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Subpoenas for information on Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman’s roles in the fake electors scheme were issued in AprilLegal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with a key criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Biden’s election, after the department wrote to the House panel probing the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.While it’s unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme. Continue reading...

Governor Ron DeSantis’ map dismantles the state’s largely Black fifth congressional district into four new onesFlorida’s supreme court has declined to hear a request to rule on whether the state’s new congressional map was unconstitutional, a decision that means it will probably be more difficult for Black voters in north Florida to elect their preferred candidates to represent them.The state’s congressional map, drawn by Governor Ron DeSantis, dismantles the state’s fifth congressional district, which stretches from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and is 46% Black. Continue reading...

Kissinger is wrong: surrendering territory to appease Russia would have terrible consequences for the whole world

Right-wing pundits have tried to claim the sequel’s box office success as their success but there are enough examples to show that this isn’t the caseTop Gun: Maverick is poised to continue its epic box office run this weekend; with no major competition at US multiplexes, it’ll soon zoom past the $250m mark in domestic grosses alone, with $400m or more still well within its sights. It could wind up the highest-grossing movie of the year, at least until Avatar 2 drops. If you read the analysis of certain right-leaning pundits, Top Gun: Maverick’s triumph is their triumph, and a rebuke of “woke culture” – by which is meant, movies and TV shows that do not exclusively feature white men in their leading roles.It is indeed true that Top Gun: Maverick does not go out of its way to celebrate inclusion and diversity in the sometimes-cloying, corporate way most closely associated with various Disney properties. (If there’s no “first gay character in Top Gun” that we know of, that’s OK; Disney will continue assigning similar designations to minor and/or desexualized characters for years to come!) It stars Tom Cruise, reprising his role as white man extraordinaire Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, fighter-pilot hero of the first Top Gun, training a new generation of recruits for a suspiciously Star Wars-like mission behind unspecified enemy lines. Many, though not all, of the trainees who get the most screen time are also white men. Continue reading...

A Republican congressman used a House hearing on gun control in the aftermath of multiple mass shootings in the US to show off his own collection of guns and brandish them via remote video link. Greg Steube, a representative from Florida, displayed a succession of firearms he says would be banned under a bill being debated in response to the shootings. 'Here’s a gun I carry every single day to protect myself, my family, my wife, my home,' he said while holding a firearm. When Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, interjected and said she hoped the gun was not loaded, Steube replied: 'I’m in my house, I can do whatever I want with my guns'. Continue reading...

The women were shot dead outside a church in Ames moments after Joe Biden urged Congress to ban assault weaponsA man has shot and killed two women in the parking lot of a church in Iowa and then turned the gun on himself, police said, adding three more dead to the national toll from a series of recent shootings that have rocked the United States.The Iowa shooting took place on Thursday shortly after president Joe Biden delivered a major address on gun violence in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, in recent weeks. Continue reading...

In a primetime gun control address, the president pushed stronger background checks and repealing gun manufacturer immunityJoe Biden has urged for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines after a series of mass shootings that stunned America, demanding: “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?”In a primetime White House address on Thursday, with rows of candles behind him, the US president also called on Congress to strengthen background checks on gun buyers and repeal legal immunity for gun manufacturers. Continue reading...

This marks the president’s departure from his campaign promise of isolating Riyadh over the murder of columnist Jamal KhashoggiJoe Biden will reportedly visit Riyadh later this month and meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, abandoning a campaign pledge to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah” for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.The Riyadh trip, first reported by the Washington Post and New York Times, suggests Biden has prioritized his need to bring oil prices down and thereby punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, over his stand on human rights. The visit will be added on to an already planned trip to Israel, Germany and Spain. Continue reading...

Brian Hernandez, 21, charged with criminal mischief after allegedly breaking into Dallas Museum of Art and went on rampageA man broke into the Dallas Museum of Art and caused more than $5m in damage, including smashing three ancient Greek artefacts before he was arrested, police said.Brian Hernandez, 21, is charged with criminal mischief of more than or equal to $300,000, which is punishable by five years to life in prison. He was booked on Thursday into the Dallas county jail with bond set at $100,000. Jail records list no attorney for Hernandez. Continue reading...

There were plenty of empty seats for Wednesday’s friendly with Morocco. It’s no surprise with the cost of living on the rise and tickets starting at $60Brilliant with the ball at his feet. With a microphone in his face? Not so much.Christian Pulisic’s precise control and adroit pass to set up the opening USMNT goal in Wednesday’s 3-0 win over Morocco was a highlight on an excellent night for Gregg Berhalter’s side. But the forward ensured headlines wouldn’t solely focus on the action when he criticized the below-capacity attendance in a post-match interview with ESPN. Continue reading...

Greg Steube displays succession of firearms he says would be banned under bill being debated in response to mass shootingsA Republican congressman used a House hearing on gun control in the aftermath of multiple mass shootings to show off his own collection of guns and brandishing them via remote video link.A Democrat, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, interjected and said: “I hope the gun is not loaded.” Continue reading...

The police chief of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Wendell Franklin, says the gunman who killed four people at a hospital targeted the surgeon who treated him. The shooter killed Dr Preston Phillips, Dr Stephanie J Husen, Amanda Green, a receptionist, and William Love, a patient. Franklin said the suspect, identified as Michael Louis, had back surgery on 19 May and after being released from hospital on 24 May complained to his surgeon, Dr Phillips, about pain

Roland Gutierrez said pleas for help from inside Robb elementary did not make their way to the school district police chiefThe commander at the scene of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was not informed of 911 calls from students trapped inside as the massacre unfolded, a Texas state senator said.Roland Gutierrez said pleas for help from inside Robb elementary on 24 May did not make their way to the school district police chief, Pete Arredondo. The Democratic senator called it a “system failure” that calls to city police were not communicated to Arredondo. Continue reading...

Authorities received tip that the teenager was recruiting students for mass violence, in one of many recent threats against US schoolsA teenage boy was arrested in Berkeley, California, on Monday after police received a tip he was “recruiting other high school students to participate in a mass shooting and/or bombing” at a local high school.When authorities searched the teen’s home they found “parts to explosives and assault rifles, several knives and electronic devices that could be used to create additional weapons”, police said.This article was amended on 2 June 2022, to correctly quote a police statement saying that “parts to” explosives and assault rifles had been found. Continue reading...

What we are experiencing right now is the pandemic’s social deathAfter a mass trauma comes the mass forgetting. No one really wants to talk about Covid any more, even though it tore through every dimension of our lives. But now it’s as if the disruption was so great, weird, terrible and abrupt, that we cannot incorporate it into our present and future narratives.And so we have done a remarkable and largely collective job of acting like the pandemic is over, and – even more – of trying to forget that it even happened. Continue reading...

Chesa Boudin says effort to oust him, backed by wealthy donors, is part of ‘Republican-led playbook’Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s chief prosecutor, elected on an agenda of tackling mass incarceration, is facing a recall election that could have ramifications for criminal justice reform efforts across the US.A former public defender and the son of two leftist Weather Underground radicals who spent decades in prison, Boudin pledged to undo the harms of racism in the system, hold police accountable for misconduct and end the criminalization of poverty. After his election in November 2019, he became one of the most prominent leaders in a growing movement to elect progressive prosecutors. Continue reading...

Tulsa police chief releases names of the four victims, which include two doctors, a receptionist and a patientThe victims of the shooting at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were named on Thursday morning. Dr Preston Phillips, Dr Stephanie J Husen, Amanda Green and William Love died when a man carrying a rifle and a handgun entered their building on a hospital campus on Wednesday, there to carry out the latest in a series of US mass shootings.The spate of gun violence has included the killing of 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school and the killing of 10 people in a racist attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Democrats have amplified their calls for greater restrictions on guns. Continue reading...

Johnny Depp’s legal team left the jury with a stark choice: believe it all, or believe nothing. Life’s not that simpleBelieve everything, or nothing. Either every single word this woman says must be true, or nothing is. Having raked for weeks through the bitter ashes of Johnny Depp’s brief and frequently ugly marriage to Amber Heard, his counsel, Camille Vasquez, offered the jury hearing the mutual defamation suits only that stark, binary choice: no picking and choosing, no room for ambiguity or complexity or imperfect victims. Either Heard had endured something “truly horrific”, or she was capable of saying absolutely anything. It was a false dichotomy but a ruthless strategy for chiselling away at any lingering doubts in a trial where the two sides’ expert witnesses had repeatedly contradicted each other. And, seemingly, it worked.On Wednesday the jury of five men and two women reached their bleak conclusion, ruling that the woman we all saw sobbing in the witness box had lied about being a victim of domestic and sexual violence. The jurors had seen mobile phone footage of an enraged Depp smashing his way round the kitchen, and read the texts he sent a friend about wanting to drown or burn Heard and “fuck her burnt corpse”. They watched her break down describing an alleged sexual assault. And seemingly, they believed nothing rather than everything.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Lawyer must serve further two and a half years after completing two-and-a-half-year sentence in another fraud caseThe lawyer Michael Avenatti was sentenced on Thursday to four years in prison for cheating his client Stormy Daniels, the adult film-maker and actor who catapulted him to fame, of hundreds of thousands of dollars in book proceeds.The California lawyer, currently incarcerated, learned his fate in Manhattan federal court, where Judge Jesse M Furman said the sentence will mean Avenatti will spend another two and a half years in prison on top of the two and a half years he is already serving after another fraud conviction. Continue reading...

But whatever our vision of the future, there is no doubting public admiration and affection for the Queen herselfAs the Sex Pistols said back in 1977, the year of the silver jubilee, never mind the bollocks. It really doesn’t matter what it’s for – just seize the moment: an extra bank holiday for this miserable country, which has the fewest national holidays in Europe and the second fewest in the world. England and Wales have just eight, Northern Ireland 10, Scotland 11; by contrast Europe averages 12.8, and Japan has 17.Enjoy a release from England’s grindstone working culture, whipped on by cabinet luminaries Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Dominic Raab, who in 2012 damned British workers as “the worst idlers in the world” in their obnoxious book Britannia Unchained.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Ex-president reacts to acquittal of Michael Sussmann on charge of lying to FBI about possible Russia linkDonald Trump will “fight even harder” on the road to a possible White House run in 2024 because of the acquittal of a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign on a charge of lying to the FBI.“If anything, it makes me want to fight even harder,” the former president told Fox News Digital. “If we don’t win, our country is ruined. We have bad borders, bad elections and a court system not functioning properly.” Continue reading...

It’s a mark of how we don’t share any more, even if the idea of using a receiver someone else has just used now seems barbaricA frequent question asked by my children – “When can I get a phone?” – was broadened, recently, and with one eye on strategy, to “When did you get a phone?” Ha! Massive tactical error. My children are seven, and prior to last week had no idea what that question entailed. “When did I get a phone?” I said slowly, relishing the lightning rush of memory and the Ancient Mariner mode about to kick in. “We didn’t have phones at your age. Or at high school. Or at college.” Or even, I realised with a shock, remembering a call I made from a booth in Edinburgh in 1998, in my early 20s, post-college. “I didn’t get a phone until I was 23 and in London.” Owl-eyed, they deliberated. Gather close, children, and let me tell you about pay phones.The red phone boxes of Britain are rightly beloved, but even in the US, where pay phones are either unlovely booths in Perspex or banked at half-height in metal, the news last week that “the final New York City public pay telephone” was being removed triggered a rush of nostalgic coverage. At the corner of Seventh Avenue and 50th Street, people gathered to watch. The New York Times sent a reporter. Even 20 years ago, in the early 2000s, there were 30,000 registered pay phones in the city and if that number hasn’t quite dwindled to zero – four public pay phones will remain, in perpetuity, on the Upper West Side, I guess as some kind of time capsule – clearly we’ve reached an ending of sorts. As the last two booths of Times Square were lifted on to a truck, the crowd took photos on the technology that killed them. Continue reading...

But no one should be applauding this verdict – not even people who believe that Heard is a liar and Depp never laid a finger on herNo matter what you think about the saga of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – whether you believe their relationship was mutually abusive; whether you think Heard lied on the stand; whether believe Depp is wholly innocent of abuse – the verdict in Depp’s defamation suit against Heard should outrage and appall you.A Virginia jury found that Heard defamed Depp in an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post, and that Depp’s lawyer defamed Heard when he called her claims of abuse a “hoax.” But the jury refused to find that Depp himself had defamed Heard, and it awarded him much more money than it awarded her, essentially siding with Depp.Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind

The perverse effects of sanctions means rising fuel and food costs for the rest of the world – and fears are growing of a humanitarian catastrophe. Sooner or later, a deal must be madeIt is now three months since the west launched its economic war against Russia, and it is not going according to plan. On the contrary, things are going very badly indeed.Sanctions were imposed on Vladimir Putin not because they were considered the best option, but because they were better than the other two available courses of action: doing nothing or getting involved militarily. Continue reading...

Analysis: the long-delayed US deal offers just four systems that will take weeks to become operational, suggesting concerns about imposing a heavy defeat on PutinThe US decision to supply Ukraine with high-precision multiple launch rocket systems was marked with some fanfare in Washington including a rare newspaper commentary by Joe Biden himself.The Himars (High mobility artillery rocket system) and the ammunition that Washington is sending with them, will allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets nearly 80km away with high accuracy. That’s twice the range of the US howitzers they have now, and about the same as the most powerful Russian rocket systems. US officials suggested they would help turn the withering artillery duel underway in the Donbas into a fairer fight. Continue reading...

Playgrounds at about 300 schools have been renovated, benefiting students but also addressing the climate crisis

The company managing Presley’s estate sends cease and desist letters to prevent unlicensed use of his name and ‘likeness’The licensing company that controls the Elvis Presley name and image is ordering wedding chapel operators in Las Vegas to stop using Elvis in themed ceremonies, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.Authentic Brands Group sent cease-and-desist letters in early May to multiple chapels, which are expected to be compliant by now. But with Elvis so closely tied to the Vegas wedding industry, some say the move could damage business. Continue reading...

Third largest bank in the US has faced a series of scandals, from fake accounts to mass overtime pay violationsWorkers at Wells Fargo, the third largest bank in the US, are pushing to organize a union across the bank’s workforce with Wells Fargo Workers United, a campaign with the Committee for Better Banks, which successfully won the first union contract in the banking industry in 40 years at Beneficial Bank in 2021.Wells Fargo has faced a series of scandals in recent years, from the fake account scandal in 2016 exposed by whistleblowers with the Committee for Better Banks, to mortgage and auto loan abuses, adding on products to customer accounts without their knowledge, a lawsuit filed this year alleging mass overtime pay violations and, according to a recent report, the bank has used fake interviews to increase records of the bank’s diversity efforts. Continue reading...

Fifty-seven channels and nothing on? The splintering of French Open coverage in the United States has left many fans lostOn Tuesday night in Paris, in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic contested yet another epic contest in their immortal rivalry. It was a thrilling affair full of ferocious offensive firepower and jaw-dropping defensive escapes with Nadal emerging as the victor in four grueling sets, making the Spaniard a heavy favorite to claim his 14th French Open title.This current generation of tennis fans is perhaps the most spoiled, entitled lot of followers of any sport ever, having been gifted the remarkable array of matches between Nadal, Djokovic and, of course, Roger Federer. For nearly 20 years whenever one of them is playing in a major tournament, it’s been appointment viewing. Continue reading...

Conflict and Covid make these troubling times, but national leaders must cooperate and take action nowAt the end of February this year, the world’s governments signed on to a statement that was startling in its strength and clarity. “The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and planetary health,” reads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. “Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.’”You might think that political leaders could have no higher priority than securing a “liveable and sustainable future”. Is that not what all of us, in every country, need and want for ourselves and for future generations? It is true that other issues are causing grave concern in many societies: governments worldwide are tackling poverty and hunger, wars and civil conflicts, the rising cost of food and energy, health systems and economies crippled by Covid-19.Christiana Figueres was executive secretary of UNFCCC from 2010 to 2016Yvo de Boer was executive secretary of UNFCCC from 2006 to 2010Michael Zammit Cutajar was executive secretary of UNFCCC from 1991 to 2002 Continue reading...

Boston or Golden State? Our writers predict the winner, key players and dark horses before the championship tiltIf Golden State play Warriors Basketball™ (the ball flies around like a hot potato, everyone eats), they can win this series pretty handily. They also have the luxury of a potential Steph Curry or Klay Thompson supernova on any given night, which is helpful. But if they play their brand of basketball, they don’t necessarily need one. CDL Continue reading...

I won’t be celebrating this weekend, but hats off to the royal family for knowing how to get Britain on board: through consumption and cheap boozeAs the nation converts itself into a gigantic royal theme park for the platinum jubilee, I’m busy batting away casting calls for me to play bogeyman on live TV. Producers of right-leaning shows hope I might come on air and perform some on-demand Queen-bashing. “Would you be interested in debating whether flags are racist,” one asked, “since Twitter users have compared the display of flags throughout the nation to Nazi Germany in the 1930s?”No doubt they will find someone else willing to play the villain. Personally, I find witnessing a platinum jubilee most educational, as it is an absolute masterclass in branding. You see it in every shop: from Heinz salad cream bottles (rebranded “Salad Queen” for the occasion) to lipstick (Estée Lauder’s “Queen for the Day”) to crisps (Walker’s Sensations Thai sweet chilli flavour, jubilee edition) and even toys (Aldi is bringing back a Kevin the Carrot stuffed toy dressed as Her Majesty). Those working in marketing for other brands shouldn’t be too hard on themselves, it’s not exactly a level playing field when it comes to the British Monarchy – no other brand has its own press corps, which generally regards its role as one of sycophancy. Continue reading...

Authorities say the shooter is also dead, apparently from a self-inflicted wound, with several others injuredFour people were killed in a shooting at a Tulsa medical building on Wednesday, according to a police captain who described a “catastrophic scene”.Eric Dalgleish, deputy chief of the Tulsa police department, confirmed that four people were dead, not including the shooter, who apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Continue reading...

Fagan, who has been second-in-command at the coast guard, will serve as the 27th commandantAdm Linda L Fagan will be the first woman to lead a branch of the US armed forces, serving as the 27th commandant of the US coast guard.Fagan will lead the coast guard after being sworn into the position on Wednesday, reported the Associated Press. Continue reading...

The backlash to #Me Too has long been under way. Now it’s hereIn text messages to friends, Johnny Depp fantasized about murdering his then-wife, the actress Amber Heard. “I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead,” Depp wrote. In other texts, he disparaged his wife’s body in luridly misogynist terms. “Mushy pointless dangling overused floppy fish market,” he called her.The texts became public as part of Depp’s defamation suit against Heard, now at trial in a Virginia court. Ostensibly, Depp is suing over a 2018 article that Heard published in the Washington Post, titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath.” In the piece, the actress writes, “Two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article does not mention Depp, but his lawyers say that the piece was about him – and was defamatory. For those 11 words, Depp is seeking $50m.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Pacific leaders have sent a strong message that countries who want to partner with them must treat them with respect and take action on climate changeChinese foreign minister Wang Yi is nearing the end of a marathon tour of eight Pacific states. By Saturday, he will have visited Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste.While Wang will come away with multiple bilateral economic and development agreements, he will not return to China with the big prize – a comprehensive security treaty, which would have seen a reconfiguration of the political landscape in the Pacific, which 10 Pacific states declined to sign at a virtual meeting on Monday. Continue reading...