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Order was issued against the city of Sacramento after advocates called out the municipality for violating its own orderAmid a heatwave that is sweeping through parts of the American west, a federal judge in California has placed a temporary ban on sweeps of homeless encampments.US district court judge Troy L Nunley issued the order against the city of Sacramento on 3 August, after advocates called out the municipality for violating its own order by sweeping an encampment during a time of excessive heat, which is anything over 90F. Continue reading...

Ex-president claimed that writer defamed him when saying he raped her, but judge said term is commonly used and understood' in contextDonald Trump suffered another legal reversal on Monday, losing his counterclaim for defamation against E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and fined $5m, and who continues to pursue a separate defamation case against him.Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were substantially true". Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll.Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

Mayor Eric Adams plans to house as many as 2,000 adults seeking asylum, in tent city where center opened and then closed last yearNew York City's mayor, Eric Adams, announced a plan Monday to house as many as 2,000 migrants on an island in the East River where a migrant center was set up last year and then taken down weeks later.The state will reimburse the city for the cost of operating a tent city for adult migrants on Randalls Island, Adams said. Continue reading...

Bear was not, as initially thought, solely responsible for all instances of property damage - there are other Hanks'A notorious, extremely food-habituated" 500lb female black bear known as Hank the Tank has been detained in the Lake Tahoe area of California more than a year after the wildlife equivalent of an APB was issued by the state's wildlife authorities.Hank, who was initially misgendered as a male, was matched by DNA to more than 21 home break-ins and other instances of property damage in the Lake Tahoe region since 2022. She was safely immobilized" by tranquilizer dart and apprehended Friday morning, according to state officials, and will now be moved to a sanctuary in southern Colorado. Continue reading...

Tou Thao sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for holding crowds back as other officers restrained George FloydA former Minneapolis police officer convicted in state court for his role in the killing of George Floyd was sentenced on Monday to four years and nine months in state prison even as he continued to deny any role in Floyd's death.Tou Thao, who had held crowds back as other officers restrained Floyd, was found guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter by a jury in May. He had claimed that he merely served as a human traffic cone" during the deadly encounter. Continue reading...

In the US, gun purchases by Latinos have surged in recent years - including among self-described progressives. Some are anxious about being armed but feel they have little choiceOn a crisp Sunday afternoon in Royse City, Texas, 32-year-old Cesar Hurtado unzipped a hardshell case to reveal a custom-built AR-15-style rifle in his living room. Emblazoned on the side of the gun is the tagline no war, no gods, no masters".Hurtado's interest in firearms started with hunting, but after the 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso that targeted Latinos, Hurtado felt he had to embrace firearms for his own protection. For white gun owners, they feel they have a right to a gun," Hurtado said, but for Latino gun owners, it's a matter of survival and safety." Continue reading...

Florida Republican governor admits Biden won as Trump leads DeSantis by more than 30 points in most polling averagesOf course" Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Ron DeSantis said in an interview broadcast Monday - after being pressed on the issue.Appearing on NBC, the Florida governor and nearest challenger to Trump for the nomination in 2024 was asked: Yes or no - did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?" Continue reading...

Trump antagonist and former House speaker also says classified documents and 2020 election interference charges are exquisite'Indictments of Donald Trump regarding his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of classified information are exquisite ... beautiful and intricate", the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.The indictments against the president are exquisite," Pelosi, 83 and a regular antagonist of the 77-year-old former president, told New York magazine in an interview published on Monday. Continue reading...

The World Cup champion's career on the sporting stage is drawing to a close. But she was always more complex that many would have us believeThe sun had barely risen over half of the United States on Sunday when a wave of schadenfreude swept the nation like an August heatwave.On the other side of the world, the mighty US women's soccer team had crashed out of the World Cup. For many Americans, this was sad news. But in a country still in the throes of the Great Polarization, many people who would call themselves patriotic delighted, with no apparent awareness of irony, in an American defeat. Continue reading...

Charles Gregory rescued by US Coast Guard after enduring jellyfish stings as sinking boat filled with waterA Florida man survived after being stranded at sea for more than 24 hours while enduring a blazing sun and stings from jellyfish as his sinking boat filled with water.Charles Gregory, 25, left for a for a fishing trip off the coast of St Augustine, Florida on Friday when his 12ft jon boat became partially submerged. Continue reading...

Ex-president's open criticism of team started in 2019, when Megan Rapinoe said she wouldn't visit White House after winningLess than 24 hours after the US women's national team suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of their longtime nemesis Sweden in the second round of the 2023 Women's World Cup, Donald Trump gloated about the team's elimination on social media.The former president, a longtime vocal critic of the team, specifically Megan Rapinoe, a blue-haired talisman and outspoken LGBTQ+ advocate who missed a crucial penalty during the final moments of the game, said that the team's loss is fully emblematic of what is happening to our great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden". Continue reading...

Fight appeared to start when a worker objected to a pontoon boat preventing a larger river boat from docking, and was attacked by a group of white menA dramatic brawl on the Montgomery, Alabama, riverfront pitted people standing up for a Black riverboat worker against a group of white people who began beating him for telling them to move their illegally parked pontoon.The Saturday night fight, which was captured in multiple videos posted to social media, appeared to unfold largely along racial lines. And many social media users celebrated footage of the riverfront dust-up, which showed the white assailants get the tables turned on them by Black people who rushed to the riverboat worker's aid. Continue reading...

Mary MacCarthy, who is white, was accused of human trafficking when traveling to a funeral with her biracial daughterA white mother who was accused of human trafficking by a Southwest Airlines employee because the woman was traveling with her biracial daughter has filed a lawsuit accusing the company of racial discrimination.Mary MacCarthy was traveling with her 10-year-old daughter on 22 October 2021 on a Southwest flight from California to Denver to attend a funeral, according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in Colorado. Continue reading...

The former president continues to threaten witnesses despite warnings not to violate conditions of releaseAt Donald Trump's arraignment last Thursday for trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election, magistrate judge Moxila A Upadhyaya warned him that he could be taken into custody if he violated the conditions of his release, including attempting to influence jurors or intimidate future witnesses.Calling him Mr Trump" rather than President Trump - thereby emphasizing that he was being treated as any criminal defendant would be treated - she said:Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

Ever since I was a teenager, people have thought I am much older than I actually am. Their mistakes have stopped bothering meWhen I was 14, someone thought I was my nine-year-old sister's mum. In purely practical terms, imagining me having had her at, say, 14, that would put me at nine years over my actual age, but I was reading the cues of this exchange with passionate concentration and completely absent from it was any of the normal condescension people heaped upon a teenage mother. This mistaken person had clearly processed me as a legitimate child-rearer who had had her nine-year-old at the appropriate time, which placed me conservatively at 30.So that was the backdrop to my mystified neurosis - do I really look twice my real age? - when, later that year, I went to help my mum with her job. She was a set designer, filming a children's drama that necessitated making summer look like spring, to which end someone had to remove the cherries from some trees, eat them, and glue on some fake carnations, to look like blossom. It's not even respectable work for a 14-year-old, but someone had to do it. When I needed a lift back to a station at the end of the day, there was only one guy free to take me, and I arrived at Sheringham in a 16-metre articulated lorry, which the fella in the ticket office then asked me to move as it was blocking, well, everything; it was blocking Norfolk's entire connection with the outside world.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

One of the largest US trucking companies, Yellow's customers include Walmart and Home Depot and Uber FreightUS trucking firm Yellow Corp filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday and said it would wind down, after struggling with a mounting debt load and following tense contract negotiations with the Teamsters Union.The nearly 100-year-old company's bankruptcy filing in a Delaware court estimated assets and liabilities of $1bn to $10bn, with more than 100,000 creditors. Continue reading...

Cause of deadly accident near Cabazon, about 90 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, not immediately clearThree members of a firefighting helicopter crew were killed after their helicopter collided with another in midair and crashed while battling wildfires in southern California on Sunday evening, officials said.The cause of the deadly accident near Cabazon, about 90 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, was not immediately clear, the chief of Cal Fire's southern region, David Fulcher, told a news conference early Monday. Continue reading...

The Americans were ahead of the pack for years. Then the rest of the world started to give the women's game the respect it deservesSunday will be remembered as the day the United States women's team hit rock bottom. In truth, it was a long time coming.USA's last-16 elimination at the hands of Sweden in Melbourne marked their worst finish at a major tournament. The United States had won four of the last eight World Cups - including the last two - and had never finished worse than third. Continue reading...

Bus carrying 45 to 50 people collided with another vehicle on an interstate late SundayMultiple passengers have died after a charter bus carrying up to 50 people collided with another vehicle on an interstate in Pennsylvania late Sunday, according to state police officials.The crash happened at about 11.50pm in the southbound lanes of interstate 81 in Dauphin county's Lower Paxton Township, the state police said. The bus flipped on its side after striking the rear end of a car. Continue reading...

Sherard Cowper-Coles claimed British government was bowing to US demands in dealing with BeijingA senior executive at HSBC has apologised after saying the weak" UK government had caved in to the US in its approach to doing business with China.Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the bank's head of public affairs and a former British diplomat, said sorry after sharing his personal views" on Britain's policy towards Beijing at a private event, a spokesperson for HSBC said. Continue reading...

John Lauro says indictment is full of holes and that Mike Pence could help former boss fight off 2020 election conspiracy charges. Plus, is racism at heart of US failure to tackle deadly heatwaves?Good morning.Donald Trump's attorney has suggested Mike Pence could help his former boss fight off the 2020 election-related criminal conspiracy charges against Trump, claiming that the former vice-president would be the best witness" for the defense.Will Pence testify for the prosecution? Earlier on Sunday, Pence - who is running against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination - told CBS he had no plans" to testify for the prosecution. But he did not rule it out. In response to Lauro's assertion last week that all Trump did was ask him to pause the certification, Pence said: That's not what happened."What happened during the first breakthrough? In December, Lawrence Livermore achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. That experiment briefly achieved what is known as fusion ignition by generating 3.15 megajoules of energy output after the laser delivered 2.05mj to the target, the Energy Department said. In other words, it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it, the department said. Continue reading...

The obstruction of an official proceeding count is notable among his recent charges as it may not turn on whether Trump believed his own claimsIncluded in the indictment last week against Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election was a count of obstructing an official proceeding - the attempt to stop the vote certification in Congress on the day his supporters mounted the January 6 Capitol attack.The count is notable, because - based on a review of previous judicial rulings in other cases where the charge has been brought - it may be one where prosecutors will not need to prove Trump knew he lost the election, as the former president's legal team has repeatedly claimed. Continue reading...

CBP One requirement creates unlawful hurdle for migrants on app riddled with glitches and indecipherable error messages, suit saysImmigrant rights advocates and asylum seekers filed a lawsuit against Customs and Border Protection last week, claiming federal officials have created a new, unlawful hurdle for people seeking asylum in the United States.Migrants fleeing violence in their home countries are now required to book an appointment with border officials through CBP One, a smartphone app designed by the US government. Continue reading...

Critics say GOP leaders misrepresent asylum seekers as being behind smuggling of opioid that kills 70,000 Americans a yearRepublican politicians have been accused of exploiting the tragedy of America's fentanyl crisis by blaming Joe Biden for the rising death toll, and linking it to his immigration policies and populist anger over the US's troubled southern border.Critics say Republican leaders are guilty of a cynical political ploy by misrepresenting an increase in asylum seekers as a cause of the serious problem of cross-border drug smuggling driving a huge US public health crisis. Continue reading...

The NBA team's backing of a US presidential candidate who has crusaded to delegitimize the horrors of slavery is hypocritical and disgustingThe Orlando Magic's decision to make a $50,000 contribution in support of the presidential bid of Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, sends a clear message to their Black players, employees and fans. And that message is a U-turn from the one in the summer of 2020 when the United States was in an uproar over the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, the shooting of Jacob Blake as well as countless other examples of police brutality.Back then, the Magic issued this statement through CEO Alex Martins, allegedly standing in solidarity with Black people: Continue reading...

The seven-time Super Bowl champion has one of the most impressive resumes in NFL history. Why has he turned his sights to second-tier Blues?Maybe it was inevitable that once Tom Brady conquered American football, he would set his sights on the other kind. Still, it came as a surprise last week when Birmingham City announced that the NFL great would be partnering with Knighthead Capital Management to take on a minority stake in the English Championship club.The nature of Birmingham's interest is self-evident. First of all, there's the media attention. Birmingham's footprint in the lucrative US market was nonexistent a few days ago, but that's changed now they are associated with one of the most famous people in America. And Brady is not just any celebrity but one who embodies team success and individual greatness: a seven-time Super Bowl champion with an obsessive drive to win, he also holds a legitimate claim to being the best player in NFL history. Continue reading...

A state grand jury indicted Melody Felicano Johnson in Tucson in July after her husband sent video to policeAn Arizona woman tried to kill her husband - a US military member - by poisoning his coffee with bleach daily since March before her arrest, authorities allege.Melody Felicano Johnson faces charges of attempted first-degree homicide, attempted aggravated assault, and adding poison to food or drink after her husband sent video to police of her apparently pouring bleach into his coffee pot. A state grand jury indicted her in Tucson in July. Continue reading...

Combined naval patrol appeared to be largest such flotilla to approach US territory and highly provocative', expert saysThe US dispatched four navy warships as well as a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska last week.The combined naval patrol, which the Wall Street Journal first reported, appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach US territory, according to experts that spoke to the outlet. Continue reading...

USA fans expressed their devastation after Sweden beat the United States 5-4 on penalties in their World Cup last-16 match. Sweden fans meanwhile chanted in the street outside the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium after knocking out the defending champions. The teams were at stalemate at the end of extra-time and Lina Hurtig's agonising penalty broke the hearts of USA fans, condemning the holders to their earliest Women's World Cup exit. Sweden will now head into a quarter-final against Japan but it was the first departure before the semi-finals in nine World Cups for the Americans, who were bidding for an unprecedented third consecutive title.

The Americans put in a performance worthy of defending champions in their final 2023 World Cup match. But a lack of finishing proved costly once againAs Sweden took a victory lap and Abba's Dancing Queen blared through the night at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, Alyssa Naeher stood with her hands on her hips in disbelief. It took several minutes - what felt like an eternity - for VAR to confirm that the ball had crossed the line on the final penalty of the game.It was almost impossible to tell with the naked eye whether the Swedish forward Lina Hurtig's shot had crossed the line, after not one but two swats from the USA goalkeeper. An incredulous Naeher threw her hands in the air and yelled to her goalkeeping coach, Philip Poole, appearing to believe the video proved she had saved the penalty. Continue reading...

To see the wild, thrilled faces of young fans is to remember the euphorias of my own girlhood that, sadly, never got to include howling at professional women's footballThe tears came the night the Australians beat Canada in the Women's World Cup.It wasn't at the beginning of the match, with anxiety, when the Matildas marched out to play knowing the match was do-or-die for their World Cup hopes, star skipper Sam Kerr on the bench and not quite - not yet - recovered from injury. It wasn't with relief at the nine-minute mark, when Australia's Hayley Raso scored that first, dam-busting goal. It wasn't even at the end of the game when the whistle blew. Australia's thundering 4-0 triumph over the Olympic champs obliged sportswriters worldwide to acknowledge Australia didn't merely beat the Canadians; Australia destroyed them.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

The USWNT were knocked out of the Women's World Cup following a 5-4 loss in their penalty-shootout against Sweden.Megan Rapinoe missed a crucial penalty in her final game for the United States and said it felt like a 'sick joke', adding 'there's just some dark, dark comedy in me missing a penalty in my last game ever.' Rapinoe said her team dominated the game but that it didn't matter as they had failed to score.

In Temecula, California, a vicious school board fight over critical race theory and references to the gay rights icon has split residentsThe small southern California city of Temecula made headlines across the US when its school board banned critical race theory and attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.The vicious fight over curricula in Temecula is one of several playing out in cities across the country, as conservatives seek to reshape how racism, gender and history are taught in American schools. Now, it may also have implications for schools across California. On Wednesday, a group of parents, students, teachers and a union sued the Temecula valley school district, alleging the critical race theory ban violates California law, the right to due process and the right to be free from discrimination. If the court rules in their favor, lawyers on the case say it will set a new precedent for the right to fact-based education in California public schools. Continue reading...

The Goop founder is offering two lucky winners the chance to stay for one night at her Montecito guesthouse - dinner with her includedIt's not often you look at Gwyneth Paltrow's life and think, with a fond sigh, how closely it resembles your own, but when she said that she had bought a California estate after finding it on Redfin, my favourite pornography app", I knew we were as one. Not in the multimillion-dollar purchase - a particular outcome that still cruelly eludes me - but in the online fantasising over property.Redfin and Zillow are to the US what Rightmove and Zoopla are to the UK: aggregator portals that pull in property listings from almost every estate agent in the country. My own compulsive usage of them is definitely akin to some people's relationship with porn - all right, hard drugs. In fact I began writing a column, the Rightmove Roundup, in my Substack newsletter mainly so my daughter would stop groaning every time she caught me scrolling through yet more houses I couldn't afford to buy. I can now proudly tell her that noseying around other people's interiors and making snide comments about them counts as work. Continue reading...

Grey skies, gale-swept beaches, soggy donkeys: my childhood holidays were all wet, wet, wet. And, as a result, deliciously idleI am enjoying this sodden summer. I do know this much rain is bad: July was the UK's sixth wettest on record and the wettest ever for Northern Ireland. It is worse than bad in China; it is catastrophic, with 20 killed in the worst rainfall in 140 years, since records began. And in the UK, there is harvest havoc to worry farmers, plus a very real danger that the insular and idiotic will point to a persistently, dramatically wet summer that is probably linked to the climate crisis as the opposite: a sign that everything is fine, really, so let's celebrate with more North Sea drilling.I am sorry, too, for anyone who needs a summer fix of vitamin D, light and warmth to maintain their health and equanimity. I am on record as being fairly anti-summer, and that remains true, but I am not implacably opposed to a bit of balmy weather. I don't want to go all some of my best friends are balls of incandescent gas" on you, but I am attempting to grow some tomatoes this year and I have a hammock. I wouldn't say no to some sun now and then. Continue reading...

Lina Hurtig scores the deciding penalty to knock-out defending champions USA in dramatic fashionAfter their underwhelming start to this World Cup the US are probably not favourites to win this match. However, while Sweden's set pieces have been impressive their open play has not been the best the tournament has seen so far. I think it will be a really close encounter.A good feature for this match: Continue reading...

We'll respond to the call of the law, if it comes and we'll just tell the truth,' says former vice-president during CBS interviewFormer vice-president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said that he has no plans to testify" against Donald Trump but vowed to obey the law".In a recent interview after federal prosecutors charged Trump over his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Pence was asked by CBS correspondent Major Garrett whether he would be a witness against Trump if the case went to trial. Continue reading...

USA, the current champions, are out of the World Cup on penalties in front of more than 27,000 fans in Melbourne. Lina Hurtig's spotkick sent Sweden to the quarter-finals, helped significantly by the brilliance of Zecira Musovic between the sticks. It is the first time in the tournament's history that USA have been eliminated at this early a stage.In the end, it came down to a matter of millimetres as Alyssa Naeher desperately clawed at the final penalty but failed to keep it out. It's a tough moment," Vlatko Andonovski, the USA head coach, said. Continue reading...

Ohio will be voting on a measure that makes it harder to amend the constitution in a high-stakes election - and the Republican proposal is minority rule', experts sayAn under-the-radar election in Ohio on Tuesday has quietly emerged as one of the most high-stakes stress tests for American democracy in recent years.The question Ohio voters will decide on 8 August is simple: how easy should it be to amend the state constitution? Like 17 other states, Ohio allows citizens to place constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot if they get a certain number of signatures and more than 50% of the statewide vote. The process has been in place for more than a century in Ohio, and in November, voters will use it to decide whether to protect abortion rights. Continue reading...

Each small business owner has their own reason for feeling less confident about the economy. This is what I'm hearingUnemployment is at historic lows. Inflation is receding. The stock market is approaching its all-time high. Gross domestic product is healthy. Household savings are near peak levels. There are more travelers passing through our airports than in 2019. Retail sales continue to grow. The restaurant industry is booming. Corporate profits remain strong. Wages are outpacing inflation.It seems like the economy's doing pretty darn good, right? And yet according to the most recent monthly data from the National Federation of Independent Businesses ... optimism among small business owners is at a 10-year low. Continue reading...

At this week's Amazon summit, the world must stand with Indigenous peoples - and demand protection for the rainforestSome of the most fulfilling moments in my life as an actor are when I play roles that speak to the challenges facing humanity. In The Avengers, for example, in which I play the Hulk, the team tries to undo the the snap" - an apocalyptic event brought about by the villain Thanos to eradicate half of all living beings.As a good friend of mine says: Fantasy is not an escape from our world, but an invitation to go deeper into it." The simple fact is that humanity has triggered extinction events - and the collapse of the Amazon is a disaster that will be terrible for all of us in real life. Continue reading...

The GOP is trying very hard to prove wrongdoing by father and son to distract from the three indictments of Donald TrumpThe difference between six and seven is slight but, in the mouth of Joe Biden, it meant everything. I have seven grandkids," the US president said in a podcast interview this week.That was Biden's way of yielding to critics and acknowledging his four-year-old granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts. His son, Hunter, has said he fathered Navy during a period when he was struggling with alcohol and drug addiction and does not have a relationship with her. Hunter's paternity was established by DNA testing during a lengthy dispute over child support. Continue reading...

Jane Doe' accuses Leon Black of rape and sexual abuse - and some have questioned why he is not facing more legal scrutinyWhen a woman filed suit in Manhattan federal court last week alleging extreme abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his now convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell, her accusation of being victimized by their sex trafficking operation was among the most harrowing.The woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, has autism, making her particularly vulnerable to purported grooming - and subsequent alleged abuse at the hands of the late financier's rich and powerful friends.Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

Last week's outburst against his prosecutors is part of a long campaign that many fear is in danger of subverting democracyAmerican democracy is only as strong as its legal system. The founders of the country created the judiciary as the third branch of the federal government to keep executive power in check and prevent corruption. So it was a cause for deep concern last week when Donald Trump unleashed a verbal tantrum on his Truth Social platform, accusing special counsel Jack Smith of prosecutorial misconduct" even before he filed four federal criminal counts against the former president over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a bid to remain in office.An identical barrage came last April when a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records. That time, he also called for defunding the justice department and the FBI, even though the charges did not come from either federal agency. Both reactions were part of a long-running campaign by Trump to undermine the rule of law in the US and dismiss the multiple charges he faces, and has denied, as politically motivated. Even lawyers who once supported Trump have told me that delegitimising the law and the judiciary could destroy the country's system of government. Yet, even if he is convicted, Trump's supporters will probably remain loyal to him, convinced that the entire legal system is rigged" - a favourite Trumpism. Continue reading...

A new study ignores the fact that modern parents just want to have healthy, happy children, whatever their sexThe morning after the birth of our fourth daughter, my husband bumped into a neighbour in our street and announced the news. Her response surprised him. Are you very disappointed?" she asked.Gary headed indoors and reported the news to me, whereupon we cackled with laughter and had another glass of champagne. The previous morning, I'd finished reading Little Women with one of my older daughters; I'd already had an excited inkling I was about to become Marmee, a mother of four girls, and now I'd been proved right. Continue reading...