This ancient city has been turned into a battleground, and the Israeli police are doing nothing to ease tensionsJaffa is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was the metropolis of Palestine, until it was conquered by Israel in 1948 – most of its Palestinian population then became refugees, and the city was absorbed into Tel Aviv one year later.For decades the city was simply seen as the backyard of Tel Aviv. But in recent years, Israeli Jews like me started discovering its charms, and a process of gentrification began pushing poor Palestinians out of the city. This process creates many tensions, and is enabled by the fact that most Israeli Jews see Jaffa as a haven of coexistence, where they can eat hummus and other Palestinian foods in peace. Continue reading...

Crystal Mason cast a provisional ballot in 2016 unaware she was ineligible despite being freed from prison for a tax fraud felonyHappy Thursday,For the last few years, I’ve been closely following the case of Crystal Mason, a Black woman in Texas who was sentenced to five years in prison for illegally voting in the 2016 election. The case has attracted national attention because of the severity of Mason’s sentence and because Mason has maintained that she had no idea she was ineligible to vote. Continue reading...

Mark McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, gained international notoriety after drawing their guns on demonstrators in June 2020The St Louis man who brandished his gun at Black Lives Matter protesters last summer, Mark McCloskey, announced on Tuesday that he is running for Senate in Missouri.McCloskey told the Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he is running in the 2022 election. “If we don’t stand up now and take this country back, it’s going away,” McCloskey said on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Continue reading...

Millions of Americans rely on motorcoaches, but the pandemic hit bus companies hard. I say: nationalize it

Israel and Palestinian militants stopped firing for several hours early this morning. Plus, Lego launches first LGBTQ+ setGood morning.Israel and Palestinian militants stopped firing for several hours early this morning after Joe Biden called for “a significant de-escalation”. Continue reading...

The former No 1 overall pick in the NBA draft has been ridiculed for years as a bust. This week, in hours of YouTube rants, he set the record straightBefore the NFL’s JaMarcus Russell there was the NBA’s Kwame Brown. Like the former Raiders quarterback, Brown was a top draft pick whose bevy of physical gifts marked him as the kind of transformational player who only comes along once in a generation. But unlike Russell, who was a star in college with LSU first, Brown had that burden placed upon him while still a teenager.Brown made history as the first NBA player to go No 1 straight out of high school when Michael Jordan’s Washington Wizards came calling in 2001. And if he didn’t go down as a Hall of Fame-bound great in the mold of other straight-from-school players like Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett, well, Brown figured to be at least as brilliant as Jermaine O’Neal or fellow McDonald’s All-American Tyson Chandler. When Brown turned out to be neither of those things, he became easy fodder for “all-time draft busts” clickbait, inspiration for this ur-Stephen A Smith rant, an argument for bringing back the NBA age limit and a punchline for a thousand basketball podcasts – even player-hosted safe-spaces like Showtime’s All The Smoke. Continue reading...

As the days pass, it gets harder to stay in touch. My friends send me photos of their children sleeping under tables, covering their ears and eyes against deathI haven’t seen my younger brother, Abdallah, in person for more than four years. It takes a few minutes to end our video calls these days. With a shaky voice and a reluctant smile, he blinks away his tears to reassure me he is strong, despite the constant explosions that rock his home. When I ask if there is anything I can do, he answers: “Can you postpone nightfall?” I conceal my anxiety as I say “Goodbye!” and “Take care!” again and again. I prolong the conversation because I am terrified this could be the last time I speak to him.Two days later, 5am in Perth, midnight in Gaza, I message him frantically. I’ve learned over the past few days that this is about the time Israeli bombing intensifies. Bombs raze buildings to the ground while residents are trying to sleep inside. I urge him and my other younger brother to move to where my older brother is staying in Khan Younis, in the southern part of Gaza which seems to be hit less frequently. I think if they stick together under one roof then they can console each other as the bombs fall. Continue reading...

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly attack on the Capitol in January. Thirty-five Republicans joined Democrats in passing the measure, with the vote largely falling along party lines. A total of 175 Republicans voted against the bill, with Democrat congressman Tim Ryan saying it was 'slap in the face to every rank and file cop in the United States'. Republicans in leadership have played down the violence of the Capitol riot that left five people dead

The vast majority of House Republicans voted against a bipartisan, 9/11-style panel – no surprise from a party still in thrall to Trump“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.” So begins the report of the 9/11 commission, which investigated the terrorist attacks 20 years ago with bipartisan support.Will there be a similarly limpid introduction to a similarly weighty (567 pages) study of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021? Not if Republicans can help it. Continue reading...

Vote falls largely along party lines with 35 Republicans joining Democrats to pass the bill, which still faces hurdles in the SenateThe House of Representatives has voted in favor of a bill that would create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly attack on the Capitol in January.The vote fell largely along party lines, with 35 Republicans joining Democrats in passing the measure. However, 175 Republicans voted against the bill, as Republican leaders endeavored to put the deadly 6 January attack behind them, and reframe the riot as a protest. Continue reading...

Analysis: Seoul’s navigation of geopolitical landscape in east Asia hints at limits of united front with USWhen the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”. Continue reading...

Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Chip Roy, Bob Good, Louie Gohmert and Mary Miller received warningsRepublicans in Congress are rebelling against the mask requirement on the House chamber, which remains in place due to Covid-19 safety concerns from Democrats, who hold the majority.Several Republican lawmakers refused to wear masks as they stood in the chamber on Tuesday during a vote to approve a 9/11-style commission to investigation the 6 January Capitol attack. They encouraged other members to join them. Continue reading...

HBO Max dropped a trailer for Friends: The Reunion on Wednesday, in advance of the one-off special to be aired next week, which will feature all the original cast members and some special guests. The trailer shows the six Friends – Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry – gathered on the original sets of the TV show and being interviewed by television host and actor James Corden. Friends, the story of six 20-somethings in New York, was one of the most popular TV shows of the 1990s and found a new life on streaming platforms, where it is still one of the most watched shows worldwide. The unscripted reunion will air on HBO Max on 27 May with a string of celebrity guests including Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber and actors who played supporting roles, such as Janice, Richard, and Gunther

Krista Gneiting said she was trying to help one of the students who had been shot when she saw the girl holding the gunWhen a student opened fire at an Idaho middle school, teacher Krista Gneiting directed children to safety, rushed to help a wounded victim and then calmly disarmed the sixth-grade shooter, hugging and consoling the girl until police arrived.Parents credited the math teacher’s display of compassion with saving lives. While two students and the school custodian were shot in the incident on 6 May, all three survived, and the gunfire was over within minutes. Continue reading...

Elon Musk and the People’s Bank of China were the culprits but it could easily have been something elseThe cry from the bitcoin and crypto brigade during previous bursts of volatility was YOLO, or you only live once. That’s an easy thrill-seeking motto to utter when prices decline by the odd 10%. It becomes harder to cling to when the price is down by 30% in a day, and 50% in a month, and there’s panic in the air.For true crypto believers, every decline is a buying opportunity – and, indeed, there was a late rally to limit losses. For the rest of us, though, the hallmarks of speculative excess have been present for a while. A trivial but telling example is the posters one can still see in London and other major UK cities that read: “If you’re seeing bitcoin on the underground/side of a bus/a billboard, it’s time to buy.” No, it’s time to think the party is over and the smart money is heading home. Continue reading...

Biden adviser says boosters likely because vaccine protection against virus ‘generally not lifelong’Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that Americans will probably need a Covid-19 booster shot “within a year or so” as Americans continue to receive vaccinations across the country.Related: Biden tells Netanyahu he ‘expects significant de-escalation today on path to ceasefire’ – live Continue reading...

State troopers seen stunning, punching and dragging Ronald Greene as he apologized for high-speed chase in 2019 arrestLouisiana state troopers were captured on body-camera video stunning, punching and dragging a Black man as he apologized for leading them on a high-speed chase – footage of the man’s last moments alive that the Associated Press obtained after authorities refused to release it for two years.“I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!” Ronald Greene can be heard telling the white troopers as the unarmed man is jolted repeatedly with a stun gun before he even gets out of his car along a dark, rural road. Continue reading...

Viola Fletcher is the oldest survivor of the racist attack on the city’s ‘Black Wall Street’ in 1921 that left up to 300 dead

F-150 Lightning will be most powerful version of vehicle in lineup as Biden says ‘The future of the auto industry is electric’Ford will launch the electric version of its bestselling F-150 pickup truck on Wednesday, a move that automotive experts called “huge” deal for the shift to low-emission vehicles.Joe Biden has pushed for the US to become the world leader in electric vehicles and has proposed spending $174bn of his $2.3tn jobs and infrastructure package to promote the transition from fossil fuels. Continue reading...

Senate Bill 8 bars abortion at six weeks with no exception for rape or incest, amounting to a near-total banThe Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott has signed into law one of the most extreme six-week abortion bans in the US, despite strong opposition from the medical and legal communities, who warn the legislation could topple the state’s court system and already fragile reproductive healthcare network.“This bill ensures that every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion,” said Abbott, flanked by several members of the Texas legislature this morning. Continue reading...

I can link big moments of my life to the great man. It’s just unfortunate that some of the memories make me winceI had been looking forward to reading and listening to all the stuff marking Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday. Then I heard a trail for a radio play called Dinner With Dylan, going out on Saturday afternoon. The title jolted me back 40 years to a dark moment of shame and embarrassment in my otherwise pretty blameless school days. It was 1981, when I was 14, and long before I had a Dylan collection to rival anybody’s. In fact I can only have been dimly aware of the great man when I saw a BBC2 Playhouse drama called Bobby Wants to Meet Me. It was, as the name suggests, about someone building up to meeting Mr Dylan; I can’t remember if the meeting did or didn’t happen, I’m afraid. What I do know is that this play made a great impression on me. It must have done, because a few weeks or months after it went out, upon being set a creative-writing task, I wrote a fine piece of prose entitled Bobby Wants to Meet Me. I suppose a more competent cheat would have nicked the idea but covered their tracks by bothering to think up a different title. Not me.The English teacher concerned was a Miss Curtis. I always got the impression she didn’t much like me, and this unhappy incident may well be the reason. She enjoyed my piece of writing very much indeed, she said, and gave me a very high mark for it. She may even have accorded me the honour of reading it out to my sullenly impressed classmates. I remember feeling very proud, notwithstanding my dirty little secret. As the weeks passed, worries that my plagiarising ways would be exposed ebbed away. Miss Curtis, unfortunately, had somehow come to smell a rat. Perhaps, I fondly imagined, she rated my piece so highly that she had mentioned it to a fellow member of staff for whom the title rang a bell. Or maybe, in lining the cat litter with pages from an old Radio Times, something caught her eye. Either way, I was soon to find out that the game was up. Continue reading...

The Democratic ex-president was candid in remarks to donors and advisers, according to Battle for the Soul by Edward-Isaac DovereFor much of Donald Trump’s presidency, Barack Obama largely abided by the convention that former presidents do not publicly criticize or attack their successors.Related: Trump family members got ‘inappropriately close’ to Secret Service agents, book claims Continue reading...

Recent reckonings on racism and misogyny have led to accountability that critics may consider part of cancel culture“Cancel culture” has become one of the most divisive terms in America, stoking a moral panic and even sparking calls from Republican lawmakers to make it illegal. Now, a major survey reveals how many Americans feel about the term and its power to hold people accountable.Although the phrase has existed for decades, the past several years has seen cancel culture become an increasingly politicized topic, according to the Pew Research Center, who released the findings of a survey of more than 10,000 US adults on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Not even the rosiest optimist could have expected the treat that awaits on Wednesday night: an unexpected high-stakes clash between LeBron James and Stephen CurryWhen the NBA first introduced the play-in tournament, the idea was to further incentivize the normally humdrum final days of the regular season by giving more teams something to play for. That vision was realized on Sunday’s frenetic final day that saw all 30 teams in action and implications up and down the standings.But not even the rosiest optimist in the NBA’s league office could have expected the treat that awaits on Wednesday night: an improbable high-stakes clash between LeBron James and Stephen Curry as the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers host the eighth-seeded Golden State Warriors in a Western Conference play-in game. Continue reading...

Beijing hits back after US House speaker urges world leaders not to attend 2022 Games over treatment of Uyghurs

John Laing board to unanimously recommend KKR’s offer to shareholders to take firm privateThe private-equity firm KKR has agreed to buy the UK infrastructure investor John Laing, which has stakes in Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool and a retirement homebuilding project with McCarthy & Stone, in a deal valued at about £2bn.The takeover values the London-listed firm at 403p a share, which represents a 27% premium on the closing price of John Laing stock on 5 May, the day before it confirmed it was in talks with KKR. Continue reading...

As a Palestinian from within Israel I have long been a second-class citizen, denied basic rightsOn Tuesday, in my hometown of Tira, which is inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders, the shops were closed and the streets were empty. A general strike had been declared in protest over Israel’s policies, whether the ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, the storming of al-Aqsa mosque, or the onslaught on Gaza.As the Palestinian death toll continues to rise, commentators lament the shattering of coexistence inside Israel between Palestinian and Jewish citizens. Yet in my experience as a Palestinian citizen in Israel, no such coexistence existed in the first place. Coexistence implies a background of equality, freedom and mutual respect. In the context of Israel’s rule over us, however, coexistence is a fiction that conceals a reality of separate and unequal lives. Continue reading...

State joins Manhattan district attorney in launching ‘active’ inquiry into former president’s companyDonald Trump is facing growing legal danger after the attorney general’s office in New York said it had opened a criminal investigation into his business activities, and those of Trump family members.The attorney general, Letitia James, had been conducting a civil inquiry into the Trump Organization. On Tuesday night her office said it was joining a sweeping criminal investigation being conducted in parallel by Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance. Continue reading...

A reported one in four pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Yet miscarriage, like abortion, is not included in most curriculaKelsey Christensen, 29, has been a health teacher at a public school in Maryland for three years. Part of her job is to teach sex education to her students, and she spends a good portion of her summer writing sex ed curricula. Yet, it never occurred to her to question why miscarriage and infant loss aren’t included in sex education until she experienced a miscarriage at 10 weeks along in her pregnancy last summer.“It just wasn’t on my radar to even bring up to my students and it hasn’t been something that’s been brought up at school to discuss,” Christensen told me. But Christensen says her students will often ask her about miscarriage, usually after someone in their family experiences a pregnancy loss. Continue reading...

Voter ID laws – which are sculpted to make it harder to vote – are wildly popular with voters, according to surveysVoter suppression has been around for as long as the republic. Stories of subterfuge and ballot box-stuffing schemes are such a part of American political folklore, there’s an entire book about them. So in one sense, there is nothing particularly novel about Republican politicians’ efforts to rig the vote, or the important revelations that rightwing groups and corporate officials are coordinating state-level campaigns to make it harder to vote.However, a new nugget of polling data illustrates that something more fundamental has happened: voter suppression is no longer a plot engineered in the shadows and denied in public, for fear of criticism by a population that considers such measures grotesque. Instead, voter suppression is having its coming-out party – because more and more Americans now consider it to be a perfectly legitimate and even laudable campaign tactic. Continue reading...

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid struggle, the nonviolent BDS movement needs your support, writes BDS co-founder Omar BarghoutiToni Morrison wrote in her novel Beloved, “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” Palestinians have learned the hard way that unless we clearly define ourselves, our oppression, and our aspirations, the hegemonic oppressor will do it, erasing our history and subjugating our future.Sometimes our definitions emerge when unexpected. Three days ago, following a nearby Israeli airstrike targeting a residential neighborhood in Gaza city that shook their building, my friend’s young daughter ran terrified to her mother’s arms shivering. She asked, “I want to be courageous, mama, but I don’t know how when death is so near?” Her question itself, during a televised massacre, defines courage. Palestinians are shattering our fear every day and hoping, and working to ensure, that this courage inspires millions to speak out and act in an effective way to end complicity in Israel’s oppression. Continue reading...

A review of California cases shows that law enforcement frequently publish highly misleading information about people they’ve killed – just like the first George Floyd press releaseOn the day of George Floyd’s killing, Minneapolis police published a short press release titled “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction”.The news alert on 25 May said an unnamed man “appeared to be suffering medical distress” and died soon after at a hospital, making no mention of the officer kneeling on his neck. The statement has since sparked national backlash as an example of police flagrantly misrepresenting a murder committed by an officer. Continue reading...

New York state attorney general’s office says its investigation of the Trump Organization is now criminal. Plus, Anthony Bourdain’s favourite food destinationsGood morning.Donald Trump and his family are under mounting pressure after the New York state attorney general’s office said its investigation of the Trump Organization is now criminal as well as civil. Continue reading...

But more than a third of American adults expect relations to improve under Biden, and just 28% expect them to worsenNearly one year after George Floyd’s murder inspired historic protests against racism and police brutality, only 17% of Americans believe race relations are better today than they were a year ago, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.The survey results spotlight a diverse people whose perspectives on discrimination, law enforcement and white supremacy fall along sociopolitical fault lines – but who nevertheless also seem hopeful for a brighter tomorrow. Continue reading...

With the league at 27 teams and more expansion to come, it’s important to get behind a club who will provide you with the necessary entertainmentMLS is in a good spot this season. It’s fun, fast and the teams lend fans plenty of reason to tune in, for better or worse.But there are a lot of games. So this highly subjective, very unscientific rankings of teams based on the elusive, nebulous “watchability” factor, can help the decision-making process when a handful of games overlap on a Saturday evening. One important note: this is not composed exclusively on quality – a team can be watchable while not actually being competent at winning. So, here they are, from worst to first. Continue reading...

The millionaire real estate heir and subject of The Jinx will be undone by his own words, says prosecutionRobert Durst, the multimillionaire real estate heir accused of murder, will be condemned by his own words, a prosecutor has said during a new round of opening statements at his murder trial.Speaking at the trial in Los Angeles, deputy district attorney John Lewin wove a combination of Durst’s statements — what he said were truth and lies — to outline evidence that will show the 78-year-old killed his best friend and a neighbour to cover up the mystery of his wife’s disappearance. Continue reading...

US House speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for a US diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, saying global leaders who attend the games would lose their moral authority to criticise China for human rights abuses. Pelosi's statement comes as US lawmakers have been increasingly vocal about a boycott or venue change over the treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China. 'What I propose – and join those who are proposing – is a diplomatic boycott,”'Pelosi said. 'Let’s not honor the Chinese government by having heads of state go to China.'

Legislation, which passed the House on Tuesday, marks a bipartisan denunciation of attacks that have proliferated during pandemicJoe Biden is poised to sign legislation aimed at curtailing a striking rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, after Congress approved the bill in a bipartisan denunciation of brutal attacks that have proliferated during the pandemic.The bill, which the House passed on Tuesday in a 364-62 vote, will expedite the review of hate crimes at the justice department and make grants available to help local law enforcement agencies improve their investigation, identification and reporting of incidents driven by bias, which often go underreported. It previously passed the Senate, and Biden has said he will give it his signature.. Continue reading...