As Muslims win historic victories, experts describe rise in anti-Islamic sentiment that rivals post-9/11 climate

Within hours of Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary, Republican senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama declared that the party had “just voted to send a TERRORIST” to Washington.

El-Sayed – or “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed”, as Tuberville called him on X – was a “RADICAL ISLAMIST” who would “do everything he can to destroy America”, he claimed.

Crowd member repeatedly said some Democrats ‘should be shot’ during Ted Cruz’s speech, without senator responding

On the night Republicans gathered to mourn the killing of Charlie Kirk and warn against the dangers of violent rhetoric, a crowd at the party’s irregular midterm convention in Dallas repeatedly called for a sitting Senate candidate to be shot, while the Republican senator at the podium never denounced or even noted the outbursts.

The outbursts came repeatedly during Ted Cruz’s Thursday night address at the American Airlines center, when he named a Democrat he accused of holding radical views. After the senator mentioned the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, video footage depicts at least one audience member shouting: “He should be shot!” The same cry followed when Cruz named Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and again after he named Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Cruz did not pause or respond to the shouting, and it remains unclear whether he heard it from the stage. Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Warren Davidson tell investigatory powers tribunal that secrecy over encrypted data case is ‘needlessly’ straining US-UK relations

A bipartisan pair of American politicians is telling Britain’s most secretive court to stop hiding its handling of Apple’s legal fight against a government demand to break into its customers’ encrypted data, warning that Whitehall’s taste for secrecy is “needlessly” straining relations between the two allies.

The letter, shared with the Guardian ahead of being sent to the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) on Friday, is signed by the Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and the Republican congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio.

Cameron Stanley talks up ‘revolutionary’ AI capabilities and says Washington working with Nato and Five Eyes partners

The Pentagon’s top artificial intelligence official said on Tuesday that America’s closest allies lack the resources to keep pace with the US military’s adoption of AI, and that Washington is working to steer them away from mistakes it made along the way.

“They don’t have the resources that we do, they don’t have the experience that we do, they don’t have the scale that we do,” Cameron Stanley, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of War, said at an event at the Billington Cybersecurity summit. Of Nato and the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing partnership of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Stanley said Washington was “actively working with a number of our partners” so “they don’t make the same mistakes that we make”.

The vice-president says he’s ‘extremely skeptical’ of Iran reports when asked whether US was responsible for deaths

The US vice-president, JD Vance, said “sometimes things happen” when asked on Thursday whether an American strike was responsible for killing four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran this week.

The strike hit Kuhestak, a town in Sirik county on the strait of Hormuz. The toll was reported not by the Iranian government but by the Iranian Red Crescent, a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement that operates independently of Tehran and is generally treated by international monitors as a credible source on casualty figures.

Response seeks to discredit Washington Post story that four generals and admirals advised against prolonging Iran war

Pete Hegseth regularly receives formal objections from senior commanders and proceeds anyway, the Pentagon’s top spokesman has said, as he tried to discredit a Washington Post report that four generals and admirals had advised against prolonging the war in Iran.

“Of course, we demand candid military advice,” Sean Parnell wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s how you run a real military.”

Inside the US state department, critics are still attacking a shuttered office established to counter foreign propaganda. Now, some of its work is also being resumed

A botched leak of purportedly explosive government files to a prominent conservative online personality was supposed to offer proof of what the Trump administration and its allies have long alleged: that a little-known office inside the US state department, created to fight foreign propaganda, had secretly become a tool for domestic censorship.

Two former high-ranking officials at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a target of Republican ire that lost its funding in 2024 and was disbanded after Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025, say the documents show nothing of the kind.

Former ethics tsar calls report that executive assistant to president worked for a year without clearance ‘shocking’

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The White House faced fresh questions on Thursday over whether Donald Trump’s closest aide, Natalie Harp, had access to US government secrets without security clearance.

Harp, who is executive assistant to the US president, worked at the White House for a year without the routine clearance, the MS Now network reported on Thursday. She refused to file the relevant forms for unknown reasons, according to two unnamed sources cited by MS Now.

Courier network carried millions of dollars in cash to Lebanon on commercial flights, treasury department says

The US treasury department announced sanctions on Thursday against 10 people it says formed a courier network that smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah by carrying cash onboard commercial flights between Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

The office of foreign assets control (OFAC) said the network allowed Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group,to obtain foreign currency and dodge sanctions outside the formal banking system. The treasury department linked the operation to a scheme once associated with Behnam Shahriyari, a now-deceased finance official for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.

President issues threat to ‘bomb the shit out of them’ after previously threatening Gulf ally in May

Donald Trump has again threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of his effort to end the US-Israel war on Iran, as the two-month window to negotiate peace with Iran expired on Monday with no end to the conflict in sight.

The latest threats against Oman, which is not a party to the war, have illustrated how Trump’s unpredictable and often outrageous approach to diplomacy has upset US partners and failed to achieve the breakthrough that he has promised to end the war.

US president’s abrupt order to scale back joint exercises with Seoul is meant to ‘flatter’ North Korea’s dictator, top Democrat says

Donald Trump’s move to gut Washington’s 73-year-old military alliance with Seoul has been called “inane” and “shortsighted” as lawmakers warned it risked strengthening Russia’s hand in Ukraine.

The US president abruptly ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles, justifying the decision by citing his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong-un, the nuclear-armed dictator such exercises exist to deter.

President said nine months at sea ‘not nearly long enough’ even as families call for attention to mental health crisis

Donald Trump has downplayed concerns about US sailors enduring a record-setting deployment of nearly nine months onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on Friday, saying the deployment was “not nearly long enough” as concerns mount over mental health and supply issues onboard the aircraft carrier.

The US president made the comments during a brief exchange with reporters before flying to New York for an event highlighting falling violent crime rates across the US.

Defense secretary said conditions on aircraft carrier deployed in support of Iran war have been ‘completely misrepresented’

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, insisted a wave of reports describing deteriorating conditions and mental health struggles onboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln “completely misrepresented” the situation, pushing back against growing congressional pressure over the ship’s record-breaking, nearly nine-month deployment.

“We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” Hegseth told reporters during a visit to Panama, adding that “some deployments are longer than others” and praising sailors enduring “high seas” and “austere conditions with less port calls”.

Suit alleges subscription offer aims to sell privileged access to information generated in president’s official capacity

Donald Trump has been sued after a subscription service charging up to $100,000 a month for early access to his posts on his Truth Social platform sparked allegations of corruption.

The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the southern district of New York, was brought by the Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation against Trump, two of his aides and the executive office of the president.

Journalists and others were allowed to fly on presidential jet despite security threat while Trump was spirited away

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Democrats called on Tuesday for a congressional briefing over a stunning charade in which Donald Trump was secretly spirited to a different plane from the one the public and press believed he was travelling on. Critics now question why reporters and the public had been deliberately misled.

When US intelligence allegedly found a credible threat that Iran plotted to kill him last month, Trump left Air Force One in a catering truck, an episode first reported by the Washington Post and also by the New York Times. While the president was reportedly snuck out the side door of the plane, more than a hundred aides, officials and reporters were kept onboard to fly towards Britain, without being told there was a threat to their lives.

Loyalist sworn in after Senate voted narrowly in favor of his confirmation on Saturday morning

Todd Blanche has been sworn as US attorney general, cementing Donald Trump’s installation of his former personal attorney in charge of the Department of Justice.

Blanche, who has been serving as acting attorney general since April, was confirmed in his new position during a ceremony at the White House on Monday. The 52-year-old is the second Senate-confirmed attorney general of Trump’s second term, after Pam Bondi, who was ousted earlier this year.

President and RFK Jr, the health secretary, repeatedly referred to autism during signing, though studies show no link between it and vaccines

Donald Trump has signed an executive order with plans for sweeping changes to the childhood vaccination schedule that attempts to override the authority of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It is an attempt to undergird the changes made earlier this year to CDC vaccination recommendations, which were halted by a federal judge. The CDC is the federal agency tasked with recommending vaccines, not the White House.

US president on Truth Social concedes contractor had cut some corners to finish $14m renovation project by deadline

Donald Trump has conceded his own administration’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was rushed and shoddy, while insisting that alleged vandals were to blame for damage to the Washington landmark.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president said the pool’s contractor had cut some corners to finish the $14m repainting project in time for a 4 July opening. “As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job,” he wrote on Sunday, claiming the resulting damage from this was confined to “a very small area” and “relatively inconsequential”.

Progressive candidate will face Republican Mike Rogers in race to represent midwestern purple state in the Senate

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Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary for US Senate in Michigan, becoming the latest leftwing candidate to capture the party’s nomination ahead of November’s midterm elections.

El-Sayed, a progressive, beat Haley Stevens, a moderate US representative backed by the party’s establishment. He will now face Republican Mike Rogers in the race to represent the midwestern purple state in the Senate. The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday morning, moments after Stevens’s campaign said she had called El-Sayed to concede.

Abdul El-Sayed and his opponent Haley Stevens were both optimistic late in the evening, and said the results of the state’s Democratic primary might take until Wednesday morning to arrive

The marquee race for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Michigan remained too close to call on Tuesday night, with Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, holding a narrow lead over Congresswoman Haley Stevens.

The battleground state is crucial to the party’s hopes of winning back control of the Senate in November’s midterm elections. The winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary will face the Republican nominee, former representative Mike Rogers, in November, to succeed the retiring Democratic senator Gary Peters.