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Story by Noor Al-Sibai

Elon Musk's supposedly "anti-woke" chatbot, Grok, keeps spewing outputs that are hilariously opposed to the billionaire's views — including that newly-minted President Donald Trump is likely a Russian asset.

Responding to a prompt from Arizona Republic columnist EJ Montini, Musk's "maximally truth-seeking" AI, which is built into X, said after an analysis that the probability of the president being in the pocket of Vladimir Putin is between 75 and 85 percent.

After Montini asked Grok to rate on a scale from 1 to 100 that Trump is a "Putin compromised asset" based on public information and his "failure to ever say anything negative" about the Russian president, the chatbot went to work analyzing a "complex web of financial ties, personal interactions, political behavior, and circumstantial evidence."
Story by David McAfee

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Judge John G. Roberts Jr. hinted that he will reverse a key high court precedent for Donald Trump, an ex-prosecutor said.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, who also works as a legal analyst for MSNBC, weighed in on Trump's efforts to consolidate his power at the federal level.

Writing for her Substack blog, Vance noted that Trump is trying to use the court system to overturn a major case from the 1930s.

"Humphrey’s Executor was the plaintiff in a 1930s court case. Mr. Humphrey, a Federal Trade Commissioner, had passed away, and the executor of his will wanted to recover the salary he was due for his work as a commissioner from October 8, 1933, to the time of his death on February 14, 1934. The problem was that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had fired Humphrey, who refused to resign," Vance wrote. "The issue on appeal was whether the president had the power to fire Humphrey. The Supreme Court ruled that he didn’t."

That decision, according to Vance, "clearly doesn’t make Trump happy."

Employees of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseen by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, are reportedly drawing substantial salaries while they are downsizing federal agencies., according to a recent WIRED report. Jeremy Lewin, involved in dismantling USAID through DOGE, earns over $167,000 annually, while Kyle Schutt, a DOGE software engineer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, draws a maximum federal employee salary of $195,200 annually, the report said.

An investigative report revealed at least one DOGE employee is making $195,200—the maximum salary allowed for a federal employee.
By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN

CNN — President Donald Trump’s blanket 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada took effect on Tuesday, an extraordinary action aimed at bringing America’s top trading partners to heel. But it threatens to weaken the North American economy, including that of the United States, at a time of significant stress for inflation-weary consumers.

Trump also doubled the tariff on all Chinese imports to 20% from 10%. Those duties sit atop existing tariffs on hundreds of billions in Chinese goods. China and Canada immediately retaliated with tariffs on American goods, threatening to ignite a damaging trade war. Mexico said it would announce retaliatory measures Sunday.

The Trump administration said the tariffs were necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

“While President Trump gave both Canada and Mexico ample opportunity to curb the dangerous cartel activity and influx of lethal drugs flowing into our country, they have failed to adequately address the situation,” according to a statement released by the White House shortly before the tariffs took effect.

But the tariffs come at a time when inflation remains stubbornly high. Americans, and the US economy as a whole, are on shakier ground, as evidenced by recent data.
Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in Scotland has been vandalised by pro-Palestine protesters after the US president's controversial comments over the Gaza strip
By Benedict Tetzlaff-DeasNews Reporter, Reanna Smith US News Reporter

Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course has been targeted by pro-Palestine demonstrators.

The clubhouse has been splattered with red paint, and the phrase "Gaza is not 4 sale" has been scrawled on the fairway. Significant damage to the greens is evident, and photos reveal various slogans such as "Free Palestine", "Free Gaza" and "F*** Trump" spray-painted at the entrance of the South Ayrshire, Scotland course.

Trump acquired the 119-year-old Turnberry golf resort for $60million in April 2014. The property, officially named Trump Turnberry, also boasts a luxury hotel and is part of his wider investment in global golf properties.
Story by Alex Henderson

Many MAGA Republicans vehemently criticize liberals and progressives for language policing, often mocking "woke" terms like "Latinx" and "pregnant people." And some Americans who vote Democratic are critical of "woke" language as well: "Real Time" host Bill Maher and veteran Democratic strategist James Carville argue that it's ridiculous for Democrats to say "Latinx" when the vast majority of Latinos don't use that word.

But language policing exists in the MAGA movement as well.

In an article published on March 7, New York Times journalists Karen Yourish, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Isaac White and Lazaro Gamio list some of the many words and terms that the Trump Administration is urging government workers to limit or avoid in their communications.
Story by Atlanta Black Star News

The on-again, off-again tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada proposed by President Donald Trump have trading partners fuming, corporations pausing and consumers worrying. The taxes would not be necessary, the president said recently, if not for the poor dealmaking of a prior administration.

“Who can blame them if they made these great deals,” Trump said during a White House press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Feb. 24, adding the two trading partners “took advantage of the United States.”

“Every aspect that you could imagine they took advantage of,” the president continued. “I looked at some of these agreements, I’d read them at night and I’d say, ‘Who would ever sign a thing like this?’ So yes, the tariffs will go forward. We’ll make up a lot of territory. Our country will be liquid and rich again.”

That’s a lot of hyperbole for a failed trade deal. So who was the sucker who agreed to it?

It must be the previous commander in chief Joe Biden, whom Trump often calls the “worst president ever.” Nope. Barack Obama? No again.

“We were led by, in some cases, fools,” Trump reiterated at the Macron press conference. “Anybody that would agree to allow this to happen to our country should be ashamed of themselves.”

Turns out the leader responsible was someone who many believe knows no shame. The one who, in his previous incarnation as a real estate tycoon, authored a best-selling book called “The Art of the Deal.”

Yes, the president was talking about himself, though it’s likely he wasn’t aware of that. Admitting mistakes is not his style. And he’s certainly never referred to himself as a fool before, at least not in front of the cameras.

Jen Psaki discusses the mass protests breaking out against Elon Musk and Donald Trump across the country and speaks to the President of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists Union David Spero about the impact of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s layoffs.
Julia Conley, Common Dreams

Tesla owner Elon Musk has spent his career cultivating the image of a provocateur who's driven by a passionate commitment to free speech and technological innovation—but a new report by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen makes the case that when it comes to Musk's political priorities, there's nothing unique or trailblazing about him.

Musk, said Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool, is galvanized by the same concerns that lead oil executives to pour money into the campaigns of pro-fossil fuel politicians like Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: self-preservation.

Claypool published research cataloguing the numerous business-related incentives Musk has for supporting Trump, whose rallies the billionaire has spoken at recently and for whose campaign he has created a super political action committee.

At least three of Musk's businesses—electric car maker Tesla, space exploration company SpaceX, and social media platform X—face a total of at least 11 criminal and civil investigations over alleged fraud, labor violations, and other accusations.

"Enforcement priorities can shift significantly when administrations change," wrote Claypool. "Musk's self-serving desire to thwart the numerous civil and criminal investigations into his businesses seems a likely reason for the billionaire's increased involvement in electoral politics."
Portrait of Ed Kilgore By Ed Kilgore

A local Washington, D.C., TV news reporter has a story that we are almost certainly going to hear often once the Trump administration’s mass-deportation initiative intensifies:

   A naturalized Hispanic man says he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who were looking for another person on a deportation order, and now the man is questioning his vote for President Donald Trump. …

[Jensy] Machado said he was driving to work Wednesday with two other men when he was stopped by ICE agents on Lomond Drive in Manassas, a short distance from his home. He said he was confused by what was happening, why agents surrounded the pickup truck.

   “And they just got out of the car with the guns in their hands and say, turn off the car, give me the keys, open the window, you know,” Machado told Telemundo 44’s Rosbelis Quinoñez, who first reported his story. “Everything was really fast.” …

“They didn’t ask me for any ID,” Machado said. “I was telling the officer, if I can give him ID, but he said just keep my hands up, not moving. After that, he told me to get out of the car and put the handcuffs on me. And then he went to me and said how did I get into this country and if I was waiting for a court date or if I have any case. And I told him I was an American citizen, and he looked at his other partner like, you know, smiling, like saying, can you believe this guy? Because he asked the other guy, ‘Do you believe him?’”
Story by Ed Mazza

President Donald Trump, who promised to cut the cost of groceries on his first day in office, now seems to have a much different take on high prices as he shared a column with a very blunt headline: “Shut Up About Egg Prices ― Trump Is Saving Consumers Millions.”

Trump posted a link to the Feb. 17 article, written by right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, on his Truth Social website over the weekend:

Egg prices have reached record highs in recent weeks, averaging $4.95 a dozen in January and passing $10 per dozen in some parts of the country. Grocery stores in places have put limits on egg purchases, and some have run out of them entirely. A number of restaurants have even tacked egg surcharges onto the check.
Longtime MAGA supporters and members of the Cabinet have begun pushing back on Elon Musk and the elites surrounding the president.
By Jonathan Allen

Inside President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, the populists and politicians are starting to take swings at the plutocrats — namely billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk.

In a tense Cabinet meeting Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy excoriated Musk for firing their employees without giving consideration to whether letting them go would improve or harm their agencies.

A day earlier, Republican senators, concerned about the human and political costs of Musk’s legally murky budget cuts, appeared to secure an on-the-spot commitment from the billionaire to let Congress vote on those cuts rather than having the White House try to implement them unilaterally.

Musk told the senators — nearly all of them former Rubio colleagues — that his Department of Government Efficiency was not responsible for the cuts, according to two people familiar with a discussion that occurred behind closed doors. Not only was his position at odds with his public posture — Musk wielded a toy chain saw at a conservative conference last month — but it implicitly laid blame at the feet of the Cabinet secretaries who would meet with him and Trump the following day.

After listening to the back-and-forth between his Cabinet secretaries and his biggest political benefactor, Trump publicly clipped Musk’s wings. The Senate-confirmed secretaries will have control over who is fired in their departments for now, the president said, with Musk playing a backup role if necessary.
Story by Alex Henderson

No one in the GOP has done more to push the U.S. Supreme Court to the far right than Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who recently announced that he won't be seeking an eighth term in 2026. After blocking former President Barack Obama's High Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in 2016, the then-Senate majority leader aggressively pushed all three of President Donald Trump's SCOTUS picks: Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

In 2022, Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett were part of the 5-4 majority ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Center. Yet Trump deeply resents McConnell, and vice versa — even though McConnell gave Trump a lukewarm endorsement in the 2024 election.

In a biting opinion column published by The Hill on March 10, journalist Juan Williams argues that McConnell, now 83, has done a lot to bring the United States to the "perilous moment" it faces during Trump's second term — despite all the bad blood between him and Trump.
Regulations saves lives and people from harm. Deregulation harms some and kills others. How many people will be harmed or killed from Trump's and republicans deregulation push?

Story by Richard Chambers

Day one of Donald Trump’s second presidency made it resoundingly clear: The Trump-Vance administration is prioritizing deregulation. He has announced a freeze on new federal regulations, an executive order requiring agencies to repeal at least 10 rules or regulations for each new one they adopt, and “initial rescissions” of 80-plus Biden actions, including easing rules around AI. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been taking charge of government agencies like the Treasury Department and reducing staff. And we’re less than two months in.

In organizations that have long felt the financial and administrative burdens of regulatory compliance, it’s only natural for board members and C-Suite leaders to regard this change with a collective sigh of relief. Less regulation means less budget and personnel allocated to auditing and compliance activities. But don’t start reallocating your compliance dollars yet. Many of the actions are already being challenged in court, and most regulations won’t be easy to do away with given the numerous requirements and time restraints it takes.

That won’t stop the administration from trying—and succeeding in many cases. The new administration will keep pushing to reduce existing federal oversight and issue fewer new regulations. We are moving into an era in which government regulation will be de-emphasized, whatever the eventual specifics.

Martin O’Malley former Governor of Maryland joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss the work being done by Elon Musk and his army of DOGE bros who are actively working to undermine social security, and what can be done to stop these changes before benefits and payments are interrupted.
Story by Charles P. Pierce

Not that it will matter to anyone except the farmers in California, and then not until this summer when things get hot and dry, but the administration’s release of a massive amount of water on January 30 was almost altogether a photo op. At the time, more than a few people noticed that the release of the water, ostensibly to help quench the epic wildfires that had been raging in and around Altadena and Pacific Palisades, wasn’t doing any good.

Col. Chad W. Caldwell, commander of the Army Corps’ Sacramento district, wrote that the water that poured out of Lake Kaweah and Success Lake “could not be delivered to Southern California directly.” To do so would have required several steps of coordination with state and federal agencies to transport the water to a rarely used connection point, and it quickly became clear that was impossible in such little time, according to the memo.
The protester's 8-month pregnant wife was also threatened with arrest
Taylor Odisho

Democrats are speaking out against the Trump administration for working with Columbia University to arrest pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student who holds a Green Card and is a permanent U.S. resident.

Khalil, who was born in Syria and obtained his graduate degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in December, has been a vocal supporter of Palestine. He served as a negotiator for students bargaining with university officials to dismantle the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment," which sparked a global movement but made Khalil a target for pro-Israel activists, AP News reported.

University officials worked with the Trump administration and Khalil was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs agents, who also threatened to arrest his 8-month pregnant wife, in his apartment on Saturday.

Since then, protests have erupted and #FreeMahmoudKhalil has trended across social media as the nation has called for him to be freed. Several Democratic politicians have also spoken out in support of the detained activist.

"Free Mahmoud Khalil. This is straight out of the fascist playbook. Criminalizing dissent is an assault on our First Amendment and freedom of speech," Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib wrote in an X post shared Monday.
Is Trump a useful idiot, a Russian asset or a Russian mole?

Story by Matthew Chapman

President Donald Trump has brought about an alarming retreat from American values on the world stage, in ways that all seem to empower Russia and Vladimir Putin, wrote conservative analyst Max Boot in a scathing column for The Washington Post published on Monday.

"Unrestrained by any administration 'adults,' Trump is executing what may be the most startling U-turn in the history of U.S. foreign policy," wrote Boot, a frequent critic of the president. Specifically, he is trying to align America with the Kremlin, something that has been diametrically opposed to U.S. interests since 1917.

"Trump has ended funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, which the Kremlin hates because it supports groups that expose Putin’s tyranny and corruption," wrote Boot. "He has cut off offensive cyber-operations against Russia. He voted with Russia (and such rogue regimes as North Korea and Belarus) at the United Nations against a resolution censuring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. He has said he won’t defend NATO nations that supposedly don’t pay enough for defense. (Most NATO members now meet its target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, but Trump is shifting the goal posts by demanding 5 percent of GDP — well beyond the 3.4 percent that the United States itself spends.)"
Story by Yelena Mandenberg

A photo published on X showed a San Fransisco, California, Tesla dealership sporting an anti-Elon sign amid a series of protests against the billionaire who's accused of buying his way onto Donald Trump's team.

The SF Tesla employees reportedly hung a 'We Hate Him Too' sign at the Van Ness Avenue store last weekend, confirms a caption. The sign is a testament to the times: a wave of anti-Tesla protests have broken out as Elon Musk takes a leading role in President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force, largely responsible for costing scores of federal workers their jobs.
Analysis by Matt Egan, CNN

New York CNN — Just 20 days ago, the US stock market was sitting at all-time highs. The US economy appeared to be growing at a solid pace. And a recession was nowhere in sight.

Now, the R-word is seemingly everywhere.

Recession fears are rocking the stock market. GDP forecasts are getting slashed. President Donald Trump and his economic team are facing questions about a possible recession —and failing to ease mounting jitters about the economy.

It’s stunning how fast the mood has flipped. Investors who just a few months ago wondered if the economy was perhaps too strong are now bracing for real trouble ahead.

The reality is that the US economy doesn’t appear to be near an imminent recession. It was growing at a steady clip at the end of last year. The first quarter isn’t even over yet. And the jobs market was still in growth mode in January and February.

It’s way too early to say the economy is destined for a recession, a deep downturn typically marked by mass job loss, bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Previous recession scares were, with the benefit of hindsight, way overdone. Recall the 2022 recession freakout that featured some flashing a 99% chance of a recession.

In an interview with Fox Business, Elon Musk said he is looking to cut waste and fraud from US entitlement programs. However, Musk’s estimate for the amount of waste and fraud is much higher than previous estimates. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) discusses Musk’s controversial remark and what it could mean for Social Security.
Story by Ja'han Jones

Trump turns CISA upside down
Donald Trump is known for peddling conspiracy theories about election security, yet his administration has cut funding for two key cybersecurity initiatives, including one focused on election security. On Monday, The Associated Press reported the Trump administration slashed millions of dollars for two initiatives, the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Both initiatives are part of the nonprofit Center for Internet Security.

The AP highlighted the potential ramifications:

The activities no longer being funded include cyber threat intelligence, cyber incident response and engaging with state and local government officials. In a statement, the agency said ending the funding will help ‘focus CISA’s work on mission critical areas, and eliminate redundancies.’

Trump and the GOP have had the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in their crosshairs since 2020, when Trump fired its former director, Chris Krebs, who debunked election conspiracy theories Trump was spreading at the time.

Trump has made several moves at CISA in his second term that have raised eyebrows. His Department of Homeland Security secretary said earlier this year that CISA shouldn’t focus on thwarting foreign misinformation efforts that target Americans. Meanwhile, a recent CBS article highlighted worries among lawmakers and federal employees about the dire consequences of gutting CISA, including the recent firing of a top employee responsible for overseeing defense against cyberattacks on critical infrastructure like water pipelines and electrical grids.
Story by Colby Hall

President Donald Trump continued to amplify anti-Canadian trade rhetoric on Tuesday, wondering why the current policy of free trade of electricity is allowed. Trump also amplified his ignorance that the free trade agreement was negotiated explicitly under the USMCA free trade agreement that went into effect during his first administration.

Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff policy with some of the U.S.’s strongest allies and largest trade partners — including Mexico and Canada — has caused significant market disruption, leading to a spate of warnings about a looming recession. During a Sunday interview with Maria Bartiromo, Trump’s refusal to say that he could not guarantee there wouldn’t be a recession did not calm already skittish investors.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

President Donald Trump is downplaying his influence on the stock market after watching it plunge by more than 2,000 points Monday — with another 500-point tumble soon after opening Tuesday.

But MSNBC showed a supercut of Trump's past speeches in which he boasted about his impact on the markets and claimed credit for a successful surge.

"I don't want to be braggadocious, but we'll say it anyway, the Trump Effect, it's you. You're the effect. Since the election, the stock market has surged," Trump said on Jan. 19 at a pre-inauguration rally.

On Feb. 9, Trump told Fox News, "I was very proud to have handed over the country, and the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in. It was an amazing achievement."
Carl Gibson, AlterNet

President Donald Trump notably stayed away from cameras on Monday, as Wall Street experienced its worst day in years as investors react to a climate of economic uncertainty.

On Monday evening, CNN host Anderson Cooper reminded viewers that despite normally being willing to take questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was "nowhere to be seen" following a "massive stock sell off that began the moment the bell rang." Cooper noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was "down almost 900 points," while the Nasdaq Composite "took the worst beating" of the day, down by 4% after the conclusion of trading on Monday. He also remarked that today marked the biggest single-day decline since September of 2022.

"More than an hour after markets closed, the White House did finally put out a statement touting the president's economic agenda and first term record on the economy. It didn't mention the massive drops today, nor what sparked it," Cooper said. "The culprit wasn't a poorly received report of jobs, GDP or consumer spending. as is often the case. It was what the president himself said."

Rachel Maddow explains how House Republicans had the power to take away Donald Trump's ability to casually throw around trade tariffs in a way that is roiling markets and provoking trade wars, but instead of using their power to protect the economy (and the American public) from Trump's impulsiveness, they gave away their power and went out of their way to twist the rules to do so.
And how unchecked innovation enabled the ruse.
EXPERT OPINION BY PETER COHAN, FOUNDER, PETER S. COHAN & ASSOCIATES @PETERCOHAN

In America, a profound sense of betrayal is taking root. Many supporters of President Donald Trump are suffering economic distress instead of the prosperity Trump promised. Escalating tariffs and massive government layoffs are causing them to question the choices they made at the ballot box.

Betrayed Trump voters have many reasons they voted for him: They expected him to cut waste and fraud and get criminals off the streets. Some Trump voters regret believing him when he distanced himself from Project 2025.

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Project 2025 co-author and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought said in a speech leading up to the November 4 election, reported NBC News. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

Here are three stories from betrayed Trump voters.
Story by Erik De La Garza

An exclusive New York Times report that revealed tech billionaire Elon Musk wants to pour $100 million of his vast fortune into political groups aligned with President Donald Trump drew outrage from observers who pointed out the curious timing of new the multimillion-dollar effort from the world's richest person.

The eyeball-popping donation was “unheard-of” for a White House staffer, according to the Times’ reporting on Tuesday, which detailed the DOGE head's upcoming plans for his presidential boss.

But the move didn’t sit well with onlookers – who noted that the report hit the same day that Trump used the White House lawn to promote Musk's Tesla electric vehicles, as the company's stock has plummeted in the last seven weeks.
Story by Rhian Lubin

The acting head of the Social Security Administration admitted that he doesn’t know exactly what the “DOGE kids” have been doing with Americans’ sensitive data, according to a bombshell audio recording.

An hour-long meeting last week led by the department’s acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, was captured on an audio recording shared with ProPublica, where he repeatedly referred to young staffers at the Department of Government Efficiency as the “DOGE kids,” and confirmed they had “broad access” to Social Security numbers and personal data.

Addressing what DOGE staffers had been doing with Social Security data, Dudek reportedly asked at one point in the meeting: “Are we going to break something? I don’t know.”

But he added that he “actually like[s] having the kids around” despite them being unfamiliar with the “nuances” of the department. “They’re learning. Let people learn. They’re going to make mistakes,” Dudek reportedly said. “They’re thinking about work differently.”

One of his deputies in the meeting added it was a “victory” that there was not more misinformation because the DOGE staffers “are being educated.”

In a bid to reassure employees, Dudek reportedly said that if Elon Musk’s techies did anything illegal with Americans’ Social Security numbers or data, he would investigate and have them “potentially prosecuted.”
Story by Julia Conley

With declining consumer interest in Tesla vehicles sending CEO and Trump administration ally Elon Musk into an apparent panic over the electric automaker's plummeting stock—spurring an impromptu car show on the White House lawn Tuesday with President Donald Trump scolding Americans for not buying Musk's products—recent reports from across Europe and Canada suggest the two right-wing leaders are pushing global consumers to reject not just Tesla, but a wide array of American goods.

As The Guardian reported Wednesday, numbers released this week by Statistics Canada showed waning enthusiasm for Canadians to visit their southern neighbor, with 23% fewer Canadians taking road trips into the U.S.—the most popular mode of cross-border travel—this year so far compared to February 2024.

With Trump initiating a trade war with Canada—falsely claiming the country is a major source of fentanyl flowing into the U.S.—by imposing 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports and threatening to take over the country as the "cherished Fifty First State," consumers have been downloading apps like "Maple Scan" and "Is This Canadian?" to avoid purchasing U.S.-made products.
The Guardian

With Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino cosying up to each other, we will have to boycott the 2026 World Cup and all things American (Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump have taken the 2026 World Cup for themselves, 12 March). A couple of problems, however: Tim Cook of Apple has also donated to Trump. My quandary is that both my iPhone and iPad are on the blink and need updating, so what should I do? And we must try to buy Canadian goods, but what else is there besides Canadian maple syrup on sale here?

Patricia Borlenghi
Manningtree, Essex
I recently had a wonderful walk on Bleaklow in the Peak District and visited the wreckage of the American bomber, the B29 Superfortress Overexposed, which crashed in 1948. The centre of the devastation was adorned with stars and stripes. There were also many poppies and small wooden crosses, one marked “RIP our allies”. How poignant at this time and how sad.

Martin Whittle
Sheffield
Apparently, the worst playground insult these days is “You’re Donald Trump!” Have any readers who work in schools heard this?

Phil Brand
London
The suggestion that cinemas show adverts at the end of films (Letters, 10 March) reminds me of the days when we scrambled for the exit as soon as the film ended to avoid having to stand through the national anthem.
There’s a growing global call to boycott American-made goods.

Consumers across the world are boycotting American products in protest of literally everything Donald Trump is doing.

In Canada, American liquor, wine, and spirits have been pulled off the shelves in response to Trump’s tariff war with America’s northern ally. Canadians have booed the American national anthem at hockey games, and trips across the southern border dropped 23 percent last month from the same time last year.

In Sweden and Denmark, people are calling for a boycott of American companies, including McDonalds, Amazon, and KFC, after Trump pulled military funding for Ukraine. A Danish Facebook group, Boykot varer fra USA, which translates to “Boycott Goods from the U.S.,” has over 70,000 members. Users post about alternatives to American products, and support one another in boycotting American products.

“I have been in the group for a few days and can already feel my joy at my increased consumer awareness,” one user posted.

And across the world, electric vehicle buyers are refusing to buy Teslas in rejection of Elon Musk’s shadow presidency, his support for the far-right German party AfD, his hand gesture that looked like a Nazi salute, his slashing of federal funding through the Department of Government Efficiency … the list goes on.
Story by ktan@businessinsider.com (Kwan Wei Kevin Tan)

A federal judge ordered Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to hand over documents and answer questions about their plans to trim federal agencies.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in her order on Wednesday that Musk and DOGE have to comply with the discovery request in three weeks.

Under the order, Musk and DOGE must turn over records relating to their plans to cull federal agencies, terminate federal employees, and cancel federal contracts. The discovery requests do not apply to President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order establishing DOGE on January 20, the day he took office.

Last month, 14 Democratic state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit against Trump, Musk, and DOGE. In their lawsuit, the attorneys general asked the court to "restore constitutional order" and stop Musk "from issuing orders to any person in the Executive Branch outside of DOGE."

"Mr. Musk does not occupy an office of the United States and has not had his nomination for an office confirmed by the Senate. His officer-level actions are thus unconstitutional," the lawsuit argued.
Story by Travis Getty

Elon Musk wants to position himself above the federal government in an unprecedented way, according to veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO bought himself a powerful perch in the White House by giving more than a quarter billion dollars to Donald Trump's re-election campaign, and he has set about eliminating thousands of government jobs and entire federal agencies, but Swisher told "CNN This Morning" that Musk is scooping up sensitive data to give him a "god's view" of the entire government.
Travis Gettys

Four young staffers working under Elon Musk gained access to highly sensitive personal data held by a consumer protection agency before shutting it down.

White House budget director Russell Vought ordered wider access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau materials by staffers working for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency over the weekend before agency chief operating officer Adam Martinez ordered all its employees to stay home for the week, reported Bloomberg News.

"The actions began last Thursday, when four young staffers working under Musk for [DOGE] showed up at CFPB’s Washington headquarters," the publication reported. "At first, they had what was described as read-only access to a limited array of documents, including the agency’s internal personnel files, procurement records and budgeting and financial data, according to an email shared among CFPB officials."

"Then, late Friday night, the DOGE staffers were granted access to all the CFPB’s data systems, including sensitive bank examination and enforcement records, according to five people familiar with the matter and emails seen by Bloomberg News," the report added. "The people asked not to be identified, citing concerns over potential retribution. By Sunday, the agency was a skeleton, with its funding limited and activities suspended."
Story by Emily Peck

DOGE is taking its wrecking ball to the Social Security Administration, the agency responsible for overseeing retirement and disability benefits for 73 million Americans.

Why it matters: The cuts underway could wind up breaking critical parts of a system that millions of the nation's most vulnerable citizens rely on, including nearly 90% of Americans over age 65.

The big picture: Monkeying with Social Security was always viewed as a "third rail" in politics, even before an aide to House Speaker Tip O'Neill coined the phrase in the early 1980s.

Many presidents have tried to reform the system in ambitious ways, but the costs were always too great, perhaps until now.
State of play: The agency announced last month it seeks to cut about 7,000 employees, or 12% of staff, through voluntary resignations and a reduction-in-force plan due Thursday.

Employees have been fleeing, resulting in "a significant loss of expertise," former staffer Tiffany Flick said in an affidavit filed late last week.

The agency also announced plans to shutter six of 10 regional offices.

Also closed? The office inside the agency that had been tasked with moving some of these processes online, the Office of Transformation.

"That office was doing what DOGE purports to do," said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who worked at the agency for years under different administrations, most recently in the Biden administration.

DOGE has also gained access to crucial systems, packed with private data that Flick and others said the group doesn't have the expertise to handle.
Story by Julia Ornedo

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) backed off a plan to scrap telephone services for millions of Americans filing claims with the Social Security Administration, just hours after The Washington Post revealed the sweeping changes.

In a tense Tuesday meeting, DOGE staff grilled SSA officials about phone fraud and proposed shifting all claims processing to online channels and in-person offices, according to The Post.

SSA employees floated possible solutions, but DOGE wasn’t “interested in anything else but defending the decision that they had already made,” a source familiar told the paper.

The news was met with outrage on Musk’s social media platform X.

“Going after 90-year-old grandmas who can’t drive and don’t have a computer? That’s just low,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said.

“Gramma and Grampa are already waiting too long for answers about their Social Security,” Sen. Ed Markey wrote. “Now, Elon Musk and DOGE want to close field offices and take away their option to use the phone. This is outrageous.”
Story by Rhian Lubin

President Donald Trump took to social media to whine about who negotiated a deal allowing Canada to supply energy to the U.S. — but, it turns out, he made the deal.

Amidst the trade tariffs back-and-forth with Canada and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who suspended the province’s 25 percent electricity surcharge on three U.S. states Tuesday, Trump fumed on Truth Social: “Why would our Country allow another Country to supply us with electricity, even for a small area?”

“Who made these decisions, and why?” the president demanded.

The decision to maintain the free flow of energy across the borders was part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and negotiated by Trump in November 2018 during his first term. It was signed into law in January 2020.

Elon Musk's DOGE program promised to save taxpayers billions through aggressive cost-cutting measures. New investigations reveal many of these claims are based on miscalculations.
Story by Brett Arends

Less than a day after Elon Musk promised to find $1 trillion in free money by cutting “fraud and waste” from the federal government — an amount equal to about one federal dollar in seven — his claim has been undercut by yet another government report.

Total federal “improper payments” last year came to $162 billion, according to figures released by the Government Accountability Office.

And the Biden administration had already slashed that figure by a third, or $74 billion, from the year before, as pandemic-era programs were wound down, the GAO added.

The further you look into the report, the worse news becomes for everyone who had already been planning out how to spend their share of the so-called DOGE dividend.

For instance, the GAO’s “improper payments” figure included $7.9 billion in underpayments, which is where the federal government failed to pay people what they were owed.

Deduct that figure from the total — and pay that money out, as intended — and the total savings Uncle Sam could have achieved last year by perfect accounting would have come to $146.2 billion, the GAO numbers show.

Oh, and even this includes $12.6 billion in so-called unknown payments, which the GAO says is where it is “unclear whether a payment was an error or not.” So these might not be overpayments at all, either.
Story by Estelle Nilsson-Julien

When former KGB officer Alnur Mussayev claimed that US President Donald Trump was recruited as an asset for Moscow in the 1980s, it set off a storm on social media.

In a Facebook post on 20 February, Mussayev said that Trump was enlisted by the KGB in 1987 while on a trip to Moscow, then aged 40, and assigned the code name "Krasnov".

Trump has not directly responded to Mussayev's claims. The US president has repeatedly denied having ever worked for Russia.

One thread on X, which has amassed more than 1 million views, refers to Trump as "Krasnov" and brands the US president as a Russian asset. The post goes on to list a series of claims which it presents as purported evidence for this declaration.

Meanwhile, other social media users turned to mockery, with one account posting a photo montage of Trump in a KGB outfit, with the political slogan and acronym MAGA ("Make America Great Again") altered to read "Moscow Agent Governing America".
Story by Joey Garrison, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON ― Tens of thousands of federal government probationary workers fired in recent weeks as part of President Donald Trump's sweeping cuts to the federal workforce must be reinstated immediately to their positions, a California judge ordered Thursday.

The decision from U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco is one of the most far-reaching court defeats so far in the Trump administration's efforts, led by top White House adviser Elon Musk, to gut the federal bureaucracy.

The judge ordered six federal agencies ‒ the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Treasury ‒ to reinstate recently hired or promoted probationary employees who were terminated by the Trump administration.
The administration wants the court to limit the scope of lower court rulings against his executive order that would end automatic birthright citizenship.
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to narrow nationwide injunctions that have blocked the president’s plan to end automatic birthright citizenship.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said in three concurrently filed emergency applications in different cases that it was a “modest” request.

Notably, she is not asking the court to issue a decision on the merits of the plan that would apply nationwide. Instead, the government wants to the court to limit lower court injunctions to individuals or groups that sued over President Donald Trump’s order, and potentially to people who live in the Democratic-led states that challenged it.

She also asked that the court allow agencies to be able to work on how the executive order issued by Trump on his first day in office could be implemented, if it ever does go into effect.

If the request is granted, the administration could move forward with developing its policy and try to implement it in some form.
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