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Besides its underwater life, it is nothing like a fish: it can push its stomach out of its mouth and eat the inside of a clamThe thing about starfish is that you tend to forget the -fish part. But when you think about that, a lot of things come into focus. For example, the fact that besides its underwater life, it is nothing like a fish. For example: a starfish can push its stomach out of its mouth and eat the inside of a clam. Show me a fish that can do that.The ones that are most common at the beaches near me feel as though they're cut from shark skin, smooth and rough at the same time. They have webbed arms, not clearly delineated ones, and are the size of a coin. They are dull browns and greens and blues. Continue reading...

Casemiro display against Liverpool was painful, but the blame for United's early season struggles sits with an incoherent structure

General strike follows tens of thousands taking to the streets in protest against the government's handling of the war in Gaza. Plus: fears of overtourism in Norway

Former Trump aides and others say the ex-president is unfit for office and urge fellow Republicans to vote for HarrisDonald Trump has a knack for rallying a remarkable range of political opinion around a common goal: preventing his return to the White House.That now includes prominent names from his own Republican party and top aides who worked under him as president. From former White House officials and national security staff to a once-worshipful press secretary, a host of one-time Trump fans are now lining up to join Democrats in declaring him unfit for another term in office. Continue reading...

As Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders speak on Fox, Democrats could reach just enough swing voters to winPete Buttigieg, Joe Biden's transport secretary, introduced himself to Democrats at their convention earlier last month in unusual fashion. I'm Pete Buttigieg and you might recognize me from Fox News," he told the crowd in Chicago.The comment drew laughter, but beneath it was a certain truth: in the final two months of the 2024 election, politicians and campaign aides are less siloed in their ideologically aligned media bubbles in an effort to poach potentially persuadable voters. Continue reading...

Our boys are back from university, and after months of pulse-based dinners, my husband and I have rediscovered the joy of snacks. Not that we're the ones who are eating them ...How many of these cookies can I eat?" my older son texts (he is downstairs; I am up). They're really good." My fingertips tingle with satisfaction.Both boys are home from university briefly and I have a new identity: I'm an intermittent feeder. My husband and I don't exactly eat like birds in our empty nest - well, I eat like one of those gulls that shoplifts Doritos - but we shop like middle-aged people trying not to die, our cupboards boring and barren, our freezer packed with pulse-based, batch-cooked dinners. Continue reading...

My friends expected nothing less, but my habitual tardiness was more than just a quirk: it was eating away at my wellbeingIf you had asked me to describe myself one year ago, I would have led with this: I am that person who is always late. I could have also said I am 5ft 7in and love coriander, but then you wouldn't have been forewarned: being friends with me involves a lot of waiting. Ugh, sorry in advance.Then this happened. One day, I had an appointment just before meeting friends for dinner. When it ended early, I went straight to the restaurant and waited at the bar for everyone else. Ordinarily, I would have rolled in 10 minutes late, drenched in sweat and remorse. I would have been mortified to be that person, once again, who was the last to show and the reason why our table had been given away to a complete" party. After blabbering a bunch of lies to my friends about traffic and first-time Uber drivers, I would have spent the rest of the night berating myself for being, well, me.Helene Rosenthal lives in New York City and writes about families, friendships and relationships Continue reading...

JD Vance's comments on Kamala Harris reflect a stubborn debate in supposedly progressive societiesA woman without biological children is running for high political office, and so naturally that quality will at some point be used against her. Kamala Harris has, in the short period since she emerged as the Democratic candidate for US president, been scrutinised over her lack of children. The conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain posted on X that Harris shouldn't be president" - apparently, she doesn't have skin in the game". The Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, called Harris and other Democrats a bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives".It's a particularly virulent tendency in the US, with a rightwing movement that is fixated on women's reproduction. But who can forget (and if you have, I am happy to remind you of a low point that still sticks in my craw) Andrea Leadsom, during the 2016 Conservative party leadership election, saying that Theresa May might have nieces and nephews, but I have children who are going to have children ... who will be a part of what happens next". Genuinely," she added, as if the message were not clear enough, I feel that being a mum means you have a real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake." Continue reading...

The Australian, like the 22-time grand slam champion, imposes himself physically on opponents - with compatriot Jordan Thompson next in his sightsAlex de Minaur got to see Rafael Nadal close-up earlier this year when he played him in back-to-back tournaments on clay. One win and one defeat was a healthy return for the Australian on Nadal's favourite surface, even if the 22-time grand slam champion was only making his way back from injury at the time. But as he continues to plot his way through the draw at the US Open, it is Nadal's philosophy that is helping De Minaur impose himself on his opponents.It was back in 2012, when he was assessing Andy Murray's defeat by Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, that Nadal gave an insight into the attitude that helped to make him such a formidable competitor. Murray had led Djokovic two sets to one, only to suffer a physical and mental dip in the fourth set. He recovered in the fifth but Djokovic held on to reach the final. Murray's mistake was to let Djokovic get away just when he had the momentum himself. Continue reading...

Emma Navarro beat Coco Gauff, the defending champion, for the second grand slam in a row, while Grigor Dimitrov saw off Andrey Rublev in five setsBadosa has played the big points well so far, down 30-40 and unleashing an inside-out forehand winner - though Wang will be disappointed with the return that made it happen. Another, this time down the line, brings Badosa advantage, and from there she seals her consolidation to lead 3-0.Badosa makes 0-15 then drags a forehand wide; Wang reinforces with an ace out wide, then raises two game points with a forehand schlepped into the net. Badosa, though, saves one then clobbers a forehand winner on the leap and she's relaxing into this, you sense. And again, we wind up at deuce, Badosa cleverly working a chance to punish a further forehand winner for advantage. But then she nets one, meaning another deuce, another Badosa forehand, into the forehand corner, yanking her another break point ... and a booming rendition of the same, almost a table-tennis shot from half-court, means she leads 2-0. Wang is doing alright - well, even - but as we said at the top, if Badosa keeps the head, I'm not sure how she can be beaten here. Continue reading...

Soldiers' relatives hit out at vice-president after she said Trump disrespected sacred ground' for a political stuntDonald Trump shared statements from the relatives of 13 soldiers killed during the chaotic US evacuation from Kabul as they hit out at Kamala Harris after she criticized the former president's involvement in a ceremony honoring the service members.The dispute over the ceremony at Arlington national cemetery, during which Trump campaign aides allegedly shoved a cemetery worker so they could film Trump laying a wreath, contravening rules against political activity at the site, escalated after the vice-president said Saturday that Trump disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt". Continue reading...

ParalympicsGB won 12 gold medals to enjoy their most successful day this centuryIt's time for the gold medal race in the women's B 3000m individual pursuit. Great Britain's Sophie Unwin and pilot Jenny Holl face Ireland's Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal.Lora Fachie and Corrine Hall take the bronze medal following a dominant performance against Elizabeth Jordan and Danielle Khan in the velodrome. Continue reading...

Corey Lewandowski says management will remain despite reports of ex-president feeling superstitious and nostalgic'Trump campaign senior official Corey Lewandowski has rejected rumors of shake-up in the management of the former president's election bid, saying the operation's leadership will not change.Lewandowski, Trump's 2016 campaign manager who recently joined the 2024 team, told Fox News Sunday that campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita will remain at the top. Continue reading...

Staff demand wage increases and reversal of pandemic-era cutbacks that impose painful' working conditionsThousands of US hotel workers went on strike on Sunday for improved pay and conditions in a dispute likely to disrupt many Labor Day weekend holiday travelers, amid union warnings that industrial action could escalate.More than 10,000 workers walked off the job at hotels in Boston, Seattle, Honolulu, Kauai and Greenwich, Connecticut, as well as the Californian cities of San Francisco, Sand Diego and San Jose after contract talks with the establishments' owners collapsed. Continue reading...

Action comes after a series of ballot woes are threatening to undermine the impact of his decision to end campaignRobert F Kennedy Jr is suing North Carolina's state board of elections after it refused to remove his name from the electoral ballot following his decision to drop his independent presidential campaign and endorse Donald Trump.The legal action comes after a series of ballot woes that initially impeded Kennedy's campaign but are now threatening to undermine the impact of his decision to end it. Continue reading...

Robert always dreamed of becoming an engineer. But months into his first year, he started doubting if it was worth the immense effort

Gatherings with music and dancing have gone on for millennia. After a terrifying summer, such simple joy felt almost utopianThis column was completed in a tent on the borders of Dorset and Wiltshire, during the somewhat bleary morning that followed a brilliant Saturday night. I was among 17,000 people trying to hang on to the remains of summer in a set of fields, woodland and Victorian gardens, over four nights and three days of dizzyingly eclectic music that spanned an array of textures, genres and cultures.As sometimes happens at such events, I regularly looked around and marvelled. Most of us worry about how much human beings directly interact with each other, and the way that social media has sown misery, division and mutual loathing. But here was something completely different: a temporary town where people happily chatted with strangers, and enjoyed themselves to the full while respecting the necessary rules. In the context of a toxic and often terrifying summer, such a peacefully joyous weekend felt almost utopian. Continue reading...

More women are in chief of staff roles than ever before. With an election ahead, they've reached a pivotal momentThe halls of the US Congress were, for many years, a man's world. The first woman elected to Congress, the Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana, joined the House in 1917, three years before the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote and decades before the civil rights movement enabled ballot access for women of color.Now, more than a century later, 150 women serve in Congress, marking an all-time high. And as more women have joined the House and Senate, the ranks of senior staffers on the Hill have shifted alongside them. More women, specifically young women, are leading congressional offices as chiefs of staff, giving them invaluable access to lawmakers and opportunities to influence the policies that shape Americans' lives. Continue reading...

Climate crisis could accelerate spread of mosquito-borne diseases like eastern equine encephalitis, experts warnLocal officials in Massachusetts have issued warnings about mosquitoes carrying eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), and, in one case, placed restrictions on the use of public fields at night, prompting backlash from some residents.Public health experts, and others, are also concerned that such mosquito-borne viruses could become more common in the United States because of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

The supreme court jurist said the ruling earlier this year establishes a two-tier legal system that protects TrumpIn an interview airing on Sunday, US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson lamented her conservative colleagues' decision to grant broad immunity to Donald Trump and other presidents for official acts as essentially protecting one individual under one set of circumstances when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same".I mean that was my view of what the court determined," Jackson said in the pre-recorded conversation for the news program CBS Sunday Morning. And she added: I was concerned." Continue reading...

Democrats target key group: conservative men who don't want big government' attacking their daughters' rightsA siren blares. Feet crunch on gravel. A county sheriff looks into a car and tells a teenage girl he knows she is pregnant. He arrests her father for driving her to a state where she can get an abortion. And you, young lady," the sheriff says, well, you're under arrest for evading motherhood."This is an advert from the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy group, presenting a dark vision of the future for millions of American women if Donald Trump defeats Kamala Harris in the presidential election and criminalises abortion nationwide. Continue reading...

The comeback could be a coup or a crash, but it has already obliterated accommodation for the 2025 Edinburgh fringeIn Russia, nostalgia is regarded as an illness," declared the mighty comedian Simon Munnery once, or at least it used to be, in the good old days." Zing! Oasis, who 30 years ago represented a kind of condensed nostalgia for the previous quarter-century of British rock, are re-forming. The cocaine dealers of Britain are already putting in advance orders so thousands of middle-aged men can stand in stadiums next summer bellowing trivial conversations about fuck all at each other all through the gigs they've paid hundreds of pounds to touts to attend. The trail of dead South American drug war casualties will stretch all the way from Heaton Park to Pablo Escobar's ruined hippo enclosure. All the same, I wish I was going.It used to be embarrassing when bands re-formed, didn't it, like your dad dancing at a wedding? But when 70s New York televisionaries Television regrouped in 1992, I was delighted, as I knew all the solos on Marquee Moon off by heart and hadn't seen them in 77 owing to being eight and preferring the Geoff Love & His Orchestra Bond themes album that I bought in Woolworths. Bands didn't get back together in those days, unless it was to cash in on the Saga holidays circuit, where my mum was disappointed to see PJ Proby fail to split his trousers on demand sometime around the turn of the century. Nostalgia, she noted, wasn't what it used to be. Continue reading...

Moving in small steps risks aggravating both Europhiles and Europhobes while doing little to help lift the economyEvery prime minister has their verbal tell-tales. Reset" is a favourite Starmerism. When he visited Berlin last week to pave the way to a bilateral co-operation treaty, the prime minister told us he was there as part of a wider reset" in Britain's relations with Europe. There was the same message when he journeyed on to Paris for a grip, grin and chat at the Elysee Palace with Emmanuel Macron. I see why he's fond of the word. Reset" conveys new thinking, a fresh start and altered priorities, while being conveniently vague about the precise direction of travel or the intended ultimate destination.Downing Street was largely pleased with the positive optics of those forays across the Channel. The encounters with the chancellor of Germany and president of France generated a more upbeat vibe than the rest of a summer punctuated by violent disorder on the streets of Britain, controversies about importing Labour cronies into Whitehall, turbulence within the party about restricting winter fuel payments and Sir Keir's winter is coming" speech in the rose garden of Number 10 warning that things will get worse before they get better". That overdid the gloom even for those in sympathy with the Tory-blaming, expectations-managing strategy behind such depressive talk. Continue reading...

Officials say two people on board Cessna plane that struck row of townhouses, displacing families and causing fireThree people were dead after a small plane crashed into a row of townhouses on Saturday morning in a neighborhood east of Portland, setting the homes ablaze, authorities told KATU-TV.

First-in-nation trial comes to an end, as new law gives those caught with hard drugs option of charges or treatmentOregon's first-in-the-nation experiment with decriminalizing drugs will expire on Sunday as a new law taking effect will once again make it a crime to possess small amounts of hard drugs.The new recriminalization law, HB4002, will give those caught with illicit drugs - including fentanyl, heroin and meth - the choice to either be charged with possession or treatment, which includes completing a behavioral health program and participating in a deflection program" to avoid fines. Continue reading...

Caroline Wozniacki, Jannik Sinner and Tommy Paul are among those to go throughPutintseva 1-3 Paolini* (*denotes the next server)Putintseva needs a clean hold just to get a grip on this set. She wins the first point but Paolini levels at 15-15 but Putintseva then races t 40-15, can she wrap it up? Not yet, a double fault gifts Paolini a point but then the Italian pushes the ball too far. Continue reading...

Suspect, 30, killed in shootout with police after officials say he opened fire on officer sitting in patrol carThe Dallas police chief said on Friday that a man intentionally set out to shoot police when he killed an officer sitting in his patrol car and wounded two others in a late-night ambush that set off a highway chase and ended with officers fatally shooting the attacker.The shooting on Thursday night brought fresh anguish and anger in a city where a gunman's ambush on police in 2016 killed five officers. Continue reading...

Siblings among those killed as police say bus left Interstate 20 near Bovina in western Mississippi and flipped overSeven people have been killed and dozens more injured in western Mississippi after a commercial bus overturned on Interstate 20, according to the state's highway patrol.Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, according to a news release. The bus was traveling west on Saturday morning when it left the highway near Bovina in Warren county and flipped over, police said. No other vehicle was involved. Continue reading...

Democratic senator says Republican nominee trying to have it both ways' and adapting position to his audienceThe US senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Donald Trump of trying to have it both ways" with in vitro fertilization (IVF), two days after the former president vowed to force health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the treatments if he is elected in November.Speaking on MSNBC, Warren said Trump was simply adapting his positions according to what he perceived his audience's preference to be. Continue reading...

Humans have always been willing to slaughter each other in the name of our beliefs. But history has also shown that a peaceful world order can prevailHaving written 10 histories of war, I'd become inured to the idea that war is probably inevitable and violence intrinsic to human nature. I no longer believe that. Spending six years writing 260,000 words on the history of the human mind has compelled me to contemplate the possibility of a new path for humankind free of the terror that drives violent nationalism, religious intolerance and ideological madness.And it has changed me from being a minstrel of doom into a steely eyed optimist. Continue reading...

The banning of X in Brazil and the arrest of Telegram boss Pavel Durov won't stop their liesIt was a breaking news alert to lift the spirits and make the heartsing. A tech billionaire arrestedas he stepped off his privatejet and detained by the French authorities. Happy days!Because while the UK police have been charging individuals who incited violence online during this summer's riots, the man who helped to fuel its flames - Elon Musk - has simply tweeted his way through it. Continue reading...

These successors to Stalin, Hitler and Mao are the ones making history in an unhappy, warring worldThe 19th-century idea that great men - exceptionally talented, courageous, charismatic individuals - direct and change the course of history by the sheer force of their genius and personality is hard to shake. It has persisted despite the rise of egalitarian and Marxist social theory and the advent in the 1960s of EP Thompson's levelling up school of history from below".The Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle viewed figures such as Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Martin Luther and the prophet Muhammad as standout heroes of their time who fundamentally, permanently changed the world around them. The mass of mankind, he believed, could merely watch, marvel, admire and tamely follow these top-down makers and shakers of universal history".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...

In real life, the address that is the spies' fictional home reflects the author's original grimy, multilayered vision of the cityThere is no blue plaque on the wall of 126Aldersgate, a narrow four-storey terrace above a fast-food grill, near London's Barbican, but it can't be too long before the building acquires some of the tourist cachet of 221BBaker Street.The upper-floor offices are the fictional home to the rejected spies of Mick Herron's Slow Horses books, led by the sulphurous Jackson Lamb. They are also the star turn - alongside Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas - in the unmissable AppleTV+ dramatisation, which returns for a fourth series this week. One of the many joys of the drama is that it offers a vision of London that rarely makes it on to screen - that everyday layering of centuries of history and grime and struggle that seeps through the pores of the present. Herron describes the familiar medley" of those resolutely ungentrified streets perfectly, the weathered and the new; the social housing estate, and the eye hospital... [and] the complicated facade of an office block straight from an SF comic". The filming is a love letter to all that seedy poetry: The gauzy reflections in puddles that... after-hours made fast-food outlets and minicab offices brief flashes of wonder." Continue reading...

Jason Billingsley pleaded guilty on Friday to the apparent random attack last year that shocked the cityA man pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Friday in the killing of Baltimore tech entrepreneur Pava LaPere last September in an apparently random attack that shocked the city.Jason Billingsley, 33, entered the guilty plea instead of going to trial on Friday morning. He also pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of attempted murder in a separate arson and home invasion case that took place just days before LaPere was found dead on the rooftop of her downtown Baltimore apartment building. Continue reading...

After the fall of the Taliban, more than 21,000 Afghan evacuees submitted asylum applications; 3,100 were able to extend their temporary protected status through May 2025Almost three years after Esmatullah Sultani rushed to Kabul's international airport, at the time besieged by Taliban forces who were seizing control of Afghanistan, the 24-year-old man walked into a busy neighborhood market near Sacramento, California.Sultani greeted many of the stallholders, fellow Afghans, and ordered kebabs for lunch in Dari, a language spoken by more than 35 million people in Afghanistan. Continue reading...

Trump's running mate rants against feminism, immigrants and Ilhan Omar in a newly unearthed podcast from 2021Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance, said that professional women choose a path to misery" when they prioritize careers over having children in a September 2021 podcast interview in which he also claimed men in America were suppressed" in their masculinity.The Ohio senator and vice-presidential candidate said of women like his classmates at Yale Law School that pursuing racial or gender equity is like the value system that gives their life meaning ... [but] they all find that that value system leads to misery". Continue reading...

Extreme giddiness, sudden bliss, unexplained friskiness: was this a new strain of Covid?An adult crush is such an elusive creature, like a snow leopard or a rare bird that you know exists but never see. I'm not talking about a celebrity or a musician crush, or in the case of my friend's 24-year-old daughter, I get crushes all the time, Shanti, on TikTok."On TikTok?!" Good grief. Continue reading...

While some readers found humour in last weekend's mix-up on the puzzles page, we understand the genuine disappointment many of you feltFor so many, crosswords and other teasers are what the weekend is for. Regular readers will know that the Guardian's puzzle pages come with an added challenge on bank holiday weekends: a cryptic crossword in more fiendish form either by size or complexity or both.Last Saturday's jumbo", by setter Maskarade, was no exception, featuring 15 unnumbered clues that were composite anagrams of two associated creative themes". With a host of other puzzles on offer, from Codeword to Maslanka, this might be considered brainwork enough.Elisabeth Ribbans is the Guardian and Observer's global readers' editor guardian.readers@theguardian.comDo 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...

I want a truly intimate relationship, but in the world of dating apps, all I found were sordid, vacuous encountersPost-breakup, following a decade-long relationship, I awoke to find myself thrust violently back into the dating pool. It was a new, unfamiliar landscape where nothing was left to the imagination. Sex was assumed to be on the cards, and a new performative intimacy inevitable. Having relied in the past on chance encounters, an air of wondering, a feeling that fate (as opposed to an algorithm) had maybe put you and whomever else in one another's paths, this new world where no one chats you up" or flirts with you felt alienating.I was forced towards dating apps: a vast pool of geographically convenient false advertisers who mostly don't want relationships, let alone any connection. It's been roughly three years since my breakup and I am already fatigued. I am 43, a single mother of two, with a very demanding career and limited time without the kids. In fact, my sacred free time is so limited that the thought of dating strangers who may ruin it fills me with resentment and rage. Imagine devoting your one night off to someone dull, vacuous and - worse - flippant about that luxury?Paloma Faith is a singer, songwriter and actress, and the author of MILF: Motherhood, Identity, Love and F*ckeryDo 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...