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Doctor, who was head of infectious diseases unit during height of the pandemic, tells Congress he and his family still get harassedAnthony Fauci, the former head of the US infectious diseases unit, has received credible death threats" stemming from his time overseeing the nation's fight against Covid-19, he has told Congress.Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the height of attempts to halt the spread of the virus, told a hearing on Capitol Hill that the threats had continued until the present day, even though he retired in 2022. Continue reading...

The eruption began early Monday in a remote area that last saw lava a half-century ago, with absolutely no property in danger'Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, began erupting early on Monday in a remote area that last erupted a half-century ago, the US Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.The eruption is about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the Kilauea caldera, in an area within Hawaii Volcanoes national park that last erupted in December 1974. The area surrounding the caldera has been closed to the public since 2008 because of other hazards, including ground cracking, instability in the crater wall and rockfalls. Continue reading...

Fire east of San Francisco was significantly surrounded after reportedly scorching more than 22 sq miles over the weekendCalifornia's largest wildfire so far this year was significantly surrounded on Monday after blackening a swath of hilly grasslands between San Francisco bay and the Central valley.The Corral fire was 75% contained after scorching more than 22 sq miles (57 sq km) over the weekend, the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire, said. One home was destroyed and two firefighters were injured. Continue reading...

Stormy Daniels says she doesn't know what the sentencing could be, but compared Trump to a child that needed a punishment that not just matches the crime'

DoJ filing says president's interview with special counsel about handling of classified documents could be improperly altered'The US Department of Justice is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president's interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation about Biden's handling of classified documents is a source of heated political contention, with Republicans pushing for release of the recordings and the White House moving to block them.The justice department's filing, which it released late on Friday night, argues that the recording should not be released on a variety of grounds including privacy interests and executive privilege. One section of the filing, however, is specifically dedicated to the threat of deepfakes and disinformation, stating that there is substantial risk people could maliciously manipulate the audio if it were to be made public. Continue reading...

Novak Djokovic produced a stunning five-set comeback while both Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina won in straight setsRybakina wins first set 6-4So Svitolina is serving to stay in the first set. Which she does with not too much fuss, holding to 15. Just as Rybakina steps up to serve for the set, so does Avanesyan on Suzanne Lenglen. Where to look? Gah! At 30-all on Philippe Chatrier, Svitolina goes for broke down the line and misses. Set point for Rybakina. And there are two set points for Avanesyan. Rybakina doesn't mess about, taking hers, but Avanesyan is taken to deuce. And is then broken. It's 5-3. Continue reading...

These are the moments he lives for - right at the centre of things, all stardust and no responsibilityAlas, poor Dicky, I knew him well. Richard Tice and Nigel Farage had already given two press conferences in the previous week. Both times they had been given equal billing. Even though everyone but Dicky T knew who the real star was. On Monday all pretence had been pushed aside. Out came the op note. Nigel Farage was to make an emergency election announcement". Tice wasn't even mentioned as an afterthought. Even though he was probably paying for the pleasure.Dicky was determined not to be left out, though. The man with no charisma or personal warmth relegated once more to Nige's warm-up act. The man on the downward trajectory. Soon he will be relegated to doorman. I'm not sure if Tice even convinces himself. His patter is all third-rate Farage. The sort of thing you might get if you typed write me a bad Nigel speech" into ChatGPT. Reform was moving into eighth gear", he said. Really? Some of us were losing the will to live. Continue reading...

President's sharp political U-turn aimed at stemming record surge and winning support on key voter concernJoe Biden will this week sign an executive order to temporarily close the southern US border to asylum seekers in a sharp political U-turn aimed at winning support on a key voter concern in a presidential election year.The US president is expected to sign the order as early as Tuesday to seal the border with Mexico to migrants when numbers of asylum claimants rise above a daily threshold of 2,500. Continue reading...

Roughly $390m worth of GameStop shares had changed hands before 6am ET, following Keith Gill's first Reddit post in three yearsGameStop shares rose sharply on Monday after Roaring Kitty" Keith Gill, the man at the heart of a 2021 stock market frenzy around the struggling video gaming chain, returned to Reddit with a post which appeared to show a $116m bet on the chain.The stock soared by as much as 74%, before losing ground in volatile trading. By mid-morning, it was up by 31%. Continue reading...

Presumptive Republican nominee pointed to the 11 July sentence hearing, scheduled four days before the GOP national conventionDonald Trump has called on the US supreme court to step in and annul his guilty verdict in a hush-money trial that left him with the unwanted double distinction of being the first former US president to be a convicted felon.The 2024 presumptive Republican nominee made his plea in a typically florid post on his Truth Social site, highlighting that a sentencing hearing scheduled for 11 July falls just four days before the GOP's national convention in Milwaukee, when his nomination is expected to become official. Continue reading...

When Richard Nixon's perfidy was exposed, his party support crumbled. But with Trump, GOP leaders rallied around himThe Republican leaders were of one mind: if the Republican president committed a crime, he could no longer hold office. They had defended him to a point, but they understood that with proof of criminality they would withdraw their support. Even before the evidence was conclusive, their ultimate judgment about their constitutional duty and of the president's was certain. If it can be proved that he lied, resignation would have to be considered. It would be quick. Everything would be over, ended. It wouldn't drag out like impeachment." So stated senator Barry Goldwater, a previous Republican presidential nominee, still the icon of the conservative movement, in May 1973.It did not matter that Richard Nixon was popular, that he had won the presidency twice, the last time just a year earlier, in a landslide, carrying 49 states. Goldwater did not know that after he made his statement, the smoking gun" tape would be revealed on 5 August 1974. He and the other Republican leaders, however, did know then that a president who had authorized payment of hush money to the Watergate burglars in order win an election and had engaged in a coverup to thwart both the investigation and accountability in the courts would have to quit or face impeachment and removal.Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth Continue reading...

In an era of coaching philosophers, the Italian's pragmatic approach continues to give Madrid an edge in Europe

The more self-actualised you become, the higher you are on self-righteousness, blaming other people's problems on their failure to be as healthy as youOK, this is going to sound a little hypocritical, as I have hard-recommended every activity and pursuit, every wellness wheeze and rejuvenation exercise the modern world has dreamed up. Try hot yoga: it plugs you back into your inner child. How about a morning rave? All the cardio of a regular rave, none of the ecstasy: what's not to like? Botox? Fine, it's plastic surgery-lite, but also it makes you look much more friendly. Pilates, cycling, running, high-intensity interval training, Tough Mudders, barre, aerial silks, horse-riding: at some time or another, I have insisted to anyone who will listen that it's only their failure to incorporate, say, a horse into their weekly schedule that is standing between them and their best self.But there is a dark side to wellness, which I always, for shorthand, thought of as political: getting fit makes you more rightwing. The mechanism is incredibly simple: you embark on this voyage of self-improvement, and more or less immediately see results. You feel stronger and more energetic, probably your mood lifts, and pretty soon you think you are master of your own destiny. You're still not, by the way: destiny does not care about your step count. But until that fact catches up with you, which it may never, there you are, high on self-righteousness. You can tell this has happened to you when you start inhaling performatively, like the hero of an Ayn Rand novel. Continue reading...

The former Republican House speaker's comments arrive as Trump's guilty verdict is set to spark election integrity debatesKevin McCarthy, former Republican US House speaker, has said that Americans should accept the results of November's presidential race - as rising political tensions in the aftermath of Donald Trump's campaign finance violation conviction in New York are set to inflame election integrity issues.The relatively moderate McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker last year in a Republican power struggle and has since resigned from Congress, said on Sunday that every American should accept the results" of the election that is expected to pit Democratic incumbent Joe Biden against the former Republican president Trump. Continue reading...

The more the political establishment damns the ex-president, the more those outside its reach are drawn to himGuilty", screamed the one-word headline in the New York Times last week, dripping with undisguised glee. Howls of contempt descended on Donald Trump as he slunk from his Manhattan courtroom to cries of felon". He now awaits sentence and three more criminal trials, two of them over his response to his 2020 election defeat.Ecstasy is a dangerous substance in politics. Trump's enemies should be careful what they wish for. Within 24 hours of his leaving court, $39m reportedly poured into his campaign coffers. Though some Republicans seemed hesitant, an Ipsos poll for Reuters showed voting intention tilting in his favour. As with his victory in 2016, the more the political establishment damns him, the more those outside its reach are drawn to him. Continue reading...

There was a street party in the Akron area before gunfire broke out, killing a 27-year-old man whose identity was not yet releasedThe mayor and police chief of Akron, Ohio, called on witnesses to come forward with information about a mass shooting in the city that killed one person and wounded 24 others, some critically, over the weekend.This was a tragic incident which [affects] our entire community," Akron's mayor, Shammas Malik, said. The sheer number of victims is shocking and disconcerting. I want to be very clear: anyone who was involved in last night's shooting will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law." Continue reading...

Leftwing climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City triumphs with a landslide, taking between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote. Plus, Hunter Biden trial to startGood morning,Claudia Sheinbaum has won a landslide victory to become Mexico's first female president, inheriting the project of her mentor and outgoing leader, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose popularity among the poor helped drive her triumph.How Sheinbaum's victory made history: Sheinbaum is the first woman to win a general election in the US, Mexico or Canada. She will also be the first person from a Jewish background to lead Mexico.The election campaign was marred by violence: The poll has been the most violent in modern history, with more than 30 candidates killed and hundreds more dropping out as criminal groups vied to install friendly leaders.What will prosecutors say? They intend to use Hunter's memoir Beautiful Things to make the case that he knew he was addicted to drugs when he denied it on the form that every person must fill out when buying a gun.What does the president say? Biden has stuck by his son through all his troubles and that is unlikely to change now. But the trial could air potentially embarrassing family details. Continue reading...

Comparisons between the ex-president and the 20th-century Nazi leader are controversial but a new book says they resemble each other as political performance artistsWhen Donald Trump shared a video that dreamed of a unified reich" if he wins the US presidential election, and took nearly a full day to remove it, the most shocking thing was how unshocking it was.Trump has reportedly said before that Adolf Hitler did some good things", echoed the Nazi dictator by calling his political opponents vermin" and saying immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country", and responded to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville by claiming that there were very fine people on both sides". Continue reading...

Medicare Advantage enrollees report treatment denials and delays in payment, leading to harmful outcomes in healthcareJenn Coffey was sick, on several medications, and in and out of the hospital around 2016 when she made a decision that she has come to regret.Having fought off breast cancer, the former emergency medical technician faced numerous complications, and was diagnosed with two rare diseases: complex regional pain syndrome and small fiber neuropathy. Continue reading...

Oligarchs like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel aren't just hostile to progressivism. They're hostile to American democracy itselfElon Musk and the entrepreneur and investor David Sacks reportedly held a secret dinner party of billionaires and millionaires in Hollywood last month. Its purpose: to defeat Joe Biden and re-install Donald Trump in the White House.The guest list included Peter Thiel, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Milken, Travis Kalanick, and Steven Mnuchin, Trump's treasury secretary.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a 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 newest 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...

State GOP praises appointment of podcast host Janelle King as integrity-minded' as she replaces more moderate RepublicanA new appointee to the Georgia state board of elections has elicited questions about whether she may be part of preparations to subvert the election on behalf of Donald Trump and others who are hoping to cast doubt on results that don't go his way.Those fears are unfounded, she said. Continue reading...

The Alabaman who started boxing at 21 to pay for his daughter's medical care went further than anyone could have imagined. Too few people appreciated what he brought to the tableHe was never supposed to be a boxer. In a different timeline Deontay Wilder might have been scoring touchdowns or throwing down tomahawk dunks for the University of Alabama. That was the dream growing up poor in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium on the streets of sports-mad Tuscaloosa, where he excelled for Central High School's football and basketball teams. And it was still the goal when the 6ft 7in teenager enrolled at nearby Shelton State Community College, where he sought to raise his grades enough to transfer and play for the home town Crimson Tide.That all changed with a routine visit to the doctor's office in 2005, when he learned his unborn daughter with his then-girlfriend would be born with spina bifida, an incurable birth defect in which the spine does not close fully during development. Right then Wilder, only 19, knew he needed money and he needed it yesterday. Continue reading...

After years of scandal and poor governance, the people are right to want checks and balances, and new voicesThe results are in, and the message is stark: the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has been humbled in the country's general election. South Africa is going through the biggest shift in its political landscape since the end of apartheid 30 years ago.Counting of Wednesday's poll shows that the party has fallen below the 50% required for a parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of minority white rule in 1994. It must now share power for the first time. And its political leaders will have to suffer the ignominy of scrambling to forge a coalition with their opponents. Continue reading...

Our convoluted response to the catastrophe in Gaza leaves a bitter aftertasteIt is common knowledge that we Slovenes are a hard-working, neat but in essence spineless folk. Our favourite pastime is oppressing our fellow citizens, especially our neighbours, peers and co-workers - always putting them into their designated places, preferably somewhere beneath us.We remain silent, however, when truth should be spoken to power. Oppressing others and staying silent is hard work! Our inability to resist the will of the great and the mighty - our bosses, rulers, domestic or foreign governments - makes us highly corruptible and, therefore, unreliable. It's not a coincidence that Slovenes are usually depicted with bowed heads and clasped hands: those are images of obedience, and obedience is, without a doubt, a calculated behaviour.Ana Schnabl is a Slovenian novelist, editor and critic Continue reading...

Despite being asked to clean up after themselves, about 3,000 students celebrating Memorial Day weekend left piles of debrisCollege students celebrating Memorial Day weekend by California's Shasta Lake left behind hoard of trash, according to US Forest Service officials.Last weekend, approximately 3,000 students from the University of California, Davis and the University of Oregon partied at Shasta Lake, a 30,000-acre reservoir in the golden state, and left piles of debris cluttered around the lake. Continue reading...

Real Madrid lifted the trophy and may dominate for some time to come, while PSG are about to enter an uncertain eraFrancisco Gento's record of six European Cup wins was one of those records that looked unassailable, belonging to the era of football scrapbooks. And yet Dani Carvajal, scorer of Real Madrid's first goal in the final, and Luka Modri matched the legendary winger's total with Madrid's 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund on Saturday. Toni Kroos, in his final club game, having won five with Real to add to his Champions League title in 2013 with Bayern Munich, joined them. Continue reading...

James Kane and Barbie Agostini pull up safe in Queens park with bundles of $100 bills inside and are told by police they can keep itA New York City couple who were magnet fishing" in a lake caught more than they had bargained for when they pulled out a safe that had $100,000 cash inside.James Kane and Barbie Agostini tossed a line with a strong magnet attached to the end into a lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on 31 May, Friday afternoon. Continue reading...

Two fire workers injured after Corral Fire, which began Saturday afternoon, spread overnight east of San FranciscoCalifornia firefighters aided by aircraft battled a wind-driven wildfire that began Saturday and continued burning early Sunday morning in an area straddling the San Francisco Bay Area and central California, authorities said.The Corral Fire began Saturday afternoon near the city of Tracy, 60 miles (96km ) east of San Francisco, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the city of Livermore, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire. Continue reading...

Carlos Alcaraz sweeps past Felix Auger-Aliassime and Iga Swiatek beats Anastasia Potapova 6-0, 6-0 with Coco Gauff, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur also progressingOh yes! A gorgeous lob from deep in the backhand corner raises break-back point, and a glorious, oblique stop-volley at the net cements in. We're back on serve on Lenglen, Danilivoc leading Vondrousova 4-3.Gosh, Potapova ends the set in the only way she can, a double to see herself broken to love and bagelled - in 19 minutes. Swiatek is hitting so cleanly off the ground, and Potapova just can't get it going. Vondrousdova, though, is starting to settle - she'll not get away with taking this long should she continue progressing - down 2-4 but up 0-30. Continue reading...

In Fox interview, Trump derides his conviction and baselessly characterizes it as political weaponization of US justice systemDonald Trump on Sunday lauded the Republican party for rallying behind him in the wake of his conviction on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.Trump made the comments in his first sit-down press interview since the guilty verdict was returned on Friday that held he falsified business records linked to an illicit affair with adult actor Stormy Daniels. The former US president appeared on Sunday in a taped interview on Fox & Friends, a friendly forum on the rightwing channel and in which he was served up a series of softball questions by a trio of Fox hosts. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Ukrainian leader says bad peace deal in event of Trump victory would mean end of US as global player'Donald Trump risks being a loser president" if he wins November's election and imposes a bad peace deal on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, saying it would mean the end of the US as a global player".In an interview with the Guardian in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he had no strategy yet" for what to do if Trump returned to the White House, and that the former British prime minister Boris Johnson had approached him on his behalf. Continue reading...

Forget the sports car and affair with a personal trainer. My generation of women are reaching this life stage messily, sensually and full of rageI'm not having a midlife crisis. Any actuary would tell you I'm well over halfway, plus the years 30-40 were one long, undignified, slightly premature MLC (I won't apologise for abbreviating; time is short - see first point) that I refuse to revisit. But I'm interested in that moment when mortality ceases to be a vague, polite murmur and becomes a screaming alarm. My cohort is now traversing Dante's dark wood, so I feel surrounded if not by midlife crises (I'm experiencing disappointingly few vicarious ones), then by culture exploring them.Of course, each generation rediscovers and makes a fuss about universal experiences, but it feels like the MLC is in the midst of a makeover. First, it's female. The new MLC queen is Miranda July, whose new novel All Fours is reframing perimenopausal turmoil as urgent, sensual, even hot". July has managed to make midlife angst feel fresh, but positing All Fours as a singular overdue examination of the crystallising, life-upturning effect of the end of fertility is a bit unfair to many who came before. What about Bridget Christie's brilliant menopause sitcom The Change, for a start? I also think you don't need to explicitly articulate the physical and emotional reckonings of perimenopause to create art informed by it. Rachel Cusk has been dissecting aspects of female midlife turmoil since her divorce memoir Aftermath, surely; Fleishman Is In Trouble is, in large part, a female MLC novel, and Deborah Levy's extraordinary Living trilogy became a lodestar for a generation of women navigating the shifting sands of middle age (I solemnly gave it to my sister for her 39th birthday, as if transmitting a sacred text). Continue reading...

The campaign is playing on all fields,' an adviser to Trump's campaign tells PoliticoFormer president Donald Trump has joined social media platform TikTok and made his first post late Saturday night, a video featuring the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, introducing Trump on the social media platform.The move came despite that fact that as president Trump pushed to ban TikTok by executive order due to the app's parent company being based in China. Trump said in March 2024 that he believed the app was a national security threat, but later reversed on supporting a ban. Continue reading...

Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside home of Fethullah Gulen when man in SUV approachedA Turkish journalist for a pro-government channel says a supporter of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkey of instigating a failed 2016 coup, attacked him near the self-exiled figure's home in Pennsylvania in an encounter that apparently unfolded live on air.In a video posted on Saturday, Yunus Paksoy appeared to be filming a live broadcast outside Gulen's home, reportedly near the area of Saylorsburg, when a man driving a dark SUV approached him. Continue reading...

State of emergency declared as main breaks leave much of the city without running water and force businesses to closeMajor water main breaks in Atlanta, Georgia, have caused significant outages and disruptions, as Mayor Andre Dickens has issued a state of emergency in the city and one local hospital had to evacuate some patients to other facilities.The breaks occurred on Friday when corroded water pipes burst near downtown Atlanta. According to utility and city officials, the site of the major water main break was repaired on Saturday, with the system gradually being brought back online and no contamination has been found as a result of the break. Continue reading...

Despite falling short in the final, Wilfried Nancy's side have enjoyed a superb 12 months and earned the respect of the continentDC United, LA Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders did something the Columbus Crew could not. Wilfried Nancy's team could have added their name to the list of MLS teams to have won a continental title. Instead, the Crew were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Pachuca in Saturday's Concacaf Champions Cup final.And yet even as runners-up, Columbus achieved something profound - they won the respect of the region. For two months, Nancy-ball' took over Concacaf just as it has MLS. In a region where American and Canadian teams have historically struggled for credibility, the Crew earned it and then some. What other MLS side has ever been applauded off the pitch by Mexican supporters, as Columbus were in the quarter and semi-finals? CF Monterrey and Tigres UANL fans knew they'd seen something special. Continue reading...

Darrell Scott, a Pentecostal minister from Cleveland, identifies himself as Trump's senior adviser' - and has paid a high price for his allegianceIn the summer of 2011, Darrell Scott, a Pentecostal minister from a Black church in Cleveland, the New Spirit Revival Center, was asked by a televangelist friend to come to Trump Tower in New York for a meeting shrouded in mystery. Scott was ushered up to a ballroom on the 26th floor where he found a group of about 15 other pastors waiting.Donald Trump, then star of The Celebrity Apprentice, swept into the room. I'm thinking about running for president," he told the astonished gathering. I'm hoping you guys can pray on me, that God gives me the wisdom to make the right decision." Continue reading...

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington documents former president's threats against perceived political opponentsA major study of Donald Trump's social media posts has revealed the scale of the former US president's ambitions to target Joe Biden, judges and other perceived political enemies if he returns to power.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), a watchdog organisation, analysed more than 13,000 messages published by Trump on his Truth Social platform and found him vowing revenge, retaliation and retribution against his foes. Continue reading...

Labour's leadership needn't struggle to define the ideology; it's in its very constitutionSocialism is whataLabour government does, pronounced Herbert Morrison, one of the titans of the Clement Attlee administration in the 1940s. It wasn't a very good answer then to the perennial doctrinal disputes about what constitutes socialism that have haunted the party since its foundation in 1900 - and it works no better in 2024.So what is this socialism that Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Darren Jones and Jonathan Reynolds were all asked about last week, whose tenets they purport to follow even as the party wrangled over the purge" of its left? Convincing, on-the-front-foot answers proved elusive. Continue reading...

The latest Tory crusade over rip-off' degrees continues to stereotype students based on classWe must crack down on low-value university degrees." Who claimed that and when? It might have been Rishi Sunak last October. Or Sunak last July. Or Sunak the previous August. Or Nadhim Zahawi five months earlier. Or Michelle Donelan in November 2020. Or Gavin Williamson in May 2020. Or Damian Hinds the previous year. Or Sam Gyimah in 2018. Or Jo Johnson in 2017. Or even Labour's Margaret Hodge more than 20 years ago.This time, it was Sunak on the election trail last week. There are university degrees that are letting young people down," he told reporters. Around one in five students would have been financially better off" not going to college and one in three graduates are in non-graduate jobs". Sunak promised to scrap rip-off degrees", replacing them with 100,000 apprenticeships. Continue reading...