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Tim Leiweke was accused of orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university'Donald Trump quietly pardoned on Tuesday a sports and entertainment executive, Tim Leiweke, who was indicted by the president's own justice department this year.Leiweke, who co-founded Oak View Group, was indicted in July for what federal prosecutors alleged was his role in orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university in Austin, Texas". Continue reading...

Pentagon report concludes defense secretary endangered troops as some Republican lawmakers scrutinize Caribbean operations - key US politics stories from 3 December 2025A long-awaited Department of Defense report found that US defense secretary Pete Hegseth violated departmental policies and put troops in danger when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat, a source familiar with the report said.The report centers on Hegseth's conduct before and during a planned airstrike in Yemen against Houthi fighters back in March. The Signal chat was disclosed after a reporter for the Atlantic was accidentally added as a member. The group also included JD Vance; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and the then-national security adviser, Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of those officials, since they do not work at the department of defense. Continue reading...

Officials hew closely to secret memo which gives legal cover to firing on boats even if it would kill people on boardTrump administration officials have defended carrying out a follow-up strike on a drug boat that killed survivors on 2 September by arguing that its objective was to ensure the complete destruction of the boat, an action the Pentagon had internal legal approval to conduct.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a briefing on Monday that Adm Frank Bradley, who oversaw the operation and gave the order for the second strike, directed it to sink the boat. Continue reading...

Gregory Bovino, border patrol chief and face of Trump's mass deportation efforts, seen patrolling French QuarterFederal agents descended on New Orleans on Wednesday, making Louisiana's most populous city the latest front in the Trump administration's sweeping crackdown on immigrant communities.Masked agents patrolled a heavily Latino suburb in marked and unmarked vehicles, and a resident told the Associated Press he watched agents arresting men outside a home improvement store in New Orleans - a familiar scene that has played out in several major cities in recent months. Continue reading...

Report says defense secretary violated policies in sharing secret information in March on planned airstrike in YemenA widely awaited Department of Defense report concluded that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, violated departmental policies when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat in March that included details of a planned airstrike in Yemen against Houthi fighters, said a source familiar with the report.The Signal chat was disclosed after a reporter for the Atlantic was added as a member. It also included JD Vance, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, and the then-national security adviser, Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of those officials, since they do not work at the Department of Defense. Continue reading...

Brownstone firm buys building with plan for 400 pods in city where median apartment rent tops $3,000 a monthCan't afford to rent an apartment in San Francisco? No problem. Now you can rent a bed.Brownstone Shared Housing, a Bay-Area based sleeping pod" startup, recently bought a six-level building in downtown San Francisco with the intention of housing up to 400 pods. The deal, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, represents a huge expansion for the company, which is currently operating about two dozen sleeping pods at a much smaller location in the city. Continue reading...

Exclusive: event, scheduled to air on 13 December, will focus on grief, faith, politics, and more', according to internal filesBari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, is scheduled to moderate a network town hall event with Erika Kirk, the widow of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Guardian has learned.The event will air on 13 December at 8pm and will focus on grief, faith, politics, and more", according to internal marketing materials. Continue reading...

Los Angeles have turned a feelgood reunion into a late-career humiliation for one of their greatest players - and exposed a franchise stumbling into a darker new eraPull out your Los Angeles Clippers bingo cards. Anyone have the square marked owner and star player accused of skirting the salary cap through improper means"? Go ahead and stamp that one. How about losing 14 of 16 after a hopeful 3-2 start"? Mark it. And yes, you can fill in other star averaging nearly 27 a night at age 36 - including a 50-piece against the Detroit Pistons, one of the league's best teams". The box reading Clippers fans tearing out their hair at alarming rates and contemplating shameful, fairweather defections" is probably safe to cross off, pending review. And after the wee-hours media cycle on Wednesday morning, everyone gets to tick the most dispiriting square of all: beloved, decorated veteran unceremoniously kicked to the curb in his final season".The Clippers had posted a winning record every year since 2010-11, building a reputation as one of the NBA's most reliable playoff fixtures. Twenty-one games into this young season, that identity has dissolved into something hazy around the edges - and unmistakably sinister. Continue reading...

Crackdown on applications from countries also under travel restrictions comes after shooting of two national guardsImmigration groups and lawmakers are sharply criticizing Donald Trump's latest move to halt immigration applications from 19 countries already under US travel restrictions, a decision that comes amid reports that naturalization ceremonies for people on the travel ban list are also being canceled.On Tuesday US Citizenship and Immigration Services posted a policy memo that announced an immediate adjudicative hold" on all asylum applications regardless of the alien's country of nationality", as well as a review of individuals from high-risk countries" who entered the US following Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021. Continue reading...

Move marks president's latest effort to dismantle pollution regulations and support for cleaner-running vehiclesDonald Trump announced on Wednesday that he is repealing the Biden-era federal fuel economy standards, significantly weakening fuel efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks.It marks the US president's latest effort to dismantle pollution regulations and federal support for cleaner-running vehicles and renewable energy. Burning gasoline is a significant contributor to global heating and transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Continue reading...

Injunction was sought by civil liberties groups in lawsuit against Department of Homeland SecurityA federal judge late on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation's capital without warrants or probable cause that the person would be an imminent flight risk.The US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrants' rights groups in a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security. Continue reading...

Washington's betrayal of its allies has been averted for now, but preparations must be made for a world where its support cannot be relied onDonald Trump's desire to end the war in Ukraine might be sincere, but his motives are selfish. He wants the glory of having brokered a deal and does not care whether it is fair or not. As for Vladimir Putin, he only wants peace on terms that achieve things which the Russian army has failed to manage with force. The Kremlin demands territory not yet won on the battlefield and limitations to Ukraine's capacity to act as a fully sovereign state.Mr Trump has never shown much natural aversion to giving Mr Putin what he wants. He has not applied serious pressure on the Kremlin to end its aggression, nor rebuked the Russian president for starting the war. He sees nothing wrong with a process that discusses the fate of a country, including de facto partition of its territory, without representatives of that country at the table.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Images and videos taken in 2020, a year after he died in jail, show the late sex offender's home

Pause, including Afghanistan and Somalia, indicates plan to tie US security to increased focus on legal immigrationImmigration applications from 19 countries subjected to a travel ban by the Trump administration earlier this year have been paused indefinitely because of national security concerns, the US government agency that processes visas and green cards has said.A policy memo posted on Tuesday to the website of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the homeland security department, also places an immediate adjudicative hold" on all asylum applications regardless of a person's nationality, and directs a review of aliens from high risk countries of concern" admitted to the US after 20 January 2021, the first day of the Biden administration. Continue reading...

President claims Henry Cuellar was targeted by Joe Biden for being critical of his immigration policiesDonald Trump pardoned Texas Democratic representative Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case on Wednesday, citing what he called a weaponized" justice system.Trump, who has argued that his own legal troubles were a partisan witch-hunt, said on social media that the congressman and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were prosecuted because the representative had been critical of Joe Biden's immigration policies. Continue reading...

Renny Martyn revealed in archdiocese bankruptcy proceedings that priest abused her at school when she was six years oldA woman who Big Brother fans might recognize as a contestant on an earlier season of the unscripted television competition has spoken out as a victim of New Orleans' decades-old Catholic clergy abuse scandal.Renny Martyn, 71, told her story toward the end of a Tuesday hearing in the federal courthouse where the Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans has been in bankruptcy protection proceedings since 2020 amid the financial fallout of the scandal. Continue reading...

Store employee found masked bandit sleeping off a bender after invading booze store and tippling a tad too muchA liquor store employee in Virginia was startled on Saturday to discover smashed whisky bottles on the floor of the shop and, upon entering the bathroom, an apparently drunk, sleeping and spread-eagled raccoon.He fell through one of the ceiling tiles and went on a full-blown rampage, drinking everything," Samantha Martin, a local animal control officer, told the Daily Mail. Continue reading...

The Republican party is far from moving beyond Trump - but signals of his waning influence are everywhereThe sharks can smell blood in the water. After a decade in eerie command of the Republican party, with primary voters in his cult-like thrall and down-ballot elected officials feeling they have no choice - and often no inclination - to diverge from him, Donald Trump suddenly seems not quite in control of his own political machine.Fractures have emerged in the Maga coalition; Trump's approval is sinking; the Democrats, long anemic and risk-averse in the opposition, showed signs of life in elections last month; and the cumulative effect of a series of long-running scandals, most particularly the Epstein affair, seem to have alienated core components of the Trump faithful. Trump has faced some rebukes from a once largely compliant federal judiciary: his personal attorney, Alina Habba, was recently declared ineligible to serve in the US attorney role Trump had appointed her to, and his signature tariffs seem likely to be struck down by a conservative supreme court majority.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Amid concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration has abolished climate-friendly farming incentivesThis article was produced in partnership with FloodlightFor decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90m acres - about the size of Montana - and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation's gasoline. Continue reading...

Alejandro Carranza Medina's relatives say he was a fisher, not a drug trafficker. Plus, Putin says Russia ready' for war with Europe as Ukraine talks stall

Sales spike at the Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons and Cipriani as luxury buyers weigh moves from ManhattanThere is a short stretch of prime waterfront real estate in Miami that has come to be known as Billionaire's Beach. It contains a mix of famous old art deco hotels such as the Delano and Raleigh, both undergoing extensive upmarket refurbishments, and the construction of exclusive new residential tower blocks with high-end apartments running into the tens of millions.It is here on the sun-filled shores of South Beach, more than a thousand miles from the chills of a Manhattan winter, where realtors and developers are beginning to see the first shoots of what they call the Mamdani effect": the predicted exodus of wealthy New Yorkers in the wake of socialist democrat Zohran Mamdani's election as mayor. Continue reading...

The administration is heightening its anti-immigrant crackdown - and punishing people from a country the US helped destroyAfter two national guard members were ambushed in Washington DC last week, killing one and leaving the other in critical condition, Donald Trump went on a hate-filled social media rant and vowed to permanently pause migration from all Third World countries."Trump's late night Thanksgiving posts devolved into a fury, evidently because the suspected gunman is an Afghan national. He had worked with the US government, including the CIA, and was evacuated to the US in 2021 after the American military withdrew from Afghanistan.Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University Continue reading...

A Guardian investigation reveals Dollar General and Family Dollar stores often fail to honor their shelf prices - charging more at checkout for everything from frying pans to Frosted FlakesOn a cloudy winter day, a state government inspector named Ryan Coffield walked into a Family Dollar store in Windsor, North Carolina, carrying a scanner gun and a laptop.Inside the store, which sits along a three-lane road in a county of peanut growers and poultry workers, Coffield scanned 300 items and recorded their shelf prices. He carried the scanned bar codes to the cashier and watched as item after item rang up at a higher price. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Compilation of data to be shared with appropriate agencies' prompts fears of immigration crackdownThe Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is in the process of creating an urgent and massive new internal database of non-US citizens who are employed or affiliated" with the government department, a sensitive memo leaked to the Guardian has revealed - prompting alarm within the sprawling agency over a potential immigration crackdown.A VA spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that the department would share some of the data it is now gathering with other federal agencies, including for immigration enforcement purposes. Continue reading...

Defense secretary says he moved on to my next meeting' as sensitive military operation was under way; top Democrat calls Hegseth spineless' and a national embarrassment'. This blog is now closed.

Van Epps defeats Aftyn Behn in congressional election closely watched for signs of Republican weaknessRepublican Matt Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn in a congressional special election in the western Nashville suburbs, which was being closely watched for signs of Republican weakness going into congressional midterms next year.The Associated Press called the race at 9.47 EST with Van Epps holding a 52% to 46% lead. Continue reading...

Presidents of both major parties have used the device and experts called into question legality of Trump's moveDonald Trump said on Tuesday he is terminating all documents, including pardons, that he said his predecessor Joe Biden signed using an autopen - an unprecedented attempt to rollback a previous president's actions using what legal thinkers view as a flimsy pretext.The autopen is a device used to replicate a person's signature with precision, typically for high-volume or ceremonial documents. It has been employed by presidents of both major parties to sign letters and proclamations. Continue reading...

Claude, the de facto mascot for a local museum, was the subject of a children's book and regularly received fan mailClaude, the beloved albino alligator who called the California Academy of Sciences home for the better part of two decades, has died at age 30.The San Francisco museum announced his death on Tuesday and said that the reptile had in recent weeks received treatment for a suspected infection". Claude, with his unusual white scales, had become a sort of mascot for the academy and the city. He was the subject of a children's book and regularly received fan mail and gifts from around the world, the museum said. Continue reading...

City argues corporations profit while communities bear the cost of diseases linked to ultra-processed foodsSan Francisco filed the nation's first government lawsuit against food manufacturers over ultra-processed foods (UPFs) on Tuesday, arguing that local governments have been shouldering the costs of treating diseases that stem from public consumption of the companies' products.The city's attorney, David Chiu, sued 10 corporations that create some of the country's most popular food and drinks, from chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas to potato chips and sugary breakfast cereals - but also foods like breads and granola bars that are marketed as healthy". Continue reading...

Trump says any country he believes is making drugs destined illegally for the US is vulnerable to military attack - key US politics stories from Tuesday, 2 December 2025A deadly US strike on an alleged drug vessel has triggered bipartisan anger in Washington as lawmakers question whether the double-tap attack, which killed survivors of an initial strike, may amount to a war crime. The Pentagon and members of the Trump administration appeared to shift blame onto Adm Frank M Bradley, who oversaw the operation with authorization from defense secretary Pete Hegseth, while insisting the mission was lawful.In a length cabinet meeting on Tuesday, president Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric on drug trafficking by threatening military action against any country he claims is sending narcotics illegally into the US. Continue reading...

Julie Inman Grant says Australia's Online Safety Act does not impinge upon Americans' freedom of speech'

Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins threatens to pull funds unless states turn over recipient data to US governmentThe Trump administration has threatened to suspend Snap food assistance to several Democratic-led states unless they turn over recipient data to the federal government.The agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, said on Tuesday that the USDA could begin blocking funds as early as next week if Democratic-led states continue to reject federal requests for Snap recipient data - information that includes immigration status and social security numbers. Continue reading...

Officers joked about tip that Luigi Mangione was at a Pennsylvania McDonald's, where they arrested himPolice involved with Luigi Mangione's arrest were so skeptical that the tip on his whereabouts was true that they joked about a reward sandwich in text messages, Manhattan state court proceedings revealed on Tuesday.He said, if you get the New York City shooter, I'll buy you a hoagie from a local restaurant,'" testified Joseph Detwiler, an Altoona, Pennsylvania police officer, of texts exchanged with a supervisor. I said, Consider it done.'" Continue reading...

Donation of $6.25bn for children's investment accounts prompts wave of questions - but details remain scarceA tech billionaire and his wife said on Tuesday they would pour $6.25bn into individual investment accounts for 25 million children under 10, prompting a wave of new questions about how these so-called Trump accounts" will work.The creation of these accounts was included as part of Donald Trump's sprawling tax and spending bill, which he signed into law in July. Every child born between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2028, can receive a Trump account that includes a $1,000 initial deposit from the administration. The money will then be invested. Continue reading...

Dead included children, aged eight, nine and 14, and a 21-year-old man who were shot at a banquet hallDetails are beginning to emerge about the victims of the shooting at a toddler's birthday party in Stockton, California, that left four people dead and at least 11 injured over the weekend.The dead included children, aged eight, nine and 14, and a 21-year-old man who were shot at a banquet hall in the Central valley city where they had gathered with at least 100 other people to celebrate a two-year-old's birthday. Continue reading...

White House names Adm Frank M Bradley as officer who directed the engagement', distancing Hegseth from accountability

US president's xenophobic rant comes amid reports of ramped-up deportation efforts in Ilhan Omar's district

Trump signals imminent land strikes in Venezuela, blaming a navy admiral for a deadly September attackDonald Trump warned on Tuesday that any country he believes is making drugs destined illegally for the US is vulnerable to a military attack.The US president's comments came during a question-and-answer session at the White House at which he also said military strikes on land targets inside Venezuela, which he has accused of narco-terrorism, would start very soon". Continue reading...

American Bitcoin Corp's shares fell from $2.39 to $1.90 after closing in what some are calling crypto winter'Shares in Eric Trump's crypto mining business lost more than half their value in less than 30 minutes on Tuesday.The nosedive of American Bitcoin Corp, which triggered repeated trading halts, followed the steep decline of many cryptocurrencies and crypto-linked companies into what some observers are calling the onset of a crypto winter". Bitcoin's value has fallen sharply since the start of October and erased a year of large gains. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump has said he didn't know anything about a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat on 2 September. He also stood by his defence secretary, saying Pete Hegseth didn't know a US navy admiral had ordered a second strike. Hegseth also denied knowledge of it, but stated the admiral 'had the complete authority' to launch it

The wholesale giant claims the White House misused emergency authority and warns importers could lose refunds even if duties are ruled unlawfulCostco is suing the Trump administration over its tariffs, arguing that the White House has exceeded its executive authority in instituting tariffs and that it should be entitled to a refund if the tariffs are found unconstitutional.In a lawsuit filed to the court of international trade last Friday, the retail giant argued the Trump administration had misused the federal law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), it cited to impose the tariffs. Continue reading...

US defense secretary posted meme depicting beloved children's character aiming rocket launcher at set of boats

She's far from the only celebrity to have declared her intention to live outside the US. As with many others though, it looks like a reverse ferret could be in the worksI'm not some sort of secret Reform voter, OK? As a Brit (albeit a Brit abroad), I've got no problem with rich immigrants coming to the UK and taking all our mansions. I just think they really ought to integrate and not bring their funny foreign ideas with them.Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, I'm talking to you. The California couple arrived in the UK last year, just before Donald Trump won the election. As soon as the votes were in, they declared they weren't going back, and would stay on the saner side of the Atlantic. I'm not sure how the immigration logistics worked, but it seems one in, one out" schemes don't apply to people coming in on big jets, only small boats. The pair bought a fancy pad in the Cotswolds and DeGeneres buttered up the locals during a public appearance in July by declaring Everything here is just better." Continue reading...