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It was a nation of dreams, built for the screen. Then it shatteredThe first impression America gave me was gentle carelessness. We were driving down from Canada to visit family friends in Texas sometime in the mid- to late 1980s, and a young border patrol agent at a booth, crouched over a newspaper, leaning back in his chair, carelessly waved my family's station wagon across without looking up. You didn't even need a passport to enter the United States until I was 33.You need clear eyes at the border today. Europe and Canada have issued travel advisories after a series of arbitrary detentions, deportations to foreign jails without due process and hundreds of valid visas pulled or voided amid a sense of general impunity. While I have crossed the border a hundred times at least, sometimes once a month when I lived there, I cannot say when I will see America again, and I am quite sure I will never return to the country I once visited. Continue reading...

If gastropods are lucky, another cheap and unlovable source of age-defying secretions will come along soonApologies. As a reasonably attentive student of generational divides, I'm still late to one of the most dramatic divergences yet: the normalisation of snail slime.At some point, maybe around the time I stopped believing in face cream miracles, smearing on snail mucus, in serums or lotions, was hailed by newcomers to Korean-made skin products as transformative, almost immediately. Its most cherished effect being, as an industry spokeswoman told British Vogue in 2023, a radiant youthful glow". Today, thanks more to rhapsodising influencers than age-defying evidence, the slime phenomenon persists, gathers converts and withstands objections from snail supporters, who do not, sadly, seem that numerous. What snails need now, perhaps more than any other animal, is celebrity allies, supposing there are any willing to sacrifice the magical power of slime. Continue reading...

Substituting liberal biases with conservative will only serve to subvert academic objectivityFew people want to live in an echo chamber. Many have no problem being friends with those who vote differently to the way they do. And many would probably agree with John Stuart Mill that he who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that" - that to truly know one's own argument, one must also know the arguments of those who disagree.How to create a culture that encourages more fruitful engagement between those of differing political views has become a key question in contemporary public debate. Nowhere more so than in universities, where there has been much debate about viewpoint diversity", the aspiration to nurture differing and conflicting perspectives within an institution or group as a means of sharpening arguments and teasing out truths. Continue reading...

Playing in Stanford's football stadium, the school's softball home game against archrivals California set the NCAA attendance record Saturday with a crowd of 13,207 Continue reading...

Protesters pour into the streets from east coast to west in second wave of demonstrations this month - key US politics stories from Saturday 19 April at a glanceProtesters poured into the streets across the country again on Saturday in the second wave of demonstrations this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump's presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into ballot box action.Large protests took place from east coast to west, in major cities like Washington, New York and Chicago, as well as Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, among many others. Americans abroad also signalled their opposition to the Trump agenda in the Irish capital of Dublin and other cities. Continue reading...

Aditya Wahyu Harsono, father of infant with special needs, surprised at work despite valid visa through June 2026An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked, will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled Thursday that his case can proceed.Judge Sarah Mazzie denied a motion to dismiss the case against Aditya Wahyu Harsono on humanitarian grounds, according to his attorney. Harsono, 33, was arrested four days after his visa was revoked without notice. He is scheduled for another hearing on 1 May. Continue reading...

Organizers call for 11 million people to march and rally in this weekend's effort to protect democracy'Protesters poured into the streets of cities and towns across the United States again on Saturday, in the second wave of protests this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump's presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into action at the ballot box.By early afternoon, large protests were under way in Washington, New York and Chicago, with images of crowds cascading across social networks showing additional demonstrations in Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Pennsylvania, among others. Americans abroad also signaled their opposition to the Trump agenda in Dublin, Ireland, and other cities. Continue reading...

Two new surveys confirm that women who take on children from an earlier marriage will almost always be seen as witchesStepmothers have always been witches. Long before the Brothers Grimm gave us Snow White's usurping queen (and long before Gal Gadot's toe-curling recent turn in the role), there was Medea, witch of classical myth. Medea is best remembered for killing her own children but, according to Ovid, she went on to acquire a stepson, the hero Theseus, and attempted to kill him too. (Poison, of course, and with an eye on his inheritance: Witchy stepmothering 101.)Two millennia after Ovid, modern women still let our lives be limited by such stories. A new survey says that 43% of single mothers are deterred from dating other parents by negative stereotypes of stepmothers portrayed in popular culture"; 37% explicitly cite the fear that their partners' children will view them as a wicked stepmother". One should approach such a survey with caution - it is commissioned by a dating app for parents - but these findings are mirrored in academic studies the world over. A 2018 survey from New Zealand found that stepmothers altered their behaviour, fearful of setting boundaries with their stepchildren, for fear of the wicked stepmother" tag.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Former president spoke at commemoration for the 168 people who died in the 1995 attack by far-right extremistBill Clinton called on Americans to put aside whose resentments matter most" and issued a defense of government employees as he returned to Oklahoma City on Saturday for a remembrance service for the 30th anniversary of the deadliest homegrown terrorist attack in US history.If our lives are going to be dominated by efforts to dominate people we disagree with, we're going to put the 250-year-old march toward a more perfect union at risk," he said. None of us would ever get much done. Believe me, we've all got something to be mad about." Continue reading...

The Catholic church has taken the first steps to canonise the architect of Barcelona's extraordinary Sagrada FamiliaI don't understand the processes by which people become saints, but the case for the canonisation of the great Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, now progressing with the blessing of the pope, seems strong. He was devout - he tried to go without food for 40 days in emulation of Jesus Christ, until a bishop friend talked him out of likely death. The unprecedented phantasmagoria that he designed in stone, iron and ceramic could be called miracles. He even suffered a form of martyrdom, being hit by a tram while apparently deep in thought about his most famous work, the church of Sagrada Familia. It's not quite the same as a burning at the stake or a fusillade of arrows or the other grisly ends of ancient saints, but has its own significance. Gaudi's mission was to find spiritual meaning in a world transformed by industry and machines, of which the fatal tram might be considered a representative. Continue reading...

Neverending calls to automated customer service lines aren't just frustrating - new research suggests they may be quietly radicalising as wellQuestion: what are the eight most annoying words in the English language? Answer: Your call is important to us ... please hold." But when you have turned into a gibbering wreck after 10 minutes of your valuable time have ticked away - intermittently punctuated by assurances that, while your tormentor is experiencing high call volumes at the moment", nevertheless your call is still important to him/her/it - you can take comfort in the thought that you are not alone. In fact, you belong to the majority of sentient beings in an industrial society like ours.Thanks to a useful piece of market research, we now have an idea of the numbers of victims of this industrial practice - at least in the UK. A survey commissioned by the New Britain Project thinktank found that the average Briton spends between 28 and 41 minutes every week coping with inefficient customer service systems, and that nearly four-fifths of them are frustrated by the wasted time, the unnecessary friction, and the quiet resignation that has become part of daily interactions with both public and private services". Continue reading...

Agencies protecting coal miners from hazards such as black lung' among those gutted by government cutsThe Trump administration's efforts to expand coal mining while simultaneously imposing deep cuts to agencies tasked with ensuring miner health and safety has left some advocates dumbfounded".Agencies that protect coal miners from serious occupational hazards, including the condition best known as black lung", have been among those affected by major government cuts imposed by the White House and the unofficial department of government efficiency" (Doge) run by the billionaire Elon Musk. Continue reading...

US vice-president, who is a Catholic convert, discusses immigration and international wars with secretary of stateThe US vice-president, JD Vance, had an exchange of opinions" with the Vatican's secretary of state over current international conflicts and immigration when they met on Saturday, the Vatican has said.The Vatican issued a statement after Vance, a Catholic convert, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. There was no indication he met Pope Francis, who has resumed some official duties during his recovery from pneumonia. Continue reading...

The progressive Democrat from Queens is the son of a famous film-maker and poised to take on frontrunner Andrew CuomoCan a 33-year-old cricket-playing socialist, who wants to freeze rent, make city transport free and once aspired to be a rapper win an already turbulent election to become the next mayor of New York?Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and state assembly member in Queens, has been the surprise package in the Democratic primary and is now poised to take on the frontrunner in the race, ex-state governor Andrew Cuomo, who is mounting a political comeback after being forced from office in the face of a series of sexual harassment claims. Continue reading...

Brothers had hoped resentencing hearing would pave way for immediate release - but judge orders pause until MayThe Menendez brothers have spent years waiting for another day in court and a chance to prove that they should be freed after serving over three decades in prison for the 1989 slayings of their parents.This week it appeared their time was perhaps finally coming - a judge was set to review their request for a resentencing and determine whether they have been rehabilitated. Their attorney, Mark Geragos, planned to ask the Los Angeles county judge Michael Jesic to reduce Erik and Lyle Menendez's charges to manslaughter, which would allow them to be released from prison immediately. Continue reading...

The order is the latest example of how the courts are challenging the Trump administration's overhaul of the immigration systemThe US supreme court has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan men in immigration custody, after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices.The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court," the justices said early on Saturday. Continue reading...

A Wall Street Journal article offered disturbing details about the billionaire's behavior. Imagine the backlash if he were a womanI regret to inform you that, once again, we are all being forced to think about Elon Musk's gonads. Musk, who has had at least 14 children with four women, hasn't officially launched a new mini-Musk for a while, but the Wall Street Journal has just dropped some disturbing details about the billionaire's well-publicized breeding fetish.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Xavier Becerra, the state's attorney general and a former US cabinet member, says he's prepared to call Trump's bluffXavier Becerra thinks California's next governor should know how to call Donald Trump's bluff.The former US health and human services secretary built his reputation in the state leading California's legal battles against the first Trump administration. Now, as he joins a crowded field of Democrats vying to succeed the term-limited governor, Gavin Newsom, Becerra says he has the experience - and the poker face - to go toe-to-toe with the president again. Continue reading...

Revulsion at deadly Oklahoma City explosion in 1995 has faded. But echoes of the blast, and its perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, are heard today as far-right ideas storm the USThe world's first reaction to the young military veteran and far-right radical who blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City 30 years ago this month was near-universal revulsion at the carnage he created and at the ideology that inspired it.A crowd yelled baby killer" - and worse - as 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh was led away in chains from a courthouse in rural Oklahoma where the FBI caught up with him two days after the bombing. He had the same crew cut he'd sported in his army days and stone cold eyes. Continue reading...

Tasneem Sharif Abbas, 16, flew with her sister to the US, where doctors awaited and volunteers cheered their arrivalDozens of people across the world were in non-stop communication for several months to arrange the arrival of Tasneem Sharif Abbas to the US. Abbas's entire life changed when a bomb dropped on her family's home in Gaza on 31 October 2023. A piece of metal severed her arm and she blacked out as rubble fell on her. Soon after, her arm was amputated at a local Gaza hospital. This is not a movie or a fictional story. This is the reality I have lived," Abbas said in a statement. This is just a glimpse of the dark days that have turned my life into a nightmare."Last year, the 16-year-old and an accompanying guardian, her adult sister Ashjan who is not injured, evacuated to Egypt, where they spent several months aboard a medical ship. The journey to fit Abbas with a prosthetic arm began with a 24-hour-flight from Cairo to New York, where volunteers met them in the airport during a several-hour layover. The only time there was uncertainty was in the visa process," said Raghed Ahmed, vice-president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), a non-profit that has provided medical care to Middle Eastern kids since the 1990s. The group also facilitated the sisters' travel. We weren't sure if it would take two weeks or six months, but her visa was approved in a couple of weeks," Ahmed said. Continue reading...

Foundation leaders say charitable organisations could be next in the firing line - but must stand together' to resistJohn Palfrey will not be obeying in advance.At a moment when leaders of tech companies, law firms, media corporations and academic institutions have bent the knee to Donald Trump, the president of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation insists that charitable organisations choose resistance over capitulation. Continue reading...

Our writers made their predictions with the NBA postseason tipping off in proper on Saturday afternoonAbsolutely not. Could it stand to be a little shorter? Sure. Do the referees need to be more judicious with when they intervene? I'd argue they do. But the real problem the NBA faces is, in my opinion, a PR one. Its loudest voices should spend less time pearl-clutching and more time celebrating. Claire de Lune Continue reading...

Nayib Bukele has shown how brutal control can be sustained not just through force, but by raising the cost of speaking outThe Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) maximum security prison in El Salvador is the crown jewel of President Nayib Bukele's efforts to quash not only criminal gangs, but also criticism and political opposition to his government. The mega-prison" is also one of the more visible destinations in the emerging map of American deportations - a sprawling archipelago that includes conservative US districts, the Guantanamo military base and Central American waypoints connected by a tangle of military and charter flights.That the two states have connected their penal architecture is no coincidence. Donald Trump's aggressive policies towards foreigners build on Bukele's infamous iron fist crackdown against criminal gangs: it's a political toolkit that leverages anti-establishment anger to justify an authoritarian slide. In deploying strongman tactics to address social concerns, both leaders also cultivate a chilling culture of fear.Jordana Timerman is a journalist based in Buenos Aires. She edits the Latin America Daily BriefingDo 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...

Senator Chris Van Hollen accuses El Salvador's government of planting margarita glasses to undermine his trip - key US politics stories from Friday 18 April at a glanceMaryland senator Chris Van Hollen revealed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been moved from El Salvador's notorious Cecot prison - where he was sharing a cell with 25 other inmates - to a detention center with better conditions.Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration admits it mistakenly deported, and said that he had been left traumatized" after facing threats in the Cecot facility. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. You can read our latest story hereThe US is optimistic that it can end the very brutal war" between Russia and Ukraine, Vice-President JD Vance said before a bilateral meeting with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday.The meeting comes less than 24 hours after the pair met in Washington. Vance said:I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine ... even in the past 24 hours, we think we have some interesting things to report on.Since there are the negotiations I won't prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close. Continue reading...

Chris Van Hollen describes meeting with constituent held in Salvadoran prison against supreme court order

Judges on the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit issued a memorable call for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the separation of government powers. Here is the textUpon review of the government's motion, the court denies the motion for an emergency stay pending appeal and for a writ of mandamus. The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive's robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court's recent decision.It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.This was excerpted from the order by the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit in Kilmar Abrego Garcia v Kristi Noem. It has been edited to remove some legal citations Continue reading...

President announces more employees under Schedule F' can be hired or fired based on their allegiance to himDonald Trump on Friday said his administration is implementing a move that will allow far more firings of federal employees and will make significantly more roles into politically appointed positions beholden to the president.The office of personnel management (OPM) on Friday published a new rule that invokes Schedule F", a prior attempt to reclassify wide swaths of federal workers not as civic service roles with protections regardless of who's in power - but as political appointees who can be hired or fired based on their allegiances to the president. Continue reading...

These are some of the people ensnared by the administration's unprecedented measures to target people it believes oppose its agendaDonald Trump retook the White House vowing to stage the largest deportation operation in American history". As previewed, the administration has set about further militarizing the US-Mexico border and targeting asylum seekers and refugees while conducting raids and deportations in undocumented communities, detaining and deporting immigrants and spreading fear.Critics are outraged, if not surprised. But few expected the new legal chapter that unfolded next: a multipronged crackdown on certain people seen as opponents of the US president's ideological agenda. This extraordinary assault has come in the context of wider attacks on higher education, the courts and the constitution. Continue reading...

Students in Lamar can no longer learn about the state of Virginia on their online research database due to the banVirginia's state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant, her drooping toga exposing her left breast, has been banned from younger students in a Texas school district.The district, Lamar consolidated independent school district, near Houston, took action against the image late last year when it removed a section about Virginia from its online learning platform used by third through fifth graders, typically encompassing ages eight to 11, sparking a row, Axios reported on Thursday. Continue reading...

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained that Gary Shapley had been chosen without his knowledgeDonald Trump is replacing the acting commissioner of the US Internal Revenue Service after treasury secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to the president that the agency head had been appointed without his knowledge and under the instruction of Doge leader Elon Musk.According to a report from the New York Times published on Friday, Bessent believed that the Doge head had done an end-run around him" to get Gary Shapley installed as the interim head of the IRS, despite the fact that the IRS reports to Bessent. The report cited five anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation. Continue reading...

Internal mission statements from Harmeet Dhillon pivots division's priorities away from marginalized groups' rightsThe justice department's civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting the rights of marginalized groups and will instead pivot towards Donald Trump's priorities including hunting for noncitizen voters and protecting white people from discrimination, according to new internal mission statements seen by the Guardian.The new priorities were sent to several sections of the civil rights division this week by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who was confirmed a little more than two weeks ago to lead the division. Several of them only give glancing mention to the statutes and kinds of discrimination that have long been the focus of the division, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Several of the mission statements point to Trump's executive orders as priorities for the section. Continue reading...

After cutting off $2.26bn in funding, the US president reportedly gave the IRS a potentially illegal orderHarvard University is in a standoff with Donald Trump after rejecting a series of demands from the president's administration, which critics view as an attack on the elite college for its reputation among conservatives as a bastion of liberal thought.After cutting off its funding, Trump has reportedly given the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a potentially illegal order to revoke the university's tax-exempt status. Such a decision would mark an escalation in the Republican president's weaponization of federal government agencies against the people and institutions that defy it. Continue reading...

Release of files, ordered by Trump, includes notes from killer, who said presidential candidate must be disposed of'About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy, including handwritten notes by the assassin, who said the US senator and Democratic presidential candidate must be disposed of" and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.The release continued the disclosure of national secrets ordered by Donald Trump after he began his second presidency in January. It comes a month after unredacted files related to the 1963 assassination of president John F Kennedy were disclosed. The earlier documents gave curious readers more details about cold- war era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK, RFK's brother. Continue reading...

Ex-media boss moved from Rikers Island jail to Manhattan hospital as he awaits rape and sexual assault retrialHarvey Weinstein has been moved to a New York City hospital after a judge approved the ailing ex-studio boss's request to stay there rather than in jail when he is not in court for his retrial on rape and sexual assault charges.The judge, Paul Goetz, late on Thursday ordered that Weinstein, 73, be immediately relocated from the city's notorious Rikers Island jail complex to the prison ward at Bellevue hospital in Manhattan so he can receive necessary medical treatment. Continue reading...

Order comes a day after the efficiency' team sent out orders to lay off 1,500 of the agency's 1,700 employeesA federal court has blocked the sweeping termination of staff at the top US consumer protection agency, a day after the Trump administration moved to axe about 1,500 of the agency's 1,700 workforce, while officials investigate whether the action violated existing judicial orders.The ruling from the judge Amy Berman Jackson put a legal hurdle in front of mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Thursday, which came after a federal appeals court modified - but did not eliminate - an injunction limiting the agency's ability to terminate employees. Continue reading...

Acquisition expected to be completed on 18 May after Federal Reserve and currency comptroller sign off on dealThe pending merger between Capital One and Discover Financial services received approval from several regulators on Friday, bringing the $35bn tie-up closer to completion.The Federal Reserve and the office of the comptroller of the currency (OCC) signed off on the deal, which was first announced in February 2024. Continue reading...

The ambitions of two generals and the interests of other states have led to the massacre of adults and children already forced to flee their homesSudan has begun its third year of civil war in the bleakest manner imaginable: mourning the massacre of hundreds of civilians and relief workers in displacement camps in Darfur. What began as a power struggle between generals has led to the killing of tens of thousands of people and widespread sexual and ethnic violence. The International Rescue Committee says the result is the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded: 640,000 people face catastrophic hunger. Basic services and infrastructure, already woefully inadequate, have been destroyed.One thing that has been consistent since day one," the Sudanese activist and commentator Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem observed this week, [is that] it's a war on civilians. Now, I think we've become so desensitised to it, that doesn't make much of a difference any more. There's no impact." Continue reading...

Secretary of state threatens to pull plug within days', as Kyiv says it has signed mineral deal memorandumThe US will abandon its efforts within days" to broker a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs a settlement can be reached, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said, as Kyiv says it has signed a memorandum with the US over a controversial minerals deal.Speaking in Paris on Friday after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders, Rubio said Donald Trump was still interested in a deal. But he added that the US president had many other priorities around the world and was willing to move on" unless there were signs of progress. Continue reading...

Suspect arrested and charged with attack on Florida State University in Tallahassee that also left six injuredStudents at Florida State University (FSU) returned to a campus that was still in shock on Friday to retrieve the belongings they abandoned in their scramble to escape a gunman, including laptops, handbags and even shoes, and a vigil was planned for the evening, after a student killed two people and left six others injured.Many had gathered on Thursday night, hugging and in tears, around a makeshift memorial on a sidewalk on campus, bringing candles, flowers, teddy bears and notes for the survivors. The impromptu memorials, dotted around the campus in the state capital of Tallahassee, came just hours after authorities arrested and charged a fellow student, Phoenix Ikner, 20, with the shooting. Continue reading...

Education level is viewed as a key factor in how people vote. But it's dangerous to overlook the question of classSince about 2020, a number of researchers have determined that the most salient divide in politics today is the diploma divide - that is, the division between those who have a four-year college degree and those who do not. Those who have a degree are more liberal, those who don't are less. The former tend to vote for Democrats, the latter for Republicans.There is a certain elegance to how simple and clean the picture is. And, by virtue of this tidiness, some insist that educational polarization" is a better way to understand political shifts today than reliance on older, softer, messier ideas like social class. Conceptual cleanliness is certainly attractive. It's far easier to determine who is college educated" and who is not than it is to establish similarly defined boundaries between the working and middle classes. Yet whether we understand shifting political alignments as a function of class, as a broad social and relational concept, or education, a narrow credential category, implies a great deal about political strategy.Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623. Continue reading...

A charity controversy and GOP unrest threaten Casey DeSantis's chances of succeeding her husband as governor in 2026It had the hallmarks of a dynasty in the making. When Ron DeSantis was asked in February whom he would like to see succeed him as Florida governor when he is termed out of office in 2027, his answer was unequivocal: his wife, Casey.There's no question about it," he told a press conference in Tampa. Continue reading...

Even amid political chaos and rising prices, what matters most to his supporters is a macabre form of payback and vengeanceThe stock market is plunging, prices are rising, federal workers are getting laid off, students are being snatched off the street by immigration agents. The US is many things at the moment, but stable is not one of them. So, amid all this turmoil, how are all the Donald Trump voters feeling? Has buyer's remorse set in? Are they starting to wonder whether voting in a convicted felon as president - a man who has declared bankruptcy six times - might not have been the wisest move?Not according to the polls. Rather, the US appears to be a nation of Edith Piafs: they regret rien. I'm not saying that disillusioned Republicans don't exist; do enough digging and you can certainly find a few. And journalists have been doing a lot of digging. During Trump's first term, there was a steady stream of media pieces profiling the regretful Trump voter. The genre has remained popular through the first few months of Trump 2.0. But, according to a much-discussed segment by CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten this week, polling proves that the idea of regretful" Trump voters is more of a media creation than anything else".Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Inspired by Hot Girls for Bernie', a grassroots campaign is rallying behind the democratic socialist Zohran MamdaniHot girls" may not be a pollster-approved voting bloc in the way that young men or the college-educated are, but since the 2020 election the demographic has held a particular status - at least for the very online.It started in 2020, when the model Emily Ratajkowski officially endorsed Bernie Sanders's pre-pandemic presidential campaign. Inspired by Ratajkowski, self-professed hot girls piled on their endorsements, posting selfies with the hashtag #HotGirlsForBernie. Some saw it as a way to counter the persistent Bernie bro" narrative, a rebuke of the idea that Sanders's fandom consisted solely of obnoxious, socialist-in-name-only men who lived their lives on Twitter. Continue reading...