Blasts were heard in Isfahan after the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Explosions from the direction of the Isfahan nuclear site could be heard in a video posted on social media, and at least one fiery ball illuminated the night sky
Boat overturned after apparently being hit by a large swell, in a region that's a popular spot with touristsSix people have died and two others were missing after a boat capsized on Saturday on California's Lake Tahoe, local authorities have said.A 27ft-long boat overturned in the afternoon after apparently being hit by a large swell near DL Bliss state park, according to the Coast Guard. Lake Tahoe and its surrounding wilderness region is a hugely popular spot with tourists. Continue reading...
GOP officials had previously manipulated districts as well to wrest voting power from Black electorateRepublicans in Florida racially gerrymandered two key state senate districts to disenfranchise Black voters and skew results in the Tampa Bay area, a panel of judges has heard.In one district, they took a small chunk of St Petersburg heavy with minority voters and added it to an area of Tampa in a different county, and across a 10-mile waterway, leaving the remainder of its electorate artificially white", the court was told. Continue reading...
The political temperature is dangerously high - and shows few signs of coolingIt has been a grim couple of weeks in the US, as multiple acts of politically motivated violence have dominated headlines and sparked fears that a worrying new normal has taken hold in America.Last Saturday, a man disguised as a police officer attacked two Democratic legislators at their homes in Minnesota, killing a state representative and her husband, and wounding another lawmaker and his wife. The alleged murderer was planning further attacks, police said, on local politicians and abortion rights advocates. Continue reading...
Small businesses are doing OK right now, even if there is a bit of concern about tariffs, inflation, labor shortages and higher costsSmall businesses in the US account for approximately half of the country's jobs, so when small businesses are doing well, it's likely that the economy is doing well. Media reports recently indicated that many small businesses are challenged by Trump's tariffs, ongoing inflation, labor shortages and higher financing costs. So how are small businesses doing so far in 2025? Not great. But not that bad either.In just the past two months, there have been no less than seven comprehensive surveys conducted by well-known companies and brands that altogether surveyed or drew from their internal data of tens - even hundreds - of thousands of small businesses. And they give a pretty good idea of how they're doing. Continue reading...
Pete Hegseth said overnight airstrikes targeting the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities 'devastated' Iran's nuclear programme. At a press conference at the Pentagon, he said the strikes, which followed a 'focused, powerful and clear' order from the US president, Donald Trump, did not target Iranian troops or civilians
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called the US airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday night 'an outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation of the principles of the UN charter and international law'. He added: 'Iran reserves all options to defend its security interests and people' Continue reading...
Social media popularizes the deadly activity, and a 1847 law stymies families who try to hold the city to accountJaida Rivera's 11-year son, Cayden, was supposed to be in school at Brooklyn's Fort Greene preparatory academy on the morning of 16 September last year. Staff saw him in the cafeteria after his grandmother dropped him off at 7.45am.But 30 minutes later he was marked as absent. Cayden had somehow slipped out, boarded a G subway train traveling south and was riding on top of one of its carriages when he fell on to the tracks at the Fourth Avenue-Ninth Street station just after 10.00am. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Continue reading...
Trump has fallen slap bang into the trap laid for him by Netanyahu. His reckless gamble makes a nuclear weapon for Iran more, not less, likelyBombing will not make Iran go away. US bombs will not destroy the knowhow needed to build a nuclear weapon or the will do so, if that is what Tehran wants. The huge attack ordered by Donald Trump will not halt ongoing open warfare between Israel and Iran. It will not bring lasting peace to the Middle East, end the slaughter in Gaza, deliver justice to the Palestinians, or end more than half a century of bitter enmity between Tehran and Washington.More likely, Trump's rash, reckless gamble will inflame and exacerbate all these problems. Depending on how Iran and its allies and supporters react, the region could plunge into an uncontrolled conflagration. US bases in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the region, home to about 40,000 American troops, must now be considered potential targets for retaliation - and possibly British and allied forces, too. Continue reading...
The race has turned into an Israel-Palestine proxy war of sorts, even as voters on both sides wish the focus remained on local issuesSpeaking from a Jerusalem bomb shelter last week as Iran and Israel exchanged fire, a New York state senator posted a video message to New York City voters: There is a mayoral primary coming up this week where one of the candidates does not believe the Jewish state has a right to exist," said Sam Sutton, the senator from Brooklyn. We don't want to be in a situation like this in America."Sutton called on New Yorkers to elect a great friend of the Jewish people": Andrew Cuomo, New York's former governor. Continue reading...
Trump calls attacks on Iranian nuclear sites a success, but some US lawmakers immediately called the attack unconstitutional. Key US politics stories from Saturday 21 JuneWashington was in a flurry late on Saturday as Donald Trump announced that the US had completed strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, directly joining Israel's effort to destroy the country's nuclear program.American politicians reacted to the news of the US bombing of nuclear targets in Iran with a mix of cheering support and instant condemnation, reflecting deep divisions in the country, as Washington grapples with yet another military intervention overseas. Continue reading...
The administration has torn up the rulebook as it seeks to implement a hardline agenda to expel people from the USDonald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage the largest deportation operation in American history". As previewed, the administration set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting people requesting asylum and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president's ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution. Continue reading...
Governor Greg Abott signs bill into law but challenge expected from critics who consider it unconstitutionalTexas will require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a new law that will make the state the nation's largest to attempt to impose such a mandate.The bill, which was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, is expected to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state. Continue reading...
Officials say two men and a woman killed around town of Enderlin as region experiences powerful winds and hailPowerful winds - including a tornado - that swept across parts of the upper midwest left three people dead and a regional airport heavily damaged, while nearly 150 million Americans were under a heat advisory or warning as the weekend warmed up in much of the US.A complex storm system wreaked havoc in parts of North Dakota, northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin, with reported tornadic activity, large hail and strong wind gusts, according to Brian Hurley, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. Continue reading...
Director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fallen in line with the US president - other war-sceptics are followingThe Trump administration is managing internal dissent over deliberations on whether to launch a strike against Iran, breaking what many supporters saw as a campaign pledge not to involve the US in new conflicts in the Middle East.Trump for the second time this week disregarded testimony by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran had not been seeking to build a nuclear weapon as of March this year. Continue reading...
Columbia graduate and legal US resident was targeted by White House for speaking out against the Israeli war in GazaMahmoud Khalil - the Palestinian rights activist, Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident of the US who had been held by federal immigration authorities for more than three months - has been reunited with his wife and infant son.Khalil, the most high-profile student to be targeted by the Trump administration for speaking out against Israel's war on Gaza, arrived in New Jersey on Saturday at about 1pm - two hours later than expected after his flight was first rerouted to Philadelphia. Continue reading...
Officials tell Reuters bombers moving to Pacific Island but unclear whether deployment tied to Middle East tensionsThe United States is moving B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam, two US officials told Reuters on Saturday, as Donald Trump weighs whether the United States should take part in Israel's strikes against Iran.It was unclear whether the bomber deployment is tied to Middle East tensions. Continue reading...
Team, which said it stopped Ice agents entering parking lot on Thursday, makes donation to immigrant familiesThe Los Angeles Dodgers have donated $1m to assist families affected by two weeks of immigration raids in southern California.The World Series champions also said they intend to form partnerships with the California Community Foundation, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and other organization to continue providing aid to immigrant families. Continue reading...
Vance Boelter texted family that they needed to flee their house before people with guns' showed up, filings allegeThe man charged in connection with the recent shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses was a doomsday prepper" who instructed his family to prepare for war" as he tried to evade capture, according to new court filings.Vance Boelter, 57, faces multiple federal and state murder charges after allegedly shooting dead the Democratic Minnesota state house speaker emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in the early hours of 14 June. Boelter is also accused of shooting and seriously wounding the Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, about 90 minutes earlier. Continue reading...
by Associated Press and Guardian staff on (#6Y4S5)
Police say Arturo Gamboa was carrying a rifle when safety volunteer fired on him and accidentally killed bystanderA man jailed on suspicion of murder for allegedly brandishing a rifle at a No Kings" rally in Utah before an armed safety volunteer fired and inadvertently killed a protester has been released from custody.Local district attorney Sim Gill's office said on Friday that it was unable to make a decision on charges against Arturo Gamboa after the 14 June shooting that killed demonstrator Arthur Folasa Ah Loo - but that the investigation into the slaying continues. Continue reading...
The Maha campaign seeks to warn Americans of the dangers of ultra-processed foodsFederal health officials are seeking to launch a bold, edgy" public service campaign to warn Americans of the dangers of ultra-processed foods in social media, transit ads, billboards and even text messages.And they potentially stand to profit off the results. Continue reading...
Across the US, the Active Club network uses combat sports to lure boys and young men into white nationalist circlesA neo-Nazi fight club that secretly infiltrated a Tennessee martial arts school where young children train has been banned from the facility, after an inquiry by the Guardian.Last month, the South Central Tennessee Active Club published video footage on the messaging app Telegram showing its members participating in combat training at Shelbyville BJJ Academy, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school in Shelbyville, Tennessee, that offers classes to students as young as three years old. Continue reading...
Other countries have approved a wider range of UV-filtering ingredients, which allow for more advanced sunscreensMany dermatologists and experts say US sunscreens are still not as effective as many available overseas when it comes to protecting against ultraviolet radiation linked to skin cancer and premature ageing - despite years of research.The concern comes as a brutal heatwave, with a suffocating heat dome", is arriving for more than 200 million people across vast swaths of the US this weekend, bringing extreme heat and humidity . Studies have shown that the global climate crisis is making heatwaves more severe, frequent and long lasting. Continue reading...
A win for civil liberties groups, but state attorney general says she will appeal ruling to supreme court if necessaryA panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state's public school classrooms is unconstitutional.The ruling on Friday marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state - and that the poster-sized displays would isolate students, especially those who are not Christian. Continue reading...
Civil rights advocates and scholars say the US government's claims are troubling indicators of rising authoritarianismAfter New York City comptroller Brad Lander this week became the latest prominent Democrat to be arrested while monitoring and protesting US immigration authorities, the Trump administration trotted out a familiar refrain to justify his detention.The mayoral candidate had assaulted" law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted, warning if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences". Continue reading...
Raids have brought life to a standstill for some immigrant residents while others pick up pieces after arrests of familyIt has been eerily easy to find street parking in Los Angeles's fashion district this week. In the nearby flower district, longtime vendors have locked up stalls. And in East LA, popular taquerias have temporarily closed.Neighborhoods across LA and southern California have gone quiet since the Trump administration ramped up immigration raids in the region two weeks ago. Continue reading...
Profound concern' as administration says Afghanistan safe to return to despite dangers posed by Taliban regimeThousands of Afghans who fled to the US as the Taliban grabbed power again in Afghanistan are in mortal dread of being deported back to danger in the coming weeks amid the Trump administration's anti-immigration crackdown.Many, including some who assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the botched withdrawal by the military in 2021, are contending with threats to their legal status in the US on several fronts. Continue reading...
Six months ago, the 33-year-old was an unknown outsider polling in single digits. Now he is in striking distance of becoming New York's youngest, most leftwing mayor in a centuryZohran Kwame Mamdani is huddling with advisers surrounded by agitated protesters, New York police department (NYPD) officers and lines of metal barriers penning us in. An hour ago Brad Lander, the elected comptroller of New York who is running against Mamdani in the race to become the city's next mayor, was arrested by masked agents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as he accompanied an individual out of immigration court. Video shows the agents shoving Lander against a wall, handcuffing him, and scuffling him away.The incident has clearly rattled Mamdani. He looks tense, and when greeted by supporters his trademark beaming smile is replaced by a tight grin. Continue reading...
The attacks on lawmakers and a US senator's callous reaction tell a dark tale of modern AmericaIn the early morning of 14 June, according to authorities, Vance Luther Boelter, disguised as a police officer and wearing body armor and a face mask, drove his black Ford Explorer SUV, equipped with flashing lights, to the home of the Minnesota state senator John Hoffman. There, he shot Hoffman nine times, critically wounding him, and shot his wife eight times as, relatives say, she threw her body over her daughter to shield her. He next drove to the home of the former house speaker Melissa Hortman, forced his way in, and killed her and her husband, officials say.The police arrived and Boelter fled, abandoning his car. In it they allegedly discovered a kill list" of dozens of federal and state Democratic officials, mostly from Minnesota but also prominent Democrats in other midwestern states, and the sites of women's healthcare centers and Planned Parenthood donors. He left behind notebooks with detailed descriptions of his target locations. On the lam, Boelter sent a text message to his family: Dad went to war last night." Continue reading...
Trump's $499 gold phone is only the latest ask of the Maga faithful to show their commitment in dollar termsI like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big."Those were Donald Trump's words to writer Tony Schwartz in the Art of the Deal. In his second term, Trump has been thinking big about making money. Since his reelection campaign began, Trump is estimated to have more than doubled his net worth to $5.4bn. Continue reading...
You don't have to be a fan of Tucker Carlson to enjoy the spectacle of a Republican civil warYou have to admit that there's something delicious about watching Ted Cruz get served his just deserts by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In a nearly two-hour long interview on Carlson's own channel and in Cruz's Washington office, Carlson repeatedly grilled, roasted, and fried the Texas senator, exposing a deepening rift within the Maga movement and showing us the hollowness of our so-called leaders along the way.You don't have to be a fan of Carlson to enjoy the spectacle of a Republican civil war. Carlson, who once hosted a show on CNN, established his reputation on Fox News and then became a racist demagogue and promoter of far-right disinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories", as a 2023 profile in Mother Jones described him. While at Fox, he was for a time the highest rated personality on cable TV and was deeply influential in setting the conservative agenda. On air at Fox - and in this essay for Politico - he praised Trump. Off-air, he was texting his colleagues a different opinion: We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights," Carlson wrote in a text sent on 4 January 2021. I truly can't wait," he wrote, adding: I hate him passionately."Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Those delivering paternalistic lectures to Sabrina Carpenter, Addison Rae and Sydney Sweeney would do well to revisit recent historySabrina Carpenter was accused of dragging women back into an unenlightened past last week, as the controversial cover for her new album was met with (apparently) feminist furore. It's ironic, then, that the past is precisely where Carpenter's most outspoken critics could do with looking. It's clear that the general consensus is lurching grimly to the right when it comes to gender, and a new generation of young, female critics should be wary of falling into step. The debate about how we look at women, and what they want, risks limply missing the point.In the past few weeks, Sydney Sweeney has been chastised for selling sexy soap, and Addison Rae scolded for dancing in her underwear on stage. It's odd that the backlash has been so immense, given the celebration of Halina Reijn's Babygirl film just a few months ago. The SheEO Nicole Kidman slurping milk out of a saucer? Hot. Sweeney's dirty bathwater? Degrading and vapid. Seemingly, Kidman's age made the former radically feminist, and by extension, permissible in the eyes of the kink police. Continue reading...
Within Israel, Iran is seen as the ultimate threat. The prime minister knows this is his chance to rewrite his bloodied legacyIt's 1938 and Iran is Germany ... The Jewish people will not allow a second Holocaust." Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recited slogans like these incessantly for decades, urging action against the gravest threat to the Jewish state - a nuclear-armed Iran. He conveyed the message to successive US presidents. He presented a bomb cartoon at the UN. At countless Holocaust memorial events he described Iran's nuclear ambitions as the present-day final solution".Netanyahu talked and talked about the pressing Iranian threat, but his listeners were not convinced. They dismissed him as an alarmist whose deadline Iran crossed year after year without deploying a nuclear weapon (it still hasn't). Netanyahu's critics at home taunted him as a chicken who would never dare to attack Iran's nuclear installations - unlike his more decisive predecessors, who had ordered the bombing of nuclear reactors in Iraq and Syria.Aluf Benn is the editor-in-chief of Haaretz Continue reading...
Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was released from US immigration detention, where he had been held for more than three months over his activism against Israel's war on Gaza. Khalil, the most high profile of the students to be arrested by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism, and the last of them still in detention, was ordered to be released by a federal judge on Friday afternoon from an Ice facility in Jena, Louisiana
by Robert Mackey, Marina Dunbar, Maya Yang and Tom Am on (#6Y3YT)
This blog is now closed. Read our latest Iran-Israel conflict story hereDonald Trump is once again repeating unfounded claims that the results of the 2020 presidential election were fraudulent, saying that the evidence is massive and overwhelming" but not providing any of it. The president called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to the case.He wrote on Truth Social this morning: Continue reading...
by Oliver Laughland in Jena, Louisiana on (#6Y4J3)
The Palestinian activist described a bittersweet feeling as he emerged from Ice detention into the Louisiana sunMahmoud Khalil squinted in the afternoon sun as he walked away from the fences topped with razor wire, through two tall gates and out into the thick humidity of central Louisiana.After more than three months detained in this remote and notorious immigration detention center in the small town of Jena, he described a bittersweet feeling of release, walking towards a handful of journalists with a raised fist, visibly relieved, but composed and softly spoken. Continue reading...
by Noa Yachot, Anna Betts and Oliver Laughland in Jen on (#6Y4AH)
Columbia graduate freed from Louisiana facility after judge ruled he is not a danger to the community - period'Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was released from US immigration detention, where he had been held for more than three months over his activism against Israel's war on Gaza.Khalil, the most high profile of the students to be arrested by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism, and the last of them still in detention, was ordered to be released by a federal judge on Friday afternoon from an Ice facility in Jena, Louisiana, where he has been held since shortly after plainclothes immigration agents detained him in early March in the lobby of his Columbia building. Continue reading...
Vice-president visits Los Angeles and condemns Democratic leaders over protests against Trump's Ice raidsJD Vance, the US vice-president, accused California governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used an in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers.The centerpiece of Vance's Friday visit was a 14-minute news conference, during which he delivered remarks and took questions from correspondents selected by the White House. Local reporters were barred from attending, according to Elex Michaelson, the host of Fox LA's local evening news report. Continue reading...
Supreme court ruled fossil fuel companies could challenge a California emissions law, as White House moved to keep Michigan coal plants open. Key US politics stories from Friday 20 JuneIt was a day of environmental setbacks across the US on Friday after the Trump administration moved to keep two Michigan coal plants open and the US supreme court handed a win to fossil fuel firms in an emissions case.Already, the US Department of Energy (DoE) has ordered the JH Campbell coal plant on Lake Michigan to remain open beyond its 31 May closure date, while the administration is expected to prolong the life of the Monroe power plant on Lake Erie, scheduled to begin closing in 2028. Continue reading...
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