A powerful group has agreed to a rule change on how real estate agents are compensated - which could be a big deal for homebuyersA major shift in how Americans buy homes could come this summer after a powerful real estate group settled an antitrust lawsuit, agreeing to change a rule that dictates how real estate agents are compensated.If the settlement is approved by a judge, the rule change will start in mid-July, leaving the real estate industry scrambling over what the future of buying or selling a home will look like. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer will need to make it affordable to be an artist, because the value of art is beyond financial metricsNineteen years ago now, I was asked to perform my standup high in the Colorado Rockies at the Aspen comedy festival, a trade fair for the American comedy industry patronised by wealthy locals. In super-affluent Aspen, I discovered, to my horror, economically uncompetitive service industry workers were homed in special employee housing projects", like castrated catering cyborgs from a Russian science fiction novel, sleeping in pods, dreaming of electric sheep. But today that system seems benign compared with the housing poverty of Sunak island.In Aspen, the famous comedians were domiciled in luxury hotels. I was in a cheap motel on the edge of town, where I breakfasted daily with a quartet of equally undervalued underground comic book writers, regarded as witless savants nonetheless capable of providing content by the predatory industry vampires. Daniel Clowes told me the contents of his Oscar ceremony goody bag - the film of his Ghost World comic was nominated - were worth more than everything he had earned as a writer to that point.Stewart Lee's Basic Lee is at Cambridge Arts theatre 15-16 AprilDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

She is truly an inspiration to us allLately when I visit my mother, she's always out. At rehearsal!" she'll text. Come back after 5pm. Or another day." She's fallen in with a community choir, and is off the rails. Often they take her to the pub, and she doesn't know when she'll be back. Sometimes she leaves out a plate of falafel, in case I drop by to empty the fridge, like a reverse Santa Claus. But it's unacceptable. And often dry.At 80, she's started going to Laban dance classes. She still plays in a drum circle, and now this, singing in an urban opera. For her, art is a reflex. She does things for their own joy, while still holding down a job. I'm the opposite. I made writing and performing my job; yet something in a creative identity can squash itself. Without the stamp of an agent, an audience, a platform or a deal, nothing I make would feel valid. I never wrote a word until I was paid, and I dream of retirement. Continue reading...

Forty years ago, a US historian claimed that social changes were severing communal bonds. He was rightThe hope that political action will gradually humanise industrial society has given way to a determination to survive the general wreckage or, more modestly, to hold one's own life together in the face of mounting pressures." American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch's pessimistic prognosis of the shifting relationship of individuals to societyand to each other in The Minimal Self was published 40 yearsago. It might have been written yesterday.From the late 1970s, Lasch published a series of books, most notably The Culture of Narcissism, The Minimal Self and The Revolt of the Elites, that prefigured many contemporary debates, about culture wars, the rise of a liberal elite", the corrosiveness of individualism, the encroachment of the market into social life, the creation of a celebrityculture, the rise of a therapeutic" mindset. Continue reading...

Bill vetoed by Republican Mark Gordon, who expressed concerns about separation of powers, also covers government meetingsThe Republican governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon, has vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed guns in public schools and government meetings.In his veto letter Friday night, Gordon said he had concerns the bill would exceed the separation-of-powers provision in the state constitution since any policy, further regulation or clarification of the law could only be implemented by the Wyoming legislature. Continue reading...

Yoav Gallant will leave Israel for the US on Sunday amid growing tensions between the alliesIsraeli defence minister Yoav Gallant will leave on Sunday for talks in the United States, the Israeli government said, amid growing tensions between the allies over the war in Gaza.Gallant will meet with US counterpart Lloyd Austin, US secretary of state Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and additional senior officials", a statement said. Continue reading...

Vice-president launches national resource center at site of 2018 Florida school shooting where 17 were killedThe White House has announced a new national office to support states implementing red flag" laws to combat gun violence, an initiative funded by the justice department.Kamala Harris made the announcement on Saturday during a visit to Parkland, Florida, where she toured the site of the nation's worst high school shooting, the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre that killed 17. Continue reading...

Package passed Senate late Friday night by vote of 74-24, narrowly averting shutdown and banning Gaza aid through March 2025President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a $1.2tn budget bill to keep the US government funded through a fiscal year that began six months ago and to avert a partial shutdown, according to a statement released by the White House.The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security," Biden said in the statement. Continue reading...

The former British territory was a flawed success. Xi Jinping has ended that with the punitive and hastily passed article 23So farewell, Hong Kong. The vibrant, pulsating city-state that grew, under British rule, into one of the world's great financial, business, cultural and tourism hubs has finally been brought to heel. Browbeaten, abused, silenced. Trust Xi Jinping, China's dementor president, to suck out all the joy. Last Wednesday was the UN's International Day of Happiness. But it was a sad, bad day for Hong Kong.That was the moment residents woke up to the news that Hong Kong's puppet legislature, acting on Beijing's orders, had unanimously abolished its right to think, speak and act freely. Eating noodles is a seditious act now, if the noodles have secret foreign connections. Under new security laws, known as article 23, life imprisonment awaits those who defy the behemoth to thenorth. Continue reading...

The progressive congresswoman also called on the White House to suspend aid to the Israeli military in House speechProgressive US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Israeli military campaign in Gaza an unfolding genocide" in a scathing speech that demanded the Joe Biden White House suspend aid to Israel's armed forces.As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine's door," Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor on Friday. Continue reading...

Like Kate, parents with the disease face a big decision - how and when to tell the childrenThink about how shocked you felt after hearing the Princess of Wales's cancer news on Friday, multiply that by a thousand, and you go some way to knowing how it feels to get a diagnosis. Even if you've rehearsed hearing bad news while you wait for test results, you cannot be prepared for being told you have the disease.When I got my breast cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2022 I was stunned. I hadn't imagined that I would be leaving the hospital and having to tell my family and friends that I was ill. I hadn't rehearsed those conversations in my head. Continue reading...

James L Mauney was walking his dogs when he was shot and killed, and Gerald Don Henderson was found dead outside his cabinAuthorities said on Friday that they believe the deaths in Idaho of an 83-year-old man who was walking his dogs and a 72-year-old man who lived in a remote cabin are connected to the escape of an Idaho white supremacist prison gang member and an accomplice after a Boise hospital ambush.The escaped prisoner, Skylar Meade, and the accomplice, a recently released inmate named Nicholas Umphenour - both members of the Aryan Knights gang - were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Thursday afternoon. Their arrests came 36 hours after Umphenour shot and wounded two Idaho corrections officers while they were preparing to return Meade to prison from a hospital, police said. Continue reading...

A 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shot while lighting a firework. Cases like these happen quite regularly, but no one's hearing about them,' according to the Israeli rights group B'TselemThe depth of the horror surpasses our ability to describe it," James Elder, a spokesperson with the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), said after travelling the length of Gaza this week. There is nothing left: Republicans who called for Gaza to be turned into a parking lot" have got their wish. Amid the ruins, a traumatized and trapped population are being starved to death; an entire generation is seeing their future destroyed. Starvation is used as a weapon of war," the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said this week. Israel is provoking famine." Continue reading...

Violent crimes in 2024 have been used as political tool', and law enforcement response does not solve root issues, critics sayA high-profile string of violent crimes on New York City's subway in 2024 has been used as a political tool" by pundits and politicians, transit advocates say, leading to a false perception of spiraling underground crime, which could create more danger in the future.Crime in the subway system, one of the world's most used rapid transit systems, declined in 2022 and decreased again in 2023, according to police. But subway crime is up so far in 2024, and it is the nature and violence of the incidents that has captured public attention. Continue reading...

As the ex-president fans the flames of violence, experts and insiders say November will be a brutal test for US democracyA bloodbath. The end of democracy. Riots in the streets. Bedlam in the country. Donald Trump has made apocalyptic imagery a defining feature of his presidential election campaign, warning supporters that if he does not win - and avoid criminal prosecution - America will enter its death throes.The prophecies of doom, repeated ad nauseam at rallies and on social media, have raised fears that the former president is making an electoral tinderbox that could explode in November. While there has been much commentary assessing the implications of a Trump win, some experts warn that a Trump defeat could provide an equally severe stress test of American democracy. Continue reading...

The city says evicting migrants will make them self-sufficient - but some say it's a tool to deter people from seeking asylumOn 25 January at 10am, Jhoann Reyes carried his family's belongings - several suitcases, a jumbo plastic checkered bag, three backpacks, and two baby strollers - from their room at the Stewart Hotel to the sidewalk. The New York City hotel-turned-emergency-migrant-shelter had been their home for a year.Originally from Venezuela, Reyes first moved to Ecuador fleeing political persecution. There he met his wife Katherine. Over a year ago, the Reyeses and their kids left Ecuador because of gang violence, and came to New York through Colombia, Mexico and Texas. That misty day in January was their eviction date. Continue reading...

Ex-special counsel speaks to New Yorker about stunning criticism he's received for doing a duty he felt he owed to the USThe former special counsel who investigated Joe Biden's handling of classified documents has said he is stunned at the level of vitriol" that greeted him across the US's political spectrum after he declined to prosecute the president yet portrayed him in a report as an elderly man with a poor memory".I knew it was going to be unpleasant" taking on the investigation, Robert Hur told The New Yorker in a lengthy interview Friday, more than a week after he appeared at a congressional hearing in which both Democrats and Republicans heavily criticized him. But the level of vitriol - it's hard to know exactly how intense that's going to be until the rotten fruit is being thrown at you." Continue reading...

Red-boxing' allows candidates to coordinate with outside spending groups, Election Law Journal researchers sayA new study published in Election Law Journal reveals politicians' widespread exploitation of a loophole to skirt the law barring campaigns from coordinating with outside spending groups.It's a strategy that takes place not in smoke-filled rooms or encrypted chats, but out in the open. Continue reading...

Pennsylvania's Luzerne county has experienced high-profile mistakes exacerbated by high staff turnover that have been seized on by conspiracy theoristsEmily Cook remembers that she never ate her blueberry muffin.It was election day in November 2022, and Cook was the deputy director in the election office in Luzerne county, an industrial swath of north-east Pennsylvania. Soon after voting started, Cook started to hear piecemeal reports of a problem at the polls: some locations didn't have enough paper. When she got to her office, multiple phones were thrust into her hands, each with a crisis. By the time election day was over, she had forgotten about the muffin. Continue reading...

Veo Kelly, 20, turns himself in and is charged with killing of Samyia Spain and three counts of assault and weapon possessionA 20-year-old man accused of stabbing two teenage twin sisters - one fatally - outside of a deli in Brooklyn turned himself into police on Friday. A video posted to social media shows Veo Kelly being led into a police car to the sound of jeers and curse words from onlookers outraged by the crime.What if somebody did that to your sister?" one woman yelled as Kelly was put in the back of a police car. Continue reading...

While the long-term risk from a current infection is 10 times less than it was in 2020-21, a lot of people are still suffering after getting Covid early in the pandemic

Court rules 4-3 to overturn law that had allowed victims to file civil suits over sexual abuse that took place decades agoIn a split ruling that has major implications for hundreds of child sexual abuse victims, the Louisiana state supreme court has struck down a law that had allowed victims to file civil lawsuits over molestation that happened decades ago.Child molestation victims and their advocates were devastated by the 4-3 ruling from a court whose members are elected. Continue reading...

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has said the 'images of the attack were just horrible and just hard to watch'.At least 40 people have been killed and more than 140 wounded, according to unofficial reports, in the worst terror attack in Russia in years, as gunmen in combat fatigues opened fire and detonated explosives in a major concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow.

New Jersey executive testified that the UK company Autonomy made millions of dollars' worth of deals offering to fund purchasesThe British technology firm Autonomy struck millions of dollars' worth of handshake deals" through which it paid customers to buy its software, the jury in the fraud trial of its co-founder Mike Lynch has heard.Lynch, who co-founded and led Autonomy, has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. He stands accused of orchestrating a huge fraud before Hewlett-Packard's blockbuster takeover of the company in 2011. Continue reading...

Far-right Republican says motion intended as more of a warning than a pink slip' and stops short of forcing vote to eject himThe far-right Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene filed a motion to remove Mike Johnson as House speaker on Friday but did not pull the trigger on a move that would probably pitch Congress into a repeat of chaos seen last October, when the right ejected Kevin McCarthy.Speaking after Johnson relied on Democratic votes to pass a $1.2tn spending bill and avoid a government shutdown, Greene said her motion was meant as more of a warning than a pink slip" because she did not want to throw the House into chaos". Continue reading...

Plan approved by vote of shareholders in Digital World Acquisition, with which Trump's business sought to combine

This live blog is now closed. For more on Mike Gallagher's early departure from Congress, you can read our full report:

Congressman once considered a rising Republican star to leave in April, further weakening party's slim majorityThe Republican majority in the US House of Representatives is set to dwindle further with the early exit of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, once a rising star of the party.A former US marine who twice deployed to Iraq, Gallagher, 40, is a relatively moderate voice in party at the mercy of the far right. Continue reading...

Wire barrier installed under governor's border security program breached as migrants say they were forcefully pushed backA group of migrants clashed with Texas national guard troops over a breach of barbed wire fencing in El Paso on Thursday as they waited to turn themselves in to federal border agents - underscoring the power struggle between the state and federal government over immigration law enforcement.Video posted on social media showed migrants dragging away a temporary concertina wire barrier which was installed as part of Texas governor Greg Abbott's controversial Operation Lone Star publicly-funded state border security program. Continue reading...

The Israeli PM's refusal to heed US demands on food aid for Gaza is morally indefensible, hurting the president - and opening the door to Donald TrumpThe pictures out of Gaza get more harrowing with each passing day. After months of witnessing civilians grieving for loved ones killed by bombs, now we see children desperate to eat - victims of what the aid agencies and experts are united in calling an imminent man-made" famine. What matters most about these images is their depiction of a continuing horror inflicted on the people of Gaza. But they also reveal something that could have lasting implications for Israelis and Palestinians, for Americans and for the entire world. What they show, indeed what they advertise, is the weakness of the president of the United States.Joe Biden and his most senior lieutenants have been urging Israel to increase the flow of food aid into Gaza for months, in ever more insistent terms. This week the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, cited the finding of a UN-backed agency that the threat of hunger now confronted 100% of the population of Gaza", adding that this was the first time that body had issued such a warning. Earlier this month, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, told Israel it needed to do whatever it took to get humanitarian aid into Gaza: No excuses." The Biden administration is all but banging the table and demanding Israel act. Continue reading...

Senate must act quickly to keep government open while Marjorie Taylor Greene moves to oust House speaker Mike Johnson

Ex-president makes claim on Truth Social while RNC fundraising deal sees donations going to committee paying his legal billsDonald Trump claimed on Friday to have at his disposal almost $500m in cash", despite having complained about a $454m bond his lawyers say he cannot pay as he appeals a New York civil fraud judgment.In an all-capitals, early morning post to his Truth Social platform, the former president said: Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost $500m in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president." Continue reading...

Long Island Roller Rebels say Republican-led county's demand to know athletes' assigned-at-birth status is invasive and illegalFor years, New York's Long Island Roller Rebels have welcomed transgender women to strap on skates and body padding and join their women's roller derby team.Now, under an executive order issued this month by Nassau county on Long Island, if they want to book a county-run park or athletics facility they must ask each member what sex was marked on their original birth certificate, and expel any teammates who were not designated female. Continue reading...

LGBTQ+ advocates criticize decision by Oklahoma authorities not to prosecute over incident preceding trans teen's suicideAdvocates for LGBTQ+ rights expressed outrage following an announcement that no criminal charges will be filed against the Oklahoma teens involved in a high school bathroom fight with Nex Benedict, the non-binary 16-year-old who was ruled by the authorities to have subsequently taken their own life, the county district attorney said.The president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad), Sarah Kate Ellis, criticized the decision by the Tulsa county district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, who had cited as part of his decision that he deemed the incident in which Nex reported three students coming at me" as an instance of mutual combat". Continue reading...

A US resolution urging a ceasefire in Gaza linked to a hostage deal is vetoed by Russia and China in the UN security council, extending a five-month impasse in the UN over the Israel-Hamas war. Eleven council members voted for theresolution on Friday morning; Russia, China and Algeria voted against and Guyana abstained. As Russia and China are permanent members their votes counted as vetoes. Before the vote, the Russian envoy, Vasily Nebenzya, said any member voting for the resolution 'will cover yourselves in disgrace'. The US envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said after the vote that Russia and China had opposed the resolution because they could not bring themselves to support the clauses in it condemning Hamas

The company - which has only raised $5m since 2021 - benefits from meme stock status, valued not for revenue but for clicks

David Trone, a Maryland congressman, used a derogatory and offensive term for a Black person during a Capitol Hill hearing

Conservative talk radio hosts in Wisconsin tried to stop Trump in 2016 - now they're embracing the former presidentIt was March 2016. Wisconsin's Republican primary was just days away, and the GOP establishment was making a desperate last attempt to block Donald Trump from the Republican nomination.Vicki McKenna, a popular Wisconsin-based conservative talkshow host, had just spent 25 minutes grilling Trump on policy when she turned to Trump's decision to mock the physical appearance of Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi. So, no more wife-bashing?" she asked. When Trump tried to excuse the attack, she wouldn't let it go: How about this: how about wives and kids, off-limits?" Continue reading...

The lack of diversity could mean the fruit's extinction. It offers a stark warning of what could happen to other key foodsThe meeting of the World Banana Forum last week in Rome didn't make many headlines. But what was under discussion there has serious implications for everyone. The ubiquitous yellow fruit is the proverbial canary in the mine of our modern food system, showing just how fragile it is. And the current plight of the banana should serve as an invitation to us all to become champions of food diversity.When you peel a banana, you're on the receiving end of a near-miraculous $10bn supply chain. One that sends seemingly endless quantities of a tropical fruit halfway across the world to be among the cheapest, most readily available products in supermarket aisles (on average, around 12p a banana). But, incredibly, there's no inbuilt backup plan or safety net if the one variety that most of the global trade depends on starts to fail.Dan Saladino is a food journalist, broadcaster and author of Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them Continue reading...

Secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv as other world leaders set aside differences to call for end to fighting in Gaza. Plus: the report on flying saucers that sent the world of ufology' into a tailspinGood morning.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his war cabinet, a key meeting that comes as the US prepares to put forth a new UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire" and hostage deal in Gaza.What does the UN resolution say? Blinken characterized the UN resolution drafted by the US as calling for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages".How does the EU declaration differ? It calls for the unconditional release of all hostages" by Hamas, but does not make its demand for a halt to Israeli military operations dependent on a deal.What is the situation in Gaza? Mass deaths from famine are likely in the coming weeks if nothing changes. Children are already dying from hunger. Continue reading...

LAFC are off to a muddled start, Houston have a creative dynamo and Atlanta United are back in championship contentionPrepare your rage. Is it prepared? OK, great.Welcome back to the Guardian's MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone. 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...

Bishop J Douglas Deshotel issued the order after Scott Peyton had resigned from his post, but the abusive priest was not censuredA Louisiana man who resigned as a Roman Catholic deacon after a priest at whose side he served sexually molested his son has been excommunicated from the church by his local diocese, a remarkably harsh punishment that his child's abuser does not appear to have faced.Scott Peyton's excommunication from the Catholic church at the hands of bishop J Douglas Deshotel comes as the latter's Lafayette diocese has asked Louisiana's supreme court to strike down a law that retroactively and temporarily eliminated filing deadlines for lawsuits demanding damages for childhood sexual abuse from years ago. Continue reading...

To defeat Trumpism, progressives must crib from FDR's book and call out economic inequality and plutocracyWe know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have [its] forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hatred for me - and I welcome their hatred."President Franklin D Roosevelt - the cousin of a beloved former president and scion of two prominent New York families - was an unlikely tribune of economic populism. But amid the devastation wrought by the Great Depression, he understood that the only way to show millions of working Americans that he really had their back was to put a target on the back of his own class, economic elites. Continue reading...