I have a suggestion for conspiracy theorists: instead of searching for secret plots, why not grapple with some very clear facts?Last weekend the terrible news broke that Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, had died by suicide. Conspiracy theorists immediately started circling. A tweet from 2019, in which Giuffre said she wasn't suicidal, was dredged up. Donald Trump Jr, the president's eldest failson, then amplified the theory to his millions of followers, adding that other than the Clinton's [sic] no one has more suiciding going on".Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Exclusive: Insiders sound alarm over catastrophic' impact of widespread departures and cuts under TrumpA catastrophic" exodus of thousands of employees from the US Department of Labor threatens all of the core aspects of working life", insiders have warned, amid fears that the Trump administration will further slash the agency's operations.The federal agency has already lost about 20% of its workforce, according to employees, as nearly 2,700 staff took retirement, early retirement, deferred resignation buyouts or fork in the road" departures earlier this year. Continue reading...
A new lawsuit seeks to examine ransom notes linked to the 1932 kidnap and murder of the transatlantic aviator's sonHL Mencken, the prominent journalist and critic, once called it the greatest story since the Resurrection". Though it has been 93 years since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case merged crime, fame and mass media together, the enduring mystery of the crime still holds fascination for many in the US.The case was shocking. The transatlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh suffered the kidnapping and murder of their 20-month-old baby son on 1 March 1932. Now a new lawsuit filed in New Jersey - where the crime played out - seeks to force the state police to allow mitochondrial DNA testing on envelopes used to send a series of ransom notes. Continue reading...
While many are outraged over the chaos, others have embraced some policies promised on the campaign trailI'm not a fan of Trump, but he's delivering a long-overdue kick in the pants to the bloated bureaucracy of the US federal government," said Martyn, a marketing executive from California. Seems odd to ask Trump to focus on eliminating corruption, but sometimes you need a crook to catch a crook. It's been, however, way more chaotic than I thought was possible."Martyn was among thousands of Americans who shared with the Guardian how they felt about the first weeks of Donald Trump's second term, painting a picture of voters who felt disoriented and maximally alarmed on one side, and exhilarated, hopeful or positively surprised on the other. Continue reading...
The Encampments tells the story of campus activism last year. But Palestinian films are facing intimidation campaignsRecently, The Encampments opened at the Angelika Film Center in New York to a record-setting box office for an independent film - along with a storm of controversy. For us, as the distributor, the atmosphere was far from celebratory. The theater was forced to hire additional security, notify police and prepare staff for harassment in response to protests and threats from people who hadn't even seen the film.What is so dangerous about Palestinian films? Continue reading...
The president's little used social media platform offers him a forum for his nonstop haranguing and score-settlingNo political leader has used social media quite like Donald Trump. But his recent posts on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2021, have become increasingly bizarre: the president using the lack of scrutiny afforded by the platform's small user base to truly let loose.In the hundreds of Truths" since he took office, Trump has variously used Truth Social to reimagine himself as a king and to urge Americans to BE COOL!" as the stock market tanked in the wake of his trade war, the president's seemingly random use of capital letters, punctuation and inaccurate spelling consistent across the messages. Continue reading...
The act of labelling journalists foreign agents' is deliberately chilling. On World Press Freedom Day, be aware of the peril involved in seeking the truthLast month, Georgian president Mikheil Kavelashvili approved a new law inflicting criminal charges, including prison sentences and fines, on any organisation or individual who fails to comply with the country's foreign influence" bill.The news didn't trouble the front pages of the international press and went largely unnoticed, but it marks a significant inflection point in the decline of global press freedom. Continue reading...
Growth in the first three months was challenged by Trump's overhaul plans, and execution of his tariffs created widespread confusion and uncertaintyDonald Trump promised to usher in a new golden age" for the US economy - one with lower prices, more jobs and greater wealth. This week, his first quarter report card came in, and the new age is off to a chaotic start.Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank for the first time in three years during the first quarter, abruptly turning negative after a spell of robust growth as trade distortions and weaker consumer spending dampened activity. Continue reading...
Saudi Arabia's extension of its soft power through sport reached into the heart of New York City on Friday night with a grandiose boxing card for a select audience backed by Turki al-Sheikh, the chairman of the Kingdom's General Entertainment Authority
Today is World Press Freedom Day. The Guardian is determined to highlight the dangers faced by reporters working in some of the world's most perilous places, and to tell their storiesSupport the GuardianThere is a war on journalists raging across the world. Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded the highest number of media workers killed since it began collecting data three decades ago.According to that data, at least 124 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024 - nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank. Continue reading...
CIA to lose 1,200 while NSA among other agencies reported to face downsizing amid president's drive to shrink federal workforceThe White House plans to cut staffing at the Central Intelligence Agency by 1,200 positions while other intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency will also shed thousands of jobs, the Washington Post has reported.A person familiar with the plan confirmed the changes to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Continue reading...
by Dara Kerr, Lucy Campbell, Léonie Chao-Fong and To on (#6X0TR)
Judge rules Perkins Coie executive order violates constitution; Trump administration asks supreme court to lift block on Doge accessing data. This blog is now closed.The seeds were sown for yesterday's ousting of Mike Waltz as national security adviser long before Signalgate", notes Politco.The outlet reports that his approach to the job was unpopular and Waltz was seen as too cocky. One person close to the White House said:He's a staff, but he was acting like a principal.Waltz has been on thin ice for a while. [Signalgate] made the ice thinner but at the same time ... may actually save him for now because they don't want to give [Jeffrey] Goldberg a scalp. Continue reading...
US district judge Beryl Howell says order violates first, fifth and sixth amendments and permanently blocks itA federal judge on Friday permanently struck down Donald Trump's executive order that targeted the firm Perkins Coie, which once worked with his 2016 presidential election rival Hillary Clinton, after declaring in an extraordinary ruling that the order was unconstitutional and unlawful.The decision from the US district judge Beryl Howell, which criticized virtually every aspect of the order in a 102-page opinion, marks a major victory for Perkins Coie and could be used as a model by other judges weighing cases brought by other law firms in similar orders. Continue reading...
Military spending plans would also see $163bn cuts in non-defense spending - key US politics stories from Friday 2 May at a glanceThe Trump administration is considering cuts worth $163bn to departments including health and education as well as environmental schemes while increasing spending on defense, according to a White House budget blueprint.In contrast to the squeeze on discretionary social programmes, the administration is planning a 13% rise - to more than $1tn - in the Pentagon budget, a commitment at odds with Donald Trump's frequent vows to end the US's involvement in forever wars" in the Middle East and elsewhere. Continue reading...
Joseph Czuba, 73, killed Muslim boy and severely injured his mother in vicious attack days after war in Gaza beganAn Illinois landlord who killed a six-year-old Muslim boy and severely injured his mother in a vicious hate-crime attack days after the war in Gaza began was sentenced on Friday to 53 years in prison.Joseph Czuba, 73, was found guilty in February of murder, attempted murder and hate-crime charges in the death of Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of his mother, Hanan Shaheen. Continue reading...
Real-life anguish or confected entertainment? One thing is clear - the soap opera endures because millions still love to watch itWell, isn't this a plot turn? You switched on for the latest cinematic episode of Prince Harry fights the fight - not against the Mirror this time, not against Murdoch either, but against those who have stripped him of his security protection - and then the script goes to places that no one expected.He loses his legal challenge in the court of appeal over the degree of security he is entitled to on the public purse while in the UK - that was pretty much expected. But then, in the second instalment of Britain's longest-running potboiler, he exclusively opens an anguished heart to the BBC, post the appeal court verdict, and all sorts of dramatic twists ensue.Hugh Muir is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Education, health, climate and more on chopping block and 13% rise - to over $1tn to Pentagon - in skinny budget'Donald Trump is proposing huge cuts to social programmes like health and education while planning substantial spending increases on defence and the Department of Homeland Security, in a White House budget blueprint that starkly illustrates his preoccupation with projecting military strength and deterring migration.Cuts of $163bn on discretionary non-defence spending would also see financial outlays slashed for environmental and renewable energy schemes, as well as for the FBI, an agency Trump has claimed was weaponised against him during Joe Biden's presidency. Spending reductions are also being projected for the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Continue reading...
President says neither NPR nor PBS presents fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events'Donald Trump has signed an executive order that seeks to cut public funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, accusing them of leftwing bias.The order, signed late on Thursday, directs the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which sends funds to NPR and PBS, to cease federal funding" for the two outlets. Continue reading...
Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as the FTSE nets its longest-ever winning run, Amazon's Bezos to sell stock worth up to $4.75bn; US employment figures higher than expectedEurozone unemployment was steady 6.2% in March - unchanged relative to a revised February reading.The youth unemployment rate was 14.2%, down from 14.3% in the previous month. Continue reading...
Former pardon attorney Liz Oyer said president erased more than $1bn in debts owed by wealthy Americans'The justice department's pardon attorney, who was recently fired, has claimed on social media that Donald Trump's recent wave of pardoning white-collar criminals has erased more than $1bn in debts owed by wealthy Americans" to the public purse.In a TikTok video, Liz Oyer, who has said that she was terminated in March after refusing to comply with an order to restore the gun rights of the actor Mel Gibson - a supporter of Trump's - explained that when you're convicted of a financial crime like fraud or embezzlement, the law requires you to pay back the money that you stole. It's called restitution." Continue reading...
Americans are beginning to worry about their future amid a shrinking economy, warnings of empty shelves - and the president's failed promisesHe says it's the best 100-day start of any president in history", but you can file that along with his boast about crowd sizes and his claim to have won the 2020 election. In truth, the first three months of Donald Trump's second presidency have been calamitous on almost every measure. The single biggest achievement of those 100 days has been to serve as a warning of the perils of nationalist populism, which is effective in winning votes but disastrous when translated into reality. That warning applies across the democratic world - and is especially timely in Britain.Start with the numbers that matter most to Trump himself. A slew of polls appeared this week, but they all told the same story: that Trump's approval ratings have collapsed, falling to the lowest level for a newly installed president in the postwar era. He has now edged ahead of his only rival for that title: himself. The previous low watermark for a president three months in was set by one Donald Trump in 2017. Continue reading...
Despite plunging opinion polls, for those attending a campaign-style rally in Michigan the president is deliveringIn Trump they trust. While pundits and protesters have called it 100 days of hell, talk to Donald Trump's most faithful supporters and you will hear them use words such as amazing", fantastic" and ecstatic" about his presidency.The Trump base, that amorphous group that has long intrigued pollsters, remains rock solid in its support for the 78-year-old and quite ingenious in finding new ways to eulogise his leadership. Continue reading...
Heidy Sanchez says she was told her 17-month-old, who has health problems and is breastfeeding, couldn't go with herA mother deported to Cuba reportedly had to hand over her 17-month-old daughter to a lawyer while her husband, a US citizen, stood outside unable to say goodbye.Heidy Sanchez was told she was being detained for deportation to Cuba when she turned up at her scheduled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) check-in appointment in Tampa, Florida, last week. Continue reading...
Attorney general accused of targeting political foes, halting prosecutions and placing premium on loyalty to presidentDonald Trump's Department of Justice has taken radical steps to target his political foes, back a harsh agenda against undocumented immigrants and help business allies - steps which underscore its politicization under the attorney general Pam Bondi and undermine the rule of law, say ex-prosecutors and legal experts.Some even say that the department has in effect become Trump's personal law firm". Continue reading...
The country has exported a myth of progressivism. It's time to confront who we really areCanada has been canonized - safely, predictably.It's the great, grave story we've exported - retold in economic rankings, stitched into tourism ads, held up in classrooms and cable news panels. We're the cooler, mellower cousin nextdoor. The country that has it figured out. Where healthcare is universal, democracy is calm and diversity is politely managed.Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ... Continue reading...
Mike Waltz, ousted national security adviser at heart of earlier chat group fiasco, pictured using third-party clonePhotographs taken at Donald Trump's cabinet meeting this week have revealed that top White House officials are now communicating using an even less secure version of the Signal messaging app than was at the center of a huge national security scandal last month.The images, taken by Reuters on Wednesday, show the phone screen of Mike Waltz, the since-ousted national security adviser who last month accidentally included a journalist in a group chat in which top US officials discussed operational plans to bomb Yemen, attacks that were then carried out as described. Continue reading...
Red-carpet launch has to be backed up with a car on the grid next season, with Briton Graeme Lowdon leading the pushAs inescapable as it is inexorable, everyone at Cadillac is aware the clock is ticking as they edge closer towards a moment of truth well over three years in the making. The expectation and anticipation for when the team, backed by US manufacturer General Motors, hits the grid as Formula One's 11th entry for the first race of 2026 is ratcheting up with every passing second.Appropriately for this all-American marque, the team are launching their F1 entry on Saturday night with a red-carpet event at Miami beach after the sprint race and qualifying have concluded at the Hard Rock Stadium circuit. Continue reading...
After the US health secretary called for autistic people to be tracked, readers rebuked the idea that ASD is a tragedyWhen Robert F Kennedy Jr announced a major project to track the health of people with autism, autistic people and their friends and families reacted with shock and anger.They also expressed dismay and concern over the US health secretary's incorrect and weird" approach to autism spectrum disorder. Continue reading...
Nato for higher education - a mutual defense pact is a long-shot approach, but it might just convince the bully in the White House to back offHigher education is under attack from the person who inhabits the White House. Universities are being threatened with an array of punishments, including the cutoff of their federal contracts and grants, the loss of their nonprofit status and a tax on their endowment. The Trump administration is demanding a say in whom they admit, whom they hire and even what courses they teach.It's a grim message - abandon your fundamental values, or else. The idea of an existential moment" has become a cliche, but this situation warrants that grim description. Academic freedom, the lifeblood of higher education, is being threatened.David Kirp is professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley and the author of The College Dropout Scandal Continue reading...
Event between Curtis Yarvin, a favorite of Vance, and Danielle Allen put on by far-right publishing houseAn extremist blogger, who has become the Trump administration's so-called dark enlightenment" sage, is debating a Harvard professor of political philosophy at an unsanctioned event on its campus next week.Curtis Yarvin, who was for a time an obscure darling of Silicon Valley and the broader spectrum of the fringe right wing, has emerged as a major philosophical influence on key Capitol Hill power brokers. He is considered a favorite of Vice-President JD Vance, an ally of the tech mogul Peter Thiel, and having the ear of senior state department official, Michael Anton, among others. Continue reading...
Comments come a week after Trump claimed talks were already taking placeBeijing is evaluating" an offer from the US to engage in trade negotiations, the Chinese government has said, a week after Donald Trump claimed talks were already under way.China's commerce ministry said on Friday: The US has recently taken the initiative on many occasions to convey information to China through relevant parties, saying it hopes to talk with China." Continue reading...
by Gaby Hinsliff, John McTernan, Carys Afoko, Carolin on (#6X0X2)
Can Farage's party now claim to be the official opposition? And what lessons should Labour and the Tories learn after a chastening night? Continue reading...
Donald Trump tried to distance himself from the radical rightwing blueprint for government during the campaign but its prescriptions are all over the administration's agenda
Walking through the US's deindustrialized zones is a bit like walking through Dresden after 1945. We can rebuild better than beforeA poll from the conservative Cato Institute recently went viral. It found that 80% of Americans think the country would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing. At the same time, only 25% of respondents said they themselves would be better off working in a factory. What should we make of the results?First, there's nothing contradictory between these figures. It's easy to see how it would be good for the country to reshore manufacturing jobs, even if it's not good for you, personally, to work in a factory. Imagine a local pharmacist in an industrial town. He can see how his business would benefit from the expansion of a nearby plant. Yet he could also see that he would personally lose out on a lot of income if he gave up his trade and marched into the factory himself. The same can be said for any number of other workers. The reason so many people find appeals to reindustrialization attractive is because life was undoubtedly better when the old factories in their town were buzzing with activity than it is today, where they sit idle. Continue reading...
For centuries the horse was our most noble ally - in war, migration and myth. Today we repay that bond not with reverence, but with suffering at the racetrackHumanity owes the horse an immeasurable debt. For centuries the horse has been our partner, has shaped our history and sacrificed itself for our defense, our causes, and our conquests. The Native American Comanches, master horsemen, created an empire on the power they conjured from their deep and unique connection with the horse. The horse was critical to their existence as it became to the white settlers of the western frontier who would never have prevented their own annihilation had they not adopted the native's mounted war techniques. Yet modern society, which has long abandoned warring on horseback, still tolerates dangerous and violent exploitation of the horse. Indeed, taxpayers fund it. Despite the sacrifices these allies have made for our evolution, we continue to demand they forfeit their lives, but not for so noble a cause as our survival. Today horses die not in battle but for sport. Another Triple Crown season means another cache of young horses who will publicly risk their lives for profit and entertainment. Hence the life of the American racehorse, run to death by the hundreds every year, is cheapened and disrespected.Horses are central to my personal history, and I am bedeviled by memories of my track life, my former self. Years ago, I was galloping racehorses and immersed wholly in the world of racing. I admit to this day as a rider I have pride in my past. Though now as I get older and think more broadly my sense of the wrongness of modern American racing expands to include the context of the historical and philosophical sacrifices horses have made for humans and how dismissed their enormous contributions generally are. Whether one's love for the horse manifests in the act of dressing up for a day at the races or in recognizing and being honest about the reality of how brutal racing can be to horses it is critical to think of the animal itself and to consider the countless horses who have died and will die for the trivial activity of racing. For them my heart aches. For those who acknowledge that reality and still defend and endorse racing, I am bewildered by that degree of callousness. The human ego is the horse's most vile predator. Continue reading...
The coach has gone from the football field to the gossip pages with his May to December relationship. It's an extraordinary turnaround in his careerFootball has never known a control freak like Bill Belichick, the Nixonian figure who ran the New England Patriots as if their facility was a CIA black site. But four months into Belichick's new coaching tenure, at the University of North Carolina, there is a stunning lack of clarity about who's actually in charge.Belichick was not the obvious choice to revitalize the Tar Heels. Not only does he lack any college coaching experience, he is dour, cold and gruff - traits you imagine might turn off a high school prospect who could choose to play for Deion Sanders, Lane Kiffin or another charismatic sideline general instead. Belichick is also 73 and deeply set in his ways, part of the reason why the Patriots fired him in 2023 after 24 years of service. No other NFL team has hired him since: the Atlanta Falcons considered Belichick for their head coaching vacancy in 2024, but wound up passing after Patriots owner Bob Kraft reportedly warned his Falcons counterpart, Arthur Blank, not to trust Bill". (The Patriots deny the allegation.) Continue reading...
As Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez prepare to fight in Times Square, the Matchroom boss discusses power, pressure and the man (mostly) behind the curtainAs workers tighten bolts on a steel ring platform beneath the glare of LED billboards in Times Square on a sun-splashed Thursday afternoon, Eddie Hearn is still wrapping his head around the reality of what he's helped build.It actually is going to happen," he says, sounding slightly astonished. Up until about two weeks ago, I thought: this isn't happening. And now we're 24 hours away." Continue reading...
With New York traffic, LED billboards and title ambitions swirling, boxing's new era rolls into midtown Manhattan, where anything could happen once the bell ringsThe canvas has been laid down just north of 43rd Street. The ropes are up, the ring gleaming under LED billboards. And on Friday night, three of boxing's most volatile and compelling stars - Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez - step into what might be the sport's strangest stage yet: a pop-up fight arena smack in the middle of Times Square.Barely half a block from Jimmy's Corner, more than 100 digital screens will beam the feed across the famed Manhattan tourist spot. A closed-off footprint will morph into a fight zone, cordoned by security, hemmed in by chain-link fencing and pulsing with spectacle. A ring abutting the US armed forces recruiting station will be the unlikely epicenter of a tripleheader not quite like anything boxing has attempted before. Continue reading...
by Rachel Leingang, Léonie Chao-Fong in Washington a on (#6X009)
People organize in nearly 1,000 cities with focus on rallying against Trump administration and billionaire profiteers'Protesters rallied nationwide on Thursday in support of workers' and immigrants' rights in the latest round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration.May Day, commemorated as international workers' day, comes after two massive days of protests in April - 5 April's hands off rallies and 19 April's day of action - drew millions to the streets across the country. Continue reading...
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