US news | The Guardian

The Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee has played hardball on Trump and his allies in hearings – and the left has shown admiration for herLiz Cheney voted for Donald Trump’s agenda 93% of the time during his presidency. The Wyoming congresswoman has an A rating from the National Rifle Association gun rights group, and she has called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood over the group’s abortion services. She also comes from a Republican political dynasty, as her father, Dick Cheney, served as vice-president under George W Bush.In short, Cheney is no Democrat. Continue reading...

Bills with benefits for low-income mothers don’t counteract bans that would lead to higher risks for maternal mortality, say expertsA number of Republican-led states that are moving to ban abortion are, at the same time, extending health insurance benefits to new mothers, professing to support “women in crisis”.As the US supreme court prepares to rule on national abortion rights, many Republican states are seeking severe abortion bans that would force many women to carry pregnancies to term, likely worsening the US maternal mortality crisis. Continue reading...

I’ve waited almost 40 years for a character like Kamala Khan. Disney’s beautiful new series finally gives women of Pakistani heritage their moment in the sunAs a geeky, bespectacled brown girl with a monobrow, I never thought I would see myself on screen. So watching Ms Marvel has been an emotional experience. I grew up in the 90s, and was a comic book geek in the days before comics were cool. The days when HMV stocked Marvel T-shirts, when Athena sold DC posters, and 13-year-old me couldn’t believe her luck when she found a Wolverine ring binder in a discount shop in Bradford.You’ll understand how deep my love is when I tell you that one of the reasons I married my husband is because he knew what an adamantium exoskeleton was, and that he unequivocally agreed to name our third son after the Ragin’ Cajun, Gambit. Continue reading...

The 27-year-old from Sheffield claimed his first major by winning a thriller at Brookline with a superb bunker shot on the 18thThe very early clubhouse leader is Guido Migliozzi. The 25-year-old Italian, who finished in a tie for fourth last year at Torrey Pines, signs for an excellent 66. That’s better than anything posted yesterday, and shows what is possible. Scottie Scheffler doesn’t seem in need of any such advice, though, as he rolls in his 15-foot birdie putt on 2, joining the leaders in short order. Hadwin meanwhile can only advance his ball from the thick fescue to lighter rough, but does extremely well to get up and down to limit the damage to bogey.-4: Scheffler (2), Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick

Treasury secretary says ‘inflation unacceptably high’ and it is Biden’s ‘top priority to bring it down’Joe Biden’s treasury secretary Janet Yellen says she expects “the economy to slow” but continued insisting that a full-blown recession is not “at all inevitable”.Yellen’s remarks on Sunday came days after the US central bank moved to sharply raise interest rates in an effort to contain soaring inflation. Continue reading...

1,000 flights cancelled Sunday after approximately 14,000 flights were cancelled or delayed on Friday and SaturdayTravelers were subjected to a new wave of flight chaos across the US on Sunday, with about 1,000 flights cancelled. The toll added to about 14,000 flights within, out of, or into the US that were cancelled or delayed on Friday and Saturday.Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta was one of the worst hit airports – the facility saw passengers stranded over the weekend as Delta cancelled or changed dozens of scheduled flights. Continue reading...

The committee’s tightly scripted production has impressed political junkies but Democrats worry many Americans are focused elsewhereDid you see episode three? The president calls his deputy a “pussy” and “wimp” for refusing to support his coup. An angry mob then goes after said deputy wanting to hang him. A legal scholar who cooked up the plan asks the president for a pardon.Thursday’s congressional hearing into the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol veered into you-couldn’t-make-it-up territory. But while political aficionados were agog, it remained less certain how many citizens were paying attention at lunchtime on a midweek workday. Continue reading...

Republican member of the Capitol attack panel also says Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly riot had ‘criminal involvement’A Republican member of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol said on Sunday that he believes Donald Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly riots amount to “seditious conspiracy” and “criminal involvement by a president”.Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger’s remarks on ABC’s This Week came after three hearings held by the House January 6 committee presented searing testimony and mounting evidence about Trump’s central role in a complex plot to overturn his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading...

US-based business would have been liable for almost £7m if it had booked all UK sales at Etsy UK, TaxWatch findsThe online marketplace Etsy paid just £128,000 in corporation tax in the UK in 2020 despite racking up sales of $195.8m (£160m) as it funnelled business through Ireland.The Brooklyn-based business would have been liable for corporation tax of almost £7m if it had booked all sales made in the UK at its local entity, Etsy UK, according to research by the campaign group TaxWatch. Continue reading...

Move comes as unionization efforts gain momentum across country, including at Amazon and StarbucksApple Store workers in Maryland have voted to join a union, becoming the tech giant’s first retail employees to join a labour-force movement as part of a wider trend across US retail, service and tech industries.Workers voted to unionise on a nearly two-to-one margin and the result, announced on Saturday by the National Labor Relations Board, provides a foothold for a budding movement among Apple retail employees who want a greater voice over wages and policies pertaining to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report Continue reading...

Shifting voter demographics and the dire consequences of leaving the EU are now clear – but are yet to prompt a rethinkIn December 2016, only six months after the Brexit referendum, there was a byelection in the constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham, Lincolnshire, part of an area where 62% of voters had backed leaving the EU. The local Tory MP had resigned over his differences with Theresa May and her government over its treatment of refugees, international aid and attempts to cut parliament out of the Brexit process – and thereby triggered a contest defined by the idea that we had to confront the EU and escape its grip as soon as possible. The Tories campaigned with the slogan “Brexit means Brexit” and the promise of “a fully independent, sovereign country”, and won over 50% of the vote, with Ukip coming a distant second.When I spent time there, what was interesting was not the rather muted battle between the parties, but a glaring generational divide, which was clear as soon as I started talking to people. At one end of the spectrum, most people over 60 were still worked up about the EU, equally vocal about a range of issues that swirled around it, and worried that Westminster might somehow snatch Brexit away. But anyone under 30 responded to questions about such things either with pro-remain opinions, or indifferent shrugs.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass asked in a famous speech in 1852: ‘What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?’ For formerly enslaved persons, Juneteenth, celebrated in the US today, was their freedom story. Today, it’s commemorated by their descendants and an entire nation.Last year, Joe Biden signed a law designating 19 June (Juneteenth, for short) as a federal holiday.In 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved persons in the Confederates states, Union major general Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, and delivered the news. Since then, Black Texans, including Opal Lee, called the ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’, have commemorated the day with parades, picnics and speeches.As Black people migrated across the country, they carried Juneteenth with them, helping to turn an event once recognized only in Black communities into a national holiday.Here’s a look at the celebrations over time.

Silence on the issue, for fear of saying the wrong thing, means the Tory dogma and narrative on Europe will go unchallengedAs I struggled to buy calamine lotion last week to treat a toddler with chickenpox, the political silence about what effect leaving the European Union is having on medicine supply chains hit hard.This experience is not unique. Whether it is businesses overwhelmed with red tape, care homes missing staff or rising food prices, the public are asking why such difficulties keep happening – and finding that MPs are avoiding giving an honest answer, let alone a solution. To fix something, you first must name it. And that means getting over the myth that talking about Europe is code for re-running referendums. Continue reading...

Western allies have the power to help extricate the country from the unfavourable conditions it is facing against Russia

Former prosecutors say January 6 hearings have delivered ‘compelling evidence that Trump committed crimes’The searing testimony and growing evidence about Donald Trump’s central role in a multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn Joe Biden’s election in 2020 presented at the House January 6 committee’s first three hearings, has increased the odds that Trump will face criminal charges, say former DoJ prosecutors and officials.The panel’s initial hearings provided a kind of legal roadmap about Trump’s multi-faceted drives – in tandem with some top lawyers and loyalists – to thwart Biden from taking office, that should benefit justice department prosecutors in their sprawling investigations into the January 6 assault on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. Continue reading...

The libel claim brought by the Brexit campaigner took its toll. But the judgment offered personal relief and hope for public interest journalismLast week, after a nearly six-month wait, I learned that I’d won the libel claim brought against me by Arron Banks, the main funder of the Leave.EU campaign. It has been a long, brutal haul and the stress over the three years since it began has been extreme. I’m not so much relieved as completely numb.I had been braced to lose and I knew exactly what would happen if I had. The headlines I would face, the accusation that I was – what my detractors have always claimed – a “conspiracist”, the social media shitstorm that would ensue. I had no doubt about how devastating it would be because every step of this litigation has felt as if it was aimed at trying to crush me. In large part, it’s succeeded. Continue reading...

The first woman to play in an MLB-affiliated league since 1994 understands interest but is busy making her way in the sportKelsie Whitmore is one of three figures on the baseball diamond at the Staten Island Community Park. The stands of the ballpark are empty, give or take a few hotdog sellers opening their kiosks in the concourses. Her coach, Nelson Figueroa, is hitting balls at her, which she waits on before reading the angle it will arrive, motioning towards the ball, then receiving it in her mitt with her left hand and throwing back with her right.Next to her, a girl is watching and then doing the same. She is much smaller than Whitmore. Her throws do not comfortingly thud back into Figueroa’s mitt like Whitmore’s do, but die halfway before bouncing back along the ground. She looks towards Whitmore after each, who nods, shadows the action and then turns to receive. Continue reading...

The socialite’s defense team seek a reduced sentence by depicting a woman made vulnerable to Epstein by a domineering fatherWhen Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial neared its end, the British socialite’s lawyers had their work cut out for them. For weeks, prosecutors had painted Maxwell as a member of the elite who carried out unspeakable acts to maintain her charmed life with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.They presented abundant evidence that Maxwell lured girls, some just 14 years old, into Epstein’s orbit for him to sexually abuse – while carrying herself as an untouchable “lady of the house”. In the prosecution’s telling, Maxwell didn’t just do bad things: she was gleefully committed to doing them. Continue reading...

The sprawling saga of prominent local family took an important step this week – what next for Alex Murdaugh?It is more than a year since the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, the wife and son of Alex Murdaugh, the jailed South Carolina lawyer making headlines via a complex embezzlement case as hard to navigate as the state’s low country swamp.The story has captured the imagination of much of America as a true crime murder mystery that appears to mix violent shootings and other deaths with financial shenanigans – all served up with a hefty dose of southern Gothic drama. Continue reading...

The conservative commentariat could not be more wrong in dismissing global heating as a concern of only the ‘woke elite’“What do you mean, ‘why am I working in this heat?’ If I don’t work, we will die of hunger.”That was how Shiv Kumar Mandal, a Delhi rickshaw driver, explained why he continued to transport passengers during a prolonged and horrific temperature spike that experts attribute to global heating. Continue reading...

Children as young as six months will be able to get shots from either Pfizer or Moderna after Friday’s FDA approvalChildren as young as six months old, through age five, will be able to get the US’s first Covid-19 vaccines approved for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.The development came after final sign-off on Saturday from Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Continue reading...

DP World Tour is expected to prevent LIV Golf players such as Phil Mickelson from playing the Scottish Open in JulyThe latest move in golf’s epic power struggle is likely to see those rebels who have committed to the LIV Series prevented from playing in the Scottish Open. Although still to be completely finalised, the sanction is among those expected to be revealed by the DP World, formerly European, Tour in the coming days.The Scottish Open, worth $8m (£6.5m) in prize money, ordinarily forms a key part of Open buildup for scores of players and is a marquee event on the DP World Tour. Entries close on Thursday. Continue reading...

President braked to speak with a crowd and tipped over, saying the ‘toe cages’ on his bike got caughtJoe Biden fell off a bicycle near his Delaware beach home Saturday morning, moments after greeting reporters with a wave and a cheery “Good morning!”The president was near the end of a bike ride with the first lady, Dr Jill Biden, near Rehoboth Beach where the couple are celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary. Continue reading...

The tech giant seems to be running scared over an engineer’s claim that its language model has feelingsHumans are, as someone once observed, “language animals”, implying that the ability to communicate linguistically is unique to humans. Over the last decade, machine-learning researchers, most of whom work for the big tech companies, have been labouring to disprove that proposition. In 2020, for example, OpenAI, an artificial intelligence lab based in San Francisco, unveiled GPT-3, the third iteration of a huge language model that used “deep learning” technology to create a machine that can compose plausible English text.Opinions vary about the plausibility of its output but some people regard GPT-3 as a genuine milestone in the evolution of artificial intelligence; it had passed the eponymous test proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 to assess the ability of a machine to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Sceptics pointed out that training the machine had taken unconscionable amounts of computing power (with its attendant environmental footprint) to make a machine that had the communication capabilities of a youngish human. One group of critics memorably described these language machines as “stochastic parrots” (stochastic is a mathematical term for random processes). Continue reading...

Unidentified officers said they feared hitting children outside the school, chief deputy tells the New York TimesTwo Uvalde city police officers passed up a fleeting chance to shoot a gunman outside Robb elementary school before he went on to kill 21 people inside the school, a senior sheriff’s deputy told the New York Times.That would mean a second missed opportunity for officers to stop Salvador Ramos before the 24 May attack inside the school that killed 19 children and two teachers. Officials said that a school district police drove past Ramos without seeing him in the school parking lot. Continue reading...

Lesbian lip-locking in Pixar’s Lightyear has produced a spate of pearls-clutching but it’s one of the least weird clinches in the Disney canonHide your kids! Hide your wife! I regret to inform you all that there is a dangerous new Disney-Pixar movie out that is intent on destroying your children’s innocence, turning your wife gay, and accelerating the already-rapid state of moral collapse in western civilization. Which is a lot for one 100-minute movie to do, I know, but the Pixar people are pretty crafty. Continue reading...

Police say the man fatally shot people attending monthly dinner at Episcopal church in Birmingham suburbA 70-year-old man has shot and killed three people at a church potluck dinner in Alabama.Police said the man, who had previously attended services at St Stephen’s Episcopal church, pulled out a handgun and fatally shot three of the participants, one of whom died in his wife’s arms. Continue reading...

Newly-crowned NBA champions Golden State Warriors returned to San Francisco after beating the Boston Celtics 103-90 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Scores of fans lined the perimeter fence around San Francisco International Airport to welcome the Warriors home as they paraded the trophy in front of them.'We weren't really sure when the season started if we could do it,' said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. 'This one was the most unlikely championship.'

Easing inflation will disproportionately harm working-class people, who will reap none of the benefits down the roadFederal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell recently made it clear that the Federal Reserve’s remedies to combat runaway inflation “will cause some pain”. Powell’s words of caution – references to the unemployment and scarcity that will follow increased interest rates – were echoed elsewhere by prominent economists. Some used Powell’s same euphemism: there will be pain.While the narratives from Powell and others imply that our shared short-term sacrifice will produce shared long-term gains, their careful framing is intended to mask a deeply unpleasant reality: neither the sacrifice nor the gains are shared. Easing inflation will disproportionately harm working-class people, and these same people will reap none of the benefits down the road.Clara E Mattei is assistant professor of economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Her book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism, will be published in November from the University of Chicago Press Continue reading...

Anti-trans politics spurred by lawmakers and far-right news outlets has renewed fears over community’s safetyIn Idaho, police recently found 31 members of a white supremacist group packed into the back of a U-Haul truck, apparently on their way to an LGBTQ+ pride event in the town of Coeur d’Alene.Further west, a crew of Proud Boys interrupted a drag queen event in California, intimidating parents and children and screaming transphobic and homophobic insults. In Texas, a state plagued by anti-trans politics, a group of rightwingers screamed abuse and threatened attendees at an adults-only drag brunch. Continue reading...

Clinic employees say more staffing and resources will be needed to manage an expected influx of out-of-state patientsAs reproductive rights groups brace for an anticipated US supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade and strike down federal abortion rights in America, workers at these groups are organizing to unionize ahead of the expected legal changes.About 400 workers at 28 clinics in five states in the midwest – Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, announced in late May 2022 their intent to unionize with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. They have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board after a majority of workers signed authorization cards and their request for voluntary recognition was turned down by management. Continue reading...

As life returns to ‘normal’, we may have expected these key relationships to spring back too. But it’s not so simpleDuring the first lockdown, I had a call with the same group of three female friends every Wednesday evening. We would spend an hour or two chatting over video, and however doomful the day had been, the evening would be brighter and sillier. It’s no exaggeration to say that those conversations kept me going – a lifeline when it felt that so many of our personal relationships were drifting – and I didn’t skip a single one. We four are now closer than ever. Yet, there are other friends I haven’t seen and have hardly spoken to since March 2020.Perhaps you had a similar experience during a time when many of us felt forced to examine the shape of our friendships: whom you could face speaking to, and who inspired little more than a sense of duty to keep in touch, if you did at all. We got used to prioritising our pals, first virtually and later seeing a small number in person when the rules allowed. Many of our friendships were simply “parked” – not ended, but not maintained. We pressed pause, assuming those friends would be equally happy to pick things back up when the pandemic storm had passed.Claire Cohen is a journalist and the author of BFF? The Truth About Female Friendship Continue reading...

Artur Beterbiev’s march toward light heavyweight title unification continues on Saturday in New York, but his ties to a Chechen dictator facing US sanctions should not be ignoredOn Saturday night, IBF and WBC champion Artur Beterbiev will attempt to further unify the light heavyweight championship when he faces WBO titleholder Joe Smith Jr at Madison Square Garden.However, when Beterbiev sets foot inside the squared circle in New York City, he will do so with the shadow of a murderous tyrant looming over him. Continue reading...

The NBA postseason remains an eight-week psychodrama of moments, memes and memories unlike anything else in sport. Our correspondent looks back at her 20 biggest takeawaysIf I had to choose one overarching theme of these playoffs, it would be this sentiment. Young stars like Luka Dončić, Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards and others showed that they aren’t even a little bit afraid of the moment, and absolutely have what it takes to lead their teams to future playoff success. And as for the aging superstars standing in their way? Take it from me and my retinol cream: father time comes for us all. Continue reading...

The former president used donations to a nonexistent legal defense fund for his hotels and the January 6 Ellipse rallyAt 8.38pm on 4 November 2021, the day after America had gone to the polls to elect its next president, Donald Trump sent out a message to hundreds of thousands of his supporters from the email address contact@victory.donaldtrump.com.By then it was already clear that not only was victory eluding Trump, but that he was heading towards defeat. A couple of hours earlier, Associated Press had called Michigan and Wisconsin for Joe Biden, putting the Democratic candidate just six electoral college votes away from the White House. Continue reading...

As world heats up, ‘historic’ weather events will increase and overlap, testing the limits of nation’s resiliency and recoverySummer in the American west is off to an explosive start, with extreme weather events ravaging multiple states in recent weeks. In Montana, historic flooding devastated communities and infrastructure in and around Yellowstone national park and forced a rare closure. Further south, reservoirs sank to new lows, triple-digit heatwaves left millions sweltering, and wildfires ripped through Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and California.These layered disasters offer a glimpse of what’s to come. As temperatures continue to climb, extreme events will not just increase – they’re more likely to overlap, causing more calamity and testing the limits of the nation’s resilience and recovery. Continue reading...

A video of Alexander Drueke expressing his love for his mother has not yet been validated by the state departmentThe mother of an American military veteran who volunteered to defend Ukraine from Russian invaders and was reportedly captured recently said a video of him expressing his love for her gave her “great hope”.Lois Drueke told the Guardian on Friday that she believes the video of her son Alexander Drueke – distributed by Russian state media – is authentic because of a phrase he uttered in the clip with his distinctively deep voice. Continue reading...

Former president attacks ‘disgraceful performance of the unselect committee’ and denies he bullied Mike Pence to overturn electionDonald Trump has launched an angry verbal attack on the congressional January 6 hearings, dismissing them as a “rigged deal” and “one-sided witch-hunt” that are “getting terrible ratings”.In his first public appearance since the televised sessions began, Trump on Friday claimed without evidence that the House of Representatives panel has made its case using doctored videos and deceptively edited witness depositions. Continue reading...

David Wenwei Chou, 68, is accused of opening fire on a gathering at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church and killing one personAuthorities in California have added hate crime allegations to attempted murder charges filed against a 68-year-old who opened fire at a Taiwanese American church luncheon last month, killing one person and wounding five.The gunman, David Wenwei Chou, is accused of attacking a gathering of members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods in May. A 52-year-old doctor who took his mother to the event was killed. Continue reading...