Good morning.
A family in Colombia has filed a petition with the Washington DC-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), alleging that the Colombian citizen Alejandro Carranza Medina was subject to an “extrajudicial killing” in a US airstrike.
Carranza, 42, appears to have been killed on September 15 in the second strike of the Trump administration’s bombing campaign against what it alleges are drug boats. Carranza’s family has said he was a fisher who would often set out in search of marlin and tuna.
In the past three months, at least 83 people have been killed in US airstrikes on more than 20 vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, attacks the UN and other humanitarian organizations have described as extrajudicial killings. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is under pressure since the Washington Post reported last week that he ordered defense officials to “kill everybody” traveling on a boat. He denies the allegations.
What is the IACHR? A monitoring body designed to “promote and protect human rights in the western hemisphere”. The US is a member, and the state department said in March it was a “strong supporter of the IACHR”.
How has the Trump administration responded? A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, did not respond directly to questions about the complaint or about Carranza’s death, but wrote in an email that the media were “now running cover for foreign terrorists smuggling deadly narcotics intended to murder Americans”.
Russia ‘ready’ for war with Europe, Putin says, as US peace talks end without progress
Russia and the US have failed to make progress towards a peace deal for Ukraine during their talks, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has said, hours after the Russian president issued threats that Moscow was ready for war with Europe.
In remarks to Russian media, the Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that after a five-hour meeting with Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the two sides were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine. There is a lot of work to be done.”
Moments before the closed-door meeting, Putin accused Europe’s governments of sabotaging the peace process and said “European demands” on ending the war in Ukraine were “not acceptable to Russia”.
What’s the latest on the frontlines? Buoyed up by recent gains, Putin has indicated in recent weeks that the Russian military was prepared to keep fighting if diplomacy faltered, repeatedly emphasising that his forces remained on the offensive on the battlefield.
Republican Matt Van Epps wins US House special election in Tennessee but Democrats overperform
Matt Van Epps has defeated the Democrat Aftyn Behn in a congressional special election in the western Nashville suburbs, a vote closely watched for signs of Republican weakness going into congressional midterms next year.
The Associated Press called the tighter-than-expected race at 9.47pm (EST) with Van Epps on 52% and Behn on 46%. The district is normally reliable Republican territory.
What did the results indicate? Van Epps argued that his victory was a sign that conservative voters remained supportive of Donald Trump’s leadership, but the six-point margin represents a significant decrease in Republican support. “Aftyn Behn’s overperformance in this Trump +22 district is historic and a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms,” the Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, said in a statement.
In other news …
Sabrina Carpenter has condemned the White House for using her song Juno to soundtrack a video on immigration raids. She called it “evil and disgusting”.
Donald Trump has called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they should be sent back home in a rant on Tuesday over the immigration enforcement moves in Minnesota.
More than 200 leading cultural figures have come together to call for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the jailed Palestinian leader seen as capable of uniting factions in the mission to create a Palestinian state.
Pope Leo has urged the US not to attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, by using military force, and to instead seek dialogue.
Stat of the day: Eric Trump’s cryptocurrency firm loses half its value in half an hour
Shares in Eric Trump’s crypto mining business lost more than half their value in less than 30 minutes on Tuesday. Shares in American Bitcoin, which trades as ABTC, fell to a low of $1.74 at one point. The abrupt decline in value of ABTC comes amid a broad selloff in the digital asset market.
Don’t miss this: Norman Foster’s new skyscraper ‘is a bullying affront to the New York skyline’
“Among the slender needles and elegant spires of the Manhattan skyline, a mountainous lump has reared into view,” writes Oliver Wainwright, the Guardian’s architecture and design critic. The new headquarters of JP Morgan contains enough steel to go round the world twice – and even has a fake breeze to flutter the US flag in its lobby.
Climate check: Residents of Mexico’s industrial boomtown making goods for US say they’re ‘breathing poison’
An industrial boom in Monterrey, a US manufacturing hub in Mexico, is contributing to a massive air pollution crisis, the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab reveal. On bad days, polluting facilities have contributed to Monterrey recording among the world’s worst pollution. “We’re breathing in a capsule of poison,” a local official said.
Last Thing: Silver linings – scientists uncover surprise origin of wispy cirrus clouds
Cirrus clouds, our atmosphere’s highest clouds, look “like an artist’s brushstrokes through the sky,” writes Kate Ravilious. Research reveals that some cirrus clouds are seeded by massive atmospheric waves created by storms on the other side of the globe, many thousands of miles away.
Sign up
First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.
Get in touch
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
