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The UFC has been accused of engineering a monopoly over the world of mixed martial arts. But its leverage may soon be severely weakenedAs the UFC prepares for its upcoming showcase event on Saturday, the real fight is set to take place outside the octagon, within the confines of a courtroom.Last week, the UFC lost its bid to revoke class action status from hundreds of mixed martial arts fighters who are suing for more than a billion dollars in wages. The lawsuit accuses UFC parent company Zuffa LLC of illegally acquiring and maintaining a monopoly over the MMA industry, which resulted in fighters being paid a fraction of what they would earn in a competitive marketplace."Karim Zidan writes a regular newsletter on the intersection of sports and authoritarian politics.

The success of centre-left parties follows the collapse in devotion. Like Ireland, we are loosening the church's grip on the stateThe city council of Czstochowa in central Poland passed a shocking resolution last year. Councillors announced that the city no longer wished to pay for religious education in local schools and called on the government to relieve them of this duty.Since then, many Polish cities, most recently Wrocaw, have followed suit. Their declarations are of no legal consequence, but they nevertheless are powerfully symbolic of Poland's social transformation, especially given where the rebellion originated.Wojciech Orliski is a Polish journalist and author

Wildlife refuge pond in Hawaii has twice the salinity of seawater because of low water levels caused by droughtA pond in Hawaii has turned bubble-gum pink, in what scientists believe may be the result of halobacteria" thriving on water with unusually high salt levels due to drought.Staff at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui have been monitoring the pink water since 30 October. Continue reading...

These days it seems if you want a sheep rescued you have to get it on the news

Advocates warned of tragic consequences' should the project in a remote part of northern Alaska go aheadA federal judge has upheld the Biden administration's approval of the Willow oil-drilling project in a remote part of northern Alaska in a move that environmental groups warned will have tragic consequences" for the Arctic.On Thursday, the US district court judge Sharon Gleason rejected requests by a grassroots Inupiat group and environmentalists to undo the approval for the project in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Continue reading...

Actor and former wrestler says unnamed parties approached him one after the other' in 2022 after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his presidential runDwayne The Rock" Johnson has revealed that multiple political parties approached him last year to see if he would run for US president, after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his campaign.Appearing as the first guest on Trevor Noah's new Spotify podcast What Now?, the actor and former WWE wrestler said a 2021 poll of 30,000 American adults led to the parties" contacting him to ask if he was interested in running at the end of 2022. Continue reading...

Maga Republican and leftwing Democrat among 16 US Congress members lobbying Joe Biden to drop extradition attempts against WikiLeaks founder

Controversial West Virginia Democrat, 76, has for years held outsized degree of power within party

West Virginia's controversial Democratic US senator Joe Manchin says he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will instead 'fight to unite'.'After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia,' the senator said. Manchin's decision will jeopardise the Democrats' narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate.Manchin said he would instead be travelling across the US to 'mobilise the middle' as he denounced polarisation in US politics.

Mosby, best known for failed prosecution of police in Freddy Gray's death, was accused of improperly accessing retirement fundsA former top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore was convicted on Thursday of charges that she lied about the finances of a side business to improperly access retirement funds during the Covid pandemic, using the money to buy two Florida homes.A federal jury convicted former Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby of two counts of perjury after a trial that started on Monday. Continue reading...

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The party is viewed as not having a strong replacement candidate in West Virginia, a deeply Republican state

David DePape, 43, charged with breaking into San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi and husband and carrying out hammer attackThe trial of a man accused of breaking into Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco home and bludgeoning her husband with a hammer has begun, with a defense attorney arguing that her client, David DePape, was caught up in conspiracy theories.Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was attacked by DePape in the early hours of 28 October last year and hospitalized with a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands. The encounter, which was captured by police body-cam footage, sent shockwaves through the political world just days before last year's midterm elections. Continue reading...

Chief executive of parent company G/O Media Jim Spanfeller says in staff memo our business model ... did not align with Jezebel's'Jezebel, a feminist US news site, was shut down by its owners on Thursday, with 23 people laid off and no plans for the outlet to resume publication.G/O Media, which owns Jezebel and other sites including Gizmodo and the Onion, announced the closure in a memo to staff, which was obtained by the Guardian.Jenna Amatulli contributed reporting; she is a former deputy editor at Jezebel Continue reading...

Suella Braverman is trying to import the worst politics of the US evangelical right. This inflammatory rhetoric has no place in BritainIt reads, with hindsight, uncannily like a prophecy. Long before Suella Braverman became home secretary, when Mark Rowley was enjoying a brief career sabbatical ahead of being appointed chief commissioner of the Metropolitan police, he published an unexpected literary debut. A strictly fictional thriller, co-authored by the journalist David Derbyshire, The Sleep of Reason is set in a world where shrill competing political ideologies make the job of policing infinitely harder and real people consequently risk getting hurt.Between you and me, I despair with this generation of politicians," says a senior police officer at one point. We've got the rise of extreme-right terrorism, the continued threat from Islamists and we're in the middle, supposedly protecting the public. And meanwhile the political class on every side seems more interested in chucking fuel on the fire."Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Aaron James was grievously wounded in a power-line accident that destroyed most of his face and seriously damaged his left eyeSurgeons have performed the world's first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplant - although it's far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye.An accident with high-voltage power lines had destroyed most of Aaron James's face and one eye. His right eye still works. But surgeons at NYU Langone Health hoped replacing the missing one would yield better cosmetic results for his new face, by supporting the transplanted eye socket and lid. Continue reading...

Investigator was recorded on surveillance video removing the crucifix necklace from body and placing it in his medical bagA Los Angeles county coroner's investigator has been arrested on suspicion of stealing a gold chain and crucifix from around the neck of a dead man, prosecutors said on Wednesday.The suspect, a 34-year-old man, faces one felony count of grand theft and one misdemeanor count of petty theft, the district attorney's office said in a statement. Continue reading...

Students and staff at the Ivy League school have issued a series of dueling statements amid accusations of harassment and physical violence - and the acrimony shows no signs of slowingExcept for the flickering police vans idling around Columbia University on a recent evening, the campus was almost the picture of an Ivy League idyll, with students striding past classical architecture in their autumnal best, clasping coffee cups.Yet the conspicuously beefed-up security presence was one sign that all is not well at Columbia. Since the Israel-Hamas war began last month, fierce debates about the conflict and the US's response have riven the university, with students clashing in dueling statements, rallies, and occasional physical confrontations. Hundreds of faculty members have also gotten involved. Continue reading...

The candidates didn't dare go after Donald Trump. So they went after each other in a chaotic fashionBecause I did something terrible in a past life and have to be punished for it in this one, on Wednesday night I watched the Republican presidential debate. It was the third in a series of televised temper tantrums by a dwindling field of eligible candidates, all pretending that there is a meaningful contest for the Republican presidential nomination and that any of them have the slightest chance of winning it.In the past, these events have ranged from the chaotic to the deranged, as characters like Tim Scott put a smiling, chipper, aw-shucks sheen on a lurid vision of enforced male supremacy, Ron DeSantis publicly indulges wild fantasies about sending American soldiers to conduct summary executions of Mexican drug cartel leaders on the soil of a sovereign foreign nation, and Chris Christie puts on a poor imitation of someone who believes in his own relevance. Continue reading...

Power utility says fundamental reform' of UK's electricity network needed to tackle backlog of projects awaiting connectionNational Grid has increased its investment plans to 42bn by 2026 as the backlog of clean energy projects waiting to connect to the UK's power networks continues to grow.The FTSE 100 monopoly, charged with running most of the UK's power grids and some networks in the US, spent a record 3.5bn in the first half of the financial year as a result of the momentum of green policies on both sides of the Atlantic. Continue reading...

One of the many benefits of group holidays is that if you forget something, or break it, or soak it in red wine, you won't be on your own - but not every kind of sharing brings delightI was packing for a weekend away with several other families when I made the mistake of thinking a bottle of red wine would be safest rolled up in a sleeping bag.I didn't know most of the families going but I knew the instigators, and that they'd have gathered a great crowd. Those other families probably thought so too - until ours showed up, reeking of wine, in the middle of the day. Continue reading...

Former senator and secretary of state says Nazi leader was initially elected and that Trump is telling us what he intends to do'Hillary Clinton has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler as she offered a blunt warning about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.Trump back in the White House, Clinton said during an appearance on ABC's daytime talkshow The View on Wednesday, would be the end of our country as we know it, and I don't say that lightly". Continue reading...

The latest round of Champions League games are in the books. We run through the standouts, surprises and disappointments, grading all 32 teamsEditor's note: these grades are for teams' performances in this week's round of matches rather than their chances of winning the competition as a whole. Continue reading...

With democracy in the balance, the press must relay the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump winWhatever doubts you may have about public-opinion polls, one recent example should not be dismissed.Yes, that poll - the one from Siena College and the New York Times that sent chills down many a spine. It showed Donald Trump winning the presidential election by significant margins over Joe Biden in several swing states, the places most likely to decide the presidential election next year. Continue reading...

The party-induced demise of Roe v Wade may keep the Republicans from returning to power for another four yearsRepublicans beware - abortion retains its saliency. As a corollary, Joe Biden is down but not out.On election day this week, voters in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky embraced individual autonomy and reproductive rights. Looking forward, the US supreme court's decision in the Dobbs case and the Trumpian majority's rejection of privacy as a fundamental constitutional right stand to haunt Trump and his party as they enter the 2024 election season. Continue reading...

Concern that community relations are suffering as return to 1990s-style broken windows' policing focused on anti-social behaviorMisconduct complaints against New York City police officers have risen to their highest levels since 2012, prompting some to put the blame on Mayor Eric Adams's extremely pro-police mayorship and claim it is deteriorating the NYPD's relationship with the community".The latest monthly report from the civilian complaint review board (CCRB), the city's independent police watchdog, tallied 4,262 misconduct complaints filed against NYPD personnel as of the end of September 2023. This is the highest year-to-date tally since 2012, when the CCRB fielded 4,546 allegations of abuse when Michael Bloomberg was mayor and the NYPD conducted hundreds of thousands of unconstitutional stop-and-frisk encounters in communities of color under the then police commissioner, Ray Kelly. Continue reading...

Reported terms would allow more aid to enter territory in exchange for release of dozen hostages held by Hamas. Plus, why being delusional is the new manifestingGood morning.Officials and diplomats are negotiating a days-long ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, including children, women, elderly and sick people, the Guardian understands.What's happening in Gaza? Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza yesterday, the Israel Defence Forces said, as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of worrying trends" in the risk of disease in the territory after weeks of Israeli airstrikes. The accelerating exodus came as Israeli forces closed in on the centre of Gaza City, launching intense bombardments, and claimed that Hamas had lost control of the north of the territory.Who is performing best in the debates? Haley performed well in the first two debates, and has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity. She had painted DeSantis as an isolationist at a time when, she said, the US needed to work with global partners, and their feud continued on Wednesday with bickering over China, each accusing the other of operating policies favorable to one of the US's foes.What did the candidates say about Trump? Haley and DeSantis were united in tearing strategically into the absent former president, who they trail by a significant margin in the race for the nomination. Trump, DeSantis said, owes it to you to be on this stage". Continue reading...

Annette Bening plays the swimmer in a new Netflix biopic; but as her coach, Jodie Foster also achieves something remarkableThere is something mythic about the story of Diana Nyad, the first (and, to date, only) person to swim the 110 miles from Cuba to the US without the use of a shark cage. Nyad was 64 and on her fifth attempt when she succeeded in 2013, a feat that should not have been humanly possible. As well as the sharks, there were deadly box jellyfish, and the Gulf stream itself, threatening to sweep her away from the support boat and out into the ocean. Her success was inspiring and continues to inspire, although, as we see in Nyad, the new Netflix biopic, not always in the obvious ways.You would have to be a maniac to attempt - and keep attempting - what Nyad did, and this is the energy brought by the actor Annette Bening to the title role. Bening's heroine is capricious, raging, solipsistic to the point of narcissism, and wholly indefatigable. At an age at which people in general and women in particular are not considered apex performers, Nyad breaks her 30-year hiatus on swimming and, for all the reasons people make radical changes at that stage of life - fear of death, fear of obsolescence, fury at the realisation that this is all going to be much shorter than anticipated - gets back in the pool. She is, per the movie, a total nightmare of a person - and also blows your mind. Continue reading...

Candidates barrel through substantive but hostile debate in Miami amid warning that Republicans have become a party of losers'A day after Republicans suffered a string of off-year election defeats, five of the party's presidential hopefuls barreled through a substantive yet hostile primary debate on Wednesday, clashing over policy and with each other in a competition for second place behind the absentee frontrunner, Donald Trump.On stage in Miami, the debate was dominated by foreign questions about the Israel-Hamas war, immigration and China. But the contenders also decried the losses in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia, warning that 2024 could end with the re-election of Joe Biden if they were unsuccessful in breaking Trump's dominance of the Republican primary. Continue reading...

Giovanni Reyna finds himself at a club that has fought to redefine itself after the exuberance and hype of the Jurgen Klopp yearsWhen Borussia Dortmund's coach Edin Terzi mused a few weeks back that his plan for the season had been to make his team less sexy, more successful," you could have imagined his counterpart at Newcastle United, Eddie Howe, nodding with approval. The latter's express speed improvement of one of English football's perennial underachievers in the past two years has been dizzying, remarkable and laudable but, unlike the high points of the first Kevin Keegan era, built more on sweat than swagger.After Dortmund's 2-0 Champions League win over Newcastle on Tuesday, Howe may well have furthered a grudging admiration for Terzi, and may see even more parallels for where he wants to take his players in the future. The German side, who have helped develop the careers of US stars such as Gio Reyna and Christian Pulisic, have beaten Newcastle twice in less than two weeks, home and away, with pragmatic, measured football that on both occasions made the Geordies look as green as the glowing away jerseys that they sported for their match in North Rhine-Westphalia. As well as being an indicator of where Newcastle, a very differently run and funded club than Dortmund, may need to improve in order to be able to replicate their hosts' consistent presence in the Champions League, Tuesday's game reminded us that the Bundesliga giants have drifted from the recipe that made them such a popular second favourite team' for many - just as Newcastle had been during the mid-90s heyday of Keegan. Continue reading...

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues dominated Wednesday's third debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in Miami. The debate - which was missing Donald Trump, the favorite for the party's 2024 run who was hosting a private rally elsewhere in the area - was a more bitter affair than its predecessors in Wisconsin and California. Lively verbal sparring sometimes regressed into insults, with Nikki Haley calling Vivek Ramaswamy 'scum'. The pair were, however, united in tearing into Trump, who they trail by a significant margin in the race

Injuries, trades and firings can turn a contender into an also-ran. We take a look at what the season holds as we enter its second halfBack in September, I made my preseason predictions for 2023. With the season at its midpoint, I've looked back to see what I got right and what I got wrong (conclusion: nobody's perfect). Continue reading...

A government-backed report is damning about the porn industry, painting it as inherently criminal. Sex workers, on the other hand, strongly disagreeOnline pornography has become inescapable. Hundreds of millions of people watch it every month. The global industry makes vast amounts of money every year. Countries and governments constantly debate its practices, excesses and dangers, yet nothing meaningful ever happens. Can it be stopped or curtailed? Should it?It is France's turn to agonise over adult content, how it's produced, what it leads to and whether it should be banned. The catalyst was a report launched by the High Council for Equality Between Women and Men (HCE), a government-nominated watchdog on gender equality.Marie Le Conte is a French journalist living in London Continue reading...

Candidates clash over Ukraine and immigration and grapple with abortion questions as Donald Trump holds rally nearbyThe Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues dominated Wednesday's fiery third debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in Miami. Candidates pledged wholehearted support for Israel's military response following last month's Hamas attacks, and clashed over Ukraine, China and immigration.The debate, minus Donald Trump, the runaway favorite for the party's 2024 nomination who was hosting his own private rally elsewhere in the area, was a more bitter affair than its predecessors in Wisconsin and California. Lively verbal sparring sometimes regressed into insults, with Nikki Haley at one point calling one of her rivals scum". Continue reading...

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Candidates showed unequivocal support for Israel on a night when Nikki Haley shot back at Vivek Ramaswamy's criticismThe third Republican debate was held in Miami on Wednesday, with frontrunner Donald Trump once again foregoing the debate for his own rally nearby.The pool has dwindled since the last debate, and Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Chris Christie seemed to be more serious and focused this time around as they answered questions on the Israel-Hamas war, immigration, abortion and the federal budget. Even so, the debate had moments where it devolved into a shouting match, with petty barbs and personal attacks. Continue reading...

Officials say driver fled police and smashed into Chevrolet which then caught fire, with everyone in both vehicles killedEight people died on Wednesday when the driver of a car suspected of carrying smuggled migrants fled police and smashed into an oncoming vehicle on a south Texas highway.The crash happened about 6.30am when the driver of a 2009 Honda Civic tried to outrun deputies from the Zavala county sheriff's office and attempted to pass a semi-truck, the state department of public safety (DPS) said. The Civic collided with a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox, which caught fire. Continue reading...

Ex-executive Drew Dixon alleges Reid, known for growing stars such as Usher and Pink, assaulted her twice and derailed her careerLA Reid, the music executive known for helping develop superstars Mariah Carey, Pink, TLC and Usher, was sued on Wednesday by a former music executive who accused him of sexually assaulting her more than two decades ago.Drew Dixon said Reid, 67, derailed her once promising music industry career after he became Arista Records' chief executive because she rejected his advances, including two assaults that she said occurred in 2001. Continue reading...

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Despite the control shown during her testimony, Trump was following the same script as her family: deny remembering anythingWhen Ivanka Trump took the stand at her father's New York fraud trial on Wednesday, it appeared she was following the advice she gave to readers in her 2009 book The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life. Perception is more important than reality," Trump wrote. It is more important than if it is in fact true."In stark contrast to her father's often angry performance on the stand just two days earlier, Ivanka Trump was calm and amiable. Her brothers, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, also visibly lost patience on the stand, speaking quickly and sternly when answering some questions and making sarcastic comments at others. The eldest Trump daughter maintained her poise throughout. She delivered her testimony like a swan gliding across a lake. But beneath the surface, she was furiously paddling. Continue reading...

Lawsuit claimed former president participated in January 6 insurrection and should be blocked from holding office againMinnesota's high court dismissed a lawsuit that attempted to keep Donald Trump from being on the 2024 primary ballot, saying he had participated in an insurrection that bars him from holding the office.The Minnesota supreme court said the issue itself is ripe for review, but not in the primary election, where political parties select their nominees for the general election. Continue reading...

Trump's eldest daughter repeatedly asked about acquiring loans for her father

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Detroit police say investigation in the stabbing of Samantha Woll, 40, will remain confidential and have not released suspect's detailsDetroit police said on Wednesday they had arrested a suspect in the fatal stabbing of synagogue leader and Democratic party adviser Samantha Woll, whose death on 21 October rocked religious and political circles.Woll, 40, was president of Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue. She was found dead outside her Detroit home on 21 October, hours after returning from a wedding, investigators said. Continue reading...

Trump's elder daughter gave an orderly, calm performance after the often chaotic testimony of her father and brothersI don't recall," Ivanka Trump repeatedly told a New York court on Wednesday as she took the witness stand at her father's $250m fraud trial and was quizzed about deals prosecutors claim prove the Trump Organization knowingly misled lenders.Trump's eldest daughter gave an orderly, calm performance after the often chaotic testimony of her father and brothers. She pointed out that she had not worked for the family firm since 2017 and said she did not recall many specific conversations but added: I have no reason to doubt it." Continue reading...

A major explosion at a Texas chemical plant has caused a massive fire, triggering evacuations and stay-at-home orders. The explosion and subsequent fire happened on Wednesday morning at a chemical plant in Shepherd, Texas, about an hour outside Houston, the San Jacinto county office of emergency management said in a Facebook post.Officials in San Jacinto County said the explosion took place at Sound Resource Solutions, a company that recycles and repackages various chemicals. Information on a possible cause of the explosion or how they planned to put it out was not immediately given

The decaying corpses were discovered after reports of abhorrent smells' inside company's rundown building last monthThe owner of a Colorado funeral home and his wife were arrested on Wednesday after the decaying remains of at least 189 people were recently found at his facility.Jon and Carie Hallford were arrested in Wagoner, Oklahoma, on suspicion of four felonies - abuse of a corpse, theft, money laundering and forgery - the district attorney, Michael Allen, said in a news release after at least some of the aggrieved families were told. Continue reading...