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.

Tom Homan comments on officer’s eligibility to serve after reports that agent’s two ex-wives had accused him of abuse

Tom Homan, the Trump administration “border czar”, on Sunday said he did not believe the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer at the center of a recent fatal shooting in Maine “should have ever cleared vetting”.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Homan was asked by host Dana Bash about the officer’s eligibility to serve following reports that two of his ex-wives had accused him of abuse.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Singer rebukes Trump administration after it uses her song Firework over footage of missile striking Iranian naval ship

Pop star Katy Perry has condemned the Trump White House after it used her hit song Firework in a TikTok video showing US military strikes on Iranian targets, saying she never approved the use of her music.

The White House video, which featured Firework playing over footage of a missile striking an Iranian naval ship, has amassed more than 6 million views. The post was captioned: “Iran has been warned.”

Even if no reactors are built, Donald Trump’s announcement of a double-standards deal with Riyadh has wrought further damage in a new era of proliferation

Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The US announced that it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the international watchdog.

Experts have long warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto leader, has said that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”. Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.

New law prohibits retailers from using personal data to charge different prices for identical products

New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill recently signed a new law prohibiting businesses from using shoppers’ personal information to charge different prices for identical products, making her state the third in the US to ban the practice.

The Fair Price Protection Act passed by New Jersey’s legislature seeks to protect consumers from surveillance pricing, in which retailers can use data including online activity, location and purchasing history to arbitrarily change prices for individual shoppers.

Sara Gilson was fatally shot less than two weeks after accusing her husband of pedophilia on social media

An Oklahoma woman known for posting on social media about parenting her children was fatally shot in an apparent murder-suicide by her husband a short time after she published a clip alluding to allegations that he had molested a minor, according to authorities and court records.

Sara Duffey – who was 43 and also went by Sara Gilson – Jeremiah Shawn Duffey, 48, were both found dead with gunshot wounds on Thursday at a home in suburban Tulsa, said statements from local police. Investigators suspected that Jeremiah had shot Sara and then himself.

Decadence in our era comes in technologically mediated forms, emptied of desire and obsessed with self-optimisation

Do you want to have a good time? You know, really enjoy yourself? Click here, and tell us your desires. Maybe it’s a new outfit, or some exotic cuisine delivered anonymously and steaming hot to your door. Maybe it’s porn or gambling. Perhaps you prefer the infinite scroll, the endlessly unfurling ribbon of glossy images and videos starring people you’ll never meet doing things you’ll never do. Or maybe you favor talking to a chatbot who will assure you that you are the most special of all its users.

For anyone with an Internet connection and a little discretionary income, the contemporary moment offers a superabundance of seductive distractions. Why then the pervasive mood of emptiness? Why are so many at once overstimulated and bored?

Both restaurant work and medicine involve abusive training and relentless devotion to minutiae – and the joy of offering comfort

I pass a mother heaving in grief while her son’s heart monitors flatline. It is the last time she will ever hold his hand. For me, this is another day on call in the intensive care unit as a pediatric physician. For her, this is the day her life shatters.

Later that night, a striking, charismatic surgeon from work treats me to an exquisite meal. Served outside a trailer, humidity barreling through our scrubs, the food is neither extravagant nor decadent. It is, however, the most succulent Texas barbecue brisket I will ever taste. This is the night I rest my head on his shoulder and he doesn’t flinch. This is the night an “us” was born.

Dr Annie Andrews says her ‘mission remains the same’ as she now aims to unseat Darline Graham, sister of the late Republican senator

It was early Sunday morning and Dr Annie Andrews was far from the political fray, dropping her youngest daughter off at a summer camp, when she heard the news.

“It was shocking and unbelievable,” she says of the death of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who defined South Carolina politics for a generation aged 71. “It’s a profound moment for the whole state of South Carolina.”

Around town, on the pitch and even in the pool, the New York mayor keeps his suit on – what do his sartorial choices tell us?

Playing football. Playing in the sand. Dancing on a stage with Alicia Keys and the entire New York Knicks roster. Swimming in a swimming pool. Swimming in the ocean.

Traditionally, a suit and tie would be considered inappropriate attire for each of these activities. Yet over the past year Zohran Mamdani has seemingly been on a one-man crusade to prove otherwise: to convince people that a formal suit is, actually, suitable for all activities.

The collapse of the rules-based order is not confined to the land: we’re imperilled as centuries of maritime cooperation sink beneath the waves

The US military campaign to protect merchant shipping from Iranian attacks by asserting direct maritime control in the strait of Hormuz is not an idea unique to Donald Trump’s administration. Almost exactly 200 years ago, in the period 1825-27, a powerful US naval squadron led by Commodore John Rodgers was sent to the Mediterranean to defend American ships from the depredations of Greek corsairs and pirates.

For all the new-minted republic’s brave talk of liberty, the US squadron did not assist Greece’s ongoing “regime change” struggle for independence from the Ottoman empire. Its sole, self-serving purpose was to defend US trade, markets and business interests. After abandoning his call for a people’s revolution in Tehran, this, too, is what Trump’s reckless war with Iran has now boiled down to.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Eighty-five million Americans are disaffected and less likely to vote, our survey found. Our democratic revival depends on a sense of community

Our country is at a crossroads between democracy and authoritarianism. And the only antidote is an organized, engaged citizenry. But at this critical moment when we need people to lean into the fight for our future, we find that far too many people have given up.

In a comprehensive, multiracial study, Sojourn Strategies, Ariel Research Partners and Richard Shafranek found that 35% of the US electorate – 85 million people – are disaffected, characterized by high levels of disillusionment and low levels of trust in government and politics. Our democratic revival depends on solutions that transform people from disaffected bystanders into powerful civic agents.

Julie Fernandes is managing director of the Democracy & Power Innovation Fund, a community of organizers, researchers and funders who are working together to strengthen state-based community organizing, and associate director of the Rockefeller Family Fund

Katrina Gamble, PhD, is founder and CEO of Sojourn Strategies, a Black woman-owned social impact consulting firm that brings a people-centered approach to advocacy campaigns, research and philanthropic advising

Abdul El-Sayed may be buoyed by a younger, anti-establishment coalition as he runs against an establishment candidate

Abdul El-Sayed spends a fair amount of his day not taking himself so seriously. He jokes about his haircut, films selfie videos with supporters and has taken – more than once – to cringey dancing and lip-syncing on camera.

But ask him after a long day on the campaign trail to explain the difference between a virus and a bacterium, and the epidemiologist takes over from the entertainer.

Experts say evidence for cognitive screening desired by health secretary ‘not great’ as taskforce idle since last year

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has called for better Alzheimer’s screening – but a critical federal panel that might have helped researchers find practical ways to do that has been prevented from meeting for more than a year.

The panel, formally called the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), had planned to issue a recommendation on screening for cognitive decline this year, alongside 13 other topics as varied as autism screening and food allergy prevention.

GOP legislative priorities could be at odds with voters as midterms come into view and Democrats attempt a resurgence

When the chief Republican budget writer took to the floor of the House of Representatives this week to tout a plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on the war with Iran, he avoided using the words “war”, “conflict” or even “Iran”.

“Just baseline battlefield readiness” is what Jodey Arrington said the money in the $95bn budget blueprint would be used for. “Bullets and bombs to finish the job and come home safely and victoriously, strengthen our food supply, and ultimately safeguard the integrity of our elections.”

More than 330,000 Haitian immigrants in limbo as Trump administration seeks to end temporary protected status

More than 330,000 Haitian immigrants in the US are set to lose their ability to legally live and work in the country as the Trump administration seeks to terminate their temporary protected status. An estimated 13,000 are nursing assistants, who care for 65,000 patients every day.

“I get up at 5am every morning and I take two buses to work to clean the rooms of the residents. I give my heart,” said a nursing home housekeeper with TPS from Haiti, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “These residents are like my grandmother.”

President harks back to red scare of his childhood to attack US left – but will such language resonate beyond Maga base?

Perhaps above all else, Donald Trump is a child of the cold war.

Three months before the US president was born, Winston Churchill delivered a historic speech in Fulton, Missouri, that ushered in a generations-long existential struggle between western capitalism and Soviet communism.

PM promises to ‘defend national interest before anything else’ in first big broadcast interview since entering No 10

Andy Burnham has promised to disagree with Donald Trump if necessary, including in public, in his first big broadcast interview since becoming prime minister.

Burnham’s comments came as Wes Streeting, the new defence secretary, said he did not believe the Trump administration was looking for allies who “suck up”, but rather those with the confidence to set out disagreements when needed.

Exclusive: CSI Aviation and GlobalX accused of violating civil rights as part of Trump immigration crackdown

Venezuelan men sent last year to a notorious Salvadorian terrorism prison by the Trump administration are suing the US aviation companies that transported them there.

A lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Washington DC accuses the companies CSI Aviation and GlobalX of violating the Venezuelans’ civil rights, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and other violations, for their role in flying the three planes that took the men to El Salvador.