Trump live updates: Judge blocks mass firing of federal workers in blow to Musk and DOGE

Our own Andrew Feinberg annoyed the president yesterday with a question about King Charles’s opinion on his repeated threats to make Canada the 51st state, which is, after all, part of the Commonwealth.

He subsequently appeared on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show to recount his experiences.

Here’s more from Kelly Rissman.

The Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post privately pitched an alternative vice presidential pick to Donald Trump last year, just months before the newspaper killed its endorsement for Kamala Harris, a new book has claimed.

Here’s Madeline Sherratt on Bezos’s intriguing choice.

“I would have been president 20 years ago if I had that accent,” the American purred.

The British PM said he saw “validity” in the American president’s argument for pursuing a mineral deal with Ukraine on the eve of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington to finalise it.

Sir Keir claimed that Trump’s deal for highly valuable rare earth minerals would form “at least one element” of a security guarantee for Kyiv against Russia.

Starmer used his White House visit to push his counterpart into providing security protections for Ukraine and urged him not to abandon it in pursuit of a quick end to the war.

“I can see the value in the approach in relation to minerals,” Sir Keir told NBC.

“That is a matter between President Trump and President Zelensky.

“But I can see very clearly the argument that President Trump makes in relation to minerals, and I can also see the validity of his points when he says that if there’s a deal on minerals then the US has economic interests in Ukraine, which, if you like, form at least one element of any security guarantee.”

Figures on the right reacted with anger yesterday over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s much-hyped release of federal files on the late Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier accused of running a sex trafficking ring involving minors, which did not yield major new findings and featured some information that was already public.

“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment,” Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member of the House Oversight Committee, wrote on X after the release, adding her committee hadn’t reviewed the release.

“GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!”

Former One America News Network host Liz Wheeler, one of the right-wing figures who was granted access to the newly-released files, was also dismayed, and claimed the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York was hiding unspecified information.

Here’s more from Josh Marcus.

Here’s the latest from the president on his social media feed, which is otherwise dominated by pictures and clips of yesterday’s gladhanding with Sir Keir.

As Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency take aim at the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), experts are warning that cuts could impact how forecasters warn about potential storms or get people out of areas in the line of fire.

Howard Lutnick has defended the president’s newly-announced “gold card” visa program, bragging that there were already “250,000 waiting in line” for the scheme, which essentially entitles wealthy foreigners to buy American citizenship.

Just one day after announcing the proposal, Lutnick told Fox News host Bret Baier that if all the 250,000 people he cites were willing to pay the $5 million that the gold card requires, it would amount to “over $1 trillion dollars” in stimulating the U.S. economy and paying down the national debt.

But it’s unclear where Lutnick is getting that total from. Or where anyone might be able to sign up if they were interested.

The British PM has been more barn owl than barn stormer in the White House – but it worked, writes our World Affairs Editor Sam Kiley.

This was another rather less than cosy moment, when Sir Keir dismissed Vance’s attack on Europe over censorship, a critique he offered at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month.