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Britain, France and Germany are closing ranks to bolster Nato as the unreliable US president marches to his own drumAn Atlantic alliance without the United States? It sounds like a contradiction in terms - Hamlet without the prince. Yet this is the improbable, disjunctive world we now inhabit. It is the one in which our children and grandchildren will live their lives. Like it or not, the systemic shock launched by Donald Trump is our new reality. Absolutely nothing about Trump's latest phone call with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday has changed that.Europe's scramble to respond to Trump's return to power was driven initially by the urgency of maintaining support for Ukraine. Most of the focus was diplomatic: keeping US military aid and intelligence flowing, shoring up damaged channels between Washington and Kyiv, engaging quietly with both Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to both encourage and deter, while moving very publicly to take up more of the security burden. Continue reading...

The verdict in North Dakota state court came after two days of deliberations in a trial where company Energy Transfer accused Greenpeace of defamation and orchestrating criminal behaviour to disrupt the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. The project is located near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation. Deepa Padmanabha, Greenpeace's senior legal adviser, said Greenpeace will appeal the decision.

Administration reportedly working to fulfill a conservative dream: create buffer zone to be occupied by US troopsThe Trump administration is working on a plan to create what conservatives have long demanded: a militarized buffer zone along the southern border in New Mexico that would be occupied by active-duty US troops, empowered to detain migrants who cross into the United States unlawfully, the Washington Post reports.According to the Post, recent internal discussions have centered on deploying troops to a section of the border in New Mexico that would be turned into a kind of military installation, which would give the soldiers a legal right to detain migrants who trespass" on the elongated base. Unauthorized migrants would then be held until they can be turned over to immigration officers. Continue reading...

Relatives of deported Venezuelan migrant say he is innocent, as US Federal Reserve keeps interest rates on hold amid tariff uncertainty - key US politics stories from Wednesday at a glanceDonald Trump's White House has described the Venezuelan migrants deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador as heinous monsters" and terrorists who rape, maim and murder for sport".But relatives of Francisco Javier Garcia Casique, a 24-year-old from the city of Maracay, say he was a hairdresser, not a crook. Continue reading...

This blog has now closed. You can read more of our US politics coverage hereDemocratic congressman Glenn Ivey told constituents at a town hall meeting in his Maryland district that Chuck Schumer, the Senate's Democratic minority leader, should step down from his position after a bitter intraparty fight over government funding last week, HuffPost reports.Ivey is the first member of Congress to say Schumer should leave his leadership position, after the leader supplied enough votes to pass a Republican-backed government funding bill through the Senate. House Democrats had near-unanimously rejected the measure, and many in the party believe Schumer, who argued the bill was better than allowing a shutdown that could be exploited by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, gave up leverage he could have used against the administration. Continue reading...

Ice-cream brand's board says David Stever has been removed' for refusing to oversee the dismantling' of its values

Brother of Francisco Javier Garcia Casique spotted him in a video showing scores of Venezuelan prisoners being taken to notorious El Salvador prisonDonald Trump's White House has described the Venezuelan migrants deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador as heinous monsters" and terrorists who rape, maim and murder for sport".But relatives of Francisco Javier Garcia Casique, a 24-year-old from the city of Maracay, say he was a hairdresser, not a crook. Continue reading...

Alvaro Bedoya points to interesting coincidence' that he was dismissed after criticizing Amazon's Jeff BezosA day after his abrupt firing by Donald Trump from the Federal Trade Commission, Alvaro Bedoya raised questions about the US president's relations with some of the country's richest men.Appearing at a hearing of the joint judiciary committee of the state legislature in Colorado on Wednesday, the ousted Democratic commissioner said it was an interesting coincidence" his final public statement in post had blasted Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder. Continue reading...

President Michael Drake also directs campuses to cut costs, such as delaying maintenance and reducing business travelThe University of California has imposed a system-wide hiring freeze and made additional cuts, its president said on Wednesday, as part of efforts to mitigate the expected impact of sharp cuts in federal funding under the Trump administration.In a letter to staff and students, the school's president, Michael Drake, said he had also directed all UC locations to implement cost-saving measures, such as delaying maintenance and reducing business travel, to help conserve funds. Continue reading...

Federal Bureau of Prisons told to transfer women back and provide hormone therapy treatment for gender dysphoriaA judge on Wednesday ordered the federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) to transfer two incarcerated transgender women back to federal women's prisons after they had been sent to men's facilities after Donald Trump's executive order that truncated transgender protections.US district judge Royce Lamberth in Washington DC issued a preliminary injunction after the women were added as plaintiffs in ongoing litigation over the impact of the president's executive order on trans women in federal prisons. Continue reading...

France's research minister said the scientist was traveling to Houston for a conference when his phone was searchedFrance's research minister said a French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration.I learned with concern that a French researcher" on assignment for the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled", Philippe Baptiste, France's minister of higher education and research, said in a statement on Monday to Agence France-Presse published by Le Monde. This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy," the minister added. Continue reading...

The Columbia graduate and green-card holder, held in Louisiana by immigration agents, dictated this letter to family and friendsMy name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices under way against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn't the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn't the 21-year-old detainee I met who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing. Continue reading...

Press secretary says judge who weighed legality of Trump deportation order does not have that authority'The White House on Wednesday labeled the federal judge challenging the Trump administration on whether it defied his court order to halt flights deporting migrants without a hearing a Democrat activist".The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, singled out by name at a White House press briefing federal judge James Boasberg, who weighed the legality of Donald Trump's deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, and is now evaluating the government's compliance. Continue reading...

Multiple pages scrubbed from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) website due to a Trump order

Thinktank that seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts was created and funded by Congress in 1984

American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit alleging the move by Trump administration violates federal lawA top teachers union has sued the US Department of Education after it stopped processing applications for affordable repayment plans of student loans last month and disabled the online application for the programs.The American Federation of Teachers, or AFT - one the country's largest unions, representing 1.8 million workers - filed a lawsuit alleging the sweeping action violates federal law. Continue reading...

White House official reportedly calls funding freeze just a taste of what could be coming' for Ivy League university

Republican governor signs gun control bill to ban Glock switches' as part of public safety packageThe Republican governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, signed a gun control bill on Wednesday, banning Glock switches" and other devices that turn rifles and pistols into machine guns.Ivey said: While there is a federal ban on these gun conversion devices, we needed a way to empower our own law enforcement here in Alabama to get these illegal and extremely dangerous Glock switches off our streets. Continue reading...

With France about to advise its citizens on how to survive an imminent threat', it's time to wise up to what the real essentials areIt's a fairly strong indication that your US presidency is not going well when, within three months of you taking office, one of your closest allies feels the need to issue its entire population with a manual on how to survive an imminent threat". According to French media reports, that is what the French government is planning in the form of a 20-page booklet to go out to its citizens this summer. And while it's intended for use against natural disaster or medical threat, we all know what we're really talking about here. The French government would like to remind its people that, in the event of a nuclear attack, they must remember to close the doors and windows.My dad recalls Buckinghamshire county council issuing a similar pamphlet in the 1980s, for when Russia dropped an atomic bomb on Aylesbury. My family didn't need the advice, as it happened; in the event of the collapse of civil society, my mother's Tupperware and plastic-bag reserves that filled an entire floor-to-ceiling cupboard would've pushed us to the top of any barter-based value system. Plus, for at least a week, we could have lived like kings on decades-old gravy and bolognese sauce loosened from the permafrost of the chest freezer in the garage like the body of a caveman after an ice age.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The 163-page PTPA lawsuit contains some valid and not-so-valid criticism of the professional tours and major eventsThe Professional Tennis Players' Association came into existence on the eve of the 2020 US Open and at the height of pandemic restrictions. After an inauspicious start, the association co-founded by Novak Djokovic has spent time building its professional structures, finances and player support while trying to gain influence in the sport. The PTPA ostensibly functions as a players' union, but it is not legally recognised as such, since players are classed as independent contractors rather than employees.As the PTPA's numerous attempts to gain a seat at tennis's decision-making table have been rebuffed, often vigorously, by the leading governing bodies - the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the four grand slam tournaments - it became increasingly likely that their acrimonious relations would lead to litigation. The PTPA's decision to initiate a lawsuit against the ATP, WTA and ITF on Tuesday, while naming the grand slams as co-conspirators, marks a dramatic intensification of its campaign for players' rights. It also comes as no great surprise. Continue reading...

For students who aren't US citizens, a new reality includes feelings of surveillance, fears of being arrested and reluctance to visit familyIt was 4am and a Columbia University master's student two months away from graduation lay awake in bed. His heart thumped so hard, his chest began to hurt. His hands got colder and colder; he was unable to speak. This had become an agonizing nightly routine for the 24-year-old from India since 8 March, when immigration officials handcuffed the Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil and took him into detention in Louisiana.What scares me the most is that I would be fast asleep at home and I would hear a bang on my door and I'd be taken away in the middle of the night by Ice and nobody will ever know what happened to me," said the student, who attended multiple protests to support Palestine around New York City. It feels as if people are getting targeted for just speaking up for their political views last year." Continue reading...

The USL president spoke to the Guardian shortly before officially announcing the league's historic voteIt's been a big few weeks for the USL. The organization that governs most of lower-division soccer in the United States made a splash by announcing its attention to start a new league at the same tier as MLS, and followed that up this week with another bombshell. The league's board, comprising owners in the two professional men's circuits (the second-division USL Championship and the third-division USL League One) voted to enact promotion and relegation within the USL ecosystem. If it comes to fruition, it will be the first time promotion and relegation will exist in the modern history of US soccer.USL president Paul McDonough spoke to the Guardian shortly before the league officially announced the vote on Wednesday morning. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity. Continue reading...

Entrepreneur and actor Jasmine Mooney, who had a role in an American Pie sequel, says she was arrested at southern border and held in detention over an incomplete work visa

Zelenskyy says he will contact US president to discuss the call with Russian leader following the attack. Plus, dolphins welcome Nasa astronauts back to Earth

US thinktank made FoI request for Harry's visa form after California-residing royal wrote about drug use in memoir SpareHeavily redacted court documents related to Prince Harry's US visa have been released in the US, with his exact status" remaining confidential over fears he could be subjected to harassment.Judge Carl Nichols ordered the release of the documents after a freedom of information (FoI) request by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US thinktank. The Heritage Foundation argued that the Duke of Sussex might have concealed past illegal drug use - discussed in his memoir Spare - which should have disqualified him from obtaining a US visa. Continue reading...

The Adams administration has continued to pay the hotel company of Weihong Hu, a developer accused of funneling illegal campaign donations to the mayorThe administration of New York City mayor Eric Adams is continuing to pay over $500,000 a month to a hotel developer who could potentially provide valuable testimony to prosecutors against the mayor and several of his top allies.The developer, Weihong Hu, was indicted last month for allegedly bribing a New York City non-profit CEO. The indictment charges that she gave the nonprofit executive stacks of cash and helped him purchase a $1.3m townhouse in exchange for more than $20m in city-funded contracts for her two Queens hotels and a catering company. Hu has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Continue reading...

The far-right has found in its pretend fight against antisemitism a way to divide progressives while at the same time clobbering themThe detention of Columbia university student, Mahmoud Khalil, is unequivocally chilling. Khalil, who helped lead the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia university last year, was targeted for his politics. His unlawful arrest by the US immigration enforcement agency comes amidst relentless smears lobbed at protesters of Israel's war on Gaza. This McCarthyite abduction of a Palestinian Green Card holder is a trial balloon, a test of what society might tolerate and a threat of more to come. And the added horror-show twist to this assault on free speech is that it is being done in the name of Jewish people under the pretence of tackling antisemitism.Such egregious claims are easily refuted. Most American Jews didn't vote for Trump and don't back his crackdowns. As Amy Spitalnik of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, one of multiple Jewish groups opposing Khalili's detention, said: The Trump administration is exploiting real concerns about antisemitism to undercut democracy." Meanwhile, it is grotesque to pretend that Team Trump, home to antisemitic conspiracy theories, Nazi salutes and Holocaust denialism, is fighting antisemitism, rather than actively reproducing it.Rachel Shabi is the author of Not the Enemy - Israel's Jews from Arab Lands and Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism Continue reading...

As parents resist vaccines over vague potential harms, advocates call it a case of morals more than science'The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is planning to devote research dollars to the debunked myth that vaccines cause autism - legitimizing stigma not only around vaccines, but around autism itself.Matthew Shallenberger, father to an 11-year-old autistic son in Tennessee, says this myth is harmful because it treats autism as some dreadful disease to avoid at all costs." Continue reading...

Even as 2024 election loomed, reporters say, Democratic Senate leader was sure GOP would expel the turd of Trump'Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, insisted Republicans would move on from Donald Trump and go back to a past version of the party even as Trump's return to power loomed last year, according to the authors of a new book on politics during the Biden administration.The revelation comes as Trump's second term has begin in a flurry of radical policy moves that have rocked the US's political landscape and triggered fears of a slide into authoritarianism. It also comes amid serious Democratic backlash against Schumer for failing to provide stiff enough resistance to Trump's actions. Continue reading...

I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was luckyThere was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the US. The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an Ice detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer.I grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon, a small town in the northernmost part of Canada. I always knew I wanted to do something bigger with my life. I left home early and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where I built a career spanning multiple industries - acting in film and television, owning bars and restaurants, flipping condos and managing Airbnbs. Continue reading...

Often women who trailblazers in men's sports are lauded for their impact on the next generation. Within the Guardians' front office, that's a reality playing out right nowWendy Hoppel, the Cleveland Guardians' director of baseball administration, landed home in Ohio to see she had missed several calls from her social worker. She was returning from Major League Baseball's offseason meetings in New Orleans. It was 2003 and Hoppel had been learning about MLB's new software system. Meanwhile, her baby had just been born.I had already done the nursery and everything, because I'm a planner," Hoppel says recently. She is organized by nature and by profession - her job involves overseeing things like the immigration process for international players. At the time she was 42, had been divorced for three years, and wanted to be a mom. A friend of hers had gone through the adoption process. And it just hit me like, you know that that's what I want to do." Continue reading...

No crime in history has been so well documented by its victims. And yet inaction and censorship reignIsrael's genocide was only on pause: for Palestinians woken on Monday night by a vicious wave of airstrikes, the resumption was no less shocking. More than 400 people - many of them children - were slaughtered in a matter of hours, in an assault that reportedly received the green light" from Donald Trump. This mayhem was swiftly followed by evacuation orders - that is, forced displacement - raising the possibility of renewed ground operations. Israel's excuse? A confected claim that Hamas hasn't observed the terms of January's so-called ceasefire agreement - the terms of which Israel itself has broken over and over again.In the wake of the attacks, CNN reported that Israel's onslaught threw doubt on the fragile ceasefire". Orwellian doesn't even begin to describe such framing. As it is, there was no ceasefire": not if your definition is firing ceasing. A single Israeli has been reported to have died in Gaza during the ceasefire": a contractor killed by the Israeli army, who mistook him for a Palestinian. A reported 150 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during this ceasefire", and dozens others butchered in the West Bank.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams - stuck onboard the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024 - finally arrived back on Earth on Tuesday evening, more than nine months after the failure of Boeing's pioneering Starliner capsule scuppered their originally scheduled mission. A SpaceX Dragon capsule containing Wilmore and Williams, along with Nasa's Nick Hague and Russia's Aleksandr Gorbunov, splashed down off the coast of Florida after a 17-hour descent

Order calls for revising infrastructure policy to better assess risks instead of all-hazards approach', White House saidDonald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that seeks to shift responsibility for disaster preparations to state and local governments, deepening the president's drive to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).The order, first previewed by the White House on 10 March, calls for a review of all infrastructure, continuity and preparedness and response policies to update and simplify federal approaches. Continue reading...

This blog has now closed. You can read our story on the US judge's decision here.Donald Trump has called for the impeachment of the judge handling lawsuits over his administration's deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members, a significant escalation of rightwing attacks on the judiciary.While allies of the president such as Elon Musk have repeatedly said judges who rule against him should be impeached, this appears to be the first time the president has backed such calls publicly. Trump's post on Truth Social does not name the judge, but seems to reference James Boasberg, the Washington DC-based justice who was appointed by Barack Obama and attempted to prevent the government from deporting the alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. Here's what Trump wrote:This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President - He didn't WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn't WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn't WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN'T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I'm just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON'T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way, and that's not pleasant. Continue reading...

Experts doubt new trove of information will change underlying facts in case of 35th president's deathThe Trump administration on Tuesday released thousands of pages of files concerning the assassination of John F Kennedy, the 35th president who was shot dead in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963.So people have been waiting decades for this," Donald Trump told reporters on Monday while visiting the Kennedy Center, and I've instructed my people that are responsible, lots of different people, put together by [director of national intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard, and that's going to be released tomorrow." Continue reading...

Judge rules that administration's mass terminations were illegal - key US politics stories from Tuesday at a glanceDonald Trump's presidential administration in court filings has for the first time acknowledged that it fired nearly 25,000 recently hired workers - and said agencies were working to bring all of them back after a judge ruled that their terminations were likely illegal.The filings made in Baltimore's federal courthouse late Monday include statements from officials at 18 agencies, all of whom said the reinstated probationary workers were being placed on administrative leave at least temporarily. Continue reading...

Judge Ana Reyes says president's executive order likely violates constitutional rights of service membersA federal judge blocked Donald Trump's executive order banning transgender people from military service on Tuesday.US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington DC ruled that the president's order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights. Continue reading...

Killing of Jessie Hoffman Jr for 1996 rape and murder of Mary Elliott is state's first execution in 15 yearsLouisiana has carried out its first execution using nitrogen gas, an experimental method for judicial killings that has only been used by one other death-penalty state.Jessie Hoffman Jr, 46, was pronounced dead at the Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola at 6.50pm local time on Tuesday. He had been convicted of the 1996 rape and murder in New Orleans of Mary Molly" Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive. Continue reading...

New Mexico police say allegedly deliberate incident was recorded from stolen car and boy, 13, believed to be driverA 13-year-old boy has been charged with murder in an allegedly deliberate hit-and-run of a bicyclist that was recorded on video from inside a stolen car, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said.The teenager, who is believed to be the driver, and a 15-year-old have been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death, and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person, according to a late Monday police statement. Continue reading...

Fired members of Federal Trade Commission confirmed to be Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly SlaughterDonald Trump has fired the two Democratic commissioners on the US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, further blurring the lines of bipartisanship at regulatory agencies.The fired commissioners are confirmed to be Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. Bedoya confirmed his firing in a post on social media. Continue reading...

Comcast, Anheuser-Busch and others cancel funding as US becomes increasingly hostile toward LGBTQ+ communitiesSan Francisco Pride, one of the largest LGBTQ+ celebrations in the world, has lost significant funding as major corporate sponsors - some who supported the festivities for years - have pulled out of the event.Several companies, including Comcast, Diageo, Benefit Cosmetics and Anheuser-Busch,, and provide about $300,000 in funding, told the organization that they did not have the budget to participate this year, Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, said in an interview with the Guardian. Some of the companies had been a part of Pride for decades, Ford said. We have relationship with all those people. It's not just a number or transaction." Continue reading...

Danette Colbert is accused of killing US sports reporter Adan Manzano after being seen with him hours before deathDanette Colbert, the woman last seen with a TV sports reporter who was later found dead in his Kenner hotel room, is facing charges of second-degree murder in his death, police confirmed on Tuesday.Colbert, 48, of Slidell is accused of killing Adan Manzano, 27, a Telemundo reporter who had traveled to the New Orleans area from Kansas City. He died during Super Bowl week. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Palestinian activist and green card holder speaks out from Louisiana immigration detention for first time

Minnesota state senator Justin Eichorn allegedly traveled to meet a 17-year-old he thought met online, but was instead a cop posing as minorA Republican state lawmaker in Minnesota who recently introduced a bill to create a mental illness category for liberals obsessed over Donald Trump was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution.Minnesota senator Justin Eichorn was arrested and booked on Tuesday. He believed he was talking to a 17-year-old female, but was communicating instead with detectives from the Bloomington, Minnesota, police department, police allege. Continue reading...

Federal law enforcement is looking into at least three other Molotov cocktail incidents at Tesla showrooms across US

Judge halts efforts to fire USAid workers, a major setback in administration's attempts to bulldoze federal government