Angela Merkel has suggested Germany and Europe can no longer rely on the US under Donald Trump. Speaking at a campaign event held in a Bavarian beer tent, the German Chancellor emphasised the need for friendly relations with the US, Britain and Russia, but added: “We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.” Ms Merkel said that as the traditional western alliance is threatened by the new US presidency and Brexit, “the times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days.”

Donald Trump has transformed the United States into a laughing stock and he is a danger to the world. He must be removed from the White House before things get even worse.

Trump's tussle with the bureaucratic state. By Michael J. Glennon.

Mensch is the paranoid bard of the age of Trump. By Katy Waldman.

President Donald Trump is ready to fight Germany in an auto battle according to Germany’s Der Spiegel. Trump got a chilly reception at the NATO summit in Belgium after attacking fellow members. But he was caught pledging a battle with German automakers as part of his anger with “back dues” he feels the country owes to NATO. As CNN’s Jake Tapper noted Thursday, “Trump seems to think it’s like a country club.”

Almost everyone is unwilling to do certain things to eliminate terrorism. And that is fortunate, for the endurance of a free society depends upon it. By Conor Friedersdorf.

A potential rival, Rep. Jim Jordan, said he will not challenge Gowdy for the chairmanship.

President Trump chose to ride in a golf cart while his foreign counterparts took a walk through Taormina, Sicilly on Saturday during the Group of 7 (G7) summit.

As President Trump was being feted in the palaces of the Saudi royal family after concluding a historic arms deal, Iranians were celebrating the outcome of a hard-fought election... By Mohammad Jamad Zarif in Tehran, Iran. (May 26, 1017)

Labour leader will resume electioneering with emphasis on links between terrorism at home and wars abroad. By Heather Stewart and Rowena Mason. (May 26, 2017)

By dunning NATO nations to chip more money into the military alliance, President Trump may inadvertently cause some Europeans to rethink the over-the-top anti-Russian propaganda, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

Sergei Kislyak’s account of the meeting was captured by U.S. intelligence.

The author of "The God Of Small Things" talks about political activism – and why she fled India to finish her new book

When you’re in the business of commentary, every day you see hundreds of people speaking authoritatively on subjects they know little about. Usually it’s political, but make no mistake as to the capacity people have for not knowing what they’re talking about... By Ben Howe.

Internal TigerSwan documents provide a detailed picture of how the mercenary firm surveilled Dakota Access Pipeline opponents and infiltrated protest camps. By Alleen Brown, Will Parrish, Alice Speri.

“Friends of recently-deceased individuals…confirmed their friends could not have posted the comments posthumously.” By Daniel Oberhaus.

Protesters set fires, smashed windows and stormed government buildings to demand the ouster of yet another Brazilian president engulfed in a corruption scandal. By Rosalind Adams, Cora Lewis.

Audio obtained of Greg Gianforte attacking a reporter on eve of special election to fill a congressional seat vacated by a member of the Trump administration.

Maddi Runkles is an 18-year-old senior at Heritage Academy, a small, conservative Christian school in Hagerstown, Maryland. She is also pregnant and has admitted to breaking the pledge that all Heritage students sign… By Ruth Graham.

A widely held tenet of the current conventional wisdom is that while President Trump might not be popular overall, he has a high floor on his support. But the theory isn’t supported by the evidence. To the contrary, Trump’s base seems to be eroding. There’s been a considerable decline in the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump, from a peak of around 30 percent in February to just 21 or 22 percent of the electorate now. Far from having unconditional love from his base, Trump has already lost almost a third of his strong support. By Nate Silver.

Republicans wish all that bad news was fake. But no, it’s real: The administration is destroying itself. By Megan McArdle.

The second time as farce. By Jesse Walker.

He may not know how else to get what he wants.

STAT asked experts to compare Trump's speech from decades ago to that in 2017. All noticed deterioration, which may signal changes in Trump's brain health.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu destroyed all justifications for having Confederate monuments in his city. By Charles P. Pierce.

Practically everyone (except Kevin Drum at Mother Jones) believes single-payer would cut health care costs. It’s the heart of the whole debate. By Jon Walker.

Tenants in more than a dozen Baltimore-area rental complexes complain about a property owner who they say leaves their homes in disrepair, humiliates late-paying renters and often sues them when they try to move out. Few of them know that their landlord is the president’s son-in-law.

California’s plan for its own single-payer healthcare system are unprecedentedly ambitious–but the challenges may be more political than economic. By Michael Hiltzik.

Aaron Sorkin’s political drama shows everything wrong with the Democratic worldview. By Luke Savage.

"... a big, sweeping, old-fashioned speech delivered in New Orleans on Friday made such an impression on me. It was a reprieve. It was an antidote. But it also addressed matters that are forever tripping us up — race, history, healing — better than anything I’ve heard or read in a long time. It was the masterpiece we needed at the moment we needed it"

Until recently, corruption was almost never punished in Brazil. Now it’s jailing its billionaires, leaving the plutocrats desperate to reassert their power. By Alex Cuadros.

Places like Troy [New York] used to be lily-white, and most of their police departments still are. That’s a problem for the black and brown people moving from big cities like LA and New York in search of quieter places to raise families. By Albert Samaha.

The Resistance with Keith Olbermann

The director of national intelligence and the NSA director refused because they believed the requests were inappropriate.

My day was more or less ruined upon witnessing the appalling scene of Trump and his top advisors dancing with the rulers of the terrorist sponsoring state of Saudi Arabia while clutching swords. By Michael Krieger.