Maduro denounces 'regime change' war after Trump's threat to strike Venezuela
Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, denounced what he called “coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA” shortly after Donald Trump said he was considering strikes against Venezuelan cartels inside the country.
“No to war in the Caribbean … No to regime change … No to coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA,” the leftist leader said in an address to a committee set up after Washington deployed warships in the Caribbean for what it said was an anti-drug operation.
Maduro had himself declared the winner of an election last year, despite voting tally sheets gathered by the opposition that showed what the US called “overwhelming evidence” that the opposition candidate Edmundo González won more votes.
Trump said on Wednesday he might expand a military campaign against suspected drug smugglers after a series of lethal strikes at sea sunk Venezuelan boats alleged to be transporting narcotics.
At least 27 people have been killed in the US strikes in the Caribbean.
After another boat was struck, Maduro on Wednesday ordered military exercises in the country’s biggest shantytowns and said he was mobilizing the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets”.
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Pro-Trump billionaire Bill Ackman donates $1m to campaign against Zohran Mamdani
Bill Ackman, a billionaire Trump supporter, donated $1m this week to Defend NYC, a Super Pac set up by a former Trump campaign adviser to oppose Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, state campaign finance records show.
While some billionaires are coming to terms with Mamdani’s likely victory, including former mayor Michael Bloomberg, who met with the frontrunner recently, the mega-donor Ackman is apparently not ready to concede defeat, even with the Democratic nominee leading former governor Andrew Cuomo 46-33 in a poll released last week.
Ackman’s political acumen is in some doubt, however, since he also donated $1m last year to a Super Pac supporting the doomed presidential campaign of Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman who tried to defeat the sitting president, Joe Biden, in the 2024 Democratic primary.
A week before the 2024 Michigan primary, Ackman told the podcaster Lex Fridman that Phillips had a path to the nomination.
“He could beat Biden in Michigan. Biden’s doing very poorly in Michigan. His polls are terrible, the Muslim community’s not happy with him and he really has spent no time there. So, if he’s embarrassed in Michigan, it would be a catalyst for him withdrawing,” Ackman said.
“Then Dean will get funding,” he added. “He’ll attract from the center. He’ll attract from Republicans who won’t vote for Trump, of which there’s a big percentage, it could be 60% or more, it could be 70% won’t vote for Trump, and also from the Democrats.”
One week later, Biden won the Democratic primary in Michigan with 81% of the vote. The Uncommitted movement, supported by Arab-Americans opposed to Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza, finished second with 13%. Marianne Williamson, the self-help author who had withdrawn from the race, got 3%. Ackman’s candidate Dean Phillips finished fourth, with 2.7% of the vote.
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Trump administration withholds $40m from California for not enforcing truck driver English proficiency rules
Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said on Wednesday that he is withholding $40.6m in federal transportation funding for California for failing to enforce English proficiency rules for commercial truck drivers.
“I put states on notice this summer: enforce the Trump Administration’s English language requirements or the checks stop coming. California is the only state in the nation that refuses to ensure big rig drivers can read our road signs and communicate with law enforcement. This is a fundamental safety issue that impacts you and your family on America’s road,” Duffy said in a statement.
To get a commercial driver’s license, Truck drivers are required to pass a written test in English, and be able to name the parts of a bus or truck in English as they check tire inflation, tread depth, lug nuts and coolants.
The Trump administration is reversing guidance issued during the Obama administration, in a 2016 memo which noted that the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, made up of commercial motor vehicle safety officials and industry representatives, “could not substantiate the safety impacts” of drivers not being proficient in English.
The 2016 guidance said that drivers whose English skills were found lacking should not be placed on “out-of-service status” as long as they could communicate sufficiently, in another language or through an interpreter or smartphone app.
As the Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano explained in May, “Conservatives have long tied that Obama-era action and the rise of immigrant truckers – they now make up 18% of the profession, according to census figures – to a marked increase in fatal accidents over the last decade.” But, he added, “the rate of fatal crashes is three times less than in the late 1970s”.
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Federal judge in Oregon extends orders blocking deployment of national guard in Portland
A federal judge in Oregon on Wednesday extended two temporary restraining orders that block the Trump administration from federalizing and deploying national guard troops to Portland.
The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, extended by 14 days the orders which had been set to expire later this week, as a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals considers a government request to lift her first order, which said the president did not have the legal authority to take control of the Oregon national guard.
The extension maintains the status quo on the ground as Donald Trump’s administration and the state of Oregon wait for a ruling from the appeals court panel. Two judges on the panel were nominated by the president.
Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in his first term, ruled earlier this month that Trump’s false claims about conditions in Portland resembling those in a war zone due to a small protest against immigration raids were “simply untethered to the facts”.
After Trump responded to the judge’s first order, blocking his attempt to deploy 200 federalized Oregon national guard troops to Portland, by sending federalized national guard troops from California to Oregon, Immergut issued a second order that barred the deployment of any national guard troops to the city.
Immergut has scheduled a non-jury trial to start on 29 October to determine whether to impose a longer-term block on the deployment of national guard troops to Portland, where protesters have rallied in their dozens outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office since June.
Immergut said on Wednesday the “most important thing here is what’s going on on the ground and whether it warrants the deployment that was ordered”.
A lawyer with the justice department during Wednesday’s hearing opposed Immergut extending her temporary restraining orders.
The government lawyer reportedly responded to the state of Oregon’s request for records of internal White House discussions that helped the president decide to send in troops to Portland by saying that Trump’s “deliberation” was carried out in public, in comments to reporters and on his social media platform.
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Pentagon reporters who declined to sign a new set of policies that press advocates and news organizations denounced as incompatible with the tenets of journalism were set to return their press badges by 5pm on Wednesday, ending decades of history of robust in-house coverage at the world’s largest military headquarters.
In the hours leading up to the deadline, journalists worked furiously to pack up their workspaces in two media rooms, with hallways filled to the brim with boxes and books and other souvenirs of decades of daily coverage.
One veteran Pentagon correspondent – who was not authorized to comment on the record – spoke to the Guardian as they headed to the complex to collect their belongings. They said they normally take the subway to work but drove today “because we have so much crap that we need to take back”.
Those who raced to pack up their belongings also began thinking about how they would now cover the Pentagon without the direct access that many have relied upon for years.
Voting Rights Act on the line: key takeaways from supreme court hearing
The US supreme court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in Callais v Louisiana, a high-stakes voting rights case in which the court’s conservative majority appears poised to gut one of the most powerful provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
At the heart of the case is section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits electoral maps that dilute the voting power of minority groups. Lawyers for the state of Louisiana, a group of “non-African American voters” and the Trump administration say that the court needs to do away with the 2024 map. If the court agrees, it would ultimately set a precedent that makes it considerably harder to bring redistricting lawsuits on the basis of race, and undercut section 2.
Here are six key takeaways from the hearing:
Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, on Wednesday urged the Republican-led House oversight committee to launch an investigation into the “vile and offensive” text messages exchanged between leaders of Young Republican groups.
The request follows a report in Politico that revealed more than 28,000 Telegram messages sent between Young Republican leaders over the course of seven months, in which they refer to Black people as monkeys, praise Hitler, and repeatedly make glib remarks about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
“Calling for gas chambers. Expressing love for Hitler. Endorsing rape. Using racist slurs. This is not a ‘joke’, and it is not fringe,” Newsom said in a statement. “If Congress can investigate universities for failing to stop antisemitism, it must also investigate politicians’ own allies who are openly celebrating it.”
With Republicans in control of the House, the oversight committee is unlikely to act.
In the letter addressed to James Comer, the Republican committee chair and an ally of the president, Newsom notes that while House Republicans have made combating antisemitism a priority, few party leaders have publicly condemned the messages revealed in the report.
Democrats such as the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, expressed outrage over the messages, and some GOP groups, like the Young Republican National Federation, have called for resignations.
But the vice-president, JD Vance, said that he refused to “join the pearl clutching” over what he inaccurately described as “a college group chat”. Members of the Young Republicans range in age from 18 to 40.
Vance recently expressed support for the effort to track down, intimidate and harass people who voiced criticism of Charlie Kirk after his assassination.
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Trump says he might go to supreme court hearing to determine if most of his tariffs are illegal
Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he might go to the supreme court next month when it hears his administration’s appeal of two prior court rulings against his imposition of sweeping tariffs under an economic emergency that appears to exist only in his mind.
A trade court and an appeals court have both found that Trump exceeded his authority by imposing global tariffs citing provisions of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
On Wednesday, Trump also claimed that he had used the threat of tariffs to stop the escalation of fighting this year between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed nations.
Indian officials have said that Trump’s intervention had nothing to do with the end of hostilities.
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Trump confirms that he authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela
Donald Trump has finished speaking in the Oval Office. After he recited a long series of previously aired grievances, he confirmed, for the first time, that he authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, marking a sharp escalation in the administration’s apparent effort to drive the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, from power.
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'We, meaning Israel', Trump says, 'killed probably 70,000' Hamas fighters
Donald Trump just claimed that the number of Hamas fighters killed by Israel, with US support, exceeds the entire estimated death toll in the Gaza Strip in the past two years.
“We, meaning Israel, but I knew everything they were doing, pretty much, I knew most of the things they were doing,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “they’ve killed probably 70,000 of these people, Hamas.”
As the United Nations reported last week, there have been 67,183 fatalities and 169,841 injuries reported to the Gaza ministry of health since 7 October 2023.
The dead included 20,179 children, 10,427 women, 4,813 elderly people and 31,754 adult men.
In May of this year, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found that Israel’s military intelligence database of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters had 47,653 names. Of them, 8,900 were marked as killed or probably killed.
Trump went on to claim that Hamas had agreed to surrender its weapons, but, while Hamas leaders said earlier this year that they would consider giving up the group’s heavy weapons, such as rockets and missiles, on Saturday a senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that disarmament was “out of the question”, adding: “The demand that we hand over our weapons is not up for negotiation.”
Nevertheless, Trump said on Wednesday: “We want the weapons to be given up, sacrificed, and they’ve agreed to do it. Now they have to do it, and if they don’t do it, we’ll do it.”
Asked by a reporter if that meant the US military might be directly involved in disarming the Palestinian militants, Trump replied, again apparently referring to US support for Israel’s military: “We won’t need the US military … because we’re very much involved.”
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Trump repeats baseless claim that Venezuela 'emptied their prisons' into the US
To defend lethal US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers, Donald Trump just repeated his familiar but baseless claim that Venezuela “emptied” its prisons and “insane asylums” by sending incarcerated people into the United States as undocumented immigrants during the Biden administration.
“Many countries have done it,” Trump claimed.
As the Marshall Project reported a year ago, before the 2024 election, Trump had already made this claim more than 500 times without a shred of evidence.
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Trump says US is 'looking at land' strikes in Venezuela after lethal strikes on boats
Asked in the Oval Office if the US is considering strikes on suspected drug cartels inside Venezuela, after lethal strikes on suspected drug smugglers at sea, Donald Trump just said that the administration is “looking at land”.
The president also claimed, without citing evidence, that every strike on a suspected drug smuggling speedboat saves thousands of lives in the US. “Every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 lives,” Trump said.
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FBI director touts increase in 'arrests of violent criminals'
Kash Patel, the FBI director, is speaking to members of the press now.
“In just a three-month span, you had 8,700 arrests of violent criminals. You had 2,200 firearms seized off the streets permanently, to safeguard our communities. You had 421kg of fentanyl seized. Just to put that in perspective, that’s enough to kill 55 million Americans alone,” Patel said.
He then compared the number of arrests since Trump returned to the White House with the yearly arrests of violent criminals during the Biden administration.
“You have 28,600 arrests of violent criminals in just seven months alone, because of your leadership,” Patel said, praising the president in the process.
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Trump says San Francisco could be next for surge in federal law enforcement
“It’s a mess, and we have great support in San Francisco,” Trump said of the city and California governor Gavin Newsom’s home town.
“Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot, and that’s exactly what our administration is working to deliver.”
Trump touted the success of federal law enforcement in Washington DC.
“It’s been so nice because so many people, they’re going out to dinner, and they’re having dinners they wouldn’t, they didn’t go out for four years, and now they’re going out three times a week,” he said.
He went on to complain that the only thing in his way in other major cities is “radical left governors”.
Trump holds press conference with FBI director Kash Patel
The president begins his press conference saying that he’s here to talk about “Operation Summer Heat”. He’s flanked by the FBI director, Kash Patel.
“Over the past few months, FBI offices in all 50 states made crushing violent crime a top enforcement priority. That’s what they did, rounding up and arresting thousands of the most violent and dangerous criminals,” Trump said.
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Brown University rejects Trump administration invitation to join 'compact', citing concerns for academic freedom
Brown University is the latest institution to reject the White House’s offer to join a “Compact of Academic Excellence” – the controversial agreement which would provide preferential treatment to colleges that carry out several of the administration’s education policies, including ending diversity initiatives and capping international student enrollment.
In a letter to the education secretary, Linda McMahon, Brown’s president. Christina H Paxson, said she’s concerned the compact would “restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance”.
She added:
A fundamental part of academic excellence is awarding research funding on the merits of the research being proposed. The cover letter describing the compact contemplates funding research on criteria other than the soundness and likely impact of research, which would ultimately damage the health and prosperity of Americans.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) became the first university to reject the invitation to join the compact, before the White House extended the option to all higher education institutes across the country.
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Senate fails to pass funding bill to reopen government for ninth time
The Senate has rejected a House-passed funding bill to reopen the federal government, as the shutdown enters its 15th day.
With a vote of 51-44, this is the ninth time that the funding extension has failed to meet the 60-member threshold needed to advance in the upper chamber.
Hegseth plane makes unscheduled landing in UK returning from Nato meeting
According to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, the plane carrying the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, back from a meeting of Nato ministers in the UK had to make an unscheduled landing “due to a crack in the aircraft windshield”.
Parnell added: “The plane landed based on standard procedures and everyone onboard, including Secretary Hegseth, is safe.”
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Here's a recap of the day so far
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out layoffs during the ongoing government shutdown. In a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) challenging the reductions in force that the Trump administration enacted last week, Judge Susan Illston said that the mass firings across agencies, which amounted to more than 4,000 layoffs, are an example of the administration taking “advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume that that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them any more”. Illston blocked the administration from laying off any federal employees because of, or during, the shutdown, and has stopped them from taking action on the already issued reductions in force for at least two weeks.
While that hearing was under way, the White House budget director maintained that the firings are far from over. Russell Vought, the director of the office of management and budget – has said that the current reductions in force are just a “snapshot”. He added that the total amount could end up being about 10,000.
The supreme court heard two and a half hours of oral arguments today in a case that could thwart a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The conservative majority on the bench seemed sympathetic to the case, made by lawyers for Louisiana, a group of “non-African American voters” and the Trump administration. They all argue that a 2024 congressional map, which created a second majority-Black district in Louisiana, violates the constitution. If the court rules in their favor, it could ultimately diminish section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits electoral practices that dilute the voting power of minority groups. It would also limit the ability of legislatures from drawing maps with racial demographics in mind, and could cost Democrats several House seats in Republican-led states.
Also in Washington, the government shutdown enters day 15, with no end in sight. Republicans and Democrats in Congress held press conferences at the US Capitol, and continued to exchange barbs – blaming the other party for the lapse in funding. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, said that he spoke with Donald Trump on Tuesday, adding that Republicans are “forlorn” and not taking “any pleasure” in the length of the shutdown and the mass layoffs implemented by the White House budget office. Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries slammed the administration for offering a $20bn cash bailout to Argentina, but not “spending a dime on affordable healthcare for Americans”. CSPAN also reported that Johnson and Jeffries have both accepted an invitation to debate on the network. The date has yet to be announced.
Today, Johnson also accused a group of Democrats of “storming” his office, showing “disdain for law enforcement” and playing “political games”. On Tuesday evening, a group of Democrats including Adelita Grijalva, the Democratic representative-elect for Arizona, marched to Johnson’s office, chanting “swear her in” and demanding that she be seated after she won a special election in her state over three weeks ago. Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, has threatened legal action against Johnson for failing to seat Grijalva, and Grijalva said she has also been exploring her legal options for officially claiming her seat.
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In her order, Judge Illston has temporarily blocked the administration from laying off any federal employees because of or during the shutdown, and has stopped them from taking action on the already issued reductions in force for at least two weeks.
She’ll lay out further details in her written ruling later today, but said that the administration will need to provide a plan outlining how they have complied with her order within two business days. Illston said that she will schedule a preliminary injunction hearing in roughly two weeks’ time.
“It would be wonderful to know what the government’s position is on the merits of this case,” Illston added. “My breath is bated until we find that.”
Federal judge grants temporary restraining order, blocking mass firings of federal workers
Judge Susan Illston has issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the firing of federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown.
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White House budget director says federal worker layoffs could total 10,000
While the hearing in the case trying to block the mass layoffs plays out in northern California, Russell Vought – the director of the White House’s office of management and budget – has said that these are just a “snapshot” of the firings. He added that the total amount could end up being about 10,000.
Vought said his office wants to “be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding”, during an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show.
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Federal judge says she's 'inclined' to block administration from mass layoffs during government shutdown
A federal judge in San Francisco is currently hearing arguments in a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) challenging the reductions in force that the Trump administration enacted last week as the government shutdown continued.
As she began proceedings today, Judge Susan Illston said that she’s “inclined” to block the mass firings across agencies, which amounted to more than 4,000 layoffs, according to court filings.
She added that the administration has “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume that that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them any more”.
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A group of 15 Democratic governors on Wednesday announced the formation of a multistate health initiative designed to improve public health coordination and emergency preparedness in response to the turmoil caused by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s changes across federal agencies.
Leaders of the Governors Public Health Alliance say the newly formed “hub” will serve as a national platform for public officials and public health experts to monitor disease outbreaks, coordinate pandemic preparedness, share data, and pool resources such as vaccines and medical supplies. The states involved represent roughly one in three Americans.
“California is proud to help launch this new alliance because the American people deserve a public health system that puts science before politics,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement. “As extremists try to weaponize the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and spread misinformation, we’re stepping up to coordinate across states, protect communities, and ensure decisions are driven by data, facts, and the health of the American people.”
The alliance builds on previous regional collaborations, including the West Coast Health Alliance formed early in the pandemic by California, Oregon and Washington. Officials say the new national structure will serve as a forum for sharing best practices and navigating shared challenges.
Newsom joined governors from Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington in launching the alliance.
The initiative is supported by GovAct, which describes itself as a “centralized platform for collaboration across governors’ offices – incubating, launching and supporting alliances of governors”. Other alliances it supports are Governors Upholding & Fortifying Democracy, chaired by Democratic governors Jared Polis of Colorado and JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Governors Working Together to Defend & Expand Reproductive Freedom, which includes 23 Democratic governors.
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A White House official tells the Guardian that Donald Trump’s press conference at 3pm ET, during which he’ll be joined by the FBI director, Kash Patel, is an “update on crime-reduction progress”.
We’ll bring you the latest lines when it gets started.
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Trump to host fundraiser with high-dollar donors for new White House ballroom – report
Donald Trump will host a so-called “legacy dinner” tonight to establish the new $200m ballroom at the White House, according to CNN.
The invitation said the dinner, which will be held at the White House, is meant “to establish the magnificent White House Ballroom”, plans for which the administration announced in July.
A White House official described the event to CNN as a fundraiser for the ballroom and other beautification projects and noted that a number of high-dollar donors would be in attendance, though they didn’t give specific names.
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Outcry after US strips visas from six foreigners over Charlie Kirk remarks
Joseph Gedeon in Washington and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Civil liberties advocates are warning that the Trump administration’s decision to strip visas from at least six foreign nationals over social media posts about Charlie Kirk’s killing represents yet another example of dangerous government crackdowns on protected speech.
On Tuesday, the state department announced it was systematically identifying visa holders who “celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk”, declaring in a social media statement that “the United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans”.
The visa cancellations represent an escalating government-wide campaign to suppress criticism of Kirk, who was killed last month. The administration cut visas for nationals from Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Paraguay.
“You can’t defend ‘our culture’ by eroding the very cornerstone of what America stands for: freedom of speech and thought,” Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), said in a statement to the Guardian. “The Trump administration must stop punishing people for their opinions alone.”
Visa revocations under these parameters “are censorship, plain and simple”, Carrie DeCell, the Knight First Amendment Institute’s senior staff attorney and legislative adviser, said in a press release.
Mere ‘mockery’ can’t be grounds for adverse government action – whether revocation of broadcast licenses or revocation of visas. While the government can revoke visas for many reasons, the first amendment forbids it from doing so based on viewpoint.
The full report is here:
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'This delay is intentional': Adelita Grijalva demands again that House speaker Mike Johnson seat her
Away from the supreme court for a moment, Democratic representative-elect for Arizona Adelita Grijalva has demanded again that House speaker Mike Johnson seat her.
Johnson has refused to swear her in while the House is out of session amid the ongoing federal government shutdown, even though there is no rule that prevents him from doing so (he previously swore in two Florida Republicans while the House was in recess earlier this year).
Grijalva, who won a special election in her state over three weeks ago and whose election was certified by Arizona’s secretary of state yesterday, is poised to provide the final signature on a bipartisan discharge petition needed to force a floor vote on whether to demand that the Trump administration release the Epstein files to Congress.
“This delay is not procedural, it is intentional,” she said outside the US Capitol this morning. “He is doing everything in his power to shield this administration from accountability. That is not leadership, that is obstruction.”
Yesterday evening, a group of Democrats and Grijalva marched to Johnson’s office, chanting “swear her in” and demanding that she be seated. This morning Johnson accused them of “storming” his office, showing “disdain for law enforcement” and playing “political games”.
Grijalva said yesterday: “I have not had one word from Speaker Johnson, not one word. We sent a letter. Now our attorney general is getting involved, because this is taxation without representation.”
Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, has threatened legal action against Johnson for failing to seat Grijalva, and Grijalva said she has also been exploring her legal options for officially claiming her seat.
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed Edward Greim, who is representing the “non-African American” challengers who appealed the 2024 congressional map and is challenging the interpretation of aspects of the Voting Rights Act, on whether he was suggesting that it was only a state’s “intentional discrimination” that needed to be remedied.
Greim replied that if a race-based remedy is involved, it must be in response to “intentional discrimination”.
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the 15th amendment is not limited to “intentional” discrimination, to which Greim said the court has never held that the amendment addresses anything other than discrimination that is intentional.
Sotomayor pushed back that this was not true and that the court has evaluated whether the effect of something is discrimination, regardless of whether that was the intent.
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in Washington
A predominantly Black crowd has gathered outside the supreme court, as it continues to hear a case that threatens to gut the Voting Rights Act.
There are about 200 people, some holding signs and wearing T-shirts that say “Black voters matter”, “It’s about us”, “We will be heard”, “Protect our vote” and “Protect people, not power”.
One man is waving a giant black and white flag that proclaims: “Fuck Trump.” Another is holding a handmade sign that references former justice Thurgood Marshall and current justice Clarence Thomas, both African Americans: “Thurgood is watching you Clarence.”
Various speakers are coming to a lectern, their voices booming through loudspeakers. Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter told the crowd: “We are blessed with power … We’ve got the power to move mountains … We’ve got the power to make good trouble … This court ain’t nothing but another mountain for us to move … When we believe, we win.”
Some distance away, half a dozen police officers are standing guard outside the court, which is covered in scaffolding.
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Hashim Mooppan, the principal deputy US solicitor general who is representing the Trump administration, is now speaking before the court.
Supreme court appears poised to undercut key provision of Voting Rights Act
As oral arguments at the supreme court continue, the conservative justices, who make up most of the bench, appear sympathetic to the case that new Louisiana congressional maps – which added a second majority-Black district – violate the constitution.
At the heart of the case is section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits electoral maps that dilute the voting power of minority groups. Lawyers for the state of Louisiana, a group of “non-African American voters” and the Trump administration say that the court needs to do away with the 2024 map. If the court agrees, it would ultimately set a precedent that makes it considerably harder to bring redistricting lawsuits on the basis of race, and undercut section 2.
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Edward Greim, representing the “non-African American” challengers who appealed the 2024 congressional map, is now up.
“It is time to reach a question this court has never reached and hold that section 2 alone is no compelling interest for racially gerrymandering citizens like the appellees,” Greim said. “The court should affirm and direct the district court to order a remedial map in time for the 2026 elections.”
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Aguinaga pushed back against Nelson’s argument that any gutting of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act would be “catastrophic”.
“I think there’s been a lot of sky is falling rhetoric from the other side in this case,” Aguinaga said. “I’m not I don’t know what our legislature would do if the court rules in our favor … I don’t think the sky is going to fall.”
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A post about the possible impact in today’s case. If the supreme court rules to scrap section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, it could possibly cost House Democrats up to 19 congressional seats, according to a report by two progressive voting rights groups.
“It’s enough to cement one-party control of the US House for at least a generation,” said Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter.
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In responding to a question by justice Samuel Alito, the Louisiana solicitor general said that the Black population within Louisiana doesn’t satisfy one of the pre-requisites of the Gingles test – namely that the minority population is geographically compact.
“You can identify pockets of black voters, but they are dispersed across the state there’s no way you can conceive of that population as compact,” Aguinaga said.
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An important note here, Louisiana has switched sides since March, the last time the supreme court heard this case.
“We’ve taken the position that section 2, insofar as it requires race- based redistricting, is unconstitutional,” Aguinaga said.
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Now up is Benjamin Aguinaga, the solicitor general of Louisiana.
“Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our constitution,” he said in his opening argument, adding that racial stereotypes are a consequence of the practice.
“They assume, for example, that a black voter, simply because he is black, must think like other black voters, share the same interests and prefer the same political candidates, and this stereotyping system has no logical endpoint.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Nelson to answer the constitutionality question of the maps in question, particularly how it relates to the court’s 2023 decision that ruled race-based college admissions violate the Equal Protections Clause of the 14th amendment.
Nelson said that the court “made it clear that it is still constitutional to use race to remedy specified discrimination”.
She noted that decision, from two years ago, is “working more in our favor, we believe, than supporting our opponents”.
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Nelson was just asked by Justice Elena Kagan what the consequences would be if the court got rid of section 2.
“I think the results would be pretty catastrophic,” Nelson said. She went on to say that many of the Black representatives in Louisiana alone were elected from districts that exist because of the Voting Rights Act.
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One particular term we’re hearing a lot about in Nelson’s arguments is the “Gingles Test”, which determines if a minority group is being subjected to voting dilution.
“Gingles is an exacting test. It is data obsessive. It brings in experts and many other forms of evidence to establish a racial violation,” Nelson said.
There are three criteria for a minority group to meet Gingles, which came about after a landmark supreme court decision in 1986. Here’s a breakdown, courtesy of ScotusBlog.
The affected minority group is sufficiently large to elect a representative of its choice.
The minority group is politically cohesive.
The majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the minority group’s preferred candidates.
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Kavanaugh restates the court's history on 'race-based remedies'
Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained the court’s stance on “race-based remedies”.
“Race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades, in some cases, but that they should not be indefinite and should have a end point,” he said, calling back one of the key points of the ruling in 2023 which ruled the factor of race in college admissions was unlawful.
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There’s lots of questions from the judges right off the bat about Allen v Milligan, a similar section 2 case from 2023. In that case, the court upheld section 2 and said Alabama was required to redraw its districts to add a second majority-Black district.
If the court wants to overrule precedent about section 2, it would require it to overrule precedent it affirmed just two years ago. There was an ominous question from the chief justice, John Roberts, who is a key vote in the case.
“That case, of course, took the existing precedent as a given,” Roberts said.
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Supreme court begins oral arguments in Voting Rights Act case
Oral arguments have started in the case challenging the constitutionality of a redrawn congressional map in Louisiana.
Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, kicked things off. She noted that if the map at the center of this case is deemed to be “unsatisfactory”, the proper recourse is to “remand and adopt” one of the many alternative maps that address the section 2 violation of the earlier map.
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Outside the supreme court, several people have gathered to rally in support of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is at the heart of today’s arguments in front of the justices.
Rallying at SCOTUS ahead of today’s arguments in Louisiana v. Callais on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. pic.twitter.com/e6miOZlQfj
— Michael Li 李之樸 (@mcpli) October 15, 2025
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Bessent: 'If China wants to be an unreliable partner, the world will have to decouple'
Scott Bessent has said that there will be a “series of meetings” this week during World Bank IMF week, but emphasized that China is “not only fueling Russia’s war”, but their actions have once again demonstrated the risk of being dependent on them and on rare earths from the country.
“If China wants to be an unreliable partner to the world, then the world will have to decouple. The world does not want to decouple. We want to de risk, but signals like this are signs of decoupling, which we don’t believe China wants,” Bessent added.
Bessent says shutdown could cost the US $15bn a day: 'No kings equal no paychecks'
Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, is holding a press conference alongside Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative. He just said that the ongoing government shutdown could cost the country $15bn a day.
“I’m calling for the moderate Democrats to be heroes, be heroes, and reopen the government for the American people,” Bessent said. “Maybe it’s after this ‘no kings’ thing, but no kings equal no paychecks.”
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A visual representation of the new Louisiana map at the heart of the supreme court case
Here are the Louisiana congressional maps, showing the difference between 2022 and 2024, following a lawsuit which upheld the creation of a second majority-Black district.
My colleague, Sam Levine, has been covering the latest as the supreme court prepares to hear a consequential case, which could inhibit states from considering race as determining factor when drawing district and congressional maps.
Ahead of arguments at the court, in less than an hour, Sam notes the history of the case.
After the 2020 census, Louisiana Republicans passed a congressional map in which Black voters only comprised a majority in one of the state’s six congressional districts. A group of Black voters sued under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in March of 2022, arguing that it was possible to draw a reasonably configured district in the Baton Rouge area that would give Black voters a majority in a second-congressional district. A district court judge and US court of appeals for the fith circuit agreed with them, ordering a new map. The supreme court let the map go into effect for the 2024 elections.
Since then, a group of “non-African American” voters brought a lawsuit, claiming the 2024 map, which delivered two Louisiana Democrats to the US House, was an example of racial discrimination. A panel of federal judges ruled in their favor, and the appeal is now before the court today.
You can read more of Sam’s report here:
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Government shutdown enters day 15, as Senate schedules another vote to pass funding bill
The Senate will hold its ninth vote, in an attempt to advance a House-passed funding bill to reopen the government, at 2:15pm ET today.
The ongoing shutdown enters its 15th day with no end in sight. Both parties continue to blame the other for the lapse in government funding. While Donald Trump said that he will announce a list of “Democrat programs” that his administration plans to cut on Friday. This comes as more than 4,000 federal employees were laid off last week, as part of the White House budget office’s reduction in force across agencies.
We’re due to hear from Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, at 10am ET, and Hakeem Jeffries, the House’s top Democrat, at 11:30am ET.
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Donald Trump is in Washington today, but we won’t see him until 3pm ET, when he holds a press conference with Kash Patel, the FBI director, at the White House.
Then, the president will host a ballroom dinner in the East Room at 7:30pm ET.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as it all unfolds.
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The far-right US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is further distancing herself from her fellow Republicans and accusing men in her party of being “weak”.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Greene expressed her frustrations with Republicans, signaling her further deviation from the political strategies of her party, as the government shutdown beginning 1 October was slated to enter its third week.
Greene has been at odds with some Republican strategies since she campaigned for her seat representing Georgia’s 14th congressional district years back. In her view, the Republicans are not being aggressive enough to push forward their agenda, even as they control Congress and the White House since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency in January.
In the interview with the Post, Greene highlighted her discontent with congressional leaders of her own party, particularly the House speaker, Mike Johnson, amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The Trump loyalist on social media called on the US Senate to do away with the 60-vote filibuster requirement to end the government shutdown in order to push along their spending bill. Johnson apparently told her “they can’t do it” even though “it’s math”, Greene told the Post.
Greene also sided with Democrats in their push to provide healthcare subsidies – a rare move for a Republican – which has been the sticking point at the center of the negotiations between both parties to end the government shutdown.
Donald Trump has again said he’d pressure Fifa to remove 2026 World Cup games from a host city on the basis of that city’s politics, with Boston becoming the third such city to come in for threats from the US president.
Trump also said he would consider similar action against Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics on account of potential safety issues.
Trump has no legal authority to directly take either action, but he can apply pressure to each competition’s governing body to move host cities.
His comments came at a press event with Javier Milei, the Argentinian president who was visiting the White House after the announcement of a $20bn bailout for the South American country.
Towards the end of the event, a reporter asked Trump about a recent “street takeover” in Boston that saw police officers attacked and a police car set aflame, and if the concerns raised by the incident could result in the revocation of hosting duties for next year’s expanded 48-team soccer tournament. The reporter also asked if Trump would work with Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, to address the issue.
“We could take them away,” Trump said of the World Cup games, which are due to be held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, about 22 miles south-west of Boston. “Their mayor is not good … she’s radical left, and they’re taking over parts of Boston. That’s a pretty big statement, right?”
Street takeovers, a social media-driven phenomenon that sees large crowds of people gather on city streets late at night to perform stunts in cars, have been a repeated nuisance in American cities since the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns. Recent such gatherings have turned violent in Massachusetts, including in Boston. However, the gatherings are generally not seen as being tied to any particular political ideology.
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Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States has struck another small boat that he accuses of carrying drugs in waters off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people aboard.
“The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social social media platform. “No U.S. Forces were harmed.”
Trump wrote that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics” and said that it was “associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks” but did not provide any evidence. Trump said that defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the strike on Tuesday morning and also shared video footage of the strike, as he has with prior strikes.
This marks the fifth deadly US strike in the Caribbean, according to the Associated Press since the beginning of September, and comes just weeks after Trump administration officials said that the US is now in a “non international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
An internal Trump administration memo obtained by the New York Times earlier this month reportedly stated that Trump has deemed cartels engaged in drug smuggling as “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.
US Senate again rejects Republican plan to end government shutdown
Congress remained deadlocked on legislation to reopen the federal government, as the US Senate on Tuesday again rejected a Republican plan to end the government shutdown that began two weeks ago.
The eighth Senate vote to advance a Republican bill that would fund government operations through 21 November failed on a 49-45 tally – far short of the 60 needed for advancement in the chamber. In a sign that that there has been little if any progress toward ending the stalemate, no senators changed their votes from the last time the measure was brought to the floor, though there were a handful of absences.
After the Trump administration began laying off federal workers at several government agencies last week, Democrats and Republicans continued to trade blame.
In a speech on the Senate floor, the Democratic leader Chuck Schumer slammed the Trump administration’s decision to approve a huge bailout for Argentina in the middle of a government shutdown that has closed federal agencies and furloughed workers nationwide.
“If this administration has $20bn to spare for a Maga-friendly foreign government, they cannot turn around and say we don’t have the money lower healthcare costs here at home,” Schumer said, calling the move a “slap in the face” to US families.
Donald Trump’s US state department said on Tuesday it had revoked the visas of six foreigners over social media comments made about the assassination of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.
“The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” the state department said in a statement posted on X. “The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
The state department then listed six “examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the US” in a thread on the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, the Trump donor who called himself “a free speech absolutist” before buying the site formerly known as Twitter.
The thread included screenshots and quotes from people identified as foreign nationals of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay and South Africa.
None of the individuals was identified by name, but the screenshots made it possible to trace the identities of two people, including one who had been singled out for abuse by conservatives on X.
“Charlie Kirk won’t be remembered as a hero,” one of the comments posted on X read. “He was used to astroturf a movement of white nationalist trailer trash!”
Donald Trump has warned he could cut financial aid to Argentina if his ally Javier Milei loses crucial legislative elections later this month.
“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” the US president said as Milei visited the White House to seek the Republican’s political and economic support. “I’m with this man because his philosophy is correct. And he may win and he may not win – I think he’s going to win. And if he wins we are staying with him, and if he doesn’t win we are gone.”
Trump’s administration has already promised $20bn to prop up Argentina’s struggling economy but his backing has failed to calm the markets – or help Milei’s polling before midterms on 26 October.
The results of the elections, in which Milei’s minority party is hoping to boost its seat tally, will dictate whether he can pass tough cost-cutting reforms or will face a legislative brick wall for the next two years of his term.
Hailing Milei as a “great leader”, Trump said he would “fully endorse” his ideological ally in the elections. “He’s Maga all the way, it’s ‘Make Argentina Great Again,’” he added.
Trump has, however, faced questions about how a big bailout for Argentina tallies with that same “America First” policy. Asked by reporters what the benefit to the United States was, Trump replied: “We are helping a great philosophy take over a great country. We want to see it succeed.”
A new video from Robert De Niro implores people in the US “to stand up and be counted” in coming protests against Donald Trump’s second presidency that are being planned across the country for Saturday.
In the clip, the two-time Oscar winner characterizes Trump as an aspiring tyrant who aims to end American democracy, which – among other major historical events – has survived the first and second world wars.
“We have a would-be king who wants to take it away: king Donald the first,” De Niro says. “Fuck that.”
The GoodFellas and Godfather Part II star then calls on those in the US to “nonviolently [raise] our voices” at demonstrations Saturday that follow up on similar ones called “No Kings” rallies that were held on 14 June and attracted a turnout of millions to about 2,000 distinct sites.
“I’m … asking you to stand up and be counted in the nationwide ‘No Kings’ protest” on Saturday, De Niro remarks in the video. Invoking a phrase from the ubiquitously recited US pledge of allegiance, he adds: “We’re all in this together – indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The No Kings theme was conceived by the decentralized 50501 movement. Standing in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies, 50501 means 50 states, 50 protests and one movement.
Panic as US federal workers scramble to find out if they have been fired
Federal workers are scrambling to figure out if they still have a job after the Trump administration launched a fresh wave of layoffs amid a federal government shutdown, prompting widespread confusion and panic.
A hearing is scheduled to take place today after labor unions sued to block the latest firings, setting the stage for another legal battle over Donald Trump’s efforts to drastically cut back the federal workforce.
About 4,200 federal employees across seven agencies were laid off on Friday, the administration has said, although 700 firings at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were swiftly reversed over the weekend.
It remains unclear if Trump, who told reporters that “a lot” of government workers would be fired, plans to go further. The federal workforce has already shed hundreds of thousands of staff on his watch this year.
As unions seek to establish the extent of the latest layoffs, workers at the Department of Education said that they do not have access to their work email accounts during the shutdown – so cannot check to see if they’ve received “reduction in force” (RIF) notices.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened trade penalties, including tariffs, against Spain, saying he is unhappy with its refusal to raise defense spending to 5% and calling the move disrespectful to Nato.
“I’m very unhappy with Spain. They’re the only country that didn’t raise their number up to 5%... so I’m not happy with Spain,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“I was thinking of giving them trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did, and I think I may do that,” Trump added.
Trump has repeatedly pushed Nato members to spend more on their own defense and cast doubt on Washington’s willingness to come to the aid of members who do not spend enough, Reuters reported.
He said last week while meeting Finland’s president that Nato should consider throwing Spain out of the alliance over its refusal to agree to the new commitment.
Spain is a reliable member of the alliance and currently has 3,000 soldiers deployed under Nato, Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Wednesday when asked about Trump’s comments.
“There is no doubt about Spain’s commitment and contribution to [transatlantic] security,” he told reporters during a visit to Hangzhou, China.
Supreme Court takes up GOP-led challenge to Voting Rights Act that could affect control of Congress
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that the US supreme court will hear a hugely consequential case on Wednesday that will determine the future of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law designed to prevent discrimination in voting.
The case, Louisiana v Callais, involves a dispute over Louisiana’s sixth congressional district, which snakes from Shreveport in the state’s north-west to Baton Rouge in the center. Louisiana Republicans drew the district after a successful lawsuit filed by Black voters under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws election procedures and practices that discriminate on the basis of race.
The justices are set to hear arguments for the second time in a case over Louisiana’s congressional map, which has two majority Black districts.
A ruling for the state could open the door for legislatures to redraw congressional maps across the South, potentially boosting Republican electoral prospects by eliminating majority Black and Latino seats that tend to favor Democrats.
A battle over congressional redistricting already is playing out across the nation, after president Donald Trump urged Texas and other Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines to make it easier for the GOP to hold its narrow majority in the US House of Representatives.
A ruling holding section 2 unconstitutional would dramatically upend American election law and strip minority voters of a tool to challenge discrimination. For decades, voting rights lawyers have turned to section 2 to challenge district lines – from congressional districts to school boards – that dilute the influence of minority voters.
In other developments:
Donald Trump presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Charlie Kirk’s distraught, tearful widow, Erika Kirk.
Kirk’s widow praised her late husband and said that he would likely have run for president one day had he not been killed before his 32nd birthday.
Trump’s state department announced that it had revoked the visas of six foreign nationals who posted critical comments on social media about Kirk, in the wake of the conservative activist’s murder.
Trump said that a list of ‘Democrat programs’ that the White House plans to cut will be released on Friday.
Trump warned that Hamas must disarm “or we will disarm them”.
Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States has struck another small boat that he accuses of carrying drugs in waters off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people aboard.
There is no end in sight for the US government shutdown, now into its second week, as the Senate again rejected a Republican plan.
Katie Porter, the former congresswoman running for California governor, said in an interview that she regrets losing her temper in two video clips that went viral last week, but suggested that the state needs a “tough” leader.
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