US politics

US politics

The US government has introduced new import tariffs on advanced AI chips from Nvidia and AMD, with the aim of channelling part of the proceeds from sales to China directly into the US treasury. According to the Financial Times, the measure is part of President Donald Trump's broader trade and industrial policy, which explicitly intertwines economic transactions and national security.

The anti-abortion Slenderman that is Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has spent much of his political career trying to dismantle abortion rights. But he's spent the past year obsessively amplifying a bogus "study" from the far-right Ethics and Public Policy Center (which is listed as an advisor under Project 2025), which published false findings about the abortion pill, mifepristone, having "adverse effects" on women.

US president says massive' fraud has caused budget imbalance, but calculations do not support this. United States President Donald Trump has claimed that unearthing and ending fraud nationwide would eliminate the country's deficit. In particular, Trump has highlighted alleged public services fraud by Somalis in Minnesota and also said there is fraud in many other places. If we stop this fraud, this massive fraud, we're going to have a balanced budget, Trump said on Tuesday during a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.

Leading members of Donald Trump's campaign to overturn the 2020 presidential election are seeking a huge European pipeline contract, the latest figures from the US president's circle to mix business and geopolitics. Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who worked on legal actions advancing Trump's baseless claim that the vote was stolen from him, and Joe Flynn, who also sought to undermine Joe Biden's victory, have been in Bosnia this week to discuss the project.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

The centralization of this information by the federal government would have a chilling effect on voter registration which would inevitably lead to decreasing voter turnout as voters fear that their information is being used for some inappropriate or unlawful purpose," Carter wrote. "This risk threatens the right to vote which is the cornerstone of American democracy.

Immediately, three men in plain clothes with camouflage tactical vests emerge and rush toward a man, out of view of the camera, shouting as they encounter him. "Sorry, we thought you were someone else," one of the men in camo says, as the resident screams at them for ambushing him with guns drawn. Seconds later, the three men run back to the unmarked SUV and drive away.

Well, we still don't know exactly what the president wants to cut or exactly which cities and states are going to be the targets. But the president has given a date of February 1. He said the cuts will be significant, and he seems to be focused on places that limit their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Here's what Trump said about that on - in Detroit on Tuesday.

Schumer's office said he urged Trump to release federal funding for the $16 billion Gateway tunnel during the meeting, which they said the president requested. Trump last year said he was withholding federal funding from the massive public works project - which includes the construction of new rail tunnels under the Hudson River -after Democrats picked a government shutdown fight.

An anonymous person in Florida has registered the domain nazis.us and redirected it to the Department of Homeland Security's website in an apparent protest of the Trump administration. As of Thursday evening, the URL that sounds like it would be the homepage for U.S.-based Nazis does still redirect to dhs.gov when entered into a web browser. According to GoDaddy's WHOIS database records, nazis.us was registered on Jan. 13 by someone with a mailing address in Florida.

In a recent appearance on the Katie Miller Podcast - hosted by the wife of Stephen Miller, who currently serves as homeland security advisor to the White House - Kennedy expressed astonishment that the president is even alive. "He eats really bad food," the health secretary dished. "Which is McDonald's, and, you know, candy and Diet Coke. But he drinks Diet Coke at all times. He has the constitution of a deity - I don't know how he's alive, but he is."

So for the past two hours, we've been watching as protesters have been kicking cars, throwing things at cars as they are federal law enforcement vehicles that have been going into this building, he explained. And we have watched, and federal law enforcement has done nothing At done nothing, agents began firing tear gas in the direction of Prokupecz and some of the protestors. At least two projectiles appeared to land mere feet away from the reporter and his cameraperson.

A top Trump administration lawyer pressed a federal judge Wednesday to block a newly enacted California law that bans most law enforcement officers in the state from wearing masks, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Tiberius Davis, representing the U.S. Department of Justice, argued at a hearing in Los Angeles that the first-of-its-kind ban on police face coverings could unleash chaos across the country, and potentially land many ICE agents on the wrong side of the law it were allowed to take effect.

Last year was a record-setting one for education censorship; more than half of U.S college and university students now study in a state with at least one law or policy restricting what can be taught or how college campuses can operate, according to a new report from PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for campus free speech and press freedom.

They were just scared actually - just in fear for their lives. They didn't know what was happening,

The most notable, and perhaps most effective, ad of the 2024 presidential campaign featured footage of the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, voicing her support for gender-affirming treatment for inmates in federal prisons. "Kamala is for they/ them. President Trump is for you," the narrator concluded. The spot was a crisp, 30-second encapsulation of one of the key Republican talking points of the cycle: that "wokeness" was sweeping the nation and upending established ways of life, and that Donald Trump would fight against it.

House Republicans are in disarray. On Tuesday night, Republican leaders faceplanted when one of the bills they put to the floor went down in flames as several GOP members voted against it. Three other pieces of legislation needed to be postponed because leadership was uncertain if the bills had the votes to pass. The failed bill, the Flexibility for Workers Education Act, would allow employers to deny overtime pay to employees who enlist in certain voluntary training programs.

In a letter to the leaders of X, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, Reddit and TikTok, several U.S. senators are asking the companies to provide proof that they have "robust protections and policies" in place, and to explain how they plan to curb the rise of sexualized deepfakes on their platforms. The senators also demanded that the companies preserve all documents and information relating to the creation, detection, moderation, and monetization of sexualized, AI-generated images, as well as any related policies.