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    Robert F Kennedy Jr names tech lawyer Nicole Shanahan as 2024 running mate

    Robert F Kennedy Jr selected Nicole Shanahan, a tech attorney and wealthy philanthropist, as his running mate in an independent campaign that could upset the 2024 race for the White House.Kennedy, an environmental attorney who gained notoriety as a vaccine sceptic and conspiracy theorist, announced his pick at a campaign event on Tuesday in Oakland, California, where Shanahan was born.In a nearly hour-long, winding speech, Kennedy cited Shanahan’s career in technology as an asset for the campaign, Kennedy said she had “deep inside knowledge of how big tech uses AI to manipulate” voters.Shanahan was the founder and CEO of the Palo Alto legal tech firm ClearAccessIP before selling the company in 2020. She was also a fellow at Stanford Law School’s center for legal informatics.“I managed to put a technologist at the forefront,” Kennedy said. “I found a vice-president who shares my indignation about the participation of big tech as a partner in the censorship, surveillance, and the information warfare that our government is currently waging against the American people.”Kennedy, 70, a scion of the US political dynasty that includes former president John F Kennedy, also presented Shanahan, 38, as a fresh and youthful voice in a presidential contest between 81-year-old Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump.“There’s a growing number of millennials and gen Z Americans who have lost faith in their future and lost their pride in our country,” he said.The announcement event took place in the Henry J Kaiser Center for the Arts, a historic building in Oakland that has been in disrepair for decades but is on the path to being reopened. Speaking at the event, rightwing author Angela Stanton-King said the venue had been opened to the campaign despite being partially under construction, and was chosen due to the historical events it had hosted – including a speech by Martin Luther King Jr in 1962.The event featured an introduction from the local Muwekma Ohlone tribe, whose battle for federal recognition has been supported by Kennedy, and musical renditions of This Land Is Your Land and America the Beautiful. Speakers included the Stanford professor and Covid-lockdown skeptic Jay Battacharya as well as Kelly Ryerson, a public health advocate who focuses on chronic illnesses she says are caused by toxins in our food supplies.More than two hours into the lengthy announcement event, after most cable news channels had cut away from the stream, the ex-NBA player Metta Sandiford-Artest, formerly known as Metta World Peace, welcomed Shanahan to the stage. The vice-presidential hopeful explained her political mission, citing her strong anti-war beliefs as aligning with Kennedy’s. She soon launched into an anti-pharmaceuticals screed, attributing her passion for “children’s health” to her child’s experience with autism.Democrats are especially concerned that Kennedy could pull votes away from Biden, spoiling the election. Recent polling from Quinnipiac projected Kennedy could receive as much as 15% of the vote in a race involving Biden and Trump, amid limited enthusiasm for the candidates from the two major parties.One such defector was Marilyn Chin, a volunteer for Kennedy’s campaign recruiting voters outside the event. Chin, who is 71, said she voted Democratic for most of her life but was now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”Kennedy will face an expensive, and uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which will involve gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. He has made it on to the ballot in only one state so far, Utah. Still, the Democratic National Committee has called Kennedy a “stalking horse” and said third-party candidates may have tipped the 2016 election to Trump.In a statement following Kennedy’s announcement, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called him a “radical leftist” and an “environmental whack job” before stating his campaign would not get very far. The Democratic National Committee called Kennedy’s run a “spoiler campaign” and said it was dangerous for Republican donors to be propping up Kennedy during such a high-stakes election.Earlier this year, the DNC filed a federal election complaint accusing Kennedy and a political action committee backing his third-party bid of illegally colluding to qualify for the ballot in swing states crucial to Biden’s re-election. Kennedy’s campaign has denied breaching financial barriers between candidates and outside groups, which is prohibited by federal campaign law.The Democrats have also said that a major donor to American Values 2024, the Super Pac backing Kennedy, is Tim Mellon, a businessman who has also backed Trump.Shanahan told the New York Times she has contributed $4m to American Values 2024.The Bay Area entrepreneur is known in tech circles as the founder of ClearAccessIP, a startup that uses software to help companies manage and distribute patents and patent rights. But she gained notoriety after her 2018 marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the wealthiest people in the world. The couple’s divorce in 2022 drew extra scrutiny following a Wall Street Journal report that Shanahan had conducted an affair with the Tesla and X chief, Elon Musk. She has denied the allegations.In February, she helped finance a $5m campaign advertisement for Kennedy during the Super Bowl, which alluded to his uncle John F Kennedy’s successful 1960 White House run. The ad was denounced by Kennedy’s family, who have disavowed his campaign and his baseless theories on vaccines and the Covid pandemic, among other issues.Shanahan told the New York Times that she was not an anti-vaxxer, but has shared Kennedy’s discredited claims about the safety of vaccinations. At Tuesday’s event, she formally renounced any affiliation with the Democratic party, saying it had “lost its way”.“The Democratic party is supposed to be the party of compassion and peace, it is supposed to be the party of diplomacy and science,” she said. “While I know those ideals still abide within many Democrats, I want to point out that the party has lost its way. In its leadership, in its institutions, it has become interested in elitism, celebrity and winning at all costs, even if that means turning a blind eye on issues they all know to be true.”Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views drew protesters at Tuesday’s announcement, including Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, who stood outside the Oakland convention center with pro-Biden and pro-vaccine signs.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual who can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.” More

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    Judge imposes gag order on Trump in hush-money trial – as it happened

    The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.The supreme court heard arguments in a case brought by a conservative group that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone. The justices seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its health risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions, after an attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against it could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
    Donald Trump is reportedly prohibited from attacking witnesses, prosecutors or jurors in his trial on hush money-related charges under a gag order handed down by judge Juan Merchan.
    Robert F Kennedy Jr announced attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in an event in Oakland, California.
    Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
    Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
    A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
    Donald Trump-supporting Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc unleashed an attack on Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he announces Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.“Robert F Kennedy Jr is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking. It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate,” said spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer.Third party candidates with dedicated followings can add an element of unpredictability to tight presidential races – just ask Al Gore. But despite Team Trump’s vitriol, polls have shown Kennedy may sap support from Biden in states where he’s on the ballot.The Democratic National Committee has gone on the attack against Kennedy’s campaign, including by filing a complaint accusing him of improperly coordinating with a political action committee:Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced attorney and wealthy philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.He made the announcement in Oakland, California, at an event attended by hundreds of supporters, as well as protesters outraged by his opposition to vaccines.Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, said she disagrees with many of Kennedy’s ideas, and was particularly enraged by his opposition to vaccines.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.”Kennedy supporter Marilyn Chin, 71, said she voted Democrat for most of her life, but is now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”In seeking a gag order against Donald Trump, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued the former president had a “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him”, the New York Times reports.Judge Juan Merchan agreed, writing in the order that, “his statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”The Times notes that earlier today, Trump called his former fixer Michael Cohen “death”, in a post on Truth Social – just the sort of statement that Merchan’s gag order is meant to prohibit.The supreme court heard arguments in a case that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone, and seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions. An attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against the drug could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry, while an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
    Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
    Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
    A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
    The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.Liz Cheney, the Donald Trump foe who ended up being forced out of Congress due to her opposition to the former president, also described NBC’s elevation of McDaniel as a danger, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:The Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “enabled criminality and depravity” in her support for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney said as controversy swirled over McDaniel’s media role.“Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot and his effort to pressure Michigan officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome,” Cheney, a Republican who was vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, wrote on social media.“She spread his lies and called January 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’. That’s not ‘taking one for the team’. It’s enabling criminality and depravity.”McDaniel rose in Republican politics as a member of the powerful Romney family before reportedly dropping the name at Trump’s behest and becoming RNC chair in 2017.In February 2022, the RNC said Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the other anti-Trump Republican on the committee that investigated the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.Cheney lost her seat in Congress that year. Kinzinger chose to retire. McDaniel was eased out of the RNC last month, to be replaced in part by Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.The White House said that meetings over the last two days between the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have been “productive”.The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday canceled a high-level delegation from Israel to the White House to discuss Rafah, with the visit meant to take place today. He withdrew his agreement for talks after the US abstained from – rather than vetoed – a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.Gallant was already in Washington for longer-planned talks at a lower level. Meanwhile, in the Middle East earlier today, Israel recalled its negotiators from Doha, in Qatar, after deeming mediated talks on a Gaza truce “at a dead end” due to demands by Hamas, Reuters reported earlier, citing an Israeli official.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters board Air Force One moments ago: “We are committed to supporting Israel in its fight against Hamas … We cannot expect Israel to live under active threat.” She added that it was critical for Israel to do “whatever is possible” to protect civilians in Rafah.There, about 1.7 million Palestinians are trapped under Israeli siege and suffering bombardment and food deprivation as international talks about a ceasefire and access for more aid founder.Aid agencies and international bodies including United Nations officials have said that people stranded further north in Gaza are on the brink of famine.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has just been speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, on the way to Raleigh, North Carolina.Joe Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, are holding a joint event there to talk about healthcare.Reporters were firing off their questions, in a short gaggle on a short flight. Jean-Pierre is confirming the US president’s position is he will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.She’s being asked about the state of US infrastructure but emphasizes that although the government pledges to work with Congress for funding to rebuild the bridge, the search and rescue effort that’s still under way in Baltimore is the main focus.Here’s what Yale University historian Timothy Snyder had to say about the danger of NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, as told by the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:The former Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “tried to disassemble our democracy” by supporting Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and should not be given such a media role, a leading historian said amid uproar over the appointment.“What NBC has done is they’ve invited into what should be a normal framework someone who doesn’t believe that framework should exist at all,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and author of On Tyranny, told MSNBC, part of the network now employing McDaniel.“What NBC has done of its own volition is bring into a very important conversation about democracy, one which is going to take place for the next seven months or so, someone who … tried to disassemble our democracy. Who personally took part in an attempt to undo the American system.”NBC announced the hire on Friday. Carrie Budoff Brown, the senior vice-president for politics, said McDaniel would contribute analysis “across all NBC News platforms”.On Sunday, McDaniel told Meet the Press Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square”, adding that she did “not think violence should be in our political discourse”.NBC News will drop former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel after an outcry from its top talent over her promotion of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, Puck reports:McDaniel’s hiring by the network attracted criticism from former lawmakers and historians, who argued they were elevating a voice who had helped Trump attack US democracy. On Sunday, McDaniel acknowledged that the 2020 election had not been stolen, though maintained it was acceptable to say there were “problems” with the vote:Joe Biden did not say when he expected the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt or, more crucially for the nation’s economy, the port of Baltimore to be able to resume operations.The president also gave no update on the six people still missing from the collapse, but said the search and rescue operation to find them is a “top priority”.For the latest on this developing story, follow our live blog:Joe Biden says he has instructed the federal government to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and reopen its economically vital port.The government will also cover the cost of the reconstruction, the president added in a speech from the White House.“I’m directing my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” Biden said.“We’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort. It’s gonna take some time, and people of Baltimore can count on us so to stick with them at every step of the way till the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”The port is currently closed due to the span’s collapse, which occurred early this morning after the cargo ship Dali collided with it. The president noted that 15,000 workers rely on the its operations, and “we’re gonna do everything we can to protect those jobs and help those workers”.As we wait for Joe Biden to begin his speech on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, here are some scenes from earlier today in Baltimore: More

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    The Guardian view on the UN security council’s ceasefire resolution: the US talks tougher on Israel | Editorial

    The extent of the Biden administration’s shift at the United Nations security council on Monday should not be underestimated. The US is not only by far Israel’s most important ally and supplier of aid, but has provided it with stalwart diplomatic support. That it abstained instead of vetoing a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire – as it had previously done – was a major departure and leaves Israel looking extremely isolated, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s angry reaction showed.Yet the US has since done its best to talk down its decision, with officials insisting that there has been no change in policy and describing the resolution as non-binding. That is not the view of other security council members or the UN itself. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, wrote that it would be “unforgivable” to fail to implement the resolution, which also called for the unconditional release of hostages. But Israeli airstrikes have continued.The Biden administration is well aware that this war is ravaging its international standing: it is judged both complicit in the suffering in Gaza and ineffectual in its ability to restrain Israel’s conduct of the war. At home, it is costing the president vital Democratic support in an election year. But more Americans believe that Israel’s conduct of the war is acceptable than unacceptable, although there is a clear – and generational – divide.Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, has already said that he will invite Mr Netanyahu to speak before Congress. Though many in Israel fully understand the long-term damage the Israeli prime minister has done to his country’s interests as he fights for his own, there is no sign that US exasperation will speed his departure or moderate the conduct of this war.While the Biden administration treads gingerly, the humanitarian catastrophe gallops ahead in Gaza. The UN resolution stipulates a ceasefire for Ramadan – already half passed. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Disease and starvation are claiming more lives as the most intense famine since the second world war takes hold – a famine entirely human-made by the destruction of so much of Gaza and the reduction of aid to a trickle. Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees central to relief efforts, has said that Israel has banned it from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza.Mr Biden has described the placing of conditions on US military aid as a “worthwhile thought”, but it does not appear to be one that he intends to translate into reality, though past administrations have threatened or imposed them. Recipients of arms must now give assurances that they abide by international law, but the US says it has “no evidence” that Israel is not in compliance. Many Democrats disagree.Canada has already announced that it is suspending further sales. The UK shifted from abstaining to supporting the ceasefire resolution on Monday, and David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has urged the Foreign Office to publish its formal legal advice on whether Israel is breaching international law in Gaza. The reality is, however, that 99% of Israel’s arms imports come from the US and Germany. Hand-wringing over humanitarian suffering is pointless when you continue to supply the weapons creating the disaster. Monday’s abstention was an important symbolic moment, but it appears that little will alter unless the US makes a substantive change.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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    Biden pledges to pay full cost to rebuild Baltimore bridge after collapse

    Joe Biden pledged that the US federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed before dawn on Tuesday after being struck by a massive cargo ship.“It’s my intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge and I expect the Congress to support my effort,” the US president said.Asked why the government should pay and not Grace Ocean, the owners of the Singapore-registered ship, Biden said: “That could be, but we’re not going to wait for that to happen. We’re going to pay for it to get the bridge rebuilt and opened.”Authorities said six people were unaccounted for after the accident, which sent vehicles and eight construction workers into the Patapsco river.Jeffrey Pritzker, a senior executive at Brawner Builders, the employer of the construction workers, said on Tuesday afternoon that they were presumed dead, given the water’s depth and the length of time since the crash.Pritzker said the crew had been working in the middle of the bridge when it came apart. No bodies have been recovered.“This was so completely unforeseen,” Pritzker said. “We don’t know what else to say. We take such great pride in safety, and we have cones and signs and lights and barriers and flaggers. But we never foresaw that the bridge would collapse.”All 22 crewmembers onboard the Dali, the ship that struck the bridge, were reported safe.A reporter from the Baltimore Banner said that the half-dozen missing people were construction workers from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico who are in their 30s and 40s, with spouses and children.All of them came to the city for a better life, – not necessarily for themselves, but for the loved ones they left behind in their home countries, the Banner’s reporter wrote.“They are all hard-working, humble men.”The White House said Biden had spoken to federal, state and local officials as part of the continuing response to the collapse of the bridge.Those officials included Pete Buttigieg, the US secretary of transportation; Wes Moore, the Democratic governor of Maryland; the two Democratic US senators from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin; and the mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott.Moore told reporters the bridge, which was built in 1977, was “fully up to code” before being struck by the ship.Speaking from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, Biden said: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time, we have no other indication. No other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.“I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime,” Biden added, in remarks aimed at people awaiting word on the missing.The search and rescue operation was “our top priority”, Biden said, adding: “We’re with you. We’re going to stay with you as long as it takes. You’re Maryland tough, you’re Baltimore strong.”Saying, “We’re not leaving until this job is done,” Biden said he would travel to Baltimore “as quickly as I can”.The president then left Washington for a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina. Buttigieg was due to travel to Baltimore. More

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    ‘Biden bump is real’: president gains on Trump in six battleground states

    Joe Biden had some good news on Tuesday as polling showed him gaining on Donald Trump in six battleground states, seven months before the presidential election. In response, one leading Democratic strategist said the “Biden bump is real”.According to Bloomberg News and Morning Consult, Biden now leads Trump by a point in Wisconsin, having trailed by four last month, and is tied in Pennsylvania, where Trump had a six-point lead last month. The two candidates were also tied in Michigan.In other states likely to decide the presidential election in November, Trump was ahead in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. Only Georgia, however, showed an increased lead for the presumptive Republican nominee.Biden was due to campaign in North Carolina on Tuesday.Trailing Biden in fundraising, Trump had no campaign events scheduled.The former president did appear in public on Monday, in New York in connection with his criminal trial on 34 charges concerning hush-money payments to an adult film star and a civil fraud case in which he must post a $175m bond while appealing a $454m judgment.Trump also faces 14 criminal charges related to election subversion and 40 arising from his retention of classified information. He posted a $92m bond in a civil defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.On Monday, a Biden campaign spokesperson called Trump “weak and desperate – both as a man and a candidate”, adding: “His campaign can’t raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda.”The Biden campaign did not comment on the Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll.Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesperson, pointed to Trump’s 47%-43% lead across the seven swing states, telling Bloomberg: “Polling continues to show that voters are sick of Joe Biden’s crushing inflation, porous southern border and his insane EV mandate that will kill the US auto industry.”For Biden, worrying signs also included a majority of voters with a positive view of Nikki Haley, Trump’s last Republican challenger who has not endorsed him, saying they would vote for Trump in November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEncouraging signs for the president included emerging positivity on economic conditions and many voters saying they had recently seen more positive news about Biden, particularly after his combative State of the Union address.Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and commentator, said: “[The] election is clearly changing now, moving towards Biden: 10 recent national polls show Biden leading, he’s up one now in [the] Economist poll average, Harris this week finds Biden gaining four, this new Bloomberg/MC polling also finds significant movement towards Biden.“Biden bump is real.”In the Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll, around half of Biden voters said they were determined to stop Trump.Eli Yokley, US politics analyst for Morning Consult, told Bloomberg: “Negative energy motivates people. And the people who are supporting Joe Biden today are much more likely to express that negative energy that energised his 2020 campaign.” More

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    Trump says he would testify in hush money trial; court lowers bond in fraud case to $175m for now – as it happened

    Asked if he would testify in his defense at the hush-money trial, Donald Trump said yes.“I would have no problem testifying. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said.He was then asked if he was worried that a conviction would hurt his presidential campaign.It could “make me more popular because the people know it’s a scam”, Trump replied. “It’s a Biden trial.”The former president has inhabited the witness stand before, including in author E Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial earlier this year:Donald Trump will go to trial on 15 April in New York City on charges related to making hush-money payments, after a judge rejected his attorney’s arguments that prosecutors had committed misconduct and the trial should be delayed, or canceled outright. The decision raises the possibility that the former president could be convicted or exonerated of one of the four sets of criminal charges he faces before the November presidential election – which could upend the campaign. However, things could still change. Trump says he’ll appeal the ruling, and scored a win at an appeals court in a separate matter earlier today, when his attorneys managed to get the bond he must produce in his civil fraud judgment reduced, and his payment date delayed.Here’s what else happened today:
    The supreme court will on Tuesday hear a case brought by a conservative group against abortion pill mifepristone, which Joe Biden’s allies warn is a preview of a second Trump administration’s aspirations.
    Before the appeals court ruling, Trump came close to blowing his deadline to produce at $454m bond, which he said he was struggling to find backers for.
    The UN security council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza after the United States abstained.
    Trump encouraged Israel to wrap up its invasion of Gaza, warning that it was risking its international reputation.
    Biden mocked Trump after he gave himself an award for golfing at his own club.
    In an interview with a conservative publication, Donald Trump encouraged Israel “to finish up your war” in Gaza and warned “you’re losing a lot of the world”.Trump’s comments came the same day as the United States allowed the UN security council to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, reversing months of obstruction. Joe Biden has seen some Democratic supporters defect recently over his support for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and earlier this month, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer accused him of inhibiting peace and called for Israel to hold new elections.In an interview with Israel Hayom, which is owned by the family of Sheldon Adelson, a conservative mogul and supporter of both Trump and Netanyahu who died in 2021, Trump expressed support for Israel’s response to the 7 October attack.“I would act very much the same way as you did. You would have to be crazy not to,” he said.But he also criticized Israel for harming its reputation, as images of destroyed infrastructure and dead civilians poured out of Gaza:
    You have to finish up your war. To finish it up. You gotta get it done. And, I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done.
    With the supreme court set to weigh a conservative challenge against abortion pill mifepristone, the Guardian’s Carter Sherman reports on a study showing more and amore Americans are relying on the medication to end their pregnancies:In the six months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, roughly 26,000 more Americans used pills to induce their own at-home abortions than would have done so if Roe had not fallen, according to a new study.Published on Monday in Jama, one of the leading peer-reviewed medical journals in the United States, the study comes ahead of a key Tuesday hearing at the US supreme court at which the justices will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine the future of a major abortion pill, mifepristone.Pills are used in 63% of all abortions within the US healthcare system, and the study suggests they are being used by even more people than previously known in order to evade abortion restrictions that now blanket much of the US.Analyzing data from abortion pill suppliers who operate outside of the US healthcare system, the study provides a rare window into the growing practice known as “self-managed abortion”. Although definitions of self-managed abortion can vary, the practice generally refers to abortions that take place outside the formal healthcare system, without the aid of a US-based clinician.Ahead of the supreme court’s hearing on Tuesday on the availability of a widely used abortion pill, Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren warned that a future Trump administration would seek to ban abortion nationwide.Warren said the case brought by a conservative group, which centers on the drug mifepristone, highlighted the stakes of the 2024 election.“Republicans have gone to the courts acting as if they know better than the scientific experts at the FDA about the safety of medication abortion,” she said today on a press call organized by the Biden campaign. “What does that tell us? Donald Trump and Maga Republicans are prepared to use every tool in their toolbox to control women’s bodies: banning abortion nationwide, ending access to IVF and even attacking contraception access.”Julie Chavez Rodriguez, manager of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, said they planned to make abortion a central theme, noting that Democrats had performed strongly in elections where the issue was on the ballot. The campaign, she said, would keep reminding voters that it was Trump who laid the groundwork to overturn Roe v Wade with his appointment of three conservative supreme court justices.Mini Timmaraju, the CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said Trump’s support of a national abortion ban at 15 or 16 weeks of pregnancy would backfire.“A 15-week abortion ban is still an abortion ban,” she said on the call. “And as we showed in Virginia, Americans hate abortion bans, they will not fall for it, they will not stand for it.”Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has released a statement attacking Donald Trump after a weekend the former president spend awarding himself while struggling to secure a bond for his civil fraud conviction.“Donald Trump is weak and desperate – both as a man and a candidate for president,” said James Singer, a spokesman for the Biden-Harris campaign.“His campaign can’t raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda. America deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired Donald Trump.”National security spokesman John Kirby has just wrapped up his part of the press briefing at the White House and left the room, leaving press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre handing questions about congressional matters now involving the stuck legislation over aid to Ukraine.Kirby said of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s canceling of the high level delegation visit to the White House tomorrow for talks on Gaza:“It’s disappointing, we would have preferred to have had that meeting.”Kirby said that Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant is currently at the White House for a long-scheduled visit, meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan.“Humanitarian assistance will be on the agenda,” Kirby emphasized.He said that the US abstained in the UN security council resolution vote this morning calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages by Hamas, which controls Gaza.“We chose to abstain [rather than veto] because it did not include language condemning Hamas,” Kirby said. And it did link a ceasefire to a hostage deal. The US put forward a ceasefire resolution last Friday but it was more conditional than the one it abstained on today. The US resolution last week was vetoed by Russia and China.Kirby added: “Hamas could solve all these problems right now by putting down their arms and releasing the hostages.”Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant is in Washington, meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan today and will meet with US defense secretary Lloyd Austin tomorrow.My colleague Julian Borger wrote earlier that after the vote at the UN [this morning], the office of Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a planned visit to Washington by two of his ministers, intended to discuss a planned Israeli offensive on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, which the US opposes. The White House said it was “very disappointed” by the decision. However, a previously arranged visit by the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, went ahead.US national security spokesperson John Kirby said just now at the White House press briefing underway that Israel was still “a friend and ally” and that the US was still supplying Israel with aid and weapons.But the US is adamant that Israel should not only agree to a ceasefire tied to a hostage deal but should not invade Rafah, the city closest to Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, which is packed with more than 1.5 million desperate Palestinians who fled the military operation that has decimated a lot of Gaza further north.“We have the same concerns about a ground offensive in Rafah that we had yesterday and the day before,” Kirby said.The Israeli military bombed parts of Rafah overnight.National security spokesperson John Kirby just spoke to the press about the US abstaining on the vote at the UN security council in New York earlier today calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza.“Our vote does not represent, repeat, does not represent, a shift in our policy,” he said.Kirby added: “We wanted to get to a place where we could support this resolution.”The US did not support it because it did not contain language condemning Hamas, he said.He was just asked about Israel then cancelling the high-level diplomatic delegation visit to the White House tomorrow.“We are kind of perplexed by this,” he said. He said it was a non-binding resolution at the UN so does not hamper “Israel’s ability to go after Hamas”.He emphasized that the US has not changed its policy, no matter what the Israeli government is implying.The White House press briefing is running later than originally scheduled today.Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is due to be joined in the west wing briefing room by national security spokesperson John Kirby.Jean-Pierre usually deals with most of the domestic issues while Kirby deals with foreign policy issues.The situation in Russia after the probable-Islamic State attack last Friday night at a concert hall and the latest on Israel-Gaza will be prominent on the agenda.The US abstained on a UN security council vote on an immediate ceasefire and hostage release earlier today, following which Israel cancelled its diplomatic government visit to Washington to discuss Rafah.The briefing is getting underway now.Donald Trump will go to trial on 15 April in New York City on charges related to making hush-money payments, after a judge rejected his attorney’s arguments that prosecutors had committed misconduct and the trial should be delayed, or canceled outright. The decision raises the possibility that the former president could be convicted or exonerated of one the four sets of criminal charges he faces before the November presidential election – which could upend the campaign. However, things could still change. Trump says he’ll appeal the ruling, and scored a win at an appeals court in a separate matter earlier today, when his attorneys managed to get the bond he must produce in his civil fraud judgment reduced, and his payment date delayed.Here’s what else is going on:
    Before the appeals court ruling, Trump came close to blowing his deadline to produce at $454m bond, which he said he was struggling to find backers for.
    The UN security council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza after the United States abstained.
    Trump gave himself an award at his own golf club, drawing mockery from Joe Biden.
    Asked if he would testify in his defense at the hush-money trial, Donald Trump said yes.“I would have no problem testifying. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said.He was then asked if he was worried that a conviction would hurt his presidential campaign.It could “make me more popular because the people know it’s a scam”, Trump replied. “It’s a Biden trial.”The former president has inhabited the witness stand before, including in author E Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial earlier this year: More

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    Man changes name to Literally Anybody Else and announces US presidential run

    A Texas man has legally changed his name to Literally Anybody Else and announced he is running for US president in the 2024 election.Formerly known as Dustin Ebey, the 35-year-old is a US army veteran and seventh-grade math teacher in the suburbs of Dallas, and now has a Texas driver’s license to prove his name change.He said he wanted to change his name because he was unsatisfied with this year’s presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.“Three hundred million people can do better,” he said in reference to the two frontrunners for the nation’s highest office. “There really should be some outlet for people like me who are just so fed up with this constant power grab between the two parties that just has no benefit to the common person.“It’s not necessarily about me as a person, but it’s about literally anybody else as an idea,” he told news outlet WFAA88.He needs 113,000 signatures from non-primary voters in the state of Texas by May to get his new name on ballots. Since that is unlikely, he is campaigning to get people to write in his name.“We don’t have a ‘neither’ option on the ballot, and this kind of fills that role,” he said.The candidate’s website says: “Literally Anybody Else isn’t a person, it’s a rally cry.“For too long have Americans been a victim of its political parties putting party loyalty over governance. Together let’s send the message to Washington and say, ‘You will represent or be replaced.’“America should not be stuck choosing between the “King of Debt” (his self-declaration) and an 81-year old.” More

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    ‘Quite the accomplishment’: Joe Biden pokes fun at Trump’s alleged golf wins

    Joe Biden clapped back at Donald Trump after Trump posted a typically bizarre boast about his self-proclaimed golfing prowess.“Congratulations, Donald,” the president told his Republican rival. “Quite the accomplishment.”Sarcasm is hard to type but it surely suffused Biden’s words, which were posted to the platform formerly known as Twitter as part of what appears to be a broader strategy from the Biden campaign of taunting and ridiculing Trump over his legal and financial problems.Trump made his typically capitals-splattered boast about a supposed great golfing victory on Truth Social, the platform he started when Twitter banned him for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress.“It is my great honour,” the former president wrote, “to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive THE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY. I WON BOTH!“A large and golfing talented membership, a GREAT and difficult course, made the play very exciting. The qualifying and match play was amazing … Very exciting, thank you!!!”Biden’s tweet followed. Many other social media users quoted Rick Reilly, a former Sports Illustrated columnist and author of Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.Reilly, who has played with the former president, has described how Trump “cheats like a mafia accountant”, including “kick[ing] the ball out of the rough so many times, the caddies call him Pele”, taking endless free shots and falsifying scores.On Sunday, Reilly told Trump: “Call us if you ever win one on a course you DON’T own and operate.”Trump’s dubious claims to honours and titles at his own courses are well documented. Notably, his West Palm Beach club was revealed in 2017 to list him as its 1999 champion. It opened in 2000.Away from the fairways, Trump secured the Republican nomination to face Biden again this year despite facing 88 criminal charges, multimillion-dollar civil penalties and attempts to remove him from the ballot.On Monday, Trump faces a hearing in his New York criminal case over hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels – who he met at a celebrity golf event in Nevada – and a deadline to pay a $454m bond in a civil fraud suit, also in New York.Golf courses are among Trump assets the Democratic attorney general of New York, Letitia James, could try to seize if Trump does not pay up.Biden’s campaign has seized on Trump’s financial troubles, taunting him as “Broke Don”. The weekend saw a social media surge for the nickname “Don Poorleone”, a play on Trump’s mob-like approach to politics and Don Corleone, the name of the mafia boss played by Marlon Brando in the Godfather saga.On Monday, meanwhile, Edward-Isaac Dovere, author of Battle for the Soul, a book on Biden’s victory in 2020, noted an interesting point.So far in the 2024 campaign, Dovere wrote, Trump “has taken more time for golf tournaments than campaign events. Last night, Trump bragged about winning at golf – while still no campaign events booked.”Most users, however, focused on mocking Trump’s golf-based braggadocio, many raising amusing parallels with another former world leader.“According to North Korean media Kim Jong Il scored 11 holes-in-one on his very first round of golf,” said Gideon Rachman, author of The Age of the Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy Around the World.“So Trump has a way to go.”
    Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the world?
    On Thursday 2 May, 8-9.15pm GMT, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign.Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More