US news | The Guardian

The country's 900 billionaires have far too much influence over our government and economy. Here's how we can reduce the power of the ultra-richNot a day goes by without some news about billionaires throwing their weight around to bend the system in their favor or about politicians giving them tax cuts, government contracts or pardons. In today's new Gilded Age, the 900-plus billionaires in the US have far too much influence over our elections, our economy, our government policies and our news media, and it's urgent for Americans to create a movement to curb their power in order to preserve what's left of our democracy and assure we have an economy with some basic fairness.It's deeply troubling that billionaires have far more power in shaping our nation's politics and policies than do average Americans, whether they're auto workers, teachers, nurses, carpenters or supermarket cashiers. What's more, it's deeply disturbing that so many billionaires support the most authoritarian president in US history, whether by donating to his campaign or his gilded ballroom.Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labour and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues Continue reading...

Records show DHS tech incubator spending large sums on partnerships that would expand surveillance capabilitiesHacked data from the Department of Homeland Security's technology incubator shows it funding a variety of companies that would expand its surveillance capabilities with artificial intelligence, the Guardian can reveal.The projects at the Office of Industry Partnership (OIP) include automated surveillance in airports; adapters allowing agents to use phones for biometric scanning; and an AI platform that ingests all 911 call data nationally and builds geospatial heat maps" to predict incident trends", which appears to be a form of predictive policing. Continue reading...

The bill continues a cycle of abortion restrictions repeatedly blocked by the state supreme court

Colossal Biosciences' CEO says its work follows a moral obligation' while critics say it's tech bro' hype that could undermine conservationCan and should we resurrect animal species that have been extinct for thousands of years? Such weighty, existential questions were once the preserve of science fiction but are now being played out within an unassuming brick building in a Dallas business park.Colossal Biosciences, valued at $10.2bn after raising hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from investors including celebrities spanning from Tiger Woods to Paris Hilton, has provoked a stampede of acclaim as well as denunciation after announcing last year it had made the dire wolf, a species lost from the world for more than 10,000 years, de-extinct" via the birth of three new pups. Continue reading...

Experts query mix-up of priorities' as president plays golf, posts old pictures and repeats details of Bill Maher feudMore than two weeks into the US-Israel war on Iran, and the conflict appears at risk of spiraling out of control.Back home, Donald Trump's behavior also appears chaotic. A foreign conflict typically brings somber reflection from leaders: in Trump's case, it has brought a stream of behavior that has defied norms and raised eyebrows over his state of mind. Continue reading...

It's hard to be transported by the glitz and glamour when it's constantly overshadowed by some white-hot new horrorIt's been a full decade now since I attended the Academy Awards ceremony for this very same publication, and chat, I am feeling, like, totally cooked. I'm so unc'd, it's cringe, fam.The article was titled My first Oscars", which is a terribly presumptuous statement, because it assumes there will be a second or a third. Despite my best efforts, it remains my only Oscars. I reread the piece to prepare to once again write about the Academy Awards for the Guardian, and I was shocked by how mundane the whole experience came across on the page. As befitting the much younger, more crass version of myself, there was a lot of eyerolling and snark about how soulless the event was. Also, I wouldn't stop talking about seeing Gary Busey.Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...

Niko Bray, who obtained pilot's license in January 2025, shares story after averting disaster on busy Jupiter roadA teenage pilot who made an emergency airplane landing on a busy Florida road while averting disaster entirely says you just execute" when thrust into such life-or-death situations.It can happen ... so fast," 19-year-old Niko Bray said in an interview with the Florida news outlet WSVN, nearly a week after authorities say he landed the small airplane he was flying on a six-lane thoroughfare in the community of Jupiter because of an emergency in the skies. Continue reading...

Oil could pass 2008 record of $147.50 a barrel as damage and closures risk compounding supply shock caused by Iran warThe world's largest offshore oilfield stretches more than 40 miles from Saudi Arabia's eastern province into the depths of the Persian Gulf. For almost 70 years the Safaniya field has produced millions of barrels of Arabian heavy crude to be sold by the biggest oil-producing country. This week, the field was shut.The war in Iran has effectively blocked the Gulf states from exporting a fifth of the world's oil supply to the international buyers through the strait of Hormuz. Iran's attacks on tankers trapped in the vital trade route have erased an estimated 15m barrels of oil from the global market. Continue reading...

Joshua Nass, of alleged $600,000 extortion plot, played role in pardon of man convicted of failing to pay $40m in taxesA New York lobbyist and attorney connected to a presidential pardon issued by Donald Trump in November has been charged with attempting to extort a former client and the client's son over an alleged $500,000 debt.Joshua Nass, 34, was arrested on Friday after being charged in federal court in Brooklyn with attempted Hobbs Act extortion. US justice department prosecutors contend that Nass threatened a client for payment that he claimed he was owed for his services. Continue reading...

Palantir's CEO says the platforms will have a vast effect on the electoral landscape ... especially women. Is it a warning or a sales pitch?Don't you just love AI? It has inundated the internet with slop, destabilized the concept of truth, and made it much easier to bomb people. And that's just the beginning. As we look towards the future of our brave new world, AI might also disrupt all those pesky highly-educated female voters who keep casting a ballot for Democrats.To be clear: that assessment isn't coming from me, a highly exhausted female who wishes the Democrats would work a little harder for people's votes. Rather, it's coming from one of the key architects of our glorious AI-driven economy: Alex Karp, the co-founder and CEO of tech firm Palantir.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Ohio representative Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member, may access documents and speak, but may not voteA federal judge ruled on Saturday that a Democratic lawmaker is entitled to participate at a board meeting about Donald Trump's plan to close down the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for two years of renovations.But the judge is not forcing the board to let the Ohio representative Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member through her position in Congress, vote at Monday's session. Continue reading...

A Chevron station just outside downtown charges more than $8 a gallon - nearly $3 more than the city's averageIt's tempting to think that a gas station charging more than $8 a gallon is a glamorous Los Angeles curiosity. Sort of like shopping at Erewhon, the healthy grocery chain that wows with a premium experience - and commands up to $22 a smoothie.But there's no glamour at the 901 N Alameda Street station. It's just a dingy Chevron on the edge of LA's Chinatown, regularly featured in news stories to illustrate the high cost of fuel in California. Midday on Tuesday, the station charged $8.31 for a gallon of regular gas. Continue reading...

Defense secretary appeared to endorse killing prisoners, a violation of international law, during press briefingA top Democratic lawmaker with a military background has reacted strongly to US defense secretary Pete Hegseth's call for no quarter" for US enemies during a Friday press briefing at the Pentagon, calling such an order - if followed by troops - a potential violation of international law.The US senator Mark Kelly, of Arizona, posted on Friday on X that No quarter' isn't some wanna be tough guy line - it means something. An order to give no quarter would mean to take no prisoners and kill them instead." Continue reading...

Alexandria airport center would hold migrant families and children inside converted barracks before deportationThe Trump administration is poised to expand immigration detention operations at a controversial site inside a rural Louisiana airport, the Guardian has learned.The administration is seeking to establish a first of its kind" short-term facility that would hold migrant families and unaccompanied children next to a runway that has become a central node for the White House's mass deportation agenda. Continue reading...

Erratic rhetoric, shifting goals and mixed signals leave allies, foes and voters unsure what the president wants from warMr President," said a reporter. You've said the war is very complete' but your defence secretary says, This is just the beginning'. So which is it?" Donald Trump's eyes darted left and right then down. Well, I think you could say both," he parried.The confusing answer at a press conference in Doral, Florida this week did not befit a wartime leader armed with stirring rhetoric and a lucid plan. But it was entirely on brand for the 47th US president. The tumultuous style that Trump brings to election campaigns, dealing with Congress and global trade relations has now been imported to the theatre of war. Continue reading...

He is stuck in a quagmire. His goals are elusive. His bombing does not force a surrender. He has no exit strategy. Good morning, VietnamDonald Trump is lost in his fog of war. He compounds confusion with improvised fabrications as his naive expectation of a lightning victory has been sunk in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, he felt certain, would easily follow the perfect scenario" of Venezuela, accede to naming a leader who would instantly do his bidding, and there would be no disruption of the oil markets - a strong game plan", stated Karoline Leavitt, his White House press secretary, who defends each of his changeable excuses with equal ferocity.There may be few if any facts underlying the delusions upon which Trump constructs his vapid explanations and evanescent strategies. The belief that coherent sense can be made out of Trump's shuffling words is a weakness of the rational mind that refuses to accept the impulses of the inveterate demagogue for what they are. Searching for reason in the jungle of Trump's tales may compel hopelessly sensible people to superimpose logic where there is none in order to satisfy the need for some semblance of soundness. Continue reading...

Dr Brian Elmore witnessed a public health crisis unfold at the border near El Paso. He reflects on why it was like a perverse Groundhog Day'In late spring 2024, Dr Brian Elmore was working out of a mobile clinic, providing medical treatment to migrants in Ciudad Juarez, just south of the US-Mexico border wall. One of his patients, a Venezuelan man with a fractured arm and a detached left chest from his sternum and clavicle, told Elmore that Mexican immigration officials broke his arm when he first got to town, and that rubber bullets fired by Texas national guardsmen had caused his chest injuries.The man somehow had managed to fashion a shoddily made splint for his arm, but his chest would require surgery. When an ambulance arrived, the criminal group that controlled the riverine area refused to let him leave. The Texas guardsmen looked on from the US side of the river. It was heartbreaking," Elmore said of the spectacle. Continue reading...

The former No 3 overall NBA draft pick opens up about addiction, homelessness and redemption in a candid memoir revisiting basketball's cocaine eraWhen the Golden State Warriors drafted Chris Washburn with the No 3 pick in 1986, it should have been a dream come true. Instead, it might have been the worst thing that could have happened for the 6ft 11in NC State prospect.I put on a smile because they were paying me to be out there," Washburn, a former three-time high school All-American, tells rhe Guardian. But I felt alone." Continue reading...

Defense secretary offers alternative TV headlines to reporters to more favourably reflect US military campaign in Iran - key US politics stories from 13 March 2026Pete Hegseth has used a press conference at the Pentagon to criticize journalists over their coverage of the war in Iran, at one point proposing alternative TV headlines.The US defense secretary claimed Iran had been left without a functioning air force, navy or missile defense network after 13 days of strikes, and said the combined US-Israeli air campaign had hit more than 15,000 targets since the war began. Continue reading...

Former US senator's admission comes after Heather Ammel sued her under North Carolina's homewrecker' lawKyrsten Sinema, a former US senator, admitted in court filings to having a romantic and intimate" relationship with a married man who was a member of her security detail during her final year in office - but argues that his estranged wife should not be able to sue her over it.The admission to the multi-state affair came in response to a lawsuit filed by Heather Ammel, who accused the former Arizona senator in federal court of breaking up her marriage under North Carolina's so-called homewrecker" law. Continue reading...

Arrest of asylum seeker Elvis Joel TE and his two-year-old, without a warrant, had sparked widespread outrageA federal judge ruled on Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must release a Minneapolis man and asylum seeker who has been unlawfully detained for 50 days.The man, identified as Elvis Joel TE in court filings, was arrested on 22 January at the height of ICE's aggressive raids in Minneapolis. The case sparked widespread outrage as Elvis TE was detained with his two-year-old daughter while they were returning home from the store, and ICE quickly flew both of them to Texas despite a court order barring their transfer out of Minnesota. Continue reading...

Top US regulators met with Bill Anderson to discuss supreme court action' over glyphosate weed killerTop US regulators met with Bill Anderson, Bayer's CEO, last year to discuss litigation" issues - including supreme court action" over its glyphosate weed killer - just months before the Trump administration took a series of steps to boost Bayer's case at the high court, internal government records show.The 17 June meeting, between officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Anderson and two other top Bayer executives, came as the Germany-based company was working to quash costly US litigation brought by tens of thousands of people who allege they developed cancer from their use of the company's glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup. Continue reading...

Fake pictures look authentic - and authentic ones get mistaken for fake. Here are three rules for navigating the war coverageThe videos look authentic - and they are spreading like wildfire on social media. One, for example, shows Iranian missiles exploding upon the airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. Another shows US soldiers being held at gunpoint by Iranian military.They aren't real but - often made with the help of cutting-edge AI - they are wildly misleading. They may get debunked, but somehow that doesn't make a dent. Continue reading...

Rent strikes have become more common in recent years with all-time high increases and more corporate investingNadia Langley had been organizing tenants in and around her south Minneapolis neighborhood since 2024, when, two months ago, the fledgling union saw a sudden explosion in interest.The jump was prompted not by a downturn in housing conditions or a rise in rents, but by the arrival of thousands of federal agents in the city as part of the Trump administration's recent mass immigration crackdown. Many immigrants and residents of color were afraid of agent run-ins and wouldn't leave their homes, even to go to work. To protect their neighbors, residents organized group chats to alert their communities about immigration agent sightings and to provide food, aid and more. Continue reading...

Why would Trump launch a foreign war when he is so domestically weak? Precisely because he is weakIn the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, members of the George W Bush administration presented the case for war exhaustively, repeatedly, and in public. The then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who played a major role in green-lighting waterboarding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, wrote an editorial in the New York Times claiming that Iraq was lying about its so-called weapons of mass destruction".Meanwhile, Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, went to a meeting of the United Nations security council in New York. There, before America and the world, he held up a tiny vial of substance meant to represent anthrax, a chemical weapon that had terrorized the US in a series of mail attacks just over a year before; Powell claimed that Iraq had the weapon and was willing to use it. Bush himself routinely addressed the American people, making the case for war. They were all lying, it turned out, but the lie served a purpose: it was a concession to the idea that the American people would have a say in whether or not their country went to war. Continue reading...

The podcast host and author of The Persian reflects on why Israel's precision in Iran caught him off guardAs the author of a novel depicting the Mossad's snatch-and-assassination squads inside Iran, David McCloskey was less shocked than most by the stunning killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the theocratic regime's most powerful figure, in a strike carried out by Israel.What caught him more off guard were reports that the up-to-the-minute, pinpoint accurate intelligence essential for its success was provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Continue reading...

Following Taylor's death, the US limited no-knock warrants. But the Trump administration has quietly rescinded those limitsThe night Breonna Taylor died began quietly.She had spent the evening at home in Louisville. The 26-year-old was an emergency room technician, someone who worked to prevent other people's tragedies. Continue reading...

The 2026 NWSL season kicks off on Friday. Our writers discuss the teams, players and story lines they're watching this yearHow the High Impact Player (HIP) rule evolves the NWSL's place in the global transfer market. The league has regained some control of the is the NWSL still the best league in the world" narrative, keeping Trinity Rodman on a deal via this new mechanism. The next transfer window or two will be a fascinating test of the league's willingness to ease restrictions and let its teams reach as far as they'd like. JR Continue reading...

A state visit is a connecting of people, not governments; of cultures, not commentators - our national bonds should be honouredShould King Charles's state visit to the United States next month be cancelled? The case for doing so is powerful. America is waging an unprovoked war on Iran in which more than 1,000 innocent people have already been killed. The collateral damage to the global economy, including Britain's, is becoming astronomical. All Donald Trump can do is insult Britain's prime minister as a loser" and no Winston Churchill" for failing to join him. Should the monarch honour such a man by attending a Washington banquet?The call is close. The occasion is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States with the declaration of independence. Of course this merits celebration. But now? British public opinion is emphatically opposed to the US war on Iran. Many more Britons think the royal visit should be abandoned (46%) than think it should go ahead (36%), with 18% undecided. Just as the war is staged by Trump for personal political gain, so he can be expected to exploit a royal visit.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: from Tea Party to Trump Continue reading...

From a 28-game losing streak to the top of the East, the Pistons have rebuilt themselves the old Detroit way - defense, defiance and a refusal to stay downIn Detroit, the black-eyed Susan grows along lonely highways and in vacant lots. It pushes through gravel and broken glass. It survives heat that cracks the earth and winters that freeze it solid. When the wind bends its stem, it cracks back in place.Its petals are a grungy yellow, the shade of anxiety, orbiting a bruised center. Black-eyed, signaling it can take a punch. It's the kind of flower Pistons legend Dennis Rodman would wear in his hair. Hard to kill. Just like the Detroit Pistons. Continue reading...

From violent collision contests to celebrity-backed offshoots, spin-off sports are finding captive audiences. Their spectacle masks something more sinisterA few weeks ago a clip went viral of a strange new contact sport emerging from the antipodes. Two burly men, one of them holding a football, sprint at each other on a kind of catwalk, waiting for the bloop-bloop-bloop of an electronic countdown before they launch into their runs. Neither wears any kind of padding or protective gear. Surrounded by baying spectators, the men collide in the middle of the track, making impact through shoulders, knees, hips, stomachs: in most instances, one of the runners is knocked flat on his back or face from the force of the collision, and the other stands tall in triumph. We are literally getting dumber as a civilization," noted one of the many comments on the clip on X.Run Nation Championship, as this new sport is known, launched in Australia last year, and is now holding combines ahead of RNC03, its third instalment. Many of the competing athletes seem, from the early video evidence, as wide as they are tall; the risk of injury - to their limbs, to their heads, to their brains - is obvious. But this is all part of the pitch. Like all new mixed martial arts and contact sports, RNC owes an obvious debt to UFC in the way it's named, structured, and promoted; like UFC and UFC boss Dana White's newer sport, Power Slap, in which two opponents face each other across a table and slap the side of each other's faces as hard as they can until one collapses, Run Nation is not so much a sport as an exploration of the frontier of sporting violence, a macabre social experiment to see how far athletes will push their bodies in the pursuit of victory and money. Continue reading...

Trump claims US makes a lot of money' when oil prices go up, but rising costs could become political liability - key US politics stories from 12 MarchDonald Trump on Thursday shrugged off the economic toll the war in Iran is taking on gas prices across the US, writing on social media that when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money".The president's comment came as the American Automobile Association reports that the average price for a gallon of gas hit $3.60, a week after the beginning of the US-Israel military operation against Iran prompted the largest price spike since the opening days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. Read the latest hereUS defense officials told senators on the armed services committee that the cost of the war on Iran totaled more than $11.3bn in the first six days alone, according to multiple reports.The New York Times was first to break the news about the conflict's price tag, citing three people familiar with the closed-door briefing on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Multiple law enforcement agencies responded on Thursday afternoon to reports in Michigan of a shooter at a synagogue in a Detroit suburb after a driver crashed a vehicle into the building and shots were fired. Michael Bouchard, the Oakland county sheriff, confirmed the attacker had died and that one security officer had been taken to hospital

Gavin Newsom says drone concerns always top of mind' and it's about preparedness for worst-case scenarios'

Records could be smashed in southern California as experts warn weather set to be exceptional - and not in a good way'States across the US west are bracing for a brutal early-season heatwave threatening to cook several cities through the weekend and into next week. Forecasters warned temperatures will spike 20-30F above normal for several days.Daily records could be shattered in southern California this week, the National Weather Service said, with a possibility that all-time records for March will be broken as well. Following the warmest winter on record across most of the region, the intense conditions are expected to eat into low snowpack levels, deepening drought concerns. Continue reading...

The bipartisan bill's future is uncertain, though, as Trump threatens to stall all legislation until voter-ID law is passed

Trump continues contradictory messaging on Iran; US will release 172m barrels of oil from strategic supplies. Key US politics stories from 11 MarchDonald Trump has continued his contradictory messaging over the Iran war, telling a rally in Kentucky that the war is won" but we don't want to leave early, do we?".With Trump and his fellow Republicans under pressure, according to polls, due to a stuttering economy, immigration crackdowns and the Iran conflict, the president noted this year's midterm elections are going to be very, very important". Continue reading...

Administration opens new trade investigation into manufacturing in foreign countriesThe Trump administration on Wednesday opened a new trade investigation into manufacturing in foreign countries - an effort that comes after the supreme court struck down Donald Trump's previous use of tariffs by declaring an economic emergency.The US president and his team have made clear that they're seeking to replace the hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenues after the supreme court's February ruling by using different laws to establish new tariffs . Continue reading...

While offering no details to hundreds of supporters, US president seemed to suggest conflict would not end soon

Diego Villavicencio also made violent threats against an unnamed individual, who appears to be Jerome Powell

Google founder backs both Republican and Democrat in governor's race while ex-CEO fights billionaire tax

Failure to appoint Jeremy Carl is a rare setback for Trump, with Republican-controlled Senate mostly approving his appointmentsDonald Trump's nominee for a top diplomatic post has been withdrawn from consideration after a growing backlash over his past remarks on race and Jewish people left him without crucial Republican support.Jeremy Carl, who had been tapped to serve as the assistant secretary of state for international organisations - a role overseeing US policy towards bodies such as the UN - announced on Tuesday that he was stepping aside after failing to secure unanimous backing from Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee. Continue reading...

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