4 h. ago US protests live: Demonstrations planned across US to oppose Trump agenda

More than a thousand events to be held across the country in a show of defiance against Trump’s ‘authoritarian overreach’Several congressional members are expected to make apperances and deliver speeches at the Hands Off protest in Washington DC today.They include Democrats Jamie Raskin and Glenn Ivey of Maryland, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Katherine Clark of Massachussetts and Don Beyer of Virginia, as well as Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy and our basic rights – enabled by Congress every step of the way.They want to strip America for parts – shuttering social security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections and gutting Medicaid – all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They’re handing over our tax dollars, our public services and our democracy to the ultra-rich.I...

Politics

13 h. ago America’s Brexit? Trump’s historic gamble on tariffs has been decades in the making

Trump’s economic assault on the world stunned economists and sent stock markets into a spiral. Who will pay the price?Donald Trump’s vast overhaul of US trade policy this week has called time on an era of globalization, alarming people, governments and investors around the world. No one should have been surprised, the US president said.The announcement of 10% to 50% tariffs on US trading partners tanked stock markets after Trump unveiled a “declaration of economic independence” so drastic it drew comparison with Britain’s exit from the European Union – Brexit. Continue reading...

Politics

23 h. ago About 500 law firms sign brief challenging Trump's executive orders targeting the legal community

President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the legal community pose “a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself."

Politics

27 h. ago Trump’s tariffs will likely mean ‘higher inflation and slower growth’, says Fed chair

While the US economy remains robust, Jerome Powell cautions there is high uncertainty over its directionUS politics live – latest updatesDonald Trump’s global tariffs assault is set to raise prices and slow down economic growth, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has warned, defying the US president’s demands for an immediate interest rate cut.While the US economy remains robust, Powell cautioned that there is high uncertainty over its direction. “Downside risks have risen,” he told an event in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday. Continue reading...

Economics

29 h. ago As Orbán quits the ICC, other nations have a choice to make: do we back the rule of law or not? | Steve Crawshaw

There is a principle that even the most powerful leaders must be accountable. Increasingly, that is under threat, but it must be defendedIt was unsurprising that Benjamin Netanyahu praised Viktor Orbán’s “bold and principled” stand, in response to Hungary’s announcement yesterday that it will leave the international criminal court (ICC). More dismaying is that too few governments seem ready to stand up against impunity at a time when, because of Donald Trump, the very existence of the Hague court is under threat.Hungary’s leader described the ICC as “a political forum”; the Israeli prime minister, during his defiant visit to Budapest this week, complained of a “corrupt organisation”. That is all logical enough. Four months ago, the court confirmed an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. He could hardly be expected to praise his own indictment.Steve Crawshaw is the author of Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice. H...

Politics

29 h. ago ‘Scary times’: New York shopkeepers plan ‘astronomical’ price hikes under Trump tariffs

Small businesses that import goods brace for steep price increases that they have to pass on to their customersIt’s just two days since Donald Trump launched his extraordinary tariff assault on the world in a bid to rebuild the US economy and roll back an era of globalization. But already shopkeepers are bracing for recession, and their customers spending less, as they prepare to increase prices.“We’re going to have to put our prices up and people aren’t going to like it,” said Ian Anderson, store manager at Tea and Sympathy, a UK grocery store, restaurant and fish-and-chip shop stalwart in Manhattan’s West Village. Continue reading...

Economics

31 h. ago Trump’s attacks on law firms are an attack on law itself | David Cole and Amrit Singh

In unprecedented orders, the president is targeting lawyers simply for filing cases he opposes. And firms are surrenderingIf you are systematically engaged in lawbreaking, lawyers can be very annoying. They sue, and their suits may lead courts to declare your actions illegal.So Donald Trump, who has launched his second term with a blizzard of blatantly illegal actions, many of which have been suspended by the courts, has decided to address the problem at its root. He’s targeting lawyers, punishing them for doing nothing more than filing lawsuits he opposes, or hiring lawyers he does not like. He has issued unprecedented executive orders penalizing five of the nation’s major law firms, and more are likely to come. These tactics, blatantly illegal, are designed with one goal in mind: to chill lawyers’ willingness to challenge his illegal actions. They are a fundamental attack on the foundation of the rule of law. And they are achieving their purpose, not because they are legal – they ...

Politics

58 h. ago South Korea’s Constitutional Court to rule on President Yoon's impeachment over martial law declaration

The ruling is expected to be made at 11am on April 4, with TV stations broadcasting the decision live

Politics

5 d. ago Lawyer tears into her former employer in viral resignation letter over $100M Trump deal

‘As an attorney, if my employer cannot stand up for the rule of law, then I cannot ethically continue to work for them,’ former Skadden attorney Brenna Trout Frey declared Saturday

Economics

6 d. ago Sexual assault allegations seem to be a badge of honor in Trump’s America. Was #MeToo an epic failure?

The push to end sexual violence has sparked a revenge campaign setting fire to women’s rights and pushing young men to the right. But organizers can learn from the movement’s lossesDressed in his trademark sunglasses and a skintight black T-shirt, Andrew Tate strode into a Las Vegas arena like a returning king. He was there to watch Power Slap, a UFC offshoot where people slap each other in the face with such force that doctors say it could lead to brain damage and death.Days earlier, Tate and his brother Tristan had been in Romania, their assets seized, awaiting trial on human trafficking charges. But following reported conversations between Romanian officials and the Trump administration, the Romanian government lifted a travel ban on the brothers. Now, as a heavily male crowd watched men slap one another so hard they collapsed, the UFC president, Dana White, warmly embraced the Tates. White, a Meta board member who was once caught on camera slapping his own wife, smiled at the Ta...

Events

7 d. ago Judges block Trump executive orders targeting another two law firms

Lawyers are arguing that Trump’s vengeful orders amount to an assault on the foundations of the legal system and are an unconstitutional retaliation by the president.

Events

8 d. ago Democrats can’t keep up with Trump’s ‘flood the zone’ deportation strategies

Analysis: The Trump administration is launching an assault on constitutional rights for noncitizens. Democrats are on the sidelines, writes John Bowden

Politics

1 week ago Most Brits will eat food dropped on the floor but still stick to the six

The six-second rule is almost the law for many hungry Brits who have ever dropped some chips, crisps or even a box of chicken nuggets from a well-known fast food chain

Politics

1 week ago ‘The authoritarian playbook’: Trump targets judges, lawyers and law itself

Attacks on key US institutions seek to stifle dissent, exact revenge and subordinate them to the president, experts sayNever miss global breaking news. Download our free app to keep up with key stories in real time.As Donald Trump aggressively seeks revenge against multiple foes in the US, he’s waging a vendetta using executive orders and social media against judges, law firms, prosecutors, the press and other vital American institutions to stifle dissent and exact retribution.Legal scholars say the president’s menacing attacks, some of which Trump’s biggest campaign backer, the billionaire Elon Musk, has echoed, are aimed at silencing critics of his radical agenda and undercut the rule of law in authoritarian ways that expand his own powers. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Trump’s defiance of court orders is ‘testing the fences’ of the rule of law

Administration’s ‘unprecedented degree of resistance’ to judiciary undercuts its authority and weakens democracyDonald Trump’s second administration has shown an “unprecedented degree of resistance” to adverse court rulings, experts say, part of a forceful attack on the American judiciary that threatens to undermine the rule of law, undercut a co-equal branch of government and weaken American democracy.The attacks, experts say, threaten one of the fundamental pillars of American government: that the judicial branch has the power to interpret the law and the other branches will abide by its rulings. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The obscure Jimmy Lai ruling that exposed the erosion of Hong Kong’s rule of law

The moves that barred the media mogul’s choice of lawyer are immune from legal challenge, giving the national security committee what one expert called ‘the powers of a police state’The dwindling freedom in Hong Kong over the past few years has been described as “death by a thousand cuts”. Critics have been jailed, elections have been transformed into “patriots only” affairs, journalists have been harassed and hundreds of thousands of people have left.This week, an obscure legal development has, in the eyes of some legal experts, inflicted another cut on the city’s once revered legal system. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Trump’s assault on the rule of law: ‘the speed and intent is remarkable’

The US president is testing constitutional limits and challenging the courts to stop him. Who will blink first?

Politics

2 w. ago Trump is abandoning democracy and freedom. That creates an opening for Europe – and Britain | Jonathan Freedland

Whether it’s sweeping up disgruntled US scientists or rejoining the EU, a bold Starmer must capitalise on Trump’s extremismThanks to Donald Trump, a vacancy is opening up in the international jobs market. For decades, if not centuries, and always imperfectly, the US offered itself to the world as the guarantor of democracy and the land of the free. Now that it’s pivoting away from that job description, there’s an opportunity for someone else to step in.The evidence that the US is moving, even galloping, away from basic notions of democracy and freedom is piling up. Just because the changes have happened so fast doesn’t make them any less fundamental. We now have a US administration that blithely ignores court rulings, whose officials say out loud “I don’t care what the judges think”. In a matter of weeks, it has become an open question whether the US remains a society governed by the rule of law.On 30 April, join Jonathan Freedland, Kim Darroch, Devika Bhat and Leslie Vinjamuri as t...

Politics

2 w. ago Conservative former federal judge says Trump has ‘declared war’ on US rule of law

J Michael Luttig said a constitutional crisis is brewing due to Trump’s defiance of a court order over deportationsNever miss global breaking news. Download our free app to keep up with key stories in real time.Donald Trump has “declared war on the rule of law in America” and is pitching the country into a constitutional crisis, a prominent former conservative federal judge said.“The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America,” J Michael Luttig told MSNBC. “In the past few weeks the president himself has led a full-frontal assault on the constitution, the rule of law, the federal judiciary, the American justice system and the nation’s legal profession. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Imagine if all those who are silent about the terrible evil being committed in Gaza spoke up | Owen Jones

No crime in history has been so well documented by its victims. And yet inaction and censorship reignIsrael’s genocide was only on pause: for Palestinians woken on Monday night by a vicious wave of airstrikes, the resumption was no less shocking. More than 400 people – many of them children – were slaughtered in a matter of hours, in an assault that reportedly received the “green light” from Donald Trump. This mayhem was swiftly followed by evacuation orders – that is, forced displacement – raising the possibility of renewed ground operations. Israel’s excuse? A confected claim that Hamas hasn’t observed the terms of January’s so-called ceasefire agreement – the terms of which Israel itself has broken over and over again.In the wake of the attacks, CNN reported that Israel’s onslaught threw “doubt on the fragile ceasefire”. Orwellian doesn’t even begin to describe such framing. As it is, there was no “ceasefire”: not if your definition is firing ceasing. A single Israeli has been re...

Events