Category Archives: US Politics

Democrat vows to ‘stop Doge’s illegal power grab’ at non-profit peace institute

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Congressman Don Beyer refused entry to US Institute of Peace after independent body taken over by Musk group

A senior Democratic congressman vowed to “stop Doge’s illegal power grab” after operatives from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” gained entry to the US Institute of Peace in Washington – an independent organization established by Congress – and forced out its leaders.

“I was at USIP tonight to conduct congressional oversight over Doge’s break-in,” Don Beyer of Virginia said on Monday. “I spoke with [removed] acting president & CEO [George] Moose. USIP is an independent, non-profit entity and I will work to stop Doge’s illegal power grab.”

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Man charged in US Capitol attack announces run for Senate in Florida

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Jake Lang, charged with attacking police during riot and pardoned by Trump, seeks to fill seat Marco Rubio’s old seat

A man accused of battling police with a baseball bat and shield during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol announced a run for the US Senate in Florida.

“WE ARE TAKING OVER THE CAPITOL AGAIN,” Jake Lang, a prominent January 6 defendant, wrote on X, announcing he is seeking the seat vacated by now secretary of state Marco Rubio in 2026.

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‘Cataclysmic’: environmentalists fear effects of Trump cuts on Great Lakes

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Advocates warn firings and funding freezes already risk poisoning drinking water and decimating fish population

Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s attacks on federal agencies and funding freezes will be “cataclysmic” for the environment of the sensitive Great Lakes region if not reversed, industry and environmental advocates in the region warn.

Initial actions taken since Trump returned to the White House in January – and put Musk in charge of slashing the federal government – already risk poisoning drinking water, decimating fish populations, and risking the jobs and health of tens of millions of people who rely on the lake system, they add.

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Pentagon restores webpage for Black Medal of Honor winner but defends DEI purge

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Error message previously shown on Maj Gen Rogers’s site as officials argue that it’s wrong to call diversity a strength

The US defense department webpage celebrating a Black Medal of Honor recipient that was removed and had the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address has been restored – and the letters scrubbed – after an outcry. But defense department officials have continued to argue publicly that it is wrong to say that diversity is a strength, and that it’s essential to dismantle all “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts.

On Saturday, the Guardian reported that US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message – and that the URL had been changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.

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Doge breaks into US Institute of Peace building after White House guts board

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Remaining members of board – Pete Hegeth, Marco Rubio and Peter Garvin – fire president of independent non-profit

The Trump administration fired most of the board of the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and sent its new leader into the Washington DC headquarters of the independent organization on Monday, in its latest effort targeting agencies tied to foreign assistance work.

The remaining three members of the group’s board – defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and national defense university president Peter Garvin – fired president and CEO, George Moose, on Friday, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press.

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White House’s defense for not recalling deportations ‘one heck of a stretch’, says judge

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Administration claims it didn’t stop flights despite judge’s instructions because he did not write it in the formal order

The Trump administration claimed to a federal judge on Monday that it did not recall deportation flights of hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members over the weekend despite his specific instructions because that was not expressly included in the formal written order issued afterwards.

The administration also said that even if James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, had included that instruction in his formal order, his authority to compel the planes to return disappeared the moment the planes entered international airspace.

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White House removes advisory defining gun violence as a public health issue

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Webpage listing statistics and information on shootings taken down as Trump seeks to protect second amendment

The Trump administration has removed former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website. This move was made to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order to protect second amendment rights, a White House official told the Guardian.

The “firearm violence in America” page, where the advisory had been posted, was filled with data and information about the ripple effects of shootings, the prevalence of firearm suicides and the number of American children and adolescents who have been shot and killed. Now, when someone reaches the site they will be met with a “page not found” message.

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White House denies violating judge’s order with Venezuela deportations

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Trump administration used Alien Enemies Act to deport about 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador

The White House has denied allegations that it engaged in a “a blatant violation” of a judge’s order by deporting about 250 Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador on Saturday, with the US border czar appearing to contradict the denial on Monday by declaring: “I don’t care what the judges think.”

The US district judge James E Boasberg has scheduled a hearing for Monday afternoon to demand an explanation about why his Saturday order temporarily blocking the deportation flights had apparently been ignored.

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Conor McGregor anti-immigration rant in White House condemned by Irish PM

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Micheál Martin says MMA fighter’s comments before Trump meeting ‘do not reflect spirit of St Patrick’s Day’

Ireland’s taoiseach has denounced anti-immigration comments made by Conor McGregor as the MMA fighter visited the White House before a St Patrick’s Day meeting with Donald Trump.

McGregor said “Ireland is on the cusp of losing its Irishness” and that an “illegal immigration racket” was “running ravage on the country”.

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French politician jokes US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with ‘tyrants’

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Raphaël Glucksmann quips that US should give back 19th-century gift from France over Trump’s approach to Ukraine

A French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.

Trump’s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, then responded to Raphaël Glucksmann on Monday by calling him an “unnamed low-level French politician” and saying the US would keep the statue.

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Trump administration pulls US out of body investigating Ukraine invasion

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Russia and allies were target of International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine

The Trump administration is withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine in the latest sign that the White House is adopting a posture favouring Vladimir Putin.

The Department of Justice said it was pulling out of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA) two years after the Biden administration joined it with a commitment to hold Putin, Russia’s president, to account for the 2022 invasion and subsequent crimes committed by Russian forces.

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Brown University professor deported despite judge’s order, defying US court

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Rasha Alawieh’s case highlights Donald Trump’s escalating immigration policies and tensions with universities

A Brown University medical professor was deported to Lebanon over the weekend despite having a valid US work visa, defying a judge’s order blocking her immediate removal from the country.

The case centering on Rasha Alawieh, 34, comes as Donald Trump’s second presidential administration has been escalating its immigration policies and attacking universities.

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Trump makes unsupported claim Biden pardons are ‘void’ as he used autopen

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President claims without evidence that January 6 panel members’ pre-emptive clemency was not signed personally

Donald Trump claimed on Monday, without offering evidence, that pardons signed by Joe Biden were “void, vacant and of no further force and effect” because they were signed with an autopen.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an autopen as “a device that mechanically reproduces a person’s signature”.

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Trump administration poised to ‘strand rural America with worse internet’ to help Musk, official warns

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US official urges stop to plan to re-evaluate Biden program to connect communities to high-speed internet, which will likely benefit Starlink

Small town USA is facing a “significant risk” that the Trump administration is going to abandon key elements of a $42.45bn Biden-era plan to connect rural communities to high-speed internet so that Elon Musk can get even richer, a top departing commerce department official warned in an email.

Evan Feinman, who headed up the so-called Bead program for the last three years, urged governors across the country to lobby their congressional delations in Washington to stop the Trump administration from implementing plans he said could have “deeply negative outcomes” for American homes and businesses.

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Japan to deploy long-range missiles able to hit North Korea and China

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Planned missiles on Kyushu said to be part of ‘counterstrike capabilities’, as fears grow over US security pact

Japan is planning to deploy long-range missiles on its southern island of Kyushu amid concerns around the Trump administration’s stance towards its security pacts and continuing regional tensions.

The missiles, with a range of about 1,000km, would be capable of hitting targets in North Korea and China’s coastal regions, and are due to be deployed next year in two bases with existing missile garrisons. They would bolster the defences of the strategically important Okinawa island chain and are part of Japan’s development of “counterstrike capabilities” in the event it is attacked, according to reports from Kyodo News agency, citing government sources.

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US evangelical groups urge Trump to spare HIV/Aids program from aid cuts

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Christian organizations helped create Pepfar, credited with preventing 25m early deaths, particularly in Africa

Christian evangelical organizations instrumental in creating the US program that has saved millions of lives from HIV/Aids are pressing the Trump administration to rescue the scheme from crushing cuts to foreign assistance.

The state department has said that the two-decade-old President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), which is estimated to have prevented 25m early deaths, is exempt from the cancellation of most US overseas aid. But the program is heavily reliant on logistical support from the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which has seen most of its projects killed off.

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Black Medal of Honor recipient removed from US department of defense website

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Page honoring Charles C Rogers for his Vietnam war service is now defunct with letters “DEI” added to website address

The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address.

On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.

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Russell T Davies: gay society in ‘greatest danger I’ve ever seen’ after Trump win

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Exclusive: Doctor Who writer says he feels ‘a wave of anger heading towards us’ and hostility in UK as well as US

Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.

Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.

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Trump says the economy ‘went to hell’ under Biden. The opposite is true

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By standard measures such as job and GDP growth and the stock market, the US economy was in excellent shape

Donald Trump keeps saying he inherited a terrible economy from Joe Biden and many Americans believe him, even though that’s not true. During his White House marketing event for Tesla on Tuesday, Trump said the US and its economy “went to hell” under Biden. Last week, in his national address to Congress, Trump said: “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”

But the truth is that by standard economic measures, the US economy was in excellent shape when Biden turned over the White House keys to Trump, even though most Americans, upset about inflation, told pollsters the economy was in poor shape.

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Farage reportedly met Cummings for ‘friendly chat about the general scene’

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Pair recently met to discuss Donald Trump, Elon Musk and other political matters, Sunday Times says

Nigel Farage has reportedly met Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s adviser turned nemesis, after the Vote Leave founder suggested voters should back Reform UK at the local elections.

Cummings, who was once a sworn enemy of Farage during the EU referendum as he battled to keep control of the leave campaign, is reported to have met the Reform leader to discuss Whitehall changes, which allies said was the strongest sign yet that Farage was taking seriously the idea of becoming prime minister.

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