Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been deporting thousands of people to their home countries, but many are also being sent to “third countries,” nations the deportee is not originally from. This often leaves the deported person stranded in a place where they do not speak the language or understand the customs.

Mexico

While thousands of Mexican migrants have been deported to Mexico, the country has also been far and away the one with the greatest number of third-country deportations. About 20,000 people without Mexican heritage have been deported to Mexico during the second Trump administration, according to Refugees International’s Third Country Deportation Watch (TCDW).

These deported people are also racing against the clock, as the Mexican government “gives third-country citizens just 10 days to remain in the country, with its overstretched asylum system the only option for most,” said the Washington Office on Latin America. As it stands, at least “1,100 deported people per month in Mexico are citizens of other Latin American nations.”

Guatemala

Though the third country agreement between the U.S. and Guatemala wasn’t renegotiated until July 2025, ICE has been ramping up deportations significantly since then. Several thousand people have since been sent to Guatemala, including 2,284 Mexicans deported to the country from the U.S. between April and August 2026, according to the TCDW.

This marked a notable change for Mexican deportees, given that before the deal with Guatemala, most Mexicans deported from the U.S. were “sent almost exclusively back to their country by air and land,” said The Associated Press. But these migrants are “part of a ‘transit stopover’ before being taken to Mexico as part of an ‘arrangement’ with the Mexican government,” said Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo.

Panama

About 360 non-Panamanians have been deported from the U.S. to Panama, according to the TCDW. The nation has been a third-country destination during almost all of the second Trump administration. In one instance, a group of refugees “were put on U.S. military planes,” said Human Rights Watch. They didn’t know their destination and “realized they were in Panama only after landing.”

Another notable story came just one month after President Donald Trump returned to power, when “hundreds of asylum-seekers were sent to Panama instead of being allowed to present claims in the United States,” said the American Immigration Council. They were eventually “released by the Panamanian government and told they had 30 days to leave the country.”

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is another large Central American third-country destination where about 331 people have been deported from the United States, the TCDW said. Costa Rica agreed to take on these people because the country “seeks a closer alliance with Donald Trump’s government, which has been securing cooperation from other Central American countries in accepting deportees from other nations who have been detained by U.S. immigration agents,” said The Guardian.

Human rights observers are concerned that “some of the people being deported to Costa Rica may be asylum-seekers who were never given a fair chance to present their cases in the United States,” said Refugees International.

El Salvador

About 250 people without El Salvadorian heritage have been sent to the country from the U.S., according to the TCDW. Flights to El Salvador are relatively new, as ICE transfers to the nation only began in July 2026.

This number may seem minimal, and it is generally true that third-country deportations only “represent a small share of U.S. removals,” said the Migration Policy Institute. When it comes to the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, though, “fear may be their main function.”

Honduras

While Mexican immigrants are being sent to Guatemala, many others are also being sent to Honduras; about 170 non-Hondurans have been deported to the country, according to the TCDW. A transfer deal between the U.S. and Honduras has been in place since October 2025.

Officials have said that “one of the objectives of the deportations, which have not been formally announced by the U.S. government, is to deter illegal immigration from Mexico by sending some of its citizens further south and farther away from the U.S.-Mexico border,” said CBS News in a report on deportations to Honduras and Guatemala. This comes as Mexico has “voiced its opposition to the deportation of Mexican citizens to other countries.”

Uzbekistan

While most countries in this list are in Central America, one nation thousands of miles away also makes a surprising appearance: Uzbekistan. Over 130 people have been deported to the Central Asian nation as a third country, according to the TCDW.

Many of the deportees to Uzbekistan are from neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. There have been concerns about how these deportees are being treated in Uzbekistan, particularly “given that human rights organizations have documented a consistent pattern of harassment, restrictions and reprisals against activists and rights defenders” in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, said the Global Detention Project, which could create “risks for those being returned.”

Ghana

Over 100 people living in the U.S. without Ghanaian heritage have been deported to Ghana, according to the TCDW. But unlike some other nations on this list, legal action has actually been taken against Ghana, with an “international coalition of human rights lawyers and advocates” suing the country, said The Associated Press.

The lawsuit accuses Ghana of not allowing these people to stay in the country, instead “forcing deportees from the U.S. back to the home countries they had fled in violation of their rights,” said the AP. Many of these people were allegedly “flown from Ghana to their home countries within hours or days of arriving.”

What happened

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Thursday canceled all House business for the final two weeks of September, leaving just four days for voting and other legislative activity before the Nov. 3 midterms. That’s a reversal from just days ago. “Republicans are here to work,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “We are going to work all the way through September.”

Who said what

Johnson’s decision to shrink the calendar “comes as candidates agitate to get back on the campaign trail,” Politico said. It also “severely” curtails “what had been a full legislative calendar for September,” though “GOP leaders continue to struggle to maintain control of the House floor.”

The government is now funded through December. But among other consequences, the canceled workdays are “threatening to delay a bipartisan push to crack down on sexual misconduct in Congress,” Axios said. The reforms are “something that everybody wants,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (N.M.), the top Democrat on a task force set up to address the issue, told Axios.

What next?

After the House wraps up its next four-day workweek on Sept. 17, lawmakers “will return again for a lame duck session on Nov. 9,” kicking off five final weeks of scheduled “legislative business before the end of the 119th Congress,” said ABC News.

What happened

The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously that congressional maps redrawn by the Republican-led state legislature can’t be used in the November elections, likely thwarting a GOP effort to unseat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D). Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) “incorrectly” dismissed a “legal, sufficient and timely” referendum petition on the redistricting submitted in December, the court said in its opinion, so the new districts “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters” in November.

In another “notable victory for Democrats,” The Associated Press said, the Maryland Supreme Court also agreed to let voters decide whether the Democratic-controlled state legislature can redraw congressional districts for the 2028 election, in a bid to defenestrate Rep. Andy Harris (R).

Who said what

President Donald Trump’s “quest for a midterm election advantage triggered an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle,” the AP said. Thursday’s rulings were among “only a few nationally to go against Republicans.”

The Missouri Supreme Court’s “surprising decision creates an unprecedented set of electoral circumstances,” because last month’s primaries “took place under the new lines,” Politico said. For “months, Missouri Republicans had signaled their intention” to stall “as long as possible while implementing the new maps,” and Hoskins waited until the day of the primaries to “declare the referendum insufficient.” The court’s “unprecedented decision” thrusts Missouri “into a full‑fledged constitutional crisis,” Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) said in a statement. She vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What next?

The Missouri court “did not specify how candidates would be determined for a general election,” The New York Times said. “Redistricting opponents had suggested that candidates who won their primaries” could “remain the nominees in the same-numbered districts.”

A senior aide to Nigel Farage and Reform UK’s head of policy have both stood down after they were filmed appearing to plot ways to avoid electoral laws on foreign donations.

Undercover investigative journalists posed as a potential Reform supporter and his wealthy American father, who paid for £32,500 of polling commissioned by Reform and which benefited the party. The polling “was not attributed to Reform, and was reported in The Telegraph and The Times without those newspapers knowing that it was commissioned by the party and paid for by the US donor”, said The Guardian. The benefit in kind was then also not reported to the Electoral Commission.

But Farage told LBC the polls in question were commissioned by an independent third party. He added: “Whilst the poll benefited Reform, it wasn’t commissioned by Reform. It had nothing to do with Reform. It was an independent third party that did it. So that’s nothing. That’s nothing. Polls are funded by overseas people every single week. Every single week.”

What was revealed?

In a meeting over oysters and wine in his Clacton constituency, Farage “met with the undercover team in late July after the three polls had been published and paid for”, said Channel 4 News, who aired the investigation by a group of journalists called Verbatim. The Reform leader believed them to be “William” and his father. Farage said the polling was “amazing” and provided “bang for buck,” adding: “It worked. Boom.”

The Channel 4 report also showed Dan Jukes, a senior adviser to Farage, suggesting a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of £500,000 for the party. Channel 4 said James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, also suggested to the undercover reporter that perhaps his father could pay for opinion polling to aid Reform’s campaigning.

Farage told LBC a “couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said” and had been “removed this morning”. But added: “The party has broken no laws, the party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever.”

Is it illegal?

Electoral law says that to be a permissible donor to a UK political party you must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK. Not disclosing funding such as the ones for the polls would be illegal and accepting this kind of foreign funding would also be illegal.

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “The law requires political parties to report all permissible donations they accept with a value over £11,180 and all impermissible donations over £500. Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.”

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported Reform to the Metropolitan Police and the force said it would assess the matter and any information provided to it.

Reform has denied any wrongdoing and said it had “been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign funded climate change activists”. Verbatim was founded by journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting.

What could the fallout be?

Farage “appears to be trying to distance himself [from] Jukes and Orr, with his comments to LBC”, said the BBC. But Jukes “is widely seen as Farage’s closest aide, who is often at his side, and is judged to have an innate sense of his boss’ instincts”. Equally “Orr, a Cambridge academic who has stepped down [as] the party’s head of policy, could also be considered to be in Farage’s inner circle”.

Reform UK chairman Lee Anderson told Sky News there was “no chance” of Jukes and Orr returning to the party. But this “appeared to be contradicted”, said the BBC, by Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who told Radio 4’s “Today” programme minutes later that “it’s not actually, in the nicest possible way, for any individual to make that determination” as the investigation continues.

President Donald Trump last week announced the United States is obtaining rights to 65 million barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves. The agreement was made under the auspices of unelected President Delcy Rodríguez, who owes her position to the January U.S. military operation that snatched her predecessor out of the country. It is the “biggest oil deal in world history,” Trump said in a statement. Critics say the pact is illegal and exploitative.

‘Almost certainly unconstitutional’

Venezuela is “becoming the 51st state in all but name,” Joseph Zeballos-Roig said at MS NOW. Trump’s deal would give the U.S. “privileged access” to the country’s oil production and allow the United States to replenish its “dwindling stockpiles” of petroleum depleted by the war with Iran. The agreement will also “temporarily shore up” Rodríguez’s government thanks to an influx of tax revenues. But it looks like “gilded imperialism” and will likely “deepen a disconnect between Venezuelans and hopes for a new government” after the downfall of dictator Nicolás Maduro.

The agreement is “almost certainly unconstitutional” under Venezuelan codes, Elliott Abrams said at The Washington Post. The country’s laws say petroleum resources “are the property of the Republic” and “not transferable” to outside entities. Trump’s deal “hardly meets that criteria.” The scheme also relies on a private company led by Alejandro Betancourt, who has been accused of money laundering and made his fortune “under the corrupt Hugo Chávez and Maduro regimes.” What seems certain: “The deal will fail if democracy ever returns to Venezuela.”

The Venezuela deal has given the U.S. a “strategic victory” over its rivals, Arturo McFields said at The Hill. The country’s oil fields were previously controlled by Russian and Chinese companies, and revenues flowed also to Maduro’s allies in Cuba and Iran. No more. The U.S. is obtaining “energy security” and lower gas prices, while the government in Caracas gets an agreement that “revitalizes its oil industry, creates jobs and fosters prosperity.”

‘Old-school colonialism’

The agreement could be remembered as the “moment Venezuela shut the door on communism,” Yuri Perez said at Fox News. Critics who say the government “lacks legitimacy for long contracts” are right that legitimacy “must be completed at the ballot box.” But the alternative should not be “idle oil fields and an open door to Cuba, China and Russia.” A “future democratic congress” can and should ratify the deal on behalf of Venezuelans.

“The deal smacks of old-school colonialism,” Liam Denning at Bloomberg. And it is unlikely to draw major oil companies back to Venezuela. (Chevron, the only outside oil company that remained, said this week it will double its production there.) The “opaque settlement” possibly puts new elections “further out of reach” and will thus be “inherently brittle.” Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil production and its democracy will be the “work of many years of intense effort.” Trump has instead opted for a “shortcut” that relies on “raw U.S. power.”

What happened

New York City on Wednesday announced that AI tools will be banned in public grade and middle schools and sharply limited for high school students. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office called the one-year moratorium the country’s “most expansive” limits on AI in schools. The “sweeping new policy” for the nation’s largest school district will also bar individual screens for students until third grade, The New York Times said. “So-called companion chatbots” will be “banned in all grades,” and “all high schoolers will be taught about AI literacy.”

Who said what

“The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable, but that it is necessary,” Mamdani said in a speech Wednesday. “We do not see it that way.” A “backlash” from parents “against the growing use of digital devices and AI in the classroom” has pushed many school districts to enact new restrictions, the Times said. The Los Angeles school district — the nation’s second-largest — just began “temporarily blocking access to generative AI tools on student devices across all grades,” The Associated Press said. Other schools are “working to teach children how to incorporate the technology while preventing them from relying too heavily on it or using it to cheat.”

What next?

New York’s new rules will be in place for this school year, which begins next week, and can be extended or amended.

What happened

The Department of Homeland Security has assigned hundreds of agents to an “intensive, weekslong hunt” for noncitizen voters, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Such “election fraud is exceedingly rare,” but DHS is “pulling agents” from “investigating such serious crimes as human trafficking and terrorism” to scour state voter rolls, sometimes by “effectively posing as individual voters.”

Any suspected noncitizen voters, or people who registered to vote before they became citizens, are referred to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit. HSI agents were assigned this week to a new “Criminal Voter Fraud surge initiative,” CNN reported. ICE is also “preparing to award” a multimillion-dollar outside contract for a “massive national database of voters,” that will include “voter registration,” as well as voting history and potentially party affiliation, Wired said.

Who said what

The Trump administration has been aggressively “targeting noncitizen voting to allege it could be a source of significant fraud during the midterm elections,” The Associated Press said. “Given the decades of evidence showing how rare noncitizen voting is, it’s unclear what the administration will discover” in its new efforts or “how verifiable any findings will be,” the Times said. President Donald Trump has already used his repeated “falsehoods about election fraud” to “sow doubt and distrust in the electoral process” and “justify sweeping voting restrictions” he is attempting to enact.

What next?

An immigrant rights group sued the Trump administration in federal court Wednesday, seeking to block DHS from “using federal databases that it alleged are being used to target naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote,” the AP said.

Zack Polanski will need to reverse his party’s faltering fortunes if he is to win the Holborn and St Pancras by-election created by Keir Starmer’s decision to leave Westminster.

Membership of the Greens has more than tripled since Polanski was elected leader almost exactly a year ago and they won their first Westminster by-election in Gorton and Denton in February. Now the leader has said he wants to stand in the vote to replace former PM Starmer in the London constituency and become his party’s sixth MP.

But the Greens have also been dogged by accusations of antisemitism, while Polanski has been criticised for a series of gaffes. There have been questions over his tax affairs, his “inflated CV and ever-presence on social media”, said Pieter Snepvangers in The Telegraph.

What did the commentators say?

Polanski’s likely candidacy “makes what was expected to be a Labour hold into a much more interesting race, with Green activists already flooding [the] constituency”, said The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar on X.

With Andy Burnham riding a wave of optimism as the new prime minister, the Green Party’s popularity has “plunged to its lowest level ever recorded”, said Snepvangers. A YouGov poll carried out in July put its net approval rating at -23, down 28 points from last August. A majority of the public (56%) has a negative view, up from 39%.

Polanski is “easy to dislike”, said Eliot Wilson in City A.M.: there is something “preposterous and confected about him”. He demonstrates “armour-plated self-belief”, even when he’s declaring “the most implausible silliness”.

But many voters still “like what they’ve heard”. And party leaders compete now not to be the most popular, but to be the least unpopular – Polanski is far less unpopular than Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. But “the party’s position has begun to slide” and its policy platform is “uncompromising yet unrealistic”. The question now is: “How is the Green Party to stop this leakage?”

To be fair, a fifth of the country still likes Polanski, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. But “a lot more people now feel negatively towards him”, especially voters over 35. “This may not be down to any missteps on his part. Rather, the Greens may have just reached their natural ceiling.” But the prospect of winning power “looks far away”.

True, the “unexpected resurgence of hope” in the Labour Party poses “an unmistakable threat” to Polanski, who previously “had a virtual monopoly on such things”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Newcomers to the Green Party are now “squarely in Burnham’s sights” as he apologises for the way Starmer handled the Gaza war. But it would be “ridiculous” to assume “this Labour honeymoon can last”. With the Greens “unconstrained by the realities of government”, they will have “the freedom to say whatever Labour won’t”. That could “easily become a powerful weapon”.

At the 2024 general election, the Green candidate came third in Holborn and St Pancras, nearly doubling the party’s vote share in 2019. Meanwhile, Labour’s majority fell dramatically. Hence the “immediate pressure” on Polanski to stand, said John Rentoul in The Independent. I expect Labour will hold it, provided they choose a “solid candidate” – it is “by no means” a safe seat. But Burnham has “calmed the anti-politics rage a little, and I think Polanski will fail to catch the wave at the right moment”.

What next?

Polanski is now under pressure from Green activists to “take more radical left-wing stances to halt the rising popularity of Labour”, said Aubrey Allegretti in The Times. Animah Kosai, a member of the Green Party Council, has tabled a motion to be debated at the Greens’ conference in October. It urges the party to “embrace more enthusiastically the kind of radical policies which excite activists”, said Wilson in City A.M., including the pledge to introduce a wealth tax and attacking Labour for the sale of arms to Israel.

Holborn and St Pancras “has long been a Labour stronghold” and Labour “will throw everything at defending it”, said The Guardian’s Crerar. In the way Makerfield was Burnham’s proof of concept that he could beat Reform, “Holborn and St Pancras will be his test that he can win back progressive voters to the Labour fold”.

What happened

The House on Tuesday passed a Senate-approved stopgap funding bill that will avert a government shutdown at the end of the month. The “lopsided” 370-48 vote punts the expected fiscal 2027 “spending fight until after the midterm elections,” The New York Times said, and allows lawmakers to “quickly return to the campaign trail for the critical final weeks before the elections.”

Who said what

The stopgap measure is “simple by design,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. “No poison pills, no divisive wish lists and no political gimmicks.” At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the “bill was much improved from the product that passed the House earlier this summer on a mostly party-line basis,” according to The Associated Press. In its bipartisan rewrite, the Senate “made some changes, some that we don’t support,” GOP Whip Steve Scalise (La.) told The Washington Post. But “it’s much more important for the country to avoid a government shutdown.”

What next?

Once President Donald Trump signs the bill, the government will be funded at current levels through Dec. 11. That gives lawmakers time to “find compromise on a full-year measure,” said the AP, which will “likely be quite difficult.”

Two top-level summits held simultaneously this week offered contrasting visions for the world and who will lead it in the coming years.

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Indian PM Narendra Modi, and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, presenting Beijing as a driver of stability and champion of an “orderly multipolar world”.

Meanwhile, 6,826 miles away at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Asheville, North Carolina, the mood could not have been more different. Western finance ministers expressed outrage at the Trump administration’s decision to invite Russia. There was anger at the US’s ongoing trade spat with Canada, Trump’s decision to punish South Korea and, of course, the continuing economic fallout from his war against Iran.

What did the commentators say?

If the Bishkek summit was “designed to project solidarity”, then the G20 gathering “offered an image of fracture”, said David Pierson for The New York Times.

China is using ever-closer ties with Russia and Iran, which are both at war with the West, to “project its influence”, at the same time as the US is “straining the alliances and economic relationships that have underpinned decades of global leadership”.

“China’s theory of the case for bending the international political order in its preferred direction is to amass support from the ‘global majority,’” said Ryan Hass, a former White House national security official now at the Brookings Institution think tank. Xi’s role as lead convener “builds a narrative around China gaining momentum in building support for playing a more central role on the world stage”.

This shows that the “emerging global order is not simply dividing into two fixed camps”, with countries such as India “maintaining relationships with competing powers while pursuing their own strategic interests”, said Business Insider Africa. That is why Xi has also sought to build bridges with the West, hosting the leaders of Germany, Britain and Canada this year, as long-standing allies turn away from the US under Trump.

The world’s two leading economies are “uneasily preoccupied with their trajectory these days”, said Evan Osnos in a recent New Yorker article entitled “The future, made in China”. China is “eager to restore its historical eminence”, but, in a sign the centre of global politics may be shifting, having long “looked West for visions of the future”, nowadays “it favours its own”.

What next?

China’s show of strength, on display not only in Bishkek but also in Asheville where it blocked a G20 joint statement, comes ahead of a crunch meeting between Xi and Trump in Washington DC later this month.

With China now viewed more positively than the US in the majority of 36 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center, Xi could do worse than acknowledge the assessment by Beijing’s Renmin University when meeting the famously vain US president.

Entitled “Thank Trump”, it hailed his efforts to hasten the “twilight of an empire” by undermining America’s international alliances, its institutions at home and credibility abroad, said The Economist.

Ulrich Siegmund was described as “the most dangerous man in Germany” by Der Spiegel in a recent cover story.

The 35-year-old is on course to lead his Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to power in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt this week, making it the first far-right government in post-war German history.

The party’s agenda, if put in place, would give the country its first look at what the AfD “hopes could ultimately be a cultural and demographic overhaul of German life”, said The New York Times.

What are their policies?

The party’s 156-page manifesto advocates a “complete 180-degree turn” in migration policy to include deportation and what it terms “remigration” – a word that has “Nazi connotations”, which could see the targeting of Ukrainian refugees who fled the war, said CNN.

Under an AfD government, gay pride flags would be banned at schools, public broadcasters and pro-democracy NGOs would lose funding, there would be a moratorium on new wind turbines and a rollback of other green policies, and large families of German origin would receive tax breaks. The party also wants to improve relations with Moscow, and would move to teach more Russian in schools.

But, in a policy more reminiscent of Zohran Mamdani, the liberal New York City mayor, the manifesto also includes provisions to make childcare, already heavily subsidised by the state, free.

“I want to give the citizens in Saxony-Anhalt their good, old, secure Germany back,” Siegmund told The New York Times earlier this year. “It will be a very beautiful country with a very good spirit of optimism,” especially “for the children, for the families.”

But judging by Siegmund’s campaign speeches, “the goal is a return to a bygone era – a time before Germany viewed itself as a country of immigration, when electricity came from nuclear power plants rather than wind turbines, and when LGBTQ+ rights were not yet recognised”, said Hans Pfeifer in Deutsche Welle.

Could they work in practice?

Eva von Angern, a state lawmaker from the far-left party Die Linke, has called the AfD’s plans a “violation of human rights and unconstitutional”, said the NYT.

But while some of the proposals appear to be “unworkable at a state level”, needing action by the federal government, “many others are feasible”, said the BBC’s Bethany Bell.

Whether they would work in practice is another matter entirely. Saxony-Anhalt has Germany’s highest share of pension-age residents, meaning it needs migrant labour. A study by DIW Berlin economic research institute reported in Modern Diplomacy estimates that under AfD policies such as stopping immigration and cutting state spending, Saxony-Anhalt would lose an average of €1,600 (£1,370) per person in annual income as well as around 10,000 jobs.

How likely is an AfD national government?

Since its founding in 2013, the AfD has evolved from a Eurosceptic party into a “full-scale populist uprising against mass migration, green energy policies and so-called wokeism”, said The Telegraph’s James Rothwell.

It has successfully expanded beyond its heartland in the former East Germany, and now consistently leads Politico’s poll of polls on national voting intention.

Standing in its way of entering national government is the Brandmauer, Germany’s political “firewall” agreement between mainstream parties to refuse to work with extremists. It has succeeded until now in keeping the AfD out of power at state and federal level, but has done nothing to harm the party’s popularity.

Some hope that the AfD taking control of Saxony-Anhalt will force the party to compromise and show that its radical political platform is unworkable and ineffectual.

Others, such as David Begrich of Miteinander, an organisation that fights right-wing extremism, fear the AfD intends to turn Saxony-Anhalt “into a testing ground for the whole country”, he told DW.

“Just how far can one go in overriding the written – and perhaps even more importantly, the unwritten – rules of democratic culture in a federal state?”

President Donald Trump is inarguably a man of deep passions. He has expressed these as issues of great — and occasionally even national — importance. While that framing is not universally shared, particularly among the president’s many detractors, Trump’s penchant for publicly invoking both his reliable bugbears and darlings offers valuable insight into the inner life of America’s logorrheic leader. Here are nine obsessions Donald Trump just can’t quit.

Atomic bombs

Trump has “displayed a keen interest in the utility of atomic weapons for decades,” said the BBC. The fixation is part of a “political worldview that has long since solidified into firm beliefs for the septuagenarian,” in which the focus on atomic bombs reflects a “certain strain of Cold War arms-race enthusiasm and diplomatic brinkmanship.”

The “threat — and promise — of nuclear weapons” has been a “thread through both” Trump administrations, said Barron’s. Atomic weaponry has “been on his mind since the ’80s,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, to the outlet. “He wants to solve this issue.”

Genetics

“For decades,” Trump has been “publicly obsessed with bloodlines” as part of a “stated belief that genetics are the best predictor of a person’s success,” said The New York Times. He has regularly “spoken favorably about the racehorse analogy” of selective human breeding, which has been “embraced by white supremacists for decades,” said the Los Angeles Times.

Trump’s “observations on genetics” are not “only an expression of racism,” said New York magazine. The interest also reveals “one of his deepest obsessions” and in part explains the “bizarre passivity” that “characterized his response” during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gold

It’s “no secret” that Trump “really, really likes gold,” said Marie Claire. His Manhattan penthouse has “enough gold and marble to remind anyone of Versailles,” while his private jet has “gold-plated seat belt buckles and bathroom fixtures.” Trump’s Oval Office resembles a “Middle Eastern bazaar crossed with an opulent Cracker Barrel” in which “thick, gold frames line the walls; gold vases and ice buckets adorn the fireplace mantel; gold stars form a circle on the ceiling; and gold appliqués fill any gaps,” said The Atlantic. The president’s “brand” is “synonymous with over-the-top golden opulence, so Trump's version of the Oval is very on-brand,” said NPR’s Tamara Keith on “All Things Considered.”

Florsheim shoes

After “searching for something that would feel better after a day on the job,” Trump this past spring “settled on Florsheim” leather oxford shoes, coming to like them so much that “he started dispensing them,” said The Wall Street Journal. The president has “grown fond of guessing people’s shoe sizes in front of them” before tasking an aide to order them a pair, said The Daily Beast.

“I have fun with it,” said Trump when asked by Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade about reports detailing the footwear focus in a March 2026 interview. “Sneakers are wonderful, but I don’t want my Cabinet members wearing sneakers,” he continued, “so I’ll get them a pair of shoes” as a “gift from Donald Trump.”

Sharks

When it comes to ranking living creatures, “Sharks are last” on the president’s list — “other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!” Trump said on X in 2013, years before he assumed the most powerful office on Earth. Trump is “obsessed with sharks,” said the president’s infamous paramour Stormy Daniels to InTouch. “I hope all the sharks die,” Daniels claims Trump, an obsessive “Shark Week” watcher, told her. Although Trump’s shark obsession may be “funny on the surface,” the animals are “essentially a physical distillation of what Trump hates the most,” said Slate: “Power in the hands of anyone but him, existential uncertainty, nature.”

Show tunes

A GOP push to make “theater kid” and its iterations a “curious little term of abuse on the right” has “just one wrinkle,” said Erik Forrest Jackson at The Atlantic: Trump himself is an “inveterate theater kid,” of which Jackson has “unique firsthand confirmation,” having conducted a 2004 interview with him about Broadway, in which “the man gushed.”

In the memoirs of former Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, she noted that the president’s “handlers designated an unnamed White House official known as the ‘Music Man’ to play him his favorite show tunes” selected to “pull him from the brink of rage,” said The New York Times. “My favorite Broadway show is ‘Evita’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber, starring Patti LuPone,” said Trump in 2004’s “Think Like a Billionaire.” The president “saw it six times, mostly with Ivana.”

Steam-powered catapults

Trump has “returned again and again to the concept of steam power,” said The Atlantic. In “nearly a decade of loudly complaining,” Trump has lamented that naval aircraft carriers use “electromagnetic systems to launch fighter jets instead of steam-powered catapults,” said The Guardian. He has even instructed the Pentagon to “redesign a new aircraft carrier to replace the modern system with the old-fashioned catapults he prefers.”

Per The Guardian, Trump has publicly regaled listeners with a story about demanding steam catapults “with variations, every year since 2017.” One possible explanation for his fixation is the fact that the president “just really loves ‘Top Gun’” and “doesn’t think fighter jets look anywhere near as cool when they take off from Ford-class carriers,” said New York magazine. Trump has even “made this link himself,” including during a 2022 rally. “It’s a beautiful thing to watch the steam, and the plane gets thrown out there,” Trump said. “Those pilots are the greatest, ‘Top Gun,’ right? They’re the greatest pilots. And they get thrown into the ocean and they just take off, and it’s beautiful to watch.”

William McKinley

Since declaring in a 2018 X post that “I am a Tariff Man,” Trump’s “veneration” for President William McKinley — who also referred to himself as such — “has only grown,” said The New Yorker. But Trump’s “admiration” for McKinley “seems deeper than just tariffs,” said NPR’s Asma Khalid on “All Things Considered.” McKinley, too, “realigned and consolidated the power of the Republican Party for decades,” and Trump has also hailed McKinley’s work “expanding America’s footprint around the globe.”

Trump additionally “honored” his predecessor by “undoing an Obama-era change” to rename Alaska’s Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley, said U.S. News & World Report. But for all his presidential enthusiasm, said The New Yorker, Trump’s “McKinleyism is not deeply informed.”

Windmills

Trump has “harbored a strange vendetta” against wind turbines “ever since” Scottish authorities “installed a wind project within sight of his golf course in Aberdeenshire more than a decade ago,” said The Daily Beast. Since then, Trump has “repeatedly shared claims” turbines “cause cancer, kill birds and whales, and destroy property values.” Trump has also directed “frequent criticism” toward “European countries’ reliance on wind energy,” suggesting they “aren’t worth the investment and have destroyed views in Scotland,” said E&E News

Observers have long feared Russia’s war against Ukraine will expand to the rest of Europe. The concerns are rising. Moscow has reportedly backed a rise in so-called hybrid sabotage attacks on European targets, as CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Russia last week to warn the Kremlin against attacks on NATO.

What did the commentators say?

Authorities have linked Russia to a growing number of “drone incursions, acts of sabotage, cyberattacks” and other hostile “gray zone” acts in Europe, said The Wall Street Journal. The incidents include several discoveries of explosive drones at or near a German airport — a sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have a “rising appetite for risk” as he seeks to sow divisions among Ukraine’s continental allies.

Hybrid attacks fall short of provoking open conflict. But the frequency has increased to the point that Russia’s hybrid war in Europe is “starting to look a lot less hybrid,” said Politico.

The attacks “require a more concerted response” than Europe has mounted so far, said Bloomberg. It is easy to treat hybrid attacks as a “problem to be managed” because they are “small-scale, deniable and rarely lethal.” Ukraine’s European allies must “demonstrate that attacks come with costs,” with more layered defenses against drone incursions and aggressive action against Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers that transport black-market oil. Russia does not want to “take on NATO outright,” but it is “testing how much the alliance will tolerate.”

Putin now has a choice. The Russian leader can keep the hybrid attacks “below an open assault” that would trigger a NATO response, said David Ignatius at The Washington Post. Or he can “take a harder punch” to see if President Donald Trump will keep the U.S.’s defense commitment to Europe or have the alliance “exposed as a paper tiger.” The war “risks leaping any remaining guardrails” as Ukraine and Russia continue to trade blows. “Where’s the de-escalation button?”

What next?

Analysts suspect Putin has given up hope that Trump “might be able to coerce Ukraine” into surrender, said CBC News. Russia’s leader may turn instead to “expanding the conflict” to conclude the nearly five-year-old war.

Some military think tanks have warned Russia could stage “some kind of provocation in Eastern Europe” to divide the NATO alliance and its support of Ukraine, said CBC News. That could include an attempt to “seize a slice of Russian-speaking territory in a neighboring country” to see how NATO might respond. The latter concern was reportedly behind Ratcliffe’s trip to Moscow. The administration decided to “read the Russians the riot act,” said Glen Howard, of the Saratoga Foundation, to the outlet.

Other European officials are skeptical that Putin can expand the war. Russia is “bogged down” in Ukraine and “doesn’t have capabilities to challenge NATO” in a conventional conflict, said Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze on “PBS NewsHour.” But attacks below the level of outright war will likely continue. “We all need to be ready.”

What happened

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll submitted his resignation to President Donald Trump on Monday, leaving the Army with no Senate-confirmed top leadership as it battles Iran and other challenges. Driscoll had “clashed repeatedly with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the ouster of key combat-tested Army leaders,” The New York Times said. Hegseth’s string of “firings and feuds” has “left the Army essentially rudderless.” He ousted Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, a Driscoll ally, in April.

Who said what

Driscoll “brought up concerns” with Trump about “Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible,” a source told CNN and The Atlantic. Driscoll was a “major force behind trying to cut the red tape for military contractors to quickly develop more drones and counter-drone capabilities,” The Associated Press said. Gen. Christopher LaNeve, whose “meteoric rise under Hegseth” led to his role as acting Army chief of staff, is “pulling the plug on a drone modernization program” championed by Driscoll.

Driscoll “was until recently seen as a potential candidate to replace” Hegseth if he resigned or “fell out of favor” with Trump, the Times said. Hegseth may have “banished another enemy, Driscoll,” said The Atlantic. But his prize is that “more than ever,” he “now owns every aspect of the Pentagon’s dysfunction.”

What next?

Driscoll is “expected to leave the Pentagon in coming days,” The Wall Street Journal said. Senior administration officials said Hegseth’s choice to replace him, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, “likely would struggle to be confirmed” by the Senate, the Times said.

For three and a half months, Andy Burnham has been “in campaign mode”, said The Telegraph. He fought and won the Makerfield by-election, “ousted” Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister, and “spent the summer seeking to establish his credentials for the job”. He has been in No. 10 for 42 days without facing the Commons: longer than any prime minister in British history.

But today, “the honeymoon is over”. Parliament reconvenes after the summer recess, and Burnham and his newly formed government face MPs in the House of Commons. Time for him to “stop campaigning and start governing”.

What did the commentators say?

If there’s one thing Burnham’s “friends and enemies can agree on”, it’s that he’s a “nice guy”, said Martin Ivens in Bloomberg. “Niceness is a bankable political asset.” But some allege he’s “too nice: a political chameleon who likes to be liked, lacking the backbone to confront either his party or the voters with uncomfortable truths”.

Burnham’s team denies such charges, saying he will set out a more comprehensive 10-year plan later this year, said Jim Pickard for the Financial Times. But in at least seven areas, Burnham has already “backed away from his original position”. And on vital matters like welfare cuts and increased defence spending, Burnham seems to have inherited Starmer’s “vice of ducking hard decisions”, said The Times editorial board. No fool, he knows that “spiralling working-age health benefits” and the triple lock state pension are “unsustainable”. But he’s “kicked the can down the road” with a Starmer-style “flimsy alibi”: two “interminable reviews”. Burnham is shaping up to be a “new compère for an old and recognisable show”.

So far the public is responding well to Burnham’s “humanity and emotion”, said Isabel Hardman in The i Paper. But this also could be his downfall. To prevent the killers of PC Andrew Harper from being eligible for the early release prisoner scheme, Burnham tweaked the criteria to exclude anyone convicted of manslaughter. Of course politics “should be conducted with humanity and empathy”, but the PM “simply cannot respond with emotion” to all victims, especially given the “profound” consequences for our overcrowded prisons. How will he bear the “roar of thousands of campaigns” and grieving loved ones on other issues?

Don’t underestimate the “importance of sentiment in economics”, said John Rentoul, The Independent’s chief political commentator. Starmer and Reeves failed to grasp that: they overdid “the doom and gloom” before their first Budget, and “allowed the dead weight of negative speculation” about their second to “gain its own momentum, dragging the economy down”.

Burnham and Chancellor John Healey – “Dr Feelgood and his cheerful sidekick” – seem to understand this, and are downplaying the upcoming Budget accordingly. Consumer and business confidence are rising, and (despite the Iran war) there is “no pressing need yet for immediate tax rises”. “Easy to dismiss as ‘just vibes’, the optimism of the new administration matters.”

What next?

Today Burnham will “signal fresh measures to help voters with the cost of living”, said the Financial Times, “drawing a clear dividing line” with the newly reshuffled Conservatives, whose leader he will face at Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow.

Ultimately, Burnham will be called to take “decisive action” on the economy, said The Times. Britain’s national debt is almost £3 trillion: equivalent to about 94% of GDP, and costing more than £100 billion a year in interest to service, and this “mountainous liability must be tackled”. In the end, said The Telegraph, Burnham will be forced to make decisions that “will make him unpopular among potentially large swathes of the population”.

What happened

Federal courts on Thursday dealt President Donald Trump setbacks in several ongoing legal battles with broad implications. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a new block on the U.S. Postal Service carrying out Trump’s executive order to limit mail voting. In Northern California, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ordered the Pentagon to end its “illegal and baseless” blacklisting of Anthropic. And U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., stalled administration plans to quickly inscribe Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center.

Who said what

After Anthropic said it didn’t want its AI used for domestic surveillance or autonomous killing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled it a supply-chain risk using an “obscure government-procurement statute” designed to thwart “foreign sabotage,” Reuters said. The administration’s “contemporaneous words and deeds confirm” it was actually acting to “make a public example out of Anthropic,” Lin wrote. The “empty invocation of national ​security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics.”

Talwani issued a 14-day block of USPS mail voting action a day after lifting an earlier hold in response to a Supreme Court ruling. The “whipsaw of action” could “confuse voters,” The New York Times said. But “each delay has reduced the administration’s chances of clearing the legal hurdles to execute” Trump’s order before the midterms. Now that the USPS’ “likely unconstitutional regulation” is finalized, Talwani wrote, “compliance is practically impossible” before ballots go out “as early as next week.”

What next?

After Cooper threatened to block the Trump inscription if the Kennedy Center stuck to its Sept. 8 start date, the Justice Department last night said it would delay action until at least Oct. 8.

With three words, Democratic senator Jon Ossoff unleashed a furious row last week, said Jason Kyle Howard on Salon. Speaking at a campaign event, he declared that Donald Trump was neglecting his presidential duties because he just wanted “to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar”.

The Natalie in question is Natalie Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant. Nicknamed Trump’s “human printer”, she’s always at his side – whether in the White House or on Air Force One or the golf course – armed with a portable printer, from which she feeds him favourable coverage and memes. Until now, Harp hasn’t drawn much public attention. But Ossoff’s comment, and the response to it, have changed that.

Fierce loyalty

Ossoff should be ashamed of his “disgustingly sly” insinuation, said Miranda Devine in the New York Post. Harp battled debilitating bone cancer in her 20s that left her in a wheelchair. Her fierce loyalty to Trump stems from the fact that she believes he saved her life by giving patients access to experimental drugs in his first term.

She expressed her gratitude to Trump in an impressive speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, after which he offered her a job in 2022. “Does Ossoff really think a hard-working single professional woman can’t succeed without sleeping with her boss?”

An ‘in-house stalker’

If only Trump and Harp were having an affair, said Jonathan V. Last on The Bulwark. Their odd form of co-dependency is somehow worse. Harp has reportedly unnerved other staff by writing intense personal notes to Trump with messages such as “You are all that matters to me,” and “I don’t ever want to let you down.” In one, she thanked him for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life”. Trump, in turn, reportedly told staff, concerning Harp: “All of you will go off and make money … She’ll never leave me.” It’s not healthy that the president is employing “an in-house stalker”.

This isn’t just tittle-tattle, said Rex Huppke in USA Today. Trump backers are presenting Harp as some “innocent bystander”, but she controls a lot of his media diet and helps draft his social media posts. It turns out she worked in the White House for more than a year without the requisite security clearance. Ossoff was right to draw attention to her, because her case deserves scrutiny and “highlights the weirdness endemic to this administration”.

Andy Burnham’s plan to impose tougher sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank risks becoming “a de facto boycott of all of Israel”, a group of Labour MPs and peers has warned.

The Times reported the PM wants to take a more “robust” approach when dealing with Israel than his predecessor, Keir Starmer, with a senior government source saying he is expected to approve plans for a trade ban and the sanctioning of individuals involved in settlement activity.

It comes after the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, said Israeli plans to open tenders for the controversial E1 settlement east of Jerusalem would effectively cut the West Bank in two and destroy any hope of a two-state solution.

What did the commentators say?

Having already pledged sanctions against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over plans to build thousands of new settlement homes, a trade embargo would “risk further harming relations, which have already deteriorated” since Burnham took office, The Telegraph’s senior political correspondent Dominic Penna said.

UK officials warn that a ban would bring “significant practical difficulties”, The Times reported. “Distinguishing between goods from the settlements and goods from Israel would be challenging” while a ban on services would be “impractical”. There is a risk that “legitimate” Israeli businesses “would be hit by the ban” which risks “undermining trade with Israel more broadly”. There are also concerns Palestinian businesses in occupied territories could be hit by the sanctions.

That may be true, but having apologised for Labour’s response to Gaza, Burnham “must ban settlement trade” to show he “meant it”, said Ismail Patel in Middle East Eye.

Unlike Ireland, which outlawed settlement imports in late July, Britain merely labels settlement goods, “a policy that acknowledges they come from stolen land while inviting shoppers to buy them anyway”.

According to The House of Commons Library, UK trade with the occupied Palestinian territories was worth around £38m in 2025, compared with total UK trade of around £1.95 trillion.

The UK, by contrast, is a “tremendously important” trading partner for Israel, said Jo-Ann Mort in Prospect, meaning if the British government really wanted to intervene, “it has weight” and “leverage available”.

What next?

Around a third of Labour MPs have signed a letter calling for a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements, with supporters also preparing a motion at Labour’s annual conference next month.

The PM is expected to set out steps to introduce a trade embargo before then “as he looks to avoid the issue overshadowing his first party conference as leader”, said the Daily Mail.

But the move still risks splitting the party.

Labour Friends of Israel, which includes senior Labour MPs and peers, said it “strongly opposes” the Israeli settlements and supported “calibrated steps against extremist settlers and extremist settler groups”. But, it added, “a boycott of trade with settlements is practically impossible and will become a de facto boycott of all of Israel, which would be deeply damaging to the UK national interest, the British Jewish community and Palestinian workers”.

What happened

Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday won the Republican primary to succeed her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, defeating hard-right Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) 52% to 48%. At President Donald Trump’s urging, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) last month appointed Graham to serve out the last six months of her brother’s term.

Trump’s pick for Oklahoma governor, businessman Mike Mazzei, also narrowly beat state Attorney General Gentner Drummond in Tuesday’s GOP runoff primary. In Georgia’s heavily Democratic 13th Congressional District, former school board chair Everton Blair Jr. won a special election to fill out the term of Rep. David Scott (D), who died in April.

Who said what

The South Carolina runoff was “seen as a test of Trump’s endorsement power,” The Wall Street Journal said, and he “flexed his political muscles in the final days of the campaign” to get Graham “over the finish line.” Trump “did more to support her than he had for any other Republican candidate this year,” The New York Times said, and it took the strength of his “political capital” — including a rally and $830,000 from his MAGA Inc. super PAC — to “overcome her inexperience” and a “flubbed” debate answer about national security.

What next?

Once Blair and Aisha Wahab, the Democrat who won last week’s special election in California, are sworn in, the GOP’s thin House majority will shrink to just four members, 218 to 214.

CIA director John Ratcliffe made a surprise, unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday, the first time America’s spy chief has visited Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Kremlin said Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials but did ‌not meet President Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did tell reporters that Putin had been briefed on ​the outcome of Ratcliffe's talks.

While the visit has yet to be officially confirmed by the CIA, White House or Pentagon, reports of the “semi-secret mission” were “ringing all sorts of alarm bells in Westminster”, said Politico. “Next to nothing is known” about the trip but “analysts fear escalations against Baltic countries, or other Nato members”.

What happened?

CBS News first reported that Ratcliffe had travelled to Moscow on Tuesday “for meetings”.

A US Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted at a Moscow airport, along with a US diplomatic motorcade. Flight tracking data confirmed a large US military aircraft travelled from Washington to Russia via Latvia on Tuesday, departing later that day.

The US reportedly told Ukraine that a senior delegation would be travelling to Moscow and asked it to suspend strikes until the delegation’s departure, according to CBS.

What was the point?

In-person talks between high-level American and Russian officials are incredibly rare. And amid such secrecy “it was not immediately clear what the trip’s purpose is and whether any other senior US officials were part of the US delegation”, said The Washington Post.

John Foreman, a former British military attaché to Moscow, told BBC Radio 4’s “PM” news programme that the visit could be focused on “escalation management” given speculation that Russia could have been involved in recent drone activity in Germany. “The Americans don’t normally send such a high ranking official to Moscow unannounced at short notice unless something is up.”

The visit could also have been concerned with the release of US detainees being held in Russia, Foreman said. The CIA was involved in the 2024 prisoner exchange deal that saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich released, while Ratcliffe played a role in the release of Russian-American ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina last year after she was jailed in Russia for allegedly supporting Ukraine.

Was it to stop an escalation by Russia?

With US-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine remaining “mostly stalled, with the sides still far apart on core issues”, Ratcliffe’s visit comes as recent US intelligence assessments suggest that Vladimir Putin’s “risk calculus may be shifting”, said CBS News. The Russian leader appears “increasingly willing to authorise provocative actions against Nato members – including hybrid operations and other deniable measures short of conventional military action – in order to test the resolve of the alliance and the Trump administration”.

Imagine being thrown into No. 10 Downing Street and being forced to contend with a “public that is always fuming, a press that is consistently hostile, a cabinet that behaves badly, and backbenchers who never stop moaning about something”, said GQ Magazine. No, it’s “not one of Starmer’s recurring nightmares,” but a mobile game that has “skyrocketed in popularity”.

In the last fortnight, the average daily userbase of “No. 10: Full Confidence” has “leapt from 300 to 21,000”, propelling it to near the top of the UK paid-games leaderboard. “Absurd, nihilistic, so-tragic-it’s-hilarious – the perfect allegory, you might say, for British politics in 2026.” And its popularity, along with other similar apps, reveals a lot about the “current political mood in the UK”.

‘Close to the bone’

The game – which costs £2.99, with the option to pay extra for a “special adviser pack” – suggests that “becoming prime minister isn’t the difficult part, it’s staying one that’s tricky”, said Metro. The current average term achieved by players is two years and 11 months (in game time), which is “longer than the last three real prime ministers, and only a little shorter than the reigns of Theresa May and Boris Johnson”. Released in May, in a case of “excellent if accidental timing”, the “jury’s still out on whether this will make people more sympathetic to former PMs” such as Keir Starmer, but historical precedent suggests it seems “very unlikely the new incumbent will be able to beat the game’s high score in real-life”.

The app’s creator and developer Benjamin Brewis told GQ that the game is meant to focus on “satire rather than political advocacy”. All 350 potential scenarios are tailor-made, and some are influenced by real events, from both sides of the political divide. “Scarily”, when I speak to people in politics or the civil service, they say how “close to the bone it is”, Brewis said. Especially in scenarios where decisions need to be made quickly, and “chaos just ensues and then nothing gets done in the end”.

The first decision is selecting a chancellor. Players must decide between Harriet Voss, a “former investment banker who has ‘never expressed a political opinion in public’”, or Reginald Forthwright, who advocated for “a flat tax of 3% on everything” and “has written a book described as ‘dangerously coherent’”. While people tend to only last a couple of years, the record is “1,885 months, which is a long time. 157 years”, said Brewis. And at that point, “that’s no longer a democracy at all”.

First among equals

“Full Confidence” is not the only game based around Westminster “wheeling and dealing”, said the BBC. “Fantasy Parliament”, designed by Evan Roberts, is a “browser-based game”, where players can draft a “fantasy league” of real-life cabinet ministers and MPs, who score points based on their real-world media coverage. And later this year, Black Cannon Games is scheduled to release “UK Politics Simulator”, which is “built on real UK data down to ward level”.

The success of such apps suggests that the “dramatic recent ebb and flow of Westminster may have inspired a popular new sub-genre”. Dr Russell Foster, a lecturer in British and International Politics at King’s College London, told the broadcaster that the “churn of prime ministers” and “growing presence of politics on social media” could also explain the burgeoning popularity of such games.

This game shows us the “depressing” environment that has been “co-created by us, the unforgiving voters”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. Prime ministers are “evasive” because they don’t trust the reaction of the electorate, who in turn “lose trust” in their figurehead.

“Westminster hasn’t been so united by an app since the early 2010s, when everyone was trying to figure out what David Cameron saw in ‘Angry Birds’.” But “Full Confidence” is also a “useful corrective”, challenging dissatisfied voters to put themselves “in a prime minister’s shoes”.

What happened

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday overturned a federal judge’s block of President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting and make other election changes. The 6-3 emergency ruling was on procedural grounds and did not address the constitutionality of Trump’s order, much of which is still blocked through a different injunction from the same federal judge in Boston, Indira Talwani. The U.S. Postal Service issued a final rule late last week confirming that, if the courts allow, it would refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that did not comply with Trump’s order.

Who said what

The Supreme Court ruling “means the administration can move ahead with planning for restricting the use of mail ballots,” The New York Times said. But it “does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful,” the court’s unsigned majority opinion said. “On that score, time will tell.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent that the ruling “needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty” into the upcoming midterms and furthers the court’s “Kafkaesque nightmare” regarding “election-related challenges.” Monday’s ruling “may not lead to a single election procedure changing” before November, The Associated Press said, “but it has already thrown into uncertainty the method that nearly one-third of the country uses to vote,” including Trump himself.

What next?

“Time is running out” for Trump’s voting changes, the AP said. After the first mail ballots are sent from North Carolina on Sept. 4, it “would be virtually impossible for all states” to fully comply.

Once a fringe movement, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party is on course to take control of a German state for the first time, and blast through a post-war consensus designed to keep extremists out of power.

With polls suggesting that 40% of voters in Saxony-Anhalt intend to support the AfD in next week’s vote, it is now “completely undemocratic to permanently exclude” the party, said left-wing party leader Sahra Wagenknecht. “The firewall has failed.”

What did the commentators say?

Germany’s political “firewall”, the Brandmauer, is an agreement between mainstream parties that they will all refuse to work with extremists, forming coalitions or otherwise cooperating with each other instead. It has succeeded in keeping the AfD out of power at state and federal level until now but it has done nothing to harm the party’s popularity. If anything, being excluded has contributed to its rise in national polls, where it now enjoys a clear lead over all the mainstream parties.

Maintaining the firewall has created a “hollowed-out centre”, said politics professor Alexander Görlach in Jacobin magazine. Building majorities that exclude the far-right “has led to uncomfortable compromises”: parties on the left and centre-right have made coalitions “born of necessity rather than conviction”. Not only has this alienated some voters – in some cases even driving to extremist alternatives – it has also blurred the distinctions between mainstream parties, reinforcing the AfD’s line that they are carbon-copy “cartel parties”.

The Brandmauer also means the AfD has “no incentive” to moderate its policies in order to gain power, as some other populists in Europe have done, said The Economist. Behind the firewall, the party is protected “from the disappointment that accountability in a democracy implies”, Christian Stecker, a political scientist at TU Darmstadt, told the magazine.

It’s certainly “plausible” that the firewall “has contributed” to this “specifically German phenomenon of rapid growth combined with increasing radicalisation”, said Thorsten Benner of Berlin’s Global Public Policy Institute on Foreign Policy. AfD supporters can currently back ever more extreme positions, free from “the risk of having to live with the consequences of their choice”.

What next?

If current polling proves accurate, the AfD could secure an absolute majority in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on 6 September – a rarity under Germany's proportional-voting system.

The consequences of that “would be far-reaching”, said The Centre for Strategic & International Studies. It would not only “create a shock to the ideological spectrum” but also, for the first time, enable a far-right party in Germany “to put some of its agenda into practice”, on issues such as education, security and cultural identity. That could “catapult the far-right into power across Europe’s biggest economy”, said The Spectator. Or it could “be the beginning of the end”, as the AfD “confronts squaring its lavish election promises with sky-high voter expectations”.

In his first speech as prime minister, Andy Burnham pledged to “bring back hope”. One month on, he told The Times’ Patrick Maguire, that message has already been “replayed back to me a lot” by the public. “What they’re saying is: we need that positivity. Can you keep it going?”

Favourable polling for the new PM suggests that “this country is at least intrigued by the possibility of visiting that place called Hope”, said Maguire. But “hope is one thing”: fulfilment of those hopes “is quite another”.

‘Excessive expectations’

If there’s to be a “new dividing line” in British politics, said Maguire, Burnham would like it to be “hope versus despair, hope versus anger, hope versus learned helplessness” and “all the other stodgy, unappetising staples” served up by his predecessors.

The new PM’s “abstract emphasis” on optimism “sits comfortably” alongside his “concrete focus” on the cost of living, wrote Matthew Barnfield, Department of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, on The Conversation.

If he can successfully sell voters the idea that “marginal relief” on energy bills and bus fares represents “just the first step on the road to making life more affordable”, they may be able to “look beyond” the gloom of monthly expenses and “start hoping for meaningful improvements” in living standards.

There is a virtuous cycle effect, too, said Barnfield. My research shows that “positive polling”, like that Burnham is currently enjoying, encourages not only existing supporters but also “those who are otherwise low in psychological hope to get on board”. And perception is all-important at the ballot box: “creating the impression that the Labour party is best placed to beat Reform will be essential to winning the next election”.

But beating the drum of hope “also often brings problems” of its own, by creating “excessive expectations”, wrote Andy Beckett in The Guardian. Labour’s optimism underestimates the “complexity of changing Britain” and downplays the “enemies and barriers” a Labour government “always faces”.

‘Hopey, changey thing’

National leaders have often evoked hope during their campaigns and victory speeches, said Philip Johnston in The Telegraph. When Margaret Thatcher first stood on the steps of Downing Street in 1979, she quoted the prayer of St Francis of Assisi “where there is despair, may we bring hope”. In 1992, Bill Clinton said he still believed in “a place called Hope”, a reference to the name of his hometown in Arkansas.

But the “most prodigious user” of the word was Barack Obama, who had it “emblazoned in capital letters” on campaign posters and titled his memoir “The Audacity of Hope”. The former president was later mocked by Republican Sarah Palin for relying on a fuzzy optimism she called “that hopey, changey thing”.

Hope as a concept has been “almost entirely colonised by the Left”, which creates the “danger that those on the Right will feed this pernicious agenda by overdoing the gloom and catastrophism”. While “fear and alarmism” may “play to a particularly jaundiced political audience”, more broadly such rhetoric is “corrosive and feeds extremism”. If they are to truly convince voters a brighter future is a conservative one, “politicians on the Right need to reclaim the idea of hope”.

There’s no mistaking the message of this summer’s wildfires, said Rebecca McQuillan in The Herald. It’s that we need “to stop procrastinating and cut emissions, fast”. But is Britain ready to accept this fact of life and act on it? We’ll soon get an answer to that question when the government announces whether or not it’s giving the go-ahead to the development of two oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

Both projects – the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen and the larger Rosebank oil and gas field west of Shetland – were approved by the previous Tory government. But they had to reapply for development consent after a court ruled that ministers had to consider the lifetime carbon costs of the developments, not just the emissions generated during extraction. Consultations on that issue have now closed, leaving the final decision in the hands of Andy Burnham and his energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh.

Climate ‘hysterics’

Reports suggest that a decision is expected next month, said Kathryn Porter on UnHerd. Climate campaigners have presented it as a choice between exploiting new fossil fuel reserves or stopping using oil and gas, but that’s misleading. Given that the UK is still many years away from being able to rely purely on clean energy, it’s really a choice between developing these North Sea resources during the transition to net zero or just relying on imported oil and gas, which generally involves higher emissions. Burnham can allow new oil and gas production to protect jobs and the UK tax base. “Or he can cave in to the hysterics, harming the economy and the planet in the process.”

Questionable benefits

The prime minister is pitching himself as a “pragmatist” on this issue, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. He “isn’t swayed by expensive fossil fuel lobbyists”, but he is sensitive to the arguments of oil rig workers, car manufacturers and those like the eco-entrepreneur Dale Vince, who say that if we need oil and gas from somewhere, we might as well get it from our own backyard. But Labour voters are looking for more from Burnham than mere pragmatism. They want him to be the sort of leader who can face up to the challenge posed by climate change and “sell difficult answers”.

If Burnham gives the go-ahead to developing one or both of these North Sea fields, he’ll do a lot of damage to his reputation and lose many of the voters Labour has won back from the Greens, said Hannah Martin on LabourList. And for what? The new fields wouldn’t generate huge amounts of tax, and Jackdaw would “only create 27 direct full-time jobs in total”. The economics of new North Sea drilling is questionable. The politics is even worse.

Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – better known as AOC – preparing to run for the presidency? That is the question being asked in Washington. Last week, the left-wing Democrat revealed on Instagram that she was freezing her eggs to “feel more in control” – which fuelled speculation about her political ambitions. Hours later, she gave an interview in which she refused to rule out making a White House run in 2028.

Youth in revolt

If she does go for the Democrat nomination, said Dace Potas in USA Today, she’ll have every chance of success. The democratic socialist Bernie Sanders proved to be a serious contender a decade ago, and today, the political climate is “even more receptive to his brand of populist anger”. AOC, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, is well placed to capitalise on the moment. With strong name recognition and almost 30 million social media followers to help fund her campaign, she’d have a headstart on most of her likely rivals.

What might count against her is her youth, said Henry Olsen in The Washington Post. Were she to win the election, she’d enter the White House at the age of 39, four years younger than the youngest-ever elected president, JFK. On the other hand, AOC may never get a better chance to bid for the top job, so, if she’s keen, she should take it. American history is littered with would-be candidates – Walter Mondale, Mario Cuomo, Chris Christie – who hesitated and missed their moment. Of course, winning the Democrat nomination would be the easy bit. “The general election would be a different story.”

Woke 2

AOC carries a lot of baggage, said David Harsanyi in the Washington Examiner. In the Covid era, she joined in the talk of defunding the police and the clamour to cancel any public figure deemed to have transgressed progressive pieties about race and systemic oppression. Asked last week about some of the more extreme positions she and other left-wingers had taken, she tried to laugh it all off, saying “Woke 1 was crazy”. Granted, everyone should be allowed to change their views “as they learn and grow”, but AOC needs to explain exactly how her thinking has evolved and what her vision of Woke 2 is.

She owes voters more than just an “oops”, agreed Charles C.W. Cooke in National Review. Were the tables turned, she wouldn’t let a Republican politician get away with it. If AOC wants to win the trust of American voters, “she’ll have to do better than this”.

U.S. allies in Asia have long depended on the American military for their defense. But President Donald Trump in recent days has curtailed U.S. participation in joint exercises with South Korea and at the same time ordered the lone American aircraft carrier to depart for the Middle East. The question now is whether the United States remains dedicated to Asian security.

No more ‘pivot to Asia’

The Trump administration “promised a pivot from the Middle East to East Asia,” Matthew Petti said at Reason. The opposite is now happening, with the U.S. commitment in the Pacific “taking a back seat to the U.S. presence in the Middle East.” The war with Iran is “dominating both the long-term planning and day-to-day execution” of foreign policy in the Trump White House. This is not new: Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden also promised to redirect attention away from the Middle East and toward China but failed to do so. “The problem is deeper than the hubris of one president.”

Trump’s sudden decision to pull back from the South Korean drills “does not mean the U.S. alliance system in Asia is collapsing,” Retired Lt. Gen. Chun In-bum said in The Korea Times. The abruptness of Trump’s decision — and his linking it to his friendly relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — does however mean that Asian allies will “inevitably begin asking how much they can rely on U.S. commitments during a future crisis.” The answer to that question is vital as China becomes “increasingly assertive” and North Korea begins “cooperating more closely” with Russia. South Korea’s “survival and security are at stake.”

Asia’s ‘indispensable military power’

The stakes of Trump’s apparent pullback are high “not only for U.S. allies, but for the United States, too,” Sheila A. Smith said at the Council on Foreign Relations. A reduction in American fidelity to the Pacific could cause South Korea and Japan to seek nuclear weapons, while also ceding ground to U.S. rivals such as China and Russia. Another factor: Reported shortages of U.S. munitions in Iran have raised questions about whether the U.S. is even capable of “offering protection to its allies in Asia.” But the apparent trend of “deliberately weakening” longstanding American alliances will be “cause for celebration” in Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang.

The United States is Asia’s “indispensable military power,” Craig Singleton said at The Washington Post. The American president’s unpredictability has already forced U.S. allies to begin “assuming greater responsibility for their own security.” Japan has begun its “largest postwar defense buildup” by signing agreements with Australia and the Philippines, India is expanding its military commitments and Taiwan is spending heavily to “harden its military, civil defense and critical infrastructure” against a Chinese invasion. That should fit Trump’s “American First” agenda, but the region still depends on “predictable American commitments and clear crisis planning.”

What happened

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday vowed to halt all of President Donald Trump’s nominees until his administration eases a wetlands conservation policy aimed at protecting the breeding grounds of ducks and other waterfowl. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last weekend said it would at least temporarily retain the Biden-era program, which bars farmers from draining land near protected federal conservation easements.

Who said what

“My farmers are furious and so am I,” Cramer said in a statement to The Hill. The Trump administration’s “blind defense of a Biden rule favored by environmental extremists” just “confounds me,” particularly when farmers are “hurting so badly” amid “rising fuel and fertilizer costs resulting from limited traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.” But “other Republicans and hunters staunchly oppose any changes that would allow farmers to drain wetlands” and potentially “cause steep declines in duck populations,” said E&E News. The Upper Midwest’s Prairie Pothole region “supports more than half of North America’s ducks,” said the Washington Examiner.

What next?

“There will be no pause in my aggression” on the issue, Cramer told E&E News. “I have put a hold on all nominees, period, of all agencies. So I hope Clarence Thomas stays healthy.” Such holds “don’t necessarily prevent confirmation” of a president’s picks, said The Hill, but “they can cause a significant setback.”

What happened

California state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D) on Thursday secured victory in the special election to serve out the remainder of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) term in the House. With nearly all ballots counted from Tuesday’s vote, Wahab led fellow Democrat Melissa Hernandez 53% to 47%. Swalwell resigned in April after multiple women accused him of sexual assault and harassment. The FBI seized his phone and laptop at the San Francisco airport and searched his Washington, D.C., home last weekend as part of a federal investigation into sexual misconduct allegations, CNN and other news organizations reported.

Who said what

Wahab, a progressive who ran on housing affordability, will be the first Afghan American to serve in Congress. She was long “favored to win” the safely Democratic seat, the Los Angeles Times said, but the “race became more competitive” after the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC “spent millions on ads attacking her.”

What next?

Wahab and Hernandez will face each other again in November to compete for a full two-year term. In a statement, Hernandez, a public transit executive and former mayor of Dublin, California, said the next election “will be in the new district lines, adding 26,000 Dublin voters who didn’t have the chance to vote for me in August.”

What happened

A federal judge in Boston on Tuesday lifted his order blocking the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for about 5,000 Ethiopians living in the U.S. The Supreme Court in June “curtailed the ability of judges” to review the administration’s efforts to “end TPS designations ⁠for 13 countries,” Reuters said, and U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s new order “lifted the last judicial block.”

Who said what

“All TPS terminations are in effect!” Homeland Security Department General Counsel James Percival said on social media after the ruling. The “crisis in Ethiopia is still ongoing,” said Diana Konaté at African Communities Together, one of the plaintiffs, “and this decision puts the lives of thousands” of TPS holders “at severe risk.”

Between Haitians, Somalis, Venezuelans and other groups, Trump’s DHS has moved to end TPS “for an estimated million-plus” people, “straining industries” like home care, nursing care and construction, Axios said. TPS expiration dates are also “looming for thousands of others,” including “some 170,000 people from El Salvador and 101,000 from Ukraine.”

What next?

Murphy ruled that the Supreme Court had rendered most of the plaintiffs’ objections moot, but he allowed them to “continue to litigate over whether ⁠DHS’s action ​was motivated by racial or national origin animus,” Reuters said.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night announced a three-day pause on 50% tariffs he had threatened to impose on $20 billion of Canadian imports. “Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” he said on social media, about 90 minutes before the midnight deadline. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the two sides had made “substantial progress,” but there’s “important work still to be done.”

Who said what

Trump’s tariffs “would have risked escalation into a trade war between the North American neighbors,” The Wall Street Journal said. But the “political impact would likely have been bigger than the economic one,” The Associated Press said. Canada had “threatened to retaliate” with “levies of its own,” and Trump would be “taking a risk by imposing a hefty new tariff” on consumer goods ahead of midterm elections, with U.S. voters “already frustrated with the high cost of living.”

What next?

Trump has “previously announced deals with other countries, only to have them fall through,” The New York Times said. But the U.S. and Canada both have “reason to step back from the brink,” the AP said. Long-term government borrowing costs “hit their highest in decades” on Tuesday, Reuters said, as “Trump’s policies — from tariffs to war — upend the global order.”

What happened

Tuesday’s primaries in Florida, Wyoming and Alaska delivered another surprise win for democratic socialists, another loss for a House incumbent and a mixed bag for candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump. His pick for Florida governor, Rep. Byron Donalds, won the Republican primary and will face Democrat David Jolly, a former GOP member. But in Wyoming’s GOP gubernatorial contest, Trump-backed Megan Degenfelder lost to state Sen. Eric Barlow.

Trump’s candidate to replace Donalds in the House, Catalina Lauf, was defeated by conservative talk radio station owner Jim Schwartzel in a crowded GOP primary. And Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who previously had Trump’s backing, became the “fourth House Republican to lose his primary this year,” Semafor said, “solving a problem for colleagues who wanted him and his scandals” gone.

On the Democratic side, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a new member of the Democratic Socialists of America, beat the better-funded Alexander Vindman to face Sen. Ashley Moody (R) in November. Nixon’s win was a “stunner,” CNN said. But the “progressive insurgency fell short in two other closely watched” Florida races, as Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Jared Moskowitz prevailed in newly drawn districts.

Who said what

Tuesday’s results were the “latest indication that Trump’s endorsement — the most coveted asset in Republican campaigns — is no guarantee of victory,” CNN said. They were also another “lesson in why not to write national narratives out of every race,” Semafor said.

What next?

“Very few” of the contested seats “will be competitive in November,” Semafor said. In an exception, former Rep. Mary Peltola (D) and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) will face each other — and likely another Dan Sullivan — in Alaska’s four-way ranked-choice Senate election.

Following his reforms in Manchester, Andy Burnham “enters No. 10 understanding what drives the crisis” of rough sleeping, said Jennifer Williams in the Financial Times.

To fund his A Bed Every Night scheme – 600 new beds across shelters in each of Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs, open 365 days a year – he donated 15% of his own salary, and used the media to draw attention to the issue. And in the region, rough sleeping numbers are 25% below where they were in 2017.

But crucially “in the almost-decade Burnham was mayor he never ended rough sleeping in Greater Manchester”, said email newspaper The Mill. And that’s why there remains a healthy dose of scepticism about his pledge that every person sleeping on England’s streets is to be offered somewhere to stay this winter. “Ever an optimist” it could be that Burnham “feels that with the power afforded to him as prime minister he can finally make good on the promise”, said The Mill. But regardless, “it is still an incredibly bold one to make”.

What did the commentators say?

He may have failed to meet the Manchester target, said the FT, but he “galvanised a fragmented local system to focus on the crisis, while experimenting with a series of local policies, some of them successful”. But a growing group of long-term rough sleepers are now emerging from the asylum system.

This policy raises “all sorts of political questions” when it comes to homelessness, said Britain editor Anoosh Chakelian in The New Statesman. Primarily, “regarding ‘no recourse to public funds’”, which bans migrants without settled status claiming most benefits. This condition is a “significant cause of hardship and rough sleeping”, and is only getting worse through the “closure of asylum hotels” which is “contributing to more visible destitution on Britain’s streets”.

Burnham’s pledge to end rough sleeping by Christmas echoes the success of the Everyone In scheme undertaken during the Covid pandemic, said the BBC, which saw “thousands of rough sleepers housed in hotels and temporary accommodation”. In total, around “37,000 people were helped by that scheme”. But currently, according to government data, an estimated 4,793 people were sleeping rough on a single night in autumn last year, which is a 96% increase since 2021.

“The Christmas pledge is a major test for Burnham’s key day-one promise to tackle homelessness,” said Vicky Spratt, housing and society correspondent in The i Paper. And “it is possible that not all councils will welcome being asked to work towards this goal”. Currently in England, more than 1.3 million households are “languishing on local councils’ social housing waiting lists”, and addressing this issue with local authorities is “non-negotiable” for Burnham and Minister for Housing Angela Rayner.

This is one of the “hardest-to-achieve” pledges in office, said Caroline Hug in Politico. His announcement of an additional £102 million gives his “big rough-sleeping pledge some meat”, but it is light on detail. “It still doesn’t set out a route to zero or say when the government actually expects to get there.” And while highly effective efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic show a solution is possible, it is “harder to make that solution stick”. This policy will test Burnham’s resolve on devolution, as he “has not given his government control over all the levers to achieve it”. And it could backfire: “if shop doorways empty over Christmas but fill again in spring, who will the public decide is responsible?”

What next?

The issue is not whether ending rough sleeping is “desirable or achievable”, it is figuring out why “previous attempts have collapsed”, said Jo Richardson, professor of housing and social inclusion at Nottingham Trent University, on The Conversation. Even if enough homes were built, the “biggest fear” for rough sleepers is not being able to provide rent, it is “being alone behind a locked door”. “Any serious homelessness strategy needs to fund social connection as deliberately as it funds bricks and mortar.” This requires a dedicated support workforce, and integrated partnerships across health and social care: a “bigger, more specific commitment than five years of funding alone can achieve”.

Melania Trump has not been seen in public since the World Cup final on 19 July. Over the past 30 days, the first lady has skipped a series of high-profile events attended by her husband, including Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. So what is going on?

‘Even lower profile’

At this point in her husband’s second presidential term, Melania has only managed half the number of public appearances she’d clocked up at the same point in his first term, an NBC News analysis shows. She’s “only made 38 public appearances this year”, said The Guardian. And now “she’s been MIA for about a month”.

Her public schedule “nearly vanished” over the summer, said the Daily Beast, dropping to just five public appearances in June and July, “two of which were sporting events”. Melania is “dramatically less active” than other 21st-century first ladies: her 29 speeches since her husband returned to office last year pale in comparison to the 130 Michelle Obama gave over a similar period.

“To be fair,” this isn’t completely “out of character”, said The Guardian. During Donald Trump’s first term, his wife’s “frequent absences sparked various conspiracy theories, including one that she had a body double”. But, this time round, she seems to be “keeping an even lower profile”. Those who think Melania “work-shy” can’t accuse her of being “camera-shy”, though: she starred in a glossy eponymous documentary in January, and a “companion docuseries” is scheduled for release on Amazon Prime this autumn.

Aide ‘speculation’

In Melania’s absence, Trump aide Natalie Harp “has seldom strayed far from the president’s side”, said The Independent. The 35-year-old former One America News Network presenter joined Trump’s staff in 2022 and “reportedly helps manage the president’s Truth Social account”. White House colleagues apparently call her “the human printer” for continuously supplying him with printouts of positive news material. In May, Harp accompanied the president on his state visit to China – “a trip Melania Trump did not attend”.

Harp has written the president “adoring letters”, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan said in their book, “Regime Change”. In one, she wrote: “You are all that matters to me”; in another, she called the president her “Guardian and Protector in this life”.

The “speculation” about Trump’s relationship with Harp “upsets his wife”, said The Telegraph: the president’s “perceived closeness” to his aide is fuelling “unfounded rumours that the pair are having an affair”. There was “furious backlash” this week when Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff said the president “doesn’t want to do his job” and would rather “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie”. A White House spokesman shot back that Harp is “one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump’s team… Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says.”

Work ‘behind the scenes’

The first lady “prioritises results over appearances”, Melania’s senior adviser told NBC News. On Monday, the White House announced that the first lady had “facilitated the reunification of another child with her family” after “being separated” during the Russian war with Ukraine. “There is nothing more powerful than reuniting a mother with her child after an extended period of time”, Melania was quoted as saying. She is now “focused” on her “next reunification” effort.

“This is a first lady who isn’t troubled by what her critics think,” said NBC’s White House correspondent Monica Alba. Some domestic and overseas travel has been “scaled down” but officials say “that’s because she’s doing a lot of work behind the scenes”. Melania is scheduled to attend a few high-profile events in coming weeks, including September’s UN General Assembly in New York.

What happened

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s second request to throw out a jury’s $5 million civil judgment that he assaulted and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump paid Carroll the $5 million plus interest last month, a “few days after the court initially turned away” his appeal, The New York Times said. The court on Monday “formally declined” his “long-shot request to the justices that they reconsider.” There was no stated reasoning and no noted dissents.

Who said what

Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the American people “demand an immediate end to all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll hoaxes.” Trump, they added, will “keep winning against liberal lawfare.” The “jury’s unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E. Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said after the ruling.

What next?

Trump’s appeal of a separate $83 million judgment for Carroll is “pending at the Supreme Court,” said CNN. The “justices are on summer recess,” the Times said, and “not expected to consider whether to take up that case until late September at the earliest.”

What happened

A federal judge in Maryland on Monday blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to keep the FBI headquartered in Washington, D.C., saying the decision illegally discarded the General Services Administration’s congressionally approved 2023 decision to build a new complex in Maryland. The administration said last year that the FBI would move from its longtime headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building to the Ronald Reagan Building a few blocks away, the previous home of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Who said what

Congress, through a pair of laws, required the GSA to pick a site for the FBI headquarters “from ​among three suburban ⁠locations outside of Washington,” Reuters said. The Biden administration picked Greenbelt, Maryland, ending “almost 15 years” of debate on where to base the law enforcement agency. Maryland sued after Trump tried to reverse course, and U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang agreed, barring the administration from moving the FBI to the Reagan Building or diverting about $1 billion in funding approved for the Greenbelt campus.

What next?

Chuang’s ruling is “almost certainly not the end of the lengthy dispute,” The New York Times said. “In the meantime, the FBI continues to operate from its old headquarters, an aging colossus veiled in netting to keep concrete from falling on passers-by.”

What happened

The Trump administration on Monday said it was temporarily halting construction on a contentious border project in Texas’ Big Bend National Park. In a video on social media, Customs and Border Protection chief Rodney Scott said he had “put a pause on all activity in that park, as far as construction goes, until I can get down there” to West Texas to “do a personal evaluation” and “talk to some stakeholders.”

Who said what

Scott’s announcement “comes amid massive outcry from local residents, businesses and law enforcement officials,” The Texas Tribune said, and “bipartisan frustration” over CBP’s shifting accounts of its plans for the treasured national park. CBP earlier this year “backed off plans to build a 30-foot-tall bollard wall” through Big Bend, The Associated Press said. But it is “still moving forward with other border protection measures such as a new road, lights” and vehicle barriers.

The deployment of bulldozers last week drew “national attention and bipartisan criticism” from across Texas over the project’s “speed” and “seeming disregard for a prized piece of untrammeled wilderness,” The New York Times said. Local sheriffs argue the project is “costly and unnecessary in a desolate and undeveloped area where few migrants have ever crossed.” The CBP’s Big Bend Sector “covers a quarter of the U.S.-Mexico border,” CNN said, but “sees only about 1% of border apprehensions.”

What next?

CBP did not say how long it would pause construction. If Scott “doesn’t alter the trajectory after visiting,” Jeff Leach, the owner of Big Bend’s Basecamp Terlingua hotel, told CNN, “this place is going to go nuts and the national pressure will only increase.”

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has fired the starting gun on the next presidential election, and it’s shaping up to be the country’s closest and most consequential political contest in decades.

The left-wing leader, commonly known as Lula, has launched his campaign for a historic fourth term, vowing not to let the “shameless” right wing return to power. His chief rival will be Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup after losing office in 2022.

But the “two-man race” between Lula and Bolsonaro has “increasingly become a three-way fight” involving Donald Trump, said The Wall Street Journal. Lula has accused the US president of trying to interfere in the October election on behalf of Bolsonaro, while “tit-for-tat visa disputes and US tariffs” have plunged US-Brazilian relations to “their lowest point in years”.

Who are the main contenders?

Lula, whose first two terms spanned 2003 to 2011 and was elected again in 2023, is seeking re-election for the centre-left Workers’ Party. If the 80-year-old wins, Brazil would be the only left-wing major economy left in South America. Flávio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator, “is running as the political heir to his father”, said The Wall Street Journal. There are several other conservative and right-wing candidates but all are currently polling in the single digits.

If no one wins more than 50% of the votes on 4 October, the two frontrunners will progress to a second-round runoff on 25 October. A BTG Pactual/Nexus ​poll reported this week by Reuters suggests that a runoff would see Lula receive 47%, with Bolsonaro on 44%.

What is the likely outcome?

Lula’s approval ratings are high: certainly at “levels at which incumbents can expect to win”, said The Economist. And Bolsonaro’s campaign “took a mighty blow in May”, when leaked recordings revealed he had asked for money from a “disgraced banker at the heart of Brazil’s largest-ever bank fraud”.

But “there could still be an upset”: Lula is “seen as weak” on corruption and crime – both top voter concerns. He also spent 19 months in prison for corruption himself before his conviction was overturned on a technicality in 2021. “Many voters have never forgiven him.”

It’s possible that disillusioned voters, “unenthusiastic” about either Lula or Bolsonaro, could boost the prospects of the currently low-polling Renan Santos, leader of the Missão party. A former entrepreneur, the “firebrand outsider”, who “models himself” on Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, criticises both Bolsonaro and Lula in “slick videos posted to millions of followers”.

What is Trump up to?

Trump has already interfered in several Latin American elections since he returned to the White House, said The Economist. And “right-wing lookalikes” have won the past seven. Experts say the Brazilian vote will “serve as a test case of how far Trump and an increasingly co-ordinated global right are willing to go to reshape Latin America’s political landscape”, said The Wall Street Journal.

The US president has recently “turned up the heat on Brazil”, said The Guardian. He has proscribed Brazil’s two biggest criminal groups as terrorist organisations, a move that some observers fear could be laying the groundwork for “a US military intervention”. Trump has also revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, after Brasilia withheld approval of Trump’s own ambassadorial nominee, and denied entry to several US diplomats it accused of planning to meddle in the election.

“This reflects a dangerous convergence between Washington’s long-standing interventionist instincts in Latin America” and “the interests of Brazil’s far right”, said Brazilian journalist Raphael Tsavkko Garcia on Al Jazeera.

Reform UK’s plans to cut £50 billion per year from the welfare bill – unveiled yesterday by Robert Jenrick – are “extremely ambitious”, but also a “political risk”, said Ben Chu on BBC Verify.

Nigel Farage has said the party will not cut pensions, meaning roughly £207 billion of the overall £353 billion welfare budget is up for grabs, and Jenrick aims to cut around 25% of that.

Under the plans, long-term welfare claimants who are fit to work would be forced to do 20 hours of community work a week, and foreign nationals would be banned from claiming benefits altogether. Personal Independence Payments (Pip) to disabled claimants would be scrapped and replaced with a “health security allowance” with more stringent eligibility criteria that could exclude up to two-thirds of current recipients.

These proposals may fit Reform’s “current ideological appeal”, pollster Sir John Curtice told The Independent. But this has limitations to their wider appeal, and has the potential to significantly backfire with their base.

What did the commentators say?

The “centrepiece” of the policy is to exclude foreign nationals from claiming most UK benefits, said an editorial in The Times, including European Union citizens with ­settled status in the UK.

This is just another “calculated bang on the populist drum”: the majority of foreign nationals “don’t qualify in the first place”. UK visas stipulate a clause of “no recourse to public funds”. Not only would stripping entitlement from the 4.3 million EU citizens who have been in the UK for many years antagonise relationships with the bloc, it would be “pointless”; many of those with indefinite leave to remain would have a “near-certain chance of being granted British ­citizenship should they apply”.

But for the Reform base, a more pressing issue is the “proposed abolition of Pip”, said journalist Fraser Nelson on his Substack newsletter. “Every Reform MP sits on more Pip claimants than the majority that elected them.”

In Jenrick’s seat of Newark, where he was elected as a Conservative with a majority of 3,572, there are 6,011 residents who claim Pip. And almost all of Reform’s target seats are “heavily welfare dependent”. Jenrick risks going into the next election as “the Pip-snatcher, the grim reaper of welfare”. “The Labour attack lines write themselves.”

There’s no doubt that the welfare state “needs reform – but not Reform”, said The Independent’s editorial board. Not only would the proposed cuts impose “much misery on the most vulnerable in society”, but they would also “substantially weaken” the British economy.

Employers with more than five staff would “take on the role of the state in social insurance and health care”, carrying a “significant increase” in cost, risk and pastoral responsibilities. Afforded only “tiny tax breaks” in return, employers would be “even less willing to take on people with long-term conditions, or who they perceive as liable to develop them”.

There may be “flaws” in the Reform approach, but the ambitious scale of the reforms is “laudable”, said an editorial in The Telegraph. Jenrick is seeking to “revive” the “something-for-something contributory principle” of William Beveridge, “founder of the welfare state”, but is up against a system that is growing at an “unsustainable” pace.

What next?

Reform has been overtaken in the polls by Labour “for the first time in more than a year”, because of the “bounce” under Andy Burnham’s leadership, said the Financial Times. The government has said that it was “already reforming welfare by narrowing the gap between standard and health universal credit rates”, by reintroducing face-to-face assessments and “investing £3.5 billion in employment support”.

Burnham’s willingness to get to grips with the expanding welfare state is “likely to emerge as the key dividing line over the coming months”, said Rupert Yorke, former deputy chief of staff to Rishi Sunak, in The i Paper. “It remains to be seen whether he prioritises this issue with his backbenchers over his ambitious plans for regional devolution or social care”.

Kemi Badenoch is not a fool, said Tom Harris in The Telegraph; nor is she remotely an antisemite. So why did she stick her neck out for Joshua Bonehill-Paine, the former neo-Nazi who’d hoped to stand as a Tory councillor in Somerset?

Having served time in jail for waging a repulsive campaign of racial hatred against the former Labour MP Luciana Berger, Bonehill-Paine claims to be a reformed character, dedicated to fighting antisemitism.

And perhaps he is – but that didn’t make it appropriate for him to stand for office, especially when he hadn’t even apologised to Berger for what he termed “Operation Filthy Jew Bitch”.

Belief in ‘second chances’?

Yet when his candidacy was being condemned by all sides last week, said Harris, Badenoch defended it; and when he withdrew it, she gave him a role as an adviser on radicalisation instead. The Tory leader is savvy enough to have seen the risk to her reputation. So the only possible explanation for her apparent poor judgement is that she believes in second chances – and has the courage to stick to her principles, even if they make her unpopular.

I don’t buy it, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. Her belief in “second chances” was not in evidence in 2024, when it emerged that the Labour minister Louise Haigh had been convicted of fraud a decade ago. We need “conviction politicians”, she said, “not politicians with convictions”.

Yet Haigh’s offence – falsely reporting the theft of a mobile phone – was as nothing compared with Bonehill-Paine’s (who also has a conviction for assault). Unwisely, Badenoch tried to further justify his candidacy by saying he’d only sought a local platform – “looking at parking and sorting out bins” – thus insulting her existing councillors at the same time.

‘Wider concerns’ about strategy

In May, Badenoch impressed many by taking a clear stand against antisemitism, said Kate Maltby in The Observer. Yet last week found her supporting a former neo-Nazi – presumably because she’d decided that the Tories needed his Crewkerne Gazette platform, known for its viral AI videos mocking Labour, to be on its side.

This row has revived “wider concerns” about her entire strategy of tacking to the right, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper. Only days earlier, Badenoch had warned that ex-centrist MPs – who support net-zero targets, or don’t want the UK to leave the ECHR – won’t be allowed back into the parliamentary party. But while she seeks to win votes from Reform UK, her critics argue that, for an outright majority, the Tories need to win back the seats they’ve lost to the Lib Dems. Time will tell who is right, but for now, the One Nation lot are well and truly out in the cold.

What happened

President Donald Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to add his name back to the building’s facade and follow through with his plan to close most of the center for two years of renovations. This apparent “attempt to find a creative workaround” to the federal law governing the Kennedy Center also “aggressively” tests U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s May ruling that blocked the center’s closure and ordered Trump’s name removed, The New York Times said.

Who said what

The board decided the center’s facade would now read “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump,” and its grounds would be renamed “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” according to Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the ex-officio board member who successfully sued to get Trump’s name excised. The new decisions are a “transparent effort to circumvent the court’s ruling,” Beatty said in a statement.

The Kennedy Center has become an “unlikely — and highly visible — metaphor for presidential power” in Trump’s second term, The Associated Press said. His name was removed in June, but a “massive tarp” has shielded the court-ordered void from public view. Board member and longtime Trump ally Paolo Zampolli told the Times his goal was to reinscribe Trump’s name “as big as it can get.”

What next?

As with the Kennedy Center’s prior legal issues, the board’s decisions will be subject to Cooper’s approval.

What happened

The Department of Homeland Security secretly surveilled and infiltrated labor unions and progressive groups during ICE’s surge in Minnesota, beginning four days after an immigration agent killed protester Alex Pretti in January, according to newly released government documents filed Thursday. The filing, from a defense attorney for one of 15 indicted protesters, documents “an array of invasive tactics” used to gather information on “many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes,” The New York Times said, evidently “crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.”

Who said what

DHS opened two investigations, according to the filing. “Operation Puppet Master” involved “extensive use of undercover informants” to “probe gatherings at churches,” union halls and other places, Talking Points Memo said, while “Operation Whipple Shield” was a “sweeping campaign to obtain financial records from people and groups organizing against” the ICE surge. The “surveillance reports in particular documented what largely appeared to be political activity protected by the First Amendment,” the Times said.

What next?

“So far, none of the organizations targeted” in the operations “have faced charges,” the Times said. But “prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of labor unions — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers,” and the subpoenaed financial records went “well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota.”

“What was the point of it all?” said Joe Pike on the BBC. Given that Nigel Farage “triggered this race and the result was entirely predictable”, did the Reform leader get what he wanted out of the Clacton by-election?

If he did, he didn’t celebrate it at the count. Reform UK claimed that Essex Police had warned of a threat to Farage’s safety, which meant he stayed away from the result declaration. But that claim was denied by the police.

When Reform chair Lee Anderson was pressed on this counter-narrative he told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme: “It’s not up to you at the BBC to decide if there’s a credible threat, it’s up to Nigel and his security team. He celebrated a stunning victory in Clacton. The people have stuck two fingers up to people like the BBC, the establishment, the whole blob.”

Not everyone agrees though. Farage “wanted a narrative of him taking on all comers on his own terms”, said James Ball in The New World. But the reality is, he “ended up in a low-stakes fight for his political survival against a comedically oversized bin”.

Farage won with 63% of the vote, with comedy candidate Count Binface coming second with 27% in an election boycotted by all of the main Westminster parties, who dismissed it as a stunt.

What did the commentators say?

In calling the by-election Farage “hoped to cock a snook at an establishment he feels is trying to bring him and his party down via allegations about financial contributions to himself and his party”, said polling guru John Curtice in The Times. In practice, “his decision was followed by an immediate fall in his party’s support, just when its year-long lead in the polls was under threat”. Reform’s national vote share in the polls is down to 24% after hitting a high of 32% last September.

What the by-election has revealed is that Farage, “a savvy, guerrilla political operator, and perhaps the most able political communicator of his generation, can be guilty of missteps”, said Jonny Ball on UnHerd. His victory “will not put a stop to awkward questions” and “the standards inquiry into his donations row will now continue”. He had hoped the by-election “might allow him to chalk up another success on his long political journey, but this victory will feel pyrrhic, and particularly hollow”.

But will it? I'm not so sure, said Ross Clark in The Spectator. Farage has shown that in Clacton “his personal support is every bit as strong as it was before”. It is remarkable that he won “more votes than he did in the 2024 general election in spite of the turnout collapsing”. Yes, Clacton “tells us nothing about the state of political play in Britain at the moment, because it wasn’t a proper contest”, but “I would be wary of anyone claiming that Farage has been weakened by it”.

What next?

Farage has “managed to professionalise Reform UK”, said Pike on the BBC. In securing significant funding and recruiting high-profile figures like Robert Jenrick and Zia Yusuf he is seeking to prove “that the third political party he has led during his long career is not just a one-man-band”.

But ultimately it is “voters nationally, and not in this corner of Essex”, who will decide Farage’s future and whether this by-election will “mark a downward shift in Farage’s brand”, or whether it will “be a springboard towards achieving his bigger aspiration of getting to Downing Street”.

What happened

President Donald Trump was sued in federal court on Wednesday over a new Trump Media offering that sells early access to his social media posts for up to $100,000 per month. The First Amendment “guarantees equal access to the president’s public announcements,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept argued in their suit.

Who said what

“A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls” is “blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a statement. Trump owns more than 40% of Trump Media, Truth Social’s parent company.

Trump often uses Truth Social to “announce policy decisions, executive orders, personnel changes and war declarations,” CNN said, and “clearly, the company — and Wall Street — believe the special access holds significant value.” Trump Media on Wednesday called the plaintiffs “left-wing activists” who are “trying to wrongfully weaponize the courts to censor” Trump and “harm our shareholders.”

What next?

Trump Media, which reported a $238 million quarterly loss this week, “needs the money — and a lot more” — and “the clock is ticking,” The Associated Press said. Its lenders can “demand” early repayment of $1 billion in late November, and after Trump leaves office, it’s “not clear” why traders would still “pay as much $1.2 million a year for sneak peeks at his posts.”

What happened

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt “will be departing her role at the end of the month,” President Donald Trump said on social media Wednesday. Leavitt said on X she “made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House” after returning from maternity leave last month and realizing she couldn’t do the job and “be the best mom my two young children deserve.” Trump said it was a “decision I totally understand and respect.”

Who said what

The “youngest White House press secretary in history,” Leavitt has been one of Trump’s “closest advisers” and “fiercest defenders” in his second term, The Wall Street Journal said. She’s leaving “at a critical time for the White House,” The New York Times said, with Trump facing “multiple headwinds, foreign and domestic,” and midterm elections in “which he will need to sell policies” that Leavitt was “among the most effective at defending.”

What next?

“Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisers, and an influential voice within the Republican Party,” Trump said. The White House did not say when he would name Leavitt’s replacement — a position that “does not require Senate confirmation,” said Axios.

What happened

Primaries on Tuesday in Minnesota and Wisconsin offered mixed verdicts for the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic Party and for candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump. In the most-watched contest, establishment-backed David Crowley eked out a projected win in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, beating democratic socialist Francesca Hong by less than 1%. He will face Rep. Tom Tiffany (R) in the general election. Michael Alfonso, the Trump-backed son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, won the GOP primary for Tiffany’s seat.

Trump-endorsed “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell lost Minnesota’s GOP gubernatorial primary to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth. She will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D). Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D), the more progressive candidate in the primary to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D), beat Rep. Angie Craig and will face Republican former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya.

Who said what

Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, dropped out of the “chaotic race” in July but “reactivated his campaign” after the “implosion” of two top establishment rivals, CNN said. His “stunningly narrow, surprise win” over Hong “seemed to settle little in the party’s national battle” between establishment and “insurgent, populist” left, The Associated Press said. A week after progressive Abdul El-Sayed beat out his moderate rival by a similarly “razor-thin” margin in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, “neither side” appears to be “winning the argument convincingly.”

What next?

In South Carolina, Trump-endorsed Sen. Darline Graham (R) advanced to an Aug. 25 runoff in Tuesday’s special GOP primary to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, on November’s ballot. She will face hardline conservative Rep. Ralph Norman.

Ann Widdecombe, who has died aged 78, enjoyed a level of prominence in public life that was unusual for a politician whose most senior role in government was as a mid-level minister.

That was partly due to her robust opinions on a range of issues, some informed by her Christian faith – which she never shied away from voicing. It also helped that she was instantly recognisable, said The Times, with her pudding-bowl haircut, no-nonsense manner and rasping voice. In a typically forthright appraisal, she said of herself: “I am toothy, dumpy, ugly, overweight and a spinster – what the hell.”

As a politician, her most significant action was arguably sinking Michael Howard’s leadership bid following the party’s defeat in 1997. The pair had feuded at the Home Office, and Widdecombe got her revenge by giving a speech in Parliament in which she tore into her ex-boss’s character and record; her leaked private comment – that there was “something of the night about him” – followed him for years.

Second career

Yet Widdecombe was a kinder, more sensitive person than her uncompromising “carapace” suggested, said The Guardian. This became more apparent when she retired from front-line politics, and embarked on an unexpected second career as a TV personality. On “Strictly Come Dancing”, she gamely allowed herself to be hauled across the dancefloor like a sack of potatoes; she was a runner-up on “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2018; and she appeared in several pantomimes.

The public learnt that “Widdy” had for years acted as a surrogate mother-figure to the children of a local kebab shop owner, said The Daily Telegraph, and that she had spent thousands to get a nephew off drugs. When, in 2009, the Telegraph published its report about MPs’ expenses, she was singled out as one of the “saints” at Westminster, reinforcing the view that whatever else she was, she was not corruptible.

Westminster controversies

Widdecombe was born in 1947. Her father was a civil servant in the Admiralty Office. Although she was Anglican, she was sent to a Catholic boarding school. She read Latin at Birmingham University, and then PPE at Oxford, where she became involved in student politics and had her only boyfriend: Colin Maltby was president of the Oxford Union. On graduating, she worked first for Unilever, and later as a university administrator.

Widdecombe spent years trying to become a Tory MP, applying to scores of constituencies. She stood twice unsuccessfully before finally being elected MP for Maidstone in 1987; she would represent that part of Kent for 23 years. At Westminster, she soon made her mark with the first in a series of aggressive efforts to restrict access to abortion. She also supported capital punishment, and voted against the repeal of Section 28, the law banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools, and civil partnerships. When the Church of England allowed the ordination of women priests, Widdecombe converted to Catholicism.

As prisons minister from 1995, she made waves by seeming to defend the practice of female prisoners being kept in handcuffs during childbirth. In fact, they were only shackled until they went into labour, and after they’d given birth, but the public was not impressed by the distinction and in the media she was dubbed Doris Karloff. Her row with Howard was over his sacking of the director of the Prison Service, Derek Lewis, which she thought unfair. From 1999 to 2001, she was shadow home secretary.

Having insisted that she’d never leave the Tories, she defected to the Brexit Party in 2019 and later joined Reform UK. Since 2010, she had lived in a bungalow at the edge of Dartmoor that she had named Widdecombe’s Rest. She was found dead there in July with serious injuries; police have opened a murder investigation.

What happened

President Donald Trump left a NATO summit in Turkey last month aboard an alternate military aircraft after publicly boarding Air Force One, then secretly exiting from the plane’s opposite side in an “airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight,” The Washington Post reported Monday, citing U.S. officials and “corroborating material.” The “elaborate deception” to “spirit” Trump out of the region was prompted by a credible “threat against him and Air Force One from Iran,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

The “furtive operation” was apparently “developed in a matter of hours,” the Times said. Reporters flying with Trump were not told of the deception, thereby “making them unwitting participants in the ruse and leaving them, along with some White House staff members, to serve as unknowing decoys.” The journalists and staffers were not “made aware of the extent of the threat on Air Force One,” the Post said.

When reporters asked Trump later why they had been advised to keep their window shades closed on the flight from Ankara to Britain, he said they were “probably on a dangerous flight,” but since he’s Iran’s top target, “if I go, you go.”

What next?

Asked about the reports, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said “many enemies of America” have “their sights on” Trump and “we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”

What happened

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) will remain on the ballot in November after Monday’s state deadline to replace him passed. Allegations that Miller physically and emotionally abused his ex-wife and 2-year-old daughter helped turn what had been a safe Republican district into a competitive race against Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Monday shifted Miller’s 7th Congressional District from “likely Republican” to “toss-up.”

Who said what

Republican officials had “led an intense push” to get Miller out of the race, CNN said. But as it became clear he wouldn’t drop out, members of President Donald Trump’s political team urged Ohio Republicans “not to wage a public pressure campaign” against him, arguing that such “moot” efforts “would complicate messaging” when “those same leaders would likely later have to defend Miller’s candidacy,” said Politico.

What next?

Local Republican leaders in North Carolina’s 11th District on Monday selected state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom to replace Rep. Chuck Edwards, who dropped his reelection bid last week after the House Ethics Committee urged his censure over troubling conduct toward two female aides. Balkcom “will now have roughly 80 days to crisscross” the mountainous district and raise a “crush of cash” to compete against well-funded Democrat Jamie Ager, said The New York Times.

Colombia’s short-lived era of leftist leadership has ended, as far-right politician Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as the nation’s 36th president. Unlike his predecessor Gustavo Petro, who was the only left-wing president in modern Colombian history, de la Espriella wants to shift the South American country to the right. He is also dealing with a major natural disaster in his first days in office.

What did the commentators say?

The new president represents a “sharp” turn from former President Gustavo Petro, who “stopped awarding new oil and gas exploration contracts while pushing Colombia toward renewable energy” and encouraging a “global transition away from fossil fuels,” said The Associated Press. De la Espriella instead has pledged that “energy security would be a cornerstone of his administration,” as he makes plans to “revive the country’s oil and gas sector, restore state-owned energy company Ecopetrol and strengthen the electricity system.”

Alongside this energy agenda, de la Espriella will also be making changes stemming from his stance on social issues, including crime and drug trafficking. He has “promised to confront rebel groups in Colombia with greater military force while cutting government spending to reduce a budget deficit,” said NPR. In a symbolic move, de la Espriella was inaugurated not in the capital of Bogotá but in Cali, a city which has been “hit hard by drug violence and attacks from rebel groups.”

De la Espriella also “campaigned on promises to crush his country’s powerful drug traffickers with the help of the United States” and in collaboration with the right-wing Trump administration, said The New York Times. The White House has “made targeting traffickers in Latin America a priority,” although before de la Espriella’s election, President Donald Trump “made little headway with Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer and traditionally Washington’s closest ally in the region.”

Overall, Colombia’s new leader is “basically shifting the entire region, especially South America, toward the right,” the Washington Office on Latin America’s Gimena Sánchez said to PBS News. De la Espriella will be “feeling the pressure to make really big moves from the get-go because there’s so much expectation from the U.S. that he’s going to be hard on narcotraffickers.” It could “have a tremendous influence on the direction that Colombia takes.”

While all of these issues are simmering, the new president is simultaneously contending with the aftermath of a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia on Aug. 10. Officials in several major cities, including Cali and Pereira, “reported dozens of injuries, people trapped inside collapsed buildings and serious damages,” said NBC News. “The quake felt here was very severe,” taxi driver Luis Angel Sarrio told NBC.

What next?

The earthquake killed at least 100 people, with casualties expected to rise significantly in the coming days. In the first major check of his power, de la Espriella “declared a national disaster situation,” which gives his government “special powers to react to the emergency, including to reallocate budgets,” said BBC News. Alongside earthquake recovery, de la Espriella’s government is still focusing on anti-crime efforts. In another sign of a looming partnership, the United States notably pledged at least $1 billion in security assistance to Colombia soon after de la Espriella took office. The U.S. State Department said this money would help the new president achieve shared goals, including fighting organized crime and illegal immigration.