More than 40 Trump administration picks tied directly to oil, gas and coal, analysis shows

Report looks at White House nominees and appointees and agencies dictating energy, environment and climate policy

Donald Trump has placed dozens of people with ties to the fossil fuel sector in his administration, including more than 40 who have directly worked for oil, gas or coal companies, according to a new analysis.

The report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and ethics non-profit that has been critical of the Trump administration, alongside the Revolving Door Project, a corporate watchdog, analyzed the backgrounds of nominees and appointees within the White House and eight agencies dictating energy, environmental and climate policy. That includes the Environmental Protection Agency, the interior and energy departments and others.

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Ex-FBI director James Comey pleads not guilty on lying to Congress charge

Case marks significant step in Trump’s efforts to politicize the justice department and punish political enemies

The former FBI director James Comey pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday in connection with federal charges that he lied to Congress in 2020.

Comey entered the federal courthouse shortly before 10am through a private entrance. He was joined in court by his legal team, as well as his wife and daughter, Maurene, who was fired last month as a federal prosecutor in the southern district of New York. Troy Edwards Jr, Comey’s son-in-law who resigned as a prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia immediately after Comey was indicted, was also seen at the courthouse.

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Trump calls for jailing of Chicago mayor and Illinois governor as national guard arrives in city

President accused Brandon Johnson and JB Pritzker of failing to protect Ice officers as troops deploy to Chicago

Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers.

“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. “Governor Pritzker also!”

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Dolly Parton ‘going to be just fine’, singer’s sister says as she calls for prayers amid health problems

Freida Parton says she has been ‘up all night praying’ as singer continues to deal with unspecified ‘health challenges’

Dolly Parton’s sister says she has been “up all night praying” for the singer as she continues to deal with unspecified health problems.

Freida Parton wrote that her 79-year-old sister “hasn’t been feeling her best lately”, two weeks after the singer postponed a Las Vegas residency scheduled for December, citing “health challenges”.

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Tesla debuts ‘affordable’ Model Y and 3 in US that strike some as too expensive

CEO Elon Musk touts SUV and sedan, with starting prices of $39,990 and $36,990, as way to tap wider swath of buyers

Tesla rolled out “affordable” versions of its best-selling Model Y SUV and its Model 3 sedan, but the starting prices of US$39,990 and US$36,990 were too high, some said, to attract a new class of buyers to the electric vehicle brand.

CEO Elon Musk has touted the car as a way to tap a wider swath of buyers, saying last year that a price below $30,000, after incentives, was the key.

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Mamdani attends Israelis for Peace vigil after his 7 October statement draws ire from Israel

New York City’s mayoral candidate sits in with Brad Lander after commemorating Israeli and Palestinian victims

The New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday evening attended a vigil in Manhattan convened by Israelis for Peace, an anti-occupation group of Israelis in New York who have rallied weekly since 2023 to call for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages.

Sitting in Union Square alongside New York City comptroller Brad Lander, his one-time rival for the Democratic nomination who has been campaigning for him, Mamdani listened as speakers at the event – which marked the two-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel – called for an end to the killing and to Israel’s occupation, and for equal rights for Palestinians.

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Thirty Bob Ross paintings to be sold at auction to help fund public TV stations

Money will aid with licensing fees and ensure artist’s ‘legacy continues to support’ medium that made him popular

Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for small and rural public television stations suffering under cuts in federal funding.

Ross, a public television stalwart in the 1980s and 90s, “dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone”, said Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc. “This auction ensures his legacy continues to support the very medium that brought his joy and creativity into American homes for decades.”

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Glacier melt will lead to ice-free peaks in California for first time in human history

New research shows massive glaciers in Sierra Nevada projected to melt away by the beginning of the next century

Deep in California’s Sierra Nevada, massive glaciers are disappearing and projected to melt away completely by the beginning of the next century, leaving ice-free peaks for the first time in human history, new research has found.

The mountain range’s glaciers are older than previously known, dating back tens of thousands of years, with some as old as the last ice age, according to an article published last week in Science Advances.

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US delegation led by Steve Witkoff due to arrive in Egypt for Gaza talks

White House says it is important ‘that we get this done quickly’ as indirect talks restart in Sharm el-Sheikh

A US delegation led by envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to join talks in Egypt on Wednesday to reinforce President Donald Trump’s involvement in the newly restarted negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

The indirect talks at Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort city on the Red Sea, entered their second day on the second anniversary of the Hamas surprise attack into Israel that triggered the bloody conflict.

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Ken Jacobs, mainstay of New York’s underground film culture, dies aged 92

Experimental film-maker’s works included Little Stabs at Happiness, Blonde Cobra, and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son

Renowned experimental film-maker Ken Jacobs, whose works such as Little Stabs at Happiness, Blonde Cobra and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son made him a key member of the underground film circuit of the 1960s, has died aged 92. His son Azazel Jacobs, also a film-maker, told the New York Times that he died of kidney failure in hospital on Sunday.

Described by the New York Times as “the éminence grise of the American avant garde”, Jacobs and his wife Flo, with whom he collaborated on much of his work, straddled the worlds of experimental art and American new wave film-making, along with the likes of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas. He was a founding member of New York’s Film-Makers’ Co-Operative and the first director of the Millennium Film Workshop in 1966, both of which offered a space for film-makers working outside the mainstream and which are still operating today.

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Federal agents taunted Chicago woman to ‘do something’ before shooting her, attorney claims

Officers say woman was in chase ending in ramming border patrol vehicle during Trump’s immigration crackdown

The attorney for a woman who was shot by federal agents in Chicago over the weekend after she allegedly rammed a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicle has claimed that body-camera footage captures one of the officers saying: “Do something, bitch,” before opening fire, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The shooting occurred on Saturday morning in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, as immigration agents, at the behest of the second Trump administration, have been scouring Illinois’s largest city for people to deport.

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Pam Bondi and Senate Democrats spar amid Trump’s troop deployments

US attorney general blames shutdown on Democrats as judiciary panel questions her on Epstein and deployments

Democratic senators sparred with attorney general Pam Bondi over her handling of the Epstein files and Donald Trump’s nationwide deployments of national guard at a bitterly partisan Senate hearing on Tuesday.

Bondi’s appearance before the Senate judiciary committee was her first since being confirmed in February, and comes as the president steps up his crackdown on political opponents and Democratic-run cities nationwide.

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Gold prices scale record highs as investors seek safe haven

US government shutdown and uncertainty about the economy has caused a surge in value of precious metal

Gold futures prices topped $4,000 per ounce for the first time on Tuesday as investors continue to seek safe havens for their money, with the US government essentially shut down and widespread uncertainty around the economy.

As of 9.10am ET, gold futures traded at $4,003 in New York. The going price for New York spot gold rose to $3,960.60 per troy ounce – the standard for measuring precious metals.

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No air traffic control crew at busy LA airport amid government shutdown staffing crunch

Air traffic to the Hollywood Burbank Airport would be remotely managed for six hours on Monday night causing delays for travellers

Hollywood Burbank Airport in Los Angeles will have no air traffic control staff for nearly six hours on Monday evening, as the effects of the US government shutdown rippled across the country.

From 4.15pm until 10pm the Federal Aviation Administration anticipates there will be no air traffic controllers in their tower, although the FAA has said it is trying to bring in staffing sooner than that, according to ABC News.

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Trump orders approval of 211-mile mining road through Alaska wilderness

Ambler Road project, approved in Trump’s first term but blocked by Biden, would harm Native tribes and wildlife

Donald Trump on Monday ordered the approval of a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

The long-debated Ambler Road project was approved in the US president’s first term, but was later blocked by the Biden administration after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Indigenous tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

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Brazil’s president asks US to scrap tariffs in ‘friendly’ call with Trump

Presidents spoke on a video call as expert speculates that Haiti could be an area where the two leaders can cooperate

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call, swapping phone numbers after months of friction.

Ties between the US and Brazil have nosedived as a result of Trump’s campaign to pressure Brazilian authorities into abandoning the coup trial of his far-right ally, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Rush reform for first time since drummer Neil Peart’s death

Canadian prog-rockers will play seven concerts in summer 2026 in the US, Canada and Mexico, after hiring new drummer Anika Nilles

Rush, the Canadian prog rockers whose epic and detailed songcraft continues to attract a large and heartfelt fandom, are to reform for the first time since the death of drummer Neil Peart.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, both 72, will tour the US, Canada and Mexico, playing seven concerts in summer 2026 beginning in Los Angeles on 7 June.

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France is in crisis but bond markets leave other governments at risk of meltdown too

Investors rattled by resignation of French PM but country is not alone in trying to grapple with political maths

Sébastien Lecornu’s abrupt resignation as the French prime minister on Monday after less than a month in the role marked the latest clash between France’s stretched public finances and its polarised politics.

Lecornu was the latest prime minister to try and fail to cobble together a package of spending cuts and tax rises that would pass muster in a parliament without a clear majority, and contain mounting bond market pressures.

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Judge blocks Trump’s bid to deploy national guard to Oregon – US politics live

Ruling by US District Judge Karin Immergut blocks any deployment to Portland for two weeks as legal wrangling continues

The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, accused Democrats of being “not serious” in negotiations to end the federal government shutdown, while the Democratic leader accused Republicans of driving the shutdown, now on its fifth day and expected to last at least through next week.

Talks between the opposing political parties stalled over the weekend, with no votes anticipated to end the standoff. A CBS poll found just 28% of Democratic voters and 23% of Republicans consider their party’s positions worth shutting down the government.

How could bringing in federalised national guard from California not be in direct contravention of the [decision] I issued yesterday?

At the direction of the president, approximately 200 federalized members of the California national guard are being reassigned from duty in the greater Los Angeles area to Portland, Oregon to support US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal personnel performing official duties, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.

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Eswatini confirms arrival of 10 more people as part of US deportation deal

African kingdom receives second group of third-country nationals in what NGOs and lawyers say is violation of human rights

Ten people deported by the US have arrived in Eswatini, its government said, the second group of third-country deportees to be sent to the southern African kingdom by the Trump administration in what lawyers and NGOs have described as violations of their human rights.

A statement by the Eswatini government posted on social media before their arrival on Monday said: “The individuals will be kept in a secured area separate from the public, while arrangements are made for their return to their countries of origin.”

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