Tiger Woods now a combined 20-over in his three-and-a-bit rounds at Winged Foot. He shot 12-over when missing the cut in 2006 and he’s +8 so far this week (+5 on his round today after 10). Looks like another halfway exit for the still current Masters champion.
And then there were five... in red figures. Jason Kokrak produces back-to-back birdies at 14 and 15 to climb into solo fifth on 1-under. The 35-year-old American has never had a top 15 in his 12 majors so this is unfamiliar territory.
Joe Biden criticized Trump for not yet releasing his plans on infrastructure or health care, despite repeated promises to do so.
“He has no plan,” the Democratic nominee said of the president.
Joe Biden began his Duluth speech by talking about the importance of union jobs, but the Democratic nominee quickly pivoted to criticizing Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden said if Trump had acted earlier to mitigate the spread of the virus, tens of thousands of Americans would not be dead and would instead be “sitting at the dinner table tonight”.
More from President Donald Trump. He said on Friday he thought the US-Canada border would open before the end of the year.
The restrictions on non-essential travel at land borders between the two countries were first imposed in March and do not cover trade or travel by air.
Candidates both hit key state where Democrat retains an edge
Virginia polling stations see lines as South Dakota also votes
Lines formed at polling stations in three states on Friday, 46 days out from 3 November, election day itself, as early voting began. Concern about ballot access under the pandemic has been widespread, particularly as Donald Trump continues to attack voting by mail with baseless claims of widespread fraud.
Spurs fans need the homecoming nostalgia of someone they saw turn from a boy into a joy of a footballer
Gareth Bale’s final – well hopefully not final – goal for Tottenham was in the last minute of the last game of the season. Sunderland at White Hart Lane, 19 May 2013. He picked the ball up on the right, cut inside like Arjen Robben and bent the ball into the top left corner from 25 yards past Simon Mignolet. It feels like Bale scored that goal a hundred times that season.
As soon as the ball hit the net, Emmanuel Adebayor ran to ask the crowd whether it was enough to get Spurs into the Champions League. It wasn’t. Beaten into fifth place by virtue of Arsenal’s win at Newcastle. Andr? Villas-Boas insisted he could keep Bale at the club. He couldn’t.
The star’s first foray into film-making is a sweet, if flawed, attempt to recpature the spirit of 80s kids adventures buoyed by a charismatic turn from Lonnie Chavis
When an experienced actor steps behind the scenes to become a multi-hyphenate, one usually assumes their directorial debut will have a revealing, if often self-indulgent, autobiographical element. But as much as we might have learned about Greta Gerwig from Lady Bird or Viggo Mortensen from this year’s Falling, there’s arguably more to unpack when a star decides to go entirely off-piste to tell someone else’s story. Bradley Cooper’s crowd-pleasing remake of A Star is Born and Ben Affleck’s troubling, muscular adaptation of Gone Baby Gone showed them to be serious, ambitious film-makers with lofty aspirations whereas Ryan Gosling’s disastrous Cannes flop Lost River revealed him as someone who’s spent too much time pretentiously fanboying over Nicolas Winding-Refn.
Agency now says all contacts of known carrier should get tested
Previous advice was reportedly rewritten by Trump officials
The most prominent US agency for delivering public health advice on Friday reversed key guidelines about who should get tested for coronavirus that were published just a month ago.
Met police ordered to launch inquiry into claims that officers refused to arrest Akram Uddin
The Metropolitan police force has been ordered to launch an inquiry after a court heard that an escaped prisoner, who had been jailed for firearms offences, spent a month trying to hand himself in to officers but was repeatedly turned away.
Akram Uddin admitted to absconding from an open prison to see his mother on 17 June. His lawyers told his sentencing hearing on Friday that seven times he asked police to arrest him for it and seven times they refused.
Brighton exhibition collates ‘snaps’ Geoff MacCormack took touring with the star in the 70s
It was a conversation that would change Geoff MacCormack’s life forever. In 1973, MacCormack, a musician and childhood friend of David Bowie, got a phone call from the artist, then known as Ziggy Stardust, asking him to join an expanding lineup of his band, the Spiders From Mars.
MacCormack, who was selling advertising space for a London construction paper at the time, took him up on the offer and set off on a three-year tour in which he played in various iterations of Bowie’s backing band and, crucially, took dozens of photographs.
Olivia Troye attacks Trump and says he called his own supporters ‘disgusting people’ he no longer had to shake hands with
The coronavirus pandemic moved to the centre of the US election again on Friday, as a former senior official on the White House taskforce turned on Donald Trump.
Wolves want about ?40m and Ki-Jana Hoever could go other way
Thiago says he was ‘waiting for this moment for a long time’
Liverpool are close to agreeing a deal with Wolves to sign the forward Diogo Jota after completing the transfer of Thiago Alc?ntara from Bayern Munich.
Wolves want about ?40m for Jota and are exploring the possibility of taking the 18-year-old Ki-Jana Hoever in part-exchange. The Dutch centre-back would be valued at about ?10m.
Jumbo-Visma director expelled after row over post-race checks
S?ren Kragh Andersen wins stage 19 with late breakaway
Primoz Roglic successfully ticked off another stage in this year’s Tour de France and turned his attention to the final 48 hours of the race in which, with the stage to Paris on Sunday a formality, he will defend his overall lead in the mountain time trial on Saturday, from Lure to La Planche des Belles Filles.
Escorted as ever by the relentless Jumbo-Visma team, Roglic, in the yellow jersey since stage nine, was a discrete and untroubled presence on stage 19 to Champagnole, which was won with a solo breakaway by Denmark’s S?ren Kragh Andersen, already a stage winner in Lyon, of the Sunweb team.
It also gives a rare, if oblique, glance into the scale of government attempts to reshape communities in the region, detailing how 10% of the region’s population were relocated over the past year, after being dubbed “surplus rural workers”.
Clueless about the US, uninterested in Ireland, Boris Johnson and his team are crashing on to rocks they can’t even see
There is so much this government doesn’t know. But two particular areas of ignorance exploded into view this week, allowing us to take a long, hard look at the cost they are inflicting on the country. Both are central to the Brexit project that remains this government’s defining mission – but only one of them is surprising.
Start with the unexpected ignorance, which is of the US and US politics. It’s a surprise, because if there’s one thing that unites the British political class it’s an interest in – even an obsessive fixation on – the politics of the United States. (And yes, I plead guilty.)If you were to hold a nerds’ convention on The West Wing or House of Cards, you’d host it in SW1. The Westminster villager who struggles to identify a single German politician besides Angela Merkel will speak with ease about the latest polling from Maine’s second congressional district or the precise composition of the Wisconsin supreme court.
Human rights council votes to adopt resolution condemning violations in Belarus
Belarus and its allies have repeatedly tried to muzzle speakers at the UN amid warnings of a new iron curtain falling across Europe during an ill-tempered debate on alleged human rights violations.
The body’s 47-member human rights council voted by 23 votes to two with 22 abstentions to adopt a resolution condemning rights violations in Belarus and requesting the UN high commissioner on Human Rights to take up the issue and report back to the council.
Test, which is only offered to children in British Columbia, involves gargling saline solution and spitting it into a tube
Authorities in Canada have unveiled a new non-invasive coronavirus test which avoids the need for intrusive nasal swabs, in a development which they hope will making testing easier and more accessible for students as they return to schools.
The new testing method, unveiled Thursday, is a significant departure from the standard – and often painful – nasopharyngeal swab which remains the most common method of detecting Covid-19.
Incident in D?sseldorf could be first death caused by a cyber-attack, says UK’s former head of cybersecurity
German prosecutors have opened a homicide investigation into the case of a patient who died after a hospital in the city of D?sseldorf was unable to admit her because its systems had been knocked out by a cyber-attack.
The female patient, suffering from a life-threatening illness, had to be turned away on the night of 11 September by the city’s university hospital and died after the ambulance carrying her was diverted to Wuppertal, 30 km (20 miles) away.
There were sheer organza face masks at Bora Aksu, one of the few live catwalk shows that went ahead – but the fashion world was trying to stay positive in very challenging times
London’s first catwalk show since lockdown opened with traditional nurse’s whites, complete with starched collars and nostalgic ruffle-edged aprons – although this was fashion week, so face masks were sheer organza and worn with pillar box red lipstick beneath.
The designer, Bora Aksu, had been thinking about the nurses of 1918, who faced dealing with the flu pandemic immediately after a war. Aksu followed the starched whites with a flurry of party dresses in the frosted pastels of 1920s flapper dresses, because, he says, “we need to remember that things will get better after this, as they did then”.
In a sunny Covent Garden churchyard, Aksu’s 20-strong audience is socially distanced via the allocation of a wooden bench each. A few show-goers accessorise their face masks by layering coordinated veils in fishnet or lace over the top, in the style of Marlene Dietrich’s veiled hats. Aksu, who has shown at London fashion week for 14 years, is one of only three designers following through with a live fashion show to an audience this season. Those designers who had planned indoor shows, even on a tiny scale, have in the past few days mostly switched to individual appointments due to anxiety about rising infection rates.
‘We don’t want to copy men’s game,’ says Gianni Infantino
Covid has not affected Fifa’s $1bn funding for women’s game
Continuing the growth of women’s football could require holding a World Cup every two years, Gianni Infantino has said.
Fifa’s president believes football must “get the creative juices flowing” if it is to continue the recent successes of the women’s game, which could also involve a Club World Cup for women’s teams.
People in the queue to be tested for Covid-19 at the Buenos Aires health centre in south Madrid on Friday morning were met with a bleak but polite homemade sign.
It still bore the previous day’s information, spelled out in marker pen: consultations – by phone and in person – 483; Covid consultations, 19; PCR tests, 78; and number of staff absent, 13.
Ignored by critics, barely marketed and released in just 47 cinemas, the YA romance has eclipsed X-Men at the UK box office and even ran Tenet close. What’s its secret?
Its success has been hailed as “extraordinary” – not least because no one saw it coming. The YA romance After We Collided has next to no marketing budget and zero reviews – and has taken more than ?1m after just two weeks in the UK. A few weeks ago, it wasn’t even in line for theatrical release.As the box office struggles in the pandemic, the industry has sat up to take note of this grassroots success. It is “completely unprecedented”, says Delphine Lievens, a senior box office analyst at Gower Street. “To do that based on no marketing – it’s a really impressive result.”
After We Collided is the follow-up to last year’s After; both are adapted from the “new adult” novel series by the US author Anna Todd. They follow the up-and-down relationship of college students Tessa (played by Josephine Langford) and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin – Joseph and Ralph’s nephew). Tessa is a headstrong and bookish young woman with parallels – the film insists – to Elizabeth Bennet. Hardin, meanwhile, is a bad-boy Brit whose eminent unsuitability is signposted by his many Ramones tees. Naturally, “Hessa” can’t keep away from each other, as much as their parents, love rivals and life circumstances conspire to keep them apart. Cue maudlin electro-pop.
Police say men would have to pay fine and explain actions to a Bristol history commission
Five men allegedly involved in the toppling of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol have been offered cautions by the police on the condition they explain the reasons for their actions to a history commission.
The men would also have to pay a fine that would go to a charity supporting people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities in Bristol.
A live-reading of 80s teen comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High brought together an array of big names with a surprising standout
It can feel rather unsporting to turn a critical eye on the live-read fundraisers that have been cropping up since the Covid-19 pandemic banished all celebrities to their handsomely appointed homes. A guy’s got to be one of the world’s wetter blankets to dump on a charity event that aspires to little more than fostering a loose, convivial environment in which we can join famous friends as they have a good time. Fortunately, last night’s stripped-down Zoom read-through of the script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High – a special event put together by Dane Cook’s “Feeling A-Live” benefit series, with an introduction from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti explaining the good work of foundations CORE and Reform Alliance – didn’t give too much cause for harshing anyone’s buzz.
Late-night hosts weigh in on the president’s comment that the US had dealt well with the virus ‘if you took the blue states out’
Stephen Colbert recounted a number of erroneous, misleading, and outright horrifying statements by Donald Trump on Thursday’s Late Show, starting with the President’s assertion in a press conference on Wednesday that states should open immediately in preparation for an as-yet non-existent vaccine. Trump’s comments directly contradicted recommendations from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr Robert Redfield, who told Congress this week that it would take at least a year for a vaccine to be safely developed. Trump insisted without evidence that a vaccine would be available this fall: “We know the vaccines are coming, so open up your states.”
Rise in scenic round-trips by air in Australia and Asia is ‘insanity,’ say environmentalists
Environmental campaigners have condemned the rise of scenic “joy flights” aimed at passengers “missing the excitement of travel”.
Tickets for a seven-hour round trip from Sydney with Qantas sold out within 10 minutes, making it one of the airline’s fastest selling flights ever. Seat prices on the 10 October flight range from A$787 (?607) economy to $3,787 for first class.
Up to half the world’s population may have natural immunity to coronavirus, writes ProfMoin Saleem. Plus Dr David Grimes on the evidence that vitamin D provides some protection
Your article ( ‘Confounding’: Covid may have already peaked in many African countries, 16 September) hints that there may be natural immunity in African countries where Covid-19 has settled down. This is likely to be true, and not just in Africa. If the evidence is closely examined, up to half of the worldwide population may have natural immunity. In none of the natural “experiments” of Sars-CoV-2 exposure within a closed group has the infection rate risen above 50%. In Lombardy, a study of 5,484 individuals who had been exposed by close contact with an infected individual were tested for antibody positivity, with 51.5% testing positive.
This hints at pre-existing natural immunity in the population. This has been convincingly demonstrated, with a study in Nature showing that 35% of a population cohort using historical samples had demonstrable CD4 T cell activity against Sars-CoV-2, never having been previously exposed to the new virus.
Firefighter died on Thursday battling El Dorado fire, which has burned more than 19,000 acres and is about 66% contained
California officials reported a firefighter has died while battling a blaze in the San Bernardino national forest, as a front of humid and rainy weather brought some relief to western states that have suffered a historically devastating fire season.
The firefighter died on Thursday battling the El Dorado fire, which was sparked by a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device during a gender reveal party earlier this month. The fire has burned more than 21,600 acres and is about 66% contained. It’s one of 27 major fires raging through the state.
Italian coastguard rescues 124 people who had been waiting 10 days to disembark
Dozens of people have jumped from an NGO migrant rescue ship in an attempt to reach Sicily, after the crew waited 10 days for authorisation to disembark their passengers.
The Spanish NGO Open Arms said 124 of the 273 refugees and migrants on its Proactiva Open Arms boat, leaped into the water during the largest-known incident of its kind.
Flooding, power cuts and damage to homes widespread as emergency services inundated with calls
Greek civil protection authorities have been put on maximum alert after a Mediterranean cyclone made landfall, battering the west of the country and many of its popular Ionian islands.
Meteorologists predicted the storm, a rare weather phenomenon referred to as a “medicane” (Mediterranean hurricane), would pick up speed as it crossed the sea and moved south.
Tribute that adds abandoned shopping trollies to the impressionist image of water lilies to be sold at Sotheby’s auction
Street artist Banksy’s version of Claude Monet’s impressionist masterpiece will go on sale at Sotheby’s London gallery for an estimated ?3-5m.
The painting, called Show me the Monet, was created in 2005. It is framed around Monet’s famous water lilies picture but is filled with jarring images of upside-down shopping trolleys and a traffic cone bobbing in the water.
WikiLeaks founder was asked to reveal source of leak damaging to Hillary Clinton, hearing told
Two political figures claiming to represent Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a “win-win” deal to avoid extradition to the US and indictment, a London court has heard.
Under the proposed deal, outlined by Assange’s barrister Jennifer Robinson, the WikiLeaks founder would be offered a pardon if he disclosed who leaked Democratic party emails to his site, in order to help clear up allegations they had been supplied by Russian hackers to help Trump’s election in 2016.
AP review finds no evidence of mass hysterectomies but files show growing allegations of operations women did not fully understand
Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention center in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen. There were three small, circular marks.
Government to ban WeChat on Sunday to ‘safeguard national security of the US’, while TikTok to be banned by 12 November
The US government will ban downloads of the Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok and the use of China’s popular messaging and payments app WeChat to “safeguard the national security of the United States”.
Exclusive:Prominent human rights lawyer writes to foreign secretary with stinging denunciation
Amal Clooney, the high-profile human rights lawyer, has resigned from her position as the UK’s special envoy on media freedom in protest at the government’s intention to breach international law through the internal market bill.
In a stinging denunciation of Boris Johnson’s threat to override Britain’s international treaty obligations in the EU withdrawal agreement, the barrister described the government’s actions as “lamentable”.
Followers believe that Donald Trump is waging secret war against ritual child abusers
A conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against an elite who engage in ritual child abuse is growing across UK social media, Guardian analysis has found.
The QAnon conspiracy theory is propelled by an unlikely coalition of spirituality and wellness groups, vigilante “paedophile hunter” networks, pre-existing conspiracy forums, local news pages, pro-Brexit campaigners and the far right.
With the wedding some way off, maybe now is the time to talk to your sister honestly, says Annalisa Barbieri
My younger sister has just got engaged, and I’m really happy for her and her partner. The difficulty is, I’m not sureI can go to her wedding, which is still some wayoff. I love my sister dearly andwant tocelebrate her big day with her, but we have different fathers – and I can’t stand hers.
Her father, who is my stepdad, was often emotionally – and occasionally physically – abusive to me when I was growing up. He was also frequently bullying, controlling and violent towards mymum, to the extent that he destroyed her confidence and hospitalised her. I believe in forgiveness, but he has never taken responsibility for his behaviour, and always lied about it.Mymum died several years ago, and he has gone on to be abusive and violent to other women; he has always denied it or blamed other people for his vile behaviour. As far as I’m aware, my sister doesn’t know the truth; she seems to believe her father’sstory, that he’s a victim of a police conspiracy when he is repeatedly arrested. I have made it my policy not to bad-mouthhim unless she directly asks why we don’t get on – and she never has.
Caribbean island intends to remove Queen as head of state, 54 years after gaining independence
An old saying Peter Small learned from his father growing up on Barbados sprang to his mind this week as the Caribbean island declared its intention to remove the Queen as head of state: “Don’t give me a fish. Teach me how to fish.”
Fifity-four years after independence, Barbados stands ready to cast off the final vestige of its colonial past having learned much from its British overlords, Small believes. “The time is right. And the people are ready,” added the grandfather, 75, who lives at the heart of a close community of Barbadians in Reading, home to one of the largest diasporas outside of Barbados.
Jeanine A?ez says she wants to avoid splitting the vote for others running against socialist Lu?s Arce of Evo Morales’s MAS party
Bolivia’s conservative interim president, Jeanine A?ez, has pulled out of next month’s general election, saying she wanted to avoid splitting the vote for other candidates running against the frontrunning socialist party of ex-leader Evo Morales.
In a video message late on Thursday, she sought to unify those opposing the candidate for the party of Morales, who resigned last year after an election sparked widespread protests. A?ez, a former senator, took office in the power vacuum that followed Morales’ departure.
I May Destroy You and I Hate Suzie are among a wave of shows casting off cliches to show their protagonists as complicated, contradictory – and human
If I Hate Suzie is an experiment in stress contagion, it is an unmitigated success. Billie Piper and Lucy Prebble’s new Sky Atlantic drama opens with the titular popstar-turned-actor learning she has won a career-changing Disney role, swiftly followed by the news that photos of her performing oral sex are circulating online. Moments later, a swarm of frantic strangers descend on her country pile to set up an increasingly bad-taste photoshoot. Her reaction? To lock herself in the toilet and defecate loudly.
I May Destroy You, Michaela Coel’s superlative BBC series, is full of unforgettable moments – not least the scene in which the protagonist, Arabella, has her tampon removed by a new squeeze, who proceeds to examine a blood clot between his fingertips. Yet a couple of scenes earlier there is a sight even more surprising for its off-handedness: Arabella casually sticking a sanitary towel into her knickers.
Scientists have had eyes on Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, since the beginning of this pandemic.
They can see it is evolving, but it is happening at a glacial pace compared with two other viruses with pandemic potential: those that cause flu and Aids. That is good news for efforts to develop vaccines and treatments, but scientists remain wary that anything could still happen.
To me, it was a dish I never knew anyone Asian to make, mostly favoured by tanked-up lads eating chilli competitively
When I was a teenager, we moved to the outskirts of London, and away from the “authentic” Indian takeaways plentiful in my former, ethnically diverse stomping ground.
We tried to make it work with our local joint, which catered to more western preferences. To me, the epitome of this was the vindaloo, a dish I never knew anyone Asian to make, favoured by tanked-up lads eating chillis competitively.
My pre-food food stops it looking as if my wife has come to dinner with a street urchin
Over the last year or so, I have been striving to find healthier snacks. The original plan was to stick to main meals and not snack at all, but that is apparently impossible for someone with the willpower of Donald Trump trying not to blame Barack Obama for something.
We were recently invited to our friends’ home for dinner. This is a high-pressure situation for a number of reasons. There are issues with me making inappropriate jokes; with me rising to the bait of the inevitable vegan-bashing that happens at every meal with omnivores; and with my impatience at the fact that the time between my wife announcing that we should leave and actually walking out the door is never less than an hour.
Chelsea captain Magdalena Eriksson: decision was easy
Players criticised for action before Hungary game
The Sweden defender and Chelsea captain, Magdalena Eriksson, has hit back at criticism the Swedish national team received for taking a knee before their Euro qualifier against Hungary on Thursday night.
The Sweden team had made it clear they were going to show the Black Lives Matter movement their support but after the game the players were heavily criticised on social media for their action.
The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world including Norwich Cathedral’s weathercock, a robot dog and a London fashion week
For decades David Attenborough delighted millions with tales of life on Earth. But now the broadcaster wants us to face up to the state of the planet
Sir David Attenborough’s soothing, matter-of-fact narrations have brought the natural world to our living rooms for nearly seven decades and counting. From Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the jungles of central Africa, the 94-year-old broadcaster has dazzled and delighted millions with tales of life on Earth – mostly pristine and untouched, according to the images on our screens. But this autumn Attenborough has returned with a different message: nature is collapsing around us.
“We are facing a crisis. One that has consequences for us all. It threatens our ability to feed ourselves, to control our climate. It even puts us at greater risk of pandemic diseases such as Covid-19,” he warned in Extinction: The Facts on BBC One primetime, receiving five-star reviews.
In awe of everything from his raunchiness to his skill with sheer volume, members of Pixies, Yes, Parliament-Funkadelic, Thin Lizzy and more celebrate the guitar god, who died 50 years ago today
I first met Jimi – he was called Jimmy James then – at the California Club in Los Angeles. He was down on his luck at the time. His wardrobe was shabby and he reeked of Right Guard deodorant, which he used in copious amounts because he couldn’t afford to have his clothing properly dry cleaned. The heels on his shoes were so worn down he appeared to walk bowlegged. When Jimi sat in with us, he was a mediocre guitar player, at best, who was constantly out of tune.
It trashed a ?6,000 teapot collection; it set neighbour against neighbour; it made stars of Carol Smillie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. Changing Rooms’ makers and contestants look back on their part in a TV treasure
Twenty years ago, when Caroline Hicks opened the door to reveal her new living room – renovated in just two days by her close friend Jo Thompson and designer Graham Wynne – three words became a mantra in her head. “I mustn’t swear, I mustn’t swear, I mustn’t swear,” the then 25-year-old thought to herself. Hicks’s plain cream Kent living room had been transformed into an “operating theatre”: the walls were white and her dining table was covered in aluminium paint. There were sandpaper squares on one wall and a permanently running water feature on the other. Hicks didn’t swear, but her lip visibly quivered. “Oh,” she said.
Hicks is just one of more than 600 people who appeared on the BBC’s home improvement show Changing Rooms between 1996 and 2004. The premise was simple: neighbours swapped homes and, with the help of designers, renovated a room each. With almost 12 million viewers at its peak, the programme was briefly a British institution – shortly after Hicks’s episode aired, a cashier in her local Habitat excitedly rang his boyfriend to exclaim that she was in his store. Recently, rumours began circulating that the show was to return after 16 years off-air. And why not? The daytime hit Ready Steady Cook was revived after a decade this March.
Despite the pandemic officials have placed tight restrictions on voting by mail, while students and minority groups face particular hurdles
Cynthia Riley realized some voters might not wear face masks when she staffed Texas’s primary runoff elections in July. But she hadn’t predicted that her fellow election clerks and one of the judges in Plano, Texas, would refuse to don basic protective gear at the start of a 14-hour shift sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.
“I don’t have to wear a mask, and I’m not going to,” she remembers the Republican judge snapping at her.
Since the war on terror, the US has contributed to displacing an estimated 37 million people, according to new research
Since George W Bush declared a “global war on terror” following al-Qaida’s September 11 attacks, the wars that US forces have launched and engaged in have displaced an estimated 37 million people, according to a new report I helped produce with teams from American University and Brown University’s Costs of War Project.
It has taken the pandemic and wildfires to do it, but there are signs of a change in the political wind in the US
There was a brief moment, on Tuesday night, when Donald Trump struck what by his standards qualified as a moment of sanity. An undecided voter in the audience of a “town hall” event in Pennsylvania had asked the president why, after mounting a strong first response to the pandemic, he had subsequently thrown vulnerable people under the bus by failing to recommend masks or social distancing. In the course of a long, nonsensical answer, the president said something one rarely hears him say. “It’s a terrible thing,” he said of the pandemic; and, for a split second, he sounded almost rational.
That was it, the sum total of his moment of reason. It didn’t last, obviously. Within the space of the same answer, Trump promised that a vaccine would be available within “ three weeks, four weeks”, and flogged the same, implausible line that the US response to the pandemic has been one of the best in the world. By Wednesday, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had felt compelled to step forward and clarify that, in all likelihood, it would be well into 2021 before a vaccine became available, while proffering the opinion that wearing a mask was as, if not, more important. “ I think he made a mistake when he said that,” retorted Trump. “It’s just incorrect information.”
Guafo, a 50,000-acre island, is a hotspot for marine biodiversity and part of the ancestral land of the Mapuche people
The island of Guafo sits on the route taken by blue whales heading into the fjords of Chilean Patagonia. It is a hotspot for marine biodiversity, home to rare flora and sacred to the indigenous Mapuche people.
I was strip-searched at the border. To be betrayed by a family member touches you deeply
I was three years old when they built the Berlin Wall; my brother Ulrich was seven. My father was a communist, but by the time I was 16 my mother had convinced him that the family should apply for an exit visa from East Germany. The government refused and everything changed for the worse – we were treated as if we had betrayed the cause. I was kicked out of school. I couldn’t do the job I wanted to do. I wasn’t even allowed to do the sport I liked, which was track and field, because I was banned from my club.
Ulrich and I were never close. He started drinking at an early age. He had his first child at 21 and moved in with his girlfriend. I started ballroom dancing, because it was a competitive activity where clubs were private and not run by the authorities. I danced with my younger sister, Uta, and in 1981 we came third in the East German championships. We were told that we could represent the German Democratic Republic (GDR) internationally – if we first withdrew our exit visa request. We refused, so they stopped us from dancing. That was when I decided to escape. I was 22, but felt like I was living in a grave.
‘My inner Sid James has been replaced by a benign old gentleman’
In January, I was diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer. On the same day, I started a testosterone blocker. The doctors warned me that this meant my sex life was over.
That night I looked at the first pill, ululating with grief over what I was about to lose. Nine months later, I can no longer remember what all the fuss was about. I boasted to my woke teenager that I am now on the list – LGBTQIA. “Which one are you?” she asked, sceptically. “A,” I replied; for asexual.
Van Morrison has described the British government as “fascist bullies disturbing our peace” in one of three new tracks he has written to protest against safety measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The Organization of American States had a key role in the destruction of the country’s democracy last November
Bolivia has descended into a nightmare of political repression and racist state violence since the democratically elected government of Evo Morales was overthrown by the military on 10 November last year. That month was the second-deadliest in terms of civilian deaths caused by state forces since Bolivia became a democracy nearly 40 years ago, according to a study by Harvard Law School’s (HLS) International Human Rights Clinic and the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) released a month ago.
Morales was the first indigenous president of Bolivia, which has the largest percentage of indigenous population of any country in the Americas. His government was able to reduce poverty by 42% and extreme poverty by 60%, which disproportionately benefited indigenous Bolivians. The November coup was led by a white and mestizo elite with a history of racism, seeking to revert state power to the people who had monopolised it before Morales’ election in 2005. The racist nature of the state violence is emphasised in the HLS/UNHR report, including eyewitness accounts of security forces using “racist and anti-indigenous language” as they attacked protesters; it is also clear from the fact that all of the victims of the two biggest massacres committed by state forces after the coup were indigenous.
Marking the 15-year anniversary of the New London Architecture galleries, the Changing Face of London revisits its 2005 exhibition to capture the transformation of the city’s famous landmarks. Aerial photographer Jason Hawkes talks us through his images
I have been photographing aerial views over London from helicopters for more than 25 years. I first flew in the capital when I was 22, and looking at images from then it is incredible how much some areas have changed.
We normally fly at an altitude of 750ft to 2,450ft. Things used to be a little more relaxed, which is why for instance the Battersea image from 15 years ago was shot from a much lower height than when I redid it last week.
Battersea power station, River Thames, Battersea and Pimlico, 2005 and 2020
Biosecure farms complete with staff quarantine and chutes for dead pigs are seen as progress, but may carry their own risks
The buildings do not even look like farms. They are huge grey concrete blocks, many storeys high, which stand side by side in the middle of what might look like a quarry, a “hole” of red earth dug in the heart of a mountain.
We are on the Yaji mountain, which in Chinese means “sacred”, a few kilometres south of the city of Guigang in southern China. What we are looking at is the tallest pig farm in the world; units up to nine storeys high housing thousands of pigs, with construction of a 12-storey pig unit under way.
“On each floor we can breed 1,270 pigs,” says Yuanfei Gao, vice-president of Yangxiang, the company that built the farm. “But in the future with the design of the new buildings we plan to have 1,300 pigs per floor.”
Fellow accuser E Jean Carroll leads chorus of voices supporting former model
A prominent American former magazine columnist who accused Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s has joined a chorus of voices supporting the latest woman to accuse Trump of sexually assaulting her, Amy Dorris.
Dorris, a former model and actor, said in a Guardian interview published on Thursday that Trump had forced his tongue down her throat and groped her at the 1997 US Open.
The exhibition, at Alison Jacques gallery in London until 1 October, focuses on Parks’ intimate and nuanced portraits of the legendary athlete and human rights advocate Muhammad Ali. Receiving unprecedented access to the champion, Parks met Ali in 1966 during his training in Miami, before flying to London to document the run up to his fight against Henry Cooper
Clashes between Isis-linked militants, government troops and mercenaries have displaced 200,000 in mineral-rich Cabo Delgado
For decades a forgotten corner of Mozambique, Cabo Delgado has now become the country’s El Dorado, promising billions in natural gas and gemstones but delivering its population only violence and displacement.
An insurgency in the province now threatens to become further entrenched – 50,000 people have fled their homes since March and Mozambique’s neighbours are currently debating sending in regional forces to help defeat militants who seized a strategic port in the town of Moc?mboa da Praia last month.
Beijing white paper says an average of 1.29 million workers a year have gone through ‘vocational training’ between 2014 and 2019
The Chinese Communist party government has defended its system of internment camps for Uighur and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, in a white paper that also revealed some details of the breadth of its labour program.
In the document published on Thursday, Beijing called them “vocational training centres” , saying: “Through its proactive labor and employment policies, Xinjiang has continuously improved the people’s material and cultural lives, and guaranteed and developed their human rights in every field.”
Young people have been hardest hit by austerity, and infant mortality is rising. The new children’s commissioner must not be another Tory crony
At midday today applications close for the next children’s commissioner for England. There was never greater need for a fearless defender of children to take over from the admirable Anne Longfield, whose six-year term ends in February. After a decade of destruction there is a crisis in every children’s service.
Taking on this job will be a dauntingly dispiriting task, as report after report from every quarter chronicles rising numbers of children falling into deprivation with dwindling help. The post carries a Cassandra curse: to see all that’s happening, to keep waving red flags of irrefutable evidence but with no power to act.
In Haiti, where more than half the population lives below the poverty line, only the wealthiest couples can afford a grand ceremony, lavish dinner reception and honeymoon.
In a country where couples often have to surmount obstacles including unrest, hurricanes, power outages, most have to get creative to wed in style.
Photographs by Val?rie Baeriswyl. Written by Sarah Marsh
As anti-government protesters in Haiti’s capital blocked principal roads and clashed with police last year, Stanley Joseph and Daphne Gerard used the city’s winding and potholed backstreets to make it to church for their wedding, decked out in all their finery.
With the release of a new album, the singer picks favourite tracks from her back catalogue and talks about the magic of working with Kanye West, surviving the tough streets of New York and her struggles with self-worth
Musicians can be prone to false modesty or putting their achievements down to whatever spiritual energy is currently in fashion. There is none of that with Alicia Keys. “If you put me in a room, I will close the deal,” she says, filling her hotel room with infectious CEO energy, all emphatic statements and eye contact. “But at the time I was bringing my music into the world, it was not on trend, at all. All the radio stations thought I was a 40-year-old jazz crooner. Meanwhile I was 19 with cornrows from Harlem.”
Nevertheless, in 2001 Keys closed the deal in living rooms across America with a career-making performance of her song Fallin on Oprah, a song that “was nothing like anything ever, not yesterday, today or tomorrow”, says Keys. She has since won 15 Grammys across six albums, with a seventh, Alicia, out this week, having been postponed (like the publication of this interview) from a spring release by coronavirus. Almost 20 years ago, she risked upsetting purists by bringing modern drum programming into classic soul and jazz; by embracing a relatively demure image, she risked seeming old-fashioned. “None of my songs should have ever worked, to be honest,” she says. These are some of her favourites that did anyway.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the former model Amy Dorris talked to Lucy Osborne about allegations that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her at the US Open tennis tournament more than two decades ago, in an alleged incident that left her feeling ‘sick’ and ‘violated’
Guardian journalist Lucy Osborne talks to Anushka Asthana about her interview with Amy Dorris, a former model, who has come forward to accuse Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her at the US Open tennis tournament more than two decades ago, in an alleged incident that left her feeling “sick” and “violated”. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Amy Dorris alleged that Trump accosted her outside the bathroom in his VIP box at the tournament in New York on 5 September 1997. Dorris, who was 24 at the time, accuses Trump of forcing his tongue down her throat, assaulting her all over her body and holding her in a grip she was unable to escape from. Lawyers for Trump have denied in the strongest possible terms that he ever harassed, abused or behaved improperly toward Doris.
Lucy discusses how the alleged incident fits within a wider pattern of alleged abuse that Trump has been accused of by 25 other women. Lucy discusses the impact speaking out has had on these women and why Amy has decided to tell her story. “My girls are about to turn 13 years old, and I want them to know that you don’t let anybody do anything to you that you don’t want,” she has said. “And I’d rather be a role model. I want them to see that I didn’t stay quiet, that I stood up to somebody who did something that was unacceptable.”
Amy Dorris’ allegations may not result in any consequences for this predatory president
It’s wholly unsurprising but entirely disgusting: the president of the United States yet again faces accusations of sexual assault.
This time they come from the former model Amy Dorris, who says Donald Trump groped her and shoved his tongue down her throat at the US Open tennis tournament in 1997. She told her mother and a friend, and later a therapist, all of whom confirmed her story.
The lawyer challenging the oil company’s toxic waste dump in Ecuador is under house arrest. We need a boycott
At a time when so many black Americans, Indigenous peoples, people of colour and white allies are protesting at systemic racism, we’d like to highlight a different story of marginalised people speaking truth to power on behalf of their most basic human rights. It’s the story of how “big oil” is now using Harvey Weinstein-like destroy-the-accuser tactics to try to crush environmental defenders. It is also the story of how we can all help those defenders peacefully fight back.
In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco, including all of its assets and civil liabilities. One of those liabilities was the “Amazon Chernobyl”, a 1,700-square-mile environmental disaster in Ecuador that Texaco created through a disregard – and an attitude that local Indigenous groups have called racism – for the health of the region’s peoples. Texaco, the sole operator of the fields from 1964 to 1992, eventually admitted that it deliberately discharged 72bn litres of toxic water into the environment, which ended up in the water supply, and gouged 1,000 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor. According to several Indigenous witnesses, including Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the Ecuadorean Secoya people, the company actually claimed that the oil wastes were medicinal and “full of vitamins”.
Amy Dorris alleges she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in 1997, when she was 24. Speaking publicly about the alleged incident for the first time, the former model claims Trump grabbed her as she came out of the bathroom of his VIP box at the US Open tennis event, forced his tongue down her throat and held her in a grip from which she could not escape. Trump's lawyers said he denied in the strongest possible terms having ever harassed, abused or behaved improperly toward Dorris
‘Leisure is a feminist issue’ says Surabhi Yadav, whose photography project captures carefree moments of women around her
When Surabhi Yadav’s mother, Basanti, died Yadav realised she had never really known her. “I knew her as my mother, but nothing else,” she says. “I asked one of her friend’s how she remembered her and she told me: ‘She was the funniest and goofiest in our group.’ Those were not words I associated with my mother. I thought of her as a very serious person.”
Her father was the “funny one”, she thought, although her mother never appreciated his humour. “Now, as an adult, I understand that part of it is that my father’s jokes were often sexist, often at her expense.”
The PM has been attempting to quell disquiet on several fronts, says the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot, with backbench Conservative MPs rebelling over the government’s latest Brexit plans, Covid-19 restrictions and a series of damaging U-turns
When the cabinet minister Brandon Lewis was asked in the House of Commons whether a new bill designed to regulate trade within the UK after Brexit would break international law, he confirmed it would in a ‘limited and specific way’. The comments ignited a firestorm within his party as backbenchers and grandees tore into the government for threatening to damage the UK’s reputation for respecting the rule of law.
As the Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, tells Anushka Asthana, it is not the only source of disquiet within the party. Some MPs are furious at new restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19 that restrict gatherings to six people. Others are exasperated at a summer of repeated U-turns and stories of incompetence.
Luke Harding says alleged attack on Russian opposition figure has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored hit
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition figure, was onboard a flight from Siberia on 20 August when he was taken seriously ill. After an emergency landing in Omsk, he spent two days being treated by Russian doctors, who ruled out poisoning in public statements. But following transfer to a hospital in Berlin, authorities in Germany revealed that he had in fact been poisoned with novichok, the same substance used in the 2018 attack on the Skripals in Salisbury, UK.
The Guardian’s Luke Harding tells Anushka Asthana the alleged attack on Navalny has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored hit. But as Navalny appears to be slowly recovering from the incident, western leaders have been quick to demand answers from Russia. There are even calls for Germany to cancel the prestigious Nord Stream 2 pipeline in retaliation
Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden were among the attendees at memorial services in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to honor the 40 passengers who died aboard Flight 93.
At the Pentagon, US army chief general Mark Milley spoke in defense of a free press when listing examples of US armed forces' "values".
Thousands of refugees on Lesbos protested in the street on Friday outside what was the largest migrant camp in Europe, which burned to the ground on Tuesday night.
Greek officials have pledged new temporary tents for the close to 13,000 refugees who were staying in Moria, as 11 European countries agreed to take 400 unaccompanied minors from among those left homeless by the fire
Thousands of Belarusians have defied beatings and arrests to demand the resignation of the country's authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, after he claimed victory in an election they say was rigged. Protesters have flooded Belarus's capital, Minsk, every week for a month to call for new, free and fair elections, as well as an end to police violence. But Lukashenko has held on with the support of the police and military. Can the protesters topple the man often called Europe's last dictator?
When people think of a sustainable business they’re often thinking of its environmental impact. But as Covid-19 has shown, companies are capable of much more
As winter turned to spring and Covid-19 began establishing itself beyond China as a major global threat, the world’s governments and industries started looking for ways to combat the imminent pandemic.
Cottage industries were, of course, quick to adapt and serve a new need – the tailors and seamstresses of Berlin had been churning out face masks for days before it became mandatory to wear them in shops and on public transport.
More than 8m tonnes of plastic end up in oceans every year, so building a system that moves away from our ‘take, make, waste’ economy is crucial. We look at the possible iterations of a shower gel bottle to explore how a new economic model could be achieved
Picture this. You’re running low on shower gel and shampoo so on your next visit to the supermarket you head to the toiletries aisle and quickly scan what’s available. Instead of row upon row of colourful plastic bottles, this is what you see. A few plastic bottles, but not in the colours you’re used to – they’re mostly grey, with a few hints of colour here and there. Mostly, there are no bottles, though. Shower gels and shampoos in solid bar form are neatly packaged in cardboard boxes or available loose. There is also a stack of reusable containers sitting next to large dispensers of liquid soap and shampoo.
In a world increasingly wary of its plastic use, this is what shopping for personal care products could look like, and work is already underway to get us there. Across the board rooms, laboratories and factories of large consumer goods companies, important questions are being asked about their role in this shift. According to Leela Dilkes-Hoffman, senior research analyst for the New Plastics Economy initiative at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which campaigns against waste, companies should ask themselves how to deliver products, rather than how to deliver packaging. “Can I do it in a solid tablet? Can I do it in a reusable bottle? Can I do it in a bottle that the user owns?” she says.
Beloved by parents and DIY enthusiasts, adhesives Pritt and Solvite take their strength from an unusual – and eco-friendly – source
The Pritt stick is that rare thing – a brand, like Hoover, Velcro or Google, that becomes generic; there may be other glue sticks, but they will never be anything more than impostors. “Pritt will always be the reliable yet totally badass friend you know will never let you down,” says freelance children’s book designer Hannah Ahmed, who attributes her choice of career in part to her early years of experimenting with the “trusty white glue stick”.
It’s difficult to conceive of a time before Pritt, but in 1967, when a Henkel researcher, Dr Wolfgang Dierichs, came up with the idea, there were no solid glues on the market. “The trick was getting the glue to stiffen,” says Nils Hellwig, head of global product development, adhesive consumers and craftsmen at Henkel.
Experts often talk about moving our current economy to a circular one – but what does that mean? We look at the possible life cycle of a plastic disinfectant bottle to explore the concept
On a beach in Haiti, sits a plastic bottle – one among thousands of others. One day a person comes along, picks it up and puts it in a bag with many other bottles. The bag is taken to a depot, weighed, and its collector receives credit for the combined value of the discarded plastic. The collector is a person with few other employment prospects and the depot is run by Plastic Bank, a social enterprise with locations in coastal countries across the globe.
Zoom across the Atlantic ocean and a person is scanning the shelves in a hardware store. They select a bottle of Jeyes household cleaner and put it in their shopping basket.
Donald Trump said he was 'trying to avoid panic' by not revealing the severity of Covid-19, despite CNN audio published on Wednesday from an interview in February in which he acknowledged the virus was 'deadly'.
The president, who defended his comments to the journalist Bob Woodward for Woodward's book Rage, insisted his strategy was focused on encouraging Americans to remain calm, as the virus spread across the country
Joe Biden took the offensive against Donald Trump during a campaign event in Warren, Michigan after CNN released audio of Trump telling the journalist Bob Woodward in February that he knew coronavirus was 'deadly' and airborne.
Biden said the president had 'failed to do his job on purpose' as he knew the danger of Covid-19 but downplayed the severity of the virus for months
Americans are increasingly encountering barriers to exercising their most fundamental of democratic rights during this 2020 presidential election – the right to vote.
The Guardian's Sam Levine looks at how voter suppression has been unfolding across the US, four key tactics being used in attempts to block votes, and how president Donald Trump is trying delegitimize November's election
The number of places which people need to self-isolate after returning from is growing. Share your experiences
We would like to hear from people about their experiences arriving at UK airports, ports and train stations from countries on the quarantine list, such as Croatia, France, Spain and Luxembourg.
Mali's new military rulers have vowed to restore confidence 'between governed and governors' after a coup on Tuesday that led to the president, Ibrahim Boubacar Ke?ta, announcing his resignation, as well as the dissolution of the government and the national assembly. Ke?ta came to power in 2013 and won a second term in 2018. But there had been rising anger at government incompetence, endemic corruption and a deteriorating economy
A Japanese ship that has leaked hundreds of tonnes of fuel oil off the coast of Mauritius has broken up. The MV Wakashio ran aground on a coral reef on 25 July with 4,000 tonnes of the fuel, causing an ecological emergency
Residents in the Brazilian city of Porto Velho city were battling blazes spreading in the dry brush on 16 August, as firefighters arrived at the remote jungle location to fight the fires that continue to threaten the Amazon.
Smoke could be seen billowing as the fire edged closer to a farmer's home in an area of the Amazon rainforest in Rond?nia state.
'We are poor, my salary is just to feed my family. The fire comes to end everything in a fraction of seconds,' local resident Rosalino De Oliveira said.
Joe Biden has picked his former one-time presidential rival Kamala Harris to be his running mate, making her the first woman of color on a major party presidential ticket. The Guardian's Lauren Gambino explains Harris's trailblazing background, the 'hunger for black, female leadership' and the excitement around the Californian senator's nomination
Whether you live or work in Belarus, we would like to hear your reaction to the situation in the country. What do you think the mood is like at the moment? Are you taking part in protests? Do you have any concerns?
On Tuesday evening, a massive explosion ripped across Beirut, killing at least 150 people and injuring thousands more. The scale of the damage was immense, with buildings miles from the port lying in ruin.
The Guardian's Michael Safi looks at the cause of the blast and the impact it has had on Lebanon, a country already on the brink of financial collapse
In an extraordinary clip from Jonathan Swan's Axios interview with Donald Trump, the president rifled through a sheaf of graphs to claim that the US has lower numbers of coronavirus than other nations.
The pair debated Trump's point that America has a lower number of deaths as a percentage of coronavirus cases, but when Swan pointed instead to the number of US Covid-19 deaths as a population percentage, Trump said: 'You can't do that'
The full interview will be shown on HBO on 4 August
We’d like your help identifying the US frontline healthcare workers who die after treating or helping patients with coronavirus
Lost on the frontline is a project by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the life of every healthcare worker in the US who dies from Covid-19 during the pandemic. From doctors to hospital cleaners, and from nursing home aides to paramedics, this project will capture the diverse range of frontline health workers risking their lives to help others in this fight. You can read more about the project here .
