President Donald Trump and other top leaders evacuated from the annual dinner after an unspecified threat
David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, spoke briefly to Frank Luntz, a prominent political consultant and pollster.
“I watched the security people use the ultimate in athleticism to get over tables, get over chairs, to get to the people that they were guarding,” Luntz said.
Continue reading...Melissa Chiu, 54, director of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, led the institution for 12 years
A museum director at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has announced that she is leaving to take over at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Melissa Chiu has been director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall for 12 years. In an interview on Thursday, she insisted that her departure is not related to Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere with the Smithsonian.
Continue reading...President’s press conference after White House Easter egg roll did little to dispel fears he has lost touch with reality
Donald Trump began his day standing with a person in a giant bunny costume and boasting about the Iran war to an audience of children.
The annual Easter egg roll on the White House South Lawn conjured a fitting Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland image for a US president who has disappeared down what many would call a rabbit hole.
Continue reading...US National Park Service lawyers cite materials that will be installed to make ‘heavily fortified’ facility
Donald Trump’s administration is arguing that a judge’s order to halt construction of a $400m White House ballroom creates a security risk for the US president as his team asks a federal appeals court to pause the ruling.
In a motion filed on Friday, US National Park Service (NPS) lawyers say that the federal judge’s order to suspend construction of the new facility is “threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the president and his family, and the president’s staff”.
Continue reading...US president demolished East Wing of White House last year to make way for 90,000-sq-ft project
A US judge has halted the construction of Donald Trump’s $400m White House ballroom.
The US president demolished the historic East Wing of the White House last year to make way for the project.
Continue reading...Actor outside Kennedy Center urges Americans to ‘stand tall against authoritarianism’ and resist free-speech threats
The actor Jane Fonda joined journalists, musicians and writers outside Washington’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in urging US citizens to “break your silence” and “stand tall against authoritarianism”.
At a damp but defiant rally hosted by Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment on Friday, around a hundred invited guests gathered to hear speakers and singers rail against book bans, political censorship and other threats to free speech under Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Park police chief says officer was ‘ambushed’ by two gunmen who fired as officer drove in unmarked vehicle
A US park police officer was seriously wounded on Monday evening in a shooting in Washington DC in what the park police chief called an ambush.
The park police chief, Scott Brecht, said in a press briefing that the unidentified officer was “ambushed” by two gunmen who fired at the officer as he drove by in an unmarked vehicle. The officer was working on a park police investigation when he was shot. The chief declined to give specifics of the investigation.
Continue reading...Crowds gather in DC, New York and beyond to denounce Trump’s Iran strikes as an illegal act of war
A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response
War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded
As news circulated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, anti-war protesters gathered across the United States, including outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square to voice opposition to US military involvement in the region.
“It wasn’t sanctioned by Congress, so what Trump is doing is on his own terms, it’s making him a fascist and it’s making the country into a fascist state,” said Sue Johnson, a protester.
Continue reading...President plans to honor Sarah Beckstrom, who was fatally shot, as well as Andrew Wolfe, who is in critical condition
Donald Trump said on Sunday that he invited the family of a national guard member fatally shot last week to the White House, adding that he spoke to her parents and they were “devastated”.
US army specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed in a shooting on Wednesday in Washington DC. Her fellow service member, US air force staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains hospitalized in critical condition. Vigils across West Virginia have taken place in their memory.
Continue reading...Homeland security secretary also blamed ‘activist’ judges for defying court order to halt deportation flights
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, claimed on Sunday that the suspect in the national guard shooting in Washington DC was “radicalized” in the US and blamed the Biden administration, though the suspect’s asylum was approved under Donald Trump.
The shooting suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was granted asylum under the Trump administration in April 2025. He worked with CIA backed units in Afghanistan, coming to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program.
Continue reading...Move marks shift in how the guard are used in the US capital, days after two members were shot
National guard troops are to be paired with local law enforcement on patrols in Washington DC, according to a report in the Washington Post on Friday, 48 hours after two guard members were shot.
“Officers will conduct high-visibility patrols with the national guard and provide assistance as needed,” according to an email to the district’s leadership obtained by the Post.
Continue reading...In a social media post sent late on Thanksgiving, US president said he would ‘end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens’ following Washington DC shooting
Donald Trump has said he will “permanently pause migration from all third world countries,” a day after two national guard members were shot in Washington DC in an attack that has become a political flashpoint in the president’s ongoing crackdown on immigration.
In a social media post beginning with “a very happy Thanksgiving,” sent after 11pm on Thursday, the US president said his administration would “end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens” and remove “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States”.
Continue reading...Donald Trump signaled after attack that refugee and asylum cases would be scrutinized
Trump administration officials say they are undertaking a broad re-examination of asylum cases and green cards issued to citizens of certain countries, after the shooting of two national guard members near the White House in Washington DC on Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) named the suspect in the shooting as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the US under a policy set up under Joe Biden after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and continued under Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, worked with agency-backed military units during US war in Afghanistan
The suspected shooter of two national guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday worked with CIA-backed military units during the US war in Afghanistan, the agency has confirmed.
The alleged gunman, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, came to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program that gave some Afghans who had worked for the US government entry visas to the US.
Continue reading...Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth gives approval for troops to remain in US capital past November end, CNN reports
National guard troops sent to the nation’s capital will reportedly remain there through at least February.
The order was set to lapse at the end of November but was extended by Pete Hegseth, who leads the US Department of Defense. As of Wednesday, there are nearly 2,400 national guard troops in Washington DC, according to CNN. The network also notes that their presence costs about $1m daily.
Continue reading...Police decline to comment on injuries or possible suspects but early reports say one person in critical condition
A shooting near Howard University has left at least four people shot, police in Washington DC said.
The shooting happened as thousands descended on the campus for homecoming celebrations.
Continue reading...Driver turned himself in to Maryland authorities after initially fleeing scene, where eight children were injured
A driver rammed into a group of people at a children’s birthday party outside of Washington DC late on Saturday, killing a woman in her 30s and injuring at least 14 others, eight of whom were children.
In a statement released by the Bladensburg police department in Maryland, they announced that the driver of the striking vehicle had turned himself in and had been identified as a 66 year-old man from the surrounding area.
Continue reading...Outside the supreme court, protesters invoked the legacy of civil rights giants with a key Voting Rights Act plank at stake
Wearing a T-shirt proclaiming “We won’t Black down”, Wanda Mosley had made the trip from Atlanta. “I had to be here because the Voting Rights Act is on life support,” the 55-year-old explained. “Today the court will synthesise the arguments and decide if they’re going to kill it – or allow it to live.”
Mosley was among a few hundred protesters who gathered in warm October sunshine outside the supreme court on Wednesday. Inside the building, whose facade was obscured by scaffolding, justices were weighing arguments in a case involving Louisiana electoral districts and section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Continue reading...Washington DC-based institution says it’ll temporarily close museums and research centers in response to shutdown
Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo closed their doors on Sunday in response to the ongoing government shutdown.
In a statement over the weekend, the Washington DC-based Smithsonian Institution announced that it was temporarily closing its museums, research centers and its zoo due to the government shutdown which has now entered the third week.
Continue reading...Protesters shouted ‘Trump is the Hitler of our time!’ as he had a meal near the White House to promote his deployment of the National Guard
Donald Trump faced protesters shouting “Free DC! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” as he dined at a Washington restaurant, videos posted online showed.
The US president approached the shouting protesters in the restaurant, pausing a few feet away from them for a few moments, nodding and smiling without offering a response.
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