4m ago 12.40 BST Trump says he will sign order targeting mail-in ballots, voting machines ahead of 2026 elections President Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order ahead of next year’s midterm elections, saying he would lead “a movement” targeting mail-in balloting and voting machines across the country. “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly Inaccurate, Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES,” he wrote in a social media post Share

10m ago 12.34 BST The US special envoy to Lebanon said Monday that his team would discuss the long-term cessation of hostilities with Israel, after Beirut endorsed a US-backed plan for the Hezbollah militant group to disarm. Tom Barrack, following a meeting with Lebanese president Joseph Aoun, also said Washington would seek an economic proposal for post-war reconstruction in the country, after months of shuttle diplomacy between the U.S. and Lebanon. Barrack is also set to meet with prime minister Nawaf Salam and Speaker Nabih Berri, who often negotiates on behalf of Hezbollah with Washington. Share

17m ago 12.28 BST Robert Mackey An aid group that coordinates medical care in the United States for badly injured children from Gaza has said it is “distressed” by the US state department’s decision to stop issuing visitor visas for Palestinians after a far-right influencer complained directly to the secretary of state about their work. Laura Loomer, who has previously described herself as a “proud Islamophobe”, told the New York Times that she had spoken to Marco Rubio on Friday night to warn the secretary of state of what she called the threat posed by “Islamic invaders”. The aid group, Heal Palestine, said in a statement that it was “an American humanitarian nonprofit organization delivering urgent aid and medical care to children in Palestine, including sponsoring and bringing severely injured children to the US on temporary visas for essential medical treatment not available at home”. “After their treatment is complete, the children and any accompanying family members return to the Middle East,” the charity added, to rebut Loomer’s false claim that the visitors were part of a secret wave of “Islamic immigration”. “This is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program,” the aid group stressed. US aid group ‘distressed’ at block on medical visas for Gaza children Read more Share

23m ago 12.21 BST Republican Stacy Garrity seeks to challenge Josh Shapiro’s re-election bid Stacy Garrity, Pennsylvania’s two-term elected state treasurer, said Monday that she will seek the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic governor Josh Shapiro’s re-election bid. Garrity said in a statement that she will “will bring jobs back, strengthen our economy and make Pennsylvania more affordable for families in every corner of the state.” Some top Pennsylvania Republicans support Garrity in the 2026 race for governor and hope she’ll see a clear primary field, although those hopes have been buffeted in recent weeks by 2022’s losing gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, suggesting that he will run again, AP reports. Garrity has hinted at a run for months and stepped up her criticism of Shapiro. In campaign fundraising appeals, she accused Shapiro of being soft on law and order and hostile to her “pro-worker, pro-energy, pro-America agenda.” Shapiro has returned fire, blasting her for supporting president Donald Trump‘s big tax break and spending cut package. Shapiro said it would hurt rural hospitals and people who rely on Medicaid, drive up the cost of energy and blow up the federal deficit. Share

28m ago 12.17 BST Vance will attend Trump-Zelenskyy meeting, ABC News reports Vice-president JD Vance will attend the Monday meeting between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and president Donald Trump in Washington, ABC News reported on Monday, citing a source familiar with the plans. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Share Updated at 12.18 BST

37m ago 12.07 BST Peter Stone Donald Trump is waging a war on truth by firing top officials who present facts he finds unpalatable, while he banks on key loyalists at executive agencies to bolster his policies and powers by “rewriting history’s narrative” and squelching dissent, say scholars and former officials. Trump’s penchant for rejecting facts in an authoritarian style was especially revealed in August by his sudden firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, charging without evidence that her latest report was “totally rigged”, just hours after she released data undercutting his rosy economic boasts, say critics. The firing was emblematic of Trump’s expanding battle against people and policies that challenge the US president’s often conspiratorial views about truth such as his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, which Trump last fall falsely blamed again on “fraud”. From the justice department to the Environmental Protection Agency to other key agencies, Trump loyalists have pushed falsehoods and taken radical steps to promote Trump’s policies and what a Trump adviser in 2017 dubbed “alternative facts”. In doing so, Trump and his top allies are acting in an authoritarian style by revising history, rejecting facts and widely accepted science, critics add. “The irony in firing the widely respected economist and BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer is that the commissioner has very little to do with the actual production of the figures Trump says were ‘rigged’,” said Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University. ‘Hallmarks of authoritarianism’: Trump banks on loyalists as he wages war on truth Read more Share

55m ago 11.49 BST Germany said on Monday that the United States would have to follow through on agreed lower tariffs on Europe-made cars before a wider agreement on trade can be finalised in writing. “In particular, car tariffs must be reduced quickly as agreed. We are also aware of the considerable burden on the export-orientated economy. … Our role here is to continue to fully support the European Commission in this process,” a German government spokesman said in a press conference. The European Union and the United States struck a framework trade deal in late July with many key details yet to be clarified. Share

1h ago 11.34 BST Steven Greenhouse Donald Trump’s hugely disruptive trade war is setting the stage for a manufacturing renaissance in the US, administration officials say. Outside the White House, many economists are skeptical. Global trade experts point to many reasons they believe the president’s tariffs will fail to bring about a major resurgence of manufacturing, among them: Trump’s erratic, constantly changing policies, his unfocused, across-the-board tariffs, and his replacing Joe Biden’s carrot-and-sticks approach to brandish sticks at the world. “I think [Trump’s tariffs] will reduce the competitiveness of US manufacturing, and will reduce manufacturing employment,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). “They’re raising the costs of production to US manufacturing companies, and that makes manufacturers less competitive. There will be some winners and some losers, but the losers will outnumber the winners.” The president and his aides insist that higher tariffs on more than 100 countries – making goods imported from overseas more expensive – will spur domestic manufacturing. “The ‘Made in USA’ label is set to resume its global dominance under President Trump,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai claimed recently. But few economists see that happening. Ann E Harrison, an economics professor and former dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, said the erratic, on-again-off-again rollout of Trump’s tariffs has already gone far to doom the president’s hopes of inspiring a huge wave of manufacturing investment. Trump’s promise of a US manufacturing renaissance leaves experts scratching their heads Read more Share

1h ago 11.17 BST Taiwan is an internal matter for China, Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Monday, in response to US president Donald Trump saying Chinese president Xi Jinping told him he will not invade the island while Trump is in office. Trump made the comments in an interview with Fox News, ahead of talks in Alaska with Russian president Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s war with Ukraine. Asked about Trump’s remarks at a daily news briefing in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. “The Taiwan issue is purely an internal affair of China, and how to resolve the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese people,” she said. “We will do our utmost to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification. But we will never allow anyone or any force to separate Taiwan from China in any way.” China views Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to “reunify” with the democratic and separately governed island. Taiwan vehemently opposes China’s sovereignty claims. Share

2h ago 11.01 BST Trump-Zelenskyy meeting to take place at 1.15pm ET President Donald Trump’s bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will take place at 1.15pm ET on Monday at the White House, the White House said in a press guidance statement on Sunday. Trump will participate in a multilateral meeting with European leaders visiting Washington at 3pm. It comes as Trump on Sunday urged Zelenskyy to come to a negotiated settlement in the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict with Russia. “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “No getting back Obama given Crimea…and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!” Share Updated at 12.44 BST