Trump linked to controversial Dakota pipeline

Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, the operators of the controversial $3.8bn Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been revealed in his campaign financial disclosure forms, with the Republican presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive. The forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the project once completed. An outcry led by Native American groups led to a temporary halt to construction of the pipeline, intended to funnel oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

Donald Trump has close financial ties to Dakota Access pipeline company

Clinton’s Syria no-fly zones ‘could lead to conflict’

Retired senior US military pilots are increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world. The former strategists spoke to the Guardian as Trump warned that Clinton’s proposal to establish “safe zones” to protect beleaguered Syrian civilians would “lead to world war three”.

Why Hillary Clinton’s plans for no-fly zones in Syria could provoke US-Russia conflict

Trump offers to fight Biden

Trump also implied on Tuesday that he would be willing to fight the sitting vice-president, Joe Biden, behind a barn. He labeled the vice-president “Mr Tough Guy” and said of beating up the 73-year-old Biden: “Some things in life you could really love doing.” The comments came after Biden commented on Trump’s 2005 grope-boast tape: “The press always asks me, don’t I wish I was debating him? No, I wish we were in high school and I could take him behind the gym.” Meanwhile, former Trump adviser Newt Gingrich has accused conservative TV host Megyn Kelly of bias against Trump as well as a “fascination with sex”.

Donald Trump implies he would be willing to fight vice-president behind a barn

Spain reviews plan to let Russian warships refuel en route to Syria

The Spanish foreign ministry has said it is reviewing plans to allow Russian warships to refuel in Spanish ports on the way to the eastern Mediterranean, from where they are expected to escalate attacks against rebel fighters in Syria.



Spain reviews plan to let Russian warships refuel en route to Syria



Nebraska voters to decide on reintroducing death penalty

When Nebraska last year became the first conservative state to repeal the death penalty in more than 40 years, change came through a vote that saw ideological opponents of capital punishment unite with pragmatists worried about cost and effectiveness. Now the state’s governor, Pete Ricketts, is bankrolling an effort to bring back capital punishment in a bill that will go to a public vote on 8 November, as both sides of the ideological battle escalate their spending and rhetoric.

Nebraska politicians can’t agree on the death penalty – now voters get to decide

UK PM’s pro-EU remarks revealed

A month before the UK’s referendum on Europe, Theresa May, now the UK prime minister and then a senior figure in the government, privately warned that companies would leave the UK if the country voted for Brexit during a secret audience with investment bankers. A recording of her remarks to Goldman Sachs, leaked to the Guardian, reveals she had numerous concerns about Britain leaving the EU. It contrasts with her nuanced public speeches, which dismayed remain campaigners before the vote in June. Since becoming prime minister in the wake of the vote she has pursued a more hardline anti-EU stance. Here, why this tape matters.

Exclusive: what Theresa May really thinks about Brexit shown in leaked recording

Fears over ‘Peak Apple’ as sales decline

Apple has reported its first decline in annual sales and profit in 15 years as iPhone sales declined 5%. The Silicon Valley company, which had bounced back from near bankruptcy in 1997 to become the world’s most valuable company today, told investors on Tuesday night that it had sold $215.6bn worth of iPhones, Watches, Mac computers and other products in the year to 24 September. That works out as an 8% decrease on Apple’s record $233.7bn in the previous year. The decline in sales hit the company’s profits, which fell 14% to $45.7bn.

Apple’s annual profits fall for first time in 15 years as iPhone sales decline

US author wins UK’s most prestigious literary prize

Paul Beatty has become the first American writer to win the Man Booker prize, for a caustic satire on US racial politics that judges said put him up there with Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift. The 54-year-old Los Angeles-born writer won for The Sellout, a laugh-out-loud novel whose main character wants to assert his African American identity by, outrageously and transgressively, bringing back slavery and segregation. Historian Amanda Foreman recommended Beatty’s satire as “a savage wit of the kind I haven’t seen since Swift or Twain”.

Man Booker prize 2016 won by American author Paul Beatty

NFL’s Roger Goodell ‘almost Trumpian’



The NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, has found himself trying to defend the NFL’s role in the case of Giants placekicker Josh Brown case at the same time the league’s TV ratings continue to plummet. DJ Gallo argues Goodell is now “the idiot coworker who set his job performance bar at total failure and repeatedly meets the standard … There is almost something Trumpian about Goodell’s commissionership at this point”.

Roger Goodell’s incompetent NFL reign is as rock solid as ever

In case you missed it

Six months after the Czech Republic adopted the name Czechia, doubts have begun to emerge on the wisdom of the choice. “The Czech Republic,” answered one person after another on being asked to name their country, some greeting the question with disbelieving stares. “It’s the Czech Republic,” agreed Zdenek Cech, 30, a medical student at Charles University in Prague. “I would like a shorter name but Czechia doesn’t sound nice. It sounds too small, or like some dialect.”

‘Nobody calls it Czechia’: Czech Republic’s new name fails to catch on