Union representative concerned about safety as workers rush to finish repainting DC pool before 250th celebrations

Workers renovating one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic sites in a project ordered by Donald Trump may be risking their safety as they race to finish on time for the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations, a union monitoring the site has warned.

Trade union scrutiny has focused on the reflecting pool on the US capital’s National Mall – scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream speech” – after it was drained of water and fenced off from the public to allow contractors the chance to upgrade it by 4 July.

FBI director reportedly took a snorkel excursion at site containing remains of more than 1,000 navy sailors and marines

The FBI director, Kash Patel, is facing new scrutiny following reports that he participated in a snorkeling excursion around the USS Arizona during a trip to Hawaii last summer.

The outing was first reported this week by the Associated Press, which obtained government emails describing the excursion as a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona – the site that holds the remains of more than 1,000 US navy sailors and marines who died at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

US president calls Abu-Bilal al-Minuki ‘most active terrorist in the world’ and says he was eliminated in ‘very complex mission’

Donald Trump has said US and Nigerian forces killed the “second in command” global leader of the Islamic State.

“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform on Friday.