Protesters spent months occupying an ancient cottonwood. Then a tense standoff with US border patrol came to a head
A 200-year-old cottonwood tree near the US-Mexico border, known as the “grandmother”, has been destroyed to make way for the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall, despite a months-long effort by protesters trying to save it.
In late July, land defenders began a tree-sit in the ghost town of Lochiel, Arizona, taking turns occupying a platform high in the tree’s canopy. The group remained there for more than 70 days.
ICE official, who was sleeping on man’s lawn and appeared ‘intoxicated’, faces felony charges, California police say
A 72-year-old man shot an off-duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official in California early on Friday morning after the “intoxicated and agitated” official assaulted him and his daughter on their property, local authorities allege.
The Fresno police department said that the ICE official was receiving medical care after being shot in the midsection. The official, identified as David Gonzalez, is facing felony charges for assaulting the father-daughter duo, Fresno police said.
Pike’s lawyers said she is back in same prison she’s lived in for last 30 years and will continue to receive medical care
Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital after surviving Tennessee’s botched 30 September attempt to execute her by lethal injection and is back in prison, her lawyers said on Saturday.
Pike, 50, returned to the Deborah K Johnson rehabilitation center, where she has been imprisoned for the last three decades, her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, Luke Ihnen, Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason, said in a statement.
The tourist attraction just unveiled an elaborate, full-scale overhaul to match Trump’s second-term aesthetic
Sitting behind a replica Resolute Desk, nine-year-old Sydney Wright posed for the camera like a future US president. “I love it,” she smiled. And what about the dazzling gold appliqués, gold leaf and gold trim surrounding her? “It’s cool.”
Sydney was among a steady stream of visitors on Thursday to The People’s House: A White House Experience, an interactive museum – with an orientation film narrated by The West Wing star Martin Sheen – at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, just 150 yards from the real thing.
EMS workers, who make life-or-death decisions in emergencies, are the lowest paid first responders
After 31 years in New York City’s emergency medical services, Oren Barzilay has started giving young New Yorkers advice he never imagined giving when he began his EMS career. “Don’t come here,” he tells them. “You are only going to hurt yourself.”
It is a striking reversal for Barzilay, the recently retired president of FDNY EMS Local 2507. What changed for Barzilay was not his view of work or the value of service. It was what he believes is the New York City failure to pay the people who put their lives at risk to save the lives of others.
Fain was dogged by investigation but still decisively beat challenger Rich Boyer, who received just 13% of vote
The president of the United Auto Workers, Shawn Fain, has easily won his re-election bid after an campaign period marred by accusations of corruption and election interference.
The union’s election of leadership for a four-year term began with mail-in ballots being sent out in late August 2026, with vote tabulating commencing on 6 October.
Every time a story about a woman being raped becomes headline news, the same pattern repeats without fail
If she really was raped, why didn’t she speak up earlier? Why did she get drunk? Why was she wearing such a short skirt? Why did she walk home by herself?
God, it’s exhausting, isn’t it? Every time a story about a woman being raped becomes headline news, the same pattern repeats without fail. People accuse the woman of asking for it. They question her motives; they scrutinize her looks; they attack her character. And without fail, she is punished for speaking up.
Regulator looks to expand loophole to allow dangerous compounds in food as long as they’re not carcinogenic
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing to expand a controversial loophole to allow some of the world’s most toxic chemicals to be added directly to food without a safety review.
The “threshold of regulation” (TOR) exemption currently allows dangerous compounds to be used without review in food contact materials, such as packaging or processing equipment, if they are not carcinogenic, and are added at levels below 0.5 parts per billion (ppb).
While most of the crowd at a Stop Sexual Violence rally in New York City was mostly women, men of all ages were in attendance too
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered at city halls and college campuses across the country on Thursday to demand an end to sexual violence. The nationwide rallies followed weeks of public outcry over the mishandling of campus sexual assault cases at Cornell University and Louisiana State University.
The protest organizers – including Women’s March, Feminist Generation and Me Too International – demanded justice for Jane Doe, who said she was drugged and gang-raped by seven students at a Cornell frat party; Kendall Francis, who said she was raped by an LSU football player; and all survivors harmed “from the frat house to the White House”. They also called for reform of Title IX, a set of protections for sexual misconduct victims and LGBTQ+ students that the Trump administration has slowly stripped away.
Democrat in Congress since 1983 rebuked over ‘dangerous’ campaign ad – will it harm her chances in tight Ohio race?
Last month, Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history, released a video advertisement in which she looks directly at the camera and says exactly what she thinks about one of the most divisive issues facing Democrats today.
“Here’s the truth: I voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools because parents know what’s best for their kids,” Kaptur says, “and boys should not play in girls’ sports.”
Order for workers to remain standing to ‘reinforce professionalism’ draws rebuke amid plunging morale
Union officials have launched a campaign to allow airport security staff to sit once more after the Trump administration unilaterally removed all the chairs for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff at checkpoints.
“People are pissed,” said Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) TSA council 100 and president of AFGE local 1040, which represents TSA workers in Dallas-Fort Worth.
First US memorial for suicide victims dedicated by Chicago archdiocese earlier this year at Queen of Heaven cemetery
The Chicago archdiocese has recognized the Rev Charles Rubey’s work supporting families whose loved ones died by suicide this year by dedicating in his honor a memorial to the lives lost to suicide and the victims’ surviving families.
In 1979 Rubey founded the Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide, a counseling and support program run by Catholic Charities of the archdiocese of Chicago.
Dozens of CIA officers have been afflicted by debilitating symptoms over the past decade. Are they the result of ‘mass hysteria’? Or are they from attacks with an energy weapon and, if so, who is responsible? And has there been a cover-up?
Shortly after 1am one night in April 2019, a CIA officer on a work trip to London was jolted awake in his hotel room by the most intense head pain he had ever experienced. His body was soaked with sweat and he felt like his eyes were spinning in their sockets. He manoeuvred his way out of bed, hoping to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but found his sense of balance had deserted him. Eventually, he fell back into a fitful, shallow sleep.
The next day, arriving at the work meeting he had travelled for, the officer found he could not remember the names of colleagues in the room, people he knew well. As the meeting got under way, he could barely follow the discussion. Initially, he chalked it up to a terrible – if rather odd – case of food poisoning. But over subsequent weeks, worrying symptoms persisted: brain fog, loss of balance and increasingly harsh tinnitus.
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”.
Motorist, reportedly trying to beat a traffic light, barrels through busy intersection and slams into pedestrians
At least one person was killed and nine injured in New York City’s eastern Bronx when a motorist barreled through a busy intersection, slammed into pedestrians and triggered a chain-reaction crash involving several vehicles, according to authorities and media reports.
The horrifying collision happened shortly after 2pm in the Bronx’s Allerton neighborhood, with the driver at the center of the crash reportedly saying he was trying to beat a traffic light.
Manhattan prosecutors say murder case over 2024 killing can proceed under ‘exception’ to state double jeopardy law
Manhattan prosecutors filed paperwork on Friday opposing Luigi Mangione’s arguments for dismissing his state-level case in the killing of the UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson.
Mangione on 14 August pleaded guilty to federal charges in Thompson’s 4 December 2024 killing outside a Midtown hotel – weeks before his scheduled 8 September New York state murder and weapons trial. The killing prompted an intense manhunt but also sparked an outpouring of rage against the practices of the for-profit US healthcare industry.
Actor was robbed of his watch after being struck in the head by two attackers wielding a gun and a knife
The Pretty Little Liars actor Keegan Allen was battered and robbed by attackers wielding a knife and gun in West Hollywood, he said on Thursday in a social media video showing him bloodied and alarmed.
The Los Angeles county sheriff’s department confirmed in a statement shared with news outlets that it was investigating a violent robbery matching the weapons, block and time described by Allen on social media, where users responded with shock and supportive comments.
Locals also express fear after man shot in the neck while his child was in the back of his car
Residents of Manhattan’s Marble Hill neighborhood were furious at federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday but also scared after an officer shot their neighbor who had his child in the back of his car.
Orlando Perez had parked his car on the corner of 225th St and Marble Hill Avenue on Thursday night and witnessed ICE arresting Oscar Belgal, 28, after he had been shot in the neck, apparently with an assault-style rifle.
It is odd for the US defense secretary to be laying the groundwork for an event that could be organized by Tehran
Pete Hegseth’s plans to stage a public execution resemble a grotesque Iran-imitation game.
Having failed over the past seven months to defeat the Tehran regime on the battlefield, the self-styled “secretary of war” now proposes to mirror its notorious practice of enforcing the death penalty as a grand public spectacle.
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.
A ICE officer shot and injured a man in New York 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. Early reports indicated that agents had surrounded the man and a five-year-old child in his car on a busy street before firing multiple rounds, the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said in a statement.
Governor halts execution of William Lee Thompson, after Christa Pike survived failed lethal injections
Ron DeSantis cancelled a planned execution in the state on Friday, days before a 74-year-old man was due to be killed by lethal injection.
The move – the first time Florida’s governor has withdrawn a death warrant in his nearly eight years in office – comes just over a week after the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee.
Multiple hospitalized after Avianca flight from Medellín to New York had to divert to Miami due to strong turbulence
At least eight people were injured when an Avianca flight encountered severe turbulence and had to make an emergency landing in Miami early on Friday.
Miami-Dade fire rescue said one person was rushed to a trauma center with severe injuries while seven others were taken to area hospitals in ambulances.
The US is facing worldwide condemnation over a “barbaric” plan to execute a disabled man by firing squad and livestream it to the public, with critics comparing the Trump administration to dictatorships in Iran and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, would be livestreamed on 3 December.
Boarding up windows and filling sandbags and fuel tanks are part of routine hurricane preparation for residents of the Gulf coast. Isaias strengthened into a category 3 hurricane on Friday morning as it barreled toward the US Gulf coast, and states of emergency have been declared in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. Isaias is forecast to make landfall on Friday night, somewhere along the Alabama-Florida line, with surging seas up to 7ft (2.1 meters) and waves as high as 30ft
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.
Trump administration says US ‘doesn’t need’ ICC after accusing court of unfairly targeting Americans for war crime charges
The United States was accused of launching “an assault” on the world’s legal order after imposing more sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC).
Unveiling the Trump administration’s latest escalation against the court, which it has accused of politicization and unfairly targeting Americans for war crime charges, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, declared: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”
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.
Livestreaming an execution could cause post-traumatic stress disorder in the viewing public, mental health experts have said, after the US confirmed plans to broadcast the death by firing squad of a man who shot dead 13 unarmed soldiers.
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Thursday that Nidal Hasan, a former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, would be executed by firing squad on 3 December. Officials later confirmed it would be livestreamed. It is believed it will be the first public execution in the US in almost a century.
Immigration officer shot man in car where five-year-old child was sitting, sparking fierce protests
Leading New York Democrats expressed anger and demanded curbs on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence after a federal officer shot a man driving a car in which his five-year-old son was sitting, sparking fierce protests.
At least seven shots were reportedly fired and the man was hit in the neck late on Thursday afternoon as children were coming home from school in the busy Marble Hill neighborhood of New York City. Marble Hill is considered part of Manhattan, but is physically located in the Bronx.
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.
Fight in East Fishkill, New York, part of a growing divide over whether AI benefits outweigh enormous downsides
For decades, East Fishkill helped build New York’s tech industry.
The hamlet, located 70 miles north of New York City, was home to a 460-acre campus where IBM researched and manufactured semiconductor chips for nearly 50 years.
Political parties vie for Jewish support based on false assumptions about a single issue: Israel
Everybody wants the Jewish vote. As if there were one. Jews are educated, generally liberal. Although they comprise only about 2% of the electorate, they vote in high numbers, overwhelmingly for Democrats. In 2024, 79% chose Kamala Harris. They are also assumed to be steadfast friends of Israel, no matter what it does. Republicans, waging a fake war on antisemitism while courting white supremacists, consider Jews increasingly up for grabs.
Nationally, Jewish Americans are concentrated in a few bright blue spots. A 2020 map from the Jewish Electorate Institute showed a third of Jews living in 20 congressional districts – out of 435 – most of them in New York, New Jersey, California and (purple) Florida. Of these, only one sent a Republican to Washington.
New report on economic cost of anti-immigration campaign projects 8.6% reduction in retirement payments by 2034
Elderly Americans can expect to lose an average of $2,152 in annual social security benefits each, a projected 8.6% reduction in their retirement payments, by 2034 and every year after as a direct consequence of the economic fallout from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration campaign, if that carries on, according to a new report shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Already, US food prices are up, housing permits to build new homes are down – and even native-born Americans are losing out on potential jobs after the sudden exodus of 1.2 million foreign-born workers over the last two years as a result of Donald Trump’s policies, the report finds.
The most valuable education I received for becoming a political editor was growing up in Florida. During the entirety of the 18 years I lived there, it was a purple state that voted for Barack Obama twice, and while I would not say my community was diverse, the spectrum of political ideology was vast. I had a close friend who kept a life-sized cutout of George W Bush in her bedroom, and another who helped organize Amnesty International fundraisers against landmines. When the state turned deeply Republican in 2016, and remained that way, I continued to harbor a suspicion that it wasn’t the whole story.
Even so, nothing could prepare me for the sheer surprise when Angie Nixon – the state legislator who joined the Democratic Socialists of America running against Alex Vindman, a centrist with national name recognition – won the Democratic primary for Senate in Florida. That shock has continued in the months after, as we see the Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly running neck-and-neck with Republican Byron Donalds, who seemed like a shoo-in just weeks ago. And while Nixon is polling behind her Republican opponent, Ashley Moody, the race is much closer than anyone following Florida politics expected. So much so that the senior progressive senator Bernie Sanders has newly poured millions of dollars from his campaign funds into the state, and the popular congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to campaign with Nixon last month.
Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now.
In a statement to the Guardian, Robin M Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that her group is “not aware of any regulation or precedent for a military execution to be livestreamed on the internet or otherwise made widely available to the public”.
She added that “public executions are typically held in authoritarian countries to instil fear in the population, and to show the power and control of the government.”
Recent death of the student in Mississippi is just the latest in a long string of unsettling deaths of young Black people
On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of students gathered on the Jackson State University (JSU) campus for a rally to call for transparency in the mysterious death of young Black people and to encourage student engagement in politics and the fight for voting rights.
As the sun began to set, the students, many of whom wore black, marched through the historically Black university’s plaza chanting: “Nolan Wells, Trey Reed, Tasia Fortune, Kohen Wiley, Jaylen Lewis – Black Lives Matter!” All five were young Black Mississippians – the youngest, Wiley, was one-year-old while the eldest, Fortune, was 29 – who either died under suspicious circumstances or were killed by police.
On Kaua‘i, neighbors repair each other’s roofs, teens deliver meals and locals use their own equipment to clear roads
It was a few hours after the sun rose over the verdant valleys and clear waters of Hā‘ena on Kaua‘i’s North Shore. Michael Olanolan was already in his excavator, clearing the main highway where a wall of fallen trees had blocked access. Other neighbors joined him, moving debris so electric crews could reach utility poles downed by Hurricane Lowell.
The 76-year-old father of nine and grandfather of 26 did this every day for weeks after Lowell hit the Hawaiian islands of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau on 7 September. His generational home lost part of its roof to Lowell’s winds, but family and friends helped him repair it, freeing him up to also help his community. Clearing out roadways became his full-time job while residents were getting back on their feet.
US president says US will not attack Iran before midterms, while defense secretary says Nidal Hasan will face a firing squad next month. Plus, Sofia Coppola looks back on her glittering directorial career
Good morning. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said the execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad will be livestreamed next month, in a radical departure from the previous norm. Hegseth said: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Hasan opened fire at a medical processing center at Fort Hood, Texas, on 5 November 2009, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more. A military jury sentenced him to death in 2013 and he has been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas ever since. The last known case of a military firing squad in the US was in November 1945.
Why is Hegseth being criticised over the Iran war? The Democratic senator Chris Murphy said Hegseth was “determined to hide the cost and the consequences of this war from the American public”. Murphy claimed the Pentagon blocked him from visiting a military base in Qatar and that an Iranian strike on the US embassy in Riyadh was far worse than the public were led to believe.
What has Donald Trump said about the US war on Iran? The US president 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. A Reuters/Ipsos survey from late September found that only about a third of Americans approved of the strikes on Iran.
Why are some voters calling Missouri’s elections ‘dizzying and embarrassing’? Thanks to a protracted legal battle over an effort by Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional map, some voters are no longer sure which congressional district they live in or who will be on their ballot paper for the midterms.
What happened in last night’s crucial midterm debates? Rachel Leingang, George Chidi and Auzzy Byrdsell have rounded up the key takeaways from debates in the battleground states of Michigan, Georgia and Maine.
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.
Lethal injection was a way for us to deny the reality of capital punishment. Pike’s experience shows us what it is
Christa Pike had asked to be hanged. In the weeks before her botched execution by lethal injection on 30 September, in which she survived two lethal doses of barbiturate pentobarbital and had to be hospitalized, Pike and her legal team had challenged Tennessee’s execution protocol.
The state’s lethal injection regimen had failed before. In May, Tony Carruthers was also sent to Tennessee’s death chamber, only to leave alive after prison officials struggled to find a vein.
Pete Hegseth has said the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, will be a public event when the sentence is carried out later this year. A defence department official later confirmed the execution would be livestreamed. In an interview with the rightwing channel Real America’s Voice, the defence secretary said the firing squad would carry out the sentence at Fort Hood, Texas on 3 December. It would be the first US military execution in more than 60 years
Gulf officials say they are ready for storm but concerns raised about restructured agency’s ability to respond effectively
Gulf state officials say they are prepared for Hurricane Isaias, but the storm could be the first major test of Fema’s ability to deploy a large surge workforce after the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts and restructuring of the agency, emergency management experts say.
The Trump administration has said it wants to eliminate, or drastically downsize, Fema, putting more burden on states. More than 4,300 employees left the agency in fiscal year 2025, about 17% of the workforce, according to a recent US government accountability office (GAO) report. The agency’s staffing reductions were not carried out systematically to ensure Fema could still meet its statutory obligations, said Chris Currie, director of homeland security and justice at the GAO.
Connexion
