US news | The Guardian

The former FBI director prioritized fidelity to his office. The case against him is flimsy - but that's cold comfortIn 1931, an exceptionally talented young Berlin attorney named Hans Litten summoned Adolf Hitler to testify in a criminal case. Litten represented four victims of a brutal assault perpetrated by members of Hitler's Sturmabteilung, or SA, on a dance hall frequented by leftist workers; by the time the assault ended, three people were dead. At trial, the defense sought to portray the SA as a disciplined political organization, under orders from Hitler to use force only as self-defense.In his three-hour cross-examination of the head of the Nazi party, Litten managed what precious few dared to attempt. Hitler had expected the young lawyer to be intimidated; instead, Litten aggressively and skillfully dissected him under oath, reducing the supposedly gifted orator to a stammering rage. In trapping Hitler in contradictions and exposing him as an inveterate liar, Litten also made clear the Nazis' goal of destroying the Weimar Republic. Hitler left the witness stand rattled and humiliated, henceforth forbidding Litten's name to be uttered in his presence.Lawrence Douglas teaches at Amherst College. His newest book, The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice, will be published in the spring of 2026 Continue reading...

Barbara Lagoa's husband, Paul Huck, is an attorney whose law firm has business with the Florida governmentAn appeals court judge who blocked the closure of Ron DeSantis's controversial Alligator Alcatraz" immigration jail is married to a powerful conservative attorney whose law firm has raked in millions of dollars from the Republican Florida governor's administration, it has been revealed.Barbara Lagoa authored the 11th circuit court of appeal's 2-1 ruling last month that paused the Miami district judge Kathleen Williams's earlier order that the harsh detention facility in the Florida Everglades must be wound down within 60 days. Continue reading...

Experts say White House presented association as causation' and based conclusions on poor quality studies'The White House recently issued a press release with links to scientific studies to back up Trump's claim that use of acetaminophen, commonly referred to as Tylenol, during pregnancy causes autism, but those studies provided only weak" and inconclusive", evidence, according to physicians with expertise in reviewing medical research who spoke to the Guardian.Jeffrey Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow at the Cato Institute who has written about the Tylenol/autism claims, said that the links in the White House press release showed that the claims contained a political spin. Continue reading...

Lisa Louis says she was next to her mortally wounded father, when the attacker approached and asked a questionA woman who was inside a Michigan church when her father and three other people were killed says she and the gunman locked eyes during the chaos and she was able to look into his soul, seeing his pain and a feeling of being lost. She said she instantly forgave him with my heart".He let me live," Lisa Louis, 45, wrote. Continue reading...

Democrats reject Republican lies' as both parties try to pin the shutdown blame on each other. Plus, Israeli naval forces board pro-Palestinian flotilla

The WNBA finals tip off on Friday. But many of those discussing the league denigrate its players while not bothering to watch the action itselfUnder the Trump administration, we will defend the proud tradition of female athletes, and we will not allow men to beat up, injure, and cheat our women and our girls."- Donald Trump during the signing of his Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports executive order, 5 February 2025 Continue reading...

In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk killing, the Guardian's Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone head to Chicago, where Donald Trump's Ice deployment, codename Operation Midway Blitz, has been met by a defiant wave of sustained protests. With political violence on the rise, they speak to a new generation of political candidates and organisers, including Kat Abughazaleh, to find out if worse is still to come Continue reading...

The government has effectively been shut down since Trump returned to office, as officials clamp down on work they opposeThe United States government is officially closed.Starting on Wednesday at 12.01am Washington time, the federal government ran out of money.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now Continue reading...

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions on a regular basis. In today's column, Graham Ruthven endeavors to answer three of themIt's no wonder Ruben Amorim spent the closing moments of Manchester United's defeat to Brentford staring at the floor. That's the only place he can escape the reality of his team's continued slide. United's latest defeat means the Portuguese manager has now lost nearly twice as many matches (17) as he has won (nine). Continue reading...

Rule tweaks and K' balls have put special teams at the center of the NFL season like never before, from 65-yard field goals to newfangled kickoff formationsVic Fangio, the Philadelphia Eagles' crafty defensive coordinator, took great pride watching his defense force a third-down incompletion Sunday, leaving the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 47 yards from the Eagles' goal line with only four seconds left in the first half.In the old days, that might have led to a Hail Mary pass into the end zone. But instead Bucs kicker Chase McLaughlin trotted on to the field and calmly belted a 65-yard field goal through the super-heated Florida sky, tied for the second-longest in NFL history. Continue reading...

Switch of 66 hand-sewn flags for use along Mall and at Windsor Castle cost estimated 52,800 in public fundsDozens of US flags used for Donald Trump's unprecedented second state visit to the UK last month had to be replaced because the stripes were the wrong shade of red, a government supplier has claimed.The switch of the 66 hand-sewn flags that had been due to be used along the Mall in London and at Windsor Castle cost an estimated 52,800 in public funds. Continue reading...

Trapped between Putin and Trump, EU citizens understand the grave dangers facing the continent. Their leaders urgently need to face reality, tooFascism is supposed to look a certain way: black-clad, uniformed, synchronised and menacing. It is not supposed to look like an overweight president who can't pronounce acetaminophen and who bumbles, for a full minute, about how he would have renovated the UN's New York headquarters with marble floors, rather than a terrazzo. But as Umberto Eco remarked in his timeless essay on identifying the eternal nature of fascism: Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises."Historians, scholars and even some insiders from the first Trump administration have seen through the comedic quality of the disguise. They appear to have seen in Donald Trump himself and those around him, Eco's core criteria: the call to tradition and the rejection of reason, the fear of difference, the hostility towards disagreement, the ressentiment, the machismo, the degradation of language into newspeak, the cult of a strong" leader. Almost a year ago, the historian Robert Paxton, in explaining why he had changed his mind about employing the word to describe Trumpism, remarked: It's bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that's very much like the original fascisms. It's the real thing. It really is."Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

JD Vance, the VP, said he thought the video was funny' and the sombrero memes' would cease if government reopenedAs the Trump administration insists it is serious about negotiating an end to the government shutdown, a pair of racist deepfake videos mocking Democratic leaders played on a loop in the White House briefing room for hours on Wednesday.The videos, posted by Trump on his social media platform on Monday, use fabricated audio to make it seem as if the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called Democrats woke pieces of shit", and showed the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, with a fake mustache and sombrero. Continue reading...

Historic US company also offering 12-month lease' - an annual supply - of pre-ground coffee for under $40Housing in the US has become so unaffordable that a coffee company has based a viral marketing campaign on the idea that almost nobody can afford to buy a house.Maxwell House coffee, a 133-year-old brand, recently launched a marketing campaign rebranding themselves as Maxwell Apartment Coffee". Continue reading...

Videos were previously posted on Trump's social media page amid government shutdown as Republicans insist on stripping Americans of healthcare. This blog is now closed.

Text appears meant to assure the Qataris following Israel's surprise attack on the country targeting Hamas leadersDonald Trump has signed an executive order vowing to use all measures including US military action to defend the energy-rich nation of Qatar - though it remains unclear just what weight the pledge will carry.The text of the order, available Wednesday on the White House's website but dated Monday, appears to be another measure by Trump to assure the Qataris following Israel's surprise attack on the country targeting Hamas leaders as they weighed accepting a ceasefire with Israel over the war in the Gaza Strip. Continue reading...

Brendan Carr, who appeared to pressure broadcasters to take show off air, set to go before commerce committeeBrendan Carr, the pro-Trump chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has agreed to testify before the Senate commerce committee following Disney's decision to take talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel off air temporarily, according to multiple reports.Carr agreed to testify after speaking to committee chair Ted Cruz, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the matter on Wednesday, adding the date of the hearing has not been set but was expected after November. Semafor was the first to report on the hearing. Continue reading...

US-born Leo Garcia Venegas says I just want to work in peace' after agents in Alabama said his ID card was fakeAn Alabama construction worker and US citizen who says he was detained twice by immigration agents within just a few weeks has filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding an end to Trump administration workplace raids targeting industries with large immigrant workforces.The class-action lawsuit, filed on Tuesday by Leo Garcia Venegas, a concrete worker, demands an end to what the firm calls unconstitutional and illegal immigration enforcement tactics". Continue reading...

On a post on social media, the president says guards had been deployed, while no members were presentDonald Trump once again shared misinformation about Portland, Oregon, on social media on Wednesday, when he announced that the national guard troops he called up in response to a small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) office in the otherwise tranquil city are now in place" and have begun restoring LAW AND ORDER".However, Portland's NBC News affiliate KGW reported 90 minutes after Trump's social media post that no members of the guard were yet in place around the Ice field office where dozens of protesters have demonstrated against immigration sweeps since June. Continue reading...

The vice-president said the administration would be forced to resort to layoffs if the shutdown lasts more than a few days. Key US politics stories from Wednesday 1 October at a glanceDonald Trump's administration froze $26bn for Democratic-leaning states, following through on a threat to use the government shutdown to target Democratic priorities.The targeted programs included $18bn for transit projects in New York, home to Congress's top two Democrats, and $8bn for green-energy projects in 16 Democratic-run states, including California and Illinois. Vice-president JD Vance, meanwhile, warned that the administration might extend its purge of federal workers if the shutdown lasts more than a few days. Continue reading...

Cool Patch Pumpkins' enormous maze allows visitors a little uncertainty in an age of always knowing where we areThe owner of a giant northern California corn maze once crowned the world's largest wants visitors to remember that there is fun in getting lost.It is confusing. It's exciting, and in a world of GPS and constant signage, you always know where you are, where you're going," said Taylor Cooley, owner of Cool Patch Pumpkins. When you're in the corn, everything looks the same until you pop up on a bridge and you're like, Oh wait, I'm all the way over here. I thought I was over there.'" Continue reading...

Vice-president falsely says Democrats calling for billions for healthcare for illegal aliens' as funding deadlock continuesJD Vance, the US vice-president, used false claims to blame Democrats for the government shutdown as the White House warned that worker layoffs were imminent.Federal departments have been closing since midnight after a deadlocked Congress failed to pass a funding measure. The crisis has higher stakes than previous shutdowns, with Trump racing to slash government departments and threatening to turn furloughs into mass firings. Continue reading...

For the first time since 2017 the US will be represented in the event, by Brian Evans of On the Rise Artisanal BreadsA bakery in Ohio has been chosen to pursue its own slice of worldwide fame by representing the US at the Bread Olympics", a prestigious international baking contest.The biennial Mondial du Pain event, held in France, brings together elite bakers from around the world to compete in traditional breads, viennoiseries and elaborate artistic creations. Continue reading...

Planned Parenthood is struggling to navigate fallout of law that blocks them from receiving Medicaid reimbursementsPlanned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin will stop providing abortions on Wednesday, as the organization's centers across the country struggle to navigate the fallout of a law that blocks the the reproductive healthcare giant from receiving reimbursements from Medicaid.Thanks to a provision in Donald Trump's new tax and spending bill, abortion providers that receive more than $800,000 in reimbursements from Medicaid, the US government's insurance program for low-income people, are blocked from participating in the program for one year. That provision is so narrowly tailored that it applies almost exclusively to Planned Parenthood, long a conservative target. Continue reading...

Illinois governor JB Pritzker and others condemn president for suggesting cities be used as military training groundsA leading Democrat has compared Donald Trump to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin after the US president told military leaders on Tuesday that the armed forces should use US cities as training grounds".JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, which is bracing for Trump to deploy national guard troops to his state, questioned the president's mental health and accused him of behaving like an autocrat. Continue reading...

Supreme court defers action on request to remove Lisa Cook from post, at least until it hears oral arguments on case

The four-year-old had died in a hospital in 2019 in a case that brought scrutiny to the region's child welfare systemLos Angeles county will pay $20m to the family of a four-year-old boy who was tortured to death by his parents six years ago in a case that brought scrutiny of the region's child welfare system.Noah Cuatro died in a hospital in 2019, days before his fifth birthday, after being found motionless at the family's apartment in Palmdale, north of LA. His parents, Jose Maria Cuatro Jr and Ursula Elaine Juarez, later pleaded no contest to murder and torture charges. Continue reading...

Democrats and Republicans blame each other for failure to extend funding, resulting in first shutdown in nearly seven years

Washington's $20bn lifeline for rightwing populist Javier Milei isn't about stability or sovereignty, it's about winning an electionLast month, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, vowed to do whatever it takes" to support Argentina's rightwing president, Javier Milei, a key ally of DonaldTrump. Markets aren't convinced. On Tuesday, the peso plunged by more than 6% before a central bank intervention clawed back losses. Argentine stocks abroad fell 7%, and the risk premium on its debt rose to 12.3 percentage points - far beyond sustainable borrowing levels. The rout continued on Wednesday.Mr Bessent admitted the aid was meant to prop up MrMilei after his La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) party lost decisively in a key election last month. But no terms have been confirmed. With US Republicans angry over Mr Milei's tax breaks for soy farmers that undercut US producers, markets are asking the obvious: is the Bessent bazooka real, or just for show? It's obviously a bad look for Mr Trump when the US government is shut down over health funding while $20bn is pledged to prop up a foreign ally. America first" wasn't meant to mean furloughed workers and stalled medical trials at home while cash flows abroad.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Democrats say Trump is the one doing it' while Republicans claim it's over giving healthcare to illegal aliens'

Civil rights groups say new districts dilute Black and Hispanic power while Republicans claim legal gerrymander

Officials said there were no immediate reported injuries after reports of a gas explosion at the 20-story buildingPart of a high-rise apartment building in New York City collapsed Wednesday morning, leaving a corner of the building a pile of rubble.The city's fire department said it had no immediate reports of injuries. It said it was responding to a report of a gas explosion that collapsed an incinerator shaft in the 20-story building in the Bronx borough. Continue reading...

Trump considers himself a master deal-maker. But he's been regularly outmaneuvered by strongmen like Netanyahu and Vladimir PutinAs a presidential candidate, Donald Trump claimed he would quickly end the war in Gaza. Eight months after taking office, Trump finally decided to exert some US pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, announcing a 20-point peace plan at the White House on Monday.But the deal that the US president struck with Netanyahu - after Trump dithered for months, allowing Israel to continue its genocidal war with US weapons and unwavering political support - is less a ceasefire proposal than an ultimatum for Hamas to surrender. Continue reading...

Trump's $100,000 visa fee will gut the immigrant workforce that keeps US hospitals - and patients - aliveThe Trump administration announced last week that every new H-1B visa will now cost $100,000. Framed as a crackdown on Silicon Valley, the policy will devastate American hospitals. Its real casualties will be poor and rural Americans in need of medical care but who will be left with no one to provide it.One in four US physicians is foreign-trained. Many enter through the H-1B program, disproportionately staffing rural and underserved hospitals where American graduates rarely go. In some facilities, every single doctor is an immigrant. These are the physicians who deliver babies in Mississippi Delta towns, staff emergency rooms in the Dakotas, and run primary care clinics in the Bronx. By raising visa costs from a few thousand dollars to $100,000, the administration is functionally cutting off their pipeline.Eram Alam is a historian of medicine and migration in the department of the history of science at Harvard University. She is the author of the Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in October 2025 Continue reading...

The president's intervention promises a return to normality' - one that appeals to Israelis unconcerned with Gaza's future

The USA women's manager on the death of her predecessor at Chelsea, Matt Beard, and how managers need more support to navigate the modern gameEagerly with hands raised in the air, the children from Abbott Community primary school all want to quiz the United States head coach. The plan was for Emma Hayes to just take a few questions from the youngsters at the National Football Museum, but she wants to answer them all. Even her son, Harry, watching on, raises his hand. The tone is light, fun and educational as Hayes celebrates being inducted into the Hall of Fame.The former Chelsea manager, who is being honoured by the National Football Museum for her coaching achievements so far, not least her seven Women's Super Leagues titles and Olympic gold medal, is quick to point to how glad she is that the women's game is in a better place in this country" compared to when she took on the Chelsea job in 2012. Alongside her smiles, though, there is a deep sadness at present. When later sitting down to speak to the Guardian, Hayes issues words of warning to the sport, namely that it must learn lessons from the death of her predecessor at Chelsea, Matt Beard, after the shock news of his death at the age of 47 last month. Continue reading...

Advocates say reopened tower, which tells story of Miami as welcoming city for immigrants, will be tarnishedThe donation by the state of Florida of prime development land in Miami for Donald Trump's presidential library has angered critics who say it is a betrayal of the city's famous Freedom Tower, a beacon of hope for generations of immigrants.Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor, and his three cabinet colleagues voted unanimously on Tuesday to deed the almost three-acre parcel of land immediately adjacent to the building - also known as El Refugio (the shelter) - to the foundation that will build the library devoted to the legacy of the 45th and 47th president. Continue reading...

As the WNBA finals tip off on Friday amid another year of explosive growth, inconsistent refereeing fueled by systemic shortcomings threatens to hijack the occasionThe WNBA has never been more visible. The best-of-seven-games finals between the Phoenix Mercury and Las Vegas Aces will tip off Friday night before what are expected to be the largest TV audiences that women's basketball has ever drawn. Crowds have swelled, viewership milestones have toppled, franchise valuations are soaring and formerly niche stars have broken into the mainstream. Yet as the league celebrates a second straight year of explosive growth, an old and thorny problem has risen to the surface: officiating.Complaints about referees have always been louder and more persistent in professional basketball relative to other sports due to the subjectivity of calls and sheer number of decisions. But in the WNBA's 2025 season, the volume and intensity of the criticism from all sides have reached new heights. Coaches have been ejected and suspended. Star players have vented in press conferences and online. Fans have dissected blown calls with Zapruder-film rigor on social media. What had long been background noise and the province of hoop wonks became the defining subplot of the season, colliding awkwardly with the league's ongoing surge into the spotlight. Continue reading...

The US government has shut down because Congress couldn't reach a funding agreement. Here's what to know about what happens next

The US government has shut down for the first time since 2018. Democrats refused to support a Republican plan to extend funding for federal departments unless they won a series of concessions centered on healthcare. The GOP, which controls the Senate and the House of Representatives, rejected their demands, setting off a legislative scramble that lasted into the hours before funding lapsed at midnight, when the Senate failed to advance both parties' bills to keep funding going

This live blog is closed. Please follow US government shutdown updates and developments in our new rolling live blog here

Report from Scholars at Risk counts some 40 attacks against academic freedom in the US in the first half of 2025A global academic freedom group has warned that the Trump administration's assault on universities is turning the US into a model for how to dismantle" academic freedom.We are witnessing an unprecedented situation - really as far as I can tell in history - where a global leader of education and research is voluntarily dismantling that which gave it an advantage," said Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk (SAR). Continue reading...

Unreasonable delays' in giving permits violates residents' second amendment rights, claims justice departmentThe US Department of Justice sued the Los Angeles county sheriff's department on Tuesday, alleging it violated the constitution by moving too slowly to process gun licenses for people who want to carry concealed weapons.The sheriff's department's unreasonable delays" in granting licenses violates California residents' second amendment right to bear arms outside the home, the justice department's civil rights division said in a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court. Continue reading...

Senate sinks Democratic and Republican plans to extend government funding beyond midnight and avert shutdown