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Elon Musk is obsessed with falling birth rates, as is the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. Why would leftwingers want to buy into their pronatalist' agenda?Perpetuating humanity should be a cross-politics consensus," read an article in the Atlantic last week, but the left was mostly absent at a recent pronatalism conference." It's such a simple proposition - everyone loves babies and wants the species to perpetuate, right? - but pronatalism has provoked a ferocious battle on the American left. Should they be trying to engage meaningfully at a preposterous far-right conference? Or should the left stop self-flagellating and start organising?But what is pronatalism - and is it really borderline fascist? I don't want to think about slippery, bad-faith, rightwing claptrap any more than you do, but in an era in which US politics can sneeze and the world catches encephalitis, we do, regrettably, have to think about bad-faith everything, all the time. Continue reading...

Chris Columbus calls cameo an albatross' but worries he'd have to go back to Italy or something'Film-maker Chris Columbus says he has come to regard Donald Trump's cameo in his movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as an albatross" that he wishes to remove.But, Columbus added, he fears the president's administration would deport him if he followed through with nixing the scene from more than 30 years ago. Continue reading...

Vice-president says Donald Trump loves' the UK and there is good chance of reaching mutually beneficial agreementThe US is optimistic it can negotiate a great" trade deal with the UK, JD Vance has said.Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports to the US several weeks ago, sending the global economy into turmoil as stock prices tumbled and fears of a global recession mounted. Continue reading...

Reese and Desiree Mistretta are the first mother-son pair to win New York's prestigious Golden Gloves, but their deeper bond is how boxing helped them survive life's hardest hitsReese Mistretta wasn't thinking about history after he climbed through the ropes on Saturday night. He was thinking about his legs, which felt like cement. About his lungs, which wouldn't quite fill. And about the man across from him: Ali Conde, a sinewy technician from El Maestro's Gym in the Bronx who has made his mark by waiting for opponents to strike first, then exploiting their openings.Two nights earlier, Mistretta had narrowly beaten Conde under the lights of Madison Square Garden in the elite 176lb final of the Ring Masters Championships, New York's premier amateur boxing competition. But the finals are double elimination. If Mistretta wanted to bring home the title, he'd have to beat Conde a second time at a sweaty gym in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn. He definitely came back, re-corrected, he put it on me a little bit more," Mistretta said. So I had to be a little busier, not get countered at the same time. He's a good counterpuncher." Continue reading...

Education department says $2.3bn in funds to be frozen after university rejects slew of demands as political ployThe US education department is freezing about $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University, the agency said on Monday.The announcement comes as the Ivy League school has decided to fight the White House's demands that it crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations, including shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed.Donald Trump will meet this morning with El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, at 11am ET at the White House.Referring to the cost of imprisoning the detainees in El Salvador, Trump told reporters on Sunday about Bukele:I think he's doing a fantastic job, and he's taking care of a lot of problems that we have that we really wouldn't be able to take care of from a cost standpoint.He's been amazing. We have some very bad people in that prison. People that should have never have been allowed into our country. People that murdered, drug dealers, some of the worst people on earth are in that prison. And he's able to do that. Continue reading...

Do they think it's just too hard to speak out?

El Salvador president says it is preposterous' to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to US after he was wrongly deported - key US politics stories from Monday 14 April at a glanceThe president of El Salvador said in a meeting with Donald Trump in the White House on Monday that he would not order the return of a Maryland man who was deported in error to a Salvadorian mega-prison.The question is preposterous," Nayib Bukele said in the Oval Office on Monday. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I'm not going to do it." Continue reading...

Administration advances new misrepresentations of US supreme court order in case of Kilmar Abrego GarciaThe Trump administration on Monday misrepresented a US supreme court decision that compelled it to return a man wrongly deported to El Salvador, using tortured readings of the order to justify taking no actions to secure his release.The supreme court last week unanimously ordered the administration to facilitate" the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was supposed to have been protected from deportation to El Salvador regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang. Continue reading...

Two students traveling on spring break were arrested and charged with assault in Copenhagen, police sayTwo American college students traveling for spring break were arrested in Copenhagen, charged with assault, and held in a Danish prison for two weeks following an alleged dispute with an Uber driver, Danish police said.The family of Owen Ray, a 19-year-old studying at Miami University in Ohio, said he and an unnamed friend have been forced to forfeit their passports and remain in the country. Continue reading...

Liberty Justice Center filed lawsuit on behalf of five US businesses declaring that Trump's tariffs overstep authority

Mahdawi was at a naturalization interview in Vermont when he was taken in move his lawyers say is retaliation'Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder and student at Columbia University, was apprehended by US immigration authorities in Vermont on Monday, according to his lawyers and a video of the incident.Mahdawi, who was a leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last spring, was arrested by Ice on Monday morning in Colchester, Vermont, while he was attending a naturalization interview, his lawyer said in a statement to the Guardian. Continue reading...

In a message, the university's president said it will not surrender its independence' amid crackdown on educationHarvard University said on Monday that it will not comply with a new list of demands from the Trump administration issued last week that the government says are designed to crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations at elite academic institutions.In a message to the Harvard community, the university president, Alan Garber, vowed that the school would not yield to the government's pressure campaign. The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," Garber said. Continue reading...

Cuts would mean dramatic decreases in funding for humanitarian aid, global health and international groupsThe Trump administration is reportedly proposing to slash the state department budget by nearly half in a move that could drastically reduce US international spending and end its funding for Nato and the United Nations, according to an internal memorandum.The memo based on spending cuts devised by the White House office of management and budget envisions the total budget of the state department and USAID, the main foreign assistance body which has been largely dismantled by Elon Musk's department of government efficiency", or Doge, being reduced to $28.4bn, a reduction of $27bn or 48% from what Congress approved for 2025. Continue reading...

Nick Faldo has more majors and Seve Ballesteros was a majestic shotmaker but the career grand slam is pricelessIn Northern Ireland, debate is already raging as to whether Rory McIlroy has presented himself as the country's greatest ever sportsperson.The answer is surely obvious. Step aside, George Best. McIlroy's Masters triumph may even force Sports Personality of the Year to afford due recognition to golf. It is only April but it feels highly unlikely the scene immediately after McIlroy claimed the Masters on Sunday will be matched. His pounding of the turf; his tears absorbed more than a decade of such deep frustration. The moment reverberated beyond sport; Rory had done it. Grown men, lots of them, shed tears on his behalf as hebroke his Augusta hoodoo. Continue reading...

Title X, with services like STI tests and cancer screenings, in limbo after Trump administration pauses $66m in fundsMore than 10 days after the Trump administration froze roughly $66m of federal funds that had been earmarked for no- and low-cost family planning services, the providers that had been scheduled to receive that money are staring down the possibility of financial collapse.Title X, the country's largest federal family planning program, provides clinics across the country with more than $200m each year for services such as contraception, STI tests and cancer screenings. In 2023, more than 2 million people received healthcare through Title X, which helps people regardless of income, age or citizenship status. For many, Title X is their only source of healthcare. Continue reading...

Miles Harford, accused of leaving body in back of hearse and improperly keeping cremated remains, reaches plea dealThe Colorado funeral home owner accused of leaving a woman's corpse in the back of a hearse for over a year and improperly stashing the cremated remains of at least 30 people pleaded guilty in court on Monday to one count of corpse abuse and one count of theft.Miles Harford's guilty plea in Denver follows years of other gruesome funeral home cases in Colorado, including one where the owners were accused of storing nearly 200 bodies in a decrepit building and giving families fake cremated remains. Continue reading...

Alerts rang out as residents felt large earthquake in areas around San Diego, with epicenter in rural enclave of JulianSouthern Californians were rattled on Monday morning when a strong earthquake shook the areas around San Diego just after 10am local time.Initial measurements from the United States Geological Survey rated the temblor as a magnitude 5.2, with an epicenter in Julian, a mountain town in San Diego county with roughly 2,000 residents known for it's apple pie, located roughly 35 miles north-east of San Diego and 120 miles south of Los Angeles. Continue reading...

Andrew Buen was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in death of Christian Glass, who called 911 for helpA former Colorado sheriff's deputy convicted of killing a 22-year-old man in distress who called 911 for help was sentenced on Monday to three years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed, by a judge who said the shooting was about power.In February, jurors found Andrew Buen guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2022 death of Christian Glass. Prosecutors alleged that Buen needlessly escalated a standoff with Glass, who showed signs of a mental health crisis and refused orders to get out of his SUV near Silver Plume, a small, former mining town along Interstate 70 in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver. Continue reading...

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David Solomon warns that escalating trade war poses material risks' for US and global growthThe chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, has warned that the chances of a US recession have increased" in the wake of Donald Trump's tariffs and that an escalating trade war poses material risks" for US and global growth.The Wall Street boss said the growing uncertainty over the fallout of US tariffs could spell trouble for companies and consumers and wreak havoc on the economy. Continue reading...

Trump officials claim they're not legally bound to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back despite supreme court rulingThe president of El Salvador said in a meeting with Donald Trump in the White House on Monday that he would not order the return of a Maryland man who was deported in error to a Salvadoran mega-prison.The question is preposterous," Nayib Bukele said in the Oval Office on Monday, where he was welcomed by Trump and spoke with the president and members of his cabinet. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I'm not going to do it." Continue reading...

Lawmakers use Kremlin's deadly attacks as latest evidence to convince president he must increase pressure on PutinRepublican supporters of Ukraine are using the Kremlin's deadly missile strikes as their latest evidence to convince Donald Trump that he must increase pressure on Vladimir Putin if he wants to reach a ceasefire deal.Pro-Ukraine lawmakers and aides in the Republican party have carefully navigated Trump's apparent affinity for Putin and avoided direct intervention in their efforts to shift his support toward Kyiv. But following the Russian strikes during Palm Sunday celebrations in the city of Sumy, advisers and allies have been highly vocal in condemning the attack using language meant to resonate with the US president's conservative, religious base. Continue reading...

Ex-Alaska governor claims paper defamed her with editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shootingA jury was selected on Monday to hear a retrial of Sarah Palin's claims that the New York Times libeled her in an editorial eight years ago.Opening statements were scheduled for Tuesday as the one-time Republican vice-presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska gets another chance to prove to a federal jury that the newspaper defamed her with the 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. Palin said it damaged her reputation and career. Continue reading...

There's funny, there's mean, and there's mean and funny. But unfunny and mean will always die a deathIn these partisan times, when all is binary and everyone must pick a side, I have chosen mine. Aimee Lou Wood, she of The White Lotus and thus now instantly recognisable worldwide, is absolutely right to call out Saturday Night Live, the legendary US entertainment and satire show, for making jokes about her teeth. The special relationship is under enough strain without having to lean into old stereotypes about British gnashers. I am still reeling from the Big Book of British Smiles gag in The Simpsons and I continue to floss every day because of it.The SNL joke, if you are yet to see it, is part of a wider sketch making fun of the Trump administration. (Because if one thing has been proven to quell the march of the right, it's parody.) A White Lotus character is mashed up with someone adjacent to Robert F Kennedy, he mentions fluoride, and a Wood-esque character says What's that?"Athena Kugblenu is a writer and comedianDo 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...

The reigning champions appear to have corrected the worst of their problems but the days when they conquered all before them are probably over

FAA said New York Helicopter Tours will be shuttering immediately' after accident that killed all six on boardThe company that operated the helicopter that crashed into New York City's Hudson River on Thursday - killing all six people on board - has been shuttered with immediate effect, the US's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said late on Sunday.New York Helicopter Tours is shutting down their operations immediately", the FAA said in a statement on X. The agency added that it would launch a review of the company's license and safety records in the meantime. Continue reading...

The progressive icon, 78, may be the frontrunner, but a more moderate contender may represent much-needed changeBarbara Lee represented Oakland in Congress for a quarter-century. Now, in what would probably be the capstone of her storied political career, the 78-year-old progressive icon is vying for the chance to lift the city I love" out of crisis.I'm always ready to fight for Oakland," Lee said, announcing her bid to lead the city of roughly 440,000 residents, known for its liberal politics and deep legacy of civil rights activism. When she entered the mayoral race in January, she was widely seen as the presumptive frontrunner. Continue reading...

President says he will lay out new levies on Monday and relief on electronics will be short-lived. Plus, the rise of end times fascism and how to defeat it

Authorities say suspect told them he would have beaten Josh Shapiro with sledgehammer if he had found himA man who authorities said scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor's mansion - where he set a fire - had planned to beat the governor, Josh Shapiro, with a hammer if he found him because he hates the politician, according to court documents released on Monday.The fire left significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building early on Sunday. The man, arrested later in the day, faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault, authorities said. Continue reading...

Letter says Trump administration's detention of Khan Suri represents a fundamental violation of academic freedom'

Seattle's season may not be as badly damaged as we had feared, and there was a huge crowd on hand to see Chicago Fire v Inter MiamiThis was supposed to be the Seattle Sounders' year. The team had a nice path in the Concacaf Champions Cup, and a number of seemingly savvy acquisitions in the winter had fans hoping they'd be enjoying a 2025 season that went down as the best in the club's storied history. Continue reading...

After four days of great action that ended with Rory McIlroy sealing a career grand slam, a look back at some of our favourite images from the first major of 2025 Continue reading...

Putin is planning for this war to continue. That leaves two key questions for Ukraine's European allies

Holding the receipts for 10 seconds absorbs enough bisphenol S to break California's safety rule, research findsPaper receipts from major retailers in the US are so laden with bisphenol S that holding one for 10 seconds can cause the skin to absorb enough of the highly toxic chemical to violate California's safety threshold, new research has found.The findings are being used as evidence in legal action aimed at pressuring retailers to stop using receipt paper treated with bisphenol S, or BPS, which is linked to cancer and reproductive problems. Continue reading...

Watchdogs say cryptocurrency regulation and enforcement has plummeted while Trump family invests heavily in itAs Donald Trump's administration has cut regulations for the cryptocurrency industry, the crypto firm World Liberty Financial, in which the Trump family has a large financial stake, has grown quickly by launching its own stablecoin" and another digital token, prompting watchdogs and experts to warn of Trump's conflicts of interest and economic hazards.Some key congressional Democrats and watchdogs are raising new red flags about the US president's growing conflicts of interest involving cryptocurrencies and risks to investors and the economy posed by multiple deregulatory crypto actions at federal agencies. Continue reading...

Despite all Copenhagen zoo's best efforts, pandas Mao Sun and Xing Er have been playing chase, squeaking, wrestling and napping - doing everything but procreateSpring is properly here, potent, pollinated, fecund. The garden is electric with sex and postcoital doings: sparrows are shagging on the roof, nests are being frenetically constructed and grubs transported to nesting mamas. I spend my days voyeuristically peeping at tits (I got a nestcam for my birthday and I'm obsessed). Even educated fleas are doing it and I dread to imagine what filth the squirrels are up to.I tell you who isn't doing it, though: Mao Sun and Xing Er, the Copenhagen zoo pandas. Since their arrival in 2019, the pair haven't managed to mate. This is my third year tuning in to the intense will-they-won't-they soap opera, shared by keeper Nadja Sondergaard on her extremely entertaining Instagram account @thegoodbearsandme. The pandas are solitary creatures, only coming together for Mao Sun's 36-hour oestrus window. But to maximise their chances of actually having sex, there's a whole elaborate lead-up of letting them see each other, swapping enclosures, spreading urine and secretions", and checking for the telltale tail raise that shows Mao Sun's hormones are peaking. Continue reading...

Our writers take a look at the best prospects coming out of college, and select their stars of the future and lower-round gems to watchThe most WNBA-ready prospect not named Paige Bueckers ...Kiki Iriafen looks like a plug-and-play forward whose agility, rebounding instincts and face-up scoring will make her an immediate asset. She can defend across positions and has a reliable mid-range game. After transferring to USC, she showcased polish and poise against top-tier competition, traits that will translate quickly to the pro level. Her 36-point outburst in the second round of the NCAA Tournament after JuJu Watkins went down with a knee injury only solidified her standing. BAG Continue reading...

After its slowest sales to date last year the 2025 edition of the California music festival was being viewed by some as an unofficial comeback with headliners Lady Gaga, Green Day and Post Malone Continue reading...

The truth is, we were always dangerously overexposed to decisions made in Washington - consider this chaotic moment an opportunityPeople speak with forked tongues about America," a veteran foreign correspondent once said to me. It was a long time ago - during a debate about whether the US should intervene in a foreign conflict - and I have never forgotten it. What they meant was that just as the US is condemned for foreign intervention in some instances, it is also called upon to do so in others and then judged for not upholding its moral standards. That dissonance persists, and is even more jarring as we approach the 100th day of Donald Trump's second term. There is a duality to how the US is seen: as both a country that wantonly violates international law and as the only one capable of upholding that system of law and order. This duality, always tense, is no longer sustainable.I have felt this ambivalence myself - the contradictory demand that the US stay out of it but also anger that it is not doing more. In Sudan, Washington frustratingly refuses to pressure its ally, the UAE, into stopping pumping arms and funding into the conflict. But what proof or history is there to support the delusional notion that the US cares about a conflict in which it has no direct interest? It is an expectation of moral policing from an amoral player that I remember even in childhood, after Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Arab world was rocked with fear of regional war. A fierce debate in our classroom in Sudan on the merits of US intervention was silenced by one indignant evacuee from Kuwait, who said that the most important thing was to defeat Saddam Hussein. Her words occasionally echo in my mind: We must deal with the greater evil first."Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

President says he will lay out new levies on Monday and relief on electronics will be short-lived - key US politics stories from 13 April at a glanceDonald Trump's tariff war has dived deeper into chaos after a cabinet official telegraphed new levies on semiconductors - a crucial component in electronic goods - just days after the Trump administration exempted computers and smartphones from reciprocal tariffs.Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in an interview with NBC that the tariff exemption on several electronic devices was just temporary and that new duties would come in a month or two". Semiconductors would be targeted with new tariffs, he said. Continue reading...

For somebody who makes golf look sublimely easy, the world No 2 made winning the Masters look hellishly difficultHas there ever been an athlete who made playing look so easy, and winning seem so hard?On Sunday morning, everyone in Augusta was asking variations on the same single question. Gonna be his year this year?"the man on the bag check asked. Doyou think he'll get it done?" the woman guarding the crosswalk asked. This time, huh, this time?" the man on the door asked. Continue reading...

Rory McIlroy finally joined the career-slam pantheon after a wild rollercoaster ride around Augusta NationalNothing went right for Justin Rose yesterday. His flat stick was stone cold, he shot 75, he spent a fair proportion of the round grumbling away at his perceived bad luck. But he's in a much chipper mood this afternoon. Sending your approach on 1 from 162 yards to eight feet, then rolling in the birdie putt tends to help with stuff like that. A little fist pump, then a giggle with his caddie, and he moves to -6. Again, like Collin Morikawa, he's surely too far behind to have much of a chance of winning, unless both Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau do a Ken Venturi. (Jack Burke Jr came from eight back on Sunday in 1956 to win, but he needed the then-amateur Venturi to collapse to 80 to pip him by a stroke.) Still, let's rule nothing out yet.Quite a few experts tipped the in-form Collin Morikawa this week. It's not quite happened for the 2020 PGA and 2021 Open champion, but he's not been far off, coming into the final day having posted two level-par rounds of 72 sandwiching a 69. He's surely too far off the pace to threaten today, unless the wheels come off all three of the leading trio, but he's just followed up birdie at 2 by stroking a 25-footer across 3 for another. Im Sung-jae meanwhile birdies 2, and these lads are the first pair to make inroads near the top of the leader board. Continue reading...

Under Pete Marocco's lead, nearly all USAID staff was fired, with funding slashed and contractors dismissedPete Marocco, the Trump administration official who played a major role in dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has left the state department, a US official said on Sunday.Donald Trump's administration has moved to fire nearly all USAID staff, as billionaire Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" has slashed funding and dismissed contractors across the federal bureaucracy in what it calls an attack on wasteful spending. Continue reading...