We’re closing the US politics blog now, but you can follow developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our 24-hour news blog here.

Thanks for joining us today. Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump-inspired Republicans he said formed the “most extreme political organization that exists in American history” for their efforts to overturn abortion and LBGTQ+ rights.

Here’s what else we followed:

• The cost of borrowing increased after the US federal reserve announced Wednesday it was raising its benchmark overnight interest rate 0.5%, the biggest jump in 22 years. Officials said it would help temper soaring inflation.
• New York’s congressional primaries are on track for August after a federal judge denied a voters’ group’s demand to force them to take place next month. The state is redrawing district maps after another judge ruled the originals favorable to Democrats and thus unlawful.
• Derek Chauvin will receive 20 to 25 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights as the former Minneapolis officer was murdering him, the judge overseeing a federal civil rights trial said.
• Acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf delayed intelligence about Russia’s interference in the 2020 election to protect then-president Trump, a watchdog report has found.
• Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to defend abortion rights in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling to eliminate decades-old protections in the US.
• An overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of preserving abortion rights, new polls have found, voters preferring by a two to one ratio to maintain the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion that safeguarded women’s access to the procedure.

The White House press secretary Jen Psaki has defended Joe Biden’s comments earlier today condemning Republicans’ “extremism” in seeking to overturn abortion rights in the supreme court and promoting anti-LBGTQ+ legislation in numerous states.

Biden was forthright in his criticism at his morning briefing, assailing the Donald Trump-inspired wing of the party.

“This Maga crowd”, Biden said, referring to Trump’s ‘make America great again’ electioneering slogan, “is really the most extreme political organization that exists in American history”.

At her afternoon press briefing, Psaki said Biden was speaking his mind after reading the supreme court’s draft ruling ending almost a half-century of women’s rights to abortion:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}What you’re hearing play out is the president’s own reaction to what he found in these documents, and his view that the protection of privacy, and the protection of the ability of women to make decisions about their health care with their doctors, about people to be able to choose who they marry, reminded him how important those protections are.

Asked about Biden considering the Republican stance “extreme”, Psaki said:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Republicans have wanted to talk about [the leak of the draft ruling] and not about whether they support the protection of a woman’s right to choose, a woman’s right to make decisions with her doctor about her health care.

[That’s] maybe not a surprise given by more than a two to one margin Americans want the supreme court to support abortion rights.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tested positive for Covid-19.

The White House secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the news at her afternoon press briefing, noting he is not considered a close contact of Joe Biden.

A statement from the department of state says Blinken is vaccinated and boosted and experiencing only mild symptoms.

Joe Biden thanked American athletes from recent summer and winter Olympic games, and the Paralympics, at the White House on Wednesday, hailing Team USA for bringing some unity to a pandemic-weary nation.

At a reception on the south lawn, the president and first lady Jill Biden greeted about 600 athletes from this year’s winter games in Beijing and the coronavirus-delayed summer event staged last year in Tokyo, according to the Associated Press.

“You represent the very soul of America. It’s been a very divided nation… but you brought us together. No matter the divisions, when we see you compete, we feel a common pride in those three letters: USA,” Biden said at the event also attended by vice-president Kamala Harris and first gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Among the athletes in attendance were swimmer and seven-time gold medalist Katie Ledecky, bobsledder Elena Meyers Taylor and ice dancer Zachary Donahue, as well as competitors from the past two Paralympic games.

Biden noted that Team USA athletes won 260 medals in Beijing and Tokyo.

The 2020 Tokyo games were delayed one year due to Covid-19 and took place last summer, largely without spectators. Jill Biden led the US delegation to Japan.

At the Beijing Olympics this past winter, also held mostly without spectators, the US staged a diplomatic boycott due to China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Jill Biden said Wednesday Americans were “grateful for the gifts” they gave the country at a difficult time.

“These games may not have been exactly as you once imagined with stadiums packed with people and all of your loved ones screaming from the sidelines,” she said.

“Olympian or a Paralympian is a rare accomplishment in a normal time, but you did it during a global pandemic. You are forever one of the most elite, most celebrated athletes in this world.”

Guess the supreme court leaker has become something of a parlour game in Washington, not least because Republicans in Congress sought to make it the focus of coverage on Tuesday rather than the immeasurable damage overturning Roe v Wade will do to women’s lives across the US.

Today, Mika Brzezinski, who with Joe Scarborough forms MSNBC’s Morning Joe power couple, lambasted Mitch McConnell: “The old white guy, Mitch, is going to tell us what the story of the day is?

“That’s rich, Mitch … the bottom line is this is setting women back in so many different ways with so many different consequences, and you’re going to tell us that the story is the leak?”

Other pundits have suggested McConnell might be – gasp – playing something of a dastardly double game. In short, the theory is that the leak may not have come from the liberal side of the court, as much of the right is thunderously proclaiming, but instead from someone connected to a conservative justice.

Here’s Rick Wilson, of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and before that countless Republican campaigns.

“I’ve seen enough. The supreme court leak looks, smells, and tastes like a giant kayfabe. [In pro wrestling, the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic.]

“It’s not that I have some secret insight into the court. It’s that I’m a damn anthropologist of the rightwing media ecosystem in which I operated for decades.

“The sweeping media and political class lockstep on the right – histrionics hair-tearing about the leak – are just too coordinated given the short timeframe from release-to-presser. The intervals are too tight and the messages too word-for-word.

“To quote the political philosopher Ian Fleming, ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.’ By 7am ET [on Tuesday], the usual suspects on the rightwing media gulag were on EXACTLY the same outrage ‘HOW DARE YOU SIR!’ tone and message.”

So there you go.

My colleague Chris Michael has taken a look at each of the nine US supreme court justices, and their positions on abortion rights:

With Roe v Wade on the brink of defeat, following the leak of a supreme court opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and signed by four other conservative judges, the court’s views – and track record – on abortion are under extreme scrutiny. Here’s what the nine justices have actually said over the years about it:

The cost of borrowing is increasing after the US federal reserve announced Wednesday it was raising its benchmark overnight interest rate 0.5%, the biggest jump in 22 years.

“Household spending and business fixed investment remain strong. Job gains have been robust,” the fed’s board of governors said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.

The government will also begin trimming bond holdings next month as it attempts to temper soaring inflation, the statement added.

The announcement follows Joe Biden’s speech at the White House this morning, in which he promoted his administration’s success in reducing the US federal deficit, but which was more notable for his attacks on the “extremism” of Donald Trump-inspired Republicans seeking to overturn abortion and LBGTQ+ rights.

Democrats see runaway inflation as a vote-loser for November’s midterm elections, at which control of both chambers of Congress is at stake.

Raising interest rates so aggressively now could be a double-edged sword, analysts believe. It might help to bring down inflation, but will increase the cost of borrowing, including mortgages and credit card debt.

The Guardian has reported extensively about the impact of inflation on the US economy and citizens:

California’s Stanford University is to establish a school of sustainability, focusing on the climate emergency, after receiving a $1.1bn endowment from venture capitalist John Doerr, Reuters reports.

The Stanford Doerr school of sustainability will be the university’s first new school in 70 years, and will open in the fall, according to a statement.

“Climate and sustainability is going to be the new computer science,” Doerr told the New York Times in an interview published Wednesday. He made his estimated fortune of more than $11bn investing in companies including Alphabet Inc and Amazon.

Doerr joins billionaires including Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg, who in recent years have donated money to combat climate change.

Progressive politicians such as the independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders say the climate crisis cannot be solved by the charity of individual billionaires, and that governments need to set up proper taxation systems to make sure billionaires pay their fair share.

Stanford says Doerr’s gift is the largest ever to a university for the establishment of a new school, and is the second largest gift to an academic institution, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

A Manhattan federal judge is allowing New York to proceed with plans to move June congressional and state Senate primaries to August, but asked the state board of elections to seek final approval from a federal judge in Albany, the Associated Press reports.

US district judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday rejected the application for a temporary restraining order from a group of New York voters who wanted to keep the possibility of 28 June primaries open.

Represented by Democratic attorney Marc Elias, the group there was still time to draft new maps for a June primary after state appeals judges found the original maps were unconstitutional.

An independent court expert is crafting new maps by 20 May under the oversight of a state judge in Steuben county, who ordered the delay of the June primaries to 23 August.

The voters said a 2012 court order by Albany-based district judge Gary Sharpe compelled the primaries to take place in June, but Kaplan said the New York board can easily talk to Sharpe about moving the date.

It’s lunchtime, so a chance for a quick back on how the day is going:

• Joe Biden said the Donald Trump-inspired Maga crowd is “the most extreme political organization in history” as he condemned efforts to overturn Roe v Wade abortion protections.
• Derek Chauvin will receive 20 to 25 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights as the former Minneapolis officer was murdering him, the judge overseeing a federal civil rights trial said.
• Acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf delayed intelligence about Russia’s interference in the 2020 election to protect then-president Trump, a watchdog report has found.
• Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to defend abortion rights in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling to eliminate decades-old protections in the US.
• An overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of preserving abortion rights, new polls have found, voters preferring by a two to one ratio to maintain the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion that safeguarded women’s access to the procedure.