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Secretary of state says previous interdiction efforts in Latin America have not worked, but ‘when you blow them up, when you get rid of them’

As part of the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations, the defense department will soon have hundreds of military judges work on immigration cases, the Associated Press reports:

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the federal justice department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by the Associated Press.

Proposed consent order and agreement to allow voters to provide information while voting with provisional ballot

Democrats notched a victory against the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, negotiating an agreement to keep about 98,000 North Carolina voters from being prevented from voting.

The justice department, which under Donald Trump has moved away from its historical focus on expanding voting rights, sued the North Carolina state board of elections earlier this year, demanding that the state deny a ballot to voters who had not provided a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number when they registered, as required under the Help America Vote Act.

Decision marks major victory for school after White House accused it of not addressing harassment of Jewish students

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled Donald Trump’s administration unlawfully terminated about $2.2bn in grants awarded to Harvard University and can no longer cut off research funding to the Ivy League school.

The decision by US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston marked a major legal victory for Harvard as it seeks to cut a deal that could bring an end to the White House’s multi-front conflict with the country’s oldest and richest university.

Order sets rules for federal forces as locals stage noise protests, block indictments and demand home rule

• US politics live – latest updates

Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, appeared to bow to Donald Trump’s military occupation of the nation’s capital on Tuesday, signing an executive order that formalizes cooperation with federal forces even as residents push back against the city’s takeover.

The Tuesday order establishes the “Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center” – borrowing from Trump’s own branding – to institutionalize collaboration between city officials and various federal agencies including the FBI.

Blaze in Chinese Camp – a town settled around 1850 by Chinese miners – was caused by lightning, authorities say

Multiple structures burned in a historic Gold Rush town in northern California on Tuesday night, after thousands of lightning strikes ignited a spate of fast-moving fires in the rural dry foothills of the eastern Sierra.

Chinese Camp, about 57 miles (92km) east of Stockton and named for the Chinese miners who settled there, is a registered California landmark filled with historic structures, and home to roughly 60 residents.

Joseph Ladapo, a long-time vaccine skeptic, says that every state vaccine requirement would be repealed

• US politics live – latest updates

Children in Florida will no longer be required to receive vaccines against preventable diseases including measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis, said Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, on Wednesday in a speech during which he likened vaccine mandates to “slavery”.

Ladapo, hand-picked for the role by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, is a longtime skeptic of the benefit of vaccines, and has previously been accused of peddling “scientific nonsense” by public health advocates.

Co-author says bill almost has signatures needed to bypass leadership as survivor says this legislation ‘really matters’

• US politics live – latest updates

Several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse signaled their support on Wednesday for a bipartisan resolution to release all the files related to the convicted sex offender, who died in a Manhattan prison in 2019.

Speaking outside the US Capitol, Anouska De Georgiou, a survivor of both Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, said that while “every day of this journey toward healing has come at a profound cost to my mental health”, she had chosen to be there because this legislation “really matters”.

Three Democratic governors create West Coast Health Alliance amid growing turmoil at HHS under RFK Jr

• US politics live – latest updates

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced on Wednesday the creation of a West Coast Health Alliance aimed at safeguarding access to vaccines, amid growing turmoil at the nation’s top public health agency under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr.

In a joint press release, Governors Gavin Newsom of California, Tina Kotek of Oregon, and Bob Ferguson of Washington said the CDC had become a “political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science”.

Will Thilly danced, backspun and moon-walked at Cranford meeting while raising questions on local tax hikes

A man from New Jersey has gone viral after breakdancing at a local town hall meeting.

Will Thilly, a resident of the township of Cranford, just outside New York City, on Tuesday took to the podium by performing a wordless robot dance. As he made his way up the aisle, he spun around and danced without music, leaving the room in an awkward silence. Some attendees looked away while others buried their faces in their hands.

Fifth circuit says Alien Enemies Act can not justify removal of Venezuelans accused of gang ties in peacetime

A court ruling that blocked Donald Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans he alleged were part of a criminal gang has been hailed as “a victory for the rule of law”.

In a 2-1 decision on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the fifth US circuit court of appeals issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the Trump administration using the 1798 law to justify rapid deportations.

Democrats accuse Reform leader of being a ‘Trump sycophant’ as he missed prime minister’s questions to give evidence before House committee

Nigel Farage has been accused of being a “Putin-loving free speech impostor” whose main motivation is ingratiating himself with Donald Trump and tech companies, during a sometimes difficult appearance before a US congressional hearing on censorship.

The Reform UK leader, who missed prime minister’s questions to appear as a witness before the House judiciary committee, was invited by its Republican leadership, who quizzed him about what Farage called the “awful authoritarian” situation for free speech in the UK.

Letter by senior Democrats asks state department to reveal details behind financing of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

Senior Democratic senators have called on the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to reveal details behind the financing and oversight of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) amid concerns over rising death tolls near aid sites, the group’s apparent coordination with the Israeli army and its reported use of private military contractors linked to intelligence operations.

The letter, co-signed by senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, accuses the state department of an “inability to answer basic questions about GHF in a timely manner” and said that the department’s “overriding of internal protocol and staff warnings is particularly concerning given it is unlikely to be able to conduct basic oversight of the funds it provided to GHF”.

Letter says Kennedy installed ideologues, endangered US health and ignored pleas as resignations mounted at CDC

• US politics live – latest updates

A letter published on Wednesday from more than 1,000 past and present workers of the Department of Health and Human Services department (HHS) has demanded the resignation of Robert F Kennedy Jr, insisting the health secretary’s attacks on vaccines endangered the lives of all Americans.

The hard-hitting letter, addressed to Congress members, blames Kennedy for turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the firing of the agency’s chief and replacement by a Donald Trump loyalist with no medical or scientific background.

The former PM’s leaked visit to the White House is concerning. This scheme is an outrage that no other Arab – or western – state could back

• Sign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more

Tony Blair’s leaked presence at the recent White House discussion of Donald Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” plan is either good news or outrageous. Good news if he used his influence with Trump to terminate this obscenity. Dreadful news if he were to be party to it.

The plan itself was first outlined to an incredulous world by Trump in February. The details have now emerged. It involves the expulsion – the de facto imprisonment – of 2 million Palestinians, while the US administers the exclave for 10 years. Each Palestinian would be paid $5,000 each plus four years’ rent somewhere else and one year’s supply of food. Gaza is then rebuilt as a skyscraper wonderland of artificial intelligence investment and tourism. It would be a second Dubai yielding up to $400bn for developers.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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This fascist moment, this age of Trump, demands outspoken, unrelenting and fearless opposition. We all deserve better

In a recent podcast conversation, the former spokesperson for Jeb Bush sat down with the leader of the House Democrats. Guess which one of them endorsed the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York?

“I was a Republican up until two minutes ago and I’m a capitalist, and I had Zohran on … it’s not really a close call, is it?” Tim Miller said to Hakeem Jeffries on his Bulwark podcast, to which a defensive-sounding House Minority leader replied: “What I can say is that he’s the only one I’m scheduled to talk to.”

BASH: You previously warned that the administration charging members of Congress was a, quote, ‘red line’. What are you doing now that the red line you talked about has apparently been crossed?

JEFFRIES: We will make that decision in a time, place and manner of our choosing. But the response will be continuous, and it will meet the moment that is required.

From the firing of the labor statistics chief to plans for a new census, the president’s moves serve to entrench authoritarianism

In 1937, Joseph Stalin commissioned a sweeping census of the Soviet Union. The data reflected some uncomfortable facts – in particular, the dampening of population growth in areas devastated by the 1933 famine – and so Stalin’s government suppressed the release of the survey results. Several high-level government statistical workers responsible for the census were subsequently imprisoned and apparently executed. Though the Soviet authorities would proudly trumpet national statistics that glorified the USSR’s achievements, any numbers that did not fit the preferred narrative were buried.

A few weeks ago, following the release of “disappointing” jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Donald Trump fired the commissioner of labor statistics, Dr Erika McEntarfer, and claimed the numbers were “rigged”. He also announced his intention to commission an unprecedented off-schedule census of the US population (these happen every 10 years and the next one should be in 2030) with an emphasis that this census “will not count illegal immigrants”. The real goal is presumably to deliver a set of population estimates that could be used to reapportion congressional seats and districts ahead of the 2026 mid-term elections and ensure conditions favorable to Republican control of Congress – though it is not clear there is sufficient time or support from Congress to make this happen. The administration is also reportedly “updating” the National Climate Assessments and various important sources of data on topics related to climate and public health have disappeared. In addition to all this, Trump’s justice department launched an investigation into the crime statistics of the DC Metropolitan police, alleging that the widely reported decline in 2024 DC violent crime rates – the lowest total number of recorded violent crimes city-wide in 30 years – are a distortion, fueled by falsified or manipulated statistics. One might say that the charge of “fake data” is just a close cousin of the “fake news” and all of this is par for the course for an administration that insists an alternate reality is the truth. But this pattern may also beget a specifically troubling (and quintessentially Soviet) state of affairs: the public belief that all “political” data are fake, that one generally cannot trust statistics. We must resist this paradigm shift, because it mainly serves to entrench authoritarianism.

Daniel Malinsky is an assistant professor of biostatistics in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University

The government needs bold policies in the autumn budget that will change the narrative without startling the markets

Assume that Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep on the eve of the US election on 4 November 2024 and had woken up on 1 September 2025 and was told that, in the US, developments included:

a) Donald Trump had been talking of firing Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, and asserting that only those who believed that short-term interest rates needed to be a lot lower were qualified to be the next Fed chair. Moreover, he had attempted to take the unprecedented step of firing a board governor.

They were deployed to fight crime. Instead, some are spreading mulch. It’s almost sweet – if you remove the context

If soldiers are going to be deployed to your city, what would you prefer they do: point a rifle in your face or mow your grass? This is not a question I ever expected to have to consider in my days on this planet, but life is full of surprises. As part of Donald Trump’s military deployment to address Washington DC’s so-called “crime emergency”, national guard troops are being tasked with various groundskeeping duties around the United States capital. These duties include spreading mulch around cherry trees, picking up trash and general maintenance of public spaces. The president must have been too embarrassed to get Four Seasons Total Landscaping involved again, so he got the military to do it instead.

It’s a real “swords into ploughshares” moment, or in this case, “M4 rifles into those grabber sticks you use to pick up plastic bottles full of piss.” It’s almost sweet, if you separate the move from literally all outside context and just think about a part-time soldier pruning your bush. The national guard is actually trained for sanitation and groundskeeping, but they are usually deployed for such purposes in a crisis like a natural disaster or even during the height of the Covid pandemic. Except: there’s no natural disaster, no stay-at-home orders due to a deadly virus, no wildfires, no floods. The only crisis here is man-made.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

The facts and the numbers are irrelevant: Donald Trump and Nigel Farage just find new excuses and increase the toxicity

A few weeks after the Brexit referendum, a leave-voting friend of mine told me what the biggest benefit would be. “We will never hear about immigration again,” he said. If you give the people the control over the border they want, the logic went, then Brexit will finally dissolve immigration as an issue that politicians can exploit, and the country can crack on with all the other important stuff that needs doing. And, well, let’s just say that this prediction did not pan out on such a colossal level that no follow-up conversation has been necessary.

Because that’s just not how the whole immigration thing works. The goalposts always move. Nothing clarifies that more than Nigel Farage getting everything he has said he ever wanted, the country heaving itself out of the EU and ending free movement, only for another boil to fester around the issue of immigration – and guess what, only Reform UK can lance it! Nothing is ever enough. One only needs to look at the escalating crackdowns in the US to see how the net keeps getting wider and wider. In a matter of months, immigration crackdown has expanded so rapidly that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are afraid to leave their houses to buy groceries or go to work, as the national guard patrols the streets.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

The US president could embrace the role of peacemaker, or become the patsy who restored Russia’s imperial standing

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of activity billed as progress in the Russia-Ukraine peace process. Yet for Ukrainians, the reality remains unchanged: airstrikes still thunder across their cities, homes still burn, lives are still lost. Against this grim backdrop, the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, has seemed more than content to bask in the literal red-carpet treatment afforded by the president of the United States.

Donald Trump, who has anointed himself mediator of this war, has nearly exhausted the lexicon of contradiction. Some days he proclaims that he alone can end this war. Then he insists that peace talks should be left to the two parties. At times he boasts that Putin “respects” him; at others, he castigates Putin for “going absolutely crazy”. This month, Trump vacillated between putting US troops on the table and ruling it out. Now he is reportedly considering using US private military firms for the job.

The restaurant means little to activists – it’s simply a tool to bludgeon perceived enemies and flex conservative power

First they came for the Smithsonian. Then they came for Cracker Barrel.

Whether it’s the museums or the corporations – or the universities, law firms, federal departments and agencies – the attack lines of the Trump culture war and its culture warriors are the same. The vicious full-scale assault on the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain after the company naively wandered on to the battle zone by altering its “Old Timer” logo exposes the cynicism of the whole operation and its ulterior motive to impose an authoritarian regime over every aspect of American society.

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.

It is reasonable and moral to think that when others are harmed, you should feel the injury, but our sympathy should not be limited to pain

A friend of mine called the other day with news of two major life achievements: his first book had been published, and his university had granted him tenure. And yet, he said, he was miserable. How could he be happy about his success when so many terrible things were happening in the world?

It’s a good question, and one that I hear from a lot of people these days. As I write these words, humanitarian disasters are unfolding in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Global climate action has not moved fast enough, and we are perilously close to creating an uninhabitable planet. Meanwhile here in the United States, immigrants have been rounded up and shipped to foreign countries without legal protection. Trans people have been demonized. Meaningful government agencies have been cut. Research destroyed. Universities attacked. The legal system pushed to the brink and corruption rampant.

Avram Alpert is a lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program. His most recent book is The Good-Enough Life

• Updates from the quarter-finals at Flushing Meadows

• Mail Daniel | Djokovic sets up Alcaraz showdown

Now an easy hold for Demon, and though it’s possible one of these takes three tight sets, the sense is that we’re settling in for a good few hours. Let’s hope so: we’ve had too many one-sided matches these last 10 days and we’re due a classic. That said, I really enjoyed the beating Osaka put on Gauff, with Muchova v Kostyuk probably my most enjoyed match so far. Meantime, Felix nails an ace for 40-30, then spanks a forehand into the corner. But De Minaur hoists a moon-ball of a lob and the overhead goes into the net; at 1-1 deuce, here comes pressure … quickly alleviated with a monstrous serve and follow-up overhead. That’s a really good sign, given what happened in the previous point, and when the Demon nets, he leads 2-1 in the first, on serve.

Auger-Aliassime holds to 15, looking pretty good while doing it. He’s into the match and looks good and businesslike. And for extra points, he’s got Daffy Duck on his shirt.

• Europe’s players should learn from tennis star’s reactions

• ‘All we can do is control our reaction and our emotions’

Rory McIlroy believes Europe’s Ryder Cup team should follow the grand slam record title-holder Novak Djokovic’s example when it comes to dealing with American hostility in New York this month.

Djokovic, a keen golfer himself, delivered a pep talk to the team before their resounding victory in Rome two years ago, and last week McIlroy was pictured courtside watching the Serb at the US Open just hours after the Northern Irishman finished the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

• Allegation emerge that team circumvented salary cap

• Clippers and owner say claims are ‘provably false’

The Los Angeles Clippers and their owner, Steve Ballmer, have denied allegations the team’s star forward, Kawhi Leonard, was paid $28m for a job that doesn’t exist.

Journalist Pablo Torre laid out the allegations in his podcast on Wednesday. Torre, citing legal documents, claims Ballmer employed Leonard for a non-existent role in one of his companies to circumvent the NBA salary cap, which punishes teams for spending too much on player salaries.

• Pitcher apologizes to César Salazar after incident

• Players deny they were involved in dispute

Houston starter Framber Valdez said he apologized to his catcher César Salazar after hitting him in the chest with a pitch on Tuesday night, but he insisted that he didn’t hit his teammate on purpose.

Salazar appeared to ask Valdez to step off the mound when the bases were loaded in the fifth inning of the Astros’ loss to the New York Yankees. But Valdez declined to do so, and then gave up a grand slam to Trent Grisham in a game Houston lost 7-1. Two pitches later, Valdez hit Salazar in the chest. Salazar appeared surprised by the pitch and started hard at Valdez, who quickly turned his back on his teammate. That led to speculation the Valdez was upset with his catcher about Grisham’s at bat.

Company removed image on website that appeared to show Mangione in a white shirt reportedly priced just under $10

The clothing company Shein said it has opened an internal investigation after its website briefly displayed a shirt listing featuring an image resembling Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in New York last year.

The image appeared to show Mangione in a short-sleeved white shirt, and the top was reportedly priced at just under $10.

Chicago-based food group says it will split into two publicly traded companies through tax-free spin-off

Kraft Heinz, the US company behind kitchen staples such as Philadelphia cheese and Heinz tomato ketchup, has announced plans to split into two independent businesses a decade after it was created in a mega merger.

The Chicago-based packaged food group said it would separate into two publicly traded companies through a tax-free spin-off to try to reduce complexity and improve financial performance after years of falling sales.

Ray Dalio says business leaders scared to criticise Donald Trump as he warns of debt-induced crisis for the economy

One of the world’s most prominent hedge fund billionaires has warned that rising inequality is turning the US into an autocratic state and condemned business leaders for failing to speak out against Donald Trump’s policies.

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, said “gaps in wealth” and a collapse in trust were driving “more extreme” policies in the US.

Bullion has nearly doubled in value since 2023 amid global uncertainty and alarm over Donald Trump’s policies

The price of gold has hit a fresh record high, as investors seek out safe-haven assets to protect against inflationary and geopolitical risks.

Gold rose above $3,500 (£2,614) an ounce, surpassing its April peak. It has nearly doubled in value since early 2023. The rally comes as the US dollar has weakened and some central banks add to their gold holdings, ditching US government bonds, known as US treasuries.

Paul Jasmin, who died in May, helped define the visual language of LA and its youthful dreamers – as these sensual, glowing portraits prove

Hundreds of staff gathered outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Thursday to support the public health leaders who resigned, or were fired by the Trump administration, in recent days. Three of the four senior leaders who resigned yesterday, Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis and Daniel Jernigan, spoke at the demonstration

• CDC in crisis: who are the top officials resigning or being forced out?

Two children were killed in a Minneapolis school shooting that Minnesota governor Tim Walz said was 'unthinkable but that's all too common, not just in Minnesota but across this country'. Seventeen other people were injured – 14 of them children – but were expected to survive, police said. The attack at a Catholic school occurred during a mass on Wednesday marking the first week of classes. Walz said: 'We'll redouble ourselves to do the best we can to understand what we can do to prevent any parent from having to receive the calls they received today'

• Minneapolis Catholic school shooting: two children killed and 17 injured

• Minneapolis mourns traumatizing Catholic school shooting: ‘We’re so tied together’