Polls show Clinton surge as Trump fulminates

The chaos of Donald Trump’s election campaign increased yesterday as the House speaker, Paul Ryan, signalled he was effectively abandoning the candidate and Trump’s poll ratings began to plummet following the release of the so-called groping tape. Campaigning in Pennsylvania, Trump made no reference to his current predicament, and succeeded in generating further controversy by praising WikiLeaks and adopting an erroneous report by a Russian government-sponsored news agency. He fired up his loyal army of followers by repeating the threat that once ensconced in the White House he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his Democratic rival’s alleged crimes. When the baying crowd shouted “Lock her up!”, Trump shot back at them: “Lock her up is right!” One of the first opinion polls to have been conducted since the groping bombshell, conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, put Clinton on 46% to Trump’s 35%.

Donald Trump marches on amid spiraling disaster of Republican party desertion

Clinton addresses ‘locker room’ talk

Clinton, in her first appearance since an ugly showdown with Trump that saw the Republican nominee threaten to jail her if elected president, told a crowd in Michigan that during the debate on Sunday, “Donald Trump spent his time attacking when he should have been apologizing”. Clinton dismissed Trump’s “locker room talk” explanation. “Women and men across America know that is just a really weak excuse for behaving badly and mistreating people,” she said.

Hillary Clinton urges voters to resist cynicism during Detroit campaign stop

Samsung ends production of Galaxy Note 7

Samsung has confirmed that it is permanently stopping production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone in the interest of consumer safety, after it was involved in dozens of fires and explosions worldwide. The company said consumers with original Note 7 devices or replacements they obtained after the recall should turn off the power and seek a refund or exchange them for different phones. The company’s shares dropped 7.5% on Tuesday, the biggest daily percentage decline since 2008, wiping more than $18bn off its value.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 production permanently ended after battery explosions

Are computers setting us up for disaster?

We increasingly let computers fly planes and carry out security checks. Driverless cars are next. But is our reliance on automation dangerously diminishing our skills? In a compelling long read, Tim Harford walks us through the paradox of automation. From commercial airline pilots “to operators of nuclear power stations to the crew of cruise ships, from the simple fact that we can no longer remember phone numbers because we have them all stored in our mobile phones, to the way we now struggle with mental arithmetic because we are surrounded by electronic calculators … The better the automatic systems, the more out-of-practice human operators will be, and the more extreme the situations they will have to face.”

Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster

Trump’s assault boast becomes national meme

The Republican nominee’s boast that he would grab a woman’s genitals has inspired a national reaction, with women expressing their outrage online and creating posters, T-shirts and a song hammering home the message that the #PussyGrabsBack on election day. “Pussy Grabs Back” became a popular hashtag on Twitter. Female Collective, a feminist brand and online community, has turned the image into a T-shirt. “Here’s to smashing patriarchy, respecting women’s bodies, pussy power, and the end of the road for Donald Trump … and the party he rode in on,” the description of the T-shirt reads.

‘Pussy grabs back’ becomes rallying cry for female rage against Trump

Flooding: the new normal

The frequency of Hurricane Sandy-level floods is rising so sharply that they could become relatively normal, with new research laying bare the enormous upheavals already under way in the US due to climate change. These findings and two other fresh pieces of research have highlighted how the US is already in the grip of significant environmental changes driven by warming temperatures.

Hurricane Sandy-level flooding is rising so sharply that it could become normal

Clown sightings go international

Professional clowns in the UK have condemned the craze for dressing in clown outfits to scare bystanders, saying it threatens their livelihood and their own safety, and risks permanently damaging the reputation of the art form. Over the weekend, police forces were called to dozens of incidents, as the “killer clown” trend, which originated in recent weeks in the US, swept the UK, fuelled by social media. Now the world’s oldest clowns’ club has also hit back, saying the craze is “just not funny”.

Clown sightings: sinister craze is putting our livelihood at risk, say professionals

90% of minors tried as adults in New Jersey are black or Latino

While white children commit the same crimes as black children, national research shows prosecutors do not seek to try white children as adults at the same rates. That pattern is exaggerated in New Jersey, where minors who commit crimes such as robbery, drug trafficking or homicide can be tried as adults – but that only happens at a prosecutor’s request. According to an analysis by WNYC Radio, 692 minors were tried as adults in the state in the past five years. The youngest were 14 years old when charged, and almost 90% were black or Latino.

Nearly 90% of New Jersey children tried as adults since 2011 were black or Latino

In case you missed it …

Shortly after Sunday night’s US presidential debate, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters floated out his celebrated giant inflatable pig in Indio, California, with a special election-year message: “Ignorant, lying, racist, sexist PIG – Fuck Trump and his wall.” This was the finale of Desert Trip, and after a weekend of double headers – Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Paul McCartney, the Who and Waters – the Pink Floyd songwriter brought the audience back to reality with this overt, aggressive political message. That saved the whole thing from being stuck in the past, writes Rebecca Haithcoat.

Desert Trip review – McCartney, Stones and co give Oldchella a hint of rebellion