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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...

The US president has halted decisions on many asylum claims, but the scope, legality and real-world affects of the pause remain unclear

The 79-year-old president's social media blitz included conspiracies, attacks on political foes and self-praiseFrom apparently nodding off in the Oval Office to a work day that often only begins in the afternoon, questions have swirled in recent weeks about the energy levels of 79-year-old Donald Trump, the oldest-ever US president.Yet on social media, the commander in chief is showing no signs of fatigue. In a furious spree on Monday night on his preferred social media platform, Truth Social, Trump posted 160 times in less than four hours, a maelstrom of messaging surpassing previous prolific bouts of ranting. Continue reading...

Homeland security secretary backs broad restrictions after guard member's killing, echoing Trump's hardline stanceKristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, has advocated for a new travel ban on visitors from an unspecified number of countries following the shooting death in Washington DC of a national guard member by an Afghan national.Noem posted to X her proposal on Monday night after she said she had spoken with Donald Trump, whose first term travel ban on seven Muslim countries faced widespread criticism and followed a rocky legal path before it was eventually upheld by the supreme court. Continue reading...

US paused asylum decisions, halted Afghan visas, and will review green card requests after national guard shootingNews that the Trump administration has paused asylum decisions, halted visas for Afghans who assisted the US war effort and is reevaluating green card applications for people from countries of concern" has left asylum seekers across the US reeling - and pushed deeper into limbo.People say that fear travels faster than information. And that's exactly what has happened," said Reza Hussaini, a 23-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan who came to the US in 2022 and is still awaiting an interview to evaluate his case. Continue reading...

Under the chief justice, the US supreme court has bolstered authoritarian agendas while undercutting the voice of votersThroughout his two decades as chief justice of the US supreme court, John Roberts has sought to project the notion that he is the ultimate institutionalist, striving (supposedly) to safeguard the venerated foundations of American democracy. But with each passing year, it has become increasingly clear that Roberts will be remembered as the chief justice who helped wreck numerous institutions vital to our democracy - they include fair, non-gerrymandered elections, a sane campaign finance system, the Voting Rights Act's protections of minority voters, and the bedrock notion that presidents are not above the law.Roberts said in his confirmation hearings that he would merely call balls and strikes" as chief justice, but now two decades later, many legal commentators are deeply dismayed that he has shunned the role of neutral umpire and instead spearheaded a rightwing judicial revolution that took a wrecking ball to many precedents, laws and institutions. Some have called him the worst chief justice since Roger Taney, who wrote the horrific Dred Scott decision of 1857, which held that enslaved Black people couldn't be citizens. Continue reading...

Andrea Gonzalez and Norma Fajardo of Clean Carwash Worker Center, an advocacy group, describe ICE's psychological warfare' as carwash workers are disappearedIn June, Donald Trump's administration turned Los Angeles into a testing ground for the tactics that have come to define its sweeping mass deportation agenda across the US - launching large scale, public arrests aimed at netting as many people as possible into a growing immigrant detention system.Throughout the raids, one of the recurring targets of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents has been carwash workers. Continue reading...

Defense secretary shares anecdote in The War on Warriors and rails against rules and regulations' governing warPete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the constraints placed on American warfighters" by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions. Continue reading...

Despite the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to changeArtificial intelligence and robotics will transform the world. It will bring unimaginable changes to our economy, our politics, warfare, our emotional wellbeing, our environment, and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that, in the not-so-distant future, a super-intelligent AI could replace humans in controlling the planet.Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to change. Now. Continue reading...

Our cartoonist on the people and themes that are fuelling the buildup to next summer's tournament in North America

Steve Witkoff is due to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Plus, a new book highlights the forgotten builders of the Empire State Building

The site isn't exposing misleading reporting - it's revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabitsDonald Trump has used the mainstream press as a punching bag for many years, but in recent weeks his jabs have become even more frequent - and more ill-tempered.He threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn last month over the editing of a documentary that aired more than a year ago. He called one White House reporter piggy", and told another - the well-regarded Mary Bruce of ABC News - that she was a terrible person and a terrible reporter". He called a New York Times reporter ugly, both inside and out".Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Four years after workers at a Starbucks store in upstate New York became the first to unionize, hundreds of outlets followed - defying intense resistance from the coffee chain. What happened next?Thousands of Starbucks baristas are on strike across the US, warning the world's largest coffee chain to brace for the longest and biggest" bout of industrial action in its history.Barely a year after Brian Niccol, the Starbucks CEO, tried to draw a line under bitter divisions between its management and unionized workers, pledging to engage constructively" with them, the American coffee giant is now grappling with an escalating strike during its lucrative holiday trading season. Continue reading...

Trinidad PM rejects claims installation is in support of US campaign but opposition says they have sold soul of nation'

Your essential guide to Friday's draw in Washington DC, including where to watch it, who to watch out for and a look at Fifa's peace prizeThe World Cup draw will start at Washington DC's Kennedy Center at 12pm local time on Friday 5 December (5pm GMT/4am Saturday AEST). Although don't worry if you tune in late: based on previous draws there will be a few speeches about Fifa being on the verge of bringing about world peace via the medium of football, some interpretive dance about Fifa being on the verge of bringing about world peace via the medium of football, some videos with kids kicking a ball about to show that Fifa is on the verge of bringing about world peace via the medium of football, and then, hopefully, Fifa actually bringing about world peace via the medium of football. And if you miss any of that, don't worry Fifa will also be awarding a peace prize to the person most likely to bring about world peace in the next few months (more on that zinger later). At some point in all of that, they'll place teams into groups and at long last give this expanded tournament an actual schedule. Continue reading...

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Trump reportedly had a blunt message' for Venezuelan president: leave power and your country immediately - key US politics stories from 1 December at a glanceDonald Trump reportedly had a blunt message for Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro: leave power - and your country - immediately.Sources told the Miami Herald the US president had a phone call with his South American counterpart, who is the focus of a four-month pressure campaign in which Trump has ordered a major naval deployment off Venezuela's northern coast. Continue reading...

Prediction for New England area comes after travelers experienced disruption over Thanksgiving holiday weekendA winter storm is expected to slam much of the north-east United States with rain, ice and heavy snow on Monday night through Tuesday, forecasters have said, with millions of Americans under winter storm advisories.The bulk of the storm is expected to arrive in the region later on Monday, with the system forecast to develop over the Gulf states then move up the eastern seaboard. Most of the heaviest snowfall is expected to end by Tuesday night, with conditions clearing by Wednesday. Continue reading...

Mental health of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who is charged with murder, had reportedly been unravelling for yearsThe suspect in the shooting of two West Virginia national guard soldiers in Washington DC on the eve of Thanksgiving had been struggling with his mental health, sometimes spending weeks on end" in isolation, as he tried to assimilate in the years since arriving in the United States, it has emerged.According to emails obtained by the Associated Press, Rahmanullah Lakanwal's mental health had been unravelling for years, leaving him unable to hold a job and flipping between long, dark stretches of isolation and taking sudden, weeks-long cross-country drives. Continue reading...

Corrections officer testifies that Mangione had constant watch to prevent him from dying in custody like EpsteinLuigi Mangione was kept under tight supervision in a Pennsylvania state prison last year because officials did not want an Epstein-style situation", a corrections officer said during Manhattan state court testimony on Monday.This striking allusion to Jeffrey Epstein, the well-connected financier who died in jail awaiting trial on sex-trafficking, came during day one of a potentially week-long proceeding to weigh the legality of evidence gathered during Mangione's arrest at a McDonald's restaurant after the killing of a prominent healthcare executive. Continue reading...

Michael Bohacek, an Indiana state senator, says US president's choices of words have consequences'An Indiana Republican lawmaker whose child has Down syndrome has promised to oppose efforts to redraw the state's congressional map to favor his party after Donald Trump aimed a slur for people with intellectual disabilities at a political opponent.Michael Bohacek, a member of Indiana's state senate, wrote Friday on Facebook that he has been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities" since one of his daughters was born with Down. Referring to how the president used an ableist slur to insult Tim Walz, the Democratic Minnesota governor, a day earlier, Bohacek's post added, His choices of words have consequences." Continue reading...

Search continues after four people, including three children, were killed and 11 were injured in StocktonResidents of Stockton, California, are reeling after a deadly shooting at a toddler's birthday party killed four people, including three children ages eight, nine and 14, and injured 11.Authorities are still looking to understand what happened at the celebration on Saturday, and urged witnesses to come forward. Continue reading...

US president, who is 79, had October exam amid concerns over his cognitive abilities and mental fitness

Demonstrators blocked the exit of ICE vehicles from a parking lot using garbage bags and metal barriersA raid by federal immigration authorities on Saturday in New York City was thwarted by about 200 protesters, several of whom were arrested after scuffles with police officers.The episode was the latest in which citizen activists have stood up to agents enforcing Donald Trump's aggressive immigration agenda through targeted raids in various cities across the country after his second presidency began in January. Continue reading...

Leaked assessment based on confidential accounts from 24 FBI sources describes organization as a rudderless ship'

Why has Trump blown up alleged narco boats in the Caribbean and at the same time decided to let a big time trafficker off the hook?

Left-leaning challengers in the Rust belt are throwing chaos into a divided party struggling to rebuild after Trump's winIn the run-up to last month's mayoral election in Dayton, Ohio, candidate Shenise Turner-Sloss found herself up against it.Her opponent, mayor Jeffrey Mims, was a 78-year-old local Democratic party doyen who had served on school boards and teachers' unions in the city for decades. His campaign budget was three times hers and an incumbent hadn't been unseated from the mayoral role in the city for over a decade. Continue reading...

Kaja Kallas says negotiators should not lose focus that it's actually Russia who has started this war'

Popular American golfer hailed for winning the US Masters and the US OpenThe golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, who has died aged 74, won two majors - the US Masters in 1979 and the US Open in 1984, both by virtue of a playoff. His Masters success was especially notable for the fact that it was Zoeller's debut in the competition, making him the first golfer since 1935 (and still only the third) to win on his first appearance. He won the sudden-death playoff against Tom Watson and Ed Sneed with a par and a birdie, sinking a six-foot putt on the second extra hole and hurling his putter high into the air as the ball disappeared into the cup.Zoeller's US Open victory at Winged Foot five years later was remembered for his light-hearted interaction with his play-off rival, Greg Norman. When Norman holed a lengthy putt on the last of the 72 holes, Zoeller, who was behind him on the fairway, mistakenly thought the Australian had gone into the lead, and waved a white towel in mock surrender. But Norman's putt had only drawn him level, and Zoeller was able to secure a par on the last to maintain parity. During the subsequent 18-hole playoff, which Zoeller won by eight strokes, Norman returned the gesture by flapping his own white towel at the 18th. Continue reading...

You've heard of caregivers in the sandwich generation. In this anti-compassion Trump 2.0 era, it's more like a triple-decker sandwich. Alissa Quart has experienced this first-handIt was a crisp autumn day day, but I had been trapped inside for hours, breathing the cold air of one of Memorial Sloan Kettering's cancer centers with my mom. We were waiting for her latest infusion to finish dripping.Time in hospitals moves differently - minutes stretch and lose their meaning. Meanwhile, my daughter kept calling. Would I be able to go to her school volleyball game? After a few calls, I had to break it to her: the answer was no. Continue reading...