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Restraining order issued after a group filed a lawsuit and a letter that was signed by more than 40 Republican congressmenA Confederate memorial was blocked on Monday from being removed from Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia, with a court order setting back the push to remove symbols that commemorate the Confederacy from military-related facilities.A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary restraining order barring removal of a memorial to Confederate soldiers at the nation's foremost military cemetery. A group called Defend Arlington, affiliated with a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida, filed a lawsuit Sunday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, seeking the restraining order. A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

Trump's ex-White House chief of staff had tried to transfer his 2020 election interference case to federal courtA federal appeals court on Monday rejected former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' request to transfer his 2020 election interference case in Georgia to federal court, ruling he was not entitled to the privilege because he was not currently a federal official.The court also ruled that Meadows would not have qualified for such a transfer because the conduct he was charged with did not relate to his official duties as Trump's final chief of staff, instead counting as campaign activities. Continue reading...

Kevin DePaolo was hiking in the Inyo mountains when the rock dislodged and pinned him under for nearly 10 hoursA hiker who spent hours trapped and badly injured under a nearly 10,000lb boulder on a remote California mountainside has spoken out about the ordeal, saying he thought to himself: I'm going to die up here."Kevin DePaolo was hiking with a friend in the Inyo mountains earlier this month when the rock unexpectedly dislodged, he told the New York Times in one of his first interviews since the accident on 5 December. Continue reading...

Justice department aims to prevent agencies unwittingly hiring problem officers but does not cover local-level officialsThe US justice department has created a database to track records of misconduct by federal law enforcement officers that is aimed at preventing agencies from unknowingly hiring problem officers, officials said on Monday.The federal move is a step toward accountability amid growing calls to close loopholes that allow law enforcement officers to be rehired by other agencies after losing their jobs or resigning after misconduct allegations. Continue reading...

Many care homes are understaffed, ignored alarms, skipped bed checks or otherwise neglected safety proceduresDozens of elderly people have died across the US in the last five years after walking away unchecked from assisted-living or supposedly secure dementia or memory care facilities, a national study has found, highlighting a lack of effective oversight in a burgeoning industry.Most of about 100 deaths since 2018, reported Monday by the Washington Post, were weather-related, involving exposure to extreme heat or cold. Some of the elopements" - the industry name for those who leave unnoticed or unsupervised - were not found until days or even weeks later. Continue reading...

Ruby Franke, who ran the YouTube channel 8 Passengers, was charged with abusing and starving two of her six childrenA Utah mother of six who gave parenting advice on a once popular YouTube channel called 8 Passengers has pleaded guilty to charges that she abused and starved two of her children, her attorney said.Franke pleaded guilty to four felony counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse and likely faces a prison sentence. The judge presiding over the case tentatively scheduled a sentencing hearing for her on 20 Feburary. Continue reading...

Former president files motion to dismiss election interference case, contending indictment violates his first amendment rightsDonald Trump's lawyer asked a judge on Monday to throw out the Georgia criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, contending the indictment violated the former president's first amendment rights by charging him for so-called core political speech.The motion to dismiss the election interference case brought by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, was similar in scope and theory to Trump's request to throw out the federal indictment in Washington DC that was rejected this month. Continue reading...

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal decries horrific' language after ex-president says immigrants poisoning the blood of our country'A leading American progressive said Donald Trump was using horrific ... dehumanising and fascist rhetoric", after the former president told supporters immigrants were invading the US and poisoning the blood of our country".This is horrific," said Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Monday. Continue reading...

Eric Adams says city is a place where New Yorkers could wake up' to a terrorist attack in unusual interview commentsAsked to sum up 2023 in New York City, the mayor, Eric Adams, chose to give New Yorkers a bizarre warning that they could wake up" to another 9/11 terrorist attack on any given day.Asked by the WPIX-TV host Dan Mannarino to sum up a very eventful" year in one word, Adams offered two: New York". Continue reading...

From a goalless draw at Anfield to Mudryk's miss, we hand out honors (and dishonors) from the Premier League weekendChristmas is upon us. The goose is getting fat. The latest round of Premier League fixtures was a testament to competence. Everything (Manchester City apart) went as conventional wisdom said it should based on form and results. There was no real VAR controversy of note. Mikel Arteta was booked on the touchline. What next, snow on Christmas Day?The obvious exception was the abandonment of Bournemouth versus Luton Town, after Luton captain Tom Lockyer suffered a cardiac arrest. Lockyer remains in hospital at the time of writing. Continue reading...

Some north-east areas expected to receive up to 6in of rain on Monday before storm travels northwardMore than 200,000 residents in the New England region are without power after heavy rainfall and high winds hit the north-east region on Monday to start off the week before Christmas.Upwards of 100,000 people in New Hampshire and Massachusetts are experiencing power outages amid heavy rainfall, New England Cable News reported. An additional 50,000 residents of New York state have lost power, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks power outages nationwide. Continue reading...

The irony of Masha Gessen almost not being awarded the prize because of their writings on Gaza is almost too thick too cutThis past weekend the prominent Russian-American journalist and writer Masha Gessen was awarded the prestigious Hannah Arendt prize for political thought under police protection in Germany. But the event, which was to be a grand ceremony hosted by the Heinrich Boll Foundation in the city hall of Bremen in north-west Germany, almost did not happen at all after Gessen published an essay in the New Yorker comparing Gaza before 7 October to the Jewish ghettoes of Nazi-occupied Europe.The Foundation, which is affiliated with the German Green party, founded the prize not to honor Arendt but to honor individuals who identify critical and unseen aspects of current political events and who are not afraid to enter the public realm by representing their opinion in controversial political discussions", withdrew its support, causing the city of Bremen to withdraw its support, leading to an initial cancellation of the event altogether. The Foundation said Gessen's comparison was unacceptable", but has since backtracked and has now said that they stand behind the award. Continue reading...

Amount is larger than all other penalties assessed by US transportation department since 1996 combinedSouthwest Airlines has agreed to a record-setting $140m civil penalty over the December 2022 holiday meltdown that led to 16,900 flight cancellations and stranded 2 million passengers.The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) consent order resolves a lengthy government investigation into the giant travel disruption and provides a strong deterrent", the agency said. Continue reading...

Supreme court justice's comment to Republican congressman in 2000 worried conservatives, according to ProPublica reportClarence Thomas told a Republican congressman that US supreme court justices should get a pay raise or one or more" would quit, prompting a flurry of activity" among rightwingers because his importance as a conservative was paramount", ProPublica said in its latest hard-hitting report on questionable ethics at the high court.Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican Thomas spoke to in 2000, told the non-profit newsroom: We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly." Continue reading...

Jurgen Klopp's side are nowhere near the team that won the title in 2019-20We want our title-challengers to be fallible. We don't want a sense of a procession; we want each point to feel hard-earned. We want a sense of jeopardy about the race for the Premier League. Just perhaps not quite that fallible, not quite that hard-earned. Jeopardy, it tuns out, can be pretty dull.There were three thoughts to emerge from Sunday's goalless 0-0 draw between Liverpool and Manchester United. The first was that United really are terrible at the moment, but at least they've acknowledged that. There was, paradoxically, something to be admired about the pragmatism of their approach, the way they approached the game almost like a relegation-threatened side. This wasn't like 2017-18 when Jose Mourinho took United to Anfield, showed almost no ambition, drew 0-0 and seemed weirdly confused by the criticism that followed. Liverpool then were vulnerable having won one of their previous eight games; here Erik ten Hag was facing a side that had won each of its previous seven home league games this season. Continue reading...

Following a judge's ruling in favour of Prince Harry, the former Daily Mirror editor's confected outrage is starting to look a little desperateSo how much, exactly, did Piers Morgan know about phone hacking when he was editor of the Daily Mirror? It depends when you ask him. And since he edited the newspaper for nine years when hacking was at its zenith, and since other people similarly accused have spent time in prison, this seems important for reasons that do not depend on your feelings about Prince Harry.On Friday, for example, Morgan had a simple line for reporters gathered outside his house. Perhaps his thinking had been clarified by the unfortunate news that a judge ruling on claims from Harry and others had found that there had been extensive hacking going on at the Daily Mirror, and that there was no doubt Morgan knew about it. Similar evidence has been presented to the Leveson inquiry and in previous litigation, but never as extensively or with such a powerful endorsement from a judge as this. But it's all nonsense, Morgan sputtered, who would do such a thing? I've never hacked a phone, or told anybody else to hack a phone," he said. Simple.Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian's First Edition newsletter, and writes on media, culture and technology Continue reading...

Four months after the deadliest US wildfire in modern history, thousands of people have yet to find stable housingWhen Charles Nahale checked into a one-bedroom time-share condo in Kapalua Bay, a tourist mainstay on Maui's north-west coast, in mid-October, front desk staff told him he would only be staying for 12 days. Nahale, a Native Hawaiian musician who had lost his west Maui home in the ferocious wildfire of 8 August, wasn't surprised by the blunt notice: he'd been bouncing from hotel to hotel, often at a moment's notice, under a sheltering program run by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.After the move, Nahale turned his pickup truck into a storage unit - part closet and part pantry - filled with boxes of clothes and nonperishable food. He brought only toiletries and essentials into the hotel suite. When he was hungry, he went to the truck to grab a can of tuna. A ukulele, a guitar and a set of work clothes were the only possession he was able to save from the fire. I live a nomadic life," said Nahale, who's in his 60s. What's the point of unpacking if I'm moving again after 12 days?" Continue reading...

Secret Service indicate collision was accident in rainy conditions as president left campaign HQ in DelawareA sedan hit a sport-utility vehicle in Joe Biden's motorcade on Sunday night in Delaware, causing no injuries in what officials said appeared to be a car accident rather than an intentional act.The president's motorcade was preparing to take Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, to their residence in Wilmington after a campaign dinner with staffers and volunteers. Biden had stepped out on to the street when a crash could be heard down the street from Biden and his protective Secret Service detail. Continue reading...

All-cash deal will see company keep name and headquarters in Pittsburgh, where it was founded in 1901US Steel, the Pittsburgh steel producer that was once the world's largest company and played a key role in the nation's industrialization, is being acquired by Nippon Steel in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $14.1bn.The price tag for US Steel is nearly double what was offered just four months ago by rival Cleveland Cliffs. US Steel, which rejected that offer, confirmed the offering price from Nippon early on Monday. Continue reading...

The idea that this reckless strategy would strike only one side, as if Israelis and Palestinians were not joined at the heart of this mess, is a lie

Rochester, Albany and other cities offer refuge from anti-trans laws in other states and ballooning costs in big citiesWhen Travis Covitz arrived in Rochester, in upstate New York, in 2022, he moved into an apartment owned by gay landlords on a major thoroughfare where shop windows displayed LGBTQ+ safe-space stickers.Covitz, a 23-year-old transgender man, ended up in Rochester somewhat by accident for a medical research job after graduating from Cornell University, a two-hour drive south in the progressive college town of Ithaca. This is giving me similar vibes," he thought upon his arrival in Rochester. He felt safe walking through the city dressed in drag, to the gay club where he eventually took a second job as a barback. Continue reading...

Vote comes as Washington shows growing impatience with Israel. Plus, Serbian populists win election amid allegations of voting irregularities

Some African American men in the key swing state are feeling neglected and are critical of the president's support for Israel but others warn not to confuse enthusiasm with electabilityMorehouse College, a 156-year-old Black men's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, has produced graduates such as Martin Luther King and Spike Lee. It has been an essential campaign stop for Democratic politicians such as Barack Obama, John Lewis and, last September, Kamala Harris.But as another presidential election looms, Joe Biden can take nothing for granted here. A resounding no," was 28-year-old Ade Abney's verdict on whether the US president has delivered on his promises to Black voters. I voted for Biden in 2020 but next year I don't know who I'm going to vote for. It probably will not be him." Continue reading...

I join you in the prayer to guide those regarding your appeal,' Gregory Aymond of New Orleans wrote to priest given life sentenceAs he reached the end of his 41-year life, Kevin Portier had endured child rape at the hands of a southern Louisiana Catholic priest for whom he had served as an altar boy; a highly publicized trial that sent the clergyman to prison for the rest of his days; and the trauma associated with those experiences.But one of Portier's harshest ordeals came within his final two years alive. Representatives of the church that he had been raised to believe in approached him at his home, at his job and at a relative's funeral to ask him to lend his support to efforts to secure an early release for his rapist, Robert Melancon. Continue reading...

If Bernardo Arevalo is blocked from governing or ousted, it will be an ominous sign in a region where democracy is in perilIn August, I packed into Guatemala City's Constitution Plaza alongside thousands of others to watch Bernardo Arevalo, a bookish anti-corruption reformer, give his closing presidential campaign speech. There was something surreal about seeing Arevalo take the stage and make earnest appeals about curbing corruption and governing for the majority as the crowd roared applause.The Guatemalans I have met are usually cynical about politics and politicians - for good reason. After years of rule by a bloody anti-communist military dictatorship, Guatemala became a democracy in 1985. But corrupt political machines, self-serving business elites and criminal mafias loomed large over every election afterwards.Will Freeman is a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and holds a doctorate in politics from Princeton University Continue reading...

More young people are taking up the habit, and one reason may be a need for the comfort of connectionMy GP and I have a friendly relationship. Once, during a telephone appointment, he asked me if I was a smoker. No," I replied, playfully. But maybe next year will be more eventful." That's because I am of the social smoking variety - that cheeky, sneaky (and possibly most annoying) breed. We are the beggars at the barbecue, eyeing up your rolling papers and asking for a small one. The scrounger at the Christmas party, suggesting a twos.You will know us by our ancient packet of Greek cigarettes found in a kitchen drawer - so old they no longer light - or our giveaways as we exit a wedding: Want the rest of these fags? Take them, I'm not going to smoke them." I can - and have - gone years without smoking, only to periodically step back into the smoking area and exclaim: Wow, it's so much emptier!"Coco Khan is a commissioning editor for the Guardian and a writer. She is co-host of the politics podcast, Pod Save the UK Continue reading...

The Bills put together perhaps the most impressive win any team has produced all season: a 31-10 demolition of the Cowboys. Can they ride the momentum into a January run?One of the most vexing questions of this NFL season has been: What is the problem with the Buffalo Bills?"Maybe there isn't one. The Bills, who started sluggishly and couldn't quite put it all together for much of the early season, have rounded into form of late. And on Sunday, they put together perhaps the most impressive win any team has produced all season: a 31-10 demolition of the Dallas Cowboys, who entered with a 10-3 record and had been humbling the competition week after week with their high-flying quarterback-and-receiver duo of Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. But when the Cowboys got to western New York, the Bills greeted them rudely: Prescott was under duress all afternoon, Lamb had no separation from the Bills' defenders, and the Buffalo defense was suffocating against an offense that had looked impossible to stop. Dallas finished with 10 points, but all of them came in garbage time. For Buffalo, it was as good as a shutout. Continue reading...

Quitting flying as a travel writer was easier than I expected. Now for the hard part: convincing my family to do the sameAs a travel writer, I'm used to receiving invitations to five-star resorts in far-flung destinations such as the Seychelles, all expenses paid. But now I ignore these emails. I quit flying three years ago. I'm not afraid to fly; I stopped because of the climate crisis. In addition to travel, I write about green issues, and I decided I could no longer in good conscience specialise in sustainability while continuing to fly.I was a late convert to the cause, taking a plane to Israel in 2020 to write about a Palestinian cycle advocacy group. A trip like that would be off limits to me today, even if peace broke out any time soon. It's all but impossible to reach Israel from Europe without flying. It's almost as tough to reach the Antipodes from the UK without a long-haul flight, so bang goes a quick-ish trip to New Zealand or Australia.Carlton Reid is a freelance transport journalist Continue reading...

Artists killed, journalists silenced, libraries and mosques destroyed. What will be left to bind the survivors together?I will start this column with a question for you, dear reader. What connects you with your country, and makes you feel it is yours? What gives you a sense of identity and belonging? It's the physical things, of course - where you live, where you were born, where your family and friends reside. But underlying those practical aspects, I suspect, are all the other things that you don't think about, that you take for granted. The music, the literature, the humour, the art and cinema and TV - all the abstract touchstones of an identity that form a connective tissue between you and your country.I ask because the corollary of the question what makes a people?" is what erases one?" And what is unfolding in Gaza has made that question an urgent one. Because alongside the horrors of death and displacement, something else is happening - something existential, rarely acknowledged and potentially irreversible. Continue reading...

Party demands Christian Ziegler's resignation after he was accused of raping woman he and wife had a prior relationship withThe Republican party of Florida suspended chairman Christian Ziegler and demanded his resignation during an emergency meeting Sunday, adding to calls by governor Ron DeSantis and other top officials for him to step down as police investigate a rape accusation against him.Ziegler is accused of raping a woman with whom he and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, had a prior consensual sexual relationship, according to police records. Continue reading...

Jessica Vincent, who bought the rare item at a Goodwill, said: I had a sense that it might be a $1,000 or $2,000 piece'A woman who bought a glass vase for $3.99 at a local Goodwill charity shop has seen the piece auctioned off for more than $100,000 after it turned out to be a rare and valuable piece of Italian glassware.Jessica Vincent had bought the item at a Goodwill thrift store in Hanover county, Virginia, and had an inkling that it might have been worth a little more than was usual, she told the New York Times. Continue reading...

Jeff Roe, who led Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the $269m fund, just weeks before Iowa caucusFlorida governor Ron DeSantis political woes have deepened further in the wake of the surprise resignation of a chief strategist at a leading campaign fund dealing yet another blow to the right-winger's rapidly waning 2024 presidential hopes.Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the DeSantis-backing Super Pac Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the massive, $269m fund that was billed as a novel application of campaign finance laws that prevent the integration of a Pac and its spending with a candidate's campaign.The Associated Press contributed to this report Continue reading...

Former president said undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country' at political rally on SaturdayDonald Trump is facing a backlash for repeating a remark at a political rally on Saturday where he said undocumented immigrants to the United States are poisoning the blood of our country".The former US president's comments were the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seemed to go beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead go into territory of outright extremism or racism. In November he was widely condemned for calling his opponents vermin", language that echoed that used historically by dictators and authoritarians. Continue reading...

Victims fell for alleged serial killer's tale that he needed help finding gold in area of his Washington state farm, authorities sayAn alleged serial killer in Washington state has been hit with new murder charges after authorities revealed that he may have used the same scheme to kill all four of his victims by telling them he needed their help finding buried treasure.Richard Bradley Jr, 40, who has been awaiting trial of murder charges in the death of 44-year-old Brandi Blake since his arrest in 2021, has now been charged in the deaths of three more people, one identified from ribs buried on Bradley's 160-acre Game Farm Park in Auburn and matched to his mother using DNA. Continue reading...

From the things I have shouted, to the people I have envied, let's look back on another year of highlights and - most of all - lowlightsI feel a bit left out by the whole Spotify Wrapped thing, where the music streamer reveals what you have been listening to this year. I use my spouse's family" subscription - a (highly effective) bargaining chip to make our sons speak to us occasionally - so I don't get the personalised rundown. Mine would only be Peaceful Piano", a dirge-like playlist I use to drown out men on trains holding forth on how Dan handled the deck at the year-end steering committee.How revealing is our musical taste anyway? Mine says nothing - it's hardly news I prefer silence to any sound - so I have been wondering if there are other rankings that might prove more revealing about our year and our states of mind. Here are some more illuminating top fives. Continue reading...

A possible cause of the crash and the names of the deceased were not immediately releasedA small plane crashed into power lines in Oregon late Saturday afternoon and killed all three people on board, police said.Polk county emergency services received the report of the single engine plane crash in Independence around 4.55pm, the Independence police department said in a statement posted on social media. Continue reading...

Inside San Quentin, residents are drawing mainstream audiences and shifting narratives about life behind barsIn November, Juan Moreno Haines earned a coveted promotion. The California journalist was named editor-in-chief of Solitary Watch, a non-profit news organization reporting on conditions in US prisons.Haines helps 16 writers craft story ideas, fact-check, edit articles and navigate the many hurdles of reporting on neglect and abuse behind bars, all while dealing with a major obstacle no other media leader in America has to face: he is prohibited from directly communicating with his journalists, most of whom he has never met. Continue reading...

The $148.1m award to election workers for his lies is only a small measure of justice because damaged reputations can't be restoredAbout halfway down the main hallway in the federal courthouse in Washington DC are the names of every judge who has sat on the bench since the early 1800s. Printed in gold lettering, the names include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Antonin Scalia and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all of whom have gone on to the highest levels of public service.But this week, four floors above that hallway, in courtroom 26A, two little-known public servants mourned the moment they lost their own names. Continue reading...

The league announced it will send reserve teams to US soccer's longest running competition in 2024On Friday, Major League Soccer announced it will not enter its teams into the 2024 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. It is a move which means the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) sanctioned Division I soccer league will not compete in the country's national cup competition next season - think every team in La Liga refusing to compete in Spain's Copa del Rey, or all English Premier League teams deserting the FA Cup.Though soccer in the United States is often considered to lack the history, longevity and prestige of its European counterparts, the US Open Cup flies in the face of this perception and has a similar history to its equivalents elsewhere. The tournament's first matches were played in November 1913, more than 82 years before MLS's inaugural season and, unlike franchise-based, closed-shop sports leagues across the US, the Open Cup is, as its name boasts, open to all teams throughout the would-be American soccer pyramid. Continue reading...

The new book Practical Radicals takes inspiration from successful social movements to identify tactics that pay offIn their new book, Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce offer what they say are winning strategies, history and theory for a new generation of activists".Bhargava and Luce - professors at the City University of New York's School of Labor and Urban Studies - emphasize that strategies can be taught to build successful movements. In their book, they detail seven tactics that have been successfully used to change the world: base-building, disruptive movements, narrative shift, electoral changes, inside-outside campaigns, momentum, and collective care. Continue reading...

The ex-congresswoman is unapologetically conservative, but her decision to put democracy before party has made her an unlikely heroineIt was a moment that a visitor from the year 2010 might have found impossible to comprehend. As Liz Cheney, arch-conservative and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, walked on stage in deeply liberal Washington, the audience applauded and cheered for a full 45 seconds.They're standing, Liz, wow!" exclaimed moderator Mark Leibovich, a journalist and author. You could probably be elected to Congress from the District of Columbia if they had representation." Continue reading...

Wall Street is enjoying a reignited economy, and America's Main Street will follow. In the UK, Labour must stick to its plan for public investmentNow here's a thing. American unemployment is at a 50-year low. Confidence is growing that the US may have dodged a bullet - there is not going to be the much-touted recession next year. The American stock market is breaking all-time highs after seven weeks of near continuous gains. It is an economy in rude health - with nearly every dial on the economic dashboard flashing green.Yet at the same time US consumers are suffused with gloom. The president's low approval ratings do not budge. He is so disliked he is advised never to use the word Bidenomics" to describe the policies responsible for this economic success. Donald Trump has close to an unassailable lead in the Republican primaries, and is ahead of Biden in the opinion polls for the presidency. What works economically is not working politically. Continue reading...

Celebrities pay well to outsource childbirth, but given the exploitation and health risks can it ever be enough?Considering how quickly too posh to push" once took off as a way of rebuking mothers who planned to cheat nature with a C-section, current reporting about affluent women who, for reasons seemingly unconnected to fertility, outsource entire pregnancies to poorer women is distinguished by a touching delicacy.So much so that a whole new vocabulary - welcomed", surrogacy journey", gestational carrier" - is now helping normalise these womb-saving conveniences. You would hardly know from the tributes to celebrity hirers of surrogates, customarily accompanied by zero interest in the labouring women's journeys, that commercial surrogacy is banned in most of the world, and only occurs within the UK in its expenses-only form. And some will certainly take it as a sign of progress that, even as studies expose the long-term health problems associated with childbirth, no reason now seems too trivial to justify paying a less fortunate woman to risk these complications. Continue reading...

After all the reputational damage the prince has suffered - yes, some of it self-inflicted - this was a courageous standWhatever else might be said about Prince Harry, he got to pull the sword from the stone. He got his day in court, his longed-for legal vindication, winning phone hacking rulings against the Mirror group. The hacked-off royal even got to witness arch-enemy Piers Morgan's head roll into the executioner's basket (though, characteristically, the former Daily Mirror editor failed to go quietly, accusing Harry and wife Meghan of scheming to bring down the monarchy).For Harry, there must also be the sense of ethical, almost biblical, restoration, not least of his reputation. You felt it thrumming behind the statement read out by his lawyer outside court, hailing the ruling as a great day for truth". He's been awarded 140,600 in damages. Scotland Yard hasn't ruled out a criminal inquiry. So, what now for Harry, self-styled dragon slayer" and would-be reformer of the British media?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...