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Plus, reflections on Martin Amis’s later years, and Jude Law’s disgusting new cologneThe death of Martin Amis at the weekend triggers a slew of coverage more affectionate than can be imagined for that of many other writers. In America, the obituaries are sober, respectful. In Britain, where the news is much bigger, the pitch is slightly different, not just fond but shocked – hard to imagine this country’s literary life without some kind of Amis at the helm – and also, to my eye, slightly stricken. For many years, Amis-baiting was a minor national pastime and it seemed to me on Monday that along with the sadness was a detectable unease, the sick feeling of: “Oh god we didn’t mean it and now it’s too late.” Continue reading...

‘We are at a cocktail party pretending we know what we’re talking about,’ an editor said. But it’s clear the role of AI in cinema is dividing the industryOn the picket lines outside Los Angeles film studios, artificial intelligence has become a central antagonist of the Hollywood writers’ strike, with signs warning studio executives that writers will not let themselves be replaced by ChatGPTThat hasn’t stopped tech industry players from selling the promise of a future in which AI is an essential tool for every part of Hollywood production, from budgeting and concept art, to script development, to producing a first cut of a feature film with a single press of a button. Continue reading...

Political dysfunction and economic calamity are pushing people from many nations in the western hemisphere in what Biden has called the ‘largest migration in human history’US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has a message for migrants that he has been repeating loudly and frequently: “Our border is not open … don’t risk your life and your life savings” to come to the US seeking refuge without invitation.But for millions, hunger, violence and fear ring out louder. Political dysfunction and economic calamity are pushing people from many nations in the western hemisphere in what US president Joe Biden has called the “largest migration in human history”, exacerbated in Latin America and beyond by the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading...

It’s a battle that is, conversely, an essential ingredient and a headache in his attempt to prove he is a responsible conservativeIt has become one of the most compelling Disney stories ever told, but so far without a happily ever after. In fact, the entrance this week of Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis into the race for his party’s presidential nomination only adds gasoline to his raging feud with the theme park giant over diversity and transgender rights.It’s a battle that is, conversely, both an essential ingredient to the culture war agenda DeSantis believes will win him the White House in 2024; and a headache he could well do without as he attempts to prove his credentials as a fiscally responsible conservative. Continue reading...

As the liberal city’s hands-off policy is swept away in favor of clearing street camps and a push to centralized shelters, unhoused people feel the pressure

Understaffing, overcrowding and a lack of healthcare fueled a crisis in a state with the world’s highest incarceration rateLast year 270 people in Alabama’s prisons died, the most of any calendar year on record. The deaths included 19 homicides. Those in prison, their family members and prison advocates have used TikTok to highlight the degrading conditions in Alabama’s prisons, even as the Department of Justice is preparing an unprecedented legal action against the state.Severe understaffing, overcrowding, violence, drug use and a lack of adequate medical and mental healthcare and basic necessities have fueled a crisis in the state’s prisons for years. But the horrific state of Alabama’s prisons has begun to attract new attention as those affected have posted videos using the #prisontoks and #alabama hashtags to highlight the parlous state of affairs. Continue reading...

First as US national security adviser, then as secretary of state, Henry Kissinger intervened around the world during the 1970s, shaping events in China, Africa and the Middle East, with consequences that reverberate today• How Kissinger’s ‘sordid’ diplomacy in Africa fuelled war in Angola and prolonged apartheid Continue reading...

A collegiate summer league team from Georgia has become a TikTok sensation by leaning into fast-paced entertainment and leaving baseball as you know it in the dustIf you like baseball and use social media, you’ve likely already encountered the Savannah Bananas. The team is something of a social-media darling, especially on TikTok – the Bananas’ more than 6m million followers on the app significantly outnumber those of every franchise in Major League Baseball (as well as every team in the NFL, NBA and NHL).The factors driving the Bananas’ online success are obvious. In-game clips of players swinging flaming baseball bats, pitching from atop stilts, and performing choreographed dance routines are tailor-made for social media. To reduce the team’s popularity solely to its viral antics, however, is dishonest. Even to this initially skeptical observer, the fun-loving atmosphere surrounding a Bananas game is inarguably infectious. Continue reading...

In a TV landscape offering only the worst of humanity or the syrupy best of it, I know which I’d chooseIn debates over who is the least competent sibling, arguments for which actor’s performance is best and theories around how it’s all going to end, one question dogs social media discussion about Succession: which character are you rooting for? The HBO drama surrounding the Murdoch-esque family the Roys, fighting among themselves over who will become CEO of their media empire, has become a weekly lightning rod for debate in its final season (which ends on Monday). It’s normal to wake up on a Monday to a viral Twitter thread, Reddit or TikTok post putting forward a case for the morality of one of Succession’s main characters.The problem with these competing theories should be obvious to anyone who’s watched the show: every character on Succession is an irredeemably bad person. Continue reading...

The solution is not more fields but better, more compact, cruelty-free and pollution-free factoriesNo issue is more important, and none so shrouded in myth and wishful thinking. The way we feed ourselves is the key determinant of whether we survive this century, as no other sector is as damaging . Yet we can scarcely begin to discuss it objectively, thanks to the power of comforting illusions.Food has the extraordinary property of turning even the most progressive people into reactionaries. People who might accept any number of social and political changes can respond with fury if you propose our diets should shift. Stranger still, there’s a gulf between ultraconservative beliefs about how we should eat and the behaviour of people who hold such beliefs. I have heard people cite a rule formulated by the food writer Michael Pollan – “Don’t eat anything your great-great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food” – while eating a diet (Thai one day, Mexican the next, Mediterranean the day after) whose range of ingredients no one’s great-great-great-grandmother would recognise, and living much the better for it. Continue reading...

Senior White House official says president hears region’s concerns and ‘does not want conflict’ with ChinaJoe Biden’s senior advisers have acknowledged countries in the Indo-Pacific don’t want to be “trampled by a headlong clash” between the US and China.In a webinar with an Australian audience on Friday, senior White House national security council (NSC) officials said the US president wanted to give allies and other close partners “breathing space” to engage with China constructively. Continue reading...

Republican-led house unanimously recommended impeaching state’s top lawyer on 20 articles including bribery and abuse of public trustThe Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, teetered on the brink of impeachment Thursday after years of scandal, criminal charges and corruption accusations.In an unanimous decision, a Republican-led House investigative committee recommended impeaching the state’s top lawyer on 20 articles, including bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust. Continue reading...

House adjourned for holiday weekend, but lawmakers could be recalled to vote on deal if agreement is reachedJoe Biden and Republican lawmakers on Thursday appeared to be nearing a deal to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling, with little time to spare to avoid a potential default that could wreak havoc on the economy and global markets.The deal under consideration by negotiators would raise the government’s $31.4tn debt ceiling for two years while capping spending on most items, a US official told Reuters. It would also increase funding for discretionary spending on military and veterans while essentially holding non-defense discretionary spending at current year levels, the official said. Continue reading...

Social media posts picture Daily Salinas at Proud Boys events and show she posted antisemitic content onlineThe parent behind Amanda Gorman’s poem ban in a Florida school appears to have attended Proud Boys rallies and has previously posted antisemitic memes online.The parent, first identified by the Miami Herald as Daily Salinas, made headlines this week after reports emerged of her effort to ban a series of books at the elementary Bob Graham education center in Miami Lakes where her two children attend. Continue reading...

President says bipartisan agreement is only way forward to avoid catastrophic defaultThe House has finished its legislative work for the week, and members are preparing to go home for Memorial Day weekend without a deal reached on raising the debt ceiling.The House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, told reporters this morning that debt ceiling talks continued well past midnight last night, and negotiators are working around the clock until a deal is reached. Continue reading...

Gregory Rodriguez accused of abusing 13 people over a decade, as advocate say case highlights systemic sexual violence in prisonsA former correctional officer at California’s largest women’s prison has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting at least 13 incarcerated people over nearly a decade, prosecutors said on Wednesday.Gregory Rodriguez, who worked at the Central California Women’s Facility before he retired last year while under investigation, has been charged with 95 counts of sexual abuse, including rape, sodomy, sexual battery and rape under color of authority, the Madera county district attorney’s office said, as well as one drug-related charge. The assaults date back to 2014, but mostly occurred in the last two years, prosecutors said. Continue reading...

Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in Capitol insurrectionStewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was sentenced on Thursday to 18 years in prison, after being convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on Congress.Prosecutors sought a 25-year term. Lawyers for Rhodes said he should be sentenced to time served, since his arrest in January 2022. Continue reading...

Hamburger Mary’s in Orlando says law has ‘everything to do with the continued oppression of the LGBTQ+ community’A restaurant in Orlando, Florida, is suing the state’s rightwing governor, the Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, over a law that bans drag performances.On Monday, Hamburger Mary’s filed suit in the US district court of the middle district of Florida, alleging a violation of first amendment rights by the state, DeSantis and Melanie Griffin, secretary of the state’s business department. Continue reading...

Florida governor to tour Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina after online 2024 presidential campaign hit by technical glitchesRon DeSantis will attempt to steady his fledgling Republican presidential campaign with a mini-tour of early primary states next week, after technical glitches on Wednesday night made a disaster of his formal launch on Twitter.The Florida governor was ridiculed by political foes including Joe Biden and Donald Trump over an event intended to give one of the leading contenders for his party’s nomination a solid base from which to build his 2024 offensive, but which rapidly became a shambles. Continue reading...

Teen fell ‘when climbing upon one of the arches, in order to post, apparently, a social media broadcast’ said police chiefA 17-year-old boy fell to his death this weekend while climbing a Los Angeles bridge in an apparent social media stunt, police said.Police were sent to the 6th Street Viaduct around 2am Saturday and found the boy, who was pronounced dead at a hospital. His name was not immediately released. Continue reading...

Park staff say calf was a potential hazard to people after man touched the animal, causing it to be shunned by its herdA man who picked up a bison calf in Yellowstone National Park caused it to be shunned by its herd, prompting park officials to kill the animal rather than allow it to be a hazard to visitors.Park officials defended the decision to kill the newborn bison. Continue reading...

Police say a hunter might have fired the shot in Spanish Fork, 50 miles from Salt Lake CityUtah police were investigating after a two-year-old boy was struck in the head by a stray bullet as he played outside at his day care. Authorities now suspect the wayward round came from a bird hunter’s gun.Two adult caretakers found the toddler injured on Monday. Continue reading...

One explanation is that their behaviour is a reaction to past trauma inflicted on one member of the pod by humansRecent accounts of “attacks” on vessels by orcas off the Iberian peninsula are challenging the way we expect the natural world to behave. Increasing in number since 2020, from northern Portugal to the strait of Gibraltar, these incidents suggest the need for a cetacean scene investigation team. On 4 May, in one of the most extreme events, orcas sank a yacht.“There were two smaller orcas and one larger,” the skipper Werner Schaufelberger told German magazine Yacht. “The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the boat with full force from the side.” Continue reading...

Announcement on Twitter – with Elon Musk present – was marred by technical glitches. We look at what happenedThe launch of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign on Twitter was marred by technical glitches on Wednesday evening.Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, has sought to diversify Twitter’s audience, describing himself as a “free speech absolutist” while also reinstating previously banned accounts such as Donald Trump’s. However, he has also cut costs severely, leading to warnings that the platform could become prone to outages more regularly. Continue reading...

Stay Safe book, produced by a law enforcement consulting firm in Houston, was sent home in backpacks of childrenTexas schoolchildren as young as four years old are being given Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon books, teaching them to “run, hide, fight” if a gunman enters their building.Parents and teachers in the Dallas area have expressed alarm and concern that the Stay Safe book, produced by a law enforcement consulting firm in Houston, has been sent home in the backpacks of children in pre-kindergarten and elementary classes. Continue reading...

Far-right Georgia Republican draws laughter after banging gavel and demanding order as Steve Scalise spokeDemocrats in the House chamber burst into raucous laughter when Marjorie Taylor Greene called for “decorum”.The far-right Georgia Republican, controversialist and conspiracy theorist was presiding over the House on Wednesday as Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader, was speaking. Continue reading...

Minority and activist groups say Florida is ‘canary in the coalmine’ and warn rights will be trampled on if governor becomes presidentMinority groups and others in Florida trampled by Ron DeSantis during his march to a White House run are warning of democracy in peril at a national level.The rightwing Republican governor’s announcement on Wednesday that he was seeking his party’s 2024 presidential nomination provoked anger and a renewed promise of resistance from transgender rights advocates, immigrant organizations, and civil and voting rights groups in Florida, who have borne the brunt of his extremist policies and legislation. Continue reading...

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has officially declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, rolling out the news with a campaign video and a glitch-riddled event on Twitter with the owner of the social media site, Elon Musk. DeSantis filed paperwork on Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, before his planned event with Musk and an interview with Fox News later on Wednesday evening

MyPillow chief promised to pay to anyone who could disprove his ‘election fraud’ data – but Robert Zeidman is still waitingRobert Zeidman was not planning on making the trek to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in August 2021 for a “cyber symposium” hosted by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who was pledging to unveil hard data that showed China had interfered with the 2020 election.Zeidman, a 63-year-old consultant cyber forensics expert who goes to the shows in Las Vegas with his wife and plays poker in his spare time, voted twice for Trump because he did not like the alternative candidates. He thinks there was some fraud in the 2020 election, though not enough to overturn the result. And he believed it was possible that Lindell could have discovered evidence voting machines were hacked in 2020. He was curious to see Lindell’s evidence, and a bit skeptical, so he thought he would follow along online. Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis’s war on ‘wokeness’ is part of a larger effort to make Black people feel unwelcome, their identities un-AmericanThe NAACP has advised Black people to take precautions when traveling to Florida. In a move typically reserved for places experiencing war, social unrest or natural disasters, the group said that it was issuing the Florida advisory in direct response to “Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools”.“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” the NAACP wrote in a press release issued last week.Tayo Bero is a freelance writer Continue reading...

Our sense of whether women are attractive as they age is so influenced by the media that I’m not sure we’re always in full possession of our feelings about itMy daughter graduated from college last week, so for fun we watched The Graduate, Mike Nichols’s 1967 classic about an alienated young man and his affair with an older woman.I remember seeing it when I was in college and identifying with Benjamin, the main character played by Dustin Hoffman. Like every other rebellious kid, I resonated with Benjamin’s disdain for the bourgeois mentality of his parents’ generation – the absurdity of the man who urges Benjamin to go into “plastics”! But now, at 58, I realized that Benjamin was actually an entitled creep for wanting to date his lover’s daughter, and it was Mrs Robinson who deserved our sympathy – and how did I not notice how hot she was? Continue reading...

The brutal police response to protests against George Floyd’s murder has resulted in millions paid out to the injured

Exclusive: At least 19 cities will pay settlements to protesters who sustained injuries as a result of law enforcement actionCities across the US have agreed to pay out a total of more than $80m in settlements to protesters injured by police during 2020 racial justice protests – a figure experts believe is unprecedented and will rise further as many lawsuits are still playing out.The brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on 25 May 2020 sparked the largest nationwide demonstrations since the civil rights era, as upwards of 26 million people gathered to protest racism and police brutality. Continue reading...

New York City is planning a landmark ‘homeless bill of rights’, but advocates fear it will detract from housing initiativesNew York City could soon pass a “homeless bill of rights” with a “right to sleep outside” – something that no other major US city has done.If signed by Mayor Eric Adams, the proposal, which cleared New York’s city council unanimously last month, would add another plank to the city’s unique protections for unhoused residents. Since 1979, New York City has been one of the only places in the country with a “right to shelter”, which requires the government to provide a bed under a roof to anyone who needs it. Continue reading...

What unites Musk and DeSantis isn’t libertarianism at all. It’s authoritarianismThe real significance of Ron DeSantis’s presidential announcement on Twitter had little to do with DeSantis but everything to do with Musk.It’s that Twitter, under Musk, has fully embraced the political right.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Three years on from the murder of George Floyd, progress has been made but we cannot rest when it comes to racial inequalityThree years ago the world was stunned by the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of people who had sworn an oath to protect him. That horrific act unleashed years of pent-up frustration from black communities all over the world, but it wasn’t just black or brown people rising; honest and decent people from all backgrounds rose to say enough is enough and after the initial clamour for justice there was quickly a movement for long-term change.Football was no different in its reaction and we saw support from players, managers and leaders across the game. Players were at the forefront through their united decision to take the knee, ensuring the debate about racial inequality stayed on the agenda. Continue reading...

‘Alternative asset managers’ are mainly focused on protecting themselves from losses – and they get tax breaks for it, too

World’s second-largest cinema chain filed for protection to restructure debts but further backing has now been securedCineworld has said it expects to exit bankruptcy protection in July as the troubled cinema group secured further backing from lenders for its restructuring plan.The update from the world’s second-largest cinema chain, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, comes months after it filed for bankruptcy protection in the US in the autumn as it struggled with a ballooning $5bn (£4bn) debt pile and low audience numbers. Continue reading...

Stars such as Mick Jagger, Elton John and Diana Ross pay tribute to the singer who has died at 83. Plus, how the invasion of Ukraine ‘has fuelled funding boom for clean energy’Good morning.Tina Turner, the pioneering rock’n’roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged 83 after a long illness. An outpouring of tributes has emerged online following the announcement.When did her career start? In the 1960s with her abusive husband Ike Turner. After two decades of working with him, she struck out alone and – after a few false starts – became one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s with the album Private Dancer. Her life was chronicled in three memoirs, a biopic, a jukebox musical, and in 2021, the acclaimed documentary film, Tina. Read her obituary here.What was the cause of death? It’s unclear but she had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017.How did the Twitter launch go? Not well. The event marked the first time a major candidate had announced their run for president on social media and nearly 600,000 listeners tuned into Spaces, Twitter’s dedicated audio streaming feature but the results were a disaster. As the livestream began, the audio line experienced feedback, outages and garbled audio. Many users reported their Twitter apps crashing or logging them out as they tried to join the stream.What do we know about DeSantis? The Florida governor claims “blue-collar roots” and an Ivy League education but has pursued hard-right policies as he seeks to take on Trump. Here are 10 things to know about Ron DeSantis. Continue reading...

On the first anniversary of the deaths of 19 children and two teachers in a school mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, US president Joe Biden said too many schools in the country had become 'killing fields'.He then renewed his call for a ban on assault rifles. 'It's time to act,' Biden said at a memorial for the victims of the Uvalde shooting. 'It’s time to make our voices heard. Not as Democrats or Republicans. But as friends, as neighbors, as parents, as fellow Americans.'

After decades of just shovelling in food, I have finally learned to pace myselfI read and listen to an awful lot of words. How many? Let’s see. I must get through at least four hours of speech radio, podcasts and audiobooks a day. At roughly three words a second that’s more than 10,000 an hour, so let’s call it 40,000 a day. And I must be in conversation for about the same amount of time, so allowing for silences and subtracting the words I use, that’s maybe another 15,000 a day. And I must read about the same number. I reckon, all up, 70,000 a day; 25m a year. Some of those words have more merit than others. A few, vanishingly few, are sheer gold. One short sentence can reframe everything.An example: I’ve banged on extensively about my propensity to overeat, at every meal, and between meals, all day, every day. After more than half a century of this, the shame of it hadn’t abated any more than the habit. I’d all but given up trying to change. Then a month ago, I picked up Paul McKenna’s book I Can Make You Thin. This turned out to be something of a gamechanger. I have not overeaten since and I’m 6kg lighter. The whole book is interesting, and I have even quite enjoyed the “weight-loss mind-programming audio”. Continue reading...

John Riddle of Hollywood, Florida, discovered lizard in what seems to be a recurring encounter in stateHearing “splashing” coming from his toilet, a 58-year-old Florida man looked into the bowl and found an iguana.“I look down, and I see this frightened-looking reptile looking back at me,” John Riddle, of Hollywood, told the Orlando Sentinel. Continue reading...

This week’s furore over entirely legal migration proves it was never the kind of foreigner you were, simply your foreignnessFew sights are as sad as someone who gets exactly what they want and hates it, yet that is exactly how the British right behaves.Hacking back the state? They swung the axe for a decade, only to complain about the damage done. Boris Johnson? Once their surefire winner, he has made them all losers. And, of course, there’s Brexit – the summit towards which so many trudged, only to find the view from the top a dud. Every last one of the right’s grievances has been dealt with, and it drives them mad.Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The Arsenal youth product is set to lead the attack for the Americans on home soil in 2026. He could be the goalscorer they have long cravedThe United States is one of fastest growing football nations in the world. Over the last 30 years we have been hoping, maybe even praying, for a savior. Every great football nation has a Ronaldo, a Neymar, a Messi. The US will never have that. Or at least we thought we wouldn’t. We’ve always had to succeed as a team rather than on the shoulders of a superstar.But it seems that our prayers may have been answered. Whereas the US seemingly always figures out the goalkeeping position and sometimes struggles to find a left-back, this generation may be the best collective we have to win the World Cup. And I think Folarin Balogun has figured that out. That’s why he recently switched nationalities and will represent the United States, the country of his birth, even though he grew up in England and has represented them at youth level. Continue reading...