First Thing: Hamas ‘close’ to truce agreement with Israel, leader says

Deal could include limited ceasefire and exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Plus, most US gun deaths are suicides. How can they be prevented?

Good morning.

Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior political leader of Hamas, has said a truce agreement with Israel may be close, raising hopes of a pause in the Israeli offensive in Gaza and the release of at least some of the Israeli hostages the militant organisation is holding there.

“We are close to reaching a deal on a truce,” Haniyeh said, adding the group had delivered its response to Qatari mediators.

Senior US and Israeli officials, as well as the Qatari prime minister, have all suggested in recent days that an agreement is near, although observers have cautioned that public statements during such negotiations are often misleading and any potential deal could easily collapse.

Analysts also point out that any deal agreed by the political leadership of Hamas overseas would have to be acceptable to political and military leaders in Gaza.

What could the agreement consist of? Two sources familiar with the truce talks told Agence France-Presse a tentative deal included a five-day truce, comprising a ceasefire on the ground and limits to Israeli air operations over southern Gaza. In return, between 50 and 100 prisoners held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad – a separate Palestinian militant group – would be released. They would include Israeli civilians and captives of other nationalities, but no military personnel.

What has Israel said? Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, issued a statement this morning warning against a deal. Yesterday he was involved in angry exchanges with families of those being held hostage by Hamas.

Court rules that only US government can sue to enforce Voting Rights Act

A federal appeals court shocked voting rights groups yesterday with a ruling that only the US government, not outside groups or citizens, could sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s provisions.

The civil rights law, which outlaws racial discrimination as it relates to voting, has typically been enforced by lawsuits from these groups, not by the government itself. Now that the Republican-appointed eighth circuit court of appeals has made the ruling by 2-1, this “private right of action” to enforce section 2 of the law is called into question.

The ruling stemmed from a case brought by the Arkansas State Conference NAACP and Arkansas Public Policy Panel over new maps created during redistricting that the two groups allege diluted the voting power of Black voters in the state.

How did the judges make the decision? While courts at all levels have allowed private claims seeking to enforce the voting rights law for decades, this is an “assumption that rests on flimsy footing”, according to the opinion written by Judge David Stras, who was appointed by Donald Trump. The ruling dissected the law itself, finding it did not include specific language that allows anyone aside from the attorney general to bring enforcement action.

What happens next? It is expected there will be an appeal to the supreme court over the ruling.

OpenAI staff threaten to quit en masse unless Sam Altman is reinstated

Turmoil has engulfed the company behind ChatGPT after hundreds of OpenAI staff members threatened to quit en masse unless the board overseeing the business reinstates its ousted chief executive, Sam Altman, and steps down.

In an open letter,nearly all of OpenAI’s 700 employees demanded the resignation of the board and said they may walk out if Altman is not brought back.

Altman was fired on Friday in a move that shocked Silicon Valley, riled the company’s employees and put rival tech companies on alert for a talent exodus, although Microsoft – a major investor in OpenAI – quickly snapped some up.

Monday’s letter to OpenAI’s four remaining board directors said: “Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI. We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees.” The board’s members have yet to comment publicly.

What is OpenAI? It was founded as a non-profit entity. It controls a commercial subsidiary that until Friday was run by Altman. The 38-year-old has become a globally renowned executive off the back of the success of ChatGPT, the AI text-generating system that raced to 100 million users soon after its launch in November last year.

In other news …

The first images emerged on Tuesday of 41 men trapped for more than a week in a highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayas, showing some of them standing in the confined space and communicating with rescue workers. The men have been stuck in the 3-mile (4.5km) tunnel in Uttarakhand state since it caved in early on 12 November.

The social media platform X yesterday sued media watchdog group Media Matters, alleging the organization defamed the platform after it published a report that said ads for major brands had appeared next to posts touting nazism. Media Matters’ report led IBM, Comcast and several other advertisers to pull ads from the platform.

Storms and inclement weather this Thanksgiving holiday week are likely to disrupt travel plans for much of the US. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it expected “this holiday travel season to be the busiest ever”.

A Los Angeles judge ruled there was enough evidence for A$AP Rocky to stand trial on charges that he fired a gun at a former friend and collaborator on the streets near a Hollywood hotel in 2021. Rocky has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.

Don’t miss this: people say you’ll know – but will I regret not having children?

As a thirtysomething woman, the question of children – to have, or not to have – is one I’ll carry until, one way or the other, the train leaves the station for good, writes Elle Hunt. I can count on one hand those friends who have always been certain that they want children. Now, they have them. The rest seem mired in uncertainty, waiting for the opportunity to arise – or pass. Even decisions don’t seem to readily stick. All my life I’ve felt fairly sure that I don’t want children of my own. This is convenient, given that I’m 32 and single. And yet, without my bringing it up, the question seems to keep rebounding on me, like signposts along a highway warning of the last chance to turn: am I sure?

… or this: the majority of US gun deaths are suicides. Here’s how to prevent them

In 2022, the number of US gun suicides reached an all-time high: 73 people dying by gun suicide every day, or a total of nearly 27,000 deaths that year. Despite years of intense debate over gun violence in the US, this central fact still receives little attention: most of the country’s gun deaths are suicides, not homicides. Experts say stigma and misinformation are still getting in the way of preventing more of these deaths. Paul Nestadt, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, spoke to the Guardian about the country’s rising number of suicides, the role of guns and mental health – and what works to save lives.

Help us raise $1.5m to fund independent journalism in 2024

As we head into 2024, the Guardian’s journalists are already hard at work preparing for one of the most consequential news cycles of our lifetimes. We need your support to raise $1.5m to fund our reporting into areas such as: the 2024 election and the potential for another Trump presidency; continued war in the Middle East; the sweeping implications of artificial intelligence; the climate crisis; and investigations into high-stakes abuses of power. If you value our reporting, please make a year-end gift today. We’re depending on you.

Climate check: revealed – the huge climate impact of the middle classes

The richest 10% of people in many countries cause up to 40 times more climate-heating carbon emissions than the poorest 10% of their fellow citizens, according to data obtained by the Guardian. Failing to account for this huge divide when making policies to cut emissions can cause a backlash over the affordability of climate action, experts say. The world’s richest 10% encompasses most of the middle classes in developed countries – anyone paid more than about $40,000 (£32,000) a year. The lavish lifestyles of the very rich – the 1% – attract attention. But the 10% are responsible for half of all global emissions, making them key to ending the climate crisis.

Last Thing: caught not quite in the act – church cameras reveal bat sex ritual

It was the surveillance cameras trained on the dark corners of St Matthias church in the village of Castenray in the Netherlands that caught the creatures in the act. The video footage is in black and white, the animals are entwined and upside down, and the events that unfold against a metal grill are more frantic than romantic. But the recording may nonetheless prompt the rewriting of textbooks. Researchers believe the film of serotine bats is the first documented evidence of any mammal mating without intromission. In plain English, that’s having sex without penetration.

Scientists have long been stumped by sex in serotine bats, or Eptesicus serotinus. The reasons become obvious from a glance at their anatomy. The male’s erect penis is enormous and ends with a heart-shaped head that is seven times wider than the female’s vagina.

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