Snakes, bears and other animals seeking refuge from the drying landscape are increasingly finding their way into urban environmentsLen Ramirez stalked through the dried landscape, scanning the ground ahead searching for movement. Called out to an estate in Napa Valley, the owner of Ramirez Rattlesnake Removal company was finishing up his last job of another busy day wrangling, removing and relocating snakes from homes across northern California. He’d found three in just this yard, including one nestled roughly 1,000 yards from the pool.Rattlesnakes are everywhere these days, he says – on front porches, in potted plants, and under children’s play equipment. “I am busier than I have ever been. Complaints are coming in from all over the state.” Continue reading...

I don’t drop people I disagree with from my life – but for many liberals, differences of opinion have become unacceptableIt’s rare to see a woman really let her anger glitter, unhindered by any fear of accusations of hysteria or worse, so what a blast of delicious fire Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has given us. Her essay It Is Obscene, published online last week, is ostensibly about two former students of hers who denounced her on social media after she gave an interview to Channel 4 in 2017 in which, when asked if she thought trans women were women, Adichie made the tautological but now highly controversial reply, “Trans women are trans women.” Instead of just calling her, one of Adichie’s students “went on social media to put on a public performance,” she wrote. The other tweeted that people should “pick up machetes to protect us from transphobes like Adichie”, and still assumed Adichie would endorse her book.Really, the essay is about a strong current in modern culture. “There are many social media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion... People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class,” Adichie writes. Continue reading...

The corporate world is turning to novelty perks to get us back to the office in an attempt to postpone the moment of reckoningEarlier this month in lower Manhattan’s financial district, food carts lined what is otherwise a usually sterile stretch of pavement. Vendors doled out free burritos and ice cream to the mingling sun-kissed bankers – folks who had begrudgingly traipsed back to their physical desks after a year of remote working, following the stern orders of moneyed overlords.Free lunch is entry-level when it comes to corporate perks, a trusted staple many businesses have fallen back on as a means of convincing workers to resume their pre-pandemic working habits and arduous commutes. Continue reading...

The Senate minority leader has filibustered voting rights legislation, halted a pay gap measure and threatened to block a supreme court nomineeIt was a glimpse of Washington past. Beneath the vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows of the national cathedral, Joe Biden greeted Mitch McConnell and other senators in the pews, then offered a hymn to bipartisanship.“Empathy is the fuel of democracy,” the US president told mourners on Wednesday at the funeral of John Warner, a Republican senator he praised for working across the aisle. “The willingness to see each other as opponents, not as enemies. Above all, to see each other as fellow Americans even when we disagree.” Continue reading...

Eagerly anticipated document lands with a thud as most incidents remain unexplainedIt was an afternoon of much anticipation and excitement – followed by the saddest trombone sound echoing across the internet.The long-awaited report from US intelligence officials on unidentified flying objects dropped this afternoon, marking one of the first times the US government officially weighed in on strange sightings in the sky. Their big reveal, however, was seen by many as more of a shrug. Continue reading...

George Floyd's family members asked for the maximum sentence for Derek Chavin, the white former Minneapolis police officer who was later sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison.Two months ago, Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds before Floyd died.'The sudden murder of George has forever traumatized us. You may see us cry, but the full extent of our pain and trauma will never be seen with the naked eye,' said Brandon Williams, Floyd's nephew, to the court

George Floyd’s brothers and daughter describe the pain of loss and former officer’s mother defends himOn Friday afternoon, the world watched as Judge Peter Cahill issued his sentence in the case of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in May last year.Related: Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for murder of George Floyd Continue reading...

Report says intelligence sources do not think aliens are behind UFOs but what they are is unclearThe mystery of UFOs seen in American skies is likely to continue following the release of the US government’s highly anticipated UFO report.The report released on Friday afternoon made clear that while American intelligence officials do not believe aliens are behind the UFOs – or what scientists prefer to call unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – that were observed by navy pilots, they cannot explain what the flying objects are. Continue reading...

A film shows the moment an apartment block in Miami-Dade in Florida suddenly caved in. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for after the partial collapse of the beachside building, and four people have already been confirmed dead.Miami-Dade's mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, noted on Friday that rescue officials were still searching for survivors more than 24 hours after the building collapsed early on Thursday

Four members of the Floyd family, including his seven-year-old daughter Gianna, gave statements before the sentencingDerek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd, has been sentenced to 22 years and six months for second-degree murder, closing one chapter of a case that thrust the issue of race and American policing back into the global spotlight.Related: Protests erupt in Minneapolis over man fatally shot by deputies Continue reading...

The justice department is suing the state of Georgia over the new voting laws it says violate the Voting Rights Act and suppress Black Americans' right to vote.

Jonathan Faiman and Jon Hillary paid compensation and agreed to delete files, ending legal fightOne of the co-founders of Ocado has agreed to pay a settlement to the grocery delivery company after he admitted taking confidential documents when trying to set up a rival.Jonathan Faiman and a former employee, Jon Hillary, paid a settlement and agreed to delete files, ending a bitter battle between Faiman and his former business partner and childhood friend, Ocado’s chief executive, Tim Steiner. Continue reading...

Family and friends of the more than 100 people still missing after a building collapsed in Miami said they were not 'losing hope' of hearing from their loved ones who remained unaccounted for. Four people are known to have been killed and 11 injuries were reported following the collapse of much of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South building in Miami, on the south Florida coast.The residential structure pancaked into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30ft high for reasons still unknown

The collapse of a 12-story condominium building in Surfside killed at least four and left more than 150 people missingA 12-story oceanfront condominium in Surfside, a neighborhood in Miami collapsed into rubble early on Thursday, leaving at least four dead, 10 injured and more than 150 people unaccounted for.Officials are in the midst of recovery efforts and are still investigating the cause of the collapse. Here’s what we know so far. Continue reading...

Attorney general alleges new measures ‘enacted with the purpose of denying the right of Black Georgians to vote’The US justice department is filing a major federal lawsuit challenging a new sweeping voting measure in Georgia that is widely seen as a blatant effort to make it harder for minorities to vote in the state.The challenge is the first major voting rights case filed under the new Joe Biden administration and marks one of just a handful of suits the department has filed in recent years challenging voting laws on a statewide basis. Continue reading...

• Statues daubed with reference to far-right hate group• Attacks come on eve of sentencing of Derek Chauvin for murderSupporters of a white nationalist hate group defaced brand-new memorials to George Floyd in New York and New Jersey this week, even as the nation awaits a sentence for Floyd’s murderer.Vandals painted the statues’ faces black, and used white markings to reference Patriot Front, a hate group that sprang from a neo-Nazi organization after the deadly “Unite the Right” Charlottesville rally, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Continue reading...

British mother Bhavna Patel, 38, husband Vishal, 42, and one-year-old daughter Aishani are unaccounted forA Briton is among scores of people missing following the collapse of a 12-storey building in Miami, authorities have confirmed, amid reports that a British mother, her husband and daughter are unaccounted for.Relatives of 38-year-old Bhavna Patel, a British and US citizen, told Sky News that she, Vishal Patel, 42, and one-year-old Aishani Patel are among more than 150 people who authorities in Florida have said are yet to be found. Continue reading...

Move by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, which wants to take over Morrisons, follows shareholder opposition to initial bidThe US investor Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is to increase its offer for Dublin-based UDG Healthcare to £2.7bn, in the latest swoop by a private equity firm on a London-listed company.CD&R, which is also seeking to take over the UK supermarket chain Morrisons, is “considering a new and final offer” valuing the business at £10.80 a share, UDG said in a statement to the stock market. Continue reading...

Former vice-president says he did his duty and takes aim at effort to overturn Biden victory, without mentioning Trump by nameFormer vice-president Mike Pence used a speech late on Thursday to go much further than he has before in public to rebuke Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the Republican defeat in the 2020 presidential election, while adding he will “always be proud” of playing his part to certify Joe Biden’s victory.Related: Miami condo collapse: death toll rises to four and nearly 100 unaccounted for Continue reading...

She sang of innocence and experience, but was muffled when she went off script. At her explosive court appearance this week, Britney has reclaimed her voiceThe saying goes that pop stars are forever frozen in time at the age they became famous. Despite the lasting iconography of the schoolgirl outfit she wore in the video for her debut single, 1998’s … Baby One More Time, this has somehow never felt true of Britney Spears, whose first four albums painted a convincing picture of evolving girlhood.She was naive and lovestruck on her 1999 debut, and gained power and self-awareness on 2000’s Oops! … I Did It Again. Released in 2001, Britney was the first album that Spears, then 19, co-wrote: it juxtaposed her sexuality (I’m a Slave 4 U) with her frustration at being treated like a child (I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman). Two years later, In the Zone revelled in eroticism and experimentation, reflected in a more adventurous sound. Continue reading...

No one heard his voice describing the world heavyweight title fight 100 years ago but radio enthusiast Andrew White changed the future of sport, radio and television“Carpentier is out … Jack Dempsey is still the heavyweight champion of the world.”It was Saturday 2 July 1921, a boiling summer afternoon in a field on the outskirts of Jersey City, and a raucous crowd of more than 80,000 had just witnessed what had been billed as the fight of the century. Continue reading...

The rescue operation at the scene of a collapsed condominium continues, as authorities say one person has died and 99 remain unaccounted for. Plus, how affluent New Yorkers caused a water crisis in the Hamptons

Rightwing politicians and media outlets are attacking a strawman version of antiracism. A disappointing number of liberals and leftists have bought into itThere is a specter haunting America – the specter of critical race theory. That, at least, is the impression you would get from rightwing media. Fox News has mentioned the term close to 1,300 times since March – including almost 250 times last week alone.Related: America’s top general defends study of critical race theory by military Continue reading...

Coconino and Kaibab national forests have become a tinder box due to high temperatures and low precipitationEscaping to the high country over the Fourth of July holiday is a cherished Arizona tradition. Desert dwellers tired of triple digit temperatures pitch their tents in forest service campgrounds, where night-time lows are often 40F (22C) cooler than in Phoenix. “Not this year” though, says Brady Smith, public information officer for the Coconino national forest.As of Wednesday, the Coconino and Kaibab national forests –both high elevation recreation meccas – were completely and indefinitely closed in an attempt to protect the public and the environment from extreme wildfire danger. Continue reading...

Some see promise in the fact the coalition includes an Arab party. In reality, peace with the Palestinians is further away than everIn his speech to the Knesset as incoming prime minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett had very little to say about his country’s biggest challenge, making peace with the Palestinians. It was as though by giving them only the briefest of mentions, the Palestinians, the nation that has lived under Israeli occupation for the past 54 years, would be obliterated out of existence. Instead he said he would “strengthen the building of communities across the land of Israel”, a statement clearly intended to include settlements in the occupied West Bank. Yet this was not the only violation of international law that appeared in the speech. In a clear rejection of the Oslo accords signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993 and 1995, he brazenly promised to “ensure Israel’s national interests in Area C”. This comprises some 60% of the area of the West Bank occupied by Israel in 1967, which according to those accords was to be handed back to the Palestinians.Many commentators found hope in the fact that the new coalition includes an Arab party. Yet to the dismay of most liberal Palestinians in Israel, the United Arab List is a conservative religious party that opposes individual freedoms, including women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. By joining the coalition government this party has been willing to forgo the struggle for Palestinian national rights in return for winning some civic benefits for the Palestinians in Israel, such as better policing of Arab towns. Continue reading...

On the first day of Pride month, the governor of Florida signed a law banning transgender girls from joining girls’ sports teams in schools and colleges. It was just one of 13 anti-trans bills conservative lawmakers in the US passed this year – and one of more than 110 proposed bills, many of which also target access to gender-affirming healthcare. This is by far the largest number filed in a single year in US history.Guardian US correspondent, Sam Levin, and Prof Jules Gill-Peterson, a historian and expert on trans kids, examine how this legislative attack has escalated and how the presence of trans kids in the US is not a new phenomenon

Dozens still unaccounted for after part of a beachfront condominium block collapses in Surfside

City leaders hope big news could bring a tourism surge as the town grapples with the pandemic economyOn the eve of the release of the Pentagon’s highly anticipated report on unidentified aerial phenomena, life here in one of the world’s UFO hotspots was exceedingly normal.Downtown’s alien souvenir shops and the International UFO Museum welcomed a steady stream of visitors escaping their pandemic malaise on Thursday as coronavirus restrictions continued to loosen in New Mexico. Continue reading...

Two escapes in West Virginia and one in California force emergency services to think on the hoofThree US cities have been tackling the same bovine problem this week, when separate groups of cattle broke free of their respective chains – a slaughterhouse, a cattle-hauling truck, and a farm with a broken fence – and caused a commotion on roads, railways and a recreation area.The escapes were inconspicuous at first. On Monday, three loose cattle roamed the streets of Bluefield, West Virginia, after escaping through a broken fence. Trains had to be stopped as authorities tried to coax the animals off the tracks. Continue reading...

A herd of about 40 cattle escapeda Los Angeles slaughterhouse, after a gate was unintentionally left open, beforerunning through residential streets. The cattle remained on the looseof the streets of Pico Riverainto the evening as local authoritiesattempted to round them up. One cow was shot by localpolice after it charged atfour members of a family while another that evaded capture was sent to an animal sanctuary after songwriter Diane Warren intervened Continue reading...

The Beckwourth pack, which set down roots in Plumas county, is only the third to establish itself in the state in the last centuryA new gray wolf pack has established itself in northern California, retaking a part of the vast territory that the species used to inhabit.The fledgling Beckwourth pack has set down roots in Plumas county, near the California-Nevada border, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) reported Wednesday. Its three members include LAS12F, a 2-year-old female wolf born in California, and two others. Wildlife officials are tracking and analyzing the feces of wolves in the region in an effort to identify the lineage of these wolves. Continue reading...

Fifteen years of tax information on thousands of plutocrats is one of the biggest stories of the decade. And yet … cricketsAmerican billionaires don’t pay taxes, and American politicians are all but ready to send Seal Team Six to assassinate the nameless bureaucrat who let ProPublica in on this fact. Welcome to our political hellscape.This month, ProPublica revealed that American billionaires essentially do not pay taxes, and within hours the White House had awkwardly promised no fewer than four federal investigations into the identity of the individual who had alerted the news organization to this fact. Continue reading...

Republican Ron DeSantis claims university campuses are ‘intellectually repressive environments’Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, sparked backlash this week when he signed legislation cracking down on so-called educational “indoctrination” at colleges and universities, soon after the state banned critical race theory in its public schools.“It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you’d be exposed to a lot of different ideas. Unfortunately now, the norm is really these are more intellectually repressive environments,” DeSantis said during a press conference at a Fort Myers middle school. Continue reading...

Pared-down $953bn plan could open door to the president’s more sweeping $4tn proposals later onJoe Biden announced on Thursday that “we have a deal”, signaling a bipartisan agreement on a $953bn infrastructure plan that would achieve his top legislative priority and validate his efforts to reach across the political aisle.Biden made a surprise appearance in front of the cameras with members of the group of senators, Republicans and Democrats, after an agreement was reached on Thursday. Details of the deal were scarce to start, but the pared-down plan, with $559bn in new spending, has rare bipartisan backing and could open the door to the president’s more sweeping $4tn proposals later on. Continue reading...

Being a geographical polyamorist with Victoria and Sydney worked pre-Covid. Now it’s time to pick a sideFive years ago I had a teeny tiny house deposit and a desire to settle down (sort of). The only place I could afford was the regions, so I bought a cottage there and left Sydney (sort of).I was not one of those people who wrote a “fuck off Sydney” piece as I slammed the door on the way out. I still loved its pagan heart and obscene beauty – even if the only thing the city loved in return was money. Cash poor but rich in social assets, I had almost two decades of social and professional infrastructure built in that town. I had a life goddammit … it was difficult to just walk away. But the insane property market won’t yield to you just because you have an almost spiritual experience driving down the Cahill Expressway during golden hour. Continue reading...

• Court: Trump lawyer made ‘false and misleading’ statements• License suspended pending possible disciplinary actionRudy Giuliani is suspended from practicing law in New York state following disciplinary proceedings over his misleading statements to courts and the public following the 2020 US presidential election.The New York supreme court issued its decision on Thursday, saying that it had found “uncontroverted evidence” that Giuliani made “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large”, on behalf of his client, then-president Donald Trump, and created a “narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client”. Continue reading...

• Gen Mark Milley says he wants to understand ‘white rage’• Milley: ‘I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist’The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, defended the study of critical race theory in the military when pressed on the issue before the House armed services committee, saying he wanted to “understand white rage”.Critical race theory is a longtime academic concept centered on the idea that institutions in the US inherently create economic, political and social inequities between white people and people of color. Continue reading...

On trade, finance, migration, food standards and more, the UK suffers fresh ignominy on a daily basisFive years ago today, in the early hours, Britain discovered what it had done – and what had been done to it by the liars, charlatans and rogues who mis-sold Brexit as “taking back control”. The wound is as fresh as ever. Breaking apart political parties and reversing erstwhile red or blue wall seats is a minor matter, but Brexit’s explosive division of the country by social class, geography and a deep sense of personal identity is a lasting injury.Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future, though a government thriving on national disunity strives to keep it alive with infantile culture wars and “anti-woke” phoney patriotism. Polls give the Conservatives a 14-point lead, as they head into next week’s Batley and Spen byelection. No surprise, for what party in power could dream of a better boast than this: the vaccines are genuinely bestowing the gift of staying alive on every single citizen. And Britain is out ahead of other European countries: pollsters tell me voters sincerely (though unjustly) believe that had we remained in the EU, we couldn’t have had our own programme. Despite EU vaccinators catching up, and the UK having more people dead and more debt than they do, Covid is still a convenient cover. Continue reading...

Why could they not carry on having their weekly meetings on Zoom, the monarch wonderedThere was a knock on the door. “Come in,” said the Queen, her heart sinking. It was the moment she had been dreading. Why on earth couldn’t she have carried on her weekly meetings with the prime minister on Zoom?Not having to deal with Boris Johnson face to face had been one of the few upsides of the coronavirus lockdown. She couldn’t stand the way he put his feet up on the furniture and generally acted as if he owned the place. There was only so much entitlement a Queen could take. Continue reading...

The days of a free and freewheeling press are over as China continues its attacks on any criticism of the regimeLouisa Lim is the author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited and a senior lecturer at the University of Melbournen recent weeks, I’ve read one example after another of a heartbreaking new genre of farewell journalism from some of Hong Kong’s most prominent figures. They cite different reasons for stopping. One says his contract might not be renewed; another that he’s too “tired and feeble” to continue; a third cites the growing number of things that are “completely unspeakable”. The truth is that in the year since Beijing imposed national security legislation upon Hong Kong, writing has simply become too perilous. Continue reading...

Efforts under way to draft a compromise bill, update the Voting Rights Act and protect election officials but filibuster loomsHappy Thursday,There isn’t really any other way to say it: Democrats suffered one of the biggest setbacks of Joe Biden’s presidency on Tuesday. Continue reading...