Latvia's public-service media will be allowed to produce content in Russian only in an emergency, under a state of emergency, or for the targeted debunking of disinformation.
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.
In response to the lifting of European sanctions against Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov, Ukraine will add 20 more Russian oligarchs to its sanctions lists.
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.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has called on European leaders to stop referring to Russia's actions as "hybrid attacks," arguing that they involve acts of sabotage that are part of Russia's systematic actions against Europe and effectively constitute "some kind of war."
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.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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.
The Pentagon did not invite several key allies to a meeting of NATO countries that will take place this month in Poland, following earlier threats from Washington to compile a "list of good and bad" countries.
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.
A woman convicted of murdering a schoolmate 30 years ago has been taken to hospital after surviving two rounds of lethal injections in Tennessee. Christa Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in the state in 200 years. Pike, 50, has spent three decades on death row after she was convicted of the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. A last-minute appeal to stop the lethal injection was overturned by the supreme court, but the state governor, Bill Lee, has suspended executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year. Lucy Hough speaks to the attorney and anti-capital punishment campaigner Clive Stafford Smith – watch on YouTube
Donald Trump deflected responsibility for misleading Americans about the length of the Iran war, dismissed low poll ratings as “fake numbers” and refused to rule out the possibility of declaring a state of emergency before the midterms, in a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine.
The agreement establishing the International Claims Commission for Ukraine has already been signed by 40 countries and the EU, but only ten of the required 25 ratifications have been completed.
Network was listed as primary TV pool covering Thursday’s presidential activities but then was abruptly removed
For a second time in a week, the White House has unilaterally removed CNN from its assignment as the primary television pool representative covering Donald Trump.
Artificial intelligence chatbots rely on Russian narratives when generating responses about the history of Lithuania. This is due to the Russian side uploading massive amounts of data online, which algorithms then absorb to formulate their responses.
Administration says increased immigration enforcement led to fewer homicides, but they have been on the decline since Joe Biden’s term
Over the last year and a half, the US has seen a historic drop in homicides. Researchers and reporters are still puzzling through the complex set of reasons why - from the easing of pandemic-era stressors and the Biden administration’s investments in community-based violence prevention to policing and other factors.
But for the Trump administration, there’s one easy explanation: increased immigration enforcement. As the midterm elections approach, the White House has been doubling down on this message, saying its crackdown against immigrants is why US crime rates are now falling.
As the midterms approach, Americans’ digestive health has become a bizarre talking point
Donald Trump seems to spend an unusual amount of time thinking about toilets.
Back in 2019, he bizarrely claimed: “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once.” He repeated this claim at a Michigan rally the following year. “Ten times, right, 10 times,” Trump complained. “Not me, of course not me, but you,” he added while pointing at an unfortunate audience member.
The Czech opposition will again raise with the government the issue of providing Ukraine with four L-159 aircraft currently in service with the Czech army.
Ukraine is pressing on with strikes on Russian oil refineries, defying Donald Trump, who blames the attacks for exacerbating a global diesel shortage and pushing up fuel prices.
Kyiv struck an oil facility in Russia’s southern Samara region overnight, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday in a statement on social media. The Ukrainian president added that a Russian vessel in the Black Sea was hit, as well as a launch and storage site for attack drones in the Oryol region.
Critics noted that the plan does not discuss Israel; others praised it for not conflating Jews with the state of Israel
When the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, announced the city’s first-ever municipal strategy to address antisemitism – a nuanced, multi-pronged approach ranging from greater security measures for synagogues to an increased focus on Jewish history in public school education – critics were quick to note what the 33-page document does not mention at all: Israel.
Israel has played an outsized role in Mamdani’s campaign and since his election, with the mayor standing by his years-long support for Palestinians, and frequently describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and it’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as a war criminal.
President’s outlandish and extensive conspiracy theories endanger US freedoms, health and science, experts say
Since the start of his second presidency, Donald Trump has often launched outlandish conspiratorial attacks on critics and foes that mock them and label their views as hoaxes, prompting scholars and legal experts to say Trump’s attacks endanger US freedoms, public health and science.
Trump’s extensive use of conspiracy theories is the hallmark of an authoritarian leader that has weakened trust in the coming midterm elections, dangerously ignored scientific evidence, and often pushed for prosecutions of his political enemies in ways that seriously erode civil liberties, say critics.
Gavin Newsom says Trump is a ‘gift’ to the climate cause for dispelling notions of fossil fuel energy security
Of all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was delivered last week – that he is, in fact, some sort of environmentalist.
Trump is the “greatest gift” to the environmental movement, argued Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, due to the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran.
Six lawmakers demand information on childcare center closures, cost changes, Head Start and government grants
Democratic senators have accused Donald Trump’s administration of worsening the country’s childcare crisis, warning that rising costs and daycare closures are leaving families with fewer affordable options.
In a letter seen by the Guardian and addressed to Alex Adams, assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), senators led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts argue that federal cuts and changes to childcare programs like Head Start are destabilising an already fragile system.
The White House has, again, blocked CNN from covering Donald Trump as part of the rotating press pool.
The outlet was scheduled to be a part of the group of media traveling to Texas and Oklahoma with the president today, but was removed from list of newsrooms in place for the trip, per the White House schedule.
ICE-watchers get creative after the killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, as Trump’s immigration crackdown takes a more secretive approach
Most of the time, the scene outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the small, coastal town of Scarborough, Maine, could be confused for a nature watch in “Vacationland”, the slogan on state license plates.
People sitting in lawn chairs under a tent. Birds chirping. The sound of the breeze moving through the trees.
Credible threats appear to have been overlooked as administration focuses on unverified claims of voter fraud
The Trump administration has abandoned key security bodies meant to investigate direct threats to US elections by foreign actors and domestic terrorists, according to former officials and a recent report.
While administration officials have been actively focused on unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud by noncitizens, other credible election threats appear to have been overlooked, the officials say.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has called for states to develop legal mechanisms allowing Russian state assets to be used to pay Ukraine compensation awarded under judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and for a mechanism under the auspices of the Council of Europe through which these funds could be transferred to Ukraine.
The global bond sell-off intensified on Thursday, driving 10-year US government borrowing costs to their highest level in 24 years in a frantic day’s trading.
The threat of a renewed round of inflation from the persistently high cost of oil has spooked investors on both sides of the Atlantic, with central banks expected to raise interest rates in the coming months to prevent price increases from becoming embedded.
Ukraine has called on OSCE participating states to step up pressure on Russia, including by restricting its diplomatic and so-called "cultural" infrastructure used for espionage and subversive activities in Europe.
The candidates running to replace Gavin Newsom sparred over taxes, immigration and regulating AI
Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, the candidates running to be California’s next governor, clashed on Wednesday over taxes, immigration and regulating artificial intelligence in a testy debate held days before voters begin receiving their ballots in the heavily Democratic state.
Hilton, the former Fox News host endorsed by Donald Trump, used the hourlong matchup, hosted by CNN, to argue that Becerra, a former congressman who served as the US health and human services secretary during the Biden administration, was not actively campaigning and instead taking voters for granted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Finnish President Alexander Stubb about ways to strengthen Ukraine's defense, including its F-16 fighter jets and air defense capabilities more broadly.
Suspect Benny Caldera Jr held on bond as officials say they received ‘credible’ information about Austin threat
A 40-year-old man was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of plotting to attack the Texas state capitol, authorities said.
The Texas department of public safety said in a statement that it received “credible information about an individual planning a violent attack” for Thursday in Austin.
On Wednesday, Lithuania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a protest with Russia over the sabotage incident in Estonia and attacks on Ukraine's population and civilian infrastructure.
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has confirmed plans to cut 20% of generals and admirals and declared “no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps” would be tolerated inside the country’s military.
Delivering his latest extraordinary attack on diversity, and dismissing reports of low morale within the US armed forces as “false claims”, Hegseth also suggested they were retaining service personnel at “record” rates.
A year after his explosive tenure at Doge, the SpaceX CEO is back in the Trump administration’s good graces
Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that Elon Musk will co-lead a government project to study the future of warfare, marking the SpaceX CEO’s first return to government since he ran the chaotic, so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge. Musk will be joined by Palmer Luckey, CEO of the defense tech company Anduril, and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House.
A defense department press release on the effort, called Project Meridian, described its goal as “identifying the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield”. The project will run for 120 days and culminate in an unclassified public report of its recommendations.
Ruslan Stefanchuk, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and Yara Jiménez, President of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, discussed the return of illegally abducted Ukrainian children and the intensification of sanctions against Russia during a meeting in Madrid.
Democrats block measure they say didn’t go far enough – and was bundled with ‘poison pill’ voter ID rules
The US Senate on Wednesday blocked a Republican bill restricting stock trading by members of Congress, after Democrats refused to advance a measure they said would let lawmakers keep their portfolios and was bundled with voter ID rules they called a “poison pill”.
The 53-47 vote fell seven short of the 60 needed to open debate on the Stop Insider Trading Act, which the Republican-controlled House passed in July. Every Democrat and independent voted no, and the failure comes five weeks before the 3 November midterms.
The US Department of Justice indicted another 10 individuals on noncitizen voting-related charges on Wednesday as Donald Trump’s administration continues to pursue allegations of voter fraud raised by the president.
In the sixth announcement of its kind this month, the attorney general, Todd Blanche, and homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, said 10 people in Minnesota were charged with making false claims about citizenship to vote, or voting as a noncitizen.
Connexion
