Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will resume our labors on Thursday. Here are the day’s developments:
Lindsey Halligan, the former White House aide installed as interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, plans to seek an indictment against James Comey, the former FBI director, for allegedly lying to Congress, despite being briefed by prosecutors that there is insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.
Donald Trump demanded an investigation of what he called “triple sabotage” of his UN address on Tuesday: a malfunctioning escalator, a faulty teleprompter and an apparent sound problem in the hall. UN officials said the US delegation was responsible for the first two, and the third was less dramatic than Trump claimed.
JD Vance, the vice-president, claimed without evidence that a gunman who opened fire at an Ice facility in Dallas, killing one detainee and wounding two more before taking his own life, was a “violent leftwing extremist”.
The White House used a wall of the presidential residence to stage an elaborate prank, creating a “walk of fame” featuring framed portraits of 44 of the 45 men to have served as president, all except for Joe Biden, who was represented by an image of an autopen, to suggest that he did not actually run his administration.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, said that Democrats “have drawn a line in the sand” when it comes to the Republican-written short term spending bill, that extends government funding until 21 November.
The state superintendent in Oklahoma announced plans to put rightwing Turning Point USA chapters in every high school in the state, saying it would counter “radical leftist teachers’ unions” and their “woke indoctrination”.
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Key event
The US justice department notified a lawyer for the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on Wednesday that it is dropping an investigation of a retired FBI agent who responded to the 2012 school shooting and testified in a defamation lawsuit against Alex Jones, over the radio host’s damaging conspiracy theory that the massacre was staged by the government.
Ed Martin, a veteran Republican operative who now leads a “weaponization working group” inside the department of justice had previously sent a letter to the Sandy Hook families’ lawyer, Christopher Mattei, asking for information about the former FBI agent, William Aldenberg, who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, along with victims’ relatives, that led to a $1.4bn judgment against Jones for calling the massacre a hoax.
Martin’s letter suggested that he was looking into whether Aldenberg broke a federal law by receiving financial benefits for helping to organize the lawsuit. Jones, who said he met with Martin last week in Washington, has accused Democrats and justice department officials of orchestrating the lawsuit to silence him.
Jones had posted a copy of a letter Martin sent to Mattei this month on his X account on Tuesday. Jones and Martin had posed for a photograph together earlier this month, prompting speculation that the Trump administration was using the threat of investigation to harass the plaintiffs who won the judgement against the Trump-supporting rightwing conspiracy theorist who rallied Trump supporters outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Mattei posted a copy of a new letter he received from Martin on Wednesday in which the justice department official said there was no investigation of Aldenberg and “I hereby withdraw my request for information.”
“Jones and Martin corruptly used DOJ to harass Sandy Hook families and the heroic FBI agent who ran into the school to save any children he could,” Mattei wrote on X. “I called them out and now the so-called inquiry has been withdrawn. This is a moment to stand up to bullying, lawless misconduct.”
The school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, on 14 December 2012 killed 20 first graders and six educators. Jones, based in Austin, Texas, repeatedly called it a hoax and pushed false claims that it was staged by the government in an effort to increase support for gun control, and the grieving family members were all “crisis actors”.
Under pressure, the Infowars host eventually said he believed the shooting was “100% real”.
At the 2022 defamation trial in Connecticut, Aldenberg and relatives of many of the victims testified about being subjected to threats and abuse by people who believed Jones’ conspiracy theories about the shooting.
Aldenberg was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the school, and he broke down while testifying during the trial about finding dead children and teachers.
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Trump's hand-picked US attorney in Virginia expected to indict Comey despite lack of evidence
Justice department sources tell multiple news outlets that Lindsey Halligan, the former White House aide installed as interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia on Monday, plans to seek an indictment against James Comey, the former FBI director, for allegedly lying to Congress, despite being briefed by prosecutors that there is insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.
ABC News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times all report that Halligan, who has no experience as a prosecutor, has decided to seek an indictment despite being presented with a memo by prosecutors in the office that explains there is not enough evidence to bring charges.
Halligan was picked for the role by Donald Trump to replace a career prosecutor who declined to indict either Comey or New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who are both high up on the president’s enemies list.
The appointment of Halligan, who was the most junior lawyer on Trump’s personal legal team before he took office, came after the president explicitly called for Comey, James and Adam Schiff, the California senator, to be charged with crimes in revenge for their past roles in investigations of him, for contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russia, business fraud and withholding military aid from Ukraine unless it agreed to investigate conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
Trump claims he was the victim of ‘triple sabotage at the UN’, demands investigation
Donald Trump demanded a formal investigation on Wednesday of three technical mishaps that marred his speech to the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday: a malfunctioning escalator, a faulty teleprompter and an apparent sound problem in the hall.
Although Trump, in an enraged social media post, called the technical failures “triple sabotage”, UN officials told reporters that at least two of the problems were likely caused by Trump’s own delegation.
The chief UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement that a read-out of the escalator’s central processing unit indicated that it had stopped because a built-in safety mechanism at the top had been triggered by accident, most likely by a White House videographer who was moving up the escalator backwards to record Trump’s ascent.
A UN official told Colum Lynch, a veteran UN correspondent, that the US delegation was operating the teleprompter from their own laptop, and Trump had simply arrived at the podium before it was ready.
According to Mike Waltz, who was demoted from national security adviser to US ambassador to the UN after accidentally adding a journalist to a confidential Signal group chat to discuss US strikes on Yemen in March, the third technical flub was interruptions of Trump’s speech in the hall with Portuguese interpretation.
Trump himself, on social media, claimed that the audio problem was much more substantial. “I was told that the sound was completely off in the Auditorium where the Speech was made, that World Leaders, unless they used the interpreters’ earpieces, couldn’t hear a thing,” Trump wrote.
That, however, appears unlikely to be true, since video evidence shows that there were numerous occasions throughout his speech when the audience reacted immediately to hat he was saying.
At the start of his remarks, for instance, when Trump said, “I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter’s in big trouble,” his remark was met with immediate laughter from the delegates in the hall.
Similarly, when Trump criticized other nations for deciding to recognize the state of Palestine, calling the diplomatic move “a reward” for “horrible atrocities” carried out by Hamas militants on October 7,” the pool camera in the room cut to Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, who nodded in agreement.
Danon clearly had no trouble hearing Trump’s speech, since he posted video of that moment on social media later, and told reporters outside the hall that it was “a great speech; we are grateful to president Trump for a powerful speech.”
Similarly, other members of the US delegation who listened in the hall, including the energy secretary, Chris Wright, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who were photographed smiling as Trump described his escalator mishap, gave no indication after it that they had any difficulty hearing Trump’s speech. “Incredible speech at the UN”, Rubio wrote on social media on Tuesday, before Trump claimed that there was no audio in the hall he had been sitting in.
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Witnesses recount Dallas Ice facility shooting
Here are video interviews with three witnesses to the deadly shooting in Dallas on Wednesday:
Edwin Cardona was waiting for an appointment with his wife and son outside the Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement building when a gunman opened fire on the facility on Wednesday. Four people were reportedly shot, one fatally, in an attack which the FBI said was being investigated as “an act of targeted violence”. The Department of Homeland Security said one detainee was killed and two others were in critical condition.
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Obama calls Trump's claims about autism and Tylenol 'violence against the truth'
Speaking in London on Wednesday, Barack Obama strongly criticized his successor Donald Trump for making what the former president called “broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproved”.
Obama added, in remarks that were captured on video and shared on social media:
The degree to which that undermines public health, the degree to which that can do harm to women who are pregnant, the degree to which that creates anxiety for parents who do have children who are autistic – which, by the way, itself is subject to a spectrum, and a lot of what is being trumpeted as these massive increases actually has to do with a broadening of the criteria across that spectrum so that people can actually get services and help – all of that is violence against the truth.
According to Metro, a free London newspaper, Obama began his interview with the British historian and broadcaster David Olusoga by telling the audience that London is “one of the greatest cities in the world”. At the United Nations on Tuesday, Trump had falsely claimed that London, under the leadership of its popular, Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, was in decline and implementing Shariah law.
Khan was reportedly in the audience of about 14,000 people for Obama’s appearance.
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Trump turns White House wall into venue for trolling Biden
As parts of the federal government focused on the deadly shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Dallas on Wednesday, Donald Trump returned, again, to a major focus of his second term in office: ruthlessly mocking his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Photographs posted on the official White House accounts on Instagram and X showed Trump inspecting what his special assistant, Margo Martin, called the new “Presidential Walk of Fame” on the wall of the West Wing colonnade: a series of framed photographs of 44 of the 45 men who have served as president of the United States. A framed image of an autopen signing Biden’s name appears instead of his official portrait.
👀 https://t.co/jE2Vm7UdjL pic.twitter.com/CJ3yQBtPGQ
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 24, 2025
Video posted on X by Martin showed off the transformation of an exterior wall of the White House into a meme, amplifying the rightwing conspiracy theory that Biden, who defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes in 2020, was not even aware of some orders authorized by his signature.
The Presidential Walk of Fame has arrived on the West Wing Colonnade
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) September 24, 2025
Wait for it… 🖊️👀 pic.twitter.com/ApWfdxfFQa
A White House official, who insisted on anonymity, told Reuters that the alternative Biden portrait was Trump’s own idea.
The autopen is a device used to replicate a person’s signature with precision, typically for high-volume or ceremonial documents. In recent years, the device has been employed by presidents of both parties, including Trump, to sign letters and proclamations.
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Trump rushes to blame Democrats for shooting at Ice office in Dallas
Donald Trump has followed his vice-president by instantly politicizing the shooting of three detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Dallas on Wednesday, claiming in a social media post that the attack “is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to ‘Nazis.’”
Although the investigation into the shooting is not yet complete, Trump insisted that it was politically motivated, based his FBI director’s claim that one bullet found near the gunman, who died of a self-inflicted wound, had the words “Anti-Ice” written on it.
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Vice-president JD Vance has denied that the White House is targeting late night TV comedy or other forms of free speech.
“I’m pretty sure that Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night, and to the extent that he’s not back on the air, it’s because he’s not funny and has terrible ratings,” Vance said at an event in Concord, North Carolina. “This is not a federal government problem.”
Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, last week threatened to take action against Disney’s ABC network after Kimmel made remarks about Republicans’ response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel was suspended for a week.
Vance played down the controversy on Wednesday, insisting: “What people will say is, well, you know, didn’t the FCC commissioner put a tweet out that said something bad? Well, compare the FCC commissioner making a joke on social media – what is the government action that the Trump administration has engaged in to kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off the air? Zero.”
“What government pressure have we brought to bear to tell people that they’re not allowed to speak their mind? Zero. We believe in free speech in the Trump administration. We are fighting every single day to protect it.”
In fact, Carr took much more direct action than making a joke on social media: he went on a popular rightwing podcast and urged the owners of ABC-affiliated local TV stations to press ABC to remove Kimmel. “There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters,” Carr said. “Frankly I think it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”
“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr added. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” After those comments, two owners of local stations announced that they would not air Kimmel’s show, and ABC decided to suspend him.
Vance himself also argued last week that anyone caught celebrating Kirk’s murder should be named and shamed, urging: “Hell, call their employer.” Donald Trump suggested that regulators should consider revoking licenses for networks that “give me only bad publicity”.
At Wednesday’s event, Vance was also questioned about Trump’s sudden shift on the Ukraine war in which he said the country can win back all its territory from Russia.
“I believe the president is growing incredibly impatient with the Russians right now because he doesn’t feel like they’re putting enough on the table to end the war,” he said. “The war is bad for Russia. It’s bad for Ukraine. It’s bad for America. We want the killing to stop.”
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Officials correct death toll in Ice shooting to say one person killed, two in critical condition
The Department of Homeland Security just issued a correction related to the number of people killed and injured in the shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Dallas, Texas.
One detainee was killed and two others were in critical condition, the department said in a statement. Previously, the department said two detainees had been killed.
The department has not yet corrected or removed an earlier post on its X account which said that two Ice detainees were killed.
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Republicans call out 'unprecedented violence' against Ice officers, following shooting
In the wake of today’s shooting at the Dallas Ice field office, several other Republicans have expressed their support with immigration enforcement, and expressed concern at violence directed towards Ice agents in recent months.
A reminder that authorities, including the Department of Homeland security, said no law enforcement officials were wounded. Rather, two detainees were killed, and another was severely injured.
In a post on X, House majority leader Steve Scalise, said : “Our brave ICE officers put their lives on the line every day to make this country safer, but they continue to face unprecedented violence. It MUST STOP.”
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, shared a graphic with the words “I stand with Ice” on social media. She added that “Democrats must stop demonizing the heroic men and women of ICE”.
In a statement, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Richard Hudson, said that today’s shooting was “a direct result of Democrats’ long pattern of dangerous anti-ICE rhetoric, consistently putting criminal illegal immigrants first and demonizing law enforcement”.
in Concord, North Carolina
JD Vance, the vice-president, has claimed that a gunman who opened fire at an Ice facility in Dallas on Wednesday, killing two detainees and wounding another before taking his own life, was a “violent leftwing extremist”.
Vance was speaking at a law and order event inside an airport hangar in Concord, North Carolina, flanked by officers in uniform and against a backdrop of armoured police vehicles and giant US flags.
“What we know is that in Dallas, Texas, an Ice facility – an Immigration Customs and Enforcement facility – was opened fire upen by a violent leftwing extremist, a person who wrote anti-Ice messaging on their bullets,” the vice-president told a crowd of around 200 people.
“These’s some evidence we have that’s not yet public but we know this person was politically motivated. They were politically motivated to go after law enforcement. They were politically motivated to go after people who are enforcing our border and I think that is the most disgusting thing.”
Trump and his allies have sometimes been over-hasty in ascribing political motives to high profile offenders only for a more complex truth to emerge.
Speaking from a podium branded “Honor. Valor. Justice”, Vance reflected on the fatal shooting of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk but did not reference a deadly attack on Democrat state politicians in Minnesota.
“If you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, the last couple of years, it is not a both sides’ problem,” he claimed. “It is primarily on one side of the political aisle.”
Minority leader Jeffries says Republican short-term funding bill is an 'immoral assault on healthcare'
Speaking to reporters today, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, said that Democrats “have drawn a line in the sand” when it comes to the Republican-written short term spending bill, that extends government funding until 21 November.
“This is an immoral assault on the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said. “The legislation that they put before the House, and now the Senate, in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion, is just a continuation of a dirty spending bill that we did not support in March.”
Democrats in both chambers remain resolute that any funding extension needs to include several healthcare provisions to mitigate, they say, the impact of the legislation that Donald Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill” – which Trump signed into law earlier this year.
“He [Trump] doesn’t want to discuss the Republican health care crisis,” Jeffries said of the president’s decision to cancel a scheduled meeting with himself and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. “They’re running scared. They have no defensible position, and that’s why, unfortunately, they’re marching us to a government shutdown.”
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One note about JD Vance’s speech: he did acknowledge that detainees at the Ice facility comprised the fatalities and casualties.
“Just because we don’t support illegal aliens, we don’t want them to be executed by violent assassins engaged in political violence, either. So we’re praying both for our Ice agents, but also for everybody who’s affected by this terrible attack,” the vice-president said.
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House Democratic leadership says political violence has reached 'breaking point' following Dallas Ice facility shooting
Top Democrats in the House have issued a statement following the killing of two detainees at the Ice field office in Dallas, Texas. Another detainee is in critical condition.
“Our prayers and deepest condolences are with the families of those killed,” said minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar.
No one in America should be violently targeted, including our men and women in law enforcement who protect and serve our neighborhoods, and the immigrants who are too often the victims of dehumanizing rhetoric.”
They added that political violence in the US has reached “breaking point” this year. But said that the country needs “leaders who bring the country together in moments of crisis”.
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Vance blames Democrats for surge in political violence
Vice-president JD Vance has used his speech to take aim at Democratic lawmakers for political violence throughout the US.
“If you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, the last couple of years, it is not a both sides problem. It is primarily on one side of the political aisle,” Vance said, baselessly. “If we are going to truly go after the political violence in this country, we need the Democratic leadership of Washington DC to look in the mirror.”
Vance added, following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, that lawmakers on the left need to start with “condemning the violence, instead of condemning something that Charlie Kirk said, that they disagreed with”. He went on to claim, without evidence, that there is “an entire network of left wing organizations that encourage, that promote, and that apologize for violence”.
Vance claims that 'violent left-wing extremist' was behind Ice facility shooting, despite no confirmation from law enforcement
While speaking in Concord, North Carolina today, vice-president JD Vance said that today’s shooting at a Dallas Ice facility was carried out by “a violent left-wing extremist” who was “politically motivated to go after law enforcement”.
While the FBI has said that authorities recovered shell casings with “anti-Ice messaging” near the shooter, officials say the investigation is ongoing. They have neither confirmed the motive behind today’s shooting, nor corroborated Vance’s claims about the shooter’s ideological background. The FBI is investigating the incident as an “act of targeted violence”.
Vance said there was some evidence “that we have that’s not yet public” before repeating his claim that the shooter was targeting “people who were enforcing our border”.
Law enforcement officials today said that no federal agents were wounded in today’s shooting, but two detainees were killed, and another is in critical condition. The shooter died from a self-inflicted gun wound, per DHS secretary Kristi Noem.
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Officials identify Dallas Ice facility shooter - report
The shooter who killed two detainees, and severely injured another, before taking his own life, has been identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, according to NBC News – who cited several senior law enforcement officials.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted, in their statement on today’s shooting, that this isn’t the first time the Dallas field office was targeted this year.
In August, Bratton Dean Wilkinson, 36, arrived at facility’s entrance and claimed to have a bomb in his backpack. Officials said that Wilkinson showed the security officer what he claimed to be a “detonator” on his wrist.
A shelter-in-place was issued for the field office, and Dallas police responded with a bomb squad. Wilkinson was later charged with making terroristic threats, per DHS.
Oklahoma official says all high schools will have Turning Point chapters after Charlie Kirk killing
The state superintendent in Oklahoma announced plans to put Turning Point USA chapters in every high school in the state, saying it would counter “radical leftist teachers’ unions” and their “woke indoctrination”.
After far-right activist Charlie Kirk was killed on a college campus earlier this month, requests to start chapters of his conservative youth group, Turning Point, at colleges and high schools have surged, the organization has said.
Oklahoma is the first state where the government is getting involved to promote starting these chapters. In a press release Tuesday, Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma superintendent, detailed how students could start a chapter of “Club America”, the organization’s high school program, by gathering at least three students from the same school and completing a charter agreement. Then, Turning Point will help the club get a teacher sponsor and official recognition, and send materials like an “activism kit”.
“We will be putting TPUSA on every high school campus in Oklahoma,” Walter said in the press release. “Charlie Kirk inspired a generation to love America, to speak boldly, and to never shy away from debate. Our kids must get involved and active. We will fight back against the liberal propaganda, pushed by the radical left, and the teachers unions. Our fight starts now.”
Following the press conference, here's what we know about the Dallas immigration facility shooting
Two detainees have been killed, with another in critical condition, after a shooting at an Ice field office near downtown Dallas. Dallas police chief Daniel Comeaux says that the FBI is investigating the incident as an act of targeted violence. The shooter died from a “self-inflicted gun wound”, according to DHS secretary Kristi Noem.
DHS say that no members of law enforcement were hurt in the attack. But Comeaux also said that officials would not releasing the identities of any victims at this time.
DHS officials say this was “an attack on ICE law enforcement”. At both today’s press conference and in a statement, law enforcement said that shell casings found near the shooter had “anti-Ice” messaging on them.
Earlier, Dallas police said that shots were fired “from an adjacent building”. DHS, later added that the shooter “fired indiscriminately” at the Ice facility, “including at a van in the sallyport where the victims were shot”.
Despite the fact that no federal agents were wounded in the shooting, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas called the attack an “assassination”. For her part, Noem said that “these horrendous killings must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences.”
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The 12-ft bronze statue depicting Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands and prancing together that was erected on the National Mall early on Tuesday has been taken down.
The statue appeared courtesy of a group of anonymous artists that goes by The Secret Handshake, who said they received a permit from the National Park Service that allowed the statue to stay up until 8pm on 28 September.
A member of the group told the Guardian that despite this, it was removed in the early hours of Wednesday. They do not know the statue’s whereabouts. “This is a literal example of the Trump administration toppling free speech when it has been legally permitted and approved,” they said.
A spokesperson for United States Park Police told the Washingtonian that the force assisted the National Park Service in removing the statue Wednesday at 5:30am, “due to it not being in compliance with the permit”.
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Despite receiving some serious flack recently for his premature social media updates on the Charlie Kirk shooting investigation which turned out to be wrong, FBI director Kash Patel has been quick to post on X the few details we’ve just heard from that *brief* press conference.
Patel simply confirms that one person was killed in the attack [two if we include the shooter], several wounded, the shooter took his own life, and no law enforcement personnel were hurt. He posted a photo of five shell casings, one of which is engraved with the phrase “anti Ice” in blue ink, which he said belonged to the gunman and “shows an idealogical [sic] motive behind this attack”.
Patel did not mention in his post that among the victims were Ice detainees, neither did officials at that press conference.
A reminder that the investigation is ongoing and a motivation for the shooting hasn’t yet been established.
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Texas senator Ted Cruz says “politically motivated violence is wrong” and needs to stop, referring to the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Comeaux confirms that no members of law enforcement were hurt in the attack. Four people were shot and two people are dead.
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Notably, Comeaux says they’re not releasing the identities of any victims at this time.
DHS earlier confirmed that detainees were “among the victims”.
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Comeaux says that early evidence suggests rounds found near the shooter contained messages that were “anti-Ice in nature”.
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FBI investigating shooting at Dallas immigration facility as 'act of targeted violence'
Dallas police chief Daniel Comeaux says that the FBI is investigating the incident as an act of targeted violence.
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Dallas mayor Eric Johnson is speaking now.
He asks for prayers for the city and the country.
Texas governor Greg Abbott has posted the following on X:
Texas fully supports ICE. Both the Texas Dept. of Public Safety & Texas National Guard work closely with ICE. This assassination will NOT slow our arrest, detention, & deportation of illegal immigrants. We will work with ICE & the Dallas Police Dept. to get to the bottom of the assassin’s motive. We will offer ICE additional support to assist their operations.
Abbott, and vice-president JD Vance, have been quick to frame the shooting as an attack on Ice, even though the DHS has already confirmed that no federal agents were wounded and the only confirmed victims have been detainees.
We’ll learn more of the facts in the press conference due to begin shortly.
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Press conference following shooting at Ice facility due to start
Law enforcement officials will brief the media shortly following the shooting at an Ice field office in Dallas.
At least one person was pronounced dead at the scene, and two are wounded. A DHS official said that detainees were among the victims and that no federal agents were wounded.
Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, said that his office is “fully engaged” with local law enforcement in Dallas following today’s shooting.
DHS spokesperson confirms detainees among the injured
Tricia McLaughlin, who serves as the assistant secretary of Homeland Security, told Fox News today that detainees “were among the victims” and that no federal agents were wounded.
“We know our Ice law enforcement was not injured, but we’re not sure about local security and other local law enforcement,” she said.
Despite this, vice-president JD Vance wrote on social media just over an hour ago that “the obsessive attack on law enforcement, particularly ICE, must stop”.
Dallas confirm one victim has died at the scene, press briefing to follow
The Dallas police said that one victim has died at the scene of today’s shooting at an Ice facility in the city.
They added that “two people were transported to the hospital with gunshot wounds”, but their statement did not confirm CNN’s reporting that they were detainees.
The police said that the suspect opened fire at “a government building from an adjacent building”.
Law enforcement officials will hold a press briefing later today.
Right now, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is addressing the UN general assembly. This comes a day after Donald Trump said that he believes Ukraine has the capability to win back all the territory it has lost to Russia, since the beginning of the 2022 invasion.
As my colleague, Jakub Krupa, reports, the Ukrainian leader began his speech with a direct message: weapons are the only thing that can guarantee lasting freedom.
No one but ourselves can guarantee security. Only strong alliances, only strong partners and only our own weapons. The 21st century isn’t much different from the past. If a nation wants peace it still has to work on weapons. …Not international law, not cooperation – but weapons decide who survives.
Yesterday, Trump said that the current model, where Nato purchases weapons from the US, is something he’s happy to continue.
Follow along for the latest below.
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Two detainees shot in Dallas Ice facility shooting - report
Per my last post, two detainees were shot at the Ice facility in Dallas, according to a report by CNN, citing two law enforcement officials.
Earlier, on CNN, acting Ice director Todd Lyons said three individuals were shot, all of whom were taken to a hospital. However, he did not specify who the three people were, or their condition at this time.
Lyons added that preliminary information is “a possible sniper” and that shots came from “outside” the facility. He noted that the Ice field office is now locked down and secure.
DHS secretary confirms shooting at Dallas Ice facility, reports 'multiple injuries and fatalities'
There has been a shooting at an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facility in Dallas, according to a statement from Kristi Noem – the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
“Details are still emerging but we can confirm there were multiple injuries and fatalities,” Noem said. “The shooter is deceased by a self-inflicted gun shot wound.”
Noem added that the motive of the shooting is currently unknown.
We’ll bring you the latest as we know more.
Top Democrats say that Americans will blame Trump and Republican lawmakers for looming shutdown
With no short term spending bill locked in by members of Congress, and government funding set to lapse on 30 September, a shutdown looms.
Today, top Democratic lawmakers continued to blame their colleagues across the aisle.
In a statement, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said Donald Trump and GOP members of Congress “continue to march this country toward a painful Republican shutdown, while exacerbating the healthcare crisis that they have unleashed in America.”
They added that the American people will hold the president and “Republican sycophants” responsible.
On Tuesday, Trump said that he would no longer meet with Schumer and Jeffries to discuss their calls for more healthcare provisions in a funding extension to keep government agencies running for the next several weeks. A move that the top Democratic lawmakers called “an unhinged temper tantrum”, in their statement today.
Trump said that no meeting “could possibly be productive,” in a post on Truth Social. He said that Democrats needed to “get serious” about the future of the nation, while adding that the “ball is their court” when it comes to avoiding a shutdown.
“They must do their job! Otherwise, it will just be another long and brutal slog through their radicalized quicksand,” the president wrote.
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Key event
Nearly 100 doctors who have practiced at the US Department of Veterans of Affairs (VA) issued a mass letter on Wednesday raising “urgent concerns” about Trump administration policies that they said will “negatively affect the lives of all veterans”.
The letter sent to congressional leaders, VA secretary Doug Collins and the agency’s inspector general marks the first time VA physicians have spoken collectively about staffing cuts and aggressive privatization moves at the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system.
“We have witnessed these ongoing harms and can provide evidence and testimony of their impacts,” said the letter, which was signed by roughly 170 physicians, psychologists and other health workers in all.
If the trend continues, these current and former staffers said, VA “facilities may be forced to close, and veterans may be forced into costlier, often overburdened community health systems ill-equipped to meet their specialized needs”.
Attorneys say the letter is protected under federal whistleblower law.
The letter raises concerns that widespread staff cuts are being made without clear objectives or assessments of their impact on veterans’ access to healthcare. It also says rapid growth in the outsourcing of veterans healthcare to private doctors “threatens to divert resources” from the VA’s high-quality direct care.
Agency officials assert these changes are aimed at reducing bureaucracy and will not undermine medical services for veterans. Collins, the VA secretary, has said he’s simply “giving veterans more choices for quality, timely healthcare, whether at VA facilities or with doctors in the community”.
The Guardian has asked the VA for a response to the doctors’ letter and will add it to this story when the agency provides a reply.
Sixty-nine active VA physicians signed the letter, organizers said, joined by about 100 others – including former VA physicians as well as current and former VA researchers, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists. Many chose to sign anonymously out of fear for retaliation.
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Donald Trump doesn’t have any public events today, per his official schedule.
The president is set to receive his intelligence briefing at 1pm EST, and will host a dinner in the Rose Garden at the White House at 7pm, which is closed to press.
If we get word that he’s going to address reporters at any point, we’ll bring you the latest here.
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Colombia's president calls for criminal investigation against Trump over Caribbean strikes
Colombian president Gustavo Petro on Tuesday called for a criminal investigation against US president Donald Trump and other officials involved in this month’s deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean that the White House has said were transporting drugs.
Petro repudiated the three attacks in his speech at the annual meeting of the UN general assembly during which he also accused Trump of criminalising poverty and migration, AP reported.
“Criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials, who are from the US, even if it includes the highest-ranking official who gave the order: president Trump,” Petro said of the strikes, adding that boat passengers were not members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang as claimed by the Trump administration after the first attack.
If the boats were carrying drugs as alleged by the US government, Petro said, their passengers “were not drug traffickers; they were simply poor young people from Latin America who had no other option.”
Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk’s cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work.
The General Services Administration (GSA) has given the employees – who managed government workspaces – until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press.
Those who accept must report for duty on 6 October after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs – passed along to taxpayers – to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire.
“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”
Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said GSA has been in a “triage mode” for months. He said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast.
Kremlin says Putin admires Trump's efforts to end Ukraine war
The Kremlin on Wednesday brushed off a comment by US president Donald Trump describing Russia as a “paper tiger”, and said president Vladimir Putin valued his efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was a bear, not a tiger, and “there is no such thing as a paper bear”.
Trump said on Tuesday that he believed Ukraine could retake all of the territory captured by Russia and that Kyiv should act now, with Moscow facing “big” economic problems, Reuters reported. His comments marked a sudden and striking rhetorical shift in Ukraine’s favour.
Peskov, responding in a radio interview to Trump’s comments, said the Russian army was advancing in Ukraine and the dynamics on the frontline were obvious.
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Trump to meet Australian prime minister in October in Washington
President Donald Trump will meet Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese on 20 October in Washington, the White House and Albanese said on Tuesday, the first summit between the security allies since Trump’s second election.
The two leaders have much to discuss, including the multi-billion dollar Aukus project, also involving Britain, to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. The project is now under Pentagon review.
“Australia and the United States are great partners. I expect it to be very constructive,” Albanese told reporters in New York on Tuesday, confirming the meeting.
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The US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, pushed back hard against claims the central bank allows politics to drive decisions, in the midst of an extraordinary battle over its independence.
Donald Trump, who is seeking to increase his administration’s control over the Fed, has branded Powell “a very political guy” after he declined to bow to the president’s public demands for drastically lower interest rates.
The White House has launched an unprecedented campaign to overhaul the Fed’s rate-setting board of governors, installing an administration official and trying to fire a Biden appointee over unconfirmed claims of mortgage fraud.
But on Tuesday, Powell, who is typically diplomatic when speaking publicly, roundly dismissed one of the common allegations made by Trump and his allies: that the Fed is somehow political when making key decisions about the world’s largest economy.
“Many people don’t believe” the Fed is simply allowing economic data to drive its decisions, Powell acknowledged at an event in Rhode Island. “But the truth is, mostly people who are calling us political, it’s just a cheap shot.”
He did not mention Trump by name. But the president has become the most prominent critic of the Fed and Powell since returning to office.
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, ended an advisory committee on women in the armed services Tuesday, saying it was putting forth a “divisive feminist agenda”.
“The Committee is focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness, while Secretary Hegseth has focused on advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department,” said Kingsley Wilson, press secretary for the Pentagon.
The defense advisory committee on women in the services started in 1951 and gathered information to provide recommendations to the defense secretary on issues related to women in the military.
Of those recommendations, “the majority … have been either fully or partially implemented”, a website for the committee says. “The Committee’s recommendations have been instrumental in effecting changes to law and policies pertaining to the service of women in the US military.”
Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would not meet with top congressional Democrats to discuss their demands for keeping the federal government open, prompting Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to accuse the president of “running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there”.
Congress is up against a 30 September deadline to authorize more funding or spark a shutdown that would see many federal agencies close their doors and furlough workers. While Republicans have proposed continuing funding through 21 November to allow passage of legislation authorizing spending for the rest of the fiscal year, Democrats have seized on the deadline to demand their healthcare priorities be addressed.
Schumer together with his House counterpart, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, had called for a meeting with Trump to discuss the impasse, and on Tuesday morning announced the president had agreed to sit down.
“In the meeting, we will emphasize the importance of addressing rising costs, including the Republican healthcare crisis. It’s past time to meet and work to avoid a Republican-caused shutdown,” they said in a joint statement.
Hours later, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would not be meeting with the Democrats.
“After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” the president said.
He dangled the possibility of future talks with the Democrats “if they get serious about the future of our Nation”.
Global health agencies and regulators have dismissed unscientific advice from Donald Trump that made an unproven link between autism and the use of everyday painkillers and vaccines.
In a sign of how worried foreign governments are about the US president’s comments, the health secretary of the UK, which is one the US’s closest allies, told the British public they should not “pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine”.
On Monday, Trump told pregnant women to avoid taking acetaminophen, which is sold in the US as Tylenol and known internationally as paracetamol, adding that those who could not “tough it out” should limit their intake.
He also said, in comments that risk exposing children to fatal diseases, that parents of young children should delay or avoid some vaccines. “Don’t let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you’ve ever seen in your life,” he said.
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that questioning the value of lifesaving vaccines was misguided and that evidence linking paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism was “inconsistent”.
“We know that vaccines do not cause autism,” said the WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević. “Vaccines, as I said, save countless lives. So this is something that science has proven, and these things should not be really questioned.”
Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine can regain all the land that it has lost since the 2022 Russian invasion in one of the strongest statements of support he has given Kyiv.
The US president delivered his upbeat assessment by claiming Russia was in big economic trouble in a post on Truth Social after meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in New York.
He wrote: “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.
“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, Nato, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not?”
Trump added: “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years, a war that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win.”
Late-night hosts credit Disney boycott for getting Kimmel back on air
Late-night television hosts credited people who boycotted Disney for getting Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night TV show back on the air after the corporation had indefinitely suspended Kimmel amid pressure from the Trump administration.
“We got word that our long national late-nightmare is over,” Stephen Colbert said during his show on Monday night.
“Once more, I am the only martyr in late night, unless … CBS, you want to announce anything?” Colbert joked, referencing CBS’s decision to cancel his show earlier this year. “Still no? Because the money thing, I forgot.”
Protests against Disney’s suspension of Kimmel and canceled subscriptions to Disney products mounted as concern over free speech rights grew. High-profile people joined in the calls to boycott. Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said he wouldn’t do a town hall on a local ABC channel, reversing course after Kimmel’s reinstatement.
Some Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, also spoke out against the Federal Communications Commission’s chair pressuring Disney.
“Here’s why Disney folded after Kimmel was suspended: Google searches for cancel Disney+ and cancel Hulu spiked,” Colbert said, “which explains why the other trending search was ‘how to entertain my child without Bluey’. So Disney put Kimmel back on because you, the American people, were upset.”
Comedian Jon Stewart credited the boycott campaign with “pretending that you were going to cancel Hulu while secretly racing through four seasons of Only Murders in the Building” on his show on Monday night.
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Democrat Adelita Grijalva wins special election for southern Arizona congressional seat
Adelita Grijalva, the daughter of the late progressive congressman Raúl Grijalva, won a special election on Tuesday to fill the seat left open when her father died earlier this year.
Grijalva faced Republican challenger Daniel Butierez in the heavily blue seventh district in Arizona, which covers the southern parts of the state and the borderland areas.
Raúl Grijalva held the seat for more than two decades, until his death at 77 in March. His daughter will become the first Latina that Arizona has sent to Congress.
Filling the seat narrows Republicans’ advantage in the House, where Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed by only one vote.
Adelita Grijalva, a longtime local elected official in southern Arizona, fended off Democratic challengers in a primary that attracted national attention amid an ongoing debate over the future of the Democratic party, and in particular its ageing candidates, as Raúl Grijalva was one of multiple Democratic lawmakers to die in office this year.
Trump says he ‘can’t believe’ Kimmel back on ABC
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of US politics as Donald Trump has made clear his displeasure at the return of late-night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel.
Before Tuesday’s broadcast, Trump opined on his Truth Social online platform that he “can’t believe” ABC gave Kimmel back his show, and hinted at further action against the network.
“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Trump wrote.
“He is yet another arm of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this.”
He added: “Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative,” seemingly referring to the settlement he reached with ABC News last year in a defamation lawsuit.
In his show last night – the first since his suspension over comments about the shooting of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk – Kimmel called government threats to silence comedians “anti-American”.
Kimmel said he had not intended to make light of Kirk’s murder and he understood his comments could have been seen as “ill-timed or unclear”.
Later in the monologue, Kimmel hit out against Trump, saying that the president “did his best to cancel me” but that “instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show.”
Kimmel added that “the president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”
You can read our report here:
Stay with us for more on this story, and in other developments:
Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine can regain all the land that it has lost since the 2022 Russian invasion in one of the strongest statements of support he has given Kyiv. Writing on Truth Social after meeting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the UN on Tuesday, the US president said “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form”.
Trump launched a full-on assault on the UN during his general assembly speech, describing it as a feckless, corrupt and pernicious global force that should follow the example of his own leadership. In an inflammatory speech on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Trump called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners, accused the UN of leading a “globalist migration agenda”, and told national leaders that the world body was “funding an assault on your countries”.
Meanwhile, Trump was accused by a UK cabinet minister of “misreading” London after the US president claimed the city wants to “go to sharia law”. The president renewed his feud with London mayor Sadiq Khan, calling him a “terrible, terrible mayor”. The British work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden dismissed the president’s attack and said Trump had had “a beef” with Khan for years.
The Secret Service said it had uncovered and dismantled a covert, hi-tech operation in the New York area, which had the capability to disrupt cellular networks. Authorities revealed that the hidden communications system included over 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers.
The man accused of trying to assassinate Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course two months before Trump clinched his second presidency in the 2024 White House election has been found guilty by a jury in Fort Pierce, Florida. Ryan Routh – who now faces up to life in prison at a later sentencing hearing – reportedly tried to use a pen to stab himself in the neck as the guilty verdict was read in court. Officers quickly swarmed him and dragged him out of the courthouse.
After promising to meet with Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, on Thursday, Trump shared in a social media post that he would no longer meet with the top Democratic lawmakers. The negotiations had been intended to secure a government funding measure, before it expires at the end of this month.
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth decided to close a defense department advisory committee dedicated to recruiting and retaining women in the military. In a social media post announcing the closure of the defense advisory committee on women in the services a Pentagon spokesperson wrote: “The Committee is focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness, while Secretary Hegseth has focused on advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department.”
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