Claims that agreement is unconstitutional could pose problems in talks with Washington over Greenland
Denmark could face legal action over an agreement that gives the US sweeping powers on Danish soil, over claims it is “unconstitutional” and could pose problems in talks with Washington over Greenland.
The agreement, which was signed under the Biden administration in 2023 and was passed by the Danish parliament last year, gives the US “unhindered access” to its airbases and powers over its civilians.
His shameful stewardship of a once great title highlights how much we lose when private interest eclipses the public good
Not long after being made Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999, Jeff Bezos told me: “They were not choosing me as much as they were choosing the internet, and me as a symbol.” A quarter of an increasingly dark century later, the Amazon founder is now a symbol of something else: how the ultra-rich can kill the news.
Job cuts in an industry that has struggled financially since the internet came into existence and killed its business model is hardly new, but last week’s brutal cull of hundreds of journalists at the Bezos-owned Washington Post marks a new low. The redundancies that were announced to staff on a video call, the axing of half its foreign bureau (including the war reporter in Ukraine) – not since P&O Ferries have layoffs been handled so badly. Former Post stalwart Paul Farhidescribed a decision that affected nearly half of the 790-strong workforce as “the biggest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation”.
Democratic representative also condemns US capture of Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and US support for Israel’s war on Gaza – key US politics stories from Friday, 13 February at a glance
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Donald Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance with Europe and of seeking to introduce an “age of authoritarianism”, as she condemned his administration’s foreign policy in front of its allies’ top policymakers at the Munich security conference.
Speaking at a panel on populism on Friday, the New York representative outlined what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftwing US foreign policy, challenging the Trump administration’s shift to the right in front an audience of US allies who have grown increasingly wary of the US’s increasingly nationalist – and militaristic – global posture.
German chancellor rebuts idea of American unilateralism and says ‘democracies have partners and allies’
The US acting alone has reached the limits of its power and may already have lost its role as global leader, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, warned Donald Trump at the opening of the Munich Security Conference.
Merz also disclosed he had held initial talks with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, over the possibility of joining France’s nuclear umbrella, underlining his call for Europe to develop a stronger self-standing security strategy.
USS Gerald R Ford will take about three weeks to sail to region, amid push for Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions
Donald Trump has ordered the world’s largest aircraft carrier to sail from the Caribbean Sea to the Middle East in an effort to increase pressure on Iran amid discussions over curbing its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
The USS Gerald R Ford and its supporting warships should take about three weeks to return to the region, where they will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, dramatically increasing the military firepower available to the US leader.
Whether you blame the US or the communist regime, there is no doubt that this is an island spiralling into tragedy
Felix Valdés García was nine years old when the revolutionaries came to blow up his trees. It was the verge of the 1970s and his father, Felin, was losing the family farm to Cuba’s 10-year-old communist regime. A push called the Revolutionary Offensive was under way, mobilising the people to sow, clean and harvest 10m tonnes of sugar cane in an effort to make Cuba financially independent. The land needed to be cleared.
For decades the family had nurtured their 800 hectares of rich loam alongside the meandering Sagua River. Eight couples, all related, worked the fields, while Felix and his sister had fruitful adventures among the royal palms, avocado, mango and magnificent ceiba.
Centers would have capacity for tens of thousands of people to be held; talks over funding bill stall hours before shutdown
The annual rate of US inflation eased in January, according to the latest data consumer price index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Over the last 12 months, the cost of goods has increased by 2.4% – down from 2.7% in last month’s report.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate left Washington on Thursday as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) heads for another shutdown, when stopgap funding lapses tonight. Nearly all Democrats blocked a second attempt to pass the annual DHS appropriations bill as negotiations for guardrails on federal immigration enforcement have stalled. Senator John Fetterman was the only lawmaker to break ranks with the party.
European leaders divided over how far to accommodate Trump’s ‘wrecking ball’ politics and foreign policy
US Democrats will use a security summit this weekend to urge European leaders to stand up to Donald Trump, with the continent divided over how to keep the unpredictable US president on side.
Democrats at the annual Munich Security Conference will include some of Trump’s most outspoken critics, such as the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Arizona senator Ruben Gallego and the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson has accused Apple of violating US law by suppressing conservative-leaning news outlets on Apple News.
Ferguson pointed to research by a pro-Trump group that accused Apple News of suppressing articles by Fox News, the New York Post, Daily Mail, Breitbart, and The Gateway Pundit. The FTC chair claims that Apple News might be violating promises made to consumers in its terms of service, but his letter doesn't cite any specific provisions from the Apple terms that might have been violated.
"Recently, there have been reports that Apple News has systematically promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications," Ferguson wrote in the letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday. He said the "reports raise serious questions about whether Apple News is acting in accordance with its terms of service and its representations to consumers, as well as the reasonable consumer expectations of the tens of millions of Americans who use Apple News."
A campaign of ethnic cleansing and ‘tectonic’ new legal measures are killing the two-state solution to which other governments pay lip service
Protecting archaeological sites. Preventing water theft. The streamlining of land purchases. If anyone doubted the real purpose of the motley collection of new administrative and enforcement measures for the illegally occupied West Bank, Israel’s defence minister spelt it out: “We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state,” Israel Katz said in a joint statement with the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.
While the world’s attention was fixed upon the annihilation in Gaza, settlers in the West Bank intensified their campaign of ethnic cleansing. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed there since October 2023; a fifth of them were children. Many more have been driven from their homes by relentless harassment and the destruction of infrastructure, with entire Palestinian communities erased across vast swathes of land.
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.
Protesters are enjoying greater freedom of expression since Nicolás Maduro’s downfall despite lack of regime change
Protesters have taken to the streets of cities across Venezuela in the latest sign of an embryonic political shift after Nicolás Maduro’s recent downfall.
Student demonstrators gathered on the campus of the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas on Thursday to demand the release of all of the country’s political prisoners, the return of exiled activists and a full transition to democracy. “Who are we? Venezuela! What do we want? Freedom!” they shouted.
The Environmental Protection Agency rejected the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them.
E.P.A. administrator Lee Zeldin has claimed that previous administrations used the endangerment finding to justify “trillions of dollars” in regulations on polluting industries and its reversal will help the economy.
The company, long focused on cars and trucks, plans to begin manufacturing large batteries used by utilities, data centers, other businesses and homeowners.
Ford Motor shut down a battery factory and laid off 1,600 workers after President Trump and Republicans gutted government support for electric vehicles.
On Wednesday, a fossil-fuel lobbying group called the Washington Coal Club awarded President Trump a trophy that named him the "Undisputed Champion of Clean, Beautiful Coal." Trump took advantage of the opportunity to take his latest shot at reviving the fortunes of the US's most polluting source of electricity: an executive order that would make the military buy it.
Coal is the second most expensive source of power for the US grid, eclipsed by gas, wind, solar, hydro—everything other than nuclear power. It also produces the most pollution, including particulates that damage human lungs, chemicals that contribute to acid rain, and coal ash that contains many toxic metals. It also emits the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced. Prior to Trump's return to office, the US grid had been rapidly moving away from its use, including during his first term.
Despite the long-standing Republican claims to support free markets, the second Trump administration has determined that the only way to keep coal viable is direct government intervention. Its initial attempts involved declaring an energy emergency and then using that to justify forcing coal plants slated for closure to continue operations. The emergency declaration relied on what appears to be a tenuous interpretation of the Federal Power Act, and the administration was already facing a lawsuit challenging these actions.
Mr. Trump is trying to revive coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. At the White House, coal executives awarded him a trophy as the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”
Following three of the warmest years on record, as scientists reckon with climate tipping points and states and cities grapple with the escalating cost of extreme weather and more intense wildfires, the Trump administration this week is expected to formally eliminate the US government’s role in controlling greenhouse gas pollution.
By revoking its 17-year-old scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, the Environmental Protection Agency will demolish the legal underpinning of its authority to act on climate change under the Clean Air Act.
Over the last 10 years, the terms of political debate have changed completely – and week by week they seem to get worse
The notion of virtue-signalling – the act of performing progressive stances that don’t cost you anything in order to burnish your own moral credentials – has been around since at least the 00s. Ina political sense, it meant always being the one who reminded others to say “chairperson” not “chairman”; always manning the barricades for signs of bigotry, always being on the right demo. If its values were sound – all we’re talking about, really, is trying to systematise courtesy to others – it was often easy to lampoon, because it felt performative and had a hair-trigger.
But what has risen in its wake – vice-signalling – cannot be seen as its mirror or answer, any more than dehumanisation could be seen as the equal and opposite of decency. They’re not in the same rhetorical category. The term doesn’t bring itself to life; for that you need the US president. Cast your mind back to 2015; although Donald Trump had said he might run for election to the highest office in every cycle this century, his speech in Trump Tower was his first campaign launch, and it was where he announced that he would build a wall between the US and Mexico. In seemingly unplanned remarks – the grammar was off, the structure meandered, the vocabulary was vague and repetitive – he said “[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”
The vaccine maker’s shots involve the successful Covid vaccines’ RNA technology. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has broadly rejected it, canceling millions of dollars in research projects.
It remains to be seen whether the three big nuclear powers are headed into a new arms race, or whether President Trump is trying to spur negotiations on a new accord now that a last Cold War treaty has expired.
People may be able to pay less for prescriptions with their insurance rather than via the new government website. The Trump drugstore is meant to help people buy medications using their own money.
President Trump; Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid; and Joe Gebbia, who oversees the design of government websites, unveiled TrumpRx at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Thursday.
TrumpRx is aimed at helping patients use their own money to buy medicines. But researchers who study drug pricing warned that many patients could pay too much if they use the site.
The TrumpRx website is meant to be an entry point for consumers to search for their medicines and then direct them to manufacturers’ websites to buy the drugs directly.
In ‘Streets of Minneapolis,’ a searing protest anthem, rocker Bruce Springsteen sings about “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” occupying the city. Read More
Beijing, Moscow and shaken American allies are seeking new warheads as President Trump ends more than a half century of nuclear arms control with Russia.
Federal agencies are delaying approvals for renewable energy projects on both federal land and private property at a time when electricity demand is going up.
High insulin prices generated public outcry for years, though changes in the past few years have reduced patients’ costs to no more than $35 a month in most cases.
The legislation will impose new restrictions on pharmacy benefit managers, giant companies like CVS Caremark, Optum Rx and Express Scripts that oversee prescription drug benefits.
Amid the Trump administration's attack on universities, Harvard has emerged as a particular target. Early on, the administration put $2.2 billion in research money on hold and shortly thereafter blocked all future funding while demanding intrusive control over Harvard's hiring and admissions. Unlike many of its peer institutions, Harvard fought back, filing and ultimately winning a lawsuit that restored the cut funds.
Despite Harvard's victory, the Trump administration continued to push for some sort of formal agreement that would settle the administration's accusations that Harvard created an environment that allowed antisemitism to flourish. In fact, it had become a running joke among some journalists that The New York Times had devoted a monthly column to reporting that a settlement between the two parties was near.
Given the government's loss of leverage, it was no surprise that the latest installment of said column included the detail that the latest negotiations had dropped demands that Harvard pay any money as part of a final agreement. The Trump administration had extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from some other universities and had demanded over a billion dollars from UCLA, so this appeared to be a major concession to Harvard.
Parasites and infections that cause blindness and other disabilities were nearly eliminated in some countries, but drug distribution to prevent and treat them was derailed in many places in 2025 after the U.S. cut aid.
Jenna Norton last spring organized The Bethesda Declaration, a public letter that denounced what its authors viewed as the administration’s dismantling of the federal biomedical research apparatus.
The court ruled that construction can restart on a wind farm off the coast of New York State. The Trump administration had ordered work to stop in December.
Agents use facial recognition, social media monitoring and other tech tools not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track protesters, current and former officials said.
However, experts say that TikTok users' censorship fears are justified, whether the bugs are to blame or not.
Ioana Literat, an associate professor of technology, media, and learning at Teachers College, Columbia University, has studied TikTok's politics since the app first shot to popularity in the US in 2018. She told Ars that "users' fears are absolutely justified" and explained why the "bugs" explanation is "insufficient."
The agency says that victims of an investment offering involving Gemini Trust got their money back, though after a regulatory action brought by the New York attorney general.
U.S. trade policy has devastated the Canadian auto industry and pushed the country to reach an agreement that will make it easier for Chinese companies to sell cars there.
Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who leads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said a person’s right to refuse a vaccine outweighed concerns about illness or death from infectious diseases.
Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who leads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, speaking at a meeting of the committee in Chamblee, Ga., in September.
At two congressional hearings, lawmakers slammed executives of major companies, saying they were failing to rein in the cost of medical care for consumers.
Stephen Hemsley, chief executive of UnitedHealth Group, left, defended insurers’ practices, along with other companies’ executives, during congressional hearings on Thursday.
Many of the cancellations had been known for months, but the announcement underscored the drastic change in the energy landscape under President Trump.
The Energy Department canceled a partial loan guarantee to Sunnova Energy, a residential solar panel installer that was experimenting with a novel way to link home solar and battery systems.
The prohibition halts support for projects both inside and outside the N.I.H. President Biden had restored funding after an earlier ban by President Trump during his first term.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, said that the agency will look to make additional investments in “validated emerging technologies” that could “reduce or potentially replace reliance on human embryonic stem cells.”
Los Angeles smog in 1979. For decades, government agencies have used a theoretical value of human life when calculating the costs and benefits of new regulations.
Login
