Bill makes it a felony to perform an abortion, unless it’s necessary to save a mother’s life, punishable by up to 10 years in prisonThe governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the state legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Continue reading...
They will be forever followed by tales of people who abided by the Covid rules and died alone – while Downing Street partiedThey broke the rules they set for everyone else. Then the prime minister lied and lied again to parliament. “Never before in history has a prime minister broken the law,” Chris Bryant, chair of both the standards and privileges committees, told me this afternoon. “These aren’t just rules; they broke the law.” Johnson’s chancellor, asked if he had attended two Downing Street Christmas parties, told the Commons: “No, Mr Speaker, I did not attend any parties.”Breaking the law and lying about it or misleading the house would have seen any other prime minister and chancellor resign instantly. But nothing can make them go if they cling to their posts. Only their own MPs can oust them, with a flurry of those famous letters to the backbench 1922 committee chair. There should be queues forming outside Sir Graham Brady’s door right now, but don’t hold your breath. Instead, you hear calculating perplexity: without them, who would be our winning leader? But for the sake of their reputations, these MPs should only consider the probity of their party.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
A new survey highlights the abuse LGBTQ+ people suffer from family members. Britain’s anti-trans rhetoric will make things worseYou don’t need to have raised children to know that, at its core, parenthood is about unconditional love. We don’t get to choose them, and we may find friends and companions that we gel with better, but family is supposed to be that ultimate safety net. If your life is upended and all else seems lost, it should be a reserve of love that will never be depleted. Of course, parenthood also means disapproval, disappointment, even blind fury – but, for most, being rejected or abandoned by those who brought you into the world is unthinkable.For many LGBTQ+ people, however, it can be a grim fact of life. It has been more than half a century since same-sex acts were partly decriminalised, and 25 years since a Labour government was elected that commendably repealed anti-gay laws. But according to a new study by the charity Galop, a third of LGBTQ+ people have suffered abuse from relatives, mostly their parents. Among trans and non-binary people, that figure is even higher: more than four in 10.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Few British waterways are in decent condition, with thousands of tonnes of sewage discharged into the environment. It is high time we demanded more from our leadersThere are certain phrases that deserve a nod of recognition when they prove to be literally true: anyone who’s ever dug such a big hole that they hit the rock bottom will know what I’m talking about. Or if you’ve ever stood at a ferry terminal realising that you have, in fact, missed the boat. Perhaps this Easter you will unpack your shopping, covered in a slimy, clear film, and understand the error of putting all your eggs in one basket. Personally, I have found myself swimming through actual shit.Not just once, either. Not by a long chalk. Over the past 37 years, I have probably swum through enough sewage to fill a river. Because, you see, it does fill our rivers. And seas. And lakes. And the little streams that snake behind housing estates, and the pools that have the audacity to sit beside poorly maintained pipes. Such is the problem that you would be hard pressed to find any body of water in Britain that a privatised water company hasn’t flushed with turds now and again in the quest for ever-greater profits. Continue reading...
Joshua Vining and Colton Whitler, both 17, were arrested for the death of Christopher BroadOne teen was killed and two jailed after a pair of boys put on body armor and took turns shooting each other, local authorities in Florida said.In some quarters the death of Christopher Broad, 16, and the arrests of two of his friends were held up as examples of a permissive gun culture, particularly in the US south, that has driven calls for meaningful gun control reform. Continue reading...
Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, argues in a mock trial hosted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company and presided over by Stephen Breyer“I haven’t been in court for a few years, so excuse me if I’m a bit rusty,” said Doug Emhoff. “You know, not too much has changed in my life – except for the Secret Service, Air Force Two, the selfies, the cameras following me everywhere, and oh: my wife is the vice-president of the United States.”The theatre erupted in whoops and clapping. Kamala Harris, sitting in the fifth row with her sister Maya, blew kisses through a black face mask and applauded her husband. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Cornville, Arizona on (#5Y3CK)
Animal jumped in car to get a bag of Cheetos, and then knocked car into neutral causing it to roll down driveway and across the streetA hungry javelina ended up going for a drive in Arizona when it became trapped inside an empty car and bumped it into neutral.Javelinas are pig-like animals that are native to desert environments. Deputies in Yavapai county responded to a call last week in Cornville, a community 10 miles south of Sedona, about a javelina stuck in a Subaru station wagon. Continue reading...
Thomas Robertson was found guilty of all six counts he faced stemming from his participation in the 6 January 2021 riotsA federal jury convicted a former Virginia police officer of storming the US Capitol with another off-duty officer to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.Jurors on Monday convicted former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertson of all six counts he faced stemming from the 6 January 2021 riot, including charges that he interfered with police officers at the Capitol and that he entered a restricted area with a dangerous weapon – a large wooden stick. Continue reading...
Valerie Biden Owens, who has worked on all her brother’s campaigns, also says ‘no there there’ on her nephew HunterDonald Trump is “very intent on bringing my brother down”, Joe Biden’s sister said.“The only race I wasn’t enthusiastic about Joe getting involved in was the 2020 presidency,” Valerie Biden Owens told CBS News. Continue reading...
Musk has long advocated a libertarian vision of an ‘uncontrolled’ internet. That’s also the dream of every dictator, strongman and demagogueThe Russian people know little about Putin’s war on Ukraine because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies.Years ago, pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naive that assumption was.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...
On a moral crusade, the former prime minister believes that anyone who opposes him is corrupt and an American puppetLast weekend, Pakistanis saw something they never expected to see: their prime minister, Imran Khan, in tears. He was addressing the nation on TV after being sent back to the national assembly by the supreme court to face a vote of confidence that he would go on to lose, to be replaced by Shehbaz Sharif.Earlier he had refused to face the vote and had dissolved the assembly, but the court declared his actions illegal. Khan refused to accept the rules of the national assembly, tried to evade a ruling by the highest court in the land and only relented a few minutes before the midnight deadline imposed by the court. He turned a banal parliamentary procedure into a nerve-racking, edge-of-the-seat thriller. He behaved like a child who realises for the first time that other children have birthdays too. Because he believed that if he wasn’t in charge of the house, he might as well burn it down.Mohammed Hanif is the author of the novels A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Red Birds. He is based in Karachi Continue reading...
Some Republicans are calling for Ohio supreme court chief justice Maureen O’Connor’s impeachment because she is refusing to let them distort electoral districts to their advantageIn one of the final acts in a 24-year political career, the Republican chief justice of the Ohio supreme court is defying her party and refusing to let them distort electoral districts to their advantage, a move that has some fellow Republicans calling for her impeachment.Since January, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has served as the decisive vote on three separate occasions blocking Ohio Republicans from enacting proposed state legislative maps. She also sided with Democrats to block an initial GOP proposal for congressional districts before going into effect in January. Those decisions have prompted chatter among Republicans about impeaching O’Connor, 70, who will leave the court after nearly two decades at the end of this year because she has reached the mandatory retirement age for judges in Ohio. Continue reading...
Product recalls after illnesses and deaths linked to powdered infant formula products combine with supply chain problemsStores across the US have started to ration baby formula while some others are reporting increasing shortages.The nationwide shortage in baby formula comes two months after a huge manufacturer recall which occurred as a result of illnesses and deaths among infants. Continue reading...
Pork belly at 2,500 calories, with a side of cauliflower cheese at nearly 500? Printing calories on menus forces people to either stay at home or stop caringIt was a sunny Saturday and my first experience of calories on menus. I can now tell you that prawns are low in calories, chorizo is high , and salt and pepper squid is surprisingly energy-rich – though this is not surprising to me because I am a woman of a certain vintage, and we can all tell you how many calories are in absolutely everything, so long as it was in common usage by 1985, in other words, not seitan.The calories in/calories out model – the fitness industry now calls calorie counting “If It Fits Your Macros”, which conveys something huge about modern life – tyrannised my youth. Even if you pretended not to care, or actually didn’t care, you could still rate any given food item at 50 paces. You could name everything that looked healthy but was highly calorific, everything that was more or less calorie neutral, all the miracle foods that did high satiety for low energy load, all the foods that were discreetly low calorie (cottage cheese was so obvious). There were so many numbers and properties all neatly filed away in millions of brains. Continue reading...
Covid-19 cases have risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which city’s guidelines call for masking indoorsPhiladelphia on Monday became the first major US city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections, with the city’s top health official saying she wanted to forestall a potential new wave driven by an Omicron sub-variant.Confirmed Covid-19 cases had risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which the city’s guidelines called for people to wear masks indoors, said Dr Cheryl Bettigole, Philadelphia health commissioner. Continue reading...
A judge also granted a restraining order to the pair accused of terrorizing students who ‘provoked extreme fear and anxiety’A pair of YouTubers are facing a lawsuit and a restraining order after allegedly filming themselves disrupting classes at the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles and uploading footage of the staged pranks online.The University of Southern California sued Ernest Kanevsky and Yuguo Bai over the incidents, USC Annenberg Media reported last week. A judge granted a restraining order banning Kanevsky and Bai, who are not USC students, from campus after university attorneys said the pranks had terrorized “students to the point where they are running out of lecture halls for fear of their lives”. Continue reading...
by David Smith in Washington, Martin Pengelly in New on (#5Y20H)
President promises to tackle gun violence and vows prosecution for those who use untraceable guns assembled from kitsJoe Biden has announced a crackdown on “ghost guns”, untraceable firearms assembled from kits that have been used in a rising number of shooting crimes.The US president, who promised to tackle gun violence across America, said the new rule would make it easier for law enforcement officials to track and catch those who use illegal firearms. Continue reading...
Anti-LGBTQ+ measures among more than 156 bills targeting issues of identity, says PEN reportSince Florida passed its controversial “don’t say gay” bill, conservative states across America have been advancing similar bills as they attempt to ban the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms.Last month, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill. The law prohibits all discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, a move that advocates say will “erase” LGBTQ+ students and history.This article was amended on 11 April 2022. An earlier version of the standfirst suggested all 156 bills in question related to LGBTQ+ issues. Continue reading...
US’s largest utility reaches settlement with prosecutors but does not admit wrongdoing over Dixie and Kincade firesPacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility provider, has agreed to pay more than $55m to avoid criminal prosecution for two large wildfires started by its ageing power lines in northern California.PG&E does not admit wrongdoing in the two settlements reached with prosecutors for last year’s Dixie fire, one of the biggest wildfires in California’s history, and the 2019 Kincade fire in Sonoma county. The deals expedite damage payments to the hundreds of people whose homes were destroyed. Continue reading...
Some readers offended by its reference to high rates of mental illness among incarcerated people to attract psychologistsPsychologists who work for the bureau that runs federal prisons in the US can treat incarcerated people with every mental illness imaginable, according to an employment ad that stirred controversy on social media.The ad, bought by the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on Facebook as part of a broader campaign, asks readers to flip to any page in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a standard US text. Continue reading...
The school I worked in has been forced to close. Our dreams are shattered and we urge you, people of the west, to helpI am a woman living in Kabul and I am a teacher. Until eight months ago, I was one of the staff at The City of Knowledge (COK), an educational centre that helped women go to university and pursue the careers of their choice. Through my work, I witnessed the ambition and hope of many women in my country. Since the Taliban came back, our life has drastically changed. We are like moving bodies without souls. Our dreams, and the knowledge we could have had, are shattered.I always believed history was a progression, but I have seen in the past few month’s my country’s rapid regression to the middle ages. Before, women and girls were still taking tiny steps towards a better future. Now, just going to school has become an unattainable dream for hundreds of thousands of them.The author is a former teacher at the now closed COK, an education centre in Kabul for girls and women supported by the charity V-Day. Her name has been changed to protect her security Continue reading...
McIlroy’s best performance at Augusta should give him the belief to contend at the remaining majors this yearRory McIlroy has been dejected enough times when exiting on to Washington Road via Magnolia Lane that he is entitled to savour a sense of harmony after leaving Augusta National this year.If the latest staging of the Masters ultimately belonged to Scottie Scheffler, it was a tournament dominated by other themes. Fascination regarding Tiger Woods’s every move was clear by the depth of galleries and television ratings. And when those around the 18th green roared for McIlroy’s hole out from a bunker, it was the loudest celebration of day four. That Scheffler four-putted his final hole played a part in that scenario but we had already been served a reminder of the fervour with which people want McIlroy to regain his major-winning touch. McIlroy’s own display of emotion resonated; he had given himself a chance to win the Green Jacket as his bunker shot rolled in. Continue reading...
Bryson Galaz was six years old when ball hit his head, causing brain damage, during warmup at Angel Stadium in AnaheimThe family of a boy who suffered a fractured skull and brain damage after being hit with a baseball during the warmup for a Los Angeles Angels game has sued the Angels, claiming negligence on the team’s part.In 2019, Bryson Galaz, who was then six years old, was walking with his father in the first row of Angel Stadium, where players were mingling with fans more than an hour and half prior to the game, the lawsuit said. Bryson was struck on the side of his head when Keynan Middleton, an Angels pitcher who was warming up on the field, threw a ball at a teammate who missed the catch. Continue reading...
A new wave raises questions about identity, elections and how we live. Conventional politics must answer them or dieIf today’s democracy teaches any lesson it is don’t underestimate populism. Insult it, deride it, excuse it, no-platform it, but it is a serious force in electoral politics. In France, Marine Le Pen has surged into contention for the presidency.Earlier this month, Hungary’s authoritarian Viktor Orbán swept the board. In Russia, albeit in vexed circumstances, Vladimir Putin retains a patriotic hold on opinion. In the US, Donald Trump refuses to disappear. These individuals are in no way the same, but they speak the same message.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The president exploited the ideas of Le Pen and Zemmour for his own political gain. As disaster looms, he must change tackOn 6 May 2017, the day Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France after running on a “neither-left-nor-right” platform and defeating his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, the new ruler made a promise to the French people: that the country would never again see a far-right candidate reach the second round of the presidential election. “Our task is immense,” Macron said as he took office. “In the five years to come, my responsibility will be to appease fears, to revive the French optimism … I will fight with all my strength against the divisions that undermine us.” He vowed to “rally and reconcile” the French, for “the unity of the people and the country”. Today, almost five years later, France woke up to the result of the first round of the presidential election – and the prospect, once again, of a runoff between Macron and Le Pen.The incumbent president (of the La République En Marche party, founded by Macron in 2016) won 27.6% of the vote on Sunday, followed by Le Pen (National Rally, formerly National Front) with 23.4%. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the leftwing party La France Insoumise, came close but failed to qualify for the runoff with 22%; then came Éric Zemmour (Reconquête party), the openly racist candidate who ran on a platform based entirely on the “great replacement” theory, with 7.1%. Continue reading...
Midwives, nurses and physician assistants authorised to perform abortions after lawmakers approve bill vetoed by Larry HoganMaryland has become the 15th US state to allow health professionals other than doctors to carry out abortions, as part of a bill expanding access to reproductive rights for women.Under the new law, midwives, senior nurses and trained doctor’s assistants will be authorised to perform medical abortions from 1 July. The bill also directs the state to ring-fence $3.5m a year for abortion-care training. Continue reading...
The 24-year-old was a son, a teammate and a friend. But some could not see beyond his status as an entertainer when he was killed on SaturdayWhen Daniel Wilcox read the tweet ESPN’s Adam Schefter posted to break the news of NFL quarterback Dwayne Haskins’ death, he thought about how some view athletes as mere entertainers without taking the time to see them as human.“When you’re in the NFL, you’re just a piece of meat. You’re a name and you’re a number,” says Wilcox, who played tight end for the New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Baltimore Ravens. Continue reading...
I’d love to stop Britain’s neighbour from repeating our mistakes, but advice from overseas counts for nothing – and can sometimes backfireAs France trudges towards a runoff election between a technocrat and a populist, it’s natural to want to help. “Don’t do it!”, say Americans on the socials, “Please, France, this is a really bad idea.” “It might seem fun now,” we, their neighbours, chime in, “but once you’re fielding a moral vacuum on the world stage, you’ll see that it isn’t fun at all.”It reminds me of the period just before the referendum, when Europeans begged us not to leave, with heart emojis and witty videos, and it changed my mind only insofar as it made the whole situation sadder, while not changing the minds of the leavers in any way. Or maybe that’s wrong: maybe it made them more determined. Continue reading...
Thanks to a flourishing ADHD positivity movement, women like me who once hid their neurodivergence are finding ways to celebrate itOn any given day I will spend a considerable amount of time tensing my muscles to the rhythm of the national anthem. I might be driving, in a meeting or writing to a deadline, but my muscles will be sending our gracious Queen victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us. Other times, I breathe in sync with the sound of traffic going past, bite my nails or pinch myself when I’m trying to complete a task, so that if my brain decides to abandon its instructions, the sensation will serve as a reminder of them. I often forget to buy food or take my medication, and often can’t recall whether I’ve showered or not. My email inbox currently has 18,485 unread messages.Still, I am luckier than most women with ADHD. I received a diagnosis at the age of seven after a school referral. But many women come to be diagnosed later, after decades of being called scatty or disorganised, plagued by guilt and anxiety. The latest NHS figures show that while more than 100,000 men were diagnosed with ADHD in 2019-20, just 33,000 women received a diagnosis. With diagnostic standards set by studies of boys and men – who tend to show symptoms such as hyperactivity, as opposed to the introverted and inattentive presentations more common in women and girls – we are often forgotten.Mim Skinner is the author of the book Jailbirds: Lessons from a Women’s Prison and co-founder of REfUSE. Her second book Living Together, finding community in a fractured world will be published later this yearAdditional reporting for this piece by Ashleigh Dick
Strangers are so keen to tell me my life as I know it will be over soon – thank goodness for those who have told me it will be OK“Enjoy it while you can”: how I’ve come to dislike these five little words, which have followed me everywhere since my pregnancy became obvious. Suddenly, they are applied to anything pleasurable – sleep, holidays, a meal in a restaurant. “Enjoy it while you can,” people say (because when the baby comes, your life as you know it will be over).They mean well, I think, but I’ll confess that I’ve been shocked by the negativity surrounding parenthood. People seem to feel that they simply must tell you how hard it is, warts and all, maybe because no one told them, and they do it with the zeal of missionaries: they have seen the truth, and it is terrible to behold. Hollie McNish has a book of poetry about parenthood called Nobody Told Me. Mine would be called Everybody Told Me, All the Time, Until I Had to Ask Them to Stop.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Judge to rule on challenge from Georgia voters that says far right congresswoman should be disqualified under the 14th amendmentA federal judge has indicated that an attempt to stop the far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene running for re-election will be allowed to proceed.The challenge from a group of Georgia voters says Greene should be disqualified under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, because she supported insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Buffalo, New York on (#5Y1HJ)
Arbitrator says Martin Gugino, who fell and hit his head after shove by two officers, was acting erraticallyAn arbitrator has ruled that two Buffalo police officers did not violate use-of-force guidelines when they pushed a 75-year-old protester to the ground in June 2020, during racial injustice protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.The episode drew national attention when a news crew captured video of Martin Gugino being shoved by officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski in downtown Buffalo, as crowd control officers in riot gear cleared demonstrators for an 8pm curfew. Continue reading...
Woods ranks playing four rounds at Augusta as one of his greatest achievements and confirmed he will be at St AndrewsThe look on Tiger Woods’s face as he walked off the 18th green told you all you need to know about what he’s been through in the last 14 months.Woods had just shot his second consecutive round of 78, which is the worst score he’s ever made in the 24 years he’s been playing here, and done it on a day that seemed tailor-made for going low. The round left him 13 over par for the tournament, and 22 shots off Scottie Scheffler’s lead, in 47th place. And despite it all, he was grinning like he’d just won the tournament. He clearly wasn’t exaggerating when he said he wasn’t sure whether his injuries would ever allow him to play competitive golf again. Continue reading...
Lizelle Herrera has been released after being thrown in jail last week, while district attorney says this is ‘ not a criminal matter’The woman who was thrown in jail on a murder charge in Texas for allegedly having caused the “death of an individual by self-induced abortion” has been released after the local district attorney dropped the case.Lizelle Herrera, 26, was reported to be back with her family on Sunday after the district attorney in Rio Grande City, on the US-Mexico border, put out a statement saying he was immediately dismissing the case. Herrera had been arrested last Thursday and placed in the Starr county jail on the back of a grand jury indictment. Continue reading...
Family members of official killed in ‘senseless and tragic’ robbery and shooting in community near AtlantaA Georgia coroner went to a shooting range owned by his family on Friday evening and found his parents and son had been shot dead in a robbery, officials said.In a brief telephone interview with the Guardian on Sunday, Richard Hawk confirmed his 19-year-old son Luke Hawk, father Tommy Hawk and mother Evelyn Hawk were killed at the shooting range, which was owned by his father. Continue reading...
‘It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk,’ says president’s chief medical adviser after spate of positive tests in DCA rash of coronavirus infections among elites in Washington that came close to Joe Biden shows a new reality facing Americans including the president, his chief medical adviser said: that life will involve daily decisions about individual risk from Covid.“It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk they’re going to take,” Dr Anthony Fauci told ABC’s This Week, adding that protocols protecting the president were “pretty strong”. Continue reading...
Senate minority leader projects ‘pretty good beating’ for Biden administration in November midtermsThe Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Sunday Republicans will force Joe Biden to govern as a “moderate” if the GOP retakes Congress in November.Speaking to Fox News Sunday, McConnell attacked Biden on subjects including reported crime increases in large US cities, the decision to extend a moratorium on repaying student loan debts, and the administration’s attempt to lift a Trump policy that allowed border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the southern border, ostensibly to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Continue reading...
Former president enthuses about TV doctor in statement and at rally but many on far right doubt conservative credentialsDonald Trump has endorsed Dr Mehmet Oz for the Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania, an expression of support for a fellow TV star which could test the former president’s grip on his party.Being on TV was “like a poll, that means people like you,” the former president and Celebrity Apprentice star said of Oz, a heart surgeon turned daytime host. Continue reading...
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