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Brad Lander was manhandled and marched out of the courthouse after trying to shield a man from arrest – but, he tells the Guardian, he’s not backing down

As New York city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was hauled away by masked Ice agents on Tuesday, all he could think about was whether there was anything more he could do for the man he was trying to help, an immigrant New Yorker named Edgardo.

Both men ended up detained, but unlike Edgardo’s, Lander’s ordeal was over after a few hours. By the time New York governor Katy Hochul marched him out of the courthouse – after proclaiming, of his arrest: “This is bullshit” – videos and photos of the officers manhandling him had gone viral. The arrest of yet another elected official prompted widespread condemnation of another sign of the US’s steady slide into authoritarianism. A host of New York politicians, along with a swelling crowd of angry New Yorkers, awaited Lander outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. (Andrew Cuomo, the former governor and mayoral race frontrunner, was a notable absence, though he did condemn the arrest.)

“The Trump administration has been very clear that they are looking to stoke conflict, weaponize fear, and undermine democracy, and here they are doing it,” he added.

A Republican congressman has called out the Trump administration for cutting the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline service tailored to LGBTQ+ youth.

"This is wrong," Representative Mike Lawler of New York wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"According to studies, LGBTQ+ young people have an elevated risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to attempt it. We should ensure they have the resources necessary to get help. The 988 hotline has been a lifesaver. This decision should be reversed."

Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel said Wednesday they have finalized their “historic partnership,” a year-and-a-half after the Japanese company first proposed its deal to buy the iconic American steelmaker for nearly $15 billion.

The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, delaying the transaction for more than a year after U.S. Steel shareholders approved it. It also forced Nippon Steel to expand the deal, including adding a so-called “golden share” provision that gives the federal government a say in some matters.

The combined company will become the world's fourth-largest steelmaker, and bring what analysts say is Nippon Steel's top-notch technology to U.S. Steel's antiquated steelmaking processes. In exchange, Nippon Steel gets access to a robust U.S. steel market, strengthened in recent years by tariffs under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, analysts say.

Experts say issues go beyond just coughing, sore throat

Smoke from Saskatchewan's wildfires may have largely dissipated for now, but researchers say the effects on people's health can linger.

Sarah Henderson, director of environmental health services with British Columbia's Centre for Disease Control, said researchers are finding the health effects of exposure to wildfire smoke go beyond acute symptoms like coughing and sore throats.

"There's some pretty cool and slightly scary new studies around dementia, for example, where people who were exposed to wildfire smoke were at much higher risk of developing dementia than people who were exposed to air pollution from other sources," Henderson told CBC's The Morning Edition.

Sergio Gor has been blamed in part for the explosive breakdown in the alliance between Trump and his former “First Buddy.”

Elon Musk publicly ripped into a top White House aide who fueled his falling out with Donald Trump.

Tensions had already been building between Musk and Trump before the SpaceX chief left the White House. Things got ugly, however, after Sergio Gor, the director of the presidential personnel office, encouraged Trump to rescind his nomination for Jared Isaacman—Musk’s personal friend—to lead NASA.

The New York Post revealed this week that even though Gor is in charge of vetting thousands of executive branch employees, he himself hasn’t been fully vetted. Five months into the second Trump administration, he hasn’t even submitted the paperwork for his own permanent security clearance.

“He’s a snake,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X late Wednesday in response to the Post’s report.

The rocket exploded when preparing for an engine test at the SpaceX Starbase facility in Texas. SpaceX said all personnel were accounted for and safe.

A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded into a huge fireball while preparing for a routine test on Wednesday.

The rocket, designed to be the most powerful in the world, was preparing for its tenth test flight at the SpaceX Starbase facility at the southern tip of Texas.

Local officials confirmed the explosion took place at a time when the rocket was preparing for a "routine static fire test" of its engines.

That means engineers were set to test the rocket's engines with the craft still held down on its launch pad. But something went wrong and the rocket exploded.

Russia wants to end the war in Ukraine "as soon as possible," preferably through peaceful means, and is ready to continue negotiations — provided that Kyiv and its Western allies are willing to engage, Vladimir Putin said.

Speaking during a roundtable with top editors of major international news agencies late on June 18, Putin added that he is ready to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky and "Russia does not care who represents Ukraine in negotiations, but insists that any final agreement must bear the signature of legitimate authorities."

The Kremlin has long sought to portray Zelensky as "illegitimate" in an attempt to discredit Kyiv. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Feb. 18 that Putin, who has ruled Russia for over 20 years, is ready for talks with Zelensky, but "legal aspects related to his legitimacy" must be considered.

Ukraine's allies had generally ignored this propaganda narrative until Donald Trump appeared to echo the Kremlin's lines claiming that Zelensky was a "modestly successful comedian" turned "dictator" who "refused to have elections."

Experts find link between compulsive use of social media, phones and video games and mental health problems

Teenagers who show signs of being addicted to social media, mobile phones or video games are at greater risk of suicidal behaviour and emotional problems, according to research.

A study, which tracked more than 4,000 adolescents for four years, found that nearly one in three reported increasingly addictive use of social media or mobile phones. Those whose use followed an increasingly addictive trajectory had roughly double the risk of suicidal behaviour at the end of the study.

The findings do not prove screen use was the cause of mental health problems. But they highlight that compulsive use, which appears to be very common, as a significant risk factor that parents and healthcare services should be alert to.

Democrats boycotted the hearing -- with some walking out once it began.

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday digging into the cognitive abilities of Joe Biden and claims of whether his aides helped what they say was a cover up of his alleged mental decline -- claims the former president and many on his staff have denied.

The probe didn't uncover any new information on the former president -- with Democratic members of the subcommittee boycotting the hearing.

Democratic senators on the committee walked out of the hearing shortly after it began, with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin blasting the panel for even holding the hearing, while he says a number of timely investigations should be going on related to President Donald Trump's current actions.

"So far this year, the Republican majority on this committee has not held a single oversight hearing, despite numerous critical challenges facing the nation that are under our jurisdiction," Durbin said.

Opponents view the controversial act as part of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict abortion access

A new law has just come into force in Rio de Janeiro requiring all public hospitals and clinics run by the municipal government to display anti-abortion signs bearing messages such as: “Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?”

Reproductive rights activists view the act as the latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world’s most restrictive laws.

In Latin America’s largest country, abortion is only legal in cases of rape, when the pregnant person’s life is at risk, or if the foetus has anencephaly, a fatal brain disorder.

In recent years, however, politicians, doctors and even judges have taken steps to prevent abortions even in those circumstances.

Senate backs Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection despite accusation by former official

The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), despite a former top official accusing him of orchestrating a “cover-up” over the death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico.

Scott was confirmed on a party-line vote, with 51 Republicans in favor and 46 Democrats opposed, along with three absences.

He will take charge of one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies, which staffs ports of entry across the United States and also includes the border patrol, which he led from 2020 to 2021.

A jury last year ordered Trump to pay the columnist $83 million in damages.

American taxpayers will not be paying for the ongoing appeal of Donald Trump's $83 million defamation case, a federal appeals court determined on Wednesday.

A panel of judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied Trump's request to have Justice Department lawyers argue in his appeal of columnist E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against Trump.

A New York jury last year ordered Trump to pay the former Elle magazine columnist $83.3 million in damages for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her accusation that he sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied all allegations.