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District attorney's office confident they've identified Esther Gonzalez's killer nearly five decades after violent deathA man who was cleared in the 1979 rape and murder of a teenage girl after passing a polygraph test has now been identified as her suspected killer due to DNA evidence, California authorities announced.The body of Esther Gonzalez was found in a snowpack off a highway near Banning, California, on 10 February 1979. Gonzalez had been walking from her parents' home to her sister's house the previous night when she was attacked, raped and bludgeoned to death, according to authorities. She was 17 years old. Continue reading...

President-elect alarms ethics experts by neglecting to sign agreement that requires disclosure of donor identitiesThe identities of private donors funding Donald Trump's presidential transition are being kept secret in a break with precedent that is obscuring which groups, businesses or wealthy individuals are helping to launch his second presidency.The president-elect has been able to maintain secrecy over his financial backers by neglecting to sign an agreement with the outgoing Biden administration that would put strict limits on private funding in exchange for up to $7.2m in federal funding for his transition effort. Continue reading...

Bank of England's Swati Dhingra says threatened 60% tariff could lead exporters to cut prices elsewhereDonald Trump imposing massive US tariffs on Chinese imports could drag down global inflation by lowering the price of goods in other countries, a senior Bank of England policymaker has said.Swati Dhingra, an external member of the Bank's rate-setting monetary policy committee, said Trump imposing a threatened 60% tariff on goods from China sold in the US could lead Chinese exporters to cut their prices elsewhere to ensure they maintained current trade volumes. Continue reading...

Manchester City's struggles could be a blip or the start of terminal decline. We will see how one of the all-time great managers handles the conundrum

Rand Paul of Kentucky argues president-elect should instead use law enforcement to expel immigrants from USRand Paul, a Republican senator of Kentucky, has criticized Donald Trump's proposed use of the US military to conduct mass deportations of immigrants when he returns to the White House.While Paul still supports Trump's plans to expel millions of immigrants from the US, the lawmaker has opposed using the US military to do so, arguing that law enforcement would be better suited. Continue reading...

Judge will address abuse evidence in 1989 murder convictions, with immediate freedom as one possible resultA judge will decide Monday whether new evidence warrants a re-examination of the convictions of Erik and Lyle Menendez in the murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home more than 30 years ago.The brothers were found guilty of murdering Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. While their defense attorneys argued at trial that they had been sexually abused by their father, prosecutors denied that and accused them of killing their parents for money. In the years that followed, they repeatedly appealed their convictions without success. Continue reading...

Discourse on social media platform lacked toxicity of the old place but there were signs it will eventually go that wayHello, I'm new here, though you might know me from the other place. The sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight, I'm here for good humour and polite social media intercourse. Thanks for the starter pack. Welcome, then, to Bluesky, where the algorithm isn't jammed hard-right, the self-policing not too strong-arm, though there was that strange chap who listed the schools everyone attended.After the Twitterectomy (to use Nick Cave's indelicate term for this liberal migration) to a promised land where Elon Musk doesn't quote-tweet articles on the Great Replacement Theory as being interesting". Now, how would this new Xanadu shape up when placed into the hottest kiln of public debate known to humankind? Forget geopolitics and burning social issues, forget even Donald Trump, the truest test is a Premier League weekend. Continue reading...

Organizers demand better workers' rights and climate action. Plus, Israeli killing of journalists in Lebanon could be war crime, experts say

Revealed: Pete Hegseth writes scathingly of key institutions and says If you love America, you should love Israel'Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, has attacked several key US alliances such as Nato, allied countries such as Turkey and international institutions such as the United Nations in two recent books, as well as saying US troops should not be bound by the Geneva conventions.At the same time, the man who would head America's gigantic military has tied US foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: If you love America, you should love Israel." Continue reading...

Trump's health department pick has expressed distrust of pharmaceuticals and attacked suppression of psychedelics'Public health experts are concerned that, if confirmed, Donald Trump's choice for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - Robert F Kennedy Jr - could upend access to pharmaceutical drugs in favor of more experimental treatments.Kennedy, who the president-elect picked earlier this month, has repeatedly expressed distrust for pharmaceuticals, and criticized the FDA for its aggressive suppression of psychedelics". On his podcast, he called the US the sickest country in the world", blaming its healthcare system for devoting billions to the pills and the potions and the powders rather than on actually getting people healthy, building their immune systems". Continue reading...

After Dobbs, pro-choice advocates have emphasized women in medical crises. But those tragic cases are a limited pictureA Kentucky woman known by the pseudonym Mary Poe recently filed a lawsuit against her state, seeking an abortion for what was once a banal reason: because she wanted one.Poe, who was about seven weeks pregnant at the time of the lawsuit's filing, has since had an abortion out of state. But her attorneys argue that she still has standing to sue to overturn Kentucky's two abortion bans - a six-week ban and a separate total ban - arguing that the laws violate the state constitution. This much, at least, is typical: lawsuits challenging abortion bans have sprung up across the country since Dobbs, with women and their families seeking to overturn bans, expand exceptions, or get some compensation from the state for the graphic, distressing, disabling or deadly outcomes that the bans have made them suffer.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

All too often, staying fit is about vanity and status. The slower and wheezier I become, the more I realise it's also about survivalHave you recently seen a sweating woman with a watermelon stuffed up her fleece, wheezing her way behind a bush mere metres from a towpath to have a pee? If you have, please say hello next time - for that woman, I suspect, is me.At seven months pregnant, I am still running three times a week. By running", I mean hurling my lumpen body through various woods, fields and city parks at a speed slower than walking, while wearing a pair of gently disintegrating trainers. Do I have to stop every 10 minutes to empty my bladder? You bet I do. Am I running half my usual distance in twice the usual time? Yes, ma'am. Continue reading...

By decolonizing, I mean a transformative process that embeds the views of marginalized and most affected communitiesWell before US president-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in January 2025, the UN has been atrophying in power, credibility, and even relevance. The international organization has faced many challenges since its establishment in 1945 in the shadow of the most horrific chapter in modern human history. Yet few chapters of the UN have been darker than its meek looking on as Israel livestreams the genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza with total impunity".The fact that Israel's ongoing genocide is armed, funded and shielded from accountability by powerful western states, led by the US, has made this impunity more blatant than ever. Western hypocrisy in slapping Russia with the most severe regime of sanctions ever following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while fully enabling Israel's genocide and underlying, decades-old system of settler-colonialism, apartheid and illegal military occupation has also reached unprecedented levels, making a mockery of the west's claim of even caring about universal human rights. Indonesia's foreign minister at a recent UN debate on Gaza called on states to not bury the Principles of the UN Charter and international law under the rubble of double standards, trust deficit and zero-sum game". Continue reading...

In the dying moments of a crucial game against a hated rival, the Washington Commanders kicker was subjected to a brutal series of humiliationsIf you're under the impression that NFL special teams this season have been especially wonky, you are completely and utterly correct.Still, as weird as it special teams had been through the first 11 weeks of the season, nothing could quite compare to what happened on Sunday. Kicker misses and miscues have been legion, but Sunday saw far more blunders than usual. Continue reading...

The policy of the US and Europe remains the same: drip-feeding resources while never giving Ukraine the chance to push Russia out

For decades, Swedish politics has promoted individual success. Now an official booklet urges us to unite in case of crisis or war'Swedes are generally not known to panic or overreact. But many of us are feeling a little shaken after a booklet with a soldier in camouflage holding a machine gun, with a fighter jet tearing through the sky in the background, landed on our door mats recently.The government booklet, titled In case of crisis or war", was sent to every Swedish household as the threat of attack from Russia escalates. It signals the beginning of a new era in our country, with a bleak message about threats from war, natural disasters and pandemics. Continue reading...

Why is this simple explanation being so widely embraced? Because it does not require a commitment to real, structural changeThe day that wokeness died. That has been one of the primary analyses of Donald Trump's resounding election victory: that it was a resounding rejection of the woke" left and the casting off of the shackles of political correctness. According to sections of the media and political establishment, people are tired of being harangued and scolded for not using the right language, annoyed by a constant focus on race and identity, and alarmed by a new orthodoxy of radical politics eager to please individual groups at the expense of common sense. The era," summarised one British journalist, of Black Lives Matter, Latinx, critical race theory, pronouns and defunding the police is over." It's a neat conclusion - it's hard not to see this result as a rejection of something. But was that something woke" values in particular?As a starting point, it is worth looking at Kamala Harris's campaign rather than the assumptions about it. In reality, she seemed to avoid any focus on identity and wokeness". She didn't make much of her race, or even her gender, choosing instead to ground her identity in her background as a middle-class person raised in a rental household by a hardworking mother. Her position on race softened from when she was running in 2019: she previously backed some form" of reparations but did not stake out a position as part of her bid. Trump wanted Harris to say something to turn off white voters. She was wise not to take the bait," wrote the author Keith Boykin. She was hardline on immigration, keen to show that she is a gun owner (memorably telling Oprah Winfrey: If someone breaks into my house they're getting shot"). And she was evasive on gender-affirming care for transgender Americans.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Workers and their representatives to press US retailer to respect their rights and take action on the climate crisisThousands of Amazon workers are expected to protest or strike in more than 20 countries during Black Friday to press for better workers' rights and climate action from the US retailer..Workers and representatives from unions and workers' groups intend to join protests against the Seattle-based company's practices between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (29 November and 2 December), one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year. Continue reading...

First openly transgender person elected to Congress also hits back against bathroom restrictions for trans peopleSarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, on Sunday condemned Republicans' latest attack on trans rights as an attempt to misdirect" voters away from more central issues in communities, such as healthcare costs and economic inequality.Delaware's incoming Democratic member of the House of Representatives, who will join Donald Trump's new administration in January, also hit back against bathroom restrictions for trans people announced by the GOP on Capitol Hill last week. Continue reading...

James Lankford of Oklahoma predicts lawmakers will have tough questions for president-elect's nomineesA prominent Republican US senator pledged on Sunday that Congress would not give blanket approval to Donald Trump's controversial cabinet picks ahead of the congressional confirmation process, as a leading Democrat challenged the qualifications of some of them to serve.Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma predicted lawmakers in the upper chamber will have tough questions in particular for the former Democratic congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, who was chosen by the president-elect as director of national security for his second administration. Continue reading...

One person found dead in submerged vehicle in California as storm warning issued for Sierra Nevada through TuesdayForecasters through the US issued warnings that another round of winter weather could complicate travel leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, while California and Washington state continue to recover from storm damage and power outages.In California, where a person was found dead in a vehicle submerged in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more precipitation while grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm. Continue reading...

Democratic combat veteran says Trump's pick for defense secretary is inordinately unqualified' for the jobDemocratic US Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs after the army Black Hawk attack helicopter she was piloting was shot down during the US war in Iraq, on Sunday ramped up criticism of Donald Trump's nominee for defense secretary who argues women shouldn't be on the front line.Pete Hegseth is the former Fox News host and soldier tapped by the president-elect to lead the Pentagon and oversee the largest military force in the world, but he is steeped in controversy. Continue reading...

President-elect has become particularly reliant on Donald Jr for advice, sources tell ReutersDonald Trump Jr has emerged as the family's most influential adviser of the moment as his father builds the most controversial cabinet in modern US history, sources close to Donald Trump's eldest son say.Trump Jr has in some cases promoted inexperienced loyalists over more qualified candidates for top positions in president-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. Continue reading...

The ex-WWE CEO and likely incoming education secretary doesn't seem like a threat. That's what makes her oneDespite her background in professional wrestling, Linda McMahon is not known for bombast. Indeed, she's terrible at it: in the many years during which the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO would make occasional appearances in her company's programming as a version of herself, she was always derided by fans for her lack of charisma and wobbly speaking voice.The most notable thing she did in any of the storylines was pretend to be comatose in a wheelchair while her husband, the vastly more explosive Vince McMahon, sexually harassed one of his female wrestlers in a skit. Linda won't be winning an Emmy anytime soon. Continue reading...

Trump grew his support in nearly all of Philadelphia's wards - what went wrong for Harris in a key Democratic city?When Kamala Harris stopped at the west Philadelphia barber shop Philly Cuts just days before the election, its manager, James Browne, said the vice-president came off almost like a favorite aunt".Harris seemed genuine, kind, nice, very comforting" during the half-hour she spent in the shop while campaigning in the largest city in battleground state Pennsylvania, Browne said. Meeting her in person was very different than seeing her on TV." Continue reading...

After sticking with the Orlando Pride through nearly a decade's worth of mediocrity, the Brazilian was rewarded for her loyalty with her first win in a final at club level in 13 yearsFor so long, on so many occasions, it felt like Marta's time. On Saturday, it finally was.The Orlando Pride, captained by the 38-year-old Brazilian playmaker and spearheaded by incandescent striker Barbra Banda, completed one of the most dominant seasons in NWSL history on Saturday with a 1-0 win over the Washington Spirit in the league's championship game. The title is the team's first ever, and Marta's first win in a final at club level since the 2011 WPS championship with the Western New York Flash. Continue reading...

I'm moving house, which means coming face to face with a lifetime of mementos. I feel a burden lifting with each item I bin, donate or recycleThere is a particular sort of box that lurks in every home, full of memorabilia" or mementos". Baby teeth, divorce certificates, spare keys for locks unknown, your granny's old Padre Pio fridge magnet, the tenancy agreement for your last flat: the whole thing is rank with association, emotion, nostalgia and pain. That box is my nemesis. That box is doom.Because I decided that turning 40, being pregnant and training for a second career wasn't enough to be getting on with in a single month, I am also in the lucky position of moving house. Which means opening various drawers, boxes, cupboards and ring binders, only to discover a pit of painful sentimentality or logistical confusion at every turn. But listen to me: you can get rid of these things. Your child's reception maths book? Put it in the recycling, my friends, and feel that burden lift. A photograph of you, aged 16, at your first festival, wearing a pair of jeans you had turned into flares by stitching two triangles of denim into the ankles? Put it in the bin and never miss it. That second cheese grater given to you by a well-meaning uncle? Take it to the charity shop and delight in the feeling of relief. Continue reading...

As the far right celebrates a win for their gender, a raft of people accused of misconduct is named for the cabinetDonald Trump was found civilly liable last year for the defamation and sexual abuse of the writer E Jean Carroll - just one of the more than 27 women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. In January 2025, he will again be president of the United States - the first to take office with a court-adjudicated history of sex crimes.And it seems he's eager to pack the White House with people just like him. Continue reading...

The 42nd president's latest book is a prolonged stroll down memory lane that never quite reaches a desired destinationIn 1992, Bill Clinton defeated George HW Bush, a sitting Republican president. In 1996, Clinton won re-election over Bob Dole. A former Democratic governor of Arkansas, Clinton had a flair for policy and retail politics. He felt your pain, garnering support from voters without a four-year degree and graduates alike. He played the saxophone, belting out Heartbreak Hotel on late-night TV. Redefining what it meant to be presidential, he told a studio audience he preferred briefs to boxers.He oozed charisma - and more. But his legacy remains deeply stained by allegations of predatory conduct and questionable judgment. He is one of three presidents to be impeached - in his case, for lying under oath about his extra-marital relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Before leaving office, to avoid professional discipline, Clinton surrendered his law license.Citizen is published in the US by Knopf Continue reading...

Trump voters in the American heartland are excited, even as senior Republicans are less than enthusiastic about some of the president-elect's choicesIn the American heartland, they're excited. Finally, say voters who put Donald Trump into the White House for a second time, they are about to get the president they wanted all along.Even as leading Democrats decry Trump's cabinet nominations as agents of his contempt, rage and vengeance", the former and future president's supporters are interpreting the selections as evidence that he has finally broken free of the Washington establishment. Continue reading...

Max Verstappen secured his fourth world championship title as George Russell won the Las Vegas Grand Prix.Off the track, Russell is also a director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA), who are increasingly losing patience and confidence in the FIA and its president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem.Giles Richards has more from Nevada. Continue reading...

The 138-year history of the world chess championship is filled with games of rare precision, imagination and brilliance. Go move by move through 22 of them below

If we are forced to house these tiny plastic interlopers, perhaps it's time we sat down and had a chatDear the microplastics that live in my body, How are you? I hope you are well and enjoying the unseasonable humidity of my lungs, kidneys and blood. I'm writing today because I am likely to have housed many of you for years now and I thought it time to reach out. I just want to talk.And first, let me make something clear, I don't want to be thought of as a landlord. OK? I'm just a guy, just a normal little guy like you - I'm not some scary flesh monster who'll evict you for putting up pictures (as long as you don't leave holes in the stomach wall) or hassle you for rent. I may be human, but I am also humane. Besides, I couldn't get rid of you even if I tried. Nothing works, haha. Continue reading...

Unintelligible as it is, new book is part of a manifesting' trend offering the young and spiritually lost an illusion of controlWhat links these two news stories? The first: manifesting" has been declared Cambridge Dictionary's word of the year. The self-help practice, based on the magical belief that mental rituals can move the universe in your favour, has exploded in popularity.Having kicked around for years, it surged into the mainstream during the pandemic, when Google searches of the term rose by 600%. Since then, manifesting courses and retreats have sprung up everywhere, and celebrities from Dua Lipa to Simone Biles are now claiming they manifested" their success. Continue reading...

Watching the numbers migrate from Elon Musk's toxic platform is addictive, but the best social media is finite

The US doesn't need to spend more on Ukraine. Britain can bring funding to the table - and help Trump reboot alliancesWith Donald Trump the very meaning of words is up for negotiation. What does he really mean when he promises to build a wall"? When he pledges to end the Russo-Ukrainian war in one day?His supporters say they don't take him literally but seriously - but who decides what serious" is? The very ambiguity can be part of Trump's appeal. There's something exhilarating in the sense one is in an exclusive negotiation with the president to define reality. It's as if he's welcoming you backstage from the reality show of politics to the discrete board room where meaning is made. Continue reading...

Choice of president of America First Policy Institute completes top cabinet picks for president-electDonald Trump has chosen Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute, to be agriculture secretary.As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country," the US president-elect said in a statement. Continue reading...

Trump's former national security adviser says Gorka is the worst cabinet appointment in recent American history'Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton has laid into Sebastian Gorka, the president-elect's pick for counter-terrorism chief, as a conman" whose selection is not going to bode well for counter-terrorism efforts when the [national security council's] senior director is somebody like that".Trump praised Gorka, an immigrant from Hungary, as a tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement". Continue reading...

International criminal court's intervention must be supported if global rules-based order is to have a meaningful futureThe decision by the international criminal court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, Israel's former defence minister, for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza has huge implications for Israel and Palestine, for international justice and the rules-based global order that the UK and its allies are pledged to uphold. This unprecedented, necessary and impartial supranational attempt to prosecute democratically elected western politicians accused of grievous wrongdoing is a test the international community dare not fail.Netanyahu's reaction to the charges was to dismiss them as absurd" and antisemitic" and the ICC as a biased, politicised body. No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us - and it will not prevent me - from continuing to defend our country in every way," he said. Netanyahu will have to do better than that. This case is not remotely about antisemitism. It's not about Israel's right to defend itself, which nobody disputes. It's a matter of how it goes about it. It's a question of impunity and justice. Netanyahu and Gallant should voluntarily surrender to the court and fight their case.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

A woman in California also lost a fetus from the disease that US health officials have linked to Yu Shang Food IncA listeria outbreak linked to ready-to-eat meat and poultry products from a South Carolina food processor has caused 11 illnesses in four states, with nine hospitalizations, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).A woman who was pregnant with twins was also sickened. Both of the fetuses died, but listeria was found in a sample from only one. Continue reading...

Mark Rylance's sensitive portrayal blinds us to the lessons Henry VIII's righthand man could offer for Donald Trump 2.0Thomas Cromwell is back, and this time he's a romantic. In Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the latest BBC TV adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Tudor novels, we see Henry VIII's chief facilitator turn 21st-century empath, offering a listening ear to half the young women of the Henrician court.Mark Rylance, former artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, is an actor with an extraordinary capacity for vulnerability. Here he is at his best and most sympathetic. As Cromwell, we watch him safeguard the victimised adolescent Mary Tudor, coaching her to negotiate her way out of looming execution at the hands of her axe-happy father, Henry. (Cromwell made a promise to Mary's dying mother, you see, and he's a sweetie like that.)Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Jadion Richards, 44, and Akwele Lawes-Richards, 45, were arrested on 14 November in Minneapolis-St PaulA couple has been accused of stealing nearly $1m worth of Lululemon products from its stores across the US.Jadion Richards, 44, and Akwele Lawes-Richards, 45, were arrested on 14 November in Minneapolis-St Paul and have each been charged with one count of organized retail theft, according to a criminal complaint filed in Minnesota and reviewed by multiple outlets. Continue reading...

The PM and other western leaders are cosying up to Beijing. If the president-elect imposes punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, he will give Xi the upper handBoth were lawyers before they became politicians, but that's where the similarities between Keir Starmer and Richard Nixon end. The former US president resigned in disgrace at the height of the Watergate corruption scandal exactly 50 years ago. Britain's prime minister may have been unwise to accept free tickets from Arsenal FC - but he's not in Nixon's league.Except, perhaps, was there just a touch of Tricky Dicky about Starmer's meeting with China's president, Xi Jinping, at last week's G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro? Watergate aside, Nixon is famous for his groundbreaking 1972 visit to Beijing, which opened the way to normalised relations between the US and Red China. Continue reading...

National gun clubs field an influx of newcomers interested in learning how to shoot firearms for self-defenseThe misogyny and anti-trans rhetoric that were hallmarks of the 2024 election campaign have seemingly ramped up since Donald Trump's win, prompting some women, queer and trans people to respond by buying guns - and learning how to defend themselves from potential attackers.The Guardian spoke to various Americans from marginalized groups taking firearms classes, arming themselves with stun guns and pepper spray and taking their friends shooting in an effort to protect themselves from bigots they fear will be emboldened by the president-elect's return to power. A few left-leaning gun clubs say their numbers are increasing dramatically. Continue reading...