US news | The Guardian

Blair has joined in the praise for Italy’s former prime minister, a man who was as sad as he was repulsive‘I liked Silvio,” Tony Blair wrote in his autobiography. That was in 2010, when there was possibly some excuse.It was not until 2013 that the late “Silvio” was convicted of tax fraud; charges of false accounting having been dropped after Berlusconi changed the law on false accounting; formal sex charges against him were also yet to come. There were just the two public letters from the second Mrs Berlusconi, Veronica Lario, both denouncing her husband’s pursuit and shameless political promotion of objects of his sexual interest, to suggest that Blair might want to rethink his enthusiasm for a notorious chaser of young women and disrespecter of older ones lest this be mistaken for some sort of endorsement. Continue reading...

The Three Stooges are the stars of rightwing populist melodramas. Real people with real-world problems are more deserving of attentionWhat do Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi have in common? If this sounds like the beginning of an off-colour joke, in a way it is. But the joke’s on us.Huge egos, certainly. Love of money, no doubt. Compulsive lying, untrustworthiness, predatory relationships with women, links to shady characters, media manipulation – in life and death, they shared all this and more. Continue reading...

Elizabeth Gilbert was wrong to stop her novel being published on account of its settingOn 4 September 1939, the day after Britain had declared war on Germany, the BBC Proms opened with extracts from Richard Wagner’s works including The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Götterdämmerung, Tristan and Isolde, Tannhäuser and Die Walküre. Later concerts that year included works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Strauss and a lot of Wagner. The BBC may have been an instrument of Britain’s war effort but few of even the most patriotic Britons thought it immoral to play the works of the great German classical composers.The following year, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which had relocated to Bristol, opened its 1940 concert series with a performance in which the entire second half was given over to Wagner. In response to a letter of complaint, Ralph Hill, the Bristol Evening Post’s music critic, dismissed “the fantastic myth that the music of Wagner cannot or should not be appreciated by civilised people at war with Germany”. Continue reading...

Relatives of Anadith Reyez Álvarez, who died of influenza when detained in Texas, want to ensure ‘nobody has to go through this’Shortly before the funeral on Saturday for an eight-year-old girl who died while she detained by the US border patrol in Texas and stricken with influenza, her relatives vowed to pursue justice in her case so “nobody has to go through this” again.“We will let our baby rest and hope that she rests in peace,” the family of Anadith Reyes Álvarez said in a statement, obtained by the Spanish-language news network Univision. “We want justice for her and that nobody has to go through this.” Continue reading...

Lockdown harmony has given way to fury – and my apartment building’s noticeboard has become a place of intrigue

President enlists support of union members against GOP tax cuts for the wealthy at first political rally of 2024 re-election campaignAt his first political rally since announcing his re-election campaign for president in April, Joe Biden told a crowd of labor union supporters: “Wall Street didn’t build America – you did.”“If the investment bankers of this country went on strike tomorrow, no one would notice,” Biden said on Saturday during a speech which alluded to his blue-collar childhood roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Renewing his longstanding vocal support for labor unions, he continued: “If this room didn’t show up to work tomorrow, the whole country would come to a grinding halt, so tell me – who matters more in America?” Continue reading...

City bus collides with two cars and then a building in Seton Hill neighborhood, with at least two of 17 injuries believed to be seriousA Baltimore city bus collided into two cars as well as a building on Saturday morning, leaving at least 17 people injured as well as a chaotic scene.The Maryland Transportation Authority bus at the center of the case struck a Lexus car about 10.20am, with the bus then crashing into a Nissan and then part of a building in the 500 block of West Franklin Street in Baltimore’s Seton Hill neighborhood west of downtown. Continue reading...

Horrors at sea will continue until the west faces up to its responsibilities and recognises its part in the plight of refugeesThe nationalities of the several hundred people assumed to have drowned in the latest, terrible migrant boat tragedy in the Mediterranean help explain why they attempted so perilous a journey. Pakistanis, Egyptians, Syrians, Afghans and Palestinians reportedly comprised most of the approximately 750 passengers crammed on to the unseaworthy vessel that set off from Tobruk in Libya and sank 50 miles off the coast of Greece last Wednesday.The list of countries of origin is an index of pain, for which the EU, Britain and their allies bear much responsibility. The west’s failure to stop the Syrian regime’s war on its people led to the 2015-16 migrant crisis, when hundreds of thousands of Syrians sought safety in Europe. Although fighting has subsided, many, including Palestinians living in desperate conditions in camps in the war-torn country, still flee persecution by a vengeful regime, or are quitting an increasingly unaccommodating Turkey.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Bush pilot’s Cessna 180 crashed on Friday near Shaktoolik, Alaska, killing Tweto and his passengerThe bush pilot Jim Tweto, well known as the star of the early 2010s documentary series Flying Wild Alaska on Discovery, died in a plane crash on Friday.The crash which killed Tweto, 68, and passenger occurred about 35 miles north-east of Shaktoolik, Alaska. Continue reading...

If he sincerely believes in integrity in public life, the prime minister must unambiguously endorse the privileges committee’s damning verdict on his predecessorLet’s conduct a dark thought experiment by imagining that Boris Johnson had successfully blagged and bullied the privileges committee into letting him get away with the repeated lies he told about Partygate. Our democracy would be in a very sickly condition this weekend. The Commons would be in disrepute with the public, a thumping majority of whom concluded long ago that the deceitful scoundrel lied about law-breaking in Downing Street. We would be looking at terrible damage to parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, which vitally depends on upholding the principle that MPs can expect ministers to give them honest information. If such a manifest deceiver had been let off the hook, it would not have taken long for lying to become institutionalised in parliament. So the excoriating judgment of the privileges committee was not just right, it was also imperative.He greeted their findings with another of his toddler tantrums, screaming about “the final knife-thrust” and “a dreadful day for MPs and for democracy”. To the contrary, this has been one of the brighter moments in the recent history of our democracy. In politics, the media and many other parts of the public square, we are in the midst of a titanic struggle. On the one side are bad actors who seek to advance themselves and their causes by peddling misinformation, mendacity and fakery. Resisting them are those who prize facts, veracity and rules. It was critical that the defenders of integrity in public life prevailed over the forces of darkness. Continue reading...

What we eat defines us as a nation but it also crosses borders and, like Esperanto, helps us communicate globallyFood is an international language: an Esperanto that we all speak pretty fluently, for in the end everyone has to eat. But dialect words are also involved, and sometimes these are a little harder to translate. Last month, in Slovenia, where I was running a writing workshop, I found myself having to explain not only the meaning of the word pasty, but also the various reasons why the appearance of such a thing in a story might be an indicator of social class or even of character. “The author could have had Keith eat a sandwich,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “But he went for a pasty instead because he wants to reveal Keith’s masculine needs to the reader. Basically, Keith is the kind of man who feels himself to be woefully deprived unless he has a hot lunch.” (I know. Eat your heart out, FR Leavis.)All cultures have portable dishes: in this sense, the pasty comes with an in-built universality, one my students grasped immediately (or at least they did once Google provided us with a picture). Then again, made properly, the Cornish pasty is also highly specific. Its recipe, as we know, is not to be messed with, and here’s where things got trickier. Keith, the bloke in the book we were talking about, is an old-school, pedantic type, which may be another reason why his usual lunch appeals to him; he gets to pass judgment on it as well as eat it. Continue reading...

Emails reveal staff at Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority confused at being centered by lawsuit brought by GOP-led statesNewly released emails obtained by the Student Borrower Protection Center reveal employees at a student loan service provider in Missouri expressed confusion over the state’s attorney general placing the provider at the center of a lawsuit filed to block the Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.The United States supreme court is expected to issue a ruling on a legal challenge to the president’s student debt forgiveness of up to $20,000 in the coming weeks. That challenge – filed by the Missouri attorney general and five other Republican-led states – and another challenge filed by the conservative advocacy organization, Job Creators Network, made it to the supreme court. Continue reading...

May we all one day have as much courage – in life and in death – as Daniel EllsbergIn All the President’s Men, the classic film on the downfall of President Richard Nixon, the name “Daniel Ellsberg” is not uttered once. And what a shame that is. Because for all the journalistic heroics of Woodward and Bernstein, it’s possible that there was no one more responsible for the only resignation of a president in American history than Daniel Ellsberg.Ellsberg, the legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower, passionate anti-nuclear activist and staunch press freedom advocate, passed away at the age of 92 on Friday. History should remember him as one of the 20th century’s most consequential figures. But we should also be reminded that his own story is also so cinematic, it’s almost hard to believe. Continue reading...

The sauna-set entertainment known as Aufguss has long been popular in Europe. Will Americans warm to the art form?In the “event sauna” of the Awana Spa in Las Vegas, tourists in bathing suits were taking selfies on wood benches lined with neon lights. The sauna was heated to 175F (79C) and the show was about to begin.A tattooed and bikini-clad “sauna meister” dropped ice infused with essential oils on to the hot stones at the center of the sauna. As pop music pounded through the sauna speakers, she began to wave a towel in elaborate patterns above her head, wafting hot, scented air directly at each cluster of audience members. Continue reading...

A man harassing a nine-year-old girl for not looking feminine enough shows the war on trans people is also a war on all womenIt was supposed to be a fun school sports event for young kids. Instead it turned into an altercation that went viral and made international news. A nine-year-old girl was getting ready to take her turn at a shot put event in British Columbia, Canada, when a belligerent 67-year-old man called Josef Tesar intervened and allegedly accused the girl of being a boy or transgender. The girl had short hair, you see, and apparently didn’t fit Tesar’s precise specifications of femininity. Since she didn’t immediately pass the Tesar test, he wanted proof that the girl was born female before she was allowed to continue. The competition was disrupted and the girl ended the day in tears. Continue reading...

Independent Women’s Voice turned resources to fighting trans rights in 10 key swing states, documents revealIn the months leading up to the 2022 US midterm elections, hundreds of thousands of Facebook users in swing states were targeted with advertisements asking them to sign the Women’s Bill of Rights – a relatively innocuous-sounding initiative presented as a crusade for women’s empowerment. “The Real Fight For Women”, read one version featuring a woman looking down at a cityscape and flexing her biceps. “We know what a woman is,” proclaimed another, its text hovering over a closeup of the Statue of Liberty.But the Women’s Bill of Rights is a weapon in a war against gender equity being waged by a conservative non-profit women’s group. Independent Women’s Voice, or IWV, lobbies against the equal rights amendment, criticizes public school curriculum and opposes government-funded parental leave. Recently, they have turned their resources to fighting transgender rights. And, according to documents shared with the Guardian by watchdog True North Research, IWV budgeted nearly $6m to promote anti-trans messaging in 10 swing states in advance of last year’s midterms. Continue reading...

Mix of trusted advisers making up campaign team gives an insight into president’s strategy as he runs for a second termJoe Biden, who early into his presidency said he intended to seek a second term, formally announced he was running for re-election in April, exactly four years after he entered the 2020 presidential race.The president has swiftly assembled a mix of trusted advisers on a campaign team that paints a picture of his 2024 strategy, which includes engaging Latino communities and touting his first-term achievements. Continue reading...

Whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers showing that the American public had been misled about the Vietnam warDaniel Ellsberg, who has died aged 92, was the most important whistleblower of our times. His 1971 leaking of what became known as the Pentagon Papers showed conclusively that virtually everything the American public had been told by its leaders about the Vietnam war, from its origins to its current conduct, was false.The leak itself did not end the war, and Ellsberg regretted not having come forward years earlier. He spent the rest of his life as a peace activist, encouraging others on the inside to reveal government malfeasance, and supporting those who did, including the 2003 GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. But his leaks did result in a landmark decision in favour of freedom of the press, and, ironically, led to the downfall of the US president Richard Nixon. It is not unreasonable to set Ellsberg’s leak alongside President John F Kennedy’s assassination as the ground zero of today’s distrust of politics. Continue reading...

Uefa is troubled by the trend of US investors targeting multiple clubs, but they have reaped limited rewards so farIt is a trend that a few months ago was described by Uefa’s European Club Footballing Landscape report as “being fuelled predominantly by United States-based investors” and having “the potential to pose a material threat to the integrity of European club competitions”. Yet Aleksander Ceferin’s admission that European football’s governing body is considering a rule change after Manchester United’s takeover talks raised issues around potential conflict of interests seemed to indicate it is a threat Ceferin feels the game must embrace.Uefa’s report published in February estimated that 6,500 players from 195 clubs – a 75% increase in less than three years – were employed by 27 multi-club investment groups, a third of which are based in the US. It is too early to say whether this is a passing fad, but John Textor – whose Eagle Football Holdings has shares in Lyon, Crystal Palace, the Brazilian side Botafogo and the Belgian club RWD Molenbeek – believes the model is here to stay. Continue reading...

Trump is often described as ‘authoritarian’. But that doesn’t really capture the more alarming aspects of his movementThe Washington Post calls Donald Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian”.That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce. Charging leakers. Continue reading...

The oldest president in history is ditching his Covid-imposed ‘basement strategy’ for the most gruelling campaign of his lifeIt became known as the “basement strategy”. As the coronavirus pandemic raged outside, presidential candidate Joe Biden addressed the nation from a makeshift studio under his Delaware home, avoiding off-the-cuff gaffes and allowing rival Donald Trump to self-destruct.But three years on, with lockdowns lifted and America mostly back to a new version of normal, Biden knows that speeches on glitchy Zoom calls or in empty auditoriums will not be enough. The president, who at 80 is the oldest in American history, is facing the final, most gruelling campaign of his life. Continue reading...

The shelter Susana ‘Susy’ Barrales runs in Tijuana has become a destination for trans women fleeing persecution and looking for support and healthcareSusana “Susy” Barrales cuts a dash in downtown Tijuana, exchanging hellos with neighbors, friends and acquaintances whenever she heads out from her modest office, where the walls are adorned with framed awards from local government entities praising her advocacy work.The shelter she runs in the city on the Mexico border with California has become a destination for many from other Mexican cities and countries in Central America, and beyond, who hear about it on the migration grapevine. Continue reading...

Many liberals celebrated when Hamtramck, Michigan, elected a Muslim-majority council in 2015 but a vote to exclude LGBTQ+ flags from city property has soured relationsIn 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic-but-meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. Continue reading...

Barry Jones pleads guilty to lesser charge in deal to overturn his conviction for murder of four-year-old girl in 1994An Arizona man who spent nearly three decades on death row before the reversal of his conviction over the death of a four-year-old girl has been freed from prison.Barry Jones’s release, ordered on Thursday, came after a Tuscon-area state court judge approved a deal between prosecutors and him which involved his pleading guilty to a lesser murder charge. According to prosecutors, a medical review of the case failed to conclude that Jones caused the girl’s fatal injury, and his pleading guilty to second-degree murder involves his failure to adequately seek emergency care for the victim. Continue reading...

Federal judge issues order stopping ban on puberty blockers and hormones due to take effect on 1 July.A US federal judge on Friday issued an order stopping an Indiana ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors from taking effect as scheduled 1 July.Indiana’s American Civil Liberties Union sought the temporary injunction in its legal challenge of the Republican-backed law, which was enacted this spring amid a national push by politically conservative legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights. Continue reading...

President makes speech in Connecticut at summit marking passage of tougher gun control law last yearThe Minneapolis police force use excessive force and discriminate against marginalized groups, including Black and Native Americans and people with behavioral issues, attorney general Merrick Garland said as he announced the findings of the justice department’s investigation following George Floyd’s death.“We found that MPD … engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black and Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protected speech and discriminating against people with behavioral disabilities and … when responding to them in crisis,” Garland said.The city council approved the court-enforceable agreement on Friday on an 11-0 vote, but not before several members expressed harsh criticism of the Minneapolis police department and other city leaders over the years.“The lack of political will to take responsibility for MPD is why we are in this position today,” council member Robin Wonsley said. Continue reading...

Merrick Garland announces findings of Department of Justice investigation into department after Floyd’s killing by officersThe US attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Friday announced that the 2020 murder of George Floyd was part of a “pattern or practice” of excessive force used by the department and years of unlawful discrimination against Black Americans.Garland held a press conference to reveal the findings of the two-year investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ) into the conduct and training of the Minneapolis police department (MPD) both before and after George Floyd’s death at the hands of officers in the city in 2020. Continue reading...

Analyst who leaked studies showing US government knew the Vietnam war was un-winnable became activist and writerDaniel Ellsberg, a US government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in world politics when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US government knowledge of the futility of the Vietnam war, has died. He was 92. His death was confirmed by his family on Friday.In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Saying he had been given three to six months to live, he said he had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy and had been assured of hospice care. Continue reading...

Jurors to debate death penalty for Robert Bowers, 50, who had admitted killing worshippers at start of trialA truck driver who expressed hatred of Jews has been convicted of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath and fatally shooting 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.The guilty verdict on Friday against Robert Bowers was a foregone conclusion. Bowers’s lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on 27 October 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in the US in American history. Continue reading...

Crypto exchange confirms failure to obtain Dutch licence and French inquiry as problems mount in US tooBinance has suffered setbacks in two European markets after it announced plans to quit the Netherlands and came under investigation by French prosecutors.The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange said it was leaving the Dutch market after it failed to obtain a licence from the country’s central bank. Continue reading...

Both men sing from the Berlusconi songsheet, denouncing charges against them as partisan attacks while we pay the priceThe three tenors of showman populism, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi, reached the top through a combination of telegenic clownishness, “I alone can fix it” braggadocio and a shared strain of narcissistic nationalism – and now one faces the judgment of the courts, another has fled the judgment of his peers, while the third contemplates the judgment of the heavens.In the week Berlusconi met his maker – doubtless with a wide, permatanned smile and an inquiry as to where one might find the most winsome angels, only to be directed towards the downward escalator – Trump and Johnson respectively contemplated a charge sheet and a verdict of the earthly variety. Both are stunning documents.Jonathan Freedland 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...

Push in new contract include air conditioning in vehicles, pay increases for part-time workers and end to two-tier wagesAbout 340,000 workers at the shipping giant UPS, represented by the Teamsters, have voted to authorize a strike when their current five-year contract expires on 31 July if a new tentative agreement isn’t reached with the company by then.Voting began last week at local union halls around the US. Workers voted 97% in favor approving the strike authorization. Negotiations on the national agreement between UPS and the Teamsters began in early May 2023 and remain ongoing. Continue reading...

Former president notes tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over effects of racism, prompting pushback from bothBarack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.On a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”. Continue reading...

Homes in Perryton, 110 miles north of Amarillo, reduced to rubble and power was cut in the aftermath of the stormSearch and rescue crews will resume searching on Friday for at least one person missing in the north Texas town of Perryton after it was struck by one or more tornados that killed three people and sent up to 100 more to the hospital on Thursday evening, some in critical condition.The town remained without power the day after a huge twister inflicted damage to homes and a mobile home park. Continue reading...

Lawmakers showed up for work Thursday after compromising with Democrats on abortion and gun safety measuresEnding a walkout that held up key bills for six weeks, Republicans showed up for work in the Oregon senate on Thursday after wresting concessions from Democrats on measures covering abortion, transgender healthcare and gun rights.The lawmakers’ walkout – the longest in state history and the second-longest in the United States – came as several statehouses around the nation have become ideological battlegrounds, including in Montana and Tennessee. Continue reading...