El-Sayed says in TV debate ‘ogre on a pike’ Zoom comment was in reference to John Fetterman, not Haley Stevens

The Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said his comments that progressives need to put the head of an “ogre” on a pike was in reference to the Senator John Fetterman – not his opponent, Representative Haley Stevens.

In a televised debate on Monday, the final head-to-head before the state’s 4 August primary, the moderator asked El-Sayed whether he regretted his comments made in a Zoom meeting, in which, according to leaked audio published by Politico, he suggested that if “you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message”.

Police believe Sara Gilson was killed by husband Jeremiah Duffy after she accused him on TikTok of child sexual abuse

Sara Gilson, the social media influencer who was killed after she publicly accused her husband of child sexual abuse, “couldn’t seem to get away” from Jeremiah Duffy despite filing multiple protective orders, Gilson’s ex-husband said in an interview.

“She had been stuck in a relationship where domestic abuse seemed ‘OK’,” Lyle Landers told People. “I had begged her for five years to get away from him. I had offered to help her, in any way I could, to get away from him. But he seemed to have some sort of control over her, and she couldn’t seem to get away.”

Fraught time for Ken Martin as new reporting details cash-flow problem and divisions over party’s direction

Mounting financial pressures and growing internal turmoil at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have intensified scrutiny of chair Ken Martin, as new reporting detailed a deepening cash-flow problem, management concerns and widening divisions over the party’s direction less than 100 days before the November midterm elections.

The latest reporting has underscored both the committee’s financial distress and the toll it has taken on Martin personally. The New York Times reported that the embattled DNC chair, who took the helm last year, became the subject of an internal HR inquiry after throwing his phone in the direction of a junior aide’s desk during a heated exchange in early July, prompting a formal complaint. The Times, citing people familiar with the matter, also reported that the incident nearly cost him his job and has contributed to growing isolation with the party as the committee grapples with mounting financial strain.

Defense department updated database of casualties to list four service members deceased in ‘Overseas Operations’

A controversial move by the Pentagon to reclassify casualties in the Iran war is being taken by US military veterans as a sign of disrespect for the dead.

“It’s such a huge disrespect for the families,” said Michael E Smith, a retired US rear admiral and the founder of National Security Leaders for America. “To claim that they weren’t killed as a result of the war – oh, it was just overseas operations – is just ludicrous.”

Tornado that blackened midday sky rips roofs off homes and flips vehicles in town of Menasha

A tornado struck north-eastern Wisconsin on Monday, blackening the midday sky and sending workers sheltering in office basements as ferocious winds splintered homes, scattered twisted metal across a highway and knocked out power to more than 30,000 people.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado in Winnebago county, about 90 miles (145km) north-west of Milwaukee. Damage was reported in cities including Appleton and Menasha, where police chief Matt Albrecht said some homes and businesses were “severely impacted”.

A parasite called cyclospora has sickened thousands of people across at least 41 states and prompted waves of headlines about weeks-long "explosive diarrhea". But as Guardian health contributor and reporter Melody Schreiber tells host Carter Sherman, Donald Trump's cuts to the CDC and FDA have kneecapped the agencies' ability to contain the dangerous outbreak – which is now growing rapidly. Melody and Carter trace one food supplier's role in the outbreak, discuss the future of public health and reveal tips for safe eating and cooking.

Read Melody Schreiber's reporting in the Guardian about cyclospora:

• Confusing product recall adds to US cyclospora outbreak uncertainty

• CDC cuts leave US less prepared for disease outbreaks, former officials warn

Bryan Kohberger, convicted of killing four college students in 2022, claims he pleaded guilty due to bad legal advice

A man convicted last year of killing four college students in Idaho has filed to withdraw his guilty plea and seek a new trial, claiming he pleaded guilty due to bad legal advice.

Bryan Kohberger was convicted of breaking into a six-bedroom house in 2022 and killing four University of Idaho students in their early 20s. The victims – Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin – were found dead with dozens of knife wounds. Goncalves also showed evidence of asphyxiation and blunt force trauma.

Democrat Jamie Raskin pushes Fifa to release records of contact with Trump, administration and family business

Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, has launched an investigation into the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, seeking documents that would detail the ties between soccer’s governing body and Donald Trump and his administration.

In a Sunday letter, Raskin wrote to Infantino and called for Fifa to provide any documents and communications related to gifts, payments or benefits provided to Trump and his associates, as well as the visitor logs for Fifa’s office space in Trump Tower, which it acquired last year. The committee also requested that Infantino sit for a transcribed interview.

Emergency appeal comes after court upheld ruling blocking president’s order ahead of November midterms

The Trump administration has asked the supreme court to clear the way for an executive order from Donald Trump that could dramatically change mail-in voting.

The emergency appeal comes after an appeals court upheld a ruling blocking the president’s order in nearly half the country ahead of November’s midterm elections.

David Huerta was arrested while protesting against an ICE operation during crackdown in Los Angeles

The Department of Justice has moved to dismiss charges against a prominent California union leader who was arrested while protesting against an immigration raid in Los Angeles last year, in the latest US government case against protesters to fall apart.

David Huerta, the president of Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West, was arrested at a June 2025 demonstration and has been fighting the charges ever since. On Monday, the US attorney’s office in LA filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.

Today show host says her family ‘will always ache for’ mother Nancy, who has been missing for nearly six months

Savannah Guthrie has posted a new video asking those responsible for her mother’s unsolved disappearance to “do the right thing” and point her family to their matriarch’s location after nearly six months.

In a new Instagram video posted on Monday, captioned “Bring her home” alongside a yellow heart emoji, the NBC Today host issued an emotional public plea, saying: “It has been months since our mom was taken from us. Our family is in agony. We are in a nightmare that will not end. Nothing about our situation has changed. We have done our part. We will never stop looking for her.”

Prosecutors claim singer killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez after she threatened to expose relationship and ruin his music career

A Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday that singer D4vd must stand trial over the killing, sexual abuse and mutilation of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided after a five-day preliminary hearing that prosecutors had provided enough probable cause to put the 21-year-old singer, who was born David Burke, on trial. Prosecutors have claimed Burke killed Celeste after she threatened to expose their relationship and ruin his burgeoning music career.

Kentucky senator has been absent and not seen in public since mid-June after he was hospitalized due to a fall

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US senator Mitch McConnell is still not cleared to return to work, his office confirmed on Monday, six weeks after he was hospitalized after a fall at his home.

An update released alongside a new photograph of the Republican lawmaker – one of the highest-profile figures in Congress, as a former Senate majority leader – said he was undergoing “intense physical therapy” and is “working hard” to get back to his duties.

At a time when the quickening pace of global heating has never been clearer, climate policies are being deprioritised

A new and ominous word has entered the vocabulary of firefighters struggling to cope with the vast wildfire sweeping through south-west France. A pyrocumulonimbus is a fire-generated thunderstorm that can whip up winds in unpredictable ways, making the containment of a blaze and assessment of its likely course far more difficult. A known phenomenon in North America and Australia, firefighters believe France is suffering its first in the Bordeaux region, as the country endures the consequences of the third major heatwave of the summer and prepares for a fourth.

The dire statistics of the ongoing fires in France and Spain tell a story of deepening devastation and human misery. A far greater expanse of French land has already been burnt this year, compared with the 30,000 hectares during the whole of 2025, while 220,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in the Gironde. In Spain, the environment ministry has calculated that over 170,000 hectares have been affected, compared with 29,000 last year. Over 100,000 people have been forced to flee.

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Julie Masino faced criticism as restaurant chain was called ‘woke’ and ‘soulless’ after unveiling modernized logo

Cracker Barrel’s CEO, Julie Masino, is stepping down, the restaurant announced on Monday, nearly a year after the company was swept into a political maelstrom over proposed modernizations to its branding.

Critics on social media denounced the Tennessee-based rustic restaurant chain as “woke” as well as “sterile and soulless” after it unveiled an updated logo that removed Uncle Herschel, the overall-clad man leaning against a barrel in the restaurant’s original logo, last August. Donald Trump weighed in on the updates soon after, posting: “WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?!” and demanding on social media that the company “admit a mistake”.

Salamanca City Central says it is pausing project with Realbotix as it addresses concerns including data privacy

A New York school district has walked back plans to introduce a humanoid robot at its high school after the proposal sparked backlash from educators and community members.

The Salamanca City Central school district announced on 24 July in a social media post that its pilot project with Toronto-based tech company Realbotix had been put on hold “while we work through enhanced student data privacy agreements with the New York State Education Department and continue engaging with our community and stakeholders”.

The supply of soccer seems to be enormously exceeding demand. It’s made the sport feel utterly overwhelming

On Friday, the Scottish Premiership kicks off its 2026-27 season. The following Friday, the Dutch Eredivisie begins anew, and England’s Carabao Cup sets off on its ponderous journey. The various European club competitions have already begun their qualifying rounds – and did so on 7 July, in the case of the Champions and Conference Leagues. Liga MX is two rounds into its Apertura season; Major League Soccer resumed its regular season on 16 July. Other soccer is available elsewhere and at other times.

It has been only a week since the World Cup ended.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond, helmed this week by Leander in Jonathan’s absence. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Guardian US contributor whose book on the US men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out now. You can buy it here. He teaches at Marist University.

Former top US health official wrote about challenging interactions with publicity-fixated Trump during Covid

Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show the former top US government science adviser’s growing disillusionment with Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the president “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.

From the earliest days of the crisis six years ago, Fauci noted in his journal challenging interactions with the publicity-fixated Trump. On 27 February 2020, amid the first stirrings of public alarm, he wrote of a surprise late-night call, in which the US president “wanted to chat about the coronavirus situation in general”.

• Virginia authorities arrest 27-year-old Elijah Bieniemy

• Mia Bieniemy is stable after multiple gunshot wounds

• Kansas City OC was at team camp in Missouri on Sunday

The son of Chiefs assistant coach Eric Bieniemy has been arrested and charged with the shooting of his mother, Mia Bieniemy, the wife of the Kansas City offensive coordinator, authorities in Virginia said Monday.

The Loudon county sheriff’s office said deputies responded late Sunday to a shooting in Ashburn, Virginia, where the couple still had a home from Bieniemy’s time with the Washington Commanders. They found the 57-year-old Mia Bieniemy with multiple gunshot wounds, and she was transported to a hospital where she was in stable condition Monday

The buildup to this All-Star Game had some headaches, but the festivities in Chicago – with a Barack Obama cameo and a record crowd – were a rousing high

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If your perceptions of what the WNBA is like in 2026 are largely shaped by narratives derived from and driven by social media, the scene in Chicago at WNBA All-Star Weekend would have proved a surprise.

The mood Friday morning at the Barack Obama Presidential Center was downright ebullient. And, sure, to a degree that was because No 44 himself clocked in for about an hour of practice. The former president briefly showed off some moves in his jeans and loafers after he was surprise-attacked by the New York Liberty’s Jonquel Jones.

Kai Sato used PVC pipes and kayak paddles to try to repair his boat, and a plastic bag to collect condensation to drink

A California man was rescued alive drifting in his sailboat off Hawaii after spending 30 days stranded at sea.

Kai Sato, 39, set sail from California’s Catalina Islands on 7 June hoping to complete his first solo sail across the Pacific Ocean, he told Hawaii News Now. But his journeytook a disastrous turn when his mast snapped, and the phone he was using for navigation died.

Former rugby star Daniel Adongo allegedly overstayed visa but supporters say he needed mental health help

A former rugby star who became the first Kenyan to play in the NFL, was deported in June for a visa overstay and multiple arrests, according to federal immigration authorities.

Daniel Adongo, 37, spent two seasons as a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, playing twice, and was cut in 2015 after facing domestic violence allegations. His visa expired in 2016, but he remained in the US, a press statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.

Video appears to show a person kicking the federally protected animal in San Diego, California

Federal wildlife authorities are investigating after a video appeared to show a person kicking a protected sea lion at a beach in California.

A spokesperson for the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) confirmed an investigation into the case but declined to provide additional details on Sunday.

Both men scheduled to meet Trump at time where US policy towards wars in Iran and Ukraine in state of flux

Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to arrive in Washington simultaneously with the goal of winning the ear of Donald Trump at pivotal moments in wars affecting their respective countries.

Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, will attend Tuesday’s funeral of Lindsey Graham, the former Republican senator for South Carolina, who died suddenly on 11 July and was a close ally of both leaders.

The president is using forced labor as a pretext to slap tariffs on countries around the world

With the midterm elections less than four months away, it’s a precarious time for Donald Trump and Republicans: Trump’s war against Iran is going badly, his approval ratings are in the toilet, gas prices are soaring and pushing up inflation, and nation after nation is furious about Trump’s insults, bullying and ugly American unilateralism.

So amid all this mess, what does Trump do? He turns to his favorite economic plaything: tariffs. On Monday, Trump signed orders to slap a 50% tariff on many Canadian goods, and four days later, he imposed across-the-board 10% or 12.5% tariffs on goods from more than 80 countries. Trump was no doubt thumping his chest, while millions of people overseas were dumping on him for yet another unnecessary, hostile act.

• Football program does not provide details for move

• Lombardi had pledged to make UNC ‘the 33rd [NFL] team’

North Carolina football general manager Michael Lombardi has been placed on paid administrative leave.

The school announced the move with a statement Monday morning, days before the Tar Heels open preseason camp. The school didn’t provide details as to the reason, noting that employees and athletes aren’t permitted to address the topic “as is standard procedure with personnel matters”.

David Cifaldi slipped and his pole pierced him in the side, then walked back hours along the route he had climbed

A Montana man walked 10 miles to safety with a trekking pole speared through his torso after a fall during a hiking expedition on the state’s highest mountain.

David Cifaldi slipped on rocks close to the summit of the 12,803ft (3,902 meters) Granite Peak during the hike on 20 July with two friends. He fell on one of his two poles, and “by the time I rolled over, I kind of knew something wasn’t right”, he told CBS news affiliate KVTQ.

Court filing shows authorities believe there is at least one more shooter than the two previously thought

Seattle authorities said on Monday there were at least three suspects involved in the deadly shooting at a food festival on Sunday evening near the Space Needle. One of them was among the three killed in the violence.

A document filed in juvenile court on Monday revealed a suspect aged 15 was arrested and waived his initial court appearance. The filing also showed that police think there are at least three shooters rather than the two initially reported: the 15-year-old, an acquaintance who died at the scene and “at least one other unknown suspect”.

Europe and US risk being outpaced on innovation, as happened in the car industry, warns Pascal Soriot

AstraZeneca must operate at “Chinese speed” to ensure it does not suffer the fate of the western automotive industry by losing out to more innovative rivals, the drug company’s boss has said.

The FTSE 100 company is watching the rise of China’s pharmaceutical industry closely and collaborating to take drugs to global markets, but its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said the US and European pharmaceutical sectors must focus on increasing the speed of innovation.

Matthew Wolfe’s Fires in the Night examines Earth Liberation Front, a US eco-anarchist movement, and its legacy of radical environmentalism

Are echoes of 1990s radical environmentalism returning louder or fading away? It’s a question posed by Fires in the Night, a new book on the history of the Earth Liberation Front (Elf), a loosely grouped band of US Pacific north-west activists that used economic sabotage and arson to protest environmental destruction.

The members called themselves “the Family” and were known to the outside world as Elves, owed to the acronym for the group Elf. Unlike rightwing extremists of the era, they practiced non-violence toward life, though not property. They were labelled domestic terrorists and practiced “leaderless resistance”.

Chicagoans come together for cathartic and communal screaming experience as activity gains traction across US

People strolling along North Avenue Beach, a sandy strip on Lake Michigan, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, are apt to see something unusual on Sunday evenings.

That’s because Chicago’s “Scream Club” meets there every week during the city’s warmer months, bringing together a community of up to 300 people who like to scream out over the water – and it’s an activity that seems to be spreading across the US.

Coalition says Chemours downplayed health and climate risks in bid to fast-track the compound’s use

A coalition of 17 environmental groups is demanding the Environmental Protection Agency reject a new Pfas that chemical giant Chemours is attempting to fast track for approval for use in cooling datacenters, and would almost certainly pollute regions around the facilities.

In formal comments submitted to the agency, the groups accuse Chemours of using bad science to downplay the chemical’s toxicity and climate risks. Approving Chemours’ application as it is would violate the law, the Earthjustice legal non-profit, a lead author of the comments, wrote.

Republicans have moved to dismantle a 60-year-old demographic reporting system. Now the agency wants to choose what it sees

Workplace discrimination isolates. When a Black manager is passed over for a promotion, or a pregnant worker is quietly sidelined, they are left with a polite excuse and a lingering suspicion. They cannot see the company-wide spreadsheet. They cannot know if others are hitting the same invisible wall. For 60 years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has kept a spreadsheet of its own: an annual demographic snapshot compiled from employer reports. That nationwide record lets the agency see beyond any one complaint.

Last Tuesday, however, the EEOC’s Republican majority voted 2–1 to begin dismantling that reporting system. Two days later, the proposal entered the Federal Register, arguing that requiring employers to classify workers by race and sex may itself violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The rule is not final: comments are due on 24 August, and a hearing is set for 11 August.

Eighteen American troops have been killed and 624 wounded since White House launched war on Tehran. Plus, International Cowboy Day in Kenya

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Good morning. The US has paused strikes on Iran for a third night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war. Oil prices fell on Monday as markets responded to the pause in combat. Tehran said on Sunday it would pause what it called “retaliatory” attacks against US allies in the region.

Trump is said to be weighing up diplomatic and military options in the nearly five-month-old conflict. Axios reported on Sunday that Adm Bradley Cooper, the top US military commander in the region, had told Trump the US military campaign had reached the limits of its effectiveness.

How many US service personnel have been killed and injured in Trump’s Iran war? The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The new figures show that 18 US troops have been killed and 624 wounded since the US launched its war against Iran on 28 February.

How has Katy Perry become embroiled in debate over the war? The pop star has condemned the White House after it used her hit song Firework in a TikTok video showing US military strikes on Iranian targets, saying: “I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it. I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength … my music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.”

What has the international court accused Netanyahu of? The court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, issued a warrant accusing the Israeli prime minister of being “allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.

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Donald Trump said ⁠today that ⁠he had paused US strikes on Iran to give diplomacy another chance, but he ​was ‌ready ‌for “strong military ‌action” if diplomacy fails.

Washington was in “very deep ⁠talks with Iran”, the president told Axios, but, he added: “If they don’t work out, we will be go back to very strong military action.”

I am going to talk to Bibi about the fact that if I weren’t president, Iran would have had nuclear weapons by now and Israel would have been destroyed.

Without me, there would be no Israel.

At least three people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting at the Bite of Seattle food festival near the city's Space Needle landmark. The assistant police chief Tyrone Davis said one person had been taken into custody. Investigations are ongoing

• Two dead in shootings at Bite of Seattle food festival, say authorities

Astronauts for America liken effort to instill trust and faith back in constitution’s principles and democratic institutions to ‘making a course correction’

Orbiting 250 miles above the US in the international space station, astronaut Cady Coleman did not look down and see red or blue states, sanctuary cities or communities occupied by thousands of federal immigration enforcement agents in camouflage uniforms and automatic weapons.

What she saw was a single land, from Pacific to Atlantic, no borders or partitions, just a united America, and a population valuing its equality while convinced that what brought them together was far greater than anything that divided them.

The party’s silence shows how broadly male supremacist thinking has seeped into the conventional wisdom of political strategists

It’s not exactly strange that elements of the Magaverse have embraced Andrew Tate. What’s strange is that the Democrats do not seem interested in holding the Trump movement to account for it.

Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is accused by numerous women around the world and now by British prosecutors of rape and strangulation, as well as assault, sex trafficking, possession of child abuse images and extreme pornography, and various other forms of gender violence and exploitation, was arrested in Miami last week, along with Tristan, his brother and sidekick. Or I should say, they were rearrested: the men were previously charged in Romania, where they were under house arrest until, following some conveniently timed diplomatic moves from the Trump administration, they were allowed to leave the country and resettled in the US. When asked if the Trump administration had secured their release from Romania back then, the Tates’ lawyer said: “Do the math. These guys are on the plane.” Now, finally, they are awaiting extradition to the UK, where they are dual citizens.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

After masked agents fired on his truck, Francisco Longoria was ambushed, charged and jailed – only for the case against him to fall apart. Now he and his family are seeking justice, and says the harrowing experience is part of a troubling pattern

It was just after 8am on 16 August and Francisco Longoria, who runs a party supply business, was driving his truck down a suburban southern California street to deliver a jumper for a water slide. But this ordinary Saturday morning turned into a nightmare when, suddenly, three unmarked vehicles stopped his truck and four masked men jumped out.

Longoria, who had brought his son Jonathan Longoria and son-in-law Daniel Rascon with him, wondered if they were being abducted.

Lawyers predict ‘more suppression and no active investigations’ but victims’ groups determined to continue fight

As Donald Trump’s former defense lawyer Todd Blanche appears poised for confirmation as attorney general, numerous Jeffrey Epstein survivors have sounded the alarm that a US justice department helmed by him would derail their pursuit of justice.

In a letter urging Republican senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn to reject his nomination, these survivors said that Blanche’s handling of the Epstein case as acting attorney general was characterized by misstep after misstep.

The offensive potential is no longer theoretical. We need to develop systems to strengthen public health as quickly as AI is accelerating biological design

As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms the biological sciences, it is pushing the future of biology in two opposing directions. AI can help bad actors generate recipes for biological weapons with just a few keystrokes and computational prompts. At the same time, AI can track disease outbreaks and deliver critical public health information to millions of people in real time – potentially stopping a deadly outbreak in its tracks. What we are dealing with in this moment is profound: a race between offense and defense. Between the proliferation of dark biology, where deadly pathogens are engineered in secret, and the promise of a new era of collective global health.

Every infectious disease outbreak begins with a handful of cases. Public health wins by learning about an outbreak before it spreads wide, before hospitals fill and a crisis starts to spiral out of control. As transmission rates explode, options shrink. One of AI’s greatest values is its ability to compress the timeline between outbreak and detection. Speed can mean the difference between containing an outbreak and confronting an epidemic, or another global pandemic.

Mass hearings, removal orders ‘in absentia’ – judges are wrapping up immigration cases in unprecedented numbers

The second Trump administration recorded its highest number of immigration arrests so far last month. One significant and alarming reason that is far less noticeable than armored, masked agents swaggering in the streets with weapons may be a sudden change in America’s immigration courts.

Here, in recent months, accelerated mass hearings are giving people facing existential questions about their future little time to prepare for their cases, and judges are often ordering vulnerable immigrants deported without them even being in the courtroom.

The meet had lower stakes with no Olympics or worlds this year, but Nikki Hiltz, Sha’Carri Richardson and Cooper Lutkenhaus all took advantage of the moment

In two years’ time, tens of thousands of fans will pack into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – with tens of millions watching around the world – as the world’s fastest and strongest athletes compete at the 2028 Olympics.

But this vast audience ebbs and flows in the long years between Olympics. On the other side of the country, around 5,000 fans filed into New York’s Icahn Stadium this weekend for the USA Track & Field national outdoor championships.

Top House Democrat says US president ‘failed to deliver’ on campaign promises to lower costs and avoid overseas wars

Donald Trump’s Republican party has “nothing to run on” for the congressional midterm elections after the president broke promises to lower costs and avoid starting war overseas, the US House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has said.

The New York congressman made those comments on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, exactly 100 days from the 3 November midterms, when Jeffries and his fellow Democrats are aiming to take control of the US House and Senate from their Republican opponents.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

The UK’s financial watchdog has launched a £2m advertising campaign aimed at curbing use of claims management companies (CMCs), and encouraging drivers hit by the car finance scandal to file their own complaints.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s 30-second video advert features a series of pedestrians jumping over car bonnets in slow-motion, action film style, while text flashes across the screen to encourage their peers to “Feel Claim Confident.”

Many people who may be owed compensation aren’t sure where to start or don’t realise they don’t have to pay someone to make a complaint. Our free tools are there to help people feel claim confident – so they can get any money owed back without it costing them a penny.”

New tariffs, gas price rises, the deaths of thousands, insecurity … We’re living at the whim of one capricious, vain, easily bored man and his gang of stooges

You would be forgiven, as the US and Iran traded strikes over the past few days, for thinking that it was only last month that the two signed the Islamabad Memorandum, which formalised the process of ending the war and established a 60-day period to negotiate the final terms of a deal. That’s because it was only last month. But there has been so much talk and bluster and strike and turn tail that the conflict feels like it has started and ended several times already. The whole war is only five months old but is already settling into a sort of permanent feature of life, one that is all repetitive theatre now, each act indistinguishable from the one before it to all but the most plugged-in observers. The war is over. The war is at its peak. The Iranians are brave people. The Iranians are scum, not least their leaders. The Iranians don’t want a ceasefire. The Iranians are begging for one. The strait of Hormuz is open, it is shut, it is partly open.

To recap, where we are now in the war that was only supposed to last a few weeks but is now entering its sixth month is that the US has expanded airstrikes on Iran in a “major military punishment”. Iran has once again struck US base targets located across the region. The Houthis have claimed their own blockade over a second shipping chokepoint – the war now extends from the Gulf to the Red Sea. Trump can’t get out. Iran now understands the powerful leverage of the strait and its geographical, and therefore military, advantage in controlling it. Trump cannot end the war with that bargaining chip in its hands and the Iranians will not end the war without it. He can’t withdraw on terms that merely restore the prewar status quo. And Trump can’t go all in. Boots on the ground would be an extended bloody campaign that would claim many lives. In the US, the deaths of 18 troops so far and how the Pentagon appears to be trying to undercount that number has triggered outrage.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Southern and central states from California to Mississippi face heat indexes above 100F amid another heat dome

At least 40 million people were under extreme heat warnings across central and southern parts of the United States on Sunday as high temperatures and severe humidity gripped large swaths of the country for a second straight day.

Heat indexes well above 100F (38C) stretched from Minnesota down to Mississippi, extending west into southern California and Nevada. Parts of the south-west were expected to see highs of 120F (49C), according to the National Weather Service.

Figures are source of dispute as US defense department days ago reduced record of troops killed and wounded

The Pentagon updated its official war casualty database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.

According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.

Israeli prime minister says ICC’s war crime charges are ‘bogus’ and plans to be in New York for UN gathering this fall

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, was “fomenting hate” by calling the Israeli prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over Israel’s war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations general assembly.

Netanyahu said he intended to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said on Wednesday that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world’s top war crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.

Scott Gottlieb responds to report that company contacted the White House seeking to delay a recall announcement

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb said on Sunday that it was “not standard operating procedure” for Taylor Farms to ask the White House to intervene as the company prepared to announce a recall tied to a massive cyclospora outbreak.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Gottlieb was asked about a report from the Wall Street Journal that Taylor Farms contacted the White House seeking to delay a recall announcement while federal investigators were preparing to publicly link the company to the multi-state outbreak.