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The French president's decision to call a snap parliamentary election, after Marine Le Pen's triumph in European polls, is a fateful momentAhead of Sunday's European election results, attention was understandably focused on the impact of a potential far-right surge on the balance of power in Brussels institutions. In the event, the pan-European centre held, just about, with more moderateconservative parties generally enjoying agood night. But that was not even close to being the main headline of the evening.Emmanuel Macron's shock decision to call snap legislative elections, after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen's National Rally party (RN), is a gamble of the highest order, taken from a position of weakness. Even by the standards of a president who created his own movement to demolish the traditional centre-left and centre-right, it is a surprisingly risky move. In a Sunday evening address, Mr Macron told the nation that it was a necessary one in order to clarify" aresult that saw the extreme right win a combined 40% of the vote. That clarification, when it comes on 7July, may or may not be welcome. Continue reading...

Republican extremist tells crowd The man that I worship is also a convicted felon'Donald Trump has been compared to Jesus Christ by the far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene at a campaign rally for the former president in Las Vegas, a city more renowned for evoking images of gambling than biblical scenes.Greene, who makes frequent references to her Christian faith, cited Trump's supposed Christ-like qualities to challenge the Democrats' efforts to capitalise on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's status as a convicted felon following his recent conviction in a case involving hush money paid to an adult film actor and falsified business records in a New York court. Continue reading...

Doctors and other medical professionals vacationing on the beach helped save teen's life after a shark bit herThe mother of a Florida teen who lost her leg and hand in a shark attack recently said the girl's first words after waking up from her brutal ordeal were: I made it".Lulu Gribbin, from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was one of three people who were injured in a spate of shark attacks Friday at Rosemary beach in Florida's Walton county, in the western part of the state. Continue reading...

Darryl Mefferd's death was labeled an accident', but a report questions a Vallejo police officer's role in the fatal incidentCalifornia law enforcement officials have worked for seven years to keep secret a death in police custody, labeling the case an accident" and refusing to disclose basic information to journalists and the family of the victim, an investigation published on Monday reveals.Darryl Mefferd, 49, died on 8 December 2016 while he was detained by police in Vallejo, a city of 125,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The case was uncovered by Open Vallejo, a local non-profit news organization, which shared its records with the Guardian. Continue reading...

The beauty of international football is that nobody can go out and buy a perfectly balanced squad

The real problem is how past wars are invoked not only to ramp up today's defence spending, but to agitate for fresh conflictAttacks on Rishi Sunak for cutting short his attendance at the D-day commemoration have been overblown. His early return home was a presentational error, but he had attended the relevant British ceremonies and is in the midst of an election campaign. The final day was a giant sound and light show with a photocall mostly for assorted heads of state rather than heads of government. No protocol necessitated Sunak's presence. King Charles had already attended the appropriate commemoration. This was a clear case of using any brick to hurl at an unpopular politician in an election.Remembrance days always risk mixed messages. They are traditionally occasions for recalling, thanking and comforting those personally involved. D-day did not mark the end of the second world war, but it was a hugely significant event in its conduct. Nor was this, as is now so often said, the last time we could say thank you. The last first world war veterans survived until 2009. There will be enough to keep D-day, VE Day and the Battle of Britain in vox pops for some years to come.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Poll comes as the Biden campaign has ramped up its rhetoric in attacking Trump directly in recent weeksMore than half of Joe Biden's supporters are primarily motivated to cast their vote for the president in order to prevent a return of Donald Trump to the White House, according to a new poll.Opposing Trump is the main reason to back Biden for 54% of the Democratic incumbent's voters, the new CBS/YouGov poll found, up from 47% in a similar survey conducted in March, which was prior to the presumptive Republican nominee being found guilty of business fraud by a New York jury. Continue reading...

The US and its people are unsettled, simultaneously depleted and ready to fight

Crystal Mason was convicted of voter fraud after the 2016 election, when she cast a ballot without realizing she was ineligible to voteAmerican psyche: a new series exploring the angst at the heart of the American electionIt was the day of the full solar eclipse on the outskirts of Fort Worth last April, and Crystal Mason was trying, just for a second, to relax. Continue reading...

Bull hopped fence and ran through concession area, lifting one person off the ground, before professionals secured itA rodeo bull named Party Bus hopped a fence surrounding an Oregon arena and ran through a concession area into a parking lot, injuring at least three people before wranglers caught up with it, officials said.The crowd at the 84th Sisters Rodeo in the city of Sisters was singing along with Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA on Saturday night, most with their cellphone flashlights on, as the bull ran around the arena before what was to be the final bull ride of the night, when the bull hopped the fence, according to a video shot by a fan. Continue reading...

The state's homeowners' associations (HOAs) are notorious for petty bureaucracy - including threats of eviction for the wrong kind of dog or decorative garage door hingesIf you had to name the state where a Vietnam war veteran almost lost his apartment for owning the wrong kind of dog; in which a ring of thieves made off with millions of dollars of residents' money they were obligated to look after; and where a family was threatened with legal action over decorative garage door hinges, intuition would lead you to Florida.Such absurdities from homeowners' associations (HOAs) abound where the nation's highest concentration of condominium developments, gated communities and upmarket resorts blend seamlessly with an abundance of petty bureaucracy and outright crookedness. Continue reading...

There are many topics up for healthy debate at the moment - yet we remain united against the Russian enemyI am concerned that people here are becoming more fatalistic, and care less about the danger," says Gregory Scherban, a friend of mine, a Kharkiv resident and a volunteer helping the evacuation of those escaping the new Russian assault in the villages in north-east Ukraine.I understand what he means. Walking with colleagues through northern Saltivka - once a populous residential area on the edge of Kharkiv that was hit by heavy shelling in the early stage of the war - we hear the sounds of explosions. I'm scared but my colleagues from the area are calm. It's too far away," they say, casually. An air alert warns about further strikes, but the communal workers nearby continue repairing the road as if nothing is going on. The air alert can be on for dozens of hours at a time, so not resuming activity isn't an option. Continue reading...

That risk is notoriously hard to predict. There's no reliable procedure for assessment or solid evidence on which to base itWarnings about nuclear escalation in Ukraine are now being issued with increasing frequency and urgency, due to dramatic changes in policy by some of Kyiv's main western supporters.Some European countries, including Britain, France, the United States and Germany, have changed course, giving Ukraine the green light to use their weapons against sites within Russia. The latter two limited their permission to Ukrainian strikes aimed at defending Kharkiv province - although, according one report, Joe Biden may even lift that geographic restriction, as well. These steps are responses to devastating Russian strikes on Ukraine, many from points beyond its reach. Continue reading...

Organisers are cashing in on defectors' desperation to turn out for Europe but the ethics of doing so are open to questionIt is golf's equivalent of blasphemy to suggest that anybody should be paid to play in a Ryder Cup. As the theory rumbled around the US camp during their defeat against Europe in Rome last year, the tutting and tittering was audible.The biennial clash became a play thing for the corporate classes long ago. It generates tens of millions for the European Tour Group and the PGA of America. But pay participants? The mere discussion is viewed as offensive. It is about the pride, the passion, the novelty of team golf at elite level. Most of these lads wouldn't you-know-what on each other were they on fire from week to week, but the Ryder Cup forges bonds. Or so we are told. Continue reading...

I had always called myself a collector'. Then I saw that holding on to things had become my way of coping with hard timesWas it the crate of saved wrapping paper, carefully archived by colour? Or the sheath of car tax discs, dating back to my first vehicle (owned 16 years ago), stored in a monogrammed wallet that did not bear my initials? No, it was the sweet little pillbox, shiny in its innocence, that revealed the greatest horror: every tooth I have ever lost. Further grotesque inspection determined that, alongside fragmented baby fangs were wisdom teeth - suggesting that the filing system had been upheld for quite some years. If I'd kept them this long, perhaps I should still hang on to them, I reasoned. As always, an attempt to chuck things out had been thwarted.I have always collected. It started with pencils, soaps and china animals, progressing to more mainstream hobbyist items: stamps, coins and gem stones. My childhood fossil collection expanded into acquiring rocks and stones more generally, until my bedroom was full of museum-like pockets, each group neatly curated. As a Brownie, my collector's badge was awarded for my collection of collections, the assessor agog at the sheer number of cigarette cards, beads and Fimo models on display. I loved books and sheet music, too, and it was broadly accepted that this need to keep and arrange things - often in ways that made no sense to others - was part and parcel of a curious mind.Claire Jackson is a journalist who writes about classical music, art and animals Continue reading...

Gynecomastia - the benign growth of male breast tissue - is easily fixed but at a prohibitive cost for most Nigerians, leading many men to experience stigma and poor mental healthIt was a few days before my 21st birthday in 2017 when my mother pointed out a small lump on my chest. I was weightlifting at the time and often walked around the house shirtless. Three weeks later, the lump had doubled in size. I went to a hospital, where a doctor diagnosed gynecomastia, a benign condition where an imbalance between the hormones testosterone and oestrogen causes an overdevelopment of breast tissues.The irony was not lost on me: I was weightlifting because I aspired to the kind of masculinity typified by a chiseled chest and bulky muscles, but instead I had acquired a distinctly feminine trait. Continue reading...

Ex-president makes direct appeal to service workers in swing state Nevada, which polls suggest is leaning his wayAt a campaign rally Sunday in sweltering hot Las Vegas, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told the crowd he would seek to end taxation of income from tips, a direct appeal to service workers in the swing state of Nevada, which polls suggest is leaning his way ahead of the 5 November election.That promise reveals one more point to a vague Trump tax plan that has so far included pledges of tax relief to middle-income workers and small businesses. Current law requires tipped employees to report those tips as income. Continue reading...

Legislature passes bill, with name change to commemorate riots that spurred action, which awaits governor approvalA New York City subway station would be renamed to commemorate the Stonewall riots that galvanized the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, under legislation approved by state lawmakers as they wrapped up their session this month.The state legislature approved a bill Wednesday directing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to change the name of the Christopher Street-Sheridan Square subway station in Greenwich Village to the Christopher Street-Stonewall National Monument station. Continue reading...

Violent incident in Madison adds to more than 200 mass shootings in the US so far this yearA shooting at a rooftop party in Wisconsin early on Sunday left at least 10 people injured, including teenagers, police said.Nine people were injured by gunfire and another was injured by broken glass at the party at a high-rise apartment in downtown Madison. Continue reading...

Chasm in Teton Pass road severs link between Idaho and Jackson as governor signs order declaring an emergencyA large chunk of a twisting mountain pass road collapsed in Wyoming, authorities said Saturday, leaving a gaping chasm in the highway and severing a well-traveled commuter link between small towns in eastern Idaho and the tourist destination of Jackson.Aerial photos and drone video of the collapse show the Teton Pass road riven with deep cracks, and a big section of the pavement disappeared altogether. Part of the guardrail dangled into the void, and orange traffic drums marked off the danger area. The road was closed at the time of the collapse. Continue reading...

Conservative-dominated court restores books denounced by officials as pornographic filth' to school librariesAn appellate court has ruled that Texas cannot ban books from libraries simply because they mention butt and fart" and other content which some state officials may dislike.The fifth US circuit court of appeals issued its decision on Thursday in a 76-page majority opinion, which was written by Judge Jacques Wiener Jr and opened with a quote from American poet Walt Whitman: The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book." Continue reading...

Homeland security head also defends timing of president's border action as measure faces criticism from both partiesThe US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, defended both the timing and substance of Joe Biden's new executive order to restrict immigration at the southern border, as the president faces criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike over the measure.The order, issued on Tuesday, tells officials to shut down asylum requests once the average number of encounters between legal ports of entry reaches 2,500 or more. If the number of encounters falls to 1,500 or fewer for seven consecutive days, the border would reopen two weeks later. Continue reading...

South Dakota governor, once a top possible Trump VP pick, makes remarks amid reports his shortlist is nearly all menThe South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, said on Sunday that Donald Trump should pick a woman to be his running mate amid reports that her fellow Republican's shortlist is nearly all men.I think that that would be beneficial, according to the polling that I've seen for him and a lot of swing states, is that having a woman that is helping his campaign makes a difference," she told Dana Bash during an interview on CNN's State of the Union. One in four Republican women haven't made up their minds because they want to have a woman talking to them about the issues they care about. And women aren't monolithic. They don't care about just one issue." Continue reading...

Vice-president says Trump thinking he is above the law' should be disqualifying for Republican would-be presidentDonald Trump has assailed the validity of his conviction in the criminal case involving hush-money payments to an adult film actor because cheaters don't like getting caught," Kamala Harris said during a speech on Saturday.Simply put, Donald Trump thinks he is above the law," the vice-president told an audience at a dinner hosted by the Michigan state Democratic party. This should be disqualifying for anyone who wants to be president of the United States." Continue reading...

The party's antics since 2016 have estranged much of its classic base, which is more worldly and liberal than many realiseTo understand the meltdown the Conservative party faces, you do not have to go too far from Westminster. A short hop on a commuter train will do it - out into the suburbs and towns of the home counties, mostly still understood as true-blue heartlands but now full of a mixture of uncertainty, unease and anger that seems to have drastically shaken those age-old loyalties.Last week, I was in Godalming in Surrey, represented for almost 20 years by Jeremy Hunt, the Tory politician who has held four cabinet posts since 2010 and is now somewhat desperately trying to remind his colleagues of the importance of the centre ground of politics. Life there looked largely easy: a seemingly bustling high street, enviably large houses and the sense of a corner of the country little used to political ruptures. To mark the 80th anniversary of D-day, the local shops were draped with an array of European flags; the scene in front of me seemed to crystallise the very English affluence that fosters calm and endless continuity.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Hospitals adding charge to bills from doctors' offices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostic centers they ownHospitals are gobbling up doctor's offices - and they're bringing higher prices to patients when they do, even if a patient never sets foot on a hospital campus.Enter the hospital facility fee": a charge hospitals can add to bills from doctors' offices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostics centers that they own, rebranding them as outpatient hospital departments", even if the facility is miles from a hospital campus. Continue reading...

Despite polling at just 10% and lacking his family's backing, Kennedy could have enough traction to be a spoiler in the presidential raceThe Kennedy name looms large over American politics. John F Kennedy, despite serving only twoand a half years as president before his assassination, is frequently ranked among the top 10 US leaders; his brother, Robert F Kennedy, seemed set for his own spell in the White House until he too was killed in 1968.Enter: Robert F Kennedy Jr, nephew of the former, son of the latter and increasingly, persona non grata of the surviving Kennedy clan. Continue reading...

This ancient gnostic religion has put down new roots across the globe, but the community faces broader challenges in the USIn many ways, Shahad Darwish's life in Michigan is just like anyone else's. The 23-year-old is studying for a master's degree in psychology at a local university and helps out at her family's jewelry business.But in other ways, it's very different: Darwish is one of about 3,000 Michigan-based Sabean Mandaeans, followers of John the Baptist - and one of the oldest surviving gnostic religions in the world. Continue reading...

The federal trial of the president's son undermines Trump's claim of a weaponized DoJ, but the right aims to make hay regardlessThe picture of criminal behavior and a dissolute lifestyle was painted in sometimes painfully frank testimony in a Delaware court room last week and would have been difficult to hear for the family of any defendant.But Hunter Biden, the man in the dock in Wilmington, is no ordinary plaintiff; he is the son of the president of the United States. Continue reading...

With nationalists set for EU election gains, now is not the time for Hungary's pro-Putin Europhobic leader to take the helmViktor Orban was his usual poisonous self, spouting toxic twaddle in true Boris Johnson/Nigel Farage style. Hungary's hard-right prime minister and Europe's saboteur-in-chief warned supporters at a Budapest rally that, without him, their country would be overrun by millions of illegal migrants and cease to exist as a nation.The EU was to blame, he said. The commission was under the spell of his liberal nemesis, the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros. It was secretly preparing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. A vote for his ruling party, Fidesz, in this weekend's European parliamentary polls was the only way to keep the peace.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...

Newberg-Dundee police department said in addition to vandalism were concerns of biased intent'A Pride flag that hung in the window of an Oregon library was the apparent target of BB gun fire amid Pride month and a growing wave of anti-LGBTQ+ measures from US legislatures.In a Facebook statement on Wednesday, the Newberg public library in Newberg, Oregon, said that around 7.10pm, a BB gun was fired at a window on the south-east corner of the library. A picture showed a shattered window, behind which a Pride flag hung. Continue reading...

Police use pepper spray as demonstrators unfurl red banner to symbolize Joe Biden's response to Israel's war on GazaThousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the White House on Saturday to protest Joe Biden's response to Israel's ongoing military strikes on Gaza.Footage posted to social media showed police using pepper spray on protesters, who faced arrest at the mass demonstration. Continue reading...

Second world war veteran Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin enjoy wedding party - with Macron and BidenTogether, the collective age of the bride and groom was nearly 200. But second world war veteran Harold Terens and his sweetheart, Jeanne Swerlin, proved that love is eternal as they tied the knot Saturday inland of the D-Day beaches in Normandy, France.Their respective ages - he's 100, she's 96 - made their nuptials an almost double-century celebration. Continue reading...

Star witness in trial of US senator from New Jersey says he had deal with Democrat to pressure state attorney generalA New Jersey businessman took his star turn on the witness stand on Friday in the bribery case against US senator Bob Menendez, telling a jury he believed he had a $200,000-$250,000 deal in 2018 for the Democrat to pressure the state attorney general's office to stop investigating his friends and family.Jose Uribe testified in Manhattan federal court in the afternoon, providing key testimony against Menendez and two other businessmen charged in a conspiracy along with Menendez's wife. Next week, Menendez's lawyers will get to cross-examine the naturalized US citizen. Continue reading...

Brandon Garrett was driving solo with his four dogs near where his family was camping, when he failed to navigate a turnA dog ran four miles to get help for his owner who crashed his car into a ravine in Oregon - and was ultimately rescued because of the animal's heroics, according to authorities.The case unfolded as Brandon Garrett was driving with his four dogs north on US Forest Service Road 39 in Baker county, near where his family was camping. Continue reading...

Alex Jones, who spread vile conspiracy theories about the school massacre, has been forced to sell off his assets. But it comes too late for Jeremy RichmanFrom time to time, in this job, you have the privilege of meeting an individual whose vivid spirit stays with you. For me, one of those individuals was Jeremy Richman, who was among the bereaved parents of the Sandy Hook school massacre in December 2012. I spent a humbling day with Richman seven years ago, when he talked in detail not only about his daughter Avielle - he made a point of smiling every time he said her name - but also about the work he and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, were doing in her treasured memory.Both medical research scientists, they had established a campaigning foundation to study the psychosocial factors that created mass killers, so that other people might not suffer as we were suffering". In the months afterwards, we corresponded from time to time about the progress of the foundation's research, in chatty emails. Continue reading...

The former president is likely to turn Merchan into public enemy number one in front of his supporters, sources sayDonald Trump is determined to avoid jail, but if he does get handed a prison sentence after his conviction on 34 felony counts in New York last week, the former president's inner circle is certain he will lay the blame squarely at the judge's feet, sources familiar with the matter said.The precise way Trump might blame the judge, Juan Merchan, remains unclear because Trump has been avoidant of the issue and the matter was not resolved when he huddled with his top advisers at a Trump Tower meeting immediately after the verdict on Thursday, the sources said. Continue reading...

Penny Swan defected from the rightwing group that captured the local Republican party - and she won't be voting for TrumpWhile dozens of her neighbors piled into buses bound from Michigan for the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021, Penny Swan, a local Republican party activist and an outspoken Trump supporter, stayed home. But not for lack of enthusiasm: Swan wanted to join the throngs fighting to stop the certification of the 2020 election, but has a heart condition and worried about her ability to keep up.Instead, she watched social media in awe, as her friends and neighbors surged toward the Capitol. Continue reading...