The president and his supporters joining forces to decide what audiences read and see seems straight from a fascism playbook

Two events, juxtaposed, tell us a great deal about what is rapidly taking shape in the US. In one, Melania Trump releases a glossy documentary, Melania, an account of her return to the White House. Amazon outbid others to secure the rights to the documentary, spending $75m (£54m) in total, and ticket sales so far suggest that this was, shall we say, not a purely commercial venture.

In the other, the Washington Post is set to cut up to 200 jobs early this month, including the majority of its foreign staff and a sizeable chunk of its newsroom. Both Melania and the Washington Post are backed by Jeff Bezos. His two decisions, to invest in state propaganda and divest from the fourth estate that supposedly holds power to account, reveal much about how capital and authoritarianism join forces to decide what audiences read and see.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

The US lawyer on her fearsome reputation, the criticism she faced for advising Harvey Weinstein, and how 40 years of legal experience did not prepare her for the Epstein files

If Lisa Bloom had been advising Peter Mandelson or the then Prince Andrew before their calamitous attempts at reputation-salvaging television interviews, she would have encouraged them to listen beforehand to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims – or, at the very least, to their lawyers – to understand something of what the women endured.

“Or even just watch some of the powerful documentaries that have been made, centering the victims, telling their stories,” Bloom says, pausing for a moment, closing her eyes and shaking her head to convey silent incredulity. “I’d have wanted them to become really enlightened about it. But you really can’t instil compassion in someone if they don’t have compassion. It’s hard to implant it in there.”

He shot 100 kitschly decorated homes rented out for porn shoots – and spent nine years on a project about his mum and dad. Has any photographer better captured everyday America?

A psychiatric review of Larry Sultan, carried out by the military in 1969, described the American as an anxiety-prone individual who felt like a “left-out observer looking inside”. Sultan may not have been fit for service but, with that short phrase, the report identified the essential quality that would make him a great photographer of American domestic life.

The report is included in a new book, Water Over Thunder, published in collaboration with Sultan’s widow Kerry and son Max. In a career that began in the 1970s and lasted until his death in 2009 at the age of 63, Sultan was never confined to a single genre, but rather moved between documentary, fiction and appropriation. He photographed the ordinary middle-class homes of the San Fernando Valley in California rented out for porn shoots, made a portrait of Paris Hilton in his parents’ bedroom, and took underwater pictures of people learning to swim in San Francisco.

Musicians delivered impassioned speeches during a star-packed night that saw Lamar become the most awarded rapper of all time

• Grammy awards 2026: list of winners

Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar took home major Grammy awards during a night that saw musicians hit back at Donald Trump’s ICE occupation.

From Justin Bieber to Carole King, artists wore anti-ICE pins while others also spoke out during their speeches. Bad Bunny, who is performing at the Super Bowl next weekend, took home three awards, for album of the year, best música urbana album and global music performance, and used his time on stage to call out anti-immigration sentiment.

Some users are stepping away from the app after it made a deal to create a US entity and updated terms and conditions

Many TikTok users across the US say they’re rethinking their relationship with the platform since its ownership and terms and conditions have recently changed, with some citing censorship and lack of trust as reasons why they’re removing themselves from the app.

Keara Sullivan, a 26-year-old comedian, says TikTok jumpstarted her career and provided a pathway to getting a manager and a literary agent.

DC arts venue, which has seen wave of canceled events after Trump’s takeover, will start renovations in July

The John F Kennedy Center, a world-class venue for the performing arts in Washington DC, will halt entertainment events for two years starting on 4 July during renovations, Donald Trump posted on Sunday on Truth Social.

The Kennedy Center, which has seen a wave of performers cancel events in recent months as well as the lowest ticket sales in years, has been in turmoil since the president orchestrated a leadership overhaul in the beginning of his term.

Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez are both officers with Customs and Border Protection, ProPublica reports

Government documents have identified the two federal officers who fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as Jesus Ochoa, a border patrol agent, and Raymundo Gutierrez, an officer with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to ProPublica.

According to those records, Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, were the agents who fired their weapons during the confrontation last weekend that resulted in Pretti’s death. The shooting sparked widespread demonstrations and renewed demands for criminal inquiries into federal immigration enforcement actions. Immediately following Pretti’s killing, the Trump administration repeatedly pushed false claims about the shooting.

Departure from party follows release of documents in US appearing to show Jeffrey Epstein sent former US ambassador $75,000

Peter Mandelson has said he has resigned his membership of the Labour party to avoid causing it “further embarrassment” after more revelations about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The peer, who was sacked as US ambassador last year because of his links to Epstein, featured in documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday related to the convicted sex offender.

Bovino allegedly denied promoting two border patrol officials because of their race, according to several reports

Recently demoted border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who served as the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in several US cities, was compared to a Confederate general in an email sent to him by a colleague in 2018, according to multiple reports.

A border patrol agent who was later promoted to a senior role in New Orleans sent the email in question as well as a number of Confederacy-related images after Bovino canceled a job listing and installed that same agent – a white officer – in the listed role by bypassing the agency’s standard career-advancement process.

About 150m faced cold weather advisories along eastern US, and two in North Carolina died in storm-related conditions

A bomb cyclone produced freezing temperatures across a large portion of the US from the Gulf coast to New England, bringing heavy snow to North Carolina where two were killed in storm-related conditions, and setting records in Florida, where officials warned of ice and falling iguanas.

About 150 million people were under cold weather advisories and extreme cold warnings in the eastern portion of the US, with wind chills near zero to single digits in the south and the coldest air mass seen in south Florida since December 1989, said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the weather prediction center in College Park, Maryland.