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Special election replaces speaker who was first ever voted out of the job, with election for next full term to take place in NovemberVince Fong, backed by Donald Trump, has won a special election to finish the term of the former US House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who also lent his endorsement.Fong, a California state assembly member, defeated fellow Republican and Tulare county sheriff Mike Boudreaux in the 20th congressional district, in the Central Valley farm belt. Continue reading...

Fulton county district attorney overseeing election case against ex-president wins with nearly 90% percent of the voteFani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney overseeing Georgia's expansive criminal case against Donald Trump and his allies for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, has won her Democratic primary bid for re-election with nearly 90% of the vote.Willis and Judge Scott McAfee - who won his primary election on Tuesday - are central figures in the prosecution against the former president and associates in his orbit accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading...

Republicans seek help from secretary of state after prosecutor Karim Khan requests arrest warrant for Israeli PM NetanyahuThe Biden administration is willing to work with Congress to potentially impose sanctions against international criminal court officials over the prosecutor's request for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the Gaza war, Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, said on Tuesday.At a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing, Republican Lindsey Graham told Blinken he wanted to see renewed US sanctions on the court in response to the move announced by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan on Monday. Continue reading...

On Tuesday, both sides finished their questioning of the final witness. The testimony part of the trial is officially over.On Tuesday, more than a month after former president Donald Trump's criminal hush-money trial began, both sides wrapped up their questioning of the final witness. The testimony part of the trial is officially over. Continue reading...

Lawsuit says state law punishing undocumented immigrants with prison terms of up to two years is unconstitutionalThe US Department of Justice sued Oklahoma on Tuesday over a state law that seeks to impose criminal penalties on those living in the state illegally.The lawsuit in federal court in Oklahoma City challenges an Oklahoma law that makes it a state crime - punishable by up to two years in prison - to live in the state without legal immigration status. Similar laws passed in Texas and Iowa are already facing challenges from the justice department. Oklahoma is among several GOP states jockeying to push deeper into immigration enforcement as both Republicans and Democrats seize on the issue. Other bills targeting undocumented immigrants have been passed this year in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. Continue reading...

Former New York mayor one of 12 defendants charged with illegally trying to keep Trump in power after 2020 election defeatRudy Giuliani denied charges of illegally trying to keep Donald Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat as he was arraigned to appear before a court in Arizona along with 10 other defendants on Tuesday.Giuliani's not guilty plea to nine felony charges came days after he was served an indictment as he left a party to celebrate his 80th birthday last Friday. Continue reading...

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Catch up on the latest news from Donald Trump's historic criminal trial Continue reading...

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Steve MacLaughlin of WTVJ in Miami urges viewers to vote - because there are candidates that believe in climate change'A TV meteorologist condemned the Florida governor Ron DeSantis's so-called don't say climate change" law on air and urged viewers to vote.Steve MacLaughlin of WTVJ in Miami addressed viewers on Saturday amid rising heat records across the state, saying: On Thursday, we reported ... that the government of Florida was beginning to roll back really important climate-change legislation and really important climate-change language." Continue reading...

The US and others have criticised the chief prosecutor for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. The ICC needs supportThe international criminal court was born more than two decades ago, largely from the genocides of Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and the contradictory impulses that they inspired: the grim recognition of the worst of human nature and the optimistic determination to address it. More than 120 countries ratified its founding treaty. But the world's superpower - and other major players including Russia, China and India - refused.The result, almost inevitably, was that it became regarded - in the reported words of one elected official to the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan - as built for Africa and thugs like Putin". In fact, Vladimir Putin's indictment a year ago, applauded by the US and others, was regarded as a gear change for a body that had overwhelmingly charged African leaders and officials.Do 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...

Animal spotted in Griffith Park, where Brad Pitt of mountain lions' P-22 lived, bringing excitement at possibility of a new cat in areaIt's been more than a year since the death of P-22, a beloved Los Angeles cougar known as the Brad Pitt of mountain lions" whose passing inspired murals, songs and celebrations across the city.P-22, who was euthanized in December 2022 due to health issues, was the only known big cat living in the city's famed Griffith Park. So when residents spied an unidentified mountain lion in the park last week, people were abuzz with excitement at the possibility of another cat, probably a young male, making a home in the area. Continue reading...

Storms will hit in the midwest and western Great Lakes after eight people died following severe weather in Texas over the weekendAfter a deadly storm in Houston over the weekend in which eight people died, 25 million Americans are bracing for more severe weather across the country.A National Weather Service notice said that an outbreak of severe thunderstorms was predicted on Tuesday over large swaths of the midwest and western Great Lakes, with the greatest threat expected over Iowa and certain parts of nearby states. Continue reading...

It is disappointing, if not surprising, that the west's response to the ICC accusations was to defend Israel despite its war crimesThe Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded with predictable vitriol to international criminal court (ICC) accusations against him and the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant. Yet his arguments are all spin, designed to divert attention from their devastating conduct in Gaza. The American, British and German governments were little better.On Monday, the court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced that he would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as well as three senior Hamas officials. He proposed charges against the Hamas leadership for atrocities on 7 October as well as the mistreatment of the hostages since then. He proposed charges against the Israeli officials primarily for their efforts to starve the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza. These important proposed charges offer the possibility of breaking through the wall of impunity" that victims of Israeli and Palestinian abuses have long suffered, as Human Rights Watch put it.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs Continue reading...

Peter Navarro says first acts of Trump presidency would be firing Fed chair and intensifying China trade war in prison interviewThe first 100 days of a second Donald Trump presidency would see the sacking of the Federal Reserve head, Jerome Powell, mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and higher tariffs on Chinese imports, the ex-president's former trade adviser Peter Navarro has said.Navarro, the maverick former head of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in Trump's first administration and a key loyalist, made the forecasts in an interview conducted from prison - where he is serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. Continue reading...

Climber was missing for several days before location device was traced and body was found in Alaska's Denali national parkA climber died on Monday after falling while trying to traverse North America's tallest peak solo.The latest fatality is one of at least two recent deaths as the summer climbing season in the US kicks off. Continue reading...

It was both moving and onerous that she trusted me with important decisions, and I treasure her observation that our relationship never felt transactionalBy the time most people read this, the funeral of my longest-living patient will probably be over.We first met when I was pregnant and she found out she had cancer. You might think that the juxtaposition of life and death discomfits patients, but children make for a happy point of connection.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

Republican senator comments on report that US flag was displayed upside down outside supreme court justice's home in January 2021Lindsey Graham has said it was not good judgment" for the supreme court justice Samuel Alito to allow an upside-down American flag to be flown outside his home, marking what for him is a rare rebuke of a conservative judge.The Republican US senator's comments on Monday to HuffPost's Igor Bobic came after the New York Times' recent report that an American flag was displayed upside down outside Alito's home on 17 January 2021 - less than two weeks after supporters of Donald Trump carried out the deadly US Capitol attack and three days before Joe Biden's inauguration. Continue reading...

I was questioned for two hours about my political views on genocide and protest slogans when I flew into the USI'm an Israeli historian living in the UK, best known for my books on the history of Palestine and the Middle East, which challenge the official Israeli version of history. This month I was invited to the US by a new Arab American organization, al-Nadwa (the Discussion), to share my thoughts on the situation in the Gaza Strip. I also addressed a Jewish Voice for Peace group in Michigan and went to talk to students encamped at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.After an eight-hour flight from Heathrow I was stopped on arrival at Detroit airport by two people who I thought were agents of the FBI, though I later found out they were agents of the Department of Homeland Security. Two men approached me, flashed their badges and demanded I accompany them into a side room. Continue reading...

Trump campaign says video, which uses Nazi-era language, was posted by staffer who didn't see wording - yet it still remains on site

Encampment had been set up in late April and the school's president claimed it became a threat to safetyPolice broke up a pro-Palestinian encampment Tuesday at the University of Michigan, less than a week after demonstrators showed up at the home of a school official and placed fake body bags on her lawn.Video posted online by Detroit-area TV stations showed police moving people away from the camp on the Diag, a common site for campus protests. The encampment had been set up in late April near the end of the school year. Continue reading...

Surging gun ownership and unaddressed racial trauma have contributed to an uptick in youth firearm suicidesWhen the Covid-19 pandemic hit the US, it wasn't just a deadly virus that swept the country. It also ushered in a period of unprecedented access to firearms.New gun ownership surged, particularly in Black, Latino and Asian American communities, alongside rising anti-Asian hate crimes, police violence and a general climate of fear. In the past, spikes in gun purchases tended to occur in conservative states, in response to changes in gun policy. For the first time ever," said Paul Nestadt, a suicide researcher and co-director of the Johns Hopkins suicide prevention working group, there were more guns bought in blue states than red states." Continue reading...

From the boysober' trend in the US to the 4B movement in South Korea, more and more heterosexual women are giving up sexGet thee to a nunnery! Apparently it's the hottest place to be. While we still very much live in a sex-saturated world, voluntary celibacy is having something of a moment. Evidence of this is everywhere. TikTok, for example, is full of videos of young people extolling the virtues of abstaining from sex. Meanwhile, a new Lithuanian romcom called Slow has brought asexuality to the big screen. In South Korea there is a viral 4B" movement, which gets its name from the four types of bi or no": bihon, no heterosexual marriage; bichulsan, no childbirth; biyeonae, no dating; and bisekseu, no heterosexual sexual relationships. In the US, generation Z comedian Hope Woodward has started a boysober" trend, which involves straight young women eschewing dating. Multiple studies show that, around the world, more and more young people seem to be - quite happily - opting out of sex.Thousands of words have been written about the great sex recession. It's hardly some sort of underground trend. Nevertheless, Bumble, the dating app which once styled itself as a beacon of women's empowerment because heterosexual women had to make the first move, appears to have missed the memo. A few weeks ago the company launched a global advertising campaign the point of which seemed to be to make casual sex great again. A vow of celibacy is not the answer," one billboard read. Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun," proclaimed another.Do 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...

It's not possible for the US to prosecute Assange while claiming to be a friend of press freedom. Biden should end this nowThe UK high court decision granting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal against his extradition shows just how far America has fallen when it comes to freedom of the press.Assange faces 18 felony charges in the United States, including 17 under the Espionage Act, based on WikiLeaks' 2010 publication of US state department cables and Iraq and Afghanistan war logs provided by the whistleblower Chelsea Manning.Seth Stern is the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press FoundationCaitlin Vogus is the deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation Continue reading...

The US president said there was no equivalence' between Israel and Hamas, for which arrest warrants were also requested. Plus, how big oil firms' climate pledges are failing

Cook's curvy characters are glamorous, comfortable in their skins and uncompromising. In real life, I am constantly bombarded with fatphobiaWith an exhibition of Beryl Cook's work having just opened at Studio Voltaire in London, I have been thinking about what it means to occupy a fat body. I love Cook's paintings and all their chubby glory. They are celebratory, glamorous, from the sassy half-moon of bum cheek dipping out of well-filled leopard-print shorts, to a gaggle of women, all dressed up and piling into a taxi. Cook frames the nights out we hold tight in our memories, the warmth of friends as you huddle together against the wind, heading towards the next bar and next potentially brilliant thing, perfume and hairspray following you like sparkly, scented fog.So why, when we stop looking at paintings and move into the real world, does a fat body incite such hatred? I have worked out an equation: reactions to my body operate in eight-pound fluctuations. My body can be perceived as hyper-sexualised and curvy, the type of body that men feel is OK to slide a hand down at the pub as they push past you to the bar. Yet if I put on half a stone, as people often do, I become disgusting, with the kind of body shape about which strangers feel the need to comment. People you have never met suggest better menu options in restaurants; drunk groups of men follow you shouting things that destroy you with every step. The reaction my body generates in others is inescapable. Continue reading...

The president's shedding key constituencies. If morality won't move him to end his support of this war, will self-interest?Joe Biden's re-election team is playing it cool. The Biden campaign has long been shrugging at the president's fading polls, turning down opportunities to put him in front of voters, and generally doing their best to portray an air of confident nonchalance. The campaign's apparent lack of concern seems, or perhaps is meant to seem, like an expression of certainty in the outcome: that Biden will win re-election, and that it won't be close. They want us to think that they've got it in the bag.They do not. Biden is in no way guaranteed re-election, and all available information suggests that the contest will be close. Donald Trump has been narrowly but consistently ahead in national polls. A new dataset released by the New York Times on 13 May found that Biden was trailing in five key swing states - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania - and suffering from disillusionment among young voters as well as Black and Latino ones.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Mike Johnson and other Republicans vying for Trump's approval haven't realized that they, too, will one day pay a priceWhen, in the early days, Donald Trump's diehard fans failed to show up in front of 100 Centre Street at the Manhattan courthouse to clamor about the rank injustice of the case of The People of the State of New York v Donald J Trump, the lonely defendant roused himself from his fitful slumbers to choreograph a dance of the marionettes. The political delegations that started appearing on 14 May attired for perfectly flattering cosplay in Trump matching red ties was a refrain of surrogates echoing insults and imprecations that if the former president were to mutter himself would earn him further contempt of court citations.Trump assembled around him a miniature court and hierarchy that populated a desolation row. In the front row were seated Eric Trump and his wife, Lara Trump, now installed as the co-chair of the Republican National Committee. There were the senators and congressmen, the failed presidential candidates and hopeful running mates who repeated Trump's scripted talking points against the judge, the prosecutors and the justice system. There were the Fox News anchors, Jeanine Pirro, who exchanged smiles and nods with Trump, and Laura Ingraham, reprimanded by court officers for staring through forbidden binoculars as though she were on safari. There was former Trump White House adviser Boris Epshteyn, indicted in the Arizona fake electors scheme. Continue reading...

Exclusive: employees at a Missouri warehouse file charges against firm alleging use of intrusive algorithms' to deter union effortsAmazon has been accused of using intrusive algorithms" as part of a sweeping surveillance program to monitor and deter union organizing activities.Workers at a warehouse run by the technology giant on the outskirts of St Louis, Missouri, are today filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. Continue reading...

Video of fetus in disembodied womb required viewing for students in two states, as classroom becomes latest front in post-Roe abortion warsAwash in soft, peach-colored light, the infant yawns, sticks her thumb in her mouth and flutters her eyes at the camera. As the camera pulls away from her, an umbilical cord and the fleshy tunnel surrounding the infant comes into focus. This isn't a newborn baby: it's a fetus in a disembodied womb.This is Olivia," a British female voice narrates. Though she has yet to greet the outside world, she has already completed an amazing journey." Continue reading...

Forward was born in Spain before moving to UK. A changing US college landscape has now helped him land hefty paydayIn US college sports, the biggest money still goes to the coaches, like Jimbo Fisher, the Texas A&M football coach whose prize for failure over the past few seasons was a $77m buyout. But the players have begun to take a piece of the pie, too, for the first time in the 150-plus-year history of sports on campuses. And one of the biggest scores of all has just gone to a Spanish-born, English-trained basketball star.Before becoming a star on the US college basketball circuit, Great Osobor played in England for Myerscough College in Preston. Osobor, a 6ft 8in forward, was not a highly touted prospect before coming stateside. He began his career in 2021 at Montana State, a lower-tier Division I school with almost no history of basketball success. Osobor was just a role player for the Bobcats, and after two seasons, he transferred to Utah State, another small DI institution in Logan, a little more than an hour north of Salt Lake City. Osobor was a breakout star of the 2023-24 season, leading the Aggies with 18 points and nine rebounds per game. Continue reading...

The American is in charge of his country's northern rivals after a deal with Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal's MLS teams. He says it won't affect his jobUntil very recently, Jesse Marsch had plenty of time. The clock didn't crunch, it ticked. Not now. He has landed in another country, this time Spain, checked into another hotel room and has to get refreshed for a dinner date.That it is Cyle Larin, the Real Mallorca striker and Canada's record male goalscorer, who will be joining him for the meal hints at why time has become a precious commodity in Marsch's world. Continue reading...

When a 21-year-old began photographing her family's farm in rural Arkansas, she found community, friendship ... and a legacy of inequality Continue reading...

Known as Ivan The Terrible', the risk arbitrage maven fell from glory in one of the biggest insider trading scandals of the 1980sIvan Boesky, the financier who gave birth to the greed is good" mantra before going to prison in one of the biggest Wall Street insider trading scandals of the 1980s, has died at the age of 87, the New York Times reported on Monday.Boesky, who partly inspired the Gordon Gekko character in the 1987 movie Wall Street, was considered a genius at risk arbitrage - the business of speculating in takeover stocks - and his wealth was estimated at $280m. Continue reading...

'Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what's happening is not genocide,' says US president, Joe Biden, at a celebration for Jewish American heritage month on Monday at the White House. The US president sided unambiguously with Israel after the ICC's prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister. Khan is also pursuing the arrests of three leading Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri - better known as Mohammed Deif - and Ismail Haniyeh over Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

US president sides with Israeli PM as he calls Karim Khan's pursuit of warrants for Netanyahu along with Hamas leaders outrageous'

The ex-president walked into the courtroom with a phalanx of supporters as the defense's witness prompted near-chaosDonald Trump's criminal hush-money trial entered its 19th day on Monday in Manhattan with what has become a routine procession. Trump walked into the hallway, and then the courtroom, with a phalanx of supporters that included his son, Eric, and Republicans of varying prominence.This morning, some of Trump's guests included Kash Patel and the law professor Alan Dershowitz, whose reputation has waned due to his past association with Jeffrey Epstein. Others present included: a former leader of the New York Hells Angels chapter, and a disgraced former NYPD commissioner. Continue reading...

The former president's hush-money trial in New York is nearing the end, and it's now all but certain he won't take the stand

Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, says focus is long-term product development' rather than revenueTrump Media and Technology Group, the owner of Donald Trump's social networking site Truth Social, lost more than $300m last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.For the three-month period that ended 31 March, the company posted a loss of $327.6m, which it said included $311m in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World, which was essentially a pile of cash looking for a target to merge with. Continue reading...

Some residents forced to wait until Wednesday for lights and air conditioning to be restored after major storm in US southHouston in Texas is still grappling with the effects of a massive storm that swept through the US south last week, including widespread power outages that have persisted for days in increasingly hotter weather.More than 200,000 Houstonians have been without power, and thus air conditioning, for more than four days already, and may have to wait even longer since CenterPoint Energy, the utility company which primarily services the city, has failed to restore power in many parts. Although more than 75% of residents have had their power turned back on, many will still have to wait until at least Wednesday. Continue reading...

After months-long scandal over misconduct at top bank regulator, Gruenberg said he would step down once a successor is confirmedFederal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chairman Martin Gruenberg announced his resignation on Monday, amid a months-long scandal over sexual harassment and other misconduct at the top bank regulator.Gruenberg said he would step down from his responsibilities once a successor is confirmed. Continue reading...

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The container ship that caused the deadly collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was refloated on Monday and has begun slowly moving back to port. The Dali has remained at the collapse site since it lost power and crashed into one of the bridge's supporting columns on 26 March, killing six construction workers and snarling traffic into Baltimore Harbor

Nearly double number of signatures needed turned in to get measure to enshrine abortion rights in constitution on ballotActivists in Nevada, a key state in the upcoming US presidential elections, announced on Monday afternoon that they had turned in nearly double the number of signatures they need to get an abortion-related measure on the November ballot.Nevada currently allows abortions up until fetal viability, or the point at which an infant can survive outside the womb, which is generally pegged to around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Continue reading...

Union says response of University of California to pro-Palestine demonstrations violates rights of advocates and workersAcademic workers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, took to the picket line on Monday morning as part of a rolling strike in protest against the university system's response to pro-Palestine demonstrations.The campus is the first in the University of California to do so as part of a systemwide protest against the public university, which union members argue violated the rights of pro-Palestinian advocates and workers. Continue reading...

Beginning July, state will become the first to charge an 11% excise tax, on top of federal and sales taxes, with an aim to reduce gun violenceStarting in July 2024, California will be the first state to charge an excise tax on guns and ammunition. The new tax - an 11% levy on each sale - will come on top of federal excise taxes of 10% or 11% for firearms and California's 6% sales tax.The National Rifle Association has characterized California's Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act as an affront to the constitution. But the reaction from the gun lobby and firearms manufacturers may hint at something else: the impact the measure, which is aimed at reducing gun violence, may have on sales. Continue reading...

Super Pac has run ads opposing the congressman and supporting his opponent as he criticizes Israel's military campaign in GazaA Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has revved up its campaign spending, pouring $2m into a New York congressional primary to oppose the progressive incumbent Jamaal Bowman.Campaign finance disclosures released this weekend showed the Super Pac, called United Democracy Project (UDP), spending about $1m in support of Bowman's opponent, the moderate Democrat George Latimer and $1m in negative advertisements opposing Bowman. If the group succeeds in defeating Bowman, it will deliver a significant blow to the progressive wing of the House. Continue reading...