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Gerry Connolly, 74, beat AOC's bid to become lead Democrat on the House oversight committee thanks to Nancy Pelosi, then 85They may have lost the presidency, the House, and the Senate, but when it comes to avoiding introspection, the Democrats are completely undefeated. You'd have thought that after the disastrous presidential election, the Democrats might have taken some time to figure out what went wrong. You'd have thought they might have decided to try and refresh the party - make it more relevant to disenchanted voters. You'd have thought they might have realized that they needed to shake things up. Continue reading...

Experts say they're unsurprised by expressions of anger' at the healthcare system after the death of Brian ThompsonAmericans are sharing stories of heartbreaking insurance denials - ones that led to worse illness and death - in the aftermath of the killing of Brian Thompson, CEO of the mega-insurer United Healthcare.A rise in practices such as prior authorizations and automated denials of coverage have made it more difficult for Americans to access healthcare, and changes are urgently needed to reform practices like these and restore trust in the health system, experts said. Continue reading...

Key figures in the incoming administration follow Curtis Yarvin, who's pushing for an autocratic takeover of the USCurtis Yarvin is hardly a household name in US politics. But the neoreactionary" thinker and far-right blogger is emerging as a serious intellectual influence on key figures in Donald Trump's coming administration in particular over potential threats to US democracy.Yarvin, who considers liberal democracy as a decadent enemy to be dismantled, is intellectually influential on vice president-elect JD Vance and close to several proposed Trump appointees. The aftermath of Trump's election victory has seen actions and rhetoric from Trump and his lieutenants that closely resemble Yarvin's public proposals for taking autocratic power in America. Continue reading...

Trump is hardly the first US president to introduce miscast nominees, but he has nominated ambassadors at a rate not recalled in recent memoryThey seem an unlikely, almost motley, crew of emissaries.For the Bahamas, there is Herschel Walker, a former NFL star whose fledgling Senate campaign was undone by a string of personal embarrassments but who now is named to be the next US ambassador to the small island nation. Continue reading...

American confidence in the courts has hit a record low across party lines. This is worrying - if not surprisingThe US supreme court has been hijacked by the extreme right and corrupted to its core.American oligarchs bestow millions in gifts and largesse on rightwing justices. The court's conservative supermajority hands down deeply unpopular decisions that take away long-settled rights, concentrate power for themselves and their friends and grease the electoral rails for their party.David Daley is the author of the new book Antidemocratic: Inside the Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count Continue reading...

More people are avoiding boring' or depressing' news for scrolling social media, but accurate reporting has never been more vitalThe other night I broke a long-cherished habit. At home in time for the BBC News at 10, I could only manage a couple of headlines before I turned it off, flicking through the channels instead for something that would make me smile, a comedy or anything about dogs.News of the torture and murder of a little girl, followed by reports from yet another seemingly intractable conflict, had turned me into one of the biggest threats to my own profession, if not democracy - I had become a news avoider.Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Instability is growing, Putin's hybrid war in Europe is heating up and for fear of escalation we have encouraged global nuclear proliferationThere are human activities in which both sides can win. War is not one of them. Either Ukraine wins this war or Russia does. Ukraine's former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba says bluntly that unless the current trajectory is changed, we will lose this war".To be clear: this is still avoidable. Suppose the roughly four-fifths of Ukrainian territory still controlled by Kyiv gets military commitments from the west strong enough to deter any further Russian advances, secure large-scale investment in economic reconstruction, encourage Ukrainians to return from abroad to rebuild their country, and allow for stable, pro-European politics and reform. In five years, the country joins the EU, and then, under a new US administration, starts the process of entering Nato. Most of Ukraine becomes a sovereign, independent, free country, firmly anchored in the west.Timothy Garton Ash 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...

As a foreign correspondent, home was never a fixed location. I've finally learned it's about who you share it with

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Democrats had put emphasis on federal courts following Trump's first term, when he filled three supreme court seatsJoe Biden secured the 235th judicial confirmation of his presidency Friday, an accomplishment that exceeds his predecessor's total by one after Democrats put extra emphasis on the federal courts following Donald Trump's far-reaching first term, when he filled three seats on the supreme court.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, teed up votes on two California district judges, which were likely to be the last judicial confirmations this year before Congress adjourns and makes way for a new, Republican-led Senate. Continue reading...

The continuing resolution passed with 366 yea votes and 34 nays. This blog is now closed.

President-elect, yet to take office, faces internal rebellion, with the specter of President Musk' looming largeDonald Trump is still a month away from returning to the White House and already his relationship with Republicans on Capitol Hill is fraying, signalling trouble ahead for both sides.The president-elect's inability to intimidate members of his own party in the House to back a spending resolution just to keep the government open ahead of a midnight shutdown surely has implications for his ability to drive through his ambitious agenda in the face of tiny majorities in both congressional chambers once he returns to office. Continue reading...

Group of nine plaintiffs allege administration has abandoned them and their familiesA group of Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza have sued the Biden administration, alleging it has abandoned them and their families, leaving them trapped in a war zone despite rescuing similarly situated Americans of different national origins".The plaintiffs - Khalid Mourtaga, Salsabeel ElHelou, Sahar Harara, Sawsan Kahil, Marowa Abusharia, Mohanad Alnajjar, Mariam Alrayes, Heba Enayeh and Samia Abualreesh - are all either US citizens, legal permanent residents, or their immediate relatives. Continue reading...

The lizard species, one of the world's largest, is native to Australia and is rarely seen outside that countryTwo new baby lizards have hatched at the Los Angeles zoo, the first of their species to be bred there, zoo officials said on Thursday.Perentie lizards, or Varanus giganteus, are native to Australia and are among the world's largest lizards, dwarfed only by the Komodo dragon and a few others. Continue reading...

Company went into bankruptcy in January 2023 under $1.7bn in debt, but remaining $800m too much to overcomeThe party is over at Party City, once the largest supplier of balloons and other fun-time supplies in the US, as the company announced Friday it was closing down all of its stores, ending nearly 40 years in business.Barry Litwin, the Party City CEO, told employees that the chain was winding down" operations immediately and that today would be their last day of employment. Continue reading...

Richard Allen received the maximum term for the killings in Delphi of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14An Indiana man convicted in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls has been sentenced to 130 years in prison - the maximum term the trial judge was able to impose.Richard Allen, 52, was convicted last month in the murder of best friends Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, in the small town of Delphi, close to eight years after the children's bodies were found near a hiking trail. Continue reading...

More than a dozen schools warn international students of visa threat, with some urging them to return to campusUS colleges and universities are issuing warnings to their international students to return to campus before Donald Trump assumes office as president in preparation for a repeat of potential travel bans seen during his first term.More than a dozen US schools have issued advisories. Some students must be back soon anyway since their spring semester begins before the president-elect takes office, but others are warning that students who depend on an academic visa may be at risk and should return to campus before Trump's inauguration on 20 January. Continue reading...

Move is in response to continuing reports of mysterious drone flights and speculations into their originsFederal aviation authorities have extended a month-long drone ban over New Jersey to parts of New York state as mysterious overflights continue to roil the population despite official efforts to tamp down wild speculation about their origins.A new temporary ban covers parts of Brooklyn, Queens and two communities on Long Island. New York's governor, Kathy Hochul, said the overflight ban included some of New York's critical infrastructure sites". Continue reading...

The parallels between the science fiction writer's five-year-old story and present-day events are startlingFive years ago, the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow published a short story whose plot might seem eerily similar to followers of the past few weeks' news.In Radicalized, one of four novellas comprising a science fiction novel of the same name, Doctorow charts the journey of a man who joins an online forum for fathers whose partners or children have been denied healthcare coverage by their insurers after his wife is diagnosed with breast cancer and denied coverage for an experimental treatment. Slowly, over the course of the story, the men of the forum become radicalized by their grief and begin plotting - and executing - murders of health insurance executives and politicians who vote against universal healthcare. Continue reading...

If lawmakers don't secure a spending deal before Friday midnight, all nonessential government functions will pause

An effective fight against the president-elect requires a struggle that takes the frustrations of working-class voters seriouslyAs Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration, many have begun to debate how best to build a committed political opposition. Instead of reviving the 2016 era #resistance - which was big on spectacle and short on substance - those on the left would do well to take seriously the frustrations of working-class voters and craft a strategy accordingly.Trump's victory can credibly be read as a class revolt. Blue-collar voters - Black, white, Latino and Asian, in rural and urban areas alike - gave a big middle finger to the progressive professional class elite. Kamala Harris represented the epitome of a Democratic party that has become increasingly dominated by affluent and educated voters (and funded by even wealthier donors). Her ascension itself represented the transformation of the party of the people" into an aristocratic private club, liberal elites were so terrified of the hoi polloi that they ensured not one ordinary person would vote on her nomination to lead the Democratic party into battle. Are we shocked that the same voters failed to show-up on the battlefield? Hardly. Continue reading...

Commentator claims he was target of man holding a gun and crossbow who was later fatally shot by Illinois policeThe far-right American political activist Nick Fuentes said he was a possible target of a man later fatally shot by Illinois police after the man apparently appeared at his door armed with a gun and a crossbow.The man, 24-year-old John Lyons, who was also wanted in an earlier triple homicide, was shot and killed by police in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn after a Wednesday night foot chase, according to authorities. The pursuit started on the block where Fuentes, 26, lives. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Experts believe the alleged shuttle support' program used by Uline - a company owned by billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein - is likely illegal and exploitative of workersA company owned by two of Donald Trump's top mega-donors has routinely brought dozens of its workers from Mexico to staff its warehouses in Wisconsin and other locations even though they do not appear to have permission to work in the US, according to a Guardian investigation.Uline - a giant Wisconsin-based office and shipping supply company controlled by billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein - shuttles in its own workers from Mexico, who are using tourist visas and visas meant for employees who are entering the US temporarily to receive professional training, known as B1 visas. But instead of being part of a dedicated training program, the Mexican employees stay for one to six months and - sources with direct knowledge of the matter allege - perform normal work in Uline's US warehouses. Continue reading...

For decades I accepted what sitcoms and soaps told me: that groups of like-minded people form and stay together effortlessly. Now the former Friend has told it like it isLisa Kudrow says being and staying friends with her Friends co-stars was tough at times. That six-way relationship took some work - and we did it," she told the Armchair Expert podcast. They worked hard at being friends".This is no Sex and the City-style daggers-drawn revelation - Kudrow essentially said that they sometimes had to act like sensible adult humans to maintain the easy screen intimacy we all watched play out on Monica's couch. But for me it came as a relief and a confirmation of something I only recently muddled out: TV friendships aren't real.Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Faced with the devastation in Gaza, Israelis tend to look away. The victories after the fall of Assad are a far easier focus

Some in church case worry whether connections mean they are getting a fair shake'Links have continued surfacing between a bankruptcy case in Houston that forced a judge there to resign - while thrusting him under FBI investigation - and a contentious, costly financial reorganization being pursued by the clergy abuse-plagued Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans.Perhaps the most notable so far: a portion of a transcript from a March 2023 hearing that until now had largely gone unnoticed shows how - before corruption allegations prompted his resignation - David Jones exalted the wisdom of one of the most tendentious rulings made by fellow bankruptcy judge Meredith Grabill with respect to the New Orleans archdiocese's chapter 11 reorganization. Continue reading...

Americans are encouraged to get vaccinated in early fall, but getting Covid and flu shots today can still be a good ideaPerhaps you procrastinated - that Halloween costume wouldn't make itself and neither would the Thanksgiving turkey - and now you've realized, just as you're about to gather with your friends and family again, that you've neglected your seasonal vaccines.Public health authorities recommend people get annual vaccines for influenza and Covid-19 in the early fall - around September and October. But infectious disease experts say even if you didn't get shots then, it can make a difference today. Continue reading...

With one post on X, Musk has the power to shut down the government of the most powerful nation in world historyElon Musk holds no public office. He has never stood for election, passed scrutiny for appointment to public office, nor commanded a political force of any measure. He is, however, the latest star and favorite of Donald Trump, the president-elect. So when Musk issues one of his off-the-cuff missives via his decrepit social network, X, Trump loyalists (almost all the Republicans) take him seriously.Yet now, suddenly, Musk has the power to shut down the government of the most powerful nation in the history of the world and depose his party's legislative leader, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Republican lawmaker from Louisiana.Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018). Continue reading...

Let's hope the court does the right thing, and strikes down this potential censorship before it spins out of controlThe US supreme court surprisingly decided, this week, to hear TikTok's emergency appeal to its imminent ban in the United States. It may be the most important case at the intersection of the first amendment and national security in decades. Whether or not you see China as a nefarious threat, all Americans who care about free expression should worry about the precedent this case could set - and should want the TikTok ban overturned.After a fifth circuit court of appeals ruling earlier this month, TikTok's owner, ByteDance, has until 19 January to either sell the popular video-sharing app or face a nationwide ban. The decision stems from Congress passing a law last year that essentially proclaims that if the government says a foreign-owned platform threatens national security, then it can force its sale or censor it.Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation Continue reading...

Some of us, at least, are going to miss Biden when he's gone from office - even if it sort of feels like he already isAs with many a lame-duck president in the past, it feels as if Joe Biden has already left the national stage even though he has a month left in his term.In his case, that disappearing act is vastly exaggerated by the man who was his predecessor and will be his successor. Donald Trump sucks up every bit of oxygen in the room with his daily outrages - horrifying cabinet choices, transactional friendships with oligarchs, appalling social-media posts.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

New reports by human rights groups use the term to describe Israel's offensive. The debate has fueled a brutal division among those who study mass violenceA pair of reports published this month by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch mark a significant contribution to the raging debate over how to characterize a war that has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and decimated Gaza.But the reports - the first found that Israel is committing genocide, the second acts of genocide - are unlikely to quell deep divisions in the academic field of Holocaust and genocide studies, whose scholars study mass violence. Continue reading...

Outrage over Israel's attempt to dismantle our UN agency has largely petered out. The stakes are very high now

The AFC North archrivals renew their feud with home-field advantage in the playoffs on the line. Can Lamar reverse his lousy record against Pittsburgh?Pittsburgh Steelers (10-4) v Baltimore Ravens (9-5) Continue reading...

Test your knowledge of the Sports Personality winner, plus football, boxing, darts, NBA and much more Continue reading...

I looked at Manhattan, trying to work out how a person like me could exist in it. The snow settled on my lashes and I knew I was home

He has bankrolled elections, stoked riots and ignored laws. We mustn't make the mistake of playing nice with the world's richest bullyElon Musk is, more or less, a rogue state. His intentions are self-serving and nefarious, and his nation-state level resources allow him to flout the law with impunity. To put it into context, if dollars were metres, Musk's money would be enough to take him to Mars and back, while a mere millionaire could only make a round trip from Paris to Amsterdam.The sheer immorality of any one person possessing so much wealth is obvious to most people with basic amounts of empathy. But when it comes to Musk and the other 14 people worth more than $100bn, the morality of it is almost a secondary concern. Their individual wealth is a society-distorting threat to democracy in the same way that economics has always recognised monopolies to be dangerous to a functional market.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

Trump spokesperson points to high number of illegal crossings and reiterates plans for mass deportationsThe US deported more than 270,000 immigrants in a recent 12-month period, the highest amount annually in a decade, according to a government report released on Thursday.The deportations were nearly double from 142,580 in the same period a year earlier and came as part of a broader push by Joe Biden to reduce illegal immigration. Continue reading...

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This year I am adapting my own rituals - and with them, hopefully, the landscape of my brain - as the ultimate gift to myselfIt's the last fortnight of December, time to reappraise the traditions of shared holiday rituals.Will Australians once more create kitchen-bound El Nino microclimates in their sweltering devotion to a Christmas turkey, or go with the smelly, if pleasurable, coolness of a prawns-on-ice buffet? Do we pretend to love a handmade noodle necklace more than receipt of an electronic lump of plastic we've been coveting all year? Should we indulge anti-vax, flat-earther Uncle Awful spouting theses of YouTubology at the dining table or scream not this year, Satan" and instead book a package to Bali? Continue reading...

A day before potential shutdown, House rejects package hastily assembled after Trump and Musk scuttled prior dealDonald Trump suffered a humiliating setback on Thursday when Republicans in Congress failed to pass a pared-down spending bill - just one day before a potential government shutdown that could disrupt Christmas travel.By a vote of 174-235, the House of Representatives rejected the Trump-backed package, hastily assembled by Republican leaders after the president-elect and his billionaire ally Elon Musk scuttled a prior bipartisan deal. Continue reading...

Accused in Brian Thompson killing was in court in New York on federal charges - which could carry the death penaltyWhen Luigi Mangione walked into a Manhattan federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon, he looked like any number of smartly dressed defendants prosecuted here - not someone accused of a brutal murder on the streets of New York that caused headlines around the world and a national manhunt.Mangione, 26, is accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in a brazen street assassination that also sparked a national outpouring of social media vitriol from many Americans against the healthcare industry. Continue reading...

Members of Congress had been racing for agreement before Friday deadline after Trump earlier rejected bipartisan plan

Brian K Williams placed on administrative leave as lawyer says client intends to vigorously fight the allegations'FBI agents searched the home of a Los Angeles deputy mayor this week as part of an investigation into whether he made a bomb threat against city hall, officials said.A statement from the office of the LA mayor, Karen Bass, said she was notified of Tuesday's search at the residence of Brian K Williams, her deputy mayor for public safety, as part of an investigation into an alleged threat. Continue reading...

Ingrid Lewis-Martin and her son allegedly used power to illegally influence city decisions in exchange for cash'A former chief adviser to New York's mayor, Eric Adams, surrendered to city prosecutors on Thursday to face criminal charges related to an ongoing investigation of the mayor and his circle.Ingrid Lewis-Martin, a powerful adviser of Adams, her son Glenn Martin II, aka Suave Luciano, and two real estate investors were indicted in an influence-peddling $100,000 bribery scheme. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer on the verge of appointing Labour grandee to key post at start of Trump presidencyPeter Mandelson is set to become Britain's next ambassador to the US,, the first time a politician has been appointed to the role for almost half a century.Keir Starmer is about to announce that Lord Mandelson, a former Labour minister and European commissioner for trade, has been given the role. The Guardian understands he will take over as Donald Trump begins his second term as president. Continue reading...

The denial of Gisele's humanity by her rapists is the denial of violence done to every woman. At her side, we can now look the world in the eyeI am looking at a colour photo of a woman with auburn hair entering the courthouse in Avignon. Around her, the impassive faces of her lawyers.This woman is about to hear a verdict. How much will he get? How much time in prison will be given to the man who drugged her senseless and remorselessly raped her?Judith Godreche is a French actor, writer and film director Continue reading...

Gisele Pelicot's extraordinary courage and composure has forced a reckoning in France and elsewhere. We must act on her demand for changeGisele Pelicot, a 72-year-old woman who had retired to a small village in provincial France, has become a heroine not only to compatriots but to people thousands of miles away, rightly saluted by global leaders and ordinary citizens alike. In refusing anonymity, and insisting that the trial of her ex-husband and other men for raping her be held in public, she has forced a broader recognition that shame must change sides". Her extraordinary courage and composure shone through the grim hearings.For almost 10 years, Mrs Pelicot's husband of decades drugged and raped her, and sedated her so that dozens of others could rape her at his instigation. DominiquePelicot was caught by chance after a security guard caught him filming up women's skirts at a supermarket, prompting police to seize his computer equipment. But he has since admitted an attempted rape in 1999, after police matched his DNA to a sample from the scene, and is under investigation for a 1991 rape and murder that has similarities with that incident. He denies involvement.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...

The virus has spread for years in wild birds and commercial poultry, and was detected for the first time in US dairy cattle in MarchCalifornia officials have declared a state of emergency over the spread of bird flu, which is tearing through dairy cows in the state and causing sporadic illnesses in people in the US.Here's what you need to know. Continue reading...