In a 6-3 decision, the high court sided with a lower court ruling that blocked deployment of troops to the Illinois city
The US supreme court refused on Tuesday to let Donald Trump send national guard troops to the Chicago area, in an important reining-in of the US president’s efforts to expand the use of the military for domestic purposes in historic moves against a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions.
The nation’s highest court denied the US justice department’s request to lift a judge’s order in October that has blocked the deployment of hundreds of national guard personnel in a legal challenge brought by Illinois state officials and local leaders, who had opposed any federalization of those troops to offer backup to immigration enforcement.
The ruling junta says the heavily restricted polls are a return to democracy but critics are wary
Five years after Myanmar’s junta ousted the country’s last elected government, triggering a civil war, voting is set to begin this week in national elections.
The junta claims the vote is a return to democracy, but in reality the one-sided and heavily restricted poll has been widely condemned as a sham designed to keep the generals in power through proxies.
This joke-filled caper of a Muslim-Christian family going on a Lapland holiday after an unexpected bonus will leave your cockles well and truly warmed
A one-off Christmas special must have the following traditional ingredients to be entitled to the name. First and most vitally, it must have a grumpy character to soften over the hour. (And it must be an hour – 75 minutes, tops. Anything longer and we’re out of letting-the-children-stay-up-and-watch-as-a-treat territory and that disqualifies it as a contender. Yes it’s a hangover from the days when television was broadcast at fixed points, instead of thrown into the digital ragbag to be pulled out at any time, but what is tradition if not such harkings-back? Come on).
Second, there must be snow. I know the planet is burning now, but please see above re tradition and harkings-back.
Guardian rankings will be among criteria for exception
The NWSL introduced a new “High Impact Player Rule” on Tuesday that allows teams to exceed the salary cap by up to $1m to help attract and retain star players. The rule goes into effect on 1 July 2026.
Libyan PM says Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad died after aircraft lost radio contact above Ankara
The Libyan army’s chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, has been killed in a plane crash after leaving Turkey’s capital, Ankara.
The prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised government confirmed on Tuesday evening that Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad had died and that four others were on the jet with him.
Ademola Lookman scored a superb second-half winner as Nigeria earned a 2-1 Group C victory against Tanzania in the pouring rain in Fes, a positive start for the silver medallists from the previous tournament, but one that was not without moments of alarm.
Nigeria were more dominant than the scoreline suggests in terms of possession and chances, but they failed to finish off the contest and were almost made to pay for their wastefulness in front of goal.
Department of Veterans Affairs says justice department found procedure not to be legally sound
The Department of Veterans Affairs can no longer provide abortions to veterans, including in cases of rape or incest, following a Department of Justice memo that found last week that the practice was not legally sound.
The ban follows months of efforts by the Trump administration to roll back a Biden-era policy that, for the first time, permitted the VAto counsel veterans and their families about abortion, as well as offer the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when a veteran’s pregnancy imperiled their health. In August, the administration filed paperwork to officially roll back the policy, which had helped the VA’s network of 1,300-plus healthcare facilities – which treat nearly 10 million veterans each year – expand access to abortion, especially in the wake of the US supreme court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade.
Interior department move affects five projects under construction in latest blow to industry targeted by Trump
The Trump administration has said it is immediately pausing all leases for offshore wind farms already under construction, in the heaviest blow yet to an industry that the administration has relentlessly targeted throughout the year.
Trump’s Department of the Interior said that it was halting the building of five wind projects due to “national security risks”. The department said it would work with the US Department of Defense to mitigate the risk of the wind turbine towers creating radar interference called “clutter” that could in some way hamper the US military.
3 min: Madueke intercepts a Palace throw on the Arsenal right, plays to Martinelli, his pass cuts straight through the Palace defence. The onrushing Madueke receives … and really should do better. He shoots straight at Benítez.
2 min: Madueke shows off some quick feet to thump a cross in from the right before Arsenal wheel it around in defence.
Weiss ought to cut her losses, green-light the piece, and try to start acting like an editor – not like a cog in the machine of authoritarian politics and oligarchy
One tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But now, when it comes to Bari Weiss as the editor in chief of CBS News, there is no longer any doubt.
A broadcast-news neophyte, Weiss has no business in that exalted role. She proved that beyond any remaining doubt last weekend, pulling a powerful and important piece of journalism just days before it was due to air, charging that it wasn’t ready. Whatever her claims about the story’s supposed flaws, this looks like a clear case of censorship-by-editor to protect the interests of powerful, rich and influential people.
The 60 Minutes piece – about the brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan migrants without due process – had already been thoroughly edited, fact-checked and sent through the network’s standards desk and its legal department. The story was promoted and scheduled, and trailers for it were getting millions of views.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor asked Jeffrey Epstein’s fixer Ghislaine Maxwell to arrange meetings with “inappropriate friends” while she sought “friendly and discreet and fun” girls on his behalf, the latest documents from the Epstein files appear to show.
The largest release yet of files concerning the financier and convicted child sex offender – which also raise fresh questions for the US president, Donald Trump – include emails in the name of “A” exchanging detailed messages with Maxwell that appeared to identify the author as Andrew.
Emails recording that Britain’s Metropolitan police contacted the FBI last month to inquire whether there were any ongoing investigations related to the disgraced former prince’s association with Epstein.
Emails showing US lawyers claiming “various factual inaccuracies” in a statement provided on Andrew’s behalf during their investigation of Epstein.
Multiple references to Donald Trump, including a claim by a senior US attorney that Trump was on a flight in the 1990s with Epstein and a 20-year-old woman. There is no indication of whether the woman was a victim of any crime, and Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing.
An image of a card purportedly written by Epstein to Larry Nassar, the US gymnastics team doctor jailed for life in January 2018 for sexually abusing hundreds of girls, which says: “Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls.” A postmark on the envelope indicates it was processed three days after Epstein’s death in August 2019.
Files featuring redactions that were found to be removable through Photoshop techniques or simply highlighting text to paste into a word processing file.
Zampella created the template for multiplayer shooters that is still used today, and his cinematic and epic military, sci-fi and Star Wars games thrilled and moved millions
On Sunday, Vince Zampella, the co-creator of the Call of Duty video game series, died in a car crash in Los Angeles at the age of 55. Though best known for that series of blockbuster military shooters, Zampella touched a huge number of lives – not only the hundreds of people who worked at the game development studios he led under Activision and EA, but the millions of people who played the games that bore his imprint.
A lifelong gamer, Zampella had a Pong console as a child, then an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64. He told IGN in 2016 that his favourite game from childhood was Donkey Kong: “I would spend hours at the arcade playing it.” Zampella’s first job in the industry was at GameTek in Miami, which specialised in video-game versions of popular US quizshows. He described his role on the small team as: “producer slash customer services slash tester – whatever needed to be done.”
The fracturing multilateral order has led to a new age of insecurity. But acts of courage and solidarity can point the way to a better future
In one of his last sermons, the great Christian theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich asked: “Do we have a right to hope?” As an army chaplain to German forces during the first world war and a refugee from Nazi Germany, Tillich had witnessed first-hand some of the horrors of the 20th century. But his answer to the question he posed in 1965 was yes. Nobody could live without hope, Tillich told his Harvard audience, even if it led “through the narrows of a painful and courageous ‘in-spite-of’”.
Sixty years on, a similar spirit of defiant optimism is needed to navigate our own era of conflict and anxiety. The fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is approaching, and dark political forces menace the social fabric of western liberal democracies. More widely, a fracturing multilateral order is delivering a more unstable and threatening world.
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Documents released in relation to Jeffrey Epstein contain emails between Maxwell and an individual signing off as ‘A’ and ‘The Invisible Man’
Emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and an individual signing off as “A” are among the largest dump yet of documents released by the US Department of Justice in relation to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
While “A” – who also refers to themselves as “The Invisible Man” – is not explicitly identified in the emails, they include key details that corroborate the suggestion that they are Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was then still a working royal known as Prince Andrew.
Gold is up 70% while the cryptocurrency is down 6% after it failed to bounce back from a rapid October sell-off
Another week, another record high for the price of gold. And another blow to the bitcoin fan club’s hopeful thesis about owning “digital gold”. This year has been hard for the bitcoin brigade: while real gold soared in value, their cryptocurrency didn’t. Correlation went out of the window. Gold is up 70% so far in dollar terms; bitcoin is down 6%.
In theory, conditions should have been perfect for bitcoin if, like gold, it is supposed to be a store of value in uncertain times. Geopolitical tensions have been high all year, with Donald Trump’s unclear intentions towards Venezuela now added to the mix. Or, if you take the view that bitcoin is a hedge against currency debasement by governments, the news flow ought to have been encouraging. The US budget deficit remains enormous: the International Monetary Fund predicts the country’s debts will climb from 125% to 143% of annual income by 2030, or more than Greece and Italy.
Un-redacted text from released documents began circulating on social media on Monday evening
People examining documents released by the Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein case discovered that some of the file redaction can be undone with Photoshop techniques, or by simply highlighting text to paste into a word processing file.
Un-redacted text from these documents began circulating through social media on Monday evening. An exhibit in a civil case in the Virgin Islands against Darren K Indyke and Richard D Kahn, two executors of Epstein’s estate, contains redacted allegations explaining how Epstein and his associates had facilitated the sexual abuse of children. The exhibit was the second amended complaint in the state case against Indyke and Kahn.
Inquiry finds Fabian Picardo was ‘grossly improper’ to protect James Levy from a search warrant
The chief minister of Gibraltar made a series of “grossly improper” and “sinister” interventions to interfere in a live criminal investigation in order to protect his friend, mentor and business partner from the consequences of a search warrant, a public inquiry has found.
The retired England and Wales high court judge and inquiry chair, Sir Peter Openshaw, concluded that Fabian Picardo acted to protect James Levy KC when police were at Hassans law firm, where Levy was a senior partner, with a search warrant.
Can McCullum’s ‘horse-whispering’ still register against a rampant Australia hungry for a series whitewash?
The world famous Boxing Day Test awaits England’s beaten cricketers and we are about to discover whether the mighty coliseum that is the Melbourne Cricket Ground becomes their arena of the unwell; whether pride can be salvaged or it is just another stepping stone for Australia in their pursuit of an Ashes whitewash.
Last year a record 373,691 spectators passed through the turnstiles across five days as Australia overcame India in a slow-burn thriller. This fourth Ashes Test was tipped to top that remarkable figure potentially but that will hinge on it similarly going the distance. It also needs the locals to be energised still by a series that has already been won by their team – even if simply beating the old enemy is usually enough.
Wattimena, Rydz and Meikle all through to third round
Peter Wright’s confidence was wildly misplaced after he crashed out of the world championship on Tuesday. Arno Merk ensured the two-time champion will not be returning to Alexandra Palace after Christmas, winning 3-0 as the Scot averaged just 79.20.
Wright had claimed he was definitely going to win this tournament, but Merk, on debut, was full value for the win and it denied the possibility of a third-round match between Wright and Michael van Gerwen – a repeat of the 2020 final.
Steve Rogers is back … in the 90-second trailer that is now online for all to see
The first official trailer for Avengers: Doomsday has been released online, in the run-up to the next outing from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The brief 90-second trailer shows Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America riding along a rural road on a motorbike, entering a house and picking up his superhero uniform, then holding a sleeping baby. A title then announces: “Steve Rogers Will Return in Avengers: Doomsday.”
Swift’s six-parter charting her Eras tour began with some riveting revelations – but the drama ebbed away, leaving another piece of mere product for fans
In the behind-the-scenes documentary series Taylor Swift: The End of an Era, the singer Florence Welch ascends to the stage to perform their duet Florida!!! to a crowd of 90,000 people. Welch later reflects on their duet at Wembley Stadium with a mix of awe and bemusement. “Taylor is my friend,” she says. “I know her as this very cosy person, and I came out of that lift and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s fucking Taylor Swift.’”
If Swift is a cosy person, The End of an Era – now complete, with its concluding episodes dropping today – is certainly a cosy watch; the sort of lighthearted, low-demand viewing that feels especially welcome in the lazy days leading up to Christmas and stretching towards the new year. Viewers will be familiar with the story. The Eras Tour was great, it tells us. It broke records, burst hearts and boosted the economy. We know she pulled it off. This is only a problem insofar as it means there is almost zero jeopardy in the series, which feels repetitive and thinly stretched over its six hour-long episodes.
Broncos, 49ers and Seahawks also have six selections
Vikings, Saints and Jets have zero Pro Bowlers
Six Baltimore Ravens players have been selected for this season’s Pro Bowl Games despite the team almost certainly missing the playoffs. The Ravens lead the league in Pro Bowl nods, alongside the Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks.
Baltimore’s Pro Bowlers are fullback Patrick Ricard, wide receiver Zay Flowers, center Tyler Linderbaum, linebacker Roquan Smith, safety Kyle Hamilton and punter Jordan Stout. However, they are 7-8 this season and have only a 9% chance of making the playoffs according to Next Gen Stats.
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