Category Archives: US News

British composer Daniel Blumberg wins best original score Oscar for The Brutalist

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Sole previous scoring credit on a full-length film for the singer, guitar player and visual artist is The World to Come

The young British composer Daniel Blumberg has won his first Oscar for his second-ever musical score for a feature film, for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.

Blumberg, 34, won the Bafta award last month for the score, which has met with considerable praise and which plays a prominent role in the film. The Brutalist is the story of a fictitious Hungarian architect, László Tóth, who moves to the US after surviving the Holocaust.

Anora takes home best picture Oscar

Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes

Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards

Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay

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No Other Land directors criticise US as they accept documentary Oscar: ‘US foreign policy is helping block the path’ to peace

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Self-distributed film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community beat out Porcelain War and Sugarcane

The West Bank-based film No Other Land has won this year’s best documentary feature Oscar.

The film, which is made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, won out against competition from Black Box Diaries, Porcelain War and Sugarcane.

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Defiant but tactful Zelenskyy seeks to move on from White House fiasco

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Ukraine’s president says after Oval Office meltdown best ‘left to history’, adding minerals deal is ready to sign

A defiant but tactful Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused to apologise to Donald Trump after Friday’s spat in the White House, and declared that the row in the Oval Office “did not bring anything positive” to peace for Ukraine.

Speaking to journalists only in Ukrainian at the end of a two-day visit to the UK, the Ukrainian president said that when such delicate negotiations are held in public “foes can take advantage of them” though he said he hoped the row would eventually pass.

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Trump invites freed Israeli hostage to White House

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Israeli media reports Israeli American Trump donor will fly Eli Sharabi to Washington DC to meet president this week

The freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to Washington to meet Donald Trump this week, his brother told Israeli media on Sunday.

Sharabi, who was released from Gaza after 16 months in captivity, expects to meet Trump with other freed hostages on Tuesday, after the US president watched him describe the severe hunger and violence he endured on Israeli television.

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US tariffs on Canada and Mexico coming Tuesday but may not be 25%, commerce chief says

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‘That is a fluid situation,’ Howard Lutnick says in first indication that administration may not impose full tariffs

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that US tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday, but the president would determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level.

“That is a fluid situation,” Lutnick told the Fox News program Sunday Morning Futures.

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Europe has a lot to do before it can exert real influence on a Ukraine peace deal

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The continent’s role in any ceasefire will be limited unless countries commit more to Kiev and the Zelenskyy-Trump relationship is repaired

Europe and the UK are hoping they are on the brink of assembling a credible military coalition that Donald Trump can only refuse to support at risk of appearing openly to ally with Vladimir Putin – an alliance many grassroots Republicans reject.

The plan is a long shot since it requires enough countries inside Nato to offer practical support to such a coalition of the willing, and also needs Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, to patch up his relations with Donald Trump following Friday’s Oval Office meeting.

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Multiple wildfires in North and South Carolina force evacuations

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Emergency unfolds amid warnings throughout south-east over dry and windy conditions that exacerbate wildfires

Several wildfires were reported on Saturday in North and South Carolina, forcing evacuations.

The emergency unfolded amid warnings throughout the south-east over dry and windy conditions that exacerbate wildfires.

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Kremlin says US foreign policy pivot ‘largely coincides with our vision’

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Russia’s foreign minister also praises Donald Trump for his ‘commonsense’ aim to end the war in Ukraine

The Kremlin said on Sunday that the dramatic pivot in the foreign policy of the US “largely” coincides with its own vision, with Donald Trump described as having “common sense”.

The US president, who has often said he respects his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, has worked to build ties with Moscow since taking office in January, including twice siding with Russia in UN votes.

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Hazel Dukes, lifelong civil rights leader, dies aged 92

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President of the NAACP New York state chapter fought tirelessly for voting rights, fair housing and education

Hazel Dukes, the president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP and lifelong civil rights advocate, died Saturday at the age of 92.

Dukes peacefully passed away in her New York City home surrounded by family, her son, Ronald Dukes, said in a statement.

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US Postal Service faces murky future as Trump mulls dismantling institution

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Resistance to any proposals remains speculative until administration lays out its plan for the federal agency

After the postmaster general, Louis Dejoy, a former Trump fundraiser and logistics executive appointed during the president’s first term, announced last month that he was stepping down, defenders of the US Postal Service (USPS) concerned that the 249-year-old institution could soon experience the slice and slash of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” scimitar have expressed alarm.

Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to dissolve USPS’s bipartisan board of governors and place the agency under the control of the commerce department secretary, Howard Lutnick, the Washington Post recently reported.

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Tim Walz regrets getting ‘sucked in’ to addressing Trump’s pet-eating lies

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Harris running mate discussed campaign missteps after saying he’ll run for third term as Minnesota governor

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate in the November presidential election won by Donald Trump, says he deplores how much time he spent addressing the opposing campaign’s decision to spread false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in Springfield, Ohio.

“They sucked me in on” that, Walz said in a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. Echoing similar remarks that he made on a recent episode of the Fast Politics With Molly Jong-Fast podcast, he added: “I was just horrified and angry when they were demonizing folks in Springfield, Ohio. [And] there I was talking for almost a week about immigration, right where they wanted us to be.”

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Trump is making Central America become a dumping ground for US immigrants

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President bullying countries’ leaders into collaborating with his deportation agenda that critics say violates rights

Central America has long been a source of immigrants, and in recent years, it’s also become a major transit route for those from around the world heading to the United States.

That shift led to record numbers of immigrants arriving at the US border, and contributed to the supposed crisis that helped Donald Trump win the election this past November.

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‘America is going down’: China can capitalise on damage caused by Trump, former PLA colonel says

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Exclusive: Zhou Bo says harm done to US image may make Taiwanese reconsider their attitude towards Beijing but says he sees Trump as overall being ‘rather friendly’

The damage caused by Donald Trump to the United States’ reputation is creating opportunities for China, particularly with regards to Taiwan, according to a retired senior colonel from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Speaking to the Guardian in Beijing, Zhou Bo said that Trump was damaging the US’s reputation “more than all of his predecessors combined”.

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Trump signs executive order designating English as official language of US

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Directive allows government organisations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer services in languages other than English

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.

The order on Saturday allows government agencies and organisations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in languages other than English.

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ACLU sues to block White House from sending 10 immigrants to Guantánamo

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Latest federal lawsuit so far applies only to 10 men detained in the US and facing transfer to the naval base in Cuba

Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 undocumented immigrants detained in the US to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, their second legal challenge in less than a month over plans to hold up to 30,000 people there for deportation.

The latest federal lawsuit so far applies only to 10 men facing transfer to the naval base in Cuba, and their attorneys said the administration will not notify them of who would be transferred or when. As with a lawsuit the same attorneys filed earlier this month for access to people already detained there, the latest case was filed in Washington and is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

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Andrew Cuomo announces run for mayor of New York City

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Democrat resigned as governor three years ago after being accused of sexual harassment and Covid mismanagement

Former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday announced a run for mayor of New York City, an attempt to come back from a sexual harassment scandal that forced him to resign more than three years earlier.

Cuomo, 77, served as governor from 2011 to 2021, guiding the state through the worst, deadliest months of the Covid-19 crisis. But he was forced to resign in August of his final year as governor when an investigation commissioned by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women during his time in office.

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David Johansen, frontman of New York Dolls, dies aged 75

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Flamboyant singer helped point his city’s music scene towards punk, before a successful solo career and eye-catching acting roles

David Johansen, the swaggering, peacocking frontman with glam rock band New York Dolls, has died aged 75.

Last month he had announced he was living with cancer, and recently suffered a broken back. “David Johansen passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers,” reads a statement on a website created to raise funds for his medical care.

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FedEx plane catches fire after bird strike in New Jersey, makes emergency landing

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Cargo aircraft caught fire after striking bird shortly after departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning

A FedEx cargo airplane caught on fire after striking a bird shortly after the plane’s departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, according to officials.

There were no injuries reported onboard, and the plane made an emergency return to Newark Liberty international airport.

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‘Bewildering’: US media and politicians react to Trump’s televised attack on Zelenskyy

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The showdown between the US president and the Ukrainian leader dumbfounded various outlets and politicos

One television star turned president visits another far more powerful one on a stage set and attempts to introduce a plot twist of sorts. What could go wrong?

The high-stakes White House showdown that unfolded on Friday after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded US security guarantees was deemed a damaging setback to Donald Trump’s goal of forging a peace deal – and a win for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin – by some US political commentators.

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How do we make Europe more secure? Here are five steps we need to take now

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Europe can’t wait to react to Trump’s mood swings but must show we have the will and the wallet to take back control

• Ukraine war live

It’s exhausting and humiliating to have no control – watching every meeting in the Oval Office for a glimmer of Trump’s approval or displeasure, our security resting on a perceived slight or a mood.

The last week of meetings between Trump, Macron, Starmer and finally Zelenskyy always felt like crawling across a minefield. Some might agonise about whether Zelenskyy could have played things differently. It’s the wrong question. The point is that we can’t carry on being so dependent on every meeting at the White House. Until we start taking charge of our future, we will always be one heart palpitation away from dreading doomsday.

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