Key events

Trump's Great Lakes declaration echoes first-term 'Sharpiegate'

The Oval Office event on Thursday in which Donald Trump summoned the White House press corps and had them record him signing an executive order rebranding Lake Ontario “Lake America” came one day after he first announced his intention to do so on TikTok.

In that social media video, also recorded in the Oval Office, Trump scratched out the name of the lake and scrawled his preferred name in a black Sharpie marker.

Trump’s video was quickly mocked by a Canadian satirist and even the governor of Wisconsin.

By Thursday, that hand-drawn alteration to the map had been replaced by a more polished map with the new name displayed on an easel beside Trump’s desk as he signed his order, also using a Sharpie.

A map labeling Lake Ontario as “Lake America” was displayed in the Oval Office on Thursday as Donald Trump signed an executive order amid the ongoing trade war he started with Canada. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The image of Trump taking a Sharpie to a map, and then having a more polished version of his alterations presented to the media in the Oval Office, echoed an incident during his first term, when he insisted that a hurricane might hit Alabama, and then refused to admit that he had been wrong.

In that case, when Trump invited the press corps into the Oval Office, on 4 September 2019, he showed a forecast map that he had altered with a black marker, presenting it as proof that he had been right, and the National Weather Service wrong, when he warned residents of Alabama earlier that week that they were in the likely path of Hurricane Dorian.

In 2019, Donald Trump held up a chart that showed the original projected track of Hurricane Dorian from the National Weather Service that he had altered by drawing a black line on it to suggest that Alabama might be hit. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

In a section of her memoir on “Sharpiegate”, Trump’s then press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, confirmed that Trump had made the alteration himself.

Before calling in the media, Grisham wrote, Trump had expressed anger that the map, then a week-old projection of the storm’s likely path “sitting on an easel by his desk,” showed the hurricane threatening Florida and Georgia but not, as he’d tweeted, Alabama.

Trump then took a Sharpie from his desk, Grisham recalled, and drew a black line to include Alabama in the path, insisting to his staff that this was the original projection for the storm.

Grisham, whose book is littered with the remains of half-truths and outright lies she’d told on Trump’s behalf, claimed that Trump was right about the threat to Alabama, despite the fact that none of the forecast cones predicting the storm’s path ever included the state.

Michelle R Smith

A senior Democratic senator is calling for a criminal investigation into the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, following reporting by the Guardian that indicated he lied during Senate confirmation hearings last year.

Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.”

The Guardian’s reporting was based on letters that were obtained – by this news outlet and the Associated Press – following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Wyden said in a statement to the Guardian that he would be pressing Republican colleagues, who currently control the Senate, to issue a criminal referral of Kennedy to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. “And when Democrats retake the majority in the Senate, RFK will be at the top of the list of Trump officials the finance committee will hold accountable for endangering American families,” he said. Wyden currently serves as the top Democrat on the finance committee.

Trump turned acronym for the Great Lakes from Homes to Shame, Democrats say

After Donald Trump brought a Sharpie to the knife fight with Canada he started, by ordering the federal government to start calling Lake Ontario “Lake America”, Democrats pointed out that the change would ruin the acronym for the five Great Lakes – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior – taught to schoolchildren: Homes.

An acronym for the Great Lakes used to be Homes,” New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, posted. “Thanks to Donald Trump, it’s now Shame.”

Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, followed by sharing audio of children singing a song that uses the Homes acronym as a mnemonic.

The Michigan Democratic party chair, Curtis Hertel also invoked the ruined acronym in a statement.

“As Trump renames Lake Ontario and changes the Great Lakes’ acronym from Homes to Shame, what’s actually shameful is Trump’s reckless trade war with Canada that’s throwing our state’s economy into chaos and causing costs to skyrocket even higher,” Hertel said. “Michiganders need relief, not a rebrand – and we’re ready to hold every Michigan Republican accountable for standing with Trump, this stupid stunt, and their cost-raising agenda.”

Fired Stars and Stripes journalists sue the Pentagon, and Hegseth, for wrongful termination

Three journalists who were fired by the Pentagon from a US government-funded news outlet sued the US Department of Defense in federal court in Washington DC on Thursday arguing that their dismissals were illegal and violated their First Amendment rights to free speech.

The three journalists were all employees of Stars and Stripes, which their court filing calls “the U.S. military’s independent news source since the Civil War with a long history of editorial independence, free from news management or censorship by military command.”

The news outlet’s former publisher, Max Lederer, editor-in-chief, Erik Slavin, and Middle East correspondent, Lara Korte, allege, in the language of the complaint, that the defense department and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, “are attempting to fire Plaintiffs for speaking up as private citizens in support of the press’s freedom to cover military operations, its need to reach all servicepersons, and in retaliation for their publication of a news report on deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln during its extended tour of duty in the Mid-East.”

Slavin says he was dismissed for supposed “insubordination” during an interview with CBS News in which he objected to potential censorship by the US military. Korte took part in the same interview.

“The spark that moved Defendants to act was a news report published by Stripes on August 11, 2026,” the suit alleges. “The article broke a major story about deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. It reported that the aircraft carrier’s 5,000 Sailors have endured food and water shortages, disrupted mail service, long workdays, and little time off for months on end, and that the long deployment and physical hardships were impacting Sailors’ physical and mental health”.

The day after that article was published by Stars and Stripes, the suit contends, “Defendants ordered Plaintiff Max Lederer, Stripes’ Publisher, to present Notices of Separation to Mr. Slavin and Ms. Korte. The notices charged them with Insubordination for the statements they made five and one-half weeks earlier on CBS”.

“Stripes’ historical editorial independence is critical to its core mission of gathering and providing unbiased, credible journalism to the U.S. military community, particularly servicemembers and their families stationed overseas,” the suit also says.

“Lederer did not deliver the notices,” the suit explains. “Instead, he decided then and there to retire, and informed the Stripes’ staff via email. Mr. Lederer took this step because he did not want to be part of Defendants’ scheme to illegally punish Mr. Slavin and Ms. Korte for exercising their First Amendment rights.”

Lederer was dismissed shortly after announcing his impending retirement, effective at the end of September. He said the Pentagon had installed a new deputy publisher, an active duty service member, under him at the newspaper without his prior knowledge.

Ontario is an indigenous name that predates both the US and Canada, Canadian prime minister explains

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, points out on social media that the name of the lake Donald Trump presumed to rename on Thursday comes from the language of the indigenous Wendat people.

“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’, Carney wrote. “The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.”

“We know that America is changing,” Carney added. “Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”

The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

As a Canadian government website explains, the country’s name is also derived from an indigenous word.

The name “Canada” likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement.” In 1535, two Aboriginal youths told French explorer Jacques Cartier about the route to kanata; they were actually referring to the village of Stadacona, the site of the present-day City of Québec. For lack of another name, Cartier used the word “Canada” to describe not only the village, but the entire area controlled by its chief, Donnacona.

New York congressman denounces Trump's Lake Ontario rebranding stunt

Among those deeply unimpressed by Donald Trump’s stunt to direct federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario and Lake America is Tim Kennedy, a Democratic congressman who represents a western New York district that borders Ontario and co-chairs the bipartisan House Northern Border Caucus on US-Canada affairs.

Kennedy said in a statement on Thursday:

If Donald Trump spent half as much time trying to make life more affordable as he does trying to rename bodies of water, working families might actually be able to afford their rent, utility bills, and food costs. His pathetic proposal to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” proves what we already know him to be: a petty, vindictive, failed president.

By declaring economic war on Canada, our strongest ally and New York’s largest trading partner, President Trump is waging that same war on border communities like Western New York, and we have been paying the price. Canadian tourism to New York is down 26 percent and Canadian spending is down 28 percent.

After picking fights with our allies and losing illegal wars of choice with our adversaries, President Trump is cementing his place as the worst president in the history of our country.

Here's a recap of the day so far

• Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”. This comes as the trade war between the US and Canada escalated in recent days, and has seen both countries levy tariffs on hundreds of each other’s imports. The renaming of bodies of geographic features to spite neighbors and exert national pride is a familiar play for Trump, who issued a similar order rebranding the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” at the start of his second term.

• Trump also told reporters that he’s had “good talks” with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and insisted that “he’s not going to be attacking a Nato territory”. This comes after speculation continues to circulate around CIA director John Ratcliffe’s covert visit to Moscow this week, and reports that have emerged that say the spy chief’s trip was expressly to convince Putin to not take action against Nato allies.

• Documents obtained by the Guardian and interviews with military leadership show the war in Iran has depleted the US Navy’s budget. Consequently, the service branch has had to reallocate money intended for its payroll and from other reserves to fund combat operations. The financial strain comes after the protracted war has depleted US weapons stockpiles and led to counterattacks on bases throughout the region.

• House Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump Jr’s venture capital firm, 1798 Capital. The president’s son serves as a partner for the firm, and now Democrats on the judiciary committee are asking the company’s founders to turn over records to detail the firm’s “miraculous” recent success. But Democrats likely have little authority to enforce that request while they remain a minority in Congress. More here

• Karoline Leavitt departs from her role as the White House press secretary. President Trump’s outgoing press secretary, who had been a key mouthpiece for the administration since the start of Trump’s second term, addressed reporters for perhaps the last time earlier today. Leavitt described the parting as “bittersweet” and told the press pool that she would “miss you guys.”

• Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr appears to have lied during congressional hearings last year. Newly obtained documents show that Kennedy lied to lawmakers last year about the intent of his 2019 visit to Samoa. In the hearings, ahead of his confirmation as the nation’s top health official, Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine crusader, told lawmakers that his trip to the island had “nothing to do with vaccines”. But the newly uncovered documents undermine that testimony, including one in which Kennedy told the Samoan prime minister that he wanted to study vaccination on the island. Kennedy’s visit came months ahead of a measles outbreak on the island that killed more than 80 people.

Donald Trump has left Washington for Houston, Texas to attend a Republican National Committee (RNC) fundraiser and campaign on behalf of attorney general Ken Paxton, who is vying to win the US Senate seat in the state.

Canada drops US seafood from sweeping tariff list

While the US and Canada continue to escalate a tit-for-tat trade war, Canadian officials have opted to back down from tariffs on a particular American export: seafood.

In a social media post on Thursday, Canada’s Department of Finance said it would remove seafood and fish products from a slate of counter-tariffs prepared against the United States. Canadian officials said the move was intended to “protect against broader economic harms”, even as the nation retaliates against the new US duties.

After a tentative deal between the two nations fell apart last week, US tariffs against Canada took effect, and Canadian authorities responded in kind.

Susan Collins, a Republican Senator from Maine facing a competitive re-election race this year, said in a social media post that she was grateful to the Canadians for pulling back from seafood tariffs. If imposed, she said, such a measure would have been devastating to her state’s lobster industry.

“I urge the US to respond to this show of good faith from our Canadian friends by returning to the negotiating table and working to amicably resolve this trade dispute,” Collins wrote.

Trump insists that Putin will 'not be attacking a Nato territory' as speculation circulates after CIA director's visit to Moscow

Donald Trump told reporters today that he’s had “good talks” with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and insisted that “he’s not going to be attacking a Nato territory”.

This comes after speculation continues to circulate around CIA director John Ratcliffe’s covert visit to Moscow this week, and reports that have emerged that say the spy chief’s trip was expressly to convince Putin to not take action against Nato allies.

Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'

Donald Trump summoned the press pool to the Oval Office to witness him signing an executive order that directs the Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”.

This comes after trade talks between Canada collapsed over the weekend and led to a fray of tariffs between Washington and Ottawa.

Trump claimed the name change was something “I’ve been thinking about for a long time”.

“Canada treats us very badly,” the president said. “People oftentimes they’ll ask me who’s the worst to deal with on trade, and I said that’s easy. Canada, they are the worst, and they feel entitled, and just we can’t have that.”

A 50% tariff on several Canadian imports kicked in on Saturday, with Trump threatening another round of 50% duties on Canadian steel, trucks, cars and auto parts to take effect in the new year. Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, hit back with 25-50% tariffs on hundreds of US goods.

This, of course, is not the first time the president has made renaming a body of water a priority. At the beginning of his second term in office he issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”.

Trump appeared to joke that there could be more to come: “We have a Gulf and we have a Lake – now all we need is an ocean. Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”

Trump administration officials are seeking to radically accelerate the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Haitians who were previously living in the US under the aegis of a humanitarian program, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The Times reports that the administration is seeking to start deportation flights to Haiti weekly – as opposed to its previous pace of once a month. If put into effect, that could increase the number of Haitians flown out of the country by hundreds of people per month.

The Trump administration has deemed the island nation safe enough for those who fled it to return, even as the country remains mired in anarchy and gang conflict. The violence there has led the administration to reroute deportation flights away from the embattled Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, to a smaller city 120 miles away.

The more than 300,000 Haitians slated for removal from the country were previously allowed to work and reside in the US under Temporary Protected Status. But President Trump has taken aim at their inclusion in that program since early in his second term, and was able to terminate it for Haitians after a June supreme court ruling cleared the administration’s path.