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As for Keir Starmer, even when he tries to make a reasonably sound judgment he somehow ends up losing both sides of the argumentMaybe we should have just had done with it back in December. Instead of offering a polite reservation, every western country should have sent a full, state delegation to Norway. Begging, imploring the Nobel Committee to award Donald Trump the peace prize. We could all have chipped in a couple of billion just to make it even more worth winning.And if that wasn't enough, we could have twisted the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, to upgrade his Peaceiest Ever President" award to the Makes Jesus Look Second Rate" prize. A large solid gold statue of The Donald would have done the trick. There's more than enough in the Fifa slush funds. Continue reading...

In a combative press conference, the Pentagon chief dodged questions about the goals of the US military's Iran operation

Sir Keir Starmer draws a narrow legal distinction. But if British bases enable a wider US-Israeli campaign, the UK risks sliding into an unlawful conflictIn the Commons on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer was clear that Britain will not join offensive action against Tehran. It is wise not to join an illegal attempt at regime change from the skies". Sir Keir will, however,permit US use of British bases for limited defensive strikes aimed at stopping Iranian missile attacks. That is a legally clear line, but it may be politically and militarily tricky to stick to.Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu's actions are reckless and unlawful. But so are Iran's strikes - hitting hotels, airports and energy infrastructure - across the Gulf. Where Britain's allies have asked for support, or where UK nationals are at risk, the UK is legally entitled to act in collective self-defence. But this holds only as long as the action is restricted to haltTehran's barrage.Do 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...

Video of Chris Kempczinski trying new product' the Big Arch burger criticized for feeling forced and corporateBusiness leaders are increasingly placing themselves in front of the camera, in an effort to appear more relatable to a social media-first audience. When it goes well, it can be a huge hit. When it doesn't, you risk becoming the subject of online ridicule.In the recent case of Chris Kempczinski, the McDonald's CEO and president, it's the latter. Continue reading...

Officials continue to investigate Sunday shooting in Texas amid fears of further attacks following US airstrikes on Iran

Defense secretary refuses to establish timeline for how long operation will continue in first public remarks since strikesThe US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has called the joint US-Israeli strikes in Iran the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history", indicated the US did not plan to effect a democratic transition in Iran - and refused to establish a clear timeline for how long the US operation will continue.In the first public remarks by an administration official since the war began on Saturday, Hegseth also said that the US did not have boots on the ground" in Iran but that he wouldn't speculate what we will or will not do". He also said that four US service members had been killed by a ballistic missile that managed to penetrate allied air defenses. Continue reading...

Banner has sparked criticism as Kirk was a polarizing figure who made incendiary and often racist and sexist commentsThe US Department of Education has hung large banners outside its building in Washington DC, including one featuring an image of the late far-right commentator, Charlie Kirk.Kirk, who was shot and killed last September while speaking at a campus event a Utah Valley University, co-founded the conservative non-profit organization Turning Point USA, which advocates for and promotes conservative politics among young people, particularly on college campuses. Continue reading...

Footage circulating on social media appears to show a military aircraft falling from the sky inKuwait. US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday that three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations had mistakenly been shot down by Kuwait air defences and that the cause of the incident was under investigation. The US and Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran on Saturday, killing several top Iranian leaders including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Trump cited debunked claims in video address that Iran was on verge of nuclear weapons to justify US casualties. Plus, the teacher who exposed Putin's primary school propaganda

The days of the retirement league trope appear to be ending, while Inter Miami's star had an outstanding - and amusing - game against Orlando CityEven before David Beckham swapped Madrid for Los Angeles, MLS has harbored a reputation as a retirement league." The notion is well-worn in banter circles. It's tired, and also at least a little bit true.Robbie Keane. Kaka. David Villa. Andrea Pirlo. Didier Drogba. Wayne Rooney. Zlatan Ibrahimovi. All of them - and many others - enjoyed late-career stops in the United States. Today, three of the 11 players named to Fifa's Dream Team after the 2014 World Cup play in the league: Lionel Messi (Inter Miami), Thomas Muller (Vancouver Whitecaps) and James Rodriguez (Minnesota United). When Son Heung-min (33 years old) arrived in Los Angeles after his decade with Tottenham, he reunited with longtime Spurs teammate Hugo Lloris (39), and ensured derby days against the LA Galaxy's Marco Reus (36). Continue reading...

The war has already become regional: Iran is attacking American-aligned Arab states in the hope that they will pressure Trump to sign a ceasefireLast week, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday and again on Friday, just before launching Operation Epic Fury, Donald Trump laid out his case for attacking Iran.The US president offered a lengthy bill of indictment against Iran's Islamic Republic, stretching back to the 1979 revolution: the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, support for terrorism, brutality towards its citizenry, and support for proxies that have killed Americans. Continue reading...

In contrast with the takedowns of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, US consequences have been limited to resignations and apologiesWeeks after justice department officials released more than 3m investigative documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, there have not been any arrests in the US, prompting questions about whether any potential co-conspirators will be held accountable on American soil.Indeed, consequences in the US for the sex trafficker's associates have largely been limited to a handful of sombre resignations and public apologies of late - not high-level criminal prosecutions that victims and advocates have long demanded. Continue reading...

Lawmakers from Sanders to Mark Kelly offer mixed feelings on Trump's action and killing of Iranian supreme leaderAs Republicans celebrated the death of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump's decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front.Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught. Continue reading...

Activists who dispute safety of vaccines are pushing to limit immunization requirements in schoolsAs South Carolina grapples with a measles outbreak that has infected nearly 1,000 people, groups with ties to the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, are pushing to eliminate immunization requirements that protect children.Activists are targeting vaccine mandates in states trying to tamp down measles as communities across the country struggle to stop the worst spread of the illness since the early 1990s. The Guardian found anti-vaccine groups are encouraging their followers to organize opposition to vaccine mandates in more than 20 states, including at least six with current measles outbreaks. Continue reading...

Local crews rescued Andrew Giddens, 36, near a borrow pit after he faced freezing weather without food or waterA Florida man who had been missing since Valentine's Day was found over a week later trapped in mud up to his shoulders, authorities said.Andrew Giddens, 36, had reportedly gone several days without food or water by then, and officials ultimately rescued him in dramatic fashion to end his nightmarish ordeal. Continue reading...

FBI official says evidence found on the suspect and in his car indicated a potential nexus to terrorism'

Trump cited debunked claims in video address that Iran was on verge of nuclear weapons to justify US casualties

US president says he is willing to speak to Iran's remaining leadership as war spreads across Middle East - key US politics stories from 1 March 2026Republican senators have defended Donald Trump's decision to launch a war against Iran, but some Democrats, while welcoming the elimination of the Iranian senior leadership, said the case for the attack should have been made to the American public and Congress.Three US service members have been killed so far in the military operation, and Trump appeared to link the ordering of the attack to his 2020 election loss. Continue reading...

State trooper used Pit ramming maneuvre to stop Dillon Hess from speeding while transporting his son to hospital

They should have done it sooner, they waited too long,' says Trump but he doesn't say when talks would take place

The US-Israeli military action will test the fragile rules governing the use of forceThe killing of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by a US-Israeli strike is a targeted assassination of a head of state. It also marks a grave escalation in a region already burdened with smoulderingwars and fragile states. The consequencesof the deliberate strike will reverberate across a Middle East marked by the aftershocks of foreign intervention. Revulsion against the hardline regime in Tehran, or the desire for a better future for the Iranian people, does not confer a legal justification.Force is lawful, under the UN charter, only in self-defence against an imminent attack or with security council approval. Neither condition has been met. There was no evidence of an instant, overwhelming"Iranian attack being prepared. What Donald Trump's Operation Epic Fury looks like is not pre-emption but prevention: a decision to eliminate a future risk while an enemy appeared weak. It is a war of choice. MrTrump's call to overthrow a sovereign government was extraordinary.Do 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...

The US joined an Israeli assault after intel suggested Iran's top clerics and commanders could be hit at once

Isaiah Martin's videos have gone viral - he thinks his party should follow his lead and stand up to Republican excessDynamism, courage, and wit are words that few are likely to associate with the mainstream Democratic party, particularly after its capitulation to Republicans' budget demands last year.Polls show that majorities of Democratic voters think their party is weak and ineffective. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, is even more unpopular than Donald Trump. People are crying out for a bold voice, someone to take the fight to an increasingly authoritarian Republican party. Continue reading...

The desire to see an increasingly ruthless Iranian regime collapse has intensified in Iranian expat communities

Trump calls Anthropic a Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about'

President says in social media post that Iran tried to stop Trump' and now faces renewed war with United States'

Five additional personnel have been reported seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury, US military said

Though the supreme court ruled against the levies, businesses hit hard by the tariffs shouldn't hold their breath for any rebates

Their actions are no different from Putin's invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame's invasion of the Democratic Republic of CongoWe shouldn't beat around the bush: Donald Trump's and Benjamin Netanyahu's military attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression. There is no lawful justification for it. It is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame's invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo.The United Nations charter allows the use of military force in only two circumstances - with authorization of the UN security council, or as self-defense from an actual or imminent armed attack. Neither was present.Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments Continue reading...

A bill to create a state intelligence operation would allow scrutiny based on opinions' - and could prompt other states to followFlorida man seeks to create a state counterintelligence unit and claim sweeping surveillance powers over people whose views' or opinions' he dislikes." It's not nearly as amusing as the usual Florida man" headline, and it may lead to a blueprint for lawmakers far beyond Florida.If Florida enacts House Bill 945, it will create a national first - CIA-style structure at the state level that blurs the traditional line between state law enforcement and intelligence work. It likely wouldn't remain a local experiment. Red states often borrow aggressively from one another's policy playbooks, on everything from gerrymandering to anti-abortion laws to transporting immigrants to Democratic-led states. A state-level intelligence office empowered to scrutinize residents based on ideology is precisely the kind of proposal likely to spread once normalized. Continue reading...

James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett adopt contrasting strategies as party hopes to tap into Trump backlash in reliably red stateAt a packed town hall meeting last month in Laredo for James Talarico, the 36-year-old Democrat vying for a US Senate seat in Texas, Cristina Rodriguez took the microphone. Rodriguez, a 16-year Marine Corps veteran, said she had never cast a ballot. She didn't identify as either a Democrat nor a Republican, and to her it didn't matter. Regardless of what party the president belonged to, she had to obey orders.Her attitude changed after the re-election of Donald Trump, whom she viewed as spiteful and divisive. In Talarico, a state representative from the Austin suburb of Round Rock, she found the exact opposite - a former middle school teacher and current seminary student who speaks in measured tones and preaches mutual respect. Continue reading...

Dylan Lopez Contreras, a senior at Ellis Prep academy, was taken by ICE in May. The Guardian invited him and five of his classmates to share their lives and dreamsThe students at Ellis Prep academy - like most high schoolers - have a lot on their mind right now.Essay deadlines, college applications, younger siblings and dance rehearsals. But also, the immigration operations across the US and the president's goal of mass deportations". Continue reading...

Jackson's body lay in repose at his Rainbow/Push Coalition headquarters as thousands visited to pay their respectsSome were older, some were younger and some were strangers, but many more were friends - they had lined up down the blocks of Chicago in mercifully mild weather for a chance to say goodbye to the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.Friday was the last day of public visitation as Jackson lay in repose at the headquarters of his Rainbow/Push political activism coalition in the city he called home. Continue reading...

Plumes of smoke rose above Tehran and explosions could be heard across the city on day two of US-Israeli strikes on Iran. In a statement the Israel Defense Forces said the country's air force was striking targets 'in the heart of Tehran'. The strikes came after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the first wave of attacks. Although Israel said it was targeting military assets in Iran, there have also been reports of a high civilian death toll

Ex-official calls transfer of unaccompanied girls as young as 13, many pregnant due to rape, a human rights violationAll unaccompanied immigrant children who are pregnant, many by rape, are being moved to a single facility in Texas in order to avoid providing abortion services in a significant human rights violation, critics say.As detainees are frequently moved across state lines quickly, often to red states like Texas, pregnant people are facing challenges accessing reproductive health care in detention centers. Continue reading...

Kash Patel's partying went viral and the US men's team came to Washington. Now it's all part of the culture warAh, hockey. The most impish of sports. A bunch of blissfully beefy individuals wearing colorful sweaters zoom around in skates chasing a wee little object called, of all things, a puck". It's adorable. It's like A Midsummer Night's Dream for people missing teeth. These days, if you're talking about hockey, you probably are thinking about HBO Max's gay sex-capade romance, Heated Rivalry. In the TV series, two hockey players on opposing teams fall in love, engaging in various erotic scenarios in between smashing each other into plexiglass. Actually, maybe that second part is connected to the first part.Heated Rivalry has become an absolute phenomenon, enthralling American audiences despite all the factors that might prevent someone less than tolerant from connecting with the show - it's gay, it's about one of our least popular major team sports, and most damning of all, it's Canadian. It might as well be about talking beavers. And yet, it's a major hit that's done a lot of good for healthy representation of the LGBTQ+ community. Continue reading...

A reporter ponders on how to repair a religious structure long thought of as good but supported by an evil undersideIn 1965, just shy of my junior year at the Jesuit high school of New Orleans, with good potential as an offensive end, I had an epiphany in the muddy slog of August football practice: Why are you doing something you don't like?Soon after, I quit, and was trailed by guilt for a dereliction of duty. Jesuit vaunted student achievements of all kinds. I played on the golf team and did some pieces for the school paper. Jesuit fostered a fraternal culture, molding friendships I carry to this day. Continue reading...

News of Ali Khamenei's killing sparks backlash from Marjorie Taylor Greene and other America First loyalistsDonald Trump had come to Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, with a promise. We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with," the then US president-elect said in December 2016.Trump has pushed his isolationist message in the decade since, repeatedly assuring his America first" base that there would be no repeat of the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Continue reading...

Thousands go missing every year, including more than 5,000 Native American and Alaska Native women and girlsSavannah Guthrie is moving back to New York to resume anchoring NBC's Today show and acknowledging that her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, may not be found a month after she disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the middle of the night.We still believe in a miracle," Guthrie said in a video last week announcing a $1m reward for her mother's return in an enduring mystery that has gripped the US for four weeks. We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone." Continue reading...

Footage released by Iran's state media show the aftermath of a school building in the south of the country reportedly destroyed by US and Israeli strikes. At least 100 children had been killed in the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' school in Minab, the Mizan news agency reported, with dozens more unaccounted for

The Iranian foreign minister says Donald Trump's aim of regime change is mission impossible' after US-Israeli strikes hit multiple sites in Iran.Reports say at least 201 people have been killed and there are growing fears the move could plunge the region into a conflict that could last weeks or months.The Guardian's Patrick Wintour explains what we know so far and what to expect

A halt on trade flows through the strait of Hormuz could spell trouble for many developed economies

The America First president who built his political brand on opposing foreign military adventures has unleashed a war of choice aimed at regime changeIt turns out that Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed candidate of peace," is just as eager to start new wars. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pitched himself as the antithesis of his Democratic opponents Joe Biden, and later, Kamala Harris. Trump insisted he would use his deal-making skills to end multiple global conflicts that started under the Biden administration, including Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.In his election night victory speech in November 2024, Trump told his supporters: I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars." Two months later, in his inaugural address, he went even further in trying to establish himself as a global peacemaker. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end - and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into," he said.Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University Continue reading...

The regime may now have to meet Trump's demands merely to save itself. And he needs a coherent plan to deal with what he has unleashedThe coordinated strikes on Iran launched by the United States and Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning formally reignited a conflict that had been simmering since last summer's 12-day war. They targeted key command structures and killed senior figures, most notably Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had been in power since 1989. Donald Trump marked his demise with a post saying one of the most evil people in history" was dead, adding: This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans."Israel has published reports claiming that Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the defence council, have also been killed. In response, Iranian forces have fired missiles and drones at Israel, at US bases in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan, and at some civilian targets across the Gulf. Events are moving quickly, but far from predictably.Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House Continue reading...

Strikes on Iran by the US and Israel, as well as Donald Trump's announcement that the supreme leader Ali Khamenei had been killed lead the news pages