Exclusive: Evan Corcoran said he was steered away from Trump’s office, where the FBI later found the most sensitive materialsDonald Trump’s lawyer tasked with searching for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after the justice department issued a subpoena told associates that he was waved off from searching the former president’s office, where the FBI later found the most sensitive materials anywhere on the property.The lawyer, Evan Corcoran, recounted that several Trump aides had told him to search the storage room because that was where all the materials that had been brought from the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency ended up being deposited. Continue reading...
Four people on using the nostril-based antidote to opioid overdoses, newly approved for over-the-counter saleOver 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year. Advocates say a vast number of them might still be alive if they’d had access to naloxone. Brandon Kilmer, a 24-year-old from Minneapolis, lost his brother to a fentanyl overdose in 2022. Now, he distributes a pack of Narcan to everyone he meets. “I don’t care if you’re a 17-year-old kid or an 80-year-old grandmother,” he said. “I want you to have it.”Naloxone, better known by the brand name Narcan, reverses overdoses by binding to the opioid receptors in the brain, blocking the effects of drugs such as fentanyl or heroin. Harm reduction workers say it should be as ubiquitous in Americans’ homes as dental floss or hand sanitizer, but not enough people have access to it. Continue reading...
Governor JB Pritzker expected to sign bill that would block state funding for public libraries and schools that ban booksGovernor JB Pritzker is expected to sign a bill that would make Illinois the first state to legislate to end book bans – by punishing publicly-funded institutions that attempt to censor in that way.A bill is on Pritzker’s desk after passing the state legislature that would block essential state funding for public libraries and public schools in Illinois that ban books. Continue reading...
Eight person rescued Monday morning after part of six-story building collapsed but damaged structure remains unstableOfficials in Iowa are making plans to demolish a six-story apartment building a day after it partially collapsed, injuring at least one person and displacing countless residents and businesses.There were no confirmed fatalities and no known people still trapped the morning after the incident in the eastern Iowa city of Davenport. The damaged structure remains unstable, authorities said on Monday. Continue reading...
by Edward Helmore in New York and agencies on (#6BZ33)
Some members of Congress question if they received enough concessions in Biden and McCarthy’s agreementUS political leaders appeared bullish on Monday that they can sell a bipartisan compromise debt ceiling deal to enough mainstream lawmakers – overcoming boisterous criticism from left and right – urgently enough to avert a first-ever national default on the $31.4tn the US owes creditors.Despite a lot of diplomacy and even arm-twisting still to come on Capitol Hill in the next few days, Joe Biden left the White House to head to Delaware on Monday afternoon smiling and teasing reporters as he took questions, while the first lady, Jill Biden, waited on the lawn. Continue reading...
Like the deal they crafted, the relationship the president and House speaker forged does not look pretty but appears to have gotten the job doneWhen Kevin McCarthy was struggling early this year to get enough votes from his own Republicans to become speaker of the House of Representatives, Democratic president Joe Biden called the prolonged saga a national embarrassment, then had a little fun.“I’ve got good news for you,” Biden said, pointing playfully at a reporter after a speech in Kentucky. “They just elected you speaker.” Continue reading...
When Cynthia Dearborn became her 75-year-old father’s caregiver, she knew little about what lay ahead. Two decades on, she shares the insights that helped her help him
Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the House will vote Wednesday on the deal he struck with the president – here are the details of the 99-page billDetails of the deal between Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy take the form of a 99-page bill that would suspend the nation’s debt limit into 2025 in order to avoid an unprecedented federal default, which the White House said on Monday would be “catastrophic for the American people”, while limiting government spending.The Democratic president and Republican House speaker are trying to win over lawmakers to the plan in time to avert a default that would shake the global economy. But Congress will be scrutinizing and debating the legislation fiercely this week. Continue reading...
by Joanna Walters in New York and agencies on (#6BYNX)
President says deal struck with Kevin McCarthy protects ‘historic economic recovery’ but it needs approval from a divided CongressJoe Biden has said a bipartisan deal to raise the $31.4tn US debt ceiling and avoid a default is ready to move to Congress and urged lawmakers to pass the agreement he struck with Kevin McCarthy.“This is a deal that’s good news for ... the American people,” the president said at the White House on Sunday night after a call with McCarthy to put the final touches to a tentative deal struck the previous day. “It takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table, protects our hard-earned and historic economic recovery,” he said. Continue reading...
Amite BioEnergy, which was fined $2.5m in 2021, notified Mississippi facility had breached emission limitsA US plant that supplies wood pellets to the UK power generator Drax has violated air pollution limits in Mississippi, it has emerged.The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has written to Amite BioEnergy notifying the Drax-owned company that it had violated emissions rules. Continue reading...
For civil society and rights defenders, five more years of the Turkish president and his radical backers are a daunting prospectOn Sunday, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was declared the winner of Turkey’s presidential runoff elections. According to numbers reported by the state-owned Anadolu news agency, more than 27 million voters cast their ballots in favour of Erdoğan, who has been at the country’s helm for more than two decades. He entered the second round in the lead in the polls, and was expected by most to emerge victorious. Although Erdoğan captured slightly more than half of the vote, more than 25 million people also mobilised to vote against him.The elections were being held under deeply unfair conditions, with an opposition set up to fail. Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was recently sentenced to more than two years in prison and banned from holding public office for insulting members of the supreme election council. This left the opposition unable to nominate its maybe most promising candidate. This was all amid biased media coverage, relentless smear campaigns against the eventual opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, threats, manipulation and a crackdown on civil society, such as the arrest of 126 Kurdish lawyers, activists and politicians at the end of April in Diyarbakır.Constanze Letsch is a former Turkey correspondent for the Guardian and has recently finished a PhD on urban renewal in IstanbulDo 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...
Questions around 89-year-old senator’s cognitive abilities pit lawmakers against each other amid calls for her to step downThe Democratic party is facing an internal rift over how to handle the diminishing abilities of one of their own. There is open debate within the party over whether 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose health and cognitive abilities have come into question after a two-and-a-half month absence due to shingles and other medical complications, should resign.Questions over Feinstein’s ability to effectively represent California, the most populous US state, have been a sensitive issue for Democrats going back years. As her diminishing health plays out in the public eye there is a renewed urgency to the situation. Riding out her term in absentia until retirement next year is also not a viable option, with Feinstein the tie-breaking vote on the Senate judiciary committee, which holds confirmation hearings for judicial nominees, and effectively the only person who can ensure that President Joe Biden’s picks for judges go through. Continue reading...
Republican governor Greg Abbott invoked state clause after likening migrants to a public foreign enemy, but legal experts say it’s ‘unprecedented and extreme’Texas is challenging federal control of policy on the US-Mexico border by exploiting what it sees as a constitutional loophole around the definition of an “invasion” but that migrants rights activists see as dangerously ramping up fears with racist language.Immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government – not individual states – since the US supreme court ruled so in a landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012. Continue reading...
The former England captain is learning managerial skills away from the spotlight of his homeland. It could eventually help in the Premier LeagueOf all the intimate details that surfaced during the Wagatha Christie trial, DC United fans most likely took note of one point in particular. According to text messages read out in court, Coleen Rooney never much liked Washington DC, which she called “a nice place to visit, but different to live.” Her husband, however, appears to have a much stronger connection to the city and its club.After two seasons with the club as a player, Wayne Rooney is DC United’s head coach. The former England captain was linked with several jobs – most notably at his boyhood club, Everton – after getting his managerial start at Derby County. A return to Major League Soccer, however, appealed most of all despite DC United sitting second-bottom of the Eastern Conference when he arrived last season – they’d also suffered their worst-ever MLS loss just days before Rooney was appointed. Continue reading...
From paintings stuck in cellars for centuries to acclaimed sculptures pointlessly destroyed, the art of women has been crowded out of galleries and public spaces. It’s time we stopped putting up with itLast week I was speaking with an artist – highly regarded and in her 60s – when she began telling me about a recent incident with a male curator. She had been helping him install a show at a major institution when he realised the measurements for a large work of hers were off – he’d failed to double check the dimensions of the gallery. As a result, he asked if she could chop off a section of her large-scale artwork so it could fit. Understandably outraged, she declined, and the work didn’t end up in the show. But she also wondered whether the curator would have asked the same of a male artist – to butcher his own work to make it accommodate the space?Women accommodate to a fault. But why have we been made to feel like this: guilty if we take up space; unpleasant if everything we do is not done with grace; demanding if we ask for what we want? It’s shocking to think that in 2023, the questioning of women’s authority – and the disbelief in what we are capable of – is still rife. Continue reading...
After my mental health took a nosedive I deleted years’ worth of data and missed targets – and the guilt that goes with themIn early 2018, I was training for the London Marathon – the first and only marathon I’ll ever run in my life. I had treated myself to an expensive fitness watch that tracked my time, pace, splits – every piece of information I could ever wish to know about what I had just endured.At the end of my final training run – a gruelling 21 miles (34km) during which I got lost on Wandsworth Common and had a lovely little cry on the bus afterwards – I threw myself down on the floor the moment I got home, only to see my watch had failed me. Twenty-one miles briefly flashed on the screen before it went blank and disappeared for ever.Laura Kay is a former Guardian journalist and the author of three novels, including The Split, which is about running Continue reading...
Sneer all you like, but everyone needs a few home comforts when travelling. And it’s not as if I’m taking my favourite mugAnother year, another survey (by M&S bank this time) of the stuff British people insist on taking on holiday. None can beat my mother’s friend who travelled to China for a fortnight with an entire suitcase filled with Ginger Nuts, but honestly, what weirdos take a water filter jug (4%), anti-bacterial spray (30%) and air freshener (9%)? What of spontaneity and seeing where the wind takes you, home fragrance and bacteria-wise?No, I’m sorry I can’t keep this pretence up. For a start, the 43% who bring their own teabags are entirely correct, especially if they are heading abroad. No one should face the morning with only Lipton Yellow or whatever brown, pumpkin-spiced water America is calling “tea” this year. Slippers (36%): yes, of course, because cosiness is high on the holiday checklist. “Your favourite mug” (10%): well, I’m torn on this one. It is a truth universally acknowledged that all holiday accommodation expects you to drink out of a thimble, like a tiny Beatrix Potter dormouse, but what kind of reckless fool risks their favourite mug in a suitcase? Third favourite I could get behind. Continue reading...
Sources reveal discretionary spending cap and changes to the federal food program, among other detailsJoe Biden and Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement to lift the US debt ceiling and avoid a disastrous and unprecedented default. Prior to the details being presented to lawmakers, ahead of an expected vote on Wednesday, here is what sources familiar with negotiations have revealed: Continue reading...
Safecracker James Lee was apprehended last Wednesday, and body of Bradley Gillespie was found on SundayAuthorities believe they found the body of a convicted killer who escaped an Ohio prison by hiding in a trash container, they said Sunday.The search for Bradley Gillespie began last week when he and another man incarcerated at Allen-Oakwood correctional institution in Lima, Ohio, James Lee, were discovered missing, according to reports. Continue reading...
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri wants to bring case examining alleged role of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ in his mistreatment by CIAA Guantánamo Bay prisoner tortured by the CIA has accused British intelligence agencies of complicity in his mistreatment in a new case before one of UK’s most secretive courts.Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is alleged by the US to have plotted al-Qaida’s bombing of an American naval ship, is seeking to persuade the court to consider his complaint against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. Continue reading...
Prosecutors are asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of Capitol riotersLess than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the US Capitol on January 6 2021, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s then Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called “political prisoners”.The justice department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised – a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy. Continue reading...
Mayor of Red River says the shooting was gang-related, and that the shooters have all been taken into custodyThree people were killed and five injured in a shooting at a biker rally in Red River, New Mexico, on Saturday.Neither the victims nor the shooters were local residents and were among bikers who were visiting for the rally over the long weekend holiday leading into Memorial Day, Red River mayor Linda Calhoun told the Guardian on Sunday. Continue reading...
What happens from here depends on how many members of the House prefer governing to chaosHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden reached a deal last night to raise the debt ceiling and prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations.Is it a good deal? Who will bear the burden? Should it have ever gotten to this point? Did Biden blow it? Continue reading...
Agreement will reportedly raise debt limit for two years, but deal still needs approval from a divided US congressLawmakers in Washington were busily drafting legislation on Sunday after Joe Biden and the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, reached a deal in principle on Saturday night to raise the federal government’s $31.4tn debt ceiling, with just days left before America was expected to default.There was a slim chance that a bill could be finalized as early as Sunday and be presented on Capitol Hill, where it is expected to have a stormy passage in a divided Congress. Continue reading...
Individuals rather than organized groups more likely to commit extremist crimes as inflammatory Republican rhetoric escalatesThe US is at an increased risk of domestic terror attacks by rightwing “lone wolf” actors, experts have warned, as inflammatory Republican rhetoric around a variety of issues seems likely to continue ahead of the 2024 election.The number of attacks by adherents to rightwing ideology has soared since 2016, as Republican lies about election interference, and escalating rhetoric from the right about minority groups, have served to “provide mechanisms” for individuals to become radicalized, an analyst said. Continue reading...
The Brooklyn Banks, known for being a ‘melting pot’ of skaters, bikers and artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, were closed off over a decade ago – until nowThe Brooklyn Bridge, an icon built to connect once separate cities, is 140 years old this year. But underneath the connecting roadways on the Manhattan side was a series of sloping red-brick embankments that in the 1980s became the birthplace of a gritty New York street-style of skateboarding – the Brooklyn Banks.Last week, the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, took a break from dealing with his city’s social and economic headaches to reopen the cambered banks – “waves” in skateboarder speak – and pay tribute to the skateboarding pioneers who helped turn the kick-flips and grinds of teenage outsiders into a global culture industry. Continue reading...
Ricardo Velázquez was caught in a scam that also ensnared more than 100 others after his immigration attorney lied to himMore than two decades ago, Ricardo Velázquez immigrated to the US from Puebla, Mexico, since then, he has spent most of the time since working in kitchens while dreaming of gaining a visa that would let him visit his home town with his family.Early this year, his former immigration attorney, Kofi Amankwaa, gave him the news he had long been waiting for: his travel application had been approved. The lawyer claimed Velázquez could freely visit Mexico with his family, embrace his parents and see his children interact with their grandparents in person rather than through a screen. Continue reading...
She later became an icon of survival, but fans loved her for the sheer energy she exudedTina Turner, the trailblazing singer who was hailed as the queen of rock’n’roll, survived so many personal and professional challenges that some of her fans might have believed that she was going to live forever.Her death last week at the age of 83 brought home the fact that she was as mortal as the rest of us, but her refusal to stay in the box that Black women are expected to occupy will remain a lasting source of inspiration. Continue reading...
Ministers trumpet their law against ‘no-platforming’ in universities, but that doesn’t stop them disinviting critics from their own conferencesNormally, I’m keen for this column to be widely read. This time, though, I hope not too widely. I’d be happy if it doesn’t catch the attention of Jacob Rees-Mogg or of government officials.I’m due to give a talk to civil servants later this year. If anyone were to trawl through my social media they might discover the occasional criticism of government policy. And I might suffer the same fate as Dan Kaszeta.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...
Help was at hand for ‘the worst routes, the least well-lit stations and the poorest, most violent neighbourhoods’‘Chivalry has returned to New York,’ proclaimed the Observer on 15 July 1979, as it descended into the lawless New York subway underworld, accompanied by the Magnificent Thirteen Subway Patrol, AKA the Red Berets. The group had formed that February, in response to a violent crime wave. From an initial 13, they now numbered nearly 100 and their mission was to make New Yorkers feel safer. ‘They are in their late teens or early 20s, most of them have some training in the martial arts and all are as streetwise as alley cats.’Working-class and from diverse ethnic backgrounds, most worked or studied during the day. Their leader was the charismatic Curtis ‘the Rock’ Sliwa, ‘a poor 23-year-old Polish-American who graduated in garbage collecting and street fighting’. Continue reading...
Default deadline pushed to 5 June as work requirements for food aid recipients reportedly emerge as final sticking pointPresident Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy held a phone conversation on Saturday evening, according to a person familiar with their plans, amid signs that a deal in the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations was close to being struck.McCarthy said earlier on Saturday that he was making “progress” in negotiations on raising the federal government’s debt ceiling, as the nation faced risk of default in little more than a week. Continue reading...
Ken Paxton drew support from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz prior to the voteTexas’ Republican-led House of Representatives impeached state attorney general Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a historic rebuke of a GOP official who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.Impeachment triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican governor Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim. Continue reading...
Women have found a way to channel a flagrant, public up-yours to the culture of gender policing that grows more dangerous by the dayIt was a search for the perfect velour tracksuit that put me on the path to #bimbocore. Work obliges me to catch many planes and I am old enough to appreciate that if you can travel with an elasticised waist, loose cuffs and a hood – as well as a mask – then you should.Internet searches for the soft costume once beloved of early 00s femme celebrity brought me news of a retro revival that apparently started last year. Far further down in the fluffiest of fashion rabbit holes than I had ever intended to travel, I stumbled on to the aesthetic trend of bimbocore. Continue reading...
After 14 years, Polly was a part of Robert Dessaix’s family. One day after her death, the writer grapples with grief and what it is to love a dogWe are a threesome. The most wonderful thing in the world for me – the most joyful, vivifying, meaningful, precious thing in the world – is my tiny family: Peter Timms, the dog and me. We are the only family any of us has. The dog is not a child, of course, nor a mere companion, nor even our “best friend”. The dog is our dog. The dog is our anchor. We love each other, Peter and I, anchored by our dog (we’ve had four). I can see that now. It has taken me all my life to see this. And I held out my arms in front of me in utter impotence with my fingers touching to try to hold us all in.Polly died yesterday, you see. It is unbearable. I am not saying this for the sake of it: I cannot bear the acute sadness. I cannot bear the memories of yesterday before three o’clock or last week or ten years ago or 15. I cannot bear saying goodbye to Polly Timms forever. That’s the point, as it is when we kiss or wave or say goodbye to any loved being: it’s for the rest of time. Continue reading...
Republican-led state house of representatives to debate whether to impeach Ken Paxton over allegations of briberyTexas’s Republican-led house of representatives launched historic impeachment proceedings against attorney general Ken Paxton on Saturday as the scandal-plagued lawyer called on supporters to protest a vote that could lead to his ouster and Donald Trump came to his defense.The house convened on Saturday afternoon to debate whether to impeach and suspend Paxton from office over allegations of bribery, abuse of public trust and that he is unfit for office. They’re just some of the accusations that have trailed Texas’s top lawyer for most of his three terms. Continue reading...
Change in law allows teenagers to serve alcohol in restaurants and could allow children to operate heavy machinery like power sawsIowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, has signed a bill that rolls back several child labor law protections in the midwestern state, including how many hours children can work and at what type of establishments.Iowa and several other states in the US have loosened regulations on child labor in response to some businesses complaining about a workforce shortage. The moves have been met with widespread criticism by Democrats and labor groups. Continue reading...
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