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US Senate opens debate as budget office finds bill will also result in even bigger losses to healthcare coverage; Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources over Iran report - key US politics stories from Sunday 29 June at a glanceThe US Senate has opened debate on what Donald Trump calls his big beautiful bill" as new analysis says changes made to it in the chamber will add nearly $3.3tn to the nation's debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in healthcare coverage.The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's analysis adds to the challenges for Republicans as they push to get the bill over the line by the US president's self-imposed deadline of 4 July. After release of the bill's new costs, Trump cajoled and threatened lawmakers from his own party, posting on his Truth Social platform: REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected." Continue reading...

Pride parades took place across the world over the weekend in support of LGBTQ+ rights.From New York to Madrid, marchers filled the streets with music and calls for equality. Many carried messages of protest, highlighting ongoing discrimination and growing political pressure in several countries. In Istanbul, police detained more than 50 people as they tried to take part in a Pride March, which authorities had banned as part of a years-long clampdown on LGBTQ+ events, an opposition politician said

Democrats required clerks to read aloud the 940-page bill focused on tax cuts, immigration policy and healthcareThe US Senate opened debate on Donald Trump's sprawling domestic policy legislation on Sunday, the package of tax cuts, increased spending on immigration enforcement, and drastic reductions in funding for healthcare and nutrition assistance that the president calls his big beautiful bill".Formal debate on the measure began after Democrats forced Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page bill aloud, to underscore their argument that the public is largely unaware of what the package Trump branded beautiful" actually contains, and to delay a final vote until Monday. Continue reading...

President insulted Republican senator and threatened to back his primary challenger after he opposed domestic billThom Tillis announced on Sunday that he will not run for re-election to the US Senate next year, one day after the North Carolina Republican's vote against Donald Trump's signature piece of domestic legislation prompted the president to launch a barrage of threats and insults - as well as promise to support a primary challenger to defeat him in their party's 2026 primary.In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species," Tillis said in a statement sent to reporters. Continue reading...

Amir-Saeid Iravani says Tehran is ready for negotiations but Trump's unconditional surrender is not negotiation'Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic's nuclear enrichment will never stop" because it is permitted for peaceful energy" purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right," Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us." Continue reading...

Cause unknown after several homes faced extensive fallout, including collapses, firefighters sayOne person died and two others were injured after an explosion damaged several homes on Philadelphia's north side early on Sunday, according to authorities.Firefighters responded to a report of an explosion just before 5am, according to the Philadelphia fire department. Continue reading...

Mark Warner says school would face slashes to jobs and financial aid if its president did not resign over DEI practicesThe University of Virginia (UVA) received explicit" notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution's president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator.During an interview Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator for Virginia, defended Ryan - who had championed diversity policies that the president opposes - and predicted that Donald Trump will similarly target other universities. Continue reading...

Democratic mayoral candidate denies Trump's accusation that he is communist while reaffirming push to tax wealthyDonald Trump on Sunday threatened to cut New York City off from federal funds if favored mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, doesn't behave himself" should he be elected.Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was - as the president said - a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: I don't think that we should have billionaires." Continue reading...

President dismisses leaked assessment suggesting strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran's nuclear developmentDonald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources - and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don't comply.In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran's nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes. Continue reading...

Sattitla Highlands, with its unique lava-flow landscape, feels like another planet', but its protected status, granted by Joe Biden, is now threatenedIt's easy to get lost in the Sattitla Highlands in remote north-eastern California. There are miles of rolling lava fields, untouched forest and obsidian mountains. At night, the darkness and silence stretch on indefinitely.This is one of America's newest national monuments. It's also one of the most threatened. Continue reading...

Jonathan Reynolds contacted sports car maker after it emerged it was considering moving production from UK to USLotus has reassured the UK business secretary at an urgent meeting on Sunday that it has no intention of shutting its Norfolk factory, as the British sports car maker prepares to resume production as US tariffs are reduced.Jonathan Reynolds contacted Lotus bosses after it emerged that the carmaker was considering ending production of its sports cars in the UK and moving it to the US - a move that would jeopardise 1,300 jobs. Lotus's Chinese owner, Geely, was thought to be looking at options including manufacturing its Emira sports car in the US, and permanently stopping production at its factory in Hethel, Norfolk. Continue reading...

Clearing an important procedural hurdle, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to open debate on the legislationThe Republican-controlled US Senate advanced president Donald Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill in a key procedural vote late on Saturday, raising the odds that lawmakers will be able to pass his big, beautiful bill" in the coming days.The measure, Trump's top legislative goal, passed its first procedural hurdle in a 51 to 49 vote, with two Republican senators voting against it. There was still work to do for the bill to actually gain passage in the Senate, which might not happen until about Monday. Continue reading...

T-shirt worn during a Paris concert sparked criticism for calling Native Americans the enemies of peace'A T-shirt worn by Beyonce during a Juneteenth performance on her Cowboy Carter tour has sparked a discussion over how Americans frame their history and caused a wave of criticism for the Houston-born superstar.The T-shirt worn during a concert in Paris featured images of the Buffalo Soldiers, who belonged to Black US army units active during the late 1800s and early 1900s. On the back was a lengthy description of the soldiers that included their antagonists were the enemies of peace, order and settlement: warring Indians, bandits, cattle thieves, murderous gunmen, bootleggers, trespassers, and Mexican revolutionaries." Continue reading...

Although gen Z may be getting laid less than their elders, they're resisting older definitions of sex and gender - in the face of the right's bid for bodily controlThe journalist perched on a stool in a corner of the bedroom, pen in hand, ready to jot down the most intimate details of our sex lives.Her name was Peggy Orenstein, and she was writing a book about girls and sex. As a 20-year-old college sophomore, I apparently still qualified as a girl, and I was having sex. So, one night in late 2013, I agreed to let Orenstein hang out at my sorority house. Continue reading...

Mark Richards says a parent complained to New Orleans' St Francis Xavier school after reading his late husband's obituaryA longtime music teacher at a Catholic school in the New Orleans area recently lost his job when it was revealed to an evidently disgruntled" parent that he was another man's widower, igniting a scandal within an archdiocese that has otherwise largely been occupied with trying to reorganize its finances in federal bankruptcy court after its clergymen spent decades sexually molesting children.In an email to community members at the archdiocese-run school from which he was dismissed, Mark Richards explained that he had been fired because a parent notified officials about an obituary for his husband, who died of a heart attack in September 2023. Continue reading...

Every action matters now. Every effort small or large counts. And moving, movement is the essential key to dispelling despairIn this authoritarian and suffocating climate where being an American feels like a curse, where just breathing here feels like complicity with genocide, psychotic imperialism, misogyny and endless racism, it is hard to move, let alone imagine what one can do to transform this horror to good.Every day people are kidnapped by masked men in unmarked cars, taken to hidden sites and left in deplorable conditions; starving people in Gaza are slaughtered as they clamor for a bag of flour; public officials and leaders humiliated and murdered; the T erased from LGBT; brain-dead women forced to give birth; the glib language of hate and cruelty and easy thoughtless threats of world war, assassination, and dehumanization circling like invisible poison. What feels most perilous is the steady evaporation of the boundaries of what seemed impossible only a few weeks ago. Morality, compassion, care - slashed and burned.V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls Continue reading...

RFK Jr has direct control, but Senate testimony in May that someone else is running the agency has created confusionWho is in charge at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)? The answer is more complicated than it may seem.With no confirmed or acting CDC director, Robert F Kennedy Jr has direct control over the agency, allowing him to sign off - or not - on vaccine recommendations, according to legal experts. Continue reading...

Democrats have been receptive to the Tuesday Group' but the Republicans who control Congress are looking the other wayThe Tuesday Group was feeling something familiar as its members milled around a bank of elevators in the bustling basement of a Senate office building: rejection.They had often been told no over the past months - when the government moved to fire them with Donald Trump's blessing, when judges rejected challenges to that decision and when the lawmakers who they have taken to tracking down on Capitol Hill once a week when Congress is in session would turn a deaf ear to their pleas. Continue reading...

Pro-choice Alaskan was one of the few Republicans to vote to convict Trump at president's second impeachment trialLisa Murkowski is Alaska's four-term senator, first appointed in 2002 by Frank Murkowski, her father and the state's governor. An avowed moderate Republican, she entertains the possibility of caucusing with the Democrats if the Senate emerges deadlocked from next year's midterms. Her relationship with Donald Trump is fraught.In 2016, she voted for the former Ohio governor John Kasich. In Far From Home, her first book, she writes: One of my simple rules ... has been to withhold my vote from any candidate of bad character, regardless of the politics."Far From Home is published in the US by Penguin Random House Continue reading...

Like Putin, Israel's prime minister sees continuing destruction as an opportunity to boost support and outflank his enemiesThe war is over! Except it's not, not by a long chalk. The verbally agreed Iran-Israel ceasefire could be ripped to shreds at any moment. An aggressive theocratic regime still holds power in Tehran. The same is true of Jerusalem. In Washington, a president whose stupidity is matched only by his vanity prattles about making peace, but the angry old men in charge have learned nothing. Meanwhile, hundreds of civilians lie dead, thousands are wounded and millions have been terrorised.The war is over! Except only the naive believe that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister and prime warmonger, is done fighting. Even if Donald Trump is right and Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated" (severely damaged" appears more accurate), its nuclear knowhow and elusive stockpile of enriched uranium have not. At the first sign, real or imagined, of rebuilding, Netanyahu and his cronies will surely attack again. Trump called them off last week. But this is a man who can change his mind three times before he's even had breakfast.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The key procedural hurdle was cleared hours after the debate opened - key US politics stories from 28 JuneAfter a scramble in the Senate, Republicans voted on Saturday to advance Trump's signature big, beautiful" bill, with a 51-49 vote.Republicans had been divided over the controversial bill, with some rejecting the proposal to cut welfare programmes in order to cover tax breaks, and others demanding deeper cuts. Continue reading...

Experts say trend of agents detaining people while masking and wearing plainclothes increases riskPolice in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration's mass deportation targets.The man, Fernando Diaz, was arrested by Huntington Park police after officers said they found a loaded gun and official-looking documents with Department of Homeland Security headings in his SUV, according to NBC Los Angeles. Officers were impounding his vehicle for parking in a handicapped zone when Diaz asked to retrieve items inside, the police said. Among the items seen by officers in the car were multiple copies of passports not registered under the individual's name", NBC reports. Continue reading...

Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Garcia abandoned locked truckload of people in summer heat with no AC in 2022Two men face spending the rest of their lives in prison after a federal judge sentenced them on Friday for their roles in the deaths of 53 people - including six children - who were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022.A federal jury in Texas had found the two men, Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Garcia, guilty of various charges at the conclusion of a trial in March. Federal judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Torres to life in prison and Ortega to 83 years of incarceration, essentially a life sentence. Continue reading...

Governor Tim Walz eulogizes Melissa Hortman, killed with husband, as most consequential speaker' in state's history

Woman's injuries were not life-threatening, and officials were unable to find the likely young sand tiger sharkA 20-year-old woman was likely bitten by a juvenile shark while waist-deep in the surf at a suburban New York beach, according to state officials.The unidentified woman suffered minor lacerations to her left leg and foot after being bitten Wednesday at Jones Beach state park on Long Island. She was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to a release from state parks officials. Continue reading...

Meta CEO reportedly to offer pay packages worth up to $100m, a gambit OpenAI's Sam Altman calls crazy'Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent months putting together a list of the top AI engineers and researchers across the globe, preparing to offer potential recruits lucrative compensation packages in Meta's attempt to poach AI talent from key competitors.Silicon Valley has been talking for weeks about the Meta CEO's quest to attract top AI talent, including by offering pay packages worth up to $100m. Continue reading...

As Trump urges more deportations, veterans are seeing their parents, children and even themselves detainedThe son of an American citizen and military veteran - but who has no citizenship to any country - was deported from the US to Jamaica in late May.Jermaine Thomas's deportation, recently reported on by the Austin Chronicle, is one of a growing number of immigration cases involving military service members' relatives or even veterans themselves who have been ensnared in the Trump administration's mass deportation program. Continue reading...

Trump critic represents swing district that includes Omaha, prompting optimism that Democrats could take vacated seatRepublican congressman and vocal Donald Trump critic Don Bacon is reportedly not going to seek re-election during the midterm races in 2026.The conservative politician represents a swing district in Nebraska that includes Omaha, and word of his plans prompted Democratic figures to signal optimism that they could take the seat as the party tries to regain a House majority it has not had since 2023. Continue reading...

Road to Majority conference attendees expressed skepticism and begrudging respect for the Muslim democratic socialistHe is the democratic socialist who has been described as a gift to the Republican party.Zohran Mamdani's stunning showing in the Democratic primary election for mayor of New York this week was seen by some as perfect fodder to whip up a new red scare". Donald Trump called him a 100% Communist Lunatic", writing on social media: We've had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous." Continue reading...

Antoine Massey was one of 10 inmates who broke out of jail six weeks ago; only one still remains at largeLouisiana authorities on Friday captured one of the 10 men who escaped from a New Orleans jail six weeks earlier - and who police say released videos on social media while still on the run.Antoine Massey, 33, was taken into custody at a residence in New Orleans about 2 miles (3km) from the jail, said the New Orleans police department superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick. That left one of the 10 escapees still at large. Continue reading...

The state boasts cozy venues featuring buffalo mounts, barbecue and bras on the wall - but the mark of a great bar is always the peopleIt's been over two decades now, but as I remember it: the floor was sticky with peanut shells and beer.I could feel a crunch underfoot amid the din of garbled conversation as my young, righteous girlfriends and I made our way to a wobbly table at the Haufbrau in Bozeman, Montana. Continue reading...

True or not, people find it all too easy to believe that a humorous picture of the vice-president could get you barred from the USI have a very important public service announcement to make. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, make fun of Vice-President JD Vance by sharing one of the millions of unflattering memes dedicated to him. Don't you dare chuckle at the images of him looking like the lollipop kid" in Shrek (the resemblance is uncanny) or a chicken nugget. And, whatever you do, do not share the meme that you can find here, where he looks like a big bald baby. You risk hurting the poor man's feelings and, also, you might get kicked out of the country. Continue reading...

The Democratic socialist's victory in the New York City primary elections shows support for Palestine is not a liabilityIn a tremendous upset of politics as usual, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old brown, Muslim, Democratic socialist who had little name recognition in February beat the poster boy of the Democratic party establishment, Andrew Cuomo, by a plurality of votes in the first round of the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.What makes this win even more remarkable is that Mamdani has refused to back down from his vocal support for Palestinian liberation, a position that has long been a death knell for candidates within a party whose establishment is unabashedly pro-Israel. Continue reading...

Forty-one-year-old has stayed away from politics, but says political path would be an easy one' if he chose to pursue itEric Trump has hinted that he or another of the Trump family could run for president when his father's second term in the White House comes to an end.Eric, who is co-executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said, the road to the White House would be an easy one" if he decided to follow in his father's footsteps. Continue reading...

Trump's Iran strike knocked everything else out of the news, including the Minnesota shootings - and it was little surpriseYou furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war," was the storied response of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to Frederic Remington after the illustrator was sent to Cuba to cover an insurrection and cabled back to the boss that there was little going on.Much has changed since that famous (if true) exchange of the late 19th century, in the heyday of sensationalism known as yellow journalism.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

New York's financial elite compare the city to crime-riddled Gotham after democratic socialist bests Cuomo in Democratic mayoral primaryWhen Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described socialist, won New York's mayoral Democratic nomination last week over a seasoned but scandal-scarred veteran, the city's financial elite had a meltdown.This was the start of hot commie summer" in the city, New York hedgevfund billionaire Daniel Loeb posted to X. John Catsimatidis, billionaire CEO of grocery chain Gristedes and friend of Donald Trump, warned on Fox Business: If the city of New York is going socialist, I will definitely close, or sell, or move." Continue reading...

Critics warn cuts to Snap program would throw millions of Americans - such as Jade and her daughter Janai - back into food insecurityJade Johnson has a word to describe the experience of going hungry in one of the world's richest countries. Humbling."The last time she endured the misery of skipping meals was about 18 months ago. She was working two jobs as a home health aide and in childcare, but after paying the rent and bills she still didn't have enough to feed herself and her young daughter Janai. Continue reading...

Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona representative, explains how her background shapes her perspective on US foreign policyArizona congresswoman Yassamin Ansari brings an unusually personal perspective to the US's fraught relationship with Iran. The daughter of two Iranian parents who fled their homeland - her father as a student in the 1970s who couldn't return after the 1979 revolution, her mother as a 17-year-old in 1981 escaping the new regime's restrictions on women - Ansari grew up immersed in the complexities of US-Iran relations.This deep familiarity with both Iranian domestic politics and the tangled history between Washington and Tehran has given the Democratic freshman a distinctive edge in debates over military strikes, sanctions and diplomatic engagement. Continue reading...

Since 2021, the Eastern Kentucky Remembrance Project have planted markers memorializing Black residents killed by racist violenceOn 26 October 1924, Fred Shannon, a Black man, was lynched at age 28 by a mob of nearly 200 masked residents in Wayland, Kentucky.Shannon, a local musician, was falsely accused of killing a white man over a financial dispute. While was he being held at a local jail, the mob broke in, took him out in the street and shot him at least 18 times. Continue reading...

The tortured progress of the president's tax-and-spend bill is likely to bring his supporters a big, ugly surprise - little wonder he was so keen to turn the focus to Iran and NatoDaddy's home." So said a social media post from the White House, accompanied by a video featuring the song Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home) by Usher and images of Donald Trump at the Nato summit in The Hague.The US president's fundraising allies were quick to market $35 T-shirts with his image and the word after Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, referred to Trump's criticism of Israel and Iran over violations of a ceasefire by quipping: And then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get [them to] stop." Continue reading...

That outburst of exasperation at the White House felt very human. Perhaps other politicians should cautiously take note

This scandalous story gives lie to the claim that the biggest threat to country life comes from city dwellersPower hides by setting us against each other. This is never more true than in the countryside, where the impacts of an extreme concentration of ownership and control are blamed on those who have nothing to do with it. Rural people are endlessly instructed that they're oppressed not by the lords of the land, but by vicious and ignorant townies - the urban jackboot" as the Countryside Alliance used to call it - stamping on their traditions.Near Bridport in Dorset right now, an entire village is facing eviction, following the sale of the Bridehead Estate for about 30m. The official new owner, Bridehead Estate Ltd, is registered to the same address, with the same officers, as a company called Belport. The Telegraph reports that the estate was bought by Belport, a private equity firm, on behalf of a wealthy client last autumn", but no one knows who the client is. So far I've received no response to the questions I sent to Belport.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnistOn Tuesday 16 September, join George Monbiot, Mikaela Loach and other special guests discussing the forces driving climate denialism, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at Guardian.Live Continue reading...

Prosecutors allege more than a million Medicare recipients had their information stolen and used by the defendants for fraudulent claimsUS federal prosecutors charged 11 people on Friday in a Russia-based scheme to bilk Medicare - the American health insurance program for the elderly and disabled - out of $10.6bn through fraudulent billing for expensive medical equipment.The transnational criminal organization" orchestrated a multi-billion-dollar health care fraud and money laundering scheme" that included purchasing dozens of medical equipment companies from prior legitimate owners to perpetrate the fraud, according to the indictment dated 18 June. Continue reading...