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The Democrat, who had a stroke in May, struggled in the debate format. But on the merits, he’s better than his Republican rivalJohn Fetterman can still become the next senator from Pennsylvania, the Democrat who safeguards their fragile majority. He is effectively tied or leads in many reputable polls, and he’s been a prodigious fundraiser throughout the race. Few left-leaning Democrats, in such foreboding terrain, have engineered a coalition this formidable.All of this must be stated outright because Fetterman’s lone televised debate performance was disastrous. In May, he suffered a stroke, and he could not speak consistently and coherently on Tuesday against his Republican opponent, Dr Mehmet Oz. While partisans online defended his speaking style and pleaded for empathy – all victims of health calamities certainly deserve it – it was inarguable that Fetterman struggled, and even sympathetic observers acknowledged a debate format was a steep challenge. Fetterman is simply not the candidate he was before his stroke.Ross Barkan is a writer based in New York Continue reading...

The new PM promised integrity and competence. Instead we got a dangerous dependency – which Labour can weaponise“Thank God Suella Braverman is back,” writes one Telegraph columnist. “Her determination to crack down on crime and illegal immigration undoubtedly chimes with the views of the country, and especially voters in the Red Wall. Thank God there is someone in the Cabinet to put forward those views.”Her return is not an oddity, not a pantomime joke, but proves how deeply Rishi Sunak is in hock to the hard right, like every Tory leader from John Major onwards. The party will rewrite the past week’s knife-edge drama as a smooth and inevitable coronation of its princeling, but his frantic scramble for the wrong votes tells another story. Restoring Braverman to the Home Office and boasting of party “unity” unites him with the obnoxious wing that drove the Tories to this post-Brexit dead end. The Express, closest to that faction, reveals that in the last hours battling with Boris Johnson, Sunak was so needy for rightwing support that he called Braverman no fewer than six times begging for her backing and that of the wing she represents; Keir Starmer called that out in PMQs as “a grubby deal”. The first heady days are a leader’s moment of maximum power with every job in their gift – and yet Sunak emerges as another Tory PM too weak to face down those old wrecking “bastards”.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Police say mother of 19-year-old accused of killing two at high school on Monday wanted AR-15-style rifle removed from houseThe 19-year-old suspect who killed a teacher and a 15-year-old student in a shooting spree at a St Louis high school on Monday had the assault rifle he used confiscated by police just days before his attack.The St Louis police commissioner has confirmed that shortly before the school shooting, officers were called to the man’s home by his parents who were worried about him and wanted the AR-15 style rifle removed. Continue reading...

Trump’s former chief of staff must answer questions about alleged attempt to overturn 2020 election resultA judge on Wednesday ordered the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before a special grand jury investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn Georgia’s results in the 2020 election.Meadows is a key figure in the investigation. He traveled to Georgia, sat in on calls with state officials and coordinated and communicated with influencers either encouraging or discouraging the pressure campaign. Continue reading...

More liberal policies on environment, gun safety, labor, economic taxes and tobacco taxes associated with lower mortalityAmericans die younger in conservative states than in those governed by liberals, a new study has found.The authors wrote: “Simulations indicate that changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives.” Continue reading...

Oliver Laughland travels to Walt Disney World, Florida, to see how a law restricting the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues is affecting voters in the run-up to the midterm elections. Republicans extended their majority in the state in 2020, and with far-right Governor Ron DeSantis up for re-election, will his divisive culture wars help him win a second term?

With famine in Somalia almost inevitable, $100bn a year pledge criticised. Plus, China is locking down parts of Wuhan againGood morning.Billions of dollars ostensibly committed to addressing the impacts of the climate crisis in poorer countries are not being delivered, the UN’s humanitarian chief has declared. Martin Griffiths said he was “scrambling to try to understand” where a promised $100bn a year agreed at the UN climate change conference in 2009 by richer countries has gone.Follow the money. The Green Climate Fund was created as a way to deliver the money promised in 2009, but its impact has been limited since rich countries often channel their financing through the World Bank or regional development banks.‘Woman, life, freedom’. As many as 10,000 mourners attended Amini’s gravesite yesterday despite security services warning her family not to hold the ceremony and commanding a heavy presence in the city. The shootings appear to have happened when a smaller group marched to the governor’s office in Saqqez. Continue reading...

After Tuesday’s Senate debate, activists describe their career experiences and the standards by which we judge competenceWhen John Fetterman took the debate stage on Tuesday night in his high-stakes bid to become Pennsylvania’s next US senator, the focus wasn’t on his opponent Dr Mehmet Oz’s conspiracy theories or far-right views: it was on the effects of Fetterman’s recent stroke. The lieutenant governor used a close-captioning device and fumbled some of his sentences – which some commentators claimed was evidence that he was not “fit to serve”.But some people with disabilities saw things differently: someone adapting to a life crisis anyone could experience. Continue reading...

In two rural California counties, voters are showing increasing hostility and aggression toward election workersInside the office of the Shasta county clerk and registrar of voters, which runs elections for about 111,000 people in this part of far northern California, Cathy Darling Allen can see all the security improvements she would make if she had the budget.“We have plexi on the counter downstairs for Covid but that won’t stop a person. It’s literally just clamped to the counters,” the county clerk and registrar said. For about $50,000, the office could secure the front, limiting access to upstairs offices, she estimated. Another county put bulletproof glass in their lobby years earlier, she knew, something officials there at one point considered removing, though not any more. Continue reading...

It was a struggle for Black Britons to make headway 50 years ago, and it still is now – but it is important to fight onFifty years ago, when racists called and wrote daily letters to ITV’s Today programme in 1968 telling the corporation “Get that nigger off our screens”, they were speaking about me, the first visibly Black TV journalist in Britain.It resulted in me losing my job, having been in post just nine months. The official excuse at the time was, “She didn’t fit in with the programme.” But this was not what I was told when the producer showed me the complaint letters, and then the door. Continue reading...

Acceptance of subpoena means former president must settle upon his response to sweeping demand from January 6 investigatorsDonald Trump’s attorneys have now accepted service of the subpoena issued by the January 6 select committee, setting into motion the countdown for the former US president to inform the panel investigating the Capitol attack whether he intends to cooperate with the congressional investigation.The acceptance of the subpoena means Trump must settle on his response to the sweeping demand from the panel – requesting documents and testimony about contacts with political figures as well as far-right groups that stormed the Capitol – that will set him on a path without room for reversal. Continue reading...

Independent hopeful with bipartisan support, along with funds from state’s richest man, could deliver victory to Christine DrazanFor the first time in more than 40 years, a Republican could win the governor’s seat in Oregon, breaching the seemingly solid Democratic line of states running along the Pacific coastline of the US.The tight race between former Oregon House speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, and former Oregon House minority leader Christine Drazan, a Republican, which in the latest polling showed Drazan with a hairline lead, indicates a rebuff of the current term-limited liberal governor, Kate Brown. Continue reading...

Brian Daboll has overseen plenty of narrow wins, which is often a sign of luck rather than skill. But his team are doing plenty of things rightBill Parcells’ old axiom that “you are what your record says you are” is a nice bit of football folklore but it can often be misleading.There are plenty of average teams who sputter their way to a winning record, only to be found out in the postseason. Conversely, there are good ones who fall away due to injuries, bad luck, or being stuck in an unusually competitive division with a tough schedule. Continue reading...

I’ve tried everything, from Pritt Stick to antiperspirant, but they refuse to stay putMy spectacles keep slipping down my nose. They’ve been doing so roughly every 10 minutes since the dark day in 1980 when an optician in Stourbridge lodged some specs on this 13-year-old and blighted his life for ever.Indoors or out, whatever the ambient conditions, down they slip. I’m writing this in my cool, calm, air-conditioned dressing room as I wait to appear on Loose Women on ITV. And down my specs are slipping. I push them back up, and back down they go. Up down up down up down, all day every day, for nearly half a century. Continue reading...

Lawyer Gloria Allred introduces woman as Jane Doe who alleges anti-abortion candidate drove her to a clinic in the 1990sAnother woman has claimed that Herschel Walker pressured her into having an abortion and drove her to a clinic to obtain one.On Wednesday, lawyer Gloria Allred – who has represented numerous alleged victims of sexual misconduct and assault – introduced to reporters a woman who alleges Walker, the anti-abortion Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, took her to an abortion clinic to have an abortion in the 1990s. Continue reading...

Spike, a beloved marine animal known to scientists since 2018, was found washed ashore near Vancouver IslandThe nearly 32ft hulking frame of a male humpback whale was found splayed on sands near California’s Fort Bragg on Saturday – the fourth whale to wash ashore along the coasts of Mendocino this year.A day later, a young female humpback would also be found dead far north near Vancouver Island. She was known to scientists as “Spike”, after being first documented in 2018. Continue reading...

Jury deliberates for 35 minutes before returning death sentence for Robert Solis, convicted of shooting dead Sandeep DhaliwalA man was sentenced to death on Wednesday for the fatal 2019 shooting of a law enforcement officer who was the first Sikh deputy in his Texas agency.A Harris county jury deliberated for about 35 minutes before returning the death sentence for Robert Solis, 50, after convicting him of capital murder on 17 October in Harris county sheriff’s deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal’s killing. Continue reading...

Writer of over a dozen books and California’s ‘prophet of doom’ told the Guardian in August: ‘Despair is useless’Mike Davis, the California historian who became famous for his prophetic warnings of social unrest and ecological disaster, died on Tuesday after a long struggle with esophageal cancer. He was 76.In more than a dozen books, Davis exposed the power struggles and betrayals that shaped the landscape and the people of southern California, where he grew up, and also explored how similar power struggles between elites and working class people played out around the world. Continue reading...

Taste of Soul elevates Black cultural experience and aids local businesses through food, music and art in InglewoodAs the sun began to break through the clouds over Los Angeles, cousins Glynis Phillips and Kim Polk danced their way up Crenshaw Boulevard. Music blared from a nearby stage, and the smell of barbecue wafted from a food truck.“Oh, we ain’t done dancing,” Phillips said, reaching out to Polk with a laugh. Continue reading...

Darrell Brooks faces multiple life sentences for Milwaukee SUV attack that killed six and injured scores of other parade-goersA Wisconsin man was convicted on Wednesday of killing six people and injuring dozens of others when he drove his SUV through a Christmas parade last year, wrapping up a trial in which he defended himself with bizarre legal theories and erratic outbursts.It took the jury a little over three hours to find Darrell Brooks guilty of all 76 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide. He faces a mandatory life sentence on each homicide count. Continue reading...

Vladimir Putin’s defeat in Ukraine is needed for the restoration of hope to Russians wanting a better future for themselves as well as their neighboursVladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine, but this does not make him any less dangerous. A despot whose authority at home depends on projecting strength abroad cannot afford the humiliation of defeat. So far, the Russian president has responded to every setback with more aggression. That involves more indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civil infrastructure. But Mr Putin also makes more demands of Russians. When the war began, civilian support for what censorship laws insisted on calling a “special military operation” was high, but mostly passive. Saturated with Kremlin propaganda, most of the country accepted the deranged official version of events – that Ukrainians were crying out for “liberation” by Russian soldiers.But there was also dissent and protest in defiance of repression. Tens of thousands of people left the country in horror when the war began. Their number was then swollen by Mr Putin’s decision last month to declare a “partial mobilisation” of fighting-age men.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Steve Long, defending Shotgun Willie’s over death of Randall Wright in 2019, found dead after evening at club earlier this monthA trial centering on the death of a retail company executive at a Colorado strip club in 2019 has been delayed after a lawyer defending the club died there too.Steve Long was defending the strip club, Shotgun Willie’s in Glendale, in a lawsuit alleging it was liable for the death of Randall Wright, a customer, three years ago. The case was supposed to go to trial on 7 November. Continue reading...

Ye’s actions are straight out of Trump’s playbook of chaos. But online trolling all too often has real-world consequencesIf there has been a single enjoyable aspect to the initially sad, latterly alarming downfall of Ye, the rapper and mogul formerly known as Kanye West, it has been the sound of screeching tyres this week as successive associates understood – finally – that supporting him wasn’t in their interests, and slammed on the brakes.Without Ye and his frothing antisemitism, we might have been denied a trot around the little known origins of Adidas, official sports shoe of the German Olympics team in 1936, and, until Tuesday, one of Ye’s many lucrative sponsors. Continue reading...

Ron Smith and his girlfriend, Brenda Jeanan Volpe, weren’t wearing helmets in fatal August crashFor almost a decade, Ron Smith, an attorney and avid motorcycle rider from Pinellas county, Florida, advocated against laws which said motorcyclists had to wear helmets to ride. Eventually, the state law changed.This August, Smith, 66, and his girlfriend, Brenda Jeanan Volpe, 62, died in a fatal motorcycle crash. Neither was wearing a helmet, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Continue reading...

Rightwing news outlets and commentators called for candidate to drop out of race while campaign said it raised $1m on back of eventAs the dust settled over Tuesday night’s sole televised debate in the crucial US Senate race in Pennsylvania, pundits were starkly divided over the impact of the Democrat John Fetterman’s struggles with speech in his recovery from a stroke.The Pennsylvania lieutenant governor raised the issue of his auditory processing disorder, which makes it difficult for him to understand certain spoken words, in his opening remarks in the debate with his Republican rival, the former TV doctor Mehmet Oz. Continue reading...

Joe Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico and Paul Bellar found guilty of providing ‘material support’ for terrorist actThree men accused of supporting a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, were convicted of all charges on Wednesday, a triumph for state prosecutors after months of mixed results in the main case in federal court.Joe Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were found guilty of providing “material support” for a terrorist act as members of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen. Continue reading...

1,000 people participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 unwanted pythons from the wildA 19-year-old south Florida man captured 28 Burmese pythons in a 10-day competition created to increase awareness about the threat the invasive snakes pose to state ecology.Matthew Concepcion was among the 1,000 people from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 of the unwanted pythons, the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission said. Continue reading...

Average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose by 22 basis points to 7.16% last weekThe average interest rate on the most popular US home loan rose to its highest level since 2001 as tightening financial conditions weigh on the housing sector, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) showed on Wednesday.The average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose by 22 basis points to 7.16% for the week ended 21 October while the MBA’s Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, fell 1.7% from a week earlier. Mortgage application activity is at its slowest pace since 1997. Continue reading...

From the US, there are clear lessons for other countries tempted to go down the same post-Brexit, mirage-filled roadThe last few months of Westminster drama are both so plainly watchable and so painfully bamboozling.It’s like being forced to sit through a game of cricket or baseball. The beer and the snacks are fine, but the game only makes sense to the insiders who have been thrilled by the secret strategies since childhood. Continue reading...

Teams owned by and named for Australian entrepreneur Adam Gilchrist will not compete but team in new city due in 2022Major League Rugby, the US men’s professional rugby union competition, will operate with 12 teams next season, down from 13 with the withdrawal of Los Angeles and Austin but with the addition of an expansion team, possibly based in Chicago.Announcing the news on Tuesday, the MLR commissioner, George Killebrew, said: “While we understand that this news is disappointing for the fans, players, and stakeholders of these two teams, this decision was made after much deliberation and counsel, and with the best interests of the league in mind. Continue reading...

New exhumations will be followed by new search for bodies in Oklahoma cemetery linked to 1921 atrocitySome of 19 bodies previously exhumed for testing in an effort to identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and then reburied in an Oklahoma cemetery will be exhumed again starting on Wednesday, to gather more DNA.None of the remains recovered thus far have been confirmed as victims of the massacre, in which more than 1,000 homes were burned, hundreds were looted and a thriving business district known as Black Wall Street was destroyed. Continue reading...

Former president told Washington Post reporter: ‘We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before’In a taped conversation with Bob Woodward, Donald Trump boasted about US nuclear weapons development.“I have built a weapon system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” the then president told the veteran Washington Post reporter. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.” Continue reading...

Two-time champions Portland Thorns are the favourites in Saturday’s game, but Kansas City Current have the beliefWelcome to Moving the Goalposts, the Guardian’s free women’s football newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version once a week, just pop your email in below:Old meets new on Saturday evening at Washington DC’s Audi Field, which hosts the NWSL Championship final between the two-time champions Portland Thorns and a Kansas City Current side in their second season. Continue reading...

In this, one of a series of essays on the war in Ukraine from countries in or neighbouring the former Soviet bloc, a Georgian playwright says the government is out of step with the anti-Putin popular moodWhen Russia’s modern tsar escalated his war by announcing the partial mobilisation of reservists on 21 September, another wave of anxiety swept over Georgia. With due acknowledgment that every word written from this region at the moment should be about, or in support of, the Ukrainian people and their struggle, this anxiety is why I’m diverting to focus briefly on how we see this brutal war from Georgia, which, thanks to historical and geopolitical misfortune, happens to be a southern neighbour of Russia.The invasion of Ukraine has revived painful collective and personal memories of Russia’s 2008 war on Georgia. The trauma from this not-so-distant past rose to the surface again in February and has remained there. The current government of Georgia has tried to ignore it altogether, as if it had never happened. Continue reading...

US president and new British PM reaffirm ‘special relationship’ after Sunak becomes Britain’s third leader in 2022. Plus, TikTok risks being a vector of misinformation in run-up to midterm elections

For Adrian Fontes, the secretary of state election is a battle for the ‘fate of the republic’ against his rightwing election-denying opponent, Mark Finchem“BELIEVE”. The word is written in large blue letters above the door of Adrian Fontes’s campaign office in Scottsdale, Arizona, a replica of Ted Lasso’s motivational sign from the hit TV show featuring an American football coach thrown into the bear pit of the English Premier League.“It speaks to me,” Fontes explained. “It says that ‘You can do it’ is a question of faith.” Continue reading...

Workers across the US allege the company is fending off efforts to organize as election petition to be resubmitted in CaliforniaWorkers at Amazon are increasing pressure on the world’s largest retailer with strikes and protests aimed at improving working conditions and wages as the company continues to fend off unionization efforts.The unionization movement at Amazon, which has garnered worldwide attention, suffered a recent setback when it lost a vote at a warehouse outside of Albany, New York, amid numerous charges of unfair labor practices. Continue reading...

Ex-president eyeing Chris LaCivita, whose 2004 ‘Swift Boat’ campaign questioned Kerry’s Vietnam war recordAs he prepares a possible new presidential campaign, Donald Trump is seeking to recruit an operative who was behind a group which famously questioned the Vietnam war record of the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry, the Washington Post reported.The operative who ran Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Chris LaCivita, worked for one Trump-aligned political action committee during the 2020 election and now runs another. He is also a consultant for Ron Johnson, a Trump-supporting Wisconsin senator fighting for re-election. Continue reading...

New evidence shows that the conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal – who has spent over 40 years in prison – was tainted, prompting calls for a re-examinationMumia Abu-Jamal, the best known of the African American radicals incarcerated for decades for their actions during the black liberation struggle of the 1970s and 80s, is petitioning a Pennsylvania court for a new trial after the discovery of fresh evidence that casts doubt on his conviction.Abu-Jamal’s case will come before the court of common pleas in Philadelphia on Wednesday. The hearing could be one of the prisoner’s last attempts at freedom after more than 40 years behind bars, including two decades on death row, for the murder of a white police officer – a crime for which he has always insisted he is innocent. Continue reading...

Jonathan Capehart, who interviewed US president for TV network, says he is sure Biden is preparing to run againJoe Biden is “totally running” for a second term, the MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart has said, just days after interviewing the US president.The oldest president ever inaugurated, Biden will turn 80 on 20 November. Continue reading...

The two candidates for the competitive Senate seat argued over the economy, crime and the tone of Republican attacks on the Democrat candidates health

The woman alleges the producer raped her in 2013 and is the first of eight witnesses providing testimony during the trialA woman who accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her in 2013 testified on Tuesday that the attack left her wanting to “destroy” herself.The woman, a model and actor living and working in Rome who was in Los Angeles at the time for a film festival, is the first of eight Weinstein accusers set to testify in a courtroom in Los Angeles where the 70-year-old movie mogul is on trial on multiple counts of rape and sexual assault. Continue reading...

A new report says sheriffs’ patrols spend more time conducting racially biased stops than they do responding to calls for helpBlack drivers in California’s capital are nearly five times more likely than white motorists to get pulled over by sheriffs for traffic violations, according to a new report on racial profiling across the state.Records from the county sheriff’s departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside show that Black Californians were disproportionately stopped across those regions in 2019, especially for minor infractions. Continue reading...

Tennessee woman was serving six-year sentence before prosecutors’ withholding of crucial document came to lightA Tennessee woman who had a six-year prison sentence for voter fraud overturned this year is suing state and local officials for damages, claiming she was wrongfully prosecuted and incarcerated.Pamela Moses, a 44-year-old Memphis activist, was sentenced to six years in prison in January after prosecutors said she tried to register to vote knowing she was ineligible because of a prior felony conviction. She was convicted even though two government officials, including a probation officer who conceded he made an error, signed off on a state form affirming her eligibility. The case prompted national outrage. Continue reading...

Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debateIn the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”. Continue reading...

Election denier calls for hand counts are starting to play out weeks before the midterms, setting stage for confusion and chaosA small border county in Arizona voted to conduct a hand count audit of all ballots, disregarding legal warnings from the county’s attorney and threats of lawsuits and investigations.The decision creates a wave of uncertainty for elections workers in the county just two weeks before election day and with early voting, the primary way Arizonans cast ballots, already underway. Continue reading...

Letter was drafted months ago and ‘released by staff without vetting’, says Pramila Jayapal