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President speaks with ex-president Barack Obama during campaign event at Peacock Theater on Saturday nightSome of Hollywood's brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden, helping raise what his re-election campaign said was a record $30m-plus and hoping to energize would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation's history.George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among those who took the stage at the 7,100-seat Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday night. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel interviewed Biden and former president Barack Obama, who both stressed the need to defeat former president Donald Trump in a race that's expected to be exceedingly close. Continue reading...

Champion may be out as Nathan's of Coney Island find Joey Chestnut's deal with a plant-based rival hard to stomachCompetitive eating star Joey Jaws" Chestnut shocked the world of holiday gluttony this week, announcing through representatives that he would not compete at Nathan's Famous Fourth of July hotdog eating contest on New York's Coney Island.The move has not only upset longtime fans of competitive eating, but shone a light on a niche subset of gastronomy and the drama within it. Continue reading...

Kevin Spacey weeps over lost jobs, but victims of sexual harassment were once routinely cancelledYes, they did something wrong. But the punishment is out of proportion. They have apologised, they have promised to change. Isn't it time we forgave some of the men brought down by #MeToo?It's an important question - one that anyone interested in justice should ask. Lately, the rate of askinghas picked up pace. In an interview with Piers Morgan last week, Kevin Spacey sobbed at the treatment hehad suffered, even as he conceded that his accusers - oneor two of them - had been telling the truth. Continue reading...

The normalisation of ideas once confined to the fringes is cause for concern, not complacencyFar right? Hard right? Radical right? Or just plain right? The success in the recent EU elections of parties such as Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National, or RN, (the rebadged Front National), and Germany's Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), has generated a debate about whether the label far right" should be retired because, as Spectator editor Fraser Nelson argues, many parties that carry that moniker are now mainstream in a way that wasn't the case 15 years ago".Such parties are, for Nelson, better categorised as new right". Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, whose party the Brothers of Italy is descended from a fascist organisation, has shown in practice that she is centre-right, not radical". It is nonsense", Nelson insists, to call Meloni's party post-fascist'" or to suggest that the disparate new right" parties all belong to a single far-right' or radical-right lump".Do 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...

Hitting the ground running has some very painful lessonsOne second I was running, a proud and gentle kind of lope, the next I was staring up at sunlight shivering through the leaves, my mouth somehow full of blood, and then everything was black. It was a warm morning as I set off, that bank holiday at the beginning of half-term, which meant my children were off school two times over and chattering around the kitchen table when my boyfriend heard - his whole face squints now as he describes it - the terrible thud of a body on concrete.It was comically small, the uneven paving stone that I tripped over, it was hilariously nothing - a centimetre or two maybe that the toe of my trainer must have caught on, but I flew somehow, quite high, and landed on my teeth and cheekbone. I passed out because of the shock, I think, rather than the impact, and spent some time there on the grass in a glorious faint. That was the best bit. I do recommend unconsciousness. I'm up for a light coma one day perhaps, but until then these rare moments of savage exit will have to do. The time asleep always feels longer than really it is - I was blissfully relaxed, in a theatre, in fact, watching hundreds of little children dance, until suddenly I was dragged back to life, and the path, and Mark was propping me up on his arm and saying my name too many times. Continue reading...

Gaffe came as 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate sought to bolster his support among Black and Latino voters in MichiganDonald Trump has made a point in recent months of deriding his rival Joe Biden as being cognitively impaired, mocking the 81-year-old US president for his verbal stumbles and accusing him of falling both up and down stairs.But people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Continue reading...

Former infectious disease head says big pharma tried to poach him while he was nation's Covid chiefBefore Anthony Fauci retired from his lengthy run as the US government's top infectious disease doctor, major pharmaceutical companies tried to lure him away from his post by offering him seven-figure jobs - but he turned them down because he cared about ... the health of the country" too much, he says in a new interview.Fauci's comments on his loyalty to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niad) - which he directed for 38 years before retiring in December 2022 - come only a couple of weeks after he testified to Congress about receiving credible death threats" from far-right extremists over his efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. Continue reading...

Two suspects in custody for deaths of Callie Brunett, 35, and her daughter Erin; second daughter found alive and brought to hospitalAuthorities investigating the abduction and death of a four-year-old Louisiana girl whose body was found in Mississippi say they uncovered evidence of possible human trafficking where the child was discovered.The evidence included cages meant for small animals, said investigators who had arrested Daniel Callihan, 36, and Victoria Cox, 32, with the killing of Erin Brunett. Continue reading...

In this speech she gave at last week's memorial service for the author, who died last year aged 73, his daughter pays tribute to the cool guy who lived in my house'Dad described himself as a father emeritus". This wouldn't have been funny if it were completely true. In fact, far from absent, Dad was homeall of the time. In high school, I described him tomy friends as less a dad-type and more a cool guy who livedin my house.Once, at the age of 14, I was caught by my mum smoking pot in my bedroom. She threw out my paraphernalia, took me around the block weeping, and cautioned me about the great history of addiction in our family. Later that night, or maybe even a few days later, Dad made his debut on the top floor of the house, the kids' floor. He poked his head around my door and said: You couldn't have cracked open a window? You bloody fool."Do 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...

Visitors to Portland's Oaks Amusement Park trapped on AtmosFear for half hour after it unexpectedly stoppedEmergency crews in Oregon rescued 28 people on Friday after they were stuck for about half an hour dangling upside down high on a ride at a century-old amusement park.Portland fire and rescue said on the social platform X that firefighters worked with engineers at Oaks Park to manually lower the ride, but crews had been preparing to conduct a high-angle rope rescue if necessary. All riders were being evacuated and medically evaluated, and there were no reports of injuries. Continue reading...

Kathy Hochul has not shared policy details or exemptions but said she is motivated by alleged antisemitic attacksNew York's governor, Kathy Hochul, is considering reimposing a ban on face masks in the Big Apple's transit system over allegations that masked protesters are taking advantage of identity-concealing face wear to stage antisemitic attacks.The governor has not spelled out details of the policy or people who may be exempted. But she has said that she is motivated to act by a group donning masks that took over a subway car, scaring riders and chanting things about [Nazi dictator Adolf] Hitler and wiping out Jews". Continue reading...

Seemingly random assaults in Britain and other parts of Europe are coming from left and rightThe response of Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's centre-left prime minister, to being physically assaulted in a Copenhagen street was dignified and very human. I'm not doing great, and I'm not really myself yet," she admitted last week. The attack, in which she escaped serious injury, had left her feeling shocked and intimidated, she said.Frederiksen suggested her experience was the culmination of some broadly familiar trends: proliferating social media threats, increasingly aggressive political discourse, a divisive Middle East war. As a human being, it feels like an attack on me. But I have no doubt it was the prime minister that was hit. In this way, it becomes a kind of attack on all of us." Continue reading...

Dogged by age issue, president, 81, is now highlighting Trump's many peculiarities, from hair style to Bible salesTaking a line out of Donald Trump's playbook, Joe Biden offered his rival a tongue-in-cheek birthday greeting on X on Friday, saying: Happy 78th birthday, Donald. Take it from one old guy to another: Age is just a number."The president then coupled his thoughts with a caustic video sarcastically touting 78 of Trump's historic ... accomplishments'" before a Biden re-election campaign spokesperson added: On behalf of America, our early gift for your 79th: making sure you are never president again." Continue reading...

The first archaeological dig of Sao Tome and Principe's largest sugar mill sheds light on the birth of plantation agriculture and slavery as a racial systemEdsiley da Encarnacao's wooden stilt house stands mere steps from the ruins of an old sugar plantation on the African island of Sao Tome. What remains of the 16th-century building, strategically built near a freshwater source and the sea, lies hidden among trees. Vines encircle stone walls.Everyone always says that people died there and that it's haunted," said Da Encarnacao, 24, who studies business at the University of Sao Tome and Principe. There were slaves there, and so people believe that the colonists brutally killed the slaves and their spirits remained, wandering around the place." Some neighbors avoid the site. Others visit to pick mangoes in the middle of the night from surrounding trees; youngsters sometimes prank the foragers, drifting through the grounds while dressed in ghostly white or black. Continue reading...

The Mavericks star, and particularly his defense, had been much maligned coming into Friday night's Game 4. He quickly set the record straightWhen Luka Doni dropped 73 points on the Atlanta Hawks in January - the fourth highest individual points tally in NBA history - Dallas head coach Jason Kidd was asked whether his star player's prodigious scoring feats threatened to disrupt the Mavericks' gameplan. He is the gameplan," Kidd replied.For much of these finals that gameplan, like the man it was centered on, seemed decidedly iffy. The Mavericks looked unbalanced, dangerously overreliant on their star guard pairing, and Doni himself - nursing injuries to both knee and chest - was in the middle of a historic series stinker in defense, footage of him lazily swatting at the ball as the Celtics repeatedly blew by him on offense threatened to become the visual summary of the entire finals. But in Game 4, Dallas obliterated Boston by the third-largest margin of victory in NBA finals history, reversing the pattern of the series with scrambling, urgent basketball at both ends of the court; suddenly, it was the Mavericks, not the Celtics, authoring all the blow-bys, authoritative dunks in transition, and handy cameos off the bench. The sweep has been averted. A once-moribund series has come thrillingly to life. And most importantly, the Mavs' main man is back. Continue reading...

If a certain subsection of Republicans get their way, obtaining a divorce in the US might soon become a lot more difficultThey've come after abortion. They've come after birth control. They've come after IVF. Now it looks suspiciously like far-right Republicans might have a new target: no-fault divorce. If a certain subsection of Republicans get their way, obtaining a divorce in the US might soon become a lot more difficult. Continue reading...

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The Le Pen family drama, Eric Ciotti apparently locking himself in his office ... it would almost be funny if it weren't so bleakEric Ciotti, exit stage right. On 11 June, the leader of France's legacy centre-right party Les Republicains (LR) went on TV to finally set the record straight. With France's leftwing parties negotiating a popular front" in the lead-up to the snap elections on 30 June and 7 July, Ciotti announced that he would seek an unprecedented alliance with Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) after its commanding victory in last Sunday's elections to the European parliament.This was the latest turning point provoked by Emmanuel Macron's surprise dissolution of parliament on Sunday, which has provoked a major political crisis likely to result in a shake-up of political forces and loyalties. Of course, the old centre-right had long since embraced the hallmarks of Le Pen-style politics - from the obsessive fear of national decline and culture wars against French Muslims to to embracing the so-called great replacement" theory. But the custodian party of what the French still like to call Gaullism" has clung to an at least rhetorical rejection of the Le Pen family's political project. The National Rally is the rebranded form of the Front National, the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen and other neo-fascists in 1972 as they nursed the wounds of Charles de Gaulle's recognition of defeat in France's colonial war over Algeria. Continue reading...

I believe the civil disobedience of ordinary people can secure great change. I do what I can - and accept the consequences Amy Pritchard is the first person to be jailed for a campaign that targeted banks across LondonEvery day I struggle to hold the insanity of our collective behaviour within me - in my psyche, my heart and my body. The harm we are causing to ourselves, to our fellow humans and all other beings, and our incredible, beautiful home, is horrific. Yet I know that what I think and feel is a healthy response to what's going on.In April 2021, Frans Timmermans, the vice-president of the EU commission, said: Today's children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food." We are already facing significant impacts on our harvests here. The prospect of wars over resources and conflict caused by and exacerbated by climatic conditions is an almost unbearable intergenerational injustice. The loss of biodiversity, meanwhile, will erode the foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, law and order, health and quality of life worldwide.Amy Pritchard, an agricultural and woodland worker from Liverpool, was jailed for 10 months on 12 June 2024 after being found guilty of criminal damage. This is an edited extract of her mitigation statement. Last year, she was also jailed for using the words climate change" and fuel poverty" in court, contrary to the judge's order.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...

Ludvig Aberg is the halfway leader at Pinehurst No.2 after adding a 69 to his opening 66 to end on 5-under, a shot clearAn extremely careless bogey for Rory McIlroy on 11. Wedge in hand, 137 yards out, the pin in the middle of the green, he pulls his approach down a bank to the left. A chip up to six feet, but a missed putt, and that's the 2012 and 2014 champion's first backwards step of the week. A blemish-free card yesterday, but it didn't take long to spoil things this morning. Another par for Scottie Scheffler, who hasn't done anything particularly impressive so far today, but hasn't made any silly mistakes either.-5: Cantlay

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DoJ tells Republicans it will not pursue prosecution of attorney general after House votes to hold him in contemptThe US Department of Justice on Friday told the Republican House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, that it would decline to pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against the attorney general, Merrick Garland, according to a letter seen by Reuters.The Republican-controlled House had voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of Joe Biden's interview with the special counsel investigating his retention of classified documents after he was Barack Obama's vice-president. Continue reading...

The pronounced antisemitism in recent protests is an unsettling phenomenonCongratulations to the group of radical protesters who claim to be for the Palestinian cause in New York City. They brag online that they shut down" the Nova exhibit on Wall Street and played out their day of rage throughout the subway system, against some museums and museum directors, and on the New York City streets and even hit some UN missions.In reality, they didn't shut down the Nova exhibit. The exhibit will probably get more attendees than anticipated and its presentation has been extended. The exhibit, which originated in Israel, presents oral history and artifacts of the horrific 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on thousands of mostly generation Z and millennials who were at a rave enjoying music, drugs and dance. Continue reading...

The co-hosts USA reached the second group stage and eliminated Pakistan on an historic if damp day in FloridaMeanwhile, in Group B...The outfield is still very wet, so there will be another inspection at 11.30am local/4.30pm BST. If I had to bet the farm I'd say the match will be washed out because of further rain, but I'm thousands of miles away so I'm not sure what the point of this sentence is. Continue reading...

The regime is allowing a reformist to run because it wants to ensure more of the same. It will take a better offer to win back the peopleThe death of Iran's president, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash last month was a shock. The 63yearold hardliner was not only expected to run for a second term, but to be part of the looming transition: the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 85 and has health problems. Some had even thought Raisi might succeed him.Yet the repercussions have been muted. The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for 28June, but no one expects Raisi's replacement to bring significant political change. The regime's priorities are continuity and stability. It knows it may soon have to reckon with the hostility of a second Trump administration and it faces widespread discontent at home, following the suppression of the massive Woman, Life, Freedom protests. The evidence of recent years suggest that it is more worried about conservative consolidation at the top than legitimacy from below. Continue reading...

Wisconsin city will host Republican national convention next month, a key swing state Biden won in 2020US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump's dismissal of Milwaukee as a horrible city" by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings - a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is set to be the party's presidential nominee this November.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden's victory over him. Continue reading...

The opening of France's first cheese museum in Paris complements the city's high concentration of top fromageries Homage to fromage: cheese museum opens in ParisFrance is not the only player when it comes to fromage. Outstanding cheeses are being produced in Great Britain, Switzerland and even the US. And the most recent winner of the World Cheese Awards - Nidelven Bla - comes from Norway.Still, no other cheese-producing nation can match France in terms of the sheer number of exceptional cheeses. The French tradition of cheesemaking began more than 2,000 years ago and, since then, they have figured out a thing or two: which animal breeds thrive best in certain areas, how to harness moulds and bacteria to produce safe cheeses with deliciously complex flavours, and how to pair them with wine. Continue reading...

The justices unanimously rejected the mifepristone case on technical grounds. Their ruling is not the victory it may seemOn Thursday, the US supreme court unanimously ruled that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine - a sock-puppet group of fanatically anti-choice doctors and busybodies - lacked standing to sue in the group's challenge to the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, the drug that is now used in more than 60% of American abortions. The court's decision may seem like the end of this battle. It's only the beginning.The lawsuit in question had originally emerged from Amarillo, Texas, in a federal court that has become a destination for anti-choice litigants because Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee and the sole judge hearing federal civil cases in the district, is a militant anti-abortion activist. Kacsmaryk made news when he used to case as a pretext to issue a nationwide injunction revoking FDA approval of the drug. The fifth circuit court, a radically rightwing appeals panel which has jurisdiction over Texas and which has repeatedly sought to push the supreme court to new heights of anti-abortion extremism, upheld most of Kacsmaryk's ruling, but limited the case to challenges that the FDA made in 2016 and 2021 to make mifepristone more easily available.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Report published by Native American-led non-profit identifies 10 tribal nations tied to land and how it was takenA report published this week by a Native American-led non-profit examines in detail the dispossession of $1.7tn worth of Indigenous homelands in Colorado by the state and the US - and the more than $546m the state has reaped in mineral extraction from them.The report, shared first with the Associated Press, identifies 10 tribal nations that have aboriginal title, congressional title and treaty title to lands within Colorado" and details the ways the land was legally and illegally taken. It determined that many of the transactions were in direct violation of treaty rights or in some cases lacked title for a legal transfer. Continue reading...

Ex-president also mulled over the repercussions of world leaders being deepfaked to announce false nuclear attackDonald Trump has said he used a speech generated by artificial intelligence (AI) after being impressed by the content.The former US president, whose oratory is noted for its rambling, off-the-cuff style but also for its demagoguery, made the claim in an interview with Logan Paul's podcast in which he lauded AI as a superpower" but also warned of its potential dangers. Continue reading...

Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Florida will be demolished while students are on summer breakCrews plan to start tearing down the building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school on Friday where 17 people were murdered in the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.Families of the victims have been invited to witness the start of the demolition and collect pieces of the building to keep for themselves as a marker of the tragedy if they choose. Continue reading...

Like the characters in Ripley and Saltburn, the perfectly well-to-do PM longs to be even better-to-doPsychologically speaking, I feel I understood the last two prime ministers only as they were leaving us. With Liz Truss this might seem understandable, given she was in office for 10 minutes. Then again she had been around for years - yet it was only watching her final days, and then reading one illuminating political obituary, that I felt I got it. I met Truss at university," wrote Tanya Gold in Politico, long before she entered real politics, and she mirrors and watches, as if trying to learn a new language. That is why she is stilted and ethereal: that is why she cannot speak easily or from the heart."Ah, I see, I suddenly thought. Why had I not got it before? My surmises felt further confirmed reading Rory Stewart's political memoir, when Truss asks how his weekend has been. I explained that my father had died," Stewart writes. She paused for a moment, nodded, and asked when the 25-year environment plan would be ready." Was Truss being deliberately heartless? Or did she, in the moment, forget the learned thing to do in the situation, which didn't come to her reflexively, as it might to most? Perhaps the same thing happened when she beat Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest and didn't shake his hand.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Politicians and planners are allowing the Thames to become an urban canyon - greed always seems to win outA Japanese developer has announced it will demolish a new tower of luxury flats in Tokyo it was weeks from completing. The reason? The 10-storey development was blocking beautiful views of Mount Fuji. The idea a developer would reach such a decision in Britain is inconceivable. In London, flats are usually built to make a profit. If they have a beautiful view, good luck to those buying them. To hell with anyone else's beauty.One of what we assume was the Sunak government's last decisions was Michael Gove's greenlighting of a huge 20-storey concrete slab that is about to rise on the banks of the Thames next to the National Theatre. It is hideous, and will dominate the once-glorious view of St Paul's cathedral from Waterloo Bridge. Paradoxically, its developer is the Mitsubishi Corporation. Continue reading...

Workers were sacked after review found they were creating impression of active work', says filing

Hamas spokesperson says Israeli tanks have advanced on Rafah. Plus: Scotland's burgeoning seaweed industryGood morning.With the safe return of the hostages crucial to any deal for a ceasefire, a senior Hamas official has said that no one has an idea" how many of the 120 remaining hostages in Gaza are alive.What is happening in Gaza? Israeli tanks advanced into the western part of Rafah on Thursday as the city came under intense helicopter, drone and artillery fire in what residents described as one of the worst bombardments of the area so far.Are displaced Palestinians receiving aid? The UN's relief agency for Palestinians, the largest aid organisation operating in Gaza, has accused Israeli authorities of frequently preventing it from delivering aid. Continue reading...

Regulation had barred moving cannabis over state waters which risked running afoul of federal lawsCannabis regulators in Massachusetts have issued an administrative order that will allow marijuana to be transported to the state's famous islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket for the first time.The order came amid reports Martha's Vineyard was about to run out of pot, with one dispensary temporarily closing in May and the other saying it would close by September without further supplies. Continue reading...

Male body dysmorphia has rocketed - maybe because we're desperate to assert a sense of control over our chaotic livesLooking back, it was probably when I started checking how many grams of carbohydrates were in red onions and broccoli that my eating disorder began. I say eating disorder" now, but, of course, as a man, I didn't think of it as that at the time. It was just cutting weight".I was 22 and had signed up for my first white-collar boxing match. Even though the weight classes were loose and barely enforced, I was determined to get into the best shape of my life - which I believed meant getting down from my natural weight of 90kg to 80kg. That's like going from 36in to 32in jeans in the space of a month.Tom Usher is a freelance writerComments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. Continue reading...