Whether or not US president fits the definition of a Russian asset, his actions align closely with the Kremlin's interests Don't get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereCould Donald Trump be a Russian asset? The headline on a review in the Guardian of my new book Betrayal has provoked heated international debate. Written by the historian Lawrence Freedman, the piece generated thousands of comments from across Europe and beyond on social media. Many people responded with a single word: Duh!"Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin is the biggest mystery in international politics. In 2017 I wrote a book called Collusion, which set out Moscow's operation to support and cultivate Trump, going back decades. The US president, of course, denies links with Russia. But in his second term, his behaviour towards Putin has been as weird and perplexing as during his first. Continue reading...
Where the wealthiest country in the world allocates money has always been a question of political will over political way'The United States once led most other nations on resettling refugees from all over the world. But in the fiscal year 2025- 2026, except for three people from Afghanistan, all of the 10,258 people admitted through resettlement were white South Africans.But admitting en masse the beneficiaries of South African apartheid, while simultaneously cancelling temporary protected status (TPS) for 350,000 Haitians, and making a spectacle of detaining and shackling them, is just the tip of the racist iceberg: the Trump administration is reportedly using this moment to double the initial resettlement support that refugees receive to $4,500 per person. Continue reading...
by Anya Kamenetz in Spokane, Washington on (#7841M)
Providers like Project:Camp offer emergency education and care to families as climate change brings more destructive weatherOne week after evacuating from the wildfires that devastated parts of this eastern Washington city, Mareesha Backman handed over her youngest son to a stranger and took her first deep breath of relief.Spokane public schools was hosting what has become a growing part of disaster response: a day camp for children of survivors. Backman showed up that first day feeling stunned," she said: hot, poorly showered and underslept. Thanks to the camp's volunteers, she was able to go to a doctor's appointment, run errands and simply sit in the air-conditioned quiet of a friend's home. Continue reading...
US Central Command has released footage that purportedly shows missile and drone strikes being fired at Iranian military targets. Footage of some of the aftermath of the US attacks was shared on social media, showing shrapnel damage on a home in Sirik, southern Iran, where a wedding celebration was taking place. Five people were killed and 68 were wounded. Iran retaliated shortly afterwards, with video shared by Iranian media said to show missiles being fired towards Jordan.A US Central Command spokesperson said the US was aware of reports of civilian casualties, but that the 'US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps]'
Woman from Reno was swimming near Hidden beach when river otter attacked her, Tahoe's second incident in a monthA swimmer at Lake Tahoe in Nevada was bitten by a river otter in an incident that left her needing to go to hospital and get 38 stitches for her wounds as well as rabies shots, local media have reported.Lynnette Bellin from Reno was swimming near Hidden beach on the Nevada side of the popular tourist attraction on Sunday when she was attacked by the creature. Continue reading...
US energy department warns of potential for outages in PJM Interconnection, serving 67 million from DC to ChicagoThe risk of power outages is expected to escalate across a broad swath of the United States on Wednesday as intense heat will test the capacity of electricity supplies serving millions of homes and businesses from the midwest through the mid-Atlantic.The USDepartment of Energy warned of the potential for heightened blackout risks in the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid, which serves 67 million people in a territory stretching from Washington DC to Chicago. Continue reading...
The US president's need to assert dominance is igniting patriotism abroad and a backlash at homeWhat do bullies do when someone stands up to their bullying and punches them in the face? They look for someone weaker to bully who won't punch back.Presumably that's why Donald Trump has now taken on Canada, after Iran punched back so hard in the cage match the US president began more than six months ago as to leave him humiliated and baffled. Continue reading...
by Diana Budds in New York City, with photographs by on (#783ZF)
Designers are rethinking one of New York City's most polluted sites with climate adaptation and community benefitsThe Guardian receives support for visual climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The Guardian's coverage is editorially independent Continue reading...
Leading Democrat accuses secretary of defense of causing lasting harm' to US forces. Plus, the curious case of the 5,500 missing sheepGood morning. The US has launched more airstrikes on Iranian targets, prompting counterstrikes by Tehran targeting American interests in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq. The six-month conflict had shifted into an economic standoff before this weekend's strikes, but recent promises by both sides to respond to further attacks have highlighted how quickly the conflict could spill back into military action.The Iranian Red Crescent said four people, including a child, were killed and more than 50 were injured when shrapnel from a US missile attack hit a home where a wedding celebration was taking place in the city of Kuhestak. The US central command spokesperson Capt Tim Hawkins said: The US military never targets civilians."Why are there concerns about US military leadership? A senior Democrat accused Pete Hegseth of having hollowed out" the army's senior ranks after its top civilian leader, Daniel Driscoll, resigned. Senator Jack Reed said: It is far past time for Trump to recognize the lasting harm Pete Hegseth is inflicting on the Department of Defense ... cultivating a culture where dissent is punished and competence is secondary to personal allegiance."How do officials appear to have profited from AI stocks? Emil Michael, a Pentagon official who is overseeing military artificial intelligence policy, reaped profits this year of up to $24m by selling his private investment in Elon Musk's AI company. He has now sold his holdings in another AI company for between $5m and $25m, according to records seen by the Guardian.What has a whistleblower identified as a risk to mail-in ballots? A new system to screen millions of mail-in ballots for the midterms was thrown together so hastily, and tested so little, that a single scanning glitch could mean entire batches of ballots are turned away, a whistleblower has told Congress. Continue reading...
Sean O'Brien, president of the 1.3-million strong union, was also the first to speak at the Republican national convention in 2o24The powerful Teamsters union is backing Republican candidates in the 2026 election cycle even after members have voted to support their Democrat opponents.The 1.3 million-strong union's president, Sean O'Brien, angered many members and union leaders in 2024 when he became the first union president to speak at the Republican national convention (RNC). Continue reading...
The president's call for the FCC to scrutinize Kristin Welker's innocuous remarks is a sign of desperationWith his approval ratings tanking, the crucial midterm elections looming, and his war with Iran turning into a quagmire, Donald Trump has entered full freak-out mode.It's not hard to tell. Just look at what happened this week when he lashed out at Kristen Welker, the well-respected host of NBC's Meet the Press, and one of the best-known journalists in the nation. Continue reading...
Enforcing civil rights without these reports will be difficult for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, pushing US agency closer to Trump's agenda, experts warnThe US civil rights agency mandated to protect equal rights for workers is set to stop collecting data on the demographic makeup of companies - which for the past six decades has been used to enforce anti-discrimination laws.The move marks a fundamental shift for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Without this data, it will be much harder for the agency to identify widespread cases of discrimination in hiring and promotions, experts and former employees of the commission say. And, they warn, it will bring the Trump administration one step closer to reshaping the commission from an independent watchdog into an arm of the executive branch narrowly focused on advancing the political grievances of Donald Trump's base. Continue reading...
The far-right provocateur helped galvanize a movement that no longer needs him. Now his imitators are claiming victoryIt's been a long, slow decline for Milo Yiannopoulos. From the vantage point of 2026, it's easy to forget that he was once a big deal.The British-born far-right provocateur, who was arrested by ICE in Louisiana and deported from the US this week, was among the first media figures to ride the gamergate" controversy and ensuing rightwing populist wave that brought Donald Trump to office in 2016. An editor of the then ascendant Breitbart News from 2014 to 2017, Yiannopoulous was an early adopter of the media strategy of algorithm-optimized outrage bait, trawling the internet and a consulting large network of well-placed sources in search of stories he could use to fan the flames of online culture war discourses. He would write a story mocking a feminist, or fire off a tweet saying something racist about Muslims, and the ensuing firestorm of controversy would result in online arguments, media coverage, and his own promptly and decisively rising star. Rinse, repeat. Continue reading...
Sum of $500,000 has been increased as death toll passes 1,000 but specialists decry Trump dismantling of USAIDAid experts have denounced the US's embarrassing" and pitiful" initial response to the Nepal flood disaster after the US state department announced it was releasing $500,000 in emergency funds to help the relief effort.The modest sum - which has since been increased - allocated in response to the devastation caused by mudslides in the mountainous Asian country was mocked on social media, where users contrasted it with the amount spent on other Trump administration priorities. Continue reading...
Ten years after he helped shape the quarterback's anthem protest, the former NFL player and Army veteran says he still sees it as an act of patriotismNate Boyer was stunned. The former NFL long snapper and United States Army Green Beret had big plans for his MVP (Merging Vets and Players) foundation, an organization that helps veterans and NFL players address the challenges that await once they take the uniform off for good. MVP was all set for a season-long college football activation tour thanks to a five-figure sponsorship from a well-known brand that happens to be one of the NFL's longstanding partners. Boyer and his team were prepping for their trip to Columbus for Ohio State's home opener. Everything was ready to go. Thousands in upfront costs had been spent. Then the company pulled out.They suddenly stopped replying to emails," Boyer says. Finally, on that Thursday, when I was at the airport en route, I called our point person, also a veteran, who begrudgingly told me what was going on." Continue reading...
LA added Myles Garrett and brought Aaron Donald out of retirement to create the NFL's most menacing defense. A Super Bowl trip still isn't a guaranteeLast Saturday night, NFL Network premiered the 2025 edition of America's Game, the annual NFL Films-produced documentary on the reigning Super Bowl champions, this time starring the Seattle Seahawks.Less than 24 hours later, the Los Angeles Rams announced that they had lured Aaron Donald out of retirement and signed him to a one-year, $20m contract that could reach $30m with incentives. Continue reading...
For his latest in a series of work photographing people with red hair, photographer Kieran Dodds interviewed and made portraits of hundreds of people with ginger hair, with widely varying backgrounds and heritage, across the US between 2024 and 2026. Dodds asked each interviewee the same question at the end of the interview: What unites the states? We hear some of the responses
Attacks on Iran's Revolutionary Guard and reprisals against US bases in Middle East quash hopes that flare-up last weekend was limited in natureThe US has launched new airstrikes on Iranian targets, prompting counter strikes by Tehran targeting American interests in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, fuelling concerns about a wider renewal of hostilities.US Marine Corps base Camp Titin in Jordan was targeted for an intense ballistic missile attack", Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said early on Wednesday, according to Iranian news outlet Tasnim. Continue reading...
Incumbent, 80, beats back challenge from Seth Moulton, who argued Markey was too old to be effective at his jobSenator Ed Markey won the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday, beating back a challenge from Seth Moulton, a congressman who tried to unseat him by arguing to voters his opponent was too old to be effective at his job.Massachusetts is heavily Democratic, making the senator favored to win a third full term in the November general election, where he faces the Republican nominee John Deaton. Continue reading...
In a major LGBTQ+ rights victory, the justice department cannot force the state to ban trans girls from women's sportsA federal judge has dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit challenging California's policy of allowing transgender youth to play on sports teams that match their gender, a major loss for Donald Trump and the Department of Justice (DoJ).The justice department had been fighting for a year to force California to ban trans girls from women's sports, with the president directly singling out one trans track and field athlete in online attacks and regularly mocking trans athletes in his speeches. Continue reading...
Acting secretary picked for top role as critics accuse president of overworking sailors during war with IranDonald Trump said Tuesday that he is nominating acting navy secretary Hung Cao for the permanent job, giving the navy combat veteran the nod as concerns have emerged that some sailors have been stretched to the limit during the Iran war.Cao has been serving as acting navy secretary since John Phelan departed the job unexpectedly and without explanation in late April. Continue reading...
Government talks up pact but Venezuelan opposition alarmed that democracy yet to return after Maduro exitTrump administration officials on Tuesday defended a highly contentious deal giving the US control of a significant chunk of Venezuelan oil reserves, arguing that the sweeping agreement would help stabilize and rebuild democracy in the shattered South American country while giving Washington vital access to strategic crude reserves.Last week, Donald Trump announced a groundbreaking" deal that would give the US majority" control over 65bn barrels - roughly one-fifth - of Venezuela's oil reserves. Continue reading...
Fery could not repeat his Wimbledon odyssey as he lost in the first round to Musetti, while Fritz, Rybakina and Andreeva advanced in straight sets and Cobolli fought back to win in fiveNothing's going Cobolli's way at the moment, as he thwacks his own leg with his racket while trying to hit the ball, as he's taken to deuce once more on his serve. He recovers to get to his advantage, but then balloons another errant forehand well long, before finally getting on the board to reduce his deficit to 3-1.It was also a day when Stan Wawrinka played his final grand slam match, Carlos Alcaraz made his return from injury and Aryna Sabalenka, after a shaky summer, started her title defence with a comfortable victory. Continue reading...
Sudden departure of Daniel Driscoll comes after Pentagon chief removed senior officers and blocked promotions, prompting warnings of a leadership crisisA senior Senate Democrat accused Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth of having hollowed out" the army's senior ranks after its top civilian leader resigned after months of internal clashes with Hegseth.No official reason was given for army secretary Daniel Driscoll's departure after 18 months on the job, while thousands of US soldiers are deployed in the Middle East. In a statement on Monday night, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Driscoll had been highly effective in advancing President Trump's agenda", citing his work on readiness and lethality" and his role in Russia-Ukraine negotiations. Continue reading...
Harold Lucas, sentenced to death over 1976 murder, killed by lethal injection as state continues execution rushA Florida man convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was executed Tuesday evening.Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6.18pm following a three-drug injection starting at 6pm at Florida state prison near Starke, authorities said. Continue reading...
Proposal offers look at how state department could enforce Trump order targeting what it calls birth tourism'The US state department has proposed requiring parents applying for passports for their children to provide proof of their own citizenship or immigration status as part of Donald Trump's latest effort to limit birthright citizenship.The draft guidance, reviewed by Reuters, is the first detailed look at how the state department could enforce Trump's 6 August executive order targeting what it calls birth tourism" and broadening historical exceptions to birthright citizenship. Continue reading...
Erin Piacenti, a 32-year-old vice-president at the bank, was killed in Tuesday stabbing in New York City, officials sayA corporate vice-president at Bank of America was killed in a stabbing in New York City's Times Square, the second-biggest US lending bank said on Tuesday about a random incident that took place in broad daylight in the bustling heart of Manhattan.The incident had brought the streets of the crowded area to a halt on Monday as emergency vehicles swarmed between the skyscrapers. Continue reading...
British far-right pundit breaks silence on ICE arrest and deportation and says he was really, really terrified'Milo Yiannopoulos, the British far-right commentator who was arrested last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Louisiana and deported to the United Kingdom, has broken his silence about the experience, saying that for the first time I know what it feels like to be really, really terrified".Yiannopoulos on Tuesday appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored, a YouTube show presented by Piers Morgan, the British broadcaster and media personality. Yiannopoulos, 41, described the experience in the US as humiliating and disorientating", physically degrading" and frightening". Continue reading...
Outgoing congressman Thomas Massie urges justice department to launch immediate investigationAn outgoing Republican congressman accused billionaire Leon Black and David Copperfield, the illusionist, of being co-conspirators of the accused late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and repeated a call for the Department of Justice to launch an immediate investigation into the men, among others.Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who recently lost his primary to a challenger backed by Donald Trump, named several friends and associates of Epstein on the floor of the House in his bid to shame" the Department of Justice to investigate a group of men and one woman who Massie called perpetrators" of Epstein's crimes. He also noted that, nearly one year after Trump signed the Epstein Transparency Act, which led to the release of millions of so-called Epstein files", millions more have yet to be publicly disclosed.Additional reporting by Anna Betts Continue reading...
Experts say more bears are wandering into human's homes and shops in search of food, due to drought-driven food shortages across the US west Continue reading...
ICE spokesperson says Loreto Javar failed to disclose criminal conviction in Philippines when he applied for visaA 76-year-old man holding permanent US residency and grappling with stage four prostate cancer is reportedly being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Tacoma, Washington.Federal immigration officials detained Loreto Javar during his US citizenship interview in Tukwila, Washington, in June. Javar, a Filipino national, moved to the US in 1995 and has lived in the country with his wife and daughter ever since. Continue reading...
PEN America study details verbal and physical threats to librarians, funding cuts and proliferation of book bansPublic libraries in the US are at breaking point" because of an onslaught of political interference, harassment and ideological censorship, a new report published on Tuesday said.Book bans, cancelled story hours, attacks on librarians, funding cuts and the undoing of libraries' independent governance are examined by the free expression advocacy group PEN America in its study called Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries. Continue reading...
Girls Gone Bible is on tour in the US, touting a regressive ideal of femininity through discussions of abstinence and mental health strugglesAt first glance, the crowd gathering outside a music venue in Red Bank, New Jersey, could have passed for a group of sorority rush hopefuls - or Ella Langley fans on their way to the country star's show. Most of them were under the age of 30. They wore cowboy boots, maxi sundresses and soft, bouncy blowouts, scrolling on their phones outside the doors as they waited for friends to arrive.But one accessory gave them away: the Bibles they toted. These women were there to pray. Continue reading...
Questions over Trump's ballroom and other structures might not feel urgent. But when his reign ends, Trumpism must be repudiatedOn Monday, a majority on the supreme court found a technical way to overrule a lower court's imperative to stop work, while not taking a stance on whether the whole enterprise might be illegal to begin with. Preservationists, the majority held, appear to lack legal grounds for filing a suit blocking Trump's ballroom; that means construction will proceed, even if none other than John Roberts, in a dissent, held that those responsible" were breaking the rules in deciding what to build up at the People's House". The solicitor general John Sauer is on record claiming that 65% of the project is completed (of course, he might have exaggerated - such things are known to have happened in Trump administrations). Either way, it is thus likely that there will be a massive structure next to the original White House; and, given that the ruling will embolden the president dramatically to change Washington DC's landscape by spending money never approved by Congress, we might be cursed with a triumphal arch as well. All of which raises the question: what to do with a monstrous architectural legacy in post-Trump America?Some might dismiss the question as a bit of a luxury problem. After all, a war that also demonstrates the ongoing disempowerment of Congress keeps dragging on; ICE continues its cruel day-to-day work; Trump is trying every tactic to make the midterms go his way. But the built environment, and especially the civic landscape of a capital, is never just an afterthought. Buildings and monuments make values visible, as the philosopher Susan Neiman once put it. And the decision to leave Trump's structures in place as if his reign had just been another normal era in US history is not neutral - just like leaving Confederate monuments in place is not neutral.Jan-Werner Muller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University Continue reading...
The president is lashing out at an NBC host. As the agency's former chair, I can only hope it stands up for free speechWill the FCC chairperson again abuse his authority over broadcast licenses to put a Band-Aid on Donald Trump's thin skin?Since the opening days of the Trump presidency, Brendan Carr has acted as the president's attack dog to coerce broadcasters to say things that please his client. Only days after taking office in January 2025, Carr revived a previously dismissed complaint against CBS for the editing of 60 Minutes that tracked candidate Trump's specious lawsuit on the matter. At the time, the FCC was considering the transfer of CBS licenses to Skydance, a decision that did not come until after CBS agreed to pay $16m to settle with Trump. In September, after Jimmy Kimmel's remarks about Charlie Kirk, Carr urged broadcasters to take action, saying we can do this the easy way or the hard way" - an attack even the senator Ted Cruz said sounded right out of Goodfellas". In March 2026, he threatened broadcasters over their coverage of the Iran war after the president complained on Truth Social. In April, he ordered Disney's eight ABC-owned television stations to submit their licenses for premature review, even though most aren't even halfway through their license term (Disney, ABC and the stations are suing).Tom Wheeler was chairperson of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013 to 2017 Continue reading...
Jury took about three hours to reach verdict in case that relied heavily on confessions from the defendant. Plus, the woman who lived with and loved Freddie Mercury as her fianceGood morning. A Las Vegas jury has found the former South Side Compton Crips gang leader Duane Keith Davis guilty of the murder of Tupac Shakur, bringing the case to a close nearly 30 years after the rapper was gunned down. The jury took about three hours to reach a guilty verdict in a case that relied heavily on multiple confessions from Davis himself.The 63-year-old, who was accused of instigating the deadly shooting but not pulling the trigger himself, had spent years telling investigators and interviewers alike of his direct involvement before he was arrested in 2023.Who was Tupac Shakur? Shakur was born in 1971 in East Harlem, New York, and rose to fame in the early 90s with lyrics that doubled as a sharp commentary on social injustice including systemic racism and police brutality. He was 25 when he died, is regarded among the greatest rappers to ever live, and continues to be celebrated around the world years after his life was cut short.How have his family reacted to the trial? We've been waiting 30 years to grieve properly," Zayd Akinyela, Shakur's cousin, told reporters outside the courtroom when the trial was under way. A lot of people don't get to grieve until they understand what happened to their loved one and how it happened."Why have authorities been so heavily criticised over the case? Las Vegas police faced criticism that they had bungled the investigation and failed to pursue crucial leads, including from a member of Shakur's entourage who claimed he could identify the shooters. That witness died weeks later in a separate shooting. Continue reading...
Mike Rogers isn't merely campaigning alongside a controversial supporter. His campaign put an extremist on its faith leadership teamHasan Piker.Turn on cable news. Pick up a newspaper. Log on to Twitter. It doesn't seem to matter where you get your political news: for the past month, the leftist Twitch streamer has become one of the dominant subjects of coverage, conversation and controversy surrounding the crucial Michigan Senate race between the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and the Republican Mike Rogers. Continue reading...
Inquiry come after conservative thinktanks claim unions are using member dues to support Democratic causesHouse Republicans are investigating several US labor unions based on claims from far-right nonprofits alleging union dues are being used for illegal political funding.Republicans on the House's education and workforce committee opened the investigation this summer after multiple reports from the conservative thinktanks targeted unions and their spending, claiming that unions are using member dues to support Democratic causes. Continue reading...
Age on the agenda in Massachusetts but octogenarian leftwinger leads younger rival Seth Moulton in primary pollDemocrats have spent the summer ousting long-serving incumbents in primaries across the country. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters will decide whether that generational revolt extends to the 80-year-old Ed Markey, whose younger Democratic rival has argued that the incumbent is simply too old to serve another term.But the Senate primary in this heavily Democratic state flips a central dynamic of previous contests, where youthful progressive insurgents have targeted - and in several cases, toppled - older incumbents they derided as avatars of an outmoded cautious establishment. Continue reading...
The deluge capped a summer of extreme climate events, from deadly heatwaves to wildfires. We must take action nowFor millennia, the high peaks of the Himalayas were held together by an invisible, frozen cement - permafrost and glacial ice that bound ancient rock into seemingly unshakable fortresses. But as the planet continues to warm, this alpine glue is liquefying.The glacial collapse and deluge in Nepal and Tibet was not a freak weather event; it was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature's latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming. And it was the exclamation point on a summer of extremes, illustrating with a sole unnatural disaster the apocalyptic future that lies in store if we fail to take dramatic climate action. Continue reading...
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