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His journey to Christianity was very moving, and infinitely more spiritual than his trip to the police station to deny criminal allegationsA hazmat dredger, please, to the stretch of the River Thames in which Russell Brand was recently baptised, in an event apparently conducted by TV adventurer and chief scout Bear Grylls. I know, it's incredible: Thames Water is no longer responsible for the biggest piece of shit in the river.In his mystical biography of the Thames, Peter Ackroyd observed: There are some parts of the river that create or harbour distinct properties that are not susceptible to rational analysis." And I think we might be dealing with one of those properties right here. Rational analysis deserts me as I survey a recently released photo of a topless Brand, a topless Bear, and the unidentified owner of what appears to be an S-reg Japanese hannya mask back tattoo embracing in the waist-deep current. Then again, it's possible the third figure is actually identified. The Brand-penned caption on this Insta-trocity runs: Me, Bear Grylls, The River Thames and of course, The Holy Spirit." Sorry, but does the Holy Spirit now have a back tattoo? Game's gone.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Trump's ex-lawyer testifies in Manhattan court that repayments began shortly after February 2017 meeting in Oval Office

Court grants motion to stay enforcement of near-total ban for 90 days as Democratic attorney general weighs next stepsThe Arizona supreme court on Monday granted a motion to stay the enforcement of an 1864 law that bans almost all abortions, a win for reproductive rights activists in the swing state.The state's highest court agreed to the Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes's request for a 90-day delay of the near-total ban, further pushing back enforcement of the 1864 legislation after a repeal of the ban was passed earlier this month. Continue reading...

Inmates Fotios Freddy' Geas, Paul J DeCologero and Sean McKinnon were accused of beating Bulger, 89, to death in 2018Three men charged in the 2018 prison killing of the notorious Boston gangster James Whitey" Bulger have reached plea deals with prosecutors, according to court papers filed on Monday.The plea deals for Fotios Freddy" Geas, Paul J DeCologero and Sean McKinnon were disclosed nearly six years after the 89-year-old gangster was beaten to death in his cell at a troubled West Virginia prison. Continue reading...

From David Pecker to Stormy Daniels, here are the central figures likely to play a key role in the criminal case

Boy, 16, who entered Catholic first communion service in Abbeville with rifle charged with terrorizing and firearms possessionA 16-year-old has been charged with one count of terrorizing and two counts of possession of a firearm by a juvenile after entering a church service in Abbeville, Louisiana, where 60 children were receiving their first holy communion.Police have confirmed that the person was confronted by parishioners and escorted outside" before being taken into custody. Continue reading...

Living conditions here are abysmal, but for those escaping the Rafah invasion, it's still a place of salvation

Increased levy to protect US makers from cheap imports likely to worsen trade tensions with Beijing. Plus, chaos on the set of Francis Ford Coppola's MegalopolisGood morning.Joe Biden has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) as part of a raft of stringent policies developed to shield US manufacturers from cheap imports.How significant is this? At the moment, it's largely symbolic - Chinese EVs have already been virtually excluded from the US market by tariffs previously introduced by Donald Trump.On the other hand ... Lobby groups have suggested Beijing could pose a future threat by using exports to make up for a frail domestic economy, which the Alliance for American Manufacturing claims would result in an extinction-level event" for US carmakers.How is this affecting aid? It's having a real impact. The HRW report found: These attacks are having a chilling effect on efforts to provide life-saving aid in Gaza." Continue reading...

This is likely the only Trump trial before the election - and the only hope for a shred of accountability for his endless misdeedsWhen you set out to explore Donald Trump's personal life and business practices, you don't expect to meet any paragons of virtue.Sleazy media figures who buy and kill" damaging stories? Yes. An adult film actor ready to tell all to make a buck? Certainly. A parade of spokespeople and staffers who compromised their own integrity during his presidential administration? No doubt. Continue reading...

I wouldn't force a seven-decade-career on anyone, but when you see someone who loves what they do after that amount of time, it's worth learning from themMaybe the most remarkable thing about my stepfather-in-law is that he managed to find love in a swimming pool, at the age of 85, which is how I became related to him in the first place. Just the awesome amount of charm it takes to woo over the smell of chlorine, at 6am, dressed in trunks, never mind the energy; it will be baffling to those who don't know him. That was five years ago. Now his 90th birthday is around the corner, and even though everyone has acclimatised to the energy, the charm and the swimming, it's still a bit chastening how hard he works. I want to call it dabbling, maybe a little bit of advice to a younger colleague; but it looks much more like actual work. He's an academic, fine, it's reasonable for them to have a long arc. And his subject is education which, as an area of policy it pleases the government to mess around in for dumb reasons, is in constant flux and needful of critique.Conservatively, though, I'd say he works more hours than I do. He can find his way round a Zoom meeting faster than anyone besides gen Zs. I'm reasonably confident he can remember the dark nuances of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings's blob" years better than either of them can. He's all over Labour's plans, when nobody else is sure they have any. He still travels for work when most of us have forgotten that was even a thing. I've never been 100% sure what emeritus" means, but if he is the model, it's something like Highlander". Continue reading...

New polling data from Pew shows shift in Americans' opinion since loss of constitutional right to abortion in June 2022In the two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, leading to abortion bans across many parts of the south and midwest, abortion rights have only grown more popular, new polling from Pew research Center has found.A majority of Americans has long supported abortion rights. But more than 60% of Americans now believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases - a four percentage-point jump from 2021, the year before Roe fell. Continue reading...

In my novel, I approached the subject with caution. It allowed me to feel pity for the person who made my life hellFriends warned me against watching Baby Reindeer, the hit Netflix series about the comedian Richard Gadd and Martha", the character based on his alleged real-life stalker. It was too close to home, they said.The reason for their concern was simple, or so I thought. Eleven years ago, I gave evidence in court against a woman who'd been stalking me online, with hundreds of abusive, often homophobic tweets and emails. She was subsequently found guilty of harassment, given a suspended sentence and issued with a restraining order. I never heard from her again, but the impact of her actions took its toll on my mental health. I was later diagnosed with PTSD.Paul Burston is a journalist and novelist. His memoir, We Can Be Heroes, is out nowDo 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...

Caitlin Clark has grabbed much of the attention as she prepares for her first professional season. But the title is likely to be decided away from IndianaA phenomenon, who must be given the grace to adjust. The Indiana Fever will have to acclimate to utilising the space Clark creates, rather than relying solely on her to orchestrate plays. Players such as NaLyssa Smith, Temi Fagbenle and Aliyah Boston will play pivotal roles in transitioning the ball for Clark, and can boost their own individual statistics as opponents focus on containing Clark's offensive threat. YE-S Continue reading...

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described an Israeli settler attack on an aid convoy bound for Gaza as 'a total outrage'. On Monday, footage circulated on social media showing a group of men and women blocking aid trucks and pillaging and destroying their contents. Boxes of food headed for Gaza, which is in the grip of a humanitarian emergency, were thrown on to the ground. Israeli police did not appear to intervene in the incident at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

Scared of Ukraine losing and scared of Russia being beaten, of migrants, Gaza and Trump, the EU is making poor choices at home and abroadEurope no longer wields the power it once did in world affairs, when there was a liberal international order that hinged on US power and in which international cooperation flourished. In that world, Europe was not a superpower, but the hallmarks of the post-cold war era - multilateralism, regional cooperation, interdependence, the flourishing of democracy, soft power and free trade - were also insignia of the European Union.Today we are in a post-post-cold war era and the world has changed direction. Some features of the old system live on. But contrasting forces such as nationalism, protectionism and unilateralism are all on the rise.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe 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...

US army explosives experts have brought down the largest remaining collapsed section of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Officials said the detonation went as planned. 'It's a lot like peeling back an onion,' said Scott Spellmon of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The bridge section collapsed on 26 March on to the bow of Singapore-flagged container ship Dali, which had crashed into one of its pylons Continue reading...

Ban, to begin in about 90 days, is White House's latest effort to apply pressure on Vladimir Putin over his invasion of UkraineJoe Biden has signed into law a bipartisan bill that bans the import of enriched uranium from Russia, in the latest effort by Washington to apply further pressure on Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.The ban on imports of the fuel for nuclear power plants begins in about 90 days, although it allows the Department of Energy (DOE) to issue waivers in case of supply concerns, up until 2028. Continue reading...

Sai Varshith Kandula from Missouri, who was carrying a Nazi flag at time of arrest, said he hoped to overthrow the US governmentA Missouri man pleaded guilty on Monday to crashing a rented truck into metal barriers surrounding the White House in May 2023, admitting that he had been fueled by the ideology of Nazi Germany" and hoped to overthrow the US government.Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, from Chesterfield, Missouri, and also a citizen of India, pleaded guilty to a single count of damaging federal property. He faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in August. Continue reading...

Governor, plagued by dog-killing story, unwelcome in 20% of her state after she accused tribal leaders of benefiting from cartelsKristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who was once considered one of Donald Trump's top vice-presidential contenders, has been banned from nearly one-fifth of the state after two more tribes voted to prohibit her from their lands.The move by the Yankton Sioux tribe and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe last week follows criticism from the governor who has - without evidence - accused tribal leaders of personally benefiting" from drug cartels. The Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes banished Noem earlier this year. Continue reading...

The witness that could make or break Trump's hush-money trial took the witness stand on Monday - and did not disappoint

Michael Cohen testifies that Trump was intimately involved in hush-money deal and got real-time updates on Stormy DanielsMichael Cohen, the former lawyer to Donald Trump whose $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels is at the heart of the criminal case against the former president, provided the first testimony on Monday that ensnared Trump in an alleged illicit repayment scheme.Just do it," Cohen recalled Trump told him in pressing him to pay Daniels, before later approving the plan to reimburse him. Trump was intimately involved in the hush-money deal and was concerned the Daniels story would hurt his approval among women voters. Continue reading...

Some members of board of trustees, which voted for divestment, cited students' Gaza protests as reason for redesignation of fundsOn Monday, the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill announced that it would divert the school's entire $2.3m diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) budget toward public safety and policing.Some members of the board of trustees, which voted for the divestment, cited students' recent anti-war demonstrations as a reason for the redesignation of funds to the campus police. Continue reading...

The prosecution witness testified about fronting hush-money payments, keeping the ex-president happy and feeling snubbedWhen Michael Cohen took the stand in Manhattan court on Monday morning for Donald Trump's criminal hush-money trial, his appearance was poised to mark a watershed moment: a showdown between the ex-president and his former fixer-turned-prosecution witness.Anyone expecting a courtroom dust-up, however, would leave day one of Cohen's testimony sorely disappointed. Cohen comported himself with civility rather than snark, and calm rather than outrage, with a hint of wistfulness sprinkled in. He sported a tie that could be described as blush pink or pale salmon, perhaps the most conflict-averse color one could wear. Continue reading...

Cohen was Trump's trusted adviser but the relationship soured after Trump won in 2016 and didn't offer Cohen a roleMichael Cohen is Donald Trump's former personal lawyer who was for more than a decade his Mr Fix-It, but is now the prosecution's star witness as it builds its case that the former US president sought to conceal hush-money payments to an adult film star.It is a classic story of two men who once worked hand-in-glove together, when Trump was a world-famous billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star, but now face each other across a Manhattan courtroom with the world's attention fixed on them. Continue reading...

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Vice-president offers advice to young people at leadership summit for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander groupsTwelve minutes into a health forum discussion for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander organizations, Kamala Harris on Monday offered a punchy piece of advice to younger members of the audience.We have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open," the US vice-president said. Sometimes they won't, and then you need to kick that fucking door down." Continue reading...

A bad night for pro-independence parties, and a very good one for the Socialists, has vindicated Pedro Sanchez's conciliatory strategyIn a complex political landscape, Sunday's regional elections in Catalonia duly delivered a finely balanced result. Though the Catalan branch of the Spanish Socialist party (PSC) comfortably topped the poll as the largest party, it needs to solve some challenging parliamentary arithmetic in order to govern. Days and weeks of haggling and horse-trading loom.The underlying message of the election, however, was much clearer. After years of extraordinary turbulence and bitter strife, the momentum that drove the campaign for Catalonia's independence appears to have subsided. For the first time in more than a decade, pro-independence parties failed collectively to win either a majority of votes, or a majority of seats in the regional parliament. Continue reading...

Former marketer at insurance firm credited with sparking 2021 memestock rally returned to X after three years off social mediaShares in GameStop doubled on Monday after Roaring Kitty", the man at the heart of the stock market frenzy surrounding the video gaming chain three years ago, resurfaced on social media.Trading of GameStop was halted several times as its shares surged to their highest levels in more than a year when New York opened for trading. Continue reading...

Johnny McEntee says in TikTok video he keeps fake Hollywood money' so when they go to use it, they get arrested'Johnny McEntee, the former White House Trump aide closely linked to plans for radical federal government reform should Donald Trump win re-election, stoked outrage with a TikTok video in which he claimed to give unhoused people fake money, thereby to ensure their arrest.So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car," McEntee said in the video posted last week by The Right Stuff, a dating site for rightwingers of which McEntee is a co-founder. Continue reading...

Surveys put ex-president up in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada as Biden campaign brushes off significanceDonald Trump leads Joe Biden in five crucial battleground states less than six months out from election day, new polls showed.The surveys from the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College put the former president up in Pennsylvania (three points), Arizona (seven), Michigan (seven), Georgia (10) and Nevada (12). Biden led by two points in Wisconsin. Continue reading...

For the second time in league history, the three promoted sides will be relegated. And the underlying numbers paint a grim picture for the English pyramid

Expert with American Museum of Natural History held in Istanbul after allegedly trying to take about 1,500 samplesA scorpion and spider expert with the American Museum of Natural History was detained in Istanbul on Monday while allegedly attempting to smuggle samples of both arachnida groups out of Turkey.Lorenzo Prendini was held by police at Istanbul airport for allegedly trying to take about 1,500 samples out of the country, Turkish media reported. Continue reading...

Dozens leave university commencement ceremony to protest comedian, who has vocally supported Israel since 7 OctoberDozens of students walked out of Duke University's commencement ceremony on Sunday as some chanted free Palestine" to protest its guest speaker, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who has supported Israel throughout the war in Gaza.Figures in robes and caps, some waving Palestinian flags, filed out of crowds of graduates assembled on the grass in the North Carolina university's football stadium. Continue reading...

Huge effort to save the horses involved clearing a roadway into the thick woods and building a bridge utilizing logs and plywoodUp to 40 first responders toiled for hours in a Connecticut forest to successfully rescue two horses who had become stuck in a muddy swamp on a local farm.The huge effort to save the horses involved clearing a roadway into the thick woods and building a makeshift bridge utilizing logs and plywood. The area was not accessible for equipment and would require manpower to extricate them from the woods," said the Lebanon volunteer fire department in a statement. Continue reading...

It's right to celebrate a groundbreaking medical trial. But what many of us really want is more support for people with hearing lossAs someone who has been hard of hearing since I was a teenager, I read with great interest about the case of Opal Sandy - the 18-month-old British toddler who has recently had her hearing restored" in a pioneering medical trial.Opal was born with auditory neuropathy, which is caused by the disruption of nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain, and which left her completely deaf. But after taking part in what is being heralded as a groundbreaking" gene therapy trial at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, she can now hear almost perfectly.Oliver-James Campbell is a journalist and social media manager Continue reading...

Republicans are using a narrative of chaos and philosophical divisions on Israel' among Democrats to sink Biden's campaignRepublicans have identified recent college protests against Israel's war in Gaza as the core of an election campaign narrative of chaos that they hope can be used to sink Joe Biden's presidency.The approach was bluntly crystallised by Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, in a recent television interview when he mocked the encampments that have sprung up in recent weeks as little Gazas" and lambasted the president for a perceived failure to unequivocally denounce instances of antisemitism. Continue reading...

Families of the hostages are leading calls for a ceasefire. Let us hope the roar of guns in Rafah isn't used to drown them out

Shipments of high-payload bombs have already been halted, and Blinken said the sale of further weapons systems may be stopped if a full-scale offensive goes ahead. Plus, the growing threat posed by drug-resistant superbugs

Campus protests in solidarity with the people of Gaza have braved abuse and police raids but history will be kinderThe student left is the most reliably correct constituency in America. Over the past 60 years, it has passed every great moral test American foreign policy has forced upon the public, including the Vietnam war, the question of relations with apartheid South Africa, and the Iraq war. Student activists were at the heart of the black civil rights movement from the very beginning. To much derision and abuse, they pushed for more rights, protections and respect for women and queer people on their campuses than the wider world was long willing to provide. And over the past 20 years in particular, policymakers have arrived belatedly to stances on economic inequality, climate change, drug policy and criminal justice that putative radicals on campus took up long before them.They have not always been right; even when right, their prescriptions for the problems they've identified and their means of directing attention to them have not always been prudent. But time and time and time again, the student left in America has squarely faced and expressed truths our politicians and all the eminent and eloquent voices of moderation in the press, in all of their supposed wisdom and good sense, have been unable or unwilling to see. Straining against an ancient and immortal prejudice against youth, it has made a habit of telling the American people, in tones that discomfit, what they need to hear before they are ready to hear it.Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

United Auto Workers union sees two of German-owned carmaker's plants as key in effort to unionize industry in southern USThe United Auto Workers (UAW) union is setting its sights on its next big union victory in the south, at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Vance and Woodstock, Alabama.Coming off the historic union election win at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 5,200 workers are to begin voting in their union election from 13 May to 17 May. The UAW's recent win at Volkswagen to represent about 4,300 workers was one of the biggest union election wins in manufacturing in the past 16 years. Continue reading...

After years of slovenliness, I finally have somewhere to hang all my worn-but-not-dirty clothes. That just leaves the rest of my mess ...I've often mentioned the cardboard removal box where I dump my worn-but-not-dirty clothes, craving, I think, the cleansing fire of public shame. Who lives like that? How do other people not end up with a clirty - that's clean-dirty - floordrobe (apologies for the double portmanteau)?It felt like a broken windows" thing - the US policing term for visible minor neglect acting as a gateway to crime or, in my case, shrugging surrender to the march of entropy. At my age, in this empty nest, it's a slippery slope. Does moisturiser matter? Why bother with a plate for whatever fridge scrapings I'm calling lunch? What's wrong with some wholesome soil under my nails? Fail to floss once and next thing I know, I'm Stig of the Dump, living in a dump.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

With Trump family members as state delegates, as well as national party co-chair, GOP lawmakers fall in line to support ex-presidentIn practical terms, Barron Trump's truncated stint on the political stage as a Florida delegate to the Republican party's national convention was little more than symbolic. His father Donald Trump's third successive presidential campaign as the Republican nominee was all but certain anyway, and the names of those who will confirm it are essentially inconsequential.It did affirm to many analysts, however, how the former president has maneuvered to seize almost total control of the party's state apparatus nationwide. Nowhere is that more apparent than Florida, where the capitulation was completed by the choice of delegates for July's convention in Milwaukee. Continue reading...

The best college player in a generation will be paid significantly less than even the lowest earners among her male counterparts. But there are grounds for optimismThe surest sign of a sports league on the rise is the arrival of a story about one player's salary. And ever since it was reported that the biggest star in women's college basketball, Caitlin Clark, will earn $338,000 over the next four years after turning professional in the WNBA, the foul cries have been coming from all corners.When I saw the numbers - $76,000 in the first year, $78,000 in the second year, $85,000 in the third year - for somebody who is now the face of women's basketball, it seemed kind of ridiculous," Today show host Hoda Kotb said. Even Dave Portnoy, majordomo of the proudly misogynistic Barstool Sports, seemed offended: he offered Clark $10m to play for his company's hoops team. The incredulity went all the way to the top: Joe Biden posted on X that it's time that we give our daughters the same opportunities as our sons and ensure women are paid what they deserve." Continue reading...

Tech investor led 800m funding round into UK self-driving car software company Wayve