US news | The Guardian

The independent Vermont senator argued against unfettered capitalism in an interview with journalist Chris WallaceThe US government should confiscate 100% of any money that Americans make above $999m, the leftwing independent senator Bernie Sanders said late last week.Sanders expressed that belief in an exchange on Friday evening with the host of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? on HBO Max. Continue reading...

Officials say the bodies of Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 16, were found on the property of a convicted sex offenderThe bodies of seven people, including two missing teens and a convicted sex offender, were discovered in rural Oklahoma on Monday, officials confirmed.Authorities found the bodies on a property near Henryetta, a town of about 6,000 located about 90 miles (145km) east of Oklahoma City, where the sex offender, Jesse McFadden, lived. They had been searching for Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 16, after officials issued an Amber alert earlier Monday. Continue reading...

Jamie Dimon’s remarks follow $10.6bn takeover brokered by US regulators to buy most of failed First RepublicJamie Dimon, the boss of JP Morgan, has played down the risk of a spiralling banking crisis after America’s biggest bank stepped in to buy most of collapsed lender First Republic in a $10.6bn (£8.5bn) takeover hurriedly brokered by US regulators.After weekend talks to secure a sale of First Republic, the third US lender to fail this year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) confirmed JP Morgan as the buyer. Continue reading...

Samantha Miller’s new husband was also injured in the South Carolina beach crash and remains hospitalized in critical conditionA bride leaving her wedding reception was killed just moments after the ceremony when a drunk driver slammed into the newlywed couple’s golf cart on a South Carolina beach road, authorities said on Monday.Samantha Miller, 34, of Charlotte, North Carolina, died in the wreck, according to the Charleston county coroner’s office. Miller had just gotten married hours earlier, Folly Beach public safety department director Andrew Gilreath said. Three others in the golf cart were injured, including the groom, who remains hospitalized and in critical condition. Continue reading...

Writer tells New York jury George Conway, the husband of top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, encouraged her to take legal actionThe advice columnist E Jean Carroll sued Donald Trump for rape after she was encouraged to take legal action by George Conway, the husband of a top aide to the then president.On her third day on the witness stand, Carroll told the jury hearing her lawsuit for battery and defamation over the alleged sexual assault in a New York department store changing room in 1996 that she did not intend to sue Trump until he called her a liar when she went public with her accusations more than two decades later. Continue reading...

The network and Trump had a difficult relationship when he was in office, but the event could goose both of their ratingsThe announcement that CNN will host a New Hampshire town hall event for Donald Trump was met with widespread criticism on Monday.Angelo Carusone, chief executive of Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog, said: “The transparent attempt to goose their ratings does feel at least a little odious. But all the more reason that they need to get this right.” Continue reading...

Disgraced film mogul, who is serving 23 years for rape and sexual assault in New York, was sentenced to 16 years in LA convictionHarvey Weinstein has hired Bill Cosby’s lawyer to appeal his conviction in Los Angeles for sexual assault and rape, after a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.The former film producer, whose exposure as a sexual predator in October 2017 via investigations by the New York Times and the New Yorker precipitated the #MeToo movement, has hired Michael Freedman and Jennifer Bonjean as his lead legal counsel. Bonjean got Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction in Pennsylvania overturned on a legal technicality in 2021. The disgraced comedian, who has been accused by more than 60 women of rape, was released from prison after serving two years of a 3-to-10 year sentence. Continue reading...

Host gave unflattering opinion of the Fox Nation website and the size of its audience before he was fired by Fox NewsBefore he was fired by Fox News, rightwing TV host Tucker Carlson said the Fox Nation streaming service for which he produced content “sucks”, leaked video showed on Monday.The news follows widespread reporting that comments about his employer, including “highly offensive” remarks about executives, contributed to Carlson’s shock firing last week. Continue reading...

Republican Greg Abbott condemned for calling Honduran victims of Friday night shooting in rural Cleveland ‘illegal immigrants’As he announced a reward for the capture of a 38-year-old Texas man accused of fatally shooting five people after some of them complained about his firing a rifle in his yard, the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, went out of his way to describe Francisco Oropeza and those he allegedly murdered as “illegal immigrants”.The Republican’s words drew ire from immigration advocates, state and federal lawmakers and other politicians as Abbott’s words hewed closely with his track record of using anti-immigrant rhetoric in the wake of mass shootings. Continue reading...

Company that won $787.5m settlement pursuing defamation lawsuits against two Fox competitors and four Trump alliesDominion Voting Systems, which last month reached a $787.5m settlement of its $1.6bn defamation case against Fox News, is seeking wider accountability for the broadcast of Donald Trump’s election fraud lies and will “not … stop until we get it”, a co-founder said.A Dominion lawyer, meanwhile, said he hoped messages redacted in court filings but reportedly linked to the dramatic firing of Tucker Carlson would soon be revealed. Continue reading...

Two Manhattan and two Brooklyn parking garages ordered closed due to deterioration that poses ‘threat to public safety’Four New York City parking garages were ordered emptied last week amid inspections prompted by a deadly garage collapse that killed one person and injured five.The four parking garages – two each in Manhattan and Brooklyn – were determined to have “deteriorated to the point where they were now posing an immediate threat to public safety”, said the city’s buildings department spokesperson, the New York Times reported. Continue reading...

Francisco Oropeza, 38, wanted by police after five members of Wilson García’s family shot and killed in rural town of ClevelandAs his month-old baby cried through the night, Wilson García just wanted his neighbor to shoot his rifle farther away.Joined by two others, García “respectfully” asked Francisco Oropeza, 38, to change where he was firing off rounds on Friday night as more than a dozen people – some on a church retreat – gathered at the family home in Cleveland, Texas, a rural town north of Houston. Continue reading...

Former US president arrives in Aberdeen for trip in which he will open course at controversial resortDonald Trump said it was “great to be home” as he arrived in Scotland to cut the ribbon on another golf course near Aberdeen.The first former US president to be charged with a crime said on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, that he was going to the Menie estate near Aberdeen to open a second course. Continue reading...

Advice columnist is seeking damages for alleged rape in New York department store changing room in 1996, and for defamationThe advice columnist E Jean Carroll returns to the witness stand on Monday to face another day of cross-examination in her lawsuit against Donald Trump for alleged rape and defamation.Last week, Carroll denied that she falsely accused Trump of assaulting her in order to sell books and for political ends. She is seeking damages for alleged rape in a New York department store changing room in 1996, and for defamation after Trump accused her of lying when she went public with her accusations in a book. Continue reading...

The former US president arrived at Aberdeen airport at about 11.30am and was met by two pipers, a red carpet and a 10-vehicle motorcade. Earlier, Trump wrote on Truth Social – the social media platform he owns – that he would be opening a 'spectacular' second course at the controversial Menie estate in the north-east of the country. After his time in Scotland, he will head to his course in Doonbeg on Ireland’s west coast

Officials estimate between 50 and 100 homes damaged by tornado that also downed trees and caused gas leaksA popular coastal US tourist destination has declared a state of emergency after a tornado moved through the area on Sunday and damaged dozens of homes, downed trees and caused gas leaks.Officials in the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, said it was unclear how many homes had been damaged but they estimated between 50 and 100, after the tornado touched down just after 6pm, WTKR-TV reported. Continue reading...

Many states have restricted how schools can teach race and gender, but only Texas has banned student interaction with elected officialsThe defining experience of Jordan Zamora-Garcia’s high school career – a hands-on group project in civics class that spurred a new city ordinance in his Austin suburb – would now violate Texas law.Since Texas lawmakers in 2021 passed a ban on lessons teaching that any one group is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive”, a little-noticed provision of that legislation has triggered a massive fallout for civics education across the state. Continue reading...

Newspapers’ power is being eroded and disinformation is rife – but there is a way forwardOur understanding of the world is driven by information. It feeds our ability to make informed decisions about our lives, our communities, the way we’re governed. This fundamental freedom, the power to be able to access reliable information, sits at the heart of a thriving democratic society.But increasingly that power is being eroded. Indeed, some never had it to begin with. Press freedom is being threatened, compromised and denied in an increasing number of countries around the world.Kelly Walls is executive director of the Guardian FoundationYou can support the Guardian Foundation’s work hereDo 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...

After decades locked alone in small cages in San Quentin, men sentenced to die brace for sweeping changeSan Quentin prison guards shackled Keith Doolin’s hands behind his back and escorted him to a small cage. It was 8am on a Saturday in early March, and Doolin, along with a dozen other men – all condemned to be executed by the state of California – sat in roughly 6ft by 8ft cells. There were metal bars on all sides and overhead, giving the death row visiting room the appearance of an animal shelter.Doolin, 50, smiled as he explained why he chose to wear a tattered blue shirt that the prison had given him more than two decades ago. Unlike newer prison uniforms, his outfit has no “inmate” label or “California department of corrections and rehabilitation” (CDCR) marking: “I’ll wear this shirt until it falls off … Here, they strip you of your name and give you a CDC number. It’s part of the psychological warfare – tearing you down, making you feel worthless and not even acknowledging you as a human.” Continue reading...

Leading railroads give four paid sick days after years in which workers weren’t allowed to call in sick the morning of their shiftUS freight rail companies nearly spurred a nationwide railroad strike last fall by refusing to grant paid sick days, but in a surprise move welcomed by workers, those railroads have recently granted paid sick days to almost half their workforce.After being roundly criticized for not offering paid sick days, the leading rail companies – BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific – have granted many of their 93,000 workers four paid sick days a year through labor negotiations, with an option of taking three more paid sick days from personal days. Continue reading...

The party has settled on a new playbook: shifting right and hoping demoralized voters are repulsed by RepublicansThe Democratic party’s political class has developed a rote formula over the last decade: ignore rather than channel discontent among the party’s rank-and-file voters, prevent competitive primaries where those voters can act on their dissatisfaction, and then hope to eke out general election victories on a wave of voter disgust with the Republican party’s outlandish nominees.This isn’t just a fleeting tactic. This is now The Formula of Democratic Politics™, one with mixed results. In 2016, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer publicly bragged that the Formula would result in flipping enough moderate voters to secure a victory – just before the Formula’s epic failure handed Donald Trump the presidency. Continue reading...

Dennis Barnes estimates he could end up with at least $10m in offers when every school to which he applied answers himNew Orleans high schooler Dennis Maliq Barnes has clinched what is thought to be a US record after securing more than $9.7m in scholarship offers from nearly 140 American colleges and universities, surpassing a mark that had previously been set by another Louisianan.Barnes recently made national headlines after his school sent out a news release announcing that he was approaching an apparent – if unofficial – four-year-old record of $9.4m after hearing back from about 125 of the more than 180 universities to which he had applied. Continue reading...

The president is trying to appeal to climate-conscious young voters and appease the fossil fuel industry. It won’t workJust before announcing that he would again run for president, Joe Biden signed off on what on the surface looks like a great move to help address the climate crisis: an executive order that creates an office of environmental justice in the White House. “Environmental justice,” the president said from the Rose Garden, “will be the mission of the entire government, woven directly into how we work with state, local, tribal and territorial governments.”That is a beautiful sentiment. And sentiment, when coupled with substantive policy positions, can lead the country forward. The idea of a White House office that can help mobilize an all-of-government response to the climate crisis could be a force multiplier in the fight to save the planet. But to be effective it needs real presidential leadership that involves the creation of a bold and realistic plan to phase out fossil fuels along a strict timeline.Steven Donziger is a human rights and environmental lawyer, a Guardian US columnist, and the creator of the Substack newsletter Donziger on Justice Continue reading...

Group Pastors for Trump is drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream Christian leaders for being extremist, distorting religious teachings and endangering American democracyA far-right religious group with ties to Donald Trump loyalists Roger Stone and retired Army Lt Gen Michael Flynn, is planning events with pastors in swing state churches in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to spur more evangelical backing for the former US president’s 2024 campaign.But the group, Pastors for Trump, is drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream Christian leaders for being extremist, distorting Christian teachings and endangering American democracy, by fueling the spread of Christian nationalism. Continue reading...

Time will tell who got the best haul of players in Kansas City this year but the already formidable Philly look like they aced the draft once againPhiladelphia Eagles. In the past two seasons, the Eagles have given masterclasses in how to execute a perfect draft. The reigning NFC champions have found gold in the south by selecting top-tier players from college football’s best defense. In last year’s draft, the Eagles selected two dominant defensive players, Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean, both of whom helped the Georgia Bulldogs capture the 2022 national championship. Continue reading...

Refreshing response to a question from the media was unlike much of the discourse surrounding elite professional sportAlmost certainly fed up while facing the press in the media centre of Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum last Wednesday night, Giannis Antetokounmpo made no attempt to disguise his utter contempt for the query he had just been asked to field. The Bucks basketball legend had fronted up before the ladies and gentlemen of the fourth estate after his team’s elimination by the lowly ranked Miami Heat after a five-game series, arguably one of the most seismic upsets in NBA playoff history. Antetokounmpo’s gaze was caught by Eric Nehm, the man from the Athletic on the Bucks beat, who kept his question fairly short and to the point. He had already asked it of Antetokounmpo’s coach and now wished to hear the player’s considered opinion. “Do you view this season as a failure?”A protracted sigh from the top table was followed by an audible groan of “Oh my God”, as Antetokounmpo wearily rubbed his hands up his face and through his hair, in the manner of a man who can’t quite believe the absolute inanity of the question he’s just been asked. Countering with several of his own, rhetorical questions regarding the successes or failures his inquisitor might have enjoyed or endured in his professional life over the past 12 months, he proceeded to expound on his own idea of what constitutes failure, or if there’s even any such thing. “Michael Jordan played 15 years,” he said. “Won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me? I’m asking you a question, yes or no?” Continue reading...

Unsuccessful US college applicants have started having cathartic parties to ‘celebrate’. I think they might be on to somethingHigh school students in the US are tackling the brutal process of college applications with rejection parties, the New York Times reported last week. At one school, students bring along a printout of their college rejections, ceremonially feed them into a shredder, then get an ice-cream; there is a prize for the most rejected. It sounds wonderful: a cathartic, collective “screw you” to a broken system, using fun to salve the pain.I wonder if owning rejection is easier in the US, where there is at least a partial sense that failure is OK; it’s considered a learning opportunity and a key part of the origin story. The Silicon Valley motto “fail fast, fail often” took hold because failure was seen as indicative of audacity and a willingness to try. Rejection is a particularly stinging subset of failure, but the principle remains: you took the shot; it didn’t pay off; you try again. Continue reading...

Participants who turned in guns were given up to $500 for each firearm at nine program locations throughout the stateThousands of guns were surrendered across New York on Saturday in exchange for gift cards as part of the state’s gun buyback program.According to the New York attorney general, Letitia James, whose office organized the event, more than 3,000 guns including various assault-style rifles and “ghost guns” were given up in what she hailed as a “landmark event”. Continue reading...

I have explained what has happened to me, on my own terms, and people have responded in kindI’ve had a double mastectomy. I don’t find it straightforward to spell or to pronounce, but it’s the term I find easiest to use when I tell people what has happened to me. I just can’t put it in plain English, and say exactly what the surgeons did. This may change, but it seems too painful to me, and I worry about the people listening.Generally, since I was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer I have tried to avoid couching things in terms that may be unclear. Years of writing articles on complicated financial products and schemes in my roles on the Guardian’s Money and Investigations desks have conditioned me to avoid jargon. I like to get to the point and use language that is accessible, rather than words that exclude people, and in the main I have taken this approach to my illness.Hilary Osborne is the Guardian’s money and consumer editor Continue reading...

More than 200 law enforcement officers were looking for suspect Francisco Oropeza as the FBI acknowledged it had 'no tips' nearly two days after a shooting near the town of Cleveland, Texas. Oropeza, 38, is accused of shooting five neighbors to death after being asked to stop firing rounds in his yard because they were trying to sleep

Hope Carrasquilla, forced to resign after parents condemned Michelangelo’s statue as pornography, invited to FlorenceA Florida principal who resigned after parents at her school decried Michelangelo’s David statue as pornography has traveled to Florence, Italy, following invitations from the museum director and mayor of Florence.Hope Carrasquilla, the former principal of Florida’s Tallahassee Classical school, touched down in Florence on Friday and visited the Galleria dell’Accademia with her family where the David statue resides. Continue reading...

Decision clears way for incumbent New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand to run for re-election unopposed by congresswomanAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez will not run for a seat in the US Senate next year, according to her office, clearing the way for incumbent New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, to run for re-election unopposed by the progressive congresswoman.“She is not planning to run for Senate in 2024. She is not planning to primary Gillibrand,” Lauren Hitt, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesperson, told Politico. Continue reading...

Republican expected to run for nomination supports UK business secretary’s attempt to stop the left ‘corrupting British society’Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has backed UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch in taking on what he calls “the woke”.DeSantis, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, met Badenoch and foreign secretary James Cleverly on a visit to London this week. Continue reading...

FBI says it has ‘zero leads’ after two days of searching for suspect in fatal shooting of neighbors after noise complaintThe man suspected of killing five people, including an eight-year-old boy, with an AR-15-style weapon after neighbors asked him to stop shooting in his yard could be anywhere by now, authorities in Houston, Texas, have said.More than 200 police from multiple jurisdictions were involved in the search for 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza as the FBI acknowledged they had “zero leads” nearly two days after the shooting occurred near the town of Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Houston. Authorities put up $80,000 in reward money for information about his whereabouts. Continue reading...

You want a middle-aged woman to run an ultramarathon or start a wellness empire? Can’t I just have a breakdown?There is good news for midlifers, so gird your loins for a flurry of off-brand optimism. Kicking off the list is a new prize for debut novelists over 50. “The reason we launched the award was to say to people over 50: yes, you too can be a shiny, sparkly, new writer – just older,” said Lisa Highton of Jenny Brown literary agents, who launched the award. I am delighted, because it will add new literary later bloomers to my carefully memorised list: Penelope Fitzgerald (first novel published at 60), Raymond Chandler (51) and Annie Proulx (56). It looks less impressive every year I still don’t write a novel, so new blood is welcome.It’s heartening to see more recognition that while life might have stopped you from making that cursed Granta Young Novelists list, this might make your writing richer and more exciting – although nothing short of a full transfusion of virgin’s blood in a Swiss clinic could achieve “shiny, sparkly” for me. This year’s Women’s prize shortlist offers further evidence of that, with five out of six nominees over 50. Continue reading...

Financial help is available to small businesses – but this funding is competitive, time-consuming and difficult to receiveThe Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, has been warning for some time that it takes time for interest rate rises to filter through to the real economy. Well, here we are.Since March, 2022 the Fed has increased its federal funds rate – the rate it charges to its member banks to access money – from 0.25% to 5%. That’s a 20-fold increase in just a year. The Fed meets again this week – and may raise rates again. Continue reading...

Joe Biden, the oldest president in US history, joked about his age as he addressed the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner. The president earned a big laugh when he said: 'They say I’m ancient; I say I’m wise. They say I’m over the hill; Don Lemon would say, "That’s a man in his prime".' The CNN host Don Lemon was fired last week after a series of missteps including remarks about the Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Biden also poked fun at the media, especially Fox Corp’s settlement of a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5m. 'It’s great the cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC, owned by NBC Universal. Fox News, owned by Dominion Voting Systems.' For all the comedy, Biden also used his speech to issue forceful denunciations of attacks on press freedom and called for the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia since March.

In the past few years I’ve been forced to confront my competing desires: the thrill of chaos or the comfort of securityI started therapy last spring, and was briefly worried that my therapist and I were too demographically similar and might run into each other at a bar – a concern based entirely on his beard and shoe choices. I got around this by aggressively refusing to absorb even the most irrelevant personal information about him. Once, I rhetorically said: “I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from …” and he pleasantly replied: “London!” and I went blank and stared out the window as I tried to forget this personifying detail.Once I had managed to flatten him in my mind into a benevolent inhuman listening machine I took to the process, but if anything, therapy has made the concept of happiness feel even more distant than it did in the past. Before, I could at least tell myself I was too lazy and stupid to build the life that would give me happiness. But in this past year, I have begun to understand how nebulous and elusive a notion it really is.Megan Nolan is an Irish writer based in London. Her novel Ordinary Human Failings is published on 13 July 2023Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Bigotry against minority groups based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a way fascism takes rootFor a second week, Montana Republicans have blocked Democratic transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from participating in a debate over proposed restrictions on transgender youth.Zephyr, a first-term Democrat from Missoula and the first openly transgender woman elected to the Montana legislature, hasn’t been allowed to speak on the state house floor since last Tuesday, when she told Republican colleagues they would have “blood on their hands” if they banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.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...

Gas giant New Fortress Energy’s cars would have taken a route from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, hauling its explosive cargoThe Biden administration’s transportation department has denied a special permit request from gas giant New Fortress Energy that was needed to run up to 200 liquified natural gas “bomb train” cars daily from north-east Pennsylvania to a New Jersey shipping terminal.The proposal’s opponents warned prior to the recent East Palestine wreck that a derailment would likely result in a catastrophe, and those fears were amplified in the Ohio train disaster’s wake. Continue reading...

Democrats center abortion rights in early stages of presidential campaign while Republicans waver over unpopular positionHours after Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign on Tuesday, his vice-president and 2024 running mate, Kamala Harris, delivered a fiery call to action for voters alarmed by the loss of constitutional protections for abortion.“This is a moment for us to stand and fight,” she said to a packed auditorium at Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington and her alma mater. To the “extremist so-called leaders” rolling back access to reproductive rights, Harris warned: “Don’t get in our way because if you do, we’re going to stand up, we’re going to organize and we’re going to speak up.” Continue reading...

The 80-year-old US president chooses annual address to have some fun with a crucial voter concern, mixed with digs at Don Lemon and Fox NewsAge shall not weary him, but it might provide some good punchlines.Joe Biden, the oldest president in American history, faced his biggest political liability with a smile on Saturday as he addressed a gathering of Washington’s political and media elites. Continue reading...

Republicans are already targeting Biden’s vice-president with attack ads. The 2024 election race is her chance to show she’s a winner – and the conventional wisdom is wrongBeing vice-president of the United States is not much fun, or so it often seems from the outside. All the trappings of power are present: high-profile events, free foreign travel, big limos, secret service protection and a turreted mansion in the grounds of Washington’s Naval Observatory.But the job itself is a cemetery from which few escape with their political lives. Indeed, attending funerals is in the job description. The incumbent is forever overshadowed by the president of the day, blamed for his blunders, given thankless tasks to perform. Continue reading...

US president says he is ‘working like hell’ to secure release of Wall Street Journal reporter held in Russia on espionage chargesJoe Biden has praised the “absolute courage” of Evan Gershkovich, the US journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges, and reiterated calls on Moscow for his immediate release.The US president said the Wall Street Journal reporter, who is the first correspondent since the cold war to be detained in Russia on spying charges, sought to “shed light on the darkness” of the country and said American efforts to get him home would not cease. Continue reading...

Permissive self-defense and gun laws spotlighted by recent shootings in which victims approached gunmen by mistakeWaldes Thomas and Diamond Darville were driving for the grocery delivery service Instacart near Miami in mid-April when they drove the order up to the wrong address.Thomas, 19, and Darville, 18, reportedly told authorities they were backing away from the home when the owner emerged with his son, grabbed on to the driver’s window and fired a gun three times at their car. Antonio Caccavale, who didn’t hit anyone, later reportedly claimed to police who investigated the encounter that he shot because he feared for his and his son’s lives as Thomas and Darville’s car ran over his foot and struck a boulder. Continue reading...