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Alex de Minaur had a chance to win the first set, leading 5-3 in the tie-break, but Carlos Alcaraz would not be denied, coming back to take it 7-5 before playing a wondrous second...and here comes the genius.Here comes the Demon... Continue reading...

Local observers cite a reversal of social dynamics, a revitalized police department and violence interventionThe national conversation about crime is being driven by rhetorical attacks - and national guard call-ups - by Donald Trump, who routinely demonizes places like Chicago, Washington DC, Portland and even New York City, which has a lower homicide rate than Orlando, Florida, home to Disneyland.Somehow, we don't talk about Birmingham. Continue reading...

Americans are choosing between heating their homes and putting food on the table. Officials and utilities can prevent thisAs the stalemate over government funding and healthcare benefits continues, winter is approaching - but federal heating assistance, blocked by the shutdown, isn't arriving in time. Millions of American families are about to face an impossible choice: heating their homes or putting food on the table. As the senator for a state known for its volatile winters and as executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, we call on states and utilities to choose a different outcome for those families and shut off the shutoffs. A nationwide freeze on utilities' ability to disconnect customers from heat for nonpayment isn't about politics - it's about public safety.The breakdown in federal budget negotiations has frozen the release of funding for many of the essential services families rely on nationwide, including the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Liheap). Liheap helps struggling households keep their heat and lights on by helping eligible families pay their utility bills. With those dollars locked up in Washington gridlock, America's seniors and working families are now at risk of losing power - just as temperatures start to plummet.Edward J Markey represents Massachusetts in the United States Senate and is a long-time advocate for affordable energy, consumer protection, and climate action. Mark Wolfe is an an energy economist and serves as the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, representing the state directors of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and co-director of the Center on Climate, Energy and Poverty Continue reading...

Experts suspect that dust from the sea contains endotoxic bacteria membranes caused by fertilizer runoffChemical-laden dust from southern California's drying Salton Sea is likely harming the lungs of people around the shrinking body of water, and the effects are especially pronounced in children, new peer-reviewed research from the University of California, Irvine, shows.A separate peer-reviewed study from the University of California, Riverside, also found the Salton Sea's contaminated dust seemed to alter lung microbiome, which could trigger pulmonary issues that have been reported around the lake. Continue reading...

After 45 years as chief fake blood thrower, Ingrid Newkirk is still waging war on everything from leather to cashmere. Is she still relevant?Ingrid Newkirk was 54 when she thought she was going to die in a plane crash. It was late summer and the founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) was flying from Minneapolis in the US to the company HQ in Norfolk, Virginia when her plane encountered strong wind shear. The pilot attempted an emergency landing, but failed; back up they went.On the third attempt, with a teaspoon of fuel" in the tank, he finally got the plane down safely. During those moments, Newkirk, now 76, scribbled a will on a napkin. She has tweaked it over the years, but it still reads like a horror movie prop list: her liver is to be sent to France to be made into foie gras, her skin to Hermes to create a handbag and her lips to whichever US president is in power, to shame them for granting a patronising" pardon to a turkey each Thanksgiving. As wills go, it's straight out of the Peta playbook: an audacious stunt of the kind that has made them the world's most well-known, successful and in some quarters reviled animal rights organisation. I know I'll never be made a dame," Newkirk says, laughing. I'm too controversial." Continue reading...

White House is manipulating voting system, from redistricting to rule changes, to affect midtermsA year out from the 2026 midterms, with Republicans feeling the blows from a string of losses in this week's elections, Donald Trump and his allies are mounting a multipronged attack on almost every aspect of voting in the United States and raising what experts say are troubling questions about the future of one of the world's oldest democracies.While Democratic leaders continue to invest their hopes in a blue wave" to overturn Republican majorities in the House and Senate next year, Trump and some prominent supporters have sought to discredit the possibility that Republicans could lose in a fair fight and are using that premise to justify demands for a drastically different kind of electoral system. Continue reading...

Annual migration from frigid Canadian winter to Florida sunshine could become thinner as travellers look elsewhereThe annual migration of hundreds of thousands of Canadian snowbirds" escaping freezing temperatures in their homeland and heading to warmer US states such as Florida for the duration of the winter could be about to become noticeably thinner.Many have ditched plans to visit their southern neighbor and are looking to spend their valuable dollars elsewhere, largely put off by Donald Trump's escalating economic war with Canada and strict new immigration rules that have created fear and confusion. Continue reading...

Americans have shown a tremendous amount and variety of opposition - more than some may realizeA young white woman in yoga clothes berating masked ICE agents in a parking lot this spring. A pope speaking up again and again for immigrants. Furious judges dressing down the Trump administration and ruling against it time after time after time, in response to the blizzard of lawsuits filed by human rights and environmental groups, states, cities and individuals. A senator speaking nonstop for 25 hours and another flying to El Salvador to find out what happened to his kidnapped constituent. The biggest day of protest in US history as an estimated 7 million people showed up for No Kings on 18 October in small towns and red counties as well as big blue cities.Weekly protests at Tesla salesrooms earlier this year that succeeded in damaging the brand, depressing global sales and prompting Tesla CEO Elon Musk to retreat from his Doge slash-and-burn project. Federal workers resisting sometimes merely by adhering to law, truth and fact, and sometimes by speaking out as whistleblowers or in protests, as with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff who staged a walkout in late August in solidarity with senior staff who'd just resigned in protest against the health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's anti-vaccine policies.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell's Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility Continue reading...

Trump's team flirts with weakening the dollar, threatening US influence, low borrowing costs and global stabilityMagical thinking is indispensable to understanding Team Trump's economic policymaking. The White House often seems to believe two opposing policies can work together while one policy can do two or three contradictory things.A heavy dose of hocus pocus will be needed to make the administration's dollar policy work in the interest of the United States, for it appears that they want to end the US dollar's supremacy in global finance. Continue reading...

New York City mayor-elect refused to be in the shadows' in the face of Islamophobic attacks during his campaignAcross the country, Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants has shaken neighbourhoods, torn apart families and engendered a sense of panic among communities. But in New York, on Tuesday night, Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York, and an immigrant from Uganda, chose to underline his identity. New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant," he told an ecstatic crowd at Paramount theater in Brooklyn.The son of a Muslim father and a Hindu mother, he was born in Kampala, raised in Queens, and identifies as a democratic socialist. Almost every aspect of Mamdani's identity had been an issue of contention during the election. Earlier this week, the Center for Study of Organized Hate published a report highlighting the surge in Islamophobic comments online between July and October, most of which labelled Mamdani as an extremist or terrorist. Continue reading...

Back at the ATP finals one year after reaching the last hurdle, Fritz remains a top-five talent. It's a reminder that a certain major-title drought is not his burden to bearI would like to have some words with ESPN broadcaster Chris Fowler about what he said after Novak Djokovic beat Taylor Fritz, for the 11th straight time, in the US Open quarter-finals. Look - Fritz is American, Fowler is American - and sports often lend themselves to nationalism. A little bit of disappointment was appropriate. Instead, Fowler invoked the continued drought of American men at the majors: none of them had lifted a trophy since Andy Roddick in 2003, and Fritz had been the last one standing in the tournament.We all love a narrative, myself included. But come on. Even if Fritz had beaten Djokovic for the first time, force of nature Carlos Alcaraz was waiting in the next round, who Fritz has yet to beat in an official match. And if he'd somehow survived that, it would have been defending champion Jannik Sinner in the final, against whom Fritz had lost 10 of the last 11 sets. Alcaraz and Sinner had also split the last seven major titles (and Alcaraz went on to thrash a fatigued Djokovic in the next round). Fritz said in press after the loss that he actually liked his draw, because it presented the opportunity to beat the three best players in the world in succession. Fritz is more than within his right to aspire to the accomplishment; an athlete is meant to believe in themselves. But going into that Djokovic quarter-final who else in their right mind had the drought of American champions on the brain? Continue reading...

In a bid to exercise absolute power, today's crop of authoritarian leaders is recruiting - and exploiting - believersDonald Trump's crusading threat to invade Nigeria and save Christians from Islamist terrorists is typical attention-seeking. Surely even he must realise that unilateral US military intervention would invite disaster. And he's got his facts wrong. The threat of Islamist terrorism is real, but it affects Nigerian Muslims as much, if not more, than Christians. There's no evidence of genocide, contrary to the alarmist claims of US far-right internet warriors. Trump's intervention was about politics, not faith.In speaking out, he was massaging a key domestic constituency, not acting from genuine, God-fearing concern for our cherished Christians" in a land he's never visited. Christian nationalist votes helped clinch Trump's two presidential victories despite the obvious insincerity of his professed beliefs. His support among white evangelical Protestants is much higher than the average - 72% in April, compared with 40% among all US adults. Trump's histrionics about Nigeria were primarily for their (and his) benefit.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...

Charlotte, North Carolina, has the most cancellations - at 120 - as industry experts say other sectors might also feel effectsUS airlines canceled 1,460 flights on Saturday, the second day of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) order to reduce air traffic because of the government shutdown.So far, the slowdown at many of the nation's busiest airports hasn't caused widespread disruptions. But it has deepened the impact felt by what is now the nation's longest federal shutdown. Continue reading...

Trump urged Republican senators to redirect federal money toward direct payments to individuals. Key US politics stories from 8 November at a glanceDonald Trump on Saturday urged Republican senators to redirect federal money used to subsidize health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act toward direct payments to individuals, in an effort to overcome an issue at the heart of the US government shutdown.I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over," Trump wrote in a social media post. Continue reading...

Gregory Bovino was called out by a judge only two days earlier for lying about being assaulted by a protesterA border patrol chief claimed on Saturday that his agents came under fire in Chicago while conducting immigration enforcement operations, just two days after a federal judge said that he had lied to her about having been struck by a rock during a previous confrontation with protesters in the city.Gregory Bovino, the border patrol chief and frequent Fox News guest who has become the face of the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts, said on social media that his agents had been shot at", and subjected to vehicular assaults, physical assaults, impeding, violent mobs, vehicular blockades", for a number of hours. Continue reading...

Amid a historic government shutdown, some senators on Capitol Hill are working this weekend on an unpopular billUS senators are working through the weekend for the first time since the government shutdown began more than a month ago, but hopes for a bipartisan agreement on how to end the standoff, and keep healthcare affordable for millions of Americans, appeared to recede as Republican senators floated a proposal toxic to Democrats: scrapping the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare.The impact on Americans from the longest shutdown of the federal government in history deepened on Saturday, as federal workers went unpaid, airlines were forced to cancel flights and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits have been delayed for 42 million Americans. Continue reading...

Police say vehicle was involved in street racing before driver fled from authorities and then crashed into Ybor City barA speeding car fleeing police slammed into a crowded bar early on Saturday, killing four people and injuring 11 in a historic district of Tampa, Florida, known for its nightlife and tourists.An air patrol unit with the Tampa police department spotted the car driving recklessly on a freeway at about 12.40am after police said the silver sedan had been seen street racing in another neighborhood, according to a police department statement. Continue reading...

Wall Street Journal reports Kristi Noem arranged purchase to expand deportation flights and for personal travelThe secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, reportedly authorized the purchase of Spirit Airlines jets before discovering the airline didn't actually own the planes - and that the aircraft lacked engines.The bizarre anecdote was contained in a Wall Street Journal report released on Friday, which recounted how Noem and Corey Lewandowski - who managed Donald Trump's first winning presidential campaign - had recently arranged to buy 10 Boeing 737 aircraft from Spirit Airlines. People familiar with the situation told the paper that the two intended to use the jets to expand deportation flights - and for personal travel. Continue reading...

TikTok video shows woman speaking into camera and reacting to a loud thud before she says I just hit somebody'Authorities are investigating a newly surfaced video that suggests a woman who hit and killed a man while driving in the Chicago suburb of Zion, Illinois, on Monday night was livestreaming on TikTok at the time of the crash.The video in question was reportedly taken by a user in Zion, and it shows a woman behind the wheel of a car reacting to a loud thud by saying, Fuck, fuck, fuck ... I just hit somebody." Continue reading...

Democrat Sam Rasoul, a Muslim, won re-election to the state legislature despite accusations of antisemitismSam Rasoul, the Virginia Democrat who is currently the longest-serving Muslim state lawmaker in the US and who faced accusations of antisemitism over language condemning Israel's assault on Gaza as genocide, scored a resounding victory in Tuesday's election that he believes shows voters are craving honesty from politicians.Rasoul, an American Palestinian state legislator since 2014, strengthened his majority as he was re-elected to an area of Virginia where the city of Roanoke leans Democrat and the surrounding areas are deeply conservative. In an election seen as a referendum on Trump's policies, which have disproportionately affected Virginia, Rasoul increased his vote share from four years ago by more than 5% as Democrats trounced Republicans from the legislature to the governor's mansion. Continue reading...

Though Latino voters gave sweeping support to Democrats in Tuesday's elections, they're not a permanent coalitionLatino voters delivered sweeping support to Democratic candidates across multiple states in Tuesday's off-year elections, reversing what many Republicans had come to believe was a lasting political realignment after Donald Trump's historic gains with the community in the 2024 election .The rapid reversal represents one of the most volatile electoral swings in recent memory and threatens to upend Republican redistricting strategies that banked on sustained support from Latinos, the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country. It also suggests that Trump's appeal to Latino voters was highly personal rather than an embrace of the Republican party itself - a miscalculation that could reshape the landscape heading into the 2026 midterms. Continue reading...

As tens of thousands of military personnel work without pay and others are furloughed, a local pantry sees its numbers increasing as restaurants are losing customersWhen Jane Doorley and her husband Bill arrived at the Fairborn Fish Food Pantry they help run on 28 October, they couldn't get into the parking lot, such was the number of cars belonging to people seeking food.Our numbers are way up. Last Friday was really bad too," says Jane. Around 250 families, including 300 children, come to the pantry every day it's open." Continue reading...

Ticket sales at about 40% unsold compared with before president made himself chair of US performing arts centerThe Washington National Opera (WNO) is considering moving out of the Kennedy Center, the company's home since the US's national performing arts center opened in 1971.The possibility has been forced on the company as a result of the takeover" of the center by Donald Trump, according to WNO's artistic director, Francesca Zambello. The president declared himself chair of the institution in February, sacking and replacing its board and leadership. Continue reading...

This week, Mexico's president was groped in public. But a New York Times podcast is fretting about excessive wokenessLean in (to misogyny), ladies!Are you a woman? Do you want to rapidly raise your profile and get booked on the speaking circuit? Are you good at mental gymnastics?Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Commerce department expected to add about 700 more items with steel content to levy list at request of US firmsBusinesses around the world are steeling themselves for another round of Donald Trump's tariffs, this time on goods ranging from bicycles to baking trays, as US industry embraces a call for more products to tax on import.Small, medium and large American companies have asked the US Department of Commerce to add about 700 more items to an August list of 407 products already facing extra tariffs because of their steel content, which hit items such as Ikea tables with metal nuts and bolts and German combine harvesters. Continue reading...

New York's mayor-elect has taken on powerful institutions. With the World Cup taking place in his city, he should challenge Fifa nextAfter winning the election for mayor of New York City, an exuberant Zohran Mamdani took to the stage at his victory speech and said, If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power." He was alluding to Donald Trump, but the sentiment also applies to Fifa, the world's governing body for soccer.In September, Mamdani's team kicked off a Game Over Greed" campaign targeting Fifa's use of dynamic pricing for 2026 men's World Cup tickets, calling it an affront to the game." His petition demanded that Fifa cease its rapacious dynamic pricing scheme, place a price cap on tickets that are resold on Fifa's ticketing platform, and reserve a tranche of tickets for local residents. Mamdani, a longtime Arsenal fan, told the Guardian's Football Weekly podcast, I have long been quite troubled by how the supposed stewards of the game have opted for profit time and time again at the expense of the people that love this game." Continue reading...

Public health advocates praise rewrite of legislation backed by big-food influence operation AFITA bipartisan group of public health advocates have defeated a proposal to kill state food safety laws that was pushed by what some critics have called a faux Maha" big-food influence operation.The industry-funded group, called Americans for Ingredient Transparency (AFIT), suggests it is part of a grassroots Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement, but opponents say it is waging a campaign on behalf of big food companies that Maha figures typically criticizes - ConAgra, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Hormel, and Nestle among other food giants. Continue reading...

After the ex-host of the ReidOut was forced out in February, she launched her own streaming show on YouTubeJoy Reid hosted the 7pm hour on MSNBC for nearly five years, providing a daily dose of progressive energy and verve that led into the network's primetime programming. Then, in late February, Reid was suddenly forced out, and her show, The ReidOut, was cancelled as part of a broader programming shakeup at the network. Reid has since launched her own streaming show, The Joy Reid Show, and has a few things to say about the mainstream media she was once part of.Now that it's been eight months since you were abruptly fired by MSNBC, how do you view your departure? Continue reading...

Federal employees on social media share practical tips and document lives amid longest US shutdown in historyAs the US government shutdown stretches on after becoming the longest in history, influencers and content creators have stepped into improvised public-service roles by chronicling life without paychecks.Across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, federal workers have been publishing shutdown vlogs" that mix dark humor with practical tips. The federal shutdown has created its own internet sub-genre of resource directories, budget-stretching advice threads and mental health check-ins. Continue reading...

The fact that Latino stars were at the forefront of the victory over the Toronto Blue Jays sits alongside the club's near silence on the immigration raids roiling the cityFor Natalia Molina, a lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a third-generation Mexican American, the crowning moment of baseball's World Series didn't come in last Saturday's nail-biting finale, when her team performed one death-defying escape act after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.It came a game earlier, when two of the team's second-tier players, Kike Hernandez, who is from Puerto Rico, and Miguel Rojas, from Venezuela, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended the many negative stereotypes Donald Trump has been touting about Latinos since he first ran for president a decade ago. Continue reading...

Israel turns the violence up and down at will, maintaining full dominion over Gaza and the West Bank, then calls each pause a generous ceasefire'If you started attending one funeral a day beginning 1 January 2025, you would finish in the year 3887. That is how long it would take to mourn every life lost in Gaza. By then, your grandchildren's great grandchildren would be dust, and still you would be burying Palestinian bodies from a war" Israel insists was about self-defense. Even then, this number does not tell you about the thousands of ways these bodies were burned, torn, crushed and made anything but whole.And yet here we are, watching world leaders gather in Egypt for a peace summit" last month where the only people absent were Palestinians. The banner read Peace 2025", while Palestine's representatives were barred from the room.Ahmad Ibsais is a first generation Palestinian American, law student and poet who writes the newsletter State of Siege Continue reading...

Mamdani reshaped the electorate, bringing hundreds of thousands of non-voters out to the polls, from young people to left-behind immigrant communitiesOne of the main media takeaways from the 2024 election was the much-discussed vibe shift". That is, a resurgence of cultural conservatism and a backlash to the shifting cultural attitudes on race, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and the wokeness" of the Obama and first Trump eras. The conservatives were in control not only of the White House, but, more importantly to them, the culture. Corporations, media outlets, and even Democratic politicians who had sought to portray a tolerant, inclusive image rushed to match this new vibe.Of course, the evidence for this shift was scant. Trump had won the election without a popular vote majority, and a closer look at the results showed a more conventional explanation: voters, rather than yearning for the days before there were interracial couples in television commercials or demanding a military crackdown on their cities, thought that they were working too hard for too little and maybe Trump would change it. They wanted lower prices, higher wages and a feeling of security. A year into Republican government and its top-down imposition of a new vibe, perhaps the reaction shows there finally is a vibe shift. Just not the one they planned on.Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days Continue reading...

US president also praises Hungarian leader's hardline stance on immigration during friendly White House summitThe US has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions on importing oil and gas from Russia, according to a White House official, after Viktor Orban pressed his case for a reprieve during a meeting with Donald Trump in Washington.Last month, Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft that carried the threat of further sanctions on entities in countries buying oil from them. Continue reading...

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High court's order comes after appeals court rejected Trump administration's request to block November benefitsThe supreme court has issued an emergency order temporarily blocking full Snap food aid payments.The high court's order came after the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a judge's order that it distribute November's full monthly food stamp benefits amid a US federal government shutdown. Continue reading...

Karin Immergut said earlier she found no credible evidence' that protests in Oregon city were out of controlA federal judge in Oregon on Friday blocked Donald Trump from deploying national guard troops to Portland, ruling there was no evidence of widespread violence to justify federal intervention.The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, delivered her final order in the case on Friday. She found that protests near Portland's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence". Continue reading...

The high court's order came after a federal appeals court denied the administration's request to block an order to distribute November's full monthly food stamp benefits - key US politics stories from 7 November 2025On Friday, moments after a federal appeals court ruled the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments, the White House turned to the supreme court in a further attempt to block the order.Within hours, the top US court issued an emergency order temporarily blocking full Snap food aid payments, which nearly 42 million people rely on to put food on the table. Continue reading...

Viktor Orban had a friendly meeting with Donald Trump on Friday to press his case for a reprieveThe United States has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions for using Russian oil and gas, a White House official said on Friday, after Viktor Orban pressed his case for a reprieve during a friendly meeting with Donald Trump in Washington.Last month, Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft that carried the threat of further sanctions on entities in countries that buy oil from those firms. Continue reading...

Chuck Schumer offered a deal to reopen the government in exchange for a one-year healthcare subsidies extension

Footage shows commotion inside vehicle in Massachusetts as desperate woman in passenger seat tries to awaken manUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing fierce questions after a video that appeared to show a man falling unconscious during an arrest while clutching a small child went viral, and officials accused the man of faking a medical emergency to stop the arrest of his wife.The footage, obtained by the Boston Globe, shows a frantic commotion inside a vehicle in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, on Thursday. A desperate woman in the passenger seat tries to awaken the man in the driver's seat, with a crying child in the middle. People can be heard shouting: He's having a seizure." An officer can be seen trying to pull the passengers from the vehicle, while a Fitchburg police officer orders the crowd to back up" repeatedly. Continue reading...

Officers found Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez dead after she accidentally went to a wrong propertyAuthorities in Indiana are considering whether to charge a homeowner who they say shot and killed a woman after she mistakenly went to the wrong address where she thought she was turning up to clean a property.Police officers found Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez, 32, dead just before 7am Wednesday on the front porch of a home in Whitestown, an Indianapolis suburb of about 10,000 people. Continue reading...

Administration has long accused South Africa of allowing white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attackedDonald Trump said Friday that no US government officials would be attending the Group of 20 summit this year in South Africa, citing the country's treatment of white farmers.The US president had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe's leading and emerging economies. JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump's place, but a person familiar with Vance's plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit. Continue reading...

President asks justice department to open an investigation but provides no proof to support his allegationsDonald Trump on Friday accused foreign-owned meat packers of driving up the price of beef in the US and asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation.The Republican president announced the move on social media days after his party suffered losses in key elections in which the winning Democratic candidates focused relentlessly on the public's concerns about the cost of living. Continue reading...

Travellers forced to adjust their plans as longest shutdown on record continues with no sign of resolution

Aryna Sabalenka came through a gripping three-set battle with Amanda Anisimova and will face Elena Rybakina, who fought back to defeat Jessica Pegula in the first semi-finalFirst set: Pegula 2-2* Rybakina (*denotes next server) Rybakina had started the stronger but lost her way in that last service game. Can Pegula back up the break? An early double fault doesn't help matters, and Rybakina outlasts her in a rally to earn break point. From the middle of the court, Rybakina lands an inside-out forehand on the line, and we're back on serve.Cam Norrie is playing in the Metz semi-finals; he's trailing Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 0-1. In Athens, Novak Djokovic is facing Yannick Hanfmann; it's on serve in their semi-final. Continue reading...