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In Sweden, online hate and anti-immigrant extremism are driving women out of public life | Martin Gelin

A leading liberal politician has quit in fear of her physical safety. It is a crushing setback for democracy in one of the world’s most open societies

Shortly after the first TV debate in the campaign for next year’s Swedish election, there was a startling announcement. Anna-Karin Hatt, the leader of the Centre party, the standard-bearer for liberal centrism in Swedish politics, announced her resignation, citing an unbearable number of threats and harassment.

Hatt was an emerging voice in Swedish politics, but had been able to lead the Centre party for only five months before she made a speech announcing that she felt forced to leave her job for the safety of her family. Her speech was short on specifics, but she referred to clear physical threats “not just from trolls behind a screen, it has come much closer than that”. She said she felt obliged to look over her shoulder in public spaces and no longer felt safe in her own home.

Martin Gelin is a journalist and author. He writes for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter



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© Photograph: Centre Party

© Photograph: Centre Party

© Photograph: Centre Party

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‘The second coming we all deserve!’ Sesame Street goes global at long last

After decades of struggle, the warm-hearted kids’ programme has been rescued by Netflix. This could be the start of a partnership as enduring as Bert and Ernie’s

An entire generation of British adults was raised by Sesame Street. They’re easy enough to spot; they’re kind, they have had that Pointer Sisters pinball counting song as an earworm for four decades, and they were repeatedly told off at school for pronouncing the final letter of the alphabet “zee”.

But this generation is old. The last time Sesame Street was regularly broadcast in the UK was September 2001, when Channel 4 made the decision to replace it with The Hoobs. However, this all changes now. Because Sesame Street has just rolled out on Netflix for the first time.

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© Photograph: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

© Photograph: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

© Photograph: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

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Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief

Brazil’s André Corrêa do Lago says countries should follow China’s lead on clean energy as conference begins

Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for combating the climate crisis while China is surging ahead in producing and using clean energy equipment, the president of the UN climate talks has said.

More countries should follow China’s lead instead of complaining about being outcompeted, said André Corrêa do Lago, the Brazilian diplomat in charge of the Cop30 conference, which begins on Monday.

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© Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters

© Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters

© Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters

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Syrian president to hold talks with Trump at White House

Ahmed al-Sharaa is expected to push for full lifting of remaining sanctions imposed during 13-year civil war

Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, will on Monday hold talks with Donald Trump at the White House, the first such official visit by a Syrian leader since national independence in 1946. He is expected to push for a full lifting of the remaining sanctions on his war-ravaged country.

Sharaa, whose Islamist rebel forces toppled the longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, has courted the US president to try to reverse the economic restrictions imposed during the 13-year civil war, arguing they are no longer justified.

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© Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

© Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

© Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

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‘I enter a room and people say: “God just walked in”’: Morgan Freeman on voicing the divine, meeting Mandela – and his six decades on screen

The 88-year-old actor has appeared in more than 100 films, playing everyone from presidents to prisoners. Here, he reflects on AI’s ‘robbing’ of his voice, not believing in Black History Month – and why he’s nowhere near retirement

In a dishonest age when truth is under siege, media attention shatters into a thousand shards of glass and nothing is quite what it seems, what could be more precious than a voice of authority? Cue Morgan Freeman, an actor who has portrayed a US president, Nelson Mandela and the Almighty, and replaced Walter Cronkite on the voiceover introducing the CBS Evening News. If John Gielgud’s baritone was described as being “like a silver trumpet muffled in silk”, Freeman’s is like rich wood polished to a quiet shine.

It was less God’s gift than the product of hard work, thanks to an inspiring voice and diction instructor at his community college in Los Angeles. “If you’re going to speak, speak distinctly, hit your final consonance and do exercises to lower your voice,” says Freeman, dapper in light jacket , via video call from New York. “Most people’s voices are higher than they would be normally if they knew how to relax it. He taught that sort of thing. It was Robert Whitman: I will never forget him.

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© Photograph: Maarten De Boer/Contour by Getty Images

© Photograph: Maarten De Boer/Contour by Getty Images

© Photograph: Maarten De Boer/Contour by Getty Images

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Waiting for the all-clear: how medics and villagers rallied when Ebola returned to DRC

If no new cases are reported in Bulape by early December, the country will have vanquished its 16th outbreak of the deadly virus since it was discovered there in 1976

His two-year-old daughter died first, then his mother, then his wife. But Bope Mpona Héritier still had no idea what illness had taken their lives. Then the 25-year-old also began to develop symptoms. When his blood was tested and sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, the results confirmed he had the Ebola virus.

“I felt pain everywhere,” he says. “I had a migraine, a sharp pain in my eyes and throat, and I was vomiting. I couldn’t eat anything because I had no appetite, so I lost a lot of weight.”

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© Photograph: Tam Patachako/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tam Patachako/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tam Patachako/The Guardian

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Fury as Indonesia declares late authoritarian ruler Suharto a national hero

Suharto presided over a period marked by rampant corruption, nepotism, censorship and allegations of mass human rights abuses

Indonesia has awarded former authoritarian leader Suharto the title of national hero, in a move that has sparked accusations of historical revisionism in the world’s third-largest democracy.

The award has deepened fears about attempts to whitewash Suharto’s rise and decades-long rule, a period marked by rampant corruption, censorship and accusations of mass human rights violations.

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© Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

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Senate advances funding bill to end longest US government shutdown in history

The amended package will still have to be passed by the House and sent to Trump for his signature, a process that could take days

The Senate on Sunday made significant progress towards ending the longest US government shutdown in history, narrowly advancing a compromise bill to reauthorize funding and undo the layoffs of some employees.

But the measure, which resulted from days of talks between a handful of Democratic and Republican senators, leaves out the healthcare subsidies that Democrats had demanded for weeks. Most Democratic senators rejected it, as did many of the party’s lawmakers in the House of Representatives, which will have to vote to approve it before the government can reopen.

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© Photograph: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Nathan Posner/Shutterstock

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Two dead and more than a million displaced after super typhoon Fung-wong slams the Philippines

More than 1.4 million people were evacuated across the country as the storm triggered flash flooding, landslides and gale-force winds

Super typhoon Fung-wong has blown through the Philippines, leaving at least two dead, 1.4 million people evacuated and widespread damage in its wake.

More than 1.4 million people were evacuated across the country as the storm triggered flash flooding, storm surges, landslides and gale-force winds, Philippine authorities said on Monday.

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© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

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Cop ahoy! Sailing up the Amazon to the climate summit – podcast

Jonathan Watts sets off on a three-day boat trip down the Amazon – with indigenous leaders, scientists, artists and more – to report on Cop30, the climate summit taking place this year in Brazil

This week, delegations from countries from all over the world are flying into Belem, Brazil, to attend Cop30, the world’s biggest climate summit.

The Guardian’s global environment reporter Jonathan Watts, however, had a different idea – to take the slow road. Or, in fact, the slow boat – a three-day journey up the Amazon, across hundreds of kilometres, to arrive in Belem just in time.

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© Photograph: Donatas Dabravolskas/Alamy

© Photograph: Donatas Dabravolskas/Alamy

© Photograph: Donatas Dabravolskas/Alamy

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US Senate vote marks step towards ending federal shutdown

Senators vote on advancing House-passed stopgap funding bill, suggesting end to historic 40-day shutdown in reach

The US Senate on Sunday took a key vote on a bill that would end the record-setting federal government shutdown without extending the healthcare subsidies that Democrats have demanded.

Senators began voting on Sunday night to advance House-passed stopgap funding legislation that Senate majority leader John Thune said would be amended to combine another short-term spending measure with a package of three full-year appropriations bills.

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© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

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Ukraine war briefing: Lavrov reappears, ready to offer Marco Rubio same demands

Ukraine answers Russia’s strikes on energy grid; Zelenskyy tells the Guardian that King Charles eased Trump tensions. What we know on day 1,356

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© Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images

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Who is ‘fedora man’? Dapper French teenager in viral Louvre heist photo unmasked

Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux was captured looking suave in a picture outside the Paris museum on the day of a crown jewels heist

When 15-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux realised an Associated Press photo of him at the Louvre on the day of the crown jewels heist had drawn millions of views, his first instinct was not to rush online and unmask himself.

Quite the opposite. A fan of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot who lives with his parents and grandfather in Rambouillet, 30km (19 miles) from Paris, Pedro decided to let the mystery linger.

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© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

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Maggots in the meals, glass in the rice: Indonesia’s free school meals tainted by food poisoning

Thousands of cases of food poisoning have been linked to programme launched with fanfare by the president, Prabowo Subianto

Rini Irawati feared the worst when she found her teenage daughter Nabila pale and barely breathing in an emergency centre in Indonesia’s West Java. “My heart was shattered,” Rini said.

After consuming one of the government’s free school meals this October, 16-year-old Nabila and 500 other students at schools in her area became violently ill. “I’ve seen nothing like it, even during Covid-19,” said Aep Kunaepi, who works at the shelter Nabila was taken to before she was admitted to hospital for three days.

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© Photograph: Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA

© Photograph: Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA

© Photograph: Hotli Simanjuntak/EPA

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No link between paracetamol in pregnancy and autism or ADHD in children, review finds

Wide-ranging review finds no convincing connection after Trump said women should ‘fight like hell’ to avoid painkiller

A wide-ranging review into paracetamol use by pregnant women has found no convincing link between the common painkiller and the chances of children being diagnosed with autism and ADHD.

Publication of the work was fast-tracked to provide prospective mothers and their doctors with reliable information after the Trump administration urged pregnant women to avoid paracetamol – also known as acetaminophen or Tylenol – claiming it was contributing to rising rates of autism.

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© Photograph: LM Otero/AP

© Photograph: LM Otero/AP

© Photograph: LM Otero/AP

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Growth in global demand for ‘green’ office buildings slows amid Trump policies

Fall reported by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as UN calls for accelerated action in buildings sector to meet global climate goals

The growth in global demand for “green” office buildings has slowed after Donald Trump’s assault on environmental protection policies caused a slump in interest in the US, according to a survey of construction industry professionals.

Building occupiers and investors across North America and South America expressed significantly lower growth in demand for green commercial buildings, a shift that “seems to be in response to a change in US policy focus”, according to a survey of members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). Reported demand across the rest of the world also fell, albeit not as sharply.

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© Photograph: Paul Adams/Alamy

© Photograph: Paul Adams/Alamy

© Photograph: Paul Adams/Alamy

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Girl, 17, joins lawsuit against government after seeing horrific phone videos at school

Flossie McShea from Devon says she saw a shooting, a beheading and porn and that other students ‘show you their screen without invitation’

A 17-year-old girl who says she was exposed to horrific images and videos including porn, a shooting and a beheading on a smartphones during the school day has joined a legal action against the education secretary.

Flossie McShea, from Devon, says she also received threatening messages while at school, as she put her name to a judicial review in an attempt to get smartphones banned in schools in England.

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© Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

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The Mushroom Tapes review – Erin Patterson through the eyes of Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein

This account of what the three authors observed during Patterson’s triple murder trial does resemble a podcast transcript at times, but it is extremely readable

Every reader of The Mushroom Tapes will open the book knowing that Erin Patterson was found guilty in July of murdering three people – her in-laws, Gail and Don Patterson, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson – and of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. They will also know she was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years, and is now appealing against her conviction. Who among us hasn’t been roped into speculation about this family tragedy, the carcass of which has been picked over by pundits, amateurs and experts for years now?

Over 10 long weeks, the baroque details of the trial of Erin Patterson were made immediately available to a ravenous public – including sightings of Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein, three of Australia’s most celebrated nonfiction writers, in the public seats of courtroom four in Morwell, Victoria. Were there several works of Australian literary nonfiction about Erin Patterson in the offing? A week after the guilty verdict was handed down, Text Publishing announced that the trio would collaborate on a book: The Mushroom Tapes.

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© Composite: Text Publishing/Eugene Hyland

© Composite: Text Publishing/Eugene Hyland

© Composite: Text Publishing/Eugene Hyland

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Climate disasters displaced 250 million people in past 10 years, UN report finds

Floods, storms and droughts have uprooted people across the globe as rising temperatures intensify conflict and hunger

Climate-related disasters forcibly displaced 250 million people globally over the past decade, the equivalent of 70,000 people every day, according to a report by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

Floods, storms, drought and extreme heat are among the weather conditions driving conflict and displacement, alongside slow-onset disasters such as desertification, rising sea levels and ecosystem destruction, which are threatening food and water security.

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© Photograph: Daniel Marenco/The Guardian

© Photograph: Daniel Marenco/The Guardian

© Photograph: Daniel Marenco/The Guardian

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Slim pickings: what explains the unusual apple shortage in this Blue Mountains orchard?

Growers are reporting a difficult apple season, which is having a knock-on effect for local tourism

At this time of year, Pine Crest Orchard in the Blue Mountains town of Bilpin would usually have about 1,000 visitors a day picking their own fruit from trees laden with apples.

But this season, the trees are mostly bare – and no one really knows why.

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© Photograph: Pine Crest Orchard

© Photograph: Pine Crest Orchard

© Photograph: Pine Crest Orchard

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Trespasses review – an intoxicating, rousing and heartbreaking love story

This adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s masterly novel, set in 70s Belfast, sees a Catholic teacher drawn into a dangerous affair with a Protestant barrister. It really hits a nerve

We could be happy together, if only we weren’t here and it wasn’t now: the tragedy of sweethearts caught up in conflict, their love overcome by others’ hate, is an old and powerful story. Trespasses, an adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s novel, written by Ailbhe Keogan, hits that nerve.

A small town outside Belfast, 1975: rancour, suspicion and grief shadow every moment in the thwarted life of Cushla (Lola Petticrew), a Catholic primary-school teacher in her mid-20s who is giving up her spare time to work shifts in her brother’s pub. The priests at the school are hollering bigots, telling the children that every Protestant is an evil enemy, despite one of the kids being the son of a Catholic father and Protestant mother. Cushla takes an interest in the boy, who tends to arrive at school without a coat, and his elder brother, who shows signs of secretly sharing Cushla’s love of reading. She gives them lifts back to their house on a flag-strewn Protestant estate, at the risk of her car being pelted with bricks, and redoubles her support for the family when the dad has his legs and skull broken by vengeful neighbours.

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© Photograph: Steffan Hill/Channel 4

© Photograph: Steffan Hill/Channel 4

© Photograph: Steffan Hill/Channel 4

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Trump shares false claim Obama earned $40m in ‘royalties’ from Obamacare

US president promoted fictional claim from satirical website that has been debunked repeatedly since 2017

Donald Trump promoted the false claim that Barack Obama has earned $40m in “royalties linked to Obamacare” in a post to his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday.

The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunked since at least 2017, when it was featured on America’s Last Line of Defense, a satirical website that produces fake news reports designed to generate engagement from outraged conservatives.

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© Photograph: Ricky Carioti/Reuters

© Photograph: Ricky Carioti/Reuters

© Photograph: Ricky Carioti/Reuters

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Lewis Hamilton laments ‘nightmare’ first season driving for Ferrari

  • Briton forced to retire on lap 37 of São Paulo GP

  • Hamilton yet to make podium with Scuderia

Lewis Hamilton has branded his first season at Ferrari as a “nightmare” after he endured another trying weekend, forced to retire from the São Paulo Grand Prix in a year when he has been frustrated and disappointed as he attempts to adapt to his new team.

“It’s a nightmare,” Hamilton said. “I’ve been living it for a while. The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team and then the nightmare of the results that we’ve had. We are just really having to fight through those hardships at the moment.

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© Photograph: Richard Callis/SPP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Richard Callis/SPP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Richard Callis/SPP/Shutterstock

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NFL roundup: Dolphins shock Bills as Texans stage record comeback against Jags

  • Miami end seven-game losing streak against Buffalo

  • Houston score 26 points in final quarter to secure win

Tua Tagovailoa threw for 173 yards and two touchdowns, De’Von Achane added a pair of rushing scores and the Miami Dolphins beat the Buffalo Bills to end a seven-game losing streak against their AFC East rivals. The Bills (6-3) had not lost to Miami (3-7) since Week 3 of the 2022 season but came out flat on Sunday.

Achane finished with 225 scrimmage yards and fourth-quarter touchdowns of 59 and 35 yards. Tagovailoa completed 15 of 21 passes with two interceptions to give him a league-leading 12 picks this season. It was also the most dominant performance of the season for Miami’s defense, which had three takeaways and three sacks. Josh Allen threw for 306 yards and two touchdowns, with an interception and fumble, but was replaced by Mitchell Trubisky after Achane’s second TD put the Dolphins up by 17 with three minutes left.

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© Photograph: Megan Briggs/Getty Images

© Photograph: Megan Briggs/Getty Images

© Photograph: Megan Briggs/Getty Images

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