As his goons root through the innards of the US government, Tesla sales are plummeting, the cars are being defaced and owners are ashamed

Extreme wealth has always played a role in democracies. Money has always talked, especially in the US. Years ago, Lawrence Lessig, the great legal scholar, calculated that most of the campaign funding for members of Congress and aspiring politicians came from one-twentieth of the richest 1% of Americans – about 150,000 people. This is about the same number as those who are named “Lester” and explains the title of his book: The USA Is Lesterland.

But that particular corruption of American politics only involved billionaires like the Koch brothers playing organ-grinders to congressional monkeys. The obscene wealth generated by the tech industry has catapulted a new organ-grinder into the heart of the machine. He was able to pay his way in with a spare quarter of a billion dollars that he happened to have lying around. And now the wretched citizens of the US find themselves living in Muskland.

Owners of vineyards in the Bekaa valley are focused more on Israeli air strikes than this year’s vintage. How are these family-run businesses coping?

In September Elias Maalouf and his father were sitting in Chateau Rayak, the family winery in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, when they decided to head home for a lunch break. Five minutes later an Israeli jet dropped a bomb on a house across the street, crushing the three-storey building and destroying much of the winery.

“If we hadn’t left we would have died,” said 41-year-old Maalouf, sitting in the winery as repair workers replaced a shattered television five months later. The doors had blown in from the force of the blast and shattered glass had rained down on the table where he now sat, the wood of the furniture still pockmarked from shrapnel.

Owners of vineyards in the Bekaa valley are focused more on Israeli air strikes than this year’s vintage. How are these family-run businesses coping?

In September Elias Maalouf and his father were sitting in Chateau Rayak, the family winery in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, when they decided to head home for a lunch break. Five minutes later an Israeli jet dropped a bomb on a house across the street, crushing the three-storey building and destroying much of the winery.

“If we hadn’t left we would have died,” said 41-year-old Maalouf, sitting in the winery as repair workers replaced a shattered television five months later. The doors had blown in from the force of the blast and shattered glass had rained down on the table where he now sat, the wood of the furniture still pockmarked from shrapnel.

Next week Jes Staley will challenge his ban from the City in a case that will reveal his conversations with the disgraced financier

Former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley is about to take a major risk.

Nearly two and a half years after he was banned from the City for allegedly lying about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the former banking boss is hoping to convince judges to overturn the reputation-shattering ruling.

Next week Jes Staley will challenge his ban from the City in a case that will reveal his conversations with the disgraced financier

Former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley is about to take a major risk.

Nearly two and a half years after he was banned from the City for allegedly lying about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the former banking boss is hoping to convince judges to overturn the reputation-shattering ruling.

Seven people have been arrested over ‘horrific’ death of Sam Nordquist, 24. A similar case in Wyoming once helped fuel the LGBTQ+ rights movement

A body discarded in a field. Cold weather. Signs of torture.

So far, seven people have been charged with the murder of Sam Nordquist, a 24-year-old Black transgender man who was tortured and murdered in western New York state last month. It was a case that Capt Kelly Swift of the state police’s bureau of criminal investigation said was “one of the most horrific crimes I have ever investigated”.