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The Labour leader says he wants to foster a closer' trading relationship with the EU. I recommend a return to the customs unionKeir Starmer should not be frightened. This week he admitted in Montreal that Britain's Brexit agreement was not a good deal" and that he wanted a closer" trading relationship with the EU. What does he mean? He mentioned security and research, ties that Rishi Sunak has already initiated. Yet he shudders with fear at any accusation that he might favour returning to Europe's customs union or single market, let alone to the EU itself. He quails at the thought of what a Brexit voter in a red wall" seat might say. Each week his apologists explain this as paranoia over losing his 20-point poll lead. They promise he is a radical at heart. That is what they all say.The Labour party bears its share of the blame for the failure of Theresa May's search for a soft Brexit. There were a number of attempts to piece together a Commons coalition behind staying in the customs union or single market. Yet Labour MPs, who overwhelmingly favoured softer versions of Brexit, retreated into a militant Commons polarisation. Why should they help May just because it was in the nation's interest? They duly allowed the Tory right to enforce its hard" definition of Brexit as a total divorce from Europe's economic zone. In their study of this chaotic period, The Parliamentary Battle Over Brexit, political scientists Meg Russell and Lisa James graphically describe the ignorance of most Labour MPs in what they thought they were voting for. They just obeyed their whips. It was a dreadful chapter in parliament's history.Simon Jenkins 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...

The comedian moved effortlessly from mainstream fame to the embrace of the populist right. Both enabled an undisguised misogynistRussell Brand has always invited outrage. It was what he did, his shtick and his selling point: a willingness to cross the line that - when sweetened by his undeniable charisma, and by enough long words to make the crude sex gags sound more intellectual - earned him a fortune over the years.But could that willingness to shock, to transgress in plain sight, have functioned also as a kind of shield? What could he be accused of to which he hadn't already titillatingly half-confessed, in that gleeful way that meant you never knew if he was serious or not, but which somehow made the audience complicit anyway? When he described in his insufferably titled memoir My Booky Wook being asked to write a list in rehab of the women he'd wronged over the years, and feeling like Saddam Hussein trying to pick out individual Kurds", his candour somehow disarmed the obvious questions about what exactly he had done to all those nameless women. Continue reading...

As federal prosecutors charge Joe Biden's son over illegally possessing a firearm, we look back at a list of controversiesFederal prosecutors indicted Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, over illegally possessing a firearm in Delaware on Thursday. The indictment comes a month after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the US attorney David Weiss, a Trump nominee, to oversee the investigation as special counsel.Hunter Biden has been at the center of a years-long investigation into his tax affairs that was set to close with a guilty plea. But that plea deal fell apart at a Delaware courthouse after the Trump-appointed judge said she could not agree to the deal, which ensured Biden would avoid jail time in a separate case of illegally possessing a gun while using drugs. Continue reading...

More than most elite sides, Mikel Arteta's team seem prone to mood swings. Their win at Everton showed a steeliness that could help their title chances

Landing accident' happened on the last day of the air races in Reno, where at least 23 pilots have died since event began in 1972Two air-racing pilots were killed at an airshow Sunday in Reno, Nevada, when their planes collided and crashed.Officials with the Reno air racing association said the crash was a landing accident" that happened after the T-6 Gold Race at the national championship air races. The pilots killed have been identified as Chris Rushing, who flew out of Van Nuys in Los Angeles, and Nick Macy of Tulelake, California. Continue reading...

In a contingent election', he could lose the popular vote, electoral college and all his legal cases and still end up the legal US presidentIn an ordinary time, under ordinary political conditions, the specter of another Trump presidency would be strictly the stuff of nightmares. The former president is facing 40 criminal charges for his mishandling of classified documents, and will have to interrupt his campaign next summer to defend himself in court. Those charges are apart from the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records he faces in New York. And then there's the rape defamation lawsuit, which will begin in January, and which he will almost certainly lose.The American people, however, can be awfully forgiving. In current polling, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tied nationally; no Republican nominee has emerged to challenge Trump. But, as we have been learning pretty much continuously since 2000, the will of the majority of the American people no longer matters all that much in who is running their country. Continue reading...

In interview about new book The Masters, Wenner had said no female or Black musicians were as articulate' as white performersJann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone and a co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has apologized for remarks he made disparaging Black and female artists as less intellectually articulate than their white counterparts.The 77-year-old's statements - made in an interview published on Friday by the New York Times in which he explained why he had included only white rock performers, whom he dubbed the philosophers of rock", in a book compiling his interviews - led to a unanimous vote removing Wenner from the hall of fame board. Continue reading...

From the climate crisis to economic decline, the period in which this online generation remain blissfully ignorant has shrunkIt's never been easy, as Britney Spears sang, to be not a girl, not yet a woman". But a new survey carried out for Girlguiding shows that young women are less hopeful than ever of emerging on the other side, with the happiness of seven- to 21-year-olds plummeting to its lowest level since 2009.At 32 years old, I am profoundly grateful not to be a girl today - or even much younger than I am now. When I was a teenager, through the mid-2000s, there were the time-honoured troubles of growing girls: depression, anxiety, bullying, body image issues, disordered eating, problematic interactions with the opposite sex. But - without minimising those struggles, or being blithely superior about my day" - there were some limits in place that served as checks against external harm and the adolescent impulse towards self-destruction. Continue reading...

Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate have until start of October to avoid shutdownWith a possible partial US government shutdown looming in two weeks, Kevin McCarthy on Sunday said he would bring a defense spending bill to a vote win or lose" this week, despite resistance from hardline fellow Republicans.The House speaker is struggling to bring fiscal 2024 spending legislation to the floor, with Republicans fractured by conservative demands for spending to be cut to a 2022 level of $1.47tn - $120bn below the spending on which McCarthy agreed with Joe Biden in May. Continue reading...

US senator is popular among blue-collar workers and people of color, but seat not assured in increasingly Republican stateThe Democrats desperately need Sherrod Brown. Whether the Ohio senator is quite so keen on being identified with the party as he fights for re-election in a state that swung firmly to Donald Trump is another matter.Brown's seat is one of three tight races for the Democrats next year that are likely to decide control of the US Senate. The prevailing winds are not good. Republicans now control every state-wide office in Ohio except for Brown's place in the Senate. Trump took the state from the Democrats to win it twice by a margin of more than 8% each time. Continue reading...

Indictments were unexpectedly useful for Trump to test theory that his criminal cases could benefit his campaign, and vice versaDonald Trump is intent on leaning into his criminal cases to boost his 2024 campaign through the election next year, according to multiple people close to the former president, after he tested that strategy through multiple indictments and decided it gave him major political advantages.The summer was devastating for Trump from a legal perspective, after he was charged with retaining national security documents in Florida as well as with seeking to overturn the 2020 election in Washington and in Georgia, the trials for which will occur before the election. Continue reading...

Conservationist Morad Tahbaz among prisoners to be swapped in deal involving unfreezing of Iranian oil money. Plus, has the Chinese economy reached its peak?

I had 20 nicotine obsessed years: first cigarettes and then the plastic alternative. I came to realise it wasn't a want: it was a needI have been a nicotine fiend ever since I smoked my first cigarette at the age of 14, perched on some steps during my school lunch break. It tasted disgusting but I persevered and soon I was hooked. I must have looked like some kind of Dickensian urchin, trailing around north London in my school uniform puffing on a ciggie.And boy, did I love to smoke. It was great fun for a while. I happily trooped into the pens outside nightclubs and pubs where the smokers were held. Smoking was a group activity back then. I swapped white-and-gold packets of Marlboro Lights for the more cost-efficient squishy green pouches of Golden Virginia tobacco. My best friend and I chain-smoked rollies until our flat reeked and the ashtray overflowed. Continue reading...

Conservationist Morad Tahbaz among prisoners to be swapped in deal involving unfreezing of Iranian oil moneyThe US and Iran are expected to pull off a controversial prisoner swap on Monday involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (4.8bn) of Iranian oil money held in South Korea since 2018.Tehran and Washington are due to swap five prisoners each, including the conservationist Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen. Continue reading...

The 29-year-old ended a long American drought with victory in the Vuelta a Espana. And he did so with a very different style to his predecessorsAfter a long wait, an American is once again at the center of the cycling universe. For three weeks, Sepp Kuss, the 29-year-old climber from Durango, Colorado, navigated the Pyrenees, the rampas inhumanas of Asturias, and threatening attacks from outside and within his own team. And he has emerged as the winner of the Vuelta a Espana.This is the first grand tour win for an American since Chris Horner's stunning victory over Vincenzo Nibali at the 2013 Vuelta. In the intervening years, no American man has won a world championship or a monument either; Kuss is the only American to even lead a grand tour since Horner, and the only American since 2011 to win a stage of the Tour de France. Continue reading...

The head coach called out the efforts of his predecessor in Denver, Nathaniel Hackett. But he is hardly shining in Denver himselfWhen Sean Payton called Nathaniel Hackett's 15-game stint with the Broncos one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL," it sounded cruel and unnecessary. Now it sounds foolish. Hackett was 1-1 at this point last season in Denver. Payton's Broncos are 0-2 after giving up an 18-point lead to the Washington Commanders in a thriller that ended 35-33 after a failed Denver two-point conversion following a miraculous Hail Mary.The game ended in controversy as Commanders cornerback Benjamin St-Juste was draped all over Courtland Sutton during that final two-point conversion. But none of that should take away from the fact that Denver should have been riding into Week 3 with a 1-1 record, thrilled with the direction of the Russell Wilson-Payton marriage. Continue reading...

I've seen the bravery and resilience of the Ukrainian people. At this week's UN general assembly, world leaders must help themRecently, Michael Kofman, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the foremost analysts of the war in Ukraine, urged that the west plan for the long war". He was talking about the military challenges facing the country: ammunition, air defence, key enablers and scaling up training.Kofman is right - the massive scale of the operation ahead cannot be underestimated. A recent trip I made to Kyiv confirms the extraordinary bravery, resilience and commitment of the Ukrainian population. But it also laid bare the civilian cost of the war, visible and invisible. With no end to the war in sight, civilian and humanitarian needs must be planned for, not just military ones. Continue reading...

For the past decade, the photojournalist and Baltimore native JM Giordano has been documenting the city's gun violence and the activists who organised to combat it.Giordano's new book, 13-23, from Nighted Life press, documents the rise of anti-gun-violence groups following the violent summer of 2013. The book covers the intersectionality of the city's gun violence epidemic and activist movements created to tackle that violence Continue reading...

Ro Khanna of California threw cold water on House speaker Kevin McCarthy's capitulation to the hard right over government fundingOne of Joe Biden's key congressional allies has rejected the notion that Republicans can bait the president's fellow Democrats into embracing an impeachment inquiry as an opportunity for him to be cleared over questions about his son's business affairs.What the American people want is for us to fund government and solve their issues," the California congressman Ro Khanna said on Fox News Sunday, referring to how some hard-right Republicans have made a Biden impeachment inquiry a condition for them to support new funding that would avoid at least a partial federal government shutdown after 30 September. Continue reading...

Search for F-35B Lightning II fighter jet focused on two lakes after Marine Corps pilot ejected over North Charleston for unknown reasonUS military officials have appealed to the public for help to find a fighter jet after losing track of it somewhere over South Carolina when the pilot ejected.A Marine Corps pilot safely escaped the F-35B Lightning II jet over North Charleston on Sunday afternoon after a mishap", military officials said, and the search for his missing aircraft was now focused on two lakes north of North Charleston. Continue reading...

Jordan Steinke to serve 30 months' probation for 2022 incident in which she handcuffed and placed woman in car parked on train tracksA former Colorado police officer who put a handcuffed woman in a parked police vehicle that was hit by a freight train, inflicting serious injuries to the woman, has avoided a jail sentence and must serve 30 months on supervised probation.Jordan Steinke, 29, was sentenced on Friday by Weld county district court judge Timothy Kerns, who found her guilty of reckless endangerment and assault for the 16 September 2022 crash near Platteville. Kerns acquitted the former Fort Lupton police officer of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter after her bench trial in July. Continue reading...

Ryan Clinkunbroomer had become engaged just four days before he was slain in brazen attack in PalmdaleA gunman ambushed" a Los Angeles county sheriff's department deputy in his patrol car Saturday night, shooting him to death in a particularly brazen attack, authorities said.The deputy, Ryan Clinkunbroomer, was found unconscious in his vehicle near the intersection of Sierra Highway and Avenue Q in Palmdale, California. A passerby discovered the mortally wounded deputy and then alerted authorities.The Associated Press contributed reporting. Continue reading...

Remarks by congresswoman came after a written apology on Friday in which she said her actions simply fell short' of her valuesLauren Boebert has issued a second apology for her now infamous theatre date which saw her get ejected from watching a Beetlejuice: The Musical performance after she openly vaped in the audience, groped her companion and was graphically felt up in kind.In an interview on Sunday with the conservative One America News Network, the far-right Colorado congresswoman attributed the behavior - recorded on security camera footage - to what she described as her being maybe overtly animated". Boebert, 36, thus implied that her extrovertedness had somehow fused with a stage production that the New York Times reviewed as a jaw-dropping funhouse". Continue reading...

Trump talks about democratic principles, ageing politicians and abortion rights in wide ranging NBC interviewDonald Trump grappled with a wide range of contentious issues in an interview with NBC that generated criticism against the network, including his thoughts on democratic principles, abortion rights and ageing politicians.He also confirmed his interest in choosing Kristi Noem to be his vice-presidential running mate if he wins the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 as he seeks a second term in the White House. Continue reading...

Candid, substantive and constructive' talks were held as a possible prelude to a Joe Biden-Xi Jinping meeting in NovemberTop US and Chinese diplomats met in Malta over the weekend as the world's two largest economies attempted to smooth strained relations and clear a path for their respective presidents - Joe Biden and Xi Jinping - to meet in November.According to both Beijing and Washington, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met multiple times with China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Malta, where - according to separate statements - candid, substantive and constructive" talks were held. Continue reading...

Another person was also charged with murder in relation to the fatal overdose and the sickening of three other childrenA Bronx daycare owner was jailed on a count of depraved indifference murder as well as drug charges on Saturday after a one-year-old infant died from apparent fentanyl poisoning on her watch, according to officials.Three other children - an eight-month-old girl and a pair of two-year-old boys - also appeared to have been sickened by the potent, synthetic opioid, authorities said. Continue reading...

Vermont senator says technology should benefit not just people on top' as he cites financial stresses confronting most AmericansIf the US's ongoing artificial intelligence and robotics boom translates into more work being done faster, then laborers should reap some of the gains of that in the form of more paid time off, the liberal US senator Bernie Sanders said Sunday.I happen to believe that - as a nation - we should begin a serious discussion ... about substantially lowering the workweek," Sanders remarked on CNN's State of the Union. Continue reading...

Man was outside a Los Angeles theater where Democratic presidential candidate was scheduled to give a speechAn armed man accused of impersonating a federal officer was arrested outside a Robert F Kennedy Jr campaign event in Los Angeles.A Los Angeles police department statement said police received a call on Friday afternoon that a man with a loaded gun and holster and wearing a US marshals service badge was outside a theater where the Democratic presidential candidate was scheduled to give a speech. Continue reading...

The White House has adopted a new, aggressive tone to negative reports about the 80-year-old president's fitness to govern but could it backfire?Joe Biden began his press conference at the JW Marriott Hotel Hanoi in Vietnam at 9.09pm local time. Good evening, everyone - it is evening, isn't it?" he said, prompting laughter. About 25 minutes later, the 80-year-old US president had another quip: I don't know about you, but I'm going to go to bed."Headline writers pounced. The Daily Beast website declared: Biden Wraps Up G20 Conference by Announcing I'm Going to Bed'". But unusually, the White House fired back. Ben LaBolt, its communications director, retorted sarcastically on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: Presidents shall never sleep. Not even at night after days of marathon meetings overseas. Sage guidance from the Daily Beast. Next up in the series: presidents shall never eat." Continue reading...

US president agrees to talks at general assembly despite deep unease over policies of Israeli PM's hardline coalitionNine months after returning to office, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is finally getting his long sought-after meeting with Joe Biden - but an awkward rapprochement at the UN general assembly is unlikely to improve the strained relationship between the two leaders.The US president is scheduled to meet Netanyahu in New York on Wednesday, the White House said on Friday. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the two leaders would discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues focused on the shared democratic values between the United States and Israel and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as to compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran". Continue reading...

The religious right is losing its grip as candidates respond to a voter majority that doesn't support a federal abortion banWhen Donald Trump recalled how his three US supreme court justices helped repeal the nationwide right to abortion, the audience rose to its feet and erupted in whistles, whoops and prolonged applause. But even as the former president basked in the religious right's moment of triumph, he went on to deliver a warning.I will say politically, it's a very tough, it's a very tough decision for some people, but very, very hard on elections. Very, very hard," Trump told a gathering of Christian conservatives in the ballroom of a Washington hotel. We had midterms and this was an issue, you know." Continue reading...

Alaska Airlines, American and United could all be disrupted as air crew demand fairer share of vast profitsMajor US airlines have recovered from Covid-19 pandemic losses and are amassing vast profits, but amid those record-setting financial performances flight attendants are threatening strikes and calling for substantial wage increases and improvements in working conditions.The sums of money are huge. American Airlines reported record quarterly revenue in the second quarter of 2023 at $14.1bn, United Airlines reported record revenue in the same quarter at $14.2bn and a threefold increase in profit, and Alaska Airlines also reported record revenue in the second quarter of 2023 at $2.8bn. Continue reading...

We no longer expect blind obedience from our children, but if we teach them to be curious about the world and tolerant of each other, then good manners will followDo as you're told! As a child growing up in the 1960s and 70s, I seemed to hear that phrase all the time; these days, it's rare to hear parents or teachers utter it. So it was no surprise to read last week that the importance we put on our children being obedient has, according to the World Values Survey, plummeted in the past 30 years. The proportion of Britons who think children should be brought up to be obedient is now 12%, down from 42% in 1990.What we value in our kids these days, is, apparently, hard work" which is up from 29% to 48% over the same period. Imagination", is up from 18% to 37%, and determination and perseverance", from 31% to 41%. But in some values, we remain roughly the same through the decades: about 85% of British adults see good manners in children as especially important - that's only slightly lower than 1990 - and as for being unselfish, 43% of us value it highly in children, second only to France where the figure is 45%. Continue reading...

Adverts, MPs and newsreaders have all been caught in the act...Whenever I read asterisked swear words in print, and surely you do this, too, I very carefully sound the word out either aloud or in my head. And the feeling it gives me, working out the word from only two letters and an assortment of shapes, is as if I have cracked a secret code or passed a test, which means the word resonates at a higher pitch than its pathetic unstarred pals. It rings like a lovely bell and the stars for letters mean it glitters. Which, I think, must be the very opposite of what was originally intended. Instead of obscuring the word, the asterisks manifest it.Sometimes you don't even need asterisks. The ASA recently investigated ads for Tesco Mobile after receiving complaints that using the words shiitake", pistachio", and fettuccine" in a context where they alluded to expletives" was offensive and inappropriate for children to see. They would make them think about swear words and then, presumably, become ungovernable and possibly go on to kill. Continue reading...

One thing they share is the belief that the purpose of politics is to make things happen - and you only get to do that by winning powerWhen his parents named him after Keir Hardie, Labour's first leader, they could not have imagined how often their son would be measured against other people who have done the job. When Sir Keir Starmer ran for the role, some were under the misapprehension he would be a beardless version of Jeremy Corbyn. They know different now. During his first two years in the role, many thought, including a lot of people who sit in today's shadow cabinet, he was fated to be another Neil Kinnock: someone who would haul the party back from the brink of oblivion, but not return it to government. And now that Labour looks like it is on the cusp of power, there's a fashion to make comparisons with Tony Blair.They are often intended as insults, especially when they come from segments of the left. Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, recently jibed that Sir Keir seemed intent on becoming a 1990s tribute act". Continue reading...

Walter Isaacson's biography of the Tesla, SpaceX and X owner shows insecurity and anger have driven him to extremesThe personal is political. The phrase was popularized by 1960s second-wave feminism but it sums up Elon Musk's ideological journey. Once a fundraiser and fanboy for Barack Obama", to quote his biographer, Walter Isaacson, the sometime world's richest man now plays thin-skinned, anti-woke warrior - a self-professed free-speech purist who in fact is anything but.His rebranding of Twitter to X having proved a disaster, he flirts with antisemites for fun and lost profits. He threatens the Anti-Defamation League with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. The ADL never suggested the name X". That was a long-term fetish, now a clear own-goal. Continue reading...

Newly released surveillance video from a Denver theater appears to show Lauren Boebert vaping, singing, filming and disturbing other patrons during a Beetlejuice musical play. The US congresswoman has issued an apology after being kicked out of the performance in Denver for inappropriate behavior, an experience she has called 'difficult and humbling'

Olivia Hill, 57, a military veteran, joins the Nashville city council in historic electionA transgender woman won election to a seat on Nashville's city council, becoming the first openly transgender person to be voted into political office in Tennessee.Olivia Hill, 57, secured one of the four open at-large seats on the metro council of Nashville, a politically liberal city in an overwhelmingly conservative state. Continue reading...

Ken Paxton, impeached in May, has been found not guilty of bribery and dereliction of duty and may resume officeAfter a dramatic impeachment trial that lasted more than a week, Ken Paxton, the ultraconservative Texas attorney general, has been acquitted and will be able to resume his work in elected office.Paxton, who faced 16 articles of impeachment against him in this trial - involving bribery, dereliction of duty and disregard for official duty - and four more separately, avoided becoming Texas's highest-ranking elected official to be removed from state office. He quickly issued a statement boasting that, in his case, the truth prevailed". Continue reading...

Members of US Board on Geographic Names voted to change name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue sky at request of tribesFederal US officials renamed a Colorado mountain that was previously named after a disgraced governor of the state who led a massacre against Indigenous people.Members of the US Board on Geographic Names voted to change the name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky, at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Continue reading...

Emergency workers responding to report of cardiac arrest find equipment used in production of illegal drugsA one-year-old boy died and three other children were hospitalized after emergency workers responded to a report of cardiac arrest at a daycare center in New York City on Friday, authorities said.Police said they found equipment often used in the production of illegal drugs in the home-based daycare in the Bronx. Police said they were investigating the possibility that both the dead child and the hospitalized children had been exposed to an opioid of some kind over an extended period of time, according to reports from WABC and the New York Times. Continue reading...

Congresswoman issues apology after being kicked out of performance of musical in Denver for inappropriate behaviorLauren Boebert, the US congresswoman, has issued an apology after being kicked out of a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver for inappropriate behavior, an experience she has called difficult and humbling".Boebert, a Republican representative for Colorado, and a male guest accompanying her were ejected from the musical on 10 September for vaping, recording video and disturbing other patrons during the Sunday performance. Video also showed them eagerly groping each other while in their seats. Continue reading...