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New book by Australian reporter Paddy Manning hints at Succession-style feud with ramifications for US rightwing politicsIt’s long been thought that the succession plan for Lachlan Murdoch to take control of Fox Corporation and News Corp was set in stone for when his 91-year-old father, Rupert Murdoch dies.But a new book is stoking speculation that Murdoch’s oldest son might be ousted in a Succession-style feud with his family, in a move with potentially huge ramifications for Fox News, the TV network that dominates US rightwing politics, according to a new biography of the Anglo-Australian media heir. Continue reading...

According to the US Capitol police, there were 9,621 threats against members of Congress in 2021. It’s surprising that there aren’t moreSurely I’m not the only person haunted by visions of 82-year-old Paul Pelosi, the husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi, struggling with an intruder in the early hours this past Friday. It’s not hard to imagine the terror that Pelosi must have felt as he made his coded phone call to the police, telling them that someone had broken into his San Francisco home. And it’s all too easy to picture his assailant, David DePape, calling out, “Where’s Nancy?”, the same cry that went up from the insurrectionists roaming the halls of the US Capitol on 6 January.In fact, the only thing that’s hard to comprehend is why, given the current political climate, incidents like this one don’t occur more often. According to the US Capitol police, there were 9,621 threats against members of Congress in 2021, and the frequency of those disturbing emails and phone calls appears to be increasing. Republican and Democrats alike have been warned that they and their families will be killed, and some have wisely taken advantage of the provision that allows them to use their campaign funds to pay for private security teams.Francine Prose is a former president of Pen American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Continue reading...

Judge dismisses case against British former trader Tom Hayes, who was jailed over interest rate scandalA New York court has dismissed a criminal indictment against Tom Hayes, the British former trader at UBS and Citigroup who served five and a half years in a UK prison for rigging the Libor lending benchmark.Prosecutors in the US filed a motion to dismiss the case against Hayes and another former UBS trader, Roger Darin. Continue reading...

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva takes over a deeply divided country, and a congress dominated by rightwing partiesThe Workers’ party (PT) supporters were out in force last night in the centre of São Paulo, pretty much as they were 20 years ago when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva first won the Brazilian presidency. Then, as now, convoys of celebrating Lula-supporting Petista drivers honked their horns, with their chanting, flag-waving passengers precariously hanging out of car windows.That win – which followed three unsuccessful runs – was sweet. This victory – Lula’s third – is perhaps even more gratifying because the former trade union leader has come back from imprisonment, defied his political enemies and condemned his nemesis, Jair Bolsonaro, to defeat. And last night there was an element of relief in the joyous mood because, for the moment at least, the incumbent rightwing populist’s dark threats to overturn the result had failed to materialise.Richard Lapper is author of Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro Continue reading...

Knitting is a fantastic way to fight anxiety, keep one’s mind occupied and fight fast fashionI’ve become addicted to knitting and I’m clearly not the only one: I’ve seen people knitting on the subway, in college lectures and even, once, in a bar.I’m not surprised. Knitting is a fantastic way to fight anxiety, keep one’s mind occupied, and – by making clothing for yourself and those you love – fight fast fashion.Maeve Higgins is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The race between Evan McMullin and Senator Mike Lee in the reliably red state is tightening as Democrats stand asideUtah is usually reliably Republican turf but in this year’s midterm elections a Senate race in the Mormon-dominated state could see a remarkable upset – and one that could damage the Republican party’s ambitions to capture the Senate.Independent challenger Evan McMullin, a former CIA agent who unsuccessfully ran for president against Donald Trump in 2016, is seeing his race tighten against Mike Lee, a two-time Republican incumbent who initially supported Trump’s legal challenge to the election but later voted to certify it. Continue reading...

On Sunday, we saw how small mistakes can decide a game in a league as competitive and intricately choreographed as the NFLThere is a reason why they don’t call American football “the beautiful game.” It can be poetic, for sure, but often NFL games are decided by flat-out ugly mistakes. Successful NFL play-calling requires pinpoint execution by every player on the field and a single slip-up can lead to disaster. We saw several such cases on Sunday.Let’s start with the Carolina Panthers, who were a successful extra-point attempt away from beating the Atlanta Falcons. PJ Walker had connected with DJ Moore on a 62-yard Hail Mary pass that no less of an expert than Patrick Mahomes called “the best throw of the year.” The game was tied and there were just 12 seconds left on the clock. Continue reading...

Campaigners feel groundswell of support for proposal to stop a 1931 abortion ban from going into effectIn the spring of this year, Julie Falbaum’s 20-year-old son walked into a frat party filled with about 50 of his peers, holding a stack of petitions. They were for a campaign to protect abortion.“Who wants to be a dad?” he yelled. Like a park-goer throwing bread to pigeons, he chucked the forms around the room and watched as dozens of young men swarmed to sign them. Continue reading...

Curated by the US writer and critic Antwaun Sargent, an exhibition aims to explore the new aesthetic in portraiture being created by an emerging generation of black models, photographers and stylists.The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion is at the Saatchi Gallery in London until 22 January 2023 Continue reading...

The unpopular president has made far fewer campaign appearances in the off-year election than his predecessorsMusic, chants and applause filled the gymnasium of a community college in an upstate New York battleground district, where Joe Biden delivered Democrats’ closing economic argument of the midterm election season.The president acknowledged Americans’ struggle to cope with painfully high inflation, while touting the progress his administration had made toward a post-pandemic recovery. He closed his remarks with a stark warning: if Republicans win control of Congress, they would create “chaos” in the economy. Then he waded into the crowd to shake hands and snap selfies. Continue reading...

With any luck he will kill it through hubris and we will be free! FREE!

Payments to follow exoneration of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam who both spent decades in prisonThe city of New York is settling lawsuits filed on behalf of two men who were exonerated last year for the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, agreeing to pay $26m for the wrongful convictions that led to both spending decades behind bars.The state of New York will pay an additional $10m. David Shanies, an attorney representing the men, confirmed the settlements on Sunday. Continue reading...

Delirious Wembley fans happy to overlook failings of both sides in front of record crowd for an NFL game in LondonMarino is ready for the snap, he stands, surveys the field, the pass soars through the Wembley mist and Jerry Jeudy makes the grab. Marino is delirious. The Broncos are about to snatch a 21-17 win from the jaws of defeat. Marino is a teenage Miami fan in the stands? Confused, good.Welcome to the NFL in London. Continue reading...

Dire warnings after hammer assault on speaker’s husband and amid concern that security does not adequately reflect threatsDemocratic politicians have ramped up their warnings about the threat of political violence in America after a man bludgeoned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband with a hammer in their California home on Friday.The dire warnings come amid longstanding concern that security services provided do not adequately reflect ongoing threats, especially as midterm elections loom. The Associated Press reported on Sunday that Paul Pelosi’s assailant had been carrying zip ties when he broke in. Continue reading...

House speaker’s husband told alleged intruder that he needed to use restroom and spoke in ‘code’ to alert authorities of problemPaul Pelosi, the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who was attacked with a hammer during an invasion of their California home, saved his life after secretly telephoning for help from the bathroom.According to Politico, Paul Pelosi told the alleged intruder – identified by authorities as David DePape – that he needed to use the restroom. Paul Pelosi’s mobile phone was charging in the bathroom at the time; the 82-year-old then made a surreptitious call to 911, and remained connected. Continue reading...

Speaker’s husband underwent surgery after hammer assault that comes amid rising warnings of political violence in the USHouse speaker Nancy Pelosi said her family is “heartbroken and traumatized” after a brutal and bloody hammer assault on her husband that has shocked the US as it stands on the brink of tense and crucial midterm elections.An intruder smashed his way through a rear door into the Pelosi’s house in San Francisco on Friday. The man confronted Paul Pelosi and shouted, “Where is Nancy.” Continue reading...

We have to break the cycle of misogyny that makes women feel at risk: This Girl Can’s guide sets out steps you can takeThe clocks have gone back, the evenings are drawing in, the weather is changing. None of this makes it easier for people to exercise. For many, the winter nights can be a threat to mental wellbeing.People like me (men) have historically dealt with these winter fears by ignoring them. Active men like me love telling anyone who will listen how good exercise is for physical and mental health. And when my wife hasn’t immediately rushed out the house to jog around the block in the dark and gloom, I’ve just repeated the message, but louder. Continue reading...

Harvard and UNC attendees address how applicants’ backgrounds shape their lives as supreme court hears caseWhen Andrew Brennen thinks about the US supreme court deliberations over race-conscious admissions, he reflects on his parents, both attorneys, and his brother. In 2009, his father, David, became the first Black dean of the University of Kentucky’s law school since the state desegregated its colleges and universities.“Had they not had access to higher education that they received, who knows what they would’ve been doing,” Brennen, who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019, says. “I’m thinking a lot about how different my life, my brother’s life, would be if affirmative action hadn’t been in place.” Continue reading...

The US reported the GDP bounced back – but at best it’s preliminary data that’s revised multiple times. Info from the top two payroll services are a better betTrying to figure out the future in the current climate is enough to give you a migraine. Where is the economy heading? Should you take risks or circle the wagons? Can you hire and spend or do you need to cut overhead and retract? People are relying on you to make the right decisions. But unfortunately, the data which most of us receive is not very helpful.For example, this week the US reported gross domestic product (GDP) – the broadest measure of the health of the economy – bounced back last quarter. Good news? My advice: ignore it. Why? Because like most of the big numbers that the government reports this number is based on surveys, and how accurate are you when you answer a survey? At worst, it’s inaccurate, at best, it’s merely preliminary data that’s revised multiple times over the succeeding months. By the time it’s finalized the data is too old to be of use to any business manager looking to figure out the economic future. Continue reading...

Hundreds of pilots across the US have been volunteering the use of their small planes to fly people seeking the procedure from states that outlawed itAll Steven knew was what time and where. A part-time pilot from the Chicago area, he was picking up a total stranger in his single-engine plane, a passenger who needed to fly more than a thousand miles, across state lines, from the midwest to the east coast.“Within 15, 20 minutes of arriving and meeting the person, we were in the plane and I got the engine fired up, ready to go,” he said. Continue reading...

Attacks on the ethnic diversity of Tory cabinets have not been limited to the right; there is lack of nuance on all sides of the race debateAs a Briton of Indian heritage, I had mixed feelings when I saw the images of the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, celebrating Diwali at a Downing Street reception. Who could fail to be moved by the fact the UK has its first prime minister of colour? But there is also much I abhor about Sunak’s politics.Because there’s more to me than my ethnicity, I don’t have any trouble holding both these thoughts in my head at once. Sixty years ago, racial discrimination was perfectly legal: of course it matters that children can today see that you don’t have to be white to lead this country. But like his Tory predecessors at the Treasury, Sunak is a fiscal hawk, making unnecessarily harsh spending decisions that have resulted in significant hardship. Like many Conservatives, he does not appear to place much stock in the idea of structural discrimination, through which too many young people are held back from achieving their full potential because of their race or class background. Continue reading...

The best horror movies thrill us with fear and pity – just the catharsis Aristotle looked for in tragedyI spent the past week in the mountains of western North Carolina, where the seasonal colour of the tree-covered Appalachians offers a fiery backdrop to small-town life. You can’t beat this place for autumnal vibes, with apple pies and cider on sale in every store, gourds and pumpkins in every layby. And then there are the Halloween decorations. People take them seriously here, their windows, lawns and roofs fantastically dressed in ways that range from the tastefully spooky to the unashamedly exhibitionist. My nearest neighbours have a menagerie of inflatables – a werewolf, a skeleton, a zombie – that blow up taller than their house.The folk I stay with, however, don’t construct ghosts out of bedsheets and brooms or hang up fake spiders’ webs on their porch. They have their own way of marking the season. For the whole of October, my friends Andrew and Carrie commit to watching a different horror film every day. To some, that will sound like psychological torture. But this is a couple who enjoy the genre so much that the first thing you pass on walking into their home is a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit of DVDs with names such as Chopping Mall and Slumber Party Massacre. Continue reading...

A century on, the epic masterpiece speaks to today’s anxieties about loss of traditionHe promised “a new start”.I made no comment. What should I resent? Continue reading...

The ex-president remains his party’s rock star and is touring key states to fire up voters – but his midterms record is far from flawlessShe never got to vote for him because she was too young. But when Barack Obama came to rally this week, Emma Berlage wouldn’t have missed him for the world. “It’s a Friday night, Halloween weekend no less, and everybody’s here,” the 24-year-old said. “After he was president he’s continued to stay cool and very popular with Democrats.”More popular than the current president, Joe Biden? “Yes. I mean, in terms of coolness, yes!” Continue reading...

The tech magnate’s purchase of the social media platform was the easy bit – now he must be responsible for toxic contentWhen the news broke that Elon Musk had finally been obliged to buy Twitter, the company he had tried – for months – to get out of purchasing, it reminded many observers of the 1979 commercial for Remington shavers in which the corporation’s president, Victor Kiam, proclaimed that he liked the electric razor so much “I bought the company.”This was a mistake: Kiam merely liked the business he bought, whereas Musk is addicted to his company, in the sense that he cannot live without it. In acquiring Twitter, he has therefore forgotten the advice given to Tony Montana in Scarface: “Don’t get high on your own supply.”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...

Speaker’s husband underwent surgery for skull fracture as political figures unite in condemnation of violenceA man accused of clubbing the husband of the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, over the head with a hammer and threatening his life while demanding “Where is Nancy?” now faces charges of attempted murder and other felonies a day after the violent break-in at the couple’s San Francisco home.Paul Pelosi, 82, underwent surgery for a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands, though doctors expect a full recovery. The 82-year-old House speaker herself was in Washington with her protective detail at the time of the assault, but she flew back to San Francisco on Friday afternoon and went to the hospital. Continue reading...

Ordinance in Everett, Washington, requiring coffee servers to cover up is unconstitutional, judge rulesA Washington city’s dress code saying so-called bikini baristas must cover their bodies at work has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal court.The decision in a partial summary judgment this week comes after a lengthy legal battle between bikini baristas and the city of Everett, on the outskirts of Seattle, over the rights of workers to wear what they want, the Everett Herald reported. Continue reading...

Eighty-six people died in the 2016 tragedy, yet compassion and empathy have become exhaustedIn Paris, a trial is taking place concerning the 14 July 2016 attack in Nice when a man drove a truck into a crowd of families attending a firework display. The three-month trial, due to end in early December, is of eight associates of Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel accused of assisting him in the attack, when a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais. A total of 86 people were killed, including 15 children. More than 450 were injured. You’d think it would be a big deal. You would be wrong.I’ve been reporting on the trial for the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. In the church-like Palais de Justice, where the public can watch the trial on large screens, the average attendance is around six. One afternoon there were only two of us, me and a sweet-faced old lady whispering a melancholy but urgent commentary to herself. Continue reading...

JR Moehringer, the writer behind the Duke of Sussex’s book Spare, has previous form examining his own paternal issuesThe term “ghostwriting” was coined by Christy Walsh, whose agency for years controlled the literary output of American sports celebrities from Babe Ruth onwards. The agency had a series of rules. One suggested that a new ghostwriter “usually makes the mistake of thinking that he ought to write the way his celebrity talks. That is an error. He ought to write the way the public thinks his celebrity talks.”Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, JR Moehringer, wrote his own memoir before he started to write the lives of others. In that book, The Tender Bar, he describes how he was on an existential, drink-sodden search for surrogates for his absent father – a New York DJ – mostly among the regulars in his local boozer. That quest, he suggested, instilled in him a quality that has no doubt subsequently been prized by his celebrity subjects (who include Andre Agassi as well as Harry): “I was a master at ‘identity theft’ when that crime was more benign. The bar fostered in me the habit of turning each person who crossed my path into a mentor, or a character, and I credit the bar, and blame it, for my becoming a reflection, or a refraction, of them all,” he wrote. Continue reading...

Saifullah Paracha, 75, returns to Pakistan after being held, but never charged, over suspected al-Qaida tiesA 75-year-old Pakistani man who was the oldest prisoner at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, has been released and returned home, the foreign ministry in Islamabad said.Saifullah Paracha was reunited with his family after more than 17 years in custody at the US base in Cuba, it said. Continue reading...

It seems inevitable he’ll allow more abuse and restore Trump’s account – but it’s still a niche platform most people don’t useAll hail Elon Musk! The world’s richest person has single-handedly saved free speech! After months of drama Musk has finally completed his $44bn acquisition of Twitter and become– in his own words – “Chief Twit”. Conservatives are ecstatic about this. “Let’s be honest, Elon Musk buying Twitter is the greatest thing that has happened to freedom of speech and therefore humanity in the last 20 years,” one conservative commentator gushed. Continue reading...

Eagle Pass has been a way station for undocumented immigrants for years, but recently their numbers have grown – and residents are dividedHector Guerrero tries to make it to the Eagle Pass public golf course once a week.By virtue of its location along the Rio Grande, the scenic but all too often deadly river that delineates the border between Texas and Mexico, the course is surrounded by different iterations of boundary fences and international bridges. Continue reading...

At a rally in Georgia, Barack Obama commented on the violent attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. The former US president said Paul Pelosi was a 'good friend' and condemned politicians who 'stir up division to make folks as angry and as afraid of one another ... for their own advantage'.Pelosi was attacked with a hammer after an intruder entered his home in San Francisco, demanding to see his wife, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was in Washington. The attack has prompted fears of growing political violence in the US before the midterm elections on 8 November

In this, one of a series of essays on the war in Ukraine from countries in or neighbouring the former Eastern bloc, a Hungarian historian asks how long the country can remain on the fenceThe invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 will go down in the annals of European history. Russia’s undeclared war has cast an almost apocalyptic shadow. And it has dramatically altered the relationships that had prevailed between east and west since the collapse of the USSR. Whenever or however this armed conflict ends, it will undoubtedly take a long time for a new peace-guaranteeing equilibrium to be established. At the very least, the European Union and Nato now have to reckon with a hostile power on their borders and to prepare for a new phase of the cold war.Hungarians voted in general elections just weeks after the invasion, in April, and it seems reasonable to assume that the war next door had an influence on the result. Given the climate of fear that the devastating “special military operation” created, Hungarians voted to keep Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in power rather than risk an untested six-party coalition. This assumption also underlies Orbán’s response, which is to stay out of the conflict to the point of being “exempted”, a position that has been condemned as a betrayal by Hungary’s western allies. Hungary refuses to allow arms shipments destined for Kyiv to transit Hungarian territory and blocks the extension of EU sanctions against Russia to the energy sector. This latter stance is intended to enable an already controversial Russian-Hungarian project to build a nuclear power plant on the Danube (Paks II) to go ahead unaltered. Continue reading...

Maurice Hastings cleared of murder charge after testing of long-held evidence points to another personA man who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a 1983 murder and two attempted murders has been released from a California prison after long-untested DNA evidence pointed to a different person, the Los Angeles county district attorney said.The conviction of Maurice Hastings, 69, and a life sentence were vacated during a 20 October court hearing at the request of prosecutors and his lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project at California State University. Continue reading...

Josh Nalley specialized in pretending to be a lifeless body on social media – then CSI: Vegas came callingA man from Kentucky who plays dead on TikTok has finally caught the attention of CSI: Vegas after the crime show decided to cast him as an “un-alive body”.Josh Nalley from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, is the owner of the TikTok account @living_dead_josh where, since last October, he has featured hundreds of videos in which he mimics a corpse. Continue reading...

The rapper and fashion designer had it all – wealth, power, status, autonomy. But in the end it wasn’t enoughIn 2009, Kanye West was riding high. 808s & Heartbreak – his fourth studio album and a marked departure from his soul-based, hip-hop sound – proved a resounding critical and commercial triumph. A foray into clothing design had culminated in a Paris fashion week sneaker show with Louis Vuitton and a shoe line with Nike, the first for a non-athlete.No longer was West the dorky producer turned rapper agitating to break out of Jay-Z’s shadow. He had become something even bigger: a true star. The only person who could stop Kanye was Kanye – or Ye, as he’s preferred to be known of late. Continue reading...

The social media influencer is an expert at getting attention. But as he climbs in for his sixth pro fight on Saturday night, one of boxing’s most renowned trainers assesses his skillsThough many are deriding the fistic ambitions of the YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul ahead of his fight with former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva on Saturday, one of the sport’s most renowned trainers is not one of them.Teddy Atlas, the Staten Island-born coach who trained Mike Tyson, Michael Moorer, Barry McGuigan and Alexander Povetkin among other champions, says Paul is respectful of what he calls boxing ‘fundamentals’. Continue reading...

Member of ‘the Squad’ on how her abortion experience, sexual assault and front-line fight in Ferguson, Missouri, affected her politicsHer new memoir is bracingly, sometimes painfully honest, but there is one passage that Cori Bush seriously considered striking out before publication.She had an abortion when she was 19. Walking into the white-walled room of a reproductive health clinic, Bush writes, she began to have reservations about the procedure. Twice she told a nurse, “I don’t want to do this,” but twice the nurse ignored her objections and carried on. Continue reading...

States like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania may determine who controls the US Senate, invigorating Unite Here’s effort to mobilize Democratic votesNene Diallo has already been knocking doors for a couple of hours, but she approaches each new home with fresh enthusiasm.Whenever someone opens a door, she explains she is canvassing with Unite Here, the union that represents Diallo and 300,000 other workers in the hospitality industry. She encourages voters to consider supporting Pennsylvania Democrats, particularly gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro and Senate candidate John Fetterman, in the upcoming midterm elections. Continue reading...

Beloved for his music but also known for his off-stage extremities, the late singer leaves behind a difficult legacyJerry Lee Lewis was waiting in the lobby of the William Morris Agency, New York, one day in 1958. The receptionist was very attractive and, as he loved to, he began to tell her of life on the road, of how he nearly pushed Paul Anka off the roof of a hotel, all kinds of wildness. After a while, he paused. “What if I told you that none of that was true?” he asked her.She looked crestfallen. “Please don’t tell me that. That’s the Jerry Lee Lewis I know. The one people love.” Continue reading...