The Conversation convenes with Emily Bazelon, David French and Aaron Retica discussing the questions reshaping American politics right now, from immigration enforcement to whether the country can still claim to be “one nation, indivisible.”

© Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Stephen Maturen/Getty

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech was greeted with fevered laudations overseas — and provoked a most welcome reaction at home. Read More

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

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

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.

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

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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

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

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OTTAWA — The member of Parliament representing Canada's northernmost territory says ever since U.S. President Donald Trump began escalating his desire to control Greenland, constituents have been reaching out, concerned.  Read More

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

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

Polls, careful remarks from JD Vance and chats with voters all point to some wariness.

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German soccer federation Vice President Oke Göttlich called for boycotting the 2026 FIFA World Cup in response to President Donald Trump's recent actions.

California is suing the Trump administration over a pipeline restart tied to the 2015 Refugio oil spill that dumped 100,000-plus gallons into state waters.

The media was quick to parrot Democrats, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who shared an image of a five-year-old boy and claimed he was detained by ICE.

The agency says that victims of an investment offering involving Gemini Trust got their money back, though after a regulatory action brought by the New York attorney general.

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

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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.

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The columnist Jamelle Bouie argues that the Trump administration’s immigration policy has more in common with ethnic cleansing than actual immigration enforcement.

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

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