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The court has vastly overextended its own power and flaunted its corruption. It will take a political movement to stop themHow much do the supreme court's six Republican justices care about what Americans think of them? The question haunts most accounts of the supreme court, an anxious subtext detectable in every discussion among court watchers and pundits when the court agrees to hear a specific case and after every oral argument.There is a safe assumption - borne out in the conservative supermajority's decisions, in their statements and in their pre-court careers - that they are all personally inclined to take the maximalist conservative route. If they were unconstrained by other factors, like public opinion and the legitimacy of the court, one gets the distinct sense that they would do the worst thing possible: reverse the most social progress, cause the most suffering, undermine democratic representation as much as possible and accrue as much political power as they can to themselves. What stops them, or slows them down, is not an instinct for moderation, or a sense of respect for the other branches, or the law. What slows them down is a caution about public opinion, a fear of what will happen if their institution is delegitimized in the minds of the people - what slows them down, that is, is something like shame.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Trump's long-shot competitors had to have known that their entry into the race would only make his renomination more likelyAlready in this early stretch of the Republican presidential primary campaign, there are nearly as many candidates in the field as there were in 2016, when Donald Trump bested a slew of the Republican party's most prominent figures on his way to the White House. But unlike 2016, of course, Trump has been the race's perhaps prohibitive favorite from the jump - over the last three months, Trump has moved from plurality to outright majority support from the Republican electorate in the polls.Far from damaging his candidacy, his two indictments have, if anything, encouraged more and more Republican voters to rally to his side. And, unfortunately for those hoping he loses the nomination, the sheer size of the field will make it difficult for any one of his rivals to consolidate enough of the non-Trump vote to mount a real challenge to his candidacy. Each of his long-shot competitors had to have known that their entry into the race would only make his renomination likelier. Yet they jumped in anyway. Why?Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Man who used bedsheets made into a rope to escape jail is getting some assistance' to stay in the area, according to policeA homicide suspect who used bed sheets to escape from a north-western Pennsylvania jail is probably still in the area and someone may be helping him to evade capture, police said after discovering possible campsites in nearby woods.Michael Burham, 34, fled the Warren county prison late last Thursday by climbing on exercise equipment, climbing through a window and down a rope fashioned from jail bedding, authorities said. Burham was being held on $1m bail and was charged with kidnapping, burglary and other counts. Continue reading...

John Victor Russell, 75, was charged with two felony counts, including cruelty to animalsA North Carolina horseman of the year" has been arrested after he allegedly shot his son's horse dead during an argument.John Victor Russell, 75, has been charged with two felonies after the shooting, police said. The shooting came a month after he was recognized for his services to horses during a ceremony in Tryon, North Carolina. Continue reading...

The state has become the focus of the nation's divisive reparations conversation as it advances its reparations effortsAs California considers implementing large-scale reparations for Black residents affected by the legacy of slavery, the state has also become the focus of the nation's divisive reparations conversation, drawing the backlash of conservatives criticizing the priorities of a liberal" state.Reparations for Slavery? California's Bad Idea Catches On," commentator Jason L Riley wrote in the Wall Street Journal, as New York approved a commission to study the idea. In the Washington Post, conservative columnist George F Will said the state's debate around reparations adds to a plague of solemn silliness". Continue reading...

The legislation is designed to remove those arriving by irregular routes - this will be devastating for survivors of modern slaveryI remember the day I decided I was finally ready to report my trafficker's abuse after the false promise of a job turned into sexual exploitation. It was September 2018, and a woman from the organisation Women at the Well, which provides support to people affected by trafficking, came out to meet me at Starbucks with a notepad.I told her going to the police was the last thing I wanted to do. I worried about what he would do if he found out, if his other victims would be OK, whether I had broken the law and would be deported. But mostly I just wondered if anyone would believe me. My ability to trust people was almost nil: after all, my trafficker had proven to me that I shouldn't trust anyone. Continue reading...

Our galloping infantilisation continues at a new centre where there will presumably be less screaming than usual, greater participant continence and a bar. Is this what modern life has come to?There is a generational sweet spot - I'm guessing anyone between 65 and 80? - who won't know what soft play is. You take the principle of a playground, then move it indoors, often to a windowless space in which redeeming features such as fresh air have been removed. Then you add a load of padding and hollow plastic balls in primary colours and reduce the mean age of the children to three or under - when they are mainly screaming or making bad choices. Mess with the acoustics - it's either the lack of windows or the aggressively cheap corrugated wall material - so that the cacophony is warped and comes from every direction, then submerge all the children beneath the balls, which mysteriously makes them louder, but now invisible.Now, every adult is in a chamber of hypervigilant solitude - you can't see your kid and you can't figure out whether that noise is coming from him or her, or a pack of wolves - and disoriented by the visual overload. Continue reading...

Agnes Callard has her view - but we'd be better off if more people were willing to experience new places with open mindsThe peak summer travel months are upon us, and that means millions of people the world over are packing a bag and setting off to somewhere else - maybe a familiar every-summer destination, maybe on a new adventure. This summer travel season is projected to be among the busiest on record.But why travel at all? Continue reading...

A hazing scandal uncovered by the student newspaper brought down Northwestern's football coach. After what appears to be a failed cover-up, should the university president be next?The grotesque Northwestern University football hazing scandal is an almost too-perfect case study in how cultures of harm are allowed, even encouraged, to flourish in the world of big-time US college football.The details of how younger players were subjected to abusive hazing, brilliantly reported by the university's student paper, The Daily Northwestern, are appalling, including the disturbing practice of running", in which first-year players who had made mistakes in practice would be subjected to 8-10 upperclassmen dressed in various Purge-like' masks, who would then begin dry-humping' the victim in a dark locker room". In another hazing practice, freshmen were forced to strip naked and perform various acts, including bear crawling and slingshotting themselves across the floor with exercise bands." The Daily Northwestern's report catalogs additional forms of hazing as well. Collectively, these allegations were supported both by an independent report by law firm ArentFox Schiff and by subsequent reporting from ESPN's Adam Rittenberg and WildcatReport.com's Louie Vaccher. Continue reading...

A geomagnetic storm forecast could make aurora borealis more visible at lower latitudesThe northern lights may present themselves in more than a dozen states this week as a geomagnetic storm makes them more visible at lower latitudes than usual.On Wednesday and Thursday, the lights - also known as aurora borealis - have the potential to be seen, weather permitting, in parts of Washington, Idaho, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, according to forecasters at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Continue reading...

Joe Biden must be bold at this week's summit, and help to give Kyiv the security that would allow it to rebuildUnless the US gives bolder leadership on long-term security for Ukraine at Nato's Vilnius summit this week, historians may one day ask, Who lost Ukraine?" And their shocking answer might be: President Joe Biden.I say this after talking to a wide range of people in Kyiv last week, before departing Ukraine on Saturday, the 500th day of the largest war in Europe since 1945. There's still the extraordinary fighting spirit that I found on my last visit, in February. But in five months, some people seem to have aged five years. They are exhausted. The casualties, military and civilian, continue to mount.Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Gal Luft, director of a Washington-based organization is accused of recruiting and paying a former adviser to Donald TrumpThe head of a US thinktank has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China, as well as seeking to broker the sale of weapons and Iranian oil, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said.Gal Luft, a citizen of the United States and Israel, is accused of recruiting and paying a former high-ranking US government official on behalf of principals based in China in 2016, without registering as a foreign agent as required by law. Continue reading...

A Cessna 172 nosedived into a roof with its tail sticking straight up after a landing and takeoff practice went wrongA pilot escaped with only minor injuries after a single-engine plane nose dived into the roof of a hangar Monday at a southern California airport, authorities said.The crash happened around 2.30pm while the pilot of the Cessna 172 was practicing landings and takeoffs" at Long Beach airport, south of Los Angeles, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. Continue reading...

Release date changed to 2032, records show, but reasons for change are unclearElizabeth Holmes' prison sentence was quietly shortened by two years, new records show.An update to Holmes' profile on the website of the Bureau of Prisons now projects her release date as 12 December 2032, two years sooner than initially scheduled. A spokesman for the federal agency confirmed the update but said he could not comment further citing privacy, safety, and security reasons" for inmates. Continue reading...

The 14-year-old's grandmother had reported the girl's absence and authorities said a marine had been taken briefly into custodyTwo weeks after a 14-year-old girl's grandmother reported that she had run away in early June, the teenager was found in an unusual location: inside the barracks at a California Marine Corps base north of San Diego.Federal law enforcement officials said Monday that they are investigating and had taken a marine with the combat logistics battalion 5, 1st marine logistics group into custody briefly for questioning. He has since been released to his command while the investigation continues, said Marine Capt Charles Palmer of the 1st marine logistics group at Camp Pendleton, about 40 miles (65km) north of San Diego. Continue reading...

Jesssica Burgess of Nebraska admits to providing abortion after 20 weeks and tampering with human skeletal remainsA Nebraska mother has pleaded guilty to giving her 17-year-old daughter pills for an illegal abortion last year and helping to burn and bury the fetus.Under a plea agreement, Jessica Burgess, 42, of Norfolk, admitted to providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, false reporting and tampering with human skeletal remains. Charges of concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician were dismissed. Continue reading...

An unruly passenger was allegedly upset about the menu and raised a stink after plane took off from HoustonA United Airlines flight heading from Houston to Amsterdam was diverted to Chicago after an unruly business class passenger interrupted the flight, reportedly because his first meal choice was unavailable.The flight took off at 4.20pm local time in Houston on Sunday, and was in Chicago airspace two hours into the flight. Flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed that the plane circled Chicago's O'Hare airport as it had to use up fuel, known as dumping fuel, or it would have been too heavy to land. Continue reading...

Gen David Berger steps down as Alabama senator stages months-long blockade of successor to protest over abortion policiesThe commandant of the US Marine Corps, Gen David Berger, stepped down on Monday, leaving the military branch without a confirmed leader for the first time in more than 150 years.The vacancy comes as one Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, has staged a months-long blockade of Pentagon nominations to protest against the department's abortion policies. Continue reading...

Residents of a dozen homes had to evacuate as structures moved from their foundations and could fall into a canyon belowHillside homes in an affluent southern California community crumbled and cracked over the weekend as the land beneath them shifted and slid into a canyon below, forcing residents to evacuate.More than a dozen residents of the Rolling Hills Estates in Los Angeles county rushed to leave on Saturday after the sidewalks fractured and houses splintered. Continue reading...

Kansas will now be among only a few states that do not allow any such changes after lawsuit from Republican state attorney generalKansas must stop allowing transgender people to change the sex listed on their driver's licenses, a judge ordered on Monday as part of a lawsuit filed by the Republican state attorney general.The district judge Teresa Watson's order will remain in effect for up to two weeks, although she can extend it. It is significant because transgender people have been able to change their driver's licenses in Kansas for at least four years, and almost 400 people have done so. Continue reading...

Torrential rain flooded homes and caused extensive damage in New York's Hudson valley on Sunday, killing at least one person. Footage shared on social media showed flood water rushing through houses as people waded through knee-deep water. New York officials said rescue teams found the body of a woman in her 30s who drowned after being swept away while trying to evacuate her home, and several people are still missing. The storm is expected to have already caused tens of millions of dollars worth of damage in the Hudson Valley area. The National Weather Service extended flash flood warnings into Connecticut and Massachusetts

Heavy rain drenches parts of US north-east, washing out roads, forcing evacuations and halting some airline travelRescue teams raced into Vermont on Monday after heavy rain drenched parts of the US north-east, washing out roads, forcing evacuations and halting some airline travel. One person was killed in New York as she was trying to leave her home.Mike Cannon of Vermont Urban Search and Rescue said crews from North Carolina, Michigan and Connecticut were among those helping to get to towns that had been unreachable since rain belted the state overnight. Continue reading...

Barack Obama was proud' of his fellow Hawaiian, who saw off the challenge of England's Charley Hull to win her first majorWhen Barack Obama is leading the tributes, it is impossible not to realise the scale of success. Allisen Corpuz prevailed over Charley Hull at the US Women's Open at Pebble Beach on Sunday and Obama was immediate in his praise towards his fellow Hawaiian. You make us all proud," said the 44th president of the United States on social media. He has done a lot in his career," Corpuz responded with more than a hint of understatement. That is really special."The nature of Corpuz's triumph was similarly striking. The 25-year-old had been trending in the right direction in majors - she was tied fourth at the Chevron Championship and shared 15th at the PGA championship - but missed three cuts in four previous US Open appearances. Corpuz had never won a mainstream tour event before; the weight of expectation at Pebble Beach played a part in her deliberate approach and she was warned she could be penalised for slow play during round four. Continue reading...

Guns or butter? To build up the military capacity vital for self-protection, European nations will have to make painful choicesHowever Russia's war in Ukraine ends, Europe is staring uncomfortably down the barrel of a decade of defence. A wounded, vengeful Russia will remain a threat as long as Vladimir Putin, or like-minded successors, are in power. There is no way back to the post-cold war security order, which was cracked by Moscow's assault on Georgia in 2008, ruptured by its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and finally shattered by its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year.The end of Europe's holiday" from defence is going to be expensive and impose painful choices between guns and butter, which the left will find particularly uncomfortable.Paul Taylor is a senior fellow of the Friends of Europe thinktank and author of the report After the war: how to keep Europe safe Continue reading...

US president had earlier met Rishi Sunak to talk about Ukraine's counteroffensiveJoe Biden and King Charles have held a meeting on how to tackle the climate emergency, after the US president earlier discussed Ukraine's counteroffensive with Rishi Sunak in Downing Street.Biden, on a brief stopover in the UK before the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, hailed the rock-solid" friendship between the UK and the US. Continue reading...

Objecting to capital punishment was once taboo too. Real change comes from politicians brave enough to speak upThe Scottish government declared last week that it wanted to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use. Possession of drugs in Scotland remains under the pre-devolution Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and, as the Scottish drugs policy minister Elena Whitham says, the current approach has failed". Scotland has the highest drug mortality rate in Europe. Drug use is polluting every public service from mental health and homelessness to welfare, policing and imprisonment.Scotland is supposedly in charge of these services. Yet the central government in London absolutely refuses to allow it to touch drugs policy. It reacted to Whitham's announcement as though she were a lobbyist for the dealers. A horrified Rishi Sunak rushed out a statement reinforcing his government's tough stance" on drugs. An equally horrified Labour promptly agreed.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Nassar reportedly in stable condition after becoming involved in an altercation in Florida prison and being stabbed multiple timesLarry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor who was convicted of decades of abuse of women and girls under the guise of medical treatment, was reportedly stabbed at a federal prison in Florida on Sunday.The Associated Press reported that Nassar was involved in an altercation with another person at United States Penitentiary Coleman in Florida and was stabbed multiple times, including in the chest and back. Continue reading...

Congressman who has pleaded not guilty to 13 fraud-related counts condemned as disgrace' by prospective opponentGeorge Santos, the Republican congressman whose resume has been shown to be largely fabricated and who has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, stoked outrage by comparing himself to the great civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks.Rosa Parks didn't sit in the back, and neither am I gonna sit in the back," Santos told Mike Crispi Unafraid, a rightwing podcast. Continue reading...

The US president touched down in Windsor to meet the king for first time since the coronation. After warmly greeting Charles, Biden listened to the US national anthem before inspecting the guard of honour.Biden also met the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, in the morning

Democratic congresswoman says rightwing Florida governor, trailing Trump in the polls, has made very large, critical errors'Ron DeSantis has made very large, critical errors" in the Republican presidential primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, the biggest of which is the Florida governor's attempt to out-Trump Trump" and appeal to the hard-right GOP base.The dynamics of these races change from day to day," the New York progressive congresswoman told MSNBC. I think that Governor DeSantis has made some very large, critical errors. Continue reading...

Ro Khanna of California wants John Roberts' account of controversies besetting the out of touch' courtThe US chief justice should testify before Congress about ethics scandals besetting his supreme court for the good of democracy", a leading Californian progressive said.The justices are so cloistered, they're so out of touch", the congressman Ro Khanna told MSNBC on Sunday. They don't have a sense of what life is like, so my plea to him would be for the good of democracy come testify. What are you afraid of?" Continue reading...

National Weather Service urges people to take precautions against life-threatening heat conditions'. Plus, what is a TikTok girl dinner'?Good morning.The US's summer of weather misery is expected to escalate further this week as the south-west braces for record-breaking temperatures never seen before.What has the NWS said? The atmospheric setup ... also looks to have similarities to the conditions on July 28 1995, that led to Phoenix reaching 121 degrees and Yuma hit 124 degrees," the NWS said, adding: Even if we do not get quite that hot during this current heatwave, this should go down as one of the longest, if not the longest duration heatwave this area has ever seen."Has Twitter taken any action? Twitter has received notice of the legal action and has since acted to block some of the offending tweets. Continue reading...

Feeling panic about their fertility, or just to keep their options open, a rising number of women are opting to freeze their eggsI guess I'll just freeze my eggs." Perhaps you've heard your partner, friend or daughter say this, or have said it yourself, throwing your hands up in real or mock despair over the biological clock. It has become a more common refrain as the science that allows some women to preserve" their fertility becomes more sophisticated. Although such phrases might sound flippant, egg freezing is an insurance policy that didn't exist for previous generations, and its existence has transformed the way that we see fertility.Last month, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority reported a dramatic rise" in the number of UK women freezing their eggs, with some experts suggesting it was prompted by the pandemic and the anxiety it caused women who felt they were being robbed of their fertile window".Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Drink backed by YouTube star Logan Paul has the equivalent caffeine of six Coke cans and has prompted bans in the UKAn influencer-backed energy drink that has earned viral popularity among children is facing scrutiny from lawmakers and health experts over its potentially dangerous levels of caffeine.On Sunday, Senator Chuck Schumer called on the Food and Drug Administration to investigate Prime, a beverage brand founded by the YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI that has become something of an obsession among the influencers' legions of young followers. Continue reading...

The economy is getting better overall - but as the rich get richer and the poor grow poorer, overall has become a worse gauge of wellbeingIt's a Goldilocks economy - not too hot to spur inflation, not too cool to invite recession.On Friday, the labor department announced that the US economy added 209,000 jobs in June.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...

Caitlin Bernard deserves a statue for her service. Instead, she's been harassed and persecutedIf the United States was a country that valued women and girls, or that understood the moral gravity of misogyny, then there would be statues to people like Caitlin Bernard. The Indiana doctor has long been a champion of reproductive rights; she joined a 2019 lawsuit challenging her state's Roe-era ban on dilation and evacuation abortions, or D&E procedures; she's long been outspoken, in her very red state, about her faith that women and girls are worthy of control over their own bodies. So maybe Indiana Republicans, like the attorney general Todd Rokita, already thought of her as an enemy in July 2022, when, just days after the supreme court's Dobbs decision overturned Roe and threw an anti-abortion trigger ban into effect in neighboring Ohio, Bernard performed an abortion on a patient who had had to travel to Indiana to get her procedure: a 10-year-old girl, the victim of rape.This act alone - Bernard's gesture of compassion and respect to an abused child, one that spared the young girl the danger and torture of an underage, rape-produced pregnancy and helped to end the suffering and indignity that followed her assault, is itself a solemn kind of service. Bernard's work brought her into the darkest realities of what men do to women - raping and impregnating them as children, making laws that will keep them pregnant against their will, as children, unless they can flee - and to face that darkness with integrity and courage. Few of us would have the capacity to do what Bernard did in treating that child; few of us would be able to face that truth about our world.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Civil rights lawyer laments dismissal of suit which attempted to force city to make recompense for the destruction of Black areaAn Oklahoma judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, dashing an effort to obtain some measure of legal justice for elderly survivors.The judge, Caroline Wall, on Friday dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit which attempted to force the city and others to make recompense for the destruction of Greenwood, a once-thriving Black district. Continue reading...

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The Republican governor of Florida said he'd take executive action as appropriate' to revoke Beijing's legal designationThe Republican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Sunday he would aim to revoke China's permanent normal trade relations status if he wins the White House next year.I favor doing that," DeSantis told Fox News. Continue reading...

Statement says that strike was carried out by the same drones that were earlier harassed by Russian aircraftThe US military said on Sunday it conducted a strike that killed Usamah al-Muhajir, an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria.The strike on Friday was conducted by the same MQ-9s that had, earlier in the day, been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours," a statement from US Central Command said. Continue reading...

The state-of-the art International African American Museum opened last month - can it effect radical change?Sharrilyn Aiken McKinney and her daughter Shaylyn slowly scanned the colorful walls of the new International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. As they perused a timeline that established the global roots of slavery in the 1400s until its US demise in the 19th century, Shaylyn paused and snapped an image of an antebellum slave tag, an object common in Charleston during that time. Worn by the enslaved who were leased to work for people other than their slaveholders, such metal badges proved they had permission to move about the city.Meanwhile, the elder McKinney moved toward the museum's Center for Family History, where the pair plans to seek help from in-house genealogists to find out more about their Charleston heritage. The mother and daughter know there's a chance their enslaved ancestors may have arrived on or near the museum's grounds, built on Gadsden's Wharf, which received thousands of captive Africans on slave ships. Shaylyn, who self-identifies as Gullah Geechee (McKinney does not), told me she couldn't wrap her head around the possibility that she may have been walking in the footsteps of her forebears. Her mother was in a different state of mind: I'm here just to see that the truth is being told," she said. They can't keep it away. I want to see the local stuff." Continue reading...

Former president who dominates Republican primary finds receptive audience at Las Vegas rallyDonald Trump attacked Ron DeSantis at a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, saying his closest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination had no personality" - but claiming responsibility for the Florida governor's career on the national stage.Trump also repeated his lie about electoral fraud in his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, to a receptive audience, before high-fiving fans at a mixed martial event. Continue reading...

Move to 15 January puts first votes of GOP primary a little more than six months awayIowa Republicans announced on Saturday that their presidential caucuses will be held on 15 January - the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.The move puts the first votes of the 2024 election a little more than six months away, as Republicans try to reclaim the White House. Continue reading...