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James Kane and Barbie Agostini pull up safe in Queens park with bundles of $100 bills inside and are told by police they can keep itA New York City couple who were magnet fishing" in a lake caught more than they had bargained for when they pulled out a safe that had $100,000 cash inside.James Kane and Barbie Agostini tossed a line with a strong magnet attached to the end into a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on 31 May, Friday afternoon. Continue reading...

Two fire workers injured after Corral Fire, which began Saturday afternoon, spread overnight east of San FranciscoCalifornia firefighters aided by aircraft battled a wind-driven wildfire that began Saturday and continued burning early Sunday morning in an area straddling the San Francisco Bay Area and central California, authorities said.The Corral Fire began Saturday afternoon near the city of Tracy, 60 miles (96km ) east of San Francisco, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the city of Livermore, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire. Continue reading...

Carlos Alcaraz sweeps past Felix Auger-Aliassime and Iga Swiatek beats Anastasia Potapova 6-0, 6-0 with Coco Gauff, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur also progressingOh yes! A gorgeous lob from deep in the backhand corner raises break-back point, and a glorious, oblique stop-volley at the net cements in. We're back on serve on Lenglen, Danilivoc leading Vondrousova 4-3.Gosh, Potapova ends the set in the only way she can, a double to see herself broken to love and bagelled - in 19 minutes. Swiatek is hitting so cleanly off the ground, and Potapova just can't get it going. Vondrousdova, though, is starting to settle - she'll not get away with taking this long should she continue progressing - down 2-4 but up 0-30. Continue reading...

In Fox interview, Trump derides his conviction and baselessly characterizes it as political weaponization of US justice systemDonald Trump on Sunday lauded the Republican party for rallying behind him in the wake of his conviction on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.Trump made the comments in his first sit-down press interview since the guilty verdict was returned on Friday that held he falsified business records linked to an illicit affair with adult actor Stormy Daniels. The former US president appeared on Sunday in a taped interview on Fox & Friends, a friendly forum on the rightwing channel and in which he was served up a series of softball questions by a trio of Fox hosts. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Ukrainian leader says bad peace deal in event of Trump victory would mean end of US as global player'Donald Trump risks being a loser president" if he wins November's election and imposes a bad peace deal on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, saying it would mean the end of the US as a global player".In an interview with the Guardian in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he had no strategy yet" for what to do if Trump returned to the White House, and that the former British prime minister Boris Johnson had approached him on his behalf. Continue reading...

Forget the sports car and affair with a personal trainer. My generation of women are reaching this life stage messily, sensually and full of rageI'm not having a midlife crisis. Any actuary would tell you I'm well over halfway, plus the years 30-40 were one long, undignified, slightly premature MLC (I won't apologise for abbreviating; time is short - see first point) that I refuse to revisit. But I'm interested in that moment when mortality ceases to be a vague, polite murmur and becomes a screaming alarm. My cohort is now traversing Dante's dark wood, so I feel surrounded if not by midlife crises (I'm experiencing disappointingly few vicarious ones), then by culture exploring them.Of course, each generation rediscovers and makes a fuss about universal experiences, but it feels like the MLC is in the midst of a makeover. First, it's female. The new MLC queen is Miranda July, whose new novel All Fours is reframing perimenopausal turmoil as urgent, sensual, even hot". July has managed to make midlife angst feel fresh, but positing All Fours as a singular overdue examination of the crystallising, life-upturning effect of the end of fertility is a bit unfair to many who came before. What about Bridget Christie's brilliant menopause sitcom The Change, for a start? I also think you don't need to explicitly articulate the physical and emotional reckonings of perimenopause to create art informed by it. Rachel Cusk has been dissecting aspects of female midlife turmoil since her divorce memoir Aftermath, surely; Fleishman Is In Trouble is, in large part, a female MLC novel, and Deborah Levy's extraordinary Living trilogy became a lodestar for a generation of women navigating the shifting sands of middle age (I solemnly gave it to my sister for her 39th birthday, as if transmitting a sacred text). Continue reading...

The campaign is playing on all fields,' an adviser to Trump's campaign tells PoliticoFormer president Donald Trump has joined social media platform TikTok and made his first post late Saturday night, a video featuring the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, introducing Trump on the social media platform.The move came despite that fact that as president Trump pushed to ban TikTok by executive order due to the app's parent company being based in China. Trump said in March 2024 that he believed the app was a national security threat, but later reversed on supporting a ban. Continue reading...

Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside home of Fethullah Gulen when man in SUV approachedA Turkish journalist for a pro-government channel says a supporter of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkey of instigating a failed 2016 coup, attacked him near the self-exiled figure's home in Pennsylvania in an encounter that apparently unfolded live on air.In a video posted on Saturday, Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside Gulen's home, reportedly near the area of Saylorsburg, when a man driving a dark SUV approached him. Continue reading...

State of emergency declared as main breaks leave much of the city without running water and force businesses to closeMajor water main breaks in Atlanta, Georgia, have caused significant outages and disruptions, as Mayor Andre Dickens has issued a state of emergency in the city and one local hospital had to evacuate some patients to other facilities.The breaks occurred on Friday when corroded water pipes burst near downtown Atlanta. According to utility and city officials, the site of the major water main break was repaired on Saturday, with the system gradually being brought back online and no contamination has been found as a result of the break. Continue reading...

Despite falling short in the final, Wilfried Nancy's side have enjoyed a superb 12 months and earned the respect of the continentDC United, LA Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders did something the Columbus Crew could not. Wilfried Nancy's team could have added their name to the list of MLS teams to have won a continental title. Instead, the Crew were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Pachuca in Saturday's Concacaf Champions Cup final.And yet even as runners-up, Columbus achieved something profound - they won the respect of the region. For two months, Nancy-ball' took over Concacaf just as it has MLS. In a region where American and Canadian teams have historically struggled for credibility, the Crew earned it and then some. What other MLS side has ever been applauded off the pitch by Mexican supporters, as Columbus were in the quarter and semi-finals? CF Monterrey and Tigres UANL fans knew they'd seen something special. Continue reading...

Darrell Scott, a Pentecostal minister from Cleveland, identifies himself as Trump's senior adviser' - and has paid a high price for his allegianceIn the summer of 2011, Darrell Scott, a Pentecostal minister from a Black church in Cleveland, the New Spirit Revival Center, was asked by a televangelist friend to come to Trump Tower in New York for a meeting shrouded in mystery. Scott was ushered up to a ballroom on the 26th floor where he found a group of about 15 other pastors waiting.Donald Trump, then star of The Celebrity Apprentice, swept into the room. I'm thinking about running for president," he told the astonished gathering. I'm hoping you guys can pray on me, that God gives me the wisdom to make the right decision." Continue reading...

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington documents former president's threats against perceived political opponentsA major study of Donald Trump's social media posts has revealed the scale of the former US president's ambitions to target Joe Biden, judges and other perceived political enemies if he returns to power.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), a watchdog organisation, analysed more than 13,000 messages published by Trump on his Truth Social platform and found him vowing revenge, retaliation and retribution against his foes. Continue reading...

Labour's leadership needn't struggle to define the ideology; it's in its very constitutionSocialism is whataLabour government does, pronounced Herbert Morrison, one of the titans of the Clement Attlee administration in the 1940s. It wasn't a very good answer then to the perennial doctrinal disputes about what constitutes socialism that have haunted the party since its foundation in 1900 - and it works no better in 2024.So what is this socialism that Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Darren Jones and Jonathan Reynolds were all asked about last week, whose tenets they purport to follow even as the party wrangled over the purge" of its left? Convincing, on-the-front-foot answers proved elusive. Continue reading...

The latest Tory crusade over rip-off' degrees continues to stereotype students based on classWe must crack down on low-value university degrees." Who claimed that and when? It might have been Rishi Sunak last October. Or Sunak last July. Or Sunak the previous August. Or Nadhim Zahawi five months earlier. Or Michelle Donelan in November 2020. Or Gavin Williamson in May 2020. Or Damian Hinds the previous year. Or Sam Gyimah in 2018. Or Jo Johnson in 2017. Or even Labour's Margaret Hodge more than 20 years ago.This time, it was Sunak on the election trail last week. There are university degrees that are letting young people down," he told reporters. Around one in five students would have been financially better off" not going to college and one in three graduates are in non-graduate jobs". Sunak promised to scrap rip-off degrees", replacing them with 100,000 apprenticeships. Continue reading...

Aaron Jones smashed 10 sixes in a stunning 94 not out as the co-hosts survived a scare to beat their rivals Canada in TexasThe question of whether cricket can crack America, as per the cliche, feels unlikely to be answered (not least on a subscription channel, Willow TV), although this T20 World Cup is not a one-off moonshot, rather one shoulder to the wheel of a broader push.The match referee Richie Richardson is older than me," writes Gary Naylor. How can he look that good?" Continue reading...

Ex-president should also be made the volunteer punching bag at a women's shelter', says former actor, following guilty verdictStormy Daniels has called for Donald Trump to be jailed after he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records.The adult film star, who was paid $130,000 as legal expenses" for her silence about her affair with the former US president, warned the presidential candidate is completely and utterly out of touch with reality". Continue reading...

Pro-Palestinian students staged the walkout as school withheld degrees of four seniors pending disciplinary review over protestsDozens of students protesting Israel's ongoing military strikes in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago's commencement on Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to stop genocide". A crowd of students walked out in between speeches and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags while others donned traditional keffiyehs, black-and-white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes. Continue reading...

Idaho case marked by Daybell and girlfriend Lori Vallow Daybell's extremist religious beliefs about doomsdayChad Daybell was sentenced to death Saturday for the murders of his wife and his girlfriend's two youngest children in Idaho in a case marked by his and his girlfriend's extremist religious beliefs about doomsday.The sentence was handed down after an Idaho jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. The sentence marks the end of a grim investigation that began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The next year, their bodies were found buried in Daybell's eastern Idaho yard. Continue reading...

Teflon Don has become Felon Don, but the US constitution has no objection to him holding the highest officeIt was the moment America, or at least America's politicians and media, had been waiting for. It was the day justice finally caught up with Donald Trump. The former president's manipulation of the 2016 election, by hushing up a sex scandal that threatened his chances, and his attempts to discredit a criminal justice system intent on punishing him, was famously thwarted. It was an all-time presidential and judicial first, a historic result that transformed Teflon Don into Felon Don, thanks to a jury of 12 ordinary men and women and a brave prosecutor, Alvin Bragg.Looked at another way, however, last week's much anticipated dramatic denouement of the criminal trial of the New York playboy, billionaire and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate may turn out to be less pivotal than anticipated. According to the US networks, most Americans tuned out weeks ago, not least because cameras were barred from the Manhattan courtroom. One not untypical public survey found that 67% of respondents said a conviction would make no difference to how they voted this autumn. The 34 guilty verdicts were an overnight sensation. But they may not significantly shift the political dial. Continue reading...

US representative and failed contender for president says Kathy Hochul should grant pardon for the good of the country'The outgoing Democratic US representative who failed in his presidential primary challenge against Joe Biden called on the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, to pardon Donald Trump over his criminal conviction for hush-money payments to influence the 2016 election for the good of the country".Minnesota representative Dean Phillips, who was the first Democrat to call on fellow party member Henry Cuellar to resign following bribery charges against the Texas representative, urged for the pardon on Friday in a post on X. Continue reading...

The company that shaped the development of search engines is banking on chatbot-style summaries. But so far, its suggestions are pretty wildOnce upon a time, Google was great. For those who were online in 1998, history's timeline bifurcated into two eras: BG (Before Google), and AG. It was elegant and clean: elegant because it was driven by a semi-objective algorithm called PageRank, which ranked websites according to how many other websites linked to them; and clean because it had no advertising, which of course also meant that it had no business model and accordingly was burning its way through its investors' money.It was too good to last, and of course it didn't. Two of its biggest investors showed up one day, demanding a return on their investments. The company's co-founders had an idea. One of the reasons theirs was such a good search engine was that they intensively monitored what people searched for, and then used that information continually to improve the engine's performance. Their big idea was that the information thus derived had a commercial value; it indicated what people were interested in and might therefore be of value to advertisers who wanted to sell them stuff. Thus was born what Shoshana Zuboff christened surveillance capitalism", the dominant money machine of the networked world. Continue reading...

Narrow decision says lower court failed to identify fundamental right to vote', drawing fiery dissent from three of seven justicesIn a bizarre mixed ruling combining several challenges to a 2021 election law, Kansas's supreme court has ruled that its residents have no right to vote enshrined in the state's constitution.The opinion centering on a ballot signature-verification measure elicited fiery dissent from three of the court's seven justices. But the majority held that the court failed to identify a fundamental right to vote" within the state. Continue reading...

Eddie Duran shot Roger Fortson within two seconds after the airman opened his door with his legally owned gun pointed downA Florida sheriff's deputy who fatally shot a Black US air force airman in the military member's own home has been fired from his job, officials said on Friday.The Okaloosa county sheriff's office said it dismissed the deputy, Eddie Duran, after investigators found that his use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable and therefore violated agency policy" in the killing of senior airman Roger Fortson on 3 May 2024. Continue reading...

Whether he ends up in prison or the White House - or both - the former president and felon will remain a malign hero to populists everywhereAs Americans stared at their TV screens early on Thursday evening, listening to the 34 Donald Trump guilty" court verdicts rolling out one by one amid the former president's histrionic cries that the trial was rigged", the immediate thought was: what on earth happens now?To which the only honest reply is: no one knows. Anyone pretending they do is just as big a liar as Trump, dramatically convicted by a jury of his New York peers for fiddling the books to help him win the 2016 election. Continue reading...

From roughing up suspects to revoking bail, the 34-count felon has suggested harsh treatment for his fellow criminalsDonald Trump has spent years complaining that American police and the criminal legal system should be very much tougher", arguing that some criminals should not be protected by civil liberties, police should rough up suspects and a much wider range of people should face the death penalty for breaking the law.Now that the former president has been convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records, Trump is arguing that the US legal system is out of control. If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone," he said on Friday. Continue reading...

The comedian's remarks on a podcast join his cheerleading of genocidal violence and jokes about suffering children in GazaThere are few things certain in life except death, taxes and the knowledge that every single goddamn day you can look at the news and find a rich man complaining about how feminism and wokeness have ruined the world. Continue reading...

Dillon McCormick, an air force veteran, had been supporting himself by pushing carts in Louisiana's triple-digit temperaturesThousands of people have donated about a quarter of a million dollars to a 90-year-old US air force veteran who has been financially supporting himself by pushing shopping carts at a grocery store in sweltering Louisiana - and now has the option of retiring if he wants thanks to the strangers' generosity.The story centers on Dillon McCormick, who is among a growing number of Americans to extend their working careers well past the average retirement age as the cost of living in the US has soared and most employees' wages have stagnated over the years, preventing many from being able to save. Continue reading...

Salem Media Group says it will stop distributing 2000 Mules, a documentary and book about the 2020 election by Dinesh D'SouzaThe publisher of 2000 Mules issued a statement Friday apologizing to a Georgia man who was shown in the film and falsely accused of ballot fraud during the 2020 election.The widely debunked film includes surveillance video showing Mark Andrews, his face blurred, putting five ballots in a drop box in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb, as a voiceover by the conservative pundit and film-maker Dinesh D'Souza says: What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes." Continue reading...

The two teams in the opening T20 World Cup match have a long and curious history and lay claim to a sporting milestoneBack, back, back, before anyone had invented Twenty20, before the Ashes and back beyond, before basketball had even been invented, and when baseball was still a little kids' game, the 11 best cricketers in Toronto travelled south across the border to play a two-day game against the 11 best cricketers in the US.It was September 1844, seven years before the first America's Cup, 16 before the first Open championship and 33 before the first Test match. Which means Canada v USA, the opening fixture of this year's World Cup, isn't just the oldest international match in this sport, but, historians believe, the oldest in any sport. Continue reading...

Is the academic component of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel fair? We ask two scholarsThe academic boycott of Israel is part of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction campaign that started in 2005. It does not target Israeli individuals, just institutions. Under the boycott, for example, Israeli scholars can participate in academic conferences. However, one is not permitted to attend events hosted by Israeli universities. The boycott is supported by an increasing number of academic communities, which is a trend that has accelerated in the wake of the brutal Israeli war against Gaza.Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian, political scientist and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political StudiesFlora Cassen is an associate professor of Jewish, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and an associate professor of history Continue reading...

Trump and his Republican allies sow distrust in US judicial system as analysts warn backlash could tear at social fabric in already volatile election yearA shameful day in American history. A sham show trial. A kangaroo court. A total witch-hunt. Worthy of a banana republic.These were the reactions from senior elected Republicans, who once claimed the mantle of the party of law and order, to the news that Donald Trump had become the first former US president convicted of a crime. Continue reading...

Managers in Washington accused of hounding staff to keep quiet over quality concerns, as employees point to union-bustingBoeing's largest factory is in panic mode", according to workers and union officials, with managers accused of hounding staff to keep quiet over quality concerns.The US plane maker has been grappling with a safety crisis sparked by a cabin panel blowout during a flight in January, and intense scrutiny of its production line as regulators launched a string of investigations. Continue reading...

Justices to address abortion, guns, social media - and whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted for role in January 6 insurrectionThe US supreme court is poised to deliver a raft of politically sensitive decisions as it ends its judicial term, addressing tumultuous issues including whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted for his role in the January 6 insurrection in 2021, abortion access for millions of women and the basic functioning of the federal government.With the court entering its traditional June climax, observers are bracing themselves for yet another potentially seismic four weeks that could radically reshape American public life. Matters before the court include a possible loosening of gun laws in a country with already exceptionally lax controls, and new guardrails on how social media platforms deal with misinformation. Continue reading...

Relocation of the Wayfarers Chapel on the Pacific coast shows the vulnerability of cultural sites in an increasingly volatile climateFor 73 years it reigned, unique and serene, on a high plateau overlooking the Pacific Ocean: the Wayfarers Chapel, Frank Lloyd Wright Jr's midcentury reinvention of what a church could be.The photogenic, see-through sanctuary framed in a canopy of redwoods was beloved long before it became Instagram-famous. Jayne Mansfield was married there, Brian Wilson too. Last Christmas Eve, two weeks after the chapel had been designated a National Historic Landmark, it took three services to accommodate everyone who showed up to spend the holiday with chapel regulars. No one knew it would be the last one. Continue reading...

Robinson, who moved to White House when Barack Obama won presidency, helped to care for granddaughters Malia and SashaMarian Shields Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, who moved with the first family to the White House when son-in-law Barack Obama was elected president, has died. She was 86.Robinson's death was announced in an online tribute by Michelle Obama, and included details of the time Robinson spent living in the White House, as an informal first grandmother to the Obama children. Continue reading...

The president said Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself' and no one is above the law'. This blog is now closed.While Donald Trump and his team argued for a change of venue for the New York hush money trial because Manhattan was so heavily Democrat, New York was where Trump made his name. The 58-storey Trump Tower has been a part of the skyline since 1983. His hit reality show, The Apprentice, took place here.After the verdict was read yesterday, New Yorkers reacted with both jubilation and horror. Continue reading...

Robert Burke, four-star admiral and once navy's second-highest-ranking officer, accused of trading contract for high-paying jobA retired four-star admiral who was once the US navy's second-highest-ranking officer was arrested on Friday on charges that he helped a company secure a government contract for a training program in exchange for a lucrative job with the firm.Robert Burke, who served as vice-chief of naval operations, faces federal charges including bribery and conspiracy for what prosecutors allege was a corrupt scheme that led to the company hiring him after his retirement in 2022 with a starting annual salary of $500,000. He oversaw naval operations in Europe, Russia and most of Africa. Continue reading...

Chad Daybell found guilty of murder of wife and girlfriend's two children in 2019, linked to apparent extremist religious beliefsJurors in Idaho on Friday were deciding whether to deliver the death sentence to Chad Daybell, the 55-year-old man convicted of killing his wife and his then girlfriend's two children over beliefs in the extremist religious concept of doomsday.Deliberations began a day after jurors found Daybell guilty of murdering 49-year-old Tammy Daybell, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and seven-year-old Joshua JJ" Vallow in 2019. Continue reading...