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Only five years after the founder members nearly skipped town, the French manager's opportunistic, effervescent Crew SC are the MLS Cup winners for a second time in four seasonsDiego Rossi, Julian Gressel, Malte Amundsen, Rudy Camacho and Christian Ramirez played their parts. But the key transfer for the Columbus Crew, the move that turned a team that missed the playoffs in the previous two years into the 2023 MLS champions, was the capture of the head coach.Whatever the Crew paid Montreal in compensation a year ago to hire Wilfried Nancy, it was worth it. First Nancy shaped Columbus into the league's most effervescent team. Then he molded them into its biggest winners. Continue reading...

Time magazine's person of the year interview shows a woman who can't dish enough dirtIs Taylor Swift pop music's last great troublemaker? Or has it always been the done thing for the Time magazine person of the year to use their illustrious anointing to air old beef?For the magazine has indeed chosen Swift as the 2023 Time person of the year. The global music phenomenon joins the roll call of presidents, popes, peacemakers and 2022's pick, the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Swift is the first to feature for contribution to the arts, and the first woman to be honoured twice (she was part of a group of #MeToo silence breakers" in 2017). Continue reading...

The vanilla version the politician has presented in the jungle is worryingly relatable, and therein lies the rubAnt and Dec, the hosts of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, have some frustrating news for demagogues.Dec (the shorter one): I think we do a year without any politicians."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...

Trump ahead 47% to 43%, worrying some Democrats as others caution avoiding mad poll disease'Donald Trump has nudged ahead of Joe Biden in national polling for the 2024 presidential election, a survey published on Saturday revealed, a day after the US president branded his predecessor as despicable" at an event in California.The Wall Street Journal poll shows Biden with the lowest approval rating of his presidency, a finding broadly in line with other recent studies that have sparked concern in Democratic circles less than a year before voters go to the polls. Continue reading...

Elizabeth Magill has resigned her position as leader of the beleaguered collegeElizabeth Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, has resigned her position as leader of the beleaguered college in the wake of a fierce debate over free speech and antisemitism.Universities across the United States have been accused of failing to protect Jewish students amid a spike of antisemitism amid fallout from Israel's intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll. There has also been a spike in Islamaphobia in the US. Continue reading...

On Fox News, wife of Ron DeSantis mistakenly invites moms and grandmoms' to cross state lines and illegally vote in caucusCasey DeSantis, the wife of Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, has upset party officials in Iowa by urging her husband's supporters from around the US to descend" on the state and illegally take part in next month's caucuses.The former television news reporter, who has become the Florida governor's chief supporter on the campaign trail, made the faux-pas during an appearance with him on Fox News on Friday, in which she wrongly stated it was legal for out-of-state residents to participate. Continue reading...

Ethan Crumbley apologized before the sentencing for the 2021 high school shooting as parents still in jail on related chargesA judge sentenced a Michigan teenager to life in prison on Friday for killing four students and terrorizing others at Oxford high school in 2021, after listening to hours of gripping anguish from parents and wounded survivors.Judge Kwame Rowe rejected pleas from defense lawyers for a shorter sentence and ensured that Ethan Crumbley, 17, will not get an opportunity for parole. Continue reading...

One woman's bizarre claim about a Scholastic book featuring a single kiss is part of a coordinated assault on US free speechA moment of silence, please, for 20-year-old Lanah Burkhardt, who has suffered through a harrowing ordeal that should chill us all to the very core. The tragic tale began when Burkhardt was just 11 years old and opened up a Scholastic children's book which contained what she describes as a single kiss". Continue reading...

A new attraction at the Rockefeller Center allows visitors to stage Lunch atop a Skyscraper, at a less scary 12ft off the groundLooked at in a certain way, one of history's most famous photographs is actually rather dull.It's just a bunch of men, sitting in a line. Some of them are holding lunchboxes, one is lighting a cigarette, another is holding a glass bottle that looks like it might contain liquor. No one is planking, or giving someone bunny ears, or pulling a funny face. Continue reading...

Rosemary Hayne says she is committed to paying her debt for throwing food at an employee, a moment that was publicizedA woman sentenced to work at a fast-food restaurant after being convicted of throwing her Chipotle order at an employee of the chain eatery says she is committed to paying her debt to the justice system and hopes she can eventually progress past the highly publicized episode.In a recent interview, Rosemary Hayne said again that she was sorry for the actions that landed her in court and on a video that went viral on social media. She said she's a service industry veteran herself and believes she's never treated a customer as brusquely as she was treated on the fateful day, but she added that she would not make any excuses as she prepared to complete her unusual judicial punishment. Continue reading...

Cracks are appearing in China's monolithic regime - and its leader might decide a military adventure will strengthen his grip on powerSmart, combative, handsome, Qin Gang was fast-tracked to stardom. As a protege of Xi Jinping, China's dictator-president, the precocious wolf warrior" diplomat rose to the giddy heights of foreign minister at age 56. Then, last summer, he vanished. It was as if he had been deleted, physically and digitally, as if he had never existed. He has yet to re-materialise.Qin's mysterious disappearance sparked wild, often prurient media speculation. Beijing has still not offered an official explanation. But Chinese online reports, which significantly went uncensored, implied he was disgraced after secretly fathering a child in an affair with a well-known TV reporter. This seemed like plausible grounds for defenestration. Continue reading...

Local Republicans praised the former House speaker but unfashionable Bakersfield largely greeted his exit with a shrugFor the brief period that he stood at the pinnacle of national politics, Kevin McCarthy cast an odd sort of light on Bakersfield, his unfashionable, hardscrabble home town in southern California that might never have penetrated the national consciousness without him.The city has none of the trappings of what we think of when we think of the Golden state - no beaches, no cable cars, no redwood forests, and only an intermittent view of the Tehachapi mountains, depending on the intensity of the smog that rises from the inland oilfields and large tract farms that provide its lifeblood. The Beach Boys never immortalized Bakersfield in song - and neither, for the most part, has anyone else. Continue reading...

Exclusive: documents show FanDuel fought crackdown on ads near college campuses and deceptive' marketingOne of the United States' largest online gambling operators tried to water down rules designed to help problem gamblers and protect young and vulnerable people, according to documents seen by the Guardian.FanDuel lobbied for New York to rethink a proposed ban on gambling platforms from using certain words and phrases to attract people who are or may be" problem gamblers to their websites. Continue reading...

A sharp generational divide has been apparent as thousands have taken to the streets to call for a ceasefire and voice their disapproval of Biden's support for Israel's war in GazaSince the start of Israel's war in Gaza nearly two months ago, outraged young Americans have been at the forefront of a growing Palestinian solidarity movement.They have led protests in Washington and across the country to demand a permanent ceasefire and to voice their disapproval of Joe Biden's support for Israel's military campaign, which has killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian catastrophe. Continue reading...

Right now, the rules-based global order doesn't seem to matter. Major powers have responsibilities and must take them seriously

There's no coming back from the Covid inquiry for the former prime minister. But something more sinister may be brewing in his wakeIn the wake of this week's Covid interrogation, any residual debate about Boris Johnson's career in politics is settled. He will never come back.Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the Covid inquiry, exposed the many failures of the former British prime minister with careful questioning. During the pandemic, Johnson was negligent, lazy and systematically misled the public, while repeatedly boasting about imaginary achievements. Above all, he failed to treat the pandemic seriously, missing the first five Cobra meetings. The official judgment on his record will be devastating.Peter Oborne is a journalist and the author of The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism. He also runs a website about Boris Johnson's falsehoods https://boris-johnson-lies.com Continue reading...

Inaction and self-interest are built into climate summits. Instead, we need a voting system that can't be subverted by fossil fuel producersLet's face it: climate summits are broken. The delegates talk and talk, while Earth systems slide towards deadly tipping points. Since the climate negotiations began in 1992 more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has been released worldwide than in all preceding human history. This year is likely to set a new emissions record. They are talking us to oblivion.Throughout these Conference of the Parties (Cop) summits, fossil fuel lobbyists have swarmed the corridors and meeting rooms. It's like allowing weapons manufacturers to dominate a peace conference. This year, the lobbyists outnumber all but one of the national delegations. And they're not the only ones: Cop28 is also heaving with meat and livestock lobbyists and reps from other planet-trashing industries. What should be the most important summit on Earth is treated like a trade fair.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

In part three of our series exploring myths surrounding EVs, we look at range anxiety and concerns about the charging network

Ken Paxton issues threat after judge ruled this week that Cox, a pregnant woman with a lethal fetal diagnosis, can get an abortionThe Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has threatened to prosecute any doctor who provides an abortion to Kate Cox, a woman with a non-viable pregnancy, advising hospitals to ignore a court order issued on Thursday allowing her to get the procedure.The rightwing Paxton issued the warning to three Houston-area hospitals after a Texas judge ruled this week that Cox, a pregnant woman with a lethal fetal diagnosis, may obtain an abortion under the narrow medical exceptions offered by the state bans. Continue reading...

Hollywood actor Ryan O'Neal, who starred in Peyton Place, Love Story, What's Up, Doc? and Barry Lyndon, has died at the age of 82. We look back at his career Continue reading...

Woman, who is eight weeks pregnant, wants to have abortion in Kentucky but cannot legally do so because of near-total banA pregnant woman in Kentucky filed a lawsuit on Friday demanding the right to an abortion, the second legal challenge in days to sweeping abortion bans that have taken hold in more than a dozen US states since Roe v Wade was overturned last year.The suit, filed in state court in Louisville, says Kentucky's near-total prohibition against abortion violates the plaintiff's rights to privacy and self-determination under the state constitution. Continue reading...

Death of star of Paper Moon, What's Up, Doc? and Barry Lyndon announced by his son Patrick O'NealRyan O'Neal, a leading star in the Hollywood in the 1970s known for iconic films such as Love Story and Paper Moon, has died, according to a series of emotional posts from his son. He was 82.On Friday, Patrick O'Neal shared on Instagram that his father had died with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him as he would us". He went on to share some feelings to give you an idea of how great a man he is". Patrick described his father as my hero. Continue reading...

Judge Tanya Chutkan's order, imposed in October, has been mostly upheld by federal appeals court

Federal court rules Trump free to speak about special counsel Jack Smith but maintains other restrictionsDonald Trump may now assail the special counsel who brought the federal criminal case against him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, in addition to being free to criticize the judge, the justice department, the Biden administration and the case as politically motivated.The former president remains barred, however, from attacking potential trial witnesses, court staff or the special counsel's staff, as well as the family members of any court staff or the special counsel's staff. Continue reading...

Leaders of three universities continue navigating calls to resign following evasive' answers in House hearingLeaders of three prestigious US universities remained under pressure on Friday as a controversy about antisemitism on campus, inflamed by their appearance at a congressional hearing earlier in the week, showed little sign of abating, with free speech advocates and billionaire college donors wading into the fray.Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), survived an emergency meeting of its board of trustees on Thursday amid backlash to her disastrous" comments to the hearing investigating rising campus antisemitism since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war. Continue reading...

Court hears Eli Bartov, professor at NYU, has worked about 650 hours on New York fraud case at rate of $1,350 per hourAn accounting expert who came to Donald Trump's defense in his $250m fraud has racked up nearly $900,000 in fees for his testimony, a court heard on Friday.New York University Stern School of Business research professor Eli Bartov testified on Thursday that he had found no evidence here of concealment" in his review of the financial statements at the heart of the case. Continue reading...

Oil and gas interests are fighting hard to prevent decarbonisation, as they always have doneIt was never really in doubt. But the first week of Cop28, which ended with a rest day on Thursday, made one crucial fact impossible to ignore: the fossil fuel industry is not planning to go quietly. Far more of its lobbyists are in the UAE than have attended UN climate talks before. One analysis counted 2,456 of them - nearly four times the numberregisteredlastyearinEgypt.The battle is hotting up over what next week's report on progress towards the Paris goals, known as the global stocktake, will say. Fossil fuel interests - both corporate and national - are pushing hard to avoid references to the phase-out that would signal the end of their business model and vast profits. They don't want an energy transition that leads to their demise. Continue reading...

You can sympathise with the country's desire to crush Hamas, and yet fear it is taking the wrong path in GazaWhen will it end? Some ask that question in despair, willing an end to the pictures of crushed buildings and destroyed lives, the succession of bleak images that come out of Gaza every day. Some ask the question to exert pressure, with the UN security council debating a call for a ceasefire today. Others wonder if the answer rests on Washington, detecting a new urgency in secretary of state Antony Blinken's repeated call for Israel to close the gap" between its declared intention to protect civilians and the actual results that we're seeing on the ground".Put the question to senior military figures, Israeli and American, as I've done this week, and you hear a variety of responses. Some predict an end to the current intensity of bombardment in days, others talk in weeks. But the more fruitful question might not be when, but why. Why is the fighting still going on, even now, more than two months after the 7 October massacre of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas? As those demanding an immediate ceasefire might put it, surely Israel has hit back hard enough now? Surely it has made its point?Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

A political vacuum has formed in the state, home to the last two House speakers and a departed senior senatorCalifornia has lost two towering figures in the US House of Representatives in the past two years, first with the decision by then House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to step back followed by Kevin McCarthy's announcement he would be resigning from Congress altogether after being ejected from leadership by his own party.The two represent diametrically opposed politics. But in their home state, their exit from top congressional leadership has had ripple effects, upsetting a political infrastructure that they had each spent decades building up. Continue reading...

Michael Solomonov's Israel-inspired restaurant empire has come under scrutiny by pro-Palestinian protesters, who accuse him of complicity in attacks on GazaThe 21-second clip went viral almost as soon as it was posted early on Sunday evening. It showed hundreds of protesters, some with Palestinian flags, united in a rhyming chant: Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!"They were protesting outside Goldie, a vegan falafel restaurant owned by Michael Solomonov, the Israel-born celebrity chef best known for Zahav, an Israeli-themed restaurant widely considered one of the United States' finest eateries. It was one brief stop along a march traversing Philadelphia that lasted about three hours. Continue reading...

In a podcast interview, Biden discusses addiction, sobriety and how his father's foes would like to see him relapseHunter Biden has told the pop star Moby in the first of a two-part podcast interview that the right wing is trying to kill me" by harassing him to relapse into drug addiction in an effort to sink his father's presidency.The day after a second set of criminal charges was filed against the US president's son, this time for tax issues, the interview had Biden describing his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction after the death of his mother, his sister and most recently his beloved brother Beau, and his pride in getting sober four years ago. Continue reading...

As support for US aid falters and an election looms, the White House needs a narrative based on reality, not rhetoric

The state senate is considering a bill to prohibit doctors from offering gender-affirming care to trans patients younger than 18Hundreds of transgender advocates and medical experts gathered at the Ohio statehouse on Wednesday to speak out against a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.This week, the Ohio senate government oversight committee discussed a bill from state representative Gary Click, a Republican, who championed legislation that would prohibit doctors from offering gender-affirming care to transgender patients under the age of 18. The bill would also block transgender female student athletes from participating in women's sports. Continue reading...

He was a man of strong progressive views, readily expressed, and yet retained a public affection that ensured his voice was heardHere are some things we know about the late, gone-too-soon Benjamin Zephaniah. He was a prominent Rastafarian in the days before Rastamouse and Levi Roots made people of that faith palatable to the mainstream public; a time when they were more often fodder for the Metropolitan police's racist mania for stop and search. He was outspoken on social justice issues such as policing and failings in the education system. He carved out a place in the public affection that led even those who hand out honours to offer him one, and then he turned it down. Then - unlike some who spurn the offer and then keep it quiet for fear of brickbats and reprisals - he spoke freely about it, becoming a kind of poster boy for the truth that community recognition is just as good as acclaim from the snooty establishment. I once saw him accept a community achievement award from a campaigning group in south London. He was so chuffed on the podium and speaking about it afterwards that he seemed unsure whether to beam that toothy beam or shed a grateful tear.How did he do this? How did he maintain strong, radical and uncompromising positions and retain wide public respect and affection? Not many public figures can pull that off. Swim against the mainstream tide and the rightwing press reacts: it misinterprets what has been said, and depicts you as dangerous, subversive, strident and all the other terms applied to people who expose militant middle-class groupthink.Hugh Muir is the Guardian's executive editor, Opinion Continue reading...

Mufid Fawaz Alkhader faces federal firearms charge after shotgun incident in Albany as Hanukkah began in which no one was injuredA man has been arrested for firing a shotgun outside a synagogue in Albany, New York, and charged with federal crimes. No one was injured after two shots were fired outside Temple Israel on Thursday and police have said they do not know in which direction the shots were aimed.An FBI spokeswoman told NBC News that Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, 28, had been arrested and charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. Continue reading...

If we trust people with the decision to have children, we can of course trust them with the decision not toThere are mothers and then there are women who have abortions. It might be the most powerful and pervasive myth anti-abortion lobbyists, politicians and their disciples have ever authored. When every termination becomes a decision to reject motherhood, moralising becomes simple.Mothers procreate - the virtuous archetype Virgin Mary didn't even fornicate to do so - while women who have abortions have sex for pleasure, selfishly devouring the forbidden as Eve did. Continue reading...

Abbe Lowell says if client's last name was anything other than Biden, the charges would not have been been brought'Hunter Biden's defense attorney Abbe Lowell has condemned prosecutors who charged the US president's 54-year old son with tax fraud on Thursday, accusing special counsel David Weiss of bowing to Republican pressure".Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter's last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought," Lowell said in a statement. Continue reading...

By next year the British government will have paid out 290m on the scheme - which has yet to host a single deporteeHow does the UK government truly see the country of Rwanda? Is it as a vibrant and secure place to start a new life? Or is it - to adapt a phrase allegedly deployed by the home secretary about part of Teesside - a shit-hole"? I think we probably know the answer. You might recall that back when former prime minister Boris Johnson's government first floated the idea of processing asylum seekers abroad, it chucked out the names of both Rwanda and Albania as countries it was looking at working with. The Albanian government swiftly denied it would be involved, seemingly furious to have been named as some kind of bogeyman destination. Or, to repeat that home secretarial language, as a shit-hole.I'm sorry if that sounds repulsive - I'm not stating my opinion, but surely the unspoken opinion of the entire policy. The government may not say it out loud, but the reason it has chosen Rwanda as the deterrent is because it thinks it sounds like a place no one in their right mind would want to go to. That may be completely unfair - but the unfairness is irrelevant. The view of Rwanda is inseparable from the explicit idea that it is a deterrent. Every picture of former home secretary Suella Braverman roaring with laughter on a Kigali construction site seemed to underscore this spectacularly dark and mirthless joke - the human equivalent of a tourist billboard reading: There's more to Rwanda than the genocide!"Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Second set of charges against president's son alleges he spent millions on an extravagant lifestyle' rather than paying his tax bills. Plus, the Golden Gate Bridge is finally getting a safety net

Controversial former Trump aide Stephen Miller's legal group is seeking lawyers with total fealty to ex-presidentAs Donald Trump and his allies start plotting another presidency, an emerging priority is to find hard-right lawyers who display total fealty to Trump, as a way to enhance his power and seek retribution" against political foes.Stocking a future administration with more ideological lawyers loyal to Trump in key posts at the justice department, other agencies and the White House is alarming to former DoJ officials and analysts who say such plans endanger the rule of law. Continue reading...

The Western Conference champions will face the Columbus Crew on Saturday. A win would make them the fourth team to win back-to-back MLS championshipsLos Angeles FC could not have won their first MLS Cup in a more dramatic fashion. Penalties ultimately clinched the victory over the Philadelphia Union, but everyone - certainly those of a black and gold persuasion - remembers that game last year for Gareth Bale's iconic equaliser in stoppage time of extra time. That was effectively the moment LAFC won it.Steve Cherundolo's team will do well to replicate the spectacle of last year's MLS Cup, but they can retain their title by beating the Columbus Crew on Saturday. Only three teams (DC United, Houston Dynamo and LA Galaxy) in MLS history have ever pulled off a championship repeat. LAFC can make themselves the fourth. Continue reading...