WASHINGTON -- The Senate passed a Republican-led spending bill Friday hours before a government shutdown, overcoming sharp Democratic opposition to the measure and sending it to President Donald Trump to be signed into law. Read More

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's military accused neighboring India on Friday of sponsoring insurgents in a restive southwestern province, where an unprecedented attack by armed separatists this week killed 26 passengers aboard a hijacked train. Read More

Two of the judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that Trump’s anti-DEI push could eventually raise concerns about First Amendment rights but said the judge’s sweeping block went too far.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome” in the country, in the latest Trump administration move targeting the African nation.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams need SpaceX to get this relief team to the space station before they can check out. Arrival is set for late Saturday night.

Sprawling storm system to affect vast swath of territory from Canada to Texas with tornadoes threatening in south

The National Weather Service has predicted extreme weather across a vast swath of the US encompassing more than 100 million people, with powerful winds gusts up to 80mph (130km/h) being forecast from the border with Canada to Texas.

A sprawling storm system crossing the US on Friday overturned semitrucks on highways and fanned wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma, where officials called for evacuations in at least one town. Tornado threats loomed for the Mississippi valley into the night and the deep south on Saturday.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Nick Oxford/Reuters

© Photograph: Nick Oxford/Reuters

John Lennon is being honored in a specially minted British coin collection to mark the year the Beatles great and peace advocate would have turned 85, the Royal Mint said Friday.

Former agency leaders, including two Republicans, say rollbacks by Lee Zeldin could cause ‘severe harms’

Three former Environmental Protection Agency leaders sounded an alarm on Friday, saying rollbacks proposed by the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, endanger the lives of millions of Americans and abandon the agency’s dual mission to protect the environment and human health.

Zeldin said on Wednesday he planned to roll back 31 key environmental rules on everything from clean air to clean water and climate change. The former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy called Zeldin’s announcement “the most disastrous day in EPA history”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

© Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Syed, convicted of 1999 murder and jailed for life, maintains innocence in long-running case of legal twists and turns

A Maryland judge has formally sentenced Adnan Syed to the time he has already served in prison, appearing to finally bring to a close a long-running case with numerous legal twists and turns that received worldwide attention from the true-crime podcast Serial.

Judge Jennifer Schiffer had already decided that Syed would remain free in a recent written ruling, even though his conviction in the murder of his ex-girlfriend in 1999 when they were in high school still stands.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Barbara Haddock Taylor/AP

© Photograph: Barbara Haddock Taylor/AP

MELBOURNE, Australia — An American influencer left Australia on Friday after the government announced it was reviewing her visa over a video she posted of her snatching a baby wombat from its mother. Read More

A spokesperson offered no evidence for the claim after 26 people were killed on a train that was hijacked in Balochistan province on Tuesday

Pakistan’s military has accused neighbouring India of sponsoring militant groups in the south-west of the country as survivors recounted their ordeal from an unprecedented attack that killed 26 passengers on a hijacked train.

The scope of the attack in Balochistan province underscores the struggles that Pakistan faces to rein in militant groups.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sami Khan/EPA

© Photograph: Sami Khan/EPA

LONDON — John Lennon is being honoured in a specially minted British coin collection to mark the year the Beatles great and peace advocate would have turned 85, the Royal Mint said Friday. Read More

• Former Narbonne president has faced financial charges
• Elsom not in court and his whereabouts remain unknown

The former Australia rugby union captain Rocky Elsom was sentenced to two years in prison by a French court on Friday, for misusing corporate assets during his time as the club president of Narbonne.

Elsom was also fined €100,000 (A$109,000) with half of that sum suspended. The 42-year-old did not appear in court; his whereabouts are currently unknown and a French arrest warrant has been issued against him.

Having taken charge of the southern French club Narbonne from 2015-16, Elsom went on trial for embezzling club funds by making unjustified expenditures to pay a coach or a general manager who was living in Australia at the time.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Themba Hadebe/AP

© Photograph: Themba Hadebe/AP

Donald Trump has shown he can get Ukraine to back a deal, but what about Russia? Patrick Wintour and Pjotr Sauer report

After weeks of diplomatic tension, on Tuesday the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced that Ukraine had signed up to a 30-day ceasefire agreement. As the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, explains to Michael Safi, this deal would cover the whole of Ukraine and by accepting it, Ukraine will again receive military aid and intelligence sharing from the US. However, issues such as borders, elections and Ukrainian membership of Nato or the EU are not a part of this deal and will need to be finalised at a later stage.

Having followed Russian negotiations during the Syrian civil war, Wintour describes the Russians as ‘masters at delay’, and on Thursday night Vladimir Putin made it clear that while he supported the US attempt to reach a deal he could not sign up to it as it stood.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

© Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Edgar Charles Frederick, 79, was killed in the hit-and-run incident in Nairobi on Thursday

A British national has died in Kenya after being struck by a government vehicle that was part of the president’s motorcade.

Edgar Charles Frederick, 79, was killed on Thursday as President William Ruto’s motorcade made its way to a public engagement in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Donwilson Odhiambo/Getty Images

© Photograph: Donwilson Odhiambo/Getty Images

Fearing release of distressing material, lawyers have petitioned a Santa Fe court to seal records to protect the family’s right to privacy

A representative for the estate of actor Gene Hackman is seeking to block the public release of autopsy and investigative reports, especially photographs and police body-camera video, related to the recent deaths of Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, after their partially mummified bodies were discovered at their New Mexico home in February.

Authorities last week announced Hackman died at age 95 of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease as much as a week after Arakawa, 65, died from a rare rodent-borne disease, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hackman’s pacemaker last showed signs of activity on 18 February, indicating an abnormal heart rhythm on the day he probably died. The couple’s bodies weren’t discovered until 26 February.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Andrew Hay/Reuters

© Photograph: Andrew Hay/Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he agrees in principle with a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but he emphasized that the terms are yet to be worked out and added that any truce should pave the way to lasting peace. Read More

I recently finished Lunacid for the first time, just in time.

© Kira Games, <a href="https://lutik327.tumblr.com/post/739396070884474880" target="_blank">lutik327</a> on Tumblr

Anything "Elysium" from ZA/UM is inherently fraught.

© Studio ZA/UM