Category Archives: US Politics

US rebrands immigration app to CBP Home with ‘self-deport’ function

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Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, announced the new version, raising privacy concerns for those using CBP One

On day one of his presidency, Donald Trump issued a directive abruptly ending the government’s use of CBP One – an online application that had served as the primary means for people at the southern border to apply for asylum in the US. On Monday, the administration announced it has reimagined the app as a platform for “self-deportation”.

Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, announced that the app had been rebranded as “CBP Home” and that anyone with the old CBP One app would be redirected to the new version.

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Canada’s designated PM Mark Carney meets Trudeau as Trump threat looms

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Former central banker won landslide victory in Liberal party race as trade war with US hastens transfer of power

Canada’s incoming prime minister, Mark Carney, has met with Justin Trudeau as the pair discuss a transfer of power after the former central banker’s landslide victory at the Liberal party’s leadership race.

The meeting on Monday sets the stage for an imminent federal election and gives Canada a fresh leader to square off against the United States president, with the two countries locked in a bitter trade war provoked by Donald Trump.

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Ontario sets 25% surcharge on energy exports to US to counter Trump tariffs

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Premier Doug Ford says province ‘won’t back down’ until US president retracts duties on Canada

The Canadian province of Ontario is imposing a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the states of New York, Michigan and Minnesota in protest against Donald Trump’s tariffs, the premier, Doug Ford, said on Monday.

“President Trump’s tariffs are a disaster for the US economy. They’re making life more expensive for American families and businesses,” Ford said in a statement.

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Trump confirms detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil: ‘the first arrest of many to come’ – live

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Trump says Ice took the Palestinian student protester into custody after his executive order

Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced that USAid will cancel the majority of its programs, while the rest will be folded into the state department.

Writing on X, Rubio said:

After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.

The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.

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‘Reeks of McCarthyism’: outrage after Ice detains Palestinian student activist

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Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil a ‘targeted, retaliatory’ attack on his first amendment rights, say civil rights groups

Free speech organizations and advocates are expressing outrage after a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, was arrested and detained over the weekend.

Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card, was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities on Saturday night, who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.

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Lauren Boebert accused of racism and ableism over her criticism of Al Green

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Republican faces backlash for saying Democrat shook ‘his pimp cane’ at Trump during congressional address

The extremist Republican US House member Lauren Boebert has been accused of racism, ableism and hypocrisy in one fell swoop after criticizing a Black Democrat for “shaking his pimp cane” at Donald Trump during the president’s recent speech to Congress.

“Al Green was given multiple opportunities to stand down, to sit down, to behave, to show decorum,” Boebert told Real America’s Voice, a far-right outlet, while discussing the Texas Democratic congressman’s ejection from the House chamber for shouting about Trump’s threats to social benefits spending on 6 March.

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Kleptocrats to benefit from Trump DoJ’s anti-corruption pause, experts warn

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Former prosecutors criticize Pam Bondi’s decision to halt enforcement of bribery laws as short-sighted and dangerous

A radical makeover at the US department of justice has seen key drives to fight corruption hamstrung in ways that could benefit US businesses operating abroad and foreign kleptocrats, including some Russian oligarchs.

The moves have sparked sharp criticism by former US prosecutors, transparency experts and top Democrats, who warn that the moves to cut back on anti-corruption efforts is a huge setback for American efforts to clean up global business practices and tackle the power of oligarchs and of authoritarian rulers.

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US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

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Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia

The United States has been added to the Civicus Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries that the global civil rights watchdog believes are currently experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms.

Civicus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to “strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world”, announced the inclusion of the US on the non-profit’s first watchlist of 2025 on Monday, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia.

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Kristi Noem names new Ice leadership and vows to punish media ‘leakers’

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Homeland security secretary pledges lie detector tests for employees she suspects are passing information to press

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday announced new leadership at the agency tasked with immigration enforcement as she also pledged to step up lie detector tests on employees to identify those who may be leaking information about operations to the media.

Noem confirmed, in addition, that the government will expand immigration detention operations further into the military sphere, following reports of the intention to use the huge Fort Bliss army base close to the US-Mexico border in Texas for that purpose.

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‘I hate to predict things’: Trump doesn’t rule out US recession amid trade tariffs

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President downplays recent stock market volatility that followed his ducking and weaving over tariff policy

Donald Trump on Sunday refused to rule out the possibility that the US economy will head into recession this year and that inflation will rise, as his chaotic trade tariffs policy cause uncertainty and market turbulence.

The US president predicted that his economic goals would take time and a period of transition to bear fruit. But when asked in an interview with the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures “are you expecting a recession this year?” he demurred.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Ice arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia protests, lawyer says

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Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest comes as Trump vows to deport foreign students involved in protests against Israel’s war

A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.

Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university’s main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.

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Crews continue to battle wind-driven brush fire on New York’s Long Island

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Three of the fires are contained, while one is still burning in Westhampton, officials say

Firefighters in New York were continuing to battle at least one brush fire in a wooded stretch of Long Island on Sunday with the wealthy coastal enclave of the Hamptons vulnerable and officials warning that high wind gusts threatened to ignite further blazes.

The state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after four separate fires broke out. The flames were spreading across large swaths of the narrow strip of barrier land that stretches for more than 100 miles east from New York City out towards the Atlantic Ocean.

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‘They brought it on themselves’: a new low in US-Ukraine relations

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Diplomats gasp as Keith Kellogg claims Zelenskyy to blame for soured relations with America

“There was an audible gasp in the room at the Council on Foreign Relations as Keith Kellogg, the White House’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, characterised the US decision to cut off intelligence sharing and military aid to Kyiv as like beating a farm animal with a piece of wood.

“Very candidly, they brought it on themselves, the Ukrainians,” Kellogg said as the veteran diplomats, academics, and journalists in the room recoiled in surprise. Several held their hands in their faces. “I think the best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” he continued. “You got their attention, and it’s very significant, obviously, because of the support that we give.”

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Trump administration cancels classes at National Fire Academy amid funding freeze

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Free training classes for firefighters and other first responders are provided through Fema at the Maryland site

The country’s pre-eminent federal fire training academy canceled classes, effective immediately, on Saturday amid the ongoing flurry of funding freezes and staffing cuts by Donald Trump’s administration.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that National Fire Academy (NFA) courses had been canceled amid a “process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities”, according to a notice sent to instructors, students and fire departments. Instructors were told to cancel all future travel until further notice.

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US vetoes G7 proposal to combat Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers

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US pushes to remove references to sanctions and Russia’s war in Ukraine from a Canadian draft statement

The US has rejected a Canadian proposal to establish a task force that would tackle Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, according to reports last night.

Canada, which has the current Group of Seven presidency, proposed the measure ahead of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Quebec later this week.

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Trump policies could fuel illicit drug trade despite vow to curb fentanyl

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‘Coercive’ tariffs and federal funding cuts could worsen flow of illicit drugs into US, ex-government officials warn

Donald Trump’s policies could leave the US more vulnerable to dangerous synthetic drug trafficking from abroad, even as the administration has vowed to stop fentanyl from entering the country, former government officials say.

This week, Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, ostensibly as a tactic to stem the flow of illicit drugs into the US.

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‘She is evil’: Amy Coney Barrett under attack by right wing after USAid ruling

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Supreme court justice who frequently votes alongside conservative colleagues branded ‘DEI judge’

Amy Coney Barrett, the Donald Trump-appointed conservative supreme court justice, has been branded a “DEI judge” by furious rightwing figures, after she voted to reject Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2bn in foreign aid.

Coney Barrett, part of the court’s rightwing majority, split with her fellow conservative justices this week. She and John Roberts, the chief justice, voted to leave in place a ruling from a US district judge that ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze the nearly $2bn in aid for foreign aid work that had already been performed, and that had been approved by Congress.

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US rise of cryptocurrency and fall of regulation pose ‘profound risks’ – report

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Center for Political Accountability, which advocates for corporate disclosure, warns of fallout from Trump’s efforts

A new report warns of “profound risks” in American politics as cryptocurrency companies increase their political spending and Donald Trump oversees regulatory retreat while promising to create a “crypto strategic reserve”.

The situation “illustrate[s] the profound risks that unchecked corporate political spending presents, particularly within the volatile and often unpredictable cryptocurrency industry”, reads the report, from the Center for Political Accountability (CPA), a non-profit that advocates for corporate political disclosure.

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EPA issues guidance that spending of $50,000 or more must gain approval of Doge

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Move comes even as Trump has tried to show that Musk’s cost-slashing agency doesn’t have the final say

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued new guidance directing that spending items greater than $50,000 now require approval from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), even as Donald Trump began putting some distance between Musk’s reach and the power of government department heads – at least over job cuts.

“Any assistance agreement, contract or interagency agreement transaction [valued at] $50,000 or greater must receive approval from an EPA DOGE team member,” the EPA guidance says, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The EPA did not respond to a request from the news agency on Friday for comment.

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Trump says he wrote to Iran and wants to negotiate nuclear weapons deal

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First step by president to open discussions comes as Iranian government locked in dispute over negotiating with US

Donald Trump has said he wants to negotiate a new deal with Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weapons and sent a letter to its leaders saying he hoped they would open talks.

It is the first practical step taken by the US president to see if new negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme are possible.

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