Trump’s show of support for Conor McGregor is making fertile ground for Ireland’s far right | Justine McCarthy

Middle Ireland feels grievously insulted by the US president. On St Patrick’s Day, when the globe traditionally turns green, Donald Trump’s official guest at the White House was not the taoiseach bearing a bowl of shamrock, but an unelected stooge recently found by a civil court jury liable for the rape of a woman in … Read more

White House security leak: who’s who in the Signal group chat | US politics

Pete Hegseth Pete Hegseth Photograph: Reuters The appointment of the Fox News host to head the Pentagon was highly controversial. A former Army National Guard officer, Pete Hegseth, 44, has faced allegations of sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement and alcohol abuse. His contributions to the group chat include suggesting that because Americans were unfamiliar with the … Read more

In defiance of Donald Trump, is a European ‘security council’ emerging? | Paul Taylor

In the face of Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine and Donald Trump’s destabilisation of the Atlantic alliance, an embryonic European security council is taking shape on the hoof. Whether it will prove strong enough to protect Europe’s liberal democracies and deter Russia without US military support may be tested all too soon. Nato was created … Read more

Stunning Signal leak reveals depths of Trump administration’s loathing of Europe | Europe

If Europe wasn’t already on notice, the extraordinary leak of deliberations by JD Vance and other top-level Trump administration officials over a strike against the Houthis in Yemen was another sign that it has a target on its back. The administration officials gave Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic a front-row seat to the planning for … Read more

A French university is offering ‘scientific asylum’ for US talent. The brain drain has started | Alexander Hurst

In six weeks, the Trump administration’s “rapid scheduled disassembly” of American science has been as sharp and deep as its trashing of the US’s alliances and goodwill; Earth science, weather forecasting and early warning systems, medical research (including cancer research), Nasa. Academic grants more broadly have been cut, paused and subject to review for a … Read more

Musk’s SpaceX Could Secure Billions in New Contracts Under Trump

Within the Trump administration’s Defense Department, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the Pentagon could move military cargo rapidly around the globe. In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut … Read more