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Sunday's poll is a turning point for the EU's most powerful member state, as it comes to terms with Trump 2.0When Germany's chancellor, Olaf Scholz, chose in November to force this weekend's snap election, it felt like awkward timing. In the United States, Donald Trump had just won a decisive victory and was promising to move fast and break things. With a political storm brewing, was this the right time for the EU's most important member state to embark on aperiod of prolonged introspection?Three tumultuous months later, with German democracy itself in the crosshairs of a hostile Trump administration, Sunday's poll feels more like a valuable opportunity for an emergency reset. Any federal election carries huge significance beyond Germany's borders. This poll is distinguished by being the first of a new era - one in which the transatlantic alliance that underpinned Europe's postwar security can no longer be relied upon. Its outcome will be fundamental to shaping the EU's response to that new reality, as existential decisions are made over defence spending and protecting Ukraine. Continue reading...

PM to claim if US rejects Mauritius's claim to own the islands, Beijing will be drawn into the regional disputeKeir Starmer is to urge Donald Trump to recognise that a US rejection of Mauritius's legal claim to own the Chagos Islands, including the strategic US military base at Diego Garcia, may stoke tensions similar to those in the South China Sea.Starmer is due to meet Trump next Friday mainly to discuss the future of Ukraine, but also a UK plan for Gaza's reconstruction under international protection with no need for Palestinians to be required to quit the Gaza Strip. The paper is similar but not identical to proposals being discussed by Arab foreign ministers in Riyadh, which has a strong international component and would prevent Hamas ruling in Gaza. Continue reading...

Federal government examining whether insurance giant is illegally raising Medicare program users' monthly paymentsThe US Department of Justice is reportedly investigating the insurance giant UnitedHealthcare for its Medicare billing practices.The federal government is examining whether UnitedHealthcare is using patient diagnoses to illegally increase the lump sum monthly payments received through the Medicare Advantage program, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading...

National security adviser Mike Waltz tells CPAC agreement is expected imminently as part of ceasefire negotiationsThe White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Friday that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was expected to sign a minerals agreement with the United States imminently, as part of broader negotiations to end the war with Russia.Here's the bottom line: President Zelenskyy is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term," Waltz said during remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Continue reading...

Officials announce possible withdrawal of $4bn for project to shuttle riders between San Francisco and Los AngelesThe Trump administration is once again targeting California's controversial high-speed rail project, with federal transportation officials on Thursday announcing an investigation and possible withdrawal of about $4bn in federal funding.Voters first approved $10bn in bond money in 2008 for a project designed to shuttle riders between San Francisco and Los Angeles in less than three hours. It was slated to cost $33bn and be finished by 2020. But the project has been beset by funding challenges, cost overruns and delays. Continue reading...

Bill approving $175bn for border security and extra $150bn for Pentagon faces tough challenge in House

Principles First has become a venue for anti-Maga conservatives and hopes to be a rightwing exit ramp'While Donald Trump and his acolytes take a victory lap at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, some of the president's staunchest right-leaning critics will convene for their own event just 10 miles away.The Principles First summit, which will be held in Washington from Friday to Sunday, has become a venue for anti-Trump conservatives to voice their deep-seated concerns about the Make America great again" faction of the Republican party, and the gathering has now grown in size and scope. As its organizers confront another four years of Trump's leadership, they are stretching beyond party lines with speakers such as the billionaire Mark Cuban and Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, to craft their vision for a new approach to US politics. Continue reading...

His capitulation to Putin over Ukraine reveals a pattern. He's the patsy: giving everything away, getting little in returnHe parades as a strongman, but in fact he's weak, weak, weak. In the face of America's adversaries Donald Trump is, as he might put it, a patsy, a sucker, a pushover. He folds like a pack of cards. He's a human doormat. A loser.Just consider the gifts he has handed Vladimir Putin this week. He has brought Russia in from the diplomatic cold after three years of ostracism following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, whose anniversary is nearly upon us. Sergei Lavrov, Putin's foreign minister, was meant to be persona non grata; he remains under international sanctions. Nevertheless, this week in Riyadh he met Trump's secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in so-called peace talks.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

A new initiative targets 58,000 kids who lost a caregiver or were in the foster system during the Covid pandemicDuring the pandemic, tens of thousands of children in California lost a caregiver due to Covid. Since then, these kids, who are predominantly Black, Latino and Indigenous, have experienced instability, economic precariousness and grief that will carry long-term impacts.This year, the state is launching an initiative aimed at helping them, as well as children who were in the foster system at the time: baby bonds. Continue reading...

Israel, seemingly with the US president's blessing, has kept troops inside Lebanon. Renewed conflict with Hezbollah is loomingAs global attention remains focused on the hostage-prisoner swaps between Hamas and Israel, another ceasefire in the region hangs in the balance.The 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim militia which has been the most dominant political faction in Lebanon for the past two decades, was paused by a US-brokered ceasefire in late November. The agreement also paved the way to end years of political deadlock in Beirut. Lebanon has formed a new government, and finally has leaders chosen for their promises to carry out reforms, rather than their sectarian affiliations - but the future of the ceasefire deal has left them facing an immediate crisis.Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York UniversityDo 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...

The mayor of America's largest city is caught up in a swirl of indictments, immigrants, Rikers and Donald TrumpThis Valentine's Day, a new political power couple said their vows on the plush white couches of Fox & Friends in midtown Manhattan: Donald Trump's border tsar, Tom Homan, and the New York City mayor, Eric Adams.The pair appeared on the conservative TV show to discuss an agreement they had reached the day before. Their deal reversed longstanding New York City policy by letting federal immigration agents back onto Rikers Island, the city's jail complex that largely holds people who have been charged but not yet convicted of crimes. The surprise agreement came as the newly installed leaders of Trump's Department of Justice were making an extraordinary push to dismiss criminal corruption charges that the agency had been pursuing against Adams.Weeks after the election, the mayor, who had once declared that the city would ALWAYS stand up to' Trump and that immigrants fleeing oppression should remember they were ALWAYS welcome here', sounded like a different manNow they have a compromised mayor of the largest city in the country

The steel industry needs to modernize. Tariffs can help, but the government must go beyond trade policyLast week, Donald Trump revived a trade war from his first term, implementing a 25% tariff on all imported steel. In doing so, he's using tariffs as a blunt-force tool under the assumption that they'll be sufficient to jump-start the American steel industry.But that's not the case.Mike Williams is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former deputy director of the BlueGreen Alliance Continue reading...

Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Hamas of a serious violation' and vows it will pay. Plus, Germans share their concerns about the far right's rise before this weekend's election

The president punished the AP for choosing its own language, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The press must show unityIt might seem like a small matter, just a disagreement over whether a body of water should be called one name or another.But it's really about much bigger things: Trump-style intimidation, a clear violation of the first amendment - and the extent to which news organizations will stick together in each other's defense, or will comply with the powerful for the sake of their own access. Continue reading...

President's order means a race to the bottom rigged against US, argues anti-corruption watchdog Transparency InternationalBribery is not a victimless crime. Stories listing the amount paid or the fine imposed can make them sound more like distasteful financial transactions, but they have harmful - sometimes deadly - outcomes.Bribes have been paid to building inspectors to ignore safety violations later cited in catastrophic collapses, and to officials to ignore worker standards that result in disabling and lethal outcomes. They have even helped divert weapons into the hands of rogue and dangerous actors.Gary Kalman is the executive director of Transparency International US.Maira Martini is the CEO of Transparency International. Continue reading...

In Trump's jungle, the powerful make decisions the weak must simply accept - international law and human rights be damnedIt's been quite a week for US foreign policy. Following a phone call last week between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Russian delegates met in Saudi Arabia to smooth relations between the two countries and discuss possible paths to ending the war in Ukraine.Ukraine was not invited to the talks. Quite reasonably, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country would not be bound by decisions taken without their participation. Trump responded to this by falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war, and sought to undermine Zelenskyy's legitimacy by claiming in a Truth Social post that he refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls ... A Dictator without Elections."Matt Duss is executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to the senator Bernie Sanders Continue reading...

JD Vance says Europe should not shun far-right parties. He seems to have forgotten 1933, but hits a key conundrumIn his speech last week at the Munich Security Conference, JD Vance pressed European leaders to stop excluding extremist parties from government. Alluding in particular to Germany's neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, or AfD, he accused European leaders of running in fear of your own voters". The US vice-president underscored the point by then meeting with the AfD candidate for chancellor.In his view, these extremist parties should be welcomed into the mainstream because they reflect voters' concern about migration. He evidently was not troubled that the AfD also has a history of using Nazi rhetoric, making racist and antisemitic comments and plotting to overthrow the German government. Continue reading...

Support for Hamas is declining - no obvious alternative has emerged, but our poll shows there are reasons to be hopeful

Defeatism and demoralisation are rampant in Trump's second term. But we cannot give upA month into Trump 2.0, pushback from Democrats and civil society remains surprisingly weak. Common diagnoses as to why make it all about psychology: the problem is that shock and awe" have immobilized the opposition; Democrats are said to be demoralized; and everyone is supposedly just exhausted. But the issue is a failure of political judgment, a basic misunderstanding of the moment and of the potential for effective opposition.To begin with, it has become conventional wisdom that the first resistance" was somehow cringe; those now dismissing it like to credit themselves as savvy. But there was in fact much effective organizing - from the Women's March to the patient long-term efforts that were rewarded in 2020. Of course, these were not solely responsible for preventing the plutocratic power grab we are witnessing now: back then, Trump had neither a plan nor the personnel he has today. But the casual dismissal of opposition under Trump 1.0 is an unforced error.Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Stars such as Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow have had their homes and private lives violated. But stopping home invasions can be difficultAs Joe Burrow led the Cincinnati Bengals to a 27-20 victory over the Dallas Cowboys last December a group allegedly robbed the quarterback's home during a cross-country crime spree that targeted at least six high-profile athletes.The thefts highlight the unique vulnerabilities faced by famous athletes whose salaries and work schedules are accessible on the internet in seconds, as well as the mix of careful planning and brazen tactics used by criminals to elude security measures. Continue reading...

America's top circuit has grown and thrived thanks to mechanisms it now no longer needsEver since its foundation in 1996, Major League Soccer has faced questions about its place within the world of American sports and global soccer. What is the relationship between MLS and the top football leagues of Europe? Is it a retirement league for aging superstars, a development league for those on their way to bigger things, or a home for the lateral career move, a kind of footballing purgatory? Where should it sit in the American sporting calendar, and what should be the competition's relationship to the surrounding culture: is MLS an American sporting league whose sport happens to be soccer, or a soccer league that happens to take place in America?There are questions of direction as well. What is the correct tempo for the competition's growth, and what kind of league should expansion aim to create? Is this a league that wants to compete with the best of the best, or simply seeks to serve a gap in the domestic market? Aspirationally, is MLS a world league" in the mold of the Premier League, a league that serves as a center of gravity for playing talent throughout the western hemisphere, or something more modest? Continue reading...

The crown prince sees Hamas as a regional threat, and may propose a deal that risks sidelining PalestiniansSaudi Arabia has suddenly experienced a diplomatic awakening after lukewarm engagement with the conflict in Gaza. Today, leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will gather in Riyadh to discuss Donald Trump's proposal for a US takeover of Gaza. (Keen to be viewed as a global deal maker, Saudi Arabia will also be hosting negotiations over Ukraine this week.)Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was alarmed by Trump's outrageous Riviera plan" to reconstruct Gaza following eviction of its people to neighbouring countries. Alongside Arab leaders, he hopes to propose an alternative plan with the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital at its core. The crown prince has insisted that there will be no normalisation of Israel without a Palestinian state.Madawi al-Rasheed is a fellow of the British Academy and a visiting professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics. She is the author of The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi ArabiaDo 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...

Trump can try to co-opt hockey. But Thursday showed that wherever where you're from, when you step onto the ice, something about you will always be Canadian

Trump and JD Vance are clear: the US is no longer an ally, but an antagonist to democratic valuesIn 1966, after years of friction with the US over whether France should have its own independent nuclear deterrent, the French president, Charles de Gaulle, withdrew his country from Nato's integrated command (not, however, from the alliance itself - a common misconception) and asked all US forces stationed in France to leave. In response, the US secretary of state, Dean Rusk, asked de Gaulle: Does that include the dead Americans in military cemeteries as well?"In a single weekend, JD Vance's direct attacks on European democracy at the Munich Security Conference and his meeting with far-right, anti-European political forces in Germany, have given de Gaulle his historic vindication.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

Rightwingers calling for higher birthrates may be disturbing, but having children is the ultimate gesture of confidence in the future for us allRoses are red, violets are blue. Rightwing politicians around the world want women to have more babies, and if you find this idea the opposite of romantic - well, me too.Pronatalism's cause is not exactly helped by having as its best-known figureheads JD childless cat lady" Vance and Elon Musk, seemingly on a personal mission to reverse what he calls the underpopulation crisis". Even Nigel Farage, a twice-divorced father of four who takes the firmly libertarian view that private lives are no business of the state, squirmed when tackled on the subject this week, before eventually venturing that the west had kind of forgotten that what underpins everything is our Judeo-Christian culture" and that of course, we need higher birthrates, but we're not going to get higher birthrates in this country until we can get some sense of optimism". But do progressives, who are after all supposed to be in the optimism business, have a stake in the baby-making debate too? A new collection of essays published this week by the cross-party Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank argues that they should. Continue reading...

Amid mounting political overtones involving tariff talks, anthems and annexation, Canada beat the United States for the 4 Nations Face-Off title on Thursday in the latest chapter of their longstanding hockey rivalry

This blog is now closed.Donald Trump signed another round of executive orders onboard Air Force One last night, among them one aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the country illegally.The order seeks to end all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens", according to the White House, although it was not clear which benefits will be targeted. Continue reading...

From the Trump administration's latest moves abroad and in the US - here are the key US politics stories from Thursday at a glanceThursday saw a judge rule that the Trump administration can continue the mass firing of US federal workers, rejecting a bid by labor unions to stop the US president dramatically cutting the jobs of many of the 2.3 million people employed by the government. The IRS began laying off roughly 7,000 workers on Thursday.In his 16-page order, US district judge Christopher Cooper started by saying that Trump's executive actions had caused, some say by design, disruption and even chaos in widespread quarters of American society". Continue reading...

Andrew Buen found guilty of homicide in death of Christian Glass, 22, who showed signs of mental health crisis at sceneA former Colorado sheriff's deputy was convicted Thursday in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man in distress who called 911 for help after his car got stuck in a small mountain community.Jurors found Andrew Buen guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the June 2022 death of Christian Glass, whose death drew national attention and led to changes in how officers are trained to respond to people in mental health crises under a $19m settlement with his family. Continue reading...

National security adviser says Ukraine is wrong to push back against Trump's approach to peace talks with RussiaWhite House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country's mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should tone down" his criticism of the US and take a hard look" at the deal. It proposes giving Washington $500bn worth of natural resources, including oil and gas. Continue reading...

Vice-president also reaffirmed the administration's Ukraine stance at largest conservative voters conferenceJD Vance marked one month since the Trump administration returned to power on Thursday by again claiming uncontrolled immigration was the greatest threat" to both Europe and the United States.The vice-president took the stage at the country's largest conservative voters conference in National Harbor, Maryland, to double down on his criticism that stunned European leaders last week when he accused them of suppressing free speech and running in fear" from voters' true beliefs. Continue reading...

Key Trump ally, who aligns with US president on range of issues, wins confirmation in 51-49 Senate voteThe US Senate has confirmed Kash Patel as the next FBI director, handing oversight of the nation's premier law enforcement agency to an official who has declined to explicitly say whether he would use his position to pursue Donald Trump's political opponents.Patel was narrowly confirmed on Thursday in a 51-49 vote, a reflection of the polarizing nature of his nomination and what Democrats see as his unwillingness to keep the bureau independent from partisan politics or resist politically charged requests from the president. Continue reading...

US workers laid off despite years of experience and stellar performance describe widespread chaos and confusionAs protesters gathered outside the headquarters of US health agencies to call attention to mass layoffs devastating the federal service in recent days, more employees at health agencies were terminated on Wednesday, including employees with years of experience and stellar performance reviews who were not probationary.Thousands of terminated employees across the federal government are appealing the decision. Some former employees are struggling to apply for unemployment or understand when their benefits expire in the chaotic termination process. Continue reading...

Survey indicates 64% of Americans believe flying is safe, down from 71% who said so last yearAmericans' confidence in aviation has slipped following a string of plane crashes in 2025, according to a new poll.As of this year 64% of Americans said they believe air travel is very or somewhat safe, marking a decrease from 71% of Americans who indicated so last year, said the poll, conducted by AP-NORC and released on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Department of government efficiency' head Elon Musk suggested $5,000 checks to US households if targets metDonald Trump has appeared to embrace a proposal to share a portion of the cuts in US government spending made by Elon Musk's department of government efficiency" (Doge) with all US households in the form of checks, intensifying concerns about inflation potentially rising again.Trump addressed the idea in a speech at an investment conference in Miami on Wednesday, telling attendees: There's even under consideration a new concept, where we give 20% of the Doge savings to American citizens, and 20% goes to paying down debt." Continue reading...

Kremlin whisperers' have the president's ear and dissenters are few - but a thin skin and self-interest are also at playDonald Trump's tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a dictator" who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv for Russia's invasion. Continue reading...

We'd like to hear from people in the US about how they view Trump's approach to Russia and Ukraine - as well as his stance towards EuropeWe would like to hear from US voters across the political spectrum about how you view president Donald Trump's foreign policy approach to Russia and Ukraine.This week has brought an unprecedented escalation of tensions between Kyiv and Washington after senior US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine, as well as economic and political cooperation. Continue reading...

The point is not to deprive the government of funds. It's to expose the regime's criminalityPolitical power boils down to two things: votes and money. But when money buys presidents, senators and judges, votes are merely the sales receipts. What's left is money, and the purpose of power is to get more of it.Trump's non-billionaire followers appear thrilled that Elon Musk and his so-called department of government efficiency" are burning down the government. Imagine if Trump hadn't met and talked with Elon Musk that all this progress on efficiency may not be taking place or at such a fast pace needed before the midterms," comments holy666 on a Fox News story about the mass layoffs of federal employees. Continue reading...

Gutting of workforce will have far-reaching consequences as advocates warn of playing Russian roulette' with safetyYou wake up to dark clouds outside, so you check the weather on your phone: a storm is coming.That weather app uses data from the National Weather Service, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a small organization which could see as much as 10% of its workforce cut this week. Continue reading...

The last-16 beckons, and there were plenty of storylines to digest. We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of actionFeyenoord Continue reading...

Bruce and Nancy Steele had a business that produced honey for the past 30 years before the Eaton fire destroyed itBruce Steele has always said he would die defending his house - and his beehives. Long before the Eaton fire began its destructive march through the California foothills last month, the beekeeper was already on perpetual alert: watering the flower garden of his family's house in Altadena, California, cleaning dry leaves out of the roof gutters and soaking the precious oak trees that surrounded the property.When the Santa Ana winds picked up, Nancy, Bruce's wife and business partner, was out of town, so their daughter, Clara, 35, rushed over to help. The two generations immediately started gathering family photos and mementoes. They scooped up a painting Bruce's sister made as a wedding gift. Other treasures included an old robot toy from the 1965 TV show Lost in Space, as well as a threadbare T-shirt from Occidental College, the school where Bruce and Nancy first met - and where he would go on to work for more than 35 years. Continue reading...

By centring the discourse on immigration, MPs have handed support to the far right - and hidden a ticking economic timebomb from votersThe candidates to lead Germany's next government are avoiding telling voters painful truths before Sunday's crucial general election about Russia's war in Ukraine, the coming disengagement of the US from Europe and the huge defence funding that is needed. Instead, the debate has largely focused on how to revive the ailing German economy after two years of recession and how to control migration, which has fuelled support for the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland.The conservative CDU/CSU leader, Friedrich Merz, has swerved speaking about the need for massive borrowing to pay for a surge in defence spending because many of his supporters oppose extra debt. The Social Democratic (SPD) chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is dodging discussion of sending German troops to Ukraine as part of a possible European security force if a ceasefire agreement is reached because part of his political base is either anti-militarist or Russia-friendly. After an emergency European summit on Ukraine in Paris on Monday, an irritable Scholz said talk of boots on the ground was highly inappropriate".Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre Continue reading...