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A fresh US assault is aimed at Europe's right to regulate tech. It's an outrage - and we must resist it

This year, I've lost my father, my job and what feels like my country. But my mother and I are finding genuine connectionSince my father's funeral six months ago, I still call my mother almost every day. We live worlds apart, geographically and ideologically, but despite me being in Europe and she in the US, and despite our religious and political differences, we still manage to keep talking. After all, she's my mom.This year has not been easy, having lost my job, my father and what continues to feel like my country. I worked for USAID and believed in America's capacity to help solve global problems while helping others in need, but the current administration ended such work, calling it wasteful. Two days after that, my father passed away, and as our family gathered to mourn, we received news that my mother's cancer had returned and spread to her bones. Such news was devastating, but doctors offered hope. Though there was no cure, there was a pill available to stem the spread, sometimes even for many years. Continue reading...

Susan Monarez's ousting and four top resignations follow vaccine confusion, leaving US health agencies in turmoilIt's been a tumultuous week for US health agencies, with the departure of several top officials, uncertainty around new Covid vaccine restrictions, and even more experts calling for the removal of top health official Robert F Kennedy Jr.The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, was fired by the Trump White House after some controversy, and four other top officials also resigned. Continue reading...

Subway rumble, rowdy crowds, celebrity cameos - and now pot smoke. Tennis's loudest major is rubbing up against New York's shifting culture around marijuanaThe US Open has always been the unruliest of tennis's four grand slam tournaments, a place where the soundtrack is as much screeching trains, the roar of air traffic overhead and well-lubricated crowds as it is the thwack of racket on ball. Frances Tiafoe likes to call it organized chaos", the sort of life-affirming atmosphere that he says teases out his best performances. For some, it's no stage at all but a blur of bass-heavy changeovers, revolving-door celebrity cameos and the ceaseless rattle of the nearby No 7 subway.In recent years, though, one distraction has cut through even the normalized bedlam that gives the tournament its character. Alongside the honey deuce cocktails and free-flowing Heineken, a different vice has threaded itself into the fortnight: the pungent and unmistakable odor of marijuana. It drifts across the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with enough frequency that players have begun treating it as not a bug but a feature of the event itself. Continue reading...

Four senior officials resign in protest at health secretary's handling of vaccine policy and agency's direction

Move to provide Ashli Babbitt with funeral honors marks another step in Trump's aggressive reframing of the attackThe US air force will provide military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the rioter fatally shot during the January 6 Capitol attack, marking another step in Donald Trump's aggressive rehabilitation of the attack.The under secretary of the air force, Matthew Lohmeier, confirmed the decision in an August letter to Babbitt's family. The Biden administration previously denied Babbitt the honors, but Lohmeier said he was persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect" after reviewing new information about her death. Continue reading...

A frat house rivalry escalated into a home invasion, a severe beating and nearly a dozen arrests - including that of Loyola University New Orleans' future star alum, who was said to be outside the invaded house. Llamas was never formally charged - while those close to the victims say there were no meaningful consequencesOn an episode of Kelly Clarkson's talkshow in June, Loyola University New Orleans received the kind of publicity many schools dream of.Clarkson's guest was Tom Llamas, newly minted anchor of the NBC Nightly News and a 2001 Loyola alumnus. And Llamas nodded when it was posed to him that he had gone to one of the best communications schools in the country". Continue reading...

The shooter fired through church windows during a service. Plus, Gavin Newsom warns that Trump is serious about pursuing a third term

Trump administration pushing controversial deal to send people to non-home countries including South Sudan and EswatiniSeven people have arrived in Rwanda as part of a deal to accept deportees from the US, the Rwandan government has said.The Trump administration has been negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries including South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, as part of its wider deportation drive. Continue reading...

Gavin Newsom's counterpunching against Trump serves as a master class in flipping the script - and boosting his own profileJust when you thought Donald Trump was parody-proof, Gavin Newsom comes along to prove you wrong.Unhinged all-caps tweets with nonsensical punctuation? Insulting nicknames for political enemies? Self-promotional merchandise for sale?Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

The Rams linebacker spent the early part of his life in Zimbabwe. But he has kept his childhood memories alive as his football career has grownFor Nate Landman, surprise has become routine. The Los Angeles Rams linebacker has lost count of the raised eyebrows, smirks, and awkward pauses when people learn where his story begins.They don't believe me at first," Landman said. I'll show them I'm covered in African tattoos, and some will say I'm still lying until they look it up or someone will vouch for me." Continue reading...

Packed vigils listen to leaders call for need to put children before guns after deadly attackThe line wrapped around the brick building, people flowing into a high school gym already nearly full of a community in mourning.The vigil at Academy of Holy Angels, 2 miles from the site where two schoolchildren were killed by a gunman during morning mass at Annunciation church, drew people of all faiths from around the Minneapolis metro area. Continue reading...

Photographer Ray Giubilo's half terrifying, half sublime one-in-a-million image of Jasmine Paolini had more than an element of fortune to itOf the scores of photographers from across the globe snapping thousands upon thousands of photos at this year's US Open, one image has stood out above all the others so far at the tennis grand slam in New York.A slight imbalance from seventh-seed Jasmine Paolini and a relentlessly steady hand allowed photographer Ray Giubilo to nail a one-in-a-million shot at Flushing Meadows this week. Continue reading...

In an interview hosted by Politico, the California governor said the US must wake up' to the the threat posed by the president's disregard of democratic normsDonald Trump is gravely serious about running for a third term in violation of the US constitution, California governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday, warning Americans to wake up" to what he described as the president's flagrant disregard for democratic norms.I don't think Donald Trump wants another election," Newsom, a Democrat, said during a live interview at a summit hosted by Politico in Sacramento. This guy doesn't believe in free, fair elections." Continue reading...

Two children were killed in aMinneapolis school shooting thatMinnesota governorTim Walz said was 'unthinkable but that's all too common, not just inMinnesotabut across this country'.Seventeen other people were injured - 14 of them children - but were expected to survive, police said.The attack at a Catholic school occurred duringa mass on Wednesday marking the first week of classes.Walz said:'We'll redouble ourselves to do the best we can to understand what we can do to prevent any parent from having to receive the calls they received today'

US defense officials first said there was not a meeting' between the Australian defence minister and US counterpart but later clarified a meeting had in fact taken place

Lawyers for Monarez say she was targeted' for protecting the public' by not endorsing unscientific' ordersThe US's top public health agency was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to oust its leader Susan Monarez, sworn in less than a month ago, as her lawyers said she would not resign and that she was being targeted" for her pro-science stance.Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was ousted on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that offered no explanation its decision. Continue reading...

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Suspect also dead, police confirm, and 14 of those hurt are children in shooting during mass in south Minneapolis

Top US public health agency loses number of key officials as director ousted weeks into the job. Key US politics stories from Wednesday 27 August at a glanceThe leading US public health agency faced a number of top-level resignations on Wednesday after its director was ousted from her job, with one departing official reportedly saying he was leaving because of the ongoing weaponization of public health".US officials announced CDC director Susan Monarez had left her role just weeks after being sworn in. This was followed by the resignations of three senior CDC officials - Dr Debra Houry, the chief medical officer, Dr Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Dr Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Continue reading...

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James Gallagher put forth resolution to split state after Democratic bid to redraw in response to Texas gerrymanderRepublicans in California are proposing a two-state solution" for the Golden state, in a move that is unlikely to go anywhere, but is reflective of partisan divisions amid a nationwide battle over control of Congress.James Gallagher, the top Republican in the California assembly, on Wednesday unveiled a resolution that proposes to split the state vertically, carving the deep-blue coastal strip away from the more rural, red inland. Continue reading...

Cameron Norrie beat Francisco Comesana to set up a meeting with Novak Djokovic after Jack Draper withdrew and Emma Raducanu won in styleWell in Janie Tjen. She holds to avoid the bagel so, at 6-2 5-1,Raducanu will now serve for round three.Raducanu is serving like an absolute demon, another quick hold giving her 6-2 5-0. She's nearly there. Continue reading...

Tight-knit community rallies around church where assailant opened fire, killing two children and injuring 17

Two children killed and 17 people injured after shooter opens fire on Catholic church in Minnesota

Reported email by Florida official confirms state will shutter prison though governor Ron DeSantis has appealedFlorida's immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz" will probably be empty of detainees within days, a state official has said, indicating compliance with a judge's order last week that the facility must close.The Republican governor Ron DeSantis's administration appealed the order by federal court judge Kathleen Williams that the tented detention camp in the Florida Everglades, which attracted criticism for its harsh conditions, must be dismantled within 60 days. Continue reading...

The president's threat to deploy troops to Chicago is the latest example of a manipulation of the line between legal and illegalJanuary 6 demonstrated that longstanding democracies can readily resist a disorganized effort at a coup. They are less equipped to withstand the normalization of exceptional measures: the use of federal agents to quell domestic protest, the staging of police raids on the homes of leaders' political opponents, the pretextual invocations of emergency powers. Each of these steps may seem temporary and targeted; they may even enjoy a thin patina of legality. But over time, a democratic order turns into what Ernst Fraenkel, a German-Jewish lawyer whose book The Dual State stands as one of the first and most perceptive examinations of Hitler's regime, called a prerogative state" - a government in which the executive is released from all legal restraints and depends solely on the discretion of the persons wielding political power".So let us be clear: Trump's commandeering of control of the Washington DC police department was simply an opening salvo. While Americans were greeted with images of soldiers in combat gear, toting rifles and establishing roadblocks and checkpoints near the National Mall, Trump was already tasking his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, with creating specialized units" of the national guard to be specifically trained and equipped to deal with public order issues". Continue reading...

Catelin Drey beats extremist Christopher Prosch, flipping district so Democrats can block governor's appointmentsA Democratic candidate has defeated an extremist Republican in a state senate election in Iowa, claiming that voters are waking up" to realise Donald Trump's party sold the working class a bill of goods".Catelin Drey flipped Iowa state senate district 1, beating Christopher Prosch in a special election held on Tuesday to fill the seat of the late senator Rocky De Witt. Continue reading...

Organizers say it's likely they've retaliated against all public signers' of letter about capacity to respond to disastersTrump's Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has placed some agency staff on leave after their signing of a public letter of dissent this week.Among those facing potential retaliation are staff who were directly responsible for relief efforts in Kerr county, Texas, which is still reeling from the deadly floods it faced last month, according to Stand Up for Science, the advocacy group that published the Monday letter. Continue reading...

To refuse an invitation like this goes against all my instincts, but I want to send as strong a message as I can

Federal judge says man wrongfully deported to El Salvador cannot be expelled until October as asylum case proceedsA federal judge ruled on Wednesday morning that Kilmar Abrego Garcia cannot be deported until at least early October, according to CNN.The outlet also reported that US District Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, scheduled an evidentiary hearing for 6 October, and said that she intends to have Trump administration officials testify about the government's efforts to re-deport Abrego. Continue reading...

Carroll had recently toured with standup Katt Williams when he was shot and killed in Southaven, MississippiThe suspect in the recent deadly shooting of US comedian Reggie Carroll reportedly had been working as security for fellow standup comic Katt Williams, with whom the slain entertainer had toured.Tranell Marquise Williams, the man suspected of murdering Carroll on 20 August in Southaven, Mississippi, had also been on the tour in question providing his services at the time of his arrest, according to the news outlet WHBQ. Continue reading...

The Trump administration sent a letter demanding states, territories and DC remove all references to gender ideology'The Trump administration has told US states and territories they will lose federal funding for their sex education programs if they do not remove references to transgender people.In letters sent to 46 states, territories and Washington DC on Tuesday, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) demanded they remove all references to gender ideology" within 60 days or risk losing funding from the Personal Responsibility Education Program, or Prep. Continue reading...

After a gunman reportedly deceived by anti-vaccine disinformation opened fire on the CDC and fatally shot David Rose, a community grieves as Trump officials remain silentA lie murdered David Rose.Five hundred cops packed the pews of an Atlanta megachurch on Friday to bear witness in person, to have a memory of the slain DeKalb county police officer that could not be sullied by lies or debased by silence. Continue reading...

US president cuts funding for victims as state faces more than a third of killings from partner or familial violenceDomestic violence is the leading cause of homicide in Utah, according to an analysis of FBI and state data by a local news station in Salt Lake City. The investigation is based on intimate partner homicide data recently released by the state.The station, Fox 13, found that 51 - more than a third - of the 137 homicides between July 2023 and January 2025 were the result of intimate partner or familial violence. The majority of the perpetrators were men, while the sexes of the victim were nearly evenly split, with 26 male and 25 female victims. This could be because in many cases, there were multiple victims, including a victim's children, parents or siblings. Continue reading...

Grrlspot, a monthly event in New Orleans, stemmed from a desire to create spaces for queer women to gather after the storm devastated the city in 2005A few months after Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana in August 2005, Jenna Jordan went on a search for other queer women. She was looking for camaraderie with people like herself who had returned to New Orleans after the storm. Some neighborhoods with sizable gay populations such as the French Quarter were largely spared from flooding, but areas with queer people of color and lesbians, such as Mid-City, weren't as fortunate.On a Tuesday night in February 2006, Jordan and a few other graduate students from Loyola University New Orleans and Tulane University hosted a meetup for queer women at a dive bar called St Joe's in the Uptown neighborhood. The gathering was spread via word of mouth and only about 20 people showed up the first time, but within five years it grew into a big dance party with hundreds of people. Grrlspot, a monthly pop-up event for queer women in New Orleans that still exists today, was born. Continue reading...

Human rights office says attack, which killed 20 people, raises questions about the targeting of journalists. Plus, painting looted by Nazis spotted in ArgentinaGood morning.The UN has demanded that Israel's investigations into unlawful killings in Gaza, including its double-tap" bombing of Nasser hospital, which killed 20 people including five journalists, yield results and ensure accountability.What does international law say about the attack? It may constitute a war crime on many fronts, writes the Guardian's Peter Beaumont. What is striking about this incident is that each individual element - the targeting of a working hospital, of journalists and rescue workers, of injured civilians already under treatment - would be expected to draw accusations of a war crime in its own right," he writes.Who were the five Palestinian journalists killed? Their names were Moaz Abu Taha, Mariam Abu Dagga, Mohammad Salama, Ahmed Abu Aziz and Hussam al-Masri, and you can read their stories here. He loved his work deeply," said Abu Taha's brother Adly.Meanwhile, what is happening in Israel? Tens of thousands of people took part in demonstrations on Tuesday, blocking highways on a day of disruption" that aimed to push Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing a deal to end the war and call off plans to attack Gaza City. Continue reading...

The president's assault on US museums, education and memory is a critical dimension of his fascist aimsIn a letter sent to Smithsonian secretary, Lonnie G Bunch III, on 12 August, the Trump administration announced its plan to replace all Smithsonian exhibits deemed as divisive" or ideological" with descriptions deemed as historical" and constructive". On 21 August, just nine days later, the White House published a list of said offending fixtures - the majority of which include exhibits, programming and artwork that highlight the Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ perspectives on the American project. Included in his bill of particulars was an exhibit that rightly depicts Benjamin Franklin as an enslaver, an art installation that acknowledges race as a social construct and a display that highlights racist voter suppression measures, among others.The assault on the Smithsonian comes wrapped, as it were, as part of a broader attack on democracy, scenes of which we see playing out every day. The federal occupation of Washington DC, the crackdown on free speech on campus, the targeting of Trump's political opponents, the gerrymandering of democracy - these are interwoven elements of the same structural assault. So with many fires burning across the nation, concerned citizens who are answering the call to fight the destruction of democracy may regard his attack on history and memory as a mere skirmish, a distraction from the herculean struggle against fascism unfolding in the US. But this is a mistake. Trump's attack on American museums, education and memory, along with his weaponization of racialized resentment to package his authoritarian sympathies as mere patriotism, is a critical dimension of his fascist aims. The fight for democracy cannot avoid it, nor its racial conditions of possibility. Continue reading...

Border patrol agents arrested Catalina Santiago, granted temporary protection as a Dreamer, on 3 AugustCatalina Xochitl" Santiago had already made it past the security line at the El Paso airport when two border patrol agents called her in for questioning and whisked her away to an immigration detention center.Nearly a month after her arrest, she and her family still aren't clear why she is detained. Santiago is a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program - which has allowed her to legally live and work in the US. Continue reading...

Mar-a-Lago face is suddenly everywhere - and there is a version for both men and womenA group of chimpanzees in Zambia have been very busy putting grass in their ears and sticks up their bum for fashion purposes. Scientists studying the behaviour think that one influential chimp started the trend and, instead of the rest of the gang going, mate, you look like an idiot", they all just followed suit.Clearly we haven't evolved from apes that much because a similar phenomenon is at play with the billionaire and Make America Great Again (Maga) set, who are spending enormous sums of money acquiring identical plastic faces. The trend is so widespread that it's even got a name: Mar-a-Lago face. Among women the look is characterised by huge lips that look as if they could suck up a small child whole, frozen facial expressions, and cheeks so bulbous you could hide a gerbil underneath them. Men also have the slick frozen faces, but instead of bigger lips they're pairing them with bigger jaws. In recent years, surgeons have reported a large increase of male clients demanding stronger jawlines. Continue reading...

A court sent the maps back to the legislature before the 2026 midterms, and new boundaries could favor DemocratsUtah is being thrust into a national battle over redistricting.A court ordered the state this week to redraw its congressional map for the 2026 midterm elections, and the new district boundaries could make one of Utah's four congressional seats competitive for Democrats as the party fights to topple the Republican party's slim majority in the House. Continue reading...