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Wall Street landlords have met a surprising opponent in Trump. So why is Starmer courting them? | Adam Almeida

To win votes, Trump can afford to face up to corporate power – to deliver his promised 1.5m homes, Starmer can’t

In an incredibly polarised society, there are fewer and fewer things that seem to unite both sides of the aisle in the US political system. Yet it turns out that an objection to Wall Street’s grand heist of single-family homes has done just that.

We might expect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren to rail against the incursion of institutional investors into residential real estate markets, causing rent prices to jump and effectively locking millions of households out of home ownership. However, I admit I was surprised to see JD Vance and Marjorie Taylor Greene striking a similar note. But I was completely dumbfounded to see the real estate tycoon and Wall Street darling Donald Trump sing from the same hymn sheet.

Adam Almeida is a writer and researcher living in London

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© Photograph: trekshots/Alamy

© Photograph: trekshots/Alamy

© Photograph: trekshots/Alamy

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Despite Trump’s Words, China and Russia Are Not Threatening Greenland

U.S. and European officials say they are unaware of any intelligence that shows China and Russia are endangering the island, which is protected by the NATO security umbrella.

© Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Trump has repeatedly cited security as his rationale for wanting to acquire Greenland.
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How a Year of Trump Changed Britain

Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood firm over Greenland. But his center-left government and the country as a whole have been buffeted by President Trump.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, near London, in September during Mr. Trump’s state visit to Britain. During the debate over Greenland, Mr. Trump has had sharp words for Mr. Starmer.
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As Trump Focuses Abroad, G.O.P. Toils to Hone Election Message

A new poll shows that voters who will decide control of Congress see a lack of presidential emphasis on critical domestic issues.

© Eric Lee for The New York Times

President Donald J. Trump leaving the White House on Tuesday night to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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The EU finally used an economic threat against Trump. But the markets forced his climbdown | Rosa Balfour

While the threat of retaliatory measures to stop the annexation of Greenland worked, it remains to be seen if Europe has the unity to follow through

The past couple of weeks have seen the most spectacular crisis escalation in the transatlantic relationship, over the US threat to annex Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. It risked becoming a major conflict among the members of Nato, the most powerful security alliance in world history – until now.

On Wednesday, after a meeting with Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, the US president, Donald Trump, backtracked on his threats to slap tariffs on countries that got in the way of his annexation project. As European leaders huddled together over dinner for a post-crisis debrief in Brussels on 22 January, they congratulated themselves on their unity and appreciated the intervention of Rutte, or “Daddy diplomacy”. If these really were the conclusions of the latest debacle in transatlantic relations, they are missing important parts of the story.

Rosa Balfour is director of Carnegie Europe

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© Photograph: Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images

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What Europe Learned From the Greenland Crisis

Territorial integrity is a core tenet of Europe that is at risk from Russian and American imperialism. Brussels has fought back.

© Juliette Pavy for The New York Times

A protest against President Trump’s attempt to take over Greenland, in Nuuk, last week.
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‘Repatriate the gold’: German economists advise withdrawal from US vaults

Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts

Germany is facing calls to withdraw its billions of euros’ worth of gold from US vaults, spurred on by the shift in transatlantic relations and the unpredictability of Donald Trump.

Germany holds the world’s second biggest national gold reserves after the US, of which approximately €164bn (£122bn) worth – 1,236 tonnes – is stored in New York.

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© Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

© Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

© Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

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In this Trump era, we need satire more than ever. Just don’t expect it to save democracy | Alexander Hurst

In the US, comedy has long filled the space vacated by partisan news media. Now France is following its lead

Sometimes the freedom and openness of comedy means it is better able to respond to world events than news media. Take South Park’s raucous, unhinged and visually disturbing depictions of Donald Trump – most recently, cheating on Satan (who is carrying his spawn) with JD Vance in the White House. Fair enough: Trey Parker and Matt Stone very much own this terrain.

But there’s no reason why satirical TV programmes such as The Daily Show should have to take on the role of news provider, investigative journalist and critic. And yet, over the past three decades, the failings of the US corporate media to adequately cover the country’s dilapidated politics has pushed people such as Jon Stewart into filling the void.

The problem was identified as long ago as 2000 by the US economist Paul Krugman. He castigated the press for being “fanatically determined to seem even-handed”, to the point they were unwilling to call out outrageous untruths. “If a presidential candidate were to declare that the Earth is flat,” Krugman wrote, “you would be sure to see a news analysis under the headline Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.”

It was this context that provided American satire’s cathartic triumph in the first years of the 21st century. The Daily Show began conducting harder-hitting interviews than most primetime TV shows. Stephen Colbert rose to prominence by playing a fake conservative talkshow host, in an open parody of Bill O’Reilly’s mid-2000s show on Fox. And then John Oliver pioneered “investigative comedy”, frequently doing a better job of breaking scandalous stories than the news programmes he was satirising.

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist. H​is memoir, Generation Desperation​, is published in January 2026

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© Illustration: YouTube

© Illustration: YouTube

© Illustration: YouTube

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How we draw the age of Trump and turmoil: two cartoonists go head-to-head | Martin Rowson and Ella Baron

Martin Rowson has been drawing for the Guardian since the 1980s; Ella Baron since 2022. In paint and pixels, each is tasked with capturing the chaos and absurdity of our political moment

Photographs and video by David Levene

Martin Rowson and Ella Baron are both regular contributors to the Guardian’s daily political cartoon. Martin has been with the Guardian for decades; Ella has been contributing since 2022. This week, we challenged the pair to draw on the same subject (Trump and a world in turmoil), on the same day, to see what each – with their different styles, tools and perspectives – would come up with. Martin landed on a Shakespearean scene, with a warped “King Leer” flanked by snickering world leaders. Ella proposed him squatting in a dystopian nest, surrounded by his spoils. Below, each reflects on their process, the challenges and joys of political cartoons, and what they have learned from one another.

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© Composite: Guardian/David Levene

© Composite: Guardian/David Levene

© Composite: Guardian/David Levene

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A distraction, a threat: how Ukrainians have viewed the Greenland crisis

There are fears that Europe is exhausted with the war, worries about Trump’s logic but some hope of a silver lining

In the Benedikt cafe in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, one wall is covered by a giant map with countries and territories cut out of lacquered wooden pieces, with Greenland at its apex.

The waiter has not been following news of the Greenland crisis and Donald Trump’s desire to annex the Danish territory. But the echoes of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin’s imperial land grab of the waiter’s own country are clear to him. “They’re crazy. The pair of them.”

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© Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Reuters

© Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Reuters

© Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Reuters

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Joint Chiefs Chairman Issues Rare Invitation to Foreign Military Heads

Top military leaders from 34 countries plan to discuss improving efforts in the Western Hemisphere to fight drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations.

© Eric Lee for The New York Times

Gen. Dan Caine’s meeting comes at a fraught time for Washington’s relations with its immediate neighbors as well as allies in Europe.
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FBI Agent Resigns After Trying to Investigate ICE Officer in Renee Good Shooting

The resignation of the agent, Tracee Mergen, was only the latest shock wave to have emerged from the Justice Department’s handling of the shooting of Renee Good.

© David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Police and federal agents at the scene where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis this month.
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Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark Visits Greenland

The trip by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to the Danish territory came amid pressure from President Trump and appeared to have been meant as reassurance to Greenlanders.

© Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, in the tan coat; the mayor of Nuuk, Greenland, Avaaraq Olsenand; and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Greenland set off on a highly choreographed walk through the city on Friday.
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Trump’s Turnabout on Greenland Shows the Limits of His Coercive Powers

President Trump’s faith in his ability to wring concessions by taking maximalist positions was on full display this week. So were the costs, as he splintered NATO and then undercut his credibility by climbing down from his threats.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Donald J. Trump on Air Force One en route to Washington on Thursday night.
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