Smithsonian chief Lonnie Bunch III to retire amid Trump administration pressure on institution – US politics live

The lawyer of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts woman accused of killing her three young children, has said he hopes Donald Trump will pardon his client after her trial recently ended with a deadlocked jury.

Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, made the appeal on a televised interview on the ABC show Good Morning America today. The plea comes to Trump after a judge on Friday declared a mistrial after the jury in the Clancy case could not reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was guilty or not guilty, opening the way for another trial.

Reddington said he hoped that the president would “consider a pardon” for Clancy given “the type of person she is” and “what she has been through”.

“Mr President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady,” said Reddington, who also alluded to how Trump on Friday called the case a “tragedy”.

Trump’s pardon powers are applicable in the federal justice system in the US, and Clancy was tried in Massachusetts’ state criminal justice system.

The president was asked about the trial by reporters on Friday, with Trump calling the case “a shame” and a “horrible tragedy”.

“I think the judge has said it’s going to be a mistrial, so there’s going to be another trial,” he said. “It’s a terrible situation. Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing.

“Can’t be worse. But you’ll find out what the price to pay is. There’ll be a price. It’s going to be mental institution or jail or something, but I guess they’re going to go through another trial.”

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed said they seized an American submarine drone “equipped with the latest technology” in the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.

“The IRGC naval forces captured one of the most modern, unmanned, and smart submarines of the US terrorist army at the entrance to the strait of Hormuz in a complex intelligence and operational action at dawn today,” the Guards said in a statement carried by Iranian state TV. “This submarine has now been captured and images of it will be released in the coming hours.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

In January, the New York police department’s counter-terrorism unit sent out a memo warning police officers about a new potential “security and counterintelligence” threat: Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

The memo directed officers to “conduct thorough inspections of all eyewear permitted within inmate cells” and cautioned that people who have been arrested could use these glasses, equipped with small cameras and microphones, to record inside police facilities. The memo cited two examples of such videos posted on social media.

“The ability to covertly record inside a law enforcement or detention facility, could result in a security risk if proprietary information about cell layouts, camera placements, or officer patrol/site protection routines are released,” the memo read.

The NYPD memo is one of a dozen, previously unreported and reviewed by the Guardian, that showed law enforcement agencies across the US are increasingly concerned about the potential for smart glasses to be used against them. Officers from Maine to California worry the technology will be used either to secretly record officers and facilities or to aid in the execution of crimes and acts of terrorism.

One of the videos, taken with smart glasses and posted to TikTok in July 2025, offered a rare peek into a South Carolina detention center that had been the subject of a federal investigation over unsafe conditions.

“Everyone here is trying to figure out what’s going on with my glasses, why my light is blinking,” the user said about other detainees in the video. “People don’t know about Meta glasses.” He filmed a dingy shower, the inside of holding cells, an overcrowded cafeteria, and several other detainees as they slept, ate or walked, all seemingly unaware of being recorded.

US police and federal agents are not alone in their fear. Concern among the public and privacy experts over Meta’s smart glasses, widely dubbed “pervert glasses”, is growing. The technology enables its wearers to record people without their consent and has already been used to harass people.

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Marco Rubio said today that US is “not going to do what the UK did” and impose sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements, but stopped shy of commenting on the matter while speaking to reporters in Miami. However, the secretary of state said that the US does not “want to see some uptick in violence or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time in the region”.

Earlier today, UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband announced the measure, the strongest condemnation ever issued by the UK government, which accused Israel the country of conducting “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank.

The sanctions include an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories and a comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements.

Donald Trump is speaking now in Washington, at an event for first responders at the 9/11 terror attacks.

The president just spoke about how his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, narrowly avoided being at the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, when he took his son to school instead of being in his office at Cantor Fitzgerald, which occupied several floors of the North Tower.

“This was the first time in years that he wasn’t there early in the morning,” Trump said, noting that Lutnick’s brother, Gary, who also worked at the investment banking firm and 657 other Cantor Fitzgerald employees were killed in the attacks.

Trump added: “[Lutnick’s] got some faults, but overall he’s excellent. He’s a great guy. Now he went through a lot, didn’t he?”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday that New York City would release 170,000 pages of previously undisclosed documents that show officials at the time knew that the air quality after the 9/11 terror attacks posed health risks, despite assuring the public and first responders that the air quality was safe.

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks, the city has published the documents to a publicly accessible portal, which includes air quality reports and correspondence between New York officials. Mamdani directed $34m of the city’s budget to create the portal for the records. Many documents were stored in 68 boxes in a city office, and many were only discovered last year by officials.

The initial release on the portal includes the document commonly known as the “Harding Memo” sent to then-Deputy Mayor Robert Harding in 2001, which provides insight into the City’s consideration of potential legal responses in the aftermath of the attacks, including concerns about the prospect of litigation arising from toxic exposure and the adequacy of safety equipment.

“For too long, information about the aftermath of September 11th has not been provided to the public. For years, families, city workers, and survivors have been crying out for more transparency from their government,” said Stephen Banks, head of the city’s law department, about the release.

While almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, in the years since, “thousands more have become devastatingly – often fatally – ill from toxins and debris, though the true magnitude of the attack’s impact has yet to be fully realized,” Banks added.

Greg Hull, the Republican nominee running to replace New Mexico’s term-limited governon, Michelle Lujan Grisham, denounced the president’s suggestion to change the state’s name to “New America”.

“New Mexico does not need a new name,” Hull said in a statement to Santa Fe Public Radio. “This state carries the history of Native nations and Spanish explorers who named this land nearly five hundred years ago, and generations of families who built New Mexico into what it is today. That identity is not up for negotiation.”

Further down the ballot in New Hampshire, the Democratic primary for Chris Pappas’s House seat has drawn eight candidates, with Stefany Shaheen – daughter of the outgoing senator – and Maura Sullivan, a former Obama administration official, leading the field.

The district, long purple, has been reliably blue since 2017. Republicans now see it as flippable, and Donald Trump has endorsed Anthony DiLorenzo, a businessman who owns several car dealerships, in the GOP race.

As voters head to the polls for primary elections in New Hampshire, some Democrats worry the Granite State could become a sleeper risk – a state where Republicans control the legislature but haven’t won a Senate race since 2010, when Kelly Ayotte, the now-governor, captured a seat.

Congressman Chris Pappas insists he’s not taking anything for granted in his bid for Senate, and is running like he’s “10 votes behind” at all times – especially in a midterm cycle where progressive challengers have scored surprise primary wins across the country. This, however, hasn’t fazed Pappas who says he is running as a “New Hampshire Democrat” who knows his state.

But Dr Karishma Manzur, Pappas’s main challenger, who supports Medicare for All and higher taxes on mega‑corporations and the ultra‑wealthy, has repeatedly highlighted the money Pappas has received from donors aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. She casts him as milquetoast and ineffective. “I was tired of choosing between the lesser of two evils and still seeing so much pain and suffering right here in my state,” she said, calling both Pappas and John E Sununu, the frontrunner in the Republican primary race, “corporate politicians”.

“One has a ‘D’ after their name. One has an ‘R’ after their name … neither of them have been able to address the real needs of the people,” Manzur added.

Pappas, for his part, has long backed US aid to Israel but told the Guardian that Benjamin Netanyahu was “not a trustworthy ally of the US” and said he hoped the Israeli prime minister is ousted in the country’s October election. Pappas noted he has rejected corporate Pac money in this race but did not directly address his support from pro‑Israel donors, instead pointing to a “broad‑based effort” of individual contributors that have supported his Senate bid.

Pappas says he would support the Democratic nominee if he loses. “We need a big tent and new voices in the party to win tough elections,” he said at last week’s Democratic debate.

Manzur declined to make the same commitment. “I’m focused on winning,” she told the Guardian. “I’m not going to get into these discussions – they’re intentionally distracting from the people’s movement.”

Democrats are starting to hit back against Donald Trump for his recent social media post suggesting that the state of New Mexico should be changed to “New America”.

The state’s senior senator, Martin Heinrich, shot back on X, blasting the president’s recent efforts to rename bodies of water via executive order.

“Three things I will always call by their actual names,” Heinrich wrote. “The Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, New Mexico.”

His colleague in the Senate, Ben Ray Luján, echoed the sentiment.

“It’s New Mexico, always has been and always will be,” he said, adding that Trump will “always be a sinvergüenza” – a spanish word for “scoundrel” and “corrupt”.

Similarly, Melanie Stansbury, one New Mexico’s Democratic US House representatives, was resolute. “WE ARE NOT CHANGING OUR NAME!” she said in a video, standing on the banks of the Rio Grande, which runs through the state. “New Mexico is New Mexico. We are fiercely proud of our name, our people, and our places, including this river.”

Donald Trump is in Washington today. We’ll hear from the president at 10.35am ET, when he hosts an event on the Ellipse honoring first responders at the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ahead of the 25th anniversary commemoration this week.

Trump is set to unveil a 21-foot steel beam that has been recovered from the World Trade Center that will be on display as part of a “Steel Across America” tour.

However, as we noted last week, the president is reportedly not going to be in New York for the anniversary event at Ground Zero, and instead will deliver remarks at the Pentagon. It has long been policy that there are no speeches from the president at the site of the attacks, in order to keep any memorials apolitical.

Trump will spend the rest of the day in closed-door meetings. At 1pm ET he’s set to sign executive orders, and we’ll let you know if that opens up to the press.

President Donald Trump spent Labor Day posting memes on social media in support ⁠of changing the ⁠name ​of the state of New Mexico to ‘New America’ as tense trade negotiations ⁠with Mexico ramp up.

Trump posted several maps of the US that relabelled the land ⁠area of New Mexico as New America ​on Monday.

The president ‌on Sunday said ‌he had received suggestions to change the name ‌of the state and that he liked the idea. “So much more prestigious and beautiful for the people of that potentially incredible State. Wow, I Love It!!!“

Trump’s posts follow his decision ‌to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America last month, after ​trade negotiations with Canada failed to produce a deal.

The US federal government, however, has no authority to change the name of a state. New Mexico ⁠is currently governed by Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat. ​She ​has been in ​the job since 1 January, 2019, ​and was reelected ‌in 2022.

The ​governor said ​in a post on X that “New Mexico’s name isn’t up for debate – it’s been ours since before the United States existed.”

The Trump administration is seeking greater US access to Venezuela’s minerals, including gold, as it expands its push to gain control and influence over the South American country’s vast natural resources beyond oil, Reuters reports, according to three sources familiar with the discussions.

The effort could open the Venezuelan mining sector to US investment and give ⁠US companies access to not only oil, ⁠but supplies of minerals crucial for national security, ​the sources said on condition of anonymity.

It also would expand president Donald Trump’s push to more closely align Venezuela’s resources with Washington’s strategic and economic interests in the wake of the US military’s ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a raid in January.

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony.

In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”

Mamdani confirmed on Monday, while attending a breakfast celebrating New York’s J’ouvert and West Indian Day Parade celebrations in Brooklyn, that he would attend the main ceremony and multiple 9/11 events on Friday, to stand with the families of those who died and first responders – as he did last year before taking office.

“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” he said. “What I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.”

The mayor and his office have declined to respond to Giuliani’s remarks.

Giuliani, the former mayor and a close ally of Donald Trump, has said he will also attend this year’s ceremony to mark the attacks by terrorists representing al-Qaida, who flew hijacked passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on September 11 2001.

Reflecting pools with waterfalls constructed on the footprints of the towers and a 9/11 museum now mark the site that was dubbed Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attacks, and where each year the names of the almost 3,000 people who died are read out by survivors and loved ones, in a solemn ceremony attended by national and local leaders.

In the interview with Newsmax, Giuliani was asked if Mamdani should skip the ceremony. “Well, there’s no question he should,” he said.

Iceland summoned the US ambassador on Monday after president Donald Trump posted an image on ⁠social media showing the island and other countries covered by the American flag, local broadcaster RUV said.

The map showed the ⁠United States, Canada, ⁠Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, ​Central America and the Caribbean covered by the US flag, with the entire landmass labelled ‘United States of America’.

Trump posted ⁠the image on his Truth Social platform without explanation.

Iceland’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdottir, called in Billy Long, the US ambassador to Iceland, ⁠who only formally took up the post last month, RUV reported.

“The position was ​clearly expressed that the post ‌was completely inappropriate,” the foreign ‌ministry told RUV.

President Donald Trump said that ⁠Canadian private jet maker Bombardier would ⁠no longer be allowed ​to sell its planes in the United States unless it started manufacturing in the country.

“NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“If ⁠they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank’,” he said.

Trump made the post as a trade dispute between Washington and Ottawa esclates, part of the near-global tariff wall in his second term ⁠that has drawn complaints from many US trading partners. Canada is set to introduce a wave of counter-tariffs against the US on Tuesday.

Bombardier, the Montreal-based rival of US business jet manufacturer Gulfstream Aerospace, has an American workforce of 3,500, and a US footprint of 2,800 suppliers, along with factories and service centers in the country.

The company is now adding its sixth US service center and produces wings for its flagship Global 8000 jet in Texas.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

New Hampshire and Rhode Island voters will choose candidates across a full slate of federal, state and local offices over the next two days, ahead of November’s midterm elections.

In New Hampshire, there are primaries that will set up a closely watched Senate contest – a vulnerable open seat Democrats must defend if they are to have any shot at reclaiming the upper chamber.

The race opened when Jeanne Shaheen, 79, the state’s three‑term incumbent Democratic senator, announced her retirement. Congressman Chris Pappas, who represents New Hampshire’s first district, is seeking the nomination and enters the final stretch with a clear financial edge: more than $4m cash on hand, according to his latest filings. But his main challenger, Dr Karishma Manzur – a scientist and progressive activist with no experience holding public office – has gained ground.

If he wins the primary, Pappas, 46, is likely to face the Donald Trump-endorsed former senator John E Sununu, who is seeking a return to the seat he once held and is part of a political dynasty that includes his father and brother, both former governors.

Sununu, 61, is the clear frontrunner in the GOP primary, though he faces Scott Brown – another former senator who represented Massachusetts, later moved to New Hampshire, and served as US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa during Donald Trump’s first term.

Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, governor Dan McKee faces a tough Democratic primary challenge on Wednesday in his bid for a second full term. Voters will also choose nominees for a full slate of federal, state and local offices.

McKee was elected governor by a wide margin in 2022 after first assuming the role in March 2021 when then-governor Gina Raimondo stepped down to become US commerce secretary. He now is at risk of becoming the nation’s first elected governor since 2014 to lose renomination and the first in Rhode Island since 1994.

His challenger is Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a former longtime executive with Rhode Island-based CVS. She placed a close second behind McKee in the five-way 2022 Democratic primary. She is the niece of former Democratic senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

In other developments:

• President Donald Trump said on Monday that ⁠Canadian private jet maker Bombardier would ⁠no longer be allowed ​to sell its planes in the United States unless it started manufacturing in the country. “NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “If ⁠they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ’piggybank’.”

• New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony. In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”

• A cluster of advocacy groups that boast veteran lawyers, voting experts and ex-judges have expanded legal challenges to Donald Trump’s authoritarian executive orders on voting and other presidential actions they see as a “war” on the rule of law in the US. Heavy legal opposition to Trump’s two executive orders on elections to curb voting rights and supplant the authority of states on election matters has come from the Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and kindred groups.

• The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health. It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care.