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    Wall Street landlords have met a surprising opponent in Trump. So why is Starmer courting them? | Adam Almeida

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    To win votes, Trump can afford to face up to corporate power – to deliver his promised 1.5m homes, Starmer can’tIn an incredibly polarised society, there are fewer and fewer things that seem to unite both sides of the aisle in the US political system. Yet it turns out that an objection to Wall Street’s grand heist of single-family homes has done just that.We might expect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren to rail against the incursion of institutional investors into residential real estate markets, causing rent prices to jump and effectively locking millions of households out of home ownership. However, I admit I was surprised to see JD Vance and Marjorie Taylor Greene striking a similar note. But I was completely dumbfounded to see the real estate tycoon and Wall Street darling Donald Trump sing from the same hymn sheet.Adam Almeida is a writer and researcher living in London Continue reading… More

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      The Guardian view on Syria’s crisis: Islamic State fighters are not the only concern | Editorial

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      As a lightning government offensive leaves the Kurdish-dominated SDF reeling, the political horizon needs attention as well as securityIn little more than a fortnight, a dramatic Syrian government offensive appears to have undone over a decade of Kurdish self-rule in the north-east and extended President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s control. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) held around a quarter of the country and many critical resources – but were forced out of much of it within days. Though the SDF has effectively agreed to dissolution in principle, it has not shown it will do so in practice: a worrying sign for a fragile truce. A peaceful resolution is in everyone’s interests. Forcible integration by Damascus would risk breeding insurgency.The US relied upon the SDF in the battle against Islamic State. But Donald Trump has embraced “attractive, tough” Mr Sharaa – a former jihadist who had a $10m US bounty on his head until late 2024. The US administration became increasingly frustrated at the SDF’s failure to implement last spring’s agreement to integration into the new army, apparently due to internal divisions. Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, wrote this week that the rationale for partnership with the SDF had “largely expired” because Damascus was ready to take over security responsibilities.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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      US reportedly considers granting asylum to Jewish people from UK

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      Trump lawyer Robert Garson told the Telegraph he discussed refuge for those leaving UK over antisemitismDiscussions are reportedly under way within Donald Trump’s administration about the US possibly granting asylum to Jewish people from the UK, according to the Telegraph, citing the US president’s personal lawyer.Trump lawyer Robert Garson told the newspaper that he has held conversations with the US state department about offering refuge to British Jews who are leaving the UK citing rising antisemitism. Continue reading… More

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      If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Britain needs an escape plan from the Trump world order | Gaby Hinsliff

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      The US president’s trade war for Greenland tells us that the time for fence-sitting or wishful thinking is overOne way or the other, President Trump said, he will have Greenland. Well, at least now we know it’s the other; not an invasion that would have sent young men home to their mothers across Europe in coffins, but instead another trade war, designed to kill off jobs and break Europe’s will. Just our hopes of an economic recovery, then, getting taken out and shot on a whim by our supposedly closest ally, months after Britain signed a trade deal supposed to protect us from such arbitrary punishment beatings. In a sane universe, that would not feel like a climbdown by the White House, yet by comparison with the rhetoric that had Denmark scrambling troops to Greenland last week it is.That said, don’t underestimate the gravity of the moment.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      Trump threatens 25% tariff on European allies until Denmark sells Greenland to US

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      Heads of state across Europe respond in solidarity with Denmark and Greenland, and boycott of World Cup suggestedDonald Trump threatened a 25% tariff on a slew of European countries including Denmark, Germany, France and the UK – until the US is allowed to purchase Greenland, in an extraordinary escalation of the president’s bid to claim the autonomous Danish territory.In a lengthy post on Saturday on Truth Social, Trump said he would impose a 10% tariff on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland beginning 1 February, “on any and all goods sent to the United States of America”. Continue reading… More

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      The world of today looks bad, but take hope: we’ve been here before and got through it – and we will again | Martin Kettle

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      As I write my last regular column for the Guardian, my thoughts turn to the lessons and hope we can take from historyFrom Greenland’s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand, as the old hymn has it, we seem to inhabit a world that is more seriously troubled in more places than many can ever remember. In the UK, national morale feels all but shot. Politics commands little faith. Ditto the media. The idea that, as a country, we still have enough in common to carry us through – the idea embedded in Britain’s once potent Churchillian myth – feels increasingly threadbare.Welcome, in short, to the Britain of the mid-1980s. That Britain often felt like a broken nation in a broken world, very much as Britain often does in the mid-2020s. The breakages were of course very different. And on one important level, misery is the river of the world. But, for those who can still recall them, the 1980s moods of crisis and uncertainty have things in common with those of today.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      If Donald Trump thinks Greenland should be his, how long before he sets his sights on Scotland? | Zoe Williams

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      By the expansionist logic of the president and his advisers, the US is entitled to annex just about anywhere‘We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Donald Trump told the Atlantic on 5 January, with the hand-wavy follow-up, “We need it for defence.” His adviser Stephen Miller was more aggressive still in an interview with CNN, saying: “The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? … The US is the power of Nato … obviously Greenland should be part of the United States.” His wife, Katie Miller, posted an image on X of a map of the country papered over with the US flag, with the caption “soon”. It’s hard to orientate sensibly towards things that happen on X these days: if she had posted a Grok-generated image of Greenland in a bikini, would that be more or less concerning?Still, we’re right to be concerned. There is no comfort to be had from old-era ideas such as: “Maybe they’re just sabre-rattling about Greenland to distract from the matter of Venezuela”, or “surely the foundational principles of Nato, a defensive alliance, will prevent the US from any act of aggression towards its own allies?”Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      Is Starmer’s reluctance to criticise Trump smart tactics – or the sign of a man without a plan? | Rafael Behr

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      The PM won’t call out Trump over Venezuela, and won’t commit to Europe. His refusal to choose leaves vital choices for Britain to be made by others For an inveterate liar, Donald Trump is remarkably honest. The best guide to what he thinks is what he says. When forecasting his likely course of action, start with his declared intentions – removing the president of Venezuela, for example – and assume he means it. When he says the US must take possession of Greenland, he is not kidding.The motives are sometimes muddled but rarely hidden. Trump likes making deals, especially real estate deals, and money. He wants to be great and to have his greatness affirmed with praise and prizes. He craves spectacle. The world as he describes it doesn’t always resemble observable reality, but there is an effortless, sociopathic sincerity to his falsehoods. The truth is whatever he intuits it to be in the moment to advance his interests and manipulate his audience.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      At Zohran Mamdani’s block party, I observed a simple truth: people want more politics, not less | Samuel Earle

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      Years of scandal and disappointment have left a void in our politics. But New York’s new mayor offers an alternative to more apathy: hope On 1 January, to mark his inauguration as mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani threw a block party. As he was sworn in outside city hall in front of a crowd of a few thousand of us, a nearby street in Manhattan was closed to traffic so that tens of thousands more could gather to watch the historic moment live on enormous screens. The weather – a cloudless blue sky and arctic winds – felt somehow fitting: a licence to dream and a warning against complacency.Mayors don’t usually take office amid such a festival atmosphere. A smaller, more exclusive event is normally adequate. But a key feature of Mamdani’s rise has been the desire for mass participation in politics. There was no chance this day was going to pass without an open-invitation party. Continue reading… More