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The EPA ruling means it may now be mathematically impossible through available avenues for the US to achieve its greenhouse gas emissions goalThe US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade was a direct attack on women. It will result in countless deaths, especially among vulnerable women, and it set civil liberties in the United States back by half a century. Now, the court has made yet another devastating decision for humanity.In a 6-3 decision, the openly partisan and undemocratic court ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by fossil-fuel-producing states against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The decision strips power from regulatory agencies and advances the Republican goal to end government oversight. In particular, it eliminates one of the only remaining avenues for systemic federal climate action: using the Clean Air Act to phase out fossil fuel power plants. As a result, it may now be mathematically impossible through available avenues for the US to achieve its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which is anyway feeling dangerously unambitious in light of recent climate disasters.Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution Continue reading...

An investigation has been ordered into the exposure which affects those who were granted or denied a concealed carry permitThe California department of justice admitted it had exposed the personal information of as many as hundreds of thousands of gun owners in the state, in a controversial data breach that appears of a far broader scale than the agency first reported.The data breach temporarily made public the names, birthdates, gender, race, driver’s license numbers, addresses and criminal histories of people who were granted or denied permits to carry concealed weapons between 2011 and 2021. The state’s Assault Weapon Registry, Handguns Certified for Sale, Dealer Record of Sale, Firearm Certificate Safety and Gun Violence Restraining Order dashboards were also affected, the department said. Continue reading...

Nation’s highest court to hear North Carolina case seeking to remove state courts’ oversight of elections for federal officeThe US supreme court agreed on Thursday to hear a case that could dramatically upend the fight over voting in America and give state lawmakers enormous power in setting rules for elections to federal office.The case, Moore v Harper, asks the supreme court to endorse the “independent state legislature theory” – the idea that state legislatures have exclusive authority to set the rules for federal elections. Republicans have complete control of government in 23 states, and have used redistricting to lock in their advantage for the next decade in many places. Continue reading...

Barger founded the Oakland chapter in 1957 and became the group’s US president, bringing them to international notorietySonny Barger, a leader of the Hells Angels who was key to bringing the outlaw motorcycle club to international notoriety, died on Wednesday from cancer. Barger was 83.“If you are reading this message, you’ll know that I’m gone. I’ve asked that this note be posted immediately after my passing,” a post on Barger’s official Facebook page said. “I’ve lived a long and good life filled with adventure. And I’ve had the privilege to be part of an amazing club. Continue reading...

She joins three women, Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Coney Barrett – the first time four women will serve togetherNearly three months after she won confirmation to the supreme court, Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the court’s 116th justice on Thursday as the man she is replacing, Justice Stephen Breyer, retired.In a brief ceremony at the supreme court, Chief Justice Roberts administered the constitutional oath. Justice Breyer, who retired at noon, delivered the judicial oath. She is the court’s 116th justice. Continue reading...

Vladimir Putin might not fancy him much, but buoyed by his halfwit foreign secretary, the PM wound up some happy travelsThe timing couldn’t have been better. What better way to deal with two humiliating byelection defeats and a growing disaffection within the Tory party about his leadership than for Boris Johnson to spend a week abroad? A chance to forget. To let some of the heat die down. And to try to look worthwhile on a global stage. First at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Kigali. Then the G7 in Bavaria. And finally the Nato summit in Madrid.But all good things come to an end and the Convict wound up his travels with a final press conference before flying home. It looked as if the week had taken its toll. The hair and the suit were a mess, the skin blotchy and the bags under his eyes appeared to have deepened and darkened visibly in just seven days. Continue reading...

The US president has said he would support changing the Senate filibuster rules to codify abortion rights nationally, calling the supreme court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade 'destabilising'. 'We have to codify Roe v Wade in the law and the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights ... we should require an exception to the filibuster for this action,' Biden said. He added he would meet with a group of governors on Friday to discuss abortion rights

The Toxocara worm can spread to humans via cat or dog feces, making children who play in sand or soil particularly at riskScattered in cat sandboxes and dog runs around the world, there’s a parasite invisible to the naked eye that mostly infects these creatures. It’s a tiny worm that lives in the animals’ muscles and digestive systems, but can spread to others.Sometimes, though, it infects humans. Increasingly researchers are concerned that children are inadvertently consuming these parasites, known as Toxocara, and so they are studying places where humans and pets come into contact with one another: city parks. Continue reading...

President in Madrid says he supports ‘exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the supreme court decision’Joe Biden said on Thursday he would support an exception to the Senate filibuster to protect access to abortion, after the supreme court overturned the right in a historic ruling this month.“If the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights,“ Biden said during a press conference at the Nato summit in Madrid, adding that there should be an “exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the supreme court decision”. Continue reading...

Survey of 1,000 registered US voters also reveals that most Americans agree government is ‘corrupt and rigged’More than one quarter of US residents feel so estranged from their government that they feel it might “soon be necessary to take up arms” against it, a poll released on Thursday claimed.This survey of 1,000 registered US voters, published by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP), also revealed that most Americans agree the government is “corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me”. Continue reading...

Vice-chair of January 6 committee tells fellow Republicans it is impossible to be loyal to both Trump and the US constitutionCongresswoman Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, has warned that former president Donald Trump represents “a domestic threat that we have never faced before”.Cheney, the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, told fellow Republicans that it was impossible to be loyal to both Trump and the American constitution. Continue reading...

Cherokee nation says ruling represents attack on tribe’s sovereignty but Oklahoma governor hails ‘pivotal moment’A US supreme court decision on Wednesday that allows state prosecutors to pursue criminal cases for crimes committed by non-Native persons against Native persons on tribal land has spurred condemnation from tribal leaders and members – who have described the ruling as an attack on their autonomy.This ruling stems from the state criminal case Oklahoma v Castro-Huerta. Victor Castro-Huerta was charged by Oklahoma state prosecutors in 2015 for neglecting his five-year-old stepdaughter, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Castro-Huerta, who is not a Native, abused the child on the Cherokee reservation, according to Mother Jones. Continue reading...

Two lawsuits are back in front of federal judges, drawing scrutiny to schools’ failure to support students who report assaults

Adam Kinzinger says ‘no difference between this and the Taliban’ after Lauren Boebert’s call to end separation of church and stateA Republican congressman slammed GOP colleague Lauren Boebert’s recent call to end separation of church and state in the US, warning: “There is no difference between this and the Taliban.”“We must opposed [sic] the Christian Taliban,” Adam Kinzinger, a US representative for Illinois, said on Wednesday. “I say this as a Christian.” Continue reading...

A 33% rise in rate of homicides of Black women and girls in the US in 2020 rivals that of Black men, analysis showsFive Black women and girls were killed every day in the United States in 2020, as a national increase in gun violence during the pandemic took a heavy toll on some of the country’s most vulnerable people.In all 1,821 Black women and girls were killed in 2020. That was an additional 461 women and girls who were murdered in 2020 compared with 2019 – more than one additional killing a day. Continue reading...

It’s tempting to blame rightwing evangelicals for what happened last week – but big business also benefits from our loss of autonomyI found out about Dobbs, the supreme court’s recent decision that overturned Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, in a room full of Black women in Boston. One interrupted a conference panel discussion and made the announcement. Gasps, groans, and murmurs followed. I rushed outside and wept briefly on the phone while breaking the news to loved ones. The state of affairs is profoundly unfair. Not only did the court erase the federal protection of abortion rights and access, but Justice Clarence Thomas additionally called for the review and overturning of other important court decisions that protect privacy rights, same-sex intercourse and same-sex marriage.I wish I could say something like: “I never thought I would live to see the day this would happen.” But I’m honestly not sure. I spent a couple of years in college casually arguing against abortion. At the time, I had been unfortunately persuaded by social media accounts that Planned Parenthood was a eugenic plot to kill Black babies and destroy Black families. Though most abortion recipients are white women, Black women disproportionately terminate their pregnancies. Since I could easily point to ways that the state failed to protect poor, Black people and perpetuated violence, I initially found the arguments against abortion for the sake of protecting Black life convincing.Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Pat Cipollone was a key witness to some of the ex-president’s most brazen schemes to overturn the 2020 election. Plus, how the US food system fuels the climate crisis

Leading election denier promoting local groups to ‘oversee’ elections and determine if officials are ‘friend or foe’Hello, and Happy Thursday,A few Fridays ago, I was sitting in a large hotel ballroom in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, when a lawyer named Cleta Mitchell took the stage.The US Supreme court will allow Louisiana to use a congressional map this year, even though a lower court found it discriminated against Black voters.Tina Peters, a local clerk who faces criminal charges for allowing unauthorized access to voter equipment, lost her bid to be Colorado’s top election official.The January 6 committee has broken the mold of the typical congressional hearing to create something gripping. Continue reading...

The Republican US representative Liz Cheney has said Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election were 'more chilling and more threatening' than first imagined, while calling on Republicans to choose between loyalty to Trump and the constitution.Cheney, a commanding presence on the congressional panel investigating the January 6 Capitol riot by Trump supporters, warned against descending into vitriolic partisan attacks that could tear the political fabric of the country apart and urged her audience to rise above politics.'My fellow Americans, we stand at the edge of an abyss, and we must pull back,' she said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California

Training sessions in battleground states led by activists who claim the 2020 election was stolen aim to influence conduct of electionsRepublicans and other conservative groups are undertaking a huge effort to recruit election workers, a push that could install people with unfounded doubts about the 2020 election in key positions in voting precincts where they could exert considerable power over elections.At the forefront of this push is Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was on Donald Trump’s legal team in 2020 and played a key role in his effort to overturn the election. Over the last few months, Mitchell has held “election integrity summits” in several battleground states, convening groups and citizens who continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen. The summits offer in-depth training on how to monitor election offices and how to work elections. At a mid-June summit in North Carolina, Mitchell mocked the term “election denier” and said “whether the outcome was correct, that’s all I deny”. Voter fraud is extremely rare and there was no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020. Continue reading...

Shooting marks the latest in a string of attacks on the streets and subways of New York that have left residents on edgeA 20-year-old woman pushing a baby stroller on a New York City street was shot in the head and killed, the New York police department said.The victim was taken to Metropolitan hospital Center on Wednesday, where she died of her wounds. Her three-month-old child was unharmed, police said. Continue reading...

Two of the men face smuggling charges after 53 migrants died when the trailer truck was abandoned in sweltering heatFederal authorities have charged four men in connection with the deaths of at least 53 migrants who were left in an abandoned trailer truck Monday evening in Texas.The 45-year-old driver, Homero Zamorano Jr, faces charges of smuggling migrants into the US, leading to their deaths. A 28-year-old man whom Zamorano texted during the doomed trip, Christian Martinez, is accused of conspiring in the fatal attempt to smuggle migrants into the country. Continue reading...

In a statement, Lois Drueke said she was ‘happy to hear his voice and know he’s alive and all right’An Alabama army veteran who was captured in Ukraine while voluntarily helping the country fight Russian invaders spoke with his mother on Tuesday and said his captors were “anxious to begin negotiations for his release”, according to his family.Alex Drueke did not communicate any demands from his captors or say when negotiations should start during the 10-minute conversation with his mom, said Lois “Bunny” Drueke, in a statement Wednesday from her and his aunt, Dianna Shaw. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s former counsel was a key witness to some of the ex-president’s most brazen schemes to overturn the 2020 electionThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack issued a subpoena on Wednesday to former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, compelling him to testify about at least three parts of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.The subpoena marked a dramatic escalation for the panel and showed its resolve in seeking to obtain inside information about how the former president sought to return himself to office from the unique perspective of the White House counsel’s office. Continue reading...

R&B singer, 55, was found guilty in September of sex trafficking and racketeering on nine counts involving women, girls and boysThe singer R Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday for sexually abusing women, girls and boys, more than 20 years after first facing allegations.Kelly’s conviction represents a victory for survivors of sexual violence, particularly those who may hesitate to speak out against abusers for fear of retribution. Continue reading...

Team searching courthouse for evidence about lynching of Black teenager finds warrant for arrest of Carolyn Bryant DonhamA team searching the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant charging a white woman in his 1955 kidnapping, and relatives of the victim who initiated the hunt want authorities to finally arrest her nearly 70 years later.A warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham – identified as “Mrs Roy Bryant” on the document – was discovered last week inside a file folder that had been placed in a box, the Leflore county circuit clerk, Elmus Stockstill, told the Associated Press (AP) on Wednesday. Continue reading...

In a series of heart-rending speeches, victims delivered testimony about the impact his crimes had on their livesThe victims of R Kelly gave emotional testimony of the impact his crimes had on their lives during the sentencing hearing that saw the US singer given 30 years in prison.In a series of heart-rending speeches, several women stood up in court, sometimes addressing their abuser, sometimes pausing for breath or holding back tears. Continue reading...

President says ‘US and its allies are going to step up’ as he arrives for summit of Nato leaders in Madrid

Row comes after ex-White House aide’s explosive testimony that portrayed a violent and unhinged Trump on day of Capitol attackSenior Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to testify that Donald Trump did not lunge for the wheel of his vehicle or physically attack the chief of his security detail after his speech near the White House on January 6 – as a former aide said he did in sworn testimony on Tuesday.The row follows the explosive testimony to the House January 6 committee, which painted an unhinged and violent portrait of Trump on the day of the Capitol attack, in a shocking hearing many have seen as potentially loosening the former president’s grip on the Republican party. Continue reading...

Authorities are struggling to identify victims who have no IDs as families in Central America wait in anguish for newsThe number of dead migrants found in a stifling trailer in Texas rose to 53 on Wednesday after two more people died, according to the Bexar county medical examiner’s office.Forty of the victims were male and 13 were female, it said. Continue reading...

The number of migrant deaths in 2021 was 650, a stark reminder of the human cost of US immigration policiesThe deaths of 50 migrants – traveling from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras – in terrible conditions in Texas has cast a spotlight on the immense risks people are willing to take to cross the US border in search of a better financial life or escaping violence in their native countries.Laura Peña, the legal director of the Texas Civil Rights Project’s Beyond Borders program, represents asylum seekers at the border. Responding to the tragedy in San Antonio, she said both the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and President Biden have “utterly failed people who are trying to seek safety by crossing the border”. Continue reading...

Board unanimously agrees to complete transfer of parcels in area known as Bruce’s Beach, which was a resort for Black AmericansThe Los Angeles county board of supervisors has voted to return ownership of prime California beachfront property to descendants of a Black couple who built a resort for African Americans but were stripped of the land in the 1920s.The board voted 5-0 on a motion to complete the transfer of parcels in an area once known as Bruce’s Beach in the city of Manhattan Beach that is now the site of the county’s lifeguard training headquarters and its parking lot. Continue reading...

Cassidy Hutchinson may have placed Trump’s name on a federal indictment for seditious conspiracyOn Tuesday, the House select committee delivered a two-hour masterclass on the threats posed by Donald Trump to our republic and democracy. Cassidy Hutchinson, a deputy to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, may have placed Trump’s name on a federal indictment for seditious conspiracy. The Capitol had been defaced for the “sake of a lie”, Hutchinson declared.Hutchinson testified that Trump attempted to strangle his secret service agent and lunged for the steering wheel when he was told that he would not be driven to the Capitol to join the rioters. Hutchinson also testified that Trump said that Mike Pence “deserved” to be hanged for his refusal to overturn the election. On Tuesday night, NBC’s Washington correspondent Peter Alexander reported that both the lead agent and the presidential limousine driver are “prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.” Continue reading...

Cassidy Hutchinson tells committee Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the CapitolIn explosive public testimony, a former White House aide told the January 6 committee that Donald Trump knowingly directed armed supporters to march to the US Capitol in a last-gasp effort to remain in power.Appearing at a hastily scheduled hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, painted a devastating portrait of a raging president spiraling out of control and a White House often too ambivalent to constrain him. Continue reading...

John F Wood is seeking to stop far-right Republican who leads the field for nomination in the August primaryAn attorney who resigned last week as a senior investigator for the House January 6 committee is running for a Missouri US Senate seat as an independent, seeking to stop a far-right former governor, Eric Greitens, who leads the Republican field.John F Wood, who once worked in the administration of George W Bush, announced that he was beginning the effort to get on the November general election ballot for the seat held by Roy Blunt, a retiring Republican. Continue reading...

Eric Adams says he watched security video that undercut Rudy Giuliani’s account, which led to man being charged with assaultThe mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has suggested his predecessor Rudy Giuliani be investigated for filing a false police report, after claiming he was assaulted by a heckler who clapped him on the back at a Staten Island grocery store.“Someone needs to remind former mayor Giuliani that falsely reporting a crime is a crime,” Adams told reporters, saying he had watched security video that undercut Giuliani’s account. Continue reading...

Congresswoman backed by Trump wins primary after proclaiming ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’The extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert won her primary on Tuesday night, shortly after attacking the separation of church and state under the US constitution.“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk,” she said. Continue reading...

NBA free agency is set to start on Thursday, but the trade market may end up being where all the action isHere’s the thing about this year’s NBA free agency: there might not be a lot of unrestricted free agent movement. There won’t be a lot of major free agents out there, nor are there a lot of suitors (at the moment). At time of writing, only the Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers and Orlando Magic have a significant amount of cap space.Does this mean nothing will happen after free agency officially starts at 6pm EST on Thursday? Absolutely not, this summer should provide us with plenty of storylines whether they revolve around free agent signings, blockbuster trades or just general franchise upheavals. Continue reading...

The last few years have seen pop culture and fashion take a huge interest in the real scene that inspired TV shows such as Pose and HBO’s Legendary. Can it survive the hype?The Guardian joined the House of Gorgeous Gucci backstage at the Coldest Winter Ball Ever Continue reading...

They were killed by this nation’s migration policies, our exclusionary laws, and our obsession with the closing southern borderMore than 50 men and women – the current count is 51, but it may well climb – were killed on Monday. They died trapped in a tractor-trailer rig and abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, in 100F (38C) heat. More than a dozen are in hospital, including children. The dead were migrants from Mexico and Central America. The local fire chief, Charles Hood, said the people in the truck were “hot to the touch” and that they had no water and no air conditioning inside the truck.That is how they died, but that is not why they died. They died because they had no safe route into the United States. And why is that? It is because of border controls and deadly, racist migration policies created and upheld by our government, Democrats and Republicans alike.Maeve Higgins is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

On Monday, the supreme court justice issued a worrying signal about his commitment to maintaining press freedomsOn Monday, tucked away in a busy news cycle, was a quiet, subtle but no less terrifying judicial development. US supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas laid out the formula for destroying the free press.Thomas dissented to denial of certiorari in Coal Ridge Ministries Media v Southern Poverty Law Center with an opinion giving us more than a hint of precisely what he has in store. Freedom of the press has a rightwing target on its back. Thomas wrote that the court should “revisit” the landmark free press case of the 20th century, New York Times v Sullivan.Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, is currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy. Continue reading...

Former president and senior aides face exposure over knowledge that supporters were armed and intended to march on Capitol. Plus, boost your mood with exercise