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The Skrmetti decision upholding Tennessee's ban on transition-related healthcare for minors deprives children and batters the 14th amendmentBy now, it is a ritual: every June, Americans endure several weeks of agonizing suspense, as we wait to hear how the supreme court will erode our freedoms, attack our dignity, undermine self-government and empower those who enrich themselves at our expense. The court, controlled by career politicians in robes who were hand-selected for their loyalty to the rightwing and their willingness to be wildly intellectually dishonest in pursuit of Republican policy objectives, has ended the right to abortion, desiccated the Voting Rights Act, made state gun regulations nearly impossible and declared the president functionally immune to criminal law. Many of us waited, with a mixture and terror and disgust, to see what cruelties the court would deliver for us in 2025.The justices decided to start by attacking vulnerable children. In a 6-3 split, the court's conservatives ruled on Wednesday that Tennessee's law banning transition-related healthcare for minors can remain in effect. The law prohibits hormone therapies and surgeries only for their use in treating gender dysphoria; cisgender minors retain access to these drugs. The statute is on its face sex-specific and designed to mandate certain forms of gender conformity: the care that it bans, it bans on the basis of a patient's sex. This is in straightforward violation of the 14th amendment's equal protection clause, which has long been interpreted to ban facially sex-discriminatory laws and those that encourage sex-role stereotyping. The court decided to ignore this precedent and the plain intent of Tennessee's statute, and in the process it both imposed a cruel and needless deprivation on trans children and their families, and also substantially weakened constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the sexes.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

A senator handcuffed, people snatched in public, military deployed - Trump's slide towards autocracy has come quicker than critics fearedIt reads like a checklist of milestones on the road to autocracy.A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a US senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent. Continue reading...

No one doubts the malignity of the Iranian government, but if we forget the tragedies of interventions past, we'll make the same mistakesOn the eve of the 1991 Gulf war, a TV reporter asked the US commander Norman Schwarzkopf if he would topple Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Stormin' Norman replied with a memorable succinctness: Easy say. Hard do."Schwarzkopf knew what he was talking about. The general was a lifelong student of the Middle East region - he spent some of his childhood years in Tehran - and of military history. Indeed his successful ground-war strategy for Saddam's defeat in Kuwait was consciously modelled on the flanking tactics used to such devastating effect by the Carthaginian commander Hannibal to defeat the Romans at Cannae in 216BC.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

If Europe was not so in hock to Washington, it would sanction Israel over Gaza and condemn its unilateral attack on IranThe rupture in the transatlantic relationship has left European leaders struggling to know how to think, let alone act, with any autonomy. Europe most urgently needs a mind of its own on the Middle East.Tragically, EU governments were just beginning to turn the page after a year and a half of complicity with the Israeli government's war crimes in Gaza. Donald Trump's obscene plans for a Gaza riviera" and humanitarian" initiatives that breach humanitarian principles were creating distance with the US, and European governments were starting to craft their own course.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

This blog has now closed. Follow our Middle East live blog hereRussian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Wednesday that direct US military assistance to Israel could radically destabilise the situation in the Middle East, where an air war between Israel and Iran has raged for six days.In separate comments, the head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, was quoted as saying that the situation between Israel and Iran was now critical. Continue reading...

Juventus players and staff were involved in an awkward encounter at the White House when Trump asked the team players and managers if women could make it into their team. In response, Juventus general manager Damien Comolli highlighted the strength of their women's team

Possibility of US intervention is exposing sharp divisions in president Donald Trump's base - key US politics stories from 18 JuneThe possibility of US intervention in the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran is exposing sharp divisions in president Donald Trump's base, with some of his supporters urging the president against involvement in a new Middle East war.Trump says he remains undecided about the US getting directly involved, which if sanctioned would be a sharp departure from his usual caution about foreign entanglements. Continue reading...

Senate backs Trump's nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection despite accusation by former officialThe US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), despite a former top official accusing him of orchestrating a cover-up" over the death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico.Scott was confirmed on a party-line vote, with 51 Republicans in favor and 46 Democrats opposed, along with three absences. Continue reading...

Midwest set to experience temperatures in the 90s (30s celsius) and east coast also to be affectedSummer will make a dramatic entrance in the US this week with a heat dome that will bring stifling temperatures and uncomfortable humidity to millions.The heat will be particularly worrisome this weekend across wide stretches of Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, where forecasters are warning of extreme temperature impacts. Continue reading...

Yassine Bounou saved a late penalty and Trent Alexander-Arnold made a slow start on his Real Madrid debutThe teams have huddled together, the managers have shaken hands, everyone on the field is already sweating ....let's do this.Reader Jason has a word: Continue reading...

Diplomats to look for indications of hostility towards citizens, culture or founding principles of United States'Foreign students will be required to unlock their social media profiles to allow US diplomats to review their online activity before receiving educational and exchange visas, the state department has announced. Those who fail to do so will be suspected of hiding that activity from US officials.The new guidance, unveiled by the state department on Wednesday, directs US diplomats to conduct an online presence review to look for any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States". Continue reading...

Defense secretary had contentious hearing in which he sparred with Democratic senators over various issuesThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, suggested on Wednesday that he would not obey a federal court ruling against the deployments of national guard troops and US marines to Los Angeles, the latest example of the Trump administration's willingness to ignore judges it disagrees with.The comments before the Senate armed services committee come as Donald Trump faces dozen of lawsuits over his policies, which his administration has responded to by avoiding compliance with orders it dislikes. In response, Democrats have claimed that Trump is sending the country into a constitutional crisis. Continue reading...

Department of Veterans Affairs says the changes come in response to a Trump executive order defending women'The Department of Veterans Affairs has imposed new guidelines on VA hospitals nationwide that remove language that explicitly prohibited doctors from discriminating against patients based on their political beliefs or marital status.The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers. Continue reading...

The handmade posters of immigrants have become a symbol of quiet resistance. Their creators reveal the story behind the projectMissing son." Missing father." Missing grandmother."The words are written in bright red letters at the top of posters hanging on lampposts and storefronts around Los Angeles. At first glance, they appear to be from worried relatives seeking help from neighbors. Continue reading...

Phil Foden struck early and Jeremy Doku added a second before Rico Lewis was shown a late red cardAfter both sets of players are introduced to the crowd one by one, we kick off a couple of minutes late.It's 26 degrees and overcast in Philadelphia this afternoon, with similar conditions in my spare room some 3,500 miles away. Don't worry, I'm hydrating. While we wait, here's the latest Football Daily: Continue reading...

America-first backers such as Steve Bannon urge restraint, while Republican hawks push for intervention

Colleagues speak of Hortman's legislative accomplishments, a steely negotiator' who went into politics to do something, not to be something'A group of white male lawmakers were playing cards in a back room while their female colleagues gave speeches on the Minnesota house floor. They weren't paying attention, and Melissa Hortman had had enough.I hate to break up the 100% white male card game in the retiring room," Hortman said in 2017. But I think this is an important debate." Continue reading...

Supreme court ruled that Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming treatment did not discriminate on basis of sexThe US supreme court on Wednesday ruled to uphold a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors - a decision, legal analysts say, that is sure to have a sweeping impact not only on transgender and non-binary individuals across the US, but on anybody who wants to argue that they have been discriminated against on the basis of their sex.Forty per cent of trans people between the ages of 13 and 17 live in the 27 states that have so far enacted bans or policies that restrict youths' access to gender-affirming care. Although advocates have launched more than a dozen lawsuits over the bans, most remain in effect. Wednesday's decision in the case, United States v Skrmetti, may pave the way for the rest to take effect. Continue reading...

The oil shocks of the 1970s-90s had brutal economic impacts. As Israel attacks Iran, a moderate rise in oil prices rests on questionable assumptionsFinancial markets picked up the clear message when Donald Trump cut short his stay at the G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies this week. Despite calls from fellow western leaders to de-escalate the crisis, the president's early return to the White House was taken as a sign that the US is considering joining Israel in its military action against Iran. Trump says he wants Iran's unconditional surrender.This is where modern summitry came in half a century ago. In 1975, the first meeting of what eventually became the G7 was convened at Rambouillet in France in an attempt to work out a joint response to the oil shock that accompanied the Yom Kippur war between Israel and its neighbours.Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Senate passed legislation to regulate stablecoins, the first of what the industry hopes will be a wave of bills to bolster its legitimacy

National security agreement allows Trump to name a board member as well as a non-economic golden shareNippon Steel's $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel closed on Wednesday, the companies said, confirming an unusual degree of power for the Trump administration after the Japanese company's 18-month struggle to close the purchase.Under the deal terms, Nippon bought 100% of US Steel shares at $55 a share, as it first laid out in its December 2023 offer for the well-known and struggling steelmaker. Continue reading...

Senate inquiry addressing constitutional crisis' of Biden's cognitive decline was attended by just one DemocratSenate Democrats staged a near-total boycott of a Republican-led Senate hearing on Wednesday on Joe Biden's mental decline and its alleged cover-up during his presidency, with only Vermont senator Peter Welch attending the session.The hearing, titled Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution", began with Democratic ranking member Dick Durbin launching a counterattack on Donald Trump's off-kilter comments before walking out of the chamber. Continue reading...

Findings reinforce public appetite for peaceful resolution to aim of forcing Iran to give up ambitions of acquiring nuclear weapons

Public spat reflects fracture among Trump's coalition over whether US should join Israel's escalating conflict with Iran

President Donald Trump has declined to answer reporters' questions on whether the US is planning to strike Iran or its nuclear facilities. He said the Iranians had reached out but he felt 'it's very late to be talking ... There's a big difference between now and a week ago. Nobody knows what I'm going to do'

Ruling is devastating loss for trans rights supporters in case that could set precedent for dozens of other lawsuits

Men allegedly stole $100m worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and luxury watches from an armored truckSeven men in southern California have been charged in connection with what federal authorities are calling the largest jewelry heist in US history" after allegedly stealing approximately $100m worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and luxury watches from an armored truck.The US attorney's office for California's central district revealed the charges in a news release on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Federal and provincial governments are flooding the zone' with damaging corporate giveaways under the guise of resistanceSteve Bannon calls it flooding the zone". Donald Trump demonstrated it in his first weeks back in office, when he introduced over 100 executive orders. Regardless of their legal viability, the sheer volume of policy changes is the point. It is a political strategy to overwhelm institutions, courts and social groups, preventing effective opposition.In Canada, we are witnessing our own version of flooding the zone" from our new prime minister, Mark Carney, in coordination with provincial and territorial premiers. Carney is the former governor of the Bank of England. Prior to that, he was the governor of the Bank of Canada. He recently won the federal election by defeating a rightwing opponent Canadians feared would steer them too far towards Trump policies. Yet Carney's negotiations" with Trump have so far involved gentle reminders that Canada would never become the 51st state, as threatened by the US president, and capitulations to Trump's demand to strengthen our border security and increase defense spending. In reality, Canada is moving much closer to the authoritarian rule of Trump.Shiri Pasternak is an associate professor in criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dayna Nadine Scott is a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University. Both authors are members of the Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism research team, a collaboration between critical scholars and Indigenous land defenders across North America Continue reading...

James Uthmeier defied a judge's order to halt arrests and boasted of backing Trump's immigration agendaA federal judge in Miami held Florida's attorney general James Uthmeier in contempt of court for continuing to enforce an immigration law she blocked, and bragging about it in media interviews afterwards.District court judge Kathleen Williams pointed to Uthmeier's defiance in a scorching ruling on Tuesday afternoon that accused the Republican of twisting words in her April stay of a February law making it a state crime for undocumented aliens to enter Florida. Continue reading...

Mamdani's campaign deserves credit for offering a clear, inspiring, progressive message. But ranked-choice voting is also helping make him competitiveWith a week left until New York's Democratic mayoral primary, one might have thought that the former governor Andrew Cuomo would be measuring the drapes at Gracie Mansion. Real estate developers, corporations like Doordash, a smattering of billionaires and even Billy Joel have shoveled cash into his campaign, with his Super Pac spending more money than any other outside force in the city's political history. This is on top of his entering the race with major name recognition advantage, amounting to a 20- or 30-point lead as recently as May.But according to a new poll, Zohran Mamdani - the insurgent state assemblyman and democratic socialist whom the Nation recently co-endorsed along with fellow mayoral candidate and New York City comptroller Brad Lander - has pulled ahead of Cuomo for the first time.Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times Continue reading...

After Hurricane Helene's flood waters slammed into Lake Lure's century-old dam last September, the resort town was spurred on to seek federal funding for an ambitious rebuilding plan. While the initial response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency seemed encouraging when Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump's plans to shrink or even abolish Fema - and push some of the costs of disaster response on to states - have injected uncertainty into the North Carolina town's recovery Continue reading...

The NHL's southern expansion was mocked in the 1990s. But it led to better hockey, more money and a long drought for the sport's spiritual homeThere are a lot of things I do not understand about this proposed expansion," New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey wrote in December 1992, as the NHL wrapped up its annual Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. During that week's meeting, the league received expansion proposals for two teams. One was for a team in Anaheim, California, backed by Disney. The other was for a team in Miami, Florida, put forward by waste management-and-VHS-video magnate, Wayne Huizenga. What makes it think the Sun Belt is ready for all these hockey teams?" Vecsey wondered.At the time, the answer was money. With more time, the answer seems to be: because championship hockey teams can be built anywhere, including in the South. On Tuesday night in Florida, the Panthers won their second-straight Stanley Cup against the Edmonton Oilers, this time in six games - one fewer than they needed last season. If anything, you could now argue that there's no better place to build a championship NHL team than the southern US. Since 1990, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to a team based in the South nine times - but five of those have come in the last six years. And three of those have also been against Canadian teams. Continue reading...

While Juneteenth has become the most famous celebration marking the end of slavery, it is far from the only one

Israel-Iran conflict is at a critical juncture as thousands flee Tehran. Plus, Alex Padilla makes speech about being handcuffed

How Kelcy Warren, one of Trump's biggest industry backers, and his pipeline firm are likely to flourish in his second termKelcy Warren was among the top donors for Donald Trump's 2024 White House bid, personally pouring at least $5m into the campaign and co-hosting a fundraiser for the then presidential hopeful in Houston.Trump's win appears to already be benefiting Warren and Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline and energy firm of which he is co-founder, executive chair and primary shareholder. Continue reading...

Five residents of Lake Worth Beach - just 10 miles from Trump's Maga fortress - share their stories of survival as an immigration crackdown takes its tollLake Worth Beach, a small coastal city of about 45,000, sits in the shadows of Donald Trump's Florida residence, Mar-A-Lago. A 10 minute drive from Maga"

Exclusive: poll shows 62% of women and 47% of men across political spectrum say economy and inflation getting worseWomen across the political spectrum are more concerned about the state of the US economy and inflation under Donald Trump than men are, according to a new exclusive poll for the Guardian.More Democrats than Republicans are now concerned about the economy following the president's return to power. But pessimism was higher for women even among Republicans and independents, according to a new Harris poll.More women said they are very worried about food prices (52% of women compared to 39% of men)More women said they're spending more time trying to find deals or go to more affordable stores (36% versus 26%)More women said their financial security is getting worse because of their difficulty in affording essential goods and services (55% versus 46%) Continue reading...

Catholic church says it won't make nearly $1m interest payment but calls fraud accusation extreme stretch'The Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans is planning to default on paying a nearly $1m interest payment on more than $41m in bonds it sold in 2017, leading lawyers for the people who purchased the church's debt to allege in open court that it had engaged in the definition of securities fraud".An attorney for the archdiocese countered that the allegation is an extreme stretch". Continue reading...

Trump-related products are popping up all over the US - with the profits guaranteed to never help those who buy them

Put in the proper wider context, the attendance issues that have emerged during the tournament perhaps aren't quite as embarrassing as they seemIf there's a lesson to be learned from the Club World Cup so far, it's that images of nothingness can still generate hysteria. Empty seats - which are apparently a festering scourge upon the game of football, a tragedy representing the plastic bankruptcy of American soccer fandom and/or the Club World Cup, an issue demanding coverage delivered with brows fully furrowed - have been commonplace in the competition's opening dozen games. Social media is awash in panoramic photos from a nation of press boxes, informing you incredulously that this image, so obscene in its emptiness, was taken a mere 45 minutes before kickoff - or (gasp) even closer.Why do we care? What is it about the sight of a whole lot of plastic folding chairs with nobody in them that inflames our passions? Since when did we all become Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention? Continue reading...

As the Trump administration's security focus shifts towards countering China, European governments are living on borrowed timeCall it the five-for-five summit. When Nato leaders meet in The Hague next week, European allies will sign up to a phoney transatlantic bargain in which they pretend they will spend 5% of their economic output on defence and Donald Trump pretends in return that he is committed to Article 5 of the Nato treaty, the mutual defence clause that he has repeatedly undermined.The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, is deploying all his considerable political wiles and powers of persuasion to contrive a short, no surprises" summit at which fundamental differences over Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, trade, the Middle East and liberal democratic values are deliberately excluded.Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre Continue reading...

This liveblog is now closed.A memorial outside the Minnesota house chambers displays a photo of Melissa and Mark Hortman behind a table where people are dropping off flowers, notes, a hard hat, a plaid shirt. Signs in front of it read in honor of our beloved Melissa". On her desk, a photo and a bouquet of roses.On Monday afternoon, the skies darkened, spilling sheets of rain across the Minneapolis suburbs Melissa Hortman represented. Continue reading...

US president demanded unconditional surrender' from Tehran as Israel's war on Iran appeared to reach crucial moment - key US politics stories from Tuesday at a glanceDonald Trump boosted speculation over whether the US could become involved in Israel's conflict with Tehran on Tuesday, warning Iran's supreme leader that he was an easy target" and that America's patience is wearing thin".In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president wrote: Continue reading...

Kato chef receives award and says immigrant communities in LA are being ripped apart' and urges people to speak upAs Los Angeles chef Jon Yao received a James Beard award, one of the most significant in the culinary industry, he paid tribute to his city and the immigrants that are so central to its culture but are now living in fear amid the Trump administration's brutal immigration crackdown.Our restaurant - we tell stories, stories of immigrants, diaspora, endurance and perseverance," Yao said on Monday. LA is a city built by the toils of immigrant communities and right now those same communities are being ripped apart." Continue reading...