Arms talks spiral into confusion as Russia rejects US claim as 'delusion'

Top US negotiator claimed there was ‘an agreement in principle’ between Trump and Putin

US-Russian arms control talks have sunk into confusion when the top American negotiator claimed there was “an agreement in principle” between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a claim quickly rejected by Moscow as a “delusion”.

Marshall Billingslea, the US special envoy for arms control, said he had flown to Helsinki on Monday to meet the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on the understanding that there could be an imminent breakthrough in discussions on whether to extend the 2010 New Start Treaty which limits the number of deployed strategic warheads on either side, and which expires in February.

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Twitter suspends accounts for posing as Black Trump supporters

Company reports spam and platform manipulation by accounts containing identical language

Twitter has suspended a network of accounts claiming to be owned by Black supporters of Donald Trump and his re-election campaign due to spam and platform manipulation, it said Tuesday.

The company is investigating the activity and may suspend additional similar accounts if they are found to be violating its policies, a spokesperson said.

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Corporate feminism gives us vagina candles and empowerment hotels. But all I want is equal rights | Arwa Mahdawi

A new Washington DC hotel features pink pool tables, an Empowermint cocktail and Ruth Bader Ginsburg depicted in organic tampons. Its timing could not be worse

All women ever wanted was equal rights and bodily autonomy. Instead we got candles that smell like Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina. We got pink “pussy hats” and £580 Christian Dior T-shirts with “We should all be feminists” written on them. We got 15,389 articles about manspreading. We got #Girlbosses. We got Ms Monopoly, a board game in which women make more than men. And now corporate feminism has leaned into the hospitality industry and bequeathed us the empowerment hotel.

Last week, easily missed among the innumerable other horrors coming out of Washington DC, saw the opening of Hotel Zena. Located near the White House, the venue describes itself as “a groundbreaking hotel dedicated to female empowerment”. The whole thing feels like it was conjured up by Ivanka Trump in a fever dream – although the patron saint of fluffy feminism, I should clarify, has nothing to do with this particular endeavour. Hotel highlights include pink pool tables, a $16 cocktail called the Empowermint and 60 pieces of art, that, as the press release boasts, were created by “feminists of both genders”. The pièce de résistance is a mural of late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made of 20,000 hand-painted organic tampons.

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Barr reportedly removes national security official ahead of elections

The move comes after John Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist, told Congress his office would no longer give verbal briefings on election security

The US attorney general, William Barr, has reportedly removed the head of a section of the justice department entrusted with ensuring the legality of federal counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities.

The removal of deputy assistant attorney general Brad Wiegmann, first reported by ABC News, has not been explained, but it comes amid rising Democratic concerns that Barr and his justice department will seek to influence the conduct of the November elections in Donald Trump’s favour.

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Ron Jeremy: adult film star charged with 20 new rape and sexual assault counts

Charges involving 12 women and a teenager bring total number of alleged victims to 17 over 16 years

The adult film star Ron Jeremy was charged on Monday with 20 new counts of rape or sexual assault involving 12 women and a teenage girl, the Los Angeles district attorney’s office said.

The charges come two months after the 67-year-old was charged with the rape of three women and the sexual assault of a fourth in incidents dating back to 2014.

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Portland mayor Ted Wheeler to Trump: 'Stay the hell out of the way' – video

The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, launched a searing attack against Donald Trump on Sunday, saying the US president is inciting violence in his city. 'It's you [Trump] who have created the hate and division,' Wheeler said. Trump responded to the comments with a series of counterattacks on Twitter

• Fatal shooting in Portland as Trump supporters confront BLM protesters

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Trump ‘not worried’ about White House Covid-19 spread as two staff test positive

Katie Miller, press secretary to vice-president Mike Pence, is the second to contract the virus this week

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Vice-president Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House said Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week.

Katie Miller is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump advisor. She has been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president.

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Michael McClure, a famed San Francisco Beat poet, dies at age 87

His early work was overshadowed by Allen Ginsberg but McClure outlasted the Beats in a career that spanned more than 60 years

Michael McClure, one of the famed Beat poets of San Francisco whose career as a poet eclipsed many others in popular culture, has died. He was 87.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that McClure died Tuesday in Oakland, California, after suffering a stroke last year.

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'Swastikas and nooses': governor slams 'racism' of Michigan lockdown protest

Gretchen Whitmer says heavily armed men and Confederate flags at state capitol ‘depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history’

Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan issued a rebuke of the armed protesters who gathered inside the state capitol last week in defiance of statewide lockdown orders, saying the demonstrators embodied some of the “worst racism” of the nation’s history.

“Some of the outrageousness of what happened at our capitol depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country,” Whitmer said during a Sunday interview on CNN’s State of the Union.

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Trump offers rosy predictions for coronavirus testing as US passes 1m cases

President claims economy will rebound and suggests US, currently testing 200,000 a day, will be testing 5m ‘very soon’

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Donald Trump has predicted a “great” economic rebound in the fall and claimed the country would soon be performing 5m coronavirus diagnostic tests a day, as the number of confirmed cases in the US surpassed a million.

Some health experts have suggested that the US would have to carry out 5m tests a day by June to reopen its economy safely. Others have suggested as many as 20m tests a day would ultimately be needed. The US daily rate is currently 200,000.

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Coronavirus live news: Europe's death toll approaches 100,000 as US looks to lift restrictions

Trump says he doesn’t believe China and Iran death tolls; Spanish PM to ask for lockdown extension; Ireland ‘flattens curve’. Follow the latest updates

• Don’t bet on vaccine to protect us, says world health expert
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12.54am BST

We’ll have Washington correspondent David Smith’s story on the latest US developments shortly, but in the meantime, in case you missed it – US President Donald Trump warned on Saturday that China could face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus pandemic.

12.45am BST

Ireland has successfully “flattened the curve” of coronavirus transmission and no longer expects a peak in infections, chief medical officer Tony Holohan said. “We think we’ve flattened that [...] curve so much that there is no peak,” he said on RTE’s Late Late show on Friday. “We think we can go along at a low level and reduce it even further.”

He said nationwide adherence to a lockdown - imposed until 5 May - had “already saved hundreds of lives and admissions to intensive care”. There have been 530 Covid-19 related deaths and 13,980 confirmed cases of the virus in Ireland according to department of health figures released Friday.

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NBA Horse Challenge semi-finals and finals – live!

• NBA’s Horse competition concludes with semi-finals and finals
• Billups, Conley Jr, LaVine and Quigley vie for inaugural title
• Tweet Hunter at @HunterFelt or email him

10.38pm BST

Hunter will be here shortly. In the meantime, the Associated Press has the background for tonight’s title showdown:

Mike Conley Jr expected to spend this week starting a quest for a championship with the Utah Jazz.

He’s playing for the NBA HORSE title instead.

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Phyllis Lyon, LGBTQ rights pioneer, dies at age 95

She and her wife, Del Martin, were activists and mentors before there was a movement or community, said a longtime friend

Phyllis Lyon, an LGBTQ rights pioneer who, with her longtime partner, was among the first same-sex couples to marry in California when it became legal to do so in 2008, has died at her San Francisco home. She was 95.

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Opec and Russia agree to cut oil output in bid to prop up prices

Reductions in response to coronavirus crisis amount to 10m barrels per day, or 10% of global supplies

Opec and its allies led by Russia agreed on Thursday to cut their oil output by more than a fifth and said they expected the United States and other producers to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered in the coronavirus crisis.

The cuts by the oil cartel plus its allies, a group known as Opec+, amount to 10m barrels per day (bpd), or 10% of global supplies. Reductions of 5m bpd are expected to come from other nations to help navigate the deepest oil crisis in decades.

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'A reality check on the math': What's ahead for California and Covid-19

California has fared better than New York, but residents should expect to stay indoors at least until June, a public health expert tells the Guardian

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California officials this week described a “slow and steady increase” in confirmed coronavirus infections, predicting that the peak of the state’s outbreak will occur in mid to late May.

California has now recorded more than 370 deaths due to Covid-19 and 15,800 confirmed cases, nowhere near as bad as the surge ravaging New York.

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Hospital ship arrives in LA as California braces for crisis on par with New York

Navy supertanker offers 1,000 beds but mayor warns doctors will have to make ‘excruciating decisions’ amid coronavirus

The Mercy hospital ship docked on Friday morning at the Port of Los Angeles, joining California’s battle against the coronavirus as the state prepares to meet New York City levels of demand on hospitals, possibly within days.

The Mercy is one of two supertankers the navy converted to a floating hospital. Typically deployed to provide disaster relief, the ship has fully equipped operating rooms, a 1,000-bed hospital facility, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, and a landing deck for military helicopters.

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Tom Brady set to sign for Tampa Bay Buccaneers after leaving Patriots

• Six-time Super Bowl champion to sign with Bucs, per report
• Brady will be 43 when NFL season is scheduled to begin in fall

Tom Brady is expected to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after ending his 20-year career with the New England Patriots.

Related: Belichick hails 'exceptional' Brady as QB leaves Patriots after 20 years and six titles

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Coronavirus brings a silver lining for Los Angeles drivers: empty freeways

The city’s famously traffic-choked streets have emptied out as people stay home and businesses close: ‘It’s kind of crazy’

The traffic has left Katie Dahlon in an unusually good mood. It usually takes her 56 minutes to reach her home in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood in Los Angeles from her work in Santa Monica when she leaves at 5pm. Yesterday, it took 23 minutes. “It’s kind of crazy,” says Dahlson. “The sidestreets aren’t that different, but the 10 freeway is empty.”

Related: California: millions told to 'shelter-in-place' to stop spread of coronavirus

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Judge declines Ohio request to delay primary vote amid coronavirus

Governor recommended postponing in-person voting, but judge said he was reluctant to override election date set by legislature

A judge has declined to allow Ohio’s primary vote on Tuesday to be postponed over concerns about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recommended on Monday that his state postpone in-person voting during Tuesday’s primary elections.

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Sanders calls for 'unprecedented action' in fight against coronavirus in debate with Biden – live

• Event conducted without audience amid coronavirus
• How Sanders went from frontrunner to the last-chance saloon
• Biden’s hometown highlights his earthy appeal
• Florida: coronavirus fears could hurt voter turnout
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12.19am GMT

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are sparring over whether the coronavirus crisis underscores the need for an overhaul of the US healthcare system.

Biden is essentially arguing that America needs to take extraordinary steps to combat the virus but not necessarily long-term steps toward changing our healthcare system.

12.14am GMT

Joe Biden pushed back against Bernie Sanders’ argument that the coronavirus crisis demonstrates the need for a Medicare for all healthcare system.

Biden pointed out that Italy, which is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases and deaths, has a single-payer system, so the policy cannot prevent a pandemic, Biden said.

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