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Emails reveal staff at Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority confused at being centered by lawsuit brought by GOP-led statesNewly released emails obtained by the Student Borrower Protection Center reveal employees at a student loan service provider in Missouri expressed confusion over the state’s attorney general placing the provider at the center of a lawsuit filed to block the Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.The United States supreme court is expected to issue a ruling on a legal challenge to the president’s student debt forgiveness of up to $20,000 in the coming weeks. That challenge – filed by the Missouri attorney general and five other Republican-led states – and another challenge filed by the conservative advocacy organization, Job Creators Network, made it to the supreme court. Continue reading...

May we all one day have as much courage – in life and in death – as Daniel EllsbergIn All the President’s Men, the classic film on the downfall of President Richard Nixon, the name “Daniel Ellsberg” is not uttered once. And what a shame that is. Because for all the journalistic heroics of Woodward and Bernstein, it’s possible that there was no one more responsible for the only resignation of a president in American history than Daniel Ellsberg.Ellsberg, the legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower, passionate anti-nuclear activist and staunch press freedom advocate, passed away at the age of 92 on Friday. History should remember him as one of the 20th century’s most consequential figures. But we should also be reminded that his own story is also so cinematic, it’s almost hard to believe. Continue reading...

The sauna-set entertainment known as Aufguss has long been popular in Europe. Will Americans warm to the art form?In the “event sauna” of the Awana Spa in Las Vegas, tourists in bathing suits were taking selfies on wood benches lined with neon lights. The sauna was heated to 175F (79C) and the show was about to begin.A tattooed and bikini-clad “sauna meister” dropped ice infused with essential oils on to the hot stones at the center of the sauna. As pop music pounded through the sauna speakers, she began to wave a towel in elaborate patterns above her head, wafting hot, scented air directly at each cluster of audience members. Continue reading...

A man harassing a nine-year-old girl for not looking feminine enough shows the war on trans people is also a war on all womenIt was supposed to be a fun school sports event for young kids. Instead it turned into an altercation that went viral and made international news. A nine-year-old girl was getting ready to take her turn at a shot put event in British Columbia, Canada, when a belligerent 67-year-old man called Josef Tesar intervened and allegedly accused the girl of being a boy or transgender. The girl had short hair, you see, and apparently didn’t fit Tesar’s precise specifications of femininity. Since she didn’t immediately pass the Tesar test, he wanted proof that the girl was born female before she was allowed to continue. The competition was disrupted and the girl ended the day in tears. Continue reading...

Independent Women’s Voice turned resources to fighting trans rights in 10 key swing states, documents revealIn the months leading up to the 2022 US midterm elections, hundreds of thousands of Facebook users in swing states were targeted with advertisements asking them to sign the Women’s Bill of Rights – a relatively innocuous-sounding initiative presented as a crusade for women’s empowerment. “The Real Fight For Women”, read one version featuring a woman looking down at a cityscape and flexing her biceps. “We know what a woman is,” proclaimed another, its text hovering over a closeup of the Statue of Liberty.But the Women’s Bill of Rights is a weapon in a war against gender equity being waged by a conservative non-profit women’s group. Independent Women’s Voice, or IWV, lobbies against the equal rights amendment, criticizes public school curriculum and opposes government-funded parental leave. Recently, they have turned their resources to fighting transgender rights. And, according to documents shared with the Guardian by watchdog True North Research, IWV budgeted nearly $6m to promote anti-trans messaging in 10 swing states in advance of last year’s midterms. Continue reading...

Mix of trusted advisers making up campaign team gives an insight into president’s strategy as he runs for a second termJoe Biden, who early into his presidency said he intended to seek a second term, formally announced he was running for re-election in April, exactly four years after he entered the 2020 presidential race.The president has swiftly assembled a mix of trusted advisers on a campaign team that paints a picture of his 2024 strategy, which includes engaging Latino communities and touting his first-term achievements. Continue reading...

Whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers showing that the American public had been misled about the Vietnam warDaniel Ellsberg, who has died aged 92, was the most important whistleblower of our times. His 1971 leaking of what became known as the Pentagon Papers showed conclusively that virtually everything the American public had been told by its leaders about the Vietnam war, from its origins to its current conduct, was false.The leak itself did not end the war, and Ellsberg regretted not having come forward years earlier. He spent the rest of his life as a peace activist, encouraging others on the inside to reveal government malfeasance, and supporting those who did, including the 2003 GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. But his leaks did result in a landmark decision in favour of freedom of the press, and, ironically, led to the downfall of the US president Richard Nixon. It is not unreasonable to set Ellsberg’s leak alongside President John F Kennedy’s assassination as the ground zero of today’s distrust of politics. Continue reading...

Uefa is troubled by the trend of US investors targeting multiple clubs, but they have reaped limited rewards so farIt is a trend that a few months ago was described by Uefa’s European Club Footballing Landscape report as “being fuelled predominantly by United States-based investors” and having “the potential to pose a material threat to the integrity of European club competitions”. Yet Aleksander Ceferin’s admission that European football’s governing body is considering a rule change after Manchester United’s takeover talks raised issues around potential conflict of interests seemed to indicate it is a threat Ceferin feels the game must embrace.Uefa’s report published in February estimated that 6,500 players from 195 clubs – a 75% increase in less than three years – were employed by 27 multi-club investment groups, a third of which are based in the US. It is too early to say whether this is a passing fad, but John Textor – whose Eagle Football Holdings has shares in Lyon, Crystal Palace, the Brazilian side Botafogo and the Belgian club RWD Molenbeek – believes the model is here to stay. Continue reading...

Trump is often described as ‘authoritarian’. But that doesn’t really capture the more alarming aspects of his movementThe Washington Post calls Donald Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian”.That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce. Charging leakers. Continue reading...

The oldest president in history is ditching his Covid-imposed ‘basement strategy’ for the most gruelling campaign of his lifeIt became known as the “basement strategy”. As the coronavirus pandemic raged outside, presidential candidate Joe Biden addressed the nation from a makeshift studio under his Delaware home, avoiding off-the-cuff gaffes and allowing rival Donald Trump to self-destruct.But three years on, with lockdowns lifted and America mostly back to a new version of normal, Biden knows that speeches on glitchy Zoom calls or in empty auditoriums will not be enough. The president, who at 80 is the oldest in American history, is facing the final, most gruelling campaign of his life. Continue reading...

The shelter Susana ‘Susy’ Barrales runs in Tijuana has become a destination for trans women fleeing persecution and looking for support and healthcareSusana “Susy” Barrales cuts a dash in downtown Tijuana, exchanging hellos with neighbors, friends and acquaintances whenever she heads out from her modest office, where the walls are adorned with framed awards from local government entities praising her advocacy work.The shelter she runs in the city on the Mexico border with California has become a destination for many from other Mexican cities and countries in Central America, and beyond, who hear about it on the migration grapevine. Continue reading...

Many liberals celebrated when Hamtramck, Michigan, elected a Muslim-majority council in 2015 but a vote to exclude LGBTQ+ flags from city property has soured relationsIn 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic-but-meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. Continue reading...

Barry Jones pleads guilty to lesser charge in deal to overturn his conviction for murder of four-year-old girl in 1994An Arizona man who spent nearly three decades on death row before the reversal of his conviction over the death of a four-year-old girl has been freed from prison.Barry Jones’s release, ordered on Thursday, came after a Tuscon-area state court judge approved a deal between prosecutors and him which involved his pleading guilty to a lesser murder charge. According to prosecutors, a medical review of the case failed to conclude that Jones caused the girl’s fatal injury, and his pleading guilty to second-degree murder involves his failure to adequately seek emergency care for the victim. Continue reading...

Federal judge issues order stopping ban on puberty blockers and hormones due to take effect on 1 July.A US federal judge on Friday issued an order stopping an Indiana ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors from taking effect as scheduled 1 July.Indiana’s American Civil Liberties Union sought the temporary injunction in its legal challenge of the Republican-backed law, which was enacted this spring amid a national push by politically conservative legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights. Continue reading...

President makes speech in Connecticut at summit marking passage of tougher gun control law last yearThe Minneapolis police force use excessive force and discriminate against marginalized groups, including Black and Native Americans and people with behavioral issues, attorney general Merrick Garland said as he announced the findings of the justice department’s investigation following George Floyd’s death.“We found that MPD … engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black and Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protected speech and discriminating against people with behavioral disabilities and … when responding to them in crisis,” Garland said.The city council approved the court-enforceable agreement on Friday on an 11-0 vote, but not before several members expressed harsh criticism of the Minneapolis police department and other city leaders over the years.“The lack of political will to take responsibility for MPD is why we are in this position today,” council member Robin Wonsley said. Continue reading...

Merrick Garland announces findings of Department of Justice investigation into department after Floyd’s killing by officersThe US attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Friday announced that the 2020 murder of George Floyd was part of a “pattern or practice” of excessive force used by the department and years of unlawful discrimination against Black Americans.Garland held a press conference to reveal the findings of the two-year investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ) into the conduct and training of the Minneapolis police department (MPD) both before and after George Floyd’s death at the hands of officers in the city in 2020. Continue reading...

Analyst who leaked studies showing US government knew the Vietnam war was un-winnable became activist and writerDaniel Ellsberg, a US government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in world politics when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US government knowledge of the futility of the Vietnam war, has died. He was 92. His death was confirmed by his family on Friday.In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Saying he had been given three to six months to live, he said he had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy and had been assured of hospice care. Continue reading...

Jurors to debate death penalty for Robert Bowers, 50, who had admitted killing worshippers at start of trialA truck driver who expressed hatred of Jews has been convicted of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath and fatally shooting 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.The guilty verdict on Friday against Robert Bowers was a foregone conclusion. Bowers’s lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on 27 October 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in the US in American history. Continue reading...

Crypto exchange confirms failure to obtain Dutch licence and French inquiry as problems mount in US tooBinance has suffered setbacks in two European markets after it announced plans to quit the Netherlands and came under investigation by French prosecutors.The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange said it was leaving the Dutch market after it failed to obtain a licence from the country’s central bank. Continue reading...

Both men sing from the Berlusconi songsheet, denouncing charges against them as partisan attacks while we pay the priceThe three tenors of showman populism, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi, reached the top through a combination of telegenic clownishness, “I alone can fix it” braggadocio and a shared strain of narcissistic nationalism – and now one faces the judgment of the courts, another has fled the judgment of his peers, while the third contemplates the judgment of the heavens.In the week Berlusconi met his maker – doubtless with a wide, permatanned smile and an inquiry as to where one might find the most winsome angels, only to be directed towards the downward escalator – Trump and Johnson respectively contemplated a charge sheet and a verdict of the earthly variety. Both are stunning documents.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Push in new contract include air conditioning in vehicles, pay increases for part-time workers and end to two-tier wagesAbout 340,000 workers at the shipping giant UPS, represented by the Teamsters, have voted to authorize a strike when their current five-year contract expires on 31 July if a new tentative agreement isn’t reached with the company by then.Voting began last week at local union halls around the US. Workers voted 97% in favor approving the strike authorization. Negotiations on the national agreement between UPS and the Teamsters began in early May 2023 and remain ongoing. Continue reading...

Former president notes tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over effects of racism, prompting pushback from bothBarack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.On a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”. Continue reading...

Homes in Perryton, 110 miles north of Amarillo, reduced to rubble and power was cut in the aftermath of the stormSearch and rescue crews will resume searching on Friday for at least one person missing in the north Texas town of Perryton after it was struck by one or more tornados that killed three people and sent up to 100 more to the hospital on Thursday evening, some in critical condition.The town remained without power the day after a huge twister inflicted damage to homes and a mobile home park. Continue reading...

Lawmakers showed up for work Thursday after compromising with Democrats on abortion and gun safety measuresEnding a walkout that held up key bills for six weeks, Republicans showed up for work in the Oregon senate on Thursday after wresting concessions from Democrats on measures covering abortion, transgender healthcare and gun rights.The lawmakers’ walkout – the longest in state history and the second-longest in the United States – came as several statehouses around the nation have become ideological battlegrounds, including in Montana and Tennessee. Continue reading...

UN bans aimed at transgressive regimes always hurt the poor and innocent, leaving rulers such as Kim Jong-un unscathedThis week, the BBC has been carrying reports from the world’s most authoritarian and impenetrable state. The headline: its people are starving. Communist North Korea is destitute, even as capitalist South Korea is one of Asia’s most prosperous nations. It starved in the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s, and was rescued by China. But the government closed the border during Covid and it has barely reopened, hampering the import of Chinese foodstuff. UN experts reckon that North Korea can this year feed barely three-quarters of its 26 million people at survival level. The BBC has spoken to people who have witnessed neighbours dying of starvation in their homes and on the streets. More than half a million perished in the 1990s famine. This could be repeated.What should Britons do about this, beyond offering distant sympathy? Hazel Smith, Korea expert at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, regularly points out that when a country is so set on xenophobic “self-sufficiency” and spends wildly on defence, it suffers massive economic distortions. Food shortage is “baked into the … system”. China’s exports to North Korea were reportedly down 81% in 2020. Shops are empty of Chinese food and beggars are everywhere.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Effort requires organizers to collect about 70,000 signatures from Atlanta registered voters in 60 daysA broad coalition of groups in Atlanta has launched a referendum to give voters a chance to say whether they want the controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” built in a forest southeast of the city.The effort requires organizers to collect about 70,000 signatures from Atlanta registered voters in 60 days. Then the question of the city canceling its agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the $90m center can be added to municipal election ballots in November. Continue reading...

Their button-up shirts and chinos have prompted mockery but experts say the far-right group is becoming increasingly violentFor years, there has been an element of the ridiculous to Patriot Front and their rallies, which can look like a sort of cosplay version of a white nationalist movement.At a Patriot Front demonstration in Washington in May, more than a hundred Patriot Front members marched along the National Mall wearing matching outfits of beige or brown chinos and blue button-up shirts. Continue reading...

Trump’s latest indictment has again forced the Republican field to defend the ex-president while running against himDonald Trump is contending with grave criminal charges for violating the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice but the immediate political damage has, jarringly, been felt most acutely not by the defendant but his other rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.The indictment of a presidential candidate once upon a time would have been a major vulnerability in a Republican primary contest. Damaging details about the illegal activity might have been seized upon as examples of unfitness for office and the legal battle seen as a distraction. Continue reading...

The New York writer who last month won a $5m jury verdict against Donald Trump is suing him again, this time for $10m. Plus: three dead in Texas tornadoGood morning.The legal woes of Donald Trump continue to grow: a federal judge has set a date for a second defamation trial brought by E Jean Carroll, who last month won a $5m jury verdict against the former president for sexual abuse and defamation.In Miami, Trump faces 37 federal criminal charges over his alleged mishandling classified documents – including 31 violations of the Espionage Act.In New York, the Manhattan district attorney has charged Trump with covering up hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases, and in a town hall the day after the $5m verdict, he called Carroll’s account “fake” and labeled her a “whack job”. Continue reading...

Our trial exposed a brutal system for targeting people and deporting them to Jamaica. It was worth it knowing we kept some of them safeOn a cold November afternoon in 2021, the three of us used metal lock-ons to chain ourselves together and block a quiet, private road near Gatwick airport, outside Brook House immigration removal centre, to prevent people being forcibly removed to Jamaica.We took action in solidarity with and support of people the government was trying to rip away from their children, partners and loved ones, while some were also physically resisting their deportation inside Brook House. We were arrested and charged with causing a public nuisance. We denied that and told the jury we felt we had a moral responsibility to act. The jury members appear to have empathised. They acquitted us. That speaks volumes.Griff Ferris is a researcher and campaigner; Rivka Micklethwaite is a trainee midwife; and Callum Lynch provides legal advice and information to members of the public at a human rights organisationDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Discussions with All3Media come amid plan to move away from reliance on TV advertisingITV has confirmed it is in talks to buy All3Media, which owns the production companies behind hit shows such as Fleabag, The Traitors, and Wild Isles, as it seeks to expand its studio arm.The FTSE 250 broadcaster is in talks with All3Media’s joint owners, the US media companies Warner Bros Discovery and Liberty Global, it said on Friday in a stock market announcement. Continue reading...

The Belizean-American rider is determined to make elite cycling reflect a sport that is popular with Black and Brown people on a recreational basisI started cycling seriously while living out in Colorado where I witnessed the droves of commuters on two wheels heading to work (especially on Bike to Work Day). Living in New York I’ve caught the buzz again. I recently finished my first Five Boro Bike Tour, where I cruised 44 miles through the city’s boroughs with 32,000 other cyclists. I was hooked.Two things struck me that day: the colorful display of kits, and something more interesting – the number of Black and Brown cyclists from a wide range of backgrounds. Not that the latter was a complete surprise, during my year in New York, Black and Brown cycling groups orbiting around Prospect Park have become a familiar sight. They include the Good Co Bike Club, a Black-led cycling club formed in 2020 to provide joy for riders of all backgrounds. By creating accessibility and opportunities to cycle, Good Co Bike Club has turned into a community hub for riders of color. Continue reading...

Advice book Go Home For Dinner, co-authored with daughter Charlotte Pence Bond, to be published by Simon & SchusterThe former vice-president and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Mike Pence will release a new book in November: a compilation of “advice on how faith makes family and family makes a life”, entitled Go Home for Dinner.Simon & Schuster announced the new project, from a devoutly Christian politician famous for refusing to dine alone with any woman who is not his wife. Continue reading...

Vegemite. The Australian staple saltier than the Bonneville Flats has long been considered an acquired taste. To mark Vegemite Day, staff at the US embassy in Australia unfamiliar with the delicacy have bravely tried the black gold. The results speak for themselves Continue reading...

The ex-president is being sued for $10m by the New York writer who already was awarded $5m in an earlier trial against TrumpA federal judge has set a date for a second defamation trial brought by E Jean Carroll, the New York writer who last month won a $5m jury verdict against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said the civil trial, in which Carroll is seeking at least $10m in damages, will begin on 15 January 2024, “unless this case has previously been entirely disposed of”. Continue reading...

No charges filed against ex-president or Trump Organization in New York inquiry into potential golf-course tax irregularitiesMake that one less legal headache for Donald Trump.A suburban New York prosecutor said on Thursday that she has closed a multi-year investigation that focused in part on whether the twice-indicted former president or his company misled authorities to reduce taxes on properties they own. Continue reading...

Governor’s office says over 4kg of drug seized in city since May – enough to cause deadly overdoses of more than 2m peopleCalifornia law enforcement officials have seized enough fentanyl, in San Francisco alone, to cause the deadly overdoses of more than 2 million people since the beginning of May. The amount, over four kilos, was enough to kill the entire city’s population three times over, the governor’s office announced on Thursday.The seizures were made by California highway patrol (CHP) officers and are a part of Gavin Newsom’s plan to address the spread of fentanyl, blight and public safety in the city where 268 people died from accidental overdoses in the first four months of 2023, according to a report from the city’s medical examiner. All of the fentanyl was found in and around San Francisco’s historic and long-embattled Tenderloin neighborhood. Continue reading...

Catholic archdiocese gives New Orleans DA files on Lawrence Hecker, accused of raping child decades agoThe second-oldest archdiocese in the US has handed over “voluminous documents” involving a retired Roman Catholic priest – and accused serial predator – to the New Orleans district attorney’s office as prosecutors investigate an allegation that the cleric manhandled and raped a child decades earlier.The district attorney, Jason Williams, revealed the archdiocese’s provision of the documents after a federal court hearing on Thursday centering on whether those materials should be more widely released as a matter of public safety and interest. Continue reading...

Los Angeles mayor says Texas governor ‘using human beings as pawns’ amid reports migrants were not given food or drink on busGovernor Greg Abbott of Texas’s decision to bus migrants to Los Angeles this week has been decried as a “despicable stunt”, as advocates in California reported that the group was not offered food during the 23-hour trip.On Wednesday, 42 migrants, including 15 youth and three babies, arrived at Union Station in downtown LA, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights-Los Angeles (Chirla), who met the group when they arrived. The travelers he spoke to came from Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and Haiti, and one came from China, he said, adding some told him they had been on the bus for nearly a day without any food or drink. Continue reading...