President Trump personally directed the use of taxpayer money for ads praising his presidency, according to people familiar with the matter. Our White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman, explains.

Judge unseals bodycam footage from officers who responded to 911 from McDonald’s in Pennsylvania

Police bodycam footage released Friday shows the moment officers located and arrested Luigi Mangione at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s in connection with the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan.

In one video, officers ask Mangione to lower the face mask he was wearing to hide his identity.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Altoona Police Department/AP

© Photograph: Altoona Police Department/AP

© Photograph: Altoona Police Department/AP

Newly released police bodycam footage shows officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, approaching, searching and arresting Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's on 9 December 2024 in connection with the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The Guardian has edited the video from multiple cameras to show the moments of the arrest

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Atloona Police Department via AP

© Photograph: Atloona Police Department via AP

© Photograph: Atloona Police Department via AP

The government-funded ads show just how much President Trump has been able to use federal money for his own aims.

© via YouTube

Health screenings and criminal background checks may go only so far in identifying pilots who have become radicalized or try to hide their mental health issues, experts said.

© Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The country was shaken after nearly 30 people were killed in two separate mass shootings. South Africans are demanding greater government intervention.

© Emmanuel Croset/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority are now considering setting trained falcons on the urban birds

The mass transit authorities in the greater Boston region are clawing around for ways to mitigate the excessive local pigeon population – or more graphically, pigeon poo all over stations – and have swooped on the possibility of setting trained falcons on them.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the public system commonly known as “the T”, issued a “request for information” (RFI) last month from falconry experts on the potential use of birds of prey, such as falcons, to control the crowds of urban birds widely considered a public nuisance.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

© Photograph: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

© Photograph: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Prosecutors want remote testimony for witnesses unable or unwilling to travel to Guantánamo. The defense wants jurors to be told that, guilty or innocent, the defendant will not go free.

© Marisa Schwartz Taylor/The New York Times

After the co-pilot stabbed the captain, two pilots who were seated in the cabin intervened alongside passengers and safely landed the Boeing 737 in Saudi Arabia.

© Erik Marmor/Getty Images

Support for 37-year-old Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins could upend the governor’s race in the heavily Republican state

This July, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins spent four days and 450 miles (725km) wending his way down the Yukon River in a 24ft Alweld skiff, a flat-bottomed aluminum boat built for shallow Alaska rivers.

Starting in Koyukon Athabascan country, he passed through Indigenous Deg Hit’an communities like Anvik, before ending among the Yup’ik villages of the lower river, Russian Mission and Pilot Station among them. The boat carried him through 11 villages – some only reachable by water or small plane, and most with fewer than 300 residents, and fewer still who could recall the last time they had seen a candidate for Alaska governor, Republican, Democrat or independent.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for Alaska

© Photograph: Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for Alaska

© Photograph: Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for Alaska

As the Republicans try to hold their majority, the Senate Leadership Fund is diverting resources to Kansas, which has become a growing concern for the party.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Economies in Latin America and Europe rely on American diesel. Stopping exports could tip some countries into recession, hurting trade with the United States.

© Diego Vara/Reuters

A badly wounded Indian pilot managed to unlock the cockpit door. Four Israeli men teamed up to overwhelm an attacker and avert disaster.

© Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

The Senate Leadership Fund is diverting money to Kansas, which has become a growing concern for the party as it seeks to hold its majority.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The Group of 7, which includes Britain, France and Japan, announced the release of 100 million barrels over four months, effective immediately.

© Hilary Swift for The New York Times

The government had proposed more protections for tenants after outrage at the eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid.

© Anadolu, via Getty Images

The Coast Guard has intercepted two small boats it says were carrying illegal fuel to Cuba as the United States enforces a fuel blockade aimed at Cuba’s Communist government.

© Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

As LeBron James and other NBA stars wholeheartedly embrace the murk of betting and prediction markets, the San Antonio Spurs’ 22-year-old cornerstone has drawn a refreshing line

If the song from LeBron James’s agonizing Polymarket ad is as stuck in your head as mine thanks to the commercial playing during every YouTube video and HBO show (all I wanted to do was rewatch The Leftovers), let Victor Wembanyama be your antidote. At the Spurs’ practice on Thursday, San Antonio Express-News columnist Mike Finger asked Wembanyama if he would ever partner with a sports betting firm. It couldn’t have been easier for the 22-year-old to say yes. The NBA displays ads for both FanDuel and DraftKings, in addition to hawking betting odds on its broadcasts. Until the streaming service met its end a few months ago, plenty of NBA games streamed exclusively on FanDuel Sports Network. Then there are Wembanyama’s legendary peers: James is the new face of Polymarket; Kevin Durant reads FanDuel odds and invests in Kalshi; Giannis Antetokounmpo is a Kalshi shareholder.

“Absolutely not,” Wembanyama said instead. “I will never do that. Honestly, I think it’s very sad to see some players promote it. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Capt. Smit Machchhar, who was stabbed by his co-pilot midair between Dubai and Tel Aviv, said he “had to act” to prevent a crash despite serious injuries.

© Israel's Foreign Ministry, via Associated Press

The attack, on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, halted the only direct service between the two cities since the war in Iran disrupted air traffic.

© Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters

Israel’s conduct in Gaza shows the danger of using AI in warfare. Humans must remain at the center of wartime decisions

As tech leaders warn about the threats of artificial intelligence, most conjure up images of AI agents running amok, such as hacking systems used to run our critical infrastructure, banks or even militaries. Yet one serious danger is mentioned less frequently – the threat posed by AI–empowered lethal weapons. Fully autonomous versions of these weapons are colloquially known as killer robots.

Israel’s conduct in Gaza shows that, in an important respect, such AI weapon systems are already here. An algorithm has been deciding who lives and who dies.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

© Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

© Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

In effort to avoid panic at pumps, Keir Mather insists supply of fuel to Britain is ‘inherently resilient’

• UK diesel price hits record high of £2 a litre

• Business live – latest updates

The government has sought to avert panic at the pumps, insisting that the UK is not facing a diesel shortage after Donald Trump threatened to cut off US supplies of the fuel.

The transport minister Keir Mather said on Friday that the UK has a wide range of sources of the fuel and is in talks with other European countries over the potential release of emergency diesel stockpiles.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Truckers are among the hardest hit by the soaring cost of diesel fuel. High prices are forcing some to stay on the road for months and others to park their rigs.

© Hilary Swift for The New York Times

Earl Caldwell was staying at the Memphis hotel where the civil rights leader was killed.

© Barney Sellers/ZUMA Press Wire, via Reuters Connect. Illustration by Matt Dorfman

Iran has been launching drones and missiles at commercial ships in the waterway each week, though it has often failed to strike its targets, according to a Western security official.

© Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Ukraine showed European partners what it said were intercepted Russian plans to cut off major cities from power, heat and water this winter.

Officials in Wyoming had called notion to host game in Grand Teton national park ‘deeply unwelcome’

Major League Baseball (MLB) leadership is no longer considering holding a game inside a national park, according to a letter commissioner Robert Manfred sent to officials in Teton county, Wyoming, on Thursday in what could be the league’s biggest swing-and-a-miss off the diamond.

On 26 September, the Washington Post reported that MLB had reached out to the White House about staging a one-day game at Grand Teton national park in Wyoming. Teton county describes itself as a “a year-round resort community” and sits within the Jackson Hole valley. It’s also a habitat for grizzly bears, osprey, bison and more.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said the co-pilot who set upon the pilot had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination” but did not elaborate.

© Ammar Awad/Reuters

More politicians have stopped talking about the climate, but the green transition is still moving forward.

© Toby Melville/Reuters

No one was hurt in what the police described as a shocking episode that was captured on video inside a day care center in Canton, Mich., on Monday.

The Nigerian secured office space in a federal building, opened bank accounts and even held meetings with foreign diplomats. He says he is innocent.

© Marvellous Durowaiye/Reuters

The events evoked days decades ago when Israel was widely admired for its plucky survival against the odds and for taking on hijackers.

© Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

House Democrats say officials may have illegally misused public funds to pay for president’s ‘narcissistic ego trips’

The Trump administration is facing growing questions over whether it illegally used taxpayer money to air television ads promoting Donald Trump five weeks before the US midterm elections.

Two congressional Democrats, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and George Whitesides of California, have asked federal watchdogs to investigate the ads.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

The Russian government has submitted a draft federal budget for 2027–2029 to the State Duma, Meduza reported on 30 September, citing TASS. In all three years, Russia's expenditures will exceed its revenues, the outlet noted.

Russia's finances have been eroding since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To keep paying for the war, the Kremlin has drained its reserves, borrowed more, and pushed tax burdens onto residents and businesses, while the wider economy stalls.

The government listed social obligations, including aid to those who fought in its war against Ukraine and their families, along with defense needs among the budget's priorities, while its press release left out the planned cuts to social spending and the rise in military spending, Meduza noted, citing The Bell.

Spending will exceed revenue by about 2% of GDP a year

Russia's federal budget for 2027 sets spending at 48.8 trillion rubles ($585 billion) and revenue at 43.3 trillion ($519 billion), the Russian government stated, leaving a deficit of 5.5 trillion rubles ($66 billion). It claimed the draft is "balanced" and that healthcare spending will rise compared with 2026.

Deficits of 5.1 trillion rubles ($61 billion) in 2028 and 5.3 trillion ($64 billion) in 2029 are also planned, about 2% of GDP a year, Meduza noted.

This year's deficit is now set to reach a record 7.345 trillion rubles ($88 billion), nearly double the previous forecast of 3.785 trillion ($45 billion), The Moscow Times reported on 1 October. To help close the gap, Moscow plans an array of tax hikes for 2027–2029 to fund military spending. Already by May, its four-month deficit had run 50% above what it had planned for the whole year.

Even as the deficit widens, Russia plans its highest defense spending since the full-scale invasion began: 17.1 trillion rubles ($202.58 billion) in 2027, 27% more than the 13.5 trillion originally planned.

Only 2.3 trillion rubles ($28 billion) of that sum is itemized in public documents, and 34.9% of all 2027 spending will be classified, the highest share in at least 12 years, exiled outlet Vyorstka reported. The Duma is expected to hold the first of three readings on 29 October, the date proposed by Budget Committee chairman Andrei Makarov, Interfax reported.

The Swedish American actress, who died in 1990, was brought back in a A.I.-generated ad for a manufacturing company.

© The New York Times

Lake Mead is at its lowest level since it was filled nearly 90 years ago, Lake Powell also at a historic low

It was 42C (108F) degrees as we motored across Nevada’s Lake Mead in our rented pontoon boat. Colby Pellegrino with the Southern Nevada Water Authority wanted to show us something we shouldn’t have been able to see. She pointed toward a rock island where a large metal pipe was sticking out of the water.

“That is the first intake that was built to bring municipal water into the valley in 1970,” Pellegrino said.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ian Maule/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ian Maule/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ian Maule/AFP/Getty Images

Both sides are finding it increasingly difficult to finance the conflict in Ukraine. Russia’s 2027 budget envisions more debt, higher taxes and lower social benefits.

© Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

One researcher called it a “desperately needed warning sign” that countries need to tackle human-driven climate change.

© Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Less than 50% of the F-16 fighter jets delivered to Ukraine may be operational, Defense Express reports, citing a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial published on 29 September. On the same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Belgium would deliver three F-16 fighter jets this year.

F-16s are used extensively to intercept Russian cruise missiles and drones. As the number of Russian attacks has increased, these aircraft have become particularly important for Ukraine. However, the jets Ukraine receives are old, and keeping them flying takes regular maintenance, extra work, and hard-to-find parts.

Routine inspections are taking as long as 40 weeks in Belgium, retired US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery told the WSJ.

The maintenance process for these aircraft for Ukraine is lengthy

A likely reason for the problem is the lengthy maintenance process handled by Belgian company Sabena Aerospace Engineering, according to the WSJ, whose questions the company declined to answer. This process, according to Defense Express's estimates, takes 6–20 times longer than maintenance in the United States, which usually takes between 2 and 6 weeks. Ukraine uses the services of the Belgian company, meaning its F-16s are not being serviced quickly enough.

Delivering three additional fighter jets will not significantly help the Ukrainian military until the issue with aircraft maintenance times is resolved, Defense Express notes. The lengthy turnaround may be caused by a large maintenance backlog at the company, limited capacity, or logistical constraints, and older jets may need extra work and scarcer parts.

The delivery is part of an earlier commitment. Belgium plans to provide seven fighter jets this year: three for operational use and four for spare parts, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said in June.

"I'll propose to the government to send all our F-16s to Ukraine in the coming years. It depends on having the F-35s in place because, of course, we have DCA [dual-capable aircraft] capacity. We have our role in the nuclear doctrine of NATO," Francken said.

Belgium has pledged its entire F-16 fleet of 53 aircraft as F-35s replace them, according to Defense Express.

F-16s in Ukraine have already shot down several thousand Russian aerial targets

F-16s operated by Ukrainian pilots have shot down more than 3,150 aerial targets. These include 666 cruise missiles and around 2,500 drones of various types. The aircraft have also carried out more than 650 strikes against Russian ground targets, Lieutenant General Anatolii Kryvonozhko, Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, said during a meeting between a Ukrainian Air Force delegation and representatives of Lockheed Martin on 29 September.

At the meeting, Conor McGuire, Lockheed Martin's head of F-16 capability development, highly praised the combat use and operation of F-16s by Ukrainian pilots and the entire ground aviation personnel. He also expressed his intention to help Ukrainians enhance the capabilities of the existing platform, the statement said.

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.

CNN was excluded on Saturday from pool duty onboard Air Force One, despite a district judge’s ruling – two days earlier – overturning the White House’s ban on the network and two other media organizations.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A company that makes phone hacking devices claims to have developed a solution that freezes iPhones in a state that lets cops more easily access sensitive data inside them, according to a video obtained by 404 Media.  

This is the latest salvo in the never-ending battle between Apple and companies that help cops — sometimes those in authoritarian countries — break into iPhones.

In November 2024, 404 Media revealed Apple quietly introduced a new feature in iOS that automatically reboots an iPhone that has not been unlocked for 72 hours. The idea behind this so-called “inactivity reboot” is to revert the phone to a state that makes it harder for police to break into the device, and thus extract sensitive data from it with forensics technology. 

At the time of Apple’s change, law enforcement agents expressed concern about this new feature, given that oftentimes they can’t immediately try to break into iPhones that have been seized. That could be because police are still waiting for a court authorization to do so, or there is simply a backlog of devices to unlock, for example.

The new technology to get around inactivity reboot was developed by Magnet Forensics, the company behind GrayKey, a popular tool sold to law enforcement agencies that allows them to unlock and access data stored in iPhones and Android smartphones. Magnet has developed a new device called GrayKey Preserve and a feature for its regular GrayKey devices called Evidence Preservation Mode, according to the video. 

The national security police detained Tang Ho-wing, founder of the independent outlet Boom News, according to local media and watchdog groups.

© Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Just days before Sunday’s election, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva banned online gambling. But record-high debt is upending millions of lives.

© Dado Galdieri for The New York Times

After decades of potlucks and paddle-boarding on Maine’s midcoast, rising anger and protests have left the Supreme Court’s chief justice more isolated than ever.

© Ryan David Brown for The New York Times

The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals

Amid a barrage of news stories warning about superintelligent machines rendering humanity extinct, a CNN story describing the opposite scenario – one in which the US military’s reliance on brittle chatbots almost brought the US into war with China – went mostly unnoticed by the public.

The biggest international AI news of the past three weeks was the Anthropic engineer Jacob Coxon’s resignation. According to him, OpenAI and Anthropic are “racing straight towards self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives”. Coxon’s description of a “terminator” scenario, a machine becoming much smarter than humanity and deciding to wipe us out, captured the public’s, journalists’ and politicians’ attention, stirring waves of fear-inducing, credulous reporting, and policy actions.

Timnit Gebru is executive director of Dair and author of the forthcoming book Deep Unlearning: The Radicalization of a Tech Idealist, which is available for preorders now and set to publish on 16 February.

Emily M Bender is professor of linguistics at the University of Washington and co-author of The AI Con.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock

Fears that US deficit is unsustainable also drive UK 30-year bond yields briefly above 6% for first time since 1998

• Business live – latest updates

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.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

© Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

© Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

A passenger on a flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday said he watched in horror as the plane’s pilots tumbled out of the cockpit, locked in a bloody brawl.

© Erik Marmor/Getty Images

In his ruling, Judge Vernon D. Oliver cited public statements from the bureau’s director that hurt the agency’s case in court.

© Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

“I don’t deserve to die like this,” said one passenger on Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The motive of the cockpit stabbing remains unknown, officials said.

© Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Ukrainian combat simulator can now be found and ordered in NATO's supply catalogs by a single code. L7 Simulators, whose trainers have prepared more than 500,000 Ukrainian troops, has had its entire lineup NATO-codified, with each device assigned a 13-digit NATO Stock Number, Defender Media reports.

L7's more than 50 trainers, from the Browning M2 to the Stinger to the NLAW, now carry those codes, and the company can codify new ones itself, opening the door to government procurement in Ukraine and across the alliance. It is another Ukrainian defense maker stepping toward NATO's standards and supply chain.

Every trainer gets a NATO number

A NATO Stock Number is a unique 13-digit code, a kind of military barcode for supplies, that lets defense logistics systems across the alliance identify, catalog, and purchase equipment. Every simulator in L7's catalog now has one, and the firm has also won the status to assign numbers to its future products directly, rather than starting the process over for each one.

The code identifies, not certifies

The company is careful about what the step does and does not mean. Codification is not a certification that the product meets NATO's technical standards, L7 stresses, but rather a mechanism for unambiguously identifying an item within the shared defense-logistics system.

The firm entered that system in December 2024, when its UNITS training platform, already cleared for use by Ukraine's Defense Ministry, received the first number.

Half a million have trained on them

L7's range runs to more than 50 types of trainers, tied together in a single ecosystem the company calls UNITS: fire-training systems, anti-tank and air-defense simulators, and trainers for unmanned aircraft, with models for the Stinger, NLAW, Carl Gustaf, RPG-7, and SPG-9 among them.

The simulators are used by the armed forces, the National Guard, and other security agencies, and more than 500,000 service members have trained on them, with over 70,000 of them free of charge at the company's own training center.