Evelyn Reynolds

More stories

  • 163 Shares41 Views

    in US Politics

    Ta-Nehisi Coates on why stories matter in the age of Trump – podcast

    “This is a cultural president. Make no mistake about it.”For Ta-Nehisi Coates, the award-winning writer and journalist, the US president, Donald Trump, and his allies clearly understand the power of story-telling in politics. Coates has recently written a new book, The Message, and he tells Michael Safi that the stories told in TV, films, literature and beyond are not a distraction from politics today but are actively shaping it.The pair discuss whether the political centre-left in the US has become uncomfortable competing in the cultural realm and is in many ways the more conservative movement, adopting the role of steward of the status quo. They also examine the role of white supremacy in the narratives emerging against progressive, identity politics.Coates describes a visit to the Middle East and the significant gulf he sees between how the Israel-Palestine conflict is portrayed in US media and what he witnessed on the ground. The writer also reflects from an African-American perspective on the stories being told about Israel and outlines the reaction to his book so far.Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

  • 200 Shares79 Views

    in US Politics

    Trump news at a glance: Deep confusion as Trump signals new tariffs on smartphones and computers

    Donald Trump’s tariff war has dived deeper into chaos after a cabinet official telegraphed new levies on semiconductors – a crucial component in electronic goods – just days after the Trump administration exempted computers and smartphones from reciprocal tariffs.Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in an interview with NBC that the tariff exemption on several electronic devices was just temporary and that new duties would come in “a month or two”. Semiconductors would be targeted with new tariffs, he said.Trump was forced to intervene, saying he would lay out the new tariffs on Monday and any relief would be short-lived. “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”Here are the key stories at a glance:US markets on rollercoaster as Trump says electronics were never exemptUS stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement of smartphone and computer tariff exemptions, and shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar. That outlook could change and hinges on what Trump may announce on Monday.Trump denied they were ever actually exempt from tariffs because a previous tariff still exists on them. “There was no Tariff ‘exception’,” Trump said in a social media post on Sunday, adding that the levies were merely “moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”Read the full storyHedge fund billionaire says US may face ‘worse than a recession’Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said he was worried the US would experience “something worse than a recession” as a result of Trump’s trade policies. Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the 75-year-old hedge fund manager said: “I think that right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”He added: “We have something that’s much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money.”Read the full story‘Everything’s fine with Elon,’ says Trump adviser Navarro after Musk calls him ‘moron’Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to Trump, said he and Elon Musk were “great” after the president’s billionaire business adviser publicly called him “a moron” who was “dumber than a sack of bricks” over his stance on tariffs.“I’ve been called worse,” Navarro said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press in some of his most extensive remarks about the insults Musk directed at him days earlier. Praising Musk’s role in the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), Navarro added: “Everything’s fine with Elon.” Navarro’s evident attempt to be magnanimous came after Musk criticized Trump’s proposals for global tariffs, which the president has since set at 10% on all countries, with some nations receiving higher trade levies.Read the full storyMan in custody after Pennsylvania governor’s home set ablaze, say policePolice say a person is in custody after a suspected arson fire at the mansion of Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro. No one was injured in the blaze but the fire damaged parts of the home where Shapiro and his family slept.Pennsylvania state police colonel Christopher Paris identified the man in custody as Cody Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, and said the investigation was continuing. Francis Chardo, the Dauphin county district attorney, said forthcoming charges would include attempted murder, terrorism, attempted arson and aggravated assault.Read the full storyTrump is ‘fully fit’ and manages high cholesterol, says White House physicianDonald Trump – who at 78 is the oldest person to ever be elected US president – controls high cholesterol with medication and has elevated blood pressure but is “fully fit”, White House physician Sean Barbella said in a report released on Sunday, two days after Trump underwent a routine physical.Barbella wrote that Trump exhibited “excellent cognitive and physical health” and that he was up to date on all recommended vaccines. Trump himself has previously spread debunked claims about links between vaccines and autism.Read the full story9/11 responders and survivors shaken by US health cutsA program that provides free healthcare to first responders and survivors of the World Trade Center terror attacks has been in turmoil for months, with services cut, restored and cut again as part of the Trump administration’s “restructuring” of the federal health department. Following the most recent cuts, groups representing survivors and even Democratic US senators say they have no clarity on how the program will continue to provide benefits.“This is bureaucratic cruelty,” said Michael Barasch, an attorney who represents thousands of first responders and survivors of the attacks. Barasch described people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from picking up body parts after the attack, unsure of whether their medical services will continue. Other were cancer patients, anxious about what services they could access, he said.Read the full storyUS deports 10 more alleged gang members to El Salvador, says RubioThe US has deported another 10 people that it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday, a day before that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, is due to visit the White House. Rubio praised the alliance between Trump and Bukele as “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.Trump administration officials have repeatedly made public statements alleging that detained immigrants are gang members – claims they have not backed up in court. The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.Read the full storyFeatured essay: the rise of end times fascism In this essay, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor argue that the governing ideology of the far right has become “a monstrous, supremacist survivalism” and that the world must build a movement strong enough to stop them.“It is terrifying in its wickedness, yes. But it also opens up powerful possibilities for resistance,” they write. “To bet against the future on this scale – to bank on your bunker – is to betray, on the most basic level, our duties to one another, to the children we love, and to every other life form with whom we share a planetary home.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    Russia launched a deadly Palm Sunday attack on churchgoers in Ukraine. It may force Washington to get tough with Putin, Dan Sabbagh writes in an analysis from Kyiv.

    Pete Marocco, an official who played a major role in dismantling USAid, has left the state department.

    Saturday Night Live’s cold open mocked Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs, with James Austin Johnson playing the president and comparing himself to Jesus.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 12 April 2025. More

  • 150 Shares75 Views

    in US Politics

    Trump warns exemptions on smartphones, electronics will be short-lived, promises future tariffs

    The exemption of smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import tariffs on China will be short-lived, top US officials have said, with Donald Trump warning that no one was “getting off the hook.”“There was no Tariff ‘exception’, Trump said in a social media post on Sunday. “These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”In the post on his Truth Social platform, Trump promised to launch a national security trade investigation into the semiconductor sector and the “whole electronics supply chain”.“We will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China,” he added.The White House had announced on Friday the exclusion of some electronic products from steep reciprocal tariffs on China. US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement. Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for 90 days.China’s commerce ministry said the exemption demonstrated the US taking “a small step toward correcting its erroneous unilateral practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’,” and insisted Washington cancel the whole tariff regime.Zhang Li, president of the China Center for Information Industry Development, told state media outlet, China Daily, that the exemptions proved “how important China is to major US tech companies that rely heavily on the country for manufacturing and innovation”.However, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that critical technology products from China would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.Lutnick said Trump would enact “a special focus-type of tariff” on smartphones, computers and other electronics products in a month or two, alongside sectoral tariffs targeting semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. The new duties would fall outside Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China, he said.“He’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two,” Lutnick said in an interview on ABC, predicting that the levies would bring production of those products to the United States. “These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.”The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a fast-moving game of brinkmanship since Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese imports. China’s leader Xi Jinping said on Monday that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners”.Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145%, and Beijing setting a retaliatory 125% levy on US imports. On Friday Beijing said it would ignore any future raises in tariffs by Trump, as they were already so high that there was “no market acceptance for US goods” in China.On Monday a spokesperson for China’s Customs agency said the country’s exports were facing a complex and severe external situation but “the sky will not fall”. They said China’s domestic demand was broad, and they were building a diversified market.Trump’s back-and-forth on tariffs has triggered the wildest swings on Wall Street since the Covid pandemic of 2020. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down more than 10% since Trump took office on 20 January.After announcing sweeping import taxes on dozens of trade partners, Trump abruptly issued a 90-day pause for most of them. China was excluded from the reprieve.The fallout from Trump’s tariffs – and subsequent whiplash policy reversals – sent shock waves through the US economy, with investors dumping government bonds, the dollar tumbling and consumer confidence plunging.US senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, criticised the latest revision to Trump’s tariff plan, which economists have warned could dent economic growth and fuel inflation.“There is no tariff policy – only chaos and corruption,” Warren said on ABC’s “This Week,” speaking before Trump’s latest post on social media.China has sought to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid the escalating trade war. Xi will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia.With Reuters and Agence France-Presse More

  • 150 Shares75 Views

    in US Politics

    US deports 10 more alleged gang members to El Salvador, says Rubio

    The US has deported another 10 people that it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday, a day before that country’s president is due to visit the White House.“Last night, another 10 criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations arrived in El Salvador,” Rubio said in an Twitter/X post.The alliance between Donald Trump and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”, Rubio added.The US president is due to meet Bukele at the White House on Monday.Trump said on Saturday he was looking forward to meeting Bukele and praised him for taking “enemy aliens” from the United States. He said the two countries were working closely to “eradicate terrorist organizations”.Administration officials have repeatedly made public statements alleging that detained immigrants are gang members that they have not backed up in court.The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the US government assertion that they were. The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to Tren de Aragua, which it labels a terrorist organization.The deportations have been challenged in federal court. The US supreme court said the US government must give sufficient notice to immigrant detainees to allow them to contest their deportations. It did not say how those already in El Salvador could seek judicial review of their removals.The White House has come under fire recently after a Maryland man was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month. He was deported on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador made up chiefly of Venezuelans whom the government had accused of being gang members and assumed special powers to expel without a hearing.Trump administration lawyers were able to confirm on Saturday that Kilmar Abrego García, 29, remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador. However, the White House did not detail the steps it was taking to return Abrego García to the United States. More

  • 150 Shares54 Views

    in US Politics

    Trump is ‘fully fit’ and manages high cholesterol, says White House physician

    Donald Trump – the oldest person to ever be elected US president – controls high cholesterol with medication and has elevated blood pressure but is “fully fit”, White House physician Sean Barbella said in a report released on Sunday.The US navy captain’s report was published two days after Trump underwent a routine physical. It also said he was up to date on all recommended vaccines – despite his national health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr having spent years sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccination.Trump himself has previously spread debunked claims about links between vaccines and autism often invoked by Kennedy.Barbella’s report is the most detailed information on the health of Trump, 78, since he returned to the White House in January for a second presidency.“President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State,” Barbella wrote in his report.The report noted that Trump’s high cholesterol is “well-controlled” with two medications addressing it.The medicines are rosuvastatin and ezetimibe, generic names of the branded drugs Crestor and Zetia. They have improved Trump’s cholesterol over time.Ideally, total cholesterol should be less than 200. At his physical in January 2018, his total cholesterol was 223. In early 2019, the reading came in at 196 and it stood at 167 in 2020. In Sunday’s report, it was listed as 140.Trump’s blood pressure was 128 over 74. That is considered elevated. And people with elevated blood pressure are likely to develop high blood pressure – or hypertension – unless they take steps to control the condition.The report also noted that Trump has scarring on his right ear, the result of a gunshot wound he suffered when a would-be assassin fired at him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last year.A secret service sniper killed the attacker, who fatally shot one spectator while wounding two others.Barbella’s report also references Trump’s history with Covid-19. Trump was hospitalized during a serious bout with the virus in October 2020 during a run for re-election that ended in defeat to Joe Biden.Amid questions about his age and mental acuity, Biden then dropped out of an electoral rematch with Trump in November 2024 and endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to succeed him. Trump won the popular and electoral votes against Harris to return to the presidency.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAfter the exam preceding the report, Trump told journalists on Air Force One: “It went, I think, well … Every test you can imagine, I was there for a long time, the yearly physical.“I think I did well.”Trump also told reporters he took a cognitive test. Barbella’s report gave Trump a 30 out of 30 on what is known as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.The screening takes about 10 minutes to administer, according to information online. One version available online asks those undergoing the screening to draw a clock, repeat words, name animals and count backwards from 100 at intervals of seven, among other tasks.Trump’s resting heart rate was 62 beats per minute, in line with previous tests. A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 beats to 100 beats per minute. And generally, a lower rate implies better cardiovascular fitness.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

  • 150 Shares54 Views

    in US Politics

    US stock markets expected to recover after Trump drops tariffs on mobiles

    US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery on Monday after Donald Trump excluded imports of smartphones and laptops from his tariff regime late on Friday night.Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for 90 days.The temporary reprieve was widely seen as a climbdown after pressure from Republican leaders concerned that the soaring cost of smartphones would spark a voter backlash. US retailers import about 80% of all smartphones, many of them from China, which Trump has slapped with tariffs totalling 145%.US Customs and Border Protection said items like laptops, hard drives, smartphones, flat-panel monitors and some chips would qualify for the exemption. Vital machines made outside the US that are used to make semiconductors were also excluded.It means these products will avoid the China tariff and the 10% baseline tariffs applied on other countries caught by the new regime.Speaking on Air Force One on Saturday evening, Trump said he would be more specific about the latest exemption rules on Monday. “We’ve been making a lot of money,” he said. “It’s been the other way around. Other countries, in particular China was making a lot of money.”It is not clear how long the exemption will last or whether separate tariffs will be negotiated on the specific products.China has responded with a tariff on all US exports of 125%. Beijing said at the weekend that the reprieve for smartphones was a “small step” toward easing the trade fight between the world’s two biggest economies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said the reprieve was likely to be lifted in 90 days and reiterated Trump’s longstanding plan to apply a different, specific levy to the sector.Speaking on NBC, he said: “All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus-type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We can’t be relying on China for fundamental things that we need.”Lutnick dismissed interpretations of Trump’s reprieve that argued it reflected the president’s realisation that his China tariffs were unlikely to shift more manufacturing of smartphones, computers and other gadgets to the US in the near future.On Sunday Trump warned that no country would be getting “off the hook” on his punishing tariffs, again singling out China for criticism. “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’ for the unfair Trade Balances,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”Apple has spent decades building up a finely tuned supply chain in east Asia, including inside China. The firm has pledged to move some facilities back to the US over the next four years, which will cost it $500bn, including constructing a giant factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers but was expecting to retain much of its international network as it expands its sales.Trump’s move at the start of April to impose tariffs on imports to the US battered the stocks of tech’s magnificent seven – Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.At one point, they lost $2.1tn, or 14% of their value, from 2 April. Shares have recovered since last Wednesday after Trump paused the tariffs except on China, allowing tech firms to use India and other conduits to import smartphones. More

  • 163 Shares71 Views

    in US Politics

    Civilian deaths in Sumy attack may force Washington to get tough with Putin

    Even by the warped standards of wartime, Russia’s Sunday morning attack on Sumy was astonishingly brazen. Two high-speed ballistic missiles, armed, Ukraine says, with cluster munitions, slammed into the heart of the border city in mid-morning as families went to church, waited for a theatre performance or were simply strolling about on a mild spring day.The death toll currently stands at 34, including two children. Images from the scene show bodies or body bags on the ground, a trolley bus and cars burnt out, rubble and glass scattered around. It was reckless, cruel and vicious and its consequences entirely predictable to those who gave the order and pressed “launch”.To contemplate a daytime city-centre attack, in the full knowledge that civilians will be present, reflects a Russian culture of impunity that has been allowed to endure without effective challenge. Nevertheless, Washington’s approach, under Donald Trump, has been to try to negotiate an end to the war by talking directly with Moscow, while remaining mostly silent on Russian attacks on civilians.Talks between the US and Russia have continued unabated over the past two months at a time when Russian attacks on Ukraine’s cities appear to have stepped up. Nine adults and nine children were killed when a Russian ballistic missile using cluster bombs struck a children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih at the end of last week.People were burned alive in their cars and the bodies of children were found dead in the playground, yet the attack was weakly condemned by the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, who, toeing the White House line, would not say the deadly missile was from Russia as she tweeted: “This is why the war must end.”Brink has since announced she will step down and been more forthright. On Sunday, the ambassador attributed the Sumy attack to Russia and repeated that it appeared cluster bombs had been used. But now that she is on her way out, it is easier for her to speak her mind while Russia’s Vladimir Putin toys with Trump and the rest of the US administration in peace talks that have hardly developed in two months.View image in fullscreenOn Friday, the Russian leader spent four hours in talks with Steve Witkoff, a donor real estate developer who has become a key Trump adviser on Ukraine as well as the Middle East. What they talked about is unclear, but reports suggest Witkoff has been pushing the idea that the quickest way to get Russia to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine is to force Kyiv to hand over the entirety of four provinces that are only partly occupied by Russia’s military, including the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.The dissonance between the killing and destruction in Sumy on Sunday and the photographed handshake between Witkoff and Putin is all too evident to most observers. It is not clear why it should even be contemplated that Ukraine hand over territory (something that even the US cannot easily force on Kyiv) when Russia is willing to countenance daytime attacks on civilians.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Moscow believes, and acts like it believes, it can get away with it. The Kremlin will ignore condemnation from European leaders and wait for the news cycle to move on – and will almost certainly continue to attack Ukrainian cities to little military purpose. Not only are drone attacks commonplace, but there are now concerns they are routinely being armed with cluster munitions, while almost every day one or two hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles are thrown into the deadly mix.In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that gradually Trump will realise Putin is not negotiating in good faith. Certainly, the attack on the centre of Sumy hardly suggests a strong appetite for peace. But it is unclear at what point, if any, the White House is prepared to conclude that killing of civilians means that it needs to put genuine pressure on Russia to negotiate rather than indulge the Kremlin. More

  • 138 Shares84 Views

    in US Politics

    Democrat Gretchen Whitmer tries to distance herself from Oval Office visit

    The Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer – considered to be a 2028 White House Democratic contender – was trying to distance herself from a recent Oval Office appearance alongside Donald Trump, which saw her get photographed while blocking her face with binders.Whitmer visited the Republican president on Wednesday alongside a bipartisan delegation to discuss a northern Michigan ice storm, the state’s defense assets and tariffs, among other issues. Following the meeting, Whitmer was brought into the Oval Office where she – as the New York Times described – “stood glumly” during a press conference that saw Trump sign several executive orders that targeted his political opponents.In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for Whitmer said the governor was caught off guard by the media appearance.“The governor was surprised that she was brought into the Oval Office during president Trump’s press conference without any notice of the subject matter,” the Whitmer spokesperson said. “Her presence is not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made at that event.”The Whitmer administration’s efforts to distance her from the press conference came after the president praised her, saying: “We’re honored to have Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, great state of Michigan, and she’s been, she’s really done an excellent job, very good person.”The comments marked a shift from his public comments made about the governor five years ago during the Covid-19 pandemic.At the time, Trump said he had a “big problem” with the “young, a woman governor” in Michigan, adding that “all she does is sit there and blame the federal government”.Whitmer, meanwhile, blamed Trump for a failed plot to kidnap her that was devised by rightwing extremists – a case that led to nine convictions.Speaking to reporters at a college event in Michigan after Wednesday’s press conference, Whitmer said: “It was not where I wanted to be or planned to be or would have liked to have been.“I disagree with a lot of stuff that was said and the actions that were taken. But I stayed in the room because I needed to make the case for Michigan, and that’s my job.”Whitmer nevertheless has been criticized, particularly online, including for blocking her face with binders at one point during the conference while a picture was snapped.One user wrote on X: “She just stood there as he signed executive orders. Democrats, NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU.”Another person said: “One of my favorite things about things like this is that she would’ve been better off just having her photo taken. ‘(Normal) Gretchen Whitmer in the White House’ would’ve been a lot less embarrassing than ‘(Hiding) Gretchen Whitmer.’”Someone else wrote: “Is [Whitmer] hiding from the press here? Or still hiding from the people of Michigan?”Whitmer’s state is one of the most crucial electoral battlegrounds in the US.With base Democratic voters increasingly criticizing members of their party for not taking a harder line against the Trump administration, Whitmer has said publicly that she does not regard herself as “the leader of the opposition”.In January, she told the Associated Press: “I have shared with some of my colleagues from some of the very blue states that my situation here in Michigan is very different than theirs. I’ve got a Republican House of Representatives – majority-Republican House – now to work with.“I’ve got to make sure that I can deliver and work with folks of the federal government, and so I don’t view myself as the leader of the opposition like some might.”Echoing similar sentiments, Adrian Hemond, the chief executive of the political consulting firm Grassroots Midwest, recently told: “She’s been trying to work with Trump since he got back in office, which is appropriate.“She’s a swing-state governor.”Meanwhile, David Dulio, a political science professor at Michigan’s Oakland University, told the outlet: “It is more a reflection of the state of the Democratic party that a popular Midwestern governor can go to Washington, get some wins on bipartisan issues and get attacked for it by her own people.”Whitmer was first elected as Michigan’s governor in 2018 and then re-elected in 2022 by a wider margin than her first victory. More