Trump faces raft of allegations about behavior towards women

Donald Trump is facing a torrent of allegations about his behaviour towards women, countering his claims at last week’s debate that he had only engaged in “locker room talk” and that his remarks about groping women without their consent in a leaked 2005 recording were “just words”. Nearly 10 allegations surfaced late on Wednesday. Two women, Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks, told the New York Times that Trump had groped or kissed them without consent. “He was like an octopus,” Leeds said of the airplane encounter 35 years ago. “His hands were everywhere.”

Another woman, Mindy McGillivray, claimed she was groped by the Republican nominee at a Trump foundation event in Florida while Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter for People magazine, said Trump forced himself on her in 2005. Two Miss USA contestants claimed Trump walked in when they were naked in a dressing room. “Mr Trump just barged right in, didn’t say anything, stood there and stared at us,” one told the Guardian. Five Miss Teen USA contestants also told Buzzfeed he had entered their dressing room while the young women – aged between 15 and 19 – were getting changed. And a recording emerged in which Trump appears to sexualise a young girl. A spokesman for the campaign called the allegations a “coordinated character assassination” and his lawyers have since threatened to sue the New York Times.

Trump campaign rocked by new wave of sexual harassment allegations

The Nobel prize for literature goes to … Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan was named the surprise winner of the Nobel prize for literature in Stockholm today “for having created new poetic expressions with the great American song tradition”. Sara Danils, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said: “He’s a great sampler and for 54 years he has been at it, reinventing himself.” Never short of lyrics, Dylan, aka Robert Zimmerman of Hibbings, Minnesota, has written in excess of 350 songs over the course of his career. In the preface to a recently published compendium of Dylan’s lyrics, Al Kooper (the man behind the organ on Like a Rolling Stone), said: “Bob is the equivalent of William Shakespeare. What Shakespeare did in his time, Bob does in his time.”

Bob Dylan wins 2016 Nobel prize in literature

Central America’s invisible refugee crisis

An estimated 80,000 people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, mostly families and unaccompanied children, are expected to apply for asylum overseas this year – a 658% increase since 2011, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Tens of thousands more will be forcibly displaced, but not seek international help, driven by a toxic mix of warring gangs and corrupt security forces that is driving one of the world’s least visible refugee crises.

Central America’s rampant violence fuels an invisible refugee crisis

Wells Fargo CEO retires without severance

Wells Fargo’s chief executive and chairman, John Stumpf, is retiring from both the bank and the board in the wake of the scandal over its sales practices. Early in September, Wells Fargo announced that it had reached a $185m settlement with US regulators for opening more than 2m accounts without customers’ permission. “You should resign,” Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren told Stumpf last month. “You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated.”

Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf retires in wake of fake account scandal

Airbnb faces new scrutiny over ‘illegal hotels’

Airbnb is facing renewed calls for a federal investigation from more than a dozen US cities, boosting Senator Elizabeth Warren’s efforts to force the popular home-sharing startup to release data on its affordable housing impact. A coalition of American lawmakers are urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday to “help cities to protect consumers”. The letter marks an escalation of a growing national campaign to force Airbnb to eliminate illegal hotels that are believed to be contributing to affordable housing shortages and urban displacement.

Lawmakers join Elizabeth Warren’s call for US to ‘step in’ on illegal Airbnb hotels

US strikes Houthi radar sites in Yemen

The US has launched its first strike on Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen in retaliation for days of attacks on a navy warship, becoming an active combatant in a brutal war led by Washington’s ally Saudi Arabia. The sites were described as being involved in two missile attacks over the past four days on the destroyer USS Mason, operating out of the Bab al-Mandeb waterway between Yemen and east Africa.

US enters Yemen war, bombing Houthis who launched missiles at navy ship

Billionaires taking a hit

The world’s billionaires saw their wealth shrink by an average of £215m ($262m) each last year, as economic headwinds made themselves felt. A report published on Thursday by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that falling commodity prices helped put billionaires under pressure at a time of stalling growth in technology and finance, the motors of wealth creation. And while Asia is creating a new billionaire every three days, the US billionaire population only grew by five in 2015; 160 people lost their billionaire status, including those who died.

World’s billionaires lose £215m each as global economy struggles

Late Night TVs influence on voters

Over the past few years, late-night comedy has been taken far more seriously than in the days when Johnny Carson was a host. “It somehow feels different,” noted Charlie Rose. But can it influence voters? “I think [comedy] has an effect,” Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels recently told the Washington Post, “but we don’t influence people in how to vote.” Comedians love to tap into the relationship between the promise of knowledge being power and power being meaningless, writes Evan Fleischer. But comedy is comedy. And power is power.

Can late-night TV hosts influence the way we vote?

In case you missed it …

It may not have the cut-and-thrust of The Devil Wears Prada, but former US Vogue intern R J Hernández and author of An Innocent Fashion has his own identity-focused take on prejudices, or lack thereof, in that industry. “I think that, at the moment, there’s an attempt to be more accepting of diversity,” says Hernández. “But, in reality, I feel like that’s happening because it’s a trend. No one in fashion really cares about a diverse world.”

‘No one in fashion really cares about a diverse world’ – R J Hernández