President complains about not winning prize in year he started war with Iran and says: ‘We will not forget, Norway’

Donald Trump complained Friday about not winning the Nobel peace prize for 2026, a year in which he started a war with Iran.

At what was supposed to be a rally for other Republican candidates in Syracuse, New York, the US president devoted a long portion of his speech airing his grievances with the Nobel committee.

US president says agreement needed to lower fuel prices, but move likely to create fresh crisis with Ukraine and Nato allies

Donald Trump is on a fresh collision course with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies after his stunning agreement to buy Russian diesel upended years of US and western pressure on the Kremlin to end its war against Ukraine.

Zelenskyy reacted furiously to Trump’s announcement of the deal with Vladimir Putin on Friday, calling it “absolutely terrible” and “not fair and not honest”.

Judge says justice department policy of checking state voter rolls against a federal immigration database is unlawful

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the US justice department’s policy of collecting states’ unredacted voter rolls to check them against a federal immigration database is unlawful.

The ruling, by the US district judge Sparkle Sooknanan, was a setback for Donald Trump, who has pushed his administration to ramp up investigations into non-citizen voting ahead of the November midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.

Zacharia will replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after giving birth to her second child

Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had picked Katie Zacharia to be the next White House press secretary, lining up a conservative commentator he called a “devoted fan” to be his most prominent spokesperson.

Zacharia will replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after the birth to her second child.

US president renews his efforts to oust Cook despite supreme court ruling that her firing was unconstitutional

Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is establishing a committee to investigate Lisa Cook, the US Federal Reserve governor, over allegations that she committed mortgage fraud, renewing his efforts to oust her despite a June supreme court ruling that her earlier firing was unconstitutional.

Trump said a committee will consult with justice department officials to decide whether there is “cause” for her removal. The White House will hold an in-person hearing on 5 November to consider the allegations against Cook, which will be closed to the public but transcribed and published. Cook will be able to submit a written statement to present her own evidence and will be subject to examination from White House and her own legal counsel.

Dr Annie Andrews voices opposition to ‘biological men … in women’s sports’ in response to Republican attacks

Dr Annie Andrews, a Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina, has responded to persistent efforts by Republicans to make trans athletes in women’s sports a wedge issue in the race.

In a restrained direct-to-camera statement, Andrews – a pediatrician – outlined her opposition to “biological men playing in women’s sports”, as her party pushes back against Republican attacks.

Control of Congress after the 2026 midterm elections would give Democrats power to subpoena documents and testimony

In August, Jamie Raskin renewed his demand that Jared Kushner hand over documents about the overlap between his informal role advising Donald Trump on foreign policy and the private equity firm he runs after an earlier request was ignored.

Five of the 11 companies that Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer and Ron Wyden wrote to about Donald Trump’s IRS settlement – including the Trump Organization and World Liberty Financial – never answered at all.

Russia's seaborne exports of refined oil products rose to a three-month high in September, but the growth came from cheaper fuel oil and naphtha as diesel shipments fell to their lowest in more than a decade, Bloomberg reported, citing Vortexa data. Russia kept diesel at home after Ukrainian refinery strikes and paid oil companies to supply its pumps, while high crude prices lifted its crude export earnings.

During the ongoing deep-strike campaign, Ukraine's long-range drones have knocked out more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity, Kyiv says, and Russia's budget oil revenues are falling even as it raises war spending. High global crude prices are softening that blow.

Cheaper fuel out

Total seaborne product exports reached about 1.17 million barrels a day in September. Fuel oil shipments rose 6% to about 613,000 barrels a day, the highest since April. Naphtha, a feedstock for petrochemicals, jumped 35% to 363,000 barrels a day. Exports of refinery feedstocks, including vacuum gasoil, rose to about 32,000 barrels a day, according to Bloomberg.

The trade has moved north. Almost 80% of fuel oil cargoes left from Baltic ports, and naphtha loadings there rose almost 50% as Ukrainian attacks disrupted Black Sea infrastructure. In September, Ukraine reported hitting an oil terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia's main Black Sea oil port—one in a string of attacks on Russia's Black Sea ports and oil sites.

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More than 500 drones by Moscow’s count: Kh-101 fuel plant, second Yandex data center, and a far-north refinery hit

Diesel kept at home

Diesel and gasoil exports fell 28% to 144,000 barrels a day, the lowest monthly volume in Vortexa data going back more than a decade. Russia has restricted diesel exports to protect domestic supply after Ukrainian attacks on its refineries. Drones kept hitting them into October, from a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd to Gazprom's Salavat complex in Bashkortostan.

In September, Russia paid oil companies the biggest subsidy in more than four years to keep road fuel on the domestic market. It also imported about 350,000 tonnes of motor fuel by sea, mostly gasoline from India, Morocco, and Türkiye, Reuters calculations showed. Officials are considering letting some producers resume diesel exports in October to avoid overstocking, according to Interfax.

The diesel squeeze has reached the White House. US President Donald Trump stated on 30 September that diesel was hurt "not by the Middle East, but by what's going on in Russia, because those diesel refineries are being knocked out at a pretty alarming rate."

Crude carries the revenue

Russia's crude exports reached about 3.99 million barrels a day in the week to 27 September, and the estimated value of its seaborne crude shipments neared its highest since the full-scale invasion began, Bloomberg reported. Brent crude traded at about $102.60 a barrel on 9 October, according to Trading Economics data.

From cost of living to the Iran war, these are the issues that matter most to US voters across the political spectrum

US voters are about to deliver their first national verdict on the second presidency of Donald Trump. On 3 November, millions of Americans will vote in midterm elections to decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships in 36 states. The results could have a huge impact on Trump’s final two years in office.

Today, the Guardian launches its 2026 midterm voter panel. Our reporters have interviewed nine voters across the country and the political spectrum about the issues that matter to them, from the cost of living, immigration and healthcare to the war in Iran and whether they trust their political leaders.

A proposal to livestream the killing of Nidal Hasan by firing squad opens a window ever wider to the Trump administration’s complete moral vacuity

More fool me! Here I was thinking nothing that America’s Trump administration could do or say, no matter how politically and morally bankrupt, no matter how venal or violent, was capable of shocking me any longer.

Then I woke to today’s news that one of the Trump cabinet’s bigger boofheads – the uber Christian nationalist, crusader-fantasist and “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth had announced that America would have a public firing squad execution of murderer Nidal Hasan.

Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

Police say man taken to hospital and mayor says child physically unharmed as he demands Trump stop ICE enforcement in city

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and wounded a man in New York City on Thursday afternoon during an enforcement operation, federal officials said.

The man was conscious and hospitalized, authorities said, and the shooting quickly sparked angry protests from local residents and elected officials in the neighborhood.

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, with US midterms a month away, the president held a ceremony to celebrate our tech overlords – again

He stands accused of being out of touch, enriching himself and his family, building a lavish White House ballroom and, with elections looming, neglecting the hardships of the voters who brought him to power.

Time for Donald Trump to show he still has the common touch? Nope.

Cassidy Hutchinson told panel she had been told Trump lunged for wheel of SUV to try to join mob at Capitol

Prosecutors in the justice department’s civil rights division are seeking criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top Trump White House aide who gave explosive testimony to the committee that investigated the US attack on the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The potential charges involve lying to Congress, the person said.

Statement outlines pause on protracted war US president has struggled to end after almost eight months

Donald Trump has promised not to attack Iran before November’s US midterm elections, outlining a pause on the protracted war he has struggled to end after almost eight months.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, the US president said Washington was “having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran”, which he claimed was “in very bad condition, both Economically and Militarily”.

Lawyers for Wells’s family have called for a federal investigation into 18-year-old’s disappearance and death

On Wednesday, Donald Trump said he was considering asking the FBI to investigate the death of Nolan Wells, a Black college freshman who was last seen alive on a 4 July boating trip with friends.

Wells, 18, went missing while on Horn Island, a barrier island off the coast of Mississippi. His body was found on the island two days later. Wells’s cause and manner of death are still undetermined.

State residents express anger at Republicans who allowed chaotic voting maps saga to unfold ahead of the midterms

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Eric Leventhal knows he’s going to vote for a Democrat in Congress when he goes to the polls in Missouri this November – the problem is he has no idea which candidate is going to be on his ballot.

In the state’s August primary, he voted for Fred Wellman, a Democrat running in the state’s second congressional district. But after a long and complicated legal battle sparked by Donald Trump’s desire to gain every advantage in the upcoming midterm contest, the districts have changed for the general election that will determine which party controls Congress. Leventhal said he lived right near the border of the first and second congressional district, so now he’s not sure which one he’s in.

Donald Trump’s latest campaign rally in San Antonio, Texas, was rocked by repeated protests as the US president urged Texas voters to back the embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton. At least half a dozen demonstrators interrupted the US president during his speech, with some led away by police. One was physically assaulted by a Trump supporter as he tried to leave the arena. The Republican campaign to maintain control of the Senate has become increasingly focused on Texas, where the Democrat James Talarico has emerged as a serious threat

Pentagon chief joins Trump in attempt to use deadly shooting at Texas base to attack former Democratic president

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Donald Trump has urged James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race in Texas, to debate Ken Paxton – Republican attorney general that the president has endorsed in the election.

On Truth Social, Trump described Paxton as “ready, willing, and able” to take on Talarico – the 37-year-old state representative who has been leading in several polls.

In Georgia, Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent will face off against Mike Collins – a congressman and the Trump-backed Republican nominee at 7pm ET.

At the same time in Michigan, progressive insurgent Abdul El-Sayed, will debate Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee also endorsed by the president.

Finally, it’s the second debate in Maine in as many days. Susan Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent will spar (again) with the Democratic nominee, Troy Jackson, at 8pm ET.

Children are being detained in record numbers, sometimes alone and where lawyers and family cannot find them

The image of immigration officers arresting five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos – in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack – in January sparked outrage across the country.

Celebrities from Ms Rachel to Madonna called for the closure of the Dilley immigration processing center, the Texas immigrant camp that held Ramos and many children like him. Lawyers filed complaints about contaminated food and shoddy healthcare, and hundreds of activists protested outside the detention camp. Within months, the government began sending fewer children to Dilley.

Trump seems to invent ugly new variations on his press-bashing theme almost every day

When you hate the mainstream press as much as Donald Trump does, nothing gets in the way of the punishment fantasy.

Not court rulings. Not public opinion. Not even the dreadful consequence of less media coverage.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Trump briefly stepped away from the microphone after one protester appeared to approach the stage

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Donald Trump’s latest campaign rally was rocked by repeated protests on Wednesday as the US president urged Texas voters to back the embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton.

At least half a dozen demonstrators interrupted the US president during his remarks in San Antonio, with some led away by police. One was physically assaulted by an older Trump supporter as he tried to leave the arena.

Ads promoting the president have cost more than $12m and his Super Pac has refused to reimburse taxpayers

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The Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court on Wednesday, asking a judge in Washington DC to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.

The ads promoting Donald Trump, including one recycled from his 2024 presidential campaign, have cost taxpayers more than $12m so far, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

In the shadow of the Parthenon, the secretary of state gave a selective reading of history as he urged Europe to ‘awaken from its slumber’

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, delivered a classically inspired apologia for Donald Trump’s “America first” foreign policy on Wednesday, giving a sweeping speech to the backdrop of the Parthenon in Athens that appeared tailor-made for campaign ads if he runs for president in 2028.

In the speech, the top US diplomat drew historical parallels from the founders, philosophers and conquerers of antiquity to the modern American spirit – as well as his family’s own journey to the United States – as he called on Europe to “awaken from its long slumber” and reject a “future of atrophy and servitude and decline”.

President floats firing Chris LaCivita and James Blair over any ‘conflict’ after reports of work in Republika Srpska

Donald Trump distanced himself from two top advisers on Wednesday, claiming he did not have “any idea who else they work for”, after it was reported they spent the weekend assisting a pro-Russia government in the Balkans.

On Truth Social, Trump wrote that Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of his 2024 presidential campaign, and James Blair, a campaign adviser and White House deputy chief of staff on leave of absence, “are outside consultants” and “do not work for me other than as outside consultants”.

Donald Trump’s unpopularity and the economic struggles of voters have boosted Democrats. But with less than a month to go, there is no complacency

For once, Democrats and Donald Trump might be in agreement: “Pretend I’m on the ticket,” the historically unpopular president has instructed supporters. Midterms are in large part a referendum on the incumbent, and Trump’s war on Iran and its impact on the cost of living have boosted support for Democrats. With less than a month to go, they have reason to be upbeat. The party has a mountain to climb after the devastating defeats of 2024, and the gerrymandering of Republicans, but surveys give it a lead of about nine points on the generic ballot, which measures preference for parties rather than specific candidates.

Attention has turned from the prospects of seizing the House, where Democrats are forecast a clear majority, to what once seemed like the highly optimistic possibility of taking the Senate too. That would require flipping four seats, with 35 in play. Remarkably, Democrats are prospering in red states from Texas to Alaska. In Kansas – which Mr Trump carried by 16 points, and which has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932 – the race is neck and neck.

Listening to the president at a rally these days is a mix of deja vu and word salad, but his decade-long project of division remains abnormal and dangerous

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Donald Trump’s campaign rallies can be repetitive. Very repetitive. He calls himself the “greatest” president leading the “greatest” movement inside the “greatest” economy. He rails against “Dumocrats” for the “transgender mutilization” of children. He lambasts the “fake news” and reheats election lies. He describes illegal immigration as an “invasion” and recites the poem The Snake.

If we were all frogs being slowly boiled alive, we’ve now reached the stage of blackened toad. After a decade of this, presidential utterances that would once have caused outrage are met with a shrug. We are no longer shockable. Or so we thought.

Texas attorney general acknowledged affordability was his party’s ‘biggest problem’ heading into the midterms

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Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general running as the Republican candidate in a competitive Senate race, admitted privately that rising fuel prices as a result of Donald Trump’s Iran war were hurting his party before the midterms in the latest leaked audio recording.

Asked what issues were “dragging” his campaign at a closed-door fundraising event, Paxton replied, “It’s not tariffs … it’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel,” according to an audio recording shared with Axios.

Sir James Goldsmith’s links to Hilton Head, South Carolina, add to mystery of Jane Doe 4, who claimed she was abused by Epstein in the 1980s

For Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Goldsmith family was a gateway to elite society and he wanted to be in their circle.

The disgraced financier, who died in prison in 2019 facing sex-trafficking charges, longed for a billionaire’s lifestyle and cultivated the family’s friends, bankers, business associates and advisers.

We appear to be entering a new era, in which political desperation at home leads to increasingly unhinged threats abroad

Donald Trump was in Nebraska on Monday, and though his long rally speech had elements of a performance, this was no Bruce Springsteen album. He offered another dark meditation on a world spiraling out of control, one in which the destruction of American cities is increasingly a possibility, unless Americans trust him to use the vast powers of the presidency to annihilate his foes.

The president drew fury when he suggested that Iran could launch a nuclear attack and “take out” Los Angeles or San Diego. California leaders reacted with scorn at Trump’s alarmism.

Ted Widmer, a former White House speechwriter, is the editor of American Speeches, and the recently published The Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text, both published by the Library of America

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Tonight, we’ll have another set of midterm debates. In Iowa, we’ll see the Republican nominee for US Senate, Ashley Hinson, face off against Democrat Josh Turek, a state representative and Paralympian at 8pm ET.

The race has become one of the most competitive of this cycle, despite the fact a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate election in the Hawkeye state since 2008. Turek, however, trails by just a point in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll. And Hinson, who currently serves as a congresswoman, has pushed back on Donald Trump’s agenda of late, as the president’s approval rating sinks to a new low. Hinson has called for an end on the war in Iran, despite consistently voting against House war powers resolutions that would curb military action, and criticizing the president’s recent pause on tariffs for foreign beef imports, which, Hinson argues, will affect the bottom line for the many cattle ranchers in Iowa.

The project has sparked doubts over whether the plant will be built and delivered as promised, given Trump’s record

Donald Trump has long sought to portray himself as a man of steel, from the White House photoshopping Trump to look like Superman, to enacting tariffs on steel and approving the sale of US Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel with a ”golden” share given to the US government.

Most recently, the Trump administration announced plans to construct the largest steel plant in the US, a $15bn plant in Lee county, Iowa, to be built by India-based Mesabi Metallics.

As Angelenos bemoan ‘sad situation’, those in San Diego say remark a ‘disservice’ to town with multiple naval bases

Donald Trump’s extraordinary implication that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego have sparked condemnation across the political spectrum. As residents of the two major west coast cities awoke on Tuesday to another sweltering day in a record-breaking heatwave, the president’s comments sent blood boiling even higher.

Jessica, a 28-year-old Los Angeles hair stylist, was scrolling through social media early on Tuesday morning and was shocked to see that Trump had just suggested Iran should decimate her home town.

Baltimore project to be partly funded by US government but owned by defense firm Anduril, founded by Palmer Luckey

Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the opening of a new $6.6bn shipbuilding factory in Baltimore, partly funded by the US government but owned by Anduril Industries, a politically connected defense company.

Trump’s appearance at a currently unused shipyard in Sparrows Point is a boost to Anduril, whose founder, Palmer Luckey, is a major GOP campaign fundraiser. Luckey has hosted campaign fundraisers for at least 20 Republican politicians, including Trump, the Guardian reported in August. He has given $5.9m to Republican causes since 2017.

White House denies the allegations as ‘false’ and says ‘first amendment does not protect violent rioting’

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Donald Trump ordered the FBI to investigate protesters in Los Angeles who were demonstrating against the president’s immigration crackdown, according to a whistleblower complaint.

Alex Padilla, a Democratic senator who represents California and serves on the Senate judiciary committee, said his office had received a copy of the complaint, which makes sweeping allegations about the Trump administration’s response to protests in LA in early 2025.

Gavin Newsom said state’s threat-assessment center would be on heightened alert after president’s remarks

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, on Tuesday directed the state’s emergency preparedness center to “actively monitor” possible threats to the state after Donald Trump suggested Iran could “take out” the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Trump has faced a chorus of condemnation from Democratic leaders in California after his comments at a rally in Nebraska on Monday night, which the White House has suggested were being taken out of context.

Having seemingly written off the midterms, the Republican bigwigs are making their pitches for 2028. But the current commander-in-chief could be looking closer to home

The US midterm elections are a month away and it’s looking rough for the Republicans. I wouldn’t discount devious schemes behind the scenes, but, on the face of it, the president and his entourage seem to be flailing. Donald Trump is desperately dangling money in front of voters and promising “a big surprise”. Meanwhile, the vice-president, JD Vance, and the GOP senator Ted Cruz seem more concerned with fighting over who will be Trump’s heir than with the midterms.

If the polls are to be believed, Vance is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028. But while he may have great name recognition, Vance is also unlikable. According to the CNN analyst Harry Enten, he is one of the least popular vice-presidents in history. He’s also apparently made enemies within his own party, largely because of his scepticism about the Iran war. His detractors include Cruz, who told MS Now in August that Vance wasn’t a shoo-in for the nomination. The party, Cruz said, was still figuring out the best candidate and needed “to decide who we are, what do we believe”.

Officials file ‘denaturalization actions’ against people accused of crimes in what they call ‘largest’ such initiative

Donald Trump’s justice department has moved to strip the citizenship of 40 naturalized citizens accused of crimes in what authorities describe as “the largest” such initiative over a single period during his administration.

US justice department officials on Monday announced the filing of “denaturalization actions” against more than three dozen people alleged to have committed such offenses as “acting as an agent for a foreign government, committing voluntary manslaughter, and aggravated sodomy against a special‑needs man”.

Polls show GOP candidates trailing Democrats in Senate races, and Republicans also struggling in House contests

Thirty days remain until the midterm elections, and Donald Trump and his Republican allies are pulling out all the stops to maintain control of Congress.

Super Pacs aligned with the GOP have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and voter outreach in races expected to decide the majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, and plan to spend even more before the election is over. The president, Vice-President JD Vance, and other top Republicans are fanning out across the country to stump for vulnerable lawmakers.

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Two media giants, Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery, have completed their $110bn merger, creating a new entertainment powerhouse, Skydance.

The deal, fiercely contested by several state attorneys general over potential antitrust concerns, formally closed on Tuesday.

The allegations against seven men at Cornell University come amid a climate of belligerent sexism

Last month, a young woman filed a lawsuit against Cornell University, alleging that two years ago the university had failed to protect her from being raped by seven men at a fraternity house near the university campus. She also sued the fraternity.

The lawsuit has plunged the university into a crisis and invited criticism of the district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, who decided there wasn’t enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the seven men.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK

Experts say president is vulnerable amid discontent over rising prices – and the US public has ample cause for complaint

• The Iran war is unpopular, but will it cost Trump the midterms? Our reporters answer your questions

In Donald Trump’s telling, he’s a model of incorruptible self-sacrifice.

“I’m the only president that donated his salary,” he told a group of cheering supporters at a Hispanic heritage month celebration in the White House last week, before conceding that George Washington – “a very wealthy person” – might have beaten him to the punch.

Military families say Trump officials ‘owe us an apology’ after disparaging remarks by JD Vance, Pete Hegseth and others

On the morning of 11 September 2001, Perry Chalmers was running drills for the Royal Canadian Regiment’s specialised mortar platoon in New Brunswick when he heard the news: America was under attack. Word quickly spread across the base. “I went inside to watch the news,” the former corporal recalls. “And there was a huge feeling of – and you’re going to have to excuse me – holy shit. What the fuck just happened?”

Chalmers called his wife, who informed him that, just before 10:30am, the second of the World Trade Center towers had fallen. With that, his battalion was put on notice: dispatched to nearby airports to assist in the forced landings of commercial aircraft after the shutdown of North American airspace.

The Canadian troops went to retrieve their rucksacks and any other necessities, should they need to spring into action at a moment’s notice. As Chalmers recalls: “Things started to happen really quickly.”

November’s midterms bring parallels with a moment in October 1988. But Pinochet’s exit wasn’t the end of his influence

A malignant, monomaniacal president, deeply unpopular, faces an election that could restrict his power and end his domination of his country.

It is true that, to influence the outcome, he counts on a supine supreme court and his ability to legislate through executive decrees, as well as an onslaught of fake news accusing his opponents of being unpatriotic communists, true that he has colossal financial support from an entrenched oligarchy that has thrived thanks to his rightwing neoliberal policies, true that he has gone out of his way to limit the freedom of those who vote and true that he has absolute command of the armed forces.

Gavin Newsom calls comments ‘deranged and dangerous’ after president tells Nebraska rally: ‘They can take out a city’

• The Iran war is unpopular, but will it cost Trump the midterms? Our reporters answer your questions

Leaders in California have denounced Donald Trump as “reckless” and “deranged” after the US president suggested Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego – two liberal cities in the blue state that has been a frequent target of his administration.

At a rally in ruby red Nebraska on Monday night, Trump told supporters that he hoped to see a “tremendous victory” in the fast-approaching November midterm elections. He then suggested high prices due to the war with Iran were a “small price to pay for keeping the world safe – keeping our country safe”.

Nidal Hasan sentenced to death by military jury in 2013 for carrying out deadly shooting attack at army base in Texas

Donald Trump has approved the execution by US army firing squad of Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a social media post.

Hasan, who was an army psychiatrist, would become the first US soldier to be executed by the US military in more than 60 years.

President’s U-turn comes after Democrats and Republicans condemned use of tax dollars for pro-Trump ads

Donald Trump said on Monday he would pay for taxpayer-funded, pro-Trump ads “with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”, a political action committee, after the television advertisements glorifying himself sparked a major backlash.

In a social media post, Trump characterized the ads, which cost at least $1.5m in federal funds, as “a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” and called them “a rather standard thing to do”.

President says ‘I’m doing great’ despite polls showing 32% approval rating and loss of support from 2024 voters

Donald Trump’s approval ratings reached a record low on Monday, according to new opinion polls.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. That polling included the president losing support among independent voters and Latinos, who had backed him in 2024. The dip could prove dire for the Republican party a month ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

Ukraine is working on a satellite system of its own, something similar to SpaceX's Starlink, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 4 October, Interfax-Ukraine reported. He argued Kyiv should be free to turn Starlink on Russian military targets, warning that China and other states will share comparable satellite technology with Moscow within months. Ukraine's battlefield communications still ride on a network owned by Elon Musk, who has clashed with Kyiv and once limited its wartime use.

Low-orbit satellite internet has turned into a frontline utility that a single company or government can switch on or off, and both armies are now racing to own that link instead of renting it. Control of the network decides whose drones can see the battlefield and fly through the jamming to strike it—leverage Kyiv has gone without while its connection rode on hardware it does not run.

Working on a Starlink of its own

Zelenskyy said there was groundwork in place and that Ukraine was working on a system similar to Starlink. He called it fair for Ukraine to aim Starlink at military sites inside Russia. The timing is the reason, he said: some states will share the technology with Russia late this year or early next, and the Chinese are among them. Moscow is already fielding its own Starlink-style constellation, Rassvet, though for now it reaches Ukraine only in brief passes.

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Ukrainian brigades detail Starlink crackdown: Russian terminals “became just bricks,” assaults disrupted

Ukraine's troops and drones lean heavily on Starlink, a network Kyiv neither owns nor controls. Musk has used that control against Kyiv before: in 2022 SpaceX refused a Ukrainian request to extend Starlink over occupied Crimea for a drone strike on Russia's warships, and it has since restricted the network's use for drone operations.

Sanctions, and satellites of its own

Zelenskyy has asked US President Donald Trump several times to sanction the Russian and Chinese companies building Russia's Rassvet network, most recently at the UN General Assembly in New York, he said in a recent Financial Times interview.

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The EU sanctioned Russia’s Starlink rival but not the company that builds it. Experts call that the gap that matters

Denys Shtilerman, co-founder and chief designer at Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, told the Financial Times in May that the firm had launched two satellites this year and planned dozens more in 2027, aiming to reduce reliance on the US government and Western tech companies. To strike deep inside Russia and gather intelligence, he has said, Ukraine needs its own constellation covering all of Russia.

The vice-president’s recent remarks seek to maintain a posture of strength while they inadvertently expose political realities

JD Vance has parachuted into the midterm election campaign on a rescue mission in a new guise: a risk management consultant. Speaking in the flat language of the expert hired to identify threats, weaknesses and losses affecting a business’s reputation, he has presented his executive summary for limiting vulnerabilities and a scenario for averting disaster.

“There’s a lot of good that’s been done, but there’s a lot of work left to do,” he informed his clients on 15 September about the words to use. “Give us another chance, or give us another couple of years, to continue to work on the amazing things that we’ve been doing for the past two years.” He turned the focus to harm reduction rather than total agreement and then shifted the equation to a negative binary choice. “Even if you don’t agree with us on every issue, the other party is consumed by craziness.”

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of the Court of History podcast

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• Ask our reporters your questions about the Iran war and the US midterms

As the supreme court hears oral arguments this morning, it’s worth noting that if the justices side with Boulder or decide that the case is not in their jurisdiction, then it would continue in state court.

But if the fossil fuel industry convinces the justices, the decision could apply not only to the Boulder case, but also to the many other climate cases brought by state and local governments around the US that we mentioned earlier.