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San Francisco's unlikely starting quarterback has grown from an unknown quantity to the verge of history with hard work, consistency and risk takingWhen teams selected the NFL stars of the future in the 2022 draft, no one wanted to go anywhere near Brock Purdy - and it was hard to blame them. He had a good college career at Iowa State but the scouting reports hardly screamed The Next Tom Brady: throwing is more of a chore than a talent", lacks quickness", a scrappy runner but not dynamic", shies away from tight throws". At least Purdy was consistent: by the sport's exacting standards, he appeared to be bad at everything.But the San Francisco 49ers' Kyle Shanahan, known as one of the finest offensive-minded head coaches in the NFL, had been impressed by Purdy's tape from college and selected him with the 262nd - and final - pick of the draft, a position that each year earns one player the nickname Mr Irrelevant" and plenty of derision on social media. Continue reading...

Democrats launch aggressive push back and defend president against Robert Hur's description in reportDemocrats and the White House on Friday launched an aggressive push back against a special counsel report that pushed Joe Biden's age and memory to the front and center of the presidential election campaign and spurred a series of Republican attacks on the US president.The special counsel Robert Hur's report on Biden's handling of confidential documents on Thursday said the US president would not face criminal charges in the case but in a series of remarks characterized Biden as elderly and with a failing memory - triggering a political bombshell on an issue seen as a core weakness of Biden's re-election campaign. Continue reading...

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Breaking 5,000 is unlikely to slow the index's rise, experts say as reports highlight resilient US economyUS stock markets hit another historic high on Friday, with the S&P 500 closing above 5,000 for the first time.The broad-based index of the largest and best-known listed companies has been driven higher by a series of reports underlining the US's resilient economy and retreating inflation. Continue reading...

Trump faces less scrutiny over his age than his contemporary does. Biden's challenge is to change thatThe special counsel Robert Hur's contention that Joe Biden suffers from memory problems caused by advanced age prompted delight among the president's Republican opponents - and pushback from Democrats pointing out how often Donald Trump has his own lapses, and how dangerous they are to the country.Speaking on MSNBC amid shockwaves from the release of Hur's report on Biden's retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president, Jen Psaki, Biden's first White House press secretary, emphasised: The choice in all likelihood here is going to be between two men who are three years apart." Continue reading...

Kamala Harris slams claims of Biden's failing mental acuity in classified documents report as inaccurate and inappropriate'Democrats and their allies were shaping a damage control response on Friday to a hastily organized White House press call the night before that appeared to fall short in its mission to reassure voters about Joe Biden's mental acuity after it was harshly questioned in a prosecutor's report about his having kept classified documents at the end of his vice-presidency.Biden already said that his interview with the special counsel Robert Hur last October - in which he was reported to have forgotten the year his son Beau died and precisely when he had been vice-president - came in the days straight after Hamas attacked southern Israel, when Biden was preoccupied with the US response. Continue reading...

The US representative Al Green arrived in hospital clothes to halt an impeachment, joining in a remarkable traditionThe US House of Representatives was on edge on Tuesday night: would the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, be impeached? The Republicans' mission looked likely to succeed, just barely, when a lone Democrat in a wheelchair and a hospital outfit emerged and put a stop to it.That man was Al Green - not that Al Green, but a representative from Texas who'd taken an Uber from the hospital to make his views known. In a line perfectly tailored to a scene the New York Times compared to a political thriller, Green told the paper: I came because it was personal." He had undergone emergency abdominal surgery days before and was back in his hospital bed when he spoke to the reporter, Kayla Guo. Continue reading...

Volodymyr Zelenskiy's sacking of his commander in chief has highlighted disagreements that had remained mutedPolitics doesn't end in wartime, even when it has been subsumed by more immediate, existential matters. With the passage of time, Winston Churchill's wartime leadership can appear as if it were unassailable - yet in reality, criticism grew loud enough that the House of Commons held two votes of confidence in 1942.Though some have compared Volodymyr Zelenskiy to Churchill, the Ukrainian president will be grateful that he has not faced anything approaching that kind of challenge. The rally round the flag" effect, along with his charisma, effective diplomacy and personal courage as Russia invaded, created a remarkably enduring mood of national unity. Even those criticising the decisions or conduct of those around the president shrank from questioning his. But by last autumn, it was clear that the country was seeing the return of politics. It is still far from business as usual. But Mr Zelenskiy'sdecision to fire Ukraine's admired commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, onThursdayhas turned up the volume. Continue reading...

It's long overdue that society recognises a new gaming culture has emerged from a more social, diverse gaming communityIt's possible to play [video] games with no ulterior motive, but I do think they provide a place where we can actually be vulnerable and more open to the full spectrum of human emotions," the author GabrielleZevin told the Guardian ahead of the launch of her 2023bestseller. Zevin's absorbing novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines how video games can ease suffering, challenge assumptions andforge human connections through alternate realities, eschewing the common misconceptions of them as childish or violent.Gaming allows players to immerse themselves in experiences that they have not had or would not have otherwise. While those virtual experiences have their limits in conveying the reality that they are simulating, gaming - being more social than ever before - has developed a more participatory, even empathic culture, as Zevin understands. This should be better understood as video games increasingly influence our reality. Continue reading...

The Russian president was waiting for the right stooge. With Carlson, he got just thatThe former Fox News host Tucker Carlson's much touted sit-down with Vladimir Putin was many things.It was damaging to global democracy, giving ammunition to the craven congressional Republicans who want to do Putin's bidding by denying aid to Ukraine. It was boring, particularly given the Russian president's long discourse, early in the two-hour slog, on his version of the history of the region.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Others raised spectre of Comey, FBI director who declined to indict Hillary Clinton in 2016 but publicly cast doubt on her characterJoe Biden, senior aides and political observers strongly criticised the special counsel, Robert Hur, for extensively discussing the president's age and allegedly fading memory in his report on Biden's retention of classified information from his time as a senator and as vice-president - which did not produce an indictment.Hur, who Donald Trump appointed US attorney for Maryland, could not refrain from investigative excess", said Bob Bauer, Biden's personal counsel. Continue reading...

Move builds on victory in late 2023 to boost pay of more than half a million workers in sector to $20 an hourHundreds of fast-food workers met in Los Angeles on Friday to kick off the launch of the California Fast Food Workers Union, a statewide union aimed at organizing cooks and cashiers at fast-food companies across the state.The new union comes in the wake of a victory at the end of 2023 to boost pay for California's more than 500,000-strong fast-food workforce to $20 an hour. Continue reading...

Far-right strategist appeals obstruction of Congress conviction while facing New York fraud charges - and rallying around TrumpThe far-right strategist and Donald Trump loyalist Steve Bannon is again playing an influential role in the propaganda circles around the former US president as he bids to return to the White House, even as Bannon faces a barrage of legal problems.The conspiratorial Bannon, who spearheaded part of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and served as chief White House strategist in the first half of 2017, is waiting to see if a federal appeals court overturns his obstruction of Congress conviction. He also faces other legal problems from New York fraud charges, former lawyers and potentially other fronts. Continue reading...

The Ghanaian-born son of Ladbroke Grove brought a diversity to the magazine and society that will never be forgottenThe scene is May or maybe June 2008, PO (pre-Obama). I was toiling away at my desk while dreaming of escaping my finance job in the City of London to become a successful writer (still working on the successful" part). Out of the blue, I received a message on my BlackBerry, something about Vogue Italia using only Black models and experts" predicting it would be the worst-selling edition ever ... hence we, Black people had to go out en masse, and buy it. Before the day ended, I had received the same message, or a variation of it, dozens of times.Whether it was a sincere plea for communal solidarity or a sinister viral marketing campaign or both, it worked: despite being in a language I can barely order a glass of water in, for the first time in my life I bought a fashion magazine from the newsstands. I was far from alone: the magazine sold out in 72 hours on both sides of the Atlantic, triggering a huge reprint of 30,000 copies in the US, 20,000 in Italy and 10,000 in the UK. The moment made clear, to even a layperson, that fashion had a serious diversity issue. Put more precisely, fashion had an anti-Blackness issue, which would make it pretty much a conventional western industry or institution. Continue reading...

Wide-eyed former Fox host tagged along as Russian president steered the conversation through Russian history and justifications for warAre we having a talkshow or a serious conversation?" Vladimir Putin asked Tucker Carlson at the start of their interview on Thursday.By the end of the two-hour conversation, the answer was clear: neither. Continue reading...

The special counsel has put the president's memory in the spotlight, but if we're talking about amnesia: 6 January, anyone?To the US, where one likely candidate for the presidency delivers hour-long rambling speeches in which he explains that he's going to be a dictator, but all the chat is about whether the other candidate has lost his marbles. And yes, let me pre-emptively apologise, because I can already tell that we will only be on about the third paragraph of this column before I have exhausted the Guardian's approved list of euphemisms for being a couple of world leaders' names short of a full set.

Fifteen years after the release of Swag Surfin', Fast Life Yungstaz are embracing the moment: It's hard not to move when it comes on'It was no day at the beach when the Kansas City Chiefs played host to Miami Dolphins last month, the temperature at Arrowhead Stadium plunging to a frostbite-inducing -4F (-15.5C). The only thaw came late in the playoff game when the Fast Life Yungstaz (FLY) track Swag Surfin' filled Arrowhead.The rap song, a jock jam du jour that is likely to receive plenty of airplay on Super Bowl Sunday, starts off slow and brassy - but once the beat dropped, a rave kicked off that had the 71,492 in attendance swaying and lunging in unison. I'm swaggin', I'm surfin'," goes the sports jingle, I'm clean like dish detergent." Continue reading...

In a trade deadline without many clear winners, the Knicks became overnight contenders. The moribund Lakers? Not so muchIf most NBA trade deadlines storm in with a bang, Thursday's sort of limped through with a whimper. Only true NBA aficionados will have even heard of most of the names involved in transactions at the deadline this year, let alone have an opinion on the movement therein. But fear not, dear reader. That's what we're here for. Here's a summary of the presumed winners and losers of the sleepiest trade deadline in recent memory. Continue reading...

California doctors say growing number of patients have fractures all over their body' after falls from wall like a three-story building'Doctors at the University of California, San Diego's trauma center (UCSD) have treated 455 patients with serious injuries sustained while trying to cross the US-Mexico border in 2023, a marked increase from the year before.Ninety-seven per cent of the injuries, or 441 of them, occurred when people fell off the wall on the US side, said Alexander Tenorio, a resident neurosurgeon at UCSD who treats brain and spinal cord injuries. Continue reading...

Republican bills likely to reach Governor Ron DeSantis, who has railed against indoctrination of students by liberal elites'Kindergartners in Florida might soon be compelled to balance learning their ABCs with lectures on the history of communism, if a Republican proposal moving through the state's legislature becomes law.House bill 1349 would also create a history of communism taskforce", hand-picked by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, to recommend how the subject is presented in classrooms from elementary to high school starting in 2026. Continue reading...

My memory is fine,' president tells reporters in testy exchanges over special counsel investigation. Plus, Tucker Carlson meets Putin

We talk of the dignity of the crown but this is anything but. We need a grown-up relationship with the royal familyMidway through the afternoon, all news organisations were informed by Buckingham Palace that a major royal story would be dropping at 6pm. The advance warning was to give everyone time to prepare. On the dot of six came the news that the king had cancer. It had been detected during his prostate treatment but was unrelated. The king was in good spirits and would start treatment very shortly. In the meantime he would cancel his public appearances but would attend to matters of state. That, you would have thought, just about covered it. Everything that needed to be said had been said. We could give the king some space to recover at home with his family. Continue reading...

Federalist Society co-chair has ties to the groups arguing in the US supreme court case that Trump should stay on the Colorado ballotThe man behind the conservative effort to move the judiciary to the right has ties to many of the groups and people arguing that Donald Trump should stay on the ballot in a case heard before the US supreme court this week.Leonard Leo's advocacy and financial network played a major role in Trump's judicial nominations and confirmation hearings as part of his years-long push to make the courts more friendly to conservatives and their causes. Justice Clarence Thomas once joked that Leo was the No 3 most powerful person in the world". Continue reading...

The wave of brutality and terror by gangsters in Ecuador represented a drug coup'. And we are complicit in this violence and mayhemWhat happened in Ecuador a few weeks ago, when the country descended into gang violence and TV journalists were seen by millions cowering in front of people pointing high-powered weapons at their heads, was described in many ways. With the benefit of hindsight, though, it can be defined as a drug coup". It had never happened in this form, on this scale, anywhere else. It was not comparable to the uprisings that came before. It did not resemble Gen Augosto Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973, and it had nothing to do with the rule of the Argentine colonels or the coup in Venezuela in 1992, because it did not aim to take power, or to occupy the government with ministers, or to replace formal control. The only goals of the drug-trafficking cartels are to force political and economic power to negotiate, to obtain impunity, to have room for manoeuvre to defend their own affairs and, ultimately, to remind politicians of any orientation that their legitimation is possible only by consent of the cartels.Something similar - but with different methods and timing - did take place in Jamaica in 2010, when the then US president, Barack Obama, called for the extradition of Christopher Dudus" Coke, a powerful Jamaican drug boss, and his gangs rose up to prevent it. There were at least 75 deaths, but it was a momentary insurgency of the ghettoes ruled by Dudus. In 2021, there was also the assassination of the Haitian president Jovenel Moise, who was working towards handing over traffickers to the US in exchange for economic aid, and was killed by plotters who hoped to supplant him. All of these incidents have one element in common: when governments disadvantage the interests of criminal groups or favour the extradition of bosses, the cartels intervene with the same methods that they would use if they were facing criminal rivals - as equals. Continue reading...

Seniors with gambling addictions are often boomers who have attained the American dream and then lostI have been a psychotherapist for 40 years and I still remember the first time, back in 1984, that I led an in-patient addiction therapy group. Joe, a retired marketing executive in his 60s and a compulsive gambler, abruptly exited the room and disappeared into the dark snowy Long Island evening in his pajamas and slippers.Devastated, I thought I had done something wrong. No," my clinical supervisor explained, it's just post time at the Belmont racetrack." Continue reading...

The justices, wanting to restore Trump to the ballot, didn't address the underlying question of if he incited an insurrectionElena Kagan once referred to Jonathan Mitchell sarcastically as some genius". That was in oral arguments surrounding SB8, the bounty-hunter abortion ban that Texas succeeded in passing before the overturn of Roe v Wade, which Mitchell wrote, pioneering a cockamamie scheme for evading judicial review.Mitchell, a far-right lawyer currently vying for a spot in the second Trump administration, is a fan of this kind of bald, legal bad faith: you can't quite call him duplicitous, because he never quite pretends that the law really leads him to the conclusions he'd like to reach. He's more about coming up with novel legal schemes to get to his desired outcome and trusting that the federal judiciary, captured as it is by Federalist Society acolytes and wingnut cranks, will go along with him because they share his political proclivities. Continue reading...

She's just won best album at the Grammys; he may well win the Super Bowl. Is their romance a political conspiracy, money-making enterprise or just as simple as true love?

Ahead of Sunday's Chiefs v 49ers matchup, here are 20 questions on the annals and arcana of American sport's high holy day Continue reading...

The Los Angeles Lakers have honoured Kobe Bryant with a 19ft bronze statue outside their downtown arena. The 4,000lb statue portrays the late superstar in his white No 8 jersey with his right index finger raised, depicting his pose as he walked off the court after his 81-point performance against the Toronto Raptors in January 2006.Bryant's widow, Vanessa, said during the dedication ceremony that the statue is the first of three that will be created to honour the five-time NBA champion and top scorer in Lakers history. Another statue will feature Bryant in his No 24 jersey, which he wore for the second half of his career, while a third will depict Bryant and his daughter Gianna, who died with him and seven others in a helicopter crash in January 2020.

As Liverpool prepares to look for a new manager, and its owners look to expand their portfolio, both parties may be racing toward a reckoningWhenever Fenway Sports Group has added to its sprawling global portfolio of sports franchises, now valued at more than $10bn, the story it has told about its intentions has been the same: respect tradition, build the brand, leave the team on a more sustainable footing for future growth, and above all, win. Reflecting on the two-year anniversary of the group's 2021 acquisition of the Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey team late last year, FSG chairman Tom Werner told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: We feel a certain responsibility as stewards to make sure we're not only preserving the legacy of the Penguins, but that we are trying to bring more Stanley Cups to Pittsburgh."In the mouth of any other sports investor, words like these would seem like standard-issue corporate smarm. But FSG has the track record, built up over more than two decades, to back them up: from Boston to Liverpool and beyond, FSG's arrival has heralded success on the field and renewal off it, bringing trophies and a fresh sense of connection between the teams it has taken over and the communities those teams represent. Continue reading...

Sunday's game contains a multitude of subplots. Here's what to watch for as the NFL's biggest game kicks off in Las Vegas

Test your knowledge of the week's events in football, cricket, tennis, rugby union and beyond Continue reading...

Joe Biden on Thursday mistakenly referred to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the leader of Mexico. The comment came as he was making remarks on a special counsel report concerning his handling of classified documents, and that referred to his memory as 'poor', which he denied in an angry rebuttal. The US president also said Israel's offensive on Gaza has been 'over the top' - his sharpest criticism yet of Tel Aviv's conduct during the war.

The US national security spokesperson has warned Israel against conducting an offensive against Rafah, the last refuge of Palestinians fleeing the Israeli army's assault on Gaza. John Kirby said the US would not support an attack on the southern town. He added that the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had expressed his concern to Israeli officials during his recent visit

His plan for demographic rearmament' shifts the blame to women, while his policies make life harder for parentsAccording to the French government, France is facing a huge challenge. The birthrate has been in decline for a decade now, but in 2023 it was down by 7% on the previous year. In response, the president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced a plan for what he calls demographic rearmament" including fertility testing for those aged 25. Beside the war-like rhetoric that treats a high birthrate as a way for France to compete internationally, this discussion of people's bodies as part of a national plan makes me queasy.Such a utilitarian view of the birthrate not only puts an unhelpful burden on the shoulders of all French people of childbearing age, but is an offensive intrusion in to our intimate lives and personal choices. At 46, Macron himself has chosen not to be a father - why can't he let everyone else make their own choices?Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

Rambling two-hour talk with Tucker Carlson, a Trump-supporting rightwing commentator, was Russian president's first with a western media outlet since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 'If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks,' Putin said. He accused the US and the west of prolonging the war and singled out Boris Johnson, claiming that as British prime minister he dissuaded Zelenskiy from signing a peace deal in the early stages of the war

Unknown Ryan Binkley was only other candidate running, two days after Nikki Haley came second in state Republican primaryDonald Trump was anointed the victor of Nevada Republican caucuses, after staunch loyalists in the state helped maneuver the election process to assure his success.Shortly after the caucuses concluded, the AP confirmed Trump, who was the only major candidate participating, as the winner, capping off a perplexing election week in a key battleground state. Ryan Binkley, a little-known pastor and businessman from Texas, was the only other candidate running. Continue reading...

The president insisted he put the country back on his feet', but a last-minute fumble provided more fodder to his detractorsIt came out of the blue. The White House announced that Joe Biden would deliver remarks at 7.45pm - giving the press just 23 minutes to prepare. What the sudden speech would be about, no one knew. The element of surprise and uncertainty was reminiscent of the Donald Trump era.As it happened, many White House correspondents were at a meeting near the Watergate building about a mile and a half way. The Guardian was among four who jumped in a car, raced across town and sprinted up sedate Pennsylvania Avenue, greeting the Secret Service in a breathless and disheveled state. Continue reading...

The US president, Joe Biden, defended his memory in a short speech after a report from the justice department questioned his ability to remember key events and facts. The report also exonerated Biden over his handling of classified materials. Biden disputed some press reporting that he had 'wilfully retained documents' and said the special counsel report's descriptions concerning the date of his son's death were 'extraneous commentary' that 'had no place' there. Biden's remarks came after an earlier statement in which the US president welcomed the finding that he should not face criminal charges

NBA team presents the first of three statues of the late superstar, with his No 8 jersey and a signature pose after a 2006 gameThe Los Angeles Lakers revealed a statue of Kobe Bryant on Thursday, honoring their late superstar with a 19ft bronze likeness outside their downtown arena.The 4,000lb statue depicts Bryant in his white No 8 jersey with his right index finger raised as he walked off the court following his 81-point performance against the Toronto Raptors in January 2006. Continue reading...

Trump, the only major candidate running in the battleground state, is assured of victory over Ryan Binkley

President says my memory is fine' after report on classified documents case calls him elderly man with poor memory'

Trump is only major candidate in Republican caucuses, days after Haley loses Republican primary and Biden wins Democratic vote

President Joe Biden welcomed the finding of a special counsel report that he would not face criminal charges in his handling of classified documents. Biden said he was 'pleased' the special counsel had 'reached the conclusion I believed and knew all along they would'. The US Department of Justice special counsel investigating Biden's handling of classified documents after his vice-presidency released a report concluding that he 'willfully' kept and shared classified information including 'classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan' and handwritten notes about national security and foreign policy 'implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods'.

The president won't face criminal charges in classified documents case, but the line he is an elderly man with a poor memory' will lingerThe president is not a crook. But there may be something more unforgivable in the court of public opinion. The president is old.That is what will linger from Joe Biden's pyrrhic victory at the hands of the justice department on Thursday. True, he will not face criminal charges over his handling of highly classified documents when a private citizen, despite an awkward photo revealing papers stashed in a broken cardboard box in his garage, according to special counsel Robert Hur. Continue reading...

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