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Governor issues state of emergency for 12 counties as authorities confirm a four-month-old baby was among the dead in HoldenvilleAt least four people, including a baby, were killed after a series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma on Saturday, amid a weekend of extreme weather that left dozens injured and a trail of destruction across the midwest.Local authorities confirmed that a four-month-old infant was among the two people dead in Holdenville - one of the hardest hit towns in Oklahoma, located 80 miles south-east of Oklahoma City - where about 20 tornadoes hit late Saturday, leveling buildings and ripping off roofs. The victims have not been named, but at least four others were injured as the tornado left a path of devastation through the town of around 6,000 people. Continue reading...

Senate minority leader says he is not advocating anything at this level' and that issue is too divisive among lawmakers for consensusAsked whether he supports a federal abortion ban, US Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that he is not advocating anything at this level".The Republican, during remarks in a new interview published by NBC's Meet the Press, stopped short of saying whether or not he supported a 15-week federal ban on abortion with exceptions, but he instead portrayed the issue as a practical matter" that was too divisive among federal lawmakers to result in a consensus among them. Continue reading...

The 6ft7in athlete, who played in the eighth tier of English rugby for hometown club Basingstoke, has been picked by Buffalo Bills from the NFL's international player pathway programme as an offensive lineman. Clayton was selected with the 221st overall pick in the seventh round despite having never played a game in the sport but recorded his 40-yard dash in 4.79sec during the draft combine, which the Bills said was faster than all offensive lineman have recorded over the past 10 years. 'It's time to represent and show the rest of the world exactly why UK athletes should play in the NFL," said the 23-year-old

Mumia Abu-Jamal tells New York City students they're on the right side of history by deciding not to be silent and to speak out'In a powerful and rousing live address to students at the City University of New York (CUNY) on Friday night, the incarcerated Black political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal praised the pro-Palestinian movement growing at US colleges as being on the right side of history.It is a wonderful thing that you have decided not to be silent and decided to speak out against the repression that you see with your own eyes," Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, said while calling from Pennsylvania's Mahanoy state prison. You are part of something massive, and you are part of something that is on the right side of history. Continue reading...

Trump's rant against me is a barely coherent,' says independent White House hopeful and challenges ex-president to a debateRobert F Kennedy Jr has dismissed Donald Trump as unhinged" after a social media tirade from the former Republican president accused the independent White House hopeful of being a Democrat plant" and wasted protest vote".When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged," Kennedy wrote Saturday on X in a post that doubled as a debate challenge. President Trump's rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate." Continue reading...

Sexual violence within the queer community is rarely visible in the media - we need to see our stories on the small screen

Demonstrators shouted Shame on you!" at White House officials, journalists and celebrities as they arrived at the dinner, condemning Biden's handling of the war in Gaza and the media's coverage of it.At the event, Joe Biden made jokes at the expense of Donald Trump, telling a gathering of Washington's political and media elites: 'I'm a grown man running against a six-year-old'

Speaker's crude interventions on campus have forced many to question if his motives on Ukraine were quite so heroicDemocrat Nancy Pelosi cited his integrity" and described him as courageous". Republican Michael McCaul called him a profile in courage". CNN hailed him as an unlikely Churchill".Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, began the week showered in plaudits for leading the House in approving $95bn in urgently needed wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies. Continue reading...

With abortion on the line, a Black conservative provocateur is pitted against the state's center-left Jewish attorney generalIn front of a conservative talkshow host two weeks ago, Mark Robinson, North Carolina's Republican candidate for governor, was grousing a bit about being snubbed by the state's Democratic governor on a matter of race.He talks a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion, but apparently the line for diversity, equity and inclusion stops at the Republican party," Robinson told Lockwood Phillips. Roy Cooper has had several chances to congratulate me on the accomplishment of being the first Black lieutenant governor, and he has never taken it." Continue reading...

Don't be deluded by media hullabaloo - but smart employers can get creative with schedules to attract and retain talentAccording to CNN 4-day workweeks may be around the corner. A third of America's companies are exploring them." CNBC says: This US company tested a 4-day workweek - and says it made workers happier and more productive." Newsweek tells us: Millennials Are Ready For a Four-Day Week." So why do all of my clients say nope?According to an advocacy organization, more than 300 companies have four-day workweeks and, per the reports above, many others are apparently testing" the concept. I admit that I've spoken to none of these companies but I'm not sure I have to. I spend my life working with small and mid-sized businesses and I know a PR stunt when I see one. Hey, good for them. In these times of tight labor - it's a great marketing campaign. People! Come work for us except you don't have to do as much work and we'll still pay you the same!" Now that's a company I want to work for. Continue reading...

Trump's former fixer to appear as prosecution witness, while Avenatti, serving prison sentence, willing to testify for defenseAs Donald Trump's hush-money trial enters its second week, jurors will be asked to focus on the testimony of his former Mr Fixit - the disbarred lawyer Michael Cohen.Cohen, who served as Trump's personal attorney for 12 years until 2018, is acting as a witness for the New York district attorney, Alvin Bragg. The case could turn on Cohen's testimony about payments sought by two women, the porn star Stormy Daniels and the Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, and how those payments were made and allegedly disguised, as prosecutors contend, in violation of accounting and political campaign laws. Continue reading...

Tents, debris and personal items from the Nova festival, where 364 people died on 7 October, form shocking exhibit on Wall StreetWhile New York was preoccupied with student protests over the US's support of Israel's war in Gaza last week, another aspect of how the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel is coming to terms with bloodshed in the Middle East was being prepared.On Wall Street, a gruelling exhibition has opened detailing the horrific attack on the Nova music festival by Hamas terrorists on 7 October, in which 364 people were murdered, many wounded and 44 taken hostage. Continue reading...

Doping case with Chinese swimmers has brought years of pent-up feeling into public domain - and shows no sign of stoppingAt its glitzy 25th anniversary gala in Lausanne last month, the World Anti-Doping Agency screened a slick montage highlighting how it had changed sport for the better. There were images of Muhammad Ali defying Parkinson's to light the Olympic flame and Pele lifting the World Cup, before a history lesson - and a promise. Today Wada is a more representative, accountable and transparent organisation," explained its director general, Olivier Niggli, that truly has athletes at the heart of everything we do."Not everyone in the room was buying it - one source felt it was too PR-focused, while another raised their eyebrows when Thomas Bach - the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - and the former Wada president Sir Craig Reedie picked up awards. However, frustrations with Wada were largely limited to corridor conversations. It turned out to be the relative calm before the thermonuclear storm. Continue reading...

Pots of slime, pig heads, sexy dolls... we were only looking for a present for my son's fourth birthdayThis week I found myself in a large toy shop in a retail park off London's North Circular. We were looking, in a pleasant panic, for a present for my son's fourth birthday. His birthdays always hit me in an odd way, a bit like those slaps round the face they have in films to stop the woman screaming. Because: he was born at the beginning of the pandemic and, just as his early developmental stages like sitting up or eating solids worked as a marker of time having passed, of us having survived, so do his birthdays. It is four years, this means, since those tight, hot days of the first Covid lockdown, of sanitiser-cracked hands and the brisk hell of home schooling, and every time the anniversary comes round I find myself having to sit down, take a breath.Anyway, this toy shop, good God. Do you have any ideas what toys are today? I was not prepared. There are the board games, which include your Guess Who's and so on, but they are overwhelmed by other games called things like, Who Can Poo On Who and Fart School and Diarrhoea of a CEO and I may be misremembering titles slightly yes, but this was very much the gist, boxes with rabid cartoon characters covered in phlegm and instructions that involve, for eg, burping one's name. Continue reading...

US president made fun of Republican frontrunner's legal woes while critics of his handling of Gaza war protested outsideJoe Biden has shown no mercy to Donald Trump with a series of barbed jokes about his election rival, telling a gathering of Washington's political and media elites: I'm a grown man running against a six-year-old."The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday night provided the ideal platform for Biden to continue a recent run of taking the fight to Trump with more aggressive rhetoric, cutting humour and personal insults. Continue reading...

Public disapproval mounts for South Dakota governor and vice-presidential hopeful whose book contains gruesome accountKristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful, saw polling numbers plummet after the Guardian revealed that she writes in a new book about the day she shot dead a hunting dog and an un-castrated goat, a revelation that ignited a political storm.Announcing what it called its Noem Puppy Murder Poll Findings", New River Strategies, a Democratic firm, said 81% of Americans disapproved of Noem's decision to shoot Cricket, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer who Noem says ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbour's chickens, thereby earning a trip to a gravel pit to die. Continue reading...

From Everest to Machu Picchu, we can't get enough of those must-see' places. It's time to show some restraintClimbing Everest used to be an even more dangerous pursuit than it is today, requiring huge bravery, endurance and skill. Even then the mountain could kill. A century ago, it claimed the lives of two of Britain's finest climbers, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.The world's highest mountain eventually succumbed to human challenge when, almost three decades later, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay carried the flags of Britain, the UN, and Nepal to its summit on 29 May 1953. Sporadic trips involving handfuls of explorers continued over succeeding years. Continue reading...

A peaceful action at the school near Atlanta, Georgia, was met with violent use of force and 28 arrests of students and facultyClifton Crais, a history professor, was walking to class at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, outside Atlanta, on Thursday shortly before 10am when several students rushed up to him.Please, please contact president Fenves," they begged, referring to the university president, Gregory Fenves. Ask him to not call the police." Several dozen protesters seeking the university's divestment from Israel and opposing a $109m police training center colloquially known as Cop City" had set up tents on the school's grassy quad - the size of a football field - several hours before. Continue reading...

Robbi Mecus, 52, and climbing partner, who was rescued and hospitalized, fell from Mount Johnson in Denali national parkA helicopter crew on Saturday recovered the body of a climber who died after falling about 1,000ft (305 metres) while on a steep, technical route on Mount Johnson in Alaska's Denali national park and preserve, park officials said in a statement.Robbi Mecus, 52, of Keene Valley, New York, died of injuries sustained in a fall Thursday while climbing a route on the south-east face of the 8,400ft (2,560-metre) mountain, the park said. His climbing partner, a 30-year-old woman from California, was seriously injured; she was rescued Friday and flown to an Anchorage hospital, park officials said. Continue reading...

Dazhon Darien arrested over fake recording of principal complaining about students and faculty membersA high school athletics director suspected of using artificial intelligence to create a fake, racist recording of a principal in Baltimore has been arrested by police.Police arrested 31-year-old Dazhon Darien of Pikesville high school on Thursday after an investigation into an AI-generated recording which featured the duplicated voice of the school's principal, Eric Eiswert. Officers allege that Eiswert was investigating Darien in connection with the potential mishandling of school funds when the latter man purportedly created the recording. Continue reading...

US senator says Israeli prime minister is using antisemitism to distract attention from extremist and racist government' policiesBernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister's claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont - who is Jewish - accused Netanyahu of insult[ing] the intelligence of the American people" by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his extremist and racist government" in the military offensive in Gaza. Continue reading...

Candace Chapman Scott of Little Rock, 37, worked at a mortuary and arranged to transport remains to buyers across state linesA former mortuary worker in Arkansas has admitted to stealing parts of corpses and trying to sell them.On Thursday, the US attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas announced that 37-year-old Candace Chapman Scott of Little Rock, Arkansas, had pleaded guilty to transporting stolen body parts across state lines and conspiring to commit mail fraud. Continue reading...

Peter Bernegger has brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices over alleged fraud - now he faces criminal chargesPeter Bernegger has spent the last three and a half years bombarding local election offices in Wisconsin with litigation and accusations of fraud. He's brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices in state court, and on social media, he has relentlessly promoted his litigation and circulated false claims about election fraud in the swing state.His campaign has recently landed him in legal trouble - Bernegger now faces criminal charges for allegedly falsifying a subpoena in connection with a lawsuit against the state's top election office. Continue reading...

Managing the barrage of upsetting material online is a challenge that service providers are struggling to meet, even if they tryWay back in the mid-1990s, when the web was young and the online world was buzzing with blogs, a worrying problem loomed. If you were an ISP that hosted blogs, and one of them contained material that was illegal or defamatory, you could be held legally responsible and sued into bankruptcy. Fearing that this would dramatically slow the expansion of a vital technology, two US lawmakers, Chris Cox and Ron Wyden, inserted 26 words into the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which eventually became section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of the same year. The words in question were: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." The implications were profound: from now on you bore no liability for content published on your platform.The result was the exponential increase in user-generated content on the internet. The problem was that some of that content was vile, defamatory or downright horrible. Even if it was, though, the hosting site bore no liability for it. At times, some of that content caused public outrage to the point where it became a PR problem for the platforms hosting it and they began engaging in moderation". Continue reading...

In New York, reservation scalpers' are making $80,000 a year, but I'm banking on a neighbour's generosityThe land of restaurants is increasingly paradoxical. Every day, good ones close. Running costs are punitive and broke customers are eating at home more often. Yet still there are places where it's next to impossible to bag a table; where to have even the remotest chance of doing so requires near superhuman levels of patience and determination, as well as no other demands whatsoever on your time - including paid employment.I laughed when I read in the New Yorker's annual food issue of the reservation scalpers" who make $80,000 a year by hoarding bookings to then sell them on to the desperate-to-be-there rich. Only in Manhattan, I thought. But this didn't stop me. Just moments later, I was urging my neighbour, Sue, who is to restaurants what Harry Houdini once was to padlocks and straitjackets - just you watch her bust her way in! - to try to get us a table atX (I won't say its name, for obvious reasons). Sue is also a hoarder of reservations, with the key difference that she then shares them with (Iflatter myself) beloved friends at no extra charge. So now we're on tenterhooks, waiting and hoping - and hoping and waiting - for the hottest Sunday lunch in town. Continue reading...

The hush-money criminal trial receives less prominence in conservative media, and when Trump-friendly networks do turn to the trial, they give viewers an alternative narrativeIn one America, he cuts a diminished, humbled figure during coverage that runs from morn till night. He seems considerably older and he seems annoyed, resigned, maybe angry," said broadcaster Rachel Maddow after seeing Donald Trump up close in court. He seems like a man who is miserable to be here."But in the other America - that of Fox News, far-right podcasts and the Make America Great Again (Maga) base - the trial of the former president over a case involving a hush-money payment to an adult film performer is playing out very differently. Continue reading...

The university has said it won't give in to students' demands - but it has budged beforeRows of tents line the steps at Sproul Hall, the grand neoclassical administration building that soars up nine stories near the main entrance to the University of California, Berkeley.Thursday marked the fourth day of the Free Palestine camp, one of dozens of sit-ins that have sprung up on campuses across the US as symbols of protests for a student-led pro-Palestinian movement. Continue reading...

Tornadoes collapsed buildings and flattened homes in Nebraska and Iowa on Friday as warnings continued to be issuedTornadoes wreaked havoc Friday in the midwestern US, causing a building to collapse with dozens of people inside and destroying and damaging hundreds of homes, many around Omaha, Nebraska.As of Friday night, there were several reports of injuries but no deaths were immediately reported. Tornado warnings continued to be issued into the night in Iowa. Continue reading...

If the former president regains the White House in November, America faces a far worse dystopian future than being shown in cinemasDirector, cast and critics all agree: Civil War, the movie depicting America tearing itself to bloody bits while a cowardly, authoritarian president skulks in the White House, is not about Donald Trump. But it is, really.Likewise, the first ever criminal trial of a US president, now playing to huge audiences in New York, is ostensibly about claims that Trump fraudulently bought the silence of a former porn star called Stormy after a tacky Lake Tahoe tryst. But it isn't, really.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...

The liberal justice has been called the supreme court's conscience but we can't afford a repeat of Ruth Bader GinsburgA month ago Josh Barro (a man) at the Atlantic wrote a piece headlined Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now. Around the same time the Guardian's Mehdi Hasan (a man) similarly opined that for the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court." The University of Colorado Boulder law professor Paul Campos (a man) also went on CNN to argue that 69-year-old Sotomayor should consider stepping down as a justice in order to give Joe Biden time to fill the seat with another liberal judge should the worst happen. And pundit Nate Silver (you guessed it ... another man) said much the same thing. Continue reading...

There's no doubt about the mental health crisis facing young people. Jonathan Haidt blames our devices - which oversimplifies the problemIn the introduction to his new book The Anxious Generation, titled Growing up on Mars", Jonathan Haidt tells a fanciful piece of science fiction about a child conscripted into a dangerous mission to the red planet that will deform the young person as they grow. The journey is undertaken without the parents' consent. The ham-fisted metaphor is that technology companies have done the same to children and teenagers by putting smartphones into their hands.Haidt, a New York University professor of ethical leadership who researches social psychology and morality, goes on to argue that smartphones ignited a wildfire of anxiety and depression in gen Z around the world, by granting them continuous access to social media, online video games, and other internet-based activities". He says there are four foundational harms in this degradation of youth: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. Continue reading...

With pro-Palestine students arrested and campus protests broken up, educators are increasingly rallying in supportAs student-led protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from Israel and its occupation of Palestinian land continue to spread across US universities, some faculty members are increasingly joining the charge - speaking up and even standing alongside their students.At Georgia's Emory University, faculty members have been arrested at pro-Palestine demonstrations - including Emil' Keme, a professor of English and Indigenous studies, and Noelle McAfee, the philosophy department chair. Continue reading...

With a new indictment this week, 36 have been criminally charged and 10 face a civil lawsuit - but seven hold officeWith the indictment announced in Arizona this week, 36 out of 84 people who signed certificates falsely alleging they were electors for Donald Trump have now been criminally charged.Kris Mayes is the third state attorney general to indict part of the slate of people who signed the false documents with plans to turn them over to Mike Pence, the US vice-president, to steal the election from Joe Biden. Attorneys general in Michigan and Nevada have also brought charges, and in Wisconsin, fake electors face a civil lawsuit.36 have been criminally indicted (one has had charges dropped)10 face a civil lawsuit14 have been subpoenaed by Congress as part of the January 6 investigationSeven have been elected to officeSeven have lost electionsFour have been appointed or nominated to positions of powerOne is currently running for federal office Continue reading...

Americans are recognizing we must do more for Palestine and are signaling dissatisfaction with the party, as they did in 2008The US is just months away from the 2024 election, and the prospect of a second Trump presidency grows each day as he evades repercussions for the expansive list of indictments he's accrued. With this reality looming, many Democratic party loyalists are panicked about the leave it blank" movement, in which hundreds of thousands of voters have marked uncommitted" on their primary ballots to protest against US support of Israel's war on Gaza.Some worry that a protest vote at the ballot box is an automatic vote for Trump. They're sure that even during times of mass dissent, harm reduction is the only moral voting strategy. They're afraid that this election will mean the end of democracy, or that the re-election of Trump will guarantee unprecedented disharmony.Camonghne Felix is an assistant professor of creative writing at The New School Continue reading...

#MeToo's real legacy may not be ending predators' impunity so much as highlighting the tenacity of that impunityUsually, rape isn't reported. When it is reported, it is often not charged. And when it is charged, it rarely leads to a conviction. These facts shape both our cultural understanding of sexual violence and women's sense of their own embodied lives, clarifying something many of us already know - that while sexual violence is technically illegal and officially abhorred, it is also tolerated in practice, with actual arrests and convictions being so rare that most sexual violence is de facto decriminalized.Only occasionally does a notable rape conviction come to pass; when it does, its very rarity highlights this dissonance, making plain the gulf between how rape is officially talked about and how it is usually treated. Now, that gulf has come to the fore again, because on Thursday one of the most high-profile rape convictions in American history was overturned.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The law is badly lagging behind when it comes to rights for LGBTQ+ families. We need urgent root-and-branch reformThe Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act is 10 years old. In the UK, any couple can marry. Likewise, thanks to this courageous pair, any couple can now get a civil partnership. On marriage, the law has kept pace with the diversifying society it exists to regulate and protect.If you reflect on what was updated - the religious institution of marriage - and how long it had been the way it was, it hits you afresh how monumental this step forward was. Yet here we are. The equality of love has become a cliche. Young children have only known a world where every auntie and uncle they'll ever have could get married. It is meticulous and slow but ultimately, whether through parliament or the courts, the law moves forward.Freddy McConnell is a freelance journalistDo 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...

Even grandees are bracing for the very worst. But remember, such apocalyptic language around the party is nothing newThere is a morose mood in the Conservative party. It isn't just that the Tories expect to lose the next election - they fear that the coming defeat might be definitive, a result from which they never recover. One recent multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) poll forecasts that the Tories could be reduced to fewer than 100 seats - their lowest ever haul - with Labour predicted to secure an unprecedented 250-plus seat majority. Tory grandees are consequently gloomy. The former Brexit negotiator David Frost has called it a desperate situation". Charles Moore, the former Telegraph editor and Thatcher biographer, tells me the party's condition is probably worse than I've ever seen it". Some are billing the next election as an extinction-level event". Rishi Sunak's single-minded obsession on forcing through the Rwanda scheme appears, in this light, like a desperate attempt to distract himself and his party from the approaching abyss.Some Tories may feel the party has reached its nadir as an electoral force, but such apocalyptic language is nothing new. In fact, fear of extinction is part of a long Conservative tradition. It will be interesting to be the last of the Conservatives," Lord Salisbury, one of the party's longest-serving leaders, wrote glumly in 1882, as the age of mass suffrage loomed. I foresee that will be our fate." (Almost a century and a half later, he'd be relieved to learn that his great-great-grandson is leader of the House of Lords.) In 1945, on the brink of an unprecedented landslide victory, Labour candidates spoke openly about wanting the complete extinction of the Tory party". Then, six years later, the Tories returned to power and stayed there for the next 13. In 1974, amid the broadly progressive contours of the postwar consensus, the political scientist Andrew Gamble foresaw a future in which the Conservatives could be condemned to the museum of Fantastic Zoology". And here we are. People often talk about the death of the Tory party, and it doesn't happen," Lord Moore told me.Samuel Earle is a writer based in London and the author of Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over Continue reading...

Gary Cantrell, aka Lazarus Lake or Laz, completed his first trans-continental trek in 2018. He's now attempting his second, but this time against medical adviceLazarus Lake is shifting in a straight-back chair, searching for the right spot to ease his pinched nerve. After days of steep climbs and steeper descents, the Capon Valley of West Virginia is a welcome oasis. The world is again mercifully flat, if only for a moment. Somewhere out there, the Alleghany mountains lie in wait. But Laz, the mastermind of such grueling endurance tests as the Barkley Marathons and Backyard Ultras, doesn't want to think about that now; the pizzeria is filling up with smoke.A 20-year-old scurries from the back to apologize while the man sitting next to us is still staring. He's been speechless since Laz told him he'd just walked 17 miles over Timber Ridge to get here. Under a farmer's cap pulled down to his squinty eyes, the man grins, rubs his jaw, and finally says: Come again?" Continue reading...

When even the Met police and National Trust scones are apparently peak wokerati', it's become the establishment normIs woke dead? Is it over? Has it peaked", run its course before we've even properly agreed on what this endlessly controversial but somehow never quite defined social justice movement actually was? Though American rightwingers have been hopefully pronouncing its last rites for a while now, until very recently rumours of its death seemed exaggerated in Britain.Sure, some vegan restaurants have gone bust lately, but sadly so have plenty of other restaurants in the face of a cost of living crisis. And yes, oat milk sales are down. But is that because it has been toxified by political association, or because it has fallen out of favour with the wellness lobby, or just because it's expensive? Even reports of a YouTube-fuelled anti-feminist backlash among some young men, or of young women lapping up the original (not very woke) Sex and the City series on Netflix didn't feel like much of a tipping point. But then came the paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass's landmark review on treating transgender children, which found that medical interventions have been underpinned by remarkably weak evidence" and made clear treatment should be holistic, seeking a full understanding of everything going on in children's lives.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Revelation in new book that possible Trump running mate killed untrainable' hunting dog prompts widespread revulsionConservative pundits have condemned the South Dakota governor and possible Trump running mate Kristi Noem, amid widespread horror over her admission in a new book that she killed both an untrainable" dog and an unruly goat during a single day in hunting season.Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump White House staffer turned critic, said: I'm a dog lover and I am honestly horrified by the Kristi Noem excerpt. I wish I hadn't even read it. A 14-month-old dog is still a puppy and can be trained. A large part of bad behaviour in dogs is not having proper training from humans. Continue reading...

We helped bring Dominik Feri to justice. His trail should have rattled a complacent political establishmentHe was spoken of as an extraordinary talent. A rising star with a million followers on Instagram, who made politics relevant for younger generations. As recently as 2018, Politico ranked him among 28 people who would shape Europe in the years ahead.But earlier this week, Dominik Feri was sentenced to three years in prison for rape. A man once feted as the great hope of the Czech Republic, and the youngest member of parliament in the country's history is now its first politician to be jailed for sexual violence. Continue reading...

Jeremy Cooper injected McClain, 23, with ketamine after police forcibly restrained him as he walked home in Denver in 2019A former paramedic who injected Elijah McClain with ketamine avoided prison and was sentenced to probation on Friday after his homicide conviction in the Black man's death, which helped fuel the 2020 racial injustice protests.Jeremy Cooper faced up to three years in prison. He administered a dose of the sedative to McClain, 23, who had been forcibly restrained after police stopped him as he was walking home in a Denver suburb in 2019. Continue reading...

Police sound alarm after 13-month-old dies in Everett near Seattle and two other babies taken to hospital in past weekOfficials in Washington are sounding alarms after a baby died, and two others apparently also overdosed, in the past week in separate instances in which fentanyl was left unsecured inside residences.A 911 caller on Wednesday afternoon reported that a 13-month-old baby was not breathing in an apartment in Everett, a city near Seattle, the Daily Herald reported. The baby died later at a hospital, according to authorities. The Snohomish county medical examiner's office will determine the baby's official cause and manner of death, officials said. Continue reading...