New York judge dismisses Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy case

Ruling clears way for two Georgia election workers to try to recover nearly $150m Giuliani was ordered to pay them

A New York judge dismissed Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy case on Friday, clearing the way for two Georgia election workers to try to recover nearly $150m Giuliani was ordered to pay them for defaming them after the 2020 election.

“The court finds that cause exists to convert or dismiss the case. The record in this case reflects Mr Giuliani’s continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession,” US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane wrote in his ruling. Lane also barred Giuliani from filing for bankruptcy again within one year.

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Teamsters boss faces backlash over ‘unconscionable’ GOP convention speech

Sean O’Brien accused of bolstering ‘most anti-union party and president’ by senior members of his own union

Teamsters International president Sean O’Brien has been accused by senior members of the union of disgracing it by agreeing to an unprecedented appearance at next week’s Republican national convention.

O’Brien’s decision was branded “unconscionable” by John Palmer, vice-president at large at Teamsters, who accused him of lending support to the “most anti-union party and President” in a generation.

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Democratic billboards stress Trump link to rightwing Project 2025 manifesto

Billboards will go up in seven swing states as campaign seeks to publicize manifesto and tie it to ex-president

Democrats will put up billboards in swing states that show Donald Trump and tie him to Project 2025, a conservative manifesto that could become reality if he wins in November.

The Democratic National Committee’s paid media campaign escalates liberal efforts to publicize Project 2025 and tie it to the former president after he sought to distance himself from the plan. The blueprint for a second Trump administration is led by the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation and counts support from more than 100 other conservative groups.

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‘The new normal’: work from home is here to stay, US data shows

The same percentage of employed people who worked remotely in 2023 is the same as the previous year, a survey found

Don’t call it work from home any more, just call it work. According to new data, what once seemed like a pandemic necessity has become the new norm for many Americans.

Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the results of its American time use survey, which asks Americans how much time they spend doing various activities, from work to leisure.

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How Georgia state election board’s proposed rules make it easier to challenge results

A new rule would require Fulton county to hand count paper ballots and investigate discrepancies on the spot, possible delaying tabulation

Georgia’s state board of elections has proposed changes to election policy and monitoring requirements that put Fulton county elections officials in their crosshairs and could delay and allow for partisan actors to challenge election results. .

As part of the state board’s reprimand for Fulton county double-counting some ballots in a 2020 recount – an error that did not affect the outcome of the election – Fulton county is required to hire a team of election monitors for the 2024 presidential election. The board also began a process of rule-making this week that will require county elections workers to count the paper ballots cast at each polling place by hand before turning those ballots in to be tabulated after each day of voting, and to investigate discrepancies on the spot.

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Baltimore bridge collapse survivor says those responsible should pay damages

Julio Cervantes Suarez tells NBC he is haunted by the final moments he had with his nephew, who died in the collapse: ‘I relive it all the time’

The only construction worker to survive March’s deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore has said he is haunted by the fact that he told his nephew to go rest in his car – shortly before the relative fell, along with the vehicle, to his death and became one of six men killed in the disaster.

“If I had told him to come with me, maybe it would have been different,” Julio Cervantes Suarez told NBC News in an interview that the network exclusively aired late on Wednesday. “Maybe he would be here with us.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Weather tracker: Hurricane Beryl causes further havoc across Texas

High winds and heavy rainfall have moved inland towards Houston and other cities, with at least eight reported dead

At the start of this week, Hurricane Beryl crashed on to the shore of the Texas coastline. Sweeping across the coast, Beryl brought sustained winds of 80mph to coastal settlements in Texas, creating a deadly storm surge reaching 4-7ft (1.2m to 2.1m) in places and wreaking havoc in local areas, before moving inland towards Houston and other big cities.

Heavy rainfall was also recorded across some of the upper Texas coast and eastern Texas, with locally close to 15 inches (380mm) recorded in places. At least eight people have died in Texas and Louisiana, which followed at least 10 deaths across the Caribbean.

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US steps up sanctions against Israeli settlers and ‘outposts’ in occupied West Bank

Targeting ‘outposts’ suggests Biden administration prepared to take some action to confront blatant land grab

The US has stepped up efforts to target violent Israeli settlers, adding new individuals and organisations to a growing sanctions list and warning banks to check transactions linked to all Israeli “outposts” in the occupied West Bank.

The new sanctions cover the far-right group Lehava, already listed by the UK, and two founding members of Tsav9, a campaign group that blocked aid from reaching Gaza. The new measures also target outposts, suggesting the Biden administration is prepared to take at least some steps to confront Israel’s creeping land grab on the West Bank.

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Family of missing woman in Bahamas shielded trans identity over fears of bias

Family of Taylor Casey, missing since 19 June, say Bahamian officials left them with ‘more questions than answers’

The family of Taylor Casey, a 42-year-old transgender woman who went missing in the Bahamas, said they initially shielded the media from her gender identity because they feared it would undermine efforts to find her.

Casey, who lives in Chicago, went missing on 19 June while on a month-long yoga retreat on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

Her family has since worked to involve city, state and federal officials in the search for her – and said Bahamian officials left them with “more questions than answers”.

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Chinese warships spotted off Alaska coast, US Coast Guard says

Four Chinese vessels were ‘transiting in international waters but still inside the US exclusive economic zone’

Multiple Chinese military warships were spotted off the coast of Alaska over the weekend, the US Coast Guard announced.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the US Coast Guard said that it detected three vessels approximately 124 miles (200km) north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, as well as another vessel approximately 84 miles (135km) north of the Amukta Pass, a strait between the Bering Sea and the north Pacific Ocean.

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Trump leads 2024 race in new poll as some Biden aides reportedly discuss how to convince him to end campaign – live

Pew finds that Trump has a 4 percentage point lead over Biden among registered voters nationwide

Joe Biden continues to push back against those calling for him to step aside, albeit gently.

Politico reports that the president’s aides have reached out to delegates ahead of the Democratic national convention in August, and asked questions that seem geared towards making sure they remain loyal to the president ahead of his formal re-nomination.

Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.

After a round of introductory questions confirming each delegate was still planning on going to Chicago and asking if they had served as delegate before, the Biden aide making the calls got to the point, the Democratic activists recalled to me in separate interviews.

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Keir Starmer says Joe Biden was ‘on good form’ in first bilateral meeting

Asked about speculation over US president’s health, PM says he dealt with issues at pace and was across all detail

Keir Starmer has said Joe Biden was “on good form” and went through serious issues at pace during their first bilateral talks at the White House as he was asked about claims the US president could be senile.

The prime minister said his personal view, having spent almost an hour in private talks with Biden and attended a dinner for Nato leaders at the White House, was that he was mentally agile.

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Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to meet with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Also snubbing Biden, the prime minister has enraged Nato allies as he tries to broker a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will fly to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday to meet with Donald Trump, according to two sources with knowledge of the meeting.

Orbán has enraged his Nato allies by meeting with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping en route to the alliance’s summit in Washington DC. He has also met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, and is said to be quietly negotiating his own ceasefire plan without consulting either the Biden administration or other EU countries.

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US, Canada and Finland form ‘Ice Pact’ to project influence into Arctic region

Partnership could produce up to 90 icebreaker ships to counter Russian and Chinese inroads into region

Canada, the United States and Finland say a newly announced “Ice Pact” to build a fleet of polar icebreaker ships will challenge China’s control of the market as nations scramble for influence in the Arctic.

The deal, announced during the Nato summit in Washington, could see as many as 90 icebreaker ships produced by the three countries in the coming years.

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Alec Baldwin jury views video of grim aftermath of Rust film set shooting

Actor on trial in New Mexico for involuntary manslaughter after shot from gun he was holding killed cinematographer

The jury in Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial on Wednesday viewed harrowing footage depicting the aftermath of the shooting on a New Mexico film set and medics’ desperate efforts to treat cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch where the actor and crew were filming the western Rust was captured via body-camera footage from a New Mexico sheriff’s deputy who responded to the incident and testified in court this week.

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Biden’s Nato press conference poses major test for his campaign as calls mount to step down

US president’s press conference, which will include questions from reporters, is certain to be scrutinised for any signs of slip-up

Joe Biden was gearing up for one of the most pivotal press conferences of his long political career on Thursday in Washington as the growing number of Democratic party members calling on him to step down has turned the eyes of the world to his performance tonight.

The US president was scheduled to face journalists at a news conference marking the end of Nato’s 75th anniversary summit at 5.30pm, while across the city senators were preparing to meet key members of Biden’s staff at the White House to air their concerns about Biden’s electability following last month’s disastrous debate performance with Donald Trump.

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New York Times editorial board declares Trump ‘unfit to lead’

Board calls Trump ‘a chilling choice against this national moment’ days before Republican national convention

The editorial board of the New York Times has declared that “Donald Trump is unfit to lead” in an urgently worded article published just ahead of the Republican convention, where Trump will once again be formally named the party’s choice for president.

Noting that the former president and convicted felon has now become the Republican nominee three times in eight years, the board said: “A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.”

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One-year-old child survives two days on side of busy highway in Louisiana

Truck driver rescued baby near where the child’s four-year-old brother was found dead; the mother is now in custody

A Texas truck driver is being praised for rescuing a one-year-old boy who was seen crawling along a busy highway after surviving on his own for two days amid weather from Hurricane Beryl.

Reginald Walton, a driver for DHL Supply Chain, spotted the infant near a section of Interstate 10 in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, near the state’s south-western border.

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US consumer prices unexpectedly fell in June, drawing Fed closer to cutting interest rates

Joe Biden says in statement that falling prices and rising wages are ‘thanks to my economic plan’

Prices unexpectedly fell in the US last month, lifting hopes that the Federal Reserve is on the verge of cutting interest rates.

As inflation fell 0.1% on a monthly basis in June, having been unchanged in May, the consumer price index’s annual increase was also the smallest in a year.

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Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist sued for wrongful death in alleged fatal collision

Josh Klinghoffer, who is touring with Pearl Jam, is being sued after allegedly hitting and killing a pedestrian in a crash in Alhambra earlier this year

Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is being sued for wrongful death and negligence after allegedly hitting and killing a pedestrian earlier this year.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Ashley Sanchez, the daughter of 47-year-old Israel Sanchez, who died after being hit while walking in a crosswalk in Alhambra, east of Los Angeles.

The collision happened the afternoon of 18 March, when plaintiffs allege Klinghoffer was driving a black SUV with no licence plates and turned left at an intersection with a marked crosswalk.

Video from the plaintiffs shows a black car hitting a man, who was Israel Sanchez, during the turn before pulling over. The footage was obtained from a neighbor’s Ring camera.

Israel Sanchez suffered blunt force trauma to the head and died from his injuries a few hours later at the hospital, the lawsuit said. No arrest was made in the incident.

The lawsuit also alleges Klinghoffer was using a cellphone while driving, as video footage shows the driver holding an object above the steering wheel. Video also shows a 40-foot-wide grassy median dividing the road that should have given Klinghoffer time to see pedestrians in the crosswalk, the lawsuit said.

“My dad was known for being a great chef, the most talented of his family, the greatest grandpa always full of love and joy,” Ashley Sanchez said in a news release. “His smile was so infectious. His life was taken by a careless act of a person who didn’t bother to look where he was driving.”

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