As legal proceedings over coronavirus begin, history tells us that boosting solidarity is more helpful than pointing the finger

Inspired by her own experience living outside, Thilde Jensen’s images tell the story of those living on the streets from Nevada to New York Continue reading...

Legal strategy could delay and possibly stymie efforts by House select committee into Capitol attacks to see key documentsDonald Trump is preparing to sue to block the release of White House records from his administration to the House select committee scrutinizing the 6 January attack on the Capitol by claiming executive privilege, potentially touching off an extended legal battle over disclosure.The former president also expects top aides – former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – to defy select committee subpoenas for records and testimony. Continue reading...

The Axios political reporter, whose facial expressions launched a meme, grilled the US president on his response to Covid and fact-checked his misleading statementsAustralian journalist Jonathan Swan has won an Emmy award for his widely acclaimed interview with Donald Trump in which he bluntly fact-checked the president’s misleading statements.In August last year the national political correspondent at the Axios news site grabbed international headlines when he doggedly but politely questioned the US president about his response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

Charity helping the refugees says they are happy with the result but urges Ottawa to expedite asylum of remaining ‘Guardian Angel’Canada granted asylum to four people who hid former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in their tiny Hong Kong apartments when he was on the run after stealing a trove of classified documents.The four – Supun Thilina Kellapatha, Nadeeka Dilrukshi Nonis and their children Sethumdi and Dinath – landed in Toronto on Tuesday and were due to go on to Montreal to “start their new lives”, non-profit For the Refugees said in a statement. Continue reading...

The Senator said Jerome Powell’s policies have weakened US banking regulations and could lead to another financial crisisSenator Elizabeth Warren called the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, “a dangerous man” on Tuesday and vowed to oppose his renomination.Related: Barack Obama: tax the rich, including me, to fund Biden spending plan Continue reading...

Shooting at Capital Gazette office in 2018 in which five people were killed was one of the worst attacks on journalists in US historyA man who killed five people at a newspaper in Maryland was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five life sentences without the possibility of parole.Related: 'We're just a quiet area': Annapolis stunned by Capital Gazette shooting Continue reading...

Facebook may have shelved its plans for an ‘Instagram for Kids’, but the photo-sharing app will continue to prompt complaints that it causes anxiety, depression and body image issues in teenage girlsSorry kids, no carefully curated data-extraction experience for you quite yet. On Monday, Facebook announced that it is “pausing” controversial plans to create Instagram for Kids, a version of its photo-sharing app designed for children under the age of 13.Does this mean Facebook has realised that it might not be in children’s best interest to hook them into social media at a tender young age? Has the company decided to put people above profit? Don’t be silly! The reason the tech giant has paused the project is because we idiots in the media misunderstood it, apparently. In an almost comically condescending blog post and series of tweets, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri explained that the company stood by the need to create a social media “experience” for children. Alas, he said, news about the project leaked before it had figured out all the details. “People feared the worst, and we had few answers at that stage. It’s clear we need to take more time on this.” Continue reading...

Mark Milley faces hostile Republicans at Senate hearing and says calls to Beijing were intended to ‘de-escalate’ tensions

Singer became subject of a missing person’s report but her attorney says Price was recovering from virusThe Grammy-nominated R&B and gospel singer Kelly Price has said she almost died from Covid-19 – and was never missing, as family members feared.Price announced her Covid diagnosis in July. According to the website TMZ, family members said the singer was rushed to hospital about a week later. Continue reading...

The Labour leader is busy unravelling the alliance he built with the left in order to get the job

Drea Kelly puts focus on what happens outside courtroom after singer’s racketeering and sex trafficking convictionThe culture around victim shaming stopped women coming forward sooner about the abuse they experienced at the hands of R Kelly, the singer’s ex-wife Drea Kelly has said.A New York jury on Monday found R Kelly guilty of being the ringleader of a decades-long racketeering and sex trafficking scheme that preyed on women and children. Continue reading...

Former president says billionaires should ‘pay a little bit more in taxes’ to fund healthcare, childcare and the climate crisis fight

We thought the days when our country treated asylum-seekers with cruelty and disdain might be ending. This month we learned we were wrongWe thought the days when our country treated asylum-seekers with cruelty and disdain might be ending. This month we learned we were wrong.Most of us were shaken and horrified, and the country rightfully embarrassed, by images of US border patrol agents on horseback attacking asylum seekers, including at least one child, in Texas. Thankfully, that has been stopped and an investigation is now underway. We need more than an investigation, though: we need to know that nothing like that will ever happen again. Continue reading...

Singer guilty of being ringleader of scheme that preyed upon women and children; plus, Greta Thunberg lambasts world leadersGood morning.A jury has found the R&B superstar R Kelly guilty of being the ringleader of a decades-long racketeering and sex trafficking scheme that preyed upon Black women and children. Continue reading...

Guardian analysis reveals region-wide increase in violent deaths, but Black and Latino residents make up majority of victimsOn the night of 3 September 2020, Sonya Mitchell got a call as she was leaving work. Her 23-year-old son, Daimon “Dada” Ferguson, had been shot in a drive-by outside his older sister’s home.In the months before, Mitchell, 56, had been watching reports of shootings in her hometown of Vallejo, in the San Francisco Bay Area, with increasing concern. There was the shooting at a birthday party on 9 June that killed two women and injured a 10-year-old. Three separate shootings had rocked the city on 20 August, including a double homicide that left a 25-year-old man and his 24-year-old girlfriend dead in a car with their infant son. Continue reading...

Democrats have just three days to find alternative deal and are also facing a potential defaultSenate Republicans have blocked a measure to suspend the US federal debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic government shutdown, leaving Democrats who narrowly control both chambers of Congress only three days to find another way to keep the government operating beyond Thursday – when current funding expires.The legislation was aimed at beating two fast-approaching deadlines that, if left unaddressed, threaten to destabilise the US economy as it struggles to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue reading...

The University of Houston is hoping an extra boost to its teams will increase the school’s standing. But athletics can lead to even more debtRiding the short distance from downtown to the University of Houston campus, light rail passengers arrive at Athletics District station in the shadow of a towering 40,000-capacity football stadium that opened in 2014 at a cost of about $125m.An adjacent $20m, 100,000 sq ft indoor football practice centre opened in 2017. The smart facilities give the impression that you’ve stepped into a big-time institution, and the university’s football team will soon have the cachet to match its bricks and mortar. Continue reading...

Working-class people – even Trump voters – understand the Build Back Better plan will benefit themElizabeth Masters isn’t a natural Joe Biden supporter. A self-described conservative who lives in Parkersburg, in deeply Republican West Virginia, she said she registered to vote in the last election so she could cast a ballot for Donald Trump.Masters says she doesn’t approve when people “just stand for a handout” – she doesn’t think the United States should be spending money on undocumented immigrants, for example – but says anything that will “help people that are trying to do for themselves, I’m all for it”. Continue reading...

Today it’s ‘culture wars’ – but from Caesar to Colston, public art has long been reviled and reinterpreted

Jury finds singer guilty of running a criminal enterprise that recruited women and children and subjected them to unwanted sex and mental tormentA jury has found the R&B superstar R Kelly guilty of being the ringleader of a decades-long racketeering and sex trafficking scheme that preyed upon Black women and children.The disgraced singer was found guilty on all nine counts on Monday afternoon after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct, in a major #MeToo victory for Black women and girls. Continue reading...

After R Kelly was convicted in his sex trafficking trial, attorney Gloria Allred, who represented several of Kelly's alleged victims, said the R&B singer is 'the worst' predator she has ever pursued in her 47 years of practicing law. Kelly was convicted by a federal jury on all nine counts he faced after prosecutors accused the R&B singer of being the ringleader of a decades-long racketeering and sex trafficking scheme that preyed upon Black women and children. Kelly’s lawyer Deveraux Cannick said ‘I’m sure we'll be appealing’.

National murder rate rises nearly 30%, with figure increasing across all regions and from small towns to citiesThe US has experienced its largest-ever recorded annual increase in murders, according to new statistics from the FBI, with the national murder rate rising nearly 30% in 2020 – the biggest jump in six decades.Nearly 5,000 more Americans were murdered across the country last year than the year before, even as rape, robbery, and other property crimes fell, according to FBI figures. Continue reading...

The oldest member of the USA team won all five of his matches in the thrashing of EuropeFor all the talk of the youth movement that powered USA to a record-breaking victory over Europe at the Ryder Cup – and its first consecutive wins on home soil since 1979 and 1983 – it was the team’s elder statesman who made the biggest individual impact.Dustin Johnson, the world No 2 and the oldest member of a team whose average age is barely 29, became the fifth player to win all five matches in a Ryder Cup – an elite class made up of Arnold Palmer in 1967, Gardner Dickinson in 1967, Larry Nelson in 1979 and Francesco Molinari three years ago. Continue reading...

President receives public Covid jab after FDA and CDC carved out fewer categories than he hoped of Americans eligible for third dose

An SPD-led coalition would be in the country’s best interests, but after a knife-edge result, there is no guarantee one will emergeLess than two years ago, the German Social Democratic party stood at 11% in the polls and appeared to be a moribund political force. Sunday’s knife-edge federal election, in which the SPD narrowly topped the polls with 26% of the vote, represents therefore one of the more improbable political comebacks of recent times. It is also a personal vindication for Olaf Scholz, the party’s candidate for chancellor. As the SPD bumped along in a poor third place, behind the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Greens, Mr Scholz’s conviction that he could still win the top job was treated as fantasy politics from the representative of a party on the road to nowhere. But as his rivals became increasingly accident-prone during a rollercoaster campaign, Mr Scholz’s suggestion that he represented the safest pair of hands to take Germany beyond the Merkel era became ever more plausible.Whether he will get the chance to do so is still up in the air, and is likely to remain so for some time. The election has delivered a fragmentary political landscape with a near-perfect balance of forces between left and right. Chastened after the worst performance in its history, the CDU nevertheless finished only two percentage points behind the SPD. And while the Greens scored their best-ever result in finishing third, their influence in forthcoming coalition negotiations is almost matched by the economically liberal FDP, which opposes tax rises and is committed to restoring debt restrictions loosened during the pandemic. Preliminary negotiations between these two “kingmakers” will help determine whether the future coalition tilts left or right. Right now, the only certainty is that, for the first time since the 1950s, Germany will be governed by a three-party coalition. Continue reading...

Home side had the better players but Pádraig Harrington didn’t help himself with his wildcards or partnershipsThe most fundamental and important, if boring, point. On paper, USA had the stronger Ryder Cup team by a considerable margin. If they played to their full potential, Europe would not have enough strength in depth to compete with them. And so it proved; there was not a single failure in the home team, justifying their heavy favouritism before a ball was struck. Sport would be a terribly dull place if expected outcomes based on talent level was the outcome all the time but in this case it was precisely what happened. Every USA player returned at least a point, three Europeans won none. Continue reading...

Hinckley, who was 25 when he shot and wounded the president in 1981, can be released from all court supervision if he follows rulesA federal judge has said John Hinckley Jr, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan 40 years ago, can be freed from all remaining restrictions next year if he continues to follow those rules and remains mentally stable.Related: Close calls: when American presidents diced with death Continue reading...

Shares soar as, along with ITP Aero sale, firm wins multibillion-dollar contract from US air forceRolls-Royce has sold its Spanish business for €1.7bn and won a multibillion-dollar contract from the US air force, prompting a FTSE 100 leading share price surge as investors cheered signs of the jet engine maker’s post-pandemic recovery.Shares in the company soared by more than 10% on Monday, sending its stock to its highest level since the early weeks of the Covid crisis in March 2020, after the company announced the sale of its Spanish ITP Aero unit to a consortium led by the US private equity firm Bain Capital. Continue reading...

Value of UK energy firm, which has taken on customers from collapsed rivals, put at $4.6bnOctopus Energy, which has been taking on customers from collapsed rival suppliers, has secured up to $600m (£438m) from an investment fund set up by the former US vice-president Al Gore.Generation Investment Management (GIM), a $36bn fund manager that finances businesses focused on sustainability and tackling climate change, will take a stake of up to 13% in a deal that values Octopus at $4.6bn. Continue reading...

Sheriff’s deputy violated free speech protections when he asked Amyiah Cohoon, 16, to remove post about virus that ‘upset’ parentsA federal judge ruled that a Wisconsin sheriff violated free speech protections guaranteed by the first amendment when he asked a teen to remove an Instagram post about Covid-19 that “upset” local parents in March last year.Related: How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn’t be surprised Continue reading...

The pragmatic chancellor’s departure will be a turning point not only for Germany but also the EUDuring a farewell tour of European heads of state and government this summer, Angela Merkel went to see the Queen. The few filmed minutes of her arrival in Windsor are irresistible. On one side, the Queen in a green floral dress, her smile controlled by centuries of code and tradition. On the other, a shy-seeming woman in trousers and purple jacket, nodding her head too many times, trying to observe the correct rituals for greeting a monarch. Elizabeth and Angela: two opposite worlds, two entirely different functions, and yet, similarities. Those boring speeches no one dares to make any more. That style, that calm, that stability and that way of embodying their countries.Merkel now embodies more than Germany; she embodies Europe. She’s a pop icon, who has entered our consciousness like a song. Mugs, T-shirts and even lemon squeezers are sold in her image. But her rise and longevity remain a mystery. How could this woman, so strangely indifferent to the trappings of power, take over a party held for half a century by conservative males, and then be elected four times in a row to lead one of the world’s great powers? How did she become such a role model that a schoolboy once asked her in all innocence: “Can a boy also become chancellor?” Continue reading...

Congresswoman tweets response to bizarre insult before telling CBS how she plans to fight Trumpists in re-election battleOne of the less dignified spats in US politics has rumbled onwards as the Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney responded to a bizarre insult from Donald Trump.Related: ‘He knows he lost’: Georgia Republican opposes Trump before rally in Perry Continue reading...

We shouldn’t be surprised by low vaccine rates, health researchers say. Plus the 21 biggest style tribes of 2021Since the first coronavirus vaccines were approved, the US bought enough to inoculate the entire population, and even potentially embark on a round of booster shots, but health professionals have found an essential element to a successful vaccination campaign has been lacking: trust.That low confidence has garnered the US an unenviable distinction – in mid-September it became the least vaccinated member of the world’s seven most populous and wealthy democracies, or G7, which includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Continue reading...

The best images from the three days of competition at Whistling Straits as Europe suffered a record defeat against a young Team US Continue reading...

Working from home has made life easier for many people. But easier or more convenient working conditions shouldn’t come at a cost to workers; they should simply be a part of good corporate practiceAfter months of remote work, many Americans are less than thrilled at the prospect of returning to the office. Despite the efforts of many employers and government officials to bring people back into the physical workplace, the last thing many employees who are at home want to do is start commuting again.What is surprising, though, is just how much some workers are willing to surrender to their employers in order to keep the remote work arrangement going. A recent GoodHire study found that 61% of survey respondents would be willing to take a pay cut to maintain remote working status. Seventy percent of those surveyed also said that they would forfeit benefits like health insurance, paid time off and retirement accounts in order to keep working remotely. Continue reading...

Basketball players were among those who campaigned to remove Donald Trump from office. But clear injustices in America still remain“We want fair treatment for Haitian refugees”.Those are the words NBA hall of famer Dikembe Mutombo used when I asked him about the Haitian refugees being brutalized and subject to mass deportations at the US-Mexico border. It’s a statement that shouldn’t need any more explanation in a country that once said: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. Continue reading...

In ‘canned’ hunts, captive animals are shot for meat and trophies but ranchers say they need to make money and exotic animals offer a steady revenueIn the rolling expanse of rural west Texas, a Southern white rhinoceros named Killian has learned to come when he’s called. Killian stands there like a big fat puppy, hoping someone will dare to pet him. He and his rhino companion, Sebastian, like rubdowns far better than treats.We are standing on Ox Ranch, a more than 18,000-acre property in Texas crawling with exotic animals. Some are gunned down by paying guests for trophies. Others, like Killian and Sebastian, live here just for show. There are an estimated 8,000 animals on the land – but if CEO Jason Molitor has to pick his favorites, it’s the two rhinos. Continue reading...

The Pittsburgh Steelers hoped the quarterback’s experience and savvy would be enough for one final playoff run. That theory looks seriously misguidedThe only thing more painful than moving on from a franchise quarterback too quickly is holding on to one too long.Three weeks into the season, it has become painfully clear that the Pittsburgh Steelers miscalculated in bringing back Ben Roethlisberger for one final ride. The future Hall of Famer is well and truly cooked. And now the Steelers, who are 1-2 after losing to the Bengals on Sunday, are staring down the prospect of finishing last in their division for the first time since 1988. Continue reading...

Low vaccine rates may be the predictable outcome subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s, health researchers sayDr Claudia Fegan’s patient was a congenial, articulate and unvaccinated 27-year-old deli worker who contracted Covid-19 and became so ill he required at-home oxygen treatments.Now recuperating, he told his doctor his 64-year-old boss had been vaccinated, and she too was sickened with a “breakthrough” case. However, she only had mild symptoms. Continue reading...

I am the daughter of a former Afghan president. I am sharing my story for the first time because I see history repeating itself