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Illinois senator, 80, plans to leave office in 2027 at end of term, so voters will elect his replacement in midterms

Abolitionists' have migrated out of the fringes and moved toward the center of movement alongside Republicans' penchant for punishmentSo far this year, lawmakers in at least 12 states have introduced legislation that would treat fetuses as people and leave women who have abortions vulnerable to being charged with homicide - a charge that, in several of these states, carries the death penalty.Once seen as politically toxic, this kind of legislation has become more popular in the years since Roe v Wade fell, erasing the national right to abortion. This likely comes as no surprise to Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and one of the foremost commentators on the US abortion wars. The anti-abortion movement, she writes in her new book Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction, has really always been a fetal-personhood movement" - one that is so emboldened, it is increasingly unconcerned with public opinion or even democratic norms. Continue reading...

Florida State punter Alex Mastromanno leads the latest crop of Australian prospects hoping to join the highest levels of American footballA mulleted former Collingwood VFL player with the ability to kick with both feet heads a crop of Australians seeking to prove themselves at the highest levels of American football, as the sport's spotlight shines on Green Bay for this week's NFL draft.An upcoming NFL regular season match in Melbourne - for which 90,000 people have already registered an interest - and the rise of former rugby league junior and now Super Bowl winner Jordan Mailata underline the growing reputation of the American code in Australia. But the momentum of the NFL in the homeland of AFL has not been universally welcomed, with some Americans dismayed by the dominance of mature punting imports within the college ranks. Continue reading...

Josh Shapiro described shattered glass, melted furniture and burnt prayer books after arson at family homePennsylvania's governor, Josh Shapiro, has for the first time revealed details of the April arson attack against his residence, describing shattered windows, melted furniture and artwork disintegrated into walls" after an intruder firebombed his family home following their Passover celebration.Windows were smashed in, and there was glass everywhere. Some tables were turned over, and others had just melted away," Shapiro wrote in an essay in the New York Times on Wednesday. The devastation was shocking, and to me, it did not appear to be an accident. The damage was too extreme. It looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of our home." Continue reading...

Judge gives Trump administration deadline to support its claims it doesn't have to return man to the USThe federal court that has found itself in a pitched battle with the executive branch over the summary removal of Salvadorian Kilmar Abrego Garcia despite a previous order against deportation has now accused the Trump administration of bad faith" in the case.US district judge Paula Xinis has given the Trump administration until 6pm ET on Wednesday to provide details to support its claims that it does not have to comply with orders to return the man to the US, where he was living and working in Baltimore, because of special privilege. Continue reading...

Pro-natalists aren't actually interested in making motherhood easier by offering things like affordable childcare. So what is their aim?Malcolm and Simone Collins, the pro-natalist couple who are reportedly consulting the Donald Trump administration on how to encourage American women to have more babies, are something of a deliberate heel: they often seem to be attempting to provoke the ire of their audience. The couple espouse the pro-natalism that is sweeping the political right with an explicit eugenicist tilt (self-styled elites", the Collins scan their IVF-generated embryos before their pregnancies, in an effort to select for features like high IQ). They dress in the severe black outfits of German modernists, with an emphasis on the German" part, and wear large, unusually shaped eyeglasses; Simone has also taken to wearing large bonnets that make her look like Mother Goose, or, in their less subtle versions, like an extra on The Handmaid's Tale." The pair met on Reddit.The founders of a pro-birth organization, the Collinses' assert that there is a crisis of declining birth rates in America. (In reality, the slight dip in America's birth rate in recent years is almost entirely due to the decline of teen pregnancies.) They aim to fix this in part by breeding as many of their own children as possible: they currently have four, blameless innocents they have cruelly burdened with names like Industry Americus" and Torsten Savage". But they seem to be more adept at siring media profiles of themselves, of which there have been many. The couple insist upon their own genetic superiority, like a breeding-obsessed Boris and Natasha. They aim to advance a future of more babies and - by their own terms - better ones: what Simone calls genetically selected humans". They must be doing it on purpose: no one could become so off-putting by accident.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist. Continue reading...

Experts say Pentagon chief has endangered secrets of US defense department and given assistance to foreign spiesAs more develops about the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his repeated disclosures of sensitive military intelligence in unsecured Signal group chats, there are growing concerns his behavior has weakened the Pentagon in the eyes of its foreign adversaries and made him and his entourage a top espionage target.Allies, already concerned by Donald Trump's aggressive tariffs, have also begun to see the US as an intelligence-sharing liability. There are fears that the mounting firings and leak inquiries in Hegseth's orbit, along with his inability to manage these internal crises, exposes the entire global US war footing - especially, if a geopolitical and external crisis comes across his desk. Continue reading...

Delegation reports poor conditions. Plus, Musk says he will step back slightly from Doge after Tesla profits slide 71%

Francis was as outspoken as could be without naming names, when he criticized Vance in his February letter to US bishopsWe might never quite know what Pope Francis said to the US vice-president during their very brief meeting on Sunday. In the widely shared video clip, it was hardly audible. The morning after, Francis died, and Vance jetted to visit India, finding time to tweet that his heart went out to the millions of Christians who loved Francis (implying, I suppose, that not all Catholics loved him) and patronizing the dead pontiff by calling one of his homilies really quite beautiful").Francis had been as outspoken as could be without naming names, when he criticized Vance in his February letter to US bishops; but he was not just registering his rebuke of Trump and Vance's cruel treatment of refugees and migrants; he was reacting to a broader trend of instrumentalizing religion for nationalist and authoritarian populism. Continue reading...

Conservative commentators can't stand the idea that people they loathe can live fulfilling livesAn estate on Martha's Vineyard. A nine-bedroom house in DC. A family home in Chicago. Barack and Michelle Obama own about a gazillion dollars' worth of property. Turns out they don't need any of their fancy mansions, however, because they live rent-free in rightwing commentators' heads. While the right has always been fixated on trying to find fault with former president Obama, they have now become unhealthily obsessed with the idea that Barack and Michelle's marriage is failing. There's no evidence to support this, mind you. Just vibes.Picking up on these mysterious vibes is conservative commentator Megyn Kelly, who recently proclaimed on her podcast that she thinks Michelle and Barack married the wrong people". Many straws were grasped at to come to this conclusion - including the fact that Michelle once said that she likes going to bed early (wise woman) and her husband doesn't.Do 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...

A lack of pitches, kit and coaching has held the sport back for far too long but Major League Cricket may be the answerIf you look south from the Manhattan end of Brooklyn Bridge, you can just about imagine the cricket field that used to be beneath what is now the South Seaport - and, if you squint, pretend that the people making their way around the bars and clubs and restaurants are the descendants of the same New York crowd who attended a match here between a local team and a London XI in 1751. Modern-day Manhattan is built on cricket pitches, among other things. They are there under the streets, among the farms and tenements cleared to make way for skyscrapers. There's another under Central Park, a third below the NYU Langone medical centre, where - in 1844 - Canada beat the USA by 23 runs in what is considered the first international fixture in all sport.People have been dreaming of reviving American cricket ever since it died during the civil war, more than 160 years ago. It was killed by a shortage of pitches, kit and coaching, and by the rise of baseball, the great American pastime. Baseball had two advantages. It was easier to play - all you needed was a bat, a ball, four bases and a field - and if you were good at it, you could make a lot more money. Plenty of professional cricketers made the switch. The brothers George and Harry Wright, who had both played for St George's Cricket Club in New York, where their father was groundsman, were founding members of the first pro baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Both are in the Hall of Fame, and Harry is still known as the father of the game". Early proprietors such as AG Spalding, another ex-cricketer, sold baseball as the indigenous American sport. It was the patriotic choice. Cricket was inescapably English. Continue reading...

He was no liberal, but Francis embodied a spirit of international solidarity that is in alarmingly short supplyPope Francis died hours after meeting the US vice-president, JD Vance. If that wasn't a bad enough omen, the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump's acolyte and self-styled Christian nationalist", appeared to welcome the pope's death as a sign of evil" being defeated".In fact, despite a series of clashes with the Trump White House, Francis was no liberal. While refraining from judging homosexuality, he explicitly disapproved of the liberalising synodal path embarked on by the Catholic church in Germany, which ruled in 2023 that church employees could not be sacked for entering same-sex relationships or remarrying after divorce. On abortion, euthanasia, women and LGBTQ+ rights, Francis betrayed the high hopes that liberals and progressives had bestowed upon him. Continue reading...

Highlights from the 2025 edition presented by AIPAD, which will run from April 23 to 27 Continue reading...

No music, no script, no narration, no editing - slow TV like this is exactly the balm we need these daysDo you reach for your phone first thing in the morning as soon as you wake up? Me too. Only, for the past week, it's not my WhatsApp, email or social media I've been desperate to check, but how many moose have managed to swim across the Angerman river overnight.I know. I need more going on in my life, right? How else to explain my fascination with watching dozens of Swedish moose (yes, moose is the plural of moose, sadly not meese") undertake their annual spring migration to summer pastures? Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: As world leaders gather in the UK this week, any hope of breaking the deadlock when Russia and Ukraine refuse to compromise could mean the US walks awayGood morning.Representatives from the US, Britain and France are gathering in London today to resume discussions with Ukrainian officials on a possible ceasefire in the war. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, was scheduled to attend but announced at the last minute he would no longer be present - the White House's Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, will be there in his place.Tariffs | The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of a major negative shock" from Donald Trump's tariffs and has cut growth forecasts for every major global economy. The lender cut the UK's expected growth from 1.6% to 1.1%, a downward trend mirrored across the world.British Steel | Redundancy plans have been halted after the government took control of the Scunthorpe steelworks this month, potentially saving up to 2,700 jobs.US | Republican lawmakers have followed Donald Trump's lead and rallied behind Pete Hegesth, the beleaguered US secretary of defence, who has defended his use of the Signal messaging app to share details of US military strikes on Yemen to a group including his wife and brother.UK | Number 10 has said that Keir Starmer no longer argues that trans women are women. Starmer said yesterday that he welcomed the real clarity" of last week's supreme court ruling on gender recognition.Health | More than 150,000 additional people in England are living with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) - or ME - than previously thought, with the total number thought to be about 404,000. Continue reading...

Small increase amounts to 3.6 million births and an increase in the women aged 40-44 giving birthThe number of births in the US increased slightly in 2024 to roughly 3.6 million, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The small increase of 1% in the number of births comes amid a long-term decline that began during the Great Recession, in about 2008. The provisional data was released on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Al Gore launched an attack on the Trump administration saying there were 'important lessons' to be learned from similarities with the early rise of Nazi Germany. In a speech at a climate week event in San Francisco, Gore said: 'We've already seen, by the way, how popular authoritarian leaders have used migrants as scapegoats and have fanned the fires of xenophobia to fuel their own rise to power, and power-seeking is what this is all about' Continue reading...

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Ex-advertising executive, who hosted a Fox News show and has criticised Kamala Harris, will stand as a RepublicanDavid Cameron's former top adviser Steve Hilton has joined the 2026 race for California governor, running as a Republican to replace the Democrats' Gavin Newsom, who is prevented by law from seeking a third term.Hilton, who hosted a show on Fox News for six years, launched his campaign with the theme Golden Again: Great Jobs, Great Homes, Great Kids". His campaign said Hilton would be reinforcing his commitment to positive, practical solutions instead of today's ideology and dogma", and that his brand of positive populism" would focus on helping working families. Continue reading...

Donald Trump says tariffs on China will be dropped substantially' as IMF warns of major negative shock' from tariffs - key US politics stories from 22 AprilDonald Trump has said tariffs on goods from China will be reduced substantially" but won't be zero", after US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a de-escalation" in the trade war between the world's two largest economies.Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which countered with 125% tariffs on US goods, causing volatility in the stock market and concern about slowing global economic growth. Continue reading...

Delegation visits jails where Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk are being held and denounce authoritarian' TrumpCongressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a national disgrace" during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.We stand firm with them in support of free speech," the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. They are frightened, they're concerned, they want to go home." Continue reading...

US health secretary says Americans should eat zero' sugar and announces plans to eliminate eight synthetic food dyesThe US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Tuesday called sugar poison" and recommended that Americans eat zero" added sugar in their food, while acknowledging that the federal government was unlikely to be able to eliminate it from products.Kennedy, however, said that better labeling was needed for foods and that new government guidelines on nutrition would recommend people avoid sugar completely. Continue reading...

President says tariffs on China could be lowered days after lashing out over bank's reluctance to cut interest ratesDonald Trump has said he has no plans to fire the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, and suggested the draconian tariffs the US has imposed on China could be lowered.The president's comments come days after he called the central bank boss a major loser" whose termination cannot come fast enough" and defended his tariffs after they triggered stock market sell-offs. Continue reading...

New taskforce demands names in rooting out policies, procedures ... or understandings hostile to Christian views'The veterans affairs department (VA) is ordering staff to report colleagues for instances of anti-Christian bias" to a newly established taskforce, as part of Donald Trump's push to reshape government policy on religious expression.The VA secretary, Doug Collins, in an internal email seen by the Guardian, said the department had launched a taskforce to review the Biden administration's treatment of Christians". Continue reading...

Dollar also recovers after Monday's sell-off prompted by Donald Trump's attack on Federal Reserve chairGold has climbed above $3,500 an ounce for the first time while stocks on Wall Street and the dollar rose following Monday's sell-off prompted by Donald Trump's blistering attack on the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.Spot gold reached the record price of $3,500.01 (2,620) on Tuesday, extending a rally that has pushed bullion up from $2,623 an ounce at the start of this year. Continue reading...

Jury finds newspaper not liable for allegedly defaming former Alaska governor in 2017 editorial about gun controlSarah Palin on Tuesday lost in the retrial of her defamation case against the New York Times - a second defeat in the efforts by the former Republican vice-presidential candidate.A federal jury in New York deliberated for two hours then found the newspaper not liable for allegedly defaming Palin in a 2017 editorial about gun control. Palin appeared dejected as she left the courthouse in Manhattan. Continue reading...

Change to requirements to serve in combat roles expected to drastically cut number of womenThe US army unveiled plans on Monday to require a fitness test with identical physical standards for men and women in combat positions after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the elimination of gender-based fitness requirements in frontline roles.The revamped army fitness test, which replaces the combat fitness test, will be sex-neutral" and force female soldiers in 21 combat specialties to meet the same benchmarks as men - a change expected to drastically cut the number of women qualifying for these positions. Continue reading...

Statement signed by Harvard, Princeton and Brown leaders denounces White House's undue government intrusion'

Imagine spending some of your remaining hours on Earth with the US vice-president - or, as Queen Elizabeth did - with Liz TrussWhat do Liz Truss and JD Vance have against elderly people? Specifically, those who are kind, decent and compassionate.Take Radon Liz. In September 2022 she made a fleeting visit to Balmoral to be sworn in as prime minister by the queen. The last picture that was taken of Queen Elizabeth was of her standing in front of a fireplace next to Truss. You can't escape the desperation in her eyes. Please, please, she seems to be pleading, get me away from her. Continue reading...

Bill Owens says in staff memo it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it'Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, says he is leaving the flagship news program because he lost his journalistic independence.In a staff memo obtained by the New York Times, Owens said that over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience". Continue reading...

The US vice-president contrasts India's potential with west's self-loathing' in speech in JaipurJD Vance has described the US-India partnership as the cornerstone of global progress, warning that the 21st century could be a very dark time for all of humanity" if the two countries fail to cooperate.In the keynote policy speech of his four-day visit to India, the US vice-president contrasted the country's incredible" potential with a self-loathing" west. Continue reading...

Effective Monday, the agency suspends its proficiency testing program for grade A' raw milk and finished productsThe Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality-control program for testing fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.The suspension is another disruption to the nation's food-safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of Donald Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce. Continue reading...

The National Institutes of Health claims it is fulfilling RFK's promise to find cause of autism by September

Secretary of state says overhaul of department will close a number of overseas missions and reduce staff

With his outspokenness about Israel's outrages, the late pope showed up the hypocrisy of the media and politiciansThe deaths of major public figures can provoke the most grotesque outpourings of hypocrisy. So it goes for Pope Francis, now lauded by leaders and media outlets that were complicit in the very evils he condemned. Pope Francis was a pope for the poor, the downtrodden and the forgotten," said Keir Starmer, a prime minister who stripped the winter fuel payment from many vulnerable pensioners before launching an assault on disability benefits predicted to drive up to 400,000 Britons into poverty. He promoted ... an end to ... suffering across the globe," wrote Joe Biden, enabler of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.Indeed, the fate of Gaza seemed to preoccupy the pope's final years. In his last Easter address, he condemned the death and destruction" and resulting dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation" - a powerful sermon that hardly any western media outlets covered. Indeed, you will struggle to find much prominent coverage of any of his courageous statements on Gaza, such as: This is not war. This is terrorism." In his final published piece, the pope reiterated his support for a Palestinian state, declaring: Peace-making requires courage, much more so than warfare."Owen Jones 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...

Anything is possible with Trump ripping up all the rules - and I'm going to take full advantageMy haters are going to rejoice when I say this, but I think it's high time I changed careers. Being a half Palestinian, wholly homosexual freelance writer based in the US isn't currently looking like the most stable situation. Either my livelihood is going to get obliterated by AI, or I'm getting shipped to a detention centre for thoughtcrimes and gender treachery. It's anyone's guess which comes first.Having mulled over the various directions my future could take (dog-cloning saleswoman, astronaut, head of sanitation for the city of Philadelphia), I have finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. And I'm going to exclusively reveal the result in this column. I'm ... going into politics! Continue reading...

Trump's defense secretary denies he was texting war plans' after reports of second chat to discuss military operationsThe embattled US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has defended his most recent use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, blaming fired Pentagon officials for orchestrating leaks against the Trump administration.In an interview with former colleagues at Fox News on Tuesday morning, the defense secretary suggested the problems stem from former officials, appointed by this administration, for leaking information to damage him and Donald Trump, adding that there was an internal investigation and that evidence would eventually be handed to the justice department. Continue reading...

Trump's anti-media diatribes are part of the authoritarian playbook. Congress must reject his planned cutsIt was entirely predictable that Donald Trump would go after public media in America. Harming the reality-based press - in every form, whether public or private - is a central part of his playbook for controlling the political narrative as he moves the country toward an authoritarian model of government.For Trump, the message is all, and anything that gets in the way should be portrayed as an evil to society and stamped out.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Lender cuts forecasts for every major economy, with UK expected to grow by 1.1% this year, down from 1.6%

Department will begin collection next month on student loans that are in default, including the garnishing of wagesThe education department will begin collection next month on student loans that are in default, including the garnishing of wages for potentially millions of borrowers, officials said Monday.Currently, roughly 5.3 million borrowers are in default on their federal student loans. Continue reading...

Company says it will create 12,000 jobs in manufacturing and R&D over next five years

The double Oscar-winner responded to the president's criticism of his New York Times op-ed last summer urging Joe Biden to step down for re-election, saying it was his civic duty'George Clooney has said he is unconcerned about the persistent verbal abuse levelled at him by Donald Trump, after the president labelled him a fake movie actor" on Truth Social.Speaking to Gayle King on CBS Mornings, Clooney said: I don't care. I've known Donald Trump for a long time. My job is not to please the president of the United States. My job is to try and tell the truth when I can and when I have the opportunity. I am well aware of the idea that people will not like that." Continue reading...

University fights back against threats to cut federal funding. Plus, tributes pour in for Pope Francis

University fights back against threats to cut about $9bn in funding for school after it refused to comply with demandsHarvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging it is trying to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard".The university is fighting back against the administration's threat to review about $9bn in federal funding after Harvard officials refused to comply with a list of demands that included appointing an outside overseer to ensure that the viewpoints being taught at the university were diverse". Harvard is specifically looking to halt a freeze on $2.2bn in grants. Continue reading...

The US administration's reassuring' words, after deporting two German teens, have made it plain that the border authorities will have a problem with anyone who doesn't echo their politics

Demonstrations rarely lead to immediate policy change. But they are essential to building community and long-term resistanceOpinions about the protests this month keep oscillating between two extremes. Optimists point to the larger-than-expected numbers (larger than expected by many police departments for sure); they enthusiastically recall a famous social scientific finding according to which a non-violent mobilization of 3.5% of a population can bring down a regime. Pessimists, by contrast, see protests as largely performative. Both views are simplistic: it is true that protests almost never lead to immediate policy changes - yet they are crucial for building morale and long-term movement power.Earlier this year, observers had rushed to declare resistance cringe" and a form of pointless hyperpolitics", a vibe shift" (most felt by rightwing pundits, coincidentally) supposedly gave Donald Trump a clear mandate, even if he had won the election only narrowly. Meanwhile, Democrats were flailing in the face of a rapid succession of outrageous executive orders - many of which were effectively memos to underlings, rather than laws. But taken at face value, they reinforced an impression of irresistible Trumpist power. Continue reading...

The US health and human services secretary dismissed autistic people in recent comments. It's not hard to disprove his theoriesWhen Tarik El-Abour was in middle school, his teacher asked him and his classmates a simple question. What do you want to be when you grow up? When it was time for him to answer, El-Abour gave a reply that thousands of children have said before. He wanted to be a baseball player. But his teacher shot back with something less than encouraging: You'd better have a Plan B." El-Abour, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, remained undeterred. Rather than listening to his pessimistic instructor, he distanced himself from her.He thought that if he continued to talk to her, she might convince him he was unable to achieve his goal. In the end, he was right, and the teacher was wrong. El-Abour grew up to become a baseball player after receiving a degree in business administration from Bristol University in California. He first played professionally in the Empire League, where he was named rookie of the year in 2016 and was an All-Star in 2017. Then, in 2018, he signed a deal with the Kansas City Royals, a franchise just three years removed from winning the World Series. He played outfield in the minor leagues during the 2018 season, flourishing under the mentorship of JD Nichols of World Wide Baseball Prospects and Reggie Sanders of the Royals, becoming the first recorded autistic player in MLB history. Continue reading...

Ahead of a global summit in London comes a warning that lessons on energy security have not been learned