US news | The Guardian

Scottie Scheffler returned to Valhalla after his arrest and hit a five-under-par 66 to sit three shots off the halfway leader, Xander SchauffeleSky Sports commentator Wayne Riley has been on the driving range to gauge opinion among the early starters. The energy is zapped," he reports. His Sky colleague Rich Beem is competing this week as a former champion, and Beem told Riley that no-one had seen Scottie Scheffler ... everyone was on their phone ... they'd hit a shot, hit a putt, then look on their phone ... they were caring for Scottie Scheffler, they were worried."Riley also spoke of the person who was coming to the golf, if he was coming, lost his life ... that is a terrible thing ... you're looking forward to the PGA Championship here at Valhalla and someone is not going to be with us today ... so many players have said to me, I can't believe they're actually playing today' ... I'm getting that vibe ... I'm getting a lot of vibe that people are going woah, somebody's lost their life here today, Scottie has been taken away, do we go into Monday?' " Continue reading...

Coleman, known for his ample mustache, won a Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and also appeared in Boardwalk EmpireDabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in 9 to 5 and the nasty TV director in Tootsie, has died. He was 92.Coleman died on Thursday, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, told the Hollywood Reporter. No other details were immediately available. Continue reading...

Humanitarian assistance has begun to arrive in Gaza along a US-made pier, but the US aid chief said the new sea corridor could not be a substitute for land crossings, and warned that deliveries of food and fuel entering Gaza had slowed

Supporters gather enough valid signatures to put measure - that would enshrine abortion rights into constitution - on to ballotVoters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court's overturning of Roe v Wade. Continue reading...

The world No 1 was arrested and charged after extraordinary early-morning scenes but he did not let that affect this gameI did spend some time stretching in a jail cell. That was the start of mywarmup."If ever a quote summed up the jaw-dropping nature of Friday at the 106th US PGA Championship, this was it. Continue reading...

New Hampshire employees of day care arrested after six-month investigation and each face 10 charges of endangering childrenFour New Hampshire daycare employees allegedly spiked children's food with the sleep supplement melatonin and were arrested on Thursday.The arrests stem from a November 2023 investigation at a daycare in Manchester, New Hampshire, about 30 minutes outside the state capital of Concord. Continue reading...

Workers in Tuscaloosa vote against bid to unionize, as UAW president Shawn Fain hails impact of campaign despite defeatThe United Auto Workers has failed in its effort to unionize workers at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in a blow to the union's plans to build its membership in the southern states.The loss on Friday comes amid the UAW's ambitious union-organizing campaign to organize 150,000 non-union auto workers around the US. Continue reading...

DePape, a rightwing conspiracy theorist, broke into the Pelosis' San Francisco home in 2022 and hit Paul Pelosi with a hammerDavid DePape, a rightwing conspiracy theorist who broke into Nancy Pelosi's northern California home in 2022 and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.A federal jury convicted him of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official in November 2023, just over a year after the attack in the former House speaker's San Francisco home. Continue reading...

Widespread disruption expected after workers vote to hold series of strikes, starting Monday with UC Santa CruzCalifornia's huge university system is facing widespread disruption after workers voted to hold a series of strikes in protest of its treatment of Gaza protesters.The University of California (UC) has more than 280,000 students and 227,000 faculty and staff on campuses across the state. Continue reading...

Incident casts doubt on supreme court justice's impartiality in upcoming cases as inverted flag is associated with Trump's stolen election claimsAn upside-down American flag was reportedly spotted flying outside the home of the conservative US supreme court justice Samuel Alito during the closing days of Donald Trump's presidential term in 2021.The inverted flag is a symbol that has become associated with Trump's false claims that Joe Biden stole the election. Continue reading...

Advocates gathered enough signatures for voters to decide on whether the state can regulate procedure before second trimesterSouth Dakota voters will decide on abortion rights this fall, getting a chance at direct democracy on the contentious issue in a conservative state where a trigger law banning nearly all abortions went into effect after Roe v Wade was overturned.The state's top election official announced on Thursday that about 85% of the more than 55,000 signatures submitted in support of the ballot initiative are valid, exceeding the required 35,017 signatures. Continue reading...

The oversight and accountability committee hearing descended into chaos, with several members shouting and hurling insults at each other as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez objected fiercely to an attack on another Democrat by the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.The hearing voted along party lines to advance an effort to hold the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt for refusing to release tapes of interviews between Joe Biden and the special counsel Robert Hur

World No 1's unlikely brush with the law has raised his profile to a level that his playing abilities alone would never be able toFor 27 years, 10 months, and 26 days the most interesting thing about Scottie Scheffler was his golf. And given that's what he's paid for, you might think it ought to be enough. But the truth is that ever since Scheffler rose to the top of the world rankings in March 2022 the game has wanted more from him. Trouble is, besides his faith, his family, and his attachment to a beaten-up old 2012 GMC Yukon, he does not have much else to give. Whisper it, but the truth is that a lotof people in the game worry thatScheffler, who many reckon is the best player of his generation, is just a little bit too boring to carry the sport.And then he decided to take a detour into the westbound lane on his way through the gates to Valhalla on Friday morning. Last month Scheffler explained that he believed his victory at the Masters was meant to be because God had laid out today's plans many years ago, and I could do nothing to mess them up". Well, either the Lord also takes his marching orders from Kentucky traffic cops, or this is more proof, if we needed it, that he moves in mysterious ways. Continue reading...

Search for new chief executive for troubled planemaker continues amid safety crisis and slumping share priceBoeing's departing CEO, Dave Calhoun, was re-elected to stay on the troubled company's board on Friday, even as the planemaker's chair said he was gathering feedback from customers and others in its search for a new chief executive.Boeing is dealing with a sprawling crisis that includes multiple investigations, possible prosecution for past actions and slumping production of its strongest-selling jet. Continue reading...

Wall Street Journal notes that British example may not be a good one, as plan hasn't gone into effect yet amid legal challenges'Aides to Donald Trump working to transform US immigration policy should he return to power are pursuing goals including the largest mass deportation in US history" while part-inspired" by the UK government's deal to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda, the Wall Street Journal reported.The Conservative UK government reached an agreement with the African country in 2022. Since then, however, the Rwanda policy has proved politically controversial, legally vulnerable, highly inefficient and vastly expensive. Continue reading...

Politics is about achieving things and telling a compelling story. But neither the president - nor Starmer - can match Trump's gift for narrativeThe smile was the giveaway. Asked whether he was just a copycat" of Tony Blair at the launch of his Blair-style pledge card on Thursday, Keir Starmer positively glowed. He was delighted with the comparison, which the entire exercise was surely designed to encourage. Blair won three elections in a row", Starmer said, beaming. Of course, he's thrilled to be likened to a serial winner. And yet the more apt parallel is also a cautionary one. It's not with Starmer's long-ago predecessor, but with his would-be counterpart across the Atlantic: Joe Biden.It's natural that the sight of a Labour leader, a lawyer from north London, on course for Downing Street after a long era of Tory rule, would have people digging out the Oasis CDs and turning back the clock to 1997: Labour election victories are a rare enough commodity to prompt strong memories. But, as many veterans of that period are quick to point out, the circumstances of 2024 are very different. The UK economy was humming then and it's parlous now. Optimism filled the air then, while too few believe genuine change is even possible now. And politics tended to be about material matters then, tax and public services, rather than dominated by polarising cultural wars as it is now.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Josh Hawley among conservatives delighted by football player's commencement speech pummeling Pride and working womenHarrison Butker's university commencement address at Benedictine College excoriating Pride month, working women, abortion rights activists and others has prompted the National Football League to disavow his remarks - but the Kansas City Chiefs placekicker's jersey sales have spiked as conservatives seize on their latest culture war.Butker has also drawn an impassioned statement of support from Josh Hawley, the far-right US senator from Missouri known for his opposition to abortion and a viral video which showed him running away from the mob he incited during the US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

The world No 1, Scottie Scheffler, was detained by police hours before his second round of the US PGA Championship. Scheffler was led away in handcuffs outside the Valhalla Golf Club entrance after becoming involved in a misunderstanding over traffic flow with the officers and attempting to drive into the course. Scheffler has been booked on charges of second degree assault of a police officer, third degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding traffic signals from an officer.In a statement released after he arrived back at Valhalla, Scheffler said: 'This morning, I was proceeding as directed by police officers. It was a very chaotic situation, understandably so considering the tragic accident that had occurred earlier, and there was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do. I never intended to disregard any of the instructions. I'm hopeful to put this to the side and focus on golf today.'

Squabble started when Marjorie Taylor Greene insulted House member, spurring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to demand apologyThe two most famous sets of initials in US politics clashed in a chaotic House hearing on Thursday, as the progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, objected fiercely to an attack on another Democrat by the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, or MTG.The oversight committee hearing concerned Republican attempts to hold the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt, for refusing to release tapes of interviews between Joe Biden and the special counsel Robert Hur. Continue reading...

Trump will look to again cast Biden as greatly diminished while Biden will aim to remind voters why they rejected Trump in 2020

The Guardian's picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...

In Slovakia, we know what restoring order' means. After the PM's shooting, it will be an excuse to suppress any opposition

Fast-moving thunderstorms strike in Texas for second time this month, knocking out power to more than 900,000 homesFast-moving thunderstorms pummeled south-eastern Texas for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings, downing trees and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area.Officials urged residents to keep off roads following Thursday's storms, as many were impassable and traffic lights were out. The storm system moved through swiftly, but flood watches and warnings remained on Friday for Houston and areas to the east. Continue reading...

Phone messages and meetings suggest a friendship between Copperfield and the disgraced financier. His lawyers deny itThe message pads appear a little faded, but the handwriting on the spiral-bound notebooks is clear enough.Staff at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion in Florida's Palm Beach used the pads to jot down the names of the people who had called the financier, and between 2004 and 2005, one well-known person appeared to be calling persistently. Continue reading...

Revealed: Citizens for Sanity was one of top political spenders last election cycle and is back for 2024 with more extreme messagingA dark money group with ties to Trump's inner circle dropped more than $90m on ads described as vile, racist and transphobic in the second half of 2022 alone, new tax records obtained by Documented and the Guardian reveal. The staggering sum makes the newly created group, which is based out of the nerve center for the Maga movement, one of the top political spenders in the last election cycle, as it now appears to gear up to influence voters with violent, bigoted messaging in 2024.The group, called Citizens for Sanity, formed in mid-2022, and quickly drew attention as it flooded the airwaves in battleground states and swing districts with deeply offensive and often misleading ads. Some ads targeted LGBTQ+ rights and attacked Biden and his radical allies" for supporting the woke left's war on girls' sports" and the woke war on our children". Others pictured Latino immigrants and characterized them as criminals draining your paychecks, wrecking your schools, ruining your hospitals [and] threatening your family", declaring that Joe Biden and the Democrats have erased our southern border". Continue reading...

Fears grow that former president will follow through on threat to roll back gun-control regulations if he wins White HouseWhen Donald Trump last addressed members of the National Rifle Association in February, he pitched himself as a paragon of inaction on gun violence, vowing to again march in lockstep with the gun rights group if he is reelected in November.During my four years, nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn't yield," Trump said at the NRA's Great American Outdoor Show then. When I'm re-elected, every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated." Continue reading...

New York University professor Nikhil Singh interviews the political scientist and longtime critic of Israel after his speech at Columbia UniversityHow do the messages and slogans adopted by social movements matter? In the 1960s, one of the simplest and most powerful slogans of the African American civil rights movement was: Freedom now!" With that slogan, the movement indicated that Black demands exceeded a narrow reading of legal rights and protections. At the same time, it tapped into one of the most powerful keywords in the American political lexicon in a way that was immediately legible to a large, popular audience.The occasion for the conversation below was a speech that the political scientist Norman Finkelstein gave at the Columbia University encampment protesting Israel's war in Gaza. Finkelstein challenged students to think of the kind of messaging that might broaden their audience and build their movement. He questioned the slogan Palestine will be free, from the river to sea" as mostly ineffective for these purposes, due to how it inflames fears among Israel's supporters and gives fuel to arguments that pro-Palestinian protests on US university campuses are antisemitic and even genocidal". Continue reading...

Texas governor pardons Daniel Perry, who has been serving a 25-year sentence for murder. Plus, more David Copperfield accusationsGood morning.A former US army sergeant who was convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice has been pardoned by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott.Who is Daniel Perry? Court records showed that in the weeks leading up to the murder, Perry sent racist messages about protesters, shared white supremacist memes and talked about how he might have to kill a few people" who were demonstrating outside his house. He compared the Black Lives Matter movement to a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their shit".Were other people killed during the Black Lives Matter protests? The shooting was one of at least 25 killings of Americans during political protests and unrest in 2020, amid thousands of overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd.The backlash. The move drew immediate criticism from pro-Israel groups, who accused the SJP of glorifying Hamas and discriminating against Jewish students. The Anti-Defamation League told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Lee capitulated to protesters and agreed to a dangerous set of demands in one of the most offensive and outrageous agreements to date with encampment protesters."Senator weighs in, too. California state senator Scott Wiener accused Sonoma State of aligning the campus with the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which he described as a movement whose goal is the destruction of Israel." Continue reading...

My classmates and school at large, like most of the west, see the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a far-removed problemThere has always been trauma involved in being a Palestinian. When I was only 13 years old, I saw my people in Gaza slaughtered by 150 occupation shells on evening news, as if our death was casual, replaced a few days later by false ideas of peace talks". And, now, for the past seven months, that trauma has been overwhelming: we've seen more than 30,000 Palestinians, 14,000 children, slaughtered, with world governments, especially my own US government, not only excusing this onslaught but actively enabling and funding Palestinian death.However, if you were to turn on the news we are bombarded with coverage of the Met Gala and other inanities. The media, and western world at large, fawns over the costumes draped over an evening of celebrity gossip, with no mention of the 200 Palestinians murdered every day. Continue reading...

Trump falls back on false claim that non-citizen voting threatened his popular vote, despite data proving that it's a lieDonald Trump and Mike Johnson are pushing for federal legislation to ban non-citizen voting, which could end up disenfranchising eligible citizens. The effort also underscores how Trump and allies are already seeding doubts about this fall's election.It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. But new legislation backed by Johnson would amend federal law to require all voters to show documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Currently, Americans who register to vote with a federal voter registration form are required to affirm they are a citizen and risk prosecution if they lie. Continue reading...

Dean of law school orders first amendment clinic to curtail core work, including on Atlanta Police Foundation caseThe dean at the University of Georgia's law school has ordered its first amendment law clinic to cease all work related to public records law - including a lawsuit against the Atlanta Police Foundation, the non-profit organization behind a planned $109m training center colloquially known as Cop City.Dean Peter B Bo" Rutledge gave the order to clinic director Clare R Norins within weeks of the clinic's February announcement that one of its attorneys would be representing the digital news outlet Atlanta Community Press Collective, or ACPC, and the Chicago-based digital transparency research organization Lucy Parsons Labs in a lawsuit against the police foundation. Both groups filed the suit after making numerous queries to the organization under Georgia's open records act, only to be ignored. Continue reading...

The managerial merry-go-round has started to spin, there are concerns in Atlanta and the rich keep getting richer in MiamiWelcome back to the Guardian's MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone.Now, as a reminder, these aren't your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We're still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we're diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things. Continue reading...

Teenagers need and want good information about sex. The government's review, and this ideological tug-of-war, is failing themImagine a teenage boy, alone with his phone late at night. A message pings in from a pretty stranger, or even from the hacked account of a girl he already knows. Either way, it's crudely calculated to grab his attention. There will be pictures, tantalising promises of something even more explicit, if he'll send nudes in response. But if he does, the brutal trap springs shut.What follows is a demand for money, if he doesn't want the compromising pictures plastered all over the internet for everyone at school to see. Some boys (the vast majority of so-called sextortion victims are boys) try to pay up. The lucky ones panic and tell their parents. Tragically, a handful are known to have killed themselves rather than risk public humiliation.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Tenth-grader who participated in social media challenge ingested too much chili pepper extract and died of cardiopulmonary arrestA Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge on social media died from eating a large quantity of chili pepper extract and also had a congenital heart defect, according to autopsy results obtained by the Associated Press.Harris Wolobah, a 10th grader from the city of Worcester, died on 1 September 2023 after eating the Paqui chip as part of the manufacturer's One Chip Challenge". Continue reading...

Greg Abbott on Thursday pardoned Daniel Perry, who has been serving a 25-year sentence since 2023 murder convictionGovernor Greg Abbott of Texas issued a full pardon on Thursday to a former US army sergeant convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice.Abbott announced the pardon just minutes after the Texas board of pardons and paroles disclosed it had made a unanimous recommendation that Daniel Perry be pardoned and have his firearms rights restored. Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023. Continue reading...

Thursday's trial was all about Michael Cohen - and attempts by Trump's lawyers to make him out to be a big fat liar

Vote to confer was a 50-38 decision as students and alumni protest at Biden being commencement speaker over handling of Gaza warMorehouse College faculty voted on Thursday to confer an honorary doctorate on Joe Biden during its upcoming graduation ceremony on Sunday, for which he plans to deliver the commencement address.The vote to confer the honorary doctorate was a 50-38 decision, with about a dozen faculty members abstaining ahead of the planned visit, which has prompted protests from some students, faculty and alumni over the president's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Continue reading...

Trump's former fixer was questioned by defense team in historic criminal trial

House Republicans seek recordings of classified documents case interviews, in what Democrats call a purely political' moveJoe Biden asserted executive privilege to stop House Republicans obtaining recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden's retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama.In a letter reported by the New York Times and other outlets on Thursday, the White House counsel, Edward Siskel, told the Republican chairs of the House judiciary and oversight committees: The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal - to chop them up, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes. Continue reading...

Former lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump is under fierce attacks on his credibility by the ex-president's legal team

Index has more than doubled since spring 2020 as investors hope for interest rate cuts following Federal Reserve inflation figuresThe Dow Jones industrial average briefly passed 40,000 points for the first time on Thursday, powered by strong quarterly results from corporate America and rising bets of interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.The uptick was short-lived, though, as the Dow closed slightly down from earlier in the day. The index closed at 39,869 - just under the 40,000 benchmark it surpassed earlier in the day. Continue reading...

Republican-controlled House judiciary committee moved forward with a resolution to hold attorney general in contempt

The assassination attempt has shocked the country, but reflects deep divisions there and across EuropeSlovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, is an immensely divisive figure who has helped polarise his country. But Wednesday's assassination attempt has rightly united figures from across the political spectrum and the world in condemnation. The shooting was not only an attack on the prime minister but, as his domestic opponents stressed, an attack on democracy itself.The background and motivation of this attack are not yet fully known. Ministers have suggested that the suspect now in custody was a lone wolf" who disagreed with the government's justice and media policies. But the case is widely seen as a shocking manifestation of the deep ruptures in Slovakian society. What happened yesterday was an individual act. But the tense atmosphere of hatred was our collective work," warned the outgoing president, Zuzana aputova - an opponent of Mr Fico who is stepping down after herself receiving death threats. It will also fuel concerns about extremism and attacks on politicians elsewhere in the continent. Continue reading...

Police clashed with students from a pro-Palestinian encampment, clearing it of students after it had stood for more than two weeks at the University of California.The demonstration at Irvine, about 40 miles (65 km) south of Los Angeles, is the latest in a series of campus protests across the United States over the war in Gaza in which activists have called for a ceasefire and the protection of civilian lives while demanding universities divest from Israeli interests