Fawning, deferential, oleaginous – this was the Untruth and Reconciliation Commission as Trump called in to 77 WABC

“Our next guest is a ‘racist’, a ‘conman’ and a ‘cheat’ – someone who behaves more like a ‘mobster’ than a president. Please welcome Donald J Trump!”

That is how Michael Cohen could have introduced Trump on his New York radio show on Thursday. After all, Cohen used such terms to describe the US president in his testimony to Congress in 2019. But now Trump’s former personal lawyer and self-described fixer had different words: “boss” and “sir”. Just like old times.

President’s one-time ‘attack dog’ became his fierce critic – but now Cohen says he has forgiven his former boss

Donald Trump has given a radio interview to none other than Michael Cohen, his former longtime personal fixer turned fierce critic, after an apparent reconciliation set the stage for their first public conversation in eight years.

Cohen once had such a tight relationship with the US president that he described himself back in the day as his “attack dog with a law license”, but later became the star witness in Trump’s 2024 criminal trial over his hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in an effort to interfere with the 2016 election.

State senator beats rival Melissa Hernandez and will replace US congressman who quit amid sexual misconduct claims

Progressive Aisha Wahab has been elected to Congress in a special election following a bitter intra-party battle over the seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April after facing sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell has denied the allegations.

Wahab, a state senator, was widely considered the frontrunner in the district in California’s East Bay and had the backing of the state Democratic party as well as Our Revolution, labor unions, local officials and the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.

Christine Hunsicker, former CEO of CaaStle, gave investors falsified documents that overstated profit and cash reserves

A fashion tech founder was sentenced to five years in federal prison for her involvement in a $300m “fraud scheme” spanning from 2019 to 2025, the Manhattan US attorney’s office announced on Thursday. Christine Hunsicker, 49, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.

Hunsicker, the founder and ex-CEO of CaaStle Inc, had pleaded guilty this March to one count of securities fraud in relation to a scheme that “defrauded hundreds of investors”, authorities said. Her attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Exclusive: Rahil Prakash tells the Guardian: ‘I wanted to see if fake polls could penetrate the ecosystem that easily’

A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.

The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a “short-term social experiment” to examine how fake polling “could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification”.

With one semi-final in her last seven tournaments, the coming months will define the next stage of her career

Towards the end of a messy first set tie-break late on Wednesday, Aryna Sabalenka wildly sprayed another painfully nervous backhand before slamming her racket to the ground. As the racket connected with the acrylic floor, its vibration dampener detached from the strings and rolled off in the direction of the broadcast camera pit by the side of the court.

With the diminutive 20-year‑old Czech player Sara Bejlek leading Sabalenka 6-5 in the tie-break, this slapstick sequence forced play to pause while the Belarusian and a couple of volunteers comically searched for the missing vibration damper underneath the cameras until she gave up and retrieved a new one. A few minutes later, Sabalenka trailed by a set.

José Mejía Hernandez, 45, who was hospitalized for his injuries, was then transferred to an ICE office and fitted with an ankle monitor

A man in Virginia was hospitalized with a brain injury and severe bruising all over his face after he was arrested by US immigration agents, according to his lawyers, who shared photos and medical records with the Guardian.

José Mejía Hernández, 45, was walking to a bus stop in Arlington on the morning of 11 August when two agents got out of an unmarked vehicle and started chasing him, according to one of his lawyers, Margaret Hellerstein. The man recalled being hit by some kind of stun gun, but did not remember what happened after that, only waking up hours later in the hospital, Hellerstein said.

Courier network carried millions of dollars in cash to Lebanon on commercial flights, treasury department says

The US treasury department announced sanctions on Thursday against 10 people it says formed a courier network that smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah by carrying cash onboard commercial flights between Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

The office of foreign assets control (OFAC) said the network allowed Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group,to obtain foreign currency and dodge sanctions outside the formal banking system. The treasury department linked the operation to a scheme once associated with Behnam Shahriyari, a now-deceased finance official for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.

Former ethics tsar calls report that executive assistant to president worked for a year without clearance ‘shocking’

• US politics live – latest updates

The White House faced fresh questions on Thursday over whether Donald Trump’s closest aide, Natalie Harp, had access to US government secrets without security clearance.

Harp, who is executive assistant to the US president, worked at the White House for a year without the routine clearance, the MS Now network reported on Thursday. She refused to file the relevant forms for unknown reasons, according to two unnamed sources cited by MS Now.

Jessica ​Bowie, 35, of Albany, allegedly planned to deploy explosive before fleeing ⁠to IS-controlled territory in Syria

US authorities arrested and charged a New York woman with ⁠planning to carry out an Islamic State-inspired attack on the state’s capitol building in Albany, the justice ⁠department said on ⁠Thursday.

Jessica ​Bowie, 35, of Albany, was charged with planning to deploy an explosive device at the state ⁠capitol with the intention of killing public officials and destroying “as much of the building as possible” before fleeing ⁠to IS-controlled territory in Syria, according to John A Eisenberg, assistant attorney general ​for national security.

State sought to stop system off coast of Santa Barbara from resuming operations after Trump ordered its reopening

An oil pipeline can continue to operate off the California coast after a judge gave it the green light this week, despite the opposition of state regulators and environmental groups.

The system off the coast of Santa Barbara resumed operations earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade after Donald Trump ordered Sable Offshore Corporation to reopen it, citing US energy needs during the war in Iran.

The attorney for Clancy, who strangled her three children, says she suffered from postpartum psychosis

Hundreds of Lindsay Clancy supporters, many wearing pink clothing emblazoned with phrases such as “Believe”, “She Needed Help” and “Peace For Lindsay”, gathered on Thursday outside the courthouse where she is on trial in the killings of her three children.

Several of the 300 women, and a few men, said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women. Clancy’s lawyer does not dispute that she killed the children, but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she was mentally ill.

DHS says Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana is in US illegally after lying to border patrol when he entered in 2007

The captain of a boat that capsized in the New York harbor, resulting in the death of a woman and her infant daughter, has been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the federal agency saying it intends to deport him.

The deadly incident unfolded near the Statue of Liberty on 8 August. Authorities said a 911 call was received at approximately 10.25pm that prompted a major emergency response including multiple boat teams, a scuba team and a helicopter unit.

• Seven-time major winner has not played since April

• Spaniard missed French Open and Wimbledon

• US Open announces record $108m prize fund

Carlos Alcaraz has won his battle to be fit for the US Open.

The seven-time grand slam champion has not played on the ATP Tour since April due to an ongoing wrist issue, but enlisted the help of football transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano to announce his comeback.

Federal agents also ‘seized electronic devices’ from former Democratic representative at San Francisco airport

Authorities are said to have searched the Washington DC home of disgraced former California Democratic representative Eric Swalwell on Sunday amid an ongoing law enforcement investigation into sexual assault allegations.

CNN reported that federal agents on Saturday also “seized electronic devices” from Swalwell at the San Francisco airport, citing unnamed sources familiar with the investigation. Multiple other outlets have confirmed the federal search; the Daily Mail was the first to report this law enforcement activity.

USS George Washington will replace warship families say suffers from shortages, plumbing problems and low morale

The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, where it is expected to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln from its record deployment amid concerns about poor living conditions and morale.

US Central Command announced on Thursday that the Washington arrived in the area on Wednesday, and posted an image of sailors working on the flight deck as the ship transited the Arabian Sea. No date has yet been announced for the Lincoln to return to the US.

The president’s empty advice that children should receive separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella will only lead to less take-up by parents

Nobody wants to hurt a child. The howl of pain, the tears, the look of betrayed shock all make it very hard to deliver a cherished small person to the needle-wielding nurse. But that’s part of being a responsible parent. It becomes a lot tougher if mum or dad is being fed mixed and erroneous messages about the benefits and harms of vaccination.

Parents have to make a lot of decisions about what’s right for their child, from the school they should go to and the food they should eat to the hours they should spend on the phone or watching TV. In the US, Donald Trump wants them to add another: do they choose to give their children separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella, involving six visits to the clinic, or should they opt for the combined MMR vaccine, which does the job in two? For decades, the vast majority of families have been taking the advice of doctors, accepting their assurance that the MMR vaccine is safe and very effective. But what are they to think when a US president announces that the triple jab could be “quite lethal” and signs an executive order advising states to offer separate vaccines?

As yields are dragged higher in the UK, Europe and Japan, the impact for consumers and businesses will be far-reaching

• ‘Starve the beast’? The $40tn cost of Republicans’ false promises to cut spending

Government borrowing costs around the world have surged to the highest levels in decades amid growing fears over US bond market turmoil.

Anxiety about Donald Trump’s handling of the US economy, and concern that the US president’s war with Iran is driving up inflation, are causing a sell-off in the US bond market.

Kyle Spitze of Tennessee faced federal charges for targeting girls online as part of ‘764 network’ investigated by FBI

A 27-year-old Tennessee man described by the US justice department as a “nihilistic violent extremist” was sentenced to 77 years in prison on Wednesday for his targeting of girls online as part of the 764 network, an online group the FBI calls a form of “modern-day terrorism”.

Kyle Spitze of Friendsville received the federal sentence on Wednesday for “production of child sexual abuse material, abetting the distribution of animal crushing videos, and possessing and accessing with the intent to view”, the justice department said in a statement.

Agreement is among largest third-country deportations driven by Trump administration’s immigration crackdown

Twenty deportees from the United States arrived in Liberia on Thursday, as part of a new agreement that will see the west African country receive as many as 1,200 people under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The group arrived at the Roberts international airport outside the capital, Monrovia. The Liberia-US agreement is one of the largest third-country deportation arrangements pursued by the administration since Trump returned to office last year.

• Total prize pool for tournament will be $108m

• Players guaranteed $140,000 for making first round

The world’s leading tennis players have welcomed the US Open’s announcement of a 20% increase in prize money and agreed not to continue their protests at this year’s tournament as a result.

The build up to both the French Open and Wimbledon was overshadowed earlier this year by a media boycott as the players continue to demand a greater share of tournament revenues, but after the US Tennis Association announced a record prize pot of $108m there will be no such disruption at Flushing Meadow.

The enormous US debt under Trump will hobble the next Democratic administration – just as the GOP planned

• Why is the Trump administration causing turmoil in the bond markets?

You could pin the US’s staggering $40tn in government debt to Donald Trump’s Keystone Cops-style governance. Tariffs he sold as a new source of revenue were struck down by the supreme court, forcing the government to return tens of billions of dollars to importers. Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), ostensibly created to stop wasteful government spending, decimated federal programs and probably killed millions of children, but did nothing to close the budget deficit. The burst of inflation following Trump’s misguided adventure in Iran sharply raised the cost of serving the government’s obligations.

Yet as the federal debt hits an all-time high, up from about $35tn when Trump took office less than two years ago, it is worth noting that the US’s gargantuan indebtedness is in fact the product of a longstanding Republican strategy that took shape well before Trump could even dream about gold-plating the White House. It was called “starve the beast”.

Max Lederer, longtime head of the US military news outlet, says his ‘philosophy of leadership’ differs from Pentagon’s

The long-serving publisher of Stars and Stripes could face an early dismissal just days after the taxpayer-funded military news outlet’s reporting revealed deteriorating conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, according to a news report.

Pentagon officials have discussed firing Max Lederer ahead of his scheduled retirement next month, according to CBS News, which quoted anonymous sources. Lederer, the publisher of the military daily for 19 years, had previously cited fundamental differences with the Trump administration for his decision to retire soon.

Administration’s plan to scrap drilling-free buffer zone around New Mexico site prompts scrutiny from Unesco

The Trump administration’s push to expand oil and gas extraction across the US is set to bring drilling near cherished natural and cultural sites, raising alarm among conservationists and prompting questions from the UN’s heritage body.

Unesco said it had received information on the administration’s plan to scrap a drilling-free buffer zone around the Chaco Culture national historical park in New Mexico, a world heritage site and one of the most important cultural areas in the US. A Unesco spokesperson said it had procedures regarding “potential threats” to a world heritage property and was awaiting a response from the federal government as to its impact.

Tenants can be evicted for not paying utilities even if they have paid rent – tenants and their allies are fighting back

• This story was supported and co-published by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

In 2024, Constance Soule got a surprise from her landlord: a “notice of termination” that gave her 10 days to move out of her apartment.

Soule, a disabled Alzheimer’s patient with a housing voucher, had paid her rent at a Larkspur, California, complex managed by Greystar, the country’s largest apartment manager. But she was about to be evicted from her home across from the Golden Gate Bridge solely over utility charges, court documents show.

Avenal has been rocked by the council’s refusal to accept the results of a recall election – and the repercussions extend far beyond the Central valley

From the outside, the city of Avenal appears to embody every bit of its motto – an “oasis in the sun”. Approaching the community, passing through the dusty yellow hillsides of the Central valley, Avenal emerges with a sudden burst of green on the horizon.

Its small-town feel and quiet tree-lined streets offer respite from the bustling Interstate 5 about five miles away. But trouble is brewing here that has brought this lonesome city national attention.

Despite policy victories over Flock, Americans are finding themselves under similar monitoring by a new company – or unable to remove the original cameras

Activists in Colorado thought they would be celebrating a victory against mass surveillance in December when the Longmont city council decided to let a contract with Flock Safety lapse.

But that excitement was cut short only months later when lawmakers voted to approve a new vendor to install automated license plate readers (ALPRs) on the city’s streets.

• Format would resemble that of Australian rules football

• League will ditch conferences for five-division setup

Major League Soccer is planning a significant overhaul of its playoff format, multiple league and club sources told the Guardian this week. The changes, which would debut in 2028 alongside the league’s shift to a fall-to-spring schedule, could include a “double-elimination” component and see as many as 20 teams feature. Sources spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the league’s plans.

The Guardian has viewed a potential schedule for the new format, in which the playoffs start in late April and unfold over roughly three weeks with MLS Cup being played on Sunday 21 May 2028. The changes to the playoff format would pair with long-reported changes to MLS’s regular season, with the league going to a five-division setup in place of its current Eastern and Western Conference structure.

Despite previously comparing him to a ‘mobster’, Trump’s former personal lawyer showers him with praise. This blog is now closed.

• Trump administration faces questions over top aide Natalie Harp’s security clearance

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An FBI team seized electronic devices from former US representative Eric Swalwell at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, then raided his home in Washington, DC, the next day, CNN reported Thursday.

The raid is part of a federal investigation into the sexual assault allegations which ultimately drove the Bay Area Democrat to resign from office in April, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department subsequently opened criminal investigations on Swalwell.

By now we know that charity, generosity and compassion are virtues that the US president doesn’t seem to have even in trace amounts

Many years ago, in the crowded corridor of a Manhattan hotel, I was surprised to find myself standing face-to-face with Imelda Marcos, then the first lady of the Philippines. At that time, she was said to possess 3,000 pairs of shoes.

I desperately longed to ask the wife of the dictatorial president Ferdinand Marcos why anyone could need all those shoes. And more importantly, why would someone spend so much of her country’s wealth on stiletto heels when so many citizens were so desperately poor? But natural reticence, good manners or simply fear prevailed, and I walked away.

Manny Rutinel hopes price-tag politics can win key voters in Colorado House race

During his presidential campaign in October 2024, Donald Trump staged a photo op at a McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania, where he was briefly taught how to work the fryer and drive-thru window at the closed restaurant, while making several unsubstantiated claims about Kamala Harris’s past summer job at McDonald’s.

The posturing around McDonald’s garnered significant publicity, as Trump and Republicans capitalized on an affordability crisis triggered by high inflation that occurred globally due to the Covid pandemic.

Americans are backing progressives not because they want socialism, but because they want candidates who will fight for the working class

Most discussions about the Democratic party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats, such as the Florida state representative Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who scored an upset win in the Democratic US Senate primary on Tuesday.

But an equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats.

Israeli military orders criminal investigation into deaths of Hind and six family members. Plus, FCC chair Brendan Carr’s close coordination with White House revealed

Good morning.

The Israeli military admitted on Wednesday its troops had opened fire on a car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and six family members in Gaza in 2024, saying it had ordered a criminal investigation into the killing.

What prompted the investigation? The Israel Defense Forces repeatedly denied its troops had been in the area, but investigations by the media and others found evidence that strongly suggested nearby Israeli tanks were responsible.

How significant is it? The IDF published reviews on Wednesday into five high-profile incidents in Gaza. But criminal misconduct investigations into Israeli troops over the killing of Palestinians rarely lead to convictions. A UN report published in February described “a pervasive climate of impunity” by Israel in occupied Palestine.

What is the wider context? In September last year, a UN commission found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and massive destruction.

What did Béjar say in his testimony? That his job often included him briefing Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, on product issues. He estimated that he spoke to Zuckerberg at least 100 times. One email Béjar sent to Zuckerberg in 2021 showed the engineer warning of constant reports of harmful content and damage to teenage wellbeing on Facebook and Instagram. Béjar said he emailed Zuckerberg after the chief executive publicly said the company did not prioritize profit over safety. Meta denies all allegations in the case.

Inflation fuelled by Iran conflict deterring shoppers, especially in the US, says high street chain

• JD Sports boss is still struggling to turn up the heat

The sports fashion retailer JD has cut £50m from its profit forecast as cost of living pressures, fuelled by the US war on Iran, weighed on sales of trainers.

JD Sports, which sells brands including Nike and Adidas, said widespread inflation had hit shoppers’ wallets, particularly its core young shoppers, resulting in a drop in sales across important markets such as the US, where it struggled to shift trainers and other footwear.

On one side, you face the domination of the Islamic Republic; on the other, the imperialist forces that republic claims to stand against

August marks the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran, a horror that echoes in the country’s current surge in death sentences. It also marks the 19 August anniversary of the UK- and US-orchestrated coup against the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. Amid the current, indiscriminate waves of US-Israeli military assaults against Iran, this letter of solidarity denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their political prisoners by forces both at home and abroad.

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The former Sunday Night Football stalwart is now one step from a seat in the US Senate. And she could cause a shock in liberal Minnesota

As the third leg of NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew alongside play-by-play man Al Michaels and the tart-tongued analyst Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya was a paragon of deference and neutrality for 11 years as an NFL sideline reporter, dutifully relating boilerplate tactics, talking points and injury updates when she wasn’t nodding along to softball interviews or fumbling through hammy production gimmicks for viewers who might have been too offline to get the bit. She was almost pathologically committed to not doing anything to draw attention to herself or her gender in an era when sideline reporting was a fast track to national celebrity. Even her football takes hewed to the middle. (“New Orleans doesn’t want to lose to Atlanta twice in a season …”) Anyone who says they saw the 61-year-old emerging as a rightwing firebrand was watching a different game.

And yet here we are. Last week, Tafoya was the decisive winner of Minnesota’s US Senate Republican primary, earning the party’s nomination for November’s general election. Even more striking: she beat back eight challengers, not least Adam Schwarze, the party-endorsed pro-gun, pro-military ex-Navy SEAL, and Royce White, the anti-leftist, anti-trans NBA flameout currently testing WNBA gender norms.

The Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator says Dershowitz, who also defended Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, ‘only has himself to blame’ for being ostracised

Larry David has opened up about the collapse of his friendship with Alan Dershowitz, saying that Dershowitz “made a deal with the devil” when he became Donald Trump’s lawyer.

Dershowitz, a former Harvard University law professor, has been a member of legal teams for Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, OJ Simpson and Harvey Weinstein at various points in his career, and served on Trump’s defense team during the president’s first impeachment trial in 2020.