PEN America condemns lawyers using passage from thriller to bolster claim ex-FBI director intended to harm TrumpA leading US free-expression group has hit out at federal prosecutors' use of a novel written by former FBI director James Comey in their case accusing him of threatening to kill Donald Trump.Citing a novel to save an indictment that is constitutionally dubious is a desperate Hail Mary and should be rejected," said a statement posted on Friday by Mara Gassmann, legal director of PEN America, using a term for a last-second heave in American football. Continue reading...
A Democrat's remarks have resulted in impassioned defenses of the Trump aide. The right has discovered misogynyJon Ossoff is quite the miracle worker. Perhaps the Democratic senator can't turn water into wine, but he has managed to turn whining conservatives into impassioned feminists.During a rally last Sunday, the Georgia senator delivered a takedown of Donald Trump, which included a reference to his aide Natalie Harp. He doesn't want to do the job," Ossoff said of the president. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar."Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Latest attack happened amid Islamophobic blowback against Arab and Muslim Americans running for officeNashid Shakir describes how assailants used wire cutters to break into the Westwood Islamic Community Center in the early hours of 3 August.They cut the wire and broke the window to get in. They broke into the office, too. It was total disarray," says Shakir, a board member, and member, at the community center since the 1960s. Continue reading...
New CDC data shows MMR vaccination among kindergarteners declining slightly as non-medical exemptions climb to 4.2%A week after Donald Trump made a series of misleading claims about vaccines - including that some injections look like the size of a soda bottle" - the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the latest data on national kindergarten vaccination rates.CDC communications downplayed the changes - a three-sentence announcement said, overall vaccination rates among kindergarteners remained high" - but medical experts immediately saw cause for concern in the trends. Continue reading...
A call revealing Todd Blanche's plans to crack down on mifepristone lays bare the dangerThe abortion pill is a miracle. Mifepristone, then called RU-486, was synthesized by a French lab in the 1980s; in combination with misoprostol, commonly used as ulcer medication, it cuts off the body's supply of progesterone, halts the development of a pregnancy, and incites contractions, which empty the uterus. The drug allows pregnancies to be terminated with a shocking degree of reliability and ease. Gone are the concoctions of ergot and Spanish Fly dispensed by 19th century midwives, which only sometimes worked to induce a miscarriage; gone are the backroom procedures of the pre-Roe US, when drunk, lascivious, incompetent or cruel providers wielded bent coat hangers in dirty rooms. The abortion pill is safe, effective and cheaper than ever. And since Dobbs, it's everywhere: even if you live in a state with an abortion ban, you can get the pills shipped to your house in the mail. Since Roe was overturned, there has not been a return to the terror of mass death that marked the pre-Roe era of septic abortion wards, where women routinely found themselves maimed, sickened or killed. There's exactly one reason why: because illegal abortions were largely unsafe without the pill, and they are extremely safe with it.So of course, the Trump administration and their allies on the American right are trying to get rid of it. And this month, they gained a powerful new ally when Todd Blanche, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and an anti-abortion zealot, was confirmed as attorney general. Continue reading...
Thomas Bailey, 58, faces charge of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling near Covington, LouisianaA US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer was jailed on Friday on allegations of breaking into a woman's apartment.Thomas Bailey, 58, faces a charge of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling after his arrest by the sheriff's office of St Tammany parish, Louisiana, the agency said in a statement. Continue reading...
Trump transport chief's YouTube show vowed to celebrate America's story' - it's debatable whether it celebrates anything besides the Duffys themselvesIt would be fair to say that the Trump administration's celebration of the United States's 250th birthday has been unorthodox - involving, as it has, an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House, a poorly attended state fair, and a car race through Washington, before which the US president will take a lap of honor.On Tuesday, however, Donald Trump officials dropped perhaps their weirdest 250th offering yet: a six-part travel show in which the US secretary of transportation take his entire family on a startlingly self-involved, creatively funded road trip around the country. Continue reading...
Beach patrols report hundreds of stings a day as warmer waters and drought create favorable conditions for jellyfishAn unusually high number of jellyfish are crowding Delaware's beaches this summer amid climate change and other environmental factors - keeping some beachgoers out of the ocean and stinging lifeguards as well as bathers.Beach safety patrols in the state have reported hundreds of daily stings as the jellyfish have increased with intensifying environmental factors, including warmer waters, hot and dry conditions, and water circulation favorable to the invertebrates. Continue reading...
As the president tries to extract the US from his Iran war quagmire, leadership in Tehran is only too happy to crush his midterm dreamsIn the aftermath of his devastating election defeat, the US president remained haunted by regrets over Iran.Months before Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, eight US servicemen died in a botched high-risk rescue mission that failed to secure the freedom of dozens of US hostages seized in Tehran. Continue reading...
MLS wants to build on the momentum of the World Cup. America's top domestic cup competition is an obvious place to startThe new commissioner of Major League Soccer, Larry Berg, isn't keen on the idea of promotion and relegation, but he is a fan of jeopardy. When asked the obligatory pro/rel question in his introductory press conference, Berg responded, I don't think it's appropriate for our league, but I think there are other ways to create jeopardy during the regular season, [and] again in the playoffs."He referred to this summer's World Cup, which was co-hosted by the US, and the excitement it provided, adding, Millions of people across North America experienced that passion firsthand. They fell in love with the drama, the atmosphere, the supporter culture and the emotion that makes soccer unlike anything else. In the World Cup, we all enjoyed knockout games after the group stage. I call those games of consequence or games of jeopardy." Continue reading...
Rule would require states to provide federal government with information on voters in return for delivering ballotsThe US Postal Service prepared to publish a final rule late on Friday to impose new requirements on states to provide the federal government with information on voters before the November midterm congressional elections, despite a pair of court orders that currently block the changes from taking effect.The USPS acknowledged in the text of the final rule posted online Friday, which is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register next week, that two injunctions issued by federal courts in California and Massachusetts currently bar it from moving ahead with the changes to comply with a March executive order signed by Donald Trump. Continue reading...
President at rally in South Carolina makes comments on key strategic waterway and jokes about bombing IranDonald Trump called the strait of Hormuz an American territory" on Friday, as the US continues its military blockade of Iran's shipping and ports while Trump's administration struggles to end its war with the country.We don't even know if we won, because I view the strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now," Trump said, addressing a crowd in South Carolina. He was campaigning for senator Darline Graham, who is running to permanently fill her late brother Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. Continue reading...
A report released by thinktank Cap argues the deployment of the national guard failed to have a measurable impact on crime, despite costing billionsThe Center for American Progress (Cap) received a letter from Donald Trump's lawyer threatening a $5bn lawsuit unless the liberal research organization retracts a report criticizing the effectiveness of the president's National Guard rollout.The report released 13 July argues that the National Guard deployment in Washington DC, Memphis and Los Angeles failed to have a measurable impact on crime in these cities despite an estimated cost of $1.7bn. The report looks at the falling rate of crime in cities without a National Guard intervention and concludes that they are not statistically different from the rate of decrease in those that had the intervention, noting that violent crime began falling well before Trump took office in 2025. Continue reading...
Civilian-contracted aircraft' crashes in western Alaska killing two pilots and six passengers, officials sayA charter aircraft that crashed at a remote radar site in western Alaska on Thursday, killing all eight people onboard, was making its second runway approach in heavy fog when it lost contact, authorities said Friday.The Cessna's two pilots could not see the gravel airstrip and were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed about midday Thursday, Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board's Alaska region chief, told a virtual news conference. Continue reading...
The dark lord - or someone dressed like him - said the technology would aid the empire in tracking rebel scum'A man dressed as Darth Vader appeared to poke fun at San Diego officials for using Flock Safety automated license plate readers at a city council meeting this week, a stunt that comes as the company faces growing backlash linked to spying concerns.The man, whose real identity remains unknown, masqueraded on Thursday as the Star Wars villain at a San Diego public safety committee meeting. Continue reading...
Chief justice signs temporary order to permit work while court considers emergency appeal from administrationThe US supreme court has allowed Donald Trump to continue construction of his controversial White House ballroom for now, temporarily pausing a lower court order that would halt much of the project.Supreme court chief justice John Roberts signed a temporary order on Friday, permitting work to continue on the planned White House addition - a top priority of the president - while the court considers an emergency appeal from Trump's administration. Continue reading...
by Hosted by Carter Sherman with Jenna Amatulli, prod on (#77VN1)
The trial of Lindsay Clancy, a former nurse accused of murdering her three children, is wrapping up its fifth week. On Friday morning, the defense rested, and the public attention to the case is at a fever-pitch - especially on social media. Clancy, 36, does not deny that she strangled her children, but has pleaded not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, also known as an insanity defense. She argues that she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis, a rare and devastating condition that can go unrecognized and untreated. Host Carter Sherman speaks with Jenna Amatulli, deputy head of news for Guardian US, about how the case has renewed attention on the fundamental shortcomings in the US's maternal healthcare system, and about why Clancy's story has captivated - and polarized - so many people Continue reading...
Police department for Navajo Nation neither identified the victim nor said what type of bear had killed himIn a rare kind of attack, a bear killed a man in Crystal, New Mexico, on Thursday, local police said.The police department for the Navajo Nation said officers within its Window Rock district received a call at about 1pm that a bear had attacked a man. Continue reading...
Max Lederer and Erik Slavin receive termination notices after publication reported on crew conditions on the USS Abraham LincolnThe Pentagon has fired the publisher and the editor of Stars and Stripes, the US military news outlet that has clashed with the Trump administration and armed forces brass over its partly taxpayer-funded reporting.Publisher Max Lederer and editor Erik Slavin received termination notices, CBS News reported on Friday. The cause cited was insubordination, and they have been given five days to appeal against their dismissals. Continue reading...
The 10-year blueprint mandates water cuts of up to 40% for California, Arizona and NevadaIt's official: after years of tense negotiations and missed deadlines, there is finally a plan to govern the future of the imperiled Colorado River - or at least the makings of one.With the previous framework set to expire in October, the US Bureau of Reclamation publicly released its proposal for a new plan on Friday. Continue reading...
The department told Nevada officials that the 15,903 figure registered was preliminary' and more than 14,000 names still needed reviewAbout a month after alleging Nevada had as many as 16,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials admitted they had confirmed that only 185 were actually non-citizens, according to records obtained by the Guardian.In a primetime TV address on 16 July, Donald Trump claimed that a DHS review had found about 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states. Continue reading...
Wildfires in Europe, Russian strikes in Kyiv, the Meta trial and swimming in Gaza - the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists Continue reading...
by Presented by Helen Pidd with Paul Owen ; produced on (#77VH7)
One of Donald Trump's closest and most devoted aides, Natalie Harp, has faced intense media scrutiny this week, after a Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, name-checked her in a speech that went viral. So what do we know about Harp, who is often referred to as the human printer'? And why is everybody talking about her relationship with Trump? Helen Pidd speaks to international news editor Paul Owen Continue reading...
The US is engaged in a lawless quest to protect American and Israeli officialsThe Trump administration has taken another step in its crusade against the international criminal court by imposing sanctions on two more senior ICC officials. The growing number of sanctioned jurists - now 13 - does not change the lawless nature of this quest.Donald Trump and his henchman, Marco Rubio, want to make the world safe for US and Israeli war criminals. No one should let them. Continue reading...
by Rachel Leingang in Minneapolis and Sam Levine in N on (#77V4F)
Department of Justice plan raises questions over its ability to recruit so many people - and what they would doFormer officials and voting rights experts have expressed skepticism over a pledge by the Trump administration to dispatch 1,000 monitors across the country to scrutinize November's US midterm elections.While the Department of Justice (DoJ) has expressed hope that the operation will be the largest in its history, its plan raised questions over its ability to recruit so many people - and what they would do. Continue reading...
Boxing's most mercurial star is putting an old friendship aside as he moves up to 147lb to challenge Rolly Romero for the welterweight title he won against Ryan GarciaFor more than a decade, Teofimo Lopez's friendship with Rolando Rolly' Romero endured through amateur tournaments, Las Vegas sparring sessions and the mismatched peaks and troughs of two volatile careers. That friendship ended, Lopez says, the moment they signed to fight one another.On Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena along the Vegas Strip, the 29-year-old Lopez will challenge for Romero's World Boxing Association welterweight title. The former lightweight and junior-welterweight champion is moving up to 147lb in pursuit of a belt in a third division. For Romero, himself a three-weight belt-holder after stacking titles at 135lb and 140lb, a victory would add another marquee name to a resume transformed by last year's upset of Ryan Garcia. The fight will be broadcast globally on Dazn pay-per-view and will see the champion go off as a roughly 2-1 underdog. Continue reading...
Bob Iger and Josh Kushner's $12.5bn bid to buy the Lakers shows that NBA teams are no longer family dynasties, but quick flips for private equity sharksFor years, the NBA was built on the alliance of patient money and marketing pizzazz, and no team captured that curious mixture better than the Los Angeles Lakers. Through Showtime in the 1980s and the dominance of the Shaq-Kobe years, the Lakers became the benchmark for a league and a sport intent on global conquest: charismatic, ambitious, and flashy, a sporting-cultural amalgam in which athleticism and celebrity held equal rank. Through careful front office recruitment, savvy coaching, and the harnessing of Hollywood's star power, the Lakers evolved from a team into a brand," establishing a template that virtually every other outfit in the NBA has felt compelled to mimic in the years since. But the razzle-dazzle on the court - the Laker Girls, Magic flinging no-look passes, Shaq smashing the glass, Jack Nicholson smiling his Joker smile in the front row, all eyebrows and mischief - depended on a far more staid and stable arrangement off it. Real estate investor Jerry Buss bought the Lakers for $16m in 1979, and remained the majority owner until his death in 2013, when his children assumed control of the franchise.When Jerry Buss died, the Lakers were valued at $1bn. Now, the team looks set to be sold to former Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capitalist Josh Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared, for $12.5bn. The sale is still under negotiation and will need to be approved by the NBA's board of governors; the Buss siblings are also now bickering over whether to join the stampede and sell their minority 17.8% stake in the franchise to Iger and Kushner, which has added a subplot of Shakespearean family intrigue to proceedings. But in the likely event it goes through, the sale would make the Lakers the most valuable franchise in basketball. It would also signal an acceleration in private equity's scramble to get its claws into the world of sport. Continue reading...
by Uwa Ede-Osifo in Montecito, California on (#77V39)
As the couple plans their return to the UK, Montecito's whirlwind stint on the global stage may be coming to an endThe bucolic coastal California town of Montecito was thrust into the limelight six years ago as the backdrop for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's second act following an acrimonious split from Buckingham Palace.But as the couple plans their return to the United Kingdom, Montecito's whirlwind stint on the global stage may be coming to an end. Continue reading...
Fawning, deferential, oleaginous - this was the Untruth and Reconciliation Commission as Trump called in to 77 WABCOur next guest is a racist', a conman' and a cheat' - someone who behaves more like a mobster' than a president. Please welcome Donald J Trump!"That is how Michael Cohen could have introduced Trump on his New York radio show on Thursday. After all, Cohen used such terms to describe the US president in his testimony to Congress in 2019. But now Trump's former personal lawyer and self-described fixer had different words: boss" and sir". Just like old times. Continue reading...
State senator beats rival Melissa Hernandez and will replace US congressman who quit amid sexual misconduct claimsProgressive Aisha Wahab has been elected to Congress in a special election following a bitter intra-party battle over the seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April after facing sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell has denied the allegations.Wahab, a state senator, was widely considered the frontrunner in the district in California's East Bay and had the backing of the state Democratic party as well as Our Revolution, labor unions, local officials and the state's attorney general, Rob Bonta. Continue reading...
State sought to stop system off coast of Santa Barbara from resuming operations after Trump ordered its reopeningAn oil pipeline can continue to operate off the California coast after a judge gave it the green light this week, despite the opposition of state regulators and environmental groups.The system off the coast of Santa Barbara resumed operations earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade after Donald Trump ordered Sable Offshore Corporation to reopen it, citing US energy needs during the war in Iran. Continue reading...
President's one-time attack dog' became his fierce critic - but now Cohen says he has forgiven his former bossDonald Trump has given a radio interview to none other than Michael Cohen, his former longtime personal fixer turned fierce critic, after an apparent reconciliation set the stage for their first public conversation in eight years.Cohen once had such a tight relationship with the US president that he described himself back in the day as his attack dog with a law license", but later became the star witness in Trump's 2024 criminal trial over his hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in an effort to interfere with the 2016 election. Continue reading...
Christine Hunsicker, former CEO of CaaStle, gave investors falsified documents that overstated profit and cash reservesA fashion tech founder was sentenced to five years in federal prison for her involvement in a $300m fraud scheme" spanning from 2019 to 2025, the Manhattan US attorney's office announced on Thursday. Christine Hunsicker, 49, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.Hunsicker, the founder and ex-CEO of CaaStle Inc, had pleaded guilty this March to one count of securities fraud in relation to a scheme that defrauded hundreds of investors", authorities said. Her attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading...
by Sophie Sullivan, Anna Betts and Sam Levine on (#77TVJ)
Exclusive: Rahil Prakash tells the Guardian: I wanted to see if fake polls could penetrate the ecosystem that easily'A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a short-term social experiment" to examine how fake polling could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification". Continue reading...
With one semi-final in her last seven tournaments, the coming months will define the next stage of her careerTowards the end of a messy first set tie-break late on Wednesday, Aryna Sabalenka wildly sprayed another painfully nervous backhand before slamming her racket to the ground. As the racket connected with the acrylic floor, its vibration dampener detached from the strings and rolled off in the direction of the broadcast camera pit by the side of the court.With the diminutive 20-yearold Czech player Sara Bejlek leading Sabalenka 6-5 in the tie-break, this slapstick sequence forced play to pause while the Belarusian and a couple of volunteers comically searched for the missing vibration damper underneath the cameras until she gave up and retrieved a new one. A few minutes later, Sabalenka trailed by a set. Continue reading...
Courier network carried millions of dollars in cash to Lebanon on commercial flights, treasury department saysThe US treasury department announced sanctions on Thursday against 10 people it says formed a courier network that smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah by carrying cash onboard commercial flights between Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.The office of foreign assets control (OFAC) said the network allowed Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group,to obtain foreign currency and dodge sanctions outside the formal banking system. The treasury department linked the operation to a scheme once associated with Behnam Shahriyari, a now-deceased finance official for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. Continue reading...
Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, allegedly planned to deploy explosive before fleeing to IS-controlled territory in SyriaUS authorities arrested and charged a New York woman with planning to carry out an Islamic State-inspired attack on the state's capitol building in Albany, the justice department said on Thursday.Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, was charged with planning to deploy an explosive device at the state capitol with the intention of killing public officials and destroying as much of the building as possible" before fleeing to IS-controlled territory in Syria, according to John A Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security. Continue reading...
The president's empty advice that children should receive separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella will only lead to less take-up by parentsNobody wants to hurt a child. The howl of pain, the tears, the look of betrayed shock all make it very hard to deliver a cherished small person to the needle-wielding nurse. But that's part of being a responsible parent. It becomes a lot tougher if mum or dad is being fed mixed and erroneous messages about the benefits and harms of vaccination.Parents have to make a lot of decisions about what's right for their child, from the school they should go to and the food they should eat to the hours they should spend on the phone or watching TV. In the US, Donald Trump wants them to add another: do they choose to give their children separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella, involving six visits to the clinic, or should they opt for the combined MMR vaccine, which does the job in two? For decades, the vast majority of families have been taking the advice of doctors, accepting their assurance that the MMR vaccine is safe and very effective. But what are they to think when a US president announces that the triple jab could be quite lethal" and signs an executive order advising states to offer separate vaccines? Continue reading...
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