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      Barbara Lee forged a historic path in Congress. Does Oakland want her back for mayor?

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      Barbara Lee represented Oakland in Congress for a quarter-century. Now, in what would probably be the capstone of her storied political career, the 78-year-old progressive icon is vying for the chance to lift the “city I love” out of crisis.“I’m always ready to fight for Oakland,” Lee said, announcing her bid to lead the city of roughly 440,000 residents, known for its liberal politics and deep legacy of civil rights activism. When she entered the mayoral race in January, she was widely seen as the presumptive frontrunner.But in the months since, the race has tightened considerably, as her leading opponent, the former city council member Loren Taylor, gains ground. The 47-year-old engineer is aiming for an upset in Tuesday’s special election, tapping into a wave of discontent with progressive leadership that has swept the San Francisco Bay Area in recent years – and led to the recall of Oakland’s mayor, Sheng Thao, in November.“It’s not about whether or not we appreciate her service in Congress,” Taylor said in an interview as he made his final pitch to voters in east Oakland over the weekend. “It’s about what we need right now to fix Oakland’s problems – and particularly with the urgency that Oaklanders need.”The next mayor of Oakland must immediately confront a gaping budget deficit as well as a housing crisis that has given rise to sprawling homeless encampments. While violent crime fell sharply in 2024, persistently high rates of property crime – coupled with the widespread perception that Oakland is unsafe – continue to take a toll on the city.Over the last decade, Oakland has seen an exodus of its professional sports teams. Many businesses and retailers have left town, citing safety concerns. In-N-Out closed its only Oakland location last year, a first in the burger joint’s history. Kaiser Permanente, one of the city’s largest employers, has scaled back its downtown presence. Adding to the turmoil, Thao was recently indicted on federal bribery charges; she has pleaded not guilty.View image in fullscreenIn her homecoming pitch, Lee has presented herself as a unifying force, steeled by a decades-long political career that began in Sacramento and took her to Washington, where she championed racial justice and antiwar causes that set her apart – and sometimes at odds with her own party. Her most famous stand came in 2001, when she cast the sole vote in Congress against the authorization for the use of military force following the 9/11 terrorist attacks – a decision that resulted in hate mail and death threats but is now seen as prescient. And yet she built a reputation as a principled collaborator beloved by Democrats, with a record of working across the aisle with Republicans.Lee, who retired from Congress in January after an unsuccessful run for the US Senate last year, is now promising to bring that experience home. On the campaign trail, she has pledged to bridge Oakland’s political divides and improve public safety, while securing the city’s “fair share” of state and federal funding and partnering with civic and business leaders to spur economic growth.“I believe Oaklanders are tired of division and distraction, and are ready to move forward. They are looking for a leader who can bring all corners of the city together to solve our toughest challenges,” Lee said in a statement, citing her broad base of support, which includes nearly every member of the Oakland city council, the city’s interim mayor, several former mayors – Jerry Brown and Libby Schaaf, among them – as well as organized labor, faith leaders and key members of the business community.Describing herself as a “tested and proven leader who has built the coalition needed to govern in Oakland on day one,” Lee said: “Talk is cheap; leadership is what matters.”Tuesday’s special election, which will use ranked choice voting, has drawn hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending. Yet Ernestine Nettles, the president of the League of Women Voters of Oakland, worries that the off-cycle timing and low morale could dampen turnout. She said she had heard voters say the election “doesn’t matter” because the winner will only serve for a short time before having to run for re-election next year.A recent survey by the city of Oakland found that satisfaction with local government had fallen to a record low. An October poll by the Oakland chamber of commerce showed that voters were “more pessimistic than ever” about the direction of the city.“People have lost a lot of hope,” she said. But a packed crowd at a recent weeknight candidate forum left her hopeful that the city was tuning in. “People need to turn out to vote so that a handful of people will not be making decisions about what happens in our city,” she said.Many progressive activists view the contest as part of a broader regional fight against the growing influence of Silicon Valley wealth that is transforming Bay Area politics. The movement has already succeeded in elevating more moderate, tech-friendly leaders in nearby San Francisco and San Jose, and progressives are determined to prevent a similar shift in Oakland.“The tech bros, the oligarchy, crypto bros, all of that stuff that we’re starting to see here – it came from San Francisco politics,” said Pamela Drake, a longtime activist and progressive political commentator who is supporting Lee. She pointed to the outside support Taylor’s campaign has received, including backing from some of the wealthy investors, real-estate developers and tech executives who have poured money into defeating progressive incumbents as well as the recalls of former mayor Thao and the former Alameda county district attorney, Pamela Price.Drake said she feared a “tech takeover” of the city’s politics. “That is what we see as a real threat,” she said, “that it is no longer going to be Oaklanders deciding what we want done.”In the interview, Taylor, who narrowly lost the 2022 mayor’s race to Thao, called the claim that his campaign was driven by outside money “inaccurate” and emphasized his fundraising strength among grassroots Oakland-based donors.“What’s resonating with everyone is the fact that when Oakland does better, we all do better,” Taylor said.San Jose’s mayor, Matt Mahan, a former tech entrepreneur who has clashed with labor unions and progressives in his liberal city, endorsed Taylor at a recent press conference, praising him as a leader with “fresh ideas” and drawing parallels between his own 2022 insurgent win and Taylor’s challenge to what he called “an establishment that has become complacent”.Lee rejects the suggestion that her progressive politics are out of step with the people she served, in a place she proudly called the “wokest” district in the nation”. “I believe my values are Oakland values,” she said in a statement.On Saturday, the representative Maxine Waters, a longtime friend and progressive ally who serves a Los Angeles-area congressional district, joined Lee on the campaign trail. Waters praised Lee’s deep devotion to the city of Oakland – which last elected her to Congress with more than 90% of the vote – and said she was moved to hear residents still use the slogan “Barbara Lee speaks for me”.“People in the city are going to need someone like Barbara Lee more than ever,” Waters said. With Donald Trump slashing agencies that the city relies on for housing and public health services, she said Lee would be a “powerhouse of information” for residents navigating the disruptions.Lee is “well-experienced in handling bullies” like the president, Waters said. Trump targeted Oakland during his first administration and has vowed again to retaliate against liberal cities that resist his policies on immigration, LGBTQ+ equality and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Some Lee supporters say they relish a clash between the hometown hero and Trump, in defense of the city where Kamala Harris was born and launched her political career.As for those calling for generational change, the 86-year-old Waters was confident they would not be disappointed: “Barbara Lee as the leader of the city of Oakland will absolutely have them thinking a bit differently.”Both Taylor and Lee agree the city is at a crossroads. And both candidates have made public safety a top campaign issue, while promising to rein in government spending to stabilize city finances.Yet they offer starkly different visions. Taylor has cast himself as a pragmatic “problem-solver” who can “fix” a city he says is “broken”. Lee rejects the notion that Oakland is broken. Instead, she argues the city needs a “unifier” to heal the divisions deepened by the recent recalls.View image in fullscreenTaylor has put forward a series of data- and technology-driven proposals – such as the use of drones to fight crime – to improve public safety and restore good governance to city hall. His campaign’s promise to shake up city hall earned the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board, who wrote that Taylor had the “ideas and the will to lead Oakland into the future”.On the campaign trail, Lee calls for more crime prevention solutions, as well as more police, highlighting the need for expanding community services and affordable housing.But part of her pitch is being Barbara Lee. Supporters hail her as an “uplifted elder” with the gravitas and experience to marshal resources for the beleaguered city and build consensus where none seems achievable. “Lee has the political clout needed to unify the city’s fractured leadership,” the East Bay Times editorial board wrote in its endorsement.Still, not all voters are convinced that experience in Washington prepares someone to lead at city hall. Some critics point to Los Angeles, where mayor Karen Bass, also a former member of Congress, has taken heat for her handling of the deadly wildfires. And many Oakland residents remember the late former mayor Ron Dellums – Lee’s political mentor and a longtime representative – as largely absent while the city struggled during the onset of the Great Recession.In a recent radio interview, Lee noted that Oakland had a history of electing mayors without prior local government experience. She highlighted Brown – the former California governor – who leveraged his political clout to help rebuild Oakland’s downtown during his time as mayor.View image in fullscreenAt a mayoral forum hosted by the non-profit news site Oaklandside, the candidates were asked why they were vying for what many consider the daunting, even unenviable, task of leading the city through one of its most challenging chapters. Lee, as she so often has throughout her political career, saw it differently.“I don’t think that being mayor of Oakland is an impossible, thankless job,” she replied. “I recognize the challenges, but I also recognize the opportunities.” More

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      Tariff turmoil to continue as Trump warns nobody ‘off the hook’ amid smartphone exemption – US politics live

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      Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog.In an announcement made late on Friday evening, Donald Trump’s presidential administration exempted smartphones and computers from the 125% levies imposed on imports from China as well as other “reciprocal” tariffs.The devices would be excluded from the 10% global tariff that Trump recently imposed on most countries, along with the much heftier import tax on China, in what seemed like a softening of the president’s trade positioning towards Beijing.US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement. Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to surge after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for three months.China’s commerce ministry said the exemption demonstrated the US taking “a small step toward correcting its erroneous unilateral practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’,” and suggested the American administration cancel the whole punitive tariff regime.However, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that critical technology products from China would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.“He’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two,” Lutnick said in an interview on ABC. “These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.”Amid the confusion over the White House’s tariff policy, Trump said he would provide more details on his administration’s approach on semiconductor tariffs later today.But he suggested any tariff exemption for China-made smartphones would be short-lived, writing on his social media: “Nobody is getting off the hook for unfair trade balances”. Stay with us throughout the day as we bring you the latest tariff developments and other US political stories.Spain’s economy minister, Carlos Cuerpo, is expected to meet the US treasury secretary, on Tuesday as he aims to bolster bilateral ties between the two countries.The Trump administration has slapped a 10% tariff on imports of most European goods, including olive oil, although it announced a 90-day pause last week on higher, 25% “reciprocal” duties.Spain is the world’s top exporter of olive oil and also sells important quantities of auto parts, steel and chemicals to the US. The country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a €14.1bn (£12.2bn; $16bn) government aid package to industry to lessen the domestic impact of Trump’s levies.Maya Yang, a breaking news reporter and live blogger for Guardian US, has filed this story about a warning over the potential consequences of Trump’s erratic economic policies:Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said that he is worried the US will experience “something worse than a recession” as a result of Donald Trump’s trade policies.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the 75-year-old hedge fund manager said: “I think that right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”He went on to add: “A recession is two negative quarters of GDP and whether it goes slightly there. We always have those things. We have something that’s much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money.”Dalio’s comments come in response to a tumultuous week across the global stock markets following the US president’s tariffs policies that include a 145% tariff raise on China. The billionaire also said there are “profound changes in our domestic order … and world order”, comparing current times with the 1930s.“I’ve studied history and this repeats over and over again. So if you take tariffs, if you take debt, if you take the rising power challenging existing power, if you take those factors and look at the factors, those changes in the orders, the systems, are very, very disruptive. How that’s handled could produce something that is much worse than a recession. Or it could be handled well,” he said.Dalio, who correctly predicted the 2008 recession, also said the current economic state of the US is “at a juncture”.“Let’s take the budget. If the budget deficit can be reduced to 3% of GDP, it will be about 7% if things are not changed. If it could be reduced to about 3% of GDP, and these trade deficits and so on are managed in the right way, this could all be managed very well,” he said.He went on to urge congressional members to take what he calls the “3% pledge”, adding that if they don’t, there will be a supply and demand problem for debt with results that will be “worse than a normal recession.”You can read the full story here:Chinese President Xi Jinping will be welcomed by Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong today as he seeks to strengthen economic ties in south-east Asia amid a trade war with Washington that has caused turmoil in global markets.In an article for the Nhan Dan newspaper, Xi called for more regional cooperation, saying China and Vietnam were “friendly socialist neighbours sharing the same ideals and extensive strategic interests”.He added that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere”, without explicitly mentioning the US.The visit, planned for weeks, comes as Beijing faces 145% US duties, while Vietnam is negotiating a reduction of threatened US tariffs of 46%. China is Vietnam’s biggest trading partner; Hanoi has a good relationship with both Washington and Beijing.As my colleague Rebecca Ratcliffe notes in this story, officials in Hanoi were shocked when Vietnam was hit with the 46% tariff, even after various efforts to appease the Trump administration. The tariff, which has been paused, threatens to devastate the country’s ambitious economic growth plan.Xi will visit Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, from 14 to 15 April, and Malaysia and Cambodia from 15 to 18 April. He last visited Cambodia and Malaysia nine and 12 years ago, respectively.Xi’s trip to Hanoi, his second in less than 18 months, aims to consolidate relations with a strategic neighbour that has received billions of dollars of Chinese investments in recent years as China-based manufacturers moved south to avoid tariffs imposed by the first Trump administration.Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog.In an announcement made late on Friday evening, Donald Trump’s presidential administration exempted smartphones and computers from the 125% levies imposed on imports from China as well as other “reciprocal” tariffs.The devices would be excluded from the 10% global tariff that Trump recently imposed on most countries, along with the much heftier import tax on China, in what seemed like a softening of the president’s trade positioning towards Beijing.US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement. Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to surge after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for three months.China’s commerce ministry said the exemption demonstrated the US taking “a small step toward correcting its erroneous unilateral practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’,” and suggested the American administration cancel the whole punitive tariff regime.However, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that critical technology products from China would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.“He’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two,” Lutnick said in an interview on ABC. “These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.”Amid the confusion over the White House’s tariff policy, Trump said he would provide more details on his administration’s approach on semiconductor tariffs later today.But he suggested any tariff exemption for China-made smartphones would be short-lived, writing on his social media: “Nobody is getting off the hook for unfair trade balances”. Stay with us throughout the day as we bring you the latest tariff developments and other US political stories. More

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      ‘The sky won’t fall’: China plays down Trump tariff risks as stock markets rally

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      China has played down the risk of damage to its exports from Donald Trump’s tariffs, with an official saying the “the sky won’t fall”, as stock markets rose on Monday amid signs of a retreat on electronics restrictions.The world’s second-largest economy has diversified its trade away from the US in recent years, according to Lyu Daliang, a customs administration spokesperson, in comments reported by state-owned agency Xinhua.China has retaliated forcefully to Washington’s tariffs, with 125% levies on US imports against the US’s total of 145% border taxes on goods moving the other way. The trade war has prompted turmoil on financial markets since Trump first revealed tariffs on every country in the world on 2 April. Since then he has partly retreated on the highest levies on most trading partners for at least 90 days, but has doubled down in his spat with China.The White House offered further relief over the weekend with an exemption from the steepest tariffs for electronics including smartphones, laptops and semiconductors. Trump officials later appeared to walk that back with the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, saying such devices would be “included in the semiconductor tariffs which are coming in probably a month or two”.Trump said on Sunday night on his social network, Truth Social, that “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’”, highlighting that smartphones are still subject to 20% levies and suggesting they could still rise higher.However, investors on Monday appeared unconvinced by Trump’s attempts to play down the retreat. Japan’s Nikkei gained 1.2% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose by 2.2% and the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges climbed by 0.8% and 1.2%, respectively. European stock market indices also jumped in opening trades, with London’s FTSE 100 up by 1.6%, Germany’s Dax up 2.2%, and France’s Cac 40 up 2%.“The sky won’t fall” for Chinese exports,” China’s Lyu said. “These efforts have not only supported our partners’ development but also enhanced our own resilience”.The customs report also played up China’s “vast domestic market”, and said “the country will turn domestic certainty into a buffer against global volatility”. China has increasingly tried to stimulate private consumption.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionChina’s president, Xi Jinping, on Monday criticised the US tariffs, during a visit to Vietnam. Vietnam has in recent decades grown to become the eighth largest source of goods for US consumers, but it is facing the threat of 46% tariffs when Trump’s 90-day pause expires.In an article in a Vietnamese newspaper, Xi said that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere”. More

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      It is difficult to imagine a post-American world. But imagine it we must | Nesrine Malik

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      “People speak with forked tongues about America,” a veteran foreign correspondent once said to me. It was a long time ago – during a debate about whether the US should intervene in a foreign conflict – and I have never forgotten it. What they meant was that just as the US is condemned for foreign intervention in some instances, it is also called upon to do so in others and then judged for not upholding its moral standards. That dissonance persists, and is even more jarring as we approach the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second term. There is a duality to how the US is seen: as both a country that wantonly violates international law and as the only one capable of upholding that system of law and order. This duality, always tense, is no longer sustainable.I have felt this ambivalence myself – the contradictory demand that the US stay out of it but also anger that it is not doing more. In Sudan, Washington frustratingly refuses to pressure its ally, the UAE, into stopping pumping arms and funding into the conflict. But what proof or history is there to support the delusional notion that the US cares about a conflict in which it has no direct interest? It is an expectation of moral policing from an amoral player that I remember even in childhood, after Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Arab world was rocked with fear of regional war. A fierce debate in our classroom in Sudan on the merits of US intervention was silenced by one indignant evacuee from Kuwait, who said that the most important thing was to defeat Saddam Hussein. Her words occasionally echo in my mind: “We must deal with the greater evil first.”Even in Gaza, as Congress passed package after package of billions in military aid to Israel, there remained some residual hope – long extinguished now – that the phone call to Benjamin Netanyahu would finally come. And even as Trump emboldens Vladimir Putin, abandons Ukraine and slaps tariffs on allies, you can detect that belief in the fundamental viability of the US as an actor that can still default to rationality, and even morality.But, for the first time that I can remember, the conversation is going in a new direction. The appeals to the difference between the presidency and other more solid US institutions are quieter now, as universities, law firms and even parts of the press kowtow to their erratic new king. The questions now being asked are about how Europe and the rest of the world can pivot away from the US, from its USAID programmes nestled within the health budgets of developing countries, and its global system of military assistance and deterrence. But they sound less like practical suggestions and more like attempts to get heads around a reality that is impossible to countenance.The challenge is technical and psychological. It is difficult to imagine a post-American world because America crafted that world. When the US becomes a volatile actor, the very architecture of the global financial order starts to wobble. We saw this in the crisis of confidence in the dollar in the aftermath of Trump’s “liberation-day” tariffs. The robustness of the rule of law and separation of powers – cornerstones of confidence in an economy – are also now in doubt, as the administration goes to war with its own judiciary and the president himself boasts about how many people in the room with him made a killing out of his stock market crash. Is it insider trading if your source is the president?Just as formidable is the mental task of divestment from the US. A friend who holds a green card but lives under an illiberal regime in Asia told me that, deep down, he always felt protected from the dangers of his country’s domestic politics by the knowledge that there was a safe haven to which he could retreat in case of persecution. No longer, as legal residents and visitors are hounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or turned away at the border. I know others who have cancelled work trips to the US for fear of deportation or blacklisting. With that insecurity comes an awareness that, for some in the global south who always knew that the US was not a benign presence, there was still the belief that there was something within its own borders that curbed its excesses. This was partly true, but also a reflection of US cultural power. The pursuit of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, “give me … your huddled masses”, the Obama hope iconography; all resonant and powerful touchstones. They are now reduced to dust. It is one thing to know that the US was never the sum of these parts, but another to accept it.And there is a fear in accepting it. Because, for all its violations, the advent of a post-US world induces a feeling of vertigo. A world in which there is no final authority at all might be scarier than a world where there is a deeply flawed one. What is daunting is the prospect of anarchy, a new world where there is no organising principle in a post-ideological, everyone-for-themselves system. Not a cold war order divided into capitalist, communist and non-aligned. And not a post-cold war one divided into western liberal overlords, competing non-democracies and, below them, smaller clients of both.But what the US’s breakdown should really trigger is not overwhelm and bewilderment, but a project to build a new global order in which we all have a stake. What the US chooses to do in terms of foreign and economic policy can affect your shopping basket and the very borders of the nation state in which you live. It remains the world’s largest economy, has the world’s largest military, and is the home of the world’s most powerful entertainment complex. This centrality combined with its collapse reveals the fact that the problem goes deeper than Trump. The world was always dangerously overexposed to whatever direction the US took.Ironically, this all might be the beginning of a process that leads to genuine “liberation days” for other countries, but not the US itself. There is pain ahead, but also a sort of independence. Above all, there might finally be a recognition that the US’s definition of peace and prosperity was always its own, enforced by sheer force of power and propaganda.

      Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Ta-Nehisi Coates on why stories matter in the age of Trump – podcast

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      “This is a cultural president. Make no mistake about it.”For Ta-Nehisi Coates, the award-winning writer and journalist, the US president, Donald Trump, and his allies clearly understand the power of story-telling in politics. Coates has recently written a new book, The Message, and he tells Michael Safi that the stories told in TV, films, literature and beyond are not a distraction from politics today but are actively shaping it.The pair discuss whether the political centre-left in the US has become uncomfortable competing in the cultural realm and is in many ways the more conservative movement, adopting the role of steward of the status quo. They also examine the role of white supremacy in the narratives emerging against progressive, identity politics.Coates describes a visit to the Middle East and the significant gulf he sees between how the Israel-Palestine conflict is portrayed in US media and what he witnessed on the ground. The writer also reflects from an African-American perspective on the stories being told about Israel and outlines the reaction to his book so far.Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

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      Trump news at a glance: Deep confusion as Trump signals new tariffs on smartphones and computers

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      Donald Trump’s tariff war has dived deeper into chaos after a cabinet official telegraphed new levies on semiconductors – a crucial component in electronic goods – just days after the Trump administration exempted computers and smartphones from reciprocal tariffs.Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in an interview with NBC that the tariff exemption on several electronic devices was just temporary and that new duties would come in “a month or two”. Semiconductors would be targeted with new tariffs, he said.Trump was forced to intervene, saying he would lay out the new tariffs on Monday and any relief would be short-lived. “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”Here are the key stories at a glance:US markets on rollercoaster as Trump says electronics were never exemptUS stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement of smartphone and computer tariff exemptions, and shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar. That outlook could change and hinges on what Trump may announce on Monday.Trump denied they were ever actually exempt from tariffs because a previous tariff still exists on them. “There was no Tariff ‘exception’,” Trump said in a social media post on Sunday, adding that the levies were merely “moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”Read the full storyHedge fund billionaire says US may face ‘worse than a recession’Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said he was worried the US would experience “something worse than a recession” as a result of Trump’s trade policies. Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the 75-year-old hedge fund manager said: “I think that right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”He added: “We have something that’s much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money.”Read the full story‘Everything’s fine with Elon,’ says Trump adviser Navarro after Musk calls him ‘moron’Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to Trump, said he and Elon Musk were “great” after the president’s billionaire business adviser publicly called him “a moron” who was “dumber than a sack of bricks” over his stance on tariffs.“I’ve been called worse,” Navarro said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press in some of his most extensive remarks about the insults Musk directed at him days earlier. Praising Musk’s role in the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), Navarro added: “Everything’s fine with Elon.” Navarro’s evident attempt to be magnanimous came after Musk criticized Trump’s proposals for global tariffs, which the president has since set at 10% on all countries, with some nations receiving higher trade levies.Read the full storyMan in custody after Pennsylvania governor’s home set ablaze, say policePolice say a person is in custody after a suspected arson fire at the mansion of Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro. No one was injured in the blaze but the fire damaged parts of the home where Shapiro and his family slept.Pennsylvania state police colonel Christopher Paris identified the man in custody as Cody Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, and said the investigation was continuing. Francis Chardo, the Dauphin county district attorney, said forthcoming charges would include attempted murder, terrorism, attempted arson and aggravated assault.Read the full storyTrump is ‘fully fit’ and manages high cholesterol, says White House physicianDonald Trump – who at 78 is the oldest person to ever be elected US president – controls high cholesterol with medication and has elevated blood pressure but is “fully fit”, White House physician Sean Barbella said in a report released on Sunday, two days after Trump underwent a routine physical.Barbella wrote that Trump exhibited “excellent cognitive and physical health” and that he was up to date on all recommended vaccines. Trump himself has previously spread debunked claims about links between vaccines and autism.Read the full story9/11 responders and survivors shaken by US health cutsA program that provides free healthcare to first responders and survivors of the World Trade Center terror attacks has been in turmoil for months, with services cut, restored and cut again as part of the Trump administration’s “restructuring” of the federal health department. Following the most recent cuts, groups representing survivors and even Democratic US senators say they have no clarity on how the program will continue to provide benefits.“This is bureaucratic cruelty,” said Michael Barasch, an attorney who represents thousands of first responders and survivors of the attacks. Barasch described people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from picking up body parts after the attack, unsure of whether their medical services will continue. Other were cancer patients, anxious about what services they could access, he said.Read the full storyUS deports 10 more alleged gang members to El Salvador, says RubioThe US has deported another 10 people that it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday, a day before that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, is due to visit the White House. Rubio praised the alliance between Trump and Bukele as “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.Trump administration officials have repeatedly made public statements alleging that detained immigrants are gang members – claims they have not backed up in court. The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.Read the full storyFeatured essay: the rise of end times fascism In this essay, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor argue that the governing ideology of the far right has become “a monstrous, supremacist survivalism” and that the world must build a movement strong enough to stop them.“It is terrifying in its wickedness, yes. But it also opens up powerful possibilities for resistance,” they write. “To bet against the future on this scale – to bank on your bunker – is to betray, on the most basic level, our duties to one another, to the children we love, and to every other life form with whom we share a planetary home.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Russia launched a deadly Palm Sunday attack on churchgoers in Ukraine. It may force Washington to get tough with Putin, Dan Sabbagh writes in an analysis from Kyiv.

      Pete Marocco, an official who played a major role in dismantling USAid, has left the state department.

      Saturday Night Live’s cold open mocked Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs, with James Austin Johnson playing the president and comparing himself to Jesus.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 12 April 2025. More

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      Trump warns exemptions on smartphones, electronics will be short-lived, promises future tariffs

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      The exemption of smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import tariffs on China will be short-lived, top US officials have said, with Donald Trump warning that no one was “getting off the hook.”“There was no Tariff ‘exception’, Trump said in a social media post on Sunday. “These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”In the post on his Truth Social platform, Trump promised to launch a national security trade investigation into the semiconductor sector and the “whole electronics supply chain”.“We will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China,” he added.The White House had announced on Friday the exclusion of some electronic products from steep reciprocal tariffs on China. US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement. Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for 90 days.China’s commerce ministry said the exemption demonstrated the US taking “a small step toward correcting its erroneous unilateral practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’,” and insisted Washington cancel the whole tariff regime.Zhang Li, president of the China Center for Information Industry Development, told state media outlet, China Daily, that the exemptions proved “how important China is to major US tech companies that rely heavily on the country for manufacturing and innovation”.However, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that critical technology products from China would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.Lutnick said Trump would enact “a special focus-type of tariff” on smartphones, computers and other electronics products in a month or two, alongside sectoral tariffs targeting semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. The new duties would fall outside Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China, he said.“He’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two,” Lutnick said in an interview on ABC, predicting that the levies would bring production of those products to the United States. “These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.”The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a fast-moving game of brinkmanship since Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese imports. China’s leader Xi Jinping said on Monday that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners”.Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145%, and Beijing setting a retaliatory 125% levy on US imports. On Friday Beijing said it would ignore any future raises in tariffs by Trump, as they were already so high that there was “no market acceptance for US goods” in China.On Monday a spokesperson for China’s Customs agency said the country’s exports were facing a complex and severe external situation but “the sky will not fall”. They said China’s domestic demand was broad, and they were building a diversified market.Trump’s back-and-forth on tariffs has triggered the wildest swings on Wall Street since the Covid pandemic of 2020. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down more than 10% since Trump took office on 20 January.After announcing sweeping import taxes on dozens of trade partners, Trump abruptly issued a 90-day pause for most of them. China was excluded from the reprieve.The fallout from Trump’s tariffs – and subsequent whiplash policy reversals – sent shock waves through the US economy, with investors dumping government bonds, the dollar tumbling and consumer confidence plunging.US senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, criticised the latest revision to Trump’s tariff plan, which economists have warned could dent economic growth and fuel inflation.“There is no tariff policy – only chaos and corruption,” Warren said on ABC’s “This Week,” speaking before Trump’s latest post on social media.China has sought to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid the escalating trade war. Xi will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia.With Reuters and Agence France-Presse More

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      US deports 10 more alleged gang members to El Salvador, says Rubio

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      The US has deported another 10 people that it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday, a day before that country’s president is due to visit the White House.“Last night, another 10 criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations arrived in El Salvador,” Rubio said in an Twitter/X post.The alliance between Donald Trump and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”, Rubio added.The US president is due to meet Bukele at the White House on Monday.Trump said on Saturday he was looking forward to meeting Bukele and praised him for taking “enemy aliens” from the United States. He said the two countries were working closely to “eradicate terrorist organizations”.Administration officials have repeatedly made public statements alleging that detained immigrants are gang members that they have not backed up in court.The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the US government assertion that they were. The Trump administration says it vetted migrants to ensure they belonged to Tren de Aragua, which it labels a terrorist organization.The deportations have been challenged in federal court. The US supreme court said the US government must give sufficient notice to immigrant detainees to allow them to contest their deportations. It did not say how those already in El Salvador could seek judicial review of their removals.The White House has come under fire recently after a Maryland man was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month. He was deported on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador made up chiefly of Venezuelans whom the government had accused of being gang members and assumed special powers to expel without a hearing.Trump administration lawyers were able to confirm on Saturday that Kilmar Abrego García, 29, remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador. However, the White House did not detail the steps it was taking to return Abrego García to the United States. More