by Chris Stein in Washington, Martin Pengelly in New on (#6BTC8)
Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has said that without action the US will cease to be able to pay its debts around 1 JuneNegotiations for a deal to raise the US debt ceiling and thereby avoid a default with potentially catastrophic consequences for the world economy briefly resumed Friday before concluding with no progress cited by either side.Republicans had returned to the bipartisan talks with the White House on Friday evening, hours after negotiations had come to an abrupt stop earlier in the day. Continue reading...
Critics decry ‘egregious’ abuse after Fisa court shows repeated violations related to vast foreign intelligence databaseFBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when they searched a vast repository of foreign intelligence for information related to the January 6 insurrection and racial justice protests in 2020, according court order released Friday.FBI officials said the thousands of violations, which also include improper searches of donors to a congressional campaign, predated a series of corrective measures that started in the summer of 2021 and continued last year. But the problems could nonetheless complicate FBI and justice department efforts to receive congressional reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance program that law enforcement officials say is needed to counter terrorism, espionage and international cybercrime. Continue reading...
Scottie Scheffler, Corey Conners and Viktor Hovland share the 36-hole lead while Brooks Koepka’s 66 was the best of day twoHayden Buckley has only played in one major championship before. The 27-year-old from Chattanooga, Tennessee did pretty well in it: a tie for 14th at last year’s US Open. He’s had a couple of fine recent finishes too: a top-ten finish at the Texas Open and a tie for fifth at the RBC Heritage. He appears to be taking that good form into the PGA. A 69 yesterday, and after a slow start today with bogeys at 11 and 12, he’s responded with three straight birdies between 13 and 15. He’s -2 overall.The Michael Block party continues. One of the ‘PGA Team of 20’ club professionals in the field this week, the 46-year-old is taming the Oak Hill tiger right now. He calmly bangs his tee shot at the short par-four 14th down the middle, chips to eight feet, and tidies up for his third birdie of the morning. He’s a shot off the lead! Meanwhile opening par for DJ, whose 12-foot birdie putt on 10 lips out on the right. So close to a share. Continue reading...
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a non-profit order of queer and trans ‘nuns’, were left out after objection from conservativesLA Pride has pulled out of an annual Pride Night hosted by the Dodgers after the team disinvited a non-profit drag group from the event.Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Dodgers rescinded an invitation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a well-known San Francisco order of queer and trans ‘nuns’ that has existed since the 1970s, amid opposition from conservative Catholics. The group, which does does charitable and protest work in addition to its street drag show performances, was set to receive an award during a ceremony before a 16 June game against the San Francisco Giants. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Nina Jankowicz, who is suing over campaign of falsehoods, says ‘if Fox isn’t brought to account, it will not stop’The woman suing Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News for defamation in the wake of the $787m settlement with the voting machine company Dominion has accused the media giant of waging a campaign of “vitriolic lies” against her that amounts to a threat to democracy.Nina Jankowicz sued Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation for allegedly damaging her reputation as a specialist in conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns. The lawsuit was lodged in a Delaware state court exactly a year after she resigned as executive director of a new Department of Homeland Security unit combatting online disinformation. Continue reading...
The NFL legend, actor and social activist has died aged 87. In a football career spanning 1957 through 1965 he led the Cleveland Browns to their last NFL title and shattered league records before retiring to become an actor, appearing in more than 30 films. Here we look back at his life and career.
Draft law, which governor has promised to sign, also puts restrictions on gender-affirming care for minorsThe Nebraska state legislature on Friday approved a 12-week abortion ban and restrictions on gender-affirming care for children in a move so contentious that lawmakers on both sides have said they may be unable to work together in the future.Conservative lawmakers wrangled just enough votes to end a filibuster and pass a bill with both measures. The Republican governor, Jim Pillen, who pushed for the bill and met with various lawmakers to shore up support, has promised to sign it into law. Continue reading...
A trend on the app, which started spreading in 2021, challenged users to steal cars made by the automakers using a USB cableHyundai and Kia have agreed to settle a consumer class-action lawsuit worth $200m over rampant thefts of the vehicles because of a TikTok trend.In February, the Korean automakers said they would offer software upgrades to 8.3m US vehicles to help curb a stark increase in thefts using a method popularized on TikTok and other social media channels. Continue reading...
Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that prohibits hormone-related therapy to treat gender dysphoria in minorsThe parents of three transgender children in Florida are trying to get a federal judge to block a new law that bans gender-affirming care for minors, a signature policy of Republican governor Ron DeSantis as he nears the official launch of his presidential campaign.US district judge Robert Hinkle on Friday heard arguments from an attorney representing the three families in a case that argues they are being stripped of the right to make medical decisions for their children. Continue reading...
by Chris Stein (now) and Joanna Walters (earlier) on (#6BT4S)
Official indicates lack of agreement on budget issues, saying' ‘talks will be difficult’Negotiations between representatives of Joe Biden and Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy to raise the US debt ceiling ahead of the 1 June deadline for a potential default have broken down, according to reporters at the US Capitol.ABC News says that Garret Graves, who McCarthy appointed earlier this week to negotiate with the White House, described the talks as on “pause”: Continue reading...
Proposed law follows last year’s Ticketmaster fiasco for fans seeking to attend singer’s Eras US tourMassachusetts lawmakers have introduced a so-called “Taylor Swift bill” in an attempt to protect ticket buyers from surprise fees following the Ticketmaster fiasco last fall which saw ticket prices for Swift’s 2023 Eras tour rise over $22,000 on resale sites.The Democratic state representative Dan Carey and the state senator John Velis have introduced An Act Ensuring Transparent Ticket Pricing, a bill that would require ticket sales companies such as Ticketmaster and SeatGeek to fully disclose the total cost of tickets prior to purchase, WFTX reported. Continue reading...
Shane Lamond arrested for allegedly warning Enrique Tarrio that law enforcement had a warrant for himA Washington DC police officer was arrested on Friday on charges that he lied about leaking confidential information to Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio and obstructed an investigation after group members destroyed a Black Lives Matter banner in the nation’s capital.An indictment alleges that Metropolitan police department lieutenant Shane Lamond, 47, of Stafford, Virginia, warned Tarrio, then national chairman of the far-right group, that law enforcement had an arrest warrant for him related to the banner’s destruction. Continue reading...
Veteran civil rights activist says ‘what happened to Jordan was a crime’ as mourners gather to remember man, 30, killed on subwayJordan Neely was “screaming for help”, the Rev Al Sharpton told friends, family members and civil rights leaders gathered to mourn the former Michael Jackson impersonator who died on the New York subway system.Neely, who had been struggling with mental illness and lacking housing in recent years, was killed when passengers restrained him. A fellow subway rider pinned him to the floor of a subway car in a chokehold that lasted several minutes, and Neely’s death has set off a fresh debate about vigilantism, homelessness, racism and public safety in the city. Continue reading...
After a new study revealing the extent to which developing nations have been damaged, there is no excuse for further delayThe truth is out, and it lays bare big oil’s plunder of the environment for commercial greed. Academics now estimate that the 21 top fossil fuel behemoths are liable for an estimated US$209bn annual reparation bill arising from their exploitation.But what’s more scandalous is that the governments and private investors that have set off an existential timebomb may not be held accountable, despite compelling evidence that they were complicit in the turbocharged, steroidal race for industrial expansion and dominance.André Wright is a former news and opinion editor at the Jamaica GleanerDo 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...
The ‘remoaner elite’, the civil service, the BBC, universities, unions, refugees: anything is blamed but Brexit itselfIt lasts no more than a second, but it is a moment for the ages. Interviewed on BBC Newsnight on Monday, Nigel Farage made a confession that, by rights, should end the debate that has split this country down the middle for much of the last decade. A month ahead of the seventh anniversary of the 2016 vote that took Britain out of the European Union, Farage said three words of striking simplicity and truth: “Brexit has failed.”You can watch the clip over and over, for it is something to behold. Here is the arch-Brexiter himself, the man who dedicated his life to the cause of rupture from the EU, admitting it has been a disaster. Of course, as we shall see, he and his fellow Brexiters do not blame that failure on the idea itself, but it’s the admission that counts. It offers grounds for modest celebration: now, at last, the contours of an emerging national consensus are visible, as remainers and leavers alike can join in agreement that this thing has not worked. And yet it comes at a price, one that also became darkly visible this week.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistJoin Jonathan Freedland and Marina Hyde for a Guardian Live event in London on Thursday 1 June. Book in-person or livestream tickets here Continue reading...
Salman Rushdie gave a surprise speech at the Pen America gala in New York City, his first public appearance since he was attacked on stage last August. Rushdie joked that it was 'nice to be back – as opposed to not being back, which was also an option'. The author, whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and torso as he was about to give a lecture in western New York
Florida governor, expected to announce run soon, tells fundraising event Trump does not have ‘serious chance’ of being electedThe rightwing governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, reportedly told top donors only he, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are “credible” candidates for president in 2024 – and he is the only Republican who can beat the incumbent Democrat.“You have basically three people at this point that are credible in this whole thing,” DeSantis said during a call on Thursday run by a fundraising committee, the New York Times said, adding that a reporter was listening. Continue reading...
Republican Mike Gallagher, leading delegation to London, says world is in ‘window of maximum danger’Beijing wants to “subordinate and humiliate” the west, according to the Republican chair of a newly created China committee in Congress who is leading a delegation of hawkish US politicians on a two-day trip to the UK.Mike Gallagher argued that China, under President Xi Jinping, believed in “the inevitable demise of capitalism”, and said he hoped to better understand how far British politicians of all parties shared his committee’s concerns. Continue reading...
Aric Hutchinson says Samantha Miller ‘wanted the night to never end’ before she was killed by an alleged drunk driverThe widower of the woman killed by an alleged drunk driver on their wedding night has spoken about losing his wife, describing her as an “amazing human being who should never have been taken”.In an interview with ABC, Aric Hutchinson broke down as he struggled to recall the incident that killed Samantha Miller, 34, and severely injured him moments after they left their wedding reception in South Carolina last month. Continue reading...
Fani Willis prepared her team for remote work during that time, expected to be the window for indictmentsThe Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia signalled Thursday that charging decisions in the case may come starting the final week of July, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.The indication from the prosecutor, Fani Willis, first came during a meeting with her full team where she told them to make preparations to work remotely during the final week of July and through the first weeks of August, the people said. Continue reading...
The decaying parliament building – and the hypocrisy of those who should be fixing it – says a lot about a nation that’s seen better daysBritain increasingly feels like a terribly old country. We keep hearing its pipework hasn’t been properly overhauled since the Victorian age, so its own sewage laps at its shores and courses through its rivers. Earlier this month we crowned our oldest ever new monarch, a man who looked a picture of melancholy pretty much throughout, even if media sycophancy made it verboten to categorise the mood as anything other than joyous renewal. The country is overwhelmingly governed in the interests of older voters at the expense of the young. And this week, the latest update on the literally crumbling Houses of Parliament warned that the building is so comprehensively knackered it could be destroyed before renovation is agreed upon, let alone begun. This would be the only conceivable occasion on which this cohort of politicians could be described as bringing the house down.Even the sewage crisis has been folded into the nostalgia myths that some find more comfortable than dealing with the present. “I remember as a child in south Wales swimming in sewage,” reminisced the Conservative MP Damian Green this week. “Jackson’s Bay in Barry used to be a sewage outlet where we all went and paddled and swam...”Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnistThis June, Marina Hyde will join fellow columnists at three Guardian Live events in Leeds, Brighton and London. Readers can join these events in person and the London event will be livestreamed Continue reading...
Rourke’s propulsive basslines worked in perfect tandem with Johnny Marr’s guitar parts to create the Smiths’ singular sound• Andy Rourke, bassist for the Smiths, dies aged 59
by Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans on (#6BQV3)
A worker at the rental chain demanded to see the American man’s passport, apparently unaware that the island is part of the USThe US rental car giant Hertz has apologized and pledged to retrain its staff after an employee denied a Puerto Rican customer a prepaid vehicle on the mistaken belief that he was from a foreign country and needed a passport.During the encounter with the customer at New Orleans’s Louis Armstrong international airport, the Hertz employee also called over a law enforcement officer even though Puerto Rico has been a US territory since 1898 and has a (non-voting) member of Congress, according to a stunning report the CBS correspondent David Begnaud published on Twitter and Instagram late Saturday. Continue reading...
Ex-prisoners get caught up in the state’s accelerated voter fraud enforcement after officials help them enroll to voteJust as it had been all day, courtroom 3C at the Alachua county courthouse was mostly empty when members of the jury filed in on Tuesday evening. John Boyd Rivers, a mason who once laid the bricks of the courthouse, stood up to hear whether or not they would convict him on two counts of voter fraud.Judge James Colaw read the verdict on the first charge: not guilty. Then he read the verdict on the second: guilty. Rivers stood quietly as he listened, a small hole visible in the red long-sleeve shirt he wore to court over khaki pants and work boots. Continue reading...
For all the fine words, the current piecemeal system of donations is not enough to sustain Ukrainian efforts to retake their landAs you read this, the young men and women of Ukraine’s newly trained and equipped brigades are preparing for their spring – more likely summer offensive operations. Despite huge pressure from their allies to demonstrate that the equipment and ammunition that have been committed can be converted into serious territorial gains, Ukrainian officials are at pains to assert that this coming campaign is unlikely to be decisive. Instead, gains are more likely to be slow and incremental than sweeping and extensive.Over the past year Ukraine has been forced to fight a war of attrition at truly punishing cost. Wars of attrition such as this are never quick, and it is naive to believe that it will be over soon. There is no room for the idea that “it will all be over by Christmas”; it won’t. And probably not the Christmas afterwards either. Sustaining this effort into the medium- (one to three years) and long-term ( two to 10 years) will require a prodigious industrial effort, and a step-change in the supply of military equipment, far greater than what we have already seen. Whatever the situation is at the end of this summer’s series of operations, Russia is not going away. The threat from the east will persist.Do 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...
Taylor Swift has flagged her sympathies with this community, so why is her Eras tour visiting US states enacting repressive laws without comment?Look what an overly aggressive security guard made Taylor Swift do. Over the weekend, the singer won praise for calling out a guard, mid-performance, who was being rough with a female fan.However, as a queer Swiftie, I can’t help but wish she would channel that same energy and her enormous platform into denouncing the record number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws being introduced across the US. Since starting in March, Swift’s Eras tour has taken her to numerous states that have ushered in some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ+ bills in decades, including Florida, Tennessee and Texas. Yet the singer has stayed silent. Continue reading...
White former marine accused of killing Black street performer has raised more than $2m for his legal defense fundWhen New York City authorities charged Daniel Penny with second-degree manslaughter after placing fellow subway rider Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold, his case quickly became a flashpoint in rightwing discourse on crime and vigilantism – and the broader culture war playing out in the US in advance of the 2024 election.Penny, a white former Marine, soon raised more than $1m for his legal defense in the killing of Neely, an unhoused Black man. The sum now exceeds $2.5m. Continue reading...
While one side is happy to defecate on the floor, the other side has no choice but to clean up the messThey say that negotiating with a toddler is like a hostage situation: only one side of the discussion wants to defuse the crisis.Welcome to Washington in the post-Trump era, as the United States stares down the barrel of debt default. Continue reading...
You don’t have to particularly like Harry and Meghan to be disturbed by the constant vitriol directed against themThey nearly died! They made the whole thing up! The royal family was trying to Diana them! They’re incorrigible attention-seekers who exaggerated to try and get British taxpayers to pay for their security costs!Public reaction to news that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the duchess’s mother had been in a “near catastrophic” car chase with paparazzi in New York on Tuesday evening has been divided, to say the least. Some people seem to think that the severity of the incident has been inflated in an effort to drum up sympathetic PR for the Sussexes, at a time when they’re mired in several lawsuits about their privacy and security. Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly, for example, accused the pair of “exaggerating, because they like being in the public eye”.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Will MLS really stop at 30 clubs if Mohamed Mansour, the British-Egyptian billionaire and Conservative party treasurer, is willing to pay a $500m expansion fee for a club in San Diego?A soccer commissioner, an Egyptian billionaire and a Native American tribal leader walk into a bar. Hmm, let’s try that again. OK, they walked onto a stage in San Diego on Thursday to plant a flag in Major League Soccer’s latest frontier: the city beat Las Vegas to become the 30th team in American soccer’s top division beginning in 2025, after this ownership group paid a record expansion fee of $500m for the privilege.The aforementioned Egyptian, Mohamed Mansour – a dual British citizen who is the senior treasurer for the UK’s Conservative party – and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, a local casino-operating tribe, partnering to launch a California-based football team sounds like something only Thomas Pynchon could conceive of, as clever people on Twitter have noted. It’s not the movie star and athlete-leaden ownership group of the NWSL’s Angel City FC in Los Angeles. But Mansour, who owns a global youth football development academy called Right to Dream, brings a unique proposition to the league. It was all feted at a splashy media event on Thursday at Snapdragon Stadium awash with local politicians, football supporters’ groups, business leaders and an astonishing number of suit-with-dress-sneakers ensembles. Continue reading...
Far-right Republican congresswoman makes remarks after confrontation with Democratic congressman Jamaal BowmanThe far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters being called a white supremacist was the same as a Black person being called the N-word.Speaking on Thursday about a confrontation outside the Capitol the day before with the Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman, Greene said: “Jamaal Bowman [was] shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible … calling me a white supremacist which I take great offense to that. Continue reading...
‘Inconsistencies in how we value equipment’ could lead to more weapons being sent to Kyiv to defend against Russian forcesThe Pentagon overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by about $3bn, an error that may lead the way for more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces.The error was the result of assigning a higher-than-warranted value on weaponry that was taken from US stocks and then shipped to Ukraine, two senior defense officials said on Thursday. Continue reading...
Unanimous vote by 17 dancers marks the first time Actors Equity association represents strip club workersAfter months of late-night picketing in North Hollywood, the dancers of the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar have become the only unionized strippers in the US.Their victory was finalized with a unanimous vote by 17 dancers in favor of unionization on Thursday morning , and marks the first time that the Actors Equity association, a century-old union for stage actors, singers and dancers, will represent strip club workers, the union said. Continue reading...
The CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour said she strongly disagreed with her network's decision to host a town hall event with Donald Trump last week and had had 'a very robust exchange of views' with Chris Licht, the chief executive under fire for approving and then defending the decision to stage it. 'I would have dropped the mic at ‘nasty person’, but then that’s me, she said at Columbia Journalism School in New York. Trump called the CNN moderator, Kaitlan Collins, a 'nasty person', one of number of raucous moments during the event
After several mass shootings this year, 26% of Americans believe guns are the number one public health threatA quarter of Americans now believe guns are the number one public health threat, according to new polling.According to the Axios/Ipsos American Health Index, 26% of Americans believe access to guns is the top threat to public health. Around 25% believe opioids and fentanyl are the top concern. Continue reading...
The San Francisco district attorney has alleged Nima Momeni planned to kill Lee and left him to ‘slowly die’The man accused of fatally stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee has pleaded not guilty to murder.Nima Momeni, 38, was arraigned on Thursday in a San Francisco courtroom on a single murder charge in Lee’s death last month. Continue reading...
Beneath the mental fragility that led to the Sixers’ humiliating playoff exit is a gutless, joyless organization that is betraying their devoted fans. Only a scorched-earth rebuild will doSixers fans, answer me this: are you better off today than you were 10 years ago? It’s the same question posed by out-party politicians since time immemorial, but Sunday’s spectacular face-plant against the Boston Celtics that prompted Tuesday’s sacking of head coach Doc Rivers demands a far more wholesale inquest of Philadelphia’s once-proud basketball team. And the picture is not a pleasant one.With a three-games-to-two lead over their archrivals in the Eastern Conference semi-finals – needing one win from two cracks for the team’s first trip to the NBA’s final four in more than two decades – the Sixers let the Celtics off the hook in Game 6 and were blown out of the gym in Sunday’s decider. Boston star Jayson Tatum, whom Philadelphia passed over after trading up for Markelle Fultz in the 2017 draft, gored them for 51 points – the most in a Game 7 in NBA history. In a city where sports famously mean a little too much, the Mother’s Day Massacre will leave scars. Continue reading...
D’Arcy Drollinger will receive $55,000 stipend in 18-month role to ensure city’s drag history is ‘shared, honored and preserved’Anti-trans legislation is roiling the nation. Bills prohibiting drag performances are cropping up in statehouses. Violence and vitriol are turning children’s drag story hour events into headline-news protests.San Francisco is fighting back by naming the nation’s first drag laureate, an ambassador-style position designed to represent the city’s famous LGBTQ+ community at a time when rights are under attack. Continue reading...
There’s no shortage of people who want more children. But under the Conservatives, parenthood is punishedMiriam Cates, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, launched her own culture war at the National Conservative populist rave this week. Her central point, which she called “existential”, was the need to stop the falling birthrate, which she said was threatening British culture. “If you want to be a national conservative, you need a nation to conserve … As conservatives we want to preserve our nation and our heritage.”On the baby drought, I agree with her, but for very different reasons. I share none of her explanations nor her remedies – though I agree the lack of babies is “a symptom of a serious societal malaise”.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
by Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies on (#6BSPJ)
Florida governor is seen as main challenger to Donald Trump for Republican nomination but is currently a distant second in pollsThe rightwing Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, will officially begin his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination next week, it was widely reported on Thursday.According to Reuters, DeSantis, 44, is expected to file Federal Election Commission paperwork declaring his candidacy next Thursday, 25 May, to coincide with a donor meeting in Miami, with a more formal launch the following week. Continue reading...
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