47 h. ago Friedrich Merz warns the US to ‘stay out’ of Germany’s politics

Germany’s new chancellor cautions after far-right AfD receive strong backing from Donald Trump alliesGermany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned the US to “stay out” of his country’s politics after the far-right AfD received strong backing from allies of the US president, Donald Trump.Merz, 69, a conservative who was elected as chancellor of Europe’s biggest economy earlier in the day, also said he planned to speak by phone with Trump on Thursday. Continue reading...

Events

47 h. ago Friedrich Merz calls for US to ‘stay out’ of German politics

Germany’s new chancellor issued warning after far-right AfD received strong backing from Donald Trump alliesGermany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned the US to “stay out” of his country’s politics after the far-right AfD received strong backing from allies of the US president, Donald Trump.Merz, 69, a conservative who was elected as chancellor of Europe’s biggest economy earlier in the day, also said he planned to speak by phone with Trump on Thursday. Continue reading...

Politics

53 h. ago South African party launches legal challenge against new diversity and equity labor law

South Africa’s second biggest political party has launched a legal challenge against a new labor law aimed at boosting the hiring of Black people and other groups in some industries

Society

55 h. ago Top Trump GOP allies speak out against plan to send citizens to overseas prisons: ‘I doubt that would hold up’

Multiple Trump allies in the Senate expressed doubt over the constitutionality of Trump sending US citizens to foreign prisons

Events

6 d. ago The way universities can survive the Trump era? Band together in an alliance | David Kirp

Nato for higher education – a mutual defense pact is a long-shot approach, but it might just convince the bully in the White House to back offHigher education is under attack from the person who inhabits the White House. Universities are being threatened with an array of punishments, including the cutoff of their federal contracts and grants, the loss of their nonprofit status and a tax on their endowment. The Trump administration is demanding a say in whom they admit, whom they hire and even what courses they teach.It’s a grim message – abandon your fundamental values, or else. The idea of an “existential moment” has become a cliche, but this situation warrants that grim description. Academic freedom, the lifeblood of higher education, is being threatened.David Kirp is professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley and the author of The College Dropout Scandal Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago A plea to the West: help us save America’s democracy | Anonymous

Countries from Canada to Japan must take steps to isolate the United States in world diplomacyDonald Trump and his political allies in Washington have undertaken far-sweeping actions to undermine the foundations of American democracy, while simultaneously pursuing policies that erode and disrupt eight decades of trust and cooperation with democratic allies in Europe, North America and Asia.While leaders in these countries grapple with what is happening in Trump’s America, they must now ask themselves a new and critical question of immense relevance – one that has never been asked before in the modern era: Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago Chaos is Trump’s calling card. But reality is biting back | Lloyd Green

In his first 100 days, the president has taken a sledgehammer to institutions and the constitution. We can only guess what’s nextIn nearly 100 days on the job, Donald Trump has outlasted Liz Truss and a fabled head of lettuce. That’s a fact, not an achievement. Like the hapless British prime minister, the 47th president blazes a trail of wreckage. Chaos is his calling card. If, when and how the carnage ends is anyone’s guess.The US simultaneously wages economic war on its allies and China. Tariffs soar. It’s as if Trump forgot the words “Smoot-Hawley” and “Great Depression”. The president risks higher inflation and a recession for an idealized yesteryear that never quite was. Back on Earth, markets signal potential capital flight and stagflation.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago Trump 100 days: ‘unpredictable’ US alienates allies and disrupts global trade

Trump has cut off Ukraine aid, brokered and lost a ceasefire in Gaza and took a sledgehammer to world commerce100 days of TrumpFor US foreign policy, Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were the weeks when decades happened.In just over three months, the US president has frayed alliances that stood since the second world war and alienated the US’s closest friends, cut off aid to Ukrainians on the frontlines against Vladimir Putin, emboldened US rivals around the world, brokered and then lost a crucial ceasefire in Gaza, launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and seesawed on key foreign policy and economic questions to the point where the US has been termed the “unpredictable ally”. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The FBI’s arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan is a bid to silence dissent | Moira Donegan

The Trump administration is making an example of the Milwaukee judge to intimidate critics and opponentsOn Friday, the Trump administration dramatically escalated its assault on the courts when the FBI arrested Hannah Dugan, a county circuit court judge handling misdemeanors in Milwaukee – allegedly for helping an undocumented man avoid abduction by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents outside her courtroom. The arrest, a highly publicized and dramatic move from the Trump administration, seemed designed to elicit fear among judges, government bureaucrats and ordinary Americans that any effort to slow, impede or merely not facilitate the administration’s mass kidnapping and deportation efforts will lead to swift, forceful and disproportionate punishment by Donald Trump allies. Her arrest may be the opening salvo of a broader Trump assault on judges.Even if you believe the FBI’s allegations, their account of Dugan’s alleged misconduct is trivial and flimsy, wholly undeserv...

Events

1 week ago Trump’s 100 days pushes the world toward instability, economic decline and diplomatic crisis

Donald Trump has gutted American diplomacy, disparaged NATO allies, cosied up to autocrats, floated wild ambitions to annexe Greenland, and even suggested Canada should become the 51st state

Politics

1 week ago Colleges fight back: Elite schools join forces to resist Trump’s demands

A group of schools have formed a discreet alliance, intending to strategize ways to combat Trump’s agenda

Politics

1 week ago Trump’s second term will be the worst presidential term ever | Steven Greenhouse

Tragically, the president’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US historyIn his first 100 days back in office, Donald Trump has made a strong case that his second term will be by far the worst presidential term in US history. So many of his flood-the-zone actions have been head-spinning and stomach-turning. His administration seems to be powered by ignorance and incoherence, spleen and sycophancy. Both he and his right-hand man, Elon Musk, with their resentment-fueled desire to disrupt everything, seem intent on pulverizing the foundations of our government, our democracy, our alliances as well as any notions of truth. Tragically, Trump’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.The worst and most dangerous part of Trump’s agenda is his war against our democracy and constitution – defying judges’ orders, deporting people without due process, suggesting he will run for a third term, calling to impeach judges...

Politics

2 w. ago Fears grow that Signal leaks make Pete Hegseth top espionage target

Experts say Pentagon chief has endangered secrets of US defense department and given assistance to foreign spiesAs more develops about the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his repeated disclosures of sensitive military intelligence in unsecured Signal group chats, there are growing concerns his behavior has weakened the Pentagon in the eyes of its foreign adversaries and made him and his entourage a top espionage target.Allies, already concerned by Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs, have also begun to see the US as an intelligence-sharing liability. There are fears that the mounting firings and leak inquiries in Hegseth’s orbit, along with his inability to manage these internal crises, exposes the entire global US war footing – especially, if a geopolitical and external crisis comes across his desk. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Top Trump MAGA allies troll JD Vance over visit before death of Pope Francis

Vice President JD Vance is getting trolled online after being the last major figure to meet with Pope Francis before his passing on Monday.

Politics

2 w. ago Senior Republican flounders when asked about Trump plan to deport US citizens to foreign jails

House majority whip Tom Emmers quickly changes the subject three times after being asked about controversial idea

Politics

2 w. ago RFK’s statements prove autistic people and their families everywhere should fear Trump and his allies | John Harris

The idea that autism is some aberration that can be cured is typical of a movement that celebrates simplistic thinking and loathes human differenceIn the recent past, Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that Donald Trump is “a terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath”. But in the US’s new age of irrationalism and chaos, these two men are now of one voice, pursuing a strand of Trumpist politics that sometimes feels strangely overlooked. With Trump once again in the White House and Kennedy ensconced as his health and human services secretary, what they are jointly leading is becoming clearer by the day: a war on science and knowledge that aims to replace them with the modern superstitions of conspiracy theory.Nearly 2,000 members of the US’s National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have warned of “slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration”. Even work on...

Politics

2 w. ago Allies At War by Tim Bouverie: A history lesson for Donald Trump

A brilliant account of double-dealing between the Allies in WWII shows the mistake Roosevelt made - with the result that the Russians came out on top...

Politics

3 w. ago Trump allies stumped over his secret plan to deport 'homegrown' criminals

Donald Trump's allies are scratching their heads over the president considering sending Americans convicted of violent crimes to the notorious El Salvadorian prison.

Politics

3 w. ago Attorney general dodges question on Trump proposal to jail US citizens in El Salvador

Trump proposed that ‘homegrown criminals’ should be deported, an idea that experts say is clearly illegalThe US attorney general declined on Tuesday to say whether Donald Trump’s suggestion of removing US citizens to El Salvador was legal, in alarming remarks about what experts think is an obviously illegal idea.Trump proposed the idea on Monday in the Oval Office during a visit with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who has been accepting people deported from the US and imprisoning them in a gigantic facility notorious for human rights abuses. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Obama judge blocks Trump's plan to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants from four countries

An Obama-appointed judge will prevent the Trump administration from deporting hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status.

Politics