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Look-back window results in nearly 100 allegations against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day SaintsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in the US has been rocked by a slew of sexual abuse allegations launched against it in California in the latest scandal to hit the organization that is better known as the Mormon church.A three-year look-back legal window that allows adult survivors of sexual assault to file claims in California has produced almost 100 allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Mormon leaders. Continue reading...

The secretary of state was once a prominent Ukraine supporter and called Putin a war criminal' - not any moreMarco Rubio, the US secretary of state, looked on as Donald Trump demanded more gratitude from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and accused the embattled leader of gambling with world war three".You right now are not in a very good position," Trump chided Zelenskyy during their confrontation in the Oval Office last week. Continue reading...

The strange warmth between the leaders has sent a chill globally at the prospect of a troika of authoritarian statesDonald Trump's sinister affinity for Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has long been the subject of intense speculation. Former KGB officers claim Trump was recruited in Moscow in 1987 and cultivated as an asset in the years prior to his 2016 US election victory.Two retired Russian spies weighed in again last month, alleging that the then 40-year-old Trump, codename Krasnov", was personally compromised in an active measures" operation and has secretly danced to Putin's tune ever since.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Tina Smith is leaving at the end of her term, and says she would call Musk a dick even if she had to face re-electionThe American people can see in Elon Musk and in Donald Trump" the kind of jerk boss who just doesn't respect the work that anybody does," said the Democratic senator Tina Smith of Minnesota.Smith has been bluntly calling out Musk and Trump since she made a strikingly rare decision in February for someone elected to one of the country's top positions: she will leave her job, by choice, without some kind of scandal, at the end of her term. Continue reading...

The general reaction is that this was yet another stunning example of how spineless and performative the Democrats areHappy International Women's Day (IWD), everyone! I've got some good news and some bad news to mark the occasion. Continue reading...

Bushwick is a dizzying, thrilling place to be.At Maria Hernandez park men pack into the volleyball courts, shouting over matches in Spanish, while children chase soccer balls around shirtless skateboarders. Reggaeton plays from passing cars and techno leaks out of nightclubs under the M train. Recent art school grads throw rooftop parties and split rent four ways, and European tourists roam the neighborhood's industrial sections to snap photos of street art. Continue reading...

The silence from former occupants of the Oval Office has been deafening as the incumbent cuts a destructive pathThe stadium announcer called on the crowd to give a warm welcome to a very special guest". A cheer went up as basketball fans realised that Barack Obama was in their midst. The former US president rose to his feet, smiled and waved before watching the Los Angeles Clippers take on the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday night.It was a jarringly normal scene at a profoundly abnormal time. The previous evening, Donald Trump had delivered the longest ever presidential address to Congress, a dark, divisive tirade strewn with lies and insults - he called Joe Biden the worst president in American history" and Senator Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas". Continue reading...

As the anti-woman influencer sees it, domination is its own end. Is it any surprise he's a supporter of the president?Andrew Tate is now a free man.The rightwing anti-woman influencer landed in Florida last week after being held detained for over two years in Romania on rape, sex trafficking and money laundering charges. The Romanian courts abruptly reversed their previous refusal to allow Tate to leave the country after several high-level Trump administration officials took an interest in his case - including Trump's son Donald Trump Jr, who called Tate's arrest in Romania absolute insanity". The Romanian foreign minister, Emil Hurezeanu, was reportedly approached by a Trump envoy about Tate's case at a security conference in Munich in February; Tate arrived in the US within weeks. When asked if Trump had played a role in Tate and his brother's release, the Tates'lawyer Joseph McBride said: Do the math. These guys are on the plane." Continue reading...

Wellspring center in Casper pauses services after conservative legislature passes tough new restrictionsThere's a small, unremarkable beige building in downtown Casper, the heart of Wyoming's oil country, tucked between a Sinclair gas station and a local dry cleaner. Most days of the week, the building attracts a small throng of protesters.In May 2022, it was burned down just three weeks before a new business was set to open in the building. Since it finally opened in 2023, Wyoming lawmakers have passed a number of laws designed specifically to shut it down. Continue reading...

Pharmacies are struggling with supplies as fatal outbreak expands and health secretary sows disinformationAs measles cases continue to grow in Texas and New Mexico, with a second death, an unvaccinated adult, reported on Thursday, some Texas cities are seeing shortages amid soaring demand for the highly effective vaccine and as the top US health official, Robert F Kennedy Jr, sows disinformation and mistrust about vaccines.Ann and Paul Clancy were picking up medications at their local Walgreens in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday and decided to ask the pharmacist about getting the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Continue reading...

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Liz Oyer's former office leads reviews of clemency requests and makes pardon recommendations to White HouseDonald Trump's administration on Friday fired at least two senior career officials at the US justice department, including the head of the office that handles presidential pardon requests, according to a social media post and sources familiar with the matter.Liz Oyer served as pardon attorney since 2022, a career justice department position. Oyer was fired effective immediately," according to a memo she shared on LinkedIn, which cited Trump's executive authority under the US constitution. Continue reading...

From Donald Trump's latest remarks to actions taken against crucial government agencies - key US politics stories from Friday at a glanceDonald Trump has said he finds it it easier" to work with Russia than Ukraine and that Vladimir Putin was doing what anybody would do" after Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike on Ukraine days after the US cut off vital intelligence and military aid to Kyiv.I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don't have the cards," Trump said in his latest attack on Kyiv. In terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia. Continue reading...

Order would affect Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, while Musk reportedly squabbled with Trump cabinet secretaries over firings. This blog is now closed.Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has scrambled to convince Donald Trump to lift tariffs on his country, which together with Mexico and China is one of the US's largest trading partners.That effort included a phone call between the two leaders on Wednesday, which appears to have had some effect - on Thursday, Trump exempted Canada from some of the tariffs he had imposed, along with Mexico.Trudeau responded Tuesday by placing tariffs on the US, and he questioned whether further negotiations would make any difference, accusing Trump of acting in bad faith." The two leaders eventually spoke Wednesday morning, an exchange Trump said ended in a somewhat" friendly manner. A person familiar with the matter said the call grew heated and included profanity. Continue reading...

Brad Sigmon, 67, was shot dead by prison staff despite outcry over cruel' method and calls for clemencyThe US has conducted its first execution by firing squad in 15 years, with South Carolina prison officials shooting to death Brad Sigmon, 67, on Friday evening, despite widespread concerns about the safety and cruelty of this method.Sigmon was the oldest person to be executed in the state's history and his death was part of a series of rapid killings the state has pursued in the last six months as it revives capital punishment. There had been growing calls for clemency, but minutes before Sigmon was killed, the state's Republican governor, Henry McMaster, announced he would not be intervening. Continue reading...

Man surrenders to police and two more arrests expected in Caleb Wilson's death after Omega Psi Phi fraternity ritualMultiple people are facing criminal charges in the recent death of a 20-year-old student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that evidently occurred amid a fraternity hazing, authorities have said.Caleb McCray, 23, surrendered to police in Louisiana's capital city on Thursday on counts of manslaughter as well as criminal hazing in the 27 February death of 20-year-old Caleb Wilson, a mechanical engineering student at Southern as well as a member of its famed Human Jukebox marching band. Continue reading...

Move comes even as Trump has tried to show that Musk's cost-slashing agency doesn't have the final sayThe US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued new guidance directing that spending items greater than $50,000 now require approval from Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge), even as Donald Trump began putting some distance between Musk's reach and the power of government department heads - at least over job cuts.Any assistance agreement, contract or interagency agreement transaction [valued at] $50,000 or greater must receive approval from an EPA DOGE team member," the EPA guidance says, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The EPA did not respond to a request from the news agency on Friday for comment. Continue reading...

Government alleges university failed to protect Jewish students amid pro-Palestinian protests on campusThe Donald Trump administration announced on Friday that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college's repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.The announcement comes after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and initiated its own investigations into students critical of Israel and its war on Gaza after Hamas's own attack on Israel. That move by the university has alarmed advocates of free speech. Continue reading...

Incarcerated trans women report being groped by male guards and suicidal thoughts: I'm punished for existing'Transgender women incarcerated in the US prison system have been transferred to men's facilities under Donald Trump's executive order, despite multiple court rulings blocking the president's policy, according to civil rights lawyers and accounts from behind bars.Trump's day-one gender ideology" order, one of several sweeping attacks on trans rights, said the attorney general shall ensure that males are not detained in women's prisons or housed in women's detention centers" and that no federal funds go to gender-affirming treatment or procedures for people in custody. Continue reading...

Federal Reserve head Jerome Powell said it was in no rush to cut interest rate as government overhauls key policiesThe US economy faces a potential slowdown in consumer spending amid heightened uncertainty about the economic outlook" among businesses, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said on Friday.The central bank chief said the Fed will be in no rush to cut interest rates while it waits for more clarity on how the policies of the new Trump administration affect the economy. Continue reading...

The presidency is no longer just a bully pulpit'. It's become part of the disinformation machineDonald Trump won the White House not with money, though he spent plenty of it, but by dominating the conversation. He hasn't stopped campaigning. He uses attention to bolster his political power, and uses his office to make sure that everyone keeps watching.He was barred from leading social media platforms after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but four yearslater, their owners attended his inauguration. Many of his key hires appear picked for their media presence as well as their ideological bent and sycophancy. Tuesday's interminable address to Congress was garnished with the kind of wild claims or outright lies that he knows take off on social media. For him, posting online ultimatums to Hamas and a disturbing AI-generated Trump Gaza" video is all partof foreign policy. One of the most chilling, and telling, moments of last week's attack onVolodymyrZelenskyy was MrTrump's remark: This is going to be great television."Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

All cases were in Lea county, near the county in Texas where more than 100 cases and one death have been recordedThe New Mexico health department reported 30 measles cases in the state on Friday, an increase of 20 cases from its previous count.All the cases were reported in Lea county, which is located adjacent to Gaines county, Texas, where more than 100 cases and one death of an unvaccinated child have been reported. Continue reading...

It's unknown whether Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has promoted anti-vaccine views, is involved in study

The US president's cuts to health funding could lead to half a million deaths. They're part of a strategy to condemn and isolate the countryOn 7 February, less than three weeks after taking office, Donald Trump issued an executive order: Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa." The order directed US agencies to halt aid to South Africa, condemned South Africa's case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ) as an aggressive position", and declared that white Afrikaners be prioritized for resettlement in the US based on the duplicitous claim that they are victims of unjust racial discrimination".The humanitarian consequences of this executive order are devastatingly clear. On 26 February, notices were sent out terminating support for HIV organizations funded by the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), initiated in 2003 by then-president George W Bush. The termination of funding to Pepfar is catastrophic for South Africa. Studies predict this could result in more than half a million unnecessary deaths and up to half a million new infections. Continue reading...

One bill would remove trans children from their parents, and the other would ban drag shows and Pride marches

The pattern is inescapable - with just one caveat: organised crime bosses occasionally display more honourBehold Donald Corleone, the US president who behaves like a mafia boss - but without the principles. Of course, one hesitates to make the comparison, not least because Donald Trump would like it. And because the Godfather is an archetype of strength and macho glamour while Trump is weak, constantly handing gifts to America's enemies and getting nothing in return. But when the world is changing so fast - when a nation that has been a friend for more than a century turns into a foe in a matter of weeks - it helps to have a guide. My colleague Luke Harding clarified the nature of Vladimir Putin's Russia when he branded it the Mafia State. Now we need to attach the same label to the US under Putin's most devoted admirer.Consider the way Trump's White House conducts itself, issuing threats and menaces that sound better in the original Sicilian. This week the president said that a deal ending Russia's war on Ukraine could be made very fast" but if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long". You didn't need a translator to know that the somebody he had in mind was Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Ayers' genre-bending jazz-funk sound produced one fantastic album after another - and then found a new lease of life in hip-hop sampling Roy Ayers, jazz-funk pioneer behind Everybody Loves the Sunshine, dies aged 84There's a sense in which Roy Ayers was blessed from the start. Aged five, the son of two musicians - and by all accounts already showing talent as a pianist - he was famously presented with his first set of vibraphone mallets backstage at a gig by Lionel Hampton. If you wanted to take a romantic view, you could look on that as an act of benediction: the man who had more or less singlehandedly popularised an instrument that had previously been viewed as a novelty passing on the mantle along with his mallets. Hampton had broken racial barriers in the process: at a time when jazz bands were almost entirely segregated, Hampton and pianist Teddy Wilson's work with Benny Goodman's quartet was subtly acclaimed by one critic as the most beautiful example of men working together to be seen in public today".For a time, it looked as if Ayers was following in Hampton's footsteps. By the time of his debut album, 1963's West Coast Vibes, Ayers was clearly carving out a space for himself in the jazz world. Running through versions of Charlie Parker's Donna Lee or Thelonious Monk's Well You Needn't, he was already his own man: a little hotter in his approach to the vibraphone than Milt Jackson, less inclined towards the avant than his friend Bobby Hutcherson. Continue reading...

Former California attorney general weighing campaign for 2026 election in home state since defeat to Trump, allies sayKamala Harris is considering a run to be governor of California and has given herself until the end of the summer to make a final decision, sources close to her have told Politico.The former US vice-president has been weighing up a gubernatorial campaign in her home state as one option for remaining in the political arena since her presidential election defeat to Donald Trump last November. Continue reading...

References to Enola Gay aircraft and military heroes in second world war marked for removal by Pentagon

District judge calls payment of some of the $2bn owed to partners of USAid and state department concrete' first stepA federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to speed up its payment on some of nearly $2bn in debts to partners of the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and the state department, giving it a Monday deadline to repay the non-profit groups and businesses in a lawsuit over the administration's abrupt shutdown of foreign assistance funding.The US district judge Amir Ali described the partial payment as a concrete" first step he wanted to see from the administration, which is fighting multiple lawsuits seeking to roll back the administration's dismantling of USAid and a six-week freeze on USAid funding, which has forced US-funded organizations to halt aid and development work around the world and lay off workers. Continue reading...

Setback for Republican governor as economists also dismiss proposal to abolish property taxes as misguided'Radical plans by Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, to overhaul the state's financial machinery have hit turbulent waters, with party leaders pushing back on his Doge-style efficiency taskforce, and economists dismissing a proposal to abolish property taxes as essentially unworkable.DeSantis touted his handling of the economy in his state of the state" speech at the opening of Florida's spring legislative session on Tuesday, during which he insisted: We must continue to be a friend to the taxpayer." Continue reading...

151,000 jobs added to economy in February, up from January as unemployment unchanged from last monthThe US labor market continued to grow in February even as threats of mass layoffs in the federal government and uncertainty around Donald Trump's tariff policies rattle the US economy.In February, 151,000 jobs were added to the economy, up from an adjusted 125,000 jobs gained in January. The unemployment rate was 4.1%, little changed from 4% in January. Economists had been expecting 170,000 new jobs to be added over the month. Continue reading...

Spider' Martin's newly restored photos that documented firsthand the violence on 7 March 1965 are on view at Alabama exhibit Selma Is NowSixty years ago, on 7 March 1965, civil rights leaders and nonviolent activists attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery in a fight for African Americans' rights to vote. But as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, they were met with unfounded brutal violence from Alabama state troopers. This day is commemorated as Bloody Sunday. Among the marchers was photojournalist Spider" Martin who worked for the Birmingham News; he documented the violence firsthand, shocking the nation with his revealing images of the reality of voter suppression.Though the march occurred six decades ago, Doug McCraw, a native son of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and producer of the exhibit Selma Is Now, on display in Montgomery, Alabama, until 1 June, argues that the fight for civil and voting rights continues today. McCraw writes in his co-produced book, Selma Is Now: The March for Justice Continues, sacrifices made by the marchers in March 1965 paved the way for the liberties we enjoy today, but the struggle for social justice continues."John Lewis on the ground, on the right, as he is attacked by a trooper with a billy club that resulted in a concussion and skull fracture. Continue reading...

Spouses of deceased Medicaid recipients report repayment demands for medical costs, trapping them in a cycle of debtAfter her husband of 44 years died two years ago from Covid-19-related respiratory complications, Susan thought she could begin to grieve the loss of her best friend.The cost of the medical care her husband incurred before he died, she was told, was not something she had to think about. Continue reading...

Fueled by deception, the Trump administration is abandoning millions worldwide. The changes hit me close to homeWhen we rang in the New Year, I wasn't remotely expecting politics to collide with my career, my family and me. In a matter of weeks, I had lost my job, my father and, I felt, my country.I spent a dozen years as a program officer for USAid, serving in countries in South America, Africa and Asia with my family. I loved my job working with governments and NGOs to improve the lives of those in need. Doing good and doing well, we said. I was helping to build an information system to improve aid transparency and efficiency when sudden news arrived. Continue reading...

Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fitYou may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance - already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can't you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?" Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance's face ... but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner. Continue reading...

Experts warn that cooling breaks and later kickoff times may be needed to cope with scorching temperatures when North America hosts the tournamentOver the course of a playing career that wound through Spain, Mexico and the sunbaked fields of Major League Soccer's summers, American midfielder Tab Ramos was never hotter than at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.The day before the United States men's national team opened its tournament against Switzerland in the Pontiac Silverdome, it had been 99F (37C) in Michigan. By the 11.30am kickoff on matchday, the temperature reached 90F (32C) again. Worse still, the Silverdome was an NFL stadium designed for winter - to keep heat in, rather than out. The first World Cup match played indoors was conducted in a dome without air conditioning. On the field, the temperature reached 106F (41C). The grass laid over the artificial turf had been watered so eagerly that, with the sun beating down on the stadium's fabric roof, the air turned soupy with humidity. Continue reading...

Constitution-building offers no headlines - but what it can do, history tells us, is stop hundreds of thousands of people dyingSyria is reportedly sliding back towards civil war, as its various factions demand devolved authority. It is at root the same issue, that of local autonomy, that led to regional unrest in Ukraine and splintered leadership in Palestine. It underlies the devastating conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All these places are flush with guns, allies and bombast. What they lack are national constitutions that allow their citizens sufficient local control to live at peace with others in one nation. They lack the skills of political federation.The present Ukraine war followed the failure of peace accords reached in Minsk in 2014 and 2015; critically, they depended on the technical details of how self-determination was to be allowed in eastern Ukraine. A later failure was that of the Istanbul deal after the Russian invasion in 2022. It appeared to be the result of President Zelenskyy's reaction to Vladimir Putin's Bucha massacre. But the origins of failure go back to Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine's reaction to years of corrupt and oppressive rule from Kyiv. Similar dissent exists among Russian minorities in the Baltic states. Everywhere, localism matters.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Party insiders are trying to make the case for doing nothing against Trump. That's a colossal mistakeIn a recent New York Times Op-Ed, Democratic super-consultant James Carville boldly called for the most radical thing [Democrats] can do" - nothing at all. Standing over the putrefying carcass of three-day-old road kill, thinking we don't notice the fur sticking to the bumper of his F-150, this man is pointing at the rotting heap and screaming Don't move!"His argument is simple and incredibly dangerous: give the Republicans enough rope to hang themselves and they will do it. Their inability to govern, he argues, is self-evident and when they shut down enough social programs, people will notice and Democrats can swoop in and save the day.Megan Romer is the national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Continue reading...

Plenty of the league's teams are bad. But there are a select few for whom hopes of a turnaround in fortunes are a distant prospectFive years ago, we looked at the teams vying for the championship belt of incompetence. If a lesson came from the exercise - the Chargers, Commanders and Texans made the list - it's that a young franchise quarterback can transform a team's fortunes pretty quickly. The other lesson is that Woody Johnson is a consistently awful owner. Anyway, here's our latest list of woe. Continue reading...

The unitary executive' theory - backed by some conservative lawyers - is largely bogus. But it could wreak havoc on democracyWhile Democrats are dithering and debating with consultants about which anti-Trumpian strategy to adopt, courts are confronted with an unprecedented power grab by the president. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are simply not spending money appropriated by Congress, which in turn is unwilling to play its constitutional role and assert the power of the purse. Entire agencies are de facto dismantled - which is also unconstitutional - and civil servants protected from removal by a president keep getting pink slips.The illegality of it all seems so obvious that one would think defenders of democracy could relax and trust judges to do the right thing. But it's not just that some judges seem to be in the president's pocket - as evidenced by Trump, after his address to Congress, patting the supreme court's chief justice on the back and thanking him for a favor he won't forget, mafia-style. It is also that some jurists have been itching to defend a further concentration of presidential power - John Roberts likely among them.Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

The US president's new imperialism could make real the apocalyptic world depicted by cold war filmmakersIn 1965, the British government blocked the BBC from broadcasting The War Game, a pseudo-documentary film it had commissioned depicting just what a nuclear attack on the UK would entail. The film, the government judged, was simply too horrifying" for the public. Two decades after that, The War Game finally aired, prior to the release of the 1984 film Threads, which, in imagining the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the UK, was the first movie to deal with the scientific reality of nuclear winter.When I was 11, I had nightmares for a few weeks after seeing a trailer for a nuclear doomsday film (The Sum of All Fears) that ran prior to a cinema screening of The Fellowship of the Ring (I had just read the three Lord of the Rings volumes). The Nazgul were disturbing, of course, but they were not of the real world, unlike nukes. This January, I was confronted with The War Game at an exhibition on The Atomic Age at Paris's Museum of Modern Art; I finished the exhibit in near silence. A week later, I watched Threads; it ruined the remainder of my afternoon. Continue reading...

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Trump shelves Canada-Mexico tariffs; Musk says he is not to blame for mass firings of federal workers - key US politics stories from Thursday at a glanceDonald Trump has performed another reversal on tariffs, delaying duties on many goods from Canada and Mexico again. Trump said the reversal has nothing to do" with turbulence in the stock market in recent days, as investors weighed his economic plans. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 1.8% on Thursday. I'm not even looking at the market," he claimed.It was also a day where the focus fell on the power wielded by Elon Musk and the president's plans for US consulates in Europe.