First Thing: Maine joins Colorado to disqualify Trump over insurrection

But Trump will not be disqualified from the ballot in California. Plus, war in Gaza intensifies

Good morning,

Maine has blocked Donald Trump from its presidential primary ballot, becoming the second state to bar the former president from running, under a constitutional provision that prevents insurrectionists from holding office.

On 19 December, a decision made by Colorado’s supreme court removed Trump from that state’s primary ballot, citing the same constitutional clause and setting up a legal showdown at the US supreme court.

Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, examined the case after a group of citizens challenged Trump’s eligibility and concluded that Trump should be disqualified for inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. “I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” said Bellows, a Democrat. Trump is the current Republican frontrunner, and his campaign has vowed to appeal the decision.

Unlike other states, Bellows, who oversees elections in Maine, was required to make an initial determination about disqualification before it was considered by the courts. Bellows has suspended the effect of her decision until the state’s highest court rules on any appeal.

Meanwhile, California said it would not remove Trump from the primary ballot in March.

• What does the decision rest on? Section 3 of the 14th amendment, also referred to as the insurrection clause, bars anyone from Congress, the military, and federal and state offices who once took an oath to uphold the constitution but then “engaged” in “insurrection or rebellion” against it.

• What’s the impact? The decision, if it takes effect, would apply only to the state’s March primary, but its conclusion would probably also affect Trump’s status for the November 2024 general election.

• How will the supreme court influence the outcome? The US supreme court may ultimately resolve the issue nationwide. The highest court has a 6-3 conservative majority, which includes three justices nominated by Trump.

War in Gaza intensifies as Israel says time running out to reach diplomatic solution in Lebanon

Israeli tanks advanced deeper into the central Gaza Strip on Thursday as part of its widening offensive against Hamas, despite international calls for a ceasefire. Five days of relentless bombing of several overcrowded refugee camps near the central town of Deir al-Balah – all areas the military had told Palestinians to seek shelter earlier in the war – have led thousands more families to flee into Deir al-Balah, setting up tents wherever there is space.

Farther south, Israeli forces struck the area around a hospital in the heart of Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip’s main southern city. Palestinian health authorities said 20 people were killed in the attack, and 210 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials have hinted that the “diplomatic hourglass” is running out to reach a negotiated solution to the escalating fighting on the boundary with Lebanon, even as the war in Gaza continues at a ferocious pace.

Security sources said the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah had fired the most rockets and weaponised drones on Wednesday that it had in a single day since the clashes across the border began. Israel and the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah have traded near-daily volleys of missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the UN-controlled blue line separating the countries since 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,140 people and taking up to 250 hostage.

A Hamas delegation was due in Cairo on Friday to look at an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire that would end the war in Gaza, a Hamas official said.

• What is the humanitarian toll in Gaza now? Israel’s retaliatory war has become one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century, with estimates suggesting more than 21,000 people have been killed, 55,000 injured, and 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people forced to flee their homes.

• What’s happened amid the border clashes with Lebanon? About 150 people in Lebanon have been killed, including 17 civilians, and 11 in Israel, including four civilians, with tens of thousands in both countries displaced from their homes.

• What will Israel do next? Despite growing divisions over the war’s conduct with the US, Israel’s most important ally, Israeli officials have said Israel will push on until “complete victory” over Hamas. That goal, however, seems to be slipping further away amid fierce guerilla resistance.

Nikki Haley declines to say slavery was cause of US civil war

The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has declined to specify that slavery was a cause of the civil war, wading into an area of history that continues to reverberate and in some ways define US politics nearly 160 years after it concluded.

Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, where the first shots of the north-south conflict were fired by Confederate soldiers in April 1861, was asked by a New Hampshire voter about the reason for the war but did not mention slavery in her response.

Instead, Haley talked about the role of government, replying that it involved “basically how the government was going to run” and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do”.

The questioner said they were astonished she did not mention slavery. “I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we will always stand by the fact that I think the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,” said Hayley at a town hall event in Berlin, New Hampshire.

• What was the reaction? President Joe Biden posted on X: “It was about slavery.”

• What is Haley polling in the Republican primary? About 11%, according to polling averages by FiveThirtyEight, compared with 61.2% for Trump.

• What happened next? On Thursday, amid wide reporting of her response and in apparent damage limitation mode, Haley said in a radio interview: “Of course the civil war was about slavery … But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this?”

In other news …

• Russia has launched a wave of at least 110 missile strikes across Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv, authorities said, as they raised a nationwide air alert. Missile attacks were also reported in Lviv in the country’s west and Odesa in the south as well as Sumy and Konotop.

• China is cracking down on negative commentary about the financial market and other sectors, as the authorities emphasised the need to “sing the bright theory of China’s economy” to boost public confidence amid challenging economic headwinds.

• A man has been discovered alive hidden in the landing gear compartment of a commercial aircraft that flew into Paris from Algeria, French authorities have said. The man, in his 20s, had severe hypothermia and was taken to hospital.

• US and Mexican officials said they had successful talks about unauthorized migration across their shared, 2,000-mile border that risks becoming a humanitarian disaster.

• A controversial law curtailing Indigenous rights in Brazil has come into force, marking a victory for the powerful agribusiness caucus in congress. It says Indigenous peoples can only lay claim to land they physically occupied as of October 1988, when the current constitution was promulgated.

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Stat of the day: anti-abortion centers awarded about $250m by states in post-Roe surge

In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to persuade people to continue their pregnancies. Much of that money will go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. Crisis pregnancy centers have long gone largely unregulated. Many of the centers are not medically licensed, so they are not generally beholden to the standards set for medical facilities.

Don’t miss this: The biting feminist satire of Reductress

Reductress, the satirical women’s magazine that launched 10 years ago, is as funny and relevant as the day it was born, writes Matthew Cantor. The outlet, primarily published online, is known for its blend of made-up news stories, personal essays and lifestyle advice, packaged with a bite that mocks the tone of women’s media. Its tongue-in-cheek articles are as comfortable taking on wellness as current affairs, with headlines including “Nice! Woman replaces screen time before bed with panicking in the dark” and “Interesting! Box tops for education apparently not valid toward student loans”.

… or this: ‘I’m a world champion pea thrower’

“The competition takes place in a narrow cobbled street outside the pub, lined with pea spotters stood side by side for about 40 metres holding tape measures,” Graham Butterworth tells Yousif Nur. “To my mind, if you throw a javelin, it’s very different from throwing a shot put, which is very different from skimming a stone. So there’s definitely a special technique to throwing peas – though I prefer to keep mine to myself as I want to win again. But it’s ultimately all about delivering the best velocity, having long limbs and generating a lot of power from your arm as quickly as possible. It’s not the most serious of sports, but winning felt like a minor achievement.”

Climate check: The road trip showing how extreme weather is changing California

From the coast to the mountains, the forest to the desert, California’s long drives offer a frontline view of the climate crisis. This year, transformations were on full display after record-breaking winter storms wreaked havoc on landscapes already reeling from years of drought, wildfires and coastal erosion.So, during yet another landmark year, Guardian reporter Gabrielle Canon set out in three directions from her home in the Bay Area – heading to the states’s north, east then south – to see how three popular routes were faring in the face of disaster. Still filled with beauty, these places are haunted by previews of what is to come.

Last Thing: The collectors who will do anything for a TV treasure

It may seem strange that in an era of archives, internet databases and online auctions, treasures can still get lost, writes Nell Frizzell. But nosing around on the gloriously lofi website missing-episodes.com I realise just how many slices of television history have been wiped, erased, junked or simply taped over; and how many people dedicate significant time to finding them. People such as Ray Langstone. “I’m a weed-smoking cripple,” laughs Langstone, who has chronic sciatica. “I do it all in the warmest rooms in my unheated flat.”

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