Mark Meadows reportedly said ‘We can’t organize that’ after Trump told supporters he’d march, according to Landslide

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Pride month is celebrated in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising in Manhattan. Although the coronavirus pandemic curtailed festivities, many revellers adapted to the new circumstances Continue reading...

Book claims Gen Mark Milley yelled at Trump, prompting former president to yell back: ‘You can’t fucking talk to me like that!’Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, reportedly “yelled” at Donald Trump that he was not and would not be in charge of the federal response to protests for racial justice, prompting the then president to yell back: “You can’t fucking talk to me like that!”Related: ‘Republicans are defunding the police’: Fox News anchor stumps congressman Continue reading...

Activist say the president and Democrats have failed to stop Republican efforts to curtail the voteFor months, Biden and other Democrats have raised alarm about efforts to restrict the vote. Republicans have succeeded nonetheless.Since January, Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Arkansas and Montana have all enacted new legislation that impose new barriers to voting. The successful Republican filibuster this week – which stalled the sweeping voting rights legislation, the For the People Act – only underscored how Democrats have failed to stop GOP efforts to curtail the vote. Continue reading...

Biden has a shot at giving the US a progressive political order. But the odds are against him – for nowThe neoliberal order that dominated American politics for 40 years is coming apart. This order prized the free movement of capital, goods, and people. It celebrated deregulation as an economic good that resulted when governments were no longer allowed to manage markets. It valorized cosmopolitanism as a cultural achievement, the product of open borders and the consequent voluntary mixing of large numbers of diverse peoples. It hailed globalization as a win-win position: the west would be enriched but so would the rest – Latin American countries and Asian nations, large and small. There would be no losers in this global project – not among the working classes of the west nor among the peoples of the global south. Globalization and free markets would lift all boats. In America, the neoliberal order transcended party lines, compelling all those who wanted political power to subscribe to its core beliefs. Ronald Reagan was its most prominent architect, Bill Clinton its key facilitator, converting the Democratic party to its core precepts.Related: Donald Trump returns to campaign trail with rally targeting Ohio Republican Continue reading...

Even if voting patterns remain the same, Republicans could still win more seats in Congress through redistrictingIn Washington, the real insiders know that the true outrages are what’s perfectly legal and that it’s simply a gaffe when someone accidentally blurts out something honest.And so it barely made a ripple last week when a Texas congressman (and Donald Trump’s former White House physician) said aloud what’s supposed to be kept to a backroom whisper: Republicans intend to retake the US House of Representatives in 2022 through gerrymandering. Continue reading...

New York prosecutors reportedly gave ex-president’s lawyers a Monday deadline. Plus, Guardian reveals members of neo-Confederate group and victory for Flinstones-themed house

As the Stanley Cup finals start on Monday night, it’s worth considering whether we need to rethink how the game is playedThe 2021 Stanley Cup finals start on Monday night as the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning prepare to scrap for the title. So now is the perfect time to let followers of other sports in on a secret, although it’s something that serious hockey fans have known for years. There’s hardly any fighting in the NHL anymore. And there’s something else: would bringing back enforcers, the men who are charged with protecting their teammates from violence (usually by inflicting violence), actually make the game safer?As in many sports, the terrible consequences of concussions in hockey are well documented. This year, I’ve been asked whether I know how bad a concussion is, and what that must feel like. I do. Mine was from playing hockey in my teens. Continue reading...

Ex-president’s lawyers have 24 hours Monday to say why the Trump Organization should not face charges, reports claimNew York prosecutors have given lawyers for Donald Trump 24 hours to respond with any last arguments as to why criminal charges should not be filed against his family business, according to a report on Sunday.The deadline set for Monday was another strong signal that the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, are considering criminal charges against the former president’s company as an entity, according to sources quoted by the Washington Post. Continue reading...

Minnesota attorney general secured conviction and sentencing of former police officer who murdered George Floyd last year

Controversial antivirus software pioneer who entered US politics and became a fugitive from justiceAs the inventor of the antivirus software that bears his name, John McAfee, who has died aged 75 after apparently taking his own life in a Spanish prison, turned paranoia into a fortune. He was one of the first successful self-promoting celebrity millionaires whose power and media exposure provide untold influence in the US.Moving from computer savant to spiritual guru, he then began an extended second act in Belize, where his outsized lifestyle fuelled his own personal paranoia, and led to his becoming the leading suspect in the murder of a beachfront neighbour. Continue reading...

A reduced schedule and realistic expectations mean that the 39-year-old is in a good place as she chases her 24th majorThree short weeks ago, Serena Williams sat down for her press conference at the French Open after a bitter straight-sets loss in the fourth round to the young Kazakh Elena Rybakina. During most other phases of Williams’s illustrious career, a defeat so early in any major tournament after a performance so far beneath her potential would have understandably elicited ample frustration. Not this time.As she dissected her 90 minutes on court, Williams’s tone was positive. She explained that she had, at least, gained more matches under her belt and showed clear improvement from a pair of early losses during the clay season, her least effective surface. “I’m in a much better place than when I got here,” she concluded. “You know, just literally trying to win a match, because it had been a really difficult season for me on the clay.” Continue reading...

‘It’s entertaining. But it’s not real’, says Utah senator, referring to artificial world of professional wrestling

Marjorie Taylor Greene has harassed Ocasio-Cortez on Capitol Hill, prompting the progressive to raise concerns for her securityAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez has dismissed comments in which the Georgia Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene called her a “little communist” and said she should be locked up, tweeting: “First of all, I’m taller than her.”Related: ‘He’s not a quitter’: faithful out in force as Trump gets back to the campaign trail Continue reading...

Progress on all of the issues we care about is at risk while voting rights continue to be deniedJust weeks after a deeply unrepresentative US Senate voted down establishing a commission to investigate one of the most significant attacks on our democracy on 6 January, 50 senators who represent 41m fewer voters than the majority in power blocked bold voting rights reforms that would make our government work for the people. Already, the national conversation is pivoting away from voting rights and toward whether the same fate can be expected for other prominent bills on infrastructure and police reform.What’s missing is a much-needed reckoning that no meaningful and lasting change on what the majority of Americans want – reforming law enforcement, bold economic recovery, but also better public schools, climate action, and high-paying union jobs, among others – will be possible if we don’t rebuild our democracy from the ground up first. That’s what the For the People Act aimed to do. By preventing politicians from skewing congressional districts in their favor, reducing the influence of special interests, and ensuring all eligible voters can make their voices heard. Simply put, there cannot be genuine economic, social, and racial justice without full voting rights and institutions that answer to the people. Continue reading...

Black Chicagoans live on average nine years less than other city residents – and Covid means the disparity is likely to get worseCiting a widening life expectancy gap between Black Chicagoans and other groups in the city, Mayor Lori Lightfoot last week called systemic racism a “deadly” public health crisis that has exacted a “devastating toll on the health and wellbeing of our residents of color” and pledged to combat inequality in the city.Related: How Chicago is reimagining the future of local journalism as papers decline Continue reading...

Biden’s signature bill faces major challenges and its passage now rests on a delicate two-track dance between the House and SenateJoe Biden and a group of Democratic and Republican senators are agreed on a roughly $1tn bipartisan infrastructure package in hopes of fulfilling one of the president’s top economic priorities – but its prospects remain precarious.Related: White House seeks to put infrastructure deal back on track after Biden blunder Continue reading...

New documentary reveals sex offender used socialite for access to her famous and rich friends years from the 1980s onwardsGhislaine Maxwell’s association with Jeffrey Epstein began years earlier than previously understood, according to a documentary investigating the socialite who became an alleged procuress for the paedophile financier.The new information challenges the common assumption that Epstein stepped into a vacuum in her life after the death of her father, the newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, who was found in the sea near the Canary Islands in 1991. Continue reading...

The new sexual revolution is here, and all it took was a deadly pandemicWelcome to the summer of love. The Whoring 20s, Shot Girl Summer, the smell of meat and lotion. A bus passed by yesterday, its side painted with an advert encouraging passersby to “vax, wax and relax”. The new sexual revolution is here, and all it took was a deadly pandemic and a year indoors. It’s true, it’s coming, look, there!Big women swaggering through a pollarded boulevard, feeling themselves like they’ve never feeled before, suited men singing soul songs under their breath, teenagers standing so close they’re talking in each other’s voices. There’s a picnic by the swings where someone has served themself with mayonnaise on a soft baguette. In the supermarket, women stand mesmerised by the erotic hum of a freezer, and someone inhales the cut flowers with a heavy-lidded smile, and a man gruffly counts peaches. A parking attendant kisses his own lips, the tune of an ice-cream van sounds drunk and yearning. When did everyone get a body? When did everyone descend from the live-work space of their minds and knock through to the basement of those hips, that hair? Continue reading...

Whether the pharmaceutical giant jumped or was pushed, its New York deal is a significant sign of the way the wind is blowingJohnson & Johnson said it had already jumped. New York’s attorney general suggested the pharmaceutical giant was pushed.Either way, the American drug maker is the first to formally agree to get out of the multibillion-dollar business of selling the powerful narcotic painkillers that drove the US opioid epidemic. Continue reading...

Thousands of adoring fans turned out in Ohio to remind America that Trump’s cult of personality never went awayThere were raucous cheers and boos. There were Secret Service agents and metal detectors, food trailers in long grass and loudspeakers booming songs by Elton John and Dolly Parton. There were flags, hats, and T-shirts proclaiming Donald Trump the true winner of the 2020 election – or the man to beat in 2024.And flying overhead was a small plane trailing a banner that proclaimed: “Ohio is Trump country.” Continue reading...

Temperatures soared across the region as Portland hit 108F and Seattle broke 100F for only the fourth time since records beganGovernment officials, wildlife managers and utility workers across the Pacific north-west were trying to keep people and animals safe as a historic heat wave scorched the region on Saturday.Portland, Oregon, had its hottest day ever recorded – reaching 108F (42.2C) on Saturday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. The previous record for Oregon’s largest city was 107F (41.7C), a mark hit in 1965 and 1981. Continue reading...

Rescue crews digging into unstable rubble have been hampered by storms and fires in the mound of debrisDeath came swiftly to residents of Champlain Towers South. Grandparents, parents and children were sleeping in their beds when their 12-storey condominium building collapsed into a heap of smouldering rubble.Survivors described a sound like thunder, followed by complete destruction of dozens of apartments in the oceanside south Florida block. The collapse took barely 10 seconds but was captured on grim security camera footage from a neighboring building that quickly began streaming on news websites across the world. Continue reading...

Five people confirmed dead and more than 150 still unaccounted for as search-and-rescue teams work around the clock

As New York legal troubles mount, ex-president hints at 2024 run and targets those who voted for impeachment

The president said he wouldn’t sign bill unless it was accompanied by an even bigger package covering Democratic prioritiesThe White House scrambled to put Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal back on track on Saturday, after Republican senators balked at his surprise demand to pair the nearly $1tn plan with an even bigger investment package covering progressive policy priorities, a demand the president made on Thursday even while hailing the deal.Related: How Mitch McConnell has unified Republicans as a red wall against Biden’s agenda Continue reading...

Four dead at the scene and one dies in hospital after balloon blown into power lines by wind catches fireFive people died after a hot air balloon hit power lines in New Mexico’s largest city on Saturday, police said.The crash happened around 7am on Albuquerque’s west side, police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said. No identities were immediately released but fire officials said three males, including the pilot, and two females died. Continue reading...

Lawsuits claim Trump supporters conspired to intimidate and harass Biden-Harris campaignersA convoy of Trump supporters that swarmed a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a Texas highway last October violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prohibits violent election intimidation, two new lawsuits allege.Related: Donald Trump returns to campaign trail with rally targeting Ohio Republican Continue reading...

Michael Fanone has meeting with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and says ‘this is not something I enjoy doing’

The teen was victorious in the supreme court – but would she have been punished in the first place if she were a boy?It’s been a great week for cheerleaders fond of tossing around the occasional F-bomb. On Wednesday the US supreme court ruled that a Pennsylvania public school violated a 14-year-old student’s first amendment freedom of speech rights when it suspended her from the cheerleading team because of an expletive-ridden social media post she’d sent from outside school premises. Continue reading...

Judge rejects lawyers’ request to block prosecutors from using interviews from 2016 in which she was quizzed about EpsteinTwo 2016 depositions of Ghislaine Maxwell in a civil case in which she was repeatedly questioned about Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual activities can be used at her criminal trial on sex trafficking charges in November, a judge in New York ruled on Friday.Related: Ghislaine Maxwell subjected to raw sewage in New York jail, lawyer says Continue reading...

Aerial footage of the Surfside community near Miami, Florida, shows the extent of damage after a 12-storey oceanfront residential building partly collapsed in the early hours of Thursday. Officials announced on Friday that the death toll had reached four, and said it was likely to climb far higher as rescuers continued to sift through the debris

Vice-president faced with colossal task as migrants live with brutal reality of arduous journey and border restrictionsThe sun beat down on the 30ft border fence that separates El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as temperatures headed towards 100F on the southern border that stands as a symbol for so much in American politics.Related: Kamala Harris says US-Mexico border situation is ‘tough’ but claims progress Continue reading...

The singer is forced to keep an IUD contraceptive device against her will. This recalls the worst abuses against women in the USOn Tuesday, Britney Spears described the nightmarish legal quagmire she’s been trapped in before a California court. Speaking publicly for the first time about the conservatorship that was long rumored by fans and media alike to be oppressive, controlling and not in the singer’s best interests, Spears described a Kafkaesque situation in which she has been at the mercy of her conservator’s whims.She is not allowed to get her nails done or change the color of her kitchen cabinets; she is not allowed to drive, or to ride in her boyfriend’s car. More seriously, she referred repeatedly to being “punished” when she refused her conservators’ wishes. Under her conservatorship, Spears has been forced to work against her will and was forcibly institutionalized when she refused. She has not been permitted to choose her own lawyers or therapists. Most disturbingly, Spears is not allowed to refuse medications recommended by her conservators, not even the extremely strong psychiatric drug lithium. And though she says she wants to have another child, Spears is not allowed to remove her IUD. Continue reading...