New York City’s restaurant industry grapples with easing vaccine rules

Many welcome the change as a ‘return to normalcy’ that will support restaurants and bars, but others worry it’s too soon

Tyler Hollinger, owner of Festivál Cafe, a “farm-to-bar cocktail cafe” in New York City, said he recently started learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu because of physical altercations with visitors who are unvaccinated against Covid-19.

The reason for the fights isn’t that Hollinger is a crusader for the city’s requirement that people show proof of vaccination to sit inside at bars and restaurants.

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Tens of thousands join rallies around the world in support of Ukraine

Demonstrators gathered in cities across Europe, the US and South America to demand an end to Russia’s invasion

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in cities including Santiago, Vancouver Paris and New York in support of Ukraine, demanding an end to Russia’s invasion.

The protesters rallied on Saturday against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attack, which began on 24 February and appeared to be entering a new phase with escalating bombardment.

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This time McConnell holds few cards to stop Biden’s supreme court pick

Ketanji Brown Jackson can expect little support from across the aisle but Republicans are wary of overreach before midterms

The photograph is a study in contrasts. On the left, standing stiffly and staring glumly, is Mitch McConnell, 80, the Republican minority leader in the Senate accused of committing professional fouls when confronting judicial confirmations.

On the right, at a slightly awkward distance from McConnell, is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, chosen by a Democratic president to be the first Black woman on the US supreme court, smiling warmly at the camera, her posture more relaxed than the senator’s.

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Trump’s private schedule reveals no plans for him to join 6 January march

Ex-president said he would join crowd to US Capitol but his schedule indicates he deliberately lied to his supporters

Donald Trump was aware long before he took the stage at the “Save America” rally on 6 January that he would not march to the Capitol to protest the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, according to his White House private schedule from that day.

The former president started his nearly 75-minute long speech at the Ellipse by saying he would go with the crowd to the Capitol, and then repeated that promise when he said he would walk with them down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.

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California jogger Sherri Papini staged own violent kidnapping, FBI says

Papini’s 2016 disappearance was long cloaked in confusion, as a friend raised funds for a ‘reverse ransom’

Sherri Papini seemed to be just another small-town northern California mom, when, a little over five years ago, she disappeared in the woods. By her own account, she was abducted, chained to a pole for three weeks, half-starved, beaten, branded and burned and then – for no apparent reason – released again by the side of a busy highway.

Now, after an exhaustive search for her captors, the US government has concluded that Papini made up the whole story.

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US supreme court reinstates death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber

Court upholds Trump justice department’s challenge to overturning of death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 6-3 vote

The US supreme court on Friday reinstated the convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence for his role in the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others, ruling in favor of the federal government.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices sided with the justice department’s challenge to a 2020 lower court ruling that had upheld Tsarnaev’s conviction but overturned his death sentence.

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A beloved New York restaurant becomes place of unity for Ukraine

Veselka, a restaurant raved about by celebrities and food critics alike, has become a meeting place and fundraising operation

In New York’s East Village neighborhood, home to a wide array of popular restaurants and bars, is a decades-old staple in the city’s famous food scene. Veselka, located in a smaller pocket of the area once known as “Little Ukraine”, now sits at the corner of food and international politics.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions and forced ordinary citizens to take up arms, or flee across borders to safety. Those problems aren’t just affecting the people of Ukraine, but thousands of their loved ones abroad – including some at this beloved New York restaurant.

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Digested week: faded photos in war museum on the Hudson feel all too real

An exhibit invites visitors to imagine how it may have felt to live on the brink of nuclear annihilation. I don’t want to

Monday

The nearest thing New York has to the Imperial War Museum in London is the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, built on and around the USS Intrepid, a hulking great aircraft carrier parked at Pier 86 on the Hudson River. It is the obligation of every school age-child in greater New York to attend this museum at least once a year, and on the last day of mid-winter recess, we do.

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How Americans can help people of Ukraine

A number of charities are addressing humanitarian needs and US people can support Ukrainian journalism or get active politically

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Americans have offered an outpouring of support for the Ukrainian people. Here are a few ways you can join the effort.

Donations

GlobalGiving supports non-profits around the world through crowdfunding. Its Ukrainian crisis relief fund is working toward a goal of $7m to provide food, water, shelter and other assistance to refugees.

Direct Relief is working to fulfill a list of medical needs provided to the organization by Ukraine’s health ministry.

Care, a 75-year-old organization operating in 100 countries, is working to provide food, water and hygiene kits to those suffering in Ukraine. Donate here as Care seeks to support 4 million people.

Doctors Without Borders, a 50-year-old Nobel-winning organization, has teams in Ukraine as well as surrounding countries as it works to send staff and medical supplies to the hardest-hit areas. Donate here to support its efforts in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world.

Save the Children, a century-old organization that has worked in 100 countries, has a Ukraine crisis relief fund aimed at furnishing children and families with food, hygiene kits, funding and more.

The International Rescue Committee has teams working in Poland aiding displaced families. The organization, founded in 1933, operates in 40 countries and donations go to food, medical treatment, and other emergency care in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere. Donate here to the IRC’s work around the world.

Razom, a Ukrainian-focused charity founded in 2014, is furnishing medical supplies to the country and working to “amplify the voices of Ukrainians”. It has not been evaluated by Charity Navigator but has received wide coverage in the US media. Donate here.

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Obesity rates likely to double by 2030 with highest rises in lower-income countries

More than half of women in South Africa projected to have condition, with no country expected to meet WHO target of halting rise, according to World Obesity Atlas figures

More than a billion people around the world will be obese by 2030 – double the number there was in 2010, according to new global estimates.

No country is on track to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target to halt obesity by 2025, with one in five women and one in seven men predicted to have the condition by 2030.

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Swiss Gruyère wins world championship cheese contest for second time in a row

The cheese, made by Michael Spycher of Mountain Dairy Fritzenhaus, comes from a small dairy that works with just 12 farmers

A Gruyère from Switzerland has been named as the top cheese for the second consecutive time at the World Championship Cheese Contest in Wisconsin.

The cheese from Bern, Switzerland, made its maker, Michael Spycher of Mountain Dairy Fritzenhaus, a three-time winner. Spycher also won in 2020 and 2008. The cheese, called Gourmino Le Gruyère AOP, earned a score of 98.423 out of 100.

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Trump strikes deal to evade deposition in New York investigation – for now

Agreement with attorney general Letitia James covers two eldest children but seeks to speed up civil legal proceedings

Donald Trump has reached an agreement with the the New York attorney general’s office that will temporarily spare him from having to answer questions under oath as part of an investigation into his business, as the former president’s appeal process in the case continues.

In February, a New York judge ordered that Trump and his two eldest children, Donald Jr and Ivanka, must appear for a deposition as part of New York state’s civil investigation into Trump Organization’s business practices, including allegations the family company fraudulently inflated the value of its assets.

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White House announces new sanctions on Russian oligarchs and Putin’s ‘cronies’ – live

Leaders of the Quad grouping of countries - the US, India, Australia and Japan - agreed today that what is happening to Ukraine should not be allowed to happen in the Indo-Pacific, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said.

Reuters reports:

A virtual meeting of the four-country grouping was held at a time of increased concern about Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by China, which has stepped up its alert level, wary of China taking advantage of a distracted west to move against it.

“We’ve agreed that unilateral changes to the status quo with force like this should not be allowed in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kishida said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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January 6 panel subpoenas Kimberly Guilfoyle, fiancee of Donald Trump Jr

House select committee issues subpoena after Guilfoyle abruptly cut short interview with panel last week

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has subpoenaed Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancée of Donald Trump’s eldest son. House investigators issued the subpoena Thursday, after she had abruptly ended a voluntary interview with the panel last week.

The committee is investigating the events surrounding the insurrection at the Capitol last year, when a mob of Trump supporters violently attacked the building in a failed attempt to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

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Supreme court blocks men behind CIA’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ from testifying

The case was filed by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantánamo prisoner arrested and held without charge since 2002, in Poland

Two psychologists who devised the CIA’s post-9/11 system of US “enhanced interrogation”, which has been widely denounced as torture, cannot be called to testify in a case in Poland brought by a terrorism suspect subjected to the abuses, the supreme court has ruled.

In a 6-3 ruling on Thursday, the court allowed the US government to block the psychologists from giving evidence in a case brought by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantánamo prisoner who was arrested in 2002 and has been held without charge ever since. The majority of the justices granted the government the privilege of “state secrets” – a power that prevents the public disclosure of information deemed harmful to national security.

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Trump’s border wall breached by smugglers over 3,000 times, records reveal

The barrier Trump touted as ‘impenetrable’ can be breached with common power tools, the Washington Post reports

Smugglers have breached the Trump administration’s border wall along the US-Mexico frontier more than 3,000 times, government maintenance records obtained by the Washington Post reveal.

Nearly 500 miles of barrier was constructed by the Trump administration beginning in 2019, mostly in rural New Mexico and Arizona. Former president Trump touted the “big, beautiful wall” as the “Rolls-Royce” of barriers, but smugglers have breached the wall at least 3,272 times, mostly with common power tools found at hardware stores.

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From Kansas, with love: like it or not, my home defies stereotypes

Getting a place right shouldn’t be hard, so why does TV show Somebody Somewhere’s accurate depiction of the midwest feel like a miracle?

One Saturday last fall, my husband and I bought an antique clawfoot bathtub in Manhattan, Kansas. After loading it from a stranger’s backyard into the bed of our truck, we walked to The Chef, a downtown diner, figuring we might be seated quickly with half the town tailgating at the Kansas State University football game.

We drank bloody Marys on the patio among white, Black and brown diners while purple school flags waved in the autumn breeze. Our server pointed to a pile of blankets in case I got chilly.

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Florida governor Ron DeSantis scolds students for wearing masks – video

Ron DeSantis had strong words for a group of students at the University of South Florida who were wearing face masks before a press conference. The Republican governor for Florida asked them to take their masks off, saying it was 'Covid theater'

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Trump violated federal laws in bid to overturn election, Capitol attack panel claims

In a major filing, the House committee says it believes the former president was obstructing Congress and defrauding the United States

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack said in a major filing on Wednesday that it believed that Donald Trump violated multiple federal laws to overturn the 2020 election, including obstructing Congress and defrauding the United States.

The revelations came as part of a filing that intended to force John Eastman, Trump’s former lawyer, to turn over thousands of emails and records since his participation in potential crimes destroyed his arguments for attorney-client privilege protections.

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Oscar-winning producer Alan Ladd Jr, who greenlit Star Wars, dies at age 84

The films he produced or greenlit won more than 50 Oscars and 150 nominations

Alan Ladd Jr, the Oscar-winning producer and studio boss who as a 20th Century Fox executive greenlit Star Wars, has died. He was 84.

Ladd died Wednesday, his daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, who directed the documentary Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies, wrote in a Facebook post. No cause of death was given.

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