The Guardian · US newsOne of Donald Trump’s closest and most devoted aides, Natalie Harp, has faced intense media scrutiny this week, after a Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, name-checked her in a speech that went viral. So what do we know about Harp, who is often referred to as the ‘human printer’? And why is everybody talking about her relationship with Trump? Helen Pidd speaks to international news editor Paul Owen
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Presented by Helen Pidd with Paul Owen ; produced by Bryony Moore ; senior producer Ryan Ramgobin ; executive producer Zoe Hitch · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 10:07 AM
The Guardian · US newsWorld No 1 makes ‘difficult decision’ to miss slam
Draper still recovering from bone bruise in left arm
Jannik Sinner will miss the US Open with a right knee injury. The world No 1 has not played a match since beating Alexander Zverev last month to successfully defend his Wimbledon title, missing the Masters 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati. Great Britain’s Jack Draper is also out of the event.
The news comes a day after his great rival Carlos Alcaraz, whom the Italian lost to in the final in New York 12 months ago, revealed he will make his comeback at Flushing Meadows after four months out with a wrist injury.
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PA Media · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 9:27 AM
The Guardian · US newsMeat producer closes facilities in Utah and Illinois as beef prices rise for consumers amid historic cattle shortage
People in the US: how much do you spend on food per month?
Tyson Foods, the largest meatpacking company in the US, announced last week that it is closing two of its facilities in Illinois and Utah and selling a beef facility in Washington state, and will lay off hundreds of workers as the supply of cattle hits a 75-year low.
The historic cattle shortage has been driven by a multi-year drought, rising costs and severe economic pressures, including consolidation among cattle ranchers. Beef prices have soared over the last year due to the shortage, though economists said the Tyson plant closures likely won’t hit consumer prices so hard.
This article’s headline and text were amended on 21 August 2026. An earlier version said Tyson recently announced the closure of two facilities in Iowa and Utah, rather than Illinois and Utah. There was a closure in 2024 in Iowa.
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Gaya Gupta · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 9:01 AM
The Guardian · US newsThe US is engaged in a lawless quest to protect American and Israeli officials
The Trump administration has taken another step in its crusade against the international criminal court by imposing sanctions on two more senior ICC officials. The growing number of sanctioned jurists – now 13 – does not change the lawless nature of this quest.
Donald Trump and his henchman, Marco Rubio, want to make the world safe for US and Israeli war criminals. No one should let them.
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Kenneth Roth · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 5:00 AM
The Guardian · CaliforniaBusiness owner Assim Alkhawaja was arrested by ICE as he dropped off Lyft passengers at a military base. Now he’s stuck in a terrifying fight to stay in the US
Deep within the bowels of San Diego’s federal courthouse, Assim Alkhawaja sat on the floor outside a nondescript office, waiting to be called for his ICE-mandated immigration appointment. He stared straight ahead, his posture tense, his face a mask.
The hallway was brown, as was the carpet. Above Alkhawaja’s head hung a framed stock photo of a waterfall. A few paces away, official government signs encouraged people without legal status to self-deport. “Leave on your own terms,” they read, in several languages. “Claim a free flight and an exit bonus for each member of your family.”
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Amanda Ulrich in San Diego · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 4:00 AM
The Guardian · US newsI understand the pressure on AI companies to rush forward. But employees are right to be concerned
Last month, more than a thousand employees at frontier AI companies signed a letter asking the US government to find a way to “pace” AI development, citing the risk of the technology spiraling out of human control as it begins to build itself.
They were right to be concerned: just days earlier, two AI models that OpenAI was testing internally escaped the test environment, then autonomously hacked the company Hugging Face and at least three other online services. A few days after that, Anthropic announced that some of their models had also broken out and hacked other companies during testing.
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Miles Brundage · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 3:00 AM
The Guardian · CaliforniaAs the couple plans their return to the UK, Montecito’s whirlwind stint on the global stage may be coming to an end
The bucolic coastal California town of Montecito was thrust into the limelight six years ago as the backdrop for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s second act following an acrimonious split from Buckingham Palace.
But as the couple plans their return to the United Kingdom, Montecito’s whirlwind stint on the global stage may be coming to an end.
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Uwa Ede-Osifo in Montecito, California · Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 12:00 AM
The Guardian · CaliforniaState senator beats rival Melissa Hernandez and will replace US congressman who quit amid sexual misconduct claims
Progressive Aisha Wahab has been elected to Congress in a special election following a bitter intra-party battle over the seat formerly held by Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April after facing sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell has denied the allegations.
Wahab, a state senator, was widely considered the frontrunner in the district in California’s East Bay and had the backing of the state Democratic party as well as Our Revolution, labor unions, local officials and the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.
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Dani Anguiano · Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 5:24 PM
The Guardian · CaliforniaState sought to stop system off coast of Santa Barbara from resuming operations after Trump ordered its reopening
An oil pipeline can continue to operate off the California coast after a judge gave it the green light this week, despite the opposition of state regulators and environmental groups.
The system off the coast of Santa Barbara resumed operations earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade after Donald Trump ordered Sable Offshore Corporation to reopen it, citing US energy needs during the war in Iran.
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Dani Anguiano · Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 5:13 PM
The Guardian · US newsChristine Hunsicker, former CEO of CaaStle, gave investors falsified documents that overstated profit and cash reserves
A fashion tech founder was sentenced to five years in federal prison for her involvement in a $300m “fraud scheme” spanning from 2019 to 2025, the Manhattan US attorney’s office announced on Thursday. Christine Hunsicker, 49, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.
Hunsicker, the founder and ex-CEO of CaaStle Inc, had pleaded guilty this March to one count of securities fraud in relation to a scheme that “defrauded hundreds of investors”, authorities said. Her attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Victoria Bekiempis · Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 3:27 PM
The Guardian · CaliforniaExclusive: Rahil Prakash tells the Guardian: ‘I wanted to see if fake polls could penetrate the ecosystem that easily’
A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.
The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a “short-term social experiment” to examine how fake polling “could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification”.
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Sophie Sullivan, Anna Betts and Sam Levine · Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 2:33 PM
The Guardian · CaliforniaFederal agents also ‘seized electronic devices’ from former Democratic representative at San Francisco airport
Authorities are said to have searched the Washington DC home of disgraced former California Democratic representative Eric Swalwell on Sunday amid an ongoing law enforcement investigation into sexual assault allegations.
CNN reported that federal agents on Saturday also “seized electronic devices” from Swalwell at the San Francisco airport, citing unnamed sources familiar with the investigation. Multiple other outlets have confirmed the federal search; the Daily Mail was the first to report this law enforcement activity.
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Victoria Bekiempis · Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 11:10 AM
