New rule would restrict access sooner for people deemed to pose ‘national security or public safety risk’

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new rule that it said would streamline asylum processing at the southern border by quickly denying certain migrants deemed to “pose a national security or public safety risk”.

The proposed rule would allow immigration officials to reject and deport migrants who are already ineligible for asylum at an earlier stage in the process, a change administration officials said would enhance national security and save taxpayer dollars.

Made by extending the thumb and little finger, while curling down the three middle fingers the sign is also known as ‘hang loose’

The shaka is poised to become Hawaii’s official hand gesture.

Last week, Hawaiian lawmakers passed a bill that would officially enshrine the gesture in the state’s culture. The shaka, also popular in surf culture and commonly known as “hang loose” is a friendly hand signal made by extending the thumb and little finger while curling the three middle fingers.

Move comes after counter-protesters’ attack on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and violent police raid on encampment

More than 800 faculty and staff at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have called for the chancellor’s resignation following attacks by counter-protesters on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and a violent police raid of the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus last week.

Hundreds of professors and other teaching staff gathered on Thursday to deliver a letter in support of their students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, demanding Chancellor Gene Block immediately step down and an academic senate vote of no confidence in Block. The letter also called for authorities to drop all charges against students, staff and faculty who were involved in the encampment.

Animal dubbed ‘Caramelo’ was trapped for days, balancing on two strips of slippery asbestos after flooding hit the Porto Alegre area

Emergency workers have rescued a horse that had been trapped for days on a rooftop after severe floods in southern Brazil, as the death toll from the disaster rose to 107 people.

The animal, dubbed Caramelo on social media, had been balancing on two narrow strips of slippery asbestos in Canoas, a city in the Porto Alegre metropolitan area that is one of the hardest-hit areas in the state, much of which has been isolated by floodwaters.

There is a graffiti mural in the north stand – home to the most ardent, impassioned Olympiakos supporters – that displays a mockup of Muhammad Ali standing over his opponent sandwiched between the words: “Piraeus means knock out!” And so it proved for Aston Villa, whose European adventure came to a joyless end in the Greek port.

Unai Emery, a four-time Europa League winner, will not get his hands on the Europa Conference League trophy this season and Villa’s hopes of a first major European trophy since lifting the European Cup in 1982 are over.

• Team were swept in playoffs by Minnesota Timberwolves
• Suns’ All-Star trio unable to gel under Vogel’s leadership

Frank Vogel’s tenure as coach of the Phoenix Suns is over after one disappointing season that ended without a playoff victory.

The franchise fired the 50-year-old Vogel on Thursday, less than two weeks after the Suns were swept from the first round of the NBA playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The music star’s ‘major neurocognitive disorder’ given as reason by a Los Angeles judge for a two-person conservatorship

A judge found Thursday that Beach Boys founder and music luminary Brian Wilson should be in a court conservatorship to manage his personal and medical decisions because of what his doctor calls a “major neurocognitive disorder”.

At a hearing, Los Angeles superior court judge Gus T May approved the petition filed by the 81-year-old Wilson’s family and inner circle after the death of his wife in January, Melinda Ledbetter Wilson, who handled most of his tasks and affairs.

Israeli prime minister says country can ‘stand alone’ and cites the ‘heroism and arms embargo’ of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceed with an offensive on the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was speaking on Thursday after Israeli and Hamas delegations left the ceasefire negotiations in Cairo.

Judge Maryellen Noreika orders trial of up to six days to begin 3 June in Wilmington, Delaware, in first for child of sitting president

A federal appeals court panel rejected a bid by Hunter Biden dismiss criminal gun charges, clearing the way for the trial of Joe Biden’s son to proceed, a first for the child of a sitting president.

A three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the third circuit in Philadelphia said Hunter Biden could not appeal because the lower court had not yet entered a final judgment in the case.

Alan Miller to go to death in September as state rejects warnings that gas-mask method represents cruel and unusual punishment

Alabama has scheduled its second execution of a death row prisoner using the novel technique of nitrogen gas, brushing aside objections that the procedure is a form of cruel and unusual punishment banned under the US constitution.

Barring last-minute judicial moves, Alan Miller, 59, will be put to his death on 26 September, after an execution date was set on Thursday by the state’s Republican governor Kay Ivey. Should it go ahead, the anticipated killing would be exceptional not only as only the second time that nitrogen has been used in the US, but also because Miller has already been subjected to a botched execution, which he survived.

Harvard researchers teamed up with Google to analyse the makeup of the brain, much of which is not yet understood

Scientists have reconstructed a wiring diagram for a piece of human brain in unprecedented detail, revealing fresh quirks and complexities in what many regard as the most sophisticated object in the known universe.

Harvard researchers teamed up with experts in machine learning at Google to map out the neural circuitry, connections, supporting cells and blood supply in a speck of healthy tissue removed from the cortex of a 45-year-old woman who had had surgery for epilepsy.

Trump lawyers seem to be trying to seed idea that Daniels was more interested in getting a payout than telling the truth

Donald Trump’s lawyers sought to undermine Stormy Daniels’ credibility on Thursday, pressing on her motivations for agreeing to a hush-money payment as the adult film star continued critical testimony in the former president’s criminal trial.

Susan Necheles, a lawyer for Trump, asked Daniels to explain on Thursday why she didn’t just go public with her story in the waning days of the 2016 campaign and instead sought to get paid for her story. She noted that Daniels had been talking to a journalist at the publication Slate who had been trying to convince her to let him publish her story, but that she wouldn’t have been paid. She also suggested Daniels wanted to hurt Trump because Trump opposed gay marriage and abortion.

A guide to Trump’s hush-money trial – so far

The key arguments prosecutors will use against Trump

How will Trump’s trial work?

From Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels: the key players

Researchers say reducing emissions and biodiversity loss and preventing invasive species could control disease

Biodiversity loss is the biggest environmental driver of infectious disease outbreaks, making them more dangerous and widespread, a study has found.

New infectious diseases are on the rise and they often originate in wildlife. In meta-analysis published in the journal Nature, researchers found that of all the “global change drivers” that are destroying ecosystems, loss of species was the greatest in increasing the risk of outbreaks. Biodiversity loss was followed by climate change and introduction of non-native species.

Bayer Leverkusen produced another astonishing comeback to take their unbeaten run to a European record 49 games

4 mins: Half a chance for Roma! An excellent lofted crossfield pass finds Lukaku running past the last defender, but his chest control isn’t good enough, and though Koval is a bit slow to come out he’s close enough to the ball when the Belgian gets to it that he can’t chip it over him.

2 mins: Piero Hincapie and Bryan Cristante have a bit of a tussle on the right flank, and after the ball goes out for a free-kick the Roma midfielder goads him with a gesture I frankly struggle to interpret – it was almost a shushing finger over the lips, except it was a finger over the chin and maybe the bottom lip if you’re lucky. It’s all a bit bad tempered and the referee has a chat with them.

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Unai Emery: “It is clear Olympiakos are favourites and we have a very difficult task ahead of us.”

The TNT team pitchside are very keen to emphasise how lively it is inside the ground. Aston Villa have attempted to show they will not be intimidated by going to warm up in front of the most vociferous Olympiakos supporters.

Prime minister said that Israel will ‘stand alone’ if needed in its attempt to defeat Hamas; White House said that Israel invading Rafah ‘will not advance that objective’

• More than 100,000 flee Rafah as Israel steps up strikes, says UN
• Biden: US will stop supplying some weapons to Israel if it invades Rafah

White House spokesperson John Kirby emphasized during his Thursday briefing that weapons are still being shipped to Israel.

The clarification comes after Biden threatened to pause military aid to Israel if Israel launched a massive military assault in Rafah.

Biden’s “statement was the clearest conditioning of aid that the administration has made since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza”, [Politico’s] Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Haberkorn write. “And it sent immediate ripples through national politics, with conservatives accusing the president of abandoning a long-held ally and some liberals hailing the pronouncement.”

It’s hard to overemphasize what a big deal this is. For decades, American presidents from both major parties have supported Israel with few to no questions asked. But Biden and the administration have been increasingly irritated by Netanyahu for months, specifically on the threats to invade Rafah and the number of civilians Israel has killed over the last seven months.

• County to honour late spinner by wearing his squad number
• ‘Josh was a really special person,’ says coach Alan Richardson

Worcestershire resume their season against Kent at Canterbury on Friday, barely a week since the tragic death of their young spinner Josh Baker. The Pears were already among the most resilient of counties – annual floods at New Road, thin resources, often losing their brightest talents to rivals – but this trait is being tested like never before.

“Guys are still trying to process it,” says Alan Richardson, the head coach now trying to shepherd his flock through the worst of times. “A lot of them have never experienced grief before. There is still shock and a lot of sadness that will keep coming to the surface as we hit different milestones along the way.”

Relatives of Roger Fortson say deputies burst into wrong unit and killed Fortson when he reached for gun they say was legally owned

The family of a Black US air force airman who was fatally shot by deputies who burst into his apartment in the Florida Panhandle said Thursday that they want to correct a false narrative put forth by authorities about the encounter that led to his death.

The family of Senior Airman Roger Fortson planned to view body-camera video later in the day. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said Fortson had not known it was sheriff’s deputies who were breaking into his apartment – “his castle” – and that he grabbed his “legally owned firearm” to protect himself.

• Nadal recovers to defeat Zizou Bergs 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 at Italian Open
• ‘I need to prove if I am able to push my body to the limit’

Rafael Nadal says he has reached the point where he must let go of his fear of injury and “go for everything” in order to see if he will be able to perform at the highest level by the time of the French Open.

On Thursday afternoon, Nadal’s competitive spirit guided him to a narrow 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Zizou Bergs, a Belgian qualifier, in the first round of the Italian Open. He now faces a significant test against Hubert Hurkacz, the seventh seed, in round two.

The Israeli leader is dragging out the war and undermining a ceasefire for political reasons. Can Biden toughen up?

On Monday, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians in the city of Rafah to evacuate ahead of airstrikes, which unleashed fears that Israel was starting a ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city, where 1.4 million Palestinians have taken shelter. Hours later, Hamas announced that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal outlined by Egypt and Qatar. But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the deal and doubled down on his plan to invade Rafah and achieve “total victory” against Hamas.

It was a dizzying day in Israel’s brutal seven-month war on Gaza. But one thing was clear: Netanyahu does not want to end the war – and he’s doing all he can to undermine negotiations for a ceasefire and an agreement to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas since its 7 October attack on Israel. Netanyahu and his extremist allies fear that once the war ends, they will face early parliamentary elections and multiple investigations into the government’s intelligence failures leading up to the Hamas attacks.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University

• Teenager considered future USMNT star
• Expected to join City at 18 in pre-arranged transfer

Cavan Sullivan shrugs off words like prodigy, phenom or even wonderkid, all things he has been called at the age of just 14. But there’s no doubt Sullivan is talented. On Thursday, the Philadelphia Union formally announced that they’ve signed their academy prospect to a Homegrown contract that will eventually land him with Manchester City.

“I tend not to even listen to what they call me or what they say about me. It’s really just what I think of myself,” Sullivan said. “I don’t really listen to anyone, whether it’s good or bad. So it doesn’t really get to me whatsoever.”