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    ‘Americans should be alarmed’: Experts say loss of expertise at CDC will harm US health

    After high-profile departures and sweeping layoffs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faces an unprecedented loss of expertise and a simultaneous erosion of trust as top health leaders undermine vaccines and other vital health tools.“Americans should be alarmed,” said Nirav Shah, former principal deputy director at CDC and now a visiting professor at Colby College. “All of these moves leave us less safe, and it comes at a time of rising public health threats.”Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration, vowed to strip the CDC of its ability to issue guidance on vaccines and to end required testing for new pathogens.The changes to US health will be felt for decades, and the cutbacks and changes will erode the public’s already wavering trust in health officials, experts say.“Losing top, experienced experts managing crucial units in the CDC is going to put all of us at risk,” said Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings College of Law.The departure of four senior officials – Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan and Jennifer Layden – dealt “a big blow to our nation’s health preparedness”, Shah said.They joined thousands of health agency employees who have been laid off or resigned, with entire departments gutted, since Donald Trump was re-elected.“Next time there’s a problem, we will not have qualified leadership for our response,” Reiss said.The loss of “experienced, world-class” experts at the CDC is “directly related to the failed leadership of extremists” in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.The losses may continue under budget cuts, with proposed reductions of $5bn – a 42% decrease from 2024.Two of the recently ousted officials will testify before Congress on Wednesday. Susan Monarez, the most recent CDC director, who was fired after 28 days, criticized the administration’s “reckless” approach to science, including a request to “rubber-stamp” recommendations from the CDC’s independent advisers.The advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) plans to meet on Thursday and Friday. Advisers have indicated the committee will re-examine recommendations on routine childhood vaccinations such as those against hepatitis B and HPV (human papillomavirus).The Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy released on Tuesday “reaffirms that Kennedy is gunning for childhood vaccines”, Reiss said.Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said: “Secretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time. Restoring it as the world’s most trusted guardian of public health will take sustained reform and more personnel changes.”When asked about Kennedy’s stance on childhood vaccines, Hilliard said that HHS is “reaffirming the importance of the doctor-patient relationship so people can make informed decisions about their health”, emphasizing the roles of “clear, honest information and personal choice”.Kennedy has also limited access to the Covid vaccines, restricting them only to people “at higher risk”, while also saying “anyone can get the booster”.“Kennedy’s claim that anyone can get them is deeply insincere,” Reiss said. He already removed, for example, the recommendation for pregnant people, making it harder for them to access the vaccine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“While it’s legal to give vaccines off-label, not all doctors and pharmacists will, and depending what ACIP does, not all insurers will cover them”, including Medicaid, which is bound by ACIP recommendations, she said.Kennedy has repeatedly undermined the CDC and vaccines, calling the agency a “cesspool of corruption” and the Covid vaccine, for instance, the “deadliest vaccine ever made”. During the worst measles outbreak in decades, Kennedy framed vaccination as a personal choice. He has also cut millions of dollars for research on mRNA vaccines.Earlier this month, Trump defended the Covid and polio vaccines. But the president has given Kennedy sweeping control over the nation’s health and nutrition agenda.“In an era of rising threats to public health – whether it’s measles, whether it’s an Ebola outbreak, or whether it’s the continuing concern and threat from H5 [bird flu] – none of these things makes America healthy again,” Shah said.The acting director of the CDC, Jim O’Neill, has a background in biotechnology investing but he does not appear to have training in medicine or public health.“Based on what I understand, he does not have the requisite background to even be serving as acting director,” said Shah, who was acting director of the CDC while the Trump administration entered office.“Americans need to ask themselves: ‘Are we safe right now?’” Shah said. “‘Is there somebody who knows at the higher levels what should be done in the face of an emerging Ebola outbreak? Are they doing it? How do we know that?’”The news that top experts at the CDC haven’t briefed Kennedy is “alarming”, Shah said. ”If America’s top generals were planning a war and sketching out battlefield plans but had not talked to any of their lieutenants and colonels in the field, we would say that’s not leadership.”So far, many Americans have not yet felt the shock waves of Kennedy’s changes to public health, Shah said.For most people, “you don’t actually see the consequences of it until there’s an emergency”, Shah said. “And it’s way too late at that point.” More

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    Democrats are facing a gerrymandering armageddon. It was avoidable | David Daley

    There are many reasons why Democrats find themselves on the wrong end of a gerrymandering armageddon.There’s John Roberts and the US supreme court, who pretended partisan gerrymandering is just politics as usual, left voters naked to extreme power grabs, and failed the nation when voters most needed the courts’ protection.That 5-4 decision in 2019 would have been different if not for Mitch McConnell, who prevented Democrats from filling an open seat on the court in 2016, and preserved it for the Republican party and Neil Gorsuch.But perhaps the most important reason is the brilliant 2010 Republican strategy called Redmap – short for the Redistricting Majority Project – which left Republicans in charge of drawing lines for four times as many congressional seats as Democrats, and close to 70% of state legislatures nationwide.Just a few years earlier, jubilant Democrats had celebrated Barack Obama’s 2008 victory and dreamed that America’s changing demographics would lead to a decade of triumphs and a new permanent majority. It did not work out that way – because they fell asleep on redistricting.The following election, Republicans captured the approximately 110 state legislative districts they needed to dominate congressional redistricting. They held the House in 2012 despite winning 1.4 million fewer votes than Democrats, and haven’t looked back since. Democrats are still trying to catch up – and now, even as the party insists it’s going to fight back against Republican gerrymandering, remain hamstrung by snoozing more than a dozen years ago.How could a party with such a genuine demographic edge get out-organized, out-strategized and out-energized in election after election? How could no one have seen the looming redistricting nightmare? How did they do nothing about this when they controlled a trifecta in Washington with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate?Turns out some people did issue warnings. When I wrote my book Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, the definitive history of how Republicans gerrymandered the nation, I went in search of the wise men and would-be Paul Reveres, the people who knew all about the importance of redistricting, but whose shouts vanished into a black hole of complacency, overconfidence and unimaginative thinking.Had Democratic leadership listened to Steve Israel, John Tanner and Martin Frost then, all of this could have been avoided.After the Republican rout of 2010, Israel, a New York congressman then in his sixth term representing suburban Long Island, took over as chairman of the Democratic congressional campaign committee. If Washington is a city filled with unpleasant jobs, Israel stepped into one of the most hopeless. The DCCC chair serves a two-year sentence as a party road warrior, raising money, barnstorming chicken dinners and county barbecues, and most importantly, trying to recruit congressional candidates who might actually be able to flip a district. A successful term pole-vaults a politician into leadership. But swing districts are few – and few ambitious mayors or state senators want to sacrifice careers and endure those barbecues themselves only to lose an unwinnable race. So the chairman bounces from one Hampton Inn to the next, marshalling every drop of persuasion.Israel spent four years doing this. His second marriage collapsed. The late nights, the loneliness, the flight delays all seemed so unbearable that the only relief came from writing a novel on his iPhone that was a vicious satire of Washington ridiculousness.You can imagine why all that travel might have seemed worth it. The 2010 spanking meant that basic competence would look good by comparison. Also, 2012 brought a presidential cycle, and Democrats actually turn out to vote in presidential years. Sometimes that enthusiasm even trickles down-ballot and helps elect Democrats to Congress. But that was before it became clear how the Republicans had used gerrymandering to push their 2010 advantage into a durable and lasting majority. As he studied the new districts and criss-crossed the country, Israel may have been the first national Democrat to realize how ratfucked his party was – and how long it would last.“What shocked me when I first came into the DCCC was when I learned that the expansive battlefield that I thought I would have at my discretion was actually a pretty small map,” Israel told me. “There are a couple dozen competitive districts, maybe … You can have the best recruit, the best candidate, the best fundraising. But if you have an uncompetitive district, there’s no path.“I mean, the math proves it,” he says, and you hear the anguish of every night at a chair hotel bar with a burger and a bad Syrah. “Look, we won 1.4 million more votes than they did in 2012 and we only picked up eight seats. That tells you that this whole thing was jury-rigged in order to stop Democrats from playing in competitive districts. It worked brilliantly for them. I’m just sorry we didn’t figure that out in 2008.”As Israel sees it, that’s the year when Democrats really screwed up. He thinks the party should have been thinking ahead then to redistricting and down-ballot races. Instead, they planned for nothing. Redistricting, he says, never seemed to cross the mind of Democratic leadership. It was, he says, “a catastrophic strategic mistake”. In 2006 and 2008, Democrats “won districts that we had no business winning. But then we started losing state legislatures and governors across America – and that’s what destroyed us in 2010 and 2012. Had we devoted resources to protecting Democrats in state houses across America, the Republicans still would have won the majority in 2010. But we would have had a seat at the table in redistricting and we might have been able to take it away from them in 2012.“The DNC,” he says, shaking his head, “they just whistled past the graveyard. I don’t understand why.”Republicans, he says, “have always been better than Democrats at playing the long game. And they played the long game in two fundamental ways. Number one, on the judicial side. They realized they had to stock courts across the country with partisan Republican judges and they did it. The second long game was on redistricting. The center of gravity wasn’t an immediate majority in the House. It was rebuilding the infrastructure in courts and state houses across the country so when they got the majority back they could stay in it for a long, long time.”Israel walks me to his office door. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “This wouldn’t have happened if Martin Frost was still here.”Frost, a Texas Democrat who served from 1979 until 2005, and Tanner, a Tennessee Democrat who held office from 1989 until 2011, were the two Democrats in previous Congresses who really understood the long-term ramifications of redistricting and agitated, usually alone, for action. Both are long gone from the Capitol, but when I hunted them down for my book I found them where I half expected: steps from K Street, along the Washington DC legal and lobbying corridor where former pols cash in on years of connections and experience.Tanner, then the vice-chair of Prime Policy Group, had a cushy corner office with a putting green, a cushy landing for an 11-term Democrat from Tennessee. Exhausted by partisanship, and well aware that even his reputation for bipartisanship would not save him when Tennessee Republicans redrew congressional lines after 2010, Tanner chose not to seek re-election. And so Republican gerrymandering claimed one Democrat who had repeatedly tilted at a then lonely windmill: redistricting.As his fellow moderate Blue Dog Democrats disappeared, white southern Democrats went extinct, and congressional partisanship began to harden, Tanner was moved to take action. In three successive Congresses, under both Democratic and Republican control, he tried to put a stop to partisan gerrymandering. He proposed national standards that removed the power to draw distinct lines from state legislatures and handed it to commissions. His plan also prohibited redrawing lines more than once in a decade, which would have prevented the gerrymandering armageddon now under way. This was not an issue that made the otherwise garrulous Tanner a lot of friends. Neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted anything to do with it.“Here?” Tanner says of Washington. He pushes at a cup of coffee. “Ha! They’re drawing their own districts. I had many members come up to me and say, ‘What are you doing?’ They have deals. ‘Don’t come around here fucking with the maps. I won’t fool with your map if you don’t fool with mine.’”Tanner first introduced his plan in 2005, when Republicans ran the House. Tanner knew it would be an uphill battle, and indeed, his bill never earned as much as a committee hearing. When Democrats took back the chamber after the 2006 election, he thought he might convince his leadership to listen. He flagged down the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, who ignored him and wriggled free.“I told them, if you don’t do this, all the population growth is under Republican control. The only stronghold left for Democrats is cities … They didn’t want anything to do with it.”Tanner remembers Pelosi saying: “We’ll take a look at it.” But he couldn’t get a hearing on his bill in 2007 or 2009 either. Partisan warriors, he suggested, never really want to reform the process. They might fight to take away the other side’s advantage, but never, ever do they want to risk their own.Might Democratic elders regret ignoring him now, as leaders of a permanent minority? Tanner snorts again. “It’s just not something anyone wants to take up. I went through (redistricting) three times. There’s a lot of power connected to that system.”Tanner says that far more than 300 seats are responsive only to the most partisan elements.“We can’t even do the small problems now, let alone the big ones,” he says. “These guys are trapped in this system where the only threat is from their base in a primary … No one will do what they all know has to be done to keep the country from going adrift. Is that because of redistricting? Hell, yes.”Tanner speaks with appealingly frank disgust for a man whose living was long based on his relationships with these same pols. “Democracy? The people’s will? It doesn’t matter,” he says. “That’s redistricting, too. The average citizen is a pawn. Without the protection of a fairly drawn district, the citizen is a pawn of billionaires who use the map of the country as a checkerboard to play politics on.”Hidden behind owlish glasses, Frost doesn’t look the part of an aggressive warrior, but he is the last hardened Democratic street fighter to serve in the House. When we spoke, he escorted me into a conference room with a well-appointed cookie tray and explained how he had learned the importance of redistricting after Texas gained three seats in Congress after the 1990 census.In the 1990s and 2000s, Frost watched as Republicans sought maps that packed as many voters of color as possible into one district – knowing that doing so would create whiter and more Republican seats in the surrounding areas. Sometimes they even worked together with Black Democrats. Frost represented the Dallas-Fort Worth area and it became clear that one of these new seats would be a majority Black district, which had the potential to cut into his base. Frost wanted to stay in Congress, and wanted white and Black Democrats to work together to create districts that would benefit both. As he wrote in his book The Partisan Divide: “The survival of white Southern Democrats would be determined by how many Black voters were left over for their districts after the new majority Black seats were created.“So I started asking the question, ‘Who is doing redistricting for the Democratic party? I wanted to talk to that person. I was stunned by the answer. No one.”Texas by the 1980s was trending red, but Democrats still controlled the legislature and the governor’s office, and therefore redistricting. They came up with a plan that added three new districts whose voters were largely people of color without dismantling the bases of the white incumbents. Frost calls it “a classic example of what could be done when all members of a state Democratic delegation work together for the common good.” Texas Democrats extended their advantage in the US House from 19-8 to 21-9. The Frost gerrymander held until Republicans took the state house in 2002, and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, pushed the legislature into a mid-decade redistricting plan, much as is happening now.The problem for Democrats is that despite these repeated lessons in the importance of line-drawing, no one continued Frost’s work after the DeLay map knocked him out of Congress. “For a while, we fought them to a standstill because we had good legal talent and technical help. Then we just got overcome on the political side.”How is this possible? I ask. “I’m not the right one to ask that question to,” he demurs, but says he thinks about it all the time. He has concluded that the party’s coastal and white leadership simply doesn’t understand what it’s like to run for office as a Democrat outside of Pelosi’s San Francisco. “Leaders in the Democratic party come from safe, white districts. So they don’t worry about these things, because nothing can be done to them. You can’t do anything to Nancy Pelosi’s district.“White northern leaders don’t think of this the same way that white southern politicians think about it. We instinctively understand the problem, but white liberals didn’t really focus on this very much. They said, ‘Well, everything’s fine. We’ll just continue what we’re doing’ and didn’t make this a priority. I argued for 20 or 30 years about the importance of paying attention to state legislatures, but I couldn’t get enough people in the party to really embrace that. The Republicans understood that and had a strategy. We didn’t.”Frost even became chairman of the DCCC after the 1994 Newt Gingrich rout, but, like Israel later, could never convince anyone else in power to take redistricting seriously. I tell him what Israel said, that this wouldn’t have happened had anyone listened to Frost, and he gives a quick nod that suggests he agrees.“No one else in the party cared about this or understood how important it was, for whatever reason.” The Republicans not only got it, but knocked out the one Democrat who did too. “Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to change history, but we sure as hell would have gone down fighting.“It didn’t have to be. If the Democrats had put the same type of emphasis on redistricting that the Republicans did, there might have been a different outcome. Could have been. Should have been. We’ll never know.”

    David Daley is the author of Antidemocratic: Inside the Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More

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    Trump threatens to call national emergency in Washington DC over Ice cooperation – US politics live

    Welcome to our live coverage of US politics.Donald Trump has threatened to call a national emergency and federalize Washington DC after the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, said its police would not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), whose agents have been taking illegal suspects into custody and have been accused of racially profiling people in doing so.The US president took charge of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) on 11 August for 30 days, activating the National Guard and deploying federal officers in what he framed as a crackdown on crime and homelessness but what was widely seen as another example of federal overreach.It is true that Washington DC has struggled with the scourge of gun violence, but its violent crime rate is at a 30-year low, much lower than that of cities in many red states.Trump’s 30-day emergency declaration has expired but over 2,000 national guard troops are patrolling the district – reportedly including several hundred sent from Republican-run states. It is unclear when their mission will end.Bowser issued an executive order at the beginning of the month requiring ongoing coordination between local law enforcement and various federal partners, though Ice was notably excluded.Trump blamed “Radical Left Democrats” for pressuring Bowser to inform the government about the non-cooperation with Ice, adding that if the police halted cooperation with Ice, “Crime would come roaring back.”He said: “To the people and businesses of Washington, D.C., DON’T WORRY, I AM WITH YOU, AND WON’T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN. I’ll call a National Emergency, and Federalize, if necessary!!!”We will have more on this and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us.In mid-June, Donald Trump extended a deadline for TikTok to find a (non-Chinese) buyer or face a ban in the US. That extension is due to expire on Wednesday.The US is “very close” to a deal with China to settle their dispute over TikTok, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said earlier today.“On the TikTok deal itself, we’re very close to resolving the issue,” he told reporters as he arrived at Spain’s foreign ministry for the second day of talks with Chinese officials.Congress has approved a US ban on the popular video-sharing platform unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake.After initially calling for TikTok to be banned during his first term, Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second term.A federal law requiring TikTok’s sale or a ban on national security grounds was due to take effect the day before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.But the Republican president, whose 2024 election campaign relied heavily on social media and who has said he is fond of TikTok, put the ban on pause.China and the US – the world’s two biggest economies – have agreed to several 90-day pauses on a series of increasing reciprocal tariffs, staving off an all-out trade war.Donald Trump said on Friday he’ll send the National Guard to address crime concerns in Memphis, Tennessee, his latest test of the limits of presidential power by using military force in American cities.Speaking on Fox News, Trump said “the mayor is happy” and “the governor is happy” about the pending deployment. Calling the city “deeply troubled,” he said “we’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.”Paul Young, the Democratic Memphis mayor, had signaled the intervention was coming. “Earlier this week I was informed that the government and the president were considering deploying the national guard,” he said on Thursday, while requesting “financial resources for intervention and prevention” rather than military deployment.“I did not ask for the National Guard and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime,” Young, who ran for office on a tough-on-crime platform, told a news conference the following day.The Guardian US’ democracy editor, Kira Lerner, has explored the ways in which Trump’s Washington takeover led to the indiscriminate detention of immigrants, the rise of racial profiling and the arrests of large numbers of people for low-level crimes. Here is an extract from her story, published on 10 September 2025, the day Trump’s direct control of Washington DC’s police force ended:
    A White House official said on Monday that 2,120 people have been arrested since the start of Trump’s takeover, 20 known gang members had been arrested and 214 firearms had been seized. Although violent crime has decreased during this period, Washington residents say the impact has not been worth the overbearing law enforcement presence.
    Federal agents with numerous agencies, including Immigrations and customs enforcement (Ice), Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Park Service, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US marshals service have all been activated across the city. Often a single arrest will involve officers from multiple agencies and the local Metropolitan police department (MPD).
    Though the deployment of national guard troops from six states was the most high-profile aspect of the 30 days, the camo-clad troops, who are now armed, were largely focused on patrolling tourist sites and Union Station, the city’s main train station. With little work to be done, some were instructed to do landscaping and other “beautification” tasks …
    Washington DC residents have pushed back against what many call an occupation, which is deeply unpopular in the largely Democratic city. On Saturday, thousands marched from Malcolm X park in Northwest DC to the White House in an event organized by Free DC, a community organization working to protect the city’s Home Rule that has trained thousands of people since 11 August.
    Welcome to our live coverage of US politics.Donald Trump has threatened to call a national emergency and federalize Washington DC after the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, said its police would not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), whose agents have been taking illegal suspects into custody and have been accused of racially profiling people in doing so.The US president took charge of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) on 11 August for 30 days, activating the National Guard and deploying federal officers in what he framed as a crackdown on crime and homelessness but what was widely seen as another example of federal overreach.It is true that Washington DC has struggled with the scourge of gun violence, but its violent crime rate is at a 30-year low, much lower than that of cities in many red states.Trump’s 30-day emergency declaration has expired but over 2,000 national guard troops are patrolling the district – reportedly including several hundred sent from Republican-run states. It is unclear when their mission will end.Bowser issued an executive order at the beginning of the month requiring ongoing coordination between local law enforcement and various federal partners, though Ice was notably excluded.Trump blamed “Radical Left Democrats” for pressuring Bowser to inform the government about the non-cooperation with Ice, adding that if the police halted cooperation with Ice, “Crime would come roaring back.”He said: “To the people and businesses of Washington, D.C., DON’T WORRY, I AM WITH YOU, AND WON’T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN. I’ll call a National Emergency, and Federalize, if necessary!!!”We will have more on this and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us. More

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    Trump insists foreign workers are ‘welcome’ days after arrest of hundreds of South Koreans

    President Donald Trump has said foreign workers sent to the United States are “welcome” and he doesn’t want to “frighten off” investors, 10 days after hundreds of South Koreans were arrested at a work site in Georgia.In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote: “I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize investment.“I want them to bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people how to make these very unique and complex products, as they phase out of our Country, and back into their land,” he wrote.About 475 people, mostly South Korean nationals, were arrested at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery factory, operated by Hyundai-LG, in the south-eastern US state of Georgia on 4 September.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials alleged South Koreans had overstayed their visas or held permits that didn’t allow them to perform manual labor.The Georgia raid was the largest single-site operation conducted since Trump launched a sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.Though the US decided against deportation, images of the workers being chained and handcuffed during the raid caused widespread alarm in South Korea. Seoul repatriated the workers on Friday.The South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, called the raid “bewildering” and warned on Thursday that the raid could discourage future investment.In his post, Trump described the circumstances for temporarily allowing foreign experts into the US to build “extremely complex products”.“Chips, Semiconductors, Computers, Ships, Trains, and so many other products that we have to learn from others how to make, or, in many cases, relearn because we used to be great at it, but not anymore,” Trump wrote.“We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say we will learn from them, and do even better than them at their own ‘game,’ sometime in the not too distant future,” the president added.Korea’s trade unions have called on Trump to issue an official apology. More

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    Trump news at a glance: president claims people on ‘the left’ are under investigation after Kirk shooting

    As officials continue to investigate the motives of Tyler Robinson – the 22-year-old accused of shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk – many Republicans have been quick to lash out at the political left.Allies of Donald Trump have accused liberals of fomenting anti-conservative vitriol that would encourage violence – even as the president and his allies have often invoked violent imagery against their opponents.“The problem is on the left,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “A lot of people that you would traditionally say are on the left … [are] already under investigation.”It comes after Trump declined to call for the US to come together as a way of fixing the country’s divisions, preferring to cast “vicious and horrible” radicals on the left of US politics as the sole problem.Shooting suspect had ‘very different ideology’ than conservative family, says CoxThe Utah governor, Spencer Cox, has told national talkshows that the man suspected of killing Kirk was living with and in a relationship with a person “transitioning from male to female”.Cox stopped short of saying that officials had determined the suspect’s partner’s alleged status was a factor in Kirk’s killing.Cox said on Sunday that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson – Kirk’s accused killer – was not cooperating with authorities. But authorities were gathering information from family members and people around him, Cox said.Read the full storyTrump officials reportedly ask Congress for $58m in security after Kirk shootingThe Trump administration is asking Congress to approve an additional $58m for security services to protect the members of the executive and judicial branches after the killing of Charlie Kirk, multiple outlets report.The government also supported adding more money to protect members of Congress, but they deferred to the legislative branch on further steps.Read the full storyRubio in Israel for talks to limit diplomatic damage over Qatar strikesThe US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has held talks in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu aimed at limiting the diplomatic fallout to both countries by Israel’s attempt to assassinate Hamas leaders in Qatar, its continued demolition of Gaza and the accelerated expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.“This alliance has never been stronger,” Netanyahu told reporters. “It’s as strong, as durable as the stones in the Western Wall that we just touched.”Part of Rubio’s mission on this two-day visit is to convey Donald Trump’s irritation at Tuesday’s Israeli missile strike on Doha that was aimed at Hamas leadership but killed their aides and a Qatari security officer.Read the full storyFlorida vaccine mandate rollback falters after Trump criticismFlorida’s health department is walking back the scale of the state surgeon general’s commitment to eliminate all vaccine mandates.After surgeon general Joseph Ladapo said mandates were akin to “slavery”, Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature have so far shown reluctance to get involved. Donald Trump denounced the edict as “a tough stance” less than 48 hours after it was issued and there was a furious backlash from medical experts to the plan for Florida to become the first state not to require vaccinations for school-age children.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    A sense of apprehension hung over Los Angeles this week in the wake of a supreme court ruling that paved the way for federal agents to conduct warrantless raids and target people based on their skin color, accent or job.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened 13 September 2025. More

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    Rubio heads to Israel amid tensions over strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar

    The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has arrived in Israel seeking to mend a rift with Washington’s other allies in the region over Israel’s attempted assassination of Hamas leaders in Qatar and the accelerated expansion of settlements on the occupied West Bank.In talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Rubio will try to balance criticism of the Israeli airstrike on a Doha building, which killed aides to a Hamas leader and a Qatari security officer, with a message of overall support for Israel before the expected formal recognition of Palestine by a number of other US allies, including the UK, France, Canada, Australia and Belgium.Rubio, before his departure on Sunday, told reporters: “Obviously, we’re not happy about it. The president was not happy about it. Now we need to move forward and figure out what comes next.” He stressed the incident was “not going to change the nature of our relationship with the Israelis”.The Netanyahu government is seeking to play down any rift with the Trump administration over the Doha strike, while remaining defiant over the attack.“We have a very close dialogue with the administration. We’re coordinated with them and, relatively speaking, the American reaction was reasonable,” the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said on Israeli army radio. “At the UN security council they expressed reservations, but the reservations were minor. We took into account that this would have a price.“The Qataris are trying to ride on this. From their perspective, they are leveraging this incident. From our perspective, we delivered the clear message that we will pursue the terrorists everywhere.”Asked if he was concerned about threats by Israeli officials to carry out further strikes in Qatar, Rubio said: “We’re going to meet with them. We’re going to talk about what the future holds. I’m going to get a much better understanding of what their plans are moving forward.After Israel, Rubio is due to join Trump’s planned visit to Britain this week, which will reportedly soon receive its first group of injured and sick children from Gaza for treatment.While in Jerusalem on Sunday, Rubio will visit the Western Wall with Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.The unprecedented attack by Israel against Hamas leaders in an upmarket neighbourhood of Doha on Tuesday marked Israel’s first such strike against US ally Qatar, putting renewed strain on diplomatic efforts to bring about a truce in war-ravaged Gaza and drawing international criticism.Trump has openly chided Netanyahu over the attack, which targeted Hamas leaders gathering to discuss a new ceasefire proposal put forward by the US.Netanyahu has defended the operation, saying on Saturday that killing senior Hamas officials would remove the “main obstacle” to ending the war.The talk of a ceasefire, still out of reach after months of failed negotiations, came as Israel has been intensifying its campaign in the Gaza Strip.In recent days, it has ramped up efforts to seize control of Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban area, telling residents to evacuate and blowing up numerous high-rise buildings it said were being used by Hamas.While thousands of people have evacuated the city, according to the Israeli military and Hamas, many more remain.Gaza’s civil defence agency said 32 people were killed by Israeli fire on Saturday.Netanyahu and his government have defied international criticism throughout the nearly two-year war, but it continued to mount this week.On Friday, the UN general assembly voted to back a revival of the two-state solution, in open defiance of Israeli opposition.Israeli allies Britain and France, alongside several other western countries, are preparing to recognise Palestinian statehood at a UN gathering this month out of exasperation at Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war and in the occupied West Bank.London and Paris, joined by Berlin, also called for an immediate halt to Israel’s offensive in Gaza City. Nevertheless, Israel retains the backing of its most powerful ally and biggest arms supplier, the US.Before Rubio’s visit, the state department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the US’s top diplomat would show “our commitment to fight anti-Israel actions including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism”.“He will also emphasise our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home.”In Israel, opponents of the Netanyahu government have sought to put pressure on ministers to end the war in return for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.On Saturday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main campaign group, accused the Israeli prime minister of being the “one obstacle” to freeing the hostages and accused him of repeatedly sabotaging ceasefire efforts.Of the 251 people taken hostage by Hamas militants in October 2023, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 whom the Israeli military says are dead.The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally of official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 64,803 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.With Agence France-Presse and Reuters More

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    Trump news at a glance: Kirk critics lose jobs amid rancour after killing

    The killing of Charlie Kirk has prompted a crackdown by authorities on critical commentary, with numerous people losing their jobs over their reaction to the fatal shooting of the conservative activist and free speech advocate.Those fired, suspended or censured in recent days include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team.Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, has ordered staff “to find and identify military members, and any individual associated with the Pentagon, who have mocked or appeared to condone Charlie Kirk’s murder”, NBC News reported. It said several members of the military were relieved of their duties because of social media posts – and that “dozens” more, including civilian Pentagon employees, had been “called out on X”.Republicans’ anger at those disrespecting Kirk’s legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures – including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence. After Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was clubbed over the head by a hammer-wielding conspiracy theorist, Kirk told a TV audience: “If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out.”Conservative figures search for Kirk criticsAlong with government efforts to clamp down, a number of conservative figures and groups are attempting to collate and expose examples of commentary seen as objectionable. Some Republicans have proposed deporting Kirk’s critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.Laura Loomer, a Trump loyalist, posted to X: “Prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death. I’m going to make you wish you never opened your mouth.”Read the full storyQuestions remain over alleged Kirk shooter’s motivation Though the identity of the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was revealed by authorities on Friday, questions surrounding his motivations have exacerbated intense US political debate in the aftermath of the shooting. In absence of a clear motive for the slaying, reports have tried to piece together information about Robinson and his background.Read the full storyStaffer at Mexico’s ruling party resigns after TV comments about KirkA congressional staffer from Mexico’s ruling party has resigned after being called out online for comments he made on a major Mexican television news program. Salvador Ramírez told a roundtable political analysis program that Kirk was “given a spoonful of his own chocolate” because of his promotion of the use of weapons.Read the full storyPentagon eying Louisiana to deploy national guard, leaked plans showThe Trump administration has drafted a proposal to deploy 1,000 Louisiana national guard troops to conduct law enforcement operations in the state’s urban centers, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing military planning documents it had obtained.Democratic leaders have said that the massive deployments are more a show of power by Trump rather than a serious effort to fight crime.Read the full storyFBI director ridiculed by far right for clumsy response to Kirk killingFBI director Kash Patel has been criticised heavily both for his perceived incompetent stewardship of the bureau in investigating the Kirk killing and his invocation of Viking lore. After announcing the arrest of a suspect, an emotional Patel said: “Lastly, to my friend Charlie Kirk, rest now, brother. We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”One poster on a far-right channel on Telegram: “Hindu FBI Director tells assassinated Christian that he will see him in Valhalla … OK then.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    Zohran Mamdani said he would order New York police to arrest Benjamin Netanyahuin the event that the Israeli prime minister ever traveled there, if the mayoral candidate wins the election.

    Elon Musk has called for a “dissolution of parliament” and a “change of government” in the UK while addressing a crowd attending a “unite the kingdom” rally in London, organised by a far-right activist.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 12 September 2025. More

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    Leaked plans show Pentagon eyeing Louisiana to deploy national guard

    Donald Trump’s administration has drafted a proposal to deploy 1,000 Louisiana national guard troops to conduct law enforcement operations in the state’s urban centers, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing military planning documents it had obtained.Trump has made crime a major focus of his administration even as violent crime rates have fallen in many US cities. His crackdown on Democratic-led municipalities has fueled legal concerns and spurred protests, including a recent demonstration by several thousand people in Washington DC.Democratic leaders have said that the massive deployments are more a show of power by Trump rather than a serious effort to fight crime.More than a dozen residents of Shreveport, Louisiana, told Reuters they viewed any deployment as more of a political stunt than a meaningful crime-fighting solution – and a way for Trump to blunt criticism that he’s only targeting Democratic-controlled states.Louisiana’s governor, Jeff Landry, is Republican. The mayors of Shreveport and Baton Rouge, two of Louisiana’s most prominent cities, are Republicans. But the mayor of New Orleans, the state’s best-known city, is a Democrat.A Pentagon spokesperson did not comment in detail on the documents. A spokesperson said: “Leaked documents should not be interpreted as policy. We will not discuss these plans through leaked documents, pre-decisional or otherwise.”The planning documents, according to the Post, state that the plan would allow the military to supplement law enforcement in cities such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Both cities have majority Black populations.The Pentagon’s plan outlines a mobilization lasting until 30 September 2026, though no start date was specified.Among the documents is an unsigned, undated draft memo from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to US attorney general Pam Bondi and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, which highlights the “unique advantage” of the military’s proposed approach to law enforcement in Louisiana, according to the Post.Hinging on a request for troop deployment from Landry, who is a staunch Trump supporter, the proposal has not been confirmed as approved by federal or state officials, according to the Post’s reporting. The Pentagon’s Louisiana plan suggests a robust operation is under consideration, with national guard personnel “supplementing” the law enforcement presence in high-crime neighborhoods. They could also help with drug interdiction and by providing “logistical and communications support” to local authorities, the Washington Post reported.On Friday, Trump said he would send national guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee. More