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Darren Beattie, former Trump speechwriter who founded far-right website, repeated baseless innuendo on XA top official in the US state department deleted abusive tweets in which he said the then Florida senator Marco Rubio - who is now secretary of state - had a low IQ" and spread unsubstantiated rumors about his sexuality, CNN reported.In tweets from 7 January 2021, Darren Beattie referred to scurrilous online rumors and added: Forget the war promotion and the neocon sugar daddies, forget the low IQ, forget the 2016 primary, Rubio is TOUGH ON CHINA (and good for military industrial complex) So be a good DOG and vote for him!!!" Continue reading...

Nathan Hochman says he would consider support only if pair fully accept complete responsibility' for 1989 killingsThe Los Angeles district attorney has said he is opposed to the resentencing of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who have been in prison for decades for the 1989 killings of their parents, and said the brothers first needed to acknowledge and fully accept responsibility for the murders.Nathan Hochman said at a press conference on Monday that he would ask the court to withdraw the resentencing motion filed in the case by his predecessor George Gascon. The new DA, who took office in December, said last month that he did not believe the brothers should receive a new trial. Continue reading...

Surviving aid to be administered by state department in radical narrowing of definition of US national interest

Former central banker won landslide victory in Liberal party race as trade war with US hastens transfer of powerCanada's incoming prime minister, Mark Carney, has met with Justin Trudeau as the pair discuss a transfer of power after the former central banker's landslide victory at the Liberal party's leadership race.The meeting on Monday sets the stage for an imminent federal election and gives Canada a fresh leader to square off against the United States president, with the two countries locked in a bitter trade war provoked by Donald Trump. Continue reading...

President says in post his administration will not tolerate' actions of protesters at Columbia and other US universitiesDonald Trump said on Monday that the arrest of a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University's pro-Palestinian protests last year, is the first arrest of many to come".We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it," the US president wrote in a post on Truth Social. Continue reading...

Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil a targeted, retaliatory' attack on his first amendment rights, say civil rights groupsFree speech organizations and advocates are expressing outrage after a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University's pro-Palestinian protests last year, was arrested and detained over the weekend.Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card, was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities on Saturday night, who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card. Continue reading...

Other major updates from second Trump administration's first 100 days include cuts to intelligence-sharing and reports of infighting between Musk and RubioLast week, Donald Trump shook global markets with his back and forth on tariffs, declined to rule out the possibility of a US recession because of his policies, and gave the longest-ever presidential address to Congress.The Trump administration also cut off intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, cut $400m in funds to Columbia University, and two key figures - Elon Musk and Marco Rubio - denied internal fighting after media reports on an angry exchange during the cabinet meeting. Continue reading...

Republican faces backlash for saying Democrat shook his pimp cane' at Trump during congressional addressThe extremist Republican US House member Lauren Boebert has been accused of racism, ableism and hypocrisy in one fell swoop after criticizing a Black Democrat for shaking his pimp cane" at Donald Trump during the president's recent speech to Congress.Al Green was given multiple opportunities to stand down, to sit down, to behave, to show decorum," Boebert told Real America's Voice, a far-right outlet, while discussing the Texas Democratic congressman's ejection from the House chamber for shouting about Trump's threats to social benefits spending on 6 March. Continue reading...

From Washington to Sacramento, communities rallied against the Trump administration Continue reading...

Insurance market says fine art losses were limited because rich residents took such possessions with themLloyd's of London expects losses of $2.3bn (1.78bn) from the California wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles this year, but fine art losses were limited because rich residents took their prize possessions with them.The Eaton and Palisades blazes in Los Angeles in early January killed 29 people and were only fully contained after 24 days, having burned more than 14,973 hectares (37,000 acres) and destroyed more than 16,000 buildings. Continue reading...

Nate Vance reportedly spent three years trying to help Ukraine repel Russian troops and has been alarmed by his cousin's remarks

Election of Trump and threats to democracy front of mind as activists remember peaceful marchers attacked by policeWhat would John Lewis do today?On a Sunday morning 60 years ago, activists rewrote the story of the civil rights movement in their own blood on the streets of Selma, Alabama. State troopers turned their truncheons on a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge at the behest of Alabama's stridently and infamously racist governor George Wallace, protecting Alabama segregation and white supremacy. Continue reading...

Projects to detect, treat and research new ways to fight TB among those disrupted by sudden funding freezeDangerous new forms of tuberculosis (TB) for which there is no treatment could emerge as a result of US aid cuts, a top doctor has warned.Dr Lucica Ditiu, who heads the Stop TB Partnership, said she feared that interruptions to people's treatment would allow the airborne bug to mutate into a new, untreatable form. Continue reading...

The Seattle Sounders are as deep as they appear, while Sporting KC set an ignominious mark with yet another lossIt's time for celebration in Seattle - the Sounders have vanquished their bogey team. After knocking LAFC out of the playoffs with a 2-1 win in November, Saturday's 5-2 result felt like conformation that LAFC no longer have Seattle's number after they knocked the Sounders out of the Open Cup and Leagues Cup in 2024. Those results were part of a 10-match unbeaten run against Seattle that dated back to May 2021. Continue reading...

The three-time MVP has a strong case to win his fourth award. But that is to ignore the brilliance - and freshness - of Shai Gilgeous-AlexanderOn Sunday afternoon, two of the best teams in the NBA's Western Conference faced off on national television. When it was over, the Oklahoma City Thunder had routed the Denver Nuggets 127-103, pulling away in the fourth quarter thanks to a barrage from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 40 points on the day. But because it was the NBA, the game was less about the teams and more about the stars at the center of the action - who just so happen to be the league's top two MVP candidates.Denver's Nikola Joki has been named NBA MVP three times in the past four years. That's rarefied air. Only three men - Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird - have won the award three times in a row. And only a small number of guys, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and LeBron James, have won it three out of four years. The year Joki didn't win it during his streak, he lost a close vote to Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid in an especially heated contest that included accusations of racism. Continue reading...

Former central banker has positioned himself as uniquely able to handle Canada's trade war with the US. Plus, why Michael Sheen paid off more than $1m of his neighbors' debts

Donald Trump was out of town when the shooting occurred, and the man has been hospitalizedAn armed man believed to be traveling from Indiana was shot by US Secret Service agents near the White House after a confrontation early Sunday - while Donald Trump was out of town, according to authorities.No one else was injured in the shooting that happened around midnight about a block from the White House, according to a Secret Service statement. The president was in Florida at the time of the shooting. Continue reading...

Lawmakers proposed seven bills curbing trans rights in this legislative session. Five passedWhen Wyoming legislators in 2022 passed a law banning trans girls from competing in middle and high school girls' sports, the Cowboy State, by its governor's own estimate, had a grand total of four transgender student athletes competing within its boundaries.Still, in this year's legislative session, which wrapped up on Friday, trans athletes were again a focus of lawmakers. They introduced bills to extend the ban on trans women in athletics to intercollegiate sports and ban universities from competing against teams with trans women. Continue reading...

Former prosecutors criticize Pam Bondi's decision to halt enforcement of bribery laws as short-sighted and dangerousA radical makeover at the US department of justice has seen key drives to fight corruption hamstrung in ways that could benefit US businesses operating abroad and foreign kleptocrats, including some Russian oligarchs.The moves have sparked sharp criticism by former US prosecutors, transparency experts and top Democrats, who warn that the moves to cut back on anti-corruption efforts is a huge setback for American efforts to clean up global business practices and tackle the power of oligarchs and of authoritarian rulers. Continue reading...

From gen Z's interest in natural' materials to the darker boom boom' aesthetic of the Trump era, the trend wheel has turned back to peltsI'll admit it, Carrie Bradshaw in aviators and a fur coat, smoking and drinking beer while watching baseball, spoke to me. It was season two of Sex and the City, 1999. She was bruised from a recently ended relationship but on the brink of dating the new Yankee" and I was a teenager, probably home from playing racketball and on the brink of Quorn sausages for dinner.While it wasn't the whole equation, the fur coat was certainly part of it. The way she could shrink into it and appear nonchalantly, breezily beautiful despite unwashed hair and an aching heart. I'm not proud, but I was young, and this to me then looked like something I wanted a piece of.Ellie Violet Bramley is the Guardian's acting fashion and lifestyle editor Continue reading...

With PGA Tour's marquee event approaching and Trump's intervention seemingly unsuccessful, the sport is at crossroadsAn opening address from Jay Monahan at the Arnold Palmer Invitational here involved almost 1,500 words. A mere 108 of them referred to the Saudi Arabian elephant in the room. Or more specifically, the status of unification talks between the PGA Tour, which Monahan leads, and the Saudifronted LIV circuit.Monahan was very keen to speak about innovation, about corporate partners, about fan engagement. Fluff. A blunt reality is that any excitement created by the announcement of a framework agreement between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has long since dissipated. No wonder: that shock press release landed on 6 June 2023. Continue reading...

A winding down of operations in Gaza has allowed Israel to turn its attention to the West Bank, with devastating effectsIt has been just over six weeks since a ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, and it's clear that it would more accurately be called a reduce" fire, rather than a cessation. Scores of people are still being killed; enough, in any other scenario, to be deemed both alarming and newsworthy. More than 100 people have died since 19 January, Gaza's civil defence service spokesperson says. Those killings constitute, alongside other breaches, a grim record of hundreds of reported ceasefire violations by the Israeli government.The latest among them is Israeli authorities' decision to halt humanitarian aid into Gaza, in order to put pressure on Hamas to accept new ceasefire terms: mere hours after the first phase of the ceasefire expired, Israel cut off all supplies. In doing so, Israel is using food and civilian relief as a political tool to achieve its objectives, a move that the Qatari foreign ministry, the midwife of hostage releases and ceasefire agreements over the past few months, called a clear violation" of the terms of the truce and of international humanitarian law. Continue reading...

US president ducks question on whether he thinks the US will face a recession; watchdog fears US seeing a rapid decline in civic freedoms - key US politics stories from Sunday at a glanceDonald Trump has refused to rule out the possibility the US economy will head into recession this year and that inflation will rise, as his chaotic trade tariffs policy caused uncertainty and market turbulence.The US president predicted that his economic goals would take time and a period of transition to bear fruit. But when asked in an interview with the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures are you expecting a recession this year?" he demurred. Continue reading...

Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and SerbiaThe United States has been added to the Civicus Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries that the global civil rights watchdog believes are currently experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms.Civicus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world", announced the inclusion of the US on the non-profit's first watchlist of 2025 on Monday, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia. Continue reading...

The actor was likely alone in his house for days, disoriented and too frail to seek help, after death of wife Betsy ArakawaThe actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, who were found dead last month in Santa Fe, New Mexico, were rarely apart from each other, and it's that closeness that may have led to the circumstances of their deaths.Arakawa had become Hackman's caregiver in his later years when he developed Alzheimer's disease and became incapable of carrying out even the simplest of tasks. She ran the household errands, made sure he remained active and protected him from illnesses. Continue reading...

Homeland security secretary pledges lie detector tests for employees she suspects are passing information to pressHomeland security secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday announced new leadership at the agency tasked with immigration enforcement as she also pledged to step up lie detector tests on employees to identify those who may be leaking information about operations to the media.Noem confirmed, in addition, that the government will expand immigration detention operations further into the military sphere, following reports of the intention to use the huge Fort Bliss army base close to the US-Mexico border in Texas for that purpose. Continue reading...

President downplays recent stock market volatility that followed his ducking and weaving over tariff policyDonald Trump on Sunday refused to rule out the possibility that the US economy will head into recession this year and that inflation will rise, as his chaotic trade tariffs policy cause uncertainty and market turbulence.The US president predicted that his economic goals would take time and a period of transition to bear fruit. But when asked in an interview with the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures are you expecting a recession this year?" he demurred.Reuters contributed reporting Continue reading...

Mahmoud Khalil's arrest comes as Trump vows to deport foreign students involved in protests against Israel's warA prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University's student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university's main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press. Continue reading...

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The Hindu nationalist prime minister's push could shift power northward to his political advantage but risks escalating political tensionsWhen Narendra Modi's alliance won a narrow majority in last year's Indian election, it signalled his waning popularity after a decade in power. A victory in 2029 may seem unlikely. Yet his government's push to redraw parliamentary constituencies using post-2026 census data could tilt the electoral field in his favour.The process, known as delimitation, ensures each member of parliament represents an equal number of voters - a principle of democratic fairness. Since 1976, however, it has been frozen to avoid penalising Indian states that curbed population growth. If delimitation proceeds, Mr Modi's populous northern strongholds will gain seats, weakening the political clout of India's economically dynamic and culturally distinct southern cone. Its five states are governed by different parties but, critically, none belong to Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). Southern states have long accused Mr Modi's government of bias in federal funding and project approvals. Last week's gathering of the south's political leadership in Delhi to protest against his move underscores the risk of backlash. Continue reading...

Most musicians can only make money on the platform by writing songs inoffensive enough to get on to one of its vapid playlistsIn the hands of some of its most gifted practitioners, songwriting is a kind of emotional alchemy. For the past week, I have been returning to a perfect example: Every Time the Sun Comes Up by the US singer Sharon Van Etten, which was released in 2014. Its lyrics might be fractured and fragmented, but it is an almost perfect portrait of self-doubt and downward spirals: one of those songs that captures feelings so deep that they go way beyond words.I went back to that song as I read a superb new book that has both educated and profoundly depressed me. Mood Machine, by the New York-based journalist Liz Pelly, is about the music-streaming giant Spotify, and how it attracted its current 615 million subscribers, making a billionaire of its Swedish co-founder and CEO, Daniel Ek. But its most compelling story centres on what Spotify has done to people's appreciation of songs and the people who make them - much of which is down to the platform's ubiquitous playlists.John Harris is a Guardian columnist. His memoir Maybe I'm Amazed, about his autistic son James and how music became their shared language, is published on 27 March. For more information, visit maybeimamazed.substack.com Continue reading...

Three of the fires are contained, while one is still burning in Westhampton, officials sayFirefighters in New York were continuing to battle at least one brush fire in a wooded stretch of Long Island on Sunday with the wealthy coastal enclave of the Hamptons vulnerable and officials warning that high wind gusts threatened to ignite further blazes.The state's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after four separate fires broke out. The flames were spreading across large swaths of the narrow strip of barrier land that stretches for more than 100 miles east from New York City out towards the Atlantic Ocean. Continue reading...

The charismatic sports news host has become an unlikely force in a party that needs critical friends and fresh ideasThe View, one of the US's most popular daytime television programmes, was a vital campaign stop last year for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This week, it played host to a cable sports channel personality who might be nurturing political ambitions of his own.Stephen A Smith was asked by co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin what he makes of hypothetical polls that show him among the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Continue reading...

It's UGH week, the time when we all notice the many terrible things that have accumulated in our homes under the darkness of winter. But don't worry! You don't have to do anything silly like spring cleanI rarely have any wisdom to impart, but at this time of year I find myself itching to share one of the few snippets I have gleaned in my 50 years. So here goes.Have you found in recent days that everyone (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) seems stoked about spring - skittles and beer, carpets of crocuses, the prospect of sitting outside without having your face resurfaced by sleet - but you are not quite feeling it? Have any nascent joys of the changing seasons been crushed by a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, replaced by wondering how you got so dull and lumpy? Has your home become, seemingly overnight, a sticky nest of squalor - toothpaste dribbles on the mirror, mildewed grouting, sofa stains, dust (God, the dust)? Does nothing please you? Continue reading...

For the first time in decades, three major religious traditions - Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i Faith - will observe their sacred fasting periods at the same time

The president, who derided Barack Obama for golfing while in office, even makes money off his Mar-a-Lago weekendsIt has become a familiar routine for the Palm Beach county sheriff, Ric Bradshaw, and his deputies. Almost every Tuesday in recent weeks, the Federal Aviation Administration has posted to its website a formal notice to airmen" advising of upcoming flight restrictions over south Florida, signaling once again to those who must protect him that Donald Trump is on his way to Mar-a-Lago for another weekend of golf.The president is at his waterfront mansion again this weekend, his sixth visit to Florida and the beloved golf courses he owns since his 20 January inauguration. Continue reading...

While it might save some politicians from public humiliation, it could also deprive Americans of opportunities to interact with their elected officialsAfter Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, was hounded out of his own town hall event last week, Republican party leaders had had enough. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, and Richard Hudson, the chair of the GOP's fundraising body, decided the embarrassment had to end, and they told Republicans to stop holding the public events.But while that might save some Republican politicians from public humiliation, it could also deprive Americans of opportunities to interact with their elected officials, experts said, and prevent people from letting their representatives they are not happy with the increasingly divisive direction of the Trump administration. Continue reading...

Gestures of servility from administration members and world leaders alike are sickeningly common in the mad king's courtSycophancy is the coin of the realm. In Donald Trump's court, flattery is the only spoken language. He does not need an executive order to enforce it. Fear is the other side of the coin. Loyalty must be blind. Obedience is safety. Cronyism secures status. His whim is dogma. Criticism is heresy. Debate is apostasy. Expertise is bias. Objectivity is a hoax. Truth is just your opinion. Lies are defended to the death as articles of faith. New ones are manufactured on an industrial scale by his press office for social influencers to spread. Denying facts proves fealty. The rule of law is partisan. Russia is our trusted ally. Britain and France are random counties". Retribution is policy.The deeper the submission to madness, the greater his supremacy. The subjugation is more thorough if the things people are forced to accept are irrational or, better, the reverse of what they had believed. When previously held beliefs are abandoned to conform to their opposite, like the secretary of state Marco Rubio's formerly adamant support of Ukraine, which went to his core as the son of refugees from Castro's Cuba, the more Trump's dominance is demonstrated. Rubio has gone full circle, from his family fleeing one kind of tyranny to Trump sneering at him as Little Marco" to ambitious embrace of his tormentor. He finds himself as a supplicant to Trump complaining about Elon Musk's mindless wreckage of the state department. Formally the ranking constitutional officer of the cabinet, Rubio is below Musk in Trump's hierarchy. Continue reading...

My American accent inspired pity, empathy and utter confusion. I feel the same: it's as though we've entered hospice careTraveling abroad for the first time since November, I saw pity in the eyes of strangers when they heard my American accent. Pity, empathy, and utter confusion, as if to convey What the hell is happening to your country?" with a mere glance or a quiet sigh.Believe me, I'm American and I'm just as confused as you are.Shanti L Nelson is a writer and photographer Continue reading...

The gadfly-minded abuser has openly threatened Greenland, Ukraine and Europe. He, and America, are the enemy nowI'd say writing comedy about the ever-shifting opinions of Donald Trump, the Speedy Gonzales of on-the-hoof policymaking, is like playing pin the tail on the donkey, but it's unfair on donkeys. No donkey ever sexually assaulted someone in a department store changing cubicle.It's 4.30pm on Wednesday and I'm done. Last week I filed this column on Thursday, and then on Friday DJ Trump and JD Vance beat up Volodymyr Zelenskyy live on TV in the Oval Office to try to grab his minerals, as brazenly as Trump might grab a pussy, like a performatively cruel Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Sopranos suits.Stewart Lee tours Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a Royal Festival Hall run in July Continue reading...

The documentary is both antisemitic and Israeli propaganda, according to critics. The truth is, it provides a rare glimpse of hopeIn 2009, Tony Blair visited Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets in the Palestinian West Bank. He had come to see a school that had gained attention for having been rebuilt in defiance of Israeli attempts to tear down the village. After he returned home, Israel cancelled the demolition order for the school. This," Basel Adra says, is a story about power."Adra is one of the directors of No Other Land, a documentary about the experience of living through, and attempting to defy, Israel's attempts to erase Masafer Yatta to create an IDF firing zone". Last week, it won an Oscar. In the 1980s, Israeli authorities designated part of the area as Firing Zone 918", a closed military area. In 1999, the government issued eviction orders against Palestinians in the area for illegally living in a firing zone". Two decades of court battles ended in 2022 when Israel's supreme court ruled the villagers could be expelled.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...