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Chiricahua monument in Arizona is now the 64th US national park

New designation of the Land of Standing-Up Rocks, known for its historic rock spires, passed with bipartisan support

An area of towering rock spires in south-eastern Arizona known among Native Americans as the Land of Standing-Up Rocks has become the nation’s newest national park.

Legislation to create Chiricahua national park was sent to the White House and Donald Trump signed it on Tuesday. It passed Congress with bipartisan backing and is now the 64th US national park.

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© Photograph: Ron Kerbo/National Parks Service/AP

© Photograph: Ron Kerbo/National Parks Service/AP

© Photograph: Ron Kerbo/National Parks Service/AP

Russia bombards Kyiv with missiles hours after agreeing to resume talks with Ukraine

Experts say Russia is trying to destroy energy infrastructure before winter and US ‘appeasement and flattery’ will not achieve peace

Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a monastery.

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© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Russia bombards Kyiv with missiles hours after agreeing to resume talks with Ukraine

Experts say Russia is trying to destroy energy infrastructure before winter and US ‘appeasement and flattery’ will not achieve peace

Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a monastery.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

© Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Experts alarmed by ‘less transparent’ CDC as US measles deaths rise

22 October 2026 at 11:00

Agency declines to reveal in which state latest measles death occurred as it delays reporting other measles deaths

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added a third measles death to its dashboard on Wednesday, but the agency would not reveal whether the death occurred in Pennsylvania or another state – which is “notable” as the agency delays reporting other measles deaths, experts say.

The CDC cited privacy laws in not sharing the name of the state, but experts say there are no privacy concerns in doing so – and this information is important for the public to have as the outbreak continues accelerating, growing by 8% in one week to 4,410 confirmed cases so far this year, nearly double last year’s count.

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© Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

© Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

© Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

Rubio, Hegseth point fingers at Musk in Starlink slowdown

22 October 2026 at 11:00
Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company’s Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine, which has been muddled in uncertainty over the culprit. Looking to deflect the controversial move — which was swiftly admonished by…

Trump, Republicans spend big in midterm home stretch

22 October 2026 at 11:00
Republicans are banking on last minute injections of cash to boost the party’s most vulnerable candidates less than two weeks out from Election Day.   President Trump announced on Tuesday that his political operation will spend over $400 million to support GOP candidates, while the Republican National Committee (RNC) confirmed it is transferring $50 million…

Rubio, Hegseth point fingers at Musk in Starlink slowdown

22 October 2026 at 11:00
Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company’s Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine, which has been muddled in uncertainty over the culprit. Looking to deflect the controversial move — which was swiftly admonished by…

Trump, Republicans spend big in midterm home stretch

22 October 2026 at 11:00
Republicans are banking on last minute injections of cash to boost the party’s most vulnerable candidates less than two weeks out from Election Day.   President Trump announced on Tuesday that his political operation will spend over $400 million to support GOP candidates, while the Republican National Committee (RNC) confirmed it is transferring $50 million…

Crime Is Down in D.C., but Trump's National Guard Deployment Probably Isn't the Cause

22 October 2026 at 11:00
National Guard troops | Photo, left: Frédéric Marie/Alamy

One month after Washington, D.C., celebrated America's 250th anniversary, it marked a more ignominious milestone: a full year since President Donald Trump deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers to the capital.

The approximately 4,600 National Guard members have been an unavoidable presence in D.C., wandering the National Mall and downtown streets in groups of three or four, or standing idly in Metro stations chatting. Occasionally, they're tasked with picking up trash at parks. Tourists take selfies with them by the now-fenced-off Lafayette Square in front of the White House.

They're not going anywhere. The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to acquire up to 2,000 housing units to support long-term National Guard deployments. The Department of Defense has estimated that extending the mission from October 2026 through to the end of the Trump administration in January 2029 will cost about $1.4 billion.

According to the Trump administration, all of this has been necessary to transform D.C. "from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike."

Crime in D.C. is down 20 percent from 2025, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, but an August Reuters investigation found National Guard soldiers were involved in only a tiny fraction of arrests in the safer parts of the city, mostly for minor offenses such as shoplifting and turnstile jumping. Crime has been dropping nationwide, a trend that started before Trump took office and includes cities that aren't occupied by federal law enforcement and soldiers.

Even if the Guard presence has contributed to a drop in crime, it's a civil liberties nightmare. It puts untrained military in the role of policing civilians. It usurps local police departments that are ostensibly answerable to the communities they police, and it normalizes the deployment of military forces domestically—a red line for a free society.

"There's a deep irony that here we are in the capital of the free world, and our president is treating it like a police state," Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, told PBS in August. "D.C. residents have lived with our National Guard troops in our neighborhoods for about a year, despite the absence of any genuine emergency and really any reason for them to be here."

Last November, a federal court preliminarily ruled that the deployment was illegal. However, an appeals court allowed the Trump administration to keep troops deployed in D.C. while it considers the administration's appeal of that ruling.

The appeals court decision is absurd. The appellate panel is fully aware that every day the case drags on is another day that D.C. residents are being subjected to a potentially illegal military occupation, and another day that taxpayers will foot the bill for a wasteful fit of presidential hubris.

The damages are compounding. The first anniversary of Trump's deployment of National Guard soldiers to D.C. should be the last.

The post Crime Is Down in D.C., but Trump's National Guard Deployment Probably Isn't the Cause appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Minister says 32 government services offline due to PHP code flaw – UK politics live

22 October 2026 at 12:54

Organisations around the world scrambling to fix a critical security flaw in the programming language PHP used by the majority of websites

The Office for National Statistics has also published a report on the gender pay gap. It says:

The gender pay gap for full-time employees has continued to decline in the UK. It was 6.8% in April 2026, down from 7.2% in April 2025. This compares with 9.4% a decade ago and 16.4% 25 years ago.

Secondly, I asked Healey whether he sees the banks as making excessive profits, which would be the coherent justification for him to increase the surcharge on bank profits – as he is expected to do in the Budget next week.

He said: “You know the banks are the engine of investment in this country. The banks are doing well at the moment and that is good to see.

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© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

WHCA condemns removal of journalist from White House pool

22 October 2026 at 03:43
White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) President Jacqui Heinrich on Wednesday condemned the White House’s decision to restrict a journalist’s access to cover President Trump after the president lashed out at him in the Oval Office earlier this week.  Andrew Feinberg, a correspondent for The Independent, was scheduled to serve as the print pool reporter on…

WHCA condemns removal of journalist from White House pool

22 October 2026 at 03:43
White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) President Jacqui Heinrich on Wednesday condemned the White House’s decision to restrict a journalist’s access to cover President Trump after the president lashed out at him in the Oval Office earlier this week.  Andrew Feinberg, a correspondent for The Independent, was scheduled to serve as the print pool reporter on…

Some US diplomats told to leave Saudi Arabia amid Houthi attacks

Reports emerge of similar withdrawals in UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain amid concerns about a return to conflict with Iran after US midterm elections

The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia, as the gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and oilfield on Wednesday evening.

Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. State department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said: “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.”

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Greene says El-Sayed could win Senate seat if Trump attacks Iran again

22 October 2026 at 01:01
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-Ga.) lashed out at President Trump’s military operations against Iran on Wednesday, warning a further escalation could cost Republicans in the November elections.  “If Trump is dumb enough to attack Iran again before the midterms, @AbdulElSayed will win the senate seat in Michigan,” Greene wrote on social media Wednesday. “It’s…

Greene says El-Sayed could win Senate seat if Trump attacks Iran again

22 October 2026 at 01:01
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-Ga.) lashed out at President Trump’s military operations against Iran on Wednesday, warning a further escalation could cost Republicans in the November elections.  “If Trump is dumb enough to attack Iran again before the midterms, @AbdulElSayed will win the senate seat in Michigan,” Greene wrote on social media Wednesday. “It’s…

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