Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran has no mandate – or legal basis

US president violates UN charter just days into his Board of Peace era, and chooses to take the biggest gamble of his administration

The first war of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace era has begun – an unprovoked attempt at regime change in collaboration with Israel, with no legal foundation, launched in the midst of diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, and with minimal consultation with Congress or the American public.

Trump’s recorded eight-minute address after the first bombs had fallen, made clear that this would be no limited strike aimed at cajoling Tehran into concessions at the negotiating table. He warned that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not surrender they would be killed, and the country’s armed forces, its missile and navy would be smashed.

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US backs Pakistan’s ‘right to defend itself’ against Taliban after strikes on Afghanistan

Taliban offer to resolve dispute via dialogue after Pakistan bombed cities in Afghanistan in latest escalation with its neighbour

Washington endorsed Pakistan’s “right to defend itself” after it bombed major cities across Afghanistan amid heightened tensions between the two hostile neighbours.

The Taliban government in Kabul stressed it was ready to negotiate on Friday as violence intensified between the two countries.

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Renee Good’s family says Trump hasn’t contacted them after her death

Neither president nor anyone in administration has reached out after Good was killed by immigration officer, says family

The family of Renee Good, an unarmed US citizen and mother who was killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis last month, said in an interview with NBC News that neither Donald Trump nor anyone in his administration has contacted them since her death.

“There’s a reason that we hired our own investigators – to make sure that the truth is transparent and available, to make sure that this is really taken seriously, and to make sure that we know what occurred,” Brent Ganger, Good’s brother, told NBC News.

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Trump advisers scramble to justify US military intervention in Iran

Tehran’s ICBMs cannot currently reach the US, experts say, and White House has claimed its nuclear programme has been destroyed

Donald Trump’s likely casus belli for an attack on Iran – which would be the largest US intervention since the Iraq war – is fraught with contradictions, and his top advisers have been left to cover for him as the White House makes the case for intervention.

In his State of the Union address this week, Trump alleged that Iran posed a direct threat to the US and that the country was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”. But that claim has not been backed up with evidence by the White House or the Pentagon, and US intelligence reports from just last year say that it would take Iran 10 years to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US.

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Marco Rubio orders US officials to stop commentary that could strain Iran talks

Exclusive: memo came after Mike Huckabee’s remarks about Israel sparked alarm inside White House

The US secretary of state Marco Rubio told ambassadors in the Middle East to stop making public comments that could inflame tensions and undermine Donald Trump’s pressure on Iran to relinquish its capacity to produce a nuclear weapon, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.

“Given rising tensions in the region, Chiefs of Mission and embassies at addressee posts must refrain from public statements, interviews, or social media activity that could in any way inflame regional audiences, prejudice sensitive political issues, or complicate US relationships,” the cable said.

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Democrats outraged at US military’s downing of CBP drone near Mexico border

Second time in two weeks military used laser to attack what it mistakenly thought was a threat, disrupting air traffic

Democratic members of Congress have expressed astonishment and anger at what they claim is the incompetence of the Trump administration after the US military used a laser on Thursday to shoot down what it thought was a threatening drone on the US-Mexico border in Texas but later turned out to belong to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The apparent confusion between two entities in the US government led to airspace being closed around Fort Hancock, right along the border. It was the second time in two weeks that air traffic was disrupted in the region as a result of a high-energy laser being deployed against drones.

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Rising anger over ‘lop-sided’ and ‘immoral’ US health funding pacts with African countries

Zimbabwe refuses to sign agreement and Kenya faces a court case over data sharing as new aid deals come under scrutiny

A series of bilateral health agreements being negotiated between African countries and the administration of President Donald Trump have been labelled “clearly lop-sided” and “immoral” amid growing outrage at US demands, including countries being forced to share biological resources and data.

It emerged this week that Zimbabwe had halted negotiations with the US for $350m (£258m) of health funding, saying the proposals risked undermining its sovereignty and independence.

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How Trump shifted from opposing foreign wars to threatening war in Iran

The rationale to justify the US striking first has shifted from the country killing protesters to its developing weapons

As senior Democrats emerged from a classified briefing on Iran with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, earlier this week, the leaders of the opposition delivered reserved, cryptic warnings of what may become the US’s largest military intervention since the Iraq war.

This was not a line in the sand against a new war in the Middle East. Instead, Democrats targeted the opaque decision-making around Donald Trump – as well as his own unpredictable whims – that could guide the weightiest foreign-policy decision of his two terms in office.

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Brady Tkachuk decries White House’s AI video of him insulting Canadians after US gold

  • Player is captain of NHL’s Ottawa Senators

  • Tkachuk expresses regret over Trump joke

US ice hockey star Brady Tkachuk has said he does not appreciate an AI video released by the White House that shows him insulting Canadians.

Tkachuk played in the Americans’ victory over Canada at the Winter Olympics on Sunday, which secured the US men their first gold medal since 1980. In the wake of that win, the White House’s TikTok account published video of Tkachuk saying: “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating fuckers a lesson.”

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Latest US-Iran nuclear talks conclude with claims of ‘significant progress’

Mediators say more talks to be held next week but no clear evidence two sides any closer on uranium enrichment

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday with the Omani mediators claiming that “significant progress” had been made and predicting the talks would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna.

But there was no immediate evidence to support suggestions that the two sides had drawn closer together on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks.

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Kash Patel fires FBI officials linked to Trump documents case, reports say

Dismissals follow revelations that FBI subpoenaed records of Patel and Susie Wiles before Trump returned to office

At least 10 FBI employees connected to an investigation of Donald Trump have reportedly been dismissed following revelations that the agency subpoenaed personal records of current FBI director Kash Patel and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in the years before Trump returned to office.

The ousters, reported by CBS News and CNN, were linked to the federal investigation led by former justice department special counsel Jack Smith into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents that were found at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort after his first term.

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Vance says Minnesota’s Medicaid funds halted as part of Trump’s ‘war on fraud’

Vice-president makes announcement with Mehmet Oz, who says other states will be next after Minnesota

JD Vance announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration would “temporarily halt” more than a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid reimbursements to the state of Minnesota, escalating Donald Trump’s newly announced “war on fraud”.

Vance said the action was to ensure Minnesota was “a good steward of the American people’s tax money”, part of its crackdown on the state following a fraud scandal linked to residents of the Somali community in Minneapolis, which prompted the administration to send thousands of federal immigration agents into Minneapolis and that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens and widespread protests.

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States sue Trump administration over changes to vaccine recommendations for children

States call move an illegal threat to public health and argue CDC puts children’s lives at risk with new guidance

More than a dozen states, including California, sued the Trump administration over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.

The states argue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put children’s lives at risk when it announced last month that it would stop recommending all children get immunized against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Under the new guidance, which was met with criticism from medical experts, protections against those diseases are recommended only for certain groups deemed high risk or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.”

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Marco Rubio briefs US lawmakers on Iran as Trump uses State of the Union to threaten nuclear programme

Secretary of state makes rare briefing to so-called ‘gang of eight’ as US deploys largest force of aircraft and warships to Middle East since 2003

Marco Rubio delivered a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran, just a few hours before Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to say that Tehran would never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Amid the largest deployment of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war, Trump said he wanted to solve the confrontation with Iran through diplomatic means while claiming that Tehran was seeking to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the US, without providing further details.

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US ambassador to France vows not to interfere in its domestic affairs

Charles Kushner, father of president’s son-in-law Jared, failed to show up to meeting to explain US comments relating to death of far-right activist

Donald Trump’s envoy to Paris has called France’s foreign minister and pledged not to interfere in the country’s domestic affairs, a day after he was barred from talking to government officials for failing to attend a formal meeting at the ministry.

The foreign ministry said on Monday that Charles Kushner would not be permitted to carry out his diplomatic duties until he had explained his refusal to comply with the summons over US comments about the killing of a far-right activist in France.

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Trump Iran airstrikes decision to be guided by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s advice

Exclusive: Trump’s decision will be driven by envoys’ judgment on whether Iran is stalling on a nuclear deal

Donald Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, according to people familiar with the matter.

The president has not made a final determination on any strikes, as the administration prepares for Iran to send its latest proposal this week, ahead of what officials have described as a last-ditch round of negotiations scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.

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Washington and Tehran to hold more nuclear talks as protests reignite in Iran

Fresh Geneva negotiations suggest Trump’s team believes the Iranian government is making serious proposals

Iran and the US are expected to meet for a further round of talks in Geneva this week in a sign that Donald Trump’s team believes Tehran is making serious proposals to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and show it is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

As fears loomed of renewed conflict after Washington carried out a major redeployment of military assets to the region, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he thought there was still a good chance of finding a diplomatic solution.

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Huckabee’s Israel land remarks condemned as ‘dangerous and inflammatory’

Arab and Islamic governments issue statement denouncing comments made on Tucker Carlson podcast

Governments from across the Islamic world have condemned remarks by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, suggesting it would “be fine” for Israel to claim a broad swath of the Middle East.

Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor and former Arkansas governor, has long been an outspoken supporter of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

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Trump warns Netflix of ‘consequences’ unless it pulls top Democrat from board

US president calls for removal of Susan Rice as streaming platform pursues takeover of Warner Bros Discovery

Donald Trump has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences”, while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).

In comments posted on his Truth Social platform, the US president described Rice – who served as national security adviser to Barack Obama and UN ambassador and White House adviser under Joe Biden – as a “political hack” and accused her of having “no talent or skills”.

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Trump raises tariffs to 15% on imports from all countries

President announced increase from 10% using different authority from mechanism that supreme court struck down on Friday

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would raise a temporary tariff rate on US imports from all countries from 10% to 15%, less than 24 hours after the US supreme court ruled against the legality of his flagship trade policy.

Infuriated by the high court’s ruling on Friday that he had exceeded his authority and should have got congressional approval for the tariffs he introduced last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the US president railed against the justices who struck down his use of tariffs – calling them a “disgrace to the nation” – and ordered an immediate 10% tariff on all imports, in addition to any existing levies, under a separate law.

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