4 h. ago The Guardian view on the new Monroe doctrine: Trump’s forceful approach to the western hemisphere comes at a cost | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today, how US foreign policy has dramatically – and alarmingly – turned towards Latin America and the CaribbeanDonald Trump is not generally noted as a student of history. Yet over the past year, his decisive reorientation of US foreign policy towards the Americas has revived a playbook dating back two centuries, to the fifth president, James Monroe. Now the 47th is doubling down. An anti-interventionist is having second thoughts. Remarks that sounded at first like bad jokes or random outbursts from the presidential id have become more sinister through repetition or accompanying actions. Only a fool would take all of Mr Trump’s comments literally – but they should certainly be taken seriously.He has refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the 51st state. He threatened to seize the Panama canal. He has imposed swing...

Politics

27 h. ago The Guardian view on antibiotics: recent breakthroughs are great news, but humanity is losing the bigger race | Editorial

Our magic bullets are increasingly rare and ineffective. The golden age of discovery is over and the way we develop and use drugs needs to changeDuring her tenure as director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan used to say that all of the “easy” antibiotics had already been found. Her point was that in responding to the urgent threat of antibiotic-resistant infections, we would struggle to find new medicines – or preserve the ones we have – if we didn’t find new ways of working. She was right.Since 2017, just 16 antibiotics have gained widespread regulatory approval – mostly close relatives of medicines already in use and so unlikely to evade resistance for long. The development of new ones is a slow and unprofitable business, curative medicines being less lucrative than ones treating longer-term conditions. And the scientific outlook remains bleak.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to s...

Politics

28 h. ago US struck ‘big facility’ in Venezuela, Trump claimed without offering details

Trump alleged that US forces hit ‘very hard’ in what would mark his team’s first land strike on Venezuela if confirmedDonald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday. Continue reading...

Politics

31 h. ago Why haven’t Trump’s tariffs crashed the US economy? | Jeffrey Frankel

Effects on inflation and employment have not been as bad as feared – but could still materialise with full force in 2026When Donald Trump took office last January, most economists feared what would happen if he raised tariffs. The expectation was that, as the new duties drove up prices of consumer goods and inputs – affecting households and companies, respectively – surging inflation and falling real incomes would follow. This would be a supply shock, so the US Federal Reserve could not do much to counteract it.Trump did raise tariffs to shocking levels, violating international agreements and blowing up the Republican party’s oft-professed commitment to free trade. In terms of severity and disruptiveness, Trump’s 2025 tariffs went far beyond the already harmful tariffs of his first term, and even beyond the infamous Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. According to the Yale Budget Lab, the average effective tariff on US imports rose from 2% to 18%, the highest level since the 1930s, this year....

Events

52 h. ago US strikes on Nigeria and Syria are ‘consistent’ with policy to combat IS, Republican says

House armed services committee’s Mike Turner denied that military strikes showed new Trump approach to US forcesUS warns of more Nigeria strikes as Abuja talks of ‘joint ongoing operations’A senior Republican on the US House armed services committee has said that the country’s recent military strikes in Nigeria and Syria are consistent with American foreign policy to combat Islamic extremism that have existed across Donald Trump’s two presidential terms.Mike Turner, an Ohio congressman, said on Sunday that the strikes are a “continuation of our conflict with [the Islamic State]”. Continue reading...

Events

52 h. ago The Guardian view on the new space race: humanity risks exporting its old politics to the moon | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look skyward, where a new lunar contest mirrors humanity’s struggle to live within planetary limitsDuring the cold war’s space race, the Apollo moon missions were driven by the need to prove American superiority. Having made that political and technological point with the 1969 moon landing, the contest between Moscow and Washington petered out. A new dash across the skies kicks off in 2026, reigniting geopolitical competition under the guise of “peaceful exploration”. The moon’s south pole is emerging as the most valuable real estate in the solar system, offering “peaks of eternal light” for solar arrays and ice deposits in craters shielded from the sun.The US and a China-led bloc are eyeing the lunar surface and its potential to control a post-terrestrial economy. Space had been humanity’s last commons, supposedly shielded by the 1967 UN outer space treaty that bans state ...

Politics

3 d. ago Kyiv strikes are Putin’s ‘answer to peace,’ Zelensky tells Canadian PM ahead of crunch Mar

BRUTAL strikes on Kyiv are Putin's "answer to peace", Zelensky tells Canada's Prime Minister ahead of crunch Mar-a-Lago talks with Trump. Russian forces unleashed hell on the Ukrainian capital, hitting the city with almost 500 drones and 40 missiles in a 10-hour onslaught which has killed two and wounded dozens. President Zelensky said it was...

Politics

4 d. ago The Guardian view on adapting to the climate crisis: it demands political honesty about extreme weather | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at how the struggle to adapt to a dangerously warming world has become a test of global justiceThe record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June’s heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today’s extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Donald Trump launches Christmas Day air strikes against Islamic State forces in Nigeria

American forces launched a 'powerful and deadly strike'

Politics

4 d. ago Trump launches Christmas Day strike on ISIS in Nigeria over ‘slaughter of Christians’ and warns of more to come

DONALD Trump said the US forces launched "powerful and deadly" strikes against ISIS in Nigeria over the persecution of Christians. The commander in chief said that the Department of War executed "numerous perfect strikes" on Christmas Day - and vowed more attacks if the jihadists "continued killing Christians in the country. Trump wrote on Truth...

Events

5 d. ago The Guardian view on May 2026 elections: a new political geography is coming into view across Britain | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look at the impact of devolution on growing volatility of party political allegianceNext year will be pivotal in British politics, and 7 May will be the point around which things pivot. Elections to local councils, the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Senedd will give millions of voters across the UK a chance to express party preferences. Their verdicts could imperil Labour and Conservative leaders. In Wales, Labour might be sent into opposition for the first time since devolution. Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are set to make substantial gains. At Holyrood, the Scottish National party (SNP) is on course for a majority. That would be an extraordinary defiance of political gravity for a party weighed down by nearly two decades of incumbency.In England, both Labour and the Tories risk losing scores of councillors as their vote shares are gobbled up by the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and ...

Politics

6 d. ago US moves more troops and special ops aircraft to Caribbean as Trump ramps up pressure in region: report

Osprey aircraft included in latest force deployment to Caribbean, which Trump claimed Monday is largest armada ever assembled in the region

Politics

7 d. ago The Guardian view on the festive season: a suffering world needs messages of peace, hope and goodwill | Editorial

The fracturing multilateral order has led to a new age of insecurity. But acts of courage and solidarity can point the way to a better futureIn one of his last sermons, the great Christian theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich asked: “Do we have a right to hope?” As an army chaplain to German forces during the first world war and a refugee from Nazi Germany, Tillich had witnessed first-hand some of the horrors of the 20th century. But his answer to the question he posed in 1965 was yes. Nobody could live without hope, Tillich told his Harvard audience, even if it led “through the narrows of a painful and courageous ‘in-spite-of’”.Sixty years on, a similar spirit of defiant optimism is needed to navigate our own era of conflict and anxiety. The fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is approaching, and dark political forces menace the social fabric of western liberal democracies. More widely, a fracturing multilateral order is delivering a more unstabl...

Politics

7 d. ago EXCERPT: In 'Storm at the Capitol,' police officers detail a brutal assault on Jan. 6, 2021

In the 4 p.m. hour on Jan. 6, 2021, at the height of the fighting that day outside the U.S. Capitol, hundreds of rioters loyal to President Donald Trump had already breached several entrances and forced lawmakers to flee both the House and Senate, stopping the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory

Events

8 d. ago The Guardian view on sending letters: the writing’s on the wall

The Danish postal service has announced it will cease deliveries from 30 December after 400 years. Eventually, other countries may go down a similar routePredictions of the demise of letter writing are not new. The invention of the telegraph and the rise of the postcard were both seen as potential threats to a more leisurely, reflective form of communication. Yet by the close of the 20th century, more letters were being sent than ever, as social correspondence began to be supplemented by a boom in business mail.From Europe’s most tech-savvy society, however, comes ominous news. As of next week, Denmark’s state-run postal service will end all letter deliveries after doing the rounds for 400 years. Around 1,500 jobs are being cut, and the country’s beloved red letterboxes are being sold off. It will still be possible for Danes to send a card or a love letter to someone far away next Christmas, but only via the shops of a smaller private company or a costly home collection.Do you have ...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on Labour’s difficult year: denial of hard choices is no longer an option | Editorial

All the incentives in Westminster politics militate against confronting difficult issues, but a failing government may as well try honestyThe formula for stable government, according to Britain’s constitution, is a big parliamentary majority and divided opposition. Sir Keir Starmer’s predicament proves that those conditions are not sufficient.The prime minister’s inability to convince voters that he has an agenda for national renewal, and the demoralising effect that has had on the Labour party, make a leadership challenge look plausible after local elections next May. Maybe sooner. Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on gene editing: breakthroughs need a new social contract | Editorial

Cutting-edge therapies exist, but the market cannot deliver them cheaply. Britain must build NHS capacity so that cures become collective goods, not expensive productsJust a small fraction of our 20,000 genes can cause disease when disrupted – yet that sliver accounts for thousands of rare disorders. The difficulty is: what can a doctor do to treat them? In a common condition such as type 2 diabetes, the underlying biology is similar for millions of patients. The doctor can prescribe metformin. But with a genetic disorder, the mutation might only affect a small number of people worldwide. In many cases, doctors won’t even know which mutation is responsible, let alone how to fix it.Novel gene-editing breakthroughs are making headlines. But therapies are expensive and complex to develop. The cost of bringing any new drug to patients is now around $2bn, in part because, as Brian David Smith notes in New Drugs, Fair Prices, the “success rate, from discovery to market, is ...

Politics

9 d. ago US coastguard boards tanker carrying Venezuelan oil in Caribbean

The vessel is the second to be intercepted by American forces as Trump steps up pressure on Maduro

Events

1 week ago US intercepts second merchant vessel off coast of Venezuela in international waters

Move comes days after Trump announces ‘blockade’ of sanctioned oil tankers and US seizes tankerUS forces on Saturday stopped a second merchant vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, according to two US officials, the Associated Press reported.The move comes days after Donald Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in to and out of the South American country and follows the seizure by US forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast on 10 December. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The Guardian view on the Palestine Action hunger strikers: the government is trying to ignore this protest | Editorial

Doctors have warned that the lives of these prisoners are now in danger. Pretending this is not happening is not good enoughIn 1981, IRA and other republican prisoners went on hunger strike in Northern Ireland, demanding the restoration of their political status. Ten would die; extraordinarily, their leader, Bobby Sands, had been elected as an MP by the time of his death. Margaret Thatcher took a hardline public stance. But by the end, behind the scenes, the government was looking for an exit, and public opinion had shifted significantly.The lives of the Palestine Action-affiliated remand prisoners now on hunger strike are at growing risk. On Friday, two reached day 48 without food. (In 1981, one IRA prisoner – 29-year-old Martin Hurson – died on the 46th day.) Twenty-year-old Qesser Zuhrah is being treated in hospital after she reportedly collapsed at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey. Amu Gib, 30, has also been treated. Three more have refused food for more than 40 days and another, who h...

Events