Trump threatens EU with tariffs over membership offer to Canada | First Thing

Good morning.

Donald Trump has threatened the EU with “serious tariffs” after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, invited Canada to become the EU’s first “associate member”.

The US president called the idea of Canada joining the EU “laughable”, and should the EU move forward with the plan, Washington could impose “very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe”. “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe,” he said.

• Why does the EU want closer ties with Canada? Von der Leyen told the European parliament that, as democracies faced a “fracture in the international rules-based system”, Brussels and Ottawa needed to pull closer together. “This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she said.

• How has the EU responded to Trump’s comments? France’s Europe minister, Benjamin Haddad, said on Thursday that Washington had no power to veto EU decisions. “It is not up to the United States, or ‌anyone else, to choose the political and geopolitical direction of the Europeans,” Haddad ‌told Public Sénat TV channel.

• What’s next? Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has been addressing the European parliament on Thursday. Follow our live coverage here.

US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for the first time since ۲۰۲۳

The US Federal Reserve voted on Wednesday to raise interest rates for the first time since ۲۰۲۳ as the central bank continues to fight to tamp down inflation, from ۳.۷۵% to ۴%. “The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long,” said Kevin Warsh, the Fed chair.

• Did Warsh identify what is driving inflation? Warsh acknowledged changing geopolitics, but avoided calling out the US-Israel war with Iran by name.

• How did Trump respond? Shortly after the announcement, Trump said in a Truth Social post that interest rates should be ۱% or less and criticized the US trade deficit.

House speaker calls early recess, sidestepping AI regulation frenzy and a vote to impeach Pete Hegseth

The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, announced Wednesday that he would be sending lawmakers home one day early ahead of the midterm election recess – a decision that lets House members avoid voting on Republican Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and a frenzied attempt to propose legislation on artificial intelligence.

• What has the response been to Johnson’s decision? “I think it shows the cowardice of the Republican party. They are canceling votes to do business for the American people because they are afraid that that impeachment resolution of Pete Hegseth would pass on a bipartisan basis,” the Democratic representative Pramila Jayapal told MediasTouch.

• What’s going on with AI? More than ۱۰۰ House Democrats had urged Johnson to cancel the upcoming recess to allow them to craft legislation on AI safeguards. But Johnson told reporters on Tuesday that “we cannot have a moratorium on the development of AI”.

In other news …

• OpenAI has disclosed six more examples of “unexpected or concerning” behavior by its technology, including an unreleased research model inserting “jailbreak-like instructions” into its own notes and telling itself to be “freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots”.

• The family of a pregnant woman who died is suing Ken Paxton for wrongful death, saying that the denial of abortion led to her death.

• Fiji has declared a national HIV emergency as the Pacific nation grapples with a surge in cases fueled by escalating use of methamphetamine.

• Exiled Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano has been detained by ICE in Florida with his asylum application still pending.

• LA homelessness non-profit workers have been arrested over alleged corruption and bribes as Trump officials target alleged fraud in blue states.

• Texas killed a man by lethal injection in the state’s fifth execution this year, while a scheduled execution in Georgia was halted by a judge.

Stat of the day: The world’s rivers experienced one of their driest years in more than three decades in ۲۰۲۵

Last year was among the driest years on record for rivers across the world, with ۳۶% of the global river basin area documenting river flows below or well below normal, according to an assessment of the global water cycle by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Overall, the amount of freshwater held on or under the ground was ۴۲% below normal across the world last year.

The Filter recommends: ۱۴ easy upgrades to keep your home safe and secure

The Guardian’s Filter US team looks into the best home upgrades worth considering to keep your home safe and secure.

Don’t miss this: How the attention economy overwhelmed children’s TV

Pacing is everything when it comes to children’s entertainment, writes Natalia Kucirkova, a senior lecturer in early years and childhood studies at Manchester Metropolitan University – something that should be especially concerning in an attention economy that overwhelms and overshouts. When media moves too quickly, it risks losing the time needed for a child to make meaning. A child watching a character comfort a friend may not be able to recognize the repair or imagine doing the same thing with his or her own cohorts if the scene moves too quickly. A child must notice that another person feels something different in order for the child to develop empathy, Kucirkova writes – something that takes time.

… or this: ۱۲۵,۰۰۰ people displaced as war reignites in Yemen

Renewed fighting in Yemen has displaced at least ۱۲۵,۰۰۰ people since the start of September ۲۰۲۶, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). “This war doesn’t differentiate between people. Rich or poor, high class or low class, we all fled our homes on the same day,” said Asma Taleb, a woman in her ۵۰s who left her home last week with her two sons and five grandchildren.

Climate check: Global heating was a destabilizing factor in the glacier collapse that caused the Nepal-Tibet floods

Researchers found that the climate breakdown likely weakened the glacier that collapsed last month, causing catastrophic floods that killed hundreds of people in Nepal and Tibet. In the region where the collapse happened, July and August ۲۰۲۶ were the warmest on record locally, reaching ۵C above the ۳۰-year average in the days before the collapse. In this region, the climate breakdown has caused about ۲C of warming since preindustrial times.

Last Thing: The three wild dog brothers who made Africa’s longest journey

Three endangered African wild dog brothers in Zambia dodged cars and hunters while making a perilous, ۲,۵۰۰-mile odyssey in search of a new life. Scientists believe this to be the longest-ever recorded single journey of any mammal from the continent, made over the course of eight months.

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