Lawmakers, activists and union leaders across the US remember the co-founder of United Farm Workers union

Following the news that Dolores Huerta – the civil rights icon who popularized the rallying cry “Sí, se puede! – had died at the age of 96 on Wednesday, activists, lawmakers and civil rights leaders paid tribute to Hureta’s long and lasting legacy.

In California – where Huerta helped found the United Farm Workers (UFW) union – her death was deeply felt. It was in California’s central valley that she laid the foundations for the United Farm Workers, and helped organize the 1965 Delano grape strike – a national boycott of table grapes that resulted in better wages and working conditions for grape pickers. Several schools in California bear her name, and murals across the state depict her likeness. And in 2018, California declared 10 April – her birthday – Dolores Huerta Day.

Software giant reports $36.6bn in profit, beating Wall Street expectations, as Azure cloud computing division grows 48%

Microsoft gained billions of dollars in stock market value Wednesday afternoon after it reported better than expected revenue and profit, just days after it offered voluntary buyouts to some 60,000 employees.

The office software giant’s growth was fueled by its Azure cloud computing division, which grew by 48% in the September quarter.

Information released by Distributed Denial of Secrets is the third such government data disclosure in the last month

Data identifying more than 41,000 employees and contractors for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was released on Wednesday in an unprecedented leak that reveals how the agency is organized. The records, which were made public by the transpaency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets reference operation names, surveillance programs and information on undercover initiatives.

DHS did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

CBS News editor-in-chief sidesteps viewership concerns and says flagship show doing ‘tremendously well’

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has spoken publicly for the first time about the ratings challenges the network has experienced under her year-long tenure, sidestepping concerns about diminished viewership at the Sunday show 60 Minutes by saying it was not her top priority.

“I could never build anything if I were focused on the precise number of people that happen to tune in to the second feature on 60 Minutes on a given Sunday,” she said at an industry conference on Wednesday organized by the tech publication the Information. The news organization did not offer press credentials.

Kushner threatens to sue, denying allegations that two slush funds were set up to influence his Middle East role

A new book containing incendiary claims about Jared Kushner’s financial dealings during Donald Trump’s first term has ignited a political and media firestorm.

The book by author Matthew Cole is called Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East and was released in the US this week. An excerpt was published by Vanity Fair last Thursday, and immediately drew a furious response from Kushner, who called its claims “completely insane”. The book contains numerous allegations about Kushner, whose father-in-law is Trump and who has served as one of his top diplomatic envoys in the Middle East – the most explosive of which are claims linking him to huge bank accounts allegedly funded by Gulf states.

Keaton Denlay says agents handed him ‘poorly formatted Excel spreadsheet’ and threatened to criminally prosecute him

A California county elections official is speaking out about the Department of Justice’s campaign against purported “voter fraud”, saying federal officials provided him a disorganized list of names filled with inaccuracies – and threatened to criminally prosecute him if he didn’t take action.

Keaton Denlay, the county clerk-recorder for Butte county, a region north of Sacramento, said a federal agent on Friday hand-delivered what appeared to be a printout of a “poorly formatted Excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information”. The DoJ claimed the list was of 47 “likely” noncitizens who were unlawfully registered to vote and demanded the county set aside their ballots. But Denlay said the document was riddled with errors and lacking crucial details, and he declined to act on it.

Pete Hoekstra, controversial US ambassador to Canada, has also accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections

The US ambassador has suggested Canada could be blamed if Republicans perform poorly in next week’s midterm elections, the latest intervention from a controversial figure who has been accused of inflaming a bitter dispute that has angered and baffled residents of both countries.

On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.

Trump ally, who is seeking to shutter the department, had said office relocation would save taxpayers $4.8m annually

The Trump administration has insisted its controversial education cuts are saving “millions of dollars” after it was reported that Linda McMahon, secretary of education, is planning to spend roughly $43,000 on new furniture for her office.

McMahon’s office told Congress that the secretary’s current furniture was worn out and “cannot be configurationally or aesthetically integrated into the agency’s new office space”, according to non-public records seen by the New York Times.

Republicans have condemned the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, calling it a ploy to split votes

Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan, both of whom will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Republicans have condemned the presence in the race of two candidates named Dan Sullivan – one the two-term US senator, the second a retiree living in south-eastern Alaska with scant political experience – calling the newcomer a ploy by Democrats to cost the incumbent re-election by splitting his supporters.

Circumstances are ripe for change in this onetime Republican stronghold given the current dissatisfaction with Trump agenda, experts say

Donald Trump has repeatedly asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot in November’s crucial midterm elections. And in the comfortable confines of Arizona’s most affluent and fiercely contested congressional district, Trump is definitely on voters’ minds.

But whether that helps or hurts the warring congressional candidates in this sun-drenched swath of suburbia, where Teslas and walled-in luxury homes dominate, depends on who you ask.

Effort to loosen rules on unproven peptide drugs, favored by RFK Jr, faced fierce pushback from agency scientists

A plan to give people in the United States easier access to unproven peptide drugs favored by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, was opposed by most Food and Drug Administration scientific staff members, who had limited input in drafting the policy, according to six people familiar with its development.

The document posted online on Wednesday by Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) covers a handful of injectable peptides promoted within the wellness industry for building muscle, healing injuries and boosting energy.

Both Obama and Trump are on the campaign trail, but only one of them appears to be descending into madness

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Barack Obama versus Donald Trump. It is the presidential election that never happened but has come to define an era of US politics.

Obama is back on the campaign trail for the midterms, still electrifying crowds, earning shouts of “We love you!” and skewering his successor. “What’s up with the gold?” he asked a crowd in Detroit. “I mean, he’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” This has, predictably, set off a mini culture war involving questions of elitism and the tastefulness of chain restaurants.

Twin brothers, 22, from Ghana and a 53-year-old American woman targeted older adults in 25 US states, officials say

Three people have pleaded guilty in a $9m romance fraud scam that targeted elderly Americans.

On Monday, the US attorney’s office in the northern district of Ohio announced that twin brothers from Ghana and an American woman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Huerta co-founded United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez, improving pay and conditions for farm workers

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Dolores Huerta, a celebrated 1960s labor union leader and civil rights activist, died on Wednesday in California at the age of 96, her family said.

Huerta was co-founder with Cesar Chavez, another veteran unionist and political activist, of the United Farm Workers union (UFW), which was credited with improving pay and conditions for agricultural workers through a series of strikes, boycotts and protests in the 1960s and 1970s.

The $72.5m suit alleges Scott Jennings falsely told listeners Piker had a ‘plan of returning our country to lynchings’

The prominent socialist political commentator and influencer Hasan Piker is suing his conservative counterpart Scott Jennings for $72.5m over comments on a podcast that he said portrayed him as “a violent racist” who advocated the lynching of Black people.

Piker’s defamation lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in US district court for the District of Columbia, states that Jennings misrepresented his comments in a podcast and subsequent social media post in August.

The luxury MV Odyssey ship slated for a years-long voyage around the world suspends operations amid high fuel prices

A luxury cruise ship that had embarked on a years-long voyage around the world was forced to suspend its operations and leave passengers stranded in Cambodia because of high fuel prices.

The ship, known as the MV Odyssey, had been carrying 203 passengers, mostly Americans, along with 156 crew members, Cambodian officials told the Associated Press. The ship has a 650-passenger capacity.

Democrats urge FTC to tackle ‘systemic failure’ of biggest convenience and dollar stores over pricing practices after Guardian investigations

Thirty-four members of Congress are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate reports of widespread overcharging by some of America’s most-recognized brand-name retailers.

The 28 October letter to the FTC comes in direct response to Guardian investigations of four of the nation’s largest dollar-store and convenience-store chains. Both investigations revealed pervasive mismatches between shelf labels and register prices.

‘You try to leave, it is death,’ Halima Salman testified. Her mother and defense attorneys wept after the verdict

A New York woman whose father took her to Syria as a teenager and arranged her marriage to an Islamic State fighter was convicted on Tuesday of receiving weapons training from the militant group.

Prosecutors said Halima Salman, a US citizen, pledged loyalty to the extremist group and willingly participated in its activities. Jurors were shown a video of her holding an assault rifle, a photo of her with the group’s flag and loving text messages she sent her husband.

US health secretary falsely claims at Mike Rogers rally that Arabs have never won major prizes in science or literature

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a “wildly racist tirade” during a campaign stop in Michigan in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won major awards in science or literature.

Kennedy was speaking at the Monday night event in Grand Rapids in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate who is trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim, in polling.

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For months, Mary Peltola’s campaign for Alaska’s Senate seat has denied any connection to a separate campaign launched by a man who, coincidentally, shares the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan.

New reporting from the New York Times undercuts that claim. The outlet reported, based on interviews, obtained text messages and legal filings, that the Peltola campaign had not only recruited Mr Sullivan (not the Republican), but had sought out a number of Dan Sullivans across the state for potential candidacy, as well as others who could peel votes away from Peltola’s main opponent.