US news | The Guardian

President, who could face Donald Trump in 2020 rerun, urges voters to give him four further years to finish what he startedJoe Biden has formally announced his campaign for re-election in 2024, asking Americans for four years to “finish this job”, possibly setting up an extraordinary rematch with Donald Trump.In a three-minute video opening with pulsing images of the US Capitol attack, Biden warned that the US remains under threat from the anti-democratic forces unleashed by his predecessor, who he beat in 2020. Continue reading...

Singer, actor and activist who matched his genial persona with political commitmentBy the mid-1950s, the singer Harry Belafonte had taken the lead role in an Oscar-nominated film, Carmen Jones; reached No 1 with his album Calypso, which helped find a mainstream audience for that musical style and became the first album ever to sell more than 1m copies; and headlined major venues around the US.However, Belafonte found himself unable to use the main entrance to the Las Vegas hotels where he regularly performed – nor could he eat, stay or gamble in them. On tour in the south, he faced an evening curfew because of his skin colour. When he starred with Joan Fontaine in the then controversial film about an interracial relationship, Island in the Sun (1957), he was advised not to mention Fontaine in press interviews for fear of suggesting a romance between them. He learned that the power and respect that usually accompany fame and fortune could be largely illusory as far as black entertainers were concerned. Continue reading...

The British director recalls how the great US singer, actor and activist became a mentor to him – after giving a speech about Tarzan to celebrate 12 Years a Slave winning an awardHarry Belafonte was a hero of mine. He meant everything to me. I met him around the release of 12 Years a Slave, and he became a mentor. I received a best director award at the New York Film Critics Circle awards and Harry gave an amazing speech: he talked about seeing Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan at the cinema as a child and how the depiction of people of African descent made him feel being ashamed to be Black.Look what he did – his first album sold more than 1m records. He was Martin Luther King’s closest confidant and he supported his family. He was the main organiser to get Hollywood people involved in the civil rights movement, bringing people like Sidney Poitier. He was close to Bobby Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt. And he was an artist, and he was an actor; he studied with Brando, Brando was one of his best friends. He really was a renaissance man if there ever was one, and extraordinarily good looking. He had everything, but his service was always to his people. He told me that the civil rights days were scary – what he sacrificed and what he did for the good of people was incredible. Continue reading...

The star with the gorgeous calypso voice was also a naturally passionate actor who appeared in heists, colonial confrontations – and even the last love triangle on EarthIn the middle of the 20th century, Harry Belafonte was at the dizzying high point of his stunning multi-hyphenate celebrity: this handsome, athletic, Caribbean-American star with a gorgeous calypso singing voice was at the top of his game in music, movies and politics. He was the million-selling artist whose easy and sensuous musical stylings and lighter-skinned image made him acceptable to white audiences. But this didn’t stop him having a fierce screen presence and an even fiercer commitment to civil rights. He was the friend and comrade of Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King Jr – and his crossover success, incidentally, never stopped him being subject to the ugliest kind of bigotry from racists who saw his fame as a kind of infiltration. His legendary Banana Boat Song with its keening and much-spoofed call-and-response chorus “Day – O!” is actually about the brutal night shift loading bananas on to ships, part of an exploitative trade with its roots in empire.

The singer, actor and activist, who has died aged 96, became the first artist to have a million-selling album – and said his desire for social change kept him awake at night Continue reading...

Autopsy whose results were announced Monday made clear for first time that the boy died before the alligator encountered himA Florida toddler who was found dead in the jaws of an alligator last month was drowned by his father before falling into the animal’s grasp, according to police.The cause of death for two-year-old Taylen Mosley was confirmed by the local coroner’s office, said a statement on Monday from police in St Petersburg. Continue reading...

The Democrats don’t need to be especially good – because the Republicans are cruelly and chaotically worseIt’s not surprising, but now it’s official: Joe Biden is running for re-election. In a video on Tuesday launching his bid for a second term, Biden cast his administration as standing for personal freedom, democracy and pluralism in contrast to what he called “Maga extremists”. The video emphasized abortion rights and contrasted Biden and the Democrats with unsettling images of the Capitol insurrectionists. Echoing a repeated line from his most recent State of the Union address, the president implored Americans: “Let’s finish the job.”There will be no primary. True, Biden has disaffected some members of the Democratic party’s precariously large coalition, and he has failed to capture the hearts and imaginations of Americans the way that, say, Barack Obama did. In 2020, a basketball team’s worth of Democrats entered the presidential primary – partly out of perceptions of then president Trump’s weakness, but also partly because Biden seemed like such a poor fit to be the party’s standard-bearer. Continue reading...

Joe Biden has confirmed he will campaign for a second term as president. Guardian US contributors weigh inAfter surviving the Trump debacle, it was important that we had an administration that could re-establish some level of credibility in the political arena. Given the volatility of the current political environment and the depth of political division in America, Biden has demonstrated he is able to hold together a big tent of diverse groups and push an agenda.LaTosha Brown is the co-founder of Black Voters MatterJill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of HappinessOsita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnistBhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor of Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities Continue reading...

Recent stay on the abortion pill ban is a contest between conservative institutionalists and ideologues on the courtIn a way, Matthew Kacsmaryk – the Trump-appointed federal district court judge in Amarillo, Texas, who issued a sprawling and aggressive injunction on 7 April that would have removed the abortion drug mifepristone from the market – did the supreme court’s conservative majority a big favor: he made them look reasonable by comparison.On Friday, after days of anxious waiting for abortion providers, the pharmaceutical industry and American women, the supreme court declined to allow Kacsmaryk’s stay – and another, also dramatic ruling from the fifth circuit court of appeals – to go into effect. The court that destroyed the abortion right last year thereby preserved the availability of the most common abortion method – at least in the dwindling number of states where abortion remains legal at all. Continue reading...

Fani Willis, investigating whether Trump illegally meddled in 2020 election, urges ‘heightened security’ for when decision is madeThe prosecutor in Atlanta investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia said Monday she expects to announce charging decisions in the case this summer and urged “heightened security”.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis wrote in a letter to local sheriff Pat Labat that she expects to announce the decisions some time between 11 July and 1 September. She said she wanted to give Labat time to coordinate with local, state and federal agencies “to ensure that our law enforcement community is ready to protect the public”. Continue reading...

For nearly three decades, Ginny Schrappen exchanged letters with a man imprisoned for a murder that he has always said he did not commit. Lamar Johnson's conviction was overturned by a judge in Missouri earlier this year after evidence surfaced that the killer was someone else – and now the pen pals have met for the first time. Johnson had been convicted of killing of Marcus Boyd, who was shot dead on his front porch by two masked men in 1994. Police and prosecutors said Johnson gunned down Boyd during a dispute over drug money, ignoring his pleas of innocence and insistence that he was with his girlfriend miles away when the killing occurred

The worst-kept secret in Washington is out – but at 80, and with low approval ratings, the president faces challenges in his re-election bidLegend has it that when the artist Benjamin West told King George III that George Washington, the first US president, had decided to resign, the king replied: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”Some urged Joe Biden, the 46th president, to follow suit and, at the age of 80, hand power to a new generation. Who were they kidding? The worst-kept secret in Washington is out: Biden is running for re-election next year. Continue reading...

Ben is one of hundreds of volunteer pilots in the US flying people across state lines in their small private planes so they can obtain abortion healthcare. He’s part of an Illinois-based group called Elevated Access that connects pilots with patients. Since the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 dismantled 50 years of legal protection around abortion access in the US, thousands of patients are now forced to travel to obtain the healthcare they need – which can be expensive, time consuming and risky Continue reading...

Joe Biden has formally launched his re-election campaign, asking Americans to give him another four years to finish what he started.The president, famously nostalgic, chose to launch his campaign on the fourth anniversary of his return to politics in 2019, when he declared his intention to seek the presidential nomination for a third time. Then, like now, Biden relied on a video to formally declare his candidacy before venturing on to the campaign trail

Announcement sets the stage for an extraordinary rematch with Donald Trump

Will alternative parties and a change in voting methods deepen democratic representation or just favor one of the two established parties?In a swing state that’s likely to decide the next presidential election, two new third parties want to get on the ballot and other groups want to remake the way votes are cast and counted.Arizona, which voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 as the state has grown more purple, could see big shifts to its political establishment in the next year, all premised on the idea that the dominance of the two main political parties creates dysfunction and prevents progress on issues that matter to voters. That has Democrats and Republicans here worried. Continue reading...

Only a small percentage of works donated by Charles and Valerie Diker have clear ownership histories. Experts say they could be stolen or fake

A number of Boston Celtics players have spoken about racism in the city. But to say it’s an isolated case is to misunderstand AmericaCeltics wing Jaylen Brown shocked many when he recently spoke about Boston fans’ treatment of Black players. Asked by the New York Times if he had received any negative treatment from the Boston fanbase, he said: “I definitely think there’s a group or an amount within the Celtic nation that is extremely toxic and does not want to see athletes use their platform, or they just want you to play basketball and entertain and go home. And that’s a problem to me.”We know the Maga-influenced cities across America are trying to turn back the clock on social and racial issues. But an equally dangerous form of racism exists in gentrified, majority-white, and left-leaning US cities. And that prejudice often emerges among sections of those cities’ sports fans. Continue reading...

Former journalist who wrote for Rolling Stone and Playboy became an advice column for Elle magazine for 26 yearsE Jean Carroll is an 80 year-old former journalist who, until she accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her, was best known as an advice columnist for Elle magazine for 26 years.The column was praised for its forthright writing including Carroll’s view that women should never build their lives around men and the compassion of her replies to readers seeking advice. Elle terminated Carroll’s contract in 2019. She said the magazine fired her because of her dispute with Trump. Elle denied it. Continue reading...

The writer E Jean Carroll is seeking damages after accusing the former president of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990sThe rape case brought in New York against Donald Trump by famed advice columnist, E Jean Carroll has caught the attention of America as the latest legal drama to involve the former US president.The case is so far the only one to come to court among more than a dozen allegations of rape, groping and other sexual assaults made against Trump. Continue reading...

Columnist E Jean Carroll alleges that the real estate mogul sexually assaulted her in a New York department store nearly 30 years agoA federal court in New York will begin selecting a jury on Tuesday to hear evidence that Donald Trump raped the famed advice columnist E Jean Carroll nearly three decades ago.Carroll alleges that Trump pinned her against the wall of a New York department store and sexually assaulted her in late 1995 or early the following year as they shopped together. She brought the case last year under a New York state law opening a one-year window for adult victims of sexual assault to file civil cases after the statute of limitations has expired. Continue reading...

Pets have been known to tip the balance in many a promising relationship. Mine did its best with a scene straight out of Hammer HorrorTwo-thirds of people would dump a partner or forgo a second date if their dog or cat didn’t like the person, according to a poll by Pets at Home.Single people are dumb, unless they secretly love being single, in which case they are smart, because this is a terrible test. A dog who is used to being the apple of your eye can easily take against a rival, for no better reason than they seem suitable. And you should never outsource this kind of judgment call to a cat. Cats don’t like anyone. Continue reading...

Lamar Johnson, 49, finally gets chance to meet Ginny Schrappen, 80, after she wrote to him in prison for nearly three decadesFor nearly three decades, Ginny Schrappen exchanged letters with a man imprisoned for a murder which he has always said he didn’t commit and whom she believed.Her faith in Lamar Johnson was rewarded when a judge in Missouri overturned his conviction earlier this year after evidence surfaced that the killer in fact was someone else – and now the pen pals have met for the first time. Continue reading...

On Monday, Fox News unexpectedly announced that Tucker Carlson, the network's most popular and controversial presenter, had departed from the channel. The network released a statement indicating that it had mutually agreed with Carlson to part ways. The statement read: 'Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways ... We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.'Carlson courted controversy throughout his career relying on provocative and inaccurate reporting to boost his ratings. The Los Angeles Times reported his departure was linked to a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which sued the network for defamation after Carlson falsely claimed that the company rigged the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden.

An intense solar storm has entranced stargazers across the world after it created light shows reaching beyond their usual polar boundaries. Australia and New Zealand saw a huge Aurora Australis on Monday night, while the Aurora Borealis graced skies farther south than usual across the US, Europe and Asia

The legislation has slim exceptions – only in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency – up to six weeks’ gestationNorth Dakota on Monday adopted one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the US as the Republican governor Doug Burgum signed legislation banning the procedure throughout pregnancy, with slim exceptions up to six weeks’ gestation.In those early weeks, abortion would be allowed only in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency, such as ectopic pregnancy. Continue reading...

Zooey Zephyr hasn’t been allowed to speak on house floor since taking a stand against bill that would ban gender-affirming careMontana protesters brought the state house to a halt on Monday after Republican legislative leaders prevented a transgender lawmaker from speaking for a third day over her remarks about banning gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.The interruption is the latest development in a three-day fight over Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr’s remarks against lawmakers who support a ban on gender-affirming care. Zephyr, who is trans and a first-term Democrat, hasn’t been allowed to speak on the state house floor since Thursday because she told Republican colleagues last week they would have “blood on their hands” if they banned gender-affirming medical care. Continue reading...

The bank came into focus after two regional banks collapsed in April, shaking confidence in smaller institutionsFirst Republic Bank’s deposits fell by over $100 bn in the first quarter and it said it was exploring options including restructuring its balance sheet, overshadowing market-beating profit and sending its shares down 21% after the bell on Monday.The results mark the most important quarter for the troubled bank as it prepares to increase insured deposits, cut borrowings from the Federal Reserve Bank and loan balances, it said, while aiming to layoff nearly 20-25% in the second quarter. Continue reading...

The neo-fascist group’s leader and four lieutenants are accused of seditious conspiracy to forcibly stop the transfer of power in 2021Ready for “all-out war”, leaders of the far-right Proud Boys viewed themselves as foot soldiers for Donald Trump as he clung to power after the 2020 election, a prosecutor said on Monday at the close of a historic trial over the January 6 Capitol attack.After more than three months of testimony, jurors began hearing closing arguments in the seditious conspiracy case accusing the former Proud Boys national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, and four lieutenants of plotting to forcibly stop the transfer of power. Continue reading...

Launch would come exactly four years after president announced his 2020 bid, where he warned ‘soul’ of the nation is at stakeJoe Biden is expected to announce his 2024 re-election campaign as early as Tuesday, possibly setting the stage for an extraordinary rematch with Donald Trump.A Tuesday launch would come exactly four years after Biden announced his 2020 presidential bid, in which he warned that the “soul” of the nation was at stake after four tumultuous years under Trump. Continue reading...

Many are surprised by news given Carlson’s popularity, while several conservative pundits expressed displeasureShocked reactions are pouring in across social media on the abrupt departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, with the network announcing that the prominent far-right television host is leaving the channel.Many were surprised by the announcement given the popularity that Carlson enjoyed at Fox as well as the highest-rated host on cable television. Continue reading...

Star anchor Lemon, 57, says ‘I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated’ as network confirms exitThe TV news anchor Don Lemon said on Monday he had been fired from CNN – the news breaking shortly after word of another major US media departure, that of Tucker Carlson from Fox News.“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN,” Lemon, 57, wrote on Twitter not long after appearing on CNN This Morning, the revamped show he co-hosted with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. Continue reading...

Senate finance chair Ron Wyden demands Harlan Crow end ‘unacceptable’ secrecy over dealings with supreme court justiceThe Democratic chairperson of the US Senate finance committee, Ron Wyden, has written to the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow demanding an end to “unacceptable” secrecy around his gifts to the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.“The secrecy surrounding your dealings with Justice Thomas is simply unacceptable,” Wyden, from Oregon, wrote in the open letter. Continue reading...

California senator absent for weeks as Democrats and progressives eye effect on pace of confirmations of liberal judgesCalls for Dianne Feinstein to resign from the US Senate because of ill health are not sexist or ageist, a prominent liberal columnist argued, as debate over the California Democrat’s absence continued.“I don’t think it’s those things,” Molly Jong-Fast, a podcaster and Vanity Fair columnist, told MSNBC. “Sure, there have been senators who have stayed too long on the right and the left, female and male. This is not even an issue of staying too long. This is an issue of just not being in the office to take the votes you must take.” Continue reading...

Two elderly cats found hiding under owner’s bed days after collapse of adjacent parking garage left them trappedTwo elderly cats who were trapped after a car garage’s collapse in New York City have been reunited with their owner, providing a sliver of good news in what was otherwise a deadly mishap.Sandy Imhoff was reunited with her two cats – 12-year-old Dave and Cathy, 14 – on Thursday after the cats and other felines were trapped in an adjacent apartment building when the garage collapsed. Continue reading...

Majority of Americans also don’t believe federal judges should be able to overturn FDA approval of a prescription drug, poll showsA significant majority of Americans do not support laws that would prohibit access to drugs used in medication abortions, and confidence in the US supreme court is at a new low, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released on Monday.A majority of Americans also do not believe federal judges should be able to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of a prescription drug, the poll found. Continue reading...

Letters to Trump reportedly contains 150 messages from key figures also including Queen Elizabeth and Ronald ReaganDonald Trump’s forthcoming book of letters from famous but mostly former friends will include a missive from King Charles III, the Telegraph reported.According to the report, the letter from then Prince Charles was sent in 1995, thanking Trump for an honorary membership at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and inviting him to London. Continue reading...

Ship lacked required onboard morgue and Robert Jones’s body had turned green and was decomposing by time it reached FloridaA cruise line stored the body of a passenger who died onboard in a drinks cooler for several days, causing the man’s body to turn green and decompose, the man’s widow alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in Florida last week.The man, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack on 15 August last year while onboard the Celebrity Equinox during a Caribbean cruise. Ship crew members allegedly told his widow, Marilyn Jones, that she could either take the body on shore in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or that they could store it in the working onboard morgue until they returned to Florida. Staffers told her that the body had only a 50% chance of undergoing an autopsy in San Juan and that she would have to remain there alone until the body was autopsied and embalmed, Jones said in the complaint. She chose to keep the body on the ship. Continue reading...

Protest planned after Carroll county gives job to Myles Cosgrove, who was fired by Louisville police after no-knock raidThe former Louisville police officer who fatally shot Breonna Taylor has a new job in law enforcement in a county north-east of the Kentucky city.The Carroll county sheriff’s office on Saturday confirmed the hiring of Myles Cosgrove, who was fired from the Louisville Metro police department in January 2021 for violating use-of-force procedures and failing to use a body camera during the raid on Taylor’s apartment, WHAS-TV reported. Continue reading...

Fox was never forced to admit to its deceptions, and the far-right echo chamber is still obsessed with voting conspiracy theoriesElection officials across the US have faced an unprecedented amount of threats and harassment since the 2020 election. Now they say that Dominion Voting Systems’ decision to settle its landmark defamation lawsuit with Fox for $787.5m last week may not do enough to stop conspiracy theories about the company’s machines leading into the 2024 election.While election officials in states and localities that use Dominion machines agree the settlement is a win for the integrity of elections, they lamented that election misinformation will continue, especially given that Fox News personalities and executives didn’t have to testify about whether they knowingly spread false claims about the voting machines, or offer a public apology. Continue reading...

Dominion Voting Systems has settled its defamation lawsuit with Fox News for $787.5m. Some fear it may not be enough to stop conspiracy theories about the company’s machines in the run-up to 2024 election

Results reported for what is likely to be the last time as lender’s takeover by Swiss rival nears completionCredit Suisse said customers pulled more than 61bn Swiss francs (£55bn) worth of assets from the bank at the start of the year, laying bare the scale of the panic that contributed to its failure and emergency takeover by its rival UBS last month.The Swiss lender said the “significant withdrawals” were partly to blame for its poor financial performance in the first quarter, with its adjusted pre-tax loss ballooning to 1.3bn Swiss francs for the first three months of the year. That compares with a profit of 300m Swiss francs during the same period in 2022. Continue reading...

Fox News, one of the world’s most powerful media organisations, effectively admitted it broadcast untrue information. What happens now?There are always plenty of grounds for cynicism about the state of the news media, but in the last week we seem to have arrived at a new set of low expectations.Fox News, having settled its defamation case with Dominion in the US and with Lachlan Murdoch withdrawing proceedings against Crikey in Australia, the Murdoch news empire has effectively admitted what was already clear: that it knowingly broadcast untrue information. Continue reading...

Many are surprised that one of the NBA’s most effective pests is from Canada. But the country’s players must fight to prove themselves south of their borderDillon Brooks is doing everything in his power to become the NBA’s next villain.The 27-year-old wing from Mississauga, Ontario has picked up so many technical fouls this season that he earned two one-game suspensions. He punched Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell in the groin, which started a brawl. He shoved a cameraman, which led to a fine. And in last year’s playoffs, he hit Gary Payton II while in the air, causing him to break his elbow. Continue reading...

In their new book, The Big Myth, the authors document the rise of ‘market fundamentalism’ and Americans’ relationship with government regulationsFor the last decade, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway have been digging into the history of the idea that freedom only thrives if businesses are left unbothered by governments. It’s a philosophy that has touched every corner of American life, they argue, even though it has long been proven deeply flawed.In their new book – The Big Myth – How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market – Oreskes and Conway document the rise of what’s more politely called “market fundamentalism” over the last century, from corporate propaganda and fringe academic theory to mainstream ideology. Continue reading...