Pardons come as president and Republicans seem intent on investigating fraud in Democratic-run states

Donald Trump’s mass pardoning of those convicted in connection to the January 6 insurrection raised eyebrows last year, but more recently his pardons have appeared to have a particular focus: to grant clemency to those convicted of fraud.

Since taking office, Trump has pardoned dozens of people convicted of white-collar crimes, including several billionaires, with most of the 13 pardons he quietly issued this month granting clemency to people convicted of fraud.

Ukrainian president’s remarks come as Russia praises trilateral talks but warns against expectations of ‘significant results’

The European Commission got also asked about the regular US criticism that it is “targeting” US big tech companies and that, in doing so, it undermines free speech.

Digital spokesperson Regnier replied:

“Again, we don’t target any company … based of its origin.

Now on your censorship point: I think if anyone dares to compare freedom of expression with child sexual abuse material or freedom of expression with undressing women digitally without their consent, then they are not fully aligned with Europe or absolutely not aligned with Europe. We don’t even live on the same planet.

“No comments to be made on this US internal matter. But, of course, we deplore any loss of innocent lives.”

“I have said innocent lives, but it’s not for us to judge, innocent or not innocent. Any life lost, we deplore it, in general, and it is, of course, for the justice system in the US to establish the facts.”

President makes announcement on Truth Social and also makes unsubstantiated claims about protests in Minnesota

As more and more Republicans call for an investigation of Alex Pretti’s killing, it’s worth remembering that Donald Trump’s call for heavy-handed immigration enforcement appeared to have already rankled a portion of his base.

A Politico poll that surveyed some 2000 adults between 16 and 19 January found that 49% of Americans believed Trump’s campaign was “too aggressive”.

On the whims of Fifa’s Peace Prize winner, a life usually so focused on sports has found anything but peace

It’s Saturday morning, and news breaks shortly after the Premier League kickoff window; another member of your community has been brutally killed in the streets by ICE. There are already a few videos on social media, depicting multiple angles of the grotesque scene. This killing, like the one before, has felt inevitable – because of the actions of the federal government, and in spite of the diligence and peaceful pushback by you and your neighbors.

For more than a decade, watching soccer has been a staple of your Saturday routine, as it is for millions of others. Given that, it was hard not to think about a prize awarded by the sport’s most powerful organization just eight weeks prior, to the president overseeing and encouraging all of this. You know, the medal meant to reward “exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace.” Plenty of people have been joking about this “honor” online since the day it was announced. You were among them in December. Today, you find it hard to laugh.

The producers who helped define the sound of pop music in the 90s and 00s are in dispute over earnings from their final album as NERD

Chad Hugo is suing Pharrell Williams, his production partner in the Neptunes, over claims that Williams owes Hugo up to $1m from their final album as NERD, 2017’s No One Ever Really Dies.

The Neptunes defined the sound of pop music in the late 90s and early 00s, producing for artists including Kelis, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Clipse and Justin Timberlake. As NERD, they released five albums.

Warnings issued across 26 US states, while Portugal braces for heavy rain as Storm Joseph rolls in

The US is enduring another bout of severe winter weather, as a succession of powerful weather systems brings heavy snow, freezing rain and extreme cold temperatures to much of the country.

Twenty-six states, from Texas to Massachusetts, were under storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service over the weekend, with many alerts remaining in place this week.

From capturing Maduro to proposing a take over of Greenland – people respond to the president’s rhetoric

As Donald Trump continues to call for the US to take control of Greenland, not long after the US captured the deposed president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, we asked people in the US what they thought about Trump’s foreign intervention and rhetoric. Here are some of their responses.

Rising fears that another US shutdown looms pushes gold price to new height amid nearly 90% rise since Trump’s inauguration

• Business live – latest updates

Gold has jumped above $5,000 an ounce for the first time, as Donald Trump’s chaotic policies and proclamations drive more investors to seek safe harbour in the precious metal.

The price of the yellow metal reached a record high of $5,100 on Monday morning, before easing back to settle up 2.2% at $5,089.

This is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the moment, everything else is a distraction

When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we often mean and blame our phones. It’s easy, it’s meant to be easy. One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster, from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government’s attempts to terrorize and silence the people of our country continue.

So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the brink of an authoritarian takeover. In Minneapolis an innocent poet and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terezín concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are being weaponized against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled, regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

PM says recent agreement just cuts tariffs on a few sectors, as Trump threatens 100% tariffs on Canadian imports

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said on Sunday his country had no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China, responding to Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if the US’s northern neighbour went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.

Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cut tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with them.

News of Tracee Mergen’s decision came before agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, another US citizen in Minneapolis

A supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office who unsuccessfully attempted to investigate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in the city on 7 January has resigned, according to multiple reports.

News of agent Tracee Mergen’s resignation surfaced shortly before federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Pretti and Good were both 37-year-old US citizens.

Flood of boasts, broadsides and conspiracy theories leaves envoys sifting for the signal within the Trumpian noise

How does one keep tabs on, and then interpret, a president who in a single year sent out more than 6,000 social media posts, conducted more than 433 open press events and held free-associating press conferences lasting close to two hours? The White House Stenographer’s Office calculates it has transcribed 2.4 million of Trump’s words, four times the length of Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace.

Tracking Trump is not just a problem for exhausted reporters – but also exhausted diplomats, who are tasked with searching for the signal in the ceaseless Trumpian noise.

A massive winter storm on 24 January dumped snow and freezing rain from New Mexico to North Carolina as it swept across the US towards the north-east, threatening tens of millions of Americans with blackouts, transportation chaos and bone-chilling cold. After battering the country’s south-west and central areas, the storm system began to hit the heavily populated mid-Atlantic and north-eastern states as a frigid air mass settled in across the nation

Former president and first lady say killing should be ‘wake-up call’ and federal agents are not operating in lawful way

Pressure mounted on Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday to fully investigate the previous day’s killing by federal immigration officers of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Calls for an investigation have come from all sides of the political divide after video analysis showed officers had removed from Pretti a handgun he was reportedly permitted to carry – and which he was not handling – before fatally shooting him.

• 37-year-old shot dead by federal agents on Saturday

• Angel Reese and Ryan Clark also post about shooting

• Hall of famer Alan Page reportedly at anti-ICE protests

A number of prominent US sports stars have condemned the killing of a registered nurse, Alex Pretti, by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Pretti, 37, is the second person shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in less than three weeks as protests over Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown sweep the city. Senior Trump administration officials have claimed Pretti intended to “massacre” federal officers with a handgun but video of the killing appears to contradict those claims.