Lithuania and Canada were also pressured to withdraw, and days before #Disinfo2026, logos were wiped off website

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. Continue reading...

Frontrunner Adam Hamawy has gone from political nobody to endorsements from Bernie Sanders, AOC and Ilhan Omar

In state department cable, Jerusalem embassy told to issue protest to Palestinian Authority leaders, warning ‘consequences will follow’ if they failed to comply

In state department cable, Jerusalem embassy told to issue protest to Palestinian Authority leaders, warning ‘consequences will follow’ if they failed to comply

Officials will determine if standard process was followed before lethal strikes in Caribbean and eastern Pacific

Trump administration accused of cutting military’s civilian harm program in light of US strike on girls school in Iran

Pennsylvania’s third district, a Democratic bastion, will see a face-off between party’s traditional wing and insurgents

Refusal or silence would increase denial risk under new US guidance requiring applicants to confirm no fear of return

Refusal or silence would increase denial risk under new US guidance requiring applicants to confirm no fear of return

The US president rejects extending truce as Tehran warns of response and negotiators head to Islamabad

President threatens in Truth Social post to annihilate Iran if government ignores deadline to reopen strait of Hormuz

Cable signed by Marco Rubio and seen by Guardian suggests staff work with Pentagon psychological operations unit The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it. The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad. Continue reading...

Now, the total is likely to have exceeded $18bn and counting. Where are America’s war dollars going, in a war that was never declared in the first place?

Now, the total is likely to have exceeded $18bn and counting. Where are America’s war dollars going, in a war that was never declared in the first place? Continue reading...

US embassy cable said Israeli officials did not trust Lebanon or Syria to contain the group’s fighters * Middle East crisis – live updates An internal US assessment indicates that Israeli officials had doubts that the Lebanese state could disarm Hezbollah even before Israel launched an aerial campaign against the group on Monday. The leaked embassy cable shows that on the eve of the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Israeli officials had told Washington that Hezbollah was reconstituting its military capabilities faster than the Lebanese armed forces could degrade them. It said neither Beirut nor Damascus could be trusted to contain the threat on Israel’s northern borders. Continue reading...

Department of Justice did not release FBI memos when it uploaded millions of pages of files beginning in December

The men appeared in a photo lineup assembled by the southern district of New York and had no apparent connection to the late sex offender

The state department cites welfare use as it pauses visa processing for Brazil, Iran, Russia, Somalia and others The Donald Trump administration has indefinitely suspended immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries, marking one of its most expansive efforts yet to restrict legal pathways to the United States. The freeze, which takes effect on 21 January, targets applicants officials deem likely to become a “public charge” – who they describe as people who may rely on government benefits for basic needs. Continue reading...

Fossil fuel execs Robert Pender and Michael Sabel deny wrongdoing after report on potential conflict of interest

Co-chairs of LNG firm, who bought stock worth almost $12m each after meeting with Trump officials, deny wrongdoing

Co-chairs of LNG firm, who bought stock worth almost $12m each after meeting with Trump officials, deny wrongdoing

Israeli soldiers had taken Mohammed Ibrahim from his home in a night raid when he was only 15 years old

Israeli soldiers had taken Mohammed Ibrahim from his home in a night raid when he was only 15 years old

Steve Witkoff told Yuri Ushakov in October phone call that peace would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told a senior Kremlin official last month that achieving peace in Ukraine would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk and potentially a separate territorial exchange, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg. In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary all while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically. Continue reading...

State department proposes excluding 38 institutions from Diplomacy Lab partnership including Harvard and Yale

‘We agreed a lot more than I would have thought,’ the US president said of his first face-to-face meeting with the New York mayor-elect

Trump administration proposal would exclude elite schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices

Apple and WhatsApp say they’ll keep warning users if their phones are targeted by governments using hacking software against them

Team includes Lina Khan, the FTC commissioner under Biden, and other Democratic former city officials * US politics live – latest updates Zohran Mamdani’s incoming administration began taking shape on Wednesday as the New York City mayor-elect announced a transition team to help enact what he called the city’s most ambitious policy platform in a generation, vowing to get right to work when he takes office on 1 January. Speaking at a morning press conference in Queens, the 34-year-old democratic socialist revealed an all-female transition team led by Elana Leopold as executive director. It also includes co-chairs Maria Torres-Springer, the former first deputy mayor; Lina Khan, the former federal trade commission chair; the United Way’s president and CEO, Grace Bonilla; and the former deputy mayor for health and human services Melanie Hartzog. Continue reading...