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      ‘I had teachers crying’: the schools trying to plug million-dollar funding holes after Trump cuts

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      In the time it took to read an email, the federal money vanished before Eisa Cox’s eyes: dollars that supported the Ashe county, North Carolina, school district’s after-school program, training for its teachers and salaries for some jobs.The email from the US Department of Education arrived 30 June, a day before the money – $1.1m in total – was set to materialize for the rural western district. Instead, the dollars were frozen pending a review to make sure the money was spent “in accordance with the president’s priorities”, the email said.In a community still recovering from Hurricane Helene, where more than half of students are considered economically disadvantaged, Cox said there was no way they could replace that federal funding for the school system she oversees as superintendent. “It is scary to think about it,” she said. “You’re getting ready to open school and not have a significant pot of funds.”School leaders across the country were reeling from the same news. The $1.1m was one small piece of a nearly $7bn pot of federal funding for thousands of school districts that the Trump administration froze – money approved by Congress and that schools were scheduled to receive on 1 July. For weeks, leaders in Ashe county and around the country scrambled to figure out how they could avoid layoffs and fill financial holes – until the money was freed on 25 July, after an outcry from legislators and a lawsuit joined by two dozen states.“I had teachers crying, staff members crying. They thought they were going to lose their jobs a week before school,” said Curtis Finch, superintendent of Deer Valley unified school district in Phoenix, Arizona.View image in fullscreenNow, as students are back in classrooms, their school systems can no longer count on federal dollars as they once did. They must learn to plan without a playbook under a president intent on cutting education spending. For many districts, federal money is a small but crucial sliver of their budgets, potentially touching every part of a school’s operations, from teacher salaries to textbooks. Nationally, it accounts for about 14% of public school funding; in Ashe county, it’s 17%. School administrators are examining their resources now and budgeting for losses to funding that was frozen this summer, for English learners and for after-school and other programs.So far, the Trump administration has not proposed cutting the largest pots of federal money for schools, which go to services for students with disabilities and to schools with large numbers of low-income students. But the current budget proposal from the US House of Representatives would do just that.At the same time, forthcoming cuts to other federal support for low-income families under the Republican One Big, Beautiful Bill Act – including Medicaid and Snap, previously known as food stamps – will also hammer schools that have many students living in poverty. Some school districts are also grappling with the elimination of Department of Education grants announced earlier this year, such as those designed to address teacher shortages and disability services. In politically conservative communities like this one, there’s an added tension for schools that rely on federal money to operate: how to sound the alarm while staying out of partisan politics.For Ashe county, the federal spending freeze collided with the district’s attempt at a fresh start after the devastation of Helene, which demolished roads and homes, damaged school buildings and knocked power and cell service out for weeks. Between the storm and snow days, students here missed 47 days of instruction.Cox worries this school year might bring more missed days. That first week of school, she found herself counting the number of foggy mornings: an old Appalachian wives’ tale says to put a bean in a jar for every morning of fog in August. The number of beans at the end of the month is how many snow days will come in winter.“We’ve had 21 so far,” Cox said with a nervous laugh on 21 August.A funding freeze rollercoasterFragrant evergreen trees blanket Ashe county’s hills, a region that bills itself as America’s Christmas tree capital because of the millions of Fraser firs grown for sale at the holidays. Yet this picturesque area still shows scars of Hurricane Helene’s destruction: fallen trees, damaged homes and rocky new paths cut through the mountainsides by mudslides. Nearly a year after the storm, the lone grocery store in one of its small towns is still being rebuilt. A sinkhole that formed during the flooding remains, splitting open the ground behind an elementary school.As students walked into classrooms for the first time since spring, Julie Taylor – the district’s director of federal programs – was reworking district budget spreadsheets. When federal funds were frozen, and then unfrozen, her plans and calculations from months prior became meaningless.Federal and state funding stretches far in this district of 2,700 students and six schools, where administrators do a lot with a little. Even before this summer, they worked hard to supplement that funding in any way possible – applying for state and federal grants, like one last year that provided money for a few mobile hotspots for families who don’t have internet access. Such opportunities are also narrowing: the Federal Communications Commission, for example, recently proposed ending its mobile hotspot grant program for school buses and libraries.View image in fullscreen“We’re very fiscally responsible because we have to be. We’re small and rural. We don’t have a large tax base,” Taylor said.When the money was frozen this summer, administrators’ minds went to the educators and kids who would be most affected. Some of it was meant to pay for a program through Appalachian State University that connects the district’s three dozen early career teachers with a mentor, helping them learn how to schedule their school days and manage classroom behavior.The program is part of the reason the district’s retention rate for early career teachers is 92%, Taylor said, noting the teachers have said how much the mentoring meant to them.Also frozen: free after-school care the district provides for about 250 children throughout the school year – the only after-school option in the community. Without the money, Cox said, schools would have had to cancel their after-school care or start charging families, a significant burden in a county with a median household income of about $50,000.Will assistance for immigrant students go away?The salary for Michelle Pelayo, the district’s migrant education program coordinator for nearly two decades, was also tied up in that pot of funding. Because agriculture is the county’s biggest industry, Pelayo’s work extends far beyond the students at the school. Each year, she works with the families of dozens of immigrant students who move to the county for seasonal work on farms, which generally involves tagging and bundling Christmas trees and harvesting pumpkins. Pelayo helps the families enroll their students, connects them with supplies for school and home, and serves as a Spanish translator for parent-teacher meetings – “whatever they need”, she said.Kitty Honeycutt, executive director of the Ashe county chamber of commerce, doesn’t know how the county’s agriculture industry would survive without the immigrant families Pelayo works with. “The need for guest workers is crucial for the agriculture industry. We have to have them,” she said.A couple of years ago, Pelayo had the idea to drive to Boone, North Carolina, where Appalachian State University’s campus sits, to gather unwanted appliances and supplies from students moving out of their dorm rooms at the end of the year to donate to immigrant families. She’s a “find a way or make a way” type of person, Honeycutt said.Cox is searching for how to keep Pelayo on if Ashe county loses these federal funds next year. She’s talked with county officials to see whether they could pay Pelayo’s salary, and has begun calculating how much the district would need to charge families to keep the after-school program running. Ideally, she’d know ahead of time and not the night before the district is set to receive the money.Around the nationDistricts across the country are grappling with similar questions. In Detroit, school leaders are preparing, at a minimum, to lose Title III money to teach English learners; more than 7,200 Detroit students received services funded by Title III in 2023.In Wyoming, the small, rural Sheridan county school district 3 is trying to budget without Title II, IV and V money – funding for improving teacher quality, updating technology and resources for rural and low-income schools, among other uses, the superintendent Chase Christensen said.Schools are trying to budget for cuts to other federal programs, too, such as Medicaid and food stamps. In Harrison school district 2, an urban district in Colorado Springs, schools rely on Medicaid to provide students with counseling, nursing and other services.The district projects that it could lose half the $15m it receives in Medicaid next school year.“It’s very, very stressful,” said Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of Harrison school district 2. “For a while, it was every day you were hearing something different. And you couldn’t even keep up with: ‘What’s the latest information today?’ That’s another thing we told our staff: if you can, just don’t watch the news about education right now.”There’s another calculation for school leaders to make in conservative counties like Ashe, where 72% of the vote last year went to Donald Trump: objecting to the cuts without angering voters. When North Carolina’s attorney general, a Democrat, joined the lawsuit against the administration over the frozen funds this summer, some school administrators told state officials they couldn’t publicly sign on, fearing local backlash, said Jack Hoke, executive director of the North Carolina School Superintendents’ Association.Cox sees the effort to slash federal funds as a chance to show her community how Ashe county schools uses this money. She believes people are misguided in thinking their schools don’t need it, not malicious.“I know who our congresspeople are. I know they care about this area,” Cox said, adding that they care even if they do not fully grasp how the money is used. “It’s an opportunity for me to educate them.”If the education department is shuttered – which Trump said he plans to do in order to give more authority over education to states – she wants to be included in state-level discussions of how federal money flows to schools through North Carolina. Importantly, she also wants to know ahead of time what her schools might lose.As she made her rounds to each of the schools that first week back, Cox glanced down at her phone and looked up with a smile. “We have hot water,” she said while walking in the hall of Blue Ridge elementary school. It had lost hot water a few weeks earlier, but to Cox, this crisis was minor – one of many first-of-the-year hiccups she has come to expect.Still, it’s one worry she can put out of her mind as she looks ahead to a year of uncertainties.Marina Villeneuve contributed data analysis to this story, which was originally produced and published by the Hechinger Report. More

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      Trump v Kimmel: simmering feud ends with comedian’s talkshow yanked off air

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      Donald Trump’s description of the decision to pull from air Jimmy Kimmel’s talkshow as “great news for America” was a gleeful response from the US president over the late-night comedian who has long been the biggest thorn in his side.A spokesman for Kimmel said the host had no immediate comment after ABC pulled the plug on his show following remarks Kimmel made earlier in the week arguing that the US right was using Charlie Kirk’s killing to try to score political points.Trump had no such reservations, declaring “Kimmel has ZERO talent” and claiming he had “worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible”, referring to Kimmel’s fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert, whose show – the highest rated late-night show in the US – was cancelled after he, too, mocked Trump.When Colbert’s show was cancelled, Trump wrote on 18 July on his social media network that “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”That statement is evidence of how Trump has appeared to reserve specific ire for Kimmel, who has never been shy of critiquing the president. All late-night talkshow hosts criticise Trump – and Biden, and all other political figures on both sides of the aisle – but Kimmel has had a longstanding ability to get under Trump’s skin that has only grown over the years.In 2015, as Trump was running for his first presidential term, he abruptly cancelled an appearance on Kimmel’s show citing a prior obligation.“Donald Trump canceled on us last night,” Kimmel told the shock jock Howard Stern. “I don’t know what happened. We’re delighted, needless to say.” The studio audience booed at the mention of Trump. “Now he’s glad he didn’t come, I guess …” Kimmel said.Kimmel continued: “I’m dying to find out what this major political commitment was. Usually, it means he had to go on CNN to call someone an idiot, or something. Why did he cancel? We told him there were cameras here, right? Are Tuesday nights the night he volunteers down at the orphanage?“Don’t worry,” he added. “We’re giving everyone in our audience a basketball dipped in cologne – so you can fully experience what it would have been like if he was here.”Two months later, Trump did indeed go on the show – where Kimmel presented him a spoof of a children’s book, Winners Aren’t Losers. “Winners aren’t losers, they’re winners – like me!” Kimmel read aloud. “A loser’s a loser, which one will you be?”It was all smiles then, but Kimmel’s criticism grew more pronounced after Trump took office in 2017. He revealed that his son was born with a rare heart defect and said Trump’s planned repeal of the Affordable Care Act meant people without existing health insurance might not be treated. He said Trump would “sign anything if it meant getting rid of Obamacare”.Kimmel later mocked Trump’s proposed national alert text system, calling it “a bad idea” and released a mock Hollywood-style trailer making fun of a system that, it joked, would be used to send Trump messages that had been blocked by users of Twitter.He also took aim at the president for not taking action on gun violence after a Florida school shooting took the lives of 17 people. “Children are being murdered,” Kimmel said, tearfully. “Do something. We still haven’t even talked about it; you still haven’t done anything about it.”Last year, while hosting the Oscars, Kimmel pushed back after Trump criticized his presenting skill. Responding to a Truth Social post Trump sent out, Kimmel said: “Thank you – I’m surprised you’re still watching. Isn’t it past your jail time?”In the same Tuesday monologue for which his show was ostensibly cancelled, Kimmel mocked Trump for responding to a question from a reporter asking how Trump felt about Kirk’s death by saying “Very good” and then immediately discussing the new White House ballroom. Kimmel remarked that Trump’s reaction was “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish”.Trump may be hoping he has the last laugh after Kimmel’s abrupt cancellation, but if his remarks are anything to go by his ire is likely to fall next on two other major late-night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers. “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!” More

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      Trump has forgotten his oath of office. History will not remember him kindly | Corey Brettschneider

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      Over the course of American history, presidents have not been judged by whether violence occurred on their watch but by how they responded to it. Each crisis poses the same test: will the person who holds the office use it to steady the republic, or to further polarize it?The oath of office exists for precisely this moment. It binds the president to something larger than self-interest and party, the constitution and the rule of law. In the wake of rightwing political activist Charlie Kirk’s death, Donald Trump has forsaken this oath, instead choosing to wield his immense power to further divide an already polarized nation, not unite it. History will not soon forget this grave act of political opportunism.One can look to the historical record to see this dilemma is not new.On the brink of civil war, Abraham Lincoln appealed to the “better angels of our nature” and reminded the country that the presidency carries a constitutional duty to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution”.In this case, national leadership meant taking a moment of profound shock and transforming it into a reaffirmation of civic equality and lawful process. But not all presidents have taken this path. Andrew Johnson, who took office after Lincoln’s murder, used his bully pulpit to vilify members of Congress, even threatening one sitting congressman. He even took a shot at his predecessor’s legacy by delaying a protection Lincoln promised to formerly enslaved people. He refused to condemn the violence that terrorized both Black citizens and those who supported Reconstruction. His war with Congress and his abdication of constitutional responsibility culminated in impeachment and left a legacy marked by division and societal backsliding.The lesson is not just academic. It is urgent. When violence shocks the nation, the president’s job is to tell the truth about the law, to call for calm and to make clear that guilt is individual, not collective. Fault lies with one singular culprit, not an entire wing of the American electorate. The oath presidents swear is a promise to all Americans. It obliges them to speak for the whole country and to equally apply the law without fear or favor. That obligation rules out scapegoating entire communities for the act of a lone offender, and it rules out turning grief into a pretext for settling political scores.Yet in this moment, rather than discharge that duty, this president has chosen to weaponize tragedy. By blaming the so-called “radical left” for the act of a single individual, he has not merely ducked responsibility; he has mocked the oath itself. A pledge that should bind him to all Americans is being repurposed as a tool of division. The message to political opponents and vulnerable communities is unmistakable: you are targets first and citizens second.In an interview with NBC News, Trump claimed he was hoping to heal the nation. But in the same breath, he pinned the blame on a sweeping and ill-defined “radical left group of lunatics”.“They don’t play fair and they never did,” he said. On Friday, he threatened to launch an investigation into the Democratic mega-donor George Soros. This president is following his same divisive playbook, blaming national tragedies on political opponents and desecrating the oath of office in the process.There is another path, and we have seen it in much more recent history. After the attacks of September 11, George W Bush visited a mosque and insisted that American Muslims were not the enemy. He rejected collective blame. After the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton urged the country to lower its rhetoric and to reject the conspiracism that can legitimize violence.After Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination in 1968, Lyndon B Johnson addressed a grieving nation and urged Americans to recommit to democracy and justice. He spoke plainly about the danger that violence posed to democratic life and about the responsibility of the government to secure citizens’ civil rights rather than foment fear.What would following the oath look like now? It would begin with an unambiguous condemnation of political violence and of vigilantism. It would affirm the independence of investigators and courts and would promise that the law will be enforced fairly. It would reject collective guilt and refuse any attempt to turn grief into a cudgel against political enemies. It would summon Americans to constitutional solidarity: to the idea that we settle our fiercest disagreements through law, argument and elections, not through intimidation.Today’s choice is stark. A president can meet the moment by defending the constitution and uniting the nation. But this president has chosen another way. He has appealed to our worst demons, not our better angels. He has blamed an entire segment of the population, the so-called “radical left”, for the actions of one person whose motives for his act of murder are still not settled. And he has chosen to target enemies and vilify his opponents, rather than to answer the call of the constitution. History will remember him like Johnson, who made a mockery of the oath, not Lincoln, who sought to honor it.

      Corey Brettschneider is a professor of political science at Brown University. He co-hosts the podcast The Oath and the Office, and is the author of The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It More

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      ‘The dungeon’ at Louisiana’s notorious prison reopens as Ice detention center

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      There were no hurricanes in the Gulf, as can be typical for Louisiana in late July – but Governor Jeff Landry quietly declared a state of emergency. The Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola – the largest maximum security prison in the country – was out of bed space for “violent offenders” who would be “transferred to its facilities”, he warned in an executive order.The emergency declaration allowed for the rapid refurbishing of a notorious, shuttered housing unit at Angola formerly known as Camp J – commonly referred to by prisoners as “the dungeon” because it was once used to house men in extended solitary confinement, sometimes for years on end.For over a month, the Landry administration was tight-lipped regarding the details of their plan for Camp J, and the emergency order wasn’t picked up by the news media for several days.But the general understanding among Louisiana’s criminal justice observers was that the move was in response to a predictable overcrowding in state prisons due to Landry’s own “tough-on-crime” policies. Though Louisiana already had the highest incarceration rate in the country before he got into office, Landry has pushed legislation to increase sentences, abolish parole and put 17-year-olds in adult prisons.Advocates swiftly objected to the reopening of Camp J, noting its history of brutality and violence. Ronald Marshall served 25 years in the Louisiana prison system, including a number of them in solitary confinement at Camp J, and called it the worst place he ever served time.“It was horrible,” Marshall said.It turns out, however, that Landry’s emergency order and the renovation of Camp J was not done to accommodate the state’s own growing prison population. It was in service of Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.View image in fullscreenEarlier in September, Landry was joined by officials in the president’s administration in front of the renovated facility to announce that it would be used to house the “worst of the worst” immigrant detainees picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents.“The Democrats’ open border policies have allowed for the illegal entry of violent criminals,” Landry said. “Rapists, child-predators, human traffickers, and drug dealers who have left a path of death and destruction throughout America.”Numerous studies have shown that undocumented immigrants commit serious crimes at lower rates than US citizens – and that increased undocumented immigration does not lead to higher crime rates in specific localities.The rollout highlights the way the Trump administration and conservative officials are seeking to blur the legally clear distinction between civil immigration detainees and people serving sentences in prison for criminal convictions – this time by utilizing a prison with a long history of violence and brutality, along with a fundamentally racist past.The Angola facility – which Trump’s White House dubbed the “Louisiana lockup” – follows the opening of other high-profile facilities with alliterative names by states across the country, including in Florida, Nebraska and Indiana. It will have the capacity to house more than 400 detainees, officials said.Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of 51 detainees it said were already being held at the Angola facility and who allegedly have prior criminal convictions for serious charges. But while the Trump administration similarly claimed that the Florida lockup dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” would house only the worst criminal offenders, a report by the Miami Herald found that hundreds of people sent there had no criminal charges at all.Ice has long utilized former jails and prisons as detention facilities. But there are few prisons in the country with the name recognition of Angola. And the decision to use Angola appears to be as much about trading on the prison’s reputation as it does about security or practicality.At a 3 September news conference, the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, called the prison “legendary” and “notorious”.Once a plantation with enslaved people, the rural prison occupies nearly 30 sq miles of land on the banks of the Mississippi River about an hour’s drive north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital. Throughout the 20th century, it gained a reputation as one of the country’s worst prisons – due to the living and working conditions, abuse by guards and endemic violence.View image in fullscreenIn 1951, dozens of prisoners slashed their achilles tendons to protest against brutality at the facility.Medical and mental healthcare at the prison has likewise been abysmal. As recently as 2023, a federal judge found that the deficiencies in treatment at the facility amounted to “abhorrent” cruel and unusual punishment, resulting in untold numbers of avoidable complications and preventable deaths.The prison has also maintained clear visual ties to its plantation past by continuing to operate as a working farm, where mostly Black prisoners pick crops under the watch of primarily white guards. Today, there is ongoing litigation attempting to end the practice of forced agricultural labor at the prison, which is known as the “farm line” and is required of most prisoners at some point during their sentences. Some prisoners can make as little as two cents an hour for their labor, and some are paid nothing at all.Civil rights attorneys have argued that the farm line serves “no legitimate penological or institutional purpose” and instead is “designed to ‘break’ incarcerated men and ensure their submission”.Nora Ahmed, legal director at the ACLU of Louisiana, said that the Angola immigration detention facility seemed like a clear attempt by the Trump administration to use the prison’s name recognition to further their goal of associating undocumented immigrants with criminals.“Angola’s history as a plantation and the abuse and allegations that have surrounded Angola as an institution is meant to strike fear in the American public,” Ahmed said. “It’s the imagery that is deeply problematic.”The Angola facility is also in some ways the natural result of aligning local, state and national trends and policies related to incarceration, immigrant detention and deportations.View image in fullscreenLouisiana has become a nationwide hub for immigrant detention and deportations. Sheriffs across the state have signed contracts with Ice in recent years to let them use their local jails as detention facilities. And Louisiana now has the second largest population of immigrant detainees in the country – after Texas. A small airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, has been the takeoff location for more deportation flights during Trump’s second presidency than anywhere else.It’s also not the first time the state has utilized Angola for something other than housing state prisoners.In 2022, Louisiana’s office of juvenile justice moved dozens of juvenile detainees to a renovated former death row facility on the grounds of Angola, a move that was met with litigation and outcry from youth advocates. While state officials made assurances that they would be kept separated from the adult population, youths at the facility reported being abused by guards, denied education and kept in their cells for long stretches of time.Eventually, a judge ruled that they would need to be moved, calling the conditions “intolerable”.Louisiana also briefly utilized Camp J in 2020 to house incarcerated pre-trial detainees from local jails around the state who had contracted Covid-19.Pictures and videos from the new immigration facility during a tour given to reporters show that while the facility may have been renovated, it still looks decidedly prison-like. Cells have single beds with metal toilets and bars in the front. There are also a number of outdoor metal chain-link cages at the facility, resembling kennels. It is unclear what they will be used for.A DHS spokesperson did not respond to specific questions from the Guardian but instead forwarded the press release with the criminal histories of some of the detainees currently being held at the facility. The Louisiana department of corrections did not respond to emailed questions.The former Camp J is now emblazoned with “Camp 57” – after the fact that Landry is Louisiana’s 57th governor. Photos captured by Louisiana news station WAFB showed the area had been painted with a sign reading “Camp 47” in a nod to Trump, who was sworn into office in January as the 47th US president. But officials evidently changed their minds about that name and then touted it as Camp 57 when it was unveiled.Marshall, now the chief policy analyst for the advocacy organization Voice of the Experienced, said much of what made Camp J so bad were guards that staffed the facility, who promoted a culture of abuse, violence and desperation. But he said that he had little optimism that the conditions would improve under Ice leadership.“Camp J has that reputation,” he said. “It has a spirit there – like it possesses those who are in control or have authority.”Marshall also said that when he was in Camp J there was a sense that prisoners could at least attempt to appeal to the federal government to get relief from the brutal conditions. Now, that’s no longer the case. “You can’t cry out to the federal government for help, because the federal government is actually creating the circumstances,” Marshall said.The problem with conflating civil immigration detention with prison is not only that it sends a message to the public that undocumented individuals are all criminals, Ahmed said – but also that they are entitled to all the legal rights that people being held in the criminal context are entitled to.“By attaching criminality to people in immigration detention, the suggestion to the American public is also that those individuals have a [constitutional] right to counsel,” she said. “Which they do not. This is civil detention, and people are not entitled to have an attorney to vindicate their rights.”There are still unanswered questions about the facility – including who paid for the renovations, whether or not it is being managed by a private prison contractor, or what the conditions are like for detainees. But in these early stages, the Trump administration is already touting the facility as a national model.“Look behind us, Louisiana,” the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said at the press conference in front of the new facility. “You’re going to be an example for the rest of this country.” More

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      As boys shift to the right, we are seeing the rise of the ‘new chill girl’ | Naomi Beinart

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      Since Donald Trump returned to office, I have noticed a phenomenon at my high school that I call the “new chill girl”. A group of kids is talking casually about something. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the boys makes an off-handed joke. Maybe it’s racist or sexist or homophobic, but whatever the poison, they inject it and the group dynamic shifts ever so slightly. As a general rule, the boys continue as usual while the girls – who tend to be more politically progressive – face a choice: they can speak up, which usually results in them getting the reputation as annoying and unable to take a joke, or they can let it pass and be regarded as a chill girl who isn’t angry or woke. Since November 2024, the latter reaction has become far more common.This kind of fearful silence is becoming more common outside of high schools, too. In December 2024, Disney removed a transgender character from a new series. This April, the New York Times reported that a new Trump administration regulation bars government employees from adding pronouns to their email bios. Two days after that, Gannet, one of the US’s largest newspaper chains, cited Trump’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion when announcing that it would no longer publish statistics on employee diversity.This cultural shift promotes nostalgia for an earlier time, before the birth of DEI, when women wore aprons and let their husbands earn the money. As of August, the “trad wife” influencer Hannah Neeleman, better known as Ballerina Farm, has amassed 10 million followers on Instagram alone. Her videos of kneading sourdough and raising her eight kids mark a return to the ideal of women as homemakers. Last November, she appeared on the cover of Evie, a conservative magazine that openly praises Trump.This trickles down to us. In the Trump era, left-leaning teenage girls feel less comfortable expressing political views that could be derided as “woke”. This isn’t because most of them are becoming rightwing: last November, 58% of women ages 18-30 voted for Kamala Harris. It’s because the political atmosphere has changed and progressive-minded girls now feel more afraid of the consequences of speaking their minds.The girls I talked to say it’s riskier to be outspokenly blue. A high school girl reported that boys “are becoming more emboldened, more confident to make these [bigoted] jokes”. Another said that since Trump took office, casual racism and sexism have become common: “We see [the behavior] more and it’s happening to us.” Young women feel social pressure to remain passive in the face of offensive remarks. Your guy friends “will think you’re attacking them”, one girl said, adding that “it’s not worth it” to speak out against every incident. You need to “pick your battles”.A third girl added that the desire to not be known as one of those “super woke” girls is enough to make someone clamp their lips, knowing that if the girl objects, “there is no chance [boys] will ever take you seriously again.” These opinions are harsh, but they’re true. Pew Research Center reports that as of March, 45% of girls ages 13-17 feel “a great deal” of pressure to fit in socially, and as cultural conservatism grows, that changes what fitting in means. Even in comparatively liberal spaces, like my high school, girls who wince at locker room talk risk exclusion. No one wants to hang out with the stickler, so no one wants to become her. And therefore, juvenile illiberalism lives on.Trump has damaged our country in many blatant ways, but what I’m seeing is more subtle. Tectonic shifts don’t always make it to CNN. The cultural effects of this openly racist and sexist government on young people may skew gender relations as we enter the workforce, enabling sexual assault and discrimination and keeping women from positions of power. The divide between young women and young men is growing massively, with no end in sight. Trump is distorting American society, and I fear distorting us.

      Naomi Beinart is a high school student More

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      Starmer and Trump to hold talks as PM warned UK faces ‘huge dilemma’ over relationship with US – UK politics live

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      Donald Trump and his wife Melania posed for a photograph with King Charles and Queen Camilla in the grand grand Green Corridor at Windsor Castle before Trump headed to the PM’s country residence Chequers, PA Media reports. PA says:
      The four posed for a joint photograph together in the atmospheric corridor which is lined with gilt edged historic paintings and antique furniture.
      Outside at the sovereign’s entrance, the Kkng said a solo goodbye with Trump shaking his hands warmly and placing his other hand on top. The president said “thank you very much, everybody. He’s a great gentleman and a great King”.
      The Windsor Castle detachment of The King’s Guard turned out in the Quadrangle outside to mark Trump’s departure. Although Melania attended the official parting of ways, she is in fact staying behind to carry out joint engagements, first with Camilla, and then the Princess of Wales.
      She was joining the Queen for a tour of Queen Mary’s Doll’s House and the Royal Library in Windsor Castle.
      President Trump is now leaving Windsor Castle. He will be flying to Chequers by helicopter.Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has thanked King Charles for what he said at the state banquet last night strongly supporting the Ukrainian cause.In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said:
      I extend my deepest thanks to His Majesty King Charles III @RoyalFamily for his steadfast support. Ukraine greatly values the United Kingdom’s unwavering and principled stance.
      When tyranny threatens Europe once again, we must all hold firm, and Britain continues to lead in defending freedom on many fronts. Together, we have achieved a lot, and with the support of freedom-loving nations—the UK, our European partners, and the US—we continue to defend values and protect lives. We are united in our efforts to make diplomacy work and secure lasting peace for the European continent.
      In his speech Charles said:
      Our countries have the closest defence, security and intelligence relationship ever known. In two world wars, we fought together to defeat the forces of tyranny.
      Today, as tyranny once again threatens Europe, we and our allies stand together in support of Ukraine, to deter aggression and secure peace. And our Aukus submarine partnership, with Australia, sets the benchmark for innovative and vital collaboration.
      Donald Trump is likely to become “much more aggressive” towards Russia in support of Ukraine, one of his allies has claimed.Christopher Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax, a rightwing news organisation in the US, was a guest at the state banquet last night. In an interview with the Today programme, Ruddy, who has been a friend and informal adviser to the president for years, predicted that Trump would soon harden his stance against Russia. He said:
      President Trump is not against Ukraine, like some people might think, and he’s moved a long way in his posture. And I think we’re going to see much more aggressive action in the weeks and months ahead.
      Ruddy conceded that Trump was not in favour of sending US troops into action.
      I think the president is highly reluctant to put troops on the ground. That’s nothing to do with Ukraine. He just doesn’t like American troops put in harm’s way. He doesn’t like physical engagements. He’ll do these kinetic strikes from time to time, you saw that in Iran, but it’s still not really deploying American troops and putting them in a lot of risk.
      Instead, Trump sees this as “an economic battle”, Ruddy said.
      He’s been pushing for [lower oil prices]. He wants sanctions. He wants Nato countries to stop buying Russian oil. So he sees this in economic war, as a businessman.
      Asked about Trump’s views on Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, Ruddy said Trump viewed him as “a bad guy, even though he won’t say that publicly”.Trump thought it was worth trying to win Putin round, Ruddy said. But Trump has now decided that’s “not going to work”, Ruddy claimed.
      Putin hasn’t talked to anyone. He hasn’t talked to any American president – reluctant, won’t do anything. So Trump looks at this and says, let me see if I can be his friend. I’ll reach out. I’ll be overly generous, I’ll be overly kind.
      And he tried that. I think he really honestly thought it was going to work.
      And I think he’s coming to the conclusion that it’s not going to work and that he needs to do [things] and that’s why he’s ramping up talk about tariffs and secondary tariffs on India and China.
      Four men who were arrested after images of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein were projected on to Windsor Castle have been bailed, PA Media reports. PA says:
      A 60-year-old man from East Sussex, a 36-year-old man from London, a 37-year-old man from Kent and a 50-year-old man from London were arrested on suspicion of malicious communications on Tuesday night after the stunt at the Berkshire royal residence, Thames Valley police (TVP) said.
      They were released on conditional bail on Wednesday night until December 12 while inquiries continue, according to the force.
      “Those arrested are being investigated for a number of possible offences including malicious communications and public nuisance,” a spokesperson for TVP said.
      The nine-minute film created by British political campaign group Led By Donkeys went over the history of the US president’s links to Epstein, including the recent release by US legislators of documents said to include a letter from Trump to the paedophile financier to celebrate his 50th birthday.
      The film was projected from a hotel room with a direct view over the castle as an act of “peaceful protest”, a Led By Donkeys spokesperson said on Wednesday.
      “My colleagues were arrested for malicious communications, which seems ridiculous, because we’ve done 25 or 30 projections before, no-one’s ever been arrested,” the spokesperson told PA.
      “So suddenly, because it’s Trump, you get this reaction, which is surprising, disappointing and very heavy-handed from police. I think they’ve been arrested for embarrassing Donald Trump.”
      Back to Nick Clegg (see 8.56am), and this is what the former deputy PM told the Today programme about why he was not over-impressed by the US tech investments in the UK that have been announced alongside the state visit. He said:
      Of course it’s great there’s investment in the UK, and it’s better still that a young, London-based company like Nscale is involved.
      But these really are crumbs from the Silicon Valley table.
      If you consider that the total compute capacity in the UK is estimated to be around 1.8 gigawatts, withI’ve read ambitions to reach six gigawatts by 2030. Well, that is about the same as one single data centre being built by my former employer Meta in Louisiana.
      And so I just think some sort of perspective needs to be applied to all the hype that comes from the government and the tech companies at times like this, especially when we are never going to compete with the Chinese and America on infrastructure. We’re never going to develop our own frontier foundation models – the base layer of the AI industry.
      Where we can complete is how you deploy AI in the workplace innovatively through new applications and so on.
      And, crucially, none of this does anything to deal with our perennial Achilles heel in technology in the United Kingdom, which is we’re a very innovative place, with great entrepreneurs, scientists, people who create new companies. But the moment those companies start developing any momentum, they have to go to Palo Alto, to the VC [venture capital] firms there to get money. They then say, well, you’ve got to move to the West Coast if you’re going to take our money.
      So not only do we import all their technology, we export all our good people and good ideas as well.
      And that’s why I just think it’s worth keeping some of the hyperbole at moments like this in context.
      Clegg says everyone in the UK was using phones designed in America, run with US software and US operating systems, with the data stored on American cloud infrastructure
      I sometimes wonder how we would react as a body politic if all that infrastructure, all of that technology that we depend on for every sort of minute detail of our lives, were produced by the French. I think there’d be absolute uproar from Nigel Farage and others.
      Yet because of the very close partnership we’ve had with the United States, understandably so in the cold war period, I think we’ve been quite relaxed about this very heavy dependency … both in the public and the private sector, on American technology.
      Here is a Guardian explain on what the US-UK tech deal actually involves.Jennifer Rankin is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent.Keir Starmer’s government is expected to soon begin talks with the EU to negotiate Britain’s entry into the EU’s €150bn (£130bn) defence loans scheme.The negotiations can start because EU member states on Wednesday agreed a negotiating mandate for the European Commission, but must conclude quickly if British companies are to be involved.The scheme, called Security Action for Europe (Safe), provides EU member states with cheap EU-backed loans to finance defence equipment, either for their armies or for Ukraine. The UK is not applying for a loan, but would like the biggest possible role for British companies in winning contacts.The first loans are expected to be disbursed in early 2026, with member states due to submit spending plans to the commission by the end of November.Europe minister Nick Thomas-Symonds made clear the deadline was on his mind when he spoke at a conference in Brussels on Wednesday. Asked by politics professor Anand Menon whether the UK could miss out on the first round, he said:I profoundly hope not … But my sense on this is that you’re absolutely right to emphasise the deadline.The Guardian reported this week that France has called for a 50% ceiling on the value of UK components in projects financed by Safe. The final EU negotiating mandate leaves the point vague, giving EU negotiators flexibility.The EU and UK must also negotiate a British entry fee to cover administrative costs. EU sources have suggested the fee will be linked to the level of British participation.Asked about the French position, Thomas-Symonds said the UK and EU were in a live negotiation, without commenting on details. He said:
      The bigger picture here is the real importance, when we have seen the return of war to our continent, that what we are doing is making sure we don’t fragment European defence production at this moment.
      Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has been accused of putting lives at risk by the anti-slavery watchdog.Yesterday Mahmood said the use of modern slavery legislation to block deportations of migrants made a “mockery of our laws”. Rajeev Syal and Diane Taylor have the story.Today the independent anti-slavery commissioner Eleanor Lyons condemned the Home Secretary’s comments. She told Radio 4 comment like this “have a real-life impact on victims of exploitation, who may now be more scared to come forward and talk about what’s happened to them”.She went on:
      The Home Office are the deciders in this country on whether someone is a victim of modern slavery. They have the final decision-making.
      Both the House of Commons and the House of Lords select committees have looked at this issue in recent years, and they found there’s no misuse of the system.
      It puts vulnerable lives at risk when the Home Secretary is claiming that is the case.
      The ABC has been barred from attending Donald Trump’s press conference near London this week after a clash between the broadcaster’s Americas editor, John Lyons, and the president in Washington DC over his business dealings, Amanda Meade reports.Good morning. It’s day two of the state visit and, after the pomp, today we’re on to the policy. Donald Trump is leaving Windsor Castle and heading for Chequers where he will have private talks with Keir Starmer before the two leaders hold a press conference.In his speech at the state banquet last night, Trump delivered used some uncharacteristically sophisticated and lovely metaphors to describe the US/UK relationship. He said:
      We’re joined by history and faith, by love and language and by transcendent ties of culture, tradition, ancestry and destiny.
      We’re like two notes in one chord or two verses of the same poem, each beautiful on its own, but really meant to be played together.
      Starmer defends his use of flattery diplomacy with Trump on the grounds that it delivers for Britain and, with No 10 announcing US investments in the UK worth £150bn there is evidence to suggest it’s working.But, to return to Trump’s analogy, there are others who suspect that, if anything is being “played” in all of this, it’s us.On the Today programme this morning Nick Clegg came close to expressing this view. As a former Lib Dem deputy prime minister in the 2010-15 coalition government, and a former president of global affairs at Meta, he is very well placed to comment on the relationship. Clegg told Today that the AI investments being anounced for the UK were “crumbs from the Silicon Valley table”. He said he thought the UK had become over-dependent on American technology. And he went on:
      Because of the very close partnership we’ve had with the United States, understandably so in the cold war period, I think we’ve been quite relaxed about this very heavy dependency … both in the public and the private sector, on American technology.
      I just so happen to believe that is now changing because the rupture – notwithstanding the pomp and ceremony of the state visit by Donald Trump this week – the transatlantic rupture, in my view, is real.
      I think the Americans – and we’ve been on notice for this for ages – are turning their attention to the Pacific. They have much less attachment to the transatlantic relationship.
      So my view is, over time, British governments need to learn to ask themselves different questions to how we can roll out the red carpet to American investment, welcome as that is. We need to ask ourselves questions about how we can develop and grow … our own technology companies to the size the need to be.
      Clegg said the UK faced “a huge dilemma”.
      We’ve got to learn, technologically, as much as in so many other walks of life, to stand more on own two feet, rather than just cling on to Uncle Sam’s coattails.
      While that served us well for a while, I think that’s no longer going to be the paradigm that works for us going forward.
      Today I will be focusing mostly on the Trump visit, although I will cover some other UK politics too. Here is the agenda for the day.10am: Donald Trump leaves Windsor CastleMorning: Melania Trump and Queen Camilla visit Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House in Windsor and Frogmore Gardens10.45am: Trump is due to arrive at Chequers, where he will hold bilateral talks with Keir Starmer. The two leaders are also speaking at an event for business leaders, and viewing items from the Winston Churchill archive at the mansion, the official country residence of the PM. And there will be a parachute display by the Red Devils.Around 2.30pm: Starmer and Trump hold a press conference at Chequers.If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. More

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      Trump celebrates Jimmy Kimmel suspension as some networks replace show with Charlie Kirk tribute – US politics live

      by

      Here is a summary of the latest developments:

      The Jimmy Kimmel Live! show has been indefinitely suspensded the after the late-night host made comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. The ABC network, which Disney owns, announced on Wednesday night that it would remove Kimmel’s show from its schedule for the foreseeable future.

      Politicians, media figures and free speech organisations expressed anger and alarm at the suspension of Kimmel’s late night show, warning that critics of Donald Trump were being systematically silenced. California governor Gavin Newsom said the Republican party “does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time.”

      Two of Hollywood’s biggest unions, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild, have voiced their support for Kimmel. WGA West wrote late on Wednesday: “As a guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent.” The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) strongly condemned the decision to take the late-night show off the air, describing it as “government overreach”.

      Senator Elizabeth Warren joined a number of her Democratic colleagues in condemning the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, saying “giant media companies are enabling his [Donald Trump’s] authoritarianism.” Illinois governor JB Pritzker and senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii also weighed in on X with similar comments. Pritzker called it “an attack on free speech,” while Schatz said, “his was the govt using regulatory leverage to crush speech.”

      Donald Trump called the move “great news for America” and congratulated ABC for its “courage” in a social media post.

      There has been widespread glee among Trump officials and Maga followers after the news that Kimmel’s programme has been suspended. Nancy Mace, a Republican South Carolina representative who is running to be governor of South Carolina, celebrated in an impassioned post on X, claiming “we’re on a truth streak. President Trump is always right, YOU’RE FIRED”. Deputy White House chief of staff and cabinet secretary, Taylor Budowich, called it “consequence culture”.

      ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel came just minutes after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it “strongly object[ed]” to his comments and would pre-empt any episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! set to air on the stations it owns across the country “for the foreseeable future”. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more ABC stations than any other TV conglomerate including Nexstar, announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s timeslot on Friday.

      Before ABC pulled Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, had urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show, saying they were “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” during an appearance on the right-wing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. On Wednesday night Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” in a statement on social media.

      A number of figures in US comedy have reacted with shock to the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air. Comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote that he had long defended comedians with views he didn’t agree with, adding: “If you’re a comedian and you don’t call out the insanity of pulling Kimmel off the air – don’t bother spouting off about free speech any more.” Comedian Michael Kosta, who occasionally hosts the Daily Show, wrote: “This is a serious moment in American history. TV networks MUST push back. This is complete BS.”
      Germany’s main journalists’ union urged major US media to support journalists after Walt Disney-owned broadcaster ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! in a row over comments by the show’s host about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.According to Reuters, the head of Deutscher Journalisten Verband (DJV), Mika Beuster said in a statement on Thursday:
      We are observing a rampant erosion of freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the US.
      Broadcasters like ABC were wrong, he said, adding that journalists needed the full support of their employers:
      Their servility towards [US President] Trump will not bring them peace, but will result in further pressure.
      More celebrities have spoken up in defence of Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night chatshow has been suspended over comments he made about the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.Actor Jamie Lee Curtis has joined Ben Stiller and Sophia Bush in expressing her opposition to the decision. Curtis posted a link on Instagram that showed an image of Kimmel and a quote he gave to Rolling Stone magazine in April, when he said: “I really don’t think anybody should be cancelled. I really don’t.” Model and actor Christie Brinkley posted a photo of Kimmel and others on her Instagram, adding:
      I love these guys. The laughter they provide is as important as the air we breathe. We must protect their and our first amendment rights!
      Actor and comedian Wanda Sykes posted a video on Instagram saying of President Donald Trump: “He did end freedom of speech within his first year.”Hacks actor Jean Smart asked:
      What is happening to our country?
      I am horrified at the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
      What Jimmy said was FREE speech, not hate speech. People seem to only want to protect free speech when it suits THEIR agenda.
      Though I didn’t agree at ALL with Charlie Kirk; his shooting death sickened me; and should have sickened any decent human being.
      MSNBC host Chris Hayes is one of those mentioned in the previous post that has highlighted Donald Trump’s July Truth Social post in which he said “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next”.Writing on X, Hayes said:
      Trump literally said Kimmel is next back in July! All of this is clearly pretextual. It’s like having us believe Lisa Cook got fired because of a mortgage application. Other people can pretend to be that stupid, but you don’t have to be.
      In an earlier post, Hayes said:
      The countries where comedians can’t mock the leader on late night TV are not really ones you want to live in.
      Over on social media, some people have been pointing out that after the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show, Donald Trump wrote “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next” on Truth Social.In a post published on 18 July 2025, Trump wrote:
      I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.
      Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, has said the indefinite suspension of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show by the ABC network should “go to court”.In a post on X, Schumer wrote:
      America is meant to be a bastion of free speech. Everybody across the political spectrum should be speaking out to stop what’s happening to Jimmy Kimmel.
      This is about protecting democracy. This must go to court.
      Jimmy Kimmel is yet to issue any statement on the backlash over his comments about the Charlie Kirk shooting or on the topic of his late-night show being indefenitely suspended.The Hollywood Reporter said a source had told the publication that Kimmel was prepared to address the backlash on Wednesday night’s show. According to the source, Kimmel planned to explain what he said and demonstrate how it was taken out of context but did not plan on apologising.In case you missed it earlier, here is a post on what exactly Jimmy Kimmel said about Charlie Kirk’s killing and the full article here:Hollywood stars have also backed Jimmy Kimmel, with actor Ben Stiller saying in a post on X ABC network’s move to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! “isn’t right”, while actor Sophia Bush said the “first amendment doesn’t exist in America any more”.Here is a summary of the latest developments:

      The Jimmy Kimmel Live! show has been indefinitely suspensded the after the late-night host made comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. The ABC network, which Disney owns, announced on Wednesday night that it would remove Kimmel’s show from its schedule for the foreseeable future.

      Politicians, media figures and free speech organisations expressed anger and alarm at the suspension of Kimmel’s late night show, warning that critics of Donald Trump were being systematically silenced. California governor Gavin Newsom said the Republican party “does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time.”

      Two of Hollywood’s biggest unions, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild, have voiced their support for Kimmel. WGA West wrote late on Wednesday: “As a guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent.” The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) strongly condemned the decision to take the late-night show off the air, describing it as “government overreach”.

      Senator Elizabeth Warren joined a number of her Democratic colleagues in condemning the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, saying “giant media companies are enabling his [Donald Trump’s] authoritarianism.” Illinois governor JB Pritzker and senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii also weighed in on X with similar comments. Pritzker called it “an attack on free speech,” while Schatz said, “his was the govt using regulatory leverage to crush speech.”

      Donald Trump called the move “great news for America” and congratulated ABC for its “courage” in a social media post.

      There has been widespread glee among Trump officials and Maga followers after the news that Kimmel’s programme has been suspended. Nancy Mace, a Republican South Carolina representative who is running to be governor of South Carolina, celebrated in an impassioned post on X, claiming “we’re on a truth streak. President Trump is always right, YOU’RE FIRED”. Deputy White House chief of staff and cabinet secretary, Taylor Budowich, called it “consequence culture”.

      ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel came just minutes after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it “strongly object[ed]” to his comments and would pre-empt any episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! set to air on the stations it owns across the country “for the foreseeable future”. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more ABC stations than any other TV conglomerate including Nexstar, announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s timeslot on Friday.

      Before ABC pulled Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, had urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show, saying they were “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” during an appearance on the right-wing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. On Wednesday night Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” in a statement on social media.

      A number of figures in US comedy have reacted with shock to the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air. Comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote that he had long defended comedians with views he didn’t agree with, adding: “If you’re a comedian and you don’t call out the insanity of pulling Kimmel off the air – don’t bother spouting off about free speech any more.” Comedian Michael Kosta, who occasionally hosts the Daily Show, wrote: “This is a serious moment in American history. TV networks MUST push back. This is complete BS.”
      In reaction to the news that Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has been indefinitely suspended, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) said that “Trump’s FCC identified speech it did not like and threatened ABC with extreme reprisals. This is state censorship.”On X, the president of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, Tino Gagliardi, issued a statement in response to ABC taking Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which employs musicians from the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 in Los Angeles, off the air. In it he said:
      This is not complicated: Trump’s FCC identified speech it did not like and theatened ABC with extreme reprisals. This is state censorship. It’s now happening in the United States of America, not some far-off country. It’s happening right here and right now.
      This act by the Trump administration represents a direct attack on free speech and artistic expression. These are fundamental rights that we must protect in a free society. The American Federation of Musicians strongly condemns the decision to take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air.
      We stand in solidarity with all those who will be without work because of government overreach.
      Two of Hollywood’s biggest unions, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild, have voiced their support for Jimmy Kimmel after his show was suspended by ABC.“The right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other – to disturb, even – is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied. Not by violence, not by the abuse of governmental power, nor by acts of corporate cowardice,” WGA West wrote late on Wednesday.
      As a Guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent. If free speech applied only to ideas we like, we needn’t have bothered to write it into the constitution. What we have signed on to – painful as it may be at times – is the freeing agreement to disagree.”
      “Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth.”Meanwhile Sag-Aftra, which represents about 170,000 actors, journalists and many more professions across the media and entertainment industries, said it “condemns” Kimmel’s suspension.Their statement read:
      Democracy thrives when diverse points of view are expressed.
      The decision to suspend airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! is the type of suppression and retaliation that endangers everyone’s freedoms. Sag-Aftra stands with all media artists and defends their right to express their diverse points of view, and everyone’s right to hear them.
      Jimmy Kimmel and Donald Trump have a history of feuding and trading barbs.When Kimmel hosted the 2024 Academy Awards, Trump posted online “Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars. His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.”Kimmel read the missive out during the ceremony and responded by saying he was “surprised” Trump was still awake, asking, “Isn’t it past your jail time?” in reference to the numerous cases that were then making their way through the courts.In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Kimmel emerged as an unlikely leader in the fight to save Obamacare. He dedicated a number of monologues on his programme to pushing back against efforts to to tear up the Affordable Care Act (ACA).He revealed in a tearful speech that his son, Billy, had been born with a heart defect and nearly died. Kimmel said that thanks to the top-of-the-line healthcare, his surgery was successful.When announcing that it would pull Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, TV station operator Nexstar Communications Group called comments the comedian had made about Charlie Kirk’s death “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”Supporters of Donald Trump have praised the decision, with the White House deputy chief of staff calling it an example of “consequence culture.”But what did Kimmel actually say that raised the ire of the president’s Maga movement?During his Monday evening monologue, Kimmel suggested Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.“The Maga Gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.It appears this was the comment that most angered Trump supporters and officials.In an interview earlier on Wednesday, the Trump-appointed head of the US media regulator said it appeared to be a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people.”Jimmy Kimmel also mentioned reaction to the death of Kirk on his Tuesday programme as well, saying “many in Maga-land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk”.Referencing vice-president JD Vance’s comment while guest-hosting Kirk’s podcast, Kimmel said “the president and his henchmen are doing their best to fan the flames, so they can I guess attack people on the dangerous left.”Free speech groups have reacted with alarm to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, with one calling it a “new McCarthyism.”Truth Wins Out (TWO), an anti-extremism nonprofit said it was part of a “dangerous right‑wing ‘Cancel Crusade’ that has weaponized outrage to silence dissent and intimidate media outlets.”
      If this dire situation continues, the only people left on the air will be Baghdad Bob and that anchorwoman in North Korea. This is a new McCarthyism that has expanded the boundaries of ‘woke’ to once unimaginable dimensions. It is chilling the free press and punishing truth‑tellers.”
      The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has said that the ABC network “caved” to pressure from the US government.
      The timing of ABC’s decision, on the heels of the FCC chairman’s pledge to the network to “do this the easy way or the hard way,” tells the whole story. Another media outlet withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it.”
      In a statement, the advocacy group went on to say that the US “cannot be a country where late night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president. But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, that is the country we are.”Earlier on Wednesday, the chair of the US media regulator, Brendan Carr, appeared on a rightwing podcast and threatened broadcasters’ licenses if action was not taken against Jimmy Kimmel.In the interview with Benny Johnson, Carr suggested suspending Kimmel could be an appropriate action from ABC.Carr was responding to comments from Kimmel on Monday, in which he said that “we hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”Carr called Kimmel’s comments an attempt to “play into a narrative that this was somehow a Maga or Republican motivated person.”After ABC’s announcement hours later, Johnson boasted online that it was his interview with Carr that had led to Kimmel’s suspension. “It’s called soft power,” he said. “The Left uses it all the time. Thanks to President Trump, the Right has learned how to wield power as well.”There has been widespread glee among Trump officials and Maga followers to the news that Jimmy Kimmel’s programme has beens suspended.Nancy Mace, a Republican South Carolina representative who is running to be governor of South Carolina, celebrated in an impassioned post on X, claiming “we’re on a truth streak. President Trump is always right, YOU’RE FIRED”.The deputy White House chief of staff and cabinet secretary, Taylor Budowich, called it “consequence culture”.
      Normal, common sense Americans are no longer taking the bullshit and companies like ABC are finally willing to do the right and reasonable thing.”
      Rightwing commentator Megyn Kelly said of Kimmel’s suspension “MAGA has f&cking HAD IT. We are ANGRY. We are INCENSED”.Commentator Matt Walsh said Kimmel “deserves to be fired”.
      These are the repercussions that conservatives have been experiencing for years for infractions not nearly as egregious.”
      Senator Elizabeth Warren has joined a number of her Democratic colleagues in condemning the decisions to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, saying “giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism.”
      First Colbert, now Kimmel. Last-minute settlements, secret side deals, multi-billion dollar mergers pending Donald Trump’s approval. Trump silencing free speech stifles our democracy. It sure looks like giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism.
      Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii also weighed in on X with similar comments. Pritzker called it “an attack on free speech,” while Schatz said, “his was the govt using regulatory leverage to crush speech.”“This is censorship in action,” said Senator Ed Markey.
      FCC chair threatens ABC and Disney over Kimmel’s comments. Hours later, he’s off air. It’s dangerous and unconstitutional. The message to every media company is clear: Adopt the Maga line or the Federal Censorship Commission will come after you.”
      The stunning decision on Wednesday to suspend one of the United States’ most popular and influential late-night shows has come as Donald Trump and his allies have threatened to crack down on criticism of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing activist killed last week.Jimmy Kimmel’s show was taken off the air “indefinitely” after the host was criticised for comments about the motives behind the killing Kirk and the president’s reaction to the event.The move was immediately welcomed by Trump, who hailed it as “Great News for America.”
      The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”
      Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates dozens of local ABC stations across the US, has said it will replace Kimmel’s programme on Friday with a tribute to Charlie Kirk.In a statement posted online, Sinclair praised the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, for threatening the licenses of stations that defended Kimmel’s right to free speech, and called the comic’s remarks “inappropriate and deeply insensitive”.The company owns ABC affiliates in dozens of cities, including: Washington DC; St Louis, Missouri; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington and Tulsa, Oklahoma.It pledged to keep Kimmel’s show off its stations “until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.”Hello and welcome to live coverage of the latest news in the US amid the fallout from the indefinite suspension of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show after the late-night host’s comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. The ABC network, which Disney owns, announced on Wednesday night that it would remove Kimmel’s show from its schedule for the foreseeable future.Here is a summary of the latest developements:

      Politicians, media figures and free speech organisations expressed anger and alarm at the suspension of Kimmel’s late night show, warning that critics of Donald Trump were being systematically silenced. California governor Gavin Newsom said the Republican party “does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time.”

      Donald Trump called the move “great news for America” and congratulated ABC for its “courage” in a social media post.

      ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel came just minutes after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it “strongly object[ed]” to his comments and would preempt any episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! set to air on the stations it owns across the country “for the foreseeable future”. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more ABC stations than any other TV conglomerate including Nexstar, announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s timeslot on Friday.

      Before ABC pulled Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, had urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show, saying they were “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” during an appearance on the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. On Wednesday night Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” in a statement on social media.

      A number of figures in US comedy have reacted with shock to the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air. Comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote that he had long defended comedians with views he didn’t agree with, adding: “If you’re a comedian and you don’t call out the insanity of pulling Kimmel off the air – don’t bother spouting off about free speech anymore.” Comedian Michael Kosta, who occasionally hosts the Daily Show, wrote: “This is a serious moment in American history. TV networks MUST push back. This is complete BS.” More

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      in US Politics

      The Federal Reserve’s independence is about to be tested like never before

      by

      The time has come to ban the “revolving door” between the White House and the Federal Reserve, two academics argued last year. Doing so would be “critical to reducing the incentives for officials to act in the short-term political interests of the president”, they wrote.Eight months ago, the two writers – Dan Katz and Stephen Miran – joined the Trump administration in senior roles. On Tuesday, Miran, the chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers, walked into the Fed as a governor.Strolling through the revolving door himself, Miran pledged during his confirmation hearing to preserve the Fed’s independence, but made clear he would not resign from the White House, just take unpaid leave.Having expressed concern last year about the Fed’s vulnerability to the short-term political interests of the president, Miran was rushed into his new seat on the central bank’s board of governors hours before its latest meeting – as Donald Trump continued to push to have another voting member removed.The president, at least, is clearer about aspirations for the Fed. “We’ll have a majority very shortly,” Trump said of the central bank’s rate-setting open market committee last month. “So that’ll be great.”As his efforts to exert greater influence and fire Lisa Cook, a governor appointed by Joe Biden, fuel concern over the Fed’s ability to operate without political interference, Trump was asked by reporters on Tuesday if he thought the central bank was independent. “Oh, it should be,” he replied. “But I think they should listen to smart people, like me.”For a generation, presidents – no matter how smart they may be – have broadly steered clear of publicly expressing opinions for the Fed to listen to. Trump has bulldozed through this norm, calling for drastic rate cuts and attacking Fed chair Jerome Powell for not delivering them.On Wednesday, the Fed finally nudged rates in the direction Trump has been demanding, albeit not at nearly the pace he wants. The benchmark federal funds rate was cut by 25 basis points to a range of between 4 and 4.25%, their lowest level in almost three years, and policymakers indicated more reductions would follow.There was only one dissent: Miran wanted to cut by 50 basis points.If Miran is truly independent from the White House, his first vote on interest rates as Fed governor fell somewhat conveniently in line with the president’s demands for faster, and deeper, cuts than his new colleagues have been minded to execute.Other rate-setting officials have been far more concerned about striking a delicate balance. Of course, they want to shore up the economy – and cutting rates typically spurs activity – but they are also wary of inflation, which has held firm in recent months.The economic impact of Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign imports is one thing. But the uncertainty caused by months of erratic threats, declarations, pauses and vague trade pacts with certain economies has so far cast the darker shadow.“Changes to government policies continue to evolve, and their effects on the economy remain uncertain,” Powell, ever the diplomat, put it in a press conference on Wednesday. Risks around inflation are “tilted to the upside”, he added, with risks to the labor market to the downside.Official data for August indicated that price growth is again picking up, and Fed officials have increased their expectations for inflation next year, according to projections released alongside their latest decision.But Trump, and, apparently, Miran, believe concern over higher inflation, and the risk of overheating the US economy by cutting rates too fast, is unfounded.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe US president, impatient for the Fed to come around to his way of thinking, is trying to change who sits around the table.Miran has secured a seat – at least until the new year. The campaign to remove Cook continues. And Powell’s term as chair will expire next year, enabling Trump to select a new figure to lead the Fed.For now, Trump’s control over the central bank remains limited. Sure, Miran might have voted for a deeper cut, but at this week’s meeting there “wasn’t widespread support at all” for this move, Powell stressed afterwards.The Fed chair expressed confidence that discussions on rates remain unaffected by politics. Such considerations are typically left at the door, he noted, as 12 voting policymakers – out of a pool of 19 – gather at a table to make the decision.“The only way for any voter to really move things around is to be incredibly persuasive,” said Powell. “And the only way to do that, in the context in which we work, is to make really strong arguments based on the data, and one’s understanding of the economy. That’s really all that matters.”“That’s in the DNA of the institution,” he added. “That’s not going to change.”Time will tell. “We’re strongly committed to maintaining our independence,” Powell told reporters. “And beyond that, I really don’t have anything to share.”That strong commitment faces an extraordinary test. “They have to make their own choice,” Trump said of the Fed earlier this week. “But they should listen.” More