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Lawyers for former US president said reports of his alleged sexual activity in Russia were false, phoney or made-up'Donald Trump has said that a dossier alleging that he engaged in perverted sexual behaviour" and paid bribes to Russian officials to further his business interests is false" and phoney", and is seeking to sue for damages in London.The former US president indicated that he was willing to give evidence at the high court in his case alleging breach of data protection rights by Orbis Business Intelligence over the 2016 Steele dossier". The dossier, investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential campaign, was compiled by the Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, who previously ran MI6's Russia desk. Continue reading...

Robert Mann says Trump-backed Jeff Landry urged LSU to fire him and attacks university leadership for cowardice and appeasement'A prominent professor at Louisiana's largest public university has said he is resigning after an extremist Republican candidate won the state's gubernatorial election - a victory some fear could accelerate the already conservative-dominated state's march into unfettered rightwing governance.Robert Mann, a journalism professor at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication and a well-known political commentator, said he will step down at the end of the academic year in response to Jeff Landry's victory in the election to become governor. Continue reading...

Former president is prohibited from making public statements attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnessesDonald Trump has been issued a limited gag order by the federal judge overseeing the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, prohibiting him from making public statements attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.The former president was not prohibited from generally disparaging the Biden administration, the US justice department and the trial venue of Washington DC, and will continue to be allowed to allege that the case was politically motivated. Continue reading...

The country's populist nightmare is almost over, but it's still early days and there are tough tasks aheadTo be in Poland on Sunday night was to experience a rare moment of political joy. Young voters queued until the early hours to see off the xenophobic, nationalist populists who have been dragging their country backwards; to prove that even an unfair election can be won against the odds; and to turn Poland towards a modern European future. If you were already in the queue at 9pm, when polls closed, you were allowed to wait to vote. Some of the queues were very long, so neighbours brought hot drinks to sustain people in the cold. Interviewed at about 1am on Monday, one young man in Wrocaw said he had to hang in there because this was the most important election since 1989.I walked to a Warsaw polling station on election day with the same old friends whom I had accompanied to that historic vote on 4 June 1989. With delight, they each chose one name from the long list of parliamentary candidates. With equal delight, they refused even to take the ballot paper for the simultaneous referendum, which - with its ludicrously biased questions about things like an alleged forced relocation mechanism" for illegal immigrants, supposedly imposed by the European bureaucracy" - was effectively election propaganda for the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). But my friends and I were full of nervous anticipation.Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

She never came home from Supernova music festival, and our hearts are broken. We are begging for help to bring her home and get her the medication she needsOn Friday 6 October, my 27-year-old daughter, Tamar, for ever my little girl, was so excited. After a long period of illness, she was finally going out to enjoy herself at an all-night music festival, something she had not done in years. She was so looking forward to a night of music and carefree dancing.On that night, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, she ate dinner with my husband, Dudi, who was home alone because I was abroad, as were two of my other daughters. Tamar then brought dinner over to her older sister, Adva, a mother of two young children. Tamar giggled and chatted excitedly about the upcoming party and then packed up her gear. Continue reading...

A woman in the public eye will be judged by an ever-changing standard: too strident, too provocative, too predatory, too thin, too fat, too muscly and very soon too old. The only dignified answer? Smash the patriarchyMadonna arrived at the O2 for her Celebration tour last weekend, and Oh Madge," the columnist Sarah Vine wondered aloud in the Daily Mail, isn't it time you grew up?" Madonna had already answered that, of course, by dressing in a broken mirror catsuit, a cowgirl corset and another corset, and by cavorting with topless dancers. It all amounted to a pretty comprehensive statement of: Take your idea of what a grownup 65-year-old should wear and how she should comport herself, and shove it."If I were Madge, that would be the kernel of my celebration, an entire career lived as the lightning rod of the conundrum of female sexuality. Who gets to decide what it looks like, what is attractive, what is off-putting? Who gets to police what is too much, what is too old, what is too scary, what is too slutty? Is it men, and if so, which men? Just the loudest ones? Is it socially constructed by an unstable but vocal alliance of sexist men and disapproving women? Do feminists get a say, and if so, do we all have to agree first about where we stand on fishnet tights? Where do conical bras fit, in the long pantheon of shapes you're apparently pretending your breasts might be"?Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

IRS filings show wealthy Informing America Foundation helping to bankroll variety of conservative groups and causesThe organization that placed a billboard at Harvard University accusing some students of antisemitism amid the fight between Israel and Hamas is part of a network of rightwing media organizations being funded by a major conservative donor via a shadowy new foundation.The single largest identified donor last year to Accuracy in Media (AIM), which placed the billboard, is the Informing America Foundation (IAF), formed in 2021, which has already dished out at least $8m to rightwing nonprofit and for-profit organizations, according to IRS filings. Continue reading...

Best known for her roles in The Hustler, Carrie and Twin Peaks, Laurie has died at the age of 91. Here we look back at her life and times Piper Laurie, Oscar nominee for Carrie and The Hustler, dies at 91 Continue reading...

Our panel considers what the populist ruling party's apparent defeat could mean for democracy and Poland's place in EuropePro-democratic Poles can be cautiously happy. The ruling rightwing party Law and Justice (PiS) may have come first in an unfair election that stacked the odds in its favour, but it is unlikely to be able to form a government, either alone or in coalition with the far-right Konfederacja party.Jakub Jaraczewski is a research coordinator at Democracy Reporting International, Berlin Continue reading...

Netanyahu's government might welcome a chance to shift a million or more Palestinians off the demographic balance sheet by clearing GazaThe Israeli government's mass evacuation order from northern Gaza is an ostensibly humanitarian act done in an utterly inhumane way. The order requires 1.1 million people to flee their homes in northern Gaza in advance of an imminent Israeli ground invasion - the next step in the Israeli response to the horrendous Hamas massacre and abduction of Israeli civilians on 7 October. Warring parties, if possible, are supposed to give effective advance warning of attacks". Yet the Israeli order will compound the suffering of the Palestinian civilians of Gaza. It may also begin an illegal process of ethnic cleansing.The threat in northern Gaza is plenty real as Israeli bombers pulverize neighborhoods in attacks that appear designed less to pinpoint Hamas fighters than to collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza - the same population that has endured years of Hamas's military dictatorship and had no say in Hamas's decision to slaughter Israeli civilians. Yet evacuation has its risks, too. At least 70 people were reportedly killed while traveling along the prescribed road south.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. On Twitter he is @KenRoth Continue reading...

Andre Onana has had a miserable start to life at Manchester United, but his struggles are emblematic of a broader shift in the sport

The Biden administration knows it cannot be seen to be lecturing or criticising and may have set itself irreconcilable goals

Nina Fathizadeh, 41, and Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, face charges after deaths of two infants who fell into pool in San JoseAuthorities in California have arrested two women who ran a children's daycare out of a home after two toddlers drowned in a pool there recently.Nina Fathizadeh, 41, and Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, face counts of felony child endangerment resulting in death as well as criminal negligence, said news releases from police and prosecutors. Continue reading...

The president has a frosty history with Israel's PM, and he has emphasised that US backing depends on the upholding of democratic valuesPresident Biden's response to the murderous attack by Hamas on Israeli towns, villages and kibbutzim that claimed more than 1,200 Israeli lives, the majority of them civilians, was one of the most heartfelt expressions of support for Israel by a US president for a very long time. His speech on 10 October emphasised that Washington would not confine its backing for the Jewish state to words, and would immediately translate those words into tangible assistance. But Biden's pledge of surging" support, including sending aircraft carriers to deter hostile actions against Israel" - is not without caveats, to which Israel should pay careful heed. Over the weekend, Biden wisely warned Israel against occupying Gaza, and expressed his support for opening a humanitarian corridor to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe that is already taking place.It is no secret that US-Israel relations have been strained since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the end of last year. The US administration has been openly critical of the crass attempt to weaken the country's judiciary, and with it Israel's democratic system, by the newly formed, most rightwing government coalition in its history. Indirectly supporting the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been regularly taking to the streets in defence of their democracy, Biden linked US friendship with Israel to the preservation of that democracy, and asserted that: The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary." Continue reading...

I covered the Rwandan genocide as a reporter. The language spilling out of Israel is eerily familiarIsrael's president, Isaac Herzog, set the tone as he spoke about how far to assign guilt for the worst single atrocity against Jews in his country's history.It's an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it's absolutely not true. They could've risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime," said Herzog.Chris McGreal writes for Guardian US and is a former Guardian correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem Continue reading...

The former Texas congressman's long-shot 2024 bid has come to an end, but he has no regrets - and he insists Trump's nomination is not inevitableWill Hurd wanted to be the most powerful man in the world. Like so many candidates before him, he knew the loneliness of the long distance runner criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire in a quest for votes that might make him president of the United States. But it was not be.This week Hurd called it a day after a campaign that failed to make much of a splash. Indeed, arguably his biggest headline came in July when he declared, Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison," and was roundly booed at the Iowa Republican Party's Lincoln Dinner. Unrepentant, Hurd told them: Listen, I know the truth is hard." Continue reading...

Calls for restraint are right but unlikely to be heeded. A conflict setting Israel and the US against Iran has rarely seemed closerThe foremost concern of western governments as the Israel-Hamas war enters a murderous second week is not the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. It is the alarming prospect of a swiftly spreading conflict pitting Israeli and US forces against Iran and its militia proxies. Recent, ominous signs suggest a rapid deterioration. Iran holds the key.The two issues are intimately connected. Arab leaders told Antony Blinken, the visiting US secretary of state, that unless Israel's mass casualty attacks on Gaza cease, the war may escalate uncontrollably. If the Zionist aggressions do not stop, the hands of all parties in the region are on the trigger," warned Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Continue reading...

Workers in US south call for higher minimum wage and end to automatic meal deduction charges from paychecks in petitionWorkers at several Waffle House locations in the southern US are among the latest group of employees in America to hold walkouts around a slate of demands for improvements to wages and working conditions.A petition circulating by the Union of Southern Service Workers, a worker organization supported by the Service Employees International Union, includes a push for a $25 hourly minimum wage at the huge restaurant chain that is often seen as an icon of working-class Americana. Continue reading...

US president says Hamas must be eliminated but there should be a path to a Palestinian state. Plus, examples of Jewish-Arab solidarity offer hope in Israel

Carolina have yet to record a winning season since the billionaire bought them in 2018. There are few signs that streak will be broken in the near futureThe Carolina Panthers, the last winless team in the NFL, remained that way on Sunday. A 42-21 loss at the high-flying Miami Dolphins was the team's most lopsided defeat in a year full of them. Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and receiver Tyreek Hill were their usual destructive selves in the passing game - they combined for 163 yards and a touchdown - and tailback Raheem Mostert added 115 yards and two scores on the ground. This year's No 1 overall pick, Bryce Young, hung in gamely at quarterback but could not come close to keeping pace. Losing to the Dolphins is no disgrace - Miami have the best offense in the NFL and are 5-1 this season - but it emphasized how far Carolina are from being relevant. Besides, it's the overall picture of the season that is depressing for Carolina fans: their team have a 0-6 record, the first time they've reached that low since 1998.The Panthers' 2023 season is already lost, but that doesn't begin to cover the predicament the franchise has created for itself. If they remain on their trajectory as the league's worst team, the Panthers will earn the first overall pick in April's draft, but it will go to the Chicago Bears, who netted it in the return for the pick that Carolina used last April on Young. Reinforcements are not readily available. A creative front office could dig out of that hole, but it's unclear how much latitude the Panthers staff have to fix the team. For Carolina fans' sake, the answer is hopefully more than it appears." Continue reading...

Tech wizardry is helping to reduce head impacts and drive equipment innovation in rugby, boxing and the NFLThere was a hidden spectator of the NFL match between the Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans in London on Sunday: artificial intelligence. As crazy as it may sound, computers have now been taught to identify on-field head impacts in the NFL automatically, using multiple video angles and machine learning. So a process that would take 12 hours - for each game - is now done in minutes. The result? After every weekend, teams are sent a breakdown of which players got hit, and how often.This tech wizardry, naturally, has a deeper purpose. Over breakfast the NFL's chief medical officer, Allen Sills, explained how it was helping to reduce head impacts, and drive equipment innovation. Continue reading...

President of American Museum of Natural History says historical thinking around such displays deeply flawed'New York's American Museum of Natural History is to remove all human remains from its display collections in a reform predicated on revised thinking around collection practices that it now says were deeply flawed".The US's leading natural museum plans to overhaul its collection of about 12,000 human remains, including the skeletons of grave-robbed indigenous and enslaved people as well as the bodies of New Yorkers collected as recently as the 1940s. Continue reading...

Navy veteran Rudy Noorlander, 61, who needed three operations to repair face, in good humor as he recovers from injuriesA man who lost his lower jaw in a grizzly bear attack and is preparing to leave hospital in Utah after the horrifying ordeal has joked he is ready for round two" if he ever meets another ursine foe in the wilderness.Navy veteran Rudy Noorlander, 61, underwent three operations to repair his face at the University of Utah Health hospital in Salt Lake City after the attacked him in Custer Gallatin national forest close to Big Sky, Montana. Continue reading...

Connor Cato says he was first told by court to either pay up or appear in court after driving 90 mph in a 55 mph zoneA Georgia man was left reeling after receiving a $1.4m speeding ticket, but city officials say the figure was just a placeholder, not the actual fine.Connor Cato tells WSAV-TV in Savannah that he received the citation after getting pulled over in September for driving 90 mph (145 kph) in a 55 mph (89 kph) zone. Continue reading...

House minority leader confirms informal' talks underway for a solution to speaker crisis in House of RepresentativesTop House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries confirmed Sunday that informal conversations have been underway" for a bipartisan solution to the leadership crisis in the US House of Representatives.The legislative chamber has been without a speaker since 5 October when Republican right-wingers voted to remove California's Kevin McCarthy from his position and Democrats did not step in with votes to secure him, effectively paralyzing the body. Continue reading...

Rightwing speakership contender says he thinks he has 217 votes needed to win as colleague Mike Johnson waits in the wingsThe rightwing congressman Jim Jordan is seeking to shore up support for his bid to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, with plans to appear on the House floor early this week to try to sway Republican members of Congress who signaled in a secret ballot vote they will not support his bid.Jordan, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, claimed in a brief interview with Politico he believes he will get the 217 votes required to secure the speakership in a vote now set to happen on Tuesday at noon. Continue reading...

National security adviser says deployment of USS Eisenhower is to send message that no group should seek to exploit the situation'Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan toured the US Sunday morning shows to sell White House policy on the conflict between Israel and Hamas as Israeli forces massed on the border ahead of an expected ground incursion into Gaza amid a deepening humanitarian crisis there and fears over the conflict spreading.Responding to an Axios report that Iran warned Israel through the United Nations that it will intervene if the Israeli operation in Gaza continues, Sullivan told ABC's This Week that he could not confirm it. Continue reading...

Queer people of color are frequently overlooked in the fight for equality, but inroads into the corridors of power are being madeOn the 60th anniversary of the 1963 march on Washington this summer, a few Black queer advocates spoke passionately before the main program about the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ rights. As some of them got up to speak, the crowd was still noticeably small.Hope Giselle, a speaker who is Black and trans, said she felt the event's programming echoed the historical marginalization and erasure of Black queer activists in the civil rights movement. Continue reading...

Protester shouted let Gaza live' and ceasefire now' during Human Rights Campaign annual dinner in WashingtonJoe Biden was interrupted during the keynote speech on Saturday night at the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner in Washington by a pro-Palestinian activist who yelled let Gaza live" and ceasefire now".The US president briefly paused in response to the protester, saying he could not hear what they were saying before he continued with his remarks. Continue reading...

Rightwing attorney general holds off crowded field and will replace Democrat John Bel Edwards, who has served two termsAttorney General Jeff Landry, a rightwing Republican backed by Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor's race, holding off a crowded field of candidates.The win is a major victory for the Republican party as they reclaim the governor's mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current governor John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek re-election due to consecutive term limits. Continue reading...

Residents of this conservative yet rapidly changing inland California city watch the chaos in Washington with patience and resolveFor two decades, Julie and Jared Vawter have been among the Republicans whose votes for Kevin McCarthy sent him from his conservative inland California hometown of Bakersfield to Sacramento and then Washington DC, where he rose through the GOP's ranks in the House of Representatives and, this year, was elected speaker.That climb came to an abrupt end last week, when a small group of rightwing Republicans revolted against McCarthy and, with the help of Democrats, made him the first speaker removed from the post in the chamber's 234-year history. Continue reading...

Area residents thought their land was safe after Trump's wall plans were foiled, only to discover Biden's plans to build moreNayda Alvarez and her family love to spend time outdoors on their sprawling property along the Rio Grande in south Texas, fishing the river and barbecuing.Under the previous administration, Alvarez fought against plans for Donald Trump's wall" along the US-Mexico border designed to prevent migrants crossing into the US without permission, especially as the steel barrier would have sliced through her property, effectively ending her family's deep ties to the land. Continue reading...

Settlement over withheld virus data that critics say cost thousands of lives comes at pivotal time for Republican governor and his teetering campaignA courtroom settlement over withheld Covid-19 data that critics say cost thousands of lives has deflated Ron DeSantis's campaign trail persona as a courageous freedom warrior who kept his state open during a deadly peak of the pandemic.It comes at a pivotal time for the Florida governor, whose teetering run for the Republican presidential nomination is mired in financial difficulties and collapsing poll numbers in early primary states. Continue reading...

Laying siege to a civilian population isn't the same thing as targeting a terrorist organisationThey too have casualties, they too have captives and they have mothers who weep ... Let's make real peace". Not a liberal peacenik speaking from the safety of London or Washington but Yaakov Argamani, whose daughter Noa was taken hostage by Hamas at a music festival near Re'im on Israel's border with Gaza.I hope I never have to face the torment that now engulfs Yaakov Argamani. But if I do find myself in as dark a place as that, I hope to possess even just a strand of his humanity and moral clarity.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

A new book tells how the lives of 15 young men were shaped by the brutal realities of life at the US Military Academy, the shock of the 9/11 attacks and the lure of a whole new sportAt the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, they call the class of 1915 the class the stars fell on", because 59 of its 164 graduates made brigadier general or higher. Among them were Omar Bradley, first chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and Dwight D Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in the second world war and 34th president.The Class of 2002 might yet challenge 1915. As the bicentennial class, they were always marked for attention. Though they entered West Point in 1998, 25 years after the last major war, their final year began with 9/11. In an instant, they knew they would become the first cadets to graduate in wartime since Vietnam. Continue reading...

Don't try arguing with this skydiving, Channel-swimming generation. They're a jump aheadI was fascinated to read about retired Chicagoan telephone operator Dorothy Hoffner, who died in her sleep a week after a record-breaking skydive. What's the most impressive number in this story? The 31,500 feet Hoffner dove from, or the fact that she was going to be 105 years old in December?To me, it's that this was her second skydive; she took her first when she was a sprightly 100 years old. The latest dive was reportedly spurred by her desire to lead the jump, rather than be pushed out". Old people are off the rails these days. Continue reading...

There was no pause for pity as false narratives justifying murder took hold before the blood had driedAn old man sits amid the destruction on what's left of a wall and lets the tears stream from his eyes. He seems not to have the strength to dry them. Maybe he means never to dry them. A woman clutches her head, not knowing which way to turn. She has lost her children. There is no one near to help her find them. She won't find them. I don't know that for sure but my fears for her authorise me to say it. We are in a world emptied of good fortune, never mind God, where children aren't found and husbands and wives don't come back.I turn off the television. My wife is out with friends. Alone, at my weakest, I let my own tears flow. They are a Jew's tears but they are all I have.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

My heart is broken. But that so many white people finally saw and acknowledged our country's racism, is one of the few positives to emerge from this damaging processI'm not ashamed to say that I shed a tear when the referendum result was called.My heart is broken, and I'm profoundly disappointed and saddened. Continue reading...

Housing, workplace and some benefit reforms on the chopping block as centre-right National-led coalition forms governmentThe most common and cutting critique of Jacinda Ardern's Labour government was that it couldn't get anything done.Transport was the best cudgel for this attack. Ardern came to power promising a light rail line in Auckland that six years later nobody has started to build. Tens of millions were spent on planning a bridge across the city's harbour that ended up scrapped.Henry Cooke is a freelance journalist covering New Zealand politics Continue reading...

Leaders of the Tohono O'odham Nation say they may request congressional inquiry into Arizona state attorney's decisionNative American tribal leaders in Arizona are protesting a US attorney's decision not to prosecute federal border agents who shot dead an unarmed tribe member on their reservation in May.Raymond Mattia was killed when the agents responded to a call for help by tribal police of the Tohono O'odham Nation after they received reports of shots fired in the Menagers Dam community near the US-Mexico border. Continue reading...

At event in Iowa, governor conflates Palestinian civilians with Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel a week agoRepublican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis has rejected accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza to the US, speaking at a campaign rally in the US midwest on Saturday.We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees," he said. If you look how they behave ... not all of them are Hamas but they are all antisemitic, none of them believe in Israel's right to exist." Continue reading...