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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Smarter sanctions must end the state sponsorship that allows settlements to grow and the political influence of religious zealots to flourishWhich country today brushes aside credible accusations of war crimes in a military campaign where its actions are under investigation for genocide? Which nation's political leadership endorses the illegal, violent expropriation of land and reduces its most steadfast friend - whose protection is vital to its survival - to threaten to withdraw support? Unfortunately, the answer is Israel, which has turned its unchecked anger on the Palestinians after Hamas massacred 1,200 of its citizens and took 253 others hostage. Revenge has led to an intensifying conflict with devastating consequences.While the recent violence is unprecedented in its ferocity, Israel has had a history of rogue conduct. But a deeper crisis for the country lies beneath the defiance with which far-right Israeli cabinet members respond to Joe Biden's warning that the US would withhold arms should Israel invade Gaza's southernmost city, Rafah. There appear to be no limits to how far extremists in Israel will go in disregarding world opinion.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Exclusive: great-niece of Walt Disney issues appeal to appalled voters on behalf of Progressive Change Campaign CommitteeEvoking the classic Disney tearjerker Old Yeller, in which a family is forced to put down their beloved dog, the US film-maker and campaigner Abigail Disney exhorted voters to oppose the Republican party of Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor whose story of killing Cricket, a 14-month-old dog, shocked the world and seemingly dynamited her hopes of being Donald Trump's running mate.My great-uncle Walt Disney knew the magic place animals have in the hearts of families everywhere," Disney wrote in an email released by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and obtained exclusively by the Guardian. Continue reading...

Gaza counter-protesters at UCLA took part in anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-vaccine events across southern California, researchers sayAs the University of California, Los Angeles is reeling from a late-night attack on a student protest encampment for Gaza last week, attention is turning to the disparate group of counter-protesters who had rallied against the encampment in the lead-up to the violence, including during chaotic dueling rallies two days before.Many witnesses to the 30 April melee observed that the small group of assailants - many of them masked - did not appear to be students. More than 30 people were injured, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair). Authorities are still working to identify the perpetrators, and have not made any arrests. Continue reading...

Sources say Singapore-based online fashion retailer founded in China prefers a float in New York but faces tougher scrutiny than expectedThe fast-fashion company Shein is stepping up preparations for a London listing after its attempt to float in New York faced regulatory hurdles and pushback from US lawmakers, sources have told Reuters.The online clothing retailer plans to update China's securities regulator on the change of the initial public offering (IPO) venue and file with the London Stock Exchange (LSE) as soon as this month, said one source. Continue reading...

The perverse principles of the 1970s that powered the tech titans have left us with a world where the richest 1% own nearly two-thirds of its wealthIn the early 1980s hand-written chalk signs started appearing on the sidewalks of my grungy Manhattan neighbourhood: Whoever has the most toys when he dies, wins. At that time New York City was still recovering from near bankruptcy and those who could were leaving in record numbers. Crime and homelessness were rife, crack cocaine was offered on every corner.The sidewalk message was clear: consumerism is a con, resist it, stuff won't matter when you're dead. Continue reading...

More than 300,000 people lose power as 5in hailstones strike central Texas and tornado warnings issuedBaseball-sized pieces of hail fell in Texas as parts of the southern US battle thunderstorms and other severe weather.Photos posted to social media showed the oversized hailstones - about 5in across - that fell in Johnson City in central Texas, NBC News reported. Continue reading...

Police had arrested Marianne Mair' Smyth at a rental home after a podcast on her crimes prompted a listener to reveal her locationA US-born woman who disguised herself as an heiress to a $30m fortune while scamming nearly $100,000 from a television producer - who later sent her to prison and documented her misdeeds on a hit podcast - has been ordered extradited to Northern Ireland on a separate set of fraud charges.Marianne Mair" Smyth's extradition to the UK was authorized by John Nivision, a US federal magistrate judge, on Thursday, more than two months after she was arrested at a short-term rental home in Bingham, Maine, court records show. Continue reading...

Schools changed their names after 2020 George Floyd protests, but will now revert to old names celebrating slave-state leadersAn all-white school board in Virginia has voted to restore the names of Robert E Lee and other Confederate military leaders to two public schools in a backlash to the racial reckoning that followed the police murder of George Floyd.The decision to restore the names of Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Turner Ashby was taken on Friday morning by the six-member school board in Shenandoah county. Only one of the members voted against the resolution. Continue reading...

An interview with the woman who allegedly inspired the stalker character has been the latest jaw-dropper in the hit show's afterlifeWhat will happen next in the still-mushrooming Baby Reindeer saga? Probably one or more of a number of bad things. Latest bad thing to happen (at time of writing) was Piers Morgan's decision to pay the so-called real-life Martha - reportedly the inspiration for the stalker character in the Netflix programme - what she claims was 250 so he could interview her on his YouTube show. I always feel the most disingenuous gambit in journalism is the one that goes: We just want to give you the chance to tell your side of the story ..." Anyway, the resultant encounter dropped on Thursday night and was an object lesson in wild-west TV, which has already sparked condemnation from a number of angles. Let's hope it doesn't spark real-life events of its own.Clearly mindful of the criticisms that would be levelled at him for featuring someone UK news outlets had largely avoided even naming, Morgan approached his interviewee wearing a veneer of empathy. Ultimately, though, the Martha character's enterprise would surely seem low-grade to all the people who edited tabloid newspapers in the not-too-distant past. After all, if you want someone relentlessly pursued, you just get the news desk to do it. Or a private detective. Or - but no. We daren't all operate under the heroic uncensored" banner.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

United Democracy Project backing Sarah Elfreth, even with Harry Dunn, former US capitol officer, as fellow Democrat in House raceA pro-Israel lobby group has dropped millions into a Maryland congressional race as tensions remain high over the war in Gaza.The primary race in the third congressional district, which will be held on Tuesday, has attracted national interest thanks to the candidacy of one Democrat in particular: Harry Dunn. A former US Capitol police officer, Dunn and his colleagues won praise for their actions defending lawmakers against a violent mob of Donald Trump's supporters on January 6. In his New York Times bestselling memoir, Standing My Ground, Dunn recounted how the insurrectionists repeatedly used the N-word as they attacked him and other Black officers. Continue reading...

Authorities moved in overnight to clear campuses from Arizona to Massachusetts of students demanding schools cut ties to IsraelPolice moved in to disband several pro-Palestinian student encampments on US campuses on Friday morning as the foment over protests against academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza continued to roil academia.Tent encampments at the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Arizona, Tucson, were all dismantled in early morning raids that saw cordons of police sweep in and clear the makeshift protest settlements. In Tucson teargas was used, and demonstrators responded by throwing bottles at officers. Continue reading...

The woman told police she had been living inside the grocery store sign for roughly a year, and had been able to get electricityContractors curious about an extension cord on the roof of a Michigan grocery store made a startling discovery: a 34-year-old woman was living inside the business sign, with enough space for a computer, printer and coffee maker, police said.She was homeless," said Brennon Warren, an officer with the Midland police department. It's a story that makes you scratch your head, just somebody living up in a sign." Continue reading...

With their success in persuading their university to divest from Israeli companies, they join a rich tradition of student activistsWho tends to get the big foreign policy calls right: student protesters, or their detractors? Answering this question, it turns out, is useful if you don't want to end up judged poorly by history. Student protesters were vilified when they stood against the Vietnam war, yet now, who would have wanted to be on the side that denigrated them variously as naive, dupes and extremists? How should we look back at the students suspended after walking out of lessons in protest at the impending war in Iraq in 2003? Today we might say they come off looking pretty good, having had far more foresight than the seasoned politicians and ageing media commentators who cheered that particular cataclysm on back then.That legacy loomed large on Wednesday in a courtyard at Trinity College Dublin, filled with students waving Palestinian flags alongside the Irish tricolour, as the triumphant student union president, Laszlo Molnarfi, told them their protests would succeed in Ireland, the US and across the world because our cause is right". The students were jubilant, because they had won.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Club members seem to have an idea of the type of women they're after; and why retiring tosspot' and git' is unacceptableCredit for the success of the TV show Baby Reindeer is largely owed to one woman, Jessica Gunning, who rescues Richard Gadd's baggy, self-absorbed script with her brilliant performance as Martha, Gadd's stalker. (When Gunning disappears, mid-series, we are effectively left in a room with a man doing bad standup). For the last week or so, coverage of the show's success - it's No 1 on Netflix in the UK and No 4 in the US - has rubbed shoulders with commentary about the ethics of the race to unearth the real people on whom the seven-part drama is based. Continue reading...

Analysis of 553 protests in solidarity with Palestinians between 18 April and 3 May found 97% of them did not cause serious damageAn independent non-profit that tracks political violence and political protests around the world found that 97% of campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza that have taken place in the US since mid-April have been peaceful.An analysis of 553 US campus demonstrations nationwide between 18 April and 3 May found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage, according to statistics from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled). Continue reading...

The June European elections are my first as a French citizen - and they're in time to vote for the rising star of the left, Raphael Glucksmann Continue reading...

Anti-Vietnam war activists from Tariq Ali to the Weather Underground on the remarkable parallels with today's pro-Palestinian uprising - and authorities' responsesEarly last week, days before the NYPD raid, Eleanor Stein poked around the edges of the Gaza Solidarity encampment at Columbia University. The area was the hub of the pro-ceasefire, pro-divestment, pro-Palestinian protest movement that has, in recent weeks, spread across the United States (and, more recently, Canada and the UK). It wasn't her first time witnessing clashes of protesters and counter-protesters on the lawns of the august Ivy League school.In 1968, Stein was one of 700 students arrested at Columbia during protests targeting both the university's ties to the US military apparatus at the height of the Vietnam war, and the college's plan to build a segregated gym, at the height of the civil rights movement. This was really a crisis moment," Stein, 78, recalls. Students were taking a moral stand. We were ready to risk our careers, and our lives and our futures, and take a leap into the unknown and say, No. We are not going to budge.'"Top: On the mall in front of Low Memorial Library at Columbia University, a young man with a microphone speaks to a crowd of students, faculty and onlookers during a protest in New York, 1968.Bottom: Students camp on Columbia University's campus to protest against the university's ties with Israel in New York, 22 April 2024. Continue reading...

US stars have flooded English soccer on the backs of the Wrexham phenomenon. But the shimmer of fame cannot overcome ineffective ownershipTom Brady was nowhere to be seen as Birmingham City dropped to the third tier of English football. He was, however, in Los Angeles the following day for Netflix's The Roast of Tom Brady, a live TV special in which Bill Belichick, Kevin Hart and many others ripped into the seven-time Super Bowl winner.I see your soccer team got knocked down another tier in the English Football League," Belichick, Brady's former coach, said from the dais. For those not familiar with English football, thanks to the intricacies of their obscure regulations system, I'll put it in English for you: they suck! Not so easy to run a team, is it Tom?" Continue reading...

The president is under pressure from Republicans and progressives as humanitarian crisis builds and immigration remains a key voter issueThe Biden administration has said its proposed changes to asylum standards, unveiled on Thursday, that would fast-track some deportation will enhance security and speed up a backlog of cases amid record numbers of arrivals at the US-Mexico border.The changes will also, by Biden's own admission, be limited in scope and only affect a small" number of people who have been convicted of serious crimes or may pose a national security risk. Continue reading...

Search team find man who dug himself out of the snow, and confirm two men, aged 23 and 32, died near Lone PeakTwo skiers have been killed in an avalanche in the mountains of Utah that occurred after several days of spring snowstorms, authorities said.The victims were two men aged 23 and 32, whose names have not been released. Continue reading...

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is ready to stand alone if necessary as it continues its military offensive in Gaza, in what appears to be an indirect response to warnings from US President Joe Biden over its incursions in Rafah. 'If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone,' said Netanyahu.

Relatives of Roger Fortson say deputies went to wrong unit and killed Fortson, as sheriff releases body-camera footageThe family of a Black US air force airman who was fatally shot by deputies who burst into his apartment in the Florida Panhandle said Thursday that they want to correct a false narrative put forth by authorities about the encounter that led to his death.Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family of Senior Airman Roger Fortson, said Fortson had not known it was sheriff's deputies who were breaking into his apartment - his castle" - and that he grabbed his legally owned firearm" to protect himself. Continue reading...

Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times as he detailed how the Catholic church protected him for more than two decades after he admitted to molesting children

In the past 48 hours, courts have granted significant delays in two of the former president's other pending criminal cases

New rule would restrict access sooner for people deemed to pose national security or public safety risk'The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new rule that it said would streamline asylum processing at the southern border by quickly denying certain migrants deemed to pose a national security or public safety risk".The proposed rule would allow immigration officials to reject and deport migrants who are already ineligible for asylum at an earlier stage in the process, a change administration officials said would enhance national security and save taxpayer dollars. Continue reading...

Made by extending the thumb and little finger, while curling down the three middle fingers the sign is also known as hang loose'The shaka is poised to become Hawaii's official hand gesture.Last week, Hawaiian lawmakers passed a bill that would officially enshrine the gesture in the state's culture. The shaka, also popular in surf culture and commonly known as hang loose" is a friendly hand signal made by extending the thumb and little finger while curling the three middle fingers. Continue reading...

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This live blog is now closed. You can read our latest story on Middle East tensions here.White House spokesperson John Kirby emphasized during his Thursday briefing that weapons are still being shipped to Israel.The clarification comes after Biden threatened to pause military aid to Israel if Israel launched a massive military assault in Rafah.Biden's statement was the clearest conditioning of aid that the administration has made since the start of Israel's war in Gaza", [Politico's] Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Haberkorn write. And it sent immediate ripples through national politics, with conservatives accusing the president of abandoning a long-held ally and some liberals hailing the pronouncement."It's hard to overemphasize what a big deal this is. For decades, American presidents from both major parties have supported Israel with few to no questions asked. But Biden and the administration have been increasingly irritated by Netanyahu for months, specifically on the threats to invade Rafah and the number of civilians Israel has killed over the last seven months. Continue reading...

The Israeli leader is dragging out the war and undermining a ceasefire for political reasons. Can Biden toughen up?On Monday, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians in the city of Rafah to evacuate ahead of airstrikes, which unleashed fears that Israel was starting a ground invasion of Gaza's southernmost city, where 1.4 million Palestinians have taken shelter. Hours later, Hamas announced that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal outlined by Egypt and Qatar. But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the deal and doubled down on his plan to invade Rafah and achieve total victory" against Hamas.It was a dizzying day in Israel's brutal seven-month war on Gaza. But one thing was clear: Netanyahu does not want to end the war - and he's doing all he can to undermine negotiations for a ceasefire and an agreement to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas since its 7 October attack on Israel. Netanyahu and his extremist allies fear that once the war ends, they will face early parliamentary elections and multiple investigations into the government's intelligence failures leading up to the Hamas attacks.Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University Continue reading...

Tactic can disrupt adversaries' plans but also risks politicising intelligence and compromising sources, article arguesAn increasingly common US tactic of declassifying intelligence with the aim of disrupting the plans of adversary powers can bring short-term gains, but risks creating long-term problems for the US intelligence agencies, two former CIA officials have warned.In a new article in the journal Foreign Affairs, David Gioe, a former CIA analyst and operations officer, and Michael Morell, who was CIA acting director and deputy director, argue that the most serious risk is the politicisation of intelligence, if it is routinely shaped before publication to suit the purposes of the administration of the day. Continue reading...

Investors denied used-car website a 6bn-plus valuation in London, leaving New York to do the deal. UK fund managers are not such dinosaurs thenOne of life's unfairnesses, officials at the London Stock Exchange sometimes grumble, is that high-profile flotation flops in the UK tend to be remembered for years whereas IPO disasters in New York are quietly forgotten as the locals move on and look for the next big thing. The complaint has some merit. Take Cazoo, whose car crash for investors would surely have generated many more headlines if it had happened in London.The UK-based used-car website opted for a New York listing in 2021 because high-growth companies are better understood by US investors", as its founder, Alex Chesterman, put it at the time. Ho, ho. It turns out that the American assessment that Cazoo was worth $8bn (6.4bn) could not have been more wrong. Continue reading...

Academic staff occupy lobby of Greenwich Village campus building in support of students' demands for divestment from IsraelThe first faculty-led Gaza solidarity encampment protest in the US was established on Wednesday night at New York's New School campus.Nearly two dozen professors and lecturers at the New York City college pitched tents and unrolled sleeping bags in the lobby of an academic building located in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in support of their students, and against Israel's attack on Gaza and their university's financial ties to Israel. Continue reading...