Biden says he’s Republicans’ ‘nightmare’ over social spending cuts – as it happened

• President visits Tampa and denounces Republican cuts plan
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Francine Prose, the novelist and Guardian US columnist, takes a look today at Republican attacks on reading in schools, particularly in Florida under Ron DeSantis, a leading (notional) contender for the presidential nomination in 2024.

For some time now, conservative groups pressured libraries and classrooms to remove certain controversial" books from their shelves and their syllabi. These are texts that tell uncomfortable or unpopular truths about our nation's origins, including inequality, race, history, gender, sexuality, power and class - a range of subjects that a small but vocal group of Americans would prefer to ignore or deny.