Shasta county battles rising homelessness and high suicide rates, but its political agenda is focused on remaking the voting system - can the damage be undone?This is the second of three stories on the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 people in northern California that has emerged as a center of the election denial movement and hotbed for far-right politics. Read the first one here.Tim Garman is worried about Shasta county. His community has been in the midst of a dizzying lurch to the far right, gaining national attention for its rowdy and radical politics and full-throated embrace of election conspiracy theories. Continue reading...
A top emergency official says lies spread by Donald Trump and his supporters about Hurricane Helene have hampered recovery efforts. Plus: how to combat food wasteGood morning.Hurricane Milton is expected to sweep past Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and hit the south-west coast of Florida by Wednesday evening local time, bringing sustained winds of nearly 155mph (250km/h) to an area already reeling from Hurricane Helene's devastation 12 days ago. Almost all of Florida's west coast was under a hurricane warning and more than a million people were told to evacuate.How has the Fema chief responded to Trump's falsehoods? Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have accused the Biden administration of abandoning" people and, baselessly, of being short of disaster relief funds due to money spent on undocumented migrants. (Fema's housing program, which offers shelter to migrants leaving detention, is separate from its disaster relief program.) Deanne Criswell, the Fema administrator, said these falsehoods were creating an impedance to our ability to actually get people the help they need".What else is the right saying about the hurricanes? The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been criticised for spreading false conspiracy theories that they can control the weather". Though she never specified who she meant by they", she has a history of promoting untrue conspiracy theories around the federal government, her political opponents and Jews.What will happen to disaster relief if Trump is elected? Experts say that under the controversial rightwing Project 2025 manifesto, which was authored by numerous former Trump officials, federal forecasting of severe storms and aid given to shattered towns and cities would be drastically scaled back.What else did Harris say? She vowed to raise taxes on billionaires and the biggest corporations in order to fund her economic proposals, which include plans to build millions of new housing units, tax breaks for new parents and $25,000 down-payment assistance for new homebuyers.Will Trump sit down with 60 Minutes? The CBS correspondent Scott Pelley told the audience that Trump cancelled an interview last week, with the Trump campaign providing shifting explanations" for why the Republican nominee had declined to participate, including that he did not want to be factchecked.What do the polls say? Harris has a narrow lead over Trump in national polls, though the race is in effect neck and neck in the swing states that will decide the election. Continue reading...
Trump led this demographic handily in 2016 and 2020 but younger white women are moving decidedly to the leftWhite women voters have been the backbone of the GOP for decades - but polls indicate their support for the party may erode this November, thanks to younger white women who are moving left at breakneck speed.In the weeks after the 2016 presidential election, after Donald Trump stunned the world by defeating Hillary Clinton, media outlets seized on white women to explain his shock win. Forty-seven per cent of white women voted for Trump, while 45% backed Clinton, according to an analysis of validated voter files by the Pew Research Center. Continue reading...
The Gulf coast of Florida is bracing for the impact of Hurricane Milton's winds and expected huge storm surge. Almost all of Florida's west coast was under a hurricane warning early on Tuesday, as the storm and its 155mph winds crept toward the state. Florida is is gearing up for what could be its biggest evacuation in seven years, with landfall projected for Wednesday or early Thursday in the Tampa Bay area. Weather officials said Milton was expected to bring heavy rainfall, flooding, a life-threatening storm surge and strong winds
Manifesto calls for drastic cuts to federal forecasting of severe storms and aid given to shattered towns and citiesWith communities still reeling from Hurricane Helene, one of the deadliest storms ever to hit the US, further pain in the form of Hurricane Milton is about to hit Florida. Experts warn such disasters will be deepened if Donald Trump is elected and follows the policy plans of the controversial rightwing Project 2025 manifesto.Under Project 2025, authored by numerous former Trump officials but disavowed by the former president himself, the federal forecasting of severe storms and aid given to shattered towns and cities would be drastically scaled back. Emergency management officials say the cuts would severely worsen the outcomes from a storm like Helene. Continue reading...
Any voter who is still undecided a month from the election seems like the sort who is unlikely to even remember to voteWho, exactly, could be an undecided voter in 2024? It's not as if the candidates do not draw a sufficient contrast. There can be few people alive these days, let alone few registered voters in America, who do not know much more than they ever thought they would about the habits, history, and inner psyche of Donald Trump, who has now been a singularly domineering force in national politics for nearly a decade. The Harris campaign has been trying to play their candidates' comparative newness on the national stage as an asset, rigorously keeping her from saying much of substance, but Kamala Harris, too, is by now a well-known figure: once a popular and high profile senator from the country's biggest state, she moved on to a busy, energetic, and extremely visible vice presidency.The candidates are about as familiar to Americans as they're going to get; anyone still saying they are undecided" now, just four weeks out from the election, seems like the sort who has been paying so little attention that they're not likely to remember to vote at all.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
While her husband boasts about overturning Roe v Wade, the former first lady is supporting abortion rights. It's almost as if she doesn't care whether he wins the electionMelania Trump has put her support for abortion rights at the centre of her forthcoming memoir - you might even call it the news line. This has confused some observers. It's hard to follow the logic of putting out the former First Lady's book right before the election, undercutting President Trump's message to pro-life voters," wrote one anti-abortion activist, Kristen Hawkins.Donald Trump, meanwhile, remains where he was on the subject, which is ... well, where is he, exactly? He wants the credit for overturning Roe v Wade - and probably deserves it, given that he appointed the hard-right judges whose views were decisive. But he also wants the issue of reproductive rights to stop energising Kamala Harris's campaign. Continue reading...
Joey Sides' peripatetic career included stints in Netherlands, Germany and Scotland (where he was sponsored by a hotel). The memories will last a lifetimeWhen Arizona Sundogs rookie Joey Sides walked into the Wichita Thunder minor league hockey arena in 2009, he smelled manure. It was little wonder: the venue doubled as a home for the local rodeo. But that was nothing compared to the stands, which seemed to go almost straight up. Behind the bench, fans could practically reach out and grab players' jerseys - they were that close. You could hear everything the wild crowd of about 10,000 said. It felt like mayhem in there," Sides says. The rabble threw beer at players and were dragged out of the stadium by security. I could hear one of the fans yelling at my buddy on the ice, saying, Hey, Jonesy! Mix in a salad, you fat fuck!' as he chucked a beer at him. It was insane."Then there was the time later in his career when another team purchased a decommissioned bus for the players at a bargain. That thing broke down, like, six times on us," Sides says. It got so bad that the players agreed that if it showed up for a game against Kansas City, they'd refuse to get on. But their coaches said the team owners would be upset by the boycott. So, they got on and rode. The bus didn't have shocks and Sides watched his teammates flying around, hitting their heads on the ceiling, while it drove over speed bumps. Going 75mph, the vehicle then blew a tire and the whole interior began to fill with dark smoke. It came to a screeching halt on the highway. The players sat on the side of the road so long, waiting for a new ride, that the sold out game in Kansas City was canceled and the players instead celebrated St Patrick's Day in a Podunk town bar, singing karaoke with locals. Continue reading...
The league is seeing successful kicks that once seemed unimaginable become routine. What's behind the upsurge in performance?In the first 70 years of its existence, the NFL saw two successful field goals struck from 60-plus yards.Brandon Aubrey, the Dallas Cowboys kicker, has already hit two this season alone. Continue reading...
I have seen how structural racism is embedded in the EU's institutions. A recruitment revolution is neededAs Ursula von der Leyen sweet-talked and bullied EU leaders to send more women to Brussels over recent weeks, I kept hoping she would also make her incoming team of European commissioners more racially diverse. Thanks to an unexpected twist of fate involving (very) complicated Belgian politics, Hadja Lahbib, Belgium's foreign minister, could soon make history as the first ever EU commissioner who is also a person of colour.Lahbib is the daughter of Algerian immigrants who was born and grew up in the Borinage, a coal-mining and industrial region in southwestern Belgium. She must yet, like other commissioners-designate, convince the European parliament that despite some past political mishaps, she's got what it takes to become the EU commissioner for crisis management and equality, the two - rather unrelated - portfolios she has been assigned. So it is not a done deal yet.Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company.Do 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...
Labour says it is committed to other overseas territories', but why? These colonial-era dreams are costing the country dearThe British empire still sends governments mad. Labour's Foreign Office minister in charge of its lasting shreds, Stephen Doughty, has granted the isolated Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to the sovereignty of independent Mauritius. This modest act of decolonisation makes sense. But the government wants to retain a joint US-UK military base there. Why? Britain no longer rules India or Singapore. A base off India, even a shared one, is pure imperial show.Doughty has 14 other overseas territories" in his charge. Among them are Bermuda, Pitcairn, Montserrat, the Caymans, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. The union flag will still fly over them; the Royal Navy will keep guard and sing the national anthem.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
In a wide-ranging interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, the vice-president was questioned on where her political positions had shiftedKamala Harris defended her economic plans, refused to call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a close ally and said she would not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for peace talks if Ukraine was not also represented, during a wide-ranging sit-down interview that aired on Monday.With the presidential race between Harris and Donald Trump effectively dead-locked, Harris has launched an unusually robust media blitz, which includes popular podcasts, talk radio, a battleground state town hall, daytime television, late night shows and Monday's network sit-down on CBS's 60 Minutes prime-time election special. Continue reading...
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed changed her plea in exchange for a reduced sentence for carrying a gun into a barThe weapons supervisor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film Rust pleaded guilty Monday to a separate criminal charge of carrying a gun into a licensed liquor establishment.Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed agreed to change her plea to guilty on the charge in exchange for a reduced sentence of 18 months supervised probation. Continue reading...
Republican nominee says attack - one of the darkest days in all history' - would not have happened if he were presidentDonald Trump marked the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks, which he called one of the darkest days in all of history", with a commemoration for victims and hostages at his golf resort in Miami on Monday night, but swiftly turned the event into an attack on Kamala Harris.He also repeated a previous claim that the attack on Israel would never have happened if he was still in the White House. Continue reading...
Misinformation spread by Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded recovery effortsA slew of falsehoods about Hurricane Helene, including claims of funds diverted from storm survivors to migrants and even that Democrats somehow directed the hurricane itself, have hampered the response to one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the US, the nation's top emergency official has warned.Misinformation spread by Donald Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded the recovery effort for communities shattered by Helene, which tore through five states causing at least 230 deaths and tens of billions of dollars of damage. Many places, such as in western North Carolina, are still without a water supply, electricity, navigable roads or vital supplies. Continue reading...
Aide says Republican governor is dodging contact with vice-president over Helene recovery because it seemed political'Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is reportedly refusing calls about storm recovery from Kamala Harris, more than a week after Hurricane Helene hit the state and two days before intensifying Hurricane Milton is expected to hit the south-west of the state.Citing a DeSantis aide, NBC News reported on Monday that the Republican governor was dodging the Democratic presidential nominee's calls because they seemed political". Continue reading...
Vice-president commits to always' support Israel's defense as Biden condemns vicious surge in antisemitism' in USUS politicians on both sides of the aisle issued statements marking the anniversary of the 7 October attacks, with Kamala Harris paying tribute to the victims and calling, in their honor, to never lose sight of the dream of peace, dignity, and security for all".Outside the vice-presidential residence, Harris, accompanied by her husband, spoke of the nearly 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, killed in Israel one year ago. Continue reading...
Far-right congresswoman says they control the weather' as top disaster relief official decries those making false claimsFar-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is facing condemnation following several conspiratorial comments amid the devastation of Hurricane Helene that seemed to suggest she believed the US government can control the weather.In a post last week shared with her 1.2 million X followers, the US House representative from Georgia wrote: Yes they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done." Continue reading...
Some local residents saw stark differences' between the responses of the presidential candidates vying for visibilityMayor Garnett Johnson didn't want to put his troubles in front of people wrestling with despair in his community of Augusta, Georgia. On Friday, he was upbeat as he spoke about shelter availability and repair trucks a week after Hurricane Helene mowed down trees and ripped roofs off of houses, leaving half the city without power. But as he talked about unburying Augusta while helping hand out boxes of grapes and bananas and carrots in a church parking lot to a line of cars stretching a mile and a half, he let something slip.We got seven confirmed deaths as a result of Hurricane Helene. I personally was ... unfortunately, I had to witness one, but we're getting through it." Continue reading...
Luzerne county manager faced legal pressure to reverse her decision to eliminate them over security concernsA battleground county in north-eastern Pennsylvania will have ballot drop boxes this fall after its county manager faced pressure and reversed her decision to eliminate them.The announcement on Friday came less than a month after Romilda Crocamo, the county manager in Luzerne county, said she was getting rid of the county's four drop boxes over concerns the county could not secure them. I cannot secure the drop boxes. And, you know, sometimes I have to make difficult decisions," she said in an interview last month. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent on (#6R9P5)
Rise in status of non-contact version of US gridiron game sparks hunt for talent in Britain's schools and parksMolly Winter threw a perfect spiral pass for a 30-yard touchdown for Great Britain under-15s against France at an empty Tottenham Hotspur stadium on Monday. In 2028 the west London schoolgirl could be doing the same in a packed arena beneath the lights at the Los Angeles Olympics.The rise to Olympic status of flag football, a non-contact version of the US gridiron game, has sparked a hunt for talent in schools and parks. The game's roughly 80,000 British participants suddenly have a plausible shot at Olympic glory. Continue reading...
Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump's transition team, says potential appointees are all going to be on the same side'A senior official on Donald Trump's campaign has said any appointees in a second Trump administration would need to prove fidelity and loyalty".The official also sought to distance the former president from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation plan calling for a far-right federal government in the event of a Trump victory at the voting polls in November. Continue reading...
Becky Hammon blamed her team's foiled three-peat bid on her players being fricking celebrities'. A return the top won't be easy, even with the world's best playerAround this time last year the Las Vegas Aces appeared to be on the brink of becoming a dynasty. They'd just brushed aside the New York Liberty to become the first WNBA team to win back-to-back championships in more than two decades, reducing a much-hyped clash of the superteams to one-way traffic. Those Aces were one of the best teams ever seen in men's or women's basketball, at least since the KD Warriors. It wasn't just their 34 regular-season wins (more than any WNBA team in history) or their record-breaking efficiency numbers. It was the execution, the intensity, the discipline and attention to detail: they were so unselfish, so dialed-in and everyone looked like they were having a blast. Their vaunted core four of A'ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray were each under contract for at least another year. What could go wrong?But the Aces' bid for a three-peat never quite left the launchpad. Candace Parker re-signed during free agency, before announcing her retirement at the start of training camp. They stumbled to a 6-6 start while Gray worked her way back from a foot injury suffered during last year's WNBA finals, racking up as many losses in the first month as they did all of last year. Wilson continued to show that she is the best player on the planet, earning a third Most Valuable Player award and becoming only the second player to win it unanimously, but Las Vegas were too often undone by backcourt inconsistency and the loss of their defensive identity. Wilson hinted at that back in August after her 42-point eruption was wasted in a defeat to one of the league's worst teams. Continue reading...
Erik ten Hag is far from alone in finding Old Trafford degenerating into a swirl of confusion around himOn Sunday, Aston Villa, fifth in the table, perhaps drained after Wednesday's euphoric win over Bayern Munich, drew 0-0 against a lower mid-table side. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't get the pulses racing, particularly not on a day when Brighton came from 2-0 down to beat Tottenham and Chelsea against Nottingham Forest degenerated into a 15-man melee. But this is Manchester United we're talking about.At some point, perhaps, the fascination will fade, but more than 11 years since Sir Alex Ferguson left, the soap opera remains as compelling as ever. How can the most successful team in English league history, the club with the highest average attendances, have got things so badly, so consistently, wrong? The basic law of football is that money rises, that the rich eventually prevail: for United to defy that basic truth for so long represents a remarkable commitment to mismanagement.This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Jonathan will answer your questions in next week's edition: if you have a question for him, email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, or reply directly to this email, and he'll answer the best. Continue reading...
Friends of mine in the Israeli peace camp express the hope that out of such great tragedy could come a peaceful resolutionOctober 7 is a day of mourning. For Israelis, it is a reminder they remain a broken nation, with 101 hostages (many, perhaps half, presumed dead) still held in Gaza, and a dangerous escalation in the north as Israel battles Hezbollah. As one friend wrote to me today: Just when we think it can't get worse, it does."There is Gaza: the heartbreak, massive civilian deaths, homelessness and hunger, resulting from the IDF invasion after 7 October, even as Hamas fights on and the Netanyahu government refuses to articulate a viable exit strategy.Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK and Israeli publicationsDo 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...
Ex-first lady tells Fox News husband who has boasted about role in overturning of Roe v Wade lets me be who I am'Donald Trump knew Melania Trump supported abortion rights since the day [they] met", the former US first lady said on Sunday.And I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I think I don't want government in my personal business," Melania Trump added in an interview with Fox News, during which she elaborated on a political position that left her at odds with the Republican party led by her husband. Continue reading...
Democrat responds on Call Her Daddy podcast to Arkansas governor saying she has nothing keeping her humble'Kamala Harris hit back at the Republican Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders's comments that the vice-president and Democratic White House nominee doesn't have anything keeping her humble" because she does not have children of her own.I don't think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble," Harris told the Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper in a taped interview released on Sunday. Continue reading...
LeBron James played alongside his son, Bronny, for the Los Angeles Lakers, becoming the first father and son to play in any NBA game together. The duo played just over four minutes side-by-side in the second quarter of the pre-season defeat against the Phoenix Suns. LeBron called working with his son 'one of the greatest things that a father could ever hope for or wish for', but admitted 'it was like being in The Matrix or something' when the two stood side by side Continue reading...
The former president claims to have never read Mein Kampf. But his use of blood and soil rhetoric is deliberateIf genealogy is destiny, as Donald Trump believes, then poison in the blood" - a phrase Trump repeatedly uses - determines the fate of nations. By Trump's logic, blood" is the true and final measure. Trump, like Hitler, appears to classify people and countries by blood" on a scale of their innate racial characteristics. Those features define the essence of nations, which are themselves delineated on a racial pyramid, with the purest and whitest, the most Aryan, at the pinnacle. True to his doctrine, the Nazis on his family tree must explain his penchant for Hitlerian rhetoric.Poison in the blood" was the core of Hitler's race doctrine as well. Hitler, too, believed it explained the rise and fall of civilizations. All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning," stated Hitler. It is also Trump's fundamental trope. We're poisoning the blood of our country, and you have people coming in, think of it, mental institutions all over the world are being emptied out into the United States," he said on Fox News in March. Jails and prisons are being emptied out into the United States. This is poisoning our country." Continue reading...
Trump's comfort blanket' told to focus on surrogate work in New Hampshire after losing to campaign chiefsTwo months after he swept into the 2024 campaign as a senior adviser and suggested he would be taking it over, Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump's onetime 2016 campaign chief, has lost that power struggle and been told to focus on being a surrogate, according to people familiar with the matter.The reassignment may sting for Lewandowski, who technically returned to Trump's orbit in a leadership role in the summer but quickly made enemies over his suggestion he would mount a power play and questions about whether the campaign mismanaged funds, the people said. Continue reading...
Trump-aligned state election board has passed a suite of rules that experts say will lead to confusion and errorsOn 20 September, the Georgia state election board voted 3-2 to require all counties to perform a hand count of ballots cast on election day to check the machine tabulations.It was part of a suite of rules a pro-Trump majority has blitzed through in recent months that observers worry could cause confusion and open the door to undermining the election results. Continue reading...
What rightwing outlets cover increasingly differs from the mainstream, furthering the bubbles a divided US lives inIn the last few months, Donald Trump has done interviews with rightwing Twitch streamer Adin Ross and a host of podcasters, including Dr Phil, comedian Theo Von, computer scientist Lex Fridman, and YouTuber Logan Paul - part of what the Atlantic has dubbed Trump's red-pill podcast tour".He's posted incessantly on his own social media platform, Truth Social. He did a live space on Twitter/X with the platform's owner, Elon Musk. He talked with Fox's Laura Ingraham and called into Fox & Friends and spoke to other Fox hosts and personalities. Continue reading...
Not only did they mostly ignore Israel's denial of Palestinian freedom, but also the contradictions in Israel's military strategyIn an alternate universe, the American media would have answered 7 October by putting Jehad Abusalim on speed dial. Abusalim, who runs the Washington DC office of the Institute for Palestine Studies, is not only from Gaza, but also a Hebrew speaker who is completing a PhD in history, Hebrew and Judaic studies. Several months before the attack, he had published an essay arguing that Hamas appears to be strategically conserving its resources for a potentially larger confrontation with Israel". It's hard to think of anyone within taxi distance of America's television studios who was better equipped to help Americans understand Hamas's massacre and Israel's brutal military response.In the days and weeks after 7 October , Abusalim used whatever platform he had to warn that Israel's response would bring destruction, not safety. Again and again, he predicted that Israel would obliterate Gaza without defeating Hamas. There is no military solution to this crisis," he declared on X (formerly Twitter) on 11 October. A ground invasion is unlikely to succeed," he added on 15 October. Israel is likely to kill ten times the number of Palestinians it has killed so far," he predicted on 6 November. But Israel will not achieve a military victory in Gaza." He also warned of a wider war. Many are assuming there won't be a regional escalation," he added, but they are wrong." Continue reading...
I'm nearly 50 and my hobby is sitting. Why did I decide to attempt a strange version of the handstand?Why on earth did I read about a five-week yoga forearm-stand workshop and think: That sounds like a fun challenge - I should sign up"?I'm nearly 50 and I sit down for my job and as my main hobby, so I don't know what hubristic derangement possessed me. Never book yoga when you're feeling energetic," a friend counselled, too late. It's like going to the supermarket hungry." I blame TikTok: I got cocky when I managed the shrimp stand-up" I saw there (you hold on to one foot as you stand from kneeling, using the other leg) and concluded I was ready for more physical feats. Was it a mini-midlife crisis? An out-of-body experience?Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Why was I so fixated on being right all of the time? Calmly, after a board game outburst, a seven-year-old set me straightI have my fair share of flaws, just like anyone else. Neither my caffeine habit nor my relentless fixation on the news cycle are particularly endearing habits, but those were mere trifles compared with my obsession with being right. From what colour to paint the kitchen to the origin of a famous quote, or even something as trivial as what to have for dinner, I loved to argue. Day or night, I was always ready to spar with whoever was unlucky enough to strike up a conversation with me.My challengers included my children, my wife, friends and even strangers. During these debates, I could be playfully teasing, passionately opposing, or even dismissively superior. But what was always true was that I was never really listening to the other person's perspective. For some unexplored reason, I would always consider my own argument to be more competent and would try to prove it in every possible way.Sergey Maidukov is an author who lives in Kyiv Continue reading...
The Bengals QB has 12 touchdowns and just two interceptions this season. Yet his team find themselves scraping the barrelIt's official: Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals is one of the unluckiest quarterbacks we've ever seen. The Bengals lost 41-38 to the Baltimore Ravens in overtime on Sunday, sending Cincinnati to 1-4 on the season. It certainly hasn't been Burrow's fault - through the first five games of the season, Burrow has completed 125 of 173 passes (a 72.3% completion rate) for 1,370 yards (7.9 yards per attempt), 12 touchdowns, two interceptions, and an outstanding passer rating of 113.6 (his QBR of 73.6 is the second-best in the league).But that hasn't been enough to stop the Bengals slipping out of the playoff race - We're not a championship-level team right now," was Burrow's brutal conclusion after Sunday's loss. Most of Cincinnati's issues center around a defense that has been especially awful against the run, and has forced Burrow to make as many big plays as possible just to keep his team in games - which he is certainly capable of doing. Continue reading...
This won't end until those in power understand that you can't have peace and stability while denying Palestinians their rightsI began to write this column last week in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. I started it several times, both on the page and in my head, as I travelled between occupied territories. In every location I started the column again, then failed to capture what is unfolding and has been for years. So maybe I will just start at what seems like the beginning, with the killing of Israeli civilians on 7 October - a year ago today.I say seems", because that is not really the beginning, but just another beginning as far as Palestinians are concerned. Another date after which conditions worsened and occupation and illegal settlements became more brutal. Because as the world's attention has rightly been on Gaza - then Lebanon, then, last week, the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel - Israeli authorities and settlers have, under cover of war, intensified their assault on Palestinians with renewed licence and relish. Again, that summation seems inadequate, a poor attempt at describing a reality that is nothing short of a living nightmare. The violation of Palestinians is so colossal in scale that I began to speak to the readers of this column in my head. I kept saying: I wish you could see.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...
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