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President Donald Trump has criticised a service held at the Washington National Cathedral after he was called out during a sermon. Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde asked Trump for “mercy”, citing feelings of fear among LGBT and immigrant communities. Shortly after being sworn in as US President on Monday, Trump said he would make it “official policy” that there are “only two genders – male and female.” He also vowed to end illegal immigration into the country and said millions of “criminal aliens” would be deported. Speaking to press afterwards, Trump said he “didn’t think it was a good service”. “They could do much better”, he added before walking away. Source link

Getty Images Donald Trump has vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the US In one of his first acts as the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending “birthright citizenship” – meaning the automatic American citizenship that is granted to anyone born in the country. It’s a policy change he’s long promised – but implementing it won’t be easy. Trump’s order seeks to change the rules to deny the granting of citizenship to the children of migrants who are either in the US illegally or on temporary visas. The document does not suggest that the order would apply retrospectively. But it remains unclear how he intends to achieve this, given that birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution and would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress to change. Indeed, Trump’s attempts could face significant legal hurdles. Eighteen states, along with the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia, have already sued the federal government and challenged the executive order. What is ‘birthright citizenship’? The first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the US constitution establishes the principle of “birthright citizenship”: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Immigration hardliners argue that the policy is a “great magnet for illegal immigration” and that it encourages undocumented pregnant women to cross the border in order to give birth, an act that has been pejoratively called “birth tourism” or having an “anchor baby”. How did it start? The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, after the close of the Civil War. The 13th Amendment had abolished slavery in 1865, while the 14th settled the question of the citizenship of freed, American-born former slaves. Previous Supreme Court decisions, like Dred Scott v Sandford in 1857, had decided that African Americans could never be US citizens. The 14th Amendment overrode that. In 1898, the US Supreme Court affirmed that birthright citizenship applies to the children of immigrants in the case of Wong Kim Ark v United States. Wong was a 24-year-old child of Chinese immigrants who was born in the US, but denied re-entry when he returned from a visit to China. Wong successfully argued that because he was born in the US, his parents’ immigration status did not affect the application of the 14th Amendment. “Wong Kim Ark vs United States affirmed that regardless of race or the immigration status of one’s parents, all persons born in the United States were entitled to all of the rights that citizenship offered,” writes Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. “The court has not re-examined this issue since then.” Can Trump overturn it? Most legal scholars agree that President Trump cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. “He’s doing something that’s going to upset a lot of people, but ultimately this will be decided by the courts,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and University of Virginia Law School professor. “This is not something he can decide on his own.” Mr Prakash said that while the president can order employees of federal agencies to interpret citizenship more narrowly – agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for example – that would trigger legal challenges from anyone whose citizenship is denied. That could lead to a lengthy court battle ultimately winding up at the US Supreme Court. A constitutional amendment could do away with birthright citizenship, but that would require a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and approval by three quarters of US states. How many people would it impact? According to Pew Research, about 250,000 babies were born to unauthorised immigrant parents in the United States in 2016, which is a 36% decrease from a peak in 2007. By 2022, the latest year that data is available, there are 1.2m US citizens born to unauthorised immigrant parents, Pew found. But as those children also have children, the cumulative effect of ending birthright citizenship would increase the number of unauthorised immigrants in the country to 4.7m in 2050, the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, found. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump said he thought the children of unauthorised immigrants should be deported alongside their parents – even if they were born in the US. “I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said last December. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.” Which countries have birthright citizenship? More than 30 countries – including Canada and Mexico – practise automatic “jus soli”, or “right of the soil” without restriction. Other countries, like the UK and Australia, allow for a modified version where citizenship is automatically granted if one parent is a citizen or permanent resident. Source link

UK Government Marcus Bokkerink has chaired the Competition and Markets Authority since 2022 The chair of the UK’s competition watchdog has been ousted by government ministers who felt that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had failed to convince them it was sufficiently focused on growth. Government sources said that with the chancellor and business secretary at the World Economic Forum in Davos trying to drum up investment, the government wanted to send a signal that it was serious about growth. The CMA recently held up a merger between Vodafone and Three Mobile Networks which was eventually approved. Marcus Bokkerink, who has chaired the CMA since 2022, will be replaced on an interim basis by Doug Gurr, former boss of Amazon UK. Mr Bokkerink and other regulators met with Chancellor Rachel Reeves last week to deliver their ideas on how to stimulate growth. It is understood that the submission from the CMA was thought to be underwhelming. The CMA’s primary responsibility is to ensure consumers are well served by effective and fair competition. The CMA has been contacted for comment. Source link

The opening day of Prince Harry’s damages battle against the owners of The Sun newspaper has been delayed after it emerged that the two sides are involved in potential settlement talks after years of legal warfare. The duke’s lawyers were due on Tuesday to open an eight-week trial of his allegations that journalists at News Group Newspapers used unlawful techniques to pry into his private live – and executives then allegedly covered it up. Moments before they were to begin presenting their case, they asked for an adjournment. However, after hours of secret discussions, and no sign of a final agreement that could change the nature of the trial, the judge demanded that the two sides begin – leading them both to say they would ask the Court of Appeal to overturn that order. The practical effect of their objection is that the case has been delayed until at least 10am on Wednesday – which means both sides have more time to negotiate. It’s not clear what has been raised in the 11th hour negotiations. Prince Harry has repeatedly said he wants a trial so that he can get “accountability” for other alleged victims of unlawful newsgathering of private information by NGN journalists. NGN has denied there was any wrongdoing at The Sun or that executives across the group covered it up. The Rupert Murdoch-owned empire has long admitted that journalists at the News of the World, closed down in 2011, did use unlawful techniques but has always denied that it was widespread. This morning, lawyers for Prince Harry and former Labour MP Lord Tom Watson, the other remaining claimant, asked Mr Justice Fancourt to delay opening the case twice – meaning the court did not sit until 2pm. David Sherborne, Prince Harry’s barrister, said there was potentially a “good prospect” of an agreement that would save the court time. “We are very close, there is an issue with time and gaining instructions,” he said. “It is not the only factor.” Anthony Hudson KC, for News Group Newspapers, added the parties needed more time because of “time differences” and said that both parties were involved in a “settlement dynamic”. Mr Justice Fancourt – who has repeatedly criticised both sides for long delays and spats over how the case should be conducted – refused to give them more time, saying that the case should start, even if there were still talks behind the scenes that could change the nature of the trial. “I am not persuaded that if there is a real will to settle this that it could not have been done by today,” said the judge. News Group Newspapers’ lawyers then asked for the court to sit in private – without the presence of the media – to hear more about what was going on. The judge refused, saying he was not going to sit in “secret” – and then both Prince Harry’s team and NGN’s lawyers said they would ask senior judges to overturn the order to get underway. Source link

Global stock markets swayed on Tuesday, as investors tried to digest what US President Donald Trump will do on tariffs. In his inaugural address Trump stopped short of announcing fresh import taxes on his first day in office, though he later said new tariffs on Mexico and Canada could come on 1 February. Shares in the US and Europe opened slightly higher, while those in Asia saw modest gains. Trump has promised an ambitious agenda – including trade reforms, lower taxes and cuts to government regulations – which has the potential to boost company profits. But some economists have warned that the measures may also raise inflation, which in turn could force the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates. The dollar, which had fallen on Monday after the inauguration, regained some ground against some other major currencies, including the pound and the euro. Trump had previously threatened new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China on day one of his presidency. While they did not materialise on Monday, they are still on the agenda. “We’re thinking in terms of 25% on Mexico and Canada, because they’re allowing vast numbers of people, Canada’s a very bad abuser also, vast numbers of people to come in, and fentanyl to come in,” Trump said in the Oval Office. In a presidential memo, he directed federal agencies to investigate why America continues to import more goods than it exports as well as probing potential unfair trade practices and alleged currency manipulation by other countries. Trump also said new tariffs on China could depend on whether a deal is reached over TikTok’s future. If Beijing blocked such an agreement “it would be somewhat of a hostile act”, he said. But he said the US is not yet ready to impose tariffs on all imports into the country. During the election campaign, Trump pledged a universal tariff of 10% and said he would hit China with a 60% import tax. He has said tariffs will make Americans richer, although critics say the costs are likely to be passed on to consumers. The president has also said he would create an “External Revenue Service” to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues from foreign sources. US markets opened higher on Tuesday, with the S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq all seeing rises. Markets had been closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr national holiday. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 and Paris’s Cac 40 were up slightly in afternoon trade. Danish offshore wind giant Orsted was a big loser, with its shares down as much as 17% in morning trade, after announcing a $1.7bn (£1.4bn) impairment charge on delays to a US project and after Trump said he would end leasing to wind farms. Earlier, markets in the Asia-Pacific region also saw small gains. In the currency markets “plans and discussions of levies on Canada and Mexico saw those currencies fall sharply,” Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index, told the BBC’s Today programme. Oil fell on the prospect of more supply, and Bitcoin was higher due to Trump’s pledges of support for cryptocurrencies. Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at financial services firm KCM Trade, said “market sentiment was dented during the signing of executive orders by President Trump in the Oval Office”. “Investors heard more explicit details regarding the Trump tariff agenda, which sullied the market mood somewhat.” Other analysts warned that Trump’s return to the White House will reintroduce an element of unpredictability in the markets. “The first few hours of the Trump administration have underscored that policy environment will be dynamic once again and markets should brace for volatility,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at investment bank Saxo. Trump adviser Judy Shelton said Trump’s “main priority is to re-energise the private sector”. He wants to “unleash the individual through more economic liberty, through lower taxes, through less regulation”, she said. She said tariffs were “a very effective negotiating tool” and it will be used “with our closest neighbours and largest trade partners Mexico and Canada” with regard to immigration. She said tariffs would not necessarily be inflationary for Americans – people may not pay higher prices for imported goods, and instead turn to US producers. Source link

Watch: BBC reporter Wyre Davies confronts Patriotic Alternative member Aaron Watkins Warning: This story contains strong and offensive language. A far-right organisation should be banned and some members investigated by police, the BBC has been told, after we secretly filmed people in the group saying migrants should be shot. Former Counter-Extremism Commissioner Dame Sara Khan believes the UK government should urgently change the law to make groups like Patriotic Alternative illegal. Barrister Ramya Nagesh watched some of the footage and said: “There’s more than enough evidence for the police to investigate and refer to the Crown Prosecution Service.” An undercover BBC reporter spent a year investigating the far-right group and its members were recorded using racial slurs. One Patriotic Alternative (PA) member said he believed a race war was inevitable and the organisation should use a similar tactic to the Nazi party to gain power. The group cannot be banned under current legislation as they do not advocate terrorism but Dame Sara, the UK’s first Counter-Extremism Commissioner, feels they are “creating a climate conducive to terrorism”. Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett said they are not extremist, do not promote violence and peacefully campaign for the rights of what he calls indigenous British people. The group, considered to be the UK’s largest far-right group with about 500 members and thousands of followers online, says it exists to “raise awareness” of immigration and promote “family values”. Patriotic Alternative get involved in protests around controversial local issues within communities like plans to use a Llanelli hotel to house asylum seekers The BBC Wales Investigates programme found some members making comments that experts say could amount to inciting racial hatred. Patriotic Alternative have regional branches around the UK and encourage members – including former teachers and nurses – to hold protests, highlight immigration issues, film their activities and share clips online. A BBC journalist infiltrated the group in Wales using a fake identity, Dan Jones, someone who slept on friends’ sofas in Cardiff and did not have a full-time job. Posing as a new recruit, the undercover reporter covertly filmed at Patriotic Alternative demonstrations, their summer camp and secretive annual conference over the course of a year and heard some members sharing extreme views. Demos and banners: The public-facing image Dan attended a number of demonstrations in south Wales, including in Merthyr Tydfil where the group protested against the housing of migrants. He went to banner-waving events on busy road bridges where the group would visibly demonstrate against controversial local issues, encouraging drivers to honk horns in support. These events are legal and often attended by people who are not in Patriotic Alternative. However it was at these so-called ‘banner drop’ protests where Dan met people like Roger Phillips. While he said he wasn’t a Patriotic Alternative member, Mr Phillips joined the group at a demonstration and privately told Dan “35 to 40 of us were prepping, arming ourselves” after being at a protest against plans to use a hotel in Llanelli to house asylum seekers. Dan met Roger at a Patriotic Alternative ‘banner drop’ which is where supporters wave flags and banners over busy roads “I’m buying a pump action shotgun now,” Mr Phillips told the undercover reporter. “Who do you think is going to fight these migrants? Us lot.” He discussed modifying ammunition and claimed the weapon he planned to get could “kill you at 150 yards”. Mr Phillips said afterwards that he had suspected Dan was undercover so fed him false information and that he had been talking about paintballing guns. Our undercover journalist met Joe Marsh, leader of Wales’ Patriotic Alternative group, after contacting him in 2023 following the Llanelli protests Joe Marsh, Patriotic Alternative’s Wales organiser and former leader of the anti-Muslim Welsh Defence League, invited Dan to events. “If you didn’t have Jamaicans and Africans here stabbing people, we wouldn’t have any knife crime,” the former British National Party (BNP) activist and former football hooligan was filmed saying. Watch seven days of disorder in 2024 – how the UK’s far-right riots spread After the stabbing of three young girls in Southport in July 2024, Mr Marsh told his followers: “People shouldn’t be calling demos at mosques… if you are going to do one, outside a migrant hotel or in the town centre.” The next day, hotels housing migrants near Rotherham and in Tamworth were set on fire. We do not know if any of the protesters were Patriotic Alternative members or followers of Mr Marsh. Mr Marsh told the BBC he had not incited racial hatred, he had legally protested and had not introduced any new recruits to members with extreme views. What’s said behind closed doors The secret filming exposed how the more extreme views of some members came out, like when Aaron Watkins offered Dan some casual work. Mr Watkins is now a handyman after losing his tax job at HMRC after being outed for making racist comments online and being spotted at demonstrations. While the pair were wallpapering a house, Mr Watkins told Dan: “The communities that are the most diverse are the people we want to get rid of, violently preferably.” Aaron Watkins described migrants as “sub human invaders” while working on a wallpapering job with our undercover reporter “Round them up into camps and if they refuse to leave, we shoot them. The people who come here are parasites.” Mr Watkins told Dan that anti-terrorism detectives did not find any evidence against him when they investigated him for making racist comments because he had a new phone and had destroyed his old handset. “I’d burnt the old one, literally on a barbecue,” he privately admitted. “So, they couldn’t get me.” When the BBC approached Mr Watkins afterwards, he declined to comment. Our undercover reporter was invited to join social media chatgroups where he got messages daily about how immigrants were “invading” the UK. Dan was invited to Patriotic Alternative’s summer camp in Derbyshire and to their annual conference where he met Patrick

Calls for a boycott grew at the start of January with the sending of the cross-party letter. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi said England’s players should use their “power” to “make a difference”. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government was speaking to international counterparts on the issue but Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy later said the game should go ahead, adding that boycotts are “counterproductive”. “They deny sports fans the opportunity they love and they can very much penalise the athletes and sportspeople who work very, very hard to reach the top of their game,” she told the BBC earlier this month. International Cricket Council (ICC) regulations state full membership is conditional upon having women’s cricket teams and pathway structures in place. However, Afghanistan’s men’s team have been allowed to participate in ICC tournaments seemingly without any sanctions. The ICC is keen to use its position and the sport of cricket to influence change in the country and does not believe it should punish players for government policy. ECB chief executive Richard Gould wrote to the ICC, calling for more action from the global governing body after what he called “gender apartheid”. He stopped short of calling for an immediate boycott but did ask the ICC to place “immediate condition” on Afghanistan’s full member status to provide women’s cricket by a certain date. Source link

At least six Palestinians have been killed and 35 injured by Israeli security forces after they launched a major operation in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry says. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military, police and Shin Bet security service had launched an “extensive and significant” operation to “defeat terrorism” in Jenin. Palestinian media said Israeli military vehicles moved into Jenin and its refugee camp on Tuesday morning following several drone strikes. It comes after a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces against armed groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which they see as a challenge to their authority. A statement from Israel’s prime minister said the operation was an “additional step in achieving the objective we have set: bolstering security” in the West Bank. “We are acting methodically and with determination against the Iranian axis wherever it reaches: in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and [the West Bank] – and we are still active,” he added. An Israeli military statement said the operation was called “Iron Wall” and that it would continue “as long as necessary”. Jenin’s governor, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told AFP news agency that “what is happening is an invasion of the camp”. “It came quickly, Apache [helicopters] in the sky and Israeli military vehicles everywhere,” he added. There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the ensuing war in Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, saying they are trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel. Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. Source link

AFP Australia’s federal police have said they are investigating whether “overseas actors or individuals” are paying criminals to carry out antisemitic crimes in the country. There has been a spate of such incidents in recent months, the latest of which saw a childcare centre in Sydney set alight and sprayed with anti-Jewish graffiti. No-one was injured. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a snap cabinet meeting in response, where officials agreed to set up a national database to track antisemitic incidents. Thus far, the federal police taskforce, set up in December to investigate such incidents, received more than 166 reports of antisemitic crimes. “We are looking into whether overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs,” Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Reece Kershaw said, adding that it was possible that cryptocurrency was involved. The digital currency can take longer to identify, Mr Kershaw said. The commissioner said police were also investigating whether young people were carrying out these crimes and whether they had been radicalised online. However, Mr Kershaw cautioned, “intelligence is not the same as evidence” and more charges were expected soon. Last week, a man from Sydney became the first person to be charged by the federal taskforce, dubbed Special Operation Avalite, over alleged death threats he made towards a Jewish organisation. Albanese said Tuesday’s incident at a childcare centre in the eastern Sydney suburb of Maroubra was “as cowardly as it is disgusting” and described it as a “hate crime”. “This was an attack targeted at the Jewish community. And it is a crime that concerns us all because it is also an attack on the nation and society we have built together,” he wrote on social media. Getty Images Melbourne’s Addas Israel synagogue was set alight in December while people were inside The Jewish Council of Australia, which was set up last year in opposition to antisemitism, said that it “strongly condemns” this and all such incidents. “These acts underscore the urgent need for cooperation, education and community dialogue to combat prejudice and promote understanding,” it said in a statement. Most of the recent incidents have taken place in Sydney and have involved antisemitic graffiti, arson and vandalism of buildings including synagogues. New South Wales has set up its own state-level taskforce to address these incidents and 36 people been charged so far with antisemtic related offences. A further 70 arrests have been made for similar crimes in the neighbouring state of Victoria, where a synagogue was set on fire last month. Source link

Rival fans used to mock Palmeiras’ academy, singing that they had never won the Copa Sao Paulo, Brazil’s premier youth competition. Those times are long gone. Not only have Palmeiras won the ‘Copinha’, as the tournament is affectionately known, twice (2022 and 2023), but they have also established themselves as the hottest talent factory in Brazilian football. Over the past few years, the Sao Paulo-based giants have produced and sold stars such as Chelsea-bound Estevao Willian (£29m), Real Madrid’s Endrick (£28.5m), West Ham’s Luiz Guilherme (£25.5m), Nottingham Forest’s Danilo (£16m), and Shakhtar Donetsk’s Kevin (£8m, all fees including add-ons). They have all helped Palmeiras cement their status as the most successful Brazilian team of the past decade while generating massive revenue. And the next one to come out of their prolific factory is Vitor Reis, who has signed for Manchester City in a £29.6m deal. Palmeiras had hoped for the 19-year-old to stay until this summer’s Club World Cup, but City insisted on bringing him in immediately. City’s incoming director of football, Hugo Viana, played a key role in this deal, making a call to Palmeiras coach Abel Ferreira, who is also Portuguese and a great friend of his, to find out more about Reis. Despite making only 22 appearances for Palmeiras since his senior debut in June, he is ready for the Premier League, City believe. It comes as no surprise to the Brazilians. He’s been described within the club as an “ET” – players they consider to be out of this world and way better than the others. “Last year, the players from the ‘Copinha’ who broke into the first team were Estevao and Vitor Reis. But don’t ask me for those ETs again this season, all right? Now we get the normal ones,” Palmeiras’ head of academy Joao Paulo Sampaio joked when asked earlier this month about the next ones in line. Such is Reis’ composure on the pitch that a pundit from the local network SporTV said this week that he seems to have “60 years of experience in football”. “I believe he will have no trouble adapting to the City system because here in the youth teams he was always exposed to playing under risk, having to be involved in the build-up play while also defending efficiently, even in one-on-one situations,” Palmeiras’ under-20 coach Lucas Andrade told BBC Sport. “City work with small squads, so he could gain minutes and be very useful in the season right from the start due to all the maturity and readiness he has to play.” Source link