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Republican calls for Senate investigation of Trump Jr wedding paid for by Russian oligarch

Putin ally helped cover cost of renting private island in the Bahamas for wedding of Trump Jr and Bettina Anderson

A Republican senator has accused Donald Trump Jr of corruption and demanded a Senate investigation into revelations that a Russian oligarch bankrolled part of his recent wedding in the Bahamas.

John Curtis, of Utah, wrote to the leaders of the US Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, urging them to subpoena Trump Jr over his business dealings, his relationships with foreign individuals, gifts he has received – and any occasions where his connection to his father, Donald Trump, “was invoked or understood to provide value”.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

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Flights resume across US north-east after FAA communications failure

Thousands of flights were delayed or canceled after a primary line failed and a backup fiber-optic cable was severed

Airport operations across the US north-east resumed Monday evening after a communications line failure snarled flights at some of the country’s busiest airports, leading to thousands of flight cancellations and delays.

Flights were halted at several airports after a primary communications line failed at a key Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facility in Philadelphia. The backup fiber optic line, which delivers internet service, was inadvertently severed by a railroad construction crew, resulting in a telecommunications crash and hundreds of canceled flights at Newark, LaGuardia, JFK, Philadelphia and Boston airports.

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© Photograph: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

© Photograph: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

© Photograph: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

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As White House shields the AI gold rush, Trump family and other allies strike it rich – with few guardrails

It’s not clear that financial interests are driving White House policy, but they run parallel even as resistance mounts

Donald Trump’s sons, through a series of AI-linked defense and technology ventures, have picked up a $620m Pentagon loan, a Marine Corps robotics contract and an undisclosed air force drone deal in the past year. His longtime friend Michael Dell won a Pentagon contract worth nearly $9bn. And this week, as public support for artificial intelligence sinks to some of the lowest levels ever recorded, the president went to bat for the industry. .

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” he posted on Truth Social Monday. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers.” It was the first of many aggressively pro-AI posts he would make this week.

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© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

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Key House Democrat refuses to clear Trump’s $2.8bn arms sale to Israel

Pro-Israel Gregory Meeks raises concerns over threat to civilian lives from package of 40,000 one-ton bombs

The top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee has thrown up a roadblock to one of the largest US arms transfers of Trump’s second term, refusing to clear a $2.8bn sale of 2,000lb bombs to Israel.

Gregory Meeks announced the hold on Tuesday on a package of 40,000 of the bombs, among the most destructive conventional munitions in the US arsenal.

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© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

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US House votes for third time to end Iran war after $38bn cost is revealed

Damaging budget report estimates cost will grow by $3bn per month and stockpiles of weapons could take five years to rebuild

The US House of Representatives has voted for a third time to end the war in Iran, approving a war powers resolution a few hours after a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showed the conflict had cost at least $38bn and left America’s stockpile of defensive missiles so depleted it could take five years to rebuild.

The final tally of 220-204 was similar to earlier votes, with a few more Republicans joining most Democrats in calling for an end to the war. None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto them.

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© Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

© Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

© Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

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Kennedy Center to close as Trump threatens to block repairs over name dispute

President says he will block renovation project unless court decision to bar his name from being added is overturned

Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the Kennedy Center would close “immediately” and threatened to cancel a planned renovation of the institution if federal courts did not allow his name to be placed on the front of the building.

Trump’s ultimatum came shortly after the president’s handpicked board voted, again, to close the institution’s performing arts building in Washington, citing safety and financial concerns.

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© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

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Kennedy Center leaders say Trump’s name on facade may avoid ‘fiscal collapse’

Center’s Trump-installed leaders also say it is on brink of bankruptcy and could close as early as Tuesday

Leaders of the John F Kennedy Center for ⁠the Performing Arts say it is reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy and could ⁠close as early ⁠as ​Tuesday.

The center’s Donald Trump-installed leaders argued that putting the president’s name on its facade may be the only way ⁠to avoid imminent and “certain fiscal collapse”, the Washington Post first reported, ​citing documents it ‌obtained.

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© Photograph: J David Ake/Getty Images

© Photograph: J David Ake/Getty Images

© Photograph: J David Ake/Getty Images

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‘It’s just straight bigotry’: wave of Islamophobic rhetoric looms over US midterm elections

As Muslims win historic victories, experts describe rise in anti-Islamic sentiment that rivals post-9/11 climate

Within hours of Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary, Republican senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama declared that the party had “just voted to send a TERRORIST” to Washington.

El-Sayed – or “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed”, as Tuberville called him on X – was a “RADICAL ISLAMIST” who would “do everything he can to destroy America”, he claimed.

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© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

© Composite: Getty Images

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Calls for Democrats to be shot go unchallenged at Republican convention

Crowd member repeatedly said some Democrats ‘should be shot’ during Ted Cruz’s speech, without senator responding

On the night Republicans gathered to mourn the killing of Charlie Kirk and warn against the dangers of violent rhetoric, a crowd at the party’s irregular midterm convention in Dallas repeatedly called for a sitting Senate candidate to be shot, while the Republican senator at the podium never denounced or even noted the outbursts.

The outbursts came repeatedly during Ted Cruz’s Thursday night address at the American Airlines center, when he named a Democrat he accused of holding radical views. After the senator mentioned the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, video footage depicts at least one audience member shouting: “He should be shot!” The same cry followed when Cruz named Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and again after he named Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Cruz did not pause or respond to the shouting, and it remains unclear whether he heard it from the stage. Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.

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© Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

© Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

© Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

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Trump and Hegseth use 9/11 memorial remarks at Pentagon to defend war on Iran

President and defense secretary try to link worst terrorist attack in US history to current unpopular war

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth used remarks at the memorial ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to defend the US-Israel war on Iran – and suggest the controversial conflict was part of the legacy of the worst terrorist attack in US history.

While such ceremonies on September 11 typically focus on the victims of the 2001 attacks, the US president and his defense secretary each pointed to the war they launched on Iran more than six months ago, with no end in sight.

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© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

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US lawmakers urge secretive British court to open up about Apple case

Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Warren Davidson tell investigatory powers tribunal that secrecy over encrypted data case is ‘needlessly’ straining US-UK relations

A bipartisan pair of American politicians is telling Britain’s most secretive court to stop hiding its handling of Apple’s legal fight against a government demand to break into its customers’ encrypted data, warning that Whitehall’s taste for secrecy is “needlessly” straining relations between the two allies.

The letter, shared with the Guardian ahead of being sent to the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) on Friday, is signed by the Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and the Republican congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio.

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© Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

© Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

© Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

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Remembrance ceremonies held across the US to honor victims of 9/11

Memorials and remembrances mark the 25 years since the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 on 11 September 2001

The United States marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on Friday, with memorials and remembrance ceremonies taking place across the country to honor the nearly 3,000 people killed.

In New York City, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s annual commemoration ceremony began early on Friday morning in lower Manhattan at the site often known as Ground Zero after the destruction of the World Trade Center there on 9/11.

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© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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US allies lack resources to keep pace on AI, top Pentagon official says

Cameron Stanley talks up ‘revolutionary’ AI capabilities and says Washington working with Nato and Five Eyes partners

The Pentagon’s top artificial intelligence official said on Tuesday that America’s closest allies lack the resources to keep pace with the US military’s adoption of AI, and that Washington is working to steer them away from mistakes it made along the way.

“They don’t have the resources that we do, they don’t have the experience that we do, they don’t have the scale that we do,” Cameron Stanley, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Defense, said at an event at the Billington Cybersecurity summit. Of Nato and the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing partnership of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Stanley said Washington was “actively working with a number of our partners” so “they don’t make the same mistakes that we make”.

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© Photograph: Alexander Drago/Reuters

© Photograph: Alexander Drago/Reuters

© Photograph: Alexander Drago/Reuters

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