by Richard Partington Senior economics correspondent on (#6WENF)
Tit-for-tat levies on American goods may appeal to voters but would risk adding to UK's economic headwindsKeir Starmer has said he wants to shelter Britain from the storm of Donald Trump's escalating trade wars.Governments the world over are considering how best to respond to the turmoil unleashed on the global economy by the US president last week.Meat, fish and dairy products.Whiskey and rum.Clothing.Motorcycles.Musical instruments. Continue reading...
The more shocking the carnage becomes, the more people are punished for speaking out. This just makes it clear how much is really at stakeGraphic images. Distressing footage. Blurred-out posts that only clicking a consent button will reveal. For a year and a half now, disclaimers have hung over what the world sees from Gaza. Sometimes, the scenes stop me in my tracks as they are suddenly recalled, like a nightmare forgotten but then vividly remembered. Except without the relief that it was all a dream. Last week, I watched footage that showed what appeared to be the shattered, headless corpse of a baby. I have seen shredded body parts collected in plastic bags. Heard the screams of the dying and the silence of the dead, as cameras capture them piled together, some in entire families. Israel's assault on Gaza defies inurement. As time goes by, even as the threshold for what is seen as intolerable increases, the graphic and varied forms of killing continue to scale the hurdle of numbness.All the while, politics does one of two things. Either it smoothes over this historic calamity, resorting to the bland language of encouragements to return to the negotiating table, as if it were all some regrettable falling-out that could be resolved if only heads cooled a little, or the calamity is reversed. Calling for it to stop, rather than being the most natural of human instincts, is now an impulse that in some countries meets the bar of arrest or removal. This narrative renders the people of Gaza, so ever-present on our screens and timelines in their daily massacre, distant and remote. Gaza has been deported to another dimension in which no rules apply. Geographically it has been sealed off and wrenched away from the Earth. Foreign journalists and politicians are not allowed in. Local journalists are killed. Foreign aid is blocked. Local relief workers are murdered. International courts and human rights organisations speak with one voice about the criminality of what is occurring. They are summarily ignored or attacked by Israel's sponsors.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Supporters in Europe can offer new opportunities and minimise the isolation. Certainly they can avoid making things worseUniversities in the US are under attack. While the Trump administration pretends to punish them for their alleged compliance with or support for antisemitism" (ie pro-Gaza demonstrations) and anti-white racism" (ie diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives), the real targets are academic freedom and freedom of speech. Going after the most prominent and privileged universities, such as Columbia and Harvard, kills two birds with one stone: it garners prime media attention and spreads fear among other, far less privileged universities.The rest of the world has taken note and has started to respond, though mostly without knowing much about the specifics of US academia and without asking US-based academics what they need. Obviously, different academics face different challenges - depending on, for example, their gender and race, legal status, the state they live in and the university they work at - but here are some suggestions from a white, male, tenured green-card holder working at a public university in a GOP-controlled state.Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today Continue reading...
She is one of the heirs to the Walt Disney fortune - and has long argued for rich people like her to pay more tax. Now she is working out how best to meet the challenge of Trump, Musk and the politics of chaosMy conversation with Abigail Disney opens with the kind of bog-standard line that starts most chats. But because she is a left-leaning American, with a record of righteous criticism of the man now once again in charge of her country, I suspect it might invite a very long answer indeed.Still, out it comes: How are you?" Continue reading...
Trump suggests levies are the medicine' needed as markets plummet; Signal probe shows where Waltz went wrong - key US politics stories from 6 AprilAsia's key indexes tumbled in early trading on Monday as fears of a tariff-induced global recession continued to rip through markets. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index plunged nearly 9% in early trading on Monday, while South Korea's Kospi index was halted for five minutes as stocks plummeted.Despite his tariffs wiping $6tn off US stocks, Trump appeared nonchalant late Sunday, saying, I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something." Continue reading...
Pam Bondi, Trump loyalist and top law enforcement official, expresses skepticism about recent third-term talkPam Bondi, the US attorney general, has expressed skepticism about the idea of Donald Trump serving a third term in the White House, saying that when her boss's current presidency ends on 20 January 2029, he is probably going to be finished".Bondi's comments come just a week after Trump gave his most blunt indication yet that he was seriously considering trying for a third term to follow up ones that began in 2017 and this past January - despite the clear prohibition against doing so enshrined in the US constitution. Continue reading...
Officials reportedly didn't publicly acknowledge death until inquiries were made about woman, 52, who overstayed visaA woman being detained in Arizona by US border patrol for overstaying her visa has died by suicide, according to Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.The woman, a 52-year-old Chinese national, had first been picked up in California after it had been determined that she had overstayed her B1/B2 visitor visa, Jayapal said in a statement. She was later sent to the Yuma station in Arizona where she stayed until her death on 29 March. Continue reading...
Erez Reuveni no longer on Kilmar Abrego Garcia case after not vigorously' defending Trump administrationA federal justice department attorney has been placed on leave by the Trump administration for purportedly failing to defend the administration vigorously enough after it says it erroneously deported a Maryland man to El Salvador, which a US judge called a wholly lawless" detention.The action against justice department lawyer Erez Reuveni came after US district judge Paula Xinis had ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who lived in the US legally with a work permit, be returned to Maryland despite the Trump administration's position that it cannot return him from a sovereign nation. Continue reading...
Power and gas shut off in regions as flooding worsens, threatening waterlogged and badly damaged communitiesAfter days of intense rain and wind killed at least 18 people in the US south and midwest, rivers rose and flooding worsened on Sunday in those regions, threatening waterlogged and badly damaged communities.Utility companies scrambled to shut off power and gas from Texas to Ohio while cities closed roads and deployed sandbags to protect homes and businesses. Continue reading...
Analysts warn of possible recessions in the UK, US and EU while world leaders weigh up retaliatory actionMarkets are braced for another rollercoaster week as the most punitive of Donald Trump's tariffs kick in and world leaders weigh up retaliatory action, adding to fears of a global recession.Stock indices plunged by nearly $5tn (3.9tn) last week, with markets in the UK and US experiencing losses not seen since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, as investors took cover from the opening salvoes of Trump's trade war. Continue reading...
The Russian has broken a record some believed would never be passed. But, like the man whose mark he bettered, he has received scrutiny away from the rinkHe's definitely a very, very, very good player," the Washington Capitals' director of amateur scouting, Ross Mahoney, told reporters on the night of the NHL entry draft in June 2004. He was talking about Alex Ovechkin, who the team picked first overall that night. How good will he be?" Mahoney asked. Time will tell." Now, nearly 21 years later, time has had its say. On Sunday afternoon in a game against the New York Islanders, Ovechkin scored his 895th goal, passing Wayne Gretzky's all-time NHL scoring record, a tally that had stood since 29 March 1999 and that few believed would ever be broken.Had things been slightly different in 2004, we might have been having this conversation a year ago. The NHL season after Ovechkin's draft - the 2004-05 campaign - never happened, replaced instead by a long dispute between the league and the players' union. Ovechkin bided his time in Russia, where he played 37 games with Dynamo Moscow. Finally, in autumn of 2005, he stepped on to NHL ice for Washington and, as Mahoney - and everyone else - expected by that time, he proved immediately to be a very good player. Ovechkin scored two goals in his first game, the first of an eventual 52 on the season (alongside 54 assists). Continue reading...
Commerce secretary insists on CBS that tariffs will stay in place' as treasury secretary tells NBC negotiation is possibleSenior officials within Donald Trump's administration officials gave conflicting messages on Sunday about the US president's global tariffs that have caused a meltdown in stock markets, prompted warnings of a world recession and provoked rare expressions of dissent from within his Republican party.Cabinet members fanned out across Sunday's political talk shows armed with talking points on Trump's 10% across-the-board tariff on almost all US imports, with higher rates targeted at about 60 countries. If the intention was to calm nerves with a clear statement of intent, then it backfired as top officials gave starkly contrasting signals. Continue reading...
US health and human services department confirmed death but insisted the exact cause is under investigationA second child with measles has died in Texas amid a steadily growing outbreak that has infected nearly 500 people in that state alone.The US health and human services department confirmed the death to NBC late Saturday, though the agency insisted exactly why the child died remained under investigation. On Sunday, a spokesperson for the UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said that the child had been hospitalized before dying and was receiving treatment for complications of measles" - which is easily preventable through vaccination. Continue reading...
In the lower 48 state with the highest share of veterans, some denounce and others praise Doge-led mass layoffsBirgitt Paul has worked as a nurse at the Veterans Affairs (VA) in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for over a decade - five years on the floor, five and a half coordinating at-home care for veterans in the region.Like many people working at the agency, she has her gripes with the system - it could be more efficient, more streamlined, easier to navigate for the veterans in need of its care, and better for the 400,000 employees that keep its wheels spinning. Continue reading...
State department accuses east African country of taking advantage of the United States'The US is revoking the visas of all South Sudanese passport-holders and will stop any more of its citizens entering the country.The Department of State said South Sudan was taking advantage of the United States" by failing to comply with US efforts to return people to the east African country, adding that the measures would come into effect immediately. Continue reading...
Alberto Lovo Rojas fled violence in his home country. Now, he fears Trump-backed deportationIt finally happened while he was waiting to get his hair cut.Alberto Lovo Rojas, an asylum seeker from Nicaragua, had been feeling uneasy for weeks, worried that immigration officials would arrest him any moment. But he had pushed the worry aside as irrational - after all, he had a permit to legally work in the US, and he had been using an app to check in monthly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Continue reading...
Data suggests as many as 1,400 people were arrested during or right after Ice check-ins in first four weeks of Trump's administrationJorge, a 22-year-old asylum seeker from Venezuela, reported in February to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Portland, Oregon, for what he figured would be a routine check-in. Instead, he was arrested and transferred to a detention center in another state.Alberto, a 42-year-old from Nicaragua who had been granted humanitarian parole, checked in with Ice using an electronic monitoring program that same month. Three days later, he was arrested. Continue reading...
Even if he's convicted, a jury might decide on a lesser punishment for Luigi Mangione in the trial's penalty phaseIt was a decision that everyone expected to come. But it still had all the drama of a made-for-television legal show: would the government seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering a top health insurance executive on a Manhattan street?The answer came last week: yes. Continue reading...
According to a new survey, over half of millennials work more than one job. It's what they have to do in today's economyAmericans are barely staying ahead of inflation. So how are they dealing with this issue? By working more.That's one of the biggest takeaways from a new study by Academized, an outsourcing platform that connects writers and students. According to the report, more than half of millennials - who make up the largest percentage of workers in this country - are working more than one job to make extra money. What's even more eye-raising is that nearly a quarter (24%) of those workers have three jobs and a third (33%) have four or more income-earning opportunities outside their full-time work. Continue reading...
Internal investigation cleared the national security adviser Mike Waltz, but the mistake was months in the makingDonald Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz included a journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to three people briefed on the matter.The mistake was one of several missteps that came to light in the White House's internal investigation, which showed a series of compounding slips that started during the 2024 campaign and went unnoticed until Waltz created the group chat last month. Continue reading...
Garment workers in countries such as Cambodia among those who fear they will lose pay cheques if companies move production elsewhereThis is very messed up. If Trump wants Cambodia to import more American goods: look, we are just a very small country!"Khun Tharo works to promote human rights in the Cambodian garment sector, which employs about 1 million people - many of them women. Continue reading...
We are not victims, there is no genocide. This rhetoric shows that the US administration doesn't understand my thriving countryI am a blue-blood Afrikaner, at least in terms of ancestry: both my grandfathers were young Boer soldiers in the Anglo-Boer war and I am directly related to the president of the old Transvaal Republic, Paul Kruger. I am a descendant of Dutch, French and German settlers who were brought to the southern tip of Africa in the 17th century. Unlike other colonial societies in Africa, my ancestors never left.They occupied the whole country, displacing and oppressing the Indigenous inhabitants. Eventually, their concept of white supremacy developed into a formal state policy, apartheid. The UN classified this as a crime against humanity. Miraculously, my country has been a thriving democracy and open society ever since the formal end of apartheid in 1994.Max du Preez was the founding editor of Vrye Weekblad, an anti-apartheid, Afrikaans weekly newspaper
After the murder of George Floyd, many companies turned to toothless diversity initiatives that they abandoned in the wake of Trump 2.0. A conservative agenda dating back to the 50s explains whyAt Ford Motor Company, the moral stock-taking began with a letter.This is an extraordinary moment in our history," Bill Ford, the company's executive chair, and Jim Hackett, its CEO, wrote to employees on 1 June 2020. It had been three months of upheaval since the coronavirus pandemic began and the company first suspended production at its manufacturing sites. By mid-May, more than 87,000 people in the United States had died from the virus. Then, on 25 May, the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, ultimately killing him, was seared into Americans' consciousness. Continue reading...
Understaffed agency sent into death spiral' as employees warn Musk-led cuts will lead to structural collapseOffice closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused complete, utter chaos" and are threatening to send the agency into a death spiral", according to workers at the agency.The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits. Continue reading...
The president has been testing the waters by suggesting he could run again, a familiar playbook of the Maga movement - and a distraction tacticIt is noon on 20 January 2029. In the biting cold of Washington, thousands of people are gathered on the National Mall to witness the swearing in of a new US president or, more accurately, an old US president: Donald Trump, aged 82, starting his third term in office.The scene is the realm of fantasy or, for millions of Americans, the stuff of nightmares. But in Trump's own mind it is apparently not so far-fetched at all. Last weekend he told an interviewer that he is not joking" about another run and there are methods" to circumvent the constitution, which limits presidents to two terms. Continue reading...
Trump announced loan program will be moved from Department of Education to Small Business AdministrationThe Trump administration's rehoming of the federal student loan program is putting student borrowers at a higher risk of defaulting on their loans and may not save the government the money that it is claiming it will, experts say.After the president vowed to dismantle the education department and make student loans a part of the Small Business Administration, student financial aid groups suggest that borrowers could find themselves in hot water because the SBA does not have experience with such loans and is on track to lose almost half its staff. Continue reading...
The US vice-president's avid concern for Livia Tossici-Bolt's conviction is plain sinisterYou know the feeling: you're feeling sociable, why wouldn't you make a sign saying Here to talk, if you want to", and head for a spot outside the nearest abortion clinic? And why wouldn't some of its arriving patients want to pause before their appointments and satisfy your entirely innocent interest in their reproductive intentions?This, give or take, amounted to the case by the prominent anti-abortion campaigner, Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was on Friday found guilty of twice breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). Her sign-holding outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic was, she had argued, not covered by a council-imposed safe zone, being a mere invitation to speak". And thus an invitation she could have happily extended to strangers just a little further from the clinic. But that did not suit Tossici-Bolt's purpose. Nor does anything prevent her from staging anti-abortion rallies, distributing literature, or expressing her views on abortion anywhere except right in abortion patients' faces outside clinics. These details, although similar regulations exist in parts of the US, routinely fail to surface in accounts by her prominent US supporters, with whose help Tossici-Bolt has been misrepresenting the illegal undermining of UK women's reproductive rights as a noble quest for free speech.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...
The 2015 Augusta winner was set fair to be golf's next big thing. After loss of form and a wrist injury, can he bounce back?Modern golf has been defined by streaks and Scottie Scheffler is in an especially hot one, with eyes focused on whether that can continue at Augusta National over the coming days.Brooks Koepka had one. Cameron Smith had one. Rory McIlroy had one in majors, with his competitive longevity outside the big four tournaments setting him apart from his peers. There are countless other runs, varying in length and trophy haul since Tiger Woods stopped decimating all before him. Each emphasises how extraordinary was Woods's time at the top. Continue reading...
A new book, Underdogs, demolishes the myth that it is homogeneous in its hostility to immigrationMany of those who act as the champions of the white person against immigrants," Labour MP David Winnick told the House of Commons in 1968, have not in the past gone out of their way to defend the interests of the white working class."It was the first time anyone had referred to the white working class" in parliament to describe a segment of the British population. Half a century on, that segment has become the focus of one of the most contentious and polarising of debates. For many on the right, the white working class constitutes a distinct group, both their distinctiveness and their problems, stemming largely from their whiteness. Many on the left have, Joel Budd notes, fallen silent on thesubject", nervous of racialising issues of class. Continue reading...
Keir Starmer can help redefine global trade while strengthening new - and old - alliancesLiberation Day" was, of course, a tragic idiocy based on a bewildering inversion of reality. The rest of the world has not been ripping off or pillaging and plundering the US, as claimed by Trump launching his salvo of tariffs, the highest for a century. The truth is the opposite.There is no American national emergency". The US still represents the same 25% of world GDP, as it did in 1980. More than half the goods it imports are from affiliates of US multinationals denominated and paid for in dollars, so its deficit is an accounting identity with itself rather than reflecting economic weakness. Continue reading...
Days of heavy rains have led to rapidly swelling waterways and prompted a series of flood emergencies from Texas to OhioAnother round of torrential rain and flash flooding on Saturday hit parts of the US south and midwest already heavily waterlogged by days of severe storms that also spawned deadly tornadoes. Forecasters warned that rivers in some places would continue to rise for days.Day after day of heavy rains have pounded the central US, rapidly swelling waterways and prompting a series of flash flood emergencies from Texas to Ohio. The National Weather Service (NWS) said dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach major flood stage, with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible. Continue reading...
Democratic senator calls on voters to get creative in pushing back against Trump at town hall in New JerseyThe Democratic senator Cory Booker took a version of his record-breaking Senate floor speech on the road Saturday to a town hall meeting in a New Jersey gymnasium, calling on people to find out what they can do to push back against Donald Trump's agenda.Booker took questions at suburban New Jersey's Bergen Community College the same day that more than 1,200 Hands Off" demonstrations took place around the country. The town hall event was punctuated both by celebratory shouts of Cory, Cory" as well as at least a half-dozen interruptions by protesters. Continue reading...
by Kira Lerner, Robert Tait in Washington DC, Joseph on (#6WDVW)
The aim is, get people to rise up,' said one protester in DC, one of many cities where people took to the streetsPeople across the US took to the streets on Saturday to oppose what left-leaning organizations called Donald Trump's authoritarian overreach and billionaire-backed agenda".Organizers estimated that more than 500,000 people demonstrated in Washington DC, Florida and elsewhere. Continue reading...
Congress members Jamie Raskin, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar among speakers as demonstrators denounce fascism'Demonstrators estimated to be in the tens of thousands gathered in Washington on Saturday in a display of mass dissent against Donald Trump's policies that organizers hoped would snowball into a rolling cycle of protests that could eventually stymie the US president in next year's congressional elections.Anger with Trump and his billionaire lieutenant, the SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk, was expressed in a sea of placards and banners on the Washington mall, in the shadow of the Washington monument. Multiple messages denounced the two men for shuttering government agencies, cutting jobs and services and - in often graphic terms - for threatening the survival of US democracy. Continue reading...
Thousands of Hands Off' protesters - in the US and across major European cities - took to the streets Saturday in a show of defiance Continue reading...
Green-card holder and activist led campus pro-Palestinian rallies and is now fighting Trump effort to deport himMahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student activist who led campus pro-Palestinian rallies and is now resisting the Trump administration's deportation efforts, has accused the university of laying the groundwork for my abduction" and called on the student body to continue demonstrations and protests.Khalil, a green-card holder who is in custody in Louisiana as his case moves through the courts, was detained on 8 March. The Trump administration is seeking to deport him under a provision in federal immigration law that permits the state department to deport non-citizens considered to be a threat to US foreign policy. Continue reading...
The popularity of Adolescence has provided an icebreaker for these conversations, but having them is not a responsibility women can shoulderThe fitness coach starts his very early morning routine by removing a piece of tape from his mouth," CNN reports. The manfluencer" in question, Ashton Hall, spends the rest of his day dunking his face in ice water, rubbing banana peel on his skin and chugging down Saratoga Water". This is apparently the modern western definition of hardcore masculinity.Friends, maybe - just maybe - we should restart that conversation about western manhood because if it involves banana peel, you are not demonstrating what it means to be a human adult; you are culturally appropriating a clown. Continue reading...
Protesters across the US rallied against Donald Trump's policies on Saturday. The 'Hands Off!' demonstrations are part of what the event's organisers expect to be the largest single day of protest against Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul government and expand presidential authority
State officials say they don't believe US Department of Education has authority to demand end to DEI practicesNew York state officials have told the Trump administration that they will not comply with its demands to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in public schools, despite the administration's threats to terminate federal education funding.Daniel Morton-Bentley, counsel and deputy commissioner of the state's department of education, said in a letter dated Friday to the federal education department that state officials do not believe the federal agency has authority to make such demands. Continue reading...
The viral response to US influencer Ashton Hall's morning routine shows that the manosphere is now mainstreamHow does the perfect morning begin? With gentle stretching, a coffee in bed? It could be a walk in the sun, a hot breakfast or simply managing to spend the first 20 minutes off your phone before spending the next 20 on Instagram. Lately, it may feel like the answer is being more productive.The optimised morning routine has become a near-mythical ideal for young people, sold by fitness influencers posting obsessively about their 5.30am starts, claiming to finish their weight training, macronutrient-rich meals and emails before our first alarm - promising that everything in your life would be better if you, too, had the discipline to just get up early. Continue reading...
Texas senator's comments another sign of Republican unease over reciprocal tariffs' and stock market plungeTed Cruz, the US senator from Texas, has warned that his fellow Republicans risk a bloodbath" in the 2026 midterm elections if Donald Trump's liberation day" tariffs cause a recession.Cruz also warned that the president's tariffs, if they stay in place for long and are met by global retaliation on American goods, could trigger a full-blown trade war that would destroy jobs here at home, and do real damage to the US economy". Continue reading...
Barack Obama has called on US citizens to resist Donald Trump's political agenda, and warned Americans to prepare to 'possibly sacrifice' in support of democratic values. The former US president was speaking at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, on Thursday
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