Ian Choudri resigns after report found agency overseeing troubled LA-San Francisco project misused over $600,000 in public funds
The chief executive of California’s embattled high-speed rail authority abruptly resigned on Wednesday, over a month after a state watchdog determined the agency had misused public funds.
In September, California’s office of the inspector general released an investigative report finding that the rail authority had paid $543,000 in travel-related reimbursements for consultants that were not allowed, including international or out-of-state travel expenses.
Candidate for Ohio governor confirms campaign no longer airing ad that smeared rival and was defended by Trump
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio governor, confirmed on Thursday that his campaign is no longer airing an attack ad that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.
The ad prompted a wave of revulsion since Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, lost custody of her daughter in 1978, when her second husband, Cledith Arthur, was charged with raping her daughter between the ages of 10 and 12.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been hit by a record $6.3bn (£4.7bn) hack described as the biggest heist in history, with experts identifying North Korea as the likely culprit.
Binance said it would cover all customer losses as it froze $3bn of the affected assets.
Pentagon says it has referred leak case to justice department for criminal investigation
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has reportedly dismissed Lt Gen Brett Sylvia, a high-ranking army strategist serving on the Pentagon’s joint staff, following allegations that he disclosed classified information to the public.
The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it had referred an alleged information leak case for criminal investigation, maintaining that the removal of the senior general was essential “to protect sensitive information”, the Washington Post reported.
The Department of Homeland Security asked an Icelandic hosting company to take down data obtained through hack
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked an Icelandic hosting company on Thursday to take down or limit access to data related to thousands of agency personnel, saying the content put them at risk, according to the request posted online by hosting company FlokiNET.
The database “places more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking and physical harm”, the request said.
Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign allegedly collaborated with party operatives to confuse voters in midterms
The US justice department on Thursday is reported to have issued subpoenas in response to a report that the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign collaborated with party operatives to get a challenger with the same name as the Republican senator Dan Sullivan on the midterm ballot.
ABC News and the Associated Press reported the subpoenas, citing sources familiar with the matter. The federal investigation comes a day after the New York Times found that the effort to recruit a second candidate named Dan Sullivan in the Senate race set to be decided on Tuesday was led by Peltola’s campaign, which had for months denied involvement.
US vice-president writes to top Iranian security official in sign Washington has not abandoned diplomacy
Hopes of averting a major new conflagration between Iran and the US soon after Tuesday’s midterm elections could rest on Iran’s response to a personal letter from the US vice-president, JD Vance, offering to restart diplomacy.
The letter, written after predominantly Qatari mediation, was sent to the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, Mohsen Rezaei on Sunday. It requires Tehran to agree to make commitments on its nuclear programme at the start of a process that would lead to the opening of the strait of Hormuz within seven days in return for US sanctions relief.
Tankers, tracked by Greenpeace, are first phase of Trump-Putin deal – but there is uncertainty over whether they will unload
Seven oil tankers carrying an estimated 288,000 tonnes of Russian diesel are now sailing towards the US, though it is uncertain if the vessels will be able to unload amid a political row about the legality of the shipments.
The Atlanta Dream had no intention of letting a matinee become their curtain call.
Facing elimination at a lunchtime tipoff, the Dream overwhelmed the Golden State Valkyries 80-69 on Thursday afternoon to force a decisive seventh game in the WNBA finals, rediscovering their offensive touch just as their title hopes were threatening to slip away.
Major League Soccer’s 2027 “sprint season” will begin on 19 February, with MLS Cup taking place during Memorial Day weekend at the end of May.
The stopgap half-season is a one-off, as the North American league inverts its calendar to align with most top leagues around the world beginning with the 2027-28 season. The nuts and bolts of the change were initially announced in March.
Musician wrote a ‘love letter’ to Canada with a new album – and some pointed commentary about the US president
Lake Ontario, the vast body of water that straddles the US-Canada border, has gone by many names over the centuries: Lac Saint-Louis, Lacus Ontarius, Skaniadorio, Cataraqui Lake. But one thing it will never be called, says the Canadian rock star Bryan Adams, is Lake America.
In his new song Lake Ontario, Adams takes aim at the US president, Donald Trump, accusing him of “breaking the peace” between the people who live on the lake’s shores.
The ‘lake of shining waters’ is what the Iroquois called her
It’s a First Nations name – not an executive order.
It makes sense that sports teams want to keep influencers out of their games. The battle some clubs are waging with their fans, however, is a different dilemma
By all appearances, things on the Yellow Wall seemed as they always had been. The stadium announcer hollered out the first names of Borussia Dortmund’s starting lineup and the supporters responded with their last names, tens of thousands of voices bellowing as one. Dozens of black and yellow flags waved over Europe’s largest standing terrace, a mass of faces fixed on the field beneath them.
And then Signal Iduna Park, sold out with 81,365 fans, roared when Max Beier’s lone goal led Dortmund to victory over Eintracht Frankfurt last Saturday, putting the home side even on points with Bayern Munich atop the Bundesliga standings.
For years, the crisp air and changing colors of October brought forth a host of wonderful memories for DC United fans – visions of Eddie Pope heading home the winner in Major League Soccer’s first-ever championship game, or Marco Etcheverry, Jaime Moreno and others tearing through defenders, helping establish MLS’s first true dynasty.
Nowadays, United fans have a different tradition: hearing the team’s ownership apologize for yet another depressing season and offer promises of a brighter future. With Wednesday night’s 2-1 loss to Toronto, United will now miss out on the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season – in a league that lets at least 50% of teams into the playoffs each year, with 60% of teams or more making it in five of those seven years. If United fail to make it again next year, they’ll tie an all-time MLS record.
For months, Donald Trump and others accused Peltola and Democrats of recruiting candidates with the same name as her Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan, to purposefully confuse voters when they cast their ballots in November’s midterms.
Chicago are chasing first Super Bowl title since 1985
The Chicago Bears have acquired All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons in a blockbuster trade with the Tennessee Titans, a person familiar with the deal told the Associated Press on Thursday.
The Bears sent their first-round picks in 2027 and 2028, along with a fourth-rounder in next year’s draft, to the Titans for Simmons and a fifth-round selection in 2028.
Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy was captured taking a shot at a “horseshit Yankees team” after he celebrated his team clinching the World Series on Wednesday night.
A video of Murphy talking to Jake Bauers emerged in which the manager tells the Brewers’ soon to be a free agent: “You’re going to be a rich fucker. Just remember when you were on that horseshit Yankees team and you guys were all playing for yourself? Just remember, say, ‘This is the way we used to do it.’”
Ex-congresswoman is connecting with young people and Native voters with promise to expand the social safety net
The road to Isleta Pueblo, a Native American tribal community just 20 minutes south of downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, is peppered with campaign signs. Among the many names of candidates running in next week’s midterm elections and tribal elections later in November, there’s one that is poised to make history.
Deb Haaland is set to become the first Native American female governor in the US when voters cast their ballots on 3 November. Recent polling shows her with a comfortable lead over her opponent, Republican Gregg Hull, a businessman and the longtime mayor of the city of Rio Rancho. Her bid for office also signals the growing power of the Democratic party in the state, where Democrats control the legislature, hold all top offices and have enacted progressive policies, such as universal childcare, that have been heralded across the country.
A US Senate race in one of the most Republican states in the country is now a dead heat, according to a new poll showing Annie Andrews, a Democrat, tied with Darline Graham, the Republican incumbent senator.
South Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998, and Donald Trump won it by nearly 18 points in 2024, but a New York Times/Siena poll this week has the two candidates neck and neck, at 48% each.
Milwaukee’s first World Series championship is a rebuke to baseball’s oligarch class, whose insistence that small-market teams cannot compete has been laid bare as fiction
For the entirety of the 2026 baseball season, the overlords of the game have stood on the single position that what has now happened could not happen, and the result was a year that has been treated like an appetizer for the main course of the offseason: the shutting down of the game until the players, after 40 years of resistance, finally agree to a salary cap. The insistence that the game had been predetermined undermined the Milwaukee Brewers, who spent 149 days this season atop the standings.
Baseball dismissed Milwaukee’s 22-0 demolition of Seattle on 18 August, the 20-0 waxing of Cincinnati a month later, and the comprehensive dusting of their division – their fourth consecutive National League Central title and fifth in six years – by 14 games. Baseball’s owners, at their persuasive best, would have their paying customers believe that the Brewers’ franchise-record 103 regular-season wins also were an illusion, or worse, the dreaded outlier, even though Milwaukee have won 770 games since 2018, the fourth-most in all of baseball. Even when Milwaukee exhaled and made the Dodgers look old in a stirring four-game sweep, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the owners’ position remained unchanged.
Acquisition will supercharge DoorDash’s grocery delivery, ‘one of the hardest things to get right online’, CEO says
DoorDash is gobbling up Instacart in a $17bn acquisition that will supercharge its grocery delivery business.
DoorDash said the Instacart brand name and app will remain, and Instacart shoppers can continue fulfilling orders for Instacart. Grocers can also choose to work with Instacart or DoorDash. Instacart customers will now have access to 50,000 additional stores covered by DoorDash, the company said.
The Republican governor of Alaska announced plans to launch a criminal investigation after a report accused the campaign of the Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola of trying to confuse voters by recruiting a candidate with the same name as her opponent.
Commerce department data contrasts with sharp deterioration in consumer sentiment as midterms loom
The US economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter while inflation accelerated in September, according to new commerce department data released on Thursday, less than a week before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
Gross domestic product (GDP) increased at a 3.4% annualized rate last quarter, the commerce department’s bureau of economic analysis said in its advance estimate of the third-quarter GDP on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP advancing at a 3.2% pace.
As Scott Colom challenges incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith for Senate, one of the country’s most reliably Republican states may be in play in the midterms
On Tuesday, with just one week until the election, Scott Colom’s headquarters was buzzing. Volunteers arrived for phone-banking, while staffers prepared for another day of campaigning. Colom, a Democrat who is challenging incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith for US Senate, had just held a press conference in Corinth, Mississippi.
Donald Trump campaigned for Hyde-Smith in Corinth, a small city near the Tennessee border that typically leans Republican on Tuesday, too. He told attenders that he was there “because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can’t take a chance.”
The Michigan Senate candidate is calling for public ownership and other reforms, offering a potential antidote to ideological gridlock
The Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, occupies a strange but increasingly common place in modern American politics. He’s praised by progressives, begrudgingly tolerated by moderate Democrats and largely demonized by Republicans.
He’s also uniquely positioned to forge an all-too-elusive thread of political kinship between these perpetually-at-odds groups with his bold but contentious plan for reining in AI, called AI Under Democracy.
Kaden Matsuda and Jackson Donlon were on a trip in Rocky Mountains last weekend when heavy snowstorm hit
Two Colorado college students have been found dead after going missing during a hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains last weekend when a heavy snowstorm hit, authorities said.
The bodies of Kaden Matsuda, 19, of Ridgway, Colorado, and Jackson Donlon, 20, of New York, were found on Wednesday afternoon in a basin of West Apostle Mountain, about 100 miles (160km) south-east of Aspen, the Chaffee county sheriff’s office said in a statement posted on social media.
A luxury cruise ship on a years-long voyage around the world was forced to suspend its operations because of high fuel prices, stranding passengers in Cambodia. The ship, which began its journey in 2024, had been carrying 203 passengers, mostly Americans, and 156 crew. It is one of only a handful of ships that rent or sell long-term, or even permanent, accommodation onboard.
Good morning. A book that contains incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media storm. The book, by the author Matthew Cole, drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”.
It contains numerous allegations about Kushner, who has served as one of Donald Trump’s top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East. The most explosive are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states. Kushner continues to steer US foreign policy despite having no official role. The Guardian contacted Kushner’s legal counsel and received no response.
Barack Obama offered a closing argument for Democrats in the final week of the campaign. “These are not serious people,” he said of Trump and the Republican party. “And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness.”
The campaign of the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan. Both men will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement with the other Dan Sullivan, who will be listed on the ballot as “Sullivan, Daniel J Jr”.
Two rightwing influencers have been charged with felonies in Minneapolis over attempts in the state’s election primary to disguise themselves in what they called “Muslim garb” and claim they were local voters.
If you are having trouble keeping track of all the ways Trump and his administration have been attempting to disrupt the midterms, this four-minute video explainer has you covered. And the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, has this analysis piece looking at Trump’s midterm rally bigotry, with the president’s repeated attacks on Muslims and his strange obsession with people’s bodies.
Gone are the eight criteria to be a High Impact Player so clubs can spend their money on whomever they want – and the solution makes sense
When Washington plays Chicago this Sunday in DC, “Rowdy Audi” will probably be full. It will also be full when the post-season starts, should they lock up their top-four position with a positive result on Decision Day. Equipped with an accessible stadium in a big city, a proud fanbase and a formidable roster rife with players qualifying for the High Impact Player (HIP) rule’s initial criteria (including Trinity Rodman, who gave the rule its moniker), the Spirit hold sway in the attendance charts.
But starting next season, everyone on the Spirit will qualify for the “Rodman Rule”. So will every player in NWSL. Announced Friday, NWSL settled a grievance with the league’s Players Association, who argued that the initial criteria violated federal labor law.
Michigan US Senate candidate signaled support for Egypt’s pro-democracy movement in 2012, not Islamist group
The Republican campaign to defeat Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the MichiganSenate race by casting him as an Islamic extremist is based on a false claim first made by the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer eight years ago, a Guardian review of the evidence reveals.
Loomer, an influential outside adviser to Donald Trump who calls herself “a proud Islamophobe”, has claimed since El-Sayed entered politics in 2018 that an open letter he signed in support of democracy in Egypt in 2012 was a public endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood. The text of the letter, however, does not even mention the Muslim Brotherhood, and is not, as Loomer maintains, “a pledge” of support for the Egyptian Islamist group.
Local officials tried to grow close to activist groups and collected information that was then shared with industry
Newly released emails show local government officials in Minneapolis have quietly surveilled environmental justice activists who are working to close a controversial waste incinerator that is emitting pollution into low-income neighborhoods around it, activist groups allege.
County officials sent an employee who is also an environmental justice activist to collect intelligence, among other tactics, emails show. The information was then used to help successfully kill state-level environmental legislation opposed by the incinerator’s leadership, and try to stay one step ahead of activist campaigns and protests. In another instance, a county employee presenting himself as an ally allegedly tried to obtain the identity of a whistleblower, a recording shows.
In advance of the midterms, Trump is blaming Kyiv for high gas prices while making clear moves to support Russia
As the US midterms approach, Donald Trump is abandoning Ukraine’s democracy in a desperate effort to deny responsibility for worsening inflation. Yet this past weekend’s dramatic elections in Brazil and Serbia show that voters can see through such subterfuge.
There is nothing like a political party’s corruptindifference to the plight of ordinary people to galvanize voter turnout. If US voters follow in the footsteps of their Brazilian and Serbian counterparts, a Democratic landslide is likely.
With days until the midterm elections, a new poll from CNN places Democrats well in the lead in key Senate races in Texas and Michigan, while projecting tighter contests in Kansas and Maine.
In Texas, the poll found 49% of likely voters would back James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, over Republican Ken Paxton, who netted just 43%.
Despite structural differences between countries, protests are a reminder of what makes demonstrations so powerful
Since mid-September, students in metropolitan France have been mobilizing against poor conditions in public high schools. The mouvement lycéen has spread from a single campus in a Parisian suburb to include high schoolers and university students nationwide, with public sector workers, climate activists, labor unions and everyday people joining in solidarity. The unifying concerns have largely centered on the climbing costs of daily life, shrinking funds for social services and general anxiety about the future.
For two weekends running, France has seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets: first on 17 October, when a day of largely peaceful gatherings ended in looting and vandalism; then on 24 October, as the state met the movement with aggressive policing and protest bans intended to keep people at home.
With his poll numbers tanking and his behavior getting odder, the remark seems more appealing to himself than to voters
As he criss-crosses the nation, stumping for Republican candidates, Donald Trump keeps asking voters to use their imaginations.
“In this election, I’m asking you to pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot. Just pretend,” he urged at a Kansas rally as he campaigned for the incumbent senator Roger Marshall and gubernatorial challenger Ty Masterson last month.
Elizabeth Warren and others joined by unions and industry experts in warning against the weakening of regulations
Ssenator Elizabeth Warren, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and several other Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) to abandon a rollback of respirator mask regulations, a change the lawmakers say would weaken worker protections against hazardous substances.
Under the proposed rules, employers would face fewer requirements to provide workers with respirators masks when working with substances including “lead, asbestos, formaldehyde and inorganic arsenic, among other chemicals”, the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Osha assistant secretary, David Keeling, a former UPS and Amazon executive.
Marilyn Hampton, who regularly bought supplies for and gave rides to children, was honored at public meeting
US schools are often named after presidents, historical figures and civil rights leaders. And soon joining those ranks is a retired longtime Texas school custodian known for going above and beyond her duties by buying classroom supplies for children in need and helping students with their assignments.
That heartwarming story centers on Marilyn Hampton, whose former employer of 39 years – the Aubrey independent school district (AISD) – recently moved to rename its new elementary school No 5 in her honor.
Legacy Church’s endorsements violate law banning tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing political candidates
A megachurch in New Mexico has endorsed two Republican candidates running in this year’s midterms, including a Donald Trump-backed candidate running in one of the blue state’s few competitive races. The church’s endorsements, which violate federal law banning tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing political candidates, come as the Trump administration is challenging that ban in federal court.
In mid-August, pastor Steve Smothermon of Legacy Church, a nondenominational church with nine locations across the state, told his congregation about one of the candidates: “Greg Cunningham has faithfully served our church for 14 years and shares our biblical values. Let’s pray for him, support his campaign, get registered, and vote to flip this seat for someone who will stand for God, our Constitution, and a better New Mexico!”
Regulator demands companies explain how and why they charge different prices for the same product or service
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding some of the US’s biggest airlines, ride-share companies and retailers divulge how they are using algorithms and loyalty programs to target customers and drivers with different prices and wages.
Nine companies – Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart – were named in the inquiry, which comes after investigations and lawsuits alleging consumers are charged different prices based on their buying histories and drivers paid different fares based on their personal histories.
‘Really change things for the working class,’ the ex-presidential candidate says
A corporate plutocracy. A broken healthcare system. Massive and widening inequality. Cash-soaked elections. Angry people struggling to pay their bills and disgusted with lawmakers in Washington DC.
Nearly everything that pushed famed consumer-rights advocate Ralph Nader to launch the 2000 presidential run that made him a political pariah in Washington is front and center as the US gears up for the 2026 midterm elections. But this time, things are much, much worse.
Pat McAfee’s reaction to a few mild jokes shows how the ubiquitous ESPN personality is happy to whip up a crowd into a hostile frenzy but is terrified of any criticism
It was all shaping up to be a golden year for Pat McAfee. The man who landed a five-year, $85m deal in 2023 to take The Pat McAfee Show to ESPN had cemented himself as the star attraction of the sports broadcaster’s bold new era of stunts, stupidity and memebrain swill. His persistently honking presence on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay had helped push ratings to new heights. ESPN executives were so impressed with McAfee they were reportedly in negotiations to award him a new contract worth between $60m and $65m a year; one even went so far as to describe him as a “generational” media talent.
Then, over the weekend, disaster struck. A handful of college kids attacked him online ahead of his appearance with College GameDay at the University of Utah. Well, “attacked” is maybe overstating things: they made a few mild jokes at his expense. But it was all too much for ESPN’s brightest blimp. Suddenly, McAfee’s world came crashing down. His initial reaction, to be fair, was mild: “The university’s Instagram account posted something talking a little trash about me last night, which I certainly love,” he said ahead of the Utes’ clash with the Houston Cougars last week.
Quarterbacks in 2026 have a series of dazzling weapons at their disposal. We rank the best of the receivers in the NFL at the moment
NB: We have restricted the list below to players in their prime years, so excellent, older receivers such as Mike Evans and Davante Adams have been left out.
From Ms Rachel to Roc Nation, the internet embraced a Florida toddler. Police records reviewed by the Guardian complicate the story – and raise troubling questions
There is real tragedy in this week’s story of the three-year-old Florida boy whose parents claimed he was so good at soccer that police were called to do what opposing defenders couldn’t. But it doesn’t lie where the outrage cycle wants you to think. It’s broader, implicates more people, and to me, is far more depressing.
You may have seen the video by now. Here was a toddler with fabulous soccer talent, running end-to-end and scoring goal after goal against opponents who have seemingly just found their feet. The cameraman, later identified as the child’s father, loudly and proudly cheers his son on. Way to go, kid.
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