As an American living across the pond, having a secondary news source to, say, the New York Times, is pretty much essential.

If for no other reason than to keep track of the English Premier League — which may be the one sports competition we covered in Abu Dhabi that I will remain interested in, long-term.

It also is handy if the source in question retains journalism standards of some significance, and also is authoritative.

Which has led me to … The Guardian.

The Guardian originally was known as the Manchester Guardian, and it essentially was the far-left newspaper for England that wasn’t actually The Daily Worker — now known as The Morning Star.

The Guardian still can be depended on (for good or ill) to be instinctively pro-Labour and anti-Tory, pro-U.S. Democrats and anti-Republicans — which is OK once you realize what shop you have come to, as the Brits would say — but also refreshingly anti-monarchical, for those of us who find it embarrassing, for the United Kingdom, to still employ a queen.

Which brings to mind two topics The Guardian gave a good working over, the past week, particularly among the judging-judgies of the op-ed pages:

President Barack Obama’s remarks, in London, pertaining to the mooted British exit from the European Union … and Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday.

Let’s go to the links.

First, on Obama.

The Guardian is very much pro-European Union, and for weeks has been running hand-wringing pieces about how the “British exit” (Brexit) forces seemed to have all the energy and momentum.

Then Obama flew into town, after his visit to Saudi Arabia (but before he zipped over to Germany), and had a few words to say pertaining to his opinion on the upcoming Brexit vote.

Which led The Guardian talking heads into raptures.

It started with the news-analysis pieces which decided that Obama, in a few pithy remarks, had blown the “exit” campaign to smithereens.

Here is the first bit of news, in which Obama rubbished (another Britishism) the “exit” forces’ belief that leaving the EU would not be a trade disaster because the UK could reconstruct another powerful trade consortium with the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

(The key bit: “This may well turn out to be a defining moment in the EU referendum campaign. Brexit campaigners insist that the UK would be able to strike trade deals with countries like the US quickly and easily if it were to leave the EU. Britain’s prosperity would depend on such deals. But President Obama, calmly but brutally, smashed that notion and left it in dust on the floor.”)

Which led, a day later, to an op-ed writer saying it took Obama showing up and giving his opinion to deliver perhaps a death blow to the “Brexit fantasy”.

Then came other “wow, what a guy” sorts of things, such as this piece, in which a UK citizen is brave enough to say that Obama is such an inspiration to her, compared to the puny politicians of the UK, that she sometimes wishes she could be an American for a day.

Which is almost as radical as poking fun at the queen and her fans, as the UK media pretty much went nuts over her 90th birthday.

Perhaps the only clear intersection of my political beliefs with those of The Guardian pertain to the monarchy.

Here, a sports columnist weighs in with a “you call that working hard?” piece, pertaining to the Liz the Deuce and her schedule and her ongoing “relevance”.

And here is a broader piece, declaring Liz’s long run as top monarch a failure, given that the insipid Prince Charles is up next, and also wondering how it was that Britain went from merely tolerating royals, only a generation ago to, apparently, being slavish devotees of them.

Soccer is the other topic The Guardian covers well, particularly in their minute-by-minute coverage (live-blogging) to key matches.

The Guardian also does a very nice job with Major League Soccer, better than any U.S. newspaper, as far as I can tell, in terms of the big picture.

They file a weekly “five things we learned” piece that strikes me as authoritative, as well as newsy. (At the link, an update on Chris Wondowlowski, the Galaxy’s big win, Red Bull struggles, the latest with Toronto …)

The newspaper does regular pieces on the U.S. national team, such as this story about Jurgen Klinsmann’s struggles to beat regional rivals.

And they do the occasional big story, too, such as an interesting (if a bit hard to fight through) think piece about why the U.S. has never produced a male soccer superstar. (Mostly because of poor development schemes, is the suggestion.)

So, if you want to get a portion of your news from the eastern side of the Atlantic, I recommend The Guardian. They can be tiring, on the political pages, but they are fast with quality reporting (disasters, deaths, etc.) online … and very good with English soccer.