US Politics

The US president’s net approval has recovered slightly from the November low. More

President Donald Trump has said he didn’t know anything about a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat on 2 September. He also stood by his defence secretary, saying Pete Hegseth didn’t know a US navy admiral had ordered a second strike. Hegseth also denied knowledge of it, but stated the admiral ‘had the complete authority’ to launch itUS politics live Continue reading… More

The Trump administration claims “mass migration” is a threat to “Western civilisation”. But research shows migrants don’t commit crimes at disproportionate rates. More

The condition of two West Virginia national guard members shot on Wednesday near the White House in Washington is unclear after the state governor received “conflicting reports” and Donald Trump said they were critically wounded.The incident happened near the Farragut West metro station and comes amid a controversial deployment of troops to the US capital city ordered by the Trump administration. While Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s governor, had said both soldiers were killed in the shooting, he later posted an update clarifying that more information was needed.“We are now receiving conflicting reports about the condition of our two Guard members and will provide additional updates once we receive more complete information,” wrote Morrisey on X, minutes after first posting that they were killed.A task force of an estimated 2,375 national guard troops are currently activated in Washington, with West Virginia making up the second largest contingent at 416 troops, only behind DC’s national guard at 949 troops. Some units in Washington are armed with their service-issue handguns and others with rifles, a defense official told the Guardian in August.Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) wrote on X shortly before 3pm local time that the scene is secured and one suspect is in custody.Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said earlier that both national guardsmen were “critically wounded” and the shooter is “also severely wounded” and “will pay a very steep price”.Emergency vehicles were seen responding to the area. Earlier, the MPD said that a “critical incident” occurred. “MPD is on the scene of a shooting at 17th and I Street, NW. Please avoid the area. Updates to come,” the post said.Witnesses reported seeing several National Guard troops running across the square. Office buildings in the square were put under lockdown, with workers told to leave by rear door if they wished to leave the premises. The Guardian’s Washington office, located on Farragut Square Park, was under lockdown. Law enforcement officers also ordered staff in the buildings to stay away from glass doors adjoining the square.The White House was also locked down.National guard troops have been positioned across Washington since August, when the Trump administration declared a “crime emergency” in the city and ordered them in to support federal and local law enforcement.The other states that sent their national guard to Washington include South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, though several state officials told the Associated Press in October they plan to end their deployments by 30 November.The deployment has been extended multiple times, and was reportedly ordered to continue through February 2026. A federal judge has since ruled the deployment illegal, but put the ruling on hold for 21 days, leaving the Guard remains in place while the administration decides whether to appeal. More

The case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia ended on Wednesday with a filing for dismissal by the state prosecutor who took over after the removal of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney.Pete Skandalakis, the prosecutor and the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, confirmed to the Guardian that “it’s over”after superior court judge Scott McAfee issued a one-page order on Wednesday dismissing the 2020 racketeering case. Skandalakis said he would be making no further comments about the matter.“The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over,” Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow wrote in a message posted to X. “This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”On Wednesday afternoon, Trump posted on Truth Social about the dismissal, saying: “This case should have never been brought in the first place… We have to hold responsible those who attempted to destroy our Legal System and Nation itself as they tried to use it to silence and imprison Political Opponents for protecting our Country, and exercising our FIRST AMENDMENT Rights. The few remaining Democrat Witch Hunts will soon meet the same embarrassing end.”In the long-winded post, Trump also lambasted Willis, Nathan Wade, Joe Biden and, as referenced above, the Democratic party.A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Biden in Georgia.The dismissal means that Trump no longer faces prosecution after his call in which he asked the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn the US election results in Georgia.Special counsel Jack Smith had charged Trump with federal crimes of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the White House last year, citing longstanding justice department policy against the indictment of a sitting president. Smith himself is now the target of a Hatch Act investigation by the office of special counsel at the Department of Justice.Trump’s conviction on felony charges in New York for making hush-money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election resulted in an unconditional discharge by the court after his election, sparing him any punishment.The justice department attempted to indict the New York attorney general, Letitia James, on charges of bank fraud and making false statements in Virginia; a federal judge threw out the criminal cases against James and James Comey on Monday, concluding that the prosecutor handling the cases was unlawfully appointed.The Georgia case remained the only criminal prosecution of Trump still standing, but Willis’s disqualification by the Georgia supreme court doomed the effort. The court ruled that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, revealed in dramatic court filings in January 2024, created an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest.Georgia’s supreme court sent the case to Skandalakis with instructions to find a new prosecutor, but that proved to be a struggle. With a 14 November deadline to act set by McAfee looming and no willing takers, Skandalakis appointed himself.Despite the dismissal, four people pleaded guilty before the case imploded. Trump had pleaded not guilty, but was also protected from state-level prosecutions while president. Fourteen other defendants remained subject to prosecution.Trump pardoned 77 people associated with the fake electors affair, including his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case. None of them faced federal charges, rendering the move largely symbolic. He did not pardon himself. More

Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America, has said it is “surprised and disappointed” by a report that the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, could sever all military ties to the organization for being “genderless” and failing to “cultivate masculine values”.In a draft memo to Congress obtained by NPR, Hegseth criticized Scouting America, which began admitting girls in 2018, for purportedly attempting to “attack boy-friendly spaces”.“It is no longer a meritocracy which holds its members accountable to meet high standards,” Hegseth wrote.The US military has provided support to the Scouts for more than a century. But in the memo, Hegseth said: “The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys.”His proposal, which has not yet been sent to Congress, calls for the Pentagon to pull medical and logistical aid to the National Jamboree, a gathering of up to 20,000 Scouts at a remote site in West Virginia about every four years. It also looks to prohibit Scouting troops from meeting at military installations in the US and abroad.In a statement, the Pentagon said it “will not comment on leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and that may be pre-decisional”.Congress requires the Pentagon to support the Jamboree. It lends trucks, ambulances and medical teams free of charge. But Hegseth can withhold that aid  if he determines providing it would be “detrimental to national security”.In the memo he claims Scouting America is fostering “gender confusion” and that it would harm national security to send troops and equipment to the Jamboree as it would divert resources from protecting US territory.Scouting America said in a statement that the organization was proud of its long affiliation with the military and, while it is “disappointed in the potential policy change”, it was committed to continuing its work.“Our nation’s military has walked side-by-side with Scouts for generations,” the group said. Scouting “is and has always been a nonpartisan organization” and works “constructively with every US presidential administration – Republican and Democrat”.Its “American values have not changed”, he said – to “prepare young people for life by instilling in them the values of character, leadership, citizenship, and service”.The partnership has long helped the military’s recruitment efforts. As many as 20% of cadets and midshipmen at the service academies are Eagle Scouts, and those who decide to enlist enjoy advanced military rank and better pay. That would end under Hegseth’s proposed policy changes.As president, Donald Trump is the honorary leader of Scouting America. At the time of the 2017 Jamboree, he praised the group as having “no better citizens” and pointed out that 10 of his cabinet members were former Scouts.Hegseth, who is not a former Boy Scout, in 2018 complained when the group changed its name and admitted girls, saying on Fox News that the organization had been “cratering itself for quite some time”. “This is an institution the left didn’t control. They didn’t want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing,” he said.Since taking office, Hegseth has moved to slash DEI programs at the Pentagon, disproportionately removing senior female and African American officers, and frequently suggesting, without evidence, that diversity in all its forms has weakened the organization. More

For months, Ohio police officer Connor Grubb and his department attempted to hide his identity following an incident in which he shot and killed Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter in a Kroger parking lot outside Columbus in August 2023.Grubb, who on 21 November was acquitted of murder and other charges, claimed that Young, who was stopped for allegedly stealing, attempted to drive over him – which would make him a victim of a crime and eligible to protect his identity from public view through a legal provision called Marsy’s Law. Police footage of the killing shows Young slowly driving the car forward and to the right before Grubb fires through the windshield and into Young’s chest.Although the Ohio supreme court later struck down Grubb’s anonymity claim, dozens of incidents from across the country have emerged in recent years in which police officers involved in fatal and violent incidents with the public have been able to hide their identities by invoking Marsy’s Law.Marsy’s Law, or versions thereof, has been adopted in 12 states following the killing of a woman in California by her ex-partner in 1983. The idea is that victims of crime are afforded the right of anonymity.But some civil rights groups fear it has become a protection tool for officers with violent tendencies.View image in fullscreen“The way Marsy’s Law is being applied to police in the course of their duties acting on behalf of the state is inappropriate and a misuse of the law,” says Emily Cole of the organization Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change.“Police and prosecutors determine who the victims are in any interaction and using Marsy’s Law to shield officer identities during violent interactions community members have with police presumes that law enforcement, as the arm of the state, have more rights than actual victims of their actions do.”Across the country, dozens of cases have emerged in which police officers and the departments they work for have hidden officers’ identities.In Florida, the officers who shot and killed Jayden Baez, a 20-year-old man, outside a Target store in 2022 were not named after the local sheriff’s office used Marsy’s Law to avoid identifying them. Law enforcement claimed Baez attempted to ram his car into the officers, therefore making them crime victims.Florida has seen several other similar cases that have involved killings or severe injury to civilians, while in North and South Dakota, law enforcement has sought to hide officers’ names in similar incidents.In some cases, law enforcement officials have hidden identities even when the involved officers fail to officially report any injury to themselves. While some law enforcement districts require officers to invoke Marsy’s Law, others offer them a choice, according to a ProPublica investigation.Given the controversy it has garnered, some cities in Florida have sought to ban its use by law enforcement officers, although police unions have opposed the move. In 2023, the Florida supreme court ruled, however, that the law does not include an automatic right to hide officers’ names.Victims’ families and civil rights groups aren’t alone in their opposition to the provision. Legal experts are also voicing concern.View image in fullscreen“Marsy’s Law violates defendants’ due process rights, increases the potential for wrongful convictions, and undermines the principles of the US legal system. It also dismantles several recent criminal justice reform efforts that are largely supported by the American people,” says Ráchael Powers, a criminal justice expert at the University of Cincinnati.“This provision also decreases accountability – for example, it makes the work of civilian oversight boards very difficult because they cannot obtain the relevant information to conduct investigations.”Emails sent by the Guardian to an organization affiliated with Marsy’s Law in Ohio, where the law was added to the constitution through an amendment in 2017, were not responded to.Police officials, for their part, have attempted to play down the ultimate role Marsy’s Law has in the wider prosecution of a legal case, and claim that the anonymity it grants law enforcement is temporary at best.“Victims of crime, whether police officers or plumbers, are entitled to victim rights protections that protect their privacy. An officer whose actions result in death that isn’t a crime victim shouldn’t be redacted,” said Jay McDonald, president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio.“Most victims of crime, including police officers, will have to testify at trial and will lose any anonymity they may have temporarily had from Marsy’s Law when they take the stand. The outright harassment, threats and violence that law enforcement faces on a daily basis are exactly why Marsy’s Law protections and others are necessary.”Some state courts such as in Florida and Ohio, however, have ruled against the provision because of its controversial nature and its perceived exploitation by law enforcement. In December 2024, a court order ruled that Marsy’s Law does not protect law enforcement officers from lawful subpoena in the case of the police killing of Jamie Overstreet in Columbus in August 2023. Marsy’s Law was initially invoked by police after officers claimed they saw a gun next to Overstreet before he was shot.But on Tuesday, Ohio’s supreme court ruled that officers’ identities could be hidden in another case involving a 2023 bank robbery in Hilliard that saw the suspect shot and killed and an officer injured.In North Dakota, the name of an officer involved in a fatal shooting in 2022 that initially was hidden was later made public upon advice from the state’s attorney general’s office.But experts say the wider tension created by a long history of violent law enforcement interactions with the public, especially with Black communities, means that divisions remain. Communities have been roiled when in some cases, police departments have been able to conceal the identities of officer-involved fatal shootings without ever having to invoke Marsy’s Law.When unarmed Jayland Walker was shot more than 46 times and killed by police officers in Akron, Ohio, in June 2022, Ohio’s supreme court ruled that the eight officers who discharged their guns into Walker did not have to be publicly identified. Police claimed Walker had discharged a weapon at them during an earlier car chase.For the family and legal representatives of Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter, whose killer, Grubb now walks free and is on paid leave from his law enforcement duties, the belief is that the law enforcement system is stacked against them.“We have to have de-escalation. We cannot have officers pull a gun in a petty theft situation,” Young family lawyer Sean Walton told a press conference on 21 November.“Two lives were lost. It’s not just Ta’Kiya, it’s an unborn daughter that does not get to step foot on this earth.” More

“If they explain Nigeria to you and you understand it, they didn’t explain it well enough”. So goes the maxim for trying to parse Nigeria’s labyrinthine political dynamics. A security crisis has engulfed the country, catching the attention of the US president in the process. With the help of our West Africa correspondent, Eromo Egbejule, I’ll try to get to the bottom of what is happening. The marginalisation of Nigeria’s minoritiesView image in fullscreenOn Friday, more than 300 schoolchildren were kidnapped from a Catholic school in the country’s north-central Niger State. That was just the latest example of escalating violence, as the country has been plagued by crises including the killings of hundreds in Benue State and a recent live-streamed terrorist attack on worshippers at a church in Kwara State. Earlier this month, Donald Trump threatened to invade, citing an ongoing ‘‘Christian genocide”, while Trinidadian hip-hop star Nicki Minaj spoke at a UN event in New York spotlighting Christian persecution.After Minaj’s address at the UN, Rolling Stone published an article claiming that “Nicki’s claims of extremism against Nigerian Christians … aren’t backed by any data.” The article has not been received well by many Nigerians online, who have argued that westerners are weighing in with unwarranted authority. “To start, there is religious persecution in Nigeria,” Eromo says.“The dominant Islamic class, entrenched by the 18th-century Fulani scholar Usman dan Fodio, proposed a much stricter version of Islam, which is what influenced the implementation of Sharia Law in 12 states after Nigeria returned to democracy, from 1999 to the early 2000s. And so some of those who haven’t adhered to that have been killed and displaced.”This not only affects Christians – Muslim groups are also impacted if they are not seen as Muslim proper. In the north there are Sunni groups attacking Shia groups, who are viewed as heretics by extremists such as Boko Haram.The country’s middle belt, a site of much of this violence, has “a predominance of minorities”. “Many Nigerian crises are essentially about the marginalisation of political, ethnic and religious minorities. Such minorities feel whatever little resources they have left are being taken away by the majority or state-backed minorities,” Eromo says. “It’s just that the most colourful manifestation of this marginalisation is between Christians and Muslims, and most minorities in the middle belt are Christian.” While there are significant Muslim casualties, this does not undermine the reality of religious persecution against Christians in Nigerian states such as Benue and Kaduna; but it should be seen as one aspect in a broader quagmire of domination.The herder-farmer conflictView image in fullscreenNigeria’s security crisis differs significantly by region. The most notable thus far has been Boko Haram’s insurgency in the north-east, but it is the herder-farmer conflict, which has been especially prominent in the middle belt, that has largely been extrapolated into a narrative of “Christian genocide”. There is little cattle ranching in Nigeria, due to a resistance in uptake of ranches and the prevalence of nomadic cattle herds. The Fulani herdsmen historically had a more symbiotic relationship with non-Fulani farmers, but this has become strained by resource competition and exploitation by criminal groups.Climate change, desertification and deforestation have all exacerbated the problem, as Fulani herdsmen travel farther south. And there is the rapid development of former herding trails. “Abuja used to be part of the big grazing roads in the 1960s, but now it is the capital, there’s malls and complexes where you used to take your cows through.” What this has left is a series of grievances and conflicts, and with a lack of functioning state policing to calm the problems, the result is large graveyards. These herdsmen and militias also have access to more complicated and sophisticated weaponry, with conflicts in the Sahel region fuelling the proliferation of unsecured weapon stockpiles. This has led to an asymmetric conflict with Christian farmers, who often only have machetes.A centralised power with little federal oversightView image in fullscreenEromo says that Nigeria has repeatedly failed to get to grips with insurgent violence because of a centralised government. “Abuja has all of the power, and there’s a lot of ungoverned, or under governed, spaces.” He also points to the lack of state police. He says that “Nigeria’s big problem” is “ignoring the minorities and focusing on regime security. It’s Nigeria’s original sin.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEromo continues: “Intelligence sharing is terrible. And so in all of these forests across the middle belt, north-east and into the north-west, there’s space for non-state actors to take over and to plan.” Indeed it was in Sambisa forest that the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls were held by Boko Haram. “So you have ideological criminals who are persecuting the religious, political and ethnic minorities. Then you have commercial criminals looking for money. There’s just so many groups – which is why the catch-all term is ‘bandits’.” The problem is also obfuscated by non-herder Fulani-speaking criminals exploiting resource conflicts and stereotypes.***‘Data is a luxury in Nigeria’View image in fullscreenThere are significant blind spots in the country’s data collection, hence calls for a unified national database. “Data is a luxury in Nigeria,” Eromo says. “There’s never enough data, no one even truly knows the true size of the economy, it’s just inshallah and vibes. Nigeria is so big, there’s forests where there’s no network, so sometimes you hear of atrocities 10 days later when a person escapes. Nigeria doesn’t even know how many people it has, we see an estimated 220 million, it could be less, it could be more. It’s been a problem spanning more than 100 years, since the first British census of Nigeria in 1921.”So the real extent of the persecution is not clear. “What if the people on the ground are seeing things that the rest of us don’t see?” Eromo says. “We have to tread carefully.”Religious persecution also cannot always be neatly divided from other motives. For example, Eromo tells me that the targeted abduction of Nigerian priests amounts to religious persecution. But priests are “economically important in small communities” and attract a higher ransom from church attendants as well as the Christian diaspora. “Some Imams have also been targeted, but people are more likely to pay for a priest.”***Where now for Nigeria?View image in fullscreenThere is no singular resolution for a country whose problems are too intricate and myriad to ever be done justice in this analysis. Is American intervention the answer? Certainly not. But I am loth to criticise the Nigerians who have echoed calls for US intervention. At the very least, perhaps such international embarrassment might wake up the Nigerian government. The narrative might be isolated from nuance, but that is understandably not the concern of victims and survivors. Why would Nigeria’s ignored minorities not embrace a moment of global attention? More