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DoJ tells Republicans it will not pursue prosecution of attorney general after House votes to hold him in contemptThe US Department of Justice on Friday told the Republican House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, that it would decline to pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against the attorney general, Merrick Garland, according to a letter seen by Reuters.The Republican-controlled House had voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of Joe Biden's interview with the special counsel investigating his retention of classified documents after he was Barack Obama's vice-president. Continue reading...

The pronounced antisemitism in recent protests is an unsettling phenomenonCongratulations to the group of radical protesters who claim to be for the Palestinian cause in New York City. They brag online that they shut down" the Nova exhibit on Wall Street and played out their day of rage throughout the subway system, against some museums and museum directors, and on the New York City streets and even hit some UN missions.In reality, they didn't shut down the Nova exhibit. The exhibit will probably get more attendees than anticipated and its presentation has been extended. The exhibit, which originated in Israel, presents oral history and artifacts of the horrific 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on thousands of mostly generation Z and millennials who were at a rave enjoying music, drugs and dance. Continue reading...

The co-hosts USA reached the second group stage and eliminated Pakistan on an historic if damp day in FloridaMeanwhile, in Group B...The outfield is still very wet, so there will be another inspection at 11.30am local/4.30pm BST. If I had to bet the farm I'd say the match will be washed out because of further rain, but I'm thousands of miles away so I'm not sure what the point of this sentence is. Continue reading...

The regime is allowing a reformist to run because it wants to ensure more of the same. It will take a better offer to win back the peopleThe death of Iran's president, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash last month was a shock. The 63yearold hardliner was not only expected to run for a second term, but to be part of the looming transition: the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 85 and has health problems. Some had even thought Raisi might succeed him.Yet the repercussions have been muted. The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for 28June, but no one expects Raisi's replacement to bring significant political change. The regime's priorities are continuity and stability. It knows it may soon have to reckon with the hostility of a second Trump administration and it faces widespread discontent at home, following the suppression of the massive Woman, Life, Freedom protests. The evidence of recent years suggest that it is more worried about conservative consolidation at the top than legitimacy from below. Continue reading...

Wisconsin city will host Republican national convention next month, a key swing state Biden won in 2020US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump's dismissal of Milwaukee as a horrible city" by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings - a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is set to be the party's presidential nominee this November.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden's victory over him. Continue reading...

The opening of France's first cheese museum in Paris complements the city's high concentration of top fromageries Homage to fromage: cheese museum opens in ParisFrance is not the only player when it comes to fromage. Outstanding cheeses are being produced in Great Britain, Switzerland and even the US. And the most recent winner of the World Cheese Awards - Nidelven Bla - comes from Norway.Still, no other cheese-producing nation can match France in terms of the sheer number of exceptional cheeses. The French tradition of cheesemaking began more than 2,000 years ago and, since then, they have figured out a thing or two: which animal breeds thrive best in certain areas, how to harness moulds and bacteria to produce safe cheeses with deliciously complex flavours, and how to pair them with wine. Continue reading...

The justices unanimously rejected the mifepristone case on technical grounds. Their ruling is not the victory it may seemOn Thursday, the US supreme court unanimously ruled that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine - a sock-puppet group of fanatically anti-choice doctors and busybodies - lacked standing to sue in the group's challenge to the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, the drug that is now used in more than 60% of American abortions. The court's decision may seem like the end of this battle. It's only the beginning.The lawsuit in question had originally emerged from Amarillo, Texas, in a federal court that has become a destination for anti-choice litigants because Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee and the sole judge hearing federal civil cases in the district, is a militant anti-abortion activist. Kacsmaryk made news when he used to case as a pretext to issue a nationwide injunction revoking FDA approval of the drug. The fifth circuit court, a radically rightwing appeals panel which has jurisdiction over Texas and which has repeatedly sought to push the supreme court to new heights of anti-abortion extremism, upheld most of Kacsmaryk's ruling, but limited the case to challenges that the FDA made in 2016 and 2021 to make mifepristone more easily available.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Report published by Native American-led non-profit identifies 10 tribal nations tied to land and how it was takenA report published this week by a Native American-led non-profit examines in detail the dispossession of $1.7tn worth of Indigenous homelands in Colorado by the state and the US - and the more than $546m the state has reaped in mineral extraction from them.The report, shared first with the Associated Press, identifies 10 tribal nations that have aboriginal title, congressional title and treaty title to lands within Colorado" and details the ways the land was legally and illegally taken. It determined that many of the transactions were in direct violation of treaty rights or in some cases lacked title for a legal transfer. Continue reading...

Ex-president also mulled over the repercussions of world leaders being deepfaked to announce false nuclear attackDonald Trump has said he used a speech generated by artificial intelligence (AI) after being impressed by the content.The former US president, whose oratory is noted for its rambling, off-the-cuff style but also for its demagoguery, made the claim in an interview with Logan Paul's podcast in which he lauded AI as a superpower" but also warned of its potential dangers. Continue reading...

Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Florida will be demolished while students are on summer breakCrews plan to start tearing down the building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school on Friday where 17 people were murdered in the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.Families of the victims have been invited to witness the start of the demolition and collect pieces of the building to keep for themselves as a marker of the tragedy if they choose. Continue reading...

Like the characters in Ripley and Saltburn, the perfectly well-to-do PM longs to be even better-to-doPsychologically speaking, I feel I understood the last two prime ministers only as they were leaving us. With Liz Truss this might seem understandable, given she was in office for 10 minutes. Then again she had been around for years - yet it was only watching her final days, and then reading one illuminating political obituary, that I felt I got it. I met Truss at university," wrote Tanya Gold in Politico, long before she entered real politics, and she mirrors and watches, as if trying to learn a new language. That is why she is stilted and ethereal: that is why she cannot speak easily or from the heart."Ah, I see, I suddenly thought. Why had I not got it before? My surmises felt further confirmed reading Rory Stewart's political memoir, when Truss asks how his weekend has been. I explained that my father had died," Stewart writes. She paused for a moment, nodded, and asked when the 25-year environment plan would be ready." Was Truss being deliberately heartless? Or did she, in the moment, forget the learned thing to do in the situation, which didn't come to her reflexively, as it might to most? Perhaps the same thing happened when she beat Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest and didn't shake his hand.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Politicians and planners are allowing the Thames to become an urban canyon - greed always seems to win outA Japanese developer has announced it will demolish a new tower of luxury flats in Tokyo it was weeks from completing. The reason? The 10-storey development was blocking beautiful views of Mount Fuji. The idea a developer would reach such a decision in Britain is inconceivable. In London, flats are usually built to make a profit. If they have a beautiful view, good luck to those buying them. To hell with anyone else's beauty.One of what we assume was the Sunak government's last decisions was Michael Gove's greenlighting of a huge 20-storey concrete slab that is about to rise on the banks of the Thames next to the National Theatre. It is hideous, and will dominate the once-glorious view of St Paul's cathedral from Waterloo Bridge. Paradoxically, its developer is the Mitsubishi Corporation. Continue reading...

Workers were sacked after review found they were creating impression of active work', says filing

Hamas spokesperson says Israeli tanks have advanced on Rafah. Plus: Scotland's burgeoning seaweed industryGood morning.With the safe return of the hostages crucial to any deal for a ceasefire, a senior Hamas official has said that no one has an idea" how many of the 120 remaining hostages in Gaza are alive.What is happening in Gaza? Israeli tanks advanced into the western part of Rafah on Thursday as the city came under intense helicopter, drone and artillery fire in what residents described as one of the worst bombardments of the area so far.Are displaced Palestinians receiving aid? The UN's relief agency for Palestinians, the largest aid organisation operating in Gaza, has accused Israeli authorities of frequently preventing it from delivering aid. Continue reading...

Regulation had barred moving cannabis over state waters which risked running afoul of federal lawsCannabis regulators in Massachusetts have issued an administrative order that will allow marijuana to be transported to the state's famous islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket for the first time.The order came amid reports Martha's Vineyard was about to run out of pot, with one dispensary temporarily closing in May and the other saying it would close by September without further supplies. Continue reading...

Male body dysmorphia has rocketed - maybe because we're desperate to assert a sense of control over our chaotic livesLooking back, it was probably when I started checking how many grams of carbohydrates were in red onions and broccoli that my eating disorder began. I say eating disorder" now, but, of course, as a man, I didn't think of it as that at the time. It was just cutting weight".I was 22 and had signed up for my first white-collar boxing match. Even though the weight classes were loose and barely enforced, I was determined to get into the best shape of my life - which I believed meant getting down from my natural weight of 90kg to 80kg. That's like going from 36in to 32in jeans in the space of a month.Tom Usher is a freelance writerComments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. Continue reading...

People camping on Havasupai reservation say they vomited and had fever as health officers look into source of outbreakDozens of hikers say they fell ill during trips to a popular Arizona tourist destination that features towering blue-green waterfalls deep in a gorge neighboring Grand Canyon national park.Madelyn Melchiors, a 32-year-old veterinarian from Kingman, Arizona, said she was vomiting severely Monday evening and had a fever that endured for days after camping on the Havasupai reservation. Continue reading...

Rory McIlroy shares the first-round lead after a bogey-free 65 put him level with early pacesetter Patrick CantlayPatrick Cantlay splashes out confidently from a greenside bunker at 11 to join the group at -1. Meanwhile Frederik Kjettrup, a 24-year-old qualifier from Denmark, freshly out of Florida State, strides after his 30-foot putt on 5. In it drops for the second eagle of the morning, and having bounced back in perfect fashion from a dropped stroke at 4, moves to -1 as well.It all goes wrong for Tom McKibbin at the par-three 15th. His tee shot doesn't make it over the false front of the green. Then what looks like a delicate chip up trundles through the green and over the back. He can only get his third to 15 feet, and the bogey putt is always missing on the right. Falling just the wrong side of some fine lines with each shot, and suddenly that's a double bogey and the 21-year-old Northern Irish prospect is suddenly back in the pack at +1. Continue reading...

Joe Biden hailed a breakthrough as he met Ukraine's president Volodymr Zelenskiy regarding G7 western economies' agreement to mobilise an extra $50bn (39bn) of aid to Ukraine using frozen Russian state assets.The US president also announced the US and Ukraine had also signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement, ending 12 months of difficult negotiations

Lawmakers sing Happy Birthday to ex-president, 78 on Friday, who reportedly called convention host Milwaukee horrible'

Right to IVF act was not expected to pass, but Democrats forced vote to get GOP on record opposing treatmentSenate Republicans have defeated a bill that would have established a federal right to in vitro fertilization, a piece of legislation that Democrats forced to the floor on Thursday as part of an election-year effort to contrast their approach to reproductive rights with that of the party across the aisle.The bill, the Right to IVF act, would have overwritten any state efforts to restrict the right to IVF as well as seeking to make the treatment more affordable and accessible, including for US military service members and veterans. Continue reading...

Democrat Dick Durbin announces failure of supreme court justice to disclose travel paid for by billionaire benefactorThe US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas took at least three additional trips funded by the billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow that the conservative justice failed to disclose, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee said on Thursday.Crow, a Texas businessman and Republican donor, disclosed details about the justice's travel between 2017 and 2021 in response to a judiciary committee vote last November to authorize subpoenas to Crow and another influential conservative, according to the committee chair, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat representing Illinois. Continue reading...

Former House speaker says ex-president has cemented his legacy of shame' over January 6 attack, prompting bizarre riposte from Trump

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Minnesota police charge Jessica Beske, 43, after traces of methamphetamine found in drug paraphernalia in her carA woman who was pulled over by Minnesota police officers faces up to 30 years in prison after a bong containing water that tested positive for methamphetamine was discovered in her car, despite Minnesota decriminalizing drug paraphernalia last year.The case shows how some are still affected by harsher laws from the war on drugs" era. Continue reading...

Sweeping report says officers in Arizona city routinely violate rights of Black, Hispanic and Native American peopleThe Phoenix police department routinely discriminates against people of color and kills civilians without justification, the US Department of Justice announced in an investigative report on Thursday.The government found a pattern or practice" of the police department using excessive force and violating the civil rights of Black, Hispanic and Native American people. In a first finding of its kind against any US police department, the justice department also concluded that Phoenix police unlawfully detain unhoused people and dispose of their belongings. The justice department further uncovered police discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities when officers are dispatched to help with people in crisis, and found that police had violated the rights of people engaged in protected speech. Continue reading...

When even Angela Rayner remains relentlessly on message, you know the election is in the bagYou win some, you lose some. This week, both Labour and the Tories will reckon they've struck lucky with the timings of their manifesto launches - though for very different reasons.It's always hard to know which is the best launch slot. To go first and set the agenda, with the anxiety that everyone will have soon forgotten what you are about. Or to go late and risk your manifesto lingering in the memory for all the wrong reasons. This year, both the main parties - if the Tories can still be called that - will reckon they judged it perfectly. Continue reading...

Justices throw out lower court's approval of injunction ordering coffee chain to rehire seven employeesThe US supreme court sided on Thursday with Starbucks in the coffee chain's challenge to a judicial order to rehire seven Memphis employees fired as they sought to unionize in a ruling that could make it harder for courts to quickly halt labor practices contested as unfair under federal law.The justices threw out a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordering Starbucks to reinstate the workers while the agency's in-house administrative case against the Seattle-based company proceeds. Continue reading...

Quinta Brunson, Lily Gladstone, Melissa McCarthy and Chappell Roan all worked long and hard for their big breaks. I'm so glad they stuck with itFor the last little while, celebrity discourse has included a lot of discussion about nepo babies. Which beautiful child was spawned by which celebrity, and how are they using their good fortune? Whose hot wooden son is going to be starring in a new blockbuster after deciding on a whim to try acting? Which comedian's 18-year-old daughter is going to be in the writers' room for that new sketch show?It's tempting, especially if you work in the arts, to point at these people (especially the untalented ones) and whinge about the unfair advantages they have had. For me it helps scratch an itch. If you're someone who also wants to create work, it's a bummer to think how different things might be had you been born into money, or went to the right schools, or got in a room with the right people. It's difficult not to vent about those who have had an easier path. Continue reading...

Federal investigation found evidence of repeated racist harassment among Hawkins county, Tennessee, studentsA school district in Tennessee has agreed to implement reforms to its practices after a federal investigation found evidence of racist harassment, which included a Black student called racial slurs and subjected to a mock slave auction where he was sold" to his white peers.In a settlement with the Hawkins county school district in eastern Tennessee, the US Department of Justice said it had secured significant changes to school policies after it found the district was deliberately indifferent to known race-based harassment in its schools, violating the equal protection rights of Black students". Continue reading...

If it's true that more than 100 women and children died in the IDF's rescue of four hostages, Israel violated international lawThe enormous loss of Palestinian life attendant to the Israeli military's 8 June rescue of four hostages held by Hamas cries out for investigation. Hamas's abduction and detention of these four civilians was a clear war crime, but that does not exempt the Israeli military from the duty to comply with international humanitarian law in the rescue operation. The available evidence suggests that Israel fell short in several deadly respects.The Gaza health ministry, whose numbers have generally proved reliable, says that at least 274 Palestinians were killed in the operation and more than 600 wounded. The ministry does not distinguish combatants from civilians, but it reports that the dead included 64 children and 57 women, or 44% of the total. Given that many of the men who were killed in the course of the operation were in a nearby market, we must assume that a good proportion of them were civilians as well. That is a horrible civilian toll. Continue reading...

Italian PM was all smiles at start of G7 summit as she met parade of haunted-looking statesmen, most of whose days in power are numbered

Former secretary of state voices supports for Aipac-backed George Latimer in congressional raceHillary Clinton endorsed the primary challenger in representative Jamaal Bowman's vulnerable re-election race in New York.The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate gave her support to George Latimer, the Westchester county executive who has received significant support from the pro-Israel lobby Aipac. Continue reading...

The point guard has kept his off-court opinions to himself and rejuvenated his career in Dallas. But he has been unable to stop the relentless Celtics so farLate in Game 3 of the NBA finals on Wednesday night, the Dallas Mavericks were on the brink. They had mostly clawed back a 21-point deficit to get within three points of the Boston Celtics. Then Luka Doni, the Mavs' superstar scorer, fouled out - the first time he'd ever done so in a playoff game.That left Kyrie Irving, the Deadpool to Doni's Wolverine, to carry the day. And when he went on to score Dallas's next four points, including an 18ft jump shot that cut the Boston lead to one, it looked as if the Mavericks might actually make this a competitive series. But it was not to be. Boston are simply too good and too tough. The result, a 106-99 Celtics victory on Dallas's home floor, puts the Mavericks in a 0-3 series hole, a margin from which no NBA team has ever come back. And it came just when Irving, who scored a game-high 35 points, had two quiet games to start the series. Continue reading...

Downpours and flooding blocked roads, floated vehicles and delayed Florida Panthers on way to Stanley Cup gamesA tropical disturbance has brought a rare flash flood emergency to much of southern Florida as residents prepared to weather more heavy rainfall on Thursday and Friday.Wednesday's downpours and subsequent flooding blocked roads, floated vehicles and delayed the Florida Panthers on their way to Stanley Cup games in Canada against the Edmonton Oilers. Continue reading...

Asset managers are hoovering up Britain's LGBTQ+ venues, with potentially disastrous consequences for the gay scene

After a humiliating 5-1 defeat to Colombia, the US bounced back with a 1-1 draw against Brazil. But that doesn't mean everything is perfect for their coachShame is still a potent emotion in US soccer. It's hard to believe the USMNT could have conjured a performance as furious and focused on Wednesday had they not been humiliated in their previous match a few days earlier and resolved to make amends. Continue reading...

A recent survey found 86% of respondents have lived in their cars and crashed on couches while they fight fireThe bathrooms in Ben McLane's barracks haven't worked for the last three years. It's just one of several embarrassing" problems with the living quarters offered by the US government to the federal fire captain's poorly paid crew. Along with having to rely on portable toilets, this season his firefighters have also had to grapple with bed bugs and rodent infestations.Issues like these are common in the dilapidated and aging facilities that federal land management agencies rent out to many of their workers across the US. It's a problem felt particularly by federal firefighters, who get by on incomes as low as $15 an hour. Continue reading...

The AI's errors can still be comical and catastrophic. Do we really want this technology to be in so many pockets?Tech watchers and nerds like me get excited by tools such as ChatGPT. They look set to improve our lives in many ways - and hopefully augment our jobs rather than replace them.But in general, the public hasn't been so enamoured of the AI revolution". Make no mistake: artificial intelligence will have a transformative effect on how we live and work - it is already being used to draft legal letters and analyse lung-cancer scans. ChatGPT was also the fastest-growing app in history after it was released. That said, four in 10 Britons haven't heard of ChatGPT, according to a recent survey by the University of Oxford, and only 9% use it weekly or more frequently.Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of How AI Ate the World, which was published last month Continue reading...

Once-critical CEOs have reasons to back a second Trump term, with plans for tax breaks and reduced worker powerChief executives of some of America's largest companies will meet privately with Donald Trump later on Thursday, and many CEOs who were once critical of his unprecedented conduct appear increasingly open to the former president's return to office, a Guardian analysis has found.The private audience with the former president will take place at the quarterly gathering of the Business Roundtable, a powerful Washington lobbying group that advocates for the interests of chief executives of big US firms. Joe Biden was also invited; his chief of staff will attend while the US president is abroad, a Business Roundtable spokesperson said. Continue reading...

Project 2025 blueprint for second Trump term envisages replacing thousands of career staff with political loyalistsAmerica's career diplomats are braced for the threat of a mass purge if Donald Trump wins the November election and for the potential flooding of the state department with loyalty-tested political appointees.Rather than leading to a seamless change of course in a rightward Trumpist direction, the diplomats' union and former ambassadors argue, such an attempted takeover would be much more likely to end in legal challenges, gridlock and chaos. Continue reading...

Wild swimming is so over, so put on your Sambas and prepare to master the fine French art of throwing one ball at anotherTrends in big cities always move at a zip, but over the past few years it seems that London has become a particularly faddy place. The en vogue trainer of the moment changes like the unpredictable weather (Adidas Gazelles and Sambas appear to have clung on for the moment, but sports shoes by typically uncool brands such as On are waiting to swoop in at any minute).Styles you thought were long since dead get resurrected overnight (we are living, hellishly, through the boho revival). Where hobbies are concerned, the winds of change breeze by so frequently that it's common to see your friends suddenly taking up activities that you would never associate with them in a million years.Lauren O'Neill is a culture writer Continue reading...

A party drilled to say if', not when' will suddenly have to change gears - and reconcile two vastly different modes of StarmerismFor anyone who has ever suffered from impostor syndrome, Rishi Sunak's election campaign is a kind of therapy. No matter how underqualified you might feel for a task, there is no prospect of exposure as brutal as that now inflicted on the prime minister.He looks shaken, but will no doubt recover his composure soon enough. Sunak will arrive at the conclusion reached by Liz Truss and Boris Johnson before him: that the only failure was of other people's loyalty and nerve. Taking responsibility for defeat is alien to the Conservative culture of automatic right to rule. It runs deep, insulating a leader's ego from evidence of their inadequacy.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Indictment says Mark Adams Prieto recruited people at gun show to help carry out mass shooting targeting minoritiesA firearms dealer in Arizona sold weapons to an undercover federal agent he believed would help him carry out his plan for a mass shooting targeting minorities, an attack that he hoped would incite a race war", according to a federal grand jury indictment.Mark Adams Prieto was indicted Tuesday by the grand jury in Arizona on charges of firearms trafficking, transferring a firearm for use in a hate crime, and possession of an unregistered firearm. Continue reading...