South Carolinian tells Fox News ‘Everybody wants to be on President Trump’s bandwagon, without any question’
The only Black Republican in the Senate, Tim Scott of South Carolina, has indicated a willingness to be Donald Trump’s running mate should the former president mount another White House campaign.
Asked by Fox News if he would consider joining a Trump ticket in 2024, Scott said: “Everybody wants to be on President Trump’s bandwagon, without any question.”
Continue reading...Monarch, 95, experiencing ‘mild cold-like symptoms’ but expects to continue carrying out light duties
The Queen has tested positive for Covid-19, ahead of the expected ending of all coronavirus restrictions in England in the coming days.
Buckingham Palace said the monarch, 95, was experiencing “mild cold-like symptoms” but expected to continue carrying out light duties this week.
Continue reading...Francesca Tardioli, 56, was found dead outside her house in Foligno, Umbria
The Italian ambassador to Australia has died after falling from a balcony in her home town in Foligno in the Umbria region.
According to reports, Ambassador Francesca Tardioli, 56, was found dead outside her house after apparently falling from the third floor. The incident is being investigated by the police in Italy.
Continue reading...Border regions appear unprepared for hundreds of people arriving from separatist-controlled areas in Ukraine
The first stop for Ella Fyodorova after she fled her home in eastern Ukraine was a windblown tent camp just across the Russian border, part of a mass evacuation effort that observers fear may become the pretext for Russia to launch a formal intervention in Ukraine.
“I wanted to stay, but my husband came home, and said: ‘Get your things together, we’re going,’” she said as she wrestled her two-year-old son into a blue snowsuit to walk to the public toilets nearby.
Continue reading...‘Has the world forgotten its mistakes of the 20th century?’ asks Volodymyr Zelenskiy as invasion looms
Just 20 minutes walk from the ornate Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where world leaders gathered this weekend for the Munich security conference, lies No 12 Arcisstrasse, the shuttered brown ornamental building known as the Führerbau.
On a cold grey Sunday morning, the building, now temporarily closed and in disrepair, has a forbidding air. Near the steps at the front is a small plaque with the bare inscription in German, Czech and Slovak: “In this building, on 29 September, 1938, the Munich agreement was signed, which led to the smashing of the Czechoslovak republic.”
Continue reading...Police pushed back protesters in Canada’s besieged capital on Saturday, arresting 170 people and towing away dozens of vehicles. Many more trucks were driven out of the city, raising authorities’ hopes for an end to the three-week protest against the country’s Covid restrictions. Police in tactical gear quickly gained ground on the second full day of one of the biggest police enforcement actions in Canada’s history, for which officers were drawn in from around the country
Continue reading...Large parts of area in capital cleared after more than 191 are arrested and 57 vehicles are towed
When thousands of protesters against Covid restrictions arrived in Ottawa last month, it would have seemed unimaginable that they would take over parts of the Canadian capital with little resistance.
To their own disbelief, the rightwing protesters soon controlled the streets outside parliament, brazenly flouting the law in the belief nothing could or would stop them.
Continue reading...‘We are not punishing the Taliban, we are making it worse for the people,’ says former UK foreign secretary
The west has inflicted catastrophic damage on Afghanistan and its own reputation by imposing a policy of starvation on the country, according to David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee.
“If we wanted to create a failed state we could not have a more effective policy mix than the one we have at the moment,” he told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Video footage shows Ukrainian officials, soldiers and foreign journalists running away from what appeared to be shelling as they visited the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on Saturday. David Arakhamia, the faction leader of the ruling Servant of the People party, said the group drove to an 'observational outpost' in the Donetsk region and took shelter when it came under fire by '120mm calibre ammunition'. The group had to be evacuated to a shelter, the spokeswoman for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's party said on Saturday
Continue reading...The global pandemic sparked a huge superhuman effort to control coronavirus. But the billions spent have also had an unexpected impact on medicine and science
When Tom Pooley, 21, became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against plague as part of a medical trial last summer after tests on mice, he was inspired by the thought that his involvement could help to rid the world of one of the most brutal killers in human history.
“They made it quite clear I was the first human to receive it,” says Pooley, a radiotherapy engineering student. “They didn’t dress it up, but they made it clear it was as safe as possible. There are risks, but they are talented people: it’s a big honour to be the first.” The single-shot, based on the Chadox technology developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group and AstraZeneca, took less than five seconds to painlessly administer, he says. That night, he felt a little unwell, but he was fine within three hours; and the small trial continued apace to combat the centuries-old bacteria threat, which killed 171 in Madagascar as recently as 2017. It uses a weakened, genetically altered version of a common-cold virus from chimpanzees.
Continue reading...EU capitals concerned UK is not ensuring identity of real estate owners known in event of sanctions
Britain has frustrated its EU allies and weakened the west’s financial threat to the Kremlin by failing to close a loophole that will ensure London real estate remains a safe haven for Russian money, according to diplomatic sources in Brussels.
New legislation, described as the “toughest ever” by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, gives the UK government powers to freeze the assets of individuals linked to the Russian state in the event of an invasion of Ukraine but fails to “capture” property owned via anonymous offshore structures.
Continue reading...World sympathy and legal balance shifting to Mauritian claim to islands
Standing in the hospital room where she gave birth to her first child, Rosemonde Bertin looked around in despair. The roof had collapsed, trees grew through the floor and a rusting, enamelled bedpan lay half concealed by ferns.
“I had my baby here,” Bertin said. “He was born in 1972.” That was shortly before everyone on Salomon atoll was forcibly deported by the British to Mauritius and Seychelles.
Continue reading...Senator Angus King urges US trade representative to press Beijing to live up to promise to increase spending on tasty crustaceans
China has failed to live up to its promise to buy more Maine lobster under a deal that opened the door to an easing of a trade war under Donald Trump, Maine’s congressional leaders say.
Maine’s lobster industry was hurt by retaliatory Chinese tariffs in 2018 but failed to see substantial export gains after China committed to buying an additional $200bn in US goods, the delegation contends.
Continue reading...Western governments have expressed solidarity with Volodymyr Zelenskiy but behind scenes there has been exasperation
When Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought to become Ukraine’s president he stood on a platform of peace. Zelenskiy promised to sit down with Vladimir Putin and to reach a deal with Russia. He would end the unpopular war in the east and concentrate on important domestic reforms. These included ridding the country of corruption and oligarchs.
The plan didn’t work out. Nearly three years after winning a landslide victory, Zelenskiy is a president on the brink of war. About 190,000 Russian troops are poised on Ukraine’s borders. The US president, Joe Biden, has warned of an attack on Kyiv. A Kremlin military offensive – whether full-scale or more limited in scope – seems likely, possibly within hours or days.
Continue reading...Police chief says ‘occupation is over’ as he vows to clear out those still demonstrating against Covid mandates and Trudeau government
Canadian police deployed pepper spray and stun grenades on Saturday in a continuing effort to break up a blockade of trucks and demonstrators that has occupied downtown Ottawa for more than three weeks in a protest against pandemic protocols.
Reports indicated that authorities escalated crowd control efforts. Police with rifles reportedly approached protesters and smashed truck windows.
Continue reading...Trump Organization has held discussions with Saudi-backed body, Washington Post reports
US golf courses owned by Donald Trump could host events in a hugely controversial new league funded by Saudi Arabia, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Citing three anonymous sources, the newspaper said courses in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Doral, Florida, could host events after discussions between the Trump Organization and LIV Golf Investments, a body funded by the Saudis.
Continue reading...In divided Luhansk, residents have lived in the shadow of conflict for years. But now the shells are getting louder and closer
Raisa Malashenko was trundling her rusty bicycle, laden with bags of food, through the centre of Stanytsia Luhanska on Saturday afternoon. The 81-year-old did not flinch as booms of artillery sounded in the distance.
Her five children have all left this frontline town, some for Russia and others for safer parts of Ukraine. “It’s just me and my cow now,” she said mournfully.
Continue reading...From Castlepoint to the Mātakitaki river, New Zealanders are in awe of the natural world around them. As part of the my wild place series, Guardian readers pay tribute to a special place in nature
I’m not sure where Ōtepoti Dunedin’s Middle Beach ends and St Kilda begins but we park close to the muralled surf club, on the road that was closed for a month in 2021 so a mother sea lion and her pup could have safe passage from the golf course to the beach. We head right, away from the glitz, the groynes, the sand sausages, the coffee shop chic and the actual good surfers at St Clair beach.
Continue reading...Librino’s amateur players have to guard their new pitch and facilities every night – but it’s worth it to keep children out of the clutches of Cosa Nostra
Gloria Mertoli’s shift is over when the first light of dawn shines on the goalposts of a rugby pitch in the Librino district of Catania, a stronghold of the Cosa Nostra, the feared Sicilian mafia. Since mobsters torched the clubhouse and team bus, she and other players on the women’s rugby team, Briganti Librino RUFC, have taken turns to stay after evening practice and guard the area overnight.
Since the club started working to take children – easy targets for mafia recruitment – off the streets of Librino, the clans have tried to put it out of business. “Librino is a complex neighbourhood,” Piero Mancuso, one of the founders of the Briganti, told the Observer. “We knew it wouldn’t be easy to work here. These criminal attacks risked destroying everything we had achieved in recent years. But if I look at what we have done so far, I can say that these attacks have made us stronger.”
Continue reading...Wall Street Journal says regulator could authorize fourth shots of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by the fall
US health regulators are looking at authorizing a potential fourth dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in the fall, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been reviewing data to authorize a second booster dose of vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna, the report added.
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