Prosecution did not act in fair and impartial way in grand jury proceedings, judge rules, after West Wing actor charged with groping young boy on TV set

A state court ⁠judge in New Mexico has dismissed charges of child sexual abuse against West Wing actor and director Timothy Busfield, saying the prosecution did not act in a ⁠fair and impartial manner during grand jury proceedings.

Judge Joseph Montano said prosecutors could pursue new charges against Busfield.

Justice department warns election officials of prosecution if they ‘knowingly tabulate ballots’ cast by noncitizens

The Trump administration is escalating its fight with California ahead of next month’s midterm elections, warning that local officials who process and tabulate ballots submitted by suspected noncitizen voters are putting themselves at risk of criminal investigation and potential prosecution.

The letter on Friday from senior justice department officials and obtained first by the Associated Press is the latest salvo in an ongoing tussle with heavily Democratic California, coming just a day after the Trump administration sued the state to prevent it from counting mail-in ballots from people the federal government has identified as “likely” noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.

President appears at rally for struggling Mike Collins, dismisses critics and touts ‘most successful’ two-year run

At a rally in north Georgia, Donald Trump again claimed that the 2020 election in Georgia was fraudulent, alleging that the election of US senator Jon Ossoff was illegitimate.

Ossoff, who faces US congressman Mike Collins in November, does not represent Georgia’s values, Trump said.

Father of five-year-old Rhoam Summer says family ‘broken and lost’, while seven-year-old and 54-year-old in hospital

Authorities are investigating a shooting at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, where a 16-year-old shooter killed four people before being shot dead by a bystander.

The shooting took place on Thursday afternoon at Silver Rail elementary school, about 125 miles (200km) south-east of Portland.

Her abrupt firing after just five days reopened the contest for one of the Trump administration’s most prominent roles

The White House is without a press secretary again after the ousting of Katie Zacharia, just five days into her appointment as Donald Trump’s spokesperson.

Zacharia’s departure comes just months after Karoline Leavitt unexpectedly resigned as the White House press secretary to focus on her family.

Kaylub Giamanco, who was reportedly driving home when he heard gunshots, ‘not seeking recognition’, family says

Details are beginning to emerge about Kaylub Giamanco, the man who brought the deadly shooting at elementary school in Bend, Oregon on Thursday, to an end by fatally shooting the 16-year-old suspect in the midst of a violent rampage.

Whie police have declined to release the man’s identity, Giamanco’s family issued a statement on Friday confirming that he shot and killed the suspect, identified Friday as Griffin J John II, a former Silver Rail student.

Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem died after reportedly ‘passing out’ and falling off Goliath rollercoaster in Georgia

The family of a man who was ejected from a rollercoaster at a Six Flags amusement park in Georgia and died has publicly questioned whether the death could have been prevented.

Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem was riding the Goliath rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia near Atlanta alongside his niece during a family trip to celebrate her birthday when he was thrown from the ride. His niece witnessed her uncle’s death, a relative told the Atlanta ABC News affiliate WSB-TV.

In civil suit, ‘Jane Doe’ alleged billionaire raped her after being ‘handed off’ by Jeffrey Epstein. Black denied the allegations and called claims a fabrication

A federal judge has agreed to dismiss a lawsuit brought against Leon Black after the plaintiff in the case, who had accused the private equity billionaire of rape, said she was “medically incapable of continuing” and at risk of “acute psychiatric crisis”, including suicide.

The woman known only as “Jane Doe”, who claimed in a lawsuit that was first filed in July 2023 that she had been “handed off” to Black by his associate Jeffrey Epstein and then sexually assaulted by him, had been acting without a lawyer in the case. Doe has alleged that the assault occurred in 2002, when she was a teenager.

Zacharia hosted widely panned first briefing on Tuesday and faced scrutiny after admitting she didn’t pass bar exam

Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired on Friday, just five days after she assumed the role, according to a White House official.

Zacharia confirmed her departure from the White House on Friday evening.

Guyger, convicted of murder of Botham Jean in Dallas in 2018, served seven years of 10-year sentence

The former Dallas police officer who was convicted of murdering Botham Jean after entering his apartment and shooting him in 2018 was released from prison on Friday morning after spending seven years in prison.

Amber Guyger, 38, regained her freedom a little more than two weeks after the Texas board of pardons and paroles approved her release, despite opposition from Jean’s family.

Prosecutors allege Moises Freire gave two students at FIT the opioid, saying it was cocaine, and raped one as she overdosed

A man raped a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) after giving her a dose of fentanyl that rendered her unconscious and ultimately killed her, federal prosecutors allege.

That student’s friend also experienced an overdose and nearly died after taking the potent synthetic opiate, leading to charges against three men, the US Department of Justice said in a statement on Thursday.

In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, the new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, admitted that she did not pass the bar exam, after facing scrutiny about her legal career before becoming the top spokesperson for Trump. Zacharia had previously said she practiced law before entering politics, and Trump had described her as an attorney. Zacharia earned a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011, according to the school. Nearly all licensed US lawyers first obtain a law degree, but law school graduates cannot legally practice law in the US without being admitted to a state bar. In China, the law requires practicing lawyers to be Chinese nationals. Foreign staff can advise and consult on legal matters but not practice law.

Katie Zacharia had a rough start as she fumbled first press conference and faced questions from media about her professional background

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Donald Trump has urged Katie Zacharia, his new White House press secretary, to “reconsider” taking the job after she faced intense scrutiny from news outlets, including the rightwing cable network Fox News.

Speaking with reporters outside the White House on Friday, the US president said Zacharia had been “treated very badly by the media” after she stumbled through a 14-minute press conference on Tuesday and questions arose over her legal credentials.

Newly released video by the Park City police department shows the moment K-9 dog Bruno jumped from a freeway overpass while inspecting a suspicious package on 15 September. An independent review found that the handler, officer Wayne Henderson, deployed Bruno in line with standard K-9 tactics. Bruno was air-lifted to a veterinary hospital after the incident and has been released to recover at home.

• Video shows moment Utah police dog seriously injured in leap from overpass

The old certainties have gone. We will have to spend whatever it takes to protect ourselves in this new and dangerous world

Donald Trump must find it oddly frustrating. He keeps showing the world exactly who he is, and yet the world keeps refusing to believe it. As clearly as he can, he is announcing that he is not the leader of the free world, that he is not even a reliable member of the democratic west, that he is in fact an ally of its enemies – but the west, including Britain, either doesn’t fully get the message or can’t quite bring itself to draw the obvious conclusion.

Trump had another go this week, finding multiple ways to declare that in the war between Russia and Ukraine, he is no mediator or peace broker but a partner of Vladimir Putin. In fairness to him, the US president had loudly issued that declaration within weeks of his return to the White House when, in February 2025, he delivered an on-camera dressing down of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, seeking to humiliate the Ukrainian leader by telling him “you don’t have the cards”, even as JD Vance demanded their visitor show gratitude. That should have made Trump’s position sufficiently plain, but in the past few days he has all but put it up in lights.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

US midterms: Trump, war and America’s future
On Thursday, 5 November join Jonathan Freedland, Devika Bhat, Professor Adam Smith in London and David Smith and leading US commentator Tara Setmayer live from the US to discuss the results and their implications for the future of Trump, the US and global politics.
Book tickets here or at guardian.live

One teacher and three children killed after Griffin J John II, 16, barged into elementary school and began shooting

• Oregon elementary school shooting: what we know so far

The 16-year-old who barged into an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, and unleashed a barrage of gunfire that killed a teacher and three children was a former student at Silver Rail elementary, officials confirmed in a Friday press conference.

The heavily armed shooter, identified as Griffin J John II, climbed over a fence and onto the school’s property before shooting through a set of locked doors to enter the building.

Polls show that Democrats and Republicans in battleground states want to hear more from candidates about the climate crisis

Most Americans feel unease or alarm about the climate crisis and, in both red and blue states, want to know how political leaders are going to fix it. But in midterm election campaigns across the US, candidates have responded to this desire with near silence.

People in the US have this year endured a record hot summer as well as soaring costs, equating to roughly $2,000 per household, in extra energy and mortgage payments, due to the country’s dependence on a fossil fuel supply scrambled by Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran.

Court filing alleges ‘physical abuse by guards’, ‘filthy living conditions’ and disease outbreaks at Camp East Montana

• How has Trump’s immigration agenda affected the US midterms? Send us your questions

Attorneys and experts are raising the alarm that immigrants at Camp East Montana, the sprawling desert detention camp on the Fort Bliss military base in west Texas, face a risk of serious injury or death because of ongoing, extreme health and safety hazards there, according to a fresh court filing, the Guardian can reveal.

The allegedly dangerous conditions persist at the tent jail, the largest immigration detention facility in the US, despite regular reports from inside and outside the federal government that it has violated dozens of official standards since it opened last year.

Bomb-sniffing dog Bruno is recovering after surgery having broken several bones while responding to suspect package

Video of the moment a police dog named Bruno leapt from a freeway overpass and received serious injuries has been released by authorities in Utah, as the animal continues to recover at home.

Bruno, a bomb-sniffing dog, suffered two broken legs and a fractured jaw in the September incident as he helped Utah state troopers investigate a suspicious package found abandoned on the roadside in Summit county.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was asked by Sky News at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, if he felt he was being made a 'scapegoat' by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, for domestic problems including high diesel prices before midterm elections. Zelenskyy paused for 15 seconds, before he eventually smiled and said: 'This is my answer.'

• Europe live – latest updates

Hot, windy weather stokes fires in southern California with mandatory evacuation orders in place for many

A fast-moving fire spread into neighborhoods in southern California on Friday as the region braces for more hot, windy weather that will amplify fire dangers through Saturday.

Several structures could be seen ablaze in video footage captured by local news helicopters as firefighters worked to wrangle the more than 465 acre Norte fire, which erupted in Orange county on Friday.

Attacker also killed a teacher and was shot dead by a community member. Plus, NAZA film-makers describe Israel’s attempts to retaliate

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Good morning. A 16-year-old shooter opened fire at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher, before he was shot dead by a community member. The children killed were five, eight and 11, officials said. The gunman, who was a Bend resident, has not been publicly identified.

In the aftermath of the attack, children were taken by bus to a nearby church serving as a reunification center for families. Parents hugged, kissed and held their children’s hands as they walked to their cars, with some bringing along favorite stuffed animals or other comfort items from home. Here is what we know so far.

What have been the diplomatic moves in Europe? Amid growing doubts about long-term US commitment to Ukraine, European leaders declared their support for Zelenskyy. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU intended to increase pressure on Russia, promising a 22nd round of sanctions. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said it was “crucial” that Ukraine received “all the means necessary to protect itself”.

The US vice-president is following the Donald Trump playbook, attacking the Democrats, attempting to make jokes and even swearing more. Jonathan Freedland talks to Arwa Mahdawi about why Vance is making such an effort to court voters

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In Maine, Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee for US Senate, and Susan Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent traded barbs on Thursday in their final debate ahead of the November midterms.

This was the fourth showdown between the pair. Collins has tried to cast Jackson as an inexperienced state lawmaker, and attempted to yoke him to the former nominee, Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race earlier this year following allegations of rape and sexual assault (which he still denies). Meanwhile, Jackson accused his opponent of corruption, and castigated her for her “moderate” persona in Congress.

Coalition has planned more than 3,000 events on Saturday to encourage voting before election day

The coalition that has drawn millions of Americans into the streets to fight for democracy over the past two years is shifting its strategy this weekend.

On Saturday, No Kings organizers and partners will hold thousands of events across all 50 states and Washington DC to get people to the polls early for the US midterm elections. With high-stakes races that will determine control of Congress, organizers say getting out the vote before election day can ease burdens on election workers and build confidence in voters, allowing them to avoid hiccups such as long lines and potential election threats.

Images from New Zealand aerial survey of Nikumaroro in 1938 offer new clues over aviator’s disappearance

A New Zealand museum has released nearly 50 photos from a 1938 aerial survey of the island where Amelia Earhart is believed to have crash-landed, offering amateur sleuths new evidence to scour for traces of the pioneering aviator and her plane.

The black-and-white images were published by the Air Force Museum of New Zealand after renewed interest in one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century, spurred by a US expedition to the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro in search of new clues.

US president says Zelenskyy ‘more difficult ​to deal with ​than Putin’ after ‘energy ceasefire’ collapses

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Donald Trump has called Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries “a disgrace” and criticised Volodymyr ⁠Zelenskyy after an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine failed to take hold.

Ukraine resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries ⁠after Zelenskyy said Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire unilaterally declared by Trump on Sunday, having briefly halted its attacks to demonstrate its readiness for peace talks. Russia had continued its strikes on Ukrainian power plants.

The media-savvy Democratic senator is defying predictions of a tight re-election battle. But he insists he has ‘zero interest’ in a presidential run in 2028

Jon Ossoff has “zero interest” in running for president in 2028, he declared during a debate this week. Jon Ossoff has “zero interest” in running for president in 2028, he told a local TV station last month. Jon Ossoff has “zero interest” in running for president in 2028, he told MS Now – twice – in August.

The Democratic US senator for Georgia said as much to CNN. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And MS Now, again. And in his second Senate debate on Tuesday night.

• 21-year-old was treated on field after injury during game

• Coach pays tribute to player’s ‘quiet strength’

Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma announced on Thursday that sophomore safety Tyler Ulrich has died five days after sustaining what the school called a “traumatic injury” during a game against Ouachita Baptist. Ulrich was 21.

The Division II school based in Bethany, Oklahoma, did not reveal the cause of death or the nature of Ulrich’s injury. Ulrich was hurt during a 49-14 loss on Saturday, with the game delayed for nearly an hour while he received medical attention before being transported to a hospital.