US government shuts down after Democrats refuse to back Republican funding plan

First shutdown in nearly seven years as Republicans accused of ‘risking America’s healthcare’ in spending bill

The US government shut down on Wednesday, after congressional Democrats refused to support a Republican plan to extend funding for federal departments unless they won a series of concessions centered on healthcare.

The GOP, which controls the Senate and the House of Representatives, repudiated their demands, setting off a legislative scramble that lasted into the hours before funding lapsed at midnight, when the Senate failed to advance both parties’ bills to keep funding going.

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DoJ sues LA sheriff for processing concealed carry gun licenses too slowly

‘Unreasonable delays’ in giving permits violates residents’ second amendment rights, claims justice department

The US Department of Justice sued the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department on Tuesday, alleging it violated the constitution by moving too slowly to process gun licenses for people who want to carry concealed weapons.

The sheriff’s department’s “unreasonable delays” in granting licenses violates California residents’ second amendment right to bear arms outside the home, the justice department’s civil rights division said in a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.

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‘Dominant on the river’: 32 Chunk crowned champion in ‘biggest Fat Bear Week yet’

Brown bear’s nearly 100,000 votes leads him to victory despite suffering for most of season with broken jaw

“The merely chubby have been winnowed away,” a naturalist intoned. “We are left with a clash of titans.”

After a record-breaking week of public voting, Katmai national park and preserve in Alaska has announced the winner of its “biggest Fat Bear Week yet”.

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‘Fatal flaws’: analysts cast doubt on Tony Blair’s plan for future of Gaza

Former PM seems a perfect fit for Trump’s new era but his track record in the Middle East is not reassuring

The emergence of Tony Blair as a potential Gaza interim consul and member of Donald Trump’s “board of peace” marks his latest reinvention as a would-be power broker in the Middle East.

As a key architect of the disastrous invasion of Iraq, a promoter of a simplistic interpretation of Islamist extremism as the world’s main security challenge and a figure who has been accused of intertwining his own business interests with his political advocacy, he is in some ways a perfect fit for the new Trump era.

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Kash Patel allegedly gives New Zealand officials guns illegal to possess under local laws

New Zealand destroyed pistols the FBI director gifted to security chiefs after finding the guns potentially operable

On a visit to New Zealand, Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told the Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands the FBI director presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

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Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe

Study finds prosecutors targeting low-income women mainly in US south – and figure likely to be an undercount

In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.

Of the 412 cases tracked by Pregnancy Justice, the vast majority took place in the US south, targeted low-income women and involved allegations that women broke laws against child abuse, endangerment or neglect, according to the research, which was compiled by the reproductive justice group. About 300 prosecutions took place in Alabama and Oklahoma. In 16 cases, law enforcement charged women with homicide.

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‘It’s hard to know what day it is’: families tell of grim Ice detention in Texas

Anxiety high as parents and children tell of lack of clean water, inadequate medical care and poor food in ‘prison-like’ conditions

At the South Texas Family Residential Center, guards allegedly refer to detained immigrant families as “inmates”, spouses aren’t allowed to hold hands, and children don’t know where they can kick around a ball without getting in trouble, according to a stark court filing.

Yet those are minor indignities compared with accounts given to outside monitors of a lack of clean drinking water, sleep, healthy food, privacy, hygiene supplies and appropriate healthcare. Alongside government admissions of what attorneys called “prolonged unexplained detention” at the facility in the remote town of Dilley, Texas anxiety levels for detainees are high.

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Palestinian American denied slot at DNC competing for Georgia governor: ‘We’re trying to rebuild the coalition’

Ruwa Romman is ‘running to build a movement’ and ‘restoring civic ethos of being involved in the government’

Ruwa Romman, the first Palestinian-American elected to state-level office in Georgia, was fighting for a speaking slot a year ago at the Democratic national convention, hoping to draw attention to concerns among progressive voters about the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

On Monday, she announced her candidacy for governor in Georgia – looking for a different kind of attention.

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Trump gives Hamas ‘three or four days’ to respond to his peace plan for Gaza

US president warns militant group will ‘pay in hell’ if it rejects the deal, which seeks to end two-year-long war

Donald Trump has given Hamas an ultimatum of “three or four days” to respond to his proposed peace and reconstruction plan in Gaza, warning the militant group would “pay in hell” if it rejects the deal, as the Israeli offensive continued, inflicting further civilian casualties.

Trump’s proposal was announced in a joint press conference in Washington with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and seeks a definitive end to the relentless two-year-long war. At least 31 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Tuesday, local hospitals said.

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Nine people dead and scores injured over weekend of mass US shootings

Six separate mass shootings bring tally to 324 this year, underscoring continuing US crisis of gun violence

Sunday’s mass murder at a Mormon church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, which left at least four worshippers dead and eight wounded, was just one of six mass shootings that erupted across the US over a weekend of gun horror.

The Gun Violence Archive, an online non-profit database which records mass shootings in America, added six fresh incidents over Saturday and Sunday. The concentrated bloodletting, spread out across four states, took the lives of nine people, including the suspect in Sunday’s shooting at Grand Blanc’s Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church, as well as injuring at least 33.

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Cannabis stocks soar after Trump shares video promoting drug’s use for seniors

Video posted on Truth Social touts CBD as a ‘gamechanger’ and promotes Medicaid coverage of CBD products

Cannabis stocks are on a high after Donald Trump shared a video on Sunday promoting cannabis use for seniors and Medicaid coverage of CBD products.

The nearly three-minute-long video, posted on the president’s Truth Social platform, touts the usage of hemp-derived CBD as a “gamechanger” that is a pain and stress reliever for seniors.

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Trump administration spending $625m to revive dying coal industry

White House allocating 13.1m acres of public land to coal mining, which has been on rapid decline over past 30 years

The White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.

The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats

Exclusive: Miller’s homeland security council has played a key part in coordinating operations, sources say

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.

The strikes on the Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics, which the administration has claimed were necessary because interdiction did not work, have been orchestrated through the homeland security council (HSC), which Miller leads as the homeland security adviser.

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US citizen Amir Amiry freed by Taliban in Afghanistan

Secretary of state Marco Rubio welcomes release as ‘important step forward’ as Taliban seek to normalise relations with US

The Taliban on Sunday freed a US citizen from an Afghan prison, weeks after they said they had reached an agreement with US envoys on a prisoner exchange as part of an effort to normalise relations.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio welcomed the release of Amir Amiry, saying it marked the administration’s determination, reinforced by Donald Trump’s recent executive order, to protect American nationals from wrongful detention abroad.

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US citizen Amir Amiry freed by Taliban in Afghanistan

Secretary of state Marco Rubio welcomes release as ‘important step forward’ as Taliban seek to normalise relations with US

The Taliban on Sunday freed a US citizen from an Afghan prison, weeks after they said they had reached an agreement with US envoys on a prisoner exchange as part of an effort to normalise relations.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio welcomed the release of Amir Amiry, saying it marked the administration’s determination, reinforced by Donald Trump’s recent executive order, to protect American nationals from wrongful detention abroad.

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Tropical Storm Imelda forming and expected to become hurricane

Forecast track could take storm, which caused disruption in Bahamas and Cuba, away from US east coast

Tropical Storm Imelda formed on Sunday and was expected to become a hurricane on a forecast track that could take it away from the US east coast in the coming days. The storm was causing disruption in the Bahamas and Cuba on Sunday, and a tropical storm watch was posted in parts of Florida.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto weakened very slightly but remained a strong category 4 storm in the Atlantic, threatening Bermuda.

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Tropical Storm Imelda forming and expected to become hurricane

Forecast track could take storm, which caused disruption in Bahamas and Cuba, away from US east coast

Tropical Storm Imelda formed on Sunday and was expected to become a hurricane on a forecast track that could take it away from the US east coast in the coming days. The storm was causing disruption in the Bahamas and Cuba on Sunday, and a tropical storm watch was posted in parts of Florida.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto weakened very slightly but remained a strong category 4 storm in the Atlantic, threatening Bermuda.

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Leaders of Mexican megachurch led a sprawling sex-trafficking enterprise, US prosecutors allege

The family behind La Luz del Mundo Church allegedly facilitated sexual abuse of children and women for decades

Since its inception nearly 100 years ago, La Luz del Mundo Church has been a family affair even as it spread from Mexico to the US and around the world.

Eusebio “Aaron” Joaquín Gonzalez, who founded the Guadalajara-based Christian church, was succeeded by his son, Samuel Joaquín Flores, upon his death in 1964.

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Three dead in Arizona flooding as the Carolinas brace for possible hurricane

Flooding overwhelms town of Globe as North Carolina governor declares an emergency ahead of storm

At least three people died and others were believed missing after flooding in a rural community in Arizona, officials said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, crews spent Saturday making preparations for an unnamed weather system that is forecast to approach that state’s coast as a hurricane early next week.

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FBI arrest man who allegedly threatened to shoot people at Texas Pride parade

Suspect Joshua Cole allegedly used a Facebook account to threaten revenge for murder of Charlie Kirk

Federal authorities in Texas have arrested a man for allegedly threatening to shoot people at a pro-LGBTQ+ parade, to avenge the murder of Charlie Kirk.

According to court documents viewed by the Guardian, on 18 September, the FBI’s field office in Dallas was notified by Abilene, Texas, police about online threats from a local resident.

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