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Attorney general also announces charges against Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev for sanctions violationsThe US has disrupted a global “botnet” controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday.A botnet is a network of hijacked computers used to carry out cyberattacks. “The Russian government has recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets,” Garland told reporters at the justice department. Continue reading...

Locke, 22, who was Black, shot dead by police officer after Swat team entered apartment without knocking early in FebruaryMinnesota prosecutors declined to file charges on Wednesday against a Minneapolis police Swat team officer who fatally shot Amir Locke while executing an early morning no-knock search warrant in a downtown apartment in February.Locke, 22, who was Black, was staying on a couch in the apartment when authorities entered it on 2 February without knocking as part of an investigation into a homicide in neighboring St Paul. Continue reading...

The 11th and the 15th at Augusta have undergone significant changes for the Masters. Two of the best offer their verdictsThe 2022 Masters sees significant changes to two holes. The par-four 11th is now 15 yards longer (is 520, was 505); and the par-five 15th is now 20 yards longer (is 550, was 530). Here Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood give their pre-tournament verdict on the changes. Continue reading...

The past is ever present at the Masters but caddies from the Sand Hill district have not always been remembered. That, finally, appears to be beginning to changeCedar Grove cemetery is across the city from the Augusta National, the other side of two sets of railway tracks in a part of town where the traffic doesn’t stop and the tourists don’t pass. The plot was set aside in 1820 as a place to bury slaves in shallow, unmarked, graves.Over time it turned into the black cemetery, the city’s first black principal is buried there, the first black dentist, the first black member of the local legislature. “Because there is no definitive book on African-American history Cedar Grove is the bastion of our cultural heritage,” said local historian Joyce Law when the cemetery marked its bicentennial, “this is where the stories are.” Continue reading...

Six-term lawmaker from Ohio’s Amish country exits primary race that would have put him up against Trump-backed Max MillerRepublican congressman Bob Gibbs announced his sudden retirement on Wednesday, declaring himself a casualty of “the circus” over Ohio’s still-unresolved congressional map.The six-term congressman from Amish country exits a primary race in north-eastern Ohio that, under new temporary maps, would have put him up against the Trump-backed Republican Max Miller. Continue reading...

House panel receives 101 emails belonging John Eastman, concerning plans to obstruct certification of 2020 election resultThe House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol has received a cache of emails belonging to Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, federal court documents filed on Tuesday show.The 101 emails were released to the committee after Judge David Carter ruled in federal court in California last week that Eastman, a hard-right supporter of the former US president, had not made a sufficient claim to attorney-client privilege. Continue reading...

Hail, strong winds and tornadoes tore across the south on Tuesday, with authorities warning of more bad weatherViolent storms killed at least two people, one in Georgia and another in Texas, on Tuesday as hail, strong winds and tornadoes tore across the south, where authorities warned a second day of dangerous weather of violent weather could follow.A woman died Tuesday evening in Pembroke, Georgia, where a suspected tornado ripped part of the roof from the Bryan county courthouse, destroyed the entrance to a local government building across the street and damaged homes in nearby neighborhoods, said Matthew Kent, a county government spokesman. Continue reading...

The nation’s aging electrical grid is battered by an increasing number of destructive storms caused by a warming climatePower outages from severe weather have doubled over the past two decades across the US, as a warming climate stirs more destructive storms that cripple broad segments of the nation’s aging electrical grid, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data.Forty states are experiencing longer outages – and the problem is most acute in regions seeing more extreme weather, US Department of Energy data shows. The blackouts can be harmful and even deadly for the elderly, disabled and other vulnerable communities. Continue reading...

Donald Trump admitted that he did not win the 2020 presidential election in an interview with a panel of historians in 2021. The former president also said Iran, China and South Korea were happy Biden won, adding that ‘the election was rigged and lost’.Referring to his attempts to make South Korea pay more for US military assistance, Trump said Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, was among the 'happiest' world leaders after he lost the 2020 US election. Trump said they were on the brink of making a deal for South Korea to contribute $5bn annually to that bill

Ukraine urgently needs help – and if the organisation can’t act effectively now, the global consequences could be catastrophicPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s address to the UN security council came at a crucial moment for the United Nations as well as Ukraine. Russia’s illegal war of aggression, and the collective failure of the other 192 member states to stop it, represents the biggest crisis for the UN since Iraq in 2003. This visceral threat to the organisation’s authority – practical, legal and moral – is one from which it may not recover.The principles enshrined in the 1945 UN founding charter, primarily aimed at upholding peace between sovereign states, have been torn up by the Kremlin. Repeated pleas by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, for an immediate end to hostilities are ignored. And the humanitarian laws of war are being brutally disregarded, as the multiple crimes committed in Bucha, Mariupol and across Ukraine show.Simon Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator. He has been a foreign leader writer, foreign editor and US editor for the Guardian

US, G7 and EU to target Moscow with new measures as Ukraine says 4,400 incidents of alleged ‘war crimes’ being investigated. Plus, unseen photos of rock history

Team at Norwich University accused of branding and waterboarding other team membersVermont police have launched an investigation into hazing allegations surrounding the women’s rugby team at Norwich University in the state, including allegations of branding and waterboarding.Police have executed search warrants and went to a residence hall at the private military academy in Northfield to collect evidence, the Barre Montpelier Times Argus reported. Continue reading...

US Capitol police have apprehended an 'aggressive' suspect accused of attacking a congressman and perhaps others. The alleged assailant: an unusually bold fox

The Minnesota Timberwolves star has suffered loss in his personal life but has used it as inspiration to come back strongerOn 14 March 2022, Karl-Anthony Towns pirouetted, leapt and dunked his way to a 60-point performance with the grace of a ballet dancer and the strength of, well, a 7ft, 250lb NBA player. After the game, he started to text the most important person in his life: his mother, Jackie. Then he stopped himself and started to cry.“This was a moment for us,” Towns later told ESPN. “She would’ve loved it.” Continue reading...

The Russian military are now circling the Donbas. I’m terrified for people there who were loyal to Ukraine for the past eight years“It’s the second month since Russia used all possible ammunition to shell the Luhansk region. Now they are gathering equipment, mobilising conscripts … The battle here [will] be the fiercest,” the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, told me when we met recently in eastern Ukraine.Russia’s intentions are clear: the Kremlin calls its war against Ukraine the “special operation to free Donbas”. It wants some real gains to present at home before the anniversary of Russia’s victory in the second world war, on 9 May. After Russian troops failed to beat the Ukrainian military and occupy Kyiv and major towns such as Kharkiv, Moscow is concentrating on taking the parts of the Donbas that remain in Ukrainian hands. Continue reading...

The five-time Masters champion Tiger Woods insists he can win again in Augusta only 14 months since suffering serious injuries from a car crash in California. When asked if he believes he can win the Masters this year, the 46-year-old responded: 'I do. I can hit it just fine. I don’t have any qualms about what I can do from a golf standpoint. It’s now walking is the hard part.'

The supreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for special interests to pour money into elections. Could a constitutional amendment be the answer?It would, activists testify, restore the public’s waning trust in vital US institutions, curb the corrupting influence of big money in politics and give America’s ailing democracy a much-needed shot in the arm.It is also, they acknowledge, dead on arrival. Continue reading...

False narratives pushed by Tucker Carlson and key Republicans in Congress have been embraced and recycled by MoscowFalse and conspiratorial narratives pushed by some American conservative politicians and media figures about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have bolstered and created synergies with the Kremlin’s legendary disinformation machine, experts on information manipulation say.But even though Russia has embraced and promoted American disinformation, as well as the Kremlin’s own much larger stock of Ukraine war falsehoods, both brands have been widely debunked by experts and most media outlets, underscoring Moscow’s setbacks in the information war. Continue reading...

Barack Obama jokingly referred to Joe Biden as 'vice-president' on his return to the White House for the first time since 2017. The 44th president was there to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and offered Biden a potential boost ahead of the midterm elections

Victims joke about encounters as animal’s own ‘statement’ goes viral on TwitterUS Capitol police have apprehended an “aggressive” suspect accused of attacking a congressman and perhaps others. The alleged assailant: an unusually bold fox.Earlier in the day, police had warned of fox encounters in the area and said they were working to trap and relocate any animals. Continue reading...

The 46th president and the 44th got the old gang back together to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and seek a midterm boostIt was Back to the Future at the White House. Starring Barack Obama as Marty McFly and Joe Biden as Doc Brown. And ignoring Donald Trump as Biff Tannen, a four-year rupture in the space-time continuum.Obama returned to the White House on Tuesday for the first time since the bleak winter morning in January 2017 when he departed it alongside Trump, who seemed intent on erasing the first Black president. Continue reading...

Family says it is ‘optimistic’ about chances on appeal after controversy over juror in first trialThe siblings of Ghislaine Maxwell said on Tuesday they were “profoundly shocked and troubled” that a judge rejected a new trial for the British former socialite convicted on sex-trafficking charges, despite revelations that a juror who helped to convict her failed to disclose he was sexually abused as a child.In a statement, the “Maxwell Family” said it was focused on an appeal against US district judge Alison Nathan’s ruling last Friday. Continue reading...

State house approves bill that would make performing an abortion a felony and punishable by 10 years in prisonOklahoma lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill to make performing an abortion a felony punishable by 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. That is likely to land the bill on the desk of the Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, who has promised to sign all anti-abortion legislation.Oklahoma’s bill is just one in a raft of Republican bills to severely restrict or ban abortion, all timed before a widely anticipated supreme court case that disrupts nearly 50 years of established protections for abortion rights. If Oklahoma’s bill passes into law, it will take effect this summer. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, spoke via video to committee about events of January 6Ivanka Trump testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Donald Trump attempted in vain to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.The Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said on Tuesday afternoon that she had been answering investigators’ questions on a video teleconference since the morning and was not “chatty” but had been helpful. “She came in on her own” and did not have to be subpoenaed, Thompson said. Continue reading...

Smiley Martin is facing charges as detectives try to piece together the chaotic scene where more than 100 shots were firedPolice in Sacramento arrested a second person in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting in a bustling stretch of California’s capitol. Six people were killed in the shooting and at least 12 were injured.On Tuesday the department announced Smiley Martin, who was also injured in the shooting, would be booked in Sacramento’s county jail once his medical care is complete. Martin, 27, is facing charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. His brother Dandrae Martin, 26, was arrested on Monday and charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses. Continue reading...

His comeback after the life-threatening car crash seemed fanciful but Woods has defied limits throughout his careerTiger Woods’s first real memory of the Masters is of watching Jack Nicklaus play on the Sunday of 1986. Woods was 10 and had been out to play nine holes with his dad that morning but they were back in front of the TV in time to see Nicklaus, then 46, come round the turn in one of the most famous rounds in the history of the majors. From six shots back he made five birdies and an eagle and won by one. Woods remembers watching him hit that famous second shot on the 15th, from the hill over the water and to 12 feet from the hole, and the way he raised both fists in the air to celebrate, and wondering why he was so happy when he still had to make the putt.Over the years Woods has asked Nicklaus, more than once, what he was thinking about in that moment. Woods never really got a good answer out of Nicklaus but, according to his book Unprecedented, this is the way he has come to think about it: “He did what he needed to do to put himself in a position to win the Masters. He was not thinking about winning. He was thinking only about the shot and what he needed to do. He wasn’t getting ahead of himself.” Continue reading...

Daniela Jampel, who worked for the city law department, crashed press conference to demand that Eric Adams ‘unmask our toddlers’A lawyer for New York City was fired after she crashed a news conference to confront the mayor, Eric Adams, about the city’s mask mandate for children aged two to four.Daniela Jampel, who had worked for the city law department since 2016, was fired later on Monday, a department spokesperson said. Continue reading...

Ex-president issues mocking statement after Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan says he will not stand in midtermsThe Michigan congressman Fred Upton has become the fourth of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over the Capitol attack to announce his retirement in November.The others are Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the January 6 committee, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and John Katko of New York. The retirements are seen as further boosting Trump’s power and influence with Republicans. Continue reading...

Ukraine’s leader is a master communicator but his words made for uncomfortable listening in a forum with Russia at its heartTwo days ago his audience consisted of Justin Bieber, Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo and Saweetie. This was Volodymyr Zelenskiy, president of Ukraine and man for all seasons, delivering a virtual message to the Grammy music awards in Las Vegas.A little incongruous? A bit off key? The same might have been said on Tuesday when Zelenskiy addressed the UN security council, led by its five permanent members: the United States, Britain, China, France – and Russia. Continue reading...

Second building ordered evacuated in North Miami Beach since collapse of Champlain Towers South last June in nearby Surfside, which killed 98 peopleResidents of a five-story apartment building in North Miami Beach were ordered to evacuate after officials deemed the building “structurally unsound” during its 50-year recertification process, officials said.The residents of Bayview 60 Homes were ordered out on Monday by city officials. It was the second building ordered evacuated in the city since the collapse of Champlain Towers South last June in nearby Surfside, which killed 98 people. Continue reading...

CBS News affiliate WCCO uncovers archive material of school-age Prince being interviewed as teachers picket in the backgroundArchival footage has been found of the singer Prince at a teachers’ strike in 1970 when he was just 11.The video was first discovered by WCCO, a CBS News affiliate in Minnesota, and shows film of an April 1970 teachers’ strike. Continue reading...

Matt Mowers’ double voting may have violated federal election law, at a time when Black voters have faced harsh penalties for unwitting violationsA former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, possibly violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican party’s intense focus on “election integrity”.Matt Mowers, a leading Republican primary candidate hoping to unseat the Democratic representative Chris Pappas, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state. Continue reading...

Dominic Taddeo, who killed three in the 1980s and was key figure in organized crime in Rochester, New York, captured in HialeahA New York mobster who escaped federal custody in Florida has been rearrested, officials said.Dominic Taddeo, 64, a figure in organized crime in Rochester, New York, who killed three men in the 1980s and tried to kill two others, was apprehended “without incident” in Hialeah on Monday, the US Marshals service said. Continue reading...

Ofsted found some children now struggle to recognise facial expressions. More time for play and communication would help themLast week, while watching an outdated DVD about “growing and changing” with my year 2 class, a child in the programme blew out their birthday candles and shared slices of the cake with their friends. Outrage in the classroom ensued. “Miss, was that before corona? That’s disgusting!”Birthday parties are a small part of what young children have missed over the past two years. Since the first lockdown began, children have missed months of classroom learning, play dates, drama groups and football practice. Recent findings from Ofsted show the pandemic has delayed the social skills of young children – with some unable to understand facial expressions as a result. These will surprise no teacher. There have been no national lockdowns or two-week “bubble” closures during this academic year, and this relative consistency has been wonderful. But being back at school has also given staff a clearer understanding of how the pandemic has affected children’s development.The author is a teacher at a primary school in London Continue reading...

Number of billionaires worldwide falls by 329 amid Russian sanctions, according to ForbesThe total wealth of the world’s billionaires has dipped from a record high last year amid a drop in global stock markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the planet’s richest people still holding a combined $12.7tn (£9.7tn) in assets.According to the annual Forbes magazine ranking of the world richest people, the number of billionaires worldwide fell by 329 to 2,668, with the total value of their combined assets falling slightly from $13.1tn on the 2021 list. Continue reading...

The ex-president also said that Iran, China and South Korea were happy Biden won, adding that ‘the election was rigged and lost’

The couple’s Oscars afterparty saw celebrities bypass Chateau Marmont workers who have complained of abhorrent conditionsMuch of the energy that erupted after the murder of George Floyd seems to have been hijacked by a brand of “antiracism” overconcerned with microaggressions, with representation in film and media, and with interpersonal relationships. It’s a framework that largely ignores economic inequality, or the potential for strategic, organised struggle. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the insistence that if we just make white people nicer and encourage them to do better through a combination of demanding, begging or cajoling – all the while obsessively documenting a catalogue of personal privileges between individuals based purely on whether they are “white”, “black” or “brown” – that we are “doing the work”.Ahistoric and devoid of class analysis, this brand of activism doesn’t have the tools to address the shitshow that recently took place at Jay-Z’s annual Oscars Gold party at the Chateau Marmont hotel. Continue reading...

When it comes to economic questions, there’s more agreement between culture war opponents than you might thinkThe neoliberal order that triumphed in America in the 1990s prized free trade and the free movement of capital, information, and people. It celebrated deregulation as an economic good that resulted when governments could no longer interfere with the operation of markets. It hailed globalization as a win-win position that would enrich the west (the cockpit of neoliberalism) while also bringing an unprecedented level of prosperity to the rest of the world. A remarkable consensus on these creedal principles came to dominate American politics during the heyday of the neoliberal order, binding together Republicans and Democrats and marginalizing dissenting voices to the point where they barely mattered.Somewhat paradoxically, this broad agreement on matters of political economy nurtured two strikingly different moral perspectives, each of them consonant with the commitment to market principles that underlay the neoliberal order. The first perspective was ‘neo-Victorian’, celebrating self-reliance, strong families, and disciplined attitudes toward work, sexuality, and consumption.Gary Gerstle is a Guardian US columnist. Excerpted and adapted from The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (Oxford University Press, 2022) Continue reading...

Ukraine’s president prepares to address UN security council but casts doubt on meeting Putin. Plus, why it’s over for fossil fuelsGood morning.Worse atrocities than those discovered in Bucha are likely to be uncovered in other areas seized from Russian invaders, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned, ahead of his appearance at the UN security council today.Is Zelenskiy going to meet Vladimir Putin? Zelenskiy spoke on Ukrainian TV in an address to the people. He cast doubt on whether there would be a meeting between him and the Russian president.How could Putin be prosecuted for war crimes? Biden has called for the Russian leader to face trial, but the process would be difficult and could play out in several ways.What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 41 of the Russian invasion.What did Jim Skea, a professor at Imperial College London and co-chair of the working group behind the report, say? “It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” Continue reading...

Labor leaders view this year’s elections – and 2024’s – with special urgency, as a goal-line stand to preserve America’s democracyMany union leaders used to pooh-pooh talk about saving democracy, according t0 Shane Larson, the Communications Workers of America’s director of government affairs. All that changed after the January 6 assault on the Capitol and after many Republicans pushed to overturn Biden’s victory in several states.“Just a few years ago, some union leaders would complain, ‘Why are we focusing on these do-good democratic issues?’ They’d say we need to focus exclusively on labor rights and jobs, jobs, jobs,” Larson said. “Now no one is complaining about this at all. There’s a real recognition that the entire labor movement has to be involved in this effort, that we have to do something for our democracy or we can lose it. Continue reading...

Samuel Fisher was also a self-declared dating coach who sold a $150 package of misogynistic tips for men to pick up womenA rioter who believed the QAnon conspiracy theory and joined the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, as they attempted to overturn his election defeat, has been sentenced in New York to 3.5 years in prison.Samuel Fisher, 33, was sentenced on Monday after being charged with illegal possession of firearms, including a modified semi-automatic AR-15-style assault rifle, a “ghost gun” pistol, a shotgun, and 11 pre-loaded high capacity magazines at an apartment in the upscale Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan. Continue reading...

Dante, a Virginia town, is seeking to transform itself into a hub of ecotourism by nurturing the environment around it, and bring some of the natural beauty back to the communityEighty-five years ago, Bobbie Gullett was born in the heart of coal country. She grew up in Dante, Virginia, a bustling municipality of 6,000 with a hospital, a hotel, schools, a movie theater, a taxicab stand, a train line. She remembers living in a worker house owned by the Clinchfield Coal Company: Back then, Gullett recalls, while the supervisors lived up on the ridges, coalminers and their families lived in the hollows of the nearby mountain range.Their squat houses spread along the winding streets of town, which sat in a bowl created by the bumpy, tree-crested hills. In spring and summer, mountain laurel bloomed in the forest and kudzu spread in patches, and in the winter, snow blanketed the town. Continue reading...

Bundy, who is running for governor in Idaho, summoned his followers to a judge’s home, revealing a troubling development in a divided political landscapeOne recent Friday afternoon far-right militia figure Ammon Bundy started a live video feed on his YouTube channel in the wake of being arrested on trespassing charges at a hospital in Idaho, where he is running for governor.Bundy appeared disappointed to tell his followers what he believed the government was forcing him to do next. He looked down at the camera, wearing an open-collared shirt and his usual cowboy hat, and let out a sigh. Then he threatened a sitting Idaho judge, summoning his supporters to go to his home. Continue reading...

Eric Adams launches Florida ad campaign denouncing state’s ‘don’t say gay’ legislationThe mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has launched a digital campaign designed to persuade members of Florida’s LGBTQ+ community to move to the Big Apple, after their state passed a so-called “don’t say gay” education law.On Monday, Adams announced the launch in five Florida cities of digital billboards and creative ads denouncing the legislation, which bans the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. Continue reading...