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James Clark, 38, gets prison time and three years on probation as judge says he inflicted trauma on government employeesA Massachusetts man who threatened to blow up the secretary of state of Arizona in 2021 has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison, one of the most severe federal punishments yet handed down for the wave of violent threats against election officials unleashed by Donald Trump's stolen election lie.James Clark, 38, was sentenced in federal district court in Phoenix on Tuesday to 42 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years on probation. Judge Michael Liburdi said that his online bomb threat had inflicted emotional and psychological trauma" on government employees and required a deterrent sentence to protect democracy. Continue reading...

New legislation would standardize how public schools conduct such drills and avoid doing more harm than good'California legislators are moving to standardize how public schools conduct active-shooter drills. If passed, the legislation would require school administrators to notify parents, teachers and students before a drill, and ban the use of fake gunfire during drills.Individual schools and districts currently create their own procedures and often contract with law enforcement or private companies to create scenarios that mimic school shootings, which can include students lying on the ground and the use of fake blood and firearms. These exercises can traumatize students in the name of preparing for an event that, while frightening, is unlikely to happen, according to a 2021 study published in Nature. Continue reading...

Neither Republicans nor Democrats were pleased with the special counsel's report, resulting in a contentious hearingThe former special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Joe Biden's handling of classified documents, testified before a House committee on Tuesday in an often contentious hearing that found the witness on the receiving end of criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.Here were the key takeaways from the House judiciary committee hearing: Continue reading...

Special counsel Robert Hur said his report on declassified documents held by President Biden didn't exonerate him, insisting 'that is not a part of my task as a prosecutor'. Hur also didn't rule out a possible future role in the Trump administration when pressed for an answer by Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell. 'I'm not here to speak about what may or may not happen in the future,' Hur told lawmakers Continue reading...

James Lankford cites a veteran as partial reason for recommitting to Sunshine Protection Act, which has already passed in SenateAs Americans pushed their clocks forward an hour on Sunday to implement daylight savings, Senator James Lankford doubled down on his commitment to eliminating seasonal time changes, saying he wanted to abandon what he described as an antiquated first world war convention.The Republican lawmaker from Oklahoma said he was devoted to proverbially locking the clock through his Sunshine Protection Act, which unanimously passed in the Senate but was not taken up by the House. Speaking with CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper on Sunday, Lankford said he wanted to start the dialogue" back up partly because of an encounter with a military veteran who seemed to view ending daylight savings time as a dying wish. Continue reading...

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Daniel Rodriguez, who was on holiday in Arizona during 2022 attack that killed 22, says resignation is best for his familyThe Uvalde police chief who was on vacation during the Robb elementary school shooting submitted his resignation on Tuesday.It came a week after a report ordered by the city defended the department's response to the attack but outraged some family members of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed. Continue reading...

Agency that protects judges and manages courthouse security says it needs greater funds to respond to rising dangerThe United States Marshals Service is asking Congress for $38m to fund two new programs aimed at bolstering judicial security in response to a rise in threats against federal judges and justices on the supreme court.Both programs were tucked into the US justice department's budget proposal unveiled on Monday and were part of the US Marshals Service's overall request for $4bn for the 2025 fiscal year that begins 1 October. Continue reading...

Maga activists launched a campaign in January to remove Robin Vos from his post, illustrating endurance of election denial in stateAn effort by rightwing activists to recall Wisconsin's powerful Republican assembly speaker Robin Vos appears to have failed.The campaign, which was launched in January, was a long-shot attempt by Maga activists to squash their feud with the establishment-leaning assembly speaker by forcing him out of office. It wasn't the first time the activists, who identify themselves as the grassroots" of the Wisconsin Republican party, tried to remove him from office. Vos's opponents challenged him in a primary in 2022 and came within 300 votes of winning. Continue reading...

Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions as efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled amid Republican oppositionThe Pentagon will rush about $300m in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10bn to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its desperate fight against Russia, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Officers at shelter then separated Yanny Cordero from one-year-old son and punched Cordero's head, according to footageNew York City police officers used a stun gun on a Venezuelan migrant who was holding a small child in a city-operated shelter on Friday night, according to video footage taken of the altercation.The video, released by the New York Times, shows police officers trying to arrest Yanny Cordero, 47, as he holds his son. At some point during the video, which the Times says is two and a half minutes long, police appear to pull out a yellow stun gun and use it on the man as he holds his one-year-old son. Continue reading...

Robert Hur, who investigated president over classified files, says at hearing before Congress I had to consider the president's memory'

Soaring costs of food and housing forcing many to still rely on parents to cover expenses, as they risk retirement securityNearly half of US parents provide some kind of financial support to their adult children, who are grappling with higher food and living costs than they did, a new study has found.The study - conducted by Savings.com - found that young, working-class Americans were not substantially benefiting from the recovery of the country's economy, as evidenced by high employment, falling inflation, and economic growth". That has forced many of them to continue to rely on their parents to help cover costs of living. Continue reading...

John Barnett was one of several people who raised alarm in 2019 about concerns of safety lapses at Boeing's North Charleston plantA former quality manager at Boeing who became a prominent whistleblower and raised concerns over the planemaker's production line has been found dead.John Barnett died on Saturday from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to officials in Charleston, South Carolina.In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

US president said Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, is looking for a dictatorship' after Orban met with Trump in FloridaHungary summoned the US ambassador over comments by the US president, Joe Biden, who said the prime minister, Viktor Orban, wants a dictatorship.The Hungarian leader traveled to Florida on Friday for talks with Donald Trump during a visit in which he did not meet with anyone from the Biden administration. Continue reading...

The former special counsel has defended comments he made on Joe Biden's memory in his report on the US president's handling of classified documents. Robert Hur appeared before a house judiciary committee on Tuesday, where he said: 'I did not sanitise my explanation. Nor did I disparage the president unfairly. I explained to the attorney general my decision and the reasons for it. That's what I was required to do'

Ex-president's second chief of staff tried to convince him fascist dictator was great guy in comparison', John Kelly tells Jim Sciutto

Even supposedly positive' birth stories make my heart sink. Am I just going to have to make a leap of faith?It's a conspiracy, I'm sure of it. Since the pandemic in 2020, the year I moved out of the category of young adulthood, my Instagram for you" page has been filled with images and videos of the cutest babies you could ever hope to see. Round-cheeked and smiley, they drool and babble and fall haphazardly on their faces when they fart, or smile when they fart, or just fart very loudly. It's adorable.As someone who, at 30, hasn't been around many actual babies, and has only a couple of close friends who have embarked on parenthood thus far, this online exposure has been transformative. I had always known I wanted at least one child, but approached the idea with the naivety of youth and the assuredness of socialised gender norms - of course I would have a child because all little girls have the ambition to care for babies, and why would I have wasted all that time swaddling a plastic doll or discussing baby names when I was barely out of babyhood myself (Chloe was my favourite) if it wouldn't one day translate into reality? Continue reading...

The president made the comments after Donald Trump suggested there is a lot you can do' in terms of cutting popular programs

Brian Butler, a former employee of the US president, speaks out, saying I don't believe that he should be a presidential candidate'

The World Party frontman, who has died aged 66, was not the 60s revivalist some critics dismissed him as - his work was extraordinary in its breadth and political biteSongs were Karl Wallinger's compass, melody his north star. When I interviewed him in 2012, over shepherd's pie at the Groucho Club, he described himself as being a song creature all my life". The best tracks by World Party, whom he fronted, sound like a man trying to cram all the love and joy of his own fandom into four minutes, to distil the essence of Bob Dylan, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Sly Stone, Van Morrison, the Beach Boys, perhaps above all the Beatles, into one bubbling, funky, heartfelt and slightly ramshackle homebrew.Wallinger, who has died aged 66, pulled it off more than a few times. The big hitters in the World Party canon - Ship of Fools, Put the Message in the Box, Way Down Now, Is it Like Today?, She's the One - sound like the best kind of pop music: ageless, beyond genre. Turn to them at any time and they will brighten any room. Continue reading...

Everyone is entitled to consult a chiropractor but it's important to remember that they don't have the same training as doctors"Don't judge me, but I saw a chiropractor", says my friend.Last time we discussed her lower back pain, I had advised her to keep moving, avoid opioids and see her doctor for a care plan to access up to five free sessions with a physiotherapist. Continue reading...

A recent poll puts Biden leading Trump 54-38, but the ex-president has committed supporters ahead of state's primary

President was unsure about some dates and documents' paper trail, and was never asked about the timing of his son's death

The probe into 80 alleged SAS killings heard evidence from Johnny Mercer and highlighted the urgent need for oversightThe Afghanistan inquiry is getting into gear at the Royal Courts of Justice. Led by the judge Charles Haddon-Cave, this public inquiry was convened to investigate about 80 killings allegedly committed by the SAS in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013. Proceedings took a dramatic turn last month when the minister for veterans' affairs, Johnny Mercer, gave evidence.It was astonishing to watch. Mercer stated that he had heard from trusted sources" shocking accounts of serial murder and attempted cover-ups by SAS personnel in Afghanistan. Once he became the minister for veterans (part of the Cabinet Office), he expressed his deep concerns about them to the then defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who asked him to get to the bottom of these well-publicised allegations. Mercer made great efforts to do so.Frank Ledwidge is a barrister and former military officer who served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood Continue reading...

Lamor Miller-Whitehead first attracted media scrutiny when he was robbed of $1m in jewelry during a livestreamed church serviceA Brooklyn preacher who was known for his flashy lifestyle, made headlines after being robbed of $1m in jewelry during a service being broadcast online and boasted of his friendship with New York City's mayor was found guilty in federal court on Monday of wire fraud, attempted extortion and lying to the FBI.Lamor Miller-Whitehead, 47, was found guilty of five counts after a trial in federal court in Manhattan that began late last month. Prosecutors had argued that the preacher exaggerated his ties to the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, and let greed overtake him as he looted a parishioner's retirement savings as well as tried to extort a businessman to fuel his lavish lifestyle. Continue reading...

The Florida governor has blamed the chaos over legislation he signed on teachers, librarians, political rivals - and now school principalsIn the two years since Ron DeSantis signed legislation sparking a tidal wave of book-banning in Florida's classrooms, the Republican governor has blamed the ensuing chaos on a succession of foils - including teachers, librarians, the news media and political opponents.Now, another group has joined those in his crosshairs: school principals. A proposed new rule by an education standards committee led by a DeSantis loyalist seeks to impose penalties on administrators deemed to have obstructed the state's view of what students should be reading. Continue reading...

The UN secretary general said international humanitarian law lies in tatters'. Plus, LAPD officer shoots dead boy, 15, holding gardening tool

Jen Jackson Quintano is her region's only abortion rights organizer. Faced with a culture of silence', she's platforming women - and changing mindsLast January, Jen Jackson Quintano stepped into a theater in Sandpoint, a tiny city in northern Idaho, to debut a production that could best be described as The Vagina Monologues meets The Moth - a night of Idahoans sharing stories about their own reproductive agency.Quintano was nervous. Idaho, where Republicans outnumber Democrats five to one, has one of the most punitive abortion bans in the country. Further, Quintano lives in a region of the state that keeps making national headlines for bold displays of armed intimidation by militia, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists. This was not necessarily a safe place to talk about abortion. Continue reading...

Each year the ceremony becomes slicker - and safer - no matter how much more diverse, creative and bold the films being feted areFor the first time in two decades, coverage of the Oscars was free to watch for Britons this year. More than a million of us tuned in to Hollywood's biggest night of the year. That's a huge audience, but with a full day's distance from the event I feel comfortable speaking on behalf of us all to say: well, that was anticlimactic.An awards ceremony that brought to mind the meme Could this meeting have been an email?", the 2024 Oscars turned out to be a rather bland affair: a perfunctory giving out of awards where category winners had long been a foregone conclusion. There were no hiccups, no muck-ups, no jokes that went too far, not too much politics - but not so little it would draw criticism, either. It was so tightly curated it even finished early.Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK Continue reading...

The ex-president recently hosted the Hungarian kleptocrat, whom he's called a strong man' and a real boss', at Mar-a-LagoDonald Trump has not only run the Republican primaries like an incumbent, but on occasion, he gets to play-act the role of president right at home. On Friday, he hosted Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister,, for a quasi-state visit at his Mar-a-Lago estate, described by discerning critics as the palace of a CEO-president-king, done up in the opulent dictator-chic favored by third-world kleptocrats".Orban has spent the past 14 years making his country into a kleptocratic autocracy right in the middle of the European Union. Obviously, Trump does not need general guidance from Orban; he is already endowed with authoritarian instincts. But, for all the obvious differences between Orban's small European nation and the US, Orban's rule holds concrete lessons which the American right is ready to adopt. Given the excitement with which Trump acolytes have been promoting Orban - and their frequent pilgrimages to Budapest as the capital of national conservatism" - Hungary offers a preview of a second Trump term.Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of politics at Princeton University. He is also a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Fast-growing Georgia adds 10% more voters than in 2020, and participation is on the minds of politicians and activistsGeorgia will hold its primary election on Tuesday. Although Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the presumed Democratic and Republican nominees, the election will offer a preview of what's to come in November in a state that Biden won in 2020 and where Trump is facing multiple indictments.Mississippi and Washington will also hold primaries on Tuesday, and Hawaii will hold its Republican caucuses. Democrats abroad and in the Northern Mariana territory vote Tuesday as well. Continue reading...

When couples fail to conceive, it's too often regarded as the woman's problem. But that is far from being the caseWomen are rarely given the chance to forget about our biological clocks: their starting, slowing, stopping. I remember talking about whether I'd want children with my mum when I was six or seven years old. Now that I'm 32, my friends are having children, debating having them, or dating in the hopes of having the option.My female friends, that is. My impression of the men in my life is that they are not really thinking about children at all, instead assuming that they will happen one day" or waiting for the decision to be made for them - by their partner, or circumstance. Their declining fertility - something that women are made keenly aware of from a young age - doesn't seem to factor into it.Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

New Orleans superintendent tells council committee that rodents have infested the building and requests to move headquartersCops in New Orleans are on the tail of a brazen gang of narcotics traffickers who broke into the evidence room at police headquarters and pilfered all the pot: a swarm of rodents with a hankering for the high life.The rats are eating our marijuana. They're all high," Anne Kirkpatrick, superintendent of the city's police department, told a council committee meeting on Monday. Continue reading...

With players competing in the US and increasingly in Europe, women's soccer in Latin America is becoming more sophisticatedOn their way to another international title, the US confronted the increasing depth of talent in women's soccer in Latin America.So did the hemisphere's other traditional powers during the inaugural Concacaf W Gold Cup, which the USWNT won on Sunday night by defeating Brazil 1-0. Continue reading...

Free agency has got off to a spectacular start. We break down the biggest deals, and which players and teams came out on topThe NFL did not become America's most powerful entertainment machine by playing football games alone. The league's free agency and draft seasons are practically as big a cultural bonanza as anything that happens from September through February, and this year is no exception.Multiple expensive starting quarterbacks are changing teams. One of the sport's most talented running backs has decided to go south on Interstate 95 from New York to Eastern Pennsylvania. The Atlanta Falcons made a play for relevancy after years in the wilderness. And the 2024 season took on a drastically different shape. Here are five of the splashiest, most consequential moves teams have made so far. Continue reading...

The offensive women in the home' provision endures. But we can snatch victory from the jaws of defeatFor years, Ireland has prided itself on the determination of its voters to extract themselves from a constitutional straitjacket of Catholic social teaching and anachronistic views about women and girls.The liberal torch was lit in earnest in 1995, when the people of this former Catholic outpost voted to remove its constitutional ban on divorce, albeit by a hair's breadth. Ireland found itself on firmer ground in 2015, when the constitutionally recognised institution of marriage, on which the family is based, was extended to same-sex couples. That same year, the country passed, without incident, its Gender Recognition Act, allowing trans people to apply to have their preferred gender legally recognised by the state.Dearbhail McDonald is an Irish journalist and author Continue reading...

Re-establishing trust between developed and developing nations is essential if our goals are to be achieved

Decline is notable with a strong correlation between Christian nationalism and opposition to inclusive policiesPublic support for same-sex marriage and nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans has fallen, even as the overall share remains high, according to new findings by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.Broad majorities of Americans, regardless of political party or faith, continue to support LGBTQ+ rights and protections, the analysis found. But after years of rising public support, the decline is notable, said Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI.Support for same-sex marriage slipped from 69% of Americans in 2022 to 67% in 2023.Support for policies that protect LGBTQ+ Americans from discrimination in employment, housing and public discrimination fell from 80% in 2022 to 76% in 2023.Opposition to allowing businesses to refuse services to LGBTQ+ Americans on religious grounds dropped from 65% of Americans in 2022 to 60% in 2023. Continue reading...

After months of delay, Congress approved Cofa funding for north Pacific nations but Washington needs to show it can deliver for the wider regionA dysfunctional US Congress finally got its act together and approved a $7bn funding package for three Pacific nations. After years of negotiations and more recently, months of delay by US lawmakers, Congress late Friday cleared the way for the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau to renew the Compacts of Free Association (Cofa) agreements that fund critical services for the next two decades, and keep open a special migration pathway to the US.In return, the American military secures exclusive access to vast north Pacific territories and the unilateral use of strategically located military facilities - a bargain for the US in these contested times.Dr Meg Keen is the director of the Pacific Islands program at the Lowy Institute. She is the former director of the Australia Pacific Security College and senior policy adviser to RAMSI.Mihai Sora is a Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program and Project Director of the Aus-PNG Network. Continue reading...

Chair Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump move to reorganize the party, with an expected cull of 60 membersDonald Trump's new leadership team at the Republican National Committee started the process of ousting scores of staffers on Monday night, clearing out its ranks as they prepare to bring the committee under the wing of the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the matter said.The RNC is expected to cull about 60 people across the political, data and communications departments. At least five members of the senior staff will be let go and some third-party contracts may also be cancelled. One source familiar with the situation described it as an absolute bloodbath". Continue reading...

Report includes White House employees' January 6 testimonies that dispute former aide Cassidy Hutchinson'sUS House Republicans on Monday released a report they said contradicted sensational January 6 committee testimony in which a former aide to Donald Trump described being told that as the attack on Congress unfolded, the then president was so eager to join supporters at the Capitol he tried to grab the wheel of his car.The testimony of ... four White House employees directly contradicts claims made by Cassidy Hutchinson and by the select committee in the final report," read the report by the House administration subcommittee on oversight, which searched for alleged bias or malpractice in the January 6 investigation. Continue reading...

President proposes tax breaks for families and lower healthcare costs - and exhorts big companies to pay your fair share in taxes'Joe Biden took another swipe at Donald Trump on Monday as the president revealed his $7.3tn budget proposal for 2025 that offers tax breaks for families, lower healthcare costs, a smaller federal deficit and higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.Biden made the remarks in an afternoon appearance in Goffstown, on the outskirts of Manchester, New Hampshire. Referring to the former president as my predecessor", as he did repeatedly during last week's fiery State of the Union speech, Biden condemned Trump for making $2tn in tax cuts" during his single term, and expanding the federal deficit". Continue reading...

Students and teachers can discuss sexual orientation and gender identity under settlement that clarifies what is allowed in schoolsStudents and teachers will be able to speak freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms, provided it's not part of instruction, under a settlement reached Monday between Florida education officials and civil rights attorneys who had challenged a state law which critics dubbed don't say gay".The settlement clarifies what is allowed in Florida classrooms following passage two years ago of the law prohibiting instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. Opponents said the law had created confusion about whether teachers could identity themselves LGBTQ+ or if they even could have rainbow stickers in classrooms. Continue reading...

Intelligence agencies say competitors are challenging longstanding rules of the international system ... and US primacy'US intelligence agencies say the country faces an increasingly fragile world order," strained by great power competition, transnational challenges and regional conflicts, in a report released as agency leaders testified in the Senate.An ambitious but anxious China, a confrontational Russia, some regional powers, such as Iran, and more capable non-state actors are challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as US primacy within it," the agencies say in their 2024 Annual Threat Assessment. Continue reading...