The attempted clawback represents the second time in as many years that the White House has sought to cancel funding approved by lawmakers.

© Salwan Georges for The New York Times

Two University of Wisconsin-Madison students face charges of suspicion of hazing in the episode, which happened on Wednesday in a sweltering basement, officials said.

© Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

The belugas were among 30 whales transferred to aquariums in the United States and Spain from a closed marine attraction in Canada.

© Rachel Mittelstaedt/Shedd Aquarium, via Associated Press

Most member nations spoke in support of the declaration, but some rich countries had strong objections.

© Jim Wilson/The New York Times

President Trump welcomed Xi Jinping of China for a state visit that was heavy on pomp and ceremony. But surprisingly little time was spent on the issues that most divide the two superpowers.

According to report, school staff recommended event move to a more secure location weeks before Kirk was fatally shot

A new report says that Turning Point USA insisted the conservative political group’s leader Charlie Kirk speak outdoors at Utah Valley University – where he was ultimately assassinated – despite security concerns raised with his team by the school’s leaders and its police chief.

The independent report with those findings was commissioned by UVU and released on Friday. The report examined security procedures leading up to the 31-year-old’s fatal shooting on 10 September 2025 during a talk at the university’s campus in Orem, Utah.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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© Photograph: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Reuters

© Photograph: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Reuters

© Photograph: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Reuters

Canada’s prime minister is pursuing deeper trade, defense and cultural ties with China, India and the European Union, but none are likely to replace ties to the United States.

© Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

The U.S.-China summit offered a sharp contrast with the action at the faltering United Nations in a gridlocked New York.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Beachfront homeowners and beachcombers are watching the sand vanish into the ocean as torrid waves strike the coast.

© John Francis Peters for The New York Times

“It Was Either That Or Die,” by the Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien, was the hit of the French literary season. Now it has been pulled from the shortlist for a prestigious prize.

© Nasuna Stuart-Ulin for The New York Times

Forecasters say storm will cause heavy rains and large waves along the coast, near communities still recovering from extreme weather

Hurricane Nolo is expected to bring potentially life-threatening and catastrophic flooding to Hawaii on Friday, affecting communities that are still recovering from devastating storms earlier this summer.

The state activated more than 230 Hawaii national guard members and closed schools ahead of the storm. Nolo is expected to move west on Saturday and not directly hit the islands, but forecasters say it will still cause heavy rainfall, as much as 25in, as well as large and damaging waves along the coast.

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© Photograph: Gregory Bull/AP

© Photograph: Gregory Bull/AP

© Photograph: Gregory Bull/AP

Ukrainian drone makers are getting another shot at a Pentagon contract, this time for bomber drones. Seventeen companies, including Ukrainian firms and Western partners fielding Ukrainian designs, will test bomber drones at Camp Grayling in Michigan in October, the next stage of the Pentagon's Drone Dominance program, Defender Media reported.

The Phase 2.5 Bomber Qualifier is the latest round of the Pentagon's drive to buy combat-tested drones at scale, and Ukrainian makers are again in the field, some through US-registered partners, because Pentagon rules bar direct sales from foreign firms.

This time, the target is bombers, the drones that drop munitions on what is below them.

Seventeen makers head to Michigan

The contest runs at Camp Grayling, a Michigan training range, and organizers call it the hardest and fastest-paced stage of the program yet. Each company must bring at least six fully built systems.

The testing splits into two parts: a Bomber Qualifier, which the makers conduct themselves, and a Bomber Gauntlet run by US soldiers. Organizers have not published details of a third mission. Winners of the wider program earn Pentagon supply contracts.

Ukrainian bombers make the list

The invited firms include UFORCE USA Services, Grim Tech, Gurzuf Defence, UA Defense Tech, Skycutter, and UDD Tech Corp. Which models they will bring is not yet clear.

UFORCE is known for its Nemesis bombers. Grim Tech showed a light bomber, the Grim-18, at the MSPO defense expo in Poland this month, and Gurzuf builds heavy bombers, including the Ayudag-6, which recently set a Ukrainian payload record for multirotor drones at 130 kilograms.

A second try after a US sweep

In the program's last phase, the Pentagon picked five winners in each of two categories, and all were American, though a Ukrainian firm had reached the second round and, by industry accounts, Ukrainian designs were incorporated into some Western entries. For Ukraine's makers, the bomber round is another chance to turn battlefield-proven hardware into a US contract.

The Chinese leader’s visit to Washington appears to have done nothing to shift the stalemate in bilateral relations

Within days, two high-profile Chinese visitors will arrive in the US – envoys of friendship, as Xi Jinping described them when he met Donald Trump at the White House this week. The giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, will be hosted at Atlanta zoo. Beijing dispatched the first panda pair to the US in 1972 following President Richard Nixon’s landmark visit to China. It uses the animals to indicate satisfaction or displeasure with other nations. But it also charges heftily for their lease: reportedly, around $1m a year per pair. Americans’ views of China have warmed from a pandemic nadir, but are unlikely to be shifted much by two animals, however charming. These days they are more of a token gesture than a striking symbol.

It is telling that the announcement was one of the main takeaways of Mr Xi’s visit to Washington. Expectations were low after May’s stalemate summit in Beijing, but this meeting still struggled to meet them. The US president gave Mr Xi a lavish welcome – unusually, travelling to meet the “strong, vibrant and fit” Chinese leader off the plane. He insisted that they had “never gotten along better”.

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© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

President Trump softened much of his stance toward China as he prepared to host its leader. But his disregard of a topic that has consumed him — the 2020 election — was particularly stark.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

The president has often reached for statues of the national bird on diplomatic occasions in his second term. (Ronald Reagan favored them, too.)

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

While the US president hailed the visit as ‘great’, almost nothing of substance was achieved, which was a win for Xi

• Key takeaways from the Trump-Xi summit in Washington

If the Beijing meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in May was the “stalemate summit”, the second round of talks between the presidents of the US and China this week seemed to give up entirely on the idea of breakthroughs.

Instead, it was described as a celebration of “diplotainment” rather than diplomacy, where pomp prevailed over progress and where one of the main outcomes was the news that two giant pandas would soon be sent from China to Atlanta zoo.

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© Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Long-running fight over Trump-backed maps takes another turn as absentee voting is already under way in Missouri. This blog is now closed.

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Xi Jinping and his wife are back at the White House for the final day of the Chinese president’s pageantry-filled visit to Washington, where President Trump has given him an unexpectedly warm welcome.

The itinerary for the final day of Xi’s visit – which included a red carpet welcome on the tarmac on Wednesday, then a full day of talks followed by a lavish state dinner on Thursday – included an appointment for tea at the White House, followed by a tour of the National Archives, where the nation’s founding documents are on display.

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© Photograph: Michael Thomas/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Thomas/Getty Images

© Photograph: Michael Thomas/Getty Images

By Donald Trump’s telling, we’re in a US ‘golden age’. Americans may feel differently. Plus: Anger at the elite and a gunfluencer runs in Texas

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• Reader Q&A: who’s spending big on the US midterms? Our reporters take your questions

One of Donald Trump’s greatest talents – deployed during his time as a real estate tycoon, source and subject of tabloid gossip, reality TV protagonist, and president of the United States – is his ability to tell stories. With six weeks until the US midterm elections, he is likely to lean on this instinct more than ever.

Rarely does the US president appear more comfortable than when behind a microphone, speaking without interruption, sometimes for multiple hours. Long before entering the White House, he wholeheartedly embraced social media as a means of crafting his narrative, going so far as to launch his own social network when booted off others.

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© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

The US press corps stood up to Donald Trump this week after he banned three organisations he doesn’t like from the White House. But when it came to the leader of one of the US’s oldest adversaries – China – well, Trump literally rolled out a very long red carpet. Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian’s Shrai Popat about why Trump seems weaker these days, but why it could be dangerous to underestimate him

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© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

Mary Jane Veloso was convicted of drug smuggling and nearly killed by a firing squad in Indonesia. On Friday, more than a decade later, she was pardoned in the Philippines.

© Ted Aljibe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Executives from a Russian-owned company are accused of misrepresentation in order to secure U.S. government contracts.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Once dismissed as occasional inconveniences, climate-related disruptions are now an inescapable fixture of summer travel. How will travelers respond?

© Don Campbell/Associated Press

Altman. Musk. Huang. Bezos. They all came to the White House Thursday night, though you might not have seen it on TV.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times