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Green Bay's Sean Rhyan just lost out on $2m because over two missed snaps. But he is far from the only football player to deal with contract quirksAs contract clauses go, this one is pretty painful: Packers guard Sean Rhyan missed out on $2m after falling two snaps shy of picking up a bonus. The NFL has a built-in bonus pool designed to reward late draftees who see the field early in their careers. One of those performance benchmarks is a player's volume of snaps. If they cross the 35% mark, they receive a chunky bonus. But Rhyan fell two snaps shy of that mark last season, missing the chance to see his base salary more than double.The performance escalator is one of the quirks of the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement. With the CBA, rookie pay scale and hard salary cap, the NFL is typically a less chaotic contractual league than others in North America. There are none of the odd riders in players' contracts - the unlimited sushi, 30-year contracts, or Springsteen guarantees - that litter other sports. Careers are short. Leverage is fleeting. The language is standardized. However, Rhyan's situation is far from a one-off.Bryant would be followed by a three-person security detail whenever he was away from the Cowboys' training base.He would be driven to and from practice by Cowboys personnel.He would attend two mandated counselling sessions a week.He was banned from drinking alcohol.He was barred from attending strip clubs, given a midnight curfew, and only allowed to attend clubs where veteran Cowboys security staffers moonlighted as door staff. Continue reading...

In this new climate, having an enviable job, while not being a straight white man, is grounds for suspicionWayne Brown was a trailblazer, a man who made his own small piece of history by becoming Britain's first black fire chief.He worked his way up as a young firefighter, rising through the ranks, serving the public through dark times including the 2005 London terror attacks and the Grenfell fire.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.orgDo 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...

Detained Palestinian activist granted contact by judge who blocked Trump administration's efforts to separate familyMahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and detained Palestinian activist, was finally allowed to hold his infant son for the first time Thursday - one month after he was born - thanks to a federal judge who blocked the Trump administration's efforts to keep the father and infant separated by a Plexiglass barrier.The visit came before a scheduled immigration hearing for Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has been detained in a Louisiana jail since 8 March. Continue reading...

Detained Palestinian activist allowed contact after federal judge blocks Trump administration from separating family. This blog is now closed.Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, has accused unnamed European officials of toxic antisemitic incitement" he blamed for a hostile climate in which the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington took place, Reuters reports.Israel has faced a blizzard of criticism from Europe of late as it has intensified its military campaign in Gaza, where humanitarian groups have warned that an 11-week Israeli blockade on aid supplies has left the Palestinian territory on the brink of famine. Continue reading...

Other images displayed by Trump during meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa were false or misleadingThe evidence of supposed mass killings of white South Africans presented by Donald Trump in a tense White House meeting on Wednesday were in some cases images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, while footage shown during the meeting was falsely portrayed as depicting burial sites".These are all white farmers that are being buried," said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by a picture during the contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Continue reading...

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem accuses Harvard of fostering violence' on its campus. Key US politics stories from Thursday 22 May 2025

Flores Settlement Agreement limits how long children can be detained and requires they be provided with food, water and clean clothesThe Trump administration is trying to end a cornerstone immigration policy that requires the government to provide basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody.The protections, which are drawn from a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, limit the amount of time children can be detained by immigration officials. It also requires the government to provide children in its custody with adequate food, water and clean clothes. Continue reading...

Sound Talent Group says three employees killed as officials investigate what caused Cessna 550 plane to crashSeveral people have died, including the co-founder of a music agency, after a small aircraft crashed in a neighborhood in San Diego early on Thursday morning, clipping one home and damaging several vehicles.Sound Talent Group, which has represented artists such as Sum 41 and Vanessa Carlton, confirmed on Thursday that three of its employees died on the private plane. Among those who died was the agency's co-founder Dave Shapiro, who was listed as the owner of the plane and has a pilot's license, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Continue reading...

Committee says newest vaccines should be updated and formalizes rules that limit vaccine access for AmericansThe Food and Drug Administration's advisory committee unanimously recommended that newest vaccines for Covid should be updated to target a variant of strains currently on the rise, during a meeting on Thursday - the first since the Trump administration took office.The meeting focused on selecting a Covid strain to target in upcoming vaccines as well as formalizing new FDA rules that limit vaccine access to Americans. Continue reading...

Critics of Israel's atrocious conduct in Gaza should be clear that their focus is the authors of that violence - not Israeli civiliansIsrael's campaign of bombing and starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza is inexcusable. It reflects a massive war crime, as the international criminal court has already charged, and arguably genocide. But it in no sense justifies the murder of two young Israeli embassy workers in Washington by a man who then chanted: Free, free Palestine". Nothing justifies violence against civilians.The killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim occurred on Wednesday evening outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting a reception for young diplomats. The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, was detained shortly after the shooting. His social media accounts indicated that he had been involved in pro-Palestinian activism.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. His book Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments was published by Knopf and Allen Lane in February. Continue reading...

Meme coin buyers may have gotten dinner with president, but they lost millions, Guardian analysis revealsDonald Trump will host the top holders of his cryptocurrency at a gala tonight at his private golf club near Washington DC. Though the president has called the $Trump token The Greatest of them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", nearly half the gala's guests suffered losses from purchasing it, according to a Guardian analysis of their public cryptocurrency wallets.The attendees are winners of the US president's meme coin competition. Last month, Trump announced that the 220 crypto wallets with the largest holdings of $Trump between 23 April and 12 May would win a ticket to a private dinner at the Trump National golf club. The top 25 holders would also be invited to a Private VIP Reception" with the president beforehand. The news caused the coin to spike more than 50%. Continue reading...

US attorney general says Chicago-based suspect believed to have acted alone in killing of couple at Jewish museum

Media Matters faces government inquiry into whether it helped advertisers coordinate to pull ad dollars from XThe US Federal Trade Commission has demanded documents from Media Matters about possible coordination with other media watchdogs accused by Elon Musk of helping orchestrate advertiser boycotts of X, according to a document seen by Reuters on Thursday.The civil investigative demand seen by Reuters seeks information about Media Matters' communications with other groups that evaluate misinformation and hate speech in news and social media, including a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media. X has ongoing lawsuits against both organizations. Continue reading...

Report ignores common dangers to children, focuses on Kennedy's favored topics - and will be forcefully opposedDonald Trump's health secretary and long-time vaccine skeptic, Robert F Kennedy Jr, presented a highly anticipated report on children's health this week.The Maha commission" report, referring to the Make America healthy again" movement, was required by a presidential executive order in February. The report focuses on chronic disease among children. Continue reading...

Advocates say families with children among those detained in LA, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and TexasFederal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president's mass deportation campaign.On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates. Continue reading...

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem posts copy of department's letter to university on X

Slight drop in hate groups does not signify declining influence, Southern Poverty Law Center report saysThe number of white nationalist, hate and anti-government extremist groups in the US has dropped not because of their declining influence, but because many of their proponents feel their beliefs have become normalized in government and mainstream society, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).The SPLC's annual Year in Hate and Extremism report, published on Thursday, said it documented 1,371 hate and extremist groups across the country in 2024, down from 1,430 groups in 2023. Continue reading...

Maha report ignores leading causes of death for children, firearms and crashes, and focuses on lifestyle and vaccinesA new report led by the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lays out a dark vision of American children's health and calls for agencies to examine vaccines, ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of exercise and overmedicalization".Kennedy has made combatting the chronic disease epidemic" a cornerstone of his vision for the US, even as he has ignored common causes of chronic conditions, such as smoking and alcohol use. Continue reading...

Mauricio Pochettino faces an uphill battle to change the USMNT's culture without their most important players.If the 2022 World Cup was the debutante ball for a shiny new generation of United States men's national team players, the 2025 Gold Cup was supposed to be a general rehearsal for the big dance: next summer's World Cup.Instead, still-somewhat-newish US manager Mauricio Pochettino will go into this summer tournament for the continental title shorn of a great many of his leading players. As such, his first and only chance to work with his team for an extended period of time before the start of the 2026 World Cup will present all kinds of challenges. Continue reading...

Washington's grey skies matched the sombre mood at the site of the killing of two people hours earlier

An aircraft crashed in the Murphy Canyon neighbourhood near the Montgomery-Gibbs executive airport on Thursday morning, clipping one home and damaging several vehicles, San Diego police department said. The San Diego assistant fire chief Dan Eddy said the crash had killed the plane's passengers. The aircraft could hold up to 10 people but it is not yet known how many were onboard. No one on the ground in the military housing neighbourhood was injured

Justices' 4-4 ruling leaves intact lower court's decision that blocked establishment of Oklahoma schoolThe US supreme court on Thursday blocked an attempt led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation's first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major case involving religious rights in American education that challenged the constitutional separation of church and state.The 4-4 ruling left intact a lower court's decision that blocked the establishment of St Isidore of Seville Catholic virtual school. The lower court found that the proposed school would violate the US constitution's first amendment limits on government involvement in religion. Continue reading...

Police said a suspect was in custody after the shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum

What happened, who were the victims, who was arrested and what has been the reaction?Two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington - a young couple on the verge of becoming engaged - were fatally shot on Wednesday evening at about 9.15pm while leaving an event at a Jewish museum.The suspect yelled Free, free Palestine" after he was arrested, police said. Continue reading...

When future generations read about Gaza with horror and wonder how we allowed a livestreamed genocide to happen, what will you say?Now, when Israel is executing a final solution" in Gaza, when it is far too late for dissent to make any difference, the tide is slowly starting to turn. Now that Gaza is flattened, turned into mass graves and rubble, people who have kept quiet for the past 19 months are slowly starting to speak up. Now that Israel and the US are not even trying to pretend that they aren't intent on emptying Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians, of taking control" of all of the land, some criticism has started to trickle in.Over in the UK, they've pulled out the e" word. After 19 months of genocidal violence and almost three months of a starvation campaign the UK has decided to describe the situation as egregious. The UK, along with France and Canada have threatened - and I'm sure Israel's leaders are quaking in their boots over this - that there might be a concrete" response if the mass killing and starvation continues. Continue reading...

Maine Coalition for Palestine to join Veterans for Peace, as well as college and university students on shorter strikesA group of Maine residents were set to begin a 40-day hunger strike on Thursday, joining a national wave of similar actions protesting Israel's blockade of Gaza and the skyrocketing levels of hunger in the territory.The Maine Coalition for Palestine announced this week that 25 people would strike to draw attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Continue reading...

The two victims of the Washington shooting, the engaged couple Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum when the suspect approached a group of four people and opened fire. The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting. He walked into the museum after and was detained by event security. Social media footage shows the suspect shouting: 'Free, free Palestine' after being arrested

Politicians took to social media to express shock and sorrow over killings of staffers outside Jewish museum in DCDonald Trump, Republicans and Democrats have condemned antisemitism in the shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC on Wednesday night.These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!" Trump wrote on social media in response to the shooting. Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen! God Bless You ALL!" Continue reading...

Tax relief contained within One Big Beautiful Bill Act would expire when president leaves office - what happens then?Congressional Republicans passed a massive spending bill on Thursday morning that, for some taxpayers, may deliver the golden age" Donald Trump has promised - but only while he is president.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed narrowly with 215-214 votes, is centered on permanently extending tax cuts enacted during Trump's first term, while also creating new deductions to make good on his campaign promise of providing relief to the working class and families. Continue reading...

From DDG to Tory Lanez, a male celebrity is accused of abuse - and his supporters reverse the roles of victim and offenderThere's a new formula for punishing women who speak out about abuse by high-profile figures, and it usually goes like this: woman alleges abuse, woman seeks recourse through the justice system, woman's accusation is made public - and then a tidal wave of fans of her abuser come together to help deny the abuse, attack her credibility and reverse the roles of victim and offender.If this sounds familiar it's because Darvo - the deny, attack, reversevictim and offender" method of manipulating abuse victims - has existed for forever. But social media has given it a whole new dimension, and powerful people now have an army of rabid fans ready to do that work for them. Continue reading...

The world's richest person has placed his mission to Mars in a low-income county near the US-Mexico border. As a small cluster of voters connected to SpaceX decide to incorporate their own Starbase city', Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone meet environmental opponents, space enthusiasts and residents who decry the gentrification Musk's expansion has brought Continue reading...

Police say suspect, named as Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, is in custody. Plus, Trump hectors South African president with false claims of white genocide'

Johnathan Buma, who was arrested in March and is out on bail, claims in new interview that efforts to target Musk were intense'A former FBI counterintelligence agent turned whistleblower has claimed he tried to gain access to Elon Musk in 2022 to warn the billionaire that he was the target of a covert Russian campaign seeking to infiltrate his inner circle, possibly to gain access to sensitive information.Johnathan Buma, who was arrested by the FBI earlier this year on a misdemeanor charge of disclosing confidential information, said in an interview that he tried - but ultimately failed - to gain access to Musk to personally brief and inoculate" him against outreach from the Kremlin". Continue reading...

The 26-year-old has been good rather than great in his first season with his new team, and he's playing in an unforgiving environmentIf you only tuned into the biggest headlines about him, you might be convinced that Juan Soto's first quarter of a season with the New York Mets has been a complete flop.Last December, the Mets guaranteed Soto $765m on a 15-year contract, the most lucrative deal in professional sports history. In the early going of his time with the Mets, Soto has been the subject of a handful of viral stories, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. None of them have been positive. Last Sunday, Soto did not hustle out of the box on a ground ball up the middle, and his casual trot to first base cost him a chance at an infield hit, in the eighth inning of a tied game against the crosstown rival Yankees. The very next night, Soto jogged out of the box on a fly ball at Fenway Park that he thought was a home run. It was not, and another news cycle about Soto's effort followed. I think I've been hustling pretty hard," he told reporters. Continue reading...

Some lawyers of more than 600 abuse claimants trying to block approval of current agreement of chapter 11 caseSome attorneys involved in the bankrupt New Orleans Catholic archdiocese's federal financial reorganization say they have reached terms on an agreement to settle decades' worth of clergy molestation claims, but lawyers representing a sizeable share out of more than 600 abuse claimants contend the proposed deal falls short by about $100m - and they're hoping they have the votes to block its approval.Both developments came on Wednesday amid a struggle to resolve a tortuous chapter 11 case that has cost the church more than $45m in legal and other professional costs. The case theoretically could get dismissed at a hearing toward the end of June if the presiding judge, Meredith Grabill, determines she is unsatisfied with its progress. Continue reading...

How we deal with bereavement has changed enormously over the years. But not all the old traditions should be forgottenMany years ago, as part of a school homework project, I asked my grandparents what the most significant social change had been during their lifetime. Two of them answered child mortality". I was surprised. Weren't there other, more significant experiences in long lives that had stretched from the first and second world wars to the 1980s?But now that I am older and have experienced bereavement, I understand their replies. Both grandparents had sisters who died of diphtheria. And my grandfather's younger brother died of sepsis, meaning his parents had buried two of their four children before the age of three. Their childhoods had been profoundly shaped by loss. Child mortality was, at that time, horrifyingly common, and from their earliest years many people spent a great deal of their lives coping with the emotional fallout of grief, which shaped their lives into older age.Molly Conisbee is a social historian, visiting research fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, and author of No Ordinary Deaths Continue reading...

This blog is now closed, you can read our full report here:

Two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC were shot and killed near a Jewish museum. Metropolitan police chief Pamela Smith said a preliminary investigation showed both victims were exiting an event at the museum when the attack took place. The suspect is in custody.

The PM has little choice. Unless he brings the fractured nations together, none can move forward, and neither can heA house divided against itself cannot stand, warned Abraham Lincoln. The United States' later descent into civil war over slavery would prove Lincoln right. But is 21st-century Britain now also becoming, in its different way, an unsustainably divided house too? And have Britain's economic divisions become so intractable that the UK state can no longer manage them? More than at any time in the postwar era, the answer to both questions looks increasingly like yes.History shows that Britain's capacity for pragmatic resilience in the face of internal and external threat is not to be underestimated. Wednesday's partial climbdown on winter fuel payments was an example of that instinct for self-preservation at work. Yet the U-turn will not have restored the public's lost trust in the ability of government to solve their problems.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Footage released by Durango police department shows officer Shane Garrison approaching Irwin, named after the 'Crocodile hunter' Steve Irwin, in a narrow corridor between a fence and home. Once the officer has the kangaroo in his arms, another can be heard saying 'we have the kangaroo detained.'

Corruption and greed have eroded morality in public life. Powerful people who do what is right are in short supplyCourage is seeking the truth and speaking it," Jean Jaures, the French philosopher and Socialist party leader, told a group of high school students in 1903. It is not yielding to the law of the triumphant lie as it passes, and not echoing, with our soul, our mouth and our hands, mindless applause and fanatical jeering."When the first world war reared its ugly, pointless head, Jaures refused to give in to mindless fanaticism and attempted to coordinate a Franco-German general strike to stop the rush to war. In 1914, he paid for those efforts with his life when a 29-year-old French nationalist shot him twice in the back.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

Republicans have been deeply divided over the bill which would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts by tightening eligibility for food and health programsThe Republican-controlled House of Representatives will attempt to pass President Donald Trump's massive tax and spending bill in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, following weeks of intra-party divisions of how deeply to cut spending.The bill cleared an important procedural hurdle in the House on Wednesday evening, when a gatekeeper committee approved the measure and set up a floor vote for passage to occur within hours. Shortly before midnight in Washington, the full House reconvened to consider Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill", opening the floor for debate and a series of procedural votes. Continue reading...

The South African president insists the meeting went very well' despite Trump publicly berating him. Key US politics stories from Wednesday 21 May 2025South African president Cyril Ramaphosa refused to take the bait when Donald Trump falsely accused his nation of committing white genocide, in what his spokesperson dismissed as an orchestrated show for the cameras".Ramaphosa remained composed and suggested the two leaders talk about it very calmly" as Trump ambushed him with a video making the untrue allegations that white Afrikaners in South Africa were victims of genocide. Continue reading...

United flight to LA forced to turn back over concern found written on lavatory mirror' as Hawaiian flight also delayedTwo planes traveling between Honolulu and southern California were diverted due to safety concerns, one for a bomb threat, another for a security concern" found written on a bathroom mirror.United flight 1169 left Daniel K Inouye international airport at 9.40pm on Tuesday night, headed for Los Angeles international airport. Data from FlightAware shows the airplane reversing course east of Hawaii, and headed back to Honolulu. Continue reading...

Like a Bond villain startling guests with noxious gas, the president pushed his 'white genocide' delusion to Cyril RamaphosaWe knew he was a bore and boor. Now we have learned that Donald Trump is an honorary Boer.When he turned his attention to South Africa on Wednesday, it may come as no surprise that the US president - who has been sued for discriminating against Black apartment seekers, called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, pushed the false claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, referred to Haiti and African nations as shithole countries", and blamed an air crash on DEI - was rooting for the whites. Continue reading...

Detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist forced to meet month-old baby from behind glassMahmoud Khalil, the detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist, was not allowed to hold his newborn son after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials refused to allow a contact visit between him and his family, his lawyers said on Wednesday.Instead, Khalil, 30, was forced to meet his month-old baby for the first time behind glass, after his wife, Noor Abdalla, traveled from New York to the Louisiana detention facility where he has been detained since March, his legal team said. Continue reading...