Several arts organizations are suing the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) over its new requirements following Donald Trump’s executive order barring the use of federal funds for the promotion of “gender ideology”. The groups, which are seeking funding for projects that support art about or are made by transgender and non-binary people, say they…

The landlords of a “grossly overcrowded” east London flat where a man died after an ebike battery started a fire have been fined almost £100,000 after pleading guilty to nine housing law breaches. The judge, the recorder Emma Smith, said the landlords showed “blatant disregard for the law and for the occupants” of the property,…

Buying cheap products is “not the essence of the American dream”, Donald Trump’s top economic official has declared, amid warnings that the US president’s trade wars risk increasing prices. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, defended the new administration’s aggressive trade strategy on Thursday, two days after it imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico…

Scott Bessent, US treasury secretary, during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York, US, on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025.  Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday offered a full-throated defense of the White House’s position on tariffs, insisting that trade policy has to be about more than just…

A German court has jailed five members of an extremist group linked to the Reichsbürger (Reich Citizens) movement for plotting a coup and to kidnap the health minister. The defendants, four men, aged 46 to 58, and a 77-year-old woman, who belonged to the self-styled “United Patriots” group, were sentenced to between five years and…