Category Archives: Trump administration

US lawmakers demand Trump officials halt plan to send Afghans to DRC

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Government urged to reconsider proposal for 1,100 Afghans, currently stranded in Qatar, who worked with US forces

Dozens of US lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Thursday to roll back any plans to ship to unsafe third countries Afghan nationals who worked with US forces during the war in their homeland.

In a letter seen by Reuters, more than 80 House of Representatives members, including at least three Republicans as well as Democrats, appealed to secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to reconsider plans for 1,100 Afghans who have been stranded in Qatar awaiting relocation.

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Cuba hopes for World Cup respite from US sabre-rattling – but prepares for the worst

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With some matches being held in nearby Miami, a Cuban response to US military action could mar the tournament

As Cuba crumbles under a nearly five-month-long US oil blockade, many on the island hope that the World Cup might save the island from US attack – or at least offer a respite until the competition ends on 19 July.

“The beginning of the World Cup will make it more difficult for the United States to carry out a military action in Cuba,” said Carlos Alzugaray, Cuba’s former ambassador to the EU. “Cuba is very close to the US, and can hit many targets inside the US, especially in south Florida, with drones or other weapons.”

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Trump administration land gift to SpaceX would hurt Texas habitat, lawsuit says

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Environmental groups say exchange between US government and SpaceX would worsen ecological risks

Environmental groups on Wednesday sued in an attempt to stop the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres (280 hectares) of wildlife refuge in Texas, claiming it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket operations.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service this month approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres (276 hectares) the company owns in exchange for federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuge. The 103,000-acre (41,700-hectare) refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks.

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Pro-Palestinian activists accused of intimidation campaign against University of Michigan officials

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Federal prosecutors unsealed indictment against activists trying to force the school to cut financial ties to Israel

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment on Wednesday against eight pro-Palestinian activists who are accused of conspiring to run a criminal intimidation campaign against University of Michigan officials while trying to force the school to cut financial ties to Israel.

The indictment also describes vandalism against some companies that operate in Michigan and against the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

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Trump the unreliable narrator fails to force reality to match his story on Iran

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A cycle of threat, detente and deadlock repeats itself wearisomely as the president’s war in Iran drags on

As the story of the US-Iran war is written direct to social media, Donald Trump may be the genre’s premier unreliable narrator.

Since the war began, Trump has again and again threatened Iran with fearsome consequences if Tehran doesn’t come to the table and sign a peace deal that the US president said was imminent weeks ago. And he has also repeatedly claimed that an Iran deal is “close” – without any result. (A CNN tally put the number of times he’s claimed it at 38.)

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Hegseth warns Cuba against acquiring weapons in visit to Guantánamo Bay

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US defense secretary continues ramp-up of pressure against country including sanctions and devastating oil blockade

Pete Hegseth has warned Cuba against acquiring weapons that could threaten the United States, during a visit to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay.

Washington has ramped up pressure against Cuba with sanctions and a devastating oil blockade, and Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be the next after Venezuela to fall to US pressure.

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Trump targeting immigrants from countries hit most by climate shocks

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A Guardian analysis reveals how most of 39 countries facing US entry restrictions are most vulnerable environmentally

Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters, a Guardian analysis shows.

As the Trump administration pushes policies to boost planet-heating fossil fuels, millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands due to storms, floods and droughts worsened by the climate crisis.

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Only one in 10 Europeans now see US as an ally, survey suggests

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Exclusive: poll across 15 countries finds ‘deep mistrust’, with majority doubting US would come to their aid in an attack

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked.

The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said.

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Hard-right groups have expanded their influence across US government, report finds

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Southern Poverty Law Center releases report as US government pursues federal fraud charges against group

A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) finds hard-right groups have increasingly expanded their influence across the US government, which is pursuing a federal fraud case into the civil rights organization.

Tuesday’s report – which identified 1,263 hate and anti-government groups in operation throughout 2025 – comes less than two months after it was indicted by the government it says the hard right has infiltrated.

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Trump nominates his ex-lawyer Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general

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Acting in the role since April, Blanche faces Senate confirmation after controversial DoJ moves

Donald Trump nominated Todd Blanche to serve permanently as attorney general on Monday, lining up his former personal lawyer to be the country’s ⁠top ⁠law ⁠enforcement officer.

The US president suggested earlier this week that Blanche, who was appointed on an acting basis in April after the president fired Pam Bondi, was set to receive the nod. “He’s a very talented guy,” Trump told a podcast.

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Ex-CIA official accused of stealing $40m in gold bars reportedly created fake spy program

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David Rush, who was arrested in May, stole millions from US government through ‘special access program’, officials say

A former executive intelligence agent who is accused of stealing more than $40m in gold bars from the CIA reportedly created a fake spy program to siphon money, the latest on his fraudulent activity, the Washington Post first reported.

David Rush, who was a senior-level employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for 17 years, was arrested in May after FBI agents discovered Rush had taken 303 bullion bars, each about 2.2lbs, dozens of luxury watches, and more than $2m in foreign currency from his government office.

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Trump reportedly considers buying Chagos Islands from Mauritius

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Potential proposal would secure control of Diego Garcia base amid stalled UK plans to cede sovereignty of territory

Donald Trump is reportedly weighing a plan to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius amid stalled plans from the UK to cede sovereignty of the territory, the Telegraph first reported.

The White House did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on the report about the potential plan.

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Trump refuses to rule out using ‘anti-weaponization’ fund for Capitol rioters who attacked police

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US president says ‘I’d pay the kind of money they deserve’ amid questions over his administration establishing fund

Donald Trump declined on Sunday to definitively rule out compensating individuals who were charged with assaulting police officers when his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 toward the end of his first presidency.

Trump did that in an interview on NBC News’s Meet the Press, where he spoke in support of what his administration calls an “anti-weaponization” fund, arguing that people who entered the Capitol while Congress was preparing to certify Joe Biden’s victory over him in the 2020 presidential election had been treated unfairly by prosecutors and should receive compensation.

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Kuwait and Bahrain targeted by Iran after exchange of fire with US

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Iran attacks American bases in Gulf states after Washington shoots down drones and strikes Iranian radar sites

Bahrain has said Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones at it and Kuwait, hours after the US and Iran exchanged strikes over the Gulf, the latest in a series of flare-ups that threatened to break the fragile ceasefire.

Air raid sirens rang out on Saturday in Bahrain and people were told to move to a safe location and await further instructions. Kuwait’s military said it was intercepting drones and missiles launched at the country.

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Women accusing Andrew Tate criticise UK extradition delay as influencer appears in Russia

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Lawyer for British women attacks ‘extraordinary spectacle’ of Tate’s arrival in Moscow

British women who have accused Andrew Tate of rape, assault and coercive control have questioned why the self-professed misogynistic influencer has appeared in Russia as UK authorities continue to hold off on seeking his extradition.

Tate admires Vladimir Putin and amplifies Kremlin propaganda online. He arrived in the same week that Russian authorities welcomed US rightwing figures at an annual conference described as Russia’s answer to Davos.

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US threatens to reconsider role in Bosnia and Herzegovina amid rift with Europe

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US embassy in Sarajevo made threat after European states refused to back its preferred High Representative candidate

A deepening US-European rift over the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina has broken open with a dispute over a top administrative post, leading to a US threat to “reconsider” its role in international peacekeeping.

The American embassy in Sarajevo issued the threat after European states refused to back the US preferred candidate to become the new High Representative for the international community. At a meeting this week in Sarajevo of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) – a multinational group tasked with overseeing the implementation of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement – Washington supported an Italian diplomat, Antonio Zanardi Landi, while the UK, France, Germany and most European states backed France’s envoy to the Western Balkans, René Troccaz.

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Vance leads charge of US officials using Henry Nowak murder to push anti-immigration agenda

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Vice-president and state department look to push far-right idea that mass migration is causing civilisational decline

In the state department of past administrations, how to respond to an incendiary event such as the murder of the British student Henry Nowak would have required deliberations, memos and meetings. Given how it has roiled the UK and inflamed tensions over migration and race, the cautious diplomats at Foggy Bottom probably would have said nothing at all.

Now they tweet from the hip. “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline,” the department’s official account posted on Thursday. “They must be rejected across the West.”

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Starmer suggests US ‘trying to interfere in our democracy’ over Nowak claims

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Prime minister’s office responds after JD Vance blames British teenager’s death on mass migration

​Keir Starmer has suggested the US is trying to interfere in British democracy after JD Vance, the US vice-president, blamed the murder of the British teenager Henry Nowak on mass migration.

The prime minister’s office responded after the senior Republican politician claimed in a post on X that Nowak would be alive “if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it”.

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US government criticises ‘two-tier’ UK policing after Henry Nowak murder

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State department warns of ‘ideological conditioning’ in message of condolence to family of murdered student

The US state department has criticised “two-tiered policing” in Britain in a message of condolence to the family of the murder victim Henry Nowak in a thinly veiled rebuke of the UK government.

The 18-year-old student’s murder has been claimed by some as evidence of two-tier policing in the UK – the argument that some groups of people are dealt with more harshly than others for ideological reasons.

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US imposes new sanctions on Cuban president and Castro family members

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US secretary of state Marco Rubio says anyone providing services to listed entities ‘is at risk of sanctions themselves’

The United States has announced fresh economic sanctions on Cuba’s president and some of his immediate family, alongside members of the Castro family, in Washington’s latest ramping up of pressure on its communist-led neighbour.

Among those targeted were the son and a grandson of former president Raúl Castro, who no longer holds an official position but remains a key figure on decisions about the future of the island.

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