BIDUR, Nepal — Rajendra Dawadi was inside his classroom when a colleague rushed in with a warning: Floodwaters were racing through Nepal’s Trishuli Valley, tearing apart homes, bridges, and entire villages.
Then a teacher received another warning by phone. Moments later, a parent arrived to take her child home. The danger had not yet been confirmed, but Dawadi, the principal, had little time to act. He rang the school bell and ordered his students and staff out of the building and toward higher ground.
“I immediately decided to stop … school” and get the children out, he told the Associated Press.
As he followed them to a nearby hill, the floodwaters rose behind him. From the safety of the hillside, he turned to watch the school where he had once been a student — and where he had spent years teaching — disappear beneath a torrent of water, mud, boulders, and debris. Two staff members could not make it and remain missing.
Dawadi’s decision to evacuate the school saved at least 900 students from last week’s devastating flash floods in Nepal, unleashed after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas. The disaster has killed over 900 people across Nepal and China, while more than 4,700 remain missing.
As Nepal grapples with the catastrophic natural disaster, Dawadi’s story has emerged as a striking example of foresight and courage.
The Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School had 1,643 students. At least 900 were on campus that morning, while some students were still making their way to school. Dawadi ordered those already there to leave and called bus drivers to tell them not to come.
One bus, packed with students, had already reached the school when Dawadi told the driver to turn back, he said. The bus crossed a newly constructed bridge and, moments later, the old bridge beside it collapsed.
For Dawadi, the scale of the destruction has become personal, as the school had been both his workplace and a large part of his life.
“I have no words. I got education from that school. And I gave education at that school,” he said.
The destruction of Dawadi’s school was not an isolated loss.
Across northern Nepal, the floods have left thousands of children without classrooms, disrupted their education, and raised fears that the disaster could cost them months of schooling. Charity group Save the Children said in a statement that at least 69 schools in northern Nepal have been completely destroyed, putting the education of nearly 19,000 students at risk.
Dawadi’s quick thinking and swift response during the disaster have been hailed as an act of heroism. When he returned to the site of the school days later, parents embraced him as they thanked him for saving their children.
“Their parents hugged me, they cried with me,” he said. “They were emotional.”
Student Suvina Tamang, 14, said the building was swept away shortly after the students had been evacuated. “I will thank him when I see him” for saving my life, she said.
But Dawadi is reluctant to accept the role of hero. For him, rescuing his students was his responsibility. Now he says, students will need psychological counseling. Then, lessons must begin again, even if the school must temporarily relocate.
His appeal to the Nepalese government is simple: rebuild the schools and get children back to classes.
WASHINGTON — The highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military says there are no plans to send troops to polling places during November’s midterm congressional elections, addressing concerns among Democrats that the Trump administration could use the military to interfere with the vote.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the statement in a letter to Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who recently asked Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to confirm they won’t send troops to the polls.
“The Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections,” Caine said in the letter to Slotkin, which was obtained Monday by the Associated Press. “Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”
Caine, who advises Hegseth and President Donald Trump on military matters, also wrote: “I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”
Anxiety among Democrats that the Trump administration could try to meddle in the midterm elections has grown, particularly after the president deployed federal agents in Democratic-led states over the objections of local leaders.
Federal law prohibits the deployment of armed federal forces to election locations unless “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” If any element of the military were to get involved, it would likely be the National Guard under state control.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles denied in a Vanity Fair interview last year that Trump would use the military to suppress voting in the midterms.
Sonja Thrasher, Slotkin’s press secretary, said Hegseth has not replied to the letter asking him to confirm troops won’t be deployed to the polls in November. Slotkin had asked for a response by last Thursday.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email from the AP asking for the status of Hegseth’s response to Slotkin. The Pentagon previously said it would respond directly to the senator.
Slotkin asked Hegseth during an April congressional hearing if he would follow orders to seize ballots. Hegseth called the question a “gotcha hypothetical,” but said, “I’ve never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t.”
In 2020, Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin, then a congresswoman.
“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley wrote. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military.”
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A major flash flood at the Grand Canyon forced the evacuation of dozens of people and swept large boulders, metal structures and other debris into the Colorado River that runs through it, the National Park Service said.
The flooding in Bright Angel Creek, which flows into the river, happened Saturday afternoon and has left the park service seeking information about 15 people who may be missing or unaccounted for. Torrents of water wiped out footbridges over the creek and significantly altered the landscape, widening the creek bed and creating what appeared to be a new river rapid.
As the park service tries to account for everyone in the area, it is asking anyone with details about people hiking or camping there to get in touch. It said it was working with the Arizona Department of Public Safety to continue evacuations Sunday.
“This is a reminder of what a dynamic and active landscape Grand Canyon is,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.
Popular tourist spots including the Bright Angel Campground, Phantom Ranch and parts of the North Kaibab trail remained closed on Sunday while park officials surveyed the damage, the park said. Rafting trips on the Colorado River also have been halted for now.
More than 60 people were evacuated from Phantom Ranch, which has a historic canteen and dorms, and is a common spot for rafters to get off and on the river. More evacuations were planned Sunday, the park said. No injuries have been reported.
Erica Viola said she was at Bright Angel Campground when the rain started Saturday afternoon, and she and about 50 other hikers watched the creek rise and then debris start to flow by, including what looked like a bunkhouse. The group was taken by helicopter to safety, ending her adventure two days early, she said.
About half an inch to 1 inch of rain fell within about 30 minutes in the rocky area where there’s a steep drop in elevation, said National Weather Service meteorologist Justin Johndrow in Flagstaff.
“Most of it ran off instantly,” Johndrow said.
He said the flooding happened on the north side of the Grand Canyon, where Bright Angel Creek comes from the North Rim down to the Colorado River, dropping around 6,000 feet.
More rain and thunderstorms were possible for the area into Monday.
WASHINGTON — U.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz in the first military action in a month on Sunday, according to a U.S. official, breaking a lull in fighting during an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months.
Forces with the Revolutionary Guard Corps were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the strait, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military movements.
The U.S. military last week completed clearing sea mines from the strait’s international shipping routes.
Semiofficial news outlets in Iran reported sounds of explosions near Larak island on the strait. The Guard in a statement carried by Iran’s state broadcaster noted “the martyrdom and injury of several of our fighters and compatriots.”
The statement said the attack will “result in punishment of the aggressor.”
The fighting comes just days after the Trump administration said it would turn its focus to increasing economic pressure — rather than military action — to try to end its war with Iran. The shifting strategy centers on threats to punish any country or entity that continues to conduct business with Tehran.
The turn to using sanctions as the cudgel of choice comes as the administration weighs diminished munitions stockpiles after months of war, sparking concerns that the prolonged conflict could undermine U.S. military readiness in other parts of the globe.
Trump has consistently emphasized that the U.S. and Israel campaign has been devastating for Iran’s navy and air force. Iranian officials have said the country has suffered $270 billion in direct and indirect damage. Israeli military strikes in the first weeks of the war wiped out much of the theocratic government’s leadership structure.
But Iran has found leverage through its own strikes in the critical Strait of Hormuz, where relatively few vessels carrying oil and liquefied natural gas are risking passage. Iran still has enough drones and missiles to fire at vessels transiting the vital energy waterway, through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, effectively controlling much of the traffic in the strait.
Trump has repeatedly declared that the “Strait of Hormuz is open,” saying 24 vessels passed through last week. But that’s a fraction of the roughly 130 vessels that passed through the vital waterway daily before the war began.
Earlier on Sunday, a multinational coalition overseen by the U.S. Navy said commercial traffic through the strait remained at “reduced levels.” And a monitoring agency run by the British military said an unknown projectile struck a tanker ship on Saturday north of Khasab, Oman, in the strait.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization said the ship had been moving inbound and no casualties or environmental impact had been reported. It cited unspecified military authorities. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — The devastating flash floods in the Himalayan region swept so many people downstream that authorities in one Nepalese district have begun burying bodies in temporary graves before they can be identified, prompting accusations that Hindu funeral traditions are being ignored.
In south-central Nepal’s Chitwan district, the scale of the catastrophe was evident in some 250 bodies awaiting identification and the hastily dug trenches for their temporary burial following Wednesday’s catastrophic floods and mudslides, which killed at least 800 people and left more than 3,000 missing in Nepal and Tibet.
The bodies were carried hundreds of kilometers downstream by the Bhotekoshi River from the flood’s epicenter before being recovered in Chitwan.
Authorities carried out a temporary burial of about 100 victims on Saturday, officials said, as forensic teams struggled to cope. A convoy of vehicles carrying bodies entered a lush, forested area as an excavator dug a wide trench in the red earth while officials and media looked on.
Anil Thapa, a police inspector coordinating the handling of the bodies, said another 50 bodies were having DNA samples taken ahead of their likely burial Sunday.
Authorities preserve the DNA samples, photograph distinguishing facial features and record other identifying details, Thapa said. The bodies are assigned a reference number to help families claim them later.
Thapa said many of the bodies had remained submerged in floodwaters for about four days and were already decomposing by the time they were recovered.
Across the region, homes, vehicles, and farm tractors still lay partially buried in mud.
Limited forensic infrastructure and inadequate morgue capacity in the district further strained efforts to manage the overwhelming number of bodies recovered from the disaster, officials said.
High humidity and sweltering heat accelerated decomposition, compounding the challenges as health experts warned that leaving the remains exposed could increase the risk of disease.
Fresh landslides in the area on Sunday closed the main highway linking the capital city of Kathmandu and Chitwan, a day after it partially reopened, complicating efforts to move bodies and relief supplies.
As survivors grappled with the aftermath, criticism of the burials mounted. Some residents said the dead had waited days for their last rites and were denied dignity in death. Families still waiting to locate missing relatives and some public figures questioned whether authorities moved too quickly.
The issue is particularly sensitive in Nepal, a predominantly Hindu nation where the dead are traditionally cremated.
Ruby Chaudhary, who has two missing relatives, said the burials should not proceed without families’ consent.
“The dead deserve to be treated with dignity,” she said. “Our tradition is to cremate them on the riverbank, surrounded by their immediate family.”
A former prime minister, Baburam Bhattarai, said it was inappropriate to dispose of unidentified bodies before search and rescue operations were complete and without broader consultation with families of the missing.
If morgues were insufficient, authorities could have mobilized emergency resources to set up temporary morgues or secure cold storage facilities, he said in a social media post Saturday night.
Officials said the burials were a temporary measure necessitated by health concerns and limited capacity.
“People are worried that this could be a permanent burial, but it is only temporary management,” Thapa said. “If someone is able to verify the identity later using the available information, they can take back the body and perform the appropriate funeral rites.”
Amrit Bahadur Rai, Nepal’s foreign secretary, said the temporary burial of unidentified bodies was carried out in line with internationally accepted disaster-management protocols, including those of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“Families can match records later, and will be allowed to exhume (the remains later) for necessary rituals,” Rai said at a news briefing in Kathmandu.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Iceland’s voters rejected restarting negotiations to join the European Union in a referendum that pitted concerns about geopolitical stability against keeping national control of Iceland’s prized fisheries, officials said Sunday.
Opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, the National Electoral Commission said. The result puts the divisive issue to rest for now — more than a decade after a euroskeptic government ended EU talks that had begun after the 2008 financial crisis.
The vote Saturday was held in the shadow of repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of nearby Greenland. Although Iceland is a NATO member, supporters said European solidarity would provide greater protection if Trump ever made similar threats toward the volcanic island.
Iceland’s left-leaning coalition government, elected in 2024, moved up the EU referendum it had planned for next year after Trump mistakenly named Iceland four times while speaking about his designs on Greenland.
Voters faced a simple question
Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir said she did not see the loss as a setback for her coalition government but as a win for democracy as more than 82% of the eligible 270,000 voters cast ballots. She said she would respect the result but would not rule out a future attempt to reopen the issue.
“Things happened in the past couple of years, though, that I could not have predicted,” she said. “But this government will not go forward with it. And something big has to change in the next 24 months for this to be at the top of the agenda.”
Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir, leader of the opposition Independence Party who opposed the measure, said the result is a blow to the government but not European relations.
“The best way to heal the wounds is for the government to listen to the conclusion and put this path aside,” she told RUV, the national broadcaster. “Because we want to remain in close contact with the European Union, Europe, and as many other countries as possible, the nation is sending a clear message that we intend to steer that course ourselves.”
Voters faced a simple yes-or-no question: Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?
The capital of Reykjavik was the only area in the island nation of 400,000 people where a majority supported the referendum.
The influential fishing industry led opposition to the referendum over fears the bloc’s common fisheries policy would open its waters to Spanish, Dutch, and other trawlers.
Iceland is already in the EU single market
Descendants of Vikings, Icelanders, who won their independence from Denmark in 1944, have lived off the sea for centuries, and fishing is central to their national identity. Iceland has a proud history of refusing to be pushed around by bigger and richer European nations, winning the so-called Cod Wars with Britain in the 1970s over the right to control its waters.
Opponents also rallied around the fact that Iceland already reaps benefits from being in the EU’s frictionless single market and the Schengen free-travel zone without the sovereignty compromises that come with full membership. They argued that Iceland’s voice would be muted in the large European Parliament and that it would be better off cutting its own trade deals, such as one with China.
Backers said EU membership would lower inflation and interest rates, and the euro would bring more stability than Iceland’s volatile króna currency. They said it was also in the nation’s interest to get closer to its European neighbors to tackle issues that don’t respect borders, such as climate change.
Other countries face a more difficult path to EU membership
If the proposal had been approved, it would have been a preliminary step to revive the lengthy negotiating process with the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, to discuss areas from the economy to human rights. Voters would have needed to approve any negotiated deal.
The result is sure to disappoint many in the European Union. As a wealthy, stable, and democratic country with vast fishing grounds, Iceland could have joined the bloc relatively quickly. Croatia was the last country to join, in 2013.
Most of the other candidates waiting — including several countries in the Balkans, plus Moldova and conflict-torn Ukraine — must still undertake time-consuming reforms to bring their laws and standards into line with those of the EU.
Getting Iceland into Europe’s rich club, perhaps along with Montenegro and possibly Moldova, over the next two years could have helped to lay to rest the damage to the EU caused by the departure of Britain in 2020, even though London now appears willing to mend ties.
Voter Daniel Bjarkason, who opposed the measure, said Iceland should wait a decade or two before trying again to join the EU.
“For now we’re too divided and that’s not a good look,” he said. “It should be 70-30 Yes if we’re going to do it.”
Iran’s supreme leader called on Muslim countries to stand together against Israel and the United States, imploring them to “know your real enemy.”
U.S. broadcaster NBC said Israeli settlers attacked a team of its journalists in the occupied West Bank. A British activist faced deportation after Israeli settlers seized him and turned him over to police. And an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed at least two Palestinians, including a 3-year-old boy, hospital authorities said.
Here’s a look at the latest developments Sunday in the Iran war and the wider Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.
Iran’s supreme leader urges regional unity
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, urged Muslim cooperation and unity in a letter to religious leaders from Islamic countries attending a conference in Tehran, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.
Khamenei called the U.S. and Israel enemies of all Islamic nations. “My enduring and repeating advice to rulers of Islamic nations is to know your real enemy, understand its plans and confront it,” he wrote.
Six months after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, killing Khamenei’s father and other senior leaders, Khamenei has not been seen publicly.
The war has exposed deep divisions in the Muslim world after Iran struck targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries and restricted movement through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has opposed the U.S. military presence in neighboring nations.
NBC says settlers attack journalists in West Bank
Settlers attacked an NBC crew in the central West Bank on Saturday as they were interviewing a Palestinian woman who said she’d been driven out of her house, the network said.
Correspondent Matt Bradley, two other crew members, and the woman were treated for injuries, NBC said, giving no details about them.
NBC shared footage showing masked settlers approaching the crew with sticks and beating their vehicles.
Israel’s military said it was “aware of reports of Palestinian injuries, including a Palestinian woman who sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was evacuated by the Red Crescent for medical treatment.” It did not comment on the attack on the NBC crew.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare condemnation of the violence on Saturday, after a growing wave of violence by settlers in the West Bank. The Israeli leader has come under U.S. criticism for the attacks.
Settlers seized a British activist, lawyer says
Israeli settlers seized a British activist from a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Saturday and locked him in a shed before turning him over to police, his lawyer said Sunday.
Inbar Shaked Vardi said settlers held Finn Joughin for half an hour. Video showed two settlers, one armed, restraining Joughin and marching him away.
It was not clear what led to his capture. Settlers alleged he assaulted a child, which Vardi denied. Settlers pointed to a video where the activist uses his body in an apparent attempt to block a settler boy from passing through a fence. Vardi said the video shows he was trying to protect the village.
“Without any hearing, the police has decided to move him to deportation, which just shows that this entire case has been political in the first place,” Vardi said later, adding that Joughin would likely be deported Sunday night.
A spokesperson with the U.K. government’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office said embassy officials have raised the case with Israeli authorities and were seeking information.
Israeli strike kills 2 Palestinians in Gaza, including a child
An Israeli strike hit a group of people in the western part of Deir al-Balah, killing a 3-year-old and a man who Israel’s military called a Hamas operative.
The military in a statement identified the man as Hassam Osama Hussein Nasir. It said he had “posed an immediate threat,” without providing evidence.
Another Palestinian was wounded, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the casualties.
The deaths were the latest in Gaza since a fragile October ceasefire deal attempted to halt more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli fire has killed at least 1,318 Palestinians since that truce.
Josh Greene is a rising left-wing social media star with his own podcast, nearly 800,000 followers, and access to politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York.
He has used that platform to support dozens of progressive candidates in the midterm elections, ranging from low-profile, down-ballot contests to some of the nation’s marquee Democratic primaries. In camera-facing videos, Greene informs his followers of his preferences, calling some candidates “the most viable” and, in other cases, declaring that “this is the candidate for you.”
He does not always tell his viewers that he is being compensated for his support.
But records show that Greene, 26, has received money from at least seven politicians, or outside groups supporting them, in the current campaign cycle, including several congressional candidates in New York and a super political action committee linked to Abdul El-Sayed, the Senate nominee in Michigan. Tom Steyer, a former candidate for governor in California, paid him $21,500.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, who is trying to bring his party together after a divisive primary, at a June 28 campaign event in Ann Arbor, Mich.NICK HAGEN
Greene, who lives in Southern California and is best known by his handle @joshtheprogressive, is among a growing number of influencers who, at a moment when campaigns are increasingly willing to pay for online attention, appear willing to put their mouth where the money is.
As more people spend time scrolling on their phones, campaigns view these shows of support from influencers as a vital way to reach voters. They are also significantly less expensive than traditional advertising.
But unlike campaign mailers, billboards, and television spots, these messages fall into a legal gray area.
There are no federal regulations requiring disclosure of payments for political support on social media, and only a few states have such rules. That allows influencers, in most instances, to endorse candidates for a fee without ever disclosing those payments in their posts. Creators say some campaigns have even asked them to actively conceal the fact that they’re being compensated, making it impossible to know what’s genuine support — and what is pay-for-play.
In most cases, the only way a viewer would know an influencer is being paid would be to search a candidate’s campaign finance reports, as the New York Times did to discover the payments. Even then, such compensation is regularly obscured by funneling the payments through middlemen.
“It’s completely out of control,” said Suzanne Lambert, a progressive influencer and comedian with more than 1.3 million followers between TikTok and Instagram. She said that while she happily promotes candidates she likes, she has “never taken a cent” in exchange for an endorsement and worries that the practice distorts the democratic process. “People don’t know what’s real anymore,” she said.
Greene defended the idea of influencers getting paid for their work and noted that he accepts money only from candidates and campaigns that he would support anyway. “I turn down offers every single day because I’m not going to take money from anyplace if I don’t agree with it,” he said. (In the case of the Steyer campaign, Greene said he was initially critical but came to see him as the most viable candidate.)
Still, he suggested there was a need for straightforward and consistent rules on disclosure. “If anything, we do need more clear transparency laws so that creators like myself aren’t confused,” he said.
Coordinated networks
The phenomenon is bipartisan.
In June, Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that at least eight social media accounts were being paid to attack his military record during the Republican primary. In April, a newspaper in Kentucky revealed what appeared to be a coordinated network of influencers boosting Nate Morris — at the time running in a Republican Senate primary — even though none acknowledged being paid for their efforts. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and the Republican nominee for Senate, benefited from a paid campaign on the social platform X when he was facing impeachment in the state several years ago.
But the question of paid influence has gained particular attention in recent months thanks to aggressive efforts by a handful of Democratic candidates to secure support from well-known influencers.
During California’s hard-fought primary this spring, Steyer’s campaign paid 17 influencers at least $5,000 apiece, including one, Carlos Eduardo Espina, who has over 14 million followers on TikTok and received a total of $400,000, campaign finance filings show.
Katie Porter was one of several candidates to deploy paid influencers during the California gubernatorial primary in 2026.Godofredo A. Vásquez
Former Rep. Katie Porter, who also ran unsuccessfully for California governor, paid 12 influencers a total of $139,500. One of them, a lifestyle creator named Avery Cyrus with 9.5 million followers on TikTok, received $25,000 for what appeared to be a single post claiming “Katie Porter’s thing works.”
Cyrus’ post was deleted after the Times inquired about it. She did not respond to a request for comment made through the social media agency that represents her, UnderCurrent Media, but the firm’s CEO, Eric Bogard, said in an email that it “was not asked to oversee disclosure compliance, nor were we provided instructions concerning any required disclosures.”
Under California law, paid political posts on social media must be disclosed. A Times review found three posts supporting Porter on TikTok from influencers who were paid by her campaign that did not include any disclosures. In seven other instances, the disclosures could be found only after clicking through to a hidden section of TikTok for comments flagged “as potentially offensive or disturbing.”
Sander Jennings, an influencer based in Florida who was paid $22,000, said “the Porter campaign and I agreed to disclose the payment” in TikTok’s comments section in order to get around the site’s practice of removing paid political posts. He said he did not know why the disclosures ended up in the hidden section of the comments.
TikTok’s terms of service bar all paid political advertising, including “creators being compensated for making branded political content.” In an email, Porter said that “nothing was paid for and posted without review and coordination and compliance with all law.”
Other political efforts have employed a different strategy, contracting private firms that pay little-known content creators smaller sums to put out a large volume of posts. Those companies, known as user-generated content platforms, or UGCs, operate on the principle that carpet-bombing the internet with hundreds of nearly identical posts is more likely to generate viral content than paying one large influencer the same amount of money to make a single post.
This spring, a woman posted dozens of videos promoting Steyer in the California primary. Weeks later, she appeared in videos from a different account complaining about the cost of living “here in Michigan” and encouraging people to vote for Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s primary opponent in the Senate race. Then she pivoted to a third account talking about affordability in Wisconsin.
Corporate records show that the woman, Paige Dunmeyer, actually lives in Kansas City, Mo., and is registered to work with a UGC company called SideShift. It’s not clear how much she was paid for her Michigan and Wisconsin videos, but she has earned more than $30,000 on SideShift for a variety of political and commercial campaigns, according to company records reviewed by the Times. Filings from Steyer’s campaign showed she received $1,320 for her efforts in that race. Dunmeyer did not respond to requests for comment.
A Times analysis found that at least 87 people registered to work with SideShift had made posts backing Steyer or Stevens, or participated in a third campaign to post video clips on TikTok supporting Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee from Texas. Most of the posts by those creators included no acknowledgment that money changed hands.
In a statement, SideShift said that it advised creators to follow applicable disclosure requirements, and called for more explicit laws governing how paid content is disclosed on social media.
“SideShift believes anyone can be a creator and that creators should get paid fairly for work they choose to do,” the company said.
In June, Kendall Boyle, a TikToker in Michigan with over 21,000 followers, was contacted by a social media marketing agency called Activate HQ offering her a paid opportunity to post videos about “how rising costs are affecting Michigan residents in real life.”
When she asked who was footing the bill, she was told it was Majority Forward, a dark money group linked to the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, email correspondence reviewed by the Times shows. Boyle said she was turned off by warnings in those emails from Activate HQ that “disclosure is not required and the paid partnership label will not be included in any posts” and also that Majority Forward “will not be mentioned” in her content.
“It was one of those things where something isn’t fitting right,” Boyle said.
In a statement, Majority Forward said the language in the email “explains disclosure requirements necessary under FEC rules, which were fully followed.”
Little regulation
Just four states have laws or regulations requiring influencers to disclose paid political messaging, but they apply only to state and local races, not federal contests. Although regulations for social media have been proposed multiple times to the FEC, it has never taken action. The Federal Trade Commission, which requires disclosure of paid commercial content on social media, makes an exception for political messaging.
Rep. Mark Takano (D., Calif.) introduced a bill in June that would require anyone paid by a candidate or political committee to clearly disclose that fact in the same way that traditional campaign materials are required to note such payments.
In an interview, Takano said he was inspired to draft the legislation after online sleuths revealed that numerous influencers had been making paid endorsements in the California governor’s race without proper disclosure, as required in that state.
“It’s unfair when an influencer is allowed to be silent or not transparent about money they’re taking from a candidate, making it seem like what they’re saying is authentic and not influenced by money,” he said.
Takano acknowledges that there are some potential loopholes in the bill. For instance: Campaigns often obscure payments to influencers by hiding them under layers of vendors and subvendors.
Porter, for example, hired Activate HQ for “influencer marketing services,” and it in turn paid 13 creators to bolster her campaign for governor. One of them, a political influencer in Los Angeles named Dash Dobrofsky, who also posted in support of Stevens in Michigan, received $15,500 from Porter’s campaign. Dobrofsky did not respond to a request for comment.
Steyer’s campaign, for its part, hired multiple digital strategy firms to manage social media, including one called Group Project, which hired a Los Angeles company, Gutsy Media, which paid Greene through UnderCurrent, which represents him.
Those payment chains are visible because California is one of a handful of states that require campaigns to report payments to subvendors. There is no such obligation for campaigns for federal office. “Every dollar spent by this campaign is publicly disclosed and available for anyone to see,” the Steyer campaign said in a statement.
‘Social media consulting’
State Rep. Chris Rabb at a July 28 event with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Occasionally, campaigns or independent expenditure groups will reveal direct payments to influencers, such as the super PAC Freedom PA, which supported socialist candidate Chris Rabb’s successful bid to win a Pennsylvania House primary in May. It has disclosed payments to nearly 50 influencers for “social media consulting,” among them Greene, who received $750 and posted a video celebrating the candidate’s victory.
Other committees listing payments to Greene in federal filings employed less illuminating descriptions. Chuck Park, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New York’s Queens borough this year, listed a $300 disbursement to Greene as “staff salary.” Greene posted at least five videos promoting Park, none of which state that he had received payment.
Park, in an interview, said that Greene was in fact not employed by the campaign, but said that “our campaign absolutely leaned into new media” and that he spent time with Greene in Queens filming a series of videos.
Greene disclosed being paid on three of his posts about Steyer and told the Times that those videos were the only ones that he was specifically contracted by the Steyer campaign to produce. He said he didn’t receive compensation for prior posts about the candidate.
Greene has also supported Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) in a competitive primary against Rep. Seth Moulton, and last month, he posted a video accusing Moulton of “posturing to be someone they really aren’t.” He posted a second video this month critiquing Moulton, this time for taking corporate political money.
Neither video includes disclosures, and FEC filings don’t show any payments to Greene related to Markey’s reelection bid. But a spokesperson for Commonwealth Together, a super PAC that is supporting Markey, said it had paid Greene $3,500 for “digital communications consulting” through his agency, UnderCurrent.
Greene, in a text message, acknowledged the payment to support Markey, saying he took it “because I believe he is by far the more progressive candidate in the race.”
The murkiness has left some in the political world uneasy. Last month Rynn Reed, the founder of Creator Congress, an organizing hub for influencers interested in politics, introduced a code of conduct for the group that would require creators to make clear when they’re paid, whether required by law or not.
“With no standards,” Reed said, “there’s going to be a race to the bottom.”
TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford answered President Donald Trump’s “Lake America” decree Saturday with a billboard-sized message on the Canadian shoreline: “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.”
Wearing a Team Canada soccer jersey, Ford unveiled the sign near Grimsby, Ontario, and posed for photographs. The 24-by-12-foot sign stands on 6-foot legs, putting its top about 18 feet above the ground — roughly two stories high. The message is repeated in French.
It was the latest show of defiance after Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. federal agencies to call Lake Ontario “Lake America.” After months of tariffs, threats to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, and personal attacks on its leaders, the move has been met in Canada largely with ridicule.
Ford said Trump was trying to rename the lake because Ontario and Canada were “standing up for ourselves” and argued the name would outlast the president.
“Long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario,” Ford said in a video posted on social media.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew compared Trump to an aging rock band trying to revive an old hit.
“You know when a rock band is really over the hill and you see them like in a casino playing some song from like 50 years ago. I think that’s the part of Donald Trump’s presidency we’re at now, Like he thought they had a real hit, a real golden oldie, with the Gulf of Mexico,” Kinew said, referring to Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. “And he’s trying to bring back that, and he’s trying to play the hits for his base. But I think everybody here thinks it’s a little sad and it’s not his best work.”
The mockery was not limited to politicians. Canadian historian Robert Bothwell was even more scathing.
“The greatest country on earth takes this moron seriously?” Bothwell said.
But Bothwell said the dispute was more serious than the jokes, arguing Trump’s broader aim was “to subordinate Canada and at best make it a colony, at worst absorb it into the United States.”
Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said Trump “would like Canada to act like a vassal state, but it refuses to do so. That irritates him.”
The dispute comes as relations between the longtime allies worsen over trade. Negotiations collapsed last week, both governments accused the other of making late demands, and Canada announced retaliatory tariffs set to take effect next month.
Trump’s order also came amid an escalating war of words with Ford. In an interview with the Associated Press earlier this week, Ford said Ronald Reagan would be “throwing up” over Trump’s tariff policies and “disgusted with President Trump.”
Trump fired back by dismissing Ford’s comments as “bluster,” calling him Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “flunky” and mocking him as the “less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother” of the late Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
Trump continued promoting the new name Saturday, reposting a meme showing Canada geese with Trump-like blond hair firing rifles as they “protected” Lake America.
Trump has repeatedly used maps to make political points. A “Gulf of America” map was displayed for a time beside the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, and Trump has posted images depicting Canada as part of the United States or as the 51st state.
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The Canadian province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.
Wendat Nation Grand Chief Pierre Picard, whose people historically lived from the St. Lawrence Valley to the Great Lakes and whose language gave Lake Ontario its name, called Trump’s move an attempt to erase Indigenous history.
“I want to tell him that it is unacceptable for us, as a nation, to have a president who can eradicate our history, our culture, and our identity,” Picard said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, noting the lake’s Indigenous roots and that the name predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Trump cannot require Canada to adopt the new name.
British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has been deported back to the United Kingdom after his arrest by American immigration authorities, U.S. officials said Saturday.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Yiannopoulos was returned to his home country on Friday after being accused of overstaying after entering the U.S. legally in May 2019. An immigration judge had issued a final order of removal on July 22 after he failed to show up for an immigration hearing, a Homeland Security spokesperson said.
Yiannopoulos was arrested Thursday at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Louisiana and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.
Yiannopoulos and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment. He has not posted on his X social media account since Thursday.
Yiannopoulos is a well-known champion of conservative causes and has frequently taken provocative public positions criticizing feminism, Islam, and immigrants. He has been especially supportive of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts,” Yiannopoulos wrote on X last year.
The British national has most recently worked for the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who performed in New Orleans on Friday evening.
Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for the conservative website Breitbart News. He resigned from the company in 2017 after a video of him endorsing pedophilia resurfaced online. He later apologized for the remarks and said he himself was a victim of sexual assault as a minor.
Yiannopoulos’ arrest on Thursday comes amid a nationwide uptick in detentions as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Far-right conservative activist Laura Loomer swiftly took to social media to applaud Yiannopoulos’ arrest after years of public feuding between the two personalities.
“I was the first person to report on the fact that Milo was in the U.S. illegally where he incited violence against President Trump and worked for Marjorie Traitor Greene,” Loomer wrote on X.
Controversy around Yiannopoulos ballooned in 2017 when he carried out what he called his “Troll Academy Tour” across college campuses nationwide. Fights broke out when some students protested Yiannopoulos’ appearances and accused him of hate speech, while others celebrated him as a champion of free speech. Around that time, Buzzfeed reported on Yiannopoulos’ cozy relationships with self-proclaimed white nationalists.
In recent years, Yiannopoulos continued to work in the orbit of conservative activism. In 2022, he was an intern for former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, according to the Washington Post. He subsequently ran the short-lived 2024 presidential campaign for Ye.
Most recently, Yiannopoulos has worked as a spokesperson for Ye, who has been beset by controversy of his own following antisemitic comments that the rapper has since apologized for. The Washington Post reported Saturday that two sold-out Ye concerts in St. Petersburg, Russia, were canceled in part because of his history of such remarks.
