Amerikanen zijn op dit moment overwegend ontevreden over president Donald Trump, al blijft een grote minderheid hem door dik en dun steunen.

Gemiddelde waardering

Peilinggemiddelden die door de New York Times worden gebundeld en door Stern zijn geanalyseerd, laten zien dat de afkeuring van Trumps presidentschap rond de 55 procent ligt, terwijl ongeveer 40 procent aangeeft tevreden te zijn met zijn werk in het Witte Huis. Dat betekent dat zijn zogenoemde approval rating structureel in de min staat: er zijn consequent meer Amerikanen die zijn beleid afkeuren dan goedkeuren.

Laatste peilingen

Recente nationale peilingen van uiteenlopende instituten (onder zowel volwassenen als geregistreerde en waarschijnlijke kiezers) komen grosso modo op hetzelfde beeld uit.

De gemiddelde steun blijft daarmee ruim onder de 50 procent, terwijl de afkeuring stabiel boven de 50 procent ligt.

Peilingen: 40 procent voor, 55 procent tegen

Volgens de geaggregeerde data zakten Trumps waarderingscijfers relatief snel na zijn inauguratie in januari 2025 en schommelen sindsdien rond het huidige niveau, zonder grote uitschieters naar boven of beneden. De trendlijn toont een vlak patroon: hij heeft zijn achterban weten vast te houden, maar nauwelijks terrein gewonnen bij twijfelaars en tegenstanders.

Politicologen die door Stern worden aangehaald, wijzen erop dat veel Amerikanen hem kwalijk nemen dat hij experimenteert met hoge importtarieven en daarmee de prijzen opdrijft, terwijl hij juist had beloofd de kosten van het dagelijks leven te drukken. Tegelijkertijd benadrukken Republikeinse strategen dat zijn koers onder zijn eigen kamp nog steeds als positief en noodzakelijk wordt gezien.[

Je bent MAGA of anti-MAGA

Achter de cijfers gaat een diep gepolariseerd land schuil.

• Republikeinse kiezers blijven in meerderheid positief over Trump en geven hem in partijgebonden peilingen vaak duidelijke meerderheden.​
• Democratische kiezers wijzen zijn presidentschap massaal af, waardoor de nationale gemiddelden naar beneden worden getrokken.

De waardering voor Trump is daarmee minder een kwestie van zijn laatste beleidsdaad of een incident, en meer een spiegel van de harde partijpolitieke scheidslijn in de Verenigde Staten.

Right On Photography has added a photo to the pool:

One of the dangerous places on the shoreline at Catherine Hill Bay. Lives have been lost here

Right On Photography has added a photo to the pool:

One of the dangerous places on the shoreline at Catherine Hill Bay. Lives have been lost here

Harold may have sailed, not marched, in 1066, reshaping explanations for his defeat in England’s historic battle

It is a story that has been taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of the most famous and pivotal events in the country’s history.

In September 1066, as a Norman duke called William prepared to sail from France to claim the English throne, King Harold of England discovered the Viking leader Harald Hardrada had landed in Yorkshire with an army of his own.

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The densely dog-populated city will soon elect a new mayor and candidates want pet-owners on their side

In a race that is expected to come down to a few thousand votes, every last one counts – including, for the candidates seeking to become the next mayor of Paris, those of the French capital’s disgruntled dog owners.

Both favourites in Sunday’s second-round vote, the leftwing frontrunner Emmanuel Grégoire and the former conservative culture minister, Rachida Dati, have promised an array of canine-friendly measures if they win – and for good reason.

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Regime will do whatever it takes to cling on to power – including sacrificing economies of other Gulf states

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Brinkmanship, the ability to take a country to the edge of war without plunging it into the abyss, was the cornerstone of cold war diplomacy. But in our different, more unstable times – in which the line between state and non-state actors has blurred, and weapons of war have diffused – the world this week finally tipped over the edge, and suddenly it is in freefall.

The first six days of the Iran war cost the US $12.7bn (£9.5bn), but now the Pentagon is seeking as much as $200bn in military funding. Oil at $125 a barrel is no longer an Iranian, or Russian, fantasy. The crown jewel of Qatar, Ras Laffan – the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant – may not reopen fully for five years, at a cost of $20bn a year. Other combustible oil depots in the Gulf, from Bahrain to Abu Dhabi, are exposed to Iran’s low-cost drones. Then add the human cost of 18,000 civilians injured and more than 3,000 killed in Iran alone.

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• World No 1 beats Brazilian 6-4, 6-4 at the Hard Rock Stadium

• Spaniard says teenager ‘reminds me a lot [of me] when I was his age’

As Carlos Alcaraz worked through his service motion midway through his opening match at the Miami Open, a scream pierced the night-time air. One of the 16,000 spectators breathlessly cheering Alcaraz’s demise had attempted to distract the Spaniard just before he struck the ball.

In a spectacular atmosphere unlike many other Masters 1000 second round matches in recent memory, Alcaraz maturely navigated both a passionate, adversarial crowd and a prodigious teenage opponent in Joao Fonseca to reach the third round of the Miami Open with a 6-4, 6-4 win.

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mike.tan has added a photo to the pool:

Always envious of cities that have home mountains.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The Trump administration on Friday issued (PDF) a legislative framework for a single national policy on artificial intelligence, aiming to create uniform safety and security guardrails around the nascent technology while preempting states from enacting their own AI rules.
The six-pronged outline broadly proposes a slew of regulations on AI products and infrastructure, ranging from implementing new child-safety rules to standardizing the permitting and energy use of AI data centers. It also calls on Congress to address thorny issues surrounding intellectual-property rights and craft rules "preventing AI systems from being used to silence or censor lawful political expression or dissent."

The administration said in an official release that it wants to work with Congress "in the coming months" to convert its framework into a bill that President Donald Trump can sign. The White House wants to codify the framework into law "this year" and believes it can generate bipartisan support, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday evening. That won't be easy in a deeply divided Congress where Republicans hold thin and often fractious majorities, and where Trump has already urged GOP lawmakers to prioritize his controversial voter-ID bill above all else ahead of the November midterms. BCLP has an interactive map that tracks the proposed, failed and enacted AI regulatory bills from each state.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.