First Thing: nine-year-old boy dies, becoming 10th Astroworld victim – The Guardian

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A nine-year-old boy from Dallas has become the youngest person to die from injuries sustained during a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston. He is the 10th person who attended the festival to die.

Ezra Blount died on Sunday at Texas children’s hospital in Houston, family attorney Ben Crump said. The boy had been placed in a medically induced coma after suffering serious injuries in the crush of fans during a performance by the festival’s headliner, rapper Travis Scott, on 5 November.

Treston Blount, Ezra’s father, described what happened in a post on a GoFundMe page he set up to help defray Ezra’s medical expenses. He said Ezra was sitting on his shoulders when a crowd surge crushed them. The father lost consciousness and when he came to, Ezra was missing, Blount said. A frantic search ensued until Ezra was eventually found at the hospital, severely injured.

• The others who died ranged in age from 14 to 27. About 300 people were treated at the festival site and 13 were hospitalised.

• A number of lawsuits have been filed including by the Blount family, who are seeking at least $1m in damages. Police are also still investigating what went wrong.

Jeffrey Epstein’s shadow looms over start of Ghislaine Maxwell’s US trial

When jury selection starts in earnest on Tuesday for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial in Manhattan federal court, many observers might think that they will finally learn the full truth about the crimes of her consort, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein – and any subsequent cover-ups.

On the surface, this conjecture makes sense: Epstein killed himself in jail more than two years ago, while awaiting his own sex trafficking trial, leaving many to wonder whether there would ever be justice for victims.

But, as Maxwell’s trial looms, there is a strong chance such hopes might be dashed by the upcoming proceedings. Judge Alison Nathan, who is presiding over the case, has made clear that she wants Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial to be about Maxwell’s alleged sex trafficking. Full stop.

While the trial will not answer all questions about Epstein, it would be a mistake to think that he won’t feature prominently.

• Maxwell was arrested on 2 July 2020 at a secluded, luxurious estate in the small town of Bradford, New Hampshire, for alleged sex crimes, conspiracy and perjury related to Epstein.

• Maxwell “played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend and groom minor victims” and that “in some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse”, according to Audrey Strauss, then the acting Manhattan US attorney.

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in US

Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, was widely condemned after calling for the establishment of “one religion” in the US.

Religious freedom is enshrined in the first amendment to the US constitution, which says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Regardless, at a rally staged in San Antonio on Saturday by the Christian “nonprofit news media network” American Faith, Flynn said: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God.”

In response, the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, said: “These people hate the US constitution.”

• What have other people said? Mark Hertling, a retired general and media commentator, called Flynn, himself a retired general, “an embarrassment to the US army” and said: “His words are disgusting.”

• Meanwhile, the veteran reporter Carl Bernstein told CNN: “It should be no surprise to know that Michael Flynn is saying the kind of things that he is saying.” He also suggested many Republicans share the same view.

Adele opens up to Oprah about divorce and being a single parent

The thundering juggernaut that is Adele’s marketing campaign for her new album, 30, pulled in at the Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday, where the record-breaking artist opened up to the Queen of America about the struggles of divorce, becoming a single parent and juggling her career.

Under the arches of Oprah’s rose garden in the same spot she interviewed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in March, the talkshow host quizzed Adele over some of her “dark” lyrics on her eagerly awaited album in a two-hour special that featured a performance from the London-born singer.

In excerpts released before the broadcast on Sunday evening in the US, she explains that many of the songs touch upon the aftermath of her divorce from the charity chief Simon Konecki.

• What did Adele say about her divorce? “It’s a process: the process of a divorce, the process of being a single parent, the process of not seeing your child every single day wasn’t really a plan that I had when I became a mom,” Adele said.

• What did she say about being a single mom? She said she was disappointed. “I’ve been obsessed with a nuclear family my whole life because I never came from one. I from a very young age promised myself that when I had kids, that we’d stay together.”

In other news …

• Japanese former princess Mako Komuro has arrived in the US with her husband, Kei Komuro, swapping ancient imperial rites for the bright lights of New York after leaving the royal family and relinquishing her royal title.

• A Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club has been deported, federal authorities said, more than two years after serving her sentence. Yujing Zhang was turned over to immigration officials in December 2019 but her deportation was delayed mainly due to the pandemic.

• Elon Musk waded into yet another Twitter controversy on Sunday, the Tesla owner and world’s richest person responding to a tweet about tax from Senator Bernie Sanders by writing: “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”

• In alarming news for the White House, only 41% of voters approve of Biden. Aides to the president took to the political talkshows on Sunday in a bid to talk up the US economic recovery despite confidence in the president continuing to plunge amid a crisis over inflation and supply chain problems.

Don’t miss this: is Trump planning for a 2024 coup?

On 6 January 2020, the top Republican in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell delivered a dire warning that if the election results were not accepted, it would lead to “a scramble for power at any cost” every four years. With the former president hinting strongly that he may stand again, his followers are busily manoeuvring themselves into critical positions of control across the US – from which they could launch a far more sophisticated attempt at an electoral coup than Trump’s effort to hang on to power in 2020.

… Or this: do ‘overemotional’ people hold the key to happiness?

When the Guardian asked readers to share their experiences of high sensitivity, more than 300 people responded. Over about 40,000 words, they wrote about feeling drained by their ability to tune into other people’s emotions, or exhausted from working in open-plan offices. It was common to report crying at emotional adverts, but also to be deeply affected by political events. But while our noisy, frenetic, always-on world can be an unforgiving place, there is some hope. Our understanding of what it means to be highly sensitive and how to cope with the unpleasant side-effects is increasing.

Climate check: how Cop26 played out

Prior to the Glasgow climate talks, most countries submitted plans on how they would cut global carbon output, but they were not strong enough. What was crucial in Glasgow was to find a roadmap to reach the 1.5c warming goal, which involved forcing some highly reluctant countries to agree a timetable of swift revisions. Finally, after two weeks of wrangling, a “ratchet” had been settled, with countries agreeing to return next year, and the year after, with amendments. But there was a last-minute hitch and what followed reduced the Cop president, Alok Sharma, almost to tears.

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Last thing: the first Harry Potter film turns 20. Where are the stars now?

As fans prepare to mark the 20th anniversary on Tuesday of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first film adaptation of JK Rowling’s hit series, rumours abound of a potential reunion, with reports that members of the main cast have been issued with invitations for a one-off show. As Potterheads fantasize about the gang getting together one last time, my colleague Nadia Khomami takes a look at where the cast members are now and the paths their careers have taken in the years since.

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