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Relatives tell of loss as experts says harsher laws are forcing people to take ever more dangerous routes into USBefore he left Veracruz, Pablo Ortega asked his sister Rosa to do two things: look after his pregnant wife, and, should anything happen to him on his way to the US, make sure his body was brought home so it could be carried through the streets where he grew up. This week, Rosa found herself having to fulfil both duties to her little brother.At 6.20pm on 27 June, an abandoned trailer was discovered on a remote backroad in San Antonio, Texas. Inside were the bodies of dozens of people who had died as they tried to migrate from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Among them was Pablo, 20, whose body was found alongside that of his 43-year-old uncle, Jesús Álvarez. In total, 53 people died and more than a dozen were taken to hospital, including four children. Four people have been charged. Continue reading...

I’m sure the president is experiencing some diminution in the memory department. I know I amAt 79, Joe Biden is the oldest president in American history. Concerns about his age top the list for why Democratic voters want the party to find an alternative for 2024.I don’t think this reflects an “ageist” prejudice against those who have reached such withering heights so much as an understanding that people in their late 70s and 80s wither.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Indians will soon outnumber Chinese, threatening Beijing’s sense of superiorityLast week, the UN’s global population project announced a major shift in the way the world looks. Next year, India, not China, will be the world’s most populous country. Right now, China has 1.43 billion people to India’s 1.41 billion, but by mid-century there will be more than 1.6 billion Indians to around 1.3 billion Chinese.At one level, this development ought to delight Beijing, which compelled its population into a “one child” policy for some 40 years. Yet there may be a few disconsolate faces in Beijing. The idea of China being the most populous society in the world has long been linked to the country’s rise. Officially, China dismisses any idea that being at the top of global rankings matters: in January this year, vice foreign minister Le Yucheng declared that China had no interest in becoming the world’s biggest economy or superpower and would instead work on improving its people’s lives at home.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...

He has weaponised food, energy and refugees, spreading economic and political pain across the continent. Sanctions don’t work, a land for peace deal would be a disaster. Only the military route remains

The Fox news host spoke at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, a state that has first say in Republican presidential nomineesHe entered to rapturous applause, flattered his hosts shamelessly, told them about his political vision and sold them merchandise bearing his name.Tucker Carlson’s appearance in Iowa on Friday looked like a presidential run, walked like a presidential run and quacked like a presidential run but was most certainly not a presidential run, at least as far as anyone knows. Continue reading...

A Reuters Institute survey found that a rising number of people are avoiding the news or just don’t believe itThis might be just another negative news story. And if it is, there is evidence that many of you will turn away in despair.The Reuters Institute revealed last month that 42% of Americans actively avoid the news at least some of the time because it grinds them down or they just don’t believe it. Fifteen percent said they disconnected from news coverage altogether. In other countries, such as the UK and Brazil, the numbers selectively avoiding it were even higher. Continue reading...

The centrist Democrat senator has repeatedly stood in the way of the president’s most ambitious legislative aspirations and derailed fragile negotiationsJoe Biden calls him “Jo-Jo”, an affectionate nickname for the West Virginia senator who, at critical moments during his presidency, has been the Joe holding all the cards.And this week Joe Manchin, a lonely coal state Democrat who has repeatedly stood in the way of the president’s most ambitious legislative aspirations, derailed weeks of negotiations in pursuit of a deal on a scaled-back version of Biden’s economic agenda that would win his support. Continue reading...

The president delivered his remarks on the final leg of a four-day tour, also announcing a $1bn effort to relieve hunger in the regionJoe Biden, speaking at a summit of Arab leaders, said Saturday that the United States “will not walk away” from the Middle East as he tries to ensure stability in a volatile part of the world and boost the global flow of oil to reverse rising gas prices.The president also announced $1bn in US funding to relieve hunger in the region. Continue reading...

Irishman and Norwegian decide to take on the course and share the lead going into the final round of the OpenGolf is not just about numbers, although it would be meaningless without them. What excites players and spectators alike is the occasional magic trick, something memorable to bring delight and joy to all who love the game – even the LIV renegades lurking further down the table.Such a moment arrived for Rory McIlroy and the rest of us on the 10th, the 386-yard par four named after a magician of long ago, the triple Open champion, Bobby Jones, who mastered this course twice, in 1926 and 1927. Continue reading...

Moving day at St Andrews ends with new leaders after a stunning pair of 66s, with Cameron Young and Cameron Smith four backJon Rahm almost holes his approach to the 1st for eagle and then misses the short birdie putt. That rather sums up his week. Some good, but too much loose stuff to win an Open. A bogey at 2 and at -3 he’s now outside the top 50.Another mover to tell you about. Belgian Thomas Pieters - who racked up more points than any player on either side in the 2016 Ryder Cup - is -5 for the day after 10 and -7 overall. Continue reading...

The Englishman is unhappy about the way his involvement with the LIV Series has been portrayed in the mediaIan Poulter would like to make it clear that no one has booed him at St Andrews. Well, no, that is not quite right. If we are being scrupulous about it, Poulter would like to make it clear that only one person, “some young guy”, has booed him at St Andrews and it was just bad luck that he happened to be standing “a hundred yards down the 1st where there’s conveniently a microphone positioned halfway down the stand” so that it ended up being broadcast on TV. That was it. One boo. Singular. And anything else you have heard and read about his reception on the Old Course is just lazy journalism.And Poulter does want the media to be scrupulous, that matters to him very much, as he explained at great length when he was asked a gentle question about whether he had enjoyed the amount of support he’d had from the crowd during his third round given what happened the other day. Continue reading...

The US Justice Department seized the phone of Donald Trump’s former lawyer in June; Eastman filed a motion to get it backThe US Justice Department was justified when it seized the cell phone of John Eastman, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, a federal judge in New Mexico ruled on Friday.In its investigation into a scheme by the ex-president and his lawyers to overturn the 2020 election using “fake electors”, the justice department took Eastman’s phone on 22 June as he was leaving a restaurant in New Mexico. Eastman, in turn, filed a court motion in an attempt to get his phone back, arguing that the justice department violated his constitutional rights. Continue reading...

Senator Rand Paul announced Friday he would not consent to Chad Meredith’s nomination, vetoing the president’s effortAfter weeks of criticism from fellow Democrats and abortion advocacy groups, Joe Biden has deserted plans to nominate an anti-abortion lawyer to be a federal judge in Kentucky.The White House said on Friday that Republican Kentucky senator Rand Paul would not be consenting to the nomination of Chad Meredith, effectively vetoing Biden’s move to put him on the bench. Continue reading...

US president’s attempts to ostracise Saudi crown prince were foiled by a fist bumpFor all the careful choreography of Joe Biden’s Middle East tour, the White House made a major miscalculation when the president finally came face to face with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for the first time.Before Air Force One left Washington, the administration said that Biden would be avoiding physical contact and not shaking hands owing to a rise in Covid cases, a move widely believed to allow him to avoid creating an uncomfortable photo op with the powerful heir to the throne. Continue reading...

Fireworks and a couple of large slices of luck keep big-hitting American’s slim chances of landing the Claret Jug aliveFrom the ridiculous to the sublime, this was just another day in the life of Bryson DeChambeau. “You know me – a lot of fireworks,” said the big American, almost apologetically, as if the only way to get around St Andrews is nurdling it in a suit, tie and R&A blazer.That, of course, is not really DeChambeau’s style. The 28-year-old has a history of going against the grain, whether that is joining the LIV tour or going into the research and development lab to work on his latest driver amendments. Continue reading...

Explanation for how the messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 were deleted has gone from software upgrades to device replacementsThe Secret Service’s account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday.At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements. Continue reading...

The controversial Operation Lone Star, launched in March 2021, is under federal investigation for possible civil rights violationsA Texas national guard member assigned to a border security mission helmed by the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, died this week at his unit’s hotel, leaving him as the latest of several soldiers to die while deployed on the controversial operation.Alex Rios Rodriguez, a 52-year-old sergeant, suffered a medical emergency from which first responders were unable to revive him while he was at his quarters in McAllen, Texas, said a news release Friday issued by officials with the agency that runs the state’s national guard. Continue reading...

The mother of all U-turns on dealing with a man he regards as a murderer only makes the US president look frailerWhat was Joe Biden thinking? His excruciating fist bump with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince he and much of the world regard as a murderer, marks the low point of a presidency that is slowly dying on its feet.Maybe America’s tottering president thought he was doing it for his country’s sake. But many in his country will be dismayed that a man Biden deemed a pariah after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is back in from the cold. Continue reading...

The Wall Street Journal called the horrifying ordeal ‘too good to confirm’, but no apologies came when a 27-year-old was arrested for the crimeHere’s a sentence nobody should ever have to write: a 10-year-old Ohio girl was raped and then had to flee her state in order to have a safe and legal abortion. Instead of reacting with horror, Republican politicians and the rightwing media’s first instinct was to claim the story, first published by the Indianapolis Star on July 1, was fake news. On Monday, for example, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost told Fox News that “Every day that goes by the more likely that this [story] is a fabrication … shame on the Indianapolis paper that ran this thing on a single source who has an obvious axe to grind.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the incident “not true” and his colleague Jesse Watters suggested it was a hoax. Continue reading...

Two years after the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that sent Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race to the top of the bestseller lists, its author assesses how far we’ve come, in an edited extract from an updated edition of the book25 May 2020. Minneapolis, Minnesota. George Floyd is leaving a shop after paying for a packet of cigarettes with a fake $20 bill. In line with the workplace’s policy, a member of staff has called the police. George is arrested, handcuffed, and led to the police car. It’s at this point that he begins to display severe distress. Police officers restrain him, and one of them takes up a position on top of him, placing his knee on top of George’s neck. George protests and says he can’t breathe, but he receives no reprieve from the officer killing him. Then, he seems to accept his fate. “Mom, love you,” he says. “Tell my kids I love them.” Soon after, he stops talking. It is only when paramedics arrive that the knee is lifted. George’s body is put on to a stretcher, his limbs loose and floppy. An hour later, he is declared dead at a hospital nearby.On 26 May, video footage of the murder, filmed by a teenage bystander, is uploaded to social media. Protesters gather in Louisville, Minneapolis and Glynn County, united by the same cry: Black Lives Matter. The protests quickly spread across the United States. Continue reading...

Governments alone can’t keep the public safe. People must feel able to speak out – and our laws must protect themThis week, more than 124,000 documents disclosed by the whistleblower Mark MacGann, Uber’s former chief lobbyist for Europe, detailed how Uber flouted laws, duped police, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments in order to aggressively build its global empire.Last year, I disclosed thousands of documents to the US government revealing Facebook’s negligence about the harm its products were doing. As with the documents supplied by MacGann, the public would have never known this information even existed had a whistleblower not tipped them off.Frances Haugen is a former Facebook product manager and an advocate for accountability and transparency in social mediaDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Bannon, according to Jonathan Lemire’s Big Lie, said Trump lies ‘to win whatever exchange he [is] having at that moment’The former White House strategist Steve Bannon has publicly claimed Donald Trump does not lie. But according to a new book, Bannon told aides: “Trump would say anything, he would lie about anything.”The former president lies “to win whatever exchange he [is] having at that moment”, Bannon said. Continue reading...

Republicans are odds-on to take back the House and Senate in November, and the last thing the party needs, experts say, is a Trump distractionOn Thursday the Trump campaign sent out a begging-bowl email to hundreds of thousands of supporters, previewing the former president’s rally in Arizona this weekend and teasing the recipients with a portent of momentous things to come.Donald Trump “wants to make sure it’s one of his best rallies yet”, his loyal followers were told. “He is preparing the speech that he will give in front of the American people.” Continue reading...

Weather conditions with ‘zero visibility’ believed responsible for crash involving 20 or more vehicles near Hardin, authorities saidAt least six people have died after a dust storm fueled by wind gusts topping 60mph caused a pileup on the Interstate 90 freeway in Montana, authorities said.At least 20 vehicles were involved in the crash on Friday evening. Sgt Jay Nelson of Montana highway patrol said authorities believed weather was the cause. Continue reading...

The former Czech national team skier and model, who has died aged 73, was married to Donald Trump Continue reading...

The subpoena is the first to an executive branch agency in investigation focused on possible erasure of communicationsThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued a subpoena to the US Secret Service for text messages from 5 January and 6 January 2021 understood to have been erased, pursuing what investigators suspect might be an instance of corruptly destroyed records.The subpoena issued late on Friday – the first to an executive branch agency – compelled the production of messages and after-action reports concerning the attack as part of a sweeping records demand aiming to establish the circumstances around the erasure of some communications and obtain any that remain. Continue reading...

Caitlin Bernard of Indiana is named on an extreme anti-abortion website linked to Amy Coney BarrettThe Indiana doctor who recently provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim whose story has garnered national attention faced serious threats in the past and is named on an extreme anti-abortion website linked to Amy Coney Barrett before she was a supreme court justice.Dr Caitlin Bernard testified last year, in a case involving abortion restrictions in Indiana, that she was forced to stop providing first-trimester abortions at a clinic in South Bend. She stopped the procedures after she was alerted by Planned Parenthood – who in turn had been alerted by the FBI – that a kidnapping threat had been made against her daughter. Continue reading...

Two people were killed and three wounded in the six robberies that occurred on 11 July in Orange county locationsAuthorities said on Friday that two suspects have been arrested in a series of deadly robberies at southern California 7-Eleven convenience stores where two people were killed and three wounded.The Orange county district attorney’s office announced the arrests on social media. A press conference is scheduled for 5pm. No other details were immediately available. Continue reading...

Oil markets top of the agenda for US president who receives subdued welcome three years after Jamal Khashoggi commentsThree years after Joe Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state over the assassination of a prominent dissident, the US president greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump as his administration attempts to reset relations and stabilise global oil markets.Donald Trump was personally welcomed to the conservative Gulf kingdom on his first presidential visit by King Salman. Biden, however, was met on the tarmac on Friday evening by the governor of Mecca and the Saudi ambassador to the US in a subdued ceremony. He then travelled to the city’s al-Salam palace, where he held talks with the 86-year-old king and his powerful heir, Prince Mohammed, before a working meeting. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s first wife died aged 73 at her Manhattan home and the fatal injuries are believed to be unintentionalIvana Trump, the first wife of Donald Trump and the mother of his three oldest children, died from blunt force injuries to her torso that she suffered after an accidental fall, New York City’s chief medical examiner said Friday.The former president announced that Ivana Trump died aged 73 a day earlier at her Manhattan home but didn’t include any details about the cause or manner of her death. On Friday, a spokesperson for the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner confirmed reports that Ivana Trump apparently fell inadvertently and was found at the bottom of her home’s stairs. Continue reading...

Australia’s Cameron Smith leads by two from America’s Cameron Young, with Rory McIlroy and a host of big names lurking behind

British runner has battled Covid and takes on two of the best 10,000m runners in history at the world championshipsIn the heat of the midday sun, the two greatest female 10,000m runners in history will square off once again. In one corner: Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey, the world record holder. In the other: the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan, the reigning world and Olympic champion. It should be a race for the ages.But as they fight it out for gold at 12.20pm local (8.20pm UK time) on Saturday, British eyes will turn to the chasing pack – where the familiar lolloping stride of Eilish McColgan might just be in contention for a shock bronze medal. Continue reading...

Sources say committee investigating whether watchdog can use forensic tools to reconstruct messages from 5 and 6 JanuaryThe House committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Secret Service text messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 that were erased around the time of an internal review can be reconstructed, according to sources familiar with the matter.The panel was perturbed that texts between agents on perhaps two of the most important days in the history of the Secret Service – the day before the Capitol attack and the day itself – could be lost in such an abrupt manner, the sources said. Continue reading...

NTSB report corrects initial statement that son, 13, was driving truck that hit van, leaving six golfers and their coach deadSeven members of a New Mexico college golf team were killed when a pickup truck driver with methamphetamine in his bloodstream hit their van head-on in Texas earlier this year, a preliminary report from federal investigators revealed on Thursday.The report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) also corrected its initial statement that the driver’s 13-year-old son was driving the truck at the time of the fiery 15 March collision that left a total of nine people dead. Continue reading...

Vote was largely symbolic as two bills stand all but no chance of overcoming Republican opposition in the evenly-divided SenateThe House of Representatives on Friday approved legislation that would protect abortion access nationwide, the first action by Democrats in Congress to respond to the supreme court decision in late June overturning Roe v Wade.The vote was largely symbolic – the bills stand all but no chance of overcoming Republican opposition in the evenly divided Senate, where 60 votes are needed to move legislation forward. Continue reading...

World No 1 produces stellar second round at the Open to suggest he could collect another major in remarkable yearIt must be the best part of a hundred yards from the boundary ropes to the left side of the 14th fairway, far enough to leave one of the families standing there squinting into the middle distance as they tried to figure out who it was striding through the long grass over on the far side. White cap, grey sweater, tan slacks. “Who is that man over there?” asked the grandad. “Not sure,” his son replied. “Looks like it could be Scottie Scheffler,” said the grandson, who added by way of explanation: “He’s the best player in the world at the minute.”So he is. Scheffler has been top of the rankings for three months now, since he won the WGC Match Play and the Masters in the spring. The way he’s shaping up this week, he could yet end up winning The Open too. Continue reading...

The 17th hole at St Andrews offers a fearsome test, with the adjacent Old Course Hotel garden closed due to flying golf ballsGuests at the Old Course Hotel, overlooking the tee and the fairway of the 17th hole at St Andrews, better known as the Road Hole, pay thousands of pounds a night to wake up for a view of the Old Course in Open week, but are advised to use the balconies at their own risk. The sound of balls fizzing past the roof is a constant from around 10.30am each day, and such is the danger of being hit by one of them that the hotel has now closed its lawned garden that lies just a stone wall away from the action.The boundary of the hotel stands in direct line of the tee shot, with a replica railway shed on the corner acting as both an obstacle and a guide: players use an OLD COURSE HOTEL sign mounted on the shed wall as a target, with most aiming for COURSE and braver souls taking a draw, which starts right of HOTEL. The key thing here is to find the right side of the fairway, from which you have a (slightly) easier approach in. Continue reading...

The 15-time major winner looked a pale imitation of his best and conceded he may have played his last Open at St AndrewsThe denouement was Othello-level painful, a farewell wreathed in desolation. But let’s be as blunt as the man himself was after missing the cut by nearly as many shots as he has won some of his 15 majors: Tiger Woods strongly doubts he will challenge for the Claret Jug at St Andrews again.When Woods compounded his six-over par first round with another three dropped shots in slightly more benign conditions on Friday morning, reality crowded out any unlikely notion of joining the weekend charge with younger, stronger candidates. Continue reading...

Justice department is stepping up hate crime prosecutions as racially targeted attacks have surged across USA federal grand jury has indicted the 19-year-old white man who allegedly killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in May on more than two dozen counts of hate and firearms charges, the justice department announced on Thursday. The indictment comes just a day before the Tops grocery store, where the mass shooting took place, was set to reopen.The indictment charges that Payton Gendron, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, violated the federal hate crime law “by willfully causing the death of the victims because of their actual and perceived race and color”. According to his manifesto, Gendron viewed Black people as “replacers”, a nod to the racist theory that “global elites” are replacing white people with people of color. Police said he had driven 200 miles from his home to the city’s east side because of the high concentration of Black residents in the zip code where Tops, the only grocery store in the area, is located. Continue reading...

Attorney general’s office to begin interviews but depositions delayed following death of Ivana Trump, ex-president’s first wifeThe New York attorney general’s office was expected to begin questioning Donald Trump and two of his children over allegations of financial fraud today after the former president failed in his legal effort to block what he has called a politically motivated “witch hunt”, though the deposition has been postponed after the death of Ivana Trump.Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Jr, have been summoned to give sworn depositions after the state attorney general, Letitia James, said a three-year civil investigation uncovered evidence that the Trump Organization routinely inflated the value of properties, including office blocks, apartment buildings and golf courses, in order to obtain loans at favorable rates and to claim tax breaks. Continue reading...

Tiger Woods admitted he didn't 'know if I'll be physically able to play' when the Open next visits St Andrews.The 46-year old, who has won the Open twice here in 2000 and 2005, said he was emotional and frustrated at not making the cut. "it felt like this might have been my last British Open here at St Andrews," he said.