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Collins is expected to face tough re-election battle as Democrats seek to flip seat in this year's midterm elections

Former police chief Michael Reiter claims Trump also said thank goodness you're stopping' Epstein in 2006 phone callDonald Trump slammed Jeffrey Epstein about two decades ago, claiming everyone has known he's been doing this", a former Palm Beach police chief claimed.Michael Reiter's account of a conversation with Trump, contained within the justice department's release of 3m Epstein files, dramatically contrasts with the US president's public statements. After Epstein's arrest in July 2019, Trump said I had no idea" when asked if he knew about his former friend's abuse of teenage girls. Continue reading...

From Pennsylvania to Montana, the White House's war on woke' has targeted US monuments that address topics like racism and Indigenous historyBlank spaces now exist where a series of panels about enslavement once appeared on the walls of the President's House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The site, which honors the home of George Washington and John Adams, is a major landmark that bore artwork and informational signs for more than a decade. But on 22 January, National Park Service (NPS) workers used hand tools to pry off 34 panels to comply with a presidential executive order designed to reframe the national narrative. The panels that highlighted the lives of people enslaved by George Washington when Philadelphia was the US capital in the 1790s are now in storage.The removal is one of several across the nation, as NPS staff aim to conform with Trump's executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" issued on 27 March 2025. Public markers, monuments and statues that the Trump administration considers disparaging to past or current Americans have been flagged at more than a dozen parks. Two exhibits at Montana's Little Bighorn battlefield national monument that discuss Indigenous history and the Battle of the Little Bighorn have been targeted and deemed noncompliant. Additionally, signage about climate change at Muir Woods national monument in California and visitor brochures at Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home national monument in Mississippi that referred to Medgar Evers's killer as racist were also removed. Continue reading...

The Puerto Rican star's vision of American identity moved beyond colonial tropes to span an entire hemisphereBy now, many of us have a favorite part of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl half-time performance. It's a dense, rich set that invites rewatching to take in every thoughtful, exuberant detail - even though it's barely 14 minutes long.My most beloved part occurs a little more than nine minutes into the homage, when the cuatro puertorriqueno appears. The stringed instrument has its own moment in the spotlight, shown in the talented hands of the cuatrista Jose Eduardo Santana just before Ricky Martin performs. Continue reading...

I glimpsed the monks on their 2,300-mile pilgrimage across America - their message of loving-kindness had me in tearsI'm obsessed with the monks," my friend Sam told me. It's the only thing getting me through the violence of this second Trump administration. The monks, and my meds."I nodded. I'd first heard about the monks walking for peace after my brother and sister-in-law traveled to hear them in Alabama, returning with stories of stillness and a grounded sense of hope. Continue reading...

Trump administration seeks to remove illegal aliens' but Uline's past employment practices reveal a different realityWhen JD Vance delivered a speech about the US economy late last year at a Uline facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he talked up the Trump administration's key goals: removing illegal aliens" from the country, rewarding companies that keep jobs in the US, and paying Americans good wages.We're going to reward companies that build here in America and give good wages to do it," Vance said. Continue reading...

The California governor has a record of failed pledges on housing, healthcare and more as he mistakes theatrics for leadershipGavin Newsom has stumbled upon the perfect slogan for his likely upcoming presidential campaign: Strong and Wrong." In a recent interview, California's governor said Americans prefer crude politicians like Donald Trump over leaders who cling to niceties and norms.Given the choice ... the American people always support strong and wrong versus weak and right," he said.Gil Duran is a California journalist and author of the forthcoming book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War On Democracy. He was an adviser to several Democratic politicians Continue reading...

Local police assisted federal immigration agents by repeatedly searching school cameras that record license plate numbers, data showPolice departments across the US are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist Donald Trump's mass immigration enforcement campaign, an investigation by the 74 reveals.Hundreds of thousands of audit logs spanning a month show police are searching a national database of automated license plate reader data, including from school cameras, for immigration-related investigations. Continue reading...

Moltbook, a social media site for AI agents, is nothing new. Still, the marriage of big tech and politics demands we take a standOn a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, I was shocked by the billboards that lined the freeway outside of the airport. The singularity is here," proclaimed one. Humanity had a good run," said another. It seemed like every other sign along the road was plastered with claims from tech firms making outrageous claims about artificial intelligence. The ads, of course, were rife with hype and ragebait. But the claims they contain aren't occurring in a vacuum. The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, recently said: We basically have built AGI, or very close to it," before confusingly qualifying his statement as spiritual". Elon Musk has gone even further, claiming: We have entered the singularity."Enter Moltbook, the social media site built for AI agents. A place where bots can talk to other bots, in other words. A spate of doom-laden news articles and op-eds followed its launch. The authors fretted about the fact that the bots were talking about religion, claiming to have secretly spent their human builders' money, and even plotting the overthrow of humanity. Many pieces contained suggestions eerily like those on the billboards in San Francisco: that machines are now not only as smart as humans (a theory known as artificial general intelligence) but that they are moving beyond us (a sci-fi concept known as the singularity).Samuel Woolley is the author of Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity and co-author of Bots. He is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Continue reading...

Jamie Raskin, House judiciary ranking member, says mysterious redactions' obscure abusers' names. Plus, RFK Jr accused of misleading Senate

The Seahawks' Legion of Boom terrorized opponents in the 2010s. Now a new unit has taken up the mantle - and delivered another titleSuper Bowl LX was a two-score game with less than five minutes remaining. New England had the ball on the Seahawks' 44-yard line and - after reaching the end zone in the fourth quarter, finally - that familiar sense of possibility. But that quickly vaporized when Devon Witherspoon knifed in on a corner blitz and jarred the ball loose from the Patriots quarterback, Drake Maye, mid-throw. Uchenna Nwosu snatched it in stride and rumbled 45 yards to the end zone, sealing Seattle's 2913 victory.That the league's top defense was able to punctuate this moment, more than a decade in the making, with an interception as the Super Bowl XLIX hero Malcolm Butler looked on made the Seahawks' revenge all the sweeter. They lived up to the Dark Side today," the Seattle head coach, Mike Macdonald, said of his defense. It's going to go down in the history books." Continue reading...

Small businesses across the Twin Cities are suffering and owners say Metro Surge' could be worse than Covid-19A man walked into Soleil Ramirez's restaurant last month and started to ask strange questions: How many people do you have on staff? Why are you so small? Stuff nobody asks," she said.The man then started talking loudly into his phone. I'm here doing a dip in a restaurant. There's not a lot of people here, so I don't know if it's worth coming," Ramirez recalled him saying. The encounter left her unnerved. Continue reading...

Some athletes at the Milano Cortina Games speaking out on the complications of representing the US abroad are facing hostility from homeSome US athletes at the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina are speaking more openly than at any point since Donald Trump returned to the White House, describing a complicated mix of pride and discomfort about representing the country while political tensions at home and abroad spill into the Games.The comments - and the fierce reaction they have triggered from political figures, online influencers and the president himself - have exposed a widening gap between how some athletes view their Olympic role and how parts of the political establishment believe they should use it. Continue reading...

Travel company reports lower demand for US amid signs Trump immigration crackdown is deterring travellers

Maxwell invoked the fifth amendment of the US constitution, granting her right to remain silent, as she appeared at a US congressional hearing on Monday. After the hearing, the House representative for New Mexico Melanie Stansbury said the Epstein associate was 'campaigning for clemency' after her attorney, David Markus, said Maxwell was 'prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency'. The US Department of Justice released millions of internal documents related to Epstein last month

Netherlands-based site uses public information and tips to reveal identities of agents involved in crackdowns across USIt started as a cheeky response on social media to the US secretary for homeland security. Months later, however, a Europe-based project to unmask US immigration and custom enforcement (ICE) agents has racked up millions of views and mobilised hundreds of volunteers.What we're doing is a reaction to a problematic regime," said Dominick Skinner, the Netherlands-based Irish national behind the website ICE List, of its mission to remove the anonymity that many of the armed federal agents operate under while deployed to US cities. Continue reading...

Other countries benefit from the Trump brain drain as administration wages war on academia and researchWali Malik no longer has to worry that a rightwing bureaucrat - or influencer - will decide his research is woke".He doesn't have to fear government retaliation for speaking his mind or following the science wherever it may lead. And like others who have left a polarized United States for the calmer pastures of Austria, he need not fear his lab being decimated because the president decided he wants to deport the people who work there. Continue reading...

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Judge rules that law discriminates against federal government because it does not apply to state authoritiesA federal judge on Monday blocked a California law from going into effect that would ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces, but they will still be required to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number.California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings under a bill that was signed by Gavin Newsom, the governor, in September, following last summer's high-profile raids by ICE officers in Los Angeles. Continue reading...

Investigation in apparent abduction enters second week as deadline for purported ransom note demanding $6m loomsTelevision host Savannah Guthrie issued a desperate plea for anyone who might know anything about her missing mother to contact law enforcement on Monday, as the search for Nancy Guthrie entered its ninth day.We need your help," said Savannah Guthrie, eight days after her mother was first reported missing. Investigators returned to search Nancy Guthrie's Arizona home this weekend. They appear no closer to finding her, or identifying an alleged abductor. Continue reading...

President says Gordie Howe Bridge will open only when US is fully compensated' - and makes bizarre hockey claimAs Democrats prepare to force a vote in the US House this week on Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, the president posted a lengthy diatribe on his social media platform in which he threatened to block a bridge connecting the US and Canada and made a bizarre false claim that increased trade between Canada and China would include a ban on Canadians playing ice hockey.Trump began his latest screed against the US's second-largest trading partner by claiming that everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades". Continue reading...

Report prepared by Munich Security Conference warns of suicide of a superpower' under Trump - key US politics stories from Monday 9 February at a glanceEurope has come to the painful realisation that it needs to be more assertive and more militarily independent from an authoritarian US administration that no longer shares a commitment to liberal democratic norms and values, a report prepared by the Munich Security Conference asserts.Polling commissioned for the report shows Europeans are increasingly willing to operate without US leadership and say it is no longer necessary. Continue reading...

Officials say rescuers searching for lone survivor after latest attack on what Pentagon says are suspected drug smugglersThe US military's Southern Command, which oversee operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced that it carried out another deadly strike on Monday, killing two suspected drug smugglers in the eastern Pacific.The statement said that the latest in what legal experts have called a series of extrajudicial killings by the Pentagon was carried out at the direction of" the Florida-based combat unit's new commander, Gen Francis L Donovan, who was sworn in at a Pentagon ceremony last Thursday. Donovan takes over after a US navy admiral, Alvin Holsey, chose to retire over reported disagreements over the boat-strike policy. Continue reading...

Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested as part of the government's targeting of students protesting against Israel's war on GazaAn immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration's efforts to deport Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student, who was arrested last year as part of its targeting of pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said on Monday.Lawyers for the Turkish student detailed the immigration judge's decision in a filing with the New York-based second US circuit court of appeals, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May. Continue reading...

Ranking member of House judiciary panel said mysterious redactions' in files obscured names of abusersA top House Democrat on Monday accused the justice department of making mysterious redactions" to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while also allowing the identities of the disgraced financier's victims to become public.Jamie Raskin, House judiciary ranking member, criticized the department after reviewing the unredacted Epstein files at a government facility in Washington DC on the first day they were made available to lawmakers. Continue reading...

Democratic representative says Epstein associate's decision to invoke fifth amendment points to White House cover-up'Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions during a closed-door congressional deposition on Monday, prompting criticism from a House representative backing efforts to release Jeffrey Epstein investigative files.Robert Garcia, ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, said in a statement that Maxwell invoked the fifth amendment and refused to testify during her scheduled deposition. Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, also said that she invoked her fifth amendment right. Continue reading...

Former Trump adviser convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before House January 6 committeeDonald Trump's Department of Justice moved to dismiss a criminal case against his former aide Steve Bannon, connected to his refusal to testify before Congress relating to the investigation into the January 6 insurrection.The controversial hard-right strategist, an ally of Trump, was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to appear for a deposition before the House committee that investigated the 2021 attack on the Capitol and declining to produce documents requested by the committee. Continue reading...

Today show host Savannah Guthrie posted a new video message on social media on Monday, saying she believes her missing mother Nancy Guthrie is 'still out there', and asked the public to report anything 'strange' to law enforcement. The 84-year-old has been missing for more than a week

There were gold medals for the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Japan but Team GB were denied againWhich of these events is most terrifying? This a question that reminds me of when a teacher asked five-year-old me which hand I wanted to be caned on, and I kept saying neither - yes, a real man would've said either or both - except the other way around, the answer being all of them. But for the less lily-livered, there must be an answer.The slalom section of this competition is tomorrow, which is to say the downhillers go today, then the times of the two team members are added together, with the quickest taking gold. Germany now lead, having gone faster than Switzerland. Continue reading...

Owner of Villa's Tacos said the rapper loved their restaurant and asked the business to join his Super Bowl performanceA beloved Los Angeles taqueria made its primetime debut during Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX half-time show, delighting and surprising its legion of faithful patrons.Bad Bunny's 13-minute performance was a love letter to the culture, history and legacy of Puerto Rico, with sets depicting sugarcane fields, a house party and even a wedding ceremony, complete with Lady Gaga performing a salsa rendition of her hit Die With a Smile." Continue reading...

Newly revealed emails undermine Kennedy's testimony about 2019 Samoa trip ahead of deadly measles outbreakThree members of Congress say the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during his Senate confirmation hearings in response to newly revealed emails that undermine his testimony that a trip he took to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had nothing to do with vaccines".The governor of Hawaii, a medical doctor who responded to the crisis, also spoke out - saying that the disclosure of the emails by the Guardian and the Associated Press show Kennedy misled the Senate and that he should step down. Continue reading...

City faced one of longest periods of subzero cold since 1961, forcing code blue' and extreme weather warnings

Seamus Culleton has lived in US for two decades, married a citizen and runs a plastering business but faces deportation

A diminutive young buck aspires to compete with rhinos and horses in roarball', but this by-numbers tale is not the greatest of any timeGreatest of all time? No. Possibly not even the greatest of half-term. This loud, chaotic and unlovable animated kids' comedy feels as though it is bordering on AI slop, algorithmically generated and instantly familiar from Zootropolis, Sing and other movies with talking animals. It is a shame, because it has a real-life inspiration: basketball star Stephen Curry, who was repeatedly told at the start of his career that he was too skinny and too small to make it as a pro. Curry is a producer here, and has a performing role. But in spite of this connection, Goat lacks heart and soul, and a sense of genuine emotions.What it does have is some pretty decent voice acing, bringing a degree of charm to the movie. Will Harris (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) is a goat who has grown up dreaming of playing professional roarball", a fiercer and faster version of basketball. But Will is a small" and roar players are all bigs" - powerful beasts such as rhinos and horses. Will's hero and the star of his favourite team, the Thorns, is a panther called Jet (Gabrielle Union), a champ close to retirement but determined to win the league. When Will gets a shot at joining the Thorns, he is laughed at, underrated but undeterred. Continue reading...

Congressman Thomas Massie says commerce secretary has a lot to answer for' over ties to late convicted sex offenderUS House member Thomas Massie has called for the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick - a fellow Republican - to resign over his ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Massie, who co-authored a law mandating the release of the so-called Epstein files, appeared Sunday on CNN's Inside Politics and said Lutnick, a staunch Donald Trump ally, has a lot to answer for". Continue reading...

Successful reruns are rare in the NFL. And New England showed enough holes on Sunday to suggest making it back to the big dance soon will be toughThe greatest lie a fanbase tells itself is that there is always next year.It is the softest landing spot in sport, a comfort blanket after a crushing defeat. Next year, we'll be healthier. Next year, we'll fix our offensive line. Next year, we'll add that superstar receiver and retain all our guys. Next year. Continue reading...

Thousands walk out after talks with district failed to reach agreement on wages, healthcare and resources for special needs studentsThousands of public schoolteachers in San Francisco went on strike on Monday, the first public schoolteachers strike in the city in nearly 50 years.The strike comes after teachers and the district failed to reach an agreement over higher wages, health benefits and more resources for special needs students. The San Francisco Unified School District closed all its 120 schools and said it would offer independent study to some of the district's 50,000 students. Continue reading...

Thousands of students across the US have been walking out of their schools to protest ICE in their communitiesOver the past six months, thousands of students have been walking out of their schools in protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) presence in their communities. Some of their schools supported the protests; some didn't, threatening disciplinary action. Other schools stayed neutral out of fear of inviting unwanted attention to vulnerable immigrant students.The Guardian spoke to seven teenagers who led or participated in school walkouts. Many said their organizing went beyond leaving class, extending to checking social media for suspected ICE sightings, distributing know your rights" materials and making political posters. All were resolute about the need to protest against ICE regardless of any risk - and whether or not they got support from the grownups around them. Continue reading...

The NFL appeared keen to welcome the sport's non-Maga contingent back into the tent. But the theater and violence of capitalism was still thereRoger Federer smiling wolfishly to the crowd: a return to woke? Adam Sandler hangdog in the Levi's Stadium stands, Jon Bon Jovi mooching on the sideline like a retired dentist on a cruise, Billie Joe Armstrong belting out American Idiot during the pre-game show under his motionless meringue of fogey-blond hair: were they a sign? A New England Patriots team who were neither favored to win nor widely reviled, then promptly repaid a grateful public by losing: was this the Super Bowl which proved that history really can move on, that America is not fated to remain hostage to the tremors and hatreds of the past? Well, yes and no.A year after Donald Trump made American football's showpiece all about him, Sunday's game in Santa Clara always promised a sort of correction - a cooling of the mood, perhaps even an end to the manipulation of sport for political ends. As always the best way to gauge the success of this mission was as the gods intended: through a TV screen. Trump - saddled with historically low approval ratings, facing a massacre in this year's midterms, and no doubt wary of risking a public appearance in the deep blue sea of the Bay Area - was absent on this occasion, and he kept the F-22 fighter jets that were scheduled to be part of the pre-game flyover away from Levi's Stadium too. (Unspecified operational assignments" were the reason offered for the jets' withdrawal, which means there's probably a low-ranking member of the Trump administration putting big money on a US military strike somewhere in Latin America as we speak.) And yet, the absent autocrat still weighed on proceedings, his curdling influence turning every moment and gesture on Sunday into a referendum on the prospects for a post-Trumpian sporting future. Could football be normal again? Continue reading...

Protesters have been blowing whistles to alert people to agents' presence - and that has upset figures on the rightWhen Justin Vernon of Bon Iver appeared on the red carpet at the Grammy awards he was wearing an accessory that has become a must-carry for activists in neighborhoods targeted by ICE: a whistle.The whistle has become a key part in the defense against Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown, used to alert people to the presence of agents. But it has also become a target for the right, who have branded whistles hearing-loss-causing machines" and said the act of blowing a whistle may constitute assault". Continue reading...

The surge of federal immigration agents has forced many families to remain inside for weeks, living in fear of roving ICE patrols snatching people off the streetJose hasn't left his house in Saint Paul for 29 days - not to shovel the snow at his driveway, not to fix up the car.When the car needed an oil change, he video-called his wife, Sara, from inside so he could walk her through it. I've only been from the bedroom to the living room," he said. He's afraid to even get near the front door. Continue reading...

Case continues against those who protested Joswar Torres' arrest, with prosecutors seeking six years' imprisonmentA Venezuelan migrant whose detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sparked a protest that involved nearly 2,000 people and led to 30 arrests is free after spending seven months in custody in Washington state, after a ruling from a federal judge who said his constitutional rights had been violated.Joswar Torres, 29, was granted humanitarian parole in the United States and had an asylum application pending, but was nevertheless detained in June 2025 after a routine check-in at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office in Spokane, Washington. Continue reading...