Maine senator refutes claim from ex-Navatek CEO that he funded Collins’s Super Pac in exchange for naval contracts

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Susan Collins, the US senator of Maine, has dismissed allegations that she traded federal contracts for campaign cash as “completely false” after it emerged the FBI examined the claims.

Asked by a reporter about an ethics complaint filed last week by a Maine attorney, the Republican – currently campaigning to retain her seat ahead of November’s US midterm elections – said the allegations were recycled from 2020 and had been rejected by the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Federal Election Commission.

Exclusive: Trump has falsely claimed Afrikaners are facing ‘white genocide’, but very few have applied to live in US

The US government could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a media campaign in South Africa to figure out why more white Afrikaners are not applying to become refugees to the US, as Donald Trump had hoped.

State department officials, according to an August proposal seen by the Guardian, outlined a roughly $335,000 research and advertising effort after applications to the refugee program “trended lower than expected” since Afrikaners were allowed to apply directly online in November 2025. The document, written by the US mission in South Africa with a department research unit for the embassy in Pretoria, admits officials know little about why.

Katie Zacharia describes herself as a lawyer but no public record shows she has been licensed in the US states where she resided

Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has repeatedly described herself as a lawyer. But when asked after her inaugural press briefing on Tuesday to name the state where she passed the bar exam, she replied curiously: “when I moved to China”.

No public record shows she has ever been licensed to practice law in the US states where she resided, and her answer to reporters’ questions on Tuesday only deepened scrutiny.

White House told Guilfoyle, who is alleged to have sought a bill payment from a Trump donor, to resign from post

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Kimberly Guilfoyle is stepping down as US ambassador to Greece after weeks of reports that she sought payment from a Trump donor in exchange for access to administration officials.

The decision, announced by the White House on Tuesday morning, ends the diplomatic career of one of Donald Trump’s longest-standing political allies. It came after the US president and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, were reported to have grown furious over the allegations.