Inspired by the landscapes of the French masters, Elger Esser captures the brooding seascapes and bucolic country scenes of his beloved countryside – with timeless results

Trump announces ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on largest US trading partners; Elon Musk may leave government role at end of 130-day cap. Here’s your roundup of key US politics stories from 2 April 2025

Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners on Wednesday, upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has dubbed “liberation day”.

Trump said he will impose a 10% universal tariff on all imported foreign goods in addition to “reciprocal tariffs” on a few dozen countries, charging additional duties onto countries that Trump claims have “cheated” America.

If you’ve just bought a pair of these rubber sandals, you may want to think twice before wearing them down to the beach

Name: Flip-flops.

Age: They date from 1500BC, although the modern version is adapted from Japanese thonged sandals called zori, brought back by US soldiers returning from the second world war.

Experts are desperate to analyse rusty patched bumblebee nests for information that might help save them. But they are extremely hard to find – unless you’re a trained conservation canine

• Words and photographs by Anne Readel in Somers, Wisconsin

On a summer day in Somers, Wisconsin, Dave Giordano heard an unexpected buzzing in his back yard. What he found shocked him – a rusty patched bumblebee nest. The discovery was so rare it made the local news.

Once widespread across the midwest and eastern US, the rusty patched bumblebee has seen its population plunge by nearly 90%, prompting its listing in 2017 as the first federally endangered bumblebee in the US.

Main image: Two rusty patched bumblebee gynes in the nest discovered by Dave Giordano in August 2023. Below: Jay Watson, a conservation biologist, observes a nest (marked with orange flags) found in a rodent burrow

The star of Top Gun, The Doors and Batman Forever has died aged 65. We look back over his career

• Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and The Doors, dies aged 65
• Remembering Val Kilmer: an ethereally handsome actor who evolved into droll self-awareness

Photographer Sarah Mei Herman was 20 when her half-brother Jonathan was born – she spent the next two decades capturing intimate moments between him and their father

Elections in Wisconsin and Florida seen as reflection of Trump’s standing with voters. Here’s your roundup of key US politics stories from 1 April 2025.

Republican Randy Fine won a special election for a House seat in Florida vacated by Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, which will help Republicans preserve their razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.

However, Democrats are likely to have performed better in the Republican district than they did in November, after their candidate Josh Weil put up a stiff challenge in the eastern coastal district that Trump carried by 30 percentage points in the November elections.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

She dressed up as a bullfighter, sat in a window with two magpies and flew colossal flags of warning. We go inside a fascinating new exhibition of photographs by multimedia artist Rose Finn-Kelcey