Inspired by the landscapes of the French masters, Elger Esser captures the brooding seascapes and bucolic country scenes of his beloved countryside – with timeless results

Trump announces ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on largest US trading partners; Elon Musk may leave government role at end of 130-day cap. Here’s your roundup of key US politics stories from 2 April 2025

Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners on Wednesday, upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has dubbed “liberation day”.

Trump said he will impose a 10% universal tariff on all imported foreign goods in addition to “reciprocal tariffs” on a few dozen countries, charging additional duties onto countries that Trump claims have “cheated” America.

The US president has announced new taxes on imports to the US starting at a baseline of 10% – here is the front-page reaction in Britain

Donald Trump’s tariff “day of liberation” arrived with the US president imposing markups on imports while accusing other nations, including allies, of “looting, pillaging, raping and plundering” the US.

The UK got off relatively lightly with the basic 10%. Here is how major British newspapers see it.

Trump administration had been pressing Adams to crack down on immigration but both parties denied quid pro quo

A US federal judge on Wednesday dismissed the Department of Justice’s corruption case against New York City’s embattled mayor, Eric Adams, after weeks of scandal about the Democratic mayor bowing to pressure from the Trump administration to cooperate on immigration crackdowns while trying to get out from under the criminal charges.

Pressure from Washington to dismiss the case had led to high-level resignations of prosecutors who said there was strong evidence against Adams, while the Trump administration had focused on whether charges were simply getting in the way of their political mission.

If you’ve just bought a pair of these rubber sandals, you may want to think twice before wearing them down to the beach

Name: Flip-flops.

Age: They date from 1500BC, although the modern version is adapted from Japanese thonged sandals called zori, brought back by US soldiers returning from the second world war.

The star of Top Gun, The Doors and Batman Forever has died aged 65. We look back over his career

• Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and The Doors, dies aged 65
• Remembering Val Kilmer: an ethereally handsome actor who evolved into droll self-awareness

Experts are desperate to analyse rusty patched bumblebee nests for information that might help save them. But they are extremely hard to find – unless you’re a trained conservation canine

• Words and photographs by Anne Readel in Somers, Wisconsin

On a summer day in Somers, Wisconsin, Dave Giordano heard an unexpected buzzing in his back yard. What he found shocked him – a rusty patched bumblebee nest. The discovery was so rare it made the local news.

Once widespread across the midwest and eastern US, the rusty patched bumblebee has seen its population plunge by nearly 90%, prompting its listing in 2017 as the first federally endangered bumblebee in the US.

Main image: Two rusty patched bumblebee gynes in the nest discovered by Dave Giordano in August 2023. Below: Jay Watson, a conservation biologist, observes a nest (marked with orange flags) found in a rodent burrow

Photographer Sarah Mei Herman was 20 when her half-brother Jonathan was born – she spent the next two decades capturing intimate moments between him and their father

She dressed up as a bullfighter, sat in a window with two magpies and flew colossal flags of warning. We go inside a fascinating new exhibition of photographs by multimedia artist Rose Finn-Kelcey