The US supreme court has backed the Trump administration in an action over payments due by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), with chief justice John Roberts issuing an “administrative stay” that means the $1.5bn worth of payments can still be delayed.
Thousands of US Agency for International Development (USAid) workers who have been fired or placed on leave as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces.
Starmer, despite leading a party whose activists mostly loathe Trump and everything he represents, has managed to establish a warm relationship with the president and today will give some clues as to what extent he can sustain that, and protect the UK from the tariff warfare that Trump is threatening to unleash on the EU.
Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s UK political editor, was on the plane and, as she reports, Starmer said he wants Trump to agree that, in the event of a peace settlement in Ukraine, the US will offer security guarantees that will make it durable.
Trump used the first full cabinet meeting of his second term to emphasize his administration’s focus on drastically reducing the size of the federal government, and signed an executive order expanding the power of Elon Musk’s Doge “agency”.
