Gas prices have shot up more than 50 percent since the war started February 28

Donald Trump said he loves inflation Wednesday in response to a question about the latest federal report showing inflation climbed past 4 percent for the first time in three years.

“I love it; the numbers were great,” Trump said. “You know what I really love? I love the inflation.”

The bizarre moment punctuated the administration’s minimization of the country’s affordability crisis, a crisis that is getting worse, according to Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index.

The opening of a Canadian-U.S. bridge across the Detroit River that Donald Trump previously threatened to block was delayed on Thursday due to unresolved issues.

In a statement released before a scheduled Friday ribbon-cutting ceremony at the bridge, the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority said that “Canada and the United States have agreed to delay the opening of the bridge, taking the necessary time to resolve any outstanding issues.” It didn’t elaborate on what those are.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge, jointly owned by Canada and Michigan, was expected to open to traffic later this month. But the opening had been thrown into question after Trump in February demanded in a social media post that Canada turn over at least half of the bridge’s ownership to the U.S. federal government and agree to other unspecified demands in one of the Republican president’s many salvos over cross-border trade issues.

Measure failed in 198-218 vote after Democrats said they would block renewal of Fisa over naming of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence

The US House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass a short-term extension of a powerful surveillance law amid controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s decision to install an inexperienced loyalist as the country’s top intelligence official.

The measure failed in a 198-218 vote, after Democrats announced they would block the move to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) in protest of Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte, a major Republican donor, as acting director of national intelligence.

The congressional deadlock ensures section 702 of Fisa, which was enacted in the wake of 9/11 and allows US intelligence agencies to intercept foreign communications without a court warrant, will lapse on Friday.

The Pentagon was locked down and partially evacuated on Thursday due to a false alarm by a hazardous materials sensor, two sources familiar told CNN.

Multiple floors and corridors inside the building had been locked down and others were evacuated due to a “hazardous materials incident,” three sources familiar and the local fire department said earlier on Thursday.

The evacuation was triggered when a Pentagon sensor system detected the possible presence of anthrax, according to first responder radio traffic and a source familiar with the incident. But the sensor system was malfunctioning, one of the sources familiar said, causing the false alarm.

OpenAI has published a report about ChatGPT users, who it says were likely based in China, that used the chatbot to plan a campaign designed to sway Americans' opinions about AI data centers.

It divided the users into two clusters, the first of which it had designated the "Data Center Bandwagon" group. Accounts categorized in the group allegedly asked ChatGPT to generate English-language talking points and images, such as comic strips, which focus on how AI data centers drive up demand in electricity and how that leads to higher bills for consumers. 

The company says these users posed as Americans from a variety of backgrounds on social media, where they had posted the text and image output they got from ChatGPT. OpenAI believes they're part of a social media team at a private Chinese company working for local government clients. They apparently even uploaded a file to the chatbot describing their objectives and strategies on how to sway public opinion and how to establish fake social media accounts without getting detected. 

Fresh off his primary win, Lindsey Graham lavished praise on Donald Trump, calling him “not far behind God” and casting him as the Republican Party’s undisputed kingmaker.

The four-term South Carolina senator made the remarks during his Tuesday night victory speech, after fending off five challengers and winning more than half the vote.

“I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later,” Graham told a crowd of supporters, while laughing. “Mr. President, you're not far behind God, but we’re gonna start with him.”

Solar supplied 12.8% of US electricity in May even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy

Even as Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the US and remains the leading source of new power.

Data released Wednesday by global energy thinktank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (Seia) and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.

“For years solar power has risen in the US electricity mix,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and data analyst at Ember. “At the same time, coal power has lost its status, first as the largest source in the US mix, and then gradually over the years has fallen even further.”

Guardian review finds group tied to Cleta Mitchell and Heather Honey funded misleading ads in swing states

As the 2024 election approached, advertisements began popping up in key swing states suggesting local officials had discretion not to certify elections.

The advertisements, reported at the time by ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch, were misleading. Certification is not optional, and officials are required to certify the vote once the proper process for any election challenges are complete and an official challenge is complete. The warnings, nonetheless, arrived at a moment when Donald Trump and allies seemed to be gearing up to contest the election results if he lost.

New documents reviewed by the Guardian show that the group behind the advertisements received financial support from a non-profit linked to prominent election deniers with ties to Trump. The same non-profit, the Foundation For Accountability Integrity & Research In Elections Fund (Fair Elections Fund), also paid influencers to promote an anti-voting bill in 2024.

Nine months into the Trump administration’s deadly campaign against so-called drug boats, there is a pattern to the strikes. And a glaring anomaly.

The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives. In only one strike did the death toll of a single boat reach double digits: the first attack on September 2, 2025.

Since then, experts, lawmakers, and even military officials behind the scenes have been asking a simple but haunting question: Why was that boat packed with 11 people?

Exclusive: poll across 15 countries finds ‘deep mistrust’, with majority doubting US would come to their aid in an attack

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked.

The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said.

It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves office, they were increasingly ready in the meantime to protect themselves against US unreliability by bolstering Europe’s defence.

The lawyers on both sides of a federal court case in Mississippi were caught using artificial intelligence, a situation where, effectively, generative AI tools were used to argue against each other.

The judge wrote in a blistering sanctions order, that the lawyers wasted the court’s time, and that “in an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubber-stamp.”

“This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario—attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct,” Sharion Aycock, senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi wrote in a sanctions order. “This court is yet again ‘burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.’”