US news | The Guardian

Former president calls Trump a loser' and criticizes his attempted makeover of Washington. Key US politics stories from Sunday 28 June at a glance

Across the US, cities wrapped up Pride month with parades and festivals on the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, which underscored the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. This month's celebrations unfolded as Trump works to roll back trans rights and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. This year's theme for NYC Pride was For All of Us'. Attender Carlos Duarte said: It's very important for us to be here ... all together for love, peace and to show the world who we are.' Continue reading...

Forecasters expect days of high temperatures in central and eastern US before Fourth of July and World Cup festivitiesA long and dangerous heatwave will blast a large swath of the central and eastern United States for the upcoming week, the National Weather Service (NWS) said on Sunday - with temperatures rising ahead of the Fourth of July holiday and feeling even hotter because of high humidity also arriving.Already parts of the US, especially Phoenix and central Texas, and much of the south-west were experiencing temperatures of about 100F (38C) on Sunday, while the NWS warned of severe wildfire conditions developing across much of the west as new fires popped up across the region. Continue reading...

Markwayne Mullin's remarks come after controversial supreme court ruling to strip TPS from over 350,000 peopleMigrants in the US on temporary protected status should seek permanent residence or leave, Markwayne Mullin, Homeland Security secretary, said in the wake of last week's supreme court decision that stripped humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants.The remarks to CNN's State of the Union program comes after a decision that could allow Donald Trump's administration to deport Haitian and Syrian immigrants to home countries plagued by conflict and destitution. Continue reading...

Mayor says progressive peers who swept primaries speak to Americans coast to coast' as moderates have reservationsZohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, said on Sunday that he and a slew of democratic socialist allies who prevailed in recent primary elections are carrying a national message" to struggling working Americans hungry for a new kind of politics coast to coast".Mamdani made that triumphant clarion call on ABC News's This Week just five days after he had seen his endorsed candidates win Democratic nominations in three races for New York congressional seats, as well as for five state legislature positions in Albany. He made no effort to disguise his delight that his clean sweep marks a dramatic shift in Democratic politics - not just in New York City, which he has led since January, but also across the US. Continue reading...

Firefighters were involved in joint response to Knowles and Gore blazes as wildfires ravage western US, fire agency saysThree firefighters were killed and two others were hurt while responding to wildfires along the Colorado-Utah border, the US Wildland Fire Service announced on Sunday.The agency, which was established in January to coordinate wildfire suppression and prevention efforts across public lands, said the firefighters were involved in a joint response to the Knowles and Gore fires on Saturday. Continue reading...

All the latest news from as we reach the knockouts

Out-going Louisiana senator's rebuke over Iran war is rare instance of a Republican politician standing up to TrumpBill Cassidy, the Republican senator from Louisiana who is being ousted from his position after Donald Trump successfully backed a challenger in May's primary, has accused the US president of treating Congress as merely an appendage" in his handling of the Iran war.In an interview on Sunday with CBS News's Face the Nation, the out-going Cassidy explained his recent face-to-face row with Trump over the president's failure to brief Congress on the prosecution of the hostilities with Tehran. In a fleetingly rare instance of a Republican politician directly standing up to Trump, Cassidy let rip at a Capitol Hill lunch over the senator's support for a war powers resolution that was a symbolic rebuke to the White House. Continue reading...

Pugnacious speech invokes Trump's vanity projects' to makeover Washington and the brazen, blatant corruption'Joe Biden called Donald Trump a loser" in a pugnacious speech on Saturday that invoked his presidential successor's attempted makeover of Washington DC to portray him as incompetent, corrupt and vain.He delivered those remarks while giving the keynote address at a gala in Hanover, Maryland, hosted by the state's Democratic party, which is hoping to help wrest control of Congress away from Trump and his Republican allies during November's midterm elections. Continue reading...

The main pillars of the founding narrative have fallen on hard times. Today, its meaning is up for grabsWriting during the carnage of the first world war, the iconoclast intellectual Randolph Bourne described the American revolutionary inheritance as a squalid marriage between the town capitalist and plantation patriarch. Glittering generalities of freedom and democracy, Bourne observed, were indelibly marked by their long captivity to the money counters and owners of human chattel.In the land lorded over by the likes of Donald Trump, leader of one of the most indecently corrupt, violently inept administrations in the country's history, the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence would seem to affirm this judgment. Our moment, defined by the mobilization of market frenzy, machineries of war, deportation deliriums and nativist passions, echoes Bourne's; it is a time of social fracture, moral failure and hegemonic collapse, with cynical reason ascendant. Continue reading...

Universities looking for a fix to relentless controversy are flocking to civility' initiatives. Critics say these efforts mask a darker projectUS college campuses have long been associated with the country's fraying social fabric. Beset by so-called cancel culture", mass protests against Israel's war on Gaza, and mounting conflicts over free speech, a notion has taken hold that colleges and universities represent a convergence of the country's broader ills.To meet what's been widely described as a polarization" crisis, a veritable industry has emerged, booming since 7 October 2023 and the protests that followed. Dozens of organizations have cropped up promising to foster civic discourse", dialogue across difference" and viewpoint diversity". Together, they make up a fast-growing ecosystem that has ballooned, by some estimates, into a $200m a year business some skeptics have billed the civility industrial complex". Continue reading...

Church sues excommunicated member over Mormon Stories podcast but John Dehlin says name free for all to useTrademark changes and copyright infringement disputes take many forms. Dunkin' Donuts changed its name to Dunkin' because Donuts did not suggest the vigorous, on-the-go attitude the coffee company wants to project.But what happens when a church changes its name, but former adherents continue to use the original term in ways it may not like? Continue reading...

For most Americans, riding a bus means abandoning expectations of basic dignity - but with an increase in ridership, that could changeIt's a grueling experience," Greyhound bus enthusiast Miles Taylor explains. You're not treated very well. Everyone is yelling at you the entire time. When the bus is late, they blame you for it, like somehow you've done something wrong. You just get screamed at for wanting to know what's going on, because no one says anything."Taylor is obsessed with public transit. I never really grew out of my little boy train phase," the 26-year-old said. He works as a scheduler for Boston's MBTA and runs a popular YouTube account documenting the bus trips he takes for fun in his spare time. Taylor traveled across the country by Greyhound twice; a Boston to Seattle route took 104 hours. But even he admits that America's bus system is far from luxurious - or even comfortable. Continue reading...

Click your way through the group stage and the knockouts to crown champion Continue reading...

Any new tax on the rich won't raise much money unless many of the exceptions and loopholes are dealt withIn this new era of rampaging oligarchs, nothing may seem as satisfying as slapping a tax on Elon Musk's new trillion-dollar fortune. What most bothers Americans about federal taxes is that billionaires don't pay their fair share. As the race to develop artificial intelligence mints more billionaires, policymakers' temptation to directly tax their brobdingnagian wealth is becoming unbearable.The first state out of the blocks is California, where voters in November will decide whether to impose a one-time tax of 5% on fortunes worth more than $1bn. Given the ease with which plutocrats avoid paying income taxes, the case for this sort of direct tax on their stash appears unassailable. Continue reading...

Children-centered organizing is on the rise in New York as families navigate ICE in neighborhoods, the Iran war and climate crisisOn a recent Sunday morning at Judson Memorial Church in New York, seven-year-old Nova stood in the middle of the congregation and read from the children's book We Are the Builders.Raise our voices, banners and beats. Meet and march out in the streets," she told the dozens of congregants, many old enough to be her grandparents, as the summer sun poured through the stained-glass windows. Who wants to join the disrupters?" Continue reading...

The National Design Studio, staffed by Doge veterans, installed visitor-tracking software on vital federal websitesAn opaque White House office staffed largely by veterans of Elon Musk's department of government efficiency" (Doge) has quietly rebuilt some of the federal government's most sensitive websites - for passport applications, voter registration, prescription-drug pricing and children's savings - in ways critics say appear to violate federal law.The National Design Studio (NDS) was established by a Donald Trump executive order last August, and is led by Trump-aligned Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and staffed by Doge veterans. Continue reading...

The US military has released footage purportedly of strikes on 27 June after it said it struck Iran, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz.It is the worst escalation since the two sides signed an interim peace deal two weeks ago Continue reading...

On the American right, there is an unbroken lineage of Watergate propaganda going back to the 70s from todayWhen JD Vance spoke at the Richard M Nixon presidential library last week about his new book on his journey from atheism to an allegedly devout Catholicism, he raised eyebrows by minimizing Watergate. The idea that it [took] down a presidency is crazy," he said. He said it was the deep state that took down Richard Nixon"- not the 37th president's implication in serious crimes.Commentators were shocked. Did the vice-president not know that the investigation proved Nixon directed a conspiracy to bribe the men who broke into the Democratic party headquarters to lie in court from a secret, illegal slush fund? Continue reading...

Mayors such as New York's Zohran Mamdani show leftwing ideology can go hand-in-hand with effective governanceA trio of Democratic socialist victories in mayoral contests in three of the largest cities in the US has unleashed a new wave of hope on the left of the party. Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson took office in New York and Seattle, respectively, this year. Janeese Lewis George is set to follow in Washington DC.As momentum around leftwing candidates appears to build, focus will turn to Los Angeles over the coming months, where another member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will attempt to continue this winning streak. Continue reading...

From Algeria to Uzbekistan, we assess the standing of the 48 nations after the group stage of the tournamentIt took a little over an hour for Kylian Mbappe to find his groove. Irked by a poor refereeing decision, he scored twice in France's opener against Senegal. Ably supported by a stunning cast, Mbappe will already have his sights on winning the competition. Michael Olise has shown his class throughout, while Ousmane Dembele dazzled with a hat-trick against Norway. We'll see if anyone can stop Didier Deschamps' team. Continue reading...

Both teams went through to the knockout phase in remarkable fashion after Sasa Kalajdzic scored a dramatic equaliser that knocked out IranToday's match takes place at Kansas City Stadium, home to the Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL.A fun trivia fact: in 2013, in an NFL match between the Chiefs and Oakland Raiders, the crowd at the stadium set a Guinness World Record for the loudest recorded noise at 137.5 decibels. Continue reading...

Lionel Messi came off the bench to score his sixth goal of the World Cup as a much-changed Argentina strolled to victory3 min It's like a home game for Argentina when they play in Dallas, and both players and fans are quickly into their work.1 min Jordan kick off from left to right as we watch. Continue reading...

Flare-up in tensions comes as Washington and Tehran have been negotiating a memorandum of understanding to end an unpopular warThe US military has launched further strikes on multiple targets in Iran, a day after it struck Iran in retaliation for a drone attack on a cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz.US Central Command (Centcom) said its strikes were in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping" and that it had targeted Iran's military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities" in response. Continue reading...

Yoane Wissa scored twice as DR Congo came from behind to beat Uzbekistan 3-1 and progress to the round of 32 of the World Cup3 min DR Congo fashion their first attack. Wissa, the goal-scorer against Portugal, drops deep to collect before trying his luck from range, but he drags his shot well wide.1 min After a moment of silence for the victims of the earthquakes in Venezuela, we're off and running. Uzbekistan kick off and are attacking from left to right in their all-white kits, while DR Congo go from right to left in the all-red strips. Continue reading...

Colombia finished top of Group K after playing out a highly-entertaining end-to-end 0-0 draw with PortugalPeep! We're off. Colombia in their typical yellow; Portugal in red. Nice change of pace from all the third jerseys we've been seeing here.The teams observe a moment of silence for the 1,400 dead in the earthquake in Venezuela. Fans do not. Come on, folks. We don't even do a full minute in the USA. You can be quiet for about 15 seconds. Continue reading...

Vice-president JD Vance says US holds all the cards in conflict with Iran - key US politics stories from Saturday 27 JuneHours before fresh military strikes were exchanged in the strait of Hormuz, vice-president JD Vance continued to reiterate the administration's triumphant line on the war with Iran.If we make the final deal, then great," the US vice-president told HBO's Bill Maher. Continue reading...

Floods caused by thunderstorms that have dumped inches of rain on Kentucky and Indiana, with more possibleAndy Beshear, the Kentucky governor, says four people have died as a result of flash floods from thunderstorms that have brought as much as 7in (18cm) of rain to the state.Beshear confirmed the four deaths in a social media post, noting three people were from Madison county and one was from Jackson county. Please join Britainy and me as we pray for their families during this difficult time," Beshear said. Continue reading...

Schroyer, whom Trump calls a patriot', led deportation campaign in Oklahoma under ICE-partnered programDonald Trump said on Saturday that he will nominate Lance Schroyer as the next director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), succeeding David Venturella, who had been performing the duties of the director.Trump said in a Truth Social post that Schroyer has over 29 YEARS of Law Enforcement experience in Oklahoma - A State where I WON all 77 Counties in 2016, 2020, and 2024! Lance is a former Oklahoma State Trooper, and United States Marine". Continue reading...

Next250's Declaration of Interdependence, a new art gallery that features Americans' collective values and hopes for the future, will open in McPherson SquareMore than a thousand people gathered on a block away from the White House on Saturday to unveil their vision for the US's future, organizers said, with thousands more attending other events around the country.At the Next250 All of US rally, held a week before the 250th anniversary of the country's founding, organizers launched their Declaration of Interdependence, an art installation featuring the collective values they believe should define the next 250 years of America's story. The pledge - a take on the declaration of independence, the country's founding text - aims to build a country where everyone can earn a living wage, have access to green spaces and feel safe in their communities, activists said. Continue reading...

Reaction from day 17 at the World Cup as we built up to the final group games and covered news from France, Iran, Spain and beyondAmid all the joy, there's the treatment of Iran. They were denied permission to stay in Seattle after their draw against Egypt, reports Ben Fisher.We've got to have another look at Cape Verde's celebrations. Continue reading...

Locals and visitors of the Golden Heart City have a plethora of food choices to choose from - Thai, Chinese, Korean and even Moldovan cuisineCharlie Boonprasert and Tutu Navachai arrived in Fairbanks in the 1980s, when their friend offered them jobs mining and cooking at a gold lease. The pair, originally from northern Thailand, soon realized there was almost no south-east Asian food available in Alaska's remote interior.But they did find a small Thai population in Fairbanks yearning for a taste of home, and a chance to meet up and gossip. Continue reading...

As tech firms make huge profits and investors fear losing out, both are doing their best to hold off the day of reckoning

Candidates who believe Israel has committed genocide won big in New York - will it push the party to move their way?Regardless of which party wins control of Congress in November, New York City voters have all but ensured that next year a vocal bloc of new House Democrats will arrive on Capitol Hill, elected, in large part, because they believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza.That is an upshot of the primary elections held Tuesday in New York, where voters ousted two incumbent House Democrats and replaced a third who is retiring with progressives championed by Zohran Mamdani. Continue reading...

Decision leaves in place Biden-era standard on pollution from coal-fired plants, factories and other industrial sourcesA federal appeals court on Friday rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's attempt to abandon a Biden-era rule that sets tough standards for deadly soot pollution.The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel is a setback for the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda and its repeated efforts to boost coal, a reliable but polluting energy source. Continue reading...

Cleanup under way after week-long fire at a Boyle Heights facility spoiled tens of millions of pounds of frozen foodSomething is rotten in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights.For a week, thick black smoke filled the air while a massive warehouse burned near downtown Los Angeles, prompting a state of emergency and evacuation orders in the immediate area as air quality worsened. Firefighters finally extinguished the flames on Wednesday, but not before half the warehouse's 85m lbs of frozen food were lost in the fire - leaving roughly 40m lbs of food to rot. Continue reading...

Mauricio Pochettino's team won their group after some impressive performances. But they'd probably need to beat some of the world's best to claim the titleFootball Unites the World ... in wishing it had paid more attention in applied mathematics class. Or so the Fifa slogan could have been expanded to say, given the mind-warping that arose from the formula for slicing the newly expanded 48-team tournament down to 32 sides for the first knockout round.After all, why do a random draw when you can build a matrix with 495 possible scenarios in order to assign the fixtures for the eight best third-placers? Anyway, what matters is that Mauricio Pochettino's team will face Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and no new format is going to stop us from - in time-honored fashion - speculating wildly about what may happen next while we still have the chance, with the potential for American wins rated using one of the mantra-loving manager's motivational rallying cries of choice. Continue reading...

Clearly, the former first lady should have been flattered by the remark at the White House cage matchMichelle Obama should feel honoured, apparently.Do you know what the greatest compliment you can give a woman is? It's not telling her she's smart or kind or funny. No, it's calling her a man. After all, what could be better than being a man?Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Editor-in-chief has developed network of UK thinkers she believes reject what she regards as overly woke' consensusIn the six years since she very publicly resigned from the New York Times, and in her tumultuous eight months as editor-in-chief of one of the US's most prestigious television networks, Bari Weiss has become renowned as a media disruptor and challenger of what she regards as an overly woke" journalistic consensus.As Weiss continues to face bitter internal and external opposition to her leadership of CBS News, she has been turning to figures from UK journalism in her attempts to tackle what she sees as US newsroom groupthink". Continue reading...

After outrageous insults from Donald Trump, Haitians have helped to revive Springfield - now their future is uncertainThe embattled Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio is among many groups reeling after this week's ruling from the supreme court that strips the legal immigration status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians living and working in the US - and could be a threat to more than a million.The Springfield community in particular had worked hard to remain resilient beyond the outrageous besmirching by Donald Trump during the 2024 election campaign and further insults about Haiti delivered after he became the US president again. Continue reading...

The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is a painful metaphor for the state of our unionWhen you hear the word pool" in these sun-baked days of summer, you might think of taking a cheeky dip in the water to cool off the skin that is conspicuously peeling off your haggard body. Everyone (except me) loves a pool. Donald Trump really loves a pool, but not the kind you can swim in. Or stand too close to. Or enjoy at all, really.The state of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool rehabilitation effort has become the primary crisis affecting the United States. That is, if you ask the current administration. Limiting the right to vote is running a close second in the World Cup of Political Football, but it's the reflecting pool that is attracting the most fervent attention. As emergencies go, it's as thrilling as watching a really large body of still water in the middle of a park. The paint is peeling and it's full of green algae.Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...

US president says levy would be imposed immediately and supersede pre-existing trade deals with the countryDonald Trump has threatened to place a 100% import tariff on any European country that imposes a tax on digital services from US companies.Writing on Truth Social on Friday, the US president said that numerous European countries" had been discussing putting a digital services tax on American companies and that some of these countries are close to actually doing this". Continue reading...

World Cup StubHub ticket mess shows how weak consumer protections are in the US, but there are steps fans can takeA growing number of World Cup fans who thought they had bought tickets to matches on the ticket reseller StubHub were notified with just days or hours to spare that their tickets did not exist.Horror stories about stranded families, ruined once-in-a-lifetime trips, thousands of dollars squandered, and hang-ups on StubHub's customer service line are flooding social media and local news. Continue reading...

The 2026 World Cup has become a rebuke to Trump's homogeneous vision of America, revealing a tournament - and a US team - shaped by migration and diversityFollowing the Department of Homeland Security on social media is a bit like wandering through a casino at 4am. Sooner or later, you'll see something that makes you go: How did we get here?There was one of those moments earlier this month. Days after the US opened their World Cup campaign with a 4-1 romp over Paraguay, DHS marked the occasion by posting an image of Chris Richards, Sergino Dest and Folarin Balogun exulting beneath the headline DEFEND THE HOMELAND" and the caption OUR SOIL". Continue reading...

Team Melli must wait for the final group games to decide their fate after a wild finish in SeattleSo that means Cape Verde are through to face Argentina in the round of 32, in what is shaping as a kind bracket for the defending champions.Tiny Cape Verde are into the round of 32! Continue reading...

Leandro Trossard hit a double as Belgium booked their place in the last 32 with an emphatic victory that sent New Zealand outNew Zealand, meanwhile, will be kicking themselves for not taking more from their ultimate 3-1 loss against Egypt. An excellent headed goal to Finn Surman in the 15th minute epitomised the All Whites' dominant first-half display, staying compact and disciplined in defence and charging forward with direct long balls and overlaps in attack.But Egypt, led by their talismanic captain Mohamed Salah, came roaring back in the second half, coming from behind to score three unanswered goals and rocket to the top of the group as a result.It's frustrating," Bazeley said after the Egypt match. We played so well in the first half. We scored a great goal, created lots of chances, felt like we were dominating possession a lot of the time in the first half, and we were comfortable. We weren't really getting hurt.We talked well at half-time, looked at some things we can do a little bit better, we went out second half and we just weren't able to recreate the tempo and quality that we showed in the first half."Their record at major tournaments now reads two wins from their past nine matches, one from their past six, against Romania at Euro 2024. They have had a total of 38 shots in their opening two games in the US without scoring themselves, their sole goal coming courtesy of the Egypt defender Mohamed Hany. They missed the energy of Jeremy Doku, who was absent through illness, while Romelu Lukaku, making his first start for club or country for more than 12 months, huffed and puffed in attack.Sometimes when you have to win, sometimes that's the best situation. Obviously we had wished to start better. But, just like cyclists, we have to keep pedalling on and on and show we deserve to move on to the round of 32. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed.

Republican strategists believe rise of Mamdani could present opportunity to tag Democrats with most extreme views of the left - key US politics stories from Friday 26 JuneDonald Trump has previewed a Republican strategy for the midterm elections, seizing on a progressive sweep in New York to portray Democrats as godless communists" who pose an existential threat to the nation.The US president, who was a child during the red scare", seized on wins by democratic socialists backed by the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, to stoke fears that the Democratic party has embraced extremism that could lead to the violent persecution of Christians. Continue reading...