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      Pete Hegseth’s controversial chief of staff leaves post unexpectedly

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      Joe Kasper, the controversial chief of staff to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was central to a dramatic power struggle at the Pentagon, has left his post, in an unexpected departure.Despite Hegseth’s assurances just days ago in a TV appearance on the Fox & Friends show that Kasper would merely transition to “a slightly different role” within the department, Kasper confirmed to Politico in a Thursday interview he will instead return to government relations and consulting, maintaining only limited Pentagon ties as a special government employee.A senior defense official at the Pentagon confirmed the dramatic title change to the Guardian on Friday, saying Kasper would be “handling special projects at the Department of Defense”“Secretary Hegseth is thankful for [Kasper’s] continued leadership and work to advance the America First agenda,” the official said in a statement, referring to Donald Trump’s protectionist policy push.The quick exit comes after Kasper was implicated as the orchestrator of a power grab that led to the dismissal of three senior Pentagon officials – Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll – allegedly as part of a leak investigation.The administration’s first hundred days created a troubled tenure for Kasper, with anonymous sources claiming he was frequently late to meetings, failed to follow through on critical tasks, and displayed inappropriate behavior, including berating officials and making crude comments allegedly about his bowel movements during high-level meetings.“He lacked the focus and organizational skills needed to get things done,” one anonymous insider told Politico.The leadership shake-up coincides with separate allegations that Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection installed in his Pentagon office, which would bypass government security protocols, to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer. This “dirty line” arrangement potentially exposes sensitive defense information to surveillance or hacking risks, according to reports from the Associated Press and ABC News.Kasper previously worked at the Department of Homeland Security, the US navy and the air force during the first Trump administration before becoming a lobbyist. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel on Hegseth bringing his wife to meetings: ‘Maybe she’s his designated driver’

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      With several hosts still on holiday, Jimmy Kimmel reacts to reports of a screaming match at the White House and Pete Hegseth bringing his wife to meetings.Jimmy KimmelThursday was Bring Your Child To Work Day, and indeed, “there’s been a lot of childish behavior at the White House as of late,” said Kimmel. For example, Axios reported that Elon Musk had an expletive-filled, chest-to-chest shouting match outside the Oval Office with treasury secretary Scott Bessent over who would run the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).Bessent reportedly confronted Musk in a hallway, and “the F-bombs started to fly – or at least, that’s what Pete Hegseth texted his wife and brother,” Kimmel quipped.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, “put her own spin on it”, Kimmel noted. In a statement, Leavitt said: “It’s no secret President Trump has put together a team of people who are incredibly passionate about the issues impacting our country.”“Really? Because this is Scott Bessent,” Kimmel said next to a photo of a very corporate looking, grey-haired white man. “This is a guy who is incredibly passionate? Looks like the only F-word he’s used before this is fiber. Scott Bessent looks like Will Ferrell playing George Bush playing Janet Reno.”The argument was allegedly so loud that it interrupted a meeting between Trump and the prime minister of Italy. “They say no one has screamed that loud in the White House since the time Eric got his penis caught in the resolute desk,” Kimmel joked.The host then turned to another beleaguered Trump official: Hegseth, the defense secretary, under fire this week for sending more sensitive information in a second Signal group chat that included his wife and other family members.Additionally, numerous officials were reportedly annoyed when Hegseth brought his wife to meetings they assumed were one-on-one. The Pentagon denied the reports; according to Sean Parnell, the chief spokesperson for the Pentagon, Jennifer Hegseth “never attended a meeting where sensitive information or classified information was discussed”.“Of course she hasn’t – she doesn’t need to. If there’s anything exciting, he catches her up on a text,” Kimmel retorted.“Maybe there’s a good reason for her to be at the meetings. Maybe she’s his designated driver,” he added.Kimmel also mocked reports that Hegseth had a makeup booth installed at the Pentagon for on-camera interviews, which the defense secretary denied; instead, according to a spokesperson, Hegseth does his own makeup.“The good news is, when he gets booted from the Pentagon, he’ll be able to get a job at Sephora,” Kimmel joked. “The defense secretary has a makeup room, the vice-president wears eyeliner, and yet somehow this administration spends all day every day complaining about trans women ruining sports.” More

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      China’s top leaders pledge to oppose ‘unilateral bullying’ in global trade in veiled rebuke to Trump – US politics live

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      China’s top leaders pledged on Friday to step up support for the economy and oppose “unilateral bullying” in global trade, offering a veiled rebuke of hefty tariffs recently imposed by US president Donald Trump.The world’s two largest economies are engaged in a high-stakes tit-for-tat trade war that has spooked markets and spurred major manufacturers to reconsider supply chains.Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has slapped most trading partners with 10% tariffs. But China has received the worst, with many products from the country now facing a 145% tariff. Beijing has responded with new 125% tariffs of its own on US goods.A spokesperson for Beijing’s commerce ministry said on Thursday that “there are currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”. But hours later, asked about the state of negotiations with Beijing, Trump maintained: “We’ve been meeting with China.”Chinese financial news outlet Caijing reported on Friday that Beijing was considering the exemption of certain US semiconductor products from recent additional tariffs, citing sources familiar with the matter. Beijing’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) request to confirm the reports.Meanwhile, the Hill reports that China cancelled 12,000 metric tons of US pork shipments, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), with Bloomberg News reporting that this represents the biggest cancellation of pork orders since the Covid-19 pandemic.More on this story in a moment, but here are some other recent developments:

      US defense secretary Pete Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection set up in his Pentagon office so that he could bypass government security protocols and use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer.

      Donald Trump directed his attorney general to investigate the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue based on an unsubstantiated rightwing claim.

      Federal judges blocked several aspects of Trump’s agenda that he has tried to enact through executive orders, which do not carry the force of law. One judge blocked his efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disfranchised millions of voters.

      Another judge ruled the Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes.

      On immigration, a judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison there back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. Another judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown.

      Trump issued a rare rebuke against Vladimir Putin, and said he has his own deadline for the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump said that he still thinks the Russian leader will listen to him.

      The Trump administration is loosening rules to help US automakers like Elon Musk’s Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals. US companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the transportation department said on Thursday.

      The Trump store is now selling “Trump 2028” hats to fans of the president, who is barred by the US constitution from serving a third term, despite the fact that a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that three-quarters of respondents said Trump should not even try to run.
      The US justice department says it did not fire a former pardon attorney, Liz Oyer, after she refused to recommend reinstating Mel Gibson’s gun rights.But in the latest episode of Politics America Weekly Oyer tells Jonathan Freedland a different story, one she believes points to a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on the rule of law in the US.You can listen to the podcast here:A US push to approve deep-sea mining in domestic and international waters “violates international law”, China warned on Friday, after a White House order to ramp up permits, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).“The US authorisation … violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction”.Private companies and governments have long considered the mineral and metal resources found in stretches of the ocean floor, but they have mostly held off while waiting for the International Seabed Authority (ISA) regulator to devise rules – a process that began in the 1990s.The US never ratified the agreements that empowered the Isa’s jurisdiction and is not a member of the UN-affiliated body, reports AFP.Trump’s order demands Washington become a “global leader” in seabed exploration and “counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources”.Beijing, which has so far held off mining in international waters while awaiting Isa rules, warned Trump’s orders “once again expose the unilateral approach and hegemonic nature of the United States”.US peace envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow today for further talks with Russia, including president Vladimir Putin, on Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.Hoping to get results before Trump’s 100 days in the office next week, Witkoff will have to find a way to convey the sense of the president’s frustration with the Russian attack on Kyiv on Thursday, while hoping to make good progress as Washington tries to put pressure on Kyiv to agree to its proposal.During a gathering of the Chinese Communist party’s top decision-making body focused on economic work and attended by president Xi Jinping, leaders acknowledged that “the impact of external shocks is increasing”, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP), citing state news agency Xinhua.They also said they would seek to “work with the international community to actively uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral bullying practices”, said Xinhua.Last year saw China achieve record exports, providing a key source of economic activity as domestic challenges in the property sector and deflationary pressure persisted.Friday’s politburo meeting “shows the government is ready to launch new policies when the economy is affected by the external shock”, Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist of Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note, reports AFP.However, Zhang noted “it seems Beijing is not in a rush to launch a large stimulus at this stage”. “It takes time to monitor and evaluate the timing and the size of the trade shock,” he added.China’s top leaders pledged on Friday to step up support for the economy and oppose “unilateral bullying” in global trade, offering a veiled rebuke of hefty tariffs recently imposed by US president Donald Trump.The world’s two largest economies are engaged in a high-stakes tit-for-tat trade war that has spooked markets and spurred major manufacturers to reconsider supply chains.Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has slapped most trading partners with 10% tariffs. But China has received the worst, with many products from the country now facing a 145% tariff. Beijing has responded with new 125% tariffs of its own on US goods.A spokesperson for Beijing’s commerce ministry said on Thursday that “there are currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”. But hours later, asked about the state of negotiations with Beijing, Trump maintained: “We’ve been meeting with China.”Chinese financial news outlet Caijing reported on Friday that Beijing was considering the exemption of certain US semiconductor products from recent additional tariffs, citing sources familiar with the matter. Beijing’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) request to confirm the reports.Meanwhile, the Hill reports that China cancelled 12,000 metric tons of US pork shipments, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), with Bloomberg News reporting that this represents the biggest cancellation of pork orders since the Covid-19 pandemic.More on this story in a moment, but here are some other recent developments:

      US defense secretary Pete Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection set up in his Pentagon office so that he could bypass government security protocols and use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer.

      Donald Trump directed his attorney general to investigate the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue based on an unsubstantiated rightwing claim.

      Federal judges blocked several aspects of Trump’s agenda that he has tried to enact through executive orders, which do not carry the force of law. One judge blocked his efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disfranchised millions of voters.

      Another judge ruled the Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes.

      On immigration, a judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison there back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. Another judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown.

      Trump issued a rare rebuke against Vladimir Putin, and said he has his own deadline for the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump said that he still thinks the Russian leader will listen to him.

      The Trump administration is loosening rules to help US automakers like Elon Musk’s Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals. US companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the transportation department said on Thursday.

      The Trump store is now selling “Trump 2028” hats to fans of the president, who is barred by the US constitution from serving a third term, despite the fact that a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that three-quarters of respondents said Trump should not even try to run. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel on Pete Hegseth: ‘Our secretary of defense is defenseless’

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      With several hosts still on Easter holiday, Jimmy Kimmel talks the search for a new pope and Pete Hegseth’s ongoing Signal scandals at the Department of Defense.Jimmy KimmelKimmel kicked off his show Tuesday by acknowledging Earth Day – and for the occasion, the US Environmental Protection Agency fired or reassigned hundreds of employees. “I can’t help but wonder how different things might be if Donald Trump’s father had taken him camping even one time,” he joked.He then turned his attention to the top global story of the week: the search for a new pope after Pope Francis died on Monday morning at the age of 88. “Nobody is going to be more insufferable this week than your friend who saw the movie Conclave and now knows everything about how it works,” said Kimmel. “I’ll tell you how it works: over the next few weeks, 135 flamboyantly dressed cardinals will gather to pass judgment on a series of aspiring candidates and in a lot of ways, it’s the Catholic version of RuPaul’s Drag Race.”Kimmel had a personal favorite: an Italian cardinal long stationed in Jerusalem named Pierbattista Pizzaballa.“Is he qualified? Honestly, we have no idea,” said Kimmel in a prayer for the very Italian-sounding Italian cardinal to be named pope. “Is he made of pizza? Also unclear. Is he round like a balla? We also don’t know. But his name is so funny, please grant the other cardinals the strength to give us a Pope Pizzaballa.”Kimmel also mocked Trump’s defense secretary, Hegseth, who is once again in hot water over using unsanctioned messaging apps to discuss sensitive military operations. Earlier this week, it was reported that Hegseth used a second Signal group chat, this one including family members, to discuss planned strikes in Yemen.Appearing on Fox News, Hegseth tried to dismiss furor as misguided: “Then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations … that’s what I’ve said from the beginning.”“Right, but it was bullshit from the beginning, too,” Kimmel responded. “You texted the exact time and place the secret bombing would begin before the secret bombing to your wife on an easily hackable phone. And is defense for this is ‘who told you? And how dare they tell you!’”“This is like your wife catching you in bed with another woman and your response is ‘well, why did you come home so early?’” he continued. “Our secretary of defense is defenseless, but it’s not his fault! The ones who get the blame for this is the leakers.”Kimmel then played a supercut of Hegseth complaining about “leakers” – “I don’t have time for leakers,” he said during the same Fox News interview.“You don’t have time for leakers? You are the leaker,” said an exasperated Kimmel. “You leak so much, you should be wearing Depends to work.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: president will be ‘very nice’ to China; Musk to step back from Doge

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      Donald Trump has said tariffs on goods from China will be reduced “substantially” but “won’t be zero”, after US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which countered with 125% tariffs on US goods, causing volatility in the stock market and concern about slowing global economic growth.But the US president on Tuesday said he would be “very nice” to China and not play hardball with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together,” Trump said.Meanwhile, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said he would start pulling back from his role at the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from May, as the company reported a massive dip in profits amid backlash against his White House role.Here are the key stories at a glance:Treasury secretary says high tariffs unsustainableThe treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has said that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the US and China and that the high tariffs are unsustainable.“I do say China is going to be a slog in terms of the negotiations,” Bessent said, according to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press. “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”In response, Donald Trump said during a White House news conference that high tariffs on goods from China will “come down substantially”.Read the full storyIMF warns of ‘major negative shock’ from Trump’s tariffsDonald Trump’s tariffs have unleashed a “major negative shock” into the world economy, the International Monetary Fund has said, as it cut its forecasts for US, UK and global growth. The Washington-based lender cut its forecast for global GDP growth to 2.8% for this year – 0.5% weaker than it was expecting as recently as January.Read the full storyMusk to pull back from Doge amid 71% dip in Tesla profitsOn a Tesla investor call, Elon Musk said the work necessary to get the government’s “financial house in order is mostly done”. His comments came after the company reported a massive dip in both profits and revenues in the first quarter of 2025.“Starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to Doge will drop significantly,” he said.Read the full storyUS lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jailsCongressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.Read the full storyRFK Jr calls sugar ‘poison’ but says government probably can’t eliminate itThe US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on has called sugar “poison” and recommended that Americans eat “zero” added sugar in their food.He acknowledged that the federal government was unlikely to be able to eliminate it from products, but said better labeling was needed for foods and that new government guidelines on nutrition would recommend people avoid sugar completely.Read the full storyTrump says he has no plans to fire Fed chief Donald Trump has said he has no plans to fire the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, and suggested the draconian tariffs the US has imposed on China could be lowered.The president’s comments come days after he called the central bank boss a “major loser” whose “termination cannot come fast enough” and defended his tariffs after they triggered stock market sell-offs.Read the full storyRubio announces sweeping changes to US state departmentThe secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has announced a proposed reorganisation of the US state department as part of what he called an effort to reform it amid criticism from the Trump White House over the execution of US diplomacy.Read the full storyHegseth blames ousted officials for leaks The embattled US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has defended his most recent use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, blaming fired Pentagon officials for orchestrating leaks against the Trump administration.Read the full story150 US university presidents decry Trump administrationMore than 150 presidents of US colleges and universities have signed a statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with higher education – the strongest sign yet that US educational institutions are forming a unified front against the government’s extraordinary attack on their independence.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Former vice-president Al Gore said the Trump administration was “trying to create their own preferred version of reality”, akin to the Nazi party in 1930s Germany.

      Larry David wrote a spoof essay in response to Bill Maher’s recent glowing account of his dinner with Trump in the White House.

      JD Vance has said the 21st century could be a “dark time for humanity” without a close India-US alliance.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 21 April 2025. More

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      US army to test enlisted men and women with same physical standards

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      The US army unveiled plans on Monday to require a fitness test with identical physical standards for men and women in combat positions after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the elimination of gender-based fitness requirements in frontline roles.The revamped army fitness test, which replaces the combat fitness test, will be “sex-neutral” and force female soldiers in 21 combat specialties to meet the same benchmarks as men – a change expected to drastically cut the number of women qualifying for these positions.“The five-event AFT is designed to enhance Soldier fitness, improve warfighting readiness, and increase the lethality of the force,” the army said in a press release.Gone is the “standing power throw” or “ball yeet”, replaced with a streamlined assessment of deadlifts, push-ups, planks, a two-mile run and a sprint-drag-carry exercise. For younger women, the standards jump significantly – deadlifting 140lb instead of 120, and shaving nearly 90 seconds off required run times.The new policy appears to contradict findings from a 2017 study of US army soldiers that concluded “gaps in cardiorespiratory and muscular performances between men and women should be addressed through targeted physical training programs that aim to minimize physiological differences” rather than applying identical standards.A 2022 Rand Corporation study also found that women and older service members were failing the previous fitness test “at significantly higher rates than men and younger troops”, which raises questions about the feasibility of the new standardized requirements.Combat soldiers must now score “a minimum of 60 points per event and an overall minimum score of 350” under the sex-neutral standards, according to the army’s press release. Active-duty troops have until January 2026 to meet requirements, while national guard and reserve members have until June 2026.Hegseth has previously said that he does not think women should be allowed to serve in combat roles, though he later moderated his stance. The former Fox News host wrote in a recent book that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men” and that mothers were needed “but not in the military, especially in combat units”.Soldiers who fail to meet the new standards twice consecutively face potential removal from the army or, according to Sgt Maj Christopher Mullinax, would be required to transfer to non-combat roles, which will continue using sex- and age-based scoring.The army will begin rolling out the changes on 1 June, with full implementation guidelines expected in May. More

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      Hegseth blames ousted officials for leaks in latest Signal chat scandal

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      The embattled US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has defended his most recent use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, blaming fired Pentagon officials for orchestrating leaks against the Trump administration.In an interview with former colleagues at Fox News on Tuesday morning, the defense secretary suggested the problems stemmed from former officials, appointed by this administration, for leaking information to damage him and Donald Trump, adding that there was an internal investigation and that evidence would eventually be handed to the justice department.“When you dismiss people who you believe are leaking classified information … Why would it surprise anybody if those very same people keep leaking to the very same reporters whatever information they think they can have to try to sabotage the agenda of the president or the secretary?” Hegseth said.In a statement posted on X over the weekend, the three dismissed top officials – Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick – wrote that they were “incredibly disappointed” by the way they were removed, adding that “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”Hegseth, in the interview, also confirmed the news that his chief of staff, Joe Kasper, will stay at the Pentagon, but it’s “going to be in a slightly different role”.The controversy stems from recent reporting in the New York Times, after a second Signal chat was identified in which Hegseth is again believed to have shared sensitive operational details about strikes against Houthis in Yemen – including launch times of fighter jets, bomb drop timings and missile launches – with a group of 13 people, including his wife, brother and personal lawyer, some of whom possessed no security clearance.Hegseth dismissed those reports in the interview, characterizing criticism as politically motivated attacks.“No one’s texting war plans,” Hegseth told Fox and Friends. “What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations for media coordination among other things.”An earlier revelation in March detailed how Hegseth had shared similar military information in another Signal chat that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, who later published the messages after Hegseth and the White House insisted they were not classified.After the interview, NBC News reported that the operational details came from army Gen Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of US Central Command, who shared the strike plans minutes before launch, according to three US officials with direct knowledge of the matter.Less than 10 minutes later, Hegseth is said to have forwarded some of that sensitive information to the aforementioned Signal group chats on his personal phone.The first chat leak appeared to be a violation of the defense department’s own classification guidelines, and it triggered an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general into his use of the encrypted messaging app.The backlash against Hegseth’s misuse of Signal while running the government’s largest and most funded office – that could get a budget of $1tn – has only gotten more intense over the last few days.Representative Don Bacon, a Republican and former air force general who chairs the House armed services committee’s cyber subcommittee, became the first member of the GOP to openly support Hegseth’s removal.“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” Bacon told Politico. “If it’s true that he had another [Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable,” he added later.The former chief Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot wrote in a Politico Magazine opinion piece over the weekend that “the building is in disarray” and that “it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”Retired US navy admiral James Stavridis similarly condemned Hegseth’s actions, telling CNN: “There is absolutely no reason on the planet Earth he should be doing that and he knows it.”Despite the professional controversies – and the fact that the current administration appointed the officials he is now attacking – Hegseth portrayed himself as a disruptive force against entrenched interests at the Pentagon.“They’ve come after me from day one, just like they’ve come after President Trump,” Hegseth said. “A lot of people come to Washington and they just play the game … That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because President Trump asked me to bring war fighting back to the Pentagon every single day. If people don’t like it, they can come after me.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Harvard sues White House; president backs Hegseth in Signal scandal

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      Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in a bid to halt a freeze of $2.2m in funding, as a battle between Trump and the Ivy League institution escalates.In a damning legal complaint filed with the Massachusetts district court, Harvard’s president, Alan M Garber, accused the Trump administration of trying to “gain control of academic decision making at Harvard”, adding that no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.The Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around the war in Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests as anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, a claim that Garber refutes.Here are the key stories at a glance:Harvard says Trump ‘slamming on the brakes’ to vital research In a statement accompanying the lawsuit, Harvard’s Garber said the funding freeze was putting health research into jeopardy, including improving the prospects for children who survive cancer, understanding how cancer spreads through the body, predicting the spread of infectious disease outbreaks and easing the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield.“As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are on the horizon, the government is slamming on the brakes,” he wrote.Read the full story‘Full-blown meltdown’ at Pentagon over HegsethA former top Pentagon spokesperson has slammed Pete Hegseth’s leadership of the department of defense, as pressure mounts on the defense secretary after reports of a second Signal chatroom used to discuss sensitive military operations.Read the full storyTrump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged the defense secretary had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family members, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.Read the full storyDemocrats land in El Salvador to push for Ábrego García’s releaseA delegation of four House Democrats has arrived in El Salvador to push for the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, part of a mission to challenge the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with a supreme court order to facilitate his returnto the United States.Read the full storyStock markets fall as Trump calls Fed chair ‘a major loser’US stock markets started falling again on Monday morning as Trump continued attacks against the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, whom the president called “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.Read the full storyTrump axes key STI lab amid dramatic rise in syphilisThe Trump administration’s cuts to a sexually transmitted infection lab at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention comes as some states announce enormous increases in syphilis. The Trump administration has made deep cuts to health programs, affecting expert leadership and programs that surveil, test and research STIs.Read the full storyFederal employees ‘improperly’ shared sensitive documentsUS government employees “improperly” shared sensitive documents, including White House blueprints, with thousands of federal workers, the Washington Post reported. Staff at an independent agency that oversees the construction and preservation of government buildings, shared a Google Drive folder contacting confidential files to all GSA staff members, totaling more than 11,200 people.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US supreme court heard arguments in a case that could threaten Americans’ access to free preventive healthcare services under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

      British lawmakers and peers have called for Trump to be blocked from addressing parliament during his UK visit.

      Hundreds of marches, pickets and cleanup events took place across the US in the run-up to Earth Day as environmental and climate groups step up resistance to the Trump administration’s “war on the planet”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 20 April 2025. More