Tokayev in Berlin calls Putin outstanding statesman and most acceptable political figure for Europe



Nine American citizens have been killed by Israeli settlers or security forces in occupied West Bank since 2022
The US Senate on Tuesday evening rejected along mostly party lines a Democratic resolution that would have forced the state department to report to Congress on violence in the occupied West Bank, including the killings of nine American citizens by Israeli settlers or security forces over the last few years.
The resolution, led by the Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, would have given the state department 30 days to report to Congress on those deaths and on wider human rights conditions in the territory, including Israel’s detention of Palestinian children.
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© Photograph: Erik Marmor/Getty Images

© Photograph: Erik Marmor/Getty Images

© Photograph: Erik Marmor/Getty Images


US president also issues executive order officially rebranding ‘artificial intelligence’ as ‘superintelligence’
Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the heads of the largest US tech and AI companies had signed on to a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on artificial intelligence. He announced the deal, called the Joint Commitment On Frontier Responsibilities, following a White House luncheon with top tech executives.
“It’s almost like a constitution in a way, and the biggest people in the world signed that, and I signed it as president, and it really is a form of protection,” Trump said.
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© Photograph: Tierney L Cross/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tierney L Cross/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tierney L Cross/UPI/Shutterstock

Garcés Pérez, who was shot in his car by agents, is accused of striking officer with side mirror while trying to drive away
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced an assault charge against a Venezuelan delivery driver who was shot in his car by a federal immigration agent in Texas, accusing the man of striking an officer with his side mirror while trying to drive away.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was charged with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer, according to a criminal complaint. Garcés Pérez, whose attorney has said still has a bullet lodged in his back from the 20 September shooting, made an initial court appearance in an Austin federal court on Tuesday, according to the US attorney’s office in the western district of Texas.
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© Photograph: Austin Police/Reuters

© Photograph: Austin Police/Reuters

© Photograph: Austin Police/Reuters

The verdict stems from Carroll’s 2023 sexual abuse and defamation civil trial against Trump
Donald Trump has agreed to stop fighting in court the disbursement of E Jean Carroll’s $5m verdict in her 2023 sexual abuse and defamation civil trial against him, a procedural development as the funds had already been distributed to her.
While the decision does not change anything about Carroll’s receipt of the payout, its revelation effectively means that Trump will no longer oppose the monetary outcome he had long fought.
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© Composite: AFP via Getty Images, AP

© Composite: AFP via Getty Images, AP

© Composite: AFP via Getty Images, AP

GOP senators lash out on Smith, who led criminal cases against Trump, with invective and inaccurate information
Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led two criminal cases against Donald Trump in 2023, faced attacks from Republicans in a wide-ranging hearing on Tuesday that included a basketball mix-up, a reference to the tooth fairy and accusations of perjury.
In the Senate judiciary committee hearing on Tuesday, the Republican senator Eric Schmitt, of Missouri, raised perjury allegations against Smith, seemingly over a mix-up about the Atlanta Hawks and University of Iowa Hawkeyes basketball teams.
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© Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters



Over half of 260 workplace child fatalities between 2013 and 2023 lacked data on cause of death or the industry worked
Information is missing on over half of deaths at work of people under the age of 18 in the US because of significant gaps in child labor data, according to a government accountability office (GAO) report released on Tuesday.
The report found that between 2013 and 2023, an average of 24 children under the age of 18 died each year due to work-related incidents. Over half of the 260 child fatality cases did not contain detailed data on the cause of death or the industry the child worked in.
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© Photograph: Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tayfun Coşkun/Anadolu/Getty Images


The Labour leader has set out his plans with passion and ambition, but the story he tells lacks a vital chapter on managing global chaos
Andy Burnham is at home at Labour conference, and not only because it is in Liverpool and he has Merseyside roots. The prime minister is native to his political tribe wherever it gathers. He is fluent in its sentimental vocabulary and indigenous to its folk traditions.
Keir Starmer had solid Labour bona fides. He joined the party as a teenager. His parents named him after Keir Hardie. But he didn’t have Burnham’s knack for turning those red-team credentials into an emotional connection.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
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.
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© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Pennsylvania has reported over 900 measles cases and four deaths as governor and health chief RFK Jr spar over data
A second measles death in the US has been announced on Tuesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as the country grapples with an outbreak affecting 47 states.
As of 24 September, a total of 3,659 measles cases have been confirmed by the CDC, with the two deaths having been confirmed on Tuesday. The confirmation did not specify in which states the deaths had occurred.
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© Photograph: Hannah Beier/Reuters

© Photograph: Hannah Beier/Reuters

© Photograph: Hannah Beier/Reuters

Federal workers’ union alleges EPA illegally terminated agreement with the goal of repressing political dissent
The union representing more than 8,000 workers at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a lawsuit against the agency and administrator Lee Zeldin on Tuesday alleging the agency illegally terminated the union’s collective bargaining agreement.
The lawsuit, filed by two local unions of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), claims the agency failed to justify the contract’s termination and was motivated by a desire to repress political dissent, a violation of the employees’ first amendment rights.
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© Photograph: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images


© Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


With the midterms looming, and after the Epstein files and the war on Iran, Trump superfans are losing faith in their lame duck president
It took a dead child sex offender and a disastrous war to do it, but it looks as though the Maga faithful are slowly beginning to lose confidence in their dear leader. As Donald Trump’s approval ratings drop to record lows, some of his most fervent supporters are turning on him.
See, as exhibit one, Trisha Hope, who was once a proud member of the Front Row Joes, a group of Trump superfans who follow the president to rallies around the country. They have custom-made T-shirts! They have branded baseball caps! They even have the attention of Trump himself, who frequently shouts out the group. He did once accidentally call them the “front row Jacks and Joes”, but who can expect a man of his calibre to pay attention to the plebs, eh?
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© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/EPA

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/EPA

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/EPA

Health secretary calls for medical and lifestyle details to be sent to doctors and AI to address ‘chronic disease epidemic’
Robert F Kennedy Jr laid out an expansive vision for collecting, sharing and analyzing US health information at a Maha event hosted by a close ally and outspoken anti-vaccine activist.
Medical and lifestyle data, from doctor’s visits to exercise, should be connected and shared with the government and independent researchers, where it can be searched by AI – including potential links between vaccines and health outcomes including autism and mortality, suggested Kennedy, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine skeptic.
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© Photograph: Blake Fagan/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Blake Fagan/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Blake Fagan/AFP/Getty Images

Mike Lee objected to the safeguard against the demolition of any presidential memorial Congress designates
A Republican senator has blocked a bipartisan bill that would have prevented Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without the approval of Congress.
Mike Lee, of Utah, objected on Monday night when the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley asked the Senate to pass the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act by unanimous consent. The bill, co-written with the Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, would have banned the demolition of any presidential memorial designated by Congress, including the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, unless lawmakers explicitly approved it.
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© Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

© Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

© Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP



First Native American woman to serve as US cabinet secretary candid about history with alcohol as she seeks to tackle billowing public health crisis
“It clouds your mind,” recalls Deb Haaland, the trailblazing US cabinet secretary now running to be New Mexico’s next governor. “They say that, after the first drink, you lose your judgment.”
Haaland developed a drinking problem after leaving high school and was twice arrested for driving under the influence. But in her 20s she decided to get sober, a battle that required personal commitment and critical external support. She went on to become a member of Congress, one of the first two Native American women ever elected to the House, and then to become the first Native American to serve as a US cabinet secretary.
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© Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

© Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

© Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

College sports have been upended by athlete payments
Critics say legislation does not go far enough
The Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan bill on Monday that would regulate college sports, an attempt to end “chaos” in an industry that has been upended by skyrocketing athlete payments and near-unrestricted transfers between schools.
The overwhelming 77-22 vote to pass the Protect College Sports Act is the strongest effort yet by Congress to set national regulations governing payments to college athletes for their name, image and likeness and how often they can transfer. It would give the NCAA new authority over those rules and limited antitrust protections to enforce them.
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© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters



This live blog is now closed.
For some context, it’s worth remembering that Smith had a two-volume report of his findings as a result of his criminal investigations – that resulted in two indictments against the president after his first term. The first focused on Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, while the second on the president’s retention of classified documents.
However, in February, a Trump-appointed federal judge permanently barred the justice department from releasing the second volume of Smith’s report.
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© Photograph: Mayela López/Reuters

© Photograph: Mayela López/Reuters

© Photograph: Mayela López/Reuters

These men in Maine, Georgia and Florida shared no ties – until they became casualties in the latest phase of Trump’s anti-immigration campaign
It was 7am on 13 July this year. A warm, sunny morning, as residents of Biddeford, Maine, left their homes, got into their cars and began their commute. Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero came out of the apartment he lived in with his partner and daughter and drove off in his white car. Minutes later, neighbors heard three pops. Durán Guerrero was dead.
More than 1,200 miles (1,900km) away in Ocilla, Georgia, Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva was shuffled on to a bus. Private sector guards and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were beginning the process of transferring him and several other immigrants from one detention center to another nearly two hours away. Ten minutes into the ride, he became unconscious. Doctors at a nearby hospital pronounced him dead.
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© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/GoFundMe

© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/GoFundMe

© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/GoFundMe

Republicans could lean on congressional procedure to defy the will of voters. But if they try that, the Senate has a clear way to fight back
Having lost his mail-in ballot case, Donald Trump will probably resort to ever more extreme ways to try to hold a Republican Congress in November’s elections.
His last-ditch effort to count Joe Biden out in 2020 was for Republicans to “investigate” states Biden narrowly won; proclaim fabricated allegations of “stolen elections” to be true; and then reassign those states’ electoral votes to Trump. I have previously described how that same playbook could be used to try to steal the midterms if a Democratic margin of victory in the House is relatively narrow.
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© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA



Decision from conservative justice comes before court hears case on whether fossil-fuel firms deceived US public
Supreme court justice Samuel Alito recused himself on Monday from a major climate-change case after facing calls to step aside due to stock holdings in oil companies.
A letter posted in the case did not specify a reason, but the conservative justice has previously recused himself from other cases involving companies where he holds stock.
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© Photograph: Vincenzo Livieri/Reuters

© Photograph: Vincenzo Livieri/Reuters

© Photograph: Vincenzo Livieri/Reuters

President says plant will be built by Indian-owned company and calls it largest such facility in American history
Donald Trump on Monday announced what he called the largest steel plant in American history to be built in Iowa, giving Republicans a jobs message to take to voters in a state that could help decide control of the Senate in November.
“Using advanced steelmaking technology, the plant will produce some of the highest quality, most affordable steel anywhere in the world,” Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by Iowa’s top Republicans.
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© Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Andrew Bailey will resign as FBI co-deputy director about a year after assuming the position
Andrew Bailey, a deputy director of the FBI who has been overseeing some of Trump’s election-related investigations, will step down from his position approximately one year after assuming his role.
“I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri,” Bailey wrote in an X post on Monday amid an ongoing shake-up at the bureau.
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© Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

© Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

© Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

Sending migrants to countries they do not come from can have deadly consequences and must be halted, says report
The deportation of thousands of migrants from the US to third countries has set off a “cascade of human rights violations” that could have “deadly” consequences, two dozen UN human rights experts have warned.
Since Donald Trump returned to power in 2025, the US government has been offering millions of dollars to foreign governments to take in migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, with no ties to their countries. Deals have been struck with 35 nations, nearly a third of them in Africa.
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© Photograph: Matthew Jacobs/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matthew Jacobs/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matthew Jacobs/AFP/Getty Images

Bo French, who is running to lead a state agency, has in the past posted controversial and racist statements online
Bo French, a Texas Republican running to lead a powerful state agency, has a history of making controversial social media posts, including calling for the public execution of Democratic leaders, according to a recent investigation from CNN’s KFile team.
French, who is running to lead Texas’s railroad commission, has recently faced criticism from members of his own party after making a racist post on social media. Powerful Republicans, including the Texas senator John Cornyn, said they would not support French in the upcoming election.
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© Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

© Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

© Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

Environmentalists decry move that relaxes requirements on automakers to control pollution from gas-powered cars
The Trump administration on Monday announced it was slashing clean car rules that had been aimed at reducing planet-heating emissions and boosting electric vehicles.
The move, which was criticized by environmentalists, relaxes requirements on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and light trucks for model years 2022 through 2031.
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© Photograph: Apu Gomes/Getty Images

© Photograph: Apu Gomes/Getty Images

© Photograph: Apu Gomes/Getty Images

Fossil fuel firms have spent years trying to regulate climate research by donating to US universities, study authors argue
Recent attacks on US universities by the Trump administration have built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and conservative thinktanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence, according to a new study.
The authors of the new perspective study argue that the erosion of university autonomy has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate interests, especially within climate and energy research.
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© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

The US has already grown used to the horror caused by abortion bans. And Republicans have sought to quash the stories
Abortion has faded from the headlines since the Dobbs decision of 2022, and Republicans like it that way. In the immediate aftermath of the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, as millions of women lost access to the dignity and self-determination that abortion provided them, clinics shut their doors, and the extent of Dobbs’s horrendously adverse public health implications started to become clear, abortion was always, it seemed, in the headlines. There were plenty of stories. There was the first known woman to die as the result of an abortion ban; and then the second; and then the third. There were the various lawsuits and ballot initiatives that for a while turned access off and on and then off again in various states; then there were the state supreme court elections, races that were newly transformed by the abortion debate and on which the health and status of a state’s women now relied. There were the clinics that shut their doors in Republican-controlled states, many of which had provided the essential, stigmatized care for decades, under hostile conditions, with persistence and innovation and determination that were staggering.
But the stories have faded from the headlines as the years have gone by. Feminism has gone dramatically out of style, with the big women’s rights NGOs wounded enough by Dobbs and attacks from the Trump administration that they have been largely unable to push their agenda in either media or policy, and algorithmic social media driving a rise in gender conservatism and politicized misogyny, particularly among young men. But maybe more importantly, abortion has ceased to be a story because the horrors of abortion bans have ceased to be news: the US has grown used to the swift and dramatic erosion of women’s health and status that has followed Dobbs, grown used to the horror stories and upward ticking body counts, grown into ease, and even a kind of compliant boredom, with women’s death and indignity.
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© Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AP

© Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AP

© Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AP

How can we fix our pricing crisis? Economic sociologist Lindsay Owens urges tough new rules – and a consumer uprising
“Repeat after me: it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.” That’s the message to frustrated US shoppers in Gouged: The End of a Fair Price – and What That Means for Your Wallet by Lindsay Owens, economic sociologist and head of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive Washington thinktank.
Consumer rage is rising and no wonder – we are all living through the “reinvention of the rip-off”, Owens told the Guardian, an experience that is undermining Americans’ trust in the economy. Nothing short of a consumer uprising and a slate of tough new rules is going to fix the problem, she believes.
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© Photograph: Julia Kozlov/Getty Images

© Photograph: Julia Kozlov/Getty Images

© Photograph: Julia Kozlov/Getty Images

Hoping to win back male voters, the Trump White House is pushing the regressive idea that the hormone could make them ‘virile and brawny’
Two years after Donald Trump decisively won the vote of the American man, polls say male voters are increasingly disillusioned with an administration that has waged wars and enriched itself.
Ahead of the midterms, Trump’s strategy seems to be to find a way to get that masculine animus back, so the male populace will vote not with their heads or their hearts, but with their hogs. At least, that’s one way of understanding why, this summer, Trump’s secretaries of health and defense announced plans that could increase levels of testosterone, or simply “T”, in the civilian and military population.
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© Illustration: Matt Chase/The Guardian

© Illustration: Matt Chase/The Guardian

© Illustration: Matt Chase/The Guardian

Trump’s tariffs and his war against Iran caused prices to rise, but the US president continues to claim it’s ‘the greatest economy in history’
Donald Trump has taken to repeating a familiar boast: “We have the greatest economy in history,” Trump said recently at a White House press gaggle. The boast comes even though inflation is higher and economic growth lower than when Joe Biden left office, even though gas prices have jumped about 50% since the war against Iran started, and even though 73% of Americans think the economy is in fair or poor shape (48% say it’s in poor shape). What’s more, the Federal Reserve is so worried about inflation that it just raised interest rates.
“It’s bluster, it’s gaslighting for him to say the economy is the greatest ever,” said Darrick Hamilton, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main union federation. “The economy is trending down by many measures. A lot of that has been caused by Trump’s unforced errors.”
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© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

David Perdue’s remarks come after a Taiwanese minister spoke of the ‘severe’ military threat posed by Beijing to the self-ruled island
Donald Trump offered to sell weapons to China while hosting its leader, Xi Jinping, last week, the US ambassador to China said on Sunday.
David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday: “President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point.”
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© Photograph: Ritchie B Tongo/EPA

© Photograph: Ritchie B Tongo/EPA

© Photograph: Ritchie B Tongo/EPA

After public backlash, the Trump administration changed its tactics from ‘siege’ to ‘soft feet’. Now, ICE is everywhere
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© Photograph: Vecindarios 901

© Photograph: Vecindarios 901

© Photograph: Vecindarios 901

Social and news media commenters seize on senator’s gaffe, with some characterizing it as a Freudian slip
With speculation about whether he may defect from the Democratic party swirling around him, the US senator John Fetterman described himself seemingly unintentionally as a “lifelong Republican” during a fireside chat in Texas over the weekend.
Fetterman made the comment when someone listening to him speak with CBS News political correspondent Major Garrett at the Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday asked the Pennsylvania senator why he had not become an independent.
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© Photograph: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock



US attorney general argues that president was ‘sick and tired’ of inaccurate reporting by CNN, MS Now and Politico
Donald Trump’s attorney general, Todd Blanche, argued on Sunday that the administration was permitted to ban three news outlets from the White House because “it is a privilege and not a right to be there”.
Appearing on the ABC News program This Week during the second week of the White House’s dispute over press credentialing and access, Blanche also said that the administration took the decision to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico beginning on 19 September because the president was “sick and tired” of what he considered to be those media outlets’ inaccurate reporting.
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© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

John Kennedy pushes back against such spending as pro-Trump ‘public service announcements’ air before midterms
As the White House expands a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign to promote Donald Trump’s political agenda before the November midterm elections, Senator John Kennedy told CBS News on Sunday “there ought to be a rule” against such spending – before tacitly admitting such spending is “probably” illegal.
Kennedy, the US president’s fellow Republican, was asked by Margaret Brennan, the CBS Face the Nation host, about the White House spending to air multiple ads featuring Trump – including one that was produced for his 2024 election campaign.
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© Photograph: White House

© Photograph: White House

© Photograph: White House

Thom Tillis says Trump’s decision to back Paxton over John Cornyn has put the Senate seat at risk for Republicans
US senator Thom Tillis on Sunday criticized Donald Trump, his fellow Republican, for the president’s support of Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Senate Republican primary.
“He made a colossal mistake,” Tillis, a frequent Trump critic from North Carolina, said during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union in reference to the president’s support of Paxton who defeated Cornyn in the May primary.
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© Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

© Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

© Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Waltz says Trump rejected Iran’s proposal to end war because they ‘were asking for everything up front’
The Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations said the US rejected Iran’s proposal to end the ongoing war there because Iranian negotiators “were asking for everything up front”.
Echoing comments by Donald Trump on Saturday, the president’s UN ambassador Mike Waltz told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that Iran had asked for relief “from billions and billions of sanctions that are going into place” as part of an economic blockade on Iran. The blockade is aimed at putting pressure on Iran to stop its attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz.
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© Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images