What Comes After Democratic Breakdown (Illustration by Emmanuel Polanco) Donald Trump’s first election to the presidency in 2016 triggered an energetic defense of democracy from the American establishment. But his return to office has been met with striking indifference. Many of the politicians, pundits, media figures, and business leaders who viewed Trump as a threat to democracy eight years ago now treat those concerns as overblown—after all, democracy survived his first st

Executive actions aims to test limits of president’s authority and perhaps win backing from conservative supreme court Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday in Washington DC. (Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images) Donald Trump’s spate of executive orders include many aimed at expanding his presidential powers in areas that pose threats to the rule of law and democratic norms in the US, say legal experts. Trump’s orders include the abru

Exclusive: Bobby Scott sounds alarm over ‘void of oversight’ as Doge accesses sensitive data within US agencies Bobby Scott at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, in 2016. (Evan Vucci | AP) Elon Musk’s blitz through the US federal government has triggered a “constitutional emergency”, a senior Democrat has warned, demanding the launch of an impartial investigation into billionaire tycoon’s access to sensitive data. Robert C “Bobby” Scott, ranking member of the Ho

The decimation of USAid is already having a terrible effect in some of the poorest places on the planet. It damages America: it will harm us all Illustration: Thomas Pullin | The Guardian An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or above could not have caused more carnage. Recent floods in Asia and droughts in Africa have been catastrophic, yet they have inflicted less damage and affected fewer people than the sudden withdrawal of billions of dollars of US aid from the world’s most vol

Federal workers alarmed at Heritage Foundation-backed watchdog’s list of civil servants in health equity roles The watchlist of federal employees in healthcare is the third such catalogue that the conservative group has published in the past four months. (J David Ake | Getty Images) On Tuesday evening, a federal government employee was shocked to find a watchlist that included the names, photos and work history of 57 mostly Black employees from a number of healthcare agencies

Happening Now: Biden seeks to strengthen relationship with tribal nations with Arizona visit. [The Hill | YouTube] President Biden apologized Friday for Native American boarding schools that were part of U.S. policy for 150 years and stripped children away from their tribes and culture. “The federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened, until today. I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did. I fo

WASHINGTON-Sharadiya Durga Puja, the largest Hindu festival in Bangladesh, started Wednesday under a cloud of concern following recent...

Bannon, a self-declared general of global populists, wants to break the world order. And he’s tapped into something much bigger than Trumpism. [Edward Kinsella III] There are times when Washington still feels like what it used to be—a sleepy little Southern city. Generations of some of the most powerful people on earth have spent their days in DC griping that the city is a backwater. But Washington’s modest position in our constellation of great cities was always part of its

The US said it is working with the Iraqi and the regional Kurdish governments to get missile defense capabilities after Iran attacked Erbil. The Iranian missile attack damaged buildings near the US Consulate in Erbil Iran claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck Iraq's northern Kurdish regional capital of Erbil in the early hours of Sunday morning. Iraq's Foreign Ministry summoned Iran's ambassador to protest the attack, calling it a flagrant violation of its

Plessy’s act of civil disobedience led to court decision that legalized ‘separate but equal’ doctrine and ushered in Jim Crow era The Homer Plessy community school in New Orleans. Plessy bought a ticket for a whites-only train cabin and was arrested for violating Louisiana’s Separate Car Act. Photograph: Barry Lewis/Getty Images In front of the old New Orleans train station where, in 1892, Homer Plessy engaged in a trailblazing act of civil disobedience that led to the landm