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Sources say former president and aides thought prosecutors were reconsidering legal action and were taken by surprise by the announcement

Support for the European Union is strong – even in post-Brexit Britain. Can it come through its external battles, too?It’s springtime in Brussels and the European Union has a spring in its step. Its leaders and institutions have been galvanised by the war in Ukraine. “The war has reminded us what Europe is really about,” people kept telling me on a recent visit to the EU’s capital.There’s a popular theory that says European integration advances through crises. The truth is that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. You’d have to be a starry-eyed Euro-optimist, for example, to claim that European unity was really advanced by the 2015-16 refugee crisis. But in its last two big ones, the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, we have seen the “challenge and response” mechanism that the historian Arnold Toynbee identified as one of the patterns of history. Continue reading...

Trump has followed a pattern since 2016 – the bigger the alleged crime, the louder he airs grievances and claims he’s being persecutedComedian Chris Rock gazed out at the audience at an awards ceremony in Washington earlier this month. “Are you guys really going to arrest Trump?” he asked bluntly. “This is only going to make him more popular!”Donald Trump has not yet been arrested but is now the first person to occupy the Oval Office to then be charged with a crime. It also raises the prospect of the Republican favorite for the 2024 presidential race to be running for the White House while also being criminally prosecuted – something likely to bring even more chaos to America’s already deeply fractured political landscape. Continue reading...

A new law will impose extra tax on sales of more than $5m starting 1 April – and sellers are desperate to unload before the deadlineAs the clock ticks down to the start of Los Angeles’ new “mansion tax”, the city’s real estate market is offering some deadline deals.On Instagram, two high-end realtors touted a $1m bonus to any agent who helped sell a $28m Bel Air mansion by 1 April. Another 260-acre Bel Air property which went up for auction this month (starting price $39m) offered buyers a $2m credit if they were able to close the deal by 31 March. Continue reading...

Ex-president is expected to appear for his arraignment on Tuesday where he will be fingerprinted, photographed and processed for arrestA grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump in New York over a hush money payment made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.No former US president has ever been criminally indicted. The news is set to shake the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in which Trump leads most polls. Continue reading...

The move to indict Trump is historic as no former president has ever been criminally charged. This blog is now closed

A grand jury has voted to criminally indict Donald Trump, the first time in US history that this has happened to a former president

Daily Telegraph fails to land blame on Malcolm Turnbull for the former US president’s comments. Plus: Andrew Bolt scolds Mark Latham

Hollywood actor and lifestyle guru found not liable for collision with optometrist Terry Sanderson in Park City in 2016Gwyneth Paltrow, the Hollywood star and lifestyle guru, has prevailed in the dramatic court tussle over dueling ski-crash claims with the retired optometrist Terry Sanderson, who had sued the actor for liability in a collision on a Utah mountain in 2016.The verdict in the much-watched case, which to many seemed to pit one affluent lifestyle against another, came after a two-week trial that heard from dozens of witnesses attempting to assert truth to an incident that only one witness claimed to see. Continue reading...

Daniels has claimed she had sex with ex-president and that she received $130,000 payment in 2016 to hush up about itDonald Trump for years has faced criminal investigations on multiple fronts, ranging from alleged presidential election interference to purported financial crimes and recent scrutiny over his storage of government secrets.In the end, though, what got a grand jury to vote to indict him Thursday wasn’t election interference, spurious bookkeeping, unsecured federal documents, or even that his supporters staged the deadly January 6 Capitol attack after he was voted out of office and told them to “fight like hell”. It was the porn star and director known to fans as Stormy Daniels. Continue reading...

The fact that there is no choreographed political theater around the indictment is precisely how democracies tend to work: in a messy and piecemeal fashionSo it finally happened. Trump has been indicted. For Democrats and scattered anti-Trumpers on the right, it will probably feel not nearly as satisfying or generate as much schadenfreude as they imagined. In fact, it might seem positively anticlimactic.After all, Trump did not get indicted for his political crimes and misdemeanors. Other investigations may still catch up with him. But the fact that there is no choreographed political theater is precisely how democracies tend to work: messy, piecemeal, ensuring that there is no impunity. Continue reading...

Indictment relates to a hush-money payment made on ex-president’s behalf to the adult film star Stormy DanielsDonald Trump will be the first former US president to face criminal charges after a grand jury in New York has voted to indict him on charges related to hush money payments to an adult film star.Here is what Trump’s indictment means. Continue reading...

In getting a grand jury to charge Trump over his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016, the Democrat has carved himself a place in historyAlvin Bragg’s official biography describes him as a “son of Harlem” who became Manhattan district attorney after “a lifetime of hard work, courage and demanding justice”.In obtaining a grand jury indictment against Donald Trump over his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016, the Democrat has now carved himself a place in history, as the man behind the first vote to criminally indict a former president. Continue reading...

Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, responded angrily to Marjorie Taylor Greene, after the far-right Georgia Republican advocated that teachers be armed.Amid national grief and anger over the Nashville elementary school shooting, in which three children and three adults were killed, members of Congress clashed in Washington and people protested in Tennessee

Executive director of the San Jose Police Officers Association charged with attempt to unlawfully import valeryl fentanylThe executive director of a US police union has been charged with attempting to illegally import a fentanyl analogue, and has been accused of using the police union’s office to communicate with her suppliers and mail the drugs.Joanne Segovia, the executive director of the San Jose Police Officers Association in California, was charged with attempt to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a variation of the powerful synthetic opioid, and faces up to 20 years in prison, the justice department said in a statement on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Democrats and Republicans in Congress argue while hundreds of Nashville protesters urge lawmakers to ‘Save our children!’Amid national grief and anger over the Nashville elementary school shooting in which three children and three adults were killed, members of Congress clashed angrily in Washington while protesters demanded action in Tennessee.In Washington, while speaking to reporters on Wednesday evening, Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York and a former school principal, called Republicans “gutless” for refusing to support meaningful gun control reform. Continue reading...

Wishlist of leftwing policies also calls for executive action on trains and prescription prices to bypass congressional gridlockThe Congressional Progressive Caucus has urged Joe Biden to reinforce federal oversight of large corporations, increase wages for working people and address the climate crisis.Outlining its 2023 executive action agenda on Thursday, the CPC offered Joe Biden an opportunity to deliver on a range of Democratic policy priorities, and stifle recent criticism from the left wing of his party, using the power of the executive pen. Continue reading...

It was a scourge in the 90s and 00s. Now, though, what we need is new privacy laws to regulate the excesses of social mediaNever did a stranger Magnificent Seven ride into town. It includes a royal prince, an ageing pop star, two B-movie film stars and a former Lib Dem MP. All were chosen as wounded heroes by the champions of privacy against the mighty Daily Mail. Heaven knows what this grievance-fest is costing but someone can afford it.We all know tabloid newspapers in the 1990s and 2000s could behave outrageously, notably in their coverage of celebrity. Intrusive photography and phone hacking were rife. Technology was always ahead of policing. Intrusion was called the “price of celebrity” and only the lucky escaped paying it. No one familiar with the press at the time would be surprised at the charges now levied against Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. These include the commissioning of external investigators to tap landlines and intercept voicemails, and the blagging of medical records. The publisher strongly denies the allegations.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian 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.

Bankman-Fried, 31, has already pleaded not guilty to eight counts over collapse of cryptocurrency exchange last yearThe FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty on Thursday to new US criminal charges, which include conspiring to violate campaign finance laws and bribe Chinese authorities.Bankman-Fried, 31, had earlier pleaded not guilty to eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing billions in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research. Continue reading...

Bonuses now at pre-pandemic levels, after profits started to fall for firms as inflation rose and fears of recessions started to hitWall Street bankers might have to start counting their pennies: the average banking bonuses fell 26% last year, leaving the average bonus at “just” $176,700.After significant boosts during the pandemic, profits started to fall for Wall Street firms in 2022 as inflation rose and fears of recessions started to hit, leaving companies with less leeway for bonuses, according to a report from the New York state comptroller office released on Thursday. Bonuses are now at pre-pandemic levels, reaching a low not seen since 2019. Continue reading...

EPA officials en route to incident 100 miles west of Minneapolis in which 22 cars were derailed with four catching fireA train hauling ethanol and corn syrup derailed and caught fire in Minnesota early on Thursday and nearby residents were ordered to evacuate their homes, authorities said.The BNSF train derailed in the town of Raymond, about 100 miles west of Minneapolis, at about 1am, according to the Kandiyohi county sheriff, Eric Tollefson. Continue reading...

No injuries on ground but nine service members killed in collision about 30 miles from Fort Campbell base near Tennessee borderNine people were killed in a crash involving two US army Black Hawk helicopters conducting a night-time training exercise in Kentucky, a military spokesperson said.Nondice Thurman, a spokesperson for Fort Campbell, said on Thursday morning the deaths happened the previous night in south-western Kentucky during a routine training mission. Continue reading...

Company makes last-minute move to keep control of district as board appointed by governor in ‘don’t say gay’ feud takes overA dispute between the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and Disney over control of the company’s Florida theme park district hinges on a clause referencing King Charles III and his descendants.The row began after DeSantis in March 2022 passed a “don’t say gay” law banning classroom teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity. The law was highly controversial, with LGBTQ+ activists saying it was discriminatory. Joe Biden denounced it as “hateful”. Continue reading...

The Republican representative Lauren Boebert raised a peculiar question in a recent US House hearing. She asked whether a revised Washington DC criminal code, which was previously overturned by Congress, had become law. While her question was met with a reminder of the previous decision of Congress, Boebert continued to express interest in whether or not the revised code would have decriminalised public urination. A dumbfounded Washington DC council member, Charles Allen, repeatedly reminded Boebert that it was still a criminal offence

Evan Gershkovich is the first reporter for a US news outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the cold war

Sacramento last made the postseason nearly 20 years ago. But a savvy coach and an impressive blend of talent have changed their fortunesThere are the underdogs, and then there are the seemingly cursed. Those franchises who lead a sisyphean existence, one in which they are always the butt of the joke. Until this season, the Sacramento Kings could be described as the latter. Several teams that were founded more recently have a worse win percentage, but the Kings have the most losses in NBA history, with just north of 3,200. While pundits generally approved of their off-season moves this past summer, few would have predicted Sacramento would be third in the Western Conference at the end of March, breaking the longest playoff drought in the the four major US sports leagues. These are not your mom’s Sacramento Kings. So how did they turn it around? Continue reading...

From oil to immigration, the president’s reversal from his 2020 campaign pledges might turn away more voters than it attractsWhen he was running for president in 2020, Joe Biden promised “no more drilling on federal lands, period”. This month, he approved an $8bn oil project in Alaska, violating that campaign pledge.Biden had said he wholeheartedly supports granting statehood to the District of Columbia. Last week, he signed a Republican bill overturning changes to the DC criminal code, which critics attacked as a violation of home rule. Continue reading...

A cabin on the round-the-world MV Gemini costs £75,000. It could be a cost of living escape hatch for the middle classesIt is a juvenile but bankable way to pass time and lift one’s spirits without too much exertion: I’m talking about identifying ways in which the lives of rich people suck, a list that is always imaginatively growing. Gwyneth Paltrow, testifying in Utah, has delivered solidly on this front this week, but there’s an even more gratifying story you might have missed. For a mere £75,000, people with what is officially known as more money than sense can embark on a round-the-world cruise, taking in 135 countries and docking at 375 destinations. If that itinerary sounds overloaded, it’s because you are a wage slave who only takes 14-day holidays. This particular cruise takes three years.I know, right? Three years on a ship playing “indoor golf” with the characters from Triangle of Sadness. It is so perfect a punishment for a certain type of hollowed-out plutocrat it might have been created by a limp, mid-list satirist. According to Life at Sea Cruises, the company behind the venture and a subsidiary of Miray Cruises, demand for the cruise is “unprecedented” and it also goes without saying that the word “cruise” in this case, is a misnomer. Cruises are for people who get excited by the presence of jumbo prawns at the buffet. By contrast, life aboard the “400-cabin MV Gemini” is, says Mikael Petterson, the managing director, “a way of living as opposed to travel”.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

From hateful rants on Fox news to falsehoods in Congress, the far right exploits the tragedy to demonize vulnerable peopleAn already vigorous assault by Republicans on LGBTQ+ rights around the US is certain to gather pace in the wake of the Nashville school shooting, advocacy groups are warning.Hard-right figures wasted little time in seizing on the reported transgender identity of the Covenant school killer to advance tenets of a “hateful” agenda that has become an obsession of Republican-controlled statehouses from Florida to Tennessee. Continue reading...

The protest movement will either transform into a call for genuine democracy – for Palestinians and Israelis alike – or it will remain locked in the current impasseThere is a certain afterglow to mass protest. It’s a feeling strongest when the slogans have just ceased to echo in the streets, when the barricades have just come down, the banners rolled back up and the flags folded and put back in their place. It is also a dangerous moment, when what looks like sudden success can just as quickly turn into defeat.That is the place where the protests against the Netanyahu government’s plan to strip the judiciary of its power stand right now. Last week saw street demonstrations of a size and intensity never seen before in Israel. It was, largely, a revolt of the educated and the middle class – of self-identified liberal, secular Israel against authoritarian, theocratic Israel. One of the movement’s most prominent organizers, and perhaps most representative, is Shikma Bressler, a professor of particle physics at the Weizman Institute, who for 13 weeks exhorted her fellow Israelis into the streets. Continue reading...

I haven’t eaten octopus in years, yet being smart shouldn’t make them exceptions. All animals need protection from unnecessary sufferingThe collective noun for a group of octopuses, in case you were wondering, is a consortium – not, as some wags might tell you, a seafood buffet.I myself don’t eat octopus, and have made a lot of noise about why: they’re as smart as parrots, their brain is spread over their arms, they are many millions of years older than we are – don’t you know that, of all the species on Earth, only they and we share a high-resolution camera eye?Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

San Diego and the New York Mets have splashed the cash. But the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves are superbly run clubsA mixed bag. I’m already on record as being for the pitch clock. As someone who loved watching how hitters approached the shift, however, it feels like a strategic element has been removed for no good reason. HF Continue reading...

UK-German relations are long and complicated, and not all symbolism is emptyKing Charles III will not only travel to Berlin during his state visit to Germany this week, but also Hamburg, the country’s second largest city and home to its biggest port. Hamburg is a trading hub known for its Anglophilia, with close connections to Great Britain that go back centuries that were revived during the British occupation of the city after the second world war, when the former enemy quickly turned into a close partner.When you take the long view at UK-German relations, this part of the king’s trip is at least as important and meaningful as his appointments in the German capital. Those who criticise royal visits as constituting little more than expensive photo-ops fail to understand that not all symbolism is empty. Continue reading...

The bodies of four furry swimmers tested positive for a strain of toxoplasmosis first seen in mountain lionsScientist Melissa Miller was seeing something in California sea otters that she had not seen before: an unusually severe form of toxoplasmosis, which officials have confirmed has killed at least four of the animals.“We wanted to get the word out. We’re seeing something we haven’t seen before, we want people to know about it and we want people working on marine mammals to be aware of these weird findings,” said Miller, a wildlife veterinarian specialist with the California department of fish and wildlife (DFW). “Take extra precautions.” Continue reading...

Congresswoman’s fixation on whether criminal code would have decriminalized public urination made biggest splash at hearingIn bizarre scenes in a US House hearing, the far-right Republican Lauren Boebert asked if a revised Washington DC criminal code was now law – only to be reminded that Congress overturned it earlier this month – then fixated on whether that code would have decriminalised public urination.The revision was meant to give the District of Columbia a first code update in 120 years, but it became subject to fierce debate over crime as a political issue. Republicans said the code was soft on violent offenses. Angering progressives, Joe Biden said he would not veto a Republican measure to overturn the code. Continue reading...

Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen arrives at the Lotte hotel in New York City with her security keeping a close watch. Supporters greet her while some anti-Taiwan independence protesters gathered across the street. Tsai is meeting overseas Taiwanese representatives while she is in New York. The president is also visiting Central America and California before returning home.

Taskforce says it will not take a stand on how much compensation residents should receiveThe leader of California’s first-in-the-nation reparations taskforce on Wednesday said it would not take a stance on how much the state should compensate Black residents whom economists estimate may be owed more than $800bn for decades of over-policing, disproportionate incarceration and housing discrimination.The $800bn is more than 2.5 times California’s $300bn annual budget and does not include a recommended $1m per older Black resident for health disparities that have shortened their average lifespan. Nor does the figure count compensating people for property unjustly taken by the government or devaluing Black businesses, two other harms the taskforce says the state perpetuated. Continue reading...

Details of three children and three adults shot dead at Covenant School in Tennessee capital have begun to emergeDetails from the rich, full lives of the three adults killed Monday at a Nashville elementary school have emerged quickly in the aftermath, but information on the three nine-year-old children – whose lives ended tragically young – has been slower to publicly surface from a community buried in grief.The violence wielded by the hands of a former student of the Covenant School on Monday marks the 129th mass shooting in the US so far this year, according to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive. Continue reading...

Magazine’s editors asked board not to lay off anyone for a month if staff raised $200,000 after Friday’s vote to cease publicationJournalists at the muckraking liberal magazine Texas Observer have raised more than $270,000 through a GoFundMe campaign in a last-ditch attempt to save the publication from closure.The storied publication – founded in 1954 by Ronnie Dugger, edited in the 1970s by Molly Ivins, and described this week by John Nichols as “the connecting tissue of Texas liberalism” – had suffered extreme instability in recent years, with a revolving door of editors-in-chief and frequent conflict between its owners, the non-profit Texas Democracy Foundation, and its staff. Continue reading...

Suzanne Scott wrote in December 2020 that fact-checks ‘have to stop’, messages obtained from $1.6bn Dominion lawsuit revealThe top executive at Fox News was furious one of the network’s reporters was fact-checking Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, writing in a December 2020 email that it was “bad for business”.Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News, was responding in early December 2020 to an on-air fact-check by Eric Shawn, one of the network’s anchors. “This has to stop now,” she wrote to Meade Cooper, another Fox executive. “This is bad business and there clearly is a lack of understanding [sic] what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material. Bad for business.” Continue reading...

Grand jury won’t hear evidence on hush money payment due to previously scheduled hiatus, report says

Republican Bill Lee called for compassion in pre-recorded video but didn’t mention guns after six killed at Nashville schoolThe Republican governor of Tennessee called for compassion and an end to mass violence but pointedly declined to mention guns or gun control in a message to his state after three nine-year-old children and three adults were shot dead at a Christian school in Nashville.“I understand there is pain,” Bill Lee said in a short, pre-recorded video. “I understand the desperation to have answers, to place blame, to argue about a solution that could prevent this horrible tragedy.” Continue reading...

Decision not expected to affect current deployments but lawmakers increasingly seeking to claw back congressional powerThe US Senate voted on Wednesday to repeal the resolution that gave a green light for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an effort to return a basic war power to Congress from the White House 20 years after an authorization many now say was a mistake.Iraqi deaths are estimated in the hundreds of thousands and nearly 5,000 US troops were killed after George W Bush’s administration falsely claimed Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Continue reading...

Informant who marched to US Capitol with Proud Boys says he didn’t know of plans to invade and ‘crowd did as herd mentality’An FBI informant who marched to the US Capitol with fellow Proud Boys on January 6 testified on Wednesday that he did not know of any plans for the far-right extremist group to invade the building and didn’t think they inspired violence that day.The informant, who identified himself in court only as “Aaron”, was a defense witness at the trial of the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to keep Donald Trump in the White House after the 2020 election. Continue reading...

Onslaught has brought severe damage, including buildings crushed by snow, flooding and homes threatened by landslidesA powerful weather system has brought more wind, rain and snow to California, reeling a state already battered by months of storms.Forecasters said the storm was not as strong as the systems that pounded California all winter, but it was expected to pull a plume of Pacific moisture into the state as it tracked south. Continue reading...

Howard Schultz defends company’s practices before Senate committee, while Republicans condemn Sanders’ ‘witch-hunt’Starbucks’ former chief executive Howard Schultz was accused at a Senate hearing on Wednesday of running “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country”.The hearing, “No Company Is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks”, was chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Starbucks’ anti-union activities. Continue reading...