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After I became a mother, I just couldn't listen to the demeaning tracks of artists such as Eminem, Lil Jon and Busta RhymesDuring my final year of university, I remember hanging out with friends by a lake one summer. One friend set up his new hookah pipe as a dozen of us settled on a picnic mat, preparing for a laidback evening of good conversation and music. I offered up my iPod to the friend-of-a-friend who had a portable speaker and was controlling the music. But as she scrolled through my music library, the mood soured; she looked at me aghast, berating me for my choice of un-feminist" music.One by one, she read out the titles of songs by Eamon, Busta Rhymes and other artists whose names I can no longer remember, who rapped profanities that I no longer feel comfortable typing on my keyboard, disgusted. As a woman, I shouldn't be listening to such music, she told me.

Crystal lauded alongside Dionne Warwick, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah and Renee Fleming at annual ceremonyWhite-haired Robert De Niro, 80, looked up at white-haired Billy Crystal in the balcony. You're only 75," he said mischievously. That means you're just about six years away from being the perfect age to be elected president."Joe Biden, 81, sitting a few seats away from Crystal, grinned and jokingly wagged his finger at De Niro. The audience at the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night roared, rose to its feet, turned to look at the US president and applauded and whooped for a full 30 seconds. Continue reading...

San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit and Dallas are well ahead of their conference opponents. They all have strong cases for making the Super BowlIt now looks like a four-team battle to see who emerges as victor in the NFC championship game after the San Francisco 49ers' 42-19 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Which of the teams is most likely to make it to the Super Bowl though?1) San Francisco 49ers (9-3, 1st place NFC West) Continue reading...

Jon Rahm has been linked to a LIV Golf deal worth nine figures while Rory McIlroy just earned 12m for his popularityThe trouble with Pointless answers is that you never meet any of the 100 people surveyed for each one. Still, the quizshow probably presents as valid an insight into the attitude of the British public as anything else in these zany times.A few weeks ago, Alexander Armstrong flashed up famous faces with names relating to flowers. What happened next was rather galling for those who want golf to capture hearts and minds. Continue reading...

He's avoiding complacency, but there's little point chasing diehard Tories. Focus on offering everyone else real changeThe Labour party's relentless pursuit of Tory switchers is in danger of backfiring badly. Keir Starmer's praise of Margaret Thatcher in the Sunday Telegraph is a double danger - it wins over no wavering voters but risks losing the goodwill of a wide range of his supporters, old and new.The tactic of a foray into enemy territory" is understandable. Labour's turnaround from losing to a landslide in 2019 to being poised for its own landslide at the next election has been so fast it is in danger of causing political whiplash. But praising Thatcher, however mildly expressed and highly qualified, is a strategic misstep. Continue reading...

The focus on individual choices has left us frustrated. Now an EU-led climate club' is our best hope of systemic actionSomething flipped last summer in both the visibility of the climate crisis and in the space the media devotes to it. Apparently, all it took was for the air to turn orange and unbreathable above Wall Street and for smoke to smother holidaymakers in Greece.And yet, despite the fact that the conversation finally feels like it is approaching the level of ubiquitousness that the crisis merits, the solutions being proposed leave me deflated. And that's not merely because of the lunatic hypocrisy of holding the Cop28 in Dubai, where it will be presided over by the CEO of the world's 12th-largest fossil-fuel company.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian columnist. He is a France-based writer and an adjunct lecturer at Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies Continue reading...

When you're hoping to be pregnant, the arrival of your period calls for a condolence card, a sunrise walk - or a good screamI am currently having my 10th unwanted period in a row. There are all sorts of reasons a period might be unwanted: you are on a long train journey; you had a period two weeks ago; you are camping; it's your wedding day, you are wearing white and Don't Stop Me Now has just come on across the dancefloor. In this case, however, I had hoped to be pregnant.When it comes to unwanted periods - particularly the ones that remind you that your womb is made like an outbuilding or a shed - I would like to see some better rituals. Better cards. Better parties. A friend could arrive at your house with a box of eggs and take you to the nearest wood or car park, where you could spend a cathartic 10 minutes throwing the eggs at a wall, or a tree trunk, or the ground, while screaming. Continue reading...

The frenzied debate about record levels' of net migration ignores the true cause of it allThe headline, now increasing in pitch, capital letters and exclamation marks, is that net migration is off the charts. It is soaring. It is at an all-time high. So high that we ask, how did it come to this? The answer is, it came to this predictably and, in fact, inevitably. The way immigration numbers are reported is a sort of classification error, one forced by the overriding, unquestioned presumption that immigration is bad, that it must come down, and that politicians are in some duel with hordes" of immigrants who are making their way into the country, managing somehow to vanquish one of the harshest immigration systems in the world.More accurate headlines might be UK skilled worker shortage intensifies", Loss of European Union research funding renders British universities increasingly dependent on overseas students", Business leaders call for expansion of shortage occupations due to post-Brexit recruitment challenges", or Funding cuts to nurse training result in staffing crisis". Because these apparently vexingly high numbers are, to a large extent, the outcome of economic and political decisions that mean we invite immigrants to fill labour gaps that policymakers either did not anticipate, or ignored warnings about. Continue reading...

Manuel Rocha, 73, who once served as ambassador to Bolivia, is accused of working to promote the Cuban government's interestsA former American diplomat who served as US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba's government, the Associated Press has learned.Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint and more details about the case are expected to be made public at a court appearance Monday, said two people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing federal investigation. Continue reading...

Deal for $1.9bn, which includes $900m in Hawaiian Airlines debt, would keep both airlines' brandsAlaska Airlines said Sunday it agreed to buy Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9bn deal, including debt, putting it on track for a potential clash with a Biden administration that has shown wariness about higher fares in the industry.The combined company would keep both airlines' brands, rooted in the nation's 49th and 50th states. Alaska will pay $18 in cash for each share of Hawaiian, whose stock closed Friday at $4.86 after losing just over half its value in the year so far. Continue reading...

Analysis of in-custody deaths show mortality rates were more than three times the increase in general population in 2020A study of US prison deaths at the height of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 has found that mortality rates soared by 77% relative to 2019, or more than three times the increase in the general population.The study, published by Science Advances last week, is the most comprehensive analysis of in-custody deaths since 2020. The report found that Covid-19 was the primary driver for increases in mortality due to natural causes; some states also experienced substantial increases due to unnatural causes." Continue reading...

News that the book The Fabulist will be adapted into film comes after congressman was expelled last weekA book about the improbable rise and rapid fall of former congressman George Santos has been optioned by HBO Films, it was reported Saturday, and will be produced under the guidance of Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist known for executive production credits on Emmy awards-winning Succession and Veep.HBO reportedly optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano's The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, published last week. Continue reading...

Nearly four months after the deadly wildfires, Lahaina's youngest residents still face displacement, housing insecurity and lingering traumaWhen the destructive summer blaze swept across Lahaina, in west Maui, Maryann Kobatake's nephew helped ferry a friend's grandmother and cousins to safety. On the drive out of a burning Front Street, the town's main thoroughfare, she said the 18-year-old heard screams and witnessed carnage that haunts him still.He has not discussed what he's seen with her or other family members. I don't think he wants to relive it by talking," she said, adding that she's tried to get him to open up to her. Because he's had it tough in life, I think that's just how he copes with it." Continue reading...

Twenty-year-old Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, his family saysOne of the three college students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Vermont last month is paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet lodged in his spine, the student's family said.Hisham Awartani, a 20-year-old student at Brown University who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was walking with two friends near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on 25 November when, police say, 48-year-old Jason Eaton shot them with a handgun in a suspected hate crime. Eaton has pleaded not guilty. Continue reading...

Warnings that president stance on the war risks losing support of community in states critical to his chances for re-electionMuslim community leaders gathered on Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, to protest President Biden's refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, reiterating that the president's stance could affect his support in crucial swing states next year.Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Biden's unwillingness to call for a ceasefire had damaged his relationship with the American-Muslim community beyond repair. (Cair-Minnesota is not involved in his work on the Abandon Biden effort, which the organization said Hussein is doing in his personal capacity.) Continue reading...

The pain of those on the other side of the Rafah border is keenly felt: we know that their rights are inseparable from our ownOn the steps of the journalists' union in Downtown Cairo last Thursday evening, a woman held up a poster that showed eight babies: four parcelled up into small, green packages, four in just their nappies. Dead, all dead. The woman next to her held her own precious baby tight and jumped and stamped as we called out: Open up the Rafah border!" There were maybe 100 of us.A hundred people sounds like nothing compared with the multiples of thousands marching in cities across the world. But in Egypt, protests were outlawed in November 2013; 57 people who took part in protests after 7 October are currently in detention pending investigation. Everyone on the steps was demonstrating for Gaza and at the same time making a claim for the right to protest, their chants amplifying what you constantly hear in homes and on streets.Ahdaf Soueif is the author of Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common GroundDo 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 former president is proud of appointing the supreme court justices who overturned the right to abortion - now the issue is a vote loser for RepublicansA few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking very inarticulately" on abortion. And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a moderate" on abortion, Rolling Stone reported this week - even though he's currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself the most pro-life president ever". It's a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the supreme court not only handed the nation's highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer 2022. Continue reading...

From camping to yoga to dining, these leaders have a common goal: connecting historically marginalized communitiesAfter traversing the summit of Mount Whitney in the eastern sector of California's Sequoia national park, Michael Washington pitches his tent, looks across the forest terrain and preps for a frosty night before his trek through 10ft of snow the following day. As the sun pierces the veil of fog obstructing their view of the great Sierra Nevada, Washington and a group of travelers embark on a climb of a lifetime".In Los Angeles, where dreamers congregate and entrepreneurial spirits thrive, building community is as actionable as it is a necessity. The growing consciousness about the state of people's mental health arose post-pandemic, specifically for communities of color as the nation grappled with a racial reckoning that has yet to provide equality. Leaders such as Washington are uplifting and making the overall health and wellness of people of color a priority. The Guardian connected with four Black founders of three organizations who have affected the cultural DNA of Los Angeles by creating movement towards interconnectedness and finding community through healing. Continue reading...

The show needs to return to its original recipe: focus on the triumphs, not the mishaps, and keep the bakes accessibleUtter the words bin-gate" and you would be hard pressed to find any Great British Bake Off fan who wouldn't go misty-eyed. Ingrained in our collective consciousness is 2014 contestant Iain Watters' baked alaska-fuelled tantrum, resulting in the iconic presentation of a bin to judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood in place of his showstopper.Iconic moments have been in plentiful supply since The Great British Bake Off's inception in 2010: Sue Perkins' elbow inadvertently sabotaging a contestant; the Great Custard Robbery of 2013; Nadiya Hussain's empowering winner's speech. Continue reading...

Survivors of institutions run by Catholic diocese recall litany of sexual abuse as bankruptcy process keeps documents hiddenThis is the final installment of a three-part series exploring how the archdiocese of New Orleans's bankruptcy stands apart from other cases of its kind. The first installment ran on Wednesday 29 November 2023, and the second installment ran on Friday 1 December.Call her Sheila. Continue reading...

A YouGov poll says that nearly half of us don't want a traditional send-off, and not just because of the expenseIn the 1970s, Professor Ronald A Howard of Stanford University worked out a unit of risk in death which he called a micromort. So, an operation with a general anaesthetic clocks up 10 micromorts, while running a marathon comes in more modestly at seven. How many micromorts there are in a 12-month run of attendances at funerals he didn't calculate. However, from personal experience, metaphorically and practically, it turns the Grim Reaper into an uncomfortably close companion that does give pause for reflection about the best way that I can bow out.For me, there will be no joyful" tangerine-themed celebration; no eulogy from a vicar struggling hard to paint a portrait of a person they never met; no trek to a woodland glade in a cardboard box; no final opportunity for friends and relatives to collectively say goodbye. With luck, I may occasionally pop back in the shape of a memory, flaws erased, personality polished to perfection by the passage of time. Continue reading...

Freedom of expression is imperilled when speakers are cancelled, whether by the left or the rightAn award ceremony for the Palestine-born novelist and essayist Adania Shibli is cancelled by the Frankfurt book fair because of the war started by Hamas". A cultural centre in Berlin has its funding cut and will be shut down after hosting an event from the organisation Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East. France bans all pro-Palestinian demonstrations.Michael Eisen is sacked as editor of the biomedical journal eLife for retweeting a post from the satirical website the Onion headlined Dying Gazans criticised for not using last words to condemn Hamas". David Velasco, editor of Artforum, a leading art magazine, is fired for signing an open letter calling for Palestinian liberation and... an end to the killing and harming of all civilians [and] an immediate ceasefire". Columbia University suspends two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. Hilton Hotels cancels a conference in Houston by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights after pressure from the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. Continue reading...

Cutting back on the culture of lavish wining and dining created a slimmer workforceThere's lots of chat about slimming down the UK's civil service - it's grown by 25% since the Brexit referendum (albeit only back to its pre-austerity size).In the UK, this trimming talk doesn't usually refer to helping Whitehall mandarins drop a dress size. In contrast, a recent study finds that the Chinese government's anti-corruption campaign is slimming not only bureaucrat's wallets, but their waistlines.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...

Israel's response to the 7 October Hamas attacks has emboldened many to say the once unsayableWhen is a genocide a genocide? The word is much in vogue, though its precise meaning - the intentional destruction of a people - is hard to justify in the case of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, which, though without doubt brutal in execution and heartbreaking in effect, falls a long way short of any ambition to exterminate an entire population.Genocides don't leaflet the populations they want to destroy with warnings to stay out of harm's way, and Hamas, which Israel avowedly does want to see the back of, is not the Gazan people. For all the sensationalist pronouncements of academics who specialise in genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, settler-colonialism, etc, the words simply flutter like so many pennants at a medieval joust. Denoting, in the fading light, which side you're on, no more.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...

Reflections on America's role in the world and, as a Jew, his negotiations with Arab leaders from 1977 interviewIn 1977, Douglass Cater, vice-chairman of the Observer, and Kenneth Harris, associate editor, called on Dr Henry Kissinger in his 10th-floor office at the Georgetown Centre for Strategic and International Studies where he was professor of diplomacy. This is an extract from that exclusive interview.Did your early years, up to the age of 15 in Germany, have a formative influence on your thinking? Continue reading...

Jerrid Joseph Powell, 33, had already been in custody for the robbery and killing of a fourth manA Los Angeles man who had already been arrested in another shooting investigation has been identified as the suspect in three recent killings of unhoused men, police said Saturday.The Los Angeles police chief, Michel Moore, said 33-year-old Jerrid Joseph Powell was identified as the suspect in the three killings after authorities determined that a firearm found in the vehicle he had been driving when he was arrested earlier was linked to the shootings. Continue reading...

September decision finding Republicans discriminated against Black voters with reconfigured districts overruled on appealA Florida appellate court ruled on Friday that lawmakers do not have to redraw the state's congressional map, reversing a September decision that found Republicans discriminated against Black voters when it reconfigured districts in the northern part of the state.The ruling from the first district court of appeal is the latest development in a long-running legal battle over Black representation in the state. In 2015, the state supreme court imposed a district that stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee to give Black voters there a chance to elect the candidate of their choosing. From 2015 until 2022, voters in the fifth congressional district elected Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, to represent them. But in 2022, Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, went out of his way to dismantle the district, chopping it up into four majority-white districts that all elected Republican candidates. Continue reading...

Our writer pays tribute to the fiercely authentic Pogues frontman he first met selling records in the 1970sLast week, as the weather turned cold in the wake of Shane MacGowan's passing, some lines from the Pogues' first single, Dark Streets of London, kept echoing in my head.Now the winter comes down, I can't stand the chill Continue reading...

After months of Republican investigations, Mike Johnson told Fox he believed GOP conference has enough votes to launchThe US House speaker Mike Johnson signaled on Saturday that Republicans are nearing holding a formal vote to launch an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.I think it's something we have to do at this juncture," Johnson said during a Saturday appearance on Fox and Friends Weekend. Continue reading...

Beach volleyball and rowing team members say shabby facilities and inadequate supplies violate equal-treatment lawThirty-two female athletes filed a lawsuit against the University of Oregon on Friday that alleges the school is violating Title IX.The plaintiffs, who are all either on the varsity beach volleyball team or the club rowing team, are accusing the school of depriving women of equal treatment and benefits, equal athletic aid, and equal opportunities to participate in varsity intercollegiate athletics". Continue reading...

One man died in a shooting that resembles recent murders in Los Angeles, where three unhoused men were killed in one weekFive unhoused people were shot in Las Vegas on Friday, one of them fatally, and police were searching for a lone suspect, authorities said.The shooting occurred around 5:30pm near a freeway overpass in the north-eastern part of the city, according to Lt Mark Lourenco of the Las Vegas metropolitan police department. Continue reading...

Controversial EagleAI program connected to Trump supporter uses public records to flag people who shouldn't be on the rollsA Georgia county on Friday agreed to use a controversial program to identify ineligible people on its voter rolls that is connected to one of the most prominent election deniers and a key figure in Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Columbia county, which is just outside Augusta, is believed to be the first place in the US to use the program, which is called EagleAI, the New York Times reported. The software matches voting data with publicly available information like post office and death records to flag people who should no longer be on the rolls. Continue reading...

State to receive extra congressional district after winning court battle - but advocates must convince Black voters to turn outTuskegee resident Elise Tolbert hasn't had a hospital in her city in her lifetime. Macon county, where her family has lived for generations and where four out of five residents are Black, once had two hospitals, but both were closed by the late 1980s.That has forced locals to travel a half hour or more to other larger towns to get treatment - a long trip during a medical emergency, especially since calling for an ambulance can lead to a long wait. Residents often have to drive themselves, or find someone to take them if they don't own a car - which is common in a town where 29% of residents live in poverty. Continue reading...

He shaped a world of superpowers but to those without power he was ruthless. How did one diplomat hold sway for so long?Henry Kissinger was a complicated, insecure man who believed the US alone could impose order in a complicated, insecure world. For almost a decade from 1969, at the height of cold war instability, he became the international face of America - a very political diplomat almost as well known as his patron, Richard Nixon, the then president.Kissinger was also a Harvard academic and self-styled grand strategist, a student of Castlereagh and Metternich who put his amoral theories of realist" foreign policy into practice with often horrific results. He viewed peoples and nations as movable, disposable pieces on a giant global chessboard. He was the burgermeister of realpolitik. Continue reading...

Encouraging return at the Hero World Challenge raises prospect of 15-time major champion being a force next yearA recent victory in a high school golf event for Charlie Woods felt like it would accelerate a changing of the guard. The 14-year-old has made quiet but steady progress in the sport where his father, Tiger, has iconic status. It will be easier for the golf world to accept the departure of Woods Sr from mainstream competition if the prospect of his son taking on the mantle is a realistic one.Characteristically, Tiger has other ideas. His return at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas has been his most encouraging since the car accident of early 2021 that threatened far more than his career. By the time Woods cut short his visit to Augusta National in April, it felt as if professional closure was finally upon us. There seemed little point in Woods placing his body through the most severe strain without being able to complete 72 holes. He was not seen between April and November. Continue reading...

Sunset Boulevard is notorious for pedestrian and cyclist accidents and parents are campaigning to make the street saferSchool had recently let out, summer was almost here. But Terence Heuston and his sons - then five and nine - still had work to do. Heuston, a lead organizer for Sunset4All, a grassroots organization advocating for a road redesign on a dangerous 3.2 mile (5.15km) stretch of Sunset Blvd - roughly between Fountain Ave and Dodger Stadium - wrangled his kids for yet another Saturday of community activism.In June 2022, the family joined about 20 other volunteers gathered in front of Woodcat Coffee in Echo Park and set out for what they called the last mile" - walking the boulevard, talking to businesses that could be impacted by a redesign. In Spanish and English, volunteers took their time - talking about the 40 severe and fatal collisions on this part of the road in the past decade, and discussing fine points of the group's nearly six-year effort to get the city to change the roadway. A couple of hours in, Heuston's boys lagged behind a bit but were still in decent spirits. Continue reading...

Berlin steps up assistance as Kyiv faces relentless Russian attacks, low morale at home, and splits in the EU and NatoOlaf Scholz, Germany's safety-first chancellor, has been harshly criticised for foot-dragging on military assistance for Ukraine. As Russia's invasion loomed, he was ridiculed for offering 5,000 helmets instead of heavy weapons.Early German doubts and prevarications delayed delivery of missiles and Leopard tanks. It got so bad that, in April last year, Germany's president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was bluntly told he was not welcome in Kyiv. Continue reading...

You don't go to this Bonaparte biopic for a history lesson or authentic settings - but shouldn't it at least be entertaining?To the laments of military historians about the accuracy of Ridley Scott's film Napoleon, one could add some about the architecture. Christopher Wren's Royal Naval College in Greenwich gets digitally spliced with classical architecture from France and Malta, so they all look as if they are in the same place, while Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire gets to represent both Paris and Moscow.But such complaints miss the point. The film is entertainment - to expect factual precision is like going to Macbeth for an informative lecture on Scottish history. And, as in any lavishly produced period drama, there's a problem with the fourth wall: even if the costumes and settings and turns of phrase were completely of their time, such authenticity would still jar with the awareness that it's recorded with state-of-the-art, 21st-century technology. Continue reading...

Fabulist says he will file ethics complaints against ex-colleagues and accuses others of affairs and missing votes due to hangoversGeorge Santos, the disgraced New York Republican who was expelled from the US House on Friday, spent his first hours as a former congressman railing against his former colleagues and saying he would file ethics complaints against four of them on Monday.Santos told reporters after his expulsion he was done with Congress. Continue reading...

Tahseen Ali Ahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Hisham Awartani, all 20, are childhood friends and incredibly tight' - especially nowIn Ramallah, in the West Bank, in the spring of 2021, three school friends huddled round their computer screens.Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad had all applied to study at American universities. Responses from the colleges tended to come through by email, usually between midnight and 2am Palestinian time. Continue reading...

But frontrunner Trump's shadow falls wide as former president rallies supporters just 100 miles away in Cedar RapidsRon DeSantis plans on Saturday to complete his campaign promise to visit each of Iowa's 99 counties, a timeworn tactic for presidential candidates hoping to make their mark in the leadoff state over months mingling with voters at the state's diners, cookouts and Pizza Ranches.But the Florida governor's moment, like much of his campaign, will take place under the towering shadow of former president Donald Trump. Continue reading...

Workers at the remote Lukeville crossing with Mexico will process new arrivals instead of watching over vehicle and foot trafficSo many asylum seekers are crossing from Mexico into the United States around remote Lukeville, Arizona, that US officials say they will close the port of entry there so that the operations officials who watch over vehicle and pedestrian traffic going both ways can help border patrol agents detain and process the new arrivals.The US Customs and Border Protection announced on Friday that the temporary closure of the crossing will start on Monday as officials grapple with changing migration routes that have overwhelmed border patrol agents stationed there. Arizona's US senators and governor called the planned closure unacceptable". Continue reading...

High turnover in the election office in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, exacerbated human errors, fueling anger and distrust - and is emblematic of a larger crisis facing electionsIt was the perfect story and Donald Trump pounced.In the final weeks of the 2020 election, officials in Luzerne county in north-east Pennsylvania had discovered nine mail-in ballots in the trash. Several of them were cast in favor of Trump, who had been railing for months that the election was rigged against him. William Barr, then the attorney general, briefed Trump on the matter before it was public and Trump immediately began spinning it. Continue reading...

Democrat Paul Tonko is pushing to halt a public health crisis' from engulfing the country - starting with a nationwide ban on adsAs Las Vegas prepares to host Super Bowl LVIII sports betting is preparing to celebrate its remarkable shift from the illegal fringes of American sports to the heart of its establishment. In Congress, one man is not cheering.Congressman Paul Tonko fears the industry has already gone too far. There's no limit to this," he told the Guardian. You can't have this wild west environment." So far Tonko is a rare voice of dissent in Washington, another arena where the new gambling establishment is gaining ground. Continue reading...

Macron is calling for unity, but the Israel-Hamas war has sparked a rise in hate crime that threatens a fragile social peaceFrench Jews were only partly reassured when more than 100,000 people, including the prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, and two former presidents, turned out to demonstrate in Paris last month against antisemitism and in defence of the secular republic. Why did the president, Emmanuel Macron, not attend, many asked? Where were the leaders of France's Muslim community? And where were the cultural, intellectual and sports celebrities so often eager to take a public stance on a worthy cause?Since Hamas fighters poured into Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October, slaughtering around 1,200 Israeli men, women and children, a wave of antisemitic attacks and hate speech has swept over France, home to Europe's biggest Jewish community (of around 440,000 people) and its largest Muslim population (of around 6 million people).Paul Taylor is a senior fellow of the Friends of Europe thinktankDo 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...