US news | The Guardian

Trial for New Jersey senator will start Monday as he insists he's innocent of 16 felony charges, including bribery and extortionThe criminal corruption trial of Democratic US senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey is scheduled to get under way in a Manhattan federal court Monday, with prosecutors preparing a colorful tale of a greedy politician with a fondness for gold bullion, fast cars, and almost half a million dollars in cash found hidden around his home.Menendez, 70, insists he is innocent of the 16 felony charges brought against him by the US attorney's office of the southern district of New York, including bribery, extortion, obstruction, and acting as a foreign agent. Continue reading...

About 1,000 were at party when altercation began and gunfire erupted, resulting in victims that sheriff says are mostly younger'Three people were killed and at least 12 were wounded Saturday night in a shooting at party in south Alabama.Andre Reid with the Baldwin county sheriff's office's investigation division told WALA-TV that about 1,000 people were attending a May Day party near the community of Stockton when an altercation started and gunfire erupted. Reid said most of the victims were younger people". Continue reading...

Sales to proceed despite failing to regain control of its website as staff and cybersecurity scramble to fix issueThe success of New York's spring art auctions was in jeopardy Sunday, a day after auction house Christie's confirmed that its website had been hacked, potentially shutting out some bidders on $850m worth of art work going up for bid this week.Yet despite failing to regain control of its website, Christie's said that its auctions - the most important of the year in the art world - would go ahead in person and by phone. Continue reading...

Ex-president calls Hopkins' cannibalistic Lecter late, great' while condemning people who are being released into our country'Donald Trump on Saturday praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter as a wonderful man" before segueing into comments disparaging people who have immigrated into the US without permission.The former president's remarks to political rally-goers in Wildwood, New Jersey, as he challenges Joe Biden's re-election in November were a not-so-subtle rhetorical bridge exalting Anthony Hopkins' cannibalistic Lecter in Silence of the Lambs as late [and] great" while simultaneously condemning people who are being released into our country that we don't want". Continue reading...

From Man City's defender turned winger to Nicolas Jackson's game-winner, we hand out honors (and dishonors) from the top-flight weekendArsenal were not at their melodic best in their 1-0 win over Manchester United on Sunday. But at this stage of the season, it's results, not performances, that matter. The goal that kept them alive in the title race came courtesy of Leandro Trossard, with a hat-tip to Casemiro and Andre Onana in the United defense. Continue reading...

Democrat warns Hamas could become stronger if Israel wages all-out Rafah assault, while Blinken offers more measured commentsPoliticians in the US on Sunday stepped up their denunciation of Israel over its conduct in Gaza, with a leading Democratic senator accusing the key American ally of strategic and moral mistakes" - and secretary of state, Antony Blinken, saying it was testing the boundaries of international law.In an interview on CNN's State of the Union, the Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, warned that Hamas was likely to become stronger if Israel waged an all-out assault in Rafah. Continue reading...

A strike by journalists at the state broadcaster sends a disturbing signal in one of the European Union's most important member statesAccording to the latest audit of press freedom by Reporters Without Borders, Italy has tumbled down itsinternational rankings. A crucial factor in its report was the desire of Giorgia Meloni's radical right government to sell off a state-controlled news agency to a press baron - one who just happens to be an MP in her ruling coalition. But in one of the European Union's most important member states, as Ms Meloni's radical right coalition consolidates its grip on power, there are plenty of other reasons to fear for the future of freeexpression and media impartiality.This week, a philosopher from Rome's Sapienza University will become the latest public intellectual to appear in court, after being accused of defamation by agovernment figure. In a talk show, DonatellaDiCesare described the language used by the agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida (MsMeloni's brother-in-law), as neo-Nazi in tone. Under Italy's draconian defamation laws, she risks a substantial prison sentence if eventually found guilty in a criminal court. Continue reading...

A French official said there is no record of a scheduled meeting with the South Dakota governor - nor had they invited herThe French government has joined the chorus of detractors taking aim at South Dakota governor Kristi Noem's political autobiography No Going Back, which many now see as having eliminated her chances of being Donald Trump's vice-presidential selection.Days after Noem removed a passage claiming she had met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, officials at the Elysee Palace in Paris are questioning a passage that describes a cancelled meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron. Continue reading...

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Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan refuse to vote for the president despite calling Trump unfit - and their harshest critics are fellow RepublicansThey have broken with Donald Trump. They have gone public with their concerns about the threat that he poses to democracy and the rule of law. But vote for Joe Biden? That is a bridge too far.A split has emerged in the Never Trump" movement in the Republican party. There are some who denounce the former US president and contend that, in what is essentially a two-party system, there is a moral imperative to vote for his Democratic opponent in November. Continue reading...

It was supposed to be a celebration of graduation, but instead students are taking stock of a historic week of activismThe week at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, was supposed to be a celebratory one. In other years, the campus would be buzzing with activity around finals and commencement. Final-year students would be preparing to salute their alma mater goodbye.Instead, the Cal Poly campus on this rugged part of California's coast sat empty. Classes were held remotely, with students and professors unable to come on to campus. On Wednesday, graduating students were taking photos on the edges of campus, smiling in their caps and gowns. Just out of frame were the orange barriers and police cars blocking entrances. Continue reading...

Small demonstrations held on Saturday, including at Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Wisconsin-MadisonSmall pro-Palestinian protests popped up sporadically on Saturday as colleges and universities from North Carolina to California held commencement ceremonies, including dozens of graduating students at Virginia Commonwealth University who walked out on an address by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin.While some of the estimated 100 students and family members who left during Youngkin's speech showed support for Palestinians, others held signs signaling opposition to his policies on education, according to WRIC-TV. Continue reading...

Staff at a Chinese supermarket chain can take unhappy days' whenever they want. Perhaps we're finally recognising a basic truth: work doesn't make us happyNo more croaky, fake phone-in-sick voice for the employees of one regional Chinese supermarket chain: the founder of Pang Dong Lai, Yu Donglai, is offering employees up to 10 days' unhappiness leave".I want every staff member to have freedom. Everyone has times when they're not happy, so if you're not happy, do not come to work," Yu said at an industry conference, according to the South China Morning Post. Staff can take unhappy days" when they want, in addition to normal sick and holiday leave entitlements, and management can't refuse: Denial is a violation," Yu said. He seems like a decent boss: employee salaries are nearly double the sector average, and Yu has reportedly spoken out against China's long hours culture and said: We want our employees to have a healthy and relaxed life, so that the company will be too." (Though, combined with Pang Dong Lai's slogan, Freedom and love", there's a slight echo of the free granola bar, nap pod, good vibes" tyranny of tech's punishing work culture.)Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Post-industrial states such as Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and even upstate New York, are seeing a boom in outdoor activitiesAt a nondescript mall in Beavercreek, a sleepy suburb in south-west Ohio, workers are unpacking the latest camping equipment, bikes and kayaks ahead of a grand opening of Ohio's fifth REI co-op location.Surrounded by farmland and leafy streetscapes in a region that relied on manufacturing and an air force base as its economic lifeblood for decades, Beavercreek and the wider post-industrial midwest might not quickly conjure up images of outdoor bliss. Continue reading...

Almost 20 years before the 2013 New Orleans shooting, a baby was nearly beaten to death in an enduring cycle of violenceTo many across the US and even around the world who followed its aftermath, the story of the 2013 Mother's Day shooting in New Orleans - which injured 20 people at one of the city's vaunted second-line parades - is a simple one.Siblings who dealt drugs and were locked in a feud over territory indiscriminately fired into a crowd, mortally wounding one local writer and cultural advocate - Deborah Big Red" Cotton - who died four years later. Continue reading...

Few residents of this Wisconsin small city have seen a migrant but some are blaming Biden for an invasion' regardless and elsewhere in the state an influx of foreigners is not all it seemsRhinelander is closer to the Arctic Circle than to Mexico, so it is no great surprise that few people in the small Wisconsin city have laid eyes on the foreign migrants Donald Trump claims are invading" the country from across the US border 1,500 miles to the south.But Jim Schuh, the manager of a local bakery, is nonetheless sure they are a major problem and he's voting accordingly. Continue reading...

Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in MarchKatie Britt, the Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering a widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in March, marked the run-up to Mother's Day on Sunday by introducing a bill to create a federal database to collect data on pregnant people.The More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (Moms) act proposes to establish an online government database called pregnancy.gov" listing resources related to pregnancy, including information about adoption agencies and pregnancy care providers, except for those that provide abortion-related services. Continue reading...

Company, which operates roughly 2,000 stores, declined to disclose number of stores where merchandise will not be availableTarget confirmed Friday that it won't carry Pride Month merchandise at all stores in June after the discount retailer experienced a backlash and lower sales over its collection honoring LGBTQ+ communities.Target, which operates roughly 2,000 stores, said decisions about where to stock Pride-themed products, including adult apparel, home goods, foods and beverages, would be based on guest insights and consumer research". Continue reading...

In terms of self-sacrifice, I do far less than my mother (your Nanima) did for meWhy don't you ever say, I love you' to Nanima?", you used to ask.I am Indian! I take my mum to the temple instead." Continue reading...

Porcine pals Patty and Betty were shot by butchers who said their GPS screwed up' when it pointed them to the wrong houseA family in Washington state says a mobile butcher mistakenly slaughtered their pet pigs recently after showing up to the wrong address.Security camera footage showed an unknown truck pulling up to the home of the family in question when they were not there on 1 May. One of the employees of the family's farm, who was sent to check on their home, informed them that someone had shot the pigs. Continue reading...

US supreme court justice gives one-hour talk at meeting of judges, attorneys and other court personnel of 11th circuit court of appealsClarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced nastiness" and lies" over the last several years and decried Washington DC as a hideous place".The US supreme court justice spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th circuit judicial conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments pushing back on his critics in response to a question about working in a world that seems mean-spirited. Continue reading...

Ethnic cleansing and war crimes in Darfur have left 25 million people in urgent need, yet the west's attention is elsewhereParents are killed in front of their children. As they cry for help, the children die too. Panicked people fleeing attacks become moving targets. Entire communities are set ablaze and destroyed. Dislocation, hunger and thirst follow, a prelude to famine and death.Abandoned, terrified, unprotected, unseen, the people despair.This is not a description of Gaza today. It's Sudan, war-torn, desperate - and largely ignored. Upper estimates of the number of people killed there since a senseless civil war erupted just over one year ago reach 150,000. About 9 million residents, principally in the western Darfur region, have been displaced. Aidagencies say 25 million people are in need of urgent assistance. The future cohesion of a country already cleaved by the 2011 secession of South Sudan and conscious of next-door Libya's disintegration is at stake. Continue reading...

First lady shares with Mesa Community College how her high school guidance counselor told her she wasn't college materialJill Biden on Saturday told Arizona community college graduates to tune out the people who like to tell them what they can't do.The first lady shared with graduates of Mesa Community College how her high school guidance counselor told her she wasn't college material and shouldn't waste her time going. She didn't listen and got her college degree. Continue reading...

John Shadbar, 70, reportedly hurled racist slurs at the sons of Melissa Robertson, 45, who are Black, before he shot herAn Illinois man is facing accusations of a hate crime after he allegedly shot his next-door neighbor while hurling racist slurs at her sons, who are Black.Prosecutors charged John Shadbar, 70, with nine charges, including attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery, unlawful use of a weapon and a hate crime. Shadbar is being held in jail without bond after authorities said he had harassed his neighbor and her sons for years. Continue reading...

It's no wonder numbers training for the priesthood continue to fall when married men or any woman are still barredWalking down towards the River Nidd in Knaresborough, the pretty North Yorkshire market town where I grew up, it would be easy to pass by St Mary's Catholic church without noticing it. Built only two years after the Emancipation Act in 1829, the church was designed to resemble a private house in order not to offend local Protestant sensibilities. Two centuries later, sectarian sentiment is no longer a problem, but the crisis of vocations in the church certainly is.Back in Knaresborough, over the bank holiday weekend, Iwas in the Sunday morning congregation to hear Father William pass on sad news. A letter from the bishop of Leeds informed us that when William returns to Ampleforth Abbey, after 12years' sterling work, he will not be replaced by a resident priest. Instead, the parish will share one with a church in nearby Harrogate. Inevitably, that will mean fewer masses, and it is hard to imagine that the new man (because, of course, it will be a man), will be able to devote the same level of pastoral care and attention tothe town. Continue reading...

Collin Davis asks court to green light investigation as experts call case a coordinated fear campaign'As soon as the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, anti-abortion activists started debating if and how they could limit Americans' ability to cross state lines for legal abortions. Now, a Texas man has asked a court to greenlight an investigation into the abortion his former partner allegedly received in a state where the procedure remains legal.The man, Collin Davis, said in court records that when he learned his former partner planned to get an abortion in February 2024, he hired an attorney who would pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child". According to the records, the woman proceeded to get an abortion in Colorado, a state that has become an abortion haven as laws banning the procedure have taken effect across much of the US midwest and south. Continue reading...

At this month's elections, the party of Mandela should be judged on its dismal record over the past 30 yearsWho will save South Africa from itself? Not the ruling African National Congress (ANC), whose 30 unbroken years of under-achievement have brought the country to its present sorry pass. Not reformist" president Cyril Ramaphosa, widely considered a disappointment. And not Russia or China, either, to which Pretoria's flailing regime, increasingly at odds with the west, looks for succour.Three decades after Nelson Mandela's historic poll victory formally vanquished apartheid, and less than three weeks before another watershed election, it's all going wrong for the Rainbow Nation. Africa's most developed country is now its most unequal, the World Bank says. Crime is rampant, corruption endemic, growth is tanking. More than 60% live in poverty. Unemployment among black people is 40%. Continue reading...

Miss USA and Miss Teen USA were cryptic about resigning, but there's no mistaking the misogyny at the heart of the brandDrama is afoot in the pageant community, after both Miss USA and Miss Teen USA recently handed back their crowns and issued cryptic statements announcing their resignations. Continue reading...

New York trial heard salacious details about actor's encounter with ex-president, but it doesn't move the needle' with his supportersStormy Daniels may have regarded sex with Donald Trump as brief, unimaginative and regrettable but the porn star gripped the nation with a salacious and lengthy retelling of the encounter to a New York court this week.Daniels's humiliating testimony in Trump's fraud trial infuriated the former president who glowered from a few feet away. But her account only confirmed what most Americans already knew about a man widely regarded as a sexual predator and appeared unlikely to change many votes in November's presidential election. Continue reading...

Palestinians in the US say they feel heartened by students demonstrating against war in which 34,000 have been killedAs Israel continues its military assault on Gaza, some Palestinians in the US say they have been heartened" by the phenomenal" support they have seen from student demonstrators around the country.Risking suspension, expulsion and even arrest, US students have spent the last few weeks protesting against Israel's war on Gaza - which has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, and reduced homes, hospitals and schools to rubble - and calling for their schools to financially divest from weapons manufacturing companies who supply the Israeli military. Continue reading...

Melody Feliciano Johnson, initially charged in Arizona with attempted murder, receives probation after striking plea dealAn Arizona woman who was charged with trying to kill her husband by poisoning his coffee daily for months has reportedly avoided jail time and has been ordered to spend three years on probation.Melody Feliciano Johnson received her punishment this week after striking a plea deal with prosecutors that allowed her to plead guilty in April to two counts of adding a poison or harmful substance to food or drink, according to the Arizona news website azfamily.com. Continue reading...

Accusations of antisemitism are the tip of the spear in a frightening illiberal project serving an autocratic agendaSince 7 October, commentators have been ringing the alarm that a growing protest movement in solidarity with Palestine signals not just the end of a golden age" for American Jews - as Franklin Foer recently put it in the Atlantic - but for American liberal democracy itself.As Foer wrote, the surge of antisemitism is a symptom of the decay of democratic habits, a leading indicator of rising authoritarianism". Writing before the start of the encampments, he noted that Columbia was a graphic example of the collapse of the liberalism that had insulated American Jews: it is a microcosm of a society that has lost its capacity to express disagreements without resorting to animus". Meanwhile, on CNN, the anchor Dana Bash invoked 1930s Europe - and I do not say that lightly ... the fear among American Jews is palpable right now". Continue reading...

Tough-guy talk about radical-left lunatics' is an extreme spin on an old playbook but plays well with his Republican baseDonald Trump delights in railing against his enemies, and when protesters set up encampments at college campuses nationwide to decry Israel's invasion of Gaza, the former US president gained another useful antagonist.For some observers, Trump's language is both dangerous in the current political environment as he seeks to rile up his base and a dark hint at how he might treat dissent and demonstrations should he defeat Joe Biden and achieve his ambition of returning to the White House in 2025. Continue reading...

Kerry Kennedy discusses the collective decision to back Joe Biden over brother Robert F Kennedy Jr and how his impact on the election will be dangerous'Every Christmas Kerry Kennedy makes a book for her numerous relatives. It has at least one photograph of every single member of my extremely enormous family," she says. And yes, Bobby is in the book."Bobby" refers to her brother, Robert Kennedy Jr, a hopeful sign that the sibling bond will survive an oncoming storm. Robert is running as an independent candidate for US president in November's election. Kerry is one of at least 15 members of the Kennedy clan who recently endorsed Joe Biden instead. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer has promised to revisit this contentious law. When that happens, he needs to do three thingsFifty years ago, on 17 May1974, my father, a bus conductor, was out on strike. That day, the Troubles arrived with a vengeance in my home town of Dublin. Three bombs exploded at different points in the city centre during rush hour. Because the buses were not operating, there were more people walking along those streets than usual. Twenty-three of them were killed and another three later succumbed to their injuries. Another bomb that exploded 90 minutes later in Monaghan, on the southern side of the border, killed seven people.In 1984, when I was trying to write a piece for the 10th anniversary of the bombings, I called to the houses of some of the bereaved families. No one wanted to talk to me. They felt betrayed, abandoned, already forgotten. They had no trust in anyone. Marie Sherry, who was injured but survived, later described how, in the weeks and months after the massacre, she would ask her mother: Mum, any news on those people who did the bombing? Was anybody charged?' There never was news. There were no names. Nobody was charged. I lived my life thinking, These guys are walking around. They could be sitting beside me in the cinema. They could be on the bus.'"Fintan O'Toole is a columnist with the Irish Times Continue reading...

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WABC owner says Trump ally received warnings not to discuss election fallacies' and that refusal to do so left me no option'The former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's troubles deepened on Friday when he was suspended by WABC radio, for trying to use his show to discuss the lie that the 2020 presidential election was lost by Donald Trump because of electoral fraud.John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire, Republican donor and owner of WABC, told the New York Times: We're not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election. We warned him once. We warned him twice. And I get a text from him last night, and I get a text from him this morning that he refuses not to talk about it. Continue reading...

State department also says not enough concrete evidence to link specific US-supplied weapons to violationsThe US says it is reasonable to assess" that the weapons it has provided to Israel have been used in ways that are inconsistent" with international human rights law, but that there is not enough concrete evidence to link specific US-supplied weapons to violations or warrant cutting the supply of arms.In a highly anticipated report to Congress, the state department said that the assurances given by Israel and a handful of other countries under scrutiny that they had been using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law (IHL) were credible and reliable". Continue reading...

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Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's artwork features a US flag bearing names of 1,039 people killed in mass shootings since ColumbineOn Capitol Hill there is no shortage of politicians who wrap themselves in the Stars and Stripes and founding documents when seeking to defend the right to bear arms. But any who walk up Pennsylvania Avenue in the next 10 days will be confronted by an inversion of these patriotic symbols and an urgent plea to tackle gun violence.Alienable right to life is a public art installation at Freedom Plaza that features a huge American flag bearing the names of 1,039 people killed in mass shootings since the Columbine high school massacre 25 years ago. Continue reading...

Defense paints Trump as a distracted multitasker who signed papers without review as texts between Stormy Daniels' ex-publicist and a former editor were shownDonald Trump returned to the Manhattan courthouse on Friday, marking his 15th court appearance in his historic hush-money criminal trial.Friday's court session, which featured a handful of custodial witnesses who provided more technical supplements to testimony or evidence, followed several days of testimony involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels, who testified in lurid detail about her alleged sexual affair with Trump. Continue reading...

The biggest news out of Trump's trial today wasn't anything said on the witness stand, but who will be on it next weekThe biggest news out of former president Donald Trump's trial today wasn't anything that was said on the witness stand, but who will be on it next week. Continue reading...