Canada's Intact Financial Corp is said to be exploring offer, as London-listed Tate & Lyle attracts US suitorShares in Hiscox surged to record highs on Friday as it became the latest UK takeover target after a flurry of overseas bids for British businesses this week.Canada's Intact Financial Corp, which provides property and casualty insurance, is said to be exploring a potential takeover of Lloyd's of London insurer Hiscox, according to a report by the Insurance Post. Continue reading...
by Adria R Walker in Bolton, Mississippi on (#75N0F)
Mississippi politicians are threatening to redraw the district of Bennie Thompson, the state's lone Democrat in CongressThe supreme court decision that effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was red meat to the Republican legislators of the south" the US House representative Bennie Thompson said.Conservative lawmakers in Mississippi, where Thompson is both the state's lone Black and only Democratic congressional representative, have used the opportunity to explicitly target him, threatening to redraw the second congressional district, that he represents. Continue reading...
After a much-hyped US-China summit, the leaders of the world's two biggest powers made no real breakthroughs on big issues, such as Iran, Taiwan and trade. The Guardian's senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins, breaks down how Donald Trump and Xi Jinping focused on growing their personal rapport instead
Pennsylvania's third district, a Democratic bastion, will see a face-off between party's traditional wing and insurgentsDemocrats have been consumed for the better part of two years by the same question: what went wrong in 2024? Next week, voters in the country's bluest district will render a verdict when they choose a candidate for the 2026 midterm elections.Nearly every faultline currently running through Democratic politics - from Gaza and healthcare to immigration enforcement and the role of corporate money in politics - is at the heart of the party's race for Pennsylvania's third district. Continue reading...
With the primary election less than three weeks away, the gubernatorial and mayoral races have taken a fiery turnSparring on the debate stage, well-timed statements addressing the slightest misstep by an opponent and countless social media jabs: election season is heating up in California's major primaries.With the primary election less than three weeks away, the gubernatorial and mayoral races have taken a fiery turn as candidates undergo last-ditch efforts to convince voters of their governance chops. Continue reading...
No one has more at stake than Kamala Harris - who has signaled' support for its release without saying so publiclyAfter several months of heated arguments over whether the Democratic National Committee (DNC) should release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the dispute has neared a boiling point. With one recent media appearance after another, the DNC chair, Ken Martin, has set off fierce criticism and even derision, while offering notably illogical explanations for keeping the autopsy secret.As the controversy simmers, no one has more at stake than the party's latest standard-bearer. Kamala Harris, apparently preparing for another run, leads in polls for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. One of the last things she needs is a widely publicized narrative from the DNC about failures of her 2024 campaign. A maxim from George Orwell applies: who controls the past controls the future" and who controls the present controls the past". Continue reading...
Mirroring of each other's attire may signal alignment - though the look wasn't a huge departure for either leaderWhen Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met for a welcome ceremony in Tiananmen Square this week with the world's gaze on them, they mirrored one another in strikingly similar suits.Both were blue, single-breasted with flap pockets. Both had two buttons with only the top one done up. Both wore red ties. Continue reading...
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, gave the US president, Donald Trump, a tour of Beijing's walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in the concluding hours of their summit on Friday. Among the notable ancient trees Xi showed Trump was the 'Lianli Bai', two cypress trees whose trunks have grown together.A hot mic captured the leaders' remarks, in which Trump asked Xi if other foreign leaders were also received in the compound. 'Very rarely,' Xi responded. Continue reading...
The president's ultimate goal is to push the Fed - among other independent US institutions - to bend to his willJerome Powell, who stepped down this week as chair of the Federal Reserve, had his hits and misses. The Fed was late to react as prices started rising when the Covid pandemic abated, but they eventually acted forcefully and achieved the most rare of feats: a soft landing", curbing inflation without sparking a recession or damaging employment.Strangely, given the chaotic era of pandemic and tariffs that coincided with Powell's time as chair, monetary policy may not define his legacy. Powell's most lasting accomplishment will most likely be his outspoken efforts to defend the independence of the Fed from an assault by the imperial presidency of Donald Trump. Continue reading...
Site provides little in the way of actual support for pregnant women - but does direct them to deceptive pregnancy centersOn the website's landing page, a photo of a heavily pregnant white woman is cropped below the head, so that she is faceless, anonymous, cradling her massive belly underneath the skirt of her yellow dress. She appears to be standing in a field of tall grass, the kind you can get ticks in. The photo is flanked on either side by chubby infant footprints - one pair in pink, another in blue - a clear nod to the anti-abortion movement's preferred symbol of what they call precious feet". A banner at the top declares that the site, Moms.gov", which was launched by the White House on Mother's Day, offers Resources, Information, and Help for New and Expecting Mothers", and advertises that it is addressing the needs of mothers and fathers who face difficult or unexpected pregnancies" - that is, those who would often seek abortions. In fact, the site does little besides link to Option Line, a referral network of Christian anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers run by the anti-abortion group Heartbeat International.The launch of Moms.gov was accompanied by an uncomfortable Oval Office press conference on Monday, in which members of the Trump administration and some of the more aggressively anti-choice Republican members of Congress gathered to tout the new website and cheer on the Trump administration's pronatalist stance. Dr Mehmet Oz, the wellness influencer and one-time television personality who now holds a position in the Trump health department as the administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, lamented that Americans are, in his creepy personal parlance, under-babied". One in three Americans are under-babied," Oz asserted. That means that you either don't have any children or you have less children than you would normally want to have." Oz asserted that the fertility rate has fallen below 1.5 (a Johns Hopkins study indicates that it is in fact a bit higher, and that the US population is not shrinking) and predicted a coming wave of Trump babies". Continue reading...
Homework, social pressure and jobs still keep teens up but now screen time and social media rob their sleepA new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health shows that today's teenagers are sleeping less than ever before.The findings, which appeared in Pediatrics, showed a consistent decline in sleep across every age category. The latest figures revealed record-low sleep levels for all groups, with only 22% of older adolescents saying they slept at least seven hours each night. Continue reading...
Athletes have always been targets for criminals hoping to profit from their wealth. But a new wave of dangers has cropped up in recent yearsWith exorbitant ticket, travel and hotel prices making fans desperate to find an affordable way of attending this summer's World Cup, it's no surprise that security firms and law enforcement agencies are warning that fans are at significant risk of becoming fraud victims.While major tournaments are moments of heightened vulnerability for supporters, players themselves are increasingly attractive year-round targets for cybercriminals who can use AI to mount ever more sophisticated attacks. Continue reading...
Superpower leaders were expected to discuss the Iran war, trade, Taiwan and artificial intelligence during US president's visit to Beijing Continue reading...
US grandmaster scored biggest success of his career at the Grand Chess Tour Rapid & Blitz and is close to world top 10Hans Niemann, the controversial US grandmaster whose game with Magnus Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup led to cheating allegations, a $100m lawsuit, an out of court settlement, the Netflix documentary Untold: Chess Mates, and a forthcoming book, scored the most important success of his career last weekend.Niemann, competing as a wildcard, won the $50,000 first prize at the Warsaw Rapid & Blitz in Poland, ahead of the US champion and the world No 3, Fabiano Caruana, India's reigning world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, and the Candidates winner, Javokhir Sindarov. The event was part of the St Louis-backed Grand Chess Tour, which ends in August and includes the prestigious Sinquefield Cup. Continue reading...
China keen to put Taiwan at the top of agenda that risks being overshadowed by US-Israel war on Iran and disagreements over trade - key US politics stories from Thursday, 14 May at a glanceChina's president, Xi Jinping, has warned of clashes and even conflicts" with the US over Taiwan after meeting Donald Trump in Beijing.Xi's remarks, published by China's foreign ministry after his two-hour meeting with Trump on Thursday morning, said Taiwan was the most important issue in China-US relations". Continue reading...
Defending champion Scottie Scheffler tied for the first-round lead on a difficult day for Rory McIlroyBryson's touch is all over the shop. He overcooks his downhill 30-foot putt from the fringe at the back of 11 ... and the ball catches the slope of the green, rolling 60 feet past! So nearly off back down the fairway! That leads to an inevitable bogey. Also dropping a shot: Jon Rahm on 1. His approach disappears down a swale to the right of the green, and he can't get his ball back up with his first chip. Rory also bogeys, the result of that errant drive and skulled wedge, and for a course supposedly there for the taking, Aronimink sure is baring its teeth.It Can Happen To The Best Of Them dept. Rory McIlroy's ball, having hit a tree down the right of 1, comes straight down and disappears into thick rough. He lashes at it with great force, but the ball only squirts out of the cabbage, a topper that dribbles 100 yards down the fairway. We've all done it, Rory on fewer occasions than most. But here he is. So much for his pre-tournament claim that strategy off the tee is pretty non-existent", huh. And there's no blaming a blister on his pinky toe for that one. Continue reading...
A 2023 supreme court decision banned the use of affirmative action in college admissionsThe US Department of Justice on Thursday accused Yale University of illegally considering race in admissions to its medical school - the second institution to face discrimination allegations by the federal agency this month.In a letter to a lawyer for Yale, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said a justice department investigation found that Black and Hispanic students have a much higher chance of admission to the medical school than white or Asian students, despite having lower grade-point averages and lower test scores. Continue reading...
Since November, state has seen 47 cases of people accidentally ingesting poisonous wild mushroomsHealth authorities in California's Napa county reported that three people had been hospitalized after consuming poisonous wild mushrooms as the state continues to grapple with an unprecedented outbreak" of toxic mushroom illnesses.Since November 2025, California has seen 47 cases of people accidentally foraging and eating poisonous wild mushrooms, including death caps, which can resemble edible species, and western destroying angel mushrooms. Four people have died and several have required liver transplants. Continue reading...
Judge called Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata's deportation to the Democratic Republic of Congo likely illegal'A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring a Colombian woman back to the US from the Democratic Republic of Congo, after she was deported to the African country that had refused to accept her.The deportation of Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata was likely illegal", the US district judge Richard Leon ruled on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Gautam Adani, richest man in Asia, was accused of conspiring to pay $250m in bribes to Indian government officialsThe US Department of Justice is dropping its fraud charges against the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, the richest man in Asia, after he hired a new legal team led by Donald Trump's personal lawyer, according to new reports.In an undisclosed April meeting at the justice department, Trump's personal lawyer, Robert J Giuffra Jr, said that Adani would invest $10bn in the US economy and create 15,000 jobs if prosecutors dropped the charges against him, according to the New York Times and Bloomberg. Continue reading...
Liban Mohamed is the progressive underdog in the race for a House seat but victory at the state party convention offers grounds for optimismLiban Mohamed, a 27-year-old son of Somali immigrants, is headed into a high-stakes Utah Democratic congressional primary in June after narrowly winning the state party convention last month with 51% of the vote in what was seen as an upset for the party's political establishment.The sudden emergence of an unknown progressive candidate in Utah has exposed a growing divide within the state's Democratic party, one that mirrors a broader tension across the national party between its moderate establishment and a younger, more progressive wing. Continue reading...
Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and more are pushing to eliminate Democratic districts after supreme court rulingUS southern states are rushing to redraw congressional maps to eliminate Democratic districts and dilute the influence of Black voters in electing candidates, a bare-knuckled blitz occurring even in some states where voting in congressional primaries has begun, and prompted by the US supreme court's decision gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.Tennessee Republicans have already enacted a new map, carving up the majority Black city of Memphis into three different congressional districts to get rid of the state's lone Democrat in Congress. Louisiana, the state at the center of the supreme court's Voting Rights Act decision, is on the brink of implementing a new map that would eliminate the seat of one of the state's two Black Democrats in Congress. Alabama has successfully petitioned the US supreme court to allow it to eliminate a district currently represented by a Black Democrat. Instead, it will use a map this cycle that a court previously ruled was intentionally drawn to discriminate against Black voters. Continue reading...
Cuba's capital city, Havana, is facing rolling blackouts amid a US blockade that has caused the country to completely run out of diesel and fuel oil. Residents in Havana gathered around fires in streets to protest against the power cuts that have left many neighbourhoods without light for hours a day.The US has put pressure on Cuba since seizing the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, in January. Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on any country selling oil to Cuba and cut off their Venezuelan oil shipments. In March, Trump said he expected to have 'the honour of taking Cuba'
A state department document seeks to justify the war as part of a years-long conflictIs the war in Iran over? Within hours of secretary of state Marco Rubio's assurance that the operation is over" last week, Donald Trump used social media to declare that it most decidedly was not. Should Iran fail to accept the US peace plan, Trump warned that the bombing would resume and at a much higher level and intensity than it was before". No bombs have since fallen, but the standoff remains. If it is unclear when and how this war will end, can we at least agree on when it began?Evidently not. That is the upshot of the state department's document of 21 April, the administration's first full effort to supply a legal justification for Operation Epic Fury". The document was notably tardy, coming nearly two months after the bombing campaign began. More remarkable still is how completely it rejects the justification offered by the president on 28 February in his prerecorded television address announcing the start of the assault: Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime."Lawrence Douglas is the author, most recently, of The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice. He teaches at Amherst College Continue reading...
Shawn Montgomery, whose parked vehicle was hit by a speeding driver, says top US freight broker should be liableThe supreme court on Thursday allowed a man to sue a major logistics company after he lost part of his leg in a semi tractor-trailer crash, a decision that could have ripple effects across the trucking industry.The US's highest court ruled unanimously in favor of Shawn Montgomery, whose parked vehicle was hit by a speeding truck driver on an Illinois highway in 2017. Continue reading...
South Carolina's state senate majority leader offered a nuanced case for rejecting Trump's redistricting demandsHow does a Republican leader say no to Donald Trump? How do they criticize the US president's policies without facing a social media riot, or losing their career?As the party scrambles to redraw key congressional districts after the supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act that prevented racial discrimination, all eyes turned this week to South Carolina.I had never had the privilege of speaking with the president of the United States until last week. And it really was - it was a privilege. I enjoyed the conversation. It was a very good conversation. He gave me more time in a phone call than I could have expected...The president told me, he said: Look, I hope you can help us out." He said: But I understand you got to do what you're comfortable with, you got to do what you think is right."I would hope that the home team can retain the majority. And I would also hope that if the home team retains the majority, that they'll actually do something productive with it. Over the last year and a half, I suspect if we look back at what they've done with the majority, I don't know that anybody in here could name more than one piece of legislation they've passed.And no matter how big and beautiful it was, there's a whole lot more that they've left on the table. And that, to me, is disappointing - to have a majority that doesn't do anything with it.Trying to go to 7-0 I think is extremely risky from a political standpoint. I think at best you're going to get 6-1 and you may even go 5-2. I've told the press a number of times, I think if you get cute with this, you could end up in a 5-2 scenario. I don't want to go 5-2.I don't want [Democratic House minority leader] Hakeem Jeffries as the speaker of the House. I think the best chance that South Carolina has to prevent that from happening is with our current maps.I cannot in good conscience surrender this authority that has been preserved to, for, and by the states, and merely take orders from those who are not in South Carolina ...I absolutely understand what the president's concern is here. I understand what the president's issue is here. I don't disagree with that. But there are other concerns that we have to consider. Those concerns have not been considered at all with the proposal that we have. Those concerns affect South Carolina and South Carolinians. And it is up to us to consider those things.We've been able to punch above our weight regardless of the administration, regardless of who the president is, regardless of who occupies the White House. South Carolina has been able to deliver not just for South Carolina, but for the country and the world.We have had that influence. Doing this will absolutely diminish that influence. It just will. And everybody knows it. Everybody in here, everybody who's familiar with the process, we understand what's going to happen here ... Continue reading...
US plaintiffs say waterfront site was improperly transferred for Trump's personal gainA group of Miami residents has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and the state of Florida over a land giveaway for his proposed presidential library.Almost three acres of prime waterfront land that once belonged to Miami Dade College (MDC) were illegally gifted to the US president by Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, the lawsuit states. Continue reading...
Chinese president's comments published after two-hour meeting with Trump. Plus, Stacey Abrams on why gutting of the Voting Rights Act is evil incarnate'
Texas State ordered by judge to continue paying Idris Robinson after he was fired for talk he gave in another stateTexas philosophy professor Idris Robinson said he was breathing a bit easier this week nearly halfway through what he called the most stressful month of fatherhood so far".That's because Robinson was faced with losing his paycheck from Texas State University beginning 31 May, along with his academic affiliation, after he was fired for a talk he gave in another state on what he called the liberation of Palestine". The incident would have made it nearly impossible for him to find another job teaching - all with a 16-month-old son at home. Continue reading...
As Missouri asks voters whether to eliminate tax, experts say claims it will grow businesses and create jobs aren't trueHannah Rejali, 34, lived through the failed so-called Kansas Experiment" in the 2010s, when the Republican governor cut the state's income tax to try to give a shot of adrenaline" to its economy but instead left the state with a $900m budget shortfall.That meant, for example, that in 2015, at least eight school districts ended their academic year early. Continue reading...
The president's second term has been full of donors seeking access, favors for billionaires and apparent conflicts of interestEvery time Donald Trump has run for president, he has vowed to drain the swamp in Washington. But ever since he returned to the White House, not only has he not even tried to drain the swamp, he has pushed to gild it. Trump has used all the gold and glitz he can to cover up an increasingly putrid swamp - a morass filled with million-dollar donors scrambling for access, criminals seeking to buy pardons, corporate executives appointed to high-level government jobs and billionaire sycophants sucking up to Trump.Making the swamp smell even worse, the president and his sons have somehow managed, through crypto and other means, to increase their wealth by an estimated $4bn since Trump won a second term. At this point, we should probably call Trump's Washington not a swamp, but a colossal cesspool. Continue reading...
by Lauren Aratani and Andrew Witherspoon on (#75KZS)
Wall Street has proved incredibly resilient to instability, and while consumer confidence has dipped, shares have soaredIt was a dark Friday for Wall Street on 27 March. Oil prices were climbing and the war with Iran raged on. Markets responded accordingly, with the Dow and Nasdaq entering correction territory, falling more than 10% below their peak, after a month of selloffs.Fast forward seven weeks later to 13 May, and the situation in Iran only looked marginally better. Oil prices were high, and the strait of Hormuz was still closed. Peace talks with Iran seemed tenuous, even with the pressures of high gas prices. Donald Trump on Wednesday said he is not even a little bit" motivated by Americans' financial situation to end the war. Continue reading...
In 1997, the Comets defied the odds to win the league's inaugural championship. From clashing stars and run-ins with Hakeem Olajuwon to city parades and mourning Princess Diana on title night, this is the story of their historic seasonFran Harris remembers a late-night dinner in Sacramento. Her Houston Comets squad had just dispatched the lowly Monarchs by 10 points. To celebrate, she and a few teammates, including Cynthia Cooper, Tammy Jackson and Kim Perrot, decided to grab a bite. Cooper had scored 44 in the 25 July 1997 contest, and her talents dazzled even her dinner companions.I said to Cynthia, I just cannot believe how great you're playing - and I know how great you are!'" Harris tells the Guardian. And she goes, I know!' She was just, like, Yeah, I'm the motherfucker! I was like, You absolutely are!'" Continue reading...
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