Only 1 in 5 Americans support US effort to acquire Greenland, poll finds


Qatar says it ‘continues to implement all necessary measures to safeguard the security and safety of its citizens and residents as a top priority’
For the first time in days, Iranians were able to make calls abroad from their mobiles on Tuesday, according to reporting by Associated Press. Texting services have not been restored, however, and nor has the internet.
Although Iranians were able to call abroad, they could not receive calls from outside the country, several people in the capital told Associated Press. The internet remained blocked, they said, though it is possible to access some government-approved websites.
Cloudfare - an internet infrastructure provider, and one of several companies and monitors tracking the status of internet traffic in Iran – said traffic volumes have remained “at a fraction of a percent of previous levels”. Its latest update as of 01:00 UTC (which is about three hours and 30 minutes ago), shows a continued widespread blackout. Iran has been under an internet shutdown since Thursday night.
Brief windows of connectivity were observed on Friday, but these did not last, according to Cloudfare.
Netblocks, an independent global internet monitor, also notes that while some phone calls from Iran are connecting, there is “no secure way to communicate” and the general public remain cut off from the outside world.

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP



© Doug Mills/The New York Times


© Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
Critics call move to cut payments after 1 February for number of Democrat-run states ‘unconstitutional’
Donald Trump has revived his stalled push to cut federal funding for a number of Democrat-run states, announcing that any with a perceived “sanctuary city” will not receive payments after 1 February.
The president made the statement during a freewheeling address at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday night, shortly after he flipped off a heckler at a Ford plant in the city.
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© Photograph: Ryan Sun/AP

© Photograph: Ryan Sun/AP

© Photograph: Ryan Sun/AP
Ahead of high-stakes talks, people tell of alarm, thoughts of fleeing and lack of information on what to do if US invades
When she was living in Denmark, the seemingly unshakeable safety of Greenland was a comforting source of reassurance for Najannguaq Hegelund. Whenever there was any instability in the world, she would joke with her family: “Well we will just go to Greenland, nothing ever happens in Greenland.”
But in the past two weeks – during which Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened military action on the largely autonomous Arctic territory the US president claims he “needs” for national security purposes, despite it being part of the Danish kingdom – Hegelund, 37, has realised this is suddenly no longer true.
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© Photograph: Inesa Matuliauskaite/The Guardian

© Photograph: Inesa Matuliauskaite/The Guardian

© Photograph: Inesa Matuliauskaite/The Guardian

© Eric Lee/The New York Times

© Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

© Cristian Hernandez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Memo on US military raid to capture Venezuela’s president effectively argued that presidents can blow through UN charter
The Trump administration received approval from the justice department to use the military to seize Nicolás Maduro even as it declined to address whether the operation would violate international law, according to its legal memo released on Tuesday.
The dark-of-night raid to capture Venezuela’s president has raised a host of legal issues concerning the US president’s power to start an armed conflict without congressional approval and possible breaches of international law.
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© Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters

© Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters

© Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters


US president says Jamie Dimon was wrong to suggest he was undermining independence of central bank
Donald Trump has hit out at the JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, saying the Wall Street executive was wrong to suggest he was undermining the independence of the Federal Reserve.
The US president and his administration have come under fire for their attacks on the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, who is facing a criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice over alleged “abuse of taxpayer dollars” linked to renovations to the central bank’s headquarters in Washington.
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© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock
In a might-makes-right world, US allies, not to mention the emerging powers of the global south, would begin to hedge their bets in dangerous ways
What is wrong with resurrecting the prerogative of major powers to claim a sphere of influence in which they dictate and others must follow? That idea informs the “Donroe Doctrine” behind the US invasion of Venezuela to seize Nicolás Maduro. Donald Trump seems to believe that, as the world’s strongest military power, the United States should be allowed to invade other countries at will. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, says “the real world” is “governed by strength”, by “power”, so we should get used to it.
There is a beguiling simplicity to this abandonment of the norms long designed to govern the behavior of states big and small. China has touted it as the reality that its Asian neighbors must live with. Russia, a third-tier power by comparison but still a nuclear-armed regional heavyweight, has periodically treated the boundaries of post-Soviet states as mere suggestions. But do we really want to return to the law of the jungle in which the guy with the biggest stick calls the shots?
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© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
This week, Trump’s granddaughter announced she definitely doesn’t want to go into politics. Expect a run for office very soon
Last week Kai Trump, Donald Trump Jr’s daughter and the president’s eldest grandchild, publicly declared she had no plans to run for office. The 18-year-old appeared on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, where she stated that “politics is such a dangerous thing … I think if both sides met in the middle, everyone would be so much more happier.” (Maybe tell that to your grandpa, kid.) “To be honest with you,” she said, “I stay out of politics completely … I don’t want anything to do with politics.”
Look, I know you’re still very young, Kai, so here’s a little advice from an old lady: maybe work just a teeny bit harder at keeping a safe distance from politics. It has not gone unobserved that the influencer and golfer has made a lot of content about life behind the scenes at the White House. She’s also launched an apparel collection, which she’s modelled on the White House lawn. And, notably, she spoke at the 2024 Republican national convention (RNC), where she insisted Trump was “just a normal grandpa”. I don’t know about that; my grandad didn’t invade Venezuela.
Kai, by the way, stressed to Logan Paul that she was the one who decided to speak at the RNC; it was “literally all my idea”. But the nasty media, she noted, spun it otherwise. “[They said] ‘Oh well, that’s like a political plan that was put in place, to like get more voters or anything like that’.” Well, yes, because it was a political convention. They tend to be, you know, political.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images