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Police say no indication shooting politically motivated as teen working for Democrat is treated for non-life threatening injuriesA teenager was shot outside a home in Georgia while campaigning for Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democratic senator who faces a runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker on Tuesday, police said.The Savannah police department said a 42-year-old man shot at the teenager through a closed door on Thursday, striking the teen in the leg. Continue reading...

Mary O’Connor and her husband were stopped by an officer for driving a golf cart without a license plateThe police chief of Tampa, Florida, was placed on administrative leave after flashing her badge in an attempt to get out of a traffic stop, the city’s mayor said.On 12 November, Mary O’Connor and her husband were stopped by a Pinellas county sheriff’s deputy for driving a golf cart without a license plate. Body camera footage showed the officer explaining to the pair why he stopped them. Continue reading...

Agent says prospective new owner of house in Astoria shown in 1985 adventure film promises to preserve the landmarkThe listing agent for a Victorian home in Astoria, Oregon, which featured in The Goonies has said the likely new owner is a fan of the classic coming-of-age movie about friendships and treasure hunting, and promises to preserve and protect the landmark.Based on a story by Steven Spielberg and released in 1985, The Goonies features a group of friends fighting to protect their homes from an expanding country club and threats of foreclosure. They discover an old treasure map that leads them on an adventure and allows them to save their neighborhood, called Goon Docks. Continue reading...

Likely future Israeli PM, who has repeatedly praised Trump, says dinner with rapper and white nationalist ‘unacceptable and wrong’Donald Trump should be “condemning” antisemitism following his meeting with the rapper Ye and Nick Fuentes, Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.The former and likely future Israeli prime minister told NBC’s Meet the Press the former president’s recent dinner with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who has repeatedly made antisemitic remarks, and Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier, was “not merely unacceptable, it’s just wrong”. Continue reading...

McCarthy seeking votes to be speaker when Republicans take over the House next year partyIn his first major interview since being elected the first Black leader in Congress, the New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was asked what he thought of Kevin McCarthy, the Californian now seeking the votes to be speaker when Republicans take over the House next year.“We serve in Congress together,” Jeffries said. Continue reading...

Former president must be ‘universally condemned’ for comments, says White HouseThe Biden White House rebuked Donald Trump after the former president said the US constitution should be “terminated” over his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, said: “Attacking the constitution and all it stands for is anathema to the soul of our nation and should be universally condemned.” Continue reading...

Polls suggest narrow lead for Raphael Warnock as party brings out big guns to campaign days before electionA marathon election campaign will enter its final sprint on Tuesday when voters in Georgia decide the last seat in the US Senate – and shape the next phase of Joe Biden’s presidency.Opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock over his Republican challenger, former American football star Herschel Walker. Continue reading...

Washington’s first such event since 2019 pulled out all the stops to heal relations shaken by the Trump presidencyIt was the night food porn returned to the White House. In a heated tent on the south lawn, political leaders, business titans and Hollywood stars feasted on butter poached Maine lobster, American Osetra caviar, calotte of beef with shallot marmalade, triple cooked butter potatoes and artisanal cheeses.Joe Biden, a teetotaller reportedly drinking ginger ale, and French president Emmanuel Macron, wielding a flute of California brut rosé, wore tuxedos and offered toasts to their friendship. “Et laisse-moi dire, vive les États-Unis d’Amérique, vive la France, et vive l’amitié entre nos deux pays,” Macron said. Continue reading...

I don’t care if a candidate for my company’s open position has a criminal record. But I do care about something more importantMy company is hoping to hire a part-time person to implement and support some of the software applications we sell. Like most small business owners, finding someone isn’t easy in this tight labor market, despite all the recent tech industry layoffs. I can’t afford to pay what some of these people earn – or were earning – in Silicon Valley and therefore my choices are limited. So, what to do?How about hiring someone with a criminal record? Continue reading...

The deficiencies on display throughout USA’s defeat to the Dutch suggest that more work was needed before Gregg Berhalter’s squad arrived in QatarAs his players slumped to the ground after full-time at Khalifa International Stadium, their World Cup dreams in pieces, US head coach Gregg Berhalter took to the pitch brandishing his Moleskine notebook. As he moved through the throng – wrapping his arm around a weeping Tim Weah, offering words of consolation to Christian Pulisic, applauding the American fans – the notebook stayed with him, held aloft seemingly as a symbol of the task that lies ahead if the US are to progress any further than this at their home World Cup in 2026. A manager ready to get back to work at the very moment of defeat sends a strong message, but in truth the technical and tactical deficiencies on display throughout the US’s defeat to a ruthless Dutch outfit suggest that more work was needed before Berhalter’s squad touched down in Doha. What this team has most missed throughout the World Cup is basic football intelligence, the kind of smarts that the Dutch displayed in spades. Like Gio Reyna, Berhalter’s moleskine made its cameo in Qatar too late.A round of 16 exit feels like a par score for the US, and there is of course no indignity in going down to one of the world’s great footballing nations; America can feel some satisfaction in counting itself among the world’s top 16 sides; and so on. But cliches and ritual expressions of pride can’t hide that the manner of USA’s exit here was particularly disappointing. A country of America’s size, wealth, and ambition – not to mention one in which soccer is such an enduringly popular participation sport – should aspire to more at the World Cup. Continue reading...

The Fleetwood Mac singer songwriter, who died last week, is among a select group whose music is culturally indelibleMost of us have our favourite musical artists, the ones we deliberately seek out, but what about the other kind, the ones who wriggle in through the trapdoor of your mind? That, in the sweetest, strangest way, gatecrash your cultural consciousness when you’re not quite paying attention, then embed there. Forever.When news came of the death of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie at age 79, the internet did one of its loving, sorrowful double-takes. Of course it did. There’s much to applaud about the multitalented McVie: those scuffed-velvet vocals; the chilled charisma of a woman who truly knew herself; that decades-spanning rock’n’roll sisterhood with fellow band member Stevie Nicks laying waste to the sexist fiction that two highly creative women always have to end up in a catfight. Continue reading...

Plantar fasciitis has forced him to withdraw from Hero World Challenge, but Woods is not ready to let go just yetOff-course work at Albany – a stint in the commentary booth, delivering putting lessons to amateurs and involvement in a PGA Tour player meeting – presumably does not vex Tiger Woods too much since his foundation benefits significantly from the Hero World Challenge, but looking on as others compete has never been his forte.Woods was in the field until a Monday bulletin that punctured external enthusiasm for this event. Plantar fasciitis, which developed when he returned to walking on courses rather than driving in buggies, is the latest injury to halt him. Given the scale of effort Woods, who turns 47 this month, had to apply to render the Hero World Challenge even a possibility, it was a harsh blow. Continue reading...

Tube and bus use is up, more of us are cycling - WFH is fast losing its allure for manyOur love affair with working from home, triggered during Covid lockdowns by the often cheerless embrace of Zoom, is cooling sharply. The daily commute is becoming fashionable, especially if you are young. The alternative is experienced by too many as lonely, isolating, distracting, threatening to one’s mental health, polluting of one’s home space. It’s expensive to keep warm – and you’re often the last to find out what’s going on among your colleagues.Workplaces, after all, are where you make friends and sometimes meet life partners, as well as learn all that tacit knowledge so crucial to doing your job well and so build your career. We humans are social animals and creating working lives permanently apart from others was always going against the grain. Continue reading...

The GOP flopped in the midterms but its White House hopefuls still hope to find readers – and conservative group bulk-buyersIn one of the clearest signs that the 2024 Republican presidential primary will feature rivals to Donald Trump, a host of likely candidates have released or will soon release books purporting to outline their political visions.Such books often sell poorly, but that is rarely their point. They are markers of ambition. To judge from the political bookshelves, after midterm elections in which many Trump-endorsed candidates suffered humiliating losses, the former president will not be the only declared candidate for long. Continue reading...

A decade after the Sandy Hook shooting, the Democrat believes the US is ready to embrace change around firearmsSenator Chris Murphy believes that the tide is finally turning in favor of the gun safety movement in America.Even as Murphy acknowledges that more work is needed to address gun violence, the prominent Connecticut Democrat maintains that a growing backlash to mass shootings has brought the country to the brink of a sea change – 10 years after the devastating Sandy Hook school shooting in his home state. Continue reading...

The Americans are a talented young team with a bright future, but attacking profligacy and a lack of a knockout power cost them against the NetherlandsArgentinian television is calling it La Copa de Batacazos: a World Cup of bumps, surprises and the unforeseeable. They’ve come thick and fast on this tiny Gulf peninsula over the past two weeks, with a record seven teams ranked in the top 20 of Fifa’s world rankings, including Germany, crashing out at the group stage.The United States entered Saturday night’s knockout match with the Netherlands confident they could deliver the latest plot twist in a competition where outsiders have consistently punched above their weight. Instead, their dream is over in disappointingly predictable fashion thanks to shortcomings that have become all too familiar. Continue reading...

A woman was killed and four others were injured after the Viking Polaris vessel was hit by a big wave off southern ArgentinaA US woman was killed and four other passengers injured when a massive wave struck the Viking Polaris cruise ship while it was sailing toward the port of Ushuaia in southern Argentina on an Antarctic cruise, authorities said.The 62-year-old woman was hit by broken glass when the wave broke cabin windows late Tuesday during a storm, Argentine authorities said. The ship suffered limited damage and arrived in Ushuaia, 1,926 miles (3,100km) south of Buenos Aires, the next day. Continue reading...

Officials warn lava advances could be highly variable over the coming days as flow crosses level groundHawaii’s Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, that erupted last week for the first time in nearly four decades, continued to spew lava Saturday, though the flows have slowed to a crawl.Fissure three in the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii remains active and is feeding a lava flow advancing at an average rate of 150 feet an hour over the past 24 hours. Fissurefour is “sluggish”, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said, while fissures one and two are no longer active. Continue reading...

No surprise Russia’s military wants me for cannon fodder but why did they think I’d be home when they called?A round mid-October, almost a month after Vladimir Putin called for the partial mobilisation of Russian citizens to fight the war in Ukraine, there was a knock at the door of the Moscow flat that is registered as my official residence in the country.The family friends who reside there opened the door and were greeted by two officers from the Russian military administration, who asked them whether I was at home. They said I had not been home in more than 20 years.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...

Denzel Dumfries and Frenkie De Jong excelled against a USA side for whom Christian Pulisic was a rare bright sparkAndries Noppert (GK) Was brave to deny Tim Ream three minutes into the second half and made a couple of decent first-half saves. 7/10 Continue reading...

If this is boring football then give Louis van Gaal more of it. The Netherlands’ head coach has bridled at claims he has brought a tedious team to the World Cup but they had the class, nous and killer instinct that the United States lacked to become the first country into the quarter-finals.A player named after the actor Denzel Washington – the Internazionale defender Denzel Dumfries – was the architect of the USA’s demise with two assists and a fine third goal that extinguished any chance of a comeback by Gregg Berhalter’s young side. The USA rallied strongly after finding themselves two goals down at half-time and the cheekiest of flicks from Haji Wright brought hope. Continue reading...

Critics including Ukraine say cap of $60 per barrel is still above market value and will not hurt Russia’s war coffers

The nuclear-capable B-21 Raider is set to become a key component in US’s effort to match the Asian country’s military build-upThe Pentagon unveiled its first new strategic bomber in more than 30 years on Friday, a nuclear-capable bat-wing plane that will become a central component of the US effort to counter China’s military build-up when it enters service around 2027.Almost every aspect of the B-21 Raider is classified, but in a tightly-controlled unveiling at the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, currently home of Lockheed-Martin’s legendary Skunk Works, the new strategic plane was briefly shown to the public. Continue reading...

The rapper’s creations are unlikely to pass muster with adherents of modern design, even if they do ‘push the boundaries’The news that the rapper A$AP Rocky is launching a “decor studio” will be startling to believers in the high-minded principles of modern design, and its antecedents in the arts and crafts movement, especially when they see that his main idea is to add some primary-coloured mushrooms to a cactus-shaped hatstand created 50 years ago by the Italian designers Guido Drocco and Franco Mello. “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,” said the Victorian socialist and designer William Morris, words that don’t have much traction in this case. “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away,” said the author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Nope, also not much use here. Rocky’s explanation is that he has long advocated for psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, so “it was only right that we made a cactus with them”. This might sound like a flimsy argument to justify what looks like a marketing gimmick. But maybe legacy objections don’t apply when, as Rocky says of himself, you’re trying to “push the boundaries of the home decor space”. Continue reading...

A tool to stop non-consensual distribution of intimate images has been successful – but there’s still the problem that collecting digital trophies is part of being a manWould you send your nudes to Facebook? Would you trust a company famous for its somewhat loose approach to data privacy with intimate photos of yourself? The answer, for a lot of people, is “hell no, are you out of your mind?” Five years ago Facebook (which is now Meta) asked Australians for their nudes in a pilot effort to develop a tool to stop the non-consensual distribution of intimate images; the response was sceptical to say the least. In a surprising twist, though, it looks like Meta’s tactics to stop revenge porn are actually working. Continue reading...

Senate hopefuls Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker’s contrasting beliefs will influence how voters turn outAs senator Raphael Warnock faces off against Republican challenger Herschel Walker in the most expensive race of the 2022 midterms, they also encounter a historic moment: it’s the first time in modern Georgia history that two Black candidates were nominated by both party’s voters to vie for a US Senate seat in the deep south state.Warnock and Walker both had experiences with poverty and Christianity during their upbringings yet their views on race and racism in society are now in stark contrast. Continue reading...

Ray J Garcia is charged with abusing at least three female prisoners from 2019 to 2021 in prison areas out of view of camerasFirst, the prison’s male warden would flatter the incarcerated women under his charge who attracted him, shower them with compliments and promise them early releases or transfers to lower-security facilities, according to authorities.Eventually, he would allegedly take them to places in his lockup that he knew weren’t watched by surveillance cameras, force sex on them and take nude photos of them. Continue reading...

Former speaker who led charge against Bill Clinton raises eyebrows with column heralding Democrat’s first-term successRepublicans must “quit underestimating” Joe Biden, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich said, because the president is winning the fight.Writing on his own website, Gingrich said: “Conservatives’ hostility to the Biden administration on our terms tends to blind us to just how effective Biden has been on his terms. Continue reading...

Authorities announce that member of Migos, who was shot at a bowling alley last month, was ‘an innocent bystander’A suspect has been arrested and charged with murder in the killing of Takeoff, the rapper and member of Migos, at a bowling alley in Houston last month.Announcing the news on Friday, Houston police said Takeoff, who was 28 and whose birth name was Kirshnik Khari Ball, was “an innocent bystander”. Continue reading...

Biden alludes to Republican politicians, saying ‘our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides’It looks like Florida’s legislature will press ahead with a plan to allow Ron DeSantis to continue serving as the state’s governor, while he pursues his expected run for the White House.An Associated Press report Friday adds credence to the idea floated by Republicans last month, and reported in this blog, to repeal Florida’s so-called “resign to run” rule. Continue reading...

For many, the lava flow is a time to pray, sing, dance and make offerings to Pele, the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes and fireFor many Hawaiians, lava flows are a time to honor, reflect.Glowing lava from the world’s largest volcano is a sight to behold, but for some, Mauna Loa’s eruption is a time to pray, make offerings and honor both the natural and spiritual worlds. Continue reading...

The US manager credits the Dutch for helping him with his soccer education as his team look to upset the odds and book a place in the World Cup quarter-finalsLouis van Gaal says he doesn’t recall the last time he faced Gregg Berhalter in a competitive match.Berhalter, whose United States team will play Van Gaal’s Netherlands on Saturday in the last 16 of the World Cup, doesn’t believe him for a second. Continue reading...

We are paying £6bn more just to eat. After years of abstract debate, the human consequences of our exit become clearer by the dayEnveloped in Westminster silence it may be, but every day and in every way Brexit is getting more real. For so long, this was an argument made through the medium of abstract nouns: “freedom”, “sovereignty”, “control”. But now reality is intruding. This week came word that Brexit added almost £6bn to Britons’ food bills over a two-year period, and that it was the households with least that were affected most. There’s a reason politicians refer to “bread-and-butter issues”: because there is nothing abstract about food and what it costs.Looking back, it was always a tell that leave campaigners sought to avoid the realm of the concrete, preferring to stick with intangible talk of “independence” or a regained mastery of our national destiny. They knew reality was a hostile environment for the Brexit project, one that would expose its folly. Remainers tried to resist, hoping not to fight on the battlefield of dreams but on the terrain of facts and figures, yet it never worked. It just made them sound boring, casting them as spoilsport bean-counters and, besides, all their numbers were themselves abstractions – projections of a hypothetical future. The forecasts of gloom could be, and were, swatted aside as “project fear”.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

As the Sussexes unveil a slick Netflix series, the Windsors are struggling with accusations of racism at a palace receptionIf ever there were a love story for the Instagram age, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s beautifully chronicled romance is the one. Here they are, in a series of pictures from their private album released to promote next week’s six-part Netflix documentary on their relationship, sitting atop a Jeep on what looks like their first holiday together. Here he is, serenading her on the guitar. Then the two of them, impossibly glamorous, spinning joyously around the dancefloor at their wedding; and her on a beach, pregnant and delightedly cradling the bump, against an almost too perfect sunset.Couple goals, luxury travel, a baby: that’s all the influencer boxes ticked. But perhaps the most telling image shows them late at night in their kitchen, just in from an official engagement. Harry has stripped off his dress jacket and is kissing Meghan, who is perched on the counter in an evening gown; it’s sexy, dishevelled and achingly intimate, at least until you ask yourself how precisely there came to be a photographer handy to capture it. Continue reading...

Predominantly white New Hampshire reportedly could be scheduled later with South Carolina tipped to move up to firstDemocrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters.Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first. Continue reading...

Whistleblower is ‘happy and thankful to the Russian Federation’ for his citizenship, lawyer saysEdward Snowden has received a Russian passport after swearing an oath of allegiance to the country that has sheltered him from US authorities since 2013, his lawyer has said.Snowden, 39, a former intelligence contractor who leaked secret files that were reported on by the Guardian, was granted Russian citizenship in an order signed by Vladimir Putin in September. Continue reading...

Infowars host and conspiracy theorist ordered to pay $473m in damages on top of nearly $1bn verdict handed down in OctoberRightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones filed for personal chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas on Friday, according to a court filing, as he faces nearly $1.5bn in court judgments over conspiracy theories he spread about the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.Jones was ordered by a Connecticut court last month to pay $473m in punitive damages on top of a nearly $1bn verdict handed down in October for his defamatory lies that the shooting was faked. Continue reading...

Coach’s Oranje can be scintillating but going into the last-16 tie with the USA they are yet to dazzle for a full 90 minutesWhat is cute game management and what is boring football? This has become the existential question of Louis van Gaal’s third Netherlands tenure as he plots a route to the World Cup final.It was the narrative before and after Tuesday’s 2-0 victory over Qatar that sealed a serene passage to Saturday’s last-16 showdown with the USA and, frankly, it is annoying him. When one inquisitor wondered if fans deserved more sparkling fare the man known as the Iron Tulip showed his metal. “Why don’t you write it’s boring? I don’t think things are as bad as you say,” he countered. Continue reading...

The Out Loud Men’s Chorus, queer-affirming clergy and LGBTQ+ spaces have provided support after the Club Q shootingBelow the vaulted dome and dark wood beams of a church in Colorado Springs, a gay men’s choir rehearsed for a concert that’s taken on new meaning after an LGBTQ+ nightclub became the site of a gruesome shooting that killed five and wounded 17 last month.“There is no peace on earth, I said,” the chorus sang. “For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth.” Continue reading...

Jobs market remains strong even as Fed imposes biggest series of rate rises in decades in effort to tame inflationThe US added 263,000 jobs in November, the labor department announced on Friday, another strong month of jobs growth. The unemployment rate remained at 3.7%, close to a 50-year low.Employers hired 284,000 new positions in October and 269,000 in September and the latest figures show hiring has remained resilient despite rising interest rates and the announcement of a series of layoffs at technology and real estate companies. Continue reading...

Irreverent job posting seeks candidate to lead long-running battle against rats, which have increased in number post-pandemicHate rats? Are you a “somewhat bloodthirsty” New Yorker with excellent communication skills and “a general aura of bad assery”? Then you might have what it takes to be the city’s new rat tsar.Mayor Eric Adams’s administration posted a job listing this week seeking someone to lead the city’s long-running battle against rats. The official job title is “director of rodent mitigation”, although it was promptly dubbed the rat tsar. Salary range is $120,000 to $170,000. Continue reading...

Amid zero-Covid protests, crackdown on VPNs used for banned social media. Plus, Senate rejects paid sick leave for rail workersGood morning.Chinese authorities have initiated the highest “emergency response” level of censorship, according to leaked directives. It includes a crackdown on virtual private networks (VPNs) and other methods of bypassing online censorship after unprecedented protests demonstrated widespread public frustration with the zero-Covid policy.“Freedom in China is precious”: Tiananmen Square protest veteran salutes new generation. Activists have despaired for decades as Beijing has hardened its grip. Now they see a turning tide.Winnie the Pooh joins Chinese Covid lockdown protests. Disney stores in Japan are selling a line of merchandise featuring a frowning Pooh looking at a blank sheet of white paper – a symbol of ongoing protests in China.Biden defends contract deal. He noted the wage increases it contains. “I negotiated a contract no one else could negotiate,” Joe Biden said. “What was negotiated was so much better than anything they ever had.” Continue reading...

Former tax collector Joel Greenberg apologizes in court for ‘shameful conduct’ after pleading guilty to six federal crimesA former Florida tax collector whose arrest led to a federal investigation into US congressman Matt Gaetz has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and other offenses.Joel Greenberg, former tax collector for Seminole county, was accused of stalking a political opponent, public corruption, making fake licenses and scheming to submit false claims for a federal loan. Continue reading...