3 d. ago Trump reveals his new secret weapon nicknamed 'The Discombobulator' used to take down America's enemies: 'I'm not allowed to talk about it'

The debilitating device was used earlier this month in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro on drug trafficking charges. Trump first made mention of it earlier this week.

Politics

3 d. ago Red meat, no lettuce: Nigel Farage and Liz Truss attend private lunch after week of Tory defections

Meal at Mayfair club took place on day Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick criticised former PM’s mini-budgetIf it was on the menu, a side helping of lettuce never made it to the table. Over blood-red steak and chips, Nigel Farage and Liz Truss came together on Monday for a discreet lunch at a swish Mayfair club, organised by a climate-denying US thinktank.Lois Perry, a former leader of the far-right Ukip party who is now Europe director of the Heartland Institute, posted photographs, now deleted, on X of Farage addressing others, including Truss, at the meal. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago How we draw the age of Trump and turmoil: two cartoonists go head

Martin Rowson has been drawing for the Guardian since the 1980s; Ella Baron since 2022. In paint and pixels, each is tasked with capturing the chaos and absurdity of our political momentPhotographs and video by David LeveneGallery: cartoonists Martin Rowson and Ella Baron at work – in picturesMartin Rowson and Ella Baron are both regular contributors to the Guardian’s daily political cartoon. Martin has been with the Guardian for decades; Ella has been contributing since 2022. This week, we challenged the pair to draw on the same subject (Trump and a world in turmoil), on the same day, to see what each – with their different styles, tools and perspectives – would come up with. Martin landed on a Shakespearean scene, with a warped “King Leer” flanked by snickering world leaders. Ella proposed him squatting in a dystopian nest, surrounded by his spoils. Below, each reflects on their process, the challenges and joys of political cartoons, and what they have learned from one another. Co...

Politics

4 d. ago As the world finally punches back, was this the week Donald Trump went too far? | Jonathan Freedland

The US president took his bullying doctrine to Davos and hit a wall of opposition. If this creates a new western alliance against him, all to the goodThe temptation is strong to hope that the storm has passed. To believe that a week that began with a US threat to seize a European territory, whether by force or extortion, has ended with the promise of negotiation and therefore a return to normality. But that is a dangerous delusion. There can be no return to normality. The world we thought we knew has gone. The only question now is what takes its place – a question that will affect us all, that is full of danger and that, perhaps unexpectedly, also carries a whisper of hope.Forget that Donald Trump eventually backed down from his threats to conquer Greenland, re-holstering the economic gun he had put to the head of all those countries who stood in his way, the UK among them. The fact that he made the threat at all confirmed what should have been obvious since he returned to office a ...

Politics

4 d. ago ‘At the table or on the menu’: a turbulent Davos week with Trump’s circus in town

Dissenting voices were few and far between as the US president brought his smash-and-grab politics to the WEF“If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, was the darling of Davos this week as he rallied resistance to Donald Trump’s smash and grab politics and his voracious appetite for other countries’ wealth and land.“Call it what it is,” he told delegates. “A system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion”. He urged “middle powers” to band together or be crushed, and was rewarded with a standing ovation. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Economic leaders at Davos say global growth is resilient despite disruption from Trump

Leading global economic policymakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos urged countries and businesses to filter out the turmoil from a week of clashes with the Trump administration and focus on boosting growth and fighting inequality in a world where trade will continue to flow and international cooperation is still badly needed

Politics

4 d. ago Democrats are campaigning as if the 2026 election will be fair. That’s a mistake | Austin Sarat

Trump’s remarks and Project 2025’s proposals have made the plan clear. Democrats must focus on stopping itLast week, during an Oval Office Interview with Reuters, Donald Trump touted his accomplishments and suggested that they are so great that “we shouldn’t even have an election” in November. Not surprisingly, that comment made headlines.But it is at best a distraction from the real threat: the United States will have elections this year, but they will not be free and fair. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Trump orders a 'massive' military fleet toward Iran with ominous warning about what could come next: 'We're watching'

Donald Trump warned Iran that the United States is 'watching' and has an armada headed toward the region a week after violent protests that many believed would force Trump to strike Tehran

Events

4 d. ago Doomscrolling won’t bring order to the chaos. It’s OK to put the phone down and take a break | Gaby Hinsliff

Keep Calm and Carry On: that’s not how people felt as the second world war loomed. But maybe, as Trump stalks, that old slogan is finally making senseIt has become known as the “war of nerves”. An apt name for a jittery, jangling time in British history, consumed with fear of what may be coming, in which the sheer unpredictability of life became – as the historian Prof Julie Gottlieb writes – a form of psychological warfare. Contemporary reports describe “threats of mysterious weapons, gigantic bluff, and a cat-and-mouse game intended to stampede the civilian population of this island into terror”.It all sounds uncannily like life under Donald Trump, who this week marched the world uphill to war, only to amble just as inexplicably back down again. But Gottlieb is actually describing the period between the Munich crisis of 1938 and the blitz beginning in earnest in September 1940. Her fascinating study of letters, diaries and newspapers from the period focuses not on the big geopolit...

Events

5 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Stooped old egomaniac Trump was a forcefield of attention. Europe's club

Forget Greenland. This was the week Donald Trump colonised Davos - and much that it represented.

Politics

5 d. ago Tenacious D will return: Jack Black and Kyle Gass ‘hashed it out’ after Trump joke controversy

The band went on hiatus after outrage over onstage joke in 2024, but Gass confirms the band will return, saying: ‘It was hard. It is like a marriage’Tenacious D member Kyle Gass has confirmed that he and bandmate Jack Black have reconciled and will reunite, after outrage over an onstage joke about the assassination attempt on the US president, Donald Trump, lead to the band going on hiatus.While performing in Sydney in July 2024, when Black suggested he make a wish for his birthday while blowing candles on stage, Gass responded, “Don’t miss Trump next time”, referring to the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania earlier that week. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Olympics chief admits she has not spoken to US president Trump about LA 2028 Games

Kirsty Coventry steers clear of global politics in buildupOrganisers will meet with vice-president JD VanceThe International Olympic Committee has yet to establish formal communications with the US president Donald Trump on preparations for the Los Angeles Games in 2028, the IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, has confirmed.Trump has been speaking in Davos in Switzerland after a turbulent start to 2026 during which he has suggested he will invade Greenland, threatened a trade war with Europe and ousted the Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago Steve Bannon gloats about lack of ‘resistance’ to Trump’s second term

‘You have to take it however deep you can take it and, quite frankly, until you meet resistance. And we haven’t met any resistance,’ former Trump strategist said this week

Politics

7 d. ago Trump ‘crossing red lines’ says Belgian PM after US president warns ‘there can be no going back’ on Greenland – Europe live

Belgium’s PM says Europe is ‘at a crossroads’ and 80 years of Atlantacism could be drawing to a close Trump cites UK’s ‘stupidity’ over Chagos Islands as reason to take over GreenlandAnd Davos looks like the place to be this week, with Trump now declaring that after his call with Nato’s Rutte he will have “a meeting of the various parties” on Greenland – whatever that means and whoever is going to be involved.Separately, it’s not clear if Macron’s offer of setting up a G7 meeting on the sidelines was accepted (although looking at timings it would risk clashing with the emergency EU summit on Thursday night), but his separate invitation to a dinner at the Élysée Palace might be gone after Trump’s very pointed and personal criticism of the French president.Attacked the UK, mockingly calling it a “brilliant” ally, for “shocking” plan to hand over sovereignity of the Chagos islands to Mauritius (despite previous US support), saying it’s among a “long line” of reasons why Greenland “has ...

Events

7 d. ago Trump says ‘there can be no going back’ on Greenland as private messages from Macron leaked – Europe live

Flurry of posts on Truth Social firmly set out Trump’s Greenland stance to European leaders Trump cites UK’s ‘stupidity’ over Chagos Islands as reason to take over GreenlandAnd Davos looks like the place to be this week, with Trump now declaring that after his call with Nato’s Rutte he will have “a meeting of the various parties” on Greenland – whatever that means and whoever is going to be involved.Separately, it’s not clear if Macron’s offer of setting up a G7 meeting on the sidelines was accepted (although looking at timings it would risk clashing with the emergency EU summit on Thursday night), but his separate invitation to a dinner at the Élysée Palace might be gone after Trump’s very pointed and personal criticism of the French president.Attacked the UK, mockingly calling it a “brilliant” ally, for “shocking” plan to hand over sovereignity of the Chagos islands to Mauritius (despite previous US support), saying it’s among a “long line” of reasons why Greenland “has to be acqu...

Politics

8 d. ago Kremlin says Putin has been invited to join Trump’s Gaza ‘board of peace’

Putin shows no signs of ending Ukraine war and claim adds weight to accusation Trump favours Russian presidentThe Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza.The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Monday that Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, before giving its response. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Trump 'locked and loaded' to launch deadly strikes on Iran only to pull out at the last minute after new information came to light... as critics slam president's 'betrayal'

After spending much of this week escalating tensions with Iran, Donald Trump put a pause on any potential strikes.

Politics

1 week ago Trump to meet Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado later – US politics live

Trump and his top advisers have previously hinted at their willingness to work with acting president Delcy RodríguezThe US Senate has voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice.Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who had joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.The US Senate has voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice. Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who had joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.The Trump administration received ...

Politics

1 week ago Kari Lake defends blocking Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty from using US transmitter to broadcast into Iran

‘The fake news is in hyperdrive spreading lies right now about USAGM and RFE/RL broadcasting in Iran,’ Kari Lake declared in a Trumpian Facebook post this week.

Politics

1 week ago The Trump dynasty could run and run – but will Ivanka, Barron or Kai take the crown? | Arwa Mahdawi

This week, Trump’s granddaughter announced she definitely doesn’t want to go into politics. Expect a run for office very soonLast week Kai Trump, Donald Trump Jr’s daughter and the president’s eldest grandchild, publicly declared she had no plans to run for office. The 18-year-old appeared on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, where she stated that “politics is such a dangerous thing I think if both sides met in the middle, everyone would be so much more happier.” (Maybe tell that to your grandpa, kid.) “To be honest with you,” she said, “I stay out of politics completely I don’t want anything to do with politics.”Look, I know you’re still very young, Kai, so here’s a little advice from an old lady: maybe work just a teeny bit harder at keeping a safe distance from politics. It has not gone unobserved that the influencer and golfer has made a lot of content about life behind the scenes at the White House. She’s also launched an apparel collection, which she’s modelled on the White Hou...

Politics