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California Democrat says loss of Feinstein may have focused politicians on, Let's get the job done to keep government open'The death of the California senator Dianne Feinstein may have helped inspire US lawmakers to avoid a federal government shutdown, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.Speaking on Sunday, to CNN's State of the Union, the California Democrat mourned the loss of Feinstein and said: Some of the senators said that maybe her departure and the sadness that went with us focused people more on, Let's get the job done to keep government open for the people.'" Continue reading...

Europe came through a fraught Singles Sunday to regain the Ryder CupThe US team aren't wearing their caps on the 1st tee today, in a performative show of solidarity with the under-fire and perma-hatless Patrick Cantlay. The man himself returns the favour by firing his approach at 1 to five feet. Patty Ice - a play on Matty Ice, the nickname of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, and a reference to his unflappable demeanour - betrays his monicker by pulling the birdie putt nervously. Anything to do with his nemesis Rory McIlroy's name being announced back on the tee, and the accompanying roar reaching the green as he made his backstroke? The plot thickens!1UP Rahm v Scheffler (2)

The New Jersey senator says he won't resign but a federal indictment lays out a lurid scheme of alleged corruptionWhen federal prosecutors raided Bob Menendez's home in the summer of 2022, they found a staggering haul.The US senator for New Jersey, one of the most influential and powerful Democrats in the country, had almost $500,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1kg in weight. Continue reading...

Trump installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right, which delivered significant victories for conservativesJoe Biden worries that the extreme" US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.I worry," the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don't want to uphold the rule of law." Continue reading...

Alarm prompted building evacuation and triggered outcry from Republicans, who vow to prosecute himThe New York Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman denied that he pulled a fire alarm in a Capitol office building to delay a vote on the stopgap measure that ultimately stopped a government shutdown.In a statement on Saturday evening, the New Yorker said he mistakenly thought the alarm, which prompted the Cannon House office building to be evacuated, would open a door. Continue reading...

The drink is derided as basic', in terms that often veer into sexism. But are those who ridicule it just missing out on all the fun?

Accolades include messages from world leaders and pop culture figures, many focusing on his four decades of humanitarian workThe former US president Jimmy Carter will celebrate his 99th birthday on Sunday by putting off watching church services online and instead celebrating with his wife, Rosalynn, and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Plains, Georgia.The gathering will take place in the same one-story house where the Carters lived before he was elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962. Continue reading...

House Republican speaker passed a bill extending government funding at the risk of alienating hard right party membersIn more normal political times, the successful prevention of a government shutdown might be cause for celebration. For Kevin McCarthy, it may instead mark the beginning of the end of his speakership.After failing to pass a more conservative stopgap spending bill on Friday, the House Republican speaker introduced a different proposal extending government funding for 45 days and allocating $16bn for disaster relief aid. That bill the House on Saturday in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 335 to 91, with 209 Democrats joining 126 Republicans in supporting the legislation. Continue reading...

There will be no more trials of Second World War criminals, but we can apply the lessons to modern conflictsIn February 1987, I was sitting in a Jerusalem courtroom, listening to the most harrowing testimony imaginable from survivors of the Nazi death camp at Treblinka, in Poland, where an estimated 700,000-900,000 people were murdered in 1942-43.The survivors, elderly and frail, were giving evidence in the trial of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-American alleged to have been a notorious camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible". He was the one, they said, who operated the engines that pumped the gas into the gas chambers. Continue reading...

Case could cost former president a fortune and end his control of the empire that made him the world's most famous businessmanPeople want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole," Donald Trump wrote 36 years ago in his best-selling book, The Art of the Deal. It's an innocent form of exaggeration, and a very effective form of promotion." This week a New York judge called Trump's truthful hyperbole" fraud in a ruling that could cost the former president a fortune and end his control of the business empire that made him the world's most famous businessman and president of the United States.Trump is mired in litigation but perhaps no case is more personal to him than the one set to begin on Monday at a Manhattan courthouse near the city's financial district. The case, brought by New York attorney general Letitia James, comes after a three-year investigation into Trump's complex and sprawling businesses. James contends Trump consistently overstated the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing. Continue reading...

President signed the bill hours after it was approved in a bipartisan vote, but admonished Republicans for the delayJoe Biden signed a bill on Saturday to extend government funding for 45 days, averting a federal shutdown with just an hour to spare.Biden praised Congress for approving the bill with bipartisan support in both chambers, even as he criticised House Republicans for refusing to collaborate with Democrats until the last possible minute. Continue reading...

Maga darling Joseph C Roberts arrested after Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner's remains found on San Francisco Bay shorelineA former San Francisco Republican official who claimed to be a victim of the #MeToo movement has been accused of dismembering his fiancee.On 6 September, Alameda, California, officials arrested the 42-year-old Navy veteran Joseph C Roberts after DNA evidence from the autopsy of Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner, 27, allegedly pointed in his direction. Continue reading...

This Ryder Cup had long needed a bit of excitement - and it certainly got that on Saturday afternoonHalfway through Saturday afternoon, something unexpected happened: the United States finally showed up at this Ryder Cup. And as the top of the scoreboard turned red, and the chants of U-S-A! U-S-A!" climbed in volume and intensity, Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay became locked in a battle for the ages. It was one that raged on the course - and, dramatically, later in the car park too.Because of the characters involved, a fourballs match featuring McIlroy and Matthew Fitzpatrick against Cantlay and Wyndham Clark always promised spice. But with the US team sensing a chance to slice into Europe's lead as the match headed down the 18th, it became far more heated and visceral than that. Continue reading...

Two children among confirmed dead as authorities evacuate area and work to contain anhydrous ammonia leaking from tankerFive people, including two children, are confirmed to have died after a semitruck carrying a toxic substance overturned in Illinois, releasing a cloud of ammonia that prompted the evacuation of area residents, authorities said on Saturday.Kim Rhodes, the Effingham county coroner, confirmed to the station WCIA that the fatalities were a result of Friday night's accident in Teutopolis, Illinois. Continue reading...

Out-of-sorts American star was far from his best and came unstuck against Europe's least heralded playerThe ball splashes out of the bunker and flies towards the green. Jordan Spieth raises a hand, commanding it to stop. The ball stops. Spieth gives a small nod of contentment, accepts his putter from the caddy Michael Greller and begins to compose himself ahead of the four-foot putt that will halve the 9th hole.It is at times like these that you realise that Spieth is not like other golfers. Most players bark at their ball in flight, exhorting it to sit down" or get up" as if it were an errant dog. Spieth, by contrast, whispers to it under his breath, cajoles and encourages it, as if to say: Come on, buddy, you can do this." And in his most sublime moments, it can feel as if Spieth and the ball are almost like dance partners, master and pupil, one leading and the other loyally following. Continue reading...

The House reached a budget deal on Saturday to extend funding for 45 days but Fema looks beyond at potential delaysThe budget deal Republicans and Democrats reached in the House on Saturday included a 45-day funding extension for disaster relief funds. Lawmakers had been warning that without that provision, a government shutdown would hamper responses to any new weather disasters, leave hazardous waste sites uninspected, and stop work at federal Superfund clean-up sites.Federal emergency management agency (Fema) staff will still respond to emergencies, but all long-term projects will be delayed due to a lack of funding in the disaster relief fund," warned the Illinois Democrat Lauren Underwood on Friday. Continue reading...

Former president and frontrunner for GOP nomination also warns this country will die' if Joe Biden wins electionDonald Trump called for shooting store robbers on Friday in a bleak speech to California Republicans -and warned this country will die!" if Joe Biden remained president.During the address to GOP members, Trump also railed that wealthy Beverly Hills residents smell because of water denials, and repeated election fraud lies, according to the Associated Press. Continue reading...

The USA fought back in the afternoon fourballs to keep their hopes of a comeback for the ages aliveJordan Spieth is a three-time major winner, but he's struggling right now. From the centre of the 3rd fairway, he pulls his approach down a bank back-left of the green. Good luck from there. Tommy Fleetwood keeps up the pressure by sticking his second pin high. A very similar unforced mistake by Scottie Scheffler on 2, as well; Viktor Hovland lets him off the hook a bit by finding the thick greenside rough himself.The third match begins like the other two: Team USA sending their opening tee shot into the deep rough down the right, Europe finding the short stuff. The visitors could do with hitting some fairways here, because the rough at Marco Simone is punitive to say the least. Continue reading...

The arts are the poorer for a system that hugely rewards the few while the less lucky can't even earn a living wageDid you know you'll soon be able to take a course in Taylor Swift at Queen Mary University of London? There's already one of these at a university in Belgium: it's called Literature: (Taylor's Version), and starts this autumn. In February, academics will gather in Australia for a high-level Swiftposium".In the US, meanwhile, people fret over the pop star's political power. Last week, with a single Instagram post, she helped register 35,000 new voters in a day. Others concern themselves with Swiftonomics: where Taylor steps, businesses grow and bloom. Three concert nights in Chicago were enough to revive its tourism industry, according to the governor of Illinois. News recently got out that Swift is dating NFL player Travis Kelce. Sales of his jersey are up 400%. If Swift were an economy," the president of a major online research company has said, she'd be bigger than 50 countries... her loyalty numbers mimic those of subjects to a royal crown." Continue reading...

Jostling for position was more widespread in the stands than on the leaderboard as beer vendors went about their noble taskThere has been plenty of talk about the plight of caddies this past week, heaving heavy bags up, down, and around its hilly 18 holes in 30C heat, but spare a thought for the poor beer vendors who have to do a similar thing with 50 Peronis strapped to their backs in cooler bags. Continue reading...

Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district publicly amends instructions to principals after national outlets pick up storyNorth Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district appears to be a bit confused as to where it stands in the ongoing battle against books around the US: they banned educators from participating in a weeklong series of events drawing attention to banned books and then ... said there was no ban.The American Library Association (ALA) holds Banned Books Week" annually, with this year's iteration running from 1-7 October, to celebrate the freedom to read and discuss attempts to censor books. Continue reading...

Gatorland, Orlando, took in injured reptile who drew international attention after being spotted with top half of jaw missingRescuers who took in a jawless Florida alligator have given the bedraggled reptile a new, Dolly Parton-inspired name: Jawlene.Gatorland, an 110-acre theme park near Orlando that rescues alligators, made the cheeky announcement earlier this week following numerous submissions. Jawlene is a nod to Parton's famed 1973 song Jolene, during which she begs a romantic rival not to steal her partner. Continue reading...

Jacob Johns seriously injured at protest against reinstallation of statue honoring Spanish conquistador in Espanola, New MexicoAn Indigenous justice activist is recovering after a man wearing a hat with the Donald Trump slogan Make America great again" allegedly shot him during a protest against the reinstallation of a statue honoring a Spanish conquistador in New Mexico.Jacob Johns was shot on Thursday morning in the northern New Mexico city of Espanola while demonstrating against plans to again erect a Juan de Onate statue that previously had been taken down and put in storage. First responders flew Johns to a hospital in Albuquerque by helicopter after he was wounded. Continue reading...

Never mind the hats spat, the US players were underpaid, underdressed and nowhere near prepared for a fight over hereBeneath the sweet smell of cut grass, hot coffee and olive wood you could catch the faint trace of something fetid in the air at Marco Simone on Saturday morning. And if you turned your nose into the wind you might, eventually, have followed it all the way to the US locker room, where their hopes and dreams of winning in Europe for the first time since 1993 lay in a messy heap, decomposing in the heat.It's done," said the US captain, Zach Johnson, when his team were five points down on Friday night. And it really was, just not in the way Johnson meant, since he was talking about their bad play that day. Continue reading...

The glass cliff - the phenomenon in which women are more likely to be promoted when an organization is in crisis - is claiming its latest victimThis time last year Linda Yaccarino was flying high. She had a prestigious job spearheading ad sales at NBCUniversal and a reputation as one of the best in the business when it came to building relationships between brands and agencies. She was known in advertising circles as the Velvet Hammer" because of her smooth but hard-nosed negotiating style. She was successful and respected. Continue reading...

The bitter struggle to unseat Warsaw's hard-right government foreshadows the wider struggle throughout the EUPoland has often been the victim of violent external aggression over the years - of Prussian militarism, Nazi invasion and Russian domination. But as an extraordinarily vicious, polarising election battle nears its climax, the national story has taken a disturbing turn. Divided Poles are making victims of each other.Fighting the neighbours, often alone, is a familiar Polish occupation, going back to the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire and before. After finally breaking free of Soviet communism in 1989, Poland joined the Nato alliance in 1999 and the EU in 2004. But new friendships did not dispel old habits and enmities. Continue reading...

In his 42 years with the National Park Service, Charlie Castro was among the few people trusted to scale the giant trees. Now 89, he has watched as fire has transformed the American westFrom the helicopter, Charlie Castro could gaze down into the heart of the tree, a hollowed-out cavity alive with raging red flame.Just hours earlier, he had been in Montana, where forest fires were racing across the timberland. But when lightning struck one of the giant sequoias in California's celebrated Grant Grove, sparking a blaze that threatened to spread across its thousand-year-old trees, the National Park Service needed a firefighter who could climb right up to the conifer's burning crown, succeeding where efforts by land and air had failed. Continue reading...

It's no coincidence the likely 2024 election rivals were both in Michigan wooing car workers - a key bloc in a key stateJoe Biden became the first sitting US president to join a picket line when he stopped at a General Motors facility just outside Detroit to show support for striking United Auto Workers last week. Stick with it. You deserve a significant raise," Biden told the crowd.A day later, Donald Trump told raucous blue-collar supporters at a speech north of Detroit: Just get your union guys, your leaders, to endorse me and I will take care of the rest." Continue reading...

The FTX founder's day in court comes on Tuesday. Where did it all go wrong - and what can we expect in the high-profile trial?For several years, Sam Bankman-Fried was crypto's rising star, a seemingly razor-sharp and legitimate figure in the largely opaque world.As founder of the crypto exchange FTX and its associated hedge fund, Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried wooed private investors and lawmakers alike with his pitch of a crypto trading platform that was safer and more risk-averse than those that had preceded it. Continue reading...

US sports teams often leverage the threat of relocation to access taxpayers' money. But the Packers have thrived under a community driven modelJust days after the Jacksonville Jaguars' first home game of the season, team president Mark Lamping - who has long been asking the City of Jacksonville to use taxpayer money to part-fund a $2bn stadium renovation - suggested that the team may move if the city doesn't pony up the dough. In doing so, Lamping joins a well-established tradition among US pro sports teams. According to ESPN, since the early 1990s more than half of NFL franchises have shown interest in moving to Los Angeles - or at least trying to use the possibility as leverage for new stadiums or renovations." (That's just Los Angeles; some franchises have threatened, or actually moved, to other cities.) The threats can be effective: A recent poll showed that 46% of Jacksonville residents would support giving $1bn of public money for the renovation if it was the only way to keep the Jaguars in the city; that's up from a mere 6% who pledged their support if they weren't told about the threat of relocation.Despite some notable recent relocations, most teams stay put after getting what they want: Cities usually capitulate, forking over hundreds of millions of public dollars to fund renovations or build new stadiums. One example is my home city of Minneapolis, after threats to move the Vikings to, you guessed it, Los Angeles. The team subsequently got nearly $500m in public funding to build a new stadium. Continue reading...

Our plight when a rail firm cancelled our train mid-journey and sent us all to Scotland by taxi sparked a national debate - as it shouldFor the first two or so hours of its scheduled run, the Monday 16:40 direct train from London Euston to Edinburgh Waverley had been delightfully normal. The train was neither too full, too cold nor too loud. It was boring - blissfully so. There was no sign of the odyssey to come.An email arrived on our phones, its title evoking The Twilight Zone: Your train has changed." It got worse, and stranger: Your train has been cancelled." That's one of the odder announcements you can receive while rolling along on the train in question.James Nokise is a standup comedian Continue reading...

Footage of a black child being ignored echoes my own experiences as a girl - and reveals a country in denialThere is nothing like having a global spotlight suddenly shone on Ireland to make us see how some things once deemed acceptable or excusable at home are shamefully far from being either. By now, you'll probably have seen the video circulating of the lone black child in a lineup of white children at a medal ceremony for a gymnastics competition in Ireland. Each of the white children in the lineup is presented with a medal. The black child is ignored. I recognise my childhood self in her pride and eager smile as the medal moment approaches. Then the excruciating confusion and bewilderment as she waits, her expression eventually settling into one of quiet disappointment - and wounded resignation.I was an eager, enthusiastic child too, but the pervasive and insidious racism I experienced growing up in Ireland, the sense of shame and humiliation that comes with being repeatedly overlooked, disregarded, told that you are inadequate or inferior, made to feel ugly or small or worthless, or singled out or indeed overscrutinised as I so often was, guaranteed that I reined in my enthusiasm. By the time I reached my teens I had learnt to largely hide my true feelings behind a mask. I was scared to let people know how I really felt in case they disappointed or hurt me; much better to erect a frosty, cynical exterior than subject myself to the potential for more humiliation.Emma Dabiri is an Irish academic and broadcaster, and the author of What White People Can Do Next and Don't Touch My Hair. She is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

America's latest power pairing benefits both stars and is helping usher in a new audience for footballUnder the bright lights of the gridiron, Travis Kelce plays the part of a particular kind of NFL leading man - a touchdown-scoring party bro whom fans in middle America can rally around. Yet until a few weeks ago, anyone who didn't closely follow American football would struggle to recognize Kelce, even though the 33-year-old has had top billing in three of the last four Super Bowls, having featured prominently in national ad campaigns for Bud Light and Covid vaccinations and hosted Saturday Night Live this year. Indeed, NFL fans discovered how famous Kelce wasn't once he started to date Taylor Swift.The pair's involvement, hotly rumored for weeks, was seemingly confirmed last Sunday when Swift turned up at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium for the home team's game against the Chicago Bears. If Swift's colour palette - red lips and nails to match a Kansas City jacket - didn't make her favored team clear, her seat in the stadium suite next to Kelce's mother, Donna, surely did. When Kelce scored in the third quarter, the Fox cameras cut to Swift banging on the suite glass, chest-bumping a neighbor and apparently shouting, Let's fucking go!". Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback who facilitated the touchdown, said afterwards: I knew I had to get it to Trav ... I think he wanted to get in the end zone just as much as all the Swifties wanted him to." Continue reading...

Prosecutors asked the judge to restrict Trump's ability to attack them and potential witnesses ahead of a hearing about the issueSpecial counsel prosecutors reiterated Friday to the federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference prosecution against Donald Trump the need to impose a limited gag order against the former president to curtail his ability to attack them and potentially intimidate trial witnesses.The sharply worded, 22-page filing, submitted ahead of a hearing scheduled for 16 October in federal district court in Washington, accused Trump of continuing to make prejudicial public statements even after they had first made the request three weeks ago. Continue reading...

Senate set for 1pm ET vote after McCarthy suffers another blog when lawmakers reject short-term funding bill by 232 to 198 vote

Plus, Dan Wootton and Lawrence Fox demand a dreadful choice, and why Dannii Minogue was always on BrandIf this is the beginning of the end - and it feels risky even to say it out loud - it seems fitting that, for Donald Trump, it has come via something as dreary as a liability for fraud. After all the salacious comments, the civil liability for rape and the alleged hush money to the porn star, not to mention the 91 criminal charges across four jurisdictions, this week, the spectre of professional ruin rose for Trump in more sober form; death via a thousand documents for the man who hates details. Continue reading...

Eric Adams made unconscionable' remarks before flooding, saying shelter beds for those in need should not go to migrantsSevere, widespread flooding in New York City on Friday prompted outcry from advocates of migrants and the unhoused, whose living conditions left them vulnerable in the face of the extreme weather.The inundation - which has left huge swaths of the city swamped, closed roads and rendered several subway lines inoperable - came a day after the city's mayor, Eric Adams, said he believed migrants should be excluded from New York's right-to-shelter mandate. The mandate requires the city to provide shelter beds to anyone in need of them. Continue reading...

About 8.5 million people under flash flood warnings with 1-2in of rain an hour expected in Brooklyn and Queens

Las Vegas police have charged 60-year old Duane Keffe D' Davis with the murder of Tupac Shakur. Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996, but the case remained one of the great unsolved hip hop mysteries. For 27 years the family of Tupac Shakur have been waiting for justice,' said a local police officer

Scion of US political dynasty, who had been challenging Joe Biden for Democratic nomination, expected to announce on SundayRobert F Kennedy Jr is reported to be ending his challenge to Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination and run instead as an independent candidate, in a move that could upset the 2024 race for the White House.Kennedy, 69 and a scion of a famous political dynasty - a son of the former US attorney general and New York senator Robert F Kennedy, and a nephew of the former president John F Kennedy - will announce his run in Pennsylvania on 9 October, according to Mediaite. Continue reading...