Fears access could create cybersecurity attack risk; Trump talk of third term met with scorn. Here's your roundup of key US politics stories from 31 March 2025Members of Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge) reportedly gained access to a payroll system over the weekend that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across various government agencies, despite warnings from senior staff about the potential risks.Senior career officials at the interior department reportedly issued a memo last week highlighting the unusual nature of the request to gain access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System and the associated risks with granting it, the New York Times reported. Continue reading...
Administration accuses university of failing to protect students and plans to look into federal grants and contractsThe Trump administration announced a review on Monday of $9bn in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations that it failed to address issues of antisemitism on campus.The multi-agency joint task force to combat antisemitism said it will review the more than $255.6m in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the federal government, according to a joint statement from the education department, the health department and the General Services Administration. The statement also says the review will include the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates. Continue reading...
President issues full pardon to veteran Thomas Caldwell and commutes Jason Galanis's 14-year prison sentenceDonald Trump has issued a full pardon to another person involved with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and commuted the sentence of a former business associate of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's scandal-plagued son.Thomas Caldwell, 69, of Berryville, Virginia, has been granted a pardon for his alleged role in the Capitol attack following a series of pardons Trump has given out to those involved with or present during the events on 6 January 2021. Continue reading...
Virginia Giuffre writes on social media she has gone into kidney renal failure ... they've given me four days to live'Virginia Giuffre, a victim of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who once alleged she was sexually trafficked to Britain's Prince Andrew, says she has just days to live after being involved in a vehicle accident.This year has been the worst start to a new year ... I won't bore anyone with the details, but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can," she wrote in a post on social media on Sunday, along with a photograph of herself lying in a hospital bed with a head injury. Continue reading...
Officials said accessing system that processes 276,000 employees' salaries could put unit at risk of cyber-attacksMembers of Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge) reportedly gained access to a payroll system over the weekend that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across various government agencies, despite warnings from senior staff about the potential risks.According to two people familiar with the situation who spoke with the New York Times, Doge employees had spent about two weeks trying to obtain administrative access to the program, known as the Federal Personnel and Payroll System. Continue reading...
Rescuers recover bodies after six-day effort to dig armoured vehicle out of peat bog, but one soldier is still missingThree of the four US soldiers missing in Lithuania since last week have been found dead, the US army said after rescuers recovered their armoured vehicle from a peat bog. The fourth soldier is still missing.The Lithuanian authorities received a report on Tuesday that the soldiers went missing on an expansive training ground in the eastern city of Pabrad, near the border with Belarus. The soldiers were on a tactical training exercise when they and their vehicle were reported missing, the US army said.Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report Continue reading...
The far right leader is banned and disgraced. European leaders can seize this moment to show voters they will fight for themThe French justice system chose courage over surrender. The law was clear, and so was the court in its sentencing: no special treatment for Marine Le Pen, no deference to the powerful, no using a candidacy for office as an excuse to break the law with impunity.For more than a decade, from 2004 to 2016, Le Pen's reactionary rightwing party - named the Front National until 2018, when it became the Rassemblement National (RN) - operated an organised scheme to embezzle public funds by creating fictitious parliamentary assistant jobs at the European parliament, and to break other financial rules, in effect using European public money to finance a debt-ridden party domestically. Under a French anti-corruption law passed in 2016, the guilty verdict rendered against Le Pen comes with a sentence of ineligibility to run for office. The ban is for the next five years, effective immediately, which means that the sentence will hold all the way through an appeals process and will almost certainly torpedo any chance of her running for president in 2027.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The teenager grabbed fans' attention when he upset Daniil Medvedev at this year's Australian Open. The impact of the win is starting to settle inAs cheers erupt from the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, attendants outside the stadium wonder aloud if it's Novak Djokovic playing. But it's two teens battling it out in the first round of the Miami Open: Learner Tien of the United States at 19 and Joao Fonseca of Brazil at 18. The Miami crowd, dotted with Brazil's colors, is raucous for Fonseca.Tien misses an easy overhead, and the Brazilian fans roar, offering a chant more commonly seen at a soccer stadium, throwing all tennis decorum of not cheering errors out the window. The umpire tries to speak over the crowd for the next point to begin, but Tien is already starting his serve, seemingly unfazed. Continue reading...
Loss to teenager Jakub Mensik in Miami final shows difficulty of maintaining such high standards at the age of 37During a quiet period in the relentless calendar three years ago, the 16-year-old Jakub Mensik received an unexpected proposal. The Czech, who had just reached the boys' singles final at the Australian Open, was invited by Novak Djokovic, his idol, to train together at the Serb's academy in Belgrade. The pair quickly established a rapport, with Djokovic offering advice and counsel. For Mensik, this was a pivotal moment.On Sunday, at the Miami Open, the pair stood across the net fromeach other again, this time asrivals, and he closed out a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) victory to win his first ATPtitle in one of the top tournaments. Continue reading...
University called Dr Joanne Liu, ex-head of Doctors Without Borders, after planning to speak on Gaza and federal cutsThe former international head of Doctors Without Borders says she was left stunned" after New York University canceled her presentation because some of her slides discussing cuts at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could be viewed as anti-governmental".Dr Joanne Liu, a pediatric emergency physician at Sainte-Justine hospital and a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who also served as the former international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), told CTV News last week that she was scheduled on 19 March to give a presentation at her alma mater on challenges in humanitarian crises. Continue reading...
by Sam Levin in Medford, Oregon with photographs by A on (#6W9W5)
Last year, the state ended a trailblazing law decriminalizing possession. Drug users in some counties are now in and out of jail, without lawyers, struggling to get treatmentAt 7.45am on a cool February morning in Medford, Oregon, six police officers pulled up to a desolate road lined with tarps and a shopping cart and began making arrests.The officers directed four adults to sit on the sidewalk, handcuffing them behind their backs and rifling through their pockets. They were being detained for illegal camping, but the officers were also searching for evidence of drugs. Continue reading...
Total of 38% of Republican voters agree Hegseth should quit, compared to just a third who think he should keep jobMore Republican voters think that Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, should resign than those who think he should remain in his job, according to a poll conducted after he and other Trump administration officials shared sensitive military attack plans with a journalist who was accidentally added to a message group chat.Hegseth outlined details of a US airstrike in Yemen in a Signal group chat that included Donald Trump's vice-president, JD Vance, as well as his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to the chat. Continue reading...
Donald Trump says deteriorating magnolia will be removed but wood may be used for other high and noble purposes'A nearly two-century-old tree with a history tied to the former US president Andrew Jackson will be removed from the White House grounds because it is deteriorating, Donald Trump said on Sunday.The southern magnolia stands near the curved portico on the south side of the building. It is where foreign leaders are often welcomed for ceremonial visits, and where the president departs to board the Marine One helicopter. Continue reading...
Attacks on the pillars of civil society are chilling speech. But American democracy was built on criticismI was talking recently to a friend who's a professor at Columbia University about what's been happening there. He had a lot to say.When he needed to run off to an appointment, I asked him if he'd text or email me the rest of his thoughts. Continue reading...
Authorities still confirming identity of those on board fallen aircraft that crashed in Brooklyn Park on SaturdayA plane registered to US Bank vice-chair Terry Dolan crashed over the weekend in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, and his organization fears he was on board.The Minnesota-based lender said the medical examiner's office has not been able to confirm whether Dolan was on board at the time of the crash. But we believe he was", US Bank said in a statement on Sunday, the day after the crash. Continue reading...
The Smithsonian's museums have been ordered to root out divisive narratives'. It's part of a pattern: the battle lines are now clearIt has come to this: we are now in Ministry of Truth territory. In Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution, the US's ensemble of 21 great national museums, last week became the subject of an executive order by President Donald Trump. Distorted narratives" are to be rooted out. There will be no more of the corrosive ideology" that has fostered a sense of national shame". The institution has, reads the order, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology" that portrays American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive". The vice-president, JD Vance, is, by virtue of his office, on the museum's board. He is charged by Trump to prohibit expenditure" on programmes that divide Americans based on race". He is to remove improper ideology". The order is titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History". George Orwell lived too soon.The move is deeply shocking, but predictable. After Trump's insertion of himself as chair of the John F Kennedy Center and his railing against the supposed wokeness of the national performing arts venue, the federally funded Smithsonian was bound to be next in line. Those who imagined the Kennedy Center was a one-off, attracting the president's ire for personal reasons, were deluding themselves about the scale of Trump's ideological ambition. Picked out for opprobrium in the executive order are the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum for celebrating transgender women (the museum, it should be pointed out, has yet to be built); the National Museum of African American History and Culture; and an exhibition titled The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the American Art Museum.Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian's chief culture writer Continue reading...
In interview Trump said he wasn't joking when he alluded to a purported loophole for a third term as presidentDonald Trump has said there are methods" - if not plans" - to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.In an interview aired Sunday on NBC, Trump was asked about his trying to stay in office beyond his second presidency, a specter he has repeatedly raised while sometimes claiming he is just joking. Continue reading...
by Alexander Abnos, Graham Ruthven, Joseph Lowery and on (#6W9QM)
San Diego FC has made fools of the doubters in its expansion season, while CF Montreal continues in the wildernessThe LA Galaxy know how to win. Or at least, they knew how to win. While last season ended with the Carson club clinching a league-record sixth MLS Cup, they're now making a different sort of history. Winless through their first six games of the season, Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Orlando City means the Galaxy have made the worst start to a campaign of any defending MLS champion ever. They don't put a star above the crest for that. Continue reading...
Rebuilding is more than reconstruction: it is resistance. It is our refusal to be erased, our determination to remain and exist on our landOn the 17th night of Ramadan - a time meant for prayer, reflection and mercy - Gaza burned. Once again, our screens fill with images too harrowing to describe: tiny bodies wrapped in bloodstained cloth, fathers carrying their children's remains in plastic bags, mothers screaming into skies that rain death instead of mercy. In less than an hour, Israeli airstrikes killed over 350 Palestinians, including 90 children. Entire families wiped out as bombs fell on areas Israel itself had designated as safe zones", turning supposed sanctuaries into mass graves.This was not merely a resumption of violence. This is the continuation of a genocide that never truly paused, only ebbed enough to vanish from headlines while Palestinians continued to die by the dozens daily. The heaviness of this moment is unbearable, bringing back the brokenness of the past year that has not yet healed. For this slaughter to continue while the world watches reveals how deeply indifferent global powers have become to Palestinian suffering, how thoroughly dehumanized an entire people must be for their massacre to be debated as a matter of security concerns".Ahmad Ibsais is a first generation Palestinian American, law student and poet who writes the newsletter State of Siege Continue reading...
The so-called Save Act would strip millions of their access to the vote and make the process harder for everyone elseThe first months of the new Trump administration have been dizzying with the breadth of executive actions to slash the social safety net, further enrich the wealthy, and inflame division based on outdated notions about culture and identity. While White House policy pronouncements have come with flair and political theater - such as the president signing orders on a Jumbotron - in Congress there are quieter but equally pernicious efforts aimed at silencing the votes and voices of communities across the country.One such piece of legislation is the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or Save Act, which would require Americans seeking to register or re-register to vote to prove US citizenship. This dangerous bill would in effect strip millions of Americans of their access to the vote, while making the voting process more difficult and burdensome for everyone else. Rather than make our elections more secure, the Save Act would disenfranchise millions based on nothing but a series of debunked conspiracy theories. Continue reading...
These are the kinds of scenes we expect to see in the world's most repressive regimes. And they won't stop at foreign studentsThe defining feature of American democracy, you could be forgiven for having thought, is that you can say what you think without having to fear that you will be arrested, locked up or deported for it.The United States isn't unique in its commitment to this idea, but this country has taken it unusually seriously. No law has been repudiated as decisively by the US supreme court as the Sedition Act of 1798, which made it a crime to publish false or scandalous criticism of government officials. Continue reading...
Teams like Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls have gone down in history for their winning streaks. But what's it like to be on a truly terrible roster?The business of sports is about winning. But that, of course, doesn't mean there aren't plenty of losers out there. That's most evident every year in the NBA around the first day of spring. With about a dozen games left in the regular season, it's obvious which teams are also-rans - and they have probably known that for some time. But when a team are losing and losing often, how does that affect the roster? How do the players deal with the constant lows?When you lose," says former NBA All-Star Xavier McDaniel, it's like getting a life sentence. I knew for me, losing, it started me to drink beer. Losing created a lot of bad habits. Losing can be a disease. We were losing so much [my rookie season] that by January I was drinking beer!" Continue reading...
Whether it is by declaring a trade war or by bullying Greenland, visceral hatred is driving American policyThe Signalgate" scandal confirmed what Europeans already knew. The Trump administration's disdain for Europe is deep and the transatlantic fracture is structural. While our leaders publicly play down the significance of the unravelling that is manifestly under way, few actually sound as convinced in private.Hopes persist that Europe can prevent the most extreme manifestation of the collapse in the relationship, be it an invasion of Greenland, the withdrawal of US forces from Europe's Nato member states or an all-out trade war. Most urgently, European leaders are focused on ensuring that if (or perhaps when) the US throws Kyiv under the bus, it is Europe collectively that will somehow succeed in securing a free, independent and democratic Ukraine. But there should be no illusion that this will happen by working in synergy with Washington or even with its tacit approval.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...
The cliche of the loutish, emotionally inadequate boyfriend is everywhere. The truth is more complicatedHow is the ideal heterosexual girlfriend supposed to behave? This played on my mind after I watched Companion, a film about a loutish millennial man named Josh with a robot girlfriend named Iris. Iris was designed to be the perfect girlfriend, and so she regards Josh with total devotion and admiration, and prioritises their relationship above all else. She has a head full of fake memories, such as the one of the day they met, when they were both in the same supermarket and he clumsily upended a display of oranges, sending them rolling across the floor. This caught her attention. She has been programmed to regard this as the best day of her life.Like so many things you watch and read now, Companion is intended to reflect a familiar trope back at the viewer in an exaggerated but unchallenging fashion. It's a pantomimed version of a wildly imbalanced heterosexual relationship, a portrayal that will be familiar to anyone who has come across heteropessimist" discourse recently. Men, in this telling, are broadly akin to useless, unappealing Josh. Women feel deeply disappointed and embarrassed about dating them but are still committed to doing so, like a self-aware version of Iris. Crucially, heteropessimism shows no desire to reform the very real disparities between men and women, but the opposite: it takes as a given that women are sheepishly resigned to heterosexual relationships reflecting the worst of these inequities.Rachel Connolly is a writer and author of the novel Lazy CityDo 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...
Thanks to Trump's administration, the US could soon have to fight wars to get things that, just a few weeks ago, were there for the askingNo one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit of his office."
Sudan's capital has been hollowed out and stripped for parts, its people trampled beneath a conflict that is far from overTen days ago, in a major turning point in almost two years of war, the Sudanese army reclaimed the capital city from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia which took it over in 2023. What little we know so far paints a picture of a city ravaged by unimaginable horror.The war has sent Sudan hurtling into the largest humanitarian disaster in the world, triggering genocide in the west of the country, and starvation there and in other areas. Previously allies in power, the RSF - formalised and expanded from the remnants of the Janjaweed militia - and the Sudanese military went to war when their partnership fell apart. The victims have been the Sudanese people, whose lives were trampled beneath. Khartoum's centrality in the war, both in its prosperity and in terms of what it represents for the RSF as the seat of power, has meant the city has been subjected to a particularly intense and vengeful campaign: the RSF seized it and then proceeded not to govern the city, but strip it and terrorise its inhabitants. Continue reading...
US president says his Russian counterpart's questioning of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's credibility could delay ceasefireDonald Trump has said he is pissed off" with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow's oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.The US president indicated he would levy a 25% or 50% tariff that would affect countries buying Russian oil in a telephone interview with NBC News, during which he also threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland. Continue reading...
Trump also says in interview he was very angry' with Putin and threatened to bomb Iran - key US politics stories from 30 March 2025Donald Trump has said there are methods" - if not plans" - to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms, in an explosive interview in which he also said he was very angry" with Vladimir Putin, threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland.In the interview, which aired Sunday on NBC, Trump told host Kristen Welker regarding a third term that there are methods which you could do it". Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of serving a third term but has often masqueraded it as a joke. But on Sunday, he confirmed he was not joking".Catching up? Here's what happened on 29 March. Continue reading...
The actor best known for his roles in TV shows including Dr Kildare and The Thorn Birds has died aged 90. We look back at his career on stage and in film and television
Atlantic editor says Trump adviser's defense for accidentally adding him to war plans chat was implausibleAtlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has dismissed the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz for how he was included in a Trump administration group text chat about - and in advance of - the recent bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen.Goldberg said Waltz's theory that his contact was sucked in" to his phone via somebody else's contact" was implausible. Continue reading...
Alexander Stubb - who played golf with Trump this weekend - suggested deadline and US sanctions packageDonald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin's stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said after spending several hours with the US president - including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.
Leaders call on federal authorities to explain actions after University of Minnesota student detained on ThursdayOfficials in Minnesota were seeking answers in the case of a University of Minnesota graduate student who was being detained by US immigration authorities for unknown reasons.University leadership said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained the student on Thursday at an off-campus residence. Officials said the school was not given advance notice about the detention and did not share information with federal authorities. The student's name and nationality have not been released. Continue reading...
Group of Sipa graduates demonstrate against government's jailing of graduate student, who spoke up for PalestiniansA handful of alumni from Columbia University's school of international and public affairs (Sipa) ripped their diplomas in a show of protest against the federal government's jailing of graduate student Mahmoud Khalil's over his activism for Palestinians.On Saturday, instead of participating in the university's annual Sipa alumni day, a few dozen alumni and students gathered outside campus as part of a protest organized by Sipa's and Barnard Alumni for Palestine groups. Continue reading...
Owner of Ogilvy and Grey agencies follows other multinationals in dropping or downplaying DEI policies since Trump's electionThe British advertising giant WPP has become the latest company to cut the phrase diversity, equity and inclusion" from its annual report as the policies come under attack from the Trump administration.The agency, which counts the US as by far its largest market, boasts the storied Madison Avenue" agencies J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy and Grey among its top brands. Continue reading...
A new book chronicles the Slovenian's rise with the Dallas Mavericks, his extraordinary skills and the fallout from a trade that shook the NBASeventy-three points. That was Luka Doni's total when he led the Dallas Mavericks to a victory over the Atlanta Hawks last season. He wasn't the only NBA player to have an explosion on offense that season - think Joel Embiid or Karl-Anthony Towns. And the league subsequently decided to change officiating to favor more physical play that would presumably cut down on high offensive output.That's how Tim MacMahon sees it. The veteran ESPN writer has covered Doni since the Slovenian's arrival in Dallas as one of the most heralded European talents in NBA history. He saw Doni live up to his billing, leading the Mavericks to the Western Conference finals in 2022 and the NBA finals last year. And he knew that even a change in rules wouldn't stop Doni's stepback three. Continue reading...
WHCA says it was dropping Amber Ruffin's performance so the event's focus is not on the politics of division'Comedy is off the menu at the annual White House correspondents' dinner, a once convivial get-together for reporters to meet with federal governments officials that has become too fraught for light-heartedness amid the second Donald Trump presidency.The dinner, scheduled for 26 April, is organized by the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), and it typically features a post-meal comedic interlude where a comedian sets to work on the powerful. Beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924, every president has attended at least one WHCA dinner - except for Trump. Continue reading...
Rare admonition from a sector that has largely been silent in the face of the second Trump administrationThe US biotech industry's main lobby group issued a rare warning following the forced and abrupt resignation of the nation's top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), saying the loss of his experienced leadership would erode scientific standards" and affect the development of transformative therapies to fight disease.The statement, issued on Saturday by John Crowley of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), followed the news a day earlier that Dr Peter Marks - who led the FDA division that ensured the safety of vaccines - had resigned over what he called misinformation and lies" from health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.Stephanie Kirchgaessner contributed reporting Continue reading...
US news | The Guardian