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This rip-roaring spectacle delivered a celebratory atmosphere in a vibrant reprise of England captivating an entire nationUnder an almost full moon, England poured a few more golden rays of sunshine. As homecomings go, this ticked most boxes: a celebratory atmosphere; the national stadium near enough full; the palpable sense of occasion as the tube station funnelled its public down on to Olympic Way. Then there was the rip-roaring spectacle delivered inside and the invigorating sense that, while the Lionesses’ summer heroics were its springboard, there is still no telling exactly where they will land.The answer may be known by 20 August, when the World Cup’s two best teams will square off at Stadium Australia. It is hardly outrageous to suggest we were watching them here. England and USA served up a sometimes alarmingly open, consistently full-throttle affair that simultaneously meant nothing and everything. Even if no prizes were on offer, there in plain sight was the proof that England’s sights should be limitless: that, in delivering only their third win in 19 iterations of this fixture, they have set down a marker at a time of seemingly inexorable momentum. Continue reading...

As litigation continues, abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy remain legal in stateThe American Civil Liberties Union and other abortion rights groups have won a ruling from a lower court in Ohio that has indefinitely blocked the state’s ban on terminating pregnancies after six weeks.In a statement released on Friday, the ACLU announced that Judge Christian Jenkins of the Hamilton county court of common pleas said that it would grant abortion providers’ and advocates’ request for a preliminary injunction against Ohio’s senate bill 23 (SB 23), a law that prohibits abortions starting at roughly a month and a half of pregnancy. Continue reading...

Merced officers suspect Alberto Salgado helped destroy evidence in the abduction and killings of four members of the Singh familyThe younger brother of a man suspected in the kidnapping and killings of an eight-month-old baby, her parents and an uncle, was arrested on suspicion he helped his brother destroy evidence, authorities said on Friday.Alberto Salgado, 41, was arrested late Thursday and accused of criminal conspiracy, accessory and destroying evidence, the Merced county sheriff’s office said. He is booked in the Merced county jail – the same place where Jesus Salgado, 48, is being held on kidnapping and murder charges. It was not clear whether either brother had a lawyer who could speak on their behalf. Continue reading...

Nebraska senator, to take top post at University of Florida, is latest GOP legislator to leave Capitol Hill after voting to impeach in 2021Another Republican who stood up to Donald Trump is on his way out of Congress, with the news that the Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is set to become president of the University of Florida.Of the 10 House Republicans and seven senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, for inciting the January 6 Capitol attack, only two congressmen and four senators are on course to return after the midterm elections. Continue reading...

US president made most outspoken remark on threat of wartime nuclear weapons when speaking at a fundraiser on ThursdayThe White House has said that Joe Biden’s warning of “Armageddon” if Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine was not based on any new intelligence suggesting such nuclear use is imminent.The US president issued his warning at a private fundraising event in New York on Thursday evening, in his most outspoken remarks yet on the threat of wartime nuclear weapons being used for the first time since 1945. Continue reading...

‘We have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture,’ says press secretary

The former US president is trying to exclude a specific set of seized documents from an inquiry into his handling of government recordsDonald Trump is seeking to withhold from the justice department two folders marked as containing correspondence with the National Archives and signing sheets that the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to court filings in the special master review of the confiscated documents.The former US president’s privilege assertions over the folders, which appear to have direct relevance to the criminal investigation into whether he retained national defense information and obstructed justice, are significant as they represent an effort to exclude the items from the inquiry and keep them confidential. Continue reading...

District says activities have been halted ‘for a period of time’ amid investigation of response to May massacreThe school district in Uvalde, Texas, suspended its entire police force on Friday, five months after a shooting in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, the district said in a statement.The moved followed a wave of outrage over the hiring of a former Texas state trooper who was part of the hesitant law enforcement response during the May shooting at Robb elementary school. Continue reading...

Agents killed Manuel González Morán, 33, who was detained in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday after first using stun gun on himUS federal agents say a Mexican man they shot dead at a border patrol station in Texas this week advanced on them while wielding an “edged weapon” – reported to have been a pair of scissors.Border patrol agents shot Manuel González Morán, 33, in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday. They had detained him for allegedly re-entering the US without permission. He died after being taken to hospital.The Associated Press contributed reporting Continue reading...

CDC researchers found that Black and Hispanic communities saw the sharpest increase in firearm deaths in the USUS firearm homicides and suicides jumped to their highest rates in three decades from 2020 to 2021, according to a report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The CDC reported that gun-related homicides and suicides both climbed by more than 8% in 2021. Firearms caused 47,286 homicide and suicide deaths, after 43,675 in 2020. Continue reading...

Eric Adams says he expects to spend at least $1bn by end of fiscal year on crisis as Texas governor continues to send migrantsThe mayor of New York, Eric Adams, on Friday declared a state of emergency, amid an influx of migrants sent to the city by the Republican governor of Texas.Speaking to reporters at city hall, Adams said he expected to spend at least $1bn by the end of the fiscal year in effort to address the problem. Continue reading...

For older activists like me, the uprising has reopened old scars and breathed new life into our long struggle for freedomWomen, life, freedom. These words have become the rallying cry for protest that has erupted in the wake of the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s feared morality police. They are shaking the Iranian regime to its core.Unlike past movements, this uprising cuts across generations and social classes. For young Iranian women, Amini’s death ignited an explosion of pent-up fury at the regime’s suppression of women’s rights. For older activists like me, it has reopened the scars from previous uprisings and breathed new life into the decades-long struggle for freedom.Nasrin Parvaz is a women’s rights activist and torture survivor from Iran. Her books include A Prison Memoir: One Woman’s Struggle in Iran, and the novel The Secret Letters from X to ADo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

New rules include measure to exclude China from using semiconductor chips made anywhere in world with US toolsThe Biden administration on Friday published a sweeping set of export controls, including a measure to cut China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with US tools, vastly expanding its reach in its attempt to slow Beijing’s technological and military advances.The rules, some of which go into effect immediately, build on restrictions sent in letters earlier this year to top toolmakers KLA Corp, Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc, in effect requiring them to halt shipments of equipment to wholly Chinese-owned factories producing advanced logic chips. Continue reading...

Global film greats flocked to the festival because of its dedication to the art – and because they know great pictures are nothing without great picturehousesI remember the shock when Alfred Hitchcock died. For film fans in Edinburgh, Scotland and further afield, Thursday was a similar body blow. The city’s great cultural cinema, Filmhouse, and its august Edinburgh international film festival have both ceased trading.Martin Scorsese, Maggie Cheung, the Coen Brothers, Andrei Tarkovsky, Lynne Ramsay, Leslie Caron, Steve Martin, Bill Forsyth, Derek Jarman, Thelma Schoonmaker, Michael Powell and many others went to Filmhouse like moths to a flame, seeking what I sought when I first went in 1984: a place to come out as movie lover. An exhilaration, and a harbour in which to shelter and from which to sail. Continue reading...

The Georgia senate candidate has garnered support from Donald Trump to Lindsey GrahamRepublicans and anti-abortion groups across the country have been flocking to Herschel Walker’s defense despite accusations that the Republican candidate for Georgia’s senate paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009.After the accusation from an alleged ex-girlfriend was first reported in the Daily Beast, some of the country’s most influential Republicans have been either echoing Walker’s denial of the abortion or remaining in deafening silence, in turn revealing a clear hypocrisy towards the issue of abortion rights. Continue reading...

The sham referendums serve only to highlight that many once pro-Russian Ukrainians are turning their backs on MoscowVladimir Putin has convinced himself that “reunification” of south-east Ukraine and Russia is a historic inevitability – so obvious that it will warrant just a paragraph in the heroic textbook he’s writing in his head. But the recent announcement by the Kremlin that the vast majority of the residents of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts voted to break away and join Russia is the product of an absurd fantasy. This is obvious to the region’s war-scattered residents and even to myself, who spent the past six years working on humanitarian and development projects in Sievierodonetsk, the temporary capital of Luhansk oblast.This is because this easternmost corner of Ukraine has always been where questions of its national identity and cultural entanglement with Russia are most laid bare.Brian Milakovsky has worked in Ukraine and Russia on ecological, humanitarian and development issues since 2009. He and his family fled Ukraine after the invasion. They now reside in LatviaComments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. Continue reading...

Little Miss Hot Mess responds to Florida Republican senator after he used footage of her reading to childrenA drag queen called the Florida senator Marco Rubio a bigot, after the Republican included her in a campaign ad in which he attacked “the radical left”.Lil Miss Hot Mess, who performs in Los Angeles, responded to Rubio in a video after he used footage of her reading to children during Drag Queen Story Hour, a children’s program that started in 2015. Continue reading...

Republican Senate candidates Mehmet Oz, JD Vance and Herschel Walker likely to receive majority of Trump’s assistanceDonald Trump is expected to launch dozens of television ads to boost Republicans in key races across the country, with the former US president asserting his political influence as the campaigns head into the final stretch of the midterm elections, according to sources familiar with the matter.The spots – funded through a newly and specially created political action committee christened Maga Inc, an abbreviation for the Make America Great Again slogan – are anticipated to come in several waves of messaging over the coming weeks, the sources said. Continue reading...

A new Netflix documentary explores how the late NBA star helped provide some comfort for a team and country in turmoilIn the first decade of the 21st-century, America endured turmoil on multiple fronts. Following the devastating tragedy of 9/11, the nation would also find itself in the midst of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while a financial crisis at home nearly destroyed the housing market.The vulnerability even trickled down to the US men’s basketball team, a seemingly invincible force during the Dream Team days of Magic, Jordan, Barkley, and Bird. But the NBA star-packed squad would lose its allure following collapses at the 2002 Fiba World Championships, where the Americans lost to Yugoslavia in the quarter-finals, and the debacle at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where they went home with bronze. Continue reading...

State’s corrections department says things are ‘under control’ after labor strike began in September over conditions, but images and interviews say otherwiseLast Friday, five days after Alabama prisoners launched a statewide labor strike, Republican governor Kay Ivey stood on the steps of the governor’s mansion and assured reporters that the head of the state’s beleaguered corrections department had things “well under control”.But images and interviews from inside the state’s prisons show a system in disarray, with deteriorating conditions, pervasive violence, multiple deaths and little oversight from staff. Continue reading...

‘Long overdue’ move could herald federal legalization. Plus, mother of dead Iranian schoolgirl accuses authorities

Megan Rapinoe and her teammates are 'exhausted' after the release of the Sally Yates report into emotional and sexual abuse in the NWSL, but she added that the US women’s national team are used to shouldering off-field burdens. 'We're angry and exhausted and together, and unified. So, it's kind of all of it.'

Another NHL season has arrived with no shortage of stories, trends and teams to watch. Can Colorado go back to back? Or will Toronto and Edmonton finally break throughAnother NHL season is upon us. Here’s a preview of stories, trends and teams to watch in the coming months – and some predictions to go with them. Continue reading...

Will an expanded Wild Card round lead to an unexpected upset or will one of the established baseball juggernauts emerge as the World Series winners?The MLB postseason begins on Friday with the start of the three-game Wild Card series. Thanks to an expanded playoff format, this year’s field features both familiar faces and intriguing newcomers. Below we rank every playoff team by their likelihood of winning the 2022 World Series. Continue reading...

Unlike her male counterpart, this superhero has total mastery over her Hulk side – something all women have to learnFor a while during the presidency of Donald Trump, female anger was a big topic of discussion. Women in general and American women in particular had, as the Australians say, had a gutful, and via movements (#MeToo), books (Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister), and the 2017 Women’s March, public expressions of this feeling were prominent. Things have deteriorated since then, thanks in large part to the ultra-conservatives on the supreme court, but five years after about half a million women marched on Washington, at least we have a handy new symbol of female rage: She-Hulk.You’re familiar, of course, with the original Hulk, a scientist, Dr Banner, who, after “accidental overexposure to gamma radiation”, turned green and threw things every time he got mad. In the late-70s TV show, he was played in his transformed state by the bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. More recently, Mark Ruffalo and a lot of CGI carried the character in the Avengers franchise. Now Disney+ has updated the idea with a large, green lady monster who works in LA and would rather not be a superhero, given the lack of benefits or career progression. She is the former deputy district attorney Jennifer Walters, or as the show’s title has it, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

The governor initially touted his green credentials, but seems to have shifted his position as talk of a White House run swirlsWhen Ron DeSantis succeeded his climate-denying Republican colleague Rick Scott as Florida’s governor in 2019, environmental groups welcomed him as a breath of fresh air.Red Tide Rick, as Scott became known by critics because of the state’s toxic algae blooms, was gone, and one of DeSantis’s first acts after taking office was to sign a record budget with $625m for Everglades restoration. Continue reading...

Campaigners on both sides scramble ahead of referendums in Kentucky, Montana, California, Vermont and MichiganWhen Kansans voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion this summer, the 59-41 referendum margin in the deep-red state sent shockwaves through the country, inspiring pro-choice advocates and sending anti-abortion campaigners scrambling for an unexpected political dogfight as five similar ballot initiatives approach in November.The abortion referendums – in Kentucky, Montana, California, Vermont and Michigan – have seen both sides organize extensive campaigns. Continue reading...

After the Molly Russell case, there can be no doubt about the risk or urgency: our anger must be put to good useNow that the inquest into the awful death of Molly Russell in 2017 has delivered its findings, we have a new reality to adjust to. The teenager died from an act of self-harm, “while suffering depression and the negative effects of online content”. Her father described how she had entered “the bleakest of worlds”: online content on self-harm and suicide was delivered in waves by Instagram and Pinterest, just leaving it to the algorithm. “Looks like you’ve previously shown an interest in despair: try this infinitely replenishing stream of fresh despair.”Social media platforms deliberately target users with content, seeking attention and therefore advertising revenue: we knew that. This content can be extremely damaging: we knew that, too. But surely now that we’ve struggled, falteringly, towards the conclusion that it can be deadly, there can be no more complacency. These are corporations like any other, and it’s time to build on the consensus that they cause harm by regulating, as we would if they were producing toxic waste and pumping it into paddling pools.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

Lawyer accuses federal agents of pressuring prosecutors with illegal leak about investigation of president’s son for alleged tax and gun purchase offencesFederal agents believe there is enough evidence to criminally charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and with lying about his drug use when he bought a handgun in 2018, the Washington Post and CBS News have reported.But the US attorney in Delaware, who is overseeing the investigation of the president’s son, has not yet decided whether to file criminal charges in the case, the Post reported. Continue reading...

In his starkest assessment yet, US president says world is the closest it has come to nuclear catastrophe in sixty years

US military says the men were killed in two separate attacks, including a rare helicopter assault in a government controlled areaA rare US helicopter raid on a government-held village in Syria’s north-east killed a senior Islamic State militant hiding out there and a separate US airstrike later on Thursday killed two others, the US military says.The US has carried out previous raids in Syria against members of Islamic State, but Thursday’s would be the first known operation against the group in a zone held by forces loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad.Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report Continue reading...

Levi White and Zachary King have been fired after a bystander recorded them in August taking Randal Worcester into custodyTwo Arkansas deputies who were caught on video violently arresting a suspect outside a convenience store in August have been fired, authorities said on Thursday.Crawford county sheriff Jimmy Damante told Fort Smith television station KHBS that Levi White and Zachary King had been fired but did not elaborate on the decision. Continue reading...

President urged governors to follow suit, saying such criminal records have ‘imposed needless barriers’ on people of colorThousands of people convicted of cannabis possession have been pardoned by Joe Biden, in a major move that advocates say was “long overdue” and could help pave the way for national marijuana legalization.“Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit,” Biden said in a statement on Thursday afternoon. “Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing and educational opportunities. And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted at disproportionate rates.” Continue reading...

Individuals landed at beach on remote island to avoid compulsory military service and have appealed for asylum, reports sayTwo Russians have crossed the Bering Strait by boat in order to avoid conscription to fight in Ukraine and landed on a remote Alaskan island where they have appealed for asylum, according to reports from the region.The pair beached their small boat on Tuesday near Gambell, a settlement of about 600 people on St Lawrence Island, 46 miles from Siberia’s Chukotka peninsula, earlier this week. Continue reading...

Jeremy Bertino, 43, enters guilty plea for his role in plot to stop transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden on January 6A North Carolina man pleaded guilty on Thursday to plotting with other members of the far-right Proud Boys to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election, making him the first member of the extremist group to plead guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge.Jeremy Bertino, 43, has agreed to cooperate with the justice department’s investigation of the role that Proud Boys leaders played in the mob’s attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, a federal prosecutor said. Judge Timothy Kelly agreed to release Bertino pending a sentencing hearing that was not immediately scheduled. Continue reading...

President urges governors to do the same with state offenses: ‘No one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason’

Megan Rapinoe suggests a major gulf in quality no longer exists but Friday’s opponents must still prove this at a World CupMidway up the stands inside Wembley, the signage flashes with “European v world champions”. The buildup to England’s showdown with the USA has been overshadowed, rightly, by the weight of the findings of the Sally Yates report into abuses in women’s football in the States and the burden of it on the US players, but the narrative of the match itself is hugely exciting.The USA have been the world leaders in women’s football for a long time. The gap to the rest has been vast, but it is closing. Megan Rapinoe went as far as to say on Thursday that she feels “there isn’t really a huge gap any more and there hasn’t been for a long time”. Continue reading...

The move was issued to give the Gun Owners of America time to make a caseA federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked parts of New York state’s new gun law, in order to allow the Gun Owners of America (GOA), an advocacy group, an opportunity to pursue a lawsuit challenging the legislation.The law came into effect on 1 September, creating new requirements for obtaining a license, including submitting social media accounts for review, and creating a list of public and private places where having a gun is a felony crime, even for license holders. Continue reading...

Supreme court’s overruling of Roe v Wade prompted bans of most abortions in more than a dozen statesMore than 60 clinics across 15 US states have stopped offering abortions since the supreme court overruled Roe v Wade, the ruling which guaranteed the right, a new study found.The court’s decision this summer, in Dobbs v Jackson, Mississippi, has prompted bans of most abortions in more than a dozen states. Other states are fighting over access to the procedure by suing to block enforcement of laws restricting abortion. Continue reading...

Joe Biden’s name won’t be on ballots, but this year’s midterms on 8 November will be voters’ first opportunity to render a verdict on his presidencyAmerican elections are like Olympics. Presidential votes happen every four years in step with the summer Games: 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004 and so on.Midterms, meanwhile, happen every four years in line with the winter Games: 2022, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2006, 2002 and so on.All 435 seats in the House of Representatives.Thirty-five seats in the 100-member Senate. This is made up of the standard 34 seats plus a special election to fill the four years remaining in the term of retiring senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma.Thirty-six state governorships, and three US territory governorships.Numerous city mayorships and local officials.One hundred and twenty-nine ballot measures in 36 states including laws on abortion in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont. Continue reading...

Unnamed woman conceived another child with Republican Senate candidate years after the abortion, according to Daily BeastA woman who said Herschel Walker paid for her abortion in 2009 is the mother of one of his children, according to a new report, undercutting the Georgia Republican Senate candidate’s claim to not know who she was.The Daily Beast, which first reported the abortion, said it had agreed not to reveal details of the woman’s identity. Continue reading...

Daniel Prude died from ‘complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint’ in Rochester, New York, in March 2020City officials agreed to pay $12m to the children of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died when police who encountered him running naked through the snowy streets of Rochester, New York, put him in a hood and held him down until he stopped breathing.A federal judge approved the settlement in a court document filed on Thursday. The Rochester mayor, Malik D Evans, said in a statement the agreement was “the best decision” for the city. Continue reading...

Competition and Markets Authority says other operators may not be able to compete after merger of Inmarsat and ViasatThe $7.3bn (£5.4bn) takeover of the British satellite company Inmarsat by its US rival Viasat could result in higher-priced and lower-quality wifi for aeroplane passengers, according to the UK competition watchdog.The Competition and Markets Authority said its investigation has identified concerns with the merger possibly leading to airlines being offered lower-quality products for onboard wifi and facing higher prices to deliver it. Continue reading...

Eight-month-old baby found dead with her mother, father and uncle in an orchard in Merced countyA family who were kidnapped at gunpoint from their central California business two days ago have been found dead.A farm worker found the bodies of the baby girl, her parents and her uncle at an orchard in a remote area of Merced county, according to the local sheriff. Continue reading...