Somalia, DR Congo and Yemen among states forced to sign deals and barter their minerals for aid or military support
Some of the world’s poorest countries have started paying millions to lobbyists linked to Donald Trump to try to offset US cuts to foreign aid, an investigation reveals.
Somalia, Haiti and Yemen are among 11 countries to sign significant lobbying deals with figures tied directly to the US president after he slashed US foreign humanitarian assistance.
Continue reading...Latest threats heighten fears that the president’s erratic trade strategy risks exacerbating inflation across the US
Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that his administration will hit Brazil with a 50% tariff on products sent to the US, tying the move to what he called the “witch-hunt” trial against its former president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Posting letters on Truth Social, the US president had earlier in the day targeted seven other countries – the Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka – for stiff US tariffs on foreign exports starting on 1 August.
Continue reading...Trump administration targets special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, in latest action against critics of Israel’s war
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday it was issuing sanctions against an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, the latest effort by the United States to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza.
The state department’s decision to sanction Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, comes after a recent US pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post failed.
Continue reading...Trump inquired where Liberian president Joseph Boakai got his language skills during meeting with African leaders
Donald Trump was basking in the praise of a group of African leaders on Wednesday, when the Liberian president took the microphone.
“Liberia is a longtime friend of the United States and we believe in your policy of making America great again,” President Joseph Boakai said in English at a White House meeting before advocating for US investment in his country. “We just want to thank you so much for this opportunity.”
Continue reading...Justice department says state policy violates Title IX, which offers legal protection against sex discrimination
The Trump administration has sued California over its policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ school sports, alleging that their participation violates federal anti-discrimination laws.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims that California’s policies violate Title IX, which affords legal protection against sex discrimination.
Continue reading...Ongoing surge in demand for AI technology fueled stratospheric rise of chipmaker’s value
Chipmaker Nvidia became the first public company in history to scale a $4tn market value on Wednesday as its stock price continues a years-long stratospheric rise.
Shares of the top chip designer rose roughly 2.4% to $164, benefiting from the ongoing surge in demand for artificial intelligence technologies. Nvidia’s chips and associated software are considered world leaders for building artificial intelligence products.
Continue reading...Health secretary backs company criticized for selling junk-laden meals to Medicaid patients on ‘Make America healthy again’ tour
Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr promoted a company whose meals contain ultra-processed ingredients – which he has repeatedly railed against – on his “Make America healthy again” tour.
Kennedy appeared at an enormous food plant in Oklahoma for a company called Mom’s Meals, which makes 1.5m “medically tailored” meals each week and ships them all over the country.
Continue reading...Deportees include two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico
War-torn South Sudan has said it is holding a group of eight men controversially deported from the United States.
Only one of them is from South Sudan. The rest comprise two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico.
Continue reading...Trinity Rodman, girlfriend of tennis star Ben Shelton, was repeatedly called ‘Tiffany’ during Wimbledon coverage
The BBC commentator Andrew Castle has apologised after repeatedly getting the name of a top American footballer wrong.
Trinity Rodman, who is the girlfriend of the American tennis player Ben Shelton, criticised the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage in which Castle called her “Tiffany” several times.
Continue reading...US president appears to have run out of patience with his Russian counterpart – but how that transmits into practical support for Kyiv remains to be seen
“I’m not happy with Putin. I can tell you that much right now,” Trump said, expressing his frustration with the Russian leader over the war in Ukraine. “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin … He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
It may not have been Churchillian in oratorical flourish, and with Trump everything is capable of being reversed in hours, but possibly, just possibly, the rupture between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has happened. If so it is a transformatory moment, and a vindication for both Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he arrives in Rome for the annual Ukraine reconstruction conference and for those others, notably the British and the French governments, who have patiently helped the scales to fall from Trump’s eyes about Putin’s true intentions. At long last and after many false starts, the US president seems to have accepted he is unpersuadable on ending the war.
Continue reading...US defendants can waive right to jury trial and in Germany jury trials were abolished in 1924
One of the most significant recommendations in a review of the criminal courts in England and Wales, expected to be published this week, is likely to be the scrapping of jury trials for certain offences.
The idea in Sir Brian Leveson’s independent inquiry is that it will help reduce the record backlog in the courts. But for many the right to a jury trial, except for the most minor offences, is synonymous with the right to a fair trial and watering it down would be hugely controversial.
Continue reading...Mario Guevara, arrested in Georgia while covering a protest, still detained after Ice refused his family’s bond payment
A week after an immigration judge granted him bond, a Spanish-language journalist who was arrested while covering a protest last month remains in federal custody.
Police just outside Atlanta arrested Mario Guevara while he was covering a protest on 14 June, and he was turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) several days later. He was being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston – in south-east Georgia, near the Florida border – when an immigration judge last week granted him bond.
Continue reading...TSA ends screening check in place for almost 20 years after Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down flight in 2001
For the first time in almost 20 years, travelers are no longer be required to take off their shoes during security screenings at certain US airports, Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, announced on Tuesday.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has abandoned the additional security step that has for years bedeviled anyone passing through US airports, according to media reports.
Continue reading...Justices lift lower court order that froze ‘reductions in force’ federal layoffs while litigation in case proceeded
The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services.
Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds.
Continue reading...Texas governor Greg Abbott said many people staying in state’s Hill Country still unaccounted for as questions mount over official response to disaster
Rescue crews continued on Tuesday to comb through parts of the Texas Hill Country devastated by catastrophic flash flooding over the Fourth of July weekend, but with more than 100 dead and hope fading for survivors, efforts have increasingly turned to search and recovery.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the death toll across the six affected counties surpassed 100. Most of the deaths were in Kerr county, where officials said 87 bodies had so far been recovered, including 56 adults and 30 children. Identification was pending for 19 adults and seven children with one additional person still unidentified, county sheriff Larry Leitha told a news conference.
Continue reading...Team of firefighters and first responders volunteer along Guadalupe River after mass flooding in show of solidarity
A contingent of firefighters and first responders from Mexico arrived in Texas over the weekend to aid in search and rescue efforts following the devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River in a show of solidarity with their northern neighbors.
“When it comes to firefighters, there’s no borders,” Ismael Aldaba, founder of Fundación 911, in Acuña, Mexico, told CNN on Tuesday. “There’s nothing that’ll avoid us from helping another firefighter, another family. It doesn’t matter where we’re at in the world. That’s the whole point of our discipline and what we do.”
Continue reading...On Capitol Hill, Israeli PM says ‘demonization’ led to drop in support for Israel among US voters, especially Democrats
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he’s vowed to combat an orchestrated social media campaign of “vilification and demonization” that he says is responsible for a drop in support for Israel among US voters, especially Democrats.
“I think there’s been a concerted effort to spread vilification and demonization against Israel on social media,” the Israeli prime minister told journalists on Capitol Hill after being asked to respond to opinion polls showing a move away from the historic trend of strong backing for Israel.
Continue reading...Comments suggest obstacle to Trump’s wish to announce deal during Netanyahu’s Washington visit
Progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza has been slow, officials in Qatar say, dashing hopes of a rapid end to hostilities in the devastated Palestinian territory.
The new round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas began on Sunday, after both sides accepted a broad US-sponsored outline of a deal for an initial 60-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the 21-month conflict.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump meet at the White House, a look at what is at stake for everyone involved
Good morning. The war in Gaza – which began with the horror of the Hamas slaughter and kidnapping of innocent Israelis on 7 October 2023, and has brought unimaginable death and destruction to the civilian population of Gaza almost every day since – has entered its 21st month.
So far every attempt to end the conflict has failed. But the the fraying patience of the US president, Donald Trump, who has promised to deliver peace to Gaza, has seen Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatch a team of negotiators to Qatar for indirect talks with Hamas, with the Israeli leader expected to come under pressure on this week’s trip to Washington DC to agree to a ceasefire.
Immigration | Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are expected to announce plans for French police to do more to block small boats crossing the Channel at a summit in London this week, but a wider deal on returning asylum seekers is still up in the air.
Iran | The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said in an interview released on Monday that Israel, which last month fought a 12-day war with Iran, had attempted to assassinate him by bombarding an area in which he was holding a meeting.
Poverty | Children in England are living in “almost Dickensian levels of poverty” where deprivation has become normalised, the children’s commissioner has said, as she insisted the two-child benefit limit must be scrapped.
Environment | Millions of tonnes of treated sewage sludge is spread on farmland across the UK every year despite containing forever chemicals, microplastics and toxic waste. An investigation by the Guardian and Watershed has identified England’s sludge-spreading hotspots and shown where the practice could be damaging rivers.
US news | The Texas senator Ted Cruz ensured the Republican spending bill slashed funding for weather forecasting, only to then go on vacation to Greece while his state was hit by deadly flooding – a disaster that critics say was worsened by cuts to meteorology.
Continue reading...Remains of two victims of seven people who went missing in the explosion are yet to be recovered
Family members are still searching for answers following last week’s explosion at a fireworks warehouse in northern California. Authorities confirmed on Sunday that the remains of the seven people missing in the blast have been recovered.
Family and community members have confirmed five of the victims as Jesus Ramos, Jhony Ramos, Joel “Junior” Melendez, Angel Voller and Carlos Rodriguez. Two victims are still unidentified.
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