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Female genital mutilation is about the subjugation of women. But I am optimistic about ending it in my lifetimeIt is down to sheer ignorance that the misogynistic practice of female genital mutilation still exists in the world. In the UK, for example, FGM has been banned since 1985, but the country’s first court conviction occurred only in February 2019. The truth is, FGM will continue as long as there is inequality between men and women. It is about power and oppression, and its only purpose is to subjugate the woman and her sexuality to the man. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.The UN has a stated goal of eliminating FGM by 2030. Unfortunately, this is pure announcement policy. I worked as a UN special envoy from 1997 to 2003 and came to realise that the organisation is not doing what it should. That disappointed me and is why I started my own organisation, the Desert Flower Foundation. And, in my opinion, we are doing a better job than the UN. Continue reading...

CDC considers rolling back limits on which doses can be prescribed and for how many days in cases of acute painThe US could see loosened guidance around prescribing opioids, as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers relaxing some of its guidelines in a move that could signal a new direction for managing chronic pain.The CDC last Thursday released proposed changes to its guidance on prescribing opioids, rolling back limits on which doses can be prescribed and for how many days in cases of acute pain. Continue reading...

Amnesty International says technology championed by mayor reinforces discriminatory policing against minority communitiesNew Yorkers who live in areas where controversial stop-and-frisk searches happen most frequently are also more likely to be surveilled by facial recognition technology, according to research by Amnesty International and other researchers.Research also showed that in the Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens boroughs of the city there was a direct correlation between the proportion of non-white residents and the concentration of controversial facial recognition technology. Continue reading...

San Francisco district attorney says it was possibly a rights violation and could deter sexual assault victims from speaking outSan Francisco police used DNA collected as part of a rape exam to link a woman to a crime, possibly violating her constitutional rights, the city’s district attorney alleged on Monday.The department’s crime lab entered the DNA profiles of potentially thousands of sexual assault victims over “many years” to a database that is used to identify suspects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. District attorney Chesa Boudin, who said his office first learned of the practice last week, told the newspaper such use of victims’ DNA could violate the California’s Victims’ Bill of Rights as well as constitutional laws related to unreasonable searches and seizures. Continue reading...

The 6ft-long Rye Riptides was packed with photos, fall leaves, acorns and state quarters and equipped with a GPSA small boat – containing photos, fall leaves, acorns and state quarters – launched in October 2020 by some New Hampshire middle school students has been found 462 days later by a sixth grader in Norway.The 6ft-long (1.8-meter) Rye Riptides, decorated with artwork from the kids and equipped with a tracking device that went silent for parts of the journey, was found on 1 February in Smola, a small island near Dyrnes, Norway, the Portsmouth Herald reported Monday. Continue reading...

Mazars, Donald Trump’s longtime accountancy firm, sever links amid criminal and civil investigations of ex-president’s businessDonald Trump’s longtime accountancy firm cut ties with his business last week, saying that nearly a decade’s worth of Trump’s filings should “no longer be relied upon”.The move comes amid ongoing criminal and civil investigations into whether Trump illegally inflated the value of his assets. Continue reading...

Jim Jordan’s statement on Fox News is another example of violent rhetoric entering the Republican mainstream, analysts sayAnti-hate speech activists have condemned the Republican US congressman Jim Jordan for his apparent endorsement of Donald Trump’s declaration that members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff should have been executed.Jordan asserted on Fox & Friends that the former president was “right on target” when he accused Clinton’s aides of spying on him, and that in another time in US history their “crime would have been punishable by death”. Continue reading...

Judge tosses the former vice-presidential candidate’s case while allowing the jury to continue deliberationsSarah Palin’s lawsuit accusing the New York Times of defaming her by incorrectly linking her to a mass murder was thrown out on Monday.US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said he will order the dismissal of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate’s lawsuit, but in an unusual twist, he will enter his order after the jury finishes its own deliberations. Continue reading...

Manuel Oliver said he climbed the 150ft crane ‘so the whole world will listen to Joaquin today’The father of a Parkland shooting victim was taken into custody after scaling a construction crane near the White House on Monday as part of a protest against gun violence and in honor of the fourth anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people and wounded 17 more.Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin “Guac” Oliver was one of the 17 victims in the country’s deadliest high school shooting, said he climbed the 150ft crane “so the whole world will listen to Joaquin today”. Continue reading...

The event showed just how much the city hasn’t changed, in which staggering wealth and abject poverty coexist without really touching, like oil and vinegarBefore the Super Bowl could officially kick off in Los Angeles, someone had to raise the curtain on this distinctly post-Covid festival of American glitz and glamour – so why not the biggest movie star on the planet.In a WWE-style teaser that played over the enormous video board that hovers over SoFi Stadium like a serpentine halo, the Rock set the tone for Super Gold Sunday, TV-speak for the cosmic-like coincidence of a Super Bowl falling during the middle weekend of the Winter Olympics – a first. Over the course of a two-minute monologue the actor-wrestler also known as Dwayne Johnson valorized the gladiators here as well as the others gritting it out under our flag in the Beijing Olympics. And he made sure to justify why we should stay tuned to the exception of all else. “It’s about the idea that this game [the Super Bowl] and these Games [the Olympics] can achieve one of the most precious feats of all – bringing us all together for a celebration of who we are.” Continue reading...

Crypto and online gambling ads as the US economy gets hollowed out at the Super BowlThe Super Bowl in 2000 is often referred to as the “Dotcom Bowl”, because so many buzzy new internet companies like Pets.com and AutoTrader.com bought ads that year. Ultimately, 14 such companies took part in the feeding frenzy, scooping up 20% of all available spots. Soon after, the stock price of many of these companies began to sharply deflate, and today that game is often described as the peak of the Dotcom Bubble.Super Bowl ads have long reflected the cultural currents that deep-pocketed corporations are trying to harness in a given era. Last night, they pointed towards the powerful pull of speculation that has enraptured so many over the past few years as betting platforms and cryptocurrency exchanges flooded the air with eye-catching spots. Continue reading...

Craig Greenberg, a Democratic hopeful for mayor of Louisville, was apparent target of the shooter, but police have no motivePolice in Kentucky have detained a person suspected of a Monday morning “assassination attempt” on a Democratic party candidate for Louisville city mayor.The Louisville Metro police chief Erika Shields said at a lunchtime press conference that the unidentified shooter entered Craig Greenberg’s fourth-floor suite in a downtown office building at about 10.15am and fired multiple shots. Continue reading...

Curtis Reeves, 79, killed Chad Oulson, 43, in a Tampa suburb in 2014 over the younger man checking text messages during previewsA retired Florida police captain went on trial for murder on Monday, eight years after he shot dead a moviegoer who threw a bag of popcorn at him in a dispute over text messages.Curtis Reeves, now 79, killed Chad Oulson, 43, at a movie theater in the Tampa suburb of Wesley Chapel shortly after the confrontation over the younger man’s use of his cellphone while previews were playing. Continue reading...

The Super Bowl champions made aggressive moves to acquire big-time players. They combined with homegrown talent to secure the franchise’s second titleAs the confetti fell at SoFi Stadium, Odell Beckham stood alone amid the revelry, eyes welling, hands on his head in disbelief. No sooner than the dazed receiver appeared on the stadium’s massive video screen did the Los Angeles Rams partisans, in slight majority among the 70,048 attendees, loose a deafening roar. To find their common emotional trigger, one needn’t have looked further than the message writ large on Beckham’s matching hat and T-shirt: Super Bowl Champions.Nothing gets LA in a froth like a big sparkly prize. On Sunday the Rams’ 23-20 dismissal of the upstart Cincinnati Bengals was recognized with a Lombardi trophy, the second Super Bowl crown in the franchise’s 86-year history. It was a capstone achievement that was realised in Los Angeles, on the Rams’ home turf, with more A-listers in attendance than at most recent award shows. There was the Rock, Cardi B, Bennifer – and those sightings all came before the Grammy-grade halftime show. Continue reading...

After 70 years, retiring in good health to hand over to Prince Charles would be good for the monarchy and the nationThis May, the Queen will celebrate 70 years in office, her platinum jubilee. She is already the longest-serving British ruler and, by then, will be second only to Louis XIV among European monarchs. Such longevity in office is phenomenal and will merit national congratulation and celebration.The Queen has performed her duty of symbolising the British nation over an extraordinary era, from the end of empire, through joining and leaving the European Union, to a global technological revolution. She has known 14 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson. Though her “rule” is powerless and largely ritualised, she has performed with energy and dignity. She has steered her office away from controversy, and retained a sincere public affection. Given her bizarre occupation, she has been well-cast. Continue reading...

Civil rights trial of Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, accused of failing to intervene in Floyd’s murder, takes placeUse of the controversial label “excited delirium” by first responders when subduing people exhibiting signs of severe agitation has emerged as a key issue in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd.Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane are accused of depriving Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, of his civil rights by failing to give him medical aid while he was handcuffed and lying facedown as their senior colleague Derek Chauvin proceeded to murder him on 25 May 2020. Continue reading...

Effort to launch convoy taking shape but diffuse organization make it difficult to predict size of protests – or what it wantsThe effort to launch an American “freedom convoy”, inspired by the Canadian truckers who have shut down parts of Ottawa for several weeks initially to protest vaccine mandates, is taking shape in a somewhat haphazard fashion.At least three national organizations, and a constellation of regional ones, say they will depart for Washington in early March. Continue reading...

The US risks embarrassing itself and its intelligence if Russia chooses an option other than invasionWarnings from the US that Russian troops are poised to strike at Ukraine are growing more urgent and strident. There can be little doubt of the US’s conviction that Ukraine is at imminent risk, and the number of nations advising citizens to leave the country as soon as possible shows that the warnings are at last being considered credible.But the emphasis on near-inevitable war – and the naming of narrow timeframes when it is expected to happen – is also closing down options for the US and its allies, while opening them up for Russia. Moscow still has the initiative, and the risk is growing that its president, Vladimir Putin, is being set up to achieve a diplomatic victory through pulling the rug from under the western war scare. Continue reading...

As if the border isn’t surveilled and militarized enough, the Department of Homeland Security wants to go full Black MirrorAre we all doomed to live in Charlie Brooker’s techno-dystopia? In Metalhead, an episode from season four of his famed Netflix show Black Mirror, a woman navigates an austere post-apocalyptic landscape while running for her life from a murderous robot dog. What makes the mechanized beast in the show particularly frightening is the lethal combination of the single-mindedness of a computer program with the extreme ferocity of an angry, feral dog.But it’s just TV, right? Not exactly. The military, technological, security and political classes in this country appear united in their desire to make robot dogs part of our future, and we should all be worried. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president urges Joe Biden to visit Kyiv in coming days. Plus, lessons for lifelong loversGood morning.Europe is closer to war than at any point over the past 70 years, a UK government minister has warned, as Russian troops amass on the borders of Ukraine and western leaders warn that an invasion could take place early this week.Is Joe Biden involved in the last minute negotiations? Yes but yesterday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, urged Joe Biden to visit Kyiv “in the coming days” in a show of moral support. However, the White House has made no mention of the invitation so it’s unclear if Biden intends to go.Is time running out to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis? US intelligence over the weekend claimed that Russia had accelerated plans for an invasion and could move troops across the border as soon as Wednesday, before the end of the Winter Olympics on 20 February.What about the protests in Ottawa? Small-scale protests there swelled to what police said were 4,000 demonstrators. The city has seen that on past weekends, and loud music played as people milled about downtown where anti-vaccine demonstrators have been encamped since late January. Continue reading...

A Trumpist takeover of the battleground state is raising eyebrows over concerns of the end of ‘free and fair elections’Donald Trump has endorsed rightwing Republican candidates who support his baseless claims of a stolen election for key posts in Michigan, raising the prospect of a Trumpist takeover of how the key battleground state might run its elections.Trump and his allies are backing numerous candidates in the coming midterm elections across the US, including in other vital states like Arizona and Georgia. Continue reading...

The exploitation reflects America’s longstanding history of medically abusing vulnerable communities of color

This Cincinnati team have a great quarterback surrounded by talent. But consistent excellence is hard in the NFL and they play in the formidable AFCUnderdogs win Super Bowls by creating turnovers, playing clean and entering the fourth quarter within a score with a quarterback capable of creating some off-script magic. The Bengals hit on all three on Sunday. The game was right there for Cincinnati to close out.Then the Rams’ stars took over, and the flaws in a far-from-flawless Cincinnati roster were ultimately exposed – with a dose of help (as ever) from the league’s officials. The Bengals couldn’t tackle Cooper Kupp, at least not in time. And they could not block Aaron Donald, who led a defensive front that wound up dropping Joe Burrow seven times, a Super Bowl record. Sean McVay coached his Rams team into a hole, and his players dragged him out. Continue reading...

Nearly one-third of US parents are opposed to vaccinating their kids against Covid – so one-time vaccine skeptics are helping families find evidence-based answersAlexis Danielsen sat down and rolled up her sleeve. When the shot went into her arm, one thought flooded her mind: “Finally!”It was May 2021, and she was receiving her first Covid shot – in fact, her first immunization of any kind. She was 39. Continue reading...

Comments come after report that Trump ally is in talks about options, including in-person interview or submitting a depositionBipartisan figures on the congressional committee investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat said on Sunday they expected the former president’s close ally, Rudolph Giuliani, would comply with a subpoena to give testimony.Giuliani is among a number of Trump sphere insiders who have so far refused to cooperate with the bipartisan House panel looking into Trump’s subversion efforts and the January 6 Capitol insurrection the then president incited that claimed five lives. Giuliani was scheduled to testify last Tuesday, after the committee issued a subpoena last month, but did not appear. Continue reading...

New film sheds light on story of Murat Kurnaz, arrested without explanation a month after 9/11The mother of a German-born Guantánamo Bay detainee held at the camp for six years and tortured has said she is still waiting for an apology or compensation as a new film sheds light on a story she says remains an “open wound”.In Rabiye Kurnaz vs George W Bush,which premiered at the Berlin film festival on Saturday, the director, Andreas Dresen, whose socially engaged film-making has led him to be described as Germany’s answer to Ken Loach, revisits the case of Murat Kurnaz, who was arrested without explanation in Pakistan in October 2001, a month after the 9/11 attacks. Continue reading...

A treacherous alliance is growing that will undermine democratic institutions in the US and elsewhereThe United States presents itself as the beacon of democracy in contrast to the autocracies of China and Russia. Yet American democracy is in danger of succumbing to the same sort of oligarchic economics and racist nationalism that thrive in both these powers.After all, it wasn’t long ago that Donald Trump – who openly admired Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin – encouraged racist nationalism in America while delivering much of the US government into the hands of America’s super-rich.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...

In the shadow of war, the Ukranian novelist tells of how citizens are trying to live, work and maintain hopeFive planes from Egyptian resorts returned to Boryspil airport yesterday, picked up new passengers and flew back. A plane also flew in from the Cuban resort of Varadero, where my friend, the publisher Anetta Antonenko, recently had 10 days rest. Ukrainians are already used to warming up and sunbathing in Egypt in winter.I do not know how they feel now, flying to warmer climes. Do they take with them documents for their property and everything that the Ukrainian government advised its citizens to put in one “emergency suitcase”, along with a supply of food for two days, a change of underwear and personal documents? Continue reading...

For Democrats in tight re-election races, being photographed with a president whose approval rating hovers at 40% is a riskWith a handshake and brief embrace, congresswoman Abigail Spanberger welcomed Joe Biden to her Virginia district last Thursday. The event was an opportunity to highlight the administration’s plans to lower the cost of prescription drugs, but it also provided an opportunity for the US president to promote the members of his party ahead of the midterm elections in November.“In every chapter in her career, in every chapter, she’s always been about one thing: service,” the president said of Spanberger, a Democrat whose competitive re-election race is on the front line of the battle for control of the House. Continue reading...

Is Pamela Anderson being violated all over again by the re-telling of a scandal from the 1990s?Does this happen to every generation? Where a cultural moment that, during our adolescence appeared deliciously shocking, is revealed to us in adulthood as, at best “troubling”, at worst a grim representation of how the world is cracked down the middle, a thick and low-humming oil dripping from its wound?I realise now what a naive girl I must have been, to have accepted without daily outrage such clumsy horrors as the media’s addiction to Amy Winehouse’s addictions and Britney Spears’s breakdown, and I choose “naive” rather than “cruel”, because this week has been tough enough. But today, entering middle-age tired and thoughtful, I remain grateful for the ongoing trend for films and TV shows produced as correctives to those decades of casual cruelty, partly for the answers they give, and partly for the questions they leave me with. Continue reading...

As his new play opens, the eminent writer on where documentary ends and drama beginsI still own a painting that I purchased at a flea market in Los Angeles in 1993. I got it cheap; $25 and it was in the back of my clapped-out convertible . It turned out to be a copy of Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man with a Book. In 16th-century Florence, if you wanted your portrait painted then he was your man, for one simple reason: he made you look great. His particular gift – and shrewd commercial decision – was to imbue his wealthy subjects with swagger, confidence and even a certain weight loss.Three centuries before you could sit before a photographer and more than four before you could take a selfie, rich Florentines would sit still for days and trust that Bronzino would do for them what he’d done for their wealthy neighbours, for Dante. It paid to flatter. Continue reading...

Palin’s return to the headlines – for her defamation trial and flouting Covid rules – is a reminder to many that her ascent in 2008 was a pivotal moment in US politicsRemoving a white face mask as she took the witness stand behind a Plexiglass shield, Sarah Palin likened herself to the biblical David taking on the mighty Goliath of American media, the New York Times newspaper.The 58-year-old’s appearance in a Manhattan courtroom this week was a far cry from her heyday on the campaign trail, whipping up crowds with incendiary rhetoric as a US vice-presidential candidate in 2008. Continue reading...

Brexit Britain’s isolated leaders resort to posturing and fist-waving over Ukraine while France’s Macron pursues diplomatic solutions in MoscowDespite increasingly frantic warnings from Washington about an “imminent” attack, all-out war in Ukraine is not inevitable. Far from it. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s military pressure tactics are working. The west has been forced to listen to his grievances. Fighting could start soon. But US intelligence is not exact, and Moscow is adept at spreading disinformation and fear. Just as likely, this standoff could last months. Meanwhile, diplomacy still has a chance.The best hope remains the path to peace outlined last week by French president Emmanuel Macron during talks with Putin in Moscow. How shaming, and dangerous, that Boris Johnson’s government is so unsupportive. Brexit Britain, detached by choice from the EU and in thrall to US policy, is undermining European diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis. Continue reading...

Sunday’s NFL’s showpiece between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals takes place amid troubling allegationsThe sky over Los Angeles is forecast to be clear and blue and the temperature around 30C when the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams run out for Super Bowl LVI on Sunday. It should be a chance for the NFL to celebrate weathering Covid‑19 with television ratings up 10% from 2020, as well as an opportunity to pay tribute to the greatest Super Bowl champion of all time, Tom Brady, who has announced his retirement after seven championships and 10 trips to the big game.But this is the NFL, which often appears closer to a soap opera than a sports league. On the day Brady signalled the end of his career, the league duly delivered its latest plot twist. As is often the case in the league and the US as a whole, it had much to do with race and inequality: Brian Flores, the former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, filed a lawsuit claiming the league “is racially segregated and is managed much like a plantation”. Continue reading...

Louise Lucas noted she received a text from Glenn Youngkin congratulating her for a speech Mamie Locke gaveThe Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, has apologized after mistaking one Black legislator for another in a text message.Youngkin is the new Republican governor of the state, which has trended Democrat in recent election cycles but stunned observers by picking Youngkin as its new leader last year over a centrist Democrat candidate. Continue reading...

Many of the rejected ballots fail a new requirement to provide an identification number inside the return envelopeElection supervisors in Texas have warned that new stricter voter ID requirements ahead of next month’s state governor’s primary have already resulted in an uncharacteristically high number of ballot rejections.Voting rights activists have expressed fears that new laws making access to the vote more difficult – that have been passed in many states across the US by Republicans – will impact Democrat-leaning voters of color. Continue reading...

Joseph Paul Berger and his father, Joseph Raymond Berger, arrested last week and charged with multiple firearms offensesFederal prosecutors have charged an “alt-right” podcaster who espoused strong anti-government views with assembling an arsenal of weapons, including machine guns, in the locked basement at a home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.They also charged his father, the Daily Beast reported. Continue reading...

Judge bars higher cost estimate which puts a dollar value on damages caused by additional greenhouse gases emittedA Trump-appointed federal judge has blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to put greater emphasis on potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries.The move represents a blow to Joe Biden’s efforts to bring America more back in line with global efforts to fight the climate crisis after the Trump era, when the US largely turned its back on measures that might have helped limit emissions. Continue reading...