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Donald Trump said on Sunday that he was 'only kidding' when he announced a day earlier that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)

Election wins of Annie Andrews, Abdul El-Sayed and more who ran on healthcare issues are viewed as sign of home as Trump administration unravels US health policyPublic health leaders and politicians who made healthcare a central part of their platforms swept into office in the US midterm elections last week, setting the stage for national, state and local changes.Voters, faced with an unprecedented rise in vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, alongside devastating outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, chose national candidates who prioritized public health, healthcare affordability, reproductive health and the impeachment of Robert F Kennedy Jr, among other key issues. Continue reading...

Democrats should drag Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Elon Musk before the world and make them explain just what it is they're trying to do and whyThe AI industry had a bad night last week.The Democrats' sweeping midterms victory is a rebuke of Donald Trump, the industry's most powerful champion. Continue reading...

Winning candidates promised to cut costs, rein in corporations, curb billionaire power and improve the economyDon't worry, cash-strapped Americans, relief is on the way", the senator Chuck Schumer promised last week in a press conference celebrating Democrats' massive midterms win.Winning candidates promised to cut food and healthcare costs, rein in corporations ripping off consumers and workers, curb billionaire power and make the world's biggest economy better serve the working class. Continue reading...

The new Congress cannot maintain the culture of political impunity that got us here in the first placeFresh from an overwhelming victory, Democrats might quickly divide over what should be seen as unnecessary fracture.Establishment figures demand a focus on kitchen table issues", while others insist that successful candidates did not just campaign on the cost of living, but managed to connect people's daily struggles with the unprecedented corruption of the Trump administration. Continue reading...

What happens when Elon Musk and a bunch of tech bros try to rip up the US government? Journalist Michael Lewis - the acclaimed author of Moneyball and of The Big Short - talks to Nosheen Iqbal about his new book Blockers, which tells the story of the civil servants who stood up to Musk's department of government efficiency' as it tried to dismantle the US government Continue reading...

Trump has long relied on sports to project strength and fuel his culture wars. But after a crushing midterm defeat, even his UFC ally cannot distract from the political falloutIn the wake of being destroyed in the midterm elections, it was only a matter of time before Donald Trump did something outrageous in an attempt to misdirect public attention away from his catastrophic losses. Before the midterms, published reports suggested the possibility of apocalypse, global or domestic - a nuclear strike on Iran, martial law to suspend last week's, the invalidation of individual races, such as in Alaska - but Trump opted for banality over Armageddon, offering his vacant press secretary opening to Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White.It was absurd, and widely posited that a confused Trump had erroneously conflated UFC's White with the Dana White who made more sense, former Heritage Foundation staffer Dana White. Because the public reactions made him look even more lost, confirming the sentiments of recklessness and disorder, utter chaos and buffoonery that led to the Republicans being routed in the midterm elections, the president said his offer to White was all a joke. As a disciple of the notorious McCarthyite Roy Cohn, who taught Trump one of his main political pillars - never apologize or admit wrongdoing. Ever. - Trump should not, of course, be taken at his word. Continue reading...

The quarterback has led Cincinnati to four straight wins with stat lines that put him in the company of Tom Brady. At this rate, the trophy seems his to loseAt the end of the 2021 season, the Cincinnati Bengals came up three points short in Super Bowl LVI against the Los Angeles Rams. Near the end of the 2022 season, the Bengals came up three points short - a 23-20 score line again in the AFC championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs. But from 2023 through 2025, those Bengals had to walk the desert for a while. Between injuries to quarterback Joe Burrow, an offensive line that was problematic at best, and one of the NFL's worst defenses from year to year, Cincinnati had a combined regular-season record of 24-27, and no playoff appearances.Now, the new Bengals are 6-2 after their 34-17 shellacking of the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid. And Burrow is on a tear we've rarely seen from any quarterback. Over the last four weeks, his 16 touchdown passes is the most in a four-game span in Bengals history (which goes back to 1968). He is the second quarterback in pro football history with 16 or more passing touchdowns and two or more rushing touchdowns in any four-game span, putting him up with Tom Brady in 2007 - the season in which the New England Patriots' offense scored 36.8 points per game, and Brady was at his best. Burrow has been pressured on just 30.2% of his dropbacks this season, as opposed to 33.8% in 2025 and 34.2% in 2024. Continue reading...

Trump's most controversial aide begins his first day as White House chief of staffStephen Miller, the influential architect of Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown, is due to start as White House chief of staff today. His promotion has horrified many, handing even more power to the president's most controversial aide.The 41-year-old has been with Trump since the beginning of the US president's political career - serving as a speechwriter during his 2016 presidential campaign - and has long been seen as a hardliner on the right, serving as the driving force behind first-term Trump policies such as family separation at the US-Mexico border and the travel ban on people from many Muslim-majority countries. Continue reading...

President says it was just a little fun' to picture White, UFC boss and Trump's friend, in briefing room with fightersDonald Trump said on Sunday that he was only kidding" when he announced a day earlier that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).Speaking to reporters on his way back the White House from his beach club in Florida, Trump explained the premise of his joke, that if the UFC boss, who is a devoted fan of the president, took over the briefing room, flanked by six fighters, reporters wouldn't mess around with him so much". Continue reading...

Bengals joint-top of AFC North with 34-17 win in Madrid

Nationwide, voters elected at least 75 Native women or non-binary candidates in Tuesday's elections, report saysThe US midterm elections saw voters elect a slew of historic representatives - from the country's first Muslim senator to the first Black female governor - but among the most significant gains were those for Native American women.On Tuesday, voters elected the first Native American woman governor, senator and leaders of two tribal nations. Nationwide, voters elected at least 75 Native women or non-binary and Two Spirit candidates in the November midterms, according to Advance Native Political Leadership and the news site ICT. Continue reading...

Man taken to hospital after falling off Royal Caribbean ship in Pacific Ocean, with Coast Guard investigating incidentA pianist for a Royal Caribbean cruise ship is expected to survive after two Newport Beach, California, fishermen discovered him treading water in the Pacific Ocean nearly 20 miles (32km) offshore on Friday.The unidentified man was taken to the hospital after the rescue, according to the US Coast Guard, which is now investigating how he went overboard from the cruise ship. Continue reading...

No one was injured after emergency landing in Fort Myers 50 minutes after takeoff with two people onboardA small plane crashed into the rear of a pickup truck as it made an emergency landing on a busy Florida highway on Saturday but miraculously no one was injured in the dramatic incident.Video footage obtained from the sheriff's office shows a Cessna 172 grazing over the truck as it approached the ground for a complete landing on a road in Fort Meyers at about 11.45am on Saturday. Continue reading...

House Democrat is a hard yes' on impeachment resolution against defense secretary who has abused his power'House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become majority leader, said on Sunday that he strongly supports impeaching defense secretary Pete Hegseth as a Republican lawmaker prepares to force a House vote.The top Democrat made his position clear during an appearance on ABC's This Week, declaring himself a hard yes" on the impeachment resolution targeting Hegseth. Continue reading...

Michigan senator-elect's former peers recall his time at university in Britain - and his love of coronation chicken sandwichesIn the cold, twilight days of 2008, inside the University of Michigan's fortress-like Fleming administration building, one student was given a particularly adulatory sendoff.Mary Sue Coleman, president of the university at the time, convened a ceremony for the latest Rhodes scholar heading to the University of Oxford: Abdul El-Sayed. There is no doubt among anyone who crosses his path that he will achieve all he sets out to accomplish and more," she declared to a room full of the university's leaders, calling the medical PhD student the epitome of the engaged intellect". Continue reading...

Choosing a healthcare plan can be extremely complicated, but it's necessary to attract and retain good workersAgain, healthcare costs are going up. According to a recent study from Mercer, total health benefit cost per employee in 2027 is expected to rise 8.2% - after employers' planned cost-reduction measures (without action, employers told Mercer their existing plans would rise about 11%). This would be the highest increase since 2003.And, again, we see the same reaction from employers. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that even as healthcare costs have gone up, the share of these costs coming out employees' paychecks has shot up" even faster. Continue reading...

From the military to healthcare, Trump systematically dismantled Obama-era protections for transgender rightsShelby Chestnut remembers turning on the news in 2016 and hearing something he didn't expect. Then- attorney general, Loretta Lynch, had just announced a federal lawsuit to block HB2 in North Carolina, otherwise known as the bathroom bill". Lynch said the law, which made it illegal for transgender people to use a public restroom that did not align with the sex listed on their birth certificate, was reminiscent of those passed during the Jim Crow era that restricted public facility use by race. Then, she addressed transgender Americans directly: But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward."HB 2 was repealed within the year. Chestnut said he thought at the time: Oh this is the next phase of protections for trans people." Continue reading...

Tuesday's winners offered a new politics at a time when there is something broken in America'As the US election returns came in throughout the night on Tuesday, there was ebullience at the size of the margin. It was comparable to the significant thumpings over the years. Yet bigger.In 2006, Americans were exhausted by the war in Iraq (by simply changing the last letter to n", we have a similar situation today). But even that big win paled in comparison. Continue reading...

Visitors to a touring show drawing attention to Epstein's crimes have left thousands of powerful' notes - and survivors say it means a great dealWhen Danielle Bensky first went to The Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, she didn't know what to expect.What happens if I walk in and survivors' names are just plastered everywhere?" Bensky wondered about the reading room, a traveling exhibition of Epstein investigative files, first held in a New York City gallery this May. I was a little worried in the beginning that this would be a form of exploitation for survivors. Continue reading...

The movement founded by Greg Glassman grew into an empire, helping popularize the masculinity aesthetic embraced by Pete Hegseth and RFK JrComparative machismo is hardly new, but when Donald Trump publicly admired Senator Jon Husted's backside earlier this month, later telling advisers it made the since-defeated Ohio incumbent more interesting" to voters, the senator leaned into the compliment, saying it gave him extra motivation to get down to the gym".Would that odd exchange have taken place without CrossFit, the fitness empire founded by college dropout and gymnast Greg Glassman in the 1990s that grew to 15,000 gyms across 160 countries before he was drawn into public controversy at the height of #MeToo and the social justice movement in 2020? Continue reading...

Election results appear to have turbo-charged an already growing social, political and financial market rethink about AI

The blue wave, while a rebuke of Trump's policies, was also a referendum on the party's status quoOn election night I stood in a crowd at Harlem Tavern, a restaurant in New York City, at the electoral party for Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member and congresswoman-elect from New York's 13th congressional district. The crowd cheered as what came to be called the blunami" rolled in: Iowa blue, Kansas blue, Talarico in Texas, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, House, Senate, gubernatorial races overwhelmingly going for the Democratic party.The victories were a clear rebuke of Trump's politics, but also a referendum on the Democratic party's own centrism that is complicit in the violence of masked men hunting immigrants, the funding of a genocide and the denial of healthcare to citizens of the world's wealthiest country.Heba Gowayed is an associate professor of sociology at CUNY Hunter College and Graduate Center and author of the book Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential.

The once-bearded New York mayor has downsized his facial hair. Does it work?I've battled with facial hair almost my entire adult life.I started growing it early, turning me into a pubescent villain from a spaghetti western. I was told by my parents not to shave it off, lest it grow back more furious than before. I just had to walk around high school looking like a hungover bond trader, which did nothing for my popularity.Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...

More people recognize opioid overdoses, but education about stimulant overdoses hasn't been as clear-cutOverdoses involving stimulants are on the rise in many parts of the country, according to recently available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but experts say recognizing and responding to them is more complex when compared with opioid overdoses.The rate of overdose decline was not nearly what we expected" in California, said Dr Taylor Nichols, an emergency and addiction medicine physician based in Sacramento. Continue reading...

President claimed to have ushered in a golden age' even as prices soared and war dragged on - and midterm voters did not buy his looking-glass narrativeA new golden age of America" is under way, Donald Trump repeatedly declared in his final pitch to voters before the US midterm elections.The war in Iran was not really a war, because we've done very little fighting", the US president stressed. The stock market had hit 88 all-time highs. They're saying," he said, that on his watch the US has become the hottest country anywhere in the world". Continue reading...

With the global tide turning against him, the US president's lame duck status could still aggravate old tensions and spark new explosionsIt was a victory for the world, too. People in the many countries that suffered pain, loss and cruel indignities at the hands of Donald Trump over the past two chaotic, fearful years celebrated a moment of glorious, shared redemption. The monster, like others of his kind, still lurks in his gilded White House lair; far-right authoritarianism still casts a dark shadow over many nations. But the power of this most destructive of presidents is shattered, his malignant spell broken. The triumphant roar of US midterm voters was a rallying cry of democratic defiance that, echoing the American revolution of 250 years ago, reverberated around the globe.For Iranians, Trump's electoral humiliation raised hopes, perhaps misplaced, that his murderous war of choice against Tehran's oppressive regime may soon cease. In Israel, many among the majority who voted for change last week will welcome the humbling of the foremost supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu's as-yet-unvanquished extremist coalition. Ukrainians voiced optimism that a Democratic-controlled Congress will curb the sickening appeasement of Vladimir Putin's Russia. In Europe, the beginning of the end of the Trump era brought a sense of relief - and hope that toxic transatlantic relations can be drained of Maga poison. Continue reading...

White says he has meeting with Trump in Washington DC on Monday, without saying whether he will accept the jobDonald Trump has offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the president said in a social media post on Saturday.Trump described White, who staged a cage-fighting spectacle at the White House to mark the president's 80th birthday in June, as a violent Fighter and Warrior", credentials unlike any ever used to describe previous press secretaries. Continue reading...

Carel Aaron Van Der Merwe immigrated to US at 14 and has been waiting seven years for asylum case to be heardA Wisconsin state patrol trooper, whom federal immigration agents detained on Thursday at an airport, has been released from their custody.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents approached Carel Aaron Van Der Merwe, a South African national, as he waited to board a domestic flight, according to his law firm Christopher & De Leon. Continue reading...

Ana Reyes wants to know whether federal officials lied about extent of renovation plans at East Potomac golf courseA federal judge said on Saturday that she intended to appoint an ex-top federal prosecutor who served during Donald Trump's first term to investigate whether she was purposely misled by lawyers and administration officials over changes to a historic public golf course in Washington DC.Jessie Liu, a former US attorney for the District of Columbia, would examine whether officials with the interior department and the National Park Service and attorneys with the Department of Justice violated ethics or misled US district judge Ana Reyes during the course of the civil case that was initiated with a lawsuit in February by the DC Preservation League and two golfers. Continue reading...

After helping Trump to victory in 2024, young voters swung decisively toward Democrats, helping deliver a wave of midterm victoriesThe 2026 blue tsunami owes a lot to the youth vote.According to data from Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle), which monitors youth civic engagement, early estimates show the second-highest youth turnout in a midterm election in 30 years, second only to 2018, when an estimated 31% of young voters turned out during Donald Trump's first presidency. Continue reading...

Voters approved two measures to save the region's financially distressed public transit agenciesVoters in the San Francisco Bay Area overwhelmingly approved two transit measures this week that advocates hope will save the region's financially distressed public transit agencies from a potential death spiral that could have had massive repercussions for the area's residents and its economy.The Regional Transit Measure (RTM), a 0.5% sales tax across four Bay Area counties and a 1% sales tax in San Francisco, will generate approximately $1bn annually to fund the region's four largest transit operators. It received a strong 62.2% support across all five counties that voted on the measure, winning with a landslide of 78.6% in San Francisco. Continue reading...

Hardline aide offers unwavering commitment' to president amid fears White House will double down on far-right immigration agendaStephen Miller, Donald Trump's most controversial aide and the architect of his sweeping immigration crackdown, has lavished praise on the president after his appointment as White House chief of staff.In his first public remarks since the move was announced, Miller - who begins the role on Monday - pledged total devotion" to Trump amid concern the administration is now poised to double down on its far-right, nativist immigration agenda. Continue reading...

Democratic socialists won the mayorship, a US House seat and powerful positions in Los Angeles - and a large network of volunteers helped them do itAs a blue tsunami overtook US politics this week, Los Angeles saw a major shake-up of its own with a wave of democratic socialists elected to key offices.Most notably, Nithya Raman, the first democratic socialist to serve on the Los Angeles city council, prevailed over incumbent Karen Bass to become the next mayor. Even in the deep blue city, Raman's victory was hardly a given, and marked a stunning win for the progressive wing of the party. With her election, America's two largest cities will now be run by democratic socialist mayors. Continue reading...

President spent weeks praising his favored candidates' physiques, from their jawlines to their shoulders - but most of his hot guys lostIt was either a last-ditch considered strategy to win votes, or the ramblings of an increasingly unhinged and increasingly amorous party leader.Either way, it didn't work. Continue reading...

The secretary of war' and his shameful history are facing bipartisan scrutinyCan you smell the schadenfreude in the air?Watching some of the worst people in the world get their comeuppance this week has been deeply satisfying. And the show isn't over yet. While the midterms have wrapped up, the blame game is only just getting started, with Republicans desperate to find scapegoats for their shellacking.Arwa Mahadwi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Architect of Trump's far-right immigration agenda is now most powerful unelected figure in government - it suggests White House is moving to a war footingDonald Trump just gave the middle finger to millions of American voters.Any other president who suffered the kind of drubbing at the polls that Trump did this week might have felt at least a sliver of humility - and perhaps even an obligation to work with the new opposition in Congress. Continue reading...

Maga's regret voters were all-in for Trump's racism. Then they found out they couldn't afford itFor the first time in a decade, election predictions far exceeded public expectations. What pollsters anticipated as a blue wave billowed into a blue tsunami. Wins that held ground for already blue seats eased nerves, and the flips of swing states like Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio energized the blue base. But red-belt-busting wins in Republican strongholds like Texas, South Carolina and Kansas alongside pending races in Alaska and Mississippi left mouths agape. The explanation was that Democrats turned out far more supporters than their regulars, and that the regret voter" (both swing voters and partisan Republicans) expanded the wave across districts Trump previously won. Elation and sighs of relief rolled over consistently Democratic voters who suffered multiple sucker punches from recent years of Republican upsets. Regret voters, who run the gamut from gen Z men to Latinos, farmers and the white working class, hope a different party can deliver on the economy Trump promised them.Blue voters look at the dismantling of democracy, multiple wars, mass deportations and Trump's unchecked power in these last two years and see how it all could have been avoided. Regret voters, however, either co-signed or conceded to Trump's naked racism and brutish bullying of marginalized people, but switched their votes as soon as the consequences hit their pockets. While some of the president's backers may have been turned away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gunning down American citizens, the final straw for most wasn't ICE's brutality, but rather the price of eggs. Some may have been upset by the Tomahawk missile assault that killed 120 schoolgirls in Iran, but most fumed at the rocketing costs at the gas pump that followed. Few demanded answers for the nearly 60 deaths of innocent people detained in DHS detention centers since the start of 2024, but many felt scorned by lost immigrant labor that cut into owners' profit margins. Maga's regret voters were all-in for Trump's racism. Then they found out they couldn't afford it. Continue reading...

In a reversal of longstanding assumptions, strong criticism of Israel's actions may have helped put candidates over the topYou took a chance on the unlikeliest of candidates," Abdul El-Sayed told a Detroit crowd on Wednesday, declaring victory in Michigan's hard-fought, often ugly, Senate race. In what was predicted to be a squeaker, the Democrat beat his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, by a healthy seven points.In some ways, El-Sayed was an unlikely candidate. At 34, in his first run for elected office, he set his sights almost cockily on a US Senate seat. He ran on what has become an uncontroversial affordability platform but also championed the socialist-adjacent Medicare for All. Continue reading...

From North Carolina to Arizona, Democrats with almost no public profile were stunned at their election triumphsOne candidate had dropped out in September. One had no campaign staff. One was a 19-year-old and halfway through the fall college semester.Across the US, Democratic candidates with almost no public profile and long odds of winning their midterm races were stunned to find they had outperformed their opponents on Tuesday. They were swept into Congress and statehouses in the blue wave that knocked out Republicans from seats considered untouchable in deep-red districts. Continue reading...

The GOP tried to dilute their power, but Black voters helped Democrats get elected in Alabama, Texas and FloridaBlack voter turnout surged across US southern states where Republicans were accused of redrawing electoral maps to diminish Black political power" in the wake of a seismic supreme court ruling.Democrats flipped or held seats in Alabama, Texas and Florida with the support of this voting bloc, building on a decades-long, dedicated movement to protect and build Black political power in the region. Continue reading...

Senior British politicians and officials highlight potential to end Iran war but warn US president is not yet a spent force'Andy Burnham was having dinner at the Commonwealth summit in Antigua when the results of the US midterm elections started rolling in.UK government officials in the Caribbean with the prime minister scrolled through their phones with growing incredulity as the scale of the Republicans' defeat became clear. Continue reading...

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