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In my school, young people were not segregated by obsolete criteria. Everyone should get this chance

The youth movement around Éric Zemmour, though small, is an indication that this deeply political generation can also be nihilistic

Predictions that the court would keep abortion as a constitutional right are starting to look incredibly optimisticIt went worse than had been expected, and expectations were already low. As the supreme court prepared to hear oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a lawsuit over a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi that constitutes the most serious challenge to Roe v Wade in a generation, many court watchers predicted a massive rollback of abortion rights. But the line among reasonable pundits was that the court, fearing censure from a largely pro-choice American public, would attempt to have its cake and eat it too – allowing states to impose abortion bans earlier in pregnancy, but keeping abortion as a constitutional right intact.The most convincing version of this argument came from Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who predicted that the court, like it did in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v Casey, might weaken the abortion right without abandoning it entirely. In Casey, the supreme court lessened the standard of scrutiny applied to state abortion restrictions – from a robust “strict scrutiny” standard to a more malleable “undue burden” standard – and affirmed that states could ban abortions outright after fetal viability, the point of gestation at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, usually at about 24 weeks. Continue reading...

Leaders won’t give up after US supreme court justices signal support for restricting abortion. Plus, have you got the pandemic body?

Out of public view, far from the high-profile convictions, sexual harassment is still scarily common

Heading into the final stretch of the regular season, no one has an unassailable case for the league’s best player. Voters could turn to an old friendWhat was set up to be a rollicking MVP race has descended into a mess.Heading into Week 13, no one has an unassailable case. Toss the league’s top quarterbacks up and they could fall down in any order over the next month: Tom Brady, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers or Kyler Murray. If you want to tack on a running back as a candidate, then feel free to add in Jonathan Taylor. But the MVP is almost exclusively a quarterback award at this point – the last non-QB to win it was Adrian Peterson in 2012. The four criteria are: Who had the best season; which team won the most games; who was the most fun to watch; who has the best story. This season, it’s hard to find anyone who ticks all the boxes. Continue reading...

As the United States turns to electric vehicles, solar and wind for its clean energy transition, the demand for lithium – used in rechargeable batteries – is on the rise. In a remote corner of the Nevada desert sits Thacker Pass, the site of a planned lithium mine that would make a major contribution to domestic supply of the mineral. But the project faces opposition from members of nearby Indigenous communities, who say the area holds spiritual, cultural and historical importance and would be irreversibly damaged by large-scale mining activity Continue reading...

Late golfer overcame the racism of 1950s America and forged an unlikely duo with notorious gambler Titanic ThompsonNow, let’s be clear about this right here at the beginning. Not all the stories they tell about Alvin “Titanic Thompson” Thomas are strictly accurate. He wasn’t given his nickname because he escaped from the ship by disguising himself as a woman and sneaking into a lifeboat. He didn’t beat Ben Hogan playing golf right-handed, he didn’t beat Byron Nelson playing left-handed, and he certainly didn’t do both back-to-back. And he never did con Al Capone out of $500 by throwing an orange over a five-storey building. According to one of his biographers it was actually a lemon. And according to the other, he swapped it with one he’d stuffed with buckshot the previous evening.But some of them are true. Or something like it. And this is one of them. Continue reading...

The former lawyer filed cases across America for the former president, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 electionSidney Powell, the former lawyer for Donald Trump who filed lawsuits across America for the former president, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has on several occasions represented to federal courts that people were co-counsel or plaintiffs in her cases without seeking their permission to do so, the Guardian has learned.Some of these individuals say that they only found out that Powell had named them once the cases were already filed. Continue reading...

We are not just tick boxes on a personality test. In these tediously unprecedented times we need a more nuanced understanding of ourselves and othersIn the spirit of getting your kicks where you can, I was tickled by former deputy chief medical officer for England Dr Jenny Harries’ recent Omicron-related advice to “be careful, not socialising when we don’t particularly need to”. What would necessary socialising look like? Can I cancel the stressful bits of Christmas and replace them with some quietly necessary drinking with a dear friend, or possibly just a cat? Could I pretend that I have responsibly chosen not to attend parties, when I haven’t actually been invited to any? I’m ready for these upsides.Harries’ advice actually feels like something of an ambivert’s charter. Ambiversion – combining introvert and extrovert traits – is very “now”. There is a theory that Covid and its attendant stresses and circumstance changes recalibrated our preconceptions about how we relate to others. Extroverts have been forced to explore a quieter life that some found they appreciated to an unexpected degree, and introverts are flourishing in a less hectically connected world, or alternatively, realising how much they need and miss human connection. We are becoming, or realising we already were, ambiverts with contradictory and complex needs in our relationships with others, not just tick boxes on a personality test.Emma Beddington is a freelance writer Continue reading...

Rightwingers in House urge Senate colleagues to stand in the way of funding bill unless it meets demandsRepublicans are preparing to shut down the American government on Friday, in the latest attempt by the party to thwart White House efforts to increase vaccine take-up, by undermining vaccine mandates across the country.Clamor is growing among some conservatives for Republican senators to oppose a stopgap funding bill, which would fund the government for the next few weeks, unless Democrats agree to not direct money towards enforcing a vaccine mandate for larger companies in the US. Continue reading...

Ex-chief of staff downplays Trump involvement in insurrection and says mob had ‘absolutely no urging’ from the president

The Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Oganization case could weaken the provisions of the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade rulingThe US supreme court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the most significant abortion rights case since the landmark 1973 supreme court ruling in Roe v Wade which effectively legalized abortion in the US.The case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, pits the leadership of Mississippi against the state’s last abortion clinic. The state seeks to ban abortion after 15 weeks gestation and asks the highest court to overturn Roe. Continue reading...

Leaders say they will look to statehouses and lower courts if justices allow undermining of Roe v WadeIn the wake of Wednesday’s supreme court hearing in which a majority of justices appeared willing to significantly curb abortion rights, reproductive rights advocates said they would continue to fight in statehouses and lower courts for the right to choose.The supreme court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, widely regarded as the most important abortion rights case in nearly five decades. Continue reading...

Former Trump DoJ official punished for refusal to comply with subpoena but gets last chance after 11th-hour statementThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack recommended on Wednesday the criminal prosecution of the former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, over his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.The select committee approved the contempt of Congress report unanimously. The resolution now heads to the full House of Representatives, which could refer Clark for prosecution in a vote that could come as soon as next week. Continue reading...

Campaign could set up a rematch between Abrams and the incumbent Republican governor, Brian KempStacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat and leading voting rights activist, has announced she will launch another campaign to become the nation’s first Black female governor.In a video announcing her candidacy, Abrams said: “Opportunity and success in Georgia shouldn’t be determined by background or access to power.” Continue reading...

‘Jane’, who did not accuse Trump or duke of misconduct, testifies in court she was introduced to former president by Jeffrey Epstein

Ethan Crumbley’s parens had been summoned to school over behavioral concerns hours before attack, authorities sayThe 15-year-old boy charged with murder and terrorism for a shooting that killed four fellow students and injured others at a Michigan high school was seen in custody via video during a court hearing on Wednesday afternoon.He appeared as county authorities revealed that his parents had been summoned to the school hours before the attack – and the county prosecutor spoke out about gun control after it was revealed that the handgun used in the shooting at Oxford high school, about 30 miles north of Detroit, belonged to the suspect’s father. Continue reading...

Conversation broke little new ground as ex-president hinted that he might run for president againDonald Trump attacked Boris Johnson’s plans for clean power, slammed the Duchess of Sussex as “disrespectful”, and voiced a litany of old grievances during a freewheeling interview with UK politician-turned-broadcaster Nigel Farage aired on British TV on Wednesday night.The conversation, billed as a “world exclusive” from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, south Florida, and broadcast on GB News, broke little new ground, beginning with the twice-impeached, one-term Republican president repeating the lie that the 2020 presidential election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, was stolen from him. Continue reading...

Biden was questioned by a reporter over a claim in a book by Trump's last chief of staff that the ex-president had tested positive for Covid-19 three days before the first 2020 presidential debate. When asked whether he thought Trump had put him at risk, Biden said: 'I don’t think about the former president'

The first confirmed case of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the US has been identified in California. In a White House news briefing, Anthony Fauci, the director of the national institute of allergies and infectious diseases and chief medical adviser to the US president, said the case was in an individual who had travelled from South Africa on 22 November and tested positive for Covid on 29 November. 'We knew it was just a matter of time,' he said

Authorities name latest victim in shooting outside Detroit as 15-year-old is charged with murder and terrorismAuthorities in Michigan on Wednesday said a 17-year-old boy had become the fourth student to die as a result of a high school shooting in the state the day before.The latest victim was named as Justin Shilling, just hours after the authorities named the other three teenagers killed in Tuesday’s shooting in Oxford, on the outskirts of Detroit. Continue reading...

After so long apart, my husband’s family were keen to load us up with tokens of affection, from cutlery sets and face creams to a freestanding hammockA cold hard coming we had of it, as TS Eliot would probably not have said of an hour in traffic looking for a Covid-testing clinic on a Hull industrial estate, a Storm Arwen-rocked ferry crossing, Rotterdam docks, lunch in a hypermarket burrito bar, then a rainy drive across three countries. But we three – not the magi, but my husband, younger son and me – finally made it from York to Normandy last weekend for a snatched pre-Christmas with his family, after two years punctuated by jerkily farcical video calls to my in-laws’ foreheads, chins or ceiling. Covid anxiety, age and illness have kept these formerly fearless travellers confined to their native France.We were not the ones bearing gifts, though. We had dinner at another relative’s house, leaving a three-hour window to visit my in-laws on Sunday morning before we headed home. Undeterred by her 8.30-11.30am slot, my mother-in-law launched us straight into breakfast on arrival with various breads and pastries, fruit and several specially acquired Christmas jams. This had to be eaten quickly, because lunch – yes, lunch – preparations were already well under way. After a brief digestive interlude, we were hustled back to the table at 10.45am for scallops, roasted guinea fowl and cabbage, then camembert.Emma Beddington is a freelance writer Continue reading...

The news network implicitly endorsed the former New York governor amid accusations of sexual harassment and corruptionFor months, CNN’s primetime anchor, Chris Cuomo, refused to cover the multiple scandals surrounding his brother, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.Chris Cuomo said it would be a conflict of interest for him to report on the sexual harassment, corruption and misuse of public funds his brother had been accused of. But many wondered how CNN could justify what amounted to a blackout of one of the nation’s top news stories during the news network’s most-watched time slot. Continue reading...

Concern over Omicron variant may lead to required test within one day of travel, possible post-travel testing and self-quarantineAmid the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, the Biden administration intends to toughen testing requirements for international travelers coming to the US, including both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in a statement on Tuesday that officials are working on a plan that would require international travelers to be tested for Covid-19 within a day before their flight to the US. Currently, fully vaccinated travelers can test for Covid-19 up to three days before their trip. Continue reading...

The far-right media pundit is now a presidential candidate – and his toxic ideas have ever more mainstream supportOn 17 November, the far-right journalist and polemicist Éric Zemmour went on trial in Paris on charges of incitement to racial hatred. In September 2020, he had said on the French news broadcaster CNews that unaccompanied foreign minors were “thieves, they’re murderers, they’re rapists, that’s all they are. We must send them back”. He did not appear at the trial and was represented by his lawyers, who said the charges were unfounded. The verdict is expected to be delivered next year.Zemmour has previously been convicted of incitement to racial hatred and religious hatred and been tried and acquitted in several other cases. But the stakes are different this time: the defendant is now a candidate for president of the French republic. In early November, polls indicated that up to 17% of the electorate would choose him for next president. This placed him behind only Emmanuel Macron, suggesting that the second round of the election could be between the two men. On 30 November, he officially announced his candidacy.Didier Fassin is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and director of studies at the École des Hautes Études, Paris Continue reading...

Former president says Prince Harry ‘has been used horribly’ in interview with Nigel FarageThe former US president Donald Trump has accused the Duchess of Sussex of being “disrespectful” to the Queen and the royal family.In a wide-ranging interview with the politician turned broadcaster Nigel Farage, Trump said he thought the Duke of Sussex had been “used horribly”. Continue reading...

Masks, vaccines, boosters, rapid tests and anti-Covid pills will all be essential in the months aheadLast week, we learned from virus sequencing and rapid reporting by South African scientists that there is a new variant with 50 mutations compared with the original Wuhan strain. It quickly was named Omicron and categorized as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization, a designation that hasbeen used for only four previous variants (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta) among thousands of variants noted in the evolution of the Sars-CoV-2 virus.We do know a few things about Omicron, namely its sequence and the site of its abundant mutations, far more than previous variants of concern, and some at spots in the virus RNA that may substantially affect transmission or impair our immune system (or vaccine-induced immunity) to respond. That is all theoretical, since there have been other mutation-laden variants in the past that were picked up but turned out to be void of any clinical consequence.Eric Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, professor of molecular medicine, and executive vice-president of Scripps Research Continue reading...

Democrat urges House Republican leaders to act after Lauren Boebert ‘jihad squad’ controversyThe US politician Ilhan Omar played a harrowing death threat left recently on her voicemail, as she implored House Republican leaders to do more to tamp down “anti-Muslim hatred” in their ranks and “hold those who perpetuate it accountable”.The Democratic Minnesota representative, one of only a handful of Muslim members of Congress, has been the subject of repeated attacks by conservative pundits and some Republicans in Congress, which she says have led to an increase in the number of death threats she receives. Continue reading...

Ilhan Omar has played an explicit death threat she received on her voicemail at a press briefing. The Democratic representative for Minnesota said threats against her life were often triggered by attacks on her faith by Republican politicians. She urged House Republican leaders to do more to counter 'anti-Muslim hatred' in their ranks

UCLA researchers and unhoused advocates raise the alarms about the catastrophe of ‘preventable’ deaths outsideNearly 1,500 unhoused people are estimated to have died on the streets of Los Angeles during the pandemic, according to a new report that raises alarms about authorities’ handling of a worsening humanitarian crisis.by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a coalition of unhoused residents, the report analyzed the LA county coroner’s records to identify 1,493 cases of people who died between March 2020 and July 2021 on the streets and were probably unhoused. The most common cause of death was accidental overdose.More than 35% of the 1,493 deaths occurred on sidewalks. The next most common sites were parking lots (13%), alleys (5.7%), tents (5.6%) and embankments (3.6%).The average age of unhoused residents who died was 47 years old.Black residents made up 25% of all unhoused deaths, while constituting only 8% of the region’s population.48% of deaths were classified as accidental, 19% natural, 13% as homicides and 9% were suicides. The rates of accidental deaths and homicides were higher among unhoused people than among the general population in that time period.Nearly 40% of the accidental deaths were attributed to drug and alcohol overdoses, mirroring the sharp increase in overdoses in the broader population. Continue reading...

Oral arguments will be heard today in the most important abortion rights case in decades, plus how Pearl Harbour changed baseball historyGood morning.The most important abortion rights case in decades, which will decide the future of abortion access across the country, begins today.Who is the case named for? It’s named for Dr Thomas Dobbs, the head of Mississippi’s health department, and Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the last abortion clinic in Mississippi.When will a decision be made? The court is not expected to issue a decision on the case until June 2022, but oral arguments may offer clues to the justices’ thinking ahead of the ruling.Why is the Mississippi abortion rights case so important? It could lead to weakening or overturning of Roe v Wade. If that were to happen, tens of millions people of reproductive age across the country would be affected.When did Trump admit he had Covid? Not until 2 October. The White House said he announced that result within an hour of receiving it. He went to hospital later that day.When will the memoir be out? Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, will be published next week by All Seasons Press, a conservative outlet.Meanwhile, Meadows has agreed to testify before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack. Continue reading...

It took a long time for the West Coast to host a Major League Baseball team. And the wait was increased by the events of the second world warJapan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 80 years ago not only ensured the United States’ entry into the second world war. It inadvertently but categorically changed baseball history.One day after the attack, Major League Baseball’s owners were expected to approve the move of the American League’s St Louis Browns to Los Angeles for 1942 – 16 years before Walter O’Malley’s former Brooklyn Dodgers played their first season on the West Coast. The Browns felt so confident that they even scheduled a press conference in Los Angeles to announce the move on the afternoon of Monday 8 December 1941. Continue reading...

Critics say decision from legislatures in four states in effect pays people for not getting vaccinatedSome Republican states are expanding unemployment benefits for employees who have been fired or quit over vaccine mandates, a move critics say in effect pays people for not getting vaccinated.Four states – Iowa, Tennessee, Florida, and Kansas – have changed their rules on unemployment to include people who have been terminated or who have chosen to leave their jobs because of their employers’ vaccine policies. Continue reading...

Witness identified as ‘Jane’ alleges Epstein began sexual abuse when she was 14 and says Maxwell was sometimes in the room

Mark Meadows makes stunning admission in new memoir obtained by Guardian, saying a second test returned negativeDonald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 three days before his first debate against Joe Biden, the former president’s fourth and last chief of staff has revealed in a new book.Mark Meadows also writes that though he knew each candidate was required “to test negative for the virus within seventy two hours of the start time … Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there”. Continue reading...

Students report there had been rumors of possible violence at the school ‘for a long time’A 15-year-old student opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three other students and wounding eight other people, authorities say.Oakland county undersheriff Mike McCabe identified the three students who were killed as a 16-year-old boy and two girls, ages 14 and 17. He said two of the wounded were undergoing surgery as of Tuesday evening and six others were in stable condition. One of the people wounded was a schoolteacher, authorities said. Continue reading...

A 15-year-old boy killed three fellow pupils and wounded eight others after opening fire with a semi-automatic handgun at a school in Oxford, Michigan. Those killed were a 16-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl. The suspect was believed to have acted alone and was arrested without resistance after firing 15 to 20 shots. The suspect has declined to speak to police. Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, offered condolences at the scene, saying: 'I think this is every parent's worst nightmare.'

The governor hailed the 7-4 decision as a ‘victory for the health and safety’ of the state’s residentsA federal appeals court has upheld California’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, overturning a previous ruling from a lower court and handing a victory to gun control advocates.In a 7-4 vote on Tuesday, the ninth circuit court of appeals ruled that limits on large-scale magazines do not violate second amendment rights nor notably limit the ability to defend oneself. The ruling supports the constitutionality of California laws that ban magazines holding 10 or more rounds of ammunition. Continue reading...

Lead investigator says two dozen officers spent about 3,000 hours pursuing ‘horrible hate crime’ but concluded attack was stagedThe lead investigator of an alleged attack on the actor Jussie Smollett on Tuesday denied claims by defense attorneys that Chicago police rushed to judgment, saying about two dozen detectives clocked some 3,000 hours on what they thought was a “horrible hate crime” before concluding the former Empire star had staged a hoax.Taking the stand as prosecutors began their case, former Chicago police detective Michael Theis said he initially viewed Smollett as a victim of a homophobic and racist attack and that his team “absolutely” did not rush to judgment. Continue reading...

Author struggles with role she played ‘within a system that sent an innocent man to jail’ after Anthony Broadwater, 61, exoneratedThe author Alice Sebold apologized on Tuesday to the man who was exonerated last week of the 1981 rape that was the basis for her memoir Lucky.Sebold said she was struggling with the role she played “within a system that sent an innocent man to jail”. Continue reading...

Each morning draws a crowd of onlookers as Maxwell’s own movements remain a mysteryGhislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial in New York is an early morning affair, reporters, court artists, protesters and onlookers gathering as early as 6am each day to get in the courthouse or, in some cases, simply to get their message out.When the doors of the court open at 9am – and at lunch and 4pm – a line of black SUVs ferries well-turned parties in and out, a reminder, perhaps, that in some eyes at least this is about a public display of accountability for the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein as well as Maxwell’s trial on a set of criminal charges. Continue reading...

Stock markets dip as CEO questions efficacy but others move to calm fears about risk of serious illness

Lawyer says Officer Kim Potter will speak at trial about traffic stop shooting, where she claimed she mistook her gun for a TaserThe suburban Minneapolis police officer who shot Daunte Wright will testify at her manslaughter trial, her attorney said on Tuesday as jury selection began with potential panelists being questioned closely about their attitudes on policing, protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.One of Kim Potter’s attorneys, Paul Engh, told a potential juror she would hear directly from Potter about the traffic stop that ended in the death of the 20-year-old Black motorist last April. Continue reading...

Meadows will appear for a deposition and provide documents exempt from executive privilege before the committeeFormer Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will testify before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack as part of an initial cooperation agreement reached with his lawyer, the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, announced on Tuesday.The agreement involves Meadows appearing for a deposition and providing documents that are not protected by executive privilege. The move is aimed at staving off the threat of criminal prosecution for defying a subpoena in its entirety. Continue reading...

Oz, upbraided in 2015 over promotion of ‘quack treatments’ for financial gain, planning to run for Pat Toomey’s Pennsylvania seatDr Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon best known as the host of TV’s Dr Oz Show, is planning to run for Pennsylvania’s open US Senate seat as a Republican, according to two people familiar with his plans.Should Oz run, he would bring unrivaled name recognition and wealth to a race expected to be among the nation’s most competitive and could determine control of the Senate next year. Continue reading...