US news | The Guardian

Independent presidential candidate makes promise one day after claiming reference to prisoners as activists' was unfortunate errorRobert F Kennedy Jr, the lawyer, conspiracy theorist and independent candidate for US president, vowed to investigate whether prosecutorial discretion was abused for political ends" in convictions of January 6 rioters - just one day after his campaign said a fundraising reference to such prisoners as activists" was an unfortunate error.In a statement on Friday, Kennedy said that as president, he would appoint a special counsel - an individual respected by all sides - to investigate whether prosecutorial discretion was abused for political ends in this case, and I will right any wrongs that we discover". Continue reading...

President tours site on Friday, as cranes, ships and divers work to reopen port where up to $200m in cargo moves each day

This live blog is now closed. For more on Biden's visit to the site of the Baltimore bridge collapse, you can read our story here.The Biden administration will try again to implement a large-scale student debt relief plan, a year after a previous attempt was blocked by the supreme court's conservative justices, the Wall Street Journal reports.The plan, which Joe Biden will announce on Monday during a visit to swing state Wisconsin, comes as opinion polls show the president struggling to maintain support among younger voters ahead of his expected November election rematch against Donald Trump.The president's advisers hope to use the rules to begin canceling waves of student debt in the run-up to the November election, but the exact timing of the effort will depend on how quickly the administration can finalize the regulations. The debt forgiveness push could give Biden a political boost, especially among young people, amid polls that show him trailing former President Donald Trump, his GOP opponent, in several key states. But the proposal, once it is completed, is likely to face legal action from Republican attorneys general, who will again try to convince the courts to block it.Just hours after the Supreme Court in June 2023 killed his first student loan forgiveness plan, Biden pledged to try again using different legal authority. That kicked off a lengthy and bureaucratic process led by the Education Department to craft regulations that define under what circumstances the federal government can waive," or eliminate, federal student debt. The administration is basing the regulations on a 1965 law called the Higher Education Act. Continue reading...

At a Cheyenne River Sioux meeting, members voted 12-0 to keep the Republican out over her claims of of tribe-drug cartel nexusKristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota recently sued for promoting a cosmetic dentistry company on social media, suffered another kick in the teeth when she was banned from a second reservation home to Indigenous people.This person has made a lot of accusations about the tribes, about the cartel, council representatives being in bed with the cartel, stuff like that," Robert Walters, a Cheyenne River Sioux representative, told a tribal council meeting this week, presenting a motion to ban Noem from tribal lands over allegations about crime linked to Mexican drugs gangs. Continue reading...

Israel's opening of aid routes is welcome and overdue. But much more is neededA pivotal point has arrived in the cataclysmic sixmonth war in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces' killing of seven foreign aid workers and their Palestinian driver has spurred the US, the UK and other European allies to draw the line that they should have established long ago. On Thursday, Joe Biden called for an immediate ceasefire and told Benjamin Netanyahu that future support would depend on Israel taking steps to protect civilians and relief workers.These warnings come too late for tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children. But they could now protect others from the continued offensive, the threatened ground assault in Rafah, and the famine setting in: Oxfam says that people in the north are consuming on average just 245 calories a day. Faced with the prospect of sanctions or a halt to arms deals, MrNetanyahu's war cabinet agreed to the opening of the Erez crossing and temporary use of the port of Ashdod in southern Israel. But as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said, the real test is results". TheUS government wants to see them within days.Do 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...

Former US president is absent from big boy' course he owns but his presence pervades on stopoff for breakaway tourA key element of Masters intrigue exists outside the ropes. Will Greg Norman and Yasir al-Rumayyan appearat Augusta National next week? It has become increasingly futile for golf's establishment to ignore LIV and its Saudi Arabian backers but Augusta's custodians are extremely precious about potential distraction from the firstmajor of the year.If Norman and the governor ofthe Saudi Public Investment Fund are spotted under the famousoak tree at the Masters it will serve as the latest indication of the normalisation or legitimacy LIV has craved since it was merelyaPowerPoint plan. This has been the most expensive foot-in-the-door project in sporting history; LIV continues apace in year three with $25m (19.8m) events, evenbefore the hundreds of millions spent on coaxing players in the first place is considered. Continue reading...

Justin Allen says he thought doctor was messing' with him and that they'd never forget where they were during quake

Vermont and Maine worst affected areas while new wave of storms moving across southern and central US Sunday into MondayAt least two people were killed and hundreds of thousands of residents of the north-eastern US remained without power on Friday following a major spring storm that dumped up to two feet of snow in some areas.Elsewhere in the country, others prepared for more severe weather that threatened to impede viewing for Monday's total solar eclipse. Continue reading...

We want to hear from people affected by the 4.8 magnitude quakeAn earthquake shook the New York City metropolitan area on Friday morning, the US Geological Survey said. Residents reported feeling rumbling across the eastern seaboard.We want to hear from people in the New York City metropolitan area and along the US east coast. Where were you and did you feel the shaking? How did it feel and what did you do? Continue reading...

Car plant is second such in a southern state to ask the labor board to hold union election to join the United Autoworkers UnionMercedes-Benz workers in Vance, Alabama, have voted to hold an election to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), the second car plant in a southern state to pass such a vote in the last month.A supermajority of more than 5,000 workers at the plant have asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to organize an election. Volkswagen employees in Tennessee made the same decision last month and will vote on whether to join the UAW later this month. Continue reading...

They attract millions, but the viewer never quite knows if it's just entertainment or a way to process recent, seismic eventsWhen Prince Andrew appeared on Newsnight in November 2019, he dispelled any lingering doubt in the notion that truth is stranger than fiction.If you can recall - and let's be honest, who can forget? - the Duke of York made a series of startling claims when called on to address his close ties with Jeffrey Epstein, among them that retaining a relationship with the convicted child sex offender was the right thing to do". There was also the alibi that hinged on a children's party at Pizza Express in Woking and his lack of ability, at the time, to sweat. Continue reading...

In an industry built on the idea that long hours correlate with efficiency, an RV company increases profits - and productivityA minor revolution in the world of work is unfolding at a company 20 miles north-east of Cleveland.Here, workers at Advanced RV are talking about what they'll do on their Friday off. Others are discussing how they'll spend Monday: potter around at home, hang out with their kids or run some errands - anything but show up for work. Continue reading...

Move to increase humanitarian aid came hours after Biden told Netanyahu that US support would depend on Israel taking concrete action to protect civilians and aid workers. Plus: Microsoft says China will interfere in US and other elections using AI

Polls can't predict - but they can warn. And I'm not sure our horserace-obsessed media are heeding the warningI learned the hard way to be skeptical about the predictive power of public opinion polls.I remember election night 2016 all too well, as I hit delete on my partially pre-written Washington Post column and instead tried to look into the future of a Trump presidency. It was a future that wasn't supposed to happen.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

The 6ft 9in, 280lbs NC State star doesn't look like a typical athlete. But there's no doubting his skill, or his dazzling charismaCollege basketball fans love to fall in love. Every spring, America looks not just for a Cinderella team that may make a run in the NCAA Tournament but for individual heroes to join the pantheon of March Madness greats. These are almost never the players who hear their names called early in the NBA Draft. Most of them, in fact, never get to play in the NBA at all. But they are beloved anyway, for what they did during one or two (or five or six) single-elimination games in college. The American fan also loves a player with an unusual physique, whether tall, short, thin, or portly. Something about the spectacle of an athlete who doesn't look like an athlete has always captivated us. We've seen enough stars built like Greek gods.And the breakout star of this year's men's tournament, DJ Burns, isn't exactly Apollo (Creed or the god). Burns is listed at 6ft 9in and 275lbs, and is cuddly rather than sculpted (for context, the powerfully built LeBron James is the same height but 25lbs lighter). Not that it's affected Burns's play: he is a key cog for the Final Four-bound North Carolina State Wolfpack. As NC State have made their run as a No 11 seed, Burns has become the tournament's hottest name. He has all the makings of a cult hero. More than that, he is two wins away from what would be one of the most shocking championship runs in US sports history. Continue reading...

A year after the Covenant school shooting in Nashville - and a mass movement for gun control - Republicans have accelerated their attacks on democratic normsThe murder of six people at a church school in an affluent, largely white enclave of Tennessee's largest city one year ago sparked a mass protest movement for gun control by Nashville parents. The Republican-dominated legislature met that movement with some spending on school police officers as a gesture to the outrage, a law shielding gun and ammunition manufacturers from liability as a gesture to Tennessee's powerful gun lobby and the expulsion of the two Black lawmakers as a gesture of warning to people causing too much trouble.Other antidemocratic displays over the last year would be just as outrageous, if people outside of Tennessee were still paying attention. Continue reading...

Richard Grenell's shadow foreign policy campaign is unsettling diplomats and threatens to collapse US interestsFor Donald Trump, he is my envoy", the man apparently anointed as the former US president's roving ambassador while he plots a return to the White House.To critics, he is seen as an online pest" and a national disgrace" - and most importantly, the dark embodiment of what foreign policy in a second Trump administration would look like. Continue reading...

The Revs are in trouble, Dean Smith has things rolling in Charlotte and the champions have a headache up frontWelcome back to the Guardian's MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone. Unlike Cucho Hernandez, we're strapped in and ready rock.Now, as a reminder, these aren't your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We're still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we're diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things. Continue reading...

The quarterback needs to play a more cautious game if he wants to extend his career. But his team need to give him the tools to do soThe Buffalo Bills are the most fascinating story of the NFL offseason. Ever since Josh Allen ascended to the tier level of NFL quarterbacks in 2020, the team has headed into the season with Super Bowl expectations ... and then fallen bitterly short.Windows in the NFL are never as long as teams hope. Injuries mount up. The cap bites. A botched free agent signing or a coaching snafu can be the difference between winning it all and exiting the playoffs early. Since 2021, the Bills have experienced it all, from the painful to the bizarre:The 13-second defeat in the 2021 season playoffs to the ChiefsSean McDermott referencing al-Qaida as inspiration in a motivational speechPassing up on offensive additions in the draft in favor of defensive talentSigning Von Miller to a huge free-agent contractMiller being made a healthy scratch after allegations of domestic abuseDamar Hamlin collapsing on the field against the BengalsBeing out-muscled at home by the Bengals in the 2022 season playoffsLeslie Frazier's awkward departure as defensive coordinatorFiring offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey midseason in 2023Stefon Diggs vanishing during training campLosing to the undermanned Chiefs at home in last season's playoffs Continue reading...

Both domestically and internationally, Germany is struggling to disentangle its past from events today in GazaGermany, more than any other country, is struggling to disentangle the horrors of the 7 October Hamas massacre in Israel, the subsequent death of more than 30,000 Palestinians and the demolition of Gaza, and the killing of aid workers, from the scale of the Holocaust more than eight decades earlier.History has come back to haunt Germany with unpredicted ferocity. The confusion is intense, but it predates 7 October and permeates wider questions about the nature of the country's contemporary society.John Kampfner is a commentator and broadcaster. He is the author of In Search of Berlin and Why the Germans Do It Better Continue reading...

Independent US presidential candidate's team later said statement in its fundraising email was an error' not reflective of his viewsA spokesperson for the independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr said a passage in a fundraising email that called January 6 prisoners activists ... stripped of their constitutional liberties" was the result of an error by an outside contractor.That statement was an error that does not reflect Mr Kennedy's views," the spokesperson, Stefanie Spear, told NBC News, which first reported the fundraising email. It was inserted by a new marketing contractor and slipped through the normal approval process." Continue reading...

Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker, 92, was evaluated by psychiatrist after defense attorneys said he's too sick to be triedSeven months after his arrest on rape and kidnapping charges, 92-year-old Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker appeared in court in Louisiana on Thursday in an orange prison jumpsuit, was rolled in a wheelchair to a back room and was evaluated by a doctor to see if he's competent to stand trial.Since being charged with aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft, Hecker has taken ill and was transferred from Orleans parish jail to a long-term care facility, under armed guard. Hecker's defense attorneys argue he's too sick to be tried and filed a motion last month to have him evaluated for his mental competency. Continue reading...

Trump's Presidential Records Act argument could be resurrected at trial even as the judge denied his motion to dismissThe federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents denied his effort to have the case dismissed on the contention that the Presidential Records Act allowed him to transform them as personal property and possess them at his Mar-a-Lago club.The ruling by US district judge Aileen Cannon was significant as it struck one of Trump's main defenses and suggested the case is headed to trial. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed. For more on the Biden-Netanyahu phone call, you can read our full report:

Centrist group says it won't field unity ticket' in US presidential election after reaching out to 30 potential people and raising $60mThe centrist group No Labels will not field a third-party candidate for US president this year, it announced on Thursday.Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before," the group, which previously said it raised $60m, said in a statement.Biden v Trump: What's in store for the US and the world?On Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live Continue reading...

Dog that had gone missing was discovered in Michigan clean and well-fed: Whoever had her took good care of her'Nearly nine months after his disappearance, a dog that had gone missing in California was discovered more than 2,000 miles away in Michigan.A resident in Harper Woods, a Detroit suburb, contacted police in late March to report a stray dog in her neighborhood. Police collected the terrier mix, named Mishka, and brought her to an animal welfare group. Continue reading...

Stock debut that could net the former president billions was kept afloat by opaque loans provided in part by Anton PostolnikovDemocratic groups escalated calls on Thursday for Congress to investigate Donald Trump's social media company Trump Media after a report that it relied partly on emergency loans in 2022 traced back to a Russian-American under federal criminal investigation to make it to its stock market debut.The move increased political scrutiny into the merger between Trump Media Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition - which could net Trump about $4bn - as federal prosecutors secured guilty pleas from two investors who insider-traded on the deal. Continue reading...

One of the largest cash heists in the city's history went unnoticed until police opened vault that few people knew aboutThieves in Los Angeles pulled off one of the largest cash heists in city history over the weekend, stealing as much as $30m from a money storage facility on Easter Sunday, authorities said on Wednesday.The break-in unfolded at an unnamed facility in the Sylmar area of the San Fernando Valley that handles and stores cash from businesses across the region. Burglars were able to enter without immediate detection and breached a safe, said Elaine Morales, a Los Angeles police department commander, to the Los Angeles Times. Continue reading...

LIV golfer appreciates opportunity to contend again after comeback 12 years on from last competitive tournamentFourteen years to the day since he won the Houston Open, Anthony Kim tepidly took to a podium in Miami. His shirt hung loose, his face of a man much older than the 38 years depicted in his biography.When doctors are telling you that you may not have much time left, that's a pretty rude awakening," Kim explained. I still think about it to this day when I'm out there and I get frustrated with my golf ... how far I have come. I got to a point where I may not be here speaking to you guys." Continue reading...

Governor says officials don't know how or when money materialised in state coffers, what it's for, or if it's even realTo put it mildly, the South Carolina state government faces an unusual problem: what to do about $1.8bn found in a state bank account when no one knows how it got there, how it should be spent or even whether it really exists.Discussing the problem, the Republican governor, Henry McMaster, made a play for political understatement of the year. Continue reading...

Richard Slayman was discharged from Massachusetts hospital on Wednesday after pioneering surgeryThe Massachusetts man who received the world's first transplant of a genetically modified pig kidney has returned home less than three weeks after the pioneering surgery, and says he feels just fine.Richard Slayman, who had been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, was discharged from Boston's Massachusetts general hospital on Wednesday, and thanked doctors who performed the four-hour operation on 16 March. Continue reading...

Ford EV unit's pretax losses expected to jump to more than $5bn as US electric vehicle sales growth slows to 2.7%With US electric vehicle sales starting to slow, Ford Motor Co says it will delay rolling out new electric pickup trucks and a new large electric SUV as it adds gas-electric hybrids to its model lineup.The Dearborn, Michigan, company said on Thursday that a much ballyhooed new electric pickup to be built at a new factory in Tennessee will be delayed by a year until 2026. Continue reading...

The relatives of slain civil rights leader will visit Tennessee city to bring attention to erosion of civil rights in USRelatives of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr are making a rare trip to Memphis on Thursday on the anniversary of his assassination, to speak on the rising threat of political violence, especially in an election year.Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the late King, will pay tribute to his father's legacy, 56 years after the assassination in the Tennessee city. Continue reading...

The indiscriminate killing, the manmade starvation and the bombing of aid workers must bring the west to a moment of decision

Years of work by alleged victims and advocates have led to an investigation of the mogul and a suit against Russell SimmonsLast week, the world watched as agents of the US Department of Homeland Security dramatically raided two properties - one in Miami and one in Los Angeles - belonging to the music mogul Sean Diddy" Combs, as part of an ongoing investigation into sex-trafficking allegations.What fewer people probably knew was that just a couple of weeks earlier, the former hip-hop executive Drew Dixon had tracked down another industry legend, Russell Simmons, to serve him with a defamation lawsuit relating to her own alleged history of abuse at Simmons's hands. Continue reading...

A new take, like Beyonce's cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene, only expands the work. So why do people love complaining?

Isaac Arnsdorf's Finish What We Started shows how the strategist wanted to create a dominant coalition to take US political power

Regulations will bar career civil servants from being reclassified as political appointees - who are more easily dismissed

Ditching the Republican-wife wrap dresses is easy, but my mother's 196os boots are replete with memoriesI'm spring cleaning and last week filled eight huge boxes with clothes during a once-in-a-decade pass through my wardrobe. We put these things off for a reason: the time it takes, and more than that, what we have learned to call the emotional labour. Going through old stuff, whatever the particulars, threatens to drag us back through the years, but the wardrobe thing is particularly stark. Here, before me, is evidence that entire chunks of my life were lost to the delusion that the Banana Republic shirt dress was a thing I should wear.Contrary to previous attempts, this time I vowed things would be different. I was in charge. I was going to be ruthless. I wasn't going to be bossed around by this stuff and its freight of memory. No hanging on to clothes so I could stare at them to spark images, when my memories could just as easily be preserved by taking a photo.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Trump's New York trial is only superficially about his tawdry sex life and really about his ultimate victim: the constitutionOf all of Donald Trump's charged crimes, spelled out in 88 felony counts - from plotting to overthrow the government of the United States to stealing national security secrets, and obstruction of justice along the way - there is one case that most closely parallels the greatest political crime in American history: his trial in New York, scheduled to begin 15 April, for falsifying business records.Yet against the enormity of the former president's transgressions, that case's gravitas has been diminished by some legal pundits as the runt of the litter" and probably the least serious of the crimes he's been charged with". This case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, however, reveals Trump as having essentially the same purpose as Richard Nixon in Watergate, hiding the truth through fraud and bribery in order to manipulate the outcome of a presidential election. Continue reading...

Kathryn Archer could not terminate her pregnancy in her home state and, instead, had to wait more than three weeks for an emergency abortion at an out-of-state abortion clinicIn January 2023, whenever Kathryn Archer took her young daughter out to the local playground in Nashville, Tennessee, strangers often noticed her visibly pregnant stomach and wanted to make small talk.When are you due?" they would ask Archer. Do you know if you're having a boy or a girl?" Oh, I bet your daughter's so excited to be a big sister."This article was amended on 4 April 2024 to correct a quotation from Kathryn Archer in which she said a one-day procedure turned into two-day procedure, not into a three-day procedure as originally quoted. Continue reading...

Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readersWhere do you get the time?" For many years, when I'd announce to friends that I had another book coming out, I'd take responses like this as a badge of pride.These past few months, while publicising my new book about AI, God-Like, I've tried not to hear in those same words an undertone of accusation: Where do you get the time?" Meaning, you must have had help from ChatGPT, right? Continue reading...

Party members in key swing states say they won't re-elect a president who enables the continued Israeli bombardmentThis Tuesday, more than 48,000 people defied cold, rainy weather to register protest votes in the Wisconsin Democratic primary against the Biden administration's unrelenting support for Israel's war on Gaza.In 2020, Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by an excruciatingly narrow margin of victory of about 21,000 votes. As of Wednesday afternoon, Wisconsin's uninstructed" vote tally - the equivalent of the uncommitted" campaign that Arab Americans launched in Michigan - was 48,093 votes, more than twice Biden's 2020 win margin.Malaika Jabali is a 2024 New America fellow, journalist and author of It's Not You, It's Capitalism: Why It's Time to Break Up and How to Move On Continue reading...

Ban on using private grants and requiring only election officials designated by law' to perform election tasks could harm votingWisconsin voters enshrined in the state constitution on Tuesday two amendments that election officials and voting rights advocates worry will hurt election administration in the state.The first bans election offices from accessing private grants - a source of revenue that election officials relied on in 2020 to run elections during the pandemic and have since used to stock voting equipment in polling places. Continue reading...

Trade bodies are setting out rules to avoid unacceptable' behaviour, but part of the problem is how we view work itselfAn old, cruel joke claimed David Beckham wore headphones at all times so a voice could remind him to breathe in, breathe out". Some things that should come naturally don't.You might think that a code of conduct for adult professionals attending a work-related social event, reminding them to be considerate and respectful to each other" and refrain from any unacceptable conduct" (defined elsewhere in the code), falls into the same category of advice as Beckham's breathing tips.Stefan Stern is co-author of Myths of Management and the former director of the High Pay Centre Continue reading...