US news | The Guardian

Ex-special counsel speaks to New Yorker about stunning criticism he's received for doing a duty he felt he owed to the USThe former special counsel who investigated Joe Biden's handling of classified documents has said he is stunned at the level of vitriol" that greeted him across the US's political spectrum after he declined to prosecute the president yet portrayed him in a report as an elderly man with a poor memory".I knew it was going to be unpleasant" taking on the investigation, Robert Hur told The New Yorker in a lengthy interview Friday, more than a week after he appeared at a congressional hearing in which both Democrats and Republicans heavily criticized him. But the level of vitriol - it's hard to know exactly how intense that's going to be until the rotten fruit is being thrown at you." Continue reading...

Red-boxing' allows candidates to coordinate with outside spending groups, Election Law Journal researchers sayA new study published in Election Law Journal reveals politicians' widespread exploitation of a loophole to skirt the law barring campaigns from coordinating with outside spending groups.It's a strategy that takes place not in smoke-filled rooms or encrypted chats, but out in the open. Continue reading...

Pennsylvania's Luzerne county has experienced high-profile mistakes exacerbated by high staff turnover that have been seized on by conspiracy theoristsEmily Cook remembers that she never ate her blueberry muffin.It was election day in November 2022, and Cook was the deputy director in the election office in Luzerne county, an industrial swath of north-east Pennsylvania. Soon after voting started, Cook started to hear piecemeal reports of a problem at the polls: some locations didn't have enough paper. When she got to her office, multiple phones were thrust into her hands, each with a crisis. By the time election day was over, she had forgotten about the muffin. Continue reading...

Veo Kelly, 20, turns himself in and is charged with killing of Samyia Spain and three counts of assault and weapon possessionA 20-year-old man accused of stabbing two teenage twin sisters - one fatally - outside of a deli in Brooklyn turned himself into police on Friday. A video posted to social media shows Veo Kelly being led into a police car to the sound of jeers and curse words from onlookers outraged by the crime.What if somebody did that to your sister?" one woman yelled as Kelly was put in the back of a police car. Continue reading...

While the long-term risk from a current infection is 10 times less than it was in 2020-21, a lot of people are still suffering after getting Covid early in the pandemic

Court rules 4-3 to overturn law that had allowed victims to file civil suits over sexual abuse that took place decades agoIn a split ruling that has major implications for hundreds of child sexual abuse victims, the Louisiana state supreme court has struck down a law that had allowed victims to file civil lawsuits over molestation that happened decades ago.Child molestation victims and their advocates were devastated by the 4-3 ruling from a court whose members are elected. Continue reading...

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has said the 'images of the attack were just horrible and just hard to watch'.At least 40 people have been killed and more than 140 wounded, according to unofficial reports, in the worst terror attack in Russia in years, as gunmen in combat fatigues opened fire and detonated explosives in a major concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow.

New Jersey executive testified that the UK company Autonomy made millions of dollars' worth of deals offering to fund purchasesThe British technology firm Autonomy struck millions of dollars' worth of handshake deals" through which it paid customers to buy its software, the jury in the fraud trial of its co-founder Mike Lynch has heard.Lynch, who co-founded and led Autonomy, has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. He stands accused of orchestrating a huge fraud before Hewlett-Packard's blockbuster takeover of the company in 2011. Continue reading...

Far-right Republican says motion intended as more of a warning than a pink slip' and stops short of forcing vote to eject himThe far-right Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene filed a motion to remove Mike Johnson as House speaker on Friday but did not pull the trigger on a move that would probably pitch Congress into a repeat of chaos seen last October, when the right ejected Kevin McCarthy.Speaking after Johnson relied on Democratic votes to pass a $1.2tn spending bill and avoid a government shutdown, Greene said her motion was meant as more of a warning than a pink slip" because she did not want to throw the House into chaos". Continue reading...

Plan approved by vote of shareholders in Digital World Acquisition, with which Trump's business sought to combine

This live blog is now closed. For more on Mike Gallagher's early departure from Congress, you can read our full report:

Congressman once considered a rising Republican star to leave in April, further weakening party's slim majorityThe Republican majority in the US House of Representatives is set to dwindle further with the early exit of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, once a rising star of the party.A former US marine who twice deployed to Iraq, Gallagher, 40, is a relatively moderate voice in party at the mercy of the far right. Continue reading...

Wire barrier installed under governor's border security program breached as migrants say they were forcefully pushed backA group of migrants clashed with Texas national guard troops over a breach of barbed wire fencing in El Paso on Thursday as they waited to turn themselves in to federal border agents - underscoring the power struggle between the state and federal government over immigration law enforcement.Video posted on social media showed migrants dragging away a temporary concertina wire barrier which was installed as part of Texas governor Greg Abbott's controversial Operation Lone Star publicly-funded state border security program. Continue reading...

The Israeli PM's refusal to heed US demands on food aid for Gaza is morally indefensible, hurting the president - and opening the door to Donald TrumpThe pictures out of Gaza get more harrowing with each passing day. After months of witnessing civilians grieving for loved ones killed by bombs, now we see children desperate to eat - victims of what the aid agencies and experts are united in calling an imminent man-made" famine. What matters most about these images is their depiction of a continuing horror inflicted on the people of Gaza. But they also reveal something that could have lasting implications for Israelis and Palestinians, for Americans and for the entire world. What they show, indeed what they advertise, is the weakness of the president of the United States.Joe Biden and his most senior lieutenants have been urging Israel to increase the flow of food aid into Gaza for months, in ever more insistent terms. This week the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, cited the finding of a UN-backed agency that the threat of hunger now confronted 100% of the population of Gaza", adding that this was the first time that body had issued such a warning. Earlier this month, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, told Israel it needed to do whatever it took to get humanitarian aid into Gaza: No excuses." The Biden administration is all but banging the table and demanding Israel act. Continue reading...

Senate must act quickly to keep government open while Marjorie Taylor Greene moves to oust House speaker Mike Johnson

Ex-president makes claim on Truth Social while RNC fundraising deal sees donations going to committee paying his legal billsDonald Trump claimed on Friday to have at his disposal almost $500m in cash", despite having complained about a $454m bond his lawyers say he cannot pay as he appeals a New York civil fraud judgment.In an all-capitals, early morning post to his Truth Social platform, the former president said: Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost $500m in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president." Continue reading...

Long Island Roller Rebels say Republican-led county's demand to know athletes' assigned-at-birth status is invasive and illegalFor years, New York's Long Island Roller Rebels have welcomed transgender women to strap on skates and body padding and join their women's roller derby team.Now, under an executive order issued this month by Nassau county on Long Island, if they want to book a county-run park or athletics facility they must ask each member what sex was marked on their original birth certificate, and expel any teammates who were not designated female. Continue reading...

LGBTQ+ advocates criticize decision by Oklahoma authorities not to prosecute over incident preceding trans teen's suicideAdvocates for LGBTQ+ rights expressed outrage following an announcement that no criminal charges will be filed against the Oklahoma teens involved in a high school bathroom fight with Nex Benedict, the non-binary 16-year-old who was ruled by the authorities to have subsequently taken their own life, the county district attorney said.The president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad), Sarah Kate Ellis, criticized the decision by the Tulsa county district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, who had cited as part of his decision that he deemed the incident in which Nex reported three students coming at me" as an instance of mutual combat". Continue reading...

A US resolution urging a ceasefire in Gaza linked to a hostage deal is vetoed by Russia and China in the UN security council, extending a five-month impasse in the UN over the Israel-Hamas war. Eleven council members voted for theresolution on Friday morning; Russia, China and Algeria voted against and Guyana abstained. As Russia and China are permanent members their votes counted as vetoes. Before the vote, the Russian envoy, Vasily Nebenzya, said any member voting for the resolution 'will cover yourselves in disgrace'. The US envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said after the vote that Russia and China had opposed the resolution because they could not bring themselves to support the clauses in it condemning Hamas

The company - which has only raised $5m since 2021 - benefits from meme stock status, valued not for revenue but for clicks

David Trone, a Maryland congressman, used a derogatory and offensive term for a Black person during a Capitol Hill hearing

Conservative talk radio hosts in Wisconsin tried to stop Trump in 2016 - now they're embracing the former presidentIt was March 2016. Wisconsin's Republican primary was just days away, and the GOP establishment was making a desperate last attempt to block Donald Trump from the Republican nomination.Vicki McKenna, a popular Wisconsin-based conservative talkshow host, had just spent 25 minutes grilling Trump on policy when she turned to Trump's decision to mock the physical appearance of Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi. So, no more wife-bashing?" she asked. When Trump tried to excuse the attack, she wouldn't let it go: How about this: how about wives and kids, off-limits?" Continue reading...

The lack of diversity could mean the fruit's extinction. It offers a stark warning of what could happen to other key foodsThe meeting of the World Banana Forum last week in Rome didn't make many headlines. But what was under discussion there has serious implications for everyone. The ubiquitous yellow fruit is the proverbial canary in the mine of our modern food system, showing just how fragile it is. And the current plight of the banana should serve as an invitation to us all to become champions of food diversity.When you peel a banana, you're on the receiving end of a near-miraculous $10bn supply chain. One that sends seemingly endless quantities of a tropical fruit halfway across the world to be among the cheapest, most readily available products in supermarket aisles (on average, around 12p a banana). But, incredibly, there's no inbuilt backup plan or safety net if the one variety that most of the global trade depends on starts to fail.Dan Saladino is a food journalist, broadcaster and author of Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them Continue reading...

Secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv as other world leaders set aside differences to call for end to fighting in Gaza. Plus: the report on flying saucers that sent the world of ufology' into a tailspinGood morning.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his war cabinet, a key meeting that comes as the US prepares to put forth a new UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire" and hostage deal in Gaza.What does the UN resolution say? Blinken characterized the UN resolution drafted by the US as calling for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages".How does the EU declaration differ? It calls for the unconditional release of all hostages" by Hamas, but does not make its demand for a halt to Israeli military operations dependent on a deal.What is the situation in Gaza? Mass deaths from famine are likely in the coming weeks if nothing changes. Children are already dying from hunger. Continue reading...

LAFC are off to a muddled start, Houston have a creative dynamo and Atlanta United are back in championship contentionPrepare your rage. Is it prepared? OK, great.Welcome back to the Guardian's MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone. Now, as a reminder, these aren't your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We're still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we're diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things. Continue reading...

Bishop J Douglas Deshotel issued the order after Scott Peyton had resigned from his post, but the abusive priest was not censuredA Louisiana man who resigned as a Roman Catholic deacon after a priest at whose side he served sexually molested his son has been excommunicated from the church by his local diocese, a remarkably harsh punishment that his child's abuser does not appear to have faced.Scott Peyton's excommunication from the Catholic church at the hands of bishop J Douglas Deshotel comes as the latter's Lafayette diocese has asked Louisiana's supreme court to strike down a law that retroactively and temporarily eliminated filing deadlines for lawsuits demanding damages for childhood sexual abuse from years ago. Continue reading...

To defeat Trumpism, progressives must crib from FDR's book and call out economic inequality and plutocracyWe know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have [its] forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hatred for me - and I welcome their hatred."President Franklin D Roosevelt - the cousin of a beloved former president and scion of two prominent New York families - was an unlikely tribune of economic populism. But amid the devastation wrought by the Great Depression, he understood that the only way to show millions of working Americans that he really had their back was to put a target on the back of his own class, economic elites. Continue reading...

Republican former New Jersey governor coy on whether he is considering 2024 ballot run with centrist No Labels groupChris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, who mounted a failed, explicitly anti-Trump challenge for the Republican presidential nomination, refused to rule out running on a third-party No Labels ticket, a step most observers rate more likely to damage Joe Biden than Donald Trump.Appearing on The Axe Files, a podcast hosted by the former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod, Christie was asked if he was considering a No Labels run for the White House. Continue reading...

The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has suggested the Aukus pact and Nato alliance must get into the best possible shape to increase their chances of surviving Donald Trump's potential return to the White House. Speaking after high-level talks in Australia, Cameron was careful to avoid criticising the former US president and presumptive Republican nominee for 2024, saying it was 'up to America who they choose as their president'. The comments were in response to a question about whether the election of Trump in November would affect the Aukus agreement that was sealed with the Biden administration in March last year

Like every other US sports league, baseball pushes betting on its fans at every turn. Now its biggest star is associated with a gambling fiascoThis is Major League Baseball's worst nightmare. The face of the league, its one, true international star, who this past offseason joined one of its biggest teams on a $700m contract, is associated with allegations around an illegal sports betting operation.The story so far: the Los Angeles Dodgers fired Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, the team's two-way phenom, on Wednesday after an investigation revealed $4.5m in wire transfers sent from Ohtani's bank account to a California betting organization that is now under federal investigation. Continue reading...

The league can't continue to pretend its replacement officials are up to the usual standard as errors and controversies pile upManagers are known to talk about referees. In Major League Soccer, though, the discussion around officiating has entered a new realm. The league's regular referees are sitting at home amid a lockout that shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Games are being refereed by replacement officials drafted in from the lower levels of US soccer, Turkey, Poland, Jamaica and other leagues, and people are starting to notice.CF Montreal head coach Laurent Courtois had a long list of complaints after watching his team lose 4-3 to the Chicago Fire. Twenty-two added minutes, red card on the [Chicago] goalkeeper that isn't given, their third goal came from a corner that shouldn't have been, their first goal was offside," he reeled off. Something was taken away from my guys." Continue reading...

Kneejerk criticism of regimes in Russia, China or India may make us feel better, but there's no evidence it is making the world a safer placeThe west's derisive reporting of Vladimir Putin's election victory this week was a mark of his success. It was described as an abuse of democracy, rigged", fixed" and a sham". The other candidates were shadows, while Putin's true opponents were imprisoned, exiled or dead. According to this narrative, the 87% who voted for him were mere victims of coercion, the queues of silent protesters were the stars.Putin's vote had nothing to do with democracy. It was a rerun of his 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, a global dressing-up, a rallying of support. As he celebrated his win to an adoring crowd in Red Square on Monday, we saw Putin as the new Ivan the Terrible against a backdrop of Ivan's St Basil's cathedral. He even made an offhand quip about his murdered rival Navalny. The image was of absolute power smilingly defying the enemy. Two years ago, he was supposedly crippled by western sanctions. We don't hear that now.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Shooting of 15-year-old beautiful soul' in California revives scrutiny on law enforcement abuse of youth with disabilitiesWhen Ryan Gainer was diagnosed with autism as a toddler, he was nonverbal, and his family all learned sign language to communicate with him. But after the southern California boy learned how to speak at around age four, he was a ball of energy" who never stopped talking, his older sister Rachel said.He loved saying hi" to neighbors and strangers alike, and as a young teen was known as the student who greeted everyone with a good morning" and a smile. Continue reading...

Skylar Meade and Nicholas Umphenour arrested 130 miles away as officials look into whether they killed two people while on the runA white supremacist prison gang member and his accomplice are in police custody after being on the run in Idaho, and investigators are looking into whether they killed two people while on the run.On Thursday, Idaho officials said that Skylar Meade, 31, and Nicholas Umphenour, 28, were arrested in Twin Falls - about 130 miles (209km) from where they escaped. Continue reading...

Video footage shows a hot air balloon hitting a power line next to a highway in Rochester, Minnesota. The balloon's basket fell to the ground from between 6 and 9 metres up, while the torn balloon remnants floated away. Two of the three people onboard were injured. Strong winds had pushed the balloon off course as the pilot tried to land in a field Continue reading...

Michele Morrow, the far-right Republican running to oversee public schools in the state, said she is facing radical extremists'A far-right Republican candidate running to oversee public schools in North Carolina decried extreme agendas that threaten our children's future", after being confronted by reporters over tweets in which she called for the executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.Don't let extreme agendas threaten our children's future," Michele Morrow said on social media on Thursday, posting an address in which she said she was facing the most radical extremist Democrats [that] have ever run for superintendent in the history of North Carolina". Continue reading...

Many women are cutting themselves off from great relationships because they are convinced they will not get aroused if a man can't reach something off the top shelfA few nights ago, for some reason, I got served a TikTok where (dating) actors Zendaya and Tom Holland were asked a question about their much-commented-on height difference. OK, the reason might be because I'd been scrolling TikTok for 25 minutes and earlier that day googled Zendaya's height after seeing Dune: Part Two ... but who knows.In this TikTok, Zendaya replied that her mum is taller than her dad, so tall woman/shorter man relationships were always normal to her, and she didn't even realise it was an issue until dating Tom (who also doesn't find it an issue). Continue reading...

Three Californians who can't drink dairy say they pay extra fees for alternatives at coffee chain and claim violation of civil rights lawIs charging extra for non-dairy milk an act of discrimination against people who are lactose intolerant?This is the question three Starbucks customers are raising by filing a $5m class-action lawsuit against Starbucks for making customers who do not consume dairy pay more for their lattes and Frappuccinos. Continue reading...

John Moseley of Lincoln University reinstated after review clears him of allegations he bullied Antoinette Bonnie Candia-BaileyThe president of a historically Black Missouri university has been reinstated after an independent investigation cleared him of claims that he bullied another top administrator before she killed herself this year, university leaders announced on Thursday.Lincoln University curators called Antoinette Bonnie Candia-Bailey's January death tragic in an open letter to students and alumni. They said an investigation by the law firm Lewis Rice found no evidence that John Moseley bullied her. Continue reading...

Transcript cites testimony of presidential valet - and is released by House Republicans who say they're putting it all out there'Donald Trump told his vice-president, Mike Pence, that refusing to block certification of Joe Biden's 2021 election victory at the Capitol on 6 January 2021 would be a political career killer", according to newly released testimony from a presidential valet.Mike, this is a political career killer if you do this," Trump told Pence by phone on the morning of January 6, the New York Times reported, citing a transcript of testimony to the House committee that investigated the deadly attack on Congress that unfolded later that day. Continue reading...

Retired federal judge who monitors finances of Donald Trump's business empire has been confirmed to stay in that role for three more years, judge rules

Ireland's taoiseach resigned because his political touch is weakening. But he deserves Britain's gratitudeLeo Varadkar's resignation as Fine Gael leader and Irish taoiseach was as close to a total surprise as modern politics is capable of springing. He is 45 and seems in robust health. Ireland's economy is in comparatively resilient shape. There is another year to run for the three-party coalition. And, while his political touch had seemed to desert him in the two recent referendum campaigns, Mr Varadkar had not seemed under imminent threat.In his announcement, Mr Varadkar said his reasons were personal and political, but mainly political". Absent further explanation, this implies he meant it when he said that he was no longer the best person" for the job of securing the re-election of the coalition with Fianna Fail and the Greens next March. Mr Varadkar has been grappling with healthcare and housing crises, and lost the referendums badly, feeding a slide in popularity. But it is possible the undoubted problem of burnout in modern 24/7 politics may have claimed another victim. Continue reading...