US news | The Guardian

From the Robinsons to Folarin Balogun, a player-by-player guide to the United States' squad of 26 for the World Cup

While the event's movers and shakers are rich and smart, they don't come across as caring deeply about sportI woke up in Las Vegas on Monday to an avalanche of messages from people across elite sport asking about the Enhanced Games. Some wanted to know what it was really like. Most, though, wanted to dance on its grave.So much for the organisers' promises that we would witness multiple world records. So much for their ridiculous claim to be the Super Bowl of athletics, swimming and weightlifting!" Hubris meet nemesis. Continue reading...

US president, who turns 80 next month, frequently casts himself as fit but recent photos have added to questions about his health

Panel of three judges says congressional map was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black votersAlabama cannot use a new Republican-friendly map in this year's midterm elections because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters, a panel of three federal judges ruled on Tuesday.The decision blocks Alabama from using a congressional map lawmakers passed in 2023 but never went into effect because the same court found it was drawn with intent to discriminate. Alabama was eventually ordered to adopt a map with two majority-Black districts that both elected Democrats. After the US supreme court gutted a major provision of the Voting Rights Act in a case called Louisiana v Callais in April, Alabama took the extraordinary step of moving its imminent congressional primary and sought to use the 2023 congressional map this year. Continue reading...

US health secretary gets nip from one of two serpents he grabbed at home of fellow Trump official Dr OzRobert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, on Tuesday added to his lengthening catalog of bizarre wild animal encounters by posting to social media a video of himself in Florida wrestling with two snakes.Kennedy, who has previously admitted dumping the carcass of a bear cub in New York's Central Park, and is also alleged to have cut the penis of a road-kill raccoon, is seen grabbing the pair of serpents with his bare hands. Continue reading...

OPM releases draft NDA designed for federal agencies to use with new and existing employees

17-year-old Frenchman Moise Kouame becomes youngest male to win a grand slam singles match since 2009, as Aryna Sabalenka sails through in straight setsKouame holds for 6-6 in the first; he and Cilic will now play a first-set tiebreaker, and I'd not be at all surprised if the 17-year-old took it. I'm almost tempted to post one of my school reports from the same age just to make clear how ridiculous what he's doing is.On Chatrier, Sabalenka and Bouzas Maneiro are ready to start. Can the world no 1 win a major on a non-hard surface? I'm sure the answer is yes, but equally, I'm not sure it'll be this one, this year. Continue reading...

Kentucky conservative says I haven't made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run'Thomas Massie is planning his comeback.The conservative Kentucky congressman filed to run again for the US House of Representatives in 2028, less than a week after losing to Donald Trump's hand-picked challenger Ed Gallrein 55-45 in a bruising primary. Continue reading...

Police responded to reports of gunfire at store in town of Scottsbluff and found that a dog triggered the shotgun blastPolice responding to reports of a shotgun blast at a convenience store sounds like the opening of countless American crime movies, but when cops in Nebraska responded to a recent such call they found an unusual culprit: a dog.Local TV station KNOP News 2 reported that police in the town of Scottsbluff were called out to a local store recently after reports of a blast involving a shotgun. Continue reading...

Democrat Andy Kim says he saw chaos' at the New Jersey ICE facility amid standoff' between protesters and agentsAndy Kim, a Democratic senator, said he was pepper sprayed by federal agents on Monday during a protest at a New Jersey detention facility.Video posted on social media showed Kim receiving help from a volunteer who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark, where detainees are reportedly staging a hunger strike against poor conditions and denial of medical care. Continue reading...

Trump's mass deportation campaign is accelerating the climate crisis. Plus, US students on why they booed their pro-AI graduation speakers

Republicans may be seeking a new line of attack against Gavin Newsom, who has emerged as an early frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nominationThe next US presidential election is more than two years away but conservative media has wasted no time attacking expected Democratic contenders. In recent months, they've turned their attention to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California's governor.In early April, the progressive writer and researcher Kyle Tharp noted that conservative media and influencers were aggressively resurfacing" old footage of Newsom, a 51-year-old documentary film-maker who has been married to Gavin Newsom for nearly 18 years. The clips, Tharp said, included rambling, word-salad answers that seem tailor-made to provoke conservative outrage" and made their way from social media to television and radio, leading to a sudden surge in interest in Google search. Continue reading...

Runoff between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton features ads and legal disputes targeting Texas MuslimsIn the bitter and expensive US Senate runoff between John Cornyn, the incumbent, and Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, the state's Muslim community has been a frequent target for campaign ads and legal challenges.Both candidates have tried to portray the other as either too soft on the supposed threat of Islam or insufficiently aggressive toward Muslim institutions. Continue reading...

Rule prevents many immigrant truckers from renewing driver's license - even if they've driven legally for years

Carruthers' court case was fraught with problems. A second execution attempt would be the kind of cruelty no decent society should countenanceOn 21 May, Tony Carruthers had an experience that few others have had. He was taken to the execution chamber, where the state of Tennessee began the process of putting him to death, but it failed to finish what it started.Carruthers was not killed and he lived to tell about it. He became the ninth person to survive a failed execution in the last 80 years.Austin Sarat, associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty Continue reading...

As always, the kids will be the stars of this year's community. But they will be aided by their families, friends, teachers and coachesThe cult of the great man, common in the US given our love of glorifying the individual, has lately reached depressing extremes. Elon Musk, fancying himself a modern Midas, wrought massive chaos on the federal government last year with his band of Doge hacks. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has instituted an unofficial cult of personality in DC, and recently posted - then deleted - an image of himself as a Christ-like figure. Less malevolently, we tend to think of great scientists, authors, and philosophers as working in splendid isolation, assuming that their accomplishments are a function of their solitude and individual gifts.When some people witness the crowning moment of the Scripps National Spelling Bee - the champion, standing alone, hoisting the trophy as the confetti falls - they may understandably assume that competitive spelling works the same way. But, as with so much in life, success in competitive spelling is a function of community - an important lesson for us all to remember in an age of atomization, AI alienation, and Trumpist individualism. Continue reading...

Scandal-plagued Ken Paxton has won Trump's backing - can he defeat John Cornyn in a high-stakes primary runoff?Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, takes on four-term incumbent John Cornyn on Tuesday in the ugliest primary election of the year. The winner of the Republican Senate runoff in Texas will contest November's general election against Democrat James Talarico.Paxton and Cornyn have spent months coveting the most valuable endorsement in Republican politics: Donald Trump. Last week, scandal-plagued Paxton got it, with the US president describing him as a true Maga warrior". Continue reading...

Some say project Iran is a disaster, but as a get-out-of-jail-free card it's a winner. He did say he was smart, didn't he?How far would you go for your son? For Donald Trump, the answer is simply: The Bahamas? That is way too far! Why can't you just get married on the golf course we buried your mother in? Or better still, the one I'm being carted to the second I get off the reinforced toilet I'm typing this on." And so it was that the president cordially flaked on the latest marriage of his large adult son Don Jr, which took place somewhere in the Bahamas last weekend. If the world felt somehow different to you on Sunday morning, you were right. We now live in a post-troth society.In other ways, though, the world would have felt quite samey. Those whose notional protest placard reads IRAN DEAL WHEN?" remain fobbed off round the clock by a US administration that is always close", looking at a pretty solid thing on the table" and debating specific language in the initial document". The Iranian government, meanwhile, is laying mines in the strait of Hormuz, expressing resolute" support for Hezbollah and saying gnomically trolling things like how the two sides are both very close and very far". The president loves to imply that deals are always like this, once again confusing commercial Floridian real estate with the fanatical remnants of a dysfunctional regime in whose interest it is to play him.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Trump campaign accelerating climate crisis as officials move migrants to detention jails and deport them from USUS immigration enforcement flights are producing hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions as officials shuttle unprecedented numbers of people to detention centers far from home and deport them to countries across the world.Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign has spurred at least an 80% increase in such flights year over year, accelerating the climate crisis by emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide, according to data analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian. Continue reading...

The former Manchester City manager is always interested in fresh challenges. Taking on another continent could be tempting as he embarks on a new chapterWhere do you go after Lionel Messi, Major League Soccer? ?This is not just a question MLS will ponder, but one soccer in general has been thinking about for some time. It has led to a desperate trend of labelling every promising youngster the next Messi', but such was (and remarkably still is) the Argentinian's quality, that there may not be another player at his level for decades. There may never be one. Continue reading...

Donald Trump says deal will be great and meaningful, or there will be no deal at all' in online post - key US politics stories from Monday 25 May at a glanceIran has poured cold water on suggestions that a deal with the US is imminent, pointing to the confusion in US positions and Israeli interference as reasons why an agreement is proving difficult to secure.Speaking at the weekly foreign ministry press briefing, Esmail Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran's negotiating team, also said future management of the strait of Hormuz was a matter for Oman and Iran to agree on, and that it was not tolls that were being proposed but fees for navigational services". Continue reading...

Tehran says contradictory statements' from US and Israeli interference hindering negotiations

US officials credit overnight cooling and monitoring for stabilising tank after leak fears triggered mass evacuationFirefighters contending with an overheating tank of hazardous chemicals in southern California said they had eliminated the threat of the tank exploding in an overnight operation, Orange county fire officials said on Monday.The damaged chemical tank in southern California had cracked over the weekend, which authorities were hopeful would relieve pressure and reduce the risk of an explosion. Continue reading...

Protesters say agents used pepper spray and batons in clash outside Delaney Hall where a hunger strike is under wayProtesters outside a New Jersey migrant detention center where a hunger strike is under way alleged that US immigration agents deployed pepper spray and batons against them during a demonstration on Monday.The protesters tried to stop ICE from transferring Martin Soto - who announced the strike - but officials said that they were able to move him to the Elizabeth contract detention facility. Continue reading...

Video shows officers and firefighters surrounding a white car partially submerged in fast-moving waterAuthorities in Texas rescued an infant on Saturday after a vehicle became trapped in flood waters in Beeville, south of San Antonio.Video released on Sunday by the Beeville police department showed officers and firefighters surrounding a white car that was partially submerged in fast-moving water. As one first responder approached the car, a distressed man in the vehicle asked: Can you get my kid?" Continue reading...

Iga Swiatek and other top female seeds progressed while Stan Wawrinka said goodbye after his 21st French Open at the age of 41Jones 1-2 Swiatek* (* denotes server): Better from Jones. Six shots of baseline exchanges, and Jones finishes it off with a forehand winner past Swiatek to make 30-15 in her favour. Swiatek's backhand then goes long after 11 shots between the pair. However Swiatek crawls back and takes it to deuce. The pair exchange advantages for a while but Jones strikes and gets the break back with a forehand winner.*Jones 0-2 Swiatek (* denotes server): Swiatek breaks Jones at love. Three break points at 0-40, sealed with a crushing forehand winner. Continue reading...

Engine failure in Canada is latest setback for British driver, who is 43 points behind teenager Kimi Antonelli after five racesGeorge Russell was left wondering quite which deity he had offended as he despairingly contemplated his retirement from the Canadian Grand Prix with a mechanical failure. Fortune, for good or ill, will always play a part but what also became clear in Montreal is that Russell's teammate and championship leader, Kimi Antonelli, is going to be fearsomely hard to beat this season, whatever the circumstances.Russell ground to a halt on the circuit Gilles Villeneuve on lap 30 after a thrilling battle with his Mercedes teammate that had ebbed and flowed. The British driver deserved better, the two had been exchanging the lead and going side by side repeatedly, inches apart and trading paint on one occasion, only for Russell's efforts to count for naught as he went out not with a whimper when the systems on his car shut down due to battery failure. Continue reading...

John A Walko was identified through DNA and brought home to Pennsylvania 80 years after his WWII deathThe remains of a US soldier killed during the second world war were returned to his Pennsylvania hometown more than 80 years after he died after DNA analysis identified him.John A Walko, a US army Pfc who died on 20 October 1944 during the Battle of Aachen in Germany, was escorted from the Pittsburgh airport to Commodore, Pennsylvania by a veteran's motorcycle group earlier this month, according to Cleveland.com. Continue reading...

The twists and turns in this saga are bewildering, but Donald Trump appears to have the cards stacked against himFor those following the crisis between the US and Iran, the past few days have been bewildering. On Friday, the six-week-old ceasefire seemed doomed. Donald Trump skipped his son's wedding to remain in the White House and was reportedly contemplating renewed military strikes on Iran. On Saturday, apprehension was replaced by optimism. Trump announced that an agreement with Iran would be concluded shortly". On Sunday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, added to the hope by saying that there would soon be good news".Iran's leaders soon dampened the optimism. The country's media dismissed Trump's social media post as propaganda, and Iranian officials highlighted several remaining points of dispute. As Tehran began revealing - in very general terms - its conception of a deal, the gap between it and Washington became even more evident. Continue reading...

The Spurs are up against the best team in the NBA in the Western Conference finals. But their star player has enough sorcery to give them confidenceVictor Wembanyama called for the ball. His San Antonio Spurs were up by nine at the tail end of the second quarter, but had led by as many as 16 in the first half. Down 2-1 in the Western Conference Finals to the Oklahoma City Thunder, building the lead in the final seconds of the half felt urgent - in the previous game, the Spurs had exploded into a 15-0 lead, only to lose heavily. In Game 4 on Sunday night, the klaxon was closing in, and so might the Thunder. Wembanyama got in a couple dribbles, but only had time to reach half-court before the clock forced him to shoot. He hoisted the ball into the air from 43ft; the buzzer sounded. The ball slammed cleanly into the basket.Buoyed up by that shot and the Thunder clanking almost all their three-point attempts off the rim as if in solidarity with one another, the Spurs completed a 21-point annihilation to tie the series. Continue reading...

Ever-growing influence of social media and AI means such ideas spreading at faster rates than before, experts sayHantavirus and Ebola outbreaks carry with them familiar attendants in the US: extreme conspiracy theories about a planned pandemic, or plandemic", designed to upend midterm elections or push new vaccines or any one of a myriad of wild ideas.Ebola, which the World Health Organization warned on Friday is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, poses a very high" risk at the national level. In the upside-down world of conspiracy theories it could be a bioweapon, a financial plot, or a scheme to extract national resources. Continue reading...

Media credentials for the accused gunman's New York trial acquired by his supporters have provoked sharp reactionsOn what felt like an early New York City summer day, a gaggle of women in the bloom of youth gathered outside Manhattan's criminal courthouse last week, waxing philosophical about Luigi Mangione and the man he is accused of murdering.Fuck Brian Thompson, that's all I'm going to say," one of the three women, who sported a button adorned with Mangione's face, said of the late UnitedHealthcare executive. After directing the same invective towards Thompson's mother, the woman continued: I said what I said." Continue reading...

Luna and Zavier Gozo's World Cup dreams ended with a Friday email from US SoccerReal Salt Lake coach Pablo Mastroeni was in disbelief. The US roster for the World Cup would include neither his team's star playmaker Diego Luna nor their head-turning youngster, Zavier Gozo. While the uncapped Gozo was a late long shot to make the squad, Luna seemed a near-lock given his importance to the national team throughout 2025.Mastroeni knows the magnitude of these moments. As a player, he was the proverbial 23rd man in 2002, relaying that US coach Bruce Arena told him he'd made the roster as a rah -ah guy." Injuries and circumstance, plus his own approach, landed the midfielder in the lineup for the USMNT's 3-2 win over Portugal to open group play as well as both of its ensuing knock-out matches. Continue reading...

Trump and his allies have so undermined the US government that we need a new vocabulary to describe themWords matter. When describing a government, they inevitably carry moral weight.Over the past 16 months, Trump and his appointees have so profoundly undermined the United States government that different words should be used to describe them than have been used to describe all previous administrations.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK Continue reading...

The state saw 33 tornadoes last year and severe flooding as researchers say links to climate change are undeniableThe tornado hit west Ann Arbor at 1.45am on 15 April, passing through Veterans Memorial park, where it knocked several mature oak trees and ripped up baseball field fences before setting its sights on a local ice rink.It came up through the parking lot and, in that time, the pressure differential between the tornado and the air inside the rink collapsed the wall," said Scott Spooner, a manager at Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation. Continue reading...

US president says he is not rushing into a deal after proposed plan to end war prompts Republican backlash. Plus, mood in Russia turns against Putin

President insists I don't make bad deals!' as hawks from his own party call proposed agreement a disaster - key US politics stories from Sunday 24 May at a glanceDonald Trump defended himself against criticism from fellow Republicans on Sunday as he appeared on the verge of agreeing a deal with Iran to end the war.As hawks in his party called the proposed agreement a disaster and questioned why the US president had launched the conflict in the first place, Trump claimed on social media that his deal would be THE EXACT OPPOSITE" of the one agreed by Barack Obama, which Trump pulled out of in 2018. Continue reading...

A margin of a fraction of a second separated winner from second place at the landmark raceFelix Rosenqvist swung to the outside of David Malukas, then found a way past the Team Penske driver to win the closest Indianapolis 500 in history by a margin of 0.0233 seconds on Sunday.Malukas looked as if he was in position to win when he passed race leader Marcus Armstrong off the final restart with one lap to go while Meyer Shank Racing teammates Rosenqvist and Armstrong battled wheel to wheel down the back straightaway and through the fourth and final turn. Continue reading...

Lee Zeldin says low-volume release' of flammable chemicals is most likely amid fears of explosion at Orange county facility near DisneylandGovernment officials in Orange county, California, have warned that an overheated chemical tank will fail" and could result in a chemical explosion in the area, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator said on Sunday.We're being told that the tank will fail, but there are different scenarios as to what that means," Lee Zeldin, told CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. Zeldin, a former Republican congressman with no prior experience in environmental policy, was chosen by Trump as the head of the EPA. Continue reading...

Emma Raducanu suffered her first opening-round loss with an error-strewn display against Argentina's Solana SierraKhachanov has reached the last eight of this competition twice - Wimbledon likewise - and the last four of the other two slams. That tells us he's got an all-court game, with the eye-test advising that he lacks the power-augmenting finesse go further. He does, though, have Gea's number ... so of course, as I type, the young Frenchman flat-bats an incredible pass cross-court to save set point. For all the difference it makes, Khachanov closing out from there to lead 6-3.It looks a lovely day in Paris, by the way - which isn't always the case. It's going to be seriously hard work for those involved in tight matches, given clay-court rallies and soaring tempteratures. Continue reading...