‘This is not serious leadership’: Donald Trump and Marco Rubio watch UFC in Miami as Iran talks fail

  • President has long been a fan of mixed martial arts

  • Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr also at event

Donald Trump and US secretary of state Marco Rubio attended a UFC event in Miami night on Saturday night as peace talks with Iran failed on the other side of the world.

Trump entered the Kaseya Center shortly after 9pm alongside several members of his family and UFC chief Dana White, who has been a supporter of the president since his first term. Seated nearby was Rubio as well as the US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, the rapper Vanilla Ice and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino.

Continue reading...

JD Vance says talks failed due to Iran’s refusal to give up nuclear programme

Iranian delegates in Islamabad say Washington needs to do more to win their trust if talks to resolve US-Iran conflict are to be successful

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has blamed the failure of marathon negotiations with Iran on the country’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, while Iranian delegates have claimed Washington needs to do more to win their trust.

Vance, who left Islamabad on Sunday morning after 21 hours of talks with Iranian officials in the Pakistani capital, said his team had been very clear on its red lines, as hopes faded of a quick end to the conflict that began on 28 February.

Continue reading...

Man arrested for allegedly damaging US military aircraft in Shannon airport

Suspect in 40s arrested after man apparently climbed on to USAF C130 Hercules transport plane on remote taxiway in County Clare

A man has been arrested after entering an unauthorised area of an airport in the Republic of Ireland and allegedly causing damage to a US military aircraft, police have said.

The suspect, aged in his 40s, was arrested for alleged criminal damage and remains in custody over the incident on Saturday at Shannon airport in County Clare.

Continue reading...

Washington officials say 21 dead canines that washed ashore were foxes, solving local mystery

Animals were used legally as fishing bait, sheriff’s office confirms after incident shook locals in Guemes Island

A Washington state sheriff’s office says it has solved the mystery of nearly two dozen dead canines who washed ashore recently.

The animals were foxes being used legally as bait for fishing operations, the Skagit county sheriff’s office said on Friday.

Continue reading...

US state department revokes green cards of three Iranian nationals it links to regime

Three arrested by federal agents had family ties to Iranian military general, regime spokesperson or security chief

United States federal agents arrested three Iranian nationals – including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis – after the US state department terminated their green cards, the department announced on Saturday.

State department officials revoked the green card status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, whose mother was an Iranian revolutionary who served as the spokesperson for Iran’s regime during the hostage crisis that defined the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The state department also revoked the green card – or legal permanent resident – statuses of Hashemi’s wife and son.

Continue reading...

Louisiana Republicans move to eliminate court office won by exonerated man

After Calvin Duncan served 28 years for a murder he didn’t commit, he won an election to serve as criminal court clerk. But now the office might be shut down

A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a landmark election in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him. Now, Louisiana’s governor, Jeff Landry, and the Republican-controlled state legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in.

Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote last November to become the Orleans parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in maximum security prison.

Continue reading...

Trump reportedly says he’ll issue mass pardons at end of his presidential term

President already has issued sweeping pardons throughout second term, including for 1,500 US Capital riot defendants

Donald Trump has reportedly said he will issue pardons en masse to his closest advisers at the end of his second presidency, promising them in casual conversations over the last year.

“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval [Office],” the president reportedly said in a recent meeting, garnering laughs from the room, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing an anonymous source.

Continue reading...

US man in Bahamian jail after wife disappears into Atlantic waters during boat trip

Lynette and Brian Hooker, from Michigan, were years into a sailing adventure when Brian said his wife fell overboard

Lynette Hooker bounced around the deck of the docked Soul Mate, smiled into the camera and proclaimed, “We’re finally leaving Kemah,” referring to a Texas port town.

“It’s only been four months,” she said as her husband, Brian, tugged on some rigging as they got ready to set sail.

Continue reading...

Native Americans were gambling with dice 6,000 years earlier than anyone else, study says

Archaeological record suggests hunter gatherers were playing games of chance at the end of the last ice age

Native American hunter gatherers were using dice for gaming and gambling more than 6,000 years before the practice appeared anywhere else, a new study argues.

It says dice were being made and used on the western great plains of North America at the end of the last ice age, more than 12,000 years ago.

Continue reading...

McDonald’s CEO blames mother’s etiquette training for awkward burger bite in video

Chris Kempczinski’s taste test was mocked online, to which he said his mother had taught him: ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full’

The chief executive officer of McDonald’s recently blamed etiquette guidance from his mother for a February on-camera taste test that made him a target for ridicule – and summarily recorded another video of him eating one of the fast-food giant’s offerings in a manner potential consumers found awkward.

Chris Kempczinski suggested to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) earlier in April that he was simply heeding maternal advice to never talk with his mouth full when he took the humorously small bite at the center of a viral video which depicted him discussing and sampling the new Big Arch burger from McDonald’s.

Continue reading...

Is Iran Trump’s Suez crisis, or just a passing thunderstorm?

Britain’s standing in the world was never the same after its assault on Egypt in 1956. Now the US risks repeating history in the Middle East

Donald Trump’s addiction to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.

But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking America with him into a steep decline into the unknown.

Continue reading...

‘Just the beginning’: Artemis II crew splashes down after record-breaking moon flyby

The four astronauts touched down on Earth off the coast of California, concluding historic 10-day mission

The Artemis II, and the four astronauts aboard the Orion space capsule, splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on Friday night, with all four astronauts in good health.

“53 years ago, humanity left the moon. This time we return to stay. Let us finish what they started. Let us focus on what was left undone. Let us not go to plant flags and leave, but to stay with firmness in our purpose, with gratitude for the hands who built the machines and with love for the ones that we carry with us,” Nasa’s associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said at the late-night press conference after the astronauts landed.

Continue reading...

JD Vance dispatched to negotiate Iran peace with few cards to play

Vice-president’s war doubts and his boss’s desperation to reopen the Hormuz strait constitute a weak deck against bolstered opponents

As JD Vance arrives in Islamabad to negotiate a peace deal with Iran, his first high-profile assignment of the war looks to be a poisoned chalice.

Vance, a vocal opponent of US wars in the Middle East gone quiet since the beginning of the current military campaign, will now face off with Iranian negotiators who feel emboldened by their new control of the Hormuz strait and their resilience in the face of the largest US-Israeli onslaught in history. Vance’s presence at the talks as vice-president will make it the highest-level meeting since the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Continue reading...

Former New York City mayor Eric Adams obtains Albanian citizenship

Adams was granted citizenship and a passport from Balkan country by a special decree from the republic’s president

Eric Adams has obtained citizenship and a passport from Albania, the Balkan country which received effusive compliments from the former New York City mayor during a visit there relatively recently.

The Albania Daily News first reported on Friday that Adams had requested both and was granted them by a special decree from the republic’s president, Bajram Begaj. A spokesperson for Adams then confirmed that development in a statement distributed to the news media, and it was evidently chronicled in Albania’s official government journal.

Continue reading...

Kamala Harris says she’s ‘thinking about’ running for president again in 2028

Former vice-president spoke before a crowd at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network gathering in New York

Kamala Harris said she is “thinking about” running in the 2028 presidential election.

“I might, I might. I’m thinking about it,” the former vice-president told the crowd at a gathering of the National Action Network (NAN), a civil rights organization founded by Al Sharpton, on Friday in New York City.

Continue reading...

Four men deported by US to Eswatini have right to see lawyer, court rules

The men, sent to the southern African country in July, have been denied in-person counsel for nine months

Four men deported by the US to Eswatini and denied in-person legal counsel for nine months while detained in a maximum security prison have the right to see a local lawyer, Eswatini’s supreme court ruled.

The men, from Cambodia, Cuba, Vietnam and Yemen, were sent to the small southern African country, formerly known as Swaziland, in July despite having no connection to the country, as part of Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.

Continue reading...

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse accuse Melania Trump of ‘shifting burden’ on to victims

Outrage from survivors follows first lady’s statement calling on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse

More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have accused Melania Trump of “shifting the burden” on to them after she called on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse.

“Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have already shown extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports, and giving testimony,” said a group of 13 people and the brother and sister of the late Virginia Giuffre, who was one of the most vocal Epstein accusers, in a statement. “Asking more of them now is a deflection of responsibility not justice.”

Continue reading...

Starmer implies he didn’t tell Trump he was ‘fed up’ about his impact on rising UK energy bills – as it happened

Prime minister says conversation with US president on Thursday night focused on need for ‘practical plan’ to open strait of Hormuz

Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, has joined those saying the government should allow drilling for oil and gas in the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.

Both applications were approved by the last Conservative government, but then overturned by a court ruling. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has to make a decision about the revised applications operating in a quasi-judicial capacity, which means he has to follow due process and can’t take the decision purely on political ground.

The current debate [on energy policy] is deadlocked between two incomplete responses. The government argues the answer is to accelerate Clean Power 2030, focusing on decarbonising the electricity system as quickly as possible. The opposition argues that the answer is to expand domestic oil and gas production. Both positions contain elements of truth, but neither addresses the core strategic problem: outside the power sector the UK economy remains overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels, and electricity is still too expensive to support mass electrification.

The UK is caught in a self-reinforcing high-cost, low-electrification trap. High electricity costs suppress demand, slowing the uptake of electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial electrification. Weak demand growth, in turn, means that the fixed costs of the system – from networks to long-term contracts – are spread across a smaller base, keeping prices high. The result is a system that is too expensive to electrify and therefore remains dependent on fossil fuels and exposed to global shocks …

The first of these vital measures will ban anyone from possessing or publishing harmful pornography that shows incest between family members, and sex between step or foster relations where one person is pretending to be under 18.

A further amendment will criminalise the publication and possession of pornography where an adult is roleplaying as a child.

This government is uncompromising in our mission to protect women and girls online, and we have taken action to stop tech firms from publishing this abusive content.

In February, we told platforms that they must remove reported non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours.

I greatly welcome the government’s plans to fully address harmful pornographic content such as incest, step-incest and the mimicking of child sexual abuse. This content that is freely and widely available online is deeply harmful, normalising child sexual abuse and abusive relationships within families …

Today the government has answered our calls for change, and I am delighted that once again the UK is leading the way on regulating this high harm industry.

Continue reading...

Texas court overturns sentence for man on death row for nearly 50 years

Clarence Curtis Jordan was convicted in 1978 but hadn’t had a lawyer for over 30 years

The Texas court of criminal appeals has overturned the death sentence of Clarence Curtis Jordan, a 70-year-old man with intellectual disabilities, who spent nearly 50 years on death row – much of that time without a lawyer.

Jordan was convicted in 1978 for the murder of Joe L Williams, a 40-year-old grocer in Houston, and was sentenced to death. In the years that followed, courts determined that Jordan, who has intellectual disabilities, was “incompetent”, making him ineligible for execution under constitutional standards.

Continue reading...

Human rights groups decry US plan for Guantánamo camp for Cuban migrants

Exclusive: Dozens of organizations write to Congress after general announced plan to ‘deal with’ those fleeing any humanitarian crisis on the island

Dozens of US and international human rights organizations are decrying the Trump administration’s plans to establish a migrant “camp” for fleeing Cubans at the Guantánamo Bay military base if the island nation’s crisis worsens under pressure from the US, according to a letter to members of Congress on Friday.

The 85 groups plan to submit the joint letter, exclusively shared with the Guardian, to US senators and House representatives, expressing their “profound concern” with comments made last month by a top Department of Defense commander, and describing any prospect of further migrant detention at the base as “deeply troubling and unacceptable”.

Continue reading...