US Politics

From Roman-era political potboilers to stories of Catholic priests struggling to impose their authority, what could the reading list of vice-president JD Vance’s wife be trying to tell us?Usha Vance, a very clever woman with dubious taste in men, likes to keep herself busy. While lesser mortals (me) waste their one wild and precious life watching Love Is Blind, the second lady has various self-improvement projects on the go. She’s brushing up on her German! She’s hosting a literacy podcast! She’s rereading the classics! And, of course, she’s juggling four young children and the demands of being the vice-president’s spouse.How does she do it all? With the help of taxpayer dollars, I suspect. Easier to get some reading done when you’re being helicoptered everywhere and, as JD Vance has boasted: “People go to the grocery store for me.” Continue reading… More

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a house framer before he was killed by ICE agents. Countless other Latino builders in Texas live in fear of a similar fateEvery morning long before dawn, while America sleeps, legions of Texas construction workers grab their fluorescent vests and hard hats, sling ladders and tools into their trucks, and head down the highway for another day of grueling labour under the blistering sun.Elsewhere, before the first flush of daylight settles over Texas’s concrete sprawl, a separate army gets on the move in a fleet of shiny unmarked SUVs. They hover at gas stations, prowl around bodegas, pounce on the highways. Continue reading… More

At a gathering in Texas, near where floods killed 136 people last year, survivors are united on the need for urgent actionIt may be a club none of its members actually want to be in, but the growing number of people in the US affected by extreme weather disasters are starting to organize into a political force.Severe wildfires, floods storms and other calamities now touch the lives of huge numbers of Americans – about half of all people in the US by one estimate – as the climate crisis supercharges extreme events. Some survivors are now coalescing to push for improved disaster response and even action on the politically contentious issue of global heating. Continue reading… More

This live blog is now closed.Sign up for the Breaking News US emailSend us your questions about immigration and the midtermsA new survey reveals a widening “empathy gap” between Republicans and white evangelicals and the rest of the American public.On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute released its annual American Values Survey. The survey found that white evangelical Protestants are the only religious group in which a majority does not agree that empathy is foundational moral value (42%). Instead, a majority (54%) say empathy can be dangerous when it leads people away from a society guided by God’s truth, PRRI said. Continue reading… More

Anti-Defamation League post decries ‘shylock’ slur but does not explain that president used it at Kansas rally on MondayThe Anti-Defamation League (ADL) denounced the use of the term “shylock” as antisemitic on Tuesday, without explaining that the slur had been used a day earlier by Donald Trump in a speech in Kansas.Trump used the slur during a Monday night rally in support of Republican senator Roger Marshall, who is locked in a closer-than-expected re-election fight against Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton. Marshall, a doctor, as been criticized for filing lawsuits against more than 700 patients with outstanding bills, leading to 18 of them being arrested. Continue reading… More

Billionaire ex-mayor of New York City is focusing funds on House races to help Democrats retake majority in midtermsUS politics live – latest updatesThe billionaire Michael Bloomberg will spend $80m to help Democratic candidates in the midterm elections, US media reported on Tuesday, a significant infusion of cash for a party that has recently struggled with fundraising as it seeks to win control of Congress.The reported donations came as Donald Trump announced on Tuesday he intended to spend a total of $400m to aid Republican candidates, with $300m already disbursed. Continue reading… More

President makes suggestion while announcing new program to reward tipsters who submit fraud allegationsDonald Trump suggested on Tuesday that he would serve as “the arbitrator” of decisions in the justice department’s new anti-fraud program that awards compensation to those who submit tips resulting in conviction or significant federal enforcement.While announcing the new program alongside JD Vance, the vice-president, who leads the White House’s taskforce to eliminate fraud, the president told reporters he had a solution for situations where multiple people submit a tip for the same alleged fraud. Continue reading… More

Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932 – does Adam Hamilton have the courage, brain and heart to cause an extraordinary upset?Just two years after Donald Trump won Kansas by 16 points in his fight to regain the White House, Republicans in the state are scrambling to retain their dominance. The battle for one of its two seats in the US Senate is too close to call, setting the stage for a potentially extraordinary upset.Some recent polls even put Democrat Adam Hamilton on course for a historic victory. Kansans have not sent a representative of the party to the US Senate since 1932. Continue reading… More