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In England, just 4% of people consume 30% of the alcohol sold. Harm reduction measures, such as those in Scotland, are essentialAnd so the longest month of the year – at least it feels that way – is finally over. But as the days get ever so slightly longer, and as new year resolutions start to falter, what to make of that programme of month-long abstinence that so many Britons seemed to engage in?Dry January is a public health campaign that was started in 2013 by Alcohol Change UK. As you may know, it involves avoiding all alcohol for the month; this has individual benefits such as saving money, avoiding hangovers, better sleep, fewer empty calories and better overall energy levels. It comes at a time that has seen a transition towards not drinking at all in younger generations, with an estimated 20% of the population now never consuming alcohol.Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading...

Watches and warnings stretch from Texas to Tennessee and Mississippi, causing traffic delays and flight cancellationsDangerous road conditions from bands of sleet and snow were blamed for six deaths as a winter storm snarled traffic across parts of the US, forcing the cancelation of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands without power in several southern states.Watches and warnings stretched from Texas to Tennessee and Mississippi. Several rounds of mixed precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet, were in store for many areas throughout Wednesday, meaning some regions could be hit multiple times, forecasters said. Continue reading...

Telegram channel reportedly distributed lessons plans which included writing exercises based on Hitler quotesAn alleged “Nazi homeschooling group” based in Ohio has been widely condemned, amid reports that it distributed lesson plans which included writing exercises based on quotes by Adolf Hitler.A couple calling themselves “Mr and Mrs Saxon” established the “Dissident Homeschool” channel on Telegram in 2021, according to reporting by Anonymous Comrades Collective, an anti-fascist research group, verified by Huffpost and Vice. Continue reading...

The seven-time Super Bowl champion announced on a video posted on social media that he is retiring from NFLTom Brady, the most successful quarterback in NFL history, announced on Wednesday that he is retiring from the sport he has dominated for years.“I know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when I woke up this morning, I figured I’d just press record and let you guys know first,” Brady said in a video on Twitter. “I won’t be longwinded. You only get one super emotional retirement essay, and I used mine up last year, so really thank you guys so much to every single one of you for supporting me.” Continue reading...

Nathan Chasing Horse ‘used spiritual traditions … as a tool to sexually assault young girls’, warrant saysLas Vegas police on Tuesday arrested and raided the home of a Dances With Wolves actor turned alleged cult leader accused of sexually assaulting young Indigenous girls over two decades, according to police records.Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse, who goes by Nathan Chasing Horse, was taken into custody in the afternoon near the north Las Vegas home he is said to have shared with his five wives. Continue reading...

Former South Carolina governor and Trump UN ambassador has trailed run while clashing with possible foe PompeoThe former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will announce her run for the Republican presidential nomination in her home state on 15 February, a local newspaper reported.The Post and Courier said it had seen an invitation “soon going out to her backers”, for a “special announcement” at The Shed at Charleston Visitor Center on 15 February. Continue reading...

Pocan is introducing legislation prohibiting insurance companies from preying on seniors and marketing their plans as ‘Medicare’Democrats may not control the House of Representatives anymore, but congressman Mark Pocan is not giving up on his legislative agenda. Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat and the former co-chair of the congressional progressive caucus (CPC), instead focuses on playing “the long game” of policymaking.Pocan’s commitment to promoting progressive policies will be on display Wednesday, as he reintroduces the Save Medicare Act. The congressman points to his advocacy for the legislation as just one example of how progressives can keep advancing their ideals in a Republican-controlled House and ensure that Democrats will be ready to act when they regain full control of Congress. Continue reading...

A look at the surge in popularity of randomly selected councils that offer an alternative to politics as we know itWhen Fauzia Bajwa, a retired software developer who lives in St-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec, received an invitation to participate in something called a citizens’ assembly, her first impulse was to write the letter off as junk mail. It’s a common reaction: most recipients of such a mailing never bother to respond. Then Bajwa looked at it again. The sender was listed as the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression, a nonprofit organization that compiles opinion reports to submit to the Canadian government. Though the mailing’s language was vague – the assembly would be on the subject of so-called “online harms” – Bajwa’s curiosity was piqued. After all, she’d just read a book about online surveillance, and at the time was waking up to a news cycle that seemed to revolve around the tweets of a certain president of the United States. “I found it quite concerning that people were using what I initially considered to be a very good and useful tool” – the internet – “to put out lies and fake information, so I was already thinking about these issues,” she says. She went online and signed up.Citizens’ assemblies, a phenomenon that is gaining in popularity around the globe, date back to ancient Athens, where legislative panels, courts and councils were chosen via random selection. In a practice known as sortition, Greek citizens over the age of 30 were enlisted to debate governmental matters from city finances to military strategy. More recently, citizens’ assemblies have convened to hammer out solutions to such issues as homelessness in Los Angeles, the allocation of a $5bn budget in Melbourne, Australia, and the longstanding ban on abortion in Ireland. Continue reading...

Leaked tax records suggest subsidiaries of international gas field contractors continued to make millions after coup. Plus, the secret life of André Leon Talley

As American football participation rates shrink among children, a more gentle version of the game is thriving with male and female playersFlag football used to be a sport for the young and old. And nothing in between.By the end of the decade, if the NFL has its way, it could be in the Olympics. Continue reading...

The Islamic extremists may not like it, nor the bigoted Islamophobes, but today’s Muslim women have revolutionised the narrative of the hijabAt first, he began with, “What the fuck are you staring at?” The man was shouting at my friend and me as we travelled through east London on the underground. Then he stood up and stepped towards me screaming, “F***ing Muslim whore”, beginning a tirade of disgusting Islamophobic abuse. Though it lasted about five minutes, it felt like hours. Finally, another male passenger confronted him and managed to make him sit down. But as he left at the next stop, he came up close to my face and said, “If you get off here, I’ll be waiting for you.”With depressing regularity, hijab-wearing women like myself are being subjected to appalling abuse and discrimination. Last year, a shocking video shared on social media showed a group of white men and youths in Sheffield launching a vicious attack on a veiled Muslim woman and her daughter. A 2019 paper from Nottingham Trent University reported that attacks against hijab-wearing women in the UK were on the increase, suggesting that this was because veiled Muslim women were “represented as ‘agents’ of terrorism”. And Tell Mama UK, the watchdog that monitors Muslim hate crime, reported in 2018 that 58% of recorded Islamophobic incidents were related to Muslim women because of their “overt religious identity”. Continue reading...

What do you do if your favourite social media platform penalises you for talking about sex? You invent your own code – even if that leaves older users mystifiedOK, quick: define “mascara”. If you answered “a substance you apply with a wand to your eyelashes” or something along those lines, then congratulations – you are officially not a young person on TikTok.If you run in those circles, however, then “mascara” is code for a variety of things ranging from a vibrator to a penis to a romantic partner. Continue reading...

Anthony Lowe’s family says they want to see Huntington Park police prosecuted: ‘I’m heartbroken and filled with rage’A southern California police department is facing national backlash after footage revealed that officers fatally shot a double amputee and wheelchair user who appeared to be hobbling away on the ground before he was killed.Anthony Lowe, 36, was killed by officers in Huntington Park, a city in southern Los Angeles county, last Thursday. Cellphone footage captured part of the incident, showing Lowe on a sidewalk next to his wheelchair appearing to try to flee as two officers approach him with weapons drawn. More police cars arrived as the officers followed Lowe, who seemed to be limping away, but the video did not capture the shooting. Continue reading...

A new bill proposes that prisoners get at least two months off their sentences for donating bone marrow or organsPrisoners in Massachusetts may soon have the option to get their sentences reduced in exchange for donating their organs or bone marrow if a proposed law is passed in the US state.A new bill with the aim of establishing an organ and donation program within the state’s department of corrections has been proposed by two state lawmakers – both Democrats. Continue reading...

Internet video identified man as a fugitive four times even though he was either in jail or on probation at time of each airingDavid Gay says he lost his job and was left distressed after a Florida sheriff repeatedly accused him of being a fugitive in social media videos created to resemble the popular television gameshow Wheel of Fortune.But Gay wasn’t running from the law at any of those times – he was either already in the local jail in connection with a misdemeanor case or had already been released from custody after being given probation. Continue reading...

Leaked tax records suggest subsidiaries of international gas field contractors continued to make millions after the coupIn the two years since a murderous junta launched a coup in Myanmar, some of the world’s biggest oil and gas service companies continued to make millions of dollars from operations that have helped prop up the military regime, tax documents seen by the Guardian suggest.The Myanmar military seized power in February 2021 and according to the United Nations special rapporteur on Myanmar, it is “committing war crimes and crimes against humanity daily”. More than 2,940 people, including children, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed, according to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.US oil services giant Halliburton’s Singapore-based subsidiary Myanmar Energy Services reported pre-tax profits of $6.3m in Myanmar in the year to September 2021, which includes eight months while the junta was in power.Houston-headquartered oil services company Baker Hughes branch in Yangon reported pre-tax profits of $2.64m in the country in the six months to March 2022.US firm Diamond Offshore Drilling reported $37m in fees to the Myanmar tax authority during the year to September 2021 and another $24.2m from then until March 2022.Schlumberger Logelco (Yangon Branch), the Panama-based subsidiary of the US-listed world’s largest offshore drilling company, earned revenues of $51.7m in the year to September 2021 in Myanmar and as late as September 2022 was owed $200,000 in service fees from the junta’s energy ministry. Continue reading...

Other puzzling happenings – a dead vulture, an escaped clouded leopard and a damaged monkey cage – have authorities on edgeA mystery is unfolding at the Dallas zoo as two emperor tamarin monkeys were reported missing on Monday in what is now the fourth recent incident involving animals at the popular attraction in Texas.Previously a vulture was apparently killed and a clouded leopard escaped after its cage was cut open. Before that another monkey cage was deliberately damaged. Continue reading...

As long as there is a big gap between the women who have the most freedoms, and those with the least, our work as feminists is not over

California highway patrol: ‘This was 100 percent preventable. There is no excuse. The signs are clear, visible, and unobstructed’For the second time in two weeks, a sinkhole in a collapsed road in California has swallowed a vehicle after a driver ignored road closure signs, according to law enforcement.The two-lane road near Tracy, a city in the Central valley, collapsed earlier this month following weeks of destructive storms that wreaked havoc across the state. The damage and signs warning of the road’s closure didn’t stop drivers from attempting to traverse Kasson Road, which commuters use to travel to nearby Stockton, Manteca and Modesto, according to the local California highway patrol (CHP) office. Continue reading...

The actor maintains his innocence and plans to fight the charge of involuntary slaughter of cinematographer Halyna HutchinsActor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist have been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set, according to court documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday.The charges come with two alternate sanctions, one with a penalty of up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 (£4,061) fine, and another that could bring a mandatory minimum prison term of five years. Continue reading...

Police responded with deadly force against 30-year-old white man with semi-automatic rifle ‘and plenty of ammunition’A man who entered a Target store in Omaha, Nebraska, and fired a rifle was shot dead by law enforcement officers on Tuesday.The Omaha police chief, Todd Schmaderer, spoke to reporters about the shooting, which happened shortly before 12 noon local time. Continue reading...

Losing gubernatorial candidate may have violated a state law that protects voter’s signatures, Democrat Adrian Fontes saysThe Arizona secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, asked the state attorney general Monday to investigate and potentially charge the losing Republican candidate for governor with a felony for sharing images of voters’ signatures online.Fontes, a Democrat, said GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake may have violated a state law that protects a voter’s signature from being accessed or shared by anyone other than the voter or an “authorized government official in the scope of the official’s duties”. Violations of this law carry a class six felony charge, the lowest-level felony in Arizona. Continue reading...

Severe weather affects parts of West Virginia to New Mexico with an ice storm concentrated in the Dallas-Fort worth area of TexasMore than 1,000 flights in the US have been cancelled amid dangerous winter weather in the southern region.Severe winter weather affecting parts of West Virginia to New Mexico was triggering the mass flight cancellations as 40 million people remained under a winter weather alert, CNN reported. Continue reading...

Family of four all survived 250ft plummet off Pacific Coast Highway, which police believe to be an ‘intentional act’The driver of a car that plunged off a treacherous cliff in northern California, seriously injuring himself, his wife and their two young children, was charged on Monday with attempted murder.Dharmesh A Patel, 41, also faces enhancements for great bodily injury and domestic violence in the 2 January crash, the San Mateo county district attorney, Steve Wagstaffe, said in a statement. Continue reading...

New York Republican congressman under investigation over his largely made-up résumé and current campaign finance filingsThe Republican congressman George Santos has temporarily withdrawn from two House committees to which he was appointed by party leaders despite a spiraling scandal over his largely made-up résumé, bizarre past behavior and campaign finance filings.Explaining his decision, Santos said he wanted to “focus on serving the constituents of New York’s third congressional district and providing federal level representation without distraction”. Continue reading...

‘What Trump has done is quite arguably the worst crime against the US that a president could commit,’ says J Michael LuttigThe conservative judge who convinced Mike Pence he could not overturn the 2020 election has predicted “the beginning of the end of Donald Trump” – the former president who incited the January 6 insurrection but is now trying to return to the White House.Speaking to the Washington Post, J Michael Luttig also made a common comparison to another notorious former president, Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal. Continue reading...

Memphis police named and fired all five Black officers involved on 20 January, but waited to reveal Preston Hemphill’s identityQuestions have been raised over why Memphis police waited weeks to name a white police officer involved in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, as it emerged an unnamed seventh officer and three emergency responders have also been disciplined over the case.Major Karen Rudolph of Memphis police announced on Monday that the white officer in question, Preston Hemphill, was placed on desk duty on 8 January, a day after Nichols – who is Black – was beaten by police and two days before he died. Continue reading...

EV maker and R&D arm of car group owned by Geely planning to join Nasdaq in deal with Spac backed by Bernard ArnaultThe Chinese owner of Lotus is to list a stake in a division of the luxury sports car group in the US as part of deal with a firm backed by the world’s richest man.China’s Geely said on Tuesday that it plans to merge electric carmaker Lotus Technology – an offshoot of the Norfolk-based sports car brand – with a special purpose acquisition vehicle (Spac) founded by L Catterton, which is backed by LVMH and its billionaire founder, Bernard Arnault. Continue reading...

When trust is everything the best way to respond is to opt for full exposure and elaborate explanationAdvice for cybersecurity firm Darktrace as it finds itself under attack from short-sellers: don’t rely on airy “nothing to see here” statements. If you want to shore up investors’ confidence when a New York hedge fund is questioning your accounting in a lengthy report, you usually have to get into the gritty business of point-by-point rebuttal.Darktrace’s response on Tuesday to an outfit called Quintessential Capital Management fell into the boilerplate category. The company said it had “full confidence” in its accounting practices and financial statements, and that its board and management take their fiduciary responsibilities “very seriously”. All standard stuff, in other words. Continue reading...

Former president repeatedly invokes constitutional right against self-incrimination in New York footage from late last summerVideo released on Tuesday showed Donald Trump answering questions from the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, in a deposition in a civil fraud case late last summer.Questioned about his financial affairs, the former president repeatedly invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination – part of a refusal to answer he repeated more than 400 times. Continue reading...

Former US marine takes on general manager role and is determined to change the culture and win a NWSL championshipHaley Carter, Orlando Pride’s new general manager and vice-president of soccer operations, is not afraid to address the culture shift needed in the NWSL, including at her club. “There are consistencies we should see across the board: it needs to be safe, it needs to be inclusive and at this level it needs to be a winning culture too,” she says. “I’m very serious about player advocacy, player safety and creating an inclusive safe culture.”Carter’s CV is extensive and with the sport in the US undergoing reforms after the NWSL abuse scandal she comes in with the ambition of making Orlando somewhere “players want to be” as well as an NWSL championship-winning side. Continue reading...

Trenchant Frenchness can grate if you aren’t used to it, but it’s a lot more straightforward than British passive aggressionThe relationship between France and Britain, the best of frenemies, seems to finally be thawing. The Brexit wars are behind us, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson no longer annoy each other on a near weekly basis, and the first Franco-British summit in years will take place in March.That’s no fun. Allow me, then, to do my French patriotic duty and open up a new front of combat. Here goes: the British, despite what they might think, aren’t any good at complaining. This is an odd state of affairs, as they – well, you – see it as a proud national trait. But they are wrong.Marie Le Conte is a French journalist living in LondonDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Washington Post reporter and publisher Simon & Schuster say lawsuit ‘without merit … we will aggressively defend against it’Donald Trump has sued Bob Woodward for a fraction less than $50m, claiming he did not agree to the veteran Washington Post reporter publishing tapes of their conversations as an audio book.Woodward’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, and its parent company, Paramount Global, were also named as defendants. Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis would supposedly be ‘disloyal’ if he challenged Trump for the White House. Haley, meanwhile, ‘should do it’. Guess who’s a bigger threat?Has Donald Trump taken up meditation as his new year resolution? Is he mainlining sedatives? Did a demon snatch his soul and replace it with that of a reasonable person? I ask because the unthinkable has happened: Trump has responded to the idea of one of his former acolytes challenging his 2024 ambitions in a calm and measured manner, instead of with his usual insults.The acolyte in question is Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and Trump’s US ambassador to the UN. There are mounting rumours that Haley is exploring a potential run against Trump in 2024 – a fact that doesn’t seem to bother her old boss very much. Speaking to reporters on his plane on Saturday, Trump said Haley had called him up to chat about running and he’d told her: “Go by your heart if you want to run.” To be fair, he couldn’t resist a little dig, noting Haley had “publicly said that ‘I would never run against my president – he was a great president.’” Still, he magnanimously told her she “should do it”.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Employers are using heavy-handed tactics to prevent workers from organizing, and US labor union density is falling as a resultWorkers at a Trader Joe’s store in Louisville, Kentucky, are now pushing to become the third store at the trendy US supermarket chain to unionize since 2022.Connor Hovey, a worker and organizer at the Louisville store, said unionizing efforts began as other high-profile union organizing efforts such as at Louisville’s Heine Brothers, a local coffee shop chain, were taking off. Like those workers, the Trader Joe’s organizers sought to address issues stemming from inadequate corporate policies and safety precautions, and how workers have been treated during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

People who think they can master chaos don’t have enough children, or dogs, or interestsIt is with some chagrin that I see Marie Kondo making international news with the bombshell that she’s pretty much stopped tidying at home since the birth of her third child: “Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times,” she told the Washington Post. “I have kind of given up on that, in a good way for me. Now I realise what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.”You could almost hear the world exhale in relief at this change of heart: Kondo is perhaps the leading evangelist for order and decluttering, author and Netflix poster-woman for the good life. If she can’t make tidying work with three kids around, when it’s her brand, her identity and her life’s work, the rest of us are just fine. It’s like if anti-cigarette guru Allen Carr had started smoking again. On the one hand, shame, but on the other: what a stunning vindication of human frailty. Continue reading...

In a country where many were either born overseas or have at least one parent born elsewhere, there should be no place for intellectual laziness and complacency“The best thing that happened today is one teacher asked how to say my name!” my child says exultantly on the first day of a new school year.“And the others?” Continue reading...

Draft plan to loosen state aid rules follows Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Chinese subsidiesThe EU executive will loosen state aid rules and propose a new “European sovereignty fund” later this year, in response to the controversial US Inflation Reduction Act and China’s “unfair” green subsidies.A leaked European Commission plan underscores the global green subsidy race is under way, although EU member states remain divided on how to respond. Continue reading...

Viral police brutality videos have become a morbid reminder of the fragility of Black life in AmericaI’m probably one of the few people who hasn’t seen the video footage of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols being beaten to death by five Memphis police officers.I haven’t watched the video because, honestly, I am tired of seeing Black men die. It shouldn’t be normal to participate in a person’s last moments like this. To hear Black men scream for their mothers as the state takes their lives. To be constantly haunted by images of young men and women who could easily have been you or someone you know.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The news media has greeted the supposed scandal of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents with breathless gleeOn Sunday morning, NBC’s Chuck Todd hosted Ohio Republican congressman Jim Jordan on Meet the Press, where the querulous conservative ranted about President Biden’s sloppy handing of classified documents.Todd showed more tenacity than usual in challenging this combative guest (he “incinerated” Jordan, applauded the Daily Kos) but Jordan nevertheless managed to drive home his ill-conceived accusations through sheer volume, repetition and speed.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Ukraine planned to push for western fourth-generation fighter jets. Plus, why circadian-rhythm shaming needs to stop

I’ve been obsessed with Eve my whole life – it was once my name, and has served as an eternal warning. But I’d like to present you with another storyI am nearly 70 years old, and I have been looking back on my life in activism and art for my new book, Reckoning. As I pored over my previously unpublished diaries, monologues, plays and poems, I realised that all my life I have been haunted by one woman – a woman I believe has the power to show us what we need to do now, in this time of unparalleled female bravery and vicious misogynistic backlash. So let’s go back to Eve, the first woman, Adam, serpent, apple, garden, God.I have been obsessed with Eve my whole life. First of course, it was once my name, and for a six-year-old it seemed ridiculously impossible to be named Eve. She was responsible for not only the downfall of paradise, expulsion, sin, shame but death itself. Names, like myths, determine a lot, and this story was like a tectonic plate at the bedrock of my consciousness, engendering how I saw myself and how I behaved in the world.V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and author, most recently, of Reckoning (Bloomsbury). Continue reading...

We may know our standfirsts from our datelines, but industry terms when out in the wild must come with explanationAs the new year started, a correction appeared below a story on the Guardian’s website that left some readers baffled and amused. It read: “This article was amended on 3 January 2023. The original furniture said the fireworks display was on Christmas Eve.”“Oh, please do put a correction beneath this correction,” wrote one reader, “Unless you actually have a talking armoire in the Guardian offices.”Elisabeth Ribbans is the Guardian and Observer’s global readers’ editor. She can be contacted at guardian.readers@theguardian.comDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

State and federal lawsuits and bills with far-reaching regulatory implications for TikTok, Meta and others come to a head this yearSocial media companies in the United States are bracing themselves to battle an onslaught of new state and federal legislation and legal challenges with far-reaching regulatory implications this year.The majority of US state legislatures have introduced or passed bills attempting to reform how social media giants moderate their content and increase security measures for American users. Continue reading...

Those migrating from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela dumped back in Mexico after being expelled at US borderHéctor González left Cuba just before Christmas, hoping to claim asylum in the US. After flying to Nicaragua, González and his wife travelled overland through Mexico and crossed the Rio Grande with at least 200 other Cubans in the early hours of 8 January.Exhausted but relieved to have made it safely to the US, González and the others filled out the forms and had their fingerprints and photographs taken by border officials in Eagle Pass, Texas. As they waited inside an immigration detention centre, spirits were high. Continue reading...