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Politics
Policy, power, and the news of the day.
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‘From liabilities to goldmines’: refineries eye record profits from diesel shortage
Firms turning crude oil into the ‘workhorse’ fuel stand to gain most despite economic fallout from record prices Business live – latest updates Days after Donald Trump announced a deal to import Russian diesel into the US in an effort to lower soaring pump prices, the world’s energy watchdog has warned that the global fuel shortage will drag into 2027. Trump’s temporary sanctions reprieve was criticised for offering “too little, too late” to temper the sky high pump prices triggered by the shutdown of war-damaged refineries in the Middle East and Russia – once the world’s second-largest diesel exporter behind the US. Continue reading...
Guinea-Bissau denies it has approved controversial vaccine trial in newborns
Health minister says government ‘did not authorize’ Danish-led hepatitis B trial in babies backed by RFK Jr Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said on Tuesday. The study, which would not investigate the safety or effectiveness of vaccines but would instead track “nonspecific” health outcomes like overall mortality or neurodevelopmental conditions, has been championed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime anti-vaccine activist. Continue reading...
NFL star Tyreek Hill’s estranged wife awarded $500,000 damages in battery trial
Receiver liable for two counts, not liable on eight others Lakeeta Vaccaro alleged abuse by NFL receiver A Miami jury on Tuesday found Tyreek Hill liable for two counts of battery but not liable for the eight remaining claims made by Lakeeta Vaccaro – ending the high-profile civil trial involving the NFL wide receiver and his estranged wife. Hill, who has played for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, was found liable for two counts of battery – one stemming from an incident in January 2024, and another from April 2025. The jury awarded Vaccaro $500,000 in compensatory damages but did not award her punitive damages. Continue reading...
Ken Paxton stirs vaccines skpeticism to ingratiate himself with Maha movement
Texas AG and US Senate hopeful announced inquiry into alleged conspiracy between pediatricians, vaccine makers and insurance firms Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and the Republican candidate for the US Senate, is aligning himself with the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement by investigating pediatricians for giving vaccines – actions that could further restrict access to vaccines as deadly outbreaks unfold. Paxton announced he would investigate an alleged conspiracy between pediatricians, vaccine makers and insurance companies in January, and at least one Texas pediatrician now says she is under investigation. Paxton linked his efforts to a campaign against vaccines from Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and directly referenced the Maha movement in his announcement. The president endorsed Paxton’s Senate run in May. Continue reading...
Bank of America fined $1.2bn for money laundering failures
Third largest fine in US treasury’s history, due to failure to report suspicious activity, may affect third-quarter earnings Bank of America (BAC.N), has been fined $1.21bn by US regulators for widespread failures to detect potential money laundering and other illicit activity, a penalty the bank said will hurt third-quarter earnings. The treasury department said the fine, the third-largest in department history, is due to the bank’s failure to report more than $5bn in suspicious activity to the government, including $1bn that posed national security-related and other priority illicit finance risks. Continue reading...
Tinie Tempah says he will finally visit Scunthorpe after campaign by fans
Rapper to visit Lincolnshire town 16 years after saying he had never been there in his hit Pass Out The rapper Tinie Tempah has said he will finally visit Scunthorpe – 16 years after he announced to the world that he had never been to the town in his number one hit Pass Out . His decision follows a campaign by fans, led by Ben Johns, a Scunthorpe resident, who carried a cardboard cutout of the artist around the Lincolnshire town and encouraged people to pre-save Tempah’s new album. Continue reading...
Family of man killed by tiger criticise online content after Trump reposts video
Relatives of William Chapman say footage of attack shared online ‘deeply offensive’ and causing them ‘severe distress’ The family of a man killed by a tiger at a wildlife park in the UK have spoken about their “severe distress” at the circulation of online media after Donald Trump reposted a video of the incident. William Chapman, 23, was mauled to death after entering an enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster , on Saturday. Continue reading...
UK government apologises for past burials of stillborn babies in mass graves
Yvette Cooper acknowledges ‘unthinkable pain’ caused by practice between 1930s and 1980s after campaign by Wirral woman and others The health secretary, Yvette Cooper, has issued a “profound apology” for the “unthinkable pain” caused to parents whose stillborn babies were buried in mass graves. Parents spent decades not knowing where their babies were buried, owing to a practice in which stillborn babies taken away from mothers at hospital and buried in communal graves. Continue reading...
Immigration, climate, guns: key Trump policies to be tested at supreme court
Conservative court asked to rule on several signature policies in 2026-27 term – will it rule in president’s favor? Several of Donald Trump’s second-term policies will be tested at the supreme court in the coming months: it is being asked to rule on challenges to theadministration’s harsh immigration and deportation policies, along with a climate change lawsuit against energy companies and an attempt to loosen restrictions on assault-style rifles. The Roberts court is often split in favor of conservative issues 6-3, but it has also diverged from Trump on some key cases, leading the president at times to rage against some of the justices he nominated for the bench. Continue reading...
What will drive American voters to the polls in the midterm elections? - video explainer
Recent polls show that American voters across the political spectrum are deeply dissatisfied with the Trump administration, and the upcoming midterm elections will provide them an opportunity to express how they feel. The Guardian's reporter Fabiola Cineas breaks down the four key issues that will drive voters to the polls Continue reading...
First Thing: Pope Leo recovering from surgery after lung cancer diagnosis
Vatican says operation on US-born head of Roman Catholic church was ‘successful’. Plus, after six decades in the US, Joni Mitchell has become a citizen Good morning. Pope Leo XIV, the head of the 1.4 billion-strong Roman Catholic church, has been diagnosed with lung cancer . The Vatican made the announcement after Leo, 71, the first US-born leader to assume the role, underwent an operation and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed. A statement said the surgery was “successful, on schedule and as planned”. The Vatican said Leo had “now returned to his room” after the operation. All of his appointments have been cancelled until 20 October. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, a practising Catholic who has met the pope, said he and his wife were “united in prayers” for Leo after the diagnosis. What is the latest in Trump’s legal battle with the BBC? The BBC is asking a federal judge in Florida to force Donald Trump to sit for a deposition as part of the president’s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster. The president has so far declined to set a date to appear. “Plaintiff chose to file this lawsuit and, in doing so, he accepted the obligations of civil litigation,” the BBC’s motion reads. “The BBC therefore asks the court to compel plaintiff to confirm a date.” Continue reading...
Trump heads to rallies in Arizona and Montana after campaign stop-off in Alaska – US politics live
Trump has taken to campaigning in conservative-leaning parts of competitive states, rather than in more politically diverse areas Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Donald Trump will attend campaign rallies in Arizona and Montana later today, having spent the past 24 hours in Alaska – a sign of his party’s recent polling woes. In Alaska, Donald Trump repeated his false claim that he had to start his war on Iran because, “they were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon”. In fact, US intelligence agencies reported to Congress in 2025 that Iran had suspended its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003. Despite that assessment, in the summer of 2025, Trump ordered the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities which he later claimed had “obliterated” the country’s nuclear program. Eight months after that, he launched a full-scale war on Iran justified, he now says, by Iran being just weeks away from getting the bomb. Aboard Air Force One on his way to Alaska for a campaign rally, the president of the United States posted video of a British man who was fatally mauled by a tiger last week on his social media platform with the mocking caption: “Don’t ever mess with nature!” The new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, passed on an opportunity to set the record straight on whether she is licensed to practice law anywhere in the United States. Asked “Where did you pass the bar exam?” Zacharia just said: “I moved to China.” Continue reading...
The raid on Ilhan Omar’s house is dangerous political theater | Moira Donegan
The raid is meant to cast an air of suspicion and criminality over Democratic candidates who, like Omar, are facing the voters in a matter of weeks On Monday, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided the Washington DC area home of Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota congresswoman and a progressive Democrat, in the latest instance of Donald Trump’s effort to weaponize the national security state to harass, punish and embarrass his political opponents. The raid, which was approved by a judge after a reportedly extensive back and forth with federal security officials, was nominally carried out in connection with a spurious criminal investigation into Omar’s childhood immigration to the US. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
AI overlords say they want to democratise their technology. Here’s how | Richard Wilson and Clara Long
A fight over a datacentre in Utah has been a testing ground for citizens’ assemblies, paving the way to oversight What’s your “(p)doom” – the percentage chance that rogue AI will create an existential catastrophe? Judging by their recent warnings, it is rising among tech bosses. On 25 September, OpenAI paused training of its latest frontier models as reports of AI agents going rogue mounted. A day later, Australia’s Senate asked the bosses of OpenAI and Anthropic to appear before an inquiry after rogue OpenAI agents broke into US government websites and an Australian health portal. Both declined. Richard Wilson is the CEO of Iswe Foundation and Clara Long is the co-executive director of the Bloom Project Continue reading...
The most important US midterm trends I’m seeing | Molly Jong-Fast
The one I worry about most is voter anger – which both parties are not taking seriously enough That chill in the air you are feeling is not the weather, it is the Republicans freaking out about this 2026 midterm elections. Midterms are always referendums on the incumbent, though the party in power usually would rather they weren’t. This midterm feels less like a referendum on Trumpism than a dirge. It’s easy to see how Republicans got here, lulled into thinking that their guy Donald Trump, could once again defy political gravity. Trump certainly thought he could. Molly Jong-Fast is the host of the fast politics pod, contributing writer for the times and an analyzed for MS Now Continue reading...
‘I don’t talk politics with anyone’: Georgia voting official on avoiding fiery debates ahead of midterms
Sabrina German, a poll official in Chatham county, details a typical election day, the pressure election workers face, and fallout from 2020 disputes It’s not that Sabrina German doesn’t have political views. But as the director of voter registration for Chatham county, Georgia , talking politics is like breakdancing in traffic. “I don’t talk politics with anyone,” says German; she knows better. America’s partisan minefield has trained much of the country – aside from that one uncle you avoid at weddings and funerals – to get pretty good at the art of political diplomacy in polite company. Continue reading...
Why are so many Americans forced to work standing up – unlike their president? | Arwa Mahdawi
Airports’ TSA staff have been stripped of their chairs in the name of ‘professionalism’. Most supermarket staff have never had them. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is seated at his desk – and apparently snoozing Great news for everyone who is soon to fly via a US airport: the Trump administration has just elevated the travel experience. You still risk getting arrested by immigration agents and thrown into a detention centre, but never mind that! Instead, luxuriate in the fact that none of the poorly paid Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff with whom you interact will be sitting down. The government recently got rid of all the chairs at travel document checking stations, arguing that “maintaining a standing posture helps reinforce professionalism” and strengthens “our security posture and … commitment to hospitality”. Funnily enough, border patrol and customs officers have not adopted the same policy. Perhaps because their job tends to involve being as inhospitable as possible. TSA agents aren’t the only US workers getting sore calf muscles during their shifts. Unlike their European and British counterparts, cashiers at US supermarkets have traditionally been forced to stand while working . The US’s upright obsession seems to be down to a Protestant work ethic and a lack of labour laws . Sitting apparently conveys laziness to the discerning American consumer. Over the years there have been numerous right-to-sit lawsuits pushing back on mandatory standing but, while things are shifting slightly, seated supermarket cashiers are still unusual. One exception is Aldi, which has been expanding aggressively in the US. Cashiers get chairs at Aldi because (surprise) it’s more efficient when your workers’ feet aren’t aching all the time. Continue reading...
‘Like being in a vortex’: US report details extent of ‘devastating’ dating-app scams
Congress calls for Match Group and others to do more to help victims like Mary, who lost $100,000 to app scammer Mary met a man on the dating app Plenty of Fish in 2024. She told the Guardian she had been looking for a connection, but instead became the victim of a romance scam that cost her almost $100,000. “There was a lot of conversation, and then it started with the constant contact, pressure and repeated asks for money,” Mary, who asked that her last name be withheld, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It just escalated really, really quickly.” Continue reading...
Nigel Farage says charities that help asylum seekers get to UK should be prosecuted
Reform leader did not say who should be targeted but party figures have been critical of small boat rescues by RNLI Charities and volunteers who help asylum seekers get to the UK should face potential criminal prosecution, Nigel Farage has said in an interview with a rightwing US podcaster. While the Reform UK leader did not specify which organisations should be targeted, he and other senior Reform figures have been heavily critical of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which has faced a campaign of intimidation for its work in rescuing asylum seekers in the Channel. Continue reading...
Minnesota professor linked to series of bizarre incidents involving urine at university
Investigators determined professor responsible for urine found on a backpack, in trash cans and in water bottles A former professor at Macalester College in the Minnesota city of St Paul is facing a felony charge for allegedly spilling his urine on a student’s backpack while he still worked at the school, costing more than $2,000 in damages, according to a state criminal court document. Paul Fischer, 55, is at the center of the bizarre, alleged workplace misconduct case that led to his being cited for first-degree damage to property – and linked to at least a half dozen such incidents involving urine at the liberal arts college over the course of a year. Continue reading...
Netflix’s Mike Tyson docuseries offers an incomplete portrait of a troubling figure
The once heroic boxer showcases a frankness in this compelling new series but also an unwillingness to take accountability for his darkest moments Mike Tyson never envisioned old age. And yet here he still is, having outlived his parents, Brooklynites of ill repute who died when he was a teenager, and the Brownsville tough guys who teased him for being scrawny and having a lisp. Here he is after doing hard time for rape in his prime, winning and losing great fortunes and battling addiction to drink, drugs and fame. Here he still is, 60 years old and a grandfather now, mixing it up with Jake Paul in the ring , opening up to manosphere-adjacent podcasters , bobbing into an impromptu White House press briefing – Māori face-tattoo unmistakably in the frame – while on a DC visit to buck up his old pal as his party faces a bleak midterm forecast. “I don’t have to exist,” the champ says in Tyson, the latest four-part vanity project on his turbulent life and times. “Some reason, something allowed me to exist.” In his heyday, Tyson was a mesmerizing sporting event unto himself – the ruthless knockout machine who struck fear into opponents at first sight, felled them in seconds and looked back on the carnage with cool nonchalance. His darkest episodes – the combustive relationship with actor Robin Givens , the six-year prison sentence for rape, biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear – only deepened the public fascination with him, adding to the lore of boxing’s baddest man. In the winter of his life, Tyson’s self-reflection, so deep it tips into self-parody, is the enthralling spectacle now. And if generations of Black comedians have proved anything, it’s that the appetite for Mike Tyson impersonations is inexhaustible. Continue reading...
Russell Brand trial for rape and sexual assault begins – live updates
Russell Brand back in Southwark Crown Court today where his rape and sexual assault trial is set to begin Brand was driven to the court in a black Mercedes-Benz van, which parked directly outside the court building, where crowds of reporters and photographers had gathered ahead of his trial. Brand waited inside the vehicle for around a minute before stepping out, wearing a dark suit, a black and white striped shirt, a long white tie and sunglasses. He reached out for his wife’s hand before the pair walked together towards the court. Continue reading...
Joni Mitchell becomes US citizen: ‘A journey that began 62 years ago’
Canada-born singer-songwriter, 82, posts footage of citizenship ceremony to Instagram Joni Mitchell has become a US citizen, after first moving to the country in the mid-1960s. The Canada-born singer-songwriter, 82, posted footage of her citizenship ceremony on her Instagram account, along with a photo of her next to an American flag, accompanied by the caption: “A journey that began 62 years ago.” It means that Mitchell can now vote in US elections, something that she had complained she wasn’t able to do. Continue reading...
Child safety officer incorrectly assessed Elizabeth Struhs as ‘safe’ day after she was admitted to hospital in coma
Inquest into the death of eight-year-old Queensland girl who was denied insulin by her religious parents is told her case was complex A child safety officer incorrectly assessed Elizabeth Struhs as “safe” one day after she arrived at hospital in a coma and nearly died due to the neglect of her parents, a coroner’s court has heard. A Queensland coronial inquest heard evidence on Tuesday from one of the two child safety officers who ultimately decided to return the then six-year-old type 1 diabetic to the care of her parents at their home in Toowoomba. Continue reading...