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    US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans

    The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500 – and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans.The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.The administration published the news on Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.No reason was given for the drop in numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000.The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.The government memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.The figure had previously been reported after documents about the plans were leaked.The announcement swiftly drew criticism from refugee organizations, with the International Refugee Assistance Project saying: “This determination makes it painfully clear that the Trump administration values politics over protection.”“By privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicizing a humanitarian program. It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,” it added.Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of the US-based Global Refuge, took issue with the ethics of the decision.She said: “This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing. For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council posted on X.He wrote: “Since the US Refugee Program was created in 1980, it has admitted over two million people fleeing ethnic cleansing and other horrors. Now it will be used as a pathway for white immigration. What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn February, Trump signed an executive order to cut financial aid to South Africa after he accused its Black-led government of “unjust racial discrimination” to white Afrikaners, a minority group who are descendants of Dutch and French colonial settlers.The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the South African government is implementing anti-white policies through a new land expropriation law that allegedly targets Afrikaners’ land.The South African government has pushed back, calling the claims false as well as denying US accusations that Afrikaners are being subjected to racially motivated violence in rural areas.Across South Africa, 72% of farms and agricultural holdings are owned by white individuals, who make up 7.3% of the total population of the country, according to Action for Southern Africa. Meanwhile, Black Africans, who make up 81.4% of the country’s population, only own around 4% of the land.Thursday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has slashed refugee resettlement numbers.During his first term, in 2020, Trump set a limit of 15,000 refugees for the 2021 fiscal year. The previous year, in 2019, he had already reduced the limit to 18,000 for the 2020 fiscal year. More

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    Britain would do well to remember where its power over China lies | Simon Jenkins

    The US has backed down in its tariff war with China. Thanks to Donald Trump’s egotistical diplomacy, rare earths can again flow one way, soya beans the other, and less of the chemicals used to make fentanyl in between. No matter that the war was Trump’s own idea and seems to have been a stunt. The stunt is over. Trump has played his favourite game of dealmaker, much to the discomfort of millions.Meanwhile Britain still cannot make up its mind if China is its enemy. In 2008 British officials visited the Beijing Olympics authorities to discuss the next games in London in 2012. The government told them to “raise” human rights issues, about which the British government was most concerned. I am told the Chinese reacted with sympathy at the Britons’ embarrassment at broaching the matter, and then everyone got down to business. Soon China was a friend, certainly to David Cameron and George Osborne.Not today. China is now a much-enhanced world power, and in the eyes of some, a threat to Britain’s national security. The recent confusion over whether two British officials were Chinese spies has largely and absurdly revolved around whether the Chinese “threat” was greater to a Tory government than to a Labour one. China was clearly recruiting spies everywhere, as do most countries. It sought a huge London embassy, befriended Prince Andrew and required Boris Johnson to send two aircraft carriers to patrol the South China Sea.Pompous countries crave enemies. They have large military empires heavily reliant on them, empires fiendishly resistant to dismantling. After the fall of the Soviet Union a senior advisor to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev joked to American officials: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”Who is the US’s new enemy? The answer is clearly China. But as Trump has found, it is an enemy with which it is hard to come to terms. It does not send its armies overseas. As it challenges the US for world economic supremacy, it snaps the bond once thought to hold capitalism in the arms of democracy. It gets richer and richer. China’s Brics-plus alliance with India and others has overtaken the G7 in world trade. The Beijing policy expert Henry Wang even mooted this week that a China-led Brics force could police a ceasefire border in Ukraine. It would be a sensational intervention.GK Chesterton wrote that “those who appeal to the head rather than the heart … are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” Trump could yet be that blow to the head. He is forcing Nato to ask itself what it is really about. He is telling the world not to rely on the US to police its conflicts, in the manner trumpeted by Kennedy, Johnson and the two Bush presidents. Washington may be about to turn in on itself and deny its manifest destiny to set the world to rights. After all, it was founded to turn its back on the arguments infesting the outside world.Since Britain, too, enjoyed global fantasies, it of all nations should understand this. It cannot refuse to come to terms with the new Beijing. Yes, China does terrible things to its minorities. It denies freedom of speech and neurotically spies on foreign states. In the new age of artificial intelligence, China is clearly out to rival the US.Since this rivalry will probably encompass attacks on other countries’ cybersecurity, it makes sense for any country to guard its digital space. Whether that extends to embassy buildings is a matter for experts. But clearly, to locate a foreign embassy just five minutes’ walk from a centre of global financial intelligence is a bad idea. China must understand this. Would it let MI6 erect a headquarters overlooking Tiananmen Square?Britain is no longer a superpower and must deal with superpowers, as must all second-division states. But in one respect it is unique. Its soft power is probably equal to none, notably its cultural and teaching assets. It has educated more world leaders – apparently 50 – and takes in more Chinese students than any other country including the US. It also welcomes half a million Chinese tourists a year, many drawn by aspects of British popular culture. We do not measure soft power, but its influence cannot be negligible – and is certainly profitable.It is therefore absurd that the British government is planning to splurge billions more on defending Britain from a purely notional third world war. At the same time it is slashing the budget of its overseas cultural institution, the British Council. The council is being forced to withdraw from 60 countries and sell its entire property portfolio.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe message of current events in China is simple. The world has changed from the one on which Britain has long founded its foreign and defence policy. It needs to reassess the impact its limited power may still have on the world outside. That must include getting on well with China, and not hyping it as an enemy.

    Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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    Senate postpones hearing for Trump’s surgeon general pick after she goes into labor

    The Senate hearing for Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, has been postponed after the nominee went into labor with her first child.Means had planned to make history as the first nominee to appear virtually before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee due to her pregnancy on Thursday. The hearing was originally scheduled for two days after her due date, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. It remains unclear when the hearing will be rescheduled.In a statement shared with the Guardian, Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the department of health and human services (HHS), said: “Everyone is happy for Dr Means and her family. This is one of the few times in life when it’s easy to ask to move a Senate hearing.”Trump nominated Means in May to serve as US surgeon general, the president’s second pick for the role often referred to as “the nation’s doctor”. Means, a wellness influencer and physician with an inactive medical license, follows the abrupt withdrawal of Trump’s first nominee, Dr Janette Nesheiwat, whose confirmation hearing was canceled amid rightwing criticism and questions about her credentials.Means, 38, is a Los Angeles-based medical entrepreneur who rose to prominence in conservative wellness circles for her critiques of mainstream medicine and her advocacy for improving the nation’s food supply.She is the author of the bestselling book Good Energy and a leading figure in the “Make America healthy again” (Maha) movement. Her selection underscores the growing influence of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, within the Trump administration.In a social media post, Trump said that Means “has impeccable ‘Maha’ credentials”.“Her academic achievements, together with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding,” Trump said. “Dr Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History.”Asked about the nomination shortly after it was announced, Trump said: “I don’t know her. I listened to the recommendation of Bobby.”Means, through her book, blog and speaking appearances, has championed holistic health with a focus on whole and natural foods, exercise, and curbing pharmaceutical prescriptions for chronic ailments.The Stanford Medicine-trained doctor has also suggested that psychedelics such as psilocybin can be beneficial for mental health, decried broad pesticide use and warned against long-term use of hormonal birth control.Means and her brother, former lobbyist Calley Means, served as key advisers to Kennedy’s long-shot 2024 presidential bid and helped broker his endorsement of Trump last summer. The pair made appearances with some of Trump’s biggest supporters, winning praise from conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and podcaster Joe Rogan.Calley Means is now a White House adviser who appears frequently on television to promote restrictions on Snap benefits, removing fluoride from drinking water and other Maha agenda items. More

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    Share how the ongoing US government shutdown could affect your access to food or health insurance

    More than 40 million Americans will stop receiving food stamps on 1 November, as the US government shutdown enters its fifth week.The Department of Agriculture says the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) will be suspended until Congress reopens the government. While the Trump administration argues the department does not have the legal authority to use a $5bn contingency fund to continue the aid, Democrats disagree, and two dozen states have sued the government to force the program to continue.Meanwhile, Democrats are also refusing to vote to end the shutdown because health insurance costs are set to go up dramatically as insurers prepare for a lapse in subsidies. Senate Democrats are demanding that any short-term government funding deal include an extension of the enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans, while Trump and the Republicans have said they will not negotiate until the government is back up and running. Extending the subsidies would require $350bn in federal spending over the coming decade.We’d like to hear from Americans who are about to lose Snap food assistance due to the shutdown, as well as from people whose healthcare may become unaffordable due to rising premiums. Have you received any notices or paperwork that your insurance will change soon? Tell us. More

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    The leftwing defense of Graham Platner is rooted in a false Democratic vision | Moira Donegan

    A young political outsider with a fairly scant record becomes a sensation in a Democratic primary, capturing hearts and minds with a populist message and a disarming charm that translates well into vertical video. His success surges him to the head of the race, and as election day nears, he seems poised to pull off an upset victory that topples one of his district’s most hated and entrenched political machines.It’s a tale of two primaries: the New York City mayoral race, in which the 33-year-old state assembly member Zohran Mamdani defeated the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, and the Maine Senate race, where the political outsider and oyster farmer Graham Platner attracted national attention with a viral campaign.But one of these races has gone much better than the other. In New York, Mamdani has worked to consolidate citywide support following his landslide primary victory, and though he has become a figure of national controversy as Republicans and some Democrats smear him for his race and religion, he has managed to secure broad buy-in from city stakeholders. Mamdani’s opponents, meanwhile, have struggled to create a sense of outrage and scandal around the mayoral contender: despite millions poured into the race from billionaires intent on keeping the Democratic socialist out of office, opposition research into Mamdani seems to be coming up empty. Recently, the New York Post tried, somewhat feebly, to create a scandal out of the fact that Mamdani referred to an older, female relative as his “aunt”, even though technically, she was a distant cousin.Platner’s case looks different. Earlier this month, after Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, entered the Democratic Senate race with the backing of party leaders, a series of increasingly unflattering revelations about Platner’s past behavior came to light. In a series of since-deleted Reddit posts, some from as recently as 2020, Platner made a series of incendiary comments. He claimed that Black people don’t tip (“I work as a bartender and it always amazes me how true the stereotype is,” he wrote. “Every now and again a black patron will leave a 15-20% tip, but usually it [sic] between 0-5%”) and suggested women who have been sexually assaulted were responsible for their own attacks, writing, according to the Washington Post: “If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out f—-d up around people you aren’t comfortable with.” A few days later, he went on Pod Save America, the successful liberal podcast hosted by former Obama staffers, seemingly in an effort to get ahead of another unflattering story: that he had a tattoo of a Totenkopf, widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, for nearly 20 years.Platner’s account of the tattoo goes like this: when he was in his early 20s and enlisted in the marines, he was drunk on shore leave in Croatia, and he and his friends went to get a tattoo. Platner selected a Totenkopf, an angled skull and crossbones image used by the SS; he claims he did not know what it meant, and that he merely thought it looked cool. Platner says that he did not know the significance of his tattoo until recently, and has said he is “not a secret Nazi”.But reporting from outlets such as Jewish Insider and CNN contradicts this, with a source to Jewish Insider claiming that Platner had referred to his tattoo by its German name – as “my Totenkopf” – years before. On Pod Save America, Platner broadcast a video of himself, shirtless and evidently inebriated at his brother’s wedding, with the tattoo on display. As a crowd of partygoers looked on, the half-naked Platner sang an off-key version of Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball. He got the tattoo covered up a few days later, appearing shirtless, again, on television to display an odd-looking Celtic knot with a hound motif where the Totenkopf had once been. One wonders how much familiarity with a Senate candidate’s nipples voters are expected to have.Calls accumulated for Platner to drop out of the race. But some, most prominently the Pod Save America hosts themselves, defended Platner, and suggested that the calls for him to step aside were emblematic of what they see as the Democratic party’s core problems: an excessive priggishness and marriage to political correctness. “Only perfect candidates off the harvard law conveyor belt pls,” wrote Jon Lovett sardonically. “Highly disciplined, all boxes checked, well liked and humble, absolutely no spiritual connection to having a physical body except for severe IBS, volunteered at a soup kitchen in high school, signs email ‘cheers,’ etc.” (Lovett did not elaborate on what “spiritual connection to having a physical body” meant in this context.) Ryan Grim, formerly of the Intercept, cast Platner’s rehabilitation in existential terms for the party: “Not to overstate it, but this is a crucial moment for the Democratic Party,” he wrote. “If they decide that normal people with some skeletons in their closet (or inked on their chest) are not welcome, they are finished.” Normal seems to be a flexible term. Ben Burgiss, an adjunct at Rutgers and a columnist at the left-populist magazine Jacobin, put it more bluntly: “I still like Platner a whole lot more than the grim little hall monitors digging up dirt on him,” he wrote on the day that the Totenkopf tattoo story broke. “Sorry.”For his part, Platner was defensive about the need for actions like his to find tolerance and forgiveness in a party that seeks to court male voters. “How do you expect to win young people?” Platner said in an interview with Semafor. “How do you expect to win back men when you go back through somebody’s Reddit history and just pull it all out and say: ‘Oh my God, this person has no right to ever be in politics?’ Good luck with that. Good luck winning over those demographics.”Mamdani and Platner are clearly men of different temperaments. But the men also represent different paths for the Democratic party’s insurgent left wing, as left-populist candidates ride a wave of voter outrage and base anger at Democratic party leadership to pose serious challenges to the party’s mainstream. In Mamdani, what seems to be a genuine political talent has emerged: his uncommonly disciplined message focuses on affordability issues without shying away from pluralist values or seeming to mimic a more rugged, domineering form of masculinity. But in Platner, some pundits and members of the consultant class seem to have found a vehicle for their own project for the party’s reform, one that is less about policy outcomes than about transforming the Democratic party’s image to embrace men, masculinity and a vision of a rugged, rural whiteness.The notion that the Democratic party is losing because it is too feminized – too dominated by women among its voters, leaders and candidates, or not sufficiently comfortable with the style of masculinity represented by Platner – has been bubbling up among left and liberal commentators with increasing insistence over the past decade. The idea is that in catering too much to women, and in being insufficiently deferential to domineering, gruff, physically imposing and implicitly white, rural men, the party has come to seem hectoring, inauthentic and whiny, and lost the voters they need to most recruit: that is, the working class, imagined here, as they so frequently are, as brusque, bigoted, ignorant, vulgar and male.Put aside, for a moment, the misogyny of this assertion: is it true that by becoming too “feminine”, the party will lose the working class? The reality is that the American working class now consists less of the masculine-coded heavy industries like manufacturing and rust-belt steel mills, and more of jobs in the female-dominated service sector. Just under half of American workers are women, but they are the majority of the low-wage workforce. The conflation of the “working class” with maleness is outdated and false, a rhetorical fig leaf that conceals sexism behind a facade of anticapitalist righteousness.One suspects that what is at stake in the pundit defenses of Platner and his masculinity is not so much about electoral outcomes as it is about an idea of what makes power legitimate. When the likes of Lovett, Grim and Burgiss suggest that tolerance for behavior like Platner’s is needed to win elections – an idea that seems to have very little esteem for men and workers, both – they might actually be signaling not so much what they need to do to win, but what kind of victory would be worth having.The infatuation with an idea of a working class that is not represented in the actual numbers is less about a materialist analysis of American politics than it is about a psychic investment in American manhood. The tolerance these pundits are calling for is not an electoral necessity, but a cultural valuation of a certain kind of American over others. It is unfortunate, in the light of Mamdani’s example of how capacious masculinity can be and how needless tolerance for racism and sexism are to an energizing campaign, that these men are choosing to line up behind a man who has displayed, at minimum, some highly questionable judgment.But to many, the Totenkopf-bearing man, shirtless and belting in the video that Platner showed on Pod Save America, is simply more American than others – more authentic, more admirable, more worthy of winning over. Women of color, Jews, rape survivors, Black people, or any of the others that Platner might alienate with this past behavior, meanwhile, seem relatively cheap to them in comparison. This chase for the white male vote as more worthy and important is conspicuous, now, among the liberal pundit class. How are all the other voters supposed to feel about it?

    Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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    The ‘Mamdani of Minneapolis’ is banking on a grassroots campaign to unseat the Democratic mayor

    On a rainy October day, dozens of volunteers showed up at a Minneapolis park to grab campaign literature they would leave at voters’ doors, hoping to buoy up a Democratic socialist into the mayor’s office.A handful of door-knockers ran into an apartment building to escape the rain, joining Omar Fateh, the mayoral hopeful sometimes dubbed the “Mamdani of Minneapolis”.“We’re running on a campaign to make the city more livable, affordable and to protect all of our residents,” he told one voter, who said they hadn’t been following the race closely.Two others who answered knew Fateh’s name and lent their support. “I think I’m planning on voting for you,” one man told Fateh.Minneapolis voters will decide their next mayor on Tuesday 4 November.Fateh, a 35-year-old who became state senator by ousting an incumbent, has gained attention for comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist on track to win New York City’s mayoral contest. They’re both young, both part of the insurgent left, both Muslim, both state lawmakers. Their platforms, with a focus on affordability, align. Their campaigns tap into grassroots organizers with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Their races use ranked-choice voting, allowing for alliances against the incumbent.Instead of a primary, Minneapolis holds caucuses and a city convention. Fateh earned the endorsement of the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, but it was then revoked by the state party after the electronic voting system failed to capture all votes in the contest, the Minneapolis DFL acknowledged, leaving the race without an endorsed candidate.View image in fullscreen“One of the biggest benefits of the DFL endorsement is name recognition,” Fateh told the Guardian. “But that name recognition became far greater than what we ever could have gotten with the endorsement after they revoked it.”The Minneapolis mayor’s race doesn’t feature the shamelessness of the New York City race – namely, the participation of the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and the ethically suspect incumbent mayor, Eric Adams. Few have the charisma of Mamdani, nor the organizing and social media prowess of his campaign, one that left-leaning candidates around the country will try to emulate.Minneapolis’s incumbent mayor, Jacob Frey, running for his third term, has his critics – for his handling of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in the city in 2020, persistent policing problems, a homelessness crisis and contentions with the more progressive city council. Frey, 44, often serves as a moderate check on the council, which includes several Democratic socialists.There are 15 candidates running in the race, four of whom – all Democrats – are considered viable. The three top challengers, including Fateh, have created an alliance, appearing at each other’s events, though only Fateh is explicitly telling voters not to rank Frey on their ballots. Public polling of the race is minimal, complicated by the ranked-choice voting method, though Frey typically shows as the top vote-getter, albeit not cresting the necessary 50% to win in a first ballot.“The fact that Fateh and other candidates are drawing as much support as they appear to be, I think, owes to the fact that the Democratic party has lost credibility among progressive voters,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “This is not a cross-section of America. This is an urban area in one of the most progressive kind of electorates in the country.”The rise of Omar FatehFateh, like Mamdani, is running a campaign full of progressive promises, including raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, a plan for rent stabilization, a public safety system that funds alternatives to police for calls like mental health crises and standing up to Trump. Six of the 13 council members have backed him, as have unions and state lawmakers.He casts Frey’s two terms as “broken promises and vetoes”, noting a 2017 campaign promise to end homelessness within five years and goals for public safety reform after Floyd’s murder.“We have a progressive city council that’s ready to do the work, that has been doing the work,” Fateh told the Guardian. “We just don’t have a mayor as a partner.”Fateh, born in Washington DC, moved to Minneapolis about a decade ago. In 2020, the Democratic socialist launched a challenge to an incumbent Democrat for the state senate, earning the party’s endorsement and eventually becoming the first Somali American and first Muslim in the chamber. As a senator, he pushed through a bill creating labor standards for ride-share drivers and championed a tuition-free college plan.His time in the legislature and reputation as a progressive fighter gave him a base of support in the mayoral contest, elevating him to top contender against Frey, Jacobs said.An increased national profile has brought along an increase in threats, racism and Islamophobia, Fateh told Sahan Journal, a local publication, this week. Earlier this month, he got a message that said: “Two bullets to the head, done.” He has had to take additional safety precautions and pay for security, he told the outlet. “Most campaigns don’t have to think about this,” his campaign manager told Sahan Journal.View image in fullscreenFateh believes the revoked endorsement is in part because of the donor class and how it would look to support a progressive candidate with a populist message, especially in suburban and rural areas where the DFL has lost ground.“The DFL and the Democratic party as a whole like to always say we’re a big tent, we are a wide spectrum, we welcome everybody,” he said. “But a lot of times it seems like when it’s the more progressive wing that they can shut out.”After knocking on doors, Fateh returned to the park, where families set up bubble machines and boxes of fruit snacks and goldfish for a “play date with Omar Fateh”, himself the tired first-time father of a newborn. He is quick to show off pictures of his baby. Frey also has a newborn, his second child – the two politicians’ babies were born within 10 days of each other.An organizer at the play date asked the crowd of a few dozen adults and kids if anyone knows who Fateh is. “I’ve seen him on the phone!” one kid yelled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSarah Quinn, a Minneapolis voter who spoke to the crowd at the event, said she had heard from people who were ready to vote against Frey, but weren’t sure how they would rank the other candidates. People seemed excited to hear about Fateh’s vision, she said, and she was sick of hearing about vetoes of council bills and “low-grade insults back and forth” among the mayor and council.“I feel like Minneapolis has this reputation of being a really progressive city, and I’m not actually feeling that as a resident,” Quinn said. “And so just hearing his agenda has really resonated with me, and I think that he’s somebody that can actually get the shit done with the city council.”The rise of the DSA has served as a boogeyman of sorts for the Democratic establishment: before the Minneapolis convention, one proposal, which was later pulled back, sought to make it so a candidate couldn’t be endorsed by both the DSA and the DFL.Fateh’s campaign has been boosted by the Twin Cities DSA. Brooke Bartholomew, the group’s co-chair, said they had seen new members sign up after Mamdani’s win in the primary.“We have the people power,” Bartholomew said. “That’s part of what DSA brings to the table for Omar Fateh’s campaign is people power – going on those doors, talking to neighbors and helping to build this really diverse coalition.”Is Frey vulnerable?Frey, endorsed by Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, has the money advantage over Fateh and the other two top contenders, Jazz Hampton and DeWayne Davis. That “organizational muscle” that comes from allied groups and the business community could help get out the vote for Frey, said Jacobs, of the University of Minnesota.The Guardian repeatedly sought an interview with Frey and asked to attend a campaign event. The campaign did not make the mayor available, instead sending a statement from a campaign spokesperson.View image in fullscreen“Over the last five years, Minneapolis was tested like never before,” the statement said. “Under Mayor Frey’s leadership, the city has been making a comeback. Violent crime is trending down, the city is creating eight times more deeply affordable housing than before Mayor Frey took office, and Minneapolis is taking the Trump administration to court to defend our neighbors. The mayor is running for one final term to improve public safety by hiring more police officers and implementing police reform, expanding affordable housing, and focusing on delivering excellent core city services. We’re optimistic that Minneapolis voters will support that vision next week.”Since Trump returned to the White House, Frey has vocally defended Minneapolis, which could become a target of Trump’s increased deportation raids or military occupations. The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, came to town in late October, stoking speculation that the city could be next on Trump’s list. Frey, flanked by city leaders, put out a video on the day of her visit saying he had been preparing for months for a potential federal influx.“In Minneapolis, we have your back,” Frey said to the city’s immigrant communities. “You will be protected and respected by our city employees regardless of your immigration status.”Opposing Trump is an increasing part of the mayor’s purview, and one that all the contenders say is critical. Fateh wants the city to strengthen the separation ordinance that prevents city employees from aiding immigration activities.While the race is often cast as a two-person contest, Hampton and Davis see lanes for themselves to win, given ranked-choice voting, and not just to help Fateh.View image in fullscreen“I would not be running to prop up someone else’s campaign,” Hampton said. “I’m running to win, and I believe that we can and will. However, if that means door-knocking with other candidates to let everyone see us, that’s what we should be doing.”Davis, a minister and former congressional staffer, said voters were ready to move beyond “leadership by press conference and ribbon-cutting”, and the success of the three insurgent campaigns shows that.The Mamdani comparisons don’t track as much with the Minneapolis race, Davis said. Looking past the weak opposition from Cuomo in New York, Minneapolis has a “very active establishment” of business-oriented Democrats.“I think we are far more divided here,” Davis said of Minneapolis voters. “And so given the ranked choice with us, that division, it’s any guess about how that iteration of choices through ranked choice will end up happening.” More

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    Trump is using the shutdown to make life tougher for millions of workers | Steven Greenhouse

    For many Americans, government shutdowns are a painful experience, but in the current shutdown, Donald Trump – that supposed champion of workers – has gone out of his way to make things more painful for millions of workers and their families.As part of his effort to clobber the Democrats in the shutdown showdown, the US president has repeatedly treated workers like pawns by employing a callous calculus that the worse he makes things for workers, the greater the pressure on congressional Democrats to cry uncle and end the shutdown on his terms. Not only are several of Trump’s shutdown moves blatantly anti-worker, but legal experts say many of them violate federal law.Take the Trump administration’s abrupt decision to effectively cut off funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) beginning this Saturday. That’s the food stamp program used by millions of workers and their families – a total of 42 million people, one-eighth of the US population.Last Friday, the administration said it wouldn’t let the Department of Agriculture’s $5bn-plus contingency fund be used to ensure continued food benefits after 1 November. Nutrition experts and Snap recipients warn that this will result in increased hunger in the world’s richest nation. The administration cut off funding by asserting that the contingency money could only be used for natural disasters, and it did so even though it had said just before the shutdown began that the contingency fund could be used to finance Snap benefits.JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, slammed the move, saying that working families “are about to go without food assistance because Trump and congressional Republicans want to score political points and refuse to reach a deal.” Pritzker added: “They can find the money to pay masked federal agents wreaking havoc in our communities but not help people in need put food on the table.”Cutting off food stamps will hurt millions of low-wage workers as well as seniors, veterans and many other vulnerable Americans. “People receive Snap in every part of the country and in every state,” said Sharon Parrott, president of the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive thinktank. “It is quite something to be sitting on billions of dollars that could be used for food assistance for people who need help and to refuse to release it.”This past Tuesday, two dozen states sued the Trump administration, asserting that the Snap cutoff was unlawful. David A Super, a federal budget expert at Georgetown University, told the New York Times that “nothing in the law imposes that limit” of using contingency funding only for natural disasters. He added: “This [funding cutoff] is blatantly lawless.”The government shutdown began on 1 October, after Democrats blocked legislation to finance the government unless Trump and Republicans agreed, as part of any deal, to take an important step to help working Americans – extending subsidies that help 22 million Americans pay for Obamacare. Trump refused.The Snap cutoff is just one of the anti-worker moves Trump has taken during the shutdown. He alarmed 670,000 furloughed federal workers by threatening not to provide them with backpay. After previous government shutdowns, the hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees almost always received retroactive pay for the time the shutdown lasted. Not only that, during Trump’s first term, he signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which was understood to guarantee backpay to federal workers furloughed during shutdowns.But during the current shutdown, Trump suddenly backtracked on that legislation and threw an unwelcome curveball to the 670,000 furloughed workers. He warned them that there is no guarantee they will receive backpay for the four-plus weeks they have been furloughed.This was widely seen as “a strong-arm tactic” to pressure congressional Democrats to agree to reopen the government and drop their demand to extend Obamacare subsidies. Senator Patty Murray of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, called this Trump tactic illegal and “another baseless attempt to try and scare & intimidate workers”. She wrote on X: “The letter of the law is as plain as can be – federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their backpay following a shutdown.”In a draft memo, the Trump White House indicated that only workers it deemed essential – like military personnel and air traffic controllers – may be automatically entitled to backpay. In a slap at the 670,000 furloughed workers, Trump told reporters that backpay was iffy for federal workers, saying it “depends on who you’re talking about” and there were “some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of”.In another anti-worker move, Trump and Russell Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget, seized on the shutdown to announce permanent layoffs of 4,000 federal workers. They did this after Trump called the shutdown an “unprecedented opportunity” to revamp the government and cut “Democrat agencies”. In previous shutdowns, furloughed workers weren’t laid off; they returned to their jobs when the government reopened.On Tuesday, Susan Illston, a federal district court judge in San Francisco, extended an injunction temporarily blocking the layoffs. She calling them capricious and a form of “political retribution’ and said that such mid-shutdown layoffs were “unprecedented in our country’s history”.Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 800,000 federal and Washington DC government workers, called the layoffs illegal. “Federal workers are tired of being used as pawns,” Kelley said. He added: “It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country.”We shouldn’t be at all surprised that Trump has pursued new anti-worker policies during the shutdown, considering that he has embraced dozens of anti-worker policies during his nine months back in office. Notwithstanding his repeated promises to help miners, Trump halted enforcement of a regulation that protects coalminers from a devastating, often deadly lung disease. Enraging labor leaders, Trump has moved to strip collective bargaining rights from more than 1 million federal workers. He scrapped the minimum wage requirement that federal contractors pay their employees at least $17.75 an hour; as a result, many full-time workers will see their wages fall by more than $9,200 a year. Trump fired the chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), leaving the country’s top labor agency without a quorum to protect workers from companies’ unlawful anti-union tactics.Meanwhile, Trump has slashed regulations on oil companies and crypto-billionaires to help them increase profits. Trump “talks a good game of being for working people, but he’s doing the absolute opposite,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation. “This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires.”For weeks now, Trump could have easily ended the shutdown by doing a straightforward favor for America’s working class. But he has refused to do so because he doesn’t want to be seen as bending in any way in his showdown with the Democrats. Trump could end the shutdown in an hour or two by telling congressional Republicans: “Let’s do the working class a solid by extending Obamacare subsidies.” That would be a boon to millions of workers because without the extension, Obamacare premiums will more than double on average for 22 million Americans.All this shows that Trump has acted coldly, cruelly and calculatingly toward working-class Americans during the shutdown. Any president who truly cared about American workers, any president who wanted to reduce their worrying and their pain, would, during the shutdown, be doing the opposite of what Trump has done.

    Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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    Donald Trump says rare earths dispute ‘settled’ after Xi Jinping meeting in South Korea – live updates

    In case you’re just joining us, here’s a rundown on what happened at the high-stakes talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea.Trump said afterwards that Washington’s dispute with Beijing over the supply of rare earths had been settled, China would resume buying US soybeans and Washington would reduce its tariffs on China.Trump shook hands with Xi after their talks and boarded Air Force One to return to Washington, saying onboard that the meeting had been a “great success”.He told reporters the Chinese leader had agreed to work “very hard” to prevent the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl – blamed for many American deaths – and in exchange the US would reduce fentanyl-linked tariffs from 20% to 10%, lowering the overall tariff burden from 57% to 47%.Trump also said he would visit China in April and that Xi would come to the US some time afterwards.In key developments:

    Xi said after the meeting that he and Trump had reached “consensus” on trade issues, Chinese state media reported. Xi said both sides should “finalise follow-up work as soon as possible, maintain and implement the consensus and provide tangible results to set minds at ease about the economies of China, the United States and the world”.

    Trump said they had agreed to work together on Ukraine, adding that the war “came up very strongly” as an issue. “We talked about it for a long time, and we’re both going to work together to see if we can get something.”

    Taiwan was not discussed at the meeting, Trump said. Earlier, both leaders ignored a question about the self-governing democracy, amid concern in Taipei that Trump may be willing to make concessions to Xi.

    Before the meeting at Gimhae airbase in Busan, South Korea – their first face-to-face meeting in six years – Trump and Xi shook hands in front of their countries’ flags and the US president said: “We’re going to have a very successful meeting.” He added: “He’s a tough negotiator – that’s not good,” before patting the Chinese leader on the back.

    Trump had suggested before the meeting – at which their delegations faced each other across a negotiating table – that it could last three or four hours. The two leaders parted after one hour and 40 minutes.

    Xi said China and the US should “stay on the right course” and “be partners and friends” and should “work together to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and the whole world”.

    The optimism in Busan was in stark contrast to the recent exchanges of aggressive rhetoric over trade that had threatened to set the US and Chinese on an economic collision course, with potentially disastrous consequences globally. China’s yuan retreated from a near one-year high against the dollar on Thursday after the meeting met expectations but gave investors few new reasons for trade optimism.

    Minutes before meeting Xi, Trump said in a social media post that he had ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testingat the same level of China and Russia. He did not respond to a reporter’s question about the decision as he and Xi began their summit.With Justin McCurry and agencies
    Donald Trump has used his Truth Social platform to declare the trade tensions with China are “very close to being resolved” as he urges US farmers to go out and buy “more land and bigger tractors” as Beijing ends its soya bean embargo.The US exports about £18bn worth of soya bean a year, half of which goes to China, but China stopped buying the product leaving Trump contemplating a multi-billion dollar bailout for farmers.Trump said on Truth Social:
    I had a truly great meeting with President Xi of China. There is enormous respect between our two Countries, and that will only be enhanced with what just took place.
    We agreed on many things, with others, even of high importance, being very close to resolved. I was extremely honored by the fact that President Xi authorized China to begin the purchase of massive amounts of Soybeans, Sorghum, and other Farm products.
    Our Farmers will be very happy! In fact, as I said once before during my first Administration, Farmers should immediately go out and buy more land and larger tractors.
    The deal covers Fentanyl, rare earths and critical minerals such as refined lithium used in electric vehicle car batteries – a sector in which China dominates the world.China has also agreed to liberalise the sale of magnets used in everything from dishwasher doors to car window openings, he said.It will also buy oil and gas from Alaska, Trump added.Donald Trump had first laid out his intention to pursue nuclear arms control efforts in February, saying he wanted to begin discussions with both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping about imposing limits on their arsenals, reports Reuters.Most major nuclear powers except North Korea stopped explosive nuclear testing in the 1990s. North Korea conducted its last nuclear test in 2017. Russia’s last confirmed test was in 1990, followed by the last US test in 1992, and by China’s in 1996.The reaction to Donald Trump’s announcement on nuclear testing was swift in the US also.Representative Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada, said on X:
    I’ll be introducing legislation to put a stop to this.
    Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, said it would take the US at least 36 months to resume contained nuclear tests underground at the former test site in Nevada. Kimball said on X:
    Trump is misinformed and out of touch. The US has no technical, military, or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992.
    Apart from providing technical data, a US test would be seen in Russia and China as a deliberate assertion of Washington’s strategic power. Russian president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will test if the US does.In August, Trump said he had discussed nuclear arms control with Putin and wanted China to get involved. Beijing responded by saying it was “unreasonable and unrealistic” to ask the country to join in nuclear disarmament negotiations with the two countries, since its arsenal was much smaller.Reuters has some reaction to Donald Trump’s post on Truth Social about the US defence department to immediately begin nuclear testing on a par with Russia and China’s testing (see 1.49am GMT)A senior Russian lawmaker said Trump’s decision would herald a new era of unpredictability and open confrontation, state news agency RIA reported, while China’s foreign ministry called for the US to abide by its commitment to a moratorium on nuclear testing and uphold the global strategic balance and stability.It was not immediately clear whether Trump was referring to nuclear-explosive testing, which would be carried out by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), or flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles. No nuclear power, other than North Korea, has carried out explosive testing in more than 25 years.Russian senator Vladimir Dzhabarov said on Thursday that US president Donald Trump should negotiate with Russia, rather than imposing sanctions on it, state news agency RIA cited him as saying.US president Donald Trump said on Thursday he has given South Korea approval to build a nuclear-powered submarine, a dramatic move that would admit Seoul to a small club of nations possessing such vessels.The submarine will be built in a Philadelphia shipyard, where South Korean firms have increased investment, Trump wrote on social media.Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform:I have given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine, rather than the old fashioned, and far less nimble, diesel powered Submarines that they have now.The US president, who met South Korean president Lee Jae Myung and other regional leaders during his visit, also said Seoul had agreed to buy vast quantities of US oil and gas.Trump and Lee finalised details of a fraught trade deal at a summit in South Korea on Wednesday. Lee had also been seeking US permission for South Korea to reprocess nuclear fuel.However, South Korea’s industry ministry said its officials had not been involved in any detailed discussions about building the submarines in Philadelphia.While South Korea has a sophisticated shipbuilding industry, Trump did not spell out where the propulsion technology would come from for a nuclear-powered submarine, which only a handful of countries currently possess.One opposition lawmaker said on Thursday the Philadelphia shipyard does not have facilities to build submarines, reports Reuters.Asked about Trump’s submarine announcement, Hanwha Ocean, which owns the shipyard with another Hanwha affiliate, said it was ready to cooperate with both countries and provide support with advanced technology, but did not mention specifics.Defence minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers that plans called for South Korea to build its own submarins and modular reactors, and receive a supply of enriched uranium fuel from the US.US president Donald Trump said on Thursday that China agreed to begin the process of purchasing US energy.Trump said in a Truth Social post:
    China also agreed that they will begin the process of purchasing American Energy. In fact, a very large scale transaction may take place concerning the purchase of Oil and Gas from the Great State of Alaska. Chris Wright, Doug Burgum, and our respective Energy teams will be meeting to see if such an Energy Deal can be worked out.
    Chinese state media reported shortly after the meeting that the US and China had reached a “consensus” on trade, but the language was a little vague.We’ve now had more information which confirms the consensus Xi referred to in the meeting was actually developed by the US and China trade negotiation teams which met last Sunday in Kuala Lumpur. After that meeting we were told they had developed a “framework” for trade deals, including the forthcoming sale of TikTok.A short time ago, China’s commerce ministry told reporters that consensus included:

    The US will remove the 10% fentanyl tariff on goods from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, and will extend its suspension of a 24% equitable tariff for another year. In return China will “adjust its countermeasures against the aforementioned US tariffs accordingly”. Both sides also agreed to extend certain tariff exclusions.

    The US will suspend its 50% penetration rule on export controls, and in return China will suspend its own export control measures – understood to be its ban on sales of rare earths to foreign countries for suspected dual-use purposes.

    The US will suspend for one year its Section 301 (harmful trade practises) investigations against China’s maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding industries for one year. In return China will suspend its related countermeasures.
    The ministry said the two sides also reached agreement on issues including fentanyl control, the expansion of agricultural trade, and “handling individual cases involving relevant companies”, which could refer to trade blacklists or investigations against US or American firms based in the other country.“Both sides further affirmed the outcomes of the Madrid trade consultations, with the US side making positive commitments in areas such as investment, and China agreeing to work with the US to properly resolve issues related to TikTok.”Additional research by Lillian YangChina’s defence ministry has said Beijing maintains an open attitude towards developing military relations with the US.Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the defence ministry, told a press briefing that China hopes the US will work with them to jointly build equal, just, peaceful and stable military ties.Oil prices have fallen slightly as investors digest the new trade deal between Trump and Xi.The two world leaders met in South Korea this morning, with Trump agreeing to reduce tariffs on China from 57% to 47% in a one-year deal, in exchange for Beijing resuming purchases of US soybeans, the continuation of rare earth exports and a crackdown on the trade of fentanyl.Brent crude futures dropped by 0.31% to $64.72 a barrel this morning, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped by 0.33% to $60.28.The drops suggest that some investors are sceptical that the new agreement marks an end to the trade war. But president Trump has said his discussions with Xi were “fantastic”, and emphasised their “great relationship”.You can follow more market reaction to the meeting in our business live blog:Earlier we reported that Donald Trump said he would visit China next year.A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has now confirmed that, saying the trip has been scheduled for April.In case you’re just joining us, here’s a rundown on what happened at the high-stakes talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea.Trump said afterwards that Washington’s dispute with Beijing over the supply of rare earths had been settled, China would resume buying US soybeans and Washington would reduce its tariffs on China.Trump shook hands with Xi after their talks and boarded Air Force One to return to Washington, saying onboard that the meeting had been a “great success”.He told reporters the Chinese leader had agreed to work “very hard” to prevent the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl – blamed for many American deaths – and in exchange the US would reduce fentanyl-linked tariffs from 20% to 10%, lowering the overall tariff burden from 57% to 47%.Trump also said he would visit China in April and that Xi would come to the US some time afterwards.In key developments:

    Xi said after the meeting that he and Trump had reached “consensus” on trade issues, Chinese state media reported. Xi said both sides should “finalise follow-up work as soon as possible, maintain and implement the consensus and provide tangible results to set minds at ease about the economies of China, the United States and the world”.

    Trump said they had agreed to work together on Ukraine, adding that the war “came up very strongly” as an issue. “We talked about it for a long time, and we’re both going to work together to see if we can get something.”

    Taiwan was not discussed at the meeting, Trump said. Earlier, both leaders ignored a question about the self-governing democracy, amid concern in Taipei that Trump may be willing to make concessions to Xi.

    Before the meeting at Gimhae airbase in Busan, South Korea – their first face-to-face meeting in six years – Trump and Xi shook hands in front of their countries’ flags and the US president said: “We’re going to have a very successful meeting.” He added: “He’s a tough negotiator – that’s not good,” before patting the Chinese leader on the back.

    Trump had suggested before the meeting – at which their delegations faced each other across a negotiating table – that it could last three or four hours. The two leaders parted after one hour and 40 minutes.

    Xi said China and the US should “stay on the right course” and “be partners and friends” and should “work together to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and the whole world”.

    The optimism in Busan was in stark contrast to the recent exchanges of aggressive rhetoric over trade that had threatened to set the US and Chinese on an economic collision course, with potentially disastrous consequences globally. China’s yuan retreated from a near one-year high against the dollar on Thursday after the meeting met expectations but gave investors few new reasons for trade optimism.

    Minutes before meeting Xi, Trump said in a social media post that he had ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testingat the same level of China and Russia. He did not respond to a reporter’s question about the decision as he and Xi began their summit.With Justin McCurry and agencies
    On his Truth Social account before the meeting, Trump had described the Busan catch-up as the “G2”, a nod to the US and China being the world’s biggest economies and a play on the names of other formal multilateral groupings like the G7 and G20.Even though it’s not an official name, “G2” has been welcomed by some Chinese people online.“Clearly, the core of the global order is the US-China relationship”, said one popular post on Weibo.Another said:
    Americans’ attitudes are shifting quickly; they are gradually adapting to the idea that the US and China are starting to stand on equal footing, and the world is big enough to accommodate a G2.
    With Lillian Yang More