6 h. ago In northeast India, a border fence could cut through villages, houses and lives

An international border fence may soon split the village of Longwa in two

Society

6 h. ago Trump administration briefing: hundreds fired from US climate agency as Americans feel economy getting worse

Democrats warn that cutting jobs at Noaa ‘will cost American lives’ – key US politics stories from Wednesday at a glanceThe Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency housed within the Department of Commerce, the Guardian learned on Thursday.“This will cost American lives,” said Democratic congresswoman and ranking member of the House science, space and technology committee, Zoe Lofgren, in a written statement. Her comments were issued alongside congressman Gabe Amo’s, the ranking member of the subcommittee on environment, after news of the firings broke. Continue reading...

Politics

12 h. ago Trump praises Starmer’s ‘hard’ lobbying as he again suggests UK will be exempt from US tariffs – live

Trump calls Starmer meeting ‘tremendously productive’ and says ‘we have a very good chance at arriving at a very good deal’Trump-Starmer visit: the key takeawaysEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal. Continue reading...

Politics

13 h. ago Trump hints UK could avoid the sanctions he plans for EU during White House talks with Starmer – follow live

US president says UK is ‘very different place’ where he has investmentsTrump-Starmer visit: the key takeawaysEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal. Continue reading...

Politics

14 h. ago Trump invited to UK for state visit as US president calls Starmer ‘a special man’ at White House talks – follow live

King Charles also invites US president to Scotland ahead of the unprecedented second state visitTrump-Starmer visit: the key takeawaysEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal. Continue reading...

Politics

15 h. ago Trump praises Starmer as a ‘special man’ as they meet at the White House – follow live

The two leaders will hold talks, followed by a joint press conferenceEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal. Continue reading...

Politics

19 h. ago White House ‘very pleased’ with UK’s increase in defence spending ahead of Starmer

The two leaders will hold talks later, followed by a joint press conferenceEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal. Continue reading...

Economics

22 h. ago Trump says US won’t give Ukraine security guarantees ‘beyond very much’ ahead of Starmer meeting – UK politics live

Starmer said he wants Trump to agree that, in the event of a peace settlement in Ukraine, US will offer security guarantees that make it durableEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to London this Sunday to take part in an informal meeting on Ukraine and European security, the European Commission has just confirmed. Jakub Krupa has more on his Europe live blog.David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has confirmed that President Trump has the ability to veto the deal that the UK has negotiated transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Isands to Mauritius. Speaking on ITV’s Peston last night, Lammy said:If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward.The reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States, and of course they’ve got to be happy with the deal, or there is no deal. Continue reading...

Politics

24 h. ago Donald Trump LIVE: Keir Starmer to meet US President at White House for crucial talks

Prime Minister Keir Starmer will carefully navigate around the shifting priorities of the administration of Donald Trump that is increasingly putting America's European allies on notice

Politics

28 h. ago The savage suburbia of Helen Garner: ‘I wanted to dong Martin Amis with a bat’

Over 50 years, she has become one of the most revered writers in Australia. Is she finally going to get worldwide recognition?In early January, the Australian author Helen Garner decided to cut back an unruly bush in her garden. Garner lives in a Melbourne suburb in the adjoining house to her daughter, son-in-law, three grandchildren, some chickens and a dog. The family were away at the beach for the holidays and Garner found herself alone, in an off-kilter frame of mind. She’s 82, her beach days are over, but she felt her family’s absence. Her grandchildren were growing up, the youngest now 18. Garner realised she was on the brink of a loneliness not felt since she’d moved to live alongside them 20 years ago, after the end of her third and final marriage, to the author Murray Bail.Missing her family, feeling adrift, she went outside with some secateurs and “pruned the shit” out of the bush in such frenzied bursts that the next day, when she looked out of the window, she saw a scene...

Politics

43 h. ago Raging West Lothian neighbour says development will bring 'years of disruption'

Mark Harrison, who lives just 12ft from the edge of the Armadale brickworks site admitted his own business plans mean he may have to move from the house he’s lived in for more than 20 years.

Politics

49 h. ago Trump live: House Republicans narrowly pass budget bill; president offers ‘gold card’ as route to US citizenship

‘Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card,’ the president said about the new path to U.S. citizenship

Politics

55 h. ago Trump live updates: House Republicans narrowly pass budget bill; president offers ‘gold card’ as route to US citizenship

House Republicans pulled the budget proposal Tuesday evening after it became they didn’t have enough votes to pass, due to several GOP holdouts

Politics

56 h. ago Trump live updates: Lawmakers return to House floor to vote on Republican budget bill moments after pulling it

House Republicans pulled the budget proposal Tuesday evening after it became they didn’t have enough votes to pass, due to several GOP holdouts

Politics

69 h. ago Bitcoin slides below $90,000 amid crypto selloff; Tesla sales almost halve across Europe – business live

Bitcoin has tumbled below $90,000 to hit the lowest since mid-November, as rising volatility hits crypto marketFull story: Tesla sales almost halve in Europe as Musk faces criticism over Trump tiesSeveral UK charities are warning that this morning’s rise in the energy price cap (which covers England, Wales and Scotland) will hurt struggling householdssThe Centre for Ageing Better is concerned that millions of older people already struggling on low incomes will be put into even greater difficulty with increasing energy costs, having already lost their winter fuel payments last year.“It is so dispiriting to learn that bill payers must brace for another substantial increase to energy prices from April. For those living on the breadline, desperately struggling to meet the basic costs of everyday living, this will be heartbreaking news.There are millions of older people who no longer qualify for winter fuel payments who live on paltry incomes that do not even cover the basics of a dignif...

Economics

3 d. ago Cold Wallet review – blackly comic revenge fable goes into crypto’s corrupt heart

Fickle financial dealings leave a man and his friends in debt, prompting them to go in search of the slippery crypto king responsible and hold him to accountThe opening crawl for this timely, acute thriller proclaims it’s a Steven Soderbergh presentation, although that’s the only place that the veteran film-maker’s name crops up in the credits. No doubt kudos here should mostly be due to director Cutter Hodierne and screenwriter John Hibey, as well as their crew and cast, but it’s tempting to sense a light Soderberghian touch in Cold Wallet’s blackly comic look at how cryptocurrency eats the soul of all who meddle in its black arts.Charismatic Raúl Castillo stars as protagonist Billy, a bit of a screw-up who is neck deep in a crypto called – tellingly for those aware of the history of bubble stocks – Tulip. Hoping to cash out enough to buy a house so he can gain better access to his daughter who lives with his bitter ex-wife (Zoe Winters from Succession), Billy is the proverbial thi...

Politics

3 d. ago Holidays in hell: summer camp with Russia’s forgotten children

At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia In the summer of 2007, I joined a group of 30 Russian and English students to work on a month-long summer camp at a state orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the Pskov region, south of St Petersburg. We lived in a house nearby, or in tents pitched in the garden. Every day, we walked up to the orphanage to put on developmental activities, sporting events, solve puzzles, play games, stage shows and go on camping trips.I volunteered at the orphanage, in the village of Belskoye Ustye, for almost a decade, but it was the first visit that made the biggest impression. I had seen nothing like it. My closest reference point was probably workhouses or orphanages from a Charles Dickens novel. I vividly remember the smells – cooked food, unwashed bodies, chlorine and urine – and...

Politics

3 d. ago Watch live: Trump hosts Macron at White House for Ukraine talks on third anniversary of Russia’s invasion

Watch live as Donald Trump hosts Emmanuel Macron at the White House on Monday, 24 February, to discuss ending Russia’s war on Ukraine and the future of U.S. relations with Europe.

Politics

3 d. ago Rachel Roddy’s recipe for cabbage stuffed with rice, chestnuts and cheese | A kitchen in Rome

The late food historian Gillian Riley is the inspiration behind this thrifty yet moreish supperIt just so happened that I was back in London a few weeks ago, so I could attend a bash to commemorate and celebrate the life of food historian and typographer Gillian Riley. It was a beautiful, lively occasion organised by Gillian’s family and friends, and held at Room 71-73 in north London, just a few streets from the house she and her partner, James, lived and worked in so prolifically for many years. There was food, of course, and much of it – a half-wheel of parmesan and fanned plates of prosciutto and salami – from the local delicatessen, to which Gillian was a devoted customer. Wine flowed, too, thanks to The Little Wine Shop, also around the corner and another place to which Gillian and James were as devoted as the staff were to them: their last delivery arrived just a few weeks before Gillian died last year, aged 90.Gillian’s sister, Joanna, spoke about their early life growing up...

Politics

5 d. ago Trump speaks at CPAC; Melania to host dinner at White House after nearly a month of no appearances: Live

Melania Trump will join the President for dinner after he addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday afternoon

Politics