Soviet invasions of allies helped destroy the Warsaw Pact – Trump’s dangerous rhetoric risks repeating the mistake inside Nato

Donald Trump’s echoing of Russia’s talking points in its war against Ukraine has long been a cause for alarm and dismay in the west.

Now an even more disturbing Kremlin precedent dating from the cold war is being evoked by the US president’s fixation on taking over Greenland – that of carrying out attacks on military allies.

The president’s inability to tell right from wrong fuels his increasingly dictatorial, illegal and erratic behaviour

Donald Trump made 30,573 “false or misleading” claims during his first term, according to calculations published in 2021 by the Washington Post. That’s roughly 21 fibs a day. Second time around, he’s still hard at it, lying to Americans and the world on a daily basis. Trump’s disregard for truth and honesty in public life – seen again in his despicable response to the fatal shooting in Minneapolis – is dangerously immoral.

Trump declared last week that the only constraint on his power is “my own morality, my own mind”. That explains a lot. His idea of right and wrong is wholly subjective. He is his own ethical and legal adviser, his own priest and confessor. He is a church of one. Trump lies to himself as well as everyone else. And the resulting damage is pernicious. It costs lives, harms democracy and destroys trust between nations.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Rhythm guitarist helped guide the legendary jam band through decades of change and success

Bob Weir, the veteran rock musician who helped guide the legendary band the Grateful Dead through decades of change and success, has died at age 78, according to a statement posted to his verified Instagram account on Friday.

The Instagram statement, posted by his daughter Chloe Weir, said he was surrounded by loved ones when he died. Bob Weir had been diagnosed with cancer in July and “succumbed to underlying lung issues”, the statement said.

In Philadelphia, protesters demanded ICE leave US communities and Trump end warmongering in Venezuela

On a rainy Saturday in Philadelphia, two separate protests, both with a few hundred people, marched from city hall to the federal detention center. They differed slightly in solutions as well as crowd makeup – white older adults dominated the morning’s march organized by the groups behind the No Kings protests, while a more racially diverse crowd swathed in keffiyehs and N95 face masks led the afternoon’s, planned by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter. However, both groups shared a goal: for ICE to get out of American communities and to put an end to Donald Trump’s warmongering in Venezuela.

“From Venezuela to Minneapolis, all we’re seeing is a regime that is scrambling, willing to kill its own citizens, willing to kill foreign citizens, to maintain its power,” said Deborah Rose Hinchey, co-chair of the city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter.

State department says armed ‘colectivos’ appear to be setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for Americans

The United States has urged its citizens to leave Venezuela immediately amid reports that armed paramilitaries are trying to track down US citizens, one week after the capture of the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

In a security alert sent out on Saturday, the state department said there were reports of armed members of pro-regime militias, known as colectivos, setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for evidence that the occupants were US citizens or supporters of the country.

Officials expect charge against Daricka Moore, 24, to be elevated to capital murder, with death penalty considered

Authorities in Clay county, Mississippi, say a man has been taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder following the fatal shootings of six people, including a child, on Friday night.

Daricka Moore, 24, is accused of killing multiple relatives as well as a local pastor before his arrest, according to Clay county sheriff Eddie Scott, who addressed the case during a Saturday news conference. Officials said the charge against Moore, who lives in the county, is expected to be elevated to capital murder, and prosecutors could seek the death penalty if he is determined to be mentally competent.

ICE Out for Good vigils and rallies are being tracked online by Indivisible, the group behind the No Kings protests

More than a thousand protests are planned across the US this Saturday and Sunday after ICE agents shot three people, one fatally, in Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, this week.

“This weekend, people all over are coming together not just to mourn the lives lost to ICE violence, but to confront a pattern of harm that has torn families apart and terrorized our communities,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, an organizer of “ICE Out for Good Weekend of Action”.

St Louis zoo identified the stray simians as vervet monkeys, but it’s not known where they came from

Some residents in St Louis, Missouri, spotted monkeys roaming their streets this week in a situation that feels like the movie Jumanji come to life.

A handful of monkeys were spotted in north St Louis by residents on Friday.

USDA notified state’s governor of decision, citing inquiries into alleged fraud by local non-profits and businesses

The Trump administration announced it is suspending $129m in federal benefit payments to Minnesota amid allegations of widespread fraud in the state.

The secretary of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brooke Rollins, shared a letter on Friday on social media that was addressed to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, notifying them of the administration’s decision and citing investigations into alleged fraud conducted by local non-profits and businesses.

Exclusive: US vice-president ‘sympathetic’ to concerns over Grok-generated pornography, says deputy PM

JD Vance, the US vice-president, has agreed that it is “entirely unacceptable” for platforms such as X to allow the proliferation of AI-generated sexualised images of women and children, David Lammy has told the Guardian.

The deputy prime minister said Vance, usually known as an AI enthusiast, expressed concern about how the technology was being used to fuel “hyper-pornographied slop” online when they met in Washington on Thursday.

Hopes that tougher sanctions and lower oil prices could derail Putin’s war effort underestimate how far the Kremlin has rewired its economy

Pacing inside the Kremlin last weekend, as news feeds churned out minute-by-minute reports of Donald’s Trump’s Venezuelan coup, Vladimir Putin may have been wondering what it would mean for the price of oil.

Crude oil has lubricated the Russian economy for decades – far more than gas exports to Europe – and so the threat of falling oil prices, prompted by US plans for control of Venezuela’s rigs, will have been a source of concern.

Disillusioned with the revolution after 68 years of US sanctions and a shattered economy, one in four Cubans have left in four years. Can the regime, and country, survive the engulfing ‘polycrisis’?

Hatri Echazabal Orta lives in Madrid, Spain. Maykel Fernández is in Charlotte, in the US, while Cristian Cuadra remains in Havana, Cuba – for now. All Cubans, all raised on revolutionary ideals and educated in good state-run schools, they have become disillusioned with the cherished national narrative that Cuba is a country of revolution and resistance. Facing a lack of political openness and poor economic prospects, each of them made the same decision: to leave.

They are not alone. After 68 years of partial sanctions and nearly 64 years of total economic embargo by the US, independent demographic studies suggest that Cuba is going through the world’s fastest population decline and is probably already below 8 million – a 25% drop in just four years, suggesting its population has shrunk by an average of about 820,000 people a year.

The New York mayor’s popular moves on rent and free childcare defied rightwing predictions of a far-left hellscape

Rightwing politicians and media issued grave warnings about Zohran Mamdani.

The election of the democratic socialist would, according to some, cause a spike in crime, and a reduction in freedom, prompting rich people to flee the city and leading to, in the words of one conservative thinktank, “collapse, dependency, and political repression” in the manner of “Venezuela” and “Cuba”.

Space agency said crew of four will leave ISS next week with goal of touching down in California on 15 January

Nasa has announced when it will commence its first medical evacuation from the International Space Station after an astronaut fell ill with a “serious” but undisclosed issue.

The US space agency announced on social media on Friday night that it will aim to have the crew leave the station no earlier than 5pm EST on Wednesday, 14 January, with the goal of them landing near California early on Thursday morning, 15 January, “depending on weather and recovery conditions”.

Funding was paused because health department said benefits were going to people in country illegally

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration cannot block federal money for childcare subsidies and other programs aimed at supporting low-income families with children from flowing to five Democratic-led states for now.

The states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York argued that a policy announced on Tuesday to freeze billions of dollars in funds for three grant programs was having an immediate impact on them and creating “operational chaos”. In court filings and a hearing earlier on Friday, the states contended that the government did not have a legal reason for withholding the money from them.