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\n Richard Luscombe is a reporter for Guardian US based in Miami, Florida
","uri":"https://mobile.guardianapis.com/lists/tag/profile/richardluscombe"},"cards":[{"title":"Several US airlines raise baggage fees as Iran war sends fuel costs soaring","rawTitle":"Several US airlines raise baggage fees as Iran war sends fuel costs soaring","item":{"trailText":"Delta, United and JetBlue hiked rates even as Delta announced $1bn pre-tax profit in quarter ending June","body":"Several major US airlines have raised their baggage fees in recent days, blaming ongoing volatility in oil markets caused by the US-Israeli war in Iran that has almost doubled jet fuel prices.
\nOn Tuesday, Delta followed the lead of United Airlines and JetBlue, which announced last week that they were hiking baggage prices because of the ongoing war.
\nThe move from Delta came on the same day that the company announced it expected to record a pre-tax profit of about $1bn in the quarter that will end in June.
\n\nIn a statement, a Delta spokesperson said the new fee structure would take effect on Wednesday. The cost of a first and second checked bag on most routes will increase by $10 to $45 and $55, respectively, while a third bag will cost $200, an additional $50.
\n“These updates are part of Delta’s ongoing review of pricing across its business and reflect the impact of evolving global conditions and industry dynamics,” the spokesperson said.
\nDelta did not immediately answer if the new rates were intended to be permanent, or would be reduced again when fuel prices retreat after the Iran war is settled.
\nA press release from Delta on Tuesday acknowledged that the airline, like every other, has been wrestling with soaring jet fuel prices since the US joined Israel in military strikes on Iran starting in February. Iran responded by closing the strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
\nAccording to the industry advocacy group Airlines for America, the average price of a gallon of jet fuel in four major air hubs – Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York – has increased from $2.50 on 27 February, the day before military action commenced, to $4.81 on Tuesday.
\nIn addition to rising fuel costs, several airlines are facing an increase in the amount of fuel their aircraft use because of extra miles required to avoid flying over the conflict zone.
\nEven so, Delta said it still expected to declare an industry-leading $1bn profit by the end of the June quarter, and announced on Tuesday it broke its previous March-quarter record with $15.9bn in revenue.
\n“Delta’s results underscore the power of our brand and the durability of our financial foundation,” Ed Bastian, Delta’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
\n“We delivered earnings that were more than 40% higher than last year, even with a significant increase in fuel costs and operational disruptions across the industry.”
\nBastian did not address Delta’s decision to increase baggage fees, which follows a parallel move by other major airlines in recent days.
\nOn 3 April, United raised the cost of first and second checked bags on most routes by $10 in what the airline said was its first increase in two years. A first bag now costs $45 if booked ahead of time, and $50 within 24 hours of travel; a second checked bag will cost $55 or $60 depending when it was booked.
\nSome customers, including holders of airline-branded credit cards and qualifying members of loyalty programs, will continue to pay nothing, United said.
\nDays earlier JetBlue, which operates a sliding scale of baggage fees depending on when tickets are booked, and if the flights are peak or non-peak, also said it was hiking baggage costs. Both airlines cited rising fuel costs as the reason.
\n“While we recognize that fee increases are never ideal, we take careful consideration to ensure these changes are implemented only when necessary,” JetBlue said in a statement, reported by NBC News.
\nSeparately, numerous airlines have raised ticket prices to help mitigate the additional expense.
\nMajor international carriers including Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways are among those that have imposed fuel surcharges, while British Airways is reportedly partnering with its main pilots’ union to offer financial incentives to pilots who reduce their aircraft’s fuel consumption.
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4n74e","section":"World news","id":"world/2026/apr/08/us-airlines-baggage-fees-oil-prices","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0ec6c89f5b8851a79ce58dc13d9f302b0fc5a706/0_0_5113_3409/master/5113.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=4167363a7de46e02f7da36c83173f25e","height":3409,"width":5113,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"A passenger pushes a cart loaded with suitcases past a Delta counter at the Los Angeles international airport on 26 November 2025. Photograph: Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP via Getty Images","credit":"Patrick T Fallon/AFP via Getty Images","altText":"A passenger pushes a baggage cart loaded with suitcases","cleanCaption":"A passenger pushes a cart loaded with suitcases past a Delta counter at the Los Angeles international airport on 26 November 2025.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP via Getty Images"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Delta, United and JetBlue hiked rates even as Delta announced $1bn pre-tax profit in quarter ending June
\nA routine passenger flight from Jamaica landed at New York’s John F Kennedy international airport with one more person than it took off with after a woman gave birth in midair, potentially setting up a tricky situation over the newborn’s citizenship.
\nThe “medical event” occurred on a Caribbean Airlines flight from Kingston on Saturday, according to a news release from the carrier.
\n“Upon arrival, the mother and newborn were attended to by medical personnel and are receiving the necessary care,” the statement said. It did not say whether the baby was a boy or girl – or at what stage of the four-hour flight the infant was born.
\nIn a conversation between the pilot of flight BW005 – designated Caribbean 5 – and the Queens airport’s tower, an air traffic controller suggested a name for the baby.
\n“All right, tell her she’s got to name it Kennedy,” the controller said after the pilot responded to the question “Is it out yet?” in the affirmative.
\n“Ah, Kennedy, will do,” the pilot responded while laughing, according to a transcript obtained by CBS News.
\nThe birth quickly prompted a debate about citizenship for the infant, which remains uncertain because of a lack of information about the status of the parents – and where the plane was at the exact moment the baby was born.
\nIf either parent is already a US citizen, the baby will also be one. If not, US citizenship laws published by the federal state department come into play.
\nBy law, US airspace is defined as the same as its territorial waters, namely within 12 miles of the coastline. “The rules applicable to vessels obviously apply equally to airplanes,” the document states. “Thus a child born on a plane in the US or flying over its territory would acquire US citizenship at birth.
\n“Generally speaking, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would require some documentation of the birth, generally an excerpt of the ship’s/aircraft’s medical log or master/captain’s log, reflecting the time, latitude, and longitude when the birth occurred.”
\nUnder the 14th amendment to the US constitution, “all persons born or naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US”. The executive order Donald Trump issued at the beginning of his second presidency restricting US citizenship to children born only to citizens and lawful permanent residents was blocked by a federal court and is awaiting a final ruling by the supreme court after oral arguments on 1 April.
\nThe US government does not publish figures of babies born on international flights within its airspace. The most recent research is a study published in 2019 by a professor at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University, recording 74 births on 73 commercial flights between 1929 and 2018 – with two of the babies not surviving.
\nAirlines generally restrict pregnant women from flying beyond 36 weeks’ gestation and allow those beyond 28 weeks to travel only with medical clearance. Caribbean Airlines’ policy is to allow pregnant passengers to travel without medical clearance through the end of their 32nd week of pregnancy.
\nIn its statement, Caribbean Airlines said no emergency was declared during the flight – and that the mother and her family had requested privacy.
\n“The airline commends the professionalism and measured response of its crew, who managed the situation in accordance with established procedures, ensuring the safety and comfort of all onboard,” the statement said.
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\nThe intermittently uncomfortable 12-minute Earth-to-space call, facilitated by the Nasa administrator and Trump acolyte, Jared Isaacman, featured a lengthy period of silence, several references by the president about his friendship with the retired Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and how “America is the hottest country in the world right now”.
\nBut it was Trump’s questionable claim to have rescued Nasa during his first presidency that raised eyebrows and left the Artemis crew awkwardly tossing a microphone to each other in zero gravity just hours after setting a record for the farthest-traveled humans from Earth.
\n\n“You know, I had a decision to make in my first term, and the decision is: ‘What are we going to do at Nasa?’” Trump said.
\n“Are we going to have it be revived, or are we going to close it down? And I had very little hesitation. And it’s really great to have somebody like Jared involved, because it really makes it much easier for me. But it was not even a question in my own mind.
\n“We’ve spent what we had to do.”
\nWhile Trump has directed more resources to the space agency’s human spaceflight program, especially Artemis, he has consistently tried to slash its overall spending. After Trump’s second presidency began in early 2025, the White House proposed a 24% cut to the Nasa budget to $18.8bn, the lowest it would have been in a decade, prompting experts to denounce “extinction-level” reductions to the agency’s science programs.
\nCongress, in a rare show of bipartisanship, united to oppose the cuts, and in January it passed an almost fully funded budget of $24.4bn.
\nBut on 3 April, two days after Artemis II blasted off for the moon on the first mission carrying humans beyond lower Earth orbit in more than 50 years, Trump unveiled his 2027 Nasa budget request with another huge cut – this time a 23% reduction.
\nDemocrats have promised to fight the “morally bankrupt” move while Isaacman said in a statement: “I strongly support the president’s fiscal policies and mandate to drive efficiency.” Isaacman also urged Nasa workers “to leave the politics for the politicians and remain focused on the mission”.
\nDuring his call to Artemis on Monday, Trump praised the crew for their “incredible journey into the stars” and said they had “inspired the entire world” as the US worked towards building a permanent lunar base and eventually sending humans to Mars.
\n“America will be second to none in space and everything else that we’re doing, and we will continue to lead the whole thing,” he said.
\nTrump exalted Nasa’s Apollo program which previously landed astronauts on the moon – “but that was 50 years ago”, he said, “and at long last America is back. And America is back in many ways stronger than ever before – we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
\nTrump had an exchange with the Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who applauded what he saw as an “intentional decision” by the US “to lead by example and to allow other countries like Canada to share our gifts and help you achieve these mutually beneficial goals”.
\nIt prompted Trump to reflect on conversations he said he had with Gretzky, a “very special person”; the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney; and “many other friends I have in Canada” about how proud they were of Hansen.
\nThere followed more than a minute of awkward silence, ended by Isaacman jumping back in for a “comms check” – and Trump repeating his stories about Gretzky, Carney and the Canadian people.
\n“Yes Mr President, we heard that,” the Artemis II commander, Reid Wiseman, said.
\nThe president then invited the four crew members to an Oval Office reception some time after a scheduled splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday that will conclude their 10-day mission.
\n“I’ll ask Jared to bring you over, and I’ll ask for your autograph, because I don’t really ask for autographs much, but you deserve that,” Trump said.
\n“I’ve been pretty busy, also, as you know, but I will absolutely find the time, and we’ll get together, and I’m going to be giving you a big salute on behalf of the American people and beyond that.”
\nThe Artemis II pilot Victor Glover replied: “When you want us, we will be there,” and thanked the president for his “really special” call.
\n“We just want to say thank you to all of you for this,” Glover continued.
\n“It is the thrill and honor of a lifetime to have been on this journey. Today was amazing, but this three-year journey has been amazing, and it was made possible by the American people and the Canadian people.”
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\nThe four astronauts on board, however, embarked on their 10-day odyssey with a unifying message for humankind.
\n“We really are going for all, by all, and we want to take the whole world along with us,” Reid Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, declared in a final media briefing before Wednesday’s 6.35pm (11.35pm BST) lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center.
\nIt was a message reinforced by Jared Isaacman, the Nasa administrator, at a post-launch press conference: “We’re going to get back in the business of launching rockets on a regular cadence, and we’re going to bring the world along with us.”
\nA moment nearly 54 years in the making, since the December 1972 Apollo 17 mission when humans last set foot on the moon, was almost obliged to recognize how much the world has changed in that timespan, and the spectacle did not disappoint.
\n\n A flawless, fiery lift-off, after a surprisingly trouble-free countdown given the technical problems that forced Nasa to abandon launch attempts in February and March, entertained up to half a million people packed on the beaches, causeways and open spaces of Florida’s space coast.
\nThese astronauts, three Americans and one Canadian, will not land on the moon during their lunar flyby, as 12 of their Apollo-era antecedents did between 1969 and 1972. But they are making history in a more modern way. The Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, is the first non-American to journey to the moon; Victor Glover, the first person of color; Christina Koch, the first woman.
\n“This is an interesting time to go fly this mission,” Wiseman said.
\n“Each one of us, we have our own different opinions, and our own individual beliefs. And I think that’s one of the best parts about this mission right now … that’s great that we celebrate all of this, all the way around the world.”
\nIn the quest for global harmony, the Artemis II launch was never going to match Neil Armstrong’s “one giant leap for mankind” speech during the first moon landing in 1969. Bitter geopolitical tensions and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine exemplify the tensions of the world of 2026.
\n![\"an](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/7161a2d2509bde393ca9faed47b955fc2d975a4c/0_0_5272_3514/1000.jpg\")
\n Beyond that, many still question the value of the US government throwing billions of dollars at a new lunar spaceflight program that repeats something already achieved with Apollo, which the public quickly grew tired of in the 1970s once the Soviet Union was beaten there and the space race was won.
\nYet in their own way, the events of Wednesday at Cape Canaveral were also healing and unifying. A succession of former astronauts, including space shuttle veterans Mark Kelly, now a Democratic US senator, and Stephen Robinson, a four-time flyer, spoke of the almost mystical power of human spaceflight.
\n“The space program has always been a good news aspect for the humanity in us,” Robinson said.
\n“The part that isn’t political, the part that is the human side of us, believes in learning about that, learning about space. Look at that moon out there. Shouldn’t we go there and explore it?”
\nKelly, a vocal critic of Donald Trump’s planned slashing of Nasa’s science budget last year before rare bipartisan opposition in Congress led to an almost full restoration to $24.4bn (£18.3bn) in January, pointed to the ability of human spaceflight to bridge yawning political divides.
\n![\"people](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/d8f4be58b2cf65cae9caf90ebd77c8de9ae3ea51/0_0_5000_3334/1000.jpg\")
\n “We’ve got a bipartisan delegation here, Republicans and Democrats from the House, folks from the administration are here,” he said.
\n“We got a lot of problems our country is trying to solve right now, and I think a bunch of them are self-inflicted , but this is a place that we all can often come together and unite around a common goal. That’s hard but it’s doable.
\n“It’s a victory for our space program, which I view as, and I might be a little biased, a victory for our country.”
\nMichael Haridopolos, a Florida Republican congressman and chair of the House space and aeronautics subcommittee, also espoused the across-the-aisle collaboration that has helped fund Nasa’s renaissance, from an almost rudderless agency at the termination of the 30-year space shuttle program in 2011, to a forward-looking body once again in the business of launching human beings to the moon.
\n“If you think about it, just a little over 10 years ago we didn’t know what the future of space might be, with the end of the shuttle program,” he said.
\n“To see the turnaround that we’ve seen has been remarkable. I couldn’t be happier with the progress we’ve made, and to see all of this hard work and this incredible teamwork come to fruition. I mean, it’s just an amazing time.”
\nIsaacman has spoken of Artemis II frequently as “the opening act” of Nasa’s ambitious, next-generation plans to get back to the moon, then reach Mars. Last month he unveiled “ignition”, the agency’s blueprint that includes dumping construction of the Lunar Gateway orbiting outpost and building the first permanent moonbase.
\nIt followed a top-to-toe restructuring of the Artemis program the month before, in which a crewed landing was moved to Artemis IV, and a new mission introduced next year intended to test lunar landers from the private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin.
\n![\"a](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/8e492cc3fd48069c4efd48df5943714f1413c0e4/0_0_5571_3714/1000.jpg\")
\n For the remaining days of the Artemis II mission, the crew and mission managers will concentrate on evaluating Orion and its life preservation and other systems for future flights and, on flight day six, pass within 6,000 miles of the moon’s surface after traveling farther into space – almost 253,000 miles from Earth – than any humans before them.
\nWednesday, however, was a day to celebrate the breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and long-awaited spectacle of a rocket blasting off for the moon with astronauts onboard, something anybody under the age of about 60 can have no meaningful recollection of.
\nNasa, Isaacman said, achieved it “after a brief, 54-year intermission”.
\nLike the Apollo missions of old, the administrator said, the new age of Artemis will similarly inspire a new generation of enthusiasts.
\n“That was something, huh?” he said of the launch. “You’re gonna have more kids dress up as astronauts for Halloween. And you know, captivating the world’s interest in America’s return to the moon? You tell me.
\n“I felt going into it that a lot of people would be paying attention. I suspect when some imagery starts to come back from the moon, that’s going to further bring people into the story.”
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\nFour astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are on their way to the moon after lifting off at 6.35pm from launchpad 39B.
\nTheir 10-day lunar flyby is the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. No other humans have traveled beyond lower Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
\nArtemis II is a test flight designed to evaluate the Orion crew capsule and essential life support and medical systems ahead of future Artemis missions, including the next moon landing scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028.
\nThank you for following the launch with us, and stick with us for news of the mission and coverage of the Artemis II crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in 10 days’ time.
","cleanBody":"We’re closing our live blog of the launch of Artemis II now after watching the space rocket’s spectacular launch into a clear blue Florida sky from the Kennedy Space Center. Four astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are on their way to the moon after lifting off at 6.35pm from launchpad 39B. Their 10-day lunar flyby is the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. No other humans have traveled beyond lower Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Artemis II is a test flight designed to evaluate the Orion crew capsule and essential life support and medical systems ahead of future Artemis missions, including the next moon landing scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028. Thank you for following the launch with us, and stick with us for news of the mission and coverage of the Artemis II crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in 10 days’ time.","postType":"summary","contributors":[]},"blocks":[{"id":"block-69cda7ce8f08e0e61fbf6281","title":"Closing summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:41:53Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:45:26Z","body":"We’re closing our live blog of the launch of Artemis II now after watching the space rocket’s spectacular launch into a clear blue Florida sky from the Kennedy Space Center.
\nFour astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are on their way to the moon after lifting off at 6.35pm from launchpad 39B.
\nTheir 10-day lunar flyby is the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. No other humans have traveled beyond lower Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
\nArtemis II is a test flight designed to evaluate the Orion crew capsule and essential life support and medical systems ahead of future Artemis missions, including the next moon landing scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028.
\nThank you for following the launch with us, and stick with us for news of the mission and coverage of the Artemis II crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in 10 days’ time.
","cleanBody":"We’re closing our live blog of the launch of Artemis II now after watching the space rocket’s spectacular launch into a clear blue Florida sky from the Kennedy Space Center. Four astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are on their way to the moon after lifting off at 6.35pm from launchpad 39B. Their 10-day lunar flyby is the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. No other humans have traveled beyond lower Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Artemis II is a test flight designed to evaluate the Orion crew capsule and essential life support and medical systems ahead of future Artemis missions, including the next moon landing scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028. Thank you for following the launch with us, and stick with us for news of the mission and coverage of the Artemis II crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in 10 days’ time.","postType":"summary","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cda4838f08e7b812c98ae2","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:22:08Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:36:00Z","body":"Here’s a look at some of the earthlings who gathered near Cape Canaveral to watch the Artemis II crew begin their historic lunar commute on this Florida evening.
\n![\"People](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/ca70c8805a811a0037ded1c947f47ccfb46a43e3/91_0_4500_3600/1000.jpg\")
\n ![\"Spectators](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/66d9f3cb80c0dd0085aceaf67f9b387d123b50d9/156_0_2656_2125/1000.jpg\")
\n ![\"Nasa’s](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/593bbd006155cfa82abbd9a553c8fcbaa140eaaa/618_0_3685_2948/1000.jpg\")
\n ![\"A](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/754fe0aa8018950f346af58a1a1bce8c54f644fb/0_0_2313_1851/1000.jpg\")
\n ![\"People](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/a0883c7db351ab26cc14ed26c73b07f05c46916a/275_0_3040_2432/1000.jpg\")
\n Premium viewing spots for tonight’s spectacular launch filled up fast.
\nOfficials in Florida’s space coast cities, including Cape Canaveral, Titusville, and Cocoa Beach, said they were expecting up to 400,000 spectators to fill beaches and causeways.
\nAs early as first light, shortly before 7am on Wednesday, dozens of cars were already parked along the waterfront in Titusville, which bills itself as “the gateway to space and nature”.
\n![\"Spectators](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/c9e2981d0ed5e61c545067cb397357dadd634269/0_0_6810_4540/1000.jpg\")
\n The city has a direct view across the Indian river to launchpad 39B, and the crowds there are a reminder of the Apollo era of the 1960s and 70s when millions packed in to watch the first moon missions.
\n“There’s three entry ways to the Kennedy Space Center and two of them go through the city,” Andrew Connors, the mayor of Titusville, told me in an interview last week.
\nAn influx of hundreds of thousands for Artemis II will bring a welcome financial windfall, but Connors is also a little apprehensive.
\n“It’s pretty crazy to think about it because we’re a city of 51,000,” he said.
\n“All the bridges fill up really quickly and I’m sure the main route through will be a parking lot, but our police have been doing this a lot of times. It’s something really special.”
\nRead more from the Titusville mayor, and other space coast figures, here:
\n","cleanBody":"Premium viewing spots for tonight’s spectacular launch filled up fast. Officials in Florida’s space coast cities, including Cape Canaveral, Titusville, and Cocoa Beach, said they were expecting up to 400,000 spectators to fill beaches and causeways. As early as first light, shortly before 7am on Wednesday, dozens of cars were already parked along the waterfront in Titusville, which bills itself as “the gateway to space and nature”.\nThe city has a direct view across the Indian river to launchpad 39B, and the crowds there are a reminder of the Apollo era of the 1960s and 70s when millions packed in to watch the first moon missions. “There’s three entry ways to the Kennedy Space Center and two of them go through the city,” Andrew Connors, the mayor of Titusville, told me in an interview last week. An influx of hundreds of thousands for Artemis II will bring a welcome financial windfall, but Connors is also a little apprehensive. “It’s pretty crazy to think about it because we’re a city of 51,000,” he said. “All the bridges fill up really quickly and I’m sure the main route through will be a parking lot, but our police have been doing this a lot of times. It’s something really special.” Read more from the Titusville mayor, and other space coast figures, here:","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cda4258f08e7b812c98ad9","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:07:28Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:07:26Z","body":"With Orion now orbiting Earth, a little more than half an hour into flight after a spectacular and flawless lift-off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, mission managers on the ground are assessing data.
\nFlight controllers in Houston have confirmed that all four solar arrays were deployed successfully.
\nNasa leaders, no doubt beaming with pride, will conduct a post-launch press conference scheduled for 9pm ET. Our blog will have closed by then, but the Guardian will continue to bring you news as the rest of the 10-day Artemis II mission unfolds.
","cleanBody":"With Orion now orbiting Earth, a little more than half an hour into flight after a spectacular and flawless lift-off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, mission managers on the ground are assessing data. Flight controllers in Houston have confirmed that all four solar arrays were deployed successfully. Nasa leaders, no doubt beaming with pride, will conduct a post-launch press conference scheduled for 9pm ET. Our blog will have closed by then, but the Guardian will continue to bring you news as the rest of the 10-day Artemis II mission unfolds.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd94748f08e0e61fbf61fe","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:55:31Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:55:31Z","body":"Jared Isaacman, the Nasa administrator, spoke about the Artemis II launch on Nasa TV.
\n“It’s the opening act, the test mission,” for the Orion spacecraft, he said.
\n“No humans have ever flown on this. We’re putting it through its paces to make sure it’s OK. It’s going to set up subsequent missions [and] a golden age of science and discovery.”
\nIsaacman, a billionaire private astronaut and Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, who was confirmed earlier this year, was asked what his favorite moment of the mission would be.
\n“After ignition, the moment I’m most excited for is splashdown,” he said.
\n“The takeaway is gaining extra comfort in the Orion spacecraft. It’s new territory for us. SLS plus Orion is everything. On this one we want to make sure we do this in as safe a way as we can.”
","cleanBody":"Jared Isaacman, the Nasa administrator, spoke about the Artemis II launch on Nasa TV. “It’s the opening act, the test mission,” for the Orion spacecraft, he said. “No humans have ever flown on this. We’re putting it through its paces to make sure it’s OK. It’s going to set up subsequent missions [and] a golden age of science and discovery.” Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut and Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, who was confirmed earlier this year, was asked what his favorite moment of the mission would be. “After ignition, the moment I’m most excited for is splashdown,” he said. “The takeaway is gaining extra comfort in the Orion spacecraft. It’s new territory for us. SLS plus Orion is everything. On this one we want to make sure we do this in as safe a way as we can.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cda0718f082fa268c5ca09","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:53:26Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:53:26Z","body":"Inside the Orion capsule, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen have raised their visors and are immediately commencing tasks to assess how the spacecraft handled the 17,500mph ascent to orbit.
\nDeployment of the solar array wings, which will provide Orion with continuous electrical power throughout its lunar journey, is about to begin.
","cleanBody":"Inside the Orion capsule, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen have raised their visors and are immediately commencing tasks to assess how the spacecraft handled the 17,500mph ascent to orbit. Deployment of the solar array wings, which will provide Orion with continuous electrical power throughout its lunar journey, is about to begin.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd9f798f082fa268c5ca04","title":"Artemis II enters Earth's orbit","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:46:38Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:50:32Z","body":"Artemis II is now in Earth’s orbit. The two solid rocket boosters of the Space Launch System have separated and are floating back down to the Atlantic for recovery.
\nThe spacecraft will orbit Earth until flight day two (Thursday) when the translunar injection burn will take place and sent it on the rest of its 240,000-mile journey to the moon.
","cleanBody":"Artemis II is now in Earth’s orbit. The two solid rocket boosters of the Space Launch System have separated and are floating back down to the Atlantic for recovery. The spacecraft will orbit Earth until flight day two (Thursday) when the translunar injection burn will take place and sent it on the rest of its 240,000-mile journey to the moon.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd9f168f082fa268c5c9fa","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:42:48Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:42:47Z","body":"What a thrill. Artemis II’s successful launch looked incredibly cool.
\n![\"NASA's](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/46d1daadf9fa4a1e710a7ab512b9d3f7ecc510c6/759_0_3941_3155/1000.jpg\")
\n Nasa launched Artemis II on a historic crewed mission to the moon.
\nThe 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. The mission includes the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon.
\nArtemis II’s Orion space capsule could fly them farther from Earth than any human being before them.
","cleanBody":"Nasa launched Artemis II on a historic crewed mission to the moon. The 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. The mission includes the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon. Artemis II’s Orion space capsule could fly them farther from Earth than any human being before them.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd996d8f08e7b812c98a96","title":"Go for launch! New time 6.35pm ET","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:26:07Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:26:07Z","body":"Polling of mission managers has concluded, officially known as the launch readiness check.
\nThe verdict is “launch teams are ready to proceed at this time”.
\nNow it’s the final poll conducted by launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. Things are good.
\nShe said:
\n\n\nReid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, on this historic mission you take the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation.
\nGood luck, God speed Artemis II. Let’s go.
\n
The countdown clock has resumed, lift-off in 10 minutes, at 6.35pm ET (11.35pm BST)
","cleanBody":"Polling of mission managers has concluded, officially known as the launch readiness check. The verdict is “launch teams are ready to proceed at this time”. Now it’s the final poll conducted by launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. Things are good. She said: Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, on this historic mission you take the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation. Good luck, God speed Artemis II. Let’s go. The countdown clock has resumed, lift-off in 10 minutes, at 6.35pm ET (11.35pm BST)","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]}],"keyEvents":[{"id":"block-69cd8e6d8f08e7b812c98a56","title":"Engineers evaluating battery issue","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T21:37:56Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T21:37:56Z","body":"Sigh. Another late technical issue has cropped up, this time a problem with one of two batteries we are led to believe has something to do with the launch abort system.
\nAs of now, it is not considered a constraint to launch. BUT… confusingly, it would be considered one within the last six minutes of the countdown, Nasa’s launch commentator Derrol Nail said.
\nApparently, one of two batteries is reporting a temperature “out of range”, but engineers don’t yet know if it’s an issue with the battery itself, or just a malfunctioning sensor.
\nAs before, mission managers are “troubleshooting the issue”, and we are awaiting an update.
\nIn better news, the weather forecast for the the opening of the launch window at 6.24pm ET has increased to 90% favorable (from 80% earlier).
\nAnd the hatch of the Orion crew capsule has finally been closed and sealed, and the closeout crew is making its way off the launchpad.
","cleanBody":"Sigh. Another late technical issue has cropped up, this time a problem with one of two batteries we are led to believe has something to do with the launch abort system. As of now, it is not considered a constraint to launch. BUT… confusingly, it would be considered one within the last six minutes of the countdown, Nasa’s launch commentator Derrol Nail said. Apparently, one of two batteries is reporting a temperature “out of range”, but engineers don’t yet know if it’s an issue with the battery itself, or just a malfunctioning sensor. As before, mission managers are “troubleshooting the issue”, and we are awaiting an update. In better news, the weather forecast for the the opening of the launch window at 6.24pm ET has increased to 90% favorable (from 80% earlier). And the hatch of the Orion crew capsule has finally been closed and sealed, and the closeout crew is making its way off the launchpad.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd95d28f082fa268c5c9b2","title":"Battery issue 'won't affect launch'","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:03:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:03:11Z","body":"A welcome battery update from Nasa’s Artemis II blog:
\n\n\nEngineers investigated a sensor on the launch abort system’s attitude control motor controller battery that showed a higher temperature than would be expected. It is believed to be an instrumentation issue and will not affect today’s launch.
\n
We are back on. Again.
","cleanBody":"A welcome battery update from Nasa’s Artemis II blog: Engineers investigated a sensor on the launch abort system’s attitude control motor controller battery that showed a higher temperature than would be expected. It is believed to be an instrumentation issue and will not affect today’s launch. We are back on. Again.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd98158f08e7b812c98a8f","title":"Launch delay!","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:16:58Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:16:58Z","body":"Mission managers have announced they are working a few issues that will delay tonight’s Artemis II launch from its original 6.24pm ET time.
\nLaunch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson says the recommendation is still to launch at some point, but we don’t yet know what new time might be provided.
","cleanBody":"Mission managers have announced they are working a few issues that will delay tonight’s Artemis II launch from its original 6.24pm ET time. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson says the recommendation is still to launch at some point, but we don’t yet know what new time might be provided.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd996d8f08e7b812c98a96","title":"Go for launch! New time 6.35pm ET","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:26:07Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:26:07Z","body":"Polling of mission managers has concluded, officially known as the launch readiness check.
\nThe verdict is “launch teams are ready to proceed at this time”.
\nNow it’s the final poll conducted by launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. Things are good.
\nShe said:
\n\n\nReid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, on this historic mission you take the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation.
\nGood luck, God speed Artemis II. Let’s go.
\n
The countdown clock has resumed, lift-off in 10 minutes, at 6.35pm ET (11.35pm BST)
","cleanBody":"Polling of mission managers has concluded, officially known as the launch readiness check. The verdict is “launch teams are ready to proceed at this time”. Now it’s the final poll conducted by launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. Things are good. She said: Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, on this historic mission you take the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation. Good luck, God speed Artemis II. Let’s go. The countdown clock has resumed, lift-off in 10 minutes, at 6.35pm ET (11.35pm BST)","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd9b478f08e0e61fbf6234","title":"Artemis II lifts off: four astronauts begin 10-day lunar mission","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:35:59Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:35:58Z","body":"Nasa launched Artemis II on a historic crewed mission to the moon.
\nThe 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. The mission includes the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon.
\nArtemis II’s Orion space capsule could fly them farther from Earth than any human being before them.
","cleanBody":"Nasa launched Artemis II on a historic crewed mission to the moon. The 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. The mission includes the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon. Artemis II’s Orion space capsule could fly them farther from Earth than any human being before them.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cd9f798f082fa268c5ca04","title":"Artemis II enters Earth's orbit","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:46:38Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T22:50:32Z","body":"Artemis II is now in Earth’s orbit. The two solid rocket boosters of the Space Launch System have separated and are floating back down to the Atlantic for recovery.
\nThe spacecraft will orbit Earth until flight day two (Thursday) when the translunar injection burn will take place and sent it on the rest of its 240,000-mile journey to the moon.
","cleanBody":"Artemis II is now in Earth’s orbit. The two solid rocket boosters of the Space Launch System have separated and are floating back down to the Atlantic for recovery. The spacecraft will orbit Earth until flight day two (Thursday) when the translunar injection burn will take place and sent it on the rest of its 240,000-mile journey to the moon.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cda7ce8f08e0e61fbf6281","title":"Closing summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:41:53Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T23:45:26Z","body":"We’re closing our live blog of the launch of Artemis II now after watching the space rocket’s spectacular launch into a clear blue Florida sky from the Kennedy Space Center.
\nFour astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are on their way to the moon after lifting off at 6.35pm from launchpad 39B.
\nTheir 10-day lunar flyby is the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. No other humans have traveled beyond lower Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
\nArtemis II is a test flight designed to evaluate the Orion crew capsule and essential life support and medical systems ahead of future Artemis missions, including the next moon landing scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028.
\nThank you for following the launch with us, and stick with us for news of the mission and coverage of the Artemis II crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in 10 days’ time.
","cleanBody":"We’re closing our live blog of the launch of Artemis II now after watching the space rocket’s spectacular launch into a clear blue Florida sky from the Kennedy Space Center. Four astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are on their way to the moon after lifting off at 6.35pm from launchpad 39B. Their 10-day lunar flyby is the first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. No other humans have traveled beyond lower Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Artemis II is a test flight designed to evaluate the Orion crew capsule and essential life support and medical systems ahead of future Artemis missions, including the next moon landing scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028. Thank you for following the launch with us, and stick with us for news of the mission and coverage of the Artemis II crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in 10 days’ time.","postType":"summary","contributors":[]}],"paginationLinks":{"older":"https://mobile.guardianapis.com/uk/items/science/live/2026/apr/01/artemis-ii-launch-nasa-orion-moon-trip-live-updates?date=2026-04-01T22%3A26%3A07Z&filter=older"}},"standFirst":"This live blog is now closed.
\nFull report – Nasa’s Artemis II rocket lifts off for historic moon mission
\nNasa’s moon rocket Artemis II launches on Wednesday evening, carrying astronauts to the moon for the first time in almost 54 years. The rocket is now orbiting Earth, and will continue to do so until Thursday, when the translunar injection burn will take place and send it on the rest of its 240,000-mile journey to the moon
","type":"youtube"}]},"trailText":"This live blog is now closed.","showQuotedHeadline":false,"showLiveIndicator":false,"sublinks":[],"mainImage":{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/46d1daadf9fa4a1e710a7ab512b9d3f7ecc510c6/759_0_3941_3155/master/3941.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=ba8a00d6be8199976d52e4b612bfe625","height":3155,"width":3941,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Joe Skipper/Reuters","altText":"NASA's Artemis II mission to fly by the moon lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.NASA's Artemis II mission to fly by the moon, comprising of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 1, 2026. REUTERS/Joe Skipper","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters"},"renderedItemProd":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2026/apr/01/artemis-ii-launch-nasa-orion-moon-trip-live-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemBeta":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2026/apr/01/artemis-ii-launch-nasa-orion-moon-trip-live-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemDebug":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2026/apr/01/artemis-ii-launch-nasa-orion-moon-trip-live-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"cardDesignType":"Article","correspondingTags":[],"type":"Article","importance":0},{"title":"Nasa’s Artemis II rocket lifts off for historic moon mission","rawTitle":"Nasa’s Artemis II rocket lifts off for historic moon mission","item":{"trailText":"Mass of spectators cheers dazzling Florida launch as astronauts head to moon for first time in almost 54 years","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4ytft","headerAtom":"5e783612-e4a3-477b-ba18-9ccf8c72a9d6","section":"Science","id":"science/2026/apr/01/nasa-rocket-moon-launch-artemis-ii","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e8d7a3e85d0a079893aa837cd04cd92fa0b95c54/397_0_3956_3167/master/3956.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=433ae10c60b2c10896a0d25a8711aa50","height":3167,"width":3956,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Joe Skipper/Reuters","altText":"Rocket lifts off from space center","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"headerEmbed":"Nasa’s moon rocket Artemis II launched on Wednesday evening, carrying astronauts to the moon for the first time in almost 54 years.
\nThe rocket is now orbiting Earth and will continue to do so until Thursday, when the translunar injection burn will take place and send it on the rest of its 240,000-mile journey to the moon. Inside the Orion capsule, the four astronauts onboard immediately began tasks to assess how the spacecraft handled the 17,500mph ascent to orbit.
\nFlight controllers in Houston confirmed that all four solar arrays, which will provide the spacecraft with continuous electrical power throughout its lunar journey, were deployed successfully.
\nThe launch marks the first time since the Apollo 17 mission of December 1972 that humans will have left lower Earth orbit.
\n“The nation, and the world, has been waiting a long time to do this again,” Reid Wiseman, a veteran Nasa astronaut and the Artemis II commander, told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday as the crew of three Americans and one Canadian arrived to enter quarantine ahead of launch.
\nTheir 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. Two of the crew, Nasa’s Christina Koch and Victor Glover, will become respectively the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon.
\n![\"People](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/203cf42deb3015cb44ab569dcb9cf29307467d6c/0_0_3131_1872/1000.jpg\")
\n The fourth crew member, the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, will become the first non-American to do the same.
\nCollectively, Artemis II’s Orion space capsule could fly them farther from Earth than any human being before them. The crew is expected to reach more than 4,600 miles (7,400km) beyond the far side of the moon on flight day six, and just short of 253,000 miles (407,000km) from home, breaking the April 1970 record of 248,655 miles (400,000 km) set by the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission.
\nBefore Donald Trump’s return to office, Nasa celebrated the diversity of Artemis crews on its website, but dropped the recognition last year – keeping with the president’s executive order that directed federal agencies to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices and language.
\nGlover, who is African American, and Koch were also cautious to downplay the significance of their status in pre-flight interviews.
\n“It’s not about celebrating any one individual,” Koch said during the crew’s final media briefing on Monday.
\n“If there’s something to celebrate it’s that we are at a time when anyone who has a dream gets to work equally hard to achieve that dream. If we’re not going for all and by all, we’re not truly answering all of humanity’s call to explore.”
\nGlover was equally circumspect. “I live in this dichotomy between happiness that a young woman can look at Christina and just physicalize her passion or her interests … that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go, ‘Hey, he looks like me, and he’s doing what?’ And that’s great. I love that,” he said.
\n![\"People](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/3fae3a61b548e94d00c6bd722981fddfac83d566/0_0_4595_3063/1000.jpg\")
\n “But I also hope we are pushing the other direction, that one day we don’t have to talk about these firsts, that one day this is human history, the story of humanity, not Black history, not women’s history.”
\nPolitics aside, Nasa is keen for Artemis II’s lunar flyby to succeed as a foundation stone for ambitious plans announced last month by the space agency’s newly confirmed administrator Jared Isaacman for a $20bn (£15bn) moon base by the end of the decade.
\nA key part of this mission is to photograph, from a height of 4,000 to 6,000 miles, areas of the moon’s south pole where the next human landing and the eventual lunar base are planned.
\nThe long journey also gives the astronauts time to test crucial hardware and life-support systems that will be needed for the program’s future flights, including Artemis IV, the historic crewed mission scheduled for 2028 that will finally place human footprints back on the lunar surface.
\nThe Artemis II astronauts will have their health monitored at every stage, including a study of the effects of increased radiation and microgravity. They must live together in the confines of the five-meter diameter of the capsule, which has an interior volume the size of a small camper van, until splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at the end of their 685,000-mile odyssey.
\n“Like clicking a pen cap can annoy somebody over 10 days in a small capsule,” said Wiseman, who has spent almost every day with his crew since their selection in April 2023.
\n“We have got a great dialogue together, and we talk through those sorts of things, but there are definitely going to be things by day six, seven, eight, nine that we’re like, ‘Man, all right, I need a little space, and I can’t get any right now.’ But we are a good crew.”
\n![\"the](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/ad62867a45d30b6bcacd5eb31561da095940d3bc/0_0_3415_2457/1000.jpg\")
\n This week at Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach, already busy with spring breakers, excitement for the launch was apparent, and hotel rooms were in short supply. Up to 400,000 people packed on beaches and causeways on Florida’s Space Coast to witness the fiery spectacle.
\nIt was a feeling matched inside the Kennedy Space Center, where engineers and mission managers have been planning for years the next steps in the Artemis program. It was intended to provide a human moon landing at the beginning of the decade, but is running years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
\n“Nasa was established to undertake big, bold endeavors in air and space, to undertake the near impossible,” Isaacman told reporters earlier this year.
\n“The next up is America’s return to the lunar environment. What we learn from that mission is going to help enable America’s return to the lunar surface. When we arrive to the moon, we’re there to stay.”
","standFirst":"Mass of spectators cheers dazzling Florida launch as astronauts head to moon for first time in almost 54 years
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\nThe move was unprecedented and likely unconstitutional, according to experts. The Brennan Center said in response, “He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result.”
\nSeveral states and Democratic officials criticized the order, describing it as an illegal attack that amounted to voter suppression ahead of the midterms, and said they will take legal action to stop the president, including California.
\nTrump continued to fume over today’s ruling from a US judge that halted the construction of his $400m White House ballroom, and sharply criticized the decision during a press briefing and on social media.
\nPete Hegseth lifted the suspension of the crew of the military helicopters that hovered near the home of singer Kid Rock, and said there would be no investigation.
\nDonald Trump will provide an “important update” on the war in Iran during an address to the nation on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
\nDonald Trump signed an executive order seeking to restrict mail-in voting across the US with a series of new requirements, including the establishment of a national voter list.
\nThe move was unprecedented and likely unconstitutional, according to experts. The Brennan Center said in response, “He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result.”
\nSeveral states and Democratic officials criticized the order, describing it as an illegal attack that amounted to voter suppression ahead of the midterms, and said they will take legal action to stop the president, including California.
\nTrump continued to fume over today’s ruling from a US judge that halted the construction of his $400m White House ballroom, and sharply criticized the decision during a press briefing and on social media.
\nPete Hegseth lifted the suspension of the crew of the military helicopters that hovered near the home of singer Kid Rock, and said there would be no investigation.
\nDonald Trump will provide an “important update” on the war in Iran during an address to the nation on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
\nDonald Trump is set to provide an “important update” on the war in Iran during an address to the nation on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
\nThe president spoke about the conflict during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters that the US could end its attacks on Iran within weeks. Earlier in the day, he also made comments online critical of European countries that did not join the war, stating that they should buy oil from the US or “go get your own oil” from the Gulf.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump is set to provide an “important update” on the war in Iran during an address to the nation on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The president spoke about the conflict during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters that the US could end its attacks on Iran within weeks. Earlier in the day, he also made comments online critical of European countries that did not join the war, stating that they should buy oil from the US or “go get your own oil” from the Gulf.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc65798f08d1f29e6d46d3","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T00:41:08Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T00:41:08Z","body":"How common is voting by mail – and how rare is fraud?
\nVoting by mail is popular across the US, utilized by tens of millions of Americans, including Donald Trump himself. Despite his years-long vendetta against the method, and threats to eliminate it entirely, he voted by mail in a special election in Florida earlier this month.
\nAlmost a third Americans voted by mail in 2024, according to States United Democracy Center. While people of all demographics in rural, suburban and urban areas vote by mail, the center notes, it was particularly popular among white voters, older voters and US military members.
\nTrump and other Republicans have for years promoted falsehoods about the security of US elections, and argued that voting by mail has led to rampant fraud and “cheating”. Mail voting fraud is exceedingly rare, data shows. According to a report from the Brookings Institute, such cases account for 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast which amounts to roughly four cases out of every 10 million votes.
","cleanBody":"How common is voting by mail – and how rare is fraud? Voting by mail is popular across the US, utilized by tens of millions of Americans, including Donald Trump himself. Despite his years-long vendetta against the method, and threats to eliminate it entirely, he voted by mail in a special election in Florida earlier this month. Almost a third Americans voted by mail in 2024, according to States United Democracy Center. While people of all demographics in rural, suburban and urban areas vote by mail, the center notes, it was particularly popular among white voters, older voters and US military members. Trump and other Republicans have for years promoted falsehoods about the security of US elections, and argued that voting by mail has led to rampant fraud and “cheating”. Mail voting fraud is exceedingly rare, data shows. According to a report from the Brookings Institute, such cases account for 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast which amounts to roughly four cases out of every 10 million votes.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc63ae8f08d1f29e6d46ca","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T00:22:39Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T00:22:38Z","body":"Officials in California have said they also plan to sue over Donald Trump’s new executive order restricting mail-in voting.
\n“We’re challenging it,” Governor Gavin Newsom said. “See you in court.”
\nThe state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, described it as a “dangerous and unprecedented escalation in his ongoing attacks on our elections”.
\n“The power to regulate elections belongs to the States and to Congress – he has no role to play. We blocked his previous Executive Order on elections in court, and we are prepared to stop him again,” Bonta said, adding that Trump and Republicans are likely to lose in the midterms and are seeking to make it more difficult to vote.
\nThe state has filed more than 50 lawsuits against the administration since Trump’s second term began.
","cleanBody":"Officials in California have said they also plan to sue over Donald Trump’s new executive order restricting mail-in voting. “We’re challenging it,” Governor Gavin Newsom said. “See you in court.” The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, described it as a “dangerous and unprecedented escalation in his ongoing attacks on our elections”. “The power to regulate elections belongs to the States and to Congress – he has no role to play. We blocked his previous Executive Order on elections in court, and we are prepared to stop him again,” Bonta said, adding that Trump and Republicans are likely to lose in the midterms and are seeking to make it more difficult to vote. The state has filed more than 50 lawsuits against the administration since Trump’s second term began.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc5dc18f08bf2ab1d0d99c","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T00:04:50Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T00:04:50Z","body":"What exactly does Trump’s new executive order set out to do?
\nThe action, which the president has framed as an effort to enhance “election integrity”, directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create a national voter list and share that with states.
\nIt also directs the postmaster general to require all mail-in and absentee ballots to be placed in “secure ballot envelopes” with official markings, and the postal service to send mail-in ballots only to those on the list, and orders the attorney general to withhold federal funds from “noncompliant” states and cities. Under the order, the attorney general is also supposed to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of election officials and others who distribute federal ballots to ineligible voters.
\nVoting rights advocates and Democrats, however, say the order is an unlawful voter suppression effort intended to limit voting ahead of the midterms.
\n“Trump’s attack on vote by mail isn’t about integrity – quite the opposite. He knows vote by mail protects against all the well-known Election Day voter suppression tactics,” said Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, which conducts elections entirely by mail.
\n“This is all part of his effort to rig the upcoming November election. We can’t let him succeed. Save our Republic!”
","cleanBody":"What exactly does Trump’s new executive order set out to do? The action, which the president has framed as an effort to enhance “election integrity”, directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create a national voter list and share that with states. It also directs the postmaster general to require all mail-in and absentee ballots to be placed in “secure ballot envelopes” with official markings, and the postal service to send mail-in ballots only to those on the list, and orders the attorney general to withhold federal funds from “noncompliant” states and cities. Under the order, the attorney general is also supposed to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of election officials and others who distribute federal ballots to ineligible voters. Voting rights advocates and Democrats, however, say the order is an unlawful voter suppression effort intended to limit voting ahead of the midterms. “Trump’s attack on vote by mail isn’t about integrity – quite the opposite. He knows vote by mail protects against all the well-known Election Day voter suppression tactics,” said Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, which conducts elections entirely by mail. “This is all part of his effort to rig the upcoming November election. We can’t let him succeed. Save our Republic!”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc571a8f08d1f29e6d468f","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T23:25:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T23:25:31Z","body":"Shortly after the army announced it would suspend the crew of the military helicopters that hovered near the home of singer Kid Rock, defense secretary Pete Hegseth said he would lift the suspension.
\n“No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots,” Hegseth wrote online.
","cleanBody":"Shortly after the army announced it would suspend the crew of the military helicopters that hovered near the home of singer Kid Rock, defense secretary Pete Hegseth said he would lift the suspension. “No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots,” Hegseth wrote online.","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc547f8f08bf2ab1d0d96c","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T23:18:39Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T23:19:47Z","body":"Does Donald Trump actually have the authority to restrict mail-in voting?
\nExperts have spoken about today’s executive order, which would create a national voter registry and restrict the use of mail-in ballots, in no uncertain terms, describing it as unconstitutional and unlikely to stand up to legal challenges.
\nThe president does not have legal authority over elections and mail-in voting. The US constitution permits states to set their own rules around elections. Only Congress can enact changes to US policy on federal elections. And federal courts blocked a previous order from Trump that sought to enact citizenship requirements on federal voter registration documents.
\nMultiple voting rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have already spoken against today’s order.
\n“The president has signed an executive order on mail voting. He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result,” the Brennan Center said.
\n“Our government’s citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate. The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck.”
","cleanBody":"Does Donald Trump actually have the authority to restrict mail-in voting? Experts have spoken about today’s executive order, which would create a national voter registry and restrict the use of mail-in ballots, in no uncertain terms, describing it as unconstitutional and unlikely to stand up to legal challenges. The president does not have legal authority over elections and mail-in voting. The US constitution permits states to set their own rules around elections. Only Congress can enact changes to US policy on federal elections. And federal courts blocked a previous order from Trump that sought to enact citizenship requirements on federal voter registration documents. Multiple voting rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have already spoken against today’s order. “The president has signed an executive order on mail voting. He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result,” the Brennan Center said. “Our government’s citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate. The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc4f688f08bf2ab1d0d944","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:54:54Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:54:54Z","body":"The president, meanwhile, continues to fume over today’s ruling from a US judge that halted the construction of his $400m White House ballroom.
\nHe spoke about the matter during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters in the Oval Office: “We built many things at the White House over the years. They don’t get congressional approval”.
\nAn hour later he posted online that the judge in the case wrong.
\n“Congressional approval has never been given on anything, in these circumstances, big or small, having to do with construction at the White House. In this case, even less so, because the Ballroom is being built with Private Donations, no Federal Taxpayer Money!”
","cleanBody":"The president, meanwhile, continues to fume over today’s ruling from a US judge that halted the construction of his $400m White House ballroom. He spoke about the matter during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters in the Oval Office: “We built many things at the White House over the years. They don’t get congressional approval”. An hour later he posted online that the judge in the case wrong. “Congressional approval has never been given on anything, in these circumstances, big or small, having to do with construction at the White House. In this case, even less so, because the Ballroom is being built with Private Donations, no Federal Taxpayer Money!”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc4d678f08bf2ab1d0d93a","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:47:51Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:47:51Z","body":"Officials in Oregon and Arizona are already warning they will challenge Trump’s new executive order on elections, arguing it amounts to an “illegal attack”.
\n“Only citizens vote in Arizona elections. That’s the law and we’ll continue to enforce it. We don’t need Washington politicians telling us how to run our elections,” wrote Arizona governor Katie Hobbs. “This Executive Order is nothing more than an illegal attack on vote by mail and access to the ballot box.”
\nRon Wyden, Oregon’s senator, said voters in his state have successfully used vote by mail for more than three decades.
\n“We’ll be damned if we let Donald Trump change the way our state runs its elections. My message to the White House is this: if you come for Oregon’s vote-by-mail, you’ll have hell to pay.”
\nTobias Read, the Democratic secretary of state in Oregon, which votes entirely by mail, also threatened legal action. “My message to the President: We’ll see you in court.”
","cleanBody":"Officials in Oregon and Arizona are already warning they will challenge Trump’s new executive order on elections, arguing it amounts to an “illegal attack”. “Only citizens vote in Arizona elections. That’s the law and we’ll continue to enforce it. We don’t need Washington politicians telling us how to run our elections,” wrote Arizona governor Katie Hobbs. “This Executive Order is nothing more than an illegal attack on vote by mail and access to the ballot box.” Ron Wyden, Oregon’s senator, said voters in his state have successfully used vote by mail for more than three decades. “We’ll be damned if we let Donald Trump change the way our state runs its elections. My message to the White House is this: if you come for Oregon’s vote-by-mail, you’ll have hell to pay.” Tobias Read, the Democratic secretary of state in Oregon, which votes entirely by mail, also threatened legal action. “My message to the President: We’ll see you in court.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc49478f08bf2ab1d0d910","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:28:27Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:28:26Z","body":"During the press conference where Trump signed his order on voting, the president also waded into the recent controversy regarding one of his famous supporters, Kid Rock.
\nThe army announced this week it had opened an investigation after two military helicopters on a training run hovered near the singer’s Nashville home as the singer offered a salute. Trump said he hadn’t seen the video, but that he would look into the incident.
\n“I’m sure they had a good time,” the president said. “Well, they probably shouldn’t have been doing it, you’re not supposed to play games, right? But they like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock. Maybe they were trying to defend him.”
","cleanBody":"During the press conference where Trump signed his order on voting, the president also waded into the recent controversy regarding one of his famous supporters, Kid Rock. The army announced this week it had opened an investigation after two military helicopters on a training run hovered near the singer’s Nashville home as the singer offered a salute. Trump said he hadn’t seen the video, but that he would look into the incident. “I’m sure they had a good time,” the president said. “Well, they probably shouldn’t have been doing it, you’re not supposed to play games, right? But they like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock. Maybe they were trying to defend him.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]}],"keyEvents":[{"id":"block-69cc1e038f0877c4498e3ff0","title":"Federal judge blocks construction of Trump's sweeping ballroom project","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T19:32:19Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T19:32:18Z","body":"A federal judge in Washington DC has blocked the construction of Donald Trump’s sweeping $400m White House ballroom project. In his ruling, district court judge Richard Leon said that project would be on hold until the administration receives approval from Congress to continue.
\n“It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project,” Leon wrote in his opinon. “The President may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds. Indeed, Congress may even choose to appropriate funds for the ballroom, or at least decide that some other funding scheme is acceptable. Either way, Congress will thereby retain its authority over the nation’s property and its oversight over the Government’s spending.”
\nThe president began demolishing the East Wing of the White House in October, to make way for the new construction. In response, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) launched a lawsuit against the project.
\nA reminder that Trump also fired all six members of the independent US Commission of Fine Arts responsible for reviewing the ballroom plan, and replaced them with handpicked designees who gave their unanimous consent last month.
\nThe president has frequently bragged about the project as a hallmark of his legacy, and branded it as a much-needed improvement for the White House.
","cleanBody":"A federal judge in Washington DC has blocked the construction of Donald Trump’s sweeping $400m White House ballroom project. In his ruling, district court judge Richard Leon said that project would be on hold until the administration receives approval from Congress to continue. “It is not too late for Congress to authorize the continued construction of the ballroom project,” Leon wrote in his opinon. “The President may at any time go to Congress to obtain express authority to construct a ballroom and to do so with private funds. Indeed, Congress may even choose to appropriate funds for the ballroom, or at least decide that some other funding scheme is acceptable. Either way, Congress will thereby retain its authority over the nation’s property and its oversight over the Government’s spending.” The president began demolishing the East Wing of the White House in October, to make way for the new construction. In response, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) launched a lawsuit against the project. A reminder that Trump also fired all six members of the independent US Commission of Fine Arts responsible for reviewing the ballroom plan, and replaced them with handpicked designees who gave their unanimous consent last month. The president has frequently bragged about the project as a hallmark of his legacy, and branded it as a much-needed improvement for the White House.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc21878f08bf2ab1d0d7a8","title":"Trump lambasts ruling that halts construction of ballroom project","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T19:52:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T19:53:37Z","body":"The president has railed against a federal judge’s ruling today that blocks construction of his prized White House ballroom project.
\nDonald Trump targeted the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), who filed the initial lawsuit against the administration, and claimed the $400m ballroom is “under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the taxpayer,” and – he added– “will be the finest building of its kind anywhere in the world”.
\nHe also pointed to the fact that NTHP also sued Trump for his planned renovations of the Kennedy Center, which will result in the performing arts venue closing for two years.
\nOn Truth Social, Trump claimed that he is “fixing, cleaning, running, and ‘sprucing up’ a terribly maintained” building. He also lobbed a familiar insult at the preservation group, and called them a “radical left group of lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005”.
\nTrump also claimed that NTHP launched a politically motivated lawsuit against the president by not suing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell over the ongoing renovations to the central bank. A project which the president used as grounds to prosecute Powell – who he frequently targets in person and on social media – to little avail.
\nIn response to today’s ruling, Trump added:
\n\n","cleanBody":"The president has railed against a federal judge’s ruling today that blocks construction of his prized White House ballroom project. Donald Trump targeted the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), who filed the initial lawsuit against the administration, and claimed the $400m ballroom is “under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the taxpayer,” and – he added– “will be the finest building of its kind anywhere in the world”. He also pointed to the fact that NTHP also sued Trump for his planned renovations of the Kennedy Center, which will result in the performing arts venue closing for two years. On Truth Social, Trump claimed that he is “fixing, cleaning, running, and ‘sprucing up’ a terribly maintained” building. He also lobbed a familiar insult at the preservation group, and called them a “radical left group of lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005”. Trump also claimed that NTHP launched a politically motivated lawsuit against the president by not suing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell over the ongoing renovations to the central bank. A project which the president used as grounds to prosecute Powell – who he frequently targets in person and on social media – to little avail. In response to today’s ruling, Trump added: So, the White House Ballroom, and The Trump Kennedy Center, which are under budget, ahead of schedule, and will be among the most magnificent Buildings of their kind anywhere in the World, gets sued by a group that was cut off by Government years ago, but all of the many DISASTERS in our Country are left alone to die. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc2ef38f08d1f29e6d44ff","title":"US aware of reports of journalist kidnapped in Baghdad and liaising with FBI","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T20:31:53Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T20:31:52Z","body":"So, the White House Ballroom, and The Trump Kennedy Center, which are under budget, ahead of schedule, and will be among the most magnificent Buildings of their kind anywhere in the World, gets sued by a group that was cut off by Government years ago, but all of the many DISASTERS in our Country are left alone to die. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
\n
The US state department has said it is aware of reports that a US journalist has been kidnapped in Baghdad and it is liaising with the FBI.
\nIn a post on X, the department’s assistant secretary for global public affairs, Dylan Johnson, said:
\n\n","cleanBody":"The US state department has said it is aware of reports that a US journalist has been kidnapped in Baghdad and it is liaising with the FBI. In a post on X, the department’s assistant secretary for global public affairs, Dylan Johnson, said: The US Department of State is aware of the reported kidnapping of an American journalist in Baghdad, Iraq. The State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible. An individual with ties to the Iranian-aligned militia group Kataib Hizballah believed to be involved in the kidnapping has been taken into custody by Iraqi authorities. Iraq remains at a Level 4 Travel Advisory and Americans are advised not to travel to Iraq for any reason and to leave Iraq now. The State Department strongly advise all Americans, including members of the press, to adhere to all travel advisories.","postType":"key-event","contributors":["lucy-campbell"]},{"id":"block-69cc38258f0877c4498e40dd","title":"Trump signs executive order to limit mail-in voting","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T21:47:04Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:16:47Z","body":"The US Department of State is aware of the reported kidnapping of an American journalist in Baghdad, Iraq.
\nThe State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible.
\nAn individual with ties to the Iranian-aligned militia group Kataib Hizballah believed to be involved in the kidnapping has been taken into custody by Iraqi authorities.
\nIraq remains at a Level 4 Travel Advisory and Americans are advised not to travel to Iraq for any reason and to leave Iraq now.
\nThe State Department strongly advise all Americans, including members of the press, to adhere to all travel advisories.
\n
Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order seeking to restrict mail-in voting across the US with a series of new requirements.
\nThe order directs his administration to establish a federal list of confirmed citizens that can legally vote in each state, and orders the postal service to send mail-in ballots only to those on the list. During a press conference at the White House, Trump said the administration would like to require voter ID and proof of citizenship, and repeated falsehoods about mail-in voting.
\nTrump has long attacked voting by mail and promoted misinformation about the practice, describing it as a scam that creates fraud in elections. Despite that, he has voted by mail himself, including in a recent special election in Florida.
\nThe president does not actually have legal authority over mail-in voting as states run their own elections and only Congress can enact changes to US policy on federal elections.
\nDemocrats were critical of the move and threatened prompt legal action with Chuck Schumer writing, “See you in court. You will lose.”
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order seeking to restrict mail-in voting across the US with a series of new requirements. The order directs his administration to establish a federal list of confirmed citizens that can legally vote in each state, and orders the postal service to send mail-in ballots only to those on the list. During a press conference at the White House, Trump said the administration would like to require voter ID and proof of citizenship, and repeated falsehoods about mail-in voting. Trump has long attacked voting by mail and promoted misinformation about the practice, describing it as a scam that creates fraud in elections. Despite that, he has voted by mail himself, including in a recent special election in Florida. The president does not actually have legal authority over mail-in voting as states run their own elections and only Congress can enact changes to US policy on federal elections. Democrats were critical of the move and threatened prompt legal action with Chuck Schumer writing, “See you in court. You will lose.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc462b8f08bf2ab1d0d8fd","title":"Legal expert: 'the president has no power over elections in the states'","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:13:57Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T22:16:30Z","body":"Trump’s new executive order follows a previous effort seeking to make significant changes to US elections, including requiring a documentary proof-of-citizenship to federal voter registration forms and requiring mail-in ballots to be received at election offices by election day at the latest.
\nThat order was subject to immediate challenges from voting rights groups and Democratic state attorneys general.
\nDavid Becker, a former Justice Department attorney with the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told the Associated Press that the president’s latest action indicates he hasn’t learned from his previous failed efforts to control elections.\n
\n
\n “The Constitution is very clear — the president has no power over elections in the states,” Becker said. “This will be blocked as soon as lawyers can get to the courthouse.”
Donald Trump’s new executive order is already facing sharp criticism from voting rights advocates and Democrats.
\nMarc Elias, an attorney and the founder of Democracy Docket, described the order as unconstitutional.
\n“This is a massive and unconstitutional voter suppression effort aimed at giving Trump the power to create a list of who is allowed to vote by mail,” Elias said in a social media post. “We know where this will go – the targeting of Democrats for mass disenfranchisement. We will sue and we will win.”
\nDemocratic senator Raphael Warnock said the order “will not stand”.
\n“The President’s attack on mail-in ballots is desperation plain and simple. It’s a panicked attempt to silence the people and salvage a failing presidency.”
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump’s new executive order is already facing sharp criticism from voting rights advocates and Democrats. Marc Elias, an attorney and the founder of Democracy Docket, described the order as unconstitutional. “This is a massive and unconstitutional voter suppression effort aimed at giving Trump the power to create a list of who is allowed to vote by mail,” Elias said in a social media post. “We know where this will go – the targeting of Democrats for mass disenfranchisement. We will sue and we will win.” Democratic senator Raphael Warnock said the order “will not stand”. “The President’s attack on mail-in ballots is desperation plain and simple. It’s a panicked attempt to silence the people and salvage a failing presidency.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cc741f8f08bf2ab1d0da20","title":"Summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-04-01T01:56:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-04-01T01:56:31Z","body":"Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to restrict mail-in voting across the US with a series of new requirements, including the establishment of a national voter list.
\nThe move was unprecedented and likely unconstitutional, according to experts. The Brennan Center said in response, “He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result.”
\nSeveral states and Democratic officials criticized the order, describing it as an illegal attack that amounted to voter suppression ahead of the midterms, and said they will take legal action to stop the president, including California.
\nTrump continued to fume over today’s ruling from a US judge that halted the construction of his $400m White House ballroom, and sharply criticized the decision during a press briefing and on social media.
\nPete Hegseth lifted the suspension of the crew of the military helicopters that hovered near the home of singer Kid Rock, and said there would be no investigation.
\nDonald Trump will provide an “important update” on the war in Iran during an address to the nation on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
\nThis live blog is now closed.
\nIn a city of respected art deco buildings, ridicule is being heaped on the latest structure proposed for Miami’s skyline: the Donald J Trump presidential library, unveiled in ambitious plans posted to social media on Monday night.
\nA 1 minute 40 second video tour of the proposed gargantuan structure revealed it will be decked, almost inevitably, in Trump’s trademark gold, including a giant statue of him, and will feature the $400m Boeing “flying palace” gifted to him by Qatar in its cavernous lobby.
\nIts 50 storeys will tower above any structure surrounding it, including the adjacent Miami Freedom Tower, a symbol of US rejection of oppression and tyranny for more than 100 years.
\n“This landmark on the water in Miami, Florida will stand as a lasting testament to an amazing man, an amazing developer, and the greatest President our Nation has ever known,” Eric Trump, the president’s son and the co-chair of the non-profit foundation seeking donations to build the library, gushed on social media.
\nThe release came on the same day that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a law renaming Palm Beach international airport, near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, to the President Donald J Trump international airport.
\nWhile many Trump supporters praised the video of the presidential library rendering in comments on social media, other posts were swift and more brutal.
\nThe press office of Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, posted photographs of giant shining effigies of other world leaders with the mocking words: “The gold statue in Trump’s new library (of himself) looks awfully familiar to a few others from around the world.”
\nThe author and media personality Rutger Bregman also seized on an AI-generated image of Trump’s statue on a stage in front of a large audience of supporters. “A golden statue in a temple where the faithful gather to worship their idol. But enough about the Book of Exodus – here’s Trump’s Presidential Library!” he wrote.
\nThe video was set entirely to music and gave no indication of a timeline for its construction after Trump is set to leave office in January 2029. But the valuable tract of waterfront land on which it will sit already belongs to Eric Trump’s foundation after it was gifted by Miami-Dade College (MDC) in a highly controversial transfer last year.
\nA federal judge initially blocked the transaction after opponents argued the college did not give enough advance notice for a public meeting at which the deal was approved, but the ruling was later overturned and college trustees voted again to cede the land to the state of Florida, which in turn handed it on to Eric Trump.
\n“It’s a land giveaway to the Trump Library Foundation,” Marvin Dunn, a local historian and retired MDC professor who brought the lawsuit, told CBS News at the time.
\n“Who is the Trump Library Foundation? Eric Trump, his wife, and some dude lawyer.”
\nPlans for the library also include an amphitheater, and re-creations of the Oval Office and the contentious new ballroom that Trump is building on the site of the demolished East Wing of the White House.
\n“Miami deserves this building,” Eric Trump told the Miami Herald in a statement. “It will be a masterpiece, the likes of which have never been seen in Florida or really anywhere.”
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4yhn7","section":"US news","id":"us-news/2026/mar/31/trump-presidential-library-plans-miami-ridicule","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/65af023c6c7e333ccb3ce1048d698512d2fa50e8/406_0_2641_1718/master/2641.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=08272f2b101326a1cc62c52fd286e2fb","height":1718,"width":2641,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"A page for the upcoming Trump presidential library in Florida. Photograph: Photograph: Donald J Trump Presidential Library","credit":"Donald J Trump Presidential Library","altText":"A page for the upcoming Trump presidential library in Florida.","cleanCaption":"A page for the upcoming Trump presidential library in Florida.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Donald J Trump Presidential Library"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Video posted on social media depicts a rendering of the proposed 50-storey gargantuan structure decked in gold
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\nThe service is presenting the unusual move as a security enhancement for family events over the next few days at the Parris Island Marine Corps recruiting depot in South Carolina.
\nFrom Wednesday, relatives will be able to visit the training base, and attend a formal graduation ceremony on Friday.
\nA message on the installation’s website cited “increased force protection measures” and said federal law enforcement personnel “will be present at installation access points to conduct enhanced screening and lawful immigration status inquiries during recruit family and graduation days”.
\nYet similar to the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to a number of US airports this week amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, their specific responsibilities and powers were not immediately apparent.
\nIn a statement to the Guardian, a homeland security spokesperson said the action was not intended to result in detentions.
\n“ICE will not be making arrests at the basic training graduation in Paris [sic] Island, SC,” the spokesperson said.
\nA spokesperson for the base told NBC News: “While the Marine Corps routinely coordinates with federal partners on security matters, this is the first time in recent memory that federal law enforcement agencies have supported base access operations at Parris Island in this capacity.
\n“To help ensure a smooth and timely process, guests should bring proper identification and limit the number of items they carry onto the installation.”
\nNeither statement specified how the federal immigration agents would integrate with existing base security, or if the deployment would be repeated at other military facilities hosting graduation events.
\nNew security measures were put in place at Parris Island, where marine recruits undergo an intense 13-week basic training program separated from their families, after the US joined Israel in military strikes on Iran last month.
\nThey require anybody seeking admission to the base to present a US passport, birth certificate or a Real-compliant identification issued only to those whose presence in the US has been verified as lawful.
\nParris Island, opened in 1915, is one of two Marine Corps recruiting bases in the US, covering the eastern half of the country, and the only one where female recruits are trained. The service said about 20,000 recruits pass through annually, and there is a rolling program of graduation events.
\nThe presence of immigration police at a US military base will raise suspicion that the Trump administration is ramping up its assault on service members and their families. The Guardian reported in October that growing numbers of US military veterans were being arrested for supporting anti-ICE protests.
\nThe same month, ICE reportedly detained the parents of a serving marine and deported the father after they attempted to visit their pregnant daughter and her husband, also a marine, at Camp Pendleton, California.
\nThe Marine Corps Times reported that Esteban Rios was arrested wearing a hat and shirt that both read: “Proud Dad of a US Marine”.
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"discussionId":"/p/x4yh72","section":"US news","id":"us-news/2026/mar/31/ice-agents-marine-corps-graduation","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/423f2fe5852bc2c760ec02a05056a9b47f939143/0_0_5065_3375/master/5065.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=cfcc39c380ce78e6f569b47d9a1ef829","height":3375,"width":5065,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"A car drives under a sign that states the sole purpose of the Marine Corps recruiting depot, in Parris Island, South Carolina. Photograph: Photograph: Stephen B Morton/AP","credit":"Stephen B Morton/AP","altText":"a car drives under a sign that reads 'we make marines'","cleanCaption":"A car drives under a sign that states the sole purpose of the Marine Corps recruiting depot, in Parris Island, South Carolina.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Stephen B Morton/AP"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Families fear undocumented relatives could be turned away or detained at recruit celebrations in South Carolina
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Parris Island, South Carolina. Photograph: Photograph: Stephen B Morton/AP","credit":"Stephen B Morton/AP","altText":"a car drives under a sign that reads 'we make marines'","cleanCaption":"A car drives under a sign that states the sole purpose of the Marine Corps recruiting depot, in Parris Island, South Carolina.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Stephen B Morton/AP"},"campaigns":[],"designType":"Article","palette":{"background":"#00000000","mediaIcon":"#00000000","pillar":"#C70000","main":"#C70000","secondary":"#FF4E36","headline":"#121212","commentCount":"#707070","metaText":"#707070","elementBackground":"#FF4E36","shadow":"#DCDCDC","immersiveKicker":"#FF4E36","topBorder":"#DCDCDC","mediaBackground":"#EDEDED","pill":"#EDEDED","accentColour":"#C70000","kickerText":"#C70000","kickerColours":{"plainKickerText":"#C70000","plainPill":"#EDEDED","liveKickerText":"#F6F6F6","livePill":"#C70000","featureKickerText":"#FFF4F2","featurePill":"#EDEDED","featureLiveKickerText":"#EDEDED","featureLivePill":"#AB0613"},"mediaPillBackground":"#121212","mediaPillForeground":"#FFFFFF","featureAccentColour":"#FFF4F2"},"atoms":[]},"trailText":"Families fear undocumented relatives could be turned away or detained at recruit celebrations in South Carolina","showQuotedHeadline":false,"showLiveIndicator":false,"sublinks":[],"mainImage":{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/423f2fe5852bc2c760ec02a05056a9b47f939143/549_0_4219_3375/master/4219.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=a0a67f14177b1038df7bc6f142a886ca","height":3375,"width":4219,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Stephen B Morton/AP","altText":"a car drives under a sign that reads 'we make marines'","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Stephen B Morton/AP"},"renderedItemProd":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/ice-agents-marine-corps-graduation?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemBeta":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/ice-agents-marine-corps-graduation?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemDebug":{"minBridgetVersion":"1.11.1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/ice-agents-marine-corps-graduation?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"cardDesignType":"Article","correspondingTags":[],"type":"Article","importance":0},{"title":"White House blames Democrats for record-breaking DHS shutdown after House Republicans reject Senate’s compromise bill – as it happened","rawTitle":"White House blames Democrats for record-breaking DHS shutdown after House Republicans reject Senate’s compromise bill – as it happened","item":{"trailText":"This live blog is now closed.","liveContent":{"liveBloggingNow":false,"summary":{"id":"block-69cad56b8f083204a736ad9d","title":"Here's a recap of the day so far","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T20:04:03Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:22:45Z","body":"Senate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected. This comes amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown that has lasted 45 days.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse, after both chambers of Congress remain at an impasse on passing a bill to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress is now on a scheduled two-week recess, and many members have left Washington for their districts. The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers are expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon. It’s the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nTalks over ending the record-breaking partial government shutdown remain at an impasse, as congress is on its scheduled two-week recess. TSA employees began to get some backpay on Monday, but their union said it’s not enough and is calling on lawmakers to return to Washington DC and end the shutdown.
\nHere’s what else happened today:
\nAllegations swirl that a broker for Pete Hegseth inquired into an investment in key defense companies before the Iran war began. The Morgan Stanley broker allegedly made an inquiry with BlackRock regarding an investment into a defense-focused equity fund. The Pentagon denied the allegations calling them “entirely false and fabricated”.
\nFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. This would make the airport the latest in a long list of institutions, government programs, buildings and even money named after the president.
\nThe US government has directed all of its embassies and consulates to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda. Marco Rubio signed a cable on Monday directing the embassies to coordinate with the US military’s psychological operations unit to address disinformation. It suggested using Elon Musk’s social media platform X to carry out the campaign.
\nJosé Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, becomes the 14th known person to die in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since the beginning of the year. He was found unconscious in his bunk last week at the Adelanto detention center in California and pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby medical center.
\nThe army is investigating a helicopter fly-by at Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee on Saturday. Two army choppers on a training run visited and hovered by the rocker’s house as he saluted them. According to the army, there was no official request for the fly-by, which triggered the administrative review.
\nA two-year-old detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement family detention center in Dilley, Texas, is said to be sick and not getting adequate help. Joaquin Castro, a democratic congressman from San Antonio, raised alarms on X on Monday saying that the boy has a fever and isn’t eating. He called on ICE to provide proper medical care to the child and release him and his month immediately.
\nSenate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers were expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon, and is the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The spike in the price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nCalifornia Congressman Ro Khanna requested a meeting with King Charles during his upcoming visit to the US. Khanna said he’d like to bring survivors of the late sex offender Jefferey Epstein to the meeting.
\n“As you are aware, this is not solely an American matter,” Khanna wrote in a letter to King Charles. “Epstein’s network had significant ties to the United Kingdom through Ghislaine Maxwell, through Epstein’s relationships with British public figures, and through the social and political circles in which he operated. These connections raise broader questions about how Epstein was able to maintain influence, credibility, and protection across borders for so long.”
\nKhanna is the co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has been active in advocating of behalf of Epstein’s victims and calling for the release of the files regarding the disgraced financier.
\nKing Charles is scheduled to visit the US the week of April 27th and is expected to address a joint meeting of Congress. King Charles’ younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to his ties to Epstein. Peter Mandelson, a former UK ambassador to the US, was also arrested in February on similar allegations.
\n“A meeting with survivors would provide an opportunity to identify any additional information British institutions and individuals may be able to share and open a dialogue about whether there will be a full accounting of how Epstein’s and Maxwell’s network operated in the United Kingdom,” Khanna wrote in his letter. “It would also ensure that survivors are heard directly and that these matters are addressed with transparency, seriousness, and accountability.”
","cleanBody":"California Congressman Ro Khanna requested a meeting with King Charles during his upcoming visit to the US. Khanna said he’d like to bring survivors of the late sex offender Jefferey Epstein to the meeting. “As you are aware, this is not solely an American matter,” Khanna wrote in a letter to King Charles. “Epstein’s network had significant ties to the United Kingdom through Ghislaine Maxwell, through Epstein’s relationships with British public figures, and through the social and political circles in which he operated. These connections raise broader questions about how Epstein was able to maintain influence, credibility, and protection across borders for so long.” Khanna is the co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has been active in advocating of behalf of Epstein’s victims and calling for the release of the files regarding the disgraced financier. King Charles is scheduled to visit the US the week of April 27th and is expected to address a joint meeting of Congress. King Charles’ younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to his ties to Epstein. Peter Mandelson, a former UK ambassador to the US, was also arrested in February on similar allegations. “A meeting with survivors would provide an opportunity to identify any additional information British institutions and individuals may be able to share and open a dialogue about whether there will be a full accounting of how Epstein’s and Maxwell’s network operated in the United Kingdom,” Khanna wrote in his letter. “It would also ensure that survivors are heard directly and that these matters are addressed with transparency, seriousness, and accountability.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb1bb48f08cbd9debe9391","title":"Florida to rename Palm Beach airport after Donald Trump","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:27Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:26Z","body":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
\nTrump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1.
\nThe Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president.
\nDeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Trump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1. The Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president. DeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb16d88f0887f60811aa5f","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:37:24Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:37:23Z","body":"The Pentagon is denying reports that a broker for Pete Hegseth looked into making investments in defense companies before the Iran war. Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon and assistant to Hegseth, said in a post on X that the allegations are “entirely false and fabricated”.
\n“Secretary Hegseth and the Department of War remain unwavering in their commitment to the highest standards of ethics and strict adherence to all applicable laws and regulations,” Parnell posted.
\nAccording to a report by the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter, a Morgan Stanley broker who worked for Hegseth contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF. The investment reportedly didn’t go through.
\nParnell said: “Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment. This is yet another baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the public.”
","cleanBody":"The Pentagon is denying reports that a broker for Pete Hegseth looked into making investments in defense companies before the Iran war. Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon and assistant to Hegseth, said in a post on X that the allegations are “entirely false and fabricated”. “Secretary Hegseth and the Department of War remain unwavering in their commitment to the highest standards of ethics and strict adherence to all applicable laws and regulations,” Parnell posted. According to a report by the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter, a Morgan Stanley broker who worked for Hegseth contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF. The investment reportedly didn’t go through. Parnell said: “Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment. This is yet another baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the public.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb11308f08cbd9debe9356","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:17:03Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:17:02Z","body":"The TSA workers union is calling on congress to end the shutdown and fund the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement on Monday, Hydrick Thomas, the union’s president, said TSA workers have been showing up to work for weeks despite not getting paid.
\n“We have performed our duty,” Thomas said. “Unfortunately, Congress has failed to perform theirs. To leave Washington while tens of thousands of workers are going without pay shows a clear lack of respect for the essential employees tasked with keeping our nation safe.”
\nCongress just started a two-week recess as the partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, sees no end in sight. The shutdown has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Late last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order for TSA agents to receive backpay for at least two paychecks.
\nThe American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) TSA Council 100 is the exclusive union for more than 45,000 TSA officers across the country. Thomas said that even with agents now getting some backpay, it’s still financially difficult.
\n“Many of our members have seen bills pile up, interest and late fees add up, cars repossessed, and families thrown into disarray because Congress has failed to do their jobs,” Thomas said. “Backpay alone does not fix those problems… To say we are utterly disgusted and disappointed with our elected officials is an understatement.”
","cleanBody":"The TSA workers union is calling on congress to end the shutdown and fund the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement on Monday, Hydrick Thomas, the union’s president, said TSA workers have been showing up to work for weeks despite not getting paid. “We have performed our duty,” Thomas said. “Unfortunately, Congress has failed to perform theirs. To leave Washington while tens of thousands of workers are going without pay shows a clear lack of respect for the essential employees tasked with keeping our nation safe.” Congress just started a two-week recess as the partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, sees no end in sight. The shutdown has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Late last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order for TSA agents to receive backpay for at least two paychecks. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) TSA Council 100 is the exclusive union for more than 45,000 TSA officers across the country. Thomas said that even with agents now getting some backpay, it’s still financially difficult. “Many of our members have seen bills pile up, interest and late fees add up, cars repossessed, and families thrown into disarray because Congress has failed to do their jobs,” Thomas said. “Backpay alone does not fix those problems… To say we are utterly disgusted and disappointed with our elected officials is an understatement.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb0be68f083204a736aee9","title":"US directs its embassies to wage campaign against foreign ‘hostility’","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:43Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:42Z","body":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.
\nThe cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.
\nIt comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it. The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad. It comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["joseph-gedeon"]},{"id":"block-69cb05ea8f0887f60811a9dd","title":"Pete Hegseth's broker inquired into defense fund investment before Iran war, FT reports","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:13Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:12Z","body":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times.
\nThe defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter.
\nThe inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir.
\nAccording to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase.
\nHegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.
","cleanBody":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times. The defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir. According to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase. Hegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cafdc08f083204a736ae93","title":"José Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, dies in ICE detention in LA","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","body":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began.
\nSecurity staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm.
\nAt his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE.
\nIt was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began. Security staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm. At his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE. It was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["roque-planas"]},{"id":"block-69cafab58f083204a736ae78","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:39:37Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:35:00Z","body":"A protest statue has appeared on the National Mall in Washington DC: a baroque-styled marble and gold toilet. It’s built like a throne, where anyone can sit on the commode as if it were a chair.
\n![\"A](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/e86a212c4e489db7fab309597f072f3cbe736b48/418_0_4164_3333/1000.jpg\")
\n “A Throne Fit for a King,” reads a plaque attached to the statue. “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln bathroom in the White House.”
\n![\"The](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/2bf746be2668ad92e317af42f8e158a303edd483/668_0_6681_5347/1000.jpg\")
\n The throne comes as Donald Trump is remaking the White House in his image. Along with renovating the Lincoln bathroom, he’s had gilded doilies attached to the walls of the Oval Office and had the East Wing of the building torn down to build a massive ballroom. The president is long-rumored to own a gold toilet.
\nThe statue comes after another protest piece appeared on the Mall depicting Trump and the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands. The roll of toilet paper with the toilet throne reads “The Secret Handshake”, which is the name of the group that claimed responsibility for the hand-holding statue.
\n![\"A](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/29b784b74cac019f77c341b06fcb722b7b62b9ee/688_0_6880_5504/1000.jpg\")
\n Lindsey Graham appears to have spent last weekend at Disney World, riding Space Mountain in the theme park’s Magic Kingdom, according to TMZ. The Republican senator from South Carolina’s Florida vacation comes amid a more than six-week partial government shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
\nPhotos captured by TMZ show Graham waiting in line for rides, eating at a breakfast buffet and strolling through Disney World with what looks like a bubble wand in his hand. The gossip news site said Graham spent three days at the theme park.
\nThe partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Graham told TMZ he was in Florida to meet with Trump officials, and then went to Orlando afterwards.
\nOn Monday, Graham blamed the democrats for the shutdown in a post on X and referenced working on a “new deal” for DHS: “Threats to our country are through the roof and it’s well past time to pay all workers. Schumer and gang are playing a dangerous game with our homeland security.”
","cleanBody":"Lindsey Graham appears to have spent last weekend at Disney World, riding Space Mountain in the theme park’s Magic Kingdom, according to TMZ. The Republican senator from South Carolina’s Florida vacation comes amid a more than six-week partial government shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Photos captured by TMZ show Graham waiting in line for rides, eating at a breakfast buffet and strolling through Disney World with what looks like a bubble wand in his hand. The gossip news site said Graham spent three days at the theme park. The partial government shutdown, which is now the longest in US history, has left thousands of federal workers without pay checks and travelers stuck in long TSA lines at airports. Graham told TMZ he was in Florida to meet with Trump officials, and then went to Orlando afterwards. On Monday, Graham blamed the democrats for the shutdown in a post on X and referenced working on a “new deal” for DHS: “Threats to our country are through the roof and it’s well past time to pay all workers. Schumer and gang are playing a dangerous game with our homeland security.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]}],"keyEvents":[{"id":"block-69cad56b8f083204a736ad9d","title":"Here's a recap of the day so far","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T20:04:03Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:22:45Z","body":"Senate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected. This comes amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown that has lasted 45 days.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse, after both chambers of Congress remain at an impasse on passing a bill to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress is now on a scheduled two-week recess, and many members have left Washington for their districts. The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers are expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon. It’s the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nThe army is investigating what appears to be a detour taken by two Apache helicopters on a training run on Saturday. The helicopters under question visited and hovered alongside Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee.
\nKid Rock, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter and rock musician, posted a video to X showing him salute the choppers as they flew by.
\n“This is a level of respect that shit for brains Governor of California will never know. God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her,” Kid Rock wrote on his post, along with an American Flag and prayer hands emoji.
\nAccording to the Associated Press, there was no official request from Kid Rock to have the helicopters fly by, which is what triggered the administrative review.
\n“Army aviators must adhere to strict safety standards, professionalism, and established flight regulations... Appropriate action will be taken if any violations are found,” the army said in a written statement.
","cleanBody":"The army is investigating what appears to be a detour taken by two Apache helicopters on a training run on Saturday. The helicopters under question visited and hovered alongside Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee. Kid Rock, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter and rock musician, posted a video to X showing him salute the choppers as they flew by. “This is a level of respect that shit for brains Governor of California will never know. God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her,” Kid Rock wrote on his post, along with an American Flag and prayer hands emoji. According to the Associated Press, there was no official request from Kid Rock to have the helicopters fly by, which is what triggered the administrative review. “Army aviators must adhere to strict safety standards, professionalism, and established flight regulations... Appropriate action will be taken if any violations are found,” the army said in a written statement.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cafdc08f083204a736ae93","title":"José Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, dies in ICE detention in LA","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T22:53:32Z","body":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began.
\nSecurity staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm.
\nAt his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE.
\nIt was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"A Mexican immigrant has died at a detention center outside Los Angeles, marking at least the 14th death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the year began. Security staff at the Adelanto detention center found José Guadalupe Ramos unconscious and unresponsive in his bunk on 25 March, according to an ICE press release. Staff attempted to carry out life-saving procedures, including CPR, then called emergency services, who took Ramos to Victory Valley Global medical center in nearby Victorville. He was pronounced dead there at 9.29pm. At his medical screening on 24 February, ICE found that Ramos suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He received “daily medication to treat his illness”, according to ICE. It was not clear whether he received medication for a single illness or all three. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["roque-planas"]},{"id":"block-69cb05ea8f0887f60811a9dd","title":"Pete Hegseth's broker inquired into defense fund investment before Iran war, FT reports","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:13Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:30:12Z","body":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times.
\nThe defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter.
\nThe inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir.
\nAccording to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase.
\nHegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.
","cleanBody":"A broker working for Pete Hegseth allegedly aimed to make major investments in key defense companies before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the Financial Times. The defense secretary’s broker, who worked at Morgan Stanley, apparently contacted BlackRock in February with an inquiry about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the equity fund Defense Industrials Active ETF, per the Financial Times, which cited three people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock, due to the request being made on behalf of a potential client who was high-profile. The equity fund’s holdings include some of the world’s biggest defense corporations, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Palantir. According to the Financial Times, the investment didn’t go through as it wasn’t yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to purchase. Hegseth has been leading the war in Iran and has said that the US will continue to fight for “as long as we need to”. During briefings, he’s quotes bible scripture and a review by the Guardian has found that Hegseth has expressed a violent antipathy towards Iran for years.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb0be68f083204a736aee9","title":"US directs its embassies to wage campaign against foreign ‘hostility’","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:43Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-30T23:52:42Z","body":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.
\nThe cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.
\nIt comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
\nRead more
\n","cleanBody":"The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it. The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad. It comes as the United States is at war with Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state disinformation apparatuses, and as Russian and Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across Europe, Asia and Latin America. Read more","postType":"key-event","contributors":["joseph-gedeon"]},{"id":"block-69cb1bb48f08cbd9debe9391","title":"Florida to rename Palm Beach airport after Donald Trump","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:27Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T00:59:26Z","body":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
\nTrump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1.
\nThe Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president.
\nDeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump is now getting an airport that bears his name. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, signed a bill on Monday saying the Palm Beach International Airport was being renamed to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Trump’s family business filed a trademark application for the airport name in February. If approved, the name change would take effect on July 1. The Florida airport is the latest in a series of buildings, institutions, government programs, navy battleships, national parks passes and even money to be named after the president. DeSantis also worked last year to get a parcel of land in Miami to be the home for Trump’s presidential library. On Truth Social on Monday, Trump posted a video of a rendering of the library, which showed a massive mirrored skyscraper emblazoned with his name and the American flag.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69cb293e8f083204a736af6e","title":"Today’s recap","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-31T02:06:12Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-31T02:06:11Z","body":"Talks over ending the record-breaking partial government shutdown remain at an impasse, as congress is on its scheduled two-week recess. TSA employees began to get some backpay on Monday, but their union said it’s not enough and is calling on lawmakers to return to Washington DC and end the shutdown.
\nHere’s what else happened today:
\nAllegations swirl that a broker for Pete Hegseth inquired into an investment in key defense companies before the Iran war began. The Morgan Stanley broker allegedly made an inquiry with BlackRock regarding an investment into a defense-focused equity fund. The Pentagon denied the allegations calling them “entirely false and fabricated”.
\nFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. This would make the airport the latest in a long list of institutions, government programs, buildings and even money named after the president.
\nThe US government has directed all of its embassies and consulates to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda. Marco Rubio signed a cable on Monday directing the embassies to coordinate with the US military’s psychological operations unit to address disinformation. It suggested using Elon Musk’s social media platform X to carry out the campaign.
\nJosé Guadalupe Ramos, a Mexican national, becomes the 14th known person to die in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since the beginning of the year. He was found unconscious in his bunk last week at the Adelanto detention center in California and pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby medical center.
\nThe army is investigating a helicopter fly-by at Kid Rock’s hillside swimming pool in Tennessee on Saturday. Two army choppers on a training run visited and hovered by the rocker’s house as he saluted them. According to the army, there was no official request for the fly-by, which triggered the administrative review.
\nA two-year-old detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement family detention center in Dilley, Texas, is said to be sick and not getting adequate help. Joaquin Castro, a democratic congressman from San Antonio, raised alarms on X on Monday saying that the boy has a fever and isn’t eating. He called on ICE to provide proper medical care to the child and release him and his month immediately.
\nSenate Republicans did not use the pro forma session today to try to pass a stopgap funding bill advanced by House GOP leaders on Friday. John Hoeven, the Republican senator from North Dakota, told reporters that the continuing resolution could not pass by unanimous consent because Democratic senator Chris Coons objected.
\nKaroline Leavitt continued to blame Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing funding lapse to reopen a portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The press secretary said today that the president is encouraging lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill and secure a deal, after negotiations broke down last week.
\nWhile Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA employees as the shutdown continues, Leavitt offered no more information as to how they administration is securing these funds to issue paychecks. Airport security officers were expected to see their first full paycheck today, after the president directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to issue payments immediately on Friday.
\nThe Department of Justice sued Minnesota’s education department and the state’s school athletics body for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. In a lawsuit, the DoJ claims that by making against female student athletes compete against transgender girls, as well as share locker rooms and bathrooms with them, Minnesota is violating Title IX – the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination for any programs that receive federal funding.
\nThe average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is about to hit $4, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up 33% from a month ago, when the average price was $2.98 per gallon, and is the highest national average since 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The spike in the price at the pump is the most tangible hit Americans have felt since the US‑Israel war on Iran began almost five weeks ago.
\nThis live blog is now closed.
\nTrump news at a glance: US promotes Elon Musk’s X to fight foreign propaganda
\nAs thousands of US soldiers and marines arrive in the Middle East, Iran is accusing Washington of privately plotting a ground assault while publicly touting ceasefire talks. Donald Trump threatened to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s energy infrastructure, said his ‘preference would be to take the oil’ in Iran and that US forces could seize the regime’s export hub on Kharg Island, while also claiming he was in talks with a new ‘reasonable regime’. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi forces have also entered the conflict, bringing the threat of further damage to the global economy.
Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist and host of Politics Weekly America, Jonathan Freedland
","type":"youtube"}]},"trailText":"This live blog is now closed.","showQuotedHeadline":false,"showLiveIndicator":false,"sublinks":[],"mainImage":{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/296564c17b060e9b21c7e5b565cec00e2b67d6ef/1146_311_4955_3966/master/4955.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=23016da70a35faf093bb5e21a693bdd5","height":3966,"width":4955,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Aaron Schwartz/Reuters","altText":"Passengers wait in a TSA security checkpoint queue that stretches through an airport in Baltimore, Maryland.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Reuters"},"renderedItemProd":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/mar/30/donald-trump-shutdown-ice-dhs-tsa-airports-iran-jd-vance-latest-news-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemBeta":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/mar/30/donald-trump-shutdown-ice-dhs-tsa-airports-iran-jd-vance-latest-news-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"renderedItemDebug":{"minBridgetVersion":"8.0.0","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/mar/30/donald-trump-shutdown-ice-dhs-tsa-airports-iran-jd-vance-latest-news-updates?dcr=apps&edition=uk"},"cardDesignType":"Article","correspondingTags":[],"type":"Article","importance":0},{"title":"Blast off! Nasa goes back to the moon – podcast","rawTitle":"Blast off! Nasa goes back to the moon – podcast","item":{"trailText":"Astronaut Tim Peake and Guardian journalist Richard Luscombe talk through Artemis II, the first manned mission to the moon for 50 years","atomsCSS":[],"bodyImages":[],"audio":{"id":"gu-audio-69ca90878f0843ce02d6e016","durationInSeconds":1778,"uri":"https://audio.guim.co.uk/2026/03/30-70229-20260331tifspace.mp3","adFreeUri":"https://audio.guim.co.uk/2026/03/30-70229-20260331tifspace.mp3","mimeType":"audio/mpeg"},"discussionId":"/p/x4ycck","section":"News","podcastSeriesImage":"https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2022/02/10/TiF_FINAL_3000x3000.jpg","id":"news/audio/2026/mar/31/nasa-moon-artemis-ii-podcast","googlePodcastsUrl":"https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGhlZ3VhcmRpYW4uY29tL25ld3Mvc2VyaWVzL3RvZGF5aW5mb2N1cy9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbA%3D%3D","spotifyUrl":"https://open.spotify.com/show/2cSQmzYnf6LyrN0Mi6E64p","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e413d8d4ab282c5bd62dde47ed4bf70dd5e19fad/0_0_4554_3645/master/4554.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=b6836f7e5ad58d29411fb8cdbe106a12","height":3645,"width":4554,"orientation":"landscape","credit":"Brendan McDermid/Reuters","altText":"The Artemis II mission rocket and crew capsule on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters"}],"designType":"Media","shouldHideAdverts":false,"headerEmbed":"","body":"This week, for the first time in 50 years, Nasa is sending people to the moon once more.
\nAnd though none of the four astronauts of Artemis II will land on the lunar surface, the mission – which will involve flying around the moon – will take humans deeper into space than we have ever been before.
\nThe astronaut Tim Peake describes what it will be like for the four of them, from launch to space entry to seeing the Earth from up there for the first time. He explains too why Artemis II is such a landmark in space exploration.
\nReporter Richard Luscombe tells Nosheen Iqbal all about the atmosphere in Cape Canaveral, from where the rocket will be launched, and what the 10-day mission will entail.
","standFirst":"Astronaut Tim Peake and Guardian journalist Richard Luscombe talk through Artemis II, the first manned mission to the moon for 50 years
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\nTori Mattingly told TMZ in an interview published over the weekend that Dayton Webber would “lash out” at her during their four-year relationship. That relationship ended in February 2025 before she dated Bradrick Wells, the alleged victim of a deadly shooting in Webber’s car in suburban Washington DC on 22 March.
\nShe shared with the outlet a video of Webber – who became a champion cornhole player after losing his limbs and nearly dying from a bacterial infection in his infancy – taken in 2024 that purports to show him shouting at her as he demands she leave his property.
\nIn brief comments to TMZ, Mattingly alleged Webber had an “angry dark side” and that she was not surprised by the murder charge against him.
\n\nA lengthy Facebook post on the account of a woman with the same name expanded on the allegations.
\n“Watching people say ‘this doesn’t sound like him’ or ‘he would never do that’ is honestly sickening,” she wrote.
\n“You didn’t live with him. I did. For four years, I saw the side of him that nobody else wanted to believe existed. The anger. The control. The abuse.
\n“So no … I’m not shocked he’s being [accused] of murder. Because I know what he’s capable of.”
\nAccording to the sheriff’s office in Charles county, Maryland, Webber was driving three passengers in his car on the night of 22 March, began arguing with his front-seat passenger, 27-year-old Wells, then shot him twice in the head.
\nWebber allegedly asked his other passengers to help him remove Wells’s body from the car. But they refused, fled the vehicle and reported Webber to police while he drove off with the victim.
\nPolice later found Wells’s body in a local yard. They eventually tracked Webber and his car down about 150 miles (240km) away in Virginia, where he had allegedly sought treatment at a hospital for an unspecified medical issue.
\n\nInvestigators arrested Webber after he was discharged from the hospital. He faces charges of murder, assault and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony after his transfer from Virginia to Charles county was completed, according to authorities.
\nThe cause of the argument or motive for the shooting has not been revealed.
\nWebber was 10 months old when he contracted a severe bacterial infection necessitating the amputations of his legs and lower arms, and a months-long hospital stay.
\nDespite his disabilities he became a budding wrestler and football player, then became a champion in the sport of cornhole – tossing small corn-filled bags into a 6in hole on a wooden platform 27ft away. He recorded numerous tournament wins in the American Cornhole League (ACL).
\nMike Hoffman, his former doubles partner, told the Guardian on 24 March that he was surprised to hear of his friend’s arrest.
\n“I’ve been mad, sad – it sucks,” Hoffman said by telephone.
\n“If the allegations are true he’s made some terrible decisions.”
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Virginia. 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\nWith the war in Iran continuing, petrol and grocery prices soaring, and chaos continuing at US airports as a partial government shutdown endures, Vance appeared on the conservative Benny Show podcast, released on Saturday, to promise that he would spend time looking into what he called his “obsession” with UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors.
\nBenny Johnson, who bills his show as the place for “cutting, behind-the-scenes insight into the global conflict for freedom”, wondered if Vance, who has been noticeably quiet about Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East that he is said to oppose, had yet looked at any of the files about unidentified flying objects – known these days as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) – which the president has promised to release.
\n\n“I actually haven’t,” Vance replied, mustering significantly more enthusiasm than for any previous question about the US-Israel military strikes on Iran.
\n“I have not been able to spend enough time on this, but I am going to. Trust me, I’m obsessed with this.”
\nThe God-fearing vice-president’s fixation, it was further revealed, extended to the question of the existence of extraplanetary beings, and where they might fit into a wider conversation about religion.
\n“I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons anyway, but that’s a longer discussion,” he said.
\nJohnson asked him to expand.
\n“Well, look, I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people. I think that the desire to describe everything celestial, everything is otherworldly, to describe it as aliens,” Vance said.
\n“Every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain. And I naturally go, when I hear about sort of extra-natural phenomenon, that’s where I go, is the Christian understanding that, you know, there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there.
\n“I think that one of the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.”
\nVance’s musings and promise “to get to the bottom of it” came as both Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama opened themselves to scrutiny over what they knew about UAPs.
\nObama was forced to make a hasty clarification last month after initially declaring aliens “real” on the American podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen. In a social media statement issued hours later, the former president insisted he was merely trying “to stick with the spirit” of fast-paced questioning, and that if aliens were real he “saw no evidence during my presidency”.
\nAlmost inevitably, Trump weighed in, announcing on his Truth Social platform that he had instructed various agencies “to begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life … and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters”.
\nEarlier this month the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency registered the alien.gov and aliens.gov web domains, adding both to the official government website registry, and sparking another round of speculation about what, if anything, the government really knows.
\n“We’re working on it,” Vance replied when Johnson asked him if the government was really going to release all its files.
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On its beaches and in cities, there is an air of anticipation, excitement and anxiety to match the final days of Nasa’s storied Apollo moon program.
\nAt 6.24pm ET on Wednesday at Cape Canaveral, subject to adverse weather and last-minute technical hitches, four Artemis II astronauts – three Americans and one Canadian – will become the first humans to blast off on a journey to the moon since 1972.
\nIt will be a moment steeped in deep symbolism, given the rich history of America’s space port and its generations of Nasa engineers, rocket scientists and visionaries who paved the way for this new adventure to the stars. It will also be a solid step forward for the space agency’s newly announced ambition to build a permanent lunar base from which it plans future missions to Mars.
\nBeyond that, however, the liftoff will represent a celebration, not only for the achievement of finally dispatching humans back to the moon after years of delays and budget overruns in the Artemis program, but for the culmination and confirmation of a more local renaissance 15 years in the making.
\nIn 2011, after Nasa’s 30-year space shuttle program was abandoned, the space coast was a region in steep decline. Thousands of workers at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) lost their jobs, property prices collapsed, businesses folded and the local economy fell into a black hole.
\n![\"Four](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/4087fbc165fbc3cc72f4dbb522037c193dc6f2a4/0_0_4200_2800/1000.jpg\")
\n Equally depressing for the US space program was the humiliation. Nasa no longer possessed a human launch capability of its own and had to hitch costly rides for its astronauts into lower Earth orbit with its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos. It would be another nine years until Elon Musk’s SpaceX, then still a fledgling startup, would be ready to commence ferrying crews from US soil to the international space station.
\n\nNow, a drive around the space coast cities including Cape Canaveral, Titusville and Cocoa Beach reveals how much the Artemis program, announced in the government’s 2017 space policy directive during the first Trump administration, has revitalized things.
\nFor starters, at the Cape, Nasa’s private space partners SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have constructed, or are building, huge facilities employing thousands where both are contracted to build the landers that will carry Artemis crews to and from the lunar surface.
\nBoth are also developing their own heavy-lift rockets, Starship for SpaceX and New Glenn for Blue Origin, which are planned to assume Artemis crew and cargo duties once Nasa’s own costly Space Launch System, the agency’s own expensive rocket system, is retired.
\nSpace Florida, the state-private partnership that promotes aerospace development opportunities, reports a $6bn boost to the economy from space business last year, while other estimates say Artemis has accounted for 13,000 new jobs and an additional $3bn in annual spending.
\nDon Thomas, a retired Nasa astronaut who flew on four space shuttle missions between 1994 and 1997, has seen the rejuvenation first-hand on regular trips from his Orlando home to speaking to guests at the KSC visitor center, where he is a staple of its “meet an astronaut” attraction.
\n“I’d drive the Beachline Expressway from Orlando airport to here and it used to be no man’s land,” he said.
\n“You’d see a few cars, now it’s heavy traffic in both directions. People are coming here, moving here, living here, all this construction is going on.
\n“You drive anywhere around here, Titusville, Melbourne, Viera, I just see new apartments going up, new schools, new shopping centers. It is really a boom going on, so it’s almost like a renaissance in the space business.”
\n![\"The](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/5d38cbcab770a8ac3a86dd2f38b0589a48010f7a/0_0_3861_5673/681.jpg\")
\n Concurrently, pride is also back. Hotel marquees light up with “Go Artemis II astronauts!” messages; T-shirts with the Nasa logo are prevalent on beaches and in supermarkets; fast-food restaurants are selling out of moon burgers; you’ll be paying through the nose for a hotel room during launch week, if you can find one that still has availability.
\nHundreds of thousands of spectators will pack the area’s beaches and causeways on launch day, officials say, possibly even doubling the estimated 200,000 that witnessed the November 2022 launch of Artemis I, the first uncrewed test flight of the lunar program.
\nMany will congregate in Titusville, the waterfront Brevard county city directly across the Indian River from the launchpad and consequently offering some of the best views.
\nBack in the 1960s, Titusville styled itself as “Rocket City USA”, epitomizing the macho, “right stuff” era of Nasa’s early human spaceflight programs when astronauts in aviator sunglasses would swan into town in Corvettes they leased for a dollar a year from enterprising car dealers eager to exploit the moment.
\nThese days, the city’s billing is the far more tame “gateway to nature and space”, which its mayor, Andrew Connors, says better reflects shifting attitudes, and focuses on the region’s other shining attraction, seemingly endless acres of unspoiled wildlife habitat sheltering species from bald eagles to alligators.
\nOne thing that has not changed, he said, is how deeply intertwined his city is with the space industry.
\n“If you look at the history of Titusville, it’s risen and fallen around Nasa,” he said. “Even in the early Apollo days, you know, families would be huddled around waiting to see the Nasa budget get released to see if dad still had a job.
\n“When the shuttle ended in 2011 we were in a pretty massive hole as a community, because that had been in our DNA for 50 years. We are the families that do these missions, live here, work here, raise families here.
\n“With Artemis, and as we step forward into the future, it’s exciting to see how far we’ve come. Just 15 years ago we had a $140,000-a-year budget to mow the front lawns of abandoned homes just to keep up appearances.
\n“Now here we are, where maybe the motto of our city needs to change a little bit to ‘the gateway to Earth’. I mean it’s pretty remarkable when you think about Titusville really being at the doorstep of Mars, the moon, where we’re going in the future. It really is very, very exciting.”
\n![\"man](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/784f21b3a6c510ac75be4a96381dc525c7237d16/0_0_4032_3024/1000.jpg\")
\n Gary Allgire is a Titusville resident and retired Nasa engineer who worked on the Apollo and shuttle programs, and remembers well the dark days following the termination of both. At 80, he works part-time in the city’s American Space Museum, recounting decades of history and lived experience to visitors among a trove of artefacts and space memorabilia unrivaled anywhere except the space center itself.
\n“It started going downhill as soon as we landed on the moon. After Apollo 11 they started downsizing,” he said.
\n\n“It got pretty desperate. Back in 1969, when we had the first round of layoffs, especially for the contractors, you could go anywhere in this county and pick up homes for nothing. You could get a very nice Spanish-style house built back just the year before for $500 down and take over the payments.”
\nTimes were so bleak, he said, that many fired Nasa workers just left their keys on the doorstep or in their mailbox, and simply walked away.
\n“It was a ghost town in those days. And our mayors at the time were anti-business and put too many restrictions on businesses coming back in to fill the ones that left, so that didn’t help us at all. Now every year there’s a new [space] company coming in, starting up,” he said.
\nAllgire said the museum was busier, with more questions coming up about the Artemis program and the moon.
\nThomas, the retired astronaut, said his visitor center presentations drew a similar enthusiastic response, and that he considered the Artemis II lunar flyby as a beginning.
\n“It’s like when I was a young boy watching the Apollo program, I wanted to see the Earth as that blue ball, and I’m green with envy, they’re going to have a spectacular view, and that’s the excitement of Artemis for me,” he said.
\n“And Mars is there waiting for us. The young kids today at the space center, the 10-year-olds, those are our future astronauts, our future Martians. I used to show a picture of Mars and two people walking on the surface, and I’d ask: ‘You know who those astronauts are?’ They would always say ‘you,’ and I’d ask who else, and they’d say, ‘Neil Armstrong.’
\n“Today, if I show that picture to students and ask who the astronauts are on Mars they go: ‘That’s us!’ That’s a great message we’ve gotten through to them. That’s your generation. They’re doing that. It’s an incredible breakthrough where they see their future instead of looking at somebody walking on the moon and assuming it’s going to be somebody else.”
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\nThe move on Thursday by a majority of DeSantis’s hand-picked university board of governors effectively relegates the stand-alone Introduction to Sociology course to a makeweight elective instead of a core component subject that has been a popular choice for generations of students.
\nThe ruling takes effect at Florida’s 12 state-governed universities in August. They will still be able to offer the course, but are prohibited from including it as a required general education class that fulfils a graduation obligation.
\n“Sociology as a discipline is now social and political advocacy dressed in the regalia of the academy,” the university system’s chancellor, Ray Rodrigues, told the board meeting in Pensacola, reported by the Miami Herald.
\nThe board elected Rodrigues, a close political ally of DeSantis, as chancellor in September 2022. He has been credited with smoothing the passage of much of the governor’s “anti-woke” agenda in higher education.
\n![\"two](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/3ad20ea497247b8629368be3135276d46182ab59/0_0_3000_2058/1000.jpg\")
\n In 2024, the board replaced a more advanced course, Principles of Sociology, with one on history as an approved graduation core course.
\nMore widely, DeSantis has driven an ideological makeover in state-run universities and colleges that has outlawed classes and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) classes. The governor also instigated what critics called a “hostile takeover” at the New College of Florida, formerly a liberal arts school, by removing the previous board of governors and installing rightwing allies.
\nIn January 2025, DeSantis conducted a similar operation at Pensacola’s University of West Florida. One of his board appointees was Scott Yenor, an extremist and controversial professor of political science who once called career-oriented women “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome”. Yenor resigned last year.
\nThe rebrandings have not always run smoothly. New College was heavily criticized in 2024 when a local newspaper exposed its dumping of thousands of books, including a total clear-out of its gender and diversity section that some Democrats likened to Nazi-era book burnings.
\nThe same year, the Independent Florida Alligator, the student newspaper of the University of Florida, exposed the free-spending habits of Ben Sasse, the Republican hard-right former Nebraska senator who resigned as president of the University of Florida after a turbulent 17-month tenure.
\nSasse, DeSantis’s hand-picked choice and the only finalist for the job in 2022, fired numerous staff and abolished UF’s DEI program, at the same time as blowing through $17.3m in his first year of office and providing lucrative jobs for former congressional staff and Republican cronies, the newspaper alleged. Sasse denied the claims.
\nMiami Herald reported that Thursday’s removal of the sociology course came as a surprise, and was not listed on the meeting’s agenda. It said Rodrigues cited faculty resistance to a newly approved, state-designed sociology curriculum and textbook, with professors claiming it stripped core concepts and misrepresented the discipline.
\nKimberly Dunn, an accounting professor at Florida Atlantic University, was one of two board members who voted against dropping the course, according to the Herald. “The removal may be premature and broader than necessary,” she said.
\n“Sociology contributes directly to the competencies we consistently emphasize. These are skills our graduates need across every sector.”
\nThe Guardian has contacted Rodrigues for comment.
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Ask him about the bullying, intimidation and retribution meted out by Donald Trump and Maga acolytes following his appearance as a key witness in the first of the president’s two first-term impeachments, and he almost shrugs it off.
\n“For people that know anything about me, I basically smile all the time,” he says.
\n“I’m an optimist by nature. I’m more focused on the future than the past, and this idea of vindictiveness or grievance is completely opposite of my personality. Now, accountability is essential …”
\nVindman was speaking about his renewed sense of purpose in a candid interview with the Guardian several weeks after launching his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Florida’s seat in the US Senate in November’s midterms.
\nHe knows it’s an uphill battle in a state whose most recent Democrat in the chamber, Bill Nelson, was elected in 2012; and where the party’s last member to win a statewide election, Nikki Fried, now chair of the Florida Democratic party, became commissioner of agriculture in 2018, the year Nelson lost his seat to Republican Rick Scott.
\nBut the retired army lieutenant colonel and Purple Heart recipient is certain his experience makes him the right person to lift the party here out of its funk. Years of Trump, and the extremism of Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, he said, had left the state’s voters crying out for an end to “the chaos”.
\n“The urgency of this moment has become so acute. That requires bold action,” he said.
\n“I served more than 20 years in the military, and my politics was not a feature. It was all about national security. I’m running here as a kind of a different kind of Democrat, I’ve got my handguns, a concealed carry permit, not the standard fare, kind of like coastal elite Democrat.
\n“People give me a hearing without just dismissing me because I’m running as a Democrat. The fact I reported corruption at the highest level, people remember. Or if they don’t, it doesn’t take much to remind them that I was in the middle of it.”
\nOur conversation takes place in a busy coffee shop in a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, where the Vindman family relocated in 2023 after leaving Washington. Patrons at other tables lean in curiously as he speaks, certain they know his face from somewhere, even if they can’t quite place it in the moment.
\nIt was during a highly visible October 2019 appearance before Congress that Kyiv-born Vindman, then the top Ukraine expert on the national security council, testified that he was on a July telephone call between Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
\nThe US president made an improper request to Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden, he told lawmakers, and that he reported his concern to superiors – including his twin brother Eugene, the NSC’s senior ethics official – that the demand amounted to an extortion attempt that undermined US foreign policy.
\nTrump was impeached (though not convicted in the US Senate) and immediately launched a campaign of vitriol and retribution that ultimately saw both brothers ousted from their roles. Republicans denounced Alex Vindman, who served the US for 21 years in uniform, as a “traitor”, a smear they continue to repeat today.
\nGiven that ordeal, one might wonder, why would Vindman, author of a New York Times bestseller, and senior adviser to an advocacy group helping veterans get elected, want to eschew a lower-profile, comfortable family life in Florida with his wife and teenage daughter to jump into the viper’s nest of Washington politics?
\n“Sitting out on the sidelines was not an option, just like reporting corruption, no matter who it was,” he said.
\n“It was tough because my wife was certainly not interested in putting the family back into the crosshair. That was probably one of the tougher moments, just making the decision to go back into public service, and with all the costs. Political violence is a reality, and all the negativity.
\n“I know there are plenty of detractors, but in these first six weeks I feel a huge amount of support and kind of a new hope for a balanced politics in this state.”
\nVindman says he has already learned a great deal about voters in a whirlwind month and a half zipping around Florida, attending numerous campaign events, and listening to their dissatisfaction.
\n“Democrats, they’re ready to walk over hot coals,” he said.
\n“There is a lot of curiosity about me from more traditional, pre-Trump-era Republicans that feel homeless. And I think the independents are, at this point, not necessarily kind of plugged in. They’ll pay attention later, and we’re getting some indications that they’re also open to my message of ending the chaos, crushing corruption, cutting costs, and that’s just the wave tops.”
\nChaos is a word he returns to multiple times during the interview, blaming for it “single-party rule in Florida that doesn’t help anyone”.
\nIt is clear he is already looking beyond a crowded August primary to the November special election, in which the Democratic nominee will challenge the Republican incumbent, Ashley Moody, installed by DeSantis in January last year after Trump elevated Marco Rubio to become his secretary of state. The winner will serve the remaining two years of Rubio’s term.
\n“It’s a stark contrast between me and my opponent, who’s appointed,” he said
\n“People are really, really interested in change, in changing direction. My race is entirely focused on my opponent, I’m not focused on anything besides Ashley Moody and the fact that she is a complete blank check, rubber stamp on all the chaos, and corruption, and this cost crisis that all the states feel.”
\nWe drill into some of the issues that resonate deeply with Florida’s voters, specifically housing affordability, and soaring prices.
\n“The most important issue is just the cost of living in the state,” he said. “I came here because there’s no state income tax, the promise of an affordable retirement that’s increasingly out of reach for folks here. Part of that is the cost of insurance, how premiums have grown.
\n“People are looking to leave the state because the insurance market is broken and Ashley Moody is a central figure from when she was attorney general, giving the large insurance companies a pass and letting rates skyrocket while they fail to pay on claims.”
\nDespite the hurt Vindman says he sees, he is also conscious of the Republicans’ recent stranglehold on Florida. The party holds supermajorities in both of the state’s legislative chambers; the last Democratic governor left office in 1999; there are 1.5 million more Republicans than Democrats among Florida’s 13.3 million registered voters; and Democrats have lacked an efficient grassroots voting operation in the state since Barack Obama’s second presidential win in 2012.
\nVindman, buoyed by recent Democratic successes including Eileen Higgins’s election as mayor of Miami, insists his path is “viable”.
\nBut he concedes: “I need help from any and every corner. There are folks enthusiastic about my candidacy, from left, right and center, and I’m welcoming all of that support in order to make this thing happen.
\n“My campaigning will be ordered around this basic theme of ending the chaos, providing kind of a steady hand, and, which I’ve done, accountability for corruption.”
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"bodyImages":[],"discussionId":"/p/x4j7eq","section":"US news","id":"us-news/2026/mar/23/trump-whistleblower-alex-vindman-us-senator","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e9d3350fc5619c011c3d300b787914897144c16d/0_0_6000_4000/master/6000.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=36613735d7209cf3d071a1f38d032695","height":4000,"width":6000,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Alex Vindman at a campaign event in Sunrise, Florida. Photograph: Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images","credit":"Joe Raedle/Getty Images","altText":"a man in a suit speaks to people","cleanCaption":"Alex Vindman at a campaign event in Sunrise, Florida.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"Democratic Senate hopeful says experience of being key witness in Trump’s first impeachment makes him right choice for Florida
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\nThose behind the community forest venture in Orlando say demand from people struggling to afford basic, healthy food is at its highest level since the Covid pandemic.
\nThey believe the planting of the 120 trees at the 4Roots farm west of downtown, and at a handful of community sites around the city, can provide a model for helping to ease food insecurity around the country, especially in impoverished areas.
\n\nThe area of central Florida where the partnership took place is one of a growing number designated nationally by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a food desert, an area of low income combined with poor access to fresh grocery products.
\nAlmost 50 million Americans experienced some degree of food insecurity during 2024, and 18.8 million, or 6.1% of the population, lived in a food desert more than a mile from a supermarket in urban areas, and 10 miles for rural locations, according to the most recent USDA figures.
\nDan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation, said the figures show the importance of community garden partnerships such as the one in Florida, and why his organization’s programs have evolved beyond aesthetics and the environment.
\n“For more than 50 years the foundation has been planting trees all around the world, but we are seeing a sharp increase in the interest for food forests and urban orchards, trees that don’t just provide shade and beauty, but also yield nuts, fruits and food,” he said.
\n“One favorite part is helping children to understand that food comes from the ground and from trees, it doesn’t just come from the grocery store. So education is a huge piece of what we’re doing, making sure that people understand the value and importance of trees, for shade, for health and wellness, for food and for all kinds of other benefits.
\n“Trees are a must-have right now, not a nice-to-have, especially when we find communities that are lacking food resources and people who are struggling with food independence and food sovereignty issues.”
\n![\"Two](\"https://media.guim.co.uk/ac4a7218db90819af2c1aeac734e68cc37aa3291/0_0_5578_3720/1000.jpg\")
\n While Florida’s subtropical climate is best suited to citrus trees, as well other fast-growing and reliable crop producers such as mango, banana, avocado and pecans, Lambe said the model can be replicated elsewhere using trees suited to local conditions.
\n“We’re looking at how to not only feed but educate the community on how new systems for urban food production can be a possibility to complement the broader agricultural systems,” he said.
\nThe Orlando project, a collaboration between the Arbor Day Foundation, 4Roots and the VoLo Foundation, a Florida non-profit supporting climate-based science, began with an inaugural planting in November.
\nOfficials and volunteers from the groups joined community members at the 4Roots farm last week in a ceremony to mark the final 67 trees going into the ground.
\nJohn Rivers, founder and chief executive of 4Roots, said the objective was to help affected communities feed themselves rather than just handing out boxes of produce on a charity basis.
\n“We bring in students, we bring in volunteers, we bring in different corporations and companies, and they’re actually involved in the planting,” he said.
\n“That’s an important step. It’s one thing to go to a museum and look at a beautiful piece of art, but it’s another to be a part of painting or constructing it because you have a better understanding of it, and a much greater appreciation for it.”
\nRivers said it was hard to see people suffering food deprivation, through unaffordability or lack of access, at a time when almost 40% of the food grown in the US goes unsold or uneaten.
\n“It’s easy to get disheartened because you see the prices rise,” he said. “We know these families, and we’ve put out about 2.3m meals of fresh produce in just the last couple of years.
\n“There’s always going to be the need. You look at any stat of any feeding organization, they’re handing out more meals today than they ever have in their history. Missed meals and hunger are at the highest point ever.
\n“But handing out more meals and food is not going to solve the issue of food insecurity. It’s a key, important element, but we strive to educate, to make it an inspiration. Even those people in towns who don’t have access can put a pot on a windowsill and grow something like a lettuce and start to break the ties of dependency.”
\nLambe said the Arbor Day Foundation has been a partner in similar, successful community forestry projects in other areas of Florida, including in Miami, where the non-profit Citizens for a Better South Florida runs education programs for adults and youths.
\n“It’s not just about beautiful flowering colors in the spring, and fall colors – it’s about benefits,” he said.
\n“In this extreme heat we’re all experiencing, in the mental health and wellness challenges that we see across the globe, trees are seen as a solution and a must-have for the times we live in.”
","atomsCSS":[],"shouldHideReaderRevenue":false,"bodyImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ac4a7218db90819af2c1aeac734e68cc37aa3291/0_0_5578_3720/master/5578.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=645ccd8a2e105af94c707c1556cdd065","height":3720,"width":5578,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Workers at the 4Roots non-profit’s Orlando farm, part of an initiative to alleviate hunger, on 10 March 2026. Photograph: Photograph: Robert W Grover/Arbor Day Foundation","credit":"Robert W Grover/Arbor Day Foundation","altText":"Two people walk among plants and other vegetation","cleanCaption":"Workers at the 4Roots non-profit’s Orlando farm, part of an initiative to alleviate hunger, on 10 March 2026.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Robert W Grover/Arbor Day Foundation"}],"discussionId":"/p/x4j9ae","section":"US news","id":"us-news/2026/mar/22/florida-food-desert-fruit-trees","displayImages":[{"urlTemplate":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/60429459653695feb0109e21d85d0b7cce6dfc75/0_0_6000_4002/master/6000.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=6e3fc2062c20a0a172240acb128d4b2a","height":4002,"width":6000,"orientation":"landscape","caption":"Middle-school students plant trees for an urban orchard at the 4Roots food farm in Orlando on 10 March 2026. Photograph: Photograph: Robert W Grover/Arbor Day Foundation","credit":"Robert W Grover/Arbor Day Foundation","altText":"Kids plant trees outdoors","cleanCaption":"Middle-school students plant trees for an urban orchard at the 4Roots food farm in Orlando on 10 March 2026.","cleanCredit":"Photograph: Robert W Grover/Arbor Day Foundation"}],"shouldHideAdverts":false,"standFirst":"A partnership aims to ease food insecurity in low-income areas underserved by grocery stores
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Orlando on 10 March 2026. 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\nThe Trump administration is considering occupying or blockading Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure Iran into reopening the strait of Hormuz, according to a report in Axios. The report cited four sources who all spoke under the condition of anonymity.
\nThe US state department established a new bureau to oversee responses to natural disasters and humanitarian crises around the world, capping the Trump administration’s dramatic overhaul of foreign aid, a senior department official told the Associated Press.
\nTrump’s presidential transition team repeatedly intervened in UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, Politico reported. The president’s aides reportedly told Starmer’s national security adviser and former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney that they wished for Mandelson’s predecessor Karen Pierce to remain in the post.
\nThe US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that it is investigating 13 states that require state-regulated health insurance plans to cover abortion services. While HHS did not list the states, the Associated Press reported that the 13 states with the coverage requirements are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
\nThe White House released a broad framework for Congress to “pre-empt state AI laws” that would slow down development, after significant lobbying from Silicon Valley to curtail liability and instate an industry-friendly national standard for the regulation of the fast-moving technology.
\nJoe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a far-right political figure who stepped down from his position on Tuesday in protest of the war in Iran, spoke about his resignation and the ongoing investigation into him over an alleged leak of classified information, saying he has a “mission” to stop the Iran war.
\nThis concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
\nA senior federal judge blocked the Pentagon from enforcing a new policy that bars reporters who refused to sign a pledge to only publish authorized information.
\nConfronted with increasing oil prices as a result of the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control is temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales.
\nDonald Trump said this week that he was “shocked” by Iran’s response to being attacked by the United States and Israel. “Nobody expected it.” But one expert on Iran, who left the White House National Security Council last year after the conservative activist Laura Loomer asked Trump to fire him, publicly predicted Iran’s response in an article four days before Trump started the war.
\nUS Southern Command announced that US forces carried out another “ lethal kinetic strike” on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific.
\nThe Trump administration is considering occupying or blockading Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure Iran into reopening the strait of Hormuz, according to Axios.
\nEarlier this week, Donald Trump sought to cast Iran’s response to being attacked by the US and Israel as impossible to predict.
\n“They hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait. Nobody expected it. We were shocked. They fought back,” the president told reporters on Monday.
\nAsked later if he was “surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation?” Trump replied: “Nobody. Nobody. No, no, no. No, the greatest experts – nobody thought they were going hit – I wouldn’t say friendly countries, they were like neutral.”
\nHowever, there was at least one person who did publicly predict that possible response from Iran, four days before Trump announced the US attack.
\nWriting on the website of Foreign Affairs on 24 February, Nate Swanson, who severed as a director for Iran on the National Security Council from 2022 until 2025, and took part in talks with Iran led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner last year, wrote:
\n\n\nTehran could target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump. Iran may well encourage the Houthis to resume attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also been preparing to selectively seize adversary ships in the Strait of Hormuz. If conflict with the United States deepens, Iran may seriously consider targeting the Gulf Arab states’ energy infrastructure directly. In 2019, during Trump’s last “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran directly attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest. That assault appeared to be designed to damage easily replaceable components, thus limiting the consequences to the global energy supply. But if Tehran instead assaulted infrastructure that it knows would take longer to repair, the results would be much more damaging. The relationships between Iran and the Gulf Arab states are stronger now than they were then, but Tehran knows that Gulf leaders carry real influence with Trump and could appeal to him to back down if they came under pressure.
\nIran may be weak. But it still has ways to inflict real pain on the United States—and much more incentive to try than it did before.
\n
In an interview with Foreign Affairs a week into the attack, Swanson, who joined the state department during the George W Bush administration, said that there essentially was no National Security Council in the Trump White House now.
\n\n\nThe Trump administration definitely does decision-making differently. I mean… from Bush on, you had really a system set up where the National Security Council would basically coordinate amongst different agencies and then kind of bring all these different voices to the president to make decisions. And this administration is definitely different than even the first Trump administration where you still had that process…
\nI do think the president relies on a very small group of advisers to make decisions. These are relatively well-known. Secretary [of State] Rubio, [Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff, [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles, the Vice President JD Vance. So, I mean, he relies on these people for advice. So it’s not like he’s doing this all on his own. But I think what is unique is the process is just different. You can see a scenario where maybe he’s not getting all the information he needs.
\nAnd I think second, though, is, also unique to the president himself, is he likes to be lobbied and pitched on ideas. So he’s very willing to take information from outside sources as equally valuable.
\n
Swanson left the White House in 2025, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist with influence over Trump, mounted a determined campaign to have him fired by Trump, for, supposedly having contributed to Barack Obama in 2012, and then taken part in the diplomatic effort that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.
\n“President Trump’s mandate is clear: restore strength, accountability, and patriotism to our government. Nathanael Swanson, with his entrenched Democrat ties, Obama-era promotions, and involvement in the disastrous Iran deal, represents the kind of bureaucratic resistance that undermines this mission,” Loomer wrote on 27 May 2025.
\n“To protect America’s interests and ensure a foreign policy that puts our nation first while taking the Islamist threat of Iran seriously, President Trump must act decisively to remove Swanson from the Iran negotiation team”.
\nOne month later, Trump ordered the bombing of Iranian enrichment facilities and claimed to have “obliterated” its nuclear program.
\nEight months after that, Trump decided to launch an all-out assault on Iran during renewed talks, and the Iranians responded in exactly the way Swanson predicted.
","cleanBody":"Earlier this week, Donald Trump sought to cast Iran’s response to being attacked by the US and Israel as impossible to predict. “They hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait. Nobody expected it. We were shocked. They fought back,” the president told reporters on Monday. Asked later if he was “surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation?” Trump replied: “Nobody. Nobody. No, no, no. No, the greatest experts – nobody thought they were going hit – I wouldn’t say friendly countries, they were like neutral.” However, there was at least one person who did publicly predict that possible response from Iran, four days before Trump announced the US attack. Writing on the website of Foreign Affairs on 24 February, Nate Swanson, who severed as a director for Iran on the National Security Council from 2022 until 2025, and took part in talks with Iran led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner last year, wrote: Tehran could target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump. Iran may well encourage the Houthis to resume attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also been preparing to selectively seize adversary ships in the Strait of Hormuz. If conflict with the United States deepens, Iran may seriously consider targeting the Gulf Arab states’ energy infrastructure directly. In 2019, during Trump’s last “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran directly attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest. That assault appeared to be designed to damage easily replaceable components, thus limiting the consequences to the global energy supply. But if Tehran instead assaulted infrastructure that it knows would take longer to repair, the results would be much more damaging. The relationships between Iran and the Gulf Arab states are stronger now than they were then, but Tehran knows that Gulf leaders carry real influence with Trump and could appeal to him to back down if they came under pressure. Iran may be weak. But it still has ways to inflict real pain on the United States—and much more incentive to try than it did before. In an interview with Foreign Affairs a week into the attack, Swanson, who joined the state department during the George W Bush administration, said that there essentially was no National Security Council in the Trump White House now. The Trump administration definitely does decision-making differently. I mean… from Bush on, you had really a system set up where the National Security Council would basically coordinate amongst different agencies and then kind of bring all these different voices to the president to make decisions. And this administration is definitely different than even the first Trump administration where you still had that process… I do think the president relies on a very small group of advisers to make decisions. These are relatively well-known. Secretary [of State] Rubio, [Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff, [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles, the Vice President JD Vance. So, I mean, he relies on these people for advice. So it’s not like he’s doing this all on his own. But I think what is unique is the process is just different. You can see a scenario where maybe he’s not getting all the information he needs. And I think second, though, is, also unique to the president himself, is he likes to be lobbied and pitched on ideas. So he’s very willing to take information from outside sources as equally valuable. Swanson left the White House in 2025, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist with influence over Trump, mounted a determined campaign to have him fired by Trump, for, supposedly having contributed to Barack Obama in 2012, and then taken part in the diplomatic effort that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. “President Trump’s mandate is clear: restore strength, accountability, and patriotism to our government. Nathanael Swanson, with his entrenched Democrat ties, Obama-era promotions, and involvement in the disastrous Iran deal, represents the kind of bureaucratic resistance that undermines this mission,” Loomer wrote on 27 May 2025. “To protect America’s interests and ensure a foreign policy that puts our nation first while taking the Islamist threat of Iran seriously, President Trump must act decisively to remove Swanson from the Iran negotiation team”. One month later, Trump ordered the bombing of Iranian enrichment facilities and claimed to have “obliterated” its nuclear program. Eight months after that, Trump decided to launch an all-out assault on Iran during renewed talks, and the Iranians responded in exactly the way Swanson predicted.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdf0d18f0870f125bb09bf","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:19:32Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:51:09Z","body":"The hyperactive press office of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, criticized Donald Trump, and the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, for lifting sanctions on Iranian oil exports on Friday in response to spiking oil prices caused by the US assault on Iran, and Iran’s retaliatory move to close the strait of Hormuz, choking off 20% of the world’s oil supply.
\n“This is blood oil,” Newsom wrote on social media. “Trump and Bessent have betrayed the American people and our soldiers.”
","cleanBody":"The hyperactive press office of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, criticized Donald Trump, and the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, for lifting sanctions on Iranian oil exports on Friday in response to spiking oil prices caused by the US assault on Iran, and Iran’s retaliatory move to close the strait of Hormuz, choking off 20% of the world’s oil supply. “This is blood oil,” Newsom wrote on social media. “Trump and Bessent have betrayed the American people and our soldiers.”","postType":"blog","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bddf428f081668c1c40c23","title":"Sarah Palin's 2008 convention speech hinted that Iran could close the strait of Hormuz","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:12:53Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:12:52Z","body":"Earlier this week, when he was asked, at an event related to his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, about Iran creating havoc in the global oil market by closing the strait of Hormuz in response to being attacked by the US and Israel, Donald Trump suggested Iran shutting down up to one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas was really not his problem.
\nAfter noting that other countries, like China and Japan, were much more reliant on oil imports through what he called “the straits”, Trump said: “It always bothered me that we’re protecting them, and we don’t need ‘em.”
\n“We didn’t need ‘em before we started, uh, ‘dig we must’. Uh, ‘dig me wust’ [sic], that’s the Trump policy of lots of oil,” the president said after apparently reaching for and failing to find his campaign slogan, “Drill, baby, drill” in the recesses of his memory.
\nThe fact that the president apparently forgot the three-word slogan for the unchecked exploitation of oil resources that he had mentioned in his inaugural address last year, and in a speech last month, led some observers to suggest that the slip was evidence that the nearly 80-year-old president now leading the US in war is in cognitive decline.
\nSome support for that theory was offered by the commentator Keith Olbermann who pointed out that “Dig we must – for a growing New York” was a slogan used by Con Edison, the New York City utility company, when it had to dig up the streets in Trump’s childhood. That slogan can still be seen online in a New York Daily News photograph from 1957, when Trump was 11, and in a documentary by Shirley Clarke about the construction of a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, when Trump was 13. (That skyscraper would later be owned by, and nearly ruin, the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.)
\nBut digging back into the recesses of recent political history for the origins of the slogan “Drill, baby, drill” reveals that, when it was popularized by Sarah Palin during her failed 2008 campaign for the vice-presidency, it was a call for US energy independence motivated, in part, by an awareness of how easy it would be for Iran to close the strait of Hormuz and cut off 20% of the world’s oil and gas.
\nIn her 2008 convention speech, Palin said that American energy independence was necessary for many reasons, the first of which was, “To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies”.
\nA month later, in the 2008 vice-presidential debate, after Joe Biden criticized the McCain-Palin ticket for ignoring alternative energy sources and suggesting “the only answer is drill, drill, drill”, Palin replied with what she seemed to think was a zinger: “The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill,’ that’s what we hear all across the country at our rallies.”
","cleanBody":"Earlier this week, when he was asked, at an event related to his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, about Iran creating havoc in the global oil market by closing the strait of Hormuz in response to being attacked by the US and Israel, Donald Trump suggested Iran shutting down up to one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas was really not his problem. After noting that other countries, like China and Japan, were much more reliant on oil imports through what he called “the straits”, Trump said: “It always bothered me that we’re protecting them, and we don’t need ‘em.” “We didn’t need ‘em before we started, uh, ‘dig we must’. Uh, ‘dig me wust’ [sic], that’s the Trump policy of lots of oil,” the president said after apparently reaching for and failing to find his campaign slogan, “Drill, baby, drill” in the recesses of his memory. The fact that the president apparently forgot the three-word slogan for the unchecked exploitation of oil resources that he had mentioned in his inaugural address last year, and in a speech last month, led some observers to suggest that the slip was evidence that the nearly 80-year-old president now leading the US in war is in cognitive decline. Some support for that theory was offered by the commentator Keith Olbermann who pointed out that “Dig we must – for a growing New York” was a slogan used by Con Edison, the New York City utility company, when it had to dig up the streets in Trump’s childhood. That slogan can still be seen online in a New York Daily News photograph from 1957, when Trump was 11, and in a documentary by Shirley Clarke about the construction of a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, when Trump was 13. (That skyscraper would later be owned by, and nearly ruin, the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.) But digging back into the recesses of recent political history for the origins of the slogan “Drill, baby, drill” reveals that, when it was popularized by Sarah Palin during her failed 2008 campaign for the vice-presidency, it was a call for US energy independence motivated, in part, by an awareness of how easy it would be for Iran to close the strait of Hormuz and cut off 20% of the world’s oil and gas. In her 2008 convention speech, Palin said that American energy independence was necessary for many reasons, the first of which was, “To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies”. A month later, in the 2008 vice-presidential debate, after Joe Biden criticized the McCain-Palin ticket for ignoring alternative energy sources and suggesting “the only answer is drill, drill, drill”, Palin replied with what she seemed to think was a zinger: “The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill,’ that’s what we hear all across the country at our rallies.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdd80c8f08c1f048afef12","title":"US temporarily lifts sanctions on Iranian oil","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T23:33:34Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T00:49:04Z","body":"Confronted with increasing oil prices as a result of the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control announced on Friday that it is temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales, issuing a 30-day license: “Authorizing the Delivery and Sale of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products of Iranian-Origin Loaded on Vessels as of March 20, 2026”.
","cleanBody":"Confronted with increasing oil prices as a result of the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control announced on Friday that it is temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales, issuing a 30-day license: “Authorizing the Delivery and Sale of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products of Iranian-Origin Loaded on Vessels as of March 20, 2026”.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdcfa28f0870f125bb0930","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T23:26:30Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T00:59:53Z","body":"Donald Trump has arrived at his Florida beach club and has no more public events scheduled until Sunday, when he is slated to visit Memphis for a roundtable discussion of what the White House calls “the incredible achievements” of the federal task force he sent there to help police the city.
\nDuring his flight to Florida, Trump whiled away the time posting on his own social media platform claims that the US is “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and is considering “winding down” its war on Iran.
\nHe also suggested other nations should be responsible for securing the safe passage of commercial ships that carry one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz, the vital gateway to the Gulf that Iran has closed in response to the attack by the US and Israel.
\n“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump posted, in his idiosyncratic style, which seems to borrow from German by capitalizing nouns.
\n“If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated,” the president added, in an abdication of responsibility for the market chaos he has unleashed that it unlikely to reassure traders.
\nJust before he departed Air Force One, the president also took time to repeat his call for the state of Colorado to free a former Colorado county clerk, Tina Peters, who is serving a nine-year sentence for tampering with her county’s election equipment in search of the mythical election fraud Trump claimed existed in 2020.
\nTrump’s post on Peters was brief, but included at least four lies:
\n\n\nThe Great State of Colorado, and a pathetic RINO District Attorney, together with the Radical Left Governor, gave a wonderful woman named Tina Peters, a 73-year-old Gold Star Mom, who has cancer, nine years in prison because, as a Republican Voting Official, she went after the Democrats for cheating in the 2020 Presidential Election. So, she went after them for cheating, and these SLEAZEBAGS put her in jail.
\n
As the Colorado news anchor Kyle Clark explained on Wednesday, when Trump made the same false claims: “Peters is 70 (not 73), does not have cancer, was sentenced by a judge in Mesa County (not the Governor), and did not expose fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”
\nTrump’s characterization of Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, as “Radical Left” also ignores the fact that Polis said this month that he would consider granting Peters clemency.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump has arrived at his Florida beach club and has no more public events scheduled until Sunday, when he is slated to visit Memphis for a roundtable discussion of what the White House calls “the incredible achievements” of the federal task force he sent there to help police the city. During his flight to Florida, Trump whiled away the time posting on his own social media platform claims that the US is “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and is considering “winding down” its war on Iran. He also suggested other nations should be responsible for securing the safe passage of commercial ships that carry one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz, the vital gateway to the Gulf that Iran has closed in response to the attack by the US and Israel. “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump posted, in his idiosyncratic style, which seems to borrow from German by capitalizing nouns. “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated,” the president added, in an abdication of responsibility for the market chaos he has unleashed that it unlikely to reassure traders. Just before he departed Air Force One, the president also took time to repeat his call for the state of Colorado to free a former Colorado county clerk, Tina Peters, who is serving a nine-year sentence for tampering with her county’s election equipment in search of the mythical election fraud Trump claimed existed in 2020. Trump’s post on Peters was brief, but included at least four lies: The Great State of Colorado, and a pathetic RINO District Attorney, together with the Radical Left Governor, gave a wonderful woman named Tina Peters, a 73-year-old Gold Star Mom, who has cancer, nine years in prison because, as a Republican Voting Official, she went after the Democrats for cheating in the 2020 Presidential Election. So, she went after them for cheating, and these SLEAZEBAGS put her in jail. As the Colorado news anchor Kyle Clark explained on Wednesday, when Trump made the same false claims: “Peters is 70 (not 73), does not have cancer, was sentenced by a judge in Mesa County (not the Governor), and did not expose fraud in the 2020 presidential election.” Trump’s characterization of Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, as “Radical Left” also ignores the fact that Polis said this month that he would consider granting Peters clemency.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdc7a88f08c1f048afeeae","title":"White House video shows Japan's prime minister laughing at trolling image of Biden as autopen","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T22:50:56Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-20T22:50:56Z","body":"As Americans die in a war launched, according to a senior intelligence official who resigned this week, on false pretenses, the president remains focused on what he sees as a vital issue: making fun of his predecessor.
\nThat’s the inescapable message of an official White House video documenting the prime minister of Japan’s visit on Thursday, which shows that she laughed at a trolling portrait of Joe Biden as an autopen during a guided tour of Donald Trump’s ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’.
\nThere is no sign in the highlight reel of the visit that a vital issue of global security was discussed by the two leaders: namely Trump’s demand that Japan should ignore its US-drafted constitution and send naval vessels to an active war zone to help force open the strait of Hormuz that Iran closed in response to being attacked by the US and Israel.
\nInstead, the video features the Japanese leader, Sanae Takaichi, praising Trump and laughing at the mockery of Biden Trump had installed on the exterior wall of the White House.
\nA senior federal judge has blocked the Pentagon from enforcing a new policy that bars reporters who refused to sign a pledge to only publish authorized information from the US military’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
\nThe ruling, that the new Pentagon credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional First Amendment rights, came from a US district judge, Paul L Friedman, who was appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton, but previously served as an assistant US attorney during the Nixon administration, and as an associate independent counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation during the presidency of George H W Bush.
\nFriedman’s 40-page ruling on Friday came in response to a New York Times lawsuit against the Pentagon and defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
\nThe current Pentagon press corps is comprised manly of correspondents for far-right outlets that agreed to the policy.
\nThe senior judge made his position clear in the first paragraph of the opinion, which read:
\n\n\nA primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription. Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.
\n
Friedman, who just turned 82, said during oral argument in the case: “We’ve been through, in my lifetime… the Vietnam War, where the public, I think it’s fair to say, was lied to about a lot of things. We’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through the Kuwait situation, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay. A lot of things need to be held tightly and secure… but openness and transparency allows members of the public to know what their government is doing in times of peace and more important, in times of war”.
\nThat, he added, is “what the First Amendment is all about”.
\n“I think the public has a right to know a lot of things as [elections] approach and think about what their elected leaders in the legislative branch and the executive branch are doing,” the judge said.
\nAt the end of his opinion, Friedman noted that there have to be limits of sharing classified information during war time, but the ongoing war in Iran makes it even more vital that the public has information about what the military is doing. The judge wrote:
\n\n","cleanBody":"A senior federal judge has blocked the Pentagon from enforcing a new policy that bars reporters who refused to sign a pledge to only publish authorized information from the US military’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The ruling, that the new Pentagon credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional First Amendment rights, came from a US district judge, Paul L Friedman, who was appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton, but previously served as an assistant US attorney during the Nixon administration, and as an associate independent counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation during the presidency of George H W Bush. Friedman’s 40-page ruling on Friday came in response to a New York Times lawsuit against the Pentagon and defense secretary Pete Hegseth. The current Pentagon press corps is comprised manly of correspondents for far-right outlets that agreed to the policy. The senior judge made his position clear in the first paragraph of the opinion, which read: A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription. Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now. Friedman, who just turned 82, said during oral argument in the case: “We’ve been through, in my lifetime… the Vietnam War, where the public, I think it’s fair to say, was lied to about a lot of things. We’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through the Kuwait situation, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay. A lot of things need to be held tightly and secure… but openness and transparency allows members of the public to know what their government is doing in times of peace and more important, in times of war”. That, he added, is “what the First Amendment is all about”. “I think the public has a right to know a lot of things as [elections] approach and think about what their elected leaders in the legislative branch and the executive branch are doing,” the judge said. At the end of his opinion, Friedman noted that there have to be limits of sharing classified information during war time, but the ongoing war in Iran makes it even more vital that the public has information about what the military is doing. The judge wrote: The Court recognizes that national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected. But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing—so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdb2758f08c1f048afee2f","title":"Pentagon bombs another suspected drug smuggling boat, killing two people","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T20:56:51Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:03:11Z","body":"The Court recognizes that national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected. But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing—so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election.
\n
US Southern Command announced on Friday that US forces carried out another “ lethal kinetic strike” on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific on Friday.
\nAfter the strike, the military said that there were three survivors and it “immediately notified U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors”.
\nThe coast guard said in a statement that made no mention of the attack that one of its ships had recovered two dead bodies and one survivor, and transferred them to the Costa Rican coast guard.
\nThe strikes on suspected drug traffickers, by a military command headquartered across the street from Donald Trump’s Doral, Florida golf course, have been described as illegal by experts in international law, but the Pentagon appears to have changed strategy since the first attack in September when it ordered a follow-on strike to kill survivors.
\nKilling survivors has been considered a textbook example of a war crime since 1945, when the victorious allies in the second world war prosecuted a Nazi U-boat crew for killing shipwreck survivors.
","cleanBody":"US Southern Command announced on Friday that US forces carried out another “ lethal kinetic strike” on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific on Friday. After the strike, the military said that there were three survivors and it “immediately notified U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors”. The coast guard said in a statement that made no mention of the attack that one of its ships had recovered two dead bodies and one survivor, and transferred them to the Costa Rican coast guard. The strikes on suspected drug traffickers, by a military command headquartered across the street from Donald Trump’s Doral, Florida golf course, have been described as illegal by experts in international law, but the Pentagon appears to have changed strategy since the first attack in September when it ordered a follow-on strike to kill survivors. Killing survivors has been considered a textbook example of a war crime since 1945, when the victorious allies in the second world war prosecuted a Nazi U-boat crew for killing shipwreck survivors.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bda9378f081668c1c40ae5","title":"Trump promotes voter ID act, dismisses concerns about gas prices and falling stock market","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T20:46:15Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-20T22:28:13Z","body":"As his war on Iran sends the stock market plunging and gasoline prices rising, Donald Trump paused en route to his Florida beach club to shout familiar taking points about how very well things are going, a reporters strained to hear him over the din of construction on the White House ballroom on Friday afternoon.
\nSpeaking about the war, the president again implied, falsely, that Iran was on the verge of creating a nuclear weapons, which his director of national intelligence contradicted this week in testimony to Congress.
\n“We’re not giving a nuclear weapon to terrorist thugs,” Trump said, nonetheless.
\nHe also cast doubt on the prospect of a quick end to the war, saying: “We can have dialogue, but I don’t want to do a ceasefire… You don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side.”
\nAsked if he was concerned about rising fuel costs for Americans, after Iran responded to the the joint US and Israeli attack by closing the strait of Hormuz, cutting off 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas supply, Trump said: “No, I expected worse. I really thought oil prices would go much higher when I did this.”
\n“We just set every record, every record in the book, with Dow, with the S&P,” the president continued, apparently suggesting that the US stock market was in such good shape before the attack that the sharp drops this week, with the Dow hovering around 45,500 on Friday was not a concern. “Dow at 50,000, S&P at 8,000, 7,000, at levels, at speed that nobody’s ever seen before,” the president said, with a note of instant nostalgia for the levels the stock market hit just before his attack on Iran.
\nJust one month ago, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, sought to deflect questions about the Epstein files by repeatedly telling lawmakers: “The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. That’s what we should be talking about.”
\n“But I said I have to go off that path and I have to take a little journey,” Trump said Friday. “But we had to go off on a circuitous path and take care of business, and we are in the process of doing it and I’ll tell you I think we’re weeks ahead of schedule.”
\nThe president then went on to advocate for the voter suppression legislation, the Save America act, Republican are struggling to pass in the Senate.
\n“I hear it’s going- look, it should be an easy pass, but we need Democrat votes,” Trump also said, referring to the 60-vote threshold to push the legislation to make it harder for US citizens to register to vote, and restrict vote-by-mail, through the Senate.
\n“They don’t want to approve voter ID because they cheat,” Trump aid of Democrats who are concerned that the measure, supposedly aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting, a problem that appears not to exist, would make it much harder for citizens to cast ballots. “They want to cheat, Peter!” the president shouted at his favorite Fox News correspondent, Peter Doocy.
\nDespite Trump’s effort to blame Democrats for refusing to pass the legislation, Senate Republicans have voiced their opposition to killing the filibuster to force the legislation through.
\nOn Thursday, Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, announced that he would not support removing the 60-vote threshold, and criticized the crackdown on vote-by-mail, which is used by several Republican-run states, including Utah, Florida, Alaska, and Montana.
\n“Now, speaking of something that’s more pleasant,” Trump added as he changed the subject without skipping a beat, “you hear that? It’s going to be the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world, nothing like it.”
\nGiven the loud helicopter noise it was hard to say if anyone could hear the construction noise Trump seemed to be talking about. “They just started today one of the biggest pours of concrete that’s ever been seen in Washington.”
\n“I love the sound of concrete,” the president added.
","cleanBody":"As his war on Iran sends the stock market plunging and gasoline prices rising, Donald Trump paused en route to his Florida beach club to shout familiar taking points about how very well things are going, a reporters strained to hear him over the din of construction on the White House ballroom on Friday afternoon. Speaking about the war, the president again implied, falsely, that Iran was on the verge of creating a nuclear weapons, which his director of national intelligence contradicted this week in testimony to Congress. “We’re not giving a nuclear weapon to terrorist thugs,” Trump said, nonetheless. He also cast doubt on the prospect of a quick end to the war, saying: “We can have dialogue, but I don’t want to do a ceasefire… You don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side.” Asked if he was concerned about rising fuel costs for Americans, after Iran responded to the the joint US and Israeli attack by closing the strait of Hormuz, cutting off 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas supply, Trump said: “No, I expected worse. I really thought oil prices would go much higher when I did this.” “We just set every record, every record in the book, with Dow, with the S&P,” the president continued, apparently suggesting that the US stock market was in such good shape before the attack that the sharp drops this week, with the Dow hovering around 45,500 on Friday was not a concern. “Dow at 50,000, S&P at 8,000, 7,000, at levels, at speed that nobody’s ever seen before,” the president said, with a note of instant nostalgia for the levels the stock market hit just before his attack on Iran. Just one month ago, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, sought to deflect questions about the Epstein files by repeatedly telling lawmakers: “The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. That’s what we should be talking about.” “But I said I have to go off that path and I have to take a little journey,” Trump said Friday. “But we had to go off on a circuitous path and take care of business, and we are in the process of doing it and I’ll tell you I think we’re weeks ahead of schedule.” The president then went on to advocate for the voter suppression legislation, the Save America act, Republican are struggling to pass in the Senate. “I hear it’s going- look, it should be an easy pass, but we need Democrat votes,” Trump also said, referring to the 60-vote threshold to push the legislation to make it harder for US citizens to register to vote, and restrict vote-by-mail, through the Senate. “They don’t want to approve voter ID because they cheat,” Trump aid of Democrats who are concerned that the measure, supposedly aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting, a problem that appears not to exist, would make it much harder for citizens to cast ballots. “They want to cheat, Peter!” the president shouted at his favorite Fox News correspondent, Peter Doocy. Despite Trump’s effort to blame Democrats for refusing to pass the legislation, Senate Republicans have voiced their opposition to killing the filibuster to force the legislation through. On Thursday, Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, announced that he would not support removing the 60-vote threshold, and criticized the crackdown on vote-by-mail, which is used by several Republican-run states, including Utah, Florida, Alaska, and Montana. “Now, speaking of something that’s more pleasant,” Trump added as he changed the subject without skipping a beat, “you hear that? It’s going to be the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world, nothing like it.” Given the loud helicopter noise it was hard to say if anyone could hear the construction noise Trump seemed to be talking about. “They just started today one of the biggest pours of concrete that’s ever been seen in Washington.” “I love the sound of concrete,” the president added.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]}],"keyEvents":[{"id":"block-69bda74c8f081668c1c40ad0","title":"Summary of the day so far","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T20:02:28Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-20T20:12:54Z","body":"Donald Trump spent the morning putting pressure on Congress to pass his bills by posting on his Truth Social platform, emphasizing that there is “nothing more important” for the US at the moment than voter ID.
\nThe Trump administration is considering occupying or blockading Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure Iran into reopening the strait of Hormuz, according to a report in Axios. The report cited four sources who all spoke under the condition of anonymity.
\nThe US state department established a new bureau to oversee responses to natural disasters and humanitarian crises around the world, capping the Trump administration’s dramatic overhaul of foreign aid, a senior department official told the Associated Press.
\nTrump’s presidential transition team repeatedly intervened in UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, Politico reported. The president’s aides reportedly told Starmer’s national security adviser and former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney that they wished for Mandelson’s predecessor Karen Pierce to remain in the post.
\nThe US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that it is investigating 13 states that require state-regulated health insurance plans to cover abortion services. While HHS did not list the states, the Associated Press reported that the 13 states with the coverage requirements are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
\nThe White House released a broad framework for Congress to “pre-empt state AI laws” that would slow down development, after significant lobbying from Silicon Valley to curtail liability and instate an industry-friendly national standard for the regulation of the fast-moving technology.
\nJoe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a far-right political figure who stepped down from his position on Tuesday in protest of the war in Iran, spoke about his resignation and the ongoing investigation into him over an alleged leak of classified information, saying he has a “mission” to stop the Iran war.
\nAs Americans die in a war launched, according to a senior intelligence official who resigned this week, on false pretenses, the president remains focused on what he sees as a vital issue: making fun of his predecessor.
\nThat’s the inescapable message of an official White House video documenting the prime minister of Japan’s visit on Thursday, which shows that she laughed at a trolling portrait of Joe Biden as an autopen during a guided tour of Donald Trump’s ‘Presidential Walk of Fame’.
\nThere is no sign in the highlight reel of the visit that a vital issue of global security was discussed by the two leaders: namely Trump’s demand that Japan should ignore its US-drafted constitution and send naval vessels to an active war zone to help force open the strait of Hormuz that Iran closed in response to being attacked by the US and Israel.
\nInstead, the video features the Japanese leader, Sanae Takaichi, praising Trump and laughing at the mockery of Biden Trump had installed on the exterior wall of the White House.
\nDonald Trump has arrived at his Florida beach club and has no more public events scheduled until Sunday, when he is slated to visit Memphis for a roundtable discussion of what the White House calls “the incredible achievements” of the federal task force he sent there to help police the city.
\nDuring his flight to Florida, Trump whiled away the time posting on his own social media platform claims that the US is “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and is considering “winding down” its war on Iran.
\nHe also suggested other nations should be responsible for securing the safe passage of commercial ships that carry one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz, the vital gateway to the Gulf that Iran has closed in response to the attack by the US and Israel.
\n“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump posted, in his idiosyncratic style, which seems to borrow from German by capitalizing nouns.
\n“If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated,” the president added, in an abdication of responsibility for the market chaos he has unleashed that it unlikely to reassure traders.
\nJust before he departed Air Force One, the president also took time to repeat his call for the state of Colorado to free a former Colorado county clerk, Tina Peters, who is serving a nine-year sentence for tampering with her county’s election equipment in search of the mythical election fraud Trump claimed existed in 2020.
\nTrump’s post on Peters was brief, but included at least four lies:
\n\n\nThe Great State of Colorado, and a pathetic RINO District Attorney, together with the Radical Left Governor, gave a wonderful woman named Tina Peters, a 73-year-old Gold Star Mom, who has cancer, nine years in prison because, as a Republican Voting Official, she went after the Democrats for cheating in the 2020 Presidential Election. So, she went after them for cheating, and these SLEAZEBAGS put her in jail.
\n
As the Colorado news anchor Kyle Clark explained on Wednesday, when Trump made the same false claims: “Peters is 70 (not 73), does not have cancer, was sentenced by a judge in Mesa County (not the Governor), and did not expose fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”
\nTrump’s characterization of Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, as “Radical Left” also ignores the fact that Polis said this month that he would consider granting Peters clemency.
","cleanBody":"Donald Trump has arrived at his Florida beach club and has no more public events scheduled until Sunday, when he is slated to visit Memphis for a roundtable discussion of what the White House calls “the incredible achievements” of the federal task force he sent there to help police the city. During his flight to Florida, Trump whiled away the time posting on his own social media platform claims that the US is “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and is considering “winding down” its war on Iran. He also suggested other nations should be responsible for securing the safe passage of commercial ships that carry one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz, the vital gateway to the Gulf that Iran has closed in response to the attack by the US and Israel. “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump posted, in his idiosyncratic style, which seems to borrow from German by capitalizing nouns. “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated,” the president added, in an abdication of responsibility for the market chaos he has unleashed that it unlikely to reassure traders. Just before he departed Air Force One, the president also took time to repeat his call for the state of Colorado to free a former Colorado county clerk, Tina Peters, who is serving a nine-year sentence for tampering with her county’s election equipment in search of the mythical election fraud Trump claimed existed in 2020. Trump’s post on Peters was brief, but included at least four lies: The Great State of Colorado, and a pathetic RINO District Attorney, together with the Radical Left Governor, gave a wonderful woman named Tina Peters, a 73-year-old Gold Star Mom, who has cancer, nine years in prison because, as a Republican Voting Official, she went after the Democrats for cheating in the 2020 Presidential Election. So, she went after them for cheating, and these SLEAZEBAGS put her in jail. As the Colorado news anchor Kyle Clark explained on Wednesday, when Trump made the same false claims: “Peters is 70 (not 73), does not have cancer, was sentenced by a judge in Mesa County (not the Governor), and did not expose fraud in the 2020 presidential election.” Trump’s characterization of Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, as “Radical Left” also ignores the fact that Polis said this month that he would consider granting Peters clemency.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdd80c8f08c1f048afef12","title":"US temporarily lifts sanctions on Iranian oil","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-20T23:33:34Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T00:49:04Z","body":"Confronted with increasing oil prices as a result of the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control announced on Friday that it is temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales, issuing a 30-day license: “Authorizing the Delivery and Sale of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products of Iranian-Origin Loaded on Vessels as of March 20, 2026”.
","cleanBody":"Confronted with increasing oil prices as a result of the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control announced on Friday that it is temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales, issuing a 30-day license: “Authorizing the Delivery and Sale of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products of Iranian-Origin Loaded on Vessels as of March 20, 2026”.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bddf428f081668c1c40c23","title":"Sarah Palin's 2008 convention speech hinted that Iran could close the strait of Hormuz","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:12:53Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:12:52Z","body":"Earlier this week, when he was asked, at an event related to his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, about Iran creating havoc in the global oil market by closing the strait of Hormuz in response to being attacked by the US and Israel, Donald Trump suggested Iran shutting down up to one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas was really not his problem.
\nAfter noting that other countries, like China and Japan, were much more reliant on oil imports through what he called “the straits”, Trump said: “It always bothered me that we’re protecting them, and we don’t need ‘em.”
\n“We didn’t need ‘em before we started, uh, ‘dig we must’. Uh, ‘dig me wust’ [sic], that’s the Trump policy of lots of oil,” the president said after apparently reaching for and failing to find his campaign slogan, “Drill, baby, drill” in the recesses of his memory.
\nThe fact that the president apparently forgot the three-word slogan for the unchecked exploitation of oil resources that he had mentioned in his inaugural address last year, and in a speech last month, led some observers to suggest that the slip was evidence that the nearly 80-year-old president now leading the US in war is in cognitive decline.
\nSome support for that theory was offered by the commentator Keith Olbermann who pointed out that “Dig we must – for a growing New York” was a slogan used by Con Edison, the New York City utility company, when it had to dig up the streets in Trump’s childhood. That slogan can still be seen online in a New York Daily News photograph from 1957, when Trump was 11, and in a documentary by Shirley Clarke about the construction of a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, when Trump was 13. (That skyscraper would later be owned by, and nearly ruin, the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.)
\nBut digging back into the recesses of recent political history for the origins of the slogan “Drill, baby, drill” reveals that, when it was popularized by Sarah Palin during her failed 2008 campaign for the vice-presidency, it was a call for US energy independence motivated, in part, by an awareness of how easy it would be for Iran to close the strait of Hormuz and cut off 20% of the world’s oil and gas.
\nIn her 2008 convention speech, Palin said that American energy independence was necessary for many reasons, the first of which was, “To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies”.
\nA month later, in the 2008 vice-presidential debate, after Joe Biden criticized the McCain-Palin ticket for ignoring alternative energy sources and suggesting “the only answer is drill, drill, drill”, Palin replied with what she seemed to think was a zinger: “The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill,’ that’s what we hear all across the country at our rallies.”
","cleanBody":"Earlier this week, when he was asked, at an event related to his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, about Iran creating havoc in the global oil market by closing the strait of Hormuz in response to being attacked by the US and Israel, Donald Trump suggested Iran shutting down up to one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas was really not his problem. After noting that other countries, like China and Japan, were much more reliant on oil imports through what he called “the straits”, Trump said: “It always bothered me that we’re protecting them, and we don’t need ‘em.” “We didn’t need ‘em before we started, uh, ‘dig we must’. Uh, ‘dig me wust’ [sic], that’s the Trump policy of lots of oil,” the president said after apparently reaching for and failing to find his campaign slogan, “Drill, baby, drill” in the recesses of his memory. The fact that the president apparently forgot the three-word slogan for the unchecked exploitation of oil resources that he had mentioned in his inaugural address last year, and in a speech last month, led some observers to suggest that the slip was evidence that the nearly 80-year-old president now leading the US in war is in cognitive decline. Some support for that theory was offered by the commentator Keith Olbermann who pointed out that “Dig we must – for a growing New York” was a slogan used by Con Edison, the New York City utility company, when it had to dig up the streets in Trump’s childhood. That slogan can still be seen online in a New York Daily News photograph from 1957, when Trump was 11, and in a documentary by Shirley Clarke about the construction of a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, when Trump was 13. (That skyscraper would later be owned by, and nearly ruin, the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.) But digging back into the recesses of recent political history for the origins of the slogan “Drill, baby, drill” reveals that, when it was popularized by Sarah Palin during her failed 2008 campaign for the vice-presidency, it was a call for US energy independence motivated, in part, by an awareness of how easy it would be for Iran to close the strait of Hormuz and cut off 20% of the world’s oil and gas. In her 2008 convention speech, Palin said that American energy independence was necessary for many reasons, the first of which was, “To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies”. A month later, in the 2008 vice-presidential debate, after Joe Biden criticized the McCain-Palin ticket for ignoring alternative energy sources and suggesting “the only answer is drill, drill, drill”, Palin replied with what she seemed to think was a zinger: “The chant is ‘drill, baby, drill,’ that’s what we hear all across the country at our rallies.”","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdf2268f08c1f048afef75","title":"Trump said 'nobody expected' Iran's response to US strikes, but a former staffer Laura Loomer wanted him to fire did","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:50:01Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T02:03:18Z","body":"Earlier this week, Donald Trump sought to cast Iran’s response to being attacked by the US and Israel as impossible to predict.
\n“They hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait. Nobody expected it. We were shocked. They fought back,” the president told reporters on Monday.
\nAsked later if he was “surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation?” Trump replied: “Nobody. Nobody. No, no, no. No, the greatest experts – nobody thought they were going hit – I wouldn’t say friendly countries, they were like neutral.”
\nHowever, there was at least one person who did publicly predict that possible response from Iran, four days before Trump announced the US attack.
\nWriting on the website of Foreign Affairs on 24 February, Nate Swanson, who severed as a director for Iran on the National Security Council from 2022 until 2025, and took part in talks with Iran led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner last year, wrote:
\n\n\nTehran could target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump. Iran may well encourage the Houthis to resume attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also been preparing to selectively seize adversary ships in the Strait of Hormuz. If conflict with the United States deepens, Iran may seriously consider targeting the Gulf Arab states’ energy infrastructure directly. In 2019, during Trump’s last “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran directly attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest. That assault appeared to be designed to damage easily replaceable components, thus limiting the consequences to the global energy supply. But if Tehran instead assaulted infrastructure that it knows would take longer to repair, the results would be much more damaging. The relationships between Iran and the Gulf Arab states are stronger now than they were then, but Tehran knows that Gulf leaders carry real influence with Trump and could appeal to him to back down if they came under pressure.
\nIran may be weak. But it still has ways to inflict real pain on the United States—and much more incentive to try than it did before.
\n
In an interview with Foreign Affairs a week into the attack, Swanson, who joined the state department during the George W Bush administration, said that there essentially was no National Security Council in the Trump White House now.
\n\n\nThe Trump administration definitely does decision-making differently. I mean… from Bush on, you had really a system set up where the National Security Council would basically coordinate amongst different agencies and then kind of bring all these different voices to the president to make decisions. And this administration is definitely different than even the first Trump administration where you still had that process…
\nI do think the president relies on a very small group of advisers to make decisions. These are relatively well-known. Secretary [of State] Rubio, [Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff, [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles, the Vice President JD Vance. So, I mean, he relies on these people for advice. So it’s not like he’s doing this all on his own. But I think what is unique is the process is just different. You can see a scenario where maybe he’s not getting all the information he needs.
\nAnd I think second, though, is, also unique to the president himself, is he likes to be lobbied and pitched on ideas. So he’s very willing to take information from outside sources as equally valuable.
\n
Swanson left the White House in 2025, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist with influence over Trump, mounted a determined campaign to have him fired by Trump, for, supposedly having contributed to Barack Obama in 2012, and then taken part in the diplomatic effort that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.
\n“President Trump’s mandate is clear: restore strength, accountability, and patriotism to our government. Nathanael Swanson, with his entrenched Democrat ties, Obama-era promotions, and involvement in the disastrous Iran deal, represents the kind of bureaucratic resistance that undermines this mission,” Loomer wrote on 27 May 2025.
\n“To protect America’s interests and ensure a foreign policy that puts our nation first while taking the Islamist threat of Iran seriously, President Trump must act decisively to remove Swanson from the Iran negotiation team”.
\nOne month later, Trump ordered the bombing of Iranian enrichment facilities and claimed to have “obliterated” its nuclear program.
\nEight months after that, Trump decided to launch an all-out assault on Iran during renewed talks, and the Iranians responded in exactly the way Swanson predicted.
","cleanBody":"Earlier this week, Donald Trump sought to cast Iran’s response to being attacked by the US and Israel as impossible to predict. “They hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait. Nobody expected it. We were shocked. They fought back,” the president told reporters on Monday. Asked later if he was “surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation?” Trump replied: “Nobody. Nobody. No, no, no. No, the greatest experts – nobody thought they were going hit – I wouldn’t say friendly countries, they were like neutral.” However, there was at least one person who did publicly predict that possible response from Iran, four days before Trump announced the US attack. Writing on the website of Foreign Affairs on 24 February, Nate Swanson, who severed as a director for Iran on the National Security Council from 2022 until 2025, and took part in talks with Iran led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner last year, wrote: Tehran could target global oil flows and international shipping, sending energy prices up and creating a serious political liability for Trump. Iran may well encourage the Houthis to resume attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also been preparing to selectively seize adversary ships in the Strait of Hormuz. If conflict with the United States deepens, Iran may seriously consider targeting the Gulf Arab states’ energy infrastructure directly. In 2019, during Trump’s last “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran directly attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility, the world’s largest. That assault appeared to be designed to damage easily replaceable components, thus limiting the consequences to the global energy supply. But if Tehran instead assaulted infrastructure that it knows would take longer to repair, the results would be much more damaging. The relationships between Iran and the Gulf Arab states are stronger now than they were then, but Tehran knows that Gulf leaders carry real influence with Trump and could appeal to him to back down if they came under pressure. Iran may be weak. But it still has ways to inflict real pain on the United States—and much more incentive to try than it did before. In an interview with Foreign Affairs a week into the attack, Swanson, who joined the state department during the George W Bush administration, said that there essentially was no National Security Council in the Trump White House now. The Trump administration definitely does decision-making differently. I mean… from Bush on, you had really a system set up where the National Security Council would basically coordinate amongst different agencies and then kind of bring all these different voices to the president to make decisions. And this administration is definitely different than even the first Trump administration where you still had that process… I do think the president relies on a very small group of advisers to make decisions. These are relatively well-known. Secretary [of State] Rubio, [Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff, [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles, the Vice President JD Vance. So, I mean, he relies on these people for advice. So it’s not like he’s doing this all on his own. But I think what is unique is the process is just different. You can see a scenario where maybe he’s not getting all the information he needs. And I think second, though, is, also unique to the president himself, is he likes to be lobbied and pitched on ideas. So he’s very willing to take information from outside sources as equally valuable. Swanson left the White House in 2025, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist with influence over Trump, mounted a determined campaign to have him fired by Trump, for, supposedly having contributed to Barack Obama in 2012, and then taken part in the diplomatic effort that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. “President Trump’s mandate is clear: restore strength, accountability, and patriotism to our government. Nathanael Swanson, with his entrenched Democrat ties, Obama-era promotions, and involvement in the disastrous Iran deal, represents the kind of bureaucratic resistance that undermines this mission,” Loomer wrote on 27 May 2025. “To protect America’s interests and ensure a foreign policy that puts our nation first while taking the Islamist threat of Iran seriously, President Trump must act decisively to remove Swanson from the Iran negotiation team”. One month later, Trump ordered the bombing of Iranian enrichment facilities and claimed to have “obliterated” its nuclear program. Eight months after that, Trump decided to launch an all-out assault on Iran during renewed talks, and the Iranians responded in exactly the way Swanson predicted.","postType":"key-event","contributors":[]},{"id":"block-69bdf9d38f0870f125bb09da","title":"Closing summary","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-21T01:58:43Z","lastUpdatedDateTime":"2026-03-21T02:00:23Z","body":"This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
\nA senior federal judge blocked the Pentagon from enforcing a new policy that bars reporters who refused to sign a pledge to only publish authorized information.
\nConfronted with increasing oil prices as a result of the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control is temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales.
\nDonald Trump said this week that he was “shocked” by Iran’s response to being attacked by the United States and Israel. “Nobody expected it.” But one expert on Iran, who left the White House National Security Council last year after the conservative activist Laura Loomer asked Trump to fire him, publicly predicted Iran’s response in an article four days before Trump started the war.
\nUS Southern Command announced that US forces carried out another “ lethal kinetic strike” on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific.
\nThe Trump administration is considering occupying or blockading Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure Iran into reopening the strait of Hormuz, according to Axios.
\nThis live blog is now closed.
\nThe Trump administration has renewed its assault on Harvard University, filing a lawsuit in Massachusetts alleging the Ivy League institution violated the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli people in the aftermath of the war in Gaza.
\nThe lawsuit, shared publicly by the New York Times, accuses Harvard of allowing anti-Israel protesters to operate on campus “with impunity” following the 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on Gaza and Israel’s massive military response.
\nPam Bondi, the attorney general, confirmed the filing in a post on X. “Today, we sued Harvard University for enabling and even encouraging antisemitism on its campus. Any school that receives federal funds risks losing those funds if they permit blatant discrimination,” she wrote.
\nIn a statement to the Guardian, the university said the lawsuit was “yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government”.
\n\nDonald Trump said last month he wanted a $1bn payout from Harvard for its perceived antisemitism, and Friday’s development is the latest in a series of legal attacks on one of the nation’s most prestigious universities since he returned to the presidency last year.
\nIn September, a federal court ruled the Trump administration unlawfully canceled $2.2bn in federal research grants as part of the president’s feud, punishing Harvard for defying his directives to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs and suppress pro-Palestinian protests. Harvard had sued in response to the termination of the funding even as many other institutions fell in line and reached huge financial settlements with the administration.
\nThe latest lawsuit, filed on Friday in the US federal court for the district of Massachusetts, the Times reported, reignited a feud that the September ruling appeared to have settled.
\nHarvard, the 44-page court filing said, “turned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis” by strictly enforcing policies against other forms of bias but allowing anti-Israel protests, such as a three-week “encampment” by pro-Palestinian demonstrators in 2024, to proceed virtually unchecked.
\nJewish and Israeli students, it said, “were repeatedly denied access to educational facilities by antisemitic demonstrators” as well as “harassed, physically assaulted, stalked, and spat upon”.
\n“Fearful for their safety, Jewish students wore baseball caps to conceal their yarmulkes, or kept out of sight,” it said, claiming that Harvard’s response was to “do nothing”.
\n“Harvard fostered and continues to foster a campus climate where hostile antisemitism and anti-Israeli conduct thrives,” the lawsuit alleges.
\nTrump has previously accused Harvard of being “strongly antisemitic” and that it had done “a terrible job” in dealing with the protests.
\nIn a statement last April, Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, rejected the president’s allegations but conceded the university had work to do. In its statement on Friday, a spokesperson said: “Harvard cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus.
\n“Our actions illustrate this. Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies on campus.
\n“We also have enhanced training and education on antisemitism for students, faculty, and staff and launched programs to promote civil dialogue and respectful disagreement inside and outside the classroom. Harvard’s efforts demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference.”
\n\nHarvard also counter-sued the administration last year, accusing it of trying to “gain control of academic decision-making”. Garber insisted “the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”.
\nIn its latest filing, the government is asking the court to rule Harvard in breach of Title VI – which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
\nIf successful, it could block the distribution of up to $9bn in future grants, and allow it to try to recoup money previously awarded. Time reported last May that federal money for research funding made up 11% of the university’s operating revenue in 2024, and other estimates say Harvard receives up to $800m each year directly from the government.
\nUniversity leaders have warned that without federal money, multiple crucial science and medical research programs, including in the areas of cancer and heart disease, would “come to a halt midstream”.
\nThe Friday lawsuit against Harvard is the second time in a month the Trump administration has sued Harvard. A justice department filing last month said the university had failed to comply with a requirement to provide data showing affirmative action was no longer part of student admission protocols.
\nAn executive order by the president last year banning Harvard’s foreign student population from entering the US was blocked by a federal judge in Boston.
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\nHegseth, the defense secretary and a former weekend Fox News host, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday that he had spoken with relatives of all six service members killed in last week’s refueling tanker crash during a “dignified transfer” of their remains at Delaware’s Dover air force station the night before.
\n\n“What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve, was the same from family after family. They said, ‘Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done,’” Hegseth said.
\nHowever, on Thursday night, Charles Simmons, the father of Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, from Ohio, said he had no such conversation.
\n“I can’t speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about,” he told NBC News.
\nSimmons said he had spoken separately with Hegseth and Donald Trump at the military base, and was grateful for the “warmth” he said both men had shown him.
\nBut he recounted his meeting with the defense secretary differently from Hegseth’s own assertion.
\n“‘I understand there’s a lot of peril that goes into making decisions like this, and I just certainly hope the decisions being made are necessary,” Simmons said he told him.
\nAsked by NBC News if he said anything to the president or Hegseth about continuing the Iran war, which has so far seen the deaths of at least 13 members of the US military, Simmons was adamant that nothing like that had taken place.
\n“No, I didn’t say anything along those lines,” he said.
\nCharles Simmons is at least the third family member to voice unease about the Iran war, called Operation Epic Fury by the White House, or the Trump administration’s handling of it.
\nStephan Douglas, cousin of Tyler Simmons, who was one of three Ohioans killed in the crash, said the conflict was unnecessary in a weekend interview with Columbus news station WCMH.
\n“This could have been prevented,” Douglas said. “We didn’t need to be in this war. This is uncalled for, and this is what we get.”
\nBernice Smith, Simmons’ grandmother, was equally forthright. “Families are suffering right now,” she told WCMH. “Just to create a war because you want to create a war is not right.”
\nShe said she encouraged people to register to vote if they wanted to see change.
\nCharles Simmons, meanwhile, told NBC that he did not “have all the data” to be able to establish if joint US-Israel bombing of Iran was justified.
\n“Who wants war? Sometimes it’s a necessity, and I just don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
\nIn a statement to the network, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, insisted Hegseth’s conversations with the relatives were “private”, even though the Trump loyalist chose to make a feature of them during the Thursday press conference at which he also berated the media for covering the conflict in ways he did not like.
\n“Secretary Hegseth has the utmost respect for our Gold Star families and has pledged to honor the sacrifice of their loved ones,” Parnell said.
\n“While at Dover, the secretary spoke with each family of our fallen heroes and the details of each individual conversation remain private.”
\nOlivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, told NBC that Trump had “grieved” with the families at Dover.
\nThe president, she said, “shared his love and expressed the deep gratitude of our entire nation. These men and women gave up their lives in defense of our freedom, and President Trump will never forget their honorable service and selfless devotion. They represent the very best of America”.
\nEarlier this month Trump said he expected there will be more US military deaths before the conflict ends. “That’s the way it is,” he said in a video address to the nation.
\n\n
\n
Defense secretary had said relatives of service members killed in refueling tanker crash told him ‘do not stop until the job is done’
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