State department also looks into merging some bureaus in Washington amid Trump effort to slash US government

The US state department is preparing to shut down a number of consulates that are mainly in western Europe in the coming months and looking to reduce its workforce globally, multiple US officials said on Thursday.

The state department is also looking into potentially merging a number of its expert bureaus at its headquarters in Washington that are working in areas such as human rights, refugees, global criminal justice, women’s issues and efforts to counter human trafficking, the officials said.

Justice department to determine whether UC violated Civil Rights Act of 1964 amid pro-Palestinian campus protests

The US Department of Justice is investigating the University of California system for possible antisemitic discrimination after demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza took place on campuses last year.

“This Department of Justice will always defend Jewish Americans, protect civil rights, and leverage our resources to eradicate institutional Antisemitism in our nation’s universities,” read a statement by Pamela Bondi, the attorney general, released Wednesday.

President’s decree claims white South Africans being unjustly discriminated against and orders end to foreign aid

The state department has ordered an immediate pause on most US foreign assistance to South Africa, according to a cable seen by the Guardian, officially implementing a contentious executive order by Donald Trump.

The directive, issued on Thursday, implements Executive Order 14204 targeting what the administration called “egregious actions” by South Africa. It orders all state department entities to immediately suspend aid disbursements, with minimal exceptions.

US president paused tariffs on Mexican products covered by USMCA and later stayed tariffs on many Canadian imports

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Donald Trump pulled back from his trade war with Canada and Mexico on Thursday, temporarily delaying tariffs on many goods from the two countries once again.

Two days after imposing sweeping tariffs on all imports from his country’s closest trading partners, the US president announced that duties on a wide range of products would be shelved until April.

Head-spinning speed of events leaves EU adapting at pace while trying to infer Trump’s possible geo-strategic aims

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With a mixture of regret, laced with incredulity, European leaders gathered in Brussels to marshal their forces for a power struggle not with Russia, but with the US.

Even now, of course at the 11th hour, most of Europe hopes this coming battle of wills can be averted and the Trump administration can still be persuaded that forcing Ukraine to the negotiating table, disarmed and blinded, will not be the US’s long-term strategic interest.

Billionaire Trump ally and Greg Abbot tweet about Frank Zamora, who was let go after refusing to remove pronouns

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and, later, Elon Musk showed support on Wednesday for the firing of a state employee who refused to remove his pronouns from his work email signature.

Frank Zamora, 31, was let go from his job as a program manager at the Texas real estate commission (TREC) last month because he refused to comply with a mandate from the organisation to employees to remove gender pronouns from email signatures.

Donald Trump has deliberately picked a fight with its northern neighbour. This malign strategy must be stopped

It is two months since Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as Liberal party leader and Canada’s prime minister. After a decade in power, Mr Trudeau had become increasingly unpopular. Two out of three Canadians thought he was doing a bad job. The opposition Conservatives led in almost every poll. With the Liberals staring a 2025 general election defeat in the face, Mr Trudeau’s ministers forced him out. His successor will be chosen this Sunday.

But then came Donald Trump. Mr Trump wants to strengthen the US at the expense of its neighbours. His hostility to Canada is thus visceral and deep. Without any justification, he promised illegal 25% tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican imports. As a fig leaf for his intentions, he falsely claimed that Canada’s 5,000-mile border with the US was an open door for migrants and drugs. He talked, repeatedly and deliberately, of annexing Canada and making it the 51st state. He mocked Mr Trudeau, referring to him as merely a state governor.

Caroline Cotto’s research group taste-tests meat alternatives so plant-based companies can attract new customers – and help the climate

I am sitting in a Manhattan restaurant on a frigid Thursday in January, eating six mini servings of steak and mashed potatoes, one after another. The first steak I am served has a nice texture but is sort of unnaturally reddish. The second has a great crispy sear on the outside, but leaves behind a lingering chemical aftertaste. The next is fine on its own, but I imagine would be quite delicious shredded, drenched in barbecue sauce and served on a bun with vinegary pickles and a side of slaw.

If you peeked into this restaurant, you’d see nothing out of the ordinary – just a diverse range of New Yorkers huddled over plates of food. But everyone present is here for more than just a hot meal. We’re participating in a blind taste test of plant- (or sometimes mushroom-) based steaks, organized by a group of people who hope that better-tasting meat alternatives just might be a key to fighting the climate crisis.

Police found boy, now 14, after responding to a burglary call and arresting his mother, who didn’t have custody of him

A boy who was allegedly taken by his mother, who didn’t have custody of him, seven years ago from Atlanta was found last month in Colorado after the mother was arrested in an unrelated incident in suburban Denver, authorities said on Wednesday.

Rabia Khalid, 40, was arrested on 23 February after sheriff’s deputies were asked to investigate a suspected burglary taking place at a vacant home that was for sale, the Douglas county sheriff’s office said. The deputies found two children in a vehicle outside the property and a man and a woman coming out of the home who initially told them they were working for a realtor, it said in a press release.

Fires broke out in southern Appalachia this week as a storm from California took casualties in Mississippi and Nebraska

Extreme weather conditions continue to threaten parts of the southern plains and midwest on Thursday, after six people were killed earlier this week in a powerful storm that wreaked havoc across multiple states.

As damage assessments continued in the south, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) warned of critical fire conditions for parts of south-east New Mexico and western Texas on Thursday.

Reuters interviews with 11 federal judges in multiple districts reveal mounting concern over their security

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US Marshals have warned federal judges of unusually high threat levels as the tech billionaire Elon Musk and other Trump administration allies ramp up efforts to discredit judges who stand in the way of White House efforts to slash federal jobs and programs, said several judges with knowledge of the warnings.

In recent weeks, Musk, congressional Republicans and other top allies of Donald Trump have called for the impeachment of some federal judges or attacked their integrity in response to court rulings that have slowed his administration’s moves to dismantle entire government agencies and fire tens of thousands of workers.

Fossil fuel groups poured a record $96m into Trump ahead of the 2024 election, demanding more scrutiny, not less, says Sheldon Whitehouse

The Republican party’s capturing of the Senate and House of Representatives has ended a congressional investigation into big oil just when it is needed most, according to the leader of the inquiry.

“The fossil fuel industry is running perhaps the biggest campaign of disinformation and political interference in American history and they’re backing it up with immense amounts of political spending,” said the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “The consequences in the White House are enormous and having a huge effect … but people aren’t aware.”

Actor also known as Pamela Hasselhoff died on Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation, authorities say

Pamela Bach, an actor and the ex-wife of the Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, has died.

The Los Angeles medical examiner’s office reports that she died on Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation. Also known as Pamela Hasselhoff, Bach appeared on The Young and the Restless and met her future husband on the set of his series Knight Rider.

The term ‘polycrisis’ has gained traction as we face one disaster after another. It’s overwhelming – but diagnosing the catastrophe is the first step to addressing it

Two months into 2025, the sense of dread is palpable. In the US, the year began with a terrorist attack; then came the fires that ravaged a city, destroying lives, homes and livelihoods. An extremist billionaire came to power and began proudly dismantling the government with a chainsaw. Once-in-a-century disasters are happening more like once a month, all amid devastating wars and on the heels of a pandemic.

The word “unprecedented” has become ironically routine. It feels like we’re stuck in a relentless cycle of calamity, with no time to recover from one before the next begins.

Move to expand landfill for US hazardous waste stirs disputes between leaders in Quebec and Montreal suburb

The proposed expansion of a Quebec landfill that accepts hazardous waste from the United States has ignited a turf war between the Quebec provincial government and local leaders, who say they oppose putting US trash into a local peat bog.

Local leaders are protesting against the move – saying the province is capitulating to a US company in the midst of a tariff war between Canada and the United States.

The president’s hardball negotiating tactics are nowhere to be seen as he sends billions in new weapons to Netanyahu

In his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, Donald Trump barely mentioned Gaza or the wider Middle East, making only a passing reference to bringing back US hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza. He didn’t even expound on his plan for the US to take over the devastated territory and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East”, while expelling 2 million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries.

But Trump is already going down the same failed path as his predecessor, Joe Biden, who sent Israel a virtually unlimited supply of weapons – and failed to use US political cover at the United Nations and billions of dollars in arms as leverage to stop Israel’s war on Gaza. On 1 March, the Trump administration announced it had approved $4bn in new weapons to Israel under emergency authorities, meaning the deal would bypass even a perfunctory review in Congress. A day later, Benjamin Netanyahu banned all food and other aid deliveries to Gaza, imposing a new siege that threatens to collapse a fragile ceasefire reached in January.

Republicans are expected to fall short of their goal to slash the budget by $1.5tn despite Donald Trump’s assurances

Republicans cannot reach their budget goal of slashing at least $1.5tn in spending over the next decade to fund Donald Trump’s tax cuts and immigration crackdown without cutting healthcare relied upon by tens of millions of Americans – including seniors and children, according to the non-partisan budget assessor.

House Republicans last week narrowly passed a budget instructing the energy and commerce committee, which is responsible for federal healthcare, to cut spending under its jurisdiction by $880bn – in order to pay for Trump’s tax cuts, mass deportations and defence investments.

Social security is a highly efficient safety net. But the president’s crypto plans and job cuts leave Americans holding the bag

Elon Musk said on Joe Rogan’s show last week that social security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time”.

Rubbish. In a Ponzi scheme, a con artist lures investors into a fake investment project, pockets the cash, and then gets new “investors” to funnel cash to the older ones – until new recruits slow down and the whole thing collapses. Suckers are left holding worthless bags.

Harrowing story of ‘ES’, fleeing persecution to seek safety in US, shines light on judges who grant claims at exceptionally low rates – or not at all

At an immigration court in Pearsall, Texas, in front of a judge, government attorneys and a court interpreter, “ES” shakily recounted the darkest moments of his life.

He explained how he had been arrested seven years earlier in Turkey, amid his government’s crackdown on followers of the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen. The police officers who detained him accused him of being involved in a terrorist movement and demanded he reveal the names of his associates, he said.

Member states must stop squabbling over trivial matters – and a firmer stance against states that promote Putin’s and Trump’s agenda is needed too

• Frans Timmermans is a former vice-president of the European Commission

After US vice-president JD Vance’s speech in Munich last month, most European leaders came to the conclusion that our world has fundamentally changed. The Pax Americana that long ensured peace, security and freedom in Europe is over. Anyone who still doubted this will hopefully now realise, after the disgraceful treatment Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy endured last Friday at the White House, that we can no longer rely on the Americans for our collective security.

We must hope for the best, but hope is not a policy. We – the Netherlands, the EU, and all western countries standing with Ukraine – must prepare for the worst. The question is this: how do we keep Ukraine free and independent, and how do we protect our economy, our freedom and democracy, and our borders?

Remake of 2000 Molson beer ad has the same message as Trump threatens tariffs: Canada will not cower to the US

For the second time in 25 years, a lone figure takes to the stage, an oversized maple leaf flag rippling on a screen behind him as he approaches the microphone.

His hair is perhaps a little greyer but the message remains the same: Canada will not cower to the United States.