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Critics label Biden’s decision to release Russian arms dealer ‘deeply disturbing’ – even if Brittney Griner’s freedom is excellent newsLast month, the Russian parliament mounted an unusual art exhibition with subjects ranging from the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to a sentimental image of a kitten. They had been produced in prison by Viktor Bout, serving 25 years in America.History has shown that a sideline as an amateur artist is not much guarantee of moral integrity. Bout, known as “the merchant of death”, was the world’s most notorious arms dealer, selling weapons to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America. Continue reading...

Cougar dubbed P-99 gave birth to the litter over the summer in the western Santa Monica mountainsA mountain lion tracked by biologists in mountains near Los Angeles gave birth over the summer to four healthy kittens, officials said this week.The National Park Service said on Tuesday that the cougar dubbed P-99 delivered the litter in July in the western Santa Monica mountains. Continue reading...

Accused gunman in Club Q shooting that left five dead was arrested in 2021 for making bomb threat yet case was droppedA judge has ordered the unsealing of documents from the 2021 arrest of the Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ bar shooter, following a bomb threat and standoff with authorities.Judge Robin Chittum said the public interest in the case outweighed the privacy rights of the defendant, Anderson Lee Aldrich. Continue reading...

The US basketball star Brittney Griner has been released from a Russian jail and is on her way back to the US, President Joe Biden said on Thursday. The Russian foreign ministry said it had traded Griner for Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer who had been held in a US prison for 12 years.The swap took place at an airport in Abu Dhabi, Russian news agencies reported. Griner, 32, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was arrested on 17 February. Talks to secure her release were complicated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February and the subsequent souring of ties between Washington and Moscow

The USA star is one of the world’s best players. Her talent led her to Russia, where she found herself in a diplomatic incidentBrittney Griner, who was released from a Russian jail in a high-profile prisoner swap on Thursday, seemed destined for basketball stardom as a high school student when an extraordinary growth spurt gave her a physical advantage. She later finessed her skills to become one of America’s top young players.Born in 1990 and raised in Houston, where her Vietnam veteran father was a sheriff’s deputy, she was bullied at school because of her appearance and looked to sport as a release, turning her unusual physique into an asset. At high school she grew to 6ft 8in – one inch below her current height – and her ability to dunk a basketball inspired a viral video and predictions that her athleticism and talent would make her an all-time great. Continue reading...

Anne Sacoolas, the killer of British teenager Harry Dunn, has been handed an eight-month suspended sentence by a judge, who also disqualified the US citizen from driving for 12 months.

Police name victim found in 1957 and never identified as Joseph Zarelli, in city’s oldest unsolved homicideNearly 66 years after the battered body of a young boy was found stuffed inside a cardboard box in Philadelphia, police in the city finally revealed the identity of the victim in their most notorious cold case.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Philadelphia police commissioner, Danielle Outlaw, named the victim as Joseph Augustus Zarelli, who was born on 13 January 1953. Continue reading...

Jaylen Smith, who lives at home with his parents, will be next leader of Earle, population 1,785It is not even a year since Jaylen Smith was learning the power of the youth vote as a student government leader at his high school in Arkansas. Now the pioneering teenager is about to put his knowledge into practice as the youngest elected Black mayor anywhere in the US.On Tuesday, as the Georgia Senate runoff was capturing the attention of the nation, Smith, 18, was steadily amassing the votes he needed to become the next leader of the small city of Earle, population 1,785. Continue reading...

Biden says US still unable to broker release of marine veteran Paul Whelan, accused of espionage by MoscowThe family of Paul Whelan, an American held in Russia, welcomed the release of the basketball star Brittney Griner but lamented “a disappointment for us and a catastrophe for Paul”.“It’s clear the US government has no concessions the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan,” his brother David Whelan said. Continue reading...

Before seeing the Netflix series I thought all sides were a bit silly. But the case that the duchess endured a wave of intolerance is hard to denyWhy did Harry and Meghan make their Netflix documentary? The seismic event that was “Megxit” – when the couple stepped back from royal duties, moved mainly to the US and became financially independent – was almost three years ago.The Oprah interview, in which they addressed the explicit public and private racism that made their position untenable, was transmitted in 2021. They’re out. They’ve left the firm. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just move on? It’s a question an off-screen interviewer asks outright in Harry & Meghan. Meghan says: “Books were written about our story by people I don’t know. Doesn’t it make more sense to hear our story from us?” Harry is more indignant, and to the casual bystander, the royal not-watcher, sounds whiny: “We’ve never been allowed to tell our story.”Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Spokesperson for New York Democrat ‘confident’ undisclosed matter ‘will be dismissed’The New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is under investigation by the House of Representatives’ ethics committee, the leaders of the panel said.The Democratic acting chair, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, and acting ranking member, Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, released a statement on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The ‘independent state legislature’ theory has rarely been put forward, and then only by blatant partisans acting in bad faithGoing into the oral arguments for Moore v Harper on Wednesday, it was easy to forget just how radical and strange it was that the US supreme court was hearing the case in the first place.Moore v Harper is a challenge by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled state legislature to a decision by the state’s Democratic-controlled supreme court, which threw out what the court called an excessively gerrymandered congressional district map that the legislature put forward, saying the map violated a state constitutional law guaranteeing free elections. Unhappy, the legislature adopted what used to be a fringe theory: that state courts don’t have much jurisdiction over election matters at all. Continue reading...

Employees at Florida’s Magic Kingdom say paychecks have not kept up even as company records $3.6bn operational profitEarl Penson has worked for 11 years as a food handler, managing and distributing deliveries for the Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida, but makes just 50 cents more an hour than a new employee starting at Disney’s current minimum wage set at $15 an hour.He works over 40 hours a week at the so-called “Magic Kingdom”, starting work around 2am, working anywhere from eight to 10 hours or more, and takes side gigs as an electrician to make extra money. Continue reading...

Across the US, communities are relying on mutual aid as a safeguard against extreme weatherWhen winter storm Uri hit Texas in February 2021, bringing single-digit temperatures and sheets of snow to Dallas, Susana Edith and a group of volunteers distributed lentil soup and winter gear to unhoused people in their community.“A lot of us had a sense of urgency and were called to action at that moment,” Edith said. “We were out in the streets while the storm was happening.” Continue reading...

Discovery in storage unit appears to confirm DoJ’s suspicions that former president possessed additional government records, sources say. Plus, Australia’s worst Christmas treesGood morning.Two more documents bearing classification markings have been found by Donald Trump’s lawyers inside boxes at a storage unit in Florida, one source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.Where else did the firm search? The outside firm ended up searching a number of Trump’s properties, according to another source, including Trump Tower in New York, Trump Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, the Mar-a-Lago resort and the external storage unit in West Palm Beach, Florida, which is understood to have been controlled by a federal agency.How has the New York Times responded? Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the newspaper, said bosses were still in negotiations when they were told the strike was happening. “It is disappointing that they are taking such an extreme action when we are not at an impasse,” she said. Continue reading...

There will be a race to the bottom for a chance at selecting the brilliant French teenager. Maybe it’s time to rethink a system that rewards failureVictor Wembanyama is the type of guy you dream up in NBA 2K’s “create a player” mode. Only less realistic.The 7ft 4in forward with an 8ft wingspan is as coordinated as he is large; as fluid as he is dynamic; and as skilled as he is smart. Wembanyama can do everything, from acrobatically blocking shots to hitting movement threes to dunking over everybody.Once the regular season ends, have a tournament between all or some non-playoff teams to compete for draft position, with the winner getting the No 1 overall pick.Once a team has been mathematically eliminated from making the playoffs, place them in a different standings table in which they compete for draft position, with the best record following playoff elimination winning the No 1 pick.Create a simple rule that disincentivizes long-term tanking, such as disallowing a team from drafting in the top-three or top-five of the lottery three years in a row, or prohibiting a team from winning the lottery two years in a row.Relegation. Keep the lottery format as is, but have the worst team demoted to the G League, with a chance to play their way back into the NBA. The worst team would still get the highest pick, but would have to bear the financial losses of a season in the G League, while a G League team would move up to the NBA. Continue reading...

Nearly 4 million more children in poverty in January 2022 compared with December 2021, say expertsAndrea Knauber used the money to pay for more nutritious food and cover the fees for her daughter’s dance classes. Melissa Lester spent the checks on birthday and Christmas gifts for her daughter, and to take the first holiday of her life.“My family never went on family vacations or anything, and 2021 was the first time that I had done anything like that. And we got to go to the beach,” said Lester, a 38-year-old social worker in Ohio. Continue reading...

Kansas manager’s missive – which claimed workers were calling out ‘at a staggering rate’ – caused an uproar onlineA manager of an Olive Garden restaurant in Kansas was out of a job after warning subordinates to look for other work if they requested time off.In an unusually harsh message that went viral online, the manager – whose name was not publicly released – complained that staffers at her eatery in Overland Park were staying off work “at a staggering rate”. Continue reading...

Eric Adams issued summons by health department in May after inspector spotted ‘fresh rat droppings’ at his Brooklyn townhouseNew York City mayor Eric Adams is such an enemy of rats that he once called a press conference to demonstrate a contraption for drowning them in poison. Now Adams finds himself contesting a $300 fine issued by his own administration over a rat infestation at a building he owns in Brooklyn.Adams was issued a summons by the city health department on 10 May after a health inspector spotted “fresh rat droppings” at his townhouse on Lafayette Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Continue reading...

Federal grand jury also charged Republican lawmaker Joe Harding with ‘fraudulently obtaining’ $150,000 in Covid relief fundsA federal grand jury has indicted Florida state representative Joe Harding, the Republican lawmaker who authored the “don’t say gay” bill, for Covid business relief fraud and money laundering, the justice department announced on Wednesday.Between December 2020 and March 2021, Harding, 35, committed wire fraud when he took part in a “scheme to defraud” the Small Business Administration and obtained Covid-related relief funds for small businesses under false pretenses, according to a federal indictment. Continue reading...

The more I scroll, the more a pang of longing blooms within me for the unbridled insanity of TwitterOne thing about me is that I am an avowed hater of change, by which I mean I am a baby, and that my phone – which has not seen a software update since 2017, thanks for asking – regularly carks it when I try to do things like send an email or message a friend or press any button. My feelings towards downloading a new app are the same that others might have towards skydiving: a fear of leaping into the unknown, and also death.Unfortunately, the other thing about me is that I am masochistic, which is how I find myself downloading Mastodon – the platform that has been touted, to varying degrees of certainty, as the replacement for a slowly crumbling Twitter now owned and micromanaged by the world’s neediest billionaire. Continue reading...

Queenslanders Christian and Misty Kath and their eldest daughter Lily killed when rented Piper Cherokee crashed off coast of Florida on the weekend

Discovery appears to confirm DoJ’s suspicions that former president possessed additional government records, sources sayDonald Trump’s lawyers found at least two more documents bearing classification markings inside boxes at a storage unit in Florida when they searched through items that were brought from the White House at the end of his administration, one source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.The new discovery could exacerbate the former president’s legal exposure after the FBI seized 103 documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort in August as part of the justice department’s criminal investigation into the possible unauthorized retention of national security information and obstruction of justice. Continue reading...

Case brought by North Carolina would give partisan state legislatures near total control over elections with no role for courtsThe US supreme court heard arguments on Wednesday in Moore v Harper, one of this term’s highest profile and most contentious cases which has the potential to fundamentally reshape elections for Congress and the presidency.The justices appeared to be starkly divided along predictable ideological lines as they mulled over the power of state courts to strike down congressional districts drawn by state legislatures because they violate state constitutions. Continue reading...

City’s police department prohibited from using the 17 robots in its arsenal for lethal force after board of supervisors voteSan Francisco lawmakers voted to ban police robots from using deadly force on Tuesday, reversing course one week after officials had approved the practice and sparked national outrage.The city’s board of supervisors voted to explicitly prohibit the San Francisco police department (SFPD) from using the 17 robots in its arsenal to kill people. The board, however, also sent the issue back to a committee for further review, which means it could later decide to allow lethal force in some circumstances. Continue reading...

Herschel Walker’s failure to win Georgia runoff is latest in long list of midterm misfires for extremist candidates endorsed by TrumpDeflated Republicans were embarking on a period of introspection and blame on Wednesday after Herschel Walker, Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate, fell well short in his effort to capture Georgia’s Senate seat.Walker’s failure in the runoff against the incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock was the most recent of a long list of misfires in the midterm elections for extremist candidates endorsed by the former president, who announced his latest run for the White House last month. Continue reading...

Trump’s former press secretary apologized for his error, after criticizing Biden for not acknowledging D-day last yearSean Spicer, Donald Trump’s first White House press secretary and a Harvard politics fellow, came under fire on Wednesday for a tweet in which he appeared to confuse one major second world war anniversary for another.Spicer wrote: “Today is Dday [sic]. It only lives in infamy if we remember and share the story of sacrifice with the next generation. #DDay.”Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Self-styled prophet Samuel Bateman allegedly engaged in child sex trafficking and had at least 20 ‘wives’, most of them childrenFederal investigators in Arizona discovered that a man arrested in August for kidnapping was head of a polygamous religious cult and had at least 20 “wives”, most of them children.Samuel Rappylee Bateman, an erstwhile member of the Mormon Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, set up an offshoot sect and persuaded male followers to surrender their wives and daughters, court papers filed in Flagstaff said. Continue reading...

Metzger Bar and Butchery cancels event booking for the Family Foundation, citing the conservative group’s beliefsA Virginia restaurant canceled a reservation for an event hosted by a conservative organization, citing the non-profit’s condemnation of same-sex marriage and abortion rights.Metzger Bar and Butchery, a German-inspired eatery in Richmond, canceled the booking made by the Family Foundation. Continue reading...

About 50,000 federal lawsuits claimed that the bestselling heartburn drug had led to cancerShares in drug firms GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi surged after a US judge dismissed thousands of lawsuits claiming that the heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer.GSK’s shares jumped as much as 14% in early trading, while Sanofi’s stock jumped nearly 6% in mid-morning trading. Continue reading...

The Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, won the Georgia Senate runoff on Tuesday, securing his first full term and delivering a 51st seat to bolster his party’s majority in the chamber. Here is a look at what the pastor and politician stands for – from abortion to policing and voting rights – in his own words

Christian Walker sent a series of celebratory tweets that recalled the candidate’s alleged history of mistreatment of his familyAmong the many detractors celebrating Herschel Walker’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoff was one closer to home: son Christian, who expressed his delight on Twitter that the state had rejected his controversial father.“Don’t beat women, hold guns to peoples [sic] heads, fund abortions then pretend your [sic] pro-life, stalk cheerleaders, leave your multiple minor children alone to chase more fame, lie, lie, lie, say stupid crap, and make a fool of your family,” the younger Walker said in the first of a flurry of tweets posted on Tuesday night as the Democrat Raphael Warnock was projected to be the winner. Continue reading...

Storms uncover what appears to be wooden ship dating from 1800s poking from sand at Dayton Beach ShoresSevere beach erosion from two late-season hurricanes has helped uncover what appears to be a wooden ship dating from the 1800s which had been buried under the sand on Florida’s east coast for up to two centuries, impervious to cars that drove daily on the beach or sand castles built by generations of tourists.Beachgoers and lifeguards discovered the wooden structure, between 80ft and 100ft (24-31 meters), poking out of the sand over Thanksgiving weekend in front of homes which collapsed into rubble on Daytona Beach Shores last month from Hurricane Nicole. Continue reading...

Republican Herschel Walker concedes as Warnock celebrates bolstering the Democratic party’s Senate majority

A US human rights charity has awarded the Duke and Duchess of Sussex its Ripple of Hope award for their activism on racial justice and mental health. The couple received the award on Tuesday night in New York, two days before the release of a Netflix show expected to include damning revelations about the royal family. The award is named after the 'ripple of hope' speech on apartheid given in 1966 by Robert Kennedy to students at Cape Town University in South Africa. The charity was set up shortly after he was assassinated in 1968

Come January, Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues will face a 51-49 Senate Democratic majority – making Biden’s job a little easierTuesday delivered a spate of bad news for Donald Trump and the Republican party. First, Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6 committee, announced that criminal referrals to the US Department of Justice would be forthcoming. A few hours later, a Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization on 17 counts of tax fraud, conspiracy and falsification. According to prosecutors, the former president was complicit.And now, the incumbent senator Raphael Warnock has prevailed in a hard-fought runoff. Georgia again rejected Herschel Walker and Donald Trump, his patron. Continue reading...

During a press conference with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and their Australian counterparts in Washington, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US had not 'encouraged nor enabled' Ukraine to strike inside Russia. His comments come after a string of strikes deep within Russian territory. Austin, however, said the US was not stopping Ukraine from developing its own long-range strike capability

Republican Herschel Walker conceded defeat in his Georgia runoff for a Senate seat against Raphael Warnock on Tuesday. Walker said: 'There's no excuses in life. And I'm not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight. That's what we got to do.'Walker told his supporters at the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta to continue to 'believe in America' and its elected officials, thanking them for their prayers and efforts. 'I said, "you guys, I've done a lot of stuff. You talk about Heisman Trophy, talk about all the athletic award, business awards I've won. But the best thing I've ever done in my whole entire life is run for this Senate seat right here"'

The right likes to portray Democrat cities as dystopian hellscapes - and yes gun crime is soaring, but not for the reasons they give‘Bad things happen in Philadelphia,” Donald Trump once warned. Last weekend, a very bad thing happened in Philadelphia: I pepper-sprayed myself in the face. I had bought some pepper spray keyrings online because, after a spate of armed robberies in my neighbourhood, I was worried about walking my dog at night.My dog is the size of a large rat so he doesn’t really deter bad guys – unless the bad guys are scared of rats. Anyway, I had gone out to the garden to test the spray – I’m not a complete idiot, I didn’t want to inhale that stuff in a confined space – and managed to get some droplets on my face. At first it was kind of pleasant. A nice little tingle. An exhilarating Philly facial. Then it started getting painful. Then I rubbed my eyes and …. yikes! 0/10 do not recommend.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Five patients of Eric Salata have filed 11 reports accusing physician of sexually assaulting them or attempting to during proceduresA doctor in Florida who recently died by suicide after being arrested on allegations that he drugged and raped two patients is now accused of similarly attacking at least three other women under his care.As of Tuesday, five patients of Eric Salata’s Pura Vida cosmetic surgery clinic in Naples had gone to police there and reported that the physician had either sexually assaulted them or attempted to during medical procedures, Adam Horowitz, an attorney for one of the women, said on Tuesday.In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. A list of prevention resources can be found here.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...

A selection of the winning images from Capture the Atlas travel photography blog’s annual northern lights photographer of the year collection, published to coincide with the aurora season and the end of year• This article was amended on 7 December 2022 to clarify that two images feature the southern lights, not northern lights Continue reading...

Incumbent Democrat fends off challenge from Republican Herschel Walker to gain party’s 51st seatThe Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, won the Georgia Senate runoff on Tuesday, securing his first full term and delivering a 51st seat to bolster his party’s majority in the chamber.The Associated Press called the race about three and a half hours after polls closed in Georgia, as Warnock led the Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, by approximately 40,000 votes. Continue reading...

Incumbent beats Republican Herschel Walker to strengthen Democratic majorityNot long ago, Herschel Walker took a slim lead, 50.4% to 49.6% (Georgia state results page here) over Raphael Warnock, but a lot of the experts and reporters I’m following here at Guardian central in New York are reporting pessimistic noises from the Republican’s campaign.Here’s Dave Wasserman, US House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report:A pattern emerging: Walker is hitting/getting close to the numbers he needs in the reddest, most rural counties. But he’s falling a good bit short of the numbers he needs in small/midsized cities. Continue reading...

Walker’s Senate runoff loss might be viewed as the last nail in Trump’s political coffin, but 2024 will reveal the rebirth or the death of TrumpismSanity strikes again.Raphael Warnock’s victory over Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff caps an election season in which the normal, the sensible and the fans of fact regained their voice and gave hope that, after long years in which American democracy was feared to be at death’s door, the patient is rallying. Continue reading...

Twelve-person jury returns guilty verdict against former president’s company after being sent out on Monday to deliberateA jury in New York has convicted the Trump Organization of criminal tax fraud in a stinging rebuke of the former US president’s company.Although Donald Trump was not personally on trial, prosecutors in the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney insisted he was fully aware of the long-running scheme in which they said executives were enriched by off-the-books perks to make up for lower salaries, reducing the company’s tax liabilities. Continue reading...