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National security council says attack that killed 12 children and teenagers should be universally condemned'The Biden administration formally placed blame on Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah for the rocket strike that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday.National security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the attack was conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah. It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control. It should be universally condemned." Continue reading...

Tactic calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are now more engaged with electionUS Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. Is Donald Trump OK?" the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: Trump is old and quite weird?" Continue reading...

The VIPs have hooked themselves to the US star's cultural celebrity, desperate to bathe in her reflected gloryThe loge boxes and the VIP seats lie empty for most of the morning. After all, this is precious croissant and champagne time, and nobody wants to waste it on gymnasts no one has heard of. A few minutes before the start of the second subdivision, they shuffle out of the lounges and executive suites and down the steps, pursued by the flashing red dots of a thousand phone cameras.We have Tom Cruise and Snoop Dogg. We have Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. We have John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, Greta Gerwig and Jessica Chastain, the Jonas Brothers, the now-ubiquitous Anna Wintour, whose main leisure activity these days seems to be sitting in the front row of blue-chip sporting events with an austere expression, like a woman being dragged to watch her nephew's nativity play. Continue reading...

Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham and Ron DeSantis try to paint Harris, a centrist Democrat, as having far-left politicsRepublicans took to the airwaves Sunday to criticize a surging Kamala Harris, calling the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee a dangerous liberal" as US conservatives' lines of attack on the vice-president began to solidify.In appearances across CNN and Fox News, senior Republican figures Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham and former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis each attempted to paint Harris - who is typically seen as a centrist Democrat - as having far-left politics. Continue reading...

We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing ... and that never happened,' says lead sharpshooter on local Swat teamLocal police officers on a special tactical team who were assigned to help protect Donald Trump on the day the former president was wounded during a 13 July assassination attempt in Butler county, Pennsylvania, have said they had no contact with Secret Service agents before the gunman opened fire.We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened," Jason Woods, lead sharpshooter on the Swat team in nearby Beaver county, Pennsylvania, told ABC News. Continue reading...

Mike Lynch uses first interview since acquittal in June of fraud charges to call for overhaul of extradition lawThe British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has said he thought he would die in a US jail if he had not been cleared of defrauding Hewlett-Packard over a multibillion-dollar business deal.In his first interview since his acquittal last month on charges related to the $11.1bn (8.6bn) purchase of his company Autonomy in 2011, the man once lauded as the UK's answer to Bill Gates said that his lung condition meant he doubted he would have survived a prison term. Continue reading...

Asked if he would make a good VP, transportation secretary says not appropriate for me to wander down that path'White House administrator Pete Buttigieg says it is a bad look" for Republicans to call Kamala Harris a diversity hire in their attempts to slow down the momentum that has greeted her ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket for November's presidential race.On Saturday's episode of the New York Times podcast The Interview, the Democratic transportation secretary said you can tell" that is the case because of how even Republican US House speaker Mike Johnson has tried to distance himself from that line of attack against Harris. Continue reading...

The city where the president was born is still clearly Joe Biden country - but there's an acceptance that he had to drop outThe Central Scranton Expressway, the road which leads into Scranton from the I-81 highway, was renamed in 2021 as the President Joseph R Biden Jr Expressway.The road drops down into the center of Scranton, the Pennsylvania city where the president was born, where it meets up with Biden Street - renamed in the same 2021 city council vote. Continue reading...

Bishara Bahbah bent on punishing' Democrats for unfettered support' of Israel, despite GOP following suitFor John Akouri, whose father immigrated from Tripoli, Lebanon, in 1955, there is only one choice for president in November's election: Donald Trump, despite the Muslim travel ban during his presidency, the felony falsifying business records conviction and the unadulterated drama constantly surrounding him.After almost two decades of wars and watching [the Islamic State] cause devastation in Syria and in Iraq we needed someone to come in and clean things up," he said of his initial draw to Trump for the 2016 election. So, I thought on a foreign policy and national level he was saying the right things. He was a breath of fresh air," he continued, referencing Trump's withdrawal of thousands of US troops from Syria in 2019. Continue reading...

Our response to global heating and the decimation of animal species is to marginalise the Green party and lock up protestersSigns and wonders. Omens of black portent. Part of an American looney's ear has been shot off by another American looney. The proposed presidency of the earless looney had been endorsed by Atomic Kitten's Kerry Katona. A computer went wrong and everything in the world stopped working everywhere. On Tuesday it was reported that Chris Packham regretted having once ridden an elephant. Last Sunday was the hottest day ever. A lioness hath whelped in the streets. Graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead. Suella Braverman sat in for James O'Brien on LBC and the last surviving member of the Four Tops died. Surely we are living in The End Times. The optics, as they say, are not good.But last week I sat outside at night alone on my Welsh mountain holiday, drinking draught Bwtty Bach beer from a plastic flask and reading an old Brigid Brophy paperback. For a moment I was happy beyond measure, forgot the world beyond, and stopped worrying. And then I saw something was awry in my idyll. I looked up at a security light, a stark halogen glow between the grey stone wall and the bright buck moon. Not long ago, in such a night as this, such a lamp as that would always have been hazed by a fuzzy penumbra of buzzy invertebrates. But tonight the air around it was hungry and dead, the entomological equivalent of an empty Republican convention room, where no one at all turns up to listen to Boris Johnson.Stewart Lee's Basic Lee is available to stream on Now TV. He is previewing 40 minutes of new material in Stewart Lee Introduces Legends of Indie at the Lexington, London, in August with Connie Planque (12), Swansea Sound (13) and David Lance Callahan (14)Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

The move by the billionaire news mogul, 93, could have a real, significant impact' on the global media landscapeAn elderly billionaire goes to war with his adult children over the future of his media empire. His only ally is his eldest son, crowned leader of his father's enterprise after years of jostling with his siblings.In choosing a successor, the patriarch spurns three of his other children, who remain threats: when he dies, they will each have just as much power as the eldest son to shape his companies, potentially against the rightwing ideologies that have guided them for decades. Continue reading...

The three-time Rookie of the Month has been elevated to the main squad. Her inclusion points to a team with one eye on gold and one on the futureThe US women's soccer team face the familiar pressure of trying to bring home gold at the Olympics. But for new manager Emma Hayes and a younger generation of talent, this tournament is as much about redefining their story and building toward the future as winning the title.The 18-player roster has an average age of 26.8, which is the fourth-youngest roster the US have ever sent to the Olympics and the youngest since 2008. And few players embody the turn-the-page nature of the squad better than Washington Spirit midfielder Croix Bethune. Continue reading...

Media mogul's bid to extend rightwing influence beyond the grave should be resisted to the lastWe live in an era of private dynasties. America's billionaires are worth a cool $5.5tn at the last count. Three - Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Tesla's Elon Musk and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg - are worth over a staggering $500bn between them. Americans dominate the global billionaire league table: Britain has none in the top hundred. But we still have enough to cause concern.Individuals who have resources on this scale change the dynamics of the economies and societies in which they live, as the US increasingly dramatises. Their spending pulls economies out of kilter so that too much production is directed towards opulent, useless baubles, but, more dangerously, it spills over into buying political influence - directly in the political process and indirectly via media ownership. Unconstrained, the impact can only grow in the decades ahead, a phenomenon of which the dynastic founders are well aware, even if the wider public is not. Continue reading...

The writer, who would have turned 100 this week, spoke to, and from, America's moral conscienceJames Baldwin was about 10 when he first read Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. The character in the novel that most spoke to him was not the virtuous aristocrat Charles Darnay or Sydney Carton, the dissolute lawyer turned hero, but Therese Defarge, a woman brimming with hate, sitting in the shadow of the guillotine, knitting as the heads rolled.I recognised that unrelenting hatred," Baldwin later wrote in his book-length essay The Devil Finds Work, for it was all up and down my streets". Those streets were the streets of Harlem, and the hatred was born out of the racism and poverty that encased the lives of those who lived there.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...

Special report A meeting in a New York coffee shop helped US investigators get the inside track on a network of doping and the agents that prey on vulnerable athletesA winter's day, 2015, New York. Investigator Victor Burgos turned over the conversation he was about to have in his mind. In the next minutes, he was either going to recruit an ally in the fight against anti-doping or have a hostile, frustrating encounter that would send him back to the drawing board. Chances were it would be the latter. The omerta of dopers matches the mafia. No one talks. Few inform on their peers.He was meeting a distance runner who was blissfully unaware of what was coming. The man was superb by normal standards, his marathon personal best well within what might be regarded as world class. In Kenyan terms, though, he was a mid-ranker and never going to be an Olympic superstar. He also had tested positive for 19-nortestosterone, a hardcoresteroid. Continue reading...

The choice for voters has never been so clear cut as Kamala Harris takes on Donald Trump for the White HouseA man convicted of dozens of felonies versus a criminal prosecutor. An architect of abortion bans versus a champion of reproductive freedom. An elderly white man fixated on the past versus a mixed-race daughter of immigrants leaning into the future.One hundred days from the US presidential election, the choice for voters has never been so clear cut. Kamala Harris, 59, the de facto Democratic nominee after the dramatic withdrawal of Joe Biden, is a progressive person of colour bidding to become the first female president in America's 248-year history. Continue reading...

Pramila Jayapal, progressive Seattle representative, says of undeniable' enthusiasm: I have not seen anything like this'Kamala Harris pledged to earn the votes of young people this election, as the vice-president and newly elevated presumptive Democratic nominee rides a gen Z-powered wave of online Kamalove" .In a virtual address to attendees of a two-day summit in Atlanta, hosted by the liberal gen Z-led organization Voters of Tomorrow, Harris said she had been elected the first female vice-president of the United States because young voters showed up" in 2020. She touted historic progress" made by the Biden-Harris administration on combating gun violence and climate change, all of which she said was again at stake this November". Continue reading...

Intensity and dramatic spread have led to unwelcome comparisons to 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 peopleCooler temperatures brought some relief to the thousands of firefighters battling the Park fire in northern California after it exploded in size, becoming the largest in the state and prompting the governor to make an emergency declaration for three counties.The intensity and dramatic spread of the wildfire led officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the disastrous Camp fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and destroying 11,000 homes. Continue reading...

The Florida swimmer anchored the US men's 4x100m freestyle relay team to victory as he claimed his eighth Olympic titleNot long after Caeleb Dressel touched the wall on Saturday night to clinch USA's first gold of the Paris Olympics, his teammate Hunter Armstrong broke down in tears while receiving his medal at the top of the podium.Dressel could relate. Eight years ago he was the young hotshot reduced to a blubbery mess after winning the first of two golds alongside Michael Phelps and Nathan Adrian in the same race on his Olympic debut in Rio. Now the Florida native, who turns 28 next month, is the veteran of a young US swim team looking to keep pace with their mighty Australian rivals. Continue reading...

Antoine Dupont and Ariarne Titmus were the golden turns on the opening Saturday in ParisWe're now just 15 minutes away from the start of the action on day one of the Paris Olympics. And that action is badminton.If you don't know your back alley from your shuttlecock, fear not, because here's one we made earlier.The pool is shallower than the 3m standard, at 2.30m and there have been some questions raised over the effect this will have. The starting platforms have fins that allow swimmers to really push off at the gun. And one of France's faces of the Games, swimmer Leon Marchand, believes it will live up to expectations.The pool is superb," he said. I loved the feeling I had in the water, the depth which is the same along the entire length. So you feel like you're swimming fast and that's cool. It's a beautiful pool." If swimmers are feeling fast in the pool at La Defense, we could yet see some new world records. Continue reading...

Sean P Grayson worked for six law enforcement agencies in four years, with allegations of abuse of power and lyingAs vigils for Sonya Massey take place across the US this weekend, a history of unethical and aggressive behavior by the officer who shot her, Sean P Grayson, is emerging. Grayson's disciplinary file includes accusations of bullying behavior and abuse of power, according to CBS News.Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman and mother of two living outside Springfield, Illinois, had called 911 when she thought a prowler was lurking outside her home on 6 July. Grayson and another officer from the Sangamon county sheriff's office were dispatched and arrived at her home. Instead of helping Massey with a possible intruder, Grayson shot her in the face after she moved a pot of water from her kitchen stove at their request. Continue reading...

A week ago, former president was riding high, but now he faces vibrant, younger rival who hit the ground runningDonald Trump capped a tough week in which his Democratic opponents turned the tables, replacing aging Joe Biden with Kamala Harris as their top choice for president, by resorting to insults and extremism on the campaign trail.A week ago, Trump was riding high on the iconic moment when he rose bloodied and with a defiantly raised fist from an assassination attempt, pulling away in the polls. Biden, meanwhile, was struggling to recover from his dire late June debate against the Republican nominee and an unconvincing performance in the days since. Continue reading...

In 2013, Vanity Fair's UK editor spent an evening next to California's attorney general. Did he spot a possible future president, well not exactly...The seat beside me at Vanity Fair's 2013 Oscar dinner in the Sunset Tower Hotel, on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, was empty and it remained so for about 20 minutes into the dinner. I looked at the placename and read Kamala Harris", which meant nothing to me, and started talking to the then CEO of Yahoo!, Marissa Mayer. Then a blur of an evening dress to my right and the attorney general for the state of California slipped into her seat beside me and irradiated the table with the smile that infuriates Donald Trump, probably because it's as natural as his scowl.If the future senator, vice-president and now presidential candidate was disappointed about her place next to the least powerful person in that room, she had the grace not to show it. The rest of the table consisted of three well-known power couples and one restless billionaire, so, Kamala and I, while not exactly paired off, were thrown together for the next three hours of intermittent dining and watching the glacial business of Oscar distribution on the TV screens around the room. Continue reading...

Far from being a lame duck, the president can use his time in office to champion US democracy and tackle unfinished business abroadImagine an old man sitting by himself in a dingy all-night diner in downtown Washington. He has his back to the window, shoulders hunched, like the customer in Nighthawks, Edward Hopper's famous painting. Joe - for the old man's name is Joe - looks tired and mournful. Perhaps he's thinking about what was, about what might have been. For him, it's a nightmare.Yet even if this really were the president, and even if the disgraced Secret Service allowed him so fanciful a private moment, Joe need not feel sad or alone. He has six months left in charge. On paper, he's still the world's most powerful man. And he no longer has to worry about re-election, votes, polls or TV debates. Who cares now what pundits say? Continue reading...

Three members of group among seven people who died in Wyoming crash on FridayThree members of the US family gospel group the Nelons have been killed in a plane crash, their management announced.Jason Clark, Kelly Nelon Clark and their daughter Amber Kistler died on Friday while taking a flight to perform on a cruise ship. Continue reading...

Sexually suggestive mascots, presidential merchandise, drag queens and refuse collectors - they're all there with the athletesThe official mascot of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is a triangular red hat with eyes and sneakers, called the Phryge (pronounced a bit like fridge"). It's based on the Phrygian cap" worn by Marianne, France's bare-breasted version of Uncle Sam, and a symbol of freedom and the French Revolution. (The Paralympics Phryge has a prosthetic leg).But it also looks a lot like a 3D model of the clitoris. Continue reading...

Ohio senator's ratings are at a record low and his hardline views on issues might prove to be a liability than an assetHe was supposed to be his master's mini-me, his elevation as Republican vice-presidential nominee hailed as a virile celebration of Donald Trump's near-total conquest of the GOP.Now - days after receiving a rapturous response at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee - JD Vance is being lamented within party circles as a potentially fatal liability in Trump's quest to recapture the White House. Continue reading...

Former president implores Christian supports to vote just this time', then says he's not ChristianDonald Trump has ignited alarm among his critics after telling a crowd of supporters that they won't have to vote again" if they return him to the presidency in November's election.Christians, get out and vote! Just this time - you won't have to do it any more," the Republican former president said on Friday night at a rally hosted in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the far-right advocacy group Turning Point Action. Continue reading...

Firms accused of putting profits over safety as EU group weighs cutting minimum number of pilots from two to oneAerospace giants have been accused of putting profits ahead of safety as officials consider cutting the minimum number of pilots required on commercial flight decks from two to one.The move, which is currently being evaluated by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), would weaken standards to the lowest common denominator", the world's largest union of airline pilots has warned. Continue reading...

On Thursday, the billionaire went on a disturbing anti-trans rant about Vivian Wilson, who legally dropped Musk's name in 2022Would you like to do some Muskian mathematics? Here we go: there are 24 hours in a day and even the most superhuman among us need to spend a few of those hours asleep. Elon Musk, unless he has figured out a way to clone himself, is just one person. He has at least 12 kids with multiple women. His first child tragically died as a baby and a couple of his offspring are adults now, but he has six kids under the age of five. He also runs six companies and oversees more than 130,000 people around the world. And he spends an inordinate amount of his life tweeting. Bearing this busy existence in mind, how on earth does the billionaire spend any significant amount of time with his kids? Continue reading...

US fencing was rocked by internal strife at the Tokyo Games. The lead-up to Paris 2024 hasn't been much betterJust when it appeared as if these Olympics couldn't get any more scandalous, between the poison in the pool and the security issues, the fencing starts this weekend.A fixture on the program since the 1896 Summer Games, which kicked off the modern Olympiad, fencing is the sport where old-world tradition meets new-world technology. Referees actually say en garde" before the swordplay, and points are scored electronically to keep pace with blink-and-you'll-miss-it touches of steel. The rules of engagement are complicated, and it's down to the referee to determine which strikes are legal. That's a lot of room for interpretation. And, some would have us believe, corruption. Continue reading...

Specific results on her performance with Black voters aren't in yet, but recent calls suggest a Trump exodus is not trueOn Monday night, more than 53,000 Black men joined a virtual conference, Win With Black Men, to rally behind the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. During the four-hour call, organizers said the group raised more than $1.3m for the Harris campaign and grassroots voter organizations focused on Black men.The success of the call, which was inspired by the Win With Black Women call the night before, runs counter to the narrative shaped by recent election polling indicating that 30% of Black men are planning on voting for Donald Trump. Don't let anybody slow us down asking the question: Can a Black woman be elected president of the United States?'" Raphael Warnock, who represents Georgia in the US Senate, said on the call. Kamala Harris can win. We just have to show up. History is watching us, and the future is waiting on us." Continue reading...

The underdog team's astonishing journey to Paris has inspired the country - and fans across Africa - with hopes the Bright Stars will light the way for the next generationA huge cheer erupts as South Sudan pull ahead for the first time against Great Britain, just before half-time. Spectators dressed in black and white T-shirts jump to their feet, waving flags and dancing in the stands of the Copper Box arena in London.Last Thursday's basketball match was one of the final warmup games South Sudan will play before the team starts its bid for Olympic gold in Paris on Sunday. Continue reading...

We don't agree that Nato membership for Ukraine would provoke a conflict with RussiaOn 8 July, the eve of Nato's 75th anniversary summit, a Russian missile struck Ukraine's largest children's hospital, destroying, among other sections, its cancer center, hematology lab and surgical transplant unit. Russia launched 40 missiles at cities across Ukraine that day, killing more than 40 people, wounding numerous others, and demonstrating yet again that there are no legal, political or moral lines it won't cross in its determination to conquer Ukraine.As Ukrainian doctors, rescue workers and volunteers evacuated child patients, many of them still in hospital gowns and attached to IVs, from the bombed-out hospital, heads of state from Nato's 32 member countries arrived in Washington DC to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine and how to strengthen Ukraine's defense. Although they affirmed that Ukraine's future is in Nato," and that the country's path to the alliance is irreversible", Ukraine's potential membership was once again deferred: the Washington summit declaration stated that an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato would come when Allies agree, and conditions are met". Continue reading...

Joe Biden's decision to step aside, a slew of endorsements and a record fundraising haul - vice-president hits the ground running as Democrats' new standard-bearerThe telephone line was a little fuzzy, and the voice on the end gravelly from several days of Covid isolation. Yet the poignancy of the message, and the moment itself, could not have been clearer: I'm watching you, kid. I love you," the speaker said.Joe Biden's warmhearted call to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, at the Democratic party's campaign headquarters in Delaware on Monday marked a generational shift in US politics, a symbolic passing of the torch from parent to progeny. Continue reading...

Noisy devices are making public transport hell. But do passengers realise the pain they inflict?Earlier in the summer I started a social experiment - one you might consider ingenious or insufferable, depending on how much you prioritise a peaceful life. It began with a fragmented journey from north to south London, during which at each section of the journey (bus, overground, bus), someone was playing content on their phone, loudly.First there was a woman flicking impatiently through TikTok videos: four-second assaults of traditional Chinese medicine tutorials, girls pranking their boyfriends and self-help tips. The woman next to her put in her earbuds, but said nothing. Next, there was a woman listening to a nearly 20-minute long voice note from a friend out loud that all of us could hear. This is the life of the passenger in our new ambient hell.Hannah Ewens is a freelance editor and writer, and the author of Fangirls: Scenes From Modern Music Culture Continue reading...

From Berlin's techno scene to Oktoberfest, a revolution in drinking culture is taking place, and it's led by young peopleThe first cliche that comes to mind when many think of Germany is thigh-slapping oompah music, embroidered lederhosen and, above all, litre-sized mugs of beer. And Deutschland's beer culture is best epitomised by Munich's Oktoberfest. Millions of revellers descend on the Bavarian capital each September for 16 days of booze, bretzel and bratwurst. But it's a cliche out of sync with modern Germany, where abstinence is on the up - and boozing is in decline.One example is Die Null (The Zero). Before the world-famous beer festival kicks off this year on 21 September, a new alcohol-free beer garden has opened in the heart of the city, inaugurated by the mayor of Munich himself. The venue serves a variety of non-alcoholic beverages, from mocktails to alcohol-free lager. Continue reading...

The Californian made enough money from his basketball career to retire in comfort. But he was called back to the sport he loved as a high schoolerWhen Chase Budinger was named to the US men's beach volleyball team for the Paris Olympics, it seemed as if the selection panel had gotten its wires crossed.Budinger - a tall, blond, California cliche (and in case unclear, his is a hard g) - isn't just any sand-sprinkled leviathan. He's a 36-year-old NBA retiree. Really, the 6ft 7in swingman wouldn't look out of place among the motley crew of journeymen who carry the US men's basketball team through the Olympic qualifiers while the likes of LeBron James and Steph Curry are otherwise occupied. Instead, he's poised to become the rare human who has logged minutes in the NBA and competed in the Olympics in a sport other than basketball. Continue reading...

US president also to seek constitutional amendment to limit immunity for presidents and various officeholdersJoe Biden will announce plans to reform the US supreme court on Monday, Politico reported, citing two people familiar with the matter, adding that the US president was likely to back term limits for justices and an enforceable code of ethics.Biden said earlier this week during an Oval Office address that he would call for reform of the court. Continue reading...