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The Save Act - which would do the opposite of its title - could have a huge impact on the midterm electionsIf you are anything like me, then you are currently pickling in your own cortisol. As the US grows increasingly violent, increasingly cruel, every day brings a legion of new horrors. So I'm very sorry to say that I'm here to ruin your weekend by giving you yet another thing to worry about. That thing is called the Save Act and, if the Trump administration gets its way, it could have an oversized impact on the November midterms, particularly when it comes to minorities and married women being able to vote.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Latest documents indicate high-profile figures continued friendships with financier after child sex abuse convictions

Justice department on Friday released 3m pages and lawmakers accuse it of not releasing roughly 50% of recordsSurvivors, lawmakers and watchdog groups accused Donald Trump's justice department of withholding records it is legally required to release following the disclosure of millions of files from the investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The justice department on Friday released 3m pages of documents from its investigation into the millionaire financier's sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with wealthy and powerful figures, including Trump and former president Bill Clinton. The release was an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and, according to US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, includes more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, all subject to extensive redactions". Continue reading...

Minnesota should not cave to Trump's demands. The rights of 49 other states and their citizens are hanging in the balanceDonald Trump appears to be practicing his art of the deal" on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: he is attempting to extract concessions from the North Star state in exchange for a drawdown" of federal ICE agents. While the details of the contemplated agreement are not clear, border czar Tom Homan's remarks on Thursday morning and reports of his negotiations with state and local leaders suggest dialing back Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is contingent on striking an agreement for increased cooperation between federal and local law enforcement: Minnesota must agree to participate in ICE roundups by turning over undocumented immigrants in its custody, ending various sanctuary city" protections, and giving ICE agents more direct access to state penitentiaries to conduct their own roundups prior to the release of undocumented inmates. A letter from Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, sent earlier this week went even further and suggested the justice department's civil rights division might be demanding access to state voter rolls in exchange for the ICE drawdown. Trump's offhand remark Thursday evening denying plans to draw down ICE confused matters by contradicting Homan's statement from earlier in the day - but perhaps that was just an indication that negotiations on Thursday did not go all that well for Team Trump.That would not be surprising. If Walz were to agree to such terms - concessions literally extracted at gunpoint under threat of continued use of unlawful force by federal immigration agents - he would be abandoning critical domains of state autonomy for the fruitless attempt to appease a president that will accept no limits except those forced upon it by necessity or recommended to it by self-interest. As law firms, universities, foreign leaders, and even former partners in crime have discovered, it is perilous to negotiate with a rank opportunist who lives by no other rule than that of self-interest. For Trump, the alternative to getting handed what he wants voluntarily is taking it by force. The FBI raid on the Fulton county elections office in Georgia to seize about 700 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election sent a well-timed message to Minnesota as well as to any other swing state from which the Trump administration may demand such data: if you don't give us what we asked for, we'll take it anyway.Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She is also the founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at Penn's Annenberg Public Policy Center Continue reading...

Trump's wounding of the US economy offers Beijing an unparalleled opportunity - if it dials back its overbearing trade tacticsWhen the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, took to the podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week to lament how great economic powers" were dismantling the international order, it seemed clear that he was talking about the United States. He might have been talking about China as well.Not a week earlier, Beijing had revealed that China's trade surplus ballooned by 20% in 2025, to $1.2tn. Despite Donald Trump's wall of tariffs that crashed Chinese sales to the US, its overall exports expanded more than 5%. Sales to the 11 countries in Asia's Asean bloc increased more than 13%. Exports to the European Union rose over 8%. Chinese imports, by contrast, were flat. Continue reading...

Rybakina won her first Australian Open title and avenged her loss to Sabalenka in the 2023 final after staging a third-set fightback to win 6-4, 4-6, 6-4

ICE Out of Everywhere' demonstrations, including vigils and marches, follow Friday's national strikeMore than 300 demonstrations are expected to take place across all 50 states and Washington DC, today, in what organizers are calling ICE Out of Everywhere".Organizers, led by the national grassroots organization 50501, say today's protests are a response to a series of recent deaths involving federal immigration agents, including the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month, the homicide of Geraldo Campos in an immigration detention facility in Texas and the shooting of Keith Porter Jr by an off-duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Los Angeles. Continue reading...

Revelation that subsidiary of Capgemini is to help trace and expel migrants in US provokes outrage in FranceFrench lawmakers have demanded an explanation after one of the country's biggest tech companies signed a multimillion dollar contract to help the US enforcement agency ICE trace and expel migrants.The revelation that a subsidiary of Capgemini, a multinational digital services firm listed on the Paris stock exchange, had agreed to provide skip tracing" - a technique for locating targeted people - with big bonuses if successful, has provoked outrage in France. Continue reading...

Democratic senators refuse to vote for bill authorizing continued DHS spending after killings of two US citizensFunding lapsed for several US government departments on Saturday, the result of a standoff in Congress over new restrictions on federal agents involved in Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign following the killings of two US citizens in Minneapolis.The partial government shutdown is the result of Democratic senators refusing to vote for a bill authorizing continued spending by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after federal agents killed Alex Pretti in Minnesota's largest city last week, and Renee Good earlier in January. The minority party's blockade imperiled a push by Republicans for approval of larger package of legislation funding other departments, which needed to pass the Senate before the government's spending authorization expired Friday. Continue reading...

People demonstrate in cities across country to demand end to Trump's violent immigration crackdownThousands of protesters hit the streets in cities across the United States on Friday to protests to demand the withdrawal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.The demonstrations were part of a nationwide day of action, advocating no work, no school, no shopping" in a protest against the Trump administration's sweeping immigration crackdowns. Continue reading...

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Democrats question redactions and whether Trump officials are holding back more documents - key US politics stories from 30 January at a glanceThe US justice department has released more than 3m pages of documents related to its investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a long-awaited announcement that appears to represent the bulk of the so-called Epstein files that have dogged Donald Trump politically.While an analysis is still under way, the release exposes previously unknown financial ties and social connections between Epstein and prominent figures in the US and UK - including some in the president's orbit. Continue reading...

In nationwide day of action, people brave plunging cold temperatures to march in city and demonstrate against ICEThousands chanted and marched in New York City on Friday to protest the Trump administration's escalating mass deportation campaign.Among the protesters were young and old people, all braving plunging cold temperatures in thick coats, hats and gloves. Continue reading...

Lemon and three others charged with civil rights crimes, says DoJ, as White House celebrates arrest on social mediaDon Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was released on Friday after being arrested late on Thursday on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month.Outside a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles after his release, Lemon vowed not to be silenced, saying: I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now." Continue reading...

Thursday's arrests of Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort demonstrate the administration's lawless crusade against routine journalismTwo federal courts reviewed the government's evidence against journalist Don Lemon and declined to approve his arrest last week. But nevertheless, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, persisted, desperate to please her authoritarian boss no matter what the constitution and law say or what her ethical obligations as an attorney require.Thursday's arrests of Lemon and Georgia Fort, an independent journalist - like the recent raid on Hannah Natanson, the Washington Post reporter - demonstrate the administration's lawless crusade against routine journalism. In normal times the expectation is that even when a journalist's conduct might technically fit the legal elements of a crime - jaywalking to get footage of a protest, for example - prosecutors will exercise their discretion and judgment to not apply the law in a manner that chills the free press.Seth Stern is the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation and a first amendment lawyer Continue reading...

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said at a press conference that to protect victims the department 'redacted every woman depicted in any image or video, with the exception of [Ghislaine] Maxwell'. Blanche expressed sympathy for Epstein's victims, saying that they 'have gone through unspeakable pain ... I hope that the work that the men and women within this department have done over the past two months is able to bring closure.' He also added that 'with a production of this magnitude, mistakes are inevitable' and invited 'victims to reach us directly to correct redactions and any concerns when appropriate' Continue reading...

Group advised Kathy Hochul, Zohran Mamdani, and city and state comptrollers of legal obligations' not to abet crimesA human rights group has warned New York state and local officials that investment of public funds in bonds issued by Israel violates both international law and fiduciary duties and may expose officials and beneficiaries alike to substantial legal, ethical and financial risks".The warning, from the human rights group Dawn, was sent on Friday along with a 26-page memo to the New York governor, Kathy Hochul; the state's attorney general, Letitia James; New York City's mayor, Zohran Mamdani; and the state and city comptrollers, Tom DiNapoli and Mark Levine, respectively. It calls on them to immediately cease new purchases and divest any current holdings in Israeli bonds, arguing the investments violate legal obligations not to aid and abet Israeli crimes and their fiduciary duties to taxpayers", Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Dawn, said in a statement. Continue reading...

The arrest of the 59-year-old anchor, who once stood at the apex of news media, has thrust him back into the spotlight

Nurses gathered outside a Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan to mourn Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis Continue reading...

Arctic air moving into region will also freeze Tennessee, as 230,000 households still remain without power in areaFreezing weather that will reach deep into Florida was moving across the south-eastern US on Friday as millions braced for another weekend blast of winter storms following last week's deadly assault that killed at least 85 people.Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in southern states were without power for a sixth day on Friday as the next onslaught of blizzards, ice and biting cold winds approached. Continue reading...

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Lindsey Vonn crashed out of the final World Cup downhill before the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics on Friday, leaving the American skiing great limping and clutching her left knee as organisers abandoned the race amid worsening conditions.The 41-year-old lost control after landing a jump on the upper section of the course in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, skidding sideways into the safety netting as snow fell steadily and visibility deteriorated.She was later airlifted from the finish area by helicopter, suspended by a rope as she was transported away across the Swiss Alps.

Following in a long American tradition of identifying fascists, a network of leftists has set out to name and shame Trump's immigration agentsLast week a photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune filmed a border patrol agent approach a protester, lying prone in the street, and aim a canister of pepper spray at his eyes. The protester was already detained, three other agents pressing his body into the pavement, but the agent can nevertheless be seen spraying the orange chemical irritant, which causes excruciating pain, at point-blank range.The agent likely thought he would enjoy anonymity for this bit of brutality. The federal police terrorizing Minneapolis remain largely nameless as they dole out horrifying - and in two cases, fatal - violence against anyone opposing Operation Metro Surge. But within two hours of the Star Tribune posting the footage to social media, a group called Pacific Antifascist Research Collective claimed to have identified him. Continue reading...

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. In today's column, we endeavor to answer three of themOne narrative has been set: Arsenal are bottling it. Last weekend's home loss to Manchester United confirmed what the Gunners' biggest doubters always suspected: that Mikel Arteta and his players don't have it in them to win the Premier League title. Arsenal's haters already started their victory lap. Continue reading...

The first lady's premiere was marked by conspicuous absences. It turns out chumminess with the president might just come at a costWho wasn't on the red carpet at the official Melania documentary premiere in Washington DC was so much more intriguing than who was. No offence to defence secretary Pete Hegseth, but if I wanted to see formalwear struggling to contain Crusades tattoos, I'd hang around outside the Spartak Moscow Christmas party. Not that it was a red carpet, because the carpet at the Trump-Kennedy" Center was black. No one bothers hiding the grift any more, with the movie's own producer openly explaining that this aesthetic was all about supporting this luxury brand that [Melania's] creating". They should have dressed the event like a colon, since Donald's is effectively where it was being held.Anyway: arrivals. There was Melania and Donald Trump - she finally got him out of hair and makeup - who were holding hands, a coincidentally convenient way to cover his skin if his glam squad didn't truck in enough concealer. In recent months, Trump has had terrible bruises on the tops of his hands and even more terrible excuses for why they keep appearing. Aspirin, Swiss furniture, shaking lots of hands - the list of things that aren't cannula sites grows longer every week.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Agreement spins off Department of Homeland Security spending bill as Democrats demand changes to immigration enforcement. Plus, US leads global surge in gas-fired power

Mobile Fortify lets agents obtain vast amounts of information on anyone by scanning their faceThe lethal force Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is meting out on American streets is rightly drawing loud condemnations from politicians and editorial boards across the nation and around the world. Now is the time we must start paying attention to another highly damaging part of ICE's arsenal: the agency's deployment of mass surveillance.I'm referring specifically to Mobile Fortify, a specialized app ICE has been using at least since May 2025. (Usage of the app was first reported last June by 404Media.) What is Mobile Fortify? It's an app for facial recognition that can additionally take contactless fingerprints" of someone simply by snapping a picture of a person's fingers. The app has been used more than 100,000 times, including on children, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. And it's dangerous.Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Uline employee says she can no longer work for people who helped America descend into fascism'When Laura Wittmann decided this week to submit her resignation from Uline, the giant office supply company owned by two of the biggest donors to Donald Trump's 2024 election and other Maga Republicans, she did not hold back.As America descends rapidly into fascism," Wittmann wrote in a two-page company-wide email sent on Wednesday, I can no longer work to grow the personal fortunes of people who helped make it so." Continue reading...

The network's editor-in-chief unveiled a curious list of 19 people to be paid contributors across different platformsA focus on wellness, nutrition, longevity and cosmology, mixed with more than a sprinkling of conservative ideology, appears to represent Bari Weiss's vision to revitalize CBS News, and regain the trust of the network's lost viewers and employees.Editor-in-chief Weiss on Tuesday unveiled a curious list of 19 individuals - including podcasters, influencers, restaurateurs, climate deniers and a number of other opinionated writers - who will be paid contributors offering their wealth of wisdom and insight that will help CBS become, in her words, fit for purpose in the 21st century". Continue reading...

Raid on Fulton county election office is part of the Trump administration's wider US push to fuel false claims of fraudThe FBI raid on the Fulton county election office Wednesday was an aggressive new front in Donald Trump's effort to use his 2020 election loss to continue to sow doubt about American elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.As Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, false claims of malfeasance during ballot-counting in Atlanta became a key part of the big lie about a stolen election. Misleading surveillance video showing ballots being retrieved from suitcases became the basis for a myth that fraudulent ballots were included in the tally. Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer and a close ally at the time, was ordered to pay $148.1m to the election workers as part of a libel suit for spreading lies about them. He later settled. Continue reading...

It took six years to identify the condition that caused my chronic pain: a blood sugar dysregulation conditionSeven years ago, when I was 27, I got my first-ever migraine. Ten months later, it was still there.Even after the 10-month migraine ended, frequent weeks-long migraine attacks and bouts of stabbing icepick" headaches kept me in pain more often than not. I was a software engineer at Facebook, but had to take leave from work because looking at my laptop screen made my head scream in revolt. I would never go back.Natalie Mead publishes a Substack called Oops, My Brain about life with chronic illness and recovery. She is also working on a memoir about the tension between love and caregiving in chronic illness Continue reading...

What is happening in Minnesota is proof that racist ideas lead to racist policies - and it produces bad, dangerous governanceMinneapolis is in a state of chaos. Since federal immigration agents flooded the region weeks ago, daily life has been destabilized in ways residents say feel unprecedented.The president's super-sized immigration force has now killed two people in the Minneapolis metro area since Operation Metro Surge" began in December. Nearly three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot Renee Nicole Good in the face, armed federal authorities on 24 January killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, who witnesses say was trying to intervene after seeing agents treat another person harshly.Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

When bubbles burst, what comes next can be better, if we build it differentlyIt was December 1999. Tech investors were riding high, convinced that a website and a Super Bowl ad were all it took to get rich quick. Spending was mistaken for growth; marketing was mistaken for a business model. In just a few months, the dot-com boom would go bust: $1.7tn in market value vanished, and the broader economy took a $5tn hit.Yet something remarkable emerged from the wreckage. The post-crash internet wasn't defined by speculation, but by creation: the rise of web 2.0 and open-source software - and the birth of platforms like Firefox and Wikipedia. The lesson is simple: when bubbles burst, what comes next can be better, if we build it differently.Mark Surman is the president of Mozilla Continue reading...

Millions told to stay home in US and more than a million are left without power, while Australia faces record heatwaveCold weather across a vast swathe of the eastern US has been the likely cause of at least 49 deaths in the past week.At one point, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warnings, affecting areas from New Mexico to New England - a spread of about 2,000 miles (3,200km). Millions were told to stay at home, and at one point there were more than a million people without power. As of Wednesday night, there were still 312,000 outages, mostly across Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Continue reading...

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Agencies accused of failing to take precautions to stop former contractor leaking returns to leftist media outlets'Donald Trump on Thursday sued the US treasury department and Internal Revenue Service for $10bn over the disclosure of his tax returns to the media in 2019 and 2020.In a complaint filed in Miami federal court, Trump, his adult sons, and his namesake company said the agencies failed to take mandatory precautions" to prevent former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn from leaking their tax returns to leftist media outlets", including the New York Times and ProPublica. Continue reading...

Iran's foreign minister to travel to Ankara for talks aimed at preventing a US attack - key US politics stories from 29 January at a glanceNo formal direct talks have been held between the US and Iran for a decade. Now, as Donald Trump continues to threaten direct military attacks against the regime, Turkey is stepping in as a last-ditch mediator.Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Ankara for talks aimed at preventing a US attack, as Turkish diplomats seek to convince Tehran it must offer concessions over its nuclear programme, if it is to avert a potentially devastating conflict. Continue reading...

White House cites Cuba's ties to hostile powers as order ratchets up Trump's pressure to topple its governmentDonald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday laying the groundwork to slap tariffs on goods from countries that provide oil to Cuba, the White House said.The order, which ratchets up Trump's pressure to topple the Communist government, declares a national emergency and establishes a process for the US secretaries of state and commerce to assess tariffs against countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to the island nation. The White House has yet to specify tariff rates for violating its new policy of blocking Cuba from buying oil. Continue reading...

Deal calls for splitting a funding bill for DHS from a package of other funding billsSenators have reached a deal to advance a major package of spending bills to avert a partial government shutdown that was set to begin on Saturday.The office of Chuck Schumer, the Senate's top Democrat, confirmed the deal calls for splitting a funding bill for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package of other funding bills, and that the deal would fund DHS for two weeks at its current levels. Continue reading...

Democratic senators question national intelligence head's fitness for office after overt, unexplained appearanceDemocratic lawmakers are raising questions about why Tulsi Gabbard, the president's director of national intelligence, was lurking" in Fulton county on Wednesday while FBI agents carted off boxes of 2020 election documents.Gabbard visited an elections hub in Fulton county, home to Atlanta, on Wednesday as the FBI executed a search warrant for records related to the 2020 election. The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in the county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian. Continue reading...