Unknown shark species attacked 26-year-old man surfing on northern end of Monterey Bay, state park officials say
A surfer was killed in a shark attack off a northern California beach, state park officials said on Saturday.
The 26-year-old man was surfing off Manresa State Beach on the northern end of Monterey Bay at around 1.30pm when he was attacked by an unknown shark species, the California State Parks said in a statement.
Continue reading...The presumptive Democratic nominee has said his No2 will be a woman and Warren, Abrams, Harris, Whitmer and Klobuchar lead the contenders
Traditionally, American presidential candidates pick vice-presidential running mates largely in secret, outside the view of the public or even members of their own party so as to maximize news value – and not offend those passed over for the job.
But in 2020 – during a campaign already driven mostly online due to the coronavirus pandemic – Joe Biden’s quest to make a vice-presidential pick has been an unusually open, vocal and public audition, both within the campaign and outside it.
Continue reading...While high-profile Democrats voice support for the presumptive presidential nominee, some progressives call for a closer look at Tara Reade’s allegations
The allegations of sexual misconduct by Tara Reade against the former vice-president Joe Biden have caused new fault lines within the Democratic party, especially between its left wing and the establishment.
Reade is a former Biden Senate staffer who has accused the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee of sexually assaulting her while she worked in his office in the 1990s. Biden and his campaign have flatly denied the allegations and major news outlets have continued to investigate.
Continue reading...A recently discovered document sheds new light on the wartime leader’s ‘iron curtain’ address
It was a speech that electrified the world, one that coined a phrase that was to characterise the political era that followed the second world war. But its content could have been very different, reveals a document freshly unearthed by a historian researching the life of Winston Churchill.
On 5 March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, before a huge crowd which included the US president, Harry Truman, Britain’s wartime leader issued a famous description of the political division that was opening across Europe between the Soviet-dominated Communist east and the western democracies. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” Churchill declared, “an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
Continue reading...Marcus Arbery Sr says Ahmaud’s death at the hands of two white men, while he was out for a run, was an act of racism
Marcus Arbery Sr says his son was just like him, fit and athletic.
Related: ‘Every stone will be uncovered’: how Georgia officials failed the Ahmaud Arbery case
Continue reading...Caracas has accused Colombia and US of plotting to overthrow president Maduro; says military found abandoned vessels in Orinoco river
Venezuela’s military says it has seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found while patrolling the Orinoco river on Saturday, several days after the government accused its neighbour of aiding a failed invasion plot.
In a statement, the defence ministry said the boats were equipped with machine guns and ammunition, but had no crew, adding they were discovered as part of a nationwide operation to guarantee Venezuela’s “freedom and sovereignty”.
Continue reading...Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn ‘uplifted’ after meeting with shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy
The family of Harry Dunn have urged the shadow foreign secretary to call for a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of their son’s death.
Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn said they felt “uplifted” and believed Lisa Nandy would “take things forward on our and the nation’s behalf” after a virtual meeting with her on Friday.
Continue reading...Mother’s Day weekend got off to an unseasonably snowy start in the US north-east on Saturday, thanks to the polar vortex bringing cold air down from the north.
Some higher elevation areas in northern New York state and New England reported snowfall accumulations of up to 10in, while traces of snow were seen along the coast from Maine to Boston and as far south as Manhattan.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has asserted with no evidence that the coronavirus pandemic will 'go away without a vaccine'. Without mentioning specifics, he pointed to other viruses and flus that 'disappeared' before vaccines were created. 'They've never shown up again. They die, too. Like everything else, they die,' Trump said. 'It's going to go away. And we're not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time.'
Bundesliga suffers huge setback after footballers test positive; Belarus leader holds parade prompting safety concerns as other nations curb WW2 events; Russia records 10,000 new Covid-19 cases. Follow the latest updates
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 277,127 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by news agency AFP.
At least 4,001,437 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 195 countries and territories. Of these, at least 1,312,900 are now considered recovered.
Key developments in the global coronavirus outbreak today include:
Continue reading...Coronavirus has robbed the Democrat of his typical back-slapping approach as he faces growing scrutiny and a third-party challenge
The Tampa, Florida, rally for Joe Biden on Thursday evening began as it normally might have, before a once-in-a-century pandemic transformed all aspects of American life, including the presidential campaign. A local high school student recited the pledge of allegiance, a campaign organizer pleaded with supporters to volunteer and a local DJ spun R&B music between speakers.
But in a sign of how profoundly the coronavirus crisis has reshaped American politics, that was where the similarities ended.
Continue reading...Systemic flaws within Glynn county’s district attorney offices led to a lack of action against the men involved in this ‘modern lynching’
In the days and weeks after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed, multiple Glynn county law enforcement officials failed to thoroughly investigate his death and, in one case, refused to allow police officers to make arrests, the Guardian has learned.
Related: Ahmaud Arbery is dead because Americans think black men are criminals | Benjamin Dixon
Continue reading...The US and Europe have taken different approaches to tackling pandemic-induced unemployment but which is best long term?
In two, terrible, months the coronavirus pandemic has driven unemployment in the US to levels unseen since the 1930s Great Depression. Did it have to be this way?
Covid-19 has cost more than 33 million Americans their jobs in the last seven weeks – 10% of the entire US population. The official unemployment rate had shot up from 4.4% to 14.7% on Friday – a figure that probably wildly underestimates the true scale of job losses.
Continue reading...Monetary fund warns the US and China against continuing trade war, saying it could damage coronavirus recovery
The head of the International Monetary Fund has signalled a possible downward revision of global economic forecasts, and warned the United States and China against rekindling a trade war that could weaken a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, told an online event hosted by the European University Institute that recent economic data for many countries was coming in below the fund’s already pessimistic forecast for a 3% contraction in 2020.
Continue reading...Former staffer discusses allegation in in-depth interview with the former Fox News and NBC host
Tara Reade repeated her allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden in an in-depth interview with Megyn Kelly released on Friday evening, answering questions on who she shared her story with and why she supported the former vice-president publicly in the past.
Related: Gretchen Whitmer backs Joe Biden on alleged assault: 'not every claim is equal'
Continue reading...Katie Miller has not been in contact with Donald Trump, who said he’s ‘not worried’ about the virus spreading among staff
Vice-president Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House said Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week.
Katie Miller is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump advisor. She has been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working out of the White House.
Continue reading...American Revolution 2.0, which presents itself as bipartisan, has been assisted by far-right individuals – some with extremist links
Leaked audio recordings and online materials obtained by the Guardian reveal that one of the most prominent anti-lockdown protest groups, American Revolution 2.0 (AR2), has received extensive assistance from well-established far-right actors, some with extremist connections.
Related: Armed protesters demonstrate against Covid-19 lockdown at Michigan capitol
Continue reading...Scientists identify thousands of extreme events, suggesting stark warnings about global heating are already coming to pass
Intolerable bouts of extreme humidity and heat which could threaten human survival are on the rise across the world, suggesting that worst-case scenario warnings about the consequences of global heating are already occurring, a new study has revealed.
Related: One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study
Continue reading...
Trump’s mention of tapes in his extraordinary references, in a live phone call into Fox News, to how he learned from Richard Nixon is interesting, to say the least.
“When I fired Comey, you know what hit the fan,” Trump on Fox News. "I study history," including on Nixon.
"Of course, there was one difference. ... #1 he may have been guilty. And #2 he had tapes all over the place. I wasn’t guilty. I did nothing wrong. And there were no tapes.” https://t.co/xJIkEuPY7O
Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
The tweet, which if taken at face value would suggest Trump has been secretly taping White House meetings, came after the New York Times reported that he demanded “loyalty” from Comey in a private dinner held shortly after Trump took office.
Related: Trump threatens ex-FBI head Comey with possible 'tapes' of conversations
Here’s transcript of Trump’s full comments about Richard Nixon during his call in to Fox News this morning.
Here's the transcript of Trump's comments this morning about what he learned from Richard Nixon. (Of course, Trump did fire a bunch of people.) pic.twitter.com/Ltl8WKvTPe
Continue reading...Unemployment rate rose to 14.7% from just 4.4% in March as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the global economy
More than 20 million people in the US lost their jobs in April and the unemployment rate more than trebled as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the world’s largest economy, triggering a financial crisis unseen since the Great Depression.
The Department of Labor announced Friday that the US unemployment rate rose to 14.7% from just 4.4% in March and a near 50-year low of 3.5% in February before the US was hit by the virus.
Continue reading...