Suspect faces two felony charges after memorial filled with bubbles and spray-paint reading Clean hands Dirty $'A woman was arrested on Friday morning in connection with the vandalization of the National World War Two Memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC, the capital's federal prosecutor announced.Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, announced mid-morning that a suspect was in custody and had been charged with federal crimes. Continue reading...
Storm expected to strengthen to hurricane as state of emergency declared amid danger of life-threatening' floodsTropical Storm Lala is set to hit Hawaii's Big Island with hurricane force in a matter of hours, bringing dangerous winds, heavy rainfall and high surf in a sign of what a strengthening super" El Nino in the Pacific may bring.The tropical storm is currently about 420 miles (675km) south-east of Hilo on the archipelago's largest island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said in its latest advisory, packing winds of 60mph (97km/h). Lala is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the Big Island. Continue reading...
Wildfires rage in Europe and the US, an earthquake rocks Colombia, Russian strikes in Ukraine and a solar eclipse - the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists Continue reading...
Facility also had no air conditioning for two days amid extreme heat, according to one of the people detainedPeople detained at an overcrowded federal immigration camp in Mississippi were sickened by a mystery gas leak, then denied medical care when they complained of headaches and other symptoms, it has been alleged.A lengthy power outage at Adams county detention center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility run by the private operator CoreCivic, also left it without air conditioning for two days this week, according to one detainee who contacted the Guardian through his family. Continue reading...
The FBI from the 1950s to the 1970s tried to infiltrate and discredit leftist organizations. Trump seems to be repeating that sordid practiceIt is bad enough that the Trump administration blocked a federal criminal investigation when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed Renee Good as she was turning her car away from him in Minneapolis the past January. Just before the shooting, Good and her partner had been observing and protesting against ICE officers.Instead, it turns out the administration has been investigating progressive and even mainstream groups that have been involved in protests against Donald Trump's sweeping deportations, according to newly released government documents. Continue reading...
The pattern in the US and Britain is clear. They serve up stunt after stunt to mask incompetence and the betrayal of all those who trusted themIt's a shame Nigel Farage ducked the announcement of his victory in the Clacton byelection, which confirmed his return as MP for the seat he had needlessly resigned from just a few weeks earlier. You'd have thought he would have loved it. It was the culmination of a stunt, an exercise in politics as performance. It was a display animated by - and seeking to inflame - grievance, a million miles away from the hard, grinding work of tackling the problems that underlie those grievances. It was an attempt to deflect scrutiny, distract attention and evade responsibility. It was, in other words, everything nationalist populists like him excel at. Indeed, the only thing.Reform UK said Farage stayed away because Essex police had warned of a credible threat" to his security, a claim swiftly denied by Essex police. (Add a flexible approach to the truth to that list of nationalist populists' talents.) Still, it was a slightly odd claim to make. Recall Farage's favoured explanation - there are others - for the undeclared 5m gift he received from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which prompted the very parliamentary investigation that so riled the Reform leader he felt compelled to quit his seat and seek a preemptive not guilty verdict from the people of Clacton: namely, that he needed the money to pay for private, enhanced security. It seems 5m was not quite enough to ensure the lucky recipient would be safe standing next to a man dressed as a bin.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Biological parents given custody of child born in Texas amid dispute over surrogate mother's claim of abortion requestA two-day-old baby with a rare heart defect at the center of a complex surrogacy dispute in Texas has been handed over to the parents' custody and is receiving care, lawyers for the parents said on Friday.The baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a defect that requires surgeries to correct. The baby was born on Wednesday to surrogate mother McKenna West of Alaska after she reportedly refused requests to get an abortion from the biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed of California - requests they deny making. Continue reading...
We would like to hear from Americans about how they see the legacy of September 11, 25 years onWe would like to hear from Americans about how they see the legacy of 9/11. Now, 25 years later, how do you see the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the country and day-to-day life?If you're having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here. Continue reading...
Monkey bars, gawky teenagers and a presidential cameo - all given a prime-time showcase by ABC - combined for the most leaden hour of America's 250th birthday summerCulturally, it's been a tough few months for Donald Trump. The UFC night he held at the White House for his birthday got lost amid the froth and excitement of the World Cup. The Great American State Fair on the Washington DC National Mall was a dud. The president's jokes at the White House Correspondents' Dinner all bombed. Could the Patriot Games, a nationwide competition to find the American schoolchildren most adept at traversing a set of monkey bars, help rescue the summer?Last night we got our answer: no. A one-hour prime-time special brought us the best of the Patriot Games, and in a crowded field it managed to offer some of the most leaden TV of the American semiquincentennial. Freedom 250, the White House-backed non-profit that hosted the UFC fight at the White House and the Great American State Fair, produced the event, and put up the $125,000 in college scholarship winnings that went to each winner on the boys' and girls' side of the competition. The final round of the Games actually took place earlier this week, at a sports training facility outside Cleveland, Ohio. Last night we just got the best bits, and judging by what that amounted to, we should all be thankful we never had to endure the other bits. This was Trumpworld's answer to the Hunger Games, but it's unlikely there will be much clamor for a sequel. The patriots may be hungry for more, but the rest of us? Eh. Continue reading...
by Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent on (#77PAE)
Move will be one of first large-scale foreign investments in country since US ousted leader Nicolas Maduro in JanuaryBP has answered Donald Trump's call for oil companies to help rebuild Venezuela's fossil fuel industry with new plans to develop a large offshore gasfield.BP will partner with two oil firms with close links to the Trump administration to develop the second phase of the Loran gasfield, in one of the first large-scale foreign investments in Venezuela since the US ousted its leader Nicolas Maduro in January. Continue reading...
Attending a Nick Jonas show with my kids was an invitation to collective effervescence'. We need these shared experiences now more than everThree years ago, I agreed to accompany my children to a Nick Jonas concert. The appeal of the Jonas Brothers, and in this case only one of them, was unfamiliar territory.The concert happened to land on a particularly inconvenient day. As I sprinted out of the hospital, my mind was filled with the what if's" and should haves" about our work that day. Continue reading...
by Presented by Jonathan Freedland with Tara Setmayer on (#77P61)
When Air Force One took off from Turkey after July's Nato summit, almost everyone believed Donald Trump was on board ... but he wasn't. Jonathan Freedland talks to Tara Setmayer of the Seneca Project about why the White House felt the need to come up with such an elaborate lie to protect the president Continue reading...
Ben Crump and Rev Al Sharpton, also present at National Association of Black Journalists, demanded truth' and transparency' in Wells' caseOn Thursday morning, the parents of Nolan Wells, Christine Wells-Wonsley and Elmore Wonsley, along with Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney, and Rev Al Sharpton, the famed civil rights activist, spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Atlanta. Wells was an 18-year-old college student who was found dead on 6 July after a boating trip with friends, and his death captured national attention.Wells went missing on 4 July and a photo of the teen, who was Black, and his three friends on the trip, who were white, went viral. Social media users have speculated that Wells's disappearance, death and the perceived lack of urgency in the county's investigation into what happened to the teen are because of his race. Continue reading...
The press secretary's communication style made her eminently qualified for a role in this administrationKaroline Leavitt, 28, is leaving her demanding job as Donald Trump's press secretary to spend more time with her two young children and her 60-year-old husband. According to a post by Trump On Truth Social, Leavitt will be departing her role at the end of the month and will serve as one of Trump's top outside advisors".In other words: the official version of events is that Leavitt is resigning on her own terms for family reasons and not because Trump's approval ratings are at record lows and she's a rat fleeing a sinking ship. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Companies that kept policies did just as well financially, even after Trump's executive order, as those that didn'tConservative backlash was supposed to put an end to the diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) movement as companies were warned go woke, go broke".In January 2025, Donald Trump delivered a death knell, ending DEI within the federal government with executive orders and threatening to target companies that still supported it. Companies including Google, Goldman Sachs, McDonald's and Walmart that had embraced DEI years earlier fell into line and announced an end to their policies. Continue reading...
With the Hall of Fame game done, and the second round of preseason games underway, let's look at the storylines that could dominate the coming weeksWinning the Super Bowl back in February puts the Seattle Seahawks in line to become the 10th team, and the ninth franchise, to repeat as champions (the Pittsburgh Steelers went back-to-back twice in the 1970s). While a lot of Super Bowl winners experience massive drains of coaching and playing talent after clinching the title, these Seahawks are left in pretty good shape. Continue reading...
The Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies played before 8,000 fans on Thursday at a ballpark carved into the cornfields of tiny Dyersville, Iowa (population: 4,477), where the 1989 Kevin Costner film was shot
President has suggested steam catapults every year since 2017, saying digital systems are too complicated'After nearly a decade of loudly complaining about the fact that modern US aircraft carriers use electromagnetic systems to launch fighter jets instead of steam-powered catapults, Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to redesign a new aircraft carrier to replace the modern system with the old-fashioned catapults he prefers.Trump signed a national security memorandum on Thursday directing the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, to make the change he has had his heart set on since at least 2017, when he first described his idea to Time magazine. Continue reading...
Rare scheduling in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama underlines the renewed appetite in US for state killingsCarlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was put to death by the state of Oklahoma, in the first of three executions scheduled for Thursday in a rare triple procedure that underlines the renewed appetite in the US for state killings.Just one hour later, Darrell Hines was put to death by the state of Tennessee, and at 6pm local time in Alabama, that state executed Jeremy Williams. Continue reading...
by Sam Levin in Los Angeles and Rachel Leingang in Mi on (#77NTG)
DHS sent undercover agents to meetings and infiltrated chats of groups opposing Trump's immigration crackdownNewly disclosed records reveal the US government extensively spied on prominent leftwing organizations and on protesters as part of a vast operation into groups opposing the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year.Internal investigative reports show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent undercover agents to community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York City, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records of mainstream unions and left-leaning non-profit groups. Continue reading...
Defense secretary said conditions on aircraft carrier deployed in support of Iran war have been completely misrepresented'The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, insisted a wave of reports describing deteriorating conditions and mental health struggles onboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln completely misrepresented" the situation, pushing back against growing congressional pressure over the ship's record-breaking, nearly nine-month deployment.We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment," Hegseth told reporters during a visit to Panama, adding that some deployments are longer than others" and praising sailors enduring high seas" and austere conditions with less port calls". Continue reading...
Karoline Leavitt's abrupt departure has sparked a tough race inside Trump's circle for the prominent positionKaroline Leavitt's surprise resignation as the White House press secretary is set to trigger a sharp-elbowed race inside Donald Trump's world for one of the most prominent positions in the Trump administration.Several names have circulated since the US president announced that Leavitt would step down at the end of the month to spend more time with her family. Continue reading...
President signed memorandum giving private sector a role in fighting transnational criminal organizations'Donald Trump signed a memo on Wednesday that aims to give private companies the power to carry out offensive cyber-attacks against foreign criminal entities.The president signed a national security presidential memorandum directing his administration to leverage the capability and innovation of the private sector to help conduct these cyber operations under the direction, control and authority of the US government", the White House said. Continue reading...
Federal court rules administration failed to plausibly show ongoing violation of civil rights lawA US federal judge has dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit that claimed Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment in the aftermath of the war in Gaza.In a ruling on Thursday morning, US district judge Richard Stearns in Boston said the administration's lawsuit - filed in March - failed to plausibly show an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law on Harvard's campus. Continue reading...
Study of 56m-year-old leaves counters claims from Trump administration members of benefits' of fossil fuel pollutionAdding huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is set to cause the Earth's forests to wither and die rather than flourish, according to a new study that counters erroneous claims that fossil fuel pollution will green the planet.An analysis of fossilized leaf cells from a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM), which occurred about 56 million years ago, has helped reconstruct how the world's forests responded when planet-heating gases were previously being released at a rapid rate. Continue reading...
State department says it has reached administrative settlement with company's US arm to resolve breachesThe UK defence company BAE Systems is to pay a $36m (26.7m) civil penalty after breaching US arms exports regulations more than 100 times.The US Department of State announced on Thursday that it had reached an administrative settlement with the US arm of BAE to resolve 104 violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Continue reading...
Jose Chajon-Raxon experienced seizure-like activity' at Delaney Hall and later died after being hospitalizedA Guatemalan immigrant detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a Newark, New Jersey, facility suffered a medical emergency and later died after being hospitalized, according to the Trump administration.Jose Chajon-Raxon is the third immigrant to die after being held at Delaney Hall, an ICE detention center that reopened in May 2025 amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Continue reading...
Tech billionaire's $158.3bn deal an outlier in report showing widening gap of CEO to worker pay at top companiesElon Musk received over 2.5m times as much compensation at Tesla as the company's average worker, according to a new report on the growing gap between top corporate executives and their workers.Musk's $158.3bn pay deal was an outlier but came as the gap between CEO and worker pay continued to grow. Excluding Musk, last year the average ratio of CEO to worker pay for the top S&P 500 companies was 312 to 1, up from a 285:1 ratio in 2024. With Musk, the average pay ratio was 5,387:1, according to the executive pay watch report released this week by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US. Continue reading...
Republican congressman publicly shared links to evidence his team compiled in response to domestic abuse allegationsEmily Moreno, the ex-wife of Max Miller, has sued the embattled Republican congressman and his lawyer for uploading a picture of their infant daughter to a publicly accessible Dropbox folder as part of their custody battle.The complaint argues that Miller recklessly published and disclosed to the world a nude image" of their daughter. The photos in the lawsuit were part of a tranche of evidence that Miller's team compiled in response to the domestic abuse allegations the lawmaker is facing following his divorce. Those allegations include holding a gun to Moreno's head, pouring boiling water on her, and actions that resulted in his two-year-old daughter's collarbone being broken, all of which Miller denies.In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women's Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...
One of the most famous teams in the world is about to change hands for the second time in less than a year for more than $12bn. Will anyone push back?One of the most brutal lessons we must learn as fans is that the team we shed blood, sweat and tears for is seen by those who own it as just one of many assets. That gap has never felt as wide as it does this week. On Wednesday, ESPN reported that the Los Angeles Lakers are set to change hands, for the second time in 10 months, for $12.5bn, a sum that would be a record for any North American sports team. (The deal must be approved by the NBA's board of governors before it can go through.) The buyers aren't diehards who saved up every penny like the good Dr Jerry Buss in the 1970s. Those days are gone. If and when the deal is approved, the new owners will be venture capitalist Josh Kushner and his business partner, Bob Iger. Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, the titleless Wormtongue to Donald Trump's Saruman. Iger used to run Disney. These men have connections across the political world and influence in every corner of the American empire. A franchise woven into a city's identity should never become an asset vastly wealthy people move around like a chip around a poker table. But that is exactly what the Lakers are about to become. The way the deal came together should terrify anyone who still thinks sports belong to the fans.Mark Walter took control of the team from the Buss family last October at a valuation of roughly $10bn. Now he is set to cash out around $2bn richer. That's not how this is supposed to work. The old guard, like Buss, used to guard their NBA teams like heirlooms and pass them down. Walter is set to flip the team after less than a year. Continue reading...
As Karoline Leavitt plans to step down, it's apparent how the president above all values a readiness to twist the truthAs Karoline Leavitt prepares to step down from her role as Donald Trump's fifth White House press secretary, a brief review of her tenure, and that of her predecessors, makes clear that the most fabulist president in US history prizes one quality above all else in the women and men who speak for him: a willingness to tell outrageous lies.Leavitt started her tenure by telling a wild falsehood at her very first news conference, when she claimed that the Biden administration had planned to use $50m in taxpayer dollars to send condoms to Gaza. Later the same day, the Guardian reported that the claim was directly contradicted by USAID records. Continue reading...
Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as regulator says five companies can raise bills to pay for infrastructure for new housing and datacentresThe biggest factor for the FTSE 100's underperformance on Thursday morning relative to other European markets is a big decline in the mining sector.Chilean miner Antofagasta is the biggest faller on London's benchmark index, down 4.9% after it cut its guidance for future output.The London-listed miner cut its 2026 copper output estimate to between 625,000 and 655,000 metric tons, from a previous forecast of 650,000 to 700,000 tons, due to a shutdown at its Los Pelambres mine in July after extreme rains prompted Chile's government to declare a state of catastrophe" in the Coquimbo Region.While there has been no material impact on key equipment and infrastructure, the miner said it will need to repair some pipeline platforms and water management systems. Continue reading...
Prize was eighth largest in Powerball history and followed three months without a top prize winnerA Powerball ticket sold at a gas station in western Illinois was the sole winner of the $1bn jackpot, ending a three-month drought without a top-prize victor.The ticket that won the jackpot on Wednesday night was purchased at a Hy-Vee station in Quincy, about 100 miles (160km) west of the state capital of Springfield along the Missouri border, Illinois Lottery officials said. The winning numbers were 4-26-66-67-69 with the Powerball number of 9. Continue reading...
Ethics experts and Democrats express alarm as Trump uses office to grow his personal fortune to unprecedented' levelDonald Trump's use of his second presidency to grow his personal fortune has alarmed legal and ethics experts and congressional Democrats as he has reaped an unprecedented" $2.2bn in 2025 revenues by amassing big cryptocurrency holdings, benefitting from wealthy foreign interests, expanding his Truth Social business and more, while federal oversight of his actions has waned.Trump last year raked in at least $1.4bn from his crypto ventures according to financial disclosure forms he filed in June. Simultaneously, about one million investors in a Trump crypto scheme suffered almost $3.8bn in losses as their volatile crypto holdings tanked in value. Continue reading...
The congresswoman's decision is an assertion of women's freedom and dignity at a time when our status is rapidly erodingDon't be weird about this," representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star and rumored 2028 presidential contender, said on her live video broadcast as she raised her shirt to angle the syringe into her abdomen. Then, with resignation, even though I know all of you will be."The New York Democrat is 36 years old, and this week, she revealed that she is beginning the process of freezing her eggs during Congress' August recess. In the video, Ocasio-Cortez said that she was seeking to destigmatize the realities of women's lives as they navigate the conflicting demands of professional aspiration and family building; she explained to viewers the process of the hormonal injections she was administering to herself, showing them the drugs and injector she was using arrayed on a paper towel, beside a disinfecting towelette. The procedure, Ocasio-Cortez explained, was not covered by her insurance, and she would be paying 100% out of pocket". She had been saving to afford it for some time. This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life," she said, going on to assert her hope that transparency about such questions will destigmatize women's reproductive lives and promote their dignity. Continue reading...
State is US's largest user of pesticide that is virtually proven to cause Parkinson's diseaseCalifornia is banning paraquat, a highly toxic, controversial herbicide used across millions of acres of American cropland.Public health advocates characterize it as a deadly substance that is virtually proven to cause Parkinson's disease. It is already outlawed in more than 70 countries, including China, the UK and the EU. Yet in the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reapproved it for use in 2021 and 2024. Continue reading...
It's a nice sentiment, but all AI users should ask three questions about their preferred choice of AI platformOn Monday, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay, The Future Is for Everyone. The essay came with something even rarer: a new Meta open-weight model. An open-weight AI model is the kind of AI with which you download the entire thing, and it works on your own computer (with or without the internet) and nobody can switch it off except for you. Almost every mainstream AI tool you use, whether it be Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, is one you rent access to. Meta's is one that you can download and actually own. I downloaded it before I finished the essay. So can you.This major move by the world's largest tech heavyweight comes amid a summer heavy with AI news, full of nations at war. Washington against Beijing; tech founder against tech founder. But beneath those conflicts is a deeper contest between two kinds of power: a government that can order technology offline in an instant, and a company that can simply close your account. Neither is necessarily villainous. But the rest of us are not merely the audience in this fight; we are the prize. And the terms are already being written: intelligence on lease, a future we pay for but never quite own. Continue reading...
Progressive and democratic socialist politicians are recanting pandemic-era statements on police and prison abolitionThe north may not remember, but 9 August this year marked the 12th anniversary of the police killing of Michael Brown Jr in Ferguson, Missouri. That day, the US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reassured an ABC news anchor that she, like other progressive politicians and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates, had moved away" from statements they made during the pandemic, particularly on police and prison abolition. Questioned further, she explained:I have a local city councilman that has this saying: Woke 1 was crazy'... especially during Covid, I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it's fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down. And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that, you know, during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today. And I'm grateful that these candidates have the opportunity to present who they are to their electorate and what they're campaigning on in this moment." Continue reading...
The dangers of AI become clearer every day. Why are we still acting as if we have no choice about our future?Rather than producing jobs, the US economy actually lost 23,000 jobs in July, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Friday. In addition, May and June's job numbers were revised downward, showing a combined 103,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.As if this weren't bad enough, wage growth has also slowed. Average hourly earnings rose by just 0.1% from June. Continue reading...
We look at the many contenders for the English title this season, one of the big potential moves of the summer and chaos at FifaIt's difficult to recall a Premier League season starting amid such widespread uncertainty as this one. Half the division, including Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City, is under new management. The Pep Guardiola era is over and, as Jonathan Wilson put it, the Premier League has no alpha manager possibly for the first time ever. Continue reading...
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