2 h. ago US Senate passes aid and public broadcasting cuts in victory for Trump

Members vote 51 to 48 in favour of president’s request to slash $9bn in spending already approved by CongressThe US Senate has approved Donald Trump’s plan for billions of dollars in cuts to funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, handing the Republican president another victory as he exerts control over Congress with little opposition.The Senate voted 51 to 48 in favour of Trump’s request to cut $9bn in spending already approved by Congress. Continue reading...

Politics

14 h. ago ICE is now richer than most of world’s militaries thanks to Trump’s new funding

ICE’s annual budget increased from $8.7 billion to $27.7 billion

Events

15 h. ago What are rescissions – and why does Trump want Congress to approve them?

The president is pushing for cuts in spending that Congress needs to approve to take effect – but what exactly are they?US politics live – latest updatesCongressional Republicans are pushing for passage of a rescissions package, legislation requested by Donald Trump that will claw back $9bn in funding intended for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting.The bill, which is part of the president’s campaign to slash government spending, passed the House last month, and is now being debated in the Senate. Continue reading...

Politics

15 h. ago Trump administration sued by 20 states for cutting disaster prevention grants

Lawsuit claims Fema lacks power to cancel multibillion-dollar Bric program after it was approved by CongressA group of 20 mostly Democratic-led US states filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to block the Trump administration from terminating a multibillion-dollar grant program that funds infrastructure upgrades to protect against natural disasters.The lawsuit filed in Boston federal court claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) lacked the power to cancel the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program in April after it was approved and funded by Congress. Continue reading...

Politics

17 h. ago 20 states sue the Trump admin for cutting disaster prevention money

A group of 20 mostly Democrat-led U.S. states filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to block the Trump administration from terminating a multibillion-dollar grant program

Politics

68 h. ago Donald Trump's message that left Chelsea stars baffled revealed by lip reader

Chelsea became champions of the world with a stunning 3-0 win over PSG in the Club World Cup final that banked them a huge prize fund, but their celebrations on stage were overshadowed by Donald trump

Politics

3 d. ago How to beat the market while still playing it safe: The top 'boring' investment funds that will pay off in our turbulent times

When the going gets tough, the tough can rest assured that the most boring funds in their investment portfolio will protect them from the worst of it.

Economics

4 d. ago 2024 book review: Trump, Biden, Harris and a turbulent election full of what

Deeply sourced narrative charts the delusions of the main players and the disastrous debate that reset the campaignDonald Trump is on a roll. The “big, beautiful bill” is law. Ice, his paramilitary immigration force, rivals foreign armies for size and funding. Democrats stand demoralized and divided. 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, is a book for these times: aptly named, deeply sourced.Kamala Harris declined to speak. Joe Biden criticized his successor in a brief phone call, then balked. Trump talked, of course.2024 is published in the US by Penguin Random House Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ showcases Trump’s surreal brand of stylized cruelty | Moira Donegan

Immigrants are living in brutal conditions at the Florida detention camp, built on a sense of scripted unrealityThe concentration camp seems to have been erected largely for the sake of a photoshoot. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis – eager to rehabilitate his reputation among the Maga right in the wake of his humiliating and disastrous 2024 presidential run – has been among the most eager foot soldiers of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. He has dedicated funding to capturing migrants and holding them at facilities like the Krome detention center in Miami, where dramatic overcrowding, the absence of air conditioning, rapidly spreading disease, and a shortage of food, sanitation, and medical care have contributed to an outcry among immigrants imprisoned there and the deaths of multiple detainees, including a 29-year-old man from Honduras, a 44-year-old man from Ukraine and a 75-year-old Cuban national who had lived in the United States since his teens.For his effor...

Politics

6 d. ago Trump’s inaugural fund got $19m from fossil fuel industry, analysis shows

President raised $239m for inauguration – more than previous three inaugural committees took in combinedThe fossil fuel industry poured more than $19m to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, accounting for nearly 8% of all donations it raised, a new analysis shows, raising concerns about White House’s relationship with big oil.The president raised a stunning $239m for his inauguration – more than the previous three inaugural committees took in combined and more than double the previous record – according to data published by the US Federal Election Commission (FEC). The oil and gas sector made a significant contribution to that overall number, found the international environmental and human rights organization Global Witness. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Trump’s inaugural fund received $19m from fossil fuel industry, analysis shows

President raised $239m for inauguration – more than previous three inaugural committees took in combinedThe fossil fuel industry poured more than $19m into Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, accounting for nearly 8% of all donations it raised, a new analysis shows, raising concerns about White House’s relationship with big oil.The president raised a stunning $239m for his inauguration – more than the previous three inaugural committees took in combined and more than double the previous record – according to data published by the US Federal Election Commission (FEC). The oil and gas sector made a significant contribution to that overall number, found the international environmental and human rights organization Global Witness. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago Trump wants 10,000 more deportation agents. Experts say it’s an impossible goal — and dangerous

The administration hopes an historic injection of taxpayer cash can fix hiring challenges for an agency facing intense political and legal scrutiny, Alex Woodward reports

Politics

8 d. ago Donald Trump threatened to bomb Moscow if Putin ignored demand and attacked Ukraine

Donald Trump bragged to donors at a fundraising event while on the presidential campaign trail last year that he warned both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping that he was prepared to bomb Russia and China

Events

9 d. ago Ted Cruz ensured Trump spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding

Senator on vacation abroad while Texas was hit by deadly floods, a disaster worsened by forecasting cuts, critics sayTed Cruz has had quite a week. On Tuesday, the Texas senator 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 critics say was worsened by cuts to forecasting.Cruz, who infamously fled Texas for Cancun when a crippling winter storm ravaged his state in 2021, was seen visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday, a day after a flash flood along the Guadalupe River in central Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children and counselors at a camp. Continue reading...

Economics

1 week ago The UN is our best defence against a third world war. As Trump wields the axe, who will fight to save it? | Simon Tisdall

If the US cuts off the cash it will have world-changing effects, but it’s not the only country falling short in its obligations to the United Nations The United Nations and its agencies have long struggled with funding shortfalls. Now an entrenched problem is becoming an acute crisis in the shadow of Donald Trump’s executioner’s axe. The US is the biggest contributor, at 22%, to the UN’s core budget. In February, the White House announced a six-month review of US membership of all international organisations, conventions and treaties, including the UN, with a view to reducing or ending funding – and possible withdrawal. The deadline for decapitation falls next month.Trump’s abolition of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and scrapping of most aid programmes, has already badly damaged UN-led and UN-backed humanitarian operations, which rely on discretionary funding. Yet Trump’s axe symbolises a more fundamental threat – to multilateralism and the much-battered inter...

Politics

1 week ago ‘The American system is being destroyed’: academics on leaving US for ‘scientific asylum’ in France

Almost 300 researchers have applied for for positions at Aix-Marseille University after Trump unleashed his attack on academia It was on a US-bound flight in March, as Brian Sandberg stressed about whether he would be stopped at security, that the American historian knew the time had come for him to leave his home country.For months, he had watched Donald Trump’s administration unleash a multipronged attack on academia – slashing funding, targeting international students and deeming certain fields and even keywords off limits. As his plane approached the US, it felt as though the battle had hit home, as Sandberg worried that he would face reprisals over comments he had made during his travels to the French media on the future of research in the US. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Pride organisers warn Trump’s DEI purge directly hitting UK events as corporate sponsorships drop (cloned)

Experts have said ‘the golden era of corporate sponsorship might be over’ for Pride, as 75% of event see sponsorship funding drop

Events

1 week ago ‘The damage is terrifying’: Barbara Kingsolver on Trump, rural America and the recovery home funded by her hit novel

Demon Copperhead, the author’s retelling of Dickens during Virginia’s opioid crisis, was a global success. Now she has used royalties from the novel to open a recovery residenceIn the spotless kitchen of a white clapboard house in the Appalachian mountains, a retired deacon, a regional jail counsellor and I form an impromptu book club. The novel under discussion is Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning Demon Copperhead, which is set in this area, Lee County, Virginia, during the 1990s, at the beginning of the opioid epidemic. I say that I loved the novel, that it was vivid and brilliant, heart-warming and tragic. Their reaction is more complex – there’s a real sadness behind it. Julie Montgomery-Barber, the jail counsellor, tells me she found the book “hard to read”. The Rev Nancy Hobbs agrees that reading it was painful, “because I felt like: I knew these people. At every level, from foster care to the football coaches to Demon. I knew Demon.”Hobbs and Montg...

Events

1 week ago UNAids chief ‘shaken and disgusted’ by US cuts that will mean millions more deaths

Winnie Byanyima tells the Guardian she considered resigning when Donald Trump cancelled Pepfar fundingThe head of the global agency tackling Aids says she expects HIV rates to soar and deaths to multiply in the next four years as a direct impact of the “seismic” US cuts to aid spending.Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids, said that if the funding permanently disappeared, the world faced an additional 6 million HIV infections and 4 million Aids-related deaths by 2029. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago What’s in Trump’s major tax bill? Extended cuts, deportations and more

GOP’s sweeping legislation boosts wealthy, funds border wall and risks $3tn deficit before Trump’s term endsSenate Republicans on Tuesday passed Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill after spending all night voting on amendments. The bill, which the GOP has dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now returns to the House of Representatives, which passed their version last month, ahead of a Friday deadline the president has imposed for the legislation to be on his desk.Here’s what’s in the Senate’s version of the bill: Continue reading...

Politics