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Pavone had been investigated for placing an aborted foetus on an altar and posting a video of it onlineThe Vatican has defrocked the anti-abortion US priest Frank Pavone for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop.A letter to US bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken and that there was no chance for an appeal. Continue reading...

Remarks comes after fellow centrist Kyrsten Sinema announced she was leaving party and becoming an independentThe centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin does not intend to change his party affiliation – at least for now, he said Sunday.Manchin’s remarks on CBS’s Face the Nation came after fellow centrist senator Kyrsten Sinema sent shock waves through Congress by announcing that she was leaving the Democratic party and listing herself as an independent. Continue reading...

Dramatic statement comes one day before January 6 panel set to release outline of its investigative report on US Capitol attackCalifornia congressman Adam Schiff said Sunday that he believes there is “sufficient evidence” to criminally charge Donald Trump in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Schiff’s dramatic statement on CNN’s State of the Union came one day before the House January 6 select committee to which he belongs is poised to release an outline of its extensive investigative report on the US Capitol attack, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers. Continue reading...

Heavy snow, powerful winds, and bitterly cold temperatures will potentially snarl holiday travelA major winter storm system is expected to strike much of the US days before Christmas, potentially snarling holiday travel as motorists and air travelers contend with heavy snow, powerful winds, and bitterly cold temperatures across several regions.This sprawling storm system coincides with the arrival of an Arctic air mass that will consume much of the country “this upcoming week”, according to the National Weather Service. Between Tuesday and Saturday, temperature highs are expected to average from 10 to 35F below normal from the north-west to the eastern two-thirds of the US. Continue reading...

This week we publish stories on how to live better with menopause, the impact it has on Australia’s labour market, alongside some personal experiencesWhen I was in my early teens, my mother went through stages of being uncharacteristically angry and sometimes tearful for no apparent reason after a lifetime of being pretty mild-mannered and cheerful. She would walk around fanning her face, complaining about how hot and stuffy it was. It was the middle of winter and we lived in the Black Forest in Germany. I put it down to just one more weird thing parents did and never thought to ask her what was going on.I forgot all about this over the years as I had children myself. I stopped menstruating after getting ​​an IUD in my early 40s and felt the liberation that comes with one less item of body maintenance.We have pain on a cycle for years and years and years, and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? The menopause comes. The fucking menopause comes and it is the most … wonderful fucking thing in the world. Yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but then you’re free. No longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts. You’re just a person. In business.” Continue reading...

My brother organised a medical camp after the summer’s deadly floods – a disaster caused by powerful nations

End of the year can be painful for those who have lost loved ones to firearm crime, but forming new traditions can help ease traumaRamon Price makes sure he’s working on Thanksgiving and Christmas.He’s a counselor at a funeral home in Oakland, California, where for the past 18 years he’s helped hundreds of families navigate grief, death certificates, insurance and casket selections. About half of them lost loved ones in a homicide, usually with a firearm. Continue reading...

Former vice-president strikes a delicate balance between praise and condemnation of his old boss as he considers a 2024 runThere were servings of croissants, macarons and copies of a book entitled So Help Me God. There were reporters but it could not be described as a stampede; one front row seat was nabbed by the Guardian while others assigned to the media were eventually given to regular audience members.Mike Pence, the former US vice-president, walked into the auditorium at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) thinktank in Washington last week. It was the latest stop on a lengthy book tour that is ostensibly promoting his memoir while also testing the water for a presidential run in 2024. Continue reading...

A Danish study shows that children of migrants do better than ‘natives’ when socioeconomic background is appliedHow should we refer to the children of immigrants? The traditional answer is “second-generation immigrants”, yet “first-generation locals” is far more accurate, as a new research paper co-authored by Alan Manning, one of the UK’s top economists, points out.It has more to offer than linguistic improvements. In the US, first-generation locals generally do better than the children of locals. But that’s prompted a puzzle, because in European countries that is often not the case, with the children of migrants having below average educational and labour market outcomes. This has prompted worries from the left about discrimination and from the right about a lack of integration.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 Qatargate scandal shows how insider corruption, influence-peddling and money-politics can erode public trustIt’s the betrayal that hurts most. Democracy is a vulnerable plant, easily neglected and weakened by parasites. It has faced overt, sometimes lethal attacks in 2022 from autocrats in places as far apart as the US, Brazil, China, Russia, Iran and Turkey. Yet when democracy is silently corrupted and subverted from within – that’s the real killer.In any international democracy league table, Europe’s parliament of 27 nations might be expected to score well. Likewise, a vice-president of that august body should surely be beyond reproach. And it may be that Eva Kaili, a Greek Socialist MEP who was sacked from her VP post and arrested last week is wrongly accused – as she maintains. Continue reading...

A month after four university students were stabbed to death, the case remains unsolved and the killer, or killers, at largeChristmas looms, but an eerie and decidedly nonfestive mood haunts the snowy college town of Moscow, Idaho. Locksmiths’ vans have replaced roving carolers. Some residents request pepper spray or guns as Christmas gifts. Businesses close early. Few people walk alone, especially at night.More than a month after four local university students were inexplicably stabbed to death in the same home, the case remains unsolved and the killer, or killers, at large. Police have named no suspect, found no murder weapon, and offered no motive. Continue reading...

Lawmakers expected to outline findings and vote to issue criminal and civil referrals on MondayThe House January 6 select committee plans to use its final meeting on Monday to refer Donald Trump, among others, to the justice department for conduct connected to the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.As it prepares to release its voluminous investigative report, the panel is expected to use its meeting, announced for 1pm, to take several conclusive steps. These include outlining an executive summary of its findings and legislative recommendations, voting to formally adopt the report, and then voting to issue criminal and civil referrals. Continue reading...

Ex-intelligence officer’s family say he was ‘kidnapped’ by militia before being secretly flown out of countryThe abduction of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused of preparing the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and his transfer into US custody raises concerns about a renewed willingness in Washington to flout international law to hunt alleged terrorist fugitives.The family of Mohammed Abouagela Masud, who appeared in a US courtroom last week, have described how the 71-year-old was “kidnapped” from his home in Tripoli’s Abu Salem neighbourhood around 1am on 17 November by armed gunmen sent by a notorious local militia commander. He was then held by another militia for two weeks before being handed over to US agents. Continue reading...

Republican lawmakers know Trump is unpopular – but some feverishly pro-Trump voters have the party in a bindAs Congress ends its first post-Trump term, the biggest political question hanging over America is: When will the Republican party finally reach its anti-Trump tipping point – when a majority of Republican lawmakers disavow him?Again and again, it looks like the tipping point is near but the party remains under Trump’s thumb. Continue reading...

Pair allegedly had list of 37 law enforcement agents they planned to assassinateIn the latest in an ever-growing list of criminal charges brought against January 6 rioters, a Tennessee man was arrested on Friday for allegedly plotting to kill the FBI agents who were investigating him.With the House of Representatives committee on the insurrection preparing to deliver its final recommendations on Monday, 34-year old Edward Kelley of Maryville was charged with conspiracy, retaliating against a federal official and solicitation to commit a crime of violence, reported CNN. Continue reading...

The Netflix drama reveals the depths to which some of the reporting has sunkIf Harry & Meghan, the series, didn’t please everyone, Prince Andrew must have adored it. Beyond group pictures, not even a glimpse of Andrew (the Epstein/Maxwell favourite still embedded in a Windsor mansion after the £12m settlement of a contested sex claim) was deployed to underline the non-compromised couple’s contrasting exile from their tribe, for reasons that seem largely to do with resentment, carelessness and pettiness.Since likewise overlooked are the King’s mishaps with donors and honours, his grotesque first marriage and ditto enthusiasms for Laurens van der Post and Jimmy Savile, there was much for him and the extended family to celebrate. What an example to The Crown! The Windsors’ many embarrassments scarcely featured, even in sections where scholars offered long views on the ducal couple’s struggle, including unexpected connections with Brexit, Stephen Lawrence and the Grenfell Tower fire. What little, after some baleful trailers, the programmes firmly alleged about Harry’s relations – shouting, plotting and neglect – left them looking not much worse than the dysfunctional, emotionally stunted zoo exhibits we already know them to be. Continue reading...

Biden administration says 1954 decision that ended atomic bomb scientist’s career was part of ‘flawed process’The Biden administration has overturned a 1954 decision that revoked the security clearance of J Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist credited as a key architect of the atomic bomb who was caught up in the Red Scare over communism in US politics.The US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, wrote in a statement published on Friday that the original decision by the Atomic Energy Commission on Oppenheimer’s security clearance had been part of a “flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations”. Continue reading...

Credulous or ignorant interviewers made it easier for the disgraced crypto wunderkind to pull the woolSo Sam Bankman-Fried (henceforth SBF) was eventually arrested at his multimillion-dollar residence in the Bahamas, a tax haven with nice beaches attached. The only mystery about this was the unconscionable length of time that it took the Bahamian authorities to measure him for handcuffs. The police said that he was arrested at the request of US legal authorities for “financial offences” under US and Bahamian laws connected with the FTX cryptocurrency exchange that he co-founded in 2019 and Alameda Research, a hedge fund that he set up in 2017. On Tuesday, a local court denied him bail, which suggests that an extradition request from the US will be granted and he will soon be appearing in a New York courtroom.The grisly details of what SBF is alleged to be guilty of will emerge in forthcoming criminal proceedings. But already expectations are high: Amazon has announced that it is working on a series about the scandal in partnership with the Russo brothers, the makers of Marvel movies. Continue reading...

Is anyone really stupid enough to waste their money on a digitally-generated image of Trump dressed like Superman? Apparently soOh how the mighty have fallen! Just a few years ago Donald Trump was the most powerful man in the world. He had an army of “yes men”, acolytes who hung on his every word. He was close to his family: his eldest daughter and his son-in-law were his special advisers. He had a Twitter account with millions of followers. He made policy and moved markets. He may have been something of a laughing stock, but he had power and influence.This article was amended on 17 December to correct the amount Donald Trump may have made from his NFTs. Continue reading...

Oregon’s Chemawa Indian School has been plagued by problems such as understaffing and allegations of misspending. Is there hope for its future?Growing up in Idaho, Melissa Abell wanted to be a veterinarian. Her mother, Treasa Keith, said the teenager once found a bird struggling to breathe. She pulled pebbles from its throat and watched until it flew away.Keith, who didn’t learn her Indigenous culture, wanted her daughter to connect with her Alaska Native, Athabascan, Haida and Aleut heritage. There were few options for Native American education nearby, but Keith’s parents had attended a school in Oregon: the Chemawa Indian School. It is one of four remaining boarding schools for Indigenous children run by the US government, and is the country’s oldest continuously operating Indigenous boarding school. Continue reading...

One video shows dozens of migrants wrapped in thin blankets as they slept on El Paso streets amid surge of arrivals in cityImages of migrants wrapped in blankets and sleeping on the streets of El Paso in freezing temperatures have raised welfare concerns as they circulated online this week amid a surge of people arriving in the west Texan city.Over the last few days, thousands of migrants, including many hailing from Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, huddled along the waters of the Rio Grande, while others waded across the river from El Paso’s sister city on the Mexican side of the border, Ciudad Juarez, to cross into the US. Continue reading...

My film about Audrey Amiss, whose career was overshadowed by illness, was done. Now I had a chance to own a piece of her work

After accusations resulted in numerous false arrests at gunpoint, the company recently announced it will pay $168m to settle 364 claimsOn 13 January 2021, a swarm of police officers with guns drawn suddenly surrounded Saleema Lovelace in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, and asked the 45-year old local community activist to exit the Nissan Sentra she was driving.Lovelace, a member of Philadelphia’s 39th police district advisory council, an organization that seeks to liaise between police officers and local residents, was asked by police to roll down her windows and exit her car before she was placed in handcuffs and put in a police patrol car. Continue reading...

Doctors say CDC’s softer guidelines ‘tossing aside’ safety limits put lives at risk as opioid epidemic continues to rage in the countryThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been accused of bowing to drug industry pressure after releasing new guidelines that doctors say put lives at risk by rowing back on warnings about the dangers of opioid prescribing.The latest CDC guidelines have caused controversy after dropping specific limits on dosages and lengths of prescribing from a key summary of recommendations used by physicians. Continue reading...

The Kremlin’s imperial war has made its own culture and language a common enemy for people across its former empireThe time has come to ask whether, objectively speaking, Vladimir Putin is an agent of American imperialism. For no American has ever done half as much damage to what Putin calls the “Russian world” as the Russian leader himself has.This thought came to me recently when I was in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, talking to Ukrainians made refugees in their own country by Putin’s war. “I was a Russian speaker until 24 February,” said Adeline, an art student from the now Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, referencing the date of Russia’s full-scale invasion earlier this year. Russia has failed to take over Ukrainian culture, she said, so now it has set out to kill it. Several other Ukrainian students told me they find “the spirit of freedom” in Ukrainian literature, but of subservience to power in Russian literature. Continue reading...

Avery Seuter, a 19-year-old unicyclist, says he is on a mission to make it down to Florida on a 3,000-mile bike pathA teenager has embarked on an incredible journey of unicycling from Maine to Key West, Florida, to raise money for the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile pedestrian and bicycle path that connects the two states.On 8 September, 19-year-old Avery Seuter left his hometown in Wells, Maine, where he worked as a tour guide on a lobster boat. His goal is to bike to the southeastern-most tip of the United States. Continue reading...

The fallen crypto mogul is fighting off accusations he followed a similar playbook to Madoff – and deceived investors in the processAt first glance, Sam Bankman-Fried bears little resemblance to Bernie Madoff. One is a smartly-suited, grey-haired financial titan with a 40-year career on Wall Street, and the other a 30-year-old millennial king of crypto in shorts and T-shirt.But almost 14 years to the day since Madoff was arrested and charged with fraud in New York for orchestrating a long-running pyramid scheme, the FTX crypto scandal is being compared to Madoff’s criminal enterprise. Continue reading...

The kiosks promised to make life easier for shoppers and stores. Instead, they’ve done the oppositeWhen the first self-checkout kiosks were rolled out in American stores more than three decades ago, they were presented as technology that could help stores cut costs, save customers time, and even prevent theft.Businesses still fret over these issues, and against a tight labor market, more companies are making self-checkouts the norm. This week Walmart revealed that thefts from its stores are at a historical high, which many staff and customers link to self-checkouts. But not only have the machines failed to live up to their promises; they’ve made things harder for just about everyone, including the workers who they were supposed to replace. Continue reading...

The alarmingly high rates of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts are spread across liberal and conservative regionsMore than 50% of transgender and non-binary youth in states across the US seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to new survey data on a worsening LGTBQ+ youth mental health crisis.The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention, on Thursday released state-level data from nearly 34,000 queer and trans youth ages 13 to 24, showing alarmingly high rates of suicide attempts, depression and anxiety across liberal and conservative regions. Continue reading...

NFTs were priced at $99 each and depict the former US president in guises including superhero, astronaut and race car driverDespite being widely mocked online, former US president Donald Trump’s collection of digital trading cards have sold out in less than a day, netting US$4.5m in sales.On Wednesday, Trump alerted fans to a “major announcement” on his Truth social media platform. A day later, the 45th president of the United States revealed he was offering “limited edition cards featur[ing] amazing ART of my Life & Career”, which he promised would prove “very much like a baseball card but hopefully much more exciting”. Continue reading...

Robert Crimo Jr was charged with seven felony counts of reckless conduct for helping his son obtain a license in December 2019The father of the 19-year-old accused of killing seven people at a July 4 parade near Chicago has been charged with seven felony counts of reckless conduct, as a result of sponsoring his son’s application for a gun license in 2019.The charges against Robert Crimo Jr were announced on Friday, and the Lake county state’s attorney, Eric Rinehart, said he surrendered to police and will have a bond hearing Saturday. Continue reading...

Justice department was granted access to emails from former employees and loyalistsFederal investigators have been scrutinizing emails between lawyers for Donald Trump and a loyalist Republican congressman for months, it emerged on Friday, casting new light on the direction of the criminal inquiry into the former president’s alleged insurrection efforts.Beryl Howell, the US district court chief judge, granted a request from the justice department to unseal an order she made in June. Continue reading...

Revelation casts light on direction of the criminal inquiry into the former president’s insurrection efforts

Devon O’Connell was found dead Tuesday morning at one of Solitude Mountain Resort’s ski trailsA storm cycle dropped over a foot of snow along Utah’s Wasatch Front earlier this week, which came as a welcome site to the region’s large population of dedicated skiers and snowboarders. Devon O’Connell was one of them.O’Connell was an experienced skier who had gone to Solitude Mountain Resort to enjoy a powder day Monday morning. The married father was scheduled to be home by 2pm on Monday. O’Connell’s wife called the resort after he failed to return home by 6.30pm. Authorities said O’Connell’s ski pass was last scanned at a lift shortly after noon. Continue reading...

Subcommittee recommended Trump could also be referred for conspiracy to defraud the United States, sources sayThe House January 6 select committee is considering a criminal referral to the justice department against Donald Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States on the recommendation of a special subcommittee, according to sources familiar with the matter.The recommendations on the former president – made by the subcommittee examining referrals – were based on renewed examinations of the evidence that indicated Trump’s attempts to impede the certification of the 2020 election results amounted to potential crimes. Continue reading...

Material not expected to rebut Warren commission conclusion that president was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting aloneHistorians and conspiracy theorists have been given an early Christmas present: the release from US National Archives of 13,173 documents relating to the official investigation into the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy.From barely legible memos filled with the crabby handwriting of CIA agents, through reports on secret meetings with Russian diplomats, to painstaking detective work on the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald, the trove of documents will keep JFK assassination obsessives busy for months. Few expect bombshells among the pile, however. Continue reading...

Prosecutors say Alex Murdaugh, 54, made nearly $14m over nine years but stole $7m from his law firm at same timeAlex Murdaugh, the disgraced attorney accused of killing his wife and son, was indicted Friday by a grand jury in South Carolina on nine counts of tax evasion, adding to the slew of charges he faces in the aftermath of their deaths more than a year ago.Prosecutors said Murdaugh, 54, made nearly $14m as a lawyer over nine years, but also stole nearly $7m from his law firm at the same time. Continue reading...

Questions raised after remarks by Robin Chittum, who dismissed separate kidnapping case against Anderson Aldrich last yearA judge who dismissed a 2021 kidnapping case against the shooter in November’s Colorado LGBTQ nightclub tragedy warned last year that the defendant had been stockpiling weapons and planning a shootout, and needed mental health treatment or “it’s going to be so bad”.The comments made by the judge, Robin Chittum, last year are contained in court documents obtained by the Associated Press. They add to the warning signs authorities had about Anderson Aldrich’s increasingly violent behavior prior to the November 19 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs. Five people were killed and 17 wounded. Continue reading...

You don’t have to be a fan of the couple to see that monarchy exacts too high a price – and abolition would do the Windsors a favourThey’re more royal than the royals. Detached they might be, but even in exile they are fulfilling their duties to the letter. For all their insistence that they had to break away from the system of monarchy, Harry and Meghan remain two of its most devoted servants. Because, for all the red-top fury aimed their way, they are doing the job from which they claimed to have “stepped back” exactly as it has been prescribed for generations. Indeed, they continue to provide the service Britons have been demanding from the Windsors for a century or more.And what is that service? At its simplest, it is entertainment – or, perhaps more accurately, diversion. At a time when the news is full of bleak tidings – nurses paid so poorly they are compelled to strike, migrants and refugees risking death to cross an icy Channel, Russian missiles raining down on Ukraine – H&M, as the couple call each other, have served up a welcome excuse to look the other way.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

There has not been a single conviction and yet nothing changes with metaphorical bedsheets dutifully shielding the suspectsTwo days out from the World Cup final, Qatar finishes hosting its tournament having very recently been declared “a frontrunner in labour rights”. “Today,” the declaration in question continued, “the World Cup in Qatar is proof of how sports diplomacy can achieve a historic transformation of a country.”It feels only mildly unfortunate that the member of the European parliament who uttered these words three weeks ago is currently detained by Belgian police, after the discovery of almost €1m in banknotes in her marital home and a hotel room used by her father. After all, this has been a successful World Cup. Qatar has catapulted itself on to the world stage and won many plaudits. This timing is merely a freak coincidence. Continue reading...

Authorities initially blamed deadly arrest on car crash before body-camera video showed white officers beating GreeneFive Louisiana law enforcement officers have been charged with crimes ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long suppressed body-camera video showed white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black motorist as he wailed: “I’m scared!”These were the first criminal charges of any kind to emerge from Greene’s bloody death on a roadside in rural north-east Louisiana, a case that got little attention until an Associated Press investigation exposed a cover-up and prompted scrutiny of top Louisiana state police figures, a sweeping US justice department review of the agency and a legislative inquiry looking at what Governor John Bel Edwards knew and when he knew it. Continue reading...

More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to walk out to show support for unionizing, an effort that Starbucks opposesStarbucks workers around the US are planning a three-day strike starting on Friday as part of their effort to unionize the coffee chain’s stores.More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to walk out, according to Starbucks Workers United, the labor group organizing the effort. The strike will be the longest in the year-old unionization campaign. Continue reading...

Despite his antisemitic rants, the rapper now known as Ye is finishing the year in Spotify UK’s top five most-streamed artistsThis year, there has been no spectacle in popular culture more grotesque than the unravelling of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. But why stop at this year? We have seen other stars make racist statements, experience career-ruining scandals or psychologically disintegrate in public, but to witness all three converge in extremis over two months is unprecedented.It should spell career suicide. But Ye has ended the year in the top fivemost-streamed artists of 2022 on Spotify in the UK and the US. His 2021 album Donda is No 43 on Billboard’s chart of the year’s most popular albums. When he isn’t suspended from Twitter, he has 30.6m followers there. As he well knows, media outlets track his every move. People aren’t only still listening; they’re watching, too. Despite being on an apparently terminal course, Ye isn’t about to disappear: this is just the latest chapter in his mission to test the public’s threshold for disgust. Continue reading...

Groups submitting amicus briefs to supreme court case in support of Republican lawmakers received $90m in anonymous donationsConservative donors poured tens of millions of dollars of anonymous “dark money” into groups supporting Republican lawmakers in a supreme court case that could upend American election law.The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in Moore v Harper, according to a recent analysis. They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority. Continue reading...

Instead of fighting for the centre ground, Keir Starmer should look to the radical changes pushed through under Harold WilsonThe pitch is being rolled for Keir Starmer’s entry to No 10. Titles on the prospect of a Labour Britain already line the bookshop shelves, from Oliver Eagleton’s The Starmer Project to Lisa Nandy’s All In. Who is he really? Is he a socialist in sheep’s clothing, or just another moderate, pragmatic, oh-so-hesitant Labour leader trapped in an ideological no-man’s-land between left and “left-of-centre”?The one label that no one could pin on Starmer is “radical”. After the trauma of Liz Truss, economic policy has sunk into a grim torpor. Starmer has eschewed alternative economic models, terrified of the reaction of markets and thus, possibly, of voters. He is so fearful of the issue of Brexit – which many Britons who voted for it now regret – that he has become its most effective supporter. On social policy, Labour is all platitude and nothing structural. Britain is drifting down Europe’s league table on health outcomes, drug abuse, prison population and reception of migrants. Yet Labour only promises to do broadly more of the same. A Starmer government would be a more generous sort of Tory one.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Democrats agree to Republican demands to scrap vaccination requirement for service members to win support for $858bn defense bill. Plus, Trump’s superhero card collection