US news | The Guardian

This summer will be a crisis point for the Russian president, as demands for action intensifyA new grassroots campaign calling for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to be tried for war crimes represents an escalation in the demand for justice for the people of Ukraine. Already 2 million have signed a petition calling for Putin’s indictment.Now, in the run-up to August’s Brics summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to be held in Johannesburg, more than half a million have already called for the South African authorities to put him in prison if he flies in to their country. This public pressure comes as European leaders meeting in Reykjavík have intensified their call for coordinated intergovernmental action to find a way to punish Putin for his crimes. Continue reading...

The Louisiana senator, once a Democrat, trots out folksy, at times racist lines in an exaggerated accent – but is it a put-on?Senator John Neely Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, offended Mexicans across the world in a hearing on the FBI and DEA’s budget this month, calling for American military members and law enforcement agents to invade their country in order to “stop the cartels” while adding that Mexico would be “eating cat food and living in tent behind an Outback [Steakhouse]” if not for “the people of America”.Mexico’s top diplomat condemned the comments as “profoundly ignorant”, and the country’s ambassador to the US called for a formal apology for the “vulgar and racist” language. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, urging the more than 37 million Americans of Mexican and other Latin American descent to “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future. Continue reading...

When I watched Melo on the court, I watched more than a player, but a fully realized person, warts and all. He is my favorite player because he remains the most relatableI wasn’t prepared for Carmelo Anthony’s retirement announcement. One, because I thought he would, and should, play a few more years. He was still in game shape and could bring a veteran scoring presence to any team in the NBA.The second reason is because I am in the middle of the most consequential separation of my adult life with the woman I still consider my soul mate. Like with Anthony, or Melo, as he is known affectionately by his fans, there was no obvious inciting incident. Melo and the game seemed to drift apart and neither could give the other what they wanted. The same can be said for my former partner and me. The video he released showcasing his amazing journey from the gang-infested streets of Baltimore, to the mountaintop of Syracuse, to becoming the ninth leading scorer in NBA history broke me. I had yet to cry for the ending of my relationship, but Monday’s news brought it my grief to the fore: one of our favorite rituals was watching the NBA and cheering for the Knicks together. Continue reading...

Grieving and pregnant, Shiv Roy’s wardrobe speaks to those of us who have tried to hold it down at life-changing momentsIn the days after my mother’s death, I spent a lot of time online looking for shoes to wear to her funeral.Not an obvious reaction to grief. But while I had a dress – a black one with pretty red peonies that I kept rolled up in my bag when her illness began to accelerate during the summer – we were in lockdown so the shops were shut, and I wasn’t going to wear Birkenstocks. Eventually, I found some brogues on eBay and, after wiping them with Dettol, tried everything on. I looked nice, put together. But this was the problem. Looking “put together” seemed like the wrong response when I felt anything but. On the day of her funeral, I wore my mother’s navy skirt suit. It was too big and I was too hot, but for both reasons felt much more appropriate.Morwenna Ferrier is the Guardian’s fashion and lifestyle editor Continue reading...

Joe Hollins heard screams and ran to help a woman who dropped her daughters and two dogs, then jumped to escape the flamesAn unhoused man in Arizona has earned the title of “angel” from a woman whom he helped rescue from a burning apartment, alongside her children and pets.As those at the center of the extraordinary story told it to CBS News, Joe Hollins and his wife have been experiencing homelessness and happened to be camped out near an apartment which caught fire early on Thursday in Phoenix. Hollins became aware of the emergency when he heard screams coming from the apartment. Continue reading...

If the debt limit is not raised, the US government will default on its bills: a historic first likely to have catastrophic consequencesThe US House speaker Kevin McCarthy and president Joe Biden said they had a “productive” discussion on the debt ceiling late on Monday at the White House but that no deal had been reached, as the government seeks to avoid a potentially catastrophic economic event.If the debt limit is not raised, the US government will default on its bills: a historic first likely to have catastrophic consequences. Federal workers would be furloughed, global stock markets would be likely to crash and the US economy would probably drop into recession. The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has said this will happen on or around 1 June if no deal to raise the $31.4tn debt ceiling is reached. Continue reading...

Siblings were carried away by currents after entering the Kings River, which was off limits due to high water levelsA search crew found the body of a four-year-old boy in a surging California river on Monday, a day after his eight-year-old sister died when they were swept away by the current.Searchers in a boat spotted the boy’s body in the Kings River, about 1.75 miles (2.8km) downstream from where he and his sister went into the water, the Fresno county sheriff’s office said in a statement. Continue reading...

South Carolina senator makes speech referencing work and immigration as he announces campaign to run for Republican nomination in 2024 raceTim Scott is on stage now announcing his presidential bid.“America is the greatest nation on God’s green earth,” the senator began. “And our greatness doesn’t come from politicians, doesn’t come from the government. It comes from we, the people.” Continue reading...

Governor’s incentive scheme recruits officers with history of excessive violence or who have been arrested since signing upNumerous police officers lured to new jobs in Florida with cash from Governor Ron DeSantis’s flagship law enforcement relocation program have histories of excessive violence or have been arrested for crimes including kidnapping and murder since signing up, a study of state documents has found.DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this week, has spent more than $13.5m to date on the recruitment bonus program, which he touted in 2021 as an incentive to officers in other states frustrated by Covid-19 vaccination mandates. Continue reading...

A judge entered not guilty pleas for the accused, Bryan Kohberger, whose attorney said will ‘stand silent’ at this timeA judge entered not guilty pleas on Monday for a man charged in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, setting the stage for a trial in which he could face the death penalty.The 13 November 2022 killings stunned the rural community of Moscow, Idaho, and prompted many students to leave campus early, switching to remote learning for the remainder of the semester. Continue reading...

A handsome victory for the centre-right is dismal news for those who have suffered from years of austerityOn Sunday night, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, triumphantly described his country’s general election result as an “earthquake”. After a remarkable victory, this piece of political hyperbole seemed almost justified.Prior to the weekend, no ruling party had increased its vote share in Greece for more than 40 years. It had been predicted that a state wiretapping scandal, and the background to a catastrophic rail accident in February, could damage Mr Mitsotakis’s prospects. Yet polls predicting a relatively close race proved wildly out, as the centre-right New Democracy party gained more than double the votes of its leftwing rival, Syriza. Having fractionally failed to win an absolute majority, Mr Mitsotakis may now trigger a second election – to be held under a different proportional system – which would be likely to hand him a handsome mandate. Continue reading...

With the right government policies and lifelong learning, we can learn to work alongside AIThe staggering recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has left many fearing for their jobs. The ominous drumbeats grew louder earlier this month when Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, resigned from Google and expressed his concerns about the potential of the technology to upend the job market, just as IBM put the brakes on nearly 7,800 jobs that could be replaced by AI and automation over time. Last week, BT announced it would cut up to 55,000 jobs by 2030, with about 10,000 predicted to be replaced by AI.These announcements are not surprising: if businesses are to survive in our market economy, they must adapt to these technological shifts to remain competitive and profitable. Continue reading...

Minnesota woman’s 33rd anniversary ring went down the toilet, but workers recently recovered it and tracked its owner downThirteen years after she accidentally flushed it down the toilet, a Minnesota woman’s pipe dream came true: she was reunited with the gold diamond ring once gifted to her by her husband.“Oh my gosh, this is my ring,” Strand said at the metropolitan council office in Rogers when she was presented with the ring for the first time since losing it. “It’s nice to see it again.” Continue reading...

South Carolina senator announces campaign, increasing number of candidates for 2024 Republican nominationTim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, formally announced his candidacy in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. One of an increasing number of nominees joining a fight that will include heavyweights Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the South Carolina senator has risen quickly over the past decade to a position of prominence in the GOP.Here are 10 things to know about Tim Scott. Continue reading...

Black conservative from South Carolina, a stalwart abortion foe and gun rights advocate, is latest to take on Donald TrumpTim Scott formally launched his presidential campaign on Monday, joining a growing field of Republican candidates looking to capture their party’s nomination and rob Donald Trump of another opportunity to face off against Joe Biden next year.“Under President Biden, our nation is retreating away from patriotism and faith,” Scott told a cheering crowd at Charleston Southern University in his home state of South Carolina. “Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. And that is why I am announcing today that I am running for president of the United States of America.” Continue reading...

American football star who quit his sporting career to become an actor and civil rights activistThe greatest running back in the history of American football, Jim Brown, who has died aged 87, was one of the finest all-round athletes of his era, excelling in both football and lacrosse. He quit pro football at the peak of his career to pursue an acting career, and became an iconoclastic civil rights activist. But the ferocity that made him a fine player and imposing figure of black pride also expressed itself in repeated accusations of violence against women.When Brown entered the National Football League in 1957, runners were either big fullbacks or smaller, more shifty halfbacks. At 6ft 2in and 16st 6lb, Brown was both; big as a fullback, but with the speed, balance and skill to set up his blockers and the power to run through tacklers. His battles with the New York Giants linebacker Sam Huff, basically the same size, helped build the NFL’s violent image. Asked how he tackled Brown, Huff said “you grab on and pray for help”. Continue reading...

Civil rights group cites Governor Ron DeSantis’s ‘attempts to erase Black history’ and other groups have followed suitThe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida, calling the state “actively hostile” to minorities as Florida’s conservative government limits diversity efforts in schools.In a Saturday press release, the civil rights organization better known as the NAACP said the travel warning comes as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, “attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools”. Continue reading...

Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and nihilists like Trump are more committed to gaining power than to cutting the government debtOn 22 October 1985, the treasury secretary, James A Baker III, told congressional leaders that if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling by the end of the month, the Reagan administration would pay the nation’s bills by taking back treasury securities in which social security had invested.It was an extraordinary move. Under Baker’s plan, social security would lose interest on its funds.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...

Daniel Penny, 24, charged with manslaughter over subway death, tells New York Post ‘I’m a normal guy’ and denies being a vigilanteThe retired US marine who has been charged with manslaughter after he placed a fellow New York City subway rider in a deadly chokehold has denied that he was acting as a vigilante, insisting “I’m not a white supremacist … I’m a normal guy.”Daniel Penny, who is white, defended his conduct in an interview with the New York Post. He expressed sadness but showed no personal remorse about the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Black man who had been struggling with mental illness and lack of housing. Continue reading...

The Syriza party did worse than most thought possible, despite a series of prime ministerial scandals and widespread povertyGreece’s election results were a big surprise for the winners, the losers and the pollsters. In a country where huge numbers of people are struggling every day, with almost a third of the population estimated to be at risk of poverty, the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s rightwing New Democracy party managed to secure 40% of the vote – a remarkable victory that no polling agency predicted.The runner-up was the former prime minister Alexis Tsipras of the centre-left Syriza party, best known for its turbulent confrontation with the EU’s economic centres of power in 2015. He picked up only 20% of the vote, much lower than the pollsters had predicted and lower than most Greeks – friends and enemies of Syriza alike – thought possible. The lack of an outright majority for New Democracy makes the most plausible scenario a second election in June or early July – this round is designed to give bonus seats to the winner, increasing its chances of securing a majority. Continue reading...

Republican US senator expected to wade into battle so far dominated by Donald Trump and Ron DeSantisTim Scott is set to enter the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday, wading into a battle that has so far been dominated by two conservative favorites: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.Scott, the only Black Republican US senator, is scheduled to make his official campaign announcement in his home town of North Charleston after filing papers for his candidacy last week with the Federal Election Commission. The late morning event is being hosted at Charleston Southern University, Scott’s alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Continue reading...

Democrats suggest ex-FBI agent turned purported whistleblower Garret O’Boyle was not fully truthful about legal counsel fundingA key Republican witness is facing questions over whether he lied under oath about receiving financial aid from an ally of former US president Donald Trump.Garret O’Boyle, a former FBI field agent turned purported whistleblower, testified last week to a congressional panel investigating what Republicans assert is the “weaponisation” of the federal government against conservatives. Continue reading...

The two-time NBA champion has built a successful television career in his post-playing days. Now he has decided to share his experiences in a new bookIn his rookie year on the Sacramento Kings during the late 1980s, Kenny Smith experienced a frightening moment that had nothing to do with basketball. He was getting a ride home from his coach, when their car was pulled over. Raised in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Queens, New York, Smith had a wary view of the police. He worried about the traffic stop of two Black men by a white officer. In the end, nothing happened, thanks to the unflappability of his coach – Hall of Famer Bill Russell, who told the cop he could give a ticket or a lecture, but not both. The officer recognized the 11-time NBA champion and let him go on his way.“It was the first time, as an African American young man, that I had seen someone question authority that fast, that deliberate,” says Smith. Continue reading...

In second presidential bid, Williamson is running a more grounded campaign – as a political outsider appalled at how America’s political elites have ignored the needs of ordinary peopleA penthouse-gym in north-west Washington DC served as a campaign stage for the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson last week. Athleisure-clad political consultants came and went, as if typecast from a political TV drama. The Washington monument poked between buildings in the distance.Williamson is far from an average political candidate, even in the modern era of American politics where it often feels much of what was once unthinkable has become a scary new normal. She is not a politician, but instead an author and wellness guru, whose quixotic first tilt at the White House four years ago was far from successful but saw her grace the Democratic debates and score a viral hit with her message to Donald Trump that she would “harness love” to defeat him. Continue reading...

Tensions over technology continue, after US ban on using TikTok on government phones

Exclusive: Unreported warning contained in notes taken by lawyer Evan Corcoran that prosecutors have viewed in recent monthsFederal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump was put on notice that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year, as they examine whether the subsequent failure to fully comply with the subpoena was a deliberate act of obstruction by the former president.The previously unreported warning conveyed to Trump by his lawyer Evan Corcoran could be significant in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump’s handling of classified materials given it shows he knew about his subpoena obligations. Continue reading...

Sunday night phone call between president and Republican House speaker reported to have struck a more positive tone. Plus, how solar farms took over the California desertGood morning.Joe Biden and the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, have held a “productive” phone call on the continued impasse over the debt ceiling and promised to meet today after the president returned to Washington.What will happen if a deal isn’t struck? Less than two weeks remain until the 1 June deadline, upon which the Treasury department has said the federal government could be unable to pay all its debts. Without raising the debt limit, the US government will default on its bills, a historic first, with likely catastrophic consequences. Federal workers would be furloughed, global stock markets would crash and the US economy would probably drop into a recession.What has PNG’s prime minister said? James Marape denied that US staff would have legal immunity and said no amendments would be made to the constitution or laws of the country. He said the country faced significant security challenges. “I need to strengthen and protect my country’s borders and ensure the safety of my people,” he said. “So this has nothing to do with geopolitics, this cooperation will strengthen our defence and help build our capacity.” Continue reading...

Alexander and Andrea Campagna took in Korean travelers during deadly snowstorm in Buffalo last year – and got special thanks in returnA US husband and wife who sheltered 10 South Korean travelers in their home during a deadly snowstorm last Christmas have gone to Seoul and been feted as heroes.Alexander and Andrea Campagna went to South Korea’s capital as part of a 10-day tour of the city organized as a token of gratitude for the husband and wife who opened up their home in Buffalo, New York, to strangers in need. Continue reading...

The wife of Julian Assange is on her first trip to Australia. Stella Assange married the WikiLeaks founder in March 2022 in the Belmarsh high-security prison in south-east London. They first met in 2011 and have two children. Stella Assange, a lawyer and human rights advocate, has been campaigning for the Australian's release. During an appearance at the National Press Club in Canberra she called on the Albanese government to secure it Continue reading...

A Sunday night phone call between the president and Republican House speaker was reported to have struck a more positive toneUS president Joe Biden and House Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy have held a “productive” phone call on the continued impasse over the debt ceiling and promised to meet on Monday after Biden returned to Washington.McCarthy, speaking to reporters after the call, said there were positive discussions on solving the crisis and that staff-level talks were set to resume later on Sunday. Continue reading...

Chiasher Vue’s kids wanted to calm their mentally ill father, but police detained them in vehicle and killed him as he pointed a gunThe city of Minneapolis has agreed to a $700,000 settlement with family members who were locked inside two squad cars when police killed their father after officers refused their offers to try and help calm him down.A federal judge ruled that officers were justified in shooting 52-year-old Chiasher Vue after he pointed a rifle at them on 15 December 2019. The settlement will resolve a lawsuit his family filed arguing that police had illegally and unconstitutionally detained them that night. Continue reading...

Raymond Mattia of the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona was shot by agents after calling them for assistanceThe FBI and Tohono O’odham Nation police are investigating the fatal shooting of a tribal member by US border patrol agents in southern Arizona.Federal Customs and Border Protection officials said agents from the Ajo border patrol station “were involved” in a fatal shooting on the Tohono O’odham reservation near Ajo at about 10pm on Thursday. They haven’t released any additional information other than to say the encounter was under review by Customs and Border Protection’s office of professional responsibility, which investigates fatal shootings carried out by agents, among other cases. Continue reading...

Convicted sexual offender reportedly threatened to expose Gates’s relationship with Russian bridge player Mila AntonovaThe convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein appeared to threaten Bill Gates and tried to blackmail the multi-billionaire over his extramarital affair with a Russian bridge player, according to a new report published by the Wall Street Journal.Speaking to the Journal, sources familiar with the matter said that after Epstein found out about the Microsoft co-founder’s affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova, he threatened Gates into reimbursing him for tuition costs that Epstein had initially covered for Antonova to attend software coding school. Continue reading...

Neighbors of Christina Yuna Lee called police as she was attacked, but officers waited 80 minutes before entering apartmentThe family of a woman who was stabbed to death in her Manhattan apartment last year has sued New York City police, saying their inaction cost the victim her life.The lawsuit filed on Friday claims two officers stood outside Christina Yuna Lee’s apartment in Chinatown while she was being stabbed to death by an unhoused man who followed her into her building as she returned home in the early morning. Continue reading...

The confrontation between the country’s most popular politician, Imran Khan, and the generals threatens to paralyse the stateThe standoff between Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, and the country’s military is yet another sign that the political system created by the army is inherently unstable. Since independence, Pakistan’s generals have become ever more involved in running the country – and its civilian leaders ever more dependent on their backing. None of the nation’s 31 prime ministers has completed a full five‑year tenure. Politicians survive in office only if they do as they are told.Trying to regain power against the army’s wishes is a dangerous business. Mr Khan is pushing ahead regardless. With the economy in a mess, he calculates that his best chance of winning an election is for one to be held as soon as possible. He also faces terrorism and corruption charges, which were the pretext on which he ended up in custody earlier this month. Mr Khan was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau, an anti-corruption body headed by a retired general. He says the charges are baseless. But if convicted he risks being disqualified from politics, a fate that befell his recent predecessor Nawaz Sharif, who also clashed with the army. Mr Khan fears watching the elections scheduled for this October unfold from a jail cell – if they are held at all. Continue reading...

Former police captain Eric Adams says ‘there are more Jordan Neelys out there’ but proposals criticized by civil rights groupsNew York mayor Eric Adams has warned that there are “more Jordan Neelys out there”, invoking the name of the unhoused man who was killed on the subway earlier in May as the Democratic mayor pushed his idea to force people with mental illness to access help.In an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, Adams called a dearth of such services – particularly for the city’s unhoused population – “a very real issue”. Continue reading...

Bill Cassidy, one of the few Republicans to vote to impeach Trump in 2021, says 2022 midterms showed Trump’s weaknessRepublican US senator Bill Cassidy predicted on Sunday that Donald Trump would fail to win the 2024 presidential race if his party nominates him to run again, citing the poor performance of his endorsed candidates during last year’s midterms.“We saw in all the swing states, almost all – Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona – the candidates for Senate that Trump endorsed all lost,” Cassidy said of the former president on CNN’s State of the Union. “If past is prologue, that means President Trump is going to have a hard time in the swing states, which means he cannot win a general election.” Continue reading...

The latest incident marks the third mass shooting over the weekend, bringing the US total for the year so far to 230Three people were killed and two more were wounded in a shooting at a Missouri nightclub early Sunday, marking one of at least three mass shootings in the US this weekend.The killings at the Klymax Lounge in Kansas City, Missouri, and a separate shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, helped bring the number of mass shootings in the US so far this year to about 230, data from the Gun Violence Archive shows. Continue reading...

The credo of Watergate is still relevant: find the best obtainable version of the truth. But doing so is only getting more complicatedWe all have moments in life when we know something big is happening, that we are stepping into a new and consequential experience, and our mind takes a mental Polaroid, an intensely clear snapshot of what that moment looks like and how it feels, and then stores it away in a file marked “important”.Well, my mind does anyway, and in my professional life so far there have been three. Continue reading...