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    ‘System is rigged’: Democrat Sherrod Brown puts datacenter danger at heart of populist Senate bid

    Ohio former senator attacks Republican rival as the ‘face of datacenters’ as he wraps AI concerns into pro-worker messageSend us your questions on how the US economy is shaping the midterm electionsSherrod Brown, the Democratic former senator from Ohio hoping to return to office in November’s midterm elections, has spent the past year traveling across his home state explaining to voters about all the ways the “system is rigged” against them. Recently, he’s been telling people about a trip he took across the north-west Ohio countryside.“You’re driving on what looks like really good farmland, driving past fields, driving past barns, driving past milking parlors, and you see, all of a sudden, you see these huge cranes and you see these trucks coming,” Brown told a crowd of dozens at a coffee shop in the city of Lima earlier this month. Continue reading… More

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    ‘Chaos and cruelty’: the kids trapped in Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign

    Children are being detained in record numbers, sometimes alone and where lawyers and family cannot find themThe image of immigration officers arresting five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos – in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack – in January sparked outrage across the country.Celebrities from Ms Rachel to Madonna called for the closure of the Dilley immigration processing center, the Texas immigrant camp that held Ramos and many children like him. Lawyers filed complaints about contaminated food and shoddy healthcare, and hundreds of activists protested outside the detention camp. Within months, the government began sending fewer children to Dilley. Continue reading… More

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    Trump’s latest attacks on the press exude desperation | Margaret Sullivan

    Trump seems to invent ugly new variations on his press-bashing theme almost every dayWhen you hate the mainstream press as much as Donald Trump does, nothing gets in the way of the punishment fantasy.Not court rulings. Not public opinion. Not even the dreadful consequence of less media coverage.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading… More

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    Donald Trump’s Texas rally rocked by repeated protests

    Trump briefly stepped away from the microphone after one protester appeared to approach the stageDonald Trump’s latest campaign rally was rocked by repeated protests on Wednesday as the US president urged Texas voters to back embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton.At least half a dozen demonstrators interrupted the US president during his remarks in San Antonio, with some led away by police. One was physically assaulted by an older Trump supporter as he tried to leave the arena. Continue reading… More

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    Trump repeats his false claim that Iran could destroy Los Angeles or San Diego – as it happened

    This live blog is now closed.Sign up for the Breaking News US emailTonight, we’ll have another set of midterm debates. In Iowa, we’ll see the Republican nominee for US Senate, Ashley Hinson, face off against Democrat Josh Turek, a state representative and Paralympian at 8pm ET.The race has become one of the most competitive of this cycle, despite the fact a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate election in the Hawkeye state since 2008. Turek, however, trails by just a point in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll. And Hinson, who currently serves as a congresswoman, has pushed back on Donald Trump’s agenda of late, as the president’s approval rating sinks to a new low. Hinson has called for an end on the war in Iran, despite consistently voting against House war powers resolutions that would curb military action, and criticizing the president’s recent pause on tariffs for foreign beef imports, which, Hinson argues, will affect the bottom line for the many cattle ranchers in Iowa. Continue reading… More

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    Leon Botstein resigns from Bard roles as key Democrat demands investigation into Epstein links

    Jamie Raskin says ‘startling’ email asked whether young woman was ‘for me, or are you keeping her for yourself’A powerful Democratic lawmaker has called for a criminal investigation into former Bard College president Leon Botstein after congressional investigators uncovered an email from Botstein to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in which he says Botstein asked if a young woman was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself”.The latest development appears to have triggered the immediate resignation of Botstein from all Bard-affiliated positions, including his professorship and roles in Bard’s music programs. Botstein had led the college for 50 years and only recently stepped down as president. Continue reading… More

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    Democrats sue to stop Trump from using taxpayer funds for self-promoting ads

    Ads promoting the president have cost more than $12m and his Super Pac has refused to reimburse taxpayersSign up to The Stakes 2026: your weekly guide to the US midtermsThe Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court on Wednesday, asking a judge in Washington DC to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.The ads promoting Donald Trump, including one recycled from his 2024 presidential campaign, have cost taxpayers more than $12m so far, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Continue reading… More

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    Trump backs away from top aides who reportedly advised pro-Russia government

    President floats firing Chris LaCivita and James Blair over any ‘conflict’ after reports of work in Republika SrpskaDonald Trump distanced himself from two top advisers on Wednesday, claiming he did not have “any idea who else they work for”, after it was reported they spent the weekend assisting a pro-Russia government in the Balkans.On Truth Social, Trump wrote that Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of his 2024 presidential campaign, and James Blair, a campaign adviser and White House deputy chief of staff on leave of absence, “are outside consultants” and “do not work for me other than as outside consultants”. Continue reading… More