As the west begins to get the virus under control, gaping global inequalities are exposedRich countries have administered more doses of Covid vaccine than the size of their populations – an average of 105 doses per 100 people. In low-income countries, that figure is just two per 100 people. It is a disparity that is likely to define the post-pandemic world.There has been much discussion about the inequalities that Covid has exposed both within nations and between them. Paradoxically, though, it is now that we are beginning to get the virus under control that inequalities may become most exposed. Continue reading...
The chaotic evacuation has dented the president’s image of empathy and competence but political attacks may have limited shelf lifeFor Republicans it was a day of thoughts and prayers – and political opportunity.Related: Kabul airport atrocity offers a glimpse of the chaos to come in Afghanistan Continue reading...
Attacks on mask mandates expose children to Covid. Attacks on the teaching of history expose them to dangerous ignoranceMy granddaughter will go to school next week. So may your child or grandchild. For many, it will be their first time back in classrooms in a year and a half.Related: On Covid and climate we can achieve change – but we’re running out of time | Robert Reich Continue reading...
Nearly 60 years after the I Have a Dream speech, crowds came to the capital again to protest attacks on minority rightsTheodore Dean marched in Washington DC in 1963, somewhere in the crowd behind Martin Luther King Jr. Exactly 58 years later, he decided to drive 16 hours from Alabama to do it again.Related: Will America’s latest redistricting cycle be even worse than the last? Continue reading...
A rapid Taliban takeover, a chaotic evacuation and a deadly terror attack have shaken confidence in the commander-in-chief and US leadershipJoe Biden bowed his head at the lectern, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. In his breast pocket was a card that keeps a tally of American service members who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, he knew, it would include people who died serving under him as commander-in-chief.Related: US strikes IS target in Afghanistan and warns of airport threat Continue reading...
Credit the rebel royals with seeing where power now lies. Not with the old orderThe Queen will be dead soon and with her will pass the last significant remnant of British feudalism. The future belongs to her grandson and his wife, who have judged the modern world with calculating eyes and placed the ultra-capitalist entertainment industry above old royal privilege.They cannot stop emoting. If they did, it’s not just that they would lose money as surely as a supermarket chain would lose if it closed its stores for a summer holiday. They would lose relevance. And as status is so intertwined with the business of making money in celebrity culture that you cannot separate the two, the loss would cut deeper. Continue reading...
Canadian has been dogged by bad luck since winning her first major at Flushing Meadows in 2019, but now she is back with her eye on the long termTwo years ago Bianca Andreescu seemed as if she had the tennis world in the palm of her hand. Throughout the 2019 season she emerged at the top table of the women’s tour in a unique set of circumstances. So many times she would travel to a tournament and struggle with injury along the way. Yet, despite each new setback, somehow her forward momentum never halted.In her first full year on the WTA circuit at 18 Andreescu won the Indian Wells WTA 1000 tournament as a wildcard before suffering from a five-month shoulder injury. On her return she clinched the Rogers Cup, her home event in Canada, without any match practice beforehand. In her second she upset Serena Williams in the US Open final to clinch her first major title. Continue reading...
MyPillow chief gave out election software at South Dakota event derived from Republican challenges in Colorado and MichiganRepublican efforts to question Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020 have led to voting system breaches experts say pose a risk to future elections.Copies of Dominion Voting Systems softwares used for designing ballots, configuring voting machines and tallying results were distributed at an event this month in South Dakota organized by the MyPillow chief executive, Mike Lindell, a Trump ally who has made unsubstantiated claims about last year’s election. Continue reading...
by John Brewin , Geoff Lemon and Luke Henriques-Gomes on (#5NW85)
Great Britain hoovered up the medals, winning 14 to go second in the table behind China2.00pm BSTAnd that concludes a day dripping in gold for Great Britain, on the velodrome, in the pool and on the track.Related: Rowan Crothers leads strong Australian showing in the pool Related: Husband and wife Neil and Lora Fachie each win cycling gold at ParalympicsRelated: Alison Peasgood pushes to the last in rousing finish to Paralympic triathlon1.57pm BSTThe day closes out with a fine win for ParalympicsGB over Australia in the women’s basketball, the final score 75-38. The British will face China in the quarter-finals in a couple of days. The Chinese, who have won four from four, will be a tougher proposition but that was a pretty devastating win that served as a first win for the Brits over their time-honoured rival. Continue reading...
The election is a depressing reminder that Republicans are incredibly good at finding sneaky ways to get into power and hold on to it Continue reading...
by Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies on (#5NWHT)
Two children of assassinated Senator Robert F Kennedy support California decision which may be reversedSix children of Robert F Kennedy have condemned the decision to grant parole to Sirhan Sirhan, the man who shot and killed the New York senator as he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.Related: 'Something died in America': John Lewis on Robert Kennedy's legacy Continue reading...
The task of making the prince even vaguely palatable to the public has been called ‘the rebranding job from hell’. But I’ve got a few ideasHistory is unfolding all around us. Tragedies are occurring every day. So I was very taken with a recent article addressing the most urgent issue of our time: what can be done to help Prince Andrew’s reputation? As even the staunchest royalist papers have accepted, being forced to deny sexually assaulting a minor – Virginia Giuffre, then 17 – is not a great look for a prince; an even worse one is a prince who insists he “can’t remember” meeting her, despite the inconvenient photograph of Andrew wrapping his mitt around Giuffre’s waist while Ghislaine Maxwell – currently awaiting trial for sex trafficking, a charge she denies – grins in the background, Aunt Lydia with a Cheshire cat smile. Andrew’s “friends” (his what?) insist the photo is clearly faked because “the prince has chubbier fingers”, which, as alibis go, is as ironclad as being at Pizza Express in Woking. The task of making the prince even vaguely palatable to the public is, according to the article, “the rebranding job from hell”, given that, as one strategist beadily noted, he “has no accomplishments or public admiration he can leverage, no day job he can go back to”. Treasonous talk there from the PR industry, and yet not even the Queen could defend her favourite child against any of it.There is another problem for Andrew’s PR, aside from sheer uselessness, personal unlikability and general idiocy that have wafted off him for most of his adult life. It’s that he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. This has been a lifelong problem. When interviewed in 2017 , he was asked about his various “gaffes”, which included allegedly giving Maxwell and – naturally! – Kevin Spacey a tour of Buckingham Palace and allowing them to sit on thrones; inviting Maxwell and later convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and – but of course! – Harvey Weinstein to his daughter Beatrice’s 18th birthday party; selling his house to the Kazakh oligarch, Timur Kulibayev, for £3m over the asking price, which seemed strangely generous of the buyer, given it had been on the market for years. The prince, as per, denies he has done anything wrong. Continue reading...
People can use cellphones to catch a slew of skin conditions but questions of accuracy and biases in algorithm databases remainIn a video, 30-year-old Stacey Everson tells the story of how she picked up her phone, snapped a selfie, and saved her own life. She might have easily overlooked the small, irregular mole on her upper left arm. But prompted by friends and family, she took a picture of the growth with an app named SkinVision, and followed up on the app’s recommendation that she see a doctor, urgently. The doctor removed and tested the growth. “A week later, it came back positive for early-stage melanoma,” she says. “Something like that, I wouldn’t have thought it would be cancer.”Her testimonial is one of several on the product’s website, and SkinVision is only one of several such artificial intelligence (AI)-based apps that aim to help anyone with a smartphone catch a slew of skin diseases – including lethal cancers – earlier than ever. The latest entrant is Google’s Derm Assist, a tool that aims to help users detect more than 288 common skin conditions. Almost 10bn internet users search for terms related to skin conditions each year, says Peggy Bui, a product manager at Google. Continue reading...
When friends and family disagree about getting vaccinated, close ties can fray. Some siblings have even stopped talking to each otherMegan, a 30-year-old from rural Nebraska, feels torn. She hasn’t been vaccinated against Covid-19, but if left to her own devices, things would be different. She worries about what would happen if she caught the virus and passed it on to her toddler daughter, whose history of health complications includes hospitalization for lung problems. Megan feels a responsibility to protect her child. But she also doesn’t want to keep secrets from her husband – who, along with his mother, is adamantly against the vaccine for political reasons. (All names in this story have been changed.)As she figures out how to protect herself and her daughter without inciting major family conflict, Megan admits that her husband’s reliance on conspiracy theories he learns from like-minded friends or social media posts has made it difficult to trust him. Especially now. Continue reading...
Disasters have forced many families to question whether living in the region can continue as the climate crisis intensifiesMegan Brown’s family has stewarded several ranches in and along California’s northern Sierra Nevada for six generations.But in the last four years, the Browns have faced unprecedented challenges. Four different wildfires have touched the family’s ranches in Oroville and Indian Valley. Smoke has killed some of their animals. Years of drought have ravaged their lands. Continue reading...
Tens of thousands in US face evacuation orders as storm makes first landfall in Cuba, sparking fears of floods and mudslidesHurricane Ida rapidly gained strength on Friday evening as communities in southern Louisiana braced for a major category 4 storm with sustained winds of about 140mph and tens of thousands of residents were placed under mandatory evacuation orders.The hurricane is due to make landfall in the US on Sunday, with officials warning of a “life-altering storm”. The cities of New Orleans and Lafayette, as well as the state capital, Baton Rouge, are under threat from Ida, which is forecast to reach the US somewhere between the parishes of Terrebone and St Mary, slightly west of New Orleans. Continue reading...
Biden administration divided over whether Chinese laboratory incident was source of diseaseThe US intelligence community failed to resolve sharp debate within the Biden administration over whether a Chinese laboratory incident was the source of Covid-19, US officials said in a report summary on Friday.The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to Joe Biden’s request, said a satisfying answer to the question of how a virus that has killed 4.6 million people worldwide started remained out of reach. Continue reading...
Stuart Scheller criticised ‘perceived ineptitude’ of US senior leadership in social media postA US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who posted a video demanding accountability from military leaders over the evacuation of Afghanistan has been relieved of his duties and will leave US service, the Marines and the officer involved said on Friday.Stuart Scheller posted his video to Facebook and LinkedIn on Thursday, the day 13 US service members, 11 of them Marines, and reportedly as many as 170 Afghans, were killed in a suicide bomb attack at the airport in Kabul. Continue reading...
For too long we’ve been shortsighted, mistaking our cleverness for wisdom. Now, it’s time for politics to take a longer viewShortly before he died in 2007, the celebrated American novelist, iconoclast and second world war veteran Kurt Vonnegut gave a final interview. “My country is in ruins,” he said. “I’m a fish in a poisoned fishbowl.” Vonnegut was 84, and sounded razor sharp as he spoke about inequality and political shortsightedness, adding that in the history of the United States “one thing that no cabinet has ever had is a Secretary of the Future, and there are no plans at all for my children and grandchildren.”“Why should I care about future generations?” asked the comedian Groucho Marx. “What have they ever done for me?” Continue reading...
Two Los Angeles men allege David Dempsey had used the same tactics to assault them during protests five months earlierWhen David Dempsey was arrested in California on Thursday and charged with attacking police officers defending the US Capitol on 6 January, local activists in Los Angeles were not surprised.Federal prosecutors have accused 34-year-old Dempsey of striking police at the Capitol with improvised weapons, including a crutch and a pole, and spraying them with a chemical agent, according to the criminal complaint against him. Continue reading...
The Caldor fire continued its slow march toward the Lake Tahoe resort region on Friday. If the fire continues its path, fire crews plan to make a stand at Echo Summit, a mountain pass where US Route 50 begins its descent toward Lake Tahoe.The fire has been the nation’s top firefighting priority because of its proximity to Lake Tahoe, a popular tourist destination that is home to thousands
by Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent on (#5NVY3)
Fears grow of exit from New York’s exchanges after reports suggest Beijing will place new restrictions on seeking foreign investmentSome of China’s most valuable public companies could abandon their American stock listings within months, experts have warned, after reports emerged that Beijing is planning a wider crackdown on tech companies going public overseas.The development means that more than $2tn (£1.5tn) of capital invested in the US shares of Chinese companies could be at risk. Continue reading...
Fire, which is 12% contained, has consumed more than 143,900 acres and destroyed 469 homesThe Caldor fire continued its slow march toward the Lake Tahoe resort region on Friday, as crews worked in rugged terrain to hold the lines of the blaze.Winds and temperatures are expected to pick up in coming days while humidity drops, adding to the challenges faced by firefighters working in the dense Sierra Nevada forest. Continue reading...
After a Richie Tenenbaum-like unravelling on and off the track, it’s fair to wonder whether the American sprint star will be remembered more for running her mouth than running at allMujinga Kambundji. Javianne Oliver. Barbara Pierre. They are but a sampling of the women who have brought up the rear in the 100m dash at the Prefontaine Classic in recent years. If those names are news to you, it’s probably because the TV networks tend not to go out of their way to spotlight the biggest losers.The notable exception of course came during last Saturday’s edition of the Pre, a hotly anticipated Diamond League showcase that would mark the return of Sha’Carri Richardson from a monthlong, THC-triggered drug suspension that cost her a spot in the 2020 Olympics – and on the same Hayward Field where she stole hearts from Eugene to Yokohama after clocking a 10.86 to win the US trials. What’s more, Richardson would be going toe-to-toe with Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson – the fearsome Jamaican trio that locked out the 100m podium in Tokyo. Continue reading...
Judge says Governor Ron DeSantis overstepped authority by banning face-covering requirementsSchool districts in Florida may impose mask mandates, a judge said Friday, ruling that the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, overstepped his authority by issuing an executive order banning the mandates.The Leon county circuit judge John Cooper agreed with a group of parents who claimed in a lawsuit that DeSantis’ order is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. Continue reading...
• Ten children swiftly placed with close family members• US has evacuated more than 100,000 people from KabulAbout three dozen unaccompanied Afghan children have been placed in US government custody after being evacuated from Afghanistan during the hurried withdrawal in recent weeks, US officials told Reuters.The children arrived at the Kabul airport without a parent or legal guardian and were referred to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) refugee office upon arriving in the United States, according to a US official who requested anonymity to discuss internal government operations. Continue reading...
Afghanistan’s new rulers are far better equipped than the US and its allies to take the fight to the Kabul airport bombersAfter the bloodshed at Kabul airport, the grim reality for those who want to prevent Islamic State’s affiliate causing further murder and mayhem in Afghanistan is that in practice their best partner for this complex and difficult battle would be the Taliban.Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – the name is borrowed from that used by early Islamic empires to describe much of modern Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – was founded six years ago. Until this week it had been something of a failure. Though the group made early gains, these were rapidly lost as the Taliban fought back hard: they were not going to allow an upstart newcomer, particularly one largely composed of disaffected former Taliban commanders, Pakistanis and Uzbeks, to take over. Continue reading...
by Geoff Lemon, Luke Henriques-Gomes and David Tindal on (#5NTT7)
The sport continued in Tokyo with plenty of medals up for grabs3.13pm BSTRelated: Tokyo Paralympics 2020: day three – in picturesRelated: Reece Dunn and Hannah Russell give ParalympicsGB golden double in poolRelated: Kadeena Cox wins cycling gold to kick off Paralympic multisport double bidRelated: Isis Holt rewarded with Paralympic silver after rediscovering running bugRelated: Perfection from imperfection: Paralympics are showing you can still find a way | Ade AdepitanRelated: Paralympic organisers under fire after extreme heat delays wheelchair tennis2.27pm BSTAnd that’s it for another day. Some fantastic action again and we’ll be back tomorrow to see more history made. Will Bayley’s semi-final is tomorrow by the way. Thanks for reading and I’ll leave you with the current medal table.Related: Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games: full medal table Continue reading...
Tina Tchen quits after revelations that group’s leaders advised ex-governor’s administration after he was accused of misconductThe chief executive of the sexual harassment victims’ advocacy group Time’s Up resigned Thursday amid outrage over revelations that its leaders advised former New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration after he was first accused of misconduct last year.Related: Cuomo resigns: how governor went from Covid hero to furious downfall Continue reading...
No man has won a calendar grand slam in the three-surface era but the world No 1’s assurance in five-set matches is astoundingPerhaps the clearest measure of Novak Djokovic’s greatness, as he prepares for the most significant shot he will ever have at winning tennis’s ultimate achievement, the calendar grand slam, is that he has already achieved a near equivalent feat.Djokovic’s run of four consecutive grand slam titles between Wimbledon in 2015 and the French Open a year later already stands alone as one of the sport’s greatest ever achievements. Before him, no man had won four grand slams in a row since Rod Laver in 1969. No other man in history has ever held all four majors at once since they were split across three surfaces. Continue reading...
From relying on outsourced contractors to failing to tackle corruption, the west’s military presence was not fit for purposeThe images plastered across our screens in recent days of Afghan civilians at Hamid Karzai airport desperately trying to flee the country, as well as the bombing on Thursday, have been heartbreaking. And, for me, slightly surreal. I lived in that airport while serving as a soldier in the British army.Watching the scenes of chaos on the tarmac, my first thought was for the civilians who worked inside the airport. I spent many afternoons after work sitting in the Afghan-owned Istanbul Cafe, a ramshackle building of several floors that overlooked the airfield, drinking the strong coffee prepared by woman and men I came to know and respect. Their journey into work every morning was 10 times as dangerous as anything I ever did in Kabul. They ran the gauntlet on bicycles while we took shelter inside armoured vehicles. I cannot help but wonder: are they safe? Did they get out? Continue reading...
by Terry Greene Sterling in Miami, Arizona on (#5NV5R)
The state is poised to ban mandates next month – even as the threat to young children growsSherry Dorathy has long lived in Miami, Arizona, a small, once prosperous copper mining town tucked behind rugged hills and wind-carved rock formations.A former special education teacher, she’s now the gentle-voiced superintendent of the Miami Unified school district 40. The district, like at least 13 others in the Grand Canyon state, requires students and staffers to wear masks indoors amid Arizona’s dangerous new surge of Covid-19 spurred by the Delta variant. Continue reading...
A double suicide-bomb attack at Kabul airport killed 13 US troops and 72 Afghan civilians. Islamic State has claimed responsibilityGood morning.The pace of evacuation flights out of Kabul accelerated today after a double suicide-bomb attack that killed 13 US troops and 72 Afghans – the deadliest day for US troops in more than a decade. Continue reading...
The majority of Americans support the withdrawal from Afghanistan. That’s why his approval ratings will bounce back in the long-runPresident Biden’s decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, and the country’s nearly immediate fall to the Taliban, has created the first major public relations crisis of his presidency. This crisis further deteriorated on Thursday, with the Islamic State bombing at Kabul airport, which claimed the lives of at least 12 American soldiers.Elite opinion in both parties has been decidedly against his decision to withdraw and he has received intense and sustained negative media coverage for the first time as president. The airport blast will only make this worse. As a result, Biden’s formerly stable approval rating has dropped precipitously and now sits just barely above water. Biden has hit a crisis that looks like it could sink his presidency, but he is right to dismiss his critics and stay the course, both morally and politically. Continue reading...
Former players such as Martin Jenkins fought for their fellow athletes’ right to make money from their names. But salaries could be even more valuableFor Martin Jenkins and other members of the 2014 Clemson Tigers football team, it was a simple rallying cry, but others saw a financial opportunity. The three-word phrase – “We too deep” – began as an internal mantra, chanted by players in the locker room and on the sidelines, but it took on a life of its own when Jenkins transformed it into a song. He bought a camera off Craigslist and coaxed a handful of his teams to help him produce a music video.“It was just something I did on a whim, but it ended up blowing up,” Jenkins, who was a four-year defensive back at Clemson and is now an insurance agent in Atlanta, told the Guardian. Continue reading...
Whether it is claimed to be haunted or was the site of a murder, a building with an unsavoury past can be a problem for buyersIn Boston’s Little Italy, where tourists juggle coffee and cannoli, there is a 10ft-wide monument to revenge on the market that could be yours for $1.2m.It’s a spite house. Continue reading...
Analysis: With little sign of big ideas or ambitious proposals, some analysts say vice-president’s trip reflects how little the administration is investing in the regionIn October 2013, as the former US president Barack Obama had to cancel his four-nation tour of south-east Asia due to the congressional impasse at home, China’s president Xi Jinping, instead, made the news headlines across the region.On that trip to Indonesia, Xi proposed to set up an Asian infrastructure investment bank to support the region’s “connectivity”. He and his Indonesian counterpart, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, also announced $32bn of trade and investment deals. Then in Malaysia, Xi and the prime minister, Najib Razak, vowed to strengthen military ties and triple bilateral trade to $160bn by 2017. Continue reading...
The president said the US would 'hunt down' those responsible for the attack on the international airport in Kabul in which more than 60 people were killed, including 12 US military personnel.Biden said the evacuation of Americans and others from Afghanistan would continue after two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans near the airport on Thursday
