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Jon Hallford, condemned in court as monster', stashed decaying bodies and gave grieving families fake ashesA Colorado funeral home owner who stashed 189 decomposing bodies in a building over four years and gave grieving families fake ashes was sentenced to 40 years in state prison Friday.During the sentencing hearing, family members told Judge Eric Bentley they have had recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots since learning what happened to their loved ones. Continue reading...

Move by Pete Hegseth marks latest escalation by Trump administration against the Ivy League schoolThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said the Pentagon is ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard University, marking the Trump administration's latest escalation against the Ivy League school.The @DeptWar is formally ending ALL Professional Military Education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard University," Hegseth said in a statement posted on X, labeling Harvard as woke". Continue reading...

Democrats outraged and Republicans mostly silent after president shared racist video of former president and first lady - key US politics stories from Friday 6 FebruaryTop Democrats erupted with fury on Friday and challenged more Republicans to respond to Donald Trump posting a racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.The clip appeared during one of the 79-year-old US president's increasingly frequent late-night posting sprees to his Truth Social account, and shows the laughing faces of the former president and first lady superimposed on the bodies of primates in a jungle setting to The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Continue reading...

Only a smattering of Republicans spoke out about clip in which Obamas' faces were superimposed on bodies of apes

Nathan Smith, 27, known professionally as DJ Young Slade, was a music producer, artist, engineer and NYU graduateAmerican rapper Lil Jon said on Friday that his son, Nathan Smith, has died, the record producer confirmed in a joint statement with Smith's mother after police found a body in a pond north of Atlanta, Georgia.I am extremely heartbroken for the tragic loss of our son, Nathan Smith. His mother [Nicole Smith] and I are devastated," the statement said. Continue reading...

Disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie from her home in Arizona is being investigated as kidnappingThe search for Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC's Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie entered its sixth day on Friday in Arizona, as authorities said they were aware of a new message related to the case.The FBI and Arizona's Pima county sheriff's department issued a joint statement on Friday afternoon stating that investigators were actively inspecting information provided in the message for its authenticity. Earlier in the day, authorities said they believe that Guthrie is still alive. Continue reading...

Initial announcement sparked fury from US cattle ranchers as economists say change will have little impact on pricesDonald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation to hike the US's low-tariff imports of Argentinian beef, though economists have said the attempt to lower costs for US consumers will likely have little impact on prices.A White House official said in October that Trump would make such a move, evoking fury from the nation's cattle ranchers. Continue reading...

California governor accused the administration of trying to distract' from Trump posting a racist video of the ObamasCalifornia governor Gavin Newsom debunked a claim by senior Trump officials that his state plans to release more than 33,000 undocumented criminals from its jails.On Friday, Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, posted on X that California is getting ready to free up to 33 thousand criminal illegal aliens". Continue reading...

The Olympic Flame is lit as Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli and Lang Lang star in beautiful opening ceremony at the San Siro stadiumLindsey Vonn inspected the Olympic downhill course with other racers early this morning as she prepared to take part in the opening training session despite tearing the ACL in her left knee a week ago.The 41-year-old Vonn is planning to compete at the Milan Cortina Games with a large brace covering her injured knee. Continue reading...

Sgt Erik Duran convicted by judge for causing Eric Duprey to fatally crash his motorized scooter in 2023A New York City police officer was convicted on Friday of second-degree manslaughter after he tossed a picnic cooler filled with drinks at a fleeing suspect, causing the man to fatally crash his motorized scooter in 2023.Judge Guy Mitchell handed down the guilty verdict in Bronx criminal court in the case against Sgt Erik Duran in the death of Eric Duprey. The 38-year-old Duran was the first New York police department (NYPD) officer in years to be tried for killing someone while on duty. Continue reading...

Video deleted by White House breaks through numbness barrier and raises further questions about fitness for officeIt is a singular if highly dubious distinction of Donald Trump's pungent contribution to the political discourse to have essentially bankrupted the English language's capacity for outrage.So unremitting and extreme have been the avalanche of affronts since Trump descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy that even his most ardent critics have become desensitized, leading to a level of shock fatigue. Continue reading...

Indictment alleges Dr John Stevenson Bynon Jr changed the records of five patients, three of whom diedA Houston doctor has been indicted on charges of falsifying medical records for five patients, making them ineligible to receive a liver transplant - including some who died later, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.Dr John Stevenson Bynon Jr was indicted by a grand jury in Houston in January on five counts of false statements relating to healthcare matters. Continue reading...

Trump also demanded Dulles airport be given his name in exchange for funding NY-NJ tunnel and subway extensionDonald Trump has told the Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, that he will unfreeze funds for major infrastructure projects in New York and New Jersey if he supports renaming Dulles international airport in Virginia and Penn Station in New York City after him, according to media reports.The demand, which was first reported on Thursday by Punchbowl News, comes after the president in October halted $18bn in funding for a major subway line expansion in New York City as well as a new rail tunnel connecting the city to New Jersey. The funding freeze was announced on the first day of a 43-day government shutdown in which Schumer, who represents New York, played a major role. Continue reading...

Project, following disgraced cyclist, reportedly sparked bidding war, with Conclave's Edward Berger set to directThe Oscar-nominated actor Austin Butler is scheduled to take on the role of the disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong in a buzzy new biopic.According to Deadline, the package has caused a frenzied" bidding war in Hollywood with the Conclave director Edward Berger at the helm and King Richard's Zach Baylin set to write the script. Continue reading...

After months of negotiations, threats and refusals, Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally agreed to testify in front of Congress as part of a Republican-led investigation into the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The latest tranche of Epstein files has sent shock waves around the world, but many of the powerful men who minimised and dismissed his crimes are still yet to face any real consequences. The documents show the likes of Noam Chomsky and Steve Bannon were happy to maintain relationships with Epstein even after he spent time in jail for child sex offences. What message does that send to the abused women and girls, whose experiences should be the real focus? And will these men ever be held to account? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist Marina Hyde. Continue reading...

The latest tranche of Epstein files has sent shock waves around the world, but many of the powerful men who minimised and dismissed his crimes are still yet to face any real consequences. The documents show the likes of Noam Chomsky and Steve Bannon were happy to maintain relationships with Epstein even after he spent time in jail for child sex offences. What message does that send to the abused women and girls, whose experiences should be the real focus? And will these men ever be held to account? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist Marina Hyde - watch on YouTube Continue reading...

Files released by DoJ reveal the financier engaging in efforts to blunt the impact of the movement as it was gaining groundIn August 2018, as the #MeToo movement spread across social media and women around the world demanded justice from sexual predators, Michael Wolff, a journalist, forwarded Jeffrey Epstein a plea for help. Wolff wanted Epstein to support Stephen Elliott, a writer looking to sue the creator of the Shitty Media Men List, a crowd-sourced Google Doc that detailed anonymous allegations of misconduct against dozens of men who worked in the media industry.I have always thought that the way back from this climate is through specific instances of individuals successfully challenging their persecution," Wolff wrote to Epstein, according to emails released in a tranche from the so-called Epstein files. If his story is solid he might be worth supporting." Continue reading...

A crypto startup founded by Trump's family signed a huge deal with the UAE president's brother. Where's the political fallout?Days before Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, an investment firm controlled by a senior member of the United Arab Emirates royal family secretly signed a deal to pay $500m to buy almost half of a cryptocurrency startup founded by the Trump family. Under any other president, such an arrangement, which was revealed this past weekend by the Wall Street Journal, would cause a political earthquake in Washington. There would be demands for an investigation by Congress, televised hearings and months of damage control.But this latest example of corruption involving Trump and his family business hardly made a blip over the past few days, relegated to a passing headline in a relentless news cycle often dominated by Trump's actions and statements. Continue reading...

Billie Eilish and Biebers wore ICE out' pins at the Grammys, as more and more celebrities find their political voicesThe red carpet is being used increasingly as a platform for protest - and one accessory in particular has become key: the pin badge.At Sunday night's Grammy awards, stars including Hailey and Justin Bieber and Billie Eilish wore black and white pins that read ICE out", a condemnation of the recent actions of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Continue reading...

After weeks of breakup talk, the Bucks and their superstar stayed together. The Knicks and Timberwolves, meanwhile, made smart additionsIt's hard to match the absolute insanity that was the 2024-25 NBA trade deadline, and to the majority of the league's credit, teams didn't really try. But there was still some notable movement ahead of Thursday's 3pm EST deadline - to varying degrees of success. Let's do the early assessment of who came out on top, and who left us scratching our heads. Continue reading...

Turning Point USA is plotting its own half-time show in defiance of Bad Bunny - but one of TV's Blackest programs already perfected the alt-cast in 1992When the NFL announced Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny as this year's Super Bowl half-time show headliner, it walked right into a culture war. Right-wing critics raged over the musician's gender-nonconforming style, Spanish-language music and anti-Maga politics. Donald Trump, after saying he had never heard of Bad Bunny, called the headlining choice absolutely ridiculous".In response, Erika Kirk and her Turning Point USA conservative advocacy group turned the controversy into its own counter-programming event: the All-American Halftime Show. After its Nashville-heavy lineup, led by Kid Rock, was announced on Monday, vice-president JD Vance was first among conservatives to enthusiastically spread the word. Continue reading...

The Barbz have built a parasocial relationship with the rapper - in some cases to their own detrimentNicki Minaj is back doing PR for Donald Trump, and it's messier than ever. Last week, she appeared at a treasury department summit in Washington DC to show support for Trump accounts, a new kind of investment account designed to provide eligible American children with tax-advantaged investment accounts courtesy of President Donald J. Trump", according to a government website.The most disappointing part of the rapper's recent turn toward Maga, though, is how her stans - a significant portion of whom are Black and queer - are responding. After the summit, Minaj's followers defended her online and even helped push Trump's agenda. In a society full of hate and division, supporting Nicki Minaj is reminding people to see past political differences and see the human in one another," one supporter wrote. Oh brother. Minaj is a perfect example of the cult of celebrity, the dangers of modern fan culture and how celebrity worship can intersect with politics in truly dangerous ways.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Kennedy later said the purpose of his trip had nothing to do with vaccines. US embassy and UN staff at the time said otherwise, emails showOver two days of questioning during his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Robert F Kennedy Jr repeated the same answer.He said the closely scrutinized trip he took to Samoa in 2019, which came ahead of a devastating measles outbreak, had nothing to do with vaccines". Continue reading...

In Santa Clara, California, where nearly half of residents are born outside US, fear builds as game approachesThis weekend, tens of thousands of people will make their way to the Bay Area city of Santa Clara, ready to celebrate a weekend at the Super Bowl.Beneath the jubilant mood, some residents and officials have been grappling with the possibility of ICE enforcement operations during the game, and taking steps to prepare. Continue reading...

Luxury plane owned by Florida property tycoon has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv, Guardian investigation shows. Plus, Democratic senator calls for national strike if Trump interferes with midterms

The Seahawks and Patriots are the last teams standing this season. The championship is likely to be decided by the smallest marginsThe Seattle Seahawks' run game came alive during the second half of the season and postseason. But it's still the passing game that makes the offense sing. Almost all of that flows through Smith-Njigba. Continue reading...

Fascism feeds on the arbitrary killings that have long plagued the US. Ending the horror starts with abolishing ICEIn a recent Saturday Night Live episode, when asked about Minneapolis, one of the white hosts intones: Well, the first word that comes to mind is unprecedented. You've got federal officers roaming the streets just pulling people out of their cars based on how they look. This just doesn't happen in America." The joke is, of course, that this" has been happening forever, but to Black people in America. Now that it is happening to others, and particularly now that white protesters are being killed in the streets, it is suddenly a national emergency.In his 1955 work Discourse on Colonialism, Aime Cesaire, the French poet and politician, argues that fascism was the result of bringing to bear on domestic populations the tactics European countries used on their colonial subjects in Africa. This is what has been called in the literature the imperial boomerang thesis". As many have been pointing out on social media and elsewhere, if we think of the US Black American population as an internally colonized population, then you can see what is happening on the streets of Minneapolis as a manifestation of the imperial boomerang thesis. Continue reading...

Puerto Rican rapper to follow Grammy victory and anti-ICE speech with show on most-watched US TV event of the yearJust a week after receiving the Grammy award for Album of the Year, the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny will take on the US's most watched concert of the year when he performs at the Super Bowl this Sunday.The artist born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio took home the music academy's top honor for 2025's Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, a politically minded record infused with Puerto Rican music and culture. The album became the first Spanish-language work to take home the prize, beating out competition from Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Continue reading...

The window to impress on Mauricio Pochettino is waning, and the pressure is on for the No 9s on the bubbleIn past points of his managerial career, Mauricio Pochettino could upgrade his squad via the transfer market. When Tottenham sold striker Roberto Soldado in 2015, his replacement came two weeks later: Son Heung-min. It's a facet of the job completely absent in his role with the US national team, though he'd be forgiven for wishing a similar market was available ahead of this summer's World Cup.With provisional World Cup squads due 11 May and Pochettino wanting to avoid a cruel" scenario of bringing players over for the final friendlies in May and June only to leave them off of his tournament squad, the window for hopefuls to make an impression is nearly closed. There are positional battles across the pitch; there's no ironclad starting goalkeeper, a likely opening (or two) at center back beside Chris Richards, and multiple midfield places. Continue reading...

Cubans, once fast-tracked to US residency, now find themselves targets of Trump's immigration crackdownWhen Rosaly Estevez self-deported" from Miami to Havana last November, US immigration officers bid farewell by removing her ankle monitor. The 32-year-old had been told she was about to be detained, so she left with her three-year-old son, Dylan, a US citizen.Heidy Sanchez, 43, wasn't given a choice. She was forcibly removed from Florida last April but, worrying about Cuba's failing healthcare system, she left her two-year-old daughter, Kaylin, behind with her American husband, Carlos. Continue reading...

Their pro family' rhetoric is a cynical and hollow shamOf the 3,800 children and infants taken into immigration custody between January and October of 2025, a majority - 2,600 - were detained by ICE officers. That means that the children, as young as one or two years old, were not arrested at the border or legal ports of entry, where asylum seekers frequently present themselves to border officers, but from inside the country.That means that those children were not new arrivals seeking help; they were kids going about their daily lives in the US, often with legal status. They were children like Liam Ramos, aged five, who was snatched from his driveway after school by immigration agents while wearing a blue bunny hat to keep him warm in the Minnesota cold. They are children like one student, a 17-year-old from Liam's school district in Minnesota, who was taken from their car, or the other child, a 10-year-old girl in the fourth grade, who was taken alongside her mother; or the two other boys, brothers in the second and fifth grades, who were delivered by school officials to an ICE detention center after their mother was arrested and taken there. She had called the school to ask them to bring her boys to her in the prison; there was no one else to take care of them. Continue reading...

The US enter the team event as hot favorites: powered by world champions, rising stars and a generation determined to push figure skating beyond its traditional audienceOn Friday morning inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena, the United States will launch their defense of the Olympic figure skating team title carrying something rare in a sport usually defined by individual brilliance: overwhelming depth. Which raises a question that, until recently, would have sounded almost absurd in figure skating.Is the new USA Dream Team a group of figure skaters? Continue reading...

Files suggest David Stern was Jeffrey Epstein's man in the palace', passing messages to the former prince until 2019Jeffrey Epstein wanted his 26-year-old Belarusian girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, and her friend, Jen, to have a good time in London - and he knew just who to ask.Karyna - my girlfriend, and Jen, the tall girl who you've met will be London Tues and Wed," the 63-year-old disgraced financier apparently wrote in April 2016 to an aide to the then Prince Andrew. They have never been there before. If you are around, I'd appreciate any help you can give them." Continue reading...

In wake of Donald Trump's call for Republicans to take over' voting, senator Ruben Gallego urges citizens to take a stand and give the ultimate response'The Democratic senator Ruben Gallego has proposed that, should Donald Trump try to sabotage the midterm elections, Americans should respond with a general strike that would grind the country to a halt".Earlier this week the US president called for Republicans to take over" and nationalise" voting in at least 15 unspecified locations, repeating his false claims that elections are plagued by widespread fraud. Continue reading...

Death toll from Washington's campaign on alleged drug traffickers now at least 128The US military on Thursday said it killed two alleged drug traffickers in a strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific, bringing the death toll from Washington's campaign to at least 128.Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," the US Southern Command said in a post on X. It said no US military forces were harmed" in the operation. Continue reading...

In a video posted on social media, he further implored the people holding Nancy Guthrie to send proof they had herTV host Savannah Guthrie's brother on Thursday renewed the family's plea for their mother's kidnapper to contact them, hours after an Arizona sheriff said investigators don't have proof Nancy Guthrie is alive, but believe she's still out there".Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you. We haven't heard anything directly," Camron Guthrie said in a video statement posted on Instagram. Continue reading...

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The journalist Jen Ortiz charts the rise of Bad Bunny - the Puerto Rican superstar musician and ICE critic - before his performance at the Super Bowl on SundayThe halftime show at the Super Bowl is an American cultural institution and this year it will be performed by perhaps its most controversial star yet.Bad Bunny has been labelled by those on the American right as un-American" and shameful" - criticised for everything from his outspoken stance against ICE to his insistence on singing in Spanish. Continue reading...

Car, being driven by 92-year-old driver, crashed at 99 Ranch Market and victims, trapped under vehicle, died at sceneThree people were killed and six others were hurt after a 92-year-old driver collided with a cyclist and then slammed her car into a grocery store on Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, authorities said.The crash was reported shortly after noon at a 99 Ranch Market in the city's Westwood neighborhood, according Los Angeles fire department spokesperson Lyndsey Lantz. Continue reading...

Private jet owned by Florida property tycoon Gil Dezer has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv, the Guardian found - key US politics stories from 5 February 2026A new Guardian investigation has revealed a secretive and politically sensitive US government operation to deport Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.A private jet owned by Florida property tycoon Gil Dezer, a longtime business partner of Donald Trump, has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv. Continue reading...

Jon Hallford to be sentenced Friday for abusing nearly 200 corpses; his wife, Carie Hallford, to be sentenced in AprilDerrick Johnson buried his mother's ashes beneath a golden dewdrop tree with purple blossoms at his home on Maui's Haleakal volcano, fulfilling her wish of a final resting place looking over her grandchildren.Then the FBI called. Continue reading...

Severe lack of public defenders has meant people charged with crimes have been routinely unable to fight their casesThe Oregon supreme court has ruled that a large number of criminal cases across the state must be dismissed due to a severe shortage of public defenders, a major decision that attorneys say will impact more than 1,400 pending cases.The problem has been years in the making and has become a significant constitutional crisis, as people charged with crimes are routinely unable to fight their cases as they wait weeks, months or sometimes years for the state to appoint them lawyers. The attorney shortage - due in part to the increasing difficulty of recruiting attorneys for the low-salary, high-caseload jobs - has meant that people have had cases hanging over them for extended periods of time, impacting their housing, employment and families, advocates say. Continue reading...

Featuring an unlikely animal friendship, the commercial boasts enough patriotic iconography to verge on self-parodyThree years after its sister brand, Bud Light, faced a rightwing boycott over a transgender spokesperson, Budweiser's new Super Bowl ad, American Icons, contains absolutely nothing that could be mistaken for social progress. Instead, it features an unlikely friendship between two animals whose blood runs red, white and blue: a bald eagle and a Clydesdale horse, the Budweiser icon. An adorable foal trots out of a barn, and the viewer is injected with a single minute of American iconography so pure that it would make Lee Greenwood nauseous.The horse meets a struggling baby bird who gets caught in the rain, prompting the horse to stand over the bird as a roof. The pair become pals and grow up together, the bird riding on the horse's back as it grows larger. It falls off a few times, but, like George Washington at Valley Forge, it never gives up. Finally, the horse jumps over a log while the bird spreads its wings above, and we get a slow-motion image of something like Pegasus. We realize the bird, now fully grown, is a majestic bald eagle, taking to the sky as Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird reaches its climax. Two farmers look on while drinking Budweiser, as the words Made of America" appear on the screen. You crying?" one asks. The sun's in my eyes," says the other. Continue reading...

Anonymous insider alleges director of national intelligence withheld classified information for political reasonsThe Republican leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees have rejected a top-secret complaint from an anonymous government insider alleging that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, withheld classified information for political reasons.The responses this week from Senator Tom Cotton and Congressman Rick Crawford mean the complaint is unlikely to proceed further, though Democratic lawmakers who also have seen the document said they continue to question why it took Gabbard's office eight months to refer the complaint to Congress as required by law. Continue reading...