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Kremlin dismisses US media reports after John Ratcliffe meeting as ‘scare stories’, as Pentagon policy chief prepares to meet Nato secretary general
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US news — Lucy Campbell (now); Shrai Popat and Tom Ambrose (earlier)
The state department said today that 90 Americans were missing after the devastating flash flooding in Nepal , adding no US deaths had been reported.
“ We’re currently tracking 90 Americans who may be impacted by the flood, currently unaccounted for ,” a spokesperson told AFP.
The state department said it could confirm three Americans had been rescued and it was not aware of any US deaths .
My colleague Tom Ambrose is covering the disaster:
Related: Nepal flash flood: more than 350 killed amid warning of fresh danger from rising lake water – latest updates
House Democrats launch investigation into Donald Trump Jr's venture capital firm
Democrats on the House judiciary committee have launched an investigation into Donald Trump Jr’s venture capital firm .
Trump Jr joined 1798 Capital as a partner just days after his father won a second term in office in November 2024 . In a letter by Congressman Jamie Raskin , the panel’s ranking member, has asked the president’s son to detail the firm’s recent success.
The Guardian previously reported that after Trump Jr joined 1789 Capital, its assets under management ballooned, going from a reported $150m in 2024, to $1b last August , to $2.7b at year’s end, to a reported $3.5b by May, according to SEC filings. A significant proportion of that capital came from foreign investors: according to CNN reporting and the Guardian’s review of SEC filings; 40% of assets under management were from overseas investors.
In a letter to the president’s son, and the founders of the firm – Omeed Malik and Christopher Buskirk – judiciary committee Democrats have asked for records that include companies that have receive investments from the firm and any communications with any US elected official or federal government officials by 9 September. However, in the minority, Democrats have little subpoena power without Republican support for their cause.
“Two years ago,” Raskin wrote, 1789 Capital was “a struggling venture capital firm that earned consistently disappointing results by serially investing in total market flops” but has since undergone a “miraculous transformation”.
“With Don Jr’s new leadership role, 1789 Capital has developed an uncanny ability to identify companies that are about to receive massive influxes of cash from the Trump administration or to benefit from significant changes in federal policies and regulations,” the top Democrat wrote. “They say there is no such thing as a sure thing in investing, but this is about as close as you can get.”
Raskin also said “it is now impossible to believe” that the firm’s “astonishing growth and success are due to anything other than insider political influence and thoroughgoing corruption”.
The ranking member outlined a series of reports chronicling recent investments by 1789 Capital that include millions of dollars in Vulcan Elements, a rare earth company, in August 2025. Prior to this, the manufacturer had reportedly touted several government contracts they had secured in the months prior. Raskin then notes that the Pentagon announced a $620m direct loan to Vulcan Elements in November last year. At the same time, Department of Commerce (DOC) provided the company with a $50m grant under the CHIPS and Science Act.
“This was an amazing turn of events when the Trump Administration decided to pump over half a billion dollars into an unproven startup company, ” Raskin wrote.
He also pointed to a recent July interview with CNBC in which the president said that his children have “inside information” due to the fact his policies touch nearly every part of the economy.
“I tell my kids, ‘stay away,’” Trump said at the time. “But they also have a life. You know, they were doing business long before I ever thought of running for president.”
In an interview with the New York Times last month, Trump Jr said he only talks to his father, the president, “every few weeks”, and never discusses business with him and – as a private citizen – holds “no policy position and no role within the administration whatsoever”.
Raskin’s letter also cites reporting from the Guardian that Anduril Inudstries, a major military contractor founded by Trump ally and donor Palmer Lucky, has received billions in government contracts over the last year. 1789 Capital, the judiciary Democrats note, has acquired a stake in the company. Anduril says in Trump’s first year in office it doubled its revenue – a growth rate of 100%.
Earlier this month, the Guardian also reported that two appointments to the Defense Policy Board, a key Pentagon advisory body, include two men with ties to 1789 Capital.
Andreessen Horowitz , one of Silicon Valley’s largest venture capital firms, co-invests in three defense contractors alongside Trump Jr’s firm. The other appointee, Blake Masters , also sits on the boards of three ventures tied to 1789 Capital.
Both men now advise the Pentagon on the defense-technology sector those companies operate in.
The US Postal Service (USPS) said today that its new mail-in voting restrictions have gone into force after the supreme court struck down one lower court’s injunction.
The policy is in accordance with a March executive order by President Trump, which barred states from sending mail-in ballots to anybody not included in a database of confirmed citizens, which his administration would compile.
The top court’s ruling on Monday made no final judgment on the legality of the order – it said only that the states’ litigation was premature. A coalition of two dozen states quickly filed a new lawsuit to challenge USPS’s new rule this week.
The states argue that the president is seeking to usurp states’ authority to administer their own elections and sow chaos ahead of the November midterms. Republicans, facing backlash over economic headwinds and the war in Iran, faces a stiff challenge in those elections.
A reminder that a second nationwide injunction barring USPS from enforcing the new rules remains in effect , though the administration argues the high court’s ruling should see that block overturned as well.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer charged with shooting a Venezuelan man and lying about it during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis was released from a Texas jail on Thursday, after a judge refused to order his return to Minnesota .
On Wednesday, we reported the news that US district judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr – a Trump appointee – declined to order the state to extradite Christian Castro, paving the way for his release.
Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime by another, in relation to the incident in which he was involved in the wounding of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in January.
Minnesota authorities have been seeking to have him extradited since his arrest, but he remained in custody in Texas. Under that state’s law, Castro had to be released after 90 days of detention.
Federal prosecutors are considering bringing charges against Castro, according to CBS News .
Leavitt responded to a question today about the president’s decision to reshare a post on social media this week from a former energy department scientist who said that the GOP doesn’t “fully grasp how badly they are fucking up right now ”.
The outgoing press secretary said that Trump is still “wholeheartedly committed to helping Republicans across the board retain the majority” in Congress .
“Tonight he’ll engage in a fundraiser to keep loading up Republicans’ coffers,” she said, telegraphing Trump’s visit to Houston, Texas. “There’s obviously a huge cash advantage on the president’s side, and he’ll continue to go across the country, meet with everyday Americans, and push his message until the very last day.”
Karoline Leavitt describes last day as White House press secretary as 'bittersweet'
Today is also Karoline Leavitt’s last day as White House press secretary. Earlier this month, she announced her decision to step down from the role to spend more time with her family. She plans to take on a new role at Maga Inc, the pro-Trump Super Pac, after ending her time in the Trump administration.
She gaggled briefly with reporters outside the West Wing today, and said it was a “very bittersweet” moment.
“I’ll miss you guys. I know that’s probably not something anyone would expect me to say,” she said. “I will give my advice to whomever assumes the job. I think it’s most important in this job to understand that President Trump is his own best spokesperson … that he is the true communications director and press secretary here at the White House.”
RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate
Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr , lied during two congressional hearings last year, telling lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip , Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in the Pacific island nation. In it, he used the words vaccine or vaccination eight times.
“I am writing this letter to you in the hope that we might be helpful to the people of your great nation,” he wrote, adding that he believed the deaths of two children there after an MMR vaccine could have resulted from manufacturing issues.
“I would propose my team conduct detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines,” Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy’s Samoa visit – just months before a measles outbreak swept through the island, killing 83 people – has become one of the most controversial events in his career. At the time, he was leading a nonprofit known for its anti-vaccine activism . The visit was seen by critics as having emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa.
Beyond shedding light on the intent of Kennedy’s visit, the letter raises questions about the health secretary’s integrity and how truthful he was in testimony before Congress. During the confirmation process Kennedy also pledged to maintain vaccine policies that, once in office, he moved to change.
Related: RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate
As we bring you the latest about John Ratcliffe’s covert trip to Moscow this week, it’s worth noting that this is the first time a CIA director has traveled to Russia since November 2021.
Then, William Burns met with Putin to urge him against sending troops into Ukraine. But just months later, Russia launched its invasion.
As we noted earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported , citing people briefed on the visit, that the reason for the CIA director’s trip was to warn Moscow not to attack Nato countries – something that Donald Trump previously dismissed in a radio interview on Wednesday.
“I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,” Trump added, after being asked by Glenn Beck, a conservative commentator, whether Ratcliffe had travelled in response to fears that Vladimir Putin was planning to “test Nato resolve”, or whether he was attempting to win Moscow’s cooperation for intensified US sanctions on Iran.
“He is not in there for any of the things that you said,” Trump insisted.
On Wednesday, Trump officially signed a proclamation on Wednesday that suspends higher tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef imports for 90 days. This comes after backlash to the proposal – designed to lower grocery costs for Americans in the run-up to the November midterms.
Several Republicans – in states with sizable cattle farming industries – have criticized the policy, saying it is a short term solution that will stymie ranchers’ ability to rebuild their herds.
Four leading livestock and agricultural organizations also wrote a letter to the president on Wednesday urging him to reverse course.
“Flooding the market with discounted foreign beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd, strengthen food security, or lower grocery bills in a lasting way,” the groups wrote.
Donald Trump will begin his day in Washington, before traveling to Houston, Texas where he’ll headline a Republican National Commitee (RNC) fundraiser, and help boost Ken Paxton — the state’s attorney general and Republican nominee for Senate.
A reminder that Paxton beat long serving Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary earlier this year after receiving Trump’s endorsement. Paxton is set to face Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico in November.
The Republican congressman Ryan Mackenzie has been accused of embellishing his résumé with private sector experience in real estate sales amid an acrimonious showdown over his Pennsylvania seat.
Mackenzie, who has previously been accused of lying about his age on Tinder, “was a real estate salesperson licensed in PA”, according to his LinkedIn profile, and biographies have consistently listed it has his former profession.
In a statement to the Guardian, however, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) accused the congressman of having “fabricated a career … that never existed”.
His campaign would not comment on whether he ever used his real estate license, or made any sales. His office also did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the Tinder allegations, or reports of a staffer scrubbing the story from Wikipedia.
Mackenzie is attempting to keep his seat in a Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district, where he won his first term in 2024 by 1% of the vote. Trump won Pennsylvania in the US presidential election two years ago, after losing the state to Joe Biden in 2020.
Mackenzie is running for his seat against Democrat Bob Brooks , former president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association – and has called his opponent a “fraud”, a “conman”, a “lobbyist”, a “dumpster fire candidate” and a “union boss”. Mackenzie’s campaign manager claimed Brooks has “all the hallmarks of a common criminal”.
Related: In a Pennsylvania congressional swing district, a Republican incumbent faces allegations over embellishing résumé
Europe has made progress in taking over the responsibility for its conventional defence but more needs to be done, US Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby told allies in Brussels ahead of talks about potential US troops cuts in Europe.
“Let’s look at some of things like access, basing, overflight. Well, there is a lot of good, but there’s some things that we need to work out to make sense going forward,” Colby said at Nato headquarters, adding Europe would remain a critical interest of the US and he had come in a spirit of consultation.
Ex-JPMorgan Chase executive shared confidential bank information with Epstein
Former JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley told US lawmakers he repeatedly shared confidential and market-sensitive bank information with Jeffrey Epstein and was at one point named as a trustee of his estate, according to a transcript released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday.
These admissions come as lawmakers investigate the late convicted sex offender’s ties with political and business elites. Staley appeared before the committee in July as part of its investigation into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Transcripts from the meeting were released on Wednesday.
In the closed-door, voluntary interview conducted on 24 July, Staley said he divulged to Epstein the bank’s communications with the Federal Reserve during the 2008 financial crisis, a figure of $44bn in private bank inflows over two weeks and details of pending deals. Staley also admitted to sharing other confidential information about JPMorgan with Epstein, according to the transcript.
Lawmakers also questioned him about communications in which he discussed matters including his compensation, client relationships and developments related to his eventual move to Barclays.
Staley defended the exchanges, saying he believed he had the authority to share information when he considered it appropriate. He has maintained he had a close professional relationship with Epstein, but was unaware of his crimes.
He also testified that he informed Epstein about the bank’s concerns over his large cash withdrawals and told him he had been designated a high-risk client.
JPMorgan declined to comment. Staley’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Related: Ex-JPMorgan Chase executive shared confidential bank information with Epstein
A man who is serving time in a federal prison in New York advanced on Wednesday from the primary for Alaska ’s lone US House seat.
Eric Hafner, a registered Democrat, also ran for the seat in 2024 and secured a spot on the general election ballot that November despite a challenge brought by the Alaska Democratic party.
Hafner pleaded guilty in 2022 to charges of making threats against police officers, judges and others. He is set to be released in 2036.
The leading candidates in the race are the incumbent, Republican Nick Begich, and independent Bill Hill, a commercial fisher and retired educator.
Hafner’s success in the primary as one of the candidates moving on to the general election is almost certain to draw another legal challenge because the US constitution requires candidates to live in the state they will represent at the time of the election.
In the candidate information he filed with the state, he listed the same Box Elder, South Dakota, mailing address and New York phone number as his mother, Carol Hafner. Neither has any apparent ties to Alaska.
Related: Man in prison in New York advances in primary for Alaska’s US House seat
China’s foreign minister said his country and the United States should overcome obstacles between the nations ahead of an expected summit next month between the US president, Donald Trump, and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Wang Yi met the US ambassador to China, David Perdue, on Wednesday and called on both sides to “focus on the positive agenda, properly manage differences, remove interference and overcome obstacles to high-level exchanges between the two countries”, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.
China-US relations “still face various risks and challenges,” he acknowledged in a statement released by CCTV.
The Trump administration is considering a new round of sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, Politico reported on Thursday, citing eight people familiar with discussions.
A new tariff proposal could tax a wider range of tech goods. Instead of just targeting microchips, the duties would also apply to products that use them, such as laptops, gaming consoles and data center servers, the report said.
The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, favors a structure that will tie foreign companies’ relief from the tariffs to investment in US chip manufacturing to boost local production, the report said.
Washington is also mulling a phase-in period for the new tariffs and the framework could still be substantially revised in the coming weeks or months, Politico reported.
Kremlin dismisses US media 'scare stories' on CIA chief's Moscow visit
The Kremlin dismissed US media reports that Russia could attack a Nato member state and that the purpose of CIA director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow this week had been to warn Moscow against such a move.
Asked to comment on the reports, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:
A lot of this kind of scare-story material is being published right now. Of course, it has nothing to do with reality and nothing to do with the intentions of the Russian Federation.
Earlier on Thursday, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service said he had held a “working-level meeting” with Ratcliffe and that they had discussed unspecified and sensitive matters falling within the remit of their respective intelligence services.
CIA director warned Russia not to attack Nato members during meeting termed 'semi-routine' by Trump
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
A trip by the CIA director to Moscow this week was to warn Russia against any attack on Nato member states, US media reported, after Donald Trump attempted to downplay the visit.
The Wall Street Journal and CBS News reported CIA director John Ratcliffe aimed to dissuade Russia from attacking Nato members amid US intelligence assessments that Moscow could seek to test the alliance. Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday, taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.
Interviewed by the conservative radio host Glenn Beck , Trump poured cold water on speculation that Ratcliffe had travelled in response to fears that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was planning to “test Nato resolve” or to win Moscow’s cooperation for intensified US sanctions on Iran.
“None of the above,” the US president said in response to Beck, who referred to the speculation as “crazy”. “He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,” Trump said.
“John Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He’s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said. Now something may come … out of it. We’re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.”
Ratcliffe is one of the highest-ranking US officials to visit Russia since its war with Ukraine started in 2022.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, confirmed that he had held a “working-level meeting” with Ratcliffe in Moscow and that they had discussed unspecified and sensitive matters falling within the remit of their respective intelligence services. Naryshkin claimed the fact that they had met was nothing unusual.
The Kremlin added that “scare stories” have nothing to do with reality, in response to the reports.
Related: Trump downplays Moscow visit by CIA director as ‘semi-routine’
Two dozen mainly Democratic‑led states filed a fresh lawsuit to block Donald Trump ’s executive order restricting mail voting in this year’s midterm elections.
Lawyers for Lisa Cook wrote to the White House on Wednesday, rejecting a new attempt to force the Federal Reserve governor to resign for allegedly listing two properties as her primary residence on mortgage applications. The letter goes on to detail the numerous other individuals who have made the same mistake on mortgage forms, starting with Trump.
The chief spokesperson for the US Secret Service and two other communications staffers are under investigation for “potential misconduct” and have been suspended, according to the agency and media reports.
A geography professor alleges in a lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Manhattan that he was fired from his tenured position at the US Military Academy at West Point “because he taught that humans influenced climate change”.
The US army announced on Wednesday that it has awarded to $2.2bn to five contractors “to own, construct and operate nuclear microreactors on military installations” in five states.
“ We’re currently tracking 90 Americans who may be impacted by the flood, currently unaccounted for ,” a spokesperson told AFP.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Lucy Campbell (now); Shrai Popat and Tom Ambrose (earlier). Published 27 Aug 2026, 04:20 pm.
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