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      Yes, protesting can help tyrants like Trump, with its scenes of disorder. But that’s no reason to stay at home | Zoe Williams

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      When Donald Trump was elected the first time round, the works of the German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt flew off the shelves in the US. It wasn’t all good news – JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy was also enjoying a surge in popularity and Trump was, of course, still about to be president. But Arendt’s famous 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, was selling at 16 times its usual rate, which meant that by the time of the protests centred on the inauguration in January 2017, at least some of those people had read it.Arendt’s view of popular demonstrations was complicated. She wasn’t blind to the way authoritarian rulers use public protest as an excuse for a display of physical power, embodied in the police, which turns the state into an army against its people, altering that relationship. If it’s no longer government by consent, it’s rule by force, and they have the equipment. Yet “how many people here still believe”, she wrote of Germany in the 1930s, quoting the French activist David Rousset, “that a protest has even historic importance? This scepticism is the real masterpiece of the SS. Their great accomplishment. They have corrupted all human solidarity. Here the night has fallen on the future.” It’s an elegantly drawn lose-lose situation: if you lose the will to protest, you have been “morally murdered”, but if you don’t, you play into the tyrant’s hands.But the Women’s Marches of January 2017 didn’t spark police violence. Not a single arrest was made across the 2 million protesters gathered in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. Commentators wondered whether this was due to the essentially peaceable nature of women and their allies, while academics drew comparisons with the hundreds of arrests made during the Ferguson uprising of 2014 (which, of course, happened under President Obama). “Tanks and rubber bullets versus pussy-hats and high-fives” was how one scholar, Abby Harrington, described the contrast, making the case convincingly that protesters were treated differently on essentially racist grounds. It would be wrong, and actually quite sexist, to say that the women weren’t considered worthy of violent suppression because they didn’t seem serious enough. It would be wrong, too, to say that they made no impact – they were enormous, dispersed across 408 places in the US, rallying by some estimates more than 4 million Americans, and spawning protests in solidarity across seven continents, including one in Antarctica.The demand was very broad and consequently pretty loose, however: protesters wanted “vibrant and diverse communities” recognised as “the strength of our country”. They wanted reproductive rights and tolerance and protection from violence; mutual respect; racial equality; gender equality; workers’ rights – it was a call for decency, to which the leader felt no need to respond, almost by definition, since he is not decent.The recent US protests were sparked last Friday at about 9am, as border patrol agents massed outside a Home Depot in Paramount, a predominantly Latino area in Los Angeles. An assembly member, José Luis Solache Jr, happened to be driving past, so stopped and posted the scenes, which looked chillingly militaristic even days before the arrival of the national guard. Protesters started to arrive, not in huge numbers but with a vast purpose – to prevent what looked like an immigration raid of people trying to do their jobs. It came on the back of the arrest of a senior union official in the Fashion District, and one father arrested in front of his eight-year-old son. The message, when border guards sweep a workplace or a courtroom where people are doing regular immigration check-ins, is quite plain: this isn’t about deporting hardened criminals.The protestrs’ demand was correlatively plain: don’t arrest our friends, neighbours or colleagues, when they pose no danger to anyone. Since then, 700 marines have been deployed to the city, and the number of national guards doubled to 4,000. The situation recalls Arendt’s later work, On Violence, in which she argues that power and violence are actually opposites – the state creates tinderbox situations when it has lost the expectation of public compliance. So if the protests were symbolic, they would be playing into the government’s hands: an abstract resistance creating justification for concrete suppression. But the protests are not symbolic – the alternative to protesting against a raid by border guards is to let the raid go ahead and lose those neighbours.The Russian-American columnist and author M Gessen cites a distinction made in political science between faith, where you believe that justice will simply prevail, and hope, where you observe and participate. Gessen wrote in the New York Times: “You can’t take action without hope, but you also can’t have hope without taking action.” Everyone has a line over which they’d be spurred to action – there’s no one who wouldn’t lie down in front of the government van if their child were kidnapped and put inside it by masked men. So the real art of the autocratic state is not just to weaken protective institutions, but also to foster the conditions of fear and hopelessness ahead of a critical mass finding its hard limit. It’s not clear, yet, whether the repression is a deliberate spectacle in order to create that fear, or whether, conversely, it’s the accidental creation of conditions that demand action.

      Zoe Williams 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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      Boos, cheers and a heavy dose of irony as Trump takes in Les Mis against backdrop of LA protests

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      “Do you hear the people sing? / Singing the song of angry men? / It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again!”When the rousing anthem of revolution filled the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night, Donald Trump may have had a Pavlovian response along the lines of “Get me Stephen Miller” or “Send in the marines”. We will never know.The tuxedo-clad US president had stood on a red carpet, accompanied by first lady Melania in a long black dress, promising a “golden era” for America before attending the musical Les Misérables, which translates as The Miserable Ones or The Wretched.The story of Les Mis is inspired by the June Rebellion, an 1832 insurrection by republicans against the authoritarianism of a newly established French king. No one is expecting a replay from Republicans in June 2025.Characters include Jean Valjean, who is imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread then seeks redemption, and Inspector Javert, who is obsessed with law and order and hunts Valjean without mercy. One reporter asked Trump whether he identifies more with Valjean or Javert.“Oh, that’s a tough one,” chuckled the wannabe strongman who sent troops to crush immigration protests in Los Angeles and is about to stage a tank parade on his birthday. “You better answer that one, honey,” he deflected to Melania. “I don’t know.”View image in fullscreenIt was Trump’s first production at the Kennedy Center, the performing arts complex where he pulled a Viktor Orbán and seized control in February. He pushed out the centre’s former chair, fired its longtime president and pledged to overhaul an institution that he criticized as too woke.But ticket sales have fallen since and some performers have cancelled shows. On Wednesday, as he took his seat, 78-year-old Trump was greeted with a high-octane mix of cheers and boos that stopped after a round of “USA” chants.Several drag queens in full regalia sat in the audience, presumably in response to Trump’s criticism of the venue for hosting drag shows. One person shouted “Viva Los Angeles!” as Trump stepped out of the presidential box at the intermission.The president’s appearance was meant to boost fundraising for the Kennedy Center and he said donors raised more than $10m. But Maga’s efforts to break into the thespian world went about as well as Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.Red carpet arrivals for the show were a far cry from the glamour of Cannes, Hollywood or London’s West End. Instead of crowds of fans clamouring for autographs and selfies, Trump and his allies walked through an eerily deserted Hall of Nations and looked unsure whether to answer questions yelled by the media.Those who did revelled in cultural ignorance. First came Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who has faced allegations of sexual harassment. He said: “What’s amazing is, out of all the years I’ve been in Washington DC, I’ve never been in this building.”View image in fullscreenJD Vance, the vice-president, walked the red carpet with wife Usha, now on the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, and denied that Trump had staged a “hostile takeover”. He then tweeted: “About to see Les Miserables with POTUS at the Kennedy Center. Me to Usha: so what’s this about? A barber who kills people? Usha; [hysterical laughter].”Accompanied by his wife, the actor Cheryl Hines, Robert F Kennedy Jr recalled how his uncle, President John F Kennedy – whose giant bust looms in the atrium – used to say the Greeks were remembered for their architecture, sculpture, plays and poetry. “A civilisation ultimately is judged based upon its culture and its art. He wanted to make sure that American civilisation would be judged by that and President Trump shares that vision.”Trump spent last Saturday night with Mike Tyson watching people beat the hell out of each other behind a chain-link fence in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is quite possibly how American civilisation will actually be judged.Indeed, on his watch, the Kennedy Center no longer feels very Kennedy-esque. The atmosphere is different from the days when Democrats Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi glided in for the annual Kennedy Center Honors. Framed portraits of the Trumps and the Vances are mounted on a marble wall and, on Wednesday, were bathed in holy light. Washington is now a city under occupation.The president, who reportedly once derided “shithole countries” in Africa, walked in beneath national flags that include Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and past the opera house stage door. His impromptu press conference was a surreal combination of theatre and geopolitics, veering from his favourite musicals one moment to the prospect of Middle East war the next.View image in fullscreen“I love Les Mis,” Trump said. “We’ve seen it many times. We love it. One of my favourites.” He was untroubled by reports that understudies may perform due to boycotts by cast members. “I couldn’t care less,” he said. “Honestly, I couldn’t. All I do is run the country well.”Then on Iran: “They can’t have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. We’re not going to allow that.”Then back to showbiz. Brian Glenn of Real America’s Voice, who is congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend, proclaimed: “Mr President, we’re making theatre great again, aren’t we tonight?… You’re bringing class back. The golden era of theatre!”Trump lapped it up as a cat does milk. “And we have a golden era here in the country,” he said. “We’re bringing the country back fast and I’m very proud to have helped Los Angeles survive. Los Angeles right now, if we didn’t do what we did, would be burning to the ground.”Glenn wasn’t done. “You’re a New Yorker. You’ve been to a million theatres. Do you remember your first theatre production that you attended?”Trump looked pensive, as if mulling over countless nights absorbing the works of Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Tom Stoppard, Tennessee Williams and August Wilson. “A long time ago,” he mused. “I would say maybe it was Cats.”Glenn put the same question to Melania, who had held Trump’s hand while maintaining a sphinx-like expression. She cited The Phantom of the Opera, which must have been music to the ears of man whose cultural hinterland runs the gamut from 1980 to 1989.But on the night that Maga stormed America’s citadel of culture, one man was nowhere to be seen. Elon Musk’s banishment continues despite his recent attempts to end his feud with the president. Perhaps the tech bro was out there somewhere in the gloomy streets of Washington, channelling Les Mis’s Éponine:On my own
      Pretending he’s beside me
      All alone
      I walk with him ‘til morning
      … Without me
      His world will go on turning
      A world that’s full of happiness
      That I have never known More

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      US immigration officials raid California farms as Trump ramps up conflict

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      US immigration officials carried out further “enforcement activity” in California’s agricultural heartland and the Los Angeles area as the conflict between the state and Donald Trump’s administration intensified on Wednesday.Immigrant advocacy groups reported multiple actions across the state, where an estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented, and said agents pursued workers through blueberry fields and staged operations at agricultural facilities.The raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were “outraged and heartbroken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activities targeting immigrant families”.“When our workforce’s lives are in fear, the fields will go unharvested, the impact is felt not only at the local level, but it will also be felt at the national level,” said Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, the mayor of Ventura, a coastal city just north of Los Angeles. “Everything will be affected and every American who is here and relies on the labor of these individuals will be affected.”Immigration activities have continued in the Los Angeles area as well, where officials say people have been detained outside Home Depots and in front of churches. Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, said the raids have created a deep sense of fear in the region and that the White House has provoked unrest. The nighttime curfew she put in place this week will stay in place as long as needed, including while there are ongoing raids and a military presence in the city, Bass said at a press conference on Wednesday.Hilda Solis, an LA county supervisor, said Wednesday evening she was concerned about a “deeply disturbing incident” in the city’s Boyle Heights neighborhood involving two unmarked vehicles operated by Ice agents crashing in to a civilian car with two children inside and deploying teargas to apprehend an individual. She said she had also learned of an incident of Ice attempting to detain a member of the press.The nearly 5,000 US military personnel in the city now exceeds the number of US troops in both Iraq and Syria.The increasing raids come as Ice ramps up its efforts to meet a reported quota of 3,000 detentions a day set by Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff. The city has seen days of protest over Trump’s immigration crackdown and the subsequent military deployment.Los Angeles police announced they arrested more than 200 people in the city’s downtown area on Tuesday, after crowds gathered in defiance of the overnight curfew in the neighborhood. The LAPD said it had carried out more than 400 arrests and detentions of protesters since Saturday.The crackdown came after California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, filed an emergency request to block the Trump administration from using military forces to accompany Ice officers on raids throughout LA.Trump has ordered the deployment of 4,000 national guard members and 700 marines to LA after days of protests driven by anger over aggressive Ice raids that have targeted garment workers, day labourers, car wash employees and members of immigrant communities.Across the country, NBC reported that Ice was preparing to deploy tactical units to several more cities run by Democratic leaders, citing two sources familiar with the plans, who named four of the cities as Seattle, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.On Wednesday, dozens of mayors from across the Los Angeles region banded together to demand that the Trump administration stop the stepped-up immigration raids that have spread fear across their cities.“I’m asking you, please listen to me, stop terrorizing our residents,” said Mayor Jessica Ancona of El Monte, who said she was hit by rubber bullets during a raid in her city.Speaking alongside the other mayors at a news conference, Bass said the raids spread fear at the behest of the White House.“We started off by hearing the administration wanted to go after violent felons, gang members, drug dealers. But when you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you’re not trying to keep anyone safe,” she said. “You’re trying to cause fear and panic.”Newsom and the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, have alleged in a pair of lawsuits filed on Monday and Tuesday that Trump’s takeover of the state’s national guard, against the governor’s wishes, was unlawful. On Tuesday, a federal judge declined to immediately rule on California’s request for a restraining order and scheduled a hearing for Thursday.In a speech, Newsom condemned Trump for “indiscriminately targeting hard-working immigrant families” and militarising the streets of LA, recounting how in recent days Ice agents had grabbed people outside a Home Depot, detained a nine-months-pregnant US citizen, sent unmarked cars to schools, and arrested gardeners and seamstresses.“That’s just weakness masquerading as strength,” the governor said. “If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant based only on suspicion or skin colour, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.”In past days, thousands of troops have been deployed to LA over the objections of Democratic officials and despite concerns from local law enforcement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUS military troops in the city do not have the authority to arrest people, but they are allowed to temporarily detain individuals until law enforcement agents arrest them, Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who is leading the deployment, said on Wednesday. National guard troops on the ground in Los Angeles have already done so, he said.View image in fullscreenThe 700 US marines who will be deployed are receiving training on civil disturbances and will not have live ammunition in their rifles while in the city, Sherman said.The Los Angeles county sheriff, Robert Luna, said on Wednesday, however, that federal troops do not have the power to arrest or detain: “So if they are out in the field, they may be there, but they are working in conjunction with federal authorities. It could be Ice, border patrol, there’s a whole host of acronym federal agencies that they’re working with.” Luna also said he was unaware whether Marines were already on the ground in the city, but that local law enforcement was trying to “improve communication” with the military.Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, said he expected the military would remain in the city for 60 days at a cost of at least $134m.Trump defended the military deployment on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday morning, writing: “If our troops didn’t go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now, just like so much of their housing burned to the ground. The great people of Los Angeles are very lucky that I made the decision to go in and help!!!”The deployment of the national guard and marines is strongly opposed by California Democrats, as well as by every Democratic governor in the US. Alex Padilla, a California senator, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that protests against Ice and the subsequent legal showdown between his state and the government was “absolutely a crisis of Trump’s own making”.He said: “There are a lot of people who are passionate about speaking up for fundamental rights and respecting due process, but the deployment of national guard only serves to escalate tensions and the situation. It’s exactly what Donald Trump wanted to do.”Padilla said the Los Angeles sheriff’s department had not been advised of the federalisation of the national guard. He said his office had pressed the Pentagon for a justification, and “as far as we’re told, the Department of Defence isn’t sure what the mission is here”.Meanwhile, officials in Los Angeles have sought to reassure the public that the situation in the city remains largely peaceful and calm. At a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Nathan Hochman, the district attorney of Los Angeles county, pointed out how images of unrest on television and social media have misled many Americans about the nature and scale of the mayhem.“If you only saw the social media and the media reports of what’s going on over the last five days, you would think that Los Angeles is on the brink of war,” Hochman said.“But let me put this in perspective for you. There are 11 million people in this county; 4 million of which live in Los Angeles city. We estimate that there’s probably thousands of people who have engaged in legitimate protest, let’s say 4,000 people,” Hochman said.“That means that 99.9% of people in Los Angeles city or generally Los Angeles county have not engaged in any protest at all,” he continued. “Now, amongst the people who have engaged in protest, we estimate that there are hundreds of people, let’s say maybe up to 400, to use rough percentages, who have engaged in this type of illegal activity.”“So what does that mean?” Hochman asked. “That means that 99.99% of people who live in Los Angeles … have not committed any illegal acts in connection with this protest whatsoever.”Lauren Gambino, Sam Levin, Lois Beckett, Joseph Gedeon and agencies contributed reporting More

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      David Hogg to exit Democratic National Committee after months of turmoil

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      David Hogg, the young vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee whose vow to unseat “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats roiled his party, said on Wednesday that he would step away from the high-ranking role in a move that ends months of internal infighting.Moments before Hogg announced his decision, members of the committee had voted to hold new vice-chair elections that could have led to his ouster.“I came into this role to play a positive role in creating the change our party needs,” Hogg said in a statement, announcing that he was withdrawing from the race. “It is clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair – and it’s okay to have disagreements. What isn’t okay is allowing this to remain our focus when there is so much more we need to be focused on.”He continued: “Ultimately, I have decided to not run in this upcoming election so the party can focus on what really matters.”Hogg’s brief tenure has been marked by dramatic infighting with members of the committee’s leadership team. After he announced his plans to spend $20m in Democratic primaries through his outside political organization, Leaders We Deserve.In April, DNC chair Ken Martin endorsed a proposal that would have forced Hogg to choose between his vice-chair position and his push to bring generational change to the party. Last weekend, audio from an internal Zoom meeting of party officers was leaked to Politico.In the recording, Martin accuses Hogg of having “destroyed” his ability to effectively lead Democrats out the political wilderness. Multiple officers publicly blamed Hogg for the disclosure, prompting Hogg to post screenshots of text he had ignored from the Politico reporter seeking comment.In a statement, Martin called Hogg a “powerful voice for this party” and said he commended his activism.“I respect his decision to step back from his post as Vice Chair,” Martin said. “I have no doubt that he will remain an important advocate for Democrats across the map. I appreciate his service as an officer, his hard work, and his dedication to the party.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHogg’s withdrawal means that Pennsylvania state lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta is the only candidate eligible for the male vice-chair role. A second vote will be held later this week for the second vice-chair position, which can be a candidate of any gender.Kenyatta, who has been sharply critical of Hogg and the attention focused on him, said in a statement that he was “grateful” to his supporters and eager to move forward.“Democrats must be bold and meet this moment,” he said. “This is the urgent work in front of us: to stand up to authoritarianism, to protect care and dignity, and to make life better for the people who count on us.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: government ‘dragnet’ widens as undocumented farm workers targeted in fresh raids

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      With limited access to immigrants in detention, US attorneys are scrambling to understand the scope of California’s immigration raids, and the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security has violated immigrants’ rights.Immigration lawyers have said some detainees – including families with small children – were held in a stuffy office basement for days without sufficient food and water.Elsewhere, US immigration officials carried out further “enforcement activity” in California’s agricultural heartland, with one advocacy group saying agents pursued workers through blueberry fields.The raids have sparked ongoing protests in Los Angeles and led to demonstrations in other cities across the country.Here are the key stories:US immigration officials raid California farms as Trump ramps up conflictAn estimated 255,700 farm workers are undocumented and the raids have been sharply criticized by advocacy groups and local officials, who said they were “outraged and heartbroken by Ice activities targeting immigrant families”.The increasing raids come as Ice ramps up its efforts to meet a reported quota of 3,000 detentions a day set by Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff.Read the full storyFamilies arrested in LA Ice raids held in basements with little food or water, lawyers sayThe children, the youngest of whom is three years old, were provided a bag of chips, a box of animal crackers and a mini carton of milk as their sole rations for a day. Agents told the family they did not have any water to provide during the family’s first day in detention; on the second day, all five were given a single bottle to share.The one fan in the room was pointed directly towards a guard, rather than towards the families in confinement, they told lawyers.Read the full storyWorld’s biggest TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves US after Ice agents detain him over visaThe world’s most followed TikToker, Khaby Lame, has left the US after being briefly detained by immigration agents for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Italian-Senegalese influencer is now one of the most high-profile people to be swept up in Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.The social media star, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained last Friday at an airport in Las Vegas. He was released the same day and has since left the US, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) told the Guardian in a statement.Read the full storyTrump says China will face 55% tariffs as he endorses trade dealDonald Trump has endorsed the US-China trade deal struck in London that will ramp up supplies of rare earth minerals and magnets needed for the automotive industry, saying it will take total tariffs on Beijing to 55%.Acknowledging that his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, still needed to give his final approval on the terms agreed late on Tuesday night at Lancaster House, the US president disclosed the pact would also facilitate Chinese students’ access to US colleges.Read the full storyJudge rules Trump administration can no longer detain Mahmoud Khalil A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can no longer detain Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on the basis of federal claims that he is a threat to US foreign policy.In his order on Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarz said that the ruling will come into effect at 9.30am on Friday, adding: “This is to allow the respondents to seek appellate review should they wish to.”Read the full storyMajor US climate website likely to be shut down after almost all staff firedA major US government website supporting public education on climate science looks likely to be shuttered after almost all of its staff were fired, the Guardian has learned.Climate.gov, the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)’s Climate Program Office, will no longer publish new content, according to multiple former staff responsible for the site’s content whose contracts were recently terminated.Read the full storyPentagon launches review of US-UK-Australia security allianceThe Pentagon has launched a review of the Aukus submarine agreement to make sure it is aligned with Trump’s “America first” agenda, throwing the $240bn defense pact with Britain and Australia into doubt.The review may trigger more allied anxiety over the future of the trilateral alliance designed to counter China’s military rise.Read the full story EPA announces major rollbacks to power plant pollution limitsUS power plants will be allowed to pollute nearby communities and the wider world with more unhealthy air toxins and an unlimited amount of planet-heating gases under new regulatory rollbacks proposed by Donald Trump’s administration, experts warned.Read the full storyTrump plans to ‘phase out’ Fema after hurricane seasonPresident Donald Trump said on Tuesday he planned to start “phasing out” the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the hurricane season and that states would receive less federal aid to respond to natural disasters.Read the full storyMusk says he regrets some of his posts about TrumpElon Musk has expressed contrition for some of his tweets about Donald Trump last week, in an apparent effort to retreat from an explosive falling out that has threatened to damage the Tesla boss’s business interests.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Barely one-third of people polled across 24 countries say they have confidence in Donald Trump as a world leader, with most describing the US president as “arrogant” and “dangerous”, and relatively few as “honest”.

      Donald Trump’s administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters.

      US prices continued to rise in May as companies and consumers grappled with Donald Trump’s tariffs. Annualized inflation ticked higher to 2.4% in May, up from 2.3% in April.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 10 June. More

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      Trump trade deal shows how vital China’s rare-earth metals are to US defense firms

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      The draft trade agreement with China announced by Donald Trump on Wednesday would ease concerns from top US military suppliers about rare-earth metals and magnets that, if cut off permanently, could hobble production of everything from smart bombs to fighter jets to submarines and other weapons in the US arsenal.While the deal has not yet been finalised, it may reassure major defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, the largest US user of samarium – a rare-earth metal used in military-grade magnets – whose supply is entirely controlled by China.The issue of China’s export restrictions on the metals and magnets was so important that Trump specifically mentioned them as part of his announcement of a broader trade agreement with China that would reduce US tariffs to 55% and Chinese tariffs to 10%.“Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me,” Trump wrote. “Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China.”Rare earths are crucial to the production of F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class nuclear-powered submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and smart bombs, according to Gracelin Baskaran of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank.China in April imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements during the tough negotiations over Trump’s new tariffs. China also targeted the aerospace and defense industries by limiting 15 US entities with ties to the industry from receiving dual-use goods.“The United States is already on the back foot when it comes to manufacturing these defense technologies,” Baskaran said in an interview published by CSIS. “China is rapidly expanding its munitions production and acquiring advanced weapons systems and equipment at a pace five to six times faster than the United States. While China is preparing with a wartime mindset, the United States continues to operate under peacetime conditions.”Trump has amassed a team of foreign policy China hawks, including a number who have warned that the US should focus more on the pacing threat posed by China over the coming decades instead of current conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East.“Even before the latest restrictions, the US defense industrial base struggled with limited capacity and lacked the ability to scale up production to meet defense technology demands,” she continued. “Further bans on critical minerals inputs will only widen the gap, enabling China to strengthen its military capabilities more quickly than the United States.”China and the US had agreed last month in Geneva to pause the implementation of sky-high tariffs that would have delivered a severe economic blow to manufacturers and consumers in the US, as well as exporters in China.But China maintained export licenses on rare-earth metals used by both defense producers and carmakers that threatened to upend global supply chains and imperil production in the US.In particular, China has a stranglehold on the production and export of samarium, a magnet used in combination with cobalt to provide highly durable magnets used to withstand the intense temperatures in military-grade tech. China produces the entire world’s supply of the rare-earth metal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn particular, the magnets are important for the production of guided missiles, satellite-guided “smart bombs”, and aircrafts, including fighter jets, according to Apex Magnets, a supplier.Those supplies of weapons have been depleted through deliveries of missiles and other ordnance to Ukraine and to the Israeli military. Pentagon planners and other officials in the administration of Joe Biden, regularly squared off over whether foreign weapons deliveries expose a US vulnerability in case it faced off with a major military power.In order to break the deadlock, secretary of state Marco Rubio also abruptly announced plans to cancel hundreds of thousands of visas for Chinese students in the US. While publicly that was said as a plan to root out Chinese spies in US higher education, Axios reported that the visa ban was also motivated by China’s obstinance on resuming rare earths exports.The breakthrough comes as Trump is planning to display US military prowess at a parade in Washington DC this weekend that has been seen as an attempt to flex American muscle and reinforce the US president’s bonafides as a supporter of the military.Trump in 2019 ordered the Pentagon to find new sources of procuring rare earth minerals, in particular samarium, because the US did not have the capacity to produce them domestically. The initiative was “essential to the national defense”, he said then. More

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      Trump administration urges other countries to skip UN conference on Israel-Gaza war

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      Donald Trump’s administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters.The diplomatic demarche, sent on Tuesday, says countries that take “anti-Israel actions” following the conference will be viewed as acting in opposition to US foreign policy interests and could face diplomatic consequences from Washington.The demarche runs squarely against the diplomacy of two close allies, France and Saudi Arabia, who are co-hosting the gathering next week in New York that aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.“We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages,” read the cable.Emmanuel Macron has suggested France could recognise a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territories at the conference. French officials say they have been working to avoid a clash with the US, Israel’s staunchest major ally.“The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies,” the cable read.The United States for decades backed a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel.Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy. The Republican president has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.But on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a long-time vocal supporter of Israel, said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal.“Unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state would effectively render Oct 7 Palestinian Independence Day,” the cable read, referring to when Palestinian Hamas militants carried out a cross-border attack from Gaza on Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.Hamas’ attack triggered Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza in which almost 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of the population of 2.3 million displaced and the enclave widely reduced to rubble.If Macron went ahead, France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognise a Palestinian state.This could lend greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations generally more critical of Israel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMacron’s stance has shifted amid Israel’s intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and there is a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever.The US cable said Washington had worked tirelessly with Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, free the hostages and end the conflict.“This conference undermines these delicate negotiations and emboldens Hamas at a time when the terrorist group has rejected proposals by the negotiators that Israel has accepted.”This week the UK, Australia and Canada were joined by other countries in placing sanctions on two Israeli far-right government ministers to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to bring the Gaza war to an end.“The United States opposes the implied support of the conference for potential actions including boycotts and sanctions on Israel as well as other punitive measures,” the cable read.Israel has repeatedly criticised the conference, saying it rewards Hamas for the attack on Israel, and it has lobbied France against recognising a Palestinian state.“Nothing surprises me anymore, but I don’t see how many countries could step back on their participation,” said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity due to the subject’s sensitivity. “This is bullying, and of a stupid type.“ More

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      in US Politics

      Trump’s EPA announces major rollbacks to power plant pollution limits

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      US power plants will be allowed to pollute nearby communities and the wider world with more unhealthy air toxins and an unlimited amount of planet-heating gases under new regulatory rollbacks proposed by Donald Trump’s administration, experts warned.The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a plan on Wednesday that would repeal a landmark climate rule that aims to mostly eliminate greenhouse gases from power plants by the 2030s and would, separately, weaken another regulation that restricts power plants’ release of hazardous air pollutants such as mercury.“We choose to both protect the environment and grow the economy,” said Lee Zeldin, administrator of the EPA, at an event to announce the plans. He said the rollbacks will save households money while also defying what he called “the climate change cult”.The climate rule has “saddled our critical power sector with expensive, unreasonable and burdensome regulations”, Zeldin said. “American energy suffered and Americans who rely on reliable, affordable energy suffered. The good news is those days are over.”The EPA’s proposals will go out for public comment and are likely to face legal challenges.They target a rule crafted last year by the Biden administration to phase out emissions from electricity-producing fossil fuel plants, which are responsible for around a quarter of US greenhouse gases, and a regulation called the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which Biden toughened in 2023 to slash harmful pollution suffered by communities.These rollbacks come despite overwhelming scientific evidence of the dire consequences of the worsening climate crisis and the harm caused by pollutants such as mercury, which can seep into water, soils and the air and has been linked to neurological damage in young children as well as heart, lung and immune system ailments in adults. Coal-fired power plants cause nearly half of all mercury emissions in the US, according to the EPA.More than 200 health experts wrote to the EPA on Wednesday warning the moves “would lead to the biggest pollution increases in decades and is a blatant give-away to polluters”. The experts added the reversals are “a direct contradiction to the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission of protecting public health and the environment”.Trump, however, has vowed to boost fossil fuel production at all costs, having reaped record donations from the oil and gas industry during his election campaign. At Wednesday’s EPA event, Zeldin was joined by eight lawmakers, all Republicans – Kevin Cramer, Troy Balderson, Brett Guthrie, Carol Miller, Dan Meuser, Rob Bresnahan, Michael Rulli and Riley Moore – who have collectively received more than $3m from fossil fuel donors in their own election campaigns, a Guardian analysis of the OpenSecrets database shows.Bresnahan, a Pennsylvania representative, holds personal financial interests in more than 20 fossil fuel companies.In justifying the deletion of the Biden climate plan, which the EPA previously estimated would deliver $370bn in net benefits, Zeldin has claimed that US power plants only produce a small and declining fraction of the world’s emissions. This is despite the fact that if these power plants were a country, it would be the sixth-largest emitter on the planet.Gina McCarthy, who was EPA administrator under Barack Obama, said that Zeldin’s “dismantling of our nation’s protections from power plant pollution is absolutely illogical and indefensible. It’s a purely political play that goes against decades of science and policy review.”“By giving a green light to more pollution, his legacy will forever be someone who does the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our health,” she added. “Everyone will be affected by his actions, but the most vulnerable among us, our kids and grandkids, will suffer the most.”The EPA has embarked upon a wide-ranging blitz upon environmental regulations since Trump became president, setting about removing or loosening clean air and water rules that, collectively, were on track to save 200,000 American lives in the decades ahead.Trump, who has adopted the mantra of “drill, baby, drill”, has claimed unhindered fossil fuel production will bring down energy costs, although he has sought to hobble clean energy such as solar and wind, which are typically the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.The rollbacks follow the second-hottest May on record globally, and a record-hot 2024 that unleashed a stunning number of climate-driven disasters and six weeks of extra-dangerously hot days. Experts have warned that sea level rise is on track to cause “catastrophic inland migration”, including to millions of Americans, with climate shocks set to wipe 50% from global GDP by the end of this century.“It’s completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry,” said Patrick Drupp, climate policy director at the Sierra Club.“This administration is transparently trading American lives for campaign dollars and the support of fossil fuel companies, and Americans ought to be disgusted and outraged that their government has launched an assault on our health and our future.” More