‘Queen of the Con’ found in Maine ordered to be extradited to Northern Ireland

Police had arrested Marianne ‘Mair’ Smyth at a rental home after a podcast on her crimes prompted a listener to reveal her location

A US-born woman who disguised herself as an heiress to a $30m fortune while scamming nearly $100,000 from a television producer – who later sent her to prison and documented her misdeeds on a hit podcast – has been ordered extradited to Northern Ireland on a separate set of fraud charges.

Marianne “Mair” Smyth’s extradition to the UK was authorized by John Nivision, a US federal magistrate judge, on Thursday, more than two months after she was arrested at a short-term rental home in Bingham, Maine, court records show.

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Virginia school board votes to restore Confederate names to two public schools

Schools changed their names after 2020 George Floyd protests, but will now revert to old names celebrating slave-state leaders

An all-white school board in Virginia has voted to restore the names of Robert E Lee and other Confederate military leaders to two public schools in a backlash to the racial reckoning that followed the police murder of George Floyd.

The decision to restore the names of Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Turner Ashby was taken on Friday morning by the six-member school board in Shenandoah county. Only one of the members voted against the resolution.

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Pro-Israel Pac pours millions into surprise candidate in Maryland primary

United Democracy Project backing Sarah Elfreth, even with Harry Dunn, former US capitol officer, as fellow Democrat in House race

A pro-Israel lobby group has dropped millions into a Maryland congressional race as tensions remain high over the war in Gaza.

The primary race in the third congressional district, which will be held on Tuesday, has attracted national interest thanks to the candidacy of one Democrat in particular: Harry Dunn. A former US Capitol police officer, Dunn and his colleagues won praise for their actions defending lawmakers against a violent mob of Donald Trump’s supporters on January 6. In his New York Times bestselling memoir, Standing My Ground, Dunn recounted how the insurrectionists repeatedly used the N-word as they attacked him and other Black officers.

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Police disband pro-Palestinian student encampments across the US

Authorities moved in overnight to clear campuses from Arizona to Massachusetts of students demanding schools cut ties to Israel

Police moved in to disband several pro-Palestinian student encampments on US campuses on Friday morning as the foment over protests against academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza continued to roil academia.

Tent encampments at the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Arizona, Tucson, were all dismantled in early morning raids that saw cordons of police sweep in and clear the makeshift protest settlements. In Tucson teargas was used, and demonstrators responded by throwing bottles at officers.

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Biden White House to expand tariffs on Chinese trade

President likely to add sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar cells to range of levies set up under Donald Trump

Joe Biden is expected as early as next week to announce fresh tariffs on Chinese trade, with levies focused on strategic sectors including electric vehicles, in a review of measures first put into place under Donald Trump.

An announcement planned for Tuesday will keep the blanket tax rises introduced by the president’s predecessor but supplement them with targeted levies on industries connected to EVs, including batteries and solar cells, according to reports.

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Vulnerable Biden tries to straddle both sides with new asylum rules

The president is under pressure from Republicans and progressives as humanitarian crisis builds and immigration remains a key voter issue

The Biden administration has said its proposed changes to asylum standards, unveiled on Thursday, that would fast-track some deportation will enhance security and speed up a backlog of cases amid record numbers of arrivals at the US-Mexico border.

The changes will also, by Biden’s own admission, be limited in scope and only affect a “small” number of people who have been convicted of serious crimes or may pose a national security risk.

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Family of US airman killed by Florida police dispute sheriff’s narrative

Relatives of Roger Fortson say deputies went to wrong unit and killed Fortson, as sheriff releases body-camera footage

The family of a Black US air force airman who was fatally shot by deputies who burst into his apartment in the Florida Panhandle said Thursday that they want to correct a false narrative put forth by authorities about the encounter that led to his death.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family of Senior Airman Roger Fortson, said Fortson had not known it was sheriff’s deputies who were breaking into his apartment – “his castle” – and that he grabbed his “legally owned firearm” to protect himself.

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‘We will fight with our fingernails’ says Netanyahu after US threat to curb arms

Israeli prime minister says country can ‘stand alone’ but later says he hopes US and Israel can overcome differences

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceed with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was speaking on Thursday after Israeli and Hamas delegations left the ceasefire negotiations in Cairo. It was unclear whether the talks had broken down or simply paused. Hamas said early on Friday that the “ball is now completely” in Israel’s hands, while Israel has claimed that Hamas’s version of a deal fell far short of its requirements.

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‘It wasn’t a big deal’: secret deposition reveals how a child molester priest was shielded by his church

Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times as he detailed how the Catholic church protected him for more than two decades after he admitted to molesting children

Longtime New Orleans Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker received a special honor from the Vatican nearly 25 years ago despite having confessed to molesting children. Then, for another two decades, church leaders in the city strategically shielded him from law enforcement and media exposure – while also providing him with financial support ranging from paid limousine rides and therapeutic massages to full retirement benefits, according to his own, previously unreported testimony.

A sworn deposition Hecker gave in private in 2020 shows exactly how high-placed Catholic church officials in New Orleans let him keep his elevated position for years, even after they had been advised to oust him from the clergy and – much later – publicly acknowledged that he was a child predator.

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‘We were encouraged to be with younger boys’: breaking down a child molester priest’s secret testimony

In unearthed deposition, Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times, but still provided damning details of decades-long predatory behavior

The Guardian and CBS affiliate WWL Louisiana have obtained a long suppressed, eight-and-a-half-hour deposition of a 92-year-old Catholic priest charged with physically overpowering and raping a boy in a New Orleans church in 1975.

Taken in 2020 as part of a civil lawsuit demanding damages from him and the church, clergyman Lawrence Hecker provides in the deposition the most complete account yet of how the US’s second-oldest archdiocese spent much of its recent history taking extreme measures to keep the public from finding out about his abusive past. The questioning – which the church has fought in court for years to keep hidden – also reveals steps the city’s last four archbishops took to help him avoid accountability for decades.

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Biden officials propose denying some migrants earlier in asylum process

New rule would restrict access sooner for people deemed to pose ‘national security or public safety risk’

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new rule that it said would streamline asylum processing at the southern border by quickly denying certain migrants deemed to “pose a national security or public safety risk”.

The proposed rule would allow immigration officials to reject and deport migrants who are already ineligible for asylum at an earlier stage in the process, a change administration officials said would enhance national security and save taxpayer dollars.

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Talk to the hand: Hawaii makes shaka state’s official gesture

Made by extending the thumb and little finger, while curling down the three middle fingers the sign is also known as ‘hang loose’

The shaka is poised to become Hawaii’s official hand gesture.

Last week, Hawaiian lawmakers passed a bill that would officially enshrine the gesture in the state’s culture. The shaka, also popular in surf culture and commonly known as “hang loose” is a friendly hand signal made by extending the thumb and little finger while curling the three middle fingers.

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Does Israel need more US arms for a Rafah offensive?

Biden’s threat to halt shipments seems to leave some weapon types available to Israel as well as stockpiles and an unaffected air force

The volume of US military aid to Israel since 7 October last year suggests the intensity of the assault on Gaza would not have been possible without the continued supply of American bombs, shells and other munitions, some of which the US president, Joe Biden, is now threatening to halt after seven months of the fighting.

Precise figures are hard to come by, partly because the US is careful to keep shipments below disclosable limits and can rely on old congressional approvals, sometimes dating back many years, to send arms without the need for fresh authorisation. But even the limited disclosure reveals their significance.

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Israel-Gaza war live: Israeli officials criticise ‘very disappointing’ threat from Joe Biden to stop arms supplies

Gilad Erdan says move by Joe Biden stems from political pressure after campus protests and with US election coming soon

At least 34,844 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza and 78,404 Palestinians injured, according to the territory’s health ministry. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Here are some of the latest images from Gaza:

Israel’s national security minister presented himself before the television cameras to make a statement on Sunday, shortly after leaving a meeting with the country’s prime minister.

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Former US town clerk and her lawyer charged for allegedly accessing 2020 voter data in hunt for fraud

Stephanie Scott and Stefanie Lambert charged for promoting ‘baseless conspiracies’ and showing ‘disregard for voter privacy’

Michigan’s attorney general announced charges against a former township clerk and a lawyer who had supported attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, alleging they accessed voting systems without authorization in a search of fraud.

Stephanie Scott and her attorney, Stefanie Lambert, were charged on Wednesday with multiple felonies, including unauthorized access to a computer and using a computer to commit a crime.

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Trump hush-money trial: Stormy Daniels to continue testifying – live

Adult film star, whose brief alleged affair with Trump has been subject of much salacious questioning from prosecutors, faces further cross-examination

Trump’s New York criminal case is the first of four such cases to reach a jury, while the other three have been hit by serious delays that could prevent them from starting before November’s presidential election.

Also on Tuesday, the federal judge in the case alleging Trump retained classified documents at this Mar-a-Lago club in Florida indefinitely delayed setting a trial date after ruling the case was nowhere near ready to face a jury.

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Kristen Stewart says Hollywood’s self-congratulation over gender equality ‘feels phony’

The actor said that making movies by a small number of female film-makers was not cause for celebration. ‘You’re like, OK, cool. You’ve chosen four’

Kristen Stewart has chastised Hollywood’s efforts at gender equality, saying that the industry clapping itself on the back for an embrace of female film-makers “feels phony”.

Speaking to Porter magazine for the release of Love Lies Bleeding, a violent romance set in the world of female bodybuilding, Stewart said much of the high-profile greenlighting of female stories was lip service.

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Boeing supplier regularly shipped parts with defects, whistleblower alleges

Santiago Paredes says he raised concerns over defects on fuselages leaving Spirit AeroSystems factory

A former employee of Boeing’s largest supplier has alleged that key aircraft parts regularly left the factory with serious defects.

Santiago Paredes, who worked for Spirit AeroSystems in Kansas between 2010 and 2022, said he was used to finding “anywhere from 50 to 100, 200” defects on fuselages – the main body of the plane – that were being shipped to Boeing, and he felt threatened for raising his concerns.

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First Thing: ‘I’m not supplying the weapons’ if Israel assaults Rafah, warns Biden

WHO says southern Gaza hospitals are running out of fuel. Plus, Bernie Sanders reveals bill to tackle $220bn in US medical debt

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Good morning.

Joe Biden publicly warned Israel that the US would stop supplying it weapons if Israeli forces launch a major assault on Rafah – the last remaining city in Gaza that has not been razed in the Israeli offensive.

What pressure is the US applying on Israel? US diplomacy appears to have failed to stop a Rafah invasion, so Biden is now speaking publicly. In an analysis, the Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, writes that the decision “sends a message to Netanyahu that the US dog is beginning to regain control of its tail”.

What is the humanitarian toll of the war? After Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 200 hostage on 7 October, Israel’s onslaught on Gaza has killed almost 35,000 people – mostly civilians – and displaced about 80% of the 2.3 million population. Northern Gaza is experiencing “full-blown famine”, according to the UN World Food Programme.

Will this really make a difference? The IDF do not need new bombs to invade Rafah. They have more than enough stockpiles to reduce it to rubble. But US officials are talking of this as a hinge point in the US-Israel relationship, Julian Borger reports from DC.

What do prosecutors allege? That the money paid to Daniels was therefore an election expense and was deliberately entered wrongly in Trump’s business documents – with that act being the crime, rather than anything to do with the actual payment of hush money to cover up the alleged affair.

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