by Cecilia Nowell (now) Richard Luscombe, Anna Betts on (#6Y6DG)
Dan Pfeiffer says it is really unforgivable' and insane' that the Democratic party establishment maintains support for disgraced former New York governor
Grant makes US a direct backer of aid organization that reportedly has collaboration with Israeli governmentThe Trump administration has authorised a $30m grant to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, making the US a direct backer of an aid organisation that is closely linked to private security contractors and has been accused by critics of politicising" the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.According to a document seen by the Guardian, the state department has already disbursed $7m to GHF, a US- and Israeli-backed aid organisation that has been given preferential access to operate in Gaza because it says that it can deliver millions of meals to starving people without that food falling into the hands of Hamas. Continue reading...
Josh Pickles and three family members among those dead after sudden thunderstorm in California over the weekendFour members of a family from northern California were among eight people killed over the weekend when a boat capsized on Lake Tahoe in California during a sudden and fierce thunderstorm.Josh Pickles, 37, of San Francisco, his parents, 73-year-old Terry Pickles and 71-year-old Paula Bozinovich of Redwood City, and his uncle, 72-year-old Peter Bayes, of Lincoln, died on Saturday, according to a family statement. Continue reading...
Daniel Park, 32, was accused of supplying chemicals to the bomber, Guy Edward Barktus, who died in May explosionA man charged with aiding the bomber of a fertility clinic in California has died in federal custody just weeks after his arrest, prison officials said on Tuesday.Daniel Park, 32, was accused of supplying chemicals to the bomber, Guy Edward Bartkus of California, who died in the 17 May explosion. Continue reading...
Findings by Defense Intelligence Agency suggest Trump's declaration that sites were obliterated' may be overstatedAn initial classified US assessment of Donald Trump's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities over the weekend says they did not destroy two of the sites and likely only set back the nuclear program by a few months, according to two people familiar with the report.The report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency - the intelligence arm of the Pentagon - concluded key components of the nuclear program, including centrifuges, were capable of being restarted within months. Continue reading...
US health secretary faced hours of questioning over budget cuts and accusations he lied to senatorsRobert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced a bruising day on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, including being forced to retract accusations against a Democratic congressman after claiming the lawmaker's vaccine stance was bought by $2m in pharmaceutical contributions.In a hearing held by the House health subcommittee, Kennedy was met with hours of contentious questioning over budget cuts, massive healthcare fraud and accusations he lied to senators to secure his confirmation. Continue reading...
Sharp rise in delinquency comes after education department resumed collections on defaulted federal loansNearly one in three federal student loan borrowers are at risk of defaulting on payments as early as July, as delinquency and default rates soar in the wake of pandemic-era repayment relief ending.About 5.8 million federal student loan borrowers were 90 days or more past due on their payments as of April 2025, according to a new analysis from TransUnion. That's roughly 31% of borrowers with a payment due, up from 20.5% in February and nearly triple the 11.7% delinquency rate reported in February 2020, just before the pandemic began. The April figure represents the highest delinquency rate ever recorded. Continue reading...
It would be naive to believe that the US could take a wrecking ball to the Iranian state and walk away unaffectedDuring his three presidential campaigns, Donald Trump lambasted forever wars" and regime change" interventions. More than any candidate, he sensed the war-weariness of Americans after the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and especially the dismay of military veterans, 60% of whom voted for him over Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Trump's maverick, anti-interventionist America First" narrative also resonated strongly with those in the Maga movement who have never served in the military, particularly blue-collar workers.Now, Trump, once an unsparing critic of military misadventures, has bombed the nuclear enrichment installations of Iran, a country that hadn't attacked the US, wasn't preparing to and didn't even threaten war. Since the bombing, Trump has gone further: he has ruminated about regime change in Iran. His transformation has startled many of his Maga acolytes who share Tucker Carlson's view that Trump risks being dragged into Israel's fight with Iran and becoming embroiled in his own forever war. The fragile truce agreed to by Iran and Israel may ease their worries if it holds, but Trump might be drawn to regime change again if fighting resumes. Continue reading...
Trump ally Emil Bove reportedly said the justice department would consider telling courts fuck you'Emil Bove, the Department of Justice's principal associate deputy attorney general, who Donald Trump nominated for the US court of appeals for the third circuit, reportedly said the department would need to consider telling the courts fuck you'" when it came to orders blocking the deportation of undocumented people.Former attorney at the justice department, Erez Reuveni, claimed Bove said the agency should violate court orders. In a whistleblower letter to members of Congress first obtained by the New York Times, Reuveni painted the scene of a lawless justice department willingly to defy the courts and fire the people who stood in their way. Continue reading...
Greene called the attack wasteful, yet constituents cite faith and fear to justify the US president's show of forceMarjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia congresswoman and Maga firebrand, was quickly critical of missile strikes ordered Saturday by Donald Trump on Iranian nuclear facilities.Her constituents are not. Continue reading...
Ice facilities across the US are holding significantly more people than normal capacityThe Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency is continuing to arrest an increasing number of immigrants without any criminal history, according to recent federal government data reviewed by the Guardian, demonstrating a further dramatic surge in this trend.The latest available data, released by Ice last Friday, appears to contradict Trump administration officials' frequent assertions that the agency is prioritizing the pursuit of criminals in its immigration enforcement operations. Continue reading...
The 31m signing from Wolves says Pep Guardiola's instructions helped spark an eye-catching debut against Al AinWith relentless zigzag bursts along the wing and razor-sharp dribbling into Al Ain's area, Manchester City's new left-back, Rayan Ait-Nouri, was a potent force in Sunday's 6-0 win at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium.In City's second Club World Cup group victory, the 24-year-old executed precisely what Pep Guardiola instructed him to do. Continue reading...
Jury awarded $500,000 to widow and estate of the police officer who killed himself nine days after the January 6 riotA federal jury on Monday awarded $500,000 to the widow and estate of a police officer who killed himself nine days after he helped defend the US Capitol from the mob that attacked on January 6, 2021, including a man who scuffled with the officer during the uprising.The eight-member jury ordered that the man, 69-year-old chiropractor David Walls-Kaufman, to pay $380,000 in punitive damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages to Erin Smith for assaulting her husband, Washington DC metropolitan police officer Jeffrey Smith, inside the Capitol. They awarded an additional $60,000 to compensate Jeffrey Smith's estate for his pain and suffering. Continue reading...
Public childcare network is a win for everyone - kids, parents and the government, and the Quebec model is a shining exampleWhen asked how much she pays for childcare, Leah Freeman chuckles and says she isn't sure. It's like C$93 (about $67) every two weeks or something. I barely see it leaving my bank account," she said.To most parents in the US, where the average cost of childcare is $1,000 per month and can reach more than $2,000 a month in some states, the idea of paying so little sounds impossible. But it's happening - north of the US border in Quebec, Canada, where Freeman's three-year-old daughter, Grace, attends a subsidized early childhood education center (centres de la petite enfance, known by its acronym CPE), for C$9.35, or less than $7 a day. Continue reading...
Jerome Powell says central bank is waiting to see tariffs' impact on US prices as president claims incompetence'The Federal Reserve is well placed to wait and see how tariffs affect US prices before cutting interest rates, its chair, Jerome Powell, insisted, defying renewed demands from Donald Trump.The US president has disregarded the central bank's longstanding independence to repeatedly call for rate cuts to spur economic growth and launch a series of personal attacks on Powell. Continue reading...
Vice-president said the bombing was a success', but reports suggest the stockpile was probably moved elsewhereJD Vance has suggested Iran's estimated 400kg (882lb) stockpile of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, remains intact despite the recent US bombing campaign against Iran.On Monday, the vice-president told Fox News that the location of the uranium is not the question before us", and said the relevant question was: Can Iran enrich the uranium to weapons-grade level and can they convert that fuel into a nuclear weapon?" Continue reading...
Donald Trump said that Israel had to 'calm down' after it and Iran violated a ceasefire he tried to broker. 'Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before, the biggest load that we've seen,' he said. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing'
The frantic attempts to decode his behaviour reminds me of self-help relationship babble in the 1990s. Then, as now - it's not you, it's himUntil it finally opens, there remains much speculation over precisely which artefacts will occupy Donald Trump's eventual presidential library. My current view is that you could do a lot worse than fill it with all the volumes of text that have been written in the cause of understanding" him. These increasingly read like the most futile female-targeted self-help books of the 1990s. You Have to Understand He is Very Transactional. Take Him Seriously But Not Literally. Guys, please - no more. We all urgently need rescuing from the Mind, Body & Statecraft section of the bookshop.As I say, so many gazillions of words have been expended on this cause that Trump reminds me a lot of the men of the 1990s - indeed, he was one. Back then, he had emerged from a decade of valiantly avoiding contracting STIs in 1980s Manhattan - a battle he would later describe as my personal Vietnam". For much of the 1990s, the rest of mankind - certainly womankind - felt that personal victories of their own must be just around the corner. It definitely helped that the economy was booming and history had ended. But it was a time when people believed you could change everything through self-control/hard work/the right roadmap. In fact, speaking of roads, one of the biggest nonfiction titles of the 90s in the US was M Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled, a hymn to personal growth that was treated by many as the key to all mythologies.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Health networks in other US cities fear the Ice operations seen in LA will be replicated in their communitiesOn a Wednesday morning earlier this month, Jane*, the coordinator for a mobile clinic at a temporary housing campus in Downey, just southeast of Los Angeles, was weaving through the line of patients, helping them fill out routine forms.Everything was normal, she recalled, until she glimpsed, from the corner of her eye, the facility's security guard whisk away the cone that had been propping open the gate for the clinic, letting it swing shut. What had welcomed care now suddenly threatened capture. Continue reading...
Those caring for relatives with severe disabilities say planned Republican cuts will be fatal for someKelly Fountain of central Arkansas plans to move her family out of the state if work requirements are enacted for Medicaid, given the issues and lack of resources she has already faced in obtaining support for her 24-year-old son with disabilities, Colby.If Trump's budget is passed as it is currently written, we will be leaving Arkansas," said Fountain. Our politicians here know very well that people are going to lose their Medicaid, they're depending on it. People are not only going to lose their healthcare, they're going to die." Continue reading...
Israel orders army to respond forcefully' after claiming Tehran has violated ceasefire. Plus, the mystery of the hijacker who disappeared after parachuting out of a plane
Shrouded in secrecy, the US law enforcement agency has become a kind of domestic stormtrooper for Maga's agendaAcross the US, group chats and community threads have started spiking with warnings. Not just the typical alerts about traffic or out of service subway stations, but where and when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raid was last seen. What places to avoid. What the plainclothes agents might look like.Hey all," a Brooklyn, New York, resident wrote in a closed chat with neighbors last week. A little birdie just told me ICE is out." Continue reading...
The former governor, now a New York City mayoral candidate, marks the party's drift into boorishness and crueltyAs the far right has gained ascendancy, and the 2024 election is historicized as a blowout victory for Donald Trump rather than the relatively close contest that it actually was, members of the Democratic establishment and party leadership seem to be settling on the lesson that they will take into the second decade of the Trump era: if you can't beat him, imitate him.It's long been the impulse of the party to move right, chasing Republican victories by replicating Republican policy positions, and since their loss last November many Democrats have followed in this decades-old tradition, shifting their rhetoric still further rightward on border policy, crypto, foreign policy, trans rights and DEI. They respond to polling and to a vague sense of the cultural zeitgeist, aiming less to persuade than to imitate. Often, Democrats seem as if they are not offering a different policy vision for the country so much as they are offering a different stylistic one: the same austerity, cultural revanchism and inequality but in a more polite package.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
The former New York governor who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations is leading the mayoral primary raceWhen Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace four years ago, few would have predicted him to make a comeback.Yet the former New York governor, who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, is the frontrunner to become the next mayor of New York City, a role that he hopes could rehabilitate him and, allegedly, give him a platform to run for president. Continue reading...
The NBA postseason remains a psychodrama of moments, memes and memories unlike anything in sport. We look back at the biggest takeawaysIf a single, overarching lesson can be taken from this year's NBA postseason, it's this one: no game is over until the clock hits 00:00. Whether it was the New York Knicks stealing victory from the jaws of defeat against the Celtics in Boston in round two, Aaron Gordon's buzzer-beating dunk sealing a crucial win for the Nuggets against the Clippers in Los Angeles in round one, or the Indiana Pacers defeating the odds over and over again with their clutch time brilliance throughout the playoffs, a lead has never felt less safe in the NBA. Continue reading...
Leftwing Zohran Mamdami, 33, sees surging support in race with former governor for Democratic nominationNew Yorkers are headed to the polls on Tuesday in a primary election that is both likely to decide the city's next mayor and have major political implications for the future of the Democratic party.The race pits two drastically different Democrats against one another. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist endorsed by the progressive wing of the Democratic party, is the main challenger to Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who has been backed by the party's centrists and billionaire donors. Continue reading...
The US health secretary's latest report is more interested in vaccine scepticism than the brutal toll inflicted by guns and road traffic accidentsMake America healthy again". We can all get behind this slogan and agree that much more could be done to improve the health of people living in the US. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health and human services secretary, recently released a report detailing the challenge of the US's health. About 90% of it outlines the high rates of obesity, mental health issues and chronic disease, 10% covers vaccine scepticism, and 0% looks at solutions or any discussions of the systemic social and economic issues that drive much of the US's health problems.But what surprised me more was a notable omission of the two biggest killers of American children. American children aren't just unhealthier. They're more likely to die in the first 19 years of life because of guns - both homicides and suicides - or in a road traffic accident than children in comparable countries. How can an entire report be written without mentioning these factors, and how unique the US is in the burden of disability and death they cause?Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
The US president is more willing to listen to Israel than his predecessors were and is also deeply suspicious of the CIAWhen Donald Trump ordered the US military to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities over the weekend, the debate among intelligence officials, outside experts and policymakers over the status of Tehran's nuclear program had largely been frozen in place for nearly 20 years.That prolonged debate has repeatedly placed the relatively dovish US intelligence community at odds with Israel and neoconservative Iran hawks ever since the height of the global war on terror. Continue reading...
In 1971, a man held a plane to ransom for $200,000, then parachuted out in his suit and dress shoes, never to be seen again. What happened to him?On the evening of 24 November 1971, Florence Schaffner, a flight attendant on a Northwest Orient flight heading to Seattle, Washington, from Portland, Oregon, was handed a note by a male passenger seated at the back of the plane. Schaffner assumed the note was a phone number - this wasn't the first time a passenger had hit on her - so she stowed it in her purse without reading it. The man leaned towards her and whispered: Miss, you'd better lookat that note. I have a bomb."Schaffner read it: Miss - Ihave abomb in my briefcase and want you to sit by me." Continue reading...
Court ruling will allow administration to continue deporting migrants to war-torn countries not their own. Key US politics stories from Monday 23 June at a glanceThe US supreme court on Monday paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan.In a brief, unsigned order, the court's conservative supermajority paused the ruling by a Boston-based federal judge who said immigrants deserved a meaningful opportunity" to bring claims that they would face the risk of torture, persecution or even death if removed to certain countries that have agreed to take people deported from the US. Continue reading...
President's proclamation had barred foreign students from studying at top university, citing national security concernsA federal judge on Monday blocked Donald Trump's administration from implementing his plan to bar foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard University.US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston issued an injunction barring Trump's administration from carrying out its latest bid to curtail Harvard's ability to host international students amid an escalating fight pitting the Republican president against the prestigious Ivy League school. Continue reading...
by Cecilia Nowell, Marina Dunbar, Anna Betts and Tom on (#6Y5JQ)
This blog has closed. Read our latest story hereThe US embassy in Qatar has advised American citizens there to shelter in place until further notice".This comes as on Sunday night, the state department issued a worldwide caution" security alert advising US citizens abroad to exercise increased caution". Continue reading...
Justices lift judicial order, handing victory to US president in his aggressive pursuit of mass deportationsThe US supreme court on Monday paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan.In a brief, unsigned order, the court's conservative supermajority paused the ruling by a Boston-based federal judge who said immigrants deserved a meaningful opportunity" to bring claims that they would face the risk of torture, persecution or even death if removed to certain countries that have agreed to take people deported from the US. Continue reading...
Health secretary and chief of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid hail voluntary agreement as a good start'The US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and Dr Mehmet Oz announced a voluntary agreement with insurance companies to change prior authorization practices - where private health insurers require patients to ask for permission before they can receive medical treatment.The majority of Americans receive health insurance through a private company, whether through an employer, or a privatization of public health insurance programs, such as Medicare Advantage. Continue reading...
Fast-moving weekend thunderstorm caused high winds and swells as authorities say one person still missingThe El Dorado county sheriff's office confirmed Monday that it had found a seventh person dead after a boat capsized on Lake Tahoe during a fast-moving weekend thunderstorm that caused high winds and swells of up to 8ft. One person is still missing.A 27ft-long gold Chris-Craft vessel with 10 people aboard overturned Saturday afternoon after apparently being hit by a large swell near DL Bliss state park on the lake's south-west edge, according to the US Coast Guard. Continue reading...
Several cities are under extreme heat warnings as high temperatures and humidity grip parts of the countryThe National Weather Service (NWS) has issued several extreme heat warnings and advisories as a dangerous and prolonged wave of high temperatures and humidity blankets much of the central and eastern US, with the worst conditions expected to persist into the middle of this week.Several locations recorded their hottest temperatures of the year over the weekend: Salt Lake City, Utah, hit 104F (40C) on Thursday, its first triple-digit reading of 2025, and on Saturday the city of Mitchell in South Dakota also reached 104F, surpassing its previous daily record of 101F (38.3C). Daily high records were broken in parts of Minnesota, Wyoming and Michigan. Continue reading...
Amid Trump's disrespect of old allies, EU and Canada vow more support for Ukraine and joint work on climate crisisCanada has signed a wide-ranging defence pact with the EU, as Donald Trump and global instability prompt traditional US allies to deepen their alliances.Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, on Monday joined European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Brussels, where they signed a security and defence partnership, pledged more support for Ukraine, as well as joint work on issues from the climate crisis to artificial intelligence. Continue reading...
Explosions were heard over Doha, the capital of Qatar, as missiles flew in the night sky on 23 June. Iran's military said it had carried out a 'devastating and powerful' missile attack on the Al Udeid US airbase. Iran had issued threats to retaliate against the United States after US bombers dropped 30,000lb bunker-busters on Iranian underground nuclear sites at the weekend, joining Israel's air war against Tehran
He has used clear messaging to redirect anger from the disenfranchised to the economic elites. That the wealthy are worried shows it's workingThe Zohran Mamdani phenomenon should not be happening, if received wisdom is a reliable predictor of events. He's the 33-year-old Muslim leftist and Queens assemblyman running for the New York mayoralty with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the vitriolic campaign against him suggests his momentum has caused panic in gilded circles. His chief opponent for the Democratic nomination, Andrew Cuomo, could not scream party establishment more loudly: he's New York state's former governor - just like his father was - and a former cabinet secretary. He married into that classic Democratic royalty, the Kennedys; his endorsements include the former president Bill Clinton; and billionaires such as Mike Bloomberg are pouring millions into his Super Pac.In another age, someone like Mamdani would have been a no-hoper. What changed was the 2016 presidential campaign of the long-marginalised socialist senator Bernie Sanders, which re-energised the US left. But Donald Trump's recent victory on a more extreme platform led to predictions of a general rightwing lurch in US politics, with progressive positions scapegoated for the Democratic loss (even though Kamala Harris ran on a squarely corporate, centrist" ticket). I was scheduled to interview Mamdani on the night of the US presidential election, but his campaign asked to postpone as results started to come in suggesting a Trump victory was likely. Presumably, they wanted to reassess strategy in the coming US political winter. Continue reading...
Man got stuck near the flue of the chimney in a parks building after doors automatically locked for the nightFirefighters had to rescue a man who got stuck in the chimney of a Connecticut parks building while trying to retrieve his dog from a bathroom when the doors automatically locked for the night.Police were called Sunday morning to Rockwell Park in Bristol for a burglary complaint and were told by parks employees that someone was in the chimney. Firefighters responded to the scene and got the man out after having to remove parts of the chimney and building, causing $5,000 to $10,000 worth of damage, police said. Continue reading...
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