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The GuardianHealthIsrael & Palestine

This Ramadan in Gaza we pray for mercy, share what we have and light a single candle for hope | Majdoleen Abu Assi

I mourn the vibrant life we lived before. But though our faces anxiously turn to the sky, our hands are joined in a solidarity that rises above hungerEvery year, Ramadan comes as a sanctuary for the soul. For Muslims like me, it is a sacred pause in the chaos of life. But this year, as a woman displaced from the familiar streets of Gaza City to a rented room in Al-Zawayda, I am searching for a peace that feels like a ghost. The world calls this a “”, yet from my window the silence feels heavy. We are holding our breath because the fear of death has not disappeared, it has just become unpredictable.I did not welcome Ramadan this year with the golden lanterns that once adorned our balconies. I welcomed it to the roar of bulldozers clearing the bones of neighbouring houses and with the constant buzz of the zanana, the Israeli surveillance drones, overhead. Even as we stand in prayer, that metallic humming drowns out the adhan, the call to prayer, reminding us that we are still watched and that our “calm” rests at the mercy of a sudden strike.Majdoleen Abu Assi is a project coordinator and humanitarian practitioner based in Gaza, Palestine

Last updated 8h ago
The GuardianPoliticsUSA

How Jesse Jackson’s ‘radically inclusive’ vision shaped the Democratic party we know today

The civil rights trailblazer imagined a future for America in which the marginalized became the center of US politicsReverend Jesse Jackson, the civil- and human-rights trailblazer who died on 17 February, imagined a version of America where the marginalized became the center. His was a much more progressive vision than what the Democratic party thought possible after the civil rights movement, and through Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition – launched after his first presidential campaign in 1984 – he laid the groundwork for a new era.“This Rainbow Coalition is the embodiment of a national politics that is radically inclusive,” Charles McKinney, a professor of history at Rhodes Collegesaid. “He was like: ‘I’ve got something for the middle class, I’ve got something for the elite, and I also have something for working-class folks. To me, that was the embodiment of his politics.”

Last updated 8h ago
The GuardianOpinion

Tale of two nations: Andrew’s UK arrest highlights US passivity on Epstein files

In Britain, the establishment has been shaken to the core by the files. In the US, however, ‘the Epstein class’ has faced little legal or political reckoningThe contrast could not be starker. At around 8am on Thursday, British police swooped on the Sandringham royal estate to arrest the former prince Andrew after allegations that he had shared confidential material with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It was a seismic shock for the monarchy.A week earlier Pam Bondi, the top US law enforcement official, was asked how many of Epstein’s co-conspirators her department had indicted, or whether she would give state attorneys general access to evidence to build further cases. She refused to answer.

Last updated 8h ago
The GuardianCrime & SafetySouth Korea

Why is South Korea angry that Yoon Suk Yeol wasn’t sentenced to death?

The former president was found guilty of leading an insurrection and sentenced to life imprisonment with labour, a punishment that some have called a ‘failure’ On Thursday, former president Yoon Suk Yeol was found guilty of leading an insurrection and sentenced to life imprisonment with labour over his in December 2024.When he received his sentence, hundreds of his opponents cheered outside the court. But the mood quickly shifted to disappointment and anger.

Last updated 20h ago
The GuardianInformationUSA

CBS News is convulsing as Larry Ellison tries to please Trump | Margaret Sullivan

Recent incidents involving Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert suggest things are not well at the network after the acquisition financed by Trump supporter Larry EllisonAnderson Cooper from broadcast TV’s most prestigious news show, 60 Minutes. Stephen Colbert takes his interview with a rising Democratic politician to YouTube . The CBS Evening News anchor of the network’s own exclusive reporting on Ice arrests. And a news producer writes a farewell note to her CBS News colleagues .If you connect the dots, the picture of what’s happening at CBS becomes all too clear. That picture comes into even sharper focus once you recall an underlying factor: the network’s parent company is and needs the help of the Trump administration to bring it over the finish line.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Last updated 8h ago
DawnWar & ConflictIran

The coming war

IF you want to determine whether war will take place, don’t focus on what the potential belligerents are saying; focus, instead, on where armies and supplies are being moved to. One carrier strike group — spearheaded by the nuclear-powered USS Abraham Lincoln — is already deployed 700 kilometres off the Iranian shore. It carries a complement of 60-90 aircraft including stealth fighters, attack helicopters and a full electronic warfare suite. Another carrier strike group, led by the USS Gerald Ford will be arriving in a week or less. The most advanced US carrier in the fleet, the Ford will add 70-plus aircraft to the tally, along with its advanced radar systems. Both carriers are supported by numerous military vessels, including high-tech destroyers, meaning that about a third of US naval assets are, or will soon be, in a position to strike Iran.

Last updated 16h ago
The GuardianRelationshipsFrance

Gisèle Pelicot on rape, courage and her ex-husband: ‘He was loved by everyone. That’s what is so terrifying’

The case against her former husband shocked the world, while her response inspired awe. As she publishes a memoir, she discusses chemical submission, the abuse hidden within her apparently perfect marriage – and why she decided to go publicAt Gisèle Pelicot’s new home on Île de Ré off France’s Atlantic coast, she likes to take bracing walks along the beach in all weathers, play classical music loud, eat nice chocolate and, as a gift to each new morning, always set the table for breakfast the night before. “It’s my way of putting myself in a good mood when I wake up: the cups are out already, I just need to put the kettle on,” she says.But one of her most treasured possessions is a box of letters she keeps on her desk. The envelopes from across the world – some sent on a prayer, addressed only with her name and the where she once lived – piled up at the courthouse in Avignon in southern France in late 2024, when she became famous worldwide as a for waiving her right to anonymity in the he had invited to rape her while she was drugged unconscious.

Last updated 9h ago
The GuardianGlobal AffairsEast Anglia

Palace would not oppose move to remove Andrew from succession

Police continue searches at Mountbatten-Windsor’s former Windsor home after arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public officeBuckingham Palace will not oppose plans to remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the royal line of succession, the Guardian understands, as police confirmed a search of his former Windsor home would continue over the weekend.Royal sources indicated on Saturday that King Charles would not stand in the way of parliament if it wanted to ensure the former prince could never ascend to the throne.

Last updated 8h ago
The GuardianCrime & SafetySpain

‘Psychological torture’: Spanish tenants fight back against housing ‘harassment’

Court in Madrid will soon decide whether developers are using construction to force people out of their homesWhen the Madrid building where Jaime Oteyza had lived since 2012 was sold to an investment fund two years ago, a local tenants’ union swiftly warned him what to expect.First the tenants would be told that none of their rental contracts – regardless of their expiry date – would be renewed, the union said. Then, as the 50 or so families in the building grappled with what to do next, a series of construction projects would probably be launched in the building to ramp up pressure on them to leave.

Last updated 12h ago
The GuardianDiplomacy

Combative Carlson-Huckabee interview reveals US right’s chasm over Israel

Parts of Maga view Israel with suspicion, but US ambassador continues to believe in its divine right to much of the Middle EastParts of the Maga right may be souring on Israel – but a hardline form of Christian Zionism seems to remain unofficial Trump administration policy, if a heated debate between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is any indication.On Friday, Carlson released a confrontational video interview with Huckabee, conducted at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, that vividly illustrated a gaping divide between two factions of the Republican party. On one side is a Christian nationalist stream of the Maga movement, which views the United States’s close relationship with Israel with increasing suspicion. On the other is an older Christian conservative establishment that views that alliance as a totem of US foreign policy – and in some cases believes that Israeli Jews possess a to a large swathe of the Middle East, US public opinion be damned.

Last updated 4h ago