President Yoon of South Korea is suing for libel over claims that he was influenced by a Rasputin-like soothsayer in his decision to abandon the presidential palace, his latest effort to quell rumours that his political judgement is clouded by superstition. Yoon has brought criminal libel complaints against seven people, including journalists, an MP and former spokesman for the defence ministry, who claimed that a self-styled prophet known as Cheongong was involved in the relocation of the presidential office and residence after three-quarters of a century.

U.S. immigration politics have shifted on their axis over the last 10 days. Former President Trump and his administration spent years arguing that people who cross the border without permission should not be able to easily apply for asylum in the United States. That decades-old practice no longer works, Trump and his team insisted. On Feb. 21, President Biden proposed a plan that amounts to an endorsement of his predecessor’s position. International and U.S. law has long allowed people who cross borders to seek protection from persecution. But if implemented, Biden’s proposal would make it very difficult for migrants who travel through another country on their way to the U.S. and then cross the border without permission to win asylum here. The policy would roll back America’s longstanding commitments to people seeking asylum, placing strict limits on where and how those who flee persecution can apply for protection. “We are moving toward a system where it is going to be much more difficult for anyone who crosses the border without authorization to get asylum,” said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International. “We will never go back to what it was before Trump,” she said. “That’s what it feels like.” Public outcry about the new policy has been muted, even among Democrats. Most of the public opposition to the plan has come from immigrant advocates who have consistently criticized Biden’s moves at the border. Some Republicans have backed the proposal.

Her propaganda canonized white supremacist murderers as "saints." She may have helped inspire a shooting at a gay bar. Now she's been unmasked.

If you only read conservative and centrist pundits, you’d think the District of Columbia is about to embark upon a frightening experiment to weaken or abolish criminal penalties for violent crime. Fox News has devoted frenzied coverage to the claim that D.C. is “softening” its criminal laws. Republican politicians like Sen. Tom Cotton have seized on the story, as have conservative commentators like Erick Erickson, who cited it as evidence that Congress should abolish self-governance in the District. The Washington Post editorial board opined that a new “crime bill could make the city more dangerous,” claiming it would “tie the hands of police and prosecutors while overwhelming courts.” This coverage all repeats the same two claims: that D.C. is poised to slash prison sentences for violent offenses, and that these reforms will lead to more crime. Neither of these claims is true. The legislation that D.C. passed in January is not a traditional reform bill, but the result of a 16-year process to overhaul a badly outdated, confusing, and often arbitrary criminal code. The revision’s goal was to modernize the law by defining elements of each crime, eliminating overlap between offenses, establishing proportionate penalties, and removing archaic or unconstitutional provisions. Every single change is justified in meticulous reports that span thousands of pages. Each one was crafted with extensive public input and support from both D.C. and federal prosecutors. Eleventh-hour criticisms of the bill rest on misunderstandings, willful or otherwise, about its purpose and effect. They malign complex, technocratic updates as radical concessions to criminals. In many cases, criticisms rest on sheer legal illiteracy about how criminal sentencing actually works.

The woman had a stillbirth in 2021 in South Carolina, which explicitly criminalizes self-managed abortion. She was arrested this week.

From writing sci-fi and horror to writing one of the most lauded video games in history, Marc Laidlaw tells us what it was like working on Half-Life at Valve.

In rural Alaska, where food costs can be astronomical and food banks or pantries are rare, residents are experiencing particularly dire consequences from the unprecedented backlog, advocates say.

The nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain confirmed Thursday that it will not dispense abortion pills in several states where they remain legal — acting out of an abundance of caution amid a shifting policy landscape, threats from state officials and pressure from anti-abortion activists. Nearly two dozen Republican state attorneys general wrote to Walgreens in February, threatening legal action if the company began distributing the drugs, which have become the nation’s most popular method for ending a pregnancy. The company told POLITICO that it has since responded to all the officials, assuring them that they will not dispense abortion pills either by mail or at their brick-and-mortar locations in those states. ... The group of Republican attorneys general, who argue that the Biden administration is misinterpreting the laws around mailing and dispensing abortion pills, also wrote to CVS, Albertsons, Rite Aid, Costco, Walmart and Kroger demanding they, too, refuse to dispense the medication.

These days, to my surprise, people want to talk to me about evil. In an essay last year, and in my book The Bodies of Others, I raised a question about existential, metaphysical darkness. I concluded that I had looked at the events of the past three years using all of my classical education, my critical thinking skills, my knowledge of Western and global history and politics; and that, using these tools, I could not explain the years 2020-present. Indeed I could not explain them in ordinary material, political or historical terms at all. This is not how human history ordinarily operates. I could not explain the way the Western world simply switched, from being based at least overtly on values of human rights and decency, to values of death, exclusion and hatred, overnight, en masse — without resorting to reference to some metaphysical evil that goes above and beyond fallible, blundering human agency.

The 13-year-old girl was in gym class when she said she heard a boy tell another classmate, “Don’t come to school tomorrow.” She didn’t think much of it at first. But by the end of the school day, the eighth-grader couldn’t stop turning those words over in her head. After all, her childhood has been punctuated by shootings: Newtown when she was a toddler. Parkland when she was in elementary school. Uvalde, last year, when 19 children and two teachers were gunned down 384 miles from her school... Police quickly determined the boy alleged to have made the comment did not have access to a gun, according to a Jan. 26 incident report. There was no threat to campus. Relieved, Youngblood’s daughter felt OK when she went to school the next morning. Then, as her first-period science class discussed the periodic table, she was called to the office. The assistant principal determined the girl had made a false accusation about school safety. Her punishment would be three days of suspension followed by 73 days — the rest of eighth-grade — in an alternative school.

President Joe Biden told Senate Democrats on Thursday that he would not veto a GOP-backed bid to repeal changes to the D.C. criminal code, raising the stakes of an upcoming Senate vote, according to two people in the meeting. Biden’s disinterest in a veto threat leaves Republicans on track to roll back the new D.C. law with the support of at least one Senate Democrat when the chamber takes up the House-passed measure as soon as next week. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has already said he will support the disapproval measure, and Senate Democrats can’t afford any more defections.

Starbucks has displayed “egregious and widespread misconduct” in its dealings with employees involved in efforts to unionize Buffalo, New York, stores, a National Labor Relations Board judge said in an order Wednesday. As a result, the company must reinstate and make whole a number of workers who were let go from locations in or around Buffalo, among other remedies, NLRB administrative law judge Michael Rosas said. The case includes 32 unfair labor charges made by Workers United against the company for its actions between August 2021 and July 2022 at 21 stores in the Buffalo area, including the first Starbucks location to unionize. The company, which has been facing a wave of unionization across the country since December 2021, must also post a notice in its stores nationally, the judge ruled. That notice informs workers that they have the right to join a union, and lays out a lengthy list of what the company will refrain from doing, like surveilling workers or making other efforts to dissuade union activity.

Final report documents widespread ‘violence’ by convoy extremists – and abandonment of community by Ottawa Police

A coroner tells the BBC that DNA has been collected from 57 bodies, as rail workers strike over the disaster.

"What's the worst date you've been on?" - This one without question

Musician died following three month stay in hospital, with wife Katie Grand describing him as ‘the most talented man I have ever known’

The Knoxville Police Department (KPD) and city officials are scrambling to contain the fallout in the aftermath of the release of body camera footage showing the arrest of 60-year-old Lisa Edwards, a white woman who died while in police custody on February 5 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The video shows that officers dismissed and mocked her complaints of feeling ill. Edwards was arrested outside of Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center an hour after being discharged following a brief hospitalization. Prior to being admitted to Fort Sanders, Edwards was hospitalized at Blount Memorial Hospital in nearby Maryville, Tennessee after complaining of abdominal pain during her flight to Knoxville on February 4. Edwards had previously suffered a stroke in 2019 and subsequently became wheelchair bound. The ruling class’s contempt for life—most nakedly demonstrated by the deaths of over 1 million from COVID-19 in the US alone—found expression in the actions of the officers, who can be heard on the video repeatedly berating Edwards, degrading her and cracking jokes while accusing her of “faking it.” ... The officers involved—Brandon Wardlaw, Adam Barnett, Timothy Distasio, and Danny Dugan—have all been placed on paid administrative leave while the KPD completes its internal investigation. Meanwhile, the office of Knox County District Attorney (DA) Charme Allen has issued a statement absolving the officers of any responsibility, saying that it will not pursue criminal charges.

A rare look inside mitigation specialists’ investigations to help people on death row stay alive.

The Ironton's captain and six sailors clambered into a lifeboat but it was dragged to the bottom before they could detach it from the ship.

"Every CEO in Silicon Valley has looked at what Elon Musk has done and has asked themselves, 'Do they need to unleash their own Elon within them?'" Benioff told Insider during an interview on Thursday.