Good morning.
In a new poll regarding potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, led Donald Trump by 23 points.
Republican and Republican-leaning voters dealt the significant blow to the former president’s ego in a survey carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University and released on Tuesday.
There was good news for Trump in another poll covering the same time period, by Morning Consult, which gave him an 18-point lead over DeSantis. Furthermore, the polling website FiveThirtyEight still shows Trump in the lead in most surveys.
Nonetheless, David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told USA Today: “Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump.”
What did the poll say about Biden? The poll put Joe Biden, the president, up 47%-40% in a notional rematch with Trump and DeSantis ahead of Biden in a notional match-up, 47%-43%.
Is Biden running? Biden, who is 80, has said he will decide on whether to run again over the Christmas holidays.
What about Mike Pence? The former vice-president said he and his wife, Karen, would also make a decision on whether to mount a run next year, after “prayerful consideration” over the holiday period. “We’ll continue to travel, we’ll continue to listen,” he said.
Ukraine forces shoot down drones as Kyiv hit by explosions
The Ukrainian military shot down 13 Iranian-made drones over Kyiv and the surrounding region early this morning as a series of explosions hit the capital in what authorities described as a continuation of Russia’s “energy terror” against the country.
Kyiv’s city administration said two of its office buildings had been damaged by the falling debris of a drone. There were no victims, the spokesperson for Kyiv’s rescue services, Svitlana Vodolaga, told Ukraine’s Suspilne news.
The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote in a post on Telegram that there were blasts in the central district of the capital, Shevchenkivskyi, which is home to many government agencies and buildings, and that 10 Iranian-made drones had been shot down. City authorities said an 11th drone was shot down shortly after 8am.
The head of Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, wrote on Telegram: “Russia continues the energy terror of the country. But we are getting stronger every day.” Kuleba warned that the air raid alert had not come to an end and advised residents to remain in shelters.
What else is happening in Ukraine? Here’s what we know on day 294 of the invasion.
‘Going through torture’: Megan Thee Stallion testifies against Tory Lanez
Megan Thee Stallion delivered emotional testimony yesterday in the trial of Tory Lanez, the fellow musician and former friend who allegedly shot her following a party in Los Angeles.
The Texas-born rapper, whose real name is Megan Pete, gave the most in-depth account yet of the moment before the alleged shooting in 2020. She described how the attack left her with constant pain in her feet and said reliving the incident in the public eye had been “torture”.
“I don’t wanna be on this Earth,” Pete said at one point during her daylong testimony. “I wish he woulda shot and killed me if I knew I would go through this torture.”
She often appeared overcome with emotion and sniffled softly as the Los Angeles county prosecutor Kathy Ta questioned her about the early-morning shooting on 12 July 2020.
What else happened in court? Ta showed Pete and the courtroom police body camera footage of Pete being ordered out of a large black vehicle and hobbling to the sidewalk with her feet bleeding. Video of the rapper crying heavily in the back of an ambulance caused Pete to wipe her nose as she relived it.
In other news …
The abduction of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused of preparing the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and his transfer into US custody was agreed about three months ago, the Guardian has been told.
Joe Biden has signed into law landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriages, hailing it as step to building a nation where “decency, dignity and love are recognized, honored and protected”. The ceremony was a celebration with performances by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC and Sam Smith.
The spread of Covid-19 in China is now “impossible” to track, health authorities have said. The admission comes amid soaring presentations to hospitals and clinics as Covid-19 spreads rapidly through the population in the wake of a sudden U-turn on the zero-Covid policy.
Harry & Meghan, Netflix’s documentary series about Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, racked up more viewing time on the streaming service than any other documentary during its first week, the company said. The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan recorded 81.55m viewing hours around the world.
The governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, announced on Tuesday that she was commuting the sentences of all of the state’s 17 inmates awaiting execution, saying all of their death sentences would be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
World Cup 2022: Morocco hope to rewrite history after Messi takes Argentina past Croatia
Argentina are into the World Cup final after a comfortable victory over Croatia on Tuesday. At 2pm ET, Morocco and France will kick off to see who joins them in the final. Morocco have said they want to rewrite history by beating the reigning champions, although they have already done so by becoming the first African team to reach a World Cup semi-final. France will be formidable opponents, however, led by the brilliant Kylian Mbappé.
Elsewhere at the World Cup
The Guardian’s Barney Ronay ventured along to Fifa’s weekly media briefing where journalists were told there was definitely nothing wrong at this perfect World Cup.
The USA midfielder Gio Reyna has admitted he overreacted to being told he would not start the team’s first World Cup game. But Guardian US soccer writer Tom Dart says the young star never had enough leverage to step out of line in the first place.
Stat of the day: Oldest known jeans fetch $114,000 at auction
Pulled from a sunken trunk from an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina, work pants that auction officials described as the oldest known pair of jeans in the world have sold for $114,000. The white, heavy-duty miner’s pants with a five-button fly were among 270 Gold Rush-era artefacts that sold for a total of nearly $1m in Reno earlier this month, according to Holabird Western Americana Collections. There’s disagreement about whether the pricey pants have any ties to the father of modern-day blue jeans, Levi Strauss. Some believe the pants could be a very early version of what would become the iconic jeans.
Don’t miss this: why romance novels are bigger than they’ve been for 10 years
“The world has felt particularly unpredictable for the last few years,” says Emily Henry, a bestselling author of romance fiction. For Henry, these tough times – with ever-changing prime ministers and a global pandemic – are “exactly why” there has been a boom in romance fiction. With everything else going wrong, she says, readers want their happily-ever-afters. “When you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed, it’s such a gift to pick up a book that you know might put your heart through the wringer but will ultimately turn out OK,” she adds. The books that might once have been hidden in bedside drawers are flying off the shelves – and young readers are the driving force.
Climate check: What does ‘nature positive’ mean – and can it rally support to stop biodiversity loss?
The buzz phrase “nature positive” aims to emulate the success of “net zero” in climate campaigning. They are simple, optimistic words that are also popping up in adverts, company pledges and the draft of the global biodiversity framework (GBF), which is the text outlining the next decade of UN targets to protect the natural world. For the climate, the aim of net zero has slipped into everyday conversation. For nature, no such popular term exists. Yet some are concerned the term “nature positive” is so hard to define that it opens up another frontier for greenwashing.
Last Thing: Twitter office oddities go up for auction – from bird statues to rotisserie ovens
Great news, holiday shoppers: you can finally get your hands on some 100% authentic Twitter assets. An online auction next month will feature hundreds of the company’s “surplus corporate office assets” that could add a certain je ne sais quoi to any home or workplace, from bizarre decor to high-end cooking equipment. The sale comes amid Elon Musk’s chaotic $44bn takeover of the company. Included in the auction is a 6ft-tall planter in the shape of the @ symbol, a rotisserie oven with 24 spits, a fridge that dispenses beer, a 20-gallon and a 3ft-tall statue of the Twitter bird.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has lost his crown as the world’s richest person, after further falls in the value of shares in his electric car company Tesla.
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