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Acting in the role since April, Blanche faces Senate confirmation after controversial DoJ moves

Raman shook up LA mayoral race by entering hours before the deadline - now she faces her one-time political ally

As president and allies spread baseless conspiracy theories, here's what you need to know about the California countAs California continues to slowly count ballots, edging closer to determining who will advance in elections to run the state and its largest city, Donald Trump and other Republicans are spreading claims of election fraud that have become common after California elections.On Monday, Trump-backed Republican Steve Hilton was inching closer to securing the second runoff spot in the California governor's race, after Democrat Xavier Becerra secured the first spot on Friday. But the race has yet to be called for Hilton, with more than 2.5m ballots still left to be counted across the state. Continue reading...

US president for years has repeatedly suggested - and said outright - that he would not take the country to warDonald Trump has forcefully denied he ever promised not to draw the US into war, having spent years pledging to avoid doing just that.The US president's own biography on the White House website credits him with putting a stop to endless wars" - raising questions about the US-Israel war on Iran, which he launched, with no end currently in sight. Continue reading...

President dramatically raised cost of visa for highly skilled workers in executive order last yearA US judge has invalidated Donald Trump's $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visa applications, ruling it an unlawful tax that violated federal administrative law and the constitution.US district judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the 42-page ruling in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging a fee Trump announced in September that dramatically raised the cost of obtaining H-1B visas.. The ruling vacated the sweeping fee, which was a 20-to-50 fold increase on existing rates, and the Trump administration is widely expected to appeal. Continue reading...

Department of Agriculture says new cases in Texas and New Mexico as officials move to combat parasite's spreadThe US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Monday confirmed three additional cases of New World screwworm - two more in Texas and the other in New Mexico, according to the agency's animal health arm.The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said the two Texas cases affected a calf in La Salle county and a goat in Gillespie county. Continue reading...

Recent exchange of missiles between Iran and Israel highlights diverging views between US president and Israeli PMThe latest eruption of hostilities between Iran and Israel appears to have been contained for now after Donald Trump insisted he called all the shots" in the Middle East, but in a dangerously fragile region Benjamin Netanyahu has again shown he is ready to take shots of his own.The exchange of missiles on Sunday and Monday was ample demonstration of the inherent instability of the current limbo between war and peace, but it also shone a bright light on the complex and conflicted relationship between the US president and the Israeli prime minister, frenemies who could determine the fate of the current ceasefire. Continue reading...

Performing arts venue takes down references to a Trump Kennedy Center' in compliance with judge's rulingThe Kennedy Center has removed Trump's name from its website after a US district judge's order last month to remove the US president's name from the performing arts venue.The removal of Trump's name from the website on Monday came just days before a deadline instructed by the center's general counsel to remove all references to the president by 12 June. Continue reading...

Case argues Trump administration broke federal laws to accomodate deeply corrupt' commercial sporting eventDonald Trump is throwing himself quite the 80th birthday party at the White House on Sunday. All he needs now is for a federal judge, Dwayne The Rock" Johnson and a passing thunderstorm not to ruin it.The watchdog group Public Integrity Project filed a lawsuit on Saturday in DC federal court, seeking an emergency injunction to halt the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Freedom 250 event before a single punch is thrown on 14 June - which so happens both Flag Day and the president's birthday. Continue reading...

From high-altitude training to made to measure kits, teams have resorted to all manner of things to adapt to conditions at the tournament Predict the winner | Daily podcast | Download our appThe heat and the altitude worried everybody. The 1970 World Cup in Mexico would not be a normal one. So the Bulgarian authorities sent their squad south of Sofia to get used to playing several thousand feet above sea level. Which seemed a great idea until somebody noticed that the temperature in the Pirin mountains was not in the mid-20s as it is in Mexico but somewhere near freezing. How then could they replicate the effect of playing in intense heat? By restricting water intake so that the players got used to performing while dehydrated.The plan was not a great success. Bulgaria lost their first two World Cup games in 1970 and had already been eliminated by the time they drew with Morocco. It's safe to assume that preparations for this World Cup will be rather more sophisticated than they were 56 years ago. Most countries back then seemed to take the view that training at altitude was the logical way to prepare for games in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara. Israel went to Ethiopia and Colorado. Uruguay played in Quito and Bogota. Mexico held a fivemonth training camp that featured 13 friendly internationals in four months before two games against Dundee United. Continue reading...

Fired journalist accuses CBS News chief of interfering with report because it did not echo Trump's view of the shootingThe fired 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley has accused editorial management at CBS of interfering with a broadcast segment on the killing of the Minneapolis protester Renee Good by an immigration officer in January.The veteran broadcaster, who was recently dismissed from the show, said CBS News's editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, had sent an email to his supervisor requesting changes shortly before the airing of the segment in question. Continue reading...

Harmonie Perrone, 28, is suing Advocate Good Shepherd in Illinois, where reproductive rights are enshrined in lawHarmonie Perrone, 28, knew she was probably having an ectopic pregnancy, and she knew exactly what she needed to do: seek medical care immediately, before life-threatening complications set in.But she was denied that care twice as she feared for her life - and, after the delay in care, she lost her fertility, she says in a new lawsuit filed Monday. Continue reading...

Though the federal government's prosecution fell apart, the Broadview Six of Illinois say their lives have been upendedMichael Rabbitt was 4,000 miles (6,400km) away from home last October, celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary in Portugal, when a pair of messages from the FBI brought news that would upend his life. He was under federal indictment, and was ordered to surrender by the next day.The month before, Rabbitt, 62, had been protesting at an ICE detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, during a period of tense daily demonstrations. Now, the federal government was accusing him and five others of felony conspiracy, saying they had illegally blocked an ICE vehicle. Continue reading...

All eyes on US Senate race as Graham Platner, embroiled in controversy, is set to advance as Democratic nomineeVoters in Maine head to the polls on Tuesday for one of the most closely watched primary elections in the country. The US Senate race has become a national fixation as Democrats try to unseat a longtime Republican with a political newcomer who has spent months under fire.Graham Platner, 41, is set to advance as the Democratic nominee for the Senate, after his primary rival - the state's two-term governor, Janet Mills - suspended her campaign in April. The primary result will likely set up a months-long run-up between Platner, an oysterman and marine veteran with a groundswell of popularity and a mounting list of scandals, and Susan Collins, a 73-year-old Republican senator who has held the seat for nearly three decades. Continue reading...

It was once an article of faith that even those who speak words we disagree with deserve protection. As regards Palestine, that's now not trueRemember the Satanic Verses controversy? Remember Je suis Charlie"? Remember the constant invocations of Voltaire and Orwell? The great irony of our age is that many of the cadre of politicians who spent years anointing themselves as champions of free speech have become its most enthusiastic enemies when the subject turns to one issue: Palestine.For decades, western governments lectured the world about liberal values. They declared freedom of expression the hallmark of a liberal democratic society. Protest was deemed patriotic while the right to offend was considered sacred. Then came Gaza. Suddenly, the principles that we were once told were non-negotiable became highly negotiable indeed.Mehdi Hasan is the editor-in-chief and CEO of ZeteoThe assault on freedom with Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi

Donald Trump said: I'm about to call Bibi right now and tell him not to respond', as conflict risks spiralling - key US politics stories from 7 June at a glanceDonald Trump's appeal to Benjamin Netanyahu to not to strike back" after Iran launched missiles at Israel appears to have been unsuccessful after the Israeli military said it struck targets inside Iran.The US president made the plea after Iran responded to Israeli strikes on southern Beirut in Lebanon earlier on Sunday, as the conflict again threatened to spiral into a broader regional war. Continue reading...

Rose Byrne, Sarah Paulson, Daniel Radcliffe, Adrien Brody and others gather to celebrate Broadway's biggest awards night. The 79th annual Tony awards are hosted by Pink at Radio City Music Hall in New York

David Rush, who was arrested in May, stole millions from US government through special access program', officials sayA former executive intelligence agent who is accused of stealing more than $40m in gold bars from the CIA reportedly created a fake spy program to siphon money, the latest on his fraudulent activity, the Washington Post first reported.David Rush, who was a senior-level employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for 17 years, was arrested in May after FBI agents discovered Rush had taken 303 bullion bars, each about 2.2lbs, dozens of luxury watches, and more than $2m in foreign currency from his government office. Continue reading...

Democratic congressman issues qualified defense of Maine candidate in his bid to unseat Republican Susan CollinsProgressive Democratic congressman Ro Khanna issued a qualified defense of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner on Sunday, saying his actions were misogynistic, they were shameful, they were wrong, but they didn't come as a surprise to a lot of the folks in Maine."The former Marine-turned-oyster farmer, who is campaigning to unseat the state's Republican senator Susan Collins in November, has been hit with successive waves of accusation about his past actions, including sending sexually explicit messages he sent to women while married and being stenciled with a Nazi-themed tattoo. Continue reading...

Potential proposal would secure control of Diego Garcia base amid stalled UK plans to cede sovereignty of territoryDonald Trump is reportedly weighing a plan to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius amid stalled plans from the UK to cede sovereignty of the territory, the Telegraph first reported.The White House did not respond to the Guardian's request for comment on the report about the potential plan. Continue reading...

The moderate Republican, an advocate of abortion rights, resigned in 1995 amid accusations of sexual harassmentFormer US senator Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as a champion of abortion and women's rights was spoiled at the end of his career by allegations of sexual harassment, has died. He was 93.Packwood's death on Saturday was announced in an obituary sent to media outlets by his family. Continue reading...

From Christian Pulisic to Weston McKennie, many of the team's biggest stars have been open about their faith, creating a new dynamic for a home World Cup World Cup newsletter | Daily podcast | Get the appIn the third episode of the interminable, nine-part Pulisic docuseries, its subject, Christian Pulisic, sits down at a dining table, pink orchids blooming behind him.It is what time?" a friend asks him, holding a camera in Pulisic's face. Continue reading...

US president says I'd pay the kind of money they deserve' amid questions over his administration establishing fundDonald Trump declined on Sunday to definitively rule out compensating individuals who were charged with assaulting police officers when his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 toward the end of his first presidency.Trump did that in an interview on NBC News's Meet the Press, where he spoke in support of what his administration calls an anti-weaponization" fund, arguing that people who entered the Capitol while Congress was preparing to certify Joe Biden's victory over him in the 2020 presidential election had been treated unfairly by prosecutors and should receive compensation. Continue reading...

The Socceroos playing on football's biggest stage in my adopted country would normally have me racing to book tickets. Not this yearIs USA! USA! USA!" a more fundamentally obnoxious chant than Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!"? As an Australian who has spent most of the last 15 years living in the United States and is now a permanent resident, the Socceroos' World Cup group match against the USA raises some questions. Has my adopted nation dethroned my homeland as the world's foremost exponent of being unconscionably terrible to immigrants? And on a more personal level ... who do I support here?Well, look, OK, there's really only one answer to that second question. I'm not an especially patriotic type, but if anything does bring out my Australian-ness, it's the World Cup - perhaps because it's one of the few events at which we can still claim to be underdogs. And now, two decades after I rose at dawn to watch Australia's dreams dashed by the intersection of Lucas Neill's leg and Fabio Grosso's general vicinity, I find myself living in a country hosting the tournament. Continue reading...

Search enters second day after Saturday shooting that wounded 12, two reported in critical condition, police sayOrganizers of a festival in the historic center of Toledo, Ohio, have cancelled planned events on Sunday as police continue the search for at least two shooters who wounded 12 people a day earlier.The Toledo police deputy chief, Joseph Heffernan, said the shooters were probably shooting at each other" when gunfire erupted just after 5.30pm near the Old West End festival, an annual gathering of live music and architectural home tours. Continue reading...

New film revives story of Taylor Parker, convicted in 2022 of cutting unborn daughter from womb of friend she killedIn an America so often saturated with brutal crime stories, it takes special circumstances to truly register shock.But the story of Taylor Parker, now sitting on a Texas death row after being convicted of murdering her pregnant friend Reagan Simmons-Hancock in 2020 and cutting her unborn daughter Braxlynn from her womb, is horrific in part because it appears almost against nature itself. Continue reading...

At least 12 people were wounded in a shooting near the Old West End festival in Toledo, Ohio, on Satuday. Toledo's deputy police chief, Joe Heffernan, said two people were in a critical condition. No arrests have been made and the search for the suspects is continuing Continue reading...

Firings are part of a broader personnel purge under the leadership of director Kash Patel, a Trump loyalistSeveral FBI analysts tied to the creation of a 2023 memo warning of a potential threat from Catholic violent extremists" were fired on Friday, according to their lawyer, the latest wave of terminations under the leadership of its director Kash Patel.The fired employees included four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst. The FBI declined to comment. Continue reading...

As protests flare at New Jersey's Delaney Hall, Jessica Ordaz examines the US's complex relationship with migration and detentionFor more than two weeks, at least 300 detainees at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center have been on a hunger and labor strike. They describe horrible" conditions at the Newark, New Jersey, facility: spoiled food, inadequate medical care and poor living conditions. Others have alleged physical abuse by guards, including being beaten and pepper-sprayed by a riot squad, causing some detainees to be rushed to the hospital. They're calling for a meeting with the New Jersey governor, Mikie Sherrill, to urge the immediate release of all detainees from the privately operated 1,000-bed center. As of now, the Department of Homeland Security has partly restored family visitation at the center and released pregnant detainees.

A $205m expansion team is the latest step in the league's rapid growth, but conflicts over funding and facilities show the tensions of public-private unions in sportsSports fans' connection to their team of choice is usually strengthened by high points - wins, championships and the like. For Emily Kegg and thousands of other Columbus Crew fans, their connection was reinforced by a potential loss of their team itself. When the Crew's then-ownership group and Major League Soccer threatened to relocate the team to Texas in 2017, Kegg and her family were eager to join the grassroots movement to Save the Crew. They made friends through the effort to keep the team in the city, bonding over a shared love of soccer.In late 2018, when a new ownership group announced it intended to buy the team and keep it in Columbus, Kegg decided to stay involved. Now she's the community director of the Nordecke, the supporters' group of just under 600 members that coalesced during Save the Crew. Continue reading...

Black women are two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than white women are. This is a public health crisisIn April alone, at least half a dozen Black women were allegedly killed by their partners, including the high-profile cases of Cerina Fairfax, estranged wife of the former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax, and Nancy Metayer Bowen, vice-mayor of Coral Springs, Florida. Shaneiqua Elkins survived a shooting by her husband, Shamar Elkins, that wounded her and killed seven of her children and one of their cousins in Shreveport, Louisiana.These tragedies are shining a light on the killings of Black women and the systems that allow that violence to continue.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The defeat hurt, but the Americans' response to an early German goal provided perhaps the clearest evidence yet that their manager's message is taking rootA sunshower began dousing the fans at Soldier Field as Matt Freese picked the ball out of his net. It was only the second minute of the United States' final friendly before the World Cup, and mighty Germany had already opened the scoring with plenty of talent to turn the occasion into a rout.On this occasion, however, when it rains, it pours" did not befit the US performance. By the time the precipitation subsided after 10 minutes or so, Pochettino's starters stepped into the sunlight, determined to not be embarrassed by the four-time world champions. The hosts seldom looked over-run despite trailing, setting the stage for Antonee Robinson to volley an emphatic equalizer past Hoffenheim's Oliver Baumann in the 37th minute. Continue reading...

The US president brags about ending wars but look at Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Lebanon to see what his casual disregard for diplomacy and obsession with instant results have achievedThere are visionary statesmen and high-minded negotiators, pragmatic mediators and professional diplomats - and then there are meddling fools. As ceasefires implode, vast numbers of civilians die or flee, and wars Donald Trump started, fuelled or pledged to resolve rage unchecked, there's no doubt which category he belongs to. In baseball parlance, in Ukraine, Iran-Lebanon and Israel-Palestine, Trump is 0 for 3". He boasted he alone could cut deals and bring peace. He's delivered neither. In striking out, he mostly makes matters worse.The heroic age of 19th-century diplomacy, typified by Prince Metternich's great power-balancing concert of Europe" and Benjamin Disraeli's Balkan peace with honour", is history now. But it's not that long since Nobel-winning peacemakers such as the UN chief Kofi Annan and the Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari, or the US senator George Mitchell, who brokered Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement, were troubleshooting intractable conflicts the world over. Where are the successors to Desmond Tutu, Andrei Sakharov or Yitzhak Rabin when you need them?Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...

US and Iran exchange a series of strikes in latest threat to fragile ceasefire. Key US politics stories from 6 June at a glancePessimistic" predictions that the Middle East war could push tens of millions more people into acute hunger if drawn out are being proven right, the UN says, as the US and Iran again exchanged fire, threatening the already fragile ceasefire.The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned weeks ago that soaring oil prices were devastating global food security, but now, nearly three months into the conflict, the negative scenario is unfortunately materialising", said Jean-Martin Bauer, the director of WFP's food and nutrition analysis service. Continue reading...

A search for the suspects continues as victims are taken to nearby hospitals, police sayA shooting near a community festival in Toledo, Ohio, wounded at least 12 people on Saturday, with police saying a search for the suspects was ongoing.Two of the wounded were in a critical condition, Toledo deputy police chief Joe Heffernan said. He said it appeared there were at least two people firing weapons who were probably shooting at each other". Continue reading...

In late March, his polling hovered near 3%, but in a stunning reversal Becerra has advanced to the general electionXavier Becerra, the former Biden cabinet official whose California gubernatorial campaign survived a deeply underwhelming start, has advanced to the general election, in a stunning reverse of political fortune.If he prevails in November, Becerra would make history as the state's first Latino governor since 1875, when California was briefly led by Romualdo Pacheco, who was born in the territory when it was still part of Mexico. Continue reading...

Donald Trump pardoned Stephen Buyer of Indiana, who served nearly two years in prison after convictionAs his administration promotes what it calls a crackdown on fraud in states run by Democrats, Donald Trump once again used the pardon power to excuse financial crimes committed by a Republican, granting a pardon this week to Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on inside information after he left office.Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for trades made while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He was ordered to forfeit more than $350,000, representing the amount of the illegal gains, and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025. Continue reading...

The party may reclaim the US House and even Senate, but primary candidates are far from united on how to move forwardAcross the country, in front yards and on main streets, at dairy breakfasts and inside breweries, voters are delivering a similar message to Democratic primary candidates: they're tired of both parties, and sick of being ignored.The Democratic party brand is bruised after its disastrous 2024 presidential loss. A botched review of the defeat by the Democratic National Committee, and a drawn-out process over releasing the so-called autopsy, created another round of handwringing over the party's direction. Continue reading...

Governor issues disaster declaration as agencies move to stop spread of parasite, including release of sterile fliesA second case of the flesh-eating screwworm fly has been confirmed in Texas by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), days after an initial case in a one-year-old calf set off an aggressive response to stop the spread of the parasite in the dominant cattle-producing state.Texas's governor, Greg Abbott, said on Friday that state officials were working with the federal government to slow the spread of the fly and the infestations caused by larvae that feed on the living flesh of warm-blooded animals and humans. Continue reading...