Author: Sophia White

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution, which operates more than 20 museums and research centres visited by millions yearly in Washington DC and New York City. The order directs the vice-president to “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the institute’s museums, centres and the National Zoo in Washington. It also directs the interior secretary to restore federal properties, including parks, memorials and statues, which “have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history”. The move is part of Trump’s effort to shape American…

Countries around the world are braced for Donald Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day in America!!!” next week. The US president’s deadline to impose reciprocal tariffs on trading partners will come just days after he hit foreign carmakers with 25% import taxes. Vietnam could be particularly vulnerable to Trump’s latest salvo of levies. It has a large trade deficit with the US and has been a beneficiary of firms moving factories out of China to avoid measures announced during his first term in office. While some countries have hit back at Washington, Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Pham Minh Chinh, has suggested that he may…

United States President Joe Biden says he hopes to have a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza by next Monday as negotiations to halt hostilities and secure the release of captives appear to gather pace. Biden’s comments in New York came on Monday as Israeli media reported that an Israeli military delegation had flown to Qatar for intensive talks. The negotiations – mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the US – seek to secure a six-week-long pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas to allow aid into Gaza, where the United Nations says some 2.3 million people are on the brink of famine. The…

Federal law enforcement officials justified introducing the sweeping new measure as a necessary tool to investigate the lives of “suspected terrorists”. Yet, in doing so, they aroused the ire of numerous civil liberties organisations which denounced the law as an assault on the basic freedoms of ordinary citizens. But more than two years after its inception, critics of the Patriot Act say that what they do not know about the implementation of the law is more troubling than what they do know. “Our fears are that we still do not even know how it is being used and that is even more frightening to…

To Donald Trump, the SignalGate disclosure was a mistake. The CIA director said his involvement was legal, while the director of national intelligence appeared to dodge a senator’s questions about it. And the defense secretary forcefully denied sharing classified airstrike plans in a group chat − and attacked the journalist who received them. As members of the Trump administration scrambled to answer questions this week about how, why and what they discussed on a group chat that included The Atlantic magazine’s top editor, they sent different messages about who was responsible − even as the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee called for an independent investigation.…

Democrats are hoping to capitalize on anti-Elon Musk sentiments ahead of a highly anticipated Wisconsin state Supreme Court election on Tuesday. The statewide race has garnered nationwide attention − and dollars. Seen as a potential bellwether for next year’s midterm elections and real-time referendum on the second Trump administration, the face-off in the Badger State will decide if Wisconsin’s highest court leans left or right on issues like abortion policy and voter ID laws. Both parties say the stakes are high, and President Donald Trump’s billionaire ally has upped the ante by pouring almost $20 million into the conservative judicial candidate’s campaign. While Musk and Trump have gone all…

In his first months back in office, President Donald Trump has at times gone heavy on tariff talk and then occasionally scaled back on tariffs – essentially, taxes on imports.   Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday he will put tariffs on automobile imports next. He also announced plans this week to impose tariffs on countries that deal with Venezuela. The president’s announcements this week mark a significant change from earlier in the month when he backpedaled on plans to tariff goods from Mexico and Canada amid consumer anxiety and falling stock prices. Trump’s tariffs gambit has proved dizzying to follow. As the president announces new…

The world’s wealthiest man, currently busy carelessly dismembering the federal government, took time out of his busy schedule early Wednesday morning to review the results of a special election for a state senate seat in Pennsylvania. “Damn,” Elon Musk posted at one minute after midnight on X, his digital bazaar of political disinformation, when it became clear that the Democratic mayor of a tiny Pennsylvania borough was on the verge of defeating a Republican commissioner from the much larger surrounding county for a seat held by Republicans for four decades. James Andrew Malone, a Democrat and mayor of East Petersburg, took time later on Wednesday morning…

Vice President JD Vance and other senior Trump administration officials were due to visit a U.S. military base in Greenland on Friday − hundreds of miles away from any Greenlandic officials or a major civilian population. Vance, his wife, Usha; national security adviser Mike Waltz; and energy secretary Chris Wright were traveling to the the Danish territory as President Donald Trump continues to openly talk about acquiring Greenland. Friday’s trip is a scaled-back version that was supposed to see the second lady and her son attend cultural events, a dog-sledding race and spend time talking to Greenlanders in the capital Nuuk. The high-powered U.S. delegation revised its itinerary…

Elon Musk defended his work leading the Department of Government Efficiency Thursday, pushing back on mounting criticism of the massive disruption caused by DOGE in an unusual joint interview with other top leaders of the group. Musk minimized the number of people who have been fired by DOGE amid a wave of federal layoffs. His team lambasted the government’s records, payment and other systems and promised to implement a tech savvy, user-friendly approach. And they shrugged off concerns about how DOGE has operated. “This is a revolution and I think it might be the biggest revolution in the government since the…