People are tired and overworked, and retirement may never come. Do companies like Uber Eats have to remind us of this?A potent memory from one of the more unedifying periods of my life: regularly working late enough to find myself too exhausted or disinclined to cook, completing my commute with minutes to spare before the nearest shop within any reasonable distance closed, and traipsing up and down the aisles, attempting to coax out of hiding – or else will into existence – something more appetising than a microwaveable meal. Usually, this performance ended in succumbing to the most yellow-stickered curry.Sometimes, though, I would refuse this miserable end. I would stoically scour the remaining available takeaway options across the delivery apps and drop more than is advisable on a meal. It would invariably arrive lukewarm after midnight; I’d feel too tired to stay awake, but also completely unable to sleep. Then my alarm for the following morning would sound and I would begin this sordid little ritual all over again.Tristan Cross is a Welsh writer based in London Continue reading...

Martin Luther King Jr was a walking, talking example of everything this country despises about the quest for Black liberationEvery year, on the third Monday in January, America hosts a Sadie Hawkins-style role-reversal where the entire country pretends to celebrate a man whose achievements and values they spent the previous 364 days ignoring, demonizing and trying to dismantle. Today, your favorite vote suppressors will take a brief respite from disenfranchising Black voters, denying history and increasing inequality to celebrate a real American hero.That’s right, it’s MLK Day! Continue reading...

The former criminal prosecution team investigating the Flint water crisis was building a racketeering case against state officials. Then the team was dismantled

As we mark MLK Day, there are plenty of signs the struggle for justice in the US is far from over. Athletes can make a real impact in changing the status quoLast year for Martin Luther King Jr Day, I interviewed a group of WNBA players along with Eric Garner’s daughter, Emerald. We spoke about their campaign to unseat Republican Kelly Loeffler, who had been part of the leadership group of the Atlanta Dream, from the US Senate. With the players’ help, the outside candidate Raphael Warnock beat Loeffler giving Democrats control of the Senate.That election in Georgia was an excellent example of how athletes can cause real change. But, as we mark MLK Day on Monday, there are plenty of signs the struggle is far from over. We’ve just passed the first anniversary of the 6 January riots, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. The subsequent investigation into the riots was a chance to address the extremism that is poisoning US society. But Republicans have attempted to block the inquiry, while politicians and the rightwing media who fanned the flames have not been held accountable.Etan Thomas played in the NBA from 2000 through 2011. He is a published poet, activist and motivational speaker Continue reading...

Opponents say he leans on ‘wokeness’ and culture war issues that are irrelevant to the real needs of FloridiansThere are still almost 10 months until Florida’s voters elect their next governor, but the campaign of the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, appears well under way.In a red-meat-for-the-base address at the opening of Florida’s legislature last week, themed around the concept of “freedom” but described by critics as a fanfare of authoritarianism, DeSantis gave a clear indication of the issues he believes are on voters’ minds. They include fighting the White House over Covid-19, ballot box fraud, critical race theory in schools and defunding law enforcement. Continue reading...

The US president said the 10-hour hostage standoff in a Texas synagogue, which ended with an FBI Swat team rushing into the building and the captor's death, was 'an act of terror'. Authorities identified the hostage-taker as a 44-year-old British national, Malik Faisal Akram, who was killed on Saturday night after the last hostages ran out of Congregation Beth Israel at about 9pm. Late on Sunday, police in Manchester in the UK announced that two teenagers were in custody in connection with the standoff

A botched play ended what had looked like a promising season for Dak Prescott and Co. It also extended a long title drought for America’s TeamThe thing about completing a successful Hail Mary pass is that it involves throwing an actual Hail Mary. Down six points with 14 seconds left on the clock in his team’s wildcard playoff against the San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott took the ball and ran instead of heaving it into the endzone. It was a disastrous decision that ensured the once-mighty Cowboys suffered yet another early postseason exit.The already infamous final play started on the San Francisco 41-yard line. On 2nd and 1, Prescott rushed for 17 yards before he was taken down by the San Francisco 49ers’ defense. In theory, the QB had just enough time to spike the ball and then attempt a game-winning touchdown on fourth down. Instead, after getting up, Prescott collided with the umpire as the official attempted to place the ball down, a crucial error that allowed the clock to run down. The 49ers held on for a 23-17 victory. Continue reading...

Authorities may release a decade-old 911 call with new police commissioner poised to prioritize caseShannan Gilbert’s grave in Amityville cemetery lies eight miles from where she went missing in May 2011 after visiting a client at Oak Beach, a spit of sand dotted with holiday homes on New York’s Long Island, three miles short of Gilgo Beach, where her remains were found eight months later.Gilbert’s final resting place, with a simple headstone at the back of the cemetery inscribed with her dates – 24 October 1986 – 13 December 2011 – speaks to an enduring mystery of how she, along with 10 or more other women, mostly sex workers who advertised on Craigslist, ended up dead along the same stretch of scrubby barrier marshes more than a decade ago. Continue reading...

The president has had to withstand a barrage from rightwingers – and for Republicans the formula might be workingIt seemed that Joe Biden would be bad for business in “Make America great again” world.In theory, the US president, a white man with working-class roots and moderate policy positions, was a more elusive target for Donald Trump’s increasingly extreme support base than other prominent Democrats. Continue reading...

Joe Biden decries ‘act of terror’ as UK counter-terror police detain teenagers in Manchester and suspect named as Briton Malik Faisal AkramTwo teenagers have been arrested in Manchester, north-western England, after the FBI said an armed British man travelled to Texas and took four hostages at a synagogue in what President Joe Biden called “an act of terror”.On Sunday night, UK counter-terrorism police said the pair, whose ages and genders they did not immediately confirm, been arrested in the south of the city as part of the investigation into the attack and remained in custody for questioning. Continue reading...

A large underwater volcano in Tonga has sent huge swells around the world affecting countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and large swells were seen in California and Japan but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Two people have drowned off a beach in northern Peru, local authorities say, after unusually high waves were recorded in several coastal areas

Dangerous storm with high winds and ice sweeps through as highway patrols report hundreds of vehicle accidentsA dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice began sweeping through parts of the US south-east on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous frigid glaze.Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Highway patrols were reporting hundreds of vehicle accidents, and a tornado ripped through a trailer park in Florida. More than 1,200 Sunday flights at Charlotte Douglas international were cancelled more than 90% of the airport’s Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com. Continue reading...

FBI stormed building after man took four people including a rabbi captive during Shabbat serviceA man who died after taking four people hostage at a Texas synagogue has been named by the FBI as 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram.Akram began a standoff with police after disrupting a religious service at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and taking hostages including the rabbi. He released one hostage unharmed after six hours.Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report Continue reading...

Newly elected Republican unveils sweeping conservative orders, including loosening public health mandates during the pandemicVirginia’s newly elected Republican governor has immediately passed a swath of conservative orders – ranging from attempts to alter local school curriculums to loosening public health mandates during the pandemic – after being sworn into office on Saturday.Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity CEO who has never served in public office before, became the state’s first Republican governor since 2010 after a closely watched gubernatorial election last year. Continue reading...

If the president can’t build better he won’t be back. Instead Donald Trump might returnThe US president, Joe Biden, suffered his worst day in office – so far – last Thursday. Mr Biden had begun that morning hoping to convince his party to support his push to change Senate rules to pass two voting rights bills. Even before he got a chance to make his case, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a rightwing Democrat, rejected the president’s plan. At a stroke, two key parts of Mr Biden’s agenda – racial justice and democracy – appear stalled. On the same day, the US supreme court struck down the Biden administration’s requirement for businesses to make employees either be vaccinated against Covid-19 or test weekly and wear a mask at work. The president’s pledge to lift the threat of the pandemic won’t be redeemed any time soon.Mr Biden’s opponents paint him as a leader of drift and dwindling energy. If this view settles, then it’ll be ​​an image hard to shift. There’s little room for reassessment in politics. That is why the president must change course and have a clear-eyed view of his opponents within and without. The “moderate” wing of the Democratic party has already gutted the president’s climate plans. These Democrats, like most Republicans, depend on a donor class which wants to ​​render legislation inert that would hit corporate profits. Continue reading...

Family, friends and neighbors of the dead try to make sense of the tragedy as they gather to pay final respects to loved onesA Bronx community in New York city gathered on Sunday to pay its final respects to loved ones, a week after a fire filled a high-rise apartment building with thick, suffocating smoke that killed 17 people, including eight children.The mass funeral caps a week of prayers and mourning within a close-knit community hailing from West Africa, most with connections to The Gambia. Continue reading...

The prime minister’s successor would likely pursue a return to Thatcherism and the bleakest of Tory valuesFor proof of how dangerous Boris Johnson’s leadership has become, consider this: public health policy is now merely a subplot in the horrendous drama engulfing the Conservative party. Over the weekend, as government advisers urged caution over Covid restrictions, the prime minister’s allies suggested that the imminent lifting of England’s remaining curbs would launch his fightback. But an unnamed minister cited in the Spectator thought that binning the last rules could neatly coincide with the prime minister’s resignation. This, it was said, would give him an opportunity to claim a huge job had been done and “depart with dignity”.But as with most of what we are hearing from senior Tories, the suggestion seemed to have another meaning: his exit is imagined not just as the end of Johnson’s time at the top, but the curtain falling on a period of interventionist, big-spending government, so normal Tory service can be resumed. Continue reading...

Chair of House veterans affairs committee holding hearings on issue highlighted by veterans’ participation in US Capitol attackA top US lawmaker who heads a congressional committee investigating the targeting of veterans by extremist groups has warned that the problem is a serious one and could get bigger unless it is effectively combated.In an interview with the Guardian Mark Takano, a Democratic congressman from California, said he was concerned about the recruiting strategy being deployed by violent rightwing extremist groups, especially in America’s increasingly fraught political climate in the wake of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Continue reading...

The absurdities of a constitutional monarchy can wait for another day. Let’s focus on Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Prince AndrewThings are not looking good for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the Queen’s second son formerly known as His Royal Highness. Last week, a judge in New York rejected his attempt to get the sexual abuse lawsuit Virginia Giuffre has filed against him thrown out. Giuffre is suing him for damages, claiming that she was forced to have sex with him three times in 2001 by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and his sex trafficker accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, allegations that Andrew denies. The royal family responded by announcing that he has been stripped of his military honours, royal patronages and the use of his HRH title.Any praise for the monarchy for depriving him of his titles is misplaced. The royal family left it until the last possible moment to act. Andrew has brought them into far graver disrepute than Prince Harry, who lost his titles for what, by comparison, is the laughably inconsequential transgression of walking away. The raging debate about the consequences for the monarchy is a distraction from the sexual abuse allegations at stake and accountability for the men complicit in the crimes of Epstein and Maxwell. It should not take a man of Andrew’s obviously questionable character to expose the absurdities of a constitutional hereditary monarchy in a modern democracy. Continue reading...

With its breadth of opinions, the tennis locker room is society in miniatureStefanos Tsitsipas learned to listen to Covid science the hard way. Not the really hard way, of course. Not the hard way that more unfortunate vaccine-resisters have experienced, after they’ve ingested conspiracy theories about side effects and regurgitated social media promises that there’s no risk to the young and healthy. The world’s No 4-ranked tennis player didn’t, mercifully, find himself laid low by the virus or on a ventilator in hospital – he just found himself publicly rebuked by his own government.While Tsitsipas’s father-cum-coach, Apostolos, gave interviews claiming that “athletes have a strong enough immune system to deal with any challenge”, Greece’s government spokesman was pointing out that a 23-year-old tennis player, however successful in his field, had “neither the knowledge, nor the studies, nor the research work” to offer valid opinions on vaccination. The story had a happy ending, though: Tsitsipas did indeed stop spouting poorly informed conjecture and got himself jabbed. Continue reading...

How has the president fared on the four big issues he outlined at his inauguration – and the one he couldn’t ignoreOne year ago on Thursday, Joe Biden took the oath of office as the 46th president at the US Capitol in an inauguration ceremony devoid of the usual crowds due to pandemic restrictions.Biden identified four crises facing America: the coronavirus, the climate, the economy and racial justice. He could have added a fifth: a crisis of democracy in a divided nation where, just two weeks earlier, the Capitol had been overrun by insurrectionists. Continue reading...

Kyrsten Sinema receives millions from business and opposes progressive priorities. Republicans who voted to overturn an election still bag big bucks. Whose side are CEOs on?Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results. Continue reading...

FBI stormed building hours after the man took four people, including a rabbi, captive during a livestreamed Shabbat serviceAll four hostages at a Texas synagogue have been released unharmed and the captor pronounced dead more than 10 hours after he disrupted a religious service and began a tense stand-off with police.The gunman had initially taken four people, including the rabbi, hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. One hostage was released unharmed six hours later. Continue reading...

Police have a man in custody in connection with the 40-year-old woman’s death at Times Square station in ManhattanA woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train at New York’s Times Square station.The man believed responsible for the incident on Saturday morning fled the scene but turned himself in to transit police a short time later, the police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, said at a news conference with the mayor, Eric Adams, at the station. Continue reading...

Denied ballots follow trend across state after Republicans imposed new rules following Trump’s baseless fraud claimsElection officials in the Texas county that includes the state capital, Austin, have rejected about half of applications for mail-in ballots, following new voting restrictions brought in by Republicans.The voter identification rules have led to the rejection of about half of the 700 mail-in ballots requested in Travis county for primary elections in March, according to the county’s clerk. Continue reading...

Shoppers search for supplies as winter storm moves in from midwest before heading to north-eastForecasts of snow and ice as far south as Georgia have put a big part of the south-east of the US on an emergency preparedness footing. Shoppers scoured store shelves for storm supplies and crews raced to treat highways and roads as a major winter storm approached from the midwest.In Virginia, where a blizzard left thousands of motorists trapped on clogged highways earlier this month, the outgoing governor, Ralph Northam, declared a state of emergency and urged people to take the approaching storm seriously. Continue reading...

Engineers are focused on reducing its carbon footprint, ignoring the governance issues raised by the technologyWhen the cryptocurrency bitcoin first made its appearance in 2009, an interesting divergence of opinions about it rapidly emerged. Journalists tended to regard it as some kind of incomprehensible money-laundering scam, while computer scientists, who were largely agnostic about bitcoin’s prospects, nevertheless thought that the distributed-ledger technology (the so-called blockchain) that underpinned the currency was a Big Idea that could have far-reaching consequences.In this conviction they were joined by legions of techno-libertarians who viewed the technology as a way of enabling economic life without the oppressive oversight of central banks and other regulatory institutions. Blockchain technology had the potential to change the way we buy and sell, interact with government and verify the authenticity of everything from property titles to organic vegetables. It combined, burbled that well-known revolutionary body Goldman Sachs, “the openness of the internet with the security of cryptography to give everyone a faster, safer way to verify key information and establish trust”. Verily, cryptography would set us free. Continue reading...

Declining viewers and Omicron-induced apathy could see gong ceremonies going the way of the untelevised Golden GlobesThe first mass use of the word “snub” in any given year ushers in award season for me. This year, Kristen Stewart has been snubbed, apparently, after the Screen Actors Guild failed to nominate her for a best actress award for her role as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer. She had been widely tipped to pick up an Oscar nomination, perhaps for the brazen bizarreness of the casting, which actually sort of worked. If she has been snubbed here, commentators are asking, will she be shut out of the Oscars?As controversies go, it is a tame one, which speaks volumes about the unsettled state that award ceremonies seem to have found themselves in. I say this as someone with a disproportionate love of these ridiculous events, but even I am finding it difficult to care. Usually, I love the clothes and the speeches and being put out when something I adored is passed over in favour of something objectively worse, and feeling thrilled when Olivia Colman inevitably wins everything, and I love looking out for that precise moment when an actor adjusts their face from “absolutely fuming” to “gracious in defeat”. Continue reading...

Feminism isn’t about championing women like Nancy Pelosi just because they’re in high-powered positions: it’s about fighting for a more equal societyHere’s a thorny philosophical quandary for you: if you’re a politician who shapes policy and is privy to confidential information that will impact the stock market, should you and your immediate family be able to trade individual stocks?Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for order Continue reading...

Maxwell was convicted last month of recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuseGhislaine Maxwell is due to be sentenced in late June after her conviction last month on charges including sex trafficking and conspiracy relating to the recruitment of teenage girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.US district judge Alison J Nathan announced the 28 June date on Friday even as she waits to resolve defence claims that a new trial should be ordered after a juror’s public admissions after the verdict about his childhood sexual abuse. Continue reading...

The White House claims to follow the science. But it has missed chance after chance to limit infection – with disastrous resultsOn 2 December, the White House announced its winter plans for a likely Covid surge that would come as cold temperatures and holiday plans drove people indoors. It included an alarmingly inadequate plan to get at-home tests to people.The plan dropped nine days after scientists in South Africa had announced that they had discovered a new variant of the coronavirus, one that appeared to be even more transmissible. The US had acted quickly to ban travel from South Africa and several other southern African countries, claiming that such restrictions would “slow things down” and “buy time” for the US to prepare. Continue reading...

In an interview with the Guardian, the civil rights leader and his daughter talk about digging in and fighting onAs the US approaches the annual holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr, the family of the late civil rights leader is urging Americans to hold off on celebrations. Instead, they’re urging Americans protest and to demand the Senate pass sweeping voting rights legislation.But the prospects for such an effort, for now, seem bleak. On Thursday, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, two Democrats who staunchly support the filibuster, said they would not back an effort to change the rules to advance voting rights legislation. Because no Republicans support the changes, that effectively kills any chance of passing voting rights legislation. Continue reading...

The Raiders’ Carl Nassib is proving that coming out is not a distraction to a team or the game and that you can win big when your team can accept and support its playersIt is no exaggeration to say the world was watching when Carl Nassib became the first active player on an NFL roster to come out as gay. Some watched with shock, most with support. Still, for many of us, myself included, beyond the celebration of his barrier-breaking announcement, was something deeper behind our attentive gaze, a question: What now?A couple weeks after the initial media craze, it seemed like business as usual for the Las Vegas Raiders and the sports world as a whole. Only Carl himself will know just how much his announcement tipped the scales of acceptance and bigotry one way or the other in his locker room, on the field, and with peers or fans. As an NFL veteran, I know that most teams will go through collective obstacles, distractions and hard times, and that off-the-field problems or events can affect on-field performance. However, after last Sunday’s playoff clinching performance, we can all proudly say that Carl’s coming out was not one of those things for the Raiders. Continue reading...

After a week of setbacks, some analysts say time is running short to impress voters ahead of the November pollsEven for a White House familiar with roadblocks and frustration, Thursday’s setbacks on vaccine mandates and voting rights came as hammer blows.Aside from the immediate derailing of two key policy tenets of Joe Biden’s administration, the vaccine ruling by the supreme court, which quickly followed Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema’s public assassination of his voting reform efforts, prompted a new round of questions over whether his presidency was doomed. Continue reading...

Reporters this week found packages with labels of many major US mail companies including Amazon, REI among othersNewly released photos and videos showing train tracks littered with discarded boxes have cast fresh attention on the theft of packages from cargo containers crossing through Los Angeles in recent months.On tracks near downtown Los Angeles, a team from Agence-France Presse on Friday found packages with labels of most major US mail order and courier companies. Reporters from CBSLA on Thursday found boxes from retailers including Amazon, REI and others. CBSLA reported that Union Pacific, the railroad company operating the cargo trains, had cleaned up the area of tracks where the boxes were found three months ago and again about 30 days ago. Continue reading...

Ex-vice-president says Democratic push to expand voter access and 6 January effort to overturn the election are both ‘power grabs’Mike Pence has equated Democratic efforts to pass voting rights protections with the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, writing in a staggeringly misleading and inaccurate op-ed that both were “power grabs” which posed a threat to the US constitution.As vice-president to Donald Trump, Pence refused to overturn the 2020 election, rebuffing pressure to reject valid slates of electors at the Capitol on 6 January 2021. Continue reading...

The price tag on the roughly 2,000 sq ft Victorian, called ‘the worst house on the best block’, was the outcome of overbiddingA decaying, 122-year-old Victorian marketed as “the worst house on the best block” of San Francisco has sold for nearly $2m – an eye-catching price that the realtor said was the outcome of overbidding in an auction.A developer’s $1.97m cash offer for the 2,158 sq ft (200 sq metre) property in the Noe Valley neighborhood was finalized last week. On the social media page Zillow Gone Wild, some commenters marveled at the price while others questioned the value of a house with boarded-up windows, peeling paint and an unstable foundation. Continue reading...

Friday ruling came after FTC and seven states brought a case against Shkreli, nicknamed the ‘Pharma Bro’Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur vilified for astronomically hiking the price of a life-saving drug, has been barred for life from the pharmaceutical industry and fined $64.6m by a US court.The Friday ruling came after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven states brought a case against Shkreli, nicknamed the “Pharma Bro” for his sometimes outrageous behavior. Continue reading...

A landslide on 7 January caused the house to slide off its foundation, killing one dog and leaving the other trapped insideA dog that was trapped for six days inside a Seattle house that collapsed last week in a landslide has been rescued, officials said.“My baby. My baby,” said home owner Didi Fritts when a person emerged from the house Thursday carrying her alert black Labrador mix Sammy, KING-TV reported. Continue reading...

Miami-Dade police department has shared body cam footage of one of their officers rescuing a juvenile dolphin that was tangled in a fishing net off the coast of Miami, Florida. The footage shows officer Nelson Silva using a knife to cut the net and free the animal. The rescue took place on 10 December

Treasury department says relief funds have been redirected to unauthorized programs opposing mask use in schoolsThe Biden administration is threatening to recoup millions of dollars in Covid-19 relief funds from Arizona because the state has been discouraging families from following federal guidance that recommends wearing masks in schools.Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, has been at odds with the Biden administration for months over the use of the aid funds. Other Republican governors across the country have also been trying to use the funding for measures – such as tax cuts – that are not related to the pandemic and are not authorized under the terms of the grants. Continue reading...

Virginia bill banning teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ confused black civil rights campaigner with white senator Stephen DouglasA Republican bill to ban the teaching of “divisive concepts” in schools in Virginia ran into ridicule when among historical events deemed suitable for study, it described a nonexistent debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.Lincoln did engage in a series of historic debates hinged on the issue of slavery, in the Illinois Senate campaign of 1858. But he did so against Stephen Douglas, a senator who had ties to slavery – not against Frederick Douglass, the great campaigner for the abolition of slavery who was once enslaved himself. Continue reading...

Royal offspring are accidents waiting to happen. Far better to cut down the throne to an heir and a spareThe royal family is engaged in frantic damage limitation ahead of the Queen’s platinum jubilee this summer. The Duke of York’s court case, which could turn out to be a high-octane festival of royal humiliation, risks contaminating the celebrations. This should have nothing to do with Britain’s monarchy, except that it has everything to do with it. The essence of monarchy is its image; right now, the royal family’s public appearance looks messy.The lifestyles of the Queen’s son and grandson, the dukes of York and Sussex, have acquired the aura of a Shakespearean tragedy appropriate to their titles. The Duke of Sussex has done nothing wrong; as yet, neither has the Duke of York. Prince Harry was merely seeking to profit from his only marketable asset – royalty. Prince Andrew used the same asset to win unsavoury friendships, one of which laid him open to what he regards as outrageous blackmail, as yet untested in a court of law. His desperate hope was that a New York judge would disallow Virginia Giuffre’s suit. But American lawyers do not volunteer to starve. Continue reading...

Unsealed court documents provide the most detailed account to date of the alleged level of planning by far-right militiaThe seditious conspiracy charges against the leader of the Oath Keepers militia and 10 others related to the January 6 Capitol attack have revealed an armed plot against American democracy that involved tactical planning and a formidable arsenal of weapons.Court documents unsealed on Thursday provide the most detailed account to date of the level of planning by the far-right militia in the assault on the Capitol that was aimed at scuppering the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Continue reading...

Reports of a wild party on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral haven’t yet done for Johnson – but there could be more to comeIncredible, when you think about it, that the ceremonial funeral of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh had fewer attendees than “Slacky”’s leaving do the night before. That’s showbiz, I guess. Anyway: another day, another Downing Street party dispatch from the nation with the highest Covid death toll in Europe. If only Boris Johnson’s administration could have organised a piss-up in a brewery, instead of just in No 10.I’m sure Dominic Cummings has some complex 5D game-theory analysis as to why decision-making in Whitehall was systematically loaded toward bad outcomes, but a lot of us will be developing an alternative hypothesis. Namely, do you reckon one of the reasons we did so badly was because you lot were trashed half the time? Forgive me: I forgot to use the approved euphemism. Do you reckon one of the reasons you made impaired decisions and now seem to be suffering repeated memory loss was because of “the drinking culture at No 10”? I mean, honestly. Imagine being such a mess that even JOURNALISTS reckon you drink too much.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnistJoin our journalists for a Guardian Live online event on the No 10 lockdown party and Boris Johnson’s future at 8pm GMT on Wednesday 19 January. Book here Continue reading...

In 24 states at least 80% of staffed hospital beds were occupied as the Omicron variant has triggered a record number of Covid casesHospitals in nearly half of US states are nearing capacity, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, as the Omicron variant has triggered a record number of cases across the country.In 18 states at least 85% of adult intensive care unit beds were in use, while in 24 states at least 80% of staffed hospital beds were occupied, HHS data shows. Continue reading...