Trump officials move to sanction lawyer who tried to block client’s deportation

Justice department accuses Joshua Schroeder of ‘reckless misrepresentations’ and seeks financial penalties

The US Department of Justice is seeking sanctions against a lawyer who sought to block the deportation of his client, in another sign the Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to enact mass deportations.

Earlier this year, Joshua Schroeder, a California-based attorney, was able to briefly delay the deportation of his client, a Hmong man from Laos, through several court filings.

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National guard arrives in DC as mayors warn of Trump power grab

The US president deployed troops after taking control of DC police, sparking fears of similar moves elsewhere

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC, has pledged to work “side by side” with the federal government as national guard troops arrive at their headquarters in the capital.

The show of force came after Donald Trump announced that he was sending the national guard into the capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low.

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EU leaders defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide future ahead of Trump-Putin summit

Statement on Ukrainian sovereignty signed by all EU leaders except for Viktor Orbán before call with Trump

European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.

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Trump spreads false narratives about DC crime – just as he did with LA

As mayor calls US president ‘hyperbolic’, experts say portrayal of crime rooted in false and misleading claims

Donald Trump is deploying the national guard in Washington DC and seizing control of its police force, claiming that the nation’s capital has become “lawless” and is “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world”.

The president portrayed himself as DC’s savior, vowing to rid it of “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse”.

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Wind generator Ørsted’s shares sink as it makes $9bn cash call

Danish company blames Donald Trump for derailing its business model after market value drops by a third

Europe’s largest wind power company has blamed Donald Trump for derailing its business model, after it unveiled a $9bn (£6.7bn) fundraising and its market value plunged by almost a third.

The share price for Denmark’s Ørsted tumbled to an all-time low after it told investors on Monday that the “extraordinary situation” facing the industry meant it would need to tap shareholders to cover the costs of its plans.

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Nvidia and AMD agree to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US

Chipmakers agree to deal amid Trump trade war as condition for obtaining export licences for Chinese market

The chipmakers Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenue from advanced chips sold to China in return for export licences to the key market, in an unprecedented move amid Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

The move, an apparent reversal of US national security restrictions on the chip sales, signalled an easing in the US-China trade war.

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Farmers displaced by $1.5bn Trump golf course reportedly being offered rice and cash

White House denies suggestions resort in Vietnam presents conflict of interest amid row over compensation rates

Villagers whose farms in Vietnam will be bulldozed to make way for a $1.5bn golf resort backed by the Trump family have reportedly been offered rice provisions and cash compensation of as little as $12 for a square metre of land by state authorities.

Thousands of villagers will be offered compensation based on land size and location, according to a report by Reuters. The agency spoke to elderly farmers who said they feared they would struggle to find a stable livelihood.

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Europe’s leaders raise pressure on Trump to involve Ukraine in Putin talks

Move comes as Germany warns White House against any deal hatched ‘over heads of Europeans and Ukrainians’

Europe’s leaders have raised the pressure on Donald Trump to involve Ukraine in a planned summit with Vladimir Putin, as Germany warned the White House against any deal hatched “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians”.

Speaking before a bilateral meeting expected to take place between the US and Russian leaders on Friday in Alaska, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he hoped and assumed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would also be involved.

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Confusion over the Alaska summit shows Vladimir Putin still calls the shots

Donald Trump rewarding the Kremlin’s hardline attitude shows Russia can still sideline Ukraine from deal to end war

In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.

With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.

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Trump administration threatens to strip Harvard University of lucrative patents

White House escalates offensive on Ivy League university by calling for review of federally funded research

The latest phase of the Trump administration’s offensive against Harvard University is a comprehensive review of the university’s federally funded research programs, and the threat to strip the school’s lucrative portfolio of patents.

In a letter to the Harvard president, Alan Garber, posted online on Friday, Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, accused Harvard of breaching its legal and contractual requirements tied to federally funded research programs and patents.

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Vinay Prasad returns to FDA days after leaving under pressure from Laura Loomer

Prasad left the agency after far-right influencer released edited audio misleadingly suggesting he was anti-Trump

Vinay Prasad is returning to his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy and blood product regulation at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a little more than a week after he left the agency.

“At the FDA’s request, Dr Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” Department Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement to Reuters.

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Trump-backed World Liberty proposes $1.5bn crypto holder, Bloomberg News reports

Co-founded by president’s eldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, World Liberty has earned the family $500m since its launch

World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by Donald Trump and the US president’s family, is sounding out investors for a $1.5bn fundraising round meant to set up a public company that will hold its WLFI tokens, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

The structure of the deal is yet to be finalized, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter, adding that large investors in the crypto and tech space had been approached for the venture.

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Ukraine will not give up land, Zelenskyy warns ahead of Trump-Putin meeting

US president said end to war will involve ‘some swapping of territories’ before announcing meeting

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said early on Saturday that “Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers” after Donald Trump said he would meet Vladimir Putin next week and that an end to the war must involve “some swapping of territories”.

The Ukrainian president said Kyiv was ready for real solutions that could bring peace but that any solutions without Ukraine would be against peace. “Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace. They will achieve nothing,” he said, adding that the war “cannot be ended without us, without Ukraine”.

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Trump Burger owner in Texas faces deportation after Ice arrest

Roland Beainy from Lebanon, who opened chain of restaurants in support of president, says charges ‘not true’

The owner of a Donald Trump-themed hamburger restaurant chain in Texas is facing deportation after immigration authorities under the command of the president detained him.

Roland Mehrez Beainy, 28, entered the US as “a non-immigrant visitor” from Lebanon in 2019 and was supposed to have left the country by 12 February 2024, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spokesperson told the Guardian.

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Azerbaijan and Armenia sign peace deal at White House that creates a ‘Trump Route’ in region

Deal to end four-decade conflict includes creation of transit corridor named ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House on Friday, in a deal brokered by the US that brings decades of conflict to an end.

The two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each other, as well as the US, that will reopen key transportation routes while allowing the US to seize on Russia’s declining influence in the region. The deal includes an agreement that will create a major transit corridor linking Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, with the United States owning development rights to the corridor. It was to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, the White House said.

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Bolsonaro supporters pray for Trump rescue as coup plot trial verdict nears

Far-right ex-president’s devotees pin hopes on pressure campaign but tariffs and sanctions appear likely to fail

Each morning, Edite Costa steps out of her bungalow on Brasília’s sun-baked savannah, stands beneath a mango tree and lifts her hands to the sky in prayer. “I ask God to work so that not just Trump but all Americans come to help us rip out the evil that has taken hold of the country I love,” said the 66-year-old Baptist, who is a fervent supporter of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro could face decades in jail for allegedly leading a murderous conspiracy to seize power after his leftwing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat him in the 2022 presidential election. But Costa believes her populist leader can still be saved – if her prayers are answered and Donald Trump intervenes.

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Sheinbaum rejects US ‘invasion’ after Trump orders military to target Mexico cartels

Mexico’s president says ‘there will be no invasion … it’s absolutely off the table’ after news reports of order

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has rejected the idea that the US might invade Mexico after news reports suggested Donald Trump had authorized the use of military force targeting drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations in Latin American countries.

“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with their military,” she said during a daily news conference on Friday. “We cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion. It’s off the table, absolutely off the table.”

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Top US diplomat in Brazil summoned to foreign ministry over Bolsonaro trial comments

US embassy accused supreme court judge of persecuting ex-president, currently on trial for alleged coup attempt

Brazil’s foreign ministry has summoned the US chargé d’affaires after the embassy posted comments about the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, as relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate.

On Thursday, the embassy published a social media post in Portuguese criticising the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the cases against Bolsonaro, who is on trial over an alleged coup attempt.

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Trump’s justice department reportedly subpoenas New York attorney general

Department issued two subpoenas to Letitia James for civil fraud case against Trump and an investigation into the NRA

The Department of Justice has issued two subpoenas to Letitia James, the New York attorney general who has been repeatedly criticized by Donald Trump, according to reports.

One of the cases relates to a civil fraud case brought by James’s office against Trump, which resulted in the president owing New York state $500m, the New York Times reported. The other case relates to the attorney general’s investigation into National Rifle Association (NRA), a rightwing gun lobbying group.

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‘Freeze’ in Ukraine war may be close, says Tusk, as US and Russia plan talks

Polish PM makes remarks after speaking with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid White House efforts to end the conflict

A “freeze” in the war in Ukraine may be close, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, as the White House and the Kremlin push forward with discussions for a high-level summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in the coming days.

Donald Tusk’s remarks came after he spoke with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has communicated with Trump and European leaders in recent days as the White House continues to try to broker an end to the three-and-a-half-year war.

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