US news | The Guardian

Senate passed legislation to regulate stablecoins, the first of what the industry hopes will be a wave of bills to bolster its legitimacy

National security agreement allows Trump to name a board member as well as a non-economic golden shareNippon Steel's $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel closed on Wednesday, the companies said, confirming an unusual degree of power for the Trump administration after the Japanese company's 18-month struggle to close the purchase.Under the deal terms, Nippon bought 100% of US Steel shares at $55 a share, as it first laid out in its December 2023 offer for the well-known and struggling steelmaker. Continue reading...

Senate inquiry addressing constitutional crisis' of Biden's cognitive decline was attended by just one DemocratSenate Democrats staged a near-total boycott of a Republican-led Senate hearing on Wednesday on Joe Biden's mental decline and its alleged cover-up during his presidency, with only Vermont senator Peter Welch attending the session.The hearing, titled Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution", began with Democratic ranking member Dick Durbin launching a counterattack on Donald Trump's off-kilter comments before walking out of the chamber. Continue reading...

Findings reinforce public appetite for peaceful resolution to aim of forcing Iran to give up ambitions of acquiring nuclear weapons

Public spat reflects fracture among Trump's coalition over whether US should join Israel's escalating conflict with Iran

President Donald Trump has declined to answer reporters' questions on whether the US is planning to strike Iran or its nuclear facilities. He said the Iranians had reached out but he felt 'it's very late to be talking ... There's a big difference between now and a week ago. Nobody knows what I'm going to do'

Ruling is devastating loss for trans rights supporters in case that could set precedent for dozens of other lawsuits

Men allegedly stole $100m worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and luxury watches from an armored truckSeven men in southern California have been charged in connection with what federal authorities are calling the largest jewelry heist in US history" after allegedly stealing approximately $100m worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and luxury watches from an armored truck.The US attorney's office for California's central district revealed the charges in a news release on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Federal and provincial governments are flooding the zone' with damaging corporate giveaways under the guise of resistanceSteve Bannon calls it flooding the zone". Donald Trump demonstrated it in his first weeks back in office, when he introduced over 100 executive orders. Regardless of their legal viability, the sheer volume of policy changes is the point. It is a political strategy to overwhelm institutions, courts and social groups, preventing effective opposition.In Canada, we are witnessing our own version of flooding the zone" from our new prime minister, Mark Carney, in coordination with provincial and territorial premiers. Carney is the former governor of the Bank of England. Prior to that, he was the governor of the Bank of Canada. He recently won the federal election by defeating a rightwing opponent Canadians feared would steer them too far towards Trump policies. Yet Carney's negotiations" with Trump have so far involved gentle reminders that Canada would never become the 51st state, as threatened by the US president, and capitulations to Trump's demand to strengthen our border security and increase defense spending. In reality, Canada is moving much closer to the authoritarian rule of Trump.Shiri Pasternak is an associate professor in criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dayna Nadine Scott is a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University. Both authors are members of the Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism research team, a collaboration between critical scholars and Indigenous land defenders across North America Continue reading...

James Uthmeier defied a judge's order to halt arrests and boasted of backing Trump's immigration agendaA federal judge in Miami held Florida's attorney general James Uthmeier in contempt of court for continuing to enforce an immigration law she blocked, and bragging about it in media interviews afterwards.District court judge Kathleen Williams pointed to Uthmeier's defiance in a scorching ruling on Tuesday afternoon that accused the Republican of twisting words in her April stay of a February law making it a state crime for undocumented aliens to enter Florida. Continue reading...

Mamdani's campaign deserves credit for offering a clear, inspiring, progressive message. But ranked-choice voting is also helping make him competitiveWith a week left until New York's Democratic mayoral primary, one might have thought that the former governor Andrew Cuomo would be measuring the drapes at Gracie Mansion. Real estate developers, corporations like Doordash, a smattering of billionaires and even Billy Joel have shoveled cash into his campaign, with his Super Pac spending more money than any other outside force in the city's political history. This is on top of his entering the race with major name recognition advantage, amounting to a 20- or 30-point lead as recently as May.But according to a new poll, Zohran Mamdani - the insurgent state assemblyman and democratic socialist whom the Nation recently co-endorsed along with fellow mayoral candidate and New York City comptroller Brad Lander - has pulled ahead of Cuomo for the first time.Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times Continue reading...

After Hurricane Helene's flood waters slammed into Lake Lure's century-old dam last September, the resort town was spurred on to seek federal funding for an ambitious rebuilding plan. While the initial response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency seemed encouraging when Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump's plans to shrink or even abolish Fema - and push some of the costs of disaster response on to states - have injected uncertainty into the North Carolina town's recovery Continue reading...

The NHL's southern expansion was mocked in the 1990s. But it led to better hockey, more money and a long drought for the sport's spiritual homeThere are a lot of things I do not understand about this proposed expansion," New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey wrote in December 1992, as the NHL wrapped up its annual Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. During that week's meeting, the league received expansion proposals for two teams. One was for a team in Anaheim, California, backed by Disney. The other was for a team in Miami, Florida, put forward by waste management-and-VHS-video magnate, Wayne Huizenga. What makes it think the Sun Belt is ready for all these hockey teams?" Vecsey wondered.At the time, the answer was money. With more time, the answer seems to be: because championship hockey teams can be built anywhere, including in the South. On Tuesday night in Florida, the Panthers won their second-straight Stanley Cup against the Edmonton Oilers, this time in six games - one fewer than they needed last season. If anything, you could now argue that there's no better place to build a championship NHL team than the southern US. Since 1990, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to a team based in the South nine times - but five of those have come in the last six years. And three of those have also been against Canadian teams. Continue reading...

While Juneteenth has become the most famous celebration marking the end of slavery, it is far from the only one

Israel-Iran conflict is at a critical juncture as thousands flee Tehran. Plus, Alex Padilla makes speech about being handcuffed

How Kelcy Warren, one of Trump's biggest industry backers, and his pipeline firm are likely to flourish in his second termKelcy Warren was among the top donors for Donald Trump's 2024 White House bid, personally pouring at least $5m into the campaign and co-hosting a fundraiser for the then presidential hopeful in Houston.Trump's win appears to already be benefiting Warren and Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline and energy firm of which he is co-founder, executive chair and primary shareholder. Continue reading...

Five residents of Lake Worth Beach - just 10 miles from Trump's Maga fortress - share their stories of survival as an immigration crackdown takes its tollLake Worth Beach, a small coastal city of about 45,000, sits in the shadows of Donald Trump's Florida residence, Mar-A-Lago. A 10 minute drive from Maga"

Exclusive: poll shows 62% of women and 47% of men across political spectrum say economy and inflation getting worseWomen across the political spectrum are more concerned about the state of the US economy and inflation under Donald Trump than men are, according to a new exclusive poll for the Guardian.More Democrats than Republicans are now concerned about the economy following the president's return to power. But pessimism was higher for women even among Republicans and independents, according to a new Harris poll.More women said they are very worried about food prices (52% of women compared to 39% of men)More women said they're spending more time trying to find deals or go to more affordable stores (36% versus 26%)More women said their financial security is getting worse because of their difficulty in affording essential goods and services (55% versus 46%) Continue reading...

Catholic church says it won't make nearly $1m interest payment but calls fraud accusation extreme stretch'The Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans is planning to default on paying a nearly $1m interest payment on more than $41m in bonds it sold in 2017, leading lawyers for the people who purchased the church's debt to allege in open court that it had engaged in the definition of securities fraud".An attorney for the archdiocese countered that the allegation is an extreme stretch". Continue reading...

Trump-related products are popping up all over the US - with the profits guaranteed to never help those who buy them

Put in the proper wider context, the attendance issues that have emerged during the tournament perhaps aren't quite as embarrassing as they seemIf there's a lesson to be learned from the Club World Cup so far, it's that images of nothingness can still generate hysteria. Empty seats - which are apparently a festering scourge upon the game of football, a tragedy representing the plastic bankruptcy of American soccer fandom and/or the Club World Cup, an issue demanding coverage delivered with brows fully furrowed - have been commonplace in the competition's opening dozen games. Social media is awash in panoramic photos from a nation of press boxes, informing you incredulously that this image, so obscene in its emptiness, was taken a mere 45 minutes before kickoff - or (gasp) even closer.Why do we care? What is it about the sight of a whole lot of plastic folding chairs with nobody in them that inflames our passions? Since when did we all become Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention? Continue reading...

As the Trump administration's security focus shifts towards countering China, European governments are living on borrowed timeCall it the five-for-five summit. When Nato leaders meet in The Hague next week, European allies will sign up to a phoney transatlantic bargain in which they pretend they will spend 5% of their economic output on defence and Donald Trump pretends in return that he is committed to Article 5 of the Nato treaty, the mutual defence clause that he has repeatedly undermined.The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, is deploying all his considerable political wiles and powers of persuasion to contrive a short, no surprises" summit at which fundamental differences over Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, trade, the Middle East and liberal democratic values are deliberately excluded.Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre Continue reading...

This liveblog is now closed.A memorial outside the Minnesota house chambers displays a photo of Melissa and Mark Hortman behind a table where people are dropping off flowers, notes, a hard hat, a plaid shirt. Signs in front of it read in honor of our beloved Melissa". On her desk, a photo and a bouquet of roses.On Monday afternoon, the skies darkened, spilling sheets of rain across the Minneapolis suburbs Melissa Hortman represented. Continue reading...

US president demanded unconditional surrender' from Tehran as Israel's war on Iran appeared to reach crucial moment - key US politics stories from Tuesday at a glanceDonald Trump boosted speculation over whether the US could become involved in Israel's conflict with Tehran on Tuesday, warning Iran's supreme leader that he was an easy target" and that America's patience is wearing thin".In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president wrote: Continue reading...

Kato chef receives award and says immigrant communities in LA are being ripped apart' and urges people to speak upAs Los Angeles chef Jon Yao received a James Beard award, one of the most significant in the culinary industry, he paid tribute to his city and the immigrants that are so central to its culture but are now living in fear amid the Trump administration's brutal immigration crackdown.Our restaurant - we tell stories, stories of immigrants, diaspora, endurance and perseverance," Yao said on Monday. LA is a city built by the toils of immigrant communities and right now those same communities are being ripped apart." Continue reading...

California senator details being restrained and warns of how democratic norms can slip away when power is uncheckedAlex Padilla took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to deliver a deeply personal speech, formally entering into the congressional record his account of being restrained and forcibly removed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, in Los Angeles last week.In emotional remarks, Padilla described the encounter that he hoped would serve as a wake up call" for Americans - a warning, he said, of how quickly democratic norms can slip away when dissent is silenced and power is unchecked. Continue reading...

Lander, also the city's comptroller, was arrested for assaulting an officer, said homeland security agencyBrad Lander, New York City's comptroller and a mayoral candidate, was arrested on Tuesday by masked federal agents while visiting an immigration court and accompanying a person out of a courtroom.In a statement to the Guardian, assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin from the Department of Homeland Security said Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer". Continue reading...

Group of California representatives who visited detention center said detainees did not have access to clean clothesCalifornia lawmakers who toured a detention facility where people arrested in sweeping immigration raids at workplaces across the Los Angeles area are being held, have reported deteriorating conditions, including a lack of access to clean clothes and towels.A group of US representatives of southern California districts arrived in Adelanto on Tuesday, a city in the high desert east of Los Angeles, to tour the facility and find constituents who had been detained in the raids over the past week. Continue reading...

Adriana Smith was declared brain dead in February and was kept alive to continue pregnancyA brain-dead Georgia woman who was kept on life support to continue her pregnancy had her baby late last week, according to the woman's mother.The Georgia woman, Adriana Smith, gave birth prematurely via emergency cesarean section on 13 June, Smith's mother, April Newkirk, told the local news station 11Alive, which first reported Smith's story. The baby, named Chance, is in the neonatal intensive care unit and weighs 1lb 13oz, 11Alive reported late on Monday night. Continue reading...

President has dismissed verdict by handpicked spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran is not developing nuclear weaponsTulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, delivered a concise verdict during congressional testimony this March: the intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khomeini [sic] has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003".As he rushed back to Washington on Tuesday morning, Donald Trump swatted aside the assessment from the official that he handpicked to deliver him information from 18 US intelligence agencies. I don't care what she said," said Trump. I think they were very close to having one." Continue reading...

Democrat tells Republican Mike Lee that his comments on assassination of Melissa Hortman spread misinformation and caused pain to thousands of MinnesotansThe Minnesota senator Tina Smith said she was so appalled" by her colleague Mike Lee's social media posts spreading misinformation about the assassination of state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband on Saturday that I felt that he needed to hear directly from me."The Democratic senator told the Guardian that she lost a friend and colleague this weekend when a shooter killed Hortman and her husband, Mark. Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, posted erroneously that the assassin was a Marxist" and blamed the state's governor for the killings. Although he deleted the posts on Tuesday, he has not apologized. Continue reading...

Republican Thomas Massie joins with Democrats in effort to require Congress approval before Trump attacks IranAs Donald Trump publicly threatens to join Israel in attacking Iran, an unlikely coalition of lawmakers has moved to prevent the president from involving US forces in the conflict without Congress's approval.On Tuesday, Republican congressman Thomas Massie, whose libertarian-tinged politics have often put him at odds with Trump, joined with several progressive Democrats to introduce in the House of Representatives a war powers resolution that would require a vote by Congress before Trump could attack Iran. Democrat Tim Kaine has introduced companion legislation in the Senate. Continue reading...

Trump sought to underline European irrelevance in the Middle East crisis. All now rests on what he proposes

Exclusive: Sources say US wants information on when importing of raw materials from abroad at Port Talbot site will stopDonald Trump is threatening to keep 25% tariffs on some or all of its steel imports from the UK unless it gives specific guarantees over the Indian-owned steelmaking plant at Port Talbot in south Wales, sources have told the Guardian.An agreement to reduce tariffs on UK car exports to the US and scrap them for the aerospace sector was signed off by the US president and Keir Starmer on Monday, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada. Continue reading...

The senator from California was handcuffed and physically removed from a press conference given by Trump's homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, in Los Angeles last week Continue reading...

The actor used to point vaguely to the sky and suggest the government was watching when asked for a photo. Nowadays, that could lead to some very awkward conversationsSarah Jessica Parker, the Sex and the City star and Booker prize judge, has a nifty trick for getting out of taking selfies with her fans. I did this for a really, really long time and it worked for ever," Parker said in an interview with Howard Stern. I used to say, I can't, because of the government,' and I'd do this," Parker said, pointing up to the sky. It really confused people. This was through different administrations, so it wasn't political."It is not entirely clear why Parker - who has said she refuses to take selfies and would rather have a conversation" instead because it's much more meaningful" - stopped using this brilliant excuse. But one does have to wonder whether it is because the US has become a nation of conspiracy theorists. Rather than backing away from the weird the government is watching" woman, perhaps fans started to excitedly engage her with theories about how Bill Gates has implanted us all with mind-controlling microchips. Or maybe she just got tired of the joke. I don't know. But I'm sure someone out there (the government) does. Continue reading...

Kahikinui fire is 85% contained as firefighting crews battle blazes in Pacific north-west, California and the RockiesA fast-moving Hawaii brush fire fueled by fierce winds forced the evacuation of about 50 Maui residents on the opposite side of the same island where a devastating blaze killed more than 100 people two years ago.The fire started on Sunday in a sparsely populated area with land set aside for Native Hawaiians. Continue reading...

Women juggling work and family say Trump tariffs, inflation and the pay gap are stretching them to a breaking pointWhen it comes to managing the household grocery list, remembering all the various teachers at school, and juggling the family doctors' appointments, Katherine de la Cruz has it all on her plate while working full-time as a paralegal.My brain is on, on, on 24/7. I think even while I sleep, I'm dreaming about what's going to happen," said de la Cruz, who lives in Arizona with her husband, toddler, two foster kids and another baby expected soon. Then my husband tries to calm me down, but bless his heart, like, I mean, moms take out most of the family stuff anyways." Continue reading...

Judge says cuts represent unlawful racial discrimination' and orders grants given to those that filed suit be reinstatedA federal judge ruled on Monday that the Trump administration's termination of more than $1bn in research grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was void and illegal".US district judge William Young added that the cuts, which targeted research with a perceived connection to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, represented unlawful racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community", Reuters reported. Young, who was appointed to the bench by then president Ronald Reagan, added that he had never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable". Continue reading...

Convicted sex trafficker had been placed in solitary and given medication by prison staff, court filing allegesLawyers for R Kelly say in new court documents that the convicted sex trafficker and singer was recently rushed to hospital after medically overdosing in prison.The 58-year-old reportedly collapsed on Friday at the federal correctional institute in Butner, North Carolina, which specializes in housing sex offenders, and was transported to Duke University hospital. Continue reading...

Lawmakers cite rising threats and hit list naming Democrats as calls grow for more protectionMembers of Congress are urgently reviewing security arrangements following the weekend Minnesota shootings that claimed the lives of a Democratic state legislator and her husband, with many demanding extra funds to beef up their own protection.Fears of increasing levels of political violence were further heightened by the discovery of dozens and dozens" of names of Democratic politicians on a hit list found in the car of Melissa Hortman's accused assassin. One, Michigan congresswoman Hillary Scholten, cancelled a town hall in Muskegon on Monday. Continue reading...

The rightwing media ecosystem spins up narratives to serve their agendas after tragic events, regardless of accuracyTina Smith, a Minnesota senator confronted Mike Lee, a Utah senator, on Monday to tell him directly that his social media posts fueled ongoing misinformation about a shooting that killed her friend.Lee's posts, which advanced conspiracies that a Minnesota assassin was a Marxist" and blamed the state's governor for Melissa Hortman's death, were among many threads of false or speculative claims swirling online after the killings. Continue reading...

Reversal comes days after president posted on Truth Social his very aggressive' raids were hurting farmers and hotelsDonald Trump has abandoned his brief immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) reprieve for farm and hotel workers, ordering the agency's raids in those sectors to resume after hardliners crushed a pause that lasted just four days.The whiplash reversal, first reported by the Washington Post, exposes the dysfunction gripping the president's deportation agenda, where competing advisers battle over policy while Trump lurches between contradictory positions. Continue reading...

Sanders joins Ocasio-Cortez in supporting Mamdani as Cuomo seeks comeback and Adams runs as an independentBernie Sanders has endorsed the leftwing New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the latest boost to his insurgent campaign.Mamdani, a democratic socialist like Sanders, is the main rival to the campaign of the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who is seeking to rehabilitate his political career after leaving office amid sexual harassment allegations. Continue reading...

Members of state's powerful public service commission must run for re-election after delays left them in office

George Hornedo is one of many young insurgents challenging party's status quo across USWhen George Hornedo, 34, was still deciding whether to run in the Democratic primary for Indiana's seventh congressional district against longtime incumbent Andre Carson, a party elder looked him in the eyes and said: You are gonna get hurt."Hornedo went home that day and posted a TikTok video recounting the encounter. According to him, it highlighted the reality of the Democratic party. Continue reading...

US president suggests decisive moment is imminent in Israel's bombing campaign