Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican US vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, has tested positive for Covid-19, forcing a judge on Monday to delay her defamation trial against The New York Times.
Ms Palin's positive test was announced by US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, who is presiding over the case.
"She is of course unvaccinated," the judge said, referring to Ms Palin.
Ms Palin is to be retested on Monday morning, to determine whether jury selection can begin later that day or the trial should be adjourned, likely until February 3.
Mr Rakoff said Ms Palin's positive test came from an at-home test whose reliability was lower than tests administered at the courthouse and required for the trial.
Ms Palin has accused the Times and its former editorial page editor James Bennet of damaging her reputation in a June 14, 2017, editorial linking her to a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that killed six people and wounded US Representative Gabby Giffords.
The editorial, headlined "America's Lethal Politics", was published after a shooting at a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, where US Representative Steve Scalise, a top Republican from Louisiana, was wounded.
It said "the link to political incitement was clear" between the 2011 shooting and a map circulated by Ms Palin's political action committee putting 20 Democrats including Ms Giffords under "stylised cross hairs".
The Times quickly corrected the editorial, saying it wrongly stated that political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting were linked, and Mr Bennet has said he did not intend to blame Ms Palin.
But Ms Palin said the disputed material fit Mr Bennet's "preconceived narrative," and that he was experienced enough to know what his words meant.
A trial is expected to last five days.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
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More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
Draw for Europa League last-16
Istanbul Basaksehir v Copenhagen; Olympiakos Piraeus v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Rangers v Bayer Leverkusen; VfL Wolfsburg v Shakhtar Donetsk; Inter Milan v Getafe
Sevilla v AS Roma; Eintracht Frankfurt or Salzburg v Basel; LASK v Manchester United
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
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