Category Archives: US Politics

Ex-US security officials urge funding for science research to keep up with China

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Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed

Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.

The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.

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Lester Holt to exit NBC Nightly News as MSNBC cuts Ayman Mohyeldin’s show

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Holt to step down as anchor as Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, whose shows also canceled, to remain at MSNBC

NBC’s Lester Holt is stepping down as anchor of its Nightly News show, and MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin is stepping down from a similar role at his namesake weekend evening show as the networks’ owners continue a major programming shake-up on Monday.

Others at MSNBC affected by changes revealed on Monday include Katie Phang and Jonathan Capehart, the New York Post reported.

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Confusion at US agencies over whether to comply with Elon Musk email demanding workers justify their jobs – US politics live

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Government agencies give conflicting advice after email from Elon Musk demanding employees list accomplishments from past week

Elon Musk said on Monday that starting this week, government workers would be put on administrative leave if they fail to return to the office.

Musk, who is leading a downsizing effort at the US government wrote on X:

Those who ignored President Trump’s executive order to return to work have now received over a month’s warning.

Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave.

French President Emmanuel Macron will meet with Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, saying he will present “proposals for action” to counter the “Russian threat” in Europe and ensure peace in Ukraine.

Conservative podcaster Dan Bongino has been appointed as FBI deputy director. Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer turned conservative radio host, puts a second Trump ally at the top of the agency. Trump announced the appointment on Sunday night in a post on his Truth Social platform, praising Bongino as “a man of incredible love and passion for our country”.

The Trump administration on Sunday said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, according to a notice sent to agency workers and posted online.

More than 150,000 people from Canada have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire’s alliance with Donald Trump, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.

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Neo-Nazi group plots rebuild as Trump’s FBI chief takes helm, audio reveals

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Exclusive: Terrorist group the Base appears defiant as new administration aims to deprioritize threat from far right

An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the US appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by the Guardian from its digital accounts.

Founded in 2018, the Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counter-terrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist organization in several countries.

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More than 200,000 Canadians sign petition to revoke Musk’s citizenship

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Parliamentary petition launched due to billionaire’s link to Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to conquer Canada

More than 200,000 people from Canada have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire’s alliance with Donald Trump, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.

The British Columbia author Qualia Reed launched the petition in Canada’s House of Commons, where it was sponsored by the New Democrat parliamentary member and avowed Musk critic Charlie Angus, as the Canadian Press first reported over the weekend.

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Trump names conservative podcaster Dan Bongino as FBI deputy director

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Selection of former Secret Service agent and author means two staunch Trump allies lead the principal federal law enforcement agency

Dan Bongino, a former US Secret Service agent who has written bestselling books, run unsuccessfully for office and gained fame as a conservative pundit with TV shows and a popular podcast, has been chosen to serve as the FBI’s deputy director.

President Donald Trump announced the appointment on Sunday night in a post on his Truth Social platform, praising Bongino as “a man of incredible love and passion for our country”. He called the announcement “great news for law enforcement and American justice”.

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Bomb threat sent to anti-Trump conference singles out officer who tangled with ex-Proud Boys leader

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Enrique Tarrio denies involvement despite organizers attributing threat to someone claiming to be ‘Enrique T’

Attendees of a center-right political conference in Washington DC were forced to evacuate on Sunday, after someone claiming to be Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group who was convicted and then pardoned for his role in the January 6 insurrection, allegedly emailed in a bomb threat against the event. Tarrio denied any involvement in the incident.

Organizers of the Principles First summit, which is considered a center-right alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), confirmed the bomb threat after they abruptly asked attendees to clear the room hosting the conference.

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MSNBC reportedly cancels Joy Reid show in reshuffle at liberal network

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ReidOut is being cancelled as part of a lineup shuffle being helmed by the network’s new president, Rebecca Kutler

MSNBC has reportedly canceled longtime anchor Joy Reid’s show in what is evidently a major programming restructure at the liberal network.

Speaking to the New York Times, two people familiar with the reshuffling told the outlet that Reid’s 7pm show, The ReidOut, is being cancelled as part of a lineup shuffle being helmed by the network’s new president, Rebecca Kutler.

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Trump halts medical research funding in apparent violation of judge’s order

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Health department orders NIH to hold Federal Register submissions – critical step in process for funding studies

The Trump administration has blocked a crucial step in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) process for funding medical research, likely in violation of a federal judge’s temporary restraining order on federal funding freezes.

The NIH has stopped submitting study sections – meetings in which scientists peer review NIH grant funding proposals – to the Federal Register after the Trump administration paused health agency communications. By law, study sections must appear on the register 15 days in advance of meetings.

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Chain, chain, chain: political theatre confirms Elon Musk’s Maga hero status at jubilant CPAC

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Emboldened and exultant, speakers put less emphasis on baiting liberals and more on spreading the Maga gospel

What do you give the man who has everything? A ballroom full of cheering conservative activists found out this week when Elon Musk was presented with a chainsaw by Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, who has used the power tool as a symbol of his push to impose fiscal discipline.

Wearing sunglasses, a black Maga baseball cap and a gold necklace, Musk giddily wielded the chainsaw up and down the stage. “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!” he declared. Members of the audience shouted: “We love you!” Musk replied: “I love you guys, too!” And he quipped: “I am become meme.”

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Kash Patel tells FBI staff to ignore Elon Musk request to list their achievements

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Agency reportedly seeking guidance from DoJ as Musk’s demand sparks confusion across key government agencies

The new FBI director, Kash Patel, has told his agency employees to hold off on responding to an email from the Donald Trump administration asking them to list their accomplishments in the last week as tech billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the federal government’s size.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers had been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they achieved to the office of personnel management (OPM), sparking confusion across key agencies that included the US’s top law enforcement agency.

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‘Starmer’s big moment’: can PM persuade Trump not to give in to Putin?

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The UK leader has been advised to choose his words carefully at this week’s crucial White House meeting

• Keir Starmer lays down Ukraine peace demand ahead of Trump talks

When Keir Starmer is advised on how to handle his crucial meeting with Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, he will be told by advisers from Downing Street and the Foreign Office to be very clear on his main points and, above all, to be brief.

“Trump gets bored very easily,” said one well-placed Whitehall source with knowledge of the president’s attention span. “When he loses interest and thinks someone is being boring, he just tunes out. He doesn’t like [the French president, Emmanuel] Macron partly because Macron talks too much and tries to lecture him.”

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Enrique Tarrio follows and insults officers who defended US Capitol on January 6

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Ex-leader of far-right Proud Boys trails group through lobby of Washington hotel, engaging officer Michael Fanone

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group who was convicted and then pardoned for his role in the January 6 insurrection, confronted a group of police officers who defended the Capitol during the attack, accusing one of them of being a “coward”.

A video shared by Tarrio on social media on Saturday showed him following the officers, Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell, through the lobby of a Washington hotel that was hosting the Principles First summit, a conference where one of the officers received a “profile in courage” award.

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US politics live: Donald Trump addresses Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland

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US president’s 75-minute tirade of repeated false claims ranges from voter fraud and stolen-election lies to foreign wars

Donald Trump launched into his speech by assailing “the fraudsters, liars … globalists and deep-state bureaucrats” that he said “are being sent back”.

“We’re draining the swamp and restoring government by the people for the people,” he said before going on to his oft-repeated claims of Washington DC being controlled by a “sinister group of radical-left Marxist warmongers”.

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Trump administration shuts down national database documenting police misconduct

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Database, first proposed by Trump in 2020 and created by Biden administration in 2023, is now offline

Donald Trump’s second presidential administration shut down a national database that tracked misconduct by federal police, a resource that policing reform advocates hailed as essential to prevent officers with misconduct records from being able to move undetected between agencies.

The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), which stored police records documenting misconduct, is now unavailable, the Washington Post first reported.

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US congresswoman ‘rooting’ for Canada and Mexico against Trump’s threats

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Democrat Jasmine Crockett calls it ‘really wild’ that it is foreign leaders who are speaking truth to power

The congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has revealed she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico over Donald Trump in their attempts to stand up to him, saying it is “really wild” to find herself in that position given he is the president of the US.

“They are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now,” the Democratic representative from Texas said on Friday on the popular Breakfast Club podcast, alluding to the political feuds Trump has engaged in with the US’s two North American neighbors during the first month of his second presidency. “They can see what it is and they were like, ‘We are not messing with this crazy regime.’”

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Pentagon lays off 5,400 civilian workers, with tens of thousands more firings due

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Pete Hegseth supports cuts of up to 8% of civilian workforce as Trump bids to institute massive government cuts

The Pentagon announced plans Friday to fire 5-8% of its civilian workforce, staring next week with layoffs of 5,400 probationary workers, a Department of Defense official said in a statement.

The initial civilian layoffs will be followed by a Department of Defense hiring freeze to analyze the military’s personnel needs in compliance with Donald Trump’s political goals, Darin Selnick, the acting under-secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in the statement.

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US judge temporarily blocks Trump’s anti-DEI purge

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Adam Abeldon rules that president’s efforts to ban DEI programs likely violate first amendment of constitution

A federal judge in Maryland on Friday temporarily blocked Donald Trump from implementing bans on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at federal agencies and by businesses that contract with the federal government.

US district judge Adam Abelson said the directives by Trump and an order urging the Department of Justice to investigate companies with DEI policies likely violate the first amendment of the US constitution.

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US envoy to Ukraine hails Zelenskyy as ‘embattled and courageous leader’

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Keith Kellogg takes different tone from Trump, who contrasted ‘very good talks’ with Putin with cooler relationship with Ukraine’s leader

The US envoy to Ukraine, Gen Keith Kellogg, has praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”, striking a dramatically different tone from Donald Trump, who has called Ukraine’s president a “dictator”.

Kellogg left Kyiv on Friday after a three-day visit. Posting on social media, he said he had engaged in “extensive and positive discussions” with Zelenskyy and his “talented national security team”. “A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine,” he said.

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Trump administration restores legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children

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A stop-work order had been issued to government-funded attorneys to cease counsel for about 26,000 minors

The Trump administration has rescinded its decision to cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children, just three days after it ordered government-funded attorneys across the country to immediately stop their work.

The Acacia Center for Justice and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef) confirmed that the stop-work order affecting non-profits that provide legal counsel for about 26,000 unaccompanied minors had been lifted.

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