From a darling of the Tory right to a moderate former army officer, we profile the key players
Kemi Badenoch has kicked off the return to parliament with a reshuffle of her top team in order to take on Andy Burnham and Reform UK. She has made sweeping changes to the shadow cabinet and ruthlessly axed her shadow chancellor. Here is a run-down of the new characters sitting across from Labour on the opposition frontbench.
Continue reading...Santos was accused of profiting from bets tied to his attendance at Trump’s State of the Union address
George Santos, the former Republican congressman whose political career collapsed under a mountain of lies, has become the first person ever handed a lifetime ban by the prediction-market platform Kalshi.
The company announced the permanent suspension on Monday, along with a $71,356 fine, after federal regulators accused Santos of profiting from bets tied to his own attendance at Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year.
Continue reading...Tom Homan says rightwing influencer overstayed visitor visa after receiving final order of removal
The White House “border czar,” Tom Homan, denied on Sunday that the British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was deported just a day after being arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for political reasons.
Homan said it was his understanding that Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, had not appeared at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on 22 July.
Continue reading...Official death toll approaches 600, with many of the missing Americans having been on a pilgrimage to a sacred site
At least 90 Americans were still missing on Friday among almost 2,000 people unaccounted for following the catastrophic flash flood along the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday.
With the official death toll creeping towards 600 on Friday and expected to continue rising, there were survivors, victims and missing people from many nationalities.
Continue reading...Representative Mike Collins has been dogged by associations to white nationalism and antisemitism
The US senator for Georgia Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, has slammed a “disgraceful and disqualifying” report that a former staffer for his Trump-backed Republican challenger Mike Collins shared images online of a swastika and depicting himself in Ku Klux Klan robes.
It is the latest instance of someone in Collins’s orbit facing scrutiny over racist or white nationalist conduct. Ossoff called the report “stunning” and said it “should shock the conscience of every Georgian”.
Continue reading...Montreal-born actor also voiced KARR in Knight Rider and the monster in Predator, having started his career on Canadian TV and radio
Peter Cullen, the actor behind the voice of characters including Eeyore in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh franchise and Optimus Prime in Transformers, has died aged 85.
He died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, a statement said.
Continue reading...FBI psychiatrist Gregory Saathoff says he’s treated only two women with postpartum psychosis, both decades earlier
The Lindsay Clancy trial was heading for closing arguments Wednesday, as a final witness for the prosecution laid out that he believed the Massachusetts mother knew right from wrong when she took the lives of her three young children before attempting to commit suicide in 2023.
FBI psychiatrist Dr Gregory Saathoff testified in court in Plymouth that he does not believe Clancy’s account that she heard a voice ordering her to kill the children – five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan – as her defense team maintains that this occurred while she was suffering from the relatively rare condition of postpartum psychosis.
Continue reading...Video posted on social media shows three people climbing out of sewer system at 4am, months after similar reports
New York City’s police department (NYPD) says it is investigating a recent video of three people emerging from a manhole in the latest such episode to cause mystery.
Posted to TikTok on Friday, the video showed three people – one after the other – climbing out of a manhole at 4.19am on 18 August wearing headlamps and black overalls near Madison Square Garden.
Continue reading...Hawk fire has covered more than 13,000 acres as blaze approaches University of Nevada campus in Reno
A fast-moving Nevada wildfire exploded to more than 13,000 acres (5,200 hectares) early on Sunday, pushing from the Sierra foothills toward the center of Reno and forcing nearly 42,000 residents to evacuate as flames threatened neighborhoods and reached the edge of the University of Nevada campus.
The Hawk fire’s “GO NOW” evacuation zone had expanded to the edge of the university campus as strong, gusty winds, low humidity and dry vegetation fueled the blaze, according to Truckee Meadows fire and Rescue in Reno. An additional 45,000 people were in the evacuation warning zone, and encouraged to leave now and be prepared to stay away for several days to clear the roads for first-responders.
Continue reading...Kassebaum Baker became the first woman elected to the US Senate without following a spouse into office
Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Kansas governor’s daughter who became the first woman elected to the US Senate without following a spouse into office, has died. She was 94.
Kassebaum Baker died on Friday of natural causes, according to her son, Bill Kassebaum.
Continue reading...USS George Washington will replace warship families say suffers from shortages, plumbing problems and low morale
The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, where it is expected to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln from its record deployment amid concerns about poor living conditions and morale.
US Central Command announced on Thursday that the Washington arrived in the area on Wednesday, and posted an image of sailors working on the flight deck as the ship transited the Arabian Sea. No date has yet been announced for the Lincoln to return to the US.
Continue reading...Image captured in early June shows animal foraging in the waterway in first since early 1900s, signaling its recovery
An otter has been spotted in the Bronx River for the first time in more than 100 years, in a further sign that New York’s previously befouled waterways are recovering some of their ecological health.
The North American river otter was photographed by a motion-activated camera foraging near some vegetation in the Bronx River, a waterway that flows through New York’s Bronx and empties into the East River.
Continue reading...Efforts of emergency services and military in Blaenavon appear to be working but there are fears for the future
More than three weeks after it began burning and two days after the military deployed to the area, there is hope that the huge wildfire on the hillside above the Ebbw valley village of Blaenavon may finally be coming under control.
Emergency workers and soldiers described a gruelling battle against the deep-seated peat fire that has spread over 4,000 hectares (9,800 acres), putting lives, farmland and property at risk.
Continue reading...Fans line streets, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart ahead of Welsh singer’s Swansea funeral
Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans lined the streets of her home town in south Wales to pay respects to the singer as her coffin was brought back to her former home.
The singer, whose real name was Gaynor Sullivan, died unexpectedly on 8 July in Portugal at the age of 75.
Continue reading...Storm expected to strengthen to hurricane as state of emergency declared amid danger of ‘life-threatening’ floods
Tropical Storm Lala is set to hit Hawaii’s Big Island with hurricane force in a matter of hours, bringing dangerous winds, heavy rainfall and high surf in a sign of what a strengthening “super” El Niño in the Pacific may bring.
The tropical storm is currently about 420 miles (675km) south-east of Hilo on the archipelago’s largest island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said in its latest advisory, packing winds of 60mph (97km/h). Lala is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the Big Island.
Continue reading...The center has until next week to present plan to judge who had blocked earlier rehab and name change
The board of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington is said to have voted once again to move forward with Donald Trump’s controversial plan to temporarily shutter the building for substantial renovations, as well as to inscribe the US president’s name on the facade of its building, despite a federal order for his name to be removed from the signage.
The board – mostly handpicked, staunch allies of the president – voted “to close the Kennedy Center’s main building, while keeping a newer addition to the campus, known as the Reach, open for limited programming and to operate as an active memorial to John F Kennedy”, according to the New York Times, which was first to report the results.
Continue reading...Prosecutors charge Heidi Beirich with financial crimes as part of case against the Southern Poverty Law Center
The justice department on Wednesday arrested a leading expert on far-right extremism, charging her with financial crimes as part of the government’s ongoing case against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Federal prosecutors charged Heidi Beirich, who formerly served as the group’s chief financial officer, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
Continue reading...Justice department is asked to weigh new charges against David Hearn after US attorney dropped vandalism charges
The White House has asked the Department of Justice to weigh new charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, according to a person familiar with the matter, pushing to revive a case Donald Trump has fumed about ever since an ally dropped the case citing insufficient evidence.
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, dropped the charges against the man, David Hearn, on 31 July, blaming a contractor for a flawed installation. In a 20-page filing dismissing the charges, Pirro’s office said it had received evidence that damage to the pool occurred before Hearn visited it, and that “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.” Hearn has maintained that he reached in the water to touch a piece of already detached lining while he was on a bike ride in June.
Continue reading...Reform deputy leader condemned for seeking disclosure of documents that could reveal reporter’s sources
Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has been accused of using “nasty tactics” in an attempt to intimidate journalists and deflect attention from his own financial affairs after issuing a legal threat to the Guardian.
In a letter sent from his lawyers, a Guardian correspondent was singled out for her reporting on a series of Tice’s financial transactions that were referred to the National Crime Agency.
Continue reading...Scientists have made clear that the elevated heat in the US was being amplified by the human-caused climate crisis
July was the hottest month ever recorded in the US, with repeated, scorching heatwaves across much of the country helping shatter all previous monthly temperature records stretching back over the full 132 years of reliable measurements.
Last month’s average temperature was 3.3F (1.8C) higher than the 20th century average for the contiguous United States, which excludes Alaska and Hawaii, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
Continue reading...Astronomers say viewing conditions promising for this year’s shower, and 50 to 100 meteors an hour may be visible
The Perseid summer light show is back, and viewing conditions are especially promising across the northern hemisphere.
The meteor shower’s is expected to peak on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade – though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality.
Continue reading...Yolanda Olejniczak Marodi, who served a decade for killing her husband, pleaded guilty to murder of Rebecca Marodi, a fire captain who fought the Eaton blaze
A California woman this week admitted to killing her wife, a decorated fire captain who fought the deadly 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, by stabbing her – the same fate she previously delivered to her husband and had served a decade in prison for.
Yolanda Olejniczak Marodi, 54, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to second-degree murder after killing her wife, Rebecca “Becky” Marodi, 49, a California fire captain, at their home in February 2025, just a month after Becky, as she was known, battled the Eaton blaze that killed 19.
Continue reading...Judge issues temporary pause while he considers Trump’s request to revise his libel lawsuit against BBC
A federal judge has temporarily halted an order requiring Donald Trump to turn over detailed financial information about his business empire to the BBC as part of an ongoing libel lawsuit.
US district judge Roy Altman issued the temporary pause while he considers Trump’s request to revise and narrow parts of his lawsuit against the BBC over a 2024 documentary that aired in the UK.
Continue reading...Aaron Farinacci is accused of starting the Old Trails fire that has destroyed homes and forced thousands to flee
The Washington state man accused of starting a wildfire that has destroyed homes and forced thousands to flee around Spokane was previously questioned in connection with two fire investigations last year, according to court documents.
Authorities allege that Aaron Farinacci, 37, of Spokane, started Old Trails fire, one of three major wildfires burning in Spokane county in north-eastern Washington. He was arrested on Monday and booked on suspicion of first-degree arson.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Continue reading...Hundreds of structures damaged as firefighters battle to contain 15 major wildfires amid extreme heat and drought
Firefighters in Washington state are battling wildfires that have forced 60,000 people to flee and destroyed hundreds of buildings as drought and extreme heat fuel an “extraordinary” fire season in the Pacific north-west.
Fifteen major blazes are raging across the state, David Upthegrove, the head of Washington’s department of natural resources, told reporters over the weekend.
Continue reading...Toledo police say Ohio Democrat is active and alert after two-vehicle hit-and-run collision on Sunday
Marcy Kaptur is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries after a car crash in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday, the Democratic US representative’s office said.
Kaptur, 80, was a passenger in the vehicle and on her way to church, her office said. Toledo police did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
Continue reading...Health secretary, longtime vaccination skeptic, spent years boosting misinformation about vaccines including MMR
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years.
Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.
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