Ron DeSantis strips more than $32m in Florida arts funding

Political allies are also surprised at move, which cancels nearly entirety of state’s funding and will affect economy

Ron DeSantis stripped more than $32m in arts and culture funding from Florida’s state budget over his hatred of a popular fringe festival that he accused of being “a sexual event”, critics of the rightwing governor say.

DeSantis justified his unprecedented, wide-ranging veto of grants to almost 700 groups and organizations by saying it was “inappropriate” for $7,369 of state money to be allocated to Tampa fringe, a 10-day festival that took place earlier this month with a strong message of inclusivity, and its sister event in Orlando.

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Biden comes out swinging in first speech after presidential debate with Trump

Attendees note ‘night and day’ difference between campaign stop in North Carolina and ‘lackluster’ debate showing

In what several supporters described as a “night and day” difference from his performance in last night’s debate, President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to keep fighting against what he framed as an existential threat to America.

In his first campaign stop following the debate, Biden showed off a louder and more dynamic voice at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh.

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RFK Jr claims Republicans, Democrats and CNN conspired to exclude him from debate

Independent candidate is polling at about 8%, but could be a spoiler in November contest between Trump and Biden

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta. But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.

In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.

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Lauren Boebert, hard-right Republican, wins Colorado primary after moving districts

Bitter intraparty fight is one of two elections that could help determine control of Congress in November

Despite a series of personal scandals, Lauren Boebert, a hard-right Colorado Republican who narrowly avoided defeat in 2022, won out over a crowded field of other Republican primary candidates in the fourth congressional district – previously led by Ken Buck – which leans more heavily Republican.

Boebert’s primary win is one of the most closely watched results of Colorado’s primary elections, which chose the winners in several bitter intra-party fights among the state’s Republicans, including in two competitive House districts that could help determine control of Congress in November.

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Judge partially lifts Trump gag order in hush-money case – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Trump’s trial, read our full coverage here.

While his primary contest may be too close to call, the vote count thus far shows Republican congressman Bob Good trailing his challenger John McGuire by a small amount.

Good is now casting aspersions on the fairness of the election, NBC News reports:

Good claimed during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Monday that Lynchburg “did not secure their drop boxes.”

“There’s no accountability for when those boxes were opened,” Good said. “They were apparently left to be stuffed for two or three days after the election.”

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Hillary Clinton: waste of Biden’s debate time to rebut Trump ‘nonsense’

Former secretary of state, who has debated both men, says Trump ‘starts with nonsense and digresses into blather’

Hillary Clinton has said it would be a “waste of time” for Joe Biden to attempt to refute Donald Trump’s contentions in Thursday’s presidential debate because “it’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are”.

The former secretary of state wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that Trump “starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather”.

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Louisiana families file lawsuit against Ten Commandments display in schools

Human rights groups also back filing which aims to block state’s new law forcing public schools to showcase text

Several Louisiana families backed by human rights groups have lodged a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the state’s new law forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments.

The suit was filed with the US district court in Baton Rouge on Monday at the start of what is expected to be an epic legal battle that could end up before the US supreme court. Christian nationalists have been itching for this fight, hoping to destroy the country’s longstanding separation of church and state.

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Kamala Harris says Trump ‘guilty’ of ‘stealing’ abortion rights at rally – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on abortion news in the US, read our coverage here.

Vice President Kamala Harris just took the stage to address a crowd at the University of Maryland, her first event of the day to mark the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

Maryland is a deep-blue state with an abortion referendum on the ballot and a surprisingly competitive Senate race that could help determine the balance of power in Congress. Ahead of Harris’s remarks, Maryland Democrats and reproductive rights leaders emphasized the stakes in November.

Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee for the state’s open seat, said Trump was “proud as a peacock” for setting in motion the fall of Roe, and warned that Republicans saw the state as an opportunity to win back control of the chamber.

Speaking before Harris, she said of Republicans: “Make no mistake about it. They would take the first opportunity to ban abortion nationwide.”

Alsobrooks faces Larry Hogan, the state’s former two-term Republican governor, who, in a sign of the fast-shifting politics of abortion, has recast himself as “pro-choice” and said he supports the state’s abortion referendum.

Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, urged voters who want to protect access to abortion to send Alsobrooks with him to the Senate.

“Larry Hogan’s undergoing some election year conversion like none other I’ve ever seen,” the senator said, pointing to Hogan’s record as governor, when he vetoed a law that would have expanded abortion access.

“A vote for Larry Hogan is a vote to put the Maga Republicans in charge of the United States Senate.”

In November, Maryland voters will decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to abortion and “reproductive freedom,” in the state’s constitution. It is widely expected to pass because of broad support for protecting abortion access, which is legal in the state.

Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions. Instead, he proudly takes credit for overturning Roe.
In a court of law, that would be called an admission. Some would say, a confession.

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Ex-Trump security adviser backtracks on proposal to send all Marines to Asia

Robert O’Brien explains his outline to sever US-China economic ties would only be to send in ‘fighting force’

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien – tipped to play a leading role if the ex-president returns to the White House – backtracked on parts of his proposal to sever US-China economic ties, an aspect of which called for sending the entire US Marine Corps to Asia.

O’Brien, who recently submitted a 5,000-word article outlining his thinking to Foreign Affairs, explained on Sunday that instead of the “entire US Marine Corps”, it would be only the “fighting force”. And he said some Marines would still be stationed at bases like California’s Camp Pendleton and North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune.

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Trump freewheels towards debate as Biden rehearses at Camp David

Political surrogates hit Sunday talkshows as candidates take different approaches before next week’s face-off

Presidential political surrogates fanned out across the Sunday talkshows to prepare the ground for next week’s televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which could help the Democratic incumbent and his Republican predecessor focus the minds of undecided or unengaged voters on November’s election.

But the candidates themselves are taking strikingly different approaches. Biden is hunkered down at Camp David in debate preparation, reportedly with his personal attorney Bob Bauer standing in for Trump in mock exchanges.

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Trump announces Teamsters union chief to speak at Republican convention

Sean O’Brien accepts invitation as union says its message ‘needs to be heard by as wide an audience as possible’

Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters union, will speak at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee next month, a move that could spell trouble for Joe Biden’s support among blue-collar workers ahead of the November election.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, announced on Friday on his Truth Social platform that O’Brien had accepted his invitation to speak at the convention and that he was looking forward to seeing him represent the Teamsters.

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Biden says supreme court preserved ‘critical protections’ for domestic violence survivors – live

President vows to continue work to stop ‘epidemic of gun violence’ after praising supreme court ruling that disarms domestic abusers

The supreme court’s chief justice John Roberts wrote the opinion in United States v Rahimi, which upheld a law that bans domestic abusers from carrying guns.

“An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment,” Roberts wrote.

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Tense wait in tight Virginia primary for House Republican who crossed Trump

Incumbent Bob Good, chair of far-right Freedom Caucus, appeals for patience as votes counted in congressional race

The conservative US representative Bob Good is asking for “patience from the people of Virginia’s fifth district over the coming weeks” as he hopes the final ballot count from Tuesday’s primary will allow him to fend off a fellow Republican challenger endorsed by former president Donald Trump.

Good, who chairs the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, currently trails state senator John McGuire by a little more than 300 votes as elections officials finalize their vote counts and mail-in ballots continue to trickle in.

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Winklevoss twins donate $1m each to Trump as champion of cryptocurrency

Crypto tycoons claim Biden has ‘openly declared war against crypto’ in lengthy critique of administration policy

Cryptocurrency tycoons the Winklevoss twins have each donated $1m in bitcoin to Donald Trump’s campaign and pledged to vote for the former president in November, claiming Joe Biden had “openly declared war against crypto”.

Trump is “pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto, pro-business”, Cameron Winklevoss declared on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday. “And he will put an end to the Biden Administration’s war on crypto.”

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Biden pledges citizenship pathway for spouses and children of US citizens

President touts ‘commonsense fix’ that would provide relief for more than half a million ‘mixed-status’ families

Joe Biden on Tuesday announced an expansive new plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented spouses of US citizens, calling it a “commonsense fix” that would provide relief to more than half a million “mixed-status” families in the country.

The move comes as the Democratic president tries to strike a balance before the 5 November election: confronting rising public concern over the unprecedented levels of migration at the southern border, while appeasing progressive Democrats and Hispanic leaders furious over Biden’s aggressive asylum crackdown, which they likened to Trump-era policies.

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Donald Trump looking for ‘fighter’ as Republican running mate

Sources close to ex-president say gender and race irrelevant over pick who’s ‘America first’ and believes in agenda

Donald Trump is looking for a “fighter” as his running mate in this year’s presidential election and regards factors such as their gender or race as irrelevant, according to sources close to the former US president.

Conventional wisdom used to hold that Trump was likely to choose a woman or a person of color as his potential vice-president in an effort to broaden his appeal. But aides close to the presumptive Republican nominee currently say he will not take so-called identity politics into account.

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Muted mics, no props: CNN details rules for Biden and Trump debate

Network says no studio audience in Atlanta and moderators ‘will use all tools at disposal to ensure a civilized discussion’

The first US presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump on 27 June will include two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when recognized to speak, CNN said Saturday.

The rules, agreed outside the Commission on Presidential Debates, are designed to reduce fractious interruptions and cross-talk that have often marred TV encounters in recent presidential election cycles.

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Trump gets name of his doctor wrong as he challenges Biden to cognitive test

Gaffe came as 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate sought to bolster his support among Black and Latino voters in Michigan

Donald Trump has made a point in recent months of deriding his rival Joe Biden as being cognitively impaired, mocking the 81-year-old US president for his verbal stumbles and accusing him of falling both up and down stairs.

But people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

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Documents detail Republican push to force hand counts in Arizona election

Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd were calling for hand counts in 2022 as election denialism swept Cochise county, a records request shows

Republican elected officials in a small Arizona county talked with state lawmakers and activists about hand-counting ballots there in 2022 and urged their counterparts in other counties to push for hand counts as well, newly released public records show.

The records from Cochise county, a Republican stronghold along the US-Mexico border, only came to light after a lawsuit from a watchdog group, American Oversight, and took well over a year to be released. The original records request from American Oversight was filed in November 2022.

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Wisconsin Republicans block PFAS cleanup until polluters are granted immunity

GOP-controlled committee thwarting distribution of $125m budgeted by legislature until polluter immunity approved

Wisconsin Republicans are withholding $125m designated for cleanup of widespread PFAS contamination in drinking water and have said they will only release the funds in exchange for immunity for polluters.

The move is part of a broader effort by Republicans in the state to steal power from the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, the funding’s supporters say, alleging such “political games” are putting residents’ health at risk.

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