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North Carolina Republicans requested justices issue ruling after dispute over electoral maps. Plus, Brittney Griner's triumphant return to the WNBA

Millions of Americans can't access a doctor or dentist or have to wait months to be seen. Let's change thatThe bad news is that the US healthcare system is broken and dysfunctional. We spend twice as much per capita as almost any other country, nearly $13,000 per year, while 85 million Americans remain uninsured or underinsured. In addition, our health outcomes are often worse. In terms of life expectancy, for example, we live far shorter lives than the people of many other industrialized nations.The system is failing ordinary Americans. On the other hand, the insurance and drug companies that dominate it have sky-high profits and their CEOs receive exorbitant compensation packages. The thousands of lobbyists those companies have on Capitol Hill are also doing very well.Bernie Sanders is a US senator and chairman of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress Continue reading...

Mohammed bin Salman said to look to repair his reputation after 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in IstanbulThe proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the American PGA Tour marks the latest maneuver by Riyadh in its campaign to repair its reputation and head off the sort of blacklisting that occurred after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent advocate for democracy in the Middle East told the Guardian.This is a merger in name only. This is really about the Saudi government throwing a premium at PGA Tour that they obviously found too overwhelmingly tempting to resist," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn). Continue reading...

The independent state legislature' theory was a terrifying threat to voting rights and never should have made it this farSuch is the dismal state of the US supreme court that it is genuinely surprising any time the court's conservative supermajority turns down an opportunity to further distort American democracy to the benefit of their partisan benefactors and enhance the prospects of enduring one-party minority rule.Moore v Harper - the case from North Carolina involving the so-called independent state legislature" (ISL) theory, the ludicrous notion that state legislatures have a free hand when it comes to election law and redistricting, unfettered by pesky state constitutions, state supreme courts or even gubernatorial vetos - was satisfyingly swatted away on Tuesday by a 6-3 majority. Continue reading...

Employees condemn workplaces that deny them rest, leaving them in pain and leading to class-action suitsWhen Zay clocked into her customer service job one recent morning, she noticed things looked different. There were no chairs in the break room. She had nowhere to sit at the table where she usually files invoices. When she reached the back of the store, there was one lonely folding chair propped against the wall. Not for employee use," read a handwritten note taped on the metal.When employees asked their boss what had happened, they learned about a new no-sitting policy. Hopefully, the business owner said, this would increase worker productivity". Continue reading...

My wife and I trust one another with our finances, but we have never opened a shared account. When it comes to a happy marriage, there is an easier way ...A few years ago I had a terrible shock: a bank statement arrived at my house with an extremely large number on it. According to this letter, I was filthy rich! I stared at the statement for a long time. Had I bought bitcoin in my sleep a decade ago? Had I cashed in that bitcoin when it was at its peak? Was I unwittingly skilled at finances?You'll be shocked to hear this, but the answer to all the above is no. The statement arrived because, well over a decade ago, I had a joint bank account with an ex who has a big corporate job, and they'd never got around to taking my name off it. (They very swiftly did when I texted them about it, however.) Continue reading...

Tentative trial date in December unlikely to hold due to complex nature of government's rules for using such secrets in court, legal experts sayFederal prosecutors in the classified documents case against Donald Trump have asked for a tentative trial date in December, but the complex nature of the US government's own rules for using such secrets in court, and expected legal challenges, could delay the trial until at least the spring of 2024.Trump was charged with retaining national defense information, including US nuclear secrets and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack, which means his case will be tried under the rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa. Continue reading...

While some analysts have argued that Putin's rule was never truly threatened, Putin's actions suggest he believed otherwiseDays after Russia extricated itself from its biggest domestic political crisis in decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin continue to deal with the reverberations. Amid the uncertainties, this much is clear: the saga has produced no winners, only losers. Belarus's president Aleksandr Lukashenko put it well, even as he drew attention to his role as peacemaker: I asked people not to make a hero out of me, neither out of me, nor out of Putin, nor out of Prigozhin."For Putin, the consequences of the turmoil are obvious. The Wagner group's unimpeded march to within 200kms (127 miles) of Moscow took Russia's military and intelligence services by surprise and exposed the Russian system writ large as utterly inept - a far cry from the image of competence and strength that Putin has cultivated assiduously since rising to the presidency in 1999. Wagner's capture of Rostov - a city of a million and the headquarters of the southern military district - and its northward march toward the capital along the M4 highway left Russia's strongman looking like a hapless bystander. That, at minimum, tarnished his image - an essential ingredient of his overweening power.Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York, and the co-author of Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War OrderDaniel R DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek Continue reading...

Many feared the Mercury star would struggle on court after her time in Russian prison. But she has already been named in the league's All-Star teamPrior to being detained in a Russian prison for 294 days, Brittney Griner was on top of the world.The 32-year-old was coming off one of the best WNBA seasons of her career. She was the Most Valuable Player runner-up, averaging 20.5 points and 9.5 rebounds for the Phoenix Mercury, who she led back to the WNBA finals for the first time since winning the title in 2014. Meanwhile, Griner was on her way to play for Russian club UMMC Ekaterinburg, who she had led to four EuroLeague titles since she started spending her WNBA off-seasons there in 2014. Continue reading...

Kristi Hadfield saved John Cunningham, a military veteran, in 2016 and years later, donated a kidney to his daughter, MollyA paramedic who once restarted a US military veteran's heart has now saved the life of that man's daughter.Kristi Hadfield's life-saving heroics in benefit of retired marine John Cunningham and his daughter Molly Cunningham Jones earned a heartwarming narrative feature from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week, which went viral among social media platforms that aggregate uplifting news stories. Continue reading...

Ray Brewer, 66, of Porterville, California, was sentenced on Monday for a green energy scam that cost investors $8.75mA California man is going to prison for running a cow dung-to-green energy scheme that authorities say was a load of manure.Ray Brewer, 66, of Porterville was sentenced Monday to six years and nine months in federal prison for a years-long scam that bilked investors out of $8.75m, according to a statement from the US attorney's office. Continue reading...

Yes, Finland has nature and saunas in abundance. But more important is an attitude I've found lacking in the UKWhen I was invited to take part in a masterclass in happiness on the shores of Finnish Lakeland, a few of my friends expressed their surprise. But, Lucy, said one, you're one of the happiest people I know. What are you hoping to learn from the Finns? I suppose she had a point. I've always been one of those annoying, glass-half-full people - not the most obvious choice for a four-day trip designed to teach me why Finnish people are consistently rated the happiest in the world. But, ever the optimist, I gladly accepted.We Britons have about 60 words for happiness: blissfulness, ecstasy, pleasure, delight ... The list is as varied as it is surprising, given that we only just scraped into the top 20 happiest countries in the world this year. Finns, who have been named the happiest nation for the sixth year running, are either onnellinen or iloinen. The latter roughly translates as joyful or glad: you might be iloinen that you're heading off on holiday. Onnellinen, on the other hand, speaks to the notion of being content with your life, rather than describing a fleeting feeling.Lucy Pearson is a freelance writer, book blogger and host of The Bondi Literary salon Continue reading...

When pilgrims don the hajj attire, they discard more than their clothes. Nationality, race and socioeconomic status are tossed to the waysideMillions of men, women and children converged on Mecca this week for the hajj pilgrimage. The Saudi government says it will be the largest crowd ever for the pilgrimage.The hajj pilgrimage is, at its core, a pilgrimage towards God. This presents a paradox of sorts. If God is beyond time and space, then what is the purpose of travelling to a particular place? Is God not present now, everywhere?Our sense of the divine Presence is blunted. We need to find it focused on a particular place and, for the Muslim, that place is the Ka'ba at Mecca, which he has faced every time he prayed and to which he now journeys in pilgrimage.There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colours, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.In my thirty-nine years on this earth, the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of All and felt like a complete human being. Continue reading...

Power use in the state reached a record high Tuesday and will continue to strain the grid as the heatwave moves northTexas is trapped under a heat dome" that is expected to bring more record highs and strain the power grid. As the heatwave expands through parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and all the way across the Gulf coast, tens of millions are facing excessive heat warnings.Houston, the largest city in Texas, hit a high of 100F (38C) today, and officials are expecting daily high temperatures in Austin to remain above 100F for the next several days. Continue reading...

The US will continue to target the Wagner group's revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence,' US treasury saysThe United States has taken fresh aim at Russia's Wagner group, imposing sanctions on companies it accuses of engaging in illicit gold dealings to fund the mercenary force.In a statement on Tuesday, the US treasury department said it slapped sanctions on four companies in the United Arab Emirates, Central African Republic and Russia it accused of being connected to the Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Continue reading...

Fans can book a stay in Ken's bedroom, enjoy a grilled meal and even go home with a pair of roller skates and a surfboardIf you've always dreamt of a life that's plastic, fantastic and pink all over, your prayers have been answered by Airbnb. Beginning in mid-July, ahead of the premiere of the Barbie movie, Barbie fans can book a stay in Ken's bedroom in Barbie's oceanside mansion in Malibu, California.Though it's technically Barbie's property, her longtime partner, Ken, is the host, according to the Airbnb listing. And he's left personal touches like a grill, pool floaties that spell his name and a barrel of workout supplements called Beefy body brine" for guests to enjoy. Continue reading...

Smoke is expected to enter New York airspace on Wednesday and Thursday, with unhealthy' levels in the state's western regionAs the wildfires in Canada continue to shroud much of the midwest in a thick haze of smoke, New Yorkers are preparing yet again for the smoke to make its way further east.On Tuesday, the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, issued a warning on social media that the smoke from Canadian wildfires is forecast to enter New York airspace on Wednesday and Thursday. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Walt Nauta remains without a Florida lawyer after the person abruptly hiked their fees just before the arraignmentDonald Trump's valet charged in the classified documents case had his arraignment on Tuesday delayed for a second time to July by a magistrate judge, after he was forced to abandon his top choice Florida lawyer over a dispute about legal fees, according to two people familiar with the matter.The valet, Walt Nauta, appeared alongside Trump when the former president pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges in federal district court in Miami this month but could not himself enter a plea - a necessary step to start trial preparation - because he lacked local counsel. Continue reading...

Parties are facing a six-month deadline to agree the final details of a deal, according to senator Ron Johnson investigating the dealThe proposed merger between the PGA and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Tours in professional golf is still in enormous flux" because the parties are facing a six-month deadline to agree the final details of a deal, according to Ron Johnson, the senior Republican senator who is investigating it.The deal has rocked the world of golf and prompted concerns among some lawmakers and human rights activists that - if the deal succeeds - it could mark the first of many takeovers of sports leagues and other cultural institutions by Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act provides a range of arrangements for pregnancy-related conditions including morning sicknessA new federal law that requires employers to provide accommodations to pregnant and postpartum employees took effect on Tuesday, providing protections to millions of eligible people.The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires that employers with more than 15 workers provide reasonable accommodations" to people who are pregnant, postpartum or have a related medical condition, NBC News reported. Continue reading...

First UN human rights investigator allowed to visit since camp was set up says men subjected to inhuman and degrading' treatmentThe US government continues to subject the 30 men held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", the first UN human rights investigator allowed to visit the camp since it was set up 20 years ago has concluded.Fionnuala Ni Aolain was granted unprecedented access as an independent UN monitor, spending four days at Guantanamo in February and meeting a range of the 34 prisoners who were then detained. The number held has now fallen to 30, including the five prisoners accused of plotting the attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11. Continue reading...

The WikiLeaks founder faces extradition and an uncertain fate in the US. Our judges and politicians must interveneA lifesize bronze statue of him appeared in Parliament Square over the weekend but the real Julian Assange could very shortly be taken, handcuffed and protesting, from Belmarsh prison in London and flown off to a high security jail in the US.The statue, created by the Italian sculptor Davide Dormino, stood alongside two others, of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, at a rally to remind us that Assange's extradition could now be very imminent. Manning, of course, was the former US soldier who leaked the damning information that Assange published through WikiLeaks; Edward Snowden waits in Russia to see whether all the talk of the sanctity of free speech in his country amounts to more than words.Duncan Campbell is a freelance writer who worked for the Guardian as crime correspondent and Los Angeles correspondent Continue reading...

Agencies failed to sound the alarm' and downplayed threats even as building was being stormed on 6 January, Senate report saysA new report detailing intelligence failures leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol said government agencies responsible for anticipating trouble downplayed the threat even as the building was being stormed, in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden's election victory.The 105-page report, issued by Democrats on the Senate homeland security committee, said intelligence personnel at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies ignored warnings of violence in December 2020. Continue reading...

US justice department watchdog cites failure to assign a cellmate and problems with surveillance cameras as factors in his deathThe disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was able to kill himself due to a combination of negligence and misconduct" by authorities at a federal jail in New York City, a US justice department watchdog concluded.Epstein hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan correctional center in Manhattan in August 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Continue reading...

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York sues cleaner's employer after freezer turned off to mute annoying alarm'A cleaner at a college in New York state accidentally destroyed decades of research by turning off a freezer in order to mute annoying alarm" sounds.The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, is suing the cleaner's employer, alleging improper training. According to a lawsuit filed in the New York supreme court in Rensselaer county earlier this month, the university is seeking more than $1m in damages, the Times Union newspaper reported. Continue reading...

Pedestrian deaths are at a 40-year high and the number of cyclists hit by cars has increased since the pandemic. The most astounding part? These are preventable tragediesLentils are a versatile legume that can be used to make a tasty stew or to incapacitate your enemy's SUV. I know this because I recently Googled How do you deflate someone's tyres?" and found a Guardian article about eco-activists deflating SUV tyres by jamming lentils into the tyre valves: Which some might see as possibly one of the most Guardian" articles ever published.For the sake of any local law enforcement readers, I would like to make clear that I didn't act on the information: I have never weaponised a lentil. I was just rage-Googling; something I am increasingly wont to do. Continue reading...

Kansas City teen, who is Black, tells ABC's Good Morning America he thought there was no way the man would shoot himRalph Yarl, the Kansas City teenager who was shot after going to the wrong house to pick up his siblings, has described his ordeal.Speaking to ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday, Yarl, who is Black, said he thought there was no way that the white man pointing the gun at him through the glass door would shoot him. Continue reading...

Stop banging on about lapdog politicians and garden parties for the powerful. Why can't we just see Evgeny as a success, as he does?Let me transport you to a 2016 house party at the Umbrian estate of Evgeny Lebedev, now Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia. Glamour model Katie Price has just twice enlivened dinner by showing the table her latest breasts. According to one report, she is subsequently escorted to the kitchen by Evgeny's former SAS bodyguards and not seen again for the weekend.According to fellow guest Joan Collins, Pricey only repeated the tit trick because Joanie requested she show it to fellow-fellow guest Boris Johnson, who was at the time foreign secretary in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's government. This was not Johnson's only trip to the estate. On a stay two years later, he met Lebedev's father, the former KGB agent Alexander, without officials present. And according to a 2021 report by uninvited guests the Italian security services, who, it was this week revealed, were monitoring the property at the time, and had been for several years - it could not be ruled out that Lebedev Sr still worked for Russian intelligence and still enjoyed the favour of Putin. And according to what a member of Italy's foreign affairs committee told a new Channel 4 documentary entitled Boris, the Lord and the Russian Spy: You should really be careful on what kind of relationship you keep with such a person."Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Book by Miles Taylor says Stephen Miller made argument people onboard ship heading to US were not protected by constitutionThe top Trump adviser Stephen Miller advocated blowing up boats of migrants with drones, according to a new book by a former homeland security official previously revealed to be the anonymous" author behind a famous warning about Trump White House extremes.In his new book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump, Miles Taylor says in April 2018 Miller advocated an attack on a ship heading for the US, saying people onboard were not protected under the constitution as they were in international waters. Continue reading...

Lordstown Motors puts itself up for sale after unresolved dispute over promised investment from Taiwan companyLordstown Motors, the US electric truck manufacturer once lauded by former president Donald Trump as the savior of a depressed Ohio town, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.The automaker, named after the town where it is based, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware and put itself up for sale after failing to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Taiwan's Foxconn. It simultaneously took legal action against Foxconn. Continue reading...

Ex-president described materials as from defense department' despite recent assertions he was referring to news clippingsDonald Trump repeatedly talked about a document on Iran that he described as having come from the defense department" in an audio recording from July 2021 that cast doubt on his recent assertions that the material he was referring to were a stack of printed news clippings.The actual audio of the recording, played publicly for the first time by CNN and obtained by the Guardian, reveals the full extent of Trump's discussion that was only partially included in the indictment and could make for a compelling presentation if deemed admissible at trial. Continue reading...

Ukraine's western allies make pointed effort of being seen to stay out of the short-lived rebellion. Plus, why one country is considering digitally cloning itself

A second Trump presidency would kiss nonpartisan criminal justice goodbye. We must protect the attorney general's independenceLast week Donald Trump said that, if re-elected, he'd appoint a real special prosecutor" to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family".In other words, if Trump is re-elected, you can kiss nonpartisan criminal justice goodbye.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Mark Trammell wrote posts in 2013 and 2014 for Liberty Counsel, a far-right group on a crusade to strip LGBTQ people of their rights'The executive director of a Republican-linked nonprofit wrote blog posts for an extremist organization in which he advocated so-called conversion therapy", the supremacy of biblical rules on marriage over man-made law", and expressed a general theocratic view that divine law as interpreted by US evangelical Christians trumps secular law.The since-deleted posts by Mark Trammell - now executive director of the self-styled civil rights group Center for American Liberty (CAL) - were written for Liberty Counsel, dubbed an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its work to ensure that Christians can continue to engage in anti-LGBT discrimination in places of business under the guise of religious liberty'". Continue reading...

Damien Boyce did get a date with a judge following the ill-considered amorous advance after the $100 muggingAn Indiana woman who was robbed at gunpoint was later asked out by the perpetrator on Facebook.Last month, Amber Beraun, who lives in Indianapolis, was checking her mailbox late at night when a man approached her with a gun, WRTV reported. Continue reading...

I don't want to be churlish about Prince William's new Homewards foundation. However ...Prince William is going to solve homelessness with a new royal foundation, launching a project called Homewards that starts with 3m for six towns and cities across the UK. It's such a short sentence to make so little sense. You can look at the housing crisis from a range of perspectives. Some people are obsessed with planning permission; some have a supply-side fetish. You don't have to chalk it all up to the ever more feudal rentier economy. Nevertheless, we could agree, I think, that dropping half a mil into a city, even if it might put a roof over a handful of heads, would barely scratch the surface.Furthermore, whatever your view on equality - and again, there's a spectrum, with some people thinking great concentrations of unearned wealth are good for motivation or whatnot - it would still, I think, strike you as piquant that a man with housing plenty beyond anything he could ever use would style himself as ambassador for the business of getting people off the streets.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

France does not expect much in the way of philanthropy from its low-profile billionaire class. Perhaps it shouldIf you scroll through the first 10 or so pages of Google results for the charitable giving of the world's on- and off-again wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, you'll find ... practically nothing.The most high-profile things that do come up when searching for evidence of the generosity of the founder and CEO of the French luxury goods behemoth LVMH look more like acts of billionaire one-upmanship. LVMH paid for the architecturally stunning Fondation Louis Vuitton museum, which showcases Arnault's collection of modern art. The rival billionaire owner of the luxury brands group Kering, Francois Pinault, has his private collection of contemporary art on display in the Bourse de Commerce in Paris's 1st arrondissement. Arnault's 200m pledge towards the reconstruction of Notre Dame came just after Pinault pledged 100m. Continue reading...

Why does the Kansas City pitcher keep getting chances to lose? Sometimes it's easy to underestimate those athletes for whom availability is a virtueThe poet Elizabeth Bishop once wrote that the art of losing isn't hard to master." The exception to that rule may be Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jordan Lyles, who has proven it takes a special kind of talent to consistently lose at the major league level. He's shown, in fact, it's possible to make a nice career out of it.While his career has mostly flown under the radar, Lyles was making headlines for the worst possible reasons in 2023. Before Saturday's 9-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, the Royals had lost all 15 games he had started this season, with Lyles himself going 0-11 in those appearances. Continue reading...

Amid clear signs of the Russian leader's vulnerability, we must think beyond helping Kyiv survive and aim for Zelenskiy to actually winThe myth of Vladimir Putin's unchallengeable power has been fatally undermined by the challenge from Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner army. By surviving - for now - Prigozhin has set a dangerous precedent for others in Russia who may wish to test their strength against the Kremlin.But the weekend's events also showed a complete failure by Russia's military, security and intelligence agencies - in fact, by the state as a whole - to deal with the obvious challenge of an armed group apparently heading for Moscow. The evident confusion in Moscow and inability to respond to Prigozhin's challenge also proves Russia is not invincible in its conflict with Ukraine. That critical weakness can only be encouraging for Ukraine in its efforts to beat back the Russian invaders. Russia, it seems, may be strong on the frontline, but it is systemically fragile and the Kremlin can be frightened into paralysis.Keir Giles works with the Russia and Eurasia programme of Chatham House and is the author of Russia's War on Everybody Continue reading...

Ferris LeBlanc died in an arson attack on the LGBTQ+ bar UpStairs Lounge and was buried by the city in a field behind a cemeteryThe family of a second world war veteran who was killed in one of the deadliest attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in the US is still trying to recover his remains 50 years later and provide him what they consider to be a proper burial.Ferris LeBlanc, who grew up in California and helped the American military defeat Nazi forces at the Battle of the Bulge, died alongside 31 other people after an arsonist set fire to a second-floor gay bar in New Orleans's French Quarter neighborhood on 24 June 1973. LeBlanc had gone to the bar, which was named the UpStairs Lounge, two days after his 50th birthday. Continue reading...

Ex-president is heard discussing a Pentagon paper detailing plans to attack Iran with people who did not have security clearancesAn audio clip has emerged of Donald Trump discussing secret documents that he had not declassified at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club in July 2021, providing new evidence that the former president knew of proper declassification procedures.The recording, obtained by CNN, includes new details from a conversation that is a critical piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of Trump over the mishandling of classified information. It includes a moment when Trump seems to indicate he was holding a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran. Continue reading...

District judge Jed Rakoff approved the very large' amount in addition to a $75m payout agreement with Deutsche BankA US judge on Monday granted preliminary approval to JPMorgan Chase's $290m settlement with women who said Jeffrey Epstein abused them and that the largest US bank ignored the late financier's sex trafficking.The approval was issued by US district judge Jed Rakoff at a hearing in Manhattan federal court. Continue reading...

We won't be deterred,' says vice-president, urging Americans to fight for LGBTQ+ equality amid rightwing attacksKamala Harris urged Americans to continue to battle for equality in the face of fresh waves of anti-LGBTQ+ action and rhetoric by conservatives, as she made a surprise visit to the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City on Monday.The US vice-president celebrated the bar's place in gay rights history while warning that many queer Americans are living in fear" as rightwing legislatures pass draconian anti-LGBTQ+ laws and Republican leaders step up hostile rhetoric and conspiracy theories, particularly aimed at transgender and non-binary people. Continue reading...

US district court judge Aileen Cannon also scheduled a hearing to start the discovery process for classified documentsThe federal judge presiding over the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump in the classified documents case ruled against the government in her first pre-trial order on Monday, denying a request from federal prosecutors to file a list of potential witnesses against the former US president under seal.The government's motion does not explain why filing the list with the court is necessary; it does not offer a particularized basis to justify sealing the list from public view," the US district court judge Aileen Cannon wrote. Continue reading...

2024 presidential hopeful schedules event in competition with Donald Trump speech to Republican womenRon DeSantis's presidential campaign is struggling in the crucial state of New Hampshire and may have made the situation worse by scheduling an event on Tuesday in competition with a speech by Donald Trump to Republican women, prompting one prominent strategist to call the move stupid", Politico reported.It's the worst strategic move he has exhibited thus far," the New Hampshire Republican strategist, Mike Dennehy, told the website. It's just stupid, actually. You don't take on the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women." Continue reading...

Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder in hearing packed with victimsThe person who killed five people at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub last year was sentenced to life in prison on Monday, after victims called the shooter a monster" and coward" who hunted down revelers in a calculated attack on a sanctuary for the LGBTQ+ community.Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty on Monday to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder in an emotional courtroom hearing packed with victims and family members just seven months after the shooting. Continue reading...

David Renner, 27, died after he stepped in front of Delta Air Lines jet taxiing to arrival gate at San Antonio airportThe Texas airport worker who was killed after being sucked into a jet engine last week took his own life, authorities have determined.Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said they did not plan to conduct an investigation into the death of 27-year-old David Renner, all but closing a case that made national news headlines over the weekend.In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 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 www.befrienders.org Continue reading...

Former top public health official, 87, stepped down as director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases last yearAnthony Fauci, who was previously the top public health official leading the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be joining the faculty at Georgetown University, in Washington DC.University officials announced in a statement on Monday that Fauci will join as a distinguished university professor" in the university's School of Medicine and McCourt School of Public Policy. Continue reading...

The United States and its allies were not involved in the weekend mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden has said.Biden said he would be in constant contact with Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy and that his team would continue assessing the fallout from the incident