Senate to vote on $40bn Ukraine aid bill initially blocked by Rand Paul – live

A preliminary vote on military, humanitarian and economic aid to Kyiv is expected today, setting up a final vote on Wednesday

Scrutiny of Republicans who embrace ‘great replacement theory’ after Buffalo massacre

A group of voters who challenged extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s eligibility to run for re-election have filed an appeal of the Georgia secretary of state’s decision that she can appear on the ballot.

The five voters from Greene’s district alleged that the rightwing Republican played a significant role in the 6 January Capitol attack, which they said put her in violation of a 14th amendment clause concerning insurrection and ineligibility for office.

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US gun violence over weekend puts focus on easy access to weapons

Violence includes Buffalo shooting that left 10 people dead, as well as two dead in Houston, one in Los Angeles and five in Chicago

America on Monday was picking up the pieces from a weekend of gun violence that – outside the cost of lives – has refocused the country’s leadership on the toxic interplay of political ideology and easy access to handguns and battlefield weapons.

In the most recent case, two people were killed Sunday and at least three others hospitalized after a shooting at a large Houston, Texas, flea market. In California, also on Sunday, at least one person died and five were wounded – including four listed in critical condition – after a shooting at a church with a predominantly Taiwanese congregation in Orange county, south of Los Angeles.

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‘It was terrifying’: Amber Heard testifies Johnny Depp hallucinated during fight

Actor denies putting human feces in couple’s bed and claims ‘he was talking to people who weren’t in the room’

Johnny Depp was hallucinating and his sobriety had completely collapsed in the final months of his marriage, his ex-wife – fellow actor Amber Heard – testified on Monday in the civil lawsuit between the two.

Heard was back on the stand as the trial resumed in a Virginia courtroom after a one-week hiatus.

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Fauci says he will resign if Trump retakes the presidency in 2024

Fauci said ‘no’ when asked if he would stay on as National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director under Trump again

The US’s top infectious disease expert has said he would resign if Donald Trump retakes the presidency in 2024.

Dr Anthony Fauci bluntly said “no” when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked him during an interview on Sunday if he would want to stay on as the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the event that voters gave Trump a second stint as president.

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Shooting at southern California church leaves one dead and five wounded

Suspect arrested after churchgoers tie him up with cord following second US mass shooting of weekend

Gunfire at a southern California church has killed at least one person and wounded five before a suspect was taken into custody, authorities said.

The shooting early on Sunday afternoon occurred at Geneva presbyterian church in Laguna Woods, a town of 16,000 that consists of Laguna Woods Village, a retirement community for people 55 and older once known as Leisure World.

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Buffalo shooting: what we know about the victims so far

Eleven of the 13 victims were Black, and two were white, after an 18-year-old white man opened fire at a supermarket in New York

An 18-year-old white man opened fire at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket on Saturday, killing 10 people and wounding three others in what authorities have described as a “hate crime and racially motivated violent extremism”.

Eleven of the 13 victims were Black, and two were white.

This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.

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John Fetterman, Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate, suffers stroke

Lieutenant governor and frontrunner in Democratic primary says he’s recovering and insists ‘campaign isn’t slowing down one bit’

John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and frontrunner in the state’s Democratic US Senate primary, suffered a stroke Friday, and is recovering, he said in a statement.

“On Friday, I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to the hospital to get checked out. I didn’t want to go – I didn’t think I had to – but Gisele insisted, and as usual, she was right,” Fetterman said in a statement posted to Twitter, referring to his wife. “I hadn’t been feeling well, but was so focused on the campaign that I ignored the signs and just kept going.”

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Nancy Pelosi: supreme court ‘dangerous to families and to freedoms’

House speaker rails against conservative judges appointed by Trump as justices prepare to finalize draft abortion ruling

The supreme court is “dangerous to families and to freedoms in our country”, Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday, as justices prepare to finalize a draft ruling stripping almost have a century of abortion rights in the US.

The House speaker railed against conservative judges appointed by former president Donald Trump in an interview Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, in which she urged Democrats to keep their “eye on the ball” to protect other freedoms she sees under threat.

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‘It was by design’: Black residents try to come to terms with horror of shooting

‘Who pushed this into his head?’ a Buffalo resident asks, while another asks, ‘What made you drive all this way and hit this?’

Vigils were held across Buffalo, New York, for the victims of the Tops Friendly shooting Sunday, as Black residents on the city’s East Side mourned and attempted to come to terms with the brief, brutal event that had been visited on the neighborhood hours earlier.

The square where the shooting took place, surrounded by vacant lots that residents said were the result of decades of segregation and systemic racism, is the community’s center, with Tops Friendly functioning as the only grocery store for the immediate area.

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Buffalo shooting: Biden says racist killing of 10 people ‘abhorrent to fabric of nation’

Gunman shot 11 Black and two white victims at a supermarket that he broadcast on streaming platform Twitch before surrendering

After a white 18-year-old wearing military gear and live-streaming with a helmet camera opened fire with a rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, killing 10 people and wounding three others, US president Joe Biden said racially motivated hate crime was “abhorrent to the very fabric of this nation”.

Police said the attacker shot 11 Black and two white victims before surrendering to authorities in an assault he broadcast on the streaming platform Twitch. Later, he appeared before a judge in a paper medical gown and was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge. He pleaded not guilty.

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North Korea ‘in great turmoil’ over Covid death toll, says Kim Jong-un

Regime reports another 21 deaths as fresh outbreaks of coronavirus in South Africa and US concern health officials

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has warned his country has been thrown into “great turmoil” after reporting another 21 deaths, days after the secretive state first admitted it was in the grip of a coronavirus outbreak.

The nation’s total death toll now stands at 27, with 524,440 illnesses attributed to a rapid spread of fever consistent with Covid since late April. The regime said 243,630 people had recovered and 280,810 remained in quarantine. However, it did not specify how many of the cases and deaths had been confirmed as Covid-19 infections.

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‘A history maker’: Karine Jean-Pierre set for White House press secretary role

She will be the first Black openly gay woman to step into the role, a symbol of change after the Donald Trump era

This week the blue door will slide back, a Black woman will walk to the lectern and a piece of White House history will be made.

Karine Jean-Pierre, facing rows of reporters and cameras, will be making her briefing room debut as the first Black woman and first openly gay person in the role of press secretary. Not that there will be much time to stand on ceremony.

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A daring escape, a gunshot death: the tragic tale of an Alabama jailbreak

Friends of Vicky White are baffled why she fled with her murder suspect boyfriend, before killing herself as police closed in

Maybe it was because she had endured the loss of two longtime partners over the last several years. Or perhaps she feared – if she didn’t go through with it – her loved ones would be killed.

Whatever the case, James Ballentine hopes there’s a good explanation for why his neighbor of nearly 40 years, Vicky White, ignited a romantic affair with an inmate of the rural Alabama jail where she was the assistant director, and helped him escape, before she shot herself to death as police closed in 11 days later and about 300 miles away. It was a story that captured national and global attention.

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US Covid deaths hit 1m, a death toll higher than any other country

Virus has laid bare America’s fragmented healthcare system and corrosive racial and socioeconomic inequality

More than one million people have died in the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, according to Johns Hopkins, far and away the most deaths of any country.

While the sheer number of deaths from the coronavirus sets the US apart, the country’s large population of 332.5 million people does not explain the staggering mortality rate, which is among the highest in the world.

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Pro-choice demonstrators rally across the US over expected reversal of Roe v Wade – live

Thousands take to the streets in opposition to supreme court’s draft opinion scrapping constitutional right to abortion

• ‘We will not go back’: Thousands rally for abortion rights across the US

Clarence Thomas calls leak of supreme court abortion draft ‘tremendously bad’

‘This is real’: in Oklahoma, a post-Roe world has arrived

State judicial races become increasingly politicized over issues such as abortion, partisan gerrymandering and gun rights.

Spending and campaigning around the judicial races could intensify if the US supreme court overturns Roe v Wade, which a leaked draft opinion indicates justices are prepared to do.

“State courts are going to be front-and-center in the fight over abortion access,” said Doug Keith, an attorney in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “These races in some states are likely going to take a prominence that they’ve never had before.”

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Buffalo shooting: teenager accused of killing 10 in racist supermarket attack

Alleged gunman Payton Gendron, 18, charged with murder after 13 shot at store in mostly Black neighbourhood

A teenager in military-style clothing opened fire with a rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in a shooting that officials called a “hate crime and racially motivated violent extremism”, killing 10 people and wounding three others before surrendering to police on Saturday afternoon, authorities said.

Police officials said the 18-year-old, who is white, was wearing body armour and military-style clothing when he pulled up and started shooting at a Tops Friendly Market at about 2.30pm. The attack was streamed via a camera fixed to the man’s helmet.

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Transgender medication law in Alabama blocked by judge

A federal judge has blocked part of a law that makes it a felony to give gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones to minors

An Alabama law that makes it a felony to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones to transgender minors has been blocked by a federal judge while affirming other aspects of the state’s “Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act”.

US district judge Liles Burke issued a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the medication ban, which took effect on 8 May, while a lawsuit against the bill goes forward.

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‘We will not go back’: Thousands rally for abortion rights across the US

More than 300 pro-choice protests organized around US against expected reversal of 1973 landmark law that made abortion illegal

• Nationwide abortion rights protest – follow live

Thousands of people were taking part in protests across the US on Saturday to decry the supreme court’s expected reversal of the landmark 1973 law that made abortion legal in America.

Demonstrators were gathering at more than 380 protest events being held from Maine to Hawaii, in cities including Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, to demand that the right to an abortion is not stripped away by the court, which is dominated by rightwing justices.

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Mitch McConnell visits Kyiv with delegation of Republican US senators

Senators meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who praises US bipartisan support for his country

The US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has joined the growing list of US politicians making visits to Kyiv, it emerged on Saturday

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed McConnell’s visit as a powerful signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine.

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