5 h. ago From Donald Trump to Benjamin Netanyahu, let 2026 be a year of reckoning | Jonathan Freedland

These malign figures will do anything to avoid paying for the harm they have done, but accountability must eventually come to bothIt’s not quite a new year resolution, and it’s certainly not a prediction. Think of it instead as a hope or even a plea for the next 12 months. May the coming year see those leaders who have done so much damage to their own countries, and far beyond, at last be called to account. Let 2026 be a year of reckoning.Start with the man whose reach is longest, by dint of the mighty power he wields. Such is the nature of the US electoral system that Donald Trump, who returned to power less than a year ago, will face the judgment of voters in 10 months’ time. His name will not be on the ballot but, make no mistake, the midterm elections of 3 November will deliver a verdict on the second Trump presidency.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistGuardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedla...

Politics

3 d. ago Trump to receive Israel's highest honor as he grants Netanyahu a free hand in Mar

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will award President Donald Trump the IsraelPrize, making the US leader the first non-Israeli to receive the award.

Politics

2 w. ago At the dark end of a brutal year, I’m grateful to these heroes for showing us the light | Jonathan Freedland

From Palestinians standing up to Hamas to the Bondi beach rescuers, great acts of courage offer hope even in the bleakest timesSome traditions are getting harder to maintain. Among them, my own custom of devoting the last column before Christmas to reasons to be hopeful. In recent years, amid war and bloodshed, that task has been especially challenging – and this week was no exception.It began with the news from Bondi beach, where 15 people were gunned down and dozens more injured, most of them Jews celebrating the festival of Hanukah. That came just two-and-a-half months after the deadly attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. To be a Jew at the end of 2025 is to fear that to gather together, whether at moments of joy or sorrow, is to take a mortal risk. That even to do relatively ordinary things together has become a matter of life and death.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and the author of The Traitors Circl...

Politics

3 w. ago Donald Trump is pursuing regime change – in Europe | Jonathan Freedland

The US made it clear this week that it plans to help the parties of the European far right gain power. Keir Starmer and his fellow leaders have to face this new realityWhen are we going to get the message? I joked a few months back that, when it comes to Donald Trump, Europe needs to learn from Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbes and realise that “He’s just not that into you”. After this past week, it’s clear that understates the problem. Trump’s America is not merely indifferent to Europe – it’s positively hostile to it. That has enormous implications for the continent and for Britain, which too many of our leaders still refuse to face.The depth of US hostility was revealed most explicitly in the new US national security strategy, or NSS, a 29-page document that serves as a formal statement of the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. There is much there to lament, starting with the sceptical quote marks that appear around the sole reference to “climate change”, but the ...

Politics

3 w. ago Time magazine names 'Architects of AI' as its person of the year for 2025

The “Architects of AI” were named Time magazine’s person of the year for 2025

Events

4 w. ago The Trump administration sinks to a new low – opening fire on drowning men | Jonathan Freedland

These deadly US boat strikes are the latest example of a president corrupting both the law and moralityThe Trump administration looks ever more like a criminal enterprise – and now it seems to have added war crimes to its repertoire. Though even that may be too generous a description.On Thursday, word came that the US military had launched yet another deadly strike on a small boat moving through international waters. This time the attack killed four people, bringing to at least 87 the number of people the US has killed in a series of 22 such strikes on what it says are drug boats – vessels carrying illicit narcotics in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistGuardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path. Book tickets h...

Events