As shareprice drops, CEO admits firm needs to ‘evaluate’ size of workforce and reset productionPeloton is considering workforce cuts and production changes as investors hammered its share price after a report said it was considering halting the manufacture of its exercise bikes because of a slump in demand.The company’s chief executive, John Foley, said a report by CNBC claiming that it plans to temporarily halt production of its exercise bike and treadmill products was “incomplete, out of context, and not reflective of Peloton’s strategy”. Continue reading...

Senate minority leader suggests African Americans and Americans are two distinct groups. Plus, Sonny Rollins on his years playing on the Williamsburg Bridge

Ramped up security, risk trainings and compliance reviews part of new policies to be implemented – but will they work?A slew of sexual violence and drugging allegations prompted officials at the University of Southern California to shut down all fraternity parties last fall. Now the parties are back on – but with new rules.Security guards will be stationed on stairways and in public areas, risk and sexual violence prevention trainings will be mandatory for members and chapters will have to complete compliance reviews before and after all gatherings when they resume in March, according to details outlined in an action plan this week. Continue reading...

The US singer and actor Meat Loaf has died aged 74, his agent has confirmed. No cause of death was shared. His 1977 debut album Bat Out of Hell is one of the biggest-selling albums in history, while his 1993 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell produced the global hit single I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That). It was his only UK No 1 single, spending seven weeks at the top

Meat Loaf’s 1993 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell produced the global hit single I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That). It was his only UK No 1 single, spending seven weeks at the top. In his 1998 VH1 Storytellers special, Meat Loaf said 'what is "that"?' is the question he was asked most frequently and he explained it on stage using a blackboard and a pointer Continue reading...

The Mavericks roster has often failed to reflect the demographics of the league. There are a number of reasons, some more justifiable than othersIn 2020, the NBA was 74.2% black and 16.9% white. It seems every decade, the white NBA player becomes less relevant. Yet one franchise has often kept the dream of mediocre white guys alive: the Dallas Mavericks. In 15 of the last 21 Mavs seasons, there were three or more white players on the 12-man active roster. In more than half of those 15 seasons there were at least four white players, not to mention at least two starting white players. The Mavericks, in the literal sense, do not look like the rest of the league.It’s tempting to put this down to racism or at least unconscious bias on the part of the Mavericks and their owner, Mark Cuban. But, if anything, the opposite is true. Although the Mavericks have a dubious history of toxic workplace culture when it comes to female employees, Cuban has thrown his support behind Black Lives Matter and has appointed a black CEO (Cynthia Marshall), president (Terdema Ussery), head coaches (Jason Kidd, Quinn Buckner, Jim Cleamons and Avery Johnson) and general manager (Nico Harrison) during his time in Dallas. Continue reading...

The president has failed to capitalise on progressive sentiment: his party needs to stand up for the working classHow should one feel about the first year of the Biden presidency?I can’t really say I’m disappointed, since I didn’t have high hopes going into it. But I do feel dread. This last year has felt a bit like being trapped in a nail-biting intermission between two horror films. The opening instalment consisted of Donald Trump’s first four years in office – it ended with the cliffhanger of a deadly plague and a surreal, poorly executed, but still terrifying ransacking of the Capitol. The sequel practically writes itself, as the man ascends to power a second time, even more emboldened and determined to hold on to power.Astra Taylor is a writer, organiser and documentary maker Continue reading...

Eight teams remain after a brutal Super Wild Card Weekend. Which four teams will advance to the conference finals?OK, so the much ballyhooed Super Wild Card Weekend slate ended up being something of a bust. Of the six games, four ended up being blowouts, with only the Cincinnati Bengals’ win over the Las Vegas Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys’ epic choke-job against the San Francisco 49ers providing much drama. However, with the NFL playoff field culled down to eight, the divisional round traditionally ends up providing fans with the most exciting four games of the year. Here are our predictions for which teams will be advancing to the conference finals. Continue reading...

Mia Mottley is just one of a raft of strong women across the Caribbean and South America tackling society’s most pressing issues. The world could learn a lot from themThere is a common misconception that the developing world is full of archaic values and that women struggle to have their voices heard. The more countries I visit and the more female leaders I speak to, the more I am convinced the contrary is true.In fact, those in positions of power worldwide could learn important lessons from these strong women when it comes to tackling some of society’s most pressing issues, including pandemics, the climate crisis, education and infrastructure. Continue reading...

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell has been criticised after saying that Black Americans vote 'in just as high a percentage as Americans'. The comment came after Senate Democrats failed to pass voting rights protections in the run-up to this November's midterm elections that will determine control of Congress in 2023.A reporter asked McConnell if he had a message for voters of color who were concerned that, without the John R Lewis Voting Rights Act, they were not going to be able to vote in the midterm. 'Well, the concern is misplaced because, if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,' McConnell said

In an extremely bruising loss for Biden, Republicans used the filibuster to block the sweeping bill from passingFor a little over a year, America has faced a democratic crisis unlike any it has seen in recent history.As Republicans have spread lies about the 2020 presidential election, confidence in it remains staggeringly low and about 1 in 3 Americans now believe Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. Republicans who claim the election was stolen are trying to grab key election administration roles, prompting unprecedented alarm that a future election could be overturned. Continue reading...

Ex-whistleblower says group enlisted his help to seek potentially damaging information on two members of Congress to prod them to back audits in key states Trump lostFBI agents and the House panel investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol have both learned of an alleged plan by allies of retired army Lt Gen Michael Flynn to gather “intelligence” on top Republicans to “move” them to back election audits in key states Trump lost, said ex-whistleblower Everett Stern who talked to the panel and the FBI.Stern, who runs the intelligence firm Tactical Rabbit and is a Republican vying for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, in multiple interviews with the Guardian said two Flynn associates with the rightwing Patriot Caucus group enlisted his help in April in a scheme to seek potentially damaging information on two Republican members of Congress to prod them to back an audit of the 2020 vote that Joe Biden won. Continue reading...

America in Crisis brings together 40 leading American photographers and more than 120 works exploring social change in the US from the 1960s to the present day. The exhibition, organised by Saatchi Gallery, opens from 21 January to 3 April

About 500 miles into the journey, the flight had to turn back as the customer refused to comply with the federal mask mandateFor airline staff, navigating the pandemic has meant grappling with a surge in bad behavior, ranging from temper tantrums to punching flight attendants in the face.In the latest incident, 129 passengers paid a remarkable price: a maskless “disruptive customer” forced American Airlines’ flight AAL38 flying from Miami to London to turn around and go back, the New York Times reported. The reversal occurred off the North Carolina coast, after the flight had traveled about 500 miles. Continue reading...

Republican Senate minority leader’s comments came after party members blocked voting rights bill and changes to filibuster ruleSenate minority leader Mitch McConnell has sparked widespread outrage by appearing to refer to African Americans and Americans as two separate groups in comments about Black voters that have since gone viral.The Kentucky Republican was speaking after Republican senators once again blocked Democrats’ voting rights legislation on Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening. Continue reading...

DA requests subpoena power to compel testimony from witnesses, such as Brad Raffensperger, who Trump asked to ‘find’ 11,780 votesThe prosecutor for Georgia’s biggest county on Thursday requested a special grand jury with subpoena power to aid her investigation into former US president Donald Trump’s efforts to influence the state’s 2020 election results.In a letter to Fulton county’s chief judge, first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, district attorney Fani Willis wrote that multiple witnesses have refused to cooperate without a subpoena requiring their testimony. Continue reading...

President alarmed Ukraine with ‘minor incursion’ remark on Wednesday, as confidence in Biden’s leadership eroded by series of problemsJoe Biden on Thursday marked a year since his inauguration as president obliged to confront the same urgent crises he inherited when he took the oath of office: an unrelenting pandemic, economic uncertainty and a democracy threatened by partisan division and lies.But now those challenges have been compounded by a string of setbacks, both at home and abroad, that have eroded confidence in his leadership. Continue reading...

Investigators seek testimony from former first daughter, with panel increasingly focused on Donald Trump’s inner circleThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is asking Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the former president, to appear for a voluntary deposition to answer questions about Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.The move by the panel marks an aggressive new phase in its inquiry into the 6 January insurrection, as House investigators seek for the first time testimony from a member of the Trump family about potential criminality on the part of the former president. Continue reading...

Board of directors say Vishal Garg has reflected on his leadership style and received executive coaching during his time offVishal Garg, the CEO of online mortgage lender Better.com, has officially returned to work after taking a hiatus in December when he was criticised for firing more than 900 employees by video chat.In a letter sent to Better.com employees and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the company’s board of directors announced Garg’s return, saying he had reflected on his leadership style and received executive coaching during his time off. Continue reading...

This latest defeat is not a fatal blow. The struggle for democracy is ongoing – and our fate has not been decided yetAt the conclusion of the 1984 Democratic national convention, Jesse Jackson gathered his supporters and offered important perspective to those of us who had labored long and hard on his presidential campaign, telling us, “We’ve never gotten freedom at a convention. The convention is a comma, where you pause and go on. We’re going to keep fighting for freedom – at the polls, in the courts, in the streets.” And then he concluded by invoking the phrase made famous by Malcolm X – “Freedom, by any means necessary.”This week’s fight in the US Senate over the voting rights bill is a comma in a much, much longer story. It is a story that started in 1619 when Africans were brought in chains to America’s shores to do the work that created the wealth that made many white people rich. It is a story encapsulated in the country’s 1790 Naturalization Act, one of the nation’s very first pieces of legislation, which stated that citizenship is reserved to “free white person[s]” (a law that defined US immigration policy until 1965). It is a story that saw hundreds of thousands of Americans who wanted to be able to continue to buy and sell Black bodies go to war and kill hundreds of thousands of other Americans who sought to end slavery. Continue reading...

Investigation finds majority of cases probably linked to pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors or stressAn initial CIA investigation into the mysterious set of symptoms known as Havana syndrome has found that it is unlikely to be the result of a worldwide campaign of attacks by a foreign power against US diplomats and spies.However, two dozen cases, including some of those originally afflicted in Havana in 2016, could not be explained and would be further studied for evidence of a possible attack, according to a senior CIA official who briefed the US press. Continue reading...

The reason it failed is simple: 50 Republicans didn’t support the proposals and two Democrats opposed changing the filibusterHello, and happy Thursday,It’s difficult to figure out what to say about the kind-of-surprising-yet- not-really-surprising-at-all collapse of Democrats’ effort to pass sweeping voting rights legislation.I interviewed Martin Luther King III and his daughter Yolanda about what comes next in the fight for voting rights.Governor Ron DeSantis is proposing a massive new state agency to investigate election crimes, even though there’s little evidence of fraud in Florida.Preparations for the upcoming Texas primary are a bit of a mess as officials struggle to implement the state’s new voting restrictions. Officials have reported rejecting high percentages of mail-in ballot applications.The Ohio supreme court struck down GOP-drawn maps for both the state legislature and Congress, saying they were so partisan they violated the state constitution.Republicans in Virginia and Arizona have introduced a slew of new voter restrictions. Continue reading...

Manchin and Sinema’s intransigence on the filibuster helps the Republican party usher in an era of voter suppression and election subversionThe last chance for federal legislation to stem the tide of Republican state-level attacks on the franchise died this week, when Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema rejected a bid by the Senate’s Democratic majority to change the filibuster rules to allow the passage of two voting rights bills.The Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act would together serve to establish a baseline of federal rules enabling access to the ballot in all 50 states, and would restore the congressional authority to oversee new election laws in states that have a history of racist voting restrictions – a civil rights-era provision that was gutted by the Republican-controlled supreme court. But the two bills have been blocked repeatedly by Senate Republicans, who have used the chamber’s supermajority rule to prevent them from coming to a vote.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Vice-president warns of ‘severe costs’ for any Russian incursion after president’s press conference raised doubts.Kamala Harris has joined in on the White House’s campaign to repair Joe Biden’s flub on Ukraine in his press conference on Wednesday, where he revealed Nato is divided on how to respond to a “minor incursion” from Russia.“The president of the United States has been very clear, and we as the United States are very clear: if Putin takes aggressive action, we are prepared to levy serious and severe costs. Period,” Harris said in a Thursday morning appearance on NBC’s Today Show. Continue reading...

Bonhams says late supreme court justice’s collection gives sense of who she was and how she came to beThe personal library of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late US supreme court judge who became a liberal and feminist icon for championing women’s rights, is up for auction.Among more than 1,000 books from Ginsburg’s collection are legal textbooks from her student days, literature, feminist classics, and works by her fellow supreme court justices. Continue reading...

Governor says school districts and preschools are seeking at least 800 substitute teachers and day care workersNew Mexico has asked national guard troops to serve as substitute teachers, as schools struggle to keep classrooms open amid surging Covid-19 infections.Michelle Lujan Grisham, the state’s Democratic governor, announced on Wednesday the unprecedented effort to reopen classrooms and shore up staffing across the state. Continue reading...

Sweeping protections for voters, already passed by House and backed by Biden, fail to clear 60-vote procedural hurdleSenate Democrats failed again to pass sweeping new voting protections on Wednesday, in what may be the most brutal blow yet to efforts to strengthen protections for voters at a perilous moment for US democracy.Just as they have done four other times in recent months, all 50 Republicans united in their opposition to the measure. They relied on the filibuster, a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation to a final vote. Continue reading...

Former White House press secretary provided significant details to House select committee investigating the 6 January attack

The NBA has owned the inside track on the sports world’s most coveted growth market, with operations worth about $5bnThe US state department has described the Uyghur human rights issue as a genocide and the largest-scale detention of an ethno-religious community since the second world war. And yet to hear one leading professional sports owner tell it, “nobody cares”.Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire investor in the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, used the most recent episode of his All-In podcast to weigh in, dismissing the Uyghur crisis as “a very hard, ugly truth” that’s “below my line”. When his co-host David Sacks countered that the Uyghurs were a great, if not pressing, concern, Palihapitiya dug in: “If you’re asking me do I care about a segment of a class of people in another country? Not until we can take care of ourselves will I prioritise them over us.” Continue reading...

Diplomat to clarify Biden remarks and tell Russian people US is not seeking to threaten their securityThe top US diplomat Antony Blinken will seek to clarify any confusion left by Joe Biden’s suggestion that a minor incursion by Russia into Ukraine might not be met by an allied response in a major set-piece speech in Berlin.Blinken will assert that the sovereignty of Ukraine is a sacrosanct global principle that must be protected, while also seeking to address the Russian people directly by saying the US is not seeking to imperil the security that Russian people deserve. Continue reading...

In 1924, the economist argued that aiding our allies is more effective than sanctioning our foes. That lesson should be heeded todayThe United States has come to rely on economic sanctions more than ever before. Following its retreat from Kabul in August, Washington has maintained economic pressure on the Taliban. The treasury’s freezing of $9.5bn in Afghan state assets has left that impoverished country facing starvation this winter. Two weeks ago, US officials warned Iran, already under heavy economic pressure, that it will face “snapback” sanctions unless Tehran restrains its nuclear ambitions.Most prominent of all is the sanctions threat that the Biden administration issued against Russia last month. In the face of a large Russian military buildup on the borders of Ukraine, Joe Biden announced on 8 December that Vladimir Putin will face “severe consequences, economic consequences like none he’s ever seen or ever have been seen” if he escalates into open conflict. Continue reading...

Converting waste into ‘biogas’ is a crucial part of Biden’s climate plan – but it can come with some significant costsIt’s hard to talk about meat, dairy or egg farming without talking about poop.Manure plays a big role on American factory farms, and if not properly managed it can quickly turn into a big problem. Each year in the US livestock animals produce between 1.27 and 1.37bn tons of waste – or somewhere between three and 20 times more manure than people produce in the US. Continue reading...

CEO Mark Valade’s decision came under fire after the supreme court blocked the federal vaccine-or-test mandateCarhartt, the Michigan-based workwear company, is facing a wave of conservative backlash after its CEO announced that it will keep its vaccination mandate, despite a recent supreme court decision to block a federal mandate that would require businesses with over 100 employees to get vaccinated or take weekly Covid-19 tests.In an email sent to employees last Friday, Mark Valade said that Covid-19 vaccinations remain mandatory. “We put workplace safety at the very top of our priority list and the supreme court’s recent ruling doesn’t impact that core value,” Valade wrote. Continue reading...

This season, the San Francisco 49ers’ opponents have come up against a player who can run the ball with brute strength and catch it with ballet-like graceEvery once in a while a player comes along who redefines their position.We’ve seen positionless defensive players, hybrid safety-linebacker types. We’ve seen corners who can play in the slot or happily kick out to the boundary. Over the past decade, we’ve seen the rise of the polar bears, tight ends as adept at mauling fools in the run-game as they are running down the field as their team’s finest receiver. Continue reading...

Town board expected to pass plan that would allow it to limit traffic and noise of airport used by ‘the 1%’An extraordinary battle pitting New York multimillionaires against their billionaire neighbours is expected to reach fever pitch on Thursday when local politicians in the Hamptons vote on proposals to close an airport in the super-rich enclave.The East Hampton town board is expected to vote in favour of a plan to “deactivate” the local airport that buzzes with helicopters and private jets ferrying the uber-wealthy from Manhattan to their luxury beach houses. Continue reading...

Stephanie Grisham gave more significant details than expected about what Trump was doing before 6 January, sources sayThe former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that Donald Trump hosted secret meetings in the White House residence in days before 6 January, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The former senior Trump aide also told House investigators that the details of whether Trump actually intended to march to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse rally would be memorialized in documents provided to the US Secret Service, the sources said. Continue reading...

I was mourning my mother as Downing St partied. But even I can’t blame this morally bankrupt prime minister aloneOn the last Sunday before the 2019 general election, the Sunday Times cast its vote. “Mr Johnson is regarded with some suspicion by voters,” its editorial admitted. “He has an on-off relationship with the truth,” often preferred “bluster to grasp of detail”, and had a “colourful private life more typical of a French president”. Nonetheless, the paper urged its readers to put a liar, a bullshitter and a renowned moral incontinent in charge of the country. In making this argument, it was joined by the vast majority of national newspapers, and by the end of that week they got their wish.Over the past few days, those very same papers have discovered that a liar, a bullshitter and a moral incontinent runs the government. They are, naturally, horrified.Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Nearly a million new Covid cases were confirmed in children in the week ending 13 January, a 69% increase from the week beforeAs the Omicron variant rips through the US, children are being infected with Covid-19 in record numbers – yet their rate of vaccination has lagged, creating a surge in hospitalizations and undermining in-person schooling.Nearly a million new Covid cases – more than 981,000 – were confirmed in children in the week ending 13 January, a 69% increase from the week before and four times higher than last winter’s peak, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That means one in 10 Covid cases among children in the entire pandemic have happened in the past week, the organization said. Continue reading...

There’s no need to out-think things like the pandemic, we can have ‘less thoughts’ and ‘more vibes’Hey guys. I’m just gonna come out and, like, say it. This year, I’m becoming a full-blown bimbo.I know what you’re thinking, lol. You’re probably thinking that’s a really stupid thing to say. Continue reading...

Lawyers submit documents under seal seeking a new trial after a juror said he was a victim of sexual abuseGhislaine Maxwell’s legal team on Wednesday filed documents requesting a new trial following revelations that a juror may not have disclosed childhood sexual abuse during jury selection.In a letter to the court, Maxwell’s lawyers wrote that they filed her “motion for a New Trial … and accompanying exhibits under seal.” The documents were filed under seal, and their contents were not known. Continue reading...

US president Joe Biden has accused the Republicans of blocking his legislative agenda for purely political purposes, saying the party is more interested in defeating his presidency than doing things for the American people. Without mentioning his name, Biden suggested that former president Donald Trump was still in control of the Republican party, with members of Congress fearful they will be defeated in their primaries if they vote contrary to his wishes. Biden questioned what the purpose of the Republican party was during his a press briefing marking the one-year anniversary of his presidency

Court’s move leaves no legal impediment to turning National Archives documents over to congressional committeeThe US supreme court has rejected a request by Donald Trump to block the release of White House records to the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol, dealing a blow to the former president.The order, which casts aside Trump’s request to stop the House select committee from obtaining the records while the case makes its way through the courts, means more than 700 documents that could shed light on the attack can be transferred to Congress. Continue reading...

President touts accomplishments but acknowledges failure to foresee Trump’s grip on Republican partyJoe Biden spent decades in Washington, striving to reach the White House. When he achieved the goal a year ago on Thursday, at the age of 78, he spoke of a “winter of peril and possibility”, of cascading crises as an opportunity to think big and aim high.It turns out the Washington he knows so well has proved more foe than friend, offering more peril than possibility. The 46th US president discovered that not being Donald Trump isn’t enough to get things done or make people love him. Continue reading...

President touts coronavirus relief aid and infrastructure law but acknowledges pandemic is unfinished job• ‘I don’t believe the polls’: Biden gives testy press conferenceJoe Biden on Wednesday conceded that the unshakable threat of the Covid-19 pandemic had left many Americans demoralized, but insisted that his administration had “outperformed” expectations despite the myriad crises facing the nation during his first year in office.Speaking to reporters in the East Room of the White House for his first news conference in months, the US president said he was confident Democrats could pass “big chunks” of his sprawling domestic policy bill currently stalled in the Senate before the 2022 midterm elections. Continue reading...