Good morning.
A newly obtained autopsy report has concluded that a 43-year-old Florida man’s death after being violently restrained by jailers was a homicide by strangulation.
On 17 January 2021, Kevin Desir became unresponsive after a struggle with six deputies at the North Broward Bureau, a jail operated by the Broward county sheriff’s office (BSO) in south Florida. The jail specifically detains arrestees who have mental and physical disabilities, as well as those with mental health problems.
During the incident, Desir was handcuffed, punched repeatedly, shot with a stun gun and pepper-sprayed by officers, and lost consciousness after the deputies attempted to strap him into a restraint chair, Gloria Olapido reports.
One deputy interlocked hands on Desir’s neck from behind and used “his body weight to leverage Desir back into the chair,” according to a memo from the Broward county state attorney’s office.
BSO did not comment on the private autopsy findings.
Private and official autopsies do not tally. An official autopsy conducted by the Broward county medical examiner’s office on 28 January 2021 found that Desir’s cause and manner of death were undetermined. Broward county medical examiner’s office did not comment on the differences between the two findings, but said that “every examination is separate and independent” from law enforcement.
Kevin Desir died a brutal death. His family believe jail deputies are responsible. Desir was arrested for marijuana possession. Four days later the 43-year-old Black man was handcuffed, punched, shot with a stun gun and pepper-sprayed by detention deputies. BSO said it stood by the internal reviews given to the deputies who had the most contact with Desir after the incident and that recommended training was “not an indication that the employees did anything wrong”.
Italy home to 11 of 100-plus unofficial Chinese ‘police stations’
Italy hosts the highest number of unofficial Chinese “police stations” out of a network of more than 100 around the world, a report by a Spanish civil rights group has claimed.
The northern city of Milan was allegedly used by two local Chinese public security authorities as a European testing ground for a policing strategy to monitor the Chinese population abroad and force dissidents to return home, Angela Giuffrida reports.
The Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders reported in September that 54 such stations allegedly existed around the world, prompting police investigations in at least 12 countries including Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.
Its latest report said 48 additional stations had been identified, 11 of which were in Italy. Other newly identified stations were in Croatia, Serbia and Romania, it said.
What are these stations used for? China has claimed the offices are merely “service stations” set up to assist Chinese citizens with bureaucratic procedures such as renewing a passport or driving licence.
Coronavirus is weakening and management protocols could be downgraded, an expert on China’s state media has claimed, after unprecedented protests last week led to a significant shift in Beijing’s commitment to its zero-Covid policy.
Democrats aim to seize outright Senate majority in Georgia runoff
Last month, Democrats secured control of the US Senate, keeping their fragile hold on power with 50 seats and Vice-president Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Winning the Georgia runoff election tomorrow would deliver Democrats more than just a single Senate seat: it would finally give them an outright majority, Lauren Gambino reports.
The contest between the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his scandal-plagued and Donald Trump-backed Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, will determine whether the Democrats retain their 50-50 majority in the Senate, the narrowest possible balance of power, or whether they will expand it.
In the weeks since the November midterm elections, when Warnock and Walker failed to clear the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff, Democrats and Republicans have spent tens of millions of dollars and dispatched their top surrogates to Georgia in an all-out effort to win the seat. Early voter turnout has been especially high and polls show a close contest.
‘51 is better than 50’. With a 51st seat, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, could assume greater control over the upper chamber, making governing easier and more expedient than it is currently in the evenly split Senate.
In other news
The Brazilian footballing great Pelé has not been moved to palliative care, one of his daughters has said, downplaying reports that he was in end-of-life care after the 82-year-old was admitted to hospital last week to re-evaluate his treatment for colon cancer.
Protesters in Iran have called for a three-day strike amid conflicting reports that the nation’s “morality police” have been shut down, and as the US said the leadership in Tehran had locked itself into a “vicious cycle”.
“Goblin mode” has been chosen by the public as the 2022 Oxford word of the year. The term refers to “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations”.
A leader of moderate Republicans in the US House has repeatedly refused to condemn Donald Trump, even after the former president, running for re-election in 2024, said the US constitution should be “terminated” to allow him to return to power.
World Cup: England to play France in mouthwatering quarter-final tie
England have a long history of disappointing their fans at major tournaments – losing to teams they should beat or managing to be less than the sum of their parts. But since Gareth Southgate took over as manager they have been oddly competent, reaching the semi-final of the last World Cup and the final of last year’s European Championships, where they were a penalty shootout away from victory. And that trend has continued in Qatar. On Sunday they faced Senegal, a team they might have struggled to beat under previous managers. But they took their chances ruthlessly and eased to a 3-0 victory.
They’ll now face France in the quarter-final. The reigning champions played Poland in Sunday’s early game and survived a few early wobbles before completing a 3-1 victory. Two of their goals came from Kylian Mbappé, who already looks the player of the tournament. Both of his goals were stunning finishes, the work of a man who looked like he scored simply because he wanted to. France will be the slim favorites to advance to the semi-final when they play England on Saturday.
Elsewhere at the World Cup:
The US’s campaign ended with a 3-1 loss to the Netherlands on Saturday. The Americans were outclassed by a more experienced team but there is hope for the future thanks to the team’s promising young core. Guardian US’s Bryan Graham was following the team in Qatar and assesses their chances for 2026, when the US co-hosts the World Cup.
One of the highlights of this World Cup has been the success of teams outside the traditional powerhouses of South America and Europe. Two of those teams play today. Japan take on 2018 finalists Croatia at 10am ET, while South Korea play five-time champions Brazil at 2pm ET. Both teams are underdogs but they have sprung surprises so far this tournament and are capable of doing so again.
Doha’s $36bn metro has been a hive of activity during the tournament – but its construction has carried a human cost.
Don’t miss this: Vanuatu’s deaf community push for national sign language
“I woke up one morning and remember not hearing the birds sing, or the rooster crowing,” says Tasale Edward Bule, a 45-year-old fisher from Vanuatu’s Efate Island, as he remembers the day his world went silent. “I asked everyone to call my name to see if I would hear them – it was then I realised I had lost the hearing in both my ears.”
Bule’s story would be familiar to much of the deaf community in the Pacific country of Vanuatu, write Sera Sefeti and Agnes Herbert. With no national sign language, most people have to invent their own ways to communicate. Some use signs they’ve developed with their families and communities, but then struggle to communicate outside this group. Others, like Bule, rely largely on lip-reading to get by.
… or this: Meet the people who help total strangers
Voluntary giving is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to improve a giver’s own mood and wellbeing, writes Sally Howard. Many scientific papers have shown that it stimulates activity in brain regions associated with pleasure and reward, reduces physiological stress levels and leads, when giving becomes a habit, to long-term improvements in the life satisfaction of those who do good deeds.
In the past few years, though, a new breed of performative Samaritan has strode on to social media, toting wads of readies. They include Primenaz, a TikTok user who drops $20 bills at strangers’ feet and gifts his targets extra cash if they attempt to return them; and Sydney-based Tom, who films himself hovering behind unsuspecting shoppers at the till as he pays their checkout bills.
Climate check: Stop burning trees to make energy, say scientists before Cop15
More than 650 scientists are urging world leaders to stop burning trees to make energy because it destroys valuable habitats for wildlife, writes Phoebe Weston. In the buildup to Cop15, the UN biodiversity summit, they say countries urgently need to stop using forest bioenergy to create heat and electricity as it undermines international climate and nature targets. Instead, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar should be used, they say.
Bioenergy has “wrongly been deemed ‘carbon neutral’” and many countries are increasingly relying on forest biomass to meet net zero goals, according to the letter. “The best thing for the climate and biodiversity is to leave forests standing – and biomass energy does the opposite,” it says.
Last Thing: Why forgotten words need rescuing from obscurity
“I collect and read old dictionaries, post the most interesting words I find online and write about their histories and origins,” writes Paul Anthony Jones, linguist and author of Why is This a Question? Everything about the Origins and Oddities of Language You Never Thought to Ask.
Obscure words aren’t just for Christmas, either. Imagine how much our discourse could be expanded with terms like flapdoodler (19th-century slang for a dissembling political speaker), roorback (a rumour circulated for political gain), adullamite (someone dissatisfied with the current political outlook) or grantism (political cronyism and nepotism, after President Grant awarded more than 30 of his friends and relatives high-profile positions in the early 1870s).
Sign up
First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.
Get in touch
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
