Hurricane Harvey’s unprecedented deluge, which caused catastrophic flooding in Houston in August, was made three times more likely by climate change, new research has found. Such a downpour was a very rare event, scientists said, but global warming meant it was 15% more intense. The storm left 80 people dead and 800,000 in need of assistance.

The scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative usually publish their assessments of the role of climate change in extreme weather events around the world as soon as possible. However, in this case they waited for the work to be confirmed by peer review because of the current US government’s opposition to strong action on climate change. The researchers said their new work shows global warming is making extreme weather events worse right now and in the US. The cost of the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey has been estimated at $190bn (£140bn), which would make it the most costly weather disaster in US history, more than Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy combined.(theguardian)…[+]

A Swedish far-right extremist whose shooting spree in the 1990s inspired “lone wolf” terrorists such as Anders Breivik will go on trial in Germany on Wednesday morning for an unresolved murder of an Auschwitz survivor in Frankfurt 25 years ago.

John Ausonius, 64, is already serving a life sentence in Sweden for the shooting of 11 people of immigrant background in the Stockholm and Uppsala area between August 1991 and January 1992. His aim, he said in interviews, was to scare immigrants out of the country and discourages others from entering. Ausonius was dubbed Lasermannen, or “laser man”, in Swedish media because he used a rifle equipped with laser sight for the attacks, which left Jimmy Ranjbar, an Iranian student, dead and others with severe disabilities.

Now, 17 years after eventually confessing to 10 attempted shootings, Ausonius will appear in a Frankfurt court for a trial that could dash his hopes of an early release. On 8 February 1992, while on the run from Swedish police, Ausonius visited a restaurant in the city’s Opernplatz square. Two weeks later he returned, accusing cloakroom attendant Blanka Zmigrod of having stolen an electronic Casio notebook from his pocket. An altercation ended with Ausonius shouting “we will meet again” at Zmigrod as he left the restaurant. The following night, the 68-year-old was shot from close range by a hooded cyclist as she walked home from work.(theguardian)…[+]

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has formally declared that Palestinians will no longer accept the US as a mediator in the Middle East peace process following Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In his strongest public statement since Trump’s announcement last week, Abbas called the move a “crime” that threatened world peace. He demanded the United Nations take charge of the peace process as Washington was no longer “fit” for the task.

Abbas was speaking at a hastily convened meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, where members were called upon to recognise a Palestinian state amid strong condemnations of both the US and Israel. “Jerusalem is and will forever be the capital of the Palestinian state,” Abbas told delegates. “We do not accept any role of the United States in the political process from now on. Because it is completely biased towards Israel.”(theguardian)…[+]

A former Facebook executive has said he feels “tremendous guilt” over his work on “tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works”, joining a growing chorus of critics of the social media giant. Chamath Palihapitiya, who was vice-president for user growth at Facebook before he left the company in 2011, said: “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.”

The remarks, which were made at a Stanford Business School event in November, were just surfaced by tech website the Verge on Monday. “This is not about Russian ads,” he added. “This is a global problem. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”(theguardian)…[+]

Money and fear have kept country music artists from speaking out about gun laws, the nine-time Grammy Award-winner Sheryl Crow said, even after thousands of country fans were targeted in October in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

“You would think after Vegas we would see some leadership from our country community,” Crow told the Guardian. “But all I can say about that is if there’s money involved, and fear, these conversations come to a screeching halt. “There’s no one that I know of in the popular country world that is willing to step out and really to take a stand on this, and that’s really unfortunate.

“I hope there will be people who find a way out of their fear, who stick up for humanity as opposed to sticking with their fanbase or the money that can come along with having those large crowds.” Crow’s new song, The Dreaming Kind, released on Monday, is a tribute to the 20 young children and six adults who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut five years ago.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that the numerous sexual misconduct allegations against him were a Democratic plot. “Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent, the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia,” the president tweeted, “so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don’t know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!”

Trump lashed out a day after three women who previously accused Trump of sexual harassment shared their stories in an interview on NBC and at a press conference in New York. The women – Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey and Rachel Crooks – urged Congress to investigate Trump’s behavior. Hour later, Kristen Gillibrand, a Democratic senator from New York, asked for the same thing on Twitter, and called on Trump to resign over the allegations. Before the day ended, nearly 60 female lawmakers had also formally requested a congressional investigation into Trump.

In a letter, 56 female Democrats wrote to the House committee on oversight and government reform requesting an investigation. “We cannot ignore the multitude of women who have come forward with accusations against Mr Trump,” the Democratic Women’s Working Group wrote.(Theguardian)…[+]

Scuffles broke out between police and demonstrators after hundreds of people gathered outside a museum in the Catalan city of Lleida to protest against the removal of 44 works of art that have been at the centre of a long-running dispute between Catalonia and the neighbouring region of Aragón.

The pieces, which include paintings, alabaster reliefs and polychromatic wooden coffins, were sold to the Catalan government by the nuns of the Sijena convent, in Aragón, in the 1980s. The Aragonese authorities have been trying to recover the works through the courts, arguing they were unlawfully sold. At the end of November, Spain’s culture minister, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, received a judicial order for the return of the works. With Catalonia currently under the control of the Spanish government after Madrid sacked the regional government over its unilateral declaration of independence, Méndez de Vigo authorised their return on behalf of the administration. The move has exacerbated tensions in Catalonia, which were already running high in the buildup to next week’s snap regional election.(theguardian)…[+]

European foreign ministers have strongly rejected calls by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to follow Donald Trump’s example and recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Opposition from across the European spectrum came as Netanyahu made the first official trip to the EU by a sitting Israeli premier in 22 years. Even the Czech Republic, one of Israel’s closest allies, said the US president’s decision was bad for peace efforts. France said Jerusalem’s status could be agreed only in a final deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

Netanyahu called on European governments to back a much-mooted US peace initiative despite the fact that Trump has yet to reveal any details about it. Making clear that the EU would not write a blank cheque for an unseen Trump peace plan, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, urged Washington to disclose what was being drawn up by Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser. “We’ve been waiting already for several months for the American initiative, and if one is not forthcoming then the European Union will have to take the initiative,” Le Drian said.

Arriving for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Netanyahu said Trump’s move made peace in the Middle East possible “because recognising reality is the substance of peace, the foundation of peace”. He said all, or most, European countries would move their embassies to Jerusalem and recognise it as Israel’s capital, though there is no evidence that any European country is preparing to do so.(theguardian)…[+]

The New York police department said “one male suspect” was injured and in custody after an explosion on the subway at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan. A total of four injuries were confirmed by the New York fire department. None of the injuries were life-threatening, it said. A law enforcement official, speaking anonymously, told the Associated Press the explosion happened at about 7.30am. The person arrested had a pipe bomb strapped to him when it went off on a subway platform, the official said.

In midtown, shortly after the explosion, sirens could heard racing up 8th Avenue. A commuter who travelled through the Port Authority terminal at 42nd and 8th told the Guardian the explosion happened 60 seconds after they exited the building. A police officer told the commuter it was “a guy with a pipe-bomb”.

At the scene, Lythia, who did not wish to give her full name, said she was handing out the Metro free newspaper at the corner of 40th Street and 8th Avenue at about 7.30am when she saw “people running towards me saying it was an explosion, it was a bomb”.

“Everybody was just running. Then I saw the cops, the fire department, the ambulance, the bomb squad. She added: “If I was scared I’d have been running too. I felt like an angel was protecting me.”(theguardian)…[+]

France’s bitterly divided conservative opposition party is expected to elect a new hardline leader on Sunday marking a move away from centre ground toward the territory of the far right. Barring a last minute disaster, Laurent Wauquiez will take control of Les Républicains (LR) party after its disastrous performance in the presidential election earlier this year when its candidate, François Fillon, failed to make it into the second round vote.Wauquiez has run a hawkish leadership campaign running on an anti-immigration, anti-welfare programme and has worried some party heavyweights with his possible “porosity” to far-right Front National ideas. He refused to call supporters to back Emmanuel Macron against the FN’s leader, Marine Le Pen, in the second round of the presidential vote in May. The electronic vote is open to nearly 235,000 party members. There are two other largely unknown candidates, but members are expected to give Wauquiez, 42, a clear victory, making a second round vote unnecessary.(theguardian)…[+]