Instead of pursuing the ‘metaverse’, the company’s new head of global affairs should address the surveillance business model that has done so much harmWhen the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg joined Facebook in 2018, the company was immersed in a number of scandals. Cambridge Analytica had been harvesting personal data from Facebook profiles. UN human rights experts said the platform had played a role in facilitating the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Its policies during the 2016 US presidential election had come under fire. Now Clegg has taken a top role as the company’s president of global affairs. Will he be able to tackle the seemingly endless problems with the way that Facebook – which recently rebranded as Meta – works?For better or worse, Meta and Google have become the infrastructure of the digital public sphere. On Facebook, people access the news, social movements grow, human rights abuses are documented and politicians engage with constituents. Herein lies the problem. No single company should hold this much power over the global public sphere. Continue reading...

The prime minister’s denial of breaking Covid rules rests on what exactly he gets up to in the office and elsewhere Continue reading...

A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico Continue reading...

Authorities were able to re-create the family’s hiking path using data, including GPS locations and photos, from their phonesAuthorities have released new phone data, including unsent text messages pleading for help, in the case of the young California family killed by extreme heat during a hike in a remote area of the Sierra Nevada mountains last August.The new details surrounding the deaths of 45-year-old Jonathan Gerrish, his 35-year-old wife Ellen Chung, their one-year old daughter Aurelia “Miju” Chung-Gerrish and their dog Oski, were released on Thursday by the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, included family photos taken during the hike, text message and phone call attempts, and GPS locations. Continue reading...

Stewart Rhodes ‘presents a clear and convincing danger’ after spending thousands on weapons before riot, judge saysThe founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, will remain in jail until his seditious-conspiracy trial for allegedly helping plot the assault on the US Capitol, a US judge said, calling him a “clear and convincing danger”.The US district judge Amit Mehta said during a Friday court hearing that Rhodes spent thousands of dollars on weapons and other equipment ahead of the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters and also made “substantial purchases” of weapons afterwards. Continue reading...

Customer survived gunshot wound to shoulder in incident three days before end of Nevada Covid mask mandateA convenience store clerk who killed himself minutes after shooting a customer who refused to wear a mask and walked out without paying for three bags of chips would have faced criminal charges if he had survived, a police report said.The 6 February shootings on the north-west edge of Las Vegas came four days before Governor Steve Sisolak lifted Nevada’s Covid-19 mask mandate. Continue reading...

The ex-president has been ordered to testify in a New York fraud case. Will he invoke his constitutional right to remain silent?Donald Trump and his two eldest children have been ordered by a New York judge to appear for a deposition within 21 days, as part of an investigation into the Trump family finances. The development presents the former US president with a dilemma: should he invoke his right to silence by pleading the fifth? Continue reading...

Medals in speed skating and monobob raise hopes that more young athletes of color will thrive in winter sportsOnly two Black Americans had won an individual medal in nearly a century of Winter Olympics before this week. It took less than 24 hours for Erin Jackson and Elana Meyers Taylor to double that list.When Jackson ended a couple of lengthy speed skating medal droughts for the United States in a sport they once dominated by winning Sunday night’s women’s 500m, the roller derby skater from central Florida became the first Black woman from any country to win an individual gold in a Winter Olympics event according to the Olympedia.org website, the most comprehensive database about the Olympic Games. Continue reading...

Eve Muirhead and co set up a curling final against Japan after Eileen Gu won another gold medal for China, and ROC beat Sweden in the men’s hockeyFreestyle skiing: The men’s skicross 1/8 finals are under way, that man Alex Fiva kicking things off in the opening heat. The US-born Swiss former alpine skier is the first man into the quarter-finals with a dominant display.Ice hockey: A chance for the shorthanded Slovakia to pull level but the puck evades Michal Kristof by a matter of inches off the pass from Juraj Slafkovsky. And it remains 1-0 to Finland as time ticks down in the third period - just under 15 minutes remaining now. Continue reading...

To stop Russia, Ukrainians must show, for as long as possible, that we are unconquerableThis week I had my first nightmare about war. In the dream, I woke up to find that Russia had attacked my home city of Kyiv: there was no internet connection, and no way of finding out what had happened.I had this dream on Wednesday, the night on which – according to western intelligence – Russia was most likely to begin its attack on Ukraine. Over the last few months, we Ukrainians have of course considered various scenarios and contingency plans, but mainly we have kept calm. But when the US, the UK and dozens of other states evacuated their embassies from the capital, it felt different.Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist specialising in foreign affairs and conflict reporting and author of Lost Island: Tales from the Occupied Crimea Continue reading...

In October, Brandon Brown unwittingly became a rightwing meme. Now he is delicately treading the line between profit and politicsBrandon Brown was not an especially fearsome stock car driver, nor did he figure as the sort to crack open sport’s Pandora’s box entering last October’s Sparks 300 – a race in Nascar’s mid-tier Xfinity series. In most cases a mid-pack qualifying position would not bode well. But at Talladega Speedway, a crash-happy oval circuit where anything can happen, the best drivers are the ones who survive the carnage. And after two multi-car pile ups, Brown assumed a narrow lead with 13 laps to go. A final accident two laps later that took out seven cars sealed his first Xfinity series triumph in 114 tries.With night falling on the Alabama circuit, the 28-year-old Virginia native emerged from his Chevrolet Camaro machine in a daze for the post-race TV interview. As he breathlessly thanked his sponsors and revisited his driving tactics, some in Talladega’s packed crowd began chanting “Fuck Joe Biden” loud and clear enough to come across Brown’s microphone. Desperate to keep the interview going with her producers unable to bleep the background noise, NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast tried to Jedi mind trick her viewers. “You can hear the chants from the crowd – Let’s go, Brandon,” she said. Continue reading...

A New York judge has ruled Trump will have to testify in his fraud investigation, leaving Trump sweating and his investors shaking their headsDonald Trump’s bad luck continues. On Thursday afternoon, Arthur Engoron, a Manhattan judge, gave the thumbs up to subpoenas issued to Trump, favorite child Ivanka, and Donald Trump Jr, by Tish James, New York’s attorney general. The court’s ruling follows a decision by Trump’s accountants to walk away from the one-term president and disavow years of financial statements issued by his company.Much as the Trump trio tried, they could not shut down James’s investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices, which could lead to a civil suit by James. Unlike a criminal prosecution, a civil action comes with a lower burden of proof for the government. At the same time, civil lawsuits can drag on – like right into 2024. Barring a stay, Trump and his two children have been ordered to appear at deposition within 21 days. Continue reading...

Thanks to the Duke of York and Oliver Dowden’s preposterous war on woke, the culture wars are now being fought in a street near youAs you know, Oliver Dowden laments threats to all British statues – indeed, this week found the Conservative chairman in Washington DC, making a speech about such things to an American thinktank. As a keen student of his joined-up theories, I’ve always looked forward to the day Oliver feels ready to give us his speech on the disgraceful 2012 removal of the Jimmy Savile statue from Glasgow’s Scotstoun leisure centre. Have we not got to live with our history? Debate it, yes, question it, yes – but ultimately preserve every handcarved wooden statue of a paedo in whatever family setting happens to boast one.In the meantime, according to Dowden, woke ideology is putting the west at risk from countries such as Russia, even though Russians are so woke they have whole parks of torn-down statuary, featuring figures whose historical legacy they didn’t feel particularly minded to debate or live with when they were yanking them off the plinths. Absolute snowflakes. Continue reading...

The ‘gate money’ the state offers is ‘insufficient to survive’, one activist says, and can contribute to recidivismA California lawmaker wants to increase the allowance that people released from prison receive to cover basic needs for the first time in nearly 50 years.Sydney Kamlager, a state senator representing Los Angeles, is introducing legislation Friday to bump up the “gate money” – funds that people released from state prisons are given – from $200 to nearly $2,600. Continue reading...

Former president has to testify within 21 days and hand over documents within a fortnight. Plus, the answer to our productivity crisis?Good morning.Donald Trump and his two eldest children have been ordered by a New York judge to sit for a civil deposition in the deepening investigation over alleged fraud in the valuation of assets belonging to his family business.Could Trump plead the fifth? It would be tricky: his criminal defense lawyer says it would be front-page news and would make it impossible to pick a jury. Additionally, Trump has previously mocked the practice, saying: “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment?”What’s next? Trump is likely to appeal against the decision ordering him to comply with the subpoena.Who else has backed the convoy? Ted Cruz has demanded an investigation into GoFundMe after it deleted the page for donations to Canadian truckers, as did DeSantis. The Ohio congressman Jim Jordan also criticized the platform.How should the double standard be understood? This rhetoric is Republicans seizing any opportunity to attack Joe Biden – rather than being part of a “hard ideological stance”, said Jared Holt, an extremism researcher. Continue reading...

For years MLS was seen as a retirement league. But the flow of talent now appears to be crossing the Atlantic from west to eastIf any evidence was needed to prove European clubs are increasingly looking to Major League Soccer for talent, it came in the January transfer window. No fewer than 33 players left North American soccer’s top flight to head across the Atlantic with two of those players (Daryl Dike and Ricardo Pepi) entering the list for the top five most expensive transfers in MLS history.Bundesliga club Augsburg made Pepi their club-record signing while Dike joined West Brom. Teenager Kevin Paredes left DC United for Wolfsburg, James Sands signed for Rangers on loan from New York City FC and George Bello joined Arminia Bielefeld, having made his breakthrough at Atlanta United. Even after the January transfer window closed, Arsenal completed a deal that will see US men’s national team goalkeeper Matt Turner move to London this summer. Continue reading...

Andy Parker says he is ‘honoring’ his daughter Alison Parker’s death by fighting for a congressional seat to regulate big techAndy Parker has never watched the video of his daughter’s murder. But anyone with an internet connection can find it, view it and share it.In the years since Alison Parker, a 24-year-old TV journalist in Roanoke, Virginia, was shot and killed during a live broadcast in 2015, her father has made it his mission to remove the footage from the social media platforms where it continues to resurface even after being taken down. Continue reading...

Olympic athletes face greater pressures because the spotlight is so much greater every four years than it is in the rest of their careersWhat price, hype?When does publicity turn into crushing expectations that can make Mikaela Shiffrin or Simone Biles develop a sudden case of the yips or withdraw from competition altogether? Continue reading...

Lawmakers including Ron Paul and Ron DeSantis say they would back disruption of a Canadian-style trucker convoyIn the wake of racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, a wave of Republican lawmakers supported legislation to punish protesters who blocked roads. Now some of those same Republicans are supporting similar tactics from conservative trucker convoys protesting against vaccine mandates.Last year, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an anti-rioting law that stiffened penalties for protesters who blocked roads and even gave some legal protection to drivers who ran them over. It went so far that in September a federal judge struck down the law, ruling it unconstitutional. Continue reading...

The subject of the hit documentary, who conned women out of hundreds of thousands, is trying to launch a celebrity career, a depressing but inevitable next stepWhen I first watched The Tinder Swindler last month, in anticipation for an interview with director Felicity Morris, I was, like many viewers, completely absorbed by the story.Several women meet a man on Tinder who claims to be the billionaire heir to an Israeli diamond fortune, lavishes them with attention, flies to them on actual private jets, then swindles them for hundreds of thousands of dollars? I’m a single woman in my late 20s in New York: of course I ate it up. The documentary was also much, much better than it could have been; I appreciated that Morris didn’t have much interest in probing the psychology of its swindler, Simon Leviev. Instead, she foregrounded three women’s first-person accounts of getting conned – why they believed him, why they cared for him, what such manipulation and confusion does to someone – as well as the journalists at the Norwegian paper VG who unspooled his lies for an initial exposé in 2019. Continue reading...

Both parties concluded it would be beneficial in an election-year with a Russia invasion looming largeThe Senate has given final approval to legislation averting a weekend government shutdown, sending Joe Biden a measure designed to give bipartisan bargainers more time to reach an overdue deal that would finance federal agencies until fall.Final passage on Thursday was by a bipartisan 65-27 vote, five more than the 60 votes needed. The House easily approved the legislation last week. Each party had concluded that an election-year shutdown would be politically damaging, especially during a pandemic and a confrontation with Russia over its possible invasion of Ukraine. Continue reading...

US secretary of state Antony Blinken told a United Nations security council meeting on Ukraine that those assembled found themselves in a "moment of peril for the lives and safety of millions of people" as Russian continues to deny plans to invade Ukraine. Blinken said "our information indicates clearly that [Russian] forces, including ground troops, aircraft, ships, are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days"

Ruling forces ex-president, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr to comply with subpoenas as Letitia James investigates Trump OrganizationDonald Trump and two of his children have been ordered by a New York judge to appear for a deposition within the next three weeks, as part of the billowing investigation over alleged fraud in the valuation of assets belonging to his family business.The ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron to force Trump and his two eldest children – Donald Jr and Ivanka – to comply with subpoenas amounts to a sharp escalation of the legal perils that are rapidly tightening around the former president. Continue reading...

Rancho Mirage’s mayor says the development is a ‘fabulous fit’, but critics question building a giant lagoon in a parched desertA 24-acre fake lagoon constructed in the middle of the California desert will be at the heart of a new Disney-branded planned community, the company announced this week.Rancho Mirage, California, a city in the Coachella Valley not far from Palm Springs, will be the site of Disney’s first “Storyliving” community, the company said in a press release. Continue reading...

Once you stop trusting the puzzle master, it’s all overThere is something very satisfying about going, in the space of a few months, from neophyte, to expert, to outraged dissenter, and enjoying that journey alongside thousands of others. I’m talking about Wordle, obviously, the five stages of which, after its invention in October last year, might usefully be delineated as indifference, confusion, enjoyment, obsession and resolution to cancel the New York Times. Here we are in February and it’s a new world, teetering for some of us on the brink of post-Wordle. I’m not quite ready to jump. But after a week of scandalous decisions by the NYT, the puzzle’s new owners, it’s only a matter of time.This is a sad outcome given the ancillary pleasures that come with the game. As in all things, I was not an early adopter, only giving in and trying a Wordle when friends with even less interest in puzzles than me got sucked in and triggered my competitive machinery. For the past five weeks, I have patiently and conscientiously done a puzzle a day, while enjoying all the benefits of my new hobby. I have made judgments about people who post their results. I have made judgments about myself, primarily how brilliant I am. During a bout of insomnia, I’ve shared my grid at 3am with someone who has sent me their middle-of-the-night results, an action I have understood, obliquely, to be both a boast and a small cry for help. I’ve texted the word “genius” to people when they’ve solved the puzzle in two and received the same validation in return. I’ve wondered if I’m rescuing myself from dementia. Continue reading...

An island nation must trade with its nearest mainland, whatever our new Brexit opportunities minister claimsA massacre is occurring. More than 35,000 healthy British pigs have been slaughtered and buried on farms since September, with an estimated 200,000 languishing in a backlog.The reason is that abattoirs lack the staff to process them, largely due to Britain’s exit from the pan-European labour market. In October, the environment department offered 800 six-month visas for foreign butchers. But it insisted they go through its laborious scheme for seasonal workers: barely 100 turned up. Whitehall also refuses to curb imports of European pork – which now makes up 60% of the UK market and rising. To the National Pig Association, Brexit means buy from Europe.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Singer shares letter from Congressmen Charlie Crist and Eric Swalwell on Instagram, saying she was ‘immediately flattered’The singer Britney Spears has shared a letter she received from two members of the US House of Representatives inviting her to Congress to talk about her long-running legal battle over her conservatorship that ended with victory in November.“I was immediately flattered and at the time I wasn’t nearly at the healing stage I’m in now,” Spears, 41, said in the Instagram post about the letter she received in December from Congressmen Charlie Crist of Florida and Eric Swalwell of California. Continue reading...

New Jersey governor says ‘racially disparate treatment is deeply disturbing’ after officers kneel on Black youth’s back as white counterpart looks onNew Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, said he was “deeply disturbed” by video of a shopping mall brawl that ended with a Black teenager pinned to the ground in handcuffs with a police officer’s knee on his back, while officers let the white youth he had been trading punches with watch from a sofa.“The appearance of what is racially disparate treatment is deeply, deeply disturbing, and another reminder that progress we’ve made on relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve … shows that our work is not done,” Murphy said after viewing the video of the weekend altercation at the mall in Bridgewater township. Continue reading...

Kamila Valieva slipped to fourth in figure skating and Team GB secured their first medal on a dramatic day in Beijing

As many as 94% of representatives may be running in safe districts, fueling polarization as candidates play to their basesHello and happy Thursday,The most fundamental concept in American government is that all politicians are accountable to the people. Constituents accept laws shaped by the people they vote for, knowing that they have the power to eventually vote them out of office if they disagree.Texas election officials are seeing a staggeringly high number of mail-in ballots rejected ahead of the state’s 1 March governor’s primary.Amy Weirich, a Tennessee prosecutor, defended a six-year prison sentence for Pamela Moses, who tried to register to vote while ineligible.A federal judge blocked a portion of a new Texas law that made it a crime for election officials to solicit mail-in ballots. Texas is appealing the ruling.Florida Republicans are considering adopting a new measure that would make it harder to vote by mail, potentially causing headaches for at least 400,000 voters in the state. Continue reading...

Move would mark a dramatic escalation in the Capitol attack inquiry. Plus, the tech billionaires trying to reverse ageingGood morning.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is considering subpoenaing Ivanka Trump after she appeared to refuse a request for voluntary cooperation, according to a source close to the matter.Is the panel likely to do it? The fact that committee members are discussing a subpoena suggests they believe it may be required to get her to appear at a deposition.When could it happen? The panel is not expected to take the step just yet – they want to give Trump a reasonable period of time to decide to engage voluntarily.Was racism considered in the state trial? No – prosecutors sought only to prove the men were responsible for Arbery’s death, regardless of motive.What does the defence say? They insist the deadly pursuit of Arbery was motivated by a genuine, though erroneous, suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes. Continue reading...

The staggering increase highlights the shifting dynamics and focus of the opioid crisis, long considered a white, rural issueAs the drug overdose crisis in the United States exploded during the coronavirus pandemic – killing an unprecedented 100,000 people in 12 months – Black and Indigenous Americans were increasingly likely to become the victims.Drug overdose rates in America surged by 31% in 2020, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as the pandemic left many facing lockdowns, and economic and emotional strain. But researchers at the University of California Los Angeles have found that the death rate surged most dramatically among Black and Indigenous Americans, who saw a staggering increase of 49% and 43% respectively in just one year. Continue reading...

The US roster for the SheBelieves Cup is missing many of the players who have helped the team dominate in recent years. The focus is on the futureWe’re just under 18 months from the 2023 Women’s World Cup, and when the USWNT run out to play the Czech Republic in the SheBelieves Cup on Thursday the team will look very different from the one that has dominated for the last decade.This is a roster largely devoid of the stars who have won two World Cups and an Olympic title in the last 10 years. Marquee names from Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan to Tobin Heath, Julie Ertz, and Christen Press won’t feature against New Zealand, Iceland or the Czech Republic. Just seven players from the victorious 2019 Women’s World Cup roster and four of that starting 11 are in this 23-player camp. Continue reading...

Global heating will cause ‘megafires resistant to fire suppression practices’ with 25% of land being burned by 2040A convergence of dangerous weather conditions, exacerbated by the climate crisis, has set the stage for southern California to see an increase in catastrophic wildfires over the coming decades, according to a new study.Southern California, home to 23 million people, has largely been spared the kind of extreme fire escalation experienced in the northern part of the state, but models drawn up by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have predicted that will change. Continue reading...

The confetti has been cleared from SoFi Stadium. Here’s what we can expect in the next few months as the league looks towards the 2022 seasonThe Rodgers Saga rolls into a third offseason. Prior to the Super Bowl, ESPN reported that the Green Bay Packers were now willing to go “all in” to keep the quarterback, pushing up to the limit of the salary cap for next season and beyond. The Packers are, the report suggested, looking to mirror the latter days of the Saints’ Drew Brees era, pushing cap pain down the line in order to squeeze extra juice out of the roster now.Won defensive rookie of the year in 2014Won three Defensive Player of the Year crownsMade the 2010s all-decade teamWas named a first-team All-Pro seven times, and a Pro Bowler in all eight seasonsMissed only two games in eight years, neither of which were injury relatedForced 48 fumbles, and totaled 150 tackles for lossRegistered 98 sacks, a total that matches Von Miller.Was the decisive force in swinging a Super Bowl with a two-play sequence for the ages.If you are carving the Mt Rushmore of defensive players alone, it starts with Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, and Donald. Feel free to argue over the fourth spot. What else is there left to achieve? Continue reading...

‘Captain Clutch’ Marie-Philip Poulin scores twice as a resurgent Canada side win 3-2 against their old rivalsThe imperious Canada women’s hockey team completed a buzzsaw run through the Olympic tournament with a comprehensive victory over their defining foes, seeing off the United States in Thursday afternoon’s gold medal game by a 3-2 scoreline that flattered to deceive.The latest instalment in one of world sport’s most hotly contested rivalries was largely one-way traffic for the half hour when the outcome truly hung in the balance. Marie-Philip Poulin, Canada’s longtime talisman known as “Captain Clutch”, scored twice as the defending world champions opened a three-goal lead behind an aggressive forechecking attack and a standout effort by in-form goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens, who finished with 38 saves. Continue reading...

A wave of TV shows such as Inventing Anna are sympathetic portrayals of the con artist that lies within us allWe are living in the age of the scammer. If you weren’t aware of it, just turn on your TV: there’s a rash of real-life dramas about master con artists.Netflix’s Inventing Anna – a fictionalised account of the fake heiress Anna Delvey (real name Sorokin) – is topping the streaming service’s popularity chart, while in March, Disney+ is releasing The Dropout, which dramatises the tale of health-tech fraud Elizabeth Holmes. It’s no wonder that the New Yorker’s Rachel Syme has declared a “Scam Spring”.Laura Martin is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

House select committee is considering best way to get evidence from ex-president’s daughter about his efforts to cling to powerThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is considering issuing a subpoena to Ivanka Trump to force her cooperation with the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to return himself to power on 6 January, according to a source familiar with the matter.Any move to subpoena Ivanka Trump and, for the first time, force a member of Trump’s own family to testify against him, would mark a dramatic escalation in the 6 January inquiry that could amount to a treacherous legal and political moment for the former president. Continue reading...

As a 14-year-old Australian, I urge you to stand in solidarity with me against policymakers in France and India, where they are oppressing Muslim womenThis morning as I was intricately pinning my school hijab around my head, I was thinking of how privileged I am to be able to wear my hijab to school. But it shouldn’t be a privilege, it is my right. It shouldn’t be something that Muslim women everywhere have to continue to fight for day after day. I feel for my hijabi sisters all around the world. What would I do if I had to choose between getting an education and wearing my hijab?Recently, a young Muslim student wearing a hijab in the Indian state of Karnataka was taunted by a mob of male anti-Muslim protesters. Watching the footage, I felt disgusted and scared, seeing a young hijabi woman like myself being assaulted, while doing absolutely nothing wrong. Simply trying to get an education. Just last week, shockingly close to home, a hijabi high school student in New Zealand was filmed as other school students forcibly removed her hijab and proceeded to share the video of the taunting on social media. The hijab these women wear is demonised by many in their communities, countries, and unfortunately all around the world. This Islamophobia is devastating, but unfortunately, Muslim women being the subject of hatred and abuse is nothing new. Continue reading...