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The Sphere's fully programmable LED screen houses concert venue built to host tens of thousands of peopleThe Las Vegas skyline has been dominated by a huge animated dome - billed as the world's largest video screen - dwarfing surrounding high-rise hotels after going live with a 300ft eyeball looking down over the city.The MSG Sphere's 580,000 sq ft fully programmable LED screen, named the Exosphere, was illuminated for pre-launch testing overnight to celebrate the Fourth of July. The show started with a welcome message, Hello world", followed by fireworks and stars and stripes animations, a moon in a night sky and an imposing Halloween pumpkin. Videos showed the screen overshadowing cars - tiny in comparison - on a nearby road. Continue reading...

Fire began inside ship carrying 5,000 cars in Newark, fire chief said, and spread to three floorsTwo firefighters were killed battling a blaze that began when cars caught fire deep inside a cargo ship carrying 5,000 cars at a New Jersey port Wednesday night, Newark's fire chief said.Firefighters responded to a report of a fire in a cargo ship at Port Newark around 9:30pm and found the fire involving five to seven vehicles on the 10th floor. The blaze quickly extended to the 11th and 12th floors, fire chief Rufus Jackson said at a news conference. Firefighters tried to extinguish the fire, but they were pushed back by the intense heat and two firefighters were lost, he said. Continue reading...

The first ever Indian to be drafted into the NBA has reinvented himself in the world of pro wrestling under the AEW bannerSatnam Singh wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless, of course, it was his wrestling opponent for a match in front of a cheering All Elite Wrestling crowd. Then, he might give the insect a little love tap or two. Still, though, Singh would inevitably play nice. No tearing off wings, no smashing under a frying pan. The 7ft 4in and 360lb former professional basketball player and current professional wrestler is as gentle a giant as they come in daily life. Singh is kind, considerate. Easily likable. Patience, he says, is a prized virtue. At the same time, he knows the magnificent power that's in just his two hands. They could, without hyperbole, terminate someone in a blink - let alone a buzzing fly. Singh knows the strength of his hands from experience. Back in India where he was born, he lost his temper one day on the basketball court as a youth. He struck a then-smack-talking friend with what Singh says was merely 5% to 10% of his strength. A simple slap across the face. But his friend was knocked out cold and wouldn't immediately wake up. In that moment, Singh knew he had to be careful. He's never been in a skirmish since.No, never in my life," Singh tells the Guardian in his low, cavernous voice. Because I know who I am and how much power I have in my body, in my hands. So, I don't want to use it outside of the ring. Because if I did, I'm sure, I'm 100% sure someone would be injured so bad." Continue reading...

Day Edwards and Emmanuel Brown match chefs and locals with underused commercial kitchens and event spacesAs children, Day Edwards and Emmanuel Brown understood the difficulties involved in serving one's faith. Edwards saw her pastor mother's struggles as she built her congregation in Austin, Texas, moving from one location to the next, laboring to cover the overhead and pay rent. Meanwhile, the pressures that Brown's pastor parents faced tending to their congregation and the needs of their family would stay with him for ever.A lot of people can't handle the stress that many church leaders are under," Edwards, 36, said. Continue reading...

Work to persuade Turkey to drop its objections continues, as president meets Sweden's prime minister at White House. Plus, five ways AI could improve the worldGood morning.Joe Biden has told the Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, that he is looking forward" to the country's stalled Nato membership bid winning final approval, amid doubts that Turkey will withdraw its opposition in time for a major summit next week.What else is Biden doing this week? The Oval Office meeting kicks off a string of diplomatic events for Biden, centred on Nato. He leaves on Sunday for a one-day trip to Britain, then will attend the Nato summit in Vilnius and finish up with a stop in the alliance's newest member, Finland.Will Biden reach out directly to his counterparts in Turkey and Hungary before the summit? He's been pretty, pretty steadfast" on the need to approve the application, said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. Sweden is a strong, capable defense partner that shares Nato's values."What is Threads like? The app closely resembles Twitter visually, although some of the wording has been changed, with retweets called reposts" and tweets called threads". Meta has not been averse to copying rival products in the past, including the 2020 launch of Instagram's Reels feature, noted for its similarity to TikTok's short-form videos.What has been the reaction to it? Reaction to the debut on Wednesday ranged from caution to enthusiasm, with many praising its ease of use and some saying that Elon Musk should be worried. Others pointed out that the app's speedy integration with Instagram showed just how powerful Meta had become. Much of the conversation, ironically, took place on Twitter, where the hashtag Threads" was trending on Wednesday evening. Continue reading...

Scientists quell fears about imminent risk after cases in Texas and Florida but warn that mosquito breeding sites set to growAlthough locally acquired malaria cases were recently discovered in the United States for the first time in 20 years, infectious disease experts say they do not signal imminent danger but instead are an indicator that the number of cases of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes to humans will likely increase in the coming decades.It's a warning sign for ensuring that there are good public health interventions in place, good mosquito surveillance in place, and that people are just aware that this could be a growing problem," said Jackie Cook, associate professor of malaria epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Continue reading...

The alliance must think about more than the narrow parameters of the battlefield and lay the foundations of a sovereign and prosperous UkraineThe forthcoming Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, will present the alliance with a series of questions that will require judicious and responsible statesmanship in light of the recent upheaval in Russia and the ongoing, grinding war of attrition in Ukraine.As of now, it appears that the overwhelming sentiment among key political and military leaders and western media is to take advantage of what they view as the weakened position of the Russian government and its leader, Vladimir Putin, in the wake of the failed coup attempt by the Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.States which have ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims, or internal jurisdictional disputes must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles. Resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance.Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the NationJames W Carden is a journalist and former adviser to the US state department Continue reading...

Video released by the the US Air Force shows what it says are Russian fighter jets flying dangerously close to several US drones over Syria, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive manoeuvres. The footage comprises a series of clips showing a Russian SU-35 fighter closing in on a Reaper, and later a series of parachute flares drifting into a drone's flight path Continue reading...

Home affairs minister says that despite Trump Jr's promoter's claims, the US businessman was not cancelled' and had been granted a visa

While mothers' movements are often associated with projects of social welfare, a counter-tradition has pursued staunchly conservative aimsThe activist group Moms for Liberty has become the new face of the culture wars around education. The group was founded in 2021, during the Covid pandemic, and rose to prominence through outspoken opposition to school mask mandates. The group has now spread across the United States, its membership fueled by the Republican-led moral panic over a woke ideology" that is supposedly sweeping public schools and indoctrinating" children. At present, the group counts 285 chapters in 45 states.As the group has grown, so too have its political ambitions. Moms for Liberty places particular emphasis on capturing local school boards in order to secure greater control over school policy. More broadly, the group endorses legislation that would limit the topics that can be discussed in the classroom (for instance, Florida's so-called Don't Say Gay" legislation), and they promote policies that allow parents to target books for removal from school libraries and classrooms.Michael Feola is a professor of government at Lafayette College, a contributor to publications including Slate and The Washington Post, and the author of a forthcoming book on the far right, Rage of Replacement Continue reading...

Former British prime minister says in interview that Trump played an important role' in arming Ukraine and set an exampleOn his recent visit to the US, Boris Johnson reminded" Donald Trump he actually played an important role" in supporting and arming Ukraine against its Russian invaders, the former British prime minister said, adding that British aid to Kyiv was enabled" by Trump's example.Johnson made the claim about the notoriously pro-Russian former president - and brushed off mention of Trump's impeachment for blocking military aid to Ukraine - in an interview on One Decision, a podcast hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove, a former chief of the British intelligence service MI6, and the journalist Julia Macfarlane. The episode was released on Thursday. Continue reading...

US defence official accuses Russian military of reckless behaviour' by flying dangerously close and releasing flares during US mission against Islamic StateThe US Air Force has released video footage it says shows Russian fighter jets flying dangerously close to several US drones over Syria on Wednesday, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive manoeuvres.US Air Forces Central said in a statement describing the scenes: These events represent a new level of unprofessional and unsafe action by Russian air forces operating in Syria." Continue reading...

Wisconsin officials are investigating the ride failure, which required firefighters to free those trapped near the top of a loop'Officials in Wisconsin are investigating how eight people became trapped upside down on a roller coaster - some of them for more than three hours - at a festival over the holiday weekend.The nightmarish incident took place on Sunday at the Forest county festival in Crandon, a city of about 1,700 north-west of Green Bay. Continue reading...

Bloodstains and broken glass remain where 17 students and staff were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in FloridaFor more than five years, the bloodstained halls and classrooms where 17 people died in the Parkland school shooting has remained locked away and mostly untouched - not even the victims' families had been allowed inside.That changed on Wednesday, as heart-wrenching private tours began for relatives of the 14 students and three staff members who died on 14 February 2018. The 17 wounded and their loved ones will also be able to visit the 1200 building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, now that it is no longer needed as evidence in the trials of the convicted killer and the deputy who was just acquitted of failing to stop him. Continue reading...

Injunction amounts to unusual intervention by the courts in communications between the government and tech companiesRestricting the ability of the Biden administration to work with social media companies in countering online conspiracy theories is a weaponisation of the court system" that could devastate the fight against misinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a leading expert has warned.Nina Jankowicz, a specialist in disinformation campaigns, told the Guardian that an injunction imposed by a federal judge on Tuesday against key federal agencies and officials blocking their communication with tech platforms could unleash false information in critical areas of public life. She said that election denialism and anti-vaccine propaganda could be the beneficiaries. Continue reading...

Tony Evers reduced $3.5bn in Republican tax cuts to $175m and edited budget text to increase education funding until 2425Wisconsin's governor, Tony Evers, signed off on a two-year spending plan on Wednesday after gutting a Republican tax cut and using his broad veto powers to increase school funding for centuries.Evers angered Republicans with both moves, with some saying the Democratic governor was going back on deals he had made with them. Continue reading...

Scarlet, as the flower is named, last bloomed in the conservatory in 2019 and its imminent blossoming is drawing throngs of peopleA rare flower with a smell that has been compared to rotting flesh and described as worse than one thousand pukes" is bringing hundreds of spectators to San Francisco's Golden Gate park.The city's Conservatory of Flowers announced on Tuesday that the plant, known as a corpse flower, was on the verge of blooming, a special event that is expected to last only a few days. Continue reading...

Secret Service review of visitor logs and surveillance cameras will seek to determine how drug came to be in the West WingA formal laboratory test of a white powder found in a highly trafficked" area of the White House has been confirmed as cocaine, NBC News reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed official with knowledge of the investigation.A Secret Service review of visitor logs and surveillance cameras will seek to determine how the cocaine, described as being in a small, zippered bag, came to be in the executive mansion. Continue reading...

White House press secretary urges Republicans to act to protect US communities after latest spate of gun violenceThe Washington Post reports that the cocaine discovered at the White House was found on the ground floor in an area where visitors leave their cellphones.White House employees can give tours of the building, usually on evenings and weekends, and part of the security protocol involves having visitors leave their cellphones in a locked box. As the for the cocaine, the Post adds that Authorities are trying to find the person who left it at the White House." Continue reading...

A strike has already been authorized by union members - who number 340,000 - should negotiations for a new contract failUPS workers moved closer to their first strike action in 27 years on Wednesday after the Teamsters Union said United Parcel Service walked away" from negotiations over a new contract. The shipping giant denied the claim, lobbing its own accusation that the union had stopped negotiating.The two sides traded salvoes in early morning statements even as they attempted to come to an agreement to prevent a strike when the current contract, which covers about 340,000 workers, expires at the end of the month. Continue reading...

Just Stop Oil protestors interrupt play twice as Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Katie Boulter and Daniil Medvedev win, but Maria Sakkari, seeded eight, loses to Marta KostyukAndy Murray faces either 2020 US Open champion Dominic Thiem or fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in round two. Thiem led 6-3 3-4 before their game was suspended yesterday. It resumes later today.Just checking Murray's Twitter page and he has 3.5 million followers (Novak Djokovic has a mighty 9.2m). In the last hour, Murray has put this NHS tribute up. Continue reading...

Until his death at the age of 87, the NFL star and actor Jim Brown was the last survivor of the four people portrayed in One Night in Miami, outliving Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Muhammad Ali. Regina King's film, released in 2020, is set in 1964, immediately after the victory of Ali (then Cassius Clay) over Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight championship.Coincidentally, 10 years later Brown was at the ringside in Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle, where Ali regained his title against George Foreman, as part of the four-man commentary team comprising himself, David Frost, Joe Frazier and Bob Sheridan. Continue reading...

Fifteen people were killed and 94 injured across 13 states as well as Washington DCFrom the nation's capital to Fort Worth, Texas, from Florin, California, in the west to the Bronx, New York, in the east, the Fourth of July long weekend in the US was overshadowed by 16 mass shootings in which 15 people were killed and nearly 100 injured.The Gun Violence Archive, an authoritative database on gun violence in America, calculated the grim tally using its definition of a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people excluding the shooter are killed or injured by firearms. Continue reading...

Salaam prevails over two veterans in improbable feat for political novice wrongly accused with four others of raping a woman in 1985Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated Central Park Five, is all but assured of a seat on the New York city council after being confirmed as the winner of a Democratic primary, an improbable feat for a political novice who was wrongly accused, convicted and imprisoned as a teenager for the rape and beating of a jogger in Central Park.Additional votes released on Wednesday showed Salaam as the clear winner of the primary to represent Central Harlem, which took place last week. Continue reading...

With its malevolent AI and doomed submarine, the franchise's latest instalment hits some very real-world buttons. Can it still pull a Top Gun: Maverick and save the summer's box office? read Peter Bradshaw's five-star review

Don and Jan Schultz woken by dog's bark that led them to 5ft reptile, prompting standoff that ended in capture by lassoA couple not long moved from Arizona to Louisiana woke early one morning last month to find a 5ft alligator had entered their home through a dog door.Don and Jan Schultz, the Washington Post said, were woken by growling from their Australian cattle dog, Panda, which they initially ignored. When Panda's alarm grew louder, and the couple heard a thud, they understood their new home in New Iberia had an unwanted visitor. Continue reading...

Many people feel their loneliness is immutable - and men can have particular problems. But if you cast shame aside, send a message and face down a few false starts, everything can changeHow do you make friends? It's a simple question with a terrifying edge to it, the unspoken assumption being that if you start to tease your technique apart, you might realise that you don't actually have one. What if every friend you've ever made was just luck, happenstance, right-place-right-time, engineered by other, more naturally sociable people into whose orbits you somehow blundered? What if overthinking it ruins your ability to actually do it, like public speaking or tightrope walking? What if friends - or your friends, anyway - are a non-renewable resource?These are questions that have elbowed their way into my brain every so often for the past couple of decades because, like many men, I'm not a natural at making friends. In my teens, I mostly stuck with the chums I'd bonded with while painting tiny figurines at school; at university, the new ones came from juggling and jiujitsu clubs. In my 20s, additions to my social circle came mostly from external pressure: one of my existing pals would squeeze me together with other acquaintances over a long enough timeline for awkward conversations to fossilise into friendships. And so it went. Continue reading...

Former Smallville actor, 40, pleaded guilty over role in cult-like group and was sentenced to three years in 2021The actor Allison Mack, who pleaded guilty over her role in a sex-trafficking case tied to the cult-like group Nxivm, has been released from a California prison, according to a government website.Mack, best known for her role as a young Superman's close friend on Smallville, was sentenced to three years behind bars in 2021 after pleading guilty two years earlier to charges that she manipulated women to serve the leader of Nxivm, Keith Raniere. Continue reading...

Since the genius' bought Twitter last year, he's made a series of poor decisions - and now the platform is almost unusableIf you use Twitter, the service that not so long ago was the best way to take in breaking news and find audiences for serious conversations, you may have found it substantially less useful in the past year. Over this past weekend you found it almost unusable. On Saturday, everything melted down. Thousands of users reported that they had major issues using the platform, included an inability to access any tweets or to post their own tweets - so, basically, everything for which one might want to use Twitter.On Saturday, Musk announced that Twitter was limiting the ways all users could access tweets to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation". In other words, Musk was blaming commercial services that might want to scrape tweets and incorporate them into machine-learning models. There is no reason to believe this is actually happening, but Musk's longtime hostility to artificial intelligence must have led him to deploy such services as likely suspects to blame for Twitter's fragility.Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is also Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Official GOP account deletes tweet featuring Liberian flag, which has single white star where Stars and Stripes has 50The Republican party was embarrassed when a tweet from its official account celebrating Independence Day featured the wrong flag.The tweet read: 247 years ago, our forefathers told 'Ol King George to get lost! Happy Independence Day from the GOP!" Continue reading...

In Covelo, an isolated town in northern California, back-to-back slayings are the most recent chapter of violence arising from colonisationMarline Fulwider is no stranger to grief. As a young woman, she lost her 23-year-old brother; years later, her 25-year-old son-in-law, whom she had previously taken in as a foster child, was killed.But nothing could have prepared Fulwider for the morning of 16 April, when another teen she had taken in was found beaten to death. Ruby Sky Montelongo was just 16 years old. Continue reading...

The NAACP has issued a warning about the state. But being Black in America was a long-odds game well before DeSantis showed upThe sugary sand on Santa Rosa Beach is cool below the surface, sweet relief after a 10-minute hot-step from the parking lot with an armload of bulky chairs and a hangry toddler dragging me down. But by the third day of our family vacation, my young boys have settled in with their plastic shovels and left me cracking open a Michelob Ultra before noon. Drinking in the brew and the whooshing azure surf, I'm gobsmacked that this is what passes for adventure travel nowadays.On 20 May the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida, noting a flagrant streak of contempt for and hostility toward Black, ethnic and queer communities; in a news release, the group quoted the state-sanctioned war on woke" the Republican governor championed in a craven bid for his party's presidential nomination. The NAACP board chair, Leon Russell, cited Ron DeSantis for political grandstanding" and courting a dangerous, extremist minority" - only to have conservatives mock Russell himself for living in Tampa. Continue reading...

At least 15 people killed in mass shootings so far on the holiday weekend. Plus, the trauma of Cary GrantGood morning.A long holiday weekend of bloodshed has intensified after a heavily armed gunman in a bulletproof vest opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia on the eve of Fourth of July celebrations, in yet another mass shooting in the US, killing five people and wounding two boys before surrendering to the police.What did Biden say? The president said: Our nation has once again endured a wave of tragic and senseless shootings in communities across America. Today, Jill and I grieve for those who have lost their lives and, as our nation celebrates Independence Day, we pray for the day when our communities will be free from gun violence."Is this a one-off? No. China regularly faces severe flooding, and as global warming produces more frequent extreme weather, problems are likely to intensify. Chinese meteorological authorities warned the country could expect multiple natural disasters in July, including floods, severe convection weather, typhoons and high temperatures", AFP reported.What else is happening? Monday 3 July 2023 was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The average global temperature reached 17.01C (62.62F), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F), as heatwaves sizzled around the world. Continue reading...

People across the US braved heat and heavy rain to take part in Fourth of July activities on Tuesday, celebrating the nation's founding with parades, fireworks and hot dog eating contests Continue reading...

The San Francisco Bay Area was once home to a dream team including Marta, Christine Sinclair, Camille Abily and Kelley O'Hara. But nobody cared enough to keep the club afloatRunning away from the cleat-melting turf at Hayward's Pioneer Stadium, the newly minted 2010 national soccer champions chanted Obama! Obama!" as they gathered around the champagne-filled coolers in the locker-room. Led by the likes of Brazil's Marta, Canada's Christine Sinclair and then-rookies Kelley O'Hara and Ali Riley, FC Gold Pride, the San Francisco Bay Area's representative in the short-lived Women's Professional Soccer league (WPS), defeated the Philadelphia Independence 4-0 in the final. As is customary for championship teams in the United States, they would be expecting their invitation to the White House soon after.The day was 26 September 2010. On 16 November, FC Gold Pride announced they were ceasing operations because of high costs and low ticket sales. Continue reading...

The explosion of interest in true crime coincides with the rise of online dating. I suspect those things are more linked than they appearWomen love true crime. Studies over the last few years report that women overwhelmingly make up most of the audience of the explosion of true crime podcasts, books and TV shows. It's almost a cliche, the image of a woman sitting with a glass of red wine and consuming with rapt attention one of the countless choices in the genre, from Dirty John to Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.Researchers have offered a number of theories about why women are so attracted to tales of serial killers, murder and rape. One possible reason, they say, is that women identify with the victims of violent crimes, as women are often victims of such crimes themselves. In the US, nearly three women are killed every day by intimate partners. According to the CDC, over half of women have experienced sexual violence. And women make up 70% of the victims of serial killers.Nancy Jo Sales is the author, most recently, of Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno Continue reading...

In her writing, she depicted bold African women; in her activism, she nurtured and inspired people everywhereIt sounds ridiculous to say that I have been preparing myself for the death of Prof Ama Ata Aidoo for years, but that's exactly what I tried - and failed - to do. A few years ago, there was a rumour she had died and I called her daughter, Kinna Likimani, a close friend, in a panic.She reassured me: Mummy is fine, don't worry." A few weeks ago, I was in London preparing to host the first live show of my podcast, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, when I got a voice note: All the best with your live show. Also just a heads-up, Mummy is very unwell." Continue reading...

2022 finalists Elena Rybakina and Ons Jabeur sailed through their first-round tests, along with Carlos Alcaraz, Andy Murray and Cam NorrieIt's stopped raining and off we go again, the All England microclimate changing once more.Boulter has broken Saville ... oh and Saville has broken back for 2-2. But what's this? Er, I'm afraid it's raining. Centre and Court 1 have roofs closed, so I wonder if they'll move a couple of matches to there - I think Tistsipas said he's happy for that - but they'll want to know it's worth the logistical aggro before they schlep everyone over, which will presumably be contingent on how long they think the weather will last. Continue reading...

The 69-year-old was found dead on Hilton Head Island with the reptile appearing to guard her body and hampering rescue effortsA South Carolina woman died on Tuesday after she was attacked by an alligator while walking her dog near a golf course, authorities said.The 69-year-old woman, who has not been named, was found dead in the Spanish Wells community of Hilton Head Island, the Beaufort county sheriff's office said in a news release. Continue reading...

The air and ground offensive is the biggest raid in the West Bank for decades. It won't stop attacksIsrael has portrayed its strikes on the Jenin refugee camp - the biggest military operation in the occupied West Bank for two decades - as a limited intervention lasting just a few days. This is scant comfort for the thousands fleeing violence, including families making their escape as homes and infrastructure were destroyed. The Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday that at least 11 people had been killed, and 100 injured.Whenever the troops leave, the idea of a short-lived offensive is also misleading.The intent is a show of force in retaliation for renewed attacks on settlers, and unexpectedly strong resistance to a previous raid. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, said it was an attack on a safe haven for terrorists" and people who would annihilate our country". But this is only the latest and most intense of multiple raids on Jenin, one of which killed the renowned journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last year. And it will only fuel the surge of violence. On Tuesday a Palestinian resident of the West Bank injured at least nine people in Tel Aviv in a truck and knife attack; he was shot dead. Continue reading...

Since the 2018 gilets jaunes crisis, the French president seems to have accepted brutal police tactics. Is it fear or indifference?As of this week, a crowdfunding campaign set up by the French far right in support of the police officer who shot and killed Nahel M, a 17-year-old from Nanterre, has now surpassed 1.4m. Around the same time that Nahel's killer's fund passed the 1m mark, it was reported that at least 120 young people who had been arrested in the unrest unleashed by his death had already been sent to prison.So far, this swift, firm and systematic judicial response" to the riots, as demanded by the justice minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, has been the only real response by the government to the unrest that has swept across French cities. Locals have been met with curfews and reduced transport in some cities, and in every cite where cars have burned and shops have been looted, the police presence has grown exponentially, with 45,000 officers deployed across France on Friday night.Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Paris Continue reading...

Further extreme conditions expected during 4 July holiday, as thunderstorms and intense heat continue across the countryGood morning.Millions across the US have been caught up in dangerous weather conditions over the weekend and are braced for further extreme conditions ahead of today's 4 July holiday, as thunderstorms and intense heat continue to affect much of the country.What else is happening? Many midwest cities are also dealing with the aftermath of severe rain and flooding. Weekend thunderstorms in Chicago flooded streets and highways as nearly nine inches of rain fell in some areas of the city in just a few hours, affecting trains as well as motorists. Many in the midwest are without power after the weekend storms.What's happening in North Carolina? PFAS pollution from a Chemours plant in North Carolina has widely contaminated the soil, water and air for hundreds of square miles around the company's Fayetteville Works plant, and residents have said their exposure to the chemicals is behind elevated cancer levels and other serious health problems. Residents have also said they suspect their pets have gotten sick from exposure to the chemicals. Continue reading...

Experts had flagged safety problems with OceanGate's vessels much before the doomed journey that killed five peopleAs additional details emerge about the Titan submersible's deadly implosion in June, raising still more unknowns, concerns surrounding exploration company OceanGate Expeditions' allegedly cavalier attitude toward safety have come into sharper relief.The doomed vessel reportedly dropped weights at some point during its descent; however, it is not known whether this was due to a routine part of descent or in an effort to abandon the doomed mission. All five Titan occupants died in the implosion. Continue reading...

Rudy Farias was found lying on the ground in front of a church, with his whereabouts for the past eight years still unknownA Texas man who went missing as a teenager in 2015 after last being seen walking his dogs in Houston has been found alive, his family and police said on Monday.Police and firefighters found Rudolph Rudy" Farias IV around 10pm on Thursday after getting a call about a person lying on the ground in front of a church in south-east Houston, a police spokesman, John Cannon, said. Continue reading...

Experts say Eastman, faces possible disbarment in California, under increasing scrutiny in federal and state inquiriesJohn Eastman, who was in the vanguard of lawyers plotting schemes involving fake electors" and other ploys to help Donald Trump thwart Joe Biden's win in 2020, is now under close scrutiny in federal and state investigations of Trump's drives to stay in power, and faces possible disbarment in California, say former prosecutors.The former California law professor is one of several lawyers whose legal stratagems have been heavily examined by Special Counsel Jack Smith's accelerating investigation into Trump and his allies' efforts to block Biden from taking office. Continue reading...