands in front of a sky-blue sign emblazoned with the logo of the Norfolk Southern Corporation. Continue reading...
All of my family keep it brief. Most messages are just ‘k’. So when an expression of affection finally arrives, it elicits a genuine thrillHow dry is your text life? I’ve recently become aware of the phenomenon of dry texting: the terse, single-word responses (Yes, No, OK, Lol) to chatty messages that are viewed as inadequate, hostile or hurtful.Our family chat is arid, a veritable Atacama Desert. Most messages are “k” or “OK”. Interesting titbits sent by those of us keen to maintain a skein of connection (yes, fine, mainly me) go uncommented on; often unopened. My husband recently circulated a link to a news article about the local repair cafe where he volunteers, which, thrillingly, featured a picture of him failing to repair a woman’s kettle and telling her “I am sorry for your loss”; neither of our sons responded. Continue reading...
President of Los Angeles-based nonprofit Kidsave says Americans need to be made aware that Ukrainian needs go beyond military aidSince Russian troops invaded Ukraine a little more than a year ago, some in the US have shown their support for the encroached country by volunteering to fight for it while others have called on politicians to equip the defenders with munitions and weapons.Randi Thompson is calling on Americans to ponder another way: aiding efforts to place Ukrainian children orphaned by the Russian invasion in new families within their country. Continue reading...
Kissing couples and snoozing subway kids feature in a major retrospective of street photographer Richard Sandler’s work – along with previously unseen shots Continue reading...
Homicide ‘clearance rates’ have plummeted over the past four decades, compounding relatives’ traumaEvery night since May, two-year-old Nylah Cheese has slept with a crocheted doll wearing a white tee, black pants and a silver chain. The toddler’s aunt, Silvia Lopez, had the figurine made in the likeness of Nylah’s father, Brandon Cheese, who was shot and killed at a park in San Francisco the month before.“She instantly knew it was him and screamed, ‘It’s Dada!’” Lopez, Brandon Cheese’s older sister, said. The toddler has since named it “Dada doll”. Continue reading...
by Poet Wolfe in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on (#698C1)
Group speaks out after hospitals refused to offer treatment for a woman who had a near deadly miscarriage citing ambiguous lawAn influential group in Louisiana that has long opposed abortion access is calling out medical providers and their legal advisers who – for an apparent fear of liability – have cited the state’s ban on most abortions to deny treatments that remain legal.The group spoke out after hospitals in the state’s capital, Baton Rouge, refused to provide treatments for a woman who had a near deadly miscarriage. Continue reading...
Ronna McDaniel says loyalty pledge by primary candidates should be a ‘no-brainer’ for party’s presidential hopefulsThe Republican National Committee’s chairperson has said that all GOP primary candidates should sign a pledge promising to support the eventual party nominee if they wish to participate in the presidential debates.Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s leader since 2017, told CNN in an interview Sunday that even though the debate criteria have not yet been released, the loyalty pledge should nevertheless be a “no-brainer” for the party’s presidential hopefuls. Continue reading...
Once-popular cartoon scrapped from hundreds of papers after Scott Adams calls Black people a ‘hate group’ on his YouTube showThe comic strip Dilbert has been dropped from multiple US newspapers in response to racist comments by its creator, Scott Adams, who called Black Americans a “hate group” and urged white people to “get the hell away” from Black people in a YouTube video.Adams’s comments on 22 February came in response to a conservative organization’s poll which appeared to show that 26% of Black respondents said they disagreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white”. Another 21% said they were not sure.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...
Hailed as ‘a trailblazer’, Flemister experienced widespread racism and discrimination during her tenure at the federal agencyThe first Black woman to have been hired by the US Secret Service, Zandra Flemister, has died at the age of 71, leaving behind as her legacy a rich political career, her fight with Alzheimer’s, and a lawsuit that details the widespread racism and discrimination she suffered during her tenure at the federal agency known for protecting presidents.Flemister, who died Tuesday, was “a trailblazer” and “inspired a future generation of agents,” the Secret Service’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, said in a statement about her death. Continue reading...
by Joan E Greve and Lauren Gambino in Washington on (#69823)
Experts fear this moment of agreement in Washington could escalate tensions with Beijing and increase the risk of conflictIn the weeks since the US military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have spoken passionately about the need to more effectively compete with Beijing. A resolution condemning China for the balloon incident passed the House in an unanimous vote of 419 to 0.Joe Biden has similarly expressed hope that efforts to strengthen America’s global competitiveness in response to a rising China can unite Democrats and Republicans in an era defined by bitter partisanship. Continue reading...
The gathering of conservatives returns to Washington and could prove to be a crystal ball into the GOP’s 2024 outlookIts impresario is facing allegations of sexual assault. Its headline act is a twice impeached former US president under criminal investigation. And its after-dinner speaker is a local news anchor turned far-right election denier.Welcome to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which claims to be the biggest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world. It is also a perennial window to the soul of the Republican party. Continue reading...
Rewriting the children’s author is about profit not ‘wokeness’ – part of the endless recycling and exploitation of old ideasGood news for me: the series of ITV’s Endeavour that starts airing tonight will be the last. Hooray! I hate Endeavour. A lot. In fact, I would have italicised the word “hate” to emphasise the fact, if I hadn’t worried that it would look weird next to the italicised title of the programme. But please imagine it was italicised.Just to qualify my hatred: I have never watched Endeavour and, having heard only positive reports, am convinced I would enjoy it. I haven’t watched it as a point of principle because, in my view, it shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t exist because it spoils Inspector Morse. Continue reading...
The US president won rave reviews in Kyiv and Warsaw. But his old, cold war mindset is out of step with a changing worldIt was Joe Biden’s week. His energised performance in Kyiv and Warsaw recalled the campaigning style of a much younger man. Russian media sniped that the US president was warming up for his 2024 re-election campaign. They missed the point. He almost certainly intends to run again. Yet last week’s adrenaline rush had a different cause.Biden has cast himself as a latter-day Lionheart, leading a global crusade against the bad guys – what he calls “a test for the ages”. He’s on a high. He believes he, and the cause of democracy, are winning hands down. Sadly, he’s wrong. Continue reading...
Victories at several companies energized organizers, but hostile corporations – and an impotent labor board – stymie negotiationsUS corporations have mounted a fierce counterattack against the union drives at Starbucks, Amazon and other companies, and in response, federal officials are working overtime to crack down on those corporations’ illegal anti-union tactics – maneuvers that labor leaders fear could significantly drain the momentum behind today’s surge of unionization.The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that polices labor-management relations, has accused Starbucks and Amazon of a slew of illegal anti-union practices, among them firing many workers in retaliation for backing a union. Nonetheless, many workplace experts question whether the NLRB’s efforts, no matter how vigorous, can assure that workers have a fair shot at unionizing. Continue reading...
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