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Russian forces are in retreat yet Nato still holds back for fear of what a humiliated Kremlin might do. But now is precisely the time to step up the pressureThere has been much excited talk of a “turning point” following Ukraine’s rapid military advances in north-eastern Kharkiv region and what Kyiv cheerily calls its “de-occupation” by fleeing Russians. Less comforting for the western democracies is an alternative theory: that the war is approaching “a moment of maximum danger”.Worries that a cornered, desperate Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons have resurfaced in the US and Europe, along with the argument, articulated by France’s Emmanuel Macron, that Russia’s president, despite his terrible crimes, should not be “humiliated” – and allowed a way out.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

If your reaction to little Black girls feeling included is to dismiss is it as ‘woke’, then there is something deeply wrong with youGrown men are getting triggered by a little mermaid. Disney recently released a trailer for a new live-action version of the Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey, a Black actor, and it has sparked a depressingly predictable racist backlash. The trailer has received 1.5m dislikes on YouTube and caused a lot of bigots to have a conniption fit. If you’re getting a sense of deja vu about all this, it’s because the same people already had a meltdown in 2019, when the live-action remake was first announced. Continue reading...

DoJ seeks to continue reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Florida homeThe justice department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.The department told the 11th circuit US court of appeals in Atlanta that the judge’s hold, imposed last week, had impeded the “government’s efforts to protect the nation’s security” and interfered with its investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago. It asked the court to remove that order so work could resume, and to halt a judge’s directive forcing the department to provide the seized classified documents to an independent arbiter for his review. Continue reading...

With 15s World Cups on the way, a start-up sevens league seeks to establish itself in a crowded but fractured landscapeIn May, World Rugby announced that the US will host the men’s Rugby World Cup in 2031 and the women two years later. The news started the clock on a decade-long project to establish rugby union as an American sport.Four months on, on the eve of a women’s World Cup in New Zealand, to say all is not well in US rugby would be like saying all is not dry in the ocean. Continue reading...

Dogged by an SEC investigation, the platform may be more of a campaign tool than a sound investment, analysts sayIt takes a brave investor to go into business with Donald Trump.The former president’s hotels and casinos have declared bankruptcy six times. Trump’s short-lived airline crashed. He paid out millions of dollars to settle multiple lawsuits for running an unlicensed “university” that the conservative National Review called a “massive scam”. And then there is the Trump Organization’s looming criminal trial for tax fraud. Continue reading...

Jeff German was stabbed to death outside his home by a local official he had been investigatingJeff German was a dogged investigative reporter of the old school, excited by nothing so much as the whiff of corruption or official malfeasance and following it wherever it led. For four decades he chronicled the racketeers, mobsters, loan sharks, hard-luck grifters and big-time crooks of Las Vegas, the notoriously seamy desert city he called home.When, to the shock of just about everyone in Sin City and beyond, German was found stabbed to death outside his house earlier this month, it was a sobering reminder of the risks that such work entails – and the threat that many journalists face in a country whose last president notoriously dubbed the media “the enemy of the people”. Continue reading...

In what could be the worst storm in five decades, residents are warned to take action against rising waters that may not recede for hoursAlaska is bracing for what forecasters believe could be its worst storm in decades, as the remnants of a typhoon bring hurricane-force winds and towering waves crashing toward its shores.The remnants of Typhoon Merbok, now swirling over the Bering Sea, are predicted to deliver devastating levels of flooding and damaging wind gusts beginning Friday night and lasting through the weekend.. Continue reading...

Thomas ‘Mykel’ Gordon praised as ‘one incredible individual’ after fighting off assailant outside Florida restaurantAn employee of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Florida is being praised as a hero after he fought off a man trying to steal a car from a woman getting her infant out of the vehicle in a harrowing parking lot confrontation captured on video.Incredibly, it wasn’t even the first time that 26-year-old Thomas “Mykel” Gordon rushed to save someone in distress near his workplace. Four years earlier, he had reportedly helped rescue two girls after a construction crane fell on their car. Continue reading...

Doris Jagiello went missing after thunderstorms triggered mudslides in the San Bernadino MountainsA woman has been found dead under a pile of mud, rocks and other debris after flash floods unleashed mudslides that swept through her town in the southern California mountains.Authorities had been searching for the missing woman for days after thunderstorms and heavy rain triggered mudslides that washed away cars, buried homes and affected 3,000 residents in two remote communities in the San Bernardino Mountains. Continue reading...

‘By the grace of God, I am now cancer-free’, Sanders, 42, formerly Trump’s press secretary, says after successful operationSarah Huckabee Sanders, the former Donald Trump White House press secretary turned Republican candidate for Arkansas governor, said on Friday she was “cancer-free” after undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer.In a statement, Sanders, aged 42, said the cancer was discovered during a check-up this month. Continue reading...

Democrats outraged at the ‘reckless’ and ‘soulless’ actions and question the legality of what some called a political stuntJoe Biden has accused Ron DeSantis of “playing politics with people’s lives” for flying Venezuelan migrants to the wealthy liberal island community of Martha’s Vineyard without warning, while the legality of the Florida governor’s move is also under scrutiny.In what immigration activists and Democratic politicians have decried as a “political stunt”, DeSantis, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, arranged for two charter planes of about 50 migrant adults and children to fly from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Judge appoints special master to weed out documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence under legal privilege rules

Billboards will be displayed in states including Texas, Mississippi and Ohio but have some questioning Gavin Newsom’s ambitions“Need an abortion? California is ready to help.”That’s one of the billboard advertisements that California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is paying to display across seven of America’s most aggressively anti-abortion states, including Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and South Dakota. Continue reading...

Far-right congresswoman tweets footage of her seeming to kick Marianna Pecora during exchange in Washington on ThursdayFar-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has posted footage to Twitter in which she appears to kick an 18-year-old activist pressing her on gun control outside the Capitol in Washington.The activist, Marianna Pecora, indicated she could press charges. Continue reading...

Raymond Dearie, 78, is semi-retired US district judge who will act as independent arbiter of material seized by FBI from Mar-a-LagoRaymond Dearie, the senior US district judge named on Thursday night as the “special master” – or independent arbiter – to vet records seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Florida estate has been described as an experienced legal operator who “doesn’t tolerate nonsense” and won’t “play games”.The Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed Dearie to sit in the middle of a hot and bright political spotlight, serving as the special master, requested by Trump’s side, in the legal fight between the former Republican president and the Department of Justice. Continue reading...

Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA for life. What the Phoenix Suns’ Robert Sarver did was worse, but earned him a slap on the wrist. The league simply must do betterAmid the backlash to what many interpreted as an inadequate punishment and a slap on the wrist for Phoenix Suns governor Robert Sarver, NBA commissioner Adam Silver held a news conference Wednesday to explain how he and the league’s Board of Governors came to their decision. Many were left wondering if a one-year suspension and a $10m fine for a billionaire practically equated to about $100, a vacation and being able to return as if nothing happened. Many felt that Sarver, who also controls the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, didn’t need a timeout, but instead should have received the same fate as Donald Sterling, the disgraced former Los Angeles Clippers governor who was banned from the NBA for life.While Silver did describe Sarver’s behavior as “indefensible” and formally apologized to the current and former employees who were the victims of Sarver’s workplace misconduct, he also maintained that Sarver’s pattern of incidents were completely different than the Donald Sterling situation and therefore weren’t comparable. Continue reading...

Ilia Malinin made history after successfully landing the first quad axel in competition. Malinin pulled off the 4½-revolution jump while winning the lower-level U.S. Classic in Lake Placid, New York, before a small crowd.The 17-year-old scored 185.44 points for his free skate and 257.28 points in total to win the competition. Kevin Aymoz of France was second with 236.17 points while Camden Pulkinen, Malinin's American teammate, was third with 219.49 points

Colder temperatures and rain expected in Mosquito fire locale but winds could throw burning embers and create spot firesStrong winds and rain expected over the weekend could hamper the efforts of California firefighters to battle a week-old wildfire that has become the largest in the state so far this year.The weather system is forecasted to bring colder temperatures and precipitation – from a quarter of an inch (0.63cm) to more than 1in (2.54cm) of rainfall over several days – to the Mosquito fire, which is raging about 110 miles (177km) north-east of San Francisco. Continue reading...

I went to see it and learned why so many are waiting for a sanctified moment. Who needs performance art when you can step into history?The end of the queue, on a cloudy evening by the Thames, was a disappointment. It was hard to tell the pilgrims from people just leaving work or heading for a night out. Gradually, as I traced it past the Golden Hinde in its dry dock and the Clink prison, the relaxed procession became more substantial and packed. Yet it still seemed different from the stories being told about it.The British love a queue, say US media reports, and this is supposedly the queue to end all queues, the Mother of Queues. Social-media posts purporting to come from the queue say much the same thing, some suggesting it’s a queue for its own sake, even a collective work of art. But a queue is basically a disciplined attempt to get somewhere a lot of people want to be. And at first glance this could be a queue for the latest phone or a gig – except much less intense.Jonathan Jones writes on art for the Guardian Continue reading...

Challenges from conservative parent groups and others targeted 1,651 different titles, the American Library Association saidBooks for children and young adults containing themes of race, gender and sexual identity received an “unprecedented” number of challenges last year, the American Library Association (ALA) has said, reflecting a growing national trend of attempted censorship.The challenges came from conservative parent groups and others. In some cases, the group says, librarians and elected officials were threatened with violence by members of the Proud Boys and armed activists at school board and library board meetings. Continue reading...

We don’t need lofty rhetoric about democracy. We need to pack the courts, fight partisan gerrymandering, campaign finance reform and moreIn the run-up to the midterm elections, liberal America is starting to realize how much danger it’s in. The right has been openly, defiantly stoking the fires of civil war since at least 2008 – openly promoting secession, political violence and the overturning of electoral outcomes. Now the left, slowly, probably too late, is having some of the same discussions about the catastrophic failure of American political institutions. Biden’s speech in Philadelphia, his attempt to set the agenda for the midterms, mattered in this respect if in no other. The Democratic leader has finally, against all instinct, acknowledged the risk of national collapse.“As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” the president declared. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.” He even allowed himself to be specific, going so far as to call the Republican party under Trump “a threat to democracy”. Biden has a gift for stating what has been obvious to everyone as if he were thinking it for the first time. Still, his diagnosis was accurate, which is what made his proposed solution to the threat so frighteningly shallow: “I’m asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology.”Stephen Marche is the author of The Next Civil War Continue reading...

Women do the majority of unpaid labor – and it creates a taxing mental loadI’ve been agonizing over how to respond to an email for the last 48 hours.It doesn’t involve a medical issue, a work deadline, some horrifying piece of news, a kids-back-to-school task that requires unearthing the dreaded label-maker or logging into some byzantine online portal – all of which are represented in full force in my inbox. Just a completely anodyne suggestion, from a colleague of a college friend who’s eager to talk about a project she’s working on, and whom I’m eager to meet.Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age Continue reading...

My union has demanded the notification be immediately withdrawn and the workers given the respect they deserve

Monday’s shutdown is fine for the privileged, but ignores the plight of those who can’t afford to lose work and incomeGrief is the price we pay for love, the late Queen wisely said; but for many of her subjects, their actual income is the price to pay for grief. Aspects of normal life have been suspended, but no one has yet found a way to cancel or pause the cost of living crisis, a peril without recent precedent. What happens when an abrupt national event collides with an economy defined by insecurity and declining wages: well, more misery and hardship? But amid the mourning for the Queen, few people want to talk about that.“Now is not the time,” decree the self-appointed grief police. Perhaps someone should inform one casualty, let’s call her Helena, that now is not the time to complain about her partner being ignominiously tossed from a Royal residence on to the scrapheap. “My partner was let go from work at Windsor Castle last Friday with no notice just because of mourning,” she tells me. As a contracted out construction worker, he was given no advance warning, simply ordered to make the site secure and then leave. Helena understands that many wish to mourn: “But for a young family this has put us in dire straits, and I feel resentment as this is nothing to do with us: I have respect for the death of an old lady but that’s about it, we still need to eat.”Owen Jones is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

Judge Cannon appointed Judge Raymond Dearie as special master and denied the DoJ’s plea to continue reviewing the seized records. Plus, how to survive an empty nestGood morning.A federal judge has named Raymond Dearie, a senior US district judge with experience handling US national security matters, as an independent arbiter to vet records seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.What does Dearie have to do? He is tasked with deciding whether any of the documents seized by the FBI during the August search are privileged – either due to attorney-client confidentiality or through a legal principle called executive privilege – and should be off-limits to federal investigators.Is there a deadline? Yes. Dearie has until 30 November – after the midterms – to finish the review. Trump will be required to pay costs associated with the special master.How did they die? The exact circumstances of how residents died have yet to be determined. In February and March, Russian troops killed more than 1,400 people in the Kyiv region, including in the suburb of Bucha, during their failed attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian soldiers are also buried there. Continue reading...

Joe Biden has vowed to combat the 'venom and violence' of white supremacy in the US and called afresh for Congress to do more to force social media companies to address the spread of hate through their platforms. In a summit at the White House to push back on rising hate crime in the US, Biden said: 'White supremacists will not have the last word and this venom and violence cannot be the story of our time'

Cambridge-based chip designer’s owner prefers US to London but PM and chancellor aim to revive talksLiz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are preparing a fresh attempt to persuade Japan’s SoftBank to list Cambridge-based chip designer Arm in the UK.The prime minister and chancellor are hoping to revive talks with SoftBank, which reportedly halted plans to explore a London listing after the political upheaval as Boris Johnson resigned. Continue reading...

To celebrate the Swiss star’s brilliant career, we select some of the most noteworthy moments from his time on tourThe 2003 Wimbledon final marked Federer’s first grand slam victory, and the first time he had such a huge audience watching on TV. In the first-set tiebreaker, with the score knotted at two apiece, Federer displayed all his brilliance in one point: a half-volley from the baseline, wide-angled groundstrokes and a finish with a brilliant forehand down the line. Continue reading...

Autonomous surveillance towers on the US-Mexico border can detect a human from 2.8km away – and now 189 more are coming. Are they deadly?On a hot May afternoon in southern California, near the border with Mexico, white-and-green border vehicles patrol the two-lane highway, black helicopters glide across the sky – and their latest companions, autonomous surveillance towers built by the tech defence company Anduril, peek over the ridges.One Anduril tower, perched on a hill, has a clear view over the rusty brown border wall and into the Mexican town of Tecate. From here, it can detect people who climb over the wall and walk across the rugged landscape on the US side. Approach the hill and the camera atop the tower swivels toward you. Continue reading...

Rightwing leaders push ‘soft on crime’ narrative to propel Republicans this fall, as most voters focus on abortion rightsWith most US voters indicating that the preservation of abortion rights is their chief focus as midterm elections loom, the face of Fox News and Republican politicians appear to be trying to shift attention to crime, a progressive media watchdog has warned.As Democrats seek to maintain razor-thin advantages in both congressional chambers, an analysis from Media Matters for America notes that on 19 August, the highest-rated Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, implored “every Republican candidate in the United States” to pitch themselves as favoring “law and order and equality under the law”. Continue reading...

Judge Cannon appointed Judge Raymond Dearie to vet documents and denied the DoJ’s plea to continue reviewing the seized recordsA federal judge has named Raymond Dearie, a senior US district judge with experience handling US national security matters, as an independent arbiter to vet records seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed Dearie to serve as a special master in the legal fight between Trump and the Department of Justice over government documents the former president kept at his Florida resort. Continue reading...

The aid is expected to contain munitions including HIMARS ammunition and funding for military education and trainingThe Biden administration announced a new $600m arms package to help the Ukrainian military battle Russia, as the US rushes more weapons to fuel Kyiv’s successful counteroffensive in the country’s east.The package will include more of the same types of ammunition and equipment that have helped Ukrainian forces beat back the Russian forces in portions of the east and south. Continue reading...

President also urges Congress to do more to force social media companies to address spread of hate through their platformsJoe Biden vowed to combat the “venom and violence” of white supremacy in America and decried Donald Trump’s reluctance to condemn the rightwing racism on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, which spurred Biden to run against him for the presidency.The US president also called afresh for Congress to do more to force social media companies to address the spread of hate through their platforms. Continue reading...

Death at Bernstein high school comes as new data shows 200 people dying a day of fentanyl overdosesA teenage girl at a Hollywood high school died on Tuesday and another was hospitalized, after taking what police believe were counterfeit pills filled with fentanyl.The incident, which is being investigated as a homicide by Los Angeles police, comes as federal officials announced new national counts of overdose deaths, showing nearly 200 people in the US are dying each day due to overdoses of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Continue reading...

The filing urges UN special rapporteurs to declare life sentences, including without parole, a violation of incarcerated people’s rightsThe moment Terrell Carter learned the death sentence he received decades ago would end, he was filled with extreme happiness and intense sorrow.Carter had spent 30 years of his life in prison without parole for second-degree murder he committed in Pennsylvania, one of six states in the US where there is no possibility of parole when sentenced to life. In July, after Governor Tom Wolf commuted his sentence, Carter, now 53, regained his freedom after a nearly three-year process petitioning with the state board of pardons. Still, he said he felt “survivor’s guilt”. Continue reading...

Mosquito fire conditions ‘looking a whole heck of a lot better’ in state’s north as dogs seek missing person in southFirefighters prevented flames from entering a northern California mountain town and reported major progress on Thursday against the week-old blaze that’s become the largest in the state so far this year.Conditions at the Mosquito fire about 110 miles (177km) north-east of San Francisco were “looking a whole heck of a lot better”, according to a fire spokesman, Scott McLean. Continue reading...

Law, which takes effect today, contains narrow exceptions and effectively wipes out abortion access for 1.5m people in the stateAs Indiana’s near-total abortion ban went into effect on Thursday, Democratic lawmakers announced their dismay, referring to the ban as a “death sentence”.The bill, SB 1, contains only extremely narrow exceptions in which abortions may now be performed – with abortions for rape and incest capped at 10 weeks; only to be delivered in hospitals; and limiting the procedure to medical emergencies.This story was updated on 15 September 2022 to remove Ohio from the list of states with current near-total abortion bans, following a state court suspension of the measure. Continue reading...

President Ford and state secretaries complained to Soviet Union about health concerns over ‘Moscow signal’The US complained to the Soviet Union for more than a decade about microwave radiation directed at its embassy in Moscow, but kept concerns secret from embassy staff for nine years, according to newly declassified documents.The reported microwave radiation came to be known as the “Moscow signal” and was the source of frequent complaints from Washington. US officials were unsure of either the purpose of the signal or the potential health effects of long-term exposure to low-level microwave radiation. Continue reading...

Former intelligence contractor served four years in prison for leaking report on Russian interference in 2016 electionReality Winner, the intelligence contractor who served more than four years in prison for leaking a report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election, has said she finds accusations that Donald Trump mishandled sensitive documents “incredibly ironic”, given her prosecution under his administration.An FBI search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last month found more than 300 classified documents. Continue reading...

Florida governor sends about 50 people with no apparent notice, while Venezuelan migrants from Texas bussed to Washington DCFlorida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, created an “urgent humanitarian situation” in Massachusetts, authorities said, by deporting about 50 undocumented migrants to Martha’s Vineyard with no apparent notice.Two planes carrying mostly Venezuelan and Colombian adults and children landed on the island on Wednesday afternoon, as part of what DeSantis’s office said was “a relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations”. Continue reading...

The 40-year-old veteran shrugs off talk of retirement as he prepares to take on his great rival for the third time“I don’t pay attention to any nonsense that he is saying. I stopped paying attention a long time ago,” Gennady Golovkin says coolly as, just days before they step into the ring to face other for a third time, he dismisses the bitter and personal words Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez has directed towards him.All week, as the hype and bluster of this trilogy cranks into overdrive, Canelo has promised that he will “punish” Golovkin before knocking him out and ending his career on Saturday night. Continue reading...