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Georgia senator Jon Ossoff slams racist posts allegedly from Republican opponent’s ex-staffer

Representative Mike Collins has been dogged by associations to white nationalism and antisemitism

The US senator for Georgia Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, has slammed a “disgraceful and disqualifying” report that a former staffer for his Trump-backed Republican challenger Mike Collins shared images online of a swastika and depicting himself in Ku Klux Klan robes.

It is the latest instance of someone in Collins’s orbit facing scrutiny over racist or white nationalist conduct. Ossoff called the report “stunning” and said it “should shock the conscience of every Georgian”.

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© Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

© Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

© Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

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Canadian prime minister and New York lawmaker denounce Trump’s move to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America – as it happened

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On Wednesday, Trump officially signed a proclamation on Wednesday that suspends higher tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef imports for 90 days. This comes after backlash to the proposal – designed to lower grocery costs for Americans in the run-up to the November midterms.

Several Republicans – in states with sizable cattle farming industries – have criticized the policy, saying it is a short term solution that will stymie ranchers’ ability to rebuild their herds.

Four leading livestock and agricultural organizations also wrote a letter to the president on Wednesday urging him to reverse course.

“Flooding the market with discounted foreign beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd, strengthen food security, or lower grocery bills in a lasting way,” the groups wrote.

Donald Trump will begin his day in Washington, before traveling to Houston, Texas where he’ll headline a Republican National Commitee (RNC) fundraiser, and help boost Ken Paxton — the state’s attorney general and Republican nominee for Senate.

A reminder that Paxton beat long serving Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary earlier this year after receiving Trump’s endorsement. Paxton is set to face Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico in November.

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© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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Democratic states sue to block postal service from carrying out Trump’s mail-in voting order – as it happened

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A US military strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean on Tuesday killed four people, officials said.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said in a post on X that the strike targeted a vessel “operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean.”

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© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

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Man kills eight relatives, including children, in shooting at Montana home, officials say

Home in Billings was also set on fire, with victims representing four generations of a blended family

A man killed eight of his relatives, including four children, on Sunday evening in a shooting at a home in Billings, Montana, that was also set on fire, according to authorities and local media reports.

Police have characterized the case as a family disturbance, according to Montana news outlet KULR.

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© Photograph: Billings Fire Department

© Photograph: Billings Fire Department

© Photograph: Billings Fire Department

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Trump endorsement helps boost Darline Graham in South Carolina primary to replace her late brother in US Senate – as it happened

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On Truth Social, however, the president shot down assertions that the US talks with Canada collapsed in part due a proposed trade deal that would have weakened French language protections.

“I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French!” he wrote. “In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing. This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec.”

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© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

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Trump talks up White House ballroom and says he views strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’ – as it happened

This blog is now closed. Read the latest here

US Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican and a cattle rancher, has come out against a plan announced Friday by Donald Trump to allow for an increase in imported ground beef.

”I’ve advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them - most of whom are MAGA Republicans,” Sheehy wrote on X. “The President’s heart is in the right place on wanting lower prices for the American people, and beef prices have been impacted by the Mexican screwworm. But the reality is this action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people. And most importantly, this will harm our ranching families who feed the nation.”

Trump announced a plan on Truth Social to allow 300,000 metric tonnes of beef to be imported without tariffs over the next 90 days, to be sold for hamburger at a 25 percent discount to current prices. Trump offered this agreement with an unnamed source as measure to lower prices while “as we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers.”

The US beef cattle herd is near historic lows, and beef prices have skyrocketed over the last year. The average price of ground beef in American cities is around $7.12 a pound, an increase of 9.4 percent year-over-year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is a slap in the face to every war hero and every service member who has worn the uniform. It’s beyond comprehension for a president to want his own name on a Navy ship while our armed forces are living in deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. For generations, millions of Black women and men have proudly served in the United States military, defending freedoms that too often were not even afforded to them, their families, or their communities. Donald Trump is making a mockery of that legacy by treating military service as another opportunity for personal branding. Our brave service members signed up to defend the nation, not the fragile ego of one man. America deserves better than this.

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© Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters

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From ‘predator’ to ‘conman’: how Michael Cohen has described Trump

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.

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© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

© Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

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Michael Cohen, ex-fixer for Trump who once testified against him, hosts president on his radio show – as it happened

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

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.

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© Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP

© Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP

© Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP

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Republicans reportedly fear datacenter backlash could cost them Ohio Senate seat – as it happened

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Those unfamiliar with Alaska politics are likely raising an eyebrow at some repeated names.

No, we’re not talking about Dan S Sullivan and Dan J Sullivan, two Republicans with the same name running for US Senate – an issue that went to the state supreme court earlier this summer. We’re talking about the Begiches. Nick Begich III, a Republican, is currently leading the race to represent Alaska in the US House of Representatives for a second term while Tom Begich, a Democrat, is advancing to the general election for governor in November.

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

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Minnesota sues Texas to force extradition of ICE agent accused of lying about shooting

Minnesota attorney general sues Texas governor in case of ICE agent charged with wounding a man in Minneapolis

Minnesota’s attorney general has sued the governor of Texas to force him to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the US agency’s controversial crackdown in Minneapolis.

Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron county, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.

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© Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

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Teenager dies after falling in abandoned high-rise tower in New Orleans

Jacque St Ann, 17, and his friends broke into Plaza Tower and he fell as they were descending an interior staircase

A high school student recently fell to his death after entering an abandoned high-rise tower in downtown New Orleans with his friends – in an apparent case of urban exploration highlighting the dangers of unaddressed city blight.

New Orleans police said Jacque St Ann, 17, and his friends, of the nearby community of Belle Chasse, Louisiana, traveled into the city and broke into the fenced-off, 45-story Plaza Tower in the central business district, which has stood derelict for years.

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© Photograph: Belle Chasse High School via Facebook

© Photograph: Belle Chasse High School via Facebook

© Photograph: Belle Chasse High School via Facebook

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Florida primaries: governor matchup set; Democratic socialist shocks establishment-backed nominee in Senate race – as it happened

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President Donald Trump posted an image of a map of the strait of Hormuz on his social media platform Truth Social, with a circle around the strait and the words “New US Territory” as the title on Tuesday morning.

This follows comments made on Friday at a speech at a police academy on Long Island, New York, where Trump said “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States. … Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to.”

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© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Trump says Kim Jong-un has responded to his overtures when asked about scaling back US drills with South Korea – as it happened

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Republican senator Thom Tillis deplored Trump’s decision to cut US military drills with South Korea, which comes despite military officials from both countries warning that Kim Jong-un’s regime is learning new battlefield expertise, including new drone tactics, from assisting Russia with its war in Ukraine.

Tillis wrote on X:

South Korea has been a solid military ally for over 70 years that possesses exquisite military capabilities. Reducing joint exercises with South Korea does nothing more than free up thousands of North Korea’s troops to support Putin’s systematic kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of innocent Ukrainian citizens.

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© Photograph: YONHAP/EPA

© Photograph: YONHAP/EPA

© Photograph: YONHAP/EPA

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Luigi Mangione admits shooting healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and pleads guilty on federal charges – as it happened

Defense team file motion to dismiss state murder case on double jeopardy rules after Mangione tells Manhattan court ‘I shot Mr Thompson and he died’

at the courthouse in Manhattan

Mangione’s legal team is helmed by Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo. The team has scored several major legal coups in Mangione’s federal and state cases.

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© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

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Kennedy Center board votes again to renovate building and inscribe Trump’s name on it – report

The center has until next week to present plan to judge who had blocked earlier rehab and name change

The board of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington is said to have voted once again to move forward with Donald Trump’s controversial plan to temporarily shutter the building for substantial renovations, as well as to inscribe the US president’s name on the facade of its building, despite a federal order for his name to be removed from the signage.

The board – mostly handpicked, staunch allies of the president – voted “to close the Kennedy Center’s main building, while keeping a newer addition to the campus, known as the Reach, open for limited programming and to operate as an active memorial to John F Kennedy”, according to the New York Times, which was first to report the results.

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© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

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Trump orders Pentagon to scrap modern jet launching tech on new US aircraft carrier and revert to steam catapults – as it happened

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Donald Trump’s executive order on vaccines does not change the US recommendations for the shots – but experts say it does create confusion and doubt about vaccines, which will lead to more illness and possibly deaths among children and will make it harder for families and pediatricians to protect them.

The executive order was an attempt to reinstate sweeping changes to the vaccine schedule made earlier this year by Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine opponent – changes that were later halted by a federal judge.

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© Photograph: Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

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