Cool, calm and creepy-crawly: reporter unfazed by cockroach cameo on live TV

• The U.S. has conducted strikes against Tehran for five consecutive days, while Israeli forces killed four people in Gaza, including a 6-year-old girl. • Israel’s Security Cabinet approved nearly $500 million for new settlements in the occupied West Bank, as half of congressional Democrats now support cutting military funding to Israel.

More than 100 Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel as US public opinion shifts – Republicans are noticing tooSomewhere in the days before Wednesday’s vote, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, sat down and wrote his caucus a letter urging Democrats to reject an amendment that would strip security assistance to Israel. For most of his tenure as Democratic leader, that kind of internal whipping operation would have been unnecessary, because the outcome would have been assumed.His own second-in-command voted the other way anyway. Continue reading...

Agreement, without admission of liability, ends 19-month high court dispute that small-business owners said left them with large debtsVodafone has settled a long-running legal claim filed by 62 of its former franchisees who alleged the mobile phone group “unjustly enriched” itself at their expense by up to £85m.The small-business owners – some of whom said they had suffered suicidal thoughts because of the pressure exerted by the telecoms group – launched the high court claim in 2024 after running up large personal debts they said had been caused by their deals with the company. Continue reading...

Dawood Safi, 28, mounted a ‘frenzied’ and deadly rampage while in the grip of a psychotic episodeAn Uber driver who stabbed a dog walker to death in a “frenzy of violence” while in the grip of a psychotic episode has also been found guilty of trying to murder his landlord.Dawood Safi, 28, killed 49-year-old Wayne Broadhurst in the random knife attack last October, just minutes after attacking his landlord, Shahzad Farrukh, and a boy of 14. Continue reading...

Fair housing complaints accuse Greystar of refusing to take tenants who use federal rent vouchersGreystar, the largest owner and manager of apartments in the US, systematically flouts local laws designed to make housing affordable to the poor, according to civil rights complaints filed with authorities in six states and the District of Columbia.The complaints – filed this week with government agencies in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington DC – accuse Greystar of 114 violations of state and DC fair housing laws. They allege that the company refuses to accept federal housing choice vouchers (also known as Section 8) in places that require landlords to accept them. Continue reading...

Unauthorized interloper was arrested after reportedly hurling racial slur at host Craig MelvinA man was arrested after breaking on to the set of NBC’s Today show on Thursday morning and allegedly hurling a racial slur at a host.NYPD officers at New York’s midtown north precinct responded to a report of a disorderly person at the show’s 30 Rockefeller Center studios shortly after 9am. Continue reading...

FDA notice warns of ‘potential foreign material’ as recall covers two types of frozen bread roll doughGeneral Mills is recalling nearly 736,000 Pillsbury bread rolls over concerns they could contain glass, according to a notice issued by the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this week.The recall covers two frozen bread roll products: 3,080 cases of Hard Roll Dough, with 180 rolls in each case, totaling 554,400 rolls, and 1,260 cases of Kaiser Roll Dough with 144 rolls per case, totaling 181,440 rolls. The FDA notice states the products may contain “potential foreign material (glass)”. Continue reading...

Beira’s Place in Edinburgh, founded by the author, says claim was ‘deeply offensive’ as it considers legal actionAmnesty International UK has referred itself to the charity regulator over a report it published that described a sexual violence support centre founded by JK Rowling as “anti-rights”.The UK branch of the global human rights charity listed Beira’s Place in Edinburgh among more than 100 organisations it said were part of an anti-rights movement. Continue reading...

Mike Collins’ son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, has shared antisemitic conspiracies and Nazi imagery onlineUS politics live – latest updatesThe Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, Mike Collins, who has been plagued by a string of controversies in his time in public office, has close ties with a white nationalist influencer – his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II – it has transpired.A trucking executive and one-time “Freedom caucus” conservative endorsed by Donald Trump, Collins has been the GOP representative for Georgia’s 10th congressional district since 2023. In that time, the anti-abortion hardliner has drawn scrutiny over his associations with far-right and extremist figures, incendiary social media activity and accusations of antisemitism, which he has denied. He has also denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election and defended January 6 rioters, who he has said deserved pardons. Continue reading...

The film-maker behind Selma and 13th will focus on the 14th amendment for a new film out later this year as Donald Trump targets those protected by itAva DuVernay announced on Thursday that she has made a documentary for Netflix on the 14th amendment, which gave liberty and rights to formerly enslaved people following the civil war, and which has come under legal attack from Donald Trump.Netflix said on Thursday that it will release 14th later this year. The film will mark a return to nonfiction for DuVernay, the film-maker of Selma and Origin, and a follow-up to DuVernay’s 2016 film 13th, her examination of the legacy of the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery. Continue reading...

Few know who will get top jobs when new PM enters No 10 and the vacuum of information has its downsidesAs Labour MPs filed out of Portcullis House on the last day before parliament rose – and Andy Burnham ascends – one said they were struggling with a metaphor for how concentrated Burnham’s power had become. Flailing for something that did not sound insulting, he gave up and likened Burnham’s absolute control to North Korea’s Kim dynasty.It is a very congenial and receptive kind of dictatorship. But never in British politics has such power been concentrated in the hands of such a tiny number of individuals. Never in British politics have so many of Labour’s biggest beasts had so little influence or leverage. Continue reading...