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Eric Adams has set up controversial new units and is arresting more people for low-level offenses – but solving the most violent crimes instead could rebuild trust• Read Part 1: The bad old days: how policing in New York City turned back the clockJames Essig, the chief of detectives for the New York police department, stepped up to the podium to explain how the department had solved a crime.Less than a week before, on 9 January 2022, just after midnight, 19-year-old Kristal Bayron Nieves had been shot to death in a botched robbery at an East Harlem Burger King where she had just gotten a job. Continue reading...

This year’s draft marks the 35th anniversary of the point guard’s entry into the league. It’s easy to forget just how good a player he wasThe NBA season only ended last week, but teams are already looking to the future. On Thursday night, college stars like Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr and international prospects such as French phenom Ousmane Dieng will wait anxiously for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to call their names and, in the process, change their lives forever. It’s a ritual almost as old as the NBA itself – the first draft was held 75 years ago, ahead of the NBA’s second season.And this year marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most striking picks in the NBA draft’s long history. In 1987, the Washington Bullets picked Muggsy Bogues – all 5ft 3in of him – with the 12th overall pick. Continue reading...

The state party has unveiled a truly frightening official platform that rejects the result of the 2020 election, seeks to make racial discrimination legal and demonises LGBTQ+ peopleThis morning, I woke up earlier than I wanted to, fed the baby, walked the dog, chatted with my wife and procrastinated over some work. Yawningly mundane, right?Wrong. According to the Texas Republican party, my same-sex marriage is an “abnormal lifestyle choice”. What’s more, “abnormal” people like me should not have any “special legal entitlements” related to being LGBTQ+. That position is spelled out in section 143 of a far-right platform officially adopted at the Texas Republican party’s recent convention in Houston. Continue reading...

The ex-president’s attacks on officials to overturn the election resulted in them being harassed by his followersDonald Trump was the most powerful man in the world. But he was also a paranoid fantasist who did not care how his lies destroyed people’s lives.That was the picture of the former US president that came into focus with startling clarity at Tuesday’s hearing of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Continue reading...

As the nude swim approaches, nerves won’t let up. Maybe my leg hairs will stop me having a heart attack from the cold?Gym showers, sex parties, European beach holidays, walking into the wrong changing room, a knife fight in a bathhouse: there are so many ways to be naked in front of strangers. Some of them are even legal.Shivering naked with 2,000 people on a Tasmanian beach on a winter morning is legal, if not usually my idea of a great day out. But when given a waiver form asking you to sign away the risk of a heart attack and showing your arse on national television, who refuses that kind of invitation? Not I. Continue reading...

Steve McCraw condemns local police chief Pedro Arredondo for ‘deciding to place the lives of officers over the lives of children’The Texas public safety chief issued a blistering appraisal on Tuesday of the police response to the Uvalde shootings, calling it “an abject failure and antithetical to everything” known about how to respond to such crises.Steve McCraw was speaking to a panel of state senators investigating the attack last month at Robb elementary school by an intruder who killed 19 students and two teachers. Continue reading...

The breakthrough in a 29-year stalemate on gun reform comes after two devastating mass shootings in Texas and New YorkUS senators have announced an agreement on a bipartisan gun violence bill, marking a small but notable breakthrough on gun control in the wake of recent mass shootings.Nine days after Senate bargainers agreed to a framework proposal – and 29 years after Congress last enacted major firearms curbs – senators Chris Murphy, a Democrat and John Cornyn, a Republican, told reporters on Tuesday that a final accord on the proposal’s details had been reached. Continue reading...

Authorities said all aboard the flight, which had arrived from the Dominican Republic, were safeAn airplane caught fire after landing at Miami International airport on Tuesday, but authorities have said all passengers are safe.The fire broke out when landing gear inside the airplane collapsed during landing, NBC Miami reported. The Red Air flight had arrived from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, according to a spokesperson from the Miami-Dade aviation department. Continue reading...

In an 80-page review, the agency states missteps by its employees in setting prescribed burns led to explosive wildfireEmployees with the US Forest Service made multiple miscalculations, used inaccurate models and underestimated how dry conditions were in the south-west, causing a planned burn to reduce the threat of wildfires to explode into the largest blaze in New Mexico’s recorded history, the agency said on Tuesday.The agency quietly posted an 80-page review that details the planning missteps and the conditions on the ground as crews ignited the prescribed fire in early April. The report states officials who planned the operation underestimated the amount of timber and vegetation that was available to fuel the flames, the exceptional dry conditions and the rural villages and water supplies that would be threatened if things went awry. Continue reading...

Three Republicans testified how they resisted a relentless campaign by Trump and his allies to overturn Biden’s 2020 winRusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, wanted Donald Trump to win the 2020 election. He worked hard to elect him and, when the time came, cast his ballot for the president.What he wasn’t willing to do was cheat. Continue reading...

Two Georgia officials debunked Donald Trump's claims of a stolen election in their state when the January 6 committee resumed its hearing on Tuesday.

Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threatsIn powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.Testifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’” Continue reading...

‘Pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook,’ says Adam SchiffState election officials testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, recounting how Donald Trump and his allies pressured them to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election in the weeks leading up to the deadly Capitol attack.Trump continued his efforts even after members of his own party repeatedly told him that reversing the election results would violate state laws and the US constitution, the officials testified. Continue reading...

Former Trump lawyer acknowledged his efforts to overturn the election were based on mere ‘theories’, officials recallAttempting to overturn election results in service of Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told an Arizona official: “We’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have the evidence.”The Republican speaker of the Arizona house, Rusty Bowers, told the January 6 committee, “I don’t know if that was a gaffe. Or maybe he didn’t think through what he said. But both myself and … my counsel remember that specifically.” Continue reading...

Dog breeder who says he was being held captive by three men intentionally broke traffic laws in order to get pulled overA man in Florida who had allegedly been kidnapped and was being held hostage as he drove was able to successfully alert police officers by driving erratically.The resident of Port St Lucie, who works as a dog breeder, was rescued by a highway patrol officer, having intentionally violated traffic laws in an attempt to get police to pull him over. Continue reading...

Liberal justice delivers warning after ruling that state of Maine cannot exclude religious schools from tuition programmeThe liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor has warned that the US supreme court is dismantling the wall between church and state, after the conservative majority ruled that the state of Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition programme.In a dissent to the ruling in Carson v Makin, released on Tuesday, Sotomayor wrote: “This court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the framers fought to build. Continue reading...

As the Florida governor rises in the polls, Trump begins to disparage his former allyThe bromance between Donald Trump and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, appears to be waning as the prospect of the two extreme-right Republicans facing off for the party’s presidential nomination grows, with Trump declaring “I think I would win.”As DeSantis’s popularity among the Republican base grows nationwide – thanks in part to his regular combative appearances on Fox News and anti-liberal rhetoric – his dramatic ascent in the polls and his refusal to rule out running for president has clearly riled Trump. Continue reading...

Marilynn Malerba, lifetime chief of Mohegan Indian Tribe, will make history as treasury announces new office for tribal affairsJoe Biden on Tuesday announced his intention to appoint Marilynn Malerba, lifetime chief of the Mohegan Indian Tribe, as US treasurer, marking the first time a Native American’s signature will appear on US currency.The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, who is visiting the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota on Tuesday, also announced the creation of a new treasury office of tribal and Native affairs, which will report to the treasurer and administer tribal relations. Continue reading...

Late Show host says ‘everyone was calm’, and says detention of crew members should not be compared to US Capitol attackTalkshow host Stephen Colbert on Monday called the recent arrests of seven staffers near the US Capitol “unpleasant” but said both his employees and the police officers who detained them “were just doing their job”.“Everyone was very professional,” Colbert added during the monologue of his show Monday, four days after the arrests. “Everyone was very calm.” Continue reading...

The world is burning and France is fixated on whether women wear long sleeves to have a swim – a furore with obvious roots in the county’s deep IslamophobiaHello and welcome to the Get a Grip prize, which I just invented. The GAG award is given on an ad hoc basis to a country doing a standout job of humiliating itself on the global stage by fixating on something ridiculous while the world burns. The award honours those who seem to have lost all sense of perspective and gently urges them to try worrying about something more important.There are many contenders for the inaugural GAG award, but I have decided to give it to France. There is plenty happening in France, yet huge swathes of the populace are still exerting embarrassing amounts of energy arguing about how much flesh you need to show in order to set foot in a public pool or resort. The French are obsessed (OBSESSED!) with debating the question of appropriate swimwear and it is getting very cringe. Continue reading...

Committee also expected to investigate Trump’s pressure in crucial states to reverse election defeat. Plus Juneteenth celebrations over time

An uptick in crime during the pandemic has seen the new mayor, Eric Adams, get ‘tough on crime’ – but critics say he is ignoring the proven community methods that actually keep the city safeThe sidewalk was dotted with white party tents, music streamed through DJ Jay Five’s speakers, kids danced and men in Safe Summer shirts flipped burgers on a charcoal grill.The block party on 54th Street in Queens’ Woodside neighborhood was leading up to a long-awaited reveal. A few feet away, a red ribbon covered the door to the new violence intervention site – a center to advance community-driven public safety, through healing, conflict mediation and training. Continue reading...

The least we owe Ukraine is full support, and to do this we need a stronger NatoFor me, John Lennon’s mega-hit Imagine was always a song popular for the wrong reasons. “Imagine that the world will live as one” is the best way to end in hell.Those who cling to pacifism in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine remain caught in their own version of “imagine”. Imagine a world in which tensions are no longer resolved through armed conflicts… Europe persisted in this world of “imagine”, ignoring the brutal reality outside its borders. Now it’s the time to awaken.Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher. He’s a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London Continue reading...

The Northern Ireland protocol row shows the similarities between two former imperial powers intent on regaining lost gloryThe British government has taken the first steps to unravelling its agreement with the EU on Northern Ireland – the so-called Northern Ireland protocol. Many Europeans are baffled by this. How can the government – which not only signed this legal agreement but negotiated it “word by word, comma by comma”, to quote the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier – just tear up a binding international treaty that only came into force last year?But surprised, they are not. Not really. Because in its relationship with the EU, the UK is increasingly starting to behave like Russia – by unilaterally creating facts on the ground.Caroline de Gruyter is a Dutch author and Europe correspondent for NRC Handelsblad Continue reading...

In an ideal world, every team would have a player to get into opponents’ heads, maintain feuds and provide endless free entertainmentI have a confession to make as a Boston sports fan: I love Draymond Green.This is controversial given that Green’s main role in the Golden State Warriors’ win over the Boston Celtics in this year’s NBA finals was to do everything in his power to get under the team’s skin. The truth is that the league needs its trolls – and Green has spent his post-championship victory lap cementing his status as its alpha disruptor. Continue reading...

Twenty years after he was drafted, the former Yankees and A’s star reflects on how Michael Lewis’s famous book affected his careerThe 2002 Major League Baseball draft saw a healthy crop of future All-Stars – such as Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels and Prince Fielder – pen their first professional contracts. It also produced a misguided selection widely regarded as one of the all-time biggest busts, when the Pittsburgh Pirates took pitcher Bryan Bullington with the No 1 overall pick.But the 2002 class will forever be associated with a book that sent ripples around the sporting world. Michael Lewis’ Moneyball told the story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and his ground-breaking, analytics-based approach to recruitment during the 2002 draft and MLB season. It was turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt in 2011 and continues to shape thinking across many sports. Continue reading...

Timeline published in local news reports suggests police in Uvalde had ability to confront gunman far earlier during May attack in which 21 diedMultiple police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield were at the site of the Robb elementary school mass shooting in Texas within 19 minutes, earlier than previously known, according to a timeline in documents reviewed by local media.The information revealed by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV is to be presented to a public Texas Senate hearing in Austin on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Committee also expected to probe Trump’s pressure on officials in crucial states to corruptly reverse his election defeatThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is expected to show at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that Donald Trump and top advisers coordinated the scheme to send fake slates of electors as part of an effort to return him to the White House.The panel is expected to also examine Trump’s campaign to pressure top officials in seven crucial battleground states to corruptly reverse his defeat to Joe Biden in the weeks and months after the 2020 election. Continue reading...

Firm wants to ‘invest in innovation at faster pace’ and help clients as online grocery market growsOcado is aiming to raise £575m from investors to fund the expansion of its technology arm, which enables overseas retailers to sell groceries online. It has also agreed a new £300m credit facility with a syndicate of international banks.Ocado said it wanted the cash to “invest in innovation at a faster pace” and help its clients, which include the US supermarket chain Kroger and the French grocer Casino, to accelerate the shift to online shopping. Continue reading...

Coach Mike Walker reflects on the major winner’s relentless desire to improve and the emotions of his Brookline triumphIt is the US Open triumph with its genesis at Augusta National. Mike Walker, the coach of Matt Fitzpatrick since the golfer’s early teens, was pacing the fairways at the Masters in 2020 when a stark realisation hit home.“Matt was playing with Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas in the first two rounds,” Walker recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘It doesn’t matter how straight I can get you to hit a seven wood, it’s not going to beat their six irons.’ I remember them hitting shots into the 11th. Matt hit an unbelievable seven wood but the other two were just flicking seven irons. To get to where he wanted to go, he had to do something about it.” Continue reading...

Airlines, reeling from pilot and staff shortages and the effects of bad weather, have interrupted 19,000 flights since ThursdayThe confluence of two holidays, Father’s Day and Juneteenth, and a season of “revenge travel” continued to heap pressure on the already stretched airline industry as 4,200 additional US flights were delayed and 900 canceled on Sunday, pushing the total number of flights interrupted since Thursday to 19,000.Delta was hit hardest, with 6% of its total flights on Sunday cancelled. A further 200 flights were cancelled early Monday. Continue reading...

Delegates at biennial convention also approve platform declaring that Joe Biden was not legitimately electedThe Republican party in Texas has officially adopted a series of extreme-right positions that includes claims Joe Biden was not legitimately elected and homosexuality is “abnormal”.

Each domestic disaster is followed by a call pledging more aid to Kyiv – it’s the most expensive therapy session in historyWhat do you do when in deep trouble? Boris Johnson is having his fill of it, but does he consult his chief whip, his political aides, his secretaries or his wife? Intriguingly he turns to someone in even deeper trouble that himself, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Last Wednesday the prime minister suffered the humiliating departure of his so-called “ethics” adviser, Lord Geidt. Johnson was facing a critical meeting with northern MPs before the upcoming Wakefield byelection. It was a three-line whip: nowhere was his presence more vital to boost morale and find votes. Yet not long after the Geidt statement Johnson cancelled his ticket to Yorkshire in favour of one across Europe deep into Ukrainian territory. He clearly and desperately needed the embrace and consoling chat of his friend Zelenskiy. Ducking and weaving from Putin’s missile batteries is clearly as nothing to the cluster weaponry of a bunch of Tory backbenchers.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

After this weekend’s elections, France’s ‘Jupiterian’ president has no majority in the assembly, and no clear way forwardEmmanuel Macron likes to defy historical precedent. In 2017, he disrupted France’s political landscape by winning the presidency and upending the country’s traditional left-right divide. In April this year, he became the first French head of state to win re-election for two decades. And now he has bucked the trend again, although not in a manner that will please him: after Sunday’s elections, Macron’s centrist alliance, Ensemble, lost its parliamentary majority – a highly unusual occurrence for a president in the history of the Fifth Republic.Ensemble won 246 seats, 43 fewer than was needed for a majority. The consensus of the main French polling organisations had been that Macron’s alliance would win between 255 and 295 of the assembly’s 577 seats. Ensemble’s performance therefore came in below even the worst expectations.Mujtaba Rahman is the managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm Continue reading...

Former guerrilla fighter beat populist business tycoon Rodolfo Hernández in runoff yesterday. Plus, Kyiv residents take steps towards normality

Matt Fitzpatrick has won his first major title at the US Open. The Yorkshireman shot a two-under par final round of 68 to finish six-under for the tournament – one shot clear of the world No 1, Scottie Scheffler, and his fellow American Will Zalatoris.Afterwards, an elated Fitzpatrick said: 'It's what you grow up dreaming of. It's something I've worked so hard for, for such a long time'. Fitzpatrick won the US Amateur Championship at Brookline in 2013 and now shares a notable feat with the legendary Jack Nicklaus, having gone on to win the US Open at the same venue.

A new documentary, made with the help of the Yankees star’s family, aims to remind its audience that his skill was equal to his warmthYogi Berra took a lot of ribbing for his looks when he joined the New York Yankees in the 1940s. The Pinstripes were the premier organization in Major League Baseball, and their new backstop was told he was too ugly to be a Yankee. Yet he went on to an extraordinary career in MLB, first as a player and then as a manager, making quirky, and often incisive, observations throughout, including “It ain’t over till it’s over” (although there is some doubt whether he ever uttered that phrase). A new documentary on Berra references this “Yogi-ism” in its title – It Ain’t Over, directed by Sean Mullin.The film is a sweet tribute to Berra, who died at age 90 in 2015. It recently made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is also screening at the Nantucket Film Festival, which starts on 22 June. Berra’s granddaughter Lindsay Berra, who features in the film, praises her grandfather’s response to jokes from teammates about his appearance. Continue reading...

Party officials, prominent supporters, lawmakers and Trump took the stage at the ‘Road to Majority’ conference, but were vague on how they would ‘rescue America’“It’s the time to take this country back,” proclaimed Senator Rick Scott. “I’m here to tell you the American people are going to give a complete butt kicking to the Democrats this November!”The audience of religious conservatives clapped and whooped. No one felt that the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee was making an empty boast. Going into the midterm elections, the party has opinion polls, economic worries and history on its side. Continue reading...

The 2007 settlement I worked on aimed to deepen the peace process – the vandals now in charge of Britain don’t care about itThere is something Putinesque about the government’s framing of its Northern Ireland protocol bill. It is almost the opposite of what Boris Johnson, his man in Belfast, Brandon Lewis, and the hardline backbenchers he’s appeasing claim it to be.Leave to one side that it trashes Britain’s reputation. That it was conceived in London as a solution to the Northern Ireland Brexit conundrum. That it reneges on the withdrawal agreement Johnson and his lieutenant, David Frost, negotiated with the EU. Never mind that it breaks an international treaty the UK signed. Forget very old-fashioned notions of truth, sticking to your word, trust and obeying international law. Continue reading...