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The US president met with his family at Camp David, after a disastrous debate performance last week led to calls for him to drop out of the electionJoe Biden's family have urged him stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance last week, according to reports in the US media, as senior democrats and donors have expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for the event.The president gathered with his family at Camp David on Sunday, where discussions were reported to include questions over his political future. It came after days of mounting pressure on Biden, after a debate in which his halting performance highlighted his vulnerabilities and invited calls from pundits, media and voters for him to step aside. Continue reading...

Planemaker set to be offered plea deal, angering loved ones of the 346 people who died on 2018 and 2019 flightsThe US Department of Justice is set to charge Boeing with fraud, but plans to offer the planemaker a plea deal, according to sources familiar with the matter - have infuriated the loved ones of hundreds of passengers who died in two fatal crashes five years ago.Boeing will be granted until the end of this week to decide whether it will plead guilty to the charge and avoid trial, officials told families of those on board the fatal Lion Air flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 that claimed 346 lives. Continue reading...

Park staff say they have not been able to locate calf, who fulfilled Lakota prophecy and is named Wakan GliA rare white buffalo calf in Yellowstone national park has not been seen since its birth on 4 June, according to park officials.In a statement released on Friday, the National Park Service (NPS) confirmed that a white buffalo calf was born in Lamar Valley earlier this month, adding that the park's buffalo management team had received numerous reports of the calf on 4 June from park visitors, professional wildlife watchers, commercial guides and researchers. Continue reading...

Many want the president to quit his re-election bid following a catastrophic debate. His team must ask what is best for the USThe Democrats have no good options. The question now is which is the least dangerous of the bad ones. Democratic voters did not want Joe Biden to run again. Almost 70% judged him too old to serve anotherterm as president when polled last year. Privately, many senior Democrats and donors sharedtheir qualms. But with Mr Biden determined to stand, the consensus was to rally round. Now, after last Thursday's catastrophic debate, the party is panicking. Only four monthsfrom the election, there is frenzied discussionof potential replacements.That would almost certainly require MrBiden's agreement. His wife, Jill, seen as key to his decision, seems to be urging him on. He is said to believe that only he is capable of beating Mr Trump again. Few agree. The lack of a formal mechanism to remove him does not preclude the effects of political gravity. Slumping polls, drying up funds and private, or even public, demands for his departure from senior Democratic figures could yet change his mind. A growing chorus of previously supportive media figures is urging him to quit. Continue reading...

There are only 18 seats at stake in the province this week, but the next UK government has a big political task on its hands thereCompared with the contests in the rest of the UK or in France, the one in Northern Ireland may seem like this week's electoral sideshow. Devolved government there has finally been resumed. The Brexit protests have died down. And there are only 18 seats in Northern Ireland anyway, out of Westminster's 650. The chance of the Northern Ireland results affecting the post-election balance of power, as they did in 2017, are vanishingly small this time.All true. Yet the election in Northern Ireland matters all the same. It matters for Northern Ireland's people, of course, not least because one in four of them are on an NHS treatment waiting list, a higher figure than in most of Britain. It matters too because, although the devolved institutions have resumed operation, there is too little by way of creative, cross-community, cooperative government to show for it. And it matters because, at least among unionists, the wounds of Brexit have not been fully healed. Continue reading...

Republican senator warns of retribution: Pandora's box opened by the Democrats is going to be applied'South Carolina's Republican senator Lindsey Graham warned of retribution against Democrats amid Donald Trump's ongoing criminal cases.In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday, Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said without evidence, The Democrats keep calling president Trump a felon. Well, be careful what you wish for. I expect there will be an investigation of Biden's criminality at the border." Continue reading...

Officials dismiss reports family would discuss president quitting race and say summit was scheduled before debateJoe Biden was meeting with his family on Sunday, a discussion believed to include talk about his political future even though it was already scheduled to take place before his calamitous presidential debate on Thursday with Donald Trump.The meeting at Camp David came as pressures mounted on Biden following the vast fallout of the debate, in which his halting performance highlighted his vulnerabilities in a close election and invited calls from pundits, media and voters for him to step aside. Continue reading...

Many of us won't get a choice. But dying rites are not just for those of faith

A 13-year-old was killed Friday in Utica after police stopped two youths in connection with armed robbery investigationVideo released late Saturday shows an officer in upstate New York fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy who had been tackled to the ground after he ran from police and pointed a replica handgun at them.The teen was killed late Friday in Utica after officers in the city about 240 miles (400km) north-west of Manhattan stopped two youths a little after 10pm in connection with an armed robbery investigation, police said. Continue reading...

60% of respondents, Republicans and Democrats, say president should be replaced, while 11% were unsureA majority of voters want Joe Biden to stand down following his dismal debate performance, yet aren't convinced there is a suitable alternative Democratic candidate, new polls have found.In a Morning Consult poll, 60% of respondents, Republicans and Democrats, said the president should be replaced by his party for November's election, while another 11% were unsure. Continue reading...

Since the pandemic, remote properties have been marketed for off-grid living. But a life spent gardening and eating cormorants is not for meI have just been to the Hebrides, because trudging across tussocks in the rain is my ancestrally transmitted idea of fun. The weather was fine, actually, and the midges hadn't reached peak summer blood lust, which meant we could indulge in that universal holiday activity: fantasising about living in the destination.On one walk, we stumbled across the perfect beachfront cottage, utterly isolated, accessible only on foot or by quad bike. Was it the perfect end-times home, we wondered; was there enough growing land, a fresh water source, high ground for spotting marauding - possibly mutant - attackers? Continue reading...

AAF to publish dossiers of employees they consider hostile to ex-president, with goal of ultimately replacing themArmed with rhetoric about the deep state", a conservative-backed group is planning to publicly name and shame career government employees that they consider hostile to Donald Trump.This blacklist" of civil servants, which will be published online, is intended to advance Trump's broader goals, which, if elected, include weeding out government employees and replacing them with loyalists. Continue reading...

Education superintendent and Moms for Liberty ally drafts law requiring all reading be developmentally appropriate'South Carolina has implemented one of the most restrictive book ban laws in the US, enabling mass censorship in school classrooms and libraries across the state.Drafted by Ellen Weaver, the superintendent of education and close ally of the far-right group Moms for Liberty, the law requires all reading material to be age or developmentally appropriate". The vague wording of the legislation - open to interpretation and deliberately inviting challenge - could see titles as classic as Romeo and Juliet completely wiped from school shelves. Continue reading...

For centuries these strays have been looked after and respected as part of Turkish culture. Now they've been dragged into the president's culture warsWhen I first moved to Istanbul in 2010, knowing almost no one and grappling with an unfamiliar language, it was the local street dogs who first drew me into my new life. Chico, an elderly alsatian, and Herkul, a labrador mongrel, lived on a corner near my apartment where they watched the life of the neighbourhood pass by with a vigilant serenity.Locals fed them, and I learned to my amazement that some even clubbed together to pay the dogs' vet bills if they were sick or injured. Greeting them each day became a ritual, and when I first went to a pet shop to buy treats, using my halting Turkish to explain that I was getting them for dogs, but not my dogs", the shopkeeper replied: Ahh, for the street dogs," as though nothing were more natural.Alexander Christie-Miller is a writer and journalist, and author of To the City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of IstanbulDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

From a barbershop and a cigar bar in Atlanta, many Black voters say they remain undecided after an underwhelming debateInside a barbershop in Atlanta's affluent Buckhead neighborhood, eight Black men gathered to talk politics on the day before the presidential debate. Most were business owners around town, social media stars and notable conservatives.All but one. Continue reading...

After the president's disastrous debate performance, some want to drop him as the party nominee. But it's not so simpleIf anyone were to doubt the menace of Donald Trump, they had only to watch his performance in Thursday night's debate.His bullying lies were not just lies - they were frightening opposites of the truth, uttered with the vigor and certainty of someone who has now mastered the dark art of demagoguery.I know I'm not a young man, to state the obvious. I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Political allies are also surprised at move, which cancels nearly entirety of state's funding and will affect economyRon DeSantis stripped more than $32m in arts and culture funding from Florida's state budget over his hatred of a popular fringe festival that he accused of being a sexual event", critics of the rightwing governor say.DeSantis justified his unprecedented, wide-ranging veto of grants to almost 700 groups and organizations by saying it was inappropriate" for $7,369 of state money to be allocated to Tampa fringe, a 10-day festival that took place earlier this month with a strong message of inclusivity, and its sister event in Orlando. Continue reading...

We've been making short-term decisions about our planet for a long time. The consequences are horrific to beholdThe slashing rain turned the dirt roads into muddy creeks, the bus's wipers shoved the torrent back and forth across the windshield, and Don Schreiber handled the wheel like Sandra Bullock in Speed as he wisecracked from under a big gray moustache. The vehicle swerved and slid in the storm, lightning flashed on the horizon, thunder shook the air. Whether the old yellow bus would make it back to the ranch house, get stuck or slide and flip depended on his driving.Don, in his white Stetson and a blue and white checked western shirt, was our tour guide on this land in northwestern New Mexico that he knew intimately and had dedicated his retirement to protecting. When he and his wife Jane Schreiber bought the ranchland about 200 miles north-west of Santa Fe in 1999 to retire to, they - like many westerners - found that they owned the land, but not the subsurface rights. The fracking boom came, and gas companies began gouging holes for gas wells, laying pipelines and cutting roads across the fragile desert soil. Big trucks rolled across the land night and day to service the wells that studded the landscape. At the well we stopped at, the pressure gauge was broken.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell's Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility Continue reading...

Tournament soccer should be a party but exorbitant ticket prices, high temperatures and ill-considered venues have hurt the atmosphereThe official X account of Copa America put out a post during the opening Group C game between Uruguay and Panama. Look who's here," it read. Attached were photos of young, glamorous social media influencers posing as they enjoyed the game from the executive boxes.The post soon went viral and has been viewed more than 7m times. Not by fans expressing joy, but rather by the Americas joining together to ask: Who?" Continue reading...

The unrelenting pursuit by America exposed how far officialdom will go to hide the truthIt was a messy ending to an often chaotic story. Julian Assange was released last week from Belmarsh prison to board a flight to the US-governed Pacific island of Saipan. There, under a special deal with the US authorities, he pleaded guilty in court to illegally securing and publishing classified documents in exchange for a prison sentence of five years, which he had already served in British prisons. And so, for the first time in 12 years, Assange found himself a free man.Having to plead guilty to espionage was a necessity for Assange to gain personal freedom. But it raises wider questions about journalistic freedom. Assange has been charged with espionage not because he spied for a foreign government but because he did what many journalists do: he published classified material that the US government did not want the public to see. The charges Assange faced rely almost entirely on conduct that investigative journalists engage in every day", Columbia University's Jameel Jaffer, an expert on free speech, observed in 2019 when the indictments were first brought. That is why the indictment should be understood as a frontal attack on press freedom".Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

After Princess Anne's accident, concerns over a too small royal family may be over-inflatedEven before Princess Anne's head injury, with a king and princess both on long-term sick leave, royal family experts were arguing that its professional component, having previously been too big, is now dangerously small. If there ever was an intervening just right, nobody spotted it at the time.Mercifully, given the family's impressive birth rate, there is no suggestion it will have to resort, as in the past, to importing foreign workers who may not even speak the language. But if the labour shortfall is not yet acute or even noticeable, royal authorities allude to struggles that have perhaps been under-reported: vacant patronages, event planners who can't lay their hands on a duke. The royal biographer, Hugo Vickers, wrote months ago that the King's cancer diagnosis is a reminder of what a foolish idea a slimmed-down monarchy is".Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

Residents evacuate after Boulder View fire rips alongside Scottsdale, and wildfires in California and Oregon rageA wildfire north-east of Phoenix has, as of Saturday, threatened scores of homes, forced dozens of residents to evacuate and required more than 200 firefighters to battle it.No structures have been damaged as the wildfire has traversed nearly 6 sq miles (15 sq km) on the cusp of the Boulder Heights subdivision of Scottsdale, said Matthew Wilcox, spokesperson for a multi-agency wildfire response team. Continue reading...

Pressure mounts as the New York Times and some of Biden's strongest backers join the callAmid a howling chorus of derision over Joe Biden's substandard debate performance against Donald Trump, one voice seemed to resonate more powerfully than others.At 6.15pm on Friday - roughly 19 hours after the two presidential candidates left the stage in Atlanta the previous evening - the verdict of the New York Times's editorial board dropped online to the newspaper's subscribers. Continue reading...

The first lady is a key player in the administration - and critics fear she has been shielding her husband beyond a reasonable pointThrough a week in which Joe Biden's re-election hopes seemed to crumble, Jill Biden has been at his side. At times, she's appeared more than a resolute first lady, standing in as his compere, guide and primary political aide.The president's wife of 45 years - they met on a blind date, set up by Biden's brother, in 1975 - may now hold the key to whether Biden accepts mounting pressure from Democrat party donors and abandons a faltering re-election bid or risks another debate with Donald Trump in September with even higher stakes. Continue reading...

Swimmer off Fernandina beach was rescued by Nassau county marine unit after distress call from boat on FridayA shark attack off Florida's Atlantic coast left a man with a severe bite to his right arm" on Friday, authorities say, leaving him in critical condition from blood loss.The Nassau county sheriff's office marine unit, which was patrolling off the coast of Fernandina beach near the Florida-Georgia border, said it had received a distress call from a boat on Friday and had applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Continue reading...

Michelle Peters, 47, of Lebanon has been charged with first-degree domestic assault and armed criminal actionA Missouri woman has been accused of secretly putting weed killer and insecticide in her husband's Mountain Dew drinks.In a statement released earlier this week, the Laclede county sheriff's office announced that 47-year-old Michelle Peters of Lebanon, Missouri, has been charged with first-degree domestic assault and armed criminal action. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak goes soggy and Keir Starmer is short of change, but at least Steve Baker and Ed Davey are having fun

The presidential debate was further proof of the fragility of the country's constitution. Radical reform is crucial, whoever wins in NovemberIt wasn't so much what Joe Biden said, it was how he said it. His voice was weak and shaky, he lost his way, forgot what he was saying. He sounded feeble. He sounded old. Very old. And the storm of white-hot criticism that rained down on his head from friends and foes alike after the 2024 election's embarrassing and disastrous first presidential TV debate with Donald Trump was blistering. It was sad and painful to watch.Republicans were jubilant. They think it's all over bar the voting. They claimed Biden had only one objective: to prove, at 81, that he was fit to lead as president for a second term - and he failed. Many Americans will agree. Except they already thought he was too old. It's unclear as yet how much this flop will sway undecided voters. Proud, stubborn Biden will fiercely resist pressure to stand down. And no leading Democrat is publicly willing as yet to wield the knife. That may change. Continue reading...

Storm Lake police question how to enforce a troubling' state law after 30 years of gaining trust with residentsSince becoming the police chief of Storm Lake, Iowa, four years ago, Chris Cole has done everything he can think of to convince people who come from around the world to work in his town that he is not their enemy.Cole and his officers have hosted barbecues in parks and get-togethers at taquerias. They've dubbed a Hummer H2 seized from a drug dealer the YumVee", and driven it to events around town, its trunk full of ice cream, soccer balls and other sports gear for kids. And in a town where Spanish is widely spoken, Cole has found time every day to study the language and uses it in conversation when he can. Continue reading...

Driver taken to hospital and charged with driving while intoxicated after rescuers free people trapped in buildingA minivan slammed into a Long Island, New York, nail salon on Friday, killing four people and injuring nine others inside the business at the time, a Suffolk county fire official said.The vehicle came to a stop at the back of the Hawaii Nail & Spa salon in Deer Park at about 4.40pm. Continue reading...

City is one of few in the US where tenants can be forced to pay fees, despite a landlord having hired the brokerA row is brewing in New York City between renters and real estate brokers, over who pays the thousands of dollars in fees when an apartment is rented.On 12 June, lawmakers in New York met to discuss the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses act (Fare act), which would require the person who hires the broker to pay the broker fee. Continue reading...

The vice-president would be a logical choice if Biden does opt out, but some are already looking to other contendersJoe Biden's stumbling debate performance left Democrats so panicked some are searching for an alternative to replace the 81-year-old president as the party's standard-bearer.Biden has given no indication that he intends to exit the race, and his campaign has flatly dismissed the suggestion. But that has done little to silence critics who are openly questioning whether Biden is the right person to take on Donald Trump, a figure the president - and his party - view as a grave threat to American democracy. Continue reading...

If the president is not politically viable, the stakes of this election not only remain but are even higher than everI saw western civilization pass before my eyes as Joe Biden drowned.Putin is waiting for Trump," John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security adviser has said. When the presidential debate turned to foreign policy, the former president made an apparently startlingly revelation. He implied that he had a previously unknown conversation with Vladimir Putin before his invasion of Ukraine, perhaps in late 2021 or early 2022. According to Trump, Russia's president discussed the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. When Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we're going to go in and maybe take my - this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream." That dream, of course, is the conquest of Ukraine as the restoration of the major piece of the collapsed Soviet Union after the cold war. Continue reading...

Editorial board says exiting is greatest public service' Biden can perform after disastrous debate performanceThe New York Times's editorial board has called on Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.Biden's poor performance sent leading Democrats into a panic on Thursday night, after the US president appeared shaky and at points struggled to finish sentences. It amplified fears about his age and fitness for office that it had been hoped the debate would allay. Continue reading...

As the national team chases Copa America glory on US soil, the AFA has established a permanent home in south FloridaInter Miami's Lionel Messi may well miss Argentina's final Copa America group game on Saturday night, but for the defending champions an outing in Miami will feel like a home game.The Miami Dolphins' 65,300-seat Hard Rock Stadium has long been sold out for the tie with Peru, awaiting the arrival of the world champions. Continue reading...

Some say it's ageist, and they have a point. But whether in academia or elsewhere, it's only fair for younger colleagues

Each government has been a challenge, each leader sillier and more ruinous than the last. But even cartoonists crave a bit of boring earnestness sometimesFor the past five weeks people have repeatedly said to me, You must be really busy!" I've had to explain that elections aren't like that; in fact, from the point of view of cartoonists, they're boring. The only real fun comes when the wheels fall off the party machines and their careful choreography collapses into farce. But in this election even the Tories' serial weapons-grade balls-ups are becoming a bore, serving merely to remind me of the universal truth that reality will always, always be weirder than anything satire could think up in a million years.That said, in the empty hours of this interminable death watch while we've waited for the Tory tumbril finally to trundle to the guillotine, I've been reflecting on the past 14 years, and how the worst government of my lifetime has been succeeded five times by one that was even worse. Continue reading...

We thought our country had become tolerant and inclusive, but the state still regards a woman's safety as secondary to a man's jobIreland loves its strong women, as long as they're dead or they never lived at all. It's the walking, talking, breathing ones who are bothersome. There is hardly an Irish person who hasn't heard of the sexually insatiable Queen Medb, famed for stealing her neighbour's prized bull, or of Grace O'Malley, a real-life sea pirate, or of the darling of them all, Caitlin Ni hUallachain, the mythical personification of Ireland.Until a week ago, most people had never heard of Natasha O'Brien. The country had been going about its business contentedly thinking itself modern and progressive, unaware that a 22-year-old soldier had previously pleaded guilty in the circuit court to violently assaulting her. The 24-year-old had been walking home from her job in a Limerick pub when she happened upon Cathal Crotty yelling faggot" at passersby on the city's main street. When she asked him to stop, he punched her to the ground and punched her twice more until she blacked out. Then he ran away and gloated on Snapchat: Two to put her down, two to put her out."Justine McCarthy is an Irish journalist and the author of An Eye on Ireland: Writings from a Changing NationDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Former president claims no amount of rest or rigging could help' Biden during victory lap at Virginia rallyDonald Trump wasted no time bringing up Thursday's debate at a rally in Virginia on Friday.Hello, Virginia," he opened to a crowd in Chesapeake. Did anybody last night watch a thing called the debate?" Continue reading...

Attendees note night and day' difference between campaign stop in North Carolina and lackluster' debate showingIn what several supporters described as a night and day" difference from his performance in last night's debate, President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to keep fighting against what he framed as an existential threat to America.In his first campaign stop following the debate, Biden showed off a louder and more dynamic voice at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh. Continue reading...

Ride-share companies sign off on $175m settlement that will give workers paid sick leave and other protectionsUber and Lyft drivers will be guaranteed among the highest wages in the US for ride-share workers under a historic deal agreed with Massachusetts prosecutors.Andrea Campbell, the state's attorney general, and the two companies agreed to a $175m settlement Thursday evening that requires a minimum pay floor of $32.50 per hour, and introduces a slew of other benefits and protections that drivers didn't already have. Continue reading...

Joe Biden acknowledged his age and his difficulties with walking and speaking smoothly at an election rally the day after his meandering performance in Thursday's presidential debate, but said he could still beat Donald Trump in the November election

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