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      ‘They’ve lost my trust’: consumers shun companies as bosses kowtow to Trump

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      In late January, Lauren Bedson did what many would likely find unthinkable: she cancelled her Amazon Prime membership. The catalyst was Donald Trump’s inauguration. Many more Americans are planning to make similar decisions this Friday.Bedson made her move after seeing photos of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, sitting with other tech moguls and billionaires, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai, just rows behind Trump at his inauguration.“I just couldn’t stand to see them so cowardly,” Bedson, of Camas, Washington, told the Guardian. “I lived in Seattle for over a decade. I was a fan of Amazon for a long time, I think they have a good product. But I’m just so disgusted. I don’t want to give these billionaire oligarchs any more of my money.”It’s a sentiment that many Americans have been feeling since Trump entered the White House. Companies and business leaders who were once passive or vocally critical of Trump are now trying to cozy up to him, leading consumers to question the values of the brands they used to trust. A recent Harris poll found that a quarter of American consumers have stopped shopping at their favorite stores because of shifting political stances.Many are being inspired by calls to boycott coming from social media. One boycott has gone viral over the last few weeks: a “blackout” of companies that dropped some of their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals, including Target, Amazon and Walmart, is planned for 28 February with protesters planning to halt all spending at these corporations for the day.View image in fullscreenBut people are also making the decision to boycott at their kitchen tables, trying to figure out how to resist Trump, and perhaps corporate capitalism at large, within their own communities.The Guardian asked readers how their shopping habits have changed over the last few months, as the political climate started to shift after Trump’s win. Hundreds from across the country said that they have stopped shopping at stores such as Walmart and Target that publicly announced the end of DEI goals. Dozens like Bedson had cancelled long held Prime accounts. Others have shut down their Facebook and Instagram accounts in protest of Meta.“I’m just trying to do little things that make me feel a little bit empowered, to stake my claim against what’s happening and how companies are acting in ways that are opposed to my values,” said Kim Wohlenhaus, of St Louis, Missouri, who cancelled her Prime membership, deleted her Meta accounts and has stopped shopping at Target. “It feels good to be able to do something.”Erica Bradley, of Reno, Nevada, said she stopped shopping at Target because of their changing DEI policies.“I don’t plan on going there ever again, just because I feel like they’ve shown that they’re not really committed to these things,” Bradley said. “They’ve lost my trust.”View image in fullscreenFor many consumers, the shift away from the big companies has revealed how much they have come to rely on them. As of last spring, 75% of American consumers had Amazon Prime memberships, a total of 180m Prime accounts, according to Bloomberg.Bedson said cancelling her account made her aware of a culture of consumerism in American where “in some ways, it feels like we don’t have a choice”.“Amazon is so convenient,” she said. “I think we all have become very complacent or complicit, and it’s hard to make these changes. But on the other hand, what else can we do?”It’s been a year since Bradley cancelled her Prime account, after she saw Amazon’s union busting. She recalls a transition period as she was adjusting to life without Prime, but it ultimately led her to spend less overall.“I just decided I don’t really need a lot of these things. Like I don’t need more clothes, I don’t really need more house decorations, which are things I used to spend a lot of money on,” Bradley said. “It’s not retail therapy anymore.”The Harris poll found that a third of Americans are similarly trying to “opt out” of the economy, cutting down on overall spending as the political stances of corporations have become murky.View image in fullscreen“It’s like a Whac-a-Mole now,” Wohlenhaus said. “You could really look in any direction and find something you dislike about the way corporations are caving to this administration.”Wohlenhaus said she has started to prioritize shopping at local businesses. She kept her Costco membership, since the company affirmed its DEI policies.During Joe Biden’s presidency, many of the boycotts against companies actually came from conservatives who felt corporations were caving to a “woke” mob. But boycotts didn’t amount to any serious consequences – with two exceptions. Bud Light saw a drop in sales after it sponsored a post by a transgender influencer and Target removed some of its Pride merchandise after conservative backlash.It’s unclear what the consequences of the current backlash will be. But Wohlenhaus and others voiced optimism that consumers are thinking critically about the choices they’re making at checkout.“Hopefully if thousands of other families are doing what we’re doing, I think they’ll start to feel it,” she said. “We don’t care about your products as much as we care about those values that we cherish.” More

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      Trump is unleashing anti-trans hysteria onto the world | Moira Donegan

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      In the video, she sounds exasperated. Hunter Schafer, a 26-year-old actor best known for her roles on the HBO series Euphoria and in the Hunger Games film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, appeared in an eight-minute video last Friday in which she revealed that due to a Trump administration order, she had been assigned a passport with the gender marker “male”.Schafer, who is trans, began living as a girl in her early teens; she has lived as a woman for her entire adult life. In her video, she says that her IDs have been marked “female” for just about as long as she has had them. But after her passport was stolen in a car break-in in Barcelona, she has been issued a government identity document that represents a fiction that she is a man. Every time she travels now, she will have to present this document, she will have to account for the discrepancy between what it says about her, and what she clearly is.In her video, Schafer stresses her own privilege: for her, the incorrect passport is not a matter of life and death. But the harm to dignity that the new document will impose on her will be repeated, intimate and needless. It is an exercise in cruelty that the Trump administration has declared that official documents, like passports, will no longer reflect these basic realities of trans people’s lives. It is also a brute assertion of the Trump administration’s claim to control over reality itself: a way for them to make a lie into an official truth.Schafer is right that many trans Americans will fare even worse than she will. In a flurry of executive actions in their first days in office, the Trump regime issued a rapid flurry of anti-trans executive orders. They banned trans servicemembers from the military; the Pentagon is now moving to fire them all. They barred trans women and girls from participating in sports, and the NCAA promptly complied, throwing athletes off their teams in a reversal of 15 years of policy. They ordered that trans people not be granted equal access to housing and shelters, and Trump’s Housing and Urban Development department promptly stopped enforcing civil rights rules.They issued an order banning transition-related care for young people – people like the teenager Schafer had been when she began transitioning – and a number of hospitals and clinics canceled appointments, leaving often desperate patients with no way to get care. And this week, the Trump state department announced that it would deny visas for transgender athletes coming from abroad to compete in the United States before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics – a move that also seems designed to allow them to deny all visas to trans travelers. This rapid mobilization across vastly different sectors of the law will have immediate and far-reaching results. It will ruin lives.The Trump administration and the broader revanchist movement are targeting trans people because they are a tiny minority that they think can be bullied and dehumanized without great political pushback. They are targeting trans people because trans life represents the principles of dignity, self-determination and gender equality that they abhor. And they are targeting trans people because they are hateful, sadistic and cruel – because they want to make people suffer for the crime of being different from them, and because they do not have the courage to pick on anyone who is more capable of fighting back.But the anti-trans sadism of the new Trump administration should not only offend us because it is cruel. It should offend us because it demands that government departments, federally funded institutions, and the people who work for them participate in a lie: that trans people are not who they say they are.Transphobes like those in the Trump administration have long smugly declared themselves the arbiters of the “truth” about gender – that it is fixed, that there are two, that gender is merely a brute fact of the body that cannot be changed, and that nothing that happens to a person after their sex is assigned at birth has any bearing on the truth of what their gender is. They have declared this with immense self-satisfaction; they have declared themselves rational, and intelligent, and even brave for saying it.But the gender marker on Hunter Schafer’s passport is not true; it represents a lie, an assertion in total contradiction not only to how she sees herself, but to how everyone else sees her, to the reality of how she lives her life. Every trans person who is issued a wrong document is coerced into this same lie; every other person, cisgender or not, who has to work with these documents and in deference to these policies is coerced into a lie, too. We are told that what we see and feel and experience of trans people does not count, that we should not believe our lying eyes. We are told that no official body of the federal government will accept the plain and obvious truth.Anti-trans hysteria, then, should be understood as a function of the Trump administration’s epistemic violence, its mission to make lies into policy and to suppress truth. It is as much of a lie that Hunter Schafer is a man as it is that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, or that vaccines cause autism, or that climate change isn’t real. There is a moral case to be made for resistance to these orders, but there is also an intellectual one. We do not have to be as stupid, in the face of trans existence, as the Trump administration demands that we be. We do not have to pretend not to know things that we do.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      America must not surrender its Democratic values | Bernie Sanders

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      For 250 years, the United States has held itself up as a symbol of democracy – an example of freedom and self-governance to which the rest of the world could aspire. People have long looked to our declaration of independence and constitution as blueprints for how to guarantee those human rights and freedoms.Tragically, all of that is changing. As Donald Trump moves this country towards authoritarianism, he is aligning himself with dictators and despots who share his disdain for democracy and the rule of law.This week, in a radical departure from longstanding US policy, the Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution which clearly stated that Russia began the horrific war with Ukraine. That resolution also called on Russia to withdraw its forces from occupied Ukraine, in line with international law. The resolution was brought forward by our closest allies, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and dozens more democratic nations. And 93 countries voted “yes”.Rather than side with our longstanding allies to preserve democracy and uphold international law, the president voted with authoritarian countries such as Russia, North Korea, Iran and Belarus to oppose the resolution. Many of the other opponents of that resolution are undemocratic nations propped up by Russian military aid.Let’s be clear: this was not just another UN vote. This was the president of the United States turning his back on 250 years of our history and openly aligning himself with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. This was the president of the United States undermining the independence of Ukraine.And let us not forget who Putin is. He is the man who crushed Russia’s movement towards democracy after the end of the cold war. He steals elections, murders political dissidents and crushes freedom of the press. He has maintained control in Russia by offering the oligarchs there a simple deal: if you give me absolute power, I will let you steal as much as you want from the Russian people. He sparked the bloodiest war in Europe since the second world war.It has been three years since Russia’s brutal, unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than 1 million people have been killed or injured because of Putin’s aggression. Every single day, Russia rains down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities. Putin’s forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, bringing them back to Russian “re-education” camps. These atrocities led the international criminal court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 as a war criminal.Not only is Trump aligning himself with Putin’s Russia, he is prepared to extort Ukraine for its natural resources. While a proud nation desperately fights for its life, Trump is focused on helping his billionaire friends make a fortune excavating rare earths and other minerals.But Trump’s turn toward authoritarianism and rejection of international law goes well beyond Ukraine.The president sees the world’s dictators as his friends, our democratic allies as his enemies and the use of military force as the way to achieve his goals. Disgracefully, he wants to push 2.2 million Palestinians out of their homeland in order to build a billionaire’s playground in Gaza. He talks openly about annexing Greenland from Denmark. He says the United States should take back the Panama canal. And he ruptures our friendship with our Canadian neighbors by telling them they should become the 51st state in the union.Alongside his fellow oligarchs in Russia, Saudi Arabia and around the globe, Trump wants a world ruled by authoritarians in which might makes right, and where democracy and moral values cease to exist.Just over a century ago, a handful of monarchs, emperors and tsars ruled most of the world. Sitting in extreme opulence, they claimed that absolute power was their “divine right”. But ordinary people disagreed.Slowly and painfully, in countries throughout the world, they clawed their way toward democracy and rejected colonialism.At our best, the US has played a key role in the movement toward freedom. From Gettysburg to Normandy, millions of Americans have fought – and many have died – to defend democracy, often alongside brave men and women from other nations.This is a turning point – a moment of enormous consequence in world history. Do we go forward toward a more democratic, just and humane world? Or do we retreat back into oligarchy, authoritarianism, colonialism and the rejection of international law?As Americans, we cannot stay quiet as Trump abandons centuries of our commitment to democracy. Together, we must fight for our long-held values and work with people around the world who share them.

      Bernie Sanders is a US senator and a ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress More

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      China promises ‘countermeasures’ after Trump threatens additional 10% tariff

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      Donald Trump has threatened China with an additional 10% tariff on its exports to the US, prompting a promise of “countermeasures” from Beijing and setting the stage for another significant escalation in the two governments’ trade war.The US president also claimed he planned to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting next Tuesday, having delayed their imposition last month after talks with his counterparts.Posting on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said illicit drugs such as fentanyl were being smuggled into the US at “unacceptable levels” and that import taxes would force other countries to crack down on the trafficking.“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” the Republican president wrote. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”If Trump makes good on this latest threat, the move would further strain relations between the US and its largest trading partners.In response, China’s commerce and foreign ministries on Friday vowed to retaliate if Chinese companies were affected by the tariffs, accusing the US of using fentanyl as a “pretext” to threaten China.“Such behaviour is purely ‘shifting blame and shirking responsibility,’ which is not conducive to solving its own problems,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said. “If the US insists on proceeding with this course of action, China will take all necessary countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”Canada and Mexico have promised to retaliate if the US imposes tariffs on their exports. China hit back swiftly when Trump imposed a 10% tariff on its exports earlier this month.The Trump administration has repeatedly raised the threat of tariffs, vowing to rebalance the global economic order in the US’s favor. A string of announced measures have yet to be introduced, however, as economists and businesses urge officials to reconsider.The duties on imports from Canada and Mexico have been repeatedly delayed; modified levies on steel and aluminum will not be enforced until next month, and a wave of “reciprocal” tariffs, trailed earlier this month, will not kick in before April.This week, the US president vowed to slap 25% tariffs on the EU, claiming the bloc was “formed to screw the United States”, although details remain sparse. Duties will be applied “generally”, Trump said, “on cars and all other things”.The prospect of escalating tariffs has already thrown the global economy into turmoil – with consumers expressing fears about inflation worsening and the auto sector possibly suffering if the US’s two largest trading partners in Canada and Mexico are slapped with taxes.The prospect of higher prices and slower growth could create political blowback for Trump.Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Trump administration briefing: hundreds fired from US climate agency as Americans feel economy getting worse

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      The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency housed within the Department of Commerce, the Guardian learned on Thursday.“This will cost American lives,” said Democratic congresswoman and ranking member of the House science, space and technology committee, Zoe Lofgren, in a written statement. Her comments were issued alongside congressman Gabe Amo’s, the ranking member of the subcommittee on environment, after news of the firings broke.“By firing essential staff who work tirelessly on behalf of the American people, President Trump and Elon Musk are playing politics with our national security and public safety,” Amo said. “Leaving Noaa understaffed will inevitably lead to additional chaos and confusion – I call on them to rehire these public servants immediately before preventable tragedy strikes.”Trump fires hundreds at US climate agency NoaaOn Thursday afternoon, the US commerce department sent emails to Noaa employees saying their jobs would be cut off at the end of the day. Other government agencies have also seen huge staffing cuts in recent days.The firings specifically affected probationary employees, a categorization that applies to new hires or those moved or promoted into new positions, and which makes up roughly 10% of the agency’s workforce.“The majority of probationary employees in my office have been with the agency for 10+ years and just got new positions,” said one worker who still had their job, and who spoke to the Guardian under the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “If we lose them, we’re losing not just the world-class work they do day to day but also decades of expertise and institutional knowledge.”Read the full storyTrump vows additional 10% tariff on China in trade war escalationDonald Trump has threatened China with an additional 10% tariff on its exports to the US, setting the stage for another significant escalation in his trade war with Beijing. The US president also claimed that he plans to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting next Tuesday, having delayed their imposition last month after talks with his counterparts.Read the full storyTrump says Putin would keep his word on a Ukraine peace dealDonald Trump has insisted that Vladimir Putin would “keep his word” on a peace deal for Ukraine, arguing that US workers extracting critical minerals in the country would act as a security backstop to deter Russia from invading again.During highly anticipated talks at the White House with the prime minister, Keir Starmer, the US president said that Putin could be trusted not to breach any agreement, which could aim to return as much of the land as possible to Ukraine that was seized by Russia during the brutal three-year conflict.Read the full storyWhite House demands agencies identify hundreds of thousands of potential layoffsThe Trump administration is pushing for federal agencies to carry out a large-scale slashing of the federal workforce, demanding plans for hundreds of thousands of possible cuts within weeks. A White House memo gave officials until 13 March to submit a plan identifying “agency components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or regulation who are not typically designated as essential” during government shutdowns.Read the full storyCanceled meeting on flu shots fuels anti-vax concernsThe Trump administration has cancelled a meeting of scientific experts called to discuss next winter’s flu shots in a move that has underscored fears of emerging anti-vaccine polices under the new health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.Read the full storyMexico releases 29 high-level organized crime operatives into US custodyMexico has extradited 29 high-level organised crime operatives to the US, as it faces intense pressure from the Trump administration to show that it is tackling fentanyl trafficking.The extraditions come as Mexico tries to convince the US to postpone 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports. Donald Trump has tied the tariffs to results on fentanyl trafficking and migration, without setting any specific targets.Read the full storyJudge temporarily blocks Trump’s mass firings at federal agenciesA federal judge in California has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ordering the US defense department and other agencies to carry out the mass firings of some employees.Read the full storyFunding cut for program fighting HIV/AidsThe Trump administration has terminated its funding of the joint United Nations program on HIV/Aids, known as UNAids, delivering another devastating blow to the global fight against the disease.Read the full storyEducator coalition sues to block Trump anti-diversity ordersA coalition of educators has filed a lawsuit to block the US Department of Education from enforcing new Donald Trump-imposed civil rights guidelines that target a range of practices related to diversity, equity and inclusion.Read the full storyMajority of Americans believe economy getting worseExclusive: The majority of Americans believe the economy is getting worse rather than better, even as Republican views on the nation’s finances have performed a dramatic backflip since Donald Trump’s re-election, according to a poll conducted for the Guardian.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The Trump administration has taken down the online application form for several popular student debt repayment plans, causing confusion among borrowers and likely creating complications for millions of Americans with outstanding loans.

      The Social Security Administration is expected to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, the Associated Press reported. The workforce reduction could be as high as 50%, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Those seeking payment plans are unable to access the applications for income-driven repayment plans (IDRs), which cap what borrowers must pay each month at a percent of their earnings, as well as the online application to consolidate their loans on the US Department of Education website.

      Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon and the top Democrat on the Senate finance committee warned that Trump’s tariffs threats are “driving the US economy straight into a wall”.

      Democrats on the Senate foreign relations committee slammed the Trump administration over a decision to eliminate as much as 90% of USAid’s foreign aid contracts. “It is clear that the Trump Administration’s foreign assistance ‘review’ was not a serious effort or attempt at reform but rather a pretext to dismantle decades of US investment that makes America safer, stronger and more prosperous,” the Democrats said in a joint statement. More

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      Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s mass firings at federal agencies

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      A federal judge in California has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ordering the US defense department and other agencies to carry out the mass firings of some employees.The US district judge William Alsup said in San Francisco on Thursday that the US office of personnel management (OPM) lacked the power to order federal agencies to fire any workers, including probationary employees who typically have less than a year of experience.Alsup ordered the OPM, the human resources department for federal agencies, to rescind a 20 January and a 14 February email directing agencies to identify probationary employees who should be fired.Alsup said he could not order the defense department itself, which is expected to fire 5,400 probationary employees on Friday, and other agencies not to terminate workers because they are not defendants in the lawsuit brought by several unions and non-profit groups.But he suggested that the mass firings of federal workers that began two weeks ago would cause widespread harm, including cuts to national parks, scientific research and services for veterans.“Probationary employees are the lifeblood of our government. They come in at a low level and work their way up. That’s how we renew ourselves,” said Alsup, a Bill Clinton appointee.Alsup handed down the order in a case brought by labor unions and non-profits filed last week.The complaint filed by five labor unions and five non-profit organizations is among multiple lawsuits pushing back on the administration’s efforts to vastly shrink the federal workforce.Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired. Just on Thursday, hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, learned they had lost their jobs.The plaintiffs say the OPM had no authority to terminate the jobs of probationary workers who generally have less than a year on the job. They also say the firings were predicated on a lie of poor performance by the workers.The Trump administration has maintained that the memo and email from the OPM merely asked agencies to review their probationary workforces and decide who could potentially be terminated, and did not require them to do anything.“An order is not usually phrased as a request,” Kelsey Helland of the US Department of Justice told Alsup during the hearing.But the judge said it was unlikely that virtually every federal agency independently decided to decimate its staff.“How could that all happen with each agency deciding on its own to do something so aberrational? I don’t believe it,” Alsup said.There are an estimated 200,000 probationary workers – generally employees who have less than a year on the job – across federal agencies. About 15,000 are employed in California, providing services ranging from fire prevention to veterans’ care, the complaint says. More

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      Trump administration quietly shutters online form for student debt repayment

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      The Donald Trump administration has taken down the online application form for several popular student debt repayment plans, causing confusion among borrowers and likely creating complications for millions of Americans with outstanding loans.Those seeking payment plans are unable to access the applications for income-driven repayment plans (IDR), which cap what borrowers must pay each month at a percent of their earnings, as well as the online application to consolidate their loans on the US Department of Education website.The quiet removal came after a federal appeals court decision earlier this week that continued a pause on Joe Biden’s Save program, an income-driven plan for loan forgiveness that would have forgiven debts after as few as 10 years of payments.Biden’s Save program has been on hold since last summer after a group of Republican state attorneys general brought forward a lawsuit against the forgiveness features. As a result, about 8 million borrowers who enrolled in Save before it was halted currently have their loans in limbo as the litigation is ongoing.It is currently unclear how borrowers who were already enrolled in income-driven plans are supposed to submit their annual paperwork to certify their incomes. It is also uncertain when or if the payment plan applications will be back up on the website.The continued setbacks in the path towards student loan forgiveness has caused concern among those with debt, and loan forgiveness activists. Critics also point out that removing payment plan options was not a part of the previous litigation.There is also criticism towards the DoE’s decision to quietly remove the applications rather than announcing it, with the department opting instead to post a banner on StudentAid.gov.The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), a non-profit dedicated to eliminating student debt in the US, released a statement in response to the sudden removal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Shutting down access to all income-based repayment plans is not what the 8th Circuit ordered—this was a choice by the Trump Administration and a cruel one that will inflict massive pain on millions of working families,” the statement says.It goes on to say: “President Trump campaigned on lower costs, but once again has chosen a path that will ensure the greatest possible harm to the monthly budgets of everyday working families.” More

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      Social Security Administration could layoff up to 50% of its workforce, source says – live

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      The Social Security Administration is expected to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, the Associated Press reported.The workforce reduction could be as high as 50%, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It’s unclear how the layoffs will directly impact benefits of the 72.5 million Social Security beneficiaries, which include retirees and children who receive retirement and disability benefits.Advocates and Democratic lawmakers warn that layoffs will reduce the agency’s ability to serve recipients in a timely manner.King Charles invites Donald Trump for unprecedented second state visit to UKKing Charles has invited Donald Trump to make an unprecedented second state visit to the UK in a letter handed to the US president by Keir Starmer.Queen Elizabeth II hosted Trump on a state visit in 2019. Precedent for second-term US presidents who have already made a state visit is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.Trump received the invitation during a meeting at the White House on Thursday, with Starmer presenting the letter from the king.In the letter, which Trump showed to the cameras in the Oval Office, Charles suggested he and Trump could meet beforehand at Dumfries House or Balmoral, which are near Trump’s golf courses in Scotland, to discuss the plans for the much grander visit.The letter, partially obscured by Trump’s hand, read: “I can only say that it would be … pleasure to extend that invitation once again, in the hope that you … some stage be visiting Turnberry and a detour to a relatively near neighbour might not cause you too much inconvenience. An alternative might perhaps be for you to visit Balmoral.“There is much on both estates which I think you might find interesting, and enjoy – particularly as my foundation at Dumfries House provides hospitality skills-training for young people who often end up as staff on your own establishments!”The letter continued: “Quite apart from this presenting an opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual interest, it would also offer a valuable chance to plan a historic second state visit to the United Kingdom.“As you will know this is unprecedented by a US President. That is why I would find it helpful for us to be able to discuss, together, a range of options for location and programme content.Read the full story:The Social Security Administration is expected to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, the Associated Press reported.The workforce reduction could be as high as 50%, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It’s unclear how the layoffs will directly impact benefits of the 72.5 million Social Security beneficiaries, which include retirees and children who receive retirement and disability benefits.Advocates and Democratic lawmakers warn that layoffs will reduce the agency’s ability to serve recipients in a timely manner.A federal judge has ordered Trump administration officials involved in Elon Musk’s “opaque” department of government efficiency (Doge) to testify under oath in a lawsuit regarding the agency’s access to sensitive government databases.US District Judge John Bates ruled on Thursday that limited questioning of officials connected to Doge could help clarify the group’s activities and assess whether it poses the data security risks that government employees have raised concerns about.The judge’s order allows unions and liberal groups suing the agency to depose four officials: one from Doge’s White House headquarters and one each from the labor department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Doge’s aggressive push to streamline bureaucracy has triggered over a dozen lawsuits, and this order marks the first time that people involved in the project will be required to answer questions from lawyers outside the government.Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Donald Trump suggested Vladimir Putin can be trusted in the peace talks with Ukraine because “we had to go through the Russian hoax together”. “I’ve known him for a long time now, and I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word,” Trump said during his Oval Office meeting with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister. For more updates from Trump’s press conference with Starmer, follow the UK politics live blog.

      Trump announced he would move forward with imposing 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada next week, after he initially delayed that policy by one month. In a post on Truth Social, Trump blamed Mexico and Canada for allowing illegal drugs to flow into the US, writing: “We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled.”

      The top Democrat on the Senate finance committee warned that Trump’s tariffs threats are “driving the US economy straight into a wall”. “Slapping tariffs on everything Americans buy from Canada, Mexico, and China will mean higher prices on groceries, gas and cars, with fewer jobs and lower pay when our closest trading partners respond to Trump’s trade war by buying fewer American products,” senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, said in a statement.

      Democrats on the Senate foreign relations committee slammed the Trump administration over a decision to eliminate as much as 90% of USAid’s foreign aid contracts. “It is clear that the Trump Administration’s foreign assistance ‘review’ was not a serious effort or attempt at reform but rather a pretext to dismantle decades of US investment that makes America safer, stronger and more prosperous,” the Democrats said in a joint statement.
      The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.Senator Ruben Gallego, a freshman Democrat of Arizona, has introduced a resolution condemning the Trump administration’s rejection of a United Nations resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.On Monday, the US joined Russia, Belarus and North Korea in voting against the EU-Ukrainian resolution, which was intrdouced to coincide with the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.“Let’s be clear on this: this is a war that Russia started. Ukraine did not ask for it. They did not ask to go to war with a nuclear superpower, and they did not ask for their cities to be reduced to rubble,” Gallego said in a speech today on the Senate floor.“They didn’t ask for their children to be displaced and families to be torn apart. If Ukraine had its way, this war would have ended years ago.”He warned that the US position on the UN resolution “puts us on the same side as Russia and North Korea,” adding, “That’s not just embarrassing, it is dangerous.”Donald Trump made some eyebrow-raising comments about Russia during his Oval Office meeting with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, just a few moments ago.Trump suggested that Vladimir Putin could be trusted to follow through on the terms of any peace agreement signed with Ukraine, saying he expected the Russian leader to “keep his word”.“I’ve spoken to him. I’ve known him for a long time now,” Trump said.“You know we had to go through the Russian hoax together [the claim that Russia colluded with Trump to rig the 2016 election]. That was not a good thing …“I’ve known him for a long time now, and I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word.”For more updates and analysis from Trump’s press conference with Starmer, which is expected to get underway soon, follow the Guardian’s UK politics live blog:Kash Patel, the controversial new FBI director, has proposed teaming up with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a way to improve agents’ physical fitness, ABC News reported.Patel reportedly floated the potential collaboration on teleconference Wednesday with the heads of the FBI’s 55 field offices. Dana White, the CEO and founder of the mixed-martial arts entertainment company, is a prominent Trump supporter and major booster of his re-election campaign.Kash’s appointment has rattled the agency, amid widespread concern that he would use the historically independent bureau to pursue Trump’s political opponents – something he declined to rule out in his confirmation hearing.Asked about self-styled “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, flying to the US, reportedly after the US urged Romania to lift the travel ban that was preventing them from leaving the country, Trump said he “doesn’t know anything about it”.The pair, who are charged with human trafficking in Romania, arrived in Florida from Romania on Thursday by private jet, after prosecutors suspended their travel ban and a court lifted a precautionary seizure on some of their assets. The brothers, are staunch Trump supporters.On Thursday, Ron DeSantis, the state’s Republican governor, said: “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct in the air.”The Tate brothers were arrested in Romania in 2022 and face trial on charges of rape, sex with a minor, people trafficking and money laundering.Attending the anti-war protest in solidarity with Barnard and Columbia students is Raymond Lotta, a spokesperson for Revolutionary Books in Harlem.“We are here specifically today because we are standing in solidarity with the students here at Barona and Columbia who are being punished severely for standing in support of the Palestinian people and calling out this university for being complicit in war crimes, and now two students have been expelled…they must be reinstated. This is a just and a righteous demand,” Lotta said.He added: “And we are here to stand in solidarity and also to help people to understand that we’re now fighting in a new situation with Trump MAGA fascism in power and their agenda is horrific. I mean, across the board, you know, terrorizing and rounding up immigrants, attempting to erase LGBTQ people. This is fascism and, you know, they are attempting to use the military to suppress protest in dissent, and the struggle here is a struggle that has inspired students across the country.”The protesters have issued a list of four demands to Barnard president Laura Rosenbury.The demands stated are: “Immediate reversal of the two Barnard students’ expulsions…Amnesty for all student students disciplined for pro-Palestine, action or thought…a public meeting with Dean Leslie Grinage, and president Laura Rosenbery and abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process and complete transparency for current past and future disciplinary proceedings.”“Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will rest,” the students chant.“Barnard College go to hell,” others yell before going into, “1, we are the students! 2, we won’t stop fighting! 3, we want divestment now now now!”NYPD have set up more barricades outside Barnard as a verbal altercation between the student protestors and counter protestors broke out with both sides yelling at each other.Elon Musk again criticized Verizon as the Federal Aviation Administration reportedly considers canceling a $2.4bn contract with the telecommunications company. On deck to supplant Verizon: The tech mogul’s own satellite internet company, Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX.In a post on his X social media platform, Musk said the “Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly”.Musk made the comment in a repost of a tweet linking to the Washington Post’s report that the FAA was “close to canceling” Verizon’s contract in favor of Starlink, setting up a major conflict-of-interest test for the administration as Musk leads its cost-cutting effort. Staff with Musk’s Doge have already infiltrated the aviation agency, according to multiple reports.“The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk,” Musk said on X. “The Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity. The situation is extremely dire.”On X, Musk said a “total overhaul” of the air traffic control system was needed, an assessment many at the agency would agree with. Handing the contract to Starlink, however, would compound existing conflicts of interest involving SpaceX and the FAA.The Guardian’s Maya Yang is at New York’s Barnard University, where students wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestine are gathered outside on the campus, chanting a series of anti-war slogans amid a heavy New York police department (NYPD) presence.“Free, free Palestine!” the students chant as well as some hold up handwritten signs that read: “No more Zionist occupation”‘and “Amnesty now.”Around 100 or so students appear gathered outside the gated campus of Barnard, where only students and faculty with ID cards are allowed in.Around eight student counter-protestors have gathered across from the Barnard and Columbia students protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza.One student, with a shirt that says “Fuck Hamas, I stand with Israel” started playing Israeli music with others waving an Israeli and an IDF flag. Another student wore a white hoodie with the words: “Columbia University students supporting Israel.”Since Hamas’s 7 October attacks which killed 1,200 Israelis and took over 200 survivors hostage, Israeli forces have waged a deadly war on Gaza, killing over 48,000 Palestinians while forcibly displacing nearly 2 million survivors amid severe shortages in food, fuel and medical supplies due to Israeli aid restrictions. More