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      ‘Substantial’ federal layoffs begin as Congress remains deadlocked over funding to end shutdown – live

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      The Guardian has independently confirmed that reductions in force (RIFs) are under way at the following departments and agencies:

      Department of Education

      Department of Health and Human Services

      Department of Homeland Security (specifically the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)

      Department of the Treasury
      Certain agencies haven’t immediately responded to the Guardian’s request for comment, but other media outlets have reported layoffs are expected at the following:

      Environmental Protection Agency

      Department of Energy

      Department of the Interior

      Department of Housing and Urban Development
      Donald Trump just started an Oval Office announcement on a deal with the British-based drug maker Asta Zeneca, for a “most-favored-nation” drug pricing model aimed at making prescription medicines more affordable, by boasting that he would have struck the deal sooner, but “we were interrupted by a rigged election”.Trump went on to repeat the wildly false claim that the discounted prices for American consumers would reduce the price of prescription drugs by up to 1,000%.As Daniel Dale of CNN has explained: “Cutting drug prices by more than 100% would mean that Americans would get paid to acquire their medications rather than paying for them.” A health economist, Timothy McBride, told the network Trump’s claims are “just not logical,” since a 500% price reduction would mean that a drug that now costs $100 would cost be available for free, with consumers given a $400 rebate.The actual deal includes cutting prices for the government’s Medicaid health plan for low-income Americans and discounted prices through a “TrumpRx” website the president said.AstraZeneca’s chief executive Pascal Soriot stood near Trump in the gold-clad Oval Office as the president made the announcement.Pfizer previously agreed to drop prescription drug prices in the Medicaid program for lower-income Americans to what it charges in other developed countries in exchange for relief from tariffs threatened by Trump.Americans currently pay by far the most for prescription medicines, often nearly three times more than in other developed nations, and Trump has been pressuring drugmakers to lower their prices to what patients pay elsewhere or face stiff tariffs.Last month, he threatened 100% tariffs on drug makers, increasing pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to agree to price cuts and shift manufacturing to the US.Writing on his social media platform, Donald Trump just announced that, in response to what he called China’s “extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade” and new export restrictions, he intends to “impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying” starting on 1 November.The same day, he adds, “we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.”That date is after Trump’s planned meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Our colleague Callum Jones has more on the latest friction in Trump’s trade war with China.The wave of layoffs at federal agencies has reportedly reached the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now, according to the PBS correspondent Lisa Desjardins.Federal prosecutors in Maryland could seek criminal charges next week against Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, report the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Carol Leonnig and her colleague Ken Dilanian for MSNBC.A grand jury in Maryland has been hearing evidence related to claims that Bolton, a former ally of Trump turned harsh critic, improperly kept classified national security information in his Maryland home.The journalists also report that Ed Martin, a Republican operative who served briefly as Trump’s acting US attorney in the District of Columbia now running the justice department’s “Weaponization Working Group”, has met multiple times with the Trump-appointed acting US attorney in Maryland, Kelly Hayes, on the Bolton case.An indictment on Bolton for illegally retaining classified documents would be the third of a Trump critic in recent weeks, and would echo the indictment of New York’s attorney general, Tish James, in accusing critics of the president of committing crimes he was indicted for after his first term.I’ve been chatting to Jessica Roth, a former federal prosecutor in the southern district of New York, about the indictment of Letitia James.Roth said it was “extremely distressing” to see prosecutions brought against the president’s perceived political enemies.“I can’t say that I was surprised that the department [under attorney general Pam Bondi] pursued these charges against Tish James,” she added. “That doesn’t lessen my distress … particularly in light of what had been longstanding Department of Justice policy not to pursue an indictment unless prosecutors were convinced that they would be able to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.”Lindsey Halligan, the handpicked and newly installed US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, has pursued the charges against James and former FBI director James Comey, and Roth notes that we could see a wider effort to bring charges against the president’s adversaries in districts throughout the country that are now run by Trump-friendly prosecutors.Much like the charges brought against Comey, Roth underscored that the crimes that James is being accused of are very difficult to prove “even under the best stances” because they require proof of “criminal intent as opposed to an honest mistake or negligence”.The Guardian has independently confirmed that reductions in force (RIFs) are under way at the following departments and agencies:

      Department of Education

      Department of Health and Human Services

      Department of Homeland Security (specifically the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)

      Department of the Treasury
      Certain agencies haven’t immediately responded to the Guardian’s request for comment, but other media outlets have reported layoffs are expected at the following:

      Environmental Protection Agency

      Department of Energy

      Department of the Interior

      Department of Housing and Urban Development
      The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed to the Guardian that employees across “multiple divisions” have received reduction-in-force notices. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said this was “a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown”.He added that HHS under the Biden administration “became a bloated bureaucracy, growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%”.Nixon said that all employees receiving RIF notices were “designated non-essential by their respective divisions”.“HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” he added.The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal government workers, has condemned the mass layoffs announced by the White House budget office.“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” said Everett Kelley, the union’s president.AFGE has already filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the firings, and a hearing is set for Thursday, 16 October. “We will not stop fighting until every reduction-in-force notice is rescinded,” Kelley added.The Department of Education has also confirmed to the Guardian that their employees will be affected by the reductions in force.An office of management and budget (OMB) spokesperson told the Guardian that the reductions in force that have begun are “substantial”.The official didn’t confirm an exact number, but we’re bringing you the latest as we hear from different agencies and departments about how they stand to be affected. More

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      US farmers caught in Trump-China trade war – who’ll buy the soybeans?

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      At the Purfeerst farm in southern Minnesota, the soybean harvest just wrapped up for the season. The silver grain bins are full of about 100,000 bushels of soybeans, which grab about $10 a piece.This year, though, the fate of the soybeans, and the people whose livelihoods depend on selling them, is up in the air: America’s soybean farmers are stuck in the middle of a trade war between the US and China, the biggest purchaser of soybean exports, used to feed China’s pigs.“We are gonna have to find a home for them soybeans some time soon,” said Matt Purfeerst, a fifth-generation farmer on the family’s land. “They won’t stay in our bins for ever.”No other country comes close to purchasing as many American soybeans as China – last year, it was more than $12bn worth. This year, the country has not purchased a single dollar’s worth, cutting off the country that makes up about half of US soybean exports.While Trump has said he intends some sort of payment to go to soybean farmers hurt by tariffs, an announcement of a specific plan is on hold while the government is shut down. He said in a Truth Social post last week that he would be meeting with the Chinese president soon and “soybeans will be a major topic of discussion”.The White House cast blame on Democrats for the government shutdown for the delay in a response to the Guardian on Wednesday, erroneously claiming they were prioritizing healthcare for migrants over farmers.View image in fullscreen“President Trump, [Treasury] Secretary [Scott] Bessent, and [Agriculture] Secretary [Brooke] Rollins are always in touch about the needs of our farmers, who played a crucial role in the president’s November victory,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “Unfortunately, Democrats in Congress have stalled progress on this issue with their prolonged shutdown to serve illegal immigrants instead of America’s farmers. No decisions have been made, but we look forward to sharing good news soon.”Purfeerst’s family farm grows soybeans and corn, and has some beef cattle. The job is a round-the-clock combination of engineering, business, manual labor, environmental science. And it’s increasingly hard for family farms to make it. Costs for propane, fertilizer and seed have gone up, he said, and the prices for the goods they are selling don’t make up for the increased costs.Soybean farmers have become the “poster child out there right now of how this one particular segment’s getting hurt”, he said. The farm recently welcomed the Democratic US senator Amy Klobuchar for a visit to talk about how the tariffs were playing out, but Purfeerst said political affiliations didn’t matter.“Only 1% of the population is even involved in [agriculture] any more,” he said. “And what gets really challenging is this perception of ag out there, whether it’s on tariffs and prices or environmental issues, farmers kind of seem to be the crosshairs of a lot of it.”Farming areas voted for Trump in 2024, as did much of rural America. One analysis, by Investigate Midwest, showed Trump growing his support among farming-dependent counties in 2024 despite a trade war during his first term that negatively affected farmers.“I’m not gonna get into who I voted for particularly, but I would just have to say, at the time, you got to make decisions who you think is going to be the best leader of the country, and go on with life,” Purfeerst said. “And in four years, you get to vote again. That’s the beauty of our society. It’s not an 80-year regime. It’s a four-year cycle. It’s hard to say what’s gonna come about. I mean, everyone’s got their pros and cons.”View image in fullscreenPurfeerst has options for his soybeans: because of his farm’s location, he can sell domestically to soybean crush facilities in nearby towns, sell on the rail market, or sell in Minneapolis and put product on barges down the Mississippi River. Other soybean farmers, especially those in more remote parts of the midwest where soybeans are mostly produced, aren’t as lucky.Stories from all parts of the country where soybeans are grown have surfaced in recent weeks – in Arkansas, Illinois, Nebraska, Indiana, the Dakotas. Farmers face higher costs for inputs like fertilizer and equipment. They rely on China as a purchaser. Soybeans sitting in bins too long is subject to weather and pests. The prices fluctuate, so it’s a gamble to hold on to it that sometimes can pay off, or sometimes lose money.“Let’s say tomorrow we get a trade deal with China, and it’s favorable to soybeans. All of a sudden you might see this market jump from $10 to $12 in three, four days,” Purfeerst said. “So it makes it extremely challenging from a risk management standpoint of: when do you market your crop, and how many eggs do you put in that basket? The potential is $12, but if we don’t get a trade deal, it could go to $9 … There’s a huge volatility in soybeans.”The soybean industry has been warning for months that China’s exit from the market would be devastating, calling on the Trump administration to come up with a trade deal that spares farmers. The American Soybean Association wrote a letter to Trump in August, saying the country’s soybean farmers were “standing at a trade and financial precipice” and “cannot survive a prolonged trade dispute with our largest customer”.Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, declared the first week of October as soybean week, saying in the announcement that “our soybean farmers are confronting a crisis they haven’t seen since the 1980s”.“They’ve produced a bumper crop this year, just to find out they have nowhere to sell their harvest thanks to Trump’s trade policies,” Walz said. “Minnesota’s got the best beans in the world – I encourage Minnesotans to stand with our farmers and continue to advocate for federal trade reform.”It’s not the first time a Trump trade plan has hurt soybean farmers: in 2018, a trade war led to significant reductions in soybean exports to China. Since then, the market has rebounded, though China has ramped up soybean purchases from Brazil and Argentina, stockpiling imports earlier this year.Republican lawmakers have said they are sympathetic to the farmers and want to find a way to help them. James Comer, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, said this week that soybean farmers were not to blame for the problem they are facing.“They planted that crop assuming that those foreign markets were going to be there,” Comer said in a recent TV appearance. “I think we need to do something to help the soybean farmers.”A bailout is “really just a Band-Aid”, though it’s one that many farmers would welcome as they are getting squeezed right now, Purfeerst said. Most farmers would prefer an open market, without tariffs, for their products, letting the market dictate prices. They don’t want the trade war now to affect a long-term relationship that makes up a significant chunk of market share. There also should be more emphasis put on increasing domestic uses of soybeans, though a long-range plan like that won’t help the farmers who are stuck right now, he said.“There’s farms that are struggling to make money on soybean acres, and you’ve got to remember: whatever payment we’re getting, whatever that dollar amount might be, if we get anything, it’s not just going in our back pocket,” he said. “We’ve got a fertilizer bill. We’ve got to pay the seed bill. There’s a lot of payments. So really, that money might be in the farmer’s hands for a month, until it gets spent on inputs for next year.” More

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      US to send 200 troops to Israel to support and monitor ceasefire deal, reports say

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      US troops have been sent to Israel as part of the peace deal approved on Thursday to support and help monitor the ceasefire, according to multiple news reports.Senior US officials told reporters that 200 troops will initially be on the ground with a “civil-military coordination center” operated by US Central Command to help facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid as well as logistical and security assistance into the territory wracked by two years of war, the Associated Press reported, citing two officials who confirmed the report on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not authorized for release.Reuters and ABC News also reported on military troops being sent to Israel.The troops are part of a broader team that also includes partner nations, non-governmental organizations and private-sector entities there to help monitor the peace deal and the transition to a civilian government in Gaza, US officials said.US service members have already begun arriving in the region from around the globe, according to one of the officials, and will continue to travel to the region over the weekend to begin planning and establishing the center. American troops will not be sent into Gaza, they said, and the coordination center will be staffed by about 200 US service members who have expertise in transportation, planning, security, logistics and engineering.Israel and Hamas agreed to pause hostilities in Gaza on Thursday, a deal Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social network, saying it was the first step to “Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace”. Many questions remain on next steps, including Hamas disarmament, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and a future government in the territory.Both sides agreed to a hostage-prisoner exchange that would free about 20 Israeli hostages believed to still be alive and the remains of others who have died, and roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.Israeli bombs continued to land in Gaza, killing a reported 30 people after the deal was announced on Wednesday, but Palestinians celebrated in the rubble-strewn streets left devastated by the war, even as strikes continued.More than 2 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and humanitarian officials eagerly awaited permission from Israel to deliver badly needed aid there. From March to May this year, Israel imposed a total blockade of supplies into the area, and famine was declared in parts of Gaza in August. Only 20% of the aid needed has been delivered over the last several months, according to the UN, which said roughly 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other supplies is ready for distribution.After the announcement on Wednesday, the UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, called for all of Gaza’s entry points to open so aid could be delivered at “a much, much greater scale”.“Given the level of needs, the level of starvation, the level of misery and despair, will require a massive collective effort, and that’s what we’re mobilized for,” Fletcher told AP. “We are absolutely ready to roll and deliver at scale.”More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since the war began, most of them civilians. Roughly another 169,000 have been injured. The collapse of health systems, schools and access to food has also taken a severe toll, with at least 400 additional deaths related to malnutrition, according to the UN, including more than 100 children. Only 1.5% of cropland in Gaza has been left able to be farmed, with water and soil left polluted by munitions and fires.As Israel’s forces withdraw, part of the agreed-upon process that will leave them 53% of the territory, according to an Israeli government spokesperson, questions remain about how the next steps to provide stabilization and reconstruction will unfold.The remarks from US officials provide some of the first details on how the ceasefire deal would be monitored and how the US military would have a role in that effort.Jason Burke and the Associated Press contributed to this story More

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      Arizona sheriff’s office misused millions set aside to remedy racial profiling

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      The sheriff’s office for metro Phoenix spent millions of dollars budgeted for compliance costs in a racial profiling case over Joe Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns on things that had little or nothing to do with a court-ordered overhaul of the agency, according to an expert’s report.The report released on Wednesday criticized the use of compliance money by the Maricopa county sheriff’s office to fund personnel costs and tasks, either in part or in full, that are not connected to the overhaul.It also pointed out inappropriate spending: $2.8m for surplus body-worn camera licenses that went beyond the court’s orders; $1.5m in renovations in the relocation of an internal affairs office; over $1.3m to buy 42 vehicles; and an $11,000 golf cart to bring staff from headquarters to the internal affairs operation, even though the department was leasing parking space at the latter location.For over a decade, Maricopa county taxpayers have picked up the bill for remedying constitutional violations found in a 2013 profiling verdict over then sheriff Arpaio’s traffic patrols targeting immigrants.The racial profiling case centered on 20 large-scale traffic patrols launched by Arpaio that targeted immigrants from January 2008 through October 2011. That led to the profiling verdict and expensive court-ordered overhauls of the agency’s traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.The county says $323m has been spent so far on legal expenditures, a staff that monitors the sheriff’s department’s progress and the agency’s compliance costs. The county has said the total is expected to reach $352m by July 2026.The federal judge presiding over the case expressed concerns about transparency in spending by the sheriff’s office and ordered a review, leading to the blistering report from budget analysts. The report was prepared by budget analysts picked by the case’s monitor.The report concluded 72% of the $226m in spending by the sheriff’s office from February 2014 to late September 2024 was either wrongly attributed or “improperly prorated” to a compliance fund.Budget analysts who reviewed hundreds of employee records over roughly that time period found an average of 70% of all positions funded by compliance money were “inappropriately assigned or only partially related to compliance.”Those expenditures were unrelated to or unnecessary for compliance, lacked appropriate justification or resulted from purposeful misrepresentation by the sheriff’s office, county leaders or both, the budget analysts wrote.Sheriff Jerry Sheridan’s office released a statement saying its attorneys are reviewing the report to identify areas of common concern and any findings it may dispute. Sheridan, who took office this year, is the fourth sheriff to grapple with the case.Raul Piña, a longtime member of a community advisory board created to help improve trust in the sheriff’s office, said the report opens up a broader conversation about the integrity of the sheriff’s office.“You will have to double-check now whenever the agency talks about statistics,” Piña said.Beginning earlier this year, county officials ramped up their criticism of the spending. They said the agency shouldn’t still be under the court’s supervision a dozen years after the verdict and shouldn’t still be paying such hefty bills, including about $30m to those who monitor the agency on behalf of the judge since around 2014.The report criticized Maricopa county and its governing board for a lack of oversight over the spending.Thomas Galvin, chairman of the county’s governing board and a leading critic of the continued court supervision, said the board’s legal counsel is reviewing the report. “The board has confidence in MCSO’s budgeting team and will respond accordingly,” Galvin said.Since the profiling verdict, the sheriff’s office has been criticized for disparate treatment of Hispanic and Black drivers in a series of studies of its traffic stops. The latest study, however, shows significant improvements. The agency’s also dogged by a backlog of internal affairs cases. While the agency has made progress on some fronts and garnered favorable compliance grades in certain areas, it hasn’t yet been deemed fully compliant with the court-ordered overhauls. More

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      Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s effort to deploy national guard in Chicago

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      A judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from federalizing or deploying the national guard in Illinois after Donald Trump ordered hundreds of troops to Chicago to help with immigration enforcement and to battle what the White House says are high crime rates in the city.US district judge April Perry issued her decision from the bench after more than two hours of arguments from lawyers for the federal government and the state of Illinois, which sued the Trump administration over the deployment. The order took effect on Thursday and will remain in place for two weeks.According to reporters present in the courtroom, Perry said she had “seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois”. On Thursday evening, around the time of Perry’s ruling, about half a dozen guard soldiers were milling around inside the gate at the Ice center in Broadview. A group of about 10 protesters were outside.Illinois governor JB Pritzker said in a statement: “Donald Trump is not a king – and his administration is not above the law.”Quoting the judge, he said: “Today, the court confirmed what we all know: there is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the national guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago.”Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, who attended the court hearing, called the decision a “win for the people of Chicago and the rule of law”. He vowed that the city would “continue to use all of the tools at our disposal to end the Trump administration’s war on Chicago”.Lawyers for the state of Illinois had called the sending of national guard soldiers to the city – which was opposed by Chicago and state political leaders – a constitutional crisis.The government “plowed ahead anyway”, attorney Christopher Wells said. “Now, troops are here.” Chicago and Illinois, run by Democratic elected leaders, say Trump has exceeded his authority and ignored their pleas to keep the national guard off the streets.Eric Hamilton, a justice department lawyer, said the Chicago area was rife with “tragic lawlessness”.“Chicago is seeing a brazen new form of hostility from rioters targeting federal law enforcement,” Hamilton said. “They’re not protesters. There is enough that there is a danger of a rebellion here, which there is.”In handing down her order, Perry assailed the Department of Homeland Security for providing a version of events on the ground that was “simply unreliable”.Lawyers for Illinois and local officials have said the government is exaggerating and misrepresenting the situation in Chicago, which Trump has referred to as a “war zone”.Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, said the president had “exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets” and “will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities”. She added that the president and his administration “expect to be vindicated by the court” upon appeal.National guard members from Texas and Illinois arrived this week at a US army reserve center in Elwood, south-west of Chicago. All 500 national guard members are under the US northern command and have been activated for 60 days.Earlier this week, Trump said Johnson and Pritzker should be jailed for failing to protect federal agents during immigration enforcement crackdowns.Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor have signed an appeals court filing in support of the legal challenge by California – and also one in the Portland, Oregon, where a similar troop deployment is also being challenged.The nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act limits the military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. However, Trump has said he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active duty military in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.In a separate ruling on Thursday, the US district judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction restricting agents’ use of force, including pepper balls, rubber bullets and physical force such as pulling, shoving or tackling against protesters and journalists who don’t pose a serious threat to law enforcement.Ellis’s order covers all of northern Illinois and also requires federal agents to wear “visible identification” such as badges, the subject of heated debate as viral footage has surfaced of masked, plainclothes officers carrying out immigration enforcements in several US cities.Trump previously sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington DC. In Memphis, Tennessee, Paul Young, the city’s mayor, said national guard members would begin patrolling on Friday. Bill Lee, Tennessee’s Republican governor, supports using the troops.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Trump dreams of ‘everlasting peace’ as acolytes drop heavy hints to Nobel committee

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      So to peace in our time. And why not? The Nobel committee is meeting in Oslo to divvy up its annual gongs and Donald Trump, convening his cabinet – and the media – in the White House had a good story to tell.After two years of death, destruction, starvation and captivity for Israeli hostages in Gaza, peace at last was at hand. Israel and Hamas were on the brink of a historic deal, brokered by the man in the Oval Office, who has made no secret of his desire to be known as the president of peace.The stakes in Gaza are so gravely baleful that it would be churlish to ascribe selfish motives to the cabinet meeting’s main theme.Yet the timing was, shall we say, serendipitous.Today is Thursday, tomorrow Friday – by coincidence, the day the winner of the Nobel will be announced.But Trump, whose previous expressions of desire for the same prize awarded to Barack Obama have bordered on the avaricious, was all decorum and restraint – at least on that narrow issue alone.In the course of a 70-minute meeting, the N word went unmentioned – apart from by one journalist near the end, whose question about Trump’s views on the prize went unanswered.There was going to be “peace in the Middle East”, he said portentously.“I think it’s going to be a lasting peace, hopefully an everlasting peace,” he added, no ambition being too great.“It will be a day of joy,” the president said, when the remaining living Israeli hostages – believed to be 20 in number – are released on Monday or Tuesday.“They’re dancing in the streets. They’re so happy. Everybody’s happy. They’re dancing in the streets of Arab countries, Muslim countries, I’ve never seen anything like it.”Everyone around him deserved credit, the president said magnanimously. “JD [Vance], you were fantastic. And Pete [Hegseth], you were great. Marco [Rubio] was fantastic. I mean, some of you were very much involved. I think almost everybody in this room was involved. Susie [Wiles, the White House chief of staff], I want to thank you very much. You were incredible … and then you have Steve Witkoff [his personal envoy].”But it fell to Rubio, the secretary of state and acting national security adviser, to supply the heavy hint to the Nobel committee in Norway.“I don’t know if the one day perhaps the entire story will be told about the events of yesterday, but suffice it to say – it’s not an exaggeration – that none of it would have been possible without the president. Without the president of the United States being involved,” enthused the man once disparaged by Trump as “little Marco”.That drew a round of applause from the cabinet – the second of the meeting, the first being for Trump’s announcement at the beginning that a national holiday on the second Monday of October would henceforth be known as Columbus Day.Rubio warmed to his theme. The achievement transcended dry geopolitics to encapsulate the person of Trump himself.“Yesterday was a human story,” he said. “And because of the work you put in. And honestly, not only is there no other leader in the world that could have put this together, Mr President, but frankly, I don’t know of any American president in the modern era that could have made this possible because of the actions you have taken unrelated to this, and because of who you are, and what you’ve done, and how you’re viewed.”But this was still a Trump cabinet meeting, and it would not have been complete without some dissonant notes.They were duly supplied by the jarring contrast between the promise of peace and harmony in the Middle East and the darkening prospect of war, or at least civil disharmony, in America.Trump only had good words to say about countries in the Middle East who were he said were on board with his peace deal – even Iran, a country which he recently bombed but now said he wanted to see rebuilt.But here at home an “enemy from within” had to be confronted. Troops were to be deployed onto the streets of US cities to show elected local Democratic mayors and governors who was boss.Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, reported going to Portland and meeting the governor, mayor, chief of police and highway patrol superintendent.“They are all lying and disingenuous and dishonest people,” she declared, charitably, “because as soon as you leave the room, then they make the exact opposite response.” This presumably because the officials named depicted their city in somewhat more peaceful terms than the warzone of Noem et al’s fevered narrative.Yet taking the prize for low blows was JD Vance, who understood that the unifying theme of the meeting was Trump’s nascent success in ending bloodshed in the Middle East – yet failed to grasp that this call for a display of graciousness on his part.The vice-president has been known at cabinet gatherings to double up with contrived laughter at his boss’s jokes.This time he decided the best policy was to repurpose for his own use one of Trump’s tried-and-tested jibes – at the expense of Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate.“The one thing I would say is obviously the president of the United States, a New York real estate billionaire, one of the most famous New Yorkers in the world, has a lot of interaction with a lot of people who are very pro-Israel,” said Vance.Then, perhaps realizing that he could not reach the giddy heights of Rubio’s testimonial, he added: “He also, of course, knew one of the most famous Palestinians in the world, Chuck Schumer.”The crack provoked laughter. It is one of Trump’s cruelest taunts against Schumer, a fellow New Yorker who is proudly Jewish and a staunch supporter of Israel. Given the current backdrop, retreading it at this point struck a particularly discordant note.JD, it seems, has secret aspirations as a king of comedy. A calling missed, perhaps. But someone needs to tell him about timing – and context. More

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      National guard remains in Chicago area as judge to rule on Trump deployment

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      Hundreds of national guard troops remained in the Chicago area as city and Illinois officials awaited a judge’s decision to stop Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the nation’s third-largest city.It was still unclear where specifically the Trump administration would send the troops who reported to an army training site south-west of Chicago, which was laden with extra fencing and tarps put up to block the public’s view of the facility late on Wednesday evening.As they arrived this week, trucks marked Emergency Disaster Services pulled in and out, dropping off portable toilets and other supplies. Trailers were set up in rows.“The federal government has not communicated with us in any way about their troop movements,” the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, told reporters. “I can’t believe I have to say ‘troop movements’ in an American city, but that is what we’re talking about here.”Roughly 500 soldiers – 200 from the Texas national guard and 300 from the Illinois national guard – were mobilized to the city for an “initial period of 60 days”, according to statement issued from US Northern Command, part of the defense department, which called the operation a “federal protection mission”.The guard members are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, according to Northern Command.A small number of troops have started protecting federal property in the Chicago area, officials told the Associated Press.Footage of uniformed troops arriving early on Thursday morning at an Ice processing facility in the suburban community of Broadview, which has become a focal point of protests. They carried shields and what appeared to be luggage.In a statement, the village of Broadview said three vans carrying 45 members of the Texas national guard had arrived at the federal building.“During their patrols, Broadview police officers observed the vans parked in the rear of 2000 25th Ave and all of the guards were sleeping. We let them sleep undisturbed. We hope that they will extend the same courtesy in the coming days to Broadview residents who deserve a good night’s sleep, too,” the statement said.While the deployment came as part of a crackdown threatened by Trump, in response to unsubstantiated claims that big cities run by Democrats are overwhelmed with crime, the stated mission says military would be “performing ground activities to protect federal functions, personnel, and property”.It marks Trump’s fourth deployment of national guard troops on to the streets of a major US city in as many months, following deployments in Los Angeles, Washington DC and Memphis. In all cases except Memphis, it has been against the wishes of state and city leaders.Trump repeatedly has described Chicago in hostile terms, calling it a “hellhole” of crime, although police statistics show significant drops in most crimes, including homicides.A judge will also have a role in determining how many boots are on the streets: a court hearing was being held on Thursday after a request by Illinois and Chicago to declare the guard deployment illegal.The state of Illinois urged April Perry, a federal judge, to order the national guard to stand down, calling the deployment a constitutional crisis. The government “plowed ahead anyway”, attorney Christopher Wells said. “Now, troops are here.”Wells’ arguments opened an extraordinary hearing where heavy public turnout at the downtown Chicago courthouse caused officials to open an overflow room with a video feed of the hearing.Eric Hamilton, a justice department lawyer, said the Chicago area was rife with “tragic lawlessness”. He discussed an incident last weekend in which a Border Patrol vehicle was reportedly boxed in and an agent shot a woman in response.But in a court filing, the city and state lawyers say protests at the Ice building in Broadview have “never come close to stopping federal immigration enforcement”.“The president is using the Broadview protests as a pretext,” they wrote. “The impending federal troop deployment in Illinois is the latest episode in a broader campaign by the president’s administration to target jurisdictions the president dislikes.”It’s one of several major court fights on the deployment of federal troops to American cities.Also Thursday, a federal appeals court heard arguments over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon national guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been mostly small nightly protests outside an Ice building.US district judge Karin Immergut on Saturday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Oregon troops’ deployment, and on Sunday blocked the deployment of any national guard troops to the city.The case at the heart of Sunday’s decision was brought by the states of Oregon and California, whose national troops Trump had sent to Portland. Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed a court filing in support of the legal challenge by California and Oregon. Twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration.The case centers around the nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. However, Trump has said he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active duty military in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.“This is about authoritarianism. It’s about stoking fear,” Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, said. “It’s about breaking the constitution that would give him that much more control over our American cities.”Trump, meanwhile, sent barbs from Washington, saying on social media that Pritzker and Johnson, both Democrats, “should be in jail” for failing to protect federal agents during immigration enforcement crackdowns.Asked about Trump’s wish to jail him, Pritzker extended his arms and told MSNBC: “If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.”Meanwhile, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said the department was “doubling down” by buying buildings in Chicago – and also Portland – for Ice personnel to operate from.“We’re purchasing more buildings in Chicago to operate out of. We’re going to not back off,” she said. “In fact, we’re doubling down, and we’re going to be in more parts of Chicago in response to the people there.”At the same time in Memphis, a small group of troops were helping on Wednesday with the Memphis Safe Task Force, said a state military department spokesperson who did not specify the exact role or number of the guard members. The taskforce is a collection of about a dozen federal law enforcement agencies ordered by Trump to fight crime.Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, who has welcomed the guard, has said previously that he would not expect more than 150 guard members to be sent to the city.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      in Elections

      Dominion, voting firm targeted by false 2020 election claims, sold to new owner

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      Dominion Voting Systems, the company that makes widely used voting equipment in the United States that became synonymous with election conspiracies and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, has been sold.The company was purchased by Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican Missouri election official who founded KnowInk, which makes electronic pollbooks used at voting sites across the country. Leindecker purchased Dominion under a new company called Liberty Vote. Leiendecker, served as the elections director in St Louis from 2005 until 2012, according to his LinkedIn, a period during which he would have overlapped with Ed Martin, a staunch Trump ally at the justice department who served as chairman of the St Louis board of elections from 2005 to 2006.Leiendecker said in a press release the acquisition represented “a new chapter for American elections – one where trust is rebuilt from the ground up”, pledging to deliver election technology that prioritizes “paper-based transparency, security, and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted”.“As of today, Dominion is gone. Liberty Vote assumes full ownership and operational control,” the company said in a statement.The sale comes after Dominion spent years in court defending its reputation and pursuing damages against news outlets and Trump allies who baselessly said the company’s equipment had flipped votes in 2020. In 2023, it reached a landmark $787.5m settlement with Fox over false claims about the election. The private equity firm Staple Street capital bought a 76% stake in Dominion for $38m in 2018.Newsmax, another far-right network, agreed to pay $67m to settle a libel lawsuit against Dominion earlier this year. Dominion has also reached settlements with One America News, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani over false claims over the 2020 election.Dominion was founded and headquartered in Toronto, and also operated from Denver, Colorado. The company developed software in offices across the United States, Canada, and Serbia. Its systems were used in over half the United States during the 2024 election.Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.The newly renamed Liberty Vote said it would use hand-marked paper ballots, maintain 100% American ownership with domestic staffing and software development, and implement rigorous third-party auditing standards.The company said its approach would ensure “compliance with President Trump’s executive order” on election security, though specific details were not provided. A 25 March executive order demands states to use voting systems that have a “voter verifiable paper record” (every state except Louisiana already uses paper ballots and paper records, according to the non-profit verified voting). The order also seeks to ban equipment in which a voter’s choices are encoded in a QR code.KnowInk is “highly regarded” in the election community, said Jennifer Morrell, CEO of the elections group and a widely-respected election administration consultant.“I’m confident they would not be buying Dominion if there was any possibility they could not offer the same great services and support that they currently provide election officials with their e-pollbook and voter registration systems,” she said. More