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As a slew of Republicans went to the hush-money trial to show their fealty to their boss, the president tried to rise above itDonald Trump last week turned his New York fraud trial into a political circus and a platform for his election campaign while Joe Biden struggled to persuade voters that they're wrong about the economy.Trump engineered a parade of leading Republicans to demonstrate their allegiance outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan even as his trial laid bare the swamp that is the former US president's professional and personal life. Continue reading...

Our desires are an essential part of who we are - as I discovered when I lost my appetite for six monthsMostly, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is the cinematic, euphoric ideal of what it is to be alive. It's the thing I looked forward to for decades. It meant to me, back then as a kid in Ireland, listening to songs about Lexington and 14th Street, freedom: an almost deranged amount of freedom.Sometimes, though, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is agonising in both a physical and spiritual sense. This may be so, for instance, if you have no health insurance and are very stupid. Like me. That was in February 2023. I had been in increasingly acute pain for days, but because of a stubborn ability to ignore bodily breakdown and also a reluctance to spend money on healthcare in the US when I was only visiting, I kept going until I collapsed into an urgent care centre that I luckily passed one evening as I was dragging myself with manic good cheer to another dinner, despite being barely able to walk. Continue reading...

Pundits say rising negative feelings to other parties threatens democracy. Apart from in America, new research tells a different storyThe frontrunner to be the next US president is spending his weeks in court, charged with a criminal offence related to an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star. This would normally be suboptimal from a campaign perspective, but to date is having no effect on support for Donald Trump.Moreover, whether you think the US economy is going gangbusters or collapsing depends not on whether wages and employment are rising but on whether you side with Democrats or Republicans, with the latter currently reporting that economic conditions are worse than in the depths of Covid. Continue reading...

When people were offered a window between New York and Dublin, puerile behaviour beat bridging worldsHow will technology change us as a species? In Silicon Valley, all prophesies seem to have converged into one: that it will usher in some sort of planetary Buddhist revolution. To read its mission statements and watch its Ted Talks is to hear phrases such as connectedness", common understanding" and overcoming barriers". You could probably pitch a social media platform and a spiritual handbook simultaneously these days: This will lead humanity to smiling, peaceful enlightenment."The soothsayers in Hollywood, meanwhile, see it differently. Introduce new tech within a blockbuster film and things tend to go one of two ways. Awe and then terror, as the product wreaks havoc on the planet; or alternatively, the rise of an emotionless new society, where, surrounded by intelligent machines, people start behaving a bit like robots themselves. The stereotypical sci-fi citizen is cold, sombre, aloof and efficient. In the minds of scriptwriters, at least, tech will at some point leach the very humanity out of us. Continue reading...

As he demonstrated at the launch of his pledge cards, the Labour leader has succeeded in de-risking perceptions of his partyWho scares wins. That has been the motto of many, often successful Conservative election campaigns. Fear may not be an edifying strategy for securing power, but the Tories have repeatedly demonstrated that it can be highly effective. Time and again, they have persuaded voters that Labour is just too risky to be trusted with government. The red scare" of 1924, whipped up with the aid of the fraudulent Zinoviev letter, brought an abrupt end to the short life of the first Labour government. The tax bombshells" dropped on Neil Kinnock in 1992 exploded his dreams of becoming prime minister. Tory claims that Ed Miliband would wobble atop a coalition of chaos" helped to floor that Labour hopeful in 2015. The big scare has often been a winning formula for the Tories.So it was pretty much inevitable that Rishi Sunak would press a quivering finger on the fear button. Not least because he is so short of any other ideas for making the general election look competitive for his party. He's previously tried marketing himself as MrStability, MrDelivery and Mr Change. None of these iterations has put a dent in Labour's headline poll ratings. They insistently place Sir Keir Starmer's party about 20points ahead of the Tories. In his most recent attempt at a relaunch, an exercise he performs almost as often as he changes his undies, the Tory leader tried another costume. This time he cloaked himself in the garb of MrSecurity. In what Downing Street puffed as a big speech, the prime minister tried to chill the country's bones with the warning that Britain is entering a very dangerous period. His ostensible subject was the threat from an axis of authoritarian states". His electoral purpose was to try to build an argument that voters will be safer sticking with him than taking a punt on Labour. Continue reading...

The Liverpool manager, who bows out today after nine years, knew football was the most important of least important things'It's not so important what people think when you come in," Jurgen Klopp observed on beingunveiled as Liverpool manager in October 2015. It's much more important what people think when you leave."Today is the day Klopp leaves. It is the final day of the Premier League season in England, and Manchester City will probably be (again) crowned champions. It is also the final day of Klopp's tenure as Liverpool manager, a moment that will wring the emotions, and not just at Anfield. Football is deeply tribal, but Klopp stepping down is an event that resonates well beyond Liverpool supporters, even beyond the world of football. Continue reading...

Even his defence minister knows that there can be no military solution to the war with HamasThe emotional vow by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, to destroy" Hamas after it massacred about 1,200 people on 7October 2023 was understandable. But in practice it was never a realisable aim. Eight months into the ensuing conflict, more than 35,000 Palestinians are dead, yet Hamas is still fighting in parts of Gaza that Israel's army thought it controlled, a new humanitarian crisis looms around Rafah, 640,000 people have been displaced again, and the agony of Israeli hostages and their families is daily renewed. Three more bodies were recovered on Friday.Defeating Hamas remains a vital objective for Israel and most western and Arab governments, as well as ordinary people appalled by its actions. But, from the very first, Netanyahu has failed, or rather refused, to articulate a day after" strategy for administering (and rebuilding) Gaza once its terrorist rulers are supposedly destroyed". Despite the evidence, he refuses to accept that military force alone will not work. Hamas's defeat, if it is to be permanent, must be political, legal, economic and psychological as much as physical. Continue reading...

Pro-Palestinian students were attempting to take over a university hall to protest school's refusal to negotiate in good faith'More than a dozen pro-Palestinian activists, including six students at the University of Pennsylvania, were arrested after attempting to occupy a hall on the university campus late Friday.The protesters were arrested around 9pm after trying to take over Fisher-Bennett Hall but had been met with a response from university and Philadelphia police, according to reports. The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that protesters caused the evacuation of an alumni event at the Penn Museum. Continue reading...

Child is in hospital in a stable condition, as police say father was found dead of self-inflicted gunshot woundA man suspected of shooting his 6-month-old son multiple times after taking the boy and his mother hostage was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in the rubble of a suburban Phoenix home that caught fire during a swat standoff, police said.

Republican Glenn Youngkin also vetoed bills related to maintaining access to contraception, saying they were not ready'Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has vetoed two bills that would have stripped tax exemptions for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization that has opposed the removal of statues of southern state generals during the US civil war and other markers of the southern states' attempt to secede from the Union in defense of slavery.The Republican governor vetoed several measures, including those related to maintaining access to contraception, saying in a statement they were not ready to become law". Continue reading...

From price rises to a ridiculous mascot, the French have had it up

Its latest iPad ad, portraying the destruction of artistic tools, is confirmation that company is just another unfeeling, arrogant tech giantThis is a tale of two advertisements. And about the company that made them - Apple Inc. The first ad ran during the Super Bowl in 1984. It was made by Ridley Scott, the celebrated movie director. The vibe is distinctly Orwellian: set in a vast, darkened auditorium dominated by a giant screen entirely filled by a sinister-looking talking head, who is clearly Big Brother (BB).The opening shot shows lines of drably uniformed, shaven-headed zombies marching in lock-step into the building. Today," intones the talking head, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the information purification directives." Continue reading...

Proponents of the Greater Idaho movement have argued Democrats in Portland don't understand their way of lifeUnder a large tent at the Crook county fairgrounds in Prineville, Oregon, six people stand in a neat line, each clutching the gun in their holster. Shooters, set," a man to the side yells. They wait. A light turns on in the centre of the target. They fire. A clock above records how long it took them to draw, shoot and, if they managed to, hit the target. They're playing in pairs. Best two out of three wins.Welcome to Oregon's Cowboy Fast Draw State Championship, a sport organisers say is dedicated to the romance and legend of the Old West". Continue reading...

At least two children have already been killed while working in Mar-Jac Poultry plants in the US south over the last yearA poultry plant in Jasper, Alabama, has been accused of hiring minors and could be shut down for 30 days, according to a newly released US Department of Labor lawsuit.Mar-Jac Poultry, the largest employer in Walker county, is accused of violating federal labor laws when it hired four minors as young as 16 who were allegedly discovered working overnight at the company's slaughterhouse. Continue reading...

Ex-president's legal team sure to make hay out of Juan Merchan's $35 gift to Biden for President and anti-Republican groupsThe judge overseeing Donald Trump's hush-money campaign finance trial in New York has been cautioned by a state ethics panel over two small donations made to Democrat-aligned groups in 2020.The caution is likely to be seized on by Trump and his lawyers as evidence of his claims that the New York trial, now entering its fourth week, has been unfairly adjudicated by Judge Juan Merchan along partisan political lines. Continue reading...

The military alliance is turning 75. But there's little to celebrate in Kyiv, as Putin's forces continue their bloody advanceNato's grand 75th birthday celebration in Washington in July will ring hollow in Kyiv. The alliance has miserably failed its biggest post-cold war test - the battle for Ukraine. Sadly, there's no denying it: Vladimir Putin is on a roll.Advancing Russian forces in Kharkiv profit from the west's culpably slow drip-feed of weaponry to Kyiv and its leaders' chronic fear of escalation. Ukraine receives just enough support to survive, never to prevail. Now even bare survival is in doubt. Continue reading...

Judge declines to remove Darrell McClanahan, who merely claims one-year honorary membership in terror group, from GOP primary raceA long-shot Missouri gubernatorial candidate with ties to the Ku Klux Klan will stay on the Republican ticket, a judge ruled on Friday.Cole county circuit court judge Cotton Walker denied a request by the Missouri GOP to kick Darrell McClanahan out of the August Republican primary. Continue reading...

The dog-killing South Dakota governor's VP hopes are in tatters. But she's not the first politician to flame out with an own goalShe could have been a contender. But then she wrote a book. And suddenly Kristi Noem was caught like a rabbit - or a rambunctious puppy - in the headlights.The governor of South Dakota found herself insisting that a false claim she met the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un had been put in her book by accident. Wait, said Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation, you recorded the whole audiobook version and read this passage out loud. Why didn't you take it out then? Continue reading...

We're going backwards: a football player can say hateful things from a university podium while students are being arrestedImagine for a moment that that you are a young woman who has spent more than $100,000 on your university degree. After four years of hard work it's your graduation and Harrison Butker, a kicker with the Kansas City Chiefs, is the commencement speaker. During his speech the NFL star, who has made millions by kicking a ball, kindly informs you that your hard-earned degree was a waste of time and that your true role in life is supporting your husband. Imagine what that would be like.IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values in media, all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder." (This doesn't make any sense, I know, but the entire speech is incoherent.)Joe Biden has been vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies". (Which is certainly true if we're talking about Gaza - but Butker was talking about abortion rights.)Pride month is a deadly sin".You can't spread the antisemitic talking point that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus any more or you'll end up in jail".Women have been subject to the most diabolical lies" and, while some women in the audience may go on to have successful careers the majority should be most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world".His wife would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother". (This sparked long applause from the audience.)We should fight against the cultural emasculation of men". Continue reading...

Ex-president to take to stage in Dallas at annual convention amid fears a second term would imperil Biden's firearm restrictionsAmid fears that he would reverse gains made by gun control activists if elected to a second presidency this fall, Donald Trump on Saturday is scheduled to address the National Rifle Association's annual convention.The former Republican president is set to take the stage in Dallas after threatening to roll back the firearms regulations enacted by the Joe Biden White House and expand gun rights - at the expense of American lives - if voters lift him to victory over the Democratic incumbent in November. Continue reading...

Vermont State University confers doctorate in litter-ature' upon tabby for being keen hunter of mice and beloved figure on campusMen named Max have won the Nobel prize (Planck), the Oscar for best actor (Schell), and multiple Formula One world championships (Verstappen).A cat in the US named Max now joins those lofty ranks, having earned a doctorate in litter-ature" when Vermont State University bestowed an honorary degree on the campus-dwelling tabby in recognition of his friendliness, a gesture which quickly achieved virality in corners of the internet dedicated to spotlighting light-hearted news. Continue reading...

Trump's former fixer gave damning testimony - and he'll return to the stand on Monday as the trial moves towards a closeDonald Trump's criminal trial is drawing to a close, with two looming questions: what will the jury decide, and how will America react?After weeks of testimony from witnesses including the porn star Stormy Daniels, National Enquirer boss David Pecker and former senior Trump aide Hope Hicks, the trial came to an inflection point this week with its star witness. Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer and attorney who has since turned into a bellicose critic of his old boss, was on the stand all three days court was in session this week. He delivered damning testimony - then faced a tough if uneven grilling from Trump's team. Continue reading...

For the first time in history, three women's Olympic all-around champions, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee, will compete in the same even on Saturday at the US ClassicThere was once a time, not long ago, when the women's Olympic all-around champion's triumphant week was also likely to be the last time they ever appeared in an international competition. If their tireless journey to the summit of their sport had not left deep physical or mental scars, then the perception of women's gymnastics as a sport for teenagers would keep them from investing their time in another run. Between 1980 and 2016, not a single Olympic women's all-around champion gymnast returned to compete at another Olympic games.This is a time of change in women's artistic gymnastics, though, and the US Classic in Hartford, Connecticut, this weekend is testament to how many more gymnasts are enjoying longer, fuller careers. For the first time in history, three women's Olympic all-around champions, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee, will compete in the same event as they each vie to return to another Olympics. Continue reading...

The attempted assassination of a leader sympathetic to Putin has Europe on edge. But exaggerating the fascist threat is also dangerousThe shooting of the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, has dramatised the increasingly angry and polarised landscape of European politics. With just weeks to go before the European parliament elections, it is time to step back from the brink.This eruption of violence in the midst of the campaign is so shocking that it may, at best, have a chastening effect, softening the venomous tone of political discourse by reminding democracies old and new of what they stand to lose.Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy CentreDo 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...

Scottie Scheffler returned to Valhalla after his arrest and hit a five-under-par 66 to sit three shots off the halfway leader, Xander SchauffeleSky Sports commentator Wayne Riley has been on the driving range to gauge opinion among the early starters. The energy is zapped," he reports. His Sky colleague Rich Beem is competing this week as a former champion, and Beem told Riley that no-one had seen Scottie Scheffler ... everyone was on their phone ... they'd hit a shot, hit a putt, then look on their phone ... they were caring for Scottie Scheffler, they were worried."Riley also spoke of the person who was coming to the golf, if he was coming, lost his life ... that is a terrible thing ... you're looking forward to the PGA Championship here at Valhalla and someone is not going to be with us today ... so many players have said to me, I can't believe they're actually playing today' ... I'm getting that vibe ... I'm getting a lot of vibe that people are going woah, somebody's lost their life here today, Scottie has been taken away, do we go into Monday?' " Continue reading...

Coleman, known for his ample mustache, won a Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and also appeared in Boardwalk EmpireDabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in 9 to 5 and the nasty TV director in Tootsie, has died. He was 92.Coleman died on Thursday, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, told the Hollywood Reporter. No other details were immediately available. Continue reading...

Humanitarian assistance has begun to arrive in Gaza along a US-made pier, but the US aid chief said the new sea corridor could not be a substitute for land crossings, and warned that deliveries of food and fuel entering Gaza had slowed

Supporters gather enough valid signatures to put measure - that would enshrine abortion rights into constitution - on to ballotVoters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court's overturning of Roe v Wade. Continue reading...

The world No 1 was arrested and charged after extraordinary early-morning scenes but he did not let that affect this gameI did spend some time stretching in a jail cell. That was the start of mywarmup."If ever a quote summed up the jaw-dropping nature of Friday at the 106th US PGA Championship, this was it. Continue reading...

New Hampshire employees of day care arrested after six-month investigation and each face 10 charges of endangering childrenFour New Hampshire daycare employees allegedly spiked children's food with the sleep supplement melatonin and were arrested on Thursday.The arrests stem from a November 2023 investigation at a daycare in Manchester, New Hampshire, about 30 minutes outside the state capital of Concord. Continue reading...

Workers in Tuscaloosa vote against bid to unionize, as UAW president Shawn Fain hails impact of campaign despite defeatThe United Auto Workers has failed in its effort to unionize workers at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in a blow to the union's plans to build its membership in the southern states.The loss on Friday comes amid the UAW's ambitious union-organizing campaign to organize 150,000 non-union auto workers around the US. Continue reading...

DePape, a rightwing conspiracy theorist, broke into the Pelosis' San Francisco home in 2022 and hit Paul Pelosi with a hammerDavid DePape, a rightwing conspiracy theorist who broke into Nancy Pelosi's northern California home in 2022 and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.A federal jury convicted him of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official in November 2023, just over a year after the attack in the former House speaker's San Francisco home. Continue reading...

Widespread disruption expected after workers vote to hold series of strikes, starting Monday with UC Santa CruzCalifornia's huge university system is facing widespread disruption after workers voted to hold a series of strikes in protest of its treatment of Gaza protesters.The University of California (UC) has more than 280,000 students and 227,000 faculty and staff on campuses across the state. Continue reading...

Incident casts doubt on supreme court justice's impartiality in upcoming cases as inverted flag is associated with Trump's stolen election claimsAn upside-down American flag was reportedly spotted flying outside the home of the conservative US supreme court justice Samuel Alito during the closing days of Donald Trump's presidential term in 2021.The inverted flag is a symbol that has become associated with Trump's false claims that Joe Biden stole the election. Continue reading...

Advocates gathered enough signatures for voters to decide on whether the state can regulate procedure before second trimesterSouth Dakota voters will decide on abortion rights this fall, getting a chance at direct democracy on the contentious issue in a conservative state where a trigger law banning nearly all abortions went into effect after Roe v Wade was overturned.The state's top election official announced on Thursday that about 85% of the more than 55,000 signatures submitted in support of the ballot initiative are valid, exceeding the required 35,017 signatures. Continue reading...

The oversight and accountability committee hearing descended into chaos, with several members shouting and hurling insults at each other as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez objected fiercely to an attack on another Democrat by the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.The hearing voted along party lines to advance an effort to hold the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt for refusing to release tapes of interviews between Joe Biden and the special counsel Robert Hur

World No 1's unlikely brush with the law has raised his profile to a level that his playing abilities alone would never be able toFor 27 years, 10 months, and 26 days the most interesting thing about Scottie Scheffler was his golf. And given that's what he's paid for, you might think it ought to be enough. But the truth is that ever since Scheffler rose to the top of the world rankings in March 2022 the game has wanted more from him. Trouble is, besides his faith, his family, and his attachment to a beaten-up old 2012 GMC Yukon, he does not have much else to give. Whisper it, but the truth is that a lotof people in the game worry thatScheffler, who many reckon is the best player of his generation, is just a little bit too boring to carry the sport.And then he decided to take a detour into the westbound lane on his way through the gates to Valhalla on Friday morning. Last month Scheffler explained that he believed his victory at the Masters was meant to be because God had laid out today's plans many years ago, and I could do nothing to mess them up". Well, either the Lord also takes his marching orders from Kentucky traffic cops, or this is more proof, if we needed it, that he moves in mysterious ways. Continue reading...

Search for new chief executive for troubled planemaker continues amid safety crisis and slumping share priceBoeing's departing CEO, Dave Calhoun, was re-elected to stay on the troubled company's board on Friday, even as the planemaker's chair said he was gathering feedback from customers and others in its search for a new chief executive.Boeing is dealing with a sprawling crisis that includes multiple investigations, possible prosecution for past actions and slumping production of its strongest-selling jet. Continue reading...

Wall Street Journal notes that British example may not be a good one, as plan hasn't gone into effect yet amid legal challenges'Aides to Donald Trump working to transform US immigration policy should he return to power are pursuing goals including the largest mass deportation in US history" while part-inspired" by the UK government's deal to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda, the Wall Street Journal reported.The Conservative UK government reached an agreement with the African country in 2022. Since then, however, the Rwanda policy has proved politically controversial, legally vulnerable, highly inefficient and vastly expensive. Continue reading...

Politics is about achieving things and telling a compelling story. But neither the president - nor Starmer - can match Trump's gift for narrativeThe smile was the giveaway. Asked whether he was just a copycat" of Tony Blair at the launch of his Blair-style pledge card on Thursday, Keir Starmer positively glowed. He was delighted with the comparison, which the entire exercise was surely designed to encourage. Blair won three elections in a row", Starmer said, beaming. Of course, he's thrilled to be likened to a serial winner. And yet the more apt parallel is also a cautionary one. It's not with Starmer's long-ago predecessor, but with his would-be counterpart across the Atlantic: Joe Biden.It's natural that the sight of a Labour leader, a lawyer from north London, on course for Downing Street after a long era of Tory rule, would have people digging out the Oasis CDs and turning back the clock to 1997: Labour election victories are a rare enough commodity to prompt strong memories. But, as many veterans of that period are quick to point out, the circumstances of 2024 are very different. The UK economy was humming then and it's parlous now. Optimism filled the air then, while too few believe genuine change is even possible now. And politics tended to be about material matters then, tax and public services, rather than dominated by polarising cultural wars as it is now.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Josh Hawley among conservatives delighted by football player's commencement speech pummeling Pride and working womenHarrison Butker's university commencement address at Benedictine College excoriating Pride month, working women, abortion rights activists and others has prompted the National Football League to disavow his remarks - but the Kansas City Chiefs placekicker's jersey sales have spiked as conservatives seize on their latest culture war.Butker has also drawn an impassioned statement of support from Josh Hawley, the far-right US senator from Missouri known for his opposition to abortion and a viral video which showed him running away from the mob he incited during the US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

The world No 1, Scottie Scheffler, was detained by police hours before his second round of the US PGA Championship. Scheffler was led away in handcuffs outside the Valhalla Golf Club entrance after becoming involved in a misunderstanding over traffic flow with the officers and attempting to drive into the course. Scheffler has been booked on charges of second degree assault of a police officer, third degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding traffic signals from an officer.In a statement released after he arrived back at Valhalla, Scheffler said: 'This morning, I was proceeding as directed by police officers. It was a very chaotic situation, understandably so considering the tragic accident that had occurred earlier, and there was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do. I never intended to disregard any of the instructions. I'm hopeful to put this to the side and focus on golf today.'