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Brent crude rises 5% after US president says 20% toll will be imposed on key trade route to cover safety and security'

Elizabeth Warren asked Jamie Dimon if he took advice from child sex offender while lobbying against UK tax on bankers' bonusesA leading Democratic senator has written to the JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon to request clarification on the bank's contact with the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the senate banking committee, wrote to the Wall Street grandee last week to ask if he took advice from Epstein while lobbying against a UK tax on banker bonuses, in a letter published by the US senate's banking, housing and urban affairs committee. Continue reading...

Suspects, aged 15 and 16, taken into custody but not formally charged in targeted mass shooting' in East St LouisTwo teenagers were arrested on Sunday in connection with a targeted mass shooting" that killed five members of the same family and wounded two others in East St Louis, Illinois, according to state police.The 15- and 16-year-old suspects were taken into custody at Holten state park, a recreation area east of the city, the Illinois state police director, Brendan Kelly, said at a Sunday news conference - but they had not immediately been formally charged with a crime. Continue reading...

Shortages triggered by pipeline rupture drive up costs and deepen frustrations, as pressure grows on water utilityJonathan Collazo owns two restaurants in a bustling section of San Juan, which has been plagued by water outages, severely disrupting the daily lives of residents and businesses alike.The water scarcity is part of an escalating frustration felt by thousands of customers of Puerto Rico's water utility over the past several months, prompting the governor to activate the national guard to distribute drinking water across the US territory. The shortages extend beyond San Juan, with sectors in municipalities including Loiza, Guaynabo, Bayamon and others experiencing interrupted service. Continue reading...

Body of pilot involved in tackling Gold Mountain fire recovered by divers from Silver Jack reservoirA pilot who was helping to fight a wildfire in Colorado has died after the aviator's aircraft crashed into a reservoir, local authorities said.The Gunnison county sheriff's office said in a statement that it was notified of the deadly crash at about 5.17pm local time on Sunday. Gunnison's regional communications center received a call reporting that the aircraft involved in the crash went down in the Silver Jack reservoir located in the county's south-western portion. Continue reading...

As US water wars rage, a tributary of the Colorado River faces unprecedented pressure. Visitors worry how long this aquatic relict' will lastOn an early morning in mid-May, a group of near strangers shoved camping gear and clothes into waterproof bags, slathered on sunscreen, and ambled into the bright-yellow rafts that would carry them down one of the last free-flowing rivers in the American west.Unhindered by large dams or diversions, the Yampa curves across 250 miles (400km) of alpine tundras, cottonwood forests and ancient red-rock canyons, rising from Colorado's Rocky mountains to where it joins with the Green River in Utah, much in the way it has for millions of years. Continue reading...

Proposed legal settlement over 2022 oil spill would resolve allegations that South Bow violated clean water lawsA proposed legal settlement with the US government would require the Keystone pipeline system's operator to pay a $26.9m civil penalty over a large oil spill in Kansas in December 2022 and spend about $40m more to prevent future accidents.The agreement would resolve allegations from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Kansas that South Bow, based in Canada, violated US and state clean water laws. The rupture dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a creek running through a rural pasture in Washington county, Kansas, about 150 miles (241km) north-west of Kansas City. Continue reading...

Public health advocates warn of conflicts of interests and say panel likely to provide justification for key rollbacksThe Trump administration has stacked a top chemical safety board with industry-aligned scientists who have a range of financial conflicts of interest and stand to profit from deregulation, public health advocates say.The Environmental Protection Agency's science advisory committee on chemicals (SACC) is slated to review research for dozens of toxic chemicals during the new members' terms. At least 13 proposed Trump appointees are probably conflicted on the chemicals that will be reviewed, comments filed with the EPA by a coalition of public health advocacy groups alleges. Continue reading...

US political leaders must be more clear-eyed about our global alliances, without embracing his scorched-earth approachDonald Trump memorably took out a full-page advertisement in multiple newspapers in 1987 charging that America was carrying too much weight for its allies. In his first term he repeated this charge, threatening to withdraw from Nato and berating US allies around the world in the process. Last week's gathering of Nato's heads of government in Turkey suggests his approach is running out of steam as the world adjusts and the president bumps up against the limits of American unilateral power in Iran.Trump's domestic political opponents should breathe a sigh of relief but not rush headlong into an uncritical embrace of US alliances. For all his counterproductive bluster, Trump recognized something real. If his opponents in the Democratic and Republican parties are not more clear-eyed about what alliances cost Americans - as Biden failed to be with Israel - they will fuel the fires that brought Trump to power in the first place.Christopher S Chivvis is a senior fellow and director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Continue reading...

Tehran says latest US attacks have rendered futile' the diplomatic efforts of the last few months. Plus, hit song in Australia prompts speculation about AI use

As people yearn for connection, these events are popping up around the world - and spreading collective effervescence'We met in a former synagogue, a vast room with hardwood floors where the sound could echo freely. All were strangers, many former choir nerds, united by a love for group singing. Our goal was to learn and perform, in a single day, a classic of our time: a song from the Hannah Montana movie.The event, near downtown Los Angeles, was a one-day choir hosted by the Gaia Music Collective - a three-hour gathering where more than 100 people rehearsed a choral arrangement of the song and sang it three times, with ourselves as the only audience. Continue reading...

Senator played major role in critical negotiations with Democrats and members of his own party on key issuesWhen Democrats and Republicans were earlier this year locked in a standoff that had plunged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the longest partial government shutdown in US history, news of a path forward emerged in the form of a statement from Republican senator Lindsey Graham.By announcing that the budget committee he chairs would set to work on a measure to fund the agencies leading Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign for the remainder of his presidency, Graham played a major role in rallying the GOP behind a plan that reopened DHS. Continue reading...

Many imagined his buff, gruff and tattooed traits would help him connect with working-class men. But this logic was flawedThe left would do well to revisit New York's Democratic primaries two weeks ago - it was a sunnier news cycle, yes, but those races were also an object lesson in progressive realpolitik.Zohran Mamdani, busy as he already was, devoted a remarkable amount of time, resources, and political capital to selecting and backing the eventual victors in three different races - in one case reversing a promise to support an incumbent, Adriano Espaillat, in favor of activist Darializa Avila Chevalier, and in another case supporting Claire Valdez, a relatively unknown assemblywoman, even as the Working Families party, major unions and other progressives backed the Brooklyn borough president, Antonio Reynoso. Continue reading...

The twisting road to the candidate's exit left a lot to be desired. But ultimately, reporters ferreted out the truthAfter the New York Times published an article in early June about the Senate candidate Graham Platner's treatment of the women he dated, the story's main source reacted with disappointment and anger.It was a gift to the Platner campaign", charged Lyndsey Fifield, who had dated the Democratic combat veteran years ago and who spoke candidly to the Times about that experience. Continue reading...

Joan Rivet drank water she managed to splash up to her face by turning faucet on with her footAn 82-year-old North Carolina woman says she survived falling in her bathtub and being trapped there for nine days by turning the faucet on with her foot and drinking water that she managed to splash up to her face - all while drifting in and out of consciousness.Joan Rivet recently shared her remarkable survival story with North Carolina's The Mountaineer newspaper, providing an extreme example of the kinds of emergencies that can face the millions of older Americans who fall by accident annually, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates. Continue reading...

Republican senator, who died Saturday, had a global reach few could rival and was vital in shaping Trump's worldviewIt was revealing that one of the first tributes to Lindsey Graham, a US senator who died on Saturday aged 71, came from Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, a far-right provocateur who recently caused widespread anger by sharing footage of himself taunting bound activists who had been trying to sail to Gaza with aid.Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was not far behind, calling Graham a great friend of Israel and a cherished friend of mine", and he was quickly followed by Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described him as a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer". Continue reading...

Senator says in statement he has undergone battery of tests after weeks of mounting speculation about his healthThe US senator Mitch McConnell on Sunday revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalization, breaking the silence about the Kentucky Republican's condition after weeks of mounting speculation about his health.McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he has undergone a battery of tests as doctors try to determine what led to his fall. He explained the long silence about his condition by saying that folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older". Continue reading...

Republican served in Senate since 2003 and was sharp Trump critic before becoming one of his most loyal backers

Fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Texas builder, renews outcry against Trump's immigration crackdownThe builder got up every morning long before dawn, left home to pick up his construction crew and then headed out to work on yet another house somewhere across the sprawl of Houston.Fourteen hours later, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo would return to the wife he'd met as a teenager in Mexico and the modest house he'd built for his family on the city's east side. Continue reading...

Israeli ambassador to US accuses Ro Khanna of political stunt to distract from support for Graham PlatnerRo Khanna accused the Israeli government and military of lying" on Sunday about the US congressman's detention by armed settlers and Israeli soldiers during a recent visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Khanna - a California Democrat - had posted video evidence on social media of Israeli settlers and soldiers blocking the path of his convoy on Wednesday in the South Hebron hills, near the village of Zanuta, where Israelis have driven Palestinians from their homes in what Amnesty International calls a government-backed ethnic cleansing campaign". Continue reading...

South Carolina senator illustrated the changing face of the Republican party, from being an anti-Trump voice to a supporter of his war with Iran

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Trump says US senator was a true American patriot' while Zelenskyy says he's deeply saddened' by his death

Lillard, of Oklahoma, contracted polio when she was five and slept inside cylindrical metal device to help her breatheThe last known US person living with polio and relying on an iron lung has died aged 78.Martha Lillard, who contracted polio at age five and spent most of her life dependent on an iron lung machine that helped her breathe, died on 26 June in Oklahoma, according to an online obituary. Continue reading...

Man reportedly seriously injured by the bison, described as agitated' and charging anything' by photographerAn enraged, 2,000lb (900kg) bull bison hooked a tourist and tossed him 8ft into the air at a campsite in Wyoming's Yellowstone national park on Friday - an encounter captured by a professional photographer who said the animal was agitated, pissed off and charging anything and everything".The tourist was reported to be seriously injured by the male bison while walking with his grandson through the Bridge Bay campground, south of Fishing Bridge. Continue reading...

South Carolina governor will pick successor to serve out Graham's term as Trump says I have somebody I think would be great'

Strikes and bluster on both sides, with Israel urging on Washington, are endangering the progress madeThe cycle's familiarity should not obscure the gravity of the consequences as the US and Iran return to threats, strikes and a futile search for an exit from war via escalation. On Sunday, Tehran said that it had closed the strait of Hormuz again. The World Food Programme is already feeding 1.5 million fewer people this year owing to the illegal war launched by the US and Israel. Vulnerable countries are suffering most as existing crises are compounded: an extra 2.5 million people in Somalia and 2.3 million in Afghanistan are struggling to meet basic food needs.Even de-escalation would not fix this humanitarian crisis. The full impact on food production has yet to be felt. The strait was key to global fertiliser exports; as prices soared, many farmers cut back on use. The drying up of remittances from migrant workers in the Gulf hurts Asian as well as African nations. Continue reading...

All the latest as the quarter-finals conclude

Long-serving South Carolina Republican senator who was an ally of Donald Trump and an ardent supporter of UkraineLindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, who has died suddenly aged 71, had just returned from Kyiv after a meeting with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It was Graham's 10th visit since the 2022 Russian invasion; Zelenskyy, who came away with promises of the aid that had been on and off with the Trump administration, called him a true defender of freedom".It was a good demonstration of both Graham's firm stance on US power overseas, and his opposition to Russia. Putin will not stop in Ukraine," he said. To be weak in Ukraine means you lose in Taiwan." Continue reading...

Woman dies after her home is swept away as heavy rainfall batters parts of state, forcing rescues and evacuationsA woman was found dead in Missouri on Saturday after heavy rainfall battered parts of the state the previous day, forcing numerous emergency rescues and evacuations, including at a summer camp with more than 200 children.The body of Faith Gregory, who went missing in Missouri's Crawford county after her home was swept away from its foundation, was found by volunteers late Saturday morning. Her body was discovered about 1.8 miles (3km) downstream from her residence in Huzzah creek, according to the county sheriff's office.Guardian staff contributed Continue reading...

We don't need fewer amateurs running for office. We need far more of them, recruited seriouslyGraham Platner is out of the Maine Senate race, burdened by controversies that include a troubling rape accusation, which he denies. His departure is no doubt a good thing that will make it easier for Democrats to win back the Senate.But progressives should pay attention to the discussion around Platner. His collapse is being turned into something larger, supposed proof that people from outside politics have no business being in it. Continue reading...

The media-savvy mayor's popularity has only grown as the Murdoch-owned tabloid has thrown everything at himThe rightwing New York Post has attacked Zohran Mamdani as a communist, a hater of the police, an antisemite, a driver-away-of-billionaires, and as someone who isn't very good at bench press.But six months into his mayoralty, Mamdani has so far succeeded where most of his predecessors have failed: he has bested the city's most powerful tabloid. Continue reading...

Dozens of projects are in development across US despite concerns over environmental and health risksThe plan to bury carbon under remote Indiana farmland is supposed to be a slam dunk for the climate, according to its supporters - all generously funded by US tax dollars.But as far as Melissa Harrison and some other residents of Clymers, Indiana, are concerned, it just might be the end of their town. This is our place," she says. Generations of her family are buried in the cemetery, and she is raising her five grandchildren in one of several dozen white-clapboard homes among corn fields and industrial plants serving the farming industry. Continue reading...

City official says staffers were performing routine park maintenance' where 15 people have gathered for monthsCity employees in Atlanta, Georgia, recently threw away tents, medication, identification and other belongings of unhoused people at a public park without warning. This led activists and a local official to point to an apparent violation of procedures created after a city employee ran over a tent with a front loader last year, killing a man.The sweep through the park occurred less than a mile from a popular spot for World Cup watch parties, drawing into focus ongoing tension over the issue of what happens to the city's several thousand unhoused people during the month-long event. Continue reading...

Scientists worry that current eradication efforts won't be able to contain parasitic infestation pushing into USWhen conservationists set up cameras in remote regions of Central American forests, they wanted to monitor illegal cattle movement, which can lead to deforestation. But in recent months, they discovered another alarming development: wildlife rapidly infected with the new world screwworm.It's a warning sign of how the fly could spread in the US - and it signals new difficulties in pushing it back south, a process that will probably take years, experts say. Continue reading...

The White House is working to change electoral rules in its favor. Protectors of democracy must have a counterplanThe second Trump administration is systematically eroding the institutional foundations of competitive elections without formally abolishing them. They have a plan to achieve what scholars of democratic backsliding call electoral subversion": changing electoral rules in their favor. Protectors of democracy must have a counter-plan of their own.The White House's approach to electoral subversion has multiple fronts. The administration has rewarded those who used violence to disrupt the last transfer of power, disabled the federal agencies charged with protecting election integrity, moved to extend executive control over voter registration, and threatened to withhold terrorism prevention funding from states who do not change their voting rules. Continue reading...

Trump's immigration architect calls the supreme court's decision outrageous' as he pushes for policy rooted in genetics, not lawNeither of the supreme court majority opinions in Trump v Barbara, the 5-4 decision upholding the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, mention the true architect of the case. Donald Trump's Executive Order 14160, which would deny citizenship to children born on American soil if their parents are undocumented immigrants or on temporary visas, is extensively noted, but not the man responsible for it. The omission of Stephen Miller is like Dracula without Dracula.The vampire identified is chief justice Roger B Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, though his notorious statement at the heart of his ruling went uncited: that the framers believed that Black people had no rights which the white man was bound to respect", that they were excluded from the Declaration of Independence's principle that all men are created equal" because of racial inferiority too clear for dispute," and that rendered them no different from an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic." Continue reading...

Tensions between progressive and moderate camps of Democratic party on display in key Senate race in MichiganThe Israel-Gaza war created gaping divisions in the Democratic party and contributed to a resounding loss in a critical presidential election year in 2024. Two years later, the issue continues to dominate races across the country, as progressives try to seize on Israel's falling popularity and a broad anti-war sentiment ahead of November's midterms.A recent debate among two Democrats vying for one of the most competitive US Senate seats in the country openly displayed the tension between progressive and moderate camps of the party. Continue reading...

Sudden shift may be linked to affinity for Erdoan but what might be consequences of erratic behavior towards alliance?Donald Trump's relationship with Washington's Nato allies is nobody's idea of a happy marriage.But the US president's volatile performance at the western military alliance's annual summit in Ankara this week seemed extreme, even by Trumpian standards. As commentators sought toexplain what happened, their usually capacious stock of Trump-fitting cliches was at risk of exhaustion. Continue reading...

Famed art museum, one of 31 buildings to test positive, has already completed remediation, health department saysNew York City's famed Solomon R Guggenheim Museum was among a number of Manhattan buildings that recently tested positive for the bacteria that causes legionnaires' disease.The city health department on Friday released a list of 31 buildings on the Upper East Side that have been ordered to clean and disinfect their cooling towers as the city deals with the latest outbreak of the disease, which is a serious form of pneumonia. Continue reading...

Letter from Democratic senator outlines more no-bid contracts and second botched reflecting pool redoThe US senator Sheldon Whitehouse has sent a letter to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts detailing allegations from whistleblowers that some renovations were rushed" and federal contracting laws were ignored" to get the center ready for events, including for Donald Trump to receive the Fifa peace prize" during the World Cup draw he hosted there in December.I have received allegations that the Kennedy Center has conducted rushed renovation and maintenance work with disregard to its commitments to Congress and the federal contracting standards the Center has long applied to its own procurements," the Rhode Island Democrat wrote in the letter dated Thursday. Continue reading...

As England prepared for their World Cup quarter-final against Norway, all the talk was about a round of golf 18 months beforeThe brilliant Cold War Steve is back with the latest of his special World Cup 2026-themed collages. Look closely!More from Thomas Tuchel. Seize the day is his message. Continue reading...

Ro Khanna said settlers were armed with US-made weapons and Israel Defense Forces refused to interveneThe US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation.In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers. Continue reading...

Body of Nolan Wells, 18, found after he traveled to Horn Island over Fourth of July weekend with three white friendsA mother on Friday pleaded for anyone to come forward with information about what happened to her son, Nolan Wells, a young Black man whose body was found on an island off the coast of Mississippi after he traveled there over the Fourth of July weekend with three white friends.We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn't come home," Christine Wonsley, choking back tears, said at a news conference about her son. Continue reading...

Biden sued Patrick Byrne for defamation over claim that he sought bribe to lobby his father to free $8bn in Iran assetsA federal judge on Friday awarded Hunter Biden $1.7m in punitive damages in a defamation lawsuit he filed against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.Biden sued Byrne - a Donald Trump ally who denied the results of the 2020 election and funded efforts to overturn them - in 2023, accusing Byrne of lying in an interview that Biden had previously sought a bribe from Iran's government in the fall of 2021. Continue reading...

Outlet said journalists subpoenaed to testify before grand jury after story detailed security concerns with Qatar-gifted planeThe Trump administration has issued subpoenas to several New York Times journalists after the newspaper reported on security concerns with the president's new plane, according to the outlet.The Times said its journalists were subpoenaed on Friday by the US justice department to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan five days later, marking the latest effort by the Trump White House to compel testimony from journalists under the threat of penalty. Agents delivered some of the subpoenas to the Times reporters at their homes, the paper added. Continue reading...

The president wooed farmers in his campaign, but now the USDA is yanking funding, citing DEI' and wasteful spendingIt's just an eighth of an acre, but for Lawrencia Rogers, the plot where she grows broccolini, lettuce and beans on land once tilled by poorhouse residents in eastern Iowa is the closest she has come to living her dream.Iowa is one of the most agriculturally productive states in the country, but getting into farming is not easy, particularly for people like Rogers who have no family connections to the business. It's nonetheless been a lifelong passion for the 33-year-old Iowan: at age six, she planted a rosebush that's still alive today, and managed to grow cantaloupe on a strip of dirt and chain-link fence next to the driveway of her grandmother's house. Continue reading...