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The Dutch boast youth and experience along with a few exceptional individual talents. The Americans will need to be at their best to make the quarter-finalsThe Dutch were comfortable Group A winners in Qatar courtesy of 2-0 wins over Senegal and Qatar and a 1-1 tie with Ecuador. They have reached the tournament 11 times, though shockingly didn’t qualify for Russia 2018 (sounds familiar). The nation lost on penalties to Argentina in the 2014 semi-finals and were runners-up in 1974 and 1978 during the Johan Cruyff Total Football era (though Cruyff didn’t play in ’78, when he was nearly kidnapped, lost his fortune investing in a pig farm then joined the NASL), and in 2010 during the Nigel de Jong Kung Fu era. Continue reading...

House judiciary committee account contained cryptic post - ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump’ – that seemingly expressed support for YeLeading Republicans in the US Congress have deleted a tweet that seemingly expressed support for Ye, a rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.Since October, a Twitter account run by Republicans on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee has contained a cryptic post that said: “Kanye. Elon. Trump” – apparently claiming Ye, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump as their own. Continue reading...

The city is looking for ‘somewhat bloodthirsty’ applicants to a new role designed to tackle its very old rodent problemHate rats? Are you a “somewhat bloodthirsty” New Yorker with excellent communication skills and “a general aura of badassery”? Then you might have what it takes to be the city’s new rat czar.Mayor Eric Adams’s administration posted a job listing this week seeking someone to lead the city’s long-running battle against rats. The official job title is “director of rodent mitigation”, although it was promptly dubbed the rat czar. Salary range is $120,000 to $170,000. Continue reading...

Investigation says personal information of nearly 200,000 people was released as officials didn’t understand their websiteCalifornia’s department of justice mistakenly posted the names, addresses and birthdays of nearly 200,000 gun owners on the internet because officials didn’t follow policies or understand how to operate their website, according to an investigation released Wednesday.The investigation, conducted by an outside law firm hired by the California department of justice, found that personal information for 192,000 people was downloaded 2,734 times by 507 unique IP addresses during a roughly 12-hour period in late June. All of those people had applied for a permit to carry a concealed gun. Continue reading...

The Cochise county board of supervisors voted 2-0 to approve the results after threat of lawsuitsA rural Arizona county finally certified its election results on Thursday after a judge ordered the county’s board of supervisors to do their jobs just a couple of hours earlier.The Cochise county board of supervisors voted 2-0 to approve the midterm results, allowing the statewide canvass of the election to continue as planned on 5 December. A third member of the board who had spearheaded the effort to delay certification, Tom Crosby, did not attend the vote. Continue reading...

Decision marks decisive defeat as judges opine the request should never have been granted in the first placeA federal appeals court on Thursday terminated the special master review of documents seized from Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property, paving the way for the justice department to regain access to the entirety of the materials for use in the criminal investigation surrounding the former president.The decision by the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit marked a decisive defeat for Trump in a ruling that said a lower-court judge should never have granted his request for an independent arbiter in the first place and is unlikely to be overturned in the event of appeal. Continue reading...

Bill goes to Biden’s desk for his signature after legislation that binds rail firms and workers to settlement plan passes 80-15The Senate moved quickly on Thursday to avert a rail strike that the Biden administration and business leaders warned would have had devastating consequences for the nation’s economy.The Senate passed a bill to bind rail companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached between the rail companies and union leaders in September. That settlement had been rejected by some of the 12 unions involved, creating the possibility of a strike beginning 9 December. Continue reading...

US president promises ‘tweaks’ to Inflation Reduction Act that has led to French and European concern over state subsidiesJoe Biden has sought to heal a rift with France’s President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders over trade, admitting there are “glitches” in $739bn legislation that he says can be fixed.The US president was speaking on Thursday while hosting Macron for the first state visit of his presidency. The leaders expressed unity on support for Ukraine’s war against Russia but faced questions about their differences on trade. Continue reading...

I witnessed the racist remarks, but blaming one person alone distracts from the depth and breadth of racism in that institutionI generally avoid news about the royals. So it was a real eye-opener to find myself at the centre of a royal story. At a reception on Tuesday to honour those working to end violence against women and girls, I witnessed racist remarks from a member of the royal household directed at my friend and fellow activist, Ngozi Fulani. Lady Hussey’s prolonged interrogation about where Ngozi was really from, what her nationality was and where her people were from, was not – as many people have insisted to me over the past 24 hours – the kind of well-meaning curiosity that all of us experience from time to time (though it’s possible that Hussey believed that it was).“Hackney” was Ngozi’s answer, but Hussey refused to accept this. Her response implied that Black and brown people couldn’t really be British. It implied that we were trespassing – and it made me reflect on the increasingly hostile environment of this disunited kingdom.Mandu Reid is leader of the Women’s Equality party Continue reading...

Democratic-led House ways and means committee does not have long to decide what to do, with majority to change in JanuaryA US House of Representatives committee has a little more than a month to decide what to do with six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, after a years-long court fight ended late on Wednesday with the records handed to Congress.The supreme court ordered the release of Trump’s returns to the House ways and means committee last week, rejecting the former president’s plea. Trump has consistently accused the Democratic-led committee of being politically motivated. Continue reading...

Worry after agency spreadsheet was erroneously posted online ‘while performing routine updates’ and was up for about five hoursUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Wednesday that it had inadvertently posted to its website the personal information of more than 6,000 people in its custody.The information included names, nationalities, detention centers where the people were held and unique numbers used to identify them in government records, according to Human Rights First, an advocacy group that discovered the leak on Monday. Continue reading...

Thirty-three states maintain laws tied to exposure or transmission, many developed long before the illness was understood

Mass starvation killed millions in the Holodomor 90 years ago. Now Russia has again chosen the path of terror

Through Fleetwood Mac’s most turbulent times, she held the line – and wrote some of their most beautiful, bittersweet songs. We pay tribute to Christine McVieAccording to a handwritten note Stevie Nicks posted on social media on Wednesday, Christine McVie’s bandmates in Fleetwood Mac hadn’t even known she was ill until a few days before her death. “I wanted to be in London; I wanted to get to London,” Nicks lamented. “But I was told to wait.”It’s a sad story, but it somehow seems very Christine McVie. She gave every impression of being unfailingly modest and understated while playing a vital role in one of the most successful rock bands in history, maintaining a remarkably clear-eyed view of their strengths and failings: she bluntly dismissed the last two albums she made with the band, 1990’s Behind the Mask and 1995’s Time, as “terrible”. She appeared to sail through the soap opera that was Fleetwood Mac in the mid- to late 70s – a broiling mass of failed personal relationships, cocaine-fulled egotism and excess – with such a degree of equanimity that Nicks took to calling her Mother Earth. Somehow, she pulled off the not-inconsiderable feat of seeming to be at one remove from the band’s madness while in reality being in the thick of it. Continue reading...

Former president to rally for Raphael Warnock against Trump-backed Republican as early voting closes in Senate runoffBarack Obama will campaign for Raphael Warnock in Georgia on Thursday night, as early voting in the US Senate runoff closes and as Herschel Walker, the Republican challenger to the Democratic incumbent, faces yet more controversy.On Thursday, a former girlfriend told the Daily Beast that in 2005, when she caught Walker with another woman, he “grew enraged, put his hands on her chest and neck, and swung his fist at her”. Continue reading...

The youngest skipper at the Qatar World Cup has starred in midfield for the Americans while winning praise for his wisdom and leadership off the pitchAs the youngest United States men’s national team in generations plotted their return to soccer’s biggest stage after an eight-year absence, manager Gregg Berhalter relied on a captaincy-by-committee approach. More than a dozen different American players took on the role of captain over the past three and a half years as Berhalter rotated the armband across a leadership collective drawn from the team’s senior players.But when the time finally arrived to select a World Cup captain, the question was put to a player vote. To no one’s surprise, Tyler Adams got the call from his peers. Continue reading...

US president and first lady to treat French counterparts with Oregon blue cheese and American sparkling wine at lavish dinnerIt’s a bold gambit by the Americans, to meet the French in an arena over which they have long been masters par excellence: wine and cheese.But such is Jill Biden’s sang-froid that she will offer America’s best to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, his wife, Brigitte Macron, and their entourage at a lavish White House dinner on Thursday – just one of the elaborate details and valuable gifts forming part of the diplomatic dance surrounding this state visit. Continue reading...

Lawmakers vote to impose contract deal on dozen unions despite majority of workers rejecting deal. Plus, China altering Covid line

US railway workers threatened to strike until they got paid sick leave. The president’s administration chose political cowardiceIt’s sad, really. The beleaguered labor unions of America thought that they had finally found a true friend. In Joe Biden, they had a man who was the most pro-union president in my lifetime – a low bar to clear, but something. Yet this week we found out that when the fight got hard, Biden had the same thing to say to working people that his Democratic predecessors have for decades: “You’ll never get anything you want if I don’t win; but once I win, I can’t do the things you need, because then I wouldn’t be able to win again.”At the same time that thousands of union members are fanned out across the state of Georgia knocking on doors to get Raphael Warnock elected and solidify Democratic control of the Senate – to save the working class, of course! – Biden decided to sell out workers in the single biggest labor battle of his administration. Rather than allowing the nation’s railroad workers to exercise their right to strike, he used his power to intervene and force them to accept a deal that a majority of those workers found to be unacceptable.Hamilton Nolan is a writer at In These Times Continue reading...

Opponents of meaningful action are trying to sidestep the immediacy of the threat to our planetExpert opinion is settled and public opinion united on the urgency of climate action. If our politics or our discourse were in any way functional, there would be no confusion, no debate. We would simply be proceeding from one bold practical action to the next, following the blueprints laid out by the Climate Change Committee.Instead, we have energy policies stitched together from reheated cliches, which on the one hand doesn’t matter, since no prime minister has been stable or focused enough to iterate them since Brexit, but on the other hand does matter. There is nothing more depressing than to go back to Amber Rudd’s “energy reset” speech of 2015: what if, instead of dismissing renewables incentives as “Blairite”, she’d actually taken them seriously and built on them? What if she’d pushed energy-efficient homes instead of the “unfettered market”, what if she’d made a plan to reduce dependence on gas from Vladimir Putin rather than increase it? “Spoiler alert,” wrote the renewables entrepreneur Bruce Davis at the time: “this doesn’t end well for bill payers.” And nor has it. Continue reading...

Wave of illness caused by RSV, influenza and other infections has seen more than three-quarters of pediatric hospital beds fullWhen his son was born seven weeks early, weighing only 2.5lbs, RH watched as the little boy stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for 37 days.When they finally left the hospital, RH, who asked to use his initials for health privacy, breathed a sigh of relief. The baby, despite his difficult start, was perfectly healthy. But only a few months later, the child landed back in the hospital with a dangerous virus, RSV. Continue reading...

It’s the word of the year, according to one dictionary publisher, and after 84 years it deserves its spot in the limelightOf all the words that have, over the last few years, entered mainstream usage to describe the malevolence of others, by far the most powerful is the term gaslighting. I use it a lot, and find myself thinking each time that this is what it must have been like when the term “sexism” took off in the late 1960s, giving shape to an amorphous sense of unease latterly denied. As with other, relatively new descriptors – primarily “toxic” and “boundaries” – accusations of gaslighting are a quick and effective way to end any discussion, since denial of gaslighting is the primary signifier of gaslighting. Set and match!Credit where it’s due: we have Donald Trump to thank for this state of affairs, and such is his hubris it would be entirely in keeping with the man to claim as victory the fact that a term popularised to describe his appalling behaviour was this week unveiled by Merriam-Webster, the dictionary publisher, as its word of the year. It was Trump’s ability to deny, with absolute certainty and total indignation, something he had moments earlier said or done that pushed a marginal term invented in 1938 fully into the mainstream. Now it is available to all of us to use and enjoy.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Eric Salata faced investigation over claims he assaulted two women at his clinic after incapacitating themA doctor in Florida who was accused of drugging and raping his patients has been found dead, according to local authorities.Investigators could not immediately determine how Eric Salata, 54, died when his body was discovered in woodland on Monday. But they said he had a gunshot wound to the head, was lying next to a pistol, and that they did not suspect he had been the victim of a crime. Continue reading...

When a taskforce was put in place to tackle the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, the testimonies of victims’ families were cut short

Britain’s cost of living crisis is disastrous for one of us and will barely touch the other. The best answer is a wealth taxThe two of us are from very different worlds. One of us is a millionaire investor, the other a care worker and trade union member. We have totally different experiences of the economy, but we share a fundamental belief that it is broken – and the government in its autumn statement did nothing to fix it. Continue reading...

England needed to ‘play better with the ball in the attacking third’, according to team captain Harry Kane. But what on earth does that mean?I started out in journalism presenting programmes about financial matters. I tried to take this often complicated subject matter and make it as simple as possible. When I moved into presenting football on television, it often felt as if we were endeavouring to do the opposite – take something as simple as football and make it as complicated as possible. Don’t get me wrong: the analysis of the best ex-footballers in the business, as long as they use the most accessible language, can be fascinating. My favourite to work with was the former Arsenal and England player Lee Dixon. To make sure what he was saying was intelligible, he used to run it past me first. He called me, very few might say unkindly, his idiot filter. But I was very proud to perform this function for him because I was very good at it.Working Lunch was the business programme I co-presented with Adam Shaw, who was as expert on matters financial as Lee was on football. And, like Lee, Adam used me as a bit of an idiot filter, too. Interestingly, Adam used to say of football that he’d like to be more into it but found a lot of the language around it baffling. This made him feel excluded, as if he was a guest at the wrong party. Continue reading...

Aerial images show Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, spewing lava and sending glowing streams across its surface. The volcano is erupting for the first time since 1984, ending its longest quiet period in recorded history. Hawaii officials say the 2022 eruption does not pose any threat to property, though unpleasant volcanic gases and fine ash may drift downslope. Mauna Loa rises 13,679ft (4,169 meters) above the Pacific Ocean and dominates the Island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island

The jury said they could not come to a consensus over the allegations after a month-long trialA judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked at the trial of That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson, who is charged with three rapes.Los Angeles judge Charlaine F Olmedo had ordered the jurors to take Thanksgiving week off and keep deliberating after they told her on 18 November that they could not come to a consensus about the rape allegations after a month-long trial in which the Church of Scientology played a supporting role. Continue reading...

Lawmakers vote to impose tentative contract deal on a dozen unions as Bernie Sanders calls for sick-day amendmentThe House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to approve a bill to block a potentially crippling US rail strike – but also to mandate paid sick time for the workers.In the US Senate, Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, announced that he would object to fast-tracking Joe Biden’s proposal that Congress impose an industrial settlement, until he can get a roll-call vote on the amendment that would guarantee seven paid sick days for rail workers. Continue reading...

Attorney general condemns ‘those responsible for crimes related to the attack on our democracy’ – follow US politics live

A highway on the Big Island has become an impromptu viewing point, with thousands of cars jamming it upThe world’s largest volcano oozed rivers of glowing lava Wednesday, drawing thousands of awestruck viewers who jammed a Hawaii highway that could soon be covered by the flow.Mauna Loa awoke from its 38-year slumber Sunday, causing volcanic ash and debris to drift down from the sky. A main highway linking towns on the east and west coasts of the Big Island became an impromptu viewing point, with thousands of cars jamming the highway near Volcanoes National Park. Continue reading...

Virginia deputy Austin Edwards, 28, killed in California shootout after killing mother and grandparents and torching home – policeA Virginia sheriff’s deputy posed as a 17-year-old boy online and asked a teenage California girl for nude photos before he drove across the country and killed her mother and grandparents and set fire to their home, authorities said on Wednesday.Austin Lee Edwards, 28, was killed Friday in a shootout with San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies. The 15-year-old girl from Riverside, California, was rescued and is in counseling for trauma, family members and police said at a news conference. Continue reading...

New York congressman will assume role of minority leader early next year, inheriting position held for decades by PelosiHouse Democrats on Wednesday elected the New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries as their new leader, making him the first Black American to lead a major political party in Congress after Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker, announced that she was stepping aside to pave the way for a new generation.Jeffries, 52, will assume the role of minority leader when the new Congress is sworn in early next year, inheriting the position held for nearly two decades by Pelosi, a towering figure in Democratic politics who was the first woman speaker. Continue reading...

Last year’s death toll also marks a 31% increase from 2020 in LA’s epidemic that mirrors disturbing trends across the countryFentanyl deaths and hospitalizations have surged in Los Angeles county, with a 1,280% increase in fatalities from 2016 to 2021, according to a new report on the public health crisis.The LA county public health department released data on Tuesday revealing that 1,504 people suffered fatal fentanyl overdoses in 2021, nearly 14 times as many deaths as in 2016 when 109 people died. Last year’s death toll also marks a 31% increase from 2020. From 2016 to 2020, there was also a 308% increase in emergency department visits for fentanyl, from 133 cases to 542 cases. Continue reading...

Scientists scramble to re-establish the crucial monitoring that has been situated on the volcano since 1958The world’s premier measurement site for global carbon dioxide levels has been shut down because of a volcanic eruption in Hawaii, with scientists scrambling to re-establish the crucial monitoring that has been situated on the volcano since 1958.Lava has been shooting more than 150ft into the air from Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, since Sunday night and a river of molten rock is now not only menacing the main highway on Hawaii’s big island but also the Mauna Loa Observatory, a scientific station situated on the northern flank of the volcano. Continue reading...

Florida governor expected to challenge Trump for Republican nod in 2024 will publish The Courage to Be Free in FebruaryIn the clearest signal yet that Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, it was announced on Wednesday that the rightwing governor of Florida will publish a campaign-style book, mixing memoir with policy proposals.The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Renewal, will be published by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins, on 28 February. Continue reading...

Jerome Powell warned there ‘was more ground to cover’ and rates would stay higher for an extended periodThe Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, indicated the central bank is preparing to slow the pace of interest rate rises as it tackles a 40-year high in inflation. But Powell warned there “was more ground to cover” and rates would stay higher for an extended period.In a speech to the Brookings Institution, Powell said that the Fed may increase its key interest rate by a smaller increment at its December meeting, only a half-point, after four straight three-quarter point hikes. Continue reading...

When Susan Hussey asked that of a black British charity boss, she echoed the words of many who alienate people of colour“Where are you from?” is a question that every person in my family has been asked, from my parents in the 1960s to my little nephew, crying on his way back from school. I’ve faced the question from schoolteachers who want to know if I speak English, dates trying to exoticise me – and a manager who laughed afterwards, knowing he should not have asked.“Where are you really from?” is the follow-up, if you don’t give someone what they want. While the question can come from a place of curiosity, it is hard to ignore the sinister undertones, especially when it’s repeated. Continue reading...

Advocacy groups for civil rights groups and the homeless criticized mandate: ‘Mayor is playing fast and loose with the legal rights’The mayor of New York City announced on Tuesday that he is ordering police and emergency services to more aggressively hospitalize those with mental illness who are on the streets, even if the hospitalization is involuntary and they pose no threat to other people.Mayor Eric Adams’ directive would give outreach workers, city hospitals and first responders, including police, discretion to forcibly hospitalize anyone they deem as not “meeting their basic human needs, causing them to be a danger to themselves”, Adams told a news conference. Continue reading...

More than 50,000 customers in Mississippi and Alabama left without electricity as search and rescue teams go door to doorTornadoes damaged homes, destroyed a fire station, briefly trapped people in a grocery store and ripped the roof off an apartment complex in Mississippi while two people died as a tree hit their mobile home in Alabama, authorities said on Wednesday.The National Weather Service (NWS) had warned that strong twisters capable of carving up communities over long distances were possible as the storm front moved east from Texas. They were fueled by record high temperatures and threatened a stretch of the US where more than 25 million people live. Continue reading...