Fourteen states sue Biden administration over oil and gas leasing pause

Fourteen states filed suits on Wednesday against President Joe Biden's administration to challenge his pause on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.

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  • COVID-19: The party was in full swing on the first Saturday after a long lockdown

    The party was in full swing in Soho on the first weekend after a long lockdown.

  • Model suggests ‘green light’ travel list could include only eight countries

    While the government works out how to categorise countries for a traffic light system, a new model predicts only eight countries will be on the ‘green’ list

  • GPs to prescribe financial advice to patients with long-term conditions

    GPs to prescribe financial advice to patients with long-term conditions. Under London pilot scheme support workers will help people claim benefits and deal with debts

  • Second World War plane goes down in ocean during Florida airshow

    The plane, a single-engine TBM Avenger, made a ‘soft’ landing in the shallow water

  • Queen’s birthday to pass without gun salute for second time

    There will be no gun salute to mark the Queen’s 95th birthday on Wednesday as she continues to mourn the loss of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. For the second consecutive year, the traditional 41-gun and 21-gun salutes in Hyde Park and the Tower of London on April 21 have been cancelled, the Ministry of Defence said. Her Majesty will continue to observe a period of mourning until Friday and as such, is understood to be reluctant to mark this year’s anniversary. She is expected to enjoy a quiet lunch with close family members at Windsor Castle, the details of which will remain private. The Royal family’s social media channels will likely be the only commemoration of the Queen turning 95. Royal sources suggested that even before the Duke’s death on April 9, the Queen had not wanted her forthcoming birthday to be marked in any meaningful way. She was keen for the focus to be on his 100th birthday celebrations, which would have taken place on June 10, one said. Last year, the salute was cancelled in line with the Queen’s wishes that no "special measures" were taken while the pandemic continued. The monarch will no doubt spend time on Wednesday in quiet reflection, remembering last year’s birthday, spent with her husband at Windsor during the first lockdown, as they isolated together. The Queen’s birthday parade, Trooping the Colour, which was due to have taken place on June 12, was cancelled in March for the second consecutive year due to the pandemic. Before the Duke’s death, Buckingham Palace had been considering a smaller event within the quadrangle at Windsor Castle, in line with last year's ceremony. Last summer, an event described as a "mini Trooping" was held at Windsor, led by the Welsh Guards and massed Bands of the Household Division, to the clear delight of Her Majesty. The annual Garter service, also usually held in June, has also been cancelled. While the Queen is determined to continue carrying out some solo engagements, she is thought unlikely to undertake anything in public in the coming weeks. However, Buckingham Palace has confirmed that she will attend the state opening of parliament at the Palace of Westminster on May 11, one of the key events in her diary, when she is due to be accompanied by the Prince of Wales.

  • Britons with first dose of Covid vaccine ‘have become infected with variants’

    Dr Susan Hopkins has urged people to ‘take caution’ as India variant emerges in the UK

  • COVID-19: Family of Italian woman who died after Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine launches legal action

    The family of an Italian woman who died weeks after having the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine have told Sky News they are taking legal action to establish whether the jab was to blame. The case comes after 55-year-old Augusta Turiaco, from Messina, Sicily, received her COVID jab on 11 March before her condition worsened in the days following her vaccination.

  • Royal summit to decide future of monarchy to be led by Prince Charles and Prince William

    The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge will hold a summit to decide the future of the monarchy over the next two generations following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. In consultation with the Queen, Britain’s next two kings will decide how many full-time working members the Royal family should have, who they should be, and what they should do. The death of Prince Philip has left the Royal family with the immediate question of how and whether to redistribute the hundreds of patronages he retained. Meanwhile the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step back from royal duties, confirmed only last month after a one-year “review period”, has necessitated a rethink of who should support the sovereign in the most high-profile roles. Royal insiders say that the two matters cannot be decided in isolation, as the issues of patronage and personnel are inextricably linked. Because any decisions made now will have repercussions for decades to come, the Prince of Wales will take a leading role in the talks. He has made it clear that the Duke of Cambridge, his own heir, should be involved at every stage because any major decisions taken by 72-year-old Prince Charles will last into Prince William’s reign. The Earl and Countess of Wessex, who were more prominent than almost any other member of the Royal family in the days leading up to the Duke’s funeral, are expected to plug the gap left by the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex by taking on more high-profile engagements. However, they already carry out a significant number of royal duties – 544 between them in the last full year before Covid struck – meaning they will not be able to absorb the full workload left by the absences of the Sussexes and the Duke of York, who remains in effective retirement as a result of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In 2019 the Sussexes and the Duke completed 558 engagements between them. It leaves the Royal family needing to carry out a full-scale review of how their public duties are fulfilled. Not only do they have three fewer people to call on, they must also decide what to do with several hundred patronages and military titles held by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Sussexes and possibly the Duke of York, if his retirement is permanent. Royal sources said the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge would discuss over the coming weeks and months how the monarchy should evolve. The issue has been at the top of the Queen and the Prince of Wales’s respective in-trays since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s one-year review period of their royal future came to an end last month, but the ill health and subsequent death of Prince Philip forced them to put the matter on hold.

  • Rise in students asking to repeat year after campus shutdowns

    Rise in students asking to repeat year after campus shutdowns. Final exam worries grow with in-person teaching still banned at universities in England

  • Royal family continue to grieve Philip’s death as national mourning ends

    The royal family will continue to grieve this week following the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, although the period of national mourning has ended. After almost 70 years as head of state, the Queen will reign without her husband by her side. She sat on her own during the funeral service that bore Philip’s touch and celebrated his life and legacy.

  • Liam Williams vs Demetrius Andrade ring walks: What time will fight start in the UK?

    Everything you need to know ahead of tonight’s WBO world title bout

  • Greensill: Boris Johnson told to give up power to decide on investigating ministers

    Boris Johnson should relinquish his right to decide when possible breaches of the ministerial code warrant investigation, according to the chair of the Committee for Standards in Public Life. In a letter to the prime minister, Lord Evans argued the power to launch a probe into the behaviour of members of the government should instead be held by the next independent adviser on ministerial interests. It comes as questions continue to mount over contacts serving ministers had with former prime minister David Cameron in relation to his lobbying on behalf of the now-bankrupt finance firm, Greensill Capital.

  • Factbox-Who are the Skripal poisoning suspects allegedly behind deadly Czech blast?

    The Czech Republic has identified the same alleged Russian military intelligence officers wanted by Britain for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal as suspects in a deadly 2014 blast at an ammunition depot. The men, known under the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, are reportedly part of the elite Unit 29155 of Russia's GRU military intelligence service. The unit, according to a 2019 report by The New York Times, is focused on subversion, sabotage and assassination outside Russia.

  • Victoria Beckham Celebrates Birthday With Kim Kardashian And Husband David In Miami

    The former Spice Girl’s 47th was a star-studded affair.

  • The Guardian view on the house price boom: the asset-rich get richer

    The Guardian view on the house price boom: the asset-rich get richerTreasury measures to boost demand for property and a neglect of social housing are making a dysfunctional market worse ‘A decent home, along with food, is the most intimate and fundamental of our needs.’ Photograph: Simon Turner/Alamy Stock Photo

  • De Niro unable to turn down acting roles because of his ‘estranged wife's expensive lifestyle’

    Hollywood legend Robert De Niro is unable to turn down acting roles because he must pay for his estranged wife's expensive tastes, the actor's lawyer has claimed. Caroline Krauss told a Manhattan court that he is struggling financially because of the pandemic, a massive tax bill and the demands of Grace Hightower, who filed for divorce in 2018 after 21 years of marriage. The court has been asked to settle how much De Niro should pay Ms Hightower, 66, until the terms of the prenuptial agreement the couple negotiated in 2004 takes effect. “Mr De Niro is 77 years old, and while he loves his craft, he should not be forced to work at this prodigious pace because he has to,” Ms Krauss told the court. “When does that stop? When does he get the opportunity to not take every project that comes along and not work six-day weeks, 12-hour days so he can keep pace with Ms Hightower’s thirst for Stella McCartney?”

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene does U-turn on ‘America First’ caucus after GOP blowback

    Rep. Greene accused the media of ‘false narratives’ and focusing on race to ‘divide the American people with hate through identity politics’

  • Coronavirus news - live: Johnson urged to cancel India trip over variant fears as UK nears 10m second jabs

    Follow the latest updates

  • Prince Charles sheds a tear as he follows his father Prince Philip’s coffin into Windsor Castle

    A highly emotional Prince Charles could be seen with tears in his eyes as he bade the final farewell to his father Prince Philip at a moving Windsor Castle ceremony. The Prince of Wales, 72, was visibly distraught as he followed the coffin as he walked shoulder-to-shoulder with his sister Anne, The Princess Royal behind the Duke of Edinburgh’s coffin. In St George’s Chapel, the prince had tears in his eyes as he put on a black face mask before taking a seat next to his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

  • Family of three contract Covid from infected neighbours in hotel quarantine in Sydney

    Family of three contract Covid from infected neighbours in hotel quarantine in Sydney. NSW Health reclassifies three coronavirus cases to locally-acquired after testing showed they shared same viral sequence as infected family next door