Markwayne Mullin says officers could be deployed ‘if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant’
US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin on Tuesday said that federal immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) officers could be deployed to polling sites across the country.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Mullin said: “ICE isn’t there to patrol the polling places. We’re there to enforce specific threats.”
Harold Lucas, sentenced to death over 1976 murder, killed by lethal injection as state continues execution rush
A Florida man convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was executed Tuesday evening.
Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6.18pm following a three-drug injection starting at 6pm at Florida state prison near Starke, authorities said.
Michigan Senate candidate accuses vice-president of ‘dog whistle’ and says Republican policies are true evil
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic US Senate candidate in Michigan, has hit back at Republican vice-president JD Vance’s onslaught against him, saying it is “evil” to deprive people of healthcare and affordable groceries.
Vance, in a Monday speech that railed against undocumented immigrants, cast El-Sayed as representative of “terrible evil” and as someone who fights for “one group at the expense of others”.
Two people shot dead and suspect later died in hospital after shooting in parking lot of Venture-N bar
Authorities in Tucson, Arizona, are investigating a shooting outside a gay bar that left three people dead as a possible hate crime.
The shooting occurred shortly after midnight on Monday in the parking lot of Venture-N, according to Tucson police. The suspect, identified by police as 44-year old Ousman Ceesay, allegedly killed 42-year-old Vincent Anthony Siqueiros and 33-year-old Cameron Davis Capara.
Continuing resolution to approve government spending until 11 December passes 370-48 and will now go to Trump
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved legislation to prevent a government shutdown through the midterms, as both parties opted to defuse a volatile dispute ahead of the November elections that will decide the balance of power in Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
A continuing resolution (CR) authorizing government spending until 11 December passed the House by a 370-48 vote, with only 19 Republicans and 29 Democrats in opposition. Had it not passed, lawmakers would have had until the end of September to approve new funding or face a government shutdown.
Attacks on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and reprisals against US bases in Middle East quash hopes that flare-up last weekend was limited in nature
The US has launched new airstrikes on Iranian targets, prompting counter strikes by Tehran targeting American interests in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, and fuelling concerns about a wider renewal of hostilities.
The US Marine Corps base Camp Titin in Jordan was targeted for an “intense ballistic missile attack”, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said early on Wednesday, according to Iranian news outlet Tasnim.
Navigating app surpasses Google and Apple Maps on top-downloaded US chart after posting ‘we’re not changing it’
A pioneering online mapping app that defied Donald Trump by refusing to rename Lake Ontario has become the most in-demand navigation tool in the US.
MapQuest, which was openly dismissive of the president’s 27 August executive order directing federal agencies to refer to the smallest of the Great Lakes as “Lake America” amid a tradespat with Canada, leapfrogged rivals Google Maps and Apple Maps to top the most-downloaded list, as first reported by TechCrunch.
A Utah judge ruled Tuesday that the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk must stand trial for aggravated murder, a felony charge that makes him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
After several hours of closing arguments in Provo, Utah, judge Tony Graf ruled there is sufficient evidence to try Tyler Robinson, 23, who has been charged with the murder of one of the US right’s most prominent figures.
Spectacular Villa Aurora, which was nearly destroyed in last year’s fires, leading the recovery as Pacific Palisades emerges from a dark chapter
A hillside villa that served as a cultural hub for German writers and artists fleeing the Nazis and narrowly escaped destruction in last year’s Los Angeles wildfires reopened its doors to the public this weekend, marking the latest milestone in the city’s slow recovery from one of the darkest chapters in its history.
Hundreds of friends of the Villa Aurora, a 1920s Spanish Mediterranean house that has taken on a second life as a cultural center with a fierce commitment to artistic freedom, international dialogue and democracy, crowded into the house on Sunday to mark the resumption of speaker events and artistic residencies.
PEN America study details verbal and physical threats to librarians, funding cuts and proliferation of book bans
Public libraries in the US are “at breaking point” because of an onslaught of political interference, harassment and ideological censorship, a new report published on Tuesday said.
Book bans, cancelled story hours, attacks on librarians, funding cuts and the undoing of libraries’ independent governance are examined by the free expression advocacy group PEN America in its study called Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries.
The president is lashing out at an NBC host. As the agency’s former chair, I can only hope it stands up for free speech
Will the FCC chairperson again abuse his authority over broadcast licenses to put a Band-Aid on Donald Trump’s thin skin?
Since the opening days of the Trump presidency, Brendan Carr has acted as the president’s attack dog to coerce broadcasters to say things that please his client. Only days after taking office in January 2025, Carr revived a previously dismissed complaint against CBS for the editing of 60 Minutes that tracked candidate Trump’s specious lawsuit on the matter. At the time, the FCC was considering the transfer of CBS licenses to Skydance, a decision that did not come until after CBS agreed to pay $16m to settle with Trump. In September, after Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk, Carr urged broadcasters to take action, saying “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” – an attack even the senator Ted Cruz said sounded “right out of Goodfellas”. In March 2026, he threatened broadcasters over their coverage of the Iran war after the president complained on Truth Social. In April, he ordered Disney’s eight ABC-owned television stations to submit their licenses for premature review, even though most aren’t even halfway through their license term (Disney, ABC and the stations are suing).
Tom Wheeler was chairperson of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013 to 2017
Latest purchases take value of deals to leave capital’s stock market this year past $100bn
Three more London-listed companies are set to be taken over as the value of deals removing firms from the capital’s under-pressure stock market passes $100bn (£74bn) so far this year.
On Tuesday, Bodycote, the FTSE 250 industrials group that has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1972, agreed a £1.84bn takeover by the US private equity group Veritas.
Markey, looking to clinch another Senate term, leads younger rival Seth Moulton in blue state’s primary poll
Democrats have spent the summer ousting long-serving incumbents in primaries across the country. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters will decide whether that generational revolt extends to the 80-year-old Ed Markey, whose younger Democratic rival has argued that the incumbent is simply too old to serve another term.
But the Senate primary in this heavily Democratic state flips a central dynamic of previous contests, where youthful progressive insurgents have targeted – and in several cases, toppled – older incumbents they derided as avatars of an outmoded cautious establishment.
The deluge capped a summer of extreme climate events, from deadly heatwaves to wildfires. We must take action now
For millennia, the high peaks of the Himalayas were held together by an invisible, frozen cement – permafrost and glacial ice that bound ancient rock into seemingly unshakable fortresses. But as the planet continues to warm, this alpine glue is liquefying.
The glacial collapse and deluge in Nepal and Tibet was not a freak weather event; it was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature’s latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming. And it was the exclamation point on a summer of extremes, illustrating with a sole unnatural disaster the apocalyptic future that lies in store if we fail to take dramatic climate action.
A year on from the purge, with thousands of jobs cut and billions in foreign aid lost, a former leader reflects on the sorry saga – and why it would never happen to Nasa
A year has passed since I and thousands of colleagues lost our jobs at USAID. Asking myself “Why us?” I have come to the conclusion that the American public had very little idea of what we were doing and why.
Resignation comes after months of turmoil at Pentagon, from leaked investigation to ousting of senior officials
The army secretary, Dan Driscoll, has handed his resignation to Donald Trump, the White House said on Monday, becoming the latest high-profile figure to depart the defense department.
The army official, who is second in line to the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had reportedly been eyeing an exit from the Pentagon amid apparent friction with the secretary.
A deadly flash flood in the Grand Canyon over the weekend was likely driven by a confluence of climate factors, including drought, wildfire scarring and warming temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that can supercharge storms.
At least two people have died, nearly 80 people were rescued and one remained unaccounted for after a surge of water and debris swept through the immensely popular tourist destination on Saturday, fueled by torrents of rain that hit the national park’s Bright Angel Creek area.
Phantom Ranch has been a solitary refuge visited by some of the most famous names of history. More typically, it’s been a beacon for the half-collapsed, exhausted and overheated hikers trudging down the Grand Canyon for more than a century.
The sole lodge at the very bottom of the Grand Canyon, the cabins long had a near mythical reputation. Located along the Bright Angel Creek, which tumbles into the mighty Colorado River at the base of the canyon, they served as a reminder of the long history of one of America’s most spectacular but savage environments.
Justices’ 5-4 ruling permits Trump administration appeal to block lower court order halting above-ground work
A divided US supreme court has permitted Donald Trump to continue building his controversial $400m White House ballroom despite legal challenges, raising the likelihood it will be completed.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices permitted the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court order that had halted above-ground construction of the project while a lawsuit by a historic preservation group seeks to block it.
Singer, accused of murder and sexual abuse of teen Celeste Rivas Hernandez, to be represented by LA public defender
Singer D4vd lost his high-profile private lawyers on Monday at a hearing where he entered a new not guilty plea to charges that he killed, sexually abused and dismembered 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
It is not clear why Blair Berk and her colleagues Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter parted ways with the singer, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke. They were replaced by a lawyer from the Los Angeles county public defender’s office.
Officials say one person still unaccounted for as forecast heavy rain and thunderstorms threaten further flooding
A second death was confirmed by National Park Service officials on Monday after a flash flood sent a surge of water and debris through an area of the Grand Canyon over the weekend.
Dozens of visitors had to be evacuated by helicopter during the deluge, which consumed trails and infrastructure. Nearly 80 people were rescued and one person is still unaccounted for, as more heavy rain and thunderstorms in the forecasts threaten additional debris flows, flash floods or rock falls, the NPS said in a statement.
The technology can help candidates listen more deeply to voters, as examples from Japan and Scotland show
There are plenty of signs that AI will make all of our experiences of the US midterm elections worse. Voters have anxiety about AI’s impacts on the country. Politicos are using AI deepfakes to spread lies. The White House is posting slopaganda.
Meanwhile, candidates are missing a real opportunity to use AI to make campaigning better. The technology can help candidates listen more deeply to voters’ concerns, engage constituents more inclusively, and formulate policy platforms that are more responsive to our input. There are vanishingly few examples of this in US politics, but groups in Japan, Scotland and the US’s own academic and private institutions show how that could change.
We’re watching today as Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, and Kevin Warsh, the chair of the Federal Reserve, deliver their opening remarks at the G20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina.
Richer countries might have more resources to deal with catastrophe, but this problem grips the entire planet, however much leaders may want to deny it
Climate breakdown is happening on one Earth, but two different worlds. In one, its impacts increasingly encroach on everyday life; longer periods of discomfort and shorter periods of sharp pain. Endless, hotter summers, and within them sudden wildfires, evacuations, homes burned to cinders in a matter of hours. In another, catastrophe. This summer has been a snapshot of that split-screen. The hottest day on record in parts of Europe, and a wave of water, mud and ice in Nepal that so far has claimed more than 750 lives. Thousands of people are still missing.
The difference is also one of resources. The climate crisis has an economic cost, but some places can absorb it better than others. Responses to this summer of wildfires in Europe included a rapid scrambling by the French government to provide everything from tax breaks for businesses affected by the fires to relocation costs and aid to rebuild homes. The UK government had deployed almost £100m before the summer to strengthen wildfire resilience.
Trump officials shuttering three projects on foodborne parasite, two defunded by Congress, Politico reports
The Trump administration is shuttering two of the three US Department of Agriculture research projects studying cyclospora after the foodborne parasite has sickened tens of thousands of Americans during the summer, Politico reported on Sunday.
The two projects were defunded by Congress earlier in the year, while the third is due to be moved in coming months from Maryland to Iowa as part of a broader USDA reorganization, according to the report.
Tom Homan denies British far-right commentator, who was deported one day after arrest, got preferential treatment
The White House “border czar,” Tom Homan, denied on Sunday that deporting the British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos just a day after being arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amounted to preferential treatment.
Homan said it was his understanding that Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, had not appeared at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on 22 July.
Meanwhile, Trump posts video of himself kicking over a Lake Ontario sign and replacing it with Lake America sign
Donald Trump and Canada continued a verbal duel on Saturday over the US government’s administrative renaming of Lake Ontario, with the Ontario premier erecting a giant sign saying “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” – and the American president posting a video of him tearing down an avatar of that sign, erecting a replacement saying Lake America, and dancing to YMCA.
Rhetoric over the naming of Lake Ontario is the public face of an escalating trade dispute between the US and its northern neighbor involving a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.
The Canadian province's premier, Doug Ford, installed a billboard-sized sign on the lake's shoreline after the US president signed an executive order on Thursday directing US federal agencies to change the lake's name on US maps, documents and databases to 'Lake America'. Ford told reporters that the lake's name, which is more than 400 years old, would remain unchanged. Trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed last week, with each side blaming the other for derailing three days of intensive negotiations
As with its approach to Hormuz, the US has mistaken applying pressure for an actual strategy. But Tehran has chips of its own to play
Donald Trump has found a new way to promise victory over Iran. After months of war have failed to force Iran’s capitulation or collapse, his administration has unveiled what the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, calls Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to cut it off from what remains of the global economy and threaten foreign governments, banks and companies with sanctions if they continue doing business with Tehran.
There is no question that Iran is vulnerable. Its economy has been battered by years of sanctions, war and a months-long US naval blockade. Iranian officials acknowledge that oil exports and access to foreign currency have been severely constrained. Ordinary Iranians are already enduring high inflation, currency depreciation and worsening living standards. Further economic strangulation will inflict significant additional hardship.
Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, where his work focuses on US-Iran relations, US policy toward the Middle East and nuclear issues
There’s little optimism about treasury secretary’s ability to handle Trump’s tariffs, Iran sanctions and colossal US debt
History remembers Gen Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the allied forces in Europe during the second world war, for his role in the D-day invasion of Normandy. Whether Scott Bessent will achieve similar posterity as the face of the “economic D-day” in Iran remains to be seen.
The US treasury secretary, already trying to manage a $40tn national debt pile, this week took charge of Donald Trump’s effort to reverse-engineer his war of choice. Whereas the US would typically take on an adversary with diplomacy, sanctions and military force, in that order, the US president started with a six-month bombing campaign and now hopes that economic isolation can finish the job.
US president says US will have ‘majority’ control of 65bn barrels of proven oil reserves
Donald Trump announced Friday a new US oil agreement with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez, saying the US will have “majority” control of 65bn barrels of proven oil reserves.
The terms of the agreement remain to be seen, but the US president said on his social-media platform that it had been brokered “through a partnership with private business” by his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
More than 1,300 people are missing in Nepal and in Tibet after catastrophic flash floods swept through the region, killing at least 469. Plus: Six months of the war in Iran
Rescue operations have resumed in Nepal and Tibet after a pause when a lake at the border began to overflow. The lake was formed when a wall of mud and debris hit the hub of Gyirong in Tibet on Wednesday, causing catastrophic flash floods that thundered down valleys and obliterated villages.
What could have caused this deadly flash floods? Satellite imagery suggests a glacier collapse high in the Himalayas was the primary cause, raising concerns that the climate crisis is destabilizing the geology of mountain and polar regions.
What did Kennedy purportedly lie about? A Guardian analysis of newly obtained documents found that the US health secretary had lied when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
A reminder that we are covering the latest out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Kevin Warsh – the new chair of the Federal Reserve – will deliver his first speech as the head of the US central bank at the annual economic policy symposium.
As my colleagues note, Warsh is under pressure to provide clarity on how the FederalReserve should handle with inflation if price pressures don’t abate.
Jes Staley made comments to US lawmakers investigating his links to the convicted sex offender
The former Barclays boss Jes Staley has denied having sex with a woman dressed as Snow White, after being questioned about an infamous email exchange about Disney princesses with Jeffrey Epstein.
The comments were detailed in newly released transcripts from a closed-door interview last month with US lawmakers as part of their investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.
Exclusive: Experts and former officials say accounts are running dry, and funding a war with no clear endgame is the main challenge
Donald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents seen by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.
The US-Israeli operation, which has depleted US munitions stockpiles and prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East, is piling pressure on budgets across the military.
Thai navy says ‘routine’ visit’ will allow personnel to rest and recuperate amid reports of poor conditions onboard
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is set to make a temporary stop in Thailand next week as it heads back to the United States, Thai navy officials said, after spending more than 250 consecutive days at sea supporting US operations against Iran amid recent reports of poor living conditions and low morale onboard the vessel.
The Lincoln left the Middle East several days ago after being relieved by the USS George Washington, and is now heading home to San Diego. A Thai navy official told Reuters this week that the carrier was expected to make a brief port visit in Thailand next week for the crew to rest and recuperate before continuing their journey home.
Letters obtained by Guardian and AP contradict testimony that 2019 visit to Samoa had ‘nothing to do with vaccines’
Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the Pacific island nation. In it, he used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.
Tim Curry was a versatile performer on stage and screen who made his name as the flamboyant Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Curry’s best-known roles often required a considerable physical transformation, to the extent that he was unrecognisable in some of them. As Frank-N-Furter, Rocky Horror’s eccentric scientist, he was daubed in garish makeup and dressed in stockings and suspenders. In Ridley Scott's fantasy Legend, he sported giant horns and scarlet skin as the Lord of Darkness, and, in 1990, Curry was transformed with full-face clown makeup to play Pennywise in the TV miniseries It, based on Stephen King's novel
Tributes have poured in for Dolly Parton, the pioneering country music singer, songwriter and actor, who has died aged 80. Stars including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Paul McCartney have paid tribute to one of the world’s greatest music artists, with many praising her lifelong philanthropy and advocacy for literacy and LGBTQ+ rights. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian deputy features editor Jenny Stevens
Everyone can see that the Iran war has been a strategic disaster for the US, while a failing president pretends he is winning
Now is the twilight of Donald Trump’s supremacy. The US is still the richest and most heavily armed nation on Earth. That status is secure. The current president, contemptuous of law and indulged in lawlessness by a supine Congress, enjoys even greater power than the constitution allows.
With those advantages it takes a special talent for incompetence to look as thwarted and impotent as Trump does with more than two years of his second term still to run.
Are we seeing the first signs of panic in Donald Trump’s Treasury? The US is by far the world’s biggest debtor, and the steady rise in global long-term interest rates – which I have long argued was inevitable – is starting to cause real pain.
Until now, the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has dismissed concerns about US debt, which recently surpassed $40tn, as a big nothingburger. Growth, in his telling, will be so spectacular the US will easily be able to meet its interest obligations without any significant tax rises or spending cuts, while the rest of the world will happily keep feeding it money. But if Bessent really believes that, why is he trying to strong-arm the bond market by fiddling with the maturity structure of government debt?
Danish toymaker also scores success with KPop Demon Hunters, Star Wars and botanicals products
Lego sales have risen by more than a fifth as tie-ups with the football World Cup, Formula One and the hit film KPop Demon Hunters as well as its flower-based and Star Wars kits drive demand.
The toymaker said its revenues had increased by 21% to 41.9bn Danish kroner (£4.8bn) in the first six months of 2026, driven by strong growth in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions, offsetting stalled sales in China.
Bitcoin rises above $80,000 for the first time since May amid uncertainty over US fiscal plans
Gold prices hit their highest level in more than three months on Tuesday as continued conflict in the Middle East and ongoing political uncertainty fuelled the latest rally in the precious metal.
Gold is viewed as a safe haven by investors and its price tends to rise at times of uncertainty.
Trump ally should cut budget deficit rather than try to suppress bond yields, says billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller
Scott Bessent’s attempt to calm the bond markets and push down America’s cost of borrowing have attracted a rebuke from the US Treasury secretary’s former mentor.
The billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who worked with Bessent at George Soros’s fund management firm in the 1990s, has warned that his former pupil is courting danger by trying to suppress US bond yields.