Administration asks Supreme Court to lift restrictions on Southern California immigration stops
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
NHS to spend more on US drugs as Britain bows to Trump
Ministers are preparing to boost NHS spending on US drugs in a race to avoid a future tariff hit from Donald Trump. The Government told drugmakers last week that it would agree to boost spending on medicines to comparable levels with the US. The promise to increase the GDP share allocated to medicines is understood to have been made as part of talks with drug bosses over the NHS drugs spending cap. It follows demands from the US president that other countries stop 'freeloading' on American innovation and pay more for its medicines. In the US-UK trade agreement, signed earlier this year, ministers said the NHS would review drug pricing to take into account the 'concerns of the president'. The UK's expenditure on new innovative medicines currently stands at just 0.28pc of GDP, around a third of America's proportionate spending of 0.78pc of its GDP. Even in Europe, the UK lags other countries, with Germany spending 0.4pc of its GDP and Italy spending 0.5pc. Ministers are understood to have offered to take steps to get the UK level closer to the US proportion. However, sources said the Government did not provide details on timing or concrete actions as to how the NHS would increase medicine spending. One insider claimed the proposal was 'a lot of jam and a lot of tomorrows'. The offer comes weeks after the US president told the world's biggest drugmakers that they needed to lower prices for Americans, suggesting they pay for this by charging higher fees abroad. In a letter sent to the bosses of 17 pharmaceutical companies, Mr Trump demanded they 'negotiate harder with foreign freeloading nations' for their medicines, suggesting he would use tariffs to push through higher prices if countries resisted. Earlier this year, the Telegraph revealed that the White House was already pressing for the NHS to spend more on American drugs. US officials are particularly concerned by an arrangement that allows the NHS to spend less on medicines than other countries by forcing drugmakers to pay rebates. The UK's voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth (known as VPAG) makes sure that the NHS does not overpay for medicines. It does this by requiring pharmaceutical companies to pay sales rebates back to the NHS if its medicine bill rises faster than expected, essentially keeping a cap on drug costs. Earlier this year, the Department of Health launched a review of the scheme under pressure from Mr Trump and the pharmaceutical industry. Since then, ministers have been in negotiations with drug companies over how much the NHS should be able to claw back in rebates. Drug company chiefs are expected to vote on whether to accept the latest offer next week. The offer follows years where drug bosses have called for the UK to spend more on medicines. Albert Bourla, the chief executive of US drug giant Pfizer, said in June: 'We represent in the UK 0.3pc of their GDP per capita. That's how much they spend on medicine. So yes, they can increase prices.' He said countries were other countries were 'free-riding' on the US. A government spokesman said: 'The VPAG review is one of many ways in which we are taking decisive action to unlock innovation and drive investment in the UK's world-class pharmaceutical sector including the Life Sciences Sector Plan. 'We will make sure the next game changers in medicine are developed here in Britain, for the benefit of our health at home and abroad. 'We continue to work closely with industry, including Associated of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, on the VPAG review and the outcome will be announced in due course.' The Government previously argued it would 'only ever sign trade agreements that align with the UK's national interests and to suggest otherwise would be misleading'.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
As the world hurtles ever closer to nuclear oblivion, where is the opposition?
Nuclear weapons – their lethal menace, dark history and future spread – are back in the headlines again and, as usual, the news is worrying, bordering on desperate. Russia's decision last week to formally abandon the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty banning medium- and short-range nuclear missiles completes the demolition of a key pillar of global arms control. It will accelerate an already frantic nuclear arms race in Europe and Asia at a moment when US and Russian leaders are taunting each other like schoolboys. Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, has repeatedly threatened the west with nuclear weapons during his war in Ukraine. Last November, Russian forces fired their new Oreshnik hypersonic, nuclear-capable intermediate-range missile at Dnipro. It travels 'like a meteorite' at 10 times the speed of sound and can reach any city in Europe, Putin boasted – which, if true, is a clear INF violation. Moscow blames its decision to ditch the treaty on hostile Nato actions. Yet it has long bypassed it in practice, notably by basing missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic sea, and Belarus. That said, Russia has a point about Nato. Donald Trump first reneged on the INF treaty way back in 2018. The subsequent huge buildup of mainly US-produced nuclear-capable missiles, launchers, planes and bombs in European Nato states has understandably alarmed Moscow. It should alarm Europeans, too. In the 1980s, deployments of US Pershing and cruise missiles sparked passionate protests across the continent. In contrast, today's ominous tick-tocking of the Doomsday Clock, closer than ever to catastrophe at 89 seconds to midnight, is mostly accompanied by eerie silence. Trump's melodramatic claim last week to have moved US nuclear submarines closer to Russia came in response to crude threats from the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a notorious Putin stooge. It was another chilling moment. But this puerile standoff will have served a useful purpose if it alerts slumbering European public opinion to the growing risk of nuclear confrontation. Maybe people have grown complacent; maybe they have too many other worries. Maybe governments such as Britain's, suspected of secretly stashing US nuclear gravity bombs at an East Anglian airbase, are again failing to tell the truth. (The UK government refuses to say whether or not American nukes are now at RAF Lakenheath.) Whatever the reason, it falls to the children of the cold war – to the daughters of Greenham Common, to the heirs of ban-the-bomb protesters, to CND's indefatigable campaigners – to more loudly warn: this way lies extinction. Yet why is it that they alone sound the tocsin? It's all happening again, only this time it's worse, and everyone's a target. If unchecked, today's vastly more powerful nukes could turn the planet into a universal killing field. Last week's ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings should be seen as a warning as well as a reminder. The nuclear weapons buildup in Europe proceeds apace. The US already stores nuclear bombs in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. Now the UK, too, has offered facilities – and is buying nuclear-capable fighter jets. Germany will host Tomahawk cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles next year. The US is expanding missile bases in Poland and Romania. Nato countries such as Denmark and Norway have joined missile exercises aimed, for example, at establishing 'control' of the Baltic. All this is justified in the name of self-defence, principally against Putin's Russia. Likewise, Nato's decision in June to raise national defence budgets to 5% of GDP. The global picture is no less disturbing. The nine nuclear-armed states – Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the US – spent $100.2bn, or $3,169 a second, on nuclear weapons last year, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) reported. That's up 11% on 2023. Under Trump's proposed 2026 budget plan, the US, already by far the biggest spender, will increase funding for its nuclear forces, including the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, by 26% to $87bn. Doing its bit for global insecurity, China has more than doubled its nuclear stockpile since 2020, to 500 warheads. Who can doubt where all this is leading? For the first time since the cold war, Europe, Asia and the Middle East are being transformed into potential nuclear battlegrounds, with the difference, now, that atomic bombs and missiles are viewed not as deterrents but as offensive, war-winning weapons. The proliferation of lower-yield, tactical warheads supposedly makes 'limited' nuclear warfare possible. Once that red line is crossed, an unstoppable chain reaction may ensue. The collapse of arms-control agreements – the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) will be next to lapse in February 2026 – is destroying safety nets. Signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty are bound 'in good faith' to gradually disarm; instead, they are rapidly rearming. Dehumanised AI systems may raise the risk of accidental Armageddon. Rogue states such as Israel and North Korea constantly push the boundaries. Trump's impetuosity and Putin's psychosis increase the sense of living in a global shooting gallery. It might have been very different. In June 1945, a group of University of Chicago nuclear physicists led by James Franck told President Harry Truman that an unannounced atomic bomb attack on Japan was 'inadvisable'. Detonating the new weapon would trigger an uncontrollable worldwide arms race, they predicted. Their warnings were rejected, their report suppressed. Now, the UN is trying again. In line with the 2021 treaty outlawing nuclear weapons, a high-powered, international scientific panel was tasked last month with examining 'the physical effects and societal consequences' of nuclear war 'on a local, regional and planetary scale'. The challenge is formidable, the outcome uncertain. But someone, somehow, somewhere must call a halt to the madness. It is still just possible to hope that, unlike in 1945, wiser counsels will prevail. Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump reportedly considers reclassifying marijuana as less dangerous drug
Donald Trump is considering reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. At a $1m-a-plate fundraiser at his New Jersey golf club earlier this month, Trump told attendees he was interested in making such a change, the people, who declined to be named, told the newspaper. The reclassification, to remove marijuana from the list of Schedule I controlled substances and make it a Schedule III drug, was proposed by the Biden administration, but not enacted. The change would make it much easier to buy and sell marijuana and make the legal multibillion-dollar industry more profitable. The guests at Trump's fundraiser included Kim Rivers, chief executive of Trulieve, one of the largest marijuana companies, who encouraged Trump to pursue the change and expand medical marijuana research, the report said. During Trump's first term, two Soviet-born Republican donors, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, directly appealed to Trump for help with their plan to sell marijuana in states where recreational use was legal. Audio of the 2018 dinner, which was secretly recorded by the two men, revealed that Trump was skeptical, telling the two men that he believed marijuana use 'does cause an IQ problem; you lose IQ points'. In the same conversation, the Ukrainian-born Parnas first suggested to Trump that he should remove the US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and shared a false rumor that the diplomat was badmouthing the president by 'telling everybody, 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached.'' Parnas and Fruman later helped Rudy Giuliani search for dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, before being indicted and found guilty of campaign finance violations, for secretly using a Russian oligarch's money to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns and committees, including Trump's, in pursuit of favors for their planned legal marijuana business. Reuters contributed reporting
