US politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 275 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      It’s war and peace with Donald and Pete – and the worst group chat the world has ever seen | Marina Hyde

      by

      Once again, we find ourselves having an anguished debate about mobile phones and online safety, in this case asking: should we ban the devices for US national security advisers under the age of 60? Do you know what your national security adviser is doing on his device? Is he using it to stay in touch with other guys in the big-man-osphere to talk about bombing Hooters? Or did he maybe add the editor-in-chief of a leading general interest magazine to a Signal group in the crucial period running up to a highly sensitive US military operation in Yemen, seemingly committing so many alleged crimes that he should have a full-body orange jumpsuit tattooed on him for ever?By now, you will have caught up with the tale of one of the most idiotic breaches of security imaginable – seemingly executed, regrettably, by the actual US national security adviser. Mike Waltz seems to have been aided and abetted in his full-spectrum fatuity by other ultra-senior figures, including the vice-president, JD Vance, and the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who shared detailed operational and strategic information in a chat to which Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg had been accidentally invited. Is Hegseth OK? Has he returned to being – how to put this delicately? – someone you probably don’t want to give important tasks to “after lunch”?On another tangent, meanwhile, was there some extremely senior military or government official with either the first name Jeffrey, or the second name Goldberg, whom Waltz actually meant to add? And did that intended Jeffrey or Goldberg wake up the next day, see the Yemen news, and feel a deeply wounded sense of Fomo? “Wait, you guys bombed Yemen without me? I hate you ALL. I demand you put me in the group chat NOW, just so I can immediately flounce off and leave the group chat.”The breach exposes so many things that it is difficult to know where to start. It certainly highlights the almost immeasurably rich lexicon of emojis. You realise that a certain type of guy deploys the same three emojis for taking out a Houthi target as they would if Bryson DeChambeau nailed a slightly tricky putt on the 14th at the West Palm Beach Pro-Am. Punching fist, USA flag, flames emoji. Let’s GO, Bryson!That said, the emojis are obviously the best of it. Less easy to scroll past is the bit where Vance, or his proxy, says: “I just hate bailing out Europe again.” Then Hegseth replies: “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC.” Mm. Three weeks ago, we had Vance offering a blanket disparagement of European forces as “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. Now we have this Signal chat – yet another sweet memorial to all the European service personnel who gave their lives in the US Republican party’s endlessly stupid 9/11 wars. We never asked to be reimbursed for that military assistance – very BAD! very Wrong! – and are now repeatedly hearing that it meant nothing to Marine-adjacent shutterbug Vance, who remains the most unbearably loud and rude American at the luxury hotel breakfast. They really should make a darkly satirical TV show about these absurd, degenerate, unpleasant people. Call it The White Potus.Needless to say, the first instinct of the Trump administration has been to insult the journalist, when in less responsible hands than Goldberg’s this could have been catastrophically endangering information for involved US service personnel and intelligence operatives. At time of writing, Hegseth’s sole comment on the bed he and the guys just shat was to attack the man to whom they personally served this scoop, calling Goldberg “a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist”. Is he though? Come on, Pete! Given the same information in real time, your boy Joe Rogan would have livestreamed it and you know it. At least Donald Trump would have been up to speed with it that way. “I don’t know anything about it,” was the president’s sleepy verdict yesterday, a day he spent wetting his pants about some oil painting of him hanging somewhere in the Colorado state legislature.As for consequences, do please remember that we are dealing with the biggest hypocrites on the planet. Consider their own thunderous statements on infosec. Here is the chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, just last week: “If you have a private that loses a sensitive item, that loses night vision goggles, that loses a weapon, you can bet that that private is going to be held accountable. The same and equal standards must apply to senior military leaders.” Also last week, here is Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard: “Any unauthorised release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.” Was Tulsi on the Signal chat? Course she was! If you still want more, here’s Hegseth mining the seemingly endless potential of Hillary Clinton’s careless use of a private server for classified information back when he was a Fox News host: “If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now.” “When I’m president of the United States, neither she nor any of these other people are going to be above the law,” was the previous verdict of one Marco Rubio, last seen on the Houthi chat appearing in the role of secretary of state of the United States.We’ll have to wait and see if these clowns will hold themselves to their own very high standards. In the meantime, please enjoy European diplomats declaring that as far as the relationship between the continent and the US goes, this is “the writing on the wall”. If only it HAD been written on a wall – that would actually have been more secure and secretive. Come to that, it would genuinely have been more secure and secretive to hire a skywriting plane. Great job, guys! Punching fist, USA flag, flames emoji, etc.

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist More

    • 138 Shares178 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Protect our future’: Alaskan Indigenous town fights ‘destructive’ uranium mine project

      by

      For generations, the people of Elim have subsisted off the forests and waters of north-west Alaska: hunting caribou and bearded seals in the late winter, gathering bird eggs and wild greens from the tundra in early spring, and fishing the salmon run in the late summer.The Iñupiat community of 350 people lives on one of the state’s most productive and biodiverse fisheries, an inlet of the Bering Sea called the Norton Sound. They refer to their land as Munaaquestevut, or “the one who cares for us”.“We depend on the land to put food on the table, to keep our tribe healthy. We have a subsistence economy with a cash overlay,” said Emily Murray, a resident of Elim and vice-president of Norton Bay Watershed Council, a non-profit tribal organization focused on regional water quality.“We’ve been doing this for generations upon generations.”Now, an intensifying global competition for critical minerals and the priorities of a new administration threaten to put their land, their fishery and their lives at risk, members of the community say.This summer, the Canadian mining company Panther Minerals is set to start exploration for a uranium mine at the headwaters of the Tubuktulik river, adjacent to Elim’s land. David Hedderly-Smith, a consultant to Panther and the owner of mining claims for the property, has said the site could become the “uranium capital of America”.The people of Elim have opposed the mine since last May, when Panther Minerals announced its intention to apply for exploration permits. In interviews, they said they feared for their health, and spoke of the cancer and contamination that followed uranium mining on Navajo land in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.View image in fullscreen“If [the river] becomes contaminated, it will have an impact on the whole Bering Sea. That’s the way I see it,” said Johnny Jemewouk, a resident of Elim.Last summer, Elim successfully pressured the Bureau of Land Management, which manages a small portion of the claim, to deny Panther Minerals’ exploration permit on the land. In December, a regional tribal consortium passed a resolution “categorically” opposing the mine.However, Alaska’s department of natural resources (DNR), which manages most of the land, has so far refused Elim’s requests for a consultation – and brushed aside over a hundred comments from the community over plans for the mine. In October, they granted Panther Minerals a four-year exploration permit, which will allow the company to start drilling wells and taking uranium core samples this June.Elim has appealed against the permit. But with time running out, the community has gone one step further, protesting against the mine using the largest international forum available to them: the Iditarod, Alaska’s grueling annual sled dog race, which passes through their village on its way to Nome.As musher Jesse Holmes approached Elim’s checkpoint and the 1,008th mile of the race, more than 70 students and community members waited for him in the Arctic night. They held signs saying “Protect our future”, and “Keep the uranium in the ground.”It was their chance to tell the world what their way of life means to them.“I want to protect our future,” said Paige Keith, an eighth-grader from Elim. “If they go through with this, it’s going to affect our animals and our water. I want to help try to stop the mine.”‘A race for resources’As global competition for critical minerals intensifies, the Trump administration is eyeing Alaska.An executive order issued on Trump’s first day in office calls on the US to “fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources”. The order was applauded by the state’s mining industry.The order reversed a number of Biden-era protections for Alaskan land, opening oil and gas drilling in the Arctic national wildlife refuge and ending restrictions on logging.Several of these reversals put the administration at cross purposes with the Native communities that subsist off Alaska’s land. For example, one of them enables plans for a mining access road in Alaska’s Brooks Range, which a tribal network has called “one of the biggest and most destructive” projects in the state’s history.“We’re in an age of green transition. We’re looking for other forms of energy. And, with the new administration, there is this push to mine domestically,” said Jasmine Jemewouk, an activist from Elim.“It’s a race for resources and they’re looking at Alaska.”The coming years are likely to see continued conflicts between Alaska’s powerful mining industry and Native communities – especially as the US seeks to onshore its critical mineral supply chain. And while Panther Minerals’ exploration permit is up to the state of Alaska, and not the federal government, advocates and community members said the Trump administration may further embolden Alaska’s DNR to brush aside Elim’s concerns. Alaska’s governor, Mike Dunleavy, has welcomed Trump’s executive orders, saying: “Happy days are here again.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The current administration in Alaska is very industrial extraction driven,” said Hal Shepherd, an attorney and water rights advocate based in Homer, Alaska. “Trump and Dunleavy basically are partners in developing Alaska.”“Our current governor is pretty much a typical Republican. If it ain’t nailed down, sell it,” said Robert Keith, president of the native village of Elim.Alaska’s DNR did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Lack of consultationIn interviews with local media, Hedderly-Smith, the project’s consultant, has said the people of Elim have “been misled and they’re spreading mistruths”, regarding the dangers of the uranium mine.Robert Birmingham, Panther Minerals’ president, did not respond to queries regarding Elim’s health concerns, saying the company had yet to finalize its mining plans and could not comment.“We are positive about the uranium opportunity in Alaska, as it has been underexplored,” he wrote, and said the company would “continue outreach and the conversation with the Elim community” once its plans were finalized.Hedderly-Smith has also said the company would “like to be friends” with Elim if it develops the mine. But while Birmingham said the company had made an attempt to contact Elim in early 2024, Keith, the president of Elim, said that Panther Minerals had never come to their village or attempted to contact the community since they first applied for the permit.For Elim, the plans for the mine raise a history of state and federal failures to safeguard native communities from the harms of mining. In 2008, the community successfully rallied against another Canadian company, Triex Minerals, which had started to explore for uranium near their village. While organizing their opposition, the students of Elim researched the effects of uranium mining elsewhere in the US.They taught the community about the example of the Navajo, and the cancer risks and health problems that came after they allowed uranium mines on their land.Should a mine be built in Elim, Panther Minerals has said it would probably use in situ leaching to extract uranium – a technique said to be less disruptive than conventional methods to mine the material, including those used on Navajo land. Shepherd and the community, however, have said that the project’s proposed use of groundwater threatens to contaminate the fishery and ecosystem.Keith said the community had a reason to be cautious about government promises. Closer to home, he gave the example of Moses Point, a fishing village next to Elim which hosted a military airfield during the second world war. The military had buried or left a lot of material at the site, he said, including thousands of drums of high-octane fuel.“Most of those people where the concentrations of drums were, including my mother – the majority of them survived or died of cancer,” he said. “So we’re kind of sensitive.”Jasmine Jemewouk, the activist, added: “What they’re not realizing is that the community bears the burden. Whatever they leave behind, whatever is contaminated in the process … We’re not being consulted at all.”Her grandfather, Johnny Jemewouk, agreed. He said the time to act is now.“People, the way I see it here, they don’t realize what the future holds for them once they start getting sick. Either they start getting sick, or the food they can’t eat, or the water they can’t play in,” he said.“When that starts taking effect, they’ll want to say, ‘let’s do something.’ But that’s too late.” More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Stunning Signal leak reveals depths of Trump administration’s loathing of Europe

      by

      If Europe wasn’t already on notice, the extraordinary leak of deliberations by JD Vance and other top-level Trump administration officials over a strike against the Houthis in Yemen was another sign that it has a target on its back.The administration officials gave Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic a front-row seat to the planning for the strike against the Houthis – a stunning intelligence leak that has caused anger against Republicans who called for criminal investigations against Hillary Clinton and others for playing fast and loose with sensitive information.On the face of it, the strike against the Houthis had far more to do with the administration’s policies on protecting maritime trade and containing Iran than its concerns about Europe freeloading on US defense spending and military prowess.But Vance appears determined to push that angle as a reason to postpone the strike.“I think we are making a mistake,” wrote Vance, adding that while only 3% of US trade goes through the Suez canal, 40% of European trade does. “There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” he added. “The strongest reason to do this is, as [Trump] said, to send a message.”Vance was contending that once again the United States is doing what Europe should be. It is consistent with his past arguments that the US is overpaying for European security and the derision he displayed toward European allies (almost certainly the UK and France) when he described them as “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. (Both fought in Afghanistan and the UK fought alongside the US in Iraq).It was during this policy discussion, Goldberg wrote, that he was convinced that he was reading remarks by the real Vance, as well as defense secretary Pete Hegseth, national security advisor Michael Waltz, and senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller.Then Vance went a step further. He tacitly admitted a difference between his foreign policy and Trump’s saying that the strike would undermine the president’s Europe policy – one that has been led by Vance in his divisive speech at the Munich Security Conference where he accused European leaders of running from their own electorates and of his Eurosceptic comments on Fox News.“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance wrote. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”Those designated on the call also reflect the vice-president’s growing clout in foreign policymaking circles. Vance named Andy Baker, his national security advisor who helped lead the transition team at the Pentagon, as his representative. Hegseth named Dan Caldwell, a leading proponent of “restraint” in the exercise of US foreign power abroad to protect Europe and counter rivals like Russia, indicating the Vance team’s presence at high levels of the Pentagon as well.At heart, the disagreement indicated that Vance’s views of foreign policy are not quite aligned with Trump. Trump broadly sees the world as transactional and optimists in Europe have claimed he could force a positive outcome by forcing those nations to spend more on defense budgets. But Vance appears far more confrontational and principled in his antipathy toward the transatlantic alliance, and has attacked European leaders for backing values that he says are not aligned with the US.That makes Vance even more of a concern for Europe. Kaja Kallas, the European foreign policy chief, accused Vance of “trying to pick a fight” with European allies. Another European diplomat said: “He is very dangerous for Europe … maybe the most [dangerous] in the administration.” Another said he was “obsessed” with driving a wedge between Europe and the US.Back on the chat some sought – carefully – to talk Vance down. Hegseth said the strike would promote “core” American values including freedom of navigation and pre-establish deterrence. But he said the strikes could wait, if desired. Waltz, a foreign policy traditionalist, said: “It will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes.” But he agreed that the administration sought to “compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans”.“If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance replied. Hegseth agreed that “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.” But, he added, “we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.”Miller, the Trump confidant, effectively ended the conversation by saying that the president had been clear. “Green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return.”Broadly, the administration’s policies on Europe are coming into focus. And there are few stepping up to voice backing for Nato or for Europe writ large. On a podcast interview this weekend, the senior Trump envoy Steve Witkoff mused about the potential for the Gulf economies to replace those of Europe. “It could be much bigger than Europe. Europe is dysfunctional today,” he said.Tucker Carlson, the host and another Trump confidant, agreed. “It would be good for the world because Europe is dying,” he said. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      European universities offer ‘scientific asylum’ to US researchers fleeing Trump’s cuts

      by

      Laced with terms such as “censorship” and “political interference”, the Belgium-based jobs advert was far from typical. The promise of academic freedom, however, hinted at who it was aimed at: researchers in the US looking to flee the funding freezes, cuts and ideological impositions ushered in by Donald Trump’s administration.“We see it as our duty to come to the aid of our American colleagues,” said Jan Danckaert, the rector of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), in explaining why his university – founded in 1834 to safeguard academia from the interference of church or state – had decided to open 12 postdoctoral positions for international researchers, with a particular focus on Americans.“American universities and their researchers are the biggest victims of this political and ideological interference,” Danckaert said in a statement. “They’re seeing millions in research funding disappear for ideological reasons.”The university is among a handful of institutions across Europe that have begun actively recruiting US researchers, offering themselves as a haven for those keen to escape the Trump administration’s crackdown on research and academia.Since Trump took power in late January, researchers in the US have faced a multipronged attack. Efforts to slash government spending have left thousands of employees bracing for layoffs, including at institutions such as Nasa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency. The government’s targeting of “wokeism” has meanwhile sought to root out funding for research deemed to involve diversity, certain kinds of vaccines and any mention of the climate crisis.In France, the director of the prestigious Pasteur Institute in Paris, Yasmine Belkaid, said it was already working to recruit people from across the Atlantic for work in fields such as infectious diseases or the origins of disease.View image in fullscreen“I receive daily requests from people who want to return: French, European or even Americans who no longer feel able to do their research or are afraid to do it freely,” Belkaid told the French newspaper La Tribune. “You might call it a sad opportunity, but it is an opportunity, all the same.”The sentiment was echoed by France’s minister for higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, in a recent letter that called on research institutions to send in proposals on how best to attract talent from the US. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the US,” he said. “Naturally, we wish to welcome a certain number of them.”On Thursday, the Netherlands said it was aiming to swiftly launch a fund to attract researchers to the country.While the fund would be open to people of all nationalities, the country’s education minister, Eppo Bruins, hinted at the tensions that have gripped US academia in announcing the plans.“There is currently a great global demand for international top scientific talent. At the same time, the geopolitical climate is changing, which is increasing the international mobility of scientists,” Bruins said in a letter to parliament.“Several European countries are responding to this with efforts to attract international talent,” he added. “I want the Netherlands to remain at the vanguard of these efforts.”The Dutch effort comes after France’s Aix-Marseille University said it had set up a programme – titled Safe Place for Science – that would put aside funding for more than two dozen researchers from the US for three years.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We wish we didn’t have to do this,” said Éric Berton, the university’s president. “We’re not looking to attract researchers. But we were quite indignant about what was happening and we felt that our colleagues in the US were going through a catastrophe … we wanted to offer some sort of scientific asylum to those whose research is being hindered.”Two weeks after the programme was launched there have been about 100 applications, with researchers from Yale, Nasa and Stanford among those who have expressed interest. The university continues to receive about 10 applications a day, said Berton, many of them from researchers involved in studying climate, health or social sciences.Berton said he hoped universities across Europe would join his in providing a safe space for researchers. “I think that we need to realise the historic moment we’re living through and the serious, long-term consequences this could have,” he said. “Europe must rise to the occasion.”At VUB, the opening of the 12 postdoctoral positions was also aimed at acknowledging the global impact of Trump’s crackdown. Two research projects in which the university was involved – one delving into youth and disinformation and another investigating the transatlantic dialogue between the US and Europe – had been cancelled due to “changed policy priorities”, it said.For the university in Brussels, the openings were also a vindication of sorts. In a 2016 interview with Fox News, Trump had sought to characterise life in Brussels as akin to “living in a hellhole”, falsely accusing migrants in the city of failing to assimilate.“At the time, the statement elicited many emotional reactions in Europe,” the university said. “This gives additional symbolic meaning to the VUB initiative.” More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: anger as White House texts secret Yemen war plans to journalist

      by

      Senior Trump administration officials have triggered bipartisan outrage after broadcasting classified military plans through a Signal group chat to which they had inadvertently added a prominent journalist.According to reporting in the Atlantic, the editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally invited into a Signal chat group with more than a dozen senior Trump administration officials including Vice-President JD Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, national security adviser, Mike Waltz, secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and others.“It has made us look weak to our adversaries,” the California congressman Ro Khanna told the Guardian. “We need to take cybersecurity far more seriously and I look forward to leading on that.”White House inadvertently texts secret Yemen war plans to journalistSenior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.In an extraordinary blunder, key figures – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group. Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.Read the full storyThe catastrophic leak has triggered bipartisan outrage, sparking calls for a congressional investigation and stinging condemnation of government officials.Read latest reactionTrump portrait removed in Colorado after presidential tiradeDonald Trump critics variously said the president was “the most fragile, sensitive snowflake in history” and a “a petty, insecure baby” after he publicly demanded the removal of his portrait at Colorado’s state capitol building, calling it “truly the worst”.In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump shared an image of the portrait and complained about the painting, saying it was bad and blaming it on Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis – whom the president insulted as being “radically left”. A Republican admirer of Trump actually commissioned the portrait, which is now set to be taken down.Read the full storyTrump axing US-backed media outfits ‘endangering reporters’Foreign workers at US government-backed media outlets being cut by the Trump administration say they face deportation to their home countries, where some risk imprisonment or death at the hands of authoritarian governments.Read the full storyJudge says Nazis had more rights in US than deported VenezuelansAn appeals court judge claimed on Monday that Nazis were given more rights to contest their removal from the United States during the second world war than Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration.US circuit judge Patricia Millett questioned whether Venezuelans targeted for removal under the Alien Enemies Act had time to contest claims they were Tren de Aragua gang members before they were put on planes and deported to El Salvador. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here,” Millett said.Read the full storyWhite House Easter Egg Roll seeks $200,000 sponsors The Trump administration is seeking sponsors for the White House Easter Egg Roll, in a break with tradition that is likely to draw further scrutiny over its relationship with corporate backers. A pitch document obtained by CNN and the New York Times shows individuals or companies can pay up to $200,000 to have their brand or name attached to the event, promising investors will gain “valuable brand visibility and national recognition”.Read the full storyTrump goes after George ClooneyDonald Trump has taken aim at the actor and prominent Democrat activist George Clooney, dismissing his interview on US TV news programme 60 Minutes as a “total puff piece”.The Oscar-winning star was the subject of Sunday’s show to promote his Broadway version of Good Night, and Good Luck, which deals with McCarthyism. Clooney drew parallels between that time and today’s politics, prompting Trump to call him a “second-rate movie ‘star’ and failed political pundit”.Read the full storyGreenland calls for backup after announcement of Mike Waltz, Usha Vance visitGreenland’s prime minister, Múte B Egede, has called for the international community to step in after it was announced that Donald Trump’s national security adviser and the US second lady will visit the Arctic island, accusing Washington of “foreign interference”.Mike Waltz and Usha Vance are scheduled to arrive in Greenland this week as part of a delegation that will also include the US energy secretary, Chris Wright.Read the full storyColumbia student sues Trump administration for trying to deport herA Columbia University student who took part in pro-Palestinian protests at the university is suing Donald Trump’s administration for attempting to deport her.Attorneys for Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old who has legally resided in the US since childhood, filed a complaint on Monday describing the government’s actions as “shocking overreach” and an “unprecedented and unjustifiable assault” on her rights.Read the full storyUS and Russian officials begin Ukraine ceasefire talks in Saudi ArabiaUS and Russian officials have begun talks in Saudi Arabia as Donald Trump pushes to broker a limited ceasefire that Washington hopes will mark the first step toward lasting peace in Ukraine.Ukraine and Russia have agreed in principle to a one-month halt on strikes on energy infrastructure after Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders last week. But uncertainty remains over how and when the partial ceasefire would take effect – and whether its scope would extend beyond energy infrastructure to include other critical sites, such as hospitals, bridges, and vital utilities.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Police in Texas said they found “incendiary devices” at a Tesla dealership in Austin on Monday morning, as the Trump administration has pledged to crack down on vandalism and protests against Elon Musk’s car company.

      The US postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who said earlier this month that he had asked the government efficiency team led by Elon Musk for assistance with a number of issues, is resigning effective on Monday, the agency said.

      Liberal US senator Bernie Sanders has praised Donald Trump’s drive to clampdown on illegal immigration and fentanyl in an admission that Joe Biden’s administration failed to adequately tackle the issues.

      The Trump administration asked the supreme court on Monday to halt a ruling ordering the rehiring of thousands of federal workers dismissed in mass firings aimed at dramatically downsizing the federal government.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 23 March. More