Mariann Budde gained national attention for calling on US president to consider immigrants and LGBTQ+ people

Rev Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington DC who gained national attention when she called on Donald Trump to “have mercy” on the country’s immigrants and LGBTQ+ community after his second inauguration, is resigning.

Budde shared in her resignation letter that she will be leaving her post on 3 June 2028 after the consecration and ordination of the new diocesan bishop.

US president urges Americans to call Tom Cotton to support bill to make daylight saving time permanent

Donald Trump on Saturday put pressure on the US senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas to support a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, urging Americans to call what appeared to be the personal cellphone number of his fellow Republican and the chair of the Senate intelligence committee.

The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House in July, but it faces roadblocks in the Senate, where some Republicans are strongly opposed to it. Proponents, including the president and his administration, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active. Detractors say permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings when children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.

Life onboard the aircraft carrier near the strait of Hormuz as it conducts military operations against Iranian targets

Frank Strada leaving position as state launches independent investigation into what went wrong

Tennessee’s top prison official is stepping down in the aftermath of the failed execution of death row prisoner Christa Pike, the state’s governor Bill Lee announced Saturday.

Frank Strada, the department of correction commissioner, will leave his position later in October as the state launches an independent investigation into what went wrong during Wednesday’s botched execution of Pike, according to Lee.

TSA says rule change is meant to keep officers ‘alert’, but union says it ignores safety and ‘common decency’

US airport security officers who verify boarding passes and IDs ahead of security checkpoints will no longer be allowed to sit down while working.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was moving forward with this change in policy to keep officers “alert”, the agency confirmed recently.

President says payments, to be sent in early October, are meant to offset cost of monthly insurance premiums

Donald ⁠Trump has said the US government will send a one-time $90 payment to more than 20 million Americans enrolled in Medicare, the ⁠health insurance program for ⁠elderly people, ​to help offset the cost of their monthly medical insurance premiums.

The president said on social media late on Friday that the ⁠payments would come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which he said was given $2bn by Congress to improve the Medicare fee-for-service program.

Black voters reveal a generational divide, with younger voters drawn to the Democratic Socialists of America, and older voters focused on what can realistically be achieved

One of the most heated debates in the Democratic party is how left it should go – especially after a year that has seen several democratic socialists win their primary races. Moderate Democrats worry that left-wing candidates will struggle to win general elections, while progressive voters want fresh solutions to healthcare and the rising cost of living. But largely left out of this debate is one of the most critical bases of the party: Black voters.

A Pew Research Center study found that among Democrats, only 21% of Black voters are likely to positively view candidates who align with democratic socialists, compared to 40% of white, 30% of Asian, and 20% of Hispanic voters.

Frank Strada will leave role next month after uproar over execution attempt, which sent Pike to hospital in critical condition

Tennessee’s prison chief is resigning after the failed execution of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth “botched” execution under his leadership across two states since 2022.

Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive.

As the Illinois governor seeks a third term, his growing national profile has fueled speculation about a possible White House bid

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When Donald Trump returned to power, 20 long months ago, some state leaders wrung their hands, worrying what explicit resistance might cost their citizens – and their careers – during the second term of a vengeful president. JB Pritzker was not among them.

Two days after Trump’s re-election, the Democratic governor of Illinois warned the president would need to “come through me” to reach the people of his state. He waited all of 30 days after the inauguration before drawing a comparison with Nazi Germany.

Sailors’ relatives are relieved as the ship is expected to dock in San Diego this week after a record-breaking 250-plus days at sea

A mother in San Diego is counting down the days until her son comes home.

“I had a big sign made, welcoming him back,” she said. “I can’t wait to see him.”

John Steinbeck’s hometown of Salinas is the least affordable city in the US for the middle class, a recent Brookings Institution analysis found

Nestled between two mountain ranges at the crook of central California’s coastline sits a valley known as the “salad bowl of the world”.

Farm workers stoop over neatly lined rows of crops off Highway 101 to harvest more than half of the nation’s supply of lettuce and nearly a third of its strawberries. The soil here is so rich that author John Steinbeck made the Salinas valley the promised land in his literary depictions of people chasing the American dream: immigrants, farm workers, westward-moving hopefuls, hungering for a better life.

When the new ‘department of government efficiency’ sent young techies to disrupt federal agencies, not everyone complied. Here’s what happened when one worker fought to protect immigrant data

In the early hours of Saturday 22 February 2025 the following email landed in the inboxes of the entire US federal workforce:

From: HR hr@opm.gov

Plan to install barriers through popular national park sparked outrage from advocates and politicians alike

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from expanding the border wall and other security infrastructure across the Big Bend region of west Texas, where contentious plans to build roads and vehicle barriers through a popular national park have led to furious backlash and public protests.

US district judge Kathleen Cardone’s ruling after a Friday hearing in El Paso deals a major blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to expand the border wall through west Texas at breakneck pace, while riding roughshod over the objections of local business owners, landowners, public land advocates and politicians from both parties.

Kevin Warsh’s predecessor had been investigated over cost overruns related to central bank renovation project

The US ⁠justice department is not reopening a criminal investigation into former Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell ⁠for cost overruns ⁠related ​to the central bank’s building renovation project, a department spokesperson said on Friday.

Attorney general Todd ⁠Blanche – in comments to Bloomberg News, which first reported the development – said he has not ruled out ⁠continuing to look into the project’s oversight and potentially take ​action if evidence of ‌wrongdoing came to ‌light.

Dozens of residents testify to legislature’s redistricting committee in heated hearing, the last of eight

Hundreds of people gathered across from the Mississippi state capitol building on Thursday evening to rally against the aggressive Republican efforts to draw maps that favor their own party.

Shortly after the US supreme court’s decision in Louisiana v Callais, which severely weakened section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Tate Reeves, the Mississippi governor, moved in lockstep with other Republican governors and lawmakers to call for a special session to redraw maps. However, before that special session could occur, Reeves canceled it and wrote on X that he expected “lawmakers to redraw congressional lines BETWEEN NOW and 2027 elections!”

Senate Leadership Fund is redirecting ad spending from Michael Whatley’s campaign to support other candidates

A major Republican political action committee pulled the plug on financial support for its Senate candidate in North Carolina, Michael Whatley, according to multiple reports, as the party begins to triage resources amid increasingly dire midterm polling.

The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the campaign arm of the Senate majority leader, John Thune, has withdrawn its ad spending in North Carolina to redirect support to other candidates, Semafor reported on Friday. The New York Times, CNN and other publications have confirmed the report with sources close to the fund.

Ceremony will not be hosted at its traditional home for the first time since awards began in 1978

The Kennedy Center Honors will take place away from its traditional home this year for the first time in its history as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remains in jeopardy amid Donald Trump’s ongoing battle to have it named after himself.

The Capital One Arena in Washington DC is now set to host the ceremony on 7 December, a Kennedy Center spokespersonsaid. The list of honorees this year has not yet been announced.

Support for 37-year-old Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins could upend the governor’s race in the heavily Republican state

This July, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins spent four days and 450 miles (725km) wending his way down the Yukon River in a 24ft Alweld skiff, a flat-bottomed aluminum boat built for shallow Alaska rivers.

Starting in Koyukon Athabascan country, he passed through Indigenous Deg Hit’an communities like Anvik, before ending among the Yup’ik villages of the lower river, Russian Mission and Pilot Station among them. The boat carried him through 11 villages – some only reachable by water or small plane, and most with fewer than 300 residents, and fewer still who could recall the last time they had seen a candidate for Alaska governor, Republican, Democrat or independent.

Trump has repeatedly acted to boost like-minded and authoritarian leaders across Latin America using funds allocated for the European defense against Putin

The case of the Siders family illustrates major shortcomings among Ohio’s political and administrative authorities

In June 2025, Jody Walker stood in front of Ohio lawmakers at a senate finance committee meeting in Columbus. As the head of South Central Ohio Job and Family Services, he was desperate for help.

“I have been a county director since 1999, yet I have not seen such a challenging time in the child welfare system as I do today,” he said, “specifically in terms of the needs of our children.”

These graphics explain what the Democrats would need to do to flip the Senate and House of Representatives

A turning point in Donald Trump’s second term will soon arrive. On 3 November, voters across the US will decide whether to keep the president’s Republican allies in control of Congress, or return Democrats to the majority.

Many indicators of voter sentiment suggest the Democrats are favored to take back control of the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate. Winning either would be a significant victory for the party and give it the power to block Trump’s legislative agenda and more aggressively investigate his administration.

Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is surprising everyone, as polls have him leading his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, in the Republican-led state of Texas.

Jonathan Freedland speaks to James Henson, founder and executive director of the Texas Politics Project, about why a blue wave in the Lone Star state would be seismic

Advocacy group that pushed for the legislation says 9,000 children are married in California every year

California has outlawed child marriage, joining 17 other US states where the taboo practice is also banned.

Under past state law, minors of any age could obtain a court order for marriage with the consent of their parents.

Landlords can no longer refuse pit bulls, rottweilers, dobermans or other breeds considered ‘scary’

Landlords in Washington DC will no longer be able to refuse a tenant’s dog based on its breed, size or weight, nor can they impose special charges related to these factors.

At least, that’s what a new law that took effect on Thursday aims to achieve. Animal welfare organizations and animal shelters applauded the legislation, emphasizing the benefits of reducing barriers to pet ownership in the US capital.

Democratic-led coalition says gutting key protections will set US back decades and worsen climate crisis

States and cities sued the Trump administration on Thursday for repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas.

Twenty-one states, led by New York, are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rule. The Democratic-led coalition also includes Pennsylvania’s governor, the District of Columbia, New York City, Chicago and the city and county of Denver. They argue that “gutting one of the country’s most significant climate protections” will set the nation back decades and worsen the climate crisis.

Court will review practice of indefinite detention for undocumented immigrants living in the US

The US supreme court agreed on Thursday to take up a case challenging the Trump administration’s practice of indefinite detention for undocumented immigrants living in the US and awaiting deportation proceedings.

At the center of the immigration case is a dispute over Donald Trump’s reinterpretation of a longstanding policy that has led to a huge surge in the number of migrants held in detention centers.

Jorge Messias calls Guardian report ‘an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty’ as nation prepares to go to polls

Brazil’s attorney general has said foreign meddling in his country’s institutions and democracy “cannot be tolerated” after a Guardian report revealed how the Trump administration was pushing to direct funds to a campaign against the Brazilian supreme court.

Writing on X, Jorge Messias called the report “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”. “The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” Messias added.

Three-quarters of nations have rightly abolished capital punishment in law or practice, but killing by the state has surged in the US

What is the kindest way to kill? That’s the question being asked once more following Tennessee’s failed attempts to execute Christa Pike for the brutal murder of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18. The 50-year-old was taken to a medical facility, her condition unknown, with witnesses describing her snoring loudly around 40 minutes after receiving two injections of pentobarbital on Wednesday. It is the second botched killing in months, prompting Tennessee’s governor to order a halt to executions.

Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane alternative to firing squads and electric chairs. They in turn were seen as an improvement on hanging, which looked much like lynching in a system disproportionately handing the death penalty to black men. The age and ill health of those executed, and the ethical refusal of most medical staff to be involved, may contribute to botched injections. But analysis of autopsy results has provided compelling evidence that suffering is inherent; injections – especially those involving paralytic drugs – have merely disguised it. What is described as safeguarding the dignity of prisoners is really about reducing the discomfort of witnesses who would otherwise see their suffering.

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Many men rape; many men giggle encouragingly, or shrug indifferently, when their friends rape. Many men rape, and few seem to think that it’s a very big deal

Maybe more than anything else, sexual violence is repetitive. Men commit it in patterns: mostly against women who are close by and vulnerable, just below them on some social hierarchy: their assistant, their date, their friend, their daughter, their student, their kid’s babysitter.

Men rape for opportunity – because they can – and for status – because it makes them feel good. They rape to impress other men, documenting it on phones for one another’s benefit. Men rape and do not always seem to register much of a difference between the sex they’ve had that was rape and the sex that they’ve had that wasn’t. They rape, often, without seeming to think about it, registering their victims’ unwillingness with vague contempt, if at all.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

DNC accuses Pentagon of pushing through changes to how voters abroad request absentee ballots ahead of midterms

The Trump administration broke the law when it pushed through a last-minute change to the form overseas citizens use to register and request absentee ballots, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Until recently, the form, the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), gave overseas voters four options to choose from when describing their geographic location. Voters could say they needed an overseas ballot because they were on active military service, living outside the US with an intent to return, or living outside the US and uncertain about their return.

Installing tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to Pentagon defense board raises conflict-of-interest concerns

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By installing the tech billionaires Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to advisory roles in a Pentagon project about the future of warfare, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, bestowed extraordinary influence on two of Maga’s most significant campaign donors – and both men own companies that benefit from federal defense contracting.

The new project, which Hegseth dubbed “Project Meridian” in an event in Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday, will be led by Pentagon official Emil Michael, a former Uber executive. As the Guardian has reported, Michael made millions in profits off non-public Musk company AI stock while in federal office – and while guiding the Department of Defense’s artificial intelligence efforts.

House Democrats say officials may have illegally misused public funds to pay for president’s ‘narcissistic ego trips’

The Trump administration is facing growing questions over whether it illegally used taxpayer money to air television ads promoting Donald Trump five weeks before the US midterm elections.

Two congressional Democrats, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and George Whitesides of California, have asked federal watchdogs to investigate the ads.