Friday’s top story: Kamala Harris takes Biden to task over race in key debate exchange. Plus, the Guatemalan pastors helping smuggle people to the US

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This article is more than 1 year old

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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Biden and Sanders fade as Harris leads changing of the guard

On a debate night that promised a clash between a pair of old white men – a moderate Joe Biden and, to his left, Bernie Sanders – it was the California senator Kamala Harris who instead claimed centre stage, taking Biden to task for his record on race in an exchange that raised her into the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates, and put the former vice-president’s frontrunner status in jeopardy.

Winners and losers. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington identifies the five main takeaways from the second Democratic debate in Miami, while our expert panel weighs in on who won.

Climate crisis. Once again, too little time was devoted to the scope and urgency of the climate crisis, with the moderators taking 80 minutes to address it at all, as Emily Holden reports.

G20 members urge Trump and Xi to steady economy with trade deal

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump shakes hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the G20 leaders pose for a group photo. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The leaders of several world powers have called on Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to broker a deal that would end the US-China trade war, which continued to buffet global markets as the G20 summit began in Japan on Friday. The leaders of the two economic superpowers are to meet on the sidelines of the Osaka summit on Saturday, with Trump still threatening further tariffs on Chinese goods, boasting this week that his rival’s economy was “going down the tubes”.

Global order. Xi countered on Friday by saying protectionist measures taken by developed countries such as the US were “destroying the global trade order”.

Putin claims western liberalism is ‘obsolete’ in G20 interview

Play Video 1:11 Trump tells Putin: don't meddle in the US presidential election - video

Vladimir Putin has warned that “the liberal idea has become obsolete” and the rise of populist nationalists on both sides of the Atlantic signaled the demise of western liberalism. The Russian president made the remarks in an interview with the Financial Times before G20 meetings with Trump and the outgoing UK prime minister, Theresa May. His comments were rejected by the European council president, Donald Tusk, who said he “strongly disagreed”.

Trump joke. Meeting with Putin on Friday, a smirking Trump jokingly chided the Russian president not to meddle in the next US presidential election, making light of the scandal that has dogged American politics and his presidency since 2016.

Novichok attack. Putin also met in Osaka with a stony-faced May, who had promised to press him over last year’s chemical attack by Russian agents in Salisbury.

Supreme court ‘abandons duty’ on gerrymandering

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters outside the supreme court in Washington DC. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Justice Elena Kagan has accused the US supreme court’s conservative majority of abandoning its “duty to declare the law” after justices voted 5-4 against ruling in two partisan gerrymandering cases in Maryland and North Carolina, at the end of the court’s latest term. In her dissent, Kagan said part of the court’s role was to defend the foundations of the US government system, adding: “None is more important than free and fair elections.”

Citizenship question. The court also ruled it would not be unconstitutional to include a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census, though it upheld a lower court’s ruling rejecting the administration’s justification for including it.

Political check. The court’s most important role is to check the political process by enforcing the constitution, argues the legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky – but it has proven reluctant to do so.

Crib sheet

An Alabama woman who was shot in the stomach while pregnant has been charged with manslaughter for initiating the confrontation that led to the unborn child’s death, while the woman accused of firing the fatal bullets walked free.

The US government’s “ global gag rule ”, which restricts funding to NGOs that conduct or support abortions, has been linked to a 40% rise in terminations in African countries that depend on US foreign aid, according to a study.

The bodies of Óscar Martínez, 26, and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, have been repatriated to El Salvador, two days after a shocking photograph of the pair lying drowned in the Rio Grande fuelled a fresh outcry over the migration crisis .

The British designer Jony Ive – chief architect of tech creations such as the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the Apple Watch – has announced he plans to leave Apple after almost 30 years at the company.

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fernando Cuevas of the Scalabrinian Missionaries celebrates mass in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, on the border with Mexico. Photograph: Moisés Castillo/AP

Priests help Guatemalan migrants make a journey of faith

Guatemala is one of the biggest sources of migrants to the US, a poverty-stricken country where priests remain trusted figures in a deeply religious society. They also play a role in the booming business of people-smuggling, as Sarah Kinosian reports.

The tragic story of Basquiat’s most personal painting

Michael Stewart, a young artist, died in 1983 after an alleged police beating, though the officers involved were acquitted. Dream McClinton explains how Stewart’s death inspired one of the most impactful works by his better known acquaintance Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The Hmong refugees who call the US home

As part of the Guardian’s No Refuge series on the Trump administration’s dismantling of refugee resettlement, Amanda Holpuch travelled to Wausau, Wisconsin, a town whose experience of assimilating its Hmong community four decades ago epitomises the challenges and opportunities of welcoming refugees.

Hope dries up as Chennai battles historic drought

India is facing the worst water crisis in its history, with 21 cities expected to run out of groundwater by next year. Nowhere is the drought more pronounced than in Chennai, a metropolis of 10 million people, where Divya Karthikeyan finds the residents divided and desperate.

Opinion

LGBT+ people are preparing to celebrate 50 years since the Stonewall riots, which led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front. But Peter Tatchell says the modern Pride movement has retreated from radicalism, selling out to the neoliberal establishment and submitting to a heteronormative mentality.

GLF was so different. It never campaigned for equality. Our demand was LGBT+ liberation. We wanted to change society, not conform to it.

Sport

England’s Lionesses progressed to the Women’s World Cup semi-finals with a 3-0 win over Norway on Thursday, capped by a scorching set-piece goal from Lucy Bronze. But it is Friday night’s clash between the USA and France that is shaping up to be the tournament’s marquee match.

Brazil dispatched old rivals Paraguay from the Copa América on Thursday, winning 4-3 on penalties at the end of an unusually compelling 0-0 quarter-finals draw. On Friday, Argentina face Venezuela, and Jonathan Wilson says the giants ought to be wary.

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