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      Trump is stretching his pardon power – to the delight of his Maga acolytes

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      Donald Trump pardoned the hosts of a reality TV show convicted of defrauding banks to fund their luxurious lifestyle in the same week that he pardoned a sheriff who accepted bribes from businessman in order to make them into law enforcement officers.The latest pardons build on Trump’s pattern of granting clemency to people who align with him politically and who he believes were part of a justice system weaponized against conservatives, particularly Trump supporters.Trump, who was himself prosecuted by the federal government and state governments, is stretching US presidential pardon power beyond its norms, much to the delight of his Make America Great Again (Maga) acolytes and conservative lawmakers, who previously took former president Joe Biden to task for his last-minute pardons of his family members and allies.Trump started his second term with a massive act of clemency: granting pardons and commutations for all those convicted for their roles in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, including some who had engaged in violence that day.Since then, he has pardoned a host of people convicted of fraud or public corruption, as well as a group of anti-abortion protesters who blocked access to a clinic.Those pardoned include the former governor of Illinois who now calls himself a “Trump-ocrat”, the founder of the Silk Road darknet online market, two police officers convicted for their roles in the death and coverup of a young woman, a former state senator in Tennessee, the founder of an electric vehicle company, a nursing home executive and a woman who collected money for a police memorial who used the money for herself instead.On Wednesday, he pardoned a labor union leader who pleaded guilty to failing to report gifts from an advertising firm. James Callahan was general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers when he accepted at least $315,000 in tickets to sporting events and concerts and other amenities from a company that the union used to place ads.The moves to pardon people convicted of fraud and public corruption charges shows how the justice department is de-emphasizing these kinds of cases, NBC News reports. The pardons come alongside dropped public corruption cases, most notably one against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.“Pardoning a sheriff who took cash for deputy badges is just the latest in a string of actions this president has taken to undermine any effort to hold officials accountable to the public they are sworn to serve,” Stacey Young, a former justice department official, told NBC News.In several instances, the convicted or their attorneys made appeals to Trump by saying they were politically prosecuted for their views.The lawyer for Julie and Todd Chrisley, the reality TV stars pardoned on Wednesday, had put together binders to show the Trump administration why his clients should be granted clemency, the New York Times reported. Alex Little wrote in these documents that the Chrisleys’ conviction “exemplifies the weaponization of justice against conservatives and public figures, eroding basic constitutional protections”.Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive, was pardoned by Trump for misusing employee tax money to fund his lifestyle, after his mother had attended a $1m per person fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in April, the New York Times reported. In his bid for a pardon, he had brought up his mother’s political connections, saying her role in raising money for Trump and boosting conservative causes motivated the Biden justice department to go after him.The office of the pardon attorney is typically run by a career appointee, not a political appointee chosen for their adherence to the president’s agenda. Presidents at times go outside the pardon attorney’s office for the less routine pardons, often for their political allies, as Biden did when he pardoned his family members. There are criteria the justice department would follow when considering a typical pardon application, including showing rehabilitation and remorse, though the president decides whether to act on their recommendation.Liz Oyer, the former pardon attorney who was fired for refusing to recommend gun rights restoration for actor Mel Gibson, told Newshour that Trump’s use of pardons are “not at all how pardons normally work”. His pardons show a pattern of people who have shown political loyalty or who are wealthy and well-connected, Oyer said.“In the current administration, there is no path forward that we know of right now for ordinary people to be considered for clemency,” Oyer told Newshour. “And the other thing that’s really striking and shocking is that the president is granting clemency to individuals who owe tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution and fines and other financial penalties. And it’s never been done by any other president.”Now, though, a political appointee is in charge. Ed Martin, the recently appointed pardon attorney, is a staunch Trump ally who advocated for pardons for January 6 defendants before he took a role in the administration. Trump also appointed a “pardon czar” in February who will recommend people for clemency.Politico reported this week that, in Martin’s first week on the job, he was reviewing an application for a full pardon for Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group who received a commutation from Trump as part of the January 6 clemency, but not a full pardon. Martin has said he will investigate Biden’s preemptive pardons issued just before he left office.Some in Maga world are now pushing for federal pardons for Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted in the killing of George Floyd, and Tina Peters, a Colorado election clerk convicted for allowing unauthorized access to election machines as part of a quest to find voter fraud. Both of these cases involve state crimes, Peters exclusively, but have become cause celebre for Trump allies, who want to see the administration pressure for their release. More

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      Will Donald Trump defy the US supreme court? | Steven Greenhouse

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      With the most authoritarian and lawless president in history sitting in the White House, the US supreme court is no doubt worried about looking weak in one of two ways. First, the court fears it will look pathetically weak if it becomes the first supreme court in history to have a president defy its rulings in a wholesale way. With that in mind, the court seems to be taking pains to avoid provoking Donald Trump’s defiance – it has issued several decisions upholding the president’s actions while in other cases, it has given him lots of wiggle room even as it objected to his administration’s moves.Then there’s the court’s second, big worry – that it will look pathetically weak if it doesn’t stand up to the most authoritarian president in US history. Many legal experts criticize the court for not standing up more to Trump, even though he has brazenly attacked the court and many lower-court judges, has defied several judicial orders and has, according to numerous judges, repeatedly violated the law – whether by deporting immigrants without due process or by freezing funds approved by Congress.The court’s six conservative justices have let themselves seem like Trump’s chumps because they’ve often bowed to him instead of standing up and ruling against him. The foremost example is last year’s supreme court ruling giving Trump astonishingly broad immunity from criminal prosecution.The image-conscious chief justice, John Roberts, and his court have to decide which of two paths to take. One path – which the court’s conservative supermajority seems to be following – is to issue pro-Trump rulings to avoid inciting his ire and defiance. That approach might spare the court the Maga movement’s anger, but historians will look dimly on the court for bending in Trump’s favor – they’ll accuse it of complicity and sacrificing principle for not blocking Trump moves that, many legal experts, conservative, centrist and progressive, say, violate federal law and the constitution.The court can choose a more courageous path: stick to principle and not shrink from ruling against Trump. That might spur the bull-headed president to defy the court, but under that scenario, historians would praise the justices for upholding the law and the court’s constitutional role and for not letting themselves become stooges for a power-hungry president.The Roberts court has given us some hope, but not much. In a surprise ruling at 1am one April night, it seemed to develop a few inches of backbone by ordering the Trump administration not to deport several dozen Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador without first giving them due process.That was a promising ruling, but on the other side of the ledger, the court has often bowed to Trump, for instance, by overturning a lower court ruling and letting Trump fire 16,000 probationary federal employees and by letting his administration suspend $65m in teacher-training grants. Moreover, the rightwing supermajority did Trump a big favor by letting him provisionally remove the heads of two independent agencies, the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protections Board. That hurried ruling, made without full briefing or arguments, indicated that the court’s conservatives are eager to overturn a unanimous, 90-year-old supreme court decision that limits presidents’ ability to fire officials at independent agencies. In this way, the Roberts court is giving more power to our dangerously authoritarian president.Let’s not forget how weak the court has looked for failing to act firmly to assure the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, an immigrant from El Salvador who even Trump administration officials acknowledged was deported illegally. On 10 April, the court issued a wimpy decision that called on the Trump administration to “facilitate” Ábrego Garcia’s return – it stopped short of using the district court’s more muscular language to “effectuate” his return. More than six weeks have passed since the high court called on Trump to bring back Ábrego García, but Trump hasn’t done so. His administration has sidestepped outright defiance by pretending that it is seeking to facilitate Ábrego García’s return.Not only that, Trump has smeared the justices by saying: “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” Trump has also savaged several federal district court judges, calling one a “radical left lunatic” and denouncing others as “MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL”.With their hard-right ideology, the court’s supermajority evidently sympathizes with many of Trump’s moves and has blessed such moves far more often than many legal scholars would like. In doing so, the court has emboldened Trump to take even more actions that push – and often overstep – the boundaries of what is legal. In a worrisome development, the court has, at least thus far, shown surprisingly little concern about Trump’s defiance of district court judges’ orders and his authoritarian effort to assert his dominance over the two, other theoretically co-equal branches of government: the judiciary and Congress.For its own good and for the nation’s good, the supreme court needs to step up and do its utmost to stop Trump’s lawlessness and his unprecedented efforts to defy district court rulings and lash out against the judiciary. Trump has called for impeaching judges who ruled against him, and as his tirades against judges have increased, the number of judges who have received threats has soared.The court needs to issue some strong, clarion decisions that make clear to the nation that Trump has shown repeated contempt for the constitution, the rule of law and the judiciary. The justices should move quickly to issue an outrage-filled ruling that finds that Trump violated law firms’ free speech rights by punishing several firms for taking cases he didn’t like or employing lawyers he didn’t like. The justices should also move swiftly to issue a strong ruling in favor of Harvard University and against Trump’s vindictive assault – an assault that violated Harvard’s first amendment rights by seeking to suppress speech and ideas that Trump doesn’t like and by trying to dictate much of Harvard’s hiring, curriculum and admissions policies.The court should also issue a forceful ruling that demolishes Trump’s arguments that he can invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members en masse without due process. The court should trumpet the absurdity of Trump’s claim that Venezuelan immigrants constitute an invasion force the way, for instance, British troops constituted an invasion force during the war of 1812.The court should also shoot down Trump’s efforts to gut federal agencies and freeze funding by making it emphatically clear that those efforts violate Congress’s article I spending power. The conservative supermajority should also rethink its intention to overturn the 1935 ruling that limits presidents’ ability to fire members of independent agencies. That ruling sought to ensure that those agencies didn’t become partisan puppets that do whatever a president wants – something that no one should want when the nation has such a vengeful and capricious president.With the Roberts court slated to issue a flood of rulings by early July, the justices have an important choice: to bend to Trump or to grow a real backbone. Does the Roberts court want to be remembered as cowardly enablers who helped the most authoritarian and lawless president in history consolidate power? Or do the justices want to be remembered as determined defenders who stood up to an authoritarian bully to protect our laws, our constitution and our democracy?

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      How long will it be before Melania steps aside for MelanAI? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      I imagine students at the US Military Academy at West Point are trained to handle unexpected situations, but I’m not sure anyone could have prepared them for the bonkers speech Donald Trump delivered to graduates on Saturday. I wish I could point you to a government transcript, but the White House recently started removing official transcripts of the president’s public remarks, replacing them with curated videos instead. I imagine (just a hypothesis!) that this is to make Trump seem more coherent.One of the “highlights” of the disjointed ramble Trump delivered at West Point was his thoughts on trophy wives: “I must tell ya. A lot of trophy wives, doesn’t work out [sic],” he mused in the middle of an anecdote about a divorced real estate developer (not him). This has raised a few eyebrows; particularly as Michael Wolff’s 2018 book about Trump claimed the president used to boast that Melania was his “trophy wife.”I don’t know if Trump ever really thought that Melania was some sort of compliant accessory to be paraded around. If he did, I’m sure he’s now seen the error of his ways. Melania has made it clear to everyone that she is unbothered, unbossed, and entirely uninterested in pretending to care about either her husband or her role as first lady. It’s claimed that as of early May, Melania had spent fewer than 14 days at the White House. Trump is her useful idiot husband, she’s not his trophy wife.Melania is certainly collecting her own trophies, however. I’ve got to hand it to the woman: she’s mastered the art of making enormous amounts of money with the minimum amount of effort. Last year, she released what columnist Pamela Paul described as a “book-adjacent object” titled Melania, which one imagines she did not write herself. Last week, she announced that the audiobook was narrated with an AI-generated version of her voice. Now we’ve officially got an AI Melania voice, can it be long before we get a full-on MelanAI? A realistic AI-powered robot who does all the boring first lady things that Melania clearly hates doing – and doesn’t swat Trump’s hand away in public. More

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      Trump’s unfounded attack on Cyril Ramaphosa was an insult to all Africans | John Dramani Mahama

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      The meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was, at its heart, about the preservation of essential historical truths. The US president’s claims of white genocide conflict with the actual racial persecution and massacres that took place during the two centuries of colonisation and nearly 50 years of apartheid in South Africa.It is not enough to be affronted by these claims, or to casually dismiss them as untruths. These statements are a clear example of how language can be leveraged to extend the effects of previous injustices. This mode of violence has long been used against Indigenous Africans. And it cannot simply be met with silence – not any more.The Kenyan writer Mzee Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wrote: “Language conquest, unlike the military form, wherein the victor must subdue the whole population directly, is cheaper and more effective.”African nations learned long ago that their fates are inextricably linked. When it comes to interactions with the world beyond our continent, we are each other’s bellwether. In 1957, the year before my birth, Ghana became the first Black African country to free itself from colonialism. After the union jack had been lowered, our first prime minister, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, gave a speech in which he emphasised that, “our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa”.Shortly after, in 1960, was the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, which resulted in 69 deaths and more than 100 wounded. In Ghana, thousands of miles away, we marched, we protested, we gave cover and shelter. A similar solidarity existed in sovereign nations across the continent. Why? Because people who looked like us were being subjugated, treated as second-class citizens, on their own ancestral land. We had fought our own versions of that same battle.I was 17 in June 1976, when the South African Soweto uprising took place. The now-iconic photo of a young man, Mbuyisa Makhubo, carrying the limp, 12-year-old body of Hector Pieterson, who had just been shot by the police, haunted me for years. It so deeply hurt me to think that I was free to dream of a future as this child was making the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and future of his people. Hundreds of children were killed in that protest alone. It is their blood, and the blood of their forebears that nourishes the soil of South Africa.The racial persecution of Black South Africans was rooted in a system that was enshrined in law. It took worldwide participation through demonstrations, boycotts, divestments and sanctions to end apartheid so that all South Africans, regardless of skin colour, would be considered equal. Nevertheless, the effects of centuries-long oppression do not just disappear with the stroke of a pen, particularly when there has been no cogent plan of reparative justice.Despite making up less than 10% of the population, white South Africans control more than 70% of the nation’s wealth. Even now, there are a few places in South Africa where only Afrikaners are permitted to own property, live, and work. At the entrance to once such settlement, Kleinfontein, is an enormous bust of Hendrik Verwoerd, the former prime minister who is considered the architect of apartheid.Another separatist town, Orania, teaches only Afrikaans in its schools, has its own chamber of commerce, as well as its own currency, the ora, that is used strictly within its borders. It has been reported that inside the Orania Cultural History Museum there is a bust of every apartheid-era president except FW de Klerk, who initiated reforms that led to the repeal of apartheid laws.Both Kleinfontein and Orania are currently in existence, and they boast a peaceful lifestyle. Why had the America-bound Afrikaners not sought refuge in either of those places?Had the Black South Africans wanted to exact revenge on Afrikaners, surely, they would have done so decades ago when the pain of their previous circumstances was still fresh in their minds. What, at this point, is there to be gained by viciously killing and persecuting people you’d long ago forgiven?According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, half of the population of South Africa is under 29, born after the apartheid era and, presumably, committed to building and uplifting the “rainbow nation”. For what reason would they suddenly begin a genocide against white people?Ramaphosa was blindsided by Trump with those unfounded accusations and the accompanying display of images that were misrepresented – in one image, pictures of burials were actually from Congo. Trump refused to listen as Ramaphosa insisted that his government did not have any official policies of discrimination.“If you want to destroy a people,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “you destroy their memory, you destroy their history.” Memory, however, is long. It courses through the veins of our children and their children. The terror of what we have experienced is stored at a cellular level. As long as those stories are told, at home, in church, at the beauty and barber shop, in schools, in literature, music and on the screen, then we, the sons and daughters of Africa, will continue to know what we’ve survived and who we are.Mzee Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wrote: “The process of knowing is simple. No matter where you want to journey, you start from where you are.” We journey forward with a history that cannot be erased, and will not be erased. Not while there are children dying in the mines of the Congo, and rape is being used as a weapon of war in Sudan.Our world is in real crisis; real refugees are being turned away from the borders of the wealthiest nations, real babies will die because international aid has been abruptly stopped, and real genocides are happening in real time all across the globe.

      John Dramani Mahama is president of the Republic of Ghana

      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. More

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      Trump news at a glance: Administration’s crackdown on foreign students at US universities widens

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      The Trump administration has continued its crackdown on American universities by ordering US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students.The directive comes as the government prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants and after the president’s assault on Harvard that followed pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations last year.Trump has repeatedly described top American universities as havens for “Marxist maniacs and lunatics” and on Monday mused that he would redirect their federal funding to trade schools.Here are the key stories at a glance:Trump orders US embassies to stop student visa interviewsA Tuesday state department cable instructs consular sections to pause adding “any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued”.The directive, first reported by Politico and now confirmed by the Guardian, could severely delay visa processing and hurt universities – many of which Donald Trump accuses of having far-left ideologies – that rely heavily on foreign students for revenue.Read the full storyTrump orders agencies to cut all federal ties with HarvardThe Trump administration is set to order federal agencies to cancel all government contracts with Harvard University worth an estimated $100m, dramatically escalating the president’s assault against America’s most prestigious university.Read the full storyRFK Jr drops Covid boosters for some groupsThe US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, announced that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would remove Covid-19 booster shots from its recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women.Read the full storyTrump warns Putin he is ‘playing with fire’ Donald Trump has warned Vladimir Putin that he is “playing with fire”, launching a fresh broadside at his Russian counterpart over stalled Ukraine peace efforts.Read the full storyNPR sues Trump administration over funding cutsNational Public Radio, the US public broadcaster that provides news and cultural programming to more than 1,000 local stations, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging an executive order that cuts federal funding to the public broadcaster as an unconstitutional attack on press freedom.Read the full storyTrump’s company to spend $2.5bn on bitcoinDonald Trump’s media company said that institutional investors will buy $2.5bn worth of its stock, with the proceeds going to build up a bitcoin reserve.Read the full storyTrump to pardon reality TV stars Julie and Todd ChrisleyThe White House said on Tuesday that Donald Trump is set to pardon reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, the couple famous for Chrisley Knows Best, which followed their tightly knit family and extravagant lifestyle.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Argentina ratified its decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization during Robert F Kennedy’s visit to Buenos Aires.

      Trump issued an unconditional pardon to a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted on federal fraud and bribery charges.

      Trump wants to “dictate” policies like those of far-right regimes in the 1930s, a leading billionaire investor has warned.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 26 May 2025. More

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      Judge strikes down Trump order that targeted US law firm WilmerHale

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      Donald Trump’s campaign against the legal profession hit another setback on Tuesday as a federal judge struck down yet another executive order that sought to place sanctions on one of the country’s most prestigious law firms.The order in favor of WilmerHale marks the third time this month that a federal judge in Washington has deemed the US president’s series of law firm executive orders to be unconstitutional and has permanently barred their enforcement.“The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting. The Founding Fathers knew this!” wrote US district judge Richard Leon.To permit the order to stand, Leon wrote, “would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers”.The firm applauded the ruling from Leon, an appointee of former Republican president George HW Bush.“The court’s decision to permanently block the unlawful executive order in its entirety strongly affirms our foundational constitutional rights and those of our clients. We remain proud to defend our firm, our people, and our clients,” a spokesperson for the firm said.The ruling was similar to one from Friday by a different judge that rejected a Trump edict against the firm of Jenner & Block and another one from earlier in the month in favor of the firm Perkins Coie.The firms had all been subjected to Trump executive orders that sought to impose the same set of consequences, including suspending security clearances of attorneys and barring employees from federal buildings.The orders have been part of a broader effort by Trump to reshape US civil society by targeting perceived adversaries in hopes of extracting concessions from them and bending them to his will.Several of the firms singled out for sanctions have either done legal work that Trump has opposed, or currently have or previously had associations with prosecutors who at one point investigated him.The order against WilmerHale, for instance, cited the fact that the firm previously employed former justice department special counsel Robert Mueller, who led an investigation during Trump’s first term into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.Other major firms have sought to avert orders by preemptively reaching settlements that require them, among other things, to collectively dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services in support of causes the Trump administration says it supports. More

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      Republican senator Tommy Tuberville launches run for Alabama governor

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      Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville has officially entered the race for governor of Alabama, revealing a campaign website on Tuesday to launch his candidacy.If the campaign is successful, Tuberville could become Alabama’s governor-elect by the end of 2026. He aims to succeed Republican governor Kay Ivey, who is finishing her second term and is barred from running again due to term limits.His announcement was the next anticipated step following Tuberville’s transition from college football coach to politician. In 2016, he was coaching at the University of Cincinnati, having earlier led Auburn University’s football team. By 2020, he had made his political debut, winning a US Senate seat representing Alabama.Tuberville built upon his reputation from the football world to enter politics, often referring to himself as “Coach”. His celebrity status in Alabama gave him a strong base of support, which he further bolstered by aligning himself closely with Donald Trump.The US president previously endorsed Tuberville over former US attorney general Jeff Sessions in the 2020 Republican primary. Sessions, once a senator from Alabama, had fallen out of favor with Trump, who appointed and later dismissed him as attorney general.Tuberville went on to defeat Democratic incumbent Doug Jones in the general election. Jones had briefly flipped the seat in a 2017 special election after Republicans nominated Roy Moore, whose campaign was derailed by allegations of sexual misconduct.Since entering the Senate, Tuberville has cultivated strong ties with conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth, which recently endorsed his campaign. He has also drawn national attention for his months-long blockade of military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion-related policies under Joe Biden.Tuberville, known for his strongly conservative beliefs, says that he believes that “men are men and women are women” and that “allowing men to compete in women’s sports is wrong” on his new campaign website.He also mentions “poisonous ideologies” such as “Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which teach our kids to hate each other”. He adds that “zero taxpayer dollars should go towards abortions” in his view.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe senator also faces scrutiny over allegations that he was not a full-time Alabama resident, charges he has denied. Tuberville is now the second sitting US senator to announce a gubernatorial campaign this year. More

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      Top Russian security official dismisses Trump’s ‘playing with fire’ warning to Putin – US politics live

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      Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, responding to Donald Trump’s warning that Vladimir Putin is “playing with fire”, said on Tuesday the only truly bad thing to worry about was World War Three.“Regarding Trump’s words about Putin “playing with fire” and “really bad things” happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.Margo Martin, special assistant to President Donald Trump, posted a video on X, of the president calling Savannah Chrisley to announce his pardon of her parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley.Martin posted, “President Trump calls @_ItsSavannah_to inform her that he will be granting full pardons to her parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley!”The stars of the reality TV series Chrisley Knows Best rose to fame for showcasing their lavish lifestyle and tight-knit family.In 2019, the Chrisleys were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts of bank and wire fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy, all of which they have denied.The reality stars began their prison sentences in January 2023. Their original sentences, which were 12 years and seven years, respectively, were reduced in September 2023.The possibility of halting abortions in Missouri has resurfaced after the state’s supreme court sent a case back to the lower court for reconsideration.The court ruled today that a district judge had used the wrong legal standard in decisions made in December and February. Those rulings had temporarily allowed abortions to continue in Missouri for the first time since the state’s near-total ban took effect following the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022.The high court ordered Judge Jerri Zhang to vacate her previous rulings and reassess the case using the proper legal framework it outlined.The state argued in its March petition that Planned Parenthood failed to prove women were harmed in the absence of the temporary blocks. Instead, officials said Zhang’s rulings left abortion clinics “functionally unregulated” and women with “no guarantee of health and safety.”A judge in Washington struck down an executive order targeting law firm WilmerHale, marking the third ruling to overwhelmingly reject President Donald Trump‘s efforts to punish firms he perceives as enemies of his administration.US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of Republican President George W Bush, said Trump’s order retaliated against the firm in violation of US constitutional protections for free speech and due process, Reuters reports.WilmerHale is the former home of Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who led a probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Trump campaign ties to Moscow. Trump has derided the investigation as a political “witch hunt.”Leon barred federal agencies from enforcing the 27 March executive order against WilmerHale, a 1,100-lawyer firm with offices in Washington, DC and across the country.The Associated Press is reporting that the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt an order allowing migrants to challenge their deportations to South Sudan, an appeal that came hours after the judge suggested the Trump administration was “manufacturing” chaos and said he hoped that “reason can get the better of rhetoric.”Judge Brian Murphy in Boston found the White House violated a court order with a deportation flight to the chaotic African nation carrying people from other countries who had been convicted of crimes in the U.S. He said those migrants must get a real chance to be heard if they fear being sent there could put them in danger, he said.In an emergency appeal, the federal government argued that Murphy has stalled its efforts to carry out deportations of migrants who can’t be returned to their home countries. Finding countries willing to take them is a “a delicate diplomatic endeavor” harmed by the court requirements, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.Murphy, for his part, said he had given the Trump administration “remarkable flexibility with minimal oversight” in the case and emphasized the numerous times he attempted to work with the government, according to an order published Monday night.“From the course of conduct, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that Defendants invite a lack of clarity as a means of evasion,” the Boston-based Murphy wrote in the 17-page order.Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville announced he is running for Alabama governor in 2026.The Alabama lawmaker launched his campaign website today, and he’s set to officially announce his campaign this afternoon on Fox News.In 2016, he was still working as the University of Cincinnati’s head football coach, and he previously coached at Auburn University in Alabama. In 2020, he won a seat representing Alabama in the United States Senate, his first stint into elected office.Tuberville is looking to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Kay Ivey. He is immediately the frontrunner to win the seat in the deeply-Republican state. The move also sets up an open Senate race in Alabama in the midterms.The senator has been flirting with the idea of going for the governor’s seat for some time now, and was already backed by several groups before announcing his candidacy. GOP groups like the Club for Growth preemptively backed him, and other would-be Republicans candidates like lieutenant governor Will Ainsworth opted out of the race.Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to “maybe permanently” strip federal funding to California if the state continued to allow transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.In an early post on social media, Trump assailed California Governor Gavin Newsom, accusing him of defying an executive order the president signed earlier this year by continuing to “ILLEGALLY allow MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS”.“I will speak to him today to find out which way he wants to go???” Trump said of Newsom. “In the meantime I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals. This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!”As of midday on the west coast, it remained unclear if the president and the governor had spoken. Nor was it clear what federal funds Trump was threatening to withhold from the state.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarity.The president’s post appeared to reference a transgender high school student who recently won the regional girls’ long jump and triple jump competition.Also on Tuesday, the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing body for high school sports, announced that it would pilot an entry process for this weekend’s track and field championship. It said it was extendinga spot to “any biological female student-athlete” who would have qualified in a competition where a transgender athlete secured qualifying marks.In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Newsom said it was“deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for his office said the federation’s new policy was “a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness” and that Newsom was “encouraged by this thoughtful approach”.Newsom has not responded publicly to the president’s taunt. Until now, Trump has largely avoided the public clashes with Newsom that were commonplace during his first term. Newsom in return has done little to antagonize the president, seeking federal aid to help Los Angeles recover from the devastating fires earlier this year.California law allows transgender students to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. According to the governor’s office, the number of transgender high school student athletes in California’s 5.8 million student public school system is fewer than 10.The Trump administration has asked the supreme court to intervene in its attempt to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own, Reuters is reporting.We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

      Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, responding to Donald Trump’s warning that Vladimir Putin is “playing with fire”, said that the only truly bad thing to worry about was World War Three. “Regarding Trump’s words about Putin “playing with fire” and “really bad things” happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.

      Israeli troops opened fire near thousands of hungry Palestinian people as a logistics group chosen by Israel and backed by the US to ship food into Gaza lost control of its distribution centre on its second day of operations.

      The Trump administration has ordered US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants. A Tuesday state department cable instructs consular sections to pause adding “any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued” within days.

      The Trump administration is set to order federal agencies to cancel all government contracts with Harvard University worth an estimated $100m, dramatically escalating the president’s assault against America’s most prestigious university.

      King Charles III delivered the “speech from the throne” to open Canada’s parliament, in which he made no direct reference to Donald Trump but was closely watched for implicit criticisms of the US president and his dramatic recasting of the US relationship with Canada. In the speech, which emphasized Canadian values, sovereignty and strength, Charles hailed Canada as “strong and free” and said Canadians can “give themselves far more than any foreign power on any continent can ever take away”.

      The White House has lost confidence in a Pentagon leak investigation that Pete Hegseth used to justify firing three top aides last month, after advisers were told that the aides had supposedly been outed by an illegal warrantless National Security Agency wiretap. The extraordinary explanation alarmed the advisers, who also raised it with people close to vice-president JD Vance, because such a wiretap would almost certainly be unconstitutional and an even bigger scandal than a number of leaks. But the advisers found the claim to be untrue and complained that they were being fed dubious information by Hegseth’s personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who had been tasked with overseeing the investigation.

      NPR, the US public broadcaster that provides news and cultural programming to more than 1,000 local stations, has filed a federal lawsuit against Trump’s administration, challenging an executive order that cuts federal funding to the public broadcaster as an unconstitutional attack on press freedom.

      Robert F Kennedy Jr unilaterally announced that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would remove Covid-19 booster shots from its recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women, in an unprecedented move from a US health secretary.

      Donald Trump’s media company said that institutional investors will buy $2.5bn worth of its stock, with the proceeds going to build up a bitcoin reserve. About 50 institutional investors will put up $1.5bn in the private placement for common shares in Trump Media and Technology Group, the operator of Truth Social and other companies, and another $1bn for convertible senior notes, according to an announcement from the company.

      Trump threatened to withhold federal funding if California did not stop a transgender girl in high school from competing in state track and field finals, and said he would discuss it with governor Gavin Newsom.

      The United States warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela, emphasizing a growing risk of wrongful detention in the country where there is no US embassy or consulate.

      A federal judge has issued an order temporarily barring the US transportation department from withholding federal funding from New York as the Trump administration seeks to kill Manhattan’s congestion pricing program.
      Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, responding to Donald Trump’s warning that Vladimir Putin is “playing with fire”, said on Tuesday the only truly bad thing to worry about was World War Three.“Regarding Trump’s words about Putin “playing with fire” and “really bad things” happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.Israeli troops have opened fire near thousands of hungry Palestinians as a logistics group chosen by Israel and backed by the US to ship food into Gaza lost control of its distribution centre on its second day of operations, my colleague Emma Graham-Harrison reports from Jerusalem.An 11-week total siege and an ongoing tight Israel blockade means most people in Gaza are desperately hungry. Hundreds of thousands walked through Israeli military lines to reach the new distribution centre in Rafah on Tuesday.But the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which uses armed American security contractors, was not prepared for them and staff at one point were forced to abandon their posts.“At one moment in the late afternoon, the volume of people at the SDS [secure distribution centre] was such that the GHF team fell back to allow a small number of Palestinians in Gaza to take aid safely and dissipate,” the foundation said in a statement.The Israeli military said it fired “warning shots” near the compound to restore control. It was not immediately clear if there had been any injuries among people trying to get food.On Sunday, Jake Wood, the founding director of the GHF, resigned, my colleague Lorenzo Tondo reported, saying that it would not be possible for the group to deliver aid “while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence”.The UN and major humanitarian organisations had already refused to work with the GHF on the grounds that doing so would compromise values that are key to reaching civilians in all conflict zones, and put both their teams and recipients of aid in Gaza at risk.They also warned that a newly formed group with no experience would not be able to handle the logistics of feeding over 2 million people in a devastated combat zone.The dangerous chaos on Tuesday appeared to confirm many of those fears. The GHF said its decision to abandon the distribution centre “was done in accordance with GHF protocol to avoid casualties”.And here’s Joseph Gedeon’s story on National Public Radio, the US public broadcaster that provides news and cultural programming to more than 1,000 local stations, filing a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging an executive order that cuts federal funding to the public broadcaster as an unconstitutional attack on press freedom.Here’s my colleague Leyland Cecco’s story on King Charles III’s speech to Canada’s parliament, in which he made no direct reference to Donald Trump but was closely watched for implicit criticisms of the US president and his dramatic recasting of the US relationship with Canada.Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would remove Covid-19 booster shots from its recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women.Legal experts said the Trump administration appointee’s decision, which Kennedy announced on social media, circumvented the CDC’s authority to recommend such changes – and that it is unprecedented for a health secretary to unilaterally make such a decision.“I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the Covid vaccine shot for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule,” Kennedy said in the announcement.Kennedy claimed the Biden administration last year “urged healthy children to get yet another Covid shot despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children”.The secretary was flanked by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner – Dr Marty Makary – and the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Neither the head of the FDA nor of the NIH would typically be involved in making vaccine administration recommendations.Bhattacharya claimed the announcement was “common sense and good science”.Removing the booster shot from the recommended immunization schedule could make it more difficult to access – and it could affect private insurers’ willingness to cover the vaccine. About half of Americans receive healthcare through a private insurance company.Such a unilateral change is highly unusual if not unprecedented for a typical US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. And it could leave the HHS department open to litigation.Donald Trump’s media company has said that institutional investors will buy $2.5bn worth of its stock, with the proceeds going to build up a bitcoin reserve.About 50 institutional investors will put up $1.5bn in the private placement for common shares in Trump Media and Technology Group, the operator of Truth Social and other companies, and another $1bn for convertible senior notes, according to an announcement from the company.Trump Media said it intended to use the proceeds for the creation of a “bitcoin treasury”. The effort mirrors the president’s moves to create a “strategic bitcoin reserve” for the US government.Trump, who referred to cryptocurrencies in his first term as “not money”, citing volatility and a value “based on thin air”, has shifted his views on the technology. During his campaign, he became the first major candidate to accept donations in the form of cryptocurrency. Since assuming office, he has launched his own cryptocurrency.Last week, Trump rewarded 220 of the top investors in one of his other cryptocurrency projects – the $Trump memecoin – with a swanky dinner luxury golf club in northern Virginia, spurring accusations that the president was mixing his duties in the White House with personal profit.During an event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida during his presidential campaign in May 2024, Trump received assurances that crypto industry backers would spend lavishly to get him re-elected. He spoke at the major bitcoin event during his campaign, and JD Vance, the vice-president, is slated to speak at the conference this week.Earlier we reported that Donald Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding if California did not stop a transgender girl in high school from competing in state track and field finals, and said he would discuss it with governor Gavin Newsom.Reuters reports that in his social media post, Trump appeared to be referring to AB Hernandez, 16, who has qualified to compete in the long jump, high jump and triple jump championship run by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) at a high school in Clovis this weekend.The CIF is the governing body for California high school sports, and its bylaws state that all students “should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity”. California law prohibits discrimination, including at schools, based on gender identity.Trump referred in his social media post earlier today to California’s governor as a “Radical Left Democrat” and said: “THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS.” He said he was ordering local authorities not to allow the trans athlete to compete in the finals.Under the US and California constitutions, state and local officials and individuals are not subject to orders of the president, who can generally only issue orders to agencies and members of the federal government’s executive branch.Trump threatened that “large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently,” if his demands are not met. Such a move would almost certainly lead to a legal challenge by California, which has already sued over multiple Trump administration actions it says are illegal or unconstitutional.Trump also referred to comments Newsom made on his podcast in March when the governor also said he believed competition involving transgender girls was “deeply unfair”.A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment on Trump’s remarks, but referred to comments Newsom made in April when he said overturning California’s 12-year-old law allowing trans athletes to participate in sports was not a priority.“You’re talking about a very small number of people,” Newsom told reporters. Out of the 5.8 million students in California’s public school system, there are estimated to be fewer than 10 active trans student athletes, according to the governor’s office.A CIF spokesperson did not respond to Reuters’ questions, and Hernandez could not be immediately reached for comment.The United States has warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela, emphasizing a growing risk of wrongful detention in the country where there is no US embassy or consulate.“US citizens in Venezuela face a significant and growing risk of wrongful detention,” the State Department said in a statement. It has assigned Venezuela its highest travel alert – Level 4: Do Not Travel.It cites risks including torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, unfair law enforcement practices, violent crime, civil unrest and inadequate healthcare.Venezuela’s authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro tightened his grip on power yesterday as his ruling party yesterday celebrated its “overwhelming victory” in regional and parliamentary elections, which were boycotted by the majority of opposition parties – who called the elections a “farce”. Turnout was below 15%.Meanwhile last Monday, the US supreme court allowed the Trump administration to end Biden-era protections that had allowed some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants to remain in the United States. The decision lifted a federal judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s plans, meaning temporary protected status holders are now at risk of losing their protections and could face deportation. Joe Biden, had granted the status to Venezuelans due to political and economic strife in their home country.A federal judge has issued an order temporarily barring the US transportation department from withholding federal funding from New York as the Trump administration seeks to kill Manhattan’s congestion pricing program, according to NBC New York.US district judge Lewis Liman held the hearing one day before transportation secretary Sean Duffy has warned the government could begin withholding federal government approvals for New York projects.New York launched its first-in-the-nation program in January, charging most passenger vehicles a toll of $9 during peak periods to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street, in a bid to cut congestion and raise funds to improve mass transit.King Charles and Queen Camilla have now departed the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada and are on their way back to the airport.After Charles’s speech in the Senate, the pair attended a wreath laying ceremony at the National War Memorial.Donald Trump has “never evolved” and “isn’t close with anybody”, according to Mary Trump, the US president’s niece and a vocal critic of his business and political career.The daughter of Donald’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr (nicknamed Freddie), Mary Trump told the Hay festival in Wales – where she was discussing her latest book about the Trump family, Who Could Ever Love You – that she no longer has relationships with anyone in her family apart from her daughter.She described herself as “the black sheep of the family”, calling her grandfather, Fred Trump, Donald’s father, “literally a sociopath”, and adding: “Cruelty is a theme in my family.”She explained that much of her understanding of her uncle comes from when she was in her 20s and Donald hired her to ghostwrite his second book. She said:
      He is the only person I’ve ever met who’s never evolved, which is dangerous by the way … Never choose as your leader somebody who’s incapable of evolving – that should be one of the lessons we’ve learned, for sure. More