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Experts say FBI's finding crime numbers dropped should be viewed with caution but nonetheless the numbers are encouragingCrime in the US fell significantly in 2023, according to new FBI data, with a 13% decline in murder and drops in reported violent crime and reported property offenses.Both robbery and aggravated assault dropped by 5% from 2022, the FBI data shows, while all violent crime declined by 6%. Continue reading...

Stefanie Lambert released on bond after being apprehended by US marshals at Washington court hearing in separate Dominion caseStefanie Lambert, a lawyer who has crusaded to try to prove Trump's claims of voter fraud in Michigan, was arrested in federal court and released on bond after refusing to comply with court orders in a separate Michigan case alleging she tampered with voting machines after the 2020 election.During her arraignment on Tuesday, a judge released her on a $10,000 unsecured bond. Lambert has refused to submit fingerprints in the Michigan case accusing her and two other state Republicans of illegally breaching Michigan voting machines. Continue reading...

Palestinians are dying from hunger. The US must do more than express frustration with IsraelThe question is no longer whether Palestinians will starve to death in a famine, but how many will do so. Famine is imminent in northern Gaza, a coalition of UN agencies and aid groups has warned. Others say that it has already arrived: because mortality is one measure for establishing famine, it can only be declared once deaths have already mounted. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity or worse - an unprecedented level for any area or country - with many of those in catastrophic" need. Families are eating animal feed and grass, and drinking dirty water.No natural disaster has occurred; this is an entirely human-made famine, resulting from Israel's military offensive in response to the Hamas atrocities on 7 October, and the curbs on aid. Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war. On Tuesday, the UNhuman rights office said that the restrictions on aid might amount to a war crime. Continue reading...

Shareholders may welcome the change in direction, but the chief executive's predecessors used similar tacticsHein Schumacher, Unilever's new-ish chief executive, has already dialled down the worthy corporate sermons on social purpose. Now he's ditching the ice-creams, including the famous names of Wall's, Magnum and Ben & Jerry's, and shedding 7,500 jobs elsewhere. Is this the hard-headed change of direction that shareholders, muttering about a sleepy share price and complacency in the boardroom for at least a decade, have been demanding? Well, possibly. But the script also has a familiar feel.Remember that Schumacher's two predecessors also tried slimming the corporate beast by offloading parts that were deemed low-growth or strategically challenged. Paul Polman, fresh from his close encounter with Kraft Heinz's would-be takeover merchants in 2017, offloaded the Flora and Stork spreads business. In its way, that was a more radical move because spreads were a core part of the original Dutch end of Unilever. Alan Jope sold the PG Tips tea business, which also had a lot of history behind it. Continue reading...

Mary Trump's first memoir concerned former president and family dysfunction new book will focus on herself and her fatherMary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, who wrote Too Much and Never Enough, a bestselling book on the former US president and his family dysfunction, will publish a second memoir this year.I've told you what growing up in this family did to Donald," Mary Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday. Now I'm telling the story of what it did to my dad and me." Continue reading...

Navarro, convicted for refusing to cooperate with House January 6 committee, reports to Miami facility with zoo next doorPeter Navarro, a former trade adviser to Donald Trump, on Tuesday became the first former White House official ever jailed for contempt of Congress.Sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to cooperate with the House January 6 committee, the 74-year-old economist appealed all the way to the US supreme court, claiming he could not testify as his work with Trump on attempts to overturn the 2020 election was covered by executive privilege. Continue reading...

Five other former officers who admitted to subjecting two Black men to numerous acts of racist torture are due to be sentencedA former Mississippi sheriff's deputy was sentenced on Tuesday to about 20 years in prison for his part in torturing two Black men last year.Hunter Elward was sentenced by US district judge Tom Lee, who handed down a 241-month sentence. Lee is also due to sentence five other former law enforcement officers who admitted to subjecting Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to numerous acts of racist torture. Continue reading...

Ohio Republicans choose their nominee in key Senate race while California seeks to replace former speaker Kevin McCarthyWith a rematch set between Joe Biden and Donald Trump after both candidates crossed the delegate threshold needed to clinch their parties' presidential nominations, suspense around the next wave of Tuesday primaries shifts to a handful of key down-ballot races.Five states - Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio - will hold their presidential nominating contests on Tuesday. Trump and Biden are expected to sail to victory, growing their delegate counts in a march toward this summer's conventions, where they will officially secure their parties' nomination. Continue reading...

The Japanese star is considered one of the most talented players in history. Now he finds himself in an unfamiliar role as a cultural ambassadorThe sport is American, the venue South Korean. But when the LA Dodgers and San Diego Padres open the Major League Baseball season with two games in Seoul this week, all eyes will be on a Japanese superstar: Shohei Ohtani.It says much about Ohtani's singular appeal that South Korean baseball fans are as excited about his imminent presence in the batter's box at Gocheok Sky Dome as his legions of admirers in Japan.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Woman alleges Adams, then a police officer, demanded sexual favor in 1993 but mayor says this did not happen'Mayor Eric Adams of New York City has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting a woman in 1993 and demanding a sexual favor in exchange for his help advancing her career in the police department.The lawsuit, filed on Monday in Manhattan, offered the first public details of a sexual assault claim brought against the mayor in November. Continue reading...

What the parallel spats over a Guernica magazine essay retraction and the boycott of Standing Together teach us about how to build a movementIn early March, most of the all-volunteer staff of the leftwing political and literary journal Guernica resigned in protest of the publication of an essay by an Israeli woman about her struggle in the weeks after 7 October to tread the line of empathy, to feel passion for both sides".What they objected to most in Joanna Chen's essay, From the Edges of a Broken World, was what it left out: an explicit critique of Israel's longstanding policies of apartheid, its violent occupation, and the genocide it is currently committing in Gaza. Guernica's former co-publisher called the piece a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism". Grace Loh Prasad, a Taiwanese-born writer whose memoir was excerpted in Guernica last week, tweeted: I am alarmed & upset that my writing has appeared alongside an essay that attempts to convey empathy for a colonizing, genocidal power." Chen's essay was removed from the site.Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to The Intercept, and the author of five books Continue reading...

It's unclear if US Congress will have enough time to pass proposal before many federal agencies are expected to run out of money

More than 1m abortions performed in 2023, a 10% increase from 2020, according to Guttmacher InstituteAbortions in the US have sharply increased despite bans implemented in Republican-led states after the supreme court's overturning of Roe v Wade.More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a 10% increase from 2020, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute, an American policy organization which advocates for sexual and reproductive health. Continue reading...

Donald Trump's son-in-law says Israel should move the people out' to Negev desert and clean up' Gaza

In the vital swing state of Michigan, growing fractures among the Democratic base could spell trouble for Joe Biden in the November election. As party loyalists canvas in the run up to a primary vote, a protest movement against the president's support for the war in Gaza gains momentum. Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone visit the state.

Kristel Candelario received sentence after pleading guilty to aggravated murder and child endangerment in death of daughterAn Ohio woman who embarked on a 10-day vacation while leaving her 16-month-old daughter behind at their home to starve to death has been ordered to spend the rest of her life in prison.Kristel Candelario, 32, received her sentence on Monday in a state courthouse in Cleveland after having previously pleaded guilty to one charge each of aggravated murder and child endangerment in the death of her daughter Jailyn.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Ex-president claims Jewish people who vote for Democrats hate Israel' and hate their religion'

The attempt to boost my immune system hasn't had the desired effects. I have been half-naked in public, and misunderstood Taylor Swift's advice with catastrophic results. But one change has worked ...Nobody tells you this!" For the first year of my now almost-three-year-old's life, that was my catchphrase. I would say it nonstop. Nobody tells you that you will hallucinate from sleep deprivation in the first few months after having a baby. Nobody tells you how much time you will spend thinking about a baby's bowel movements. Nobody tells you just how explosive those bowel movements can be.Eventually, after much complaining, I came to the sheepish realisation that people do tell you this stuff. They tell you all the time. I just hadn't been listening. Let's be honest: when you're not actively trying to procreate there is nothing more boring than hearing about the digestive issues or nocturnal routines of other people's children.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...

Neither the Tories nor Labour seem bothered by the climate mayhem that awaits us, but to save lives they must actIt's the August bank holiday in 2050 and the UK is sweltering under the worst heatwave on record. Temperatures across much of England have topped 40C for eight days running: they peaked at 46C, and remain above 30C in cities and large towns at night. The country's poorly insulated homes feel like furnaces, and thousands of people have resorted to camping out at night in the streets and local parks in a desperate attempt to find sleep. Hospital A&Es are overwhelmed and wards are flooded with patients, mostly old and vulnerable people who have succumbed to dehydration and heatstroke. Already, the death toll is estimated at more than 80,000.No, this isn't the beginning of a dystopian drama, but a snapshot of a mid-century heatwave unless we prepare for the increasingly extreme weather that will be driven by climate breakdown. To say that the government has no credible plan for this, as the UK Climate Change Committee did last week, is - if anything - an understatement. Britain is woefully underprepared for extreme weather, and in a number of key areas we are going backwards. About one in 15 of England's most important flood defences were in a poor or very poor condition in 2022, up from roughly one in 25 just four years previously. The government's Great British insulation scheme is operating at such a slow pace that it would take nearly 200 years to upgrade the country's housing stock, while Labour has rowed back on its ambitious plans to insulate 19m homes within a decade.Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL, and the author of Hothouse Earth: an Inhabitant's Guide Continue reading...

The war on Gaza brought out hundreds of thousands of protesters. This force could reshape our hollow democraciesThe pro-Palestine movement has grown spectacularly in a remarkably short period of time. Within a week of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, and the start of Benjamin Netanyahu's mighty vengeance" on Gaza, central London teemed with tens of thousands of anti-war protesters.The protests continued apace, with weekly national and local demonstrations, tactical innovations such as sit-ins at train stations and direct actions at factories supplying arms to Israel such as Elbit Systems. Nor has the pace slackened much since. Many on the right have sought to depict the protesters as extremists, but the sheer scale and regularity of the protests and actions are in fact a sign of how mainstream pro-Palestinian feeling is within British society. The question, assuming the movement succeeds in ending the Israeli assault, is where does it go next? What becomes of movements when they stop moving?Richard Seymour is an author and founding editor of Salvage. His latest book is Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal CivilisationDo 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...

Navarro begins four-month prison term for refusing to cooperate with House January 6 committee. Plus, the people who made a new start after turning 90Good morning.Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser to Donald Trump, will begin his prison sentence on Tuesday, becoming the first ex-White House official to be imprisoned for contempt of Congress.What about Trump? He faces 88 criminal charges, 14 related to election subversion. In addition, his lawyers on Monday said he was unable to post a bond covering the $454m civil fraud judgment while he appeals the ruling.Is this normal? Nearly half the fiscal year is over - it is very unusual to have disputes at this late stage. Continue reading...

Lawsuit also alleges forever chemicals' used at Connecticut plant put residents' health at risk and destroyed property valueToxic PFAS forever chemical" pollution from a Connecticut Kleenex plant has contaminated nearby drinking water, put residents' health at risk and destroyed their property value, a new federal class-action lawsuit alleges.The dangerous chemicals are commonly used in paper production, and air emissions from the plant are behind the region's tainted drinking water wells, the suit charges. The plaintiffs are seeking $5m in damages and health monitoring costs. Continue reading...

Congress needs to pass legislation by Saturday to avert another government shutdown - will it happen?Congress faces its third shutdown deadline of the month this week, as much of the federal government is expected to run out of funding by Friday at midnight.Both chambers of Congress must approve six appropriations bills before Saturday to get the legislation to Joe Biden's desk and avert a partial shutdown. Although the current fiscal year started more than five months ago, House Republicans have struggled to pass appropriations bills due to demands from hard-right members to include controversial provisions in the legislation. Continue reading...

New documents detail inner workings of Society for American Civic Renewal, group with an emphasis on Christian nationalismNew documents have shed light on the origins and inner workings of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), including methods for judging the beliefs of potential members on topics such as Christian nationalism, and indications that its founders sought inspiration in an apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond.They also show that Boise State University Professor and Claremont thinktank scholar Scott Yenor tried to coordinate SACR's activities with other initiatives, including an open letter on Christian marriage". Continue reading...

Players in Kansas City used to get changed in parking lots. On Saturday, the city's latest club opened the first purpose-built stadium for a women's professional sports teamThrough strength, speed and courage, Temwa Chawinga created an opening in the Portland defense. She sprinted past a defender to beat oncoming Portland goalkeeper Shelby Hogan to the ball, which spilled out into space. Teenager Alex Pfeiffer saw an opportunity, closed in and buried her left-footed strike. Music, smoke and pyrotechnics burst from the Kansas City Riverfront. Kansas City Current led Portland Thorns, 5-1.The brand-new CPKC Stadium, the world's first purpose-built for a women's professional sports team, billowed with the joy of 11,500 fans in the midday Missouri sun. At 16 years, three months and 20 days old, Pfeiffer became the youngest goalscorer in National Women's Soccer League history. Continue reading...

The Iowa star has broken records while producing breathtaking highlight reels. How will she cope in the NCAA Tournament - and the pro game afterwards?There is no bigger name in college basketball than Caitlin Clark at the moment. The Iowa star is becoming a brand unto herself having recently broken both the NCAA women's and men's scoring marks, held previously by Lynette Woodard and Pete Maravich, respectively. She already boasts a net worth estimated to be in the millions.Clark, who started playing in boys' leagues when she was five, is the surefire top pick in the upcoming WNBA draft. Standing 6ft, she is a big guard for the women's game, with her passing drawing comparisons to Magic Johnson and her shooting to Steph Curry. Continue reading...

She is the world's most listened-to French-speaking artist - but in France, hostility towards her goes beyond the far rightSince the start of her career, Aya Nakamura has faced setbacks, discrimination and harassment every step of the way. Nakamura is a music superstar. She is the most-listened-to French-speaking artist in the world, and the only woman to feature in the country's top 20 best-selling albums of 2023. Her 2018 hit Djadja has reached almost 1bn listens on YouTube, and in 2021 her second album surpassed 1bn streams on Spotify. When she announced two concerts at the legendary Bercy arena in Paris last year, tickets sold out in 15 minutes - unprecedented for a French-speaking artist.Yet from shows where presenters struggle to pronounce her name to public debate about the unorthodox way she uses the French language, the French-Malian singer can, it seems, never be judged solely on her music.Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnistDo 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...

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan spoke to reporters after US President Joe Biden warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a call that an Israeli military operation in Rafah would deepen anarchy in Gaza. They agreed that teams from each side would meet in Washington to discuss it

John Feikema and Christopher Arnet, who prosecutors say used high-powered rifles to kill three wild burros, face prison sentencesTwo men who used high-powered rifles to kill three wild burros in southern California's Mojave desert more than two years ago pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges related to the shootings, prosecutors said.The men wore tactical gear including night vision goggles as they targeted the burros in a remote area north-east of Barstow on 6 November 2021, the US attorney's office said in a statement. Continue reading...

Justices find no basis to disagree' with lower court's ruling after Navarro, former Trump trade adviser, convicted of contemptThe US supreme court on Monday denied a request by Donald Trump's former aide Peter Navarro to avoid prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction for defying a subpoena from a panel that investigated the 2021 Capitol attack.Navarro, who served as trade adviser during Trump's presidency, is set to become the first senior member of his administration to be imprisoned for actions related to the attempt to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss. Continue reading...

Jerry Hal Saliterman, 76, of Minnesota allegedly threatened to release a sex tape of a woman if she told anyone about the caperNearly five months after an ailing man with a history of theft admitted to stealing the shining shoes worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, a second person has been charged in the caper, according to the Associated Press.Jerry Hal Saliterman, 76, of Crystal, Minnesota, was charged with theft of a major artwork and witness tampering. He did not enter a plea when he first appeared on Friday in a US district court in St Paul, Minnesota. He was released on his own recognizance after the hearing. Continue reading...

Dwight D Opperman Foundation had planned to give award named for late supreme court justice to Tesla chief and News Corp mogulA foundation which stirred controversy by planning to give awards named for the late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch said on Monday it had canceled the ceremony.While we believe each of the honorees is worthy of our respect for their leadership and their notable contributions, the foundation has decided that the planned ceremony in April 2024 will be canceled," Julie Opperman, chair of the Dwight D Opperman Foundation, said in a statement.Musk, 52, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter/X, through which he has taken increasingly rightwing political stances;Murdoch, 93 and the rightwing media baron owner of Fox News;Michael Milken, 77, a financier jailed on securities charges, pardoned by Trump and now a philanthropist;And Sylvester Stallone, 77, the star of films including the Rocky saga and the violent Rambo franchise. Continue reading...

Sanyia Spain, 19, said that attacker made advances towards her and her sister Samyia and violently retaliated when they declinedEarly Sunday morning in New York's Park Slope neighborhood, 19-year-old twins Samyia and Sanyia Spain were stabbed by an unknown assailant following an altercation. The sisters were taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist hospital, where Samyia died and Sanyia was released after being treated for her injuries.Sanyia said in an interview with the New York Daily News that the attacker made advances towards both girls, and violently retaliated when they declined. The teens were with a group of friends and relatives inside a bodega moments before the stabbings occurred. Continue reading...

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Former US president understood to have discussed AI and other subjects with PM on informal courtesy' visitBarack Obama has held talks with Rishi Sunak as the former US president paid a courtesy visit" to Downing Street during a trip to London.The pair are understood to have discussed a range of subjects during an hour-long meeting, including one of the prime minister's favourite topics, artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Vladimir Putin's landslide victory in a fake contest marks the latest phase in a transition from authoritarianism to outright autocracyOne of the curiosities of the Soviet Union was the serious weight its leaders attached to holding elections. In a dictatorship, why bother? Academic studies concluded that ensuring a 99% vote share for the only candidate on the ballot was a useful tool for civic mobilisation, and a way of isolating and intimidating anyone who aspired to a real democratic choice.Under the repressive, paranoid leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russians are going back to the future. Mr Putin's 87% landslide in Russia's presidential election - the highest percentage in any post-Soviet poll - confirms that, almost a quarter of a century after he first entered the Kremlin, the resumption of a form of totalitarian control is all but complete. Having changed the constitution to ensure he can continue to rule, a further victory in 2030 would see him surpass Stalin's 31 years of dictatorial power. Continue reading...

Decision on New Mexico election official's 14th amendment appeal comes two weeks after court said ex-president could stay on ballotThe US supreme court declined an appeal on Monday from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office for his role in the January 6 attack, leaving intact a significant decision that enforced a constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding office.The commissioner, Couy Griffin, is the only US public official thus far who has been removed from office for his role in the January 6 attack. Citing language in the 14th amendment that bars insurrectionists from holding office, a New Mexico judge removed him in 2022 after he was convicted of trespassing on the Capitol grounds. The New Mexico supreme court dismissed an initial appeal in the state. Continue reading...

Additional federal funding for shelter has been caught in broader political battles about illegal migration and government spendingAn Arizona migrant shelter that has housed thousands of asylum seekers plans to halt most operations in two weeks when funding from Washington runs out, a problem for towns along the border where officials fear a surge in homelessness and extra costs.Arizona's Pima county, which borders Mexico, has said that at the end of the month its contracts must stop with Tucson's Casa Alitas shelter and services that transport migrants north from the border cities of Nogales, Douglas and Lukeville. Continue reading...

Two new studies find no significant differences between US government officials suffering from condition and control groupTwo new medical studies have found that US government officials suffering from Havana syndrome symptoms did not show any discernible physical damage or alteration.One of the studies published on Monday by the federally funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined brain imaging, while the other looked at blood biomarkers and clinical assessments of hearing, vision, hand-eye coordination, cognitive ability and balance. Continue reading...

An entirely human-made tragedy is under way as the world looks on. Israel must open the crossings for aid and aid workers nowHere in the north of Gaza, there is virtually no food available. People are resorting to eating animal feed or bird seed to stay alive. For some, there is only grass left to eat. Doctors have been warning for months that the Israeli military's five-month long bombardment and siege of Gaza would end in hunger and starvation. Today, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has reported that famine is imminent" and will take hold in the north of Gaza over the coming two months. Half of the population across Gaza now faces catastrophic levels of hunger, nearly twice as many people as reported in November. Children are already dying of malnutrition and dehydration.Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to throttle aid at the border crossing into Gaza while the international community watches on. The tiny amount of aid that is allowed to enter is either being prevented from getting to people, especially in the north, or is being chaotically distributed, leaving people desperately scrambling for whatever they can get their hands on. This is stripping my community of its dignity while leaving the most vulnerable without any help at all. Hundreds of people have even paid with their lives trying to get food for their families.Mahmoud Shalabi is a senior programme director for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza. This article was co-produced with his colleagues in London, based on WhatsApp messages and voice notesDo 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...

Could one extravagant pro-social act lead to me finally doing all the other ones I promised to do?It's great giving blood when you're O negative. I do absolutely nothing to produce this stuff, I don't even drink water very often, and yet I have these constant, positive interactions with the donation people. Every phone call starts with a five-minute introduction about how great I am. Every email has a heartwarming story about someone who needed O negative, and then got it, and now they're alive, because of me. Sometimes they'll randomly send me a badge or a plastic bracelet saying first responder" on it, which makes me sound like a hero who ran, didn't walk, towards an emergency, as opposed to what I am: a person who goes into town once every four months for 20 minutes of no-big-deal and gets given a pint of squash and an orange Club at the end of it. I love it. Last year, they asked me to go in on Boxing Day, and I said no, don't be daft, it's Boxing Day, and I still came away from that feeling like a king.Then, this morning, I got an email with a slightly different ask: blood is great and all, but have you ever heard of a living organ donation? For instance, would you like to give away a kidney? It was a bit of a gear shift, somewhere in the region of: Thank you for your direct debit of five quid a month, would you like to give us your house?" But I gave it due consideration. I know three people with only one kidney: one because she was born with a kidney problem; one gave his to his sister; one, I don't know what happened to hers - it turns out this is the kind of thing you have to wait to be told. Continue reading...

New York appeals court judge had ruled ex-president must post bond covering full amount to pause enforcement of judgment

Suspect in killing of nursing student, 22, is undocumented migrant but father says I think it's being used politically'The father of Laken Riley, whom authorities suspect was murdered by an undocumented migrant in February, has objected to how he says his daughter's death is being used politically" ahead of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was beaten to death on the University of Georgia's campus on 22 February. Republicans have claimed Riley's slaying represents a failure of the Joe Biden White House's border policies and have used the killing to push legislation which would make it easier for law enforcement to detain unauthorized migrants accused of theft.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Polls also finds that nearly half of respondents, 46% did not trust the supreme court to issue a fair and nonpartisan ruling'Seventy per cent of American voters, and 48% of Republicans, reject Donald Trump's claim to be immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed in office, a new poll said.In the poll from Ipsos and Politico Magazine, just 11% backed the former president and presumptive Republican nominee's claim, as expressed in his federal election subversion case that has reached the supreme court. Continue reading...

US president's new executive order is an important step towards protecting sensitive personal dataLast year, Joe Biden's administration infuriated lobbyists representing big tech firms and others that profit from our personal data by denouncing a proposal that would have gutted domestic data privacy, online civil rights and liberties, and competition safeguards. Now, the US president's new executive order on Americans' data security reveals that the lobbyists had good reason to worry.After decades of data brokers and tech platforms exploiting Americans' personal data without any oversight or restrictions, the Biden administration has announced that it will ban the transfer of certain kinds of data to China and other countries of concern. It is a small, but important, step towards protecting Americans' sensitive personal information, in addition to government-related data. Continue reading...

The best NCAA men's champions often had years to play together before their stars headed to the NBA. Now most standouts are anxious to get to the prosThe first NCAA men's basketball tournament was organized by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 1939. The championship game - won by Oregon - was attended by 5,000 spectators and the tournament ran a deficit of $2,531.Times change. March Madness is now a billion-dollar dream machine that thrives on images of greatness. Stories of past dynasties and teams for the ages are reverentially told with the promise of more to come. But in reality, men's college basketball dynasties are a thing of the past. And we may not see a truly great men's college basketball team again. Continue reading...