This brings our live coverage of the day in US politics to a close, but we will return on Friday when a vote on a stopgap Republican spending bill in the Senate will determine whether or not the government shuts down. Here are some of the day’s developments:

• Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, said that he will vote to allow the deeply partisan Republican spending bill become law because a government shutdown would do more harm.

• Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that Senator Chuck Schumer’s statement was “a huge slap in the face, and I think that there’s a wide sense of betrayal.”

• In a letter sent to the president of Columbia University and the co-chairs of its board of trustees on Thursday, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force demanded nine specific changes to university policies and structures before negotiations over federal funding would begin.

• Columbia announced the same day it received the letter that it had complied with item one on the list of demands: expelling and suspending pro-Palestinian student protesters who occupied a campus building last year or took part in a Gaza Solidarity encampment.

• Representative Raúl Grijalva had died after a long battle with cancer, his office announced on Thursday. His seat will remain vacant until at least September.

• In 1996 a federal judge found the legal provision now being used to target Mahmoud Khalil unconstitutional. She was Donald Trump’s sister.

• Corks were not popping on Wall Street on Thursday, as stocks plunged again following Trump’s threat to impose a 200% tariff “on all wines, Champagnes, and alcoholic products” from European Union countries if the trading bloc makes good on its threat to retaliate for steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the US president by adding a 50% tariff on American products, including Kentucky bourbon.

• The Trump administration has appealed to the supreme court to uphold the president’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship.

• The US Postal Service will reduce its staff by 10,000 through early retirements, and has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) to streamline its operations, postmaster general Louis DeJoy announced.

In a letter sent to the president of Columbia University and the co-chairs of its board of trustees on Thursday, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force demanded nine specific changes to university policies and structures before negotiations over federal funding would begin.

The letter, which was posted online by the Free Press, a conservative news outlet founded by Bari Weiss, a former Columbia student who first claimed that the university intimidated Zionist students 20 years ago, demands the school’s “immediate compliance” with a list of actions. The first item on the list, “expulsion or multi-year suspension” for pro-Palestinian student protesters who occupied Hamilton Hall and took part in Gaza solidarity encampments was met by the university earlier on Thursday.

Among the other demands are a ban on mask-wearing on campus, sweeping changes in the university’s disciplinary policies, the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which casts criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and the “placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”

The letter was signed by Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, which oversees procurement and contracting for the entire federal government, and the acting general counsels of the departments of edutcation and health and human services.

Gruenbaum told Jewish Insider last week that he was determined to use government contracts as a way to fight antisemitism, as he defines it.

Several Democratic lawmakers have reacted to Chuck Schumer’s statement that he will vote to advance a partisan Republican bill to avert a government shutdown, which includes cuts to vital programs, by signaling their opposition to the stopgap measure.

“There are members of Congress who have won Trump held districts in some of the most difficult territories in the United States,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters, “who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people … just to see some Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk. I think it is a huge slap in the face, and I think that there’s a wide sense of betrayal.”

“This continuing resolution codifies much of this chaos that Elon Musk is wreaking,” Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN. “It sacrifices and completely eliminates congressional authority… to review these impulsive Trump tariffs”, she added, “removes all of the guardrails, all of the accountability measures to ensure that money is being spent in the way that Congress has directed for it to be spent. This turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”

Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota said she will be voting against the funding bill since “it does not continue the spending and policy law that Congress passed last year. Instead, it would slash support for fetal alcohol syndrome, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s at the National Institute of Health. It fails to pay for disaster relief or fund hundreds of millions of dollars for important community projects for Minnesota.”

“It would give President Trump vast discretion to allocate funds to reward his political friends and punish those he considers enemies,” she added. “From the beginning, President Trump and the Republicans set this up as an unprecedented power-grab.”

Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington thanked Smith “for standing up for the American people and refusing to vote for cloture or passage of a horrific Republican spending bill that gives the keys to Musk and Trump to steal from the American people and slash critical programs that people desperately need”.

“Respectfully, Senator Schumer, no,” Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman posted in response to the Democratic minority leader. “This Republican bill is bad for workers, bad for our veterans, bad for our seniors.”

“I’m a hard NO on the Republican spending bill,” Senator Adam Schiff posted. “When a wannabe dictator is trying to seize power, it must not be given to him. Not without a fight.”

Columbia University says it has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building for one day last April to protest the Israeli assault on Gaza.

A statement from the university did not provide the number of students who were expelled or suspended, but said the Columbia University Judicial Board had “issued sanctions to students ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall last spring.”

The school’s action came days after a well-known Palestinian campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, who had negotiated with the authorities on behalf of the protesters was arrested by federal immigration authorities and faces deportation, despite being a legal permanent resident on the United States married to an American citizen.

The New York Police Department charged 46 protesters, arrested during a raid on Hamilton Hall on 30 April 2024, with criminal trespass for their involvement in the brief occupation. The raid came on the 56th anniversary of a wave of arrests to end an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.

Last April, the police also arrested 108 people during an NYPD sweep of the on-campus “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”.

During the brief occupation, the pro-Palestinian protesters had renamed the campus building Hind’s Hall, in memory of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian child in Gaza City who had pleaded by phone for emergency workers to rescue her from a car riddled with bullets as her family tried to obey an Israeli order to evacuate their home. Her body was found two weeks later, on 10 February 2024, alongside the bodies of six of her family members.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, just indicated that he and other Democrats will vote for the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans, without Democratic input, to avoid a government shutdown.

“Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to the brink of disaster,” Schumer said. “The most vulnerable Americans,” he added, would suffer most from a government shutdown.

Schumer condemned the Republicans for refusing to work together on a funding bill, but said that: “It’s not really a decision. It’s a Hobson’s choice.”

“While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said. “For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR. It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”

“A shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” he added.

“I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country to minimize the harms to the American people,” Schumer said. “Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”

Representative Raúl Grijalva had died after a long battle with cancer, his office announced on Thursday.

Grijalva, who was 77, was the son of a Mexican immigrant and a former congressional Progressive caucus chair first elected to Congress in 2002.

He announced his cancer diagnosis 11 months ago, but was re-elected to Congress in November with 63% of the vote.

His colleagues mourned his death.

“A genuinely devastating loss,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote on social media. “Raúl Grijalva stood as one of the biggest champions for working people in all of Congress. His leadership was singular. He mentored generously and was an incredible friend. I will always be grateful for his lifelong courage and commitment.”

“Congressman Grijalva was not just my colleague, but my friend,” Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote. “As another Latino working in public service, I can say from experience that he served as a role model to many young people across the Grand Canyon State. He spent his life as a voice for equality.”

Grijalva represented the seventh district of Arizona in the closely divided House. The seat will now remain vacant until at least September.

As our colleagues Anna Betts and Erum Salam reported on Wednesday, a government charging document addressed to Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident and green card holder who is currently being held in a Louisiana detention center, said that secretary of state Marco Rubio “has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

The phrase “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” is a direct reference to a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives the secretary of state the power to expel non-citizens deemed to be a threat.

As the New York Times reported this week, in 1996, when the Clinton administration tried to use this provision to deport a former Mexican government official, a federal judge ruled that this section of the law was “void for vagueness”, deprived the non-citizen of “the due process right to a meaningful opportunity to be heard”, and was “an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power”.

That judge was Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s eldest sister, who was nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1983, elevated to an appeals court by Bill Clinton, and passed away in 2023.

Although a three-judge appeals court panel later overturned her ruling on procedural grounds, in an opinion written by then-Circuit Judge Samuel Alito, the forceful language of her opinion still resonates with the arguments of Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyers:

“Make no mistake about it. This case is about the Constitution of the United States and the panoply of protections that document provides to the citizens of this country and those non-citizens who are here legally and, thus, here as our guests”, Judge Barry wrote. “The issue before the court is not whether plaintiff has the right to remain in this country beyond the period for which he was lawfully admitted…[t]he issue, rather, is whether an alien who is in this country legally can, merely because he is here, have his liberty restrained and be forcibly removed to a specific country in the unfettered discretion of the Secretary of State and without any meaningful opportunity to be heard. The answer is a ringing ‘no’”.

Corks were not popping on Wall Street on Thursday, as stocks plunged again following Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 200% tariff “on all wines, Champagnes, and alcoholic products” from European Union countries if the trading bloc makes good on its threat to retaliate for steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the US president by adding a 50% tariff on American products, including Kentucky bourbon.

The sharp drop in the S&P 500 meant that a the index is now in “a correction” — a term used when when stocks falls 10 percent or more from their peak.

While the Wall Street Journal blamed the drop on “investors on edge over new tariff threats”, pro-Trump media outlets further to the right, like Newsmax, sought to play down the president’s role in the plunging markets. “This correction is overdue”, a guest on the far-right network assured viewers on Thursday. “Nothing to do with Trump. Nothing to do with tariffs”.

As the New Yorker staff writer John Cassidy noted in a podcast interview this week, the downturn began in the middle of February “when it became clear that Tump was serious about these tariffs, a lot of people on Wall Street thought he was bluffing”.

Cassidy went on to explain that Trump appears to be wedded to a dream of undoing globalization and returning to a period in the 19th century when the United States was closer to being an autarky, a self-sufficient country, closed off from the rest of the world.

That seems to jibe with Trump’s claim, in his announcement of the 200% tariff on Champagne, a form of sparkling wine that is only produced in the Champagne region of France, “This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the US”.

The Trump administration has appealed to the supreme court to uphold the president’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship, Reuters reports.

Donald Trump signed the order shortly after taking office, but multiple federal judges have ruled against it in lawsuits filed by rights groups. Here’s more on the appeal, from Reuters:

The Justice Department made the request challenging the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued against Trump’s order by federal courts in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland.

The administration said the injunctions should be scaled back from applying universally and limited to just the plaintiffs that brought the cases and are “actually within the courts’ power.”

“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current administration,” the Justice Department said in the filing. “This court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched.”

Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in office on January 20, directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.

The order was intended to apply starting February 19, but has been blocked nationwide by multiple federal judges.

The US Postal Service will reduce its staff by 10,000 through early retirements, and has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) to streamline its operations, postmaster general Louis DeJoy announced.

USPS aims to reduce its workforce in 30 days, DeJoy said in a letter addressed to leaders of Congress – a much faster timeline than the 30,000 positions it reduced from fiscal year 2021.

The postmaster added that Doge would help USPS “in identifying and achieving further efficiencies”.

“This is an effort aligned with our efforts, as while we have accomplished a great deal, there is much more to be done. We are happy to have others to assist us in our worthwhile cause. The DOGE team was gracious enough to ask for the big problems they can help us with,” DeJoy said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hit back at the federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of federal workers fired during their probationary terms, saying they overstepped their bounds.

Leavitt added that the administration would appeal the decision. Here’s her statement:

A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch. The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order.

Several Senate Democrats have announced their determination to block passage of a measure approved by House Republicans earlier this week to keep the government funded through September and prevent a shutdown that will begin after Friday.

It’s a significant move, as it raises the possibility that funding will lapse after midnight on Saturday, potentially handing Donald Trump the ability to further undermine the federal government’s operations. But several Democratic senators say it’s a fight worth having.

Mark Kelly of swing state Arizona said:

I cannot vote for the Republican plan to give unchecked power to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

I told Arizonans I’d stand up when it was right for our state and our country, and this is one of those moments.

Fellow Arizonan Ruben Gallego said much the same (it’s worth noting neither man is up for election next year):

This is a bad resolution that gives Elon Musk and his cronies permission to continue cutting veterans’ benefits, slashes resources for Arizona’s water needs, and abandons our wildland firefighters.

Newly arrived New Jersey senator Andy Kim is against it:

Republicans have made it so Musk and the most powerful win and everyone else loses. I don’t want a shutdown but I can’t vote for this overreach of power, giving Trump and Musk unchecked power to line their pockets. I’m a NO on the CR.

So is Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich, both of New Mexico:

We want to see the federal government funded and functional, and we have been fighting every day to force this administration to put the chainsaw down when it comes to the healthcare, education, and VA benefits our communities depend on.

But we won’t stand by as Republicans try to shove through this power grab masquerading as a funding bill. For the people of New Mexico, we will vote ‘no’ on Republicans’ continuing resolution.

The GOP controls the Senate but will need at least some Democratic support to get the spending bill through. Despite this opposition, there is also a chance that enough Democrats will get on board with the bill for it to be enacted.

On Greenland, Trump gets asked about his vision for potential annexation of the island.

“Well, I think it will happen. I’m just thinking, I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental,” he says, as he turns to Rutte saying “Mark, we need that for international security … as we have a lot of our favourite players, cruising around the coast.”

Rutte distances himself from his comments on annexing Greenland, but says Trump is right talking about growing risks in the North Arctic.

Trump is then asked about the recent elections in Greenland, and says “it was a good election for us.”

“The person that did the best is a very good person as far as we are concerned, so we will be talking about it and it is very important,” he says.

The president says the US “is going to order” 48 icebreakers, and that would help to strengthen US position “as that whole area is becoming very important.”

“So we are going to have to make a deal on that and Denmark is not able to do that [offer protection],” he says.

He then mocks Denmark saying they have “nothing to do with that” as “a boat landed there 200 years ago or something, and they say they have rights to it?” “I don’t know if that is true.”

“We have been dealing with Denmark, we have been dealing with Greenland, and we have to do it,” he says.

He again suggests Nato could be involved given its bases there, and says “maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers” there. He then asked defence secretary Pete Hegseth if he should send more troops there. “Don’t answer that Pete,” he laughs.

Reporters took the opportunity to question Trump and whether he’s willing to let up on the tariffs he is levying on major trade partners like Canada.

“No, we’ve been ripped off for years,” Trump said. “I’m not going to bend at all.”

He went on to say that the country has nothing the US needs but added that he loves Canada and mentioned its contributions like former Canadian ice hockey player, Wayne Gretzky.

Trump told reporters during a meeting in the Oval Office: “I think that will happen,” when asked about the annexation of Greenland.

Despite Trump’s claim that owning Denmark would be good “for purposes of National Security and Freedom” and benefit the country, Denmark has said Greenland is not for sale.

You can follow more live coverage of Trump’s meeting with Nato secretary general Rutte in our Europe live blog:

A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to fire employees in their probationary periods at six government agencies, and ordered their reinstatement, Reuters reports.

The ruling from San Francisco-based judge William Alsup applies to the departments of defense, Treasury, veterans affairs, agriculture, energy and interior.

The order is effective immediately, and affects about 24,000 people total, Government Executive reports. The Trump administration’s widespread purge of probationary employees affected both new hires and veteran employees who had recently been given new positions:

Donald Trump has announced, or is reported to soon announce, several new and significant policies. The president will reportedly make good on his campaign promise to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to assist his mass deportation plan, a law best known for its involvement in Japanese internment. He threatened 200% tariffs on French wine and other beverage imports from the European Union, in retaliation for their own retaliatory tariffs. And the military is reportedly drawing up plans to take control of the Panama Canal in line with Trump’s desire to do so, though whether they use force is an open question. But it’s not all smooth sailing for the White House – they’ve pulled the nomination of a vaccine skeptic to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reportedly because he would not have had the votes for confirmation.

Here’s what else has happened:

• The IRS could face a major staff reduction right after tax day, under a plan to be proposed by the “department of government efficiency”, CNN reports.

• Pete Buttigieg ruled out a run for Michigan’s Senate seat next year, which leaves the Democratic former transportation secretary available to seek the presidency in 2028, should he choose.

• Trump tariff bluster may not be pleasing Americans, a new poll finds.

The Internal Revenue Service could see its staff cut by 20% as part of the department of government efficiency’s (Doge) campaign to reduce the size of federal departments, CNN reports.

The layoffs would come one month after the 15 April deadline for American taxpayers to file their returns. Federal agencies have a deadline of today to submit their plans for restructure, which will likely lead to further mass firings of employees.

Here’s what we know about the proposed cutbacks at the IRS:

The details of the IRS proposal have been laid out in an email from DOGE and will be discussed at a meeting among agency leadership Thursday morning, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. The proposal has not been made public.

The latest round of layoffs would terminate nearly 6,800 employees — on top of about 6,700 probationary employees who have already been fired and 4,700 employees who took the “voluntary buyout” known as the “Fork in the Road” program from the Trump administration.

Echoing concerns sounded by experts and other employees, the source says these cuts could impact the amount of revenue the IRS brings in and that could ripple through the federal government as IRS funds nearly all government operations. While April 15 is the deadline for tax returns to be filed, the agency processes tax returns year-round.

“Depending upon how we effectuate these cuts, it could dramatically reduce revenue, dramatically reduce customer service,” the source said, adding that the cuts could also impact voluntary tax compliance.

“If we are not auditing much, it impacts people’s willingness to file honestly in the first place,” the source said.

Donald Trump may as soon as tomorrow invoke an obscure federal law to speed up the deportations of certain groups of immigrants, CNN reports.

The president first proposed using the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, during his campaign last year. The law allows for summary deportation of non-citizens from a foreign country with which the US is at war, and is part of his pledge to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Since taking office in January, Trump has made strictly enforcing immigration law a priority, which resulted in more immigration arrests last month than in any other for the past seven years:

The US military is looking for ways to make good on Donald Trump’s promise to take back control of the Panama canal, ranging from increasing its troop numbers in the country to seizing it by force, NBC News reports.

Taking over the canal was a surprise foreign policy plank that Trump announced after winning the presidency in November. Here’s more on what the US military is considering, from NBC:

During a joint address to Congress last week, Trump said, “to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.” Since then, administration officials have not said what “reclaiming” means.

U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans that vary from partnering more closely with the Panamanian military to the less likely option of U.S. troops seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much the Panamanian military agrees to partner with the U.S.

The Trump administration’s goal is to increase the U.S. military presence in Panama to diminish China’s influence there, particularly access to the canal, the officials said.

Both Panama and China deny there is any foreign interference in the 50-mile canal, whose neutrality is enshrined in Panama’s Constitution. Chinese officials have accused the U.S. of using “coercion” to pressure Panamanian officials to block Chinese aid projects.

The White House had pulled the nomination of Dave Weldon, a former congressman and vaccine skeptic, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Washington Post reports.

Weldon was to have his confirmation hearing today before the Senate health committee, but that has now been cancelled.

During his time representing a Florida district in the House from 1995 to 2009, Weldon promoted baseless conspiracy theories that vaccines are linked to autism, despite research debunking such claims.

Pete Buttigieg, a former transportation secretary and Democratic presidential contender, will not run for Michigan’s Senate seat next year, a decision that would allow him to instead seek the White House in 2028, Politico reports.

A former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg’s fortunes rose in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, then his selection by Joe Biden to handle transportation policy during his administration.

Buttigieg recently moved to Michigan, whose Democratic senator Gary Peters announced he will not seek re-election next year, setting the stage for what is expected to be a hot contest to replace him in a state Trump carried in November.

Here’s more from Politico on why Buttigieg has opted out of that race:

His decision was framed by several allies and people in his inner circle as putting him in the strongest possible position to seek the presidency, and based on a belief it would be exceedingly difficult to run successive campaigns in 2026 and 2028.

The former Transportation secretary acknowledged recently he had been “looking” at a Senate campaign, including meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss the possibility.

Democrats are scrambling to hold onto the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters in a crucial swing state. Republicans see it as a top pickup opportunity after coming close to flipping the state’s other Senate seat last cycle.

Buttigieg, who ran for president in 2020, moved to Traverse City, Michigan, with his young family, after four years of working in former President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. The workload of Cabinet-related travel — and the prospect of starting a campaign soon after — weighed in his calculus, people close to him said.

Before opting out of a Senate run, Buttigieg also ruled out a run for Michigan governor. Polling indicated that had he run, he would’ve started in a dominant position in a primary.

“The hardest decision in politics is to pass on a race you have a very good chance to win,” said David Axelrod, the longtime Democratic operative who helped lead Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, and a mentor to Buttigieg who spoke with him Wednesday. “Pete was an A-list recruit and would have been a formidable candidate for the Senate had he chosen to run. But had he won in ’26, it would almost certainly have taken him out of the conversation for ’28. This certainly keeps that option open. Beyond that, I have a sense that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and with people in communities like his, where the conversations and concerns are so different than the ones you hear in the echo chamber of Washington.”

Donald Trump is starting off his morning by doing something he’s done quite often, which is threaten tariffs on major US trading partners.

The latest salvo is aimed at the European Union and their alcoholic beverage industry, particularly France and its world-renowned vineyards. Trump says he’ll put tariffs on what the bloc exports to the United States, after the EU yesterday imposed their own levies on American whiskey in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel.

The escalatory tit-for-tat is why these things are referred to as trade wars. Here’s what Trump wrote, on Truth Social:

The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky. If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.

Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, will visit Washington DC on 12-14 March, according to a media briefing.

On 13 March, Rutte will meet US president Donald Trump at the White House. During Rutte’s visit he will also meet​ senior administration officials and with Congress.

US immigration enforcement officials arrested more people in the first 22 days of February 2025 than in any month over the last seven years, according to a Guardian review of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data.

The Guardian review, which analysed DHS data from the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency, in addition to interviews with immigration lawyers, advocates and former Ice officials, show how the administration has transformed immigration enforcement in the US within just a few weeks.

In a rush to meet Trump’s goal of “mass deportations”, the administration has moved to quickly close the US southern border – suspending the asylum programme and other Biden-era programs that offered humanitarian relief. Simultaneously, it has amped up immigration enforcement in the interior of the country.

Immigration officials are not only arresting more people, but also placing increasing numbers in detention. DHS announced Tuesday that immigration detention had been filled to capacity, with 47,600 detainees.

The Guardian analysis also reveals that while the administration says it has been targeting “criminals”, Ice enforcement instead has become more indiscriminate. And it shows that as the administration tries to ramp up arrests, it is reshaping the relationship between federal immigration authorities and local law enforcement.

“What we’re seeing is a real scattershot of different tactics,” said Gracie Willis, a rapid response attorney at the National Immigration Project, a membership organisation for attorneys and immigration advocates.

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 programmes.

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.

Chutkan said in her 14-page decision that she was allowing the state attorneys general to obtain documents from Musk to clarify the scope of his authority, which would inform whether he has been operating unconstitutionally to the extent that Doge’s activities should be halted.

The judge also suggested that the so-called discovery requests, which she limited to only documents and not any depositions, could include the identities of Doge staffers in order to establish the scope of the Doge operation. Chutkan’s order does not apply to Donald Trump.

For weeks, Musk has taken great pains to conceal how Doge operates, starting with his own involvement in the project. Musk himself is a “special government employee”, which the White House has said means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public.

The White House then subsequently said in court filings that Musk was a senior adviser to the president, a designation that it claimed meant Musk had no actual or formal authority to make government decisions, even though it contradicted how Trump had spoken publicly about Musk.