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Republicans mostly silent as protesters turn out in every state to peacefully reject authoritarianism in No Kings rallies. Key US politics stories from Saturday 18 October at a glanceAmericans in every state marched in protest against the Trump administration, giving voice to concerns that the country is sliding into authoritarianism.Millions turned out nationwide with signs, marching bands, a huge banner with the US constitution's preamble that people could sign, and inflatable costumes ranging from bananas to SpongeBob SquarePants to frogs, which have in particular emerged as a sign of resistance beginning in Portland, Oregon. Continue reading...

Crowds of Americans, many in costumes, aligned behind message that US is sliding into authoritarianism

Democratic lawmakers including Bernie Sanders, Raphael Warnock, Adam Schiff, Cory Booker and Chuck Schumer attend rallies. This blog is now closed.

Outside of typical remarks from Donald Trump, JD Vance and Mike Johnson and a Fox News report, party stayed mum

The bi-monthly group gives Black men a safe space to share, reflect and support each otherDesmond Carter is on a mission to save the lives of Black men.Carter, founder of Mental Health Is Real Wealth, leads a bi-monthly mental health group in Los Angeles' Leimert Park neighborhood, and on a recent Thursday, 15 Black men gathered inside a conference room without pressure and without women. Continue reading...

Crowds amassed across the US in planned No Kings protests on Saturday, opposing what participants view as Donald Trump's increasingly autocratic tendencies and anti-democratic actions as president. The turnout, which built on the first No Kings protests in June, reflected frustration over administration moves including criminal prosecutions of the president's political enemies, nationwide immigration raids and the dispatch of federal troops into US cities.

Releasing them from US custody evades thorny legal issues regarding military detention of suspected drug smugglersThe Trump administration is moving to send the two survivors of Thursday's strike in the Caribbean overseas rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four US officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.The source, who like the US officials spoke on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were being sent to Colombia and Ecuador. Continue reading...

State senator Samuel Douglass, 26, and wife, Brianna, both made comments in Young Republicans Telegram groupA Vermont state lawmaker has resigned over racist and antisemitic chat messages that circulated within the Young Republican political group, another substantial consequence in a scandal that on Friday saw the New York state Young Republicans' charter revoked.State senator Samuel Douglass, the only elected official known to have taken part in the leaked group chat exposed by Politico, resigned Friday over his participation. Continue reading...

From New York to San Francisco, millions of Americans hit the streets to voice their anger over Trump's policies

Trump commuted Santos's seven-year sentence for fraud and identity theft after he had served less than three monthsDisgraced former US House member George Santos was released from prison in New Jersey late on Friday, hours after the Republican's seven-year, three-month prison sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft was commuted by Donald Trump.An X statement attributed to Santos's lawyer, Joseph Murray, called Trump the greatest president in US history". Continue reading...

No one was hurt in the incident when a wing from one plane struck the tail of another United aircraftA United Airlines plane heading for its gate clipped the tail of another United aircraft at Chicago's O'Hare airport, authorities said.No one was hurt in Friday's incident, and the 113 passengers on flight 2652 from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were able to leave the plane normally after a delay, United officials said in a statement. Continue reading...

Layoffs follow $8.4bn merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global in AugustParamount Skydance will begin mass layoffs the week of 27 October, eliminating about 2,000 US jobs as part of a $2bn cost-cutting plan under new chief executive David Ellison, Variety reported on Saturday.The layoffs follow the $8.4bn merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global, which closed in August. Continue reading...

Customs and Border Protection implemented rule this week, sending Americans with X' marker into panicUS Customs and Border Protection implemented a rule this week that will require airlines to disregard X" sex markers on passports and input an M" or F" marker instead, sending those people with an X" marker into panic.X" markers became available to US passport holders in 2022, in an effort to allow people with gender identities other than male and female to obtain more accurate travel documents. Continue reading...

This isn't the first time Cory Mills has faced allegations of misconduct - but the House speaker wants to talk about serious' thingsMeet Cory Mills, a Republican congressman representing Florida. He is rabidly anti-abortion, incredibly anti-immigration, and obsequiously pro-Trump. Earlier this year, perhaps in a desperate bid to get Dear Leader to notice him, he introduced a bill, dubbed the DON-ument Act", which would make the wall on the US-Mexico border a national monument.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Generation Z women represent the most leftwing demographic in modern US history: There's definitely a gender divide'When Emily Gardiner first started paying attention to politics, she was 15, just beginning high school in 2016. It was the start of the first Trump administration, a moment that politicized a lot of young Americans.Now 23, Emily works as a library assistant in eastern Connecticut and is rewriting the second draft of her adult fantasy novel. She describes herself as definitely leftist, not liberal". Continue reading...

Second member of Sarina Wiegman's England setup joins Bay Collective to sail into waters there are no roadmaps for'On Wednesday, Bay Collective announced the recruitment of England's general manager under Sarina Wiegman, Anja van Ginhoven, as their director of global women's football operations. The new multi-club ownership body, with San Francisco's Bay FC the first club in its portfolio, has previous in recruiting from the Football Association.The appointment this year of Kay Cossington, the influential former FA technical director, as the chief executive was a signal of intent from Bay Collective. Cossington knows women's football inside out and now she has assembled a leadership team with a deep understanding of women's football history and laden with experience. Continue reading...

More than 2,600 events are planned across the US to dissent against Trump's policies. Organizer James Phipps, 75, says: Protest is all I've done all my life'

Johnathan Walton, who was a victim of Marianne Mair' Smyth, had helped UK authorities track her downA US podcaster and author who helped UK authorities convict a woman derisively known as the Queen of the Con" of defrauding a group of Northern Irish mortgage advice customers has expressed disappointment in her being sentenced on Friday to only four years in prison.She scams or tries to scam everyone she meets, and she will never change," Johnathan Walton said in a statement after Marianne Mair" Smyth's sentencing closed the books on a transatlantic case against her. Continue reading...

Former Republican US representative walks free after being sentenced in April to more than seven years in prison for deceiving donors and stealing identities of 11 peopleDonald Trump announced on Friday he had commuted the sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former New York representative and serial fabulist who had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison after a short-lived political career marked by outlandish fabrications and fraudulent scheming.Santos left the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey just hours later and was on his way home", his attorney Joseph Murray told Agence France-Presse by phone late on Friday. Continue reading...

Officers reportedly tackled and dragged several people after authorities told demonstrators to stay in protest zones'At least 15 people were taken into custody outside the Broadview Ice detention center in the Chicago area after heated confrontations between Illinois state police and protesters on Friday.Authorities had instructed demonstrators to remain in designated protest zones", but tensions escalated when officers moved to clear the roadway. Continue reading...

This liveblog is now closed.The US Senate failed on Thursday to re-open the government and to vote to fund the military during the federal government shutdown, ensuring that the standoff will stretch into next week.The Senate vote on a short-term Republican funding bill failed for the 10th time with just 51 votes. A second vote on Pentagon funding in the afternoon similarly failed in a floor vote, meaning the process to begin fully funding military operations also becomes a non-starter. After the votes, senators are expected to leave Washington for the weekend, almost guaranteeing the shutdown lasts until at least Monday. Continue reading...

US president said we need Tomahawks and a lot of other things' as he meets Zelenskyy; fraud sentence of disgraced serial fabulist Santos commuted - key US politics stories from Friday 17 October at a glanceDonald Trump has played down hopes that he will supply Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles, saying during a White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the US may need them for a future conflict.Responding to a question on whether the US would send the cruise missiles requested by Ukraine, Trump said: We need Tomahawks and we need a lot of other things that we've been sending over the last four years to Ukraine. Continue reading...

Justice department submits emergency filing as Trump pushes to expand use of military in Democratic-led citiesThe Trump administration on Friday asked the US supreme court to permit the deployment of national guard troops to Illinois, as the president pushes to expand the domestic use of the military in a growing number of Democratic-led cities.In an emergency filing, the justice department urged the court to overturn a lower court ruling that halted the deployment of several hundred national guard troops to the Chicago area. The district judge had raised doubts about the administration's justification for sending troops, questioning its explanation in light of local conditions. Continue reading...

The sweeping exhibition Monuments, which features 19 contemporary artists, opens in LA on 23 OctoberIn 2021, the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, finally removed the Confederate statues that had inspired a series of violent and eventually deadly white supremacist rallies in 2017.The statue of Robert E Lee, which had been surrounded by white men with torches in a famous far-right propaganda image, was melted down. But the statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson, which stood at the heart of a 2017 Ku Klux Klan rally, was given to a California-based arts non-profit, which pledged to use it for transformation, not further veneration". Continue reading...

About 1,400 staff at NNAS, which manages America's nuclear weapons stockpile, to be furloughed on Monday

Lawmakers urge president to allow for repair of housing and utilities after Typhoon Halong devastates villagesMike Dunleavy, the governor of Alaska, has asked Donald Trump to declare a major disaster after a powerful storm devastated villages in the state's south-west, displacing 1,500 people and prompting large-scale air evacuations.The state's senators and congressman urged the president to approve the declaration to allow additional federal resources into the region to repair housing and utilities before winter. The scale of the disaster has surpassed the state's ability to respond, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and Nick Begich, the Alaska congressman, wrote. Continue reading...

The Afghanistan war veteran was hospitalized after the incident and is now seeking $150,000 in damages Continue reading...

According to complaint, Mahmoud Amin Ya'qub al-Muhtadi participated in attack on Israel, then applied for US visaThe FBI has accused a Louisiana resident of participating in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 - then lying about his past and fraudulently obtaining a visa to live in the US.According to a recently unsealed FBI criminal complaint, Mahmoud Amin Ya'qub al-Muhtadi armed himself and gathered a group to cross from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel during the attack that left nearly 1,200 people dead. Continue reading...

Ex-national security adviser surrendered to authorities and made court appearance as he faces 18-count indictment

More than 2,500 US rallies are planned in all 50 states as protesters call for limits on presidential powerMillions are expected to show out for protests on Saturday at more than 2,500 locations across America, from small towns to large cities, to speak against the Trump administration.No Kings, the coalition behind a mass demonstration in June, is again calling people to the streets to send the simple message that Donald Trump is not a king, pushing back against what they see as increasing authoritarianism. Continue reading...

Scott Wiener, the California state senator, will reportedly announce his candidacy in the coming weeks

The indictment of critics including John Bolton rings alarm bells as the US president expands his power and seeks to use the justice system to exact revengeHe who saves his country does not violate any law," Donald Trump posted after beginning his second term - emboldened, perhaps, by the supreme court's bombshell ruling on presidential immunity last year, which many say gave the office-holder the powers of a monarch.Millions of Americans are expected to push back against the president's growing power at No Kings protests across the US on Saturday. The demonstrations come as former intelligence and national security officials warn that the country is sliding towards competitive authoritarianism", in which elections and courts survive but are systematically manipulated by the executive. Continue reading...

His ruthless use of the national guard to menace cities and political enemies is unprecedented. He is preparing for battle against the enemy within'Donald Trump had better hope the members of the Nobel committee are not paying attention to what's happening inside the United States. If they did take a look, they'd notice a jarring pattern. While the US president likes to play the peacemaker abroad, at home he is Trump, bringer of war.It's easy for the first fact to conceal, or divert our attention away from, the second. This week was a case in point. It began with Trump travelling to Israel, where he was hailed as a latter-day Cyrus, a mighty ruler whose name would be spoken of for millennia to come, the man who had brokered what he himself boasts is an everlasting" peace.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Signs of credit stress send markets in Europe and Asia down, while investors turn to safe haven assetsEuropean stock markets fell on Friday and gold hit a record high after two US regional banks said they had been exposed to millions of dollars of bad loans and alleged fraud.Signs of credit stress rattled markets across Europe and Asia. In London the FTSE 100 fell 0.9%, Germany's Dax fell 1.8%, Italy's FTSE Mib fell 1.5%, the Ibex in Spain was off 0.3% and France's Cac 40 dropped 0.2%. Continue reading...

Relatives of Trinidadian man believed killed in US military strike on alleged drug boat say he was denied due processRelatives of two men from Trinidad believed to have been killed in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean have accused Donald Trump of killing poor people" without due process and are demanding justice.Chad Charpo" Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, from the fishing village of Las Cuevas in northern Trinidad, are thought to be among six people killed in a US airstrike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela. Continue reading...

Palestinian activist can speak across country at events while pushing back on Trump's attempts to deport himA federal judge has lifted travel restrictions within the US for Mahmoud Khalil, allowing the Palestinian activist to speak at rallies and other events across the country while he fights the Trump administration's efforts to deport him.Khalil, who was freed from a Louisiana immigration jail in June after being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) amid student and activist roundups, had asked a federal magistrate judge to lift the restrictions that had limited his travel to New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, Louisiana and Michigan. Continue reading...

Overdoses have been declining nationally since August 2023, but Alaska is far behind in that progressWhenever he can, Shane Shelton offers neighbors naloxone, an overdose reversal medication, and a place to sleep out of the cold.The 54-year old's home is known as the Dog House" in Williwaw, Alaska - on the outskirts of Wasilla in Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) borough. In this neighborhood, family homes with manicured lawns sit side by side with yards piled with old tires and tarps, some with makeshift walls nailed around them to hide the mess and avoid fines. People come to the Dog House to get high - and keep one another alive. Shelton said he had administered naloxone more times than he could count, and cannot get enough of it. Continue reading...

The former national security adviser is not the first person the president has retaliated against - he's gone after James Comey, Letitia James and a host of othersThe Trump administration filed charges against former national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday, the latest target of an ongoing retribution campaign aimed at Donald Trump's enemies.Bolton surrendered to authorities on Friday for the charges over mishandling classified materials. Continue reading...

Ahead of Anthony Albanese's White House visit, a price floor' and US investment in mining ventures have been flagged

The president is upset with his photo on the magazine's cover. I, too, have a bone to pick with my scalpWhy are we so obsessed with hair? Just a bunch of fibers sprouting out of your skin, yet we make a massive fuss over it. Those with it, flaunt it. News anchors, fashion models, that damned Jeremy Allen White. Boy, does he love to show off. His hair should be nominated for an Emmy, just on thickness alone. What did he do to deserve that floppy mess on top of his head? I thought this country was a meritocracy? Nope. He's obviously benefitted from a family history of thick locks.Call me greedy if you must, but I don't just want some hair - the sad remnants of a life in decline - I want a lot of hair. I want so much hair that I have to employ a live-in barber to trim me up twice a day just to keep it all from consuming my entire face. I want people in the streets screaming at the top of their lungs. Look at that hair! The guy under it isn't so bad, either!"Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...

Groups across climate, democracy and Palestine solidarity have been talking for months about how to band togetherWhen Donald Trump named leftwing billionaire George Soros as the next on his growing list of targets for retribution, he was also targeting the long list of progressive causes that Soros funds.Soros's Open Society Foundations (OSF) network, now run by his son Alex, is a major funder of non-profits large and small, across sectors including democracy, voting rights, climate justice, racial justice, Palestinian rights and higher education. Public documentation of the group's grant-making shows thousands of worldwide recipients receiving anywhere from small amounts to multimillion-dollar grants, and include major non-profit organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union. Continue reading...

Ex-national security adviser turned Trump critic expected to surrender to authorities FridayJohn Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump who has since become one of the US president's biggest Republican critics, was expected to surrender to the authorities on Friday and make an initial appearance in court to face criminal charges that he mishandled classified information.The justice department filed federal charges against Bolton, accusing him of transmitting and retaining highly classified information under the Espionage Act. Continue reading...

The withdrawal of Israeli troops and the establishment of an international stabilisation force are key in securing long-term peace, but the plan is dangerously vague on these issuesTwo years of death and destruction in Gaza ended once Israel and Hamas signed off on Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan. A ceasefire is in place. Humanitarian trucks have begun to roll in. Hostages and prisoners are being exchanged. Israel has begun a first-phase pullback from the territories it controls, and under Trump's plan its troops will eventually be deployed in a buffer zone along Gaza's land border.Given these developments - all part of the opening phase - dismissing the momentous changes in Gaza is to deny reality. There have already been disputes over the return of the bodies of Israeli hostages, but there are unresolved longer-term problems that could derail the ceasefire and imperil the rest of the Trump plan.Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace StudiesDo 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. Continue reading...

Eighteen-count indictment handed down as US president calls former ally a bad guy'. Plus, director Kathryn Bigelow on AI, Andy Warhol and nuclear Armageddon Don't already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.The justice department has filed federal charges against John Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump who became one of his biggest critics. Bolton is accused of transmitting and retaining highly classified information under the Espionage Act.What did Trump say about the charges? In response to a question about the charges, Trump told reporters on Thursday that he was not aware of them but that Bolton was a bad guy".What has Trump said? In a presidential memo, Trump said the government needed to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence", adding a comment that Soros was at the top of everything".What has OSF said? We have always and will continue to adhere to our rigorous compliance practices and operate within the bounds of the law while also refusing to surrender our legal and constitutional rights to free speech, association, due process, and the rule of law without challenge," an OSF spokesperson said. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guardian analysis finds wide geographical disparities in fatalities linked to the public health crisis

Trump allies would love an excuse to step up their crackdown. Nonviolence, both disciplined and open-hearted, must define the dayThey have a Hate America' rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall," the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Fox News on Friday. It's all the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the antifa people. They're all coming out."The Republican Minnesota congressman Tom Emmer said the party's terrorist wing" was holding the Hate America" rally. Democrats want to keep the government shut down to show all those people that are going to come here and express their hatred towards this country that they're fighting President Trump," said the House majority leader, Steve Scalise. The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, embellished the story on Fox, referring to the demonstrations' paid protesters" and adding: It begs the question who's funding it." Continue reading...

Second round of protests at more than 2,500 sites are set for Saturday, including in cities where Trump has sent troopsDonald Trump has promised to crack down on dissent and sent troops into US cities. His allies are claiming antifa, the decentralized antifascist movement, is behind plans to protest. He's looking for any pretext to go after his opponents.Still, this Saturday, even in cities with troops on the ground, millions of people are expected to march against the president as part of a second No Kings" protest. The last No Kings protest in June drew several million people across more than 2,000 locations. This time, more than 2,500 cities and towns nationwide are hosting protests. Continue reading...

Only a handful of North American athletes have spoken out against Israel's assault on Gaza, a silence shaped by fear, sponsorship and the policing of speechI will not just shut up and dribble... I get to sit up here and talk about what's really important." So proclaimed LeBron James in 2018 when confronted with the question of whether athletes have the right to speak about the political and social justice questions of their time.Yet since 7 October 2023, elite athletes in North America have had startlingly little to say about what most human rights groups in the world, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the United Nations have characterized as Israel's genocide in Gaza (a situation currently in flux due to a mutually agreed upon ceasefire and prisoner exchange).Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Derek Silva is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at King's University College at Western University. They are co-authors of The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game and co-hosts, with Johanna Mellis, of The End of Sport podcast. Continue reading...