Jack Schlossberg, the 33-year-old grandson of John F Kennedy, was arguably the most high-profile of those running in the district, but his meme-heavy campaign fell behind Micah Lasher, a New York state representative and self-described nerd who has been endorsed by Nadler.
Micah Lasher wins Democratic nomination for House seat in New York's 12th district
AP has just called the Democratic primary for the US House seat in New York’s 12th Congressional District for Micah Lasher.
This means Lasher defeated Kennedy grandson Jack Schlossberg and tech target Alex Bores for the nomination in the seat being vacated by veteran congressman Jerry Nadler.
Adrian Boafo wins Democratic primary to replace retiring Steny Hoyer
Maryland’s Adrian Boafo has won the Democratic primary to succeed his retiring former boss Steny Hoyer, who is 87.
Boafo won on Tuesday to advance to November’s general election after opting for a continuation of Hoyer’s pragmatic style of politics over a more progressive, antiestablishment approach promised by some other candidates, the AP reports.
State delegate Boafo, 32, was endorsed by Hoyer, governor Wes Moore and other prominent Democrats. He garnered donations from tech firms and the cryptocurrency industry as well as more than $1m from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC.
US army veteran Cait Conley wins Democratic primary in New York’s 17th congressional district
With more than 50% of the vote so far, US army veteran Cait Conley has won the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th congressional district in the lower Hudson Valley. She will face the vulnerable incumbent Republican congressman Mike Lawler in a district narrowly won by Kamala Harris in 2024. It was one of just three nationwide that voted for Harris for president but elected a Republican member of Congress.
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Mamdani-backed community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier leads tight race in New York's 13th congressional district
With 83% of the vote cojnted, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a progressive community organizer endorsed by New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, holds a slim lead over incumbent congressman Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary in New York’s 13th congressional district.
The challenger holds a 3.5-point lead, or just over 2,000 votes, in the race to represent Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx in Congress.
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Jewish American critics of Israeli occupation welcome Brad Lander's victory
IfNotNow, an activist group formed to oppose the American Jewish community’s support for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, has issued the following statement celebrating Brad Lander’s win in New York’s 10th congressional district:
Brad’s victory is a win for everyone who supports equality and justice for all. We share this victory with all New Yorkers — Jewish, Muslim, immigrant, queer and trans, and all those who want a better future for ourselves and our neighbors. Over the course of his campaign, IfNotNow Movement members knocked on doors, made calls to our neighbors, and hosted Brad for Shabbat. We were proud to endorse Brad and support his campaign because he’s been fighting for our communities for years — as a member and supporter of IfNotNow Movement and as an organizer and political leader in New York City. Now we’re ready to send Brad to Congress in November, pass the “Block the Bombs” Act, and bring an end to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
Morriah Kaplan, the group’s executive director called Lander’s victory “a blueprint for the future for both the Jewish community and the Democratic Party”.
“He ran a bold, unapologetically Jewish campaign that rejected pro-war lobbies like AIPAC and the endless flow of U.S. weapons to Israel. And his vision won resoundingly”, Kaplan said. “Brad understands that the only true path to safety for the Jewish people, and all people, is shared safety. That means fighting fascism, building solidarity, and supporting freedom and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis. We’re proud to fight alongside him. Mazel tov, Brad!”
Mamdani ally Claire Valdez wins Democratic primary in New York's seventh congressional district
This is shaping up to be a good night for New York progressives, as Claire Valdez, a state lawmaker and Democratic Socialists of America member has won the Democratic primary in New York’s seventh congressional district, to represent parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
With the backing of New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani, Valdez defeated another progressive, the Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso, and is now likely to win the general election in a heavily Democratic district to replace the retiring incumbent, Nydia Velázquez.
Reynoso was supported by Velázquez, while Valdez was endorsed by Mamdani and senator Bernie Sanders.
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Lander supporters celebrate in Brooklyn
Progressive Democrat Brad Lander’s victory in the Democratic primary to represent parts of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in the US Congress is being celebrated in Brooklyn.
Mamdani-backed Brad Lander unseats New York congressman Dan Goldman in Democratic primary
Brad Lander, a progressive ally of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, easily won the Democratic primary in New York’s 10th congressional district, defeating the more moderate incumbent Democrat, Dan Goldman.
The race between two Jewish New Yorkers focused largely on their very different stances on Israel and its war on Gaza. Lander, a former New York City comptroller who divested from State of Israel bonds while in office, has described the Israeli assault on Gaza since the October 2023 Hamas attack as a genocide and called Israel an apartheid state for ruling over millions of Palestinians denied civil or political rights in occupied territories.
Goldman, like many Democrats, has tried to blame Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its assault on Gaza and mistreatment of Palestinians, but Lander, who calls himself “a proud Jew” more closely represents the sentiments of New York’s left-leaning Jewish community that increasingly sees the need to question Israel and withhold military aid.
Earlier this month, Lander was found not guilty of blocking an elevator during his attempt to inspect rooms holding detained immigrants at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, home to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office and immigration courts.
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Polls close in New York primary elections
The polls just closed in New York, at 9pm ET. We expect a report of early votes very soon.
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Democratic incumbents Wes Moore and Kweisi Mfume win primary races in Maryland
We have some race calls in Maryland’s primary elections. Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor who is seeking re-election, has won the Democratic nomination in a landslide.
Congressman Kweisi Mfume, who has represented Maryland’s seventh congressional district since 2020, also easily won the Democratic primary for his seat. Mfume also held the seat from 1987 to 1996, leaving only to serve as president of the NAACP.
He will face Republican Scott Collier, who was unopposed for that party’s nomination in the seventh district.
In the fifth congressional district, where two dozen candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination to replace retiring congressman Steny Hoyer, the state lawmaker Adrian Boafo leads his nearest challenger by 12 points with nearly a third of the vote counted. Boafo is supported by Hoyer, Moore and Angela Alsobrooks, who represents Maryland in the US Senate.
In the state’s sixth congressional district, Congresswoman April McClain Delaney leads the Democratic primary by just under 5 points, ahead of David Trone, the former congressman who gave up the seat for an unsuccessful run for the US Senate in 2024. Trone has spent $25m of his own money on the primary race.
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Votes are still being cast in New York, but some races could be called soon after polls close
New Yorkers have less than an hour to get to their polling places, and candidates, including Yuh-Line Niou, who is running for the state senate, are reminding voters that if they make it to the polls before they close at 9pm ET, they can stay to cast their vote.
Primary elections in New York are closed, meaning that only voters registered with one of the major parties can take part in that party’s primaries.
New York City is known for quick counting of votes, in part because large numbers of votes cast and counted before election day are reported as soon as the polls close. Votes cast on election day are counted by machines soon after that.
As a result, races for seats in congress or the state legislature to represent parts of the city are often called less than an hour after polls close.
Some competitive races will no doubt take longer to sort out.
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Polls close in Maryland
The polls have just closed across Maryland, where the state’s first Black governor, Wes Moore, is seeking re-election, and eight Republicans are vying to face him.
Another highly contested race is the Democratic primary to represent Maryland’s deep-blue fifth congressional district, where more than 20 candidates are vying to replace congressman Steny Hoyer, 87, who plans to retire at the end of his current term.
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New York's 12th district: A Kennedy, a ‘nerd’, an ex-Republican and a tech target
One key race to watch tonight is the highly competitive primary in New York’s 12th district – the state’s wealthiest seat, and one which is safely Democratic – which could see voters deliver a verdict on the limits of the Kennedy family influence.
Jack Schlossberg, the 33-year-old grandson of John F Kennedy, is arguably the most high-profile of those running in the district being vacated by longterm congressman Jerry Nadler, but his meme-heavy campaign appears to have fallen behind Micah Lasher, a New York state representative and self-described nerd, and Alex Bores, a state representative whose campaign has become a proxy war between AI companies.
AI investors have poured money into Super Pacs opposing Bores, furious over state legislation he proposed to regulate the industry. The primary contest also features George Conway, the Republican turned vocal Trump critic who has out-raised the field. Running on an aggressively anti-Trump platform, Conway has vowed to hold the president accountable if elected.
Here’s more on the candidates:
The artificial intelligence industry is spending heavily in the 2026 midterms, hoping to secure influence over the technology’s first generation of legislation – and New York City’s primary has emerged as the key battleground.
AI-focused Super Pacs have raised more than $100m this cycle, of which $49m has been spent so far, in dozens of congressional races across the country. Half of all spending has converged on a single Manhattan race: Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the district of NY-12.
And much of that spending has targeted a single candidate: the Democratic assemblymember Alex Bores, who is running to represent New York’s 12th House district. Bores, who worked in tech before his pivot to politics, has found himself at the unlikely center of a proxy battle for the industry’s tussle for regulatory influence.
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Setback for Trump in South Carolina governor's race as Pamela Evette loses by a wide margin to Alan Wilson
In a result someone around Donald Trump clearly saw coming, South Carolina’s attorney general, Alan Wilson, is projected to have won the Republican nomination for governor, defeating lieutenant governor Pamela Evette.
In May, Trump had given Evette his “complete and total” endorsement, but, last Friday also endorsed Wilson, telling Republican voters voters they “can’t go wrong” with either candidate in the runoff.
Wilson led 62% to 38% over Evette, with 11% of the vote counted when the Associated Press made their race call.
Before Trump decided to endorse Wilson, the candidate was supported by Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, who campaigned with him on the eve of the primary.
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A progressive Democrat challenging a veteran congressman to represent the party in a closely watched New York race for US Congress has claimed the city has deteriorated on his watch.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of three allies that New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has endorsed in competitive congressional Democratic primaries in the city on Tuesday, is seeking to unseat incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the state’s 13th congressional district.
During a recent candidate forum held by WNYC, Espaillat – the five-term Democrat who chairs the influential congressional Hispanic caucus – claimed Avila Chevalier was not experienced enough. “Getting results in Congress is not a PhD program,” he declared, referencing her studies at the City University of New York.
But in an interview with the Guardian, Avila Chevalier argued Espaillat had failed to produce such results since taking office.
“You just have to look around our district and ask: have things gotten any better in the nine years that he’s been in office?” she said. “I would argue the answer is no, because we’ve seen an exodus of over 200,000 Black New Yorkers leave the city in the last two decades.”
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Dan Goldman, a Democratic congressman from New York, has said it is “sad” that a Brooklyn coffee shop banned him over his views on Israel – a move that has put the cafe under investigation by the Trump administration’s justice department.
Goldman represents New York’s 10th congressional district and holds pro-Israel views. He made the “sad” remark to CNN after Brooklyn’s Poetica Coffee banned him in a viral, since-deleted social media post after a visit from him on Sunday.
The cafe later refunded his coffee purchase – but it did not stop assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon of the US justice department’s civil rights division to announce on X that her office was investigating Poetica Coffee.
Goldman has since replied that he would rather Dhillon’s office spent its “time and resources investigating antisemitism against people who do not have a platform that I do, who are not elected officials, who do not – in some ways – ask for this”.
“I mean, I don’t ask for the antisemitism, but I’m a public figure and I can accept the criticism,” Goldman said.
The controversy centering on Goldman brewed after the since-deleted Instagram post from Poetica Coffee showed him looking at his phone while standing at the cashier. “We see that you stopped by our shop today for a coffee,” Poetica Coffee wrote. “Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice? Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?
Polls close in South Carolina
The polls have now closed in South Carolina, where Donald Trump-backed Pamela Evette, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, and Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general, face each other in a runoff to represent the Republican party in the state’s gubernatorial election.
With just 1% of the vote counted, Wilson leads with 64%.
The winner of the Republican primary is favored to win the closely watched general election, given South Carolina’s conservative tilt, although Democrats are hoping to ride a wave of progressive enthusiasm to make political gains across the ticket.
Evette and Wilson advanced to a runoff earlier in June. Nancy Mace, the controversial Republican congresswoman, came fifth in that earlier primary. She attributed her loss to her support for releasing the Epstein files, an issue that has continued to dog Trump.
Tonight’s winner will face Jermaine Johnson, the Democratic state representative and a former professional basketball player representing a Columbia-area district, who won broad endorsement from party officials before winning the Democratic primary on 9 June.
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigns with candidates
New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani was seen posing with Democratic candidates and voters in the city as people headed to the polls.
Mamdani was snapped posing with: state assembly candidate, Illapa Sairitupac; congressional candidate Brad Lander, a progressive former New York City comptroller who is trying to unseat a more moderate Democrat, Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th congressional district, which includes Downtown Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn; and Yuh-Line Niou, a candidate for the state senate who narrowly lost to Goldman in the 2022 Democratic primary after two progressives split the vote.
Lander ran for New York City mayor last year, eventually striking a “cross-endorsement” pact with Mamdani, as the pair of progressive allies sought to use the city’s ranked-choice voting system to ensure a progressive surpassed the former Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo.
New Yorkers were voting on Tuesday in a slate of Democratic primaries poised to reveal the strength of the party’s left flank and shape the battle for control of the US House of Representatives in November.
Voters in Maryland and Utah will also nominate congressional candidates on Tuesday, while South Carolina holds a series of runoff elections for candidates who did not receive a majority of the vote earlier this month.
But the New York contests, unfolding in a state expected to play a decisive role in determining the congressional majority, have attracted significant national attention as Democrats weigh competing visions for their party’s future in the Trump era.
With Republicanz holding a narrow House majority, Democrats hope to flip a crucial battleground district in the Hudson Valley, while defending three seats heavily targeted by the GOP.
In an ideological battle being closely watched by the party leadership, several self-identified democratic socialists are taking on more centrist Democrats in safe-blue seats, in an early test of mayor Zohran Mamdani’s political clout. Elsewhere, voters in New York’s wealthiest congressional district are weighing candidates in a race that has become a test of both the Kennedy name and the growing influence of the AI industry.
In New York City, the democratic socialist mayor, who was elected last year, has attempted to put a stamp on the state’s congressional delegation by backing a trio of leftwing congressional candidates, much to the chagrin of some in his party.
Two Mamdani-endorsed candidates – former New York City comptroller Brad Lander and public defense investigator Darializa Avila Chevalier – are running to unseat Democratic incumbents in safely Democratic districts, part of a coast-to-coast wave of ideological and generational challenges being waged against sitting members of Congress.
We’ll bring you the latest results, updates and reaction as we get it.
DC video editor arrested for berating officers guarding reflecting pool says he will contest charge
Since Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that six people have been arrested “for the damage they did to” the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, it seems worth keeping tabs on who, exactly, has been arrested, and what crimes they have been charged with.
One DC resident seen on video being dragged away from the reflecting pool in handcuffs on Monday is Christian Miles, a freelance video editor who told the Guardian on Tuesday that he was charged with violating a federal obscenity law for berating a group of Oklahoma state troopers guarding the reflecting pool.
Miles, a former US Navy submariner, has made it a personal project in recent months to “document the creeping police state” since Donald Trump’s federal takeover of policing in Washington DC by filming himself confronting, and often berating, federal troops and officer around the city.
He told the Guardian that he plans to contest the administrative law charge that he violated section 2.34 (a) (2) of the Code of Federal Regulations, which prohibits disorderly conduct by someone who uses “language, an utterance, or gesture, or engages in a display or act that is obscene, physically threatening or menacing, or done in a manner that is likely to inflict injury or incite an immediate breach of the peace.”
Miles posted an edited video of his encounter with the Oklahoma troopers on YouTube, which seems to be similar in nature to his previous encounters over the past 10 months with other officers and troops. The only difference, it seems, is that this run-in took place after the president started to claim that vandals, not shoddy work by his hand-picked contractors, was to blame for the rapidly deteriorating condition of the renovated reflecting pool.
In an email to the Guardian, Miles noted the irony that one of the Oklahoma state troopers he argued with before his arrest told him that the US was obviously a free society “because you can be out here and you can video all you want to … Go to China, they’d run over you in a tank in Red Square.”
According to Miles, he was arrested seven minutes later for using obscene language as he protested against the security crackdown at the reflecting pool.
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Schumer suggests war powers resolution is binding on Trump and requires him to remove forces from Iran war
As we explained earlier, when Congress created the war powers resolution mechanism in 1973, lawmakers intended such resolutions to be binding orders to presidents, enabling Congress to end hostilities.
A decade later, a supreme court decision in an unrelated case on a technical matter cast into doubt the power of Congress to compel US presidents to withdraw forces from active combat.
After the Senate passed a war powers resolution on Iran on Tuesday, directing Donald Trump to withdraw US forces, the senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, seemed to suggest that the supreme court ruling should be challenged, by writing on social media that the measure is binding on the president.
“Today, Congress stood up to Donald Trump and voted to end his costly, unnecessary, and devastating war with Iran”, Schumer wrote. “Let me be clear: for the first time, this resolution has passed both chambers of Congress and does not require the President’s signature. The message from the only branch of government with the power to declare war is unmistakable: the Trump administration must withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities in Iran.”
When Congress created the war powers resolution in 1973, it was supposed to tie a president's hands; then the supreme court gutted it
As our colleague Chris Stein explains, the war powers resolution passed by the US Senate on Tuesday, which first passed the House on June 3, says that Congress “directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran”, but is more of a rebuke than an order, since such resolutions have not carried the force of law since a 1983 supreme court case, on an unrelated technical matter, said that the president has to agree.
When the mechanism was created by Congress in 1973, however, such resolutions were intended to be binding on presidents, having the full force of law, to allow Congress to assert its role, enshrined in the US constitution, to declare war.
Michael J. Glennon, a professor of international law at Tufts University, and a former legal counsel to the Senate foreign relations committee argued in March that the 1983 supreme court ruling that made such resolutions symbolic rather than binding, was wrongly decided and should be overturned.
“On a humid afternoon in the summer of 1973, a conference committee of House and Senate negotiators agreed, behind the closed doors of S-116 of the Capitol, to include a provision in the War Powers Resolution that, more than anything else within it, would have restored Congress’s constitutional war powers”, Glennon wrote for the law and policy journal Just Security.
He added:
The provision in question is Section 5(c) of the Resolution, the so-called legislative veto. A legislative veto is a statutory mechanism that gives legal effect to a measure adopted by Congress without submitting it to the President for signature or veto. Section 5(c) provides that the President shall remove American armed forces from “hostilities” upon the adoption of a concurrent resolution directing him to do so. A concurrent resolution takes effect immediately upon adoption by both Houses without presentation to the President.
That provision could be used today by Congress to halt an unauthorized war ... It could be, that is, had the Supreme Court not cast its validity into doubt ten years after the Resolution’s enactment. The case that did so, INS v. Chadha, decided in 1983, has itself since fallen into legal difficulty… The case should now be overruled, or at minimum, held inapplicable to the legislative veto embedded in Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution.
Glennon, who was present in the Senate chamber in 1973 when Congress overrode Richard Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Resolution bill and it became law, went on to argue that vice-president JD Vance was simply wrong when he said in January that “every president, Democrat or Republican, believes that the war powers act is fundamentally a fake and unconstitutional law”. The act, Glennon noted, “is the duly enacted law of the United States, sustained over presidential objection by a constitutionally prescribed supermajority”.
The claim that the war powers resolution mechanism is not binding on the president was central to the objections raised to it during the Senate debate on Tuesday over the war powers resolution on Iran.
Senator Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, explained that he was voting no in part because “a concurrent resolution process… has been held unconstitutional by the United States supreme court, so whatever happens with this, its going to have no effect, the president isn’t going to pay any attention to it.”
The US Senate on Tuesday approved a war powers resolution preventing Donald Trump from continuing the conflict with Iran, delivering the president a significant but symbolic rebuke over a conflict that has proven unpopular with the US public.
The resolution passed by a 50-48 vote, with four Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rand Paul of Kentucky – breaking with their party to vote in favor. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, was the sole Democrat to vote against it.
The measure, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, would require the president to seek Congress’s authorization to use military force against Iran. It comes after Trump dispatched JD Vance to Switzerland to negotiate a settlement that would resolve the conflict the US began alongside Israel in February.
Though the resolution does not carry the force of law, or require the president’s signature, its passage underscores the discontent among Republicans over a conflict that has grown deeply unpopular with voters ahead of the November midterm elections, in which Republicans will be defending their control of Congress.
Senate for first time approves a war powers resolution in a rebuke to Trump over Iran conflict
The Senate has for the first time approved a war powers resolution seeking to curb US military action against Iran, as lawmakers warily watch Donald Trump’s efforts to resolve a conflict that the administration launched on its own and now needs Congress to fund.
This was the 10th time the Senate had tried to stop the war, and the outcome, on a vote of 50-48, was a stunning turnaround from past efforts. While the resolution is largely symbolic, and does not fully carry the force of law, it reflects the growing concerns from a number of GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate over both the war and the deal Trump has struck with Iran to end it. The House approved the resolution earlier this month.
“Time after time, the vast majority of Senate Republicans sided with Trump and his war instead of the American people,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.
Schumer said Americans have paid the price for “Trump’s historic blunder in Iran”. He added: “It’ll go down in the history books as one of the worst foreign policy forays America has ever made.”
In the past, as many as four GOP senators have voted for the war powers resolutions, and they did so today — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana .
One Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against.
On this vote, the absence of two Republicans, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was admitted to the hospital recently for an undisclosed matter, left the GOP without a full majority to halt the effort.
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Several times throughout this, erm, wide-ranging speech, Trump has urged voters to re-elect Republican representative Ryan Mackenzie — but each time has failed to mention his name.
“We’ve got to get a certain very talented congressman re-elected. You know that. We have to get him — where are you, where are you, Mr. Congressman? We got to get you back in,” Trump said.
He proceeded to call him “Mr. Congressman” several more times in various comments about how he wants people to vote for him. Has Trump forgotten his name? It wouldn’t be a total surprise …
“And we’re getting along quite well,” the president claims, attacking media coverage of the negotiations.
“Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and they’ve agreed to that,” Trump adds, citing this as “the reason why I did it [went to war].”
Trump claims that yesterday 19m barrels of oil flowed out of the strait of Hormuz, which he calls “the most oil in the history of the strait”.
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Touting his leadership and how he “stood up” to other countries with his tariff policies, Trump adds: “And now I’m standing up again, because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, if that’s okay. And we’re doing quite well.”
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And back in PA, Donald Trump has finally appeared on-stage, almost an hour behind schedule. I’ll bring you all the key lines as he finally gets to delivering his speech.
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Department of Homeland Security will allow Iran to travel to US early for World Cup match
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it will grant Iran extra time to prepare for their World Cup match against Egypt on Friday.
The team had planned to lodge an official complaint with Fifa about the “restrictions imposed by the organisers” at the World Cup. Iran have been training in Mexico and were only allowed to enter the United States 24 hours before their first two matches.
Today, the DHS told NBC the team would be allowed to travel to Seattle for their game against Egypt two days before kick-off.
“Ahead of the match in Seattle on 26 June, the Iranian team will be allowed to come in match day minus two, so two days before the match,” a DHS spokesperson told NBC. “They’ll be asked to leave the day that the match wraps up, so the evening of the match.
“Again, the president wants to make sure that we’re talking about what actually happens on the pitch. A lot of that is making sure that things are safe and secure, not just around the stadiums but around base camps and training sites.”
The team also had leave the US and return to Mexico immediately after their first two fixtures. Iran’s tightened travel schedule means the team are at a disadvantage, particularly when it comes to post-match recovery.
After Iran’s Group G opener with New Zealand, their head coach, Amir Ghalenoei, argued they were the “most oppressed” team at the tournament. Iran’s captain, Mehdi Taremi, said the logistical issues meant recent weeks had been a “disaster”.
And after Sunday’s draw against Belgium, national team player Alireza Jahanbakhsh said he hoped the team could travel to Seattle as soon as possible to adapt to where they will play against Egypt.
“We don’t ask for much. We just ask for the same procedure as for all the other 47 teams,” he said. “Hopefully we can bring everyone who is involved and help us with us.”
You can find the Guardian’s excellent World Cup coverage here.
As we mentioned earlier, Donald Trump is iset to deliver affordability-focused remarks at a Mack Trucks facility in Macungie, Pennsylvania, shortly, as he tries to redirect focus to voters’ cost-of-living concerns (which have been amplified since he launched his deeply unpopular war on Iran several months ago) ahead of Novembers crucial midterm elections.
I’ll be monitoring the speech and will bring you any key lines from the president here.
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Donald Trump also doubed down on his claims that the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was vandalized, telling reporters – without evidence – as he arrived in Pennsylvania:
They’ve arrested I think 6 people on the reflecting pool. So, the reflecting pool looks fantastic … Somebody went in with a knife and cut it. They cut it up good. And then they cut it 200, 350 ft slit in the form of lots of little slits, real horrible stuff … I understand 5 or 6 people have been arrested, the interior department can refer to you on that. I hear they have 6 people under investigation.
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Trump says Iran 'wrong' amid dispute over whether Tehran agreed to allow UN inspections of its nuclear sites
Speaking to reporters earlier, Donald Trump was asked whether Iran scheduling visits for the UN’s nuclear watchdog to to inspect its damaged nuclear facilities was part of the agreement with the US.
Responding to Iran’s denial, Trump said:
They’re wrong. They know they’re wrong. They told us inside and we have it down 100% – inspections. And if they were right, I’d cancel the meetings right now.
Asked exactly when the inspectors would actually be on the ground in Iran, Trump said only: “At the appropriate time. There’s no rush.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told a press briefing today: “We have not had a meeting with the director general of the IAEA, nor do we have any plans for the agency to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities damaged by the US and Zionist military aggression.”
That contradicted a statement by US vice-president JD Vance yesterday that “the Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country.”
He called it “a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently de-nuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.”
A few hours after Baghaei’s comments today, Trump doubled down, claiming that Iran had “fully and completely agreed to highest level nuclear inspections long into the future (Infinity!)”
“This will insure ‘nuclear honesty.’ If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!” Trump said on Truth Social.
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Trump travels to Pennsylvania to promote job creation push
Donald Trump has returned to the campaign trail in Pennsylvania to promote his manufacturing and job creation agenda.
As part of Tuesday’s visit, Trump is set to visit a Mack Trucks assembly plant in Lower Macungie Township where he is expected to appeal to factory workers.
Trump’s visit comes as Americans grapple with rising living costs and record-high fuel prices, driven by the US and Israel’s war on Iran.
In a statement on Tuesday, a White House spokesperson said: “Under the President’s leadership, key domestic industries are being revitalized, historic investments are pouring back into communities like Macungie, and families across the country are securing new, high-paying jobs.”
Since Trump’s return to office last January, manufacturers across the US have eliminated 68,000 jobs, with the auto sector accounting for more than 17,000 of those losses, the Associated Press reports.
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New York Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman has said it is “sad” that a Brooklyn coffee shop banned him over his views on Israel – a move which has put the cafe under investigation by the Trump administration’s justice department.
Goldman represents New York’s 10th congressional district and holds pro-Israel views. He made the “sad” remark to CNN after Brooklyn’s Poetica Coffee banned him in a viral, since-deleted social media post after a visit from him on Sunday.
The cafe later refunded his coffee purchase – but it did not stop assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon of the US justice department’s civil rights division to announce on X that her office was investigating Poetica Coffee.
Goldman has since replied that he would rather Dhillon’s office spent its “time and resources investigating antisemitism against people who do not have a platform that I do, who are not elected officials, who do not – in some ways – ask for this”.
“I mean, I don’t ask for the antisemitism, but I’m a public figure and I can accept the criticism,” Goldman said.
The controversy centering on Goldman brewed after the since-deleted Instagram post from Poetica Coffee showed him looking at his phone while standing at the cashier. “We see that you stopped by our shop today for a coffee,” Poetica Coffee wrote. “Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice? Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?
A group of Texas protesters convicted of terrorism charges received harsh sentences of at least 50 years in prison Tuesday in a closely watched case that was widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent.
After a three week jury trial, the nine activists were all found guilty of a slew of criminal charges in March, stemming from a Fourth of July protest at an immigrant detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, south of Fort Worth. The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.
Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, and Elizabeth Soto were sentenced to 50 years in prison. Maricela Rueda, another demonstrator, was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Benjamin Song, who fired the gun at the police officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison. The other protesters were continuing to be sentenced Tuesday morning.
Rubio and Vance discuss ceasefire monitoring body with Lebanon's president
Secretary of state Marco Rubio and vice-president JD Vance spoke with Lebanese president Joseph Aoun on the phone today, discussing, among other things, the implementation of a ceasefire monitoring body, the Lebanese president’s office posted on X.
Rubio and Vance told Aoun that studies are currently under way for the formation of such a body, the Lebanese president’s office said.
The phone call came after Israeli soldiers shot and killed two in southern Lebanon – an attack that Hezbollah said violated the ceasefire agreement. On Telegram, Israel Defense Forces said its soldiers had struck “armed terrorists” that posed an immediate threat to Israeli soldiers but Hezbollah said that the soldiers had fired upon civilians.
Israel and Lebanon began a fifth round of talks on Tuesday in Washington, with Lebanese officials insisting that face-to-face negotiations with Israel are the only way to secure an end to the war.
Earlier, Aoun had warned that Lebanon would “accept nothing less than an end to the Israeli occupation” in southern Lebanon.
Trump says six people have been arrested and seven cited over reflecting pool changes
Donald Trump is now claiming that six people have been arrested and seven cited for alleged damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. That’s up from the five arrests and another five federal citations CBS reported yesterday.
Trump’s ill-fated renovation of the reflecting pool – aimed at turning the water “American flag blue” – has been thwarted by algal blooms and peeling paint and liner. But the president has not acknowledged any issues with the $14m renovation of the pool that he ordered to be completed in time for the Fourth of July holiday, and has instead resorted to blaming “vandals”.
Yesterday, he claimed there was one alleged gash that was 300 ft long in the lining at the bottom of the pool, having previously claimed it was 250 ft.
Providing no evidence for the allegations, Trump went on, writing on Truth Social: “The 350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors, is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition. Likewise, the small area at the bottom of the Pool was cut and powerfully lifted off the surface leaving very jagged, uneven edges.”
He went on: “The large areas of grass are being replaced. In any event, even prior to fixing those areas, the Reflecting Pool is as beautiful as it can be. We will drain some of the water, either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair.”
The president also posted a series of photos in an apparent attempt to demonstrate that the water is back to being blue.
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Trump administration can expand fast-track deportation process, US appeals court rules
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to expand a fast-track deportation process that would allow for the expedited removal of migrants who are living far away from the border.
A 2-1 panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned a decision by a lower-court judge who in August 2025 blocked the administration’s move to expand who qualifies for expedited removal.
Marco Rubio is to meet Gulf allies today and tomorrow in an attempt to reassure them that the US remains committed to their security and the 60-day ceasefire deal struck with Iran last week will not embolden Tehran.
The Gulf is divided over the deal. While Qatar has played a central role in mediating the agreement, some countries – notably the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain – are fearful it hands Iran substantial sums that may be ploughed into its military.
Donald Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform today that the unfrozen assets would be under US control and used to buy food and medical supplies from the US. The US president also claimed Iran had agreed to allow nuclear inspections long into the future, despite statements from Iran that it has not done so.
In his first trip to the region since the US and Israel started the war on 28 February, Rubio will visit the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, the state department said. He is also likely to meet officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council regional body.
All three countries, which house large US military bases, have been hit by Iranian missiles, but the US has declined to detail the scale of the impacts. Severe penalties have been imposed on those using social media to reveal the damage.
Trump last week disclosed that the UAE played an active part in mounting counterattacks against Iran, and the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said Iran believed the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan all helped the US attack Iran.
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Supreme court sides with Trump administration on immigration case dealing with green card holders
The supreme court has sided with the Trump administration in an immigration case dealing with the government’s power over green card holders.
The 6-3 decision centers around an immigration officers’ 2012 decision to put green-card holder Muk Choi Lau on immigration parole when he returned from a short trip abroad because he had been accused of a counterfeiting crime.
Lau argued that overstepped the officer’s authority, and the decision wrongly allowed the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly begin deportation proceedings after he pleaded guilty to trademark counterfeiting.
The Trump administration argued that suspicion of a crime is enough to put a lawful permanent resident, also known as a green-card holder, on immigration parole. Federal attorneys urged the court to take an expansive view of executive authority over immigration.
With the Associated Press.
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Supreme court rules Rastafari man can’t sue Louisiana prison officials who cut his dreadlocks
The supreme court has barred a former Louisiana inmate from suing prison officials who cut off his dreadlocks in violation of his Rastafari religious beliefs.
The justices condemned what happened to the former prisoner, Damon Landor. But they ruled that a federal law designed to protect the religious rights of prisoners does not permit lawsuits for money damages even when rights are violated.
The high court agreed with lower courts that without exception had ruled that the law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, can’t be used to hold those who violate prisoners’ rights financially responsible.
The justices refused to apply the rationale from their decision in 2020 that allowed Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI’s no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The justice department, which argued against the plaintiffs in the no-fly list case in the first Trump administration, had sided with Landor.
No one defended what happened to Landor during his five-month prison term in 2020. When he entered the prison system, he carried a copy of an appeals court ruling in another prisoner’s case holding that cutting religious prisoners’ dreadlocks violated the federal law.
At his first two stops, officials respected his beliefs. But things changed when he got to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 80 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, for the final three weeks of his term.
A prison guard took the copy of the ruling Landor carried and tossed it in the trash, according to court records. Then the warden ordered guards to cut his dreadlocks. While two guards restrained him, a third shaved his head to the scalp, the records show.
Landor sued after his release, but lower courts dismissed the case. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals lamented Landor’s treatment but said the law doesn’t allow him to hold prison officials liable for damages.
“When I was strapped down and shaved, it felt like I was raped,” Landor said in a statement to ABC at the time. “And the guards, they just didn’t care. They will treat you any kind of way. They knew better than to cut my hair, but they did it anyway. That’s what they do. They were just using their authority.”
Louisiana wrote that “the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner’s alleged experience can occur”.
With the Associated Press.
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Supreme court boosts Exxon's bid to get compensation from Cuba for property seized by Fidel Castro's government
The supreme court has also made it easier for US companies to seek compensation from Cuba’s government for property seized decades ago by former leader Fidel Castro’s government, ruling in favor of ExxonMobil in its lawsuit against Cuban state-owned firm Corporación CIMEX.
In a 6-3 decision, the court said a legal defense called foreign sovereign immunity, which generally prohibits US lawsuits against foreign governments and their agents, is not available in cases like the one Exxon brought against CIMEX under a 1996 US law called the Helms-Burton Act.
The court reversed a lower court’s 2024 ruling that CIMEX could invoke the sovereign immunity defense.
The six conservative justices were in the majority, while the court’s three liberal justices dissented from the ruling.
The decision removes a major obstacle Exxon faced in its 2019 lawsuit that accused CIMEX of unlawfully using a refinery and service stations that once belonged to Standard Oil, Exxon’s corporate predecessor. The case will return to a lower court for further deliberations on CIMEX’s potential liability.
A Helms-Burton Act provision called Title III permits lawsuits to be filed in US courts against anyone who “traffics” in property confiscated by Cuba’s communist government after the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power. Donald Trump’s administration supported Exxon’s appeal to the supreme court.
With Reuters.
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Supreme court ends suit alleging Cisco helped China pursue Falun Gong
The supreme court has further limited the reach of a federal law used to hold corporations liable for human rights abuses committed abroad, as it issued a ruling ending a lawsuit by members of the Falun Gong movement accusing Cisco Systems of facilitating religious persecution in China.
The justices reversed a lower court’s decision that had breathed new life into the 2011 lawsuit, which was brought under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789. The suit had alleged that Cisco knowingly developed technology that allowed China’s government to surveil and persecute Falun Gong members.
The statute had been dormant for nearly two centuries before lawyers began using it in the 1980s to bring international human rights cases in US courts. The Cisco case posed the question of whether the law creates liability for corporations that “aid and abet” human rights abuses, a form of what is called accomplice liability.
The lawsuit accused Cisco of knowingly designing and implementing the “Golden Shield”, an internet surveillance system used by the Chinese Communist Party to target dissidents. The plaintiffs said China used the system to track and then torture Falun Gong members.
Cisco called the allegations unfounded and offensive.
Donald Trump’s administration sided with Cisco in the case.
With Reuters.
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Supreme court to release opinions with several high-stakes rulings to come, including birthright citizenship
In the next few minutes, the US supreme court is expected to render at least one judgment as the term is set to come to an end later this month. There are a series of high-stakes cases yet to be decided, including on Donald Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship and plan to remove legal protection from Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene joins Tucker Carlson in ditching 'America LAST' Republican party
Crucially, Carlson added in that interview: “And if I’m out, I think a lot of other people are out.”
Indeed, his dramatic split from the Republican party reflects a deeper fracture inside the US political right over Trump’s war on Iran and US-Israel relations.
Former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said that Carlson is “not the only one” done supporting the GOP, arguing that many conservatives feel the party has “betrayed its voters and country”.
She wrote on X yesterday:
Tucker is not the only one who is done supporting the Republican Party. There is A LOT of us that are absolutely fed up and will not support a party that betrays its voters and country. That does not mean we are turning into Democrats either. But we are DONE with the America LAST Republican Party.
Greene resigned from Congress earlier this year after a massive falling out with Donald Trump over his handling of the Epstein files. A former Trump loyalist, she had by then also broken with the party in other areas, becoming the first Republican to label Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide”, as well as casting doubt on economic, healthcare and foreign policy positions that she said do not prioritize working-class Americans and were not “America first”.
She told the New York Times in December that that series of ruptures with the president culminated in a total breach after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was killed in September.
The third-term Georgia congresswoman said she was watching Kirk’s memorial service on TV when his widow, Erika, said she forgave her husband’s killer. But then Trump took the stage to say that unlike Charlie Kirk – “a missionary with a noble spirit” who did not “hate” his opponents – he had no Christian charity.
“I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them,” Trump said.
Greene said: “That was absolutely the worst statement. It just shows where his heart is. And that’s the difference, with her having a sincere Christian faith, and proves that he does not have any faith.”
Greene said that her turn away from unrepentant Maga acolyte came in that moment and she abandoned her training “to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong”.
“As a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that,” she said. “I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.” Greene said she later told a friend that after Charlie Kirk died, “I realized that I’m part of this toxic culture. I really started looking at my faith. I wanted to be more like Christ.”
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'I'm out': Tucker Carlson says 'there's no chance' he would support the Republican party
Longtime conservative commentator Tucker Carlson has officially broken with the Republican party after defending it as a pundit for decades, including as one of Fox News Channel’s most popular hosts.
Speaking on the Can’t Be Censored podcast late last week, Carlson said, “There’s no chance I would support the Republican party” ahead of the November midterm elections, “I’m out.”
“Not gonna support the Democratic party,” he added. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” (Here’s the clip).
After defending the GOP for 35 years and supporting Trump in 2024, Carlson later decisively broke with the president over his war against Iran and wider foreign policy, arguing that the Republican party bowed to pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu to back the war, which he also said the US has “effectively lost already”.
In doing that, he told the podcast, the GOP has “betrayed” Americans by prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over its own citizens.
How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States. That puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. It’s not possible to vote for people like that, and I’m not going to.
They are making decisions on the basis of other criteria, what’s best for this company, what’s best for Israel, what’s best for our donors. That’s not just, like, they are off in the wrong direction, like, that is unacceptable, that’s treasonous, it’s immoral, it can’t continue.
There’s no defending this because it’s immoral. And it’s exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing, which is representing its own voters, its own citizens, its own nation. And they’re not doing that.
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Efforts to repair the peeling liner on the freshly renovated Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool won’t have concluded by the Fourth of July celebrations, Politico reports.
“It will not be before the celebrations, that’s for sure,” Francois Rivard, vice president of Rhino Linings, the company that supplied the waterproof coating, told Politico in an interview yesterday. “It would be up to [the National Park Service] to tell you exactly when they plan … but it’s in a matter of weeks, not years.”
Per my colleague Rachel Leingang, the reflecting pool drama has thrown a spanner in the works for Trump’s plans to complete several “beautification” projects around Washington in time for the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations next month, with his ill-fated $14m attempt to renovate the reflecting pool - including repainting the floor of the pool “American flag blue” - thwarted by algae, peeling paint and a ballooning price tag.
Trump has acknowledged “real problems” with the site, which he said he had examined himself, this week. But he has not acknowledged any issues with the renovation he ordered, instead blaming the ongoing saga on “vandals”, who he claimed had taken “some form of knife or blade” and delivered a 250ft gash into the pool’s facade.
He was still posting about this yesterday, with the alleged damage morphing into a “300 foot long gash”.
Reporters at the Washington Post who visited the pool on Sunday, could see no evidence of such damage, it reported, despite Trump’s claims.
Trump also claimed that unidentified vandals had poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals” into the pool. Contractors would probably have to drain the water to do repairs, he said.
Government workers were seen pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to tackle the algae.
Five people had been arrested for vandalizing the pool and another five were issued federal citations as of Saturday, CBS News reported yesterday, citing an unnamed administration official.
It’s not clear if any committed acts of vandalism. Washington Post reporters witnessed people interacting with police after pulling objects from the water. Peeling paint has been floating on the surface at times.
Trump said over the weekend that contractors “will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water” to repair the pool.
“Work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE! We will fix it?”
Meanwhile, an interior department spokesperson told this morning’s Politico Playbook that no events around the reflecting pool have been canceled. [Yet].
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Primary voting begins in New York, Maryland and Utah
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Today is the state primary elections in New York, Maryland and Utah. Here are some of the races to watch:
New York state has more than twice as many registered Democrats than Republicans as of 2025 – but with the success of the progressive New York city mayor Zohran Mamdani, the question now is how blue can this blue state go.
Mamdani has thrown his support behind three congressional candidates who are challenging incumbents or incumbent-backed candidates supported by the Democratic establishment: former city comptroller Brad Lander who is up against two-term incumbent Democrat Dan Goldman in NY-10, political newcomer Darializa Avila Chevalier who is challenging incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat in NY-13, and Claire Valdez who is facing off against Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso – the handpicked successor of Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress who is considered a progressive giant of New York City politics – in NY-7.
Elsewhere in New York, AI-focused Super Pacs have been pouring money into a single Manhattan race: the Democratic congressional primary in the district of NY-12.
That money has primarily been going toward taking down Democratic assembly member Alex Bores, who a year ago had sponsored the Raise Act, the second-ever US state law requiring major AI developers to publish public safety plans.
Challenging Bores for the Democratic nomination to represent New York’s 12th district in the House of Representatives is Jack Schlossberg, the very online grandson of John F Kennedy, and George Conway, the Republican turned vocal Trump critic.
