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Politics
Policy, power, and the news of the day.
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Florida governor suspends former close ally over child sexual abuse charges
Michael Caruso, once praised by Ron DeSantis, removed from Palm Beach county civic official roles after arrest Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has suspended a former close ally and senior civic official who was arrested on felony child sexual abuse charges. Michael Caruso, who was removed as clerk of court and comptroller for Palm Beach county on Tuesday, was a vocal supporter of a law signed by DeSantis in 2023 that allowed the death penalty for anybody convicted of the sexual battery of a child under 12. Continue reading...
Adviser to far-right Latin American leaders arrested for allegedly plotting to kill girlfriend
Fernando Cerimedo, 42, arrested on suspicion of ordering shooting of Bolivian lawyer Nadia Beller A senior adviser to many of Latin America’s new wave of far-right leaders has been arrested for allegedly masterminding the attempted murder of his girlfriend. The businessman and political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, 42, had been working as an adviser to the Bolivian president, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, and was one of the main strategists behind Javier Milei’s campaign in Argentina’s 2023 presidential election. Continue reading...
Lewes derailment: images show track defect before incident on hottest day
Network Rail and Southern owner GTR apologise after investigators reveal picture of possible heat-buckled track Rail operators have apologised after a report into last Thursday’s train derailment in East Sussex found a “track geometry irregularity” on the approach to the site where the train derailed on the hottest day of the year so far. An interim report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said CCTV images showed the fault existed before the incident occurred near Lewes, injuring 30 people. Continue reading...
More than 20 tons of squid spilled on to Rhode Island highway during traffic accident
Sunday incident created ‘significant traffic disruptions’ and a foul odor as crews worked to clear cephalopod remains More than 20 tons of squid spilled on to a Rhode Island highway during a traffic accident, creating hours of delays for motorists and a foul stench as crews worked in baking sunshine to scrape up the remains of the fast-decaying cephalopods. The incident occurred Sunday morning in Narragansett when the driver of a tractor-trailer transporting the squid failed to make a turn, and the vehicle fell on to its side, the town’s police department said in a statement, reported by ABC News . Continue reading...
Hawaii crews work to restore power to thousands after Lala outages
Storm also caused destructive flooding and damage to homes and infrastructure with one woman dead Tropical storm Lala wreaks ‘devastation’ to some areas of Hawaii’s Big Island Crews in Hawaii are working to restore power to thousands of residents after the outer bands of Hurricane Lala battered the islands over the weekend, causing destructive flooding and killing one person. On the hard-hit Big Island , crews were working to clear and restore roads, but some communities on the southern end of the island remained isolated as they were cut off from communication. Continue reading...
Trump is full speed ahead in making money off being the US president | Margaret Sullivan
Some restraint on Trump’s excesses might be accomplished if November’s midterm elections give Democrats more power Donald Trump is essentially unrestrained when it comes to enriching himself during his second term, with no sign of stopping. If anything, he’s ramping things up. The numbers so far are astonishing. He amassed $2.2bn in 2025 revenues, the Guardian and other news outlets have reported . Continue reading...
First Thing: Trump in Canada tariff backdown after ‘substantial progress’ made on trade deal
US president cancelled planned tariff imposition just hours before it was to come into force. Plus, why are people so obsessed with television vampires? Good morning. Donald Trump has paused his threatened punitive tariff on Canada just hours before it was due to come into effect. After Trump’s announcement, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, said “substantial progress” had been made towards a trade deal, but more work was needed. Tuesday’s 11th-hour backdown comes after a contentious year for the two countries, with the longstanding alliance strained by tit-for-tat tariffs and online broadsides in which Trump has mused about wanting to turn Canada into a US state. How much trade do the two countries do? Historically, Canada and the US have been strong trading partners. In 2024, trade between the countries was estimated to be roughly $909bn, according to the office of the US trade representative. What else happened in Florida’s elections? Byron Donalds, a congressman backed by Trump, won the Republican nomination for governor in the race to succeed Ron DeSantis. Donalds trounced three reasonably prominent Republican rivals, including Jay Collins, DeSantis’s handpicked lieutenant governor. If he wins the November election, as he is expected to do in the conservative stronghold, Donalds would become the first Black governor in any southern US state. Continue reading...
Former Fauci adviser pleads guilty to conspiracy to conceal Covid-19 records
David Morens confessed to concealing government documents linked to grant research funding A former adviser to infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to evade public records laws and conceal government documents related to grant research funding and the Covid-19 pandemic . David Morens, who had worked under Fauci as a senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the pandemic, entered his plea , to a conspiracy charge during a hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland. Continue reading...
Chinese carmaker Chery to set up UK research centre
Manufacturer, which makes Jaecoo and Omoda brands, will open facility in Bedfordshire in autumn The Chinese carmaker behind the irreverently nicknamed “Temu Range Rover” is plotting further UK expansion with a major research and development centre in England. Chery, which makes the Jaecoo and Omoda car brands, said the launch of a new R&D site was “the next step in our long-term plan” for Britain as it also moves towards manufacturing its cars in the UK. Continue reading...
Andy Burnham warns of dangers of open-water swimming after ‘terrible family tragedy’ in Sussex
A mother, father and their teenage daughter died after getting into difficulty in water off Shoreham-by-Sea, and a younger girl remains in hospital Andy Burnham has warned of the dangers of open-water swimming as he called the deaths of a mother, father and their teenage daughter who got into difficulty in water off Sussex “a terrible family tragedy”. The prime minister expressed his sympathies to their loved ones as a young girl from the same family remained in a critical condition in hospital. Continue reading...
ICC decries latest US sanctions as ‘flagrant attack’ on court’s independence
Trump administration put sanctions on the international criminal court’s president and a senior trial lawyer The international criminal court on Wednesday condemned the latest US sanctions targeting senior ICC staff, including its president, as a “flagrant attack” on the global tribunal’s independence and vowed to continue seeking justice for atrocities around the world. The state department announced Tuesday that it had hit ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in US jurisdictions or come into contact with the US financial system. Continue reading...
Forecast energy price cap rise in Britain could push UK fuel bills up 4% this winter
Expected quarterly rise highest in three years and likely to wipe out Burnham’s VAT cut on electricity bills Household energy bills across Great Britain are expected to climb to a three-year high this winter as the impact of the Middle East war wipes out Andy Burnham’s tax cut on electricity bills. The government’s cap on energy prices is on track to rise by 4% from this October to the equivalent of £1,729 a year through the last three months of 2026, which could hit struggling households especially hard this winter, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight. Continue reading...
Republican senator Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola advance in Alaska Senate primary
Result tees up marquee race in US midterm elections, which could decide if Republicans or Democrats control Senate Incumbent Dan S Sullivan, the US senator, advanced in Alaska ’s nonpartisan primary race for his seat on Tuesday alongside Mary Peltola, a former Democratic congresswoman. With the top four candidates moving forward from Alaska’s open primaries to the general election, the Associated Press reported that Sullivan and Peltola, had qualified for the November’s general election . Continue reading...
France’s assisted dying law comes into effect
Law establishes right to assisted dying for patients with conditions causing unbearable pain that are assessed to be incurable Legislation granting incurably ill adults the right to assisted dying has been formally adopted in France after the text was approved by the country’s highest constitutional authority and published in the official journal. The law, known as a law on “end of life” or “aid in dying” rather than “assisted dying” or “euthanasia”, means France joins the small group of countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada to have legalised the practice. Continue reading...
Dog food recalled after reports of pets losing their sight
Move by Years, which provides personalised meals in subscription-based service, follows recipe change A dog food brand has recalled all of its fresh meals after reports that a recipe change may have caused some animals to develop an eye condition that, if left untreated, can lead to sight loss. The brand Years said owners should stop feeding its fresh meals to their dogs “immediately” and also told them not to feed the meals to any other animal, or to donate or sell them. Continue reading...
Medical researcher who touted Covid ‘cure’ and was hailed by Dr Oz under fire over ethics
New findings further call into question scientific judgment of current health leaders in the Trump administration A French researcher whose work was praised by Donald Trump and Dr Mehmet Oz during the Covid-19 pandemic published hundreds of papers with “substantial” ethical and legal concerns, according to a new analysis. An international team of scientists found concerns in 853 articles published by the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection, or the IHU, hundreds more than previously flagged by past investigations into work at the large research hospital. Of those, institute founder Didier Raoult was listed as co-author on 758 of them, according to one of the researchers behind the new analysis. Continue reading...
By disparaging 2020 protests as ‘Woke 1’, liberals are following the rightwing’s lead
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s co-opting of conservative language to discuss a movement against state-sanctioned killings of Black people is damning August has brought us a referendum on “Woke 1” – a term that reductively brands 2020’s social justice movement – as prominent liberal voices reflect on that time period with disappointing hindsight. During a recent appearance on ABC’s This Week, when asked about 2020-era demands to abolish prisons and police, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the US congresswoman from New York, abandoned her previous support of the “defund the police” movement, and instead joked: “Woke 1 was crazyyyyy.” Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, implied that the still-resounding calls for municipalities to reduce police budgets and to divert aid to poor communities were worth advocating for during the 2020 uprising, but are now “crazyyyyy”. In 2020, she noted that “a lot of people cannot fathom what an abolitionist America looks like. Tell them it looks like a suburb. Affluent white communities already live in a world where they choose to fund youth, health, housing more than they fund police.” But she has since backtracked on that idea. Continue reading...
Grand slams unite to establish player council in attempt to diffuse prize money row
Move could be confirmed along with $100m US Open pot Slams have been in dispute with players for 18 months The grand slam tennis tournaments have agreed to establish a formal Player Advisory Council in a joint move aimed at diffusing the ongoing row over prize money. The Guardian has learned that an agreement on the joint venture has been reached and could be confirmed on Wednesday as part of US Tennis Association’s announcement of this year’s US Open prize money, which sources involved expect to top $100m (£74m) for the first time. Continue reading...
Is Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev sizing up the EU’s Orbán-shaped hole?
Rightwing populist’s inconsistent positions on Europe and Russia suggest he is testing how far he can push partners and electorate One evening nine years ago in the Bulgarian town of Balgari, a Brazilian tourist approached the casually dressed, middle-aged man surrounded by bodyguards, bystanders and photographers. “ Why are you important? ” she asked. “I’m not so important,” he replied. She repeated the question and he admitted: “I’m the president.” Now, in 2026, the rightwing populist Rumen Radev is no longer the president, but the prime minister – the more powerful of the two positions – after his Progressive Bulgaria party secured an overwhelming majority in April’s election. While many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief that month at the demise of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, others wondered if Radev would become the EU’s next disruptor-in-chief. Continue reading...
Revealed: FCC chair Brendan Carr’s close ties to White House and rightwing media
Internal documents obtained by Guardian show White House meetings, scheduled calls with top Trump officials and communications with Fox News producers Continue reading...
Alaska athlete uses bear spray to fend off animal attack: ‘nightmare come to life’
Klaire Rhodes was attacked by a brown bear in state park but spray helped her escape with ‘relatively minor injuries’ An Alaska marathon athlete used a repellant spray to fend off an attacking bear that officials say injured her while she ran on a popular trail recently – an encounter that she has since described as “a nightmare come to life”. The particularly harrowing episode unfolded on 13 August, when a woman who later identified herself online as marathon winner Klaire Rhodes, 28, was running alone on the Wolverine Bowl trail in Chugach state park, officials with Alaska’s fish and game department said . A brown bear on the trail attacked and injured her, according to the agency. Continue reading...
Why are progressives winning across the United States? It’s not complicated | Bernie Sanders
Poll after poll shows the same thing. The American people know that the current economic system is rigged The media pundits have written article after article desperately trying to understand why progressive candidates, despite being heavily outspent, keep defeating establishment Democrats in primaries around the country. Well, the answer is not complicated. Whether it is a corrupt campaign finance system, unprecedented income and wealth inequality, a broken and wildly expensive healthcare system, the enormous threats posed by AI or an immoral and destructive foreign policy, progressives are talking about the real issues facing working families. And they are providing real solutions. Establishment Democrats are not. Continue reading...
Labour ‘could lose up to 50 seats’ to Greens if new drilling in North Sea approved
Greens say analysis shows government failure to take bold climate action could lead to big gains for party at election UK politics live – latest updates Labour could lose dozens of seats to the Green party if the government allows new drilling in the North Sea, according to internal research shared with the Guardian. Green party analysis suggests up to 50 Labour MPs – including key Andy Burnham ally Louise Haigh – could lose their seats at the next election if the government fails to make urgent climate action a priority or allows new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. Continue reading...
‘Jim Crow must go’: the artists and everyday heroes who fought injustice – in pictures
Turn the Volume Up! at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University highlights the activism of everyday people who have confronted injustice. New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, quoting the Bronx rapper KRS-One’s song Turn The Volume Up during his election-day victory speech inspired the name of the exhibit. Featuring work by artists such as Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and the Guerrilla Girls, the show examines how protests and collective action can create and inspire social change Turn the Volume Up! opens on 27 August and runs through 11 July 2027 Continue reading...