Katy Perry wins appeal in $2.8m plagiarism case

Judge rules against jury verdict in case over song Dark Horse, which had previously been found in favour of rapper Marcus Gray

Katy Perry has won an appeal in a copyright case involving damages of $2.8m (£2.3m).

In July 2014, Perry was accused of plagiarising the song Joyful Noise by a Christian rapper named Marcus Gray (AKA Flame), for her US No 1 hit Dark Horse, which was the second biggest-selling song worldwide that year. The songwriters sued, with Perry and her team defending themselves by saying they had never heard Joyful Noise.

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China: expulsion of US journalists was response to ‘unreasonable oppression’

Beijing defends ban of 13 journalists, which has been criticised as irresponsible during coronavirus crisis

Beijing has defended its decision to expel journalists from three major US publications, saying it was responding to “unreasonable oppression” of Chinese journalists in the US, as a diplomatic row escalates between the two countries.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, the foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing had been “compelled” to take countermeasures after Washington imposed restrictions on staff at Chinese state media outlets in the US.

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Sanders pressured to exit in push for unity against twin threats: virus and Trump

Joe Biden’s latest string of victories prompts renewed calls for senator to call it quits for the national good

For more than three years it seemed impossible to millions of Americans that anything could be more important than voting for an alternative to Donald Trump.

Yet right now the US president is no longer seen as the most pressing threat to national security. The coronavirus crisis has temporarily turned the US presidential election into a sideshow.

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Study: global banks ‘failing miserably’ on climate crisis by funneling trillions into fossil fuels

Analysis of 35 leading investment banks shows financing of more than $2.66tn for fossil fuel industries since the Paris agreement

The world’s largest investment banks have funnelled more than £2.2tn ($2.66tn) into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement, new figures show, prompting warnings they are failing to respond to the climate crisis.

The US bank JP Morgan Chase, whose economists warned that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity last month, has been the largest financier of fossil fuels in the four years since the agreement, providing over £220bn of financial services to extract oil, gas and coal.

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Biden wins Florida and Illinois primaries as he edges towards Democratic nomination – live

Bernie Sanders is not currently winning a single Florida county, underscoring the scale of Joe Biden’s victory there.

Bernie Sanders got crushed in Florida in 2016, but he still managed to win 9 counties and get 33% of the vote.

Now looks like he's not going to win single county and is just shy of 23%. pic.twitter.com/E5a4iNMKLM

Joe Biden will soon start delivering a primary-night speech after winning Florida and Illinois. (Watch his remarks here.)

Biden is hoping to pull off a sweep tonight once Arizona’s polls close in about 45 minutes.

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Coronavirus live news: number of confirmed global cases passes 200,000

Belgium goes into lockdown; EU implements strictest travel ban in history; outbreak reaches every US state. Follow the latest updates

Breaking: Nicola Sturgeon announces schools and nurseries in Scotland will close to pupils at the end of the week.

The first minister said there will be further announcements to support low income students on free school meals as well as students who have exams.

A person has died from coronavirus in Burkina Faso, the first known death from the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, writes the Guardian’s international correspondent Michael Safi.

The country, where security has been deteriorating for months due to attacks by armed groups including some linked to Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, has emerged as a hotspot in Africa, with 27 confirmed cases and at least 200 more people suspected of having the disease.

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China-US standoff escalates as Beijing expels major US media staff

New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post journalists among staff ordered to stop reporting and leave

China will expel US reporters of three major US news outlets, in a hugely damaging attack on foreign media coverage of the country – and an escalation of the showdown over the press between Washington and Beijing.

The decision, announced just after midnight Beijing time, requires US citizens working for the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal to halt reporting and hand in their press cards within 10 days, if their credentials expire before the end of 2020.

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Amazon to suspend non-essential shipments to UK and US warehouses

The company is prioritising five categories of goods which it classifies as essential products

  • Coronavirus – latest updates
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  • Online retail giant Amazon is stopping sellers from sending non-essential items to its UK and US warehouses until 5 April, to make space for vital items needed by its customers during the coronavirus outbreak.

    Amazon wrote to its third-party sellers, some of whom use the company’s logistics to store and dispatch their products, to inform them that stocks of medical supplies and certain household items are running low due to increased demand from online shoppers.

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    TikTok ‘tried to filter out videos from ugly, poor or disabled users’

    Documents from the Incercept show social media app put pressure on moderators

    TikTok moderators were told to suppress videos from users who appeared too ugly, poor or disabled, as part of the company’s efforts to curate an aspirational air in the videos it promotes, according to new documents published by the Intercept.

    The documents detail how moderators for the social video app were instructed to select content for the influential “For You” feed, an algorithmic timeline that is most users’ first port of call when they open the app. As a result, being selected for For You can drive huge numbers of views to a given video, but the selection criteria have always remained a secret, with little understanding as to the amount of automation involved.

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    Joe Biden’s pledge to pick a female vice-president smells like tokenism | Arwa Mahdawi

    Of course I want him to choose a woman as his running mate. But his grand gesture feels more like pandering than policy

    Stacey Abrams? Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Nobody knows for sure whom Joe Biden will choose as a running mate if – as is almost certain – he wins the Democratic nomination, but we do know it will be a woman.

    “I’ll pick a woman to be vice-president,” Biden promised during Sunday’s presidential debate with Bernie Sanders. “There are a number of women qualified to be president tomorrow.” While none of those eminently qualified women will be president any time soon, one lucky lady may have the privilege of playing second fiddle to a gaffe-prone white guy. To cement his position as intersectional male feminist of the year, Biden also promised to appoint an African American woman to the supreme court.

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    Coronavirus news: UK measures to last at least ‘several months’ as restrictions increased globally – live updates

    England’s deputy chief medical officer does not rule out further curbs; Ohio primary polls ordered to close; France in lockdown; WHO urges widespread testing. Follow the latest updates

    Iran has temporarily freed a total of 85,000 prisoners, including political prisoners, a spokesman for its judiciary said on Tuesday, adding that the prisons were responding to the threat of a coronavirus epidemic in jails.

    “Some 50% of those released are security-related prisoners . Also in the jails we have taken precautionary measures to confront the outbreak,” the spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.

    The #Iranian government feels it is appropriate to release 80k+ prisoners due to #Covid_19 ,including murderers&drug dealers,but continuously refuse to release the innocent political prisoners,because they hold too much value as bargaining chips #freeanoosheh

    On the island of Jamaica, political and social messages have long been spread through the dancehalls and music, and so it is with coronavirus.

    Just days after the island’s first confirmed case, an educational single, New Hail, was released to teach listeners how to avoid spreading the virus.

    Mi just ah think, we cyan a guh roun’ and touch touch people like we used to. Then me link wid one of my G dem - and you know da likkle supm deh weh we ah rub off big finga? Mi seh dah hail deh now, it haffi guh cut out. Because dis nuh good fi we health, right now. Right deh so now, di song pop inna mi head, like yow, we need fi hail wid we foot enuh.

    It a affect yuh, and it nuh care ‘bout race, riches or gender. A nuh everything make fi gimmick and joke ‘bout. As an artiste, I’m all about the fun, but this is not a fun thing and me coulda never do a dance fi some people siddung and joke and laugh about. Yuh know how much street dance cancel over this thing, how many people livelihood affected? Yuh know how much a my show dem get cancel because no travelling nah gwaan?

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    Three Democratic primaries due but Ohio cancelled amid coronavirus crisis – live updates

    Florida, Illinois, Arizona go to polls against backdrop of emergency measures and disruption that have cancelled Ohio primary

    It was an unprecedented move to cancel the Ohio primaries at the 11th hour due to the coronavirus outbreak.

    Republican Governor Mike DeWine failed to get a judge to halt the primary Monday evening, even though he contended the election results wouldn’t be viewed as legitimate in light of the pandemic.

    “Democrats now must to find a way to complete this primary given the uncertainty of when each state is going to vote and whether we’re even going to be able to have a convention in July.”

    That was veteran Democratic consultant Simon Rosenberg yesterday reflecting the reality that the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak in the US is now so severe that there’s a real possibility that Democrats will have to rearrange their whole plan for nominating a challenger to Donald Trump.

    Related: Three states hold primaries as coronavirus upends 2020 election

    Related: Coronavirus news: UK measures to last at least 'several months' as restrictions increased globally – live updates

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    Trump sparks anger by calling coronavirus the ‘Chinese virus’

    China’s foreign ministry says US president should ‘stop this despicable practice’

    Donald Trump has referred to the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus”, escalating a deepening US-China diplomatic spat over the outbreak.

    After giving an address on Monday warning of a possible recession, the US president posted on Twitter: “The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus. We will be stronger than ever before!”

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    Real estate for the apocalypse: my journey into a survival bunker

    Doomsday luxury accommodation is a booming business, offering customers a chance to sit out global pandemics and nuclear wars in comfort – as long as they have the money to pay for it. By Mark O’Connell
    Coronavirus – latest updates
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    Not long ago, I travelled to the Black Hills of South Dakota to see the place from which humanity would supposedly be reborn after global civilisational collapse. The end of the world was trending, and it seemed as good a time as any to visit a place for sitting out the last days. Over the previous few months, perhaps as a means of sublimating my own anxieties about raising a small child in an increasingly dark and volatile world, I had become preoccupied with the apocalyptic tone of our culture.

    One of the more perverse aspects of this obsession was a months-long binge of doomsday prepper content, of blogs and forums and YouTube videos in which burly American guys, most of whom were called things like Kyle or Brent, explained how to prepare for a major catastrophe – your global pandemics, your breakdowns of law and order, your all-out nuclear wars – by pursuing various strategies for “tactical survival”. And this had opened out on to a broader vista of apocalyptic preparedness, and to a lucrative niche of the real estate sector catering to individuals of means who wanted a place to retreat to when things truly went sideways.

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    Coronavirus latest: lockdown declared across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – live

    Utah senator Mitt Romney appeared to endorse a key component of Democratic presidential platforms Monday: a living wage - if only temporarily.

    NEW from @MittRomney:

    “Every American adult should immediately receive $1,000 to help ensure families and workers can meet their short-term obligations and increase spending in the economy.”

    Thank you Andrew Yang.

    But...but...socialism!

    Here’s what you may have missed in the rush:

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    Trump tells US ‘relax, we’re doing great’ as global coronavirus cases outstrip China – video

    Donald Trump urged Americans to refrain from panic-buying basic supplies during the coronavirus pandemic as the administration announced plans to expand testing for the virus. 

    'You don't have to buy so much', the US president said during a press briefing at the White House on Sunday evening, adding that people should 'take it easy. Just relax'

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    Biden and Sanders bump elbows in ‘hands-off’ Democratic debate – video

    Democratic president candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders faced off in TV studio without an audience on Sunday night.  The two stood far apart and bumped elbows instead of shaking hands in a nod to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Sanders said the first thing he would do to tackle the crisis is ' shut this president up right now because he is undermining the doctors and scientists who are trying to help the American people'. Biden drew on his experience tackling the Ebola crisis and emphasised the importance of listening to the experts. Biden also said he would pick a woman as his running mate.

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    Donald Trump ‘strongly considering full pardon’ for Michael Flynn

    Donald Trump is “strongly considering a full pardon” for Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his dealings with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office.

    Flynn cut a deal as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.

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