New documentary on legal arrangement, which gives singer’s father control over her estate, has prompted fresh calls to #FreeBritney
A Los Angeles judge has denied a request by Britney Spears’s father to retain some of his rights over the pop star’s estate, the latest twist in a protracted court struggle over the singer’s finances and guardianship.
Continue reading...Police bodycam footage showing officers under attack at the US Capitol attack has been released during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump. Democrat congressman Eric Swalell played footage captured from the officer's perspective showing the crowd attacking police with whatever items were at hand, including crutches and a Trump flag. Swalell also revealed vision showing the evacuation of representatives including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer being ushered away by security
Continue reading...The country began the pandemic with a degraded public health infrastructure, leading to more deaths than other high-income countries
The US could have averted 40% of the deaths from Covid-19, had the country’s death rates corresponded with the rates in other high-income G7 countries, according to a Lancet commission tasked with assessing Donald Trump’s health policy record.
Almost 470,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus so far, with the number widely expected to go above half a million in the next few weeks. At the same time some 27 million people in the US have been infected. Both figures are by far the highest in the world.
Continue reading...Hossein Dehghan criticises continuing sanctions by US and says Tehran’s approach to nuclear issue will change
The only declared candidate in Iran’s presidential elections this June has accused Joe Biden of continuing Donald Trump’s international policies, and warned that Tehran is preparing retaliatory measures to force the US to change its diplomatic trajectory.
In an interview with the Guardian, Hossein Dehghan, a military adviser to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Washington was not in a position to set preconditions for Iran’s return to the 2015 nuclear deal and called for guarantees that the US will not leave the agreement again.
Continue reading...The conversation came hours after the US president announced a new Pentagon taskforce on China
Joe Biden has affirmed the US’s tough line on China’s human rights abuses and regional expansionism in his first phone call with president Xi Jinping since taking office.
Xi defended China’s policies as matters of sovereignty, but told the US leader confrontation would be “a disaster”, and called for the two sides to re-establish the means to avoid misjudgments, according to state media.
Continue reading...US prevents generals from accessing $1bn in government funds as Kyaw Tint Swe held amid new wave of arrests
US President Joe Biden has approved an executive order for new sanctions on those responsible for the military coup in Myanmar, as the army detained another key aide to civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Fresh protests took place on Thursday following days of demonstrations in major cities and towns inside Myanmar calling for the military to cede power following its 1 February coup.
Continue reading...Democrats revealed disturbing new recordings of the mob attack on the US Capitol last month as they presented their case on Wednesday in the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
House impeachment managers constructed a timeline which they said showed that the former president was “singularly responsible” for the deadly assault, which brought a violent mob within footsteps of the nation’s political leaders.
Continue reading...New video shown during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump has revealed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters as well as the evacuation of former vice-president Mike Pence.
Representative Stacey Plaskett presented the previously unreleased security footage from the 6 January Capitol breach documenting Romney's close call as well as Pence and his family's escape as rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’
World Health Organization recommends AstraZeneca jab ‘even if variants present’; Israel to open hotels and gyms to those who have had vaccine or recovered from virus
Update from earlier post about Israel’s planned re-opening of sections of its society:
With some elementary schools due to open on Thursday, health minister Yuli Edelstein, speaking separately with reporters, said he would seek to require teachers who are not documented as being immune to Covid-19 to test negative every 48 hours.
#BREAKING WHO vaccine experts recommend AstraZeneca Covid jab for over-65s pic.twitter.com/Uoiv9wKxaW
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Prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, have reportedly launched a criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s phone call to Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, about the presidential election.
The New York Times reports:
On Wednesday, Fani Willis, the recently elected Democratic prosecutor in Fulton County, sent a letter to numerous officials in state government, including Mr. Raffensperger, requesting that they preserve documents related to Mr. Trump’s call, according to a state official with knowledge of the letter. The letter explicitly stated that the request was part of a criminal investigation, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The inquiry makes Georgia the second state after New York where Mr. Trump faces a criminal investigation. And it comes in a jurisdiction where potential jurors are unlikely to be hospitable to the former president; Fulton County encompasses most of Atlanta and overwhelmingly supported President Biden in the November election.
The Fulton County investigation comes on the heels of a decision Monday by Mr. Raffensperger’s office to open an administrative inquiry.
Related: 'I just want 11,780 votes': Trump pressed Georgia to overturn Biden victory
House impeachment managers are preparing to introduce new visual evidence during their presentation on Wednesday, as the trial begins in earnest following a vote to move forward with the proceedings.
The Democratic managers will lay out their case for why Donald Trump should be impeached, arguing that the former president committed “the most heinous constitutional crime possible” according to a senior aide on the impeachment manager’s team.
Continue reading...The US Coast Guard rescued three Cuban nationals stranded on a desert island for roughly five weeks, after officers saw the group waving a makeshift flag to gain their attention.
The group, including two men and a woman, had been living on an uninhabited Bahamian island, Anguilla Cay, for 33 days after their boat capsized.
Continue reading...Palm Beach town council gave short shrift to a request from neighbors to ban the former president from residing at his resort
His impeachment trial was happening a thousand miles away but the “mayor of Mar-a-Lago” was also facing another inquisition.
Is Donald Trump allowed to reside at his private resort in Florida, where he flew off to from the White House on 20 January, on Air Force One without even attending Joe Biden’s inauguration?
Continue reading...Boys State, MLK/FBI and Crip Camp among contenders as categories announced include best documentary and best international film
Shortlists for nine Oscar categories have been unveiled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas), an intermediate stage in the thinning-out of films that have qualified for consideration for the Academy Awards. The categories include best documentary, best international film and best song, as well as best live action and documentary shorts.
The rules for each voting process vary, but in most categories a preliminary vote from industry specialists in each field is employed to create the shortlist and then the final five nominations, with the full membership of the Academy invited to vote on the winner.
Continue reading...Former president spent past three weeks at Mar-a-Lago resort and shunned golf course on Tuesday for trial coverage
As the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump got under way on Tuesday afternoon, the subject at the center of the case was more than a thousand miles away, muzzled by a social media ban and reduced to watching events unfold on TV.
Trump, who is charged with “incitement of insurrection” after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January, has spent the past three weeks holed up at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with his schedule seemingly restricted to playing multiple rounds of golf. The one-term president has been at his resort, close to the golf club, since he left Washington DC at 8am on the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Continue reading...Soo Youn is considering giving up the apps. She speaks to those who have already taken the plunge – with liberating results
My memory and recall are alarmingly good – borderline photographic. But when I used Instagram, I found it would short-circuit my recall in an alarming way. I’d be describing something mid-sentence and I’d just stop speaking, unable to finish. So I rarely use it.
But my attention span – and my posture, eyes and sleep – are still being degraded by other technology and my dependence on it. In my pandemic life, technology is a lifeline – 90% of my social and work life happens on one of four screens.
I’m flirting with the idea of giving up social media and maybe even ... texts. I am fascinated by people like Justine Haupt, a quantum communications engineer who has never owned a smartphone. She also builds and sells rotary cellphones. Yes, rotary cellphones.
What would my life be like if getting in touch with people required me to communicate with purpose, memorize numbers again, and dial with my fingers, instead of, accidentally, my butt?
For my sake – and yours – I sought inspiration from people who have already crossed into a more analog life.
This is the full edited video montage from the Capitol insurrection that Democrats presented during Donald Trump's second impeachment trial on 9 February 2021, as part of their evidence alleging the former president incited the mob
Continue reading...Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman, lead impeachment manager and constitutional law professor, fought back tears as he recounted his experience of the Capitol breach which happened the day after the death of his son. 'This cannot be our future': Raskin's 24-year-old daughter and his son-in-law were hiding in his office during the attack.
Continue reading...Analysis: faith in the US has been shaken and the impeachment trial is a test of accountability before a global audience
The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin stood at the lectern, faced 100 senators and removed his black face mask to begin the historic second impeachment trial of former president Donald John Trump.
Continue reading...Donald Trump's second impeachment trial opened in the Senate with graphic video of the attack on the Capitol on 6 January and his comments that spurred a rally crowd to become a mob.
The lead House prosecutor told senators the case would present 'cold, hard facts' against Trump, who is charged with inciting the siege of the Capitol to overturn the election he lost to Joe Biden
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The election arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has brought out its final report on the US presidential election, concluding that it was well organised under the circumstances and there was no significant fraud.
The report also found that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and refusal to accept defeat undermined public faith in democratic institutions, and warned the US has long-term problems with providing equal voting rights for all.
Related: 'Jim Crow relic': Senate filibuster stands in way of Democratic voting rights push
Here’s where the day stands so far:
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