I’ve always believed the people are powerful. Now we know the world’s richest man does too

On Saturday morning, I woke up to a nightmare of notifications. On Sunday, it got worse. Elon Musk had tweeted and amplified inflammatory lies about me and Tesla Takedown, a growing national grassroots movement peacefully protesting at Tesla showrooms that I’m proudly a part of. Musk tweeted: “Costa is committing crimes.”

As a longtime local activist and organizer in Seattle, I’m accustomed to some conflict with powerful forces. The intention of the Tesla Takedown movement is to make a strong public stand against the tech oligarchy behind the Trump administration’s cruel and illegal actions, and to encourage Americans to sell their Teslas and dump the company’s stock. Protests like these – peaceful, locally organized, and spreading across the world – are at the heart of free speech in a democracy and a cornerstone of US political traditions. So it’s telling that the response from so-called “free speech absolutist” Musk has been to single out individuals – and spread lies about us and our movement. The harassment that has followed his post has been frightening.

The documents would ultimately inform whether Musk has been operating unconstitutionally to the extent Doge’s activities should be halted

Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, have been ordered by a federal judge to turn over a wide array of records that would reveal the identities of staffers and internal records related to efforts to aggressively cut federal government spending and programs.

US district judge Tanya Chutkan’s order forces Musk to produce documents related to Doge’s activities as part of a lawsuit brought by 14 Democratic state attorneys general that alleges Musk violated the constitution by wielding powers that only Senate-confirmed officials should possess.

The US government’s move to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion policies is a naked attempt to appeal to prejudice – but it may well backfire

Almost a decade ago, I started a business called Rent-A-Minority, which enabled companies to hire a minority ethnic person whenever they needed an injection of diversity to boost their image. I had a variety of inclusivity-enriching hires available, including an “ethnically ambiguous” category and a selection of smiling Muslim women (guaranteed not to support Islamic State or your money back).

Like every good startup, Rent-A-Minority posted testimonials from clients and influencers on its website. I made up all the blurbs, because that is the Silicon Valley way: fake it till you make it. One of those fake comments was from Donald Trump, who was still considered a long shot for the presidency in January 2016, when my business launched. “When I’m president, I’ll shut this site down,” Trump’s blurb read.

Ukrainian president would not be drawn on details of proposed deal and also steered clear of criticising Trump at press briefing

As journalists filtered out of the presidential administration in central Kyiv on Wednesday afternoon after a 30-minute press conference with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the general consensus was that he had not said anything that would immediately make for a dramatic headline.

That, it seems, was the point. Eager to show the White House that Ukraine is onboard for negotiations and not an obstacle to Donald Trump’s desire to bring peace, Zelenskyy seems to be trying to erase the memories of the nightmare meeting in the White House two weeks ago.

US president said of Senate minority leader: ‘He’s not Jewish any more. He’s a Palestinian’

Donald Trump has been condemned by a leading US Muslim civil rights group for seeking to use the word “Palestinian” as an insult when he attacked the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as “not Jewish any more”.

“President Trump’s use of the term ‘Palestinian’ as a racial slur is offensive and beneath the dignity of his office,” said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or Cair.

EPA takes aim at almost every major pollution rule in what environmentalists call act of ‘malice toward the planet’

Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an extraordinary cavalcade of pollution rule rollbacks on Wednesday, led by the announcement it would potentially scrap a landmark 2009 finding by the US government that planet-heating gases, such carbon dioxide, pose a threat to human health.

For now Keir Starmer can say there is a middle way, but Donald Trump will soon force Britain to pick a side

No country can avoid the economic impact of Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy. There are no exceptions to the president’s global tariff on aluminium and steel and no escaping the general volatility and constant uncertainty provoked by a capricious regime. But Britain is lucky not to be a direct target.

Mr Trump has no border-related grievance against the UK, as he does with Mexico and Canada. The balance of bilateral trade is neutral enough for Britain to avoid being listed among the nations that sell more to the US than they buy from it. The White House sees that asymmetry as a devious scam, for which tariffs are a form of retribution.

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The tone of relations with the US may depend on whether second-placed Naleraq ends up inside the government

It was an election that was fought on the global stage with sporadic commentary from Donald Trump. But in the end, it was domestic issues that drove Greenlanders to the polls to vote overwhelmingly for change.

Ever since his son, Donald Trump Jr, touched down in a Trump-branded plane at Nuuk’s new airport in January, the US president has made no secret of his renewed desire to gain control of the Arctic island, refusing to rule out economic or military force to do so.

‘Joey from Friends’ has gone viral for his lack of drive. This is what the world needs – someone who’s happy with nothing rather than everything

‘Nothing will come of nothing,” King Lear said. He was totally wrong, I’m afraid. The truth is, a lot can come from nothing. More specifically: great life satisfaction can come from doing very little.

You know who is well aware of that? Matt LeBlanc (AKA Joey from Friends), the king of 90s primetime TV. A TikTok featuring resurfaced interviews in which LeBlanc extols the joys of sloth is generating enormous enthusiasm online. The TikTok pulls from a 2018 interview in which LeBlanc gushed about how much he enjoyed taking time off after Friends and then cuts to a 2017 interview in which he said: “I should be a professional nothing.” Speaking to Conan O’Brien, LeBlanc explained: “Because I think I would like to do not a fucking thing. That’s what I would like to do. Just nothing. Nothing. Zero.” (Same, Matt, same.)

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The Trump administration is not interested in combating antisemitism. It just wants to silence its opponents instead

On Saturday night, agents of the Department of Homeland Security arrested and detained the Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil. He is still in Ice custody in a remote Louisiana lockup known for extreme human rights violations, from denial of food and water to medical “care” verging on torture.

Khalil, a Palestinian Syrian, emerged as a leader in Columbia’s Gaza solidarity encampment last year and a level-headed negotiator with university officials on behalf of the student protesters. Married to a US citizen, he holds a green card. Neither his American wife, who is eight months pregnant, nor his lawyers were warned of the arrest or told where he would be held.

Canadian government says it will follow ‘dollar-by-dollar’ approach and institute 25% tariffs on US imports

Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on nearly C$30bn worth of American imports after US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports went into effect on Wednesday.

The Canadian government said it will be following a “dollar-by-dollar” approach and institute 25% tariffs on American imports, including steel, computers and sports equipment.

Break in talks comes as Trump escalates trade war with Canada and threatens its sovereignty

The United States has paused negotiations with Canada on a key water-sharing treaty as Donald Trump continues both his threats to annex his northern neighbour and to upend major agreements governing relations between the two counties.

British Columbia’s energy ministry said officials south of the border were “conducting a broad review” of the Columbia River Treaty, the 61-year-old pact that governs transnational flood control, power generation and water supply.

The Russian president remains unwavering in his demands, making wider sanctions and tariffs ineffective

Ukraine’s agreement to support a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in its war against Russia’s invasion has focused attention on what Moscow may or may not agree to, and what pressure can be brought to bear on Vladimir Putin by the Trump administration.

While the question has frequently been asked over the last few years as to what leverage Putin might have over Trump, the question here is what leverage Trump might have to persuade Putin.