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Airstrikes on two locations in eastern Syria signal a new willingness in Washington to engage directly in the Middle East crisis. Plus: the search continues for the Maine gunman

The prospect of something so valuable becoming just another strip-mined corporate wreck inspires genuine griefIt's hard to overstate how genuinely beloved the music retailer Bandcamp was by music fans before this week. The site was a place where music was valued for its ambition and artistic merit, not its commercial potential; a place where artists could sell directly to fans with minimal overhead (and, on Fridays since the beginning of the pandemic, none at all); and home to a thriving editorial department, whose contributors wrote from a place of passion and knowledge about the music they loved. The site represented some measure of hope for musicians looking to realize any sort of value for their work, given the pittance that streaming sites pay: setting aside payment processing fees, every dollar realized from a Bandcamp Friday sale represents 31,250 average Spotify streams.All that went up in flames with the news that Bandcamp's parent company - Epic Games, which only acquired Bandcamp in May this year, a sale that itself raised concerns for the site's future - was selling the company. The purchaser was something called Songtradr, which issued a statement announcing that 50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr". (As Bandcamp editorial contributor Marc Masters noted drily, this is quite a way to say you laid off half your staff".)Tom Hawking is a Melbourne-born writer based in New York City whose work examines the intersections of politics and culture Continue reading...

The state does not allow police to remove guns temporarily from people whose behavior may be a riskAs the fallout deepens from the catastrophic mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, that left at least 18 people dead and many wounded, questions are being asked about how an army reservist who had threatened violence and was kept under observation this summer for erratic behavior was allowed to be in possession of a deadly semi-automatic rifle.Robert Card, 40, remained on the run on Thursday amid a massive manhunt. He was named as the suspect in the double shooting on Wednesday evening at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston, a town of 40,000 people. Continue reading...

Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman among those who may have to go to trial, people close to the matter saySome of Donald Trump's top co-defendants charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia have not yet been offered plea deals since they were indicted, people close to the matter said, raising the stakes and fueling expectation that they will go to trial.The co-defendants without offers include the former US president himself, former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, the people said - individuals who played leading roles in the alleged conspiracies. Continue reading...

Republicans' legislative majorities are virtually impenetrable thanks to district lines - but that could change if the current maps are overturnedLynn Carey, a retired nurse with a double lung transplant, has spent years trying to get Wisconsin lawmakers to improve healthcare. Carey organized voters in support of the Affordable Care Act back in 2009. Since its passage, she has pushed to get her Republican representatives in the state legislature to expand Medicaid coverage to its poorest residents.The idea has been overwhelmingly popular in Wisconsin: a 2019 poll showed 70% of voters in the state supported it. But Medicaid expansion hasn't gone anywhere - even after Democrats won back Wisconsin's governorship in 2018. Continue reading...

The 119th World Series begins on Friday night as Arizona and Texas meet for baseball's biggest prize in a matchup that would have seemed all but impossible six weeks agoIf you wanted to place a bet in early September that the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks would be the contestants in World Series, you could have gotten fantastic odds. On 8 September, Arizona's chance to reach the postseason - not even the World Series, just the playoffs - was 46.2%, according to FanGraphs. Texas's chance was a lowly 38.6%. The D-Backs had cooled considerably after a hot start and looked to be circling the drain in the National League wildcard race. The Rangers, in a matter of days, would lose prized trade deadline acquisition Max Scherzer to the injured list with a strained shoulder, and he would not return until October. Both clubs were Fall Classic afterthoughts, expected to miss the postseason or exit early.How drastically things have changed. The Rangers and Diamondbacks will indeed play for baseball's ultimate prize after their parallel tracks took wild turns for the better in October. Both teams swept their wildcard series two games to none, then beat 100-win juggernauts in a three-game division series sweeps. Both went down three games to two in their respective league championship series, and both won their final two games on the road, to punch their World Series tickets. The Rangers dispatched their in-state rival Houston Astros; the Diamondbacks shocked the Philadelphia Phillies. And so when the World Series begins on Friday night in Arlington, Texas, the teams with a chance to win it will be a pair of underdogs who won 84 and 90 regular-season games, respectively. Continue reading...

After a gunman killed 18 people in Maine this week, the Democratic representative, Jared Golden, said he was changing his stance on gun legislation and would now support banning assault weapons. At a news conference in Lewiston, where the mass shooting occurred, Golden said he had previously opposed a ban on what he described as 'deadly weapons of war' out of fear for the lives of his family members. Announcing his new position, Golden said he would work with any colleague to achieve gun legislation during his time left in Congress

Harvey Lewis, a 47-year-old Ohio ultramarathoner, won the last-man-standing Big Dog's Backyard Ultra race after running the approximate distance between San Francisco to LAThe pleasures of winning a world championship can sometimes be small, but immediate. The evidence is plain in the smile of ultrarunner Harvey Lewis at 6.59pm on Wednesday 25 October. Lewis has just won the 2023 Backyard Ultra World Championship, but what appears to be of greater immediate relief is that after 450 miles, and for the first time in 108 hours (four and a half days), Lewis will not have to run four and one sixth miles (6.7km) at the start of the next hour.Ultrarunners like Lewis compete in ultramarathons, or ultras. Any footrace longer than a traditional marathon (26.2 miles, or 42.2 km) is considered an ultra, although within that designation there exist multitudes - in New York City alone, ultras can range from pop culture-themed 28-mile events to epic journeys thousands of miles in length. Continue reading...

As Las Vegas shifts its attention to more reputable sports frontiers, the Gulf states are ready to seize the opportunity and claim their place as the new epicenter of boxing and MMAThe glittering neon lights of Las Vegas have long symbolized the epicenter of fight sports.It is the place where an aging Muhammad Ali lost his splendor, where Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear (twice), and where Floyd Mayweather showcased his decade of dominance. It is also the place where Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters like Conor McGregor became household names. Continue reading...

There is a growing admission that existing guidelines are inadequate, with no single body to adjudicate the gross violation of children's rightsChildren do not start wars or plan acts of terrorism, but too often they are their greatest victims, as the conflict engulfing Israel and Gaza so painfully demonstrates.This is a struggle fought out on a battlefield with no distinction between civilian and military theatres, and which is now taking place mostly in Gaza, where Hamas is embedded in towns and villages and where a million young people under 18 form nearly half the population. There are few wars in history in which children have constituted such a high proportion of the people most at risk. Continue reading...

He may be a gifted orator, but his rhetoric of rage and revolution is deepening divisions in France. It is time to dump himIf you want to know the deep values that drive someone, sometimes you have to look at who they admire, who they throw under the bus and who they refuse to unreservedly condemn. For the French far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, it should by now be clear. After all, the head of the leftwing opposition alliance has been in politics for four decades, and a senator since 1986. He stood as a radical left alternative to Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential elections and almost got through to the second round. But while Melenchon may have attracted many young voters to his campaign, he is no Bernie Sanders: his refusal to evolve from cold war-era reflexive anti-Americanism and his desire to pursue a revolutionary" brand of opposition have dragged the French left into unelectability and moral confusion.As late as 2019, long after Venezuela had ceased to be a democracy and had become, instead, Latin America's primary source of political and economic refugees, Melenchon was still publicly expressing admiration for the late Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.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...

Palestinians and Israelis are bound together in suffering. Seeking to untangle this, as the UN has, should not be seen as making excuses for HamasNever again. When the United Nations was originally founded from the ashes of the second world war, it was at least in part to give more solid meaning to those words. The first treaty it ever adopted, thanks to the efforts of a Polish Jew named Raphael Lemkin who had lost more than 40 members of his family in the Holocaust, was the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. From Rwanda to Srebrenica, the UN itself admits it hasn't always lived up to Lemkin's ideals. Its founding mission remains, however, to learn from history, not to repeat it. But whose history, exactly?This week Gilad Erdan, Israel's ambassador to the UN, furiously accused the organisation of becoming a stain on humanity" after its secretary general, Antonio Guterres, declared that while nothing could justify the 7 October massacre perpetrated by Hamas, the attacks did not happen in a vacuum". They had, Guterres said, followed 56 years of suffocating occupation" and vanishing hopes of a political solution to Palestinians' plight. History, in other words, matters; perhaps especially so in the Middle East, where some trace the roots of conflict back to the Bible, and every modern war unfolds in the psychological shadow of the last. Continue reading...

Defence secretary Lloyd Austin says strikes were in response to attacks on US troops, and warns others against action that would lead to broader regional conflict'

In an MLS season dominated by Lionel Messi, another Argentinian midfielder is set to be named league MVPThe best player in Major League Soccer this season has been an Argentine, but not that Argentine. While 2023 will forever be remembered as the year Lionel Messi changed the American soccer landscape by joining Inter Miami, compatriot Luciano Acosta has shone brightest of all for the best team in the league.FC Cincinnati finished dead last in each of their first three seasons as an MLS franchise. Their improvement since then, however, has been dramatic. Acosta has been the central component around which Pat Noonan's Supporters' Shield-winning team revolves. His 17 goals and 10 assists are should earn the 29-year-old this year's MVP award. Continue reading...

Police say there's a chance' Robert Card is inside, while media wait across meadow with helicopters and drones flying overheadMass-shooting suspect Robert Card may be holed up in a family-owned farmhouse in Bowdoin, Maine, several miles from where he is alleged to have carried out a massacre on Wednesday evening.The FBI and Maine state police have been staking out the property since the afternoon without offering clarity on the situation. Continue reading...

The CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX is charged with seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder moneySam Bankman-Fried did not make a scheduled appearance before the jury in his crypto fraud trial on Thursday, in a surprise decision that tamped the anticipation swirling around the high-profile case.The former FTX executive instead testified without the jury present, so that the judge overseeing the case, Lewis Kaplan, could first decide what portions of his testimony are admissible. Continue reading...

At least 18 people were killed and 13 injured after a gunman opened fire in two locations in Lewiston, Maine. This blog is now closed; please read the following story for more information.

Brass from the statue of the Confederate general will be used for a public art installation in Virginia cityAt a foundry last weekend, with fire blazing and anti-racist activists watching, the statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee that sparked the deadly 2017 Charlottesville white nationalist riot was cut into pieces and melted down to liquid brass.It felt like an execution," said Jalane Schmidt, co-founder of Charlottesville Black Lives Matter and a professor at the University of Virginia. Continue reading...

Minnesota representative has voted for majority of Biden's legislative agenda but says it's time for next generation of leadersDean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota who is relatively unknown on the national US stage, is set to launch a long-shot campaign to primary Joe Biden in New Hampshire on Friday.The New Hampshire secretary of state's office confirmed Phillips is scheduled to file paperwork to get on the ballot there on Friday morning. Continue reading...

Eighteen people were killed in Wednesday's shooting, the largest mass shooting of 2023 so far

Milton Martin, 56, of First Pentecostal Church of Chalmette, accused of abuse of girl, now 28, who was member of congregationAuthorities in Louisiana have charged a Pentecostal pastor with sexually molesting a teenage girl who was a member of his church.Milton O Martin III, 56, faces one charge each of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile - colloquially referred to as statutory rape - and of indecent behavior with a minor, records obtained by the Guardian show. Continue reading...

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In small town ready for Halloween, every resident seems to know someone injured or killed in Wednesday massacreHalloween decorations for spooky season were up in the Maine city of Lewiston but the community's streets were mostly quiet on Thursday, a day after a gunman killed 18 people at a local bowling alley and nearby bar in an act of horror that was all too real.Police roadblocks prevented access to some areas of the town - part of a partial lockdown announced after the 40-year-old murder suspect, Robert Card, fled the scene, leaving his car several miles away near a boat dock. He is still on the run as hundreds of police search for him. Continue reading...

Special counsel says ex-president trying to send threatening message to a foreseeable witness' in election interference caseThe special counsel Jack Smith accused Donald Trump of trying to send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness" in the federal election interference case against him, after it was reported that Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows had been granted immunity.The claim from Smith came in a court filing late on Wednesday seeking a limited gag order. The judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, issued such an order last week but suspended it when lawyers for Trump appealed. Continue reading...

Mike Johnson represented Kentucky project said to have used Christian beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions'Mike Johnson, the newly elected Republican speaker of the US House, won taxpayer funding for a Noah's Ark amusement park while working as a lawyer, in a graphic illustration of his uncompromising rightwing Christian beliefs.Working for Freedom Guard, a non-profit proclaiming a commitment to defending religious liberty, Johnson was hired by Answers in Genesis, a creationist ministry, in 2015, after the state of Kentucky rescinded an offer of tourism tax incentives for the project in Williamstown, citing discrimination against non-Christians. Continue reading...

Decision regarding congressional and state legislative maps could result in an additional Democratic seat in CongressGeorgia Republicans must redraw congressional and state legislative maps to give Black voters in the state a fair shot at electing the candidate of their choice, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a decision that could result in an additional Democratic seat in Congress.When Georgia Republicans drew the state's 14 congressional districts last year, they placed the lines in such a way that they weakened the influence of Black voters in the west metro-Atlanta area, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Judge Steve Jones ruled on Thursday. Continue reading...

Democrat pleads guilty to misdemeanour charge for pulling fire alarm in congressional building as crucial funding vote loomedPleading guilty to a misdemeanour charge and pledging to pay a fine for pulling a fire alarm in a congressional building as a crucial vote loomed, the Democratic New York congressman Jamaal Bowman hit out at Republicans for making crazy" comparisons to rioters who attacked Congress on January 6.That's crazy," Bowman told reporters outside court in Washington on Thursday, laughing as he did so. Continue reading...

The governor of Maine, Janet Mills, says 18 people have been killed and 13 injured in the Lewiston shootings during a press conference on Thursday, warning the suspected gunman is still large. Addressing reporters, Mills said: 'Maine state police have issued a shelter in place order for Lewiston, Lisbon and Bowdoin, as the manhunt for that person of interest, Robert Card of Bowdoin, continues.' William Ross, a colonel at Maine state police, added that the suspected gunman 'should be considered armed and dangerous', adding: 'We believe this is someone that should not be approached'

Officials hunt for army reservist, 40, suspected of killing 18 people as America confronts yet another mass shooting

As her state mourns 18 dead in latest shooting spree, Susan Collins is now facing criticism for her votes against gun control lawsThe Republican senator Susan Collins is facing sharp criticism for her previous voting record on gun control after a mass shooting in her home state of Maine that killed 18 people and injured more than a dozen.Collins, a US senator for Maine since 1997, received backlash to a statement she posted after a mass shooting on Wednesday in Lewiston, in the south of Maine. The attack happened when a gunman opened fire at a local bowling alley and restaurant. Continue reading...

Maine senator says he is deeply sad' while advocacy groups demand stricter gun control lawsPoliticians and advocates reacted with outrage, anger and despair on Thursday after yet another mass shooting, with at least 16 people killed and many injured at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston, Maine.A gunman, who on Thursday morning was still at large, opened fire on Wednesday evening in the city in southern Maine, about an hour outside Portland. Police issued a shelter-in-place order and named a person of interest. Continue reading...

Republicans have elected an obscure and extreme Trumpist, Mike Johnson, as speaker of the HouseOn Wednesday, House Republicans rallied around Mike Johnson, a little-known Trump-loving congressman, and propelled him into the speakership. The Magafication of the congressional Republican delegation is complete.After three weeks of infighting and internal bloodletting, so-called Republican moderates waved the white flag of surrender. The line between Republican and neo-Confederate grows dimmer by the day.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...

Mike Johnson of Louisiana has continued to champion anti-abortion bills even as some in his party beware US voter backlashThe day after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June last year, Mike Johnson of Louisiana celebrated his home state's new penalties for abortion providers. The right to life has now been RESTORED!" the Republican crowed on X, formerly known as Twitter, on 25 June. Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K."Opposition to abortion is virtually a job requirement for Republicans these days. But Johnson, the newly minted speaker of the House, is a committed abortion opponent even by the standards of his fellow conservative colleagues. Continue reading...

There is fondness to my memories of those endless, unstructured days, when it was as simple as just being presentOn the final day of the last school holidays, my friend and I went to the Royal Melbourne Show. Neither of us has young children any more, but a while back we were reminiscing about times we'd gone as kids - and then as teens, and later as parents with our own small people - and we decided we wanted to experience all that again.The last time I'd been to the show was pre-pandemic, when I took a tribe of my own and other people's children and I trailed along behind as they ran from ride to ride, from showbag stall to showbag stall, spending all their pocket money and eating as much sugar as they could. I was a sort of hanger-on that day, a chaperone, only needed to ensure nobody got lost or wandered off with somebody else's family. Continue reading...

Nearly two decades ago Congress imposed restrictions on gun violence research, and the effects are still reverberatingAfter every mass shooting the same questions seem to arise: how did the shooter get their gun? What were the warning signs? What's the relationship between domestic violence and white supremacist ideology and mass killings? How can we stop this from happening again?What few people ask, however, is why, after decades of high-profile mass shootings and nearly 50,000 gun-related deaths each year, we're still trying to understand the causes of gun violence. Were it not for a nearly two-decade stoppage in federally funded gun violence research, we may have been closer to having these answers, says Garen Wintemute, an emergency room physician and longtime gun violence researcher. Continue reading...

Twenty years after watching LeBron James make his NBA debut from press row, our correspondent returns to watch the most hyped teenage prospect in a generationIn October 2003, I flew to Sacramento, California, to watch LeBron James play his first pro basketball game. Even at 18 his physical presence was incredibly impressive. I wrote at the time (for this paper) that most tall men look etiolated, like the normal amount of human material has been stretched too thin. LeBron by contrast looked like a statue of a normal person - not just taller, but substantially more solid. The scouting report suggested that his jump shot was still shaky, and I noticed him missing short in the pre-game warm-ups. There seemed to be a hitch in his stroke, a kind of hesitation; he leaned back a little on the release. Then the game started and this teenage kid playing with grown men swished his first three mid-range jumpers without any hesitation at all.Twenty years later I flew to San Antonio, Texas, to watch the most hyped teenage prospect since ... LeBron James, even while LeBron himself remains one of the handful of best players in the NBA. (It helps, as Michael Jordan once joked, to start while [you're] young".) Victor Wembanyama is the etiolated kind of tall man. Even the way he runs reminds you of the kind of long-limbed lightfootedness that might not break the surface tension of a body of water. Tall basketball players sometimes fudge their heights - they pretend they're shorter than they are. I've heard him listed everywhere between 7ft 3in and 7ft 5in. He's 19 years old. He may still be growing. Continue reading...

US toymaker says strong quarter reflects strategy to expand entertainment offering

Far-right Florida congressman who triggered ousting of former speaker Kevin McCarthy says the swamp is on the run'Mike Johnson's ascent to be speaker of the US House of Representatives proves Donald Trump dominates the Republican party and Maga is ascendant", the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz said, using an acronym for Trump's campaign slogan, Make America great again.The swamp is on the run, Maga is ascendant and if you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to Maga Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement, and where the power of the Republican party truly lies, then you're not paying attention," Gaetz told the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist Steve Bannon on his podcast on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Army radio describes relatively large' ground incursion backed by tanks and infantry vehicles. Plus, why Dutch maternity care is the envy of the worldDon't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.Israeli troops backed by tanks have attacked Hamas targets in a brief ground raid in the Gaza Strip, the military has said.Was Joe Biden against the ground offensive? US media have reported that Biden has been pushing Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on a ground invasion while Hamas still holds hostages, but on Wednesday Biden denied such reports. What I have indicated to him is that if that's possible to get these folks out safely, that's what he should do. It's their decision ... But I did not demand it," Biden said.How many hostages are there? The confirmed number of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October cross-border raids by Hamas is now 224, Reuters reports, citing the Israeli military, which said the number could rise further.Do police have a suspect? Lewiston police said Robert Card, 40, was a person of interest" and should be considered armed and dangerous". A state police bulletin reviewed by the AP news agency said he was a firearms instructor trained by the military.How many people have died in US mass shootings this year? The shooting in Lewiston is the 36th mass killing this year, according to a database maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 188 people have died in those killings. Continue reading...

The newly-elected speaker, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, had a leading role in trying to overturn the 2020 electionThe process was appalling, and the outcome even more so, as Republicans in the House of Representatives finally found someone they could more or less agree on.That agreement, though, may be more accurately described as simple exhaustion after three weeks of embarrassing misfires.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

The UN charter is a commitment to our shared humanity. Civilians - wherever they are - must be protected equally

The former USA captain, who retired after Toronto FC's final regular-season game last Saturday, was a true general: someone who cared more about the club, than his individual careerTwice in my life, I have been heartbroken over a parasocial relationship.The first time was 31 May 1998; I was 11 years old and Geri Halliwell announced that she had left the Spice Girls. I remember going to bed, refusing to eat dinner, crying my eyes out because I could not imagine a world without all five of the Spice Girls. Continue reading...

In four of the last five years, a 2-4 or 2-5 team has made the playoffs. Can anyone repeat the trend this season?The Packers are either an early-season disappointment or running right on schedule, depending on your perspective. Continue reading...

Military spending is up and global conflict is looming. Intellectuals, scientists and the public must speak out for the future of the planetIn the autumn of 1914 a frantic race to build weapons and decouple economies was under way among the countries of Europe. As the war cry on both sides intensified, a young Albert Einstein, together with the astronomer Wilhelm Foerster, physiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai and philosopher Otto Buek, signed a Manifesto to the Europeans, inviting scholars and artists, those of whom one should expect such convictions", to speak against the escalation, think in terms of a common culture, transcend nationalist passions and call for a union of Europeans" to prevent Europe from perishing in a fratricidal war". Few listened. Europe sank into the catastrophes of the two world wars, which led to the end of its pre-eminence.We are in a similar situation now. This time it is the entire planet at stake, hanging between prosperity and catastrophe. The world has changed since 1914: western economic and cultural dominance is fading. A rapid and welcome global development is redistributing power. The major challenges are global. Opportunities are global as well, opened up by technological developments that have generated widespread prosperity and taken hundreds of millions out of misery.Carlo Rovelli is an Italian physicist and writer. His latest book, White Holes, Inside the Horizon, is out this monthDo 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...

Authorities in the city of Lewiston in Maine have named Robert Card as a person of interest as they continue the search for a gunman behind two shootings, with 16 people feared dead. Card, from Bowdoin, Maine, was described as armed and dangerous, with authorities warning residents from Lewiston and Lisbon to shelter in place as the manhunt continues.