Bitcoin and its ilk have slipped deeper alongside the market appetite for risk. Just look at the NasdaqThe US-focused shakeout in financial markets has at least given us clarity on one point: bitcoin is not “digital gold” or a “store of value”, to mention two grand claims made about the cryptocurrency when its price was going up.At $37,000, the late-afternoon level on Tuesday, bitcoin has fallen by 22% since the start of January and by 45% since recording an all-time high in early November. The crypto crew may have convoluted explanations for this setback, but the simplest one is best: bitcoin has always primarily been an instrument for pure speculation; when high-risk assets are out of favour, it will be clobbered. Continue reading...

Shane Lee Brown, 25, was mistaken for Shane Neal Brown, 49, a white man, when he was stopped by police in Henderson, NevadaA 25-year-old Black man sued two Nevada police departments for wrongfully detaining him in jail, after mistaking him for a white suspect twice his age.On 8 January 2020, Shane Lee Brown was driving in Henderson, Nevada, when he was stopped by police. According to his lawsuit, Brown did not have photographic identification but provided his name and his social security number and card. Continue reading...

DJ Ferguson, 31, had previously been prioritized for a transplant by Brigham and Women’s hospital in BostonA Boston-area hospital said it will not perform a heart transplant on a patient who refuses to get a Covid-19 vaccination.DJ Ferguson, 31, was previously prioritized for a heart transplant at Brigham and Women’s hospital, but is no longer eligible as he refuses to get vaccinated, said Ferguson’s family, according to a report by CBS Boston. Continue reading...

Republican legislature told by appeals judges to redraw new districts over probable violation of Voting Rights Act

Russia wants to see Nato rolled back – and Ukraine is far from its only pawn in the game

Quite how long Conservative MPs and the British public will continue to indulge the prime minister is unclearYesterday’s announcement of an inquiry into alleged anti-Muslim racism in the government meant I was going to begin with one of the more eye-watering quotes from Boris Johnson’s terrible novel Seventy-Two Virgins. (Seventy-Two Virgins is the title, not who bought it.) But further partygate revelations – and finally a police investigation – instead force me to tong open another work in the Johnson canon: The Churchill Factor. This minimum opus is riddled with sensational factual errors but is meant to advance Johnson’s big theory that we shouldn’t write off great men as “meretricious bubbles on the vast tides of social history”. On the contrary, great men turn history, and he’s one of them. (Johnson, obviously – not Churchill. Britain’s greatest wartime leader is chiefly deployed as a useful proxy for the narcissist author.)It is, then, entirely fitting of Boris Johnson’s historical stature that as Russia stands on the brink of an invasion of Ukraine, the talk is all of the PM’s singalong birthday party during the first lockdown. Has ever a meretricious bubble been more in need of a pin? A vast tide of something is flowing out of Downing Street, but it doesn’t smell like history.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

New Jersey congressman says viewers are calling to express distress that Biden is ‘not siding with Russia’ in Ukraine crisisA congressman from New Jersey has disclosed that he is receiving calls from viewers of Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show, expressing distress at the Biden administration’s backing of Ukraine in the tense military stand-off with Russia.Democratic representative Tom Malinowski said in a tweet his office was fielding calls from Carlson viewers “upset that we’re not siding with Russia in its threats to invade Ukraine”. Continue reading...

City’s fire chief says a fourth firefighter was also injured, when part of a vacant home collapsed amid fireThree Baltimore firefighters were killed and a fourth injured when part of a vacant home collapsed while they were battling a blaze early on Monday, the city’s fire chief said.The Baltimore city fire department said in a tweet firefighters were responding to a blaze at the three-story rowhome when the four were trapped inside. Crews removed piles of debris to locate the firefighters, the department said. Continue reading...

Elio’s restaurant manager says unvaccinated former governor dined there despite New York law due to ‘unfortunate oversight’The manager of an exclusive New York City restaurant insisted it was focused on the safety of its guests, after the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin dined there despite not being vaccinated against Covid-19.New York City laws require proof of vaccination for indoor dining. Continue reading...

Corporations are trying to privatize dozens of public water utilities around the US, capitalizing on the financial troubles of citiesThe Octoraro reservoir is a lake in south-east Pennsylvania where locals fish, kayak and marvel at bald eagles and owls. It’s a picturesque scene but in the neighbourhoods nearby there are placards which carry warnings.“No to Big Water”, the signs say, and “Save CWA”. Continue reading...

Some sociologists believe that the rising number of non-religious Americans is a reaction against rightwing evangelicals. But that’s just part of the storyWhat if I were to tell you that the following trends in American religion were all connected: rising numbers of people who are religiously unaffiliated (“nones”) or identify as “spiritual but not religious”; a spike in positive attention to the “religious left”; the depoliticization of liberal religion; and the purification and radicalization of the religious right? As a sociologist who has studied American religion and politics for many years, I have often struggled to make sense of these dramatic but seemingly disconnected changes. I now believe they all can all be explained, at least in part, as products of a backlash to the religious right.Since the religious right rose to national prominence in the 1980s, the movement’s insertion of religion in public debate and uncompromising style of public discourse has alienated many non-adherents and members of the larger public. As its critics often note, the movement promotes policies – such as bans on same-sex marriage and abortion – that are viewed by growing numbers of Americans as intolerant and radical. Continue reading...

Virtual meeting between western powers comes as the US put 8,500 troops on alert and UK warns of ‘unprecedented sanctions’ against Russia

Making vaccines available to all is crucial, but multiple boosters won’t be necessary for most of us

USA and Canada dominate the women’s game but a long-lasting league has been difficult to establish. The upcoming Olympics are an opportunity for changeIn 1996, the US women’s basketball team won Olympic gold in Atlanta, providing a solid foundation for two professional leagues. The WNBA, which had the backing of the NBA and better marketing, outlasted the ABL and continues to this day.After their victory on home soil at the 1999 World Cup, the US women’s soccer team seized the spotlight and parlayed that attention into a professional league. That league collapsed, but waves of publicity over the next decade have yielded a solid fanbase determined to keep professional women’s soccer running. Continue reading...

The first of their kind in the US help stabilize people in crisis and get them connected with needed servicesUntil recently, Ron M would take illicit drugs in what space he could find: public restrooms, subway alleyways or just in the street. He often used alone; the possibility of a fatal overdose was high.That’s why the East Harlem overdose prevention center has been such a blessing to him. Continue reading...

For a fortnight we all ate black beans and squash lasagne but soon the bickering began. It’s rule by the intolerant majority, writes Zoe WilliamsThere’s a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called Skin in the Game. It’s wrong about many things, featuring an account of Prince Andrew’s place in UK culture that was hilariously misjudged even before we realised what his place truly was, but has a theory about families and their eating habits that used to sound right. When one person restricts their diet – goes vegan or keto or whatever – the whole unit defaults to that restriction. It’s just easier, when three people will eat anything, to build your menu around the one person who will only eat some things. The parable was supposed to illustrate a broader point, that the intolerant minority will always come to triumph over the more tolerant majority.Let’s not dwell on his mental leap, because one of my kids just went vegetarian and I now know that even the starting block is untrue. For about a fortnight, we all went veggie and nobody noticed. It’s not as if we were living a traditional, Harvester-buffet, meat-centrepiece, side-salad life before all this. I passed off black beans as a luxury food item, squash lasagne as classic Italian cuisine. Besides, meat substitutes have moved on a lot, and now they can make pretty much anything taste like pork so long as it has first been rolled into a ball.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The photographer believed Black people were not portrayed in a ‘serious and artistic way’ and set out to change that with his painterly photographs

Democrat spent two decades as speaker of state assembly before conviction over real-estate dealingsSheldon Silver, one of the most powerful figures in New York state government for two decades before his conviction on corruption charges, has died in federal custody. He was 77.Silver, who served as the speaker of the New York state assembly, died on Monday, the federal Bureau of Prisons said, adding that the official cause of death would be determined by the medical examiner. Silver’s supporters had said he was in failing health from multiple medical conditions. Continue reading...

Joe Biden has been caught on a hot mic apparently referring to a Fox News reporter as a 'stupid son of a bitch'. As journalists left a meeting, the Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy asked whether Biden thought inflation was a political liability ahead of the midterms. 'No, it’s a great asset – more inflation,' Biden appeared to respond sarcastically over a din of reporters shouting questions, apparently not realizing his microphone was still on. 'What a stupid son of a bitch,' he added

President caught on mic seemingly swearing at Peter Doocy as journalists left a news conferenceJoe Biden was caught on a hot mic appearing to insult the Fox News journalist Peter Doocy, seemingly calling him a “stupid son of a bitch” after Doocy posed a question about US inflation.“Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?” the reporter asked the president as journalists were leaving the room at the end of an event at the White House on Monday. Continue reading...

The US military has put up to 8,500 troops on alert to be ready to deploy to Europe, potentially at very short notice, should the Nato alliance activate a rapid response force. It's the latest sign of US resolve in the face of a Russian military buildup near Ukraine. The Pentagon spokesman John Kirby stressed that no decision had been made on whether to deploy the troops, and that any such deployment would separate from intra-European movements of US troops to Nato's eastern flank, to reassure nervous allies. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told US citizens in Ukraine that ‘now is the time to leave’

Dow and Nasdaq recoup losses after early plunges while European and UK markets suffer big lossesUS stock markets were hit by another wave of wild trading on Monday as investors worried that the Federal Reserve would wind down its support for the economy faster than expected and fears of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine intensified.Last week’s sharp selloffs were repeated in early trading on Monday but by the end of the day, the S&P 500 stock index regained its losses, ending up 0.29%, the Dow Jones rose 99 points, or 0.29%, after dropping 1,115 points at its low, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.5%. Continue reading...

Worries over Ukraine tensions and prospect of US interest rate rises hits stocks, wiping out FTSE 100’s early 2022 gains, before a late recovery on Wall Street

Assistant attorney Andrew Rohrbach says Avenatti forged Daniels’s signature in a letter to an agent as part of the crimeThe US lawyer Michael Avenatti stole nearly $300,000 in book proceeds from former client Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor and producer, a prosecutor told jurors in New York on Monday as the once high-flying attorney’s third criminal trial in two years got under way.Prosecutors say Avenatti, 50, who has pleaded not guilty, embezzled book contract proceeds intended for Daniels, who came to worldwide attention when she claimed to have had an affair with Donald Trump before he became president and was then paid to keep quiet about it. Continue reading...

Police say shooting in Inglewood appeared to be targeted ‘ambush’ at birthday party in property reportedly rented on AirbnbFour people were killed and one was wounded when multiple shooters opened fire at a house party near Los Angeles over the weekend, authorities said.Police in Inglewood, a historically Black city of about 100,000 near LA, responded to reports of shots fired at a home at about 1.30am on Sunday, the Inglewood mayor, James Butts, told reporters. Continue reading...

Opening arguments commence in the federal trial of Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas LaneThe bitter arctic blast, which had Minnesota temperatures below 0F , didn’t stop protesters from hosting a rally as the three lesser-known police officers accused of involvement in the killing of George Floyd faced their turn in the courtroom.A caravan of two dozen cars had occupied the length of the block outside the courthouse in the state capital, St Paul, last week, as jury selection began in the federal civil rights trial of Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane. Continue reading...

Producers said they received a complaint about the show’s star from Diane Davis, who plays Harry’s wifeAn actor has been fired from the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child following a complaint about his conduct.James Snyder played Harry Potter in the Tony award-winning play, which was a huge success in London’s West End before transferring to Broadway, where it became the highest ever grossing non-musical in 2018. Continue reading...

Critics condemn ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which seeks to ban discussion of sexuality and gender identity in Florida schoolsA Republican-led committee in the Florida state house has advanced a bill that would ban all discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, a move advocates say will “erase” LGTBQ+ students and history.The Florida house education and employment committee passed the Parental Rights in Education bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, last week. Continue reading...

Biden administration’s latest effort to combat surge in cases caused by Omicron variantThe US government will begin distribution of 400m free N95 masks to pharmacies and community health centers this week, in the Biden administration’s latest effort to combat a surge in cases caused by the Omicron Covid-19 variant.N95 and KN95 masks are considered more protective against Covid-19 than surgical and cloth masks, which are still widely used. The free mask distribution comes alongside the launch of a federal government website where US residents can order four free at-home rapid Covid tests per household through the postal service. Continue reading...

Laura Spears, 55, has now added the lottery to her safe senders list in case of future jackpotsA woman in Michigan checked her spam email folder – and found out she had won a $3m lottery prize.“I saw an ad on Facebook that the Mega Millions jackpot was getting pretty high, so I got on my account and bought a ticket,” Laura Spears, 55 and from Oakland county, said in a release from the Michigan Lottery. Continue reading...

Institution criticized Kennedy for likening US government efforts to contain Covid-19 with vaccine mandates to the HolocaustThe official memorial of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp in which more than 1 million people were murdered, has accused the prominent anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr of “moral and intellectual decay”, after he compared vaccine mandates to laws in Hitler’s Germany and invoked the name of Anne Frank.The Auschwitz Memorial and Museum responded swiftly to remarks made at an anti-vaccine mandate rally in Washington DC on Sunday. Continue reading...

The so-called ‘world’s greatest deliberative body’ is deliberately and inherently undemocraticEnabled by Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, a united front of US Senate Republicans dealt American democracy a massive blow last week by blocking the Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act. The US Senate: a place where desperately needed federal voting rights legislation goes to die – a spectacle unworthy of what Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin called “the world’s greatest deliberative body”.Raskin was referring to the Senate’s reputation not necessarily in an affirmative, but in an aspirational way: he wanted to issue a challenge to the senators to live up to this glorious notion. Nevertheless, the mythical idea of the Senate as “the world’s greatest deliberative body” is widely held among the country’s political elite – the kind of American exceptionalism that still very much warps the perspective on US history and politics.Thomas Zimmer is a historian and DAAD visiting professor at Georgetown University, where he focuses on the history of democracy and its discontents in the United States. Continue reading...

Dependents of staffers have been told to leave Kyiv amid growing tensions over Russia’s military buildup. Plus, Jason Bateman on his lost decadeGood morning.As fears of a Russian invasion are heightening in Ukraine, the US and UK are withdrawing diplomats’ families.What’s happening in Ukraine? There are rising tensions about Russia’s military buildup on the Ukraine border that have not been eased during talks between the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva.What has the US embassy said? “Military action by Russia could come at any time,” a statement said. Officials “will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency, so US citizens currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly”, it added.What has the once popular lawyer said? After his arrest, Avenatti stated in Twitter posts that no money related to Daniels was ever misappropriated or mishandled and that he mostly worked unpaid for Daniels with an agreement that he would receive a proportion of any book proceeds. He said he looked “forward to a jury hearing the evidence”. Continue reading...

The Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act would restore key voting rights provisions and protect American democracy. We can’t give upAmerican democracy is in a state of emergency. Without federal voting rights legislation, discriminatory voting laws will continue to pass unchallenged and harm millions in their wake. Following the US Senate’s recent failure to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act, civil rights leaders urged senators to continue pressing for the bill. But understanding how deeply the absence of its protections will continue to affect voters is key to the bill’s success.Arguably the most crucial measure of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was section 5’s pre-clearance requirement that states with a recent history of voter discrimination get approval from the justice department before implementing voting changes. However, the US supreme court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v Holder struck down the pre-clearance requirement claiming that voting conditions for racial minorities had improved and that its use was outdated. Since then, numerous states passed laws they had previously abandoned due to the threat of pre-clearance. Other states continued to enact laws restricting voting that were already under way before Shelby. These statutes are so restrictive they would have never seen the light of day if pre-clearance was still intact. New voter suppression laws in Texas, Georgia and Florida are the most recent examples of these efforts.Jared Evans is a policy counsel at NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Continue reading...

Barring a surprise injury, the Philadelphia Flyers defenseman will break a 36-year-old NHL record this weekConsistency often gets overlooked. We can be as oblivious to the employee who comes to work on time and performs tasks without complaint as we are to a member of a theater’s backstage crew.Yet Tuesday night, when he takes the ice in Elmont, New York against the New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Keith Yandle will get his moment in the spotlight. Continue reading...

Experts say trend is accelerating as groups push for bans of works that often address race, LGBTQ issues and marginalized peopleConservative groups across the US, often linked to deep-pocketed rightwing donors, are carrying out a campaign to ban books from school libraries, often focused on works that address race, LGBTQ issues or marginalized communities.Literature has already been removed from schools in Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. Librarians and teachers warn the trend is on the increase, as groups backed by wealthy Republican donors use centrally drawn up tactics and messaging to harangue school districts into removing certain texts. Continue reading...

Nato’s treatment of Russia almost guaranteed a chauvinistic reflex. The way forward is to implement the Minsk settlementThe movement of troops round the Ukrainian border now clearly heralds a crisis. Russia’s level of provocation is grotesque, but nothing on the ground poses any strategic threat to Britain or any other western government, or even to Europe’s security as a whole.Ukraine’s relations with Russia have been fraught since the toppling of the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in a coup in 2014. The country is split. When Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine rebelled, it was aided by Russia. Moscow seized Crimea. The longstanding ties with Russia were one reason why Nato left Ukraine out of its reckless post-Soviet rush to advance its security boundary as near as it could to the Russian border during the 1990s.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

On Sunday night Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes were close to flawless. And fans across the world were left breathlessMoments after Josh Allen’s 19-yard strike to Gabriel Davis deep in the fourth quarter, television crews cut to the quarterback’s family celebrating in a box at Arrowhead. The Bills led 36-33 and the champagne was about to be popped. Tears of joy streamed down Joel Allen’s face as he watched his son, who was having a perfect postseason, punch his ticket to the AFC Championship.Or so we thought. Continue reading...

The damage done by this prime minister’s misrule goes way beyond him, his inner circle and even his partyAs Boris Johnson and the Conservative party anxiously tread political water while repeatedly being pulled under by strife and disgrace, two plotlines are unfolding. One is about the immediate moment, and will reach another key juncture with the imminent report by the senior civil servant Sue Gray, which may finally focus wavering Tory minds on the impossibility of the prime minister’s position. Meanwhile, amid new allegations of blackmail, rumours of yet more illicit gatherings and Dominic Raab’s characteristically clever insistence that his boss is “like a seasoned prizefighter” who has “taken some knocks”, another story is in danger of being lost: the dire implications of Johnson’s antics for people’s trust in politics, and a gap between Westminster and the country that may now be bigger than ever.All those Downing Street and Whitehall parties – along with the prime minister’s evasions, half-apologies and desperate attempts to shore himself up – have been reported in terms of shock-horror revelation. But for many voters, they will confirm longstanding ideas about the kind of people who run the country, or aspire to.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Omicron wave has led to staff shortages, meaning hospitals that would normally release patients into care homes are backed upCovid cases are rising rapidly among US nursing home residents and staff, causing shortages in admissions, exacerbating bed shortages at hospitals in turn, and in some cases requiring the national guard to be called in.The Omicron wave has sent many staff home sick at care facilities and rehabilitation centers that offer round-the-clock medical care. As a result, hospitals that would normally release patients into such stepped-down care are now holding off, creating a backlog of patients stuck in hospital. Continue reading...

Police superintendent says department ‘will not rest’ until killer of Melissa Ortega, a recent arrival from Mexico, is foundA gunman targeting someone else on Chicago’s south west side instead shot an eight-year-old girl in the head, killing her, police said.The Cook county medical examiner’s office identified the victim on Sunday as Melissa Ortega, whose family recently moved to Chicago from Mexico. Continue reading...