Trump orders cuts to South Korea joint drills despite warnings about Kim regime

President says he ‘gets along great’ with dictator but officials say Ukraine war is boosting North’s capabilities

Donald Trump has said he is scaling back joint US military drills with South Korea aimed at deterring North Korea, despite military officials from both countries warning that Kim Jong-un’s regime is learning new battlefield tactics from the Ukraine war.

The drills under Ulchi Freedom Shield, one of two main annual exercises held by South Korea and the US, start on Monday and run until 27 August.

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Trump threatens to declare strait of Hormuz ‘territory of the United States’

Seriousness of remark made in New York on Friday, and whether it signaled new policy ​position, not clear

Donald Trump has threatened to declare the strait of Hormuz as “a territory of the United States” as his administration struggles to conclude the war with Iran.

During a speech at a police academy on Long Island, New York, on Friday, the US president said he would “pretty soon” designate the waterway – a crucial chokepoint for global trade, through which about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supplies typically pass – a US territory.

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BP to develop offshore gasfield in Venezuela with firms linked to Trump administration

Move will be one of first large-scale foreign investments in country since US ousted leader Nicolás Maduro in January

BP has answered Donald Trump’s call for oil companies to help rebuild Venezuela’s fossil fuel industry with new plans to develop a large offshore gasfield.

BP will partner with two oil firms with close links to the Trump administration to develop the second phase of the Loran gasfield, in one of the first large-scale foreign investments in Venezuela since the US ousted its leader Nicolás Maduro in January.

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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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Trump plays down Air Force One plane switch as criticism grows over ‘decoy’ passengers – US politics live

President says Secret Service wanted him on ‘different plane’ due to threat as Democrats call for congressional briefing

President Donald Trump’s administration is to spend ⁠at least $900m ​for construction projects on the White House grounds, ⁠the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing records.

Instead of ⁠securing money directly from ​Congress, the administration ‌has gathered ‌funding from other agencies and private ‌donors and directed it to an account that holds a few million dollars for routine maintenance of the ‌White House, the report said.

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Trump’s secret flight switch indicates severity of assassination threat by Iran

Iran lost top leaders in the war and US ‘humiliation ... a form of revenge’, say experts, after administration’s flight ruse

Since the joint US-Israeli strikes in February that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and scores of other senior Iranian officials on the first day of the war, a revenge plot to kill Donald Trump should not have appeared far-fetched.

But the US administration’s elaborate ruse to spirit Trump off of Air Force One in Turkey last month indicates a credibility to the Iranian threat that has surprised many in Washington – including the Trump aides and journalists left on the jet that may have remained the target of an Iranian missile strike.

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Trump reportedly hid in catering container to board secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

Elaborate ruse was used to transport president to military flight from Air Force One in July

Donald Trump departed on a secret military flight from Turkey to Britain last month when the White House said he was flying aboard ⁠Air Force One, in an extraordinary ruse – prompted by an Iranian assassination threat – that involved hiding the president in an airport catering container, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times.

The operation took place when Trump was in Ankara for a Nato summit with world leaders, according to the Post. The president reportedly boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras, and then was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight, a US official told the Post.

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Trump signs order attempting to override CDC vaccine schedule and break up MMR shots

President and RFK Jr, the health secretary, repeatedly referred to autism during signing, though studies show no link between it and vaccines

Donald Trump has signed an executive order with plans for sweeping changes to the childhood vaccination schedule that attempts to override the authority of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It is an attempt to undergird the changes made earlier this year to CDC vaccination recommendations, which were halted by a federal judge. The CDC is the federal agency tasked with recommending vaccines, not the White House.

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Trump demands Iran pay compensation for decades of US soldier deaths

US president’s statement is latest sign that negotations to end war and reopen strait of Hormuz have stalled

Donald Trump has said he will demand that Iran pay compensation for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers and Iran’s own civilians killed in recent decades in the latest sign his negotiations to end the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz have reached an impasse.

The US president is trying to end conflicts in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon, and his additional demands of Iran are likely to provoke anger in Tehran at the same time as Israel has rejected Trump’s terms for a 15-point roadmap to end the war in Gaza.

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Flip-flopping Netanyahu rejects Gaza plan but cannot placate all his allies

Israeli prime minister faces incompatible demands from his far-right government ministers and from Donald Trump

Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rejection of a US-backed deal for Gaza drew scepticism in Israel, amid reports he was personally hammering out details of a pilot military withdrawal days earlier.

The Israeli prime minister is struggling to balance incompatible demands on Gaza policy from his key domestic and international allies.

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Trump appoints staff secretary Will Scharf as new White House counsel

Scharf, who helped president win approval for $400m ballroom, to replace David Warrington on 1 September

Donald Trump announced on Sunday that ⁠Will ​Scharf, the staff secretary who helped secure approval for the $400m White House ballroom project, will become ⁠White House counsel and assistant to the president.

Effective 1 September, Scharf will replace David Warrington, who will be leaving the administration to join the private sector. Warrington ​formerly served ​as a ​personal counsel and a ​lawyer ‌for Trump’s ​2024 campaign.

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Netanyahu rejects US-led 15-point Gaza peace plan in rare public break with Trump

Israeli PM says IDF will not withdraw until Hamas is disarmed and rebukes US pressure to end wars without his country’s buy-in

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected a US-backed 15-point peace plan for Gaza in a rare public break with Donald Trump.

In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu said that he was confronting a “wave of rumours about Israeli weakness and Israeli withdrawals on all fronts” and rebuked US pressure to end wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran without Israel’s buy-in.

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Taylor Swift songs removed from Trump and White House’s social media posts

Rage-baiting efforts of Trump accounts silenced after posts such as a video linking her Red album to Republicans

Some of Taylor Swift’s songs have been removed from videos posted on social media by Donald Trump’s campaign and the White House, silencing efforts to mock the pop star.

A video posted 3 August featuring the US president and the first lady, Melania Trump, watching fireworks was posted this month on TikTok with Swift’s song August.

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Trump loyalist Todd Blanche confirmed by Senate as US attorney general

Major win for president as former personal lawyer wins approval despite outcry over $1.8bn slush fund

The US Senate voted to narrowly confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general in a major win for Donald Trump, who will now have his one-time personal attorney sitting atop the nation’s law enforcement apparatus.

Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana cast the deciding vote in Blanche’s favor after two other Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – voted against him. Every Democrat rejected Blanche’s nomination as the Republican-led Senate voted 50-49.

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Bluster and backdown have turned Iran war into Trump’s own Groundhog Day

The US president’s profound ignorance of his enemy has led to an impotent cycle of empty threats, analysts say

Being the subject of mockery may be the most intense of all Donald Trump’s known aversions.

Yet more than five months after embarking on a war of choice against Iran, the US president risks attracting ridicule as he struggles to secure a military victory – while repeatedly threatening devastating bombardment against the Tehran regime, only to back down on the pretext of renewed negotiations.

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US Senate passes Russia sanctions bill championed by Lindsey Graham

Late senator spent final days of his life working to advance bill that will now head to the House after 86-11 Senate vote

By a large, bipartisan margin, the US Senate on Friday approved a bill intended to punish Russia and countries that buy its petroleum exports over the invasion of Ukraine, capping a legislative push that was spurred by the death of its champion, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham.

The measure, renamed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act in honor of the late senator’s work on the issue, was approved by an 86-11 vote. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the sole Republican to oppose the legislation, together with 10 Democrats.

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Iran plots to deal Trump a blow in midterms by keeping him entangled in war

By dragging out talks, Tehran aims to damage the US president politically – but some fear a bruised and weakened Trump could lash back

Tehran has set out a protracted negotiating timetable designed to keep Donald Trump embroiled in the Iran conflict until the midterm elections, in the hope of inflicting the same ruinous blow on his presidency as Jimmy Carter suffered over the 1979-81 US embassy hostage crisis.

For many inside Iran, inflicting meaningful revenge on Trump is a legitimate and self-standing war aim, reflected in the mood of those attending the funeral of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei where demands for retribution were ubiquitous.

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Top Democrats accuse Trump officials over Israeli settlers’ ‘unbridled violence’

Letter says lifting of sanctions sent ‘clear message’ settlers can use deadly force in West Bank without consequences

Senior Democrats have accused Donald Trump’s administration of giving a green light to violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, warning that its policies created “a climate of impunity and unbridled violence” that endangers both Palestinians and US citizens.

In a letter seen by the Guardian, a group of 19 Democratic senators and representatives call for the restoration of sanctions against extremist settlers and demand independent US investigations into the deaths of nine US citizens killed in the West Bank since 2022.

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‘Morocco feels emboldened’: Trump’s influence in spotlight after Ceuta disaster

Washington-Rabat ties under scrutiny as questions swirl over what led to deadly influx into tiny Spanish territory

The cosy relationship between Washington and Rabat has long been flaunted by both sides, from Morocco’s announcement this year that it would be the first African state to join Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to the congratulatory message recently sent by Trump to mark King Mohammed VI’s 27 years in power.

The latest example landed this week. As Spain grappled with the aftermath of the sudden influx – and swift return – of more than 70,000 people into Ceuta, Morocco’s monarch confirmed he had named a $1bn highway flanking the disputed territory of Western Sahara after Trump.

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US revokes Brazil ambassador’s visa in escalation of diplomatic feud

Move is retaliation for Lula’s government refusal to approve Trump’s nominee for ambassador in Brasília

Donald Trump’s administration has revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to the US in a sharp escalation of a diplomatic feud with the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The US state department said Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti’s visa had been cancelled in retaliation for Brazil’s refusal to approve Trump’s nominee for ambassador in Brasília and its decision last month to deny visas to two US diplomats seeking to visit ahead of an October election.

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