US news | The Guardian

This blog is now closed.

• Trump news at a glance: Hegseth remains in hot seat over Signal chat leak, boat strikes

• Trump officials say second strike aimed to destroy suspected drug boat instead of crew

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it had started its immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans today.

In a statement, the department said Operation Catahoula Crunch would target “criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to sanctuary policies”. New Orleans is the latest Democratic-run city (albeit in a Republican-led state) to see federal immigration agents on its streets. Most recently, the Trump administration targeted Charlotte, North Carolina, and touted the arrest of more than 300 undocumented immigrants.

Protest guard fired at armed man he mistakenly believed to be threat to protesters but accidentally killed a bystander

A safety volunteer accused of fatally shooting a man taking part in a June No Kings protest in Salt Lake City, while firing at another armed man he believed to be a threat, was charged with manslaughter on Wednesday.

Matthew Scott Alder, 43, was charged with one count of manslaughter. Alder opened fire during the protest on 14 June after seeing another man, Arturo Gamboa, carrying a rifle. Alder told investigators that he believed Gamboa, 24, was about to commit a mass shooting, so he fired three shots, wounding Gamboa but killing a bystander, Arthur “Afa” Ah Loo. Ah Loo was recording video of protesters in the street when he was fatally shot.

Pentagon report concludes defense secretary endangered troops as some Republican lawmakers scrutinize Caribbean operations – key US politics stories from 3 December 2025

A long-awaited Department of Defense report found that US defense secretary Pete Hegseth violated departmental policies and put troops in danger when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat, a source familiar with the report said.

The report centers on Hegseth’s conduct before and during a planned airstrike in Yemen against Houthi fighters back in March. The Signal chat was disclosed after a reporter for the Atlantic was accidentally added as a member. The group also included JD Vance; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and the then-national security adviser, Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of those officials, since they do not work at the department of defense.

Officials hew closely to secret memo which gives legal cover to firing on boats even if it would kill people on board

Trump administration officials have defended carrying out a follow-up strike on a drug boat that killed survivors on 2 September by arguing that its objective was to ensure the complete destruction of the boat, an action the Pentagon had internal legal approval to conduct.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a briefing on Monday that Adm Frank Bradley, who oversaw the operation and gave the order for the second strike, directed it to sink the boat.

Gregory Bovino, border patrol chief and face of Trump’s mass deportation efforts, seen patrolling French Quarter

Federal agents descended on New Orleans on Wednesday, making Louisiana’s most populous city the latest front in the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigrant communities.

Masked agents patrolled a heavily Latino suburb in marked and unmarked vehicles, and a resident told the Associated Press he watched agents arresting men outside a home improvement store in New Orleans – a familiar scene that has played out in several major cities in recent months.

Report says defense secretary violated policies in sharing secret information in March on planned airstrike in Yemen

A widely awaited Department of Defense report concluded that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, violated departmental policies when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat in March that included details of a planned airstrike in Yemen against Houthi fighters, said a source familiar with the report.

The Signal chat was disclosed after a reporter for the Atlantic was added as a member. It also included JD Vance, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, and the then-national security adviser, Mike Waltz. The report did not examine the conduct of those officials, since they do not work at the Department of Defense.

Brownstone firm buys building with plan for 400 pods in city where median apartment rent tops $3,000 a month

Can’t afford to rent an apartment in San Francisco? No problem. Now you can rent a bed.

Brownstone Shared Housing, a Bay-Area based “sleeping pod” startup, recently bought a six-level building in downtown San Francisco with the intention of housing up to 400 pods. The deal, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, represents a huge expansion for the company, which is currently operating about two dozen sleeping pods at a much smaller location in the city.

Crackdown on applications from countries also under travel restrictions comes after shooting of two national guards

Immigration groups and lawmakers are sharply criticizing Donald Trump’s latest move to halt immigration applications from 19 countries already under US travel restrictions, a decision that comes amid reports that naturalization ceremonies for people on the travel ban list are also being canceled.

On Tuesday US Citizenship and Immigration Services posted a policy memo that announced an immediate “adjudicative hold” on all asylum applications “regardless of the alien’s country of nationality”, as well as a review of individuals from “high-risk countries” who entered the US following Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

Move marks president’s latest effort to dismantle pollution regulations and support for cleaner-running vehicles

Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he is repealing the Biden-era federal fuel economy standards, significantly weakening fuel efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks.

It marks the US president’s latest effort to dismantle pollution regulations and federal support for cleaner-running vehicles and renewable energy. Burning gasoline is a significant contributor to global heating and transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Tim Leiweke was accused of ‘orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university’

Donald Trump quietly pardoned on Tuesday a sports and entertainment executive, Tim Leiweke, who was indicted by the president’s own justice department this year.

Leiweke, who co-founded Oak View Group, was indicted in July for what federal prosecutors alleged was his role in “orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university in Austin, Texas”.

Exclusive: event, scheduled to air on 13 December, will focus on ‘grief, faith, politics, and more’, according to internal files

Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, is scheduled to moderate a network town hall event with Erika Kirk, the widow of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Guardian has learned.

The event will air on 13 December at 8pm and will focus on “grief, faith, politics, and more”, according to internal marketing materials.

Injunction was sought by civil liberties groups in lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security

A federal judge late on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the person would be an imminent flight risk.

The US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrants’ rights groups in a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security.

Images and videos taken in 2020, a year after he died in jail, show the late sex offender’s home

• US politics – live updates

House Democrats released photos and videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island on Wednesday, offering a rare glimpse into a secretive place where Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls.

The new images and videos show Epstein’s home, including bedrooms, a telephone, what appears to be an office or library, and a chalkboard on which the words “fin”, “intellectual”, “deception” and “power” are written. Several photos show a room with a dentist chair and masks hanging on the wall. The New York Times reported that Epstein’s last girlfriend was a dentist who shared an office with one of his shell companies. The videos appear to be a walk-through of the property.

Washington’s betrayal of its allies has been averted for now, but preparations must be made for a world where its support cannot be relied on

Donald Trump’s desire to end the war in Ukraine might be sincere, but his motives are selfish. He wants the glory of having brokered a deal and does not care whether it is fair or not. As for Vladimir Putin, he only wants peace on terms that achieve things which the Russian army has failed to manage with force. The Kremlin demands territory not yet won on the battlefield and limitations to Ukraine’s capacity to act as a fully sovereign state.

Mr Trump has never shown much natural aversion to giving Mr Putin what he wants. He has not applied serious pressure on the Kremlin to end its aggression, nor rebuked the Russian president for starting the war. He sees nothing wrong with a process that discusses the fate of a country, including de facto partition of its territory, without representatives of that country at the table.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The Republican party is far from moving beyond Trump – but signals of his waning influence are everywhere

The sharks can smell blood in the water. After a decade in eerie command of the Republican party, with primary voters in his cult-like thrall and down-ballot elected officials feeling they have no choice – and often no inclination – to diverge from him, Donald Trump suddenly seems not quite in control of his own political machine.

Fractures have emerged in the Maga coalition; Trump’s approval is sinking; the Democrats, long anemic and risk-averse in the opposition, showed signs of life in elections last month; and the cumulative effect of a series of long-running scandals, most particularly the Epstein affair, seem to have alienated core components of the Trump faithful. Trump has faced some rebukes from a once largely compliant federal judiciary: his personal attorney, Alina Habba, was recently declared ineligible to serve in the US attorney role Trump had appointed her to, and his signature tariffs seem likely to be struck down by a conservative supreme court majority.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

The administration is heightening its anti-immigrant crackdown – and punishing people from a country the US helped destroy

After two national guard members were ambushed in Washington DC last week, killing one and leaving the other in critical condition, Donald Trump went on a hate-filled social media rant and vowed to “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries”.

Trump’s late night Thanksgiving posts devolved into a fury, evidently because the suspected gunman is an Afghan national. He had worked with the US government, including the CIA, and was evacuated to the US in 2021 after the American military withdrew from Afghanistan.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

A note from our US editor: Today is Giving Tuesday, the most important fundraising day of our year. What we raise in these 24 hours helps determine the resources we have available to us in 2026. Can you support us?

• Betsy Reed is US editor of the Guardian

This year has been like no other I can remember. I don’t know exactly how we’ll move past this turbulent moment in US history. But I believe that honest, uncompromised journalism is a critical force for helping our country move forward, especially with some of our biggest news organizations wavering or in retreat.

What a newsroom chooses to spotlight reveals its underlying values, and the Guardian’s global perspective and people-centered approach guides our editorial decision-making every day.

She’s far from the only celebrity to have declared her intention to live outside the US. As with many others though, it looks like a reverse ferret could be in the works

I’m not some sort of secret Reform voter, OK? As a Brit (albeit a Brit abroad), I’ve got no problem with rich immigrants coming to the UK and taking all our mansions. I just think they really ought to integrate and not bring their funny foreign ideas with them.

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, I’m talking to you. The California couple arrived in the UK last year, just before Donald Trump won the election. As soon as the votes were in, they declared they weren’t going back, and would stay on the saner side of the Atlantic. I’m not sure how the immigration logistics worked, but it seems “one in, one out” schemes don’t apply to people coming in on big jets, only small boats. The pair bought a fancy pad in the Cotswolds and DeGeneres buttered up the locals during a public appearance in July by declaring “Everything here is just better.”

Under the chief justice, the US supreme court has bolstered authoritarian agendas while undercutting the voice of voters

Throughout his two decades as chief justice of the US supreme court, John Roberts has sought to project the notion that he is the ultimate institutionalist, striving (supposedly) to safeguard the venerated foundations of American democracy. But with each passing year, it has become increasingly clear that Roberts will be remembered as the chief justice who helped wreck numerous institutions vital to our democracy – they include fair, non-gerrymandered elections, a sane campaign finance system, the Voting Rights Act’s protections of minority voters, and the bedrock notion that presidents are not above the law.

Roberts said in his confirmation hearings that he would merely “call balls and strikes” as chief justice, but now two decades later, many legal commentators are deeply dismayed that he has shunned the role of neutral umpire and instead spearheaded a rightwing judicial revolution that took a wrecking ball to many precedents, laws and institutions. Some have called him the worst chief justice since Roger Taney, who wrote the horrific Dred Scott decision of 1857, which held that enslaved Black people couldn’t be citizens.

Despite the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to change

Artificial intelligence and robotics will transform the world. It will bring unimaginable changes to our economy, our politics, warfare, our emotional wellbeing, our environment, and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that, in the not-so-distant future, a super-intelligent AI could replace humans in controlling the planet.

Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to change. Now.

The site isn’t exposing misleading reporting – it’s revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabits

Donald Trump has used the mainstream press as a punching bag for many years, but in recent weeks his jabs have become even more frequent – and more ill-tempered.

He threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn last month over the editing of a documentary that aired more than a year ago. He called one White House reporter “piggy”, and told another – the well-regarded Mary Bruce of ABC News – that she was a “terrible person and a terrible reporter”. He called a New York Times reporter “ugly, both inside and out”.

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

Bans on the dangerous practice, condemned by national mental health organizations, could soon be struck down

Homosexuality is an illness that therapists can and should cure: that’s the rationale for “conversion therapy”, a practice promoted as a way to change an individual’s sexual orientation from gay to straight.

But a host of studies conclude that such counseling doesn’t work – small wonder, since sexual orientation is a core part of an individual’s identity. It’s also potentially harmful, especially for minors. Research shows that youth subjected to conversion practices, often at the insistence of misguided parents, are prone to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide.

David Kirp is professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley and a frequent Guardian contributor.

In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

• Coach suffered brain injury in home fall

• Gleason led Siena to MAAC title, NCAA berth

• Leaves wife and three young children

Siena men’s lacrosse coach Liam Gleason has died, the school announced Wednesday, three days after he suffered a traumatic brain injury in a fall at his home. He was 41.

Gleason led the Saints to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament this past season, which was his seventh at the Loudonville, New York school.

Los Angeles have turned a feelgood reunion into a late-career humiliation for one of their greatest players – and exposed a franchise stumbling into a darker new era

Pull out your Los Angeles Clippers bingo cards. Anyone have the square marked “owner and star player accused of skirting the salary cap through improper means”? Go ahead and stamp that one. How about “losing 14 of 16 after a hopeful 3-2 start”? Mark it. And yes, you can fill in “other star averaging nearly 27 a night at age 36 – including a 50-piece against the Detroit Pistons, one of the league’s best teams”. The box reading “Clippers fans tearing out their hair at alarming rates and contemplating shameful, fairweather defections” is probably safe to cross off, pending review. And after the wee-hours media cycle on Wednesday morning, everyone gets to tick the most dispiriting square of all: “beloved, decorated veteran unceremoniously kicked to the curb in his final season”.

The Clippers had posted a winning record every year since 2010-11, building a reputation as one of the NBA’s most reliable playoff fixtures. Twenty-one games into this young season, that identity has dissolved into something hazy around the edges – and unmistakably sinister.

• O’Neill has been in interim charge since Rodgers’ exit

• Celtic move level on points with Hearts after Dundee win

Celtic have appointed Wilfried Nancy, coach of Columbus Crew in Major League Soccer, as their new permanent manager to replace Brendan Rodgers, who was dismissed in October. He has signed a two-and-a-half year contract.

Martin O’Neill signed off his spell as interim manager with a 1-0 home win against Dundee on Wednesday night. The result moved Celtic level on points with Hearts, who remain top of the Scottish Premiership on goal difference despite being held to a 1-1 draw at home against Kilmarnock. Celtic also have a game in hand on their title rivals.

• Crawford stripped of WBC belt in sanctioning-fee row

• Britain’s Hamzah Sheeraz to fight Mbilli for vacant title

• Unpaid fees end brief reign as undisputed champion

Terence Crawford has been stripped of his World Boxing Council super-middleweight world title after a dispute over unpaid sanctioning fees, a decision that puts Britain’s Hamzah Sheeraz in line to fight for the vacant belt.

The WBC announced on Wednesday that it had removed the American star as its champion, three months after he shocked Canelo Álvarez in Las Vegas to become undisputed at 168lb. The organization said Crawford had not paid its required fees from that victory or from his previous bout in 2024, despite “multiple” attempts to contact him and his team.

Private employment decreased by 32,000 jobs last month after an upwardly revised 47,000 increase in October

US private payrolls unexpectedly declined in November, the ADP employment report showed on Wednesday.

Private employment decreased by 32,000 jobs last month after an upwardly revised 47,000 increase in October. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private employment rising by 10,000 jobs after a previously reported 42,000 rebound in October.

Agreement could cost NHS an extra £3bn a year, industry sources estimate

The UK has agreed to pay 25% more for new medicines by 2035 as part of a US-UK drug pricing deal that will cost an estimated additional £3bn a year.

The transatlantic agreement will also see the health service in England, which currently spends £14.4bn a year on innovative therapies, double the percentage of GDP it allocates to buying such products, from 0.3% to 0.6% over the next decade.

Shares in French manufacturer tumble as second problem comes to light after weekend of flight disruption

Airbus has fixed most of its jets affected by a software glitch after a technical problem grounded thousands of its planes, but its shares tumbled on Monday after it discovered a separate issue with its fuselage panels.

Airlines around the world cancelled and delayed flights over the weekend after the French plane manufacturer ordered immediate repairs to 6,000 of its A320 family of jets, more than half of its global fleet.

Malls are popular with zoomers, but they show less brand loyalty and are happy to settle for ‘dupes’ over the real thing

TikTok finds and homemade gifts, trips to the mall and the endless search for “dupes” – gen Z’s shopping habits are shaking up retail in the run-up to Christmas. And with price tags climbing and brand loyalty slipping, retailers this season must work harder to earn this generation’s dollar.

Gen Z’s spending power is expected to near $12tn by 2030. But this year those aged 13 to 28 are expected to cut their holiday spending by a whopping 23% – a sharper decline compared to other generations – according to a recent PwC report.

President Donald Trump has said he didn’t know anything about a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat on 2 September. He also stood by his defence secretary, saying Pete Hegseth didn’t know a US navy admiral had ordered a second strike. Hegseth also denied knowledge of it, but stated the admiral ‘had the complete authority’ to launch it

• US politics live

Over the past week, there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity to end Russia's war in Ukraine. As Kyiv battles to minimise Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands, including the cessation of territories in the east, the Guardian's Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer, explains why despite some advances, the agreement to a peace deal still appears unlikely

• Putin insists Ukraine has to surrender territory for any deal to be possible

• Ukraine war briefing: Ukrainians fly to US for peace talks with Rubio, Witkoff and Kushner

The 99th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the largest in the world, dazzled crowds in Manhattan, New York, on Thursday. Thirty-two balloons, three giant balloons, 27 floats, four special units, 33 clown groups, 11 marching bands, performance groups, and music stars parade to welcome ‘Santa Claus and the holiday season’