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    Justice department reportedly investigating DC police for allegedly manipulating crime data – live

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    The US attorney for DC has launched a criminal investigation into the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for allegedly manipulating crime data, the Washington Post is reporting.This investigation comes after NBC Washington reported that the MPD put police commander Michael Pulliam on leave in May, and began investigating him for allegedly making “questionable” changes to the city’s crime data.Sources tell the Post that the justice department’s investigation is set to go beyond investigating Pulliam, and examine actions of other local officials.The president has repeatedly claimed that crime in DC is the “worst its been”, despite a DOJ report that shows a 30-year low in violent crime in the nation’s capital.Earlier this week, Trump wrote on Truth Social that an investigation was taking place, but did not give any specifics. “D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do,” he said.Texas Democrats are tearing up the “permission slips” they signed in order to leave the chamber, joining state representative Nicole Collier ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the controversial Texas congressional redistricting maps.The slips are part of new surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans in the House chamber, stating that Democrats would “be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer” who would ensure their return to the chamber.The move follows a two-week quorum break that had delayed Republicans’ effort to redraw the state’s congressional districts to align with Donald Trump’s push to reshape the US House map in his favor before the 2026 midterm elections.On Tuesday, Collier chose to remain confined inside the Texas house chamber until lawmakers reconvene on Wednesday, refusing to comply with what she condemned as a “demeaning” protocol.US to ‘root out anti-Americanism’ in reviewing immigration applicationsThe Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.In an announcement, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles requests to stay in the United States or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that “reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting”.“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” said agency spokesperson Matthew Tragesser. “US Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible. Immigration benefits – including to live and work in the United States – remain a privilege, not a right.”The US Immigration and Nationality Act, which dates back to 1952, defines anti-Americanism, which at the time primarily focused on communists.Read the full story here:Donald Trump called on Texas Republicans in the legislature to pass the new congressional map “as is”, what he called “ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL CONGRESSIONAL MAP.”“With the Texas House now in Quorum, thanks to GREAT Speaker Dustin Burrows, I call on all of my Republican friends in the Legislature to work as fast as they can to get THIS MAP to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, ASAP,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.In the post, he’s linked a Texas border security map to a push for the congressional map.California senator Adam Schiff, one of Donald Trump’s fiercest political opponents, formed a legal defense fund after the president threatened him with federal investigations.Last week, FBI director Kash Patel declassified and released interview notes from a former House Intelligence Committee staffer. In 2017, the staffer accused Schiff of directing illegal leaks of classified information about Trump and Russia. Federal prosecutors had already investigated these claims during Trump’s first term and questioned the staffer’s credibility.Still, Trump used the allegations to call on attorney general Pam Bondi to open an investigation into the California Democrat.“I’m looking at Pam because I hope something’s going to be done about it,” Trump said on Wednesday. “It was a hoax created by the Democrats, but in particular, Schiff, crooked Hillary, the whole group.”The paperwork for the “Senator Schiff Legal Defense Fund” filed with the Internal Revenue Service is dated 14 August.National intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard said Tuesday she has stripped security clearances from 37 current and former national security officials, including some who worked on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.In a memo posted on X, Gabbard accused the targeted individuals of having engaged in “politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards”.This move is the latest act in a series of retributions by the Trump administration against national security officials and political opponents he views as adversaries. In March, Trump revoked security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and several other Democrats and critics. The order also stripped access from former secretary of state Antony Blinken, former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, New York attorney general Letitia James – who prosecuted Trump for fraud – and Biden’s entire family.

    The US attorney for DC has launched a criminal investigation into the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for allegedly manipulating crime data, according to the Washington Post. It comes as the president repeatedly claims that crime in DC is the “worst its been”, and has accused city officials of issuing fake crime statistics.

    In today’s White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt said that there will be “many discussions” with members of Congress when they return from recess about the president’s push to end mail-in ballots and the use of voting machines. She also said that the issue was a “priority” for Trump. A reminder that yesterday the president said that an executive order is being drafted to end mail-in voting. He also repeated baseless claims that the process is “corrupt”. Another reminder, the decision to end mail-in voting, and overhaul the way states conduct their elections is not up to the executive branch.

    Also at today’s press briefing, Leavitt confirmed that Trump has ‘definitively’ ruled out American boots on the ground in Ukraine, but the US will help coordinate security guarantees. Leavitt added that Trump has directed his national security team to coordinate with Europe, and continue to discuss these matters with Ukraine and Russia. My colleague, Lucy Cambpell, is tracking the latest here.

    The White House also confirmed the latest batch of arrest data following the surge in federal law enforcement in DC. There have been over 450 arrests by federal law enforcement in the nation’s capital since 7 August, according to a White House official. The official also said that throughout this period, 68 firearms have been seized, and three known gang members have been arrested – including a MS-13 gang member.

    Beyond Washington, Republican lawmakers in California filed an emergency petition with the state supreme court that seeks to block governor Gavin Newsom’s fast-track redistricting effort, designed to counter a redrawn congressional map sought by Donald Trump in Texas. The lawsuit argues that the state legislature is violating California’s constitution by advancing the bills before a required 30-day review period. This comes as Texas Democrats returned to the Austin state capitol this week, with a vote on the GOP-drawn redistricting plan scheduled for Wednesday 20 August.
    The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is urging that children as young as six months and up to 23 months old receive the Covid-19 vaccine – a position that diverges from the current federal guidance given by the Trump administration’s health agencies.The AAP released its updated childhood immunization schedule, which outlines recommendations for vaccines against Covid-19, influenza and RSV for individuals under 18.“It differs from recent recommendations of the advisory committee on immunization practices of the CDC, which was overhauled this year and replaced with individuals who have a history of spreading vaccine misinformation,” the organization said in a statement.The announcement follows a decision from health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr in late May to halt CDC recommendations for healthy children to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. Previously, the CDC advised vaccination for everyone six months and older with the latest available dose.The CDC currently advises that Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged six months through 17 years should be determined through “shared clinical decision-making”.The AAP recommends vaccination for anyone under 18 who is at higher risk of serious illness from Covid-19, resides in a longterm care or congregate living facility, has not previously been vaccinated, or shares a household with someone at elevated risk.The president announced on Truth Social today that lawyers from the administration will “go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities”, referring to the the ongoing showdown between the White House and many of the countries leading public and private higher education institutions.The president railed against many of the permanent collections and exhibitions across the country’s museums, declaring them the “last remaining segment of ‘WOKE’”.He added:
    Everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen…We have the “HOTTEST” Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.
    This comes after the White House announced a review of the Smithsonian museums earlier this month – ahead of the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding – to ensure that they “reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story”.The US attorney for DC has launched a criminal investigation into the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for allegedly manipulating crime data, the Washington Post is reporting.This investigation comes after NBC Washington reported that the MPD put police commander Michael Pulliam on leave in May, and began investigating him for allegedly making “questionable” changes to the city’s crime data.Sources tell the Post that the justice department’s investigation is set to go beyond investigating Pulliam, and examine actions of other local officials.The president has repeatedly claimed that crime in DC is the “worst its been”, despite a DOJ report that shows a 30-year low in violent crime in the nation’s capital.Earlier this week, Trump wrote on Truth Social that an investigation was taking place, but did not give any specifics. “D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do,” he said.Leavitt was asked several times about the location of a meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin but wouldn’t divulge anything, refusing to comment on reports about Budapest and that the Kremlin had even suggested Moscow.Politico is now reporting that the White House is planning for the summit to be held in Budapest, citing a Trump administration official and a person close to the administration.This would probably be an uncomfortable choice for Zelenskyy given the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is a longtime Putin ally.Republican lawmakers in California filed an emergency petition with the state supreme court that seeks to block governor Gavin Newsom’s fast-track redistricting effort designed to counter a redrawn congressional map sought by Donald Trump in Texas.The Democratic-led California legislature set to work this week advancing a series of bills that they need to pass by the end of the week in order to get the redistricting measure on the ballot in time for a special election this November.The lawsuit, filed Monday, argues that the state legislature is violating California’s constitution by advancing the bills before a required 30-day review period. Democrats, who hold a supermajority in both legislative chambers, introduced the redistricting bills on Monday and aim to pass them by Thursday.“Instead of a months-long transparent and participatory process overseen by an independent citizens redistricting commission for such a sensitive matter,” the lawsuit states, “the public would be presented instead with an up-or-down vote on maps unilaterally prepared in secret by the Legislature.”The Republicans’ case centers on when a bill is officially “introduced” under the state Constitution. In the lawsuit, the Republicans argue that the clock should start on after full legislative text is available, while Democrats say the initial drafts and bill numbers are sufficient to begin the review period. The Republicans also raise concerns about the potential impact of redistricting on Asian American and Hispanic communities, saying the rushed process limits input and debate.The redistricting fight in California is part of a widening redistricting arms race pitting red and blue states against each other in a battle that was kicked off when Trump asked Texas to redraw its congressional map to help Republicans maintain control of the US House in the midterm elections. Texas Democratic lawmakers fled the state to deny Republicans the quorum necessary to pass their redistricting plan – and used their time to call on other blue states to respond.After Newsom announced that California would ask voters to temporarily override the state’s independent redistricting commission and approve a US House map that would deliver five additional seats for their party in a tit for tat with Texas, the lawmakers returned to the Austin state capitol this week.The Republican lawmakers asked the California state supreme court to weigh in by Wednesday.In today’s press briefing Karoline Leavitt says that there will be “many discussions” with members of Congress when they return from recess about the president’s push to end mail-in ballots and the use of voting machines.Leavitt says that the administration will also be “talking to our friends in state legislatures across the country to ensure that we’re protecting the integrity of the vote for the American people.”A reminder that, legally, the decision to end mail-in voting, and overhaul the way states conduct their elections is not up to the executive branch. The US constitution gives states the power to regulate the “The Times, Places and Manner” of federal elections. Congress can override those rules by passing federal laws.Yesterday, the president said that an executive order is “being written right now” to end mail-in voting. Trump repeated baseless claims that the process is “corrupt”.Today, Leavitt doubles down on Trump’s plans:
    I think Republicans generally, and the president generally, wants to make it easier for Americans to vote and harder for people to cheat in our elections. And it’s quite mind boggling that the Democrat party could stand in opposition to common sense. He wants to ensure election integrity…I can assure you, this is a priority for the president. More

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      Republicans sue to block Newsom’s fast-track California redistricting plan

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      Republican state legislators in California filed suit on Tuesday to block a mid-year redistricting plan meant to counter Texas’s effort to redraw congressional district lines.The emergency petition argues that the process being used in the California assembly violates laws requiring a 30-day period between the introduction of legislation and voting on it.“Instead of a months-long transparent and participatory process overseen by an independent citizens redistricting commission for such a sensitive matter, the public would be presented instead with an up or down vote on maps unilaterally prepared in secret by the Legislature,” states the filing on behalf of senators Tony Strickland and Suzette Martinez Valladares, assemblymember Tri Ta and assemblymember Kathryn Sanchez.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced his state’s redistricting plan last week in terms on social media mocking Donald Trump’s flamboyance, intent on using the voting power of the US’s most populous state to counteract Texas’s redrawn map, which would be expected to deliver a net gain of five congressional seats to Republicans in 2026.Newsom praised the California effort on Monday, calling it a necessary response to Trump’s influence over redistricting in Texas and other Republican-led states.“We are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power,” Newsom said, adding that the proposal gives Californians “a choice to fight back”.To do so in time for a special election in November, the state assembly must pass the plan this year. As has been a common practice near the end of legislative terms, California lawmakers took an existing bill introduced earlier in the session and gutted it of its language, replacing it with legislation that overrides the state’s neutral redistricting commission to present maps to voters.California Democrats are expected to advance their proposal out of committees on Tuesday and Wednesday. They have already received more than 13,000 public comments through an online portal, and the committee hearings offer the public a chance to provide feedback to lawmakers in person.Dozens of residents from up and down the state, leaders of local Republican groups and the conservative California Family Council showed up to a hearing on Tuesday to voice opposition to Democrats’ plan.Some said the process has been shrouded in secrecy because the map was drawn without meaningful public input. Others said they would rather lawmakers focus on addressing issues instead of trying to bypass a bipartisan redistricting process.Public remarks may have little sway, though, as Democratic leaders are determined to rapidly advance the proposal. A Senate hearing on Tuesday began with key Democratic political allies testifying in support. Jodi Hicks, CEO of Planned Parenthood California, said Democrats need to take back the US House to protect women’s freedoms.“If we don’t fight back, federal attacks on reproductive health care will only get worse,” Hicks said.Republican lawmakers said the plan would create mistrust among residents who already voted in 2010 to remove partisan influence from the mapmaking process. California voters gave that power to an independent commission, while Texas is among states where legislators draw maps.“There are so many illegal and unethical elements in this attempt,” Republican state senator Steven Choi said.On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Newsom said the governor was unconcerned with the legal challenge seeking to blunt his redistricting effort.“Republicans are filing a deeply unserious (and truly laughable) lawsuit to stop Americans from voting?” Brandon Richards, the spokesperson, said. “We’re neither surprised, nor worried.”The Mandeep Dhillon law firm filing the suit was previously owned by Harmeet Dhillon, who is now assistant attorney general overseeing the US Department of Justice civil rights division. Dhillon was known for her efforts to sue California’s university system to overturn policies which barred controversial conservative speakers from appearing. She sold her firm to her brother Mandeep Singh Dhillon after Trump nominated her to take over civil rights enforcement in his administration.The suit does not challenge “gut and amend” in principle, but rather asks the court “to enforce an external constitutional constraint against the Legislature to protect the people’s rights”.Internal polling presented to lawmakers showed voters favored the measure 52% to 41%, with 7% undecided, according to the local television station KCRA.Republicans in California condemned the proposal as an assault on the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission and said they plan to introduce legislation that advocates for creating similar map-drawing bodies in all 50 states.“Governor Newsom, this is nothing more than a power grab,” Strickland said during a Monday news conference in Sacramento.He warned the redistricting tit-for-tat sets a dangerous precedent that will not be easily undone. “The Golden Gate Bridge toll was supposed to be temporary,” he added. “You’re still paying the toll.”The legislature could hold floor votes to send the measure to voters for approval as soon as Thursday, KCRA reported.House Republicans currently hold a razor-thin three-seat majority in the US House and Trump has pushed to redraw district boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections, in which the president’s party typically loses seats. Republicans are also poised to redraw congressional districts in Ohio, Missouri and Florida, as well as potentially Indiana. More

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      There is no ‘Trump Doctrine’ in foreign policy. Just chaos | Sidney Blumenthal

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      All the elaborate efforts of the European allies to prevent Donald Trump from prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin came to naught at their summit meeting in Alaska. Flattering, coddling and petting the big baby appeared to have been in vain. Before the 15 August summit, the Europeans persuaded Trump to impose new sanctions if Putin would not agree to a ceasefire, which would serve as a prerequisite for any negotiations. But Trump willfully tossed policy like a stuffed animal out of the window of “the Beast,” the presidential car as he eagerly invited Putin to join him for a triumphant chariot ride.The Europeans scrambled once again, trying to get the addled Trump back on the page he was on before the summit. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sped to Washington to confer with Trump to try to pick up the pieces. At their last encounter, Trump jibed: “You don’t have any cards.” But Trump had just handed over his cards to Putin. Zelenskyy was not about to play the appeasement card. The European leaders gathered in an extraordinary posse to accompany Zelenskyy in an attempt to restore a unified western position. Unlike the last Zelenskyy meeting with Trump, he was not hectored. With the Ukrainian leader urrounded by a protective phalanx, Trump made agreeable sounding but vague gestures about a future summit with both Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump seemed favorable, if indefinite and imprecise, about western forces stationed in Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty. But the notion of a ceasefire, pressed again by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had evaporated. While the European recovery effort took place at the White House, Russian bombs rained down. Trump dreams of receiving the Nobel peace prize. Before the summit, he called the Norwegian finance minister to lobby him.In Alaska, Trump melted again in the presence of Putin while the whole world was watching. The self-abasing embarrassment of his previous meeting in Helsinki in 2018 did not serve as a cautionary precedent. Now, he invited the sanctioned war criminal to US soil. He ordered uniformed US soldiers to roll out the red carpet, “the beautiful red carpet” as the Russian foreign ministry called it. He applauded when Putin stood next to him. He patted Putin’s hand when he clasped it with an affectionate gesture. Then the door of “the Beast” opened for Putin.Trump’s personal negotiator for the summit, Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate operator whose knowledge of Russian culture to prepare him for his delicate role may had been a bowl of borscht at the Russian Tea Room on 57th Street, was easy prey for Putin. Bild, the German newspaper, reported on 9 August that Witkoff had committed an “explosive blunder”. According to Bild, Putin “did not deviate from his maximum demand to completely control the five Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea before the weapons remain silent … And even worse: Trump’s special envoy Witkoff is said to have completely misunderstood some of the Russians’ positions and misinterpreted them as an accommodation by Putin. He had misunderstood a “peaceful withdrawal” of the Ukrainians from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia demanded by Russia as an offer of “peaceful withdrawal” of the Russians from these regions”.“Witkoff doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” a Ukrainian government official told Bild. An assessment that, according to Bild information, is also shared by German government representatives.Bild further reported: “There was a telephone conference on Thursday evening between representatives of the US government – including the special envoy Witkoff and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance – and the European partners. As BILD learned, the American side was perceived as chaotic and ununited. This was primarily due to Witkoff, whose remarks about his conversation with Putin on Wednesday in the Kremlin were perceived as confusing. He himself seemed overwhelmed and incompetent to the Europeans when he spoke about the territorial issues in Ukraine.”The German newspaper also reported friction between Rubio and Vance, with the vice-president seeking to shut the European allies out of the process and Witkoff taking his side against the secretary of state. “Apparently, there was also disagreement about the further course of action between Witkoff and Rubio, as the foreign minister emphasized that the Europeans should be involved in the further process, while Vance and Witkoff only wanted to inform Europe of the results of the further Trump steps.”Bild’s report on Putin’s position turned out to be completely accurate and its description of the Trump administration’s unsettled position prophetic of the fiasco that would unfold.Little noticed in the US media accounts, Trump had presented Putin with enormous economic advantages, according to the Telegraph. He offered access to valuable Alaskan natural resources, opportunities to tap into the US portion of the Bering Strait, which would boost Russia’s interests in the Arctic region. Trump promised to lift sanctions on Russia’s aircraft industry, which would permit Russian airlines (and by extension the Russian air force) to return to US suppliers for parts and maintenance. Trump would give Putin approval for access to rare earth minerals in Ukrainian territories currently under Russian occupation.In Trump’s new world order, Putin would be his partner, especially on the frontier of the Arctic, while Trump waged a trade war imposing harsh tariffs on every other nation. Ukraine stood as an obstacle to the gold rush.According to the Telegraph, Witkoff suggested to the Russians: “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank could be used as a model for ending the war. Russia would have military and economic control of occupied [parts of] Ukraine under its own governing body, similar to Israel’s de facto rule of Palestinian territory.”Then, after Trump laid on lavish treatment for the Russian dictator at the US military base, marking his indifference to international condemnation, came the joint appearance, which exceeded the Helsinki disaster. An elated Putin and dejected Trump appeared on stage together.The announced joint press conference was a theater of the absurd. Its brevity contributed to the farce. There was no agreement, no plan for an agreement, and no press conference. Trump deferred to Putin to speak first, to set the tone and terms after which he would come on as the second banana to slip on the peel.A clearly delighted Putin reiterated his belief that Ukraine was a security threat to Russia, and that “we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict,” which was his language for the elimination of an independent and democratic Ukraine. He blamed Biden for the war he had launched. He affirmed Trump’s presumptuous boast that there would have been no war had he been president. “Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that.”A clearly glum Trump stepped to his podium. “So there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” he said. He had pledged during the 2024 campaign that he could and would end the war on “day one”. It had taken him 210 days to reach the “No Deal”.Trump wistfully talked about doing business with Russia, his will-o’-the-wisp ambition since he attempted for decades to build a Trump Tower in Moscow even through the 2016 election. He threw Putin a bouquet. “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir.” He blamed their inability to monetize their relationship to the inquiries that extensively documented Putin’s covert efforts in the 2016 election to help Trump. “We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” Trump complained. He would not let it go, drifting incoherently into his grievances. “He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that would like to have dealt with, but we’ll have a good chance when this is over.”Then, Trump praised the Russian officials accompanying Putin. Chief among them was the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who had arrived wearing a sweatshirt embossed with the Cyrillic letters “CCCP”, standing for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, signaling Putin’s ultimate objective to restore the empire of the Soviet Union. The message was more than nostalgia; it was a mission statement. And Trump called Putin “the Boss”, not a reference to Bruce Springsteen. “Next time in Moscow,” said Putin.The press conference was over. There were no questions. There were no answers. Trump fled from the stage.Before the summit, Trump threatened new sanctions if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire, but now he forgot he had ever said that. He spoke loudly and carried a tiny stick. On Air Force One, on the return to Washington, he gave an exclusive interview to his lapdog, Sean Hannity of Fox News, along on the ride for this purpose. Trump reverted to his tacit support for Putin’s position. He put the burden on Zelenskyy to accede to Putin’s demands, which were unchanged.Then, Trump spiraled down a wormhole, obviously anxious about his growing unpopularity and the prospect of the Democrats winning the congressional midterm elections, which has prompted him to prod the Texas Republicans to gerrymander districts and California Democrats aroused to counter it in their state. “Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting,” said Trump. “Look at California with that horrible governor they have. One of the worst governors in history. He is incompetent, he doesn’t know what he is doing.”Is this a subject that Putin actually spoke about in their discussion? Has he had experience with mail-in voting or even know what it is? Was it brought up by Trump during their car ride? Or was Trump simply making it up for his gullible Fox News audience? Whatever the reality, Trump’s fear about losing control of domestic politics was at the top of his mind as he flew away from his charade in Anchorage.The shambolic scene left in Alaska represented the wreckage of Trump’s attempt at diplomacy. Setting the stage himself, Trump babbled, whined and weakly sided with Putin. Trump’s foreign policy team was exposed as incompetent, confounded and feckless. This was no best and the brightest, no rise of the Vulcans, but the circus of the Koalemosians, after Koalemos, the Greek god of stupidity.Apologists for Trump, in advance of this exemplary event, had suggested that there was such a conceit as a Trump doctrine. A former Trump official from his first term, A Wess Mitchell, has called it “The Return of Great Power Diplomacy” in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs. He described “a new kind of diplomacy” that is “diplomacy in its classical form” and “an instrument of strategy”. He cited an ancient Spartan king, Archidamus II, the Roman Emperor Domitian, Cardinal Richelieu, and in his mélange did not neglect to throw in Metternich and Bismarck. (Kissinger, in his grave, must be weeping over the parading of Metternich’s mannequin as a forerunner of Trump. Mitchell, in any case, dismisses Kissinger as a fake realist and an “idealist”, which would have been a revelation to Kissinger.) Left out of Mitchell’s pantheon of great diplomatic influences through the ages is the influencer Laura Loomer, the loony far-right troll who has an open door to Trump, feeding him lists of national security officials he must purge.In Putin’s shadow, Trump was bared as having no larger or smaller concept or strategy of Great Power politics. It would be unfair to accuse Trump of having an idea beyond his self-aggrandizement. If anything, he aspires to be like Putin, whom he called a “genius” after his invasion of Ukraine. Putin has created and controls a vast kleptocracy. In 2017, Bill Browder, an American businessperson who had invested in Russia and has been targeted for assassination by Putin for exposing his corruption, testified before the Senate judiciary committee that Putin was “the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world”. Nobody, however, knows Putin’s true personal wealth.Trump, the Putin manqué, is trying to turn the United States into a kleptocratic system. According to the calculations of David D Kirkpatrick in the New Yorker, in just six months of his second term his alleged personal profiteering, “would disappoint the haters who saw Trump as a Putin-level kleptocrat. Yet some three and a half billion dollars in Presidential profits – even though my accounting is necessarily approximate – is a dizzying sum.”Meanwhile, three days before the Trump-Putin summit, the Trump family crypto business, World Liberty Financial, raised $1.5bn to buy the Trump family token. The CEO of World Liberty Financial, Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff, along with Eric Trump of WLF, will join the board of the investing company. That is the Trump doctrine.

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Democrats return to Texas as California kicks off push to pass new electoral map

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      Texas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers kicked off a rapid push for voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.The Texas Democrats’ return ends a two-week walkout that stalled the Republican effort to redraw the state’s congressional districts to satisfy Donald Trump’s demands to reshape the US House map in his favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.The California plan was drafted in response to Texas’s push to redraw the congressional map there. On Friday, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.The Democrats said last week they would return once California moved ahead with its counter-proposal, all but ensuring that Texas’s new maps will pass.The protest began on 3 August, when dozens of Texas Democrats left the state for Illinois and other blue states in a high-stakes bid to deny their Republican colleagues the quorum needed to approve the redrawn maps. Although the Democrats’ return allows Republicans to advance their redistricting plan, the quorum-breakers have declared their two-week walkout a strategic success that set off a “redistricting arms race”.“We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation – reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas house democratic caucus, said.“We’re returning to Texas more dangerous to Republicans’ plans than when we left.”Dustin Burrows, the Republican house speaker, did not mention the Republican redistricting proposal, but said the chamber would move swiftly to enact its legislative agenda during the second special session. Later on Monday evening, a house committee approved the new map, which will soon be sent to the floor for a full vote.“Representatives come and go. Issues rise and fall. But this body has endured wars, economic depressions and quorum breaks dating back to the very first session,” Burrows said during Monday’s session. “Now is the time for action.”He also outlined new surveillance protocols that would apply to the Democrats who had civil arrest warrants issued in their absence, stating they would “be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer” who would ensure their return to the chamber.One Democrat is refusing to accept the conditions. Nicole Collier, a state representative for Fort Worth, vowed to remain confined inside the Texas house chamber until lawmakers reconvene on Wednesday, declining to comply with what she condemned as a Republican “permission slip” – a document authorizing a round-the-clock law enforcement escort.“I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts,” Collier, a seven-term lawmaker and a former chair of the Texas Legislative Black caucus, said on Monday.Collier’s demonstration is the latest act of Democratic resistance to the Republican redistricting plan. “When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents – I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination,” she said.The new California map, released on Friday, would create three new safely Democratic districts and two new districts that are Democratic leaning but still competitive.The plan, led by the California governor Gavin Newsom, must be approved by the state legislature before it is put to vote in a special election this fall. If voters agree to override the house map created by the independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census, the proposed boundaries would replace current ones through 2030. Democrats said they will return the mapmaking power to the commission after that.Newsom praised the effort on Monday, calling it a necessary response to Trump’s influence over redistricting in Texas and other Republican-led states.“We are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power,” Newsom said, adding that the proposal gives Californians “a choice to fight back”.Internal polling presented to lawmakers showed voters favored the measure 52% to 41%, with 7% undecided, according to the local television station KCRA.Republicans in California condemned the proposal as an assault on the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission and said they plan to introduce legislation that advocates for creating similar map-drawing bodies in all 50 states.“Governor Newsom, this is nothing more than a power grab,” Tony Strickland, a Republican state senator, said during a Monday news conference in Sacramento.He warned the redistricting tit-for-tat sets a dangerous precedent that will not be easily undone. “The Golden Gate Bridge toll was supposed to be temporary,” he added. “You’re still paying the toll.”The legislature could hold floor votes to send the measure to voters for approval as soon as Thursday, KCRA reported.House Republicans currently hold a razor-thin three-seat majority in the US House and Trump has pushed to redraw district boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections, in which the president’s party typically loses seats. Republicans are also poised to redraw congressional districts in Ohio, Missouri and Florida, as well as potentially Indiana.Democrats have signaled they will try to redraw districts in other states where they hold power at the state level, such as New York and Maryland, though they do not have as many opportunities to draw districts as Republicans do. More

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      Ron DeSantis enters the chat: governor eyes chance to redraw Florida maps

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      With Gavin Newsom and Greg Abbott, the respective heavyweight governors of California and Texas, trading blows over plans to gerrymander the 2026 midterms, it was always kind of inevitable that Florida’s Ron DeSantis would enter the chat.The Republican sees his state, the nation’s third-largest by several metrics, not least its 28 congressional seats, as pivotal in the redistricting wars for control of the House.So few were surprised this week when DeSantis gave his full-throated endorsement to two projects to try to save the Republican majority: Donald Trump’s call for an unprecedented mid-decade census that could blow things up nationally; and state Republicans’ efforts to redraw existing district maps in their favor, similar to Abbott’s scheming in Texas.“We have 28 now, we might have 29, 30, 31, maybe. Who knows?” DeSantis said at a press conference in Melbourne on Monday, expressing his belief that a new national population tally that excludes undocumented immigrants could expand Florida’s congressional delegation.Currently, 20 of those 28 seats are held by Republicans. Even without a census, DeSantis and allies including the Florida house speaker, Daniel Perez, have concluded that tinkering with existing boundaries and dumping blocs of Democratic voters into heavily Republican districts could net them several more.Perez, bolstered by a Florida supreme court ruling in July that approved DeSantis’s wholesale stripping of Black voters’ influence in the north of the state, is convening a “select committee on congressional redistricting” to do the same in the south.The long-serving congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Trump bete noire Jared Moskowitz are two of the prominent south Florida Democrats in DeSantis’s crosshairs.“We are going to have to do a mid-decade redistricting,” DeSantis said. “Obviously you would have to redraw the lines. Even if they don’t do a new census, even if they don’t revise the current census, I do think that it is appropriate to be doing it.”To Florida Democrats who have promised to fight the emerging threat to the eight House seats they do still hold, DeSantis’s maneuvering is a stereotypical power-play by a governor who has frequently been able to bend the state legislature to his will.“This isn’t about drawing lines on a map, this is about who gets hurt and who gets silenced in this thing we call democracy, or in this democratic process,” said Shevrin Jones, a Democratic state senator whose district covers parts of downtown Miami and Miami Beach.“Floridians were extremely clear years ago when we voted on fair districts that the redistricting process should be fair and transparent, that it should be reflective of the people and not the political ambitions of those who are in power. Yet that’s what we’re seeing right now.”To many critics, the Florida supreme court’s ruling, authored by the chief justice, Carlos Muñiz, a DeSantis appointee, was a sleight of hand: it stated that the districts drawn – by Republicans – that ensured fair Black representation violated a 2010 voter-approved constitutional amendment banning partisan and racial gerrymandering during redistricting.Yet the effect of the ruling was to essentially nullify the amendment by validating DeSantis’s manipulation of the northern districts to the Republicans’ advantage, and to give him a green light to do the same anywhere else.Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic party, said the governor had seized on the ruling to blatantly attempt to rig the 2026 midterms.“After gutting representation for Black Floridians and stacking the court to uphold it, he wants to further gerrymander and suppress the vote of millions of Floridians,” she said in a statement.“If Ron DeSantis spent half as much time solving real problems as he does scheming to steal elections, maybe we wouldn’t be in the middle of a housing, insurance and education crisis.”Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the Florida legislature, so any walkout by Democrats, similar to that seen in Texas where lawmakers fled the state to deny quorum, would be ineffective.Instead, Jones said, his party, at state level at least, will continue to call out what they see as underhand efforts by the DeSantis administration to join the national Republican drive to save its House majority in support of Trump’s agenda.“I understand where Gavin Newsom and a great deal of Democratic governors are coming from when they say fight fire with fire. That’s fair, we can’t continue as Democrats to show up to a gunfight with slingshots,” he said.“I also understand that the Republicans are in power, and I understand they have no scruples about what they’re doing, I get that. The question is when or how can we find the alliances that exist to push back on the bullshit that the Republicans are doing, because it’s an absolute threat to not just democracy, but an absolute threat to our national security and our future.”Jones said that DeSantis, a lame-duck governor about to enter his final year in office before being termed out, had leapt upon the opportunity to inject himself back into the national picture.Still wounded by the humiliating collapse of his pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination a year and a half ago, DeSantis has seen himself eclipsed in the 2028 race by emerging hopefuls including Vice-President JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio, the former Florida senator.“This isn’t just about Florida, it’s about national political positioning. The only way Ron DeSantis can prove that his voice is still loud is doing or saying asinine things like this to continue to kiss ass to Trump,” Jones said.“I think the governor is trying to restart a failing campaign that lost gas quickly, and I think he’s trying to fill it back up. But that car doesn’t work any more, and I don’t know any mechanic that wants to work to fix it.” More

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      Newsom says California will push to redraw maps in riposte to Texas plan

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      Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said on Thursday state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map-drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.As he spoke at the Japanese American National museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy – a venue deliberately chosen for its symbolism – federal agents, armed and masked, fanned out across the complex, led by Gregory Bovino, head of the border patrol’s El Centro sector. Local news footage showed a man being led away in handcuffs.Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through mid-cycle maps that could hand Republicans five extra US House seats. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom declared at a rally in Los Angeles, in which he formally called for a 4 November special election to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”After the rally, Newsom called the presence of border patrol agents “sick and pathetic” and accused Trump of ordering the operation to intimidate Democrats. “Wake up, America,” Newsom warned. “You will not have a country if he rigs this election.”Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat who was not attending the event, arrived on the scene to condemn the raid. In remarks to reporters, she argued that it was not “a coincidence” the raid took place steps from where Newsom was speaking.. “The White House just sent federal agents to try to intimidate elected officials at a press conference,” she said in a social media post. “The problem for them is Los Angeles doesn’t get scared and Los Angeles doesn’t back down. We never have and we never will”.”The Department of Homeland Security said Bass “must be misinformed”.“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law – not about Gavin Newsom. CBP patrols all areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams on the ground to make LA safe,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, said in a post on social media.The California map would only take effect if Texas – or any other Republican-led state – advanced a a partisan redistricting plan. Newsom said he preferred all states adopt independent commission, as California does, and had previously said in a letter to Trump that he would “happily” stand down if Texas abandoned its effort.Earlier on Thursday, a group of Texas Democrats, who had blocked a vote on the measure by fleeing the state, said they were prepared to end their two-week walkout when California releases its redrawn map proposal. Their return to the state legislature would allow Republicans to plow ahead. Accepting that reality, Newsom said California – with a population larger than the 21 smallest states combined – would not “unilaterally disarm”.“It’s not complicated,” he said. “We’re doing this in reaction to a president of the United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, ‘Find me five seats.’”View image in fullscreenIn a recent interview, Trump claimed that Republicans were “entitled to five more seats” in Texas because he won the state overwhelmingly in the 2024 presidential election.The new map, Newsom said, would remain in place through the 2030 elections, after which mapmaking power would return to the independent redistricting commission, approved by voters more than a decade ago. The Democratic-led state legislature will introduce legislation on Monday, he added, expressing confidence the initiative would pass and ultimately prevail at the ballot box in November.California has 52 House seats – 43 held by Democrats – and several of the nation’s most competitive races, including a handful that helped Republicans claim the majority in 2024.How California voters will respond is uncertain: polls have found deep support for the state’s independent redistricting commission, suggesting Democrats will have to work quickly over the next three months to persuade voters to support their plan.Sara Sadhwani, a Democrat who served on California’s 2020 independent redistricting commission, said she wanted partisan gerrymandering banned nationwide. But in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sadhwani stood side by side with Newsom, lawmakers, labor leaders and advocates in support of tearing up the maps she helped draw. “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” she said.Common Cause, a good government group that has long opposed partisan map-making, said in a statement this week that it would “not pre-emptively” oppose the effort by California to redraw its maps in response to partisan redistricting in Texas.“A blanket condemnation at this moment would be sitting on the sidelines in the face of authoritarianism,” the group stated.Eric Holder, a former attorney general and chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said on Thursday that he backed “responsible and responsive” countermeasures to Trump’s “extreme and unjustified mid-decade gerrymanders in Texas and beyond”.“Our democracy is under attack,” he said. “We have no choice but to defend it.”Republicans have denounced the California proposal: “Gavin Newsom’s latest stunt has nothing to do with Californians and everything to do with consolidating radical Democrat power,” Christian Martinez, the National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson, said in a statement, accusing the governor of trampling the will of California voters to serve a “pathetic 2028 presidential pipe dream”.At the rally in Los Angeles, there was little sympathy for the nearly half-dozen California Republicans who could be out of job if the redistricting plan succeeds. Speaking before the governor, Jodi Hicks, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, had a message for the nine Republicans who backed legislation rolling back reproductive rights: “You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats.”Texas’s pursuit of new maps has kicked off a redistricting “arms race” that has spread to state legislatures across the country. Leaders in Florida and Missouri – and in blue state like New York and Illinois – are weighing similar moves. “Other blue states need to stand up,” Newsom said.The campaign, with a freshly launched website, will be enormously costly and is expected to draw national attention and donors eager for a high-stakes, off-year political brawl. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who championed independent redistricting, has already voiced opposition. Newsom said he had spoken to Schwarzenegger and shared his disdain for gerrymandering, but argued that this was about preserving American democracy.“It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be,” Newsom said. “We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.” More

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      Republican doesn’t wear seatbelt in DC ‘because of carjacking’ despite data showing decline

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      A Republican senator said that he doesn’t wear a seatbelt when he’s driving in Washington DC so he can act more swiftly if he gets carjacked, adding further fuel to repeated rhetoric by the Trump administration that crime is on the rise in the US – despite statistics indicating otherwise.Markwayne Mullin told Fox News on Wednesday that he avoids buckling up, violating local traffic ordinances, so he can “exit in a hurry”.“I’m not joking when I say this. I drive around in Washington DC in my Jeep and, yes, I do drive myself. And I don’t buckle up. And the reason why I don’t buckle up, and people can say whatever they want to, they can raise their eyebrows at me, again, is because of carjacking,” he said.While praising Donald Trump’s controversial deployment of national guard troops to the US capital and a federal takeover of the Metropolitan police department, Mullin said he wouldn’t wear a seatbelt in other cities controlled by Democrats. But he said he did wear a seatbelt in other jurisdictions.“If you look at car theft only, if Washington DC was a state, Washington DC would be three times higher than any other state,” Mullin said. “And we’re talking about a city. And we’re comparing it to full states.”Mullin’s comments come as a war of words over Washington DC’s crime rate continues between supporters and opponents of Trump’s order, which he casts as an effort to combat record-breaking levels of violent crime.“Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever,” Trump said on Monday. “They say 25 years, but they don’t know what that means because it just goes back 25 years.”Trump also said: “The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogotá, Colombia; Mexico City; or some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on Earth. It’s much higher.”Those stats align with a White House-provided graph unpacking 2024 homicides, revealing a homicide rate of 27.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in Washington – which puts the capital above cities like Bogotá, Colombia (15); Panama City, Panama (15); San José, Costa Rica (13); Mexico City, Mexico (10); Lima, Peru (7.7); and Brasília, Brazil (6.8).But official statistics tell a different story. Homicides dropped to 187 in 2024 from 274 a year earlier – the highest number since 1997. This year, there have been 100 homicides to 12 August, according to the New York Times, a slight decline from 112 at the same date last year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCompared with other capitals around the world, as also noted by the New York Times, Washington’s homicide rate is much lower, including in places such as Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with a rate of 67.2 per 100,000 people; Cape Town, South Africa, with 66.8; and Kingston, Jamaica, with 64.2. All have higher homicide rates, according to data compiled by the Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian thinktank, in 2023.Trump has claimed that “the number of car thefts has doubled over the past five years, and the number of carjackings has more than tripled”. The city’s dashboard shows carjackings rose for three years, from 2020, before declining in 2024.This year, through 9 August, there were 188 carjackings, compared with 299 during the same time period in 2024, and compared with 607 in 2023, a police spokesperson told PolitiFact. Car theft also dropped 25% from 2023 to 2024.An analysis by the Washington Metropolitan police department, as reported by CNN, has also shown that overall crime in Washington has also decreased in 2025 – in line with the decline seen in other major US cities, such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. More

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      These rural radio stations are a lifeline for their communities. Trump’s cuts threaten their future

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      Since Republicans last month slashed over $1bn in funds designated for public broadcasting, non-commercial TV and radio stations around the country have been reeling.The cuts led the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the nearly 60-year-old organization that has long supported local TV and radio stations across the US, to shut down operations entirely, leaving more than 1,500 local stations nationwide without a critical source of income.For rural radio stations that rely heavily on federal grant and matching funds – and that are often the only sources of free and reliable programming in their regions – the consequences are especially dire. Often, these stations are residents’ only reliable avenue for not only news and cultural programming, but also local health and public safety information, including emergency alerts.To understand what this programming means to rural Americans and the hardships communities could face if broadcasts went quiet, the Guardian spoke to two radio stations that serve distinct populations.Here is what they shared.Reaching Spanish-speaking farm workers in rural WashingtonWildfires are a frequent threat in Yakima county, Washington. Rural, hot and dry, the agricultural region can face days on end of poor air quality – an occupational hazard to the thousands of farm workers who work outside, many of whom exclusively speak Spanish.National broadcasters like NPR put out emergency announcements in English, but their information, about an evacuation or unsafe breathing conditions, may go unheard by a Spanish speaker.The local public radio station Radio KDNA has found a way to combat that gap. Built specifically for the region’s Spanish-speaking farm workers in this county where more than half of the population identifies as Latino, the station has developed a system in which DJs translate the English emergency notices into Spanish – live on the air. It’s one of many ways the station, which its director of operations, Elizabeth Torres, says is the only 24-hour Spanish-language public broadcaster in the region, meets the needs of its unique listener base.“Over the years, it has developed a sense of trust with the community,” Torres said.It’s not the only public service Radio KDNA provides. In operation since 1979, the station runs programs focused on public health, highlighting Spanish-language clinics and vaccine drives; occupational health, with guests speaking to the specific concerns of people who work outside and on farms; education, featuring presenters from the local community college; and children’s entertainment, designed explicitly for the many parents in the community juggling work and childrearing.Every week, the Yakima Valley Farmworkers’ Clinic goes on the air for an hour to discuss the services they provide, Torres said. Community health workers will share diabetes prevention information. Sometimes, doctors come on as guests to discuss heart disease, or the importance of maintaining regular flu and Covid vaccinations. They even ran a Spanish-language special on long Covid. “We’re focused on information that will help our community make better decisions,” Torres said.The station produces its own news segments three times a day – two of which are entirely live. In today’s dynamic political environment, these broadcasts are especially valuable for immigrants, who face a daily barrage of information and misinformation about raids and deportations and need help deciphering fact from rumor. KDNA has also partnered with an immigrant services organization that provides legal advice and detention tracking services.“We don’t put out any information on Ice until it’s verified,” Torres said. “We’re trying to minimize misinformation.”Considering the lifestyle and literacy rates of its listener base, KDNA’s broadcasts – and audio as a medium – are designed to be accessible. “You can tune in and out as you’re working or as you’re driving,” she said. “All of our programming is developed in a way that people will understand.”Running such an operation is not cheap, and Torres says that federal funding has played a huge part in the station’s ability to do this work, with 40% of KDNA’s revenue coming from the CPB on average every year. The station already operates on a tight budget, Torres said, with staff members wearing multiple hats. The news director moonlights as the audio tech if the regular engineer is unavailable; the underwriter (who coordinates paid sponsorships) is also the building manager.She fears that the funding cuts could dramatically restrict what is feasible in terms of output. KDNA will probably need to reduce staffing, cut back on community events, and limit the external broadcasts they pay to air, like NPR’s Spanish-language shows, she said. Her biggest concern is if live programming is limited, there may not be an on-air DJ to translate critical alerts.“Families that need to evacuate, they might not get the message,” she said. “That is going to have a real impact.”‘The only voice available’ in Navajo territoryListening to the radio was a big part of Richard Grey’s 1960s childhood. He remembers the voices of AM DJs traveling through his house as he got ready for school in the mornings and listening to the BBC when it came on the air every evening. Not many people who lived on Arizona’s rural Navajo nation had television. Radio was how they got information about their community – and beyond. “It brought the world to us,” Grey said.Today, between limited broadband access and the vast distances residents drive to reach brick-and-mortar resources like libraries or post offices, public radio remains a vital resource for the Navajo nation, which, at over 27,000 square miles spread across three states, is the country’s largest Indian reservation. Since 1989, residents have tuned into KGHR Navajo Public Radio to access everything from Indigenous cultural programming to political commentary to world news. Broadcasting with more than 100,000 watts of power, the station is able to reach almost all residents on the western side of the reservation, which is no small feat in a region defined by challenging geography.Grey, who has worked with the station since 2011, says that makes it an invaluable service: “Phones can’t go down into a canyon or around a mesa, but radio does.”In terms of infrastructure, KGHR is bare bones. It shares its facilities with Greyhills Academy, a high school in Tuba City, and is primarily run by part-time contractors. Its only full-time staff member, announcer Keri Blackrock, came onboard a little over one year ago.View image in fullscreenBut the station’s output is robust. KGHR offers Indigenous cultural programming, including music curated by audio engineer Michael Begay and a Navajo Word of the Day show coordinated by students at the school. It syndicates a wide range of national and international news programs, like Native Voice 1, NPR and the BBC World Service. And it produces its own coverage of local sports games, parades and community events.“Hearing a community member – and a tribal member – go live on the air is very meaningful,” said Begay, noting that announcer Blackstone is herself Navajo. “The audience can go, ‘It’s one of us, a familiar face, a familiar voice.’”By his own account, Begay was a floundering high schooler at Greyhills Academy in the mid-1990s when he wandered into the station. Working as a student DJ gave him a sense of purpose, and when he realized that he couldn’t go on the air if he wasn’t at school, his grades started to improve. He suggests that without KGHR, his life would have taken a very different path – and perhaps even been cut short. “I would be a statistic,” he said.The station also protects public safety. As part of the country’s emergency alert system, it broadcasts vital information about heatwaves, wildfires and floods. For many people on the reservation, KGHR is their only avenue to learn about an evacuation order – like last month, when a wildfire swept across 100,000 acres near the New Mexico border. Knowing rural residents may not have reliable internet or cell service, Blackrock broadcast updates from local tribal police and shared information residents were posting on Facebook on the air.“It’s our job to broadcast incidents so that the community is kept informed and safe,” said Begay.Now, this crucial service is under threat. Almost all of the station’s funding comes from federal sources, said Grey, and CPB is KGHR’s main source of revenue. Going forward, they might need to venture into new territory entirely, like hosting live events, airing paid advertisements for sponsors, or creating digital content for paid subscribers. “I don’t believe we’ve ever really asked for donations,” said Blackrock.Without KGHR, the airwaves will lack Native perspectives on politics and culture, and issues that are underrepresented in the mainstream media, like missing and murdered Indigenous people, will get even less attention. For those reasons, they don’t plan to go off the air – at least, not without a fight.“Tribal radio stations will continue to serve as vital platforms for preserving Indigenous language and cultural traditions,” said Begay. “Our job is ensuring these aspects remain vital and present for future generations.” More

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      Texas Senate passes Republican-drawn gerrymandered map as House Democrats continue to deny quorum – live updates

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      The Texas Sentate has passed a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.The map passed 19-2 along party lines. Nine Senate Democrats left the floor in solidarity with their House colleagues – who broke quorum again earlier today in protest of the map. The legislation can’t advance without the absent Democrats in the lower chamber.Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.“I’ll call special after special until the Texas first agenda is passed,” Abbott said in a post on X.The Trump administration sanctioned an armed group accused of illegally trading minerals in eastern Congo, as Washington seeks to lead peace efforts in the region while securing US access to its mineral resources.A senior US government official told the AP that the state and treasury departments are targeting the Codeco armed group, which controlled the key coltan mining site of Rubaya from 2022 until early 2024.“During this period, Codeco generated revenue by overseeing mining operations, collecting illegal fees and taxes for miners and engaging in mineral smuggling. It also imposed forced labor and executed civilians in mining areas under its control,” the official said.The sanctions also target the Congolese mining company CDMC, accused of selling minerals sourced and smuggled from mines near Rubaya, as well as two Hong Kong exporters, East Rise and Star Dragon, that purchased minerals from the area.Mexico has transferred a group of imprisoned cartel members to the United States, amid growing pressure from the Trump administration to dismantle the country’s powerful drug organizations, the Wall Street Journal reported.The group, sent on Tuesday, was roughly the same size as the 29 prisoners transferred in February.WSJ reports:
      The group sent Tuesday included members of top criminal organizations facing drug charges in the US who are being sent to locations including Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, San Diego and New York, one of the people said.
      Terry Cole, the Drug Enforcement Administration chief overseeing the federal takeover of DC police, said in an interview that, starting tonight, federal agents will be “embedded with the Metropolitan police department”.“You will see federal agents working hand in hand on patrol with the Metropolitan Police Department, you will also see an increase of activity, patrol activity in certain sectors to go after the violent criminal offenders that are the drivers of this crime,” Cole said in an interview with Fox News.Earlier today, Texas Senate Democrats staged a walkout in protest of the chamber’s proposed congressional redistricting map, which was moving forward to the Texas House.Despite the senators’ absence, the Republican-controlled Senate approved the map in a 19-2 vote. But it cannot win final approval while the quorum is broken. Texas House Democrats have been out of state for weeks to block Republican lawmakers from conducting business.Senate Democrats are challenging governor Greg Abbott’s decision to prioritize redistricting over urgent flood relief for the state’s affected communities.“This special session is about one thing: flood relief,” said Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez. “Greg Abbott tried to sneak in a rigged mid-decade redistricting beneath voters’ noses. Let’s be clear, the governor can provide this relief anytime he wants. But Abbott is holding it hostage so that he has an excuse to do Trump’s bidding.”“Texas has a long tradition of independence. But when Donald Trump tells Greg Abbott to roll over and fetch him five seats, he does it like a good lapdog,” Gutierrez added. “This governor has failed to uphold Texas values, defend the people of Texas, or make the lives of its citizens better in any meaningful way.”Democratic senators Judith Zaffirini and Chuy Hinojosa did not participate in today’s walkout and stayed in the chamber, according to the Dallas Morning News.Democratic representative Adam Smith, of the state of Washington, said it is “pretty clear” President Trump “wants his own domestic police force” after the president seized control of DC’s Metropolitan police department.“Look, this president is trampling on basic freedoms of the American people to a degree we, I don’t think we’ve ever seen,” Smith said on CNN. “You see that with what the ICE agents are doing, in terms of picking people up off the streets with no evidence, no due process, locking people up.”“This is happening all across the country,” Smith added. “Look, it’s pretty clear the president wants his own domestic police force, and step by step, he’s trying to create it, and we should be deeply alarmed by that, regardless of how you feel about crime in Washington DC, or any other city.”

      National guard troops began to arrive at their headquarters in Washington DC on Tuesday, after Donald Trump announced yesterday that he was deploying them to the nation’s capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low. Leading Democrats have called the move a “distraction” from the president’s economic agenda and the plague of the Epstein files.

      Earlier, the DC mayor Muriel Bowser met with attorney general Pam Bondi, after saying that her office intends to comply with federal law enforcement, as Bondi will now oversee the DC police for the next 30 days. On social media, Bondi described the meeting as “productive”, saying the pair agreed there is “nothing more important” than keeping residents and tourists “safe from deadly crime”.

      Meanwhile in the White House briefing room today, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s DC police takeover was “just the beginning”, saying that the massive surge in law enforcement resulted in 23 arrests yesterday. She added that if individuals living in homeless encampments refuse to accept places in shelters or addiction facilities they would be subject to fines or jail time. Leavitt added that the administration is still considering moving the homeless population out of the city.

      Beyond Washington, the press secretary characterised Friday’s upcoming meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin as a “listening exercise” for the president, confirming that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not be in attendance, but the president has hopes for a trilateral meeting in the future.

      For his part, Zelenskyy said today that Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire, because Moscow would use it as a springboard to start a future war. Speaking to journalists a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.

      Closer to home, the Texas Sentate approved a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. But since House Democrats continue to break quorum, the legislation isn’t going anywhere. Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.

      When it comes to the economy, the latest inflation data released today showed that the Consumer Price Index held steady at 2.7 percent. “Core” inflation – which leaves out volatile goods like food and energy to track how prices are increasing – rose by 0.3 percent. This marks a 3.1 percent increase over the course of a year – and the highest level in five months.

      In response, Donald Trump wasted no time calling out Jerome Powell on social media, continuing his long-running campaign against the chair of the Federal Reserve. “The damage he has done by always being Too Late is incalculable,” the president wrote. He also said that he was considering allowing a lawsuit – focused on Powell’s renovation of the fed’s headquarters– to proceed.
      The New York Times is reporting that investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is “at least in part” responsible for a recent hack of the computer system of the federal court system.According to the Times’s sources, this breach includes highly sensitive records that could contain information with names and details of people charged with national security crimes.The Times also reports that it’s not immediately clear what specific Russian entity might be responsible for the hack.Just a quick post here to sum up the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which breaks down the financial impact of Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill that became law last month.The topline: the CBO estimates that the poorest 10% of Americans can expect to lose around $1200 per year due to the restrictions and cut backs in the legislation – namely when it comes to Medicaid and Snap benefits. By contrast, the richest 10% of Americans can expect to gain around $13,600 each year, due to the extension of the president’s 2017 tax cuts.In response to Congressional Democratic leadership’s request for analysis on the distribution of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a letter from the CBO’s director noted that while, on average, American households can expect to see an increase in resources, this will not be evenly distributed.He writes:
      Resources will decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources will increase for households in the middle and toward the top of the income distribution.
      The Trump administration is evidently extending its control of cultural representation at the Smithsonian, the world’s largest museum and research complex.In a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal, the White House told the Smithsonian that it plans a wide review of exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations in 2026.The letter to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, from Trump administration officials said the White House wants the museums’ program to reflect “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” in keeping with an executive order issued in March that ordered the elimination of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums.Donald Trump’s order from March, titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, said the president “aims to ensure that the Smithsonian is an institution that sparks children’s imagination, celebrates American history and ingenuity, serves as a symbol to the world of American greatness, and makes America proud”.But Monday’s letter to the institution, according to the Journal, places the institution under curatorial scrutiny ranging from public-facing exhibition text and online content to internal curatorial processes, exhibition planning, the use of collections and artist grants.Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war.The Ukrainian president said he did not believe that Donald Trump supported Russia’s demands, and he expressed hope the US leader would act as an honest mediator when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.He added there was no sign that Russia was preparing to implement a ceasefire, as reports emerged that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas, advancing about six miles in three days. Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline.Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.Read more on the lead-up to both meetings hereThe Texas Sentate has passed a GOP-drawn congressional map, that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.The map passed 19-2 along party lines. Nine Senate Democrats left the floor in solidarity with their House colleagues – who broke quorum again earlier today in protest of the map. The legislation can’t advance without the absent Democrats in the lower chamber.Speaker Dustin Burrows said today that the House will adjourn until Friday 15 August, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time. If this fails they will move to end this month’s first special session days early, and Texas governor Greg Abbott will immediately call a second.“I’ll call special after special until the Texas first agenda is passed,” Abbott said in a post on X.The White House heralded today’s Consumer Price Index report as an clear picture of inflation remaining stable.But another notable exchange in the press briefing was a reporter’s question about why the public should trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation data report, given the administration undermining the jobs data released earlier this month. This led to the firing of former commissioner Erika McEntarfer, and yesterday’s announcement that the president is nominating EJ Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to replace her. Antoni is a longtime critic of the BLS.“The jobs data has had massive revisions,” Leavitt said, referring to the routine practice of issuing revisions to provide a more accurate picture of data. “We want to ensure that all of the data, the inflation data, the jobs data, any data point that is coming out of the BLS, is trustworthy and is accurate”.When asked in today’s press briefing, the White House offered little clarity on administration’s view of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza City takeover.
      This is, of course, an incredibly complex and complicated situation. The administration has made our goal clear. We want to see this conflict end. We want to see the hostages released…the President and his national security team has given extensive effort and time in doing that. More