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Mark Kerr's rise and fall was captured in a cult MMA documentary. Now Dwayne The Rock' Johnson has brought his story to Hollywood with A24's The Smashing MachineIt started with an affirming nod of heads between two tough guys at a Santa Monica Gold's Gym in the summer of 1997. One-time Olympic wrestling contender Mark Kerr was training for his first Ultimate Fighting Championship fight, having dominated in a three-fight, one-night tournament in Brazil two months earlier. Dwayne Rocky Maivia" Johnson, a former NFL prospect sidelined with a knee injury suffered during his second year with the WWE, approached him.Can I take you to lunch?" Johnson asked Kerr, who obliged him at the Firehouse restaurant in Santa Monica. The conversation inevitably drifted to mixed martial arts, as Johnson peppered the 1992 NCAA champion with pointed questions about the unregulated sport. MMA was gaining popularity in Japan, where multiple promotions hired pro wrestlers for crossover" fights. Continue reading...

The EU and UK have imposed mandates, and investors see its value - but the industry has mixed viewsOne hundred years ago, the Italian aviator Francesco de Pinedo was attempting the unprecedented feat of crossing the Indian subcontinent in a flying boat. He later splashed down on the Tiber in Rome to national acclaim, having flown via Asia to Australia and back over seven months, taking off and landing in water 80 times.Aviation has been marked by stop-start journeys on hitherto uncharted courses to unlikely, if not unreachable, destinations. Today's collective act of faith - amid much scepticism - is in following an uncertain path to sustainability, through green fuels that are yet to be widely produced. Continue reading...

The mountain-running legend has just completed States of Elevation, scaling every fourteener in the contiguous US in a single month, powered only by his legsAs I waited for the sun to crest over Colorado's Front Range, adjacent to the sprawl of Denver-Boulder-Fort Collins, a west wind gusted, sending a shiver down my spine. With temperatures around freezing on a rocky ledge at 13,700ft, I searched for reprieve on the lee side of a boulder. I could see the city lights in the distance, but was more concerned with two headlamps approaching quickly, a few hundred feet below.Between us lay a slab of coarse granite, known as the Cables Route. It's the most direct way to the summit of Longs Peak, but is less travelled because it's rated a class 5 rock climb and often carries a river of verglas - black ice - running down it, which climbers must navigate. Continue reading...

US president welcomes Hamas response to his Gaza plan despite group saying further negotiations are required over details. This blog is now closed.

Governor Gavin Newsom signs measure opening path to more than 800,000 drivers to bargain for wages and benefitsMore than 800,000 ride-hailing drivers in California will soon be able to join a union and negotiate for higher wages and better benefits under a measure signed Friday by the governor, Gavin Newsom.Supporters said the new law will open a path for the largest expansion of private-sector collective bargaining rights in the state's history. The legislation is a significant compromise in the years-long battle between labor unions and tech companies. Continue reading...

Richard Fatherly was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Charles Adair, arrested a day before his deathA white Kansas sheriff's deputy charged with murder in the death of an incarcerated Black person shoved his knee into the cuffed man's back for 1 minute and 26 seconds after he was wheeled back to his cell from the infirmary, newly released court records show.Richard Fatherly was charged last month with second-degree murder and an alternative count of involuntary manslaughter in Charles Adair's 5 July death in the Wyandotte county detention center in Kansas City, Kansas. Adair had been arrested one day before his death on misdemeanor warrants for failure to appear on multiple traffic violations. Continue reading...

President says Israel must stop the bombing of Gaza' while Palestinian group says it wants further negotiations over plan - key US politics stories from 3 October at a glanceHamas said on Friday it approved parts of Donald Trump's ultimatum to end the war in Gaza, agreeing to a hostage exchange and to surrender governing power in the Gaza Strip, but insisted on further negotiations over aspects of the plan.The group did not say whether it would lay down its arms - a key part of Trump's proposal - and kept its response vague to other parts of the 20-part proposal unveiled on Monday. Continue reading...

Combs, who was convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution', sentenced in New York. This blog is now closed.The prosecution submitted several victim impact statements to the court ahead of sentencing, including one from Ventura.While the jury did not seem to understand or believe that I engaged in freak-offs because of the force and coercion the defendant used against me, I know that is the truth, and his sentence should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim" Ventura wrote. Continue reading...

Voluntary departure has always been an option, but astonishing' decision to incentivize children to leave is newThe Trump administration wants to offer immigrant children $2,500 to self-deport, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.The memo, sent by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to legal providers representing unaccompanied children and reviewed by the Guardian, says that immigration officials have identified unaccompanied immigrant children 14 years of age and older in government custody who have expressed interest in voluntarily departing the US. Continue reading...

Mogul appeared shocked after sentence read out to hushed courtroom but prosecutors disappointed by 50-month termSean Diddy" Combs held his head in his hands and appeared to be stunned when a judge handed down a 50-month sentence in a New York courtroom on Friday for prostitution-related offenses.It was a sentence far less than the life term he potentially faced at the start of his sex-trafficking conspiracy trial back in May, but Combs appeared shocked by the outcome. The judgment came just minutes after Combs had pleaded with Judge Arun Subramanian that he took full accountability and responsibility" for his actions, and stating that he was a changed man who would, if released, devote himself to his family and community. Continue reading...

Sophie Roske pleaded guilty in April to attempted assassination and faced potential sentence of life in prisonA California resident who admitted trying to assassinate the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 was sentenced on Friday to eight years and one month in federal prison.Sophie Roske, who was charged under her birth name Nicholas Roske but now uses female pronouns, was sentenced at a hearing before US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland. Continue reading...

Justices' order puts on hold lower-court ruing that found officials had wrongly ended temporary protected statusThe US supreme court on Friday allowed Donald Trump's administration to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.The justices issued an emergency order, which will last as long as the court case continues, putting on hold a lower-court ruling by US district judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that found the president's administration had wrongly ended temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans. The three liberal justices dissented. Continue reading...

FBI director Kash Patel said agency would sever ties with Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation LeagueKash Patel, the FBI director, says the agency is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of president Donald Trump.Patel said on Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), asserting that the organization had been turned into a partisan smear machine" and criticizing it for its use of a hate map" that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the US. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism. Continue reading...

Leqaa Kordia has been held since March for overstaying a visa, after participating in multiple pro-Palestinian protestsGrowing up in the West Bank, Leqaa Kordia was separated from family in Gaza by Israeli restrictions on movement between the territories. So aunts and uncles in Gaza would call from the beach there, allowing Kordia to share her cousins' laughter and glimpse the waves.Now many of those relatives are dead, killed in the war that has destroyed much of the Gaza Strip. And more than 200 days after Kordia was swept up in the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, she despairs over being unable to give her family a voice. Continue reading...

On the ground in the Oregon city, with rich fall colors and leafy hiking trails, things look different than on Trump's TVIn Portland, Oregon, a city Donald Trump claims to have seen burning down to the ground" on his television, residents are pushing back on the US president's false depiction of their tranquil city as a war zone.Trump, who refuses to accept firsthand accounts from Oregon's governor and the Portland mayor that the widespread unrest he thinks he's seen on television is not actually happening, has ordered the military in to the Pacific north-west city. Continue reading...

Democratic and Republican proposals fail to cross 60-vote threshold as impasse persists and Trump plots more cuts

OMB director Russ Vought presented the pause as a move against diversity efforts in latest jab to Democratic-led cityThe US government has put $2.1bn in funding for infrastructure projects in Chicago on hold, Russ Vought, the office of management and budget director, said on Friday, in another jab at a Democratic-led city during the federal government shutdown, presented as a move against diversity efforts.Vought said the money for major projects on Chicago's subway mass transit system - including extensions of the Red Line route and modernizations have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting". Continue reading...

Raunaq Alam and two others were arrested in connection with graffiti on wall of non-denominational churchA Texas man facing hate-crime charges for spray painting Fuck Israel" on to the wall of a non-denominational church was sentenced to six months in jail after a judge overruled a jury recommendation that he only receive community supervision.Raunaq Alam, 32, and two other people were arrested in 2024 in connection with the graffiti on the wall of Uncommon Church. The church was flying the Israeli flag and has published several social media posts about their support for the Israeli government and military, which many experts say is committing genocide in Gaza. Continue reading...

The Tory leader's warped analysis of why her party is unpopular has lead her into strategic misjudgments and terrible policy choicesLast year's Conservative conference, held in the aftermath of a crushing election defeat, was billed as a parade for leadership candidates to set out their recovery plans. The talent pool was shallow. The contest winner, Kemi Badenoch, said nothing to suggest she was equipped for the challenge of renewing her party as a potential force of government. So it has proved.Mrs Badenoch goes into her first party conference as leader with the Tories in worse shape than they were in a year ago. Their opinion poll rating is consistently lower than the 23.7% they managed under Rishi Sunak in the general election. One MP has defected to Nigel Farage's Reform UK. More will follow if they don't see a route back to power under their current leader. Continue reading...

Guardian readers said they agreed with the Democrats' position - but some shared concerns about their tacticsThe US federal government shut down on Wednesday after Democrats opted against voting for a Republican funding plan in order to seek concessions on healthcare and other priorities.It is the Democrats' first major opportunity to make a stand in Congress since voters re-elected Donald Trump last year and relegated them to the minority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Yet it comes with risks - previous shutdowns have not accomplished much for whichever party instigates them, and the Trump administration has threatened to use the funding lapse to intensify its campaign of laying off federal workers. Continue reading...

The president has been rapidly intensifying military operations on United States soil during his second term. Generals need to say somethingAt what point will the US's top military brass decide that enough is enough, that loyalty to the constitution and the rule of law supersedes blind fealty to job and Donald Trump?The question is hardly academic. The president has been rapidly intensifying military operations on United States soil during his second term. In April, he began expanding the military presence along parts of the US's southern border by establishing so-called national defense areas". Troops are now authorized to search, question and detain people in those zones, dangerously muddling the line between military rule and civilian law enforcement.Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York Continue reading...

Plea to Congress from 74 legal, religious and advocacy groups comes in wake of Guardian reporting on cuts to federal efforts to combat human traffickingAnti-trafficking groups across the US have sent Congress a letter raising alarms about the Trump administration's failure to release $88m in funding to protect survivors of human trafficking.The letter from 74 legal, religious and advocacy groups says that the US Department of Justice has frozen funding for more than 100 service organizations across the country that help victims escape their traffickers" and gain access to the services and support that they need to survive". Continue reading...

Removal comes after Emmy-winning Salvadorian reporter was arrested while covering No Kings Day' protestJournalist Mario Guevara's imprisonment by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) ended with deportation to El Salvador on Friday, his family announced on social media.Guevara has been a media mainstay in the Atlanta area for about 20 years, after fleeing El Salvador to escape leftwing militias in 2004. Though he has a work permit and two of his children are American citizens, he has operated under the administrative closure" of deportation orders for much of that time. Continue reading...

Jeanne Marrazzo's complaint reportedly involved the Trump administration's hostility toward vaccinesThe US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fired a top scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) just three weeks after she had filed a whistleblower complaint against the Trump administration relating to its hostility towards vaccines, according to a report.Jeanne Marrazzo has been removed from her NIH job, the New York Times reported. She had already been demoted in March from her senior position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Continue reading...

I always figured it would just happen at some point. Talk about an immaculate misconceptionIt hit me hard, out of nowhere.I'm never going to have children.Shanti Nelson is a writer and photographer Continue reading...

No injuries reported in El Segundo, site of company's second-biggest US refinery, which supplies jet fuel for LA airportA fire that broke out at Chevron's El Segundo refinery that supplies jet fuel for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) was still burning on Friday morning after an explosion at the plant.The press office of Gavin Newsom, the California governor, had confirmed that the fire erupted on Thursday night on the outskirts of the city, with a county official adding that the flames had been confined to one area. Continue reading...

Advances in DNA testing led to a suspect in the deaths of four girls. Can lab results now link a serial killer to other violent crimes?On 6 December 1991, a Friday, Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas, both 17, were closing the frozen yoghurt shop where they worked while Jennifer's sister, 15-year-old Sarah Harbison, and 13-year-old Amy Ayers, her friend, waited for a ride from Jennifer.Moments before midnight, a fire at the shop drew first responders, who discovered the four girls had been bound and murdered, with signs of sexual assault. The fire destroyed nearly all evidence, save for a shell casing that had rolled into a drain and trace amounts of DNA, including under Ayers' fingernails. Continue reading...

Critics of new GOP act say it is a mass incarceration bill' that forces harsh penalties on migrants for a non-violent offenseRepublicans members of Congress have rallied behind a new approach to deterring unauthorized immigration - jailing migrants for a decade at a time.The GOP has toyed with the idea of imposing mandatory minimums on immigration offenses for a decade, most famously with a proposal called Kate's Law", which would have imposed five-year sentences on those convicted of illegal re-entry with certain criminal histories. Continue reading...

Actions could be a violation of legislation that prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. Plus, how a plant-rich diet could prevent 40,000 early deaths a day globally

The Aces and Mercury tip off the WNBA finals on Friday. Our writers give their verdicts as Las Vegas aim for their third title against a Phoenix team hunting a fourth... of A'ja Wilson. The first WNBA four-time MVP ended the regular season on a dominant run that has somehow only gotten better in the playoffs. She closed out the Fever series with a 35-point performance that was a block and steal away from also being a rare 5x5 stat line. Jakub Frankowicz Continue reading...

In an unexpected soliloquy, the US mens national team manager made clear there's a method behind his selections, even if players may never know it.The thing to know about Mauricio Pochettino is that, in his view, there is knowledge in not knowing.In a meditation on his unifying theory on the nature of knowledge that called to mind Donald Rumsfeld's famous unknown unknowns" diatribe, the Argentinian explained on Thursday why he never tells potential United States men's national team players why they weren't called up. Continue reading...

Unlike his fellow basketball player, Brittney Griner, Jarred Shaw has received scant attention after being arrested for a drugs offence overseasWhen Jarred Shaw, an American basketball player in Indonesia, stepped down to the lobby in his apartment complex earlier this year to collect a package containing illegally imported cannabis gummies, he thought that the medicine to ease his Crohn's disease had arrived.It had - but so too had 10 undercover police officers. A video on social media shows Shaw, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, shouting for help as the swarm of officers move to apprehend him.The Indonesian National Police did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Continue reading...

Donald Trump recently launched Operation Midway Blitz' in the city and threatened to send in the National Guard. The mood is febrile, with fears things could get worseAt 5am on a warm September morning a small crowd of protesters assembles in the dark. They are gathering outside the Broadview immigration processing centre, a two-storey brick structure in the Chicago suburbs that has the ambience of a US outpost in a foreign war. Windows are boarded with plywood. Fences are lined with razor wire and black cloth. Masked Ice agents appear sporadically, dressed in military fatigues - tactical helmets, flak jackets and rifles.The protesters begin to heckle each time an agent turns up for work or leaves through a chainlink gate. Quit your job!" they chant. Take off your mask!" Continue reading...

The Trump administration ultimately gave the King a replica sword on the president's recent state visitThe Eisenhower Presidential Library's director has exited his position after advocating against giving a sword from the collection to King Charles as a gift during Donald Trump's recent state visit, according to US media reports on Thursday.Todd Arrington left his post on Monday after being told to resign or be fired", he told CBS News, which did not specify who had relayed the message to the historian. Continue reading...

This liveblog is now closed. To read more on day two of the 2025 government shutdown, click below:

The government has already announced the cancellation of billions of dollars in federal funding for projects tied to Democrats. Key US politics stories from Thursday 2 October at a glanceAs the US government shutdown stretched into its second day, Donald Trump on Thursday hailed the funding lapse as an unprecedented opportunity" to further his campaign of firing federal workers and downsizing departments.The president announced on social media that he would sit down with Russell Vought, the White House office of management and budget chief, an architect of the mass firings and buyouts of federal workers. Continue reading...

Administration attempts to justify strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats by claiming US under armed attack'The Trump administration is trying to justify strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats by advancing a novel legal theory that the US is now in a non-international armed conflict", according to a person familiar with a notification to Congress.The notification was provided by senior Pentagon officials as part of an attempt to explain the Trump administration's legal arguments for the strikes, including a classified briefing to members of the Senate armed services committee on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Abortion rights supporters hail win for evidence-backed medicine as Evita Solutions' generic version of mifepristone given approvalIn a move that has left anti-abortion advocates reeling, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly approved a request to manufacture a new abortion pill earlier this week.Thanks to the approval, a company called Evita Solutions will be able to manufacture its generic version of mifepristone, one of two drugs typically used in most US medication abortions. A generic version of mifepristone, which was first approved as a brand-name drug in 2000, is already available on the market. Continue reading...

Governor Gavin Newsom urges schools not to sign radical agreement' to cuts to departments, students and speechAny California universities that sign the Trump administration's proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" will instantly" lose their state funding, California governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.The Trump administration on Wednesday offered nine prominent universities, including the University of Southern California, the chance to sign a compact" that asks the universities to close academic departments that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas", limit the proportion of international undergraduate students to 15% , accept the administration's definition of gender and ban the consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions, in exchange for substantial and meaningful federal grants". Continue reading...

Valuables were being transported in 1715 from American colonies when a hurricane wrecked a Spanish fleetHidden beneath the turquoise waters off a stretch of Florida known as the treasure coast", a team of divers from a shipwreck salvage company have uncovered exactly that - a load of long-lost Spanish treasure they estimate is worth $1m.More than 1,000 silver and gold coins thought to be minted in the Spanish colonies where Bolivia, Mexico and Peru now sit were uncovered this summer off Florida's Atlantic coast, 1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels LLC announced this week. Continue reading...

According to one report, each week of shutdown could cost up to $7bn, with another suggesting a $15bn loss in GDP

Departments and staff are using out-of-office emails and websites to engage in partisan political activity

Several thousand federal employees will be furloughed or must do unpaid work. Regular people will feel it differentlySince the US government shut down Wednesday at midnight, tens of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed (told not to work), while others must work without pay until Congress passes a budget. The shutdown will have a wide range of effects on government services and programs as well as the US economy.Here's what it means for everyday people: Continue reading...

Republicans and Democrats engage in war of words as White House also uses impasse to cut government spending

Russ Vought, architect of rightwing Project 2025, has been waiting for his moment to pursue deep cuts to governmentDonald Trump's social media post early on Thursday about looming cuts as a result of this week's US government shutdown was a prime exhibit in the art of the troll.I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of Project 2025 fame," Trump wrote, gleefully. To determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can't believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity." Continue reading...