We see untrammelled power with fawning courtiers. George Washington would have recognised the new system at the White House

Donald Trump’s triumphal return to the White House was American political theatre on steroids. This was, of course, exactly the returning president’s intention. “Shock and awe” was the en vogue phrase in the Trump camp to describe it, as the president sought to obliterate the Biden era in a blizzard of executive presidential orders and day-one Maga movement payoffs.

Trump’s second inauguration was exceptionally well worked. Where or whether it all lands in the form of delivered policy is a different issue. To some, it may feel petty to note that the last US “shock and awe” exercise – the Iraq invasion of 2003 – also generated a feast of indelible images of American power. But that one certainly did not end well.

From Trump’s Project 2025 to a huge aid cut by the Dutch, donors are turning their backs on the developing world

Foreign aid spending reached a record high of $223bn (£180bn) in 2023, new figures released this week from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) confirmed.

Yet, in 2024, eight wealthy countries announced $17.2bn in cuts to official development assistance (ODA), and three others hinted at reductions, all to take effect over the next five years.

Washington looks happy for the video app to harvest users’ data – as long as China does not reap the rewards

If the Chinese-owned TikTok is deemed definitively by the US to be a national security threat, it is hard to see how the UK or other western countries could conclude differently.

But the fact that Donald Trump has walked into the White House talking of a reprieve for the video-sharing network, which restored its service in the US after going dark for a day, suggests something simpler is at work – Trumpian geopolitics.

Houthis in Yemen said 25-member crew of Galaxy Leader had been freed ‘in support’ of the Gaza ceasefire agreement

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Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have released the crew of the Galaxy Leader more than a year after they seized the Bahamas-flagged vessel off the Yemeni Red Sea coast, Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV has reported.

It said on Wednesday the crew were handed to Oman “in coordination” with the three-day-old ceasefire in Gaza’s war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Letter from Academy leadership also says show will ‘move away’ from live performances to celebrate songwriters

The Oscars will go on as planned in March, though with special accommodations to acknowledge to devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, according to a new update from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

A letter from the CEO, Bill Kramer, and president Janet Yang, sent to all members on Wednesday, confirmed that the ceremony will “celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires”.

Forty-six Democrats joined Republicans to further bill requiring detention of undocumented immigrants for theft

The US House on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill requiring the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, sending the proposal to Donald Trump’s desk and giving the new president his first legislative victory as he presses his hardline immigration agenda on multiple fronts.

The House vote was 263 to 158, with 46 Democrats joining every present Republican in supporting the Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan national who was in the US unlawfully. The House vote came two days after the US Senate passed the legislation in a vote of 64 to 35, with a dozen Democratic members backing the bill.

After unveiling of Stargate, Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Satya Nadella of Tesla, OpenAI and Microsoft trade barbs

Major tech moguls had their claws out for each other on Wednesday, hissing at their rivals over enormous pledges to invest in AI that had been announced by Donald Trump the day before.

Trump announced Stargate, a $500bn project to be funded jointly by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, on Tuesday. During the announcement, the president was flanked by the leaders of those companies: Sam Altman, Larry Ellison and Masayoshi Son, respectively. Son is slated to be the chair of the project. All three are multibillionaires. Absent from the photo op was a representative from MGX, Abu Dhabi’s state AI fund, another principal investor.

Donald Trump signed executive order to rename body of water in honor of ‘American greatness’

The US Coast Guard (USCG) and the state of Florida have started referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America – a new label pushed by Donald Trump – despite the name of the body of water not yet being formally changed.

On Tuesday, following a flurry of executive orders signed by Trump on his first days in office, the USCG announced that it would deploy additional assets to multiple locations, including the “maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the ‘Gulf of America’”. Similarly, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, cited the new moniker in a winter storm executive order on Monday, saying “an area of low pressure [was] moving across the Gulf of America”.

JD Vance, Mike Johnson and others had said those guilty of violence would be excluded before president changed tack

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Donald Trump’s allies have been forced to perform political summersaults over his pardons for more than 1,500 rioters convicted of attacking the US Capitol after saying beforehand that no clemency would be shown to those guilty of violence or attacking police officers.

The inauguration day pardons also threatened to trigger a revolt among Republican senators, several of whom bluntly condemned them without extending the criticism to Trump himself.

President decrees end of DEI offices, roles and initiatives within 60 days and repeals civil rights-era equity policies

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All US federal employees working in diversity offices must be put on paid leave by Wednesday evening, the Trump administration has ordered, after instructing government agencies to shut down the programs.

“Send a notification to all employees of DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs,” said a US office of personnel management memo.

US president tells his Russian counterpart to ‘settle now and stop this ridiculous war’ or face repercussions

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Donald Trump has threatened Russia with taxes, tariffs and sanctions if a deal to end the war in Ukraine is not struck soon, as the new US president tries to increase pressure on Moscow to start negotiations with Kyiv.

Writing in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said Russia’s economy was failing and urged Vladimir Putin to “settle now and stop this ridiculous war”.

Hughes fire ignites north of Los Angeles late Wednesday morning as Eaton and Palisades fires burn for third week

Additional evacuations were ordered for residents near a large fast-moving wildfire north of Los Angeles, as parched southern California endured another round of dangerous winds ahead of possible rain over the weekend.

The Hughes fire broke out late on Wednesday morning and quickly ripped through more than 9,400 acres (3,760ha), sending up an enormous plume of dark smoke near Castaic Lake, a popular recreation area about 40 miles (64 km) from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third week.

From LNG to drilling in Alaska, here’s everything you need to know about Trump’s energy and climate executive orders

Through a flurry of executive orders, a newly inaugurated Donald Trump has made clear his support for the ascendancy of fossil fuels, the dismantling of support for cleaner energy and the United States’ exit from the fight to contain the escalating climate crisis.

“We will drill, baby, drill,” the president said in his inaugural address on Monday. “We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have – the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it. We’re going to use it.”

Expert Austin Kocher explains why the ‘clown show’ of Trump orders will nonetheless fuel confusion and anxiety

Donald Trump began to enact his promised immigration crackdown just hours after taking power, issuing a barrage of executive actions that have incited panic and chaos across the US and at its borders. But much of the orders’ content will be difficult to enforce, and many will face strong legal challenges.

Trump’s executive orders on immigration didn’t read like presidential actions so much as a “stream-of-consciousness mess … strung together in a lattice of nonsense”, wrote the political and legal geographer Austin Kocher, who had been issuing hourly immigration policy updates on his blog throughout inauguration day.

Why community-based grassroots politics may be key to surviving the next four years. Plus, comfort foods in the run-up to Ramadan

Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week Donald Trump was inaugurated in Washington, and the moment feels familiar but also very different. I spoke to the Guardian US colleagues Marina Dunbar and Adria R Walker about inauguration day and how Black Americans were bracing for a second Trump term. But first, the weekly roundup.

Trans communities expected Trump to deliver on his threat to roll back their rights. That didn’t make it hurt any less

Right after Donald Trump won the election, Max Kuzma set to work. As a trans man living just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, he knew he needed to get his documentation in order. He considers himself lucky that he already legally changed his name, but rushed to make sure his passport and other documents reflected that. Like so many other trans Americans, Kuzma worried Trump would make good on his promise to roll back LGBTQ+ rights and threaten trans healthcare and the overall safety of the queer community.

“I was anticipating an attack,” Kuzma said. Still, watching Trump sign an executive order that rolled back trans and non-binary people’s rights felt like “a twist of the knife”.

Any funding disparities can be addressed, but another pandemic is coming – and we’ll need the WHO to help fight it

This week, in East Sussex, a case of mpox was announced, the sixth UK case since October. New cases have also been detected recently in France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Canada and the US as mpox spreads out of Africa. Also this week, Tanzania’s president confirmed an outbreak of Marburg, an Ebola-like virus, which the country’s health minister had previously denied, only after the World Health Organization (WHO) independently reported an outbreak of nine suspected cases and eight deaths.

These two new reports of infectious diseases, thousands of miles apart, emphasise why, if a World Health Organization did not exist, it would have to be created to identify and prevent the spread of infectious diseases worldwide.

Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

If criminal charges were meant to deter acts of violence, the pardons of over 1,500 people do the opposite, say experts

Donald Trump spent the four years after the January 6 insurrection attempting to rewrite the violence and chaos he inspired as his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

On the first day of his second term as president, he took the rewriting to its final step by issuing pardons and reducing sentences for those involved in the insurrection, including the leaders of far-right militias and those who battled with police that day.

Climate crisis is making it harder for insurance companies to operate, with many pausing or withdrawing policies

Homeowners in the United States are facing an enormous financial crunch due to the climate crisis, with many struggling to find insurance or even dropping premiums that are soaring due to a mounting toll of wildfires, hurricanes and other disasters, new federal government data shows.

The figures, the most comprehensive numbers ever released by the US treasury department on the issue, show insurance premiums are increasing quickly across the country, with people living amid the greatest climate-driven risks experiencing the steepest rises of all. In the four years to 2022, people living in the top 20% riskiest places for such perils paid, on average, 82% more than those in the 20% lowest climate risk zip codes.

US president reinstates Cuba on terror list despite Biden deal to release prisoners jailed over demonstrations

The families of Cuban protesters jailed in anti-government demonstrations are waiting anxiously to see if the government will continue with a planned prisoner release after Donald Trump reneged on a deal made last week by Joe Biden.

Activists from the human rights group Justicia 11J believe about 150 prisoners have been released so far of the 553 agreed with the Catholic church.

People worldwide take to the streets after Donald Trump was sworn in as US president on Monday

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th United States President at The White House on Monday, January 20th, 2025.

A look at the events and festivities in Washington as Donald Trump and JD Vance are sworn into office

We’d like to hear about the disaster’s financial impact on people who have lost their home, business, or community – their mortgages, lost possessions, rents, insurances and investments

California homeowners and business owners who lost everything in the devastating Los Angeles-area fires now have to tackle their insurance companies to recover the value of their homeowners’ policies – if they are lucky enough to have insurance at all.

With estimates of the economic damage from the fires now expected to reach over $200bn, we’d like to hear what financial consequences people face due to the fires.