Panama will not discuss control of canal during Rubio visit, president says

José Raúl Mulino rules out talks on waterway with secretary of state: ‘That is sealed. The canal belongs to Panama’

Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, has ruled out discussing control over the Panama Canal in a meeting with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is set to visit the Central American country in his first official trip abroad this weekend.

Mulino’s comments during a weekly press conference come after Donald Trump threatened to take control of the canal, claiming it is being operated by China. The Panamanian government strongly denies the accusation.

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‘America’s gulag’: Trump’s Guantánamo ploy tars migrants as terrorists

The president wants to detain thousands of people at a site that is notorious for its secrecy and history of abuse

It has been denounced as “America’s gulag”: a secretive, abuse-ridden Caribbean prison camp for terror suspects that Donald Rumsfeld once said contained “the worst of the worst”.

“All of us have scars in our souls, deformities, from living at Guantánamo,” a former Yemeni inmate recalled of his time at the notorious military detention facility in south-east Cuba.

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‘This will delay medical breakthroughs’: US scientists demand to bargain over Trump orders

NIH fellows say policy changes including funding freeze would ‘severely limit’ researchers’ ability to do their work

A union representing about 5,000 researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a legally binding demand to bargain over Donald Trump’s sweeping policy changes, including a funding freeze, a communications blackout and a staff travel ban.

The NIH is the largest biomedical institution in the world, providing more than $40bn annually to fund health research, providing grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more thab 2,500 universities, medical schools and other research institutions globally, with nearly 6,000 scientists performing research in its own labs.

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First Thing: Passenger jet crashes after midair collision near Washington DC

Search and rescue operation under way after plane carrying at least 64 people collides with military helicopter. Plus, how Serbia’s students rose up

Good morning.

A regional American Airlines jet carrying at least 60 passengers and four crew members has crashed after a midair collision with a US army Black Hawk helicopter while landing at Reagan national airport near Washington DC, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the Potomac River.

What do we know so far about fatalities? At least 18 bodies have been recovered, according to CBS News, citing a police official, and scores more are feared dead.

What happens next? Search and rescue operations are continuing. Pete Hegseth, sworn in just days ago as Donald Trump’s defense secretary, posted on social media that an investigation had been launched by the army and the defense department.

This is a developing story. Follow our live blog here.

What’s the latest on displaced Palestinians in Gaza? For a third straight day, thousands of Palestinians in southern Gaza trekked by foot, motorbike and animal-drawn carts back to their homes in the war-ravaged north. The UN estimates more than 376,000 Palestinians have reached northern Gaza.

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SoftBank ‘in talks’ to invest up to $25bn in OpenAI

Reported move would make Japanese group largest financial backer of US startup behind ChatGPT

The Japanese investment group SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to $25bn (£20bn) in OpenAI in a deal that would make it the biggest financial backer of the startup behind ChatGPT.

The lender is considering putting a sum of between $15bn and $25bn into the San Francisco-based company, according to the Financial Times.

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Trump’s US aid freeze will drive migration from Latin America, experts warn

Abrupt decision to pause all foreign aid could exacerbate violence in region already struggling with organized crime

The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to immediately pause all US foreign aid programmes could exacerbate violence in Latin America, driving more migration from a region already struggling with the rise of organised crime, experts have warned.

The world’s largest aid provider by far, the US disbursed $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to South American countries in the 2023 financial year, funding a broad range of projects, including humanitarian, military, environmental and economic aid.

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Canada and Mexico can avoid tariffs before Saturday’s deadline, says Trump’s commerce pick

Howard Lutnick testified at his US Senate confirmation hearing for his nomination to head commerce department

Donald Trump’s nominee to run the commerce department, Howard Lutnick, said on Wednesday that Canada and Mexico can avoid looming US tariffs if they act swiftly to close their borders to fentanyl, while vowing to slow China’s advancement in artificial intelligence.

Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street CEO, at his US Senate confirmation hearing said he has advised Trump to pursue across-the-board tariffs country by country to restore “reciprocity” to America’s trading relationships and said he would erect stronger curbs on China’s access to US technology, including advanced AI semiconductors.

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Fed holds interest rates steady amid uncertainty over Trump’s impact on economy

President has made clear he wants rates to fall as benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%

Federal Reserve officials decided on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s impact on the US economy looms and inflation remains above the central bank’s target levels.

This is the first time Fed policymakers have met since the president, who has made clear he wants rates to fall, returned to the White House. The benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.

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White House revokes spending freeze in face of legal challenges

Move come after federal judge blocked freeze that disrupted payments to medical and childcare providers

Donald Trump’s administration pulled back a proposed spending freeze that threatened to disrupt hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to US programs, a White House official said on Wednesday.

The first major domestic policy reversal of the Republican president’s new term came after one federal judge had temporarily blocked the freeze and before another judge was due to hear a separate legal challenge. The proposal had thrown the federal government into chaos and disrupted payments to medical and childcare providers.

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Meta to report fourth-quarter earnings amid DeepSeek mania and ballooning AI investments

Zuckerberg likely to be asked about plans to spend $60-65bn on AI in 2025 as tech giant faces increased competition

Meta will report earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024 after US stock markets close on Wednesday.

Analysts will probably ask about Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to spend between $60bn and $65bn on AI infrastructure in 2025. That is up from the $50bn the CEO said he expected to spend at the end of last quarter. But as Meta faces increased competition, especially from new player DeepSeek AI, the company is ramping up its AI efforts.

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Harvey Weinstein back in court as judge set to decide #MeToo retrial start

Disgraced producer wants extra charge involving allegation from woman who was not in original case throw out

A judge on Wednesday set a 15 April trial date for Harvey Weinstein’s retrial, as the disgraced movie mogul pleaded in court to move the trial date sooner citing health conditions.

Weinstein appeared in court in New York on Wednesday morning, seated in a wheelchair. He addressed the court and begged the Manhattan criminal court judge Curtis Farber to move up the trial date to before 15 April, expressing he “can’t hold on anymore”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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Federal workers decry Trump attempt to force mass resignations as ‘cruel joke’

Advocates say email sent to 3 million employees offering resignations is dangerous and ‘of questionable legality’

Federal workers and their advocates on Wednesday condemned the Trump administration’s attempt to encourage them to resign en masse, describing an unprecedented email from the government’s human resources department office as a ham-handed attempt to create hostility in their workplaces and offer a false promise of an easy transition out of government service.

On Tuesday, the US office of personnel management (OPM) sent nearly all of its 3 million employees an email offering them deferred resignations and warning that, if they choose to stay, they may be laid off or reassigned.

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Mexico to question Google over Gulf name change after Trump order

Claudia Sheinbaum says US government does not have right to change name of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America

Mexico will send a letter to Google to question its decision to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico for users of Google Maps in the US.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the US government did not have the right to rename the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico, much of which is in international waters.

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EU launches ‘simplification’ agenda in effort to keep up with US and China

Ursula von der Leyen announces plans to cut red tape and boost innovation in second term as head of European Commission

The EU executive has announced “an unprecedented simplification effort” to cut regulations and boost innovation in an attempt to reverse Europe’s economic decline and better compete with China and the US.

In her first major policy announcement since starting a second term as the European Commission president last month, Ursula von der Leyen outlined policy proposals intended to boost Europe’s flagging economy.

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Wednesday briefing: The problems, perils and precedent of ‘cleaning out’ Gaza

In today’s newsletter: After Donald Trump’s remarks, renewed alarm about what will follow the first phase of the ceasefire

Good morning. Donald Trump presented his proposal as one rooted in a concern for the safety of Palestinians: it was time to find many of the residents of Gaza somewhere else to live. “I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” he said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”

That was more than stream of consciousness: Trump doubled down on his comments on Monday. But the idea of “cleaning out” Gaza is not welcomed by the Palestinians who live there – or the countries that Trump has in mind as their new home. And if they were to be forced to leave after Gaza was devastated by the Israeli military, it would appear to be a clear case of ethnic cleansing.

Kumbh Mela festival | Dozens of people are feared to have died in crowd crushes at India’s Kumbh Mela festival, local officials have said, as vast crowds went to bathe at one of the holiest sites of the Hindu gathering. People were crushed in the early hours of Wednesday as tens of millions flocked to immerse themselves in the sacred confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

UK economy | Rachel Reeves is unveiling plans to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” between Oxford and Cambridge as she stakes the government’s success on kickstarting economic growth. The chancellor will announce a blueprint to improve infrastructure across the region in the hope of adding £78bn to the UK economy within a decade.

Extremism | Yvette Cooper will reject internal Home Office advice to widen the definition of extremism to include violent misogyny and conspiracy theorists, the Guardian understands. The home secretary is expected to reject a report saying that authorities should adopt an “ideologically agnostic” approach in favour of focusing on Islamist and far-right violence.

Tax | Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Russian oligarch, may owe British tax authorities as much as £1bn, according to analysis of documents that suggests his companies failed to pay tax on profits made through an elaborate offshore investment scheme.

Technology | US tech stocks tentatively recovered on Tuesday after the emergence of the Chinese DeepSeek app wiped $1tn (£800bn) in value from the leading US tech index. Nvidia recovered somewhat from Monday’s 17% drop, rising 9%.

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Oklahoma schools plan to require proof of students’ immigration status

Proposal from state board of education condemned by teachers and rights groups, as parents and students protest

Parents enrolling children in Oklahoma public schools will be required to provide proof of their child’s US citizenship or legal immigration status under a proposed rule approved Tuesday by the state board of education.

The board voted unanimously to approve the rule aimed at helping Donald Trump’s immigration policies. It still needs to be approved by the legislature and the governor.

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Trump offers US federal workers buyouts to resign

Government employees’ union says offer pressures career workers to quit and will cause chaos in federal programs

The Trump administration has offered federal workers buyouts worth more than seven months’ salary if they would leave their jobs by 6 February as the White House attempts to slash the civil service in an unprecedented overhaul of US government.

The office of personnel management, the government’s human resources agency, sent a memo to the federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating, including a full-time return to the office for most employees. It also said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and warned that most agencies would be downsized.

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California officials deny Trump’s claim that US military ‘turned on the water’ in state

State water officials say military ‘did not enter California’ and ‘federal government restarted federal water pumps’

California water officials said this week there’s no truth to Donald Trump’s assertion that the US military has entered California and “turned on the water”.

Trump’s comments, made on Monday on his social media platform Truth Social, are the latest in a series of remarks he’s made and actions he’s taken related to the state’s water policy following devastating wildfires that ripped through the Los Angeles area this month. He’s often offering an incomplete or incorrect assessment of the state’s water policies or tying together unrelated issues.

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How Trump tariffs could upend car markets in Europe, the US and China

Levies threaten exporters to US market, while scrapping of subsidies will hit EV sales – and Tesla could gain

The internal combustion engine appears to hold a special place in Donald Trump’s psyche. During his inauguration speech last week, he made a “sacred pledge” to raise US car production to “a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago”.

Car making and the oil industry – not AI, computer chips, or even cryptocurrencies – were the only two industries the new US president highlighted as he promised to make America a “manufacturing nation once again”.

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Special counsel prosecutors were fired on instructions of White House

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt says late-night dismissals came after White House’s personnel office issued memo

The justice department fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors involved in the two criminal prosecutions against Donald Trump after receiving instructions to do so from the White House, indicating the late-night purge was a political directive that deputized the justice department.

The termination of the career prosecutors were ostensibly at the direction of the acting attorney general, James McHenry, according to the notices sent to anyone remaining on the trial team of 18 who had worked for former special counsel Jack Smith.

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