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...

Researchers found firearm injury incidence rate was 62% higher in neighborhoods gentrified between 2014 and 2019City dwellers have long noticed that gentrifying neighborhoods report more gun violence. Now, a study, published in Jama Surgery earlier this year and conducted by a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School with Brigham and Women's hospital, shows just how much - and could suggest new ways to combat gun violence.The report found that the firearm injury incidence rate was 62% higher in neighborhoods that had gentrified between 2014 and 2019 than in non-gentrifying neighborhoods with similar sociodemographic characteristics. On top of that, it found that the gunshot injury rate was an additional 26% higher in neighborhoods that were actively gentrifying. (The study didn't specify who was committing the violence.) Continue reading...

Analysis of BlueLeaks trove also shows police received training on domestic Muslim extremists' from pro-Israel groupsHacked police files show US law enforcement agencies for decades received analysis of incidents in the Israel-Palestine conflict directly from the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli thinktanks, training on domestic Muslim extremists" from pro-Israel non-profits, and surveilled social media accounts of pro-Palestine activists in the US.The Guardian's analysis of documents from the BlueLeaks trove of internal law enforcement documents found no indication that this was balanced by information from other Middle Eastern sources or US Muslim community groups. Nor is there any indication that pro-Israel activists were subject to any specific scrutiny. Continue reading...

The latest chapter in the one of the NFL's most heated grudge matches will help decide the No 1 seed in the NFC playoffsAs the regular season draws to a close, we'll take a look each Friday at a game likely to affect the playoff race, along with the teams whose fortunes are rising and falling. And, so we don't neglect the also-rans, we'll see which teams are in the hunt for next year's No 1 pick. Continue reading...

Company formerly known as Paddy Power Betfair will keep premium listing in London for nowThe betting firm Flutter has said it is working towards 29 January as the date for its listing on the New York stock exchange, but it will keep its premium listing in London.The company, formerly known as Paddy Power Betfair, is proceeding with a secondary listing in the US but it may pursue a primary listing in the US in due course". Continue reading...

The Bayer Leverkusen coach is calm, methodical and though he must be aware of how extensively he is lauded, he appears to pay little mind to itI'm Basque, total Basque." Xabi Alonso bristles as the thought that he could be defined as anything else, though there is a concession. He understands exactly how much Germany has shaped his current path, starting almost a decade ago when he arrived in the south of the country to begin a three-year spell with Bayern Munich that would see him through to retirement. But with big German influence now," he adds.The Bundesliga's - and perhaps Europe's - hottest coach is calm, methodical and though he must be aware of how extensively he is lauded, he appears to pay little mind to it. If it feels like the production of Alonso The Coach is moving at breakneck speed - at least partly due to the mesmeric power of his Bayer Leverkusen's football, as well as their excellent results - the man himself gives little to no impression of having been swept up in a frenzy. Continue reading...

His best songs made you cry and raise a clenched fist at the same time. Yet the man I knew was also a gentle, poetic soul

From Ukraine to the climate crisis, the union is beset by shocks. It can no longer afford to let Hungary give it the runaroundDeep into the Trump presidency, I jokingly asked a French friend who obsessively follows US politics (and political comedy shows), and who also has significant experience with China, if he would rather be in charge of the US, China or the EU. I expected him to pick the EU: the US seemed about to split wide open at the seams, and China seemed alone and friendless, with a debt crisis looming. Europe, on the other hand, was stable, prosperous, newly free of the British brake on continued integration, and otherwise merely overlooked.That answer doesn't seem so obvious now, not just because Donald Trump is (for the moment) gone, but also because the EU can't seem to find a moment to breathe in the midst of never-ending polycrises.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

Charges come in addition to federal firearms charges and intensify pressure on president's son ahead of 2024 electionHunter Biden has been indicted on nine tax charges in California, becoming the second indictment against the president's son, adding fuel to a scandal that Republicans have been seizing on in the lead-up to the 2024 election.The state charges on Thursday follow federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging Biden unlawfully obtained a revolver in October 2018 after he falsely stated he was not using narcotic drugs. Continue reading...

Congressional testimony on campus policies by heads of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT draws criticismThe presidents of three of the nation's top universities are facing intense backlash, including from the White House, after being accused of evading questions during a congressional hearing about whether calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools' codes of conduct.In a contentious, hours-long debate on Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sought to address the steps they were taking to combat rising antisemitism on campus since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. But it was their careful, indirect response to a question posed by the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York that drew scathing criticism. Continue reading...

The US secretary of state speaking at a news conference in Washington after a meeting with the UK's foreign secretary, David Cameron, said 'It remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection.' Israel's military has continued its heavy bombardment amid intense fighting in Gaza as its war with Hamas hit the two-month mark

World No 3 has struck while the commercial iron is hot but will be accused of hypocrisy because of previous views on LIVThere has long been a perceived problem with too many alpha males in golf's most prominent circles. Rory McIlroy has admitted even he defers to Tiger Woods when adult discussion is required. McIlroy's long-time position as the unofficial shop steward for the PGA Tour as LIV's threat hovered meant others sought counsel from him.Jon Rahm has never been the type to be backwards in coming forwards, which inevitably would probably grate as others in the locker room came across in a more statesmanlike way during golf's never-ending civil war. Rahm has an ego. The way for him to usurp his peers - or even Woods, arguably the best player of all time - has always been plain: beat them. Continue reading...

Anthony Polito, 67, who died at scene of shooting that left three dead and one critically wounded, had unsuccessfully sought jobThe four people shot at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus on Thursday were all faculty members, the university has said.Three people died and one person was critically wounded in the shooting. The suspect in the attack, which took place at approximately 11.45am, has been named as a college professor who had failed to win a job there, according to police officials. Continue reading...

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Republican-led resolution against Democrat who pulled fire alarm called a waste of time and another attack on person of colourDemocrats accused Republicans of wasting time and pursuing another attempt to silence a person of colour", after the New York progressive Jamaal Bowman was formally censured for pulling a fire alarm in a congressional office building.This censure of Representative Bowman is yet another attempt to silence a person of colour in this chamber," the Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib said. Continue reading...

Democrats, however, say new maps create a majority-Black district at the expense of another district, contrary to judge's instructionRepublican state lawmakers in Georgia have finalized new district maps to comply with a federal judge's order, though Democrats and advocacy groups say the new maps create one majority-Black district at the expense of another diverse district.US district judge Steve Jones ordered Georgia lawmakers to redo their redistricted maps in October after a lawsuit claimed they violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Black people. Continue reading...