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Order calls for transformation' in US spending on contracts, grants and loans by requiring centralized payment systemDonald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order meant to expand the power of Elon Musk's governmental cost-cutting program, the so-called department of government efficiency", or Doge.The new order calls for a transformation" in federal spending on contracts, grants and loans by requiring agencies to create a centralized system to record and justify payments, which may be made public for transparency - an initiative that would be monitored by Musk's team. Continue reading...

Tulsi Gabbard said request was clear and egregious violation of Americans' privacy and civil liberties'The new US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, weighed in on the encryption feud between Apple and the UK on Wednesday. In a letter to British lawmakers on Wednesday, she wrote that the UK government's order for Apple to create a backdoor" to iCloud users' accounts is a clear and egregious violation of Americans' privacy and civil liberties".Any information sharing between a government - any government - and private companies must be done in a manner that respects and protects the U.S. law and the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens," Gabbard wrote. Continue reading...

California governor's intervention could offer avenue of freedom for siblings jailed over 1989 LA killing of parentsThe California governor has ordered the state parole board to examine whether the Menendez brothers would pose a risk to the public if they are released from prison - which could offer an avenue to freedom for the siblings who have been behind bars for almost three decades.Attorneys for Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, reported on Wednesday that the board will complete a comprehensive risk assessment" to determine if the brothers have in fact been rehabilitated since the 1989 killing of their parents. Continue reading...

Head of Federal Highway Administration informed New York that the traffic-calming program must cease'The Trump administration has ordered New York City to end its congestion pricing program by 21 March.In a letter dated 20 February and publicized on Wednesday, the US transportation department's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) executive director, Gloria Shepherd, informed New York state and city officials that they must cease the collection of tolls on federal-aid highways in the [central business district tolling program] area by March 21, 2025". Continue reading...

Scheme operators take cars of LA county residents and demand hefty fees for their return, county officials sayAfter surviving the deadly Eaton fire, some Los Angeles county residents were left vulnerable to a second danger: fraudulent towing companies that took their vehicles and were demanding hefty fees for their return, county officials say.The Eaton fire, which started on 7 January near Pasadena, razed more than 9,400 homes and businesses and left 17 people dead. Kathryn Barger, chair of the Los Angeles county board of supervisors, said that during the first four days of the blaze, some tow truck operators were falsely claiming to be working for Altadena officials. They towed vehicles without telling owners where the cars were being stored. Continue reading...

Case from Ohio woman could transform workplace discrimination claims and lead to flood of lawsuitsThe US supreme court justices appeared to lean on Wednesday toward making it easier for people from majority backgrounds", such as white or heterosexual people, to pursue workplace discrimination claims, as they heard an appeal by an Ohio woman who claims she was denied a promotion and demoted because she is heterosexual.The court heard oral arguments in a case that has the potential to transform workplace discrimination claims and unleash a flood of lawsuits from white people, straight people and men. Continue reading...

Dozens of demonstrators lie down in government office building to warn against dismantling foreign aid agencyFired USAid employees and advocates for people with HIV staged a protest in a Capitol office building on Wednesday, warning that Donald Trump's drive to dismantle the agency tasked with implementing Washington's foreign aid agenda imperils the fight against the virus.Wearing white T-shirts that read Aids funding cuts kill" and chanting Congress has blood on its hands, unfreeze aid now", around three dozen protesters lay down in the rotunda of the Cannon House office building, home to the offices of representatives from both parties. Capitol police said about 20 arrests were made of demonstrators who defied their orders to disperse. Continue reading...

Hunter College faculty and staff union condemns Kathy Hochul's order to take down listing, calling it overreach of authority'The New York governor, Kathy Hochul ordered the City University of New York (Cuny) to immediately remove a job posting advertising a Palestinian studies professor role at the state university system's Hunter College.In the job listing, Hunter College wrote that the institution is seeking a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality". Continue reading...

Men get away with two puppies selling for $4,299 each as pet store employees distracted by accomplice's fake seizureThieves nabbed a pair of high-priced bulldogs from a Colorado pet store after a man allegedly faked a seizure to distract employees while an accomplice grabbed the puppies from a pen and ran out, authorities said.The theft, which was captured on surveillance video, happened on Sunday. Continue reading...

Fox News correspondent among those to decry move that journalists say will tear at independence of a free press'The Trump administration announced it will take control of the White House press pool, stripping the independent White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) of its longstanding role in deciding which journalists have access to the president in intimate settings.The move has immediately triggered an impassioned response from members of the media - including a Fox News correspondent who called it a short-sighted decision". Continue reading...

Trump's budget chief and head of personnel management direct bosses to provide detailed plans by 13 MarchUS government agency heads have been given a 13 March deadline to produce a plan for drastically slashing the federal workforce as Donald Trump reinforced warnings that workers who failed to account for what they do could be fired.A White House memo issued on Wednesday directed bosses to provide details of their workforce reduction plans in the most specific instruction yet to managers to cut stuff who are deemed unnecessary or inefficient. Continue reading...

Donald Trump has threatened to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union, claiming the 27-country bloc was 'formed to screw the United States'. Speaking at his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the US president said he would soon release details of the latest tariff threat. 'We have made a decision and we'll be announcing it very soon. It'll be 25%,' he said

Tech billionaire, who is not a member of the cabinet and described himself as humble tech support', warns without evidence that US could go bankrupt'

The prime minister must handle Donald Trump with tact, but without flinching from a duty to confront falsehoods in the president's worldviewIt is hard to set expectations ahead of a summit with no useful precedent. British prime ministers have visited the White House before and in a wide variety of geopolitical contexts, but never has the hosting president been hostile to the transatlantic alliance. Never before could it be said that Washington's foreign policy regarding European security was closer to a Moscow line than a London one.Conventional platitudes about a special relationship" and common values are of little use to Sir Keir Starmer in handling Donald Trump. History is notirrelevant, but on matters of substance - most urgently, a settlement to end the war in Ukraine - Mr Trump is behaving more like a mafia boss than a statesman. His method is to demand tribute in exchange for protection. Continue reading...

The Ukrainian president said in a press conference on Wednesday that without future security for Ukraine there would be no 'just peace ... we will not have a ceasefire, what Trump spoke about'. He added that his trip to visit Donald Trump on Friday had yet to be confirmed

Lawyers push for charges to be dropped over leaked internal DoJ correspondence about the New York mayorThe New York City mayor, Eric Adams, asked a federal judge to toss out the corruption case against him on Wednesday, alleging prosecutorial misconduct, even as the justice department seeks dismissal of the charges on the Democrat's behalf.In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, his lawyers alleged that the misconduct occurred when the government publicly leaked a letter that the then US attorney Danielle Sassoon wrote to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, explaining why charges should not be dropped. Continue reading...

The athlete hopes his arrest after excoriating the Maga movement in a city council meeting will inspire others to resistLast week the former NFL player Chris Kluwe was arrested at a city council meeting in his home town of Huntington Beach, California, for approaching councilmembers after making an impassioned speech likening the Maga movement to nazism. This came after the council approved a plaque commemorating the city library's 50th anniversary. Writ largest on the plaque are the words Magical Alluring Galvanizing Adventurous" - an acrostic of Maga.Kluwe ranked among the NFL's top punters while playing for the Minnesota Vikings in the early 2000s. During his career he was as well known for calling out NFL immorality and championing civil rights causes like same-sex marriage and racial justice as he was for pinning the opposition against their own goalline with his booming right leg. Continue reading...

US president says new visa program would be open to Russian oligarchs, some of whom are very nice people'

As families move away to avoid deportation, excruciating goodbyes leave teachers feeling completely empty'A soccer ball covered in signatures from classmates. A handwritten letter telling a child of their worth. A T-shirt bearing a school emblem meant to remind a newcomer how much they were loved in a place they once called home.These are among the items teachers have given their multilingual learners - students who learn in more than one language - whose families fled their school districts rather than risk being detained by immigration agents. Continue reading...

Wall of receipts' drops five largest savings claimed by department of government efficiency' after debunking

The lifelong atlanticist was frank after his election victory: Nato is on the brink, and Germany must reassess its core beliefs on defenceIt is hard to overstate the importance of Friedrich Merz's urgent message to the nation after his win in the German elections. This, after all, is the beginning of a new, dangerous era in European security. It would be his absolute priority", Merz said, immediately after victory for the CDU/CSU was confirmed, to create unity in Europe as quickly as possible, so that, step by step, we can achieve independence from the US". He added: I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television programme."Indeed. For the leader of the conservative CDU, a lifelong believer in the transatlantic security alliance, this is a significant reversal. And it is highly personal for Merz: there is hardly a more pro-American politician in Germany than the man who worked for the investment company BlackRock and was the long-serving chairman of the influential lobbying group Atlantik-Brucke (Atlantic Bridge).Jorg Lau is an international correspondent for the German weekly Die Zeit Continue reading...

Manufacturer says city has not taken up its offer to inspect - and, if necessary, repair - blockade at no costAfter the deadly truck ramming attack on New Orleans's Bourbon Street early on New Year's Day, local police said they had intentionally left down a hydraulic barrier meant to prevent such violence because it had a history of malfunctioning - prompting the blockade's manufacturer to contact the city with an urgent offer of free inspection and maintenance, according to recently obtained emails.We would like to bring out a technician for no charge in order to inspect all the Delta Scientific barriers in New Orleans and ensure they are functional and offer any solutions for maintenance or repairs needed," Dianne Kennedy, the company's assistant to general counsel and manager of contracts, wrote to the office of the New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell. Continue reading...

Cynical actors exploit the legal ambiguities around targeting healthcare facilities, as seen in Gaza. Unequivocal protections are neededHospitals in Gaza have turned into battlegrounds", the World Health Organization's representative for the West Bank and Gaza stated at the UN security council in January. He warned that the healthcare system was being systematically dismantled and driven to the brink of collapse".Israel's attacks on medical centres in Gaza have prompted widespread condemnation from civil society, academics and news agencies, many labelling these strikes as breaches of international law or war crimes. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted that: Any attack of healthcare facilities is a violation of international humanitarian law." Continue reading...

The Milan star's nine-episode docuseries is most notable in that it reveals anything at allDeep into the third and most recent episode of the Paramount+ docuseries on Milan and United States men's national team star Christian Pulisic - with the very does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin title of Pulisic - a remarkable sight unfolds: Pulisic, coaxed by his girlfriend, reveals something of himself.In that scene, Pulisic and Alexa Melton, a golfer on the second-tier Epson Tour, sit at a table in his house in Italy playing a card game. He looks uncomfortable. What feelings are hard for you to communicate to me and how can I make it easier?" Melton asks, reading off a card. Continue reading...

Anger over blown calls is as old as baseball itself. But in Spring Training this year, players can ask technology for a little helpFor the first time ever this month, major league players who disagree with an umpire's rendering of the strike zone can do something about it. Something other than an exaggerated pantomime of disbelief or a testy reply liable to get them thrown out of the game entirely. They can do something effectual, productive, process-based. They can appeal to a higher power, one that has become revered within the sport for its ability to optimize anything and everything: Technology.Major League Baseball is testing the challenge system version of the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) in roughly 60% of Spring Training games this preseason. In layman's terms: this spring, players can ask robot umps to review pitch calls. Continue reading...

The massacre in Bucha, the mass graves in Izium - it is as if these atrocities never happened. Now the truth is being taken out and shotOrders and statements from the new US president come at us daily now, with unremitting speed, and international politics is reduced to an endless series of justifications and denials of unfounded accusations.It's hard to believe, but Ukrainian activists have had to write explainers for a global audience, reminding them who the true dictator is, that it was not Ukraine that started the war with Russia and that we are actually just trying to defend what is ours. And, you know, to survive a little bit. Continue reading...

Three times in the postwar era Germany made strategic choices that benefited Europe - with the US at its side. Now it must do it in opposition to TrumpThree times in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, its chancellors have made strategic choices that opened the door to a better future for Europe. Today there's not just an opportunity but an urgent need for a fourth such historic moment. If the country's new coalition government under Friedrich Merz manages to seize the chance of this crisis, both Germany and Europe will go forward. If it fails, then by the end of the 2020s both may have fallen backwards farther and faster than most of us could have imagined in our worst nightmares.The big difference with those three earlier pivotal moments is this: in 1949, 1969 and 1989 the Federal Republic's policy was fundamentally aligned with that of the United States. This time, Germany has to build up a stronger, free, democratic and Ukraine-supporting Europe against the current policy of the US. The most staggering moment of Sunday's election evening was when the lifelong Atlanticist Merz declared that Europe must really achieve independence from the US". (When compared with Emmanuel Macron's almost British sycophancy in the White House the next day, Germany's prospective chancellor is sounding more robustly Gaullist than the French president.)Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Vote passes 217-215 in win for president as Democrats assail proposal over planned cuts to social safety-net programsRepublicans unified behind a budget blueprint on Tuesday evening, just barely scraping together the votes to advance Donald Trump's sprawling tax-cut and immigration agenda over unanimous Democratic opposition and widespread concern that it would slash social safety net programs.The House approved the plan in a vote of 217-215, with the representative Thomas Massie, a prominent fiscal hawk, as the lone Republican voting in opposition. No Democrats supported the measure, which they have cast as a betrayal of middle and low-income voters on behalf of billionaire donors" like Trump's chief lieutenant, Elon Musk. Continue reading...

President says I hear he's coming on Friday' amid reports that terms of US-Ukraine aid exchange have been reachedDonald Trump has said that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is likely to visit the White House on Friday to sign a rare earth minerals deal to pay for US military aid to defend against Russia's full-scale invasion.The announcement followed days of tense negotiations between the US and Ukraine in which Zelenskyy alleged the US was pressuring him to sign a deal worth more than $500bn that would force 10 generations" of Ukrainians to pay it back. Continue reading...

Despite a pledge that life-saving assistance would be exempt from the USAid freeze, countless groups providing critical care have been forced to stop workWah K'Ler Paw, a 30-year-old refugee from Myanmar, survived for about two weeks without dialysis after US president Donald Trump suspended foreign aid.She never complained about what she was going through," says her husband, Thaw, from the Mae La refugee camp along the Thai-Myanmar border, where the couple had lived with their two-year-old daughter, Thaw Wah. Continue reading...

Musk's Doge demands wreak havoc in federal agencies and its cost-cutting impact may be having less impact than he claims - key US politics stories from Tuesday at a glanceMore than 20 staffers of Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge) stepped down on Tuesday, saying in a joint letter they refused to use their expertise to dismantle critical public services".The mass resignations are the latest rebuke to the billionaire entrepreneur's hard-handed approach to slashing jobs and resources from federal government agencies. Musk had demanded federal workers email his office with five things they did the week prior to justify their positions. Continue reading...

President intervenes amid first signs of internal dissension as government departments push backDonald Trump has stepped in to defend Elon Musk from a mounting backlash in his own administration after some cabinet members told US federal workers to ignore the billionaire entrepreneur's demand that they write an email justifying their work.The US president was driven to intervene amid the first signs of internal dissension over the disruptive impact of Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge), which Trump has authorised to seek mass firings in the federal workforce and reduce supposed waste and corruption. Continue reading...

This liveblog is now closed.It's coming down to the wire for beleaguered House speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying to rally GOP holdouts behind his budget plan for enacting Donald Trump's agenda before the showdown vote this evening.Amid Republican opposition threatening to derail his bill, Johnson was up late last night locked in talks with holdouts from across his party who remain skeptical of his outline plan for tax and spending cuts - as well as border security, energy and defense policy - via a single reconciliation bill. Continue reading...

The US president said at the White House that his Ukrainian counterpart will visit Washington on Friday to sign an agreement on rare minerals in exchange for US military aid. He also attacked his predecessor, Joe Biden Continue reading...

Many shoes haven't hit market yet as authorities investigate at least 10 incidents targeting BNSF trains in remote areasThieves have targeted freight trains running through the deserts of California and Arizona in a string of audacious heists resulting in the theft of more than $2m worth of new Nike sneakers, including many that haven't hit the retail market yet, according to officials and court documents.In a 13 January robbery, suspects cut an air brake hose on a BNSF freight train traveling through a remote section of Arizona and made off with more than 1,900 pairs of unreleased Nikes worth more than $440,000, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Phoenix. Many of the shoes were Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4s, which won't be available to the public until 14 March and are expected to retail at $225 per pair, the complaint states. Continue reading...

Move comes a day after administration won ruling allowing it to bar AP from the Oval Office and Air Force OneThe White House said it will take control over which news organizations and reporters are allowed into the presidential press pool covering Donald Trump.The White House press team in this administration will determine who gets to enjoy the very privileged and limited access in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office," the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Staff at foreign aid agency who were put on leave to be allowed 15 minutes to retrieve personal items from officeWorkers at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) have been invited back to its office to retrieve their personal belongings" as the Trump administration continues its bid to shut down the foreign aid agency.An email seen by the Guardian described how staff in Washington would be allowed to briefly return on Thursday or Friday of this week. They would be escorted to their workspace" and granted approximately 15 minutes" to gather their items, it said. Continue reading...

School district will ignore Trump executive order banning trans athletes from competing in women's sportsThe Philadelphia school district will reportedly ignore a rule directing schools to ban transgender athletes from participating in sports that match their gender identities, according to reporting from the Philadelphia Inquirer.The school district strives to ensure safety, equity and justice for all students regardless of gender identity or gender expression so that they can imagine and realize any future they desire", a spokesperson, Christina Clark, said in a statement on Tuesday to the Inquirer. Continue reading...

News comes as leading network star criticizes management for decision to cancel shows hosted by non-white anchorsMSNBC has told the majority of the employees who produce Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid's primetime evening news shows they are being let go as part of the network's programming overhaul with the option to apply for new roles, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.Maddow, the biggest star and highest-rated anchor at MSNBC, will get to keep her executive producer, Cory Gnazzo, and several other senior producers, the people said. Continue reading...

In siding with Russia at the UN, the US has laid bare the extent of the shift. Bilateral visits cannot disguise the underlying crisisThe rumblings prompted by Donald Trump's re-election soon gathered force. First came tariffs and threats of territorial annexation; then the greater shocks of JD Vance's Valentine's Day massacre of European values and Mr Trump's enthusiastic amplification of Kremlin lines on Ukraine.On Monday came another seismic moment. For more than a decade, the UN security council has been largely paralysed by the split between the five permanent members - Russia and China on one side; the US, France and Britain on the other. This time, when the US brought a resolution calling for an end to the war in Ukraine on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion, it did not criticise Moscow, demand its withdrawal or back Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The result was that China and Russia backed the resolution - while the UK and France, having failed to temper it, abstained. Continue reading...

Billionaires have sown a myth that citizens are losing at the expense of undocumented people. The real solution is to empower all workersOver the last few years, we have witnessed some leaders of the Democratic party retreat from delivering bold policies that would address people's struggles and aspirations, from a pathway to citizenship for all to a higher federal minimum wage, in favor of Republican-light talking points about the border and those seeking asylum - which only eroded trust with the American people.Right now, 60% of the country is living paycheck to paycheck. Families are drowning in debt, whether it be from trying to pay for unaffordable childcare, exorbitant student loans, costly medical bills or months of missed rent payments. Homelessness has skyrocketed. Millions are struggling to survive another day and are penny-pinching to be able to afford rent and groceries, while billions of our taxpayer dollars are being spent on turbocharging mass abductions of our neighbors through raids and deportations, all in service of filling detention centers that make the CEOs of companies like GeoGroup and CoreCivic richer by the minute. Continue reading...

Lisa Jeanine Findley pleads guilty after alleged threat to sell star's former home if Presley family did not pay $2.85mA Missouri woman said on Tuesday she was pleading guilty to a federal charge accusing her of concocting a brazen plot to defraud Elvis Presley's family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale.During a change of plea hearing, Lisa Jeanine Findley told a federal judge in Memphis that she would plead guilty to a charge of mail fraud related to the scheme. She previously pleaded not guilty to the two-count indictment, which also includes a count of aggravated identity theft. Continue reading...

Richard Glossip's murder conviction unsafe, say justices, as prosecutors failed to turn over important evidenceThe US supreme court on Tuesday threw out the murder conviction and death penalty for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and averted multiple attempts by the state to execute him.The decision marked an extraordinary turnaround for a death row prisoner who has faced nine execution dates set by Oklahoma and eaten three last meals". Glossip has also been married twice while awaiting execution. Continue reading...