Author: The Guardian

The nine-a-side Australian team lost to the West Indies by 35 runs in their last warm-up match before the Twenty20 World Cup. With many players still on leave after the end of the Indian Premier League, Mickey Marsh’s side will again need to call on their support staff for Thursday’s game in Port of Spain as substitute outfielders.The Australian team suffered another blow when all-rounder Marcus Stoinis lost his gear on the way to Trinidad, ruling him out of the tournament.Australia won the toss and elected to bowl, ending up with 222-7 in reply to West Indies’ 257-4. A swashbuckling…

“Guilty on all counts,” is the headline on the Guardian’s front page on Friday, after Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a historic criminal hush-money trial.It took the jury less than 12 hours to reach a verdict in the unprecedented first criminal trial against a current or former US president.On the big question of whether the verdict will affect the outcome of November’s presidential election – in which poll after poll shows Trump to be the marginal favourite over incumbent Joe Biden – the paper’s Washington bureau chief David Smith is clear:…

Bruhat Soma was unbeatable even before he entered the Scripps National Spelling Bee—not the dictionary, his rivals, or the lightning-fast tiebreaker. Challenge him on your way to victory.Bruhart spelled 29 words correctly in the decider on Thursday night to beat Faizan Zaki by eight points to win the title. He received a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes.The 12-year-old seventh-grader from Tampa, Fla., had won three consecutive bees before arriving at the convention center outside Washington for the most prestigious spelling bee in English.”I always want to win. That’s my main goal,” Bruhart said. “It doesn’t matter…

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has threatened to discipline and withhold degrees from at least 55 students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, according to faculty members supporting the students.Students who were arrested on 2 May when police forcefully raided the Gaza solidarity encampment received letters on Friday from administrators accusing them of violating the student code of conduct and warning them of a range of potentially serious sanctions. In the letters, copies of which have been reviewed by the Guardian, assistant deans write that the students failed to respond to police’s dispersal orders and engaged in “disorderly behavior”, “disturbing…

World number one Magnus Carlsen has been one of the top players in Norwegian chess competition in recent years, an elite tournament held annually in Stavanger. From 2019 to 2022, he won four consecutive championships, but suffered a setback in 2023.Wednesday’s third-round matchup didn’t go as planned. Carlsen not only lost to India’s 18-year-old rising star Prggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, but also comprehensively defeated him in the 1 e4 c5 Sicilian match, where the teenager took control of the game with his concentrated d5 knight.Praggnanandhaa later said: “I’m experienced enough at this level now to beat the top guys, but I have…

Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use some US-made weapons over one part of the Russian border, to allow Kyiv’s forces to defend against an offensive aimed at the city of Kharkiv, relaxing an important constraint on Ukraine’s able to defend itself.“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a US official said.Limits on the use of US long-range weapons such as the army tactical missile system (ATACMS)…

ATwo years ago, when asked about progress in gender equality in surfing, Australian player Tyler Wright told the New York Times, “It takes a lot of little, tiny, tiny things to really make progress. change”. But sometimes, these incremental steps culminate in a decisive moment. In the words of Ernest Hemingway, change can happen gradually and then suddenly.This week, women’s surfing’s moment arrives. Tahiti’s Teahupo’o is known as one of the most fearsome waves in the world, and the best female surfers put on a show as they whip up 8- to 10-foot waves. “Teahupo’o is for women after all,”…

I’m moving away to another country for university next year and my mum wants to put a tracker on my phone so she can know where I am and make sure I’m OK. I don’t want her to do this, not because I have anything to hide, but because I’d like to have some independence and privacy.She’s never been a particularly strict parent but she’s insistent on this one thing. But if I tell her she might think I’m hiding something, or it might upset her as it may be one of the only ways she feels she could be…

oxygenA Manhattan jury on Thursday found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts of conspiracy and fraud stemming from payments the former president arranged to cover up his extramarital affair with adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The presumptive Republican nominee is now a convicted felon.He was already a convicted sexual predator and fraudster. Trump once joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Maybe not.Sentencing is scheduled for July 11. Of course, Trump is unlikely to serve time in jail for the accounting charges. Instead, he could be put on probation and required to…

Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records set off a political firestorm in Washington on Thursday, with Republicans furiously lambasting the verdict as a miscarriage of justice while Democrats commended New York jurors for rendering a fair judgment in one of the most historic trials in American history.Republicans unsurprisingly rallied around Trump, reiterating their baseless allegations that the Biden administration had engaged in political persecution of the former US president.“Today is a shameful day in American history,” said Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker. “This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one. The weaponization…