The American essayist, playwright and author of books including A Boy’s Own Story and The Married Man has died
Edmund White, the American writer, playwright and essayist who attracted acclaim for his semi-autobiographical novels such as A Boy’s Own Story – and literally wrote the book on gay sex, with the pioneering The Joy of Gay Sex – has died aged 85.
His death was confirmed to the Guardian by his agent, Bill Clegg, on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion
The world will never forget the Tiananmen Square massacre, the US secretary of state and Taiwan president have said on the 36th anniversary of the crackdown, which China’s government still tries to erase from domestic memory.
There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989.
Continue reading...Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu charged after allegedly smuggling a fungus to US that can cause serious illness and billions of dollars in crop losses
Two Chinese scientists have been charged with smuggling a toxic fungus into the United States that they planned to research at an American university, the justice department has said.
Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, are charged with conspiracy, smuggling, false statements, and visa fraud, the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of Michigan said in a statement on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd make plea to help track down cherry red Gibson, 40 years after film’s release
Marty McFly grabbed a guitar in Back to the Future and rocked out with the band at a 1950s high school dance, helping him narrowly avoid blinking out of existence before time-traveling back to the 1980s.
The guitar, in real life, wasn’t as lucky.
Continue reading...Ruling in Washington comes despite executive order signed by Donald Trump that targeted funding for such care
A US judge on Tuesday ruled the US Bureau of Prisons must keep providing transgender inmates gender-affirming care, despite an executive order Donald Trump signed on his first day back in office to halt funding for such care.
US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington DC allowed a group of more than 2,000 transgender inmates in federal prisons to pursue a lawsuit challenging the order as a class action. He ordered the Bureau of Prisons to provide them with hormone therapy and accommodations such as clothing and hair-removal devices while the lawsuit plays out.
Continue reading...Johnnie Moore, also an adviser to Trump, named as US- and Israeli-backed initiative tries to recover from resignations
An evangelical leader and adviser to Donald Trump on interfaith issues has been appointed the new head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as the controversial US- and Israeli-backed initiative attempts to recover from top-level resignations during a tumultuous rollout last week.
Johnnie Moore, a member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and founder of the boutique advisory firm Kairos Company, was appointed the new head of the GHF after Jake Wood, a former marine, resigned, saying that he could not guarantee the GHF’s independence from Israeli interests.
Continue reading...Tech mogul says: “Every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity’
US tech mogul Bill Gates has pledged the majority of his $200bn fortune towards health and education services in Africa.
Speaking at an event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday, the 69-year-old said that his pledge would focus on “unleashing the human potential through health, through education” across the continent, adding: “Every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity.”
Continue reading...Joanna Miller said her grandpa would hate the mechanical replica to be debuted in July, calling it an ‘imposter’
Walt Disney’s granddaughter has condemned the entertainment giant he founded for re-creating the late entrepreneur as a soulless “robotic grampa” for the 70th anniversary celebration of California’s Disneyland theme park in July.
Disney, who died in 1966, will appear as an animatronic figure in a new attraction called Walt Disney – A Magical Life in the park’s Main Street Opera House that commemorates the resort’s 17 July 1955 opening.
Continue reading...Program halted suddenly, leaving legal immigrants unable to work due to lack of US social security number
Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the US Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.
The Enumeration Beyond Entry program is an agreement between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, where US Citizenship and Immigration Services would provide social security with information from applicants for work authorization or naturalization.
Continue reading...Facebook and Instagram parent’s deal follows other big tech companies signing agreements with power companies
Meta on Tuesday said it had struck an agreement to keep one nuclear reactor of a US utility company in Illinois operating for 20 years.
Meta’s deal with Constellation Energy is the social networking company’s first with a nuclear power plant. Other large tech companies are looking to secure electricity as US power demand rises significantly in part due to the needs of artificial intelligence and datacenters. Google has reached agreements to supply its datacenters with nuclear power via a half-dozen small reactors built by a California utility company. Microsoft’s similar contract will restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the most serious nuclear accident and radiation leak in US history.
Continue reading...Milford high school students walk out to support classmate Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, with teachers following: ‘We are inspired by the brave young people’
Students at Massachusetts’s Milford high school staged a walkout on Monday to show support for their classmate Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, who was headed to volleyball practice when he was detained over the weekend by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who were actually looking for his father.
Gomes Da Silva, a Brazilian national, entered the US in 2012 on a student visa, according to a court document since filed by his lawyer. The filing states that Gomes Da Silva’s student visa status has since lapsed – but that he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.
Continue reading...Man identifying himself as Antoine Massey, one of 10 who escaped in May and who is still at large, protests innocence
A man still at large after escaping from a New Orleans jail last month appears to have taken to social media to plead his case to the public.
In a video that quickly went viral, the man identifying himself as Antoine Massey – one of 10 prisoners who fled from the Orleans Justice center (OJC) on 16 May – said he was wrongfully accused and held up papers he said corroborate his innocence.
Continue reading...Marcelo Gomes Da Silva must be in state for ‘fair’ chance for court to review merits on any contested issues, says judge
A Boston high school student who was detained by immigration agents on Saturday while he was on his way to volleyball practice must be kept in Massachusetts for at least 72 hours, a federal judge said on Monday.
Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, entered the United States on a student visa, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf after his arrest. While his student visa status has lapsed, he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.
Continue reading...Mohamed Sabry Soliman charged with multiple felonies after allegedly shouting ‘Free Palestine’ as he attacked Boulder crowd
A man has been charged with a federal hate crime and multiple other felonies after he allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to attack a crowd of people who were raising awareness for Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 12 victims.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, is alleged to have shouted “Free Palestine” as he attacked the crowd on Sunday. The FBI said Soliman told police he planned the attack for a year and had specifically targeted what he described as the “Zionist group”, the Associated Press reported.
Continue reading...Offer gives no ground on Tehran’s demand to continue to enrich uranium inside country, sources say
Iran is on the brink of rejecting US proposals on the future of its nuclear programme after the US draft insisted that Tehran would have to suspend the enrichment of uranium inside Iran and set out no clear route map for lifting US economic sanctions.
The US proposals were the first in written form since five rounds of indirect talks started, but Iranian diplomatic sources said the US proposals gave no ground on Iran’s demand to continue to enrich uranium inside the country.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum defends decision to put 2,600 judges’ posts to vote despite record low turnout
Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the country’s unprecedented judicial elections after just 13% of Mexicans turned out to vote, a record low in a federal election.
Roughly 2,600 posts, from local magistrates to supreme court justices, were up for grabs on Sunday, as an entire judicial system was put to the vote for the first time in the world.
Continue reading...The actor and director claims that an Austrian newspaper invented a recent interview with him
Clint Eastwood has released a statement to claim a recent interview with him is a fabrication.
Quotes from an alleged interview with the Oscar-winning actor and director had gone viral over the weekend and were picked up by a number of sites. Yet Eastwood has now said that he never spoke to anyone from German-language Austrian newspaper Kurier.
Continue reading...Beijing says it will safeguard its interests after Donald Trump claimed it had ‘totally violated’ agreement
China has accused the US of “seriously violating” the fragile US-China detente that has been in place for less than a month since the two countries agreed to pause the trade war that risked upending the global economy.
China and the US agreed on 12 May to pause for 90 days the skyrocketing “reciprocal” tariffs that both countries had placed on the others goods in a frenzied trade war that started a few weeks earlier. Tariffs had reached 125% on each side, which officials feared amounted to virtual embargo on trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
Continue reading...Officials say about 100 people, many high school students, were present when one or more people began firing
At least 80 shots were fired in a North Carolina neighborhood, killing one person and injuring 11 others, authorities said Sunday.
The shooting early Sunday took place in Hickory, the Catawba county sheriff’s office said. No arrests have been made, but authorities said there was more than one shooter.
Continue reading...President of sheriffs’ association says ‘noncompliant’ list ‘violated the core principles of trust’ with law enforcement
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) removed a list of “sanctuary” states, cities and counties from its website following sharp criticism from a sheriffs’ association that said a list of “noncompliant” sheriffs could severely damage the relationship between the Trump administration and law enforcement.
DHS on Thursday published a list of what it called sanctuary jurisdictions that it deemed were included in areas that have a policy of limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The list prompted a response from the National Sheriffs’ Association, which represents more than 3,000 elected sheriffs across the country and generally supports federal immigration enforcement.
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