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The growing size and market dominance of Facebook's parent company is coming under greater scrutiny from the US, UK and EUMeta Platforms launched its Threads app earlier this month. In less than five days, it had 100 million new users, surpassing ChatGPT's recent record as the fastest-growing online platform in history.The company that owns the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms has long faced competition law scrutiny over its acquisition and exercise of market power. It has a history of aggressively acquiring promising new competitors and folding them into the Facebook family before they can pose a realistic threat to the company's market dominance. Indeed, the Meta chief, Mark Zuckerberg, even tried to buy Twitter, twice, more than a decade ago. Continue reading...

Andre Longmore, 40, was shot by police as they tried to take him into custody after weekend killings of four people south of AtlantaAuthorities in Georgia hunted Saturday for a man who remained at large hours after he was suspected of gunning down three men and a woman in a suburban neighborhood south of Atlanta.Andre Longmore, 40, is believed to be armed and dangerous, Hampton police chief James Turner said during a news conference. The shootings happened late Saturday morning in a subdivision in Hampton, a city of roughly 8,500 people. Continue reading...

Carlee' Nichole Russell went missing for two days after she stopped to check on a toddler walking on side of highwayAn Alabama woman who went missing after calling 911 about a child she reported spotting on a highway has returned home after a two-day search.On Thursday, the Hoover police department received a call at 9.34pm from 25-year-old Carlethia Carlee" Nichole Russell on I-459 south near mile marker 11. According to the police, Russell reported that she saw a toddler walking on the side of the interstate. Continue reading...

In her collaborations with Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin left a permanent mark on pop - and her underrated solo albums of dark, strange songs are ripe for rediscovery

Birkin made a sensational impact in Blow-Up, and went on to become a classy performer for a number of major French directors - notably Godard and Agnes Varda

Torrential rainstorm swept through township in south-eastern Pennsylvania, killing several and leaving behind a slew of damageAt least three people have been killed by a sudden flash flood in Pennsylvania while four others remain missing.On Saturday evening, flash floods as a result of a torrential rainstorm swept through Upper Makefield township in south-eastern Pennsylvania, killing several and leaving behind a slew of damage including submerged buildings. Continue reading...

Brandon Johnson vowed to drop controversial gunshot detection system but approved a $10m payment for contractor ShotSpotterProgressives have vowed to hold the new Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, to his campaign pledge that as part of crime-control efforts in the city he will break with the controversial gunshot detection contractor ShotSpotter.Johnson gave the keynote speech this week at Netroots, the largest annual gathering of progressives in the country, taking place in Chicago, and amplified his campaign talk about a wider approach to safer streets. Continue reading...

Fewer than 10 staffers were laid off, Politico reports, as more shake-ups within campaign are expected in coming weeksFlorida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has reduced campaign staff as his campaign has struggled to meet fundraising goals.Fewer than 10 staffers were laid off, according to an anonymous staffer, reported Politico. The staffers were involved in event planning and may be picked up by the pro DeSantis super-Pac, Never Back Down. Two senior campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain left the campaign this past week to assist a pro-DeSantis nonprofit group. Continue reading...

Unhappiness calls to unhappiness everywhere, but if your outlook is cheerful, nobody's interested. Admittedly, this is a good problem to haveRecently, I was chatting to a friend. She was a bit down and I was trying to cheer her up, being my usual sunny self when, suddenly, she gave me an odd look and said: You're never really unhappy, are you, Rhymer?" I had a moment of clarity. She was right. But when I told her this, she responded with bewilderment. Surely nobody can be happy all the time? That's weird. OK, I conceded, of course I experience occasional frustration, grumpiness and disappointment, but they are fleeting feelings and usually connected to discrete events. Prolonged periods of unhappiness or anxiety? Nope.If happiness is a scale of one to 10, I am invariably between a six and an eight. Perhaps the odd, brief dip to four when something genuinely sad happens. But my default resting state is an untroubled 7.5. There is no apparent reason for this. I am lucky enough to live a pretty nice life, but I am not insulated from stress and anxiety. To take an obvious example, my mortgage is about to increase by 50% and I'm certainly not independently wealthy. What's more, I know plenty of people who are better off than me - and their happiness seems to be normally distributed. There are plenty of unhappy rich people. My sunny disposition seems innate, like being 6ft 2in, which, sadly, I'm not. My wife, who does worry about things and wishes I worried a bit more, has occasionally said that I would probably be exactly the same if I had twice as much money or half as much money.Rhymer Rigby is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

Just look at the numbers: despite interest rate hikes and a slash in venture capital, new business creation is going strongThe Mass Extinction Event for startups is under way," a partner for a well-known venture capital firm warned in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Capital from venture investors and bank loans is scarce and expensive" and venture-backed startups are running out of money and facing hard choices".The numbers support this: venture capital funding in the first quarter of 2023 was only at 40% of the levels seen in the fourth quarter of 2021. But mass extinction? Continue reading...

State's OB-GYN numbers are dwindling in the face of a legal onslaught amid fears that patients will be unable to access careMost mornings Dr Stacy Seyb is awake by 6am. He begins his day with meetings before a packed schedule seeing 18-20 patients going through high-risk pregnancies in Boise, Idaho. He has had a long career of treating people with all sorts of obstetrical complications so he's used to stress. But it's never been like this.Now that federal protections for abortion have been gone for more than a year and Idaho is approaching the anniversary of its near-total abortion ban, the state has seen an exodus of OB-GYNs and other medical providers, leaving Seyb as one of the last remaining maternal-fetal medicine physicians in his state. Continue reading...

Man taken to hospital after attack in Gulf coast town of Naples, before 6ft 9in reptile trapped by expert and taken awayA 79-year-old man survived being bitten by a nearly 7ft-long alligator while he was out for a walk around his golf-course community neighborhood in Florida, police said.The attack happened about 5am Thursday at the Forest Glen and Golf Course community in Naples, according to a Facebook post from the Collier county sheriff's office. Continue reading...

The government should put its money into teaching every child how to knit and sew if it really wants to avoid fashion wasteIn France, we have no petrol, but we have ideas." So goes a popular French saying born in the 1970s during the oil crisis. Said differently, France is a champion of quirky initiatives that can feel both admirable and somewhat pointless. The latest in a series of eco-friendly measures taken by the French government is the repair bonus". Instead of throwing into the bin a pair of ripped trousers, a bag with a broken strap or a moth-eaten polo neck, the state will pay for them to be mended at your local cobbler or retoucheur (sewing workshops). From October and for the next five years, we will be able to claim back between 6-25 of the costs of mending our clothes and shoes with artisans who have joined the scheme.The hope is to help create a virtuous circle, change habits for the planet's sake (700,000 tonnes of clothing is thrown away in France every year), sustain local artisans and even create jobs in what we now need to call the refashion" sector. Three years ago, a similar scheme encouraged my compatriots to fix their old toasters or rickety washing machines, rather than dispose of them out of frustration. Legislators even obliged companies to revise their obsolescence strategy by publishing a repairability index" for each item produced. Consumers can now buy new home appliances knowing in advance how easy (or difficult) they are to repair. Continue reading...

Winner of three majors and former Ryder Cup captain is back on form and believes he could play this autumn against the USA missed cut at the 2006 Open was irrelevant to Padraig Harrington by the time he lifted the Claret Jug the following two years. This has not prevented the retention of memories from the toasted Royal Liverpool of 17 years ago. A European heatwave reduced the Open to dust.It freaked me out and having been over to see it again, I am in discussions with my club manufacturer," he says. I waggle quite aggressively and it was so burnt in 2006 that when I put the club on the ground, it kept slipping. I was afraid of hitting the ball when addressing it. It was uncomfortable. So I have been practising leaving my club two to three inches behind the ball and I have been checking with the guys if there is anything to put on the sole of my club to make it less slippy." Harrington leaves nothing to chance. Continue reading...

The star wrote his controlling texts to a girlfriend in language he learned on the couchCan therapy be bad for you? There's a strange omission in the way we tend to talk about psychotherapy, which has come to be regarded in the culture as a sort of unalloyed good, something almost everyone should have a go at.We are happy to accept that this interaction - a conversation between therapist and client - is capable of changing our psychology in positive ways, even transforming lives". But we don't extend the logic. If therapy is so powerful, isn't there a risk it can harm us too? Continue reading...

The novelist, who died last week, posed questions on identity that resonate to this dayThe novelist, Milan Kundera once observed to fellow-writer Philip Roth, teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question". He feared that in a world in which people prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than ask... the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties".The death last week of Kundera has been marked with respectful eulogies. Yet the lightness with which he has been remembered has also made clear that he no longer occupies the place in our culture he once did. Kundera's voice, too, has less resonance in our noisy world. Continue reading...

Second flyer sent to households in state by mysterious political group seeks to portray former president as LGBTQ+ advocateAn obscure non-profit political group in Iowa that has been attempting to portray Donald Trump as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community is doubling down on its unlikely claim, producing a second flyer condemning the former president for fighting conservatives" over trans rights.The mailer repeats the messaging from the original communication that the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for next year's election is a trailblazer for trans". Continue reading...

With less gifted players around him, Inter's defence-shy superstar could struggle with the physicality of MLSInter Miami are now the fifth most-followed American sports franchise on Instagram, their numbers leaping from 900,000 to almost nine million. They are having to expand their stadium and tickets for their remaining home games this season are going for $350. All this for a team that went into the weekend bottom of the Eastern Conference. Lionel Messi has already had an enormous impact on his new club. As the MLS commissioner, Don Garber, said, Messi's move to the United States is a massive financial opportunity".It's easy to be seduced by this. It's easy to be relieved that the greatest player of his generation will not be among those trading their integrity for a sackload of Saudi cash (although given Messi is an ambassador for Visit Saudi, that ship has perhaps already sailed). It's easy to regard Messi as some sort of missionary, a modern-day Pele, delivering football to the heathen. Continue reading...

Prize is seventh largest in game's history with next numbers to be drawn on Tuesday nightThe Mega Millions top prize has grown again to an estimated $640m after there was no winner of the lottery's latest giant jackpot.The numbers drawn late on Friday night were: 10, 24, 48, 51, 66 and gold Mega Ball 15. Continue reading...

The heart of Labour's approach is to get Britain thinking big again, which requires reform, rather than just more moneyOn a housing estate in Selby, a young couple with a baby tell me they have seen the dream of buying their family home turn to dust because of the Tory mortgage bombshell.That encounter sticks with me. Good people, working hard, saving, bettering themselves - then seeing it cruelly snatched away through no fault of their own. The sheer unfairness of it is hard to stomach. Continue reading...

Veterans resign from force established as civilian disaster relief, citing concerns over militaristic' training and abuse'A Florida state guard established by the rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, under the guise of a civilian disaster relief force is instead being trained as an armed, combat-ready militia under his personal command, according to military veteran recruits who have quit the program.Several veterans resigned after an encampment last month having become concerned at the militaristic" training and abuse" one disabled veteran suffered at the hands of instructors, according to an investigation by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times. Continue reading...

Three brush fires burning in rural areas across Riverside county, where 1,000 homes are under evacuation ordersFirefighters in southern California were battling three separate brush fires that started on Friday afternoon amid a blistering heatwave.The fires were all within 40 miles (65km) of each other in mostly rural areas across Riverside county, south-east of Los Angeles. Continue reading...

Mattel has reinvented its doll in the language of empowerment, but it's a hollow, plastic form of feminismCrazy as this might sound, 10 years ago I honestly thought Barbie was tottering on her tiptoes, ready for a well-earned retirement. A few years earlier, my book, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, had energetically questioned why we not only assumed it was natural that girls would love dolls but also why we expected girls to turn themselves into pretty objects in turn.My questions coincided with growing unease in society with the way the apparently innocuous doll contributed to harsh stereotypes for girls. Barbie made girls less ambitious, psychologists said, or more prone to eating disorders. Sales began to slide; Barbie slump", the headlines had it in 2016, or Barbie out of fashion". Continue reading...

Arrest of architect Rex Heuermann, accused of murder of three women, brings relief and fear to residents of Massapequa ParkThe arrest of the 59-year-old Long Island architect Rex Heuermann, accused of the murder of three women, has brought relief to residents of Massapequa Park, a suburban town seven miles from Gilgo Beach where the remains of 10 adults and a child were found more than a decade ago.Everybody stopped going to the beach at night. It was an intense vibe that someone was committing serial crimes on the island," recalled Alexandra Calabro, 26, on Friday, standing steps away the small single-story home in the commuter town where Heuermann lived. Continue reading...

Wall-to-wall cookery shows and recipe books can undermine our confidence. It's time to be kind to yourself in the kitchenI was tired and a bit overworked, and that's when it happened: the lid fell off the jar at the wrong moment, and all was lost. Or was it? For a long, despondent minute, I considered the disaster before me. In my best Le Creuset pan on the top of the oven were the sausages I was turning into a pasta sauce for dinner, and about 10 times the amount of chilli flakes I'd intended to add. Oh no! Thoughts of takeaway pizza floated into my mind. But I hated to waste both the sausages and my efforts up to this point, so I decided to plough on regardless. Some like it hot, and we two are among them. How bad could it be, really?The answer is: not bad at all. I might not have fed it to guests, but we both ended up having seconds. It was ... memorable, I guess, and later on, as I loaded the dishwasher and worried vaguely about what I might cook tomorrow in this, the busiest and craziest of weeks, I got to thinking about kindness in the kitchen - kindness to myself, in this instance. Don't worry. I'm not about to turn into some gruesome self-help guru. All I mean is that, sometimes, I should give myself a break. In fact, we all should. If perfection is elusive, equally, seeming catastrophe is rarely that. Most dishes can be salvaged. Nearly everything is edible, in extremis. Delia Smith - Delia bloody Smith! - loved the cake I panic-baked for her when I interviewed her last year. It hadn't risen properly. As I took it out of my bag, it resembled nothing so much as a house brick wrapped in foil. But as I heard later - she said this to her audience during an event at Conway Hall in London, and some of them were kind enough to email me afterwards - she and Michael, her husband, devoured every last cardamom-scented crumb. Continue reading...

From World Emoji Day to being cited in court cases, the language of symbols has come of ageThere have been plenty of, shall we say, unusual or eye-raising legal decisions around technology. Such is the way when a massive industry, if one can reduce technology" to the singular, which we can't, utterly changes the way we live (or the way we die, which, according to former Google engineer Ray Kurzweil, may not actually happen).In recent times we've had, rather gloriously, the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme debated by a judge in Florida, and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) recognised as legal property in the UK. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is, in addition to challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight and a literal penis-measuring competition, threatening to sue the head of Meta over the company's Twitter clone, Threads. But the thing that caught my eye last week was a Canadian court decision that ruled a thumbs-up emoji is legally permissible as contract assent. There are more examples of emojis finding their way before the bench. In 2014, a Michigan court tried a defamation case involving a stuck-out tongue emoticon (rendered as :-p). In Ohio, a judgment in a harassment case queried what, exactly, the rat emoji meant in that context. Continue reading...

Having friends over to eat is part of who we are, with set-piece encounters feeding into plays, films and books. Talk of their demise is prematureI know. The dinner party is always over, or about to be so. In my long(ish) life, the announcement of its passing has been made several times, and on each occasion it has somehow risen from its bed like Lazarus, and tottered once more into the kitchen, wooden spoon in hand.Still, I'm minded now to regard the situation as extremely serious: the patient, it would seem, really is in intensive care, and may not live to see another lasagne, nor even a small bowl of olives. Nigella Lawson, who is effectively the Mother of the Nation these days, says she's out of the habit of throwing them - and if she is, so must we be. For where Nigella treads, we follow, breathing deeply the better to pick up the heady scent of cardamom. Continue reading...

Nancy Mace calls measure to block reimbursement of travel costs for military seeking procedure asshole move' then votes for itThe fallout from the decision by House Republicans to include a divisive anti-abortion measure in Friday's defense spending vote has snared the South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, who has been accused of hypocrisy for voting for it.On Thursday, Mace, who has frequently been at odds with her party over its abortion stance, launched a profanity-laced tirade apparently against the inclusion of an amendment that would block the reimbursement of travel costs for military members who seek the procedure. Continue reading...

The Republican field is full of anti-abortion ideologues - but Pence has positioned himself as a candidate with unpopular and extremist viewsMike Pence will never be president for one simple reason: he's extremely creepy. Members of the former vice-president's own political party find him unappealing. His general demeanor is so off-putting and unsettling that he even gives horror-writing legend Stephen King the creeps. Continue reading...

Suspect in attack on busy street in Fargo killed by officers returning fire, as motive remains unknownOne police officer died and two others were critically injured after a suspect began shooting on a busy street in Fargo, North Dakota, on Friday afternoon, police said.Officers returning fire killed the suspect during the shooting, which occurred before 3pm. A civilian also was seriously wounded, police said in a late-night statement that provided no details on a possible motive. Continue reading...

Inquiry ordered following Guardian investigation into retired priest who confessed decades ago to child molestationA high-ranking federal official has ordered an investigation after the Guardian exposed how New Orleans's Roman Catholic archdiocese went to extreme lengths to conceal a retired priest who confessed decades ago to child molestation, is still living and has never been prosecuted.Yet the investigation recently ordered by federal judge Jane Triche Milazzo is not designed to aid efforts to criminally charge the cleric or hold the church administrators who hid his past accountable. Instead, the inquiry is aimed at determining whether anyone violated broad confidentiality rules governing the New Orleans archdiocese's pending bankruptcy protection filing and related litigation before the Guardian's report on 91-year-old Lawrence Hecker was published on 20 June. Continue reading...

Political scientists read the Republican runes and suggest Trump will win the nomination - but how would he fare in a 2020 rematch?As it stands, political scientists expect Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination for president. Most GOP candidates are in lockstep with Trumpist policies and culture wars, failing to differentiate in an already scattered field; despite the appearance of a united front, factions within the party cannot agree on when and how to pass hardline legislation. Traditional conservative forces are looking for a less volatile alternative with a more viable path to win the general election, and as that concern mounts, some experts say Biden could be narrowly re-elected if the race is a rematch of 2020.Trump is the mainstream," said Allan Lichtman, distinguished professor of history at American University, pointing out that so-called mainstream Republicans" such as Liz Cheney are now out of office. Continue reading...

New NHS research reveals the direct effect of the cost of living crisis on people's mental health. The most vulnerable must be protectedThe first thing that came to mind when reading the obituaries of Milan Kundera, the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, was not the man, but the title of his book. The unbearable lightness of being could be an apt way to describe the precarious nature of many people's lives across the UK right now: unbearable, treated lightly by those in positions of power, but ultimately still being in the world, if hanging on only by a thread.Food insecurity has now been linked by the NHS to the rise in eating disorders, and this is interesting for two primary reasons. First, the new research overturns commonly held stereotypes. It had long been assumed that this illness affected affluent, white, middle-class women and girls. The new findings prove this is not the case, with the rise occurring in people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, who are disproportionately black and from ethnic minorities. This is striking, and will no doubt have a profound effect on the way we diagnose and treat eating disorders in the future.Dorothy Dunn is a freelance journalistIn the UK, Beat can be contacted on 0808 801 0677. In the US, the National Eating Disorders Association is on 800 931 2237. In Australia, the Butterfly Foundation is at 1800 33 4673. Other international helplines can be found at Eating Disorder Hope Continue reading...

A below strength USMNT were upset in the Gold Cup. But the important developments are happening elsewhere as 2026 preparations step upThe Gold Cup, the biennial money-spinner for Concacaf, inspires a very different mood around the US men's national team compared with the World Cup. Superiority, not inferiority, dominates the conversation.After all the hand-wringing from the inadequacies on display during the round-of-16 loss to the Netherlands in Qatar, here's a tournament that prompts fretting if the Americans don't win it every time, given their status as perennial hosts and the low caliber of most of their opponents. Continue reading...

Retirement from Rainbow PUSH Coalition follows several health problems in recent yearsThe US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson is to step down down as head of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition he founded.The organisation announced on Friday that the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate would be celebrated this weekend at the coalition's annual convention. Continue reading...

I joined my hometown group in Cornwall simply to have people to swim with. I didn't expect to find a nurturing support networkWith apologies, I must smash the glass on the case marked: X days since the Guardian published an article about wild swimming." Don't worry: I am not here to extol the life-giving properties of cold water or of being at one" with nature. If I can find a sympathetic read on the eye-rolls directed at open-water swimming (much of which, to be honest, feels little short of thinly veiled misogyny, given its popularity with women), it's that so much of it skews painfully individualistic: singular voyages of discovery clad in neoprene. But for me, the loveliest thing about sea swimming is the sense of community it's created, rooting me in my distant home town.I grew up in Cornwall and started swimming in the sea when I was small. (I agree with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett that when you live somewhere coastal, it's just called swimming", no faddy branding needed.) Back then, I liked to swim alone, paddling out far enough that I could sing pop songs to myself where no one could hear, and staying in so long that my lips went blue and I had to be forcibly extracted and revived in the shower. But three years ago this month, when I returned home to Falmouth for a spell after lockdown finally lifted, my friend Flo invited me to swim as part of a small group of women who met early each morning at Swanpool beach. Our ages ranged from early 30s to late 60s. Flo soon moved to a different town and stopped coming, but I kept going, pleased to have a regular outdoor appointment and fresh faces to see during the endless months of working from home. Continue reading...

Portland Thorns striker loves the spotlight and pressure' of having a big role to play in America's quest to defend their titleWhere Sophia Smith goes, confidence follows. Take for example the viral Michael Jordan-esque, shoulder-shrug celebration of her goal four minutes into last year's National Women's Soccer League Championship. The goal clinched her team, Portland Thorns, a third NWSL title and secured Smith the MVP game trophy to cap off her MVP season.I just did it," Smith said after the match. There's been a lot of people who don't think that I deserve to win MVP. So that was a little bit of, you know, that's that." Continue reading...

Hottest weather of the year just beginning, warns National Weather Service, as authorities prepare to protect most vulnerableAfter days of unrelenting temperatures across much of the region, the American west is bracing for even more intense heat this weekend with more than a third of Americans under extreme heat alerts.California is facing a powerful heatdome, bringing sweltering conditions expected to build Friday and through the weekend, in central and southern parts of the state. The National Weather Service warned many residents they should prepare for the hottest weather of the year as desert area highs could exceed 120F (48.8C). Continue reading...

Charging documents released on Friday show how investigators have tied architect Rex Heuermann to 11 sets of human remainsA New York architect, who allegedly made taunting calls to the relative of a victim police investigators suspected he murdered, is in custody facing accusations that he is the so-called Long Island serial killer.Rex Heuermann's arrest and indictment on Friday, on six charges of murder, marks a key moment in a case that has captivated the public and confounded authorities for more than a decade. Continue reading...

Lawyers for former US president ask Georgia's highest court to prevent district attorney from prosecuting himRepublican House speaker Kevin McCarthy condemned congressman Eli Crane for using an outdated and offensive term to refer to African Americans on the House floor:Politico reports that Crane has apologized for using the language: Continue reading...

Police arrest Rex Heuermann in significant breakthrough in decade-old Gilgo Beach case which gripped countryA man who appears to have been hiding in plain sight in a small seaside community for more than a decade while a serial killing gripped the nation was arrested and on Friday charged with murder in connection with several grisly deaths.Police in Suffolk county, New York, arrested the 59-year-old local architect Rex Heuermann, in a significant breakthrough in the so-called Gilgo Beach case in Long Island. Continue reading...

The fossil fuel industry has spent billions on winning over the public. Green activists must learn from its tacticsYou may think we have all the proof we need. More of it is in front of us right now, with heatwaves scorching through Europe, breaking records, wreaking havoc. In Athens, they closed the Acropolis on Friday as temperatures at the site headed towards 48C. In Lisbon, visitors expecting perfect blue skies have been disappointed to find them streaked with grey - not clouds, but smoke from forest fires. In Italy, there was no spring this year: floods gave way to unbearable heat with barely a pause.It's happening all over - biblical downpours in New York state, unquenchable fires in Canada - and yet humanity is not acting as if it is confronting a planetary emergency. Extreme weather is fast becoming the norm in the US, and yet Americans tell pollsters it is a low priority, ranking it 17th out of 21 national issues in a recent Pew survey. Even when the impact is personal, as it was for many Australians when bushfires raged through the country in 2019, opinions prove stubbornly hard to shift: one study found that among those directly impacted" by the fires, around a third saw no connection to the climate. They were unmoved."Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Senate must now consider bill to fund US military containing amendments on abortion, transgender healthcare and diversityThe Republican-led House of Representatives on Friday approved a huge defense bill that includes amendments overturning the Pentagon's policies on covering abortion services for the military, healthcare costs for transgender service members and diversity initiatives - setting up a historic clash with Democrats and the Biden administration that could imperil spending on the armed forces.The amendments, pushed by the GOP's right flank with the support of the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, represent the latest instance of conservative lawmakers using their influence in Congress's lower chamber to attempt to change Joe Biden's policies on a range of issues that chiefly animate the Republican base. Continue reading...

Sofia Marks, 20, arrested over allegedly selling drugs that led to death of Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, 19, earlier this monthA woman has been arrested on federal narcotics charges for allegedly selling the drugs that led to the death of actor Robert De Niro's 19-year-old grandson, a law enforcement official said on Friday.Sofia Marks, 20, was arrested on Thursday by New York police officers and federal drug agents on charges of selling drugs to Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, according a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the arrest. Continue reading...

Wall Street bank's profits rise 40% to $13.3bn as interest rates charged to borrowers increaseOne of the world's largest banks, JP Morgan, is preparing for a potential surge in defaults by borrowers as households face pressure from high inflation and ever-climbing interest rates.The Wall Street bank put aside $1.7bn (1.3bn) for credit losses between April and June, according to its latest financial report, marking a 54% jump from a year earlier, when provisions totalled $1.1bn. Continue reading...