Category Archives: Trump administration

CDC investigates parasite that’s caused cases of ‘explosive’ diarrhea in 18 US states

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Parasite cyclospora spreads through produce and water contaminated with feces and causes the intestinal illness cyclosporiasis

The US Centers for Disease Prevention has been working to find the source of a parasitic illness that causes “explosive”, watery diarrhea, with more than 400 cases of the sickness reported across 18 states.

The parasite, cyclospora, spreads through raw produce and water contaminated with human feces – and it causes the intestinal illness cyclosporiasis, whose symptoms include cramps, nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite, low-grade fever and vomiting. The most commonly reported symptom is “watery diarrhea with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements”, according to the CDC.

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Pope praises US history of welcoming migrants in implicit rebuke to Trump

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Pope Leo urges Americans to live up to ideals of Declaration of Independence in first key address to US

Pope Leo has used his first key address to his home country to praise the US history of ⁠welcoming migrants, urging Americans to live up to the ideals put forward in the ⁠Declaration of Independence.

In his latest implicit rebuke to Donald Trump, the first US leader of the Roman Catholic church said the word “America” had become ‌a “byword for freedom” across the world because of the way the country welcomed migrants.

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Friday briefing: The US at 250: who gets to tell the story?

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In today’s newsletter: As official celebrations spotlight a narrow cast of ​white heroes, communities across the US are reclaiming the histories that Freedom 250 leaves out

Good morning, and a very happy 250th birthday to the United States of America. If you prefer to celebrate with cage fighting on the White House lawn, an IndyCar rally through the streets of Washington DC, or simply by watching the president do his lonely bop to YMCA at a sparsely attended state fair, so much the better.

It takes a special kind of someone to make the semiquincentennial birthday of a nation of 349 million people, from a whole variety of backgrounds, all about himself. But he wouldn’t be the only one centred on a very particular (white, male, Christian-centric) view of how the nation came to be.

UK news | Women from Black and Asian backgrounds are less likely than their white counterparts to receive an epidural while giving birth, research has revealed.

Ukraine | Ukraine and Russia have promised fresh assaults after Moscow launched a huge barrage on Kyiv, killing at least 27 people, tearing open apartment buildings and sending tens of thousands of people to shelters.

UK news | Criminal investigators in the UK say they have uncovered a “truly international network” of organised drug-facilitated sexual assault in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.

UK politics | Keir Starmer has formally apologised for the British state’s role in past forced adoptions after decades of campaigning by mothers and children affected.

World news | A rescue team pulled a 43-year-old security guard alive from a collapsed basement, ending an operation that became a symbol of hope after the devastation of twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela.

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‘Ridiculous’ for US to maintain current Nato support, Trump warns ahead of alliance summit

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President says Washington’s relationship with Nato is ‘not reciprocal’ and ‘they were not there for us’ in Iran war

Donald Trump has said it is “ridiculous” for the US to continue its “one sided” relationship with Nato, less than a week before a summit of the military alliance in Ankara.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that “They were not there for us!!!” and Washington’s relationship with Nato “is not reciprocal”.

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Wednesday briefing: After two powerful earthquakes, what is the reality on the ground in Venezuela?

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In today’s newsletter: A country already in crisis since the removal of its leader earlier this year by the US, now has to find a way to rebuild with little state presence in evidence

The shaking seemed to come from nowhere. In a moment captured by fishers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, two earthquakes struck seconds apart. Plumes of dust appear where buildings once stood in the recording as the camera rises and falls with the swell. The men rapidly head for the shore in search of their families. “I’m shaking,” says the cameraman.

Since the quakes struck last Wednesday, the search for missing loved ones has not stopped for scores of Venezuelans. Officially, more than 1,700 people have died. But tens of thousands remain missing: desperate relatives are walking up and down streets lined by rubble and collapsed buildings with photos of those they cannot find, asking for help.

World news | A child has been rescued from the rubble in Venezuela, six days since the country was hit by devastating twin earthquakes.

UK politics | Andy Burnham will have to find an extra £4.7bn for defence in his first budget, after Keir Starmer announced a £298bn defence investment plan (Dip) without having fully identified how it will be funded.

US politics | The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

UK news | The European media group Axel Springer has completed its £575m takeover of the Telegraph, ending years of uncertainty over the future ownership of the 171-year-old titles.

US news | Nine matches in the World Cup group stage were played amid potentially dangerous heat and humidity, a Guardian analysis shows.

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US and European diplomats continue standoff over top Bosnia and Herzegovina post

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European powers resist Trump administration’s pick for high representative after incumbent pushed out

Diplomats from the US and Europe have been unable to resolve their differences and agree on a new top international envoy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a standoff which has become a transatlantic test of wills over influence in the Balkans.

A meeting in Sarajevo to select a new high representative, a post with far-reaching powers, ended without a compromise, in a spat that has undermined western cohesion in the region in the Trump era.

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Kash Patel draws flak for posting FBI case details on social media ‘to make himself look good’

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FBI veterans believe director may have flouted legal rules by prematurely divulging details of UFC attack plot inquiry


Kash Patel may have flouted legal constraints and the FBI’s disciplinary code in prematurely divulging arrests in an alleged plot to attack this month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House, bureau veterans have alleged.

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Iran is jealously competing with Oman as decision-maker over strait of Hormuz

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Tehran believes it should control the shipping route but its neighbour has its own plans for reopening it

The strait of Hormuz is Iran’s chief bargaining tool in the negotiations with the US and so it was always likely to be the greatest point of contention. Every inch of the 24-mile-wide waterway is being contested in a test of wills and patience.

For Iran, the continuation of the dispute is not a problem so long as it does not lose control.

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US homeland security secretary tells migrants to seek permanent status or leave

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Markwayne Mullin’s remarks come after controversial supreme court ruling to strip TPS from over 350,000 people

Migrants in the US on temporary protected status should seek permanent residence or leave, Markwayne Mullin, Homeland Security secretary, said in the wake of last week’s supreme court decision that stripped humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

The remarks to CNN’s State of the Union program comes after a decision ⁠that could allow Donald Trump’s administration to deport Haitian and Syrian immigrants to home countries plagued by conflict and ​destitution.

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Bill Cassidy accuses Trump of treating Congress as ‘merely an appendage’

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Out-going Louisiana senator’s rebuke over Iran war is rare instance of a Republican politician standing up to Trump

Bill Cassidy, the Republican senator from Louisiana who is being ousted from his position after Donald Trump successfully backed a challenger in May’s primary, has accused the US president of treating Congress as “merely an appendage” in his handling of the Iran war.

In an interview on Sunday with CBS News’s Face the Nation, the out-going Cassidy explained his recent face-to-face row with Trump over the president’s failure to brief Congress on the prosecution of the hostilities with Tehran. In a fleetingly rare instance of a Republican politician directly standing up to Trump, Cassidy let rip at a Capitol Hill lunch over the senator’s support for a war powers resolution that was a symbolic rebuke to the White House.

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Biden calls Trump ‘a loser’, portraying him as incompetent, corrupt and vain

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Pugnacious speech invokes Trump’s ‘vanity projects’ to makeover Washington and the ‘brazen, blatant corruption’

Joe Biden called Donald Trump “a loser” in a pugnacious speech on Saturday that invoked his presidential successor’s attempted makeover of Washington DC to portray him as incompetent, corrupt and vain.

He delivered those remarks while giving the keynote address at a gala in Hanover, Maryland, hosted by the state’s Democratic party, which is hoping to help wrest control of Congress away from Trump and his Republican allies during November’s midterm elections.

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Anti-ICE organizers shift focus to defend democracy from Trump assault

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Citizens in Minnesota using lessons learned from migrant crackdown to protect elections from president’s threats

When thousands of immigration agents flooded Minnesota earlier this year, a loose network of neighbors sprang into action. They fed each other. They got kids to and from school safely. They tracked the surge that tore through their communities.

After organizing, block by block, to monitor Donald Trump’s extraordinary crackdown on their state, the same neighbors are shifting their focus to a different threat. What if the US president tries to steal an election?

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Venezuelan earthquakes test Trump’s new western hemisphere policy after gutting of USAID

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Marco Rubio is scrambling to provide effective disaster response to country whose president US deposed in January

This week’s dual earthquakes in Venezuela are a test for the new era of American power in the western hemisphere, as the Trump administration scrambles to provide an effective disaster response mission to a country that it now calls an ally in Latin America, after a US special forces raid in January deposed the country’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro.

The US is marshalling what secretary of state Marco Rubio called a “big, fast, effective” and “whole-of-government” response as the state department sent three specialised urban search and rescue teams and pledged a $150m assistance fund that one former disaster relief expert called the largest he had seen within 24 hours of an incident.

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Trump says he will nominate Lance Schroyer as next ICE director

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Schroyer, whom Trump calls ‘a patriot’, led deportation campaign in Oklahoma under ICE-partnered program

Donald ​Trump said on ⁠Saturday ⁠that ​he ‌will ‌nominate ‌Lance Schroyer as ‌the next director of US ​Immigration ⁠and ​Customs ​Enforcement (ICE), succeeding David Venturella, who had been performing the duties of the director.

Trump said in a Truth Social post that Schroyer “has over 29 YEARS of Law Enforcement experience in Oklahoma — A State where I WON all 77 Counties in 2016, 2020, and 2024! Lance is a former Oklahoma State Trooper, and United States Marine”.

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JD Vance claims US holds all the cards in Iran and will win ‘either way’

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Vice-president appeared on Bill Maher’s show hours before more military strikes were exchanged in strait of Hormuz

JD Vance said on Friday that the US wins “either way” regarding negotiations with Iran, pointing to what he called the destruction of its nuclear program and diminishment as a country.

“If we make the final deal, then great,” the US vice-president told HBO’s Bill Maher. “If we don’t make the final deal, their nuclear program is still destroyed. They’re still much weaker as a country, so my attitude is America wins either way.”

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Trump blames Iran for drone strike on cargo ship in strait of Hormuz

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US president calls it ‘foolish violation’ of ceasefire agreement after drone damaged ship’s upper deck

Donald Trump on Friday blamed Iran for carrying out a drone strike on a cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz, calling it a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire agreement with the US.

One drone damaged the upper deck of the ship but the ship was able to proceed, the US president said. The US shot down three other drones aimed at the ship, he said.

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Trump administration asks supreme court to back immigration detention policy

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Government asks justices to allow people who have lived in US for years to be held without chance to seek bond

The Trump administration on Friday asked the US supreme court to let it detain people arrested in ⁠its immigration crackdown without ⁠a chance to seek ​bond, even if they have lived in the country for years.

The administration made that request in a filing made public on Friday, asking the court to ⁠overturn a May decision by a federal appeals court, which had rejected its reinterpretation of a decades-old immigration law that now underlies its mass detention policy.

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UN calls for ‘prompt investigations’ of deaths in US immigration custody

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High commissioner for human rights calls for ‘those responsible for violations of the law’ to be held to account

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, on Friday raised the alarm internationally about deaths in US government immigration custody and called for “prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations”.

Türk’s call came as the Trump administration faced investigations by watchdogs at its own Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into deaths and use of force against people detained in its expanding immigration detention system across the country.

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Starmer says he wants to ensure disruption during transition to Burnham government ‘absolutely minimised’ – UK politics live

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PM says: ‘I love this country, I want this country to thrive, and I shall do everything I can to make sure it’s a success and thrives’

In her Q&A this morning Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, confirmed that she wants the government to approve the licences for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

She said:

I’ve been very clear that I think that the North Sea is a crucial asset for the UK, and that oil and gas will be an important part of our energy mix for years to come. And I’m very keen to make sure that we use that resource, to ensure our energy security.

There are decisions to be made shortly on both Rosebank and Jackdaw. Those are quasi-judicial decisions. But in our manifesto two years ago, we committed to honour existing licences, and I hope that we do.

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Would-be physician assistants deterred by strict caps on US student loans

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Advocates condemn change that caps loans at $20,500 per year – less than half median annual cost of PA program

Strict new caps on federal student loans are causing would-be physician assistants to reconsider training, groups representing physician assistants said.

An overhaul of the federal student loan system scheduled to go into effect 1 July strictly caps the annual amount of federal loans physician assistants can borrow to $20,500 per year – less than half the median annual cost of a PA program.

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