The NBA named its All-Time European Teams last week. And three current players could easily surpass the German in the next decadeBasketball has distinctly North American origins: it was invented by Canadian Dr James Naismith while he was teaching at a Massachusetts YMCA. However, since the first basketball game was played back in 1892, the sport has grown into an international concern. Last week, the NBA celebrated its 75th anniversary by naming its All-Time European Teams, voted on by fans and European basketball experts.The first team was filled with familiar names. Along with two current superstars in Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Slovenia’s Luka Dončić, of the Dallas Mavericks, the roster was completed with three retired players who had a huge impact on the NBA: Spain’s Pau Gasol, Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki and France’s Tony Parker. Continue reading...

Billowing black smoke during wildfire disasters has caused atmospheric carbon monoxide levels to increase, scientists findThe billowing black smoke that has cloaked the US Pacific north-west during wildfire disasters in past years has caused atmospheric carbon monoxide levels to spike, with the contaminants offsetting recent reductions in emissions, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have found.As the American west faces increasing threats from big blazes that are fueled by a climate that’s growing warmer and drier, researchers have documented the impact of smoke on public health. But scientists are increasingly finding that the fires may be part of a feedback loop that could accelerate the change in conditions and that health impacts officials have long warned would worsen with climate crisis, may in fact already be here. Continue reading...

The California native pleads guilty to scheme that triggered three-week search before she resurfaced on Thanksgiving day in 2016Sherri Papini, the California woman whose disappearance made national headlines and sparked a massive search before she reappeared on Thanksgiving day in 2016, pleaded guilty on Monday to faking her own kidnapping and lying to the FBI.The 39-year-old from Redding, in the state’s far north, did not offer any explanation for the elaborate hoax or why she claimed two “Hispanic women” had kidnapped her at gunpoint and chained her to a pole for three weeks while depriving her of food, beating and branding her. Continue reading...

Civil rights leaders had called for new charges after Jason Van Dyke, convicted of murder in state court, was released in FebruaryFederal authorities on Monday said they would not criminally charge Jason Van Dyke, the former Chicago police officer convicted of murder in the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald.The US attorney’s office in Chicago said in a news release that the decision had been made after consulting with the McDonald family and that the “family was in agreement not to pursue a second prosecution”. Continue reading...

Ruling says Covid-19 mitigation measure exceeds authority of federal health officials

Reducing the problems facing American men to their testosterone levels is too stupid even for CarlsonAre there three words in the English language that can strike quite as much trepidation into the hearts of the sane and rational person as “Tucker Carlson original”? Yes, the documentary strand that brought you such titles as Hungary vs Soros: The Fight for Civilization and Patriot Purge, a BS-laden fantasy about the January 6 riots that contained so many bonkers claims about false-flag operations that it forced a tranche of Fox News veterans to quit the network, has returned.The latest addition to the Carlson oeuvre is called The End of Men and its Magic Mike-style trailer just dropped. Continue reading...

The presidential first-round vote saw political polarisation and a high abstention rate among the youngCompared with the famous événements of May 1968, the flurry of leftwing student demonstrations that took place in Paris last week was small in scale. But the protesters’ message – echoed in other university towns – was enough to make the national media sit up and take notice. One student summed up the mood by telling Le Monde he saw little difference between a vote for Marine Le Pen or Emmanuel Macron at the forthcoming presidential runoff ballot. “Young people are being given a false choice between two options that are equally bad,” said Baptiste, 22. “There’s a growing rebellion and rejection of this.”It is the vital task of a newly galvanised Mr Macron to ensure that this is a minority view come Sunday, when the second round takes place. With some success, he has begun to address the priorities of youthful voters who originally supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left platform. In a rally at the weekend, he pledged a new focus on environmental targets to make France “the first leading nation to end oil, gas and coal consumption”. Belatedly, the election spotlight is also turning on to the aggressive xenophobia running through Ms Le Pen’s programme, as her policy on banning headscarves in public spaces comes under critical scrutiny. Continue reading...

Kentucky man says former employer ignored his request not to celebrate his birthday due to his anxiety disorderA Kentucky man was awarded $450,000 in a lawsuit against his former employer, after the company disregarded his wish not to be given a birthday party.In August 2019, Gravity Diagnostics, a medical laboratory, ignored Kevin Berling’s request not to celebrate his birthday due to his anxiety disorder. Continue reading...

Site’s founder, Alex Jones, was found liable for damages in lawsuits related to lies he spread about 2012 Sandy Hook school shootingFacing multiple defamation lawsuits, the far-right website InfoWars on Sunday voluntarily filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Texas.Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedures put a hold on all civil litigation faced by companies that file for the protection and allows them to prepare turnaround plans while remaining operational. Continue reading...

Americans paid through digital payment service required to notify IRS of payments amounting to more than $600 a year, down from $20,000It’s tax day in the US, the deadline for most individuals to file and pay tax owed. But while this year’s tax season may be closing for millions of Americans who are paid through a digital payment service such as PayPal, Venmo, Zelle and Cash App, the next tax year could come with even more complications.Under a new law buried in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, digital payment services, or Third-Party Settlement Organizations (TPSOs), will now be required to notify federal tax collectors of payments amounting to more than $600 in total during the course of the year. Continue reading...

Justin Welby’s invocation of the Almighty only confuses the forces that need mustering against Boris Johnson’s cruel policyBoris Johnson’s government’s proposal to deport asylum seekers of whatever origin who arrive on unauthorised routes, such as by crossing the Channel, to Rwanda in east Africa is beyond callous. It is understandable that the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, should want to add his voice to the protests. But invoking God’s judgment in the matter leaves him vulnerable to a second question. If the Almighty did offer him such an opinion, what did He suggest be done instead?The government’s argument for deportation is bizarre. It is that people smugglers along the French coast are endangering the lives of refugees – so it is “bold and innovative” to arrest and expel the latter. To Jacob Rees-Mogg this is “almost an Easter story of redemption”. Redemption for whom? What do these people think they are doing? It is like reacting to a spate of burglaries by locking the victims outside their homes.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

CBS News was once the home of legends like Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Why is it now hiring Trump conspirators and enablers?CBS News has hired Mick Mulvaney as an on-air contributor.You may recall that Mulvaney served as acting chief of staff under Trump and led Trump’s Office of Management and Budget. But as I’ll get to in a moment, Mulvaney wasn’t just a high official in the Trump administration. He was an active enabler of Trump’s deceit and attempted coup.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Vice-president says she plays as a ‘brain cleanser’ and has never failed to guess the five-letter word of the dayKamala Harris plays Wordle as a “brain cleanser” between official duties and has never failed to guess the five-letter word of the day, but cannot share successes with friends because her official phone does not let her send text messages.The vice-president discussed her love for the online game designed by Welsh-born Josh Wardle in an interview with the Ringer. Continue reading...

The IMF claims to deliver stability, strength, and solidarity. Its record shows the oppositeThis week, the board of governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will gather at its headquarters in Washington DC to reaffirm the Fund’s three-part mandate: financial stability, economic strength, and – as its managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, recently asserted – international solidarity. “I am determined that we will support our members however we can,” Georgieva said of the Fund’s new spirit. “Now is the time to take advantage of this opportunity to build a better world.”Georgieva is right: it is now or never. The “largest spate of debt crises” in a generation hangs over the global south. Two ingredients compose this ticking debt bomb: rapidly rising levels of public debt among the world’s poorest countries, and a rapidly rising percentage of that debt issued at variable interest rates. The combination of these two ingredients mean that even minor rate hikes in rich countries will have explosive consequences across the developing world – just as supply chains seize, food prices soar and the Covid-19 pandemic rampages through the world’s under-vaccinated populations.David Adler is a political economist and general coordinator of the Progressive International Continue reading...

The mayoral candidate tells the Guardian she will treat homelessness as a ‘natural disaster’ but critics are skeptical her plans will solve our vast emergencyHomelessness has become the central issue for every candidate vying to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. The humanitarian disaster in America’s second largest city has reached catastrophic levels in the two years since the start of the pandemic, but that has not stopped the frontrunner in the race, US Congresswoman Karen Bass, from promising to accomplish what has long seemed impossible: solve the crisis.The extraordinary challenge facing LA was what prompted Bass not to seek re-election in Congress, she told the Guardian last week. “It is the number one reason why I decided to come back and run for mayor … It has gotten completely out of hand.” Continue reading...

Politicians and commentators use criminal histories to argue for increased policing – but they are ignoring key conclusions, says law professor John PfaffAfter six people were shot and killed outside a bar in Sacramento, California, earlier this month, stories about the victims and their grieving families initially filled local news.Soon followed reports about two brothers who were arrested in connection with the early morning shootout, with journalists and commentators delving into the brothers’ histories. Both men had several prior convictions, and the coverage of their rap sheets was swiftly seized upon by midterm election hopefuls and conservative commentators to argue for harsher punishments and increased policing. Continue reading...

A new documentary explores how Loyola captured the NCAA title in 1963 with four Black starters. But it was not a typical fairytaleKansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self employed a variety of strategies while securing the Jayhawks’ fourth national title earlier this month. Suffice to say, how many Black players he selected was not a talking point.But six decades ago the composition of the team was a significant call for Loyola’s George Ireland. His decision to start four Black players not only proved the difference in the Ramblers’ 1963 NCAA title run; it became a moment similar to Jackie Robinson signing with the Dodgers 75 years ago – one of those decisions that led to a sport becoming more inclusive, and also helped fuel the civil rights movement across the US. And yet for as watershed an event as the Ramblers’ ’63 title was, it has long tarried in the shadow of a Texas Western team that won the 1966 NCAA title with five Black starters – a David and Goliath matchup memorialized in the Jerry Bruckheimer classic Glory Road. Even recent members of the Ramblers basketball team didn’t know much more than the basics of the ’63 team’s quest – even as the story came roaring back to the fore during the Ramblers’ recent storybook run to the 2018 Final Four. “And we have relationships with those guys,” says Lucas Williamson, a co-captain on the 2021-22 Ramblers team. “Especially pre-Covid, they were always around – at practices, at games. We know them. But we just never really talked about the racial issues they had actually gone through.”The Loyola Project is available to stream now. Continue reading...

A new ESPN documentary reassesses the career of the Australian, with particular attention paid to his famous meltdown at the 1996 MastersIn recent years it’s become fashionable for sport documentaries to include a self-referential element in which the protagonist reviews footage of their own triumphs and disasters. The facial reactions in these segments often say more than hours of talking head analysis ever could: the vision of Michael Jordan, tablet in lap, choking up with laughter as Gary Payton’s account of the 1996 NBA finals series is played back to him remains the defining image of 2020’s The Last Dance. For Shark, premiering in the US on Tuesday night, directors Jason Hehir (who also directed The Last Dance) and Thomas Odelfelt replace the tablet with a laptop kept open on a small side table next to the seated Greg Norman.The Australian has never rewatched the infamous final round of the 1996 Masters, in which he relinquished a six-shot lead to surrender the green jacket to arch-rival Nick Faldo: “There’s no need to,” he says curtly in the opening minutes of Shark. And when the footage of that fabled choke – still the biggest final-day lead ever blown in a PGA tour tournament – starts rolling on the laptop, you soon begin to understand why. The pain of every slice, hook, undercooked putt and moment of self-doubt is still very much with him, 25 years later. Continue reading...

The Conservative Partnership Institute’s meetings promote poll watching and ‘clean’ voter rolls, sparking fears of vote suppressionAn influential conservative group that includes two Trump allies who helped push lies about voter fraud in 2020 is spearheading “election integrity” summits in battleground states, advocating for expanded poll watching, “clean” voter rolls and other measures watchdogs say could curb voting rights to help Republican candidates.The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) “election integrity network” is run by the veteran GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who helped to spread misinformation about supposed election fraud in 2020. Continue reading...

Move follows a series of hardline measures by Republicans in the state to alter teaching in schools as governor welcomes newsFlorida’s education department has rejected 54 mathematics textbooks from next year’s school curriculum, citing alleged references to critical race theory among a range of reasoning for some of the rejections, officials announced.The department said in a news release Friday that some of the books had been rejected for failure to comply with the state’s content standards, Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking [Best], but that 21% of the books were disallowed “because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT”. Continue reading...

The new report into vaping, which resulted in calls to ban vaping entirely for younger Australians, still leaves a great number of questions

Two teenage boys killed in Pittsburgh in one of at least three shootings over the weekend, including two in South CarolinaTwo teenage boys were killed and eight other people were wounded after gunfire erupted at a party in a short-term rental home in Pittsburgh early Sunday, one of at least three mass shootings across the US on Easter weekend.The other two shootings – both in South Carolina – left a total of 18 people with bullet wounds, once again reigniting calls among advocates for meaningful gun control legislation. Continue reading...

Ship freed from muddy bottom of the Chesapeake Bay at third attempt is owned by same company as ship stuck in Suez canal last yearA container ship called the Ever Forward was finally pried free on Sunday from the muddy bottom of the Chesapeake Bay more than a month after it ran aground.The Ever Forward is owned by the Evergreen Marine Corporation, the same company that owns the Ever Given, which famously ran aground and blocked the Suez canal for a week, disrupting the global supply chain.The Associated Press contributed to this report Continue reading...

Baby clothing and maternity wear retailer grew from kitchen table startupThe baby clothing and maternity wear retailer JoJo Maman Bébé – whose high-profile customers include the Duchess of Cambridge – has been snapped up by the high street company Next and a group of investment firms.Laura Tenison, who started the business in 1993 from her flatshare kitchen table and turned it into one of the UK’s leading mother and baby retailers, said the new owners had “exciting plans to expand and grow the brand much faster than we ever could, giving us the opportunity to open in new markets”. Continue reading...

Frank James, who allegedly shot 10 people on a subway train, openly talked about struggling with mental illnessDays after a man who openly talked about struggling with mental illness allegedly shot up a subway train in Brooklyn, the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, called for his state to continue prioritizing an increase in the number of available psychiatric hospital beds.Adams on Sunday said he understood the medical community’s shifting its focus to fighting the deadly coronavirus during the last two years, but at this point in the pandemic, it needed to pivot to addressing shortages in psychiatric services. Continue reading...

Fresno considered itself a success story in the fight against homelessness. By 2019, things had changed drasticallyJesus Ramirez has spent years searching for housing he can afford in Fresno, California. He jokes that he’ll remain on the streets until he’s old enough for a retirement home.For the last two years, the 47-year-old spent most nights sleeping in front of closed businesses in the heart of California’s Central Valley. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he receives $950 a month in government assistance, but he hasn’t been able to find a place in his budget in Fresno, which had the greatest rent increases of any US city last year. Continue reading...

Indigenous women are underrepresented in the US Congress and other elected offices. The Native Action Network wants to change thatOn a picturesque island just a 30-minute ferry ride from downtown Seattle, Juanita Perez described losing a recent race for a delegate seat for the Tlingit and Haida tribes:“I didn’t have all the tools to do it the right way,” she said. Continue reading...

The government’s catalogue of embarrassments found a perfect symbol last week in a 500-tonne mountain of rotting beetrootLike a bald man masturbating alone into an open pedal bin, Boris Johnson’s Brexit Britain disgusts itself. And yet, despite being observed on the gents’ toilet’s security camera that is the modern world stage, it continues its abasement unabashed. After the second world war, the German volk were described as experiencing kollektivschuld, a national shame. But the capacity for shame has been surgically removed from our leaders. And it pulses only weakly, like some underactive perineal muscle, in the electorate that endorses them. Could it be possible instead for the physical mass of a nation, rather than the citizens it comprises, to display the attributes of shame?Brexiter culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, who didn’t know what the customs union was, has called publicly for the removal of public funding for a TV channel that isn’t publicly funded; Brexiter Dominic Raab, who had not appreciated the importance of Calais, went paddleboarding in Crete while Kabul rescue cats fought to get on British planes; and Brexiter Rishi Sunak, who has all his different breads in all his different houses, took lucrative advantage of tax loopholes that the EU he sought to exit had hoped to close.Rescheduled national 2022 dates of Stewart’s 2020 tour, Snowflake Tornado, Edinburgh fringe shows, and dates for the 2022-23 show, Basic Lee, are all on sale now. A DVD and soundtrack of the hit rockumentary King Rocker are available here Continue reading...

UK attitudes to migration and asylum are mixed but, in the round, they are softening. The left should not join the Tories in thinking the worst of votersIt is 50 years since the most principled decision about refugees in postwar Britain was taken. The then prime minister Ted Heath’s insistence on upholding Britain’s duty to protect the 28,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin showed political courage. Doing the right thing by them was broadly unpopular in 1972. Indeed, Whitehall panic in the face of Enoch Powell’s pressure saw the Foreign Office ask Bermuda and then the Falklands if they might provide an “island asylum” to limit the numbers who may come to Britain.Ugandan Asian migrants have contributed much to Britain. Their British-born children have enjoyed opportunities in professional life beyond their parents’ hopes. It could even be an indicator of integration that it is Priti Patel, the first British Asian woman to occupy a great office of state, who leads this government’s search for an asylum island for our times. On Thursday, the home secretary proudly unveiled her plan to send asylum seekers who reach Britain to Africa instead. Continue reading...

Britain’s ‘lion in Kyiv’ can roar all he likes but the tragedy will not end until the west swaps gesture politics for real action

The president remains favourite to carry the election, but his task will become no easierAlthough Emmanuel Macron did a little better than expected in the first round of the French presidential election last Sunday, the results were not a huge surprise. The second round next Sunday will be between Macron and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, exactly as it was five years ago. But the results confirmed two worrying trends in French politics that were already apparent – and which are also evident to some extent across much of the rest of continental Europe.The first is the realignment of politics away from a fault line between left and right, to one between “radical” centrism and populism. The centre-left Socialist and centre-right Les Républicains candidates both received less than 5% of the vote, a lower share of the vote than either of these parties had ever received before. Both Macron and Le Pen see themselves as being “beyond left and right” – that is, though they both want us to think of them as being opposites, they actually mirror each other. From a democratic point of view, this realignment is disastrous. Continue reading...

In new book, Republican and former undercover CIA officer rejects political extremesIt was a plot twist worthy of Homeland.Will Hurd got home one night and told his fiancee that he was in fact an undercover officer in the CIA. And there was more. They would have to move to Pakistan. Continue reading...

Inflation hit 8.5% in March as a mix of post-pandemic demand, price gouging and the Ukraine war dragged down Biden’s ratingsIn the days leading up to the release of the US labor department’s latest inflation report, the White House tried to deflate expectations. White House officials said they expected the March inflation rate to be “extraordinarily elevated” because of rising gas prices, driven largely by war in Ukraine.Unfortunately for Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, they were proven right. The inflation report, released on Tuesday, showed US prices increased by 8.5% between March 2021 and March 2022 – the highest level of US inflation since 1981. Continue reading...

Police said five other people were hurt while trying to escape the shooting, which arose from a personal disputeA 22-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a shooting at a South Carolina shopping mall in which 14 people were either shot or injured during a stampede to escape, police said on Saturday night.The man was one of three people to be detained immediately after the incident, which happened just outside South Carolina’s capital of Colombia, and he will be charged with unlawfully carrying a pistol. Continue reading...

Griselda Verduzco Armenta was trying to get over the barrier with the help of coyotes to find a more secure future for her daughters

I don’t have a community here yet. I’m attempting to build one by picking through my new neighbours’ rubbish

Greg Abbott hit brakes on policy after a week of backlash and fears of deepening economic losses as food supplies held in protestTexas governor Greg Abbott has made an about-face on his policy of tighter inspections of trucks entering Texas from Mexico, a week after he implemented the policy which led to Mexican truckers blockading border bridges in protest and holding up food supplies to the US as a result.He reversed course on Friday night after a week of intensifying backlash and fears of deepening economic losses. Continue reading...

The Ockenden report revealed fatal myths in maternity care. But their potent allure remainsFor Grantly Dick-Read, the Victorian originator of the UK’s natural childbirth movement, birthing women in Britain should emulate those, as he phrased it, “of more primitive types”. In Natural Childbirth, 1933, he pictured one of these individuals disappearing into a “thicket” – it sounded plausible enough from Woking – to await her pain-free labour.“Natural birth is all that she looks for; there are no fears in her mind; no midwives spoiling the natural process; she has no knowledge of the tragedies of sepsis, infection and haemorrhage.” Continue reading...

The reaction to the Northern Ireland manager blaming a 5-0 defeat on women being ‘emotional’ shows progress of sortsIt was a bad day at the office for Northern Ireland manager, Kenny Shiels. Discussing his team’s 5-0 defeat to England on Tuesday, a loss that ended their hopes for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, he explained that “girls and women are more emotional than men, so they take a goal and then they don’t take that very well”. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue.He went on to explain his theory, using statistics about how often a second goal is conceded quickly after the first. “That’s an emotional goal,” he suggested. After a minute or so of chat about the subject, there was a telltale pause. “I shouldn’t have told you that,” he said. Continue reading...

People are confusing wealth and intelligence if they read too much into the tech entrepreneur’s cheerleading for the cryptocurrencySince powdered rhino horn has (rightly) been banned, only two aphrodisiacs remain: political power and great wealth. Of these, the second is the more interesting, partly because most humans, especially journalists, seem to be affected by it. It’s what leads them to assume that if someone is fabulously rich, then she or he must be very smart. That’s why the super-rich are invariably surrounded by fawning sycophants – and also why they eventually come to believe that they themselves are geniuses.Which brings us neatly to Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley’s leading contrarian. With a net worth of perhaps $5bn (£3.9bn), he is undoubtedly rich, though not in the Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or even Bill Gates league. But since he is the only public intellectual that the tech industry has produced, there is a widespread belief that he must also be a deep thinker, which is why organisations ask him to give “keynote” speeches. Continue reading...

Jacob Christian Muse, arrested Friday night, faces charges of malice murder for killing three people at a local gun rangePolice in Georgia have arrested a man accused of killing a local coroner’s parents and son during a robbery at the family’s gun range earlier this month, according to officials.Jacob Christian Muse, 21, faces three counts of malice murder in the 7 April shooting deaths of Luke Hawk, 19; Tommy Hawk, 75; and Evelyn Hawk, 75, which rattled their rural community about 50 miles south-west of Atlanta. Continue reading...

Anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder says ‘whole class of British lawyers’ making money out of lawsuits against journalists, dissidents and whistleblowersThe anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder is calling on the US to issue visa bans against British lawyers who he has accused of “enabling” Russian oligarchs.The US-born financier, an outspoken and longtime critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, has said that installing such a ban would strike at the heart of what he described as a persistent problem of oligarchs using the UK legal system against journalists and whistleblowers, tying them up in expensive lawsuits. Continue reading...

A latte is a powerful symbol of normality for a friend working to help Ukrainian refugees arriving in PolandI pick up the phone to an old friend who, until a few weeks ago, had a working life a bit like mine; one might grandly call it a portfolio career, but in truth it’s a matter of turning your hand to all sorts of things to make a buck. In his case, a Starbuck; he’s a coffee devotee and, as we chatted, a sad story came to light, which saw him being relieved of his takeaway latte by an officious concierge as he arrived at a swanky office building for a meeting. Honestly, he said, I could have cried, to which you might retort, well, go ahead and cry me a river.Except that the latte was a little manifestation of creature comfort and normality, a treat to power him through a whistlestop trip to London, where he normally lives, but from which he has been largely absent recently. Nowadays, you can most often find him in Jaroslaw in Poland, where he has gone to volunteer for a newly founded charity called Poland Welcomes, its mission to provide shelter and amenities to Ukrainian women and children who have been forced to leave their homes. At the last count, they had 500 guests across a series of hastily adapted sites; they’re trying to scale up to 2,000. Continue reading...

Frank James, 62, arrested in Manhattan a day after attack on subway in Brooklyn in which more than 20 were woundedFive people who provided “critical information” that helped lead to the arrest of the man charged with this week’s mass shooting in a New York subway will share a $50,000 reward, police announced.The suspect, wearing a gas mask, had filled a crowded subway car traveling through Brooklyn with thick black smoke from a canister and opened fire last Tuesday on morning rush-hour passengers, injuring more than 20, including 10 with gunshot wounds. Continue reading...

Last year the US government lifted millions of children out of poverty when it expanded the Child Tax Credit – and then the policy was simply chucked awayChild poverty is bad. I think we can all agree on that, right? Americans are divided on lots of issues but it’s reasonable to suppose that, no matter where someone sits on the political spectrum, they would want kids to have enough to eat. Right?Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

The US presidential debate has been thrown into doubt – and the move is proof of the RNC’s eagerness to do Trump’s biddingOne of the marquee moments of any US presidential election – the televised debate – has been thrown into doubt by the Republican party’s decision on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates.The Republican National Committee (RNC) grumbled that the group that has run the debates since 1988 is biased and refuses to enact reforms. It promised to “find newer, better debate platforms” in future. Continue reading...