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Russian strikes in Kyiv, the Ebola outbreak, Eid al-Adha in Gaza and Sinner at the French Open - the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists Continue reading...

Judge rules that Washington DC performing arts venue cannot be renamed without an act of CongressA judge on Friday ordered the removal of Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ruling that the iconic Washington DC venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress.US district judge Christopher Cooper in Washington directed the Trump administration to take down all physical signage bearing Trump's name and to eliminate any references to a Trump Kennedy Center" from official materials within 14 days. Continue reading...

Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat, applauded the pope for pushing back against Trump's policies in meetingBrandon Johnson, the Chicago mayor, cast Pope Leo XIV as a powerful global ally on social justice, migration and reparations after meeting the Chicago-born pontiff at the Vatican, saying their shared roots and priorities could help amplify efforts to protect vulnerable communities.We are incredibly elated and proud of him," Johnson told the Associated Press in an interview on Friday, a day after the meeting with the American pope in a private audience. Continue reading...

Case involving June 2025 protest is escalation in Trump officials' attack on first amendment rights, say expertsA federal jury has found three protesters, including a US military veteran of the war in Afghanistan, guilty on felony conspiracy charges on Thursday for their part in a June 2025 protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).Legal experts have said the Spokane, Washington, case marked a serious escalation in the Trump administration's attack on first amendment rights. The demonstrators now face potential sentences of up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Continue reading...

The GOP-friendly map approved by state lawmakers now goes to Republican governor who is expected to sign it

David Rush's trial for allegedly taking 303 gold bars and $2m in foreign currency from agency was pushed to next week

The National Spelling Bee, which concluded with Thursday's nationally televised championship finals, invited 247 spellers to compete for a $52,500 cash prize and orthographic immortality

He's always looking out for Number One

Upper East Side residents fighting Maison Estelle's plan for venue with roof terrace next to nice townhouses'The New York City elite are growing irritated by a proliferation of private members' clubs from London's Mayfair opening branches on their doorsteps.Over the last year, London clubs have started popping up like unexpected guests in the US city. The entrepreneur Robin Birley, who owns 5 Hertford Street - where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly had their first date - and Oswald's in Mayfair, has opened Maxime's on New York's Upper East Side. The Grosvenor Square newcomer The Twenty Two has now opened its NYC outpost and others are swiftly following, including the Mayfair stalwart Annabel's, which plans to open a site in the downtown meatpacking district. Continue reading...

Order blocks White House from taking any further action' on settlement fund until further legal arguments heard

Group was unharmed after dangling for almost four hours on ride that malfunctioned at Pleasure Pier in GalvestonEight students were rescued unharmed after dangling for hours at the top of a rollercoaster ride that became stuck in Texas.Pictures and news footage of the incident showed a rollercoaster car stalled at the peak of a huge almost vertical drop on the Iron Shark rollercoaster overlooking the Gulf of Mexico at the Pleasure Pier in Galveston. Continue reading...

Amtrak car caught fire in Hudson River tunnel resulting in overhead wire damage, according to New Jersey TransitA fire in a rail yard train car near New York's Penn Station injured five people and disrupted service for many commuters early on Friday, authorities said.The fire resulted in train delays on the New Jersey Transit and Amtrak rail services into New York and briefly suspended Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) service, more than a week after a strike had shut down that system. Continue reading...

Republicans increasingly avoid doctors and vaccines, widening health gaps with Democrats, researchers sayGrowing Republican mistrust in the healthcare system has widened health disparities between liberals and conservatives, who are more likely to avoid vaccines and the medical system in general, according to a new study.Neil O'Brian, a political science professor at the University of Carolina, Chapel Hill and one of the authors of the study published in Nature Human Behaviour, said that his team saw two phases to the phenomenon. Continue reading...

Americans spend 18% of our economy on healthcare, nearly twice the average of comparable nations, for worse resultsThe Commonwealth Fund published its 2026 report card on US healthcare this week, measuring the United States against 19 other wealthy countries. It runs the most expensive system on earth, and it buys some of the worst results in the developed world. I have spent more than four decades in the medical intensive care unit at UCLA, and I do not read those numbers as statistics. I read them as the people I admit.We spend 18% of our economy on healthcare, nearly twice the average of comparable nations, and $12,649 a person, roughly 10 times what Mexico spends. For that fortune, American life expectancy peaked at 79 years, more than two years below our peers and third from the bottom of the group, above only Mexico and Turkey. Our rate of deaths that good care should have prevented is the second worst in the developed world. Only Mexico does worse. Continue reading...

Spain led the opposition to Trump's Iran war, but on the Cuba blockade, the challenge is absentFor many Europeans of my generation, Cuba was as much a progressive cause as a country.In our selectively idealistic student days (mine were in the mid-1970s), it was a plucky little country that had overthrown a corrupt regime in cahoots with the US mafia. In a popular revolution led by the charismatic Fidel Castro and iconic guerrilla leader Che Guevara, it then withstood a crippling US economic embargo to defend its independence. Hasta la victoria siempre! (Ever onwards to victory!)Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre Continue reading...

Officials say bodies of two adult women and one child found in rubble and four other people taken to hospital

Three more people remain missing and are presumed dead, after tank containing chemical mixture collapsedThe confirmed death toll in the chemical tank explosion at a Washington state paper mill rose to eight on Thursday after crews recovered the remains of six workers, officials said.Three more individuals remain missing and are presumed dead. Eight other people were injured, including a firefighter responding to the incident. Continue reading...

Shannon O'Connor, 52, was convicted of charges including child endangerment and facilitating forcible sexual assaultA judge has sentenced a San Francisco Bay Area mother to 35 years in prison after her conviction for a slew of crimes resulting from hosting drunken sex parties for young teenagers.Widely known as the Los Gatos party mom", a nickname that references her hometown, 52-year-old Shannon O'Connor was convicted of four dozen crimes in March, including child endangerment, dissuading witnesses from reporting a crime and facilitating forcible sexual assault. Her sentence was the maximum allowed under state law. Continue reading...

Trump's latest vanity project would require changing law that prohibits any living person from appearing on US currency - key US politics stories from Thursday 28 MayDonald Trump's latest vanity project: putting his own face on US currency.The White House is pushing Congress to approve a $250 bill bearing the president's portrait, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said, which would require changing longstanding federal law that prohibits any living person from appearing on US currency. Continue reading...

Morris Day, Young MC and others balk at appearing at US's 250th anniversary events organized by administrationAt least six of the nine featured musical acts set to play in a concert series organized by the Trump administration to mark the United States' 250th anniversary have dropped out, just one day after the lineup was announced.The first to drop out, hours after Wednesday's announcement, was Morris Day, who called his scheduled participation in the summer concert series on Washington DC's National Mall a baseless rumor". Continue reading...

Ryan Fournier, 30, was charged with simple assault and threats to do bodily harmThe co-founder of the group Students for Trump was arrested on Tuesday on domestic violence charges.Washington DC's Metropolitan police department arrested Ryan Fournier, 30, and charged him with simple assault and threats to do bodily harm, Defector first reported. Continue reading...

Updates from the fifth day's play at Roland Garros

White House made lengthy post about gorilla shot dead at Cincinnati zoo after a toddler entered his enclosure in 2016

States with abortion bans are turning away from medications to a wait-and-see approach, with care falling below standardsAbortion restrictions in the US have made it more difficult to access care for miscarriages, a new study stays.The new research found that since the June 2022 Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization decision overturning Roe v Wade, pregnancy care has fractured along state lines; it's getting increasingly harder to access healthcare for miscarriages in US states with abortion restrictions. Continue reading...

Monitors estimate 17,500 people have been sent to countries they may never have visited - and where they could face further dangerJose Yugar-Cruz spent 17 months in a county jail in Muscatine, Iowa, despite never having committed a crime.Originally from Bolivia, he entered the United States legally at the Arizona border in July 2024, affirmatively approached authorities, and requested asylum. Six months later, a US immigration judge found he had been tortured in Bolivia, would probably face torture again if returned, and barred his removal to his home country. The government did not appeal. Yugar-Cruz was not released for almost a year. Instead, ICE spent months searching unsuccessfully for somewhere else to send him. He finally won his release in December 2025. Continue reading...

President makes comments after reports Iran and Oman have discussed jointly charging a toll for ships. Plus, how balcony solar' could help fight rising energy costs

We need rules for the Democratic primaries that will lift up the voices of talented DemocratsIn democracy, the rules matter. Six months before the midterms, the US supreme court's Callais decision dramatically changed the rules of US elections by gutting the Voting Rights Act and capsizing the 15th amendment.As the Maga party races to restore Jim Crow politics with voter suppression and all-white congressional delegations in the south, Democrats must act shrewdly to advance party rules of our own that promote majority rule, interracial political solidarity and the power of the voters. Continue reading...

Aiden Daniel Cuevas allegedly told undercover officer reporter needed to be taken off the board'An Alabama neo-Nazi accused of trying to start a paramilitary unit to take out high value targets" aimed to kill a journalist who once reported on him, according to law enforcement testimony obtained by the Guardian.Aiden Daniel Cuevas allegedly used coded talk" to tell an undercover officer in November 2024 that the journalist was a pawn" that needed to be taken off the board". Continue reading...

The decision to charge Raul Castro is grimly reminiscent of the run-up to Trump's military operation in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the Cuban people are suffering needlesslyThe US war machine has turned its sights on Cuba. Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American secretary of state who has long craved the fall of the island's communist government, made that clear again last week. While professing a preference for a negotiated settlement", he said the chances of a deal were not high". A couple of months ago, I saw up close the economic devastation already inflicted by decades of US siege - and, since January, by a crippling oil blockade introduced by Donald Trump.The US has now charged the country's former president Raul Castro with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft over the downing of two planes in 1996. The evidence points increasingly in one direction: it is all grimly reminiscent of the indictment of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, used to justify his kidnapping by US forces.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Some are bright and cosy, others are starkly depressing - these images of rooms used to pump breast milk expose the sometimes grim reality of being a new mum in the US Continue reading...

US president calls on US ally to behave ... or else we'll have to blow them up' in casual aside during cabinet meetingDonald Trump has threatened to blow up" Oman if it fails to behave" in a casual aside during a cabinet meeting, as the US scrambles to reopen the strait of Hormuz.The US president made the threat after reports of talks between Iran and Oman about jointly charging a toll for ships passing through the crucial waterway, which has been all but closed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran. Continue reading...

Military claims boat targeted in second deadly attack this week was travelling along a known smuggling routeThe US military attacked what it called a drug trafficking boat on Wednesday in the eastern Pacific, killing two men, officials said.It was the second deadly attack in as many days in the Trump administration offensive that began last September and has now left almost 200 people dead. Rights groups say the attacks could amount to extrajudicial killings. Continue reading...

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Officials said to be examining whether Carroll committed perjury in 2022 deposition tied to lawsuits against presidentThe Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation into E Jean Carroll, the writer who accused the president of sexual assault, according to news reports.Prosecutors, the New York Times and CNN reported on Wednesday, are looking into whether Carroll, 82, committed perjury in a 2022 deposition during her civil lawsuits against Trump, in which she said she did not accept outside financial support for her legal battles. Continue reading...

State's governor looks to thwart US president's plan to divert money to allies, including January 6 riotersCalifornia governor Gavin Newsom is looking to thwart Donald Trump's $1.776bn anti-weaponization fund" by imposing a 100% tax on any payout received by state residents.In May, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced a fund to compensate alleged victims of lawfare and weaponization". It's unclear who qualifies under this category. Continue reading...

Trump claims Iran intends to wait until US midterm elections in the hope of getting better deal - key US politics stories from Wednesday, 27 MayDonald Trump has accused Iran of trying to stall on making a peace agreement by running down the clock before November's US midterm elections in the hope of getting better terms.They thought they were going to outwait me, you know, we'll out-wait him, he's got the midterms'," the US president told a meeting of his cabinet at the White House on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Two people dead and another nine missing and presumed dead after paper mill tank holding chemicals implodedThe death toll from the tank-rupture incident at a Washington state paper mill on Tuesday rose to two, with nine people still missing and presumed dead, authorities said.The Longview fire department said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that one person who was transported to the hospital following the disaster at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co on Tuesday morning had died. Continue reading...

In CBS interview set to air Sunday, former first lady says she was frightened' during husband's debate with TrumpJill Biden said she had been frightened" as she watched Joe Biden's faltering performance during his 2024 presidential debate, and thought her husband might have suffered a stroke.I was frightened, because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never," the former first lady said in a 30-second clip of an interview with CBS, set to air on Sunday. Continue reading...

Anthony Odiong, 57, charged in Texas with exploiting status to pursue sex with vulnerable female congregantsA Roman Catholic priest replied we are but men" when confronted after the son of a woman to whom he was providing spiritual guidance caught the clergyman having sex with his mother, according to court testimony in Texas on Wednesday.That version of events emerged at the second day of the trial of Anthony Odiong, who has been criminally charged with illicitly abusing his status as a clergyman to pursue sex with spiritually vulnerable female congregants. Continue reading...

Markwayne Mullin, DHS secretary, said move would come in response to protests outside ICE facility in New JerseyThe Trump administration has threatened to stop processing international flights in major cities around the country as a reaction to protests against immigration enforcement.Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, said during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday that the administration is drawing up plans" to take the action, in response to days of clashes at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in New Jersey. Continue reading...

Across California, ballots sit unopened as voters struggle to decide who to back as their chosen candidate for governor. US senior political correspondent Lauren Gambino tells Kai Wright that the race has been a head-scratcher for Democrats. Despite a huge field of candidates, the race has been mired in scandal and few have managed to cut through. What does this say about the future of the Democratic party, and does this leave an opening for Republicans in the Golden state?

The satellite visuals reveal vast burn scars after blaze tore through rare ecosystems on Santa Rosa IslandImages from a Nasa satellite showcased the devastating scars left behind by a wildfire that consumed roughly a third of Santa Rosa Island, one of the five islands that make up Channel Islands national park off the southern California coast.Taken on 20 May, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (Modis) took the false-color image of the burn area, showing swaths of blackened land. Continue reading...

Federal agents deployed chemical irritants on protesters and journalists amid detainees' hunger and labor strike

A day after ICE officials pepper-spray senator, tensions ramp up outside facility on fifth day of hunger and labor strike

Refunds came after the supreme court ruled Trump overstepped his authority in enacting sweeping tariffsUS importers are expected to receive $85bn in tariff refunds after the supreme court struck down Donald Trump's tariffs in February, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency that collects tariffs.Importers and shippers have so far been refunded $20bn, according to court documents filed on Tuesday, with about $65bn more on the way. Continue reading...