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      The Trump administration is defending abortion pill access in court. What?

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      The Trump administration on Monday asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit that takes aim at the abortion pill mifepristone – a move that stunned many observers for what seemed a defense of the drug by a president who has overseen the most dramatic rollback of abortion rights in modern US history.At first blush, it may seem a victory for abortion access – but experts worry that, in reality, the move preserves the administration’s ability to play coy about any future plans to attack abortion rights.When Donald Trump first returned to the White House earlier this year, US anti-abortion activists had high hopes for the man who helped orchestrate the downfall of Roe v Wade. They thought he might use a 19th-century anti-vice law to effectively ban abortion nationwide. Failing that, they imagined that he might use the power of the Food and Drug Administration to roll back access to mifepristone or even yank it from the market entirely.Instead, over the last few months, the Trump administration has attempted to dodge the issue entirely. The Monday request, to a Texas judge who has become a reliable vote for abortion opponents, continued that pattern.The lawsuit seeks to roll back several FDA regulatory changes that have, over the last decade, considerably expanded access to mifepristone, one of two drugs typically used in US medication abortions. It revives a lawsuit that led to a stinging 9-0 defeat for abortion rights opponents when the court ruled the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, a group of anti-abortion doctors, did not have the legal standing to sue in the first place.Rather than let the matter die, the Republican attorneys general of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri moved to take over the case as its new plaintiffs. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the US district court for the northern district of Texas, where the case is being heard, agreed to let the attorneys general move forward.However, in its Monday filing, the Trump administration argued that there is no reason why the case should proceed in Texas.“At bottom, the states cannot keep alive a lawsuit in which the original plaintiffs were held to lack standing, those plaintiffs have now voluntarily dismissed their claims, and the states’ own claims have no connection to this district,” the administration wrote.Abortion rights supporters have long pointed to one reason why the case was filed in Texas: Kacsmaryk. A Trump appointee with a track record of abortion opposition, Kacsmaryk once took the unprecedented step of ruling to reverse the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, which would lead to its removal from the market.Nicole Huberfeld, a health law professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, found it “a little funny” that the Trump administration’s filing seemed to call out its own side for judge-shopping.It is possible that Trump, who was never exactly a true believer in the anti-abortion movement, has now soured on it. While the movement helped propel him to the White House in 2016, it became something of an albatross for him in 2024, as outrage over Roe’s collapse led abortion rights to become one of the election’s top issues.Yet Huberfeld found the filing more notable for what it did not say: namely, it shied away from revealing the Trump administration’s plans for mifepristone. She believes the administration may try to change mifepristone access through the FDA, and that the legal reasoning in Monday’s filing could be used against a future lawsuit by blue states against new restrictions.“They’re basically saying that the states don’t get to just challenge FDA policy because they want to,” Huberfeld said. “Which, in my view, is a set-up for anticipating that blue states may try to challenge any changes on mifepristone rules.”FDA Commissioner Martin Makary could, for example, move to reverse regulations that permit people to dispense abortion pills through telehealth – which accounts for about a fifth of all US abortions – or eliminate mifepristone’s approval. Project 2025, the notorious playbook of policy proposals authored by the conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, urged the FDA to do exactly that.Last month, Makary told the Semafor World Economy Summit that he had “no plans to take action” on mifepristone. However, he added: “There is an ongoing set of data that is coming into the FDA on mifepristone. So if the data suggests something or tells us that there’s a real signal, we can’t promise we’re not going to act on that data.”Decades of studies, conducted in more than a dozen countries, have found that mifepristone is safe and effective. However, anti-abortion groups have repeatedly pushed studies that claimed to find that mifepristone is dangerous. (Some of those studies have been retracted.)“My guess is that the Trump administration is trying to walk the fine line of not looking like it’s threatening access to mifepristone while also, potentially, through the FDA trying to limit access to mifepristone,” Huberfeld said. “In other words, I don’t think the FDA’s actually going to be hands-off.” More

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      Democrats make long-shot effort to stop Trump cuts to Medicaid and Snap

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      House Democrats are making a long-shot attempt to stop Republicans from downsizing federal safety net programs including Medicaid to offset the costs of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and tax cuts.The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, on Tuesday announced that his lawmakers are circulating a petition which, should a majority of the chamber sign on to it, would force a vote on legislation preventing cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap).Known as a discharge petition, the effort faces long odds in the GOP-led chamber. Republican leaders have recently moved to stop such petitions, and while several Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about some of the cuts being considered to pay for Trump’s agenda, they still generally support it.“House Republicans are determined to jam a reckless and extreme budget down the throats of the American people that will enact the largest cut to Medicaid and the largest cut to Snap in American history,” Jeffries told reporters.“All we need are four Republicans to do the right thing. Stand up for Medicaid and stand up for Snap, so they can stand up for the American people and we can stop the devastating cuts that Republicans are proposing.”Trump has called on Congress’s Republican majorities to send him what he has dubbed “one big, beautiful bill”, which is expected to extend tax cuts enacted during his first term, pay for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and potentially address other campaign promises, such as ending the taxation of tips, overtime and social security payments.The GOP plans to pass the bill using Congress’s reconciliation procedure, which requires only simple majorities in both the House and Senate.Some Republicans have blanched at the possibility of deep cuts to Medicaid and Snap. Under a budget framework that applies to the House, the former program could lose as much as $880bn, while the latter could lose $220bn, both major cuts that are expected to have far-reaching effects.Democrats are hoping to seize on their discontent to attract the small number of Republican signatures needed for their petition to succeed.“All of this poses a question for those House Republicans who like to call themselves moderate,” said Katherine Clark, the Democratic whip of the House of Representatives.“Here’s a chance for you, your friends, your fellow moderates, to show you actually care for your constituents. It only takes a handful of Republicans to stop this, just a few to protect Medicaid and save working families from losing their healthcare and going hungry.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDischarge petitions rarely gather enough signatures, and when they do, House Republican leadership moves forcefully to render them moot.Last month, a small number of Republicans signed on with Democrats to a petition that forced a vote on a measure to allow new parents to vote by proxy in the House. Republican leaders inserted language into a must-pass procedural motion to stop the petition, prompting several GOP lawmakers to join with Democrats in voting down the motion, after which leadership recessed the chamber early. The matter was later resolved by a compromise between the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican representative who was leading the petition.The discharge petition to protect Snap and Medicaid comes after the Democratic National Committee last week announced plans to hold town halls and rally voters in the districts of four Republican lawmakers, with the goal of encouraging them to vote against the forthcoming reconciliation bill.Seven of 11 House committees have written up their section of the bill, which Johnson said he hopes to pass through the chamber by the 26 May Memorial Day holiday. More

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      US supreme court allows Trump trans military ban to take effect

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      The Trump administration can begin to enforce a ban on transgender troops serving in the military while a challenge to the policy plays out in the courts, the supreme court ruled on Tuesday, a significant decision that could lead to the discharge of thousands of military members.The court’s order was unsigned and gave no explanation for its reasoning, which is typical of decisions the justices reach on an emergency basis. The court’s three liberal members – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – all noted their dissent from the decision.Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which represented challengers in the case, called the decision “a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers”.“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” the groups said in a statement. “Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”Immediately after coming into office, Donald Trump rescinded an executive order from the Biden administration that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military. On 27 January, the president issued a second executive order that said transgender people couldn’t serve in the military.“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the order said. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.” The defense department began implementing the ban at the end of February.A defense department estimate from earlier this year said there were 4,240 people in the military with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria – roughly 0.2 % of the 2 million people currently serving.Seven transgender servicemembers and one transgender person who would like to join the military challenged the ban. Lawyers for the lead platiniff, navy pilot Emily Shilling, said the military had spent $20m on her training, according to SCOTUSBlog.Several lower courts had halted the ban. The case before the supreme court involved a ruling from US district court judge Benjamin Settle, who blocked the ban in March.“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle, an appointee of George W Bush, wrote at the time. “The government’s unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting ‘the military’s’ new judgment reflected in the Military Ban.”Another judge, Ana Reyes, of the US district court in Washington DC, also blocked the ban, saying it was “soaked with animus and dripping with pretext”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration asked the supreme court to intervene last month. “The district court issued a universal injunction usurping the Executive Branch’s authority to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces,” John Sauer, the US solicitor general, wrote in a brief to the court.Trump’s ban is broader than a similar policy enacted during his first term. The previous policy allowed those who had come out before the ban to continue to serve in the military. The more recent policy affects nearly all active serving transgender members.Pausing the order, Shilling’s lawyers said, would “upend the status quo by allowing the government to immediately begin discharging thousands of transgender servicemembers … thereby ending distinguished careers and gouging holes in military units”.A majority of Americans support allowing transgender people to serve in the military, according to a February Gallup poll. However, there is a sharp partisan split. While 84% of Democrats favor such a policy, only 23% of Republicans do. More

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      Handshakes, friendship and ‘never, never, never, never, never’: five takeaways from Carney-Trump meeting

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      Perhaps no world leader can ever be completely sure how an encounter with Donald Trump will play out, but Canada’s Mark Carney had grounds to be especially wary before heading to the White House for his first post-election meeting with the US president.For months now, Trump has waged a campaign of diplomatic and commercial intimidation against his northern neighbour, launching a trade war and belittling Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau.Shortly before the briefing, the US leader once again took to social media to post a debunked figure that the US is “subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year” and to complain the country was receiving “FREE Military Protection”.But from the moment the pair shook hands, it was clear the tone of the meeting would be remarkably cordial, with Trump praising Carney as “a very talented person” and Carney describing Trump as a “transformational” president.The mood grew less relaxed as Trump again falsely claimed that the US was “subsidizing” Canada and repeated his calls for Canada to become the 51st state.Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting:1. Canada is not for saleCarney used the meeting to tell Trump to his face what he’s told Canadians ever since he became prime minister: the country isn’t for sale.When asked by reporters about his proposal for Canada to become the 51st state of the USA, Trump seemed to walk back the idea, conceding “it takes two to tango”. But he then said Canada would get a “massive tax cut” if it became an American state.Trump said it would be “beautiful” to merge the two countries, saying the prospect “would really be a wonderful marriage”.Carney, drawing on Trump’s pride in real estate dealings, reminded the president that in the industry, “there are some places that are never for sale”.“That’s true,” said Trump.“Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it’s not for sale,” said Carney. “Won’t be for sale, ever.”Later in the meeting, Trump brought up the idea again, telling Carney and the assembled media: “I say, never say never.”“Never, never, never, never, never,” Carney appeared to say quietly.2. Tariffs remain – for nowOne major task for Carney and his team is to better understand the rationale – if there is one – behind the tariffs on Canadian goods, and to find any possible off-ramps. Carney set the bar low before the meeting, suggesting he didn’t anticipate any big announcements from the first gathering of the two leaders.Near the end of the meeting, Trump was asked whether there was anything Carney or the Canadian delegation could offer for tariffs to be removed.“No,” he said, adding that it’s “just the way it is”.The prime minister was likely to use the working lunch to nonetheless chip away at the American position in search of common ground.In Canada, the tariffs have led to a broad boycott by consumers of US-made products.“Usually those things don’t last very long,” Trump said. “We have great things, great product. The kind of product we sell, nobody else can sell. Including military. We make the best military equipment in the world. And Canada buys our military equipment, which we appreciate.”3. Both sides predict a revised trade dealThe country’s trade relationship came up during the meeting, with Trump signalling he was interested in renegotiating key aspects of the free-trade US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), calling the prior deal, Nafta, the “worst in the history of the world”.The current pact governing free trade across the continent is due for renewal next year.“We’re going to be starting to possibly renegotiate that,” Trump said, “if it’s even necessary. I don’t know that it’s necessary any more.”Trump refused to answer questions on which specific provisions of the deal he wanted to renegotiate, telling reporters the leaders were “dealing more with concepts right now”. But later, he repeated claims that the United States didn’t need Canadian exporters, including for Canadian cars, steel or energy. “We want to do it ourselves,” he said.Carney pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the current deal, including the use of tariffs by American officials, but agreed the existing deal was a “framework” for future talks and a “bigger discussion”.“We are the largest client of the United States, in the totality of all the goods,” he said.In a nod to the importance of the trade relationship between the two nations, both sides brought their most senior officials. Attending for the Canadians were some of the country’s top trade and diplomatic officials, including international trade minister Dominic LeBlanc, foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly, public safety minister David McGuinty and Canada’s ambassador to the US, Kirsten Hillman.On the American side, Trump had JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.4. Trump just wants to be lovedWhen asked by reporters what the biggest concession Canada could offer might be, Trump said “friendship”.The cordial and positive tone between the leaders likely comes as a relief to Canadian officials, who prepared for numerous scenarios – including a dressing-down akin to the treatment of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Instead, the initial minutes of the meeting involved a shower of mutual praise between the leaders.After the Liberal party’s federal election victory last week, Trump congratulated Carney for one of the “greatest political comebacks of all time”, and described the prime minister’s visit “an honour” for the White House. Trump added he had great “respect” for Carney.Carney returned the compliments, calling Trump a “transformational president” with a strong focus on the economy, security and American workers.It marked a sharp departure from the frosty and strained relationship with Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau, whom Trump once described as “two-faced” – and who in turn described the US trade war as “dumb”.Given that much of US foreign policy appears to depend on whether Trump favours a world leader, that change in tone may bode well for Canada.5. Bad blood lingersTrump used part of the meeting to attack various political actors, including Trudeau and the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who led the Canadian delegation in previous negotiations of the continental free-trade pact.“I didn’t like his predecessor,” Trump said to Carney, once again derisively calling Trudeau “governor”.He then singled out Freeland, saying: “She was terrible. Actually, she was a terrible person, and she really hurt that deal very badly because she tried to take advantage of the deal and she didn’t get away with it.”In late January, Freeland used Trump’s dislike of her as a key component of her failed bid for leadership of the Liberal party – a race she eventually lost to Carney. More

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      Identity of second man illegally deported to El Salvador prison revealed

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      The identity of a second man illegally deported from the US by the Trump administration in defiance of a court order and now in detention in El Salvador has been revealed.Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot terrorism confinement facility in March under the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Politico reported.His deportation came after authorities declared him, along with about 240 other men, to be a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the US government has defined as a terrorist organization. Lozano-Camargo’s family members deny that he has gang affiliations.Politico revealed Lozano-Camargo’s identity after a Maryland judge last month ruled that the Trump administration had improperly removed him in violation of a 2024 legal settlement that forbade immigration authorities from deporting him while his application for asylum was pending.The judge, Stephanie Gallagher, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, ordered officials to “facilitate” Lozano-Camargo’s return to the US. So far, the administration has not complied.He is reported to have entered the US in 2022 as an asylum seeker, initially spending time in a facility for underage migrants until he turned 18.According to Politico, he was subsequently twice arrested for possession of cocaine, most recently last November, and was sentenced in January to 120 days in prison. It was from there that he was transferred to the custody of the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement authority (Ice), which filed an application for his detention, claiming that he was in the country illegally.In her ruling, Gallagher agreed with immigrant rights advocates that Lozano-Camargo should not have been deported until his asylum application was resolved. While withholding his identity by referring to him only by a pseudonym, “Cristian”, she said he was “fleeing danger and threats in Venezuela”.Politico said Lozano-Camargo’s identity was disclosed in metadata embedded in government court filings.A justice department court filing released on Monday disputed the judge’s assessment, saying he belonged to “a violent terrorist gang”, thus disqualifying him from asylum in the US. Bringing him back to the US “would no longer serve any legal or practical purpose”, justice department lawyers wrote.Gallagher was due to further rule on the matter in a Baltimore court on Tuesday.Lozano-Camargo’s case resembles that of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in March despite a previous court order issued in 2019 establishing that he had protected status because he was at risk of violence if he was returned to the country of his origin. Ábrego García is Salvadorian by birth. The US government, which has claimed that he is a member of the MS-13 gang – something Ábrego García denies – admitted that he had been deported by mistake but has defied court orders to return him to the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionÁbrego García was removed from the US on the same set of flights as Lozano-Camargo but has been transferred from Cecot to another facility because of the international publicity surrounding his case.Lozano-Camargo’s family has tried to draw attention to his plight in social media posts. His mother, Daniela, has proclaimed his innocence in a tearful Facebook video.Possessing a valid work permit, he is said to have been living in Houston and washing cars for a living before his detention.His deportation was among those highlighted by the Guardian in March, amid speculation that he was one of hundreds of Venezuelans singled out for removal on the basis of their tattoos, which authorities claimed identified them as members of Tren de Aragua.Lozano-Camargo is said to have several tattoos, including one bearing the name of his father – who died when he was a child. Critics say Tren de Aragua members do not use tattoos to advertise their membership of the gang. More

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      How Trump’s walkaway diplomacy enabled Israel’s worst impulses

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      The Israeli plan to occupy and depopulate Gaza may not be identical to Donald Trump’s vision of a new riviera, but his inspiration and the US’s walkaway diplomacy have ushered Benjamin Netanyahu to the precipice of a dire new chapter in the Israel-Gaza war.The common perception in both Washington and Israel is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices, while his offhand proposals for turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have provided cover for rightwing Israeli politicians to enthusiastically support the forced resettlement of the Palestinian population.“Part of the tragedy is that the only one who can actually save us, Trump, is not even seriously interested in that,” said Amos Harel, a prominent military and defense correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper. “Our only hope to get out of this crazy situation is that Trump would force Netanyahu to reach a hostage deal. But [Trump] seems disinterested. He was enthusiastic when the Riviera [idea] was proposed, but now he has moved on to Greenland, Canada and Mexico instead.”Trump’s interventions – specifically envoy Steve Witkoff’s threats to Netanyahu during a tense Shabbat meeting – were instrumental in achieving a temporary ceasefire to the conflict in January. His influence on Netanyahu appeared to be greater than that of previous US presidents, including his rival Joe Biden.But since then the ceasefire has broken down, a two-month Israeli blockade on aid has sparked an even worse humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and, with few opportunities for a quick peace, the White House now appears uninterested and overstretched as Israel signals an offensive and occupation that critics have said will amount to a state policy of ethnic cleansing.It is a trend that has repeated with this White House: broad designs for a grand deal followed by frustration when diplomacy fails to yield instant results. Recently, the White House announced that it was also ready to walk away from negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine conflict if a quick deal was not achieved. That has incentivized Russia to wait out the Trump administration, observers have said, and bank on a policy of US non-engagement in the longer term. Netanyahu similarly appears to have been unleashed by the White House’s growing disinterest.The Israeli ultimatum comes as Trump is scheduled to tour the Middle East next week, with Israeli officials briefing that they will begin the operation only after he returns from a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Trump’s talks there are expected to focus on investment and a likely quixotic quest to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but not on achieving a resolution to the war. On Tuesday, Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, reported that a Trump visit to Israel was not out of the question, but White House officials have not yet signaled that Trump is ready to go meet Netanyahu.Witkoff, the Trump envoy, still appears personally invested in a resolution to the conflict, but he is overstretched by attempting to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, and also negotiate an Iran nuclear deal simultaneously. The US has continued negotiations with Israel over an aid delivery scheme that would create a new mechanism for aid distribution to avoid Hamas, they have said. But the UN and all aid organizations working in Gaza have condemned the plan as an Israeli takeover. “It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy,” the heads of all UN agencies and NGOs that operate in Gaza said in a joint statement on Sunday.The Trump administration’s budget and personnel cuts have also signaled a retreat from diplomacy. The state department was reportedly ready to cut the role of the security coordinator role for the West Bank and Gaza, a three-star general who was tasked with managing security crises between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, particularly with regards to growing tensions between settlers and local Palestinian communities.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore importantly, Trump has given cover to Israeli officials who had sought more aggressive action in Gaza, including forced depopulations. Rightwingers in government have been particularly aggressive, with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich saying that within months Gaza would be “totally destroyed” and the Gazan population would be “concentrated” in a small strip of land. “The rest of the strip will be empty,” he said.But other ministers have also become more radical using Trump’s rhetoric for cover, said Harel.“Once Trump said that, you could see how not only the radicals, but also Likud ministers and so on, have an excuse,” said Harel. “‘It’s not us. It’s the world, the free world’s leader is saying that, so we have to play along.’” More

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      No Way Out: the 1987 thriller that prophesied a deeply corrupt US government

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      In 1987 – right before he became the biggest movie star in the world with a five-year hot streak that included Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves and The Bodyguard – Kevin Costner headlined two films that offered very different visions of America. The Untouchables assembles a group of plucky misfits to dole out frontier justice against those who would seek to extort the American dream – it’s brash, gung ho and morally transparent. A guaranteed classic.Far more interesting, though, is No Way Out, Roger Donaldson’s 1987 political potboiler that’s equal parts pulpy spectacle and damning critique of the US project. Functioning as a bridge between the conspiracy flicks of the 70s and the erotic thrillers of the 90s, the film starts with a sex scene in the back of a limo (complete with a perfectly timed cutaway to the Washington Monument) and ends with an unforgettable flourish.Adapted from Kenneth Fearing’s 1946 book The Big Clock (which also became a 1948 film), No Way Out transports its source novel’s action from a New York magazine house to the beating, bloody heart of cold war-era Washington.A baby-faced Costner plays Lt Cmdr Tom Farrell, a navy golden boy summoned to DC to work for the secretary of defense, David Brice (RIP Gene Hackman, fully stepping into his late-career “craven bureaucrat” mode). Brice’s special counsel/whipping boy Scott Pritchard (Will Patton, chewing every piece of available scenery as a textbook 80s “evil gay”) wants Farrell to help them derail an overly expensive stealth submarine program (shades of Aukus).The problem is that Farrell is in love with Brice’s kept woman, Susan Atwell (an infectiously delightful Sean Young, turning a potentially thankless role into the emotional centre of the movie). They happily continue their incredibly horny, incredibly doomed affair under Brice’s nose, until – spoiler warning – Brice learns that there’s another man in Atwell’s life and and lashes out.View image in fullscreenThis prompts Pritchard to go full Iago as he concocts a plan to get his boss off the hook. What if Atwell’s other lover was a long-rumoured Russian mole, codename: Yuri? What if the investigation into the attack on her became a Soviet witch-hunt instead? And what if their new dogsbody, Farrell, was in charge of the case? This is the ingenious narrative engine that propels the rest of the film: Farrell was at Atwell’s that night, right before Brice, making him the prime suspect in his own investigation. With all five walls of the Pentagon closing in on him, Farrell has to sabotage the manhunt and find the real villain before he’s framed.Donaldson (a Ballarat boy done good!) is one of those uber-reliable journeyman directors Hollywood doesn’t make any more; guys you wouldn’t recognise if you passed them on the street but whose films you’ve watched a thousand times at 11pm on 7mate: Cocktail, Species, Dante’s Peak, Thirteen Days. No Way Out is highly competent entertainment but it also portrays a deeply corrupt US forever at war with both the world and itself – a nation where people are thrown under the bus at a moment’s notice to protect the vested interests of powerful men. Perhaps the only thing more impressive than No Way Out’s airtight thriller structure is its profoundly cynical view of US institutions – an outlook that feels almost radical in hindsight, given the chest-beating, self-congratulatory air of so much other Ronald Reagan-era Hollywood fare.You can understand why The Untouchables went on to become a jewel in the crown of Costner’s filmography while No Way Out has sat there, largely forgotten, for close to 40 years. In 2025, though, it’s clear which version of the US rings truer, right down to a defense secretary accused of sexual assault (not to mention those damn submarines). Ten years ago I would have considered parts of No Way Out painfully outdated – today it feels almost too close to the bone.

      No Way Out is streaming on Amazon Prime in Australia, the UK and the US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here More

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      How Ohio became a hotbed of white supremacism, spreading its tentacles globally | Stephen Starr

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      By many accounts, Hilliard, a leafy suburb west of downtown Columbus, is a midwestern success story: its progressive school district gives a vacation day for all students to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr – the first in Ohio to do so – and its homes are highly sought-after by a growing number of diverse families where locals enjoy shopping at the oldest Asian grocery in the state.But it is also where Christopher Brenner Cook, a convicted terrorist, grew up. In April 2023, Cook and two others were sentenced for conspiring to attack America’s electrical grid, and he was given a 92-month prison term.Cook, who was 21 at the time of his sentencing for conspiring to blow up electricity stations, was previously a devout white supremacist who tried to recruit people to the neo-Nazi cause. He focused specifically on children in an effort to avoid detection by law enforcement.More than 3,780 miles away in Derbyshire, England, 14-year-old Rhianan Rudd encountered Cook on WhatsApp and Discord, the online chat app. As of September 2020, the BBC noted she had been in contact with Cook “for some time”. By early 2021, Rudd – who was autistic and had a history of self-harm – was spending up to 15 hours a day speaking to Cook online.Cook had been grooming, sexually abusing and radicalizing Rudd. The last time she had contact with Cook, he told her he loved her, and she felt a “gaping hole” and “very sad for a long time”.In May 2022, aged 16, Rhianan killed herself.American extremists are going globalAs prominent supporters and members of the current administration such as Elon Musk and Steve Bannon have taken to Nazi-style salutes in front of large audiences, the tentacles of a resurgent American white supremacism are stretching around the globe, often with deadly consequences.Members of American white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front and the California-based Rise Above Movement (RAM), have traveled across Europe to take part in public marches and distribute propaganda while the Base, a group of American neo-Nazis, reportedly has Russian links.A founding member of RAM was extradited from Romania in August 2023 to the US on charges of inciting violence. A Slovakian teenager who killed two people outside a bar popular with members of Bratislava’s LGBTQ+ community in October 2022 was radicalized in part by California- and Idaho-based leaders of the so-called “Terrorgram Collective”; those individuals last September were charged by the Department of Justice for soliciting hate crimes and other offences.View image in fullscreenBut not all of America’s far right’s global endeavors are confined to the dark corners of the internet or violent extremists. Trump’s closest allies have also courted a resurgent far-right across Europe where such parties are gaining mainstream support and power.Bannon, whose War Room podcast has more than 15,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts, has traveled to France, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere to meet with and advise far-right political leaders. Musk, who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories on X, was criticized for appearing online at a campaign event for Germany’s far-right AfD party in January.“The ideas that used to be fringe are much more mainstream,” says Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist leader and author of White American Youth: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement and other books.“This isn’t just my opinion; it’s the opinion of white supremacists. They love that the president has their back.”Ohio’s fall into extremismFor decades, Ohio was a national political bellwether that reflected America’s wider socioeconomic milieu. Its three large cities – Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland – provided a solid backbone of support for progressive politics.In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won more votes in Ohio than any Democrat in history, repeating the feat four years later when he was elected to a second term in the White House. Until 2011, Democratic party governors were not uncommon.However, in recent years, Ohio has seen a marked shift to the right.The perpetrator of the 2017 Charlottesville car attack that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and the founder of the Daily Stormer, an influential neo-Nazi website, are both from Ohio. The plot to kill the Democratic Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was formulated in Dublin, the same well-to-do Columbus suburb where Cook spent part of his childhood.Eighty-three Ohioans were charged for their part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol that was prompted by President Trump. After Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania – all states geographically closer to the capital – Ohio had the highest per capita number of arrested rioters. The same year, Columbus experienced a higher per capita incidence of hate crimes than all but three other US cities.In 2023, a Nazi homeschooling effort with more than 3,000 online subscribers run by residents of Upper Sandusky in the state’s north-west was unearthed. Ohio’s department of education found that no law had been broken.Ku Klux Klan white supremacist flyers and marches by neo-Nazis are also now happening with growing frequency in places such as Springfield, Ohio, after Trump’s false claims in September that immigrants there were eating pets.Neo-Nazi publicity efforts in Cincinnati, Columbus and elsewhere in Ohio – a defined effort, experts say, to desensitize communities to their imagery and normalize their presence – are on the rise.View image in fullscreenAt the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, politics has been overrun by far-right Republicans. Increasingly, Ohio Republicans have voiced extremist views or passed laws that disproportionately affect minorities and immigrants – groups regularly targeted by white supremacists.“The far right has long been working to engage in local and state politics. They recognize that change is more likely when like-minded persons are designing policy and making decisions,” said Laura Dugan, a professor of human security and sociology at Ohio State University.“We have no mechanism to stop this radicalization when it is being reflected in the statehouse.”It was in this environment that Cook grew up. He and his co-conspirators “fanaticized” about “the opportunity for white leaders to take control of this country and its government”, according to his sentencing memorandum.Eight months after Cook was charged with conspiring to give material support to terrorists, the Columbus Dispatch ran an op-ed calling out some Hilliard residents for spreading hate. Some have filed lawsuits against the local school district to force staff to stop wearing badges in support of LGBTQ+ communities.“Nothing is happening in the schools, and I think it really needs to because young men especially are being influenced by this culture wars stuff and the manosphere,” said Picciolini.“There really isn’t enough happening to counter that.”Picciolini was recruited by the Chicago-area SkinHeads when he was 14 years old and spent eight years as a member of white nationalist groups. Since leaving the movement, he has been involved in founding or co-founding many deradicalizing programs and has criticized the lack of government support for them.Picciolini said he had seen children as young as nine be recruited online.“The reason that anybody joins these groups is not the extremist ideology. It’s [for] the sense of identity, community and purpose,” he said.“For people who feel marginalized, they have a difficult time with what I call ‘potholes’ – trauma or challenges with mental health; a health issue; physical abuse. It pushes people to the fringes and to the internet. A lot of these kids are being targeted because of their ‘potholes’.”For Rhianan Rudd, who struggled to make friends, the internet proved to be both a release and a trap.Her deepening online relationship with Cook saw her further radicalized, prompting her to make verbal threats to blow up a synagogue and download information on bomb making, for which she was arrested in October 2020. That resulted in her being taken out of Prevent, the deradicalization program her mother had signed her into the month before. Six months later, she became the youngest person ever charged with terrorism in the UK, charges which were dropped when investigators concluded she had been groomed and abused by Cook.View image in fullscreenAn officer for Prevent referred to Rudd as the “most vulnerable individual she’s ever met”, after the teen admitted that Cook had been radicalizing her. She told her social worker that she felt she had “two competing individuals in her head”.Cook wasn’t the only American male with a white supremacist background in Rudd’s life.Rudd’s mother, Emily Carter, had been in contact with Dax Mallaburn, a convicted felon and known member of the Aryan Brotherhood in Arizona, through a prison pen pal program. They began a romantic relationship that saw Mallaburn move to the UK and live with Rudd and her mother. Mallaburn is alleged to have sexually groomed Rudd, and information gathered by police found that Cook was in contact with Mallaburn, telling him to teach the child “the right way”.The terrorism charges against Rudd were dropped in December 2021, but the damage had been done.Just weeks before her death, she asked her mother for help contacting a neo-Nazi group in the US and attempted to travel to London to acquire a visa to travel to Texas.“Her being groomed was huge and I saw Rhianan change,” Carter said at an inquest into Rudd’s death and the role antiterrorism and other agencies played. The inquest is ongoing until June.Missed opportunitiesWhile the internet may have facilitated Cook’s abuse of Rudd, law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic have come in for criticism.On two occasions in early 2020, Cook’s vehicle was stopped by law enforcement officials, in Ohio and Texas. Drugs, Nazi paraphernalia and weapons were found, and yet both times Cook was let go.The FBI shared information with British intelligence about Cook’s activities and grooming of Rudd five months before she took her own life, while several years before her death, an MI5 agent lamented to a senior colleague that Rudd couldn’t be referred to an anti-extremism program while she was under a police investigation.Although Cook’s sentencing memorandum recognized that his “singular” end goal was linked to “the propagation and fruition of white supremacist ideology”, he was not investigated for his exploitation of Rudd or faced potential charges related to her death.Legal experts say there is nothing precluding Cook from being charged for crimes related to the death of Rudd in the future, so long as no relevant statute of limitations has passed and there is probable cause to support specific crimes under US law. He could also be extradited to the UK to face charges, although that would be an unprecedented move.Ohio’s rising hateCook’s sentencing memorandum suggests he has embarrassment and remorse for his terrorism-related actions, pleading guilty to the crimes he was charged with. But given the opportunity to discuss details of his relationship with Rudd, Cook is more circumspect.When the Guardian sought to interview Cook through the federal correctional institute he is being held in South Carolina, he declined. In an interview with Columbus Monthly published last year, he also declined to discuss his interactions with Rudd.While Cook is set to be released well before his 30th birthday, there is little evidence to suggest that Ohio will have solved its problem of white supremacist extremism by then.In November 2023, a 20-year-old man entered a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, and shot four people before turning the gun on himself. Police found Nazi flags and a “SS history book” at his home. The Anti-Defamation League found that Ohio was second only to Texas for the number of white supremacist incidents in 2023.About a dozen neo-Nazis, some armed, unfurled flags and signs bearing extremist material in February 2025 over a highway close to a historically African American community in Cincinnati. In response, there’s been silence from the White House.“They love this administration,” said Picciolini of the extremists. “They love the environment they are in.” More