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I call this state of being next-level incompetence. By doubting everything I do - from where I put a book to whether I picked up my medication - I cause chaosThere is something worse than pure incompetence, and that is next-level incompetence - when your incompetence starts feeding off itself. It's a dangerous place to be. It's like not only feeling depressed, but feeling depressed about being depressed, or feeling anxious about being anxious. Next-level incompetence is when, being dismally aware of your incompetence, you start - with good reason - to doubt everything you do and, crucially, blame yourself for things that weren't your fault. And this can cause yet more chaos.An example: a couple of Wednesdays ago, I was due to interview Geoff Hurst, England football legend, at the Cheltenham literary festival, about his new book, Last Boy of '66. On the Monday, being a consummate professional, I thought I ought to give the book a read. But I couldn't find the book anywhere in my flat. Where had I put it? Obviously somewhere so safe that I now couldn't find it. Continue reading...

There is a new push by his opponents to brand him with the F-word - and the effect has been both silly and seriousI remember when fascist" became a word we all used, right around the time we first learned what it meant in adolescence. It had the kerb appeal of a swearword without the rudeness to get you into trouble, and you could spit it - really put your shoulder into the f" at the front and the digraph in the middle. There was something satisfying about the word fascist", which was, back then, the apex, the very fanciest of insults. You thought I was being mean in a trivial, localised way, when in fact I was offering a structural analysis of your political ideology (plus your horrible personality and disastrous side-parting).Most of us aged out of that phase when everyone and everything that opposed us was fascist. Still, aspects of the pleasures embedded in the word survived its wear and tear so that decades later, there is still a vague frisson, partly nostalgic, lighting up its outer fringes. Among adults, fascist" tends to be used in a lightly ironised form, often in the context of a customer service dispute or fight with petty officialdom. Analogising the man at T-Mobile with the Nazis delivers some of the old sniggering satisfaction and for a long time this was fine, but now we have run into an obvious problem. The flippancy and babyishness of how we use fascist" is making it hard, if not impossible, to recharge its meaning.Emma Brockes 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...

Atlantic report claims Trump disputed funeral costs he offered to pay for Vanessa Guillen, a murdered US soldierA row has broken out in the aftermath of a report from the Atlantic that claims Donald Trump refused to cover the funeral costs of a soldier who was murdered at a Texas military base in 2020.The deceased woman's sister came to the defense of the former US president amid a wave of backlash against Trump. Continue reading...

As LeBron and Bronny James become the first father and son duo to play together in the NBA, more families with overlapping sporting careers Continue reading...

Finding the perfect combination of lifestyle hacks to live to 110 irks many experts who are more interested in quality of lifeThere is a whole body of scientific research dedicated to uncovering the lifestyles of people living in blue zones - areas of the globe where a higher proportion of people seem to live exceptionally long lives beyond the age of 100.From Okinawa in Japan to the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean, the seven blue zone regions have given rise to books, diets, documentaries and endless social media posts from wellness coaches" delving into what it is about these places that lead people to live for so long. Continue reading...

Little-known policy embraced by Trump and included in Project 2025 would transform previously nonpartisan jobsThe Democrat Eugene Vindman stood before a group of roughly 30 fellow veterans and warned of an impending danger if Republicans like his opponent, Derrick Anderson, won key House races next month: a little-known policy called schedule F.The policy, initially embraced by Donald Trump in the final months of his first term in office and now included in the rightwing manifesto known as Project 2025, would transform previously nonpartisan jobs in the federal government into political appointments. The change could fundamentally alter and perhaps jeopardize the employment of tens or even hundreds of thousands of government workers, including 14% of the residents in Virginia's seventh district, where Vindman is running for Congress. Continue reading...

Kelly Ortberg reports $6bn quarterly loss at beleaguered planemaker amid worker strike that has entered fifth weekThe new boss of Boeing has pledged to fundamentally" transform the culture inside the beleaguered aerospace giant, as its quarterly losses swelled to almost $6bn amid a sweeping strike.As thousands of workers vote on a new contract on Wednesday, raising the prospect of an end to the crippling industrial action which began almost six weeks ago, Boeing revealed the extent of the damage of a dire year on its business. Continue reading...

Citizen review committee will be created after decision outraged' advocates and community near HoustonA Texas county reversed its decision to place Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, a children's history book about the Native American experience, in the fiction category at local libraries.The decision drew the ire of the world's largest publishers, literary freedom groups and many community members. Continue reading...

Announcement is first time federal authorities have confirmed connectionGroups in Russia created and helped spread viral disinformation targeting the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz, a senior US intelligence official said on Tuesday.The content, which includes baseless accusations about the Minnesota governor's time as a teacher, contains several indications that it was manipulated, said the official with the office of the director of national intelligence. Continue reading...

France's second city makes headlines for crime, but also for being welcoming and progressive. Neither cliche does it justiceEarlier this month, France's second city suffered a pair of brutal killings that appeared to be the latest in a long list of tragedies inflicted by drug-related turf wars. In a place where groups have battled for years over highly coveted points of sale", many of them in the city's impoverished northern neighbourhoods, the age of those involved in the latest killings was especially stomach-churning. The Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, described how following the recent gang killing of a 15-year-old, a 14-year-old had been hired to carry out a revenge killing. A prisoner had recruited the teenager, the prosecutor said, and organised the logistics for him to be collected by car and brought to a hotel room in Marseille". The 14-year-old then allegedly shot and killed the taxi driver, who had nothing to do with the drugs trade, for not waiting for him.Unfortunately, grim stories such as these have become one of the big reasons Marseille makes headlines not just in France, but in the English-language press too. In addition to putting the spotlight on figures clamouring for more police authority and harsher prison sentences, they fuel a particular image of the port city in the rightwing imagination: Marseille as the ultimate symbol of French decline, a once-great metropolis torn asunder by decades of lawlessness and immigration that has become so dangerous it is now practically unliveable. Somehow, this reactionary fantasy hasn't yet damaged a radically different image of the city gaining steam: Marseille as a promised land for twenty- and thirtysomethings seeking sunshine, natural beauty and just the right dose of urban grit." Continue reading...

In recent years, money has poured into local politics as wealthy financiers try to remake the landscape of the cityAs San Franciscans gear up to decide whether their embattled mayor London Breed deserves another term, political observers are watching whether this fall's election - projected to be the most expensive municipal contest in history - will bring definitive proof of the growing political power of the city's tech elites.Wealthy financiers, including members of the city's traditional financial elite and the region's upstart tech oligarchs, have in recent years spent millions in an effort to reshape the political landscape of the city, pushing moderate candidates and policies over their more progressive rivals. Continue reading...

The Tampa Bay quarterback has shown the Browns what they are missing, while New England's rookie head coach failed to protect his team in public Continue reading...

The Harris town hall - a stand-in for the second presidential debate - will start at 9pm ET on Wednesday, hosted by Anderson CooperWith 13 days until the election, Kamala Harris will answer voter questions during a live town hall on Wednesday evening.CNN will host the one-hour-and-15 minute event from Pennsylvania, a battleground state both the Harris and Trump campaigns need to win to secure the White House. Continue reading...

Panel co-hosted by Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University to discuss changes to Georgia voting lawsGuardian US and and the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University are co-hosting an event on 23 October at 6pm ET on the battle over voting rights in America.The event will focus on the past, present and future of fights over access to voting, including the sweeping changes to Georgia's voting laws since 2020. Those measures have made it easier to challenge voters, shortened the window to request an absentee ballot, and made it illegal to hand out food or water to voters waiting in line. Continue reading...

No Americans who care about the future of this country can afford to remain a mere spectator to our own democracyWith two weeks to go before election day, Kamala Harris and Donald J Trump are essentially tied.Neither candidate is ahead by even a single point in the New York Times's polling average of five critical battleground states - Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

This would be a horrific program of ethnic cleansing - yet most of the media reaction has focused on the economic costsIf you didn't know any better, you might think, from recent media coverage, that the problem with Donald Trump's proposal to round up and expel as many as 20 million immigrants is that it's not likely to work.The Republican presidential nominee has made the mass deportation pledge central to his case for a second term. On the campaign trail, he diverts every question, no matter what the issue, back to the supposed danger and malignancy of immigrants and the urgency of getting rid of them. The economy? It will be better when there are fewer immigrants competing for jobs, he says. Housing prices? They'll come down when millions of people are kicked out of the country, he claims. Crime will come down when the immigrants are gone, he says, because murder is in their genes".Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The socialist millennial, and first south Asian man in the state assembly, is entering an already crowded mayoral raceIn a quiet and unassuming coffee shop in Astoria, a once affordable, diverse neighborhood in Queens where rent is skyrocketing to the heights of other parts of New York, a man in a black jacket sits against the window.He doesn't look the part of a large metropolitan city's typical politician, but Zohran Mamdani represents this area in the state legislature as the assembly member for district 36 - the first south Asian man in the state assembly and only its third Muslim. Continue reading...

No denial from candidate for governor of North Carolina, who is suing CNN for report on his Black NAZI' porn profileMark Robinson, North Carolina's embattled Republican gubernatorial candidate, suggested that people who can't take care of their children should be sterilized, according to one of a series of incendiary and racist social media posts from 2014 through 2019.The commentary made in reference to Black families, which used terms a white supremacist would find appropriate, predates his time as the state's lieutenant governor, but much of it came after his rise as a public figure on the right. Most of the social media posts have not previously been reported. Continue reading...

Recreational drug use boomed in the 1980s and basketball was far from immune. The trend ended careers as the NBA clamped downMicheal Ray Richardson was a brilliant player: a four-time NBA All-Star guard. He was also the first player banned for life by the league for drug use, something which was far more common during his playing days. Back in the 1980s, substances like cocaine were not only part of professional sports but also society and entertainment at large, and Richardson says talk about drugs was routine during what some still call the NBA's cocaine era. During warmups," Richardson says, guys on different teams would say, Yo, man, I got what you're looking for. Let's get together when [the game] is over.' And boom that's how it got going."At the time, drugs were everywhere - it was like a fad," says Richardson, who also goes by the nickname Sugar. But in the NBA, it alienated many fans. So much so that to correct the problem, the NBA instituted a three-strike system, which led to Richardson's 1986 banishment (all of which he discusses in his forthcoming memoir, Banned). Continue reading...

Nearly 80 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, analysis shows Black and Latino players still face obstacles as they attempt to make the majorsJackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 to usher in a historic moment for civil rights, yet Black representation in Major League Baseball stands at the lowest level since the 1950s. MLB initiatives have increased the number of Black players taken with top draft picks since 2010 - but those draftees haven't made their way up from the minors often enough to stop the decline in the number of Black players in the majors.An exclusive new analysis of the minor leagues shows one factor stopping Black players from making the majors: there has been persistent bias against Black and Latino players since 1950, preventing them from playing at certain positions and rising through the ranks of the minors. Players of color with darker skin often moved to the outfield and suffered the most bias. Conversations with former players, scouts, front office analysts, and baseball historians confirm those findings, with some recalling instances of overt bias even within the last 20 years. Continue reading...

The former US president Barack Obama took to the stage in Detroit, Michigan, at a campaign rally for Kamala Harris after being introduced by Eminem. The rap artist told the crowd how much he loved his home city of Detroit and expressed his support for the Harris-Walz campaign before the presidential election in November. Obama went on to rap Eminem's signature track, Lose Yourself Continue reading...

Former president is introduced by rapper, who cites freedom of speech as he backs Kamala HarrisBarack Obama rapped Eminem's signature hit Lose Yourself to a crowd in Detroit during a campaign rally for Kamala Harris.He was preceded by Eminem himself, who told the crowd in his home city: It's important to use your voice, I'm encouraging everyone to get out and vote, please ... I don't think anyone wants an America where people are worried about retribution of what people will do if you make your opinion known. I think vice-president Harris supports a future for this country where these freedoms and many others will be protected and upheld." Continue reading...

Brian Niccol aims to turn around coffee chain, which has reported falling sales, revenue and profitsThe new boss of Starbucks has pledged to shake up its overly complex menu" in an effort to turn around the struggling coffee chain.Brian Niccol, who joined the company as chief executive in September, said Starbucks needed to fundamentally change" its strategy in order to win back customers. Continue reading...

Like Brexit, our vote on Europe teetered on a knife-edge. While the pro-EU side scraped a win, Russia is waiting to undermine itI have now gone through two EU referendums in my life - Brexit and Moldova's 20 October vote on whether to include EU integration in its constitution. As an EU national in the UK, I was not able to cast my ballot in 2016. I remember the expectation most people had that Brexit would not win. I received the news while travelling in Spain and staying with a British national settled there, who could not vote in the referendum either. Some London-born friends told me they felt as though they could no longer recognise their country, which had been split in two. With that British experience on my mind, I had a sense of deja vu as I watched the results unfold in my native Moldova on Sunday night.As opinion polls before the vote, which excluded Moldova's large, pro-European diaspora, suggested, there was between 54% and 65% support for the EU. The only fear for pro-European Moldovans was that the turnout would be too small to have the referendum validated. When it became clear that 51% of voters had showed up - more than in other recent elections - everyone in my bubble felt optimistic, posting pictures of their I voted" blue stickers given out at polling stations. I was in an echo-chamber.Paula Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist and writer based in Chiinu Continue reading...

After Trump campaign complaint, PM says Labour officials volunteering for Harris were doing it in their spare time' rather than in their official capacityKeir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a good relationship" with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate's campaign accused Labour of blatant foreign interference" in the US election.The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris. Continue reading...

Intervention from former Marine general dismissed as a debunked story', as Kamala Harris campaign sees appearances from Eminem and Barack Obama

Ex-president speaks with ultra loyalists in Miami as VP touches on creating economic opportunity for Latino menIt was billed as a roundtable discussion with Latino leaders, but the reality of Donald Trump's appearance at his Doral golf club in Miami on Tuesday was a succession of adulatory monologues from his most loyal Latino supporters, interspersed with familiar, lengthy rants from the former president laden with grievances and insults.Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the 5 November election, also courted Latino voters on Tuesday in an interview with Telemundo, touching on creating economic opportunity for Latino men. Continue reading...

Ex-president questions fitness of Grandpa' as Democratic vice-presidential hopeful calls Elon Musk dipshit'On the first day of early voting in Wisconsin, Tim Walz called Elon Musk a dipshit" while Barack Obama said of Donald Trump: You'd be worried if Grandpa was acting like this."Both were speaking at a rally in Madison, a growing Democratic party stronghold, to encourage early voting and warn of the perils of a second Trump presidency. Obama went on to campaign for Kamala Harris in Detroit on Tuesday evening, alongside rapper Eminem, in an effort to drum up support in Michigan where polls suggest Harris and Trump are in a virtual deadlock. Continue reading...

On the first day of early voting in Wisconsin, Tim Walz criticised Donald Trump over his appearance at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania, saying there was 'something ... cruel about a billionaire using people's livelihood as a political prop'. The Democratic vice-presidential candidate also took aim at Trump over his threats to prosecute his political enemies

Authorities saw a 7% decline in September, with border patrol making 53,858 arrests, down from 58,009 in AugustArrests for illegally crossing the US border from Mexico fell 7% in September to a more than four-year low, authorities said Tuesday. It was likely the last monthly gauge during a presidential campaign in which Republican nominee Donald Trump has made immigration a signature issue.The border patrol made 53,858 arrests, down from 58,009 in August and the lowest tally since August 2020, when arrests totaled 47,283, according to US Customs and Border Protection. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. You can find more of our US elections coverage hereKamala Harris has a significant advantage over Donald Trump among young voters, matching the lead Joe Biden ended up taking in the 2020 election, a new poll finds.The survey from CNBC Generation Lab shows Harris up 20 percentage points with voters aged 18 to 34, with 60% support compared with Trump's 40%. That's about the same margin by which Biden won the group four years ago. Continue reading...

Allegation references LinkedIn post saying 100 party staffers were headed to US to campaign for HarrisFirst King George III. Now Sir Keir Starmer.Citing the American revolution while misspelling Britian", Donald Trump's campaign has filed an extraordinary complaint against the UK's Labour party for what it claims is interference" in the US presidential election. Continue reading...

VP says she's focused on the challenges, the dreams' of Americans as opposed to Trump who is focused on himself'Kamala Harris said that she has no doubt that the US was ready for a female president, insisting that Americans care more about what candidates can do to help them, rather than presidential contenders' gender.The vice-president's statement came during an interview with NBC News's Hallie Jackson, who asked whether she thought the country was ready for a woman, and a woman of color, to be in the Oval Office. Absolutely," Harris said. Absolutely." Continue reading...

Republican VP candidate tells supporters in swing state to pull friends to polls because race could go either wayTwo weeks out from election day, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance told supporters at a rally in swing state Arizona that they need to pull their friends to the polls because the race could go either way.Here's the scenario that I want you to consider, and I don't mean to give you nightmare fuel here, but I'm going to do it," Vance said to the crowd in Peoria, Arizona. We wake up on November the sixth, and Kamala Harris is barely elected president of the United States by a 700-vote margin in the state of Arizona. Think about that. And ask yourself what you can do from now until then to make sure it doesn't happen."Don't miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts Continue reading...

CDC reports 49 cases and says 10 people hospitalized from sandwich-related outbreak that spans 10 statesAn E coli outbreak that resulted in at least one death has been linked to McDonald's Quarter Pounder" hamburgers, US public health authorities said on Tuesday.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that there have been 49 cases in this sandwich-related outbreak which spans 10 states. Ten people have been hospitalized in this onset of cases. Continue reading...

Milan secured their first points in the Champions League this season with a 3-1 home win over Club Brugge on Tuesday as Christian Pulisic scored direct from a corner.The seven-time European champions had been one of eight sides winless after two games, having lost 1-0 at Bayer Leverkusen earlier this month and 3-1 at home to Liverpool in the competition opener. Continue reading...

Authorities investigate allegations Mike Jeffries and others sexually exploited and abused young men at partiesThe former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries was arrested on Tuesday as part of a criminal sex trafficking investigation by federal prosecutors, the FBI in Brooklyn and the New York police department have announced.Authorities allege that Jeffries, his British partner Matthew Smith and a third man, Jim Jacobson, ran an international sex trafficking organization" that coerced dozens and dozens" of men into sexual acts, often for the promise of a modeling career with the clothing retailer. Continue reading...

State sees spike in cases related to hurricane activity as bacteria rises after heavy rainfall and flooding'Thirteen people have died from rare flesh-eating bacteria infections in Florida this year amid a spike in cases related to hurricane activity in the state.Florida health authorities said there have been 74 confirmed cases of Vibrio vulnificus infections in 2024, compared with 46 cases and 11 deaths in 2023. Continue reading...

Bridger Aerospace secured $160m in bond from Gallatin county to hire new workers, but spent $134m on debtScrutiny is growing about the Montana aerial firefighting company once led by Tim Sheehy, the former Navy Seal and Republican Senate candidate who could oust the Democrat incumbent Jon Tester in next month's election.According to NBC News, Sheehy's Bridger Aerospace, a company he founded in 2013, negotiated a deal with Gallatin county in eastern Montana to use its pristine credit rating to raise $160m in bonds. The county was meant to benefit from Bridger's plans to hire more workers and build two new aircraft hangers. Continue reading...

Trump didn't work a real shift: the franchise was reportedly closed for normal business hours and the customers were all pre-screenedRemember the creepy clown sightings that started in 2016? All over the world, scary clowns started popping up, terrifying small children. The trend also frightened executives at McDonald's, who started to phase out Ronald McDonald as a result of the current climate around clown sightings in communities".Eight years later there has been another spooky clown sighting at a McDonald's in the Feasterville, Pennsylvania, community. On Sunday Donald Trump popped into the Philadelphia-area fast-food restaurant to serve french fries to hungry passers-by. Or, more accurately, to take photos of himself cosplaying as a minimum wage worker. The former president didn't work a real shift: the franchise was reportedly closed for normal business hours and the customers who passed through the drive-thru in the 30 minutes he stuck around were all pre-screened.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Justice department says eight were charged for their efforts to silence and kill a US citizen because of her criticism of the Iranian regime'A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards has been charged in New York in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a dissident Iranian American journalist.The target of the alleged assassination plot was not named in unsealed court documents, but she has been widely identified as Masih Alinejad, who lives in New York. Continue reading...

Judge appointed Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss as recipients of ex-mayor's assets in defamation caseRudy Giuliani must give control of his New York City apartment, a 1980s Mercedes-Benz once owned by Lauren Bacall, several luxury watches and many other assets to two Georgia election workers he defamed.Lewis Liman, a US district judge in New York, appointed Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss as recipients of the property and gave the former New York mayor and Trump confidante seven days to turn over the assets. Continue reading...

Documents threaten to reignite accusations about ex-president's attitude towards service membersThe US army has been ordered to release documents about the Donald Trump campaign's pugnacious visit to Arlington national cemetery in a move that threatens to reignite accusations over the Republican nominee's attitude to military service members in the final phase of the presidential election.The court order, in response to a lawsuit filed by transparency advocates, came on Tuesday with an end-of-the-week deadline and could shed new light on an episode that saw Trump accused of exploiting America's most venerated military burial site for campaigning purposes in August. Continue reading...

Daisy Hicks, 84, observed victims waiting for ferry using walkers and wheelchairs before plummeting into waterA woman who says she witnessed a dock collapse in Georgia that killed seven people says she noticed many were using walkers and wheelchairs before the gangway failed and sent them plummeting into the water.I can still see those people bobbling around in that water," 84-year-old Daisy Hicks said in remarks published by the Florida Times-Union and obtained by its reporting partner First Coast News. Saying she was left traumatized by what she witnessed, she added: I can still hear people screaming. I can still see [a] lady that was [subsequently] going around asking for blankets" to carry before the arrival of rescue equipment. Continue reading...

Poll shows a deadlock in Michigan, a key state on the path to the White House with a large Arab American populationArab Americans are slightly more likely to vote for Donald Trump than Kamala Harris, according to a new poll, in a worrying sign for the Democratic nominee's chances of carrying the battleground state of Michigan, which is home to a large Arab American population.The survey, conducted by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit along with YouGov, shows 43% supporting Trump compared with 41% for Harris, and 4% backing the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. Continue reading...

Authorities have arrested a teenage suspect in what appears to be an instance of family annihilation'Authorities found five people shot to death inside a home south-east of Seattle on Monday morning and arrested a teenager in connection with the killings, police said.The killings in Fall City, Washington, were the 25th mass murder in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonpartisan archive defines a mass murder as one in which four or more victims are killed. Continue reading...