I’d love to hear from you and if you have read one of my blogs before you will know I love a bit of snack chat. Let me know what you’re digging into while this box office match plays out.
Karoline Leavitt says Trump doesn’t want to execute Democrats after president’s earlier social post suggesting their behavior is ‘punishable by DEATH’
The Trump administration presented a new plan to roll back regulations in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Wednesday, a move experts fear will accelerate the extinction crisis if adopted.
The proposedchanges would allow the federal government more power to weigh economic impact against habitat designations, remove safeguards against future events – including the impacts from the climate crisis – and rescind the “blanket rule” that automatically grants threatened species the same protections as those designated as endangered.
Within hours of Donald Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, Republican senators were on the ground to issue a pointed message to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi: don’t bury these documents.
The bill’s passage marked a rare moment of bipartisan support in an otherwise ideologically fractured Congress as it now sets a 30-day deadline for the release of Department of Justice files related to the actions of convicted sex offender of minors and financier Jeffrey Epstein, dubbed by a judge “the most infamous pedophile in American history”.
Wright says ‘someone like Jude frightens these people’
‘They cannot get to this guy. He’s a winner’
Former England striker Ian Wright has defended Jude Bellingham, insisting some people are not “ready for a black superstar”.
Bellingham has come in for criticism in some quarters for his reaction to being substituted during England’s World Cup qualifying win in Albania on Sunday, amid some suggestions he is a disruptive influence in the squad. However, Wright says some people are “frightened” of Bellingham’s success.
Liz Kendall and Jo Stevens intervene after about 20 people claim they witnessed or were victims of Farage’s behaviour
Cabinet ministers have described detailed and multiple allegations of racism by Nigel Farage as a teenager as “repulsive” and doubled down on Keir Starmer’s call for Farage to address the claims.
Liz Kendall, the secretary for science and innovation and technology, said she was appalled by the descriptions reported by the Guardian.
Release of report comes amid conjecture Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuelan president
The White House under Gerald Ford tried to block a landmark Senate report that disclosed the CIA’s role in assassination attempts against foreign leaders and ultimately led to a radical overhaul in how the agency was held to account, documents released to mark the 50th anniversary of the report’s publication reveal.
The documents, dating from 1975, were posted on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research group, as it sought to highlight the report’s significance amid conjecture that Donald Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, amid a massive US military build-up against the country.
By any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and remarkable thing. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The music press had barely mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a more modest London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were huge. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable state of affairs for most indie bands in the late 80s.
In retrospect, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly attracting a far bigger and broader audience than usually displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their cockily belligerent attitude and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of distorted thrashing downstrokes.
Drenched by floods and abandoned amid the ruins, people in Gaza can draw no comfort from US plans
The declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza in October brought initial relief to its inhabitants. Yet officials there said Israeli strikes killed 33 people, including 12 children, on Wednesday; Israel said its troops had come under fire. Another five Palestinians were killed on Thursday. Hundreds have died since the ceasefire was declared. Even if the shelling stops, the destruction of Palestinian life will carry on as Israel continues to throttle aid, and the consequences of two years of war unfold. The World Health Organization warned last month that the health catastrophe would last for generations.
Food remains in short supply. While displaced families shiver in flooded makeshift shelters, with many facing a third winter of homelessness, aid organisations say they cannot deliver stockpiles of tents and tarpaulins. Israel, which denies blocking aid, has designated tent poles as “dual-use” items that could potentially be used for a military purpose. Save the Children reports children sleeping on bare ground in sewage-soaked clothing.
Voters need to know if a party leader said racist things at school. Interviewers have a duty to keep pressing for fuller facts
For one contemporary, it is the hectoring tone of today that evokes what it was like to be at school with Nigel Farage. “He would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘Gas them’,” Peter Ettedgui recalls when asked about life at fee-paying Dulwich College in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, he adds: “I’d hear him calling other students ‘Paki’ or ‘Wog’ and urging them to ‘go home’.”
For others, including some in the college’s combined cadet force (CCF), what lingers is the image of the young Mr Farage in uniform and his renderings of a racist anthem titled “Gas ’em all”. Tim France, a CCF member from those years, remembered Mr Farage “regularly” giving the Nazi salute and strutting around the classroom. “It was habitual, you know, it happened all the time,” he recalls.
Big-name drivers and cutting out the middle man a vital part of the strategy with just over 100 days to go before the 2026 season opener
Twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United Statess, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
Senior Security Service officers told Commons speaker in private meeting they can tackle espionage risks
MI5 officers told the House of Commons speaker at a private meeting that they can tackle the risks of a proposed Chinese super-embassy in London, opening the door to its approval.
The Guardian understands that in a meeting held with Lindsay Hoyle in the summer, senior figures from the Security Service indicated they were “very relaxed” about the prospect of a 20,000 sq metre embassy being constructed at Royal Mint Court near Tower Bridge.
(Berliner Philharmoniker) Brahms’s Tragic Overture leaps to life while there is much interest in a careful reading of the composer’s First Symphony in this new recording from the Berlin Philharmonic with their chief conductor
The Berlin Philharmonic’s in-house label continues its mission to document chief conductor Kirill Petrenko’s considered interpretations of the classical canon. In this case, it’s Brahms’s First Symphony, captured live at the Philharmonie just two months ago, coupled with the Tragic Overture, recorded last year.
For this performance, Petrenko examined Meiningen Court Orchestra scores marked up with specific directions given by the composer himself. The results may strike some as interventionist, however there’s an organic momentum here that is hard to resist with a pronounced flexibility that, according to the excellent booklet essay, clarifies Brahms’s “furious struggle against the bar line”. Balance is impeccable, although solos seem over spotlighted at times by the recording engineers.
Hunt backs Turning Point USA’s rival half-time show
Goodell stands firm despite Trump-driven backlash
Gracie Hunt, the daughter of Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, is throwing her support behind Turning Point USA’s plan to stage an alternative Super Bowl half-time show, a direct counter to the NFL’s decision to feature Bad Bunny at Super Bowl LX.
Hunt said in an appearance on Fox News Channel’s The Will Cain Show on Tuesday that she “most definitely” backs Turning Point’s counter-programming effort, spearheaded by Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk. The NFL’s choice of Bad Bunny for the half-time show has attracted strong pushback from many on the right, who object to his criticism of Donald Trump and US immigration enforcement.
The story has sparked debates about cryogenics and fidelity. But it also tells us something deeper about our responses to loss
One of the last remaining fun things about the internet is getting to pass judgment on the goings-on in households that you would never hear about otherwise. On Reddit, for instance, there is a whole thriving sub for just this purpose called Am I the Asshole?, where people describe conflicts from their lives and ask strangers to adjudicate on them.
This week, a story on the BBC threw up a particularly juicy piece of other people’s businessthat has been sparking debates on Chinese social media. It starts in 2017, whenGui Junmin decided to cryogenically freeze his wife, Zhan Wenlian, after she died of lung cancer. She was the first Chinese person to undergo this procedure, which was paid for by a science research institute in Jinan, east China, that agreed with Gui to preserve his wife’s body for 30 years. Reports suggest Zhan herself consented to the process before she passed away.
Joe Biden and George W Bush attend Republican’s service, while Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are notable absentees
Donald Trump and JD Vance have been snubbed, by not being invited to former vice-president Dick Cheney’s funeral, taking place on Thursday, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
Cheney, the former US vice-president to George W Bush and a Republican defense hawk who became a fierce critic of the current US president, died earlier this month at the age of 84.
Law enforcement agency raids two sites in West Yorkshire and London as it appeals for information
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has arrested two men as it launched an investigation into a suspected £20m cryptocurrency fraud.
The law enforcement agency raided two sites in West Yorkshire and London as it appealed for information about $28m (£21.4m) invested into a cryptocurrency scheme called Basis Markets.
You know that Erling Haaland is the top scorer in the Premier League and that David Raya is great at keeping them out at the other end of the pitch, but what about the quirkier metrics? Who covers the pitch but sees the penalty area as their kryptonite? Which defender loves one-v-one battles? Who prefers to shoot without taking a touch to settle themselves?
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has said that the next independent Department of Justice “should investigate” the private donations that have funded the construction of the new White House ballroom.
Warren – who is the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee – told the Guardian in a statement that the ballroom could be “a golden crime scene” and urged the next administration to “follow the money” to uncover “whether any crimes were committed” in its financing.
Álvaro García Ortiz, who had denied sharing businessman’s personal details with journalists about a tax case, has been banned from post for two years
Spain’s top prosecutor has been banned from his post for two years after being found guilty of leaking confidential information about a tax case involving a businessman who is the boyfriend of a prominent rightwing politician.
Álvaro García Ortiz, who has served as attorney general since 2022, was also fined €7,300 (£6,428), and ordered to pay €10,000 in damages to the businessman, Alberto González Amador.
Scourge of goldfish has become growing problem as fish are released by pet owners into increasingly warm waters
City officials in Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, plan to cull thousands of feral goldfish from a stormwater pond, a decision that reflects the pervasive spread of the species throughout the region.
Earlier in the year, city staff removed 5,000 fish from the city’s Celebration Park. But as many as 1,000 more are believed to still be living in the water.
It isa little weird that beauty culture is convincing people to surgically saw off their facial skin and sew it back on tighter
Dear Ugly,
I’m 36 and I don’t need or want a facelift – but lately I feel like I’m being made to want a facelift. Is it weird that facelifts are becoming normalized for women my age, or am I being too judgmental?
Ismail Ali, who went missing in Bradford in 2020, is ‘safe and well’ after police said this week they thought he was dead
A shop worker who went missing five years ago has walked into a police station days after officers said they believed he was dead and arrested five people on suspicion of his murder.
West Yorkshire police said Ismail Ali turned up on Wednesday reporting to be “safe and well”.
An audience full of middle-aged and elderly men almost certainly preoccupied with what’s for lunch? Check. Constant reminders that football unites the world? Check. A charming hostess and former Miss Switzerland, Melanie Winiger? Check. Numerous ornate plinths bearing see-through bowls, a trophy or a football. Check. More montages from World Cups passim than were strictly necessary? Check. A dizzying array of acrylic multi-coloured draw balls? Check. “Fifa legends” Christian Karembeu, Marco Materazzi and Martin Dahlin? Checkity-check-check. A shiny floor? Check. Fifa competition manager Manolo Zubiria explaining protocol? Check. Self-important claptrap from an increasingly obsequious and craven “haunted cue-ball” Fifa president? Check.
I was 34, I’d spent nine years at Arsenal and there had been a fair amount of discussions with the club. I wanted to go back to France with my family. There were deteriorated relationships with people at the club, although not with Unai Emery” – Laurent Koscielny, now the sporting director at Lorient, talks to Raphaël Jucobin about his controversial exit from Arsenal and that Bordeaux announcement video.
I can claim a pathetically weak link to Scott McTominay (yesterday’s Football Daily). For one term he attended the same high school in Lancaster that I attended for seven years. During compulsory games, if it was football, the two best players picked their teams. Me and another lad were always last to be picked, usually being ‘full-backs’, ie standing around shivering and wondering what we were supposed to do when the opposing team came running past us. But I can claim to have pretended to play on a pitch on which Scott, of course, excelled” – Paul Henry.
Since Curaçao (population 155,826) is now the smallest nation to have qualified for the men’s World Cup instead of Iceland, may I take this chance to update my comparison (15 October letters) in that the former has a population smaller than the London borough of Hackney (population 266,758) and less than half the size of Croydon (population 397,741)” – Derrick Cameron.
Connexion
