Lifestyle
You’re an American in another land? Prepare to talk about the why and how of Trump 2.0

LONDON (AP) — The urgent care doctor cocked an eyebrow at Mari Santos and her American accent.
It was four days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and Santos was a student with a stomach bug in the first weeks of an overseas semester in Glasgow, Scotland. A doctor arrived to see her after a six-hour wait. But before asking what ailed her, he said this: “Interesting time to be an American, I suppose.”
Until then, Santos, 20, had not been thinking about Trump — just her 104-degree fever and concern about being sick while abroad. But the president and his triumphant return to the White House, she says, were on her physician’s mind, giving the American University student an instant education in geopolitics. The lesson, as she sees it: “There’s a kind of chilling in the air.”
“I knew that maybe that Europe is not in general big fan of American politics,” Santos said, “but I didn’t expect it to be such like a personal thing.”
The United States and its center of gravity occupy a unique space in the international conversation. People the world over talk about America — its policies, its proclivities, its place in the world. They have for generations. They did it during the Iraq War. They did it during the first Trump administration.
And two months into Trump 2.0, at least in many European and English-speaking countries, it’s happening again — sometimes even more intensely.
People from other countries have questions about Trump — and trust
Answering for America under the new Trump administration is becoming a delicate experience for some of the estimated 5 million U.S. citizens living in other countries.
From Santos in Scotland to others in New Zealand, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada, Republican and Democratic expats alike told The Associated Press in recent weeks that the moment they are revealed to be American changes virtually every conversation to, in essence, “What about Trump?”
At its root, this change is about whom to trust among those thought until now to be allies, in world politics and in life. Trump, known for insisting the truth is what he says it is, is now the voice of America — not VOA, the independent news service that told the nation’s story for eight decades until he silenced it March 16. The president himself has set an example in which trust is almost beside the point.
“Who do I trust? I mean, who do you trust? Do you trust anybody?” he said during an interview last month with The Spectator, when asked how much he trusts people like Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post.
What comes after the revelation that someone is American, U.S. citizens overseas say, are awkward questions, pauses and euphemisms — but almost always a reference to America under Trump in 2025.
“Before this year, the typical follow-up would be asking where exactly I’m from and what brought me to France,” said Anthony Mucia, 31, a Nebraska native who lives in Toulouse, France and has been overseas for six years. “Twice now, the first thing someone asked me was, ‘Are you glad to be in France now?’” He also gets looks that he interprets as “a bit of ‘shock’ or ‘uneasiness.’ Almost like it automatically turned into an embarrassing topic.”
What’s bending these interactions, expats say, is Trump’s flurry of orders and statements that have upended 80 years of international order and spooked markets.
He’s talked about how the U.S. will “one way or the other” capture Greenland from Denmark, “take back” Panama and make Canada the 51st U.S. state. He wants to empty and develop war-battered Gaza, and has cut off U.S. aid to the world’s neediest people. He’s falsely blamed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the Russian invasion and ended a White House meeting with Zelenskyy after berating the Ukrainian leader. Trump has let Europe’s leaders know that the U.S. is not a staunch ally in facing the Russian threat. And he’s set off tariff wars with China, Canada and Mexico.
Not smoothing the American experience overseas is the backlash developing against Trump’s association with Elon Musk and Tesla, which has fueled growing boycott movements. People are joining Facebook groups to exchange ideas about how to avoid U.S. products. Feelings are especially strong across the Nordic region — particularly Denmark, where Trump’s moves have set “the Danish Viking blood boiling,” one man told The Associated Press.
So far, the interactions are less hostile than wary, Americans overseas say. But anti-U.S. sentiment is emerging as a concern on the cusp of what’s expected to be a record-setting international travel season for Americans.
Prepare to talk about ‘what’s going on’
Jake Lamb, 32, moved from Colorado to Auckland, New Zealand in 2023. He said says he’s “noticed a significant shift in the types and frequency of questions I’m asked” over the past year. Kiwis remain friendly about it, but they’ve been saying they might have to “hide” Lamb or vouch that he’s “one of the good ones” if Trump escalates conflicts with former allies. He thinks that the good humor belies wariness.
“I am concerned that it may become difficult for some not to hold individual Americans responsible,” Lamb, a volunteer coordinator for a charity and who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris, said in an email.
Elizabeth Van Horne, 33, has lived in France since 2013. For years, she said, people would ask “why on Earth I’d come to live in France if I could live in the U.S: ‘It’s so beautiful, there’s so much potential, so much opportunity, like living in a TV show.’”
“Now, that romanticized image has completely changed,” Van Horne, a Democrat, said in an email. Early in March, a postal worker told her it’s sad to watch.
“For me,” she said, “that conversation summed it up: ‘Je suis desole pour vous’ — ‘I’m sorry for you.’”
For Trump supporters abroad, it can be complicated
Georganne Burke, a Syracuse, N.Y., native living in Ottawa, supported Trump in all three elections and is the chairwoman of Republicans Overseas in Canada. She’s a dual citizen, which makes her something like the Peace Bridge that links the two nations in Buffalo, N.Y.
Trump’s tariff war, his manner and his provocative talk about how Canada “only works” as the 51st U.S. state “has everybody’s hair on fire,” she said in an interview. Burke, 77, says she’s received threats and had a tense talk with an anti-Trump co-worker. People ask her, “How could anyone vote for him?”
An invitation to speak about trade near the end of March, she says, came with the organizer saying that he was “pretty sure that most of the people will be polite.” Burke accepted the invitation.
She says anti-American sentiment was bad during the Iraq war under President George W. Bush in 2003. But now it’s different.
“Then, it was kind of more on the politicians,” as the targets of public ire, Burke said in a recent interview. “Now, it’s much more personal.”
Burke’s counterpart in London, Greg Swenson of Republicans Overseas UK, says walking around as an American in another country remains more positive than negative. In interviews with media outlets, he readily acknowledges Trump can be “obnoxious.” But Swenson, 62, is an investment banker, and he says the president and America remain good for business.
Greg Swenson of Republicans Overseas UK, poses for a photograph in London, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
“In the private capital world, which is not affected by day-to-day (market) volatility, there is just a huge amount of optimism,” Swenson said. That means, he says, that investors want to work with U.S. vendors and customers, seeking American “credibility” through “an affiliation with the president.”
As for what people overseas think of Americans right now: A survey of social media, neighbors and others shows plenty are curious and concerned. When an American dad posted on Reddit his worry that his family won’t be welcomed in Ireland, an Irish dad who asked the AP to identify him by his Reddit handle responded this way:
“A lot of people like me are really, really alienated and angry at the US and Americans,” wrote MDMB13. “But the good news is we’re Irish so you’ll never know because (we) bury our feelings in a far-off place and let them fester over decades.” He ended his comment with a smile emoji.
Lifestyle
Pope Leo XIV’s fashion choices draw excitement and scrutiny

VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Leo XIV stepped out on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the crowd for the first time after his May 8 election, liturgical fashion aficionados around the globe took note: Gone was the simple white cassock and silver cross favored by Pope Francis. Back was the red satin mozzetta shoulder cape, the burgundy stola with gold embroidery and a gold cross held by a double-stranded silken gold cord.
Over Leo’s first few weeks, the excitement grew among liturgical fashion-conscious Catholics as they noticed new additions to the wardrobe, or rather a return to the old additions of the papal wardrobe: cufflinks, white pants, lace.
After Francis’ revolutionary papacy, Vatican watchers are now wondering if Leo’s return to the past sartorial look means a return to the past on other things too, including more substantial policy issues. But for tailors at the elite handful of liturgical tailoring shops in Rome, there is hope that Leo’s return to the fancier garb of popes past will mean a boon to business if Leo’s traditional look has a trickle-down effect from the pope to priests and all those in between.
The style is a return to form
According to the Rev. John Wauck, professor of church communication at the Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome, Leo’s clothing choices are a “return to form,” and his attire similar to that worn by Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II and other popes going back to the middle ages.
They show “a respect for tradition,” he said.
Such respect for the papal office is important for many conservative Catholics. Many conservatives and traditionalists soured on Francis’ informal style and disdain for tradition, which reached its pinnacle with his his crackdown on the old Latin Mass. The old liturgy was celebrated before the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council; Francis greatly restricted access to the old liturgy, saying it had become a source of division in parishes.
Leo has shown strong familiarity with Latin, and has taken to singing the Sunday noontime prayer in Latin. Some traditionalist Catholics are hoping Leo will take the pro-Latin path even further and reverse Francis to allow greater use of the traditional Latin Mass.
Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology at Villanova University, where Leo went to college, said it’s too early to tell if Leo will reverse Francis’ reform.
“It remains to be seen if Leo’s more traditional attire and liturgical style means that he will change Francis’ strong decisions limiting the so-called ‘Latin Mass,’” he said.
That said, Faggioli said U.S. conservatives seems particularly happy with Leo’s traditional attire, given Francis’ disdain for the fashion pomp of the papacy.
“In this sense, Francis might have been a parenthesis or an interlude, more than a changer of the tradition in ‘papal style,’” he said in an email.
Leo has made other changes, too
At his inaugural Mass on May 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV reached out his arm to sprinkle holy water and revealed a shirt with cufflinks, which Francis had largely avoided. He was also wearing an amitto, and an alb held in place by a cingulum. For the non-experts, the amitto is a lacy linen cloth that goes around the neck, the alb is the white tunic worn under the ceremonial vestment, and the cingulum is a braided rope with tassels that serves as a belt.
If it weren’t for photographers’ long lenses relentlessly trained on the pope’s every gesture, Leo’s switch from Francis’s standard black pants to more traditional white papal trousers would have gone completely unnoticed.
In addition to the clothing changes, Leo has returned to some other traditions of the Vatican that Francis eschewed.
He has shown himself willing to accept the traditional “baciamano” or kissing of his ring. Francis disliked having his ring kissed and often pulled his hand away if someone tried to kiss it.
“I think that what we see with Pope Leo is a willingness to embrace tradition, even if it risks seeming perhaps more formal than Pope Francis,” Wauck said. The idea is that “seeing that tradition as a treasure to be conserved and embraced as opposed to something that makes one feel perhaps a little bit standoffish.”
It remains to be seen whether Leo will move into the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace, which stood empty during the 12-year Francis papacy. Francis shocked the world by choosing to live in a small room at the Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, eating his meals in the common dining room.
For the Rev. Castro Prudencio, this is all much ado about nothing. “For Pope Francis it was simplicity. Always. And Pope Leo has taken up what Pope Benedict had and many others. That is what the church is like,” he said.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Lifestyle
TikTok star Khaby Lame plays soccer in Brazil after US detention

SAO PAULO (AP) — Khaby Lame, the world’s most-followed TikTok personality who left the U.S. after being detained by immigration agents, went to Brazil where he’s been spending some time with friends, local authorities said Thursday.
Lame is staying with AC Milan player Emerson Royal, and has been enjoying time with local fans, Paulo Eduardo Dias Junior, a city councilman from Americana, about 78 miles (125 kilometers) northwest of Sao Paulo, told The Associated Press.
On Wednesday night, they played a friendly soccer match with locals.
Lame left the United States after being detained on June 6 by immigration agents at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Senegalese-Italian influencer, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was allowed to leave the country without a deportation order, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Junior organized Wednesday’s match on behalf of the nonprofit he leads, Instituto Jr Dias. He said that Lame and Royal’s participation helped collect 150 food baskets for vulnerable families.
“Emerson Royal is a role model for the children in our community, and so is Khaby, who is globally known through social media. He’s a sensation among kids today,” Junior said. “He had a lot of fun with the kids and played a lot.”
The councilman said that the team that Lame and Royal were on won 3-1. Everything went smoothly, he added, except for the post-match celebration. As is tradition in Brazil, players gathered for a barbecue. But Lame preferred a parmegiana, so they took him to a local restaurant, Junior said.
This is not Lame’s first time in Brazil. Last year, he traveled to the country to attend Royal’s wedding.
Met Gala and then detention
Lame arrived in the U.S. on April 30 and “overstayed the terms of his visa,” an ICE spokesperson told the AP, which sent a message seeking comment Tuesday to the email address listed on Lame’s Instagram account. He hasn’t publicly commented on his detention.
His detention and voluntary departure from the United States comes amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating crackdown on immigration, including raids in Los Angeles that sparked days of protests against ICE, as the president tests the bounds of his executive authority.
A voluntary departure — which was granted to Lame — allows those facing removal from the U.S. to avoid a deportation order on their immigration record, which could prevent them from being allowed back into the U.S. for up to a decade.
The 25-year-old Lame rose to international fame during the pandemic without ever saying a word in his videos, which would show him reacting to absurdly complicated “life hacks.” He has more than 162 million followers on TikTok alone.
The Senegal-born influencer moved to Italy when he was an infant with his working class parents and also has Italian citizenship.
His internet fame quickly evolved. He signed a multiyear partnership with designer brand Hugo Boss in 2022. In January, he was appointed as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
Last month, he attended the Met Gala in New York City, days after arriving in the U.S.
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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Lifestyle
Tips for getting along when college grads move back home

NEW YORK (AP) — A shaky economy. Overwhelming student debt. Few job prospects. Some recent college graduates have a burdensome mountain of reasons to move back home. For others, the choice may be easy as they seek to save money, or desire the physical and emotional comforts of family.
But the familiar may feel different with the changing dynamics that come with growing up. One thing is certain: If you’re a new grad or the parents of one, you’re not alone in navigating new terrain.
Maturity and respect among all parties is a good place to start before those packing boxes arrive. So is having a clear path forward. Consider these tips for making it all work.
Set clear expectations early
Richard Ramos, a parenting trainer and author of “Parents on a Mission,” urges parents and their young adult children to break from their traditional roles.
For parents, shift from authority to ally.
“You’re no longer parenting a teenager. You’re relating to an emerging adult. Move from ‘manager’ to ‘mentor.’ Offer guidance, not control. Maintain your home as a launchpad, not a landing strip for them to get too comfortable in,” he says.
Grads, come home with humility.
“You may have a degree, but you’re still under your parents’ roof,” Ramos says. “Show appreciation. Contribute to the household. Asking before assuming you can simply take shows your growth as a young adult. Honor the space they’ve made for you.”
Drill down to specifics
As a counselor and parent, Veronica Lichtenstein knows firsthand what Ramos means. Her 26-year-old son has been living at home for two years since graduation to save money for his first house.
“I’ve learned that clear, collaborative boundaries are the foundation of harmony,” she says.
Lichtenstein has lots of practical advice, starting with a “living contract” created cooperatively.
“His proposed terms became the starting point for negotiation. This empowered him to take ownership while ensuring mutual respect. The final signed agreement covered everything from chores to quiet hours,” she says.
Common areas must be left clean, for example, and advance notice is required if he plans group gatherings.
“Emphasize that this is a temporary, goal-oriented arrangement,” Lichtenstein says. By that, she means: “We’re happy to support you for 12 months while you save X dollars.”
Regular check-ins keep everyone accountable.
Crystalize chores and shared resources
Amy McCready is the founder of PositiveParentingSolutions.com and author of “The Me, Me, Me Epidemic — A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Capable, Grateful Kids in an Over-Entitled World.”
She suggests setting expectations when it comes to shared resources.
“If they’ll be driving your vehicle, be clear about when it’s available, who pays for gas or maintenance, and what responsibilities go with the privilege,” McCready says. “Use ‘when-then’ phrasing to keep things respectful and direct: When your responsibilities are done, then the car is available.”
If conflict arises, it’s often because everyone reverts to old roles and old rules, she says. “Pause and ask, ‘Are we interacting like we did when they were 17?’”
Then reset with intention.
What about special guests?
Parents need to decide if conjugal visits for resident adult children are something they’re comfortable with. Such overnight visits with romantic partners can be tricky, McCready notes.
“If overnight visits aren’t something you’re OK with, it’s completely appropriate to set that boundary,” she says. “You might say, ‘We’re so glad you’re here, and we want everyone to feel comfortable. For us, that means no overnight guests while you’re living at home.’”
Parents can ask to be told ahead of time if their grad plans to sleep elsewhere.
Parents, be careful not to judge
Eric Wood, director of the Counseling & Mental Health Center at Texas Christian University, says parents should check in on their frustrations over the new living scenario. Their graduate might feel embarrassed and worry that they’re a burden.
“Don’t judge, especially with the current job market and recent global events. It’s important not to be critical of a graduate who must return home,” he says. “Just like we advise incoming college students not to rush into a certain academic major, it’s more important not to rush into an entry career position. Establishing a solid trajectory for a successful and happy career is the priority.”
Wood said the new mantra for parents should be: Support, but don’t problem solve when it comes to fully launching a grad.
“It’s important for the parent or family member not to act as if they are trying to solve a problem,” he says. “Doing so will only send a message that the graduate is a problem and could lead to conflicts.”
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