61 h. ago America used to fire the world’s imagination – but now the cultural conversation is being silenced | Van Badham

Not only are TV-watching, book-reading, show-going, music-listening travellers declining to visit the US, we have started to cease to imagine itThis week, fresh data revealed the United States has seen its biggest drop in Australian tourists since Covid. It’s hardly surprising. Innocent people are being snatched by authorities from American streets. Citizens of foreign countries are being stopped, shackled and detained. The EU is now sending its emissaries with burner phones, lest personal social media posts critical of President Trump be discovered by border agents and who knows what happens next? Forcible relocation to a Salvadorian supermax prison, seemingly without chance of release, is suddenly not out of the question.It all seems like something from Hollywood dystopia; the V series, maybe. Or Escape from New York. It’s pretty much the plot line of the first season of Andor – which I strongly recommend that everyone watch before the Trump regime clocks what that show is advisin...

Events

3 d. ago The great Mississippi tops list of most endangered rivers amid fears over Trump rollbacks

Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new reportThe Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal climate disaster agency – and the full-throttle deregulation of fossil fuels and water-guzzling datacentres – could prove catastrophic for America’s endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new report.American Rivers’ annual most-endangered rivers list lays bare a myriad of human-made threats including floods, drought and other extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, as well as industrial pollution and poor river management – all of which Trump’s regulatory rollbacks will almost inevitably make worse. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago 'Wolf of Wall Street' gives his view on whether Trump is committing insider trading with tariff trade war

Stocks soared on Trump's tariffs pause with the S&P500 closing up 9.5%, while the market gained back about $4 trillion, or 70%, of the value it had lost over the previous four trading days

Politics

8 d. ago Sweet shop police crackdown: Hundreds of businesses are raided and dozens of people arrested in massive operation against criminal gangs running American

Officers from 19 police forces across England knocked on the doors of 265 businesses as part of Operation Machinize, a mammoth crackdown on high street money laundering.

Events

9 d. ago The Guardian view on the tariff war pause: the Trump trade shambles is not over | Editorial

The US president blinked first, but this is just a time-out. The threat to the global economy remains real.It was Donald Trump who blinked first. Never forget that. China is unlikely to overlook its importance. A week after launching an all-out global trade war, the US president paused significant parts of it for 90 days. Having insisted that he would stick with the random tariffs he imposed on most trading nations, Mr Trump suddenly decreed that he would reduce most of them to 10%. It was a major humiliation.Yet 10% is still a significant tariff to bear for nations exporting to the US. This is also only a pause until July, not a withdrawal, so the uncertainty remains. And huge tariffs still remain on China (now hiked to 145%), Canada and Mexico (both 25%), as well as on all US imports of steel, aluminium and cars (also 25%). Mr Trump is now substituting a US-world conflict with a US-China one. The two largest economies in the world – which between them have generated around ha...

Politics

9 d. ago Zendaya's nostalgic noughties makeup 'must have' is now on sale at Debenhams

People are still loving this retro beauty buy - including the popular American actress known for her striking looks

Politics

1 week ago Whoopi Goldberg tirades against Trump tariffs on The View: ‘Not what the American people want’

‘The View’ co-host expressed her bafflement about Trump’s international trade war

Politics

1 week ago Whoopi Goldberg lambasts Trump tariffs on The View: ‘Not what the American people want’

‘The View’ co-host expressed her bafflement about Trump’s international trade war

Politics

1 week ago Donald Trump has transformed the American story | Osita Nwanevu

A decade ago, it was easy to believe US identity was a settled question. Now, as our institutions acquiesce to barbarism, the US’s promise has been traded for chaosMaking America great again was never a promise Donald Trump could deliver on, nor one that he intended to. That said, he has undoubtedly thrust the US back into history – and not just through his assault, in recent days, on the global economic order.About 50 years ago, the tumults of the late 1960s and early 1970s began giving way to a quietude that would carry us through the end of the cold war. Tested as we may have been by conflict, scandals and crises economic and not, we entered this new century – and met the uncertainties of a new world we’d forced into being – surer of ourselves than ever before. The towers fell, yes, but the US’s sense of purpose was as much of a settled fact in the world as American power. The American people were divided, true, but for all but an impertinent and implacable few, the major questio...

Politics

1 week ago UK and EU stock markets slump as Trump’s tariffs, including 104% on China, take effect – business live

Stock markets down from Australia to Japan and Taiwan as Trump presses ahead with huge retaliatory tariffs on ChinaFull report: Trump unleashes new wave of tariffsDispatch: The view from Yiwu, China’s biggest wholesale marketToday’s tariffs follow Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, which came into effect at the weekend.US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday. Today’s measures are higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners. Continue reading...

Economics

1 week ago Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, including 104% against China, take effect – business live

Stock markets down from Australia to Japan and Taiwan as Trump presses ahead with plans to hit China with huge retaliatory tariffsFull report: Trump unleashes new wave of tariffs Dispatch: The view from Yiwu, China’s biggest wholesale marketToday’s tariffs follow Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, which came into effect at the weekend.US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday. Today’s measures are higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners. Continue reading...

Economics

1 week ago Spare a thought for the poor billionaires who backed Trump — and hate tariffs | Marina Hyde

As the great American self-own rages on, the super-rich are beginning to break rank. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s gone suspiciously quietTrade Wars, Episode V: The Empire Shoots Itself in the Foot. As the world financial markets fail to appreciate his genius, tariff-excreting president Donald Trump has explained it all away by stating that “sometimes you have to take medicine”. Why am I reminded of the bit in Covid where he appeared to suggest that disinfectant could helpfully be injected into the lungs? I guess that was just science, same as this tariffs plan is just economics.Even so, can it really still be less than a week since a Wall Street Journal poll found 77% of US Republicans thought tariffs would have a positive impact? Ah well. Famously, the American people have a great tolerance for pain. If only one of their kindly gazillionare firms could come up with some sort of financial opioid epidemic to take the edge off the coming agonies.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue ...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s tariff ultimatum: tribute for access to America’s empire | Editorial

As the White House retools US imperialism with import duties, others must resist dependency – deepening regional ties and reducing exposure to chokepointsWhen Donald Trump stood before union auto workers in the Rose Garden he declared “Liberation Day”, promising to stand up for Main Street. Whether that pledge will be fulfilled is moot. He will declare victory either way. What the US president offered was not just an economic programme, but an imperial one.Mr Trump’s logic, if it exists, lies in the 397-page report on “foreign trade barriers” he brandished on Wednesday. Its message is brutally simple: you may sell your goods to Walmart shoppers, but only if you let US cloud services hoover up your data, US media flood your screens and US tech monopolies operate on their terms – not yours. TikTok is the test case for Trump’s platform nationalism: only US firms may mine data, reap profits and rule the digital empire. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Oligarchy’: Trump exempts big oil donors from tariffs package

Trump’s new 10% universal tariffs will not apply to many fossil fuel products in sign of his fealty, advocates sayUS politics live – latest updatesThe sweeping package of tariffs unveiled by Donald Trump on Wednesday includes an exemption for the energy sector, which is a clear sign of the president’s fealty to his big oil donors over the American people, advocates say.Trump’s new 10% universal tariffs – which are higher for many major economies – are wreaking havoc on the global economy and are expected to increase consumer prices in the US. But the levies will not apply to many fossil fuel products, including liquefied natural gas imports, crude oil from Canada, and materials needed for making petrochemicals. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Trump’s tariffs: a monstrous and momentous act of folly | Editorial

The US president has expelled his own country from the rules-based global trade system that America itself createdFor the world’s already embattled trading system, it is as though an asteroid has crashed into the planet, devastating everyone and everything that previously existed there. But there is this important difference. If an asteroid struck the Earth, the impact would at least have been caused by ungovernable cosmic forces. The assault on world trade, by contrast, is a completely deliberate act of choice, taken by one man and one nation.Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on every country in the world is a monstrous and momentous act of folly. Unilateral and unjustified, it was expressed on Wednesday in indefensible language in which Mr Trump described US allies as “cheaters” and “scavengers” who “looted”, “raped” and “pillaged” the US. Many of the calculations on which Mr Trump doled out his punishments are perverse, not least the exclusion of Russia from the cond...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘How did this ever get made?’ Gen Z is falling in love (and hate) with Glee

A decade after the finale, new fans are flocking to Glee, causing its songs to shoot up the charts. The internet’s ablaze with TikTok dance homages, Reddit threads – and tonnes of hate watchersThe year is 2009, and Glee has hit like a cultural earthquake. Every week, millions of people around the world tune in to watch a group of American high school misfits belt out musical theatre and pop hits, turning show choir into mainstream entertainment. The cast’s cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ becomes an anthem, spending 37 weeks in the UK charts, catapulting its young stars to overnight fame. Glee clubs start in schools across the US and beyond, and Ryan Murphy’s show develops a devoted fanbase – myself included – who proudly call ourselves Gleeks. Online, we dissect every episode on Tumblr, trade theories and wear our fandom, plus the merch we bought to prove it, as a badge of honour.But by the time Glee came to a close in 2015, all its magic had faded. The Guardian reported tha...

Politics

2 w. ago US senator Cory Booker delivers longest speech in Senate history

Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, spoke on the Senate floor for more than 25 hours, the longest speech ever given in Senate history. Starting his speech on Monday evening in Washington, vowing to remain on the Senate floor as long as he was 'physically able', Booker spoke in protest at what he called the 'grave and urgent' danger that Donald Trump's presidential administration poses to democracy and the American people. In 1957, Strom Thurmond, a Republican from South Carolina, gave an anti-civil rights speech that lasted 24 hours and 18 minutesSenate Republicans consider joining Democrats to oppose Trump over tariffs Continue reading...

Culture

2 w. ago Neil Young says he may be barred from returning to US over Donald Trump criticism

The US-Canadian dual citizen speculates he may be ‘barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor’ after his European tour, after years of speaking against TrumpNeil Young has shared his concerns of being barred from the US after his European tour later this year, thanks to his outspoken critiques of Donald Trump.On Tuesday, on his website Neil Young Archives, the 79-year-old musician – who has dual Canadian-American citizenship – wrote of his fears after the recent spate of people being detained and deported upon entering the US. These incidents have been credited to vague or unspecified visa issues, but have frequently affected individuals who have criticised the Trump administration either publicly or in messages on their phone read by immigration officers. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Cory Booker breaks record for longest Senate speech with Trump condemnation

In speech that began Monday night, Democratic senator warns of ‘grave and urgent’ danger of Trump administrationUS politics – latest updatesCory Booker, the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator – beating the record first established by Strom Thurmond, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.Booker’s speech, which began at 7pm on Monday night, was not a filibuster but instead an effort to warn of what he called the “grave and urgent” danger that Donald Trump’s presidential administration poses to democracy and the American people. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s tariffs: a spectacle of struggle and control | Editorial

The US president wields tariffs not as a policy tool but as an instrument of pressure, rewarding loyalty and punishing defiance – even among alliesDonald Trump has probably not read much Michel Foucault. But he appears to embody the French philosopher’s claim that “politics is the continuation of war by other means”. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his fondness for tariffs. He presents taxing foreign imports as a way to rebuild the American economy in favour of blue-collar workers left behind by free trade and globalisation. Yet he plainly thinks that politics is not about truth or justice. It is about leverage and supremacy.Britain is learning first-hand that Mr Trump, with his us-versus-them framing and taste for spectacle, is an accidental Foucauldian – using tariffs as tools of loyalty and dominance, even against allies. If Mr Trump follows through on his threat to impose a 20% tariff on all imports, UK growth will suffer. The effect depends on the response....

Politics