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The two best players of their generation suffered same-day disappointments that show the game is starting to move onNot long ago, the results might have been seismic. Or at the very least, worthy of an eyebrows-raised remark. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two leading lights of their generation, the dominant on-field forces for most of this century, both going out of continental competition in the semi-finals? Both in upsets? On the same day?On Wednesday, it actually happened. Messi's Inter Miami fell to Vancouver 5-1 on aggregate in the Concacaf Champions Cup, and Ronaldo's Al-Nassr lost 3-2 to Kawasaki Frontale in the AFC Champions League Elite at a nominally neutral site in Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

In their rush to implement a barely concealed authoritarian agenda, this administration is producing a litany of blunders, gaffes and slip-upsAs we pass the 100-day mark of Donald Trump's second term, it's time to take note of a key element of how this administration governs: by mistake. I'm being serious. Have we ever seen a more error-prone, incompetent and fumbling presidency? In their rush to implement a barely concealed authoritarian agenda, this administration is producing a litany of blunders, gaffes and slip-ups. At times, they'll seek to hide those mistakes by projecting a shield of authoritarianism. At other times, they'll claim the mistake as a method of walking back an unpopular authoritarian agenda item. Either way, it's a unique style of rule, one that I call rule by error".On 11 April, for example, the White House's taskforce on antisemitism sent Harvard University a letter detailing a laundry list of actions that Harvard would have to undertake if the university wanted to avoid having over $2bn of multiyear federal grants frozen by the government. But the actions were extreme and would have resulted in the end of Harvard's intellectual independence. Days later, Harvard wrote back: Nah, I'm good," they told Trump's people. (More precisely, they wrote that the university is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration".) Continue reading...

Trump and Musk have gut National Institutes of Health and experts are wary of private efforts' ability to replicate public serviceThe federal government has slashed research since Donald Trump took office - hacking away at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its grants, staff and long-held partnerships with academia.Now, some private companies said they want to pick up strands of research that might have otherwise been funded by the federal government. The effort has stoked little optimism among experts, who caution that private efforts cannot remotely replicate the breadth, depth or public service provided by federal funding. Continue reading...

The once unsinkable ship of US higher education has hit an unthinkable icebergAmerican higher education is living its RMS Titanic moment. The multi-trillion-dollar United States academic-scientific complex, led by the richest and most highly coveted universities in history, remains the envy of the world. American University Inc" is one of the US's top exports and among its most valuable stocks. Brands such as Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and so many others are revered worldwide as symbols of academic excellence, independent thinking, breakthrough innovation and prestige. No other university system in the world comes close to amassing as much capital - financial, human, cultural and social - as the mighty American one.Until now. Continue reading...

What has happened with 60 Minutes is a high-octane version of what's happening everywhere in Trump 2.0There have been so many red alerts for press freedom in the United States over the past few months that it can be hard to know which ones really matter.The one at CBS's 60 Minutes really matters.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

ChatGPT's embarrassing rollback of a user update was a warning about the dangers of humans placing emotional trust in AINobody likes a suck-up. Too much deference and praise puts off all of us (with one notable presidential exception). We quickly learn as children that hard, honest truths can build respect among our peers. It's a cornerstone of human interaction and of our emotional intelligence, something we swiftly understand and put into action.ChatGPT, though, hasn't been so sure lately. The updated model that underpins the AI chatbot and helps inform its answers was rolled out this week - and has quickly been rolled back after users questioned why the interactions were so obsequious. The chatbot was cheering on and validating people even as they suggested they expressed hatred for others. Seriously, good for you for standing up for yourself and taking control of your own life," it reportedly said, in response to one user who claimed they had stopped taking their medication and had left their family, who they said were responsible for radio signals coming through the walls.Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World's Favourite App Continue reading...

In an extract from his new book, Jared Beasley introduces the eccentric figure behind the Barkley Marathons, where runners are terrified and tested in equal measureFor over a century, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary was the end of the line. Built in the shape of a Greek cross, the pale limestone structure had housed the worst of the worst - murderers, madmen, monsters - its bulk hunched beneath a crown of scarred mountains the guards called the fifth wall.Now it sits empty - cracking and molding and dying. But each spring around April Fool's, on a cold, crisp day like today, a retired accountant appears at its gate. He carries a book with an ominous title and plants it against the back wall. Then sometime between midnight and noon the next day, he lights a cigarette, and the world's most grueling footrace begins. Continue reading...

Jolly humouring and kind words guarantee nothing from this White House. Right now Walmart has more clout than the UKIt's not funny, of course - livelihoods if not actual lives depend on reaching a workable accord. But the news that President Trump has probably stiffed the UK into a second- or third-tier boarding group for trade talks, behind South Korea and Japan, triggers at least a snort of recognition for anyone who has experienced versions of that dynamic. The phrase British negotiators are hopeful" followed almost immediately by use of the word disappointed" in heavy rotation takes you, with grim amusement, back to every toxic relationship in which you have played Britain to someone else's America.We are talking, of course, about the wisdom or otherwise of appeasing a man many think of as a tyrant, and the main takeaway from the Guardian's story on Tuesday is that no matter how the UK pretzels itself to fit Donald Trump's requirements, none of it will make any difference. Or rather what difference it makes, beyond the immediate relief enjoyed before the flattery wears off, is likely to be negative. It's a rule of extortion that demands will increase with each capitulation, as Columbia University is finding out to its cost. (After caving to Trump's demands last month in return for the restoration of $400m in federal funding, the university has not, in fact, had its funding restored. Instead Trump officials have told Columbia its concessions only represent the first step".)Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Democratic presidential candidate speaks in San Francisco in first significant appearance since election defeatKamala Harris delivered a searing indictment of Donald Trump's first 100 days in power, warning in her first major address since leaving office that the nation was witnessing a wholesale abandonment of America's highest ideals" by its president.Speaking to an audience of Democrats in San Francisco, the former vice-president struck a defiant posture as she praised the leaders and institutions pushing back against Trump and his aggressive agenda - from the members of Congress acting boldly to the judges who uphold the rule of law in the face of those who would jail them", the universities defying the administration's unconstitutional demands", and the everyday Americans rallying to protect social security. Continue reading...

Move seals a deal to create a fund the Trump administration says will begin to repay roughly $175bn provided to UkraineThe US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share profits and royalties from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine's defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.The minerals deal, which has been the subject of tense negotiations for months and nearly fell through hours before it was signed, will establish a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund that the Trump administration has said will begin to repay an estimated $175bn in aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Continue reading...

Footage of the undercover conversations between veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita and undercover reporters shows LaCivita claiming he visited Australia to advise the Liberal party ahead of the election. LaCivita says he made an unpublicised visit to Australia to advise theLiberal partyabout 'structural issues' related to Peter Dutton. 'I was in Australia two weeks ago helping the Liberal party there, on some of their structural issues that they were having withPeter Dutton,' LaCivita says on 16 April in the first of two calls. The footage waspublished on Thursdayby the Europe-based organisations Correctiv and the Centre for Climate Reporting.ACoalitionspokesman has denied LaCivita had any connection to the Dutton campaign.In a statement, LaCivita told Guardian Australia: 'I did not and do not work for the Liberal Party of Australia. I provide consulting to a wide variety of business interests - some in Australia some in the US etc in terms of a political party - I have not. Also, I have never met Mr Dutton, but I hope to when he is elected prime minister'Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube

This blog has now closed. Read our latest story hereDonald Trump promptly claimed this morning that the contraction in the US economy had nothing to do with his tariff wars, repeated his habitual claim that this is all somehow his predecessor Joe Biden's fault, and predicted the economy would boom when tariffs kicked in. He wrote on his Truth Social platform:This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden Overhang." This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!! Continue reading...

Former NFL star absolutely devastated' by death of Jeff Sperbeck, 62, who suffered injury at California golf resortJeff Sperbeck, a business partner and former agent for NFL Hall of Famer John Elway, died Wednesday after suffering an injury last weekend at a southern California golf resort community. He was 62.No cause of death was released, but the Riverside county coroner's office said Sperbeck was injured on Saturday and the address listed for the incident belongs to the Madison Club in La Quinta. Continue reading...

Accord establishes joint investment fund for Ukraine's reconstruction; homeland security secretary issues fresh threat to Salvadorian Kilmar Abrego Garcia - key US politics stories from Wednesday 30 AprilUkraine and the US have signed a deal pushed by President Donald Trump that will give the US preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources and fund investment in Ukraine's reconstruction.The accord establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine's reconstruction as Trump tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia's three-year-old war in Ukraine. Continue reading...

Administration in touch with Nayib Bukele over detention of wrongly deported man, according to two peopleThe Trump administration has been in touch directly with the Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele in recent days about the detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, according to two people familiar with the matter.The nature of the discussion and its purpose was not clear because multiple Trump officials have said the administration was not interested in his coming back to the US despite the US supreme court ordering it to facilitate" Abrego Garcia's release. Continue reading...

Red and navy hats were strategically placed as Trump's cabinet gushed over 100 presidential days like no otherThere were navy blue and red baseball caps up and down the table, strategically placed in front of every cabinet member, and each bearing the message Gulf of America".Yet the unorthodox collection of headwear, embroidered with Donald Trump's forced new name for the centuries-old Gulf of Mexico, was far from the most bizarre aspect of an extraordinary White House gathering hosted by the president on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Lawmakers including Chuck Schumer denounce failure' on economy, costs, foreign policy, democracy and middle classDozens of Democratic lawmakers gathered on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday to accuse Donald Trump of spending his first 100 days damaging the US economy and democracy with the help of complicit" congressional Republicans.The speeches by party leaders served as a counterpoint to Trump's insistence at a rally in Michigan the night before that he has delivered the most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years" with an administration focused on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, the dismantling of parts of the federal government and the levying of tariffs on major US trading partners. Continue reading...

Funding will not be continued next year after bill signed in 2022 helped schools hire more mental health workersThe Trump administration is moving to cancel $1bn in school mental health grants, saying they reflect the priorities of the previous administration.Grant recipients were notified on Tuesday that the funding will not be continued after this year. A gun violence bill signed by Joe Biden in 2022 sent $1bn to the grant programs to help schools hire more psychologists, counselors and other mental health workers. Continue reading...

Oklahoma case is part of a broader push to erode separation of church and state, and a test of role of religion in schoolsThe US supreme court's conservative majority seemed open to establishing the country's first public religious charter school as they weighed a case Wednesday that could have significant ramifications on the separation of church and state.The Oklahoma state charter school board approved the application for St Isidore, a Catholic virtual charter school. The ACLU and other groups filed suit, as did Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond. The state supreme court sided with Drummond, ruling that the US and Oklahoma constitutions prohibit the state from using public money for the establishment of a religious institution". Continue reading...

With seven-day pause expiring Wednesday, Paula Xinis says administration must provide sworn testimony by May

In Long Beach, city with the largest diaspora of Cambodians in the US, people dance, eat and reflect on the 1975 killingsSousdey chnam thmey!" a rider shouted in Khmer into a megaphone while sitting atop a float swaddled in US and Cambodian flags. Happy new year!" parade-goers yelled back from the street.Thousands of Cambodian Americans gathered to celebrate the Khmer New Year in Long Beach's Cambodia Town district - the heart of the largest diaspora of Cambodians in the United States. Continue reading...

We are tottering on the edge of dictatorship. Powerful voices across institutions, from politics to academia and religion, must speak outWe have witnessed the first 100 days of the odious Trump regime.The US constitution is in peril. Civil and human rights are being trampled upon. The economy is in disarray.If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive's obligation to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed' would lose its meaning.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...

The president has signed orders to ban gender transitions for people under 19, end birthright citizenship and moreDonald Trump signed 140 executive orders in the first 100 days of his second term, including orders aimed at enacting steep tariffs, ending birthright citizenship, curbing DEI and gender radicalism" in the military and pardoning January 6 rioters.The US president promised in his inaugural speech that these orders would amount to a complete restoration of America". Continue reading...

US president Donald Trump quarrelled with a ABC News interviewer after he corrected him on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian man, who was deported and who Trump alleged had MS-13 tattoos. In a tense exchange, Trump claimed that Garcia had a MS-13 tattoo on his knuckles but Terry Moran pushed back, telling the president the photo was doctored

Palestinian, a lawful permanent US resident, was detained and ordered deported despite not being charged with crime

US homeland security secretary said Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador not under our control'Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said that if Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent back to the US, the Donald Trump administration would immediately deport him again".Noem repeated White House assertions about Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian man who the Trump administration has admitted was mistakenly deported from Maryland last month, in a new interview with CBS. Continue reading...

Aomar Ait Khedache, 68, has admitted involvement in armed robbery of reality TV star but denies being ringleaderA retired restaurant owner alleged to have been the ringleader of an armed robbery of American reality TV star Kim Kardashian in Paris, has told a court he was in part driven by a taste for easy money.Aomar Ait Khedache, 68, known as Old Omar", has admitted to police that he took part in the robbery in which Kardashian was tied up and held hostage at gunpoint in her Paris hotel bedroom during Paris fashion week in 2016. But he has denied the prosecution's accusation that he was the organiser or ringleader of the jewel heist in the early hours of 3 October 2016, which was the biggest robbery of an individual in France in 20 years. Continue reading...

Four ex-heads of US embassies in nations that swung from democracies to dictatorships say landscape eerily familiarThe US is treading the path followed by democracies that descended into authoritarianism and dictatorship, former ambassadors to countries that underwent autocratic takeovers have warned.At a panel discussion held to mark Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, four ex-heads of American embassies in countries that had experienced swings away from democracy said the current domestic political landscape felt eerily familiar and was pervaded by a climate of fear" deliberately created to make opponents back off". Continue reading...

Drop comes amid a huge fall in consumer sentiment which in April dropped 32% to lowest level since 1990 recessionThe US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data, as Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to make America great again".The US president sought to blame Joe Biden for the reading. But economists said it was largely driven by an unprecedented surge in imports, as consumers and companies braced for Trump to impose his controversial wave of tariffs. Continue reading...

President lashed out at Terry Moran in tense TV interview, which included questions about deportations and tariffs

President holds campaign-style event in Michigan, attacks Democrats and communist' judges, and repeats 2020 election lieDonald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on communist radical-left judges" for trying to curb his power, warning: Nothing will stop me."The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd. Continue reading...

Mark Carney's win isn't as comforting as it should be, especially when we look at all the events leading up to itAfter a snap election, weeks of breathless campaigning and a surprisingly close race, Mark Carney has been elected prime minister of Canada. It's a win for Liberals, who were rightly nervous that former prime minister Justin Trudeau's poor performance and late-stage missteps might cost them this election. But Carney's win isn't as comforting as it should be, especially when we look at all the events leading up to it.It's no secret that over the last decade, Canada's image as a welcoming, pacifist, melting pot has completely unravelled, revealing a rightwing underbelly that has seen the rise of the manosphere" and a deepening of its influences on young people, as well as a sharp increase in anti-immigrant sentiment and hate crimes. When it came down to this election, it was Trudeau's forced resignation and people's ability to credibly accuse the Liberal party of spending a decade basically twiddling their thumbs while the cost of living soared, that pushed Canadians to the right and helped the Conservative party coast to a near win. Continue reading...

A last-minute supreme court intervention prevented Javier Salazar from getting deported, but the battle is far from overWhen 19-year-old Javier Salazar was loaded on to a bus from an immigrant detention center in northern Texas, he had no idea where he was being taken.He wondered if he was being transferred to another facility or maybe deported back to his native Venezuela. He and the other passengers, their hands and feet shackled, settled into a tense silence. Then a terrifying possibility crept into Salazar's mind. Continue reading...

The first few months have seen record-breaking use of executive powers - here are some of the outlying trends

We would like to hear from US Social Security benefit recipients and agency workers about their experiences under the Trump administrationThe Social Security Administration (SSA) plans to cut 7000 jobs, about 12% of its workforce as part of the Department of Government Efficiency review of the federal work force.Nearly 69 million Americans on average per month are set to receive Social Security benefits in 2025, consisting of retired workers, disabled workers, survivors and dependents. These benefits represent 31 percent of income for people over the age of 65 in the US. Continue reading...

Men at Bluebonnet fear deportation to El Salvador under wartime law despite maintaining they do not have gang tiesDetainees at the Bluebonnet immigrant detention center in the small city of Anson, Texas, sent the outside world a message this week: SOS.With a Reuters drone flying nearby, 31 men formed the letters in the dirt yard of the facility on Monday. Continue reading...

On Monday, the US president took another swing at cities that protect immigrants and limit Ice cooperationSince his first day in office, Donald Trump has zeroed in on so-called sanctuary cities", pledging to withhold federal funding and ensure they are eliminated as part of his administration's massive crackdown on immigrants.On Monday, he took yet another swing, directing his administration to publish a list of state and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws". The order also calls on the government to identify federal funds that can be terminated as a consequence for cities that identify as sanctuary jurisdictions. Continue reading...

Although the resistance at the start of Trump's second term was wobbly, ordinary people' are pushing the movement forwardThose opposed to Donald Trump's agenda started his second term on a worse footing than the beginning of his first term.This time, the social media platform owners who previously tried to tamp down on false claims stood with him at his inauguration. Some major media outlets attempted to stay in Trump's good graces. Democrats were wrecked by a popular vote loss, believing they lacked the backing to lead an opposition. The courts were stacked in Trump's favor and had ruled the president had absolute immunity from criminal punishment for official acts". Continue reading...

Aide alludes to president running again in 2028 . Plus, border pick accused of cover-up over death of man beaten by US agentsGood morning.President Donald Trump has said that nothing will stop" him, speaking at a rally in Michigan to celebrate his 100th day in office where an aide alluded to him running again in 2028 - even though US presidents are constitutionally barred from serving a third term.What was said about a third term? Margo Martin, a White House aide, joined Trump on stage and asked: Trump 2028, anybody?" to roars from the crowd.When did the US campaign begin? It began to strike Houthi targets on 15 March, and the US military's central command says it has hit 800 targets and killed hundreds of Houthi fighters. Continue reading...

The president's approach: tackle problems that don't exist via policies that won't workIn the 2024 election, Donald Trump eked out a narrow victory, by 1.5 percentage points nationally, the lowest popular vote margin in 56 years, since Richard Nixon's wafer-thin win by 0.7 points in 1968. Trump claimed he had won an enormous historic mandate to impose a counterrevolution. The American people have given us a mandate, a mandate like few people thought possible," Trump boasted on 6 March in his address to the Congress.His election rested on two principal issues, immigration and inflation. He demonized immigrants (poisoning the blood" of the country), raised the bogeyman of transgender people, and racialized the Democratic candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, whom he claimed had decided herself she was Black. In the minds of the marginal voters who swung to him, however, immigration and inflation were conflated, factors impinging on their standard of living and economic security. Trump stigmatized migrants as the source of crime and cultural impurity, but swing voters mainly (and falsely) regarded them as economic competitors for jobs and government resources. Continue reading...

Even a summer holiday isn't straightforward any more - and all across the US, millions of people are having to make calculations like mineLet me start with a message to my wife. SORRY!!! I apologise in advance for everything you are about to read.My more sensible half, you see, is a US citizen, who keeps telling me (a green card holder) that I should stop making jokes about getting sent to a detention centre or deported.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The president promised an extraordinary' first 100 days in office but for many that has been true in all the wrong waysThe first 100 days of Donald Trump's second term have polarized the United States and the world.Public opinion polls show the president's approval rating is around 40% - having flipped from positive to negative since his inauguration. A vast majority of Americans are worried about a recession and how his trade war will affect the economy. Continue reading...

We are all Valerie