US justice department to seek death penalty for man charged with killing two Israeli embassy staffers

Leon Botstein announced his retirement on the day the results of the inquiry into his connections with Epstein were releasedBard College’s board of trustees “voted to end” the 51-year tenure of Leon Botstein, the school’s president, last month after board members were presented with the results of an independent review of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, according to emails seen by the Guardian. Botstein framed his departure as a long-planned retirement in a statement on 1 May.The move appears to have created a rift within the liberal arts college’s board of trustees. Continue reading...

Animal wedged upside down nicknamed ‘lucky’ Lucy after being freed with only superficial cut on foot“There’s a deer trapped in an escalator” was not a phrase anyone at Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk was expecting to hear when staff at a Marks & Spencer department store in central Norwich called last Tuesday.“In Norfolk, deers often get themselves in trouble,” said the sanctuary’s founder, Wendy Valentine. “They get stuck between walls and sheds, and in gates. It’s quite common for deer to get trapped … But ‘trapped in an escalator’ was a first.” Continue reading...

Autumn conference in Liverpool targeted for victorious homecoming but Reform UK to fight hard in byelection Andy Burnham will push to become prime minister in time to address Labour’s autumn party conference in Liverpool, his supporters have said.The Greater Manchester mayor cleared his first hurdle to becoming the candidate in the Makerfield byelection on Friday as Labour’s ruling body gave him permission to stand for the seat. Continue reading...

Trump administration move echoes indictment of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro as fuel crisis racks CubaTensions between Cuba and US seem set to rise further amid reports that Raúl Castro, the country’s 94-year-old former president, may soon face the type of indictment that led to the US abduction of the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January.Although Raúl is officially retired, he remains the most potent figure in Cuban politics following the death of his brother Fidel in 2016, and by targeting him Washington appears to be heaping pressure on Cuba’s communist leadership at the end of an already extraordinarily intense week. Continue reading...

All 46 Council of Europe members sign agreement ‘deplored’ by human rights organisationsThe UK and 45 other European countries have signed an agreement that explicitly endorses plans to send unwanted asylum seekers to third country hubs.A political declaration from the 46 members of the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the European convention on human rights (ECHR), said states had an “undeniable sovereign right” to control their borders. Continue reading...

Weinstein has been convicted of other crimes in the US and is already behind bars but move leaves rape charge in limboHarvey Weinstein’s retrial in New York on a rape charge ended in a mistrial on Friday after the jury deadlocked in the closely watched criminal case that another jury had already failed to decide last year.The disgraced former Hollywood mogul has been convicted of other sex crimes on the US east and west coasts and is already in jail. But Friday’s declaration of another mistrial leaves the New York rape charge in limbo after three trials. Continue reading...

The mayor of Greater Manchester is the latest in a long line of politicians to try to show he’s on the right track … etcPoliticians, as we know, love a metaphor. But do they have to be so literal? No sooner had the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, announced that he wanted to run for parliament than … Look! Out he popped from his house on Friday morning in jogging gear, because he’s full of energy and on the right track and hitting the ground running and … oh, do keep up.What is it that persuades a 56-year-old man who is leading every news bulletin in Britain and knows there is a throng of photographers outside to put on some terrible shorts and a 1980s Everton strip and expose his paunch and Lancashire tan to the world? Continue reading...

New map reshapes representative Steve Cohen’s majority-Black Memphis district and gives Republicans an advantageDemocratic representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee on Friday announced that he is ending his bid for re-election, his career upended by the redistricting battles that are sweeping the country after last month’s supreme court decision.Republicans in Tennessee this month enacted a new US House map that carves up Cohen’s majority-Black district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections. Continue reading...

Officers said to be granted extra powers as marches through capital set for same day as FA Cup finalBritish police are preparing to mount one of their largest scale operations in recent memory with more than 100,000 protesters set to march through the streets of London on the same day as the FA Cup final in Wembley.The Guardian understands that officers in vast swathes of central London will be granted extra powers in order to police the far-right Unite the Kingdom march organised by Stephen Yaxley Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. Continue reading...

Chancellor says he no longer views US as land of opportunity amid ‘deeply polarising’ social climateFriedrich Merz, the German chancellor, already embroiled in a row with Donald Trump over the Iran war, has said he would not advise his children to study or work in the US in the current climate.Speaking to a conference of young Catholics in Würzburg, the conservative leader, viewed by many as a transatlanticist, said he no longer saw the US as the land of opportunity. Continue reading...

Saffron Cole-Nottage became stuck headfirst and might have lived had ambulance service alerted fire service immediately, coroner says A woman who drowned after getting stuck headfirst in sea defence rocks might have been saved if the ambulance service had alerted the fire service quicker, a coroner has said.Saffron Cole-Nottage, 32, was with her daughter, walking their dog at the seafront in Lowestoft, Suffolk, when she fell as the tide was coming in on 2 February 2025. Continue reading...