Category Archives: US News

Trump reportedly fires watchdog who oversees USAid after damning report

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Paul Martin, an independent inspector general and Biden appointee, warned of drastic effects of shuttering USAid

Donald Trump reportedly fired the federal watchdog responsible for overseeing the US Agency for International Development (USAid) on Tuesday, one day after the independent inspector general issued a damning report detailing the impact of the president’s sudden dismantling of the agency.

Paul Martin, who was appointed by Joe Biden in December 2023, was dismissed in an email from Trent Morse, deputy director of the White House office of presidential personnel, seen by the Washington Post.

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Trump empowers Musk by ordering agencies to cooperate with Doge

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President’s order notes agency heads ‘will undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force’ with some exceptions

Donald Trump handed Elon Musk even more control over the federal government by preparing an executive order requiring agencies to cooperate with Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), a team Trump has assembled, when told to cut their workforces and limit the hiring of replacements.

The White House order, titled Implementing The President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative, said the goal is to “restore accountability to the American public” and that “this order commences a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy. By eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity, my Administration will empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of Government itself.”

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Marc Fogel: Trump says another release to come as he greets US teacher freeed by Russia

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President claims release of Pennsylvania teacher Marc Fogel, held in Russia since 2021, could be an important part of ending the Ukraine war

A US teacher who has been held in Russia since 2021 has been greeted at the White House by Donald Trump, who claimed the release could be an “important part” of ending the Ukraine war and that another, unidentified person would be released on Wednesday.

Marc Fogel, who arrived in the US on a flight from Moscow on Tuesday, said: “I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now. I’m a middle-class school teacher who’s now in a dream world.”

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Top Republican condemns Elon Musk for ‘supplication’ to China in new book

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Exclusive: Tom Cotton, Senate intelligence chair, risks angering key Trump ally with harsh words for ‘tech titans’

In a new book, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton condemns Elon Musk for “chasing Chinese dollars” and having “shamefully supplicated China’s Communist rulers”, in order to advance his own interests as chief executive of companies including Tesla and SpaceX.

It’s an explosive charge from the Republican chair of the powerful Senate intelligence committee, given that Musk, the world’s richest person, is a major donor and close adviser to Donald Trump, now working at the heart of the president’s administration to slash costs and reshape the federal government.

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First Thing: Musk-led group bids $97.4bn for control of OpenAI

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the offer will not be accepted. Plus, $500m of food aid could spoil amid USAid cuts

Good morning.

Elon Musk leads a consortium of investors that on Monday submitted a bid of $97.4bn for “all assets” of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, with Musk escalating his feud with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.

What did the bidders say? “If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. board of directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” said Marc Toberoff, the attorney representing the investors.

How did Altman respond? Altman posted on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74bn if you want.” Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44bn and renamed it X.

What are analysts saying now? “Now the election isn’t going to be about Trudeau,” said Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the Writ. “It will most likely be about the next four years – and who is best able to deal with Trump.”

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Trump’s mass deportation plans spark panic in the Caribbean amid fake news

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Nations try to reassure citizens as Trump threatens unprecedented crackdown but scale remains unclear

Nations across the Caribbean have been attempting to reassure their citizens at home and in the US after misinformation spread on social media channels caused widespread panic over Donald Trump’s plans for trade tariffs and mass deportations.

Alarming stories claiming that 5,000 Jamaicans had already been given final removal orders or that more than 1 million undocumented people were on federal enforcement lists, have caused concern across the region.

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Most charges against Gaza protesters dismissed but ‘intent is to scare people’

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Protesters are facing increasingly draconian charges that get dismissed but could still have a chilling effect

As pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out across the US during the first year of war in Gaza, thousands of people were arrested, charged, or cited for their involvement. Most of the cases against them did not stick, a new Guardian analysis of prosecution data in a dozen major cities finds.

About 60% of alleged offenses committed by protesters did not result in prosecutions. The Guardian identified about 2,800 charges, summons and citations brought or requested against Gaza protesters. Around 1,600 were dropped, dismissed or otherwise not filed, data shows.

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US and UK not among signatories of Paris AI summit declaration

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Two countries have not immediately explained reasons for not signing communique

The US and the UK have reportedly not signed the Paris AI summit’s declaration on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence.

The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”.

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Canada, Mexico and EU criticise Trump’s metal tariffs amid fears of trade war

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Ursula von der Leyen says tariffs ‘will not go unanswered’ as Justin Trudeau says Canadians will ‘stand up if we need to’

Canada, Mexico and the EU have sharply criticised Donald Trump’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports to the US, amid mounting fears of a global trade war.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday she “deeply regretted” the US president’s move, announced late on Monday, adding: “Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered.”

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Patti Smith to perform Horses in full on 50th anniversary tour

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Singer will visit US, UK and Europe later this year alongside members of the original band who recorded the classic punk text

Patti Smith is to perform her classic album Horses in full on a tour to mark the album’s 50th anniversary.

Playing gigs across the US, UK and Europe, Smith’s band will feature guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, each of whom played on the original recording. The tour includes two UK dates, at London’s Palladium on 12 and 13 October, with Dublin, Madrid, Bergamo, Brussels, Oslo and Paris also featuring on the European run. The US tour will visit Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington DC and Philadelphia.

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Trump announces 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum

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Modified US duties will be enforced ‘without exceptions’, said president, in controversial bid to boost economy

Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, ramping up his controversial bid to boost the US economy by hiking taxes on imports from overseas.

The modified US duties will be enforced “without exceptions or exemptions”, the president declared, dashing the hopes of countries that hoped to avoid them.

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Hamas suspends release of Israeli hostages over ‘violations’ of ceasefire

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Israeli military on alert as mediators fear a breakdown in three-week-old truce as Hamas says ‘door remains open’

Hamas has said it is delaying the release of Israeli hostages indefinitely over “violations” of the ceasefire deal, prompting Israel’s defence minister to put the country’s military on alert with orders to prepare for “any scenario in Gaza”.

Mediators fear a breakdown of the three-week-old ceasefire, Egyptian security sources told Reuters, and have postponed talks until they receive a clear indication of Washington’s intent to continue with the phased deal.

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Revelations of Israeli spyware abuse raise fears over possible use by Trump

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After WhatsApp claimed 90 users were targeted last year, experts concerned over how US could use cyberweapons

Even as WhatsApp celebrated a major legal victory in December against NSO Group, the Israeli maker of one of the world’s most powerful cyberweapons, a new threat was detected, this time involving another Israel-based company that has previously agreed contracts with democratic governments around the world – including the US.

Late in January, WhatsApp claimed that 90 of its users, including some journalists and members of civil society, were targeted last year by spyware made by a company called Paragon Solutions. The allegation is raising urgent questions about how Paragon’s government clients are using the powerful hacking tool.

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Key payment systems ‘under siege’ by Trump administration, experts warn

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Ex-treasury secretaries caution against administration’s subversion of checks and balances, specifically Musk

A group of five former US treasury secretaries are warning that the Trump administration has put the country’s key payment systems “under siege” and is undermining the checks and balances of the federal government.

The secretaries warned that the administration has compromised roles historically given to nonpartisan career civil servants and have replaced them with “political actors”, according to a New York Times op-ed published on Monday. The secretaries specifically called into question Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, and the appointees that Musk has installed within agencies, including the treasury department.

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Doge’s access to secure treasury payment system puts Americans’ privacy at risk, ex-secretaries warn – live

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Five former secretaries warn that foreign actors could benefit from data breaches as a result of Doge’s meddling

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he does not “take seriously” Donald Trump’s proposal that Palestinians be forcibly expelled from Gaza.

Speaking in Malaysia, Reuters reports Erdoğan, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in the region, said “We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously. No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba.”

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Trump says Palestinians will have no right of return to Gaza under his plan

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People will have ‘no alternative’ but to leave territory after destruction left by Israel, US president said in Fox interview

Donald Trump has said that his plan to “take over Gaza” would not include a right of return for the more than 2 million Palestinians that he has said have “no alternative” but to leave because of the destruction left by Israel’s military campaign.

The remarks are the latest effective endorsement of ethnic cleansing by the US president, who announced his plan last week during a summit with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the outrage of the Arab world and the surprise of even his closest aides.

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Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders threaten Americans’ health, experts say

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As certain terms are scrubbed from US health agency websites decades of vital data is vanishing, advocates warn

After Donald Trump signed executive orders ordering for mentions of race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities and other terms to be scrubbed from US health agency websites, experts say the implications for health and scientific research are vast.

All pages at US health agencies were told to take down these mentions after Trump signed certain executive orders on his first day in office.

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Trump revokes security clearance for Antony Blinken, calling him a ‘bad guy’

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President also plans to remove clearance for Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, New York officials who prosecuted him

Donald Trump said he had ordered that the security clearances of Antony Blinken, the now former secretary of state, be revoked just days after doing the same to Joe Biden late on Friday.

In an interview with the New York Post published over the weekend, the US president confirmed he would withdraw Blinken’s security clearance, calling him a “bad guy”.

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Tom Robbins, comic novelist of US counterculture, dies aged 92

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Author of books including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Another Roadside Attraction, was known for his outlandish tales of sex, drugs and mysticism

Tom Robbins, whose novels read like a hit of literary LSD, filled with fantastical characters, manic metaphors and counterculture whimsy, has died aged 92.

The author of works including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Another Roadside Attraction and Still Life With Woodpecker, died on Sunday, his wife, Alexa Robbins, wrote on Facebook. The post did not cite a cause.

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Trump to announce 25% aluminum and steel tariffs in latest trade escalation

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US president accused of ‘shifting goalposts’ by premier of Ontario for adding further tariffs on top of existing metal duties

Donald Trump has said he will announce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US on Monday that would affect “everybody’, including its largest trading partners Canada and Mexico, in another major escalation of his trade policy overhaul.

The US president, speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, also said he would announce reciprocal tariffs – raising US tariff rates to match those of trading partners – on Tuesday or Wednesday, which would take effect “almost immediately”. “And very simply, it’s, if they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said of the reciprocal tariff plan.

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