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Tom Gerbier was hiking the tallest mountain in the contiguous US in Sequoia national park when he fell to his deathA pilot from France who disappeared while hiking California's towering Mount Whitney was found dead after falling about 1,000ft (305 meters) off a cliff, the National Park Service said Friday.The hiker was identified as Tom Gerbier of Fontenay-sous-Bois, France, who was a pilot for Air France, the park service said in a statement. Continue reading...

Minnesota congresswoman blames dishonest smearing' for surge in violent threats in wake of Israel-Hamas conflict

This live blog is now closed. For latest reporting on Jim Jordan and the House speaker race, you can read our latest report:

Details on how Yuscil Taveras became a cooperating witness against ex-president and Walt Nauta revealed for first timeWhen the technology director at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club implicated the former US president and his valet in a scheme to erase subpoenaed security camera footage in the classified documents case, it was the culmination of weeks of talks with prosecutors about an immunity deal.The employee - identified as Trump Employee 4" in the superseding indictment but named by people familiar with the matter as Yuscil Taveras - became crucial to special counsel prosecutors over several weeks in July after he decided to cooperate with the criminal investigation. Continue reading...

US secretary of state told reporters that two released American hostages are 'safely in the hands of Israeli authorities in Israel'. Speaking in Washington DC, he said staff from the US would see the released hostages, Judith and Natalie Raanan, soon and that 'they'll receive support and assistance they need'. Blinken also pledged that the US would make every effort to free other US citizens currently being held in Gaza Continue reading...

Friday marked an escalation in House chaos as Jim Jordan lost his third vote to be House speaker and his status as nominee - how did we get here?Ever since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on 3 October, the Republican conference has been mired in chaos. Friday marked an escalation as should be of that dysfunction as Jim Jordan, the far-right congressman from Ohio, lost his third vote on the House floor to be speaker and his status as the GOP nominee.Here's a look at what transpired this week: Continue reading...

Republican colleagues vote against Ohio congressman's continued bid after his third failed attempt to corral support

The German company was accused of facilitating the disgraced financier's sex traffickingDeutsche Bank on Friday won final approval from a US judge for a $75m settlement it reached with victims of Jeffrey Epstein who had accused the German company of facilitating the late financier's sex trafficking.The US district judge Jed Rakoff, who granted preliminary approval for the deal in June, signed off on the settlement during a court hearing in Manhattan. Continue reading...

Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding the ex-president in contempt for now, but reserved the right to do soA New York judge fined former US president Donald Trump $5,000 on Friday after a disparaging social media post about a key court staffer in his New York civil fraud case was allowed to linger on his campaign website after the judge ordered it deleted.Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt, for now, but reserved the right to do so - and possibly even put him in jail - if he continued to violate a gag order barring parties in the case from personal attacks on court staff. Continue reading...

Florida jury convicts David Tronnes for murder of Shanti Cooper-Tronnes after she refused to appear on home renovation showShanti Cooper-Tronnes abruptly walked out of a meeting with the producers of a home renovation television series that her husband coveted appearing on in 2018. She was beaten to death days later.This week, a jury in Florida found her husband, David Tronnes, guilty of murdering her because he was so enraged by her refusal to go on the show, which he believed would bail them out of costly improvements to their house. Continue reading...

Kenneth Chesebro was facing seven felony charges related to plan to falsely certify that Trump won in 2020Kenneth Chesebro, the attorney who allegedly devised the fake electors" plan to prevent Joe Biden from winning the 2020 election, has accepted a plea deal and will avoid going to trial in the Fulton county racketeering case involving Donald Trump and 17 others.The last-minute plea deal marks the second major victory in as many days for prosecutors, who can now compel him to testify against his former allies in Trump's inner circle to bolster their case. Continue reading...

Judge had awarded custody of the suspect's children to his wife on the day of the killing, authorities sayPolice are searching for a man suspected of fatally shooting a Maryland judge who had awarded custody of the suspect's children to his wife on the day of the killing, authorities said on Friday.The circuit court judge was fatally shot in the driveway of his home in Maryland on Thursday night, police have said. Continue reading...

Republicans plan to retreat once again behind closed doors to chart next steps following third vote over far-right congressman

Move follows president's prime-time address to nation but faces uncertain future with House of Representatives still paralysedThe Biden administration on Friday submitted a $106bn request to Congress for military and humanitarian aid for Israel and Ukraine and humanitarian assistance for Gaza, insisting lawmakers had an obligation to support US allies standing up to tyranny and aggression worldwide.White House officials spelled out the urgency of the request at a morning press briefing, reinforcing Joe Biden's assertion in a televised address to the nation on Thursday night from the Oval Office that there were links between the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the deadly attacks on Israel by Hamas on 7 October. Continue reading...

They crave a rage-filled reaction from Israel's prime minister. Wise heads should temper his response - and then be rid of himYou cannot think straight when you're in pain. That's truer still when the pain is combined with fury at those who caused it. There's a reason we speak of blind rage": when anger descends, we cannot see what's in front of us. And if that's true of individuals, it's truer still of nations.That was the message Joe Biden brought when he travelled to Israel this week. Drawing on his own experience of multiple bereavements, he consoled Israelis grieving for the more than 1,400 civilians killed by Hamas in the 7 October massacre and those waiting for word on the 203 hostages, including young children and the elderly, still held in Gaza. In what has become his signature style, Biden shared in their pain.Jonathan Freedland 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...

Joe Harding, a Republican who sponsored don't say gay' law, must serve four months for claiming $150,000 in relief fundsA former Florida state lawmaker who sponsored the state's divisive law nicknamed don't say gay was sentenced to prison on Thursday for fraudulently collecting Covid-19 pandemic small business government aid.The former Republican representative, Joe Harding, faced a maximum sentence of 20 years, but was sentenced to four months in federal prison. Continue reading...

Infowars host must pay $1.5bn to families who sued over his conspiracy theories that 2012 massacre was a hoaxA Texas judge has ruled that the Infowars host, Alex Jones, cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying nearly $1.5bn to families who sued over his conspiracy theories that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.The decision is another significant defeat for Jones in the wake of juries in Texas and Connecticut punishing him over spreading falsehoods about the nation's deadliest school shooting. US district judge Christopher Lopez of Houston issued the ruling on Thursday. Continue reading...

Galvanised into action by recent events, Project Rozana hopes to inspire fellow Australians to help

Top aide to then New York governor says Trump's son-in-law called to stress contrast between two states during pandemicIn April 2020, as Covid-19 surged in New York, Donald Trump's senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, called a top aide to the governor, Andrew Cuomo, to stress in a smug" tone how in contrast to the locked-down Empire state, reeling under a climbing death count and social panic, Florida remained open for business.I've spoken with a lot of friends," the aide, Melissa DeRosa, quotes Kushner as saying, in a new book. But they have mainly relocated to Florida. Did you know everything is open there?" Continue reading...

Support for Palestinian cause had risen earlier this year, but polls show decrease particularly among Democrats since Hamas attacksPublic opinion polls surveying Americans' views on the Israel-Hamas conflict suggest support for the Palestinian cause has taken a hit as a result of the carnage unfolding in the Middle East.The recent wave of violence followed a period of significant improvement in US public opinion toward Palestinians, with Gallup polling earlier this year showing for the first time that Democrats expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians (49%) than the Israelis (38%). Continue reading...

The PM is withering on the international stage. Back home, in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire, his troops are in trouble, tooConsider the struggle of a modern statesman such as Rishi Sunak, forced to segue from fibbing about a meat tax and state-mandated carpooling to flying to the Middle East and saying something for the ages. In not altogether unanticipated scenes, the prime minister hasn't managed it.For all Sunak's studied earnestness, he has become a figure that no one serious can quite take seriously. We live in an era where politicians have cannibalised their own gravitas for cheap thrills and pyrrhic wins. I know generals are always fighting the last war, but that's quite hard to respect when it was the war on motorists". The culture wars are the only conflict where you actively want the veterans to end up homeless. Continue reading...

That the author could be prosecuted for comments made 13 years ago is absurd - but also a deadly threat to freedom of speechThe climate for media and free speech in India is in a dangerous place. The country is already ranked 161 out of 180 countries in the press freedom index, but the actions of prime minister Narendra Modi's government in the past few weeks have shown how many more clampdowns await. Desperately in need of distraction tactics - given the many failures in governance, tackling inflation or delivering jobs - the regime is after a fresh dose of sound and fury against political opponents.And so a decade-old case has been dusted off, paving the way for initiating legal proceedings against the novelist, journalist and activist Arundhati Roy for comments she made in 2010 about Kashmir. The Kashmiri law professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain has also had charges against him approved. It comes after police raids on the homes of more than 40 journalists in Delhi and elsewhere. They have been slapped with terrorism charges and had their phones and laptops seized. They were working for NewsClick, a website accused of having funding links with China: a charge denied by both the website and its funders. Continue reading...

Violations have soared but legislative effort to strengthen protection for young workers have received little supportChild labor violations have been soaring in the US, but efforts to render solutions through legislation have received little support, and Republicans at the state level continue pushing bills that would roll back current child labor protections.In most recent fiscal year, the US Department of Labor wage and hour division reported 835 cases of child labor violations affecting 3,876 minors, and 688 minors employed in violation of hazardous occupation, a 283% increase since 2015. Civil penalties against employers totaled just under $4.3m. Continue reading...

US president says Americans must not walk away from their role as a beacon to the world'. Plus, Britney Spears details 2008 breakdown in memoir

There is little chance that the spiral of killing will subside. The international community must work to prevent further deathThe image of haggard doctors standing amid bodies and rubble following the explosive strike on al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza has sent shock waves around the world, which was still reeling from horrific Hamas-led attacks and the relentless Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza. In the past two weeks, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian civilians have been killed with a speed and brutality that was previously unimaginable in Israel and Palestine. There is little sign that the spiral of mass killing will subside soon. Instead, there are clear warning signs that further atrocities are imminent.United Nations experts have cautioned that atrocity crimes are processes, not singular events. They are foreshadowed by the presence of risk factors and early warning signs .... [giving] many opportunities to prevent crises from escalating. After they reach a certain stage, however, the options for action are both more limited and more costly." Since 2021, the UK Government promised to adopt a more integrated approach to tackling conflict and instability, with an increased emphasis on atrocity prevention.Omar Shakir, Yasmine Ahmed and Akshaya Kumar work at Human Rights WatchDo 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 NFL commissioner has been rewarded with a contract extension after massively growing revenues, even if his wider impact is muted

As the bombs fall behind them, desperate Palestinians mass at the Rafah border crossing. This is just what Netanyahu wantsOn 7 October, hours after the surprise offensive by Hamas that left 1,400 Israelis dead, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, took to the airwaves to declare war on Hamas and issue a warning to Palestinians in Gaza: leave now". The question of where 2.3 million Palestinians, the vast majority of them refugees who have lived under a brutal siege and blockade for the past 16 years, should go to was left unsaid.Israel proceeded to unleash an unprecedented aerial assault, dropping 6,000 bombs on the densely populated enclave in the first five days alone. Then came the order: a directive for the 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate to the south within 24 hours. Continue reading...

The GOP's fight to seize control of American colleges is leading to resignations by higher education facultyDuring his 18-year tenure at Louisiana's largest public university, journalism professor Robert Mann courted backlash for speaking out against the state's top political leaders.Republicans called for Mann's firing after he criticized former governor Bobby Jindal amid the state's 2016 budget crisis. In 2021, Mann drew the ire of Jeff Landry, then state attorney general, for a tweet lambasting Landry's effort to block a Covid-19 vaccine mandate at Louisiana State University. Continue reading...

A new partnership with Hawk-Eye is teasing a tantalizing near-future for data in the NBA - as long as teams and the league can play nice with each other long enough to get thereThe mood was tense and frustrated on an NBA-wide team analytics call in late July.The call was ostensibly meant to discuss all the exciting features and workflows of the NBA's new partnership with Hawk-Eye Innovations, a company known for its motion capture work across several sports. Quickly, though, team analytics staffers realized a big problem: Many of the building blocks of the motion tracking system previously used by the league, which teams have been relying on for everything from scouting and analysis to coaching game-plans for most of a decade, were missing entirely. Continue reading...

Hundreds of Native Americans were murdered for their oil in the 1920s. But they're still battling the US government for what is theirsThis week, director Martin Scorsese releases his film Killers of the Flower Moon: the true story of the mass murder of Osage Native Americans and the plot to steal the tribe's oil wealth. The film is a powerful telling of what came to be known as the Reign of Terror, a period that resulted in the deaths of as many as 200 Osage. But the story didn't end there. For the past 27 years, I have been reporting on what happened afterwards. My documentary Long Knife - produced by George DiCaprio, with his son Leonardo's encouragement - recounts, in the words of the Osage people, what happened in the century since the killings portrayed in the film, from the Terror to oil thievery to today's fight for sovereignty.Over the past century, the Osage Nation has continued to suffer massive oil thievery, impoverishment and oil sludge poisoning on their Oklahoma reservation. It's not over," Osage principal chief, Geoffrey Standing Bear, tells me. It's still happening." At the heart of it is legal control of Osage native land by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, an entity the Osage call the Ma-he-tah, or the Long Knife. Standing Bear, a lawyer himself, likens the arrangement to a military occupation. Continue reading...

The NWSL playoffs kick-off on Friday. It's Megan Rapinoe's last dance in Seattle, while the pressure is on Alex Morgan to deliver for San DiegoExtreme parity. Thirteen points separated all 12 teams, from first to last, the most competitive season in league history. The NWSL has long been known as the most competitive league in the world, but this year, the Shield came down to the final day and 10 of 12 teams were mathematically alive for the playoffs on Decision Day, when the drama unfolded with simultaneous kickoffs. The NWSL is pure entertainment. Jeff Kassouf Continue reading...

King is also accused of assault against fellow soldiers and solicitation of child pornographyThe US army has charged Pte Travis King with crimes ranging from desertion for running into North Korea in July to assault against fellow soldiers and solicitation of child abuse images.The army's case against King, set out in documents seen by Reuters, includes eight distinct charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, setting up a substantial legal battle for the 23-year-old soldier after his release from North Korean custody in September. Continue reading...

The Frankfurt book fair's cancelling of an award ceremony for Adania Shibli shows the risks of imposing one narrative on our cultural spaceMore than a decade ago, in a crowded bar in Tel Aviv, my friend and I found ourselves talking to a group of German tourists. At the time, the world was watching Israel's 2012 Gaza operation unfold. Most Palestinians are terrorists," one of the Germans explained to my friend, a Jewish Israeli who opposed the attack. And: Not supporting the IDF is betraying your legacy." A German, whose family is, like my own German family, implicated in historical atrocities, lecturing an Israeli about what moral or political lesson she may or may not derive from that very history was a grotesque sight to watch.In German society today, however, such views seem normalised. Support for Israel is seen as a prerequisite for a newly constructed, collective German identity. While a degree of sensitivity towards Israel seems understandable given Germany's brutal antisemitic history, the issue has turned ever more problematic in recent years. Palestinians, artists and curators from the so-called global south and leftwing Israelis are regularly reprimanded, dismissed or cancelled for views on Israeli policies that are deemed unpalatable. Last week, the Social Democratic co-party leader Saskia Esken even called off a meeting with Bernie Sanders due to his stance on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Sanders lost many family members in the Holocaust.Hanno Hauenstein is a Berlin-based journalist and authorDo 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.

The idea that Africans aren't aware of the dangers of migration, or haven't tried to build up their own countries' ignores the terrible despair they feel at the state of their governmentsOn the surface it seems darkly consistent for Europe and the UK to respond to calls for slavery apologies with intensifying efforts to create a Fortress Europe and small-boat-free" seas. The UK's Rwanda plans, the EU's barbed wire fences and Frontex coastal patrols around Africa's north and west, all send the message that Africans belong in Africa. Slavery was wrong, right? So, these slave ships should never have brought them to live with us in the first place and they want us to apologise for that.African strongmen, therefore, are now paid by the UK (Rwanda) and Europe (Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal) to keep Africans in Africa, in camps and jails if need be. This was the message, too, for Senegal when aid was tied to Frontex patrolling its shores; it was the message that came with funds and equipment for Libya for migrants to be sent towards torture-riddled detention camps. You may be an oppressor, but let's pay you. Continue reading...

Demography played a role, as did education and the voting system. All provide key lessons for Keir Starmer's LabourIn a darkening world, a radiant beam shines out from Poland. Look, it is possible to push back the authoritarian populist tide. Extreme rightwingers who sack judges, try to silence opposition journalists, impose a near-total abortion ban and create what activists decry as gay-free zones" can be overcome. Unprecedented numbers can be persuaded to vote, including usually reluctant young people.Britain, where one party of the right nearly always wins, with the press dominated by plutocrats and an electoral system warped to favour the Tories, has lessons to learn from how Poland's Law and Justice party (PiS) was vanquished. Labour will have watched the campaign of Donald Tusk's Civic Platform party and the other anti-PiS parties that are about to form a coalition. Continue reading...

US president said Americans must not walk away from their role as a beacon to the world' in rare Oval Office address

Thousands gathered in Times Square to demand the release of an estimated 203 people taken by Hamas on 7 OctoberThousands of people from New York's Jewish community gathered in Times Square on Thursday evening to demand the release of an estimated 203 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.Throughout the event, billed as the Bring Them Home Now" rally, faces of the missing were flashed across fifteen Times Square billboards. Continue reading...

Good handwriting and fast, accurate typing skills will always be invaluable - no matter how far technology takes us

Republicans unable to break impasse as congressman vows to press on with a Friday vote despite oppositionThe leaderless House was plunged deeper into chaos on Thursday after Republicans refused to coalesce around a speaker and a plan to empower an interim speaker collapsed.The party's embattled candidate for speaker, congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, vowed to press ahead, scheduling a long-delayed third vote on his nomination for Friday morning. Continue reading...

Yanqi Xu, 27, said she was shocked' by Jim Pillen's comments and has since received support from other journalistsThe Nebraska governor, Jim Pillen, is under fire for his dismissal of an investigative article into his family business, saying he didn't read the piece because the reporter was from communist China".The reporter, 27-year-old Yanqi Xu, said that she was shocked" by Pillen's comments concerning her nationality, especially after Pillen's office did not respond to several requests for comments for Xu's piece. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed. For our latest reporting on the House speakership fight, you can read our latest report:

Decision could mean Black voters in state must vote for second time under map found to illegally weaken their voiceThe US supreme court said on Thursday it would not immediately lift a lower court's order blocking a judge from holding a hearing to consider a new congressional map for Louisiana that increases the power of Black voters. The decision could mean that Black voters in Louisiana will have to vote under a map that has been found to illegally weaken their votes for a second time.The decision, which had no noted dissents, is the latest step in an increasingly complex legal battle over Louisiana's congressional maps. A federal judge last year ordered the state to redraw its six districts to add a second district where Black voters could elect a candidate of their choice. Black voters currently represent about a third of Louisiana's population but have a majority in just one district. Continue reading...

Relatives suspect Leonard Cure, 53, resisted traffic-stop arrest because of toll of 16 years in prison for crime he did not commitThe relatives of Leonard Cure, a Black man fatally shot earlier this week at point-blank range by a Georgia deputy during a traffic stop, said they suspect he resisted arrest because of psychological trauma from spending 16 years imprisoned in Florida for an armed robbery he did not commit.A video was released on Wednesday by a sheriff that showed Cure, who had been released and exonerated in 2020, being shot after grabbing the officer by the neck and forcing his head backward during the traffic stop on Monday. Continue reading...

The BBC is under scrutiny over reports of the Gaza hospital blast. But there is a lesson for all who want clarity when there is noneDeath has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses.Throughout these days of unbearable stories, from the slaughter of small children in their kibbutz bedrooms to the fireball at a Gaza hospital where families were seeking sanctuary from bombs, those words have echoed around my mind. Taken from the biblical book of Jeremiah, they entered my thoroughly godless ears via a comforting-sounding rabbi on the BBC and stayed. It is no criticism of its competitors to say that in this house at least, in times of trouble, it's always the BBC. Though nobody knows better than a journalist that journalists aren't infallible, there are times when only the Pavlovian effect of the pips or of Lyse Doucet's voice will do. Continue reading...

We are a group of Jewish American writers, artists and academics. We oppose what the Israeli government is doing with US assistancePresident Joe Biden:We are a group of Jewish American writers, artists and academics. Being Jewish means different things to all of us, but we all have at least one Jewish parent, which means we could move to Israel and qualify for Israeli citizenship. Continue reading...