In an age of spiritual isolation, witches are flocking to the woods of Ireland and elsewhere to form covens of ‘sisterhood’

On the floor of a sun-drenched room in a 200-year-old Irish estate, a group of 15 witches gather to commune with the spirits. Everyone has someone they want to talk to – dead ancestors, forest fairies, the witches who came before them – and the room has the same expectant charge as the first day of school. Some of the witches wear long black capes and bandannas. Some wear Columbia fleeces, spaghetti-strap tank tops and Adidas sneakers.

Isabella Ferrari, known as Penny the Witch, guides the women as they make divination maps, sheets of paper covered with “yeses” and “nos” that work like Ouija boards: the witches ask their questions and the spirits guide the crystal pendulums in their hands towards the answer. One of the women, Tara Monte, screeches as her pendulum begins circling uncontrollably. “Isabella, do I stop this? Someone really wants to talk to me.” Later, she will confess she believes it was her archangel Michael letting her know yes, her parents were proud of her. Yes, they still loved her.

Package allocates $38bn to ICE, $26bn to Customs and Border Protection and $5bn more to the DHS

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Donald Trump signed a nearly $70bn immigration enforcement package into law on Wednesday after the House narrowly passed the legislation, ensuring funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol activities through the rest of Trump’s presidency.

The Secure America Act passed in a 214-212 vote that was largely along party lines, with Kevin Kiley, an independent who aligns with the Republicans, joining all Democrats in voting no. The Senate approved the measure last week, which allocates $38bn to ICE, $26bn to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and $5bn more to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through September 2029.

Robert Dillon was arrested at home in Florida despite living 300 miles away, and charges were later dropped

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A Florida man is suing several law enforcement agencies for his arrest and prosecution for allegedly luring a child after he was wrongly identified using faulty AI facial recognition software.

According to the Jacksonville Beach police department, an algorithm returned a 93% probability that Robert Dillon was the man caught on security cameras at a McDonald’s in the town attempting to persuade the unaccompanied girl, aged younger than 12, to leave with him.

US defense secretary continues ramp-up of pressure against country including sanctions and devastating oil blockade

Pete Hegseth has warned Cuba against acquiring weapons that could threaten the United States, during a visit to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay.

Washington has ramped up pressure against Cuba with sanctions and a devastating oil blockade, and Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be the next after Venezuela to fall to US pressure.

Graham Platner, a Marine veteran, oyster farmer and progressive activist, has won the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine. Platner won 72% of the vote, defeating the state governor, Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April but remained on the ballot. Platner received scrutiny during the campaign for old incendiary Reddit posts, a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, sexually explicit messages sent to other women early in his marriage and accusations from a former girlfriend, denied by Platner, that he was physically intimidating. Platner will face the senator Susan Collins, a Republican running for a sixth six-year term, in November. The race is seen as a must-win for Democrats to take control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.

• Graham Platner shrugs off scandals to win Maine Democratic Senate primary

• Democrats rally round Platner in Maine as Trump reaffirms grip on GOP after primaries

Lawmakers warn appointment of presidential loyalist will scuttle bipartisan agreement to renew Fisa surveillance law

Donald Trump stood firm on his decision to install controversial loyalist Bill Pulte as the country’s top intelligence official,demanding Congress pass a short-term extension of a surveillance law set to expire amid intense criticism of the appointment.

Pulte will has been asked “to execute the immediate and needed downsizing” of the office of the director of national intelligence, the US president declared on Wednesday, after lining him to serve as acting director on a temporary basis.

Sean Strickland claims he was not cleared to attend the UFC event because he ‘made fun of Israel and Epstein’

The only current US UFC champion says he has been barred from Sunday’s fight card on the south lawn of the White House because he dared to criticize Donald Trump, Israel and Jeffrey Epstein.

On Tuesday night, middleweight champion Sean Strickland wrote on X that he had been informed by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that he had not been cleared to attend the event by the White House.

US president says he will look for a permanent director ‘with experience in National Security’ after backlash against Bill Pulte’s lacking record

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Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters, a Guardian analysis shows.

As the Trump administration pushes policies to boost planet-heating fossil fuels, millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands due to storms, floods and droughts worsened by the climate crisis.

Seattle has enacted a one-year moratorium on new datacenters, making it the largest U.S. city to do so as the backlash against AI infrastructure grows across the country. The city council voted unanimously in favor of the ban. The Guardian reports: Lawmakers have framed the pause as an opportunity to draft regulations specifically targeting the electricity-hungry datacenters being built nationwide to serve the AI sector, and to protect local residents from environmental risks and rising electricity bills. According to Seattle mayor Katie Wilson, the moratorium will also let city officials determine whether datacenters are a "good use of urban land," and potentially impose new stipulations on their approval, such as requiring developers to invest in local transit and housing initiatives in exchange for construction permits. "There are times when public pressure forces elected officials to do something they don't want to do, but in other cases, public pressure just supports and helps to spur on elected officials to do things that they already want to do," said Wilson. "I think this was one of those latter cases." [...] An amendment to the moratorium that passed unanimously last week allows existing datacenters in Seattle to apply for expansions requiring up to 20 megawatts of additional power during the year-long pause. Activists are concerned that the provision may lead to a spike in datacenters' demand for power while the moratorium is in place, and may undermine the premise of the pause. Lawmakers justified the amendment as a way to differentiate between the datacenters that already exist in Seattle and serve a civic purpose, like those powering health facilities and emergency-call systems, from large-scale centers designed to serve the AI sector.

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