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Donald Trump landed in Beijing this week in the first visit to China by a US president in nearly a decade.

Alongside him was potentially the most powerful business delegation ever to accompany a US president to China, says the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith.

The entourage included Elon Musk and Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, and while each person had some business interest drawing them there, says Smith, their presence came against the backdrop of what’s being called an AI arms race, or cold war.

Both countries are facing calls to cooperate on global AI standards and safeguards. Bernie Sanders, an independent US senator, urged Trump and Xi Jinping to agree on allowing top scientists to share technical information and develop “AI red lines” on dangerous behaviour.

Sanders said: “At the height of the cold war, Reagan and Gorbachev found a way to negotiate nuclear arms control. The existential risk posed by AI demands nothing less from Trump and Xi.”

Watch to find out more about this AI “cold war”, and whether this week’s summit achieved anything, and to read Smith’s full dispatch with senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins, head to the link in bio.

It has not been a good week for Keir Starmer.

The British prime minister hasn’t been able to escape the pressure since last week’s local election losses, stalked wherever he turns by the expectation that someone else in his party is lining up to take his position.

Starmer at first insisted he deserved longer as prime minister, but his promise of “radical reforms” during the king’s speech on Wednesday did not have the desired impact. Instead, members of his government resigned, including the health secretary Wes Streeting, who seeks to replace Starmer.

Then on Thursday, a window opened up for his other rival, Andy Burnham, to fight for the Labour leadership. Burnham is not currently an MP but could soon become one after Josh Simons stepped down, setting up a parliamentary byelection that Burnham is expected to compete in.

Swipe to recap Starmer’s nightmare week, as told by Guardian cartoonists, and head to the link in bio for our explainer on what could happen next.

It has not been a good week for Keir Starmer.

The British prime minister hasn’t been able to escape the pressure since last week’s local election losses, stalked wherever he turns by the expectation that someone else in his party is lining up to take his position.

Starmer at first insisted he deserved longer as prime minister, but his promise of “radical reforms” during the king’s speech on Wednesday did not have the desired impact. Instead, members of his government resigned, including the health secretary Wes Streeting, who seeks to replace Starmer.

Then on Thursday, a window opened up for his other rival, Andy Burnham, to fight for the Labour leadership. Burnham is not currently an MP but could soon become one after Josh Simons stepped down, setting up a parliamentary byelection that Burnham is expected to compete in.

Swipe to recap Starmer’s nightmare week, as told by Guardian cartoonists, and head to the link in bio for our explainer on what could happen next.

It has not been a good week for Keir Starmer.

The British prime minister hasn’t been able to escape the pressure since last week’s local election losses, stalked wherever he turns by the expectation that someone else in his party is lining up to take his position.

Starmer at first insisted he deserved longer as prime minister, but his promise of “radical reforms” during the king’s speech on Wednesday did not have the desired impact. Instead, members of his government resigned, including the health secretary Wes Streeting, who seeks to replace Starmer.

Then on Thursday, a window opened up for his other rival, Andy Burnham, to fight for the Labour leadership. Burnham is not currently an MP but could soon become one after Josh Simons stepped down, setting up a parliamentary byelection that Burnham is expected to compete in.

Swipe to recap Starmer’s nightmare week, as told by Guardian cartoonists, and head to the link in bio for our explainer on what could happen next.

It has not been a good week for Keir Starmer.

The British prime minister hasn’t been able to escape the pressure since last week’s local election losses, stalked wherever he turns by the expectation that someone else in his party is lining up to take his position.

Starmer at first insisted he deserved longer as prime minister, but his promise of “radical reforms” during the king’s speech on Wednesday did not have the desired impact. Instead, members of his government resigned, including the health secretary Wes Streeting, who seeks to replace Starmer.

Then on Thursday, a window opened up for his other rival, Andy Burnham, to fight for the Labour leadership. Burnham is not currently an MP but could soon become one after Josh Simons stepped down, setting up a parliamentary byelection that Burnham is expected to compete in.

Swipe to recap Starmer’s nightmare week, as told by Guardian cartoonists, and head to the link in bio for our explainer on what could happen next.

It has not been a good week for Keir Starmer.

The British prime minister hasn’t been able to escape the pressure since last week’s local election losses, stalked wherever he turns by the expectation that someone else in his party is lining up to take his position.

Starmer at first insisted he deserved longer as prime minister, but his promise of “radical reforms” during the king’s speech on Wednesday did not have the desired impact. Instead, members of his government resigned, including the health secretary Wes Streeting, who seeks to replace Starmer.

Then on Thursday, a window opened up for his other rival, Andy Burnham, to fight for the Labour leadership. Burnham is not currently an MP but could soon become one after Josh Simons stepped down, setting up a parliamentary byelection that Burnham is expected to compete in.

Swipe to recap Starmer’s nightmare week, as told by Guardian cartoonists, and head to the link in bio for our explainer on what could happen next.

ICE turned its violent arrest of a US citizen into social media content.

In June 2025, Christian Cerna went to a protest in his neighborhood against ICE raids and allegedly punched a border patrol agent. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, but denies that he ever hit the officer.

Days after the protest, Christian was arrested in front of his family by ICE officers. They filmed the whole operation and posted it to social media where it racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

Stateside host Carter Sherman speaks with Christian and Guardian reporter Sam Levin about what really went down. Full episode coming soon at link in bio.

#ICE #LosAngeles #USPolitics #News

“A Russia like this can never be normalised – a Russia that deliberately destroys lives and hopes to remain unpunished,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said after a deadly night of strikes in Kyiv that killed 24, including three children.

“The Russians practically demolished an entire section of the building with their missile,” Zelenskyy said after visiting the site.

The Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs said it was “one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-scale war”.

Zelenskyy added: “Pressure is needed. It is Ukraine that is defending Europe and the world so that such strikes, in which children are killed, do not spread further.”

To get up to speed on the latest, read our latest briefing on the war at the link in bio.

Order a Diet Coke or invade Iran?

Visitors to the National Mall can now play an old-school arcade game with a modern, satirical twist.Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a subversive war game with a message: war isn’t a video game, despite the ways in which the Trump administration has conveyed it on social media with its bombastic, Call of Duty style posts.

Featuring a range of different barbs and direct quotes from Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, the three arcade game units have been set up in protest of the president’s handling of the Iran war, and the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation is the latest piece from Secret Handshake, a resistance art group that has previously installed several pieces of artwork on the Mall to protest the Trump administration, including a Golden statue depicting Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, as well as a Golden toilet.

Order a Diet Coke or invade Iran?

Visitors to the National Mall can now play an old-school arcade game with a modern, satirical twist.Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a subversive war game with a message: war isn’t a video game, despite the ways in which the Trump administration has conveyed it on social media with its bombastic, Call of Duty style posts.

Featuring a range of different barbs and direct quotes from Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, the three arcade game units have been set up in protest of the president’s handling of the Iran war, and the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation is the latest piece from Secret Handshake, a resistance art group that has previously installed several pieces of artwork on the Mall to protest the Trump administration, including a Golden statue depicting Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, as well as a Golden toilet.

Order a Diet Coke or invade Iran?

Visitors to the National Mall can now play an old-school arcade game with a modern, satirical twist.Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a subversive war game with a message: war isn’t a video game, despite the ways in which the Trump administration has conveyed it on social media with its bombastic, Call of Duty style posts.

Featuring a range of different barbs and direct quotes from Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, the three arcade game units have been set up in protest of the president’s handling of the Iran war, and the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation is the latest piece from Secret Handshake, a resistance art group that has previously installed several pieces of artwork on the Mall to protest the Trump administration, including a Golden statue depicting Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, as well as a Golden toilet.

Order a Diet Coke or invade Iran?

Visitors to the National Mall can now play an old-school arcade game with a modern, satirical twist.Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a subversive war game with a message: war isn’t a video game, despite the ways in which the Trump administration has conveyed it on social media with its bombastic, Call of Duty style posts.

Featuring a range of different barbs and direct quotes from Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, the three arcade game units have been set up in protest of the president’s handling of the Iran war, and the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation is the latest piece from Secret Handshake, a resistance art group that has previously installed several pieces of artwork on the Mall to protest the Trump administration, including a Golden statue depicting Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, as well as a Golden toilet.

Order a Diet Coke or invade Iran?

Visitors to the National Mall can now play an old-school arcade game with a modern, satirical twist.Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a subversive war game with a message: war isn’t a video game, despite the ways in which the Trump administration has conveyed it on social media with its bombastic, Call of Duty style posts.

Featuring a range of different barbs and direct quotes from Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, the three arcade game units have been set up in protest of the president’s handling of the Iran war, and the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation is the latest piece from Secret Handshake, a resistance art group that has previously installed several pieces of artwork on the Mall to protest the Trump administration, including a Golden statue depicting Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, as well as a Golden toilet.

Order a Diet Coke or invade Iran?

Visitors to the National Mall can now play an old-school arcade game with a modern, satirical twist.Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a subversive war game with a message: war isn’t a video game, despite the ways in which the Trump administration has conveyed it on social media with its bombastic, Call of Duty style posts.

Featuring a range of different barbs and direct quotes from Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, the three arcade game units have been set up in protest of the president’s handling of the Iran war, and the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz.

The installation is the latest piece from Secret Handshake, a resistance art group that has previously installed several pieces of artwork on the Mall to protest the Trump administration, including a Golden statue depicting Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, as well as a Golden toilet.

A plan to create one of the world’s largest datacentres in the US state of Utah has provoked a furious public backlash amid concerns over its vast energy use and impact upon the state’s stressed water supplies.⁠
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The Stratos artificial intelligence datacentre footprint would cover more than 40,000 acres (160 sq km) over three sites in Box Elder county in north-western Utah. The facility will suck up a significant amount of water in an area that has been hit by severe drought in recent years, and is expected to raise the state’s planet-heating pollution by about 50% by consuming a huge amount of energy and water to power and cool itself, according to one impact analysis.
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Last week, the project was approved by the county’s commissioners, despite thousands of objections lodged by Utah residents. Environmentalists have warned that Stratos could imperil the Great Salt Lake ecosystem, including a critical migratory bird habitat, which is already under severe stress.⁠
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The proposed project is backed by the venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, who has claimed Stratos will deliver thousands of jobs. But these jobs will not outweigh the longer-term impacts to Utah and beyond, critics argue.⁠
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“This has all the hallmarks of an out-of-state megaproject with little to no concern for the local community,” said Ben Abbott, an ecologist at Brigham Young University and executive director of Grow the Flow, a group that aims to protect the Great Salt Lake.
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Follow the link in bio to read more.

A plan to create one of the world’s largest datacentres in the US state of Utah has provoked a furious public backlash amid concerns over its vast energy use and impact upon the state’s stressed water supplies.⁠
⁠
The Stratos artificial intelligence datacentre footprint would cover more than 40,000 acres (160 sq km) over three sites in Box Elder county in north-western Utah. The facility will suck up a significant amount of water in an area that has been hit by severe drought in recent years, and is expected to raise the state’s planet-heating pollution by about 50% by consuming a huge amount of energy and water to power and cool itself, according to one impact analysis.
⁠
Last week, the project was approved by the county’s commissioners, despite thousands of objections lodged by Utah residents. Environmentalists have warned that Stratos could imperil the Great Salt Lake ecosystem, including a critical migratory bird habitat, which is already under severe stress.⁠
⁠
The proposed project is backed by the venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, who has claimed Stratos will deliver thousands of jobs. But these jobs will not outweigh the longer-term impacts to Utah and beyond, critics argue.⁠
⁠
“This has all the hallmarks of an out-of-state megaproject with little to no concern for the local community,” said Ben Abbott, an ecologist at Brigham Young University and executive director of Grow the Flow, a group that aims to protect the Great Salt Lake.
⁠
Follow the link in bio to read more.

“It felt designed to intimidate and harass,” says Mandira Moitra Sarkar, owner of the popular Mandira’s Kitchen – a restaurant in the south of England that was one of the latest targets of the Home Office’s immigration enforcement officers, otherwise known as ICE.

This raid is one of more than 17,400 carried out since July 2024 – a 77% increase on the year before and nearly as many as in the entire previous parliament, according to the Home Office.

While ICE officers are not armed with firearms, their tactics are under fire. We spoke to employees at Mandira’s Kitchen who described a midday raid – conducted with no warrant, off the back of an anonymous tipoff – as “terrifying”. They found nothing.

“People take this as something to be ashamed of,” says Moitra Sarkar, who holds a sponsor licence. “So they keep quiet. I thought: “not on my patch are you going to treat my people like this.”’

A Home Office spokesperson said: “All enforcement operations are intelligence-led. Race and ethnicity play no role in operational decisions. Illegal working undermines honest employers, undercuts local wages and fuels organised immigration crime.

“We hold our officers to the highest standards of professionalism and categorically refute any suggestion they acted improperly [or] were heavy‑handed.”

These type of raids are now being used as content for the Home Office’s new TikTok account, Secure Borders UK. Sile Reynolds of Freedom From Torture has called the account “performative cruelty”, calling for a “more hopeful story” about the UK’s capacity to welcome those seeking sanctuary.

The Home Office has said the account is aimed at tackling online misinformation and to deter people from making the dangerous crossing over the Channel. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said: “We have surged enforcement activity to the highest level in British history so illegal migrants in the black economy have nowhere to hide.”

With Reform UK and the Conservatives now pushing for even tougher ICE-style powers, the future of enforcement looks set to get even more intense.

Read the full investigation into the raid via the link in bio.

Video by @lozzhurrell + @windel.er

“Millionaires like us know how lucky we are to live in the UK and, as this polling shows, we are more than happy to invest in our country’s future,” said Phil White, a former business consultant, engineer and founding member of Patriotic Millionaires UK.

A survey of 501 British millionaires carried out on behalf of Patriotic Millionaires UK, a nonpartisan network that campaigns for higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy, found that nine in 10 UK millionaires are proud to live in Britain and three-quarters would be willing to pay more tax to ensure public assets get the funding they need.

Despite widely reported concerns that the wealthy are choosing to leave the country owing to higher taxes, 64% of those surveyed also said the government should increase taxes on the capital and assets of the wealthiest individuals to reduce the tax burden on everyone else. Patriotic Millionaires UK said the sample size reflected the smaller section of society that millionaires take up in the UK.

The survey comes as financial markets watch closely to see if Keir Starmer will be replaced by a more leftwing candidate as prime minister, as the Labour party considers how to react to their disastrous local election results. Some of the economic ideas connected to candidates such as Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have included a rise in capital gains tax to pay for a 2p cut in national insurance.

Head to the link in bio to read the full story.

Angela Rayner has been cleared by Britain’s tax authority, HMRC, of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness over her tax affairs, the Guardian can reveal, paving the way for a potential leadership bid as Keir Starmer’s grip on power unravels.

The former deputy prime minister has settled £40,000 in unpaid stamp duty after initially paying the lower rate, but has not paid any penalty as a result of the investigation. HMRC was also satisfied there was no tax avoidance. The investigation by HMRC into Rayner’s tax affairs has hung heavily over the senior Labour MP since she was forced to resign from the cabinet last September.

In an interview with the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar, Rayner said she had been “bruised” by the whole experience because of the intrusion into her disabled son’s personal life, but also because it had appeared as though she was “in it for myself” rather than on the side of ordinary people.

Now the issue has been resolved, the door is open for Rayner’s return to frontline politics.Rayner indicated she may run in the event of a leadership contest, saying she understood why Labour MPs were so upset after last week’s crushing election results. She said Starmer should “reflect on” stepping aside.

Starmer’s future continues to dominate headlines in the UK. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, resigned on Thursday and called on Starmer to resign as prime minister, saying there should now be a leadership contest.

Tap the link in bio to read the full story and follow our live blog for the latest updates.

📚 What’s your favourite novel of all time? And could you compile a definitive list of your top 100? 

This week, the Guardian is revealing a list of the greatest novels published in English, as voted for by authors and critics around the world. 

Our books team wanted to do things differently. Instead of deciding unilaterally, we polled 172 authors, critics and academics, asking for their top 10 novels  in order of preference. We then scored the titles according to how often they were voted for, and added a weighting based on individual rankings to produce the overall list.

This kind of list always gets people talking – who’s in, who’s been left out, why isn’t there more science fiction, or romance? We see this as the beginning of a conversation so let us know in the comments which novel you’ll be picking up. 

Tap the link in bio for our interactive guide to see how many of the top 100 you’ve read so far. 

📖 Our full list will be revealed on Saturday, but you can see books 100-40 on the Guardian website now.

Donald Trump has arrived in China to much pomp and ceremony. His state visit – the first by the US president in nearly a decade – comes at a time of geopolitical upheaval, a new and intractable conflict in the Middle East, and a sometimes rocky relationship between the world’s two big superpowers.

Trump began his trip by describing the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, as a friend and promising the US-China relationship was “going to be better than ever”.

Xi was more circumspect. He expressed hope that the two superpowers could avoid conflict, and wondered if China and the US could transcend the Thucydides trap, according to an official English translation of his remarks broadcast by CCTV. Thucydides trap refers to an idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established power, the result is often war.

There is much for Trump and Xi Jinping to discuss.

Tap the link in bio to read about the key issues that are likely to dominate the agenda.

“There are people in China who think that Trump envies Xi.”

Senior China correspondent Amy Hawkins talks through the high-stakes meeting in Beijing between presidents Trump and Xi.

Late on Wednesday evening local time, the US president landed in Beijing.

As the Guardian’s senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins, explains, Trump is in the country for a high-stakes meeting with President Xi
Jinping in the first visit of a US president to China since Trump was last in Beijing in 2017.

But what will they talk about, and how much is at stake?

#China #Trump #Politics #Taiwan