Former US president comes to Georgia to support Jon Ossoff for US Senate and Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor

Barack Obama, speaking at a Wednesday campaign rally in suburban Atlanta, offered a closing argument for Democrats in the final week of the midterm election campaign.

“These are not serious people,” he said of Donald Trump and the Republican party. “And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness.”

Firm calls charges, which include violating state gambling ban and profiting from illegal activity, ‘crazy overreach’

Utah on Wednesday filed criminal charges against prediction market operator Kalshi and two of its executives, months after a federal judge rejected Kalshi’s effort to prevent Utah from enforcing its strict anti-gambling laws against the activity.

The felony charges could represent a new tactic in how states try to assert regulatory authority over the fast-expanding activity, a clash that appears headed to a showdown at the US supreme court.

Justice department had demanded state segregate and not count ballots from people it claimed were non-citizens

A federal judge declined to order California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people the Trump administration claimed were non-citizens, rebuffing a legally thin request from the justice department that appeared designed to cast doubt over the results of the midterms.

The ruling from US district judge David Carter, nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, comes about two weeks after the justice department delivered a USB drive to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento that it said contained the names of 20,000 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. There are more than 23 million registered voters in California and non-citizen voting is extremely rare.

Kushner threatens to sue, denying allegations that two slush funds were set up to influence his Middle East role

A new book containing incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media firestorm.

The book by author Matthew Cole is called Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East and was released in the US this week. An excerpt was published by Vanity Fair last Thursday, and immediately drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”. The book contains numerous allegations about Kushner, whose father-in-law is Trump and who has served as one of his top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East – the most explosive of which are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states.

Pete Hoekstra, controversial US ambassador to Canada, has also accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections

The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries.

On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.

A jet carrying the Brazilian far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has landed in Miami, Florida, where the losing candidate in Sunday’s presidential election runoff left the airport under police escort without speaking to the press. The Gulfstream IV, registered as LV-JQW, left Guayaquil in Ecuador earlier in the day. After losing Sunday’s election to the incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro disappeared for more than 24 hours, until Argentina’s migration authorities said he had entered the country by land on Tuesday night

• Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami after Brazil election loss

• Flávio Bolsonaro flees Brazil after presidential election loss, reports say

Democrats urge FTC to tackle ‘systemic failure’ of biggest convenience and dollar stores over pricing practices after Guardian investigations

Thirty-four members of Congress are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate reports of widespread overcharging by some of America’s most-recognized brand-name retailers.

The 28 October letter to the FTC comes in direct response to Guardian investigations of four of the nation’s largest dollar-store and convenience-store chains. Both investigations revealed pervasive mismatches between shelf labels and register prices.

The Canadian prime minister’s reckoning with Trumpism in Davos clashes with his attacks on environmental, Indigenous and labour rights

The Canadian prime minister is a hero around the world for his Davos speech that reckoned with a reconfiguration of power in the shadow of Donald Trump.

But at home, Mark Carney is mirroring the US president by radically centralizing power within his office and cabinet and taking a hatchet to dozens of laws protecting environmental, Indigenous and labour rights, all in order to enact his economic agenda.

Shiri Pasternak is an associate professor in criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University and a member of the Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism research team, a collaboration between critical scholars and Indigenous land defenders across North America

Both of these threats have the same roots: private entities seeking to cash in. We have the power to stand against them

A summer of extreme heat, entire villages obliterated in Nepal, a super El Niño breaking records, Exxon publicly saying we may reach 3C by 2050 – could it possibly be any worse?

How about throwing AI extinction in the mix?

Benjamin Netanyahu vows to form new coalition while opposition bloc leader says result shows prime minister should step down. Plus, a scathing review of Elon Musk’s AI-generated version of The Odyssey

Good morning. Israel could be in for weeks of political haggling after exit polls and partial official results showed neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the opposition bloc led by the former general Gadi Eisenkot had won enough seats to form a government.

With 70% of the vote, or 4m ballots, counted so far, the Netanyahu bloc had 54 seats, the Eisenkot-led Change bloc 47 seats, and the Palestinian parties 19 seats. Sixty-one seats are needed for a majority.

What have the two leaders said so far? Israel’s longest-serving prime minister vowed to assemble a coalition through agreements between his Likud party, far-right factions and Jewish religious parties. Eisenkot had said earlier in the evening that “people decided in favour of change” and Netanyahu should have “announced today his retirement from politics”.

What does the increase in the Palestinian bloc mean? The election was marked by a record participation by Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin, a discriminated minority that makes up about 20% of the country’s population. Julian Borger explains from Nazareth that Eisenkot will have to work with Arab-Israeli leaders to have a hope of governing. Millions of other Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank and Gaza cannot vote.

Here is what we know about the declared results so far. Our live coverage continues on the website.

What else has Trump been saying about fossil fuels? Trump suggested on Tuesday that Venezuela would become the 51st US state as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “1m barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president.

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For months, Mary Peltola’s campaign for Alaska’s Senate seat has denied any connection to a separate campaign launched by a man who, coincidentally, shares the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan.

New reporting from the New York Times undercuts that claim. The outlet reported, based on interviews, obtained text messages and legal filings, that the Peltola campaign had not only recruited Mr Sullivan (not the Republican), but had sought out a number of Dan Sullivans across the state for potential candidacy, as well as others who could peel votes away from Peltola’s main opponent.

Mexican police had said they found Shayna Feinman in Tijuana, raising the hopes of missing Arizonan’s family

Arizona authorities say their Mexican counterparts were resoundingly mistaken when they publicly claimed recently that they found alive a woman who was feared slain after disappearing in 2024 – a turn of events that her sister has called “turmoil” and “heartbreaking”.

The case in question centers on Shayna Feinman, who was reported missing in rural Yavapai county, Arizona, in March 2024 at age 38.

Fed chair Kevin Warsh said politics played no role in pause of interest rate hikes, despite inflation remaining above 3%

The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday during its last board meeting before the midterm elections, keeping rates at one of the highest pre-election levels seen in over 20 years.

Two out of 12 board members voted against the pause, preferring to raise rates by a quarter point this meeting, the Fed board said in a statement.

Critics warn of climate danger as president in Texas claims change will save companies and consumers billions

Donald Trump said his administration is “terminating” Biden-era regulations holding oil and gas companies accountable for large leaks of planet-warming methane during a rally in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday evening.

“Tonight, I’m officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers,” Trump said, lifting what he called “crippling regulations on methane that caused prices to skyrocket” for small oil and gas operators. The change would save consumers and energy producers $45bn and unlock 210m barrels of oil, he said, which is equivalent to about 10 days of US petroleum consumption.

Susan and Michael Pretti say they have been ‘ignored and misled’ in quest for justice over son’s killing by US agents

The parents of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year, accused federal officials of stonewalling them and shielding their son’s killers.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Michael and Susan Pretti made their first public remarks since their son’s death in January, calling for the Department of Justice to hold those involved in their son’s death accountable. The federal government has not provided them with meaningful information about the case, they said.

President at Texas campaign rally hails deal struck with post-Maduro government as ‘greatest oil victory in history’

Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “one million barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president.

At a campaign rally in Corpus Christ, Texas, Trump touted a US oil deal with Venezuela, which the US attacked in January, capturing its long-serving leader Nicolás Maduro.

Vice-president tries to link El-Sayed to Paris protests and claims he would lead rioters in ‘burning down’ Detroit

JD Vance has escalated his inflammatory attacks on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan who has faced an onslaught of Islamophobia, claiming he would lead rioters in “burning down” Detroit.

El-Sayed, who would become the country’s first Muslim senator if he wins next week’s election, has been branded a “jihadist” by Donald Trump, the US president.

If ever enacted, proposals by Marine Le Pen and the AfD leader, Alice Weidel, to hollow out EU institutions would be a continental act of self-harm

Following the Brexit referendum in 2016, Marine Le Pen was in a predictably celebratory mood. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, she told one interviewer, was the first breach in the “Brussels Wall”. Ms Le Pen’s Front National party was at that point committed to taking France down the same path, given the chance. But as the UK’s self-inflicted economic wounds became a cautionary tale for the rest of Europe, the notion of Frexit was put on ice.

Instead, Ms Le Pen now hopes to lead far-right allies in hollowing out the EU from within. This month, both she and the leader of Alternative für Deutschland, Alice Weidel, outlined their visions of a “Europe of nations” in which EU institutions would be stripped of both cash and power. Ms Weidel’s “new deal for Europe” would abolish elections to the European parliament, and seek German opt-outs in areas such as migration, defence and common borrowing. Ms Le Pen’s party, now called National Rally, proposes slashing French contributions to the EU budget by 60% over a five-year presidential term, and ending the role of Brussels in proposing common policies for the 27 member states.

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.

We want to hear from gen Z voters about the issues that will decide your vote in the midterm elections

The US midterm elections that will decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships in 36 states, are just one week away. The results could have a huge impact on Donald Trump’s final two years in office.

Nearly 50 million people aged 18 to 29 are eligible to vote in the midterms but nearly half are either not registered or civically engaged, according to US Census Bureau data.

We’d like to hear from Americans across the political spectrum about voting priorities in the midterm elections

On 3 November, millions of Americans will vote in the midterm elections to decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships in 36 states.

In an October poll by the New York Times/Siena College, Donald Trump’s approval rating sank to 36%, with most respondents expressing frustration over his handling of the US economy, the cost of living and the Iran war.

US president in unprecedented offer of $1m reward for reports of voter fraud as DoJ acts against states. Plus, everything you need to know about Israel’s crucial election

Good morning. The Trump administration’s assault on the legitimacy of the midterm elections has continued, with the US president announcing a $1m reward for reports of voter fraud, amid several legal actions by the Department of Justice to limit voting.

Donald Trump said the bounty payment was contingent on the arrest and conviction of those responsible. He did not disclose how he would pay for the rewards. Trump’s comments follow his repeated and unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

What action is the administration trying to take against Washington state? The administration has asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without US citizenship. The request marks the third time this month that the justice department has brought a direct state challenge even as voting is under way.

What is the latest in the battle over California voters? A US federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens.

Why is Vivek Ramaswamy facing criticism over an advert? The Republican nominee to be the governor of Ohio ran an ad featuring his opponent’s mother, who said she would not vote for her daughter. As Moira Donegan explains in this excoriating opinion piece, the estrangement between Amy Acton is decades long and stems from the sexual abuse Acton survived as a child.

What are the key takeaways from the investor prospectus? The document reveals the AI research lab’s financials and the risks – more than 90 pages of them – that might negatively impact its business. Johana Bhuiyan has identified these four key takeaways.

What has Anthropic’s model recently been accused of? Anthropic’s Claude model accessed voter data in the US state of Georgia, the AI company has confirmed, in the latest example of unauthorised behavior by the technology. The AI model managed to bypass a paywall to reach data that is publicly available but is typically accessible only after paying a fee.

Social media companies including Meta have pulled back on efforts to protect voters from election-meddling lies

Social media feeds are awash with an unprecedented flood of AI-driven disinformation ahead of November’s US midterm elections, according to experts, who warn many posts are probably “slipping through the cracks”.

As tens of millions of Americans prepare to cast their vote, social media companies have scaled back their efforts to protect voters from lies meant to manipulate elections.

No private individual should have the power to determine US foreign policy, as Musk has attempted to do in Ukraine

He’s Exhibit A on why billionaire wealth should be taxed, why we must get big money out of politics, why billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to buy up major media, and why our government shouldn’t give them huge military contracts.

I’m talking about Elon Musk, of course.

Rubio’s decision not to meet Narendra Modi last week was seen by some as a snub – but by focusing on business leaders and oil, the secretary of state made American priorities clear. Plus: the artist bringing a female perspective to men’s clothing

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When the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited India for the second time this year, headlines concentrated on who he met and where he went.

The fact that Rubio bypassed New Delhi and did not meet the prime minister, Narendra Modi, during his trip last week, and instead traveled to the financial capital, Mumbai, where he met India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (pictured top with Rubio), and business leaders, did not go unnoticed. Nor did his decision to travel to Jamnagar, the small Gujarati town that is home to Reliance Industries’ colossal oil refinery complex.

Casey Sparks inadvertently ended up in Lyerly, Georgia, where he noticed burning home and helped to save family

An Alabama driver’s unintended, GPS-directed detour in Georgia positioned him to help save a couple and a dozen children in their care from a fire that enveloped their home while they slept recently, according to the family and their rescuer.

As he recounted in an interview with television station WRCB that quickly went viral among internet circles dedicated to uplifting news stories, James Burke had fallen asleep in his recliner while his wife, 12 adopted children and one grandchild slept in their beds on the night of 17 October in the community of Lyerly, Georgia.

Rapper who has helped produce the Super Bowl show for years is stepping up to perform himself, at SoFi Stadium in California

After years of producing the Super Bowl half-time show, Jay-Z has announced that the 2027 headline act will be none other than himself.

After days of speculation, the NFL, Apple Music and Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation announced on Monday night that the rapper will be the featured performer for the half-time festivities at the Super Bowl LXI on 14 February at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Suit that cites 2025 Guardian investigation alleges ‘pattern of inaccurate pricing’ that ‘affects millions of purchases’

The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states have sued Dollar General, the nation’s largest dollar-store chain, for persistently overcharging customers at its more than 20,000 stores across the United States.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nashville, cites a Guardian investigation published last December.

Newsom accuses Trump of ‘assault on democracy’ as DoJ claims 20,000 registered voters in state are non-citizens

A US federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens.

The court on Monday ruled 2-1 against Donald ⁠Trump’s ​justice department in the dispute, denying the administration’s demand that election officials segregate the thousands of ballots until people on the list could verify their citizenship. The justice department had given the California secretary of state 48 hours to carry out the order, which state election officials refused – leading to the lawsuit.

Comey, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, accused of leaking information related to US national defense

The justice department charged former FBI director James Comey on Monday with two counts of leaking information related to national defense, the third time the Trump administration has filed criminal charges against one of Donald Trump’s most despised foes.

The charges, filed in federal court in Washington DC, provide few details about what Comey is alleged to have leaked. The government alleges that the former FBI director leaked the information in 2016 and conspired with an unnamed person to give the information to a national news outlet.

After the rejoicing, it will be vital to learn the lessons. The rightward shift is neither inevitable nor irreversible, but progressives cannot rest for a moment

The impossible happened. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a fourth term in Sunday’s runoff election in Brazil, overturning Flávio Bolsonaro’s first-round lead in a historic comeback. No candidate has ever lost the first round and won the second, until now. Grassroots mobilisation, alongside social welfare policies, helped turn the contest into a referendum on Brazilian democracy, rallying voters against a candidate seeking to restore the legacy of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, imprisoned for plotting a coup after his 2022 defeat. Lula’s victory suggests that defending democracy can still be a powerful electoral argument against the ascendant right.

Having already consolidated most of the leftwing vote, Lula had limited room to attract supporters of other candidates after his first-round defeat. His best chance lay in mobilising abstainers and reconnecting with working-class voters. The Workers’ party intensified its grassroots and digital campaigns, using social media influencers and messaging networks to reach supporters. Nearly 3 million more Brazilians voted in the runoff, and Lula gained ground across the country, particularly in major cities and his north-eastern strongholds. He also appealed to voters’ immediate economic concerns, drawing on a record of reducing poverty and inequality, and increasing benefits under Bolsa Família, the landmark welfare programme he launched in 2003. Lula framed the election as a choice between protecting social gains and democratic institutions, or returning to the Bolsonaro family’s attacks on both, warning that his opponent would compromise Brazil’s sovereignty by aligning himself with Donald Trump.

Jordana Timerman is a journalist based in Buenos Aires. She is the managing editor of The Ideas Letter and compiles the Latin America Daily Briefing

The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips will be answering your questions about the election and the future of Brazil from 1500 GMT on Tuesday 27 October as part of our Conversations series. Email questions to conversations@theguardian.com.

Leftwing incumbent becomes first candidate to reverse first-round defeat, but far-right son of former president rejects result. Plus, interviews with two legendary songwriters

Good morning. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has staged a dramatic election fightback, defeating his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, to claim a historic fourth term as Brazil’s president. Bolsonaro has refused to concede defeat and asked for the results to be annulled.

Following in the footsteps of his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who four years ago also refused to acknowledge his defeat to Lula – before attempting a coup and being convicted for it – Flávio Bolsonaro cited a supreme court justice’s decision to extend voting hours as the alleged reason for wanting to cancel the result.

What does this result mean for Brazil now? My colleagues Libby Brooks in London and Tom Phillips and São Paulo spoke overnight. Phillips said: “The Bolsonaro response is exactly as I feared, but I don’t think it will mean very much. All these world leaders are now recognising Lula’s win, and I don’t think Bolsonaro has a hope of overturning this result. [For Lula] this is the crescendo of an incredible, if sometimes controversial, 50-year political career. The first elected working-class leader of Brazil, who has helped millions of people escape poverty.”

You can find the full results of the election here, and our ongoing live coverage here.

What has Hebron’s mayor said? Yousef al-Jabari accused the Israeli state of “collective punishment”, saying: “They have dragged people from their houses, and they have prevented the media from getting into the district … Netanyahu and his gang are using Palestinian land to displace Palestinian people, closing the city, closing the mosque, in order to achieve their political goals.”

How has a 21-year-old photographer described being the target of an Israeli attack? Zeinab Faraj found herself buried under rubble beside a dying colleague while reporting in Lebanon. “My heart stopped” as she heard a drone descending towards them, she said. “I’ve never heard anything like it in my life … It was terrifying.” The Israeli military later justified their attack, saying they had identified saboteurs violating the ceasefire. Human rights groups called it a war crime.

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In a post to social media on Monday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine was facing dwindling stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles after Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary, had delayed authorizing new supplies.

“We have been waiting for nearly a month for Mr. Hegseth to sign off on missiles for Patriots and NASAMS,” Zelenskyy wrote. “I instructed our team to raise this with the American side once again. Conversations with other countries are also ongoing.”

Health secretary’s effort to alter makeup of ACIP panel means no new recommendations coming – even as new vaccines are approved

US vaccine recommendations are in limbo, access to vaccines is suffering, and some of the uncertainty may continue for years following major blows to vaccination by the Trump administration, experts say.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has made sweeping changes to vaccination policy, cutting childhood immunization recommendations by a third and replacing experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with his own handpicked allies.

VW investment, creating 4,500 jobs in Georgia, comes amid Trump’s damaging tariffs, intense Chinese competition and costly shift towards EVs

Audi has said it will spend $4bn (£3bn) to build its first factory in the US, as its parent company, Volkswagen, struggles with the impact of steep tariffs imposed by Donald Trump.

The German brand’s chief executive, Gernot Döllner, joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally on Saturday night to announce the factory in Macon, Georgia, in an unusual move by a big European brand just days before the US midterm elections.

To understand where Trump is trying to take the US, we should look to the authoritarian playbook of his favorite ally: El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele

One afternoon last year, Donald Trump welcomed “a friend” to the White House – El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, the world’s most popular authoritarian. “I knew him as a very young man,” the US president said before the cameras. “He’s done a fantastic job. Mr President, it’s an honor to have you.”

Since March 2022, when gangs in El Salvador murdered 87 people over a weekend, Bukele has maintained a state of emergency in which key civil liberties are suspended and 2% of the adult population has been jailed – about 100,000 people, at least half of whom are probably not gang members, say local rights groups. The narrative of “the Bukele miracle” – that he swiftly dismantled fearsome gangs and restored order – has made him an icon across Latin America, where a new host of rightwing leaders have sought to replicate his heavy-handed tactics. And in the US, Bukele’s overnight success as a strongman has made him a hero of the American right.

Shasta has embraced the Maga movement with gusto – can Democrats ever win back the rural, working-class voters they once relied upon?

A crucial election was approaching and the country was desperate. Despite promises that economic conditions were improving, nearly a quarter of the US was out of work as voters headed to the polls in 1932.

It was the darkest time since the civil war, a period so dire that in California’s capital people fought each other for work. In early 1931, a crowd of 200 men scuffled over a handful of temporary jobs moving back-breaking loads of granite, the Sacramento Bee reported.

James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, in prison in Spain, has applied for asylum as US seeks extradition over alleged Hamas support

US authorities seized wealthy activist James “Fergie” Chambers’s cellphone at some point after Spanish police arrested him in July without notifying him or his attorneys, the Guardian has learned.

Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, is imprisoned in Madrid. His case is the first known instance of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, an accusation tied to money Chambers has donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project, in Gaza.

But Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX owns Starlink, accuses Ukrainian military of violating ⁠the company’s terms

Ukraine’s military has a “stable connection to Starlink”, the Ukrainian government said, 10 days after its ability to use the satellite communications system was suddenly restricted.

But hours after the announcement, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose company owns Starlink, accused the Ukrainian military of violating ⁠the company’s terms. Neither Musk nor the US government, which operates Starshield using Starlink technology, took responsibility for imposing the curbs.

Nazhat Shameem Khan claims some staff are facing ‘banking difficulties’ but their work is unaffected

The deputy prosecutor of the international criminal court has said new US sanctions are beginning to take effect on its staff but insisted they have not hindered the court’s work.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the sanctions this month, accusing the ICC – a frequent target of the Trump administration – of being a “rogue court” and declaring: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”

Vice-president’s visibility has risen as Trump’s popularity wanes, but path to inherit Maga throne is more complicated than it may seem

A day after JD Vance suggested Donald Trump would endorse him if he runs for president, the vice-president shifted awkwardly in the Oval Office as his boss was asked about the remark.

“He’s a very talented person, and he’s a very good person,” Trump said of the man standing behind him, with a forced smile this week. “But we’ve literally – I don’t think we’ve ever talked about,” the president claimed, leaving the assertion unconfirmed.

We’ve heard much about the end of the west. At the proposed summit between Trump, Putin and Xi, those fears could crystallise

In the final two years of a US presidency, when Congress has been lost, approval ratings have sunk like a stone and their party has started to think about who’s coming next, the person occupying the Oval Office can feel their power draining away. Domestic legislation, particularly in an era where bipartisan cooperation is almost nonexistent, grinds to a halt. But as the days tick by until the end, and as presidents begin to think about their legacy, there is one part of the job where they still have power: the rest of the world.

In the final weeks of his presidency in 1992 George HW Bush sent 28,000 American troops to Somalia to help end a famine. For Bill Clinton, it was a quixotic attempt to bring peace to the Middle East by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Barack Obama restored diplomatic ties with Cuba, making a historic visit to Havana, as well as a final, successful push on the Iran nuclear deal.

Letters from federal prosecutors represent latest escalation as Trump continues to make claims of voter fraud

Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Department of Justice said may belong to noncitizens, according to the Los Angeles county registrar and a letter obtained by the Associated Press.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections.

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth alleges Confucius Institutes operating in disguise on US university campuses

The ⁠US defense department has designated Chinese-funded cultural centers on university campuses ⁠known as Confucius ⁠Institutes ​as a threat to US national security, defense secretary Pete ⁠Hegseth said on Friday.

Washington has long accused Confucius Institutes of being Chinese propaganda ⁠tools and has taken steps to ​crack down on them.

Republican senator faces critical re-election battle in state where president’s trade war has outraged voters

Donald Trump dropped some of the US’s tariffs on Canada on Friday to “better serve the public interest” the White House said, handing a win to Susan Collins, the embattled Republican senator for Maine, as she faces a tight re-election campaign that will help determine whether Democrats can flip control of Congress.

Collins announced that the exemptions would apply to nine agricultural products, including blueberries, potatoes, apples and seaweed. She added that many of the state’s farmers rely on specialized equipment and materials from across the border that are “unavailable from American suppliers or cannot be replaced without incurring significant expense”.

Unidentified object vanished suddenly and silently, anonymous senior military observers claim

Two senior military observers say they watched a mysterious black triangular object flying at an extraordinarily high speed over a sensitive site in the western US earlier this year, in the latest tranche of reported UFO sightings released on Friday by the Trump administration.

The unidentified object showed none of the characteristics of a conventional military aircraft, their report to the defense department said, and it vanished suddenly and silently within seconds, leaving no exhaust trail or other evidence of its existence.

People in Russian-occupied city facing severe shortages of food, water and electricity, with some reportedly surviving on weeds

The White House has said that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, where a deepening humanitarian crisis has left thousands of civilians struggling to survive.

In a statement on Friday, the White House said both sides had agreed to halt all military operations in the city from 27 October to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and preparations for the evacuation of civilians.

Byron Donalds removed mentions of the president from his website and has barely uttered his name – will his ploy prove successful in a tight governor’s race?

It took Byron Donalds, addressing a wildly supportive crowd at a rally in Florida’s bluest county, some time to list those he blamed for any “affordability” issues they might be experiencing.

Joe Biden, and the radical policies of the Democrats, were at fault, the Republican nominee for Florida governor insisted in his stump speech at Broward county’s Green Glades West ranch, even though neither has wielded power in Washington for almost two years.

Exclusive: Documents show German party’s scramble to request support after president’s 2016 election win and co-leader’s pursuit of Steve Bannon

A data leak from Germany’s far-right German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has revealed the extent of efforts by the party to court Donald Trump and other leading figures in the Maga movement, stretching back more than a decade.

The trove reveals the pains the AfD took in wooing the president, whom they saw from the beginning as a potential ally, with senior party officials agonising over the wording of an obsequious congratulatory telegram when he was elected in 2016, which included the wish that his “hopes as a person be fulfilled”.

Investigation marks rare move by DoJ against an ally of the US president. Plus, why the world’s coral reefs are facing a dire future

Good morning. Corey Lewandowski, a former political adviser to Donald Trump and ⁠top aide at the Department ⁠of Homeland Security, ​is under criminal investigation over allegations he profited off his role in the US government. The Department of Justice has not yet issued subpoenas or other legal demands in the criminal investigation, and a lawyer ​for Lewandowski did not immediately respond to ‌a request for comment. The justice department under Trump has investigated several prominent critics of the president, but investigations of people close to Trump have been rare.

Lewandowski served as a top aide to Kristi Noem during her tenure as homeland security secretary. Lewandowski allegedly signed some DHS contracts despite having questionable legal authority ​as a special government ‌employee, according to one ​DHS official. Certain grants ​and contracts, including those involving the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were put on hold at Lewandowski’s direction, according to two other sources.

Where else has Trump suffered a legal setback? Donald Trump has been ordered by a US judge to cooperate with the discovery process mandated for his lawsuit against the BBC and to sit for a deposition by 11 December – or else he could be subject to sanctions, including possible dismissal of the $10bn lawsuit.

What request has Trump claimed he made of Google? Trump has said Google rejected his request to rename the Atlantic Ocean after himself or America. Google has previously acceded to Trump’s demands, with locations labelled “Gulf of America” and “Lake America” for US users at the president’s request.

California flu test rate at 9.65%, higher than normal 1% rate for early October, amid mutation of H1N1 influenza A strain

Flu cases on the west coast are on the rise months earlier than normal, prompting US health experts to stress the importance of the annual vaccine.

Flu activity typically ramps up in December, hitting its peak in February. But this season has kicked into action earlier this year, with higher positive cases than normal recorded.