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Vue lecture

Get ready habibis, Abdul El-Sayed’s ‘shawarma law’ is coming to the US | Arwa Mahdawi

When the US’s first Muslim senator used Arabic in his victory speech, it cut through the torrent of vile racism Maga launched at him throughout his campaign

Repeat after me: yallah. YAH-luh. This versatile Arabic word means everything from “hurry up”, to “come on” to “speak to you later”. If you add a “bye” at the end, the meaning shifts to “please shut up, fool” or “speak soon friend,” depending on your intonation.

Next up: wallah. wa-LAH. Again, the definition changes depending on context and cadence. It can mean everything from “no way!” to “I swear to God.”

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© Photograph: Dominic Gwinn/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Dominic Gwinn/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Dominic Gwinn/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

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Datacentres are deeply unpopular – so the geniuses at OpenAI are rebranding them | Arwa Mahdawi

These resource-guzzling centres drive up utility bills and are hated across the political spectrum. Cue a clunky, but potentially influential, new name for them

Jesus may have turned water into wine, but Donald Trump has done one better: he turned Lake Ontario into Lake America and the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America. And then, for his next trick, he insisted we all stop talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and call it superintelligence (SI) instead.

Those, of course, are only a few of the name changes the president has ushered in. When he’s not golfing or commenting on senators’ buttocks, president Trump loves a rebranding project. Which makes sense: coming up with a new name is far easier than making meaningful improvements to people’s lives.

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© Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

© Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

© Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

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Hear me out: maybe Norway should give Melania Trump the Nobel peace prize | Arwa Mahdawi

The first lady has been praised for ‘singlehandedly’ brokering a ceasefire in a Ukrainian city – though she might have had some help

Haters be damned: Donald Trump just keeps on winning. He won the inaugural Fifa peace prize last year and was presented with the completely real, totally not made-up “Man of the Century” award at a recent rally. The president has also spent the greater part of a decade claiming he was once crowned Michigan’s Man of the Year: a fantastic achievement considering there is no such award and Trump has never lived in Michigan.

But despite his many trophies, there is one honour that has proved elusive: the Nobel peace prize. Trump holds a bit of a grudge about that, recently terming Norway a “shithouse country” for passing him over for the award. In response, the country’s tourism board highlighted some of its nicest public lavatories with the tagline: “Norway makes shit houses great again!”

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz-Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz-Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz-Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

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