This week’s revelations around NSO’s Pegasus snooping software is an argument for an immediate moratorium on trade in the technologyThe Israeli surveillance company NSO Group has created, developed and sold hacking software, known as Pegasus, that covertly allows access to mobile devices. Once it gains access, via hitherto unknown flaws in everyday apps, the code can extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones. Such is their ubiquity that mobile phones offer a window into our souls. What spyware, like that hawked by NSO, provides is access to our most intimate secrets.One might have thought those peddling such intrusive powers would have imposed onerous responsibilities. NSO says that it only sells its software to vetted government clients to prevent “terrorism and serious crime”. Unfortunately, that does not appear to have been the case. And it’s not just NSO. Instead, an unregulated global industry has grown up in the shadows to provide cheap spying tools that were once the preserve of the most advanced state intelligence services. Continue reading...

The silence of shutdown can be consuming, frightening. Living in the now, while sounding like cliched psychobabble, is all that is left to us“How’re you going?”It’s our standard greeting, and we don’t really expect a considered reply. Continue reading...

Flotation follows rise in young people joining, often buying meme stocks such as GameStopRobinhood, the US trading app at the centre of the buzz surrounding meme stocks such as GameStop and the cinema company AMC, and cryptocurrencies such as dogecoin, is hoping to float on the New York stock market at a valuation of up to $35bn (£26bn).The online brokerage, which states its mission is to “democratise” investing, revealed the details of its initial public offering plans in a stock market filing on Monday, setting the stage for one of the most highly anticipated IPOs of the year. Continue reading...

State representative Gene Wu says they have ‘little to no symptoms, which is the point of the vaccine’Two more Texas lawmakers who left their state to hobble efforts to pass voting restrictions have tested positive for the coronavirus, raising to five the number of infected people in the delegation.Related: ‘​​I think it kicked ass’: how Texas Democrats fought for voting rights by fleeing the state Continue reading...

The prime minister has taken potentially one of the most costly peacetime gambles in history. Judge him on how that goesShould we sympathise with the prime minister? This week, as he puts an end to Covid restrictions in England, he faces the biggest challenge of his two years in office, with belligerent scientists on one side and belligerent economists on the other. Politics must decide the winner, and Boris Johnson’s style of government is unsuited to decision. His innate indecisiveness was exposed at the weekend by uncertainty over whether to exploit a “pilot testing scheme” to avoid Covid quarantine, before following the lead of his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and performing a U-turn.Since 2020, Johnson has been sorely tried by apparent misfortune. He has experienced serious illness, a painful divorce, financial worries, the resignation or stepping down of his chancellor, health secretary, the leader of his civil service, and the head of his political staff. His leadership was never suited to collective government. It is egomaniacal, based on charm, fumbling, humour and an addiction to publicity – all handicapped by his relationship with truth which is as dysfunctional as his relationships with women. Continue reading...

Wisconsin employee Marlo Spaeth wins discrimination lawsuit but Walmart says amount will be reduced to $300,000A jury in federal court in Wisconsin ordered Walmart to pay $125m in punitive damages to a former employee with Down’s syndrome in a disability discrimination lawsuit, US employment officials announced.Related: US justice department charges four Chinese nationals in Microsoft Exchange hack – live Continue reading...

Finding will alarm Democrats aiming to hold on to their narrow control of the US House and Senate in 2022Political polls regarding US elections in 2020 overstated Democratic support “across the board”, US political scientists found, while understating support for Republicans and Donald Trump.Related: Michael Wolff: Murdoch hates Trump but loves Fox News money more Continue reading...

New Jersey has banned use of the whip for encouragement but incident in Saturday’s race showed it does not guarantee safetyThe stretch run in the Grade One Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park, New Jersey on Saturday was packed with drama and excitement in equal measure.Hot Rod Charlie and Mandaloun, the favourite and second-favourite respectively, made their moves off the turn and were locked in a duel from over a furlong out, but Hot Rod Charlie edged left halfway down the stretch and crossed in front of Midnight Bourbon, who clipped heels and fell. Continue reading...

Whistling Straits may suit Pádraig Harrington’s team and Jon Rahm is world No 1 but there are eight Americans in the top 10Predicting the outcome of a Ryder Cup based on preceding major championships can be an ill-advised process. Francesco Molinari had just won the Open when Europe hosted the US in Paris three years ago but the visitors were firm favourites by virtue of six major wins from the previous eight. The Europeans duly prevailed comprehensively.Pádraig Harrington, Europe’s Ryder Cup captain, looked concerned enough with his playing of the Open’s closing 36 holes in four over par long before Collin Morikawa lifted the Claret Jug on Sunday. Harrington would never say this publicly – even if Europe tend to revel in the role of underdog for the biennial joust – but the nature of Morikawa’s latest triumph looked ominous in respect of Whistling Straits in September. The 24-year-old sits atop the US Ryder Cup qualification table. Jon Rahm, the US Open champion, has returned to No 1 in the world but eight Americans and a South African complete the top 10. Stars and stripes sit alongside 14 of the top 20. Continue reading...

In book, Wolff says that Murdoch personally approved network’s early call of Arizona, which signalled Trump’s defeatMichael Wolff, the author of Landslide and two other bestselling books about the Trump administration, has claimed Rupert Murdoch “hates” Donald Trump.Related: Landslide review: Michael Wolff’s third Trump book is his best – and most alarming Continue reading...

European markets drop, with UK’s FTSE 100 down by 1.9%, and it follows a slide in Asia overnight

Transfer of Abdullatif Nasser suggests Biden is making efforts to reduce population, which now stands at 39The Biden administration has transferred a detainee out of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility for the first time, sending a Moroccan man home years after he was recommended for discharge.Related: Ex-Guantánamo detainee at risk of torture if forced to return to Russia, say experts Continue reading...

Brazil’s rainforest stores a huge amount of CO2. As it’s released at record rates, we may have passed a tipping pointThe Amazon acts as a vital organ for our entire planet. The largest rainforest in the world, it provides an important function to both the Earth’s water and carbon cycles. The region, home to abundant and highly diverse species and ecosystems, houses more than 390bn trees. These have an exceptional capacity to recycle water by pumping it from the soil back up into the atmosphere, but also play a crucial role in storing carbon: the Amazon forest stores an amount of carbon equivalent to two to three times all the CO2 emitted by the UK since 1750. When trees die, either by natural causes or deforestation, this carbon can return to the atmosphere.Related: Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs Continue reading...

A new reparations program will compensate survivors of prison system sterilizations and the 20th century eugenics campaignIt wasn’t until years after Kelli Dillon went into surgery while incarcerated in the California state prison system that she realized her reproductive capacity had been stripped away without her knowledge.In 2001, at the age of 24, she became one of the most recent victims in a history of forced sterilizations in California that stretches back to 1909 and served as an inspiration for Nazi Germany’s eugenics program. Continue reading...

A Guardian investigation shows activists and many others around the globe ended up on governmental surveillance lists thanks to the dangerous software that threatens democracy

Simone Biles will be the face of the Games but there are plenty of other Team USA members who will thrill with their skills in JapanAge: 32 Continue reading...

Journalist, author and historian who knew both President John F Kennedy and his alleged assassin Lee Harvey OswaldPriscilla Johnson McMillan, who has died aged 92 after a fall, was the only person who could claim to have known both President John F Kennedy and his alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. As a young college graduate, Johnson was befriended by Senator Kennedy while she worked in his office; a few years later she interviewed the young Oswald soon after he showed up in Moscow wishing to defect to the Soviet Union.After the assassination, Johnson was given exclusive access to Oswald’s Russian widow, Marina, and her ensuing book, Marina and Lee (1977), became a key document in establishing Oswald as a lone disturbed assassin. It also prompted many researchers to point to Johnson’s close ties to the US intelligence community, not least when she received similarly exclusive access to Joseph Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, when she defected to the US, and worked with her through translating her bestselling 1967 memoir Twenty Letters to a Friend. Continue reading...

Biden may be president but Republican-controlled states are busy introducing reams of legislation that is anything but progressiveIn his inaugural address in January, Joe Biden promised to use his presidency to “restore the soul of America”. He would unite the nation, defuse “anger, resentment and hatred”, and lead Americans back to a world where they treated “each other with dignity and respect”.Six months later, Biden is still preaching the unity gospel, and regularly assures his fellow Americans that “there’s not a single thing we aren’t able to do when we do it together”. Continue reading...

Bootleg Fire, largest wildfire in US and one of at least 70 wildfires, torches more dry forest landscape in OregonThe largest wildfire in the US torched more dry forest landscape in Oregon on Sunday, one of dozens of major blazes burning across the west as critically dangerous fire weather loomed in the coming days.The destructive Bootleg Fire just north of the California border grew to more than 476 sq miles (1,210 sq km), an area about the size of Los Angeles. Continue reading...

Dozens of people have been arrested in Los Angeles following a chaotic and at times violent demonstration by anti-transgender protesters who targeted a Koreatown spa that has a trans-inclusive policy. The far-right protesters called for a boycott of Wi Spa which allows trans women to use women’s facilities. LAPD also appeared to fire rubber bullets at demonstrators from a close distance as trans rights and anti-fascist activists showed up in a counter-protest

Statue of Gen Alfred Mouton removed after United Daughters of the Confederacy signed a settlementSpectators cheered Saturday as a stone statue of a Confederate general was hoisted by a crane and removed from a pedestal where it stood for 99 years in front of a city hall in south Louisiana.The removal came a day after United Daughters of the Confederacy signed a settlement agreeing to move the statue of Gen Alfred Mouton or let the city do so. A trial had been scheduled for 26 July. Continue reading...

As I dance, it doesn’t feel like a night out – it feels like a homecomingIn 2018, upon her return from a trip to China, my roommate gifted me a pack of black surgical masks. Affixed to the plastic packaging was an explanatory note: RAVE MASKS :)I knew the look – the masks were purely aesthetic for certain ravers; dressed and masked in serious black, drifting past me at warehouse parties in New York, where I live. But it was a hard look to live up to, and my rave outfits leaned more toward sweaty efficiency, anyway. Continue reading...

Enter the labour market during a recession and you will earn less and grow risk-averseFormative experiences in life are … formative. Our parents shape our future for good and ill, affecting everything from our relationships to the jobs we do. But our prospects are also shaped by our formative economic experiences.The young have been hardest hit by this pandemic-induced downturn, following the general pattern of previous recessions. Resolution Foundation research reveals that the experience of young people entering the labour market during a downturn stays with them. They earn less for six years afterwards, compared with those starting work during a boom. Those graduating from university during the financial crisis saw their chance of working in a low-paying occupation rise by 30% and that chance remained elevated for a full seven years. Continue reading...

The Duchess of Sussex is working on a Netflix series about notable women. Here are some traps to avoidStill smarting from its reckoning in 2018, Hollywood’s new politics is starting to seep out in its products. We have had a slew of feminist films and TV series and, in particular, feminism set in the past: The Favourite, The Queen’s Gambit, Little Women, Mary Queen of Scots. Last week, the Duchess of Sussex announced she would be “celebrating extraordinary women throughout history” with her own Netflix series – about the adventures of a 12-year-old girl who meets notable women from before her time.This is of course all very welcome, yet why do so few of these titles read as feminist? Instead, turning historical events into contemporary liberal parables often seems to result in something rather unsatisfying – even unfeminist. Here are some classic pitfalls for Meghan to watch out for. Continue reading...

We imagined a gleeful summer of pandemic relief. Instead, new anxieties have replaced old onesWe were promised a Hot Vax Summer.The term – a riff on Hot Girl Summer, the hit 2019 summer single – emerged this spring as predictive shorthand for the (perhaps literally) orgiastic welcome of a post-vaccine reality. But, as might be expected of a phenomenon named for the last great summer anthem of a world before Covid-19, Hot Vax Summer connoted more than a gleeful exchange of fluids. It came to signal a best-case scenario for a time of transition. Pure celebration and best lives lived. In simplest terms, relief. Continue reading...

After Opengate Capital acquired Hufcor, a company in Janesville that ‘treated people like they were family’, it announced plans to move 166 jobs to MexicoFor most of her 36 years at the Hufcor factory in Janesville, Wisconsin, Kathy Pawluk loved working there, at least until a private-equity firm took over four years ago. There were Christmas parties and summer picnics, and workers could listen to the radio as they built accordion-style room partitions for convention centers and hotel ballrooms.“They treated people like they were family, not a number,” said Pawluk, 62. “We had the best health benefits. We had HR people who really cared about us.” Continue reading...

The country’s social contract has broken, fuelled by corruption and extreme poverty‘It feels qualitatively different this time.” There are few people I know in South Africa who don’t think this about the carnage now engulfing the nation. Violence was institutionalised during the years of apartheid. In the post-apartheid years, it has rarely been far from the surface – police violence, gangster violence, the violence of protest. What is being exposed now, however, is just how far the social contract that has held the nation together since the end of apartheid has eroded.Many aspects of the disorder are peculiar to South Africa. There are also themes with wider resonance. Events in the country demonstrate in a particularly acute fashion a phenomenon we are witnessing in different ways and in degrees of severity across the globe: the old order breaking down, with little to fill the void but sectarian movements or identity politics. Continue reading...

The rise of authoritarian regimes of the left means progressives need to re-learn lessons about freedomWho betrayed the revolution? It’s a question exercising Cubans after last week’s harsh regime crackdown on street protesters marching for freedom. It’s also a conundrum for other erstwhile liberation movements now wielding power in places as far apart as South Africa, Nicaragua and Palestine. Too often, it seems, the new bosses behave little better than the old bosses they overthrew.Those on the progressive left face an obvious dilemma when revolutionary causes backfire. In keeping with a simplistic American tradition, US president Joe Biden is busily dividing up the world into good and bad guys, democrats and autocrats. Attention has mostly focused on authoritarian rightwing leaders, as in Brazil, Belarus, Russia and Myanmar. Continue reading...

The president reset the tone from the Trump era and passed a huge Covid relief bill but other priorities have hit formidable political obstaclesAngela Merkel thrice called him “dear Joe”. He pledged unity in taking on “democratic backsliding, corruption, phony populism”. But he also warned: “If we don’t leave right now, we’re going to miss dinner” – one that included crispy sea bass, black pepper tagliatelle and kabocha squash.Joe Biden’s meeting with German chancellor last week offered comfort food for anyone nostalgic for the old global order. But as Merkel leaves the stage after 16 years, certain of her legacy as a towering figure in European politics, Biden is still striving to make his mark. Continue reading...

The water park near Houston was closed after a bleach and acid leak left patrons with minor skin irritation and respiratory issuesA chemical leak at a Houston-area water park has left dozens suffering from minor skin irritation and respiratory issues, authorities said.Twenty-nine people were taken to local hospitals on Saturday following the incident at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Splashtown in Spring, the Harris County fire marshal’s office tweeted. Thirty-nine others declined to be taken to a hospital after undergoing decontamination procedures. Continue reading...

• South African one shot ahead of Collin Morikawa

Bootleg is now the largest US forest fire at 281,208 acres and just 22% contained as ‘excessive heat’ forecastAt least 70 large wildfires are burning across the US west and nearby states – engulfing more than 1m acres in flames – as fears mount that shifting conditions can worsen an already dire situation. Significant areas of these states are in the grips of drought conditions that are considered “extreme” and “exceptional” – the most severe categories.Related: Heat exhaustion, apocalyptic scenes: what it’s like fighting the US’s biggest wildfire Continue reading...

Plenty of home players were in striking distance of the leaders but none were able to put a fluent round togetherThe tide in Sandwich Bay ran high at 5.16pm on Saturday, waves lapping in from a sapphire blue sea and bringing the boats closer to shore. It was forecast to be the highest tide of the weekend but inevitably it ran out again, and in the evening where the sea once glinted there were only pebbles and rocks.As with the tides so with the English charge some 200m inland. Sixteen golfers from the host nation made it past Friday’s cut at the Open and a number of them were in good nick. Across the duration of a sun-drenched third round, however, their fortunes ran high then ebbed away. Are dashed hopes as inevitable as the tides? Sometimes in sport it feels that way. Continue reading...

Scot held 60ft putt on the 18th at Royal St George’s from the dip where Lyle two-putted his way to the Open title in 1985

Texas federal judge’s ruling prevents government from approving new applications but doesn’t affect current recipientsJoe Biden has said the US Department of Justice intends on appealing a new court decision that effectively halts an Obama-era program aimed at protecting young immigrants from deportation.Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen on Friday deemed illegal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program. This program prevents the deportation of immigrants who were brought to the US unlawfully as children, known as “Dreamers”. Continue reading...

Our insurance covers most of it, but the extortionate prices in America’s healthcare system – and the absurd bureaucracy – boggles the mindFor the last couple of months my wife and I have been playing a quintessentially American game of Guess the Baby Bill. The rules are simple: try to guess exactly how much we would be charged for the birth of our daughter earlier this year. Last week the hospital bill finally came, putting an end to the guessing game. The cost of an uncomplicated vaginal birth? $37,617.69. Continue reading...

Outdated views of their sport frustrate professional surfers who will showcase their talent on the biggest stage if conditions allowAt the prestigious Billabong Pipeline Masters in 2019, the final event of the last completed World Surf League Championship Tour (CT) season, Italo Ferreira and Gabriel Medina emerged in the final to duel each other for the world title. It was a significant event. Paddling into the sparkling, clear waters of Oahu, Hawaii, the two most prominent Brazilian surfers of the moment faced off for the biggest prize in the sport, a reflection of both the present and possible future of surfing. Once a sport dominated by Americans and Australians in turn, Brazil has usurped both as the focal point of the men’s field today.As the competition began, it demonstrated one of the most underrated and fascinating aspects of competitive surfing. Medina, a two-time world champion, is renowned for his mental fortitude but 10 seconds into the contest, Medina tentatively backed out of the first wave as Ferreira swept forward and seized it for himself. He thundered down the side of the wave, smoothly turning at the bottom before emerging triumphant at its end. The crowd down on the beach cheered. The tone was set. Ferreira had immediately asserted himself and in the ensuing 39 minutes, an unsettled Medina was unable to perform well enough to deny him a first world title. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson’s lie that there was no need for a border in the Irish Sea may be a chance, at last, for reconciliationIf I had lost a family member on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972, I am sure I would want someone brought to justice. Nor would I care when. Indeed, though ardent about forgiveness and rehabilitation, in such a case I am sure I would want punishment. I am human, and revenge is a human emotion – though I would call it “justice”. But such justice must be subject to two limitations. One is that it should be blind and impartial; the other is that justice should to some degree be proportionate over time. Costs are relevant. Life must move on.The government’s decision this week to declare an amnesty in Northern Ireland and close down charges against the soldiers involved in Bloody Sunday was driven by such limitations. Guilt may be clear to some, but half a century has passed. Unjustified killings are not uncommon in war, not least in so-called “wars among the peoples”; witness the continuing cases against British troops in Iraq. Here the accused are old men, and convictions in such cases are hard to achieve. Continue reading...

Phoenix have taken a battering by Milwaukee in the last two games of the NBA finals. But their coach has overcome grief and adversity to get hereTime has not been kind to the Phoenix Suns. Seven days ago they appeared to be on an inexorable march toward their first championship in franchise history while slapping the Milwaukee Bucks with double-digits losses and reducing Giannis Antetokounmpo to a one-man band. But since the series migrated from Phoenix to Milwaukee, the home team hasn’t just come alive behind Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez and other supporting players; the Greek has been at his freakiest – pouring in a combined 61 points (on 60% shooting), 27 rebounds and a lead-preserving block in Game 4. Continue reading...