Trump and Vance are courting Europe’s far right to spread their political gospel

US vice-president’s speech and meeting with Germany’s AfD chief signal administration’s wider plans for continent

The Trump administration is making a big bet on Europe’s hard right.

Speaking at a conference of Europe’s leaders in Munich on Friday, the US vice-president JD Vance stunned the room by delivering what amounted to a campaign speech against Germany’s sitting government just one week before an election in which the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim AfD is set to take second place.

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OpenAI rejects $97.4bn Musk bid and says company is not for sale

Maker of ChatGPT rebuffs consortium led by Tesla owner and rejects ‘latest attempt to disrupt his competition’

OpenAI on Friday rejected a $97.4bn bid from a consortium led by billionaire Elon Musk for the ChatGPT maker, saying the startup is not for sale.

The unsolicited approach is Musk’s latest attempt to block the startup he co-founded with CEO Sam Altman – but later left – from becoming a for-profit firm, as it looks to secure more capital and stay ahead in the AI race.

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Trump agrees to ‘friendly meeting’ with Keir Starmer after making surprise call

President phoned while PM was with Mark Burnett, the Apprentice producer appointed as ‘special envoy’ to UK

Donald Trump has spoken to Keir Starmer again after what appears to have been a spur-of-the-moment phone call from the US president that was not expected by the British prime minister and his team.

News of the call, which took place on Thursday evening, emerged in a Downing Street statement about Starmer’s meeting with Mark Burnett, the British TV producer whom Trump has appointed as special envoy to the UK.

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Trump administration sparks outcry as it continues to gut federal workforce – US politics live

Worker groups condemn moves to fire thousands of probationary employees as CDC and housing department also announce staff cuts

Donald Trump’s campaign to dismantle USAid faced a setback in court last night, after a judge blocked efforts to freeze funding to the agency and gave his administration five days to comply. Here’s more on the development, from the Associated Press:

A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to temporarily lift a funding freeze that has shut down US humanitarian aid and development work around the world, and he has set a five-day deadline for the administration to prove it is complying.

The audit will also review the past two years of the system’s transactions as it relates to Musk’s assertion of ‘alleged fraudulent payments’, according to a letter from Loren J Sciurba, treasury’s deputy inspector general, that was obtained by the Associated Press.

The audit marks part of the broader effort led by Democratic lawmakers and federal employee unions to provide transparency and accountability about Doge’s activities under President Donald Trump’s Republican administration. The Musk team has pushed for access to the government’s computer systems and sought to remove tens of thousands of federal workers.

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US deports 119 immigrants of varying nationalities to Panama

People from Afghanistan, Iran, China and other countries flown out as Trump’s deportation effort intensifies

The US has sent undocumented immigrants from several Asian countries whose governments have refused to accept them to Panama, in a move signalling an intensification of the Trump administration’s deportation effort.

A military plane carrying 119 immigrants from countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan flew from California to Panama City on Wednesday in what was expected to be the first of three migrants flights to the country.

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Storm-fueled mud submerges roads in California town hit by LA wildfires

Residents in Sierra Madre begin cleanup effort after strongest storm of year sweeps through southern California

Residents of a southern California mountain community near the Eaton fire burn scar dug out of roads submerged in sludge on Friday after the strongest storm of the year swept through the area, unleashing debris flows and muddy messes in several neighborhoods recently torched by wildfires.

Water, debris and boulders rushed down the mountain in the city of Sierra Madre on Thursday night, trapping at least one car in the mud and damaging several home garages with mud and debris. Bulldozers on Friday were cleaning up the mud-covered streets in the city of 10,000 people.

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Some federal workers given just 30 minutes to leave amid Trump layoffs

As many as 200,000 US workers slated to be affected by mass terminations as Musk leads crusade to slash spending

Some federal employees who have been laid off under the Trump administration’s unprecedented plan to slash the federal workforce were reportedly given only 30 minutes to pack their belongings and vacate federal offices.

Federal agencies were ordered by Donald Trump to fire mostly probationary staff, with as many as 200,000 workers set to be affected and some made to rush off the premises, the Washington Post reported. More layoffs are expected on Friday, Reuters reported, as thousands of employees have already been terminated and the purge is widening.

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Trump disrupting US bird flu response as outbreak worsens

Experts’ concern grows as communication breaks down among federal agencies responsible for tackling epidemic

The Trump administration has disrupted the US response to bird flu as the outbreak worsens, leading to confusion and concern among federal staff, state officials, veterinarians and health experts, 11 sources told Reuters.

Since Donald Trump took office on 20 January, two federal agencies responsible for monitoring and responding to the epidemic have withheld bird flu reports and canceled congressional briefings and meetings with state health officials, the sources said.

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‘In Alaska, it’s Denali’: senators move to counter Trump’s mountain name order

Republican senator Lisa Murakowski introduces bill to require peak’s name kept on US maps, laws and regulations

The Alaska Republican US senator Lisa Murkowski has introduced legislation to officially rename North America’s tallest mountain as Denali, a counter to Donald Trump’s executive order to revert the peak’s name to Mount McKinley.

Murkowski’s bill, which was co-sponsored by her fellow Republican senator for Alaska, Dan Sullivan, would require the peak to be referred to as Denali on any US maps, laws and regulations.

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Trump’s Gaza plan unites jihadist and far-right circles, experts warn

Trump’s threat to take over Gaza is galvanizing two of the most dangerous and organized extremist movements

As Donald Trump continues to threaten to take control over the Gaza Strip, an unlikely consensus has emerged across hardcore jihadist and far-right circles: both strongly oppose any new US military actions in the territory.

Now experts are warning that Trump’s plan is galvanizing two of the most dangerous and organized extremist movements with track records of domestic terrorist attacks.

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The heartlessness of the deal: how Trump’s ‘America first’ stance sold out Ukraine

The US president does not care who controls east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals underneath

In Donald Trump’s world, everything has its price.

There is no place for sentiment in his politics. Common values cannot secure loans for military aid. And the US president does not care who controls the blood-soaked soils of east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals that lie beneath.

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Mexican president blasts US for harboring drug cartels

Claudia Sheinbaum gives riposte to Trump’s accusation of ‘intolerable alliance’ between Mexican government and gangs

Mexico’s president has accused the US of harboring drug cartels and American citizens of working with organized crime groups in Mexico, in a riposte to Donald Trump’s allegation of an “intolerable alliance” between traffickers and her government.

“There is also organized crime in the United States and there are American people who come to Mexico with these illegal activities,” Claudia Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference on Thursday. “Otherwise who would distribute fentanyl in the cities of the United States?”

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UK government to ‘wait and see’ in the face of Trump tariffs announcement

The US president announced what he called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on all other countries on Thursday

The UK government will “wait and see” whether tariffs announced by Donald Trump “actually come to pass”, a senior minister said.

The US president announced what he called “reciprocal tariffs” on all other countries on Thursday evening, claiming it was “fair to all”.

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Stars pull out of shows and positions at Kennedy Center after Trump takeover

Issa Rae, Ben Folds and Shonda Rhimes among those who chose not to associate with the institution and president

Donald Trump’s takeover of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has generated outcry from performers and members, with several stars pulling out of engagements or associations.

Trump purged the board of the arts foundation last week, clearing the group of appointees by Joe Biden. Stacked with Trump loyalists, the new board terminated the center’s president, Deborah Rutter, and installed Trump as chair. The board then named Richard Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, as interim president.

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US releases Russian cybercriminal as part of exchange for teacher Marc Fogel

Alexander Vinnik, owner and operator of cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was arrested in 2017 for money laundering

The Trump administration has released Alexander Vinnik, a cybercriminal who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, to Russia, as part of an exchange that freed American schoolteacher Marc Fogel on Tuesday.

Vinnik, who arrived in Moscow on a flight from Turkey on Tuesday after having been released from custody in California, is accused of owning and operating one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, BTC-e, which prosecutors allege facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars in transactions for criminals worldwide.

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Elon Musk says he’ll drop his $97bn bid for OpenAI if it remains a non-profit

Billionaire’s lawyers say offer will be withdrawn if firm he helped found a decade ago ‘preserves the charity’s mission’

Elon Musk says he will abandon his $97.4bn offer to buy the non-profit behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.

“If OpenAI, Inc’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday. “Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”

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Trump proposes nuclear deal with Russia and China to halve defense budgets

‘We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things,’ the US president said

Donald Trump said that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that eventually he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the US adversaries to cut their own spending.

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Trump’s Ukraine call with Putin leaves UK sounding at odds with reality

Statements that there can be no negotiations without Kyiv ring hollow when the US president has just sidelined it

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s incendiary call with Vladimir Putin, UK ministers and officials have had to do some extraordinary contortions.

There is no greater priority in the UK’s foreign policy than keeping the volatile occupant of the White House on side. And that has meant over the past 24 hours that some pronouncements by the British government have seemed at odds with reality.

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Pete Hegseth says ‘everything is on the table’ to end Ukraine war

US defence secretary suggests cutting number of American troops in Europe could even be part of a deal with Russia

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said “everything is on the table” to bring peace to Ukraine and suggested reducing the number of American troops in Europe could be part of any deal.

European leaders are reeling from several abrupt US moves since Wednesday in relation to the Ukraine war and the continent’s security, which has been underpinned by the US since Nato was formed at the end of the second world war.

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Israel says it will stick to agreed hostage demands after Trump causes confusion

Government says it will follow ceasefire agreement as long as Hamas releases three hostages on Saturday

The Israeli government has signalled it intends to stick to the hostage release schedule agreed in the ceasefire deal with Hamas, but warned that if the anticipated three surviving hostages were not released on Saturday, it would go back to war in Gaza.

The statement from the prime minister’s office ends nearly three days of confusion after Donald Trump’s declaration that Israel should demand Hamas release all the remaining hostages, more than 70 people, by Saturday or failing that, end the ceasefire.

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