by Alexander Abnos, Jon Arnold, Joseph Lowery, and Gr on (#6VN4C)
Houston made a generous offer to its own fans, while a DC United youngster stunned ChicagoWhen the Houston Dynamo learned that Lionel Messi did not travel with Inter Miami ahead of the teams' game on Sunday, they proceeded with a now-familiar playbook. Just like Chicago Fire and Vancouver Whitecaps did in similar Messi-less situations, the team apologized to their ticketholders, then bargained with them. Continue reading...
Firefighters work to contain blaze in Carolina Forest as south-eastern states face increased fire dangerCrews on Sunday made progress containing a wildfire in South Carolina's Carolina Forest, where residents had been ordered to evacuate several neighborhoods, according to Horry county fire rescue.Video showed some people running down the street as smoke filled the sky. But by late Sunday afternoon, the fire department announced that evacuees of Carolina Forest - which is west of the coastal resort city of Myrtle Beach - could return home.Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...
The recent wave of GOP-led bills comes as Trump becomes emboldened in orders against LGBTQ+ communitiesRepublicans in red states across the US have been pushing a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ measures targeting same-sex marriages with an aim of ultimately securing a supreme court ban on the federally protected right.The recent wave of Republican-led bills targeting same-sex marriage comes amid a second Donald Trump presidency in which his administration has taken on more emboldened attacks against LGBTQ+ communities across the country, as seen through a flurry of executive orders he signed, assailing various LGBTQ+ rights. Continue reading...
Jean-Noel Barrot says pause could test whether Vladimir Putin is acting in good faith. Plus, Anora sweeps Oscars Don't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.The French foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, has suggested that a month-long truce in Ukraine could test whether the Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, was acting in good faith.What has Zelenskyy said since? Zelenskyy has tried to move on from Friday's turbulent meeting in the Oval Office, saying it was best left to history", as he signalled Ukraine's inclination to sign a minerals deal with the US and hoped for constructive" talks with Washington in future.What else has happened in the region? A 70-year-old man was killed and others injured in a knife attack in the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday morning. Continue reading...
The world's most admired democracy is being held hostage by a clique of far-right thugs. It would be a mistake to placate themIt's not only about Donald Trump. It's not just about saving Ukraine, or defeating Russia, or how to boost Europe's security, or what to do about an America gone rogue. It's about a world turned upside down - a dark, fretful, more dangerous place where treaties and laws are no longer respected, alliances are broken, trust is fungible, principles are negotiable and morality is a dirty word. It's an ugly, disordered world of raw power, brute force, selfish arrogance, dodgy deals and brazen lies. It's been coming for a while; the US president is its noisy harbinger.Take the issues one at a time. Trump is a toxic symptom of the wider malaise. For sure, he is an extraordinarily malign, unfeeling and irresponsible man. He cares nothing for the people he leads, seeing them merely as an audience for his vulgar showmanship. His undeserved humiliation of Ukraine's valiant leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was, he crowed, great television". As president, Trump wields enormous power and influence. But Potus is not omnipotent. America's vanquished Democrats are slowly finding their voice. Connecticut senator Chris Murphy shows how it should be done. Don't bite your lip. Don't play by rules Trump ignores. When Trump tried to blame diversity hiring policies for January's deadly Potomac midair collision, Murphy hit back fiercely.Simon Tisdall is the Observer's foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...
What Trump has been signaling loudly and clearly is that he gladly accepts and even encourages the acquisition of territory by forceBy now, most of the world will have seen the exchange that has heralded the end of the postwar liberal order. But who would have thought that the whole thing would come crashing down with Trump saying these words: All right, I think we've seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television. I will say that."I'm referring, of course, to the debacle at the Oval Office between two showmen-turned-statesmen, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The meeting began cordially. After the Ukrainian president was challenged for not wearing a suit, the US president said: I think he's dressed beautifully." Trump praised a reporter from One American News for asking an obsequious question (What gave you the moral courage and conviction to step forward and lead?") and then, several minutes later, claimed that I've stopped wars. I've stopped many wars. My people will tell you. I've stopped wars that nobody ever heard about."Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Democratic primary battle promising to be biggest test for progressive movement since Trump's presidential victorySeveral major Republican donors are throwing their financial support behind the primary opponent of Ed Gainey, who became Pittsburgh's first Black mayor in 2022 and now faces a difficult re-election fight this year, in a seemingly concerted effort to oust the progressive leader.The Democratic primary battle between Gainey and Corey O'Connor, the Allegheny county controller, is shaping up to be one of the biggest tests of the progressive movement since Donald Trump's victory last November. The victor of the 20 May primary is widely expected to win the general election, and with few major races on the ballot this year, Gainey's re-election could provide a morale boost for progressives still reeling from Democrats' losses in the 2024 races. Continue reading...
As state grapples with worst measles outbreak in decades, Patrick homes in on resolution to better market Texas beef'While Texas grapples with its worst measles outbreak in decades, its Republican lieutenant governor has moved for the state's restaurants and groceries to change the name of the New York strip" steak cut to the Texas strip" in what he evidently hopes is a blow to liberals.Dan Patrick announced on Friday on social media that he intended to go to Texas's senate and work with lawmakers to pass a resolution favoring the switch - which would not carry the force of law but nonetheless would amount to a substantial statement of legislative support. Continue reading...
An egregious non-call in the ninth round allowed Tank Davis to avoid a knockdown, altering the course of his title fight against Lamont Roach Jr on Saturday nightAn egregious non-call by referee Steve Willis allowed Gervonta Davis to salvage a draw on the judges' scorecards in Davis's WBA 135lb title defense against Lamont Roach at Barclays Center on Saturday night.Davis (now 30-0-1, 28 KOs), has been fighting professionally for 12 years. At age 30, he's an elite fighter with a fervent fanbase that includes 7.6m followers on Instagram. He has yet to permeate the consciousness of mainstream sports fans. But for his admirers, every Gervonta Davis fight is a happening. Davis v Roach set the all-time event attendance record in the history of Barclays Center. The sold-out crowd of 19,250 engendered the arena's second-largest gross ever, eclipsed only by the Rolling Stones. Continue reading...
The new administration appears to be taking a position that Ukrainian and European leaders aren't hearing - or are trying to alterA high-stakes transatlantic miscommunication is unfolding, with the potential to produce far worse consequences than the Oval Office contretemps between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.In the past month, the Trump administration has delivered several strong and sometimes conflicting messages to America's allies and partners in Europe. Discerning the signal in the noise isn't easy, but amid the zigs, zags and bombast, the new administration appears to be taking a position that Ukrainian and European leaders aren't hearing - or are trying to alter.Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy Continue reading...
Trump cutting off USAid reminds us how much power we surrender to those who fund our work. We need a new mindsetAbout 35 years ago, the radio news announced that the then president of Kenya, Daniel arap Moi, had broken diplomatic ties with Norway. The embassy, with about 100 foreign and a few local staff, had one week to clear out of the country.I was one of a few staff there at the time who worked for the Norwegian development agency, Norad, and our jobs disappeared with that radio broadcast. An estimated $30m annual budget, largely targeted at the arid and semi-arid parts of Kenya, also disappeared. Obviously that did not matter much to Kenya's leadership, who felt that the independence of the country and the ability for them to decide what was good for Kenya, was more important. Continue reading...
On election night, as the far right rose nationwide, Die Linke made crucial gains in the capital. But its supporters see the hard road aheadWill democracy still prevail in the west in a decade? It was certainly a question weighing on the minds of the hundreds of Die Linke supporters crammed into a former film studio overlooking Berlin's Tempelhof airport last weekend. They were gathered to listen to the results of Germany's election - and their reactions were mixed. The far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) had just doubled its support in federal elections, securing a fifth of the vote, yet Die Linke came top in the capital, albeit with 21% of the vote. They cheered, hugged, kissed and cried.We were in Neukolln, a diverse neighbourhood of south-eastern Berlin, and the triumphant candidate was Ferat Kocak, a charismatic Kurdish-German leftist. His grassroots campaign knocked on every door in the district - not unusual in the UK and US, but a novelty in Germany. For several years, the left has been in a kind of shocked paralysis about what to do with the rising right," explained 30-year-old activist Isabelle: grassroots campaigning, she believes, brought the left out of its bubble.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Eli Sharabi expected to meet Donald Trump on Tuesday; Kremlin says US views now largely' coincide with Moscow's own foreign policy vision - key US politics stories from Sunday at a glanceThe freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to meet Donald Trump on Tuesday in Washington, his brother Sharon has said.When Sharabi and two other hostages, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami, were released on 8 February after nearly 500 days in captivity, their physical condition outraged Israelis, which Trump echoed. Sharabi has since told Israeli media of the severe hunger and violence he endured in captivity. Continue reading...
The diagnosis blindsided me but it explains why I feel the need to shout to be heard over background noiseYes, I frequently asked people to repeat themselves. Yes, I had trouble hearing dialogue on TV. And I often wondered if people were aware that they mumbled. That wasn't the impetus to get my hearing checked though. What got me to the doctor was that I was having trouble eavesdropping at work. I was sure there had been a time when I could hear conversations that didn't concern me.Even though I had made the appointment, I figured it was sinus trouble or perhaps my ears needed syringing. But my GP said my ears were clear and didn't even mention my sinuses. Instead she did a simple hearing test that involved rustling some paper in one ear while whispering in another. She asked me to repeat what she had whispered and I think I replied: Did you say something?" I left with a referral to an audiologist.Rachael Groessler is a freelance content and copywriter from Brisbane Continue reading...
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talking to reporters after a summit with European leaders in London, sought to move the conversation forward from his difficult meeting with Donald Trump and signalled Ukraine's readiness to sign a minerals deal. Zelenskyy said he did not think the US would stop its assistance to Ukraine, because as 'leaders of the civilised world' they would not want to help Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. 'As regards to salvaging the relationship, I think our relationship will continue,' he told reporters via a translator after the London meeting
Emergency unfolds amid warnings throughout south-east over dry and windy conditions that exacerbate wildfiresFire officials on Sunday were battling to contain the blazes ravaging North and South Carolina, which have forced evacuations in some areas.The emergency unfolded amid warnings throughout the south-east over dry and windy conditions that exacerbate wildfires. Continue reading...
Israeli media reports Israeli American Trump donor will fly Eli Sharabi to Washington DC to meet president this weekFreed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to Washington to meet Donald Trump this week, his brother told Israeli media on Sunday.Sharabi, who was released from Gaza after 16 months in captivity, expects to meet Trump with other freed hostages on Tuesday, after the US president watched him describe the severe hunger and violence he endured on Israeli television. Continue reading...
That is a fluid situation,' Howard Lutnick says in first indication that administration may not impose full tariffsDonald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that US tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday, but the president would determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level.That is a fluid situation," Lutnick told the Fox News program Sunday Morning Futures. Continue reading...
Sanjeev Kumar accused of abusing four women, medical fraud and reusing unsanitary devices arrested in MemphisA gynecologist who is accused of sexually abusing four women in Memphis, Tennessee, and reused unsanitary medical devices in unnecessary procedures was arrested on Friday.Sanjeev Kumar, 44, was charged with sexual abuse, medical fraud and illicitly reusing unsanitary medical devices after he enticed four women to travel across state lines to his clinic, where he subjected them to sexual abuse under the guise of medical procedures. Continue reading...
Donald Trump's threats to global tax reform have backfired, leaving the US isolated as nations push ahead with a new UN tax conventionDonald Trump's Oval Office tirade on Friday laid bare his instinct to harangue and bully those - even supposed allies such as Ukraine, fighting for its survival- who dare to disagree. Countries pushing global tax reform at the UN will be watching as US demands for subjugation play out in plain sight. His day-one threat to punish nations taxing US firms is an all-out attack on global fiscal cooperation. If multilateralism in taxation was already on shaky ground, Mr Trump's return could bury it for good.Under discussion is a new UN tax convention that may permit states to tax economic activity where it actually occurs, rather than allowing multinationals to shift profits to tax havens. The Tax Justice Network (TJN) said last year that nations lose $492bn (390bn) annually due to corporate tax abuse. The global south bears the greatest losses, which undermine public services like health and education. If enacted, the convention would create a legally binding framework requiring multinationals to pay tax where they employ staff and do real business - not where they stash profits. This would replace the outdated arm's-length principle with unitary taxation, ensuring fair profit allocation. It would mean an end to Amazon, Google and Apple putting billions through lower-tax jurisdictions while extracting wealth from higher-tax ones. Continue reading...
Senator responds to Republicans' pro-resignation remarks after Ukrainian president's heated meeting with TrumpIndependent US senator Bernie Sanders has dismissed as horrific" claims that Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy may have to resign after a diplomatic meltdown in the Oval Office with Donald Trump.Sanders' comments, in an interview with NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday morning, served as a retort to pro-resignation remarks from his fellow US senator Lindsey Graham, which in turn had been affirmed by the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson. Continue reading...
They faced violence and racism as they fought on the frontlines for justice and equality. Now Trump is reversing the progress they toiled forCarolyn McKinstry knows about the dangers of extremism in America. She lived it.McKinstry was the Sunday school secretary at the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, when the church was bombed by white supremacists on 16 September 1963, killing four Black girls - Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Roberts, all 14, and 11-year-old Cynthia Wesley. Continue reading...
Supporters of Ukraine protested against the Trump administration across the US on Saturday, condemning the treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, in a combative White House meeting the previous day
The US president has no interest in countering aggressors. His short-termist game plan will cost America dearThe White House meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be remembered as far more than just a diplomatic disaster. It marked the end of international politics as we know it, and was a harbinger for the sunset of Pax Americana. Zelenskyy, reeling from the meeting, arrived in London on Saturday to attend a defence summit with other European leaders. Thanks to Trump's performance, those leaders now have clarity on where the US government stands on the war in Ukraine - and, more broadly, on how US foreign policy may look in future.It is hard to overstate what a departure this is. Since the end of the second world war, the US has been the primary architect and guarantor of an intricate network of global institutions anchored by Nato, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. Together, these partners crafted a security umbrella whose benefits far outweighed its expense. It produced political stability and provided US and European companies with unrivalled access to markets and resources. The US was all too happy to share the gains of this order with its allies, and, to a lesser extent, with its rivals and adversaries.Olga Chyzh researches political violence and repressive regimes. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto Continue reading...
by Amanda Ulrich in Twentynine Palms, California on (#6VMH1)
In Twentynine Palms, California, these business owners have gained more than a job - they've built a sense of identityThe California desert, for 28-year-old Madie Chapman, was a shock to the system.Chapman became a desert resident last summer, when her husband, a field radio operator, was stationed at the Twentynine Palms combat center, the largest US Marine Corps training base in the world. Within just a few months of receiving orders, the couple moved with their three young children to the secluded outpost near Joshua Tree national park, joining the thousands of other active-duty service members and their families who live there. Continue reading...
President of the NAACP New York state chapter fought tirelessly for voting rights, fair housing and educationHazel Dukes, the president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP and lifelong civil rights advocate, died Saturday at the age of 92.Dukes peacefully passed away in her New York City home surrounded by family, her son, Ronald Dukes, said in a statement. Continue reading...
Resistance to any proposals remains speculative until administration lays out its plan for the federal agencyAfter the postmaster general, Louis Dejoy, a former Trump fundraiser and logistics executive appointed during the president's first term, announced last month that he was stepping down, defenders of the US Postal Service (USPS) concerned that the 249-year-old institution could soon experience the slice and slash of Elon Musk's department of government efficiency" scimitar have expressed alarm.Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to dissolve USPS's bipartisan board of governors and place the agency under the control of the commerce department secretary, Howard Lutnick, the Washington Post recently reported. Continue reading...
A Guardian analysis shows that vehicles were allowed to approach Bourbon Street despite safety plans in years leading up to deadly attackLocal government officials in New Orleans, which endured an intentional, deadly truck ramming attack on its most famous street during New Year's Day celebrations, have not shut down vehicular cross traffic on that street during major events nearly 90 times - evidently failing to fully enact public safety plans that they touted ahead of the gatherings, a Guardian investigation has confirmed.In many cases, cars and other vehicles were allowed to cross the street for the entire period that the city's press releases said they would be forbidden from doing so. And during all but a handful of days, officials failed to place any physical barriers that would prevent motorists intending to attack crowds there from turning in either direction on to Bourbon Street, a one-way thoroughfare, leaving pedestrians vulnerable to terrorists for many years. Continue reading...
Trump and others have called for an end to clock changes. But our body clocks are all different - and ignoring them takes a tollIn a week, we will spring forward to daylight saving time. Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy all recently shared their desires to end the biannual flip-flopping of our clocks. The Republican senator Rick Scott recently reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act, which would lock our clocks on daylight saving time. Scientists, meanwhile, urge us to adopt the opposite: permanent standard time.The DST debate is heating back up. But all this chatter is, once again, largely missing the point-an omission particularly glaring for an administration that claims to be seeking greater efficiency. Continue reading...
Maintaining pace with the US president's wild outbursts and the mind-boggling media reports about him is no laughing matterThe smelly thoughts of Donald Trump bubble up like brown burps in the sort of bombsite pond Chopper bike-riding children were advised to avoid in 1970s public information films. Do they indicate concrete plans, are they designed to provoke, or do they have no meaning, like the gurgles and gasps that can inadvertently escape from a decomposing corpse? My job here is to try to anticipate if anything Trump says or does is likely to be of any lasting significance and to satirise it accordingly, in the small window of time allowed, for money. And it isn't getting any easier. Yes, Ukraine is suffering, but I am the real victim here.For example, last Saturday Trump opined: We were the richest... think of this, from 1870 to 1913... because we collected tariffs... We had so much wealth. Wouldn't it be nice today? Of course, now, we give it away to transgender this, to transgender that. Everybody gets a transgender operation. It's wonderful. We give it away to crazy things. But in those days, it was different. It was a different world. It was a different country."Stewart Lee tours Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a Royal Festival Hall run in July Continue reading...
The US continues to roll back trans, gay and abortion rights, and the UK is not immune to any of itI type this through nervous laughter but, haha, should we all be learning how to perform abortions? Just in case? Should we all perhaps, have a little stash of mifepristone in our makeup bags, a secret number in our phone? Something is happening in the US that requires our attention. Hard-earned rights are being erased and the speed at which history is being rewritten there does not bode well for our freedoms here. We are already seeing dark reflections in the glass. This month the Observer reported how British anti-abortion campaigners are echoing US vice-president JD Vance. He claimed our new buffer zone laws, preventing protests outside abortion clinics, were an attack on the liberties of religious Britons", shifting focus away from the reason they were implemented to a debate about freedom of speech.Buffer zones (intended to protect staff and women using the clinics) are being targeted in a careful campaign by conservative Christian groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a group that wants to ban abortion, opposes same-sex marriage and, in the US, has helped at least 23 states pass legislation barring trans athletes from girls' and women's events as well as drafting legislation restricting gender-affirming treatment for minors. With only 1.4% of adolescents in the US identifying as transgender, LGBTQ+ rights groups accused the ADF of whipping up a panic" over decisions better left to doctors, teachers and parents. Continue reading...
At such a juncture of history, Hollywood must deliver its best: melodrama, conspiracy, dreams - not to mention the filmsThere is a common complaint among film buffs that cinema, dominated by superhero fantasies and blockbuster franchises, isn't what it used to be. They look back misty-eyed to the 1940s heyday of the studio system or to the 1970s rise of the counterculture auteurs as celluloid golden ages that are destined never to be repeated.It is, then, a rebuke to the naysayers that the 97th Academy Awards boasts a full array of compelling genres: steamy melodrama, political conspiracy thriller, science-fiction action and disaster epic. Continue reading...
On the streets of Windsor even some who don't like the US president say the UK can't afford to fall out with America'The pageantry of a state occasion is something Joanna Chin usually enjoys. She stood on Thames Street in Windsor, outside the castle, to celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday and Harry and Megan's wedding. Will she come out for PresidentTrump?I can't stand the man," she said. It's difficult to even believe it's happening - that somebody like that can be president of the United States. He's dangerous." Continue reading...
Playing music that is as smart as it is successful, Brit winners made articulate calls for artist development - while host Jack Whitehall was brilliantly riskyThe Brits has long been in the business of underlining success; upsets and shock wins aren't really the point. If they seemed moderately more exciting in 2025 than in years past, that's partly because Jack Whitehall is a better, riskier, funnier host than anyone else offered the job in recent years - he mocked Stormzy for his promotion of McDonald's, made a joke about amyl nitrate and called Coldplay the musical missionary position" - and because 2024 was a vintage year for mainstream pop, dominated by music that was characterful and hugely successful.If Charli xcx - and producer AG Cook - hadn't been lavishly rewarded for her agenda-setting album Brat, you would have wondered what had gone wrong: likewise Chappell Roan, whose ardent emotion both in and out of the recording studio makes her one of pop's most cheering recent developments: she responded to her two awards with acceptance speeches that called upon the music industry to offer more long-term development support to artists - a theme also picked up on by Myles Smith, winner of the rising star award - and shouted out the trans community and sex workers. Continue reading...
Case is seen as early test of scope of presidential authority as Trump seeks to rein in federal agencies' independenceA US judge on Saturday declared president Donald Trump's firing of the head of a federal watchdog agency illegal in an early test of the scope of presidential power likely to be decided at the US supreme court.US district judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington had previously ruled that Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel who is responsible for protecting whistleblowers, could remain in his post pending a ruling. Continue reading...
Protesters took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, with hundreds gathering to express support for Ukraine and its president- key US politics stories from Saturday at a glanceThe disastrous meeting between US president Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday has catalysed a series of pro-Ukraine protests across the US.Protesters took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, with hundreds gathering to express support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy. Continue reading...
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